With the rapid development of e-commerce and the soaring popularity of webcasting in China, more and more Chinese farmers have found ways to increase their incomes by promoting and selling agricultural products via webcasts and short videos, China Youth Daily reported on Dec.13. Zhang Yonghong, a woman in Jiucaigou village, Kuyuan county of north Chinas Hebei province, is now a webcast host selling local specialties through online means to the rest of the country. Before attending the training class for e-commerce, Zhang had no alternative but to stay at home being unemployed during the slack farming season, just like many other farmers, while today, with her progress in e-commerce, Zhang feels that she and many other villagers are catching up with the pace of the times through the internet. Although Im in a small village, I feel that Im living a life freer than that of those people in the big cities. My life will be better in the future since I can always sell agricultural products with a mobile phone in my spare time, said Zhang. Zhang is not the only one who is enjoying increasing income through her new identity as a webcast host. In China, more and more farmers are learning to promote and sell agricultural produce through online channels. Before the Spring Festival in 2018, under the guidance of a Chinese company named China Agriculture Service Co., Ltd., trained farmers in one of Chinas national-level poverty-stricken counties Wuxiang county started to launch webcast activities themed on Spring Festival shopping via live-broadcasting platforms including one called Yizhibo. Within two weeks of live-broadcasting, many farmers showcased their agricultural products in front of the cameras for the first time, describing the growing conditions and procedures as well as the food value. To their surprise, all the farmers in the webcasts got orders for their products during the activities. Under the demonstration effect of the Spring Festival shopping webcasts, more and more farmers in Wuxiang country joined the activities to sell products through webcasts, and China Agriculture Service Co., Ltd. even set up a special group of farmer webcast hosts in Wuxiang. As a typical agricultural county in Changzhi city of north Chinas Shanxi province, people in the Wuxiang county had long been faced with lack of means to obtain additional incomes. However, with the new channels and newly acquired skills, these farmers in the poverty-stricken place have found their way to a better life. Ren Lihong is a member in the group of farmer webcast hosts in Wuxiang county. Before becoming a webcast host, she was a migrant worker in cities. Ren had returned home for the training class for e-commerce last November. Ren started her first webcast during the Spring Festival shopping webcast activities this past February, showing in front of the camera homegrown millet, buckwheat tea, and hand-made fine dried noodles while talking about the changes in her village. Since then, Ren has been promoting agricultural products via webcasts and selling via WeChat. Growing orders consolidated Rens determination to sell homegrown agricultural products through webcasts. During her webcasts, she also teaches buyers how to cook delicious dishes from her hometown with the grains bought from her. This year, she sold more than 3,500 kilograms of millet in less than one month. Similar stories are happening to many farmers today, said Rong Tao, project manager of an e-commerce demonstration project of China Agriculture Service Co., Ltd., disclosing that some farmers selling hand-made fine dried noodles via the webcast+WeChat mode have realized sales figures of over 40,000 yuan (about $5,826.15) within one month. In Kuyuan county of north Chinas Hebei province, families running agritainment business have attracted dozens of people from other cities in China to the county for sightseeing, and a women who is in her sixties has reached sales of 8,000 yuan by showing the process of her making cotton-padded trousers via webcast, earning more than some young people do, said Rong. Its learned that the group of farmer webcast hosts in Wuxiang county has over 300 farmer members so far, while many more are under selection and training for online means of e-commerce. The majority of the members are from poor families in Chinas rural areas, with most of them being middle aged and elderly women with less education. Ferrari will reveal its 2019 challenger on February 15, team boss Maurizio Arrivabene said on Thursday. The Italian attended an awards night presented by the Italian magazine Autosprint amid rumours of a rift between Arrivabene and his technical deputy Mattia Binotto. The late "Sergio Marchionne was planning a more important role for Binotto," a Ferrari source told Sky Italia. "We do not know exactly what it would have been, but there is not much harmony now between him and Arrivabene." Arrivabene, though, is looking ahead, pinning Ferrari's hopes for 2019 on number 1 driver Sebastian Vettel. "He is a guy who has yet to express the best of himself in Ferrari, but I am sure he will be able to do it next year," he said. "This year we lost in the semi-finals, but we never gave up. Obviously, we need to take one more step. We must understand all the mistakes we made together." Arrivabene announced that the 2019 Ferrari will be seen publicly for the first time on February 15, shortly before the winter test season. "We are in an advanced stage of production but the real results we will only have in Barcelona when we compare ourselves with the others on the track," he said. "I saw the new car just two weeks ago. I have been more committed to the budget and the Concorde Agreement but the boys are doing their jobs well. "As for Seb, he can teach (Charles) Leclerc so much. We have great confidence in him, he is a talent but we have to protect him and make sure that his arrival does not burn his talent," said Arrivabene. (GMM) American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress this week have repeatedly sought to dismiss as trivial allegations that Trump directed hush money payments to women in potential violation of the nation's campaign-finance laws. "If you hire an attorney to solve a problem, do you expect the attorney do it legally?" House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy asked Thursday, echoing Trump's contention that the President's former lawyer Michael Cohen bore full responsibility for any crimes. Earlier this week, McCarthy warned that there are "a lot of members who would have to leave" Congress if campaign-finance violations amounted to impeachable offenses. American Media Inc Campaign finance Companies Court trials Crime, law enforcement and corrections Criminal law Criminal offenses Donald Trump Elections and campaigns Government and public administration Government organizations - US John Edwards Law and legal system Michael Cohen Misc people Political donations and fundraising Political Figures - US Politics Trial and procedure US Congress US House of Representatives Corruption Political corruption Society But election-law experts say those arguments are getting harder to make, as the crimes outlined by federal prosecutors this week pose fresh legal risks for Trump and his campaign. "Campaign-finance laws are serious, and people do go to jail over them," said Larry Noble, the former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission and a CNN contributor. "It's appalling that members of Congress would say federal laws aren't that serious." Former Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., for instance, went to prison after pleading guilty in 2013 to using campaign funds to buy $750,000 in luxury goods, clothing and collectibles. In 2015, Virginia political operative Tyler Harber was sentenced to two years in prison for illegally coordinating spending between an unsuccessful congressional campaign and that of a super PAC that he helped create. And earlier this month, a federal jury convicted Ken Smukler, a former campaign aide to Democratic Rep. Bob Brady, of making illegal campaign contributions, including a $90,000 payment to encourage a Democratic challenger to drop out of a 2012 House race. Brady was not charged and denies involvement. He is retiring from Congress Not 'business as usual' Campaign experts say the case involving Trump's former lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen bears little resemblance to the kinds of more routine snafus that frustrate lawmakers and their campaign lawyers when they navigate the nation's election rules. Cohen was sentenced this week to three years in prison for several crimes including bank fraud, tax evasion and campaign-finance violations. Cohen and federal prosecutors have implicated Trump in the campaign-finance crimes, saying the then-Republican presidential candidate directed Cohen to make illegal, six-figure payments to two women to avoid a scandal before the 2016 election. American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, admitted Wednesday that it funneled one of those payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to protect Trump's campaign. A non-prosecution agreement with the federal prosecutors also disclosed that AMI chairman David Pecker had met in August 2015 with Cohen and "least one other member of the campaign" to discuss how to deal with negative stories about Trump's relationships with women. Trump was the third person in the room for that meeting, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN. Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California at Irvine, said the tabloid's admission "provides corroboration" of Cohen's claims that the payments were indeed related to the election, a critical factor in establishing a violation of campaign laws. And the revelation that Trump attended the meeting with Pecker and Cohen makes it harder for the President to claim that "he didn't know what was going on at the time," Hasen added. "He would only be able to claim that as a legal matter, the payments don't count, or as a factual matter, that he did not understand the legality," Hasen said. On Thursday, Trump denied any wrongdoing and insisted he did not direct Cohen to break the law in making a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels or in arranging reimbursement for $125,000 of the $150,000 payment by AMI to Karen McDougal. But if any laws were violated, Trump said that Cohen bore responsibility. "He was a lawyer, and he was supposed to know the law," Trump tweeted. Later on Fox News, Trump argued that Cohen "pled guilty to something that's not even a crime" and that, as President, he's been unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors. "What about Congress? The slush fund," Trump said in an apparent reference to a US Treasury Fund that has been used to settle workplace complaints and settlements, including claims of sexual harassment in Congress. The fund is not really a "slush fund," which implies a secret or illicit use. The amount the office spends is publicly disclosed but the details of the specific claims have not been widely known. This week's developments represent a dramatic turn in events that have unfolded since January when The Wall Street Journal first reported that Cohen had created a limited liability company to pay Daniels for her silence just days before the general election in 2016. Trump at first denied knowing about the payment. In May, however, he and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani revealed Cohen had been repaid through what Giuliani described as a legal retainer arrangement. In the end, federal prosecutors say Cohen was paid a total of $420,000 by the Trump Organization through a series false invoices. The payments not only reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, but included payments to cover campaign-related "tech services" and a $60,000 bonus. Hasen said the circumstances surrounding these payments are not typical. Members of Congress and their campaign-finance lawyers "do a generally good job" complying with federal election law, he said. "Sometimes they may mistakes for which they pay civil fines," he said. "What you don't see is someone denying a payment for a year, rather than 'fessing up to it and then trying to hide the payment and falsely structuring payments to reimburse a lawyer," he said. "This is not business as usual among anyone in Congress." Private business Trump also has cast the payments as "private transactions," outside the reach of campaign-finance laws -- an argument shared by some Republican election lawyers in recent days. Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, says it's a stretch to say the payoffs were aimed solely at influencing the election. Writing in the National Review this week, Smith said Trump had valid, personal reasons to hide the alleged affairs from public view. Among them: protecting his family from scandal and preserving his viability as a TV personality had he lost the election. Just because an action might benefit a candidate, doesn't mean its sole purpose is to influence an election, he said. "A candidate may intend for good toothpaste and soap, a quality suit and a healthy breakfast to positively influence his election," Smith wrote, "but none of those are campaign expenditures because all of those purchases would typically be made irrespective of running for office." That parallels the defense former two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards made when he stood trial on campaign corruption charges in 2012. Edwards' lawyers said the approximately $1 million that Democratic donors paid during the early stages of the 2008 campaign to conceal Edwards' pregnant mistress was aimed at protecting his wife, Elizabeth, who was battling cancer, not to influence voters. The Edwardses separated in 2010 and she died later that year. The jury acquitted Edwards on one charge and deadlocked on five other counts. The Justice Department declined to retry him. Trump has not been charged with a crime, and the Justice Department's guidance is that a sitting president should not be indicted. Prosecutors in New York, however, could pursue charges once Trump leaves office. ROME, N.Y. Police say a reported bomb threat at the Assured Information Security building in Rome was not found to be credible. The threat was made via email around 2 p.m. Thursday, although initial reports indicated it was called in. Rome police completed their sweep of the building, making no findings, shortly before 4 p.m. AIS is a company located at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park. According to authorities, bomb threats were sent to government buildings, schools and other businesses across the country Thursday and they were found not to be credible threats in the completed investigations. UTICA, N.Y. -- Kids all across the region are being treated to an early Christmas present this year thanks to New York state. Roann Destito, the commissioner of the New York State Office of General Services, made the trip to Utica to hand out some gifts to the not-for-profit agency 'Kids Oneida.' Destito and other members of Governor Cuomos Administration are handing out toys Friday that have been collected at state office buildings across the state since Thanksgiving. Kids Oneida provides services to the high-risk youth with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, and they will distribute the toys to local families in their adopt-a-family program. "As the agency has seen some growth we've also seen the need to grow as a community. But it's not, for us -- it's not the volume of presents and what we do as an agency. It's that one individual child, or that one individual parent or adult. If one present makes a difference, brightens up their holiday season, we know all the effort has been worth it, said Kids Oneida Executive Director Steve Bulger. Besides toys, school supplies and coats and other winter clothing items were collected at sites across the state. UTICA, N.Y. -- The man accused of shooting a Utica man to death on Bleecker Street this past June appeared in Oneida County Court Friday. Utica police say 35-year-old Omar Ortiz shot and killed 25-year-old Deon Williams on June 28. Ortiz was slated to have an answer and argument hearing Friday morning, but instead further pre-trial hearings were scheduled. He rejected a plea deal on December 3. Ortiz was arrested in Pennsylvania after the alleged homicide, where police say he was responsible for committing additional crimes. His next court date is set for January 15. ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Flags on all New York state government buildings will be lowered to half-staff in honor of a Hudson Valley Marine and five other Marines killed when two U.S. military planes collided off the coast of Japan last week. Flags are currently at half-staff in honor of the late President George H.W. Bush. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced that the flags will be lowered again on Dec. 31 to honor the six Marines killed in last Thursday's accident during a refueling mission. Five of the Marines were aboard a KC-130 refueling plane. They include Maj. James Brophy of Staatsburg in Dutchess County. The 36-year-old Brophy served 12 years in the Marine Corps. He was a 2001 graduate of Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Hyde Park. Brophy is survived by his wife, son and daughter. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. UTICA, N.Y. -- A Utica woman has been charged with aggravated harassment after New Hartford police say she posted a threat to the GPO Federal Credit Union on social media. GPO management contacted police after being tagged in a Facebook post where a threat was made to "blow up" the branch during the day on Thursday. The threat was posted Thursday by a person who used an alias as a Facebook account name. The branches were put on alert, and then main office was locked down. Police tracked down the account holder, and arrested 21-year-old Jazmiere Pemberton of Utica with aggravated harassment. More charges could be pending. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A Purdue assistant professor is getting involved in March of Dimes Blanket Change campaign. The March of Dimes organization is advocating to improve the health of mothers and babies, to prevent birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. They are currently in their 80th year. The Blanket Change campaign was rolled out in October 2018. It is focusing on reducing some staggering maternal mortality rates in the United States. Andrea DeMaria is an assistant professor in Purdue's school of consumer science and public health. She is also one of 20 Gretchen Carlson Advocacy Fellows, helping with gaining support for this cause, advocacy trainings, and special projects. "We don't want anyone to die here in Indiana especially not our mothers and babies," she said. Recent numbers show that 700 U.S. women die each year as a result of pregnancy, a number that has doubled over the past 25 years. It also makes the U.S. have the highest maternal death rate in the developed world. Even closer to home, Indiana is 5th in the nation for worst mortality death rates. However, Indiana lawmakers are paying attention to this issue. The PREEMIE bill is co-sponsored by Indiana State Senator Todd Young. Its the only federal law dedicated to preventing and treating preterm birth. It was re-authorized on Tuesday and is headed to the Presidents desk for his final signature. "This is the only federal policy we have here to support funding for research and programming for premature babies and their families, she said. DeMaria said she is encouraged by this action for the success of the rest of the Blanket Change campaign. "These are some huge wins for the March of Dimes but also for maternal and child health, she said. I think we will get some answers as to why these deaths are happening in such a developed country. She also said she had good conversations with Joe Donnellys staffer, however she said Todd Rokita was not receptive to her requests to talk about the campaign. Headed to senate vote either today or tomorrow is the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act. DeMaria said this act will be essential to answering some major questions about maternal mortality rates. "The department of Health and Human Services is going to commit to having each state develop a task force to further explore why, for instance, women in Indiana are dying, she said. The new task forces would also have to develop strategies and programs to prevent deaths. Other parts of the campaign according to their website is advocating for are requiring all health plans to cover people with pre-existing conditions and to cover maternity and newborn care. This will ensure new moms dont have to trade maternal health benefits that they need to afford health coverage. DeMaria said she is the only academic out of all 20 of the advocacy fellows. Part of her work at Purdue encompasses family planning research. Something she says helps support the mission of the Blanket Change campaign. "The health of the mother actually happens prior to conception so understanding the health before pregnancy can also help us understand how healthy she will be during pregnancy," she said. She added some planning, along with healthy life habits, will help lead to a successful pregnancy. "Reach out to your health care provider. Have a preconception consultation to understand the status of your health and what it would take for you to have a healthy pregnancy," she said. As these bills come before Congress, DeMaria encourages people to tweet at and email your representatives if you are in support of this change. Learn more about the Blanket Change campaign at the March of Dimes website. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Republican Statehouse leaders say they want to increase funding for Indiana's embattled child welfare agency and find a way to pay teachers more, but that money will be tight when they craft the state's next two year budget. "The budget is going to be more difficult than most people realize," House Speaker Brian Bosma said Wednesday during a forum previewing the upcoming session, which begins in earnest Jan. 1. "It's going to be a very challenging year." It's hardly a surprise that lawmakers are prioritizing a larger appropriation for the Department of Child Services. Long-festering problems at the agency exploded into public view last year, when its former director resigned in a letter accusing Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb of making management changes and service cuts that "all but ensure children will die." Since then, lawmakers have directed additional money to the agency to shore up its finances, which have been stretched thin amid the state's metastasizing opioid crisis. But there has been confusion over teacher pay. The issue roiled legislatures in Kentucky, West Virginia and other states over the last year. And Indiana Republicans want to prevent such unrest from spreading to their state. Holcomb has offered a convoluted stance on the matter, suggesting last week that a "framework" must first be developed, with an end goal of increasing teacher salaries by 2021. However, he said Wednesday that his stance was "mischaracterized," though he did little to offer clarity, vaguely calling for a "short-term" and "long-term" approach. Bosma, on the other hand, made clear that he will prioritize getting teachers at least some kind of a raise this session, with more to come in the future. Unlike some other states, teacher pay decisions in Indiana are mostly made at the local level. Lawmakers could still influence those decisions, though, by placing "some parameters" on how school funding is spent, Bosma said. "Our commitment to teachers has to be enhanced," Bosma said. "We're not hitting the target on the most important profession ... in our state's future, which are teachers." Under Republican leadership, Indiana has amassed a $1.8 billion reserve fund. But GOP leaders say significantly drawing that down would be fiscally irresponsible and isn't an option they would consider. Still, Democrats question whether the state faces the dire circumstances Republicans describe. They note that DCS has had problems for more than a decade and are partially caused by a lack of funding. What's more, under a Republican sponsored plan, the state's corporate tax rate has been cut back in increments. Reverse part of that and the state could have more money, Democrats contend. "I am just am a little bit skeptical that we don't have the money," said Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, of Anderson. When it comes to teacher pay, Holcomb said last week he wanted a "methodical" plan that would delay a significant increase until 2021. Indiana ranked 31st among the 50 states in teacher pay during 2016, with average salaries of $50,715, according to the National Education Association. That's lower than the five nearby states that the Holcomb administration wants to compare Indiana with Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. Holcomb's agenda this year calls for state money for a variety of tax breaks for attracting businesses, along with modest boosts in job training and drug-abuse treatment programs. LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) -- A Lafayette man has been charged with four counts after telling police someone shot him in the hand, but they say he actually shot himself. On Nov. 8, James Allen, 37, was working at the Village Pantry on 4th street when he called 911 and said someone tried to rob him. He had a gunshot wound to his hand when police arrived. After reviewing surveillance footage, police said he actually shot himself with a gun he wasn't supposed to have. Court documents say he later told police he tried to get rid of the gun before calling them. He allegedly gave it to a friend who would take it to Chicago Allen is accused of false informing, obstruction of justice, and two counts of carrying a handgun without a license. WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Indiana ranks 29th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Indiana is spending $7.5 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 10.2 percent of the $73.5 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Indiana, 8.7 percent of high school students smoke, while 10.5 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 11,100 Indiana lives and costs the state $2.9 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Indiana will collect $556.9 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1.3 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $296.8 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Indiana almost 40 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for stronger tobacco prevention efforts in Indiana, which has one of the highest adult smoking rates in the country at 21.8 percent. Local business, health care, not-for-profit and education leaders (the "Raise It for Health" coalition) are urging state officials to raise the cigarette tax by $2 per pack and properly fund Indiana's tobacco prevention programs. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is a member of the Raise It for Health coalition. "Indiana's high smoking rate hurts the state's health and economic competitiveness, costing taxpayers and businesses more in health care costs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Indiana leaders must make the fight against tobacco a priority by increasing the cigarette tax and investing more in proven prevention and cessation programs. We are proud to be a member of the 'Raise It for Health' coalition that is working to improve Indiana's health and make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ($655 million) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida, with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. FARMINGDALE, New York Last year we introduced the world to Saint Nick DAddario, a crusty, but genuinely kind-hearted version of Santa, whose sole mission is gifting gear to some of the hardest working and perhaps most under-appreciated musicians in the world buskers. What started in subways of New York City has now brought Saint Nick to the bustling streets of London, spreading holiday cheer to all the street musicians. We captured him again in all his holiday gift-giving glory. As the worlds leading manufacturer of instrument accessories, we feel that it is important to give back to our community of musicians at this time of the year. DAddario is recognizing the everyday musician as the heart and soul of our industry and wishing them well in the new year. Help us spread some musician cheer this holiday season. Algeria is a sovereign nation situated along the Mediterranean coast in North Africa. With a land area of 919,595 square miles, Algeria ranks as the largest country in Africa, and the tenth largest in the world. The country neighbors several North African nations such as Mali, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger, and Mauritania. Algeria has numerous geological features throughout the country: the northern part of Algeria is comprised of mountain ranges and the Mediterranean coast; the central region has expansive plains and highlands; the large Sahara Desert covers most of Algeria's south. Algeria has abundant natural resources including oil, gas, solar energy, iron, zinc, lead, silicon, and helium. The country is classified as an upper middle-income country, mainly due to its oil and gas resources. Oil Algeria is one of the biggest oil producers in the world. Oil was first discovered in Algeria in 1956, commercial production of oil began in 1958, and Algeria gained membership into the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1969. It is estimated that Algeria has 12.2 billion barrels of oil reserves, and produces 1.1 million barrels of oil daily. Algeria's oil deposits are all located onshore and are extracted from oilfields in Edjeleh and Hassi Messaoud. Oil is the principal income generator in Algeria and is the countrys main export commodity. In fact, oil accounts for more than 80% of Algeria's exports, and most of the oil is exported to Europe. Oil also contributes approximately 20% to the nations gross domestic product (GDP). Natural gas Algeria has abundant natural gas reserves. These gas reserves are estimated at 2.9 trillion cubic feet, which ranks as the tenth largest in the world. The leading producer of natural gas in Algeria is Sonatrach, a state-owned company. Algeria's gas fields are spread throughout the vast country and subsequently liquefied in four natural gas plants. The liquid natural gas is mostly exported to European countries, such as Spain, although significant quantities of natural gas are also locally consumed. Algeria has numerous untapped gas fields, especially in the northern region, and the country has invited foreign investors to develop unexplored gas deposits in order to help sustain its natural gas industry. Helium Algeria has approximately 21% of the worlds helium deposits, and is the second largest producer of helium, after the United States. In fact, the country produced an estimated 13% of all helium used in the world in 2006. The unique element has diverse uses in different sectors such as medicine, aerospace, military, and scientific laboratories. Some of the leading consumers of helium are Japan, India, and China. Algeria mainly extracts its helium from the natural gas produced in the country. However, due to the low return on investment in helium production, Algeria has not invested heavily in helium extraction. However, the country has significant potential in the helium production industry. Algeria faces competition from the United States, Qatar, and Russia. Gold Algeria has many gold deposits within its borders. Gold was discovered prior to Roman occupation of the region and is mainly located in the area close to the Atlas Mountains in Northern Algeria. One of the leading companies involved in gold extraction is Sonatrach, which is also Algerias giant oil and natural gas company. Most gold in Algeria remains unexplored. Mercury Algeria is ranked among the world's top producers of mercury. In fact, the nation produces approximately 25% of the mercury consumed in the developed world. Extraction of the rare metal began in 1971, and Mercury reserves are primarily located in the Azzaba region. Production of mercury in Algeria is largely influenced by the price of mercury in the world market. Iron Algeria has rich iron ore deposits, particularly in the southwestern region of the country. During the 1970s, Algeria produced as much as 4.2 million tons of iron annually. As of 2016, the iron reserve in Gara Djebilet had an estimated 2.5 billion tons of iron ore. Algeria's iron is both exported and used locally in the metallurgical industry. Wildlife and Scenery Algeria is home to many beautiful natural sites. Additionally, it has a wealth of unique plants and animals that inhabit the country's diverse terrains. Algeria has several national parks where indigenous plants and animals are protected, and these wildlife resources have led to a rise in ecotourism. This boost in ecotourism has helped the country to diversify its income sources. Water Algeria has an extended Mediterranean coast. This coastal area, along with the Mediterranean Sea, supports the fishing industry in Algeria that provides food for the largely arid nation and income from fish exports. Fishing is a developing industry which has the potential to spur further economic growth. Solar Power Algeria is a largely arid country which enjoys close to 3,000 hours of sunshine each year. The country is in the process of developing its solar energy industry, which aims to reduce Algerias reliance on oil and gas. The production of solar power has the potential to generate new income from the export of electricity. Solar energy is environmentally friendly and a renewable energy source. Palm Trees Algerias coastline is lined with numerous palm trees, and the area is referred to as the Palm Desert. The coconuts from palms are an important food source, and palm trees also provide material for the roofing and construction industry. Significance of Algerias Natural Resources Algeria is a nation endowed with various natural resources. However, the nation is heavily dependent on oil and gas as its main source of income. Additionally, Algeria largely depends on imports because sectors outside gas and oil are extremely underdeveloped. The countrys over-reliance on natural resources is risky economically, and in recent years the Algerian government has made efforts to diversify its economy by investing in unexplored areas such as tourism and manufacturing. The country has partnered with several foreign companies to assist in the exploration of untapped resources. Corsica is a Mediterranean island that is an administrative region of France. The island is ranked among the largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, along with Cyprus, Sicily, and Sardinia. Corsica is one of France's 18 administrative regions, but is also considered a territorial collectively, and has been granted more autonomy than other French regions. History The island has been occupied by various groups of people throughout history, including the Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, the Vandals, and the Orthogs. This history has included violent invasions and takeovers of the island and its resources. During the 17th and 18th centuries, control of the island changed from Genoa to France, with a brief occupation by the British in 1794. Corsica was briefly occupied by Britain again in the 19th century, during the Napoleonic Wars, but France eventually regained control of the island. Corsica became occupied during the Second World War but became a freed French territory in 1943. Geography And Climate Corsica is located in the Mediterranean Sea, just 117 km from Cote dAzur, France, and 90 km from Tuscany, Italy. The island is 183 km long, 83 km wide, and is surrounded by 1,000 km of coastline. Corsica contains a single chain of mountains, and the highest peak is Monte Cinto, which has an elevation of 2,706 meters, while other peaks have an average height of 2,000 meters. Low elevation areas of the island experience a Mediterranean climate in which summers are hot and dry, and winter has moderate rainfall. High elevation areas experience a cool and wet climate. Population And Culture With a population of about 322,120, Corsica is among the most populated islands in the Mediterranean region. The biggest towns on the island are the capital Ajaccio, Bastia, Corte, and Sartene. More than half of Corsica's population was born on the island, while the remainder includes immigrants from countries such as Morocco, Italy, and other southern Mediterranean nations. French is the official language, but Corsican is also spoken. Corsica has a rich culture and food is a significant part of that, as its cuisine is considered among the best in Europe and includes dishes prepared from local ingredients. Wine is produced in Corsica. Governance The French government has granted considerable autonomy to Corsica but still has executive powers. Additionally, the French government designated Corsica as a territorial collectivity in 1982, and the following three political institutions were created in 1993: the Assembly of Corsica, a legislative body that has more powers than other French administrative regions and is comprised of elected members; the Executive Council of Corsica, which holds executive functions; and the Economic, Social and Cultural Council of Corsica, an advisory board. Calls for full independence were accompanied by terrorist acts, which forced the French government to grant the island increased autonomy in 2000 in a bid to stop the violence. Calls For Independence Despite various calls for independence from France, polls show Corsicans are opposed to full independence, and a referendum in 2003 was rejected. Indias Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions seeking an independent probe into a multi-billion-dollar purchase of French warplanes, which triggered a political controversy this year in the country. having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this Court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircrafts (estimated cost Rs 58,000 crore ($8.7 billion) by the Indian Government. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this Court, especially in such matters, the judgment read. On April 10, 2015, an IndoFrench joint statement, had said in view of the critical operational necessity for Multirole Combat Aircraft for Indian Air Force, Government of India would like to acquire [36] Rafale jets in fly-away condition as quickly as possible. Main opposition Congress party had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modis government of buying the aircrafts at nearly three times higher to the price the Congress party negotiated before 2014 (when they were in power). The Congress party also accused BJP government of favoring billionaire Anil Ambanis Reliance Group while choosing a domestic partner for Dassault Aviation -- the French aircraft manufacturer. The Indian government has denied all the allegations repeatedly. They however, have not released the pricing details saying that there is secrecy clause regarding to the pricing in the deal. We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government[], the judgment said. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe China is adopting an open stance toward not only the next round of trade talks with the United States but also importing more quality goods, such as soybeans, from the country, according to the Ministry of Commerce. Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said on Thursday that China would welcome any US trade delegation to visit the country and is keeping an "open attitude" to visiting the US for trade talks. The two sides' economic and trade teams were maintaining close contact, discussing the details of trade negotiations and making smooth progress, the spokesman said at a news conference in Beijing. His comments came after foreign media reported that Chinese companies bought at least 500,000 metric tons of US soybeans for no less than $180 million. The purchases would be the first major move made after a series of meetings and exchanges between China and the US this month. Soybeans have always been an important line item in China's imports of US agricultural products, Gao said, stressing "there is huge domestic demand". But Gao declined to confirm the reports or release more details. US soybean futures' prices on Wednesday hit their highest level since early August, continuing a rising trend that started before President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump met in Argentina on Dec 1. Conversations have been con-ducted since the meeting, with the latest progress being a phone exchange between Vice-Premier Liu He and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Wei Jianguo, a former vice-minister of commerce, said China would continue to increase imports of quality goods and services from the rest of the world, including the US. The country, however, will not compromise its core interests in trade talks with the US, he said. A trader told China Daily that the total amount of soybean shipments that the US was prepared to send to China might exceed three dozen, and many of the soybeans would be shipped from the Pacific Northwest while others would go out from the US Gulf area. "We are excited to see that these purchases, if true, were from the Pacific Northwest," said Joe Smentek, executive director of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. "Many of Minnesota's soybeans are shipped through the Northwest. We have ... a high-quality product and are excited to get back to exporting to China," he added. Foreign direct investment into China from the US climbed 3.7 percent between January and November from a year earlier, the Commerce Ministry said on Thursday. On the whole, FDI into China fell 1.3 percent in the first 11 months of the year to 793.3 billion yuan ($115.5 billion) from a year ago. In November alone, FDI into China declined 26.3 percent year-on-year to 92.1 billion yuan. The ministry said the slowdown was mainly due to a high comparison base a year earlier. WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange spoke out against the repressive conditions that have been imposed upon him in Ecuadors London embassy and the ongoing efforts to force him into British and US custody at a court hearing on Wednesday. Assange gave evidence from the embassy via video link, in a case brought by WikiLeaks against a Special Protocol presented by the South American nation in October. It places further onerous conditions on Assange, following the cutting off of his internet access and other communications, and a ban on all visitors aside from his legal team in March. The protocol forbids the WikiLeaks publisher from making any political statements. It requires that he undergo a medical examination every three months. In a bid to exploit Assanges deteriorating health to force him out of the embassy, it empowers doctors to recommend that he be evacuated from the building if he fails the exam. Assange was compelled to undertake the first series of medical tests this week, with doctors selected by WikiLeaks. Julian Assange testifying at the hearing Assanges appearance in the video link indicated the deterioration of his health. He warned that his ongoing detention and the conditions in the protocol had created a situation that will inevitably lead to a health crisis for me, resulting in my death or hospitalisation or a political excuse to illegally hand me over to the British, and therefore to the United States, where I face a potential life sentence. Assange has been confined to tiny living quarters in the embassy for more than six years, since he was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012. He has been deprived of sunlight and doctors have repeatedly stated that he requires urgent medical treatment, which cannot be provided within the embassy. Assanges confinement is the immediate result of the actions of the British government, which has made clear that he will be arrested immediately if he leaves the building on trumped up bail charges, stemming from a bogus Swedish investigation into sexual assault allegations which was dropped last year. Assange denounced the collusion of Ecuadorian authorities with the British and US governments, which are determined to prosecute him for WikiLeaks exposure of their war crimes, illegal diplomatic intrigues and mass surveillance. He stated that Ecuador was conducting ongoing espionage against him and said it was likely turning over the material gathered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which has played a central role in the US efforts to destroy WikiLeaks. Assange condemned representatives of the Ecuadorian government for making comments of a threatening nature over his publishing activities. The WikiLeaks founder compared his treatment to the brutal murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi at the Middle-Eastern dictatorships Istanbul embassy in October, noting that the attempts to silence him were merely more subtle. Comments by Ecuadorian representatives have underscored the imminent dangers facing Assange. Last week, El Comercio cited Ecuadors ambassador to London, Jaime Marchan, who lamented that the previous governments decision to grant Assange asylum had resulted in a distancing and cooling of the countrys relationship with Britain. Marchan, disregarding fundamental pillars of international law, declared: The embassy is not an asylum camp, but a diplomatic mission that has a daily function to fulfill. He called on the WikiLeaks founder to turn himself over to British authorities, stating, Assange should be the one to make the decision to leave the embassy. In comments to El Comercio yesterday, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Jose Valencia stated that the most convenient option for Assange would be to face British justice. Ecuadorian authorities are well aware that if he leaves the embassy, Assange will be arrested and extradited to the United States, where he faces the prospect of life imprisonment. The countrys top attorney, Inigo Salvador, blithely noted on Wednesday that Ecuador cannot provide assurances to Mr. Assange that the UK will not hand him over to a third country that requests his extradition. Last month, it was revealed that a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia has returned a secret indictment of Assange, likely for WikiLeaks 2010 publication of leaked US war logs and diplomatic cables, exposing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic conspiracies around the world. The Ecuadorian regime, in line with a shift to the right by governments throughout the region, including those which previously postured as left, has expanded its relations with the US over the past year. Last June it hosted US Vice President Mike Pence. In November, Valencia met with the Trump administrations Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Washington has clearly placed immense pressure on the South American nation to make conditions unbearable for Assange, in exchange for expanding economic and military ties, including major international loans to the government. Underscoring the determination of the entire American establishment to get its hands on Assange, six leading Democrats, including the partys House leader Nancy Pelosi, issued a letter to Pompeo on Tuesday, asking whether he had pressed Valencia to resolve the situation of Assange, i.e., force him into US custody. The letter repeated the bogus claims that WikiLeaks conspired with Russian military intelligence to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. In reality, WikiLeaks published leaked documents, whose authenticity has never been questioned, demonstrating that the Democratic National Committee sought to rig the partys primaries against Senator Bernie Sanders. WikiLeaks published secret speeches delivered by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Wall Street banks, in which she pledged to do their bidding and to escalate illegal US wars and regime-change operations. Significantly, most of the Democratic Party letter consisted of a repetition of claims made by the British Guardian newspaper two weeks ago, that Assange met with American political lobbyist and consultant Paul Manafort at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2013, 2015 and early 2016. The entirely unsubstantiated allegation was aimed at linking the WikiLeaks founder to Manafort, who later served as a Trump campaign advisor and has been a central target of a US Special Counsel investigation into purported collusion between Trump and the Russian government. In the fortnight since the Guardian published the story, its claims have been completely discredited. The articles authors, including Luke Harding, who functions as a mouthpiece of the British intelligence agencies, and the publications editor, Kath Viner, have provided no evidence for the allegations and have refused to comment on the story. The Ecuadorian embassy is among the most surveilled locations on the planet. Moreover, visitor logs covering the period when Manafort supposedly visited the embassy have already been released by Ecuador. They do not contain his name. The escalating campaign against Assange is an indictment of successive Australian governments, and the entire Australian political and media establishment, which has collaborated in the persecution of the Australian-born journalist. The current Liberal-National Coalition government has refused to take any action to secure the freedom of Assange, following on from the actions of previous Labor governments, which branded WikiLeaks as a criminal organisation. This underscores the necessity for workers and young people to come to Assanges defence, as part of the fight against expanding internet censorship, the erosion of democratic rights and the stepped-up drive to war. The Socialist Equality Party is holding a public meeting in Sydney this Sunday, which will be livestreamed to the world, to discuss the next steps in this crucial campaign. A public sector strike in Catalonia, Spain, involving 250,000 workers called for December 12 was suspended by the Workers Commissions (CCOO) and General Union of Workers (UGT) trade unions, less than 24 hours before it was due to begin. Union leaders made clear they called off the strike because of the political and social crisis in Spain, Catalonia in particular, which threatens the continued rule of the minority Socialist Party (PSOE) government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The public sector coordinator for the CCOO in Catalonia, Joan Maria Sentis, declared that he was satisfied with a new deal while claiming that if the country was in a normal situation we would not have signed. The UGT is aligned to the PSOE and the CCOO is aligned with the Stalinist United Left, which is in the Unidos Podemos alliance that helped bring the PSOE to power in June. The strikes main demand was the payment of a part of workers salaries called paga extra from 2013 and 2014, which was withheld during the austerity drive of the Popular Party (PP) government of Mariano Rajoy. The misnamed paga extra (extraordinary pay) comes in the form of an additional payment to a workers monthly wage in the months of June and December, but in reality constitutes one seventh of their annual salary. The Catalan governmenta nationalist coalition of the Republican Left (ERC) and Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT)is the only regional government that has not yet paid workers a single euro of the salaries taken from them. The strike was called in November by the Catalan branches of the main Spanish trade unions after negotiations with the regional government failed. At the time, the unions rejected the governments final offer of paying the workers over a period of eight years from 2019 to 2026, saying it was insulting. They have now called off the strike after the government agreed to pay the money in four years, ending in 2022. The deal also includes a clause about the urgent character of the payments, meaning that they are to take priority over other public sector spending. In other words, the unions are permitting the Catalan government to recoup the cost of the new payment plan by cuts in public spending in other areas. The CCOO and UGT had already delayed the December 12 strike to prevent joint action with the November strikes called by the anarcho-syndicalist General Confederation of Labour (CGT), the Labour Union Coordinator (COS) and other smaller and sector-specific unions. The CCOO and UGT deliberately isolated the paga extra strikes, arguing that they did not want to associate global public sector workers demands with those of specific sectors. The November strikes saw the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of workers and students in Catalonia, demanding a reversal to the budget cuts imposed by regional nationalist governments since the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis . The union bureaucracy is determined to control and demobilise this renewed working-class militancy. While they have had some successthe number of strikes from January to October was down by 25 percent in terms of hours lost compared to the same period in 2017the month of November has seen a sharp upswing in the number of strikesup by 54 percent compared to November 2017. The betrayal of the December 12 general strike takes place in the context of a massive mobilization of the working class in neighbouring France, in the form of the Yellow Vest protests, which are challenging the government of President Emmanuel Macron. The Spanish ruling elites and their associates in the trade unions are terrified of these developments spreading across the border and are developing their anti-democratic police-state measures of rule. The PSOE and its Unidos Podemos appendage are following suit. At present the Catalan nationalists are refusing to support the 2019 budget crafted by Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias and Sanchez. They hold the casting votes to get the budget passed, but have so far refused after state attorneys confirmed sedition charges against nine imprisoned Catalan leaders for their role in declaring independence last year and who are currently on hunger strike. On Wednesday, Sanchez launched a right-wing tirade against the Catalan nationalists in the Madrid Congress accusing them of a narrative of lies and grievances that, like Brexit in the UK, was splitting the nation and undermining the European common project. He warned that it was unacceptable for current Catalan regional premier, Quim Torra, to declare that the road to freedom lay in the Slovenian paththe unilateral declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 that provoked civil war, facilitated by the imperialist powers who then intervened militarily, ending in the disintegration of the country into rival ethnically-based mini states. Sanchez declared, I will not accept a new violation of the Constitution in Catalonia in reference to the declaration of independence, which saw Rajoy suspend regional powers under Article 155 of the Constitution and impose direct rule from Madrid. Sanchez said that he would act immediately if there was another omission of responsibilities on the part of Catalan political leaders pointing to the failure of the regional Mossos dEsquadra police force to intervene last weekend when pro-independence Committees to Defend the Republic (CDR) blocked motorways in support of the jailed leaders. He warned that he would not hesitate to dispatch national police officers to the region to maintain public order. The police state measures Sanchez is threatening is, as the World Socialist Web Site warned would happen, an escalated lurch to the right by the PSOE following the December 2 election in the region of Andalusia. The result expressed a further fracturing of the bipartisan political system created during the transition to parliamentary democracy following the death of dictator Generalisimo Francisco Franco in 1975. Support for the PSOE slumped, ending its 36 years of uninterrupted rule, while the record abstention rate also indicated widespread opposition to all the official parties. The Unidos Podemos frontAdelanta Andalucialost three seats and 200,000 votes. The electoral beneficiaries were the parties of the new right, Citizens and the fascist Vox, which were able to exploit the demobilising by the PSOE and its political ally Podemos of the widespread opposition in the working class to the Rajoy government and its agenda of austerity, political repression and militarismabove all during last years Catalan independence crisis in Catalonia. In the elections aftermath, Podemos called for an anti-fascist alliance with the PSOE. Within days the PSOE was busy adopting the policies of Vox in Catalonia. Workers in Spain can fight against the attacks on their standard of living only by rebelling against the pro-capitalist unions that sell out their struggles. Catalan workers need to link up with their brothers and sisters in the rest of Spain, French workers fighting the Macron government and all workers throughout Europe. This is the story of Cordella Minney, an American autoworker treated like a modern-day slave by Chrysler management, the United Auto Workers union and the American legal system. A mother of two and grandmother to four, Cordella was born and grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana in a family of 11 children, nine sisters and two brothers. Her parents both worked to support the large householdher father as a taxi driver and her mother as a nurses assistant. Chrysler hired Cordella in 1996 to a job as a part-time worker at the Indianapolis Foundry where she later became full-time. As a result of her employment with Chrysler she was able to purchase her first home and her first car. However, her life soon took a drastic turn. After courageously speaking out against sexual harassment by a Fiat Chrysler supervisor in the workplace, Cordellas life became a terrible ordeal. She faced continuous harassment by management, abetted by the UAW. The harassment continued for more than a decade and culminated in a workplace assault in 2013 that led to Cordella being fired by Fiat Chrysler and framed up on criminal charges. Despite her acquittal she has yet to regain her job. Reports received by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter indicate that the pressing of women workers for sexual favors and other forms of harassment is a serious problem in many factories, recalling the dark times before the rise of the mass industrial unions in the 1930s. Continuing abuse was highlighted by the recent lawsuit by women workers at the Ford Chicago Assembly Plant as well as Chicago Stamping, alleging rampant abuse by supervisors and local UAW officials. In 2002, Cordella filed charges with the UAW against a Chrysler manager at the Indianapolis Foundry alleging sexual harassment. I went to the union to let them know this man had asked me for sexual favors and when I refused that he hit me and threatened to kill me, Cordella told the Autoworker Newsletter. I showed them my bruises and told them what he said. They called him into a separate office and verified what I had said. Under pressure she signed a statement pledging that if management and the union spoke to the supervisor, she would not file any charges. That was their way of sweeping it up under the rug. She continued, From that point on my job was a living hell. I was denied promotions by my manager. I was denied raises. I was elected as a trustee for the union and I was denied being allowed to take part in meetings or other duties. When I went to management, they were on board with him. When I went to the union, they were on board with him. It was so bad that I was stressed out and depressed because I knew that these things were happening because I came forward. I got no help from the union. I ended up taking a medical stress leave. This happened in June (2002). I first went to the union in February. At that point Cordella filed a lawsuit against Chrysler for discrimination and sexual harassment. This only increased pressure from management. She reported that her house was even placed under surveillance. Despite having the proper documentation from her doctor, Cordella said she was called back to work. I was put back on a job with jack hammers and drills that I was not supposed to do because I had a brain tumor removed in 1998. Cordella said her doctor called management and instructed that she be put back on medical leave. However, management claimed there was not proper documentation of her condition and terminated her. After management, with the agreement of the UAW, rejected a grievance over her termination, Cordella filed a lawsuit. In the interim she lost her home and her car was repossessed. She ended up filing for bankruptcy. In the end, Fiat Chrysler agreed to settle the lawsuit for $50,000 without admitting wrongdoing. It was a slap in the face. It was horrible. There was nothing I could do. My former attorney, who dropped me because I filed for bankruptcy, became Chryslers attorney against me. They had all these high-profile attorneys. I didnt have anyone representing me. The judge denied my appeal. My attorney got $16,000. They paid the other creditors and gave me a check for $1,800 and change. The UAW denied my reinstatement, including [former UAW Vice President for Chrysler] General Holiefield. However, Cordella would not give up and continued to fight. She appealed the decision and was finally reinstated, but not until April 2011. She was granted her accumulated seniority, in effect an admission by management that her termination had been unjustified. At the time, she was living in Columbus, Ohio. The Indianapolis Foundry had closed in 2005, so she was assigned to the Kokomo Transmission Plant and given a moving stipend. I was immediately sent back to the floor. The people had already heard about me and what had transpired at the foundry. In fact, there were some of the very same managers they had at the foundry. I started getting all the horrible jobs, she said, despite having some 13 years accumulated seniority. They knew my whole story, both the UAW and management, and they used that against me. I went to the UAW to let them know I was getting all this negativity and didnt understand why. However, the UAW ignored her complaints. I just went in every day and sucked it up. I wanted to get my life back on track. I was willing to let bygones be bygones, but it didnt work like that. Despite her seniority, Cordella found herself moved from shift to shift and put on the least desirable jobs. I finally landed a bid job. It was still one of the hardest jobs there. It was on three machines making pistons. Other bid jobs came up, but again they were given to people with less seniority. I worked diligently. I came in every day; never walked through that gate tardy. Then, on October 11, 2012, as she was getting ready to leave work, Cordella fell into a chemical pit where the flume cover had not been properly replaced. There were no warning cones as mandated. Down I went. By the grace of God there was a metal bar up under that grate. Thats what kept me from falling 10 to 12 feet down into the chemicals. I would not be here today if I had fallen into those chemicals. My left leg hit that metal bar. I was taken to the hospital. They said there was a contusion to my left thigh. There was enormous pain. It was worse than labor pains. It hurt like hell for months. However, Cordella was only allowed off work for two weeks. My pain was worse than ever. I could not walk up the steps to my apartment. I had to crawl up the steps and slide down the steps. As a result, Cordella had to relocate to a first-floor apartment. Six months later she was still hobbling around. Yet, she could not go back to her own doctor because it was now a workers compensation case. I got no union representation whatsoever, except, whatever they say goes. Cordella eventually hired a workers compensation attorney, but this only led to further harassment. She started getting bogus write-ups from her supervisor for petty infractions, such as taking too long on a bathroom break. Then, in October 2013, another employee assaulted Cordella in what is widely viewed as a provocation instigated against her as retribution for her efforts to stand up for herself in the plant against management and the union. Ferrell Henderson, a long time Fiat Chrysler employee who retired earlier this year from Kokomo Transmission told the Autoworker Newsletter, That department had all kinds of tensions. The union sided with management. They did nothing for Cordella. They are making life as difficult as hell for a lot of people. They knew all about her background. This incident was all they needed to put her outside. After a brief exchange of words over a work issue, the much larger woman came over to Cordellas workstation and swung her fist. Startled, Cordella screamed. In self-defense, Cordella then hit her attacker back. She threw me to the floor and was sitting on top of me. I grabbed her hands because she was trying to choke me. Some of the skilled trades guys saw her and pulled her off of me. I never left my workstation, she came off her workstation and attacked me. As a result of the altercation Cordella said she suffered a concussion. However, rather than being given medical attention she was sent to her supervisors office and questioned by management. She was then told she would be suspended indefinitely and was escorted out of the plant by management and the Kokomo police, humiliated in front of her coworkers and friends. After the incident, Ferrell called Cordella and told her he heard about what had happened. He reported that the other woman had previously made threats against Cordella. Ferrell told the Autoworker Newsletter that a week to 10 days before the incident the other woman had told him, I am going to get Cordella ... I am going to beat her up, a fact he later testified to under oath at Cordellas criminal trial for battery. During the 19 months leading up to her trial on criminal misdemeanor charges of battery, UAW officials refused to assist in Cordellas defense in any way. Cordella continued, The UAW wouldnt speak to me. They said after the trial we will talk to you. The trial took place after 19 months. Cordella reported it took the jury only 45 minutes to reach a not guilty verdict. Despite the acquittal, management said Cordellas termination would stay in place. The UAW was pissed that I was found not guilty. They just knew I was not going to get my job back, Cordella noted. Cordella sought to retain an attorney in an effort to regain her job. The statute of limitations for such cases is two years, but no attorney would agree to help her during the 19 months it took her case to come to trial, leaving her only a five-month window to file a civil suit. She was finally able to retain an attorney, but he decided to delay filing a lawsuit until the UAW appeals process ran its course. The UAW delayed several months and ultimately made its final decision rejecting Cordellas appeal. By this time, it was past the statutory filing deadline. I filed papers with the attorney board over what he did. But they said that as long as he returned my retainer fee there was nothing to be done. The refusal of Fiat Chrysler to reinstate Cordella following her acquittal was an egregious violation of her rights. Cordella noted that according to court records, the manager who had initially backed the filing of criminal charges against her had earlier been convicted on criminal charges of reckless endangerment for an incident stemming from drunk driving. He is still employed by Fiat Chrysler. Cordella issued personal appeals to former UAW President Dennis Williams and his successor Gary Jones about her case. Both times the UAW dismissed her calls for assistance. Federal investigators are looking into the activities of both men in relation to the UAW corruption scandal. Williams was implicated by a top former UAW official in the Chrysler department as having authorized illegal payouts from joint training centers. That ordeal adds salt to the wounds I was suffering. I was denied everything. And this was at the time during the UAW corruption scandal. It cuts like a knife. It hurts even more when I hear about some of my brothers and sisters, whether I know them or not, going through the same bull crap. I read about the case of Jacoby Hennings at Ford Woodhaven. It was the same pattern. Some of the tactics they use are different. They will put you on a job to eventually get rid of you. To rehash my story really hurts, but I do have to share. I am not the first one and I wont be the last. This is stuff that really truly happens that can push people over the edge. It is really sad that these big corporations get away with this. Do you have a story of abuse by management or the unions? Contact the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter today. We will respect any request for anonymity. The offensive against autoworkers across the globe is intensifying. Hardly a week goes by without a new round of job cutting. Following General Motors announcement of the closure of five plants in the US and Canada and the elimination of nearly 15,000 hourly and salaried workers, Ford has announced its own plans for huge job cutbacks. At a factory meeting last Monday in Saarlouis in the German state of Saarland, the local Ford management announced that production of the companys C-Max model is to be discontinued. A quarter of the 6,300 jobs at Ford-Saarlouis, or about 1,600, are to go with the reduction of shifts from three to two. It is still uncertain how many jobs would be lost, a company spokeswoman said, implying that the total could be even higher. The company works council representative immediately sought to mollify the anger of the workforce. Nothing had been finally decided, he said, pointing out that 400 workers were due to leave the company at the end of this year due to retirement. In addition, 500 temporary employment contracts were due to expire in mid-2019 and would not be extended, he said with contempt for these workers. In addition, several hundred employees could accept an early retirement deal. The works council rep stressed several times he was keen to arrive at a socially responsible solution for those losing their jobs. The phrase socially acceptable job reduction, constantly used by works councils and union officials, is in fact a threat. It means that the so-called employee representatives will work closely together with company management, conduct secret negotiations behind the backs of staff, and agree to worsened conditions while suppressing any serious fight to defend jobs. Despite the reassurances of the works council it is clear that the Ford-Saarlouis announcements are the opening shot in a massive cost-cutting program that will cost many more jobs at Ford. At a factory meeting in the main plant in Cologne on Tuesday, the mood was very tense. The workers present expected concrete information about the future of their jobs, but neither management nor the works council made any clear statements. Both pointed out that negotiations on a cost-cutting program had not yet been completed. Gunnar Herrmann, the CEO of Ford Germany, who was also present in Saarlouis, spoke at the Cologne headquarters in a general fashion about inevitable adjustment measures resulting from the strict austerity measures laid down by the companys headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Herrmann gave a detailed report on the poor earnings situation at Ford Europe. The numbers are alarming, he said. In the second quarter of this year, the company had already lost $73 million in Europe. The situation deteriorated again significantly in the summer and Ford reported a loss of 245 million euros for the third quarter. The Handelsblatt newspaper reported that US corporate management has stipulated a minimum profit rate of six percent, which is now considered indispensable throughout the auto industry. At Ford in Cologne where the European and German businesses are headquartered no one believes that a turnaround will be possible by the end of the year: The US group will finish deep in the red in Europe in 2018, a statement read. The austerity program already in place for the plant in Saarlouis has already had drastic consequences and the effects will soon be felt at the companys Cologne headquarters with its 18,500 employees. When contacted by the WSWS editorial board after the meeting in Cologne, the chairman of the works council, Martin Hennig, said he could provide no further information. Asked whether there were negotiations in the companys Economic Committee or in other committees, Hennig said, Of course there are discussions and negotiations, but no results as yet. He could only say that the plant in Cologne is one of the most efficient factories with an employment security protection agreement until 2021. The works council recognises the difficult situation of the company, he said, but would demand that Ford comply with its job security promises. Such assurances are worthless. The works council and the IG Metall union are intent on keeping workers in the dark for as long as possible to prevent any resistance to the foreseeable job losses. At the end of September, a similar factory meeting took place to supposedly reassure the workforce. There were rumors then that the entire Ford production in Germany was in danger after the company announced, tough cuts. The British newspaper Sunday Times reported that more than 20,000 jobs were in acute danger. A worker on the way to factory meeting at the time said: We saw what happened at the Belgian Mondeo plant in Genk four years ago. Thats an example how quickly those at the top can close down a work. This still sits in our bones. Ford has already announced cuts in France and the UK. The headquarters of the British Ford plants in Brentwood is due to be shut down and its 1,700 jobs lost. All of the companys operations in the UK are to be concentrated at the Ford Dagenham plant and Ford Dunton in Basildon. In France, Ford plans to close its plant in Blanquefort near Bordeaux at the end of next year. The factory employs about 900 workers. At the same time, Ford is investing 200 million euros in Craiova, Romania, for the production of another model. The number of Ford workers in Romania is to be increased by 1,500 to 6,000. The Romanian Ford employees work under slave-like conditions with some workers earning as little as 300 euros per month. At the beginning of 2018, 4,000 workers in Craiova took strike action to prevent the imposition of a new, extortionate contract. Since then their overtime allowances have been cut and they have been forced to accept new flexible shift schedules. The latest job losses at Ford are part of a massive assault on workers, auto plants and suppliers around the world. At Opel, formerly owned by GM, new cuts and attacks have been taking place step by step since the companys takeover by the French based PSA. The German company Volkswagen is also gearing up for new attacks on its workforce. VW management has just agreed to build more cars in the US to avoid US customs barriers. Currently, the VW Group is considering a partnership with Ford to use the latters American manufacturing facilities. VW is also stepping up its development of electric motors which will invariably lead to new attacks on auto workers. Across the globe the unions and local works councils are working closely with senior management to enforce job cuts in such a manner as to suppress all resistance. The turn to electric motors, the corrupt company practices revealed in the Diesel-gate scandal, Brexit, growing trade war and a general economic crisis make abundantly clear that autoworkers around the world face the same problems and attacks. At the same time the unions are adamantly opposed to any struggle to defend all jobs, wages and social standards. It is therefore necessary for workers to take the defence of jobs and conditions into their own hands and organise independently of the unions. In this context, the meeting held by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter last Sunday in Detroit, Michigan, is of great importance. Participants decided to organize rank-and-file committees, independently of the unions, to oppose GMs plant closings and mass layoffs. At the meeting, a Ford worker from Dearborn described her experiences with the United Auto Workers union (UAW), which imposed a pro-company contract in 2015 by resorting to lies, intimidation and vote-rigging. This had shown that our union is not on our side. It does not act in our interests, she said. From that point onwards, the workers met outside the factory and union meetings to discuss how to defend their own interests, she said. The participants at the Detroit meeting passed a resolution calling for the building of rank-and-file committees, independent of the UAW, Unifor [in Canada] and other unions, in all the affected workplaces and neighbourhoods, to organise opposition to the plant closures. These committees would Establish lines of communication and collaboration with all workersincluding auto parts workers, teachers, Amazon workers, service workers and othersand fight for the unity of American workers with our class brothers and sisters in Canada, Mexico and the rest of the world. The following article is the first part of a four-part review of Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism. Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four Rohini Hensmans book Indefensible, issued by the International Socialist Organizations (ISO) Haymarket Books publishing house, is a full-throated endorsement of imperialist war. Trotting out the tired lies of the US and European media, that the Syrian war is a democratic revolution, it comes down in favor of virtually every war or overseas operation launched by the Democratic Party since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Hensmans Orwellian arguments tend inescapably in one direction: that US wars have been the main liberating force during the last quarter century. The bulk of Indefensible consists of vitriolic attacks on left-wing and socialist opponents of war. Hensman is a Tamil author and activist who lives in India and claims a Sri Lankan Maoist family background. She has ties to the Guardian newspaper in Britain and the Stalinist Communist Party of India (CPI). In her book, she denounces journalists John Pilger and Seymour Hersh, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). This reactionary undertaking has brought together a significant layer of pro-war academics and middle class, pro-imperialist parties. These include the ISOs Haymarket Books, financed by corporate outfits like the Lannan Foundation; Professor Gilbert Achcar of Frances Pabloite New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), who led Indefensibles book launch in London; and Professor Michael Karadjis, of the Pabloite Socialist Alliance (SA) group in Australia. The publication of Indefensible vindicates the ICFIs analysis that these are not left-wing parties, but reactionary pseudo-left organizations of the affluent middle class. Hensmans argumentsbased on the writings of Achcar, Karadjis and othersmark a new and decisive stage in the evolution of these groups. Having embraced the imperialist wars in Libya and Syria in 2011, they are now emerging as conscious defenders of imperialist war, in general, against criticism from the left. The perspective underlying the struggle for socialism emerges, however, from the Trotskyist critique of these groups. Hensman defends NATOs war in Syria Presenting herself as an observer outraged by the bloodshed in Syria, Hensman writes: Ending the Syria crisis would entail, first and foremost, identifying its causes. For some of those who call themselves anti-imperialists, there is only one cause: Western (that is, North American and Western European) imperialism, which is responsible for all the bloodshedincluding the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) In fact, US and European imperialism started and continue to bear overwhelming responsibility for the Syrian war. Hensman, however, slanders opponents of NATOs war as tools of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin: I shall refer to these supporters of Assad and Putin as pseudo-anti-imperialists. She writes, Syria typifies the moral and political degeneration of pseudo-anti-imperialists who support, or fail to oppose, the genocidal crushing of a democratic uprising by a totalitarian state allied with Iranian and Russian imperialism. Chief among the targets of Hensmans pro-war outrage is the ICFI. Citing a 2013 statement published on the WSWS, The International Socialist Organization and the imperialist onslaught against Syria, she denounces the ICFI and the WSWS for not hailing the CIA-backed Islamist militias as democratic revolutionaries: The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) of the International Committee of the Fourth International goes further in its support of Assad. When on May 1, 2013 over two hundred intellectuals, academics, artists and activists from more than thirty countries issued a statement beginning, We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with the millions of Syrians who have been struggling for dignity and freedom since March 2011. We call on the people of the world to pressure the Syrian regime to end its oppression of and war on the Syrian people (Socialist Worker 2013), the WSWS responded by alleging that the thoroughly reactionary and politically sinister character of this document is virtually self-evidentsince, in their view, there are no Syrians struggling against Assad for freedom and dignity, only Islamist extremists and imperialists (North and Lantier 2013). The WSWS covers up Assads slaughter of the democratic opposition and their families and communities by repeating his propaganda that these people never existed, and, thereby, collude in the massacres. The forces colluding in a massacre are not the opponents of NATO wars, but war propagandists like Hensman and the ISO. Having promoted right-wing militias, funded by the Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms, as the heroes of a revolution for freedom and dignity, they have ended up embracing Washingtons bloody rampage across the Middle East. In the spring of 2011, after mass working-class uprisings toppled US-backed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, a protest movement began in Syrian cities like Deraa, Hama and Homsparts of which have historically supported the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Whatever mixture of forces may have participated in the initial protests, they were soon dominated by CIA-backed Islamists. A year into the war, in 2012, the US government itself reported that the opposition militias were led by the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front, which had, by itself, carried out nearly 600 bombing attacks and killed thousands of civilians. The WSWS had exposed these ties and refuted the claims that, simply because the Syrian war erupted after the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, it was a revolution against dictatorship. In the 2013 article attacked by Hensman, it explained: There is no great and unfathomable mystery about what is going on in the eastern Mediterranean and Levant. The Syrian war is the latest chapter in US imperialisms effortswith the support of its ultra-reactionary Gulf State clientsto violently carry out a restructuring of Middle Eastern and Central Asian politics. Most clearly symbolized by Washingtons installation of neo-colonial regimes after invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, this offensive has cost untold hundreds of thousands of lives. As part of this offensive, Syria, which appeared on Axis of Evil lists compiled by Bush administration officials, has been in Washingtons gun sights for over a decade. The comparison of the events in Syria to the Egyptian revolution is nothing short of obscene. The mass popular movement that unfolded in Egypt bore all the characteristics of a genuine revolution. Initial mass protests grew into a general strike, demanding the fall of Mubarak and better living standards for working people. The revolutionary movement unified Muslims and Christians participating in protests and strikes. And, in what was the surest sign of the popular and progressive character of the movement, it was opposed by American imperialism. The Obama administration supported Mubaraks attempts to crush the protests. Only after it became convinced that Mubarak could not be saved did the United States shift its counter-revolutionary tactics and promote the Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative to the old dictatorship. This analysis has been entirely vindicated. What unfolded in Syria was not a revolution but a bloody, sectarian war, in which NATO mobilized Sunni Islamist militias against the Shiite Alawite-led Assad regime. There was never a general strike mobilizing the working class against the Syrian regimean event that, as in Egypt or Tunisia, brings even the most bloodstained, repressive regime to a standstillbut a series of reactionary provocations. The ICFI has never given any political support to Assad, who rules over a reactionary regime of the Syrian bourgeoisie. It insisted, however, that Assads overthrow was the task of the Syrian working class, and not the Pentagon, its European allies and the Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms. It stressed that, like the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was a war pursuing an imperialist agenda: to establish US hegemony over the strategic, oil-rich Middle East; destroy Syria as an Iranian ally; and weaken Russia by eliminating its sole surviving Arab ally and only Mediterranean Sea naval base. Hensman presents not a shred of evidence to refute these points. Instead, she floods the reader with propaganda claims that mass uprisings were taking place in Syria, and that Assad had to be toppled at all costs, including by supporting US wars. Her sources turn out to be pro-war corporate media outlets, anonymous blogs citing unverifiable evidence, or mouthpieces for US intelligence that have already been exposed and discredited. The most infamous provocations were media campaigns to justify direct NATO military action in Syria, with lurid and false claims that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians. Claims that Assad organized poison gas attacks at Houla in May 2012, Khan al-Asal in March 2013, and Ghouta in August 2013 were refuted by investigations by Germanys Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the UN, and journalist Seymour Hersh and the UN, respectively. They identified the opposition militias working with various NATO powers as the culprits, who mounted gas attacks and blamed them on Assad in order to justify a direct US attack on Syria. Hensman dishonestly tries to blame the Ghouta attack on Assad. She does not actually claim or provide evidence that Assad organized the Ghouta attack, or admit that the other allegations of Syrian poison gas attacks proved to be false. Instead, she tries to smear Hersh as an Assad puppet and blacken his name, in order to make the false allegations against the Syrian regime in Ghouta seem more credible. She cites former US Secret Service official Dan Kaszeta, whom she only identifies, blandly, as a chemical weapons expert though he works for the UK-backed Bellingcat blog: There are many ways to make sarin, and it appears to me that the way the regime went about it correlates very closely with the physical evidence reported by the original UN/OPCW inspection team in Ghouta. She then cites an anonymous pro-Syrian war blog, Linux Beach: Seymour Hersh has enjoyed a long relationship with Bashar al-Assad Seymour M. Hersh wants Assad to win. Hensman berates other journalists, critical of the war in Syria, for not trawling through pro-war blogs to discover the revolution she claims is taking place, and more aggressively making the case for a direct US attack on Syria. If they had seen these blogs, she writes, they would have come across a photograph of Syrians holding up a banner responding to Obamas patronising and ignorant refusal to arm the Syrian opposition, which says, Yes, Mr President Obama! Dentists, farmers and students are the ones who lead dignity revolutions; criminals kill while idiots talk (Karadjis 2014). This propaganda is grotesque. A dignity revolution, appealing for US military intervention and mobilizing a group of dentists as its leading force, is not a socialist revolution by the working class. And each time Hensman purports to provide evidence that a mass uprising is ongoing in Syria, it turns out to be an empty fraud. A case in point is her quoting of allegations regarding Assads repression of initial protests in Syria by Yasmeen Mobayed, a New York University graduate student, who works with US-backed Kurdish militias fighting in Syria: Thousands of documented political detainees have been tortured to death at the hands of Assad forces. Recently, a defected regime photographer, who goes by the pseudonym Caesar, leaked 55,000 images of over 11,000 tortured civilian detainees. Mobayeds reliance on Caesar to substantiate her argument that a revolution was underway undermines her entire account. Caesar is neither an objective nor credible source. An operative who had been working with Syrian opposition militias since 2011, Caesar met with a group of human rights investigators funded by the oil sheikdom of Qatar, in an unnamed Middle East country in 2014. He said he had 55,000 pictures of 11,000 Syrian prisoners on a flash drive, but refused to provide the investigators access to these pictures. Ultimately, they reported, Some 5,500 images were examined in total by the forensics team Within these 5,500 images, images of a total of 835 deceased persons were evaluated in detail. Of these, 20 percent showed evidence of inflicted trauma and 30 percent were equivocal. Forty-two percent showed emaciation. As Caesar also smudged out time and date stamps on the pictures he released, it was impossible to verify who these 835 victims were, and when and where they were detained and killed. The photos leaked by Caesar do not, in fact, provide evidence for anything besides investigators assertions that 835 individuals were horrifically treated by unidentified persons. Hensman uses these, however, to blame all the carnage in Syria on Assad and to justify her calls to escalate the war. She even blames the Assad regime for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Sunni Islamist terror militia that arose in 20132014 and attacked, not only Assads forces, but also the US puppet regime in neighboring Iraq. Citing Britains right-wing Daily Telegraph and a motley crew of ISIS defectors to the US war effort, she writes: Assad decided to ally with ISIS, the most extreme of the Islamist groups. While secular rebels continued to be pounded unmercifully, We were confident that the regime would not bomb us, an ISIS defector said. And as a rebel fighter linked to the Muslim Brotherhood claimed, the regime pay[s] more than 150m Syrian lire [1.4m] monthly to Jabhat al-Nusra to guarantee oil is kept pumping through two major oil pipelines in Banias and Latakia. Middlemen trusted by both sides are to facilitate the deal and transfer money to the organization. Indeed, as a Telegraph article reported, Assads regime was not simply buying oil from ISIS but running oil and gas plants in cooperation with them. Compared to the wealth of evidence that the bulk of ISIS funding came from within Syria and that most of it was from oil and gas deals with the Assad regime, there is little evidence of ISIS funding from or oil deals with other countries. ... As for funding from the Gulf monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia, while individuals from these countries might fund ISIS, state support has gone to militant groups that are at war with ISIS; in other words, it seems safe to blame Assad first for ISIS rise (Rowell 2014). Hensman also attacks the WSWS on this issue, writing: North and Lantier are silent on Assads promotion of ISIS, and his ceding of Syrias sovereignty to the Islamic state of Iran. The origins of ISIS lie in the international Islamist recruitment networks developed by the NATO powers and their Persian Gulf allies during the 19811989 Soviet-Afghan War. These were revived to recruit tens of thousands of foreign fighters to the Syrian war today, along with the sectarian militias used to suppress resistance to the 20032011 US occupation of Iraq. Fighters from across Europe, Central Asia, Pakistan, Russia, China, Australia and North America traveled to fight in Syria. As the Syrian war developed, these forces developed ties with Sunni Islamist militias in neighboring Iraq. It is a documented fact that ISIS received state funding from NATO powers, including France, the former colonial power in Syria, which funneled millions of euros to ISIS via construction firm Lafarge. Combined with funding from unofficial Saudi sources that Hensman does not deny, this makes clear that ISIS was supported by governments seeking to topple Assad. Assad did not, it is true, end oil purchases from ISIS-held oil fields, as this would have cut off energy supplies to Syrian cities. But when the Syrian regime, assisted later by its Russian and Iranian allies, tried to attack ISIS and take back the oil fields, they were bombarded by US forces that intervened to protect ISIS. The reason Hensman perpetrates political fraud is not difficult to comprehend. NATO and Persian Gulf support for ISIS, which ran death squads and published videos of mass executions of civilians, shows that Hensmans entire theory of the warthat it is a war for liberation led by imperialismis a lie. Her invocation of morality as a reason for backing imperialist wars of plunder and their Islamist proxies deserves nothing but contempt. Their political and moral degeneracy is epitomized by Michael Karadjis defense of moderate Islamist opposition militias, like the Farouq Brigades. Khalid al-Hamad, Farouq Brigades leader, is infamous for desecrating the corpse of a Syrian soldier, biting into his internal organs in a YouTube fundraising video designed to impress the CIA and wealthy donors in the Persian Gulf sheikdoms. Karadjis, whom Hensman cites as an authority on Syria, downplayed this notorious video, claiming it was only minor cannibalism. As Hensman hysterically attacks the WSWS, she becomes entangled in the contradictions of her own argument and ends up tacitly justifying Assads policy in the war. She writes: The intervention of David North and Alex Lantier on the World Socialist Web Site (2013) also echoes the anti-Muslim bigotry that has become the hallmark of the neo-fascist right. By characterising the entire Syrian opposition to Assad as Islamist, it ignores non-Muslim dissidents and blurs the distinction between four distinct categories of Muslims who oppose him. The first category designates Muslim believers who are secular and progressive. The second is composed of Muslim fundamentalists (Salafis) who, despite their beliefs, want to live in a secular state. ...The third category is composed of political Islamists who want to establish an Islamic state through elections. These are potentially dangerous, because they inevitably undermine democratic rights and freedoms if they do come to power, so they have to be opposed both ideologically and politically. The fourth category consists of political Islamists who want to establish an Islamic state through violence. They should be put behind bars if possible, and it may be necessary to oppose them militarily to protect the civilians whom they routinely blow up. This slander on the WSWS as anti-Muslim and neo-fascist is based only on hot air, and her division of opposition militias into four types, empty charlatanry. Progressive opposition to Assad comes from the Syrian working class. As for the Islamist opposition militiasbe they Al Nusra and ISIS or so-called moderates like the Free Syrian Army or the Farouq Brigadesthey are all political Islamists who want to establish an Islamic state through violence. By proposing to oppose them militarily in order to protect civilians, Hensman unintentionally endorses Assads war against them. To be continued Evidence has come to light that US operations against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and the arrest and detention of one of its top executives, Meng Wanzhou, to face criminal charges of fraud brought by the US Justice Department are the outcome of a coordinated campaign by the intelligence agencies of the so-called Five Eyes network. According to a major report published in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) yesterday, the annual meeting of top intelligence officials from countries in the networkthe US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canadaheld last July decided to co-ordinate banning Huawei from 5G mobile phone networks. The two-day meeting, held in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, decided that the intelligence chiefs should spend time publicly explaining their concerns about China. In the months that followed an unprecedented campaign has been waged by the five members of the network to block the tech giant Huawei from supplying equipment for their next-generation wireless networks which has now led to the arrest of Meng in Canada. On August 23, in one of his last acts as Australian prime minister before being deposed in an inner-party leadership coup, Malcolm Turnbull rang US President Trump to tell him that Huawei and another Chinese firm, ZTE, had been banned from the countrys 5G rollout. The basis of the decision was to exclude vendors who are likely to be subject of extrajudicial directions from a foreign government. This was followed on October 29 by a speech by the director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, in which, while not directly naming Huawei, he said the stakes with 5G could not be higher. It was the first public speech by the head of the organisation in its 70-year history. The speech was followed seven days later by a decision of the New Zealand Labour government to ban Huawei from supplying 5G equipment to the phone company Spark. The article then noted that on December 6, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault, who had hosted the Five Eyes meeting, delivered his first public speech warning of a security threat. CSIS has seen a trend of state-sponsored espionage in fields that are crucial to Canadas ability to build and sustain a prosperous, knowledge-based economy, he said, referencing artificial intelligence, quantum technology and 5G. China was not mentioned specifically but there was no doubt it was the target and Canada is expected to shortly announce a ban on Huawei and ZTE. The day after the speech by his Canadian counterpart, the head of Britains MI6 addressed a meeting at St Andrews University in Scotland in which he warned that much of the evolving state threat is about our opponents innovative exploitation of modern technology. The British situation is more complex than that of the other Five Eyes members because of the agreement reached by British Telecom (BT) to partner with Huawei in the 3G and 4G networks 15 years ago. But that is changing as BT has said it will strip out Huawei equipment from its networks and will not use its technology in 5G. The key attendee at the meeting was CIA director Gina Haspel. The US has been leading the push against China, has already banned Huawei and has been waging an international campaign to have its equipment banned by other strategic allies beyond the Five Eyes group. The AFR article noted that the sharp focus of Washington on Beijing plays into Trumps obsession with trade war but it would be wrong to think its solely driven by the president. Over the last two years Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the departments of Defence, State and the security agencies have come to the conclusion China is a strategic threat. Other evidence of the way in which the US intelligence and military apparatus is driving the attack on Huawei and Chinese technology companies more broadly has been revealed in an article published in the Financial Times yesterday. It cited a leaked memo, apparently written by a senior National Security Council official warning about the implications of the rise of Huawei to become the worlds biggest supplier of telecommunications equipment and that it was leading the field in the development of 5G. We are losing it, the memo said. Whoever leads in technology and market share for 5G deployment will have a tremendous advantage towards commanding the heights of the information domain. The memo said 5G was by no means simply a faster 4G but was a change more like the invention of the Gutenberg press as it would bring faster speeds, lower lead times between the network and the device and had a much larger capacity to transfer data. These developments, the article said, will underpin self-driving cars, artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine communications, and will transform the way everything from hospitals to factories operate. China was far ahead in preparing for 5G which requires more base stations than existing networks and had almost 2 million cell sites in early 2018, ten times the number in the US. According to the Deloitte consultancy there are 5.3 sites for every 10 square miles in China compared to 0.4 in the US. These figures make clear the reason for the ferocity of the US economic war against China. It fears that its economic and military supremacy is under direct threat and is determined to take all measures considered necessary to counter Chinas rise. The objective logic of this development was underlined in an article, also published in the AFR yesterday, by Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs. The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, he wrote, is a dangerous move by US President Donald Trumps administration in its intensifying conflict with China. If, as Mark Twain reputedly said, history often rhymes, our era increasingly recalls the period preceding 1914. As with Europes great powers back then, the United States, led by an administration intent on asserting Americas dominance over China, is pushing the world towards disaster. Sachs drew attention to the hypocrisy surrounding the detention of Meng on charges of committing fraud in breach of US-imposed bans on dealing with Iran. He noted that in 2011 JP Morgan Chase paid $88.3 million in fines for violating US sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Yet [CEO] Jamie Dimon wasnt grabbed off a plane and whisked into custody. None of the heads of banks or their financial officers was held accountable for the pervasive law-breaking in the lead-up to or aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis for which the banks paid $243 billion in fines. The US actions against Huawei were part of an economic war on China, and a reckless one. He noted that when global trade rules obstruct the gangster tactics of the Trump administration then it deems the rules have to go, citing a comment by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brussels last week in which he admitted as much. Our administration, Pompeo said, is lawfully exiting or renegotiating outdated or harmful treaties, trade agreements and other international arrangements that dont serve our sovereign interests, or the interests of our allies. Pointing to the unilateral decision of the US to reject the decision of the UN Security Council to lift all bans on Iran as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Sachs concluded: The Trump administration, not Huawei or China is the greatest threat to the international rule of law, and therefore to global peace. The Australian Labor Party is holding its national conference in Adelaide, starting Sunday, amid rising working-class struggles and popular discontent globally, intensifying geo-political tensions and signs of a looming recession in Australia. With the current minority Liberal-National Coalition government disintegrating and an election due by next May, the Labor Party will paper over its deep internal divisions at the three-day gathering as it prepares for government. Since the 2008 global financial breakdown, successive governments, both Labor and Coalition, have been torn apart by the deepening political and economic conflicts. Installed in August, Scott Morrison is the seventh prime minister since 2007. During the same period, the memberships of both the Labor Party and its affiliated trade unions have plunged to new lowsa measure of the disaffection in the working class after repeated experiences of the destruction of jobs, conditions and basic services at the hands of Labor governments and the unions. Bill Shortens Labor leadership is simultaneously making two pitches. One is to attempt to quell the seething hostility to the political establishment by offering vague promises of reducing inequality. The other is to seek the backing of big business, and Washington, for a government that can divert or suppress unrest, impose the corporate elites austerity requirements and prepare for further US-led wars. In his official welcome message to conference delegates, Labor Party National President Wayne Swan gave some indication of Labors fears. He referenced the political disaffection and re-emerging class struggle, which is now wracking all the long-standing political parties, from the Yellow Vest movement in France to the crisis gripping the May government in Britain and the Trump administration in the US. Swan, who was the countrys national treasurer throughout the last Labor government from 2007 to 2013, warned: Politics in so many parts of the world today have become populist, ragged and ugly. At the same time, we have seen parties representing hundreds of years of democratic tradition in their countries put to the sword, either by the electorate or by internal insurgenciessometimes by both. The 224-page final draft platform for the December 1618 conference reflects that anxiety. It commits a Labor government to restore trust and faith in the parliamentary order, amid worsening social inequality, a disrupted world driven by the US-China conflict and danger signs of an economic crash. Too many Australians are disengaged from their democracy and distrustful of their representatives; too many people suspect politicians are only in it for themselvesand too often they are right, the draft platform warns. Hence, under the banner of A Fair Go for Australia, the document claims that Labors mission is to create a more equal and inclusive society. It holds out the prospect of a fairer distribution of political and economic power, wealth and income. This typifies the platforms vacuous language, however. Throughout the sections on health, education, housing, welfare and disability programs, there is virtually nothing concrete on what a Labor government would do to reverse the deteriorating conditions in these essential services. At the same time, the document vows, in its opening section, to ensure a responsible fiscal policy. In fact, as part of Labors pitch to big business, Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen has pledged to deliver bigger budget surpluses than the Coalition government. This inevitably means further reducing social spending. While the platform declares that inequality has risen over the past generation, it omits the fact that this process initiated by the Hawke-Keating Labor governments of 198396 and accelerated under the Rudd-Gillard Labor administrations of 200713. On the contrary, the document hails these governments for economic reform through the Hawke and Keating years and seeing Australia through the [200809] global financial crisis without recession. Working in close partnership with the trade unions, Hawke and Keating enforced the greatest ever-redistribution of wealth and taxes to benefit the financial elite, while Rudd and Gillard bailed out the banks and finance houses, all at the expense of the jobs and conditions of the working class. Significantly, the platform also lauds previous Labor governments for the creation of a genuinely national economy in wartime. This is a revealing reference to Labors role as the preeminent capitalist party of war and crisis, having been called to office during the 1930s Great Depression and both world wars. A nationalist and militarist thread runs through the document, starting with the slogan, which refers to a fair go for Australia, not for Australians or Australian working people. It sets out a program to shore up the interests of Australian imperialism, especially in the face of escalating US-China tensions. Its unequivocal pro-US orientation contrasts with that of the Coalition, which has been wracked by rifts generated by the dependence of major sections of business on Chinese markets. Just before he was ousted in August, ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had sought to repair relations with Beijing, as he tried to balance between the US and China. Noting Chinas rise as a great power and global economic giant, the platform declares that the US alliance is critical to Australias national security requirements in vitally important areas, including intelligence, military equipment and the US long-term role in underpinning broader stability in the region. In reality, the Trump administration, intensifying the confrontational stance begun by the Obama administration, is destabilising the Indo-Pacific by instigating a trade and economic war against China and continuing the US military build-up throughout the region. Given the massive profits at stake in China, Labors platform pays lip service to extending Australias engagement with China. But it echoes Washington in blaming pre-emptive claims to oceanic features for producing potential flashpoints in our region. Without explicitly naming China, this is an obvious reference to Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea. Turnbulls government had declined US requests to send warships and planes into these areas to join provocative US freedom of navigation operations. The document pledges to further ramp up military spending, on top of the $200 billion already promised by the Coalition government over the next decade, and foster a strong national defence industry. This must become a national mission, uniting business, the trade unions, all tiers of government and the vocational and tertiary institutions. Without openly declaring the need to prepare for war, the platform insists on ensuring sovereign capability by producing military weapons in Australia to the greatest extent possible. No mention is made of the billions of dollars required for this expansion. Anticipating unrest, the platform commits a Labor government to ensure that the security agencies and police can acquire such additional powers they may need to meet the changing national security threats. To enhance the industrial policing role of the trade unions, the document pledges to facilitate multi-employer collective bargaining and include unions alongside business, community and other appropriate interests in constituted boards, committees and consultative bodies. This is in line with the Australian Council of Trade Unions Change the Rules campaign, which is seeking to stem the rapid loss of union members, especially among young and the lowest-paid workers, and incorporate the unions into German-style corporatist partnerships with big business. On refugee policy, the platform commits Labor to retaining offshore detention and robust border security measures. This is code for militarily repelling refugee boats. An editorial in Rupert Murdochs Australian on Wednesday signalled the readiness of key sections of the ruling class to support Labors return to office. It contrasted Shorten Labors discipline, unity and political skills with the Coalitions tendency to fall into amateur-hour chaos. The test of Shortens mettle would come at the national conference, the editorial insisted, specifying strict adherence to the anti-refugee policy, plans for flexible workplaces to deliver productivity and Bowens commitment to bigger budget surpluses. These are the marching orders for the Labor and union leadership at the conference and beyond. The author also recommends: Australian Labor Party president warns of collapsing membership [13 February 2018] The Conservative government-led campaign against health tourism, which scapegoats migrants for the collapse of the National Health Service (NHS) resulting from budget cuts, is forcing hospitals to charge overseas patients for vital operations and treatments. Clinicians already working under enormous pressure due to staff shortages are being compelled to become enforcement officers for the Border Agency rather than treating patients. As a result, hundreds of migrants deemed ineligible for free health care have been denied treatment for serious health problems including cancer, arrhythmia and cardiac chest pains. Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted by the Guardian covering 84 of Englands 148 acute hospital trusts found that 2,279 patients were charged upfront between October 2017 and June 2018. Of these, 341 patients across 61 trusts did not proceed with their intended treatments or appointments after being told to pay. The true figure across all trusts is certain to be higher, given that 64 trusts did not supply figures. The human stories behind these numbers are harrowing, with cancer sufferers being denied treatment unless they can either pay upfront or produce the correct paperwork, and some sufferers dying from the disease. A 71-year-old Jamaican woman, Elfreda Spencer, died of sepsis this year after being denied chemotherapy, because she and her family could not afford to pay the upfront cost of 30,000 for her treatment. She was diagnosed with advanced stage multiple myeloma in 2016 when taken ill while visiting her family in London. Borrowing arguments from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the far right, the Department of Health issued a statement justifying such inhumanity, stating, The NHS is a national, not an international, health service. In addition to upfront charging for services, the Immigration Act of 2014, brought under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government, provides statutory coverage that requires non-European Economic Area migrants (workers, students, family members) to pay a surcharge that provides them some NHS services for free at the point of need, for the duration of their stay. People on visitors visas are explicitly excluded from any free NHS services under the surcharge scheme. This also applies to overseas NHS workers, who are not immediately entitled to NHS services that they play a critical role in providing. This surcharge is currently set at 200, but there are proposals to increase this by 100 percent to 400. Health experts point out that upfront charging risks worsening the health of already sick patients. In some cases, it can lead to public health hazards, if a patient with contagious infection does not seek medical treatment due to financial barriers. Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association Council, warned, It is vital that acutely ill people arent deterred from receiving care due to bureaucratic and financial obstacles, especially when this could result in patients becoming more ill, requiring emergency treatment and putting further strain on NHS resources. Dr. Katherine Taylor, health adviser to the Doctors of the World medical charity, which runs clinics providing free treatment to people excluded from mainstream health care, said, The upfront charging regulations must be withdrawn and the government should, at the very least, carry out and make public the results of a human rights impact assessment of upfront charging. These attacks on migrant workers and their family members are a prelude to destroying the cradle to the grave principle of universal health care for all, free at the point of delivery. As well as the profits to be made through privatisation and the money saved by not treating the poor, the British ruling class hates the NHS as the main symbol of what remains of the post-war welfare state. The ongoing budget deficits in the NHS are such that Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are reviewing the scope of free services provided and introducing thresholds to ration health provision across the country. A report by the Royal College of Surgeons in April 2016 found that numerous CCGs in England were restricting access to non-urgent surgery based on a patients negative lifestyle decisions: 34 percent of 200 CCGs who responded to FOI requests are restricting access to surgery for smokers and obese patients. 22 percent are placing mandatory BMI or weight requirements on obese patients seeking replacement hip or knee joints. Luton CCG requires a patients BMI to be under 30 (the cut off for obesity), with mandatory referral to weight management services before any planned surgical procedure. East and North Hertfordshire CCG has a similar policy, but with the caveat that if a BMI under 30 cannot be reached patients can be referred to surgery if they manage weight loss of 10 percent. 13 CCGs (6.5 percent) have a policy that usually stops patients who smoke from receiving hip and knee surgery. This author recommends Behind the UK government attack on health tourism [24 February 2017] North Carolina election officials have declined to announce the winner of the election for the states Ninth Congressional District after suspecting tampering with absentee ballots, favoring the GOP candidate. As the vote count stands now, Republican Mark Harris received just over 900 votes more than Democrat Dan McCready. However, the state board of elections made reference to unfortunate activities that raised doubts about the veracity of the election results. The reports of suspicious activity and eyewitness accounts point to fraud. Political analysts in North Carolina noted the Ninth District had an unusually high number of absentee ballots requested but not returned to be counted. Almost one in four requested ballots were not returned, a rate significantly higher than other North Carolina districts. The suspicion is that absentee ballots were collected from voters by campaign aidesan action which is illegal under state lawand then destroyed if they were thought likely to favor the Democratic candidate. Most of the fraud seems to be focused on Bladen and Robeson counties, in the southeast corner of the state. Michael Bitzer, a professor at Catawba College, analyzed the unusual trend in the Ninth District counties. Over 60 percent of absentee ballots were not returned in Robeson county, and over 40 percent in Bladen. Bitzer noted that Bladen county was the only area Harris won the mail-in absentee vote, with 61 percent of the votes, compared to McCreadys 38 percent. These results raised eyebrows in North Carolinas election offices. Based on the partisan breakdown of mail-in ballots in the county, Harris would have to secure the votes of all the Republican voters (19 percent of the total) in addition to nearly all ballots from unaffiliated voters and a sizeable number of Democratic votes. Local news outlet WSOC reported lawyers from the Democratic Party sent affidavits to the state board detailing shady activities in relation to absentee ballots. Eyewitness accounts in the affidavits include: David Sheppard says he overheard people talking outside a polling station who said Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr., a well known political operative in the locality, would receive a sum of $40,000 if Mark Harris won the election. Sheppard also testified people hire [Dowless] to work their campaigns for them to get the votes to get them elected. A voter says a young woman came to her house and asked for her absentee ballot because she was collecting them. Although the voter only made her choice for two offices, the woman collecting the ballot said she would fill out the rest. Another voter also says a woman came to her house and claimed she was responsible for collecting absentee ballots. The voter filled out her ballot while the young woman waited. The woman collecting ballots never asked the voter to sign the ballot and did not place the ballot in a sealed envelope. An unverified affidavit claims an individual actually talked with Dowless during the Republican primary election. According to this person, Dowless claimed to be working for Harris and stated he only accepted cash payments from campaigns. An analysis by the Washington Post shows Leslie McCrae Dowless, Jr, the man who seems to be at the center of the election fraud, has been working local elections for both Democrats and Republicans for at least eight years. In 2010, Dowless was paid over $7,000 to provide get-out-and-vote services to Harold Popes bid for district attorney. With Dowless aid, Pope managed to win 81 percent of absentee ballots in Bladen County, and 52 percent of overall absentee ballots in the Ninth District. Pope ultimately lost the election but would have lost the absentee vote by a margin of 3 to 1 without Dowless. Dowless has worked at least five campaigns since 2010 where he was identified as the manager responsible for collecting absentee ballots in Bladen that were either altered or never sent in to be counted. In three of the campaigns hes been involved in, candidates received significantly more support in Bladen than outside of the county According to an NBC News analysis of election documents, Dowless turned in 590 absentee ballot request forms from late August to late October 2018. A Jessica Dowless turned in another 185 applications. At least 86 returned ballots include witness signatures from those with ties to Dowlesseither those who share a last name with him or have been linked to him in some capacity. By state law, two witnesses must sign a certification affixed to the outside of a mailed-in ballot. Red Dome Group, a political consulting firm, hired Dowless as an independent contractor and assisted with the Harris campaign. According to state records, the group was paid $430,000 by Harris for services which included the press, strategy, and specific outreach efforts for absentee voting in Bladen County. It is unclear how much money went to Dowless himself. North Carolina has been one of the states Republicans have fought ferociously against alleged voter fraud, mainly targeting in-person voting by illegal immigrants or others ineligible to vote, an extremely rare occurrence in US politics. The far more likely avenue for falsifying election outcomes is through absentee ballots, an area of electoral activity where Republicans once dominated so thoroughly that North Carolina Democrats tightened rules in the early 2000s, when they were in power in the state legislature, in an effort to starve Republicans of potential votes. In 2013, after the Republicans had taken control of the legislature, they reversed the previous law and passed one of the most aggressive voter-identification laws in the US. As federal courts have found, such laws reduce turnout for African American and other minority voters who have a harder time getting accepted identification. The nationwide campaign against voter fraud is rife with racism. GOP candidates are aware impoverished minority populations are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates and employ tactics to minimize minority turnout. In the election between Harris and McCready, an analysis by the News & Observer found that the ballots of minority voters were not returned to be counted at disproportionate rates. More than four out of 10 ballots requested by African American voters did not make it back to election officials. That number jumps to more than 60 percent for Native American voters. In comparison, white voters ballots non-return rate was just 17 percent. The election fraud in North Carolina does not place the Democratic Party on a moral high ground. They carried out similar practices when they had the chance. Furthermore, Dowless was himself a registered Democrat before becoming a Republican, and he was hired by a Democratic candidate in 2016. It is an irony of the 2018 elections that the Democrat who was apparently the victim of systematic vote fraud, Dan McCready, is one of those the WSWS has identified as the CIA Democrats, an ex-military officer turned green capitalist who greatly outspent his Republican rival for the seat. It is quite likely that the state election board and the state Republican Party are only willing to acknowledge the fraud in the Ninth District because McCready is considered an acceptable, i.e., right-wing Democrat, and because Mark Harris, a Baptist pastor long at odds with the party establishment, had ousted the incumbent Republican Congressman Robert Pittenger in the primary. There is no faction of the American ruling class genuinely committed to democratic principles. Across the US, laws and rules are set in place that make it nearly impossible for any third party to win an election. Both parties also employ gerrymandering, re-drawing district lines to ensure victories in elections without competition. When they have control over state elections, the two capitalist parties employ whatever means necessary to keep their monopoly on power. The two-day visit of Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to Israel this week is only the latest episode in the increasingly open alliance between the Zionist state and resurgent forces of the far-right and neo-fascism in Europe and beyond. Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant Lega party, has become the dominant figure in Italys right-wing coalition government, setting an agenda based on the slogan of Italians first and vowing to cleanse Italy of undocumented migrants by force if necessary. He has in both deed and word resurrected the politics of Italian fascism, which was responsible for the systematic suppression of Italian Jews, who were stripped of their rights under racial laws enacted by the dictator Benito Mussolini and deported to concentration camps, where nearly 10,000 died, most of them at Auschwitz. Salvini has deliberately invoked the legacy of Mussolini, citing Il Duces sayings and stressing the supposedly positive achievements of Italian fascism. His political rallies are regularly attended by fascist militants carrying portraits of the dictator and other symbols of his regime. Last July, on the occasion of Mussolinis birthday, Salvini tweeted: tanti nemici, tanto onore, meaning so many enemies, so much honor, a slight variation of Mussolini's famous slogan molti nemici, molto onore, or many enemies, much honor. The xenophobic and anti-Muslim policies he has implemented hauntingly parallel the persecution of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s. His anti-immigrant crackdown has seen Italy turn away boatloads of refugees, including children and pregnant women, just as ships bearing Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were turned away eight decades ago. He has also called for the state to register all of Italys Roma people, along with the cleansing of all non-Italian Roma from the country and the demolition of their illegal houses. Jewish groups in Italy protested the proposal, pointing to its chilling similarity to the racial laws enacted against the Jews under Mussolini. This is the man welcomed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a great friend of Israel and taken Wednesday to Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, for the traditional photo-op. Within both Israel and among Italys Jewish population there was opposition and anger over the visit. During an evening tour of Jerusalem, Salvini was booed in the streets, with protesters shouting, Fascist, we dont want you here. Italian Jewish organizations addressed a letter to Salvini, demanding that he use the visit to condemn anti-Semitic acts, oblivion and trivialization of the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s [committed] by movements and parties belonging to the ethno-nationalistic far right in Italy and Europe. Of course, he did no such thing. Among broad layers of Jews, both within Israel and internationally, the fact that Israel, whose founding was defended with the claim that it would provide a refuge from fascism and anti-Semitism, is now welcoming and allying itself with fascists and anti-Semites is a source of extreme disquiet and revulsion. Salvini is only the latest in a long line of such great friends to pay their visit to Yad Vashem, which some Israeli critics of the Netanyahu government have described as a washing machine, where far-right figures go to clean themselves up, absolving themselves of their anti-Semitism through their support for Israel. In the Israeli daily Haaretz, Anshel Pfeffer wrote: It is clear what they come for on the political level. Politicians who are historically tainted with their partys past associations with fascist and neo-Nazi roots can get Israels kashrut [kosher] stamp by visiting the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. Among these pilgrims has been Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has described Admiral Miklos Horthy, Hungarys World War II-era dictator, who collaborated with the Nazis in the murder of some 565,000 Jews, as an exceptional statesman. Like Salvini, he has engaged in a relentless demonization of the US-based, Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, with openly anti-Semitic overtones, portraying his funding of immigrant aid groups as part of a plot to rob European nations of their Christian and racial heritage. Another friend to visit the Yad Vashem washing machine was Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who rules as part of a coalition with the Freedom Party, a far-right group founded by two former Nazi SS officers. After a guide pointed out to him that some of the same Austrian towns memorialized at the site for the slaughter of their Jewish populations had recently seen anti-Semitic acts by members of the Freedom Party, the Austrian government filed a formal complaint with the Netanyahu government, which compelled the museum to issue an apology. Nor are such relations restricted to Europe. Also making the trek to Yad Vashem was the autocratic ruler of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, who publicly praised Hitler and vowed to emulate him by exterminating three million criminals. His pilgrimage to Israel was driven in large measure by the desire to procure arms to conduct this slaughter. And Netanyahu has announced his plans to attend the inauguration of the fascistic former army captain Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil. Bolsonaro, who has praised the countrys former dictatorship and extolled the virtues of torture, had said during the election campaign that he would ape Donald Trump by moving the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu has cast his embrace of the far right as a brilliant exercise in realpolitik, stating during a trip to Budapest last year that he could leverage these regimes against Old Europe, which has continued to make its formal criticisms of Israel for its illegal occupation and settlements policy and maintain the pretense of upholding some rights for the Palestinians. Such a reactionary strategy would be bad enough. But the alliance between the Israeli state and the far-right is not merely a pragmatic foreign policy exercise. There is a natural ideological and political affinity that stems both from Israels present day political and social policies as well as the historical roots of Zionism. For their part, the far right and the neo-fascists admire the Zionist state for its racist policies and its determination to build an ethno-centrist society by means of Apartheid-style oppression of the Palestinian people. The passage last July of the so-called Nation-State Law enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state is something that they would like to emulate with their own xenophobic and racialist laws. The same social and economic contradictions that are giving rise to the growth of neo-fascism in Europe and elsewhere are producing similar results in Israel itself. A garrison state involved in continuous acts of militarism in the Middle East, Israel is also wracked by social tensions, registering the highest poverty rate of any of the so-called developed countries and the most extreme social inequality, with the exception of the United States. These conditions have generated mounting working class protests and strikes, including a recent nationwide walkout by social workers over poor pay and deteriorating working conditions. Zionism itself is one variant of extreme nationalism. Before World War II and the Holocaust, it was a relatively isolated movement, which arose as a peculiar expression of the nationalism that prevailed in eastern Europe in the 19th centuryone based not on universal democratic principles, but rather on exclusivist conceptions of racial, religious and linguistic hegemony. These same ideological conceptions were to underpin the rise of fascism. A column published Thursday in the Israeli daily Haaretz drew attention to the seemingly paradoxical affinity between Zionism and fascism, noting that the Zionist movements principal founder, Theodor Herzl, believed that people with anti-Semitic views would help realize his dream because of their desire to get the Jews out of their own countries. As the Zionist state has embraced anti-Semites and neo-fascists in Europe and elsewhere, it has pursued an aggressive worldwide campaign to brand as an anti-Semite who must be silenced anyone on the left daring to criticize the daily crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Presumably such a proscription should apply to anyone opposing the far-right and neo-fascist friends of Israel. Just days before Salvinis visit, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Daniel Schwammenthal of the American Jewish Committee declaring that Far leftistsincluding Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britains Labour Partypick up traditional anti-Semitic tropes, replace Jews with Zionists, and deny anti-Semitism. Such slanders are part of the hysterical campaign raging throughout Europe, and in particular in Britain, to discredit left-wing political views with false accusations of anti-Semitism. Salvinis visit exposes the filthy and absurd character of these charges and shows that the Israeli state, not its left-wing critics, is guilty of boosting neo-fascism and anti-Semitism. The alliance between the Israeli government and far-right and fascistic forces on a global scale is the clearest barometer of the bankruptcy and reactionary dead-end of the entire Zionist project. The way forward for the masses of Jewish and Arab workers in Israel and throughout the region lies in a united struggle to overthrow the Zionist state and the various bourgeois Arab regimes in the region and replace them with a United Socialist States of the Middle East. This perspective requires the building of a new revolutionary leadership through the construction of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Israel and across the Middle East. Yesterday evening, the Sri Lankan Supreme Court (SC) ruled that President Maithripala Sirisenas decision to dissolve parliament was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Nalin Perera delivered the unanimous verdict by seven judges of the countrys highest court. The ruling is another blow to Sirisena. He had aimed to hold general elections next month after his October 26 parliamentary coup to replace Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with former President Mahinda Rajapakse. The court decision, far from resolving the intensifying political crisis of capitalist rule in the island, will aggravate it further. The ruling did not annul the illegal appointment of Rajapakse and his cabinet of ministers. Moreover, Rajapakse has appealed to the Supreme Court against an earlier Appeals Court verdict suspending his government, and that case is listed for hearing today. In yesterdays ruling, the court said that if Sirisena wanted to dissolve the parliament early, within four-and-a-half years of its inauguration, a resolution must be passed by a two-thirds majority in parliament. The 19th amendment to countrys constitution, passed in parliament after the former Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government took office following the January 2015 presidential elections, introduced that limit to the presidents power to dissolve parliament. Following the October 26 political coup, Sirisena initially prorogued parliament to give Rajapakse enough time to engage in horse-trading. Rajapakse tried to concoct a majority in parliament through various means, including offering MPs ministerial portfolios and financial bribes. When that attempt failed, Sirisena dissolved parliament and called for new elections. Sirisena calculated that holding elections under Rajapakses caretaker government would give Rajapakse the advantage of using state resources. Moreover, since Rajapakses camp had made considerable gains at local government elections held in February, voters might provide him a majority in parliament too. However, several rival political parties, including Wickremesinghes United National Party (UNP), the Sinhala extremist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), and several civil organisations filed a fundamental right petition challenging Sirisenas decision to dissolve parliament. The Supreme Court initially issued an interim order suspending Sirisenas dissolution of the parliament, leading to the resumption of parliaments proceedings but without Wickremesinghes cabinet. Yesterdays unanimous verdict is a clear indication of growing concerns within the ruling elite that the continuing factional conflict will further discredit capitalist rule as a whole. Broad sections of working people, youth and rural toilers of all communities already are being drawn into struggles against the austerity measures implemented by successive governments. The political crisis erupted in the context of the growing geo-political tensions engulfing the island and all of South Asia, involving the US, the Western powers and India on the one side, and China on the other side. The global economic crisis has also intensified since the 2008 financial crash. Sirisenas anti-democratic moves reflect a further shift by the entire ruling class toward dictatorial forms of rule to crush the mounting social opposition. Neither faction of the elitethe Sirisena-Rajapakse wing or Wickremesinghes UNPdefends basic democratic rights, contrary to their claims. The UNP and Wickremesinghe have been brutal in cracking down on the struggles of workers, youths, students and farmers. The Supreme Court verdict also is a clear response to escalating pressure by the US and its allies on Sirisena against his installation of Rajapakse. These powers have no concern either about defending democratic norms. Washington sponsored a regime-change operation in 2015 to oust Rajapakse and install Sirisena in order to integrate Sri Lanka into the US-led military-strategic offensive against China. Rajapakse had forged close ties with Beijing. The US-led powers, including India, are concerned that Rajapakses return would undermine the military ties developed under Wickremesinghe. Hailing the Supreme Court verdict, Wickremesinghe said his party trusts that the president will promptly respect the judgment. He tweeted: The legislature, judiciary and the executive are equally important pillars of a democracy and the checks and balances that they provide are crucial to ensuring the sovereignty of its citizens. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake also praised the court decision, attempting to spread dangerous illusions in the judges as defenders of democracy. At the same time, he attempted to distance the JVP from the UNP, with which it has been in effect closely aligned. Disanayake said: It is clear that both Maithripala Sirisena and Mahinda Rajapakse have acted unconstitutionally and undemocratically. Lets not forget the undemocratic tactics of Ranil Wickremesinghe. The JVP is well aware of the widespread public hostility to both camps of the ruling class and is attempting to exploit this disaffection to leverage a bigger political role for itself. Yesterdays court decision in no way lessens the dangers confronting the working class, youth and oppressed masses produced by the shift toward authoritarian forms of rule, as expressed through Sirisenas unconstitutional moves. Since the interim appeals court order to suspend Rajapakse and his cabinet ministers, Sirisena has concentrated the powers of all ministries in his hands, working directly with top state bureaucrats and military leaders, bypassing any parliamentary oversight. These developments have powerfully vindicated what the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) has warned from the beginning of the political turmoil. The working class must not support any of the warring factions of the elite. It must make its own political intervention into the crisis, rallying the oppressed masses through the program and perspective of international socialism. The SEP is intensifying its political fight to mobilise the working class on that independent political line, stressing the need to struggle for a workers and peasants government, as a part of a Union of Socialist Republics in South Asia and the broader struggle for socialism internationally. This statement will be distributed at a mass demonstration of teachers and their supporters in Los Angeles, California on Saturday. As Los Angeles teachers, students and parents converge this Saturday in a mass rally in downtown Los Angeles, they are part a growing movement worldwide of teachers, students and workers against social inequality and austerity. This week, hundreds of thousands of yellow vest protesters in France were joined by teachers and high school students denouncing education reforms and the reintroduction of the draft. Giving voice to this struggle, one student said, I want a merging of the movement of students, railway workers, yellow vests, of the entire world to put an end to this world of inequality and injustice. This is exactly right. This is one fight, the world over. On one side are hundreds of millions of workers and young people. On the other side is a tiny oligarchy of billionaires who are demanding the destruction of public education, healthcare, and pensions. In the US, Los Angeles educators take their place alongside Oakland teachers who engaged in wildcat sickouts this week demanding wage increases, smaller class sizes and better conditions; Fremont teachers who are pressing for strike action after receiving an insulting one percent pay raise offer; and Chicago charter school teachers who struck for similar demands. Teachers in Virginia, Indiana and South Carolina are now threatening to strike after walkouts in the state of Washington and the wave of strikes earlier this year in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, Colorado and other states. Allied with the Democratic Party, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and the California Teachers Association have kept Los Angeles teachers on the job for more than a year without a new contract, despite a 98 percent strike mandate from educators. The unions and the Democrats have kept teachers tied up in endless mediation and fact-finding schemes even though the school district continues to offer insulting pay increases and demands for more takeaways. It does not take a rocket scientist to know what the facts are: educators need good wages and benefits in order to cope with rising housing, health care and other living expenses. They need a substantial increase in school funding to make class sizes smaller, hire more nurses, counselors and special education teachers and adequately supply their classrooms. Educators need increased social services to address chronic poverty, homelessness and other social ills that afflict their students. The entire corporate and political establishment, headed by the Democratic governor, state legislature and mayor, insists there is no money for any of these basic necessities. If they get their way, California will remain near the bottom of all US states in per pupil spending (46th) and the student-to-teacher ratio (48th). Standardized tests and rigged evaluations will continue to be used to scapegoat teachers, close schools and divert money to for-profit charter businesses. The WSWS Teacher Newsletter and the Socialist Equality Party urge teachers to take matters into their own hands by electing rank-and-file committees at every school and in every community. These committees should set a strike date and build up the broadest support among staff, students, parents and other sections of workers for a struggle. Committees in Los Angeles should link up with educators in Oakland and across California to prepare a statewide strike to defend public education. The trade unions like the UTLA and its national organization, the American Federation of Teachersheaded by Randi Weingarten, who has an annual income of more than $500,000do not unite workers; they divide them. This was the role of the unions in every struggle of teachers this year, which emerged outside of the unions themselves. The AFT plays the same role as the United Auto Workers, which has imposed decades of concessions contracts, and the Teamsters, which imposed a sell-out contract on 250,000 UPS workers this year despite a majority no vote. The UTLA and CTA are opposed to a strike because that would quickly develop into a direct political confrontation with the state Democrats and inspire teachers around the country to follow suit. That is why the UTLA has kept teachers on the job and offered no resistance when LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner fired 15 percent of district staff and announced plans for further privatization of the district under the cover of autonomy for individual units and greater parental engagement. The formation of independent organizations of working class struggle must be connected to the building of a political leadership in the working class, opposed to both the Democrats and Republicans, based on a socialist and revolutionary program. There is plenty of money to improve teacher salaries and public education. California is the home of 143 billionaires on the Forbes Rich List. A 100 percent wealth tax on fortunes above $10 million on just the top fourFacebooks Mark Zuckerberg ($71 billion), Microsofts Larry Ellison ($58.5 billion), Googles Larry Page ($48.4 billion) and Teslas Elon Musk ($19.9 billion)would resolve the school funding crisis overnight and provide the resources to guarantee living wages for teachers and a healthy learning environment for their students. Jerry Brown, governor-elect Gavin Newsom, Mayor Eric Garcetti, US Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats, no less than Trump and the Republicans, serve the interests of the rich, not working people. Far from encroaching on their grotesque fortunes, they insist that teachers and other workers accept even more sacrifices in order to fund more corporate tax cuts, bailouts of banks and corporations, like PG&E, and endless wars for conquest and profit. An improvement of conditions for working people, whose collective labor produces all of societys wealth, is only possible through a frontal assault on the corporate and financial oligarchy, the seizure of their fortunes and a radical redistribution of wealth. Tens of millions of workers and young people are opposed to inequality, militarism, anti-immigrant attacks, police brutality and other forms of state repression, and there is a growing support for socialism in the US and around the world. The WSWS and SEP are spearheading the fight to organize the working class, including through the formation last weekend of a steering committee of auto and other workers to oppose layoffs and concessions, independent of the unions. Rank-and-file committees of teachers and other educators will link up their struggles with every other section of workersauto workers, hotel, garment and health care workers, Amazon and UPS workers, oil workers and othersto fight for the social right to good-paying and secure jobs and fully funded social programs for all workers and young people. This must be combined with a political strategy to unite all workers, black, white, native born and immigrant, in the US and around the world in a fight for socialism. Only hours after a Manhattan federal judge sentenced Donald Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to three years in prison on Wednesday, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York revealed that the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid and its chief executive had corroborated Cohens claim that Trump was complicit in violations of campaign finance laws in the 2016 presidential election. The guilty pleas by Cohen and the admission by American Media Inc. (AMI) and its CEO, longtime Trump associate-turned anti-Trump informer David Pecker, appear to place the president in serious legal jeopardy. They coincide with growing talk of impeachment proceedings when the new Democratic-controlled House of Representatives convenes next month, and suggestions that Trump could be criminally indicted. Cohen had pleaded guilty to nine counts of campaign finance violations, tax evasion, lying to Congress and lying to banks. The lying to Congress charge was brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in connection with Cohens cover-up of business negotiations between the Trump Organization and Russian officials over a Moscow hotel project, which extended well into the 2016 campaign and involved then-presumptive Republican nominee Trump and Trump family members. The other charges were brought by the US Attorney in Manhattan. The most damaging for Trump was Cohens admission that he paid $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and arranged for a $150,000 payoff to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to prevent the two from going public on the eve of the election with their claims of sexual affairs with Trump. In legal filings in connection with Cohens plea deal, prosecutors asserted, based on Cohens testimony, that Cohen had acted in coordination with and at the direction of Trump for the purpose of influencing the election. Since the payoffs exceeded legal campaign limits and had not been reported to federal election authorities, they constituted a breech of campaign finance laws, a felony, they argued. And they directly charged Trump with complicity in the legal violations. AMI and Pecker, in return for an agreement by prosecutors not to criminally prosecute them for any campaign finance violations, admitted to the same crime in relation to the payoff of McDougal. They acknowledged that they bought the rights to her story for $150,000 in order to suppress it, that they did so to influence the outcome of the election, and that they acted under the direction of Trump. Perhaps most potentially damaging to Trump in AMIs agreement with prosecutors was its description of a meeting in August 2015, early on in Trumps presidential run, attended by Cohen and Pecker along with at least one other person linked to the Trump campaign. At this meeting, the participants agreed that the publisher would help the campaign by identifying dangerous stories concerning Trumps relationships with women so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. This admission could provide the basis for a conspiracy charge. These developments make clear that the long-running conflict between pro- and anti-Trump factions within the ruling class and the state is reaching a new stage (see: Political warfare in Washington escalates to crisis of capitalist rule). Growing sections of the ruling elite are losing confidence in Trump and his ability to handle a mounting crisis for American capitalism. Under conditions of intensifying geo-political tensions, signs of impending recession, losses and volatility on the stock market and an upsurge of working class struggle internationally and within the US, there is concern that Trump is undermining longstanding ideological props of US imperialist foreign policy and political stability at home. Trumps defense of Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, along with his backing for fascists at last years neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville and his bullying on the world stage are shattering the pretense that the United States stands for freedom, democracy and human rightsa myth that has played a critical role in US imperialist operations internationally. Even greater than concerns that Trump is backing away from the Obama administrations hard line against Russia, which has underlain the Muller Russia investigation and dominated the Democratic Partys opposition to Trump, is a more basic and generalized fear that Trump may be jeopardizing the stability of American capitalism itself, both abroad and at home. This is underscored by the Senate vote on Thursday, one day after the sentencing of Cohen and the revelation of the non-prosecution agreement with Pecker and AMI, to condemn the Saudi crown prince for Khashoggis murder and call for an end to US participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, with seven Republicans breaking ranks and voting with the Democrats. Trump has reportedly privately told associates that he is concerned over the possibility of impeachment. He has changed his story on the payoffs to Daniels and McDougal from saying he had no knowledge of them to denying any direct involvement to claiming in recent days that they had nothing to do with his campaign, but were instead a purely private matter. However, the New York Times quoted Richard L. Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine, as saying: Its looking a lot like an illegal and unreported in-kind corporate contribution to help the campaign, exposing the Trump campaign and Trump himself to possible criminal liability. Over the weekend, New York Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who will become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in January, described the hush money payoffs as impeachable offenses. Nadler will head the body responsible for drawing up articles of impeachment and overseeing impeachment hearings, should they take place. Interviewed on CNN Thursday, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he disagreed with Justice Department guidelines saying that a sitting president cannot be indicted. My personal belief, based on the review of the law that I have done, is that the president could be indicted, he said. Florida Republican Marco Rubio refused to rule out an indictment against Trump, telling CNN, No one in this country is above the law. That Trumps legal problems are likely to increase is indicated by growing media attention on Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Weisselberg was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury and granted witness immunity by prosecutors in the Cohen investigation earlier this year. And Cohen himself has pledged to tell all in regard to his dealings with Trump, perhaps in the hope of obtaining a reduction in his sentence. His legal adviser, Lanny Davis, a top aide during the Clinton presidency, said Cohen would be willing to testify before Congress after Mueller releases his report. Cohen, he declared, would state publicly all he knows about Mr. Trump. OXFORD, Miss. (WTVA) - An employee is accused of stealing money from her employer in Oxford. On December 7, Oxford police took a report from a local business of an employee stealing money while on duty. The employee was identified as Andrei Casey, 38, of Batesville. Police say a representative of the business signed an affidavit against Casey. She was arrested on December 8 and charged with embezzlement. TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - Drivers in Lee County are advised to take an alternate route Monday to allow crews to reconstruct a railroad crossing. On December 17, Kansas City Southern Railroad is scheduled to temporarily close State Route 363 in Saltillo. LEFLORE COUNTY, Miss. (WTVA) - A Leflore County family is desperate to find Trinity Harvey, who's been missing since July, and reunite her with her children. Harvey, 27, is the mother of a pair of twins and a three-year-old, according to her grandmother, Allie Harvey. Trinity Harvey Trinity Harvey Harvey has been missing since July, according to the Yalobusha County Sheriff's Office. She is originally from Greenwood but lives in Water Valley. In an exclusive interview with WTVA, Allie said she believes her granddaughter is dead. Harvey's sister, Camille Harvey, believes that as well. "I'm terrified," Camille said. "I mean we all pray for the best outcome on this, but honestly, I believe that my sister is dead. I just can't shake the feeling." Harvey's family said she was active on social media and on her phone. They said for her to vanish is unlike her. Yalobusha County investigators continue to search for Harvey with help from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. If you know where Trinity Harvey is, call your local law enforcement. OXFORD, Miss. (WTVA) - Three people were arrested for allegedly entering a mans home and assaulting him. On December 3, Oxford police responded to a residence for a report of a possible home invasion. When officers arrived, the victim claimed three people entered his home on Olive Branch Way and assaulted him, resulting in minor injuries. The victim identified the suspects as Henry Weston, 31, of Corinth; Laura Weston, 40, of Corinth; and Dedria Beene, 27, of Corinth. Police say all three suspects surrendered themselves to police on December 8. All three were charged with burglary-home invasion. JACKSON, Miss. (WTVA) - The Mississippi Supreme Court has issued a ruling concerning a local inmate who is on death row after killing his estranged wife and holding two children hostage in Union County. Justices are now asking a judge in Union County Circuit Court to decide if David Cox is competent enough to waive his death penalty appeals. Cox told the high court in August he wanted to drop his appeals because he deserved to die for the crime where Kim Cox lost her life in 2010. There is no indication when the lower court will look at the case. Nigerian-born guitarist and vocalist Bombino has worked with the Rolling Stones and Black Keys and tops the World Music charts. Born near the city of Agadez in 1980, Goumour Almoctar taught himself to play guitar listening to recordings of Jimi Hendrix, Dire Straits and Ali Farka Toure. He performed with various Nigerian bands and was given the nickname Bombino as he was always the youngest. He returned to Africa and his roots to record his most recent album, Deran, in Casablanca, singing in his native Tamasheq. His current world tour brings him and his band to Hungary for the first time. Date and time: 21 December, 8 pm Tickets: HUF 2,400 - 4,500 Venue: Mupa Budapest 1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell u. 1. Hungarian oil and gas company MOL has opened a family-friendly gas station in Balatonfoldvar, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, featuring an outdoor playground and other family services, according to a press release. The development was jointly financed by the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTU) and MOL itself. The new services were first enjoyed by a group of local kindergarten pupils, who were also visited by Santa Claus. The press release says that the family-friendly gas station lets parents and grandparents relax, not only children. Apart from the playground, it offers services such as diaper-changing stations, as well as family and childrens toilets, with disability access. "In accordance with the National Tourism Development Strategy, this year we have been focusing on family-friendly developments, improving the quality of hospitality, as signified by the family-friendly stations opening today near one of our destinations with the highest turnover, Balaton," said Szabolcs Juhasz, a director at the MTU. "Family-friendly tourism means a complex tourism development philosophy, which motivates every domestic service provider to approach receiving guests in a child and family-friendly way, with gas stations being an important element." "In Hungary, we have 450 gas stations, and we have child-friendly elements at several of them, with the introduction of even more elements planned," said Andras Orosz, MOLs retail director. Photo: mol.hu The demonstration in Budapest on Wednesday against changes to overtime regulations was unlawful, according to the Prime Ministers Office chief. Commenting on street demonstrations against the overtime regulations, Gergely Gulyas said that the right to free association was enshrined in the constitution but it should be practiced peacefully and within the legal limits. Gulyas said that the demonstration in Kossuth Square in front of Parliament in which protesters threw objects at the police cordon was unlawful. On Wednesday, parliament voted to extend the period employers may account overtime for the purpose of calculating wages and rest days from twelve months to three years, and to raise the upper threshold for annual overtime from 250 to 400 hours. Commenting on jeering opposition lawmakers who blocked the speaker from reaching his podium in a bid to thwart the vote, Gulyas said that they made themselves look ridiculous. Gulyas said the ruling majority had preserved parliaments dignity by ensuring lawful and constitutional operations, he said. The legality of the parliamentary voting system is beyond any reasonable doubt, he added. MTI Photo: Balogh Zoltan / Mohai Balazs / Monus Marton US Ambassador David B. Cornstein said on Thursday that Hungary and America have elevated the dialogue in recent months, while ties are friendly and worthy of two allies. Speaking before parliaments foreign affairs committee, the ambassador referred to the deep bond between the two countries, and said that weve had our ups and downs, but as in any other healthy relationship, weve overcome those differences and emerged stronger and closer through honest and respectful dialogue. The ambassador said the question of NATO unity in respect of the situation in Ukraine was a priority for the US, which, he added, is committed to a democratic and free Ukraine. The United States has made it clear that our support for Ukraine is unbending. We are committed to the success of a stable, prosperous, democratic, and free Ukraine. We support Ukraine as it counters Russian aggression and adopts reforms to increase prosperity, security, and rule of law. It is vital that NATO support Ukraine in its Western aspirations, he said. He also emphasised the importance of energy security and defense cooperation. Cornstein welcomed Hungarys commitment to raise its defense spending by 2% of GDP by 2024 and he added that the US is ready to support Hungarys ambitious defense modernisation plans. Our defense relationship is the envy of many nations, and now we are in the process of formalising this close relationship with the negotiation of a new Defense Cooperation Agreement. This agreement will bring us into the 21st century, and prepare us for new security challenges that we face together as Allies, he said. Regarding energy security, he said Hungary should find a way to diversify energy sources to reduce its dependence on Russia, and the US supports the planned project to build an LPG terminal in Croatia and the construction of the Bulgarian-Romanian-Hungarian-Austrian (BRUA) gas corridor. Another important goal, he said, was to strengthen trade and investment relations between the two countries. US companies consider the government to be very supportive, and the workforce is well trained and industrious, he added. Meanwhile, referring to the Central European Universitys decision to move the bulk of its courses to Vienna, Cornstein said he was truly saddened to see CEU leave Budapest, saying its departure was bad for Hungary. Resolving this dispute was one of my top US priorities and was part of my daily discussions with Hungarian government counterparts at all levels, he added. Levente Magyar, parliamentary state secretary of foreign affairs, said bilateral ties were not burdened by any strategic disagreements and regular consultations would hopefully resolve any contentious issues. He said ties had seen a substantive and qualitative change, with a return to dialogue based on mutual respect. The US is still one of Hungarys top trading partners, and the security relations have never been as intensive as they are today, he added. In terms of NATO cooperation, no substantive unresolved issues are on the agenda, besides the issue of Ukraine, where, he noted, there was an open attack on national minorities. Dialogue has started and there is a sense of an easing of tensions in bilateral relations, he added. In terms of energy security, Magyar said American and Hungarian interests coincided, and Hungary also believes it must make every effort to diversify its energy supplies. MTI Photo: Szecsodi Balazs Now on until 28 January. The Aszod Juvenile Detention Center is a special place: living here temporarily is both a punishment and an indispensable help for the inmates. This is how photographer Adam Urban writes about the experience: "The Aszod Juvenile Detention Center is a special place: living here temporarily is both a punishment and an indispensable help for the inmates. Once you have visited there, you will surely not forget I know it from my own first-hand experience. As a photographer, I spent some time inside the last year with the guys living there; most of them were there for theft, robbery or some other kind of crime. I got a peek into how their closed community, which rejects all outsiders, operates. At first, they did not accept me either but then they got used to my presence; they started to like me and let me in their inner circle. It says a lot that even this way I could only take my first pictures after a month or so; until then, I walked among them without my camera. The staff shortly recognized my well-intentioned approach: I received a key that opened all doors, and I was free to move around in the institution. While I was inside, I encountered some tense situations, some of which I managed to sort out with the help of my camera. I had several positive experiences as well they gave me lots of gifts, which they themselves made for me. At the same time, I learned some things about them, which the outside world would not know. Some of the inmates are very talented: they wrote poetry, sang very well, or were great at dancing. These experiences and pieces of information are not only recorded in the final photographs, but they are also permanently imprinted in me." Opening hours: Every day 11 am 7 pm. Closed on public holidays. Venue: Capa Center 1065 Budapest, Nagymezo u. 8. The Ariana mining project, on which construction will begin in 2019, is one of the main concerns of the Mining Conflicts Observatory in Peru due to potential leaks of toxic materials into the Rimac River basin, which supplies the drinking water for Perus capital, authorities said in Lima on Wednesday. The Southern Peaks Mining company project is slated to be carried out very near the Transandino Tunnel, through which water flows from the Mantaro River basin into the Rimac River basin, the head author of the 23rd Report of the Mining Conflicts Observatory, Jose de Echave, told the press. The Sedapal (sanitation company) sent an official letter (to the Energy and Mines Ministry) in which it expressed its great concern over the possibilities for environmental impacts that the project could have on the Lima city water supply, he added. De Echave, the co-founder of the non-governmental organization CooperAccion, said that the risks include possible leaks in a zone where there are, at least, six high Andean water bodies and a deposit of mine tailings that is less than 50 meters (yards) from the Transandino Tunnel. The possible leaks and the possible impacts are also acknowledged in the Environmental Impact Study, which has generated concern within the potable water service of Lima, which has some 10 million residents, he said. De Echave added that what concerns us is that this project has been approved in this high-risk zone and were also concerned about the firms history, which - he said - abandoned another mining project in the Quiruvilca zone, in the La Libertad region, which was then invaded by informal or unauthorized miners. He said that this situation shows that Peru needs put its territory in order and see to it that mining projects are not located in zones that are crucial for the issue of water supply. Of a total of 202 social conflicts in Peru in 2018, about 63 percent involved social-environmental issues and, of those, 65 percent were related to mining, according to the Peruvian Ombudsmans Office. Budapest's most creative hobby launches a new group in January 2019. Red Ball Theater, active in Budapest for over three years now, launches it's new improv level 1 group, teaching complete beginner's to improvise a full improvised show in just 8 weeks. The energy of this class is legendary for bringing people together and empowering new events and ventures, with one group even starting the comedy open mic scene last year. Improv is more than acting, it's a master course in social communication and relationships, benefits including: Learning to be effortlessly funny in social situations Developing Magnetic Stage Presence Becoming comfortable with your emotions Finding the flow to relax in life Here's what past students say: "I wholeheartadly recommend Red Ball Theater to anyone who speaks English in Budapest. You will be that actor you always aspired to be. You will find passion, friends, and a sense of self. Go for it!" "...having joined the Beginner Improv Class at the Red Ball Theater, and completed a show in front of friends and strangers, I feel unstoppable! At first really needed to be pushed to even go to the classes but now I'm inviting friends and moving around my schedule just to make sure I can make as many workshops as I can. Still having more to learn, I have seen a big difference of confidence in my 'off the cuff' thinking and sticking to the bit, I plan on attending more classes." Details and registration here. Date and time: 17 January, 7 pm - 10 pm Venue: Roxy Studio 1136 Budapest, Tatra utca 4. Photo credit: Win McNamee - Getty Images From Esquire Unimaginable. Except that, you know, it's not. From The Washington Post: According to CBP records, the girl and her father were taken into custody about 10 p.m. Dec. 6 south of Lordsburg, N.M., as part of a group of 163 people who approached U.S. agents to turn themselves in. More than eight hours later, the child began having seizures at 6:25 a.m., CBP records show. Emergency responders, who arrived soon after, measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, and according to a statement from CBP, she reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days. After a helicopter flight to Providence Childrens Hospital in El Paso, the child went into cardiac arrest and was revived, according to the agency. However, the child did not recover and died at the hospital less than 24 hours after being transported, CBP said. The agency did not release the name of the girl or her father, but the father remains in El Paso awaiting a meeting with Guatemalan consular officials, according to CBP. The agency is investigating the incident to ensure appropriate policies were followed, it said. And before the inevitable trolling begins, as soon as this child was taken into the custody of the United States Border Patrol, she became its responsibility and nobody else's. At that point, it doesn't matter if she had walked here from Guatemala, or Guam, or Jupiter. Once she was in custody, the child's health and well-being became the responsibility of the United States government. It became the responsibility of the United States government to monitor her for any sign of exposure. Photo credit: John Moore - Getty Images (Although it's very hard reading this story not to remember this video of Border Patrol officers pouring out water left in the desert for migrants by church groups.) Back before he was exposed as not merely a big-hat-wearing fool, but a Russian dupe of a big-hat-wearing fool, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, an early and vociferous supporter of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago, allowed an inmate in his jail to die of thirst. We largely are rid of David Clarke from our politics, thank god, but apparently his philosophy of incarceration lives on. Story continues This is cruel, but not unusual. The de facto policy of this administration* is to make the refugee experience so deadly as to discourage people from attempting to flee to this country. The de facto policy of this administration is to whiten the population of this country by any means necessary. (That's why a racist goon like Stephen Miller works in the White House, whereas, with any other president, he wouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of the District of Columbia.) This policy is general throughout the government. While this child was dying in custody, the folks over at ICE once again used her fellow refugees as bait, rounding up people who'd come forward to "sponsor" an immigrant child. As I said, cruel, but not unusual. Photo credit: The Washington Post - Getty Images Article IX of the international Convention on the Rights of the Child which, in 1989, the U.S. government bravely signed, only to have the U.S. Senate bravely refuse to ratify it, pretty much spells out everything that's wrong with the current policy that has led to this child's death. Article 9 1. States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child's place of residence. 2. In any proceedings pursuant to paragraph 1 of the present article, all interested parties shall be given an opportunity to participate in the proceedings and make their views known. Photo credit: Handout - Getty Images 3. States Parties shall respect the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child's best interests. 4. Where such separation results from any action initiated by a State Party, such as the detention, imprisonment, exile, deportation or death (including death arising from any cause while the person is in the custody of the State) of one or both parents or of the child, that State Party shall, upon request, provide the parents, the child or, if appropriate, another member of the family with the essential information concerning the whereabouts of the absent member(s) of the family unless the provision of the information would be detrimental to the well-being of the child. States Parties shall further ensure that the submission of such a request shall of itself entail no adverse consequences for the person(s) concerned. No mention there of children who should die a slow death, alone amid strangers, because it is somehow, in someone's twisted mind, good public policy to allow it. The cruelty in this country's history has been this deliberate before, but rarely has it been this casual. We are governed by monsters now. Photo credit: Win McNamee - Getty Images Naturally, this being Camp Runamuck and all, the blame-shifting has begun. On Friday morning, Secretary of Homeland Security and Misplaced Consonant Victim Kirstjen Nielsen took time off to visit Three Idiots on a Davenport, because that is the crucible of sophisticated discourse and high-level policy thought in this administration. She promptly blamed the child's family, because she is a monstrous cyborg whose soul is a bag of scorpions. What happened was they were about 90 miles away from where we could process them. They came in such a large crowd that it took our border patrol folks a couple times to get them all. We gave immediate care, well continue to look into the situation, but again, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this journey is when migrants choose to come here illegally. She was in custody for over eight freaking hours before anyone did anything. Monsters, all the way down. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) On Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., the jailed Russian national Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring against the United States under the direction of a Russian official. According to the feds, Butinas partners in this conspiracy included the official (widely identified as the former Russian senator and central banker Alexander Torshin) and Person 1, known to be Butinas boyfriend and longtime GOP operative Paul Erickson. The Statement of Offense released by the court reads in part: With U.S. Person 1s assistance and subject to Russian Officials direction, Butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics. Butina sought to use those unofficial lines of communication for the benefit of the Russian Federation. Judge Tanya Chutkan found Butina competent to deliver her plea Thursday and warned her she could be deported after sentencing. Summarizing the charges against Butina, Judge Chutkan spoke of Butina leveraging her contacts with a gun rights organization in an attempt to influence Political Party #1 the GOP. The guilty plea adds a criminal overlay to the years-long effort by Butina and Torshin to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, leveraging the gun groups leadership and its annual conventions to gain influence with top Republicans and the Trump family. A Rolling Stone expose in April detailed the history and scope of the operation. Torshin has since been hit by sanctions and barred from entering the United States. Butina was arrested in July and has been jailed without bail since. Butina, 30, was raised in Siberia, where she grew up competing in shooting competitions. She studied political science and rose to national prominence in 2011 for her participation in the Youth Primaries of the Young Guard of United Russia, a political contest sponsored by Vladimir Putins political party. Butina soon moved to Moscow, where she founded a gun-rights organization, Right to Bear Arms, under the tutelage of Torshin, then a top senator in the Russian government. Story continues At the time of their partnership, Torshin had already been cultivating connections with the leaders of the NRA. He touted Right to Bear Arms as Russias NRA-equivalent. Butinas group hosted exchanges with American gun-rights leaders, including an infamous 2015 trip to Moscow in which NRA members met with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and deputy prime minister for defense Dmitry Rogozin, who had been sanctioned by the U.S. government. The deep ties between the NRA and Right to Bear Arms gave Torshin and Butina cover to mingle freely with top GOP leaders at NRA conventions. Butina snapped selfies pressing the flesh with then-NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA). Butina even succeed in getting John Bolton, now Trumps national security adviser, to make a video presentation to her group. Taking a suspicious interest in the GOP presidential primaries, Butina authored an op-ed for the National Interest in June 2015: It may take the election of a Republican to the White House in 2016 to improve relations between the Russian Federation and the United States, she wrote. Butina first took a shine to Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), before zeroing in on Donald Trump. In July 2015, just weeks into his campaign, she put a question to Trump at a forum in Las Vegas. The future president put himself on record opposing sanctions against Russia. I dont think youd need the sanctions, Trump told Butina. As Butina deepened her American connections, she also forged a romantic relationship with longtime GOP and NRA operative Paul Erickson. Working through Erickson, Torshin and Butina attempted to open a back-channel communication between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Torshin and Butina ultimately met with Donald Trump, Jr., at a dinner connected to the 2016 NRA convention. Until her arrest, Butina remained in the U.S. on a student visa, working on graduate studies at American University and socializing with middle-aged Republicans, including then Trump-campaign national-security adviser J.D. Gordon, who reportedly invited her to a Styx concert. Butinas guilty plea comes with a pledge to cooperate fully with ongoing criminal investigations. That is a danger, foremost, to Erickson, whom prosecutors earlier alleged has aided the defendants charged criminal activity for years, including playing an integral role in Butinas efforts to establish an informal line of communication between the Kremlin and the incoming Presidential Administration, knowing that she was acting at the direction of the Russian Official. In Ericksons residence, the feds found a handwritten note on a document titled Marias Patriots in Waiting Organization that read: Respond to FSB offer of employment? an apparent reference to the Russian intelligence service. Erickson has reportedly received a target letter from the government that is often a precursor to an indictment. Ericksons lawyer William Hurd tells Rolling Stone, Paul Erickson is a good American. He has never done anything to hurt his country and never would. Putin himself disavowed knowledge of Butina or her activities this week, saying that when she was arrested, I asked all the heads of our intelligence services what is going on. Nobody knows anything about her. But his government has taken a keen interest in her case. As federal prosecutors recounted in September: The Russian government has conducted six consular visits with the defendant. It also has passed four diplomatic notes to the U.S. Department of State Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has spoken to the U.S. Secretary of State twice to complain about this prosecution. The official Kremlin Twitter account changed its avatar to the defendants face and started a #FreeMariaButina hashtag.. Russia has issued more diplomatic notes on the defendants behalf in the past month than for any other Russian citizen imprisoned in the United States in the past year. Put simply, the Russian government has given this case much more attention than other cases. #Zakharova: We demand that Washington observe legal rights of Maria Butina & release her as soon as possible. @RusEmbUSA provides the detained Russian citizen with all assistance & support needed | #FreeMariaButina pic.twitter.com/n46OSwI10V MFA Russia (@mfa_russia) December 13, 2018 This is a developing story and will be updated. Massachusetts Firefighter Dresses as Buddy the Elf and Challenges People to Friendly Pillow Fights Firefighter Dressed as Buddy the Elf Challenges People to Pillow Fights A Massachusetts firefighter spread some holiday cheer last week when he dressed as Buddy, the beloved character from the 2003 Christmas movie Elf and challenged more than two dozen people to pillow fights! Brendan Edwards, a 27-year-old firefighter paramedic in Natick, tells PEOPLE that he and his brothers have always loved making funny videos. So, when they were planning their latest stunt last week, Edwards decided to pull out the Buddy the elf costume he had tucked away in his closet. We thought, Why dont we bring [Buddy] out into public, weve never done that before. Lets see what happens, Edwards recalls to PEOPLE. So we made a list of possible ideas and pillow fighting really stuck out to me. I told my brother, I have a good feeling about this. RELATED: Here Comes Clarence Claus! North Carolina Mother Creates Christmas Products with Black Santa Brendan Edwards (left) and Hayley O'Loughlin So, Edwards slipped into the costume and enlisted the help of his girlfriend Hayley OLoughlin, who dressed as Elf character Jovie. Together they went around Bostons Faneuil Hall with four large pillows, challenging people at random. It went too well. The first person loved it and people around him were laughing, Edwards tells PEOPLE. We went like 30 feet and I did it again and the same response, everybody was just laughing and smiling. It became instead of shooting a video we were just making people laugh and getting footage at the same time. He shared the video on Facebook on Dec. 4, where it has been viewed 294,000 times. The video showed several people shocked as Edwards threw them a pillow, then sporting wide smiles as they engaged in the friendly battle. Wed just run up to them and yell Pillow fight! and toss them a pillow. Nobody got hurt thankfully. I got pretty beat up with the pillows, though, he says. We tried to keep the children out of it. I did pass out candy canes, because what kid isnt gonna run up to an elf? Edwards says he and his brothers have been sharing their funny videos online for about six years, and he was shocked that the most recent clip went viral. Story continues RELATED: Why Some Parents Are Insisting on Telling Their Kids Santa Claus Isnt Real This Christmas Ive always wanted that big hit; that big viral video and it took six years and the Internet liked this one, he says. Its crazy. As for his decision to dress as Buddy the elf, played by Will Ferrell, Edwards says it was a simple choice. Will Ferrell is like my favorite actor ever. Hes so funny to me. His humor hits me the right way. His character, Buddy the elf, is just so iconic, he tells PEOPLE. Plus I already had the costume at home. Sonys Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is full of eye-popping animation and lovable variations of the titular superhero, but one thing its lacking is subtitles. During scenes in which Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) converses with his mother, Rio Morales (Luna Lauren Velez), the film features the Spanish language but does not subtitle the conversations. The choice was a purposeful one made by Spider-Verse producer and co-writer Phil Lord. I grew up in a bilingual household in the bilingual city of Miami where you hear Spanish all over the place, and its not particularly remarkable, Lord told Remezcla at the Spider-Verse premiere. It was important for us to hear Spanish and not necessarily have it subtitled. Its just part of the fabric of Miles community and family life. Read More:Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review: The Superhero Movie We Need Lord, whose mother is from Cuba and father from the United States, said he related to Miles in the movie and certainly understands what its like to feel like youre half one thing and half something else. Lord is best known for his collaborations with his directing partner Chris Miller, including 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie. The two famously were involved with Solo: A Star Wars Story before being removed from the project months into production and replaced by Ron Howard. Miller co-produced Spider-Verse with Lord. Another point of concern for Lord was making sure Miles and Rio dont have the same Spanish-sounding accent. Miles is second-generation, so he speaks different than his mother, he said. With Spider-Verse, Lord wanted to ensure that both the Spanish language was represented as an everyday part of Miles life and that it showed the progression of the language through different generations. One person applauding Lords focus on the films Spanish language is Velez. That was really bold, because if you use subtitles all of a sudden we are outside, and we are not part of this world anymore, the actress told Remezcla. It was brilliant that they just allowed for it to exist. Story continues Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has earned critical acclaim, winning Best Animated Film honors from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angles Film Critics Association. The movie is nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Golden Globes and is widely considered to nab an Oscar nomination. The movie opens nationwide December 14. Related stories 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse': Breaking the Rules of Animation 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' Review: The Superhero Movie We Need 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse': Phil Lord & Chris Miller Introduce Game-Changer Miles Morales Just over a year ago, it became official: Prince Harry was engaged to Meghan Markle, and the British royal family was gaining a new member. It was a celebratory moment, but also a monumental one: As a biracial divorced American, Markle shattered stereotypes about what type of person belonged in the House of Windsor. And that was just the start. Numerous appearances, speeches, trips, and one hell of a wedding later, the Duchess of Sussex has shown that shes quite the royal tour de force. Below, some of the ways Markle made her mark on the monarchy in 2018. Supporting #MeToo The royal family cant weigh in on political issuesthats why you dont hear the Queen taking a stance on Brexit, and why Prince Charless black spider memos were such a thing. Although the Me Too movement isnt, and shouldnt be considered, political, the royal family still treated the subject carefully. Kate Middleton, for example, did not wear black to the 2018 BAFTAs, despite most female actresses doing so (she did, however, wear a dark green dress with a black sash). And, yes, Prince William alluded to it in his BAFTAs speechAs president, I am proud of the leadership BAFTA have shown on this; in a year which rocked the industry as many brave people spoke up about bullying, harassment, and abuse despite the risk to their professional careers and reputationsbut he didnt name the movement. Markle, however, took a clear stance during a February appearance. I hear a lot of people speaking about girls empowerment and womens empowermentyou will hear people saying they are helping women find their voices, she said. I fundamentally disagree with that because women dont need to find their voices, they need to be empowered to use it, and people need to be urged to listen. Right now, with so many campaigns like Me Too and Times Up, theres no better time to continue to shine a light on women feeling empowered and people supporting them. Story continues Declaring Herself a Feminist Long before she met Harry, Markle was an advocate for womens causes, even delivering a passionate speech at the UN about female empowerment. (It is said that girls with dreams become women with vision. May we empower each other to carry out such vision because it isnt enough to simply talk about equality. One must believe it. And it isnt enough to simply believe in it. One must work at it, she said.) And she showed that, as a royal, she would continue that work. Her official royal family bio quotes her as saying, I am proud to be a woman and a feminist. Showing Grace Under Pressure To say that Meghan Markle had a stressful lead-up to her wedding is perhaps an understatement. Days before, a media storm erupted when it was revealed that her father, Thomas Markle, staged paparazzi photos of himself. Then he pulled out of the wedding, leaving her to walk down the aisle alone. But as it turns out, she didnt need an escort. Her solo walk down the aisle was one of the most poignant moments of the wedding, as the beautiful and confident Markle waltzed to meet Prince Harry at the altar. Halfway there, Prince Charles joined her in a touching gesture. Her Financial Honesty The royal family can often seem removed from everyday life: After all, how many people have crown jewels and castles at their disposal? But not Meghan Markle. While giving a speech at the University of Fiji, she opened up about college affordability and how, like so many others, she needed financial help. It was through scholarships, financial aid programs, and work-studywhere my earnings from a job on campus went directly towards my tuitionthat I was able to attend university. And without question, it was worth every effort. It was a sincere, relatable moment that reminded the audience of Markles life before she became an actress, then a duchess. Staying True to Herself in the Process Before she met Prince Harry, Meghan Markle had a lifestyle blog, The Tig, and an active social media presence to go along with it. But soon her accounts all shutteredand with them, it seemed, a part of Markle herself. But as it turns out, Markle doesnt need a blog to show off her love of food and cooking. One of her first big projects as a royal was a cookbook, Together, for which she wrote the intro. Then she started posting her own photos to Kensington Palaces social media accounts. Turns out the old Markle hasnt gone anywhere after all. Photos: See Every Moment From the Royal Wedding: The Must-See Moments From the Royal Wedding Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Prince Harry and Prince William Photo: Getty Images Queen Elizabeth in Stewart Parvin Photo: Getty Images Doria Ragland in Oscar de la Renta Photo: Getty Images Meghan Markle in Givenchy and Cartier jewelry Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images Catherine Duchess of Cambridge and Jessica Mulrone in Di Carlo Couture Photo: Getty Images Kate Middleton in Alexander McQueen Photo: Getty Images Marcus Mumford and Carey Mulligan in Erdem Photo: Getty Images Princess Eugenie of York Photo: Getty Images Amal Clooney in custom Stella McCartney, Lorraine Schwartz jewelry and Gianvito Rossi shoes and George Clooney in Giorgio Armani Photo: Getty Images Charlotte Riley and Tom Hardy Photo: Getty Images Prince Charles of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Photo: Getty Images Serena Williams in Versace and Alexis Ohanian Photo: Getty Images Peter Phillips and Autumn Phillips Photo: Getty Images Sarah Duchess of York Photo: Getty Images David Henson and Hayley Henson Photo: Getty Images Sarah Rafferty and Santtu Seppala Photo: Getty Images Former British Prime Minister John Major and Norma Photo: Getty Images James Corden and Julia Carey Photo: Getty Images Princess Anne Photo: Getty Images David Beckham in Dior Homme and Victoria Beckham Photo: Getty Images Sophie Countess of Wessex in Suzannah Photo: Getty Images Prince and Princess Michael of Kent Photo: Getty Images Prince and William and private secretary Miguel Head Photo: Getty Images Pippa Middleton and James Matthews Photo: Getty Images Oprah in Stella McCartney with a Gabriela Hearst bag Photo: Getty Images Patrick J Adams and Troian Bellisario Photo: Getty Images David Furnish and Sir Elton John Photo: Getty Images Carol Middleton and Michael Francis Photo: Getty Images Princess Beatrice in Roksanda Photo: Getty Images Sir Clive Woodward and Jayne Williams Photo: Getty Images Abigail Spencer and Priyanka Chopra in Vivienne Westwood, Philip Treacy hat, Jimmy Choo by Off White shoes and Lorraine Schwartz jewelry Photo: Getty Images Gabriel Macht and Jacinda Barrett Photo: Getty Images Gina Torres Photo: Getty Images Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre Photo: Getty Images Tom Inskip Photo: Getty Images Jonny Wilkinson and Shelley Jenkins Photo: Getty Images Caroline Greenwood and Will Greenwood Photo: Getty Images Rebecca Deacon and Gibraltarian Adam Priestley Photo: Getty Images Clive Woodward and Jayne Williams Photo: Getty Images Nacho Figueras and Delfina Blaquier in Acheval Pampa Photo: Getty Images Joss Stone Photo: Getty Images Elizabeth Spencer, Louis Spencer, Victoria Aitken and Kitty Spencer Photo: Getty Images Tom Parker Bowles Photo: Getty Images Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor and Dan Snow Photo: Getty Images James Haskell and Chloe Madeley Photo: Getty Images Cressida Bonas in Eponine Photo: Getty Images Earl Spencer and Karen Spencer in Pamella Roland Photo: Getty Images Chelsea Davy Photo: Getty Images Sofia Wellesley and James Blunt Photo: Getty Images Mike Tindall and Zara Tindall Photo: Getty Images Addis Ababa (AFP) - At least 21 people have been killed in two days of fighting between ethnic groups in southern Ethiopia, the state-affiliated Fana radio reported Friday, The violence broke out near the town of Moyale, on the border with Kenya, in a region claimed by both the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the country, and the Somali ethnic group. On top of the fatalities, 61 people were injured in the fighting, Fana reported, citing the Oromia regional state communication office. Many more were displaced by the fighting in the region which has regularly been the scene of intercommunal violence. Last year fighting between members of the two ethnic groups left more than a million people displaced. While Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has received international praise for his reformist agenda, since coming to power in April, a wave of intercommunal violence in several parts of the country -- mostly over land issues -- has marred the first few months of his rule. Three Ethiopian students were also killed and 34 others 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. Sydney (AFP) - Australia on Friday warned citizens to take care while travelling in neighbouring Muslim-majority Indonesia, ahead of an expected but contentious move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce -- as soon as Saturday -- that his government will follow US President Donald Trump's lead and recognise the contested city as Israel's capital. Scores of Australians preparing to jet off to Bali and other tropical island destinations for upcoming summer holidays should "exercise a high degree of caution", the Department of Foreign Affairs warned. Officials in Canberra told AFP they expected the announcement to come on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, but cautioned that events could yet alter those plans. Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. Critics say declaring Jerusalem the capital of either inflames tensions and prejudges the outcome of final status peace talks. Trump's decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv last May prompted tens of thousands of Palestinians to approach the heavily-protected Israeli border. At least 62 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire that day. Morrison is expected to stop short of actually shifting Australia's diplomatic corps to the Holy City, amid warnings from his own officials about the cost and security implications. But recognising Jerusalem would help the embattled Australian PM -- who faces the prospect of an election drubbing next year -- with Jewish and conservative Christian voters and win him friends in the White House. His supporters argue Israel has the right to choose its own capital and peace talks are dead in the water, so there is no peace to prejudge. But the move still risks heightening unrest, both in Australia's immediate neighbour Indonesia -- the world's most populous Muslim nation -- and further afield. The Palestinian government would press for Arab and Muslim states to "withdraw their Ambassadors" and take some "meat and wheat" style "economic boycott measures" if the move went ahead, Palestinian ambassador to Australia Izzat Abdulhadi told AFP. Story continues - Jakarta protests - Indonesia's government, facing domestic pressure at home, had reacted angrily earlier this year, when Morrison floated the idea of both recognising Jerusalem and moving the Australian embassy there. The issue has put the conclusion of a bilateral trade agreement on hold. In the meantime, Australia's foreign ministry has moved to prepare the ground. "Demonstrations have been held in recent weeks around the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the Australian Consulate-General in Surabaya," it warned in a public notice Friday. "Protests may continue at the Embassy in Jakarta or at any of Australia's Consulates-General in Surabaya, Bali and Makassar," the Department of Foreign Affairs said."Exercise a high degree of caution." Tensions are currently running high between Israel and the Palestinians. At least 235 Palestinians and two Israelis have died during violence in Gaza since March, mostly in border clashes. On Thursday the Israeli army launched raids into the Palestinian city of Ramallah after a Palestinian shot dead two Israeli soldiers at a bus stop in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu vowed to 'legalise' thousands of settlements homes considered unlawfully-built even by Israel. In total six people were killed in the most violent 24 hours to hit the West Bank and Jerusalem in months. BRASILIA (Reuters) - A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has ordered the arrest of Cesare Battisti, an Italian former left-wing guerrilla convicted of murder in his country, opening the way for his extradition, Globo TV reported on Thursday. Justice Luiz Fux revoked an injunction he granted last year preventing Battisti's extradition, and ruled it was up to Brazil's president to decide his fate, Globo said. Battisti's lawyer Igor Tamasauskas told Reuters he had received the decision but had not yet read it, though he believed his client's arrest had been ordered. The extradition of Battisti has been long sought by Italy. He faces life in prison in his home country, where he was convicted of four murders committed in the 1970s, when he belonged to a guerrilla group called Armed Proletarians for Communism. He escaped from prison in 1981 and lived in France before fleeing to Brazil to avoid being extradited. The Italian government almost obtained his extradition in 2010 but leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva granted Battisti asylum on his last day in office that year. Brazil's incoming far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who takes office on Jan. 1, has said he would extradite Battisti immediately. The current centrist government of President Michel Temer was prevented from extraditing Battisti by Fux's injunction upholding his asylum status. That decision came after Battisti was caught trying to cross the border into Bolivia and arrested for having large amounts of undeclared cash. Fux has now decided that the extradition should be a presidential decision, since the Supreme Court had already ruled for Battisti to be sent back to Italy in 2009. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) SAO PAULO (AP) Brazil's outgoing President Michel Temer signed a decree Friday ordering the extradition of an Italian communist militant convicted of murder in his home country. The decree was signed one day after Supreme Federal Tribunal Justice Luiz Fux ordered the arrest of Cesare Battisti and said that the president would have the final word over his extradition to Italy. The presidential press office confirmed the extradition decree but provided no additional detail. Battisti escaped from Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. He was convicted in absentia in 1990. He has acknowledged membership in the group but has denied killing anyone. Battisti lived in France and Mexico before escaping to Brazil to avoid being extradited. He was arrested in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, prompting the Italian government to request that he be handed over. But former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva granted him asylum in 2010. Battisti was eventually released from jail, but was arrested again in 2017 after he was caught trying to cross the Brazil-Bolivia border carrying the equivalent of about $7,500 in undeclared cash. He was released the second time after a few days. As a result of that incident, Fux said that Interpol had issued the latest request for Battisti's arrest on tax evasion and money laundering charges, leading him to issue the Brazilian warrant. He said an arrest would "allow for the re-examination" of "his permanence in the country." Battisti's lawyer Igor Tamasauskas had no immediate response to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but the G1 news portal quoted him as saying, "I have no information on his whereabouts." "I know he lives in Cananeia (a coastal city in Sao Paulo state), but I do not know where he is at this moment," Tamasauskas said. Police said they searched for Battisti at his home, but the house was shuttered and there were no signs of anyone inside. Story continues Battisti has been living in Cananeia since 2015. Italy's head of state, President Sergio Mattarella, thanked Temer for his decision on the Battisti case. "Your gesture constitutes significant witness to the ancient and solid friendship between Brazil and Italy, and is testimony to the sensibility about a complex and delicate matter that arouses feelings of intense involvement by the public opinion of our country," Mattarella said in a statement released by the presidential Quirinal Palace Friday night. Paris (AFP) - Fears grew about the economic impact of France's month-long "yellow vest" protests on Friday ahead of a decisive weekend for the grassroots opposition movement and President Emmanuel Macron. The survey of businesses released by the IHS Market research group on Friday showed a surprising dip in activity in December linked to the disruption caused by the nation-wide demonstrations. "The latest flash data pointed to an outright contraction in Frances private sector for the first time in two-and-a-half years," IHS Market economist Eliot Kerr warned. Macron's centrist government is hoping that concessions announced on Monday, a terror attack in Strasbourg on Tuesday and freezing weather this weekend will deter demonstrators from taking to the streets again. France "needs calm, order and to go back to its normal functioning," President Emmanuel Macron said in Brussels in Friday. But many of the "yellow vest" figureheads, so called because of the florescent high visibility vests they wear, have called for a fifth round of protests on Saturday, sparking fears of more clashes. "It's really the time to keep going," a senior figure in the movement, Eric Drouet, said in a video posted on Facebook. "What Macron did on Monday, was a call to carry on because he has started to give ground, which is unusual for him," he added. Drouet was referring to Macron's address to the nation on Monday, billed as the most important speech of his presidency, in which he offered a range of concessions to the demonstrators. The "yellow vest" protests began on November 17 in opposition to hikes in fuel taxes, but have since snowballed into broad resistance to Macron's pro-business agenda and his style of governing. The 40-year-old head of state, who had already cancelled planned fuel tax hikes, offered a rise in the minimum wage, tax relief for pensioners and tax-free overtime work for workers in 2019. Story continues The total package has been estimated by economists to cost up to 15 billion euros ($17 billion), which is expected to be financed mostly by government borrowing. A fall in economic growth, which would hit tax receipts, would exacerbate the government's budget problems. "The more the movement continues, the more it will be a loss for the French economy," the governor of the French cental bank, Francois Villeroy de Galhau said in an interview with Les Echos newspaper on Thursday. The central bank has lowered its growth forecast for 2018 to 1.5 percent, saying expansion in the current quarter would be 0.2 percent, instead of 0.4 percent as previously forecast. - Police on alert - Six people have died since the "yellow vests" movement began and more than 1,400 have been injured in the protests by mostly low-income people from small-town and rural France. Scenes of blockages, massive traffics jams and mobs rampaging through the streets of Paris have dented France's image, as well as Macron's hopes of forcing through more business-friendly reforms. The numbers of "yellow vest" protesters in the streets have been relatively small by French standards -- only 136,000 last weekend -- but until now they have benefited from overwhelming public support. The impact of Macron's concessions, plus a terror attack in the city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening, could be crucial in determining whether the movement peters out this weekend or continues. Two polls published on Tuesday showed that the country was split broadly 50-50 on whether the "yellow vests" should continue protesting, a fall of around 20 percentage points. On Tuesday night, a 29-year-old jihadist from Strasbourg in eastern France attacked the city's Christmas market, killing four and injuring 12 in a gun and knife rampage. He was shot dead by police on Thursday night after 48 hours on the run, leading to praise for France's highly stretched security forces which have been repeatedly targeted during the protests. "I find it inadmissable that today we are applauding our police and then tomorrow some people think it's ok to go and throw stones at them," Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Friday in Strasbourg. Around 8,000 police will be on duty in Paris on Saturday, around the same number as last weekend, backed up with 14 armoured vehicles, water cannon and horses. Around 90,000 security forces were mobilised last Saturday across France when 2,000 people were detained, around half of them in Paris. On Thursday, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux called on "yellow vests" to stay at home. "It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again," he said. burs-adp/fc/har ROME (Reuters) - Italy would have to hold new elections if the coalition government falls, a senior cabinet official and member of the co-ruling League party was quoted as saying on Friday. Cabinet Undersecretary Giancarlo Giorgetti also criticized a flagship policy of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, the other partner in the coalition that came to power only in June. Opinion polls show that support for the far-right League has jumped since the election in March, suggesting the party would make significant gains if a new vote were held. Giorgetti said his party's commitment to the coalition had limits and appeared to rule out forming a new government with the current parliamentary arithmetic, should it collapse. "Our commitment will last as long as we can implement the government deal. When that will no longer be the case (our commitment) will end and the people should have a say again," Giorgetti, who is one of the most influential members of the coalition, told Italian news agencies. League leader Matteo Salvini dismissed this week a report saying that his party was considering pushing for a snap election in March. Salvini, who is both deputy prime minister and interior minister, insisted the government will stay on for a full five-year term. His party won 17 percent of the vote in March to become the largest party in a center-right electoral bloc, which Salvini then abandoned to form a government with 5-Star. The League is now Italy's largest party with more than 30 percent in opinion polls, which also show most Italians consider Salvini the real power in the government. It has its strongholds in the rich regions of northern Italy while 5-Star has won most of its votes in the poor regions of the south. Giorgetti, who is from the northern region of Lombardy, also criticized a costly income support scheme, a pivotal measure of the 5-Star program known as the "citizen's wage", saying it could foster illegal work. This measure was supported by "a part of Italy that the League does not like", referring to the south of the country, he said. However, he added: "Whether we like it or not it's the Italy we have to confront ourselves with and govern." Responding to Giorgetti's comments, 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maio dismissed the possibility of the scheme encouraging illegal work. "I like the whole of Italy" from north to south, Di Maio added, speaking in a Facebook video. Rome is currently trying to settle a dispute with the European Commission over its plans to increase the deficit sharply in the 2019 budget. (Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni; editing by Philip Pullella and David Stamp) Footwear News For the December issue of Vogue Hong Kong, Paris Jackson wore a Burberry one-piece outfit. The ensemble also included a sheer fabric and a circle cutout that appeared on the side of her legs. The actress paired her look with Bulgari jewelry and nude pointed-toe stiletto heels. She styled her hair to the side and let a few strands drape the side of her face. Neutral makeup was a great choice as her outfit deserved all of the attention. Yaounde (AFP) - The release of nearly 300 people arrested in connection with Cameroon's anglophone crisis has been delayed by red tape, state radio said Friday, a day after they were pardoned by President Paul Biya. Courts in six prisons across the West African country ordered the separatists be freed on Friday, but administrative difficulties have slowed the process, according to state radio. Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo earlier said that the list of all those to be freed would be published after court hearings. "Those benefitting from the offer of clemency granted by the head of state will be immediately released after hearings before the relevant military tribunal which will take place on Friday, December 14," he said in a statement. On Thursday, Biya announced he was halting the prosecution of 289 separatists from the western English-speaking regions, a statement from his office said. Biya "has decided... to halt the cases pending in military courts against a certain number of people arrested for offences committed during the crisis in the Northwest and Southwest," it said. Beti Assomo said the clemency would not be extended "to criminals, murderers or other dangerous terrorists" nor to "those involved in commanding or planning the damaging security crisis which is currently happening in the Northwest and Southwest regions". Cameroon's 22 million people are mainly French-speakers, but around a fifth are English-speaking, concentrated in the northwest and southwest regions of the West African country. Resentment at perceived discrimination against anglophones in education, the judiciary and the economy fanned demands for autonomy in 2016. Then last year, as longtime President Biya refused any concessions, radicals declared the independent state of Ambazonia and took up arms. At least 500 civilians and more than 200 members of the security forces have been killed in clashes, attacks and a government crackdown, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG). Story continues Given the conditions, it appeared unlikely that separatist leader Julius Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who went on trial on December 6 on charges of "terrorism" and "secession", would be among those released. Ayuk Tabe, president of the self-declared "Republic of Ambazonia", was arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon in January along with 46 others. The next hearing in his trial is scheduled for January 10. Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's ambassador met in Beijing Friday with a detained former diplomat for the first time since he was arrested in China amid sharpening East-West tensions over trade and other issues. Michael Kovrig, the former diplomat, and a second Canadian, Michael Spavor, were taken into custody earlier in the week after a top Chinese tech executive was arrested in Vancouver at the request of the United States. Canada's foreign ministry said its ambassador to Beijing, John McCallum, was granted consular access to Kovrig and is pressing for access to Spavor. Speaking to The Canadian Press, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau predicted that access would take place "shortly." "We are being absolutely clear on standing up for our citizens who have been detained, trying to figure out why, trying to work with China to demonstrate that this not acceptable," he told Citytv in Toronto. Meanwhile in Washington, Canada's foreign and defense ministers held talks with their US counterparts on the row. The Canadians were arrested for what China has said is suspicion of "harm to national security" -- a phrase often used by Beijing when alleging espionage. But the detentions are widely believed to be retaliation for Canada's arrest December 1 of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Meng was arrested while changing planes in Vancouver, outraging China and sparking a diplomatic standoff between the North American allies and Beijing. "This is one of the situations you get in when the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States, start picking a fight with each other," Trudeau said. "The escalating trade war between them is going to have all sorts of unintended consequences for Canada, potentially the entire global economy. We're very worried about that." The United States has accused her of lying to bankers about the use of a covert subsidiary to sell to Iran in breach of sanctions. If convicted, she faces more than 30 years in prison. Story continues On Tuesday, a Canadian judge ordered Meng's release on Can$10 million ($7.5 million US) bail, pending a US extradition hearing. - Visit shelved - Canadian Tourism Minister Melanie Joly, meanwhile, shelved a trip to China next week to promote tourism. Since Beijing approved Canada as a tourist destination for its citizens in 2010, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Canada has risen by 20 percent per year to almost 700,000 in 2017. Ottawa had hoped to double the figure by 2021, opening seven new visa application offices in China this year to facilitate the processing of travel documents. But those targets are now in doubt amid a public backlash in China. Kovrig, who works for the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, was being investigated by the Beijing bureau of state security, while the agency's office in northeastern Liaoning province was handling the probe into Spavor, Lu said. Spavor is a China-based business consultant who facilitates trips to North Korea, met with its leader Kim Jong Un and arranged some of retired NBA star Dennis Rodman's trips to the country. China's foreign ministry said ICG was not registered in China and its employees would be "in violation" of the law if they engage in activities in the country. ICG closed its office in the Chinese capital after Beijing passed a law on NGOs, which came into force in 2017, to better control the activities on its soil of foreign organizations. Kovrig was based in Hong Kong for ICG, working on foreign policy and security issues in the region, particularly on the Korean Peninsula. burs-oh/qan By Lesley Wroughton and David Ljunggren WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said China should free two Canadian citizens who were detained this week after authorities in Canada arrested a senior Chinese technology executive on a U.S. extradition warrant. Pompeo's comments were the first by a senior U.S. official on the arrests, which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said could escalate a growing trade conflict between China and the United States. "The unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens is unacceptable," Pompeo told reporters after Washington talks with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. "They ought to be returned. ... We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly." Canadian officials were granted consular access on Friday to one of the two detainees in China and are still trying to contact the second, the Foreign Ministry said. China detained the two - businessman Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, an adviser with the International Crisis Group and a former diplomat - after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on Dec 1. U.S. prosecutors accuse Meng of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions. Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei's founder, has said she is innocent. Potentially complicating the case, President Donald Trump made comments this week that legal experts say may have undermined the U.S. basis for extradition. Freeland, asked about the remarks, said, "We all agree that the most important thing we can do is to uphold the rule of law, ensure that Ms. Meng's right to due process is respected and that the current judicial process in Canada remains apolitical." Trudeau, in his strongest comments on the matter to date, said China's detention of the two men was "not acceptable." China rejects Trudeau's insistence that the government cannot interfere with the judiciary. Meng was released on bail this week but has to remain in Canada. "This is one of the situations you get in when the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States, start picking a fight with each other," Trudeau told City TV in Toronto. "The escalating trade war between them is going to have all sorts of unintended consequences on Canada, potentially on the entire global economy. We're very worried about that," he said. Lu Shaye, China's ambassador to Canada, on Friday told a university conference that the prospects for deeper business ties were good despite the dispute. He declined to comment when pressed by reporters about Trudeau's remarks. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and David Ljunggren; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and David Alexander in Washington; editing by Alistair Bell and Leslie Adler) A Canadian court has granted bail to a top Chinese telecom company executive wanted in the United States, as diplomatic tensions turned to the detention of a former Canadian diplomat in Beijing. Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, was released on Can$10 million (US$7.5 million) bail on Tuesday in a case that has rattled relations between China, the United States and Canada. Meng, who faces a US extradition bid on charges related to alleged violations of Iran sanctions, was also ordered to surrender her passport and will be subjected to electronic monitoring. "The risk of (Meng's) non-attendance in court can be reduced to an acceptable level by imposing the bail conditions proposed by her counsel," a judge in Vancouver said, prompting the courtroom packed with her supporters to erupt in cheers. Meng, who later left in a black SUV, will be allowed to stay at a luxury home owned by her husband, Liu Xiaozong, in Vancouver. Her December 1 arrest in Vancouver has shaken China's relations with Canada and the United States, and raised concerns that it could derail a US-China trade war truce. US officials have said the arrest was unrelated to the trade talks, but President Donald Trump told Reuters he "would certainly intervene" in the case if it can help strike a deal with China. "If US officials and the US government want to make positive efforts towards the right direction about the issue, we welcome them," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Wednesday at a regular briefing. Huawei is a strategically key company for China's global high-tech ambitions but some of its services have been blocked in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Britain over security concerns. Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei's founder, is accused of lying to bankers about the use of a covert subsidiary to sell to Iran in breach of sanctions. If convicted, she faces more than 30 years in prison. Story continues The extradition process, scheduled to start on February 6, could take months, even years, if appeals are made in the case. Her lawyer, David Martin, argued that she was not a flight risk because it would otherwise "embarrass China itself". She had also cited health reasons for requesting bail. During a pause in proceedings, Martin said Meng looked forward to spending time with family, reading novels and maybe applying to a doctorate program while the extradition case plays out. Huawei said in a statement it was confident that the courts would "reach a just conclusion" in the case and stressed that the company complies with all laws and sanctions. - Former diplomat detained - While Meng secured her release, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said its North East Asia senior adviser, former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, was detained by Chinese state security in Beijing on Monday and has had no information about him since then. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau voiced concern over the detention. "This has our attention at the very highest level of our government," said Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. China had warned Canada of "grave consequences" over Meng's arrest as it demanded her release, although Canada said no link between the two cases had been established. But a former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, Guy Saint-Jacques, said Kovrig's detention was likely linked to Meng's case. "There is no coincidence in China," Saint-Jacques told AFP. "In this case it is clear the Chinese government wants to put maximum pressure on the Canadian government." Lu, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said ICG was not legally registered in the country and its employees would be "in violation" of the law if they were engaged in activities in the country. Lu did not offer more details about the case. Some 20 Chinese police officers patrolled outside Canada's embassy on Wednesday but they refused to explain their presence. - 'He loves China' - Kovrig, a Mandarin speaker, was a political officer at the embassy from 2014-2016 who met with dissidents and travelled to China's restive far west Xinjiang region, Saint-Jacques said. He took an unpaid leave from the embassy because he "loves China" and wanted to continue to work in the country, the former ambassador said. "It's easy to concoct espionage accusations against someone in China," he said. "When I learned the news this morning it deeply saddened me because Michael was a good political officer, but he is not a spy at all." The US State Department called on China to "end all forms of arbitrary detentions." Brussels-based ICG said in a statement that it has received no information about Kovrig since his detention and is concerned about his health and safety. "Michael did not engage in illegal activities nor did he do anything that endangered Chinese national security," ICG president Robert Malley told AFP. "He was doing what all Crisis Group analysts do: undertaking objective and impartial research." By Yeganeh Torbati and Andrew Hay WASHINGTON/TAOS, New Mexico (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's internal watchdog will investigate the death of a 7-year-old Guatemalan migrant which occurred after she was detained by U.S. border agents, officials said on Friday. The Trump administration defended the treatment of the child, identified as Jakelin Caal by a Guatemalan official, and said there was no indication that she had any medical problems until several hours after she and her father were taken into U.S. custody on Dec. 6. The Guatemalan government had earlier identified the girl as Jackeline Caal. Initial news reports said Caal died of dehydration and exhaustion. On Friday, U.S. officials said she had suffered cardiac arrest, brain swelling and liver failure. The Office of the Inspector General, which looks into accusations of misconduct by public employees, will take the lead on the case. It said it would share the results of its investigation with the government, Congress and the public. News of the child's death has added to criticism of President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policies from immigrant advocates and Democrats in Congress. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin on Friday repeated his call on Twitter for DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign, citing the case. Nielsen described the death as "heart-wrenching." "My heart goes out to the family, all of DHS. This is just a very sad example of the dangers of this journey," she said in an interview with Fox News Channel. Record numbers of parents traveling with children are being apprehended while trying to cross the U.S. border with Mexico. In November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers detained 25,172 members of "family units," the highest monthly number ever recorded, the agency said. The Trump administration has tried to deter people from crossing the border between ports of entry illegally to seek asylum, while also restricting access to official ports of entry. That has created a potential months-long wait for asylum applicants, including those who came as part of a large 'caravan' of Central Americans this year. Story continues 'NO INDICATION OF HEALTH CONDITIONS' Caal and her father, who a Guatemalan official identified as 29-year-old Nery Caal, were detained after arriving on Dec. 6 at around 9:15 p.m. local time at the Antelope Wells port of entry, in a remote part of New Mexico, along with a group of over 160 migrants, U.S. officials said. Four Border Patrol agents were on scene, and no medical staff were present, said a CBP official, on condition of anonymity. "These aliens had traveled through Mexico for some period of time before they reached us," the CBP official said. "They were actually in our custody for a very short time." A border agent asked the father around 20 questions as part of an initial medical screening. He checked "no" on a form asking if the child had any illnesses, a DHS official told reporters on Friday on condition of anonymity. The form was provided in English, and the interview was conducted in Spanish, the CBP official said. "The questions were asked, the observations were made, the father was there, and there was no indication that she had any health conditions," the official said. The Guatemalan foreign ministry said in a statement that Caal's parents' native tongue is Q'eqchi', a Mayan language. Nery Caal told Guatemalan officials that he felt more comfortable speaking Q'eqchi' than Spanish, the foreign ministry said. "They speak Spanish but they don't understand Spanish 100 percent," said Tekandi Paniagua, a Guatemalan consular official in Del Rio, Texas who spoke to Nery Caal on Saturday and Monday, in an interview with Reuters. At around 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 7, around seven hours after arriving at the border, the girl and her father boarded a bus for the Lordsburg border station in New Mexico, about 95 miles (153 km) away. While they were waiting for the bus, they had access to water and restrooms, the CBP official said. Just before the bus departed at 5 a.m., Nery Caal told agents that Jakelin was vomiting. By the time the bus arrived at the station at 6:30 a.m., Caal was not breathing. She was treated by Border Patrol medical technicians and emergency services who arrived shortly after, and then taken to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. A brain scan revealed swelling and the girl was diagnosed with liver failure. She died early in the morning on Dec. 8, with her father at the hospital, the CBP official said. Nery Caal was released by Border Patrol under an order of supervision, and is staying at a migrant shelter in El Paso, Paniagua said. Paniagua said Nery Caal told him he had crossed the border planning to turn himself in to U.S. authorities, and will try to stay in the United States. CONGRESS LEARNED VIA MEDIA Senate Democrats criticized the Trump administration for not revealing Caal's death for nearly a week. A Congressional requirement directs CBP to report the death of individuals in its custody within 24 hours to the appropriations committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Jay Tilton, a spokesman for the Senate appropriations committee, said in an email that it "was not alerted" to Caal's death. A House Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity that members of the appropriations committee in that chamber were also not alerted to Caal's death, and have asked DHS and CBP to explain. Senior House Democrats wrote in a letter that the watchdog should investigate the delay in informing Congress. "It is hard to overstate our frustration with the fact that we learned of this incident through media reports one week after the incident occurred," they said. CBP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A DHS official on Friday declined to comment on the agency's conversations with members of Congress. (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Andrew Hay, additional reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey in Washington, and Christine Murray in Mexico City; Editing by Frances Kerry and Rosalba O'Brien) Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump agreed Friday to "more effective coordination" between their countries' operations in Syria, after Ankara threatened to launch a new offensive in the war-torn nation. The two leaders spoke after Erdogan warned of a fresh Turkish operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia that risks aggravating already strained relations, as the US not only supports the militia but has troops deployed alongside its fighters. Trump and Erdogan "agreed to ensure more effective cooperation on the subject of Syria" during a telephone call, a Turkish presidential source said. Erdogan on Wednesday said that Turkey was planning to launch a new offensive within the "next few days" against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Ankara views the YPG as a "terrorist offshoot" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is considered a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. But the YPG has spearheaded the United States' fight against the Islamic State group in Syria under the banner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance. During their phone conversation, Erdogan shared with Trump "Turkey's legitimate security concerns caused by the presence and actions" of the Kurdish militia, the source said. Earlier on Friday Erdogan said he is "determined to bring peace and security to areas east of the Euphrates" River in Syria's north. He also strongly criticised Washington's support of the YPG, which has caused tensions between the NATO allies in recent years. The Pentagon has warned that any "unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern". Story continues - 'Roadmap' frays - Tensions have spiked in recent weeks after the US set up observation posts in the northeast Syria border region intended to prevent altercations between the Turkish army and the YPG. Erdogan has slammed the plan, claiming that Turkey was not being protected from terrorists but "terrorists were being protected" from possible action by Turkey. Adding to the heated debate, a Turkish soldier was shot dead by YPG forces on Thursday in the northern Syrian region of Afrin, according to Turkey's defence ministry. If Turkey does launch an operation east of the Euphrates, where US forces are deployed with the SDF, a point of contention will be the city of Manbij, just west of the river. American troops are also situated in the flashpoint city, which is controlled by the YPG. In a bid to avoid any clashes, Ankara and Washington agreed to a "roadmap" for Manbij in June which included YPG forces withdrawing from the city and joint US-Turkish patrols, which began in November. However, as Ankara has repeatedly reminded Washington, the YPG remains in the flashpoint city. On Friday, Erdogan again urged the US to drive the Kurdish militia out of the city. "Here is what we say: either you clean the city and (the YPG) leave, or we're going into Manbij as well," he warned. Turkey has previously launched two operations in northern Syria. The first offensive began in August 2016 with Turkish forces supporting Syrian opposition fighters against IS and was completed by March 2017. Then in January 2018, Turkish military forces backed Syrian rebels to clear the YPG from its enclave of Afrin. In March, the operation was completed with the capture of Afrin city. (Reuters) - Florida on Thursday executed a death row inmate who was convicted of beating and stabbing a 63-year-old North Miami woman to death during a burglary more than two decades ago. Jose Jimenez, 55, was put to death by lethal injection at 9:48 p.m. EST at Florida's execution chamber in Raiford, according to Patrick Manderfield, a spokesman for the state department of corrections. Manderfield said Jimenez made no final statement. He ate a final meal of a turkey and ham Cuban sandwich, five over easy eggs, French fries, root beer and vanilla and chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate syrup. Jimenez was convicted of first-degree murder and burglary in 1994, stemming from the beating and stabbing to death Phyllis Minas, 63, two years earlier. Prosecutors said at trial that Jimenez broke into her North Miami apartment on Oct. 2, 1992. Neighbors heard her screaming and tried to enter the apartment but Jimenez locked the door and fled out the bedroom balcony, court documents showed. Jimenez, who lived in the same building, cleaned himself up and changed before speaking to neighbors in the hallway after the attack. He was arrested three days later at his parents' home nearby after police matched his fingerprints with those found at the scene. State and federal courts have denied numerous appeals in Jimenez's case, challenging his conviction and sentence on several grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an 11th hour appeal by Jimenez's attorneys on Thursday, clearing the way for the execution. On Wednesday, the Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal that argued a referendum approved by voters in 2018 allowed Jimenez at least a new sentencing hearing based on guidelines established in 2016 and 2017 rather than those in place in 1994. He was the second inmate to be executed in Florida and the 24th in the United States in 2018, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks the use of the death penalty in the United States. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez) Dubai (AFP) - A breakthrough accord between Yemen's warring sides is the most significant step towards ending the country's devastating conflict, but analysts warn its success depends on further international pressure. The United Nations on Thursday brokered a truce between Yemen's government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, and Iran-backed Huthi rebels. While the agreement signed in Sweden was welcomed by all involved, analysts say it is fraught with risks and needs to be reinforced by the international community. Under the terms of the accord, an "immediate" ceasefire must be implemented in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida -- the main frontline and a crucial lifeline for humanitarian imports. Fighters are due to withdraw in the next few days and a prisoner swap involving some 15,000 detainees is planned. A new round of talks is set for late January, when the two sides are due to define the framework for negotiations ahead of an eventual full settlement. UN special envoy Martin Griffiths has made significant efforts to bring the protagonists together. The UN says that the war has killed some 10,000 people over nearly four years, but NGOs say the toll is far higher. "Observers were not expecting an agreement to be reached yesterday, especially on sensitive issues like Hodeida", said Camille Lons from the European Council on Foreign Relations. "Griffiths managed to get the two parties around the table and agree on a number of measures," said Lons, who coordinates the think tank's Middle East and North Africa programme. - 'Devil in the details' - But "we should not get over-excited too quickly," Lons cautioned. "We have to see how the withdrawal from Hodeida happens in practice -- it is likely to be a logistical nightmare for the UN." Rebel-controlled Hodeida has been the target of an offensive launched in June by the Saudi-led coalition. The alliance first intervened in Yemen in 2015, to forestall a rebel advance that had already captured swathes of the country including the capital Sanaa. Story continues In Sweden, the rebels and government agreed that their forces would withdraw from Hodeida city and port, in favour of administration by local security forces supported by the UN. But "the devil is in the details", said Yemen analyst Nadwa Dawsari. The accord does not identify who the "local forces" will be and fixes no date for the start of the ceasefire. Officials in both camps have told media that the ceasefire was due to come into effect at midnight on Thursday. But new violence that night in Hodeida underscored the fragility of the accord. Explosions and artillery fire were heard for several hours before midnight, residents said. - Monitoring 'urgently needed' - The UN Security Council is due to be briefed by Griffiths on Friday. Next week, it is due to adopt a resolution ratifying the outcome of the Sweden talks and authorising deployment of UN observers in Hodeida, according to diplomatic sources. "Pressuring the parties is necessary to cement these initial gains and keep the nascent process from collapsing," said Dana Stroul, Middle East expert at the Washington Institute. "The UN Security Council could reinforce the progress made in Sweden with its own endorsement," she added. The United States and Saudi Arabia have hailed the accord. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called it a "crucial first step", while Saudi's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have said they are behind a "political solution". The United Arab Emirates -- part of the Saudi-led military coalition -- also backs the deal. "The road ahead remains bumpy but the significant breakthrough will make peace possible", said Anwar Gargash, the UAE's foreign minister. Echoing the widespread caution, UN envoy Griffiths on Friday said a "robust and competent monitoring regime" for the agreement is "not just essential -- it is urgently needed." SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) An Irish priest from the Legion of Christ religious order has obeyed Chilean government orders and left the South American country on Friday after finishing a four-year sentence for sexually abusing a minor. Chile's government had ordered the Rev. John O'Reilly to leave or be expelled after serving his sentence in conditional liberty. O'Reilly was seen earlier on Friday waiting for his Rome-bound plane at a VIP lounge in Santiago's international airport. He denied any wrongdoing, telling a local TV reporter that he was grateful for his time in Chile, where he had lived since the mid-1980s. In 2014, O'Reilly was convicted of sexually abusing a minor while he was a chaplain at a school operated by the Legion in Santiago. The court also banned him from any job near children and included him in a database for registered abusers. Congress had revoked the honorary citizenship it gave O'Reilly in 2008. But while convicted by courts in Chile, his canonical case has languished in the Vatican. His forced departure comes at the end of a year that has seen the Chilean Catholic hierarchy humiliated over decades of abuse and cover-up. O'Reilly's fall from grace also highlights how the problems in the Mexican-based Legion of Christ did not end with its founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, who was found to have been a serial pedophile who fathered at least three children with two women. A statement by the Legion of Christ said the O'Reilly will stay at their Rome headquarters. O'Reilly bid farewell to his supporters in WhatsApp message sent on his behalf by a member of his entourage. "Friends: with a broken heart and very confused and with a weakened health, I say goodbye with immense gratitude, appreciation and admiration ... I beg you not to abandon me ... a big and emotional hug," he said. __ Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield contributed to this report from Rome. Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A Palestinian teenager was shot dead on Friday as Israeli forces carried out fresh raids in the occupied West Bank, the health ministry said, as troops searched for a Palestinian who killed two soldiers a day earlier. The 17-year-old killed was named by the Palestinian health ministry as Mahmoud Nakhla, who authorities said died after being shot in the stomach by Israeli fire near the Jalazone refugee camp in the central West Bank. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the death, which came as soldiers clashed with stone-throwing protesters in multiple locations. Soldiers again entered the Al-Bireh neighbourhood of the West Bank city of Ramallah where they carried out raids Thursday, an AFP journalist said, with residents saying they seized cameras from two buildings. The army was searching for the perpetrator of Thursday's shooting in the West Bank, where 400,000 Israelis live in settlements alongside more than 2.5 million Palestinians. It was the third deadly attack by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank in two months and set off demonstrations by settler groups against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose rightwing government depends on their support. Israeli media speculated Friday about the possibility of a new Palestinian "intifada," or uprising, against Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Protests as part of a Palestinian 'day of rage' Friday were, however, smaller than anticipated. Ayman Safadi, foreign minister for neighbouring Jordan, on Friday criticised "the continuation of the occupation by Israel of Palestinian territories" and the lack of any prospect for lasting peace. The current situation "constitutes a great threat to stability in the whole region," he said. - Revenge, raids - In Thursday's attack, a gunman got out of his car and opened fire on soldiers and others outside a settlement in the central West Bank, killing two and seriously wounding another two Israelis before fleeing. Story continues The funerals of the two soldiers, Sergeant Yovel Moryosef and Corporal Yosef Cohen, were held on Friday. After the attack the army locked down Ramallah, home to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, while calling in reinforcements. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces erupted Thursday in different parts of the West Bank, including inside Ramallah during army raids. Settlers shouting for revenge threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, while an Arab bus driver was beaten by ultra-Orthodox Jews in Modiin Illit settlement, according to Israeli media reports. In overnight raids, the army said it arrested 40 Palestinians, most of them affiliated with the Islamist movement Hamas which has claimed responsibility for two recent shooting attacks. It has not yet claimed Thursday's attack, though Israeli officials point the finger of blame in its direction. The army did not say it had made arrests linked directly to the latest attack. At a checkpoint near the Beit El settlement on Friday morning, a soldier was moderately wounded after a man hit him with a rock before fleeing, the army said. - 'Blood on his hands' - Israel has controlled the West Bank since seizing it in a 1967 war. Settlements are considered illegal by the international community and are seen as one of the greatest obstacles to peace, though Israel disputes this. Hamas, for its part, has controlled the Gaza Strip since seizing it from Abbas's forces in 2007. While Abbas's Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, Hamas cells still operate in the territory. Hamas claimed responsibility on Thursday for two shooting attacks which killed three Israelis including a baby, which took place before the soldiers were shot dead. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said Thursday that the West Bank had "opened a new page" in the movement's conflict with the Jewish state. Netanyahu's coalition government, which has only a one-seat majority in parliament, relies on the support of pro-settler parties. Rightwing protesters in Jerusalem late Thursday booed Netanyahu, while an MP from the far-right Jewish Home urged him to close all West Bank roads to Palestinians or have "blood on his hands". Hugh Lovatt, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the situation was reminiscent of the buildup to the 2014 Gaza war. "What adds further danger is that we are heading into elections in Israel in 2019, so Netanyahu will have to take a more forceful hand," Lovatt told AFP. "He has long run on his security credentials, saying he keeps Israel safe, and his only real challenge comes from the right." Netanyahu, whose Likud bloc heads the government, on Thursday announced new measures to support settlements, but the Yediot Aharonot newspaper said he would need to respond forcefully. "When the settler lobby raises an outcry, the Likud ministers break into a sweat," it said. Pristina (AFP) - Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that prompted outrage in Serbia, which does not recognise its former province's independence. Kosovo has been guarded by NATO-led peacekeeping troops since it broke away from Belgrade in a bloody separatist war in 1998-99. Now, new legislation will transform a small crisis-response outfit, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), into an defence army with 5,000 troops. "This vote today begins a new era for our country," parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli announced as MPs embraced each other after the session, boycotted by minority Serb politicians. The vote has delighted many Kosovo Albanians, with several hundred gathering in the main street of capital Pristina to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, declared in 2008. "This is an enormous emotion, we are happy that the creation of our country is being completed," Vlora Rexhepi, a 23-year-old student, told AFP as a group of musicians dressed in traditional costumes played for the crowd. Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci hailed it as "the best gift for the end of the year season". "We are finally closing down the state-building process," he wrote on Facebook. - 'Crossed the line' - While it will take years for the troops to be fully trained, Serbia has cast the move as a dire threat to regional stability. NATO and the European Union have also criticised the move as hasty. But Kosovo felt free to move ahead with strong backing from the United States, its most important ally. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic lashed out at the move. It is "absolutely clear that behind everything that (ethnic) Albanians have been doing are the United States, Great Britain and, in the case of creating the army, Germany as well," Vucic said in a televised public address. "They do not understand that they all crossed the line," said Vucic, who called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council on the issue. Story continues In particular, Belgrade has been sounding the alarm over the safety of 120,000 Serbs still living in enclaves across Albanian-majority Kosovo, mainly in the north near their contested border. Those Serb communities are loyal to Belgrade and also broadly against the army plan. Several hundred students protested Friday in the Serb-half of the divided city of Mitrovica, which was decorated with Serbian flags in response to the American stars-and-stripes draped across much of the rest of Kosovo in a sign of gratitude for Washington's support. Goran Rakic, a Serb political leader in the flashpoint city, called Pristina's decision "a gunshot into peace". But he urged local Serbs to exercise restraint. President Vucic vowed that Belgrade would protect them if needed. "If they attack you, the state of Serbia will have strength to protect you," he said. NATO, which had warned the move was "ill-timed", said the alliance would now "re-examine" its relationship with the KSF, which it helped train. The alliance nevertheless remains committed to securing Kosovo's safety through KFOR, the peacekeeping force is has led since the war with Serbia, said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. The EU echoed the regret, saying "the mandate of the KSF should only be changed through an inclusive and gradual process in accordance with Kosovo's Constitution". And the UN said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had taken note of the adoption "with concern" and called for restraint. "The Secretary-General calls on all parties concerned to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that could raise tensions and cause a further setback in the European Union-facilitated dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina," it said in a statement. Kosovo's government circumvented having to make constitutional changes to create the army, which would have required support from Serb MPs, by voting on a package of laws that kept the name of the KSF but changed its mandate. - Faltering talks - The US Embassy was quick to welcome the news but also urged Kosovo and Serbia to take "immediate steps to lower tensions" and make progress in their ongoing dialogue. The neighbours have struggled to make progress in faltering EU-led talks to normalise ties -- a condition for either to eventually join the bloc. Their relationship took a serious plunge last month after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tariff on Serbian goods in retaliation for Belgrade's attempts to undermine its standing on the world stage. Serbia has blocked Kosovo from various international organisations, including the UN, and also lobbied foreign governments to revoke their recognition of its statehood. Analysts say the army move is also partly an attempt by Kosovo's government to make up for recent setbacks. In November, global police organisation Interpol rejected Kosovo's application to become a member. Another source of public frustration is the lack of visa-free travel status in the European Union, which other Balkan states enjoy. "After the failure to join Interpol and visa liberalisation, the transformation of the KSF is their only card left," said political analyst Imer Mushkolaj. burs-ssm/dl/jah Pristina (AFP) - Serbia and Kosovo's troubled relationship has taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks, with Pristina's vote on Friday to form an army just one of many sources of tension between the former war foes. Here are the other main quarrels between the neighbours whose mutual distrust runs deep 20 years after Kosovo's independence war. - Recognition of Kosovo - Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after its ethnic Albanian guerilla fighters battled Serb troops in a war that cost 13,000 lives. Although it has been recognised by more than 100 countries, Kosovo has struggled to gain full global acceptance, with Belgrade refusing to recognise the split. Serbia claims that a dozen countries, such as Papua New Guinea, Surinam or recently Madagascar, have withdrawn their recognition. But Pristina denies the claims as "Serbian propaganda". Kosovo has made recognition by Belgrade a condition of any deal to normalise ties -- something Serbia needs to do to move forward in EU accession talks. - Economic war - With help from allies Russia and China, Belgrade has locked Kosovo out of the United Nations and other international organisations. Serbia's most recent coup was skewering Kosovo's efforts to join the global police organisation Interpol in November. Pristina shot back by slapping Serbian goods with a 100 percent tariff on 22 November. But the measure has yet to trigger any significant food shortages or price surges in Kosovo, though it has curtailed the flow of goods across the border. - Kosovo's Serbs - There is no official census, but ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo is still home to about 120,000 ethnic Serbs, who consider themselves loyal to Belgrade. They are concentrated in the northern region around the divided city of Mitrovica, but also in a dozen predominantly Serb enclaves where Pristina has struggled to exercise its authority. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has encouraged Serbs in Kosovo to continue demonstrations, saying there will be no dialogue until the tariff is revoked. Story continues The autonomy of Serb communities is a major sticking point in sputtering EU-led negotiations between the neighbours. In 2013, an agreement called for the creation of an association of 10 Serb-majority "municipalities". But it has never been implemented, as Belgrade and Pristina cannot agree on the powers these communities would have. - Territorial disputes - Belgrade and Pristina both claim ownership of property in Kosovo, notably the Trepca mining complex in the north and the Gazivode artificial lake, called Ujman by Kosovo Albanians. Located in an area populated by ethnic Serbs, the lake plays a crucial role for Kosovo's water supply and energy independence. Trepca and its minerals also represent a rare source of wealth in the poor region, even if its industrial infrastructure is in an appalling state. While most mines are on the Albanian side of Mitrovica, the industrial complex is on the Serb side. - A 'parallel system' in the north - In the mainly ethnic-Serb half of the Kosovo city of Mitrovica, cars have either Serbian registration plates or none, while inhabitants use Serbian dinars as currency. It is impossible to use a Kosovo phone there. The two sides still do not mutually recognise their respective university diplomas. Nor do the people there pay electricity bills to a Kosovo company, which the Pristina administration says costs them about 10 million euros annually ($11 million). Pristina accuses Belgrade of funding a "parallel system" by paying wages to civil servants in northern Kosovo. MILAN (AP) The Mediterranean island nation of Malta needs better checks and balances to address the way the prime minister's powers currently eclipse other institutions, experts from Europe's top human rights body said on Friday. The critical assessment issued by the Council of Europe's advisory body known as the Venice Commission and comprised of legal experts comes as Malta's institutions are under increasing fire following Panama Papers revelations involving a government minister and the murder of a journalist investigating government corruption. A health minister in Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's Labour government lost his post in 2016 due to revelations that he opened a company in Panama, but there has been no police investigation despite public pressure and he retained the title of minister. Calls for the police commissioner's resignation following the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in October 2017 have also gone unanswered. The imbalance in Malta's institutions has been a topic at the European Parliament. The experts recommended strengthening the role of the president; increasing salaries of parliamentarians so they can focus on legislative work; reducing the prime minister's powers to make appointments; changes in the way judicial vacancies are filled; and abolishing the double role of attorney general as both government adviser and prosecutor. Malta's government declined to comment, pending the filing of the full text of the assessment expected next week. But it noted that the criticism focused on "laws and systems that were passed or implemented years back." The experts noted that while a judicial reform led by the current government was a step in the right direction, it fell short of ensuring the independence of the judiciary. The Venice Commission said that the power of the prime minister "widely overshadows other government bodies, including the president, parliament, cabinet of ministers, judiciary and ombudsman." It also found that paying parliamentarians part-time salaries harmed their ability to operate independently from the prime minister's office, and that the president did not have sufficient powers to provide checks and balances. Story continues The experts, who visited Malta last month, said that the prime minister wields considerable influence over judicial appointments, and that the imbalance "is accentuated by the weakness of civil society and independent media." They cited the murder of Caruana Galizia, who was investigating corruption and money-laundering. While the Commission said it is beyond its mandate to examine the truth of the allegations in Galizia's reporting, it stressed Malta's obligation to ensure that media and civil society "play unencumbered and active roles in holding authorities accountable." ___ Stephen Calleja contributed from Valletta, Malta. MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Fifteen migrants have died in a boat off the Libyan coast after spending 12 days at sea without food or water, an Egyptian survivor said on Tuesday. Only 10 migrants from the capsized boat survived, all of whom were suffering from severe dehydration, Othman Belbeisi, head of the U.N. migration agency IOM in Libya, said on Twitter. The owner of a beach chalet found the migrants washing up on the shore near the city of Misrata and called authorities, who brought them to the Red Crescent relief service and hospitals, residents said. "We were 25 migrants on a boat ... We set off from (the western Libyan town of) Sabratah and we were at sea for 12 days without food and water," the survivor said. "Fifteen have died." The survivors had been brought to a detention center and doctors and emergency teams are on the way, Belbeisi said. No more details from authorities were immediately available. Libyas western coast is a departure point for mainly sub-Saharan African migrants fleeing wars and poverty and hoping to build new lives in Europe. But the number of migrants reaching Italy has fallen sharply since last year as smuggling networks inside Libya have been disrupted and the European Union has stepped up efforts to increase Libyan coastguard patrols. (Reporting by Ayman Salhi and Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Ulf Laessing, editing by Kevin Liffey and Ed Osmond) Graduates attend a career fair at Yunnan Minzu University in Kunming, Yunnan province, last month. More than 5,000 positions were being offered. [Photo by HAO YAXIN/FOR CHINA DAILY] Internet and e-commerce among hottest industries looking to grab fresh talent More jobs are available this academic year for university and college students who will graduate in 2019, a report released on Thursday said. The employment report, issued by online recruitment platform Zhaopin.com, said the ratio of jobs to job hunters was 2.68-to-1 in the first 11 months of the year, compared with 1.78-to-1 in the same period last year. The report was based on job openings from various enterprises, including small and micro businesses, and the job intentions of more than 1 million registered students. "There are plenty of job opportunities for university graduates," said Chen Yu, deputy director of the China Association of Employment Promotion. Job hunters grew by 21 percent year-on-year while the number of job positions increased by 81 percent, the report said. "The majority of those new jobs were in the education, consulting, internet, e-commerce, media and culture industries," said Li Qiang, a senior consultant at Zhaopin.com. Chen believes that job growth in the service industry is a result of people's booming demands in life, brought on by the country's economic development. "The service industry needs more workers to provide higher quality services for people when the economy develops to a certain degree," he said. "For example, many young people enjoy fitness, so the job of personal trainer is popular." The ratio in the import and export industry also increased to 1.81-to-1 this year, from 0.71 last year, showing a strong demand for talent. However, it was harder to actually get a job in the internet and e-commerce industry, because the pool of candidates grew faster than job vacancies. According to the report, the industry's ratio this year was 2.7-to-1, down 0.09 from last year. Established internet companies are now under pressure to upgrade technology-for example, toward artificial intelligence-and need to adjust, the report said. It also said that private enterprises, including small and micro businesses, were thirstier than ever for talent. The ratio for private companies was 3.85-to-1, with number of job positions expanding by 109 percent. Jobs in companies with 100 to 499 employees increased by nearly 90 percent. A career service teacher surnamed Chen at Sichuan University in Southwest China said the university's graduates have paid a lot of attention to private businesses, including those small ones. "Our students have strong passions for those companies when seeking jobs," she said. "This year our university held three specialized job fairs, and more than 100 small and micro businesses from all over the country attended. We never held such a specialized event before." There will be about 8.34 million college graduates in 2019, 140,000 more than that of this year, according to Lin Huiqing, vice-minister of education. Maria Butina/photo by the Associated Press Maria Butina/photo by the Associated Press Marina Butina, the Russian woman accused of cozying up to conservatives in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. election, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to work as a Russian agent as details of her cooperation were unveiled in Washington, D.C., federal court. Butina admitted to working in the U.S. on behalf of the Russian government without notifying the Justice Department. She admitted she worked at the behest of a Russian officialbelieved to be Alexander Torshin, the Russian central banks deputy governoras she sought to infiltrate Republican political circles, including the National Rifle Association. Court documents show that during that time, she worked alongside and was romantically involved with a man believed to be Paul Erickson, a Republican operative with ties to the NRA. Neither Torshin nor Erickson have been identified by name in court papers or proceedings. Butina will cooperate with federal authorities as part of her guilty plea, according to her attorney, Robert Driscoll of McGlinchey Stafford. Thursdays plea caps the monthslong legal saga for Butina, who was arrested and charged in July on suspicions that she operated in the U.S. as a Russian spy. Butina, a gun rights activist in Russia, was living in Washington, D.C., while attending graduate school at American University. Authorities detailed in court papers Butinas efforts to ingratiate herself with Republican circles, painting her interests as more than extracurricular: she, with the help of Erickson, developed ties with NRA officials to advance Russian interests. Butina was also involved in an effort to set up friendship dinners aimed at strengthening U.S.-Russian ties. Butina worked under Torshins direction to create a back channel of communications with Americans, which the U.S. in July filings said could be used by the Russian Federation to penetrate the U.S. national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation. Prosecutors on Thursday did not resurface some of the more salacious allegations theyve made against Butina. Court filings did not include prosecutors earlier accusation, which has been since retracted, that Butina sent messages offering sex for a job, an allegation that spilled into the press and drew the admonishment of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who said it was apparent on their face that Butinas statements were jokes. Depending on the outcome of Butinas cooperation, she is expected to face up to six months in prison. Butina, who was detained in a Washington, D.C., jail after being described as a flight risk in July, could also face deportation after finishing any possible prison sentence. Chutkan did not set a sentencing date Thursday. A status hearing was set for Feb. 12. MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico's Interior Department has received a first list of prisoners who might be eligible for the amnesty promised by new leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Sen. Nestora Salgado has handed over a list of 180 men and 19 women. She described most as activists unfairly detained for defending people's rights. Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero said Friday the amnesty wouldn't be automatic, and might amount to simply expediting the cases already near resolution in court. The list includes people like anti-dam activist Marco Antonio Suastegui, who faces homicide charges for his role in a January 2018 confrontation that killed 8 villagers in southern Guerrero state. Both sides said they were defending themselves, but Suastegui's anti-dam forces lost two dead, while six of those who opposed his movement were killed. Maria Butina and her attorney, Robert Driscoll, in court on Thursday. (Sketch: Dana Verkouteren via AP) WASHINGTON It was called the Diplomacy Project an ambitious campaign to curry influence within the Republican Party and change its views toward Vladimir Putins Russia. But the chief operative for the project, Maria Butina, a striking young woman from Siberia, was no diplomat. Instead, as she admitted in federal court Thursday, she was a covert agent of the Russian Federation dispatched to the United States by a senior Russian official to develop unofficial channels of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics. The goal: to change U.S. policy toward Russia, especially around the sanctions imposed after Moscows invasion and annexation of Crimea. Butina, now 30, wearing glasses and a green prison suit and speaking in terse monosyllables, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan. Looking chastened and anything but glamorous, she entered a plea of guilty to one count, not of espionage, but of failing to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government, a crime that could result in up to five years in prison. But Butina also has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, marking another milestone in the investigations into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election. Butinas case is not being prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller. Instead, for reasons that remain unclear, it was handed off to the U.S. attorneys office in Washington. But it appears to have been a notable part of Russias political influence campaign in large part because of the creative means devised by Butina and her handler in Moscow, Alexander Torshin, a former deputy governor of Russias Central Bank and influential figure in Putins United Russia party. As laid out by federal prosecutor Erik Kenerson, who dryly read a seven page statement of offense, Butina and Torshin concocted a plan to influence the GOP by cultivating relationships with the leaders of a certain U.S. civil society gun rights organization a reference to the National Rifle Association. In a written proposal she drafted for Torshin in March 2015, titled Description of the Diplomacy Project, Butina predicted that the Republican Party candidate in 2016 would win the presidential election and she pointed to contacts she had made at NRA conventions as having laid the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication with the next U.S. administration. Story continues Butina wrote the Diplomacy Project paper with the assistance of somebody Kenerson described as U.S. person 1 a reference to Paul Erickson, a South Dakota conservative activist with whom she was having a romantic relationship. And, after her project was funded with $125,000 by an unidentified Russian billionaire, it brought a high profile delegation of NRA leaders to Moscow in December 2015 for meetings with high-level Russian government officials, sessions that were arranged by Torshin. After the meetings, Butina wrote a note to Torshin, referring to the NRA leaders that Kenerson told the judge has been translated two different ways. One translation was: We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later. Another translation, a bit more subtle was, We should allow them to express their gratitude now, and then quietly press. Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin in 2012, when he was a member of the Russian upper house of parliament. (Photo: Pavel Ptitsin/AP) That was hardly Butinas only endeavor as part of the Diplomacy Project. With the funds supplied by the Russian backer, she traveled the United States attending NRA conventions and other political events. One of them, not mentioned by Kenerson in his presentation in court, was a July 2015 event in Las Vegas, called FreedomFest, where she appeared in the audience during a talk by then candidate Donald Trump and asked him what his policy would be toward sanctions on Russia. Trump responded: I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, OK? I dont think youd need the sanctions. It was the first time Trump had addressed the issue as a candidate and, thanks to Butinas question, he had given the Kremlin exactly the answer it wanted. Kenerson told the judge that Butinas efforts to influence U.S. policy continued right through the 2016 campaign, including setting up friendship dinners with influential political figures, attending an NRA convention in Louisville, and organizing a Russian delegation to the National Prayer Breakfast in January 2017 with members hand-picked in consultation with Torshin to establish a back channel of communication to the new Trump administration. (President Trump was slated to meet with Torshin at the prayer breakfast, but when National Security Council officials got wind of it, they scrapped the meeting.) The statement of offense that Butina pleaded to leaves open the possibility that her cooperation will lead to charges against other figures. But it says nothing about what many investigators had suspected that Russian money might have been funneled into the NRA as part of its unprecedented $30 million expenditure during the 2016 election on behalf of Trumps candidacy. That could mean Butina has more information to provide or, alternatively, that her efforts while provocative and secret were not quite what investigators in the FBI and Congress had suspected. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: By Joyce Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's President Moon Jae-in told Japanese lawmakers on Friday "cautious, restrained" language is needed when discussing wartime forced labor to avoid "inciting antagonistic emotions" between the people of the two East Asian countries. A row between Seoul and Tokyo flared again in late October when South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp must pay four South Koreans 100 million won ($87,700) in compensation for their forced labor during World War Two. Japan denounced the ruling, which said a 1965 treaty did not remove the workers' right to reparations, as "unthinkable". The strain in relations between the two U.S. allies could affect efforts to rein in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, analysts say. Moon, who met Japanese lawmakers in Seoul on Friday, said his government would take its time to seek a solution because the issue was triggered by a judicial ruling that must be respected. "I think we need to use cautious, restrained expressions on this issue so as not to incite antagonistic emotions of the peoples of both countries," Moon said at the meeting. "Hurting the amicable sentiment between the two countries does not help the progress of the future relationship between South Korea and Japan," he added. Japanese leaders have reacted angrily to the Nippon Steel verdict and a later ruling against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, arguing that the issue was settled by the 1965 treaty. At a press briefing in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the South Korean rulings defied international law. "Relations between our two countries right now are in a very difficult situation," he said. "We will continue to strongly urge the South Korean government to respond in the appropriate manner." Moon addressed another contentious bilateral issue over Seoul's decision last month to disband a fund meant to settle compensation for South Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War Two. Under a 2015 deal, Japan apologized to the "comfort women" - Japan's euphemism for women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels - and provided a 1 billion yen ($9.4 million) fund to help them. South Korea has said it will discuss with Japan what to do with the balance of the fund, which stood at 16.08 billion won ($14.2 million) by end-October, including Seoul's contributions. "I hope that South Korea and Japan can discuss how to utilize the balance of the fund and 1 billion yen in a way that fits the original purpose," Moon said. (Additional reporting by Stanley White in Tokyo.; Editing by Paul Tait and Darren Schuettler) Residents and tourists alike returned to the Christmas Market in Strasbourg, France, after it was reopened by French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Friday, December 14, three days after a shooting attack. On Friday afternoon, Castaner officially reopened the market for the first time since security forces cordoned the area during the attack on December 11. The minister walked through the area thanking police officers. Video taken on Friday evening showed a group of musicians playing lively tunes outside the Cathedral of Notre Dame while holiday revelers enjoyed the markets lights and vin chaud. Photos captured memorials placed on several streets in the quarter where victims of Tuesdays attack were gunned down. The attack at the market claimed the lives of four, according to the Associated Press. Police say at least a dozen were injured. The suspect, identified as 29-year old Cherif Chekatt, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police in the Meinau quartier of Strasbourg on Thursday night. Credit: Eric Arfaux via Storyful By Abdi Sheikh MOGADISHU (Reuters) - At least 11 people were killed in Somalia's city of Baidoa in clashes between security forces and supporters of a former al Shabaab leader who is seeking election as a regional president, a military officer and an elder said on Friday. Authorities arrested Mukhtar Robow on Thursday, accusing him of bringing Islamist militants and weapons back to Baidoa, the capital of South West region where he is running for president. Robow supporters angered by his arrest clashed with police backed by Ethiopian peacekeeping forces in Baidoa, said Hussein Aden, a military officer in the city. Baidoa elder Saleh Isak accused the authorities of seeking to install their own candidate as president of South West, the first of Somalia's seven semi-autonomous regions to hold presidential elections in the coming months. "Yesterday 10 people died and today they killed a lawmaker," Isak told Reuters by telephone. Baidoa residents said the city had calmed down in the afternoon but was still tense, with most businesses staying closed and residents staying indoors. "AMISOMs (peacekeeping force) armored vehicles came into the town as a patrol. They just went back after they saw it was calm and that some residents blocked some of the roads with big stones," one resident, Halima Mohamed, said from Baidoa on Friday. The elections are a critical juncture in a growing power struggle between the U.S.-backed central government and regions where al Shabaab militants retain a presence following a long civil war. Aden gave a lower death toll of at least six killed, among them lawmaker Abdishakur Bule. "He died in cross fire between armed protesters and police this morning. Tension is high and we do not know what to do," Aden told Reuters. Robow was a prominent al Shabaab leader and group spokesman before he publicly renounced violence and recognized federal authority in August 2017. His spokesman said he was beaten by Ethiopian troops, part of an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, in the course of his arrest. Officials in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa were not immediately reachable for comment. (Additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Writing by George Obulutsa and Aaron Maasho; Editing by Hugh Lawson) Montreal (AFP) - The arrest of a top Chinese tech executive at the request of the US has snared Canada in the middle of a major international dispute involving Beijing and Washington. Ottawa confirmed on Thursday that China had detained two Canadian nationals under what Beijing has said is suspicion of threatening its national security. That came nearly two weeks after the arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecoms giant Huawei, a move that infuriated Beijing. The resulting crisis is to blame on "a trade war between China and the United States," Fred Bild, a former Canadian diplomat and Asian studies professor at the University of Montreal, told AFP. "Washington is using Canada in its trade battle with China," he said. The detention of the two Canadian nationals have fueled suspicions that China is retaliating against Canada's arrest of Meng. She was released on Can$10 million (US$7.5 million) bail by a court in Vancouver on Tuesday pending a US extradition hearing. Beijing had warned of "grave consequences" if she was not immediately freed. Bild points to the exceptional circumstances of her arrest, saying Washington has been content in the past to impose fines on foreign companies found guilty of violating US sanctions on Iran. Meng faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. But US President Donald Trump said he could intervene in the US case against her if it helps seal a trade deal with China -- statements that displeased Canada. - 'A pawn' - Trump's comments have "really complicated" the situation for Canada, according to Bild. "It's sometimes difficult to persuade the Chinese that we are not acting on behalf of the United States. And this has reinforced notions that Canada is just a pawn." Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on Wednesday indirectly criticized the statements by the US president. "Our extradition partners should not seek to politicize the extradition process or use it for ends other than the pursuit of justice and following the rule of law," she told a press conference. Story continues "Canada is caught in the middle of a China-US tech war," said Paul Evans, a global affairs professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The United States has been pressuring Canada for several months to ban Huawei equipment from its future 5G cellular networks over security concerns. Washington fears that Beijing may use the technology to disrupt US military communications. And the Trump administration sees a Huawei as a potential Trojan horse, a mistrust fueled by the fact that the group's founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former Chinese army officer. He is also Meng's father. Canada is the only member of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which also includes Australia, Britain and New Zealand, that has not shut out Huawei from 5G rollouts, noted Bild. The crisis comes as Canada's holding of the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven industrialized nations comes to a close and as Ottawa looked to China to diversify its trade, which is now heavily reliant on the US market. Instead of formally starting free trade talk with Beijing, Canada now faces threats of "trade sanctions," according to state-run Chinese media. Experts quoted by the Chinese tabloid Global Times, a mouthpiece of China's communist government, also raised the prospects of a decline in the number of visits by Chinese tourists and businessmen to Canada. Since Beijing approved Canada as a tourist destination for its citizens in 2010, the number of Chinese tourists has risen by 20 percent per year to almost 700,000 in 2017, and Ottawa hoped to double the figure by 2021. "But for now, Canadians are standing alone at the edge of an abyss, with a Chinese noose around our necks and American shivs sticking out of our backs," said an editorial in Canada's National Post. By Giulia Paravicini and Stephanie Nebehay KINSHASA/GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief on Friday called on Congolese authorities to halt violence and inflammatory speech ahead of the country's Dec. 23 presidential election, while the government said it was beefing up security for the vote. Campaigning for the long-delayed poll to choose President Joseph Kabila's successor had been mostly peaceful until this week, when security forces opened fire to disperse opposition gatherings and a fire in the capital Kinshasa destroyed thousands of voting machines and ballot boxes. The vote could mark Democratic Republic of Congo's first democratic transfer of power, but the violence and chaotic preparations have raised fears of a repeat of the trouble that marred the 2006 and 2011 polls. In an already tense electoral environment, I urge the government to send a clear signal that threats and violence against political opponents will not be tolerated, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said in a statement. I am deeply worried about the reports of excessive use of force, including live ammunition, by security forces against opposition rallies. In a news conference, government spokesman Lambert Mende said the government was reinforcing security, without giving details. He suggested opposition leaders were responsible for the latest violence. "People known for their extremism, and who have evidently received or given themselves the mission to torpedo and debunk the electoral process, have been working to undermine the process over the past few days," he said. Martin Fayulu, one of the two main opposition candidates running against Kabila's preferred successor, former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, has dismissed allegations from Shadary's camp that he incited violence. Fayulu and the other major opposition candidate, Felix Tshisekedi, suggested on Thursday that the government was behind the fire, which they said could serve as a pretext to further delay the election. Mende said the blaze would have "no impact on the electoral process". Election officials say they are recalling voting machines from the rest of the country to Kinshasa to replace the 80 percent of the capital's machines lost in the fire. The election to replace the term-limited Kabila was supposed to take place in 2016 but was repeatedly delayed, sparking demonstrations in which security forces killed dozens of protesters. Over those two years, security has broken down across much of the vast country, particularly its volatile eastern borderlands with Rwanda and Uganda, where dozens of militia groups are active. (Additional reporting by Sofia Christensen; writing by Aaron Ross; editing by Andrew Roche) WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's civil war. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the world's most dire human crisis, with the country on the brink of famine. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the president's ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trump's fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate backed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi's murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who was a columnist for the Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The Senate vote, which was unanimous, puts pressure on House leaders to allow a vote on the Khashoggi resolution this month, before Congress adjourns for the year. "Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear," said Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the resolution. Story continues Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government and the prince, despite a CIA assessment it was likely he ordered Khashoggi's killing. He promised to veto the war powers resolution. Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to take any action to disrupt the strategic U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close U.S. ally Israel. Administration officials also see Saudi support as a linchpin for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan yet to be unveiled by the Trump administration. And they have argued that ending U.S. support could complicate Yemen peace talks. 'SHARED STRATEGIC INTERESTS' Asked to comment on the Khashoggi resolution, a White House spokesperson noted sanctions imposed on 17 Saudis over the killing and said, "Our shared strategic interests with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remain, and we continue to view as achievable the twin imperatives of protecting America and holding accountable those responsible for the killing." But backers of the resolutions, including some Republicans, promised to press ahead. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators promised to push in the new Congress legislation for humanitarian sanctions and a ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. "What's next is to do everything possible to demand that the House of Representatives do what the members of the House want done, an opportunity to vote on this," Senator Bernie Sanders told Reuters. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he would bring the resolution up again after the new Congress convenes in January, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives. The measure could pass the Senate again, given the bipartisan support it received on Thursday, even though Trump's Republicans will have a larger majority in the upper chamber next year. "I think we're going to win in the Senate and I think we are going to do what the American people want, that is to end our participation in this horrific and destructive war," Sanders said. There was no immediate word from House leadership on whether they would allow a vote on either resolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who briefed House members on Thursday, urged senators during a briefing last month to keep supporting the Saudi-led coalition. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said her members supported congressional action. "There certainly is an appetite in our caucus for that," Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House Speaker, told reporters. Yemen's warring parties agreed on Thursday to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Ginger Gibson and Steve Holland; Editing by Alistair Bell and Rosalba O'Brien) Brussels (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May left the EU summit on Friday exactly as she had arrived -- promising talks to extract reassuring words from EU leaders to help her sell the Brexit deal back home. In the intervening hours those leaders had expressed frustration with May's "nebulous" strategy to get the withdrawal treaty past the House of Commons and insisted yet again that they will not renegotiate the text. May nevertheless put a brave face on the apparent rebuff and set off back to London to restart plans to put the Brexit deal before parliament, just five days after she abandoned a scheduled vote in the face of mass opposition from her own MPs. "There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in the coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the UK parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal," she said. It was not immediately clear which further talks she was referring to, as the EU leaders had cut a clause from a draft declaration that would have promised "further assurances" on the border issue. "I have no mandate to organise any further negotiations," said Donald Tusk, the summit host and president of the European Council, which represents EU leaders. "We have to exclude any kind of reopening of negotiations on the withdrawal agreement but we will stay here in Brussels and I am always at Prime Minister May's disposal," he said. - 'Clarify and reassure' - European officials said no further EU summits are scheduled before January 21 -- by which time May has said the deal will have gone to parliament -- and the British leader has not requested one. "There is an agreement, the only and best deal possible and we cannot renegotiate it. But we can clarify and reassure," French President Emmanuel Macron said. Instead, the Europeans called for more details from May as to how she intends to pass a withdrawal bill that, as it stands, is opposed by a clear majority of British lawmakers. Story continues "The signals we heard yesterday were not particularly reassuring on Britain's capacity to honour the commitments that were made," Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said. "So we will make sure to prepare for all scenarios and prepare also for a no-deal scenario." On Thursday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker complained that the strategy to steer a deal agreed on November 25 into law was "nebulous and imprecise." Footage of the opening of Friday's talks showed May in a tense head-to-head with Juncker and lip readers told media she said: "What did you call me? You called me nebulous. Yes you did." Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told reporters that many EU leaders were concerned May was asking for concessions without being able to guarantee they would be enough to deliver the vote. "That was a question that was asked by a lot of prime ministers: 'Is what you're asking for going to be enough?' Because if it's not enough there's no point giving it," he said. But several other leaders defended May. "She was very clear, very open about what she wants from us and we put it on paper," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. Britain's self-imposed deadline of January 21 to approve the deal is uncomfortably close to Brexit day on March 29, 2019 -- and Europe is stepping up preparations for a no deal. - 'She left with less' - May had come to Brussels wounded by a confidence vote on Wednesday night, which she won but in which more than one-third of her Conservative party MPs voted to oust her. Opposition to the deal in Britain is focused on a so-called "backstop" arrangement designed to keep the border with Ireland open unless and until a new UK-EU trade deal is signed. May is seeking "legal and political assurances" that this will not keep Britain trapped indefinitely in an EU customs union. But, while an early draft of the conclusions said the EU "stands ready to examine whether any further assurances can be provided", this was removed from the final version. "Colleagues were so exasperated that she left with less than she could have got," a European source said. May nevertheless welcomed the short joint statement. "As formal conclusions, these commitments have legal status and therefore should be welcomed," she told reporters, but added: "MPs will require further assurances." Arlene Foster, leader of Northern Ireland's hardline DUP made it clear that it would no longer prop up May's wafer-thin Commons majority if she pushes on the with the plan. "This is a difficulty of the Prime Minister's own making. A deal was signed off which the Prime Minister should have known would not gain the support of Parliament," she said. Katowice (Poland) (AFP) - UN negotiations aimed at preventing runaway global warming remain deadlocked less than 24 hours before the 12-day talks are set to end, China's top climate diplomat said Thursday. Ministers working overnight along parallel negotiating tracks struggled to weave dozens of strands into a "rule book" that would bring to life the Paris Agreement on climate change. The 2015 treaty vows to cap the rise in Earth's temperature at "well under" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and 1.5C if possible. "We are seeing deadlocks in certain areas," China's Xie Zhenhua told journalists in Katowice, Poland. "We need to avoid straying from the principles and spirit of the Paris Agreement... We cannot accept any backsliding," Xie said through a translator. The 195-nation Paris pact promises hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to poor nations already coping with extreme weather made worse by climate change, and -- more broadly -- to orient financial flows towards greening the global economy. The treaty, already ratified, goes into effect in 2020. Among the more nettlesome issues is how nations report progress in implementing voluntary national plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Wealthy nations are pushing for the rapid adoption of a unified and "transparent" set of rules that apply to all nations. Developing countries favour a generous interpretation of the "flexibility" they are assured in the treaty. "Only the person wearing shoes knows whether they are comfortable," Xie said, citing an "old Chinese saying". "It should be up to each country to decide when, how frequently, and what content to provide." "Developing countries are not comfortable at this stage of the negotiations," he added. Nor are they likely to be reassured by the most recent attempt by Poland, which is presiding over the complex talks, to strike a middle ground. Story continues Current climate pledges, even if fulfilled, would still see Earth's temperature rise well above 3C, a recipe for widespread human misery, scientists say. - Loss and damage - A draft of the decisions, for example, to be adopted at the consensus talks -- released late Thursday night by the host nation -- gave short shrift to another red-line issue for poor countries exposed to the ravages brought on by global warming: so-called "loss and damage". Cutting greenhouse gas emissions and helping nations prepare for a climate-addled future have long been the twin pillars of the UN climate forum. But more recently, a third plank of the regime was added to help nations cope with deadly heatwaves, drought and floods -- amplified by climate change -- happening today. Pulling the pieces of the climate puzzle together, said China's Xie, was harder with Donald Trump in the White House. "Of course I'm disappointed," he said when asked about the impending US withdrawal from the Paris pact. "How could I not be." "The United States has been an important player in the process," he added. "We would welcome them back to the climate change arena." Xie sidestepped a question on whether China would support a coalition of small island and least-developed states calling on all nations to raise their carbon cutting ambitions before 2020. UNITED NATIONS (AP) The U.N. envoy for Yemen called Friday for the urgent deployment of U.N. monitors to observe the implementation of a cease-fire in the strategic port city of Hodeida and the withdrawal of rival forces a potential breakthrough in Yemen's four-year civil war. Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that a speedy presence in the field is "an essential part of the confidence" needed to accompany implementation of Thursday's agreement between Yemen's government and Houthi Shiite rebels reached after eight days of negotiations in Sweden. Griffiths said in a video briefing from Amman, Jordan that Dutch Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert will lead the monitoring mission and could be in the region "as soon as the middle of next week." While calling the achievements at the talks "a significant step forward," Griffiths also urged caution saying "what's in front of us is a daunting task ... and the hard work is only about to begin." The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen's internationally recognized government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have fired long-range missiles into Saudi Arabia and targeted vessels in the Red Sea. The conflict has killed over 10,000 people, created the world's worst humanitarian crisis and brought the country to the brink of famine. Fighting has recently intensified near the port of Hodeida, the "lifeline" for the delivery of 70 percent of Yemen's humanitarian aid and imports including desperately needed food and fuel. Griffiths said the "ghastly prospect" of famine has made solving the fighting in Hodeida "both urgent and necessary." Story continues U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the council after chairing a meeting with the heads of key U.N. and humanitarian agencies earlier Friday that "the good news we have heard this week has not yet had any material impact on the millions of people who need assistance." He said the results of the latest analysis of the crisis "decisively confirm Yemen's descent toward famine," with more than 20 million people two-thirds of the population hungry and in need of aid. This includes for the first time 250,000 people facing "catastrophe," which is defined as "starvation, death and destitution," he said. Lowcock called for greater access for aid workers, increased humanitarian funding, and billions of dollars to stabilize Yemen's economy. Griffiths said the cease-fire agreement in the province of Hodeida, which entered into force upon its publication Thursday, includes "phased but rapid mutual withdrawals from both the three Hodeida ports and the city." It also gives the U.N. a leading role in managing and carrying out inspections at the ports of Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa which must "happen within days," he said. The government and the Houthis also reached "a mutual understanding to ease the situation in Taiz" and open humanitarian corridors for people and goods to cross the front lines and reduce fighting in the province, Griffiths said. Britain has drafted a resolution on Yemen, and U.K. Ambassador Karen Pierce said she will work "expeditiously" with council colleagues to revise it to endorse the agreements reached in Sweden, support their implementation, address the monitoring requirements, "and set out urgent next steps." "We have no time to lose," Pierce said. "We need to bring about tangible improvements for the people of Yemen and we need to do that as swiftly as we can." U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said pictures of suffering Yemenis and babies starving to death demand "that we take action to hold all the warring parties accountable," address "the Iranian aggression at the root of the crisis," and deliver life-saving assistance. Haley said the Security Council "must be ready to act if one or more of the parties fails to follow through" on implementation. Looking ahead, Griffiths said both sides agreed to meet again at the end of January and discuss his framework for a political solution to the war that will restore peace to Yemen. He noted that the Houthis "are in agreement with the general tenor of all its elements" while the government has some reservations. The U.N. envoy responded to people who question whether the parties can be trusted to implement the agreements made in Sweden by saying there are different views. "My own is that this is not about whether we can trust one or the other on this or that commitment," Griffiths said. "This is about helping them both to make it happen and reporting on their success, and noting those areas where they fall short of that." He stressed that "verification is the key to building trust." Griffiths quoted Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom who said after Thursday's announcement of the agreements that "no longer can Yemen be considered a forgotten war." "And now we can begin to hope for a track that may indeed lead to its early resolution," Griffiths added. Washington (AFP) - The head of the Ukrainian navy is meeting his US counterpart this week in Washington, where they will discuss the Russian navy's recent seizure of three Ukrainian vessels, a US official said Thursday. Russian ships last month opened fire on three Ukrainian navy vessels as they tried to pass through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, and detained the 24 Ukrainian crew members. Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said Ukraine's Admiral Ihor Voronchenko is meeting Thursday and Friday with US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson. Richardson and other Pentagon officials "will reiterate the US support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters, as well as the right of its vessels to traverse international waters," Pahon told AFP. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this month blasted the Russian navy's "brazen" violation of a treaty that allows both Russian and Ukrainian ships free passage in the Kerch Strait. Pahon said the US government supports "Ukraine in its pursuit of a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the ongoing Russian aggression, including Russia's recent unprovoked attack on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea." Ukraine's foreign minister on Thursday called for a speedy international response to Russia's "aggression" after it seized the three Ukrainian navy ships and 24 sailors. The confrontation at sea on November 25 was the first open military incident between Kiev and Moscow since 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and a conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russia separatists and government forces, which has claimed more than 10,000 lives. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Kim Myung Min returns as Detective K in the third installment of the blockbuster mystery film series! Again directed by Kim Suk Yoon,brings a brand new adventure to the brilliant and quirky detective who investigates strange cases in 18th century Korea. TV actress Kim Ji Won (), Kim Bum () and Lee Min Ki () join the series for an intriguing mystery that adds a paranormal twist to the usual blend of suspense and comedy. Detective Kim Min (Kim Myung Min) and his sidekick Seo Pil (Oh Dal Soo) are called upon to look into a series of mysterious deaths on Ganghwa Island. The victims' burned bodies have bite marks on the neck, piquing Detective K's suspicions that there may be bloodsuckers in Joseon. While investigating the case, he meets and teams up with a strangely powerful young woman (Kim Ji Won) who is suffering from amnesia. Her identity may be the key to solving the mystery. Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked recently raised a new proposal for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to Shaked, Areas A and B in the West Bank (which are under the varying levels of control of the Palestinian Authority), Gaza and Jordan would form a confederation, while Area C would be annexed to Israel and Israeli citizenship granted to its hundreds of thousands of residents. Shaked acknowledged that the Palestinians will reject the proposal which, she said, sounds today like science fiction, but expressed her hope that the Palestinians will change their position in the future. While we are at it, we can also wait for the Messiah. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The Palestinians believe, correctly or not, that the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza alone, would mean that they were forfeiting their claim to 78% of historic Palestine. Minister Shaked now proposes that they further forfeit Area C, some 60% of the territory of the West Bank, and make do with Areas A and B. The latter actually comprise 169 enclaves within Area C and every time a Palestinian sought to cross between them they would enter sovereign Israeli territory. Minister Shaked is correct: the Palestinians will not accept the proposal. Not just today, but in the future, too. If and when a Palestinian state is established, and if it expresses interest in forming a confederation, it is not inconceivable that Jordan would also be so inclined. The question is whether the minister understands that a confederation, by definition, is a political entity comprised of independent states, not a state and enclaves within its sovereign territory. Jordan has already rejected less implausible proposals. Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas at the funeral of Shimon Peres in September 2016 (Photo: GPO) As to Israel, were it not for the pesky fact that 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, there would actually be no reason to object to its complete annexation. There is, however, a virtually wall-to-wall popular consensus in Israel against a one-state solution. Ever since then-prime minister Menachem Begin announced the autonomy plan in the 1970s, Israels right wing has been flailing about, desperately seeking some magical formula that will allow it both to annex the West Bank and preserve Israels Jewish character. For those of us who live in the real world, however, not in the alternative realities characteristic of science fiction tales, the dilemma is actually quite simple. Already today, some 40% of the combined populations of Israel and the West Bank are not Jewish. Had it not been for the disengagement from Gaza, there would already be an Arab majority. In their blind folly, the annexationists are burying the future of the entire Zionist enterprise. There is only one solution to the conflict that both guarantees our national future, and meets the national aspirations of the Palestinians, and it remains the two state solution. Quite simply, there is no way to escape the choice between territory and demography. Every attempt to do so to date has failed and so will Minister Shakeds proposal. Moreover, in order to prevent millions of Palestinians from entering its territory each day, Israel, under Shakeds proposal, would have to build a fence around the 169 enclaves with a whopping total length of 1,700 km, equal to the distance from Jerusalem to Tehran. Had the minister bothered to consult with the IDF regarding the costs and size of the forces required to secure a border this long, she would have learned that her proposal is simply baseless. Most of the public does not believe that there is a realistic possibility of peace with the Palestinians for the foreseeable future and are deeply concerned about the security dangers stemming from a future agreement. Most, however, are also unwilling to acquiesce to the emergence of a binational state and thus oppose annexation. What is needed are new and realistic proposals for the interim period, such as that presented by the Commanders for Israeli Security (CIS), an organization comprised of some 300 of Israels most senior former defense officials. Pending a final agreement, and in order to preserve the conditions necessary to reach it, CIS proposes that the IDF continue to maintain military control over the West Bank, for security purposes, and that the security fence finally be completed, in order to prevent tens of thousands of illegal Palestinian workers, and potential terrorists, from entering Israel each day. Concurrently, a process of civil separation from the Palestinians would begin, including cessation of all settlement activity to the east of the security fence and beyond built-up areas, to its west. Assistance would be provided to those settlers who wish to return to Israel proper. Minister Shaked is a highly talented woman, with a potentially far-reaching political future. Her proposal, however, lacks a basis in any rational concept of reality. Instead of writing the equivalent of Ayelet in Wonderland, it behooves her to focus on proposals that have some bearing in reality. During its covert construction, the IDF's high command post in the Kirya base in Tel Avivalso known as "the pit"still had a secret code name. But last week, when it was opened for the first time to manage Operation Northern Shield, it got its permanent name: "Fort Zion." Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The planning and construction of the new "pit" lasted ten years. It's a giant space, several dozen feet underground, with several floors. The Operations Division's personnel sit in areas separated from one another by glass walls, with each being used for a different control center. Everyone can see everyone. Above this is an office floor, which is used by the IDF's top brass, such as the IDF chief, the head of the Operations Directorate, the head of the Operations Division who commands over the "pit," and others. The communications and control technologies installed there are state-of-the-art. The opening of the new "pit" was timed to coincide with the launch of the operation to expose Hezbollah tunnels on the Lebanese border. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) The decision to open "the pit" under the command of the IDF chief is reserved for big operations, usually beyond the state's borders, that entail high risk of escalation leading to war. And indeed, when Operation Northern Shield was announced, the level of alert was raised not just in the Northern Command, but in the entire General Staff, including preparations for immediate deployment of the army's quick-response units: The Commando Brigade, which was sent to the north last week; Special Forces units; and the Israel Air Force (IAF). In such a situation, at least based on past experience, dozens of IAF fighter jets stand ready at the different air bases. The situation assessment on the eve of the operation may have determined there was a low chance of escalation, but the operations area on the northern borderSyria and Lebanonis so unstable that any situation assessment is almost considered an educated guess. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) It's enough for a series of military operationswhich started with a strike in Syria in early December, which was attributed to Israel, and continued with the massive IDF presence on the Lebanese border and the discovery of Hezbollah's tunnelsto be misconstrued, for the other side to feel threatened. This is why there has been criticism, coming from inside the IDF as well, of the boastful rhetoric used by the political echelon weeks before the operation and upon its launch, which could be seen on the other side as preparing public opinion in Israel for war. Equipment hidden in the field "Operation Northern Shield" is the public chapter of a covert operation that has been going on for four years under the code name "White Gold." Only a few dozen commanders and professionals were aware of the operation; they all signed confidentiality agreements. The topic never came up in General Staff discussions, only in special discussion at the offices of the IDF chief, the defense minister and the GOC Northern Command. It started with Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi and continued under the command of Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick, who put together the plan and is directly overseeing it. At least half of the General Staff's generals didn't know a thing about it. Only as the launch of the public operation draw near did the number of people in on the secret was expanded to 300. The Special Operations Engineering Unit "Yahalom," the Engineering Corps' special commando unit, was brought in to translate the intelligence accumulated over four years into the physical work of locating and uncovering the tunnels in the field. Intelligence soldiers work to find the tunnels (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) "We closed the base, canceling all vacations on Friday," says Col. Shahar Beck, the commander of Yahalom. "We went from zero to 100: full operational readiness ahead of an operation." "The soldiers had no idea what was about to happen. First the commanders were briefed, and orders were issues to the forces later," he explains. "I, as the commander of the unit, and central people in the Engineering Corps, had our standing operating procedure (SOP) for many months beforehand. I had a small, compartmentalized team in my unit that dealt with the technological and operational aspects of the tunnels on the northern front. Some of the time they were stationed at the Northern Command and worked with the special team formed there, an intelligence-operational team, which was investigating the tunnels over the past four years. We prepared the combat soldiers 72 hours before the operation." IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: AFP) Col. Beck said the soldiers did not require special training for the operation because "they train in the underground model all year long, both the southern model and the northern one, and study the groundwhich is completely different in each of these frontsin great detail. They don't know what they're training for." "Starting on Friday (before the launch of the operationed.), the soldiers once again studied the ground, we prepared the equipment, and we prepared the teams who will be deployed to several areas on the northern border. Each team like that is made up of fighters and experts, with the latter responsible for the technological aspect of locating the tunnels. This operation is the biggest engineering effort the unit has carried out that was not part of a war," Beck says. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) The Yahalom unit traveled north only hours before the beginning of the operation, where it joined forces with the Commando Brigade and other infantry brigades stationed in areas where there is suspected tunnel activity or other unusual activity by Hezbollah. But the preparations for the operation began 24 hours earlier, when technological units arrived at the border covertly and began examining the ground. At the same time, heavy mechanical engineering equipment was covertly transported to the northern border. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) Formally, Operation Northern Shield began in the early hours of Monday, December 3. But the search for the tunnels started at night using special technological measures developed in the south alongside measures developed especially for the northern front. One of the main measures developed to locate tunnels is an engineering vehicle called the "Ant." This vehicle, which is equipped with sensors that can hear digging through the rock, deep underground, has been patrolling the northern front for a few years. Initially, the IDF thought it would take 24-48 hours to physically expose the first tunnel, but in practice it only took two hours. "The initial intelligence and technological search was very extensive," explains Col. Beck. "Slowly but surely we are narrowing down the search area, using a great deal of technological measures. The technological findings are sent to a special lab in the Northern Command that processes the geological information, and the results are sent back to the field to help accurately pinpoint the location of the tunnel." The first tunnel uncovered in Kafr Kela (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) Finding the tunnel is only the first step. "There's a very intensive process that follows the discovery of a tunnel, which includes not just exposing the tunnel but also ensuring no surprises come from inside of it," he says. When the IDF sent robots into the first discovered tunnel, they found two people insidepresumably Hezbollah menheading towards Israel. "We were surprised they were able to get in. They were spotted two hours after we started operating. On the other side of the border, they could've seen the heavy equipment and notice our activity. They should've realized we were onto that tunnel. It's likely they went in to see what was going on, what we were doing," Beck notes. Hezbollah fighters in the tunnel (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) What's next? "We're preparing for a long stay on the northern border. We'll work in an organized, systematic manner, one area after another, to rule out any possibility of underground infiltration. As a veteran commander in the army, I'm excited every time anew when I see the soldiers: the creativity, the initiative, the solutions they come up with... the war against the tunnels is a war of minds: the enemy is trying to hide, conceal, misleadand doing so very skillfully. I don't dismiss the northern enemy or the southern one. But we're here until the threat is lifted." Missiles on ATVs The tunnels are only a means to an end. The enemy is Hezbollah's Radwan force, which is operated directly by Hassan Nasrallah. The elite unit numbers 8,000-10,000 fighters, roughly divided into two forces: an intervention force and a special force. The special force is meant to break through the obstacle Israel built on the border and infiltrate the Galilee, with the focus being on the 22 Israeli communities adjacent to the border. In the next stage, the intervention force will come in with great fire power, including ATVs equipped with Kornet anti-tank missiles, and provide cover fire to help complete the takeover of a community, a military base or a strategic junction, as well as take out any IDF force that arrives at the scene. The intervention force also includes engineering units and snipers who will clear the way for units with heavier equipment. Hezbollah's ATV-mounted missile launchers There are three different scenarios for Hezbollah's attack on the Galilee. The first: a response to an Israeli attack. The second: a Hezbollah-initiated attack as part of a bigger effort to surprise Israel. And the third, which is less likely: using the tunnels to abduct Israelis. Hezbollah is well familiar with the IDF's reflex response. In the two major abductionsOctober 2000 and July 2006the IDF's knee-jerk reaction was to go into enemy territory. The abduction of a soldier from Israeli territory could be the first stage in a plan meant to ambush the Israeli force that will cross the border in pursuit, and destroy it. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield Incidentally, the Israeli defense establishment has known about Hezbollah's ATV force since November 6, 2001, when the organization held a celebratory parade following the conquering of the Syrian city of Qusayr. Dozens of ATVs were on display with Kornet missiles mounted on top alongside tanks and American APCs mounted with anti-tank missiles that Hezbollah received from the Lebanese army. The Israeli intelligence community realized Hezbollah has undergone a significant changeboth in size and in capabilitiesduring the civil war in Syria. It became the "boots on the ground" force for the Russians and the Iranian Quds Force, which commanded them during some of the battles. Hezbollah also served as the vanguard in Syrian army assaults as well. A rough estimation is that Hezbollah lost almost 2,000 of the 8,000 fighters it sent to Syria. At least half of that force has already returned to Lebanon. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit ) The number of Hezbollah dead and injured fighters was met with harsh criticism in Lebanon, but the "tuition" paid off. The fighters returned to Lebanon after having received lessons from the best teachers there are: The Russians and Iran's Special Forces. They learned to operate with fighter jets, helicopters and precision-guided armament. Their expertise in fighting in built up areas is of a much higher quality today. This is how Hezbollah's elite team ("Nukhba," a term that repeats itself in Gaza as well) came to be. Now they're resting and preparing for the possibility of resuming the conflict with their historical enemy: Israel. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) Israel has started noticing the change in Hezbollah's doctrines at the beginning of this decade, following the 2006 Second Lebanon War: the terror group is putting an emphasis not just on missile fire at Israel and on the construction of an obstacle against Israeli infiltration, but also on a ground offensive inside Israeli territory with the overarching goal being improving the strategic balance between the two warring sides. Such a move is supposed to disrupt the IDF's operations, keep its forces busy with defense rather than offense, and achieve a psychological victory. The possibility there were tunnels on the northern border was first explored in October 2014, shortly after Operation Protective Edge. The discovery of the underground activities came after the IDF identified a secret component to Hezbollah's operational outlook. It turned out that they were planning an assault just through the familiar over-ground areainfiltrating the Galilee through the thick vegetation and the valleysbut also through a different path, underground. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) Internal fighting in Israel surrounding the Gaza tunnels not only expedited the development of technological measures to identify tunnels, but also increased the sensitivity and the openness to the possibility there were tunnels being dug in the north as well. Then-defense minister Moshe Ya'alon was able to raise $120 million from the Americans to provide a push for the tunnel discovery project, and the IDF established an intelligence-technological-operational team that started working covertly in the Northern Command. The team began analyzing strategic areas where Hezbollah could have covertly dug close to the border fence. This is how they reached the concrete block factory in Kafr Kela, where the first tunnel was discovered. The intelligence observation units monitoring the area of the factory noticed how in 2015 a generator and a guard post popped up there, while the people working there gradually changed and the site slowly but surely became a military facility for all intents and purposes. These units also tracked the trucks coming out of the site with dirt. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: Avihu Shapira) Then-GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi made a semantic decision at the time, which had operational significance: No more talk of guerrilla units and terror activity, but recognition of a Hezbollah army. The IDF realized that Hezbollah and Iran's all-encompassing threatthe ability to hit Israel from air, land and sea, and now also from undergroundis complete. The third Mughniyeh During 2016 and 2017, the Israeli defense establishment started working on a massive NIS 1 billion project, which includes clearing large areas of vegetation from the border fence area, building bluffs to prevent the infiltration of vehicles from the Lebanese side and constructing a nine-meter-tall (30 feet) wall along 13 kilometers (8 miles) of the border, with a plan to eventually cover 130 kilometers (80 miles)if there's money. At the same time, changes were made to the Northern Command's deployment, plans were formulated for the evacuation of the population, etc. This over-ground project has been known to the public. The underground project, meanwhile, which was top secret within Hezbollah's ranks as well, became one of the biggest secrets in the State of Israel. IDF operations to locate Hezbollah tunnels near Kafr Kela (Photo: AFP) The Israeli defense establishment realized that the Radwan force, which was formed in the early 2000s as Nasrallah's personal security force, has been increasingly growing. What started as several dozens or hundreds of people grew during the Syrian civil war to many thousands. The Radwan unit is named after one of the founders of Nasrallah's personal guard, Imad Mughniyeh, whose operational nickname was al-Hajj Radwan. He went on to become Hezbollah's military chief and was assassinated in 2008 in an attack attributed to Israel. His son Jihad followed in his footsteps: he started as a commander in Nasrallah's guard and rose through the ranks to become the commander of Hezbollah's units in the Golan Heights, where he too was assassinated. In January 2017, a day before undergoing surgery, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot instructed then-GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Kochavi to launch a SOP to destroy the tunnels on the northern border that the Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) knew about at the time. IDF chief Eisenkot, third from the right, with GOC Northern Command Strick and other senior officers holding a situation assessment in the north (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) Since then, every two weeks, a small group of officers have convened in the IDF chief's office to discuss the progress of the project to eliminate the tunnels. The effort is led on three axes: The engineering team, which is dubbed the "Gray Axis," prepared the location and destruction operation. The "Blue Axis" is preparing for the possibility of escalation leading to an all-out war. And the "Red Axis," entrusted with psychological warfare, is operating all the time to de-legitimize Hezbollah as the organization violating the UN Security Council's Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The exposure of the tunnels last week led to a series of international condemnations against Hezbollah, bolstered the demand for harsher international sanctions on the organization and is supposed to prevent the sale of advanced weapons by the US or France to the Lebanese army, as such arms could reach Hezbollah. IDF with UN peacekeepers on the border as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: Avihu Shapira) Adding to this psychological warfare were IDF chief Eisenkot's public comments that Israel knows of all of Hezbollah's cross-border tunnels. This message was directed at the terror organization: You no longer have any secrets. This message builds on another message two months ago by a senior Northern Command official, who told military reporters in a briefing that the Radwan force would not be able to even reach the border. Meaning: It would be eliminated before that. Now we're waiting on Nasrallah's speech. Israeli defense officials believe the speech has already been written, and Hezbollah is debating on the right timing for it. This speech might reveal what of the Israeli psychological warfare had any impact. When Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick entered the GOC Northern Command's office in March 2017, the SOP for the exposure of the tunnels was already being in place. Strick took charge over the three axes of the effort and held secret discussions about the operation in his office. Maj. Gen Strick with soldiers and officers in the field (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) The IDF chief marked the summer of 2018 as the target date for the destruction of the tunnels, but a crisis in Gaza erupted in late March 2018, and the General Staff's attention was directed to the Southern Command. The crisis with Russia following the downing of the Russian intelligence plane in Syria in September also contributed to the postponement of the operation. That entire time, the IDF chiefin conjunction with the Northern Command, the Operations Directorate and the MIDheld dozens of discussions about the timing of the operation. He believed it was imperative to launch the operation before the tunnels were ready to be used, in light of the possibility of deterioration into war on the northern front in the coming months, Hezbollah's efforts to convert regular rockets into precision-guided missiles, and the organization's attempts to re-establish its presence in the Golan Heights under the command of another Mughniyeh: Mustafa Mughniyeh. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) Eisenkot also estimated his successor, as a new IDF chief, will take a while to receive the approval of the political echelon to launch the operation. It's safe to assume that somewhere in his subconscious, Eisenkot also considered the possibility of early elections that could postpone the operation even further. And generally speaking, it is better to get ahead of the Galilee winterwhich would make any activity more difficult, particularly digging through mudand expose the tunnels now. The head of MID's Research Department, Brig. Gen. Dror Shalom, was in favor of revealing the tunnels' existence to the world, but asked for it to be done at a different timing, citing professional reasons. The head of MID, Maj. Gen. Tamir Heyman, decided following internal discussions that it was possible to launch the operation now. The IDF chief sought to bring Brig. Gen. Shalom to the Security Cabinet's discussion that would decide on this issue, to present and explain his position. IDF searches for Hezbollah tunnels as part of Operation Northern Shield (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office) Then-defense minister Avigdor Lieberman was in favor of having Brig. Gen. Shalom appear in front of the Cabinet, as he believed the military focus should remain in the south. The rationale: In the north, Israel already has a good intelligence grasp of the tunnels, it would be a few more months before Hezbollah can complete their construction, and there was no situation assessment indicating that the Shiite organization was preparing for an offensive in the north. Therefore, Lieberman explained, there is no reason to halt the activity in the Gaza Strip in order to move the efforts north. Moving the military focus from one front to another is a political decision, and so it reached the Cabinet. And so at a Cabinet meeting held on October 7, Operation Northern Shield received the green light. It's important to note Lieberman did eventually authorize the operation after postponing the decision several times and asking the military for more intelligence. He signed off on the operation itself, but not its timing. It's reasonable to assume that today the tunnels are empty and hold no activities. It appears that after the IDF's discovery of the first tunnel, Hezbollah put the project on hold. Based on past experience, this is where the organization would draw conclusions, learn its lessons and evaluate the situation going forward. Hezbollah has patience, and its response by fire will not necessarily be immediate. They're in no rush. So the days of quiet on the border since Operation Northern Shield was launched are not indicative of anything. It might also be an attempt to lull Israel into a false sense of security ahead of a provocation that would leave the IDF no choice but to response and stop its operation. The US Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to US President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end US military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end US military support for the Saudi Arabian-led campaign in Yemen. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw US forces from a foreign military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973 during the Vietnam War, limits the president's ability to commit US forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trump's fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi's murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. "Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear," Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government, and the prince. He promised to veto the war powers resolution. The White House declined comment on the joint resolution beyond pointing to his previous veto threat. But backers of the resolutions, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans, promised to press ahead. An Arab bus driver working for Kavim bus company was attacked by two young Jewish men in Modi'in Illit Friday. The driver was lightly wounded and was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem with a fracture in his ribs and eye socket. According to the driver, a resident of Shuafat refugee camp, two young Jews beat him after they noticed he was an Arab. The police launched an investigation into the incident. An IDF soldier was moderately-to-seriously wounded Friday by a Palestinan who crossed the fence in Beit El, the West Bank. The terrorist struck the soldier with a rock from a short distance. After attacking the soldier, the assailant fled the scene. The soldier was evacuated to a hospital for further medical treatment. The incident's full details are being examined. IDF troops are searching the area. At least ten security personnel were injured Friday in a violent protest in Jordan's capital against the government's planned tax increases and high youth unemployment. Some protesters near the prime minister's office scuffled with riot police who fired several rounds of tear gas. Several people dropped to the ground in coughing fits. It marked the first time police and protesters clashed since regular Thursday night protests resumed several weeks ago. Previous demonstrations in the spring forced the resignation of then-Prime Minister Hani Mulki who was replaced by economist Omar Razzaz. Razzaz promised a more inclusive style of governing, but is also under pressure from international lenders to cut the government's large deficit. Jordan's economy has been hit by the fallout from years of conflict in neighboring Syria and Iraq, including trade disruptions and an influx of refugees. An IDF soldier, 21, was seriously wounded Friday morning after a Palestinian man stabbed him and struck him in the head with a stone at a military post on the outskirts of Beit El, a settlement in the West Bank. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter According to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, "a fight broke out between the soldier and the assailant, who stabbed the soldier and struck him with a rock from a short distance. Evidence in the field indicates that the assailant was also injured in the struggle. The incident is still being examined. IDF troops are searching the area." The soldier was evacuated to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. The scene of the attack in Beit El (Photo: Hadar Luz/TPS) The attacker managed to infiltrate the settlement and attack the soldier before fleeing the scene. Eye witnesses said the assailant surprised the soldier from behind, before hitting him with a stone. "One resident saw a man strike a soldier in the head with a rock, before escaping the scene. She immediately called the police," an eyewitness said. Scene of the attack in Beit El X The Friday attack comes a day after a wave of violence left two IDF soldiers dead and four other people wounded. At around 5am Thursday, two Border Police officers were lightly hurt in a pre-dawn stabbing in the Old City of Jerusalem. The attacker, heading from the direction of the Damascus Gate drew a knife, jumped a Jewish man on Hagai Street, and tried to stab him. After he failed to do so, he ran towards two Border Police officers who were stationed nearby and tried to stab them as well. One of them shot and killed the assailant, a 26-year-old resident of the West Bank. The scene of the attack in Beit El (Photo: Hadar Luz/TPS) Hours later, Sergeant Yosef Cohen, aged 19 from Beit Shemesh, and 20-year-old Staff Sergeant Yovel Moryosef from Ashkelon were shot dead when a gunman opened fire as they stood guard at a bus stop next to the outpost of Givat Asaf. Two others - a soldier and a civilian - were seriously wounded in the attack. The gunman fled the scene, sparking a massive manhunt for him and any accomplices. The soldier who was wounded in the attack is still in critical condition and receiving treatment at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the condition of the civilian who was seriously wounded in the attack improved Friday morning. The scene of the shooting attack in the West Bank, December 13, 2018 (Photo: AFP) The third attack came a short time after, when an IDF soldier was lightly wounded in a car-ramming attack in Al-Bireh, northeast of Ramallah. The driver was shot dead by forces on the scene. According to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, security forces arrested overnight Thursday 40 wanted Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorist activities and violent disturbances, 37 of whom are known Hamas operatives. In addition, soldiers from IDF's elite Duvdevan unit and Border Police's counterterrorism unit Yamam were operating deep inside Palestinian territories throughout Thursday to increase pressure on the terrorist group behind the attacks. Yet no arrests have been made. The terrorist behind the shooting attack in the West Bank fired at close range and escaped holding the personal weapon of one of the IDF soldiers killed in the attack, according to investigation materials revealed Friday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The initial investigation also indicates that the terrorist group is comprised of several members and prepared a hiding place in advance. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot at the scene of the West Bank shooting attack (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) Three soldiers were stationed in the West Bank outpost of Giv'at Asaf to secure a bus stop at the intersection. Two of them, Sergeant Yosef Cohen, aged 19 from Beit Shemesh, and 20-year-old Staff Sergeant Yovel Moryosef from Ashkelon were killed during the attack, when a gunman leaped out of his car and opened fire at close range. The attacker seriously wounded two other people. One of the two, a civilian, is reportedly improving from her wounds, while the second injured man, another combat soldier, is still fighting for his life. Sgt. Yosef Cohen (left) and Staff Sgt. Yovel Moryosef were killed December 13, 2018 in a West Bank drive-by shooting According to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, security forces arrested overnight Thursday dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank as the army intensified a crackdown in response to the deadly attack. Some 70 Hamas members, including lawmakers, were arrested, including about 40 wanted Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorist activities and violent disturbances, 37 of whom are known Hamas operatives. In addition, soldiers from IDF's elite Duvdevan unit and Border Police's counterterrorism unit Yamam were operating deep inside Palestinian territories throughout Thursday to increase pressure on the terrorist group behind the attacks. Yet no arrests have been made. The army bolstered its troops and placed a closure on the area following the attack. The closure extends to and includes the city of Ramallah, which is the seat the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. The IDF expressed concern that the shooting could lead to copycat attacks and said it was exploring the possibility of a link between the shooting and Sunday's terror attack at the Ofra settlement. During the hunt for the assailants, hundreds of Palestinians clashed with IDF forces near Al-Bireh, a Palestinian city located northeast of Ramallah. The Israeli troops responded with crowd dispersal measures. One soldier was lightly wounded by a Palestinian who threw a stone at his face. Earlier Thursday, an IDF soldier was lightly wounded in a car-ramming attack in Al-Bireh. The driver, 60, was shot dead by forces on the ground. Per the request of Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense establishment is examining the possibility of revoking work and entry permits from relatives of the terrorists who participated in terror attacks this week. The scene of the shooting attack in the West Bank, December 13, 2018 (Photo: AFP) During discussions held by Netanyahu, the prime minister directed security officials to take a series of steps, including an increase in administrative detentions of Hamas members in the West Bank, placing more closure on area roads, and regulating the status of thousands of homes whose status has not yet been settled. Netanyahu conveyed a firm message to Hamas: there will be no ceasefire in Gaza while there is use of fire in Judea and Samaria." The scene of the shooting attack in the West Bank, December 13, 2018 (: ) X IDF Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot held a situation assessment Thursday, which was attended by several IDF and Shin Bet officials. Eisenkot noted that the determination, adherence and the productive cooperation between IDF troops, Israel Securities Authority (ISA), and Israeli Police resulted in the killing of the terrorists who carried out the shooting attacks in the Barkan industrial area and the Ofra Junction. "The battle against terror is an ongoing one, but the message to terror and terrorists is clear," he said, adding that efforts to maintain safety and sense of security in the West Bank and other regions continue at all times. "In the past few days a Hamas terrorist group succeeded in striking us while exacting a heavy pricewe will hunt them down terrorists would not be able to hide in Judea and Samaria. In the wake of the attack, we are bolstering our troops, protecting roads and settlements, and expanding our efforts to prevent terror," added GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Nadav Padan, who was also in attendence. Hamas condemned Friday the violence carried out by the Palestinian Authority's security forces against its members in the West Bank while blaming Israel, among others. "This brutal aggression is proof of the disregard for our martyrs' blood and the distress of our people in the West Bank as a result of the activity of IDF soldiers and Jewish settlers," a statement made by the terrorist organization read. Heads of municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank announced Friday they intend to suspend their activities on Sunday in response to the recent wave of terrorist attacks. A demonstration will be held outside Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem on Sunday morning. The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will hold talks with high-level officials from Iran, Russia and Turkey in Geneva early next week on setting up a constitutional committee, a UN statement said on Friday. The talks on forming a "credible, balanced, and inclusive" committee to draft a new constitution for Syria and usher in elections will take place ahead of his monthly presentation to the UN Security Council set for Thursday December 20, it said. IDF forces shot and killed a Palestinian during stone throwing clashes on Friday in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that Mahmoud Nakhla, 18, was shot in the abdomen and died at medical center in Ramallah, as IDF soldiers clashed with dozens of Palestinians throwing rocks. The clashes followed a surge of violence on Thursday when a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli soldiers. The Israeli ambassador to Ukraine has sharply criticized Friday local legislators' move to honor a Ukrainian nationalist leader. Ambassador Joel Lion said on Facebook that he was "shocked' to see the regional legislature in Lviv in western Ukraine declare 2019 "the year of Stepan Bandera" to mark the 110th anniversary of his birth. Bandera was a leader of Ukraine's nationalist movement, which included an insurgent army that for one period sided with the Nazis during World War II. Jewish groups have linked Bandera's followers to the mass murders of Jews. Lion said "I can't understand how the glorification of those directly involved in horrible anti-Semitic crimes helps fight anti-Semitism and xenophobia." The ambassador that "Ukraine shouldn't forget those crimes committed against Ukrainian Jews and in no way celebrate them through honoring their perpetrators." The Queensland government recently announced that it is boosting the development of build-to-rent residential projects through a new pilot subsidy program. The initiative is set to provide a targeted rental subsidy to a successful proponent to deliver affordable and market rental housing within a build-to-rent development in Brisbane. Build-to-rent buildings are large-scale residential properties, which are managed by institutional investors and developers, mainly for long-term rental. Returns are gained through rental income, rather than up-front sales or capital growth. Renters will benefit from longer contracts and improved amenities compared to what is currently available in the private rental market. The Property Council of Australia welcomed the news, noting that the program is advantageous to both the property industry and Queensland renters. This is a very welcome step towards creating a new way of delivering housing options for Queenslanders that will deliver high-quality rental accommodation and provide greater security of tenure, said Chris Mountford, executive director of Property Council Queensland. The government has earmarked $70 million for the project. According to the property council, this will not only pave the way for economic activity and more jobs, but also help in meeting Queenslanders long-term housing needs. Mountford said that by partnering with the private sector to materialise the projects, the government is already on the right track to ensure that build-to-rent has a foothold in the Queensland market. News Washington, DC - "We hope to extend our economic partnerships with countries who are committed to self-reliance and to fostering opportunities for job creation in both Africa and the United States." ~ President Donald J. Trump PROMOTING PROSPERITY IN AFRICA AND AMERICA: President Donald J. Trump is releasing a Strategy toward Africa that will advance American and African prosperity. President Donald J. Trumps Africa Strategy will advance trade and commercial ties to increase prosperity in the United States and Africa. The Trump Administration is developing the Prosper Africa initiative to support this goal. The initiative will support open markets for American businesses, grow Africas middle class, promote youth employment opportunities, and improve the business climate. Supporting economic growth and development in Africa delivers mutual benefits to the United States and our partners in Africa. President Trumps Africa Strategy will benefit Americans by creating jobs, expanding exports from the United States, and increasing reciprocity with our African trading partners. The President will use the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to promote deeper trade ties and fair trade with sub-Saharan African states. The Administration will encourage African leaders to choose sustainable foreign investments that help states become self-reliant, unlike those offered by China that impose undue costs. STRENGTHENING SECURITY: President Trumps Africa Strategy supports efforts to counter threats to American and African security. Under the Presidents Strategy, the United States will continue to help our African allies build security forces to counter these threats and strengthen the rule of law. The Administration will continue to support African ownership of responses to regional security threats. The Administration will support effective United Nations peacekeeping operations, while seeking to reconfigure or end operations that do not meet their goals or facilitate lasting peace. The United States will strengthen states where failure to do so would threaten our homeland and will take unilateral action when necessary to protect our safety and security. The United States will continue to invest in preventing, detecting, and responding to outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases, while helping African partners lead their own efforts. STRIVING FOR STABILITY: The Presidents Strategy prioritizes United States foreign assistance that supports progress toward stability, good governance, and self-reliance. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. As China celebrates the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening-up, China Daily website invited over 30 foreigners to share their stories and insights in Beijing on Wednesday. Laurence Brahm shares his story at Bookworm in Sanlitun, Beijing, Dec 12, 2018. [Photo by Chen Xinyu/chinadaily.com.cn] Laurence Brahm, an American expat who first came to China as a university exchange student in 1981, related his China story to the Eagles song Hotel California. "China is like Hotel California-- you can check out, but you can never leave." Laurence Brahm has spent much of the 37 years living and working in the country. He has been a lawyer, a writer and a filmmaker, and now he is the founding director of the Himalayan Consensus and a senior international fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. Reflecting back on the first days when he just arrived, Laurence said he felt like an alien. "People stared at me wherever I went. And that was a society with absolute scarcity." "And now we are sitting at the Bookworm, and there are books around us. China is now connected to the world, leading on quantum communications and quantum satellites and artificial intelligence. The transition is huge," Brahm said. Alex Chen shares his experiences at Bookworm in Sanlitun, Beijing, Dec 12, 2018. [Photo by Chen Xinyu/chinadaily.com.cn] Alex Chen, a 27-year-old Chinese-Italian, left China for Italy at the age of 6 to be with his parents. Since then he has returned many times to visit his grandparents. "Every time I would see radical economic and social changes, which have improved peoples lives, but never as intense as this time," he said. Bruce Connolly shares his stories at Bookworm in Sanlitun, Beijing, Dec 12, 2018. [Photo by Chen Xinyu/chinadaily.com.cn] Bruce Connolly, a 70-year-old photographer from Scotland, has noticed the widespread availability of smartphone technology and the changes it brought to people's lifestyles, too. However, as a travel enthusiast who has left footprints all across the country, Connolly was most impressed by the infrastructure changes "So many changes I have seen over 31 years and still continue to see each day reveal a China thats almost unrecognizable to what I saw on a leisurely rail journey of discovery in 1987." But there's more to China than the ever-improving infrastructure and widespread mobile payment. Hujjatullah Zia shares his observation at Bookworm in Sanlitun, Beijing, Dec 12, 2018. [Photo by Chen Xinyu/chinadaily.com.cn] "The presence of foreigners, mainly journalists, in China shows that China is opening its door wider to the outside world," said Hujjatullah Zia, an Afghan journalist and freelance writer. Zia attended a 10-month media exchange program along with 44 journalists from 43 Asian, Pacific and African countries. During the stay, Zia said he had witnessed that China is providing a platform for dialogue, cultural exchanges and people-to-people contact on a large scale to minimize misunderstandings, seek common ground, and strengthen friendly relations and mutual understanding. Zia's observation was best exemplified by two other "veteran" expats' experiences. Gilbert Van Kerckhove shares his experience at Bookworm in Sanlitun, Beijing, Dec 12, 2018. [Photo by Chen Xinyu/chinadaily.com.cn] Gilbert Van Kerckhove is one of the earliest foreign business people to venture into China after its reform and opening-up. The 70-year-old Belgian business strategist has not only witnessed, but also played an important part in the country's tremendous transformation over the decades. In 2008, as Beijing prepared for the Olympic Games, Van Kerckhove acted as a coordinator between the Chinese administration and foreign governments, embassies and chambers of commerce. Looking back on his memorable experiences of the 2008 Olympics, Van Kerckhove summarized the whole complicated effort in one sentence: "It was not only me -- it was teamwork. It also illustrates that we foreigners can contribute to this country." Living in China for 38 years, Gilbert Van Kerckhove witnessed Chinas great transformation. "In this respect, China has being pretty much planning ahead and being very forward-looking," he said. Due to his great achievements, he was honored with the China Friendship Award in 2005, and he was offered a Chinese "green card" in 2008. Photo taken on May 21, 2018 shows a cross-border e-commerce freight train from Hamburg of Germany arriving in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. China-Europe freight trains made 5,611 trips in the first 11 months of 2018, surging 72 percent compared with the same period last year, according to a meeting held in southwest China's Sichuan Province. In 2017, more than 3,000 trips were made via the China-Europe freight trains between cities on the two continents. The number is expected to reach 6,000 in 2018, according to the meeting held by the Transport Coordinating Committee of China Railway Corporation's China-Europe project. As of November, the trains connect 56 Chinese cities with 49 European cities in 15 European countries. The number of trips from Europe to China has increased and accounted for 71 percent of the trips to Europe, according to the committee. In late August, the trains marked their 10,000th trip since beginning operations in March 2011. The China-Europe freight rail services have pushed forward China's opening-up and boosted economic and trade cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road, the China Railway Corporation said in a statement. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond. Over the past five years, China's trade in goods with countries along the Belt and Road exceeded 5.5 trillion U.S. dollars. Chinese direct investment in the non-financial sectors of these countries reached 80 billion dollars during the same period. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) CHENGDU, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- China-Europe freight trains made 5,611 trips in the first 11 months of 2018, surging 72 percent compared with the same period last year, according to a meeting held in southwest China's Sichuan Province. In 2017, more than 3,000 trips were made via the China-Europe freight trains between cities on the two continents. The number is expected to reach 6,000 in 2018, according to the meeting held by the Transport Coordinating Committee of China Railway Corporation's China-Europe project. As of November, the trains connect 56 Chinese cities with 49 European cities in 15 European countries. The number of trips from Europe to China has increased and accounted for 71 percent of the trips to Europe, according to the committee. In late August, the trains marked their 10,000th trip since beginning operations in March 2011. The China-Europe freight rail services have pushed forward China's opening-up and boosted economic and trade cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road, the China Railway Corporation said in a statement. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond. Over the past five years, China's trade in goods with countries along the Belt and Road exceeded 5.5 trillion U.S. dollars. Chinese direct investment in the non-financial sectors of these countries reached 80 billion dollars during the same period. A federal judge has ruled that Qualcomm cannot use Apple moving to Intel modem as an evidence against allegations of the companys monopolistic business practices. The FTC has filed a lawsuit in early 2017 against Qualcomm in the U.S. District Court alleging anticompetitive business practices and patent licensing norms for its LTE basebands. FTC is still in talks with Qualcomm about settling the matter out of the court, though a Qualcomm lawyer said there was no news about the status of the discussions. In the case, Qualcomm has used the fact that Apple has completely stopped using its modem and switched entirely to Intel as evidence that its business practices are not unfair. It also highlighted how it has reduced the licensing fees for its 5G modem and that several OEMs have already signed deals with it. It also argued that the new market conditions would show that it does not have a monopoly over LTE modem. However, its request was rejected by Judge Lucy Koh. Qualcomm does not argue that any post-discovery evidence shows a change in Qualcomms own business conduct. All of the proposed evidence relates to alleged shifts in Qualcomms market power, Koh wrote in her decision. An FTC win could spell trouble for Qualcomm as it could force the company to change its licensing behavior and fees and face heavy fines along with it. In the case, the court has already ruled that Qualcomm must share key patent technologies with its competitors if requested by them. Qualcomm had previously settled with the Taiwanese regulator out of the court in a similar case by agreeing to invest $700 million in the country. It is likely that the chipmaker will try to reach an out of court settlement with the FTC in this case as well. [Via Reuters This must be the umpteenth time that a peace process has been initiated to restore peace and stability in Afghanistan. Given the deteriorating security situation there, the present efforts to arrive at a peace deal with the Taliban look more urgent than ever. However, much like the past, this time too we have too many cooks stirring the broth. There are two major international peace efforts that are currently underway the recently galvanized American push for peace led by Zalmay Khalilzad and the year-old Moscow-led consultations. In each case, the aim is to end the conflict in Afghanistan, but what drives them apart is on whose terms they would like the conflict to end. As rival powers, would the American and Russian paths ever meet to secure a peaceful future for Afghanistan? Time will tell. But till then, we can only hope that history does not repeat itself one more time. Making America Exit. Again. The US is aware of just how unwinnable the war is. And, now that the presence of America is becoming a popular eyesore, the Trump administration seems to be in the mood to draw the curtains. The exit is imminent; it is only to make it honourable that the American administration is interested in giving the peace process another chance. It is for this that a special representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation has been appointed in the hope of bringing the conflict to that stage from where saying au revoir would not look defeatist for the US. For a country that had once refused to talk to Taliban or include it in the post-2001 international arrangements, things seem to have come a full circle. Not only did the undiminishing power of the Taliban compel the US to facilitate the creation of an outpost for this group in Doha, but it also changed its narrative about it. Believing that it could bring the good Taliban on board, the US has been trying to coordinate with the group. The attempt all this while was to facilitate a discussion between the Afghan government and the Taliban indirectly. However, with Khalilzad, things have taken a direct turn. Setting afoot as the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Khalilzads position in the administration is, perhaps, an attempt to reverse the disbanding of the office of the US Special Envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan last year. His official induction with a special mandate was announced in a memo issued by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in September 2018. In this memo, the stability of Afghanistan was, once again, tied up with the security of America and concluded on an energetic note to get the job done. Since then, Khalilzad has conducted a range of talks with different stakeholders Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Taliban, amongst others. Emerging from these are reports that suggest that the Special Representative is eager to deliver a peace deal in six months, i.e. by April/May 2019, which even the Taliban thinks is too short. Describing their talks with Khalilzad as preliminary, the Taliban denied having reached any agreement on interim government, future president or elections which were rumored to have been a part of the talks. The Taliban, however, have rejected Khalilzads call for a ceasefire. Touring different countries in these months, Khalilzads revived push for peace has become the backdrop for many developments. For instance, his talks with the Taliban were preceded by the release of high-level Taliban prisoners, including the co-founder of the organization, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Pakistan. The Afghan government, on its part too, has brought together a team of 12 members to lead the peace process from Afghanistans side. However, not everything has been as encouraging. The assassinations of Kandahars police chief Abdul Raziq and Maulana Sami-ul Haq, the so-called father of the Taliban; the fall of different towns and regional centers in Afghanistan to the Taliban; and the incessant decline in the security levels have shown that precious little has changed on the ground. Russia Does a Bear Hug Leading a multilateral process that is officially described as the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan, the peace efforts galvanized by Russia have once again put the country in the orbit of importance vis-a-vis Afghanistan. Its stated purpose is to coordinate the development of an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue towards promoting the process of national reconciliation and the restoration of peace as soon as possible in the long-suffering Afghan state. The origins of these consultations can be found in the trilateral discussions that were held between Moscow, Beijing, and Islamabad back in 2016. In the absence of any representation from Afghanistan, these discussions generated resentment and opposition particularly as the Russian dalliance with the Taliban was confirmed by its Ambassador to Kabul. Faced with opposition and an opportunity, Russia subsequently expanded the talks to 6 countries in February 2017 and opened it further to take the participation to 12 countries in April 2017. The situation as it stands today still does not look ready for peace. The announcement of the Peace Road Map by the Ghani government was met with a series of bombings in different parts of Afghanistan. Interestingly, it is one of the peace processes which have managed to get the Taliban to share the same table with Afghanistan to talk, if not agree, on things. The objective is to get different parties together under the same roof which has proven to be both ineffectual and difficult in the past. This is not to say that the Moscow-led process has managed to deliver anything concrete, however, it is not entirely insignificant for the geo-political weight it carries. The most recent round of discussions under this format were conducted on November 9, 2018. Coming after some delays and setbacks stemming from Afghanistans initial refusal to participate in the talks, the latest edition went ahead with official and unofficial participation. While the government of Afghanistan still refused to take part in the talks, the High Peace Council of Afghanistan, led by the vice-chair Haji Din Mohammad, was present at the consultation as the countrys national non-government institution. The Taliban delegation of five were led by the head of the groups political office in Doha, Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai. India too participated unofficially in the process while the Americans were there as observers. The absence of a collective joint statement was made up for by individual testimonies about the process. Significant amongst these were the observations of the Taliban and the High Peace Council of Afghanistan, both of which in their respective statements stressed on the need for peace in order to secure the well-being of all Afghans. Their demands were different and so were their approaches. As per the Talibans official website, the speech delivered by Stanikzai covered the following things: (i) the causes of the ongoing miseries and conflicts in Afghanistan in the past four decades; (ii) obstacles to peace; (iii) its position regarding some key issues like the Eid-ul Fitr ceasefire and womens rights , and (iv) the practical measures for the prevention of civilian casualties. He also reiterated the key prerequisites that have to be met before the Taliban can be expected to walk the talk. The High Peace Council of Afghanistan is yet to provide an English translation of its official narrative on the Moscow consultation. However, overall, their emphasis has been on bringing an end to the conflict within the parameters of the existing constitution; an opinion that was reiterated by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the Geneva Conference (November 27-28). Where Does Kabul Stand in All This? Convening in Geneva, the international donors participating in the reconstruction of Afghanistan heard Ashraf Ghani describe the roadmap for peace. His emphasis on gradual transition instead of a rushed-through peace deal was received variously. On the one hand, Ghanis claim that peace would need another five years was interpreted as a couched way of his seeking another term as the President of Afghanistan. On the other, it was seen as a veiled attack of sorts on Khalilzads hasty attempt at brokering peace. However, in keeping with American demands, Ghani announced the constitution of a formal 12-member peace council that will undertake negotiations and discussions on behalf of the government. Distinguishing between false and genuine urgency, Ghani suggested that the fundamental difference between them is at the pace at which it takes for there to be an impact on the outcomes achieved. Hurried actions without direction, often organized around political timelines, boxes ticked without coherence, according to Ghani, will lead the country nowhere. Instead, a laser focused approach that draws on our past and the experiences of other societies can help achieve lasting peace. Furthering the Kabul Process which was initiated a year ago, Ghanis Peace Road Map stressed the need to ensure that the peace efforts are owned and led by Afghans. The role of international and regional stakeholders in this process will be essentially facilitative and complementary in Afghanistans pursuit of an enduring and inclusive peace. Seeking to end the conflict in a phased manner, the road map looked like an address directed at the Taliban. The group, in its response, stated that for them, talking to powerless and foreign imposed entities is a waste of time. They did not mince words in calling the President impotent and someone who forwarded proposals about negotiations that were beyond his capabilities, and rejected the proposal to talk to the government of Afghanistan outright. The situation as it stands today still does not look ready for peace. The announcement of the Peace Road Map by the Ghani government was met with a series of bombings in different parts of Afghanistan, including an attack by the Taliban on the compound of the British security company, G4S. The Taliban, buoyed by its recent ambush of Afghan and international security forces, have claimed that the world understands that more than half of Afghanistan is under their control. The purpose behind their need to have a hold over territory is to give themselves an upper hand in the negotiations, which they too know to be imminent. However, what is not known much to the disappointment of Ghani who has often claimed that the peace process is now a matter of when is when this when will arrive. The journey to the much-awaited dawn still appears to be long. A woman scans the QR code on a snack to check out the product's price, origin and other detailed information, in a smart retailing experiment zone at an industry expo in Chongqing, in August. [Photo by Tang Yi / Xinhua] Tech advances to improve lives, offer faster commutes, clean air, reduce crime Smart cities promise to bring better lives, faster commutes, cleaner air and lower crime, all through the intelligent use of connected technology, said experts, and after huge investment in the sector, China is leading the way. "China's smart cities market is projected to increase about 30 percent year-on-year in 2018, and all the provincial and sub-provincial cities have launched development and construction for smart cities, with more to follow suit," said Pierpaolo Franco, managing director of London-based Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Greater China. In 2011, smart city initiatives were included in China's 12th Five-Year (2011-15) Plan. Just a year later, the first pilot projects were launched. Since then, more than 500 Chinese cities have pursued smart city development, investing a total of 1 trillion yuan ($145 billion), according to a report by Shenzhen-based ASKCI Consulting Co Ltd. The market will hit 7.9 trillion yuan this year, is expected to grow by 33 percent annually, and by 2022 will top 25 trillion yuan, according to ocn.com.cn, a Shenzhen-based consulting platform. In smart cities, big data is collected with sensors and analyzed for ways to manage resources more efficiently. This has been estimated as a $3 trillion global business market over the next 20 years, according to a report by RICS earlier this year. While the principle of using technology to create more efficient systems stays the same, cities adapt the focus: some focus on technology development, others energy conservation, or green city concepts. "Although most cities have started a smart city project, there is no globally unified thinking on the concept and operation of smart cities," said Franco. Last year, China's Ministry of Science and Technology identified four tech companies, Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd, and iFlyTek, to become a "national team" and boost the development of AI technology in the country. Alibaba is now involved in dozens of pilot projects across China, with its open AI platform Tianqing for the ET City Brain system officially launched in September. Set up by its cloud computing subsidiary, the Brain looks to make the city "think" through AI and cloud computing technologies, and help optimize public services in real time. "There is abundant data in our cities, but the important data is not fully analyzed and used, and it is just idling there," said Hua Xiansheng, head of the AI center at Alibaba Cloud, and vice-president of Alibaba Group. One place the Brain has been deployed is Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province. Once notorious for its traffic jams and urban congestion, the Brain has been helping traffic to flow more efficiently. Since introducing the technology, Hangzhou's traffic congestion has fallen from the fifth-worst in China in 2016, all the way to 57th place this year, according to online mapping firm Gaode Map. Average rush hour speeds have also increased, from 20.7 kilometers per hour in 2012, to 24.15 kilometers per hour presently. Thanks to smart city solutions, Suzhou in Jiangsu province can predict its traffic flow within the next hour to an accuracy of more than 94 percent. "Currently, our experiments are mostly for government use, but we truly expect our open AI platform to enter more areas and help citizens live, work and entertain better," said Hua. Research firm McKinsey Global Institute agrees. In its recent report Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more livable future, they find that cities can use smart technologies to improve some key quality-of-life indicators by 10 to 30 percent - numbers that translate into lives saved, fewer crime incidents, shorter commutes, a reduced health burden, and carbon emissions averted. "A smart city not only requires innovative technologies like AI, big data, cloud computing and the internet of things, but also needs global standards to guide and assess the building of smart cities. The ultimate goal is not to build a completely intelligent city but to create a comfortable, healthy, safe and happy living and working environment for the urban population through the adoption of advanced technologies," added Franco. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Susan Kootnekoff is a lawyer with Inspire Law in Kelowna. The content of this article is intended to provide very general thoughts and general information, not to provide legal advice. Specialist advice from a qualified legal professional should be sought about your specific circumstances To contact the writer, call 250-764-7710 or info@inspirelaw.ca. Recently, Canada shocked the world by detaining a Chinese citizen during her change of flight in Vancouver at the behest of US authorities. The person was Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. After graduating from university in 1992, Meng Wanzhou spent a year working at China Construction Bank before joining her fathers company, Huawei, working as a telephone operator. She served as one of only three secretaries during the early years of the company and was responsible for typing, making product catalogs, preparing for exhibitions, and so on. And as Huawei grew to become a leading technology company, so did her career. After she was released on bail in Vancouver on Wednesday, Meng Wanzhou posted a moment on her WeChat account, which went viral on Chinese social media. The post, which was written in Chinese, reads: Im in Vancouver, by my familys side. Im proud of Huawei and proud of my motherland! Thank you to everyone who has been concerned about me. Her message was posted along with a previous Huawei ad that features a ballerinas wrecked foot and a quote from Romain Rolland, which literally translates into English as behind all greatness is suffering. Photo used by Huawei ad In response to the social media post, the Peoples Daily newspaper commented: The path forward has never been smooth. There is sweat and even tears and moving forward requires courage and wisdom. In 40 years of reform and opening-up, we have never looked for easy success. After all, it is hard to go uphill. The commentary then echoed the words of Ren Zhengfei, the founder and president of Huawei Technologies. We do our own thing well and boldly go where no man has gone before. As the photo suggests, the sweat and tears of the Chinese people are the catalyst behind Chinas rise to greatness. Founded in 1987, Huawei started off as a small company with around 20,000-yuan (less than $3,000) in startup capital. Fast forward to today, and the company has grown into one of the worlds most valuable companies and is a global leader in information and communications technology (ICT) services. Keep your eyes on the goal. A widely circulated quote from Ren Zhengfei says that it is important to focus on winning the battle against one gate along the wall. In the past 30 years, Huawei has focused on ICT and been persistent in providing ICT services, passing up opportunities to engage in the property market and finance industry so as to remain focused on its core goal. Another major factor that has helped fuel Huaweis rise is its heavy investment in R&D. Huawei is among the worlds top R&D spenders, investing over 10 percent of its revenue in R&D every year. Its R&D expenditures totaled 89.7 billion yuan (over $13 billion) in 2017, accounting for 14.9 percent of its total revenue, and the company has spent more than 394 billion (over $57 billion) on R&D over the past decade. In addition, about 80,000 of its employees, or 45 percent of its total workforce, are engaged in R&D. Although Huawei has become one of the major symbols of Chinas technology advancements, Ren Zhengfei is very modest. He believes that Chinas success depends on the efforts of all the Chinese people. In one media appearance, he said: Every one of Chinas 1.3 billion people must do one thing well. Putting them together is the great motherland. Ren Zhengfei was once seen waiting to take a taxi late at night In some ways, the success story of Huawei is not unique. Huawei, like many of the countrys 1.3 billion people, has big ambitions and constantly strives to achieve greatness through hard work. However, a view among some people in the West is that China is a threat. This is especially true in the United States, where the US government has even gone so far as to call Huawei a national security threat, even though there is no convincing evidence to back up this claim. Recently, China responded to these groundless accusations by pointing out the absence of evidence. Some people in certain countries have been saying that Huawei may pose threats to their national security, but none of them have yet to produce any convincing evidence on how their national security has been affected by Huawei, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday. Apart from the theory built upon the belief that China is a threat, there is no real reason to fear the rise of Chinese tech companies like Huawei. In fact, the West could learn a thing or two from Chinas spirit of hard work. Take for example Chinas $32 billion online food-delivery market. Day or night and rain or shine, Chinese food delivery workers can be seen racing to deliver meals to doorsteps. Order a cup of coffee and it will be delivered to you hot, regardless of the weather. Even in America, the hardworking spirit of the Chinese people is seen and appreciated. Unsung heroes who will go the extra mile for success. Not even a tornado will stop the Chinese delivery man, an Instagram user wrote. Chinas impressive success sets an example to the rest of the world. Rather than criticize China for working hard to make China great, it might be more useful to examine why China has become so closely associated with the word greatness. From lifting 740 million people in rural areas out of poverty to building the worlds largest high-speed train network to creating one of the worlds most important communications companies, Chinas rise is unstoppable, because its greatness is built on the blood, sweat, and tears of 1.3 billion hardworking Chinese. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. This Account has been suspended. By Dong Sun-hwa A TV commercial featuring members of K-pop girl group BLACKPINK dressed in miniskirts has been banned in Indonesia for indecency. According to local media Friday, the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) on Tuesday ordered 11 TV stations to stop airing the team's advertisement for Shopee. The move came after more than 100,000 people signed an online petition, calling on the commission to remove the "indecent material" that they believe violates the decency and morality norms of many Indonesians. "Companies need to be careful when they're making a commercial that they don't associate their product with something Indonesians see as negative," commission head Hardly Stefano said in a statement. "If we still find similar broadcasts as mentioned in our warning letters, the KPI will impose punishment in line with prevailing regulations." But the decision soon faced a from people who say such commercials should be allowed. One online petition, filed by a fan of the group, called for the advertisement to continue to be shown, saying "open your mind. Be smart, people." BLACKPINK, a girl band with many hits including "DDU-DU DDU-DU," has been Shopee's first regional ambassador since November. 'Politically-biased' program brings move against fee By Kim Hyun-bin A controversy over a pro-communism comment on a television program on public broadcaster KBS has moved some to protest against mandatory television and radio license fees. Many citizens say they do not want to pay the fees for what they call "biased and manipulative broadcasts," with some saying they do not watch KBS. Others stated that they do not even own a television The row started after Kim Soo-keun, the head of a pro-Kim Jong-un group called the Welcome Committee for a Great Man, praised the North Korean leader during the talk show, "Tonight, Kim Je-dong." In the episode aired Dec. 4, the activist said he welcomes Kim Jong-un's planned visit to Seoul, saying, "I have become a fan of Kim Jong-un, watching his humble attitude, leadership and capability, as well as for the economic development North Korea has achieved under his leadership." In the group's press conference at Gwanghwamun Square late last month, he said "I like communism," causing a stir. The comment raised eyebrows, especially in conservative circles, and many rejected what they saw as pro-North Korean propaganda promulgated by a public broadcaster. "I believe they are trying to trumpet the current Moon Jae-in administration's stance," Rep. Park Sung-joong of the main opposition Liberty Party of Korea said. One of KBS's own unions also released a statement saying, "How can a public broadcaster air comments praising Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea that is defined as an anti-state organization by the law." Regarding the criticism, KBS said it maintained a neutral stance, with other panelists in the program talking negatively about the group welcoming Kim's visit. But the controversy has now shifted to why the public needs to pay the KBS license fee if it airs biased information. In 1963, people paid a 100 won for a television license, which was raised to 2,500 won in 1981 and remains unchanged to this day. From 1994, the fee has been included in the Korean Electric Power Corp.'s electricity bill. Over 300 petitions have been posted on the Cheong Wa Dae's website claiming they are forced to pay the fee when they don't view KBS or have a television, calling for the government to separate the license fee from the electricity bill. There has been an increase in complaints demanding a refund of the license fee in 2016, there were over 15,000, which grew to roughly 26,000 last year. "The mandatory license fee is applied even for people who do not watch the channel, and this is against the Constitution because it violates consumers' right to choose. It needs to be revised," Rep. Lee Un-ju of the Bareunmirae Party said. Egypt is making Africa a top priority as it prepares to take over the chairmanship of the African Union in 2019 Africa is on centre stage in Egypt this month, with a series of events taking place almost simultaneously in the country. Earlier this week, the Africa 2018 Forum, entitled Business for Africa and the World, kicked off in Sharm El-Sheikh. Meanwhile in Cairo, the fourth edition of Food Africa, an international exhibition dedicated to the African food and beverages industry was taking place. Yesterday, the Intra-Africa Trade Fair (IATF), the first of its kind in Africa, began and is scheduled to run well into next week. Egypt is thus putting its money where its mouth is and focusing on strengthening and deepening its ties with Africa. And as it takes over the chair of the African Union (AU) in 2019, it is intensifying its efforts to ensure the realisation of the continents 2063 Vision with the aim of achieving comprehensive economic and social development. Our meeting this year comes at a time when we are all looking for further regional integration and facilitating intra-regional trade, especially after the African Union launched the Continental Free Trade Area (CTA) during the summit held in Kigali in March 2018, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi told the Africa Forum 2018 this week. He added that Egypt was looking forward to increasing its investments in the continents countries through joint and cross-border projects particularly in the areas of infrastructure, new and renewable energy, telecommunications and information technology. We aspire to achieve these goals through joint action in the framework of the African Union, Al-Sisi said. Intra-African trade now stands at 15 per cent of total African trade, according to a report by Afreximbank, an African bank. A 2018 report entitled Boosting Intra-African Trade: Implications of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, showed that in comparison European countries do 67 per cent of their trade with each other. In Asia, the percentage is 58 per cent, and Latin America comes out at 20 per cent. With the theme of Bold Leadership and Collective Commitment: Advancing Intra-African Investments, the forum in Sharm El-Sheikh was organised by the Egyptian Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Regional Investment Agency (RIA). The forum brought together more than 3,000 delegates, including heads of state, politicians and business figures. They put their heads together to discuss opportunities to boost private-sector engagement and intra-African investment, aiming to create a new economic system in Africa based on innovation, entrepreneurship and womens empowerment. During the forum, Al-Sisi called on investors from Africa and abroad to take advantage of the promising opportunities in Africa to promote development and stability. He showed that Egypt has set an example by increasing its investments in Africa in 2018 to reach $10.2 billion. Intra-African trade and industrialisation are crucial to the prosperity and inclusiveness agenda articulated under the African Unions Agenda 2063 development strategy, said the Afreximbank report. Moving away from commodity and natural resource dependence is an indicator of success and transformation under the AU Plan, it said. Egypt's Plans Howaida Abdel-Azim, head of Cairo Universitys Institute of African Studies and Research, praised Egypts increased focus on Africa, much in evidence at the Africa Forum this week. Africa is Egypts strategic depth, and it should be a priority for Egypt, she commented. She pointed out that relations with the rest of Africa had been cold since the mid-1990s, but that had changed when Al-Sisi took office in 2014. She said that Egypts taking the helm of the AU next year would also help to build better relations with the rest of the African continent. Abdel-Azim stressed the importance of Egyptian investments and trade in creating jobs for African people. She also stressed that Egypt must boost the work it is already doing in the areas of education and healthcare as well as technical training for the African countries through the Egyptian Agency for Partnership for Development. Helping African countries realise their development goals is something that must be encouraged, she said, praising Egypts involvement in building dams across the continent. This week a deal was inked in Tanzania under which the Egyptian Arab Contractors Company will help build the Stieglers Gorge Dam that is expected to produce 5920 GW of power. Khaled Ramzy, export director for Fresh Electric for Home Appliances, an Egyptian company, acknowledged the opportunities in Africa, but said doing business in Africa was not always easy. While trading within COMESA countries had meant his company had been able to create awareness of made in Egypt products, doing business had not got easier over time, he said, adding that countries were putting up non-tariff barriers to make sure they did not lose revenues from customs. Each country in Africa has a set of standards that exporters must abide by, he said, and acquiring certificates of conformity with such specifications is not cheap, especially when sales volume does not justify the costs. He stressed that it was important for African countries to unify their specifications to facilitate trade among them. This point was also stressed in the Afreximbank report, which said that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) arrangement needed to go beyond a 100 per cent tariff reduction on all goods, as non-tariff barriers were also important constraints hampering welfare gains and efficiency in intra-African trade. Another issue faced by exporters, Ramzy said, was the shortage of hard currency because of difficult economic conditions in many African countries. This meant that Egyptian companies could receive payment for goods months after they had been delivered, Ramzy said. The solution, he suggested, would be to set up an account in which deals taking place between the two countries would be settled against each other. That would be a win-win situation because Egypt would be exporting its goods while importing its needs from Africa, he explained. For example, instead of importing meat from Australia, it could import it from Sudan or Ethiopia, countries with which it shares mutual interests, Ramzy said. Security and stability were other issues stressed during this weeks forum by Al-Sisi. If we cannot maintain security and stability, this will negatively affect us all, he said. Ramzy agreed, saying that while investing in Africa could make life much easier for manufacturers, it was not always easy for fear of political uncertainty. Instead, he said, investors opted for joint ventures with local partners and might not choose to rent warehouses or set up assembly lines. Getting Easier To make life easier for exporters, Al-Sisi said at the end of the forum that Egypt would establish an investment-risk guarantee to encourage Egyptian investors to channel their investments to Africa, to participate in the development of the continent, and to capitalise on the enormous opportunities available. However, one of the challenges of exporting to Africa was the cost of transport, Ramzy said. He said that though the government offered a 50 per cent discount on marine transport, that discount was only refunded later, which did not enable the exporter to pass on the discount to buyers. This also made exports from China and Turkey more competitive. What would make a world of difference in intra-African trade, Ramzy said, would be the materialisation of the Continental Free Trade Area. He wants a greater role for the government in boosting exports through trade representation offices and entry visa facilitation for businessmen. His dream is to see Egyptian hypermarkets open in African countries that would represent ideal outlets for Egyptian goods. The need to invest in infrastructure was another important issue raised at the forum. The Afreximbank report quoted the African Development Bank (AfDB) as saying that Africa has lost a cumulative 25 per cent in forgone growth in the last two decades due to inadequate infrastructure, which harms trade through its impacts on costs. The success of the AfCFTA is linked to extensive infrastructure development and finance, the AfDB said. Improving infrastructure, which is now a trade constraint, could enable African countries to engage more fully in intra-regional trade and reap the benefits of economic globalisation, it said. Acknowledging this obstacle, Al-Sisi said that he had decided to negotiate with international institutions, our development partners, to support infrastructure development as the basis of real development, including expediting the completion of the Cairo-Cape Town Route, in order to integrate the continents countries and expand trade between our countries. The AfDB suggests that Africa needs $130 billion to $170 billion a year to close its infrastructure gap, an amount that exceeds the ability of African governments to finance. report also acknowledged that infrastructure investments involve long-term commitments and multiple risks, including completion risks arising from policy and regulatory uncertainly and revenue risks relating to a projects ability not only to repay its debts but also to generate an adequate return for investors. It suggested that development finance institutions (DFIs) could make infrastructure projects more bankable by contributing capital, technical expertise and capacity where the private sector cannot. The report suggested that DFIs, through their development mandate, could contribute to project bankability by participating in the creation of an enabling environment that solves (or at the very least improves on) regulatory and institutional challenges. DFIs can also provide a range of targeted risk mitigation products and have the ability to be a loss absorber. Because of a lack of political stability in many of the continents nations and poor infrastructure, investment and trade are not an easy feat, but they are rewarding, Abdel-Azim said, adding that this was why major economies like China were heavily involved in the continent under the umbrella of South-South Cooperation. In fact, according to the Afreximbank report China is Africas single largest trading partner. China-Africa relations are at an all-time high, with Beijing proving more than willing to extend its One Belt, One Road Initiative across the continent, an April 2018 article published in the World Finance magazine said. The One Belt, One Road Initiative is an ambitious trade and development plan that seeks to connect most of Asia, a good part of Africa, and the entire Mediterranean basin. It was launched in 2013. Entitled Bridging Africas Infrastructure Gap, the article showed that China was financing 80 per cent of the $11.17 billion Nairobi-Mombasa Railway in Kenya.In Ethiopia, China is financing the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway with $4 billion. Other nations are certainly helping with Africas infrastructure burden, including India and the US, but China is often considered the most noteworthy, the article said. However, there is a growing concern... that Chinas infrastructural investments are not entirely altruistic, the article said, adding that it was possible that the economic benefits of these projects would spur economic growth, but there were fears that if countries were unable to repay the sums, China could seek repayment through political agreements or favoured access to natural resources. The African states indebtedness to Beijing is estimated at around $130 billion. Youth And Pledges The forum included a Young Entrepreneurs Day (YED) that provided a comprehensive platform to support entrepreneurs as well as innovative ideas that can create unconventional solutions for African countries. The YED gave entrepreneurs the opportunity to meet investors and to enhance their skills through special workshops. You are the most valuable asset to the continent. You are the drive and energy to create a better future for our continent, Al-Sisi said to participants at the YED. The agenda also included a Women Empowering Africa Day (WEA), with the aim of encouraging a greater role for African women in building the economic and social development of their countries. At the end of the two-day forum, Al-Sisi made promises intended to support the African countries. These included an intention to increase technical cooperation with the countries of the continent in the areas of investment in human capital, digital transformation, management of international finance, governance and monitoring and evaluation systems. He also promised the establishment of a fund to invest in information infrastructure, in order to support the technological development and digital transformation of the continent and to build modern economies based on the latest technological systems. Al-Sisi boosted cooperation between Egypt and the countries of the continent in the fields of governance and fighting corruption through the exchange of expertise and the training and rehabilitation of bodies in the continent to spread a culture of good governance and eliminate corruption. He launched the second phase of the National Strategy for Combating Corruption (2019-2022) in celebration of World Anti-Corruption Day. And he decided to establish a National Anti-Corruption Academy and provide 250 training grants to African leaders working in the field of corruption prevention. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 December, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Egypts plans for Africa Search Keywords: Short link: Kim Hyun-chul, center, a Presidential economic adviser, center, raises his fist with chief executives of banks ahead of their meeting in Seoul, Friday to discuss expansion in Southeast Asia. Courtesy of Korea Federation of Banks By Park Hyong-ki The government will establish support centers in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Thailand to help local financial companies enter those markets, according to Kim Hyun-chul, an economic adviser to President Moon Jae-in, Friday. In a meeting with chief executives of banks in Seoul, Kim said it will do so as requested by the companies, which find it hard to penetrate those markets. Kim is also the chairman of a Presidential committee focusing on boosting economic ties between Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India "I understand that the banks need a place or building in Indonesia where they can stay and do business there; and it is very difficult to enter Thailand," Kim said at the meeting. Vietnam has reportedly expressed an interest in hosting the envisioned second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. gettyimagesbank Vietnam has expressed an interest in hosting the envisioned second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, CNN reported Thursday. High-ranking Vietnamese officials delivered that intent to the South Korean government, according to a South Korean government source quoted by the news channel. Vietnam has been cited in the media as a potential site for the next summit, along with Mongolia and Indonesia. North Korea, which is largely isolated from the international community, has embassies in all three countries. Trump said early this month that he expects the second summit to happen in January or February, in one of three locations he didn't name. He had earlier ruled out Singapore, the venue of the first summit in June. Mark Lambert, the acting U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, recently visited Vietnam, a diplomatic source in Washington told Yonhap. But it's unclear whether the trip was linked to planning for the second summit. "I understand it was part of routine outreach, and he's traveling to other countries too," the source said on condition of anonymity. A State Department official said, "We are not going to comment on the details of our private diplomatic conversations." Meanwhile, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho was also in Vietnam early this month, a trip that was followed by a visit to Mongolia days later. While speculation about the second summit is rife, negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have made little headway since Trump and Kim agreed in June to work toward the "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's official news agency cast the blame on the U.S. "The DPRK-U.S. negotiations are now at a deadlock," the Korean Central News Agency said Thursday, referring to the North by its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "The international community is expressing frustration and disappointment as it is unclear when the stalled train of negotiations will start moving," it continued. "Who is to blame? The U.S. is to blame. There is no doubt about it." It went on to say, "Just like it is impossible to start a fire in water, an improvement in the DPRK-U.S. relations cannot go in tandem with sanctions and pressure." (Yonhap) President Moon Ja-in greets Japanese lawmakers who belong to the Korea-Japa Parliamentarian Union, at Cheong Wa Dae, Friday. Yonhap By Yi Whan-woo President Moon Jae-in denied Japan's claims that the South Korean Supreme Court's recent ruling on wartime labor violates the diplomatic treaty signed between Seoul and Tokyo in 1965, Friday. During a meeting with a group of Japanese lawmakers at Cheong Wa Dae, Moon countered claims that Japan has completed its reparations over its 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. On Nov. 29, the Supreme Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate four elderly Koreans who were forced into laboring for the company during the colonial rule. "The Supreme Court's ruling does not ignore the 1965 treaty," Moon told the delegates of the Japan-Korean Parliamentarian Union. However, he still said the rights for individual victims of forced labor to demand compensation from the Japanese companies they were forced to toil for "have not perished." His remark came in response to a request from Fukushiro Nukaga, a Liberal Democratic Party member who led the union, for the government to deal with the court ruling in an appropriate manner. "The government will take sufficient time and discuss the matter with private and public experts," Moon said. He referred to the legislative division of power and underscored that his government should respect the court's decision. "It is important that people of the two countries are not provoked, because hurting each others' feelings is not good for the future of Korea-Japan relations," the President said. The Japanese delegation visited Seoul to attend a general meeting of the group of South Korean and Japanese lawmakers seeking to promote bilateral ties. Members of the Seoul Private Taxi Association hold a rally in front of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea headquarters in Seoul, Friday, to call on the party and the government to disallow the planned ridesharing service by Kakao Mobility. Kakao decided to suspend the official launch of the service following the suicide of a protesting taxi driver, but the association demands a revision of the law to ban such a service. / Yonhap Citizens protest against the government's granting of humanitarian stay permits for asylum seekers in downtown Seoul, Sep. 16. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk 468 Yemenis denied refugee status By Lee Suh-yoon Just two Yemeni asylum seekers a tiny percentage of the 484 on Jeju Island seeking asylum this year were granted refugee status in a final announcement by the immigration authorities Friday. The rest were rejected but mostly granted a one-year humanitarian stay visas. The two successful applicants were journalists who were subject to political persecution in Yemen, the Ministry of Justice said "Both journalists received death threats for criticizing the Houthi insurgency," the Jeju branch of the ministry's immigration office said in a press statement. The announcement came after months of heated controversy over the Yemeni refugees who arrived on Jeju Island earlier this year. Their arrival incited protests fueled by Islamophobia and worries about "fake refugees" taking jobs and using up resources. As well as the granting of refugee status to the journalists, the ministry gave 412 were given one-year humanitarian stay permits, while rejecting 56 on the basis of their criminal record and other factors. Human rights institutions and refugees rights groups immediately protested the tiny acceptance rate, claiming the ministry's decision was biased. "The ministry's decision is apparently aimed at appeasing some of the public's negative sentiment against Yemeni refugees, rather than a decision based on individual interviews with the asylum seekers," Choi Young-ae, head of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), said in a statement. Korea, a signatory to the U.N. Refugee Convention, has a refugee acceptance rate of just 4 percent. Only around 580 asylum seekers have been granted such status since 1994. "It seems like a very political decision, rejecting the vast majority to escape public criticism, but still sliding two refugees into the picture to appear less biased than they are," Kim Dae-kwon, head of local migrant rights group Friends of Asia, told the Korea Times. "These Yemeni asylum seekers all escaped from the worst situations, so there is no reason why more should not be granted refugee status." The renewable humanitarian stay visas allow the asylum seekers to leave Jeju for other parts of the country as long as they report their location to the authorities. More than 250 of 362 Yemeni refugees who were given the permits in October have moved to the mainland for better work opportunities. Unlike refugee status, one-year humanitarian permits limit job options and block access to health care, education and welfare benefits. About 2,000 asylum seekers are staying in Korea through the permits, according to refugee rights group NANCEN. As the situation in their home countries remains the same, if not worse, many end up living here without basic public benefits or working options for more than 20 years, renewing their one-year visas each year. Even those granted refugee status often do not get the state support necessary to help them settle in Korea. "We frequently get reports of accepted refugees becoming homeless," said Koh Eun-ji, a NANCEN activist. "There is no reliable settlement process provided by the government that helps them learn the Korean language, Korean culture, or how to navigate life here." Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are sending wave after wave of refugees into developed nations. This year, the number of refugee applications in Korea surpassed 10,000 for the first time an eight-fold increase from five years ago. By Lee Min-young Jessica Cox was born without arms but she has achieved more than any able-bodied person would have in a lifetime. She surfs, scuba dives and, most notably, is the world's first and only armless pilot. Cox also has a black belt in taekwondo and is an Arizona State Taekwondo Champion. She now works as a motivational speaker while traveling some 20 countries to get her message out. However, she says she never intends to stop there. She says she wants to continue making positive changes to society by reaching out to more children with disabilities through a non-profit foundation she recently established. Cox, who visited Seoul to send her message to Koreans, shared her story with The Korea Times about her amazing accomplishments despite her lack of limbs, how she learned to overcome differences and how she now travels the world as an inspirational speaker to motivate, inspire and empower people. The following is an edited version of her interview. Question: Tell us about the physical "differences" you have and your childhood, where you had to understand your body. Answer: I was born without both of my arms due to some rare, basically developmental challenge. It was nothing genetic and the doctors, still to this day, do not know exactly what it was. I was just the only one in the family who was born with this birth difference. It was especially difficult to be different as a child because you don't always understand why you are different. All you know is that people are treating you differently, children are making fun of you, and I would oftentimes go to my mother and ask her, "why I am different? Why did God make me this way?" and it was always a question that she had to figure out how to answer in a way that a child could understand. For me, there were times when I was really angry because I couldn't understand why I was different but more so why the world was treating me differently. Q. I saw your videos, playing the piano, putting makeup on your face and eating with chopsticks with your toes. How do you do all these things? Are there any strategies that make it easier for you to do all that? A: I didn't have the option of fingers or hands and since this is all I have ever known, it's only natural for me to use my toes and feet the way people use their hands. To get dressed on my own, I learned how to use certain tools. I use a modified windshield repair tool as a dressing hook. I carry the hook with me everywhere so that I can use the restroom on my own, to get changed outdoors if I have to, and to take care of my own personal needs when I'm traveling. Q. You have a black belt in taekwondo. What made you start practicing taekwondo? Jessica Cox has been practicing Taekwondo since she was 10 years old. Photos provided by Cox My mom wanted me to always have self-defense. Because I didn't have arms, maybe she thought that I was more vulnerable to being picked on, so I started taking taekwondo classes when I was 10 years old. Today I still practice taekwondo and if it wasn't for taekwondo, I would have never met my husband who was a taekwondo instructor. Taekwondo has helped me to build confidence, to have discipline and most of all it helped me to channel the anger and frustration I had as a child into a positive outlet. I'm proud to say that I even earned a title as state champion in taekwondo in 2014 for Arizona, competing in the normal division with fully able-bodied competitors. Q. You are the world's first and only armless pilot. Tell us how you became a pilot. I have always been afraid of flying. Ever since I was little, I was just terrified when I was in an airplane, because I didn't know how a plane flies and whether it's safe or not. But I had this opportunity one day to go up on my first flight in a small airplane. The pilot flying that day said, "Go ahead, feel what it's like to put your feet on the yoke of the airplane." So I put my foot up there on the yoke, and the moment I felt what it was like to fly, I made a commitment. I thought to myself, "I am going to do everything it takes to become a pilot, even if it means being the first pilot in aviation history to fly a plane with her feet." She holds a Guiness World Record for flying a plane with her feet. Q. Was there any doubt from people while you were preparing to become a pilot? No one overtly told me to my face, "You cannot become a pilot because you don't have arms," but there were a lot of unspoken discrimination or questions about whether it would be even legal to let an armless person fly a plane and, most importantly, the safety of people on the ground if I'm flying a plane in the skies. It was definitely a challenge but the aviation community was very encouraging and supportive of me. Q. Did your parents inspire you into becoming a strong-minded person? Cox is also into surfing, scuba diving and many more. My parents told me when I was younger that you can do anything. My mom not only taught me that, but she showed me how to work hard and how to not give up a mentality that has been instilled in me and will forever be a part of me. My father said, "I never once saw you as someone with a handicap." He never saw me as a victim. So if he didn't see me as a victim, I didn't have the choice to see that. And I could go through my life and say "I'm not a victim of a handicap. I'm just different. But I'm going to find a way. Q. Would you like to give any advice to parents who have children with disabilities? I want to encourage you to stay strong, to be encouraging to your child and to help them believe that they can do anything. Help them become independent because it's so easy to help them do everything. But if they are able to do it on their own, they will have such pride and confidence in themselves. So sometimes being a parent means showing tough love and that means giving their child space to sometimes struggle if they have to. But there's no harm in that because they will become stronger from the struggle. Q. When did you first start your career as a motivational speaker? When I was sophomore in high school, I was invited to speak to a group of young students and it was the first time I ever did a speech. After I shared my story, many of the students came up to me to tell me how inspired they were. And I thought, "Really? This is just how I live my life." And the idea that what was so natural to me can move people and change the lives of many planted a seed that perhaps I could talk to more people. And why not create a career out of it? So fresh out of college I decided to pursue becoming a motivational speaker. And now I have traveled and spoken in 23 countries around the world. So it's been wonderful. Q. What is the message you want to spread? People hear my story and they watch my life on YouTube, on TV, in newspapers, and they really believe, "Wow, if she can do that then there are no limitations." And my message, now that I have been able to achieve the impossible, is to teach companies, to teach people that they can achieve the impossible in their own lives, in their own businesses. With the right mindset and positive attitude, nothing is impossible. Q. Your life has been a continuation of achieving goals. What is your next challenge? I always like to challenge myself and I do have smaller challenges like slack-lining, which is a form of tightrope walking, rock climbing and I also have started a non-profit foundation to reach out to families of children with disabilities and help them. I want to get my message out all around the world, so I will continue to travel. I also want to speak more in places here in Seoul. Cox swimming without arms. A U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) letter states the USFK will send 8,700 Korean employees on unpaid leave from April 15, 2019, if Seoul and Washington do not settle a deal on their defense cost-sharing by the end of this year. Courtesy of USFK Korean Employees Union 'Threat' comes amid defense cost-sharing negotiations between Seoul and Washington By Yi Whan-woo The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) has sent a letter to the union of its Korean employees stating that it will place them on unpaid leave from mid-April 2019, if the ongoing defense-cost sharing negotiations between Seoul and Washington are not settled by the end of this year. In the letter to USFK Korean Employees Union President Choe Ung-sik, USFK headquarters' Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Michael Minihan said, "Unfortunately, unless the ongoing SMA negotiations can be completed in a timely manner to avoid a lapse in labor funding, we will be required to issue a general furlough notice." "Unless a new SMA is agreed to, it will be necessary to implement the furlough effective April 15, 2019," Minihan said. This is viewed by some observers as an attempt to gain concessions from Korea as the negotiations over sharing the cost of stationing American troops here are making little headway. They say that the U.S. is "taking Korean workers hostage" to demand a bigger payment from the government. Time has been running out in the negotiations in relation to the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), a five-year defense contract between Seoul and Washington. It will expire Dec. 31. The notice may possibly affect as many as 8,700 whose wages are co-paid by both the government and the USFK. The unpaid leave, if implemented as reported, will violate South Korea's Labor Law. The law stipulates workers must be given 70 percent of their monthly salary, if they are put on unpaid leave by the employers. "The USFK, of course should observe the Labor Law here, but it is likely it will cite the status of forces agreement (SOFA) to absolve itself from responsibility," a Korean Employees Union member said on condition of anonymity. "I'd say the USFK is taking its Korean employees hostage to press the government in the defense cost-sharing talks." Under the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), renewed every five years, the government Korea pays about $830 million per year (currently) to the U.S. to offset the cost of 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea. Citing sources, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly complained about South Korea's "free ride" on U.S. defense, wants Seoul to pay 150 percent of the current deal, or about $1.2 billion. Against this backdrop, Seoul and Washington have yet to strike a deal so far over the new SMA. The two sides held their 10th round of talks in Seoul from Tuesday to Thursday but remained poles apart over the contract period and other contentious issues, according to government officials. When asked whether the two sides will meet again this year, an official said, "It's unlikely." By Lee Min-hyung Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo met with the heads of 13 defense companies to address their declining sales and profits, Friday. The meeting was arranged amid growing uncertainties in the Korean defense industry, with a number of firms here posting a steep drop in their operating profit in recent years. According to data from the Korea Defense Industry Association, ninety-three defense companies have reported falling profits in recent years. Their combined sales dropped to 12.76 trillion won ($11.29 billion) last year, down 13.9 percent from the previous year. The defense minister listened to the ongoing difficulties the local defense industry is facing both here and overseas. "The ministry will do its best to vitalize the local defense industry and help companies export more by enhancing defense diplomacy with other countries," Jeong said. Participants in the discussion included Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) chief Wang Jung-hong, LIG Nex1 CEO Kim Ji-chan and the heads of invited defense companies. Among the players, the Korea Aerospace Industries has been particularly hard hit by falling profits. KAI is the only domestic company that manufactures aircraft here using its own technology. But the firm's sales last year almost halved to 909.5 billion won, compared to 2016 when it reported 1.9 trillion won, amid weakening overseas sales. LIG Nex1, the nation's leading defense firm, also suffered a setback, reporting 1.76 trillion won in sales last year, down from 1.85 trillion won the previous year. Tough regulation from the government is cited as one of the reasons hampering growth in the industry. DAPA claims compensation for any delayed delivery of defense products. Defense companies, however, complain about the legal system, as they have to take responsibility even if the delay was caused by subcontractors designated by DAPA. The defense minister pledged to hold meetings on a regular basis to enhance defense companies competitiveness here and abroad. "I will hear from the industry by continuously holding these meetings, and the ministry hopes to build a mutually cooperative relationship with local defense players to develop national security and the economy," Jeong said. By Lee Min-hyung Lee Ho-seung, first vice minister of economy and finance Koo Yun-cheol, second vice minister of economy and finance President Moon Jae-in carried out a major reshuffle of vice ministers on Friday, with a view to revitalizing the economy and tightening discipline within the administration as his approval ratings continue to fall. Moon appointed seven new vice ministers and nine vice minister-level officials, Cheong Wa Dae said. The President has made it his top priority to build a more dynamic government by making the personnel changes, it explained. The new appointees include Lee Ho-seung, the first vice minister of economy and finance. Lee served as a former secretary for job planning at the presidential office. Koo Yun-cheol, a former chief of the ministry's budget management division, was appointed as second vice finance minister. Lee is cited as an expert in macroeconomics, so expectations are that he will help the government gain economic growth by producing relevant policies at the finance ministry, Cheong Wa Dae said. Koo has innovative leadership in budget planning and finance affairs, according to the presidential office. It added the new second vice finance minister would contribute to generating tangible outcomes to boost the economy. "The reshuffle is aimed at forming a more dynamic government that can vitalize the local economy," presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said at a media briefing Friday. "The shake-up also reflects President Moon's willingness to create outcomes that the public can actually recognize," Kim said. Other officials include Moon Mi-ok, former presidential aide for science and technology, who was appointed first vice minister of science and ICT. Kim Hak-do, ex-head for the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology, has been named as vice minister of small- and medium-sized enterprises and startups. This is the first time since June last year that the President has conducted a large-scale vice ministerial reshuffle. The decision came as Moon's approval ratings are falling sharply. According to Gallup Korea data, Friday, Moon's approval rating has fallen to a record-low 45 percent since he took office in May last year. The polling agency surveyed 1,003 adults nationwide for three days from Tuesday. The result has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Forty-four percent of respondents voiced negative opinions on Moon's state management. The President's policy on economy and public livelihood topped the list of reasons for the negative evaluation. Starting this year, Moon has gone all-out to improve inter-Korean relations by holding three summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. But the Moon administration has put relatively less focus on improving weakening key economic indices. According to Asian Development Bank data Wednesday, South Korea is expected to post a 2.7 percent growth rate this year, down from 3.1 percent last year. Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed the latest developments concerning the crisis in Syria with the French presidents special envoy Francois Senemaud on Thursday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said. According to the Egyptian foreign ministry, Shoukry and Senemaud discussed ways to push for a political solution to the situation in Syria based upon UN Security Council resolutions, especially the efforts to form a constitution committee under UN sponsorship. Shoukry also discussed Egypts contacts with all parties involved, to support a political solution in Syria. The pair also discussed the situation in north-eastern Syria, stressing that military escalation was dangerous. Senemaud expressed his appreciation of the balanced role Egypt was playing in Syria, asserting France's keenness to exchange evaluation of developments in Syria with Egypt. Search Keywords: Short link: People on the streets in the city of Pyongyang in this photo from Sept. 11, 2018. Yonhap North Korean propaganda outlets lashed out at the United States on Thursday for pressuring the communist nation over human rights issues, calling it an "intolerable insult" and "political provocation." The U.S. has recently renewed its designation of the North as one of the worst human trafficking countries and a violator of religious freedom, and slapped sanctions on Choe Ryong-hae, a close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, for human rights abuses. "The U.S.'s intention lies in condemning our country as a human trafficking country, making a scratch on our republic's image and thereby creating a mood for sanctions pressure," Uriminzokkiri, one of the North's propaganda websites, said in an article. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, welcomes North Korea's special envoy Choe Ryong Hae during their meeting in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014. Yonhap By Arthur I. Cyr "Oh, the vision thing," is how George H.W. Bush once responded to a friend's suggestion that he spend some extended time alone reflecting on his overall strategic outlook, rather than consulting others on the details of tactics. Bush's apparently dismissive answer was actually a confession of his limitations in trying to construct a political message with a strategic theme of broad appeal. He was much more comfortable as a detail man. At the time, Vice President Bush was seeking advice on his bid to succeed President Ronald Reagan, initially his political rival, then his election partner, and ultimately his friend. Bush, who has died at the age of 94, provides important examples of both leadership and friendship. His formidable executive talent and energy brought him success, even in the difficult 1988 election. Lagging in the polls to Democratic nominee Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, Bush's efficient, ferocious campaign machine relentlessly closed the gap. One campaign tactic involved highlighting the notorious case of an African-American convict who committed additional crimes while on a weekend furlough. Dukakis had not initiated but did support that program. Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater often aimed for the jugular, and often succeeded. The Democratic nominee had many other problems, including a lack of media skill and a bland public style. One unfortunate commercial had him riding apparently aimlessly in a small armored vehicle, wearing a helmet that was unflattering. Republicans seized the opportunity and ridiculed the beleaguered nominee. Bush's alter ego James Baker describes politics as "a blood sport." Both learned that lesson in 1960s and 1970s Texas political campaigns, where both suffered defeats. "Whatever it takes," is how Bush came to view using ruthless tactics if necessary to win elections. Nevertheless, a magnetic Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) and economic problems defeated President Bush for reelection in 1992. The effective chief executive was never a natural campaigner. Government leadership gave George Bush fulfillment. He represented the U.S. in China and at the U.N., and led the CIA. In the White House, policy successes included negotiating the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), ratified during the successor Clinton administration. Expanding environmental protection was another policy success of this active president. President Bush, with Secretary of State James Baker and other colleagues, led the Gulf War of 1990-1991 with extraordinary discipline and thoroughness. He declared Saddam Hussein's invasion and occupation of Kuwait would "not stand." He secured narrow congressional approval to use force. Bush brilliantly orchestrated the comprehensive international alliance under United Nations auspices to get the job done. The coalition included Russia and Syria. To preserve alliance cohesion, and regional stability, that war ended with the liberation of Kuwait. Pressures developed to depose Saddam Hussein, but Bush declined to do so. He rightly feared sparking instability, and undercutting the coalition that freed Kuwait. The Bush administration hemmed in Saddam's Iraq militarily. The U.S. also conducted diplomacy that resulted in a semi-independent Palestine authority. When the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no public gloating. Rather, Washington focused on stability and cooperation in Europe and Russia. Born to privilege, Bush also inherited a strong family commitment to public service. As a young Navy pilot, he survived Pacific combat in World War II. He also prospered in the rough Texas oil business. Government was a source of satisfaction, but he emphasized family above all. Among Bush's many policy successes, the Americans with Disabilities Act was a source of special pride. Arthur I. Cyr (acyr@carthage.edu) is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War." By Daniel Mundeva TORONTO Ten years ago, South African physicist Neil Turok made a bold prediction: the world's next Einstein will be from Africa. A decade later, it is worth considering whether the continent is any closer to finding the next global genius. Statistically, there is indeed a high probability that it will happen. By 2050, 40 percent of the world's young people will be African. By virtue of demographics alone, it stands to reason that Africa is destined to generate prodigies in science or technology. Africans have led the world in science before. In fact, some of humanity's greatest innovations from vaccines to brain surgery were pioneered by Africans. One of the oldest measuring devices ever used, the Lebombo Bone, was carved by people believed to have lived some 35,000 years ago in modern-day eSwatini (Swaziland). In other words, mathematics itself is an African invention. For decades, science and policy luminaries like Calestous Juma, a global advocate for science-driven sustainable development, and Wangari Maathai, an environmental activist and Nobel laureate, championed Africa's science agenda. With these visionaries now gone, Africa needs a new brain trust to inspire future generations of ethical and public-spirited researchers. But how do we ensure Africa discovers, supports, and develops innovative, game-changing scientists? The missing element has been an African education system that supports innovation in research, and that provides the next African revolutionary scientist with the training and support he or she needs in Africa. Across the continent, there is a growing consensus among governments that education and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is critical for economic growth and development. At the moment, however, too many of Africa's young researchers see no option but to go abroad for school and work. That can change, but only with concrete investments in homegrown talent. This means rethinking the entire education system in Africa. Three priorities stand out. First, African countries need to fix the knowledge pipeline. That means investing in teacher training, improved learning outcomes, retention of girls in STEM courses, supporting research earlier in university, helping young researchers through so-called sandwich programs, establishing university-private sector labs on campus, and more. Second, Africa needs indigenous knowledge creation. This requires facilitating both fundamental and applied research and creating the necessary infrastructure for the dissemination of research outcomes. This could include making more funding available to researchers and research institutions, as well as promoting open sources for knowledge sharing. The third priority is putting knowledge into practice. This could involve making scientific information accessible to the public and innovators, and supporting public-private partnerships to pilot, demonstrate, and apply research outcomes, thereby creating jobs addressing public problems. A good example is Zipline, which deploys drone technology to deliver blood transfusions to remote areas of Rwanda. To deploy this technology, which is based on American research but piloted in-country, Zipline signed agreements with the aviation authority and the ministry of health, among others, and a public-private partnership was set up to fund the program. After successfully deploying the technology in Rwanda, it is currently being rolled out in Tanzania. Zipline has saved hundreds of lives and demonstrated the potential of technology transfer with large-scale impact. The Next Einstein Forum (NEF), an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and the brainchild of Turok, supported partly by the Mastercard Foundation, is demonstrating that Africa produces strong scientific talent. The NEF focuses on convening Africa's innovators to highlight breakthrough discoveries and catalyze scientific collaboration for human development. Since the first cohort of NEF Fellows was selected in 2015, the program has highlighted the contributions of young African researchers who are working to tackle some of the world's toughest scientific and technological challenges. NEF's current cohort includes Somalia's Abdigani Diriye, who created a blockchain-enabled lending platform in Kenya and was recently named one of Africa's top 30 innovators; Nigeria's Peter Ngene, whose work on nanotechnologies is being used to improve renewable energy and who also recently created a hydrogen-based eye sensor that detects lactose intolerance; and Vinet Coetzee of South Africa, whose research in non-invasive measures of health has led to a patent application for a device that could detect malaria. With so many complex issues vying for attention today, Africa will need innovative education and research models. But as long as the NEF and similar efforts continue to nurture the continent's brightest young scientists and tackle systemic issues like funding, mobility, and research infrastructure, the odds are good that those leading the search for solutions will be the very people Turok predicted. Daniel Mundeva is an associate program manager for education and learning at the Mastercard Foundation. Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). By Steven L. Shields There's an old children's song about Santa Claus, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town." The song was first performed on a U.S. radio show in the 1930s. Since then, almost every American vocalist of note (and others) has made a recording of the song. Artists include Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, the Jackson 5 (Michael Jackson and his brothers), Bruce Springsteen, Mariah Carey and the Pentatonix. In part, the song's lyrics read: "You better watch out You better not cry Better not pout I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town "He's making a list And checking it twice Gonna find out who's naughty and nice Santa Claus is coming to town "He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good So be good for goodness sake!" The song echoes common teachings to children that have been around for a long time. Traditions and legends of "Santa Claus" abound. There are many other names used in Europe, including St. Nicholas. Adults want children to behave. Bribing children for their good behavior is as old as human existence. Santa Claus is one of the most popular forms of bribery in modern American society. Elaborate countdown calendars abound. There are smartphone apps and YouTube videos. Every year, children create their Christmas wish list. Younger ones go to the department store and sit on Santa's lap to tell him what they want for Christmas. But when they don't get what they asked for, or if the number of presents is too few, children get grumpy and pout all day. Some parents use this against their children, and probably cause all kinds of lifelong psychological damage. The Santa Claus song is foundational to American ideas about Christmas. Of course, its wording is secular. There are no references to Christmas a Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who Christians believe to be the supreme Savior of the world. The song has no religious feature to the lyrics. Or does it? Somewhere in the sands of time, Santa Claus got conflated with God or maybe it's the other way around. Children are told to be good so Santa Claus will bring them toys. Santa Claus knows what they are doing and thinking, and will punish them for being naughty, but will reward the children who are nice. Many Christians teach the same ideas about God. Children are scared into good behavior because "God" is watching. They pray as if God were Santa Claus. They ask for what they want, believing if they are "faithful enough" God will give them their hearts' desires. As with Santa Claus, if they don't get their wished-for gifts, it is because somewhere along the course of the year they must have been naughty. Such experiences cause many to question their faith. "Where was God when I asked for my cancer to be cured?" Some people wonder for years what unknown sin they committed to cause God to deny their heartfelt request. I remember the story of an airplane crash in the U.S. several years ago. The relative of a co-worker was killed in the crash. The news people interviewed the mother of one person who survived. She claimed God blessed her child because the woman was a faithful churchgoer and her child was, too. What about all the other faithful churchgoers killed in the crash? Why weren't they "blessed"? Christians will offer evasive excuses: It was God's will. Or, God needed another angel in heaven. Or, God never gives us anything more than we can handle. Or, everything happens for a "reason." Untold psychological damage wreaks havoc on good, decent people. Perhaps it's time for us to grow up. Christianity has too long been distorted by uninformed preachers, by charlatans and by gullible parishioners who have never progressed in their understanding of faith since children's Sunday school. God is Santa Claus? Santa Claus is God? Christmas has too long been distorted by consumerism. Nations without a Christian majority include it on their national holiday lists. Perhaps it's time for Christians to recapture the true meaning of Christmas, and reject consumerist decorations and elaborate gift-giving, limiting their celebrations to memorializing Jesus Christ. Let there be a new, secular holiday proclaimed: Santa Claus Day not on Dec. 25. Steven L. Shields (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s, again in the 1990s and into the 2000s. He served as copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. He is a retired clergyman and vice president of the Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch. By Kim Ji-myung On Aug. 31, 1894, the Hawaiian Gazette published in Honolulu carried an article on the Sino-Japanese war which had broken out one week earlier. Headlines read: "China and Japan Still Fight, Korea's King Declares Himself Independent of the Emperor, He asks Japan to Fire China." Accompanying this relatively short article are two large sketched portraits of the king and queen of Korea. The caption for King Gojong's portrait reads "Li, the king of Korea. The man for whose kingdom Japan and China are fighting." The caption for the woman's portrait is "the queen of Korea. One of the chief intriguers by whom the present war was brought about." Both sketches were "reproduced from the San Francisco Examiner" according to the paper. Probably no Korean, Japanese or Chinese viewer would have taken this woman in Chinese-style clothing to be a Korean queen. However, almost no foreigner except for a few women in Seoul had seen Queen Min, not to mention a photo of her. Thanks to the extensive "Chronicling America" project, we can search millions of America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. newspaper directory to find articles of newspapers published in the U.S. between 1690-present. My searching and browsing of American newspapers led me to believe this Hawaiian Gazette article was the first printing of the Korean queen's portrait, however it was not. British and other newspapers are still not easy to access online. As if by a consensus, the same woman's portrait in Chinese dress was introduced, as Queen Min featured in many Western newspapers in 1894 and 1895 before her death. Queen Min, posthumously granted the title of Empress Myeongseong, was murdered in her residence in the early morning of Oct. 8, 1895. The first news of her death came from the New York Times, dispatched from Yokohama. On Oct. 13, the Morning Times carried Admiral Carpenter's report on "Queen of Korea's Fate," on Oct. 14, the Evening Star wrote about "the Korean revolt and murder of the queen by the Mob." None of them carried any photo or portrait of the queen. John A. Cockerill (1845-1896) of the New York Herald was the first to send the long eye-witness story of General William McEntyre Dye who was an adviser to the Korean king and stayed near the murder site. But the news of queen's assassination could not be sent out immediately because it was blocked by Japan. Cockerill's story was printed on Oct. 15, one week later, and Japan made an apology to the press later. He also worked as a war correspondent for the Sino-Japanese War. Meanwhile, the Everville Press & Banner on Oct. 30, and the New York Evening World on Dec. 3, 1895 reported the assassination carrying the same portrait. Then, who really is the woman in the non-Korean hair style and costume? The original, an authentic European oil painting was the work of Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766). He was Italian Jesuit brother and a missionary and he served as an artist at the imperial court of three emperors the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors. The figure of the portrait is known as Xiang Fei, the fragrant concubine ("hyangbi" in Korean) who was taken from her Uyghur homeland as a consort by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century. The Chinese and Uyghur version of the story widely differ but it became greatly popular during the early 20th century and has since been adapted into several plays, films, and books. On my visit to Kashgar, in Xinjiang-Uyghur this year, I visited the Afaq Khoja Mausoleum, the family tomb of Xiang Fei. But she is also believed to be buried at the imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties in Zunhua, Hebei. At the time that Xian Fei's portrait was used to portray Queen Min, the Western press had no idea of Queen Min's appearance as there was no published photo of hers anywhere. In fact, there is still not a single picture or a drawing confirmed as that of the queen. I am sure finding an authentic photograph remains a mission impossible for many Korean scholars of modern history. The writer is chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com S-Oil CEO Othman Al-Ghamdi, left, poses with Community Chest of Korea Chairman Ye Jong-suk at the charity fund's headquarters in Seoul, Friday. The refiner donated 2 billion won ($1.7 million) to help needy neighbors. / Courtesy of S-Oil Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou arrives at a parole office in Vancouver, British Columbia, Wednesday, Dec. 12. The Canadian Press via AP Huawei's relations with British authorities hit a low last month when a top official walked out of a meeting with the Chinese company over its perceived failure to fix security holes in its products, sources familiar with the talks told Reuters. Although Huawei responded with a pledge to spend $2 billion on a security overhaul to address the British concerns, tensions between London and the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment remain high as it fights U.S.-led allegations of Chinese state spying.. "Previously, you very much had British civil servants saying 'please do this' and asking rather than telling or banging the table," a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. "Huawei HQ now have the message." The fraught nature of the meeting between Huawei executives and Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) underlines the challenge facing the company in convincing Western governments its equipment is safe. A spokesman for the NCSC - part of Britain's GCHQ spy agency - said the meeting in late November "ended prematurely because of increased tensions", but declined to provide any further details because the conversations were private. Huawei did not respond directly to questions about the meeting or its talks with the NCSC, but said British officials had "identified some areas for improvement in our engineering processes." "We are grateful for this feedback and committed to addressing these issues," it said in a statement. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) President Shin Sung-chul attends the board meeting at the Eltower in Yangjae-dong, southern Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap By Baek Byung-yeul Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) President Shin Sung-chul will keep his post after the board decided Friday to defer the voting on whether to suspend him. The board meeting was in response to a Ministry of Science and ICT's demand to suspend Shin for allegedly embezzling money from the national research fund when he was Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) president in 2014. Shin denied the accusations, but the science ministry also filed a complaint with the prosecution. "During the board meeting, the claims of the two sides from the government and the school were in opposition to each other, but they agreed to postpone the suspension voting," a KAIST spokesman told reporters at the Eltower in southern Seoul. The school said the issue would be discussed at the next board meeting. KAIST is scheduled to hold its regular board meeting in early 2019. The board of trustees consists of 10 board members, three officio members from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Education. Shin is also a board member, but he was excluded from the discussion because the issue was directly related to him, KAIST said. The spokesman said the officio members stressed the need for suspension while members from the school opposed this. "Board members from the school expressed that it was excessive to suspend Shin because nothing has been decided about the allegations," he said. The board members' decision to delay the voting is being seen as a sign that the ministry and government may have felt pressured because there has been a strong backlash from science communities here and overseas. A group of KAIST professors, led by mechanical engineering professor Lee Seung-seop, also protested against the ministry's stand, saying Shin should be given an opportunity to prove himself. "Given the heavy responsibility and influence of the KAIST president, the issue regarding the post should be carefully decided," the professor group said in a statement on Dec. 13. An alumni association comprised of KAIST alumni working in Silicon Valley in the United States also announced a petition supporting Shin. The British science magazine Nature also reported the news. It is rare for the magazine to cover a scandal involving a science community in another country. In an online posting on Dec. 13, the magazine reported "some researchers see the KAIST affair as part of an ongoing political purge of public science institutes by the liberal Moon Jae-in administration. "Many scientists suspect that the allegations are part of a politically motivated attempt to remove Shin, who was hired under the previous administration. The call to suspend him seems to have been rushed and is based on insufficient evidence, they say." Shin has been the school's president since February 2017, having been appointed by the Park Geun-hye government. After conducting an inspection, the science ministry concluded Shin recruited his former studentidentified only by his surname Lim as a professor without going through due procedures. Lim then received about 140 million won ($127,000) in wages over three years, although he did not participate in any research projects. Shin was also accused of sending 2.2 billion won from a public fund to a U.S. research center, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Shin said the money was necessary to use the U.S. research laboratory's equipment, but the ministry said the equipment could be used for free. The ministry said more than half of the money was believed to be paid to Lim, adding that this was an improper act aimed at financially benefiting his former student. According to Nature, the LBNL wrote to the ministry saying there was no dual contract between the U.S. research lab and DGIST. Hyundai Motor Group Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun By Park Jae-hyuk Hyundai Motor and its sister company Kia Motors said Friday they will seek to improve their profitability in the United States and China in 2019, despite the pessimistic outlook for the global car market. During a meeting convened by Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun at the group headquarters in Seoul, heads of the two companies' foreign branches promised to do their utmost to achieve a "V-Shaped Recovery" next year. The 50 participants also agreed to adopt a more efficient organizational structure and to reform decision making systems in order to come up with better countermeasures against unexpected changes in market conditions. In addition, they will improve capabilities for their future businesses, according to HMG. To achieve these goals, Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors will finish establishing regional headquarters worldwide in the first half of 2019. HMG said the regional headquarters will help the automakers promptly meet customer demand, through autonomous decision making and organic cooperation among production, sales and marketing. "Based on the regional headquarters-centered sectoral cooperation, we can be an enterprise that offers new experiences and the highest value to our customers," Chung said. "Leaders of each regional headquarters should be accelerators who support employees seeking for challenging tasks." The controlling group has set the goal amid deteriorating demand in the global car market. According to its in-house research institute, global demand in 2019 is expected to be 92.49 million vehicles, a mere 0.1 percent annual growth rate, due to declining demand in the U.S. market and stagnation in Europe and China. The growth rate is the lowest since the 2008 financial crisis. However, the automakers said they will try their best to win hearts of U.S. customers in the forthcoming year with large SUVs, such as the Hyundai Palisade and the Kia Telluride. In addition, they are seeking to boost sales and increase their share in the U.S. market with the Hyundai Sonata sedan and the Kia Soul compact crossover. Given that the Genesis G70 has received favorable reviews from influential news outlets there, Hyundai Motor also plans to release the Genesis G90 flagship premium sedan in the world's largest car market next year. As for the Chinese market, Hyundai and Kia are seeking to improve their performance with new cars equipped with cutting-edge technology. The two firms said they have collaborated with Chinese tech firm Baidu to offer vehicles optimized for Chinese customers. Hyundai Motor is currently set to release the ix25, Santa Fe and Sonata in China in 2019, while Kia Motors is considering launching the K3 and KX3. Fly Geyser Not Quite of this World They look as if they were taken on another planet, or at least on the set of a new and very expensive science fiction movie. Yet these pi... The practice of medicine in Egypt is at a very critical point, Mona Mina, secretary-general of the Doctors Syndicate, said. This is the short end of a very long story that includes so many details about the difficulties facing medical doctors, essentially those working in public hospitals that serve the vast majority of the population. Mina had just had a long day of meetings at the syndicates headquarters in Cairo on the growing complaints by doctors about their work conditions. Mina, who in the past few years has been at the forefront of spotlighting a severe sense of unease among physicians, especially but not limited to younger doctors, is now seeing the worst case scenario happening. Doctors are so demoralised that they are just giving up, she said. Day in, day out, Mina is informed of new departures of resident doctors in public hospitals. They just dont want to do it; they just want to leave the country and go work elsewhere, she lamented. Traditionally, and I am talking about subsequent generations, a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine has to opt to be a resident doctor in one of the big public hospitals. This is where they gain experience and where they make their names even if they want to later pursue their career with private clinics and hospitals. This is no longer the case. According to Mina, the fact that there is an acute shortage in resident doctors is bad news for both physicians who miss out on one of the most important learning experiences of their career, and for patients who have fewer and fewer doctors to attend to them. I will give one example to show the alarming situation: Galaa Hospital, the nations top destination for gynaecology and obstetrics care, is now referring almost all operations, including cesarean sections, to other hospitals in the evening shift because they are short on anaesthesiologists. There is also a significant drop in the number of resident doctors in Al-Demerdash Hospital, which is the Ain Shams University Hospital, Mina said. For the secretary-general of the Doctors Syndicate, it is only too obvious that if this is the case for leading Cairo hospitals, one could only expect worse from remote and smaller hospitals. In a recent, shocking statement, Minister of Health Hala Zayed acknowledged a severe drop in the number of doctors practising in public hospitals. During the past few weeks, many physicians chose to share their frustration with their working conditions on social media. In a recent Facebook post, one physician shared a resignation letter of an orthopaedic surgeon to the minister of health in which he listed deep frustrations over working conditions, financial compensation and many hazards, from obvious infection risks to the fury of patients and their family members who are often infuriated by the medical service at government hospitals. Mina agrees. It is a tough situation for doctors and patients at the same time, she said. It is not an easy situation for any physician to work in public hospitals. It is a very challenging situation and in many ways it is becoming so off-putting, she said. According to Mina, the key problems that public hospital physicians face are endless, but one thing that many doctors complain about is the lack of basic medical requirements and equipment which makes them unable to provide the necessary service to patients. The result is that patients and family members get really upset and assault the doctors. Apart from being very humiliating, such assaults, which are often physical, could be life threatening, Mina said. Mina underlined the need to end the negative projection imposed on medical doctors through the media that represent all doctors as inhumane and inconsiderate. Nobody would contest that there are some bad doctors who abuse the confidence of their patients or that some doctors over-charge their medical service. The point is that these doctors are the minority, not the majority, she said. Damaging the doctor-patient relationship through this negative projection of physicians creates a sense of tension between doctor and patient and makes it even harder for doctors to provide decent care for their patients, Mina added. The syndicate, she said, has monitored a clear increase in the number of assaults recorded against resident doctors in many hospitals, particularly in the more economically challenged zones. We are certainly talking about a sharp increase, she said. The syndicate, Mina added, has demanded that the government act promptly to better equip hospitals to reduce the risk of critical cases being denied necessary emergency intervention and to pursue tougher legal measures against individuals who abuse doctors. Unfortunately, neither request has been adequately met atall, she said. Meanwhile, Mina added, resident doctors who take a very large part of the responsibility in any government hospital, are given very poor accommodation. Most recently a young resident physician lost her life as she was taking a shower in the doctors housing after she was electrocuted because of poor maintenance. It is really very sad and very disturbing. Then, Mina said, for the most part, physicians receive a really inadequate salary that does not reach LE3,000 for no less than 16 hours a day. The syndicate has been lobbying for the past five years to try to increase the salary if only a little, with hardly any significant success. The syndicate has also been trying to factor in a monthly infection risk allowance to compensate for the very poor financial compensation that doctors receive for their services, especially that the risk of infection increases with the declining availability of anti-infection requirements such as medical gloves, effective sanitisers and antiseptic lotions. Mina laments that for close to five decades this allowance has stood at less than LE20 for a fresh graduate and less than LE30 for a senior doctor. The syndicate requested a significant increase butin the absence of any government response to the demands, the syndicate sued the government to approve the increase. Despite an initial court ruling in favour of the syndicates request, the government declined to increase salaries. Later, the government resorted to the Administrative Court to annul the ruling. Mina added that all other efforts by the syndicate to upgrade pay raises of doctors are hindered by lack of government support. So we are basically talking about a public health sector doctor who would have a starting salary of less than LE3,000 and a closing salary that does not reach LE7,000. It is upon this salary, Mina criticised, that doctors have to provide for themselves and cover the high expenses of graduate studies, another sad and disturbing story because it is very difficult for all interested physicians to register for post-graduate studies, and then it is really very expensive. Obviously, things are slightly better for physicians who pursue an academic career as they have the support of their universities, and also for those very few who can afford the high expenses, but this is not the case for the majority of doctors, Mina said. Not much luck has met the attempt by the Doctors Syndicate to secure prompt registration and financial support for physicians who need to move on with their career. Continuing education and training is essential for the practice of medicine. Without this we end up with doctors who fail to develop their skills and who consequently fail to provide better medical service to their patients. I am again talking about public hospitals that provide service for the vast majority of Egyptians, Mina said. It is no secret, she added, that due to the current economic situation, more and more people who used to be able to afford private medical facilities are resorting to public medical service. Obviously the cost of private medical care has increased significantly. This is forcing larger segments of those who had until a few years back been able to access private medical care to depend for the most part on public health service. The situation is getting more complicated, she said. Now we are still a good few years away from the application of a health insurance system, and we are not even sure how would it eventually work, so we have to pressure the government to take necessary measures to better equip public hospitals and to make it easier and more satisfactory, or at least less frustrating, for medical doctors to stay on in these hospitals, Mina stressed. Until something is done about working conditions, salaries and the safety of doctors, Mina fears that more and more physicians will simply opt for work outside of Egypt while the dilapidation of the public medical service will continue at a time when fewer and fewer people will be able to resort to private healthcare. We have to be wary of the fate of the practice and the fate of public hospitals because if our doctors are doomed to leave and our public hospitals are doomed to fail to provide necessary medical care, then we will be in a very critical situation. * A version of this article appears in print in the 13 December, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Physicians in critical condition Search Keywords: Short link: Fed up with the bureaucracy and red tape of state services? Mai Samih reports on a new website that rates them Egyptians can now evaluate the quality of the civil services provided to them by the government. The website Rate Your Services, www.rateyourservices.gov.eg, was recently launched by the Ministry of Planning to try to improve standards. Minister of Planning Hala El-Saeed launched an experimental version of the website on 6 December. This comes in light of the states strategy to achieve sustainable development by improving the quality of services presented to citizens as well as creating a participatory environment between the citizen and the decision-maker, noted a ministry press release. The final version of the website is to be launched by the end of the month; a mobile application is also in the making. Another aim of the website is to create a scientific method of measuring the quality of services of the governments administrative system to encourage continuous development in governmental departments. This is to determine the concept of transparency and halt corruption, El-Saeed said, adding that it also aims at bringing down any possible barriers citizens may face while receiving government services. The website allows people to rate six public service offices in their districts: traffic departments, health offices, civil status departments, supply offices, educational departments and technological residential centres. There are five criteria by which to assess the quality of the services given by these offices: environment and business facilities, system of communication with the public, workflow monitoring, ease of obtaining data about the service provided and the behaviour of the employee. There are sub-criteria to make the evaluation more accurate and comprehensive. Under the criteria of environment and business facilities, for example, the service recipient can rate the sites capacity to accommodate a large number of visitors, if there are facilities for the disabled, if the office is air conditioned and if there is easy access to drinking water. So far the offices that have received the highest ratings have been the health office in Qelta, Assiut, the IT centre in Kafr Al-Sheikh, the supply office in Toson, the Civil Status Department in Karmouz, the Traffic Department in Al-Aougra and the Educational Department in Boulaq Al-Dakrour. I think this website is an example of the new way of thinking by the government in terms of including citizens in decision-making and in improving the services they present, says Doaa Abdel-Salam, a housewife. The temporary website is open to any ideas from the public. It is also linked to a complaints section. As for future plans for the website, head of Rate Your Services, Hanaa Abdel-Meguid, told Al-Ahram Weekly, there is an English-language Rate Your Services website which is under construction and will be launched with the final Arabic version. In addition, each governmental department will be equipped with a large interactive screen connected to the Internet for people to rate governmental services on the spot. Abdel-Meguid stressed that the assessments on the website are not meant to harm employees but to upgrade their performance. * A version of this article appears in print in the 13 December, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Public service offices rated Search Keywords: Short link: At the age of three, Ahmed Fayez, now 28, suffered from a severe problem in his eyes. After three failed surgeries in his right eye, his parents refused to go for another operation in his left eye. The decision saved the only eye he could see with. At six, Fayez was not accepted in school which was about two hours from his home; he was considered totally blind. So he entered a boarding school for blind children. But vision in his left eye deteriorated because his teacher covered it, as if he were blind. It was there he learned how to use Braille.I thought I was totally blind, Fayez said. For several years Fayez thought he was blind until he joined an educational programme in the US. In the US, I joined a public school where I knew I could see and was introduced to a low-vision specialist who taught me how to use a white cane, Fayez recounts. Fayez received an American diploma and when he returned to Egypt in 2008 he passed the Thanaweya Amma high school exam. He then graduated from the American University in Cairo after receiving a scholarship. Later, he finally operated on his left eye. Fayez told his story to an audience at the First Regional Low Vision Conference held by the Baseera Foundation for the visually impaired (baseera means vision in Arabic). Baseera is a non-profit organisation founded in 2004 to empower and enable the visually impaired Egyptian community to realise their abilities and become independent. The lack of awareness and diagnosis affects society. We should support families to rehabilitate their children and integrate them into society, Egypts Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali told the conference. Fayez currently works as a communications specialist in the National Bank of Egypt. He believes that Baseera is trying to change the way people think. How to make good use of remaining eyesight is the goal, Fayez said. Sawsan Al-Messiri, chairwoman of the board of the Baseera Foundation, said that among the shocking facts is the lack of statistics on individuals with reduced vision. In Egypt they are rarely diagnosed while those who suffer severe visual impairment are considered and treated as blind people, Al-Messiri said. Moreover there is not a sufficient number of specialists to deal with the visually impaired nor are there proper services provided to them, Al-Messiri added. According to estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO), there is one blind person for every three with impaired vision. Four per cent of the Egyptian population suffers from vision disability; 50 per cent can be saved by early intervention, Doaa Mabrouk, co-founder and managing director of Baseera, said at the beginning of the conference. Rehabilitation of low vision is about maximising participation, care and education. Rehabilitation is about optimising participation, said renowned Finnish ophthalmologist Lea Hyvarinen at the conference. Hyvarinen is known for her LH Vision test, a series of paediatric tests designed specifically for children who do not know how to read the letters of the alphabet that are typically used in eye charts. The system was named using her initials. Mustafa Al-Cherbini, consultant ophthalmologist and member of the board at Baseera, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the concept of the conference was to build awareness on low vision. We can help diagnose and maybe treat, now and in the future. We started screening campaigns in various districts all over Egypt, Al-Cherbini said. Causes of low vision may vary. Al-Cherbini believes there is a strong need to change the tradition of inter-family marriages, one of the most common ways of transmitting genetic eye diseases, the leading cause of low vision. Lamiaa Mohsen, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at New Giza University, believes that 55 per cent of low vision cases can be prevented if pregnant women check for diabetes because it affects the childs vision. Al-Cherbini called on the need for institutions such as universities, the government and NGOs to put together a global plan to help people with low vision. We need to understand that whatever efforts are exerted to save one child is a great success, he said. To that end, Al-Sherbini said he and his colleagues are out to find children with impairments. Comprehensive screening for school children is the main method to achieve the goal. Samia Serri, Baseera rehabilitation centre manager, told the Weekly that Baseera has a partnership with the Dutch-based Visio Rehabilitation and Advice which deals with early diagnosis and raising awareness. The Baseera team succeeded in screening about 20,000 school children in Beni Sweif, a governorate in Upper Egypt, during 2018. After the screening we discovered that 2,000 children needed eye glasses, 4,000 needed medicine and 100 needed minor and major surgery, Serri said. Blind child Furthermore, she said they are targeting the screening of 20,000 children in primary schools and nurseries in Aswan before January 2019. She added that the process continues with awareness campaigns for teachers in all governorates. The conference aimed at raising awareness of people with low vision because they are considered either blind or normal, she said. By February, Baseera will open the first low vision centre in Egypt. Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, chairman of the Supreme Council of University Hospitals, believes that 80 per cent of the causes of low vision can be avoided. Rehabilitation makes life better for many people with special needs, Abdel-Ghaffar said. According to Joost Heutink, director of the International Division at Royal Dutch Visio, a centre which services the blind and visually impaired people of all ages, especially those with more than one disability, rehabilitation is all about participation in life. Heutink explained his model of participation. Being blind or having a visual impairment should not mean that a person cannot fully participate in work, education, society or any other activity, he said. What matters in rehabilitation is the activities and participation. Rehabilitation is about optimising participation. Improving vision starts with motivation to be independent and to train the person as soon as he or she can, Heutink said. Parallel to the concept of participation comes the importance of the details in daily life. Bart Melis, a clinical physicist, spoke of the importance of the use of colour and contrast on streets and buildings to help the impaired move easier. * A version of this article appears in print in the 13 December, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Walking with vision Search Keywords: Short link: The private life of a chef is an endearingly old-fashioned conceit in an age when cookbooks double as memoirs and the lifting of a food trucks concession window can operate, often quite literally, as the curtain drawn on an ad hoc TV set. Fourth wall? Maybe fourth taco. But here we are again with Wes Avila, not in his recently opened Arts District taqueria Guerrilla Tacos, but at home, with his wife, Tanya Mueller, cooking a holiday meal for a few of their friends. This year hes putting together a Mexican Christmas trifecta tamales, tacos and champurrado done in a style that has become his signature: thoughtful, innovative, but with satisfaction front and center. The recipes he prepares are partly improvised, partly nostalgic; hes been fixated on what he can do to make his cooking more drought-friendly, so today everything is vegetarian. Advertisement When I arrive, Avila, a big guy with a surfeit of tattoos and, these days, of gray in his beard, is already cooking, moving with professional ease between the stove and the kitchen island of the Glendale loft he shares with Mueller and their two dogs. Theres a bar at the end of the island: a bottle of Johnnie Walker Green Label stands next to a Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissent veladora, or jar candle. Mueller (Red by Matrix hair, doctorate in clinical psychology) is setting out ingredients and dishes and relocating the evidence from last nights party. Another party? Chef Wes Avila and his wife Tanya Mueller, enjoying the Christmas party at their home. Avila cooked a fairly traditional, old-school Mexican Christmas meal to his friends and family. (Ricardo DeAratanmha / Los Angeles Times) Theyre never professional, says Avila of the personal party circuit he and Mueller have created over the last dozen years. So I can act and be myself. Last night was their Christmakwanzakah, with the theme theyre always themed of Havana Nights. Today will be four friends rather than 40, old friends to share a homey meal that looks back to food from Avilas Pico Rivera childhood. Friends arrive and slide behind the kitchen counter, picking up knives and bottles. The green onions: Cut them like you would for ramen, nice and thin, Avila says. Sara Kenas and Amy Lebrun are both chefs; Martha and Joaquin Pinto are longtime members of the group. Theyve all done this before. A Christmas tree fills the window that looks down onto the communal area, the site of many previous parties. On the wall: a Thomas Guide map of Los Angeles and Orange County that Avila found in a thrift store; a steampunk tin wild boar from Popotla, outside Rosarito in Baja (Its a mascot for parties.); and Mexican artwork jigsawed around shelves loaded with cookbooks and tiki paraphernalia. As the discussion meanders around politics and the regional variations of pupusas, Avila spreads masa preparada across corn husks for tamales. (The texture of the masa is like buttercream, and we keep poking the plastic bag it came in, picked up that morning from Carnitas Uruapan in Boyle Heights, where Avila also got masa for the champurrado.) I have an Aunt Becky whod make tamales every year, Avila says, wrapping the tamales like presents and then loading them into a pot on the stove. Avila forms extra masa into a smiley face (you have to do that to keep the evil spirits away, he says , smiling) on the top of the foil-wrapped pot, a trick he and Mueller learned years ago at a cooking school in Oaxaca. Vegetable tamales sit on the counter of Chef Wes Avilas home. (Ricardo DeAratanmha / Los Angeles Times) Recipe: Early Christmas tamales Wes always makes them; we never buy them, Mueller says. But if he were to buy them, hed get them from Vargas in Pico Rivera. (If not Vargas Mexicatessen, Carnitas Urupan sells not only masa but fresh and frozen tamales, as well as ingredients for champurrado, including the wooden whisks known as molinillos. The late Jonathan Gold whose silhouette is painted on a wall at Guerrilla Tacos, a booth that can, for some of us, act as a kind of taco confessional liked Me Gusta in Pacoima for his holiday tamales.) Another aunt, Hermelinda, would make champurrado and atole during the holidays. While the tamales steam, Avila twirls his molinillo through a ceramic pitcher of champurrado, a warm, homey drink made with masa and chocolate, which he spikes with pineapple juice. Recipe: Champurrado When asked what area of Mexico the dishes are from, Avila grins and says: L.A. The story goes like this: Avila grew up in a Pico Rivera family, with a Teamster father who took over the cooking after Avilas mother died. By his own account, Avila ate and smoked his way through his teenage years, becoming a DJ and driving a forklift until he quit to go to cooking school at the now-defunct Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena. (Turns out, Avila and I graduated at about the same time, though I didnt know this until recently.) Then fine dining stints with chefs Walter Manzke and Gary Menes, and then a kind of street food epiphany, in which he swapped white tablecloths for a sometimes illegal taco cart. Want more? Its in the book, says Avila, referencing his debut cookbook, Guerrilla Tacos: Recipes From the Streets of L.A., which came out last year. This is in answer to one of his friends asking for the recipe for the sauce hes just made and is spooning over a warm tamale, but it could be an answer to most things, including the pozole hell make for yet another holiday party. The tamales steaming, the champurrado on the stove, Avila presses tortillas on a wooden press he brought back from a long-ago trip to Mexico, sandwiching balls of orange dough between a deconstructed plastic baggie. He uses yams for the tortillas because I like the color, and yam uses a little less water to produce than sweet potato. When asked what area of Mexico the dishes are from, Avila grins and says: L.A. Chef Wes Avila making yam tortillas for drought-friendly vegetable tacos. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) Recipe: Drought-friendly vegetable tacos Now Im going to put it on the menu, Avila says of the yam tortillas but with the French cultured butter Beurre de Baratte and a little sea salt. For a while we were putting Beurre de Baratte on the waffles on the truck, he says, maybe with wistfulness, maybe with relief that those days were done. For now, the future looks like another party, pozole or a vat of Avilas dads menudo. (In the book.) The menudo is part of my familys trifecta, Avila says. Some would argue that its pozole, tamales, champurrado, but thats debatable. Or it may be heche de mano childhood tortillas, made by a guy in his bricks-and-mortar restaurant, a little butter, a little salt. Raise a glass, get another tamale, close the door behind you. Guerrilla Tacos: 2000 E. 7th St., Los Angeles, (213) 375-3300, guerrillatacos.com Carnitas Uruapan: 2100 E. Cesar E Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 265-2474, next door to Guisados in Boyle Heights amy.scattergood@latimes.com Instagram: @AScattergood Students at Sandy Hook Elementary School were sent home Friday after police say the school received a threat. Students had been dismissed by late morning, officials said, but police were confident they were not in danger and the threat may have been a hoax. We are confident that everyone is going to be safe, but we always have to investigate every threat, said police Lt. Aaron Bahamonde. He added: Out of an abundance of caution, officers are checking the area and making sure the kids are safe as they are being dismissed. Advertisement The threat comes on the sixth anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, when 20 first-grade students and six educators were killed by a lone gunman. Newtown Action Alliance, a grass-roots gun violence organization founded in the wake of the deadly shooting, said in a Tweet about the threat: Please stand with our community as we attempt to survive another tragic anniversary. Responding to the tweet, Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) said: My heart is breaking. It is unclear whether this threat was connected to hundreds of bomb threats received at schools, businesses and other public facilities across the country this week. Bahamonde would not say how the threat was received on Friday. Its under investigation, he said. Following the December 2014 tragedy, students were moved to a temporary school in nearby Monroe. The original Sandy Hook Elementary School was razed 2013, months after the massacre. Students now attend classes in a new building opened in the fall of 2016 on the same site as the Sandy Hook shooting. Stop fighting on, USC business school grads and deep-pocketed donors. Youre losing. And youre making things worse for the university you profess to love. Instead of supporting an important personnel move by USC Interim President Wanda Austin, who was brought in to rebuild the tarnished reputation of a scandal-ridden place, a group of university trustees, professors, graduates and students have been throwing a tantrum. Advertisement They did not agree with Austins decision to relieve the beloved dean of the Marshall School of Business, James Ellis, of his title at the end of the year. Austins decision was not made willy-nilly. It was made after the university office that handles harassment and discrimination cases prepared a report on the business schools history of complaints, and after an outside law firm and human resources experts weighed in. On Dec. 3, Austin sent a letter to the business school community announcing that Ellis would step down. Led by investment banker and USC mega-donor Lloyd Greif, the howling began immediately. He and his allies huffed and they puffed. They wrote letters. Started petitions. Yelled about transparency. They said the interim president had no business making such a momentous decision. They stamped their feet at an on-campus demonstration, complete with a bullhorn and professionally printed signs and T-shirts. But on Wednesday, they faced defeat. The Board of Trustees to its everlasting credit voted to support Austins decision. My colleagues Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan reported that fewer than half a dozen of USCs 57 trustees opposed the decision to oust the dean. Congratulations, President Austin. As the first woman to lead USC, you give us hope that the boys club can be dismantled and replaced with something better. :: Patriarchy protects itself. It finds all kinds of ways to turn the tables on real victims, even unknowable victims as we have here in the case of the Marshall School of Business. Thus, a perfectly reasonable step in the rehabilitation of a university i.e., getting a fresh start with a new business school dean has been portrayed as an assault on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The report from outside counsel, known as the Cooley report, has been denigrated by Greif as weak, garbage in and garbage out and junk. Is it any wonder I have made reference to the Cooley study as being reminiscent of Sen. Joe McCarthys imaginary list of 205 Communists in the U.S. State Department, a since-debunked list that nevertheless ruined countless lives just like this opaque document is ruining Jims? Hyperbole like this has no place in the discussion. Ellis is not a victim of McCarthy-like tactics. What cosseted world do you have to be living in to accuse USC of ruining this mans life? When he steps down at the end of the year, Dean Ellis, who lives in a gated mansion in San Marino, will not be kicked to the curb. His total compensation was worth more than $630,000 in 2017, and his current salary will be paid for the remaining three years of his term. He will remain a salaried, tenured member of the business school faculty. That is hardly the profile of a ruined man. But it wasnt enough to scream McCarthyism. Greif also questioned the authority of Austin to take such a bold step. Wanda was given an interim position to keep the ship afloat (not sink it) while a search for a trained and experienced university president was underway, he wrote. Temporary employees should not be making decisions with long-term consequences. In this case, the very decision is suspect. Not really. Rick Caruso, chairman of USCs Board of Trustees, supported Austins move, and we now know that most of the other trustees did too. Ultimately, do you know who will benefit from this move? Women and people of color, most likely. Also, by taking this issue off the table, Austin probably did a huge favor for her successor. By the time the university names its next president, the business school, along with the medical school and the campus health clinic, will be starting new and, its hoped, better chapters. :: Heres the thing about a man like Dean Ellis. It is possible to simultaneously be a wonderful human being, an inspiration to your students, a prodigious fundraiser and the wrong man to lead a major USC professional school into the post-#MeToo world. No one has publicly accused Ellis of personal misconduct. His removal was based on the cumulative record of harassment and discrimination cases at the business school over a decade. The vast majority of these cases were never brought to my attention, he told his Marshall colleagues in a letter. His supporters find that exculpatory. I find it damning. A place like USC has got to make it clear, from the top down, that all harassment and discrimination reports must be handled with sensitivity and rigor. Every single case should be brought to the deans attention. If theyre not, how would he or she ever know whats going on? Heres another thing: Over the last couple of years, the USC medical school dean was exposed as an illegal drug user who partied with criminals, the school gynecologist is alleged to have sexually abused students for decades, and longtime USC President C.L. Max Nikias was forced out after the scandals triggered waves of outrage. USC has exactly zero room for error when it comes to how it handles complaints about its administrators, faculty and staff. Zero. Austin has acted in the best interest of the universitys health and welfare. Her detractors should accept that sometimes, a shake-up is needed at the top to improve things at the bottom. USC Interim President Wanda Austin took the bold step of removing James Ellis, the dean of the Marshall USC Business School. Trustees backed her up. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) robin.abcarian@latimes.com Twitter: @AbcarianLAT The morning after a gunman killed her son, Telemachus, during a rampage at Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks, Susan Orfanos made what has become a familiar demand following mass shootings. I dont want prayers. I dont want thoughts, Orfanos told TV cameras last month. I want gun control. No more guns. California, however, already has the nations strictest gun control laws, so in Ventura County, anti-gun sentiment has turned elsewhere: gun shows. The countys last gun show of the year is scheduled for this weekend at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. But even as this show moves forward, the board that oversees the state-owned fairgrounds is hesitating about what to do in 2019. Advertisement Facing public pressure, the eight-person board voted Nov. 27 to allow gun shows in February and April, but declined to approve three shows planned for later in the year until it crafts a policy on guns. The decision, which has divided the board, reflects a brewing local backlash against firearms following the mass shooting Nov. 7 that took 12 lives. But, experts say, it also speaks to a larger, years-long leftward shift in Ventura County, a place once considered a conservative stronghold. After Novembers midterm elections, every member of Congress who represents Ventura County is now a Democrat for the first time in recent memory. More county residents are registered Democrats than Republicans. Ten years ago, almost all the elected positions were Republican, and now you have this clear inversion its really kind of shocking and not easy to explain, said Herbert Gooch III, an emeritus politics professor at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Yet, there is little polling or data on how locals, regardless of political party, feel about gun control. The county, particularly Thousand Oaks, tends to oppose regulation, suggesting residents might not be in favor of limiting the availability of firearms, he said. For the last decade, Utah-based Crossroads of the West has hosted gun shows in Ventura County. Across California, the company also puts on shows in Costa Mesa, San Bernardino, Ontario and Daly City, as well as in Nevada, Arizona and Utah. But the board that oversees the Del Mar fairgrounds in San Diego County recently voted to suspend the companys gun shows there in 2019. The two-day shows in Ventura County typically attract 4,000 people, according to Rob Templeton, vice president of Crossroads of the West, and each show brings in about $100,000 in revenue. Gun sales comply with state laws, he said, adding that vendors also sell backpacks, jewelry and beef jerky. The shows are marketed as family-friendly, with kids 12 and younger allowed in free. I understand that people are frustrated and angry and upset not just people who dont like guns, but people who do like guns, Templeton said. Sadly, some people, they dont know really where to turn and so they kind of lash out at gun shows. The resistance to gun shows in Ventura County began earlier this year, after the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla. But it picked up steam following the Borderline massacre, said Janet Eckhouse, president of the countys chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Since the shooting, more than 50 people have joined the chapter, she said. It just doesnt seem right that the state with the strongest gun laws in the country should be profiting from gun shows, said Eckhouse. Were chipping away at it. Last week, people wearing orange shirts labeled with the words Never Again packed into a Ventura County supervisors meeting to support a mostly symbolic gun show ban. Many said the Borderline shooting had shocked them into action. Ive been following the issue for a long time, but I woke up I thought to myself, my god, thats right around the corner, said activist Suz Montgomery, who lives in Ventura. We live in violent times, but this is something we can all do as a community and stop it at a local level. Sup. Steve Bennett, who introduced the motion, said banning gun shows at the fairgrounds was a small way to stand up to the national gun lobby and prevent future tragedies. Its not that we have more disturbed people, said Bennett, who represents the city of Ventura. We have a more pervasive gun culture. But David Spady, whose son survived the Borderline shooting, told the supervisors that he did not want gun shows to become politicized. What happened at Borderline has nothing to do with gun shows, said Spady, who lives in Camarillo. Its an opportunity for what I think is an improving of public safety by having access to firearms. The board voted 3-2 to support prohibiting gun shows at the fairgrounds. The decision remains with the fair board. Things are shifting in Ventura County, said Cal State Channel Islands political science professor Tim Allison. In 1999, Los Angeles County banned gun shows, yet there was no similar push in Ventura, which was seen as a Republican bastion similar to Orange County. But in 2008, more Democrats registered to vote than Republicans in Ventura County, driven in part by an increasingly diverse population. The county has been considered purple for the past six years, Allison said, and veered further left in 2018, fueled by resistance to President Trump. You wake up one morning and you say, Wow, Ventura County no longer has a Republican in Congress, he said. I think its fair to make the claim now that Ventura County is now a blue county. Yet Gooch, the professor at California Lutheran, said that even if more people in the county are voting for Democrats, they tend to be people who left Los Angeles seeking more autonomy. In particular, residents in the eastern part of the county, which includes Thousand Oaks, remain more conservative. I dont think Thousand Oaks itself ... would probably be very happy with a lot of gun control, he said. When news of the Borderline shooting began to spread last month, Elias Toufexis family and friends begged him to move back to Canada, where he lived until a year ago. But Toufexis, a 42-year-old actor, said he feels gun violence is inescapable. Six months ago, there was a mass shooting at a bar in the Toronto neighborhood where he used to live. Those shootings have jarred him, as has hearing his two kids, 8- and 6-years-old, swap stories about classroom active shooter drills. He said he felt a little nervous dropping them at school after the Thousand Oaks shooting. Its in the back of my mind, Toufexis said. Its in the back of every Americans mind. soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com Twitter: @skarlamangla When an artist met his critics on Thursday afternoon, the conversation was friendly. But it didnt change the outcome for his artwork at a school in Koreatown. The days remain numbered for Beau Stantons mural of actress Ava Gardner at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex because local Korean activists say the paintings background reminds them of the Japanese imperial battle flag, which they liken to a swastika. After meeting with the artist and those who want his mural gone at a law firm in Koreatown, a Los Angeles Unified School District official reaffirmed plans to obliterate the piece. And the coalition of local Koreans that led the charge to remove it once again expressed satisfaction with the decision. Stantons presence was the main difference between this news conference and one last week at which the decision was announced. The artist, who had donated his time to paint the mural, was respectful posing for photos, handshakes and even an awkward hug with his Korean hosts but he left disappointed. Advertisement I came here to represent the intention behind the mural and to reach out and be thoughtful and to hear their side, Stanton said in an interview afterward. I stand by saying that censoring an artwork is not appropriate in this situation and especially not in an educational environment. The mural is intended as a celebration of the Cocoanut Grove, the famous Hollywood watering hole that was once located nearby. The profile of the screen icon is its dominant feature, with a monkey, palm trees and a Moorish arch superimposed on her face to evoke the clubs exotic decor. What disturbs the Korean activists, however, are the sun rays emanating from Gardners face. For them, the rays are too reminiscent of a flag they associate with atrocities. Imperial Japan ruled Korea as a colony from 1910 to 1945. Before and during World War II, Japanese forces in Korea and elsewhere oversaw brutal forced-labor camps, forced prostitution, mass killings and cruel medical experimentation on captives. The Japanese battle flag has 32 bands, of uniform proportions, in alternating red and white around a centered red disk, representing the sun. Stantons mural has 42 varying bands of blue and reddish-orange, surrounding a much larger and different central image. Such rays are one of his common motifs, which worries him. The leader of the Korean coalition said that his group would not go out of its way to target Stanton, but that the artist might need to put an explanation or disclaimer on his other works of art. We dont want to bother him again and again, said Chan Yong Jake Jeong, a local attorney. We respect Mr. Stanton as an artist, a very great artist, and we want to respect his freedom of speech, Jeong said. We have no doubt about his good faith. Jeong suggested that his group would go after other similar artistic representations of sun rays, which are not hard to find. The state flag of Arizona, for example, much more closely resembles the Japanese flag that the critics find offensive though it, too, has nothing to do with Japan, let alone Japanese imperialism. How about a swastika on the flag of Arizona? Jeong said. Is that objectionable? Jeong has spoken of the mural as a hate crime that could expose the district and artist to civil and criminal penalties, a view that some legal experts questioned. School district officials never said that such possibilities led them to remove the mural. They simply said they thought it would be best. School buildings belong to the community, said Eugene Hernandez, administrator of operations for the region that includes the school. Its about all of us coming together, he said. School board members and Supt. Austin Beutner did not respond to requests for comment about the issue. Jeong said Stanton would be his first choice to paint a new mural in the same spot, but Stanton said he would not return to that particular wall. He also said he would hesitate to work for L.A. Unified again given that it would not defend his art from complaints that might arise. I think that the primary grievance here is that this period of Korean history is not well known in America, Stanton said. One positive thing is that theyre educating all parties here, myself included, about their visceral response to the Japanese flag. Speaking to each other face to face is helpful, he said. I understand how they feel. And I also am against getting rid of this mural. howard.blume@latimes.com Twitter: @howardblume Egypts foreign ministry has welcomed the agreements and understandings reached by the Yemeni parties in the UN-run meetings in Sweden related to the conflict in Al-Hodeidah port and the cities of Taiz, Ras Isa and As-Salif, as well as the agreements on exchanging prisoners. The ministry statement hailed the achievement in reaching agreements as an important step within the framework of reaching a comprehensive political solution in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216 and other relevant references to reaching a solution to the crisis in the country. The statement concluded by appreciating international and regional efforts exerted to achieve consent in Yemen, stressing the importance of maintaining the positive spirit currently prevailing in the Yemeni scene and the commitment to implement the agreements reached in order to alleviate the suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people. Search Keywords: Short link: The Egyptian cabinet has said that EGP 1.3 billion has been allocated to renovate a number of archaeological sites across the country, and not only Jewish heritage sites, as the media had reported. A statement by the cabinets media centre on Friday said that the reports that the whole amount had been allocated to renovate Jewish heritage sites solely were unsubstantiated rumours. Last week, several local and international media outlets reported the Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany as saying that President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had allocated the amount as part of the ministry's plan to renovate Jewish heritage sites in Egypt. The Ministry of Antiquities has allocated EGP 1.3 billion to renovate a number of archaeological sites in Egypt, including the Jewish synagogue in Alexandria, read the Friday statement. The Egyptian government gives equal attention to Egypts entire heritage, whether Pharaonic, Jewish, Coptic or Islamic, it added. According to the cabinet, some of the archaeological sites included in the renovation plan are the Baron Empain Palace in Heliopolis, Mohamed Ali Pasha Palace in Shubra, the Giza Pyramids, the Jewish synagogue and the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, Alexan Pasha Palace in Assiut governorate, and King Farouks lounge near the Giza Pyramids. Search Keywords: Short link: To the editor: After a local group complained that a mural at a Koreatown public school was unacceptably offensive because it evoked the battle flag of imperial Japanese forces, the Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to remove the work of art. Now, the artist is stunned with good reason! All art is an expression of an artists experience, feelings, intent and impressions. It starts a conversation with the viewer who brings to it her or his own expressions, feelings, intent and impressions. There will be many reactions, many conversations, many opinions. Its what makes art so vibrant, so valuable. One group cannot invalidate the art. It halts the conversation for everybody and mutes the artist. Yes, sometimes those who experience the art are disturbed, but whitewashing it will not solve this dilemma. This artist did not willfully convey a message of division and hurt. His intent was to honor a person and a time in history. The art piece needs to be viewed as the tribute it was meant to be. While I recognize that unwelcome associations might be evoked by an image, these associations do not render an art piece a candidate for obliteration. They can, however, open a door to new information and understanding. Advertisement Karen Scott Browdy, Fillmore .. To the editor: The comparison by school administrator Roberto Martinez of artist Beau Stantons mural to Confederate statues is disturbing. Confederate statues intentionally commemorate a culture that supported slavery and segregation. They remind people that the prejudices behind them still exist and are ingrained in local governments that should protect and represent all citizens. Stantons mural only unintentionally resembles an offensive symbol. Martinez implies that those who find beauty in a Confederate statue have made an an aesthetic choice, and that the feelings about those statues are as arbitrary as those evoked by art. If theres going to be a rational discussion about the mural, those having it need a basic understanding of art, history and censorship. Maureen Milliken, Belgrade Lakes, Maine .. To the editor: Im a writer who teaches in the L.A. Unified School District. Decades ago, riding a bus in the South of France, the man seated beside me, to whom I confided my literary ambitions, wrote down something for me that Jean Cocteau had told him: Art should disturb. Astonish me. Now, in the controversy over the Stanton mural, an administrator has offered a more placid definition: Art is intended to celebrate the human spirit, not to offend the community. The mural will be erased. But its not the art, its the neighborhood. Some residents are offended by the mural, which they say recalls something horrific in their past. The question is, will we have a neighborhood-by-neighborhood definition of art, driven by an ever-shifting critical mass of shared ethnic and cultural experiences? I could never in good conscience teach such an idea to my students. Mitch Paradise, Los Angeles .. To the editor: The mural in question is a typical example of psychedelic art. Peter Max was one of the most notable artists who used these kinds of colorful sun rays in many paintings. Can we really ban an entire genre of art simply because one of its elements is somewhat similar to a politically offensive flag? Can I, as a Jew, ask that any piece of art that shows a yellow star be banned? Shouldnt there be some sort of connection between the intent of the artist and the reason that people are taking offense to the art? David Del Bourgo, Woodland Hills .. To the editor: Has no one suggested repainting just the background? Seems like the obvious win-win solution. Larry Dick, Huntington Beach Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: Being an independent, I often find myself in opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown. However, I applaud his veto of a bill that would have obligated health centers on Californias public university campuses to offer pills to students that would terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks. Columnist Robin Abcarian accuses Brown of having no common sense and being out of touch, among other things. She attempts to give some good reasons for getting quick access to such a pill to make life easier, to prevent students from missing class, personal rights and independence. Does anyone notice a trend here? Do Californians really think that personal convenience is solid argument for abortion? Without question Brown has likely protected many future residents of California. Lets hope that incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom will do the same. Advertisement Wesley Stalnaker, Valencia .. To the editor: I am pro-choice and a supporter of Planned Parenthood. Still, I was appalled by the fact that 500 or so Cal State and UC students seek medical abortions each month. How is this possible? Has no one heard of birth control? I also feel that Abcarian has gone off the deep end in her overwhelming support of abortion. While it is much safer than it used to be, abortion is not to be undertaken lightly. Sandra Wolber, Granada Hills .. To the editor: Abortion is not a cherished constitutional right. The U.S. Supreme Court found some say it labored to find a right to privacy, even though those words do not exist in the Constitution. The right to privacy makes intrusive laws suspect and forms the basis of a womans right to choose. This extended reasoning is why it is vitally important that we vigorously defend this right at every juncture. Judges who want to chip away at precedent, like Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, can point to the courts recent Janus decision that did away with 40 years of labor law supporting unions as an example of the courts inherent ability to change the law. In a time when the question what could possibly happen next seems to be asked every day, we should be afraid. Charles Goldwasser, West Hollywood Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat will be awarded the US Congressional gold medal, the American embassy in Cairo said on Friday. The embassy said that US President Donald Trump had signed into law an act giving the posthumous award to Sadat in recognition of his heroic achievements and courageous contributions to peace in the Middle East. Sadat is the first Arab person to be awarded the medal. He was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 after negotiations for a peace treaty were begun between the two countries. The text of the US act notes that the late US President Ronald Reagan described Sadat as a courageous man whose vision and wisdom brought nations and people together. In a world filled with hatred, he was a man of hope. In a world trapped in the animosities of the past, he was a man of foresight, a man who sought to improve a world tormented by malice and pettiness. The act further notes that, "President Sadat is recognized in the United States and throughout the world as a respected leader and champion of peace whose vision provided a roadmap for the peaceful resolution of conflict that endures nearly 40 years after its inception. President Sadat bravely reached out to Israel and dedicated himself to peace, furthering the national security of Egypt and the stability of the Middle East." The Act concludes by noting that "the Camp David Accords and the Peace Treaty continue to serve the interests of the United States by preserving peace and serving as a foundation for partnership and dialogue in a region fraught with conflict and division." Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat was the third president of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by Islamists fundamentalists on 6 October 1981. He led Egypt to victory in the October War. The war eventually led to Israeli forces withdrawing from the Sinai Peninsula on 25 April 1982 after 15 years of occupation, based on a peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979. Search Keywords: Short link: To the editor: As a genuine yellowface American, I was fascinated by Jennifer Fishers admirable effort in search of an authentic yet sensitive way of presenting the Chinese-ness in the Tea or Chinese dance in Act 2 of The Nutcracker ballet. To me, the most interesting part of the article is Fishers account of her stint teaching ballet history at the Beijing Dance Academy. Like Fishers students, I was not offended by the egregious bowing and other Chinese silliness portrayed in some versions of the dance. Instead, I was mostly amused by the Westerners attempts to entertain the audience by showing what they perceive as Chinese, much as the Chinese restaurants here offer fortune cookies to customers a custom I found nowhere in Taiwan. One area the author may explore further for ideas of Chinese-ness is Chinese opera, also known as Peking opera, where facial makeup and hand gestures are highly stylized, providing a rich store of traditional cultural symbols that reflect Chinas aesthetic experience. Advertisement Dienyih Chen, Redondo Beach .. To the editor: I recall as a child growing up in Boyle Heights in the 1950s regularly being taunted with racial harassment by people who used exaggerated ethnic facial expressions. These taunts, along with portrayals involving yellow skin color, were learned from images circulated in various media that were carried over from World War II. All were fabricated and distortions of reality. Today, because of the complaints by Asian American actors for more diverse character roles, the stereotypical and even racist portrayal of Asians and Asian Americans is becoming less of an issue, but this is an area still in need of improvement. Until the portrayal of the Asian American experience can be more fairly and accurately produced in film and on stage, the stereotype images from the past, as I had experienced on the playground as a child, will continue to haunt us. Larry Naritomi, Monterey Park Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: Columnist Jonah Goldberg writes of the distinction between law and morality as if the two are substitutes, not complements. While the law may not reflect absolute moral truth, it aspires to at least approximate some minimal moral consensus to which we may hold ourselves accountable. Hence, the payments made to two of Donald Trumps alleged mistresses during the 2016 campaign get caught up in legalism. Were the payments intended to help save Trumps marriage, or to save his campaign? The former is not unlawful; however, the latter is, because it occurs in the context of an election in which every citizen will be profoundly impacted. We have decided that campaign spending should be transparent it is our business. While such distinctions may not satisfy Goldbergs personal morality, it is disingenuous to say there is no consensus. Individual citizens may hold differing opinions as to which of Trumps questionable actions are morally unacceptable. The law serves as the conduit to identify which ones carry enough of a consensus to actually hold him accountable. Advertisement Charles Kohorst, Glendora .. To the editor: It is truly an upside-down world when lifelong lefties like myself find themselves cheering Goldbergs op-ed musings. But once again, my strange bedfellow has hit the nail on the head. When legalism is allowed (and here I grimace) to trump morality, we then must bear witness to the institutionalization of the modus operandi of ethically bankrupt moguls throughout time immemorial: Do whatever you want, and pay the lawyers to sort it all out. This might be an effective strategy in the darker realms of the private sector, but it is hopefully not one that will be allowed to drive process at the highest levels of American government. R.C. Price, San Clemente .. To the editor: Of course the $130,000 in hush money paid by disgraced and discredited former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just prior to the presidential election influenced the outcome. Just imagine how right wingers would have voted had candidate Trump been exposed for marital infidelities and possibly much more. Trump would never have won in 2016 without his base of voters who might have reacted poorly to news of an affair with an adult film actress. Besides, isnt the president at least on the short list of people expected to provide an ethical and moral compass for our country? Ted Lux, Playa del Rey Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook The White House defended the Border Patrol on Friday after a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died of exhaustion and dehydration while in custody, but the childs death and the border agencys weeklong delay in disclosing it prompted an outcry on Capitol Hill. The case intensified scrutiny of Border Patrol detention practices and raised questions about whether agents negligence contributed to the death. It also sparked concerns that the Trump administrations immigration crackdown has funneled migrants into more dangerous areas along the border. Homeland Security officials said they had launched an inspector generals investigation into the death and whether regulations were followed, and were awaiting results of an autopsy to determine the official cause of death. Hogan Gidley, the deputy White House press secretary, called the girls death a horrific, tragic situation and 100% preventable. Advertisement But he blamed Congress, and especially Democrats, for not passing what he called some common-sense laws to disincentivize people from crossing the border illegally. Gidley also placed responsibility for the girls death on her father, rather than any consequence of policy decisions. Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country? Gidley said. No. The girl, identified by Customs and Border Protection as Jakelin Caal Maquin, was with her father and 161 other migrants who crossed into a remote, rugged part of New Mexico last week. They were about 90 miles north of the border around 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6 when they turned themselves in to three Border Patrol agents. The child died just over 24 hours later in custody. She was initially taken into custody at Forward Operating Base Bounds, an outpost near the Antelope Wells border crossing, and around 5 a.m. on Dec. 7 was bused about 90 minutes to the Lordsburg Border Patrol station, Homeland Security officials said Friday. But by the time she arrived at the station, she had begun to suffer seizures, her temperature had jumped to 105.9 degrees and she had stopped breathing. She was taken by helicopter to Providence Childrens Hospital in El Paso, Texas, about 165 miles away, but died after a heart attack early on Dec. 8. Tests at the hospital showed brain swelling and physicians diagnosed the girl with liver failure, a Customs and Border Protection official told reporters in a conference call Friday. According to the hospitals initial assessment, the girl died due to sepsis shock, dehydration and exhaustion, said the official, who spoke on condition he not be identified. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, initially said the girl reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days, but on Friday officials said that the migrants were offered water at the base where the girl was initially held. The agency did not publicly acknowledge the girls death, or report it to Congress, until after the Washington Post reported it Thursday night. Under a 2018 law, Customs and Border Protection must report to congressional appropriations committees the death of any individual in CBP custody or the death of any individual subsequent to the use of force by CBP personnel within 24 hours, including relevant details regarding the circumstances of the fatality. The committees were not notified, according to aides to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan did not mention the death when he testified Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee about oversight of the Border Patrol. A Homeland Security official said Friday that Customs and Border Protection is reviewing its disclosure and notification process. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, called the death heartbreaking and unacceptable. She added, Families walking hundreds of miles across the desert for a chance for refuge in the United States are desperate. This country owes them compassionate, humane treatment. According to a Homeland Security official who briefed reporters, Border Patrol agents conducted initial screenings of the girl and the other migrants after they were first taken into custody. The official said the girls father signed a form attesting neither he nor his daughter were ill. But the tiny Bounds outpost was swamped by the large group and agents began to bus them to the larger Border Patrol station at Lordsburg, a rural town about 90 minutes away. The bus first took unaccompanied minors and others considered a priority, so the girl and her father were not picked up for about eight hours, the official said. At that time, the father notified authorities that his daughter was sick and vomiting, the official said, and agents called ahead to Lordsburg for an emergency medical technician to meet the bus. By the time it arrived, just before 6:30 a.m., the girl wasnt breathing and a medevac was called in to fly her to the hospital. These are very remote locations were talking about no one lives out there, the Customs and Border Protection official said. The reality is, at that remote part of the border, there was no faster means to get medical treatment. The Trump administration says the Border Patrol has been overwhelmed by a surge of families and unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the U.S. including more than 5,000 mostly Central American migrants who recently arrived on the border in caravans. Last month, Border Patrol agents apprehended 25,172 family members on the border, a record, and 5,283 unaccompanied minors. But overall, apprehensions the most common measure of illegal immigration are at historic lows. In the fiscal year that ended in September, border authorities apprehended 521,090 people. By comparison, from the 1980s to the mid-2000s, the government usually apprehended more than 1 million migrants a year. The Trump administration has sought to direct migrants to seek asylum only at official ports of entry, but Border Patrol agents have blocked or delayed many from doing so, according to migrant advocates and lawyers. The resulting backlog may have encouraged the migrant group to cross into a remote part of New Mexico on a path that ultimately led to the girls death. molly.otoole@latimes.com Twitter: @mollymotoole Even after she pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to help the Russian government exert influence over American politicians and operatives, the question remains open whether the case against Maria Butina is the stuff of a James Bond script or just the story of a naive Russian grad student. Either way, the 30-year-old gun rights enthusiast sitting in a federal cell in Virginia has become an intriguing character in the investigation into Russian efforts to sway American politics. She is the first Russian national to be convicted for conspiracy around the 2016 election, and her willingness to cooperate with prosecutors has touched off all manner of speculation about where it will lead. Butinas is a curious case. The entrepreneurial Russian agent, who was pursuing a graduate degree at American University in Washington, ran a side business that prosecutors have characterized as espionage. She enlisted her American boyfriend, identified in court papers as U.S. Person 1 but known to be Paul Erickson, 56, a longtime Republican operative in her scheme to help Russia curry favor with the U.S. government by building back-channel relationships. She took her instructions from a high-level Russian official and drew up an extensive plan for helping Russia infiltrate the American political system, in part by working through the National Rifle Assn. Advertisement It shows another dimension in the overall Russian effort to infiltrate the American political system and influence it, said David Kris, a former assistant attorney general for national security and a cofounder of the Culper Partners consulting firm. Its a demonstration of the diversity of their efforts. But the master plan some interpret as sensational has caused others to shrug their shoulders. The rules are blurry in the world of influence peddling, and routine lobbying and networking can quickly cross the line into a place where prosecutors have a criminal case, particularly when the players involved are Russian. By the time Butina pleaded guilty, prosecutors had backed off some of the most sensational charges they had previously leveled against her. They had recanted their claim that she offered to trade sex for help infiltrating the American political system, acknowledging that they misinterpreted some text messages in which Butina joked with a friend. They abandoned claims that Butina was in contact with Russian intelligence agencies and that the relationship with Erickson was one of convenience as part of her plot to build her network of influential American politicos. Butina ultimately pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent. After already serving five months in jail, she could be released as soon as her sentencing hearing in February. She is likely to be deported upon release, according to her plea deal. The Butina prosecution, which is being handled by the U.S. attorneys office in Washington, is separate from the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Mueller is focused on ties between President Trumps team and Russians who interfered in the presidential election. The special counsel has charged more than two dozen Russians with hacking Democratic Party emails and spreading misinformation on social media as part of a covert, Kremlin-backed campaign. Butina has no known connections to Trump, other than a photograph with his son, Donald Trump Jr., which she got at an NRA convention, and a question she once asked the future president at a public forum. But the young Russian aggressively sought connections with other prominent Republicans efforts that brought her under the FBIs scrutiny as soon as the 2016 presidential campaign got underway. Amassing evidence was not difficult. Butina posted it on social media herself. There she was in a photo with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who she told her Russian handler would probably be the next president of the United States. There she was again in the photo with Trumps son. Butina predicted Republicans would retake the White House, and she saw the NRA as the place to build inroads with the GOP. She wasnt wrong about that the gun lobby spent tens of millions on behalf of Republican candidates. Butina and her Russian handler, a figure prosecutors label in court papers as Russian Official but who has been identified as Alexander Torshin, an official in Russias central bank, persuaded members of the gun rights group to visit Moscow in 2015. During that visit, according to court documents, the Americans met with high-level officials in Moscow. Despite the lack of connections between Butina and the president, the details in her indictment and plea are obvious fodder for investigators as Democrats prepare to take over the House, with their inquiry into possible collusion between Republicans and Russia being a top priority. The guilty plea of Russian operative Maria Butina today raises the questions of what did @NRA officials know and when did they know it? Rep.Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles) wrote on Twitter on Thursday. The plea also raises the issue of what GOP party members or electeds may have known. Oh, and in January, House Democrats control subpoena power. Butina appears to have been ensnared in a bigger investigation focused on Torshin, who has been attending NRA conventions since 2011. Prosecutors have signaled one of their next targets is Erickson, who court papers suggest was deeply involved in trying to help Torshin win favor with influential Republicans. Democrats already had Erickson in their sights, after an email surfaced last year in which he had tried to broker a pre-2016 election meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. That meeting never happened. A linchpin of the case against Butina, meanwhile, is a document Erickson helped her draft for her Russian handler titled Description of Diplomacy Project. In it, Butina downplayed the possibility of influencing U.S. foreign policy toward Russia through official channels, criticizing government unwillingness to compromise, prosecutors wrote in their court filing. As an alternative, Butina suggested that Russia could use unofficial channels to the same end. She boasted that she had already laid the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication with the next U.S. administration. Erickson, according to the court papers, provided Butina with information about prominent U.S. political figures, and after she persuaded some powerful members of the NRA to come to Moscow, Erickson provided Butina his assessment on their degree of political influence in the United States. After the visit, Butina sent a note to Torshin about the NRA delegation, advising: We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later. Prosecutors did not provide any evidence of follow-through on the cryptic advice, or identify who exactly the Russians had intended to put pressure on and how. Butina also leaned on Erickson for help targeting guests to invite to friendship dinners thrown to cultivate lines of communication with individuals she believed would have the ear of the next U.S. presidential administration, according to prosecutors. And prosecutors accuse Erickson of helping Butina and Torshin scheme to send a Russian delegation to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington for the purpose of building back channels for Russian communication with Americans who can influence U.S. policy. The court filing quotes an email from Erickson to an unnamed person promising that reaction to the delegation in America would be communicated directly to Putin. Ericksons lawyer has already received a target letter from prosecutors, warning him that they are mulling charges that he secretly acted as an agent for a foreign government, according to a report in the Daily Beast. Ericksons lawyer told the outlet that his client has never done anything to hurt our country and never would. Time will tell if the U.S. attorneys office has a case against Erickson. If it does, Butina could take on yet another identity star witness for the prosecution. The latest look at the Trump administration and the rest of Washington More stories from Evan Halper evan.halper@latimes.com | Twitter: @evanhalper On multiple fronts, the walls closed in this week on President Trump. In court in New York, prosecutors moved several steps closer to potential charges against him in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case. On Capitol Hill, Trumps signature pledge of a wall along the border with Mexico neared collapse. And at the White House, the president, having finally dispatched his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, discovered how few people now want the once-coveted job. Advertisement But if the White House increasingly resembles a castle under siege, its well to remember that its walls are thick and defenses strong. This saga could have many chapters yet to come. Sign up for the Essential Politics newsletter THE MONEY SAID HUSH, BUT THEY DIDNT Trump has cycled through at least three false stories about his payments of $280,000 to two women in the fall of 2016 to keep them quiet about allegedly having had sex with him. When the Wall Street Journal first disclosed the payments, Trump, through his spokeswoman Hope Hicks, insisted he knew nothing about it. When that was shown to be a lie, Trump said his lawyer, Michael Cohen, had represented him in dealing with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, and Stephanie Clifford, a porn actress who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, but that he hadnt known the details. When that falsehood was exposed, he said the payments had nothing to do with the campaign. Wednesday, as Chris Megerian wrote, prosecutors in New York presented strong evidence to rebut that, as well. As federal Judge William H. Pauley III sentenced Cohen to three years in prison for several crimes, including his role in arranging the payments to the two women, the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan revealed that the third party in the hush-money case, the publisher of the National Enquirer, had also reached an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors. In the deal, known as a nonprosecution agreement, American Media Inc., owner of the National Enquirer tabloid, admitted that the payment had been made in connection with a candidates 2016 presidential campaign and to influence that election. Thats a key element in any campaign-finance prosecution. In the last big political hush-money case, John Edwards won acquittal largely by arguing that he paid off a mistress to keep the affair secret from his wife, which isnt illegal. The testimony by Cohen and American Media that the payments were aimed at the election would undercut any such defense from Trump. Prosecutors also have testimony that Trump personally took part in meetings with Cohen and American Medias chief, David Pecker, a longtime friend of Trumps, to discuss the payments. Trump has a remaining defense, however, which is a strong one, as Megerian wrote: In campaign finance, ignorance of the law is an excuse. In order to go after Trump, prosecutors would have to show that he knew that the campaign law barred what he was telling Cohen and Pecker to do. This time, Trumps profound ignorance may help him. Meanwhile, the investigation of Russian interference in U.S. politics claimed another guilty plea. On Thursday, Maria Butina, a 30-year-old Russian graduate student, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. As Megerian and Evan Halper wrote, hers is a curious case that has left some observers wondering: Was she a Russian spy or a naive student? THE WALL TUMBLING Next Friday, Congress hits its latest deadline for passing bills to keep government agencies running. So far, only five of the 12 appropriations bills have been passed and signed into law. That means large swaths of the federal government would close down and hundreds of thousands of government workers would go without pay just before Christmas unless Congress acts, likely with another stop-gap package. The big stumbling block, as Jennifer Haberkorn wrote, is money for Trumps long-promised border wall. Congress has a tentative deal to spend $1.6 billion to upgrade existing border fences. Trump wants $25 billion to start building a wall, but has signaled that hed accept $5 billion. In a televised confrontation on Tuesday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart Charles E. Schumer made clear that Trump wouldnt get what he wanted. Trump said he would be proud to shut down the government in response. I will take the mantle of shutting it down, he said. Republican leaders dont think Trump will follow through on that threat by vetoing a spending bill, but no one knows for sure. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly said that a government shutdown would hurt his party, and on the House side, Republicans who lost their reelection in November arent keen on sticking around Washington for Christmas to handle a self-inflicted crisis. A year ago, Democrats were ready to give Trump $25 billion in exchange for a compromise on immigration policy. Now, having regained the majority of the House in the November election, theyre no longer interested. Trumps chances of getting big money for his wall appear very small. HOME ALONE Last week, Trump announced that Kelly would leave as chief of staff around the end of the year. Now, that looks premature. Trump failed a basic test making sure he had a replacement lined up, as Noah Bierman and Eli Stokols reported. He thought that Nick Ayers, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, would take the job, but Ayers said no. Finding someone who would say yes has proven difficult. The problem, as Bierman and Stokols wrote, is that Trump has devalued the job and made it a source of humiliation both for Kelly and his predecessor, Reince Priebus. Now, White House officials say, Kelly may stay on for several more weeks. Trump, increasingly isolated, has also seemed more disengaged than usual, Stokols and Megerian reported. On Friday, for the third day in a row, he didnt show up in the Oval Office until almost noon. PELOSI SELLS A BRIDGE Perhaps her public dressing-down of Trump helped with Democratic lawmakers, or perhaps the outcome was foreordained, but Pelosi appears to have locked down the final votes she needed to regain the speakership next month, as Haberkorn wrote. She did so in classic style, packaging as a concession something that actually works in her favor. Before the election, Pelosi said in an interview with Mark Barabak that I see myself as a transitional figure. At the time, that was widely interpreted as a suggestion that if the Democrats regained the majority, this next term would be her last as speaker. But, Pelosi said, she didnt want to make myself a lame duck by stating a specific limit to her tenure. Roll the tape forward a few weeks: Democrats under Pelosis leadership have won an unexpectedly large majority in the House. A group of dissidents, however, continues to oppose her election as speaker. One by one, Pelosi picks off the opponents, leaving her with just a few more votes to win over. On Wednesday, she makes the final deal, agreeing to a term limit. The agreement, however, wasnt that shed serve less than a full term and have someone else in the speakers chair before the next election. It wasnt even that this term would be her last. Instead, Pelosi and the dissidents agreed that she would serve the coming two-year term as speaker and then potentially two additional years. Then she would leave. Of course, as any good negotiator would do, Pelosi was happy to let the dissidents claim that as a concession on her part. I see myself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders, she said with a smile. CONSERVATIVES FOLD ON FOOD STAMPS Novembers election has also already had an impact on legislation. For months, Congress was stalled on passing a massive $867-billion farm bill. The measure, which re-ups a whole series of agriculture and forestry programs, had stalled over conservatives insistence on adding work requirements to the food stamp program, known as SNAP. Both sides had put off a settlement until they could see how the election turned out. Now, with that question answered, Congress has approved the bill, minus the work requirements and other provisions Trump had wanted, including one that would have allowed the cutting of more trees in national forests, Sarah Wire reported. A #METOO VICTORY IN CONGRESS As members of Congress tried to wrap up their work and get home for the holidays, they broke another long-standing deadlock this week, approving a bill that will change how they handle sexual harassment cases. As Wire and Haberkorn reported, under the new law, members will have to pay out of their own pockets if they settle a case, rather than using taxpayer funds. The measure will only cover harassment cases, not a broader universe of sex discrimination claims. The House is expected to address that issue, at least for its own members, in the new year. LIBERALS WIN A ROUND AT SUPREME COURT Ever since the confirmation of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, liberals have braced for defeats on abortion-related issues. So it was notable that when the first test on that subject came to the court, Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the courts four liberals to reject an appeal that aimed to cut off money to Planned Parenthood. As David Savage wrote, the decision not to consider the case doesnt necessarily mean that Kavanaugh has moderated his views. The move by him and Roberts could be simply tactical. Still, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by two other conservatives, wrote a bluntly worded dissent. REST OF THE WEEKS NEWS The administration released its latest rollback of a major environmental rule this week. This one could strip protections from up to two-thirds of California streams and millions of acres nationwide, Halper reported. As Halper wrote, administration officials challenge those estimates, which were based on the EPAs own data. The shadow campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is well underway, Halper wrote, and several potential candidates used the midterm election to their advantage. In a rebuke of Trump, the Senate voted to cut off U.S. help for Saudi Arabias war in Yemen. As Wire and Tracy Wilkinson wrote, the Senate also unanimously condemned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The moves are symbolic for now, in part because the House wont act, but they presage further trouble for the Saudis and their allies in the Trump administration once the new Democratic majority takes control. The administration unveiled a new policy toward Africa in a speech by national security advisor John Bolton. As Wilkinson reported, Bolton focused on attacking what he called predatory practices by China and Russia. Trump says he wants a government-run media outlet. As Bierman wrote, hes largely ignored the one he has. But over at Voice of America, people are increasingly nervous. Finally, as they contemplate their election losses, Republicans in Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere are seeking to undermine the election results by changing the rules, Mark Barabak reported. The steps theyre taking are likely to increase public cynicism, he wrote. LOGISTICS That wraps up this week. Until next time, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration with our Essential Washington blog, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics. Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com. If you like this newsletter, tell your friends to sign up. David.lauter@latimes.com @davidlauter Michael Cohen, President Trumps former lawyer, said in a television interview airing Friday that Trump knew it was wrong to make hush-money payments to women who alleged they had affairs with him, directly contradicting claims from the president. Cohen, who has admitted facilitating payments to two women in violation of campaign finance laws, told ABC News that he knew what he was doing was wrong. Asked whether the president also knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen replied, Of course. He added that the purpose was to help [Trump] and his campaign. His comments, in an interview on Good Morning America, are at odds with those of Trump on Thursday in tweets and a television interview. Advertisement Trump denied that he had directed Cohen to break the law during the 2016 campaign by buying the silence of former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. He also said that Cohen, as his lawyer, bore responsibility for any campaign finance violations. I never directed him to do anything wrong, Trump told Fox News on Thursday. Whatever he did he did on his own. I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong. In his interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos, Cohen, who once vowed that he would take a bullet for Trump, flatly disputed the presidents assertion. He said Trump was well aware of important decisions involving his business. I dont think there is anybody that believes that, Cohen said. First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments. He directed me to become involved in these matters. The former lawyer and Trump fixer added: He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth. And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, dont believe what he is saying. The man doesnt tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds. Cohens comments were his first since being sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday for what U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III called a veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct crimes that included tax violations, lying to a bank and lying to Congress, as well as those related to the hush-money payments. Federal prosecutors contend that Trump directed the payments in a bid to help his election prospects. Trump has denied the affairs and initially denied knowing anything about the payments but has since shifted his story. Cohen is scheduled to report to prison on March 6. In the ABC interview, Cohen declined to answer specific questions about the probe by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into possible coordination between Russia and Trumps 2016 campaign. I dont want to jeopardize any of their investigations, he said. But asked whether he thinks Trump is telling the truth about the Russia investigation, Cohen replied, No. Trump has denied any collusion with Russia and has repeatedly attacked Mueller and his lawyers, accusing them of conducting a witch hunt. John Wagner writes for the Washington Post. It was almost noon Friday when a Marine suddenly appeared outside the West Wing doors, a sign that President Trump had belatedly reported to the Oval Office. For the third day in a row, the president had been in the White House residence all morning, fuming about federal investigations that have moved closer to him and are likely to get worse. His former confidant, attorney Michael Cohen, and other once-stalwart supporters have flipped, becoming witnesses for a Justice Department he has struggled to bend to his will. Prosecutors also secured the cooperation of American Media Inc., the tabloid publisher that routinely helped Trump muzzle bad stories and target his enemies. The result is Trump has become increasingly isolated as he enters what may be the most difficult stretch of his presidency, one laden with political and legal dangers. Advertisement Trumps first choice for a new chief of staff turned him down last week. Then one potential candidate after another publicly took himself out of the running. On Friday, after several days of confusion, Trump named Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as his acting chief of staff. Come January, a newly elected Democratic majority in the House is expected to issue a blizzard of subpoenas. Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House speaker, said on Thursday that a House committee will probably take the first steps toward seeking Trumps long-hidden tax returns, an effort he will almost certainly fight. Trumps lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was spotted in Bahrain trying to drum up business for his private security company even as the incoming state attorney general in New York vowed to investigate Trumps family business empire. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III continues to investigate Russias role in Trumps election and whether the president sought to obstruct justice by trying to end the inquiry. I dont think hes ever in his life been in this position, said Barbara Res, who worked years for the Trump Organization, the presidents private family-run business. Hes always had all the power and nobody else does. Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington Trump already is struggling to exert his influence. Few Republicans have endorsed his threats to force a government shutdown over Christmas if Congress doesnt approve $5 billion for a proposed border wall. On Thursday, the Republican-controlled Senate took a direct slap at the White House, voting unanimously by voice vote to condemn Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the brutal slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has publicly backed the crown prince despite U.S. intelligence findings that he masterminded the killing. Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who visited the White House on Wednesday, said Trump is digging in for trench warfare with his political and legal enemies. All this stuff is painful, but hes a guy whos been in lots of fights, he said. He sort of wishes it would go away and is prepared to fight it out if he has to. Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer of Trumps 1987 bestselling book, The Art of the Deal, said the reckoning Trump faces follows decades of operating under a belief that he was above the law. He got away with so much, for so long, that he came to believe he was untouchable and invincible, Schwartz said. He said Trump followed the tactics he learned from his late mentor, the hard-knuckled New York lawyer Roy Cohn Lie about everything, attack back twice as hard as youve been hit, keep at it relentlessly until people finally give up and [they] stop arguing with your fabricated reality. Trump is still living in that reality, but the world isnt going along with him anymore, he added. Several others close to the president, granted anonymity to speak openly about conversations with him, said Trump already senses diminishing respect and worries about losing support from powerful financial donors and Republican lawmakers as his legal and political troubles worsen. Theyre still not saying it publicly, but most Republicans on the Hill understand ... that its not going to end well, that its going to be bad, said a longtime Republican operative close to party leadership. Trump has long railed against rats who cooperate with law enforcement, and he repeatedly lashes out at former aides whove done just that. Michael Cohen, Trumps former lawyer and fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images) In a Twitter message Thursday, he accused Cohen who was sentenced to three years in federal prison the day before for tax fraud, campaign finance violations and other crimes of pleading guilty in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did. James Trusty, a former chief of the Justice Departments organized crime section and a Washington-based partner at Ifrah Law, said persuading loyalists to turn on compatriots is key to any complex investigation. The Mafia had the omerta code of silence, but you still had people who were turncoats, he said. Trumps orbit is much softer, he added. Were talking about businessmen and lawyers and folks who have families, and arent exactly hardcore when it comes to facing jail time. Perhaps the most pressing threat is the investigation, led by the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan, of what prosecutors say was an illegal scheme to pay $280,000 to two women shortly before the 2016 election to buy their silence about alleged sexual affairs with Trump years earlier. Cohen directly paid Stormy Daniels, a porn star, and was reimbursed by the Trump Organization. American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, paid Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, for the rights to her story and then never ran it. Prosecutors say Trump directed both payments, which were illegal because they were intended to influence the election and functioned as excessive campaign contributions that were not disclosed. In an interview aired by ABCs Good Morning America on Friday, Cohen said Trump of course knew the payment was wrong. Nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump, he said. Establishing whether Trump knew the hush money would violate campaign finance laws is a key hurdle for prosecutors if they intend to charge him. The president once denied knowing about the payments, but he abandoned that as evidence showed otherwise. He now argues that he never asked Cohen to break the law. I never directed him to do anything wrong, the president told Fox News on Thursday. Whatever he did, he did on his own. Both Cohen and American Media, as well as federal prosecutors, say that the hush money payments were intended to boost the Republican nominees chances by suppressing the womens claims of extramarital affairs with him. According to court documents, the American Media chairman, David Pecker, offered in August 2015 to help deal with negative stories about [Trumps] relationships with women, assisting the campaign so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Some of Trumps Republican allies have begun to publicly admit concerns about whether Trump violated the law in the hush money scheme even if hes unlikely to face prosecution while in office. Am I concerned that the president might be involved in a crime? Of course, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) told reporters, although he also expressed doubt about whether the violation amounts to a crime. There are more signs of trouble ahead. Trump was embarrassed after a combative Oval Office meeting on live TV on Tuesday with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer. Both Democrats challenged the president to his face, describing his policies and claims of political victories as fantastical. With the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, leaving at the end of the year, Trump has struggled to find a permanent replacement. After Nick Ayers, a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, turned him down, several others reportedly under consideration including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and New York Yankees President Randy Levine also said no thanks. David Bossie, a longtime Republican political warrior who was Trumps deputy campaign chairman, was touted as a potential candidate. Some people close to Trump urged him to consider a White House political advisor, Johnny DeStefano. On Friday, Trump tweeted that Mulvaney, his budget director, would become acting chief of staff. Its unclear if that will end the turmoil, or if the president is putting Mulvaney in the job only on a temporary basis. Trump, who has bristled at media reports that no one wants the job, contended Thursday that he is interviewing five terrific people. While his difficulty filling the job highlights the presidents isolation, Schwartz, Trumps ghost writer, said Trump almost certainly doesnt agree. He doesnt feel the ordinary human emotions most of us do, he said. For example, hes free of shame because he has no conscience, nor any self-awareness. So while his behavior certainly suggests he feels increasing fear and isolation, he would be the last one to know it. chris.megerian@latimes.com Twitter: @chrismegerian eli.stokols@latimes.com Greg Killingsworth spent most of his career staging over-the-top sales meetings for big-time companies like Toyota and Honda. He has brought executives on stage on the backs of elephants. And had them parachute in from the rafters. One time we brought out on stage the president of Suzuki in a volcano that was shooting pyro out of the top, and then the volcano opened and he walked out, he says. Where do you go after that? The Newport Beach Boat Parade. Thats where. Killingsworth retired nine years ago, but his brain didnt. When he wakes up in the morning, hes cooking up something or other. Gregs out there goin, Hmmm, what am I going to do today? he said, speaking of himself in the third person. I have all this creative energy. He blames his parents. Dad Ed Killingsworth was a famous architect who spent 40 years on the master plan for Cal State Long Beach while building iconic mid-century modern Southern California houses (the Opdahl House in the Naples section of Long Beach is his) and swanky hotels in Hawaii, Indonesia and Japan. Mom Laura Killingsworth was a Long Beach Civic Light Opera stage star who, now 94, just donned a gown to open up her home, a mid-century gem that her late husband designed, for an architectural tour fundraiser. I grew up in this family of achievers, Killingsworth says. So I started putting on plays in the backyard when I was 13. He called his company the Virginia Country Theater and staged one production each summer for seven summers, not only rewriting the lyrics to plays like Oklahoma, but casting the plays, directing them and building the sets. I starred in them too, he says. I was possessed. A pair of giraffes and an elephant are part of the decorations for Greg Killingsworths boat Paradise Found, that will participate in the Newport Beach Boat Parade. (Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) After high school and USC, he began putting on another type of show: beauty pageants up and down the West Coast. He called his company Killingsworth Productions. Still in his early 20s, Killingsworth got an offer in 76 to work for Disney in show development, but he left after a couple years. I just was not the Disney guy, he says. He and his then-wife Cam started another company: Killingsworth Presentations. One of their first gigs was staging the victory dinner for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. I made it a spectacle, he says. Confetti cannons, big sound. After dinner, a Toyota executive asked the couple to stage their pro celebrity driver events. That led to staging annual sales meetings for top companies across the nation. How do you make the dealers come out of their seats with the Oooo, Wow! factor? Killingsworth once paid Jay Leno to walk out on stage. Another time he found a Jetpack guy to fly down the aisle onto the stage, and then (with the help of a magician) vanish, replaced by the company president. Ooo. Wow! Dealers would go, My God, you guys are untouchable. Whatever youre selling, Im buying, he recalls. Thats why we were paid the big bucks. His Everest came in 2001 when he and Cam were summoned to Japan to pitch to the president of Toyota, who wanted to hold a first-ever Toyota World Convention for 1,500 dealers around the world. They wanted it to be grand American-style, John Wayned out, he says. Not one ending, not two endings, but three endings. The $5 million production involved laser beams and an originally-composed soundtrack. I loved the pressure, he says. That moment when you press the button and Oh my God, is it gonna work? Its a high thats hard to kick. He has tried though; hence the boat. He bought his 30-foot express cruiser Paradise Found after retirement in an attempt to relax, chill. It lasted about a minute. Gee, now that I have a boat, I can be in the boat parade, he almost immediately deduced. And here comes showbiz Greg. It started at a hardware store when he saw a giant inflatable Snoopy doghouse. Greg Killingsworth decorates his boat Paradise Found, a 30-foot express cruiser, for the Newport Beach Boat Parade. Killingsworth is an eight-time Newport Beach boat parade award winner. (Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) I grabbed that guy, put him on top of my cabin, added some speakers and Pavarotti. Next thing I know I won best music. Right out of the bag. Well, hell, this works. That was 2009. So the next year, I put Kenny G jazz on the water with Snoopy. Guess what? I win best music again. The next year was a bust. The generator died just as the parade started. Lights out, literally. In 2012, he was back though, baby. This time he won the humor and originality award for Circle of Life Christmas. He drove a metal lion sculpture from his yard in Trabuco Canyon down to his Newport Dunes slip, put him on the boat and blasted Lion King music. His next win was actually a historic one. The city decided that it wasnt fair for the smaller, mom-and-pop boats to be competing with mega-yacht owners who pay $50,000 to have their boats dripping in lights, so they created a new category called non-commercial sweepstakes. Killingsworth took the coveted prize for Jurassic Christmas. He put a 20-foot-tall, 500-pound metal T Rex sculpture (also from his yard) on the boat and shot CO2 white gas through a red light so it looked like the dinosaur was spitting fire. While out on the water, though, he saw a boat using real fire. You want fire, Ill show you fire, he thought. Wait until you see my fire. The next year he called his entry The Heat is On. By painting some of those tall glass-encased patio heaters black, it gave the illusion that loose flames were leaping off the boat. It won him another humor and originality award. In 2015, he got best animation for saluting John Wayne with video screens playing the Dukes old movie clips. The following year he won another humor and originality award for Fireside Christmas. More fire. Last year he took the noncommercial sweepstakes again, this time for a family of dinosaurs (also from his yard you gotta see his yard). His son Todd, who does spots for TV networks and is also a Burner, flew in from Seattle, bringing with him a propane puffer. The contraption, which Burners use at the annual Burning Man festival out in the Black Rock desert for nighttime drama, compresses gas and then shoots fireballs that explode 100 feet into the sky. Killingsworth put it in the middle of a Christmas tree on his boat and then synced it with Michael Jacksons Thriller. This year, when the parade kicks off Dec. 19, Killingsworths boat will be blasting Guns N Roses Welcome to the Jungle. Look for the elephant shooting flames from his trunk and the giraffes eating from a palm tree that shoots fireballs. Its gonna rock and roll this year, Killingsworth says. Lets just keep having fun. Lori Basheda is a contributor to Times Community News. When Elaine Chang decided to become a foster parent, she knew she wanted the child to be Korean. She and her husband were born in Korea, speak Korean and belong to a Korean church, so fostering a Korean child would help ease the transition into a new home, she reasoned. So nearly four years ago, the couple who lived in Irvine at the time took in an 8-day-old Korean American baby boy. A year and a half later, they adopted him. I wanted to provide as much as I could, Chang said. He might not know who his biological parents are, but hell know what his roots are. Stories like Changs are rare in Southern California, where few Asian families are licensed foster parents to support the estimated 1,000 Asian foster children in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Many of these children grew up speaking Korean, Mandarin or Vietnamese and need families that also speak the same language. To address this growing need, the Asian Foster Family Initiative the countrys first and only foster family agency specifically for Asians and Pacific Islanders has been recruiting Asian Americans in Southern California to become foster parents. This fall, the organization secured a contract with the Orange County Social Services Agency, making it easier for the county to match Asian foster parents and Asian foster children. Our community needs to be out there and do more for our own children, said Connie Chung Joe, executive director of Korean American Family Services, which launched the Asian Foster Family Initiative. Its hard enough, the trauma of being separated from your family and being put into a strangers home. But when no one knows your food, your culture or even your language, that can be extra traumatic for kids. Chung Joe said she began working on the issue five years ago, when her own research showed that there was not a single Korean foster parent in Los Angeles County, which was causing significant problems for the estimated 100 Korean foster children in the area. The kids sometimes didnt speak English or werent used to the food or customs, so the kids were saying they were in distress, she said. We were hearing stories about kids who would stop bathing, they were having nightmares, and they werent eating well. So Chung Joe set out to eliminate the barriers many Asians face to become foster parents. For instance, licensing requires up to 20 hours of training, first aid and CPR certification, said Chung Joe, which was available only in English at the time. So the Asian Foster Family Initiative started holding the training sessions in-language and offered clinics to guide families through the lengthy written application. Its hard enough even if you speak English and know the system well to go through all of that, she said. But if you dont speak English perfectly fluently, and you dont know, culturally, how to navigate the system, its really hard to get through the process. Siyang Yu, a social worker, helps conduct a training program for the Asian Foster Family Initiative, the countrys first and only foster family agency specifically for Asians and Pacific Islanders. (Photo by James Carbone) The Asian Foster Family Initiative also launched a public awareness campaign in the Asian community. This included explaining what fostering is since many Asian countries dont have a foster system and dispelling misconceptions. One point the agency drove home was that foster parents dont have to be U.S. citizens. It also reached out to churches and other community groups to encourage families to foster. Koreans have the highest rate of missionaries of any other culture in the world, Chung Joe said. We go around the world trying to help children in need, yet in our own backyard, there might be a Korean American child and were not doing anything for that child. I think a lot of people felt like, `We need to take care of our own children. This is the message that Chang said moved her to become a foster parent. Its bad enough to be away from their parents, but the different culture, its not easy for them to adjust, she said. That moved my heart and I felt like, Maybe I can do this. Laura Turtzer, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Social Services Agency, which contracted the Asian Foster Family Initiative as a foster family agency, said the county has also reached out to the Asian American community by participating in Tet festivals and Asian night markets as a way to encourage more Asian American foster parents and also helps foster families understand the needs of Asian American foster children. In trainings, prospective resource families learn that a childs ethnicity and culture are a part of their identity, and they are encouraged to create opportunities for themselves and their youth to learn about and integrate cultural traditions, she said in an email. Chinese couples and individuals take part in the L.A. Foster Care System training program at the Rowland Heights Community Christian Church. (Photo by James Carbone) Turtzer said the Asian Foster Family Initiative will build on this work by providing more families who can serve the cultural and linguistic needs of children in the county. Chung Joe said her organization has trained 49 new foster families so far. The Asian Foster Family Initiative currently works in the Korean, Chinese and Filipino communities and is expanding its Orange County services to include the Vietnamese. Chang, a nurse who also has two biological children, said that while there was once stigma in the Asian American community around fostering and adopting children, the culture has shifted toward greater awareness and acceptance. If you start looking for differences between you and your son, youll see so many differences, she said. But if you look for the things that are like you, theyll be there. Its the same thing with biological kids. Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil is a contributor to Times Community News. Orange County veterans who have campaigned for their own cemetery for years were relieved to hear that the Board of Supervisors recently agreed to donate 280 acres near Anaheim Hills for the development of a public cemetery for both veterans and civilians. The supervisors unanimously voted Dec. 4 to transfer the rugged strip of land south of the 91 Freeway at Gypsum Canyon Road to the Orange County Cemetery District, which has overseen the maintenance and interments at three public cemeteries since 1985. The parcel was part of a 20,000-acre donation made by Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren in 2010 to preserve open space after his company abandoned its plan to develop a residential community in the canyon. For the record: A previous version of the article misstated the number of acres of land that was donated for the cemetery. Supervisor Todd Spitzer, whose district includes the future cemetery site, said he co-authored the deal with Board Chairman Andrew Do to make sure Orange County veterans and their loved ones have a burial place near their hometown. Spitzer is departing the board to take on his newly-elected position as district attorney. We have the ability to give [the land] back in something you cant measure in any financial reward, monetary analysis or anything, Spitzer said. Its simply the right thing to do, the right gesture. It builds incredible good will [for] the men and women who served from Orange County, and if they choose to at a future date, they can have their final resting place in Orange County. Left to right, Bill Cook, Nick Berardino and Steve Spriggs from the Veterans Alliance of Orange County, in front of the land in Anaheim Hills that has recently been donated for the development of a public veterans cemetery. (Photo by Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) Veterans like Nick Berardino and Bill Cook, both leaders in the Veterans Alliance of Orange County, have grown weary in recent years of the political fights and procedural delays that have plagued the creation of a veterans cemetery in Irvine. In June, Irvine voters rejected a land swap deal between Irvine and developer FivePoint Holdings that would have moved the proposed cemetery to the strawberry fields near the intersection of the 5 and 405 freeways. With this new direction from Irvine voters, city officials are back to examining plans for a cemetery on 125 acres of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro near Irvine Boulevard and Chinon. Developing a veterans cemetery at this site is anticipated to cost up to $91 million because of the necessary environmental clean-up and demolition of 77 buildings, concrete hardscape and underground utilities remaining on the property from its former military uses. There is currently $4.5 million in the states Master Development Fund for a veterans cemetery in Southern California, which falls short of the 10% needed for the Irvine sites supporters to seek additional grant funding from CalVet, the states Department of Veterans Affairs. Irvine city officials estimate 2025 as the earliest possible opening date for a veterans cemetery in Irvine. Berardino, a former member of the Orange County Fair Board who led an effort to build the Heroes Hall veterans museum at the fairgrounds, said he and his fellow Marine veterans have campaigned for a cemetery near El Toros former location because it was the last place thousands of Marines stood on American soil before they died in Vietnam. From a practical standpoint, the former base also offered an island of open space in suburban Orange County. But as veterans age, the sentimental appeal of a veterans cemetery in Irvine has been eroded by veterans pragmatic need to plan for the end of life. Bill Cook, left, and Nick Berardino from the Veterans Alliance of Orange County talk about land allocated for a veterans cemetery at Gypsum Canyon Road and Santa Ana Canyon Road in Anaheim. (Photo by Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) The Irvine cemetery effort by the city has been a floating shipwreck until now, Berardino said. We cant wait, and were not going to wait for folks to move us on the political chessboard. Tim Deutsch, general manager of the Orange County Cemetery District, said his agency has set aside $8 million for the development of a new cemetery. The district has agreed to the supervisors requirement that the remains of veterans occupy at least 50% of the new cemetery, which would likely be built in phases as members of the public request space for new caskets. Although the supervisors unanimously approved the land donation, Supervisor Lisa Bartlett expressed concern that the board is stepping on the toes of the Irvine Planning Commission as it tries to sort out the citys plans for a cemetery. The commission was supposed to offer feedback on analysis of the cemeterys cost and timeline on Dec. 6 but decided to delay that discussion until Jan. 3. She was also concerned that the Anaheim locations hilly terrain might make it more expensive to develop than originally anticipated but ultimately joined her fellow supervisors in supporting the land donation. Cook anticipates that the cemetery will nicely complement the natural beauty of the surrounding canyon. As youre driving down the 91 Freeway, youre going to be able to look up that hillside, he said. Its going to be spectacular. Daniel Langhorne is a contributor to Times Community News. The President honored hard work and dignity of woman driver guest of Sherif Amer's show on MBC Masr in an unscheduled call; asked media present a full picture of events in Europe and objectively explain differences with Egypt In a phone call to the TV programme Happening in Egypt on Thursday evening, Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi urged the Egyptian media to reflect more accurately on the reality of how Egyptians favourably view living conditions in the country, and report on world events in a way that takes into consideration differences between Egypt and other countries. Sherif Amer, the presenter of the show on MBC Masr channel, was hosting a female microbus driver named Nehmedou whom the president had met during an inspection visit to projects in the New Administrative Capital hours earlier, when the president called in unscheduled. Earlier in the day, Nehmedou (which roughly translates in Arabic to We Thank God) told the president she works 10 hours as a driver on the microbus, and asked for help to buy a microbus of her own in installments. The President honored her request and she was able to acquire the vehicle through the Tahya Masr fund. The president started his call by praising the driver, describing her as a role model for all Egyptians and women who work hard to provide for their families and homes. "I met her through sheer coincidence as we changed route last minute," El-Sisi told Amer. "You waited for years but God eventually rewarded you," the President told Nehmedou. Sherif Amer interjected saying Nehmdo simply asked for help with car payments because she only wants to continue to work "This reflects the dignity and modesty of the Egyptian woman who exert effort for their society," the President responded. "I call on her if she can to give back if she can by contributing to the Tahya Misr Fund." For Nehmedou, I call on Egyptians to respect and honour Egyptian women. Nemato The President told Amer that he he meets workers all the time who do not earn a lot of money, but they say they are happy and never complain of harsh living conditions. When I see workers on the worksites of the new projects, I get a great sense that they are satisfied. Nobody says we cant bear the hard living conditions. I am talking here about hundreds of thousands of workers and people, El-Sisi said. "On the speed of accomplishment in mega projects, the President said "we have to work in as short a time as possible to achieve the levels we aspire to reach." 'The magnitude of the efforts exerted and the numbers of people who are being employed are unprecedented; in every home you find a person or a youth who is somehow working in one of these projects and earning enough to live decently." El-Sisi told Amer that 2019 will see the opening of many new projects, explaining that his tight schedule sometimes prevents him from being physically present in the opening all these projects by himself. He also urged the media to explain the picture of current events in a particular European country in a better, more objective way. "The media has to give a context for the viewers on the specificity of the situation there; what is the exact percentage of increase in fuel prices there, and compare this to the reality of the situation in Egypt. "We should not be simply report an image of the events, but we have to complete the picture with facts," the President stressed. For example , a litre of fuel in Europe costs the equivalent of EGP 25, in addition to a tax of 20 percent, which amounts to EGP 5," that one thing. "Over there, citizens pay 40 percent of their salaries as taxes, El-Sisi said, adding that governance realities there mandate everyone pays taxes. "The media is supposed to enlighten and explain," the President concluded. Shirf Search Keywords: Short link: Environmentalists say the rare and sensitive western snowy plover is feeling ill effects of dogs frolicking in the surf at a de facto dog beach near their habitat at the mouth of the Santa Ana River and that, despite measures like leash laws, government could be doing more to help. One conservationist suggests there could still be a dog beach, as long as its not at the Orange County-controlled river jetty near the Newport Beach-Huntington Beach border. Garry Brown, executive director of Orange County Coastkeeper, a Costa Mesa-based environmental group, told the California Coastal Commission at its meeting this week in Newport Beach that the state agency should step in to put some weight behind the dog issue, which he said is a problem lacking leadership to fix. Whether that means the commission should urge more conversation between Newport and the county or give a direct order, this should be a problem that reasonable people can sit down and figure out, Brown said Thursday. In 2016, the county Board of Supervisors halted a final vote on an ordinance that would change county law to permit off-leash dogs on that stretch of sand. Environmental groups raised concerns that unleashed canines could cause harm to two at-risk bird species the California least tern and the western snowy plover. The western snowy plover is a small, nonmigratory shorebird that the federal government lists as threatened. It feeds on insects and small invertebrates like marine worms, which it pecks out of the sand, and dead seaweed that washes ashore. The bird roosts mid-beach or in dunes areas. The western snowy plover is a small, nonmigratory shorebird that the federal government lists as threatened. (File Photo) Scott Thomas from the Sea & Sage Audubon Society said at the Coastal Commissions Wednesday session that even controlled dogs can spook the plovers. When dogs approach, whether its on leash or off leash, [the birds] move out of areas where theyre supposed to be, he said. They stop doing the foraging theyre supposed to do. They stop doing the breeding behaviors theyre supposed to do. Newport Beach Mayor Diane Dixon, whose council district borders the dog beach at the river jetty, told the commission on Wednesday that in the past two years Newport police had given 404 warnings, written 111 citations and made one arrest over alleged leash and time violations on city land abutting the beach. Dogs are allowed on Newports beaches only before 10 a.m. and after 4:30 p.m., and only if on a leash. Off-leash dogs are not allowed on any public spaces, including beaches. I want to make it very clear that the city is doing everything possible and more to ensure that we are protecting our natural resources, Dixon said. It has been said before, but some areas such as the river jetty are controlled by the county of Orange and not under our control, so that is a challenge. The citys other plover protection efforts include monitoring a sandy habitat the city fenced off between B and G streets and drafting a plan to improve management of the fenced area. The plan, released this summer, includes several references to local animal control measures and the threat dogs may pose to the birds. Thomas said Newport is going in the right direction but that theres still a problem. Brown was more direct. He claimed the city doesnt want to face the problem head-on that its leash ordinance can lead to tickets for dog owners, but tickets arent enough. The environmentalists spoke about the plovers during public comment periods, so the commission took no action. But Brown was optimistic that the state could work with the city and county for a solution. One answer, he suggested, is for Newport to formally dedicate a stretch of its coastline to canine play, as long as it isnt near sensitive habitat. He said Coastkeeper employees are encouraged to take their dogs to the organizations office and that Newporters should be able to access a portion of the beach with their dogs too. This shouldnt be and isnt about dogs vs. birds, Brown said. hillary.davis@latimes.com Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD A retired California Highway Patrol official was convicted Thursday in a sex-crime retrial related to a 2006 meeting he arranged in Laguna Beach with a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Stephen Robert Deck, 64, of Carlsbad was found guilty by a jury in Orange County Superior Court of a felony count of attempted lewd acts on a child, the second time he was convicted in the case. On Feb. 12, 2006, Deck initiated contact online with a person he believed was a teenage girl, the Orange County district attorneys office said. But the online profile Deck had contacted was actually being run by an adult volunteer from Perverted-Justice.com, a nonprofit that aims to protect children from internet sexual predators, the district attorneys office said. Deck had online and phone conversations over several days with a woman who told him she was 13. He asked if she liked older men and he made sexually aggressive comments about eating pie, the district attorneys office said. Six days after the online contact began, Deck who at the time was a CHP lieutenant drove while off duty from San Diego County to Laguna Beach for a meeting he arranged with the fictitious teenager. Officers arrested him when he arrived at a park. He was carrying a digital camera, and condoms and a key-lime pie were found in his car, authorities said. Deck was convicted of the same charge in December 2009 and was sentenced to a year in Orange County Jail, five years probation and lifetime registration as a sex offender. The conviction was affirmed by a California appellate court but was later reversed in the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, resulting in a retrial. Deck had already served his original sentence, so he was immediately re-sentenced Thursday with credit for time served, meaning he will serve no additional jail time. His status as a registered sex offender will be reimposed, the district attorneys office said. julia.sclafani@latimes.com A Glendale man was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to reportedly using ATM skimming devices as well as fraudulent debit and credit cards in the Las Vegas area to steal money. Khachatur Zakaryan, 37, pleaded guilty to a single count of possessing 15 or more counterfeit or unauthorized access devices, four counts of producing, using or trafficking in a counterfeit access device and four counts of aggravated identity theft. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, the crimes date back to February 2017 when Zakaryan and unnamed accomplices were in possession of counterfeit prepaid debit and gift cards that were encoded with information taken from stolen financial accounts. Zakaryan would then use the cards to withdraw money from ATMs across Las Vegas, depleting the stolen accounts. When authorities searched a van and hotel rooms connected to Zakarayan, they found 521 fake cards. He was also personally found in possession of nine additional cards at the time of his arrest. Zakarayan was on probation for a case involving counterfeit debit cards at the time of his arrest and faces additional charges for similar crimes in North California, authorities said. andy.nguyen@latimes.com Twitter: @Andy_Truc Re: Council rejects property exchange, Dec. 8. I read with great interest Lila Seidmans article about the City Councils action relating to a proposal that would have the Glendale Unified School District abandon its Wilson Street headquarters for a larger building on Colorado Boulevard. The deal would have the developer, Carmel Partners, obtain the GUSD property on Wilson Avenue, where it proposed to construct a large residential complex. After a personal inspection of the Colorado Boulevard building the GUSD would have acquired, I believe the City Council may well have saved GUSD from a disaster it would have long regretted. The surroundings are far less desirable than those of the GUSDs current location and the building on Colorado appears to be inflicted by vacancies. I found only one person working at the site, in the first floor entrance area, pulling a cart loaded with boxes headed for a room jammed full of cardboard boxes. Looking through windows from the outside, I could see several rooms being used as warehouses but none that looked like business offices. One wonders whether GUSD failed to understand how much it would cost to make the building suitable for its purposes and how difficult it might be to find businesses interested in leasing space there. Also there is a question about how Daily High School, which was to remain in place next to the proposed residential complex, would fare once construction of the complex began. It is reassuring the City Council made a hard decision in a complex case against development when it threatens to harm residents and be of questionable benefit to the city as a whole. Gerry Rankin Glendale *** Responding to Sam S. Manoukians Dec. 8 letter about city employees paying into the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS): I respect the men and women in our police and fire departments, but I have a problem with their union bosses and how they have been able to manipulate our state government, the Glendale City Council and Glendale voters. It is true safety officers are contributing a percentage of their monthly salary towards their pension. But about 18 years ago, CalPERS convinced the state Legislature and governor to change the pension pay for safety officers. After 30 years employment, officers would no longer receive 75% of their last years salary as their pension, but 90% of it. Additionally, an officer going forward could retire at age 50 rather than the previous age of 55. There are safety officers who, after 30 years of service, are retiring with a final annual salary of $100,000 or more. Upon retirement, each will receive 90% of their last years salary as their annual retirement pension for the rest of their lives. Oftentimes, when the safety officer associations negotiate with a city, the officers may contribute more money towards their pensions, but any contribution increase seems to be offset by a pay raise approved by council members. Mike Mohill Glendale A fourth person died Friday from wounds suffered in an attack on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, as investigators worked to establish whether the main suspect had help while on the run. The prosecutors office announced the death three days after the attack in the eastern French city and a day after the suspected gunman was shot and killed by police. Although they did not entirely clarify their announcement, prosecutors appeared to suggest that the person who died Friday was one of 12 wounded people and not another person who has been described as being brain dead. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz, who handles terror cases throughout France, told a news conference that seven people are in police custody, including four family members of attack suspect Cherif Chekatt and two who were detained on Thursday night. Advertisement Chekatt, 29, was shot dead Thursday during a police operation in the Neudorf neighborhood of the city. We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support, Heitz said. The Strasbourg shooting was the latest in a series of deadly attacks that have claimed more than 200 lives in France since 2015. On Friday the Christmas market reopened for the first time since the attack amid tight security. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner attended the reopening and had a stroll to meet with shopkeepers. Access to the market has been reduced while extra police officers and military have been deployed to the site, in addition to private security guards. This Christmas market is part of our history. Its part of our common events and belongs to all the French people, Castaner said. And this morning, we wanted to show, as we walked down the lanes, that we always know how to get our head up again. Heitz gave more details about the police operation that led to Chekatts death on Thursday evening after a two-day manhunt. He said the suspect was localized after police received two crucial tips from Neudorf residents. Three officers patrolling in Neudorf ultimately spotted a man corresponding to the suspects description. He noticed their vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to enter a building. When police officers identified themselves, Chekatt turned around and opened fire. A projectile hit the vehicle above the left rear door, two police officers responded, shooting several times, and killed him, Heitz said. Investigators said they found a gun, a knife and ammunition on Chekatts body. The immediate aftermath of the shootout between French security forces and the suspect was caught on camera from across the street, with video showing armed officers at the scene and the body of the man slumped in a doorway. More officers arrive at the scene soon after, followed by crime scene investigators. The Paris prosecutors office formally identified the man as Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists. He had his first conviction at 13, and had 26 more by the time he died at age 29. He served jail time in France, Germany and Switzerland. Witnesses said the gunman shouted God is great! in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market on Tuesday. Security forces wounded the man in the arm but he managed to escape in a taxi. Yemens warring sides have agreed to an immediate cease-fire in the strategic port city of Hodeida, where fighting has disrupted vital aid deliveries and left the country on the brink of starvation in the 4-year-old civil war. The agreement on Thursday includes a withdrawal of combatants to outside the city limits within two weeks and was praised by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as real progress to alleviate Yemens suffering and show commitment to a political solution. The truce, along with a prisoner-exchange agreement reached earlier, were seen as important first steps toward further talks in January aimed at drawing down a stalemated conflict that has killed thousands of people and left millions more in misery in the Arab worlds poorest country. The cease-fire and pullback of forces eases fears that the battle for Hodeida could force an outright closure of its port, which would have been disastrous, because it is the main entry point for food and other humanitarian aid for millions of Yemenis. Throughout months of fighting around Hodeida, the port remained open, although movement of aid out of the city to the rest of the country was slowed because it had to avoid the front lines. Advertisement But the deal might not mean an immediate or significant difference in easing the suffering of Yemenis. Ships bringing supplies into Hodeida must still undergo strict searches by U.N. monitors to ensure no weapons are aboard, a process that has delayed deliveries. Once in the country, it is a struggle to get food to families who need it because of corruption or mismanagement. More than 22 million of Yemens 29 million need humanitarian aid, and the most desperate over 8 million have no food other than international relief supplies. Guterres announced the truce during peace talks in Sweden, where he thanked the delegations. It will improve the living conditions for millions of Yemenis, he said. The fact that we came to an agreement on Hodeida, that many would consider the most difficult of the problems on the table, give us the hope that this process will now be moving step by step and that well be able to overcome all the obstacles that we face, Guterres told reporters after a closing ceremony in a castle in the town of Rimbo outside Stockholm. In a sign that the talks appeared to make more progress than previous rounds, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled Yamani and Houthi delegation head Mohamed Abdelsalam shook hands at the closing event. The conflict pits the internationally recognized Yemeni government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, against the Iran-backed rebels known as Houthis. The U.S. is supporting Saudi Arabias effort in the war. The fighting has produced one of the worlds worst humanitarian crises, according to the U.N. The two sides have been locked in a stalemated fight over Hodeida for months. The U.N.-sponsored talks began last week with low expectations but saw some progress with the agreement of a prisoner swap involving about 15,000 captives, scheduled to occur by Jan. 20. Both sides have said they sought to build on the goodwill. U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has said he wants to remove Hodeida from the conflict so that aid can flow freely. Thursdays agreement aims to do just that, with troops retreating to outside the city limits and a province-wide cease-fire. This will be the first withdrawal of any forces in the history of this conflict. And it will be done in the area of the greatest sensitivity, and difficulty and danger, he said, adding that other areas under discussion will continue in the weeks and months ahead. On Wednesday, he said he gave both sides a draft agreement for consideration that included proposals for reopening the airport in the capital of Sana, as well as one for a political framework for a postwar Yemen. It was unclear how far they have come in agreeing on those broader issues, although some progress was announced toward drawing down fighting in the central city of Taiz and creating humanitarian corridors localized cease-fire zones to allow in aid shipments. Asked if rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia had been involved behind the scenes, Guterres said they had played a constructive role in the Yemeni-led talks. Obviously there has been very relevant consultations with [Iran and Saudi Arabia] and all other regional parties, and I must say I am very grateful for the very constructive approach that I have felt in the last few weeks in order to facilitate creating the conditions for this agreement to be possible, he said. The World Food Program welcomed the cease-fire announcement, saying it offers hope for millions of Yemenis. Any progress toward peace is good progress, as long as it helps the Yemeni people who have suffered so much in this conflict, WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement. Noting that Yemen imports nearly all its food and about 70% of that goes through Hodeidas port, Beasley added that what all of Yemen needs the most, though, is a permanent, lasting and full peace. The mounting humanitarian crisis has galvanized international support for ending the war, which has raged for years with little notice from the rest of the world. Western fatigue with the conflict also is growing, especially after the Oct. 2 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, allegedly by members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans royal entourage. The U.S. refueling of Saudi warplanes has stopped after months of airstrikes that have killed civilians. The wedding wasnt supposed to take place for more than a year. Then the presidential election happened. The winner, Jair Bolsonaro, is widely known for his hateful comments about gay people and his opposition to same-sex marriage, which has been legal in Brazil since 2013. And so Stefany Daltro and Debora de Cassia Brandao Silva, who have been together for four years, gathered with a few guests on the first Saturday of December for a simple ceremony at the office of a public notary here. Were in the dark, said Silva, 30. We dont know whats ahead of us now, what rights we could lose. Advertisement That kind of unease has fueled a surge in same-sex weddings in Brazil as couples, fearful that the new administration will try to block their unions, rush to get married before Bolsonaros Jan. 1 inauguration. The boom began in September, when the front-runner at the time, the leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was deemed ineligible, catapulting Bolsonaro to the top of the polls. It accelerated as his lead grew on the way to a resounding victory in late October. That month, according to Arpen, the national association of notaries, there were 831 same-sex marriages in Brazil, 54% more than in October 2017. The year-to-year November total jumped 66% to 986. Gay rights supporters from businesses that rely on weddings including disc jockeys, photographers and bakers have begun offering their services for free to same-sex couples who get married before Bolsonaro takes office. This campaign is to show our solidarity, says Rossanna Pinheiro, who owns Riot Karaoke in Rio de Janeiro and started the Facebook page Casamento LGBT, where merchants from around the country volunteer their services. These people are feeling embraced and will have the opportunity to have a celebration they otherwise wouldnt have been able to afford. Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, has made no secret of his longtime disdain for gay people. Stefany Daltro, 25, center, waits at the notarys office for her marriage authorization. (Gui Christ / For The Times) Back in 2002, after seeing a photo of the Brazilian president holding a rainbow flag at an event in support of gay marriage, Bolsonaro issued this threat: I wont fight against it or discriminate, but if I see two men kissing each other on the street, Ill beat them up. In a 2011 interview with Brazils edition of Playboy magazine, he said he would make no exceptions for family. I would not be able to love a homosexual son. Im not going to be a hypocrite here, he said. Id rather have a son of mine die in an accident than show up with someone with a mustache. To me he would be dead anyway. Bolsonaro also told the interviewer: If a homosexual comes and lives next door to me, it will devalue my house! If they walk hand in hand and kiss, it will lose its value. During the campaign, Bolsonaro did not make same-sex marriage an issue. But his views are widely known, based on a history of statements expressing outrage over Brazils marriage laws and arguing that gay couples have ruined the traditional family. They dont want equality, he said in 2013. They want privileges. A child adopted by a gay couple has a 90% chance of being gay too, he continued, with no evidence to support that claim. Do you think Im going to let my 6-year-old son play with another 6-year-old boy adopted by a gay couple? I wont let him! The law is not going to make my way of thinking any different. Bolsonaro and his team did not respond to requests for comment about his intentions. The big question for same-sex couples may not be whether he wants to undo their ability to marry but whether politics and the law would allow him to do so. Experts say its highly unlikely, but still possible. The legality of same-sex marriage rests on two decisions. In 2011, the Supreme Court changed the countrys civil code to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples when it came to recognition of common-law relationships. Then, two years later, the National Justice Council, a public institution that promotes transparency and can issue legal opinions, affirmed that those rights included the ability to convert common-law relationships to marriages. Those decisions cannot simply be overturned by presidential decree. Same-sex marriage could be banned only if Congress passed a law and the Supreme Court upheld it. None of that could happen quickly. But Renata Carraro, a law professor at Faculdades Rio Branco, said there are no guarantees, given the current political climate: The fear that the right to same-sex marriage in Brazil could be reversed during Jair Bolsonaros government is, in my point of view, very justified. Things had been moving in the other direction, as a bill to legalize same-sex marriage by removing any mention of gender in the marriage code had been under consideration by the Senate. But that effort now appears dead. When the new Congress takes office next month, it will shift decidedly to the right, with the number of seats held by Bolsonaros Social Liberal Party jumping from eight to 52. Only the leftist Workers Party, with a total of 56 seats, will have more. The election and the legal precariousness of same-sex marriage were ample reason for Aline Ferreira, a 28-year-old screenwriter, and Michelle Avila, a 29-year-old physiotherapist, to decide to get married. Their wedding in Sao Paulo was scheduled for Saturday. The two have been together for 12 years and had no plans to get married. After Bolsonaro was elected I started doing some research into same-sex marriage and found out that there isnt an actual law in place to guarantee us that right, Ferreira said. Without that law, our right could be revoked. Thats when I realized there was this threat, and that the time to get married was in these last two months of the year. The same day they marry, 100 same-sex couples were set to exchange vows in a group wedding in Sao Paulo organized by the LGBTQ group Casa 1. For their nuptials, Daltro and Silva and several friends crammed into a windowless room in the back of the notary. The rush meant just one relative Daltros sister could make it. But in other ways, it was a traditional wedding. The two women, both teachers, exchanged vows and rings and wore white. We used to be more worried about how we felt about marriage, about what some of our family members would think about our relationship, said Daltro, 25. But now were more worried about our rights. Langlois is a special correspondent. Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi received a phone call on Thursday night from the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, discussing the latest developments in regional files of common interest. They touched on bilateral cooperation, as well as ways to strengthen relations in various fields. The two leaders discussed further enhancing the historic and outstanding bonds that the two countries and their people share, according to the Egyptian presidents spokesman. Search Keywords: Short link: Computer & Technology New Yorker Electronics Releases Mission-Critical Precision Thin Film Chip Resistors 13.12.2018 21:55:56 - State of the Art (SOTA) Resistors are designed for Avionics, Satellites, Biomedical, Communications and Weapons System Applications (live-PR.com) - NORTHVALE, New Jersey, USA New Yorker Electronics has released the State of the Art (SOTA) Precision Thin Film MIL-PRF-55342 Chip Resistors. The SOTA MIL-PRF-55342 provides established reliability fixed film resistors in a variety of cases, product levels, temperature characteristics, tolerances and termination materials. These chip resistors are used in various mission critical applications such as avionics, satellites, biomedical, communications and - NORTHVALE, New Jersey, USA New Yorker Electronics has released the State of the Art (SOTA) Precision Thin Film MIL-PRF-55342 Chip Resistors. The SOTA MIL-PRF-55342 provides established reliability fixed film resistors in a variety of cases, product levels, temperature characteristics, tolerances and termination materials.These chip resistors are used in various mission critical applications such as avionics, satellites, biomedical, communications and weapons systems. As such, they have strict performance requirements. Each resistor receives power conditioning (burn-in) for 100 hours as part of the Group A test. In addition, each manufacturing lot receives a Group B test (Inspection lot formation is not allowed for T level). SOTA manufactures all T level products by up-screening R or S level resistors, an additional step to further enhance the reliability of the T level. SOTA MIL-PRF-55342 includes precision and semi-precision part numbers that use thick film and thin film materials and processes to provide the complete range of part numbers. SOTA precision thin film chip resistors have resistance tolerances of 0.1, 0.25 and 0.5% and/or temperature coefficient of resistance of 25 and 50 ppm/C. Thin film materials are sputter deposited and patterned using photolithography. These thin film resistor materials exhibit low current noise and lower drift than semi-precision thick film resistors. SOTA is widely considered a mission-critical specialist and is a leading supplier of thick and thin film resistive components to these industries. In fact, State of the Art has been qualified to supply MIL-PRF-55342 film chip resistors since 1980. All resistor products are made in the USA at its State College, Pennsylvania facility. SOTA uses the same design, materials, quality systems and production line to produce standard, hi-rel and QPL military products. As a longtime franchise distributor of State of the Art, New Yorker Electronics supplies its complete line of Military Grade and Standard Grade Chip Resistors, Zero Ohm Jumpers & Resistors, Military Jumpers, Untrimmed Resistors, Space Level Resistors, Silicon Resistors, Resistor Networks, Fixed Chip and Coplanar Attenuators, and other High Power and High Frequency Resistors. New Yorker Electronics is a certified authorized distributor of electronic components, well known for its full product lines, large inventories and competitive pricing since 1948. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. It also functions in strict accordance with AS5553 and AS6496 standards verifying that it has implemented industry standards into everyday practices to thwart the proliferation of counterfeit parts. It is a member of ECIA (Electronics Component Industry Association) and of ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International). New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. weapons systems. As such, they have strict performance requirements. Each resistor receives power conditioning (burn-in) for 100 hours as part of the Group A test. In addition, each manufacturing lot receives a Group B test (Inspection lot formation is not allowed for T level). SOTA manufactures all T level products by up-screening R or S level resistors, an additional step to further enhance the reliability of the T level.SOTA MIL-PRF-55342 includes precision and semi-precision part numbers that use thick film and thin film materials and processes to provide the complete range of part numbers. SOTA precision thin film chip resistors have resistance tolerances of 0.1, 0.25 and 0.5% and/or temperature coefficient of resistance of 25 and 50 ppm/C. Thin film materials are sputter deposited and patterned using photolithography. These thin film resistor materials exhibit low current noise and lower drift than semi-precision thick film resistors.SOTA is widely considered a mission-critical specialist and is a leading supplier of thick and thin film resistive components to these industries. In fact, State of the Art has been qualified to supply MIL-PRF-55342 film chip resistors since 1980. All resistor products are made in the USA at its State College, Pennsylvania facility. SOTA uses the same design, materials, quality systems and production line to produce standard, hi-rel and QPL military products.As a longtime franchise distributor of State of the Art, New Yorker Electronics supplies its complete line of Military Grade and Standard Grade Chip Resistors, Zero Ohm Jumpers & Resistors, Military Jumpers, Untrimmed Resistors, Space Level Resistors, Silicon Resistors, Resistor Networks, Fixed Chip and Coplanar Attenuators, and other High Power and High Frequency Resistors.New Yorker Electronics is a certified authorized distributor of electronic components, well known for its full product lines, large inventories and competitive pricing since 1948. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. It also functions in strict accordance with AS5553 and AS6496 standards verifying that it has implemented industry standards into everyday practices to thwart the proliferation of counterfeit parts. It is a member of ECIA (Electronics Component Industry Association) and of ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International). New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. Press Information: New Yorker Electronics 209 Industrial Parkway, Northvale, New Jersey 07647 United States of America Contact Person: Mark Pappas Marketing Phone: 2017501171 eMail: eMail Web: http://www.newyorkerelectronics.com 13.12.2018 21:55:56 - Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this article please contact the author. Please do not contact Live-PR.com. We are not able to assist you. Live-PR.com disclaims content contained in this article. Live-PR.com is not authorized to give any information about content and not responsible for content posted by third party. Stock Market News Welcome to our stock market news section. Below you will find the latest headlines for each of our news categories. Covering UK and international markets, commodities and foreign exchange. If you wish to see more headlines for any section, drill deeper using the link under each category below. We have a ton of news on the latest company developments and market sentiment, from top sources such as Sharecast. Stock Market News UK International Markets Company News Headlines Broker recommendations and tips Forex And Commodities Economic News Stock News headlines gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.uk Post-Saddam Iraq has felled four prime ministers: Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim Al-Jaafari were installed as temporary premiers by the US Occupying Authority, but they could not secure enough votes to stay in the post after elections; Nouri Al-Maliki and Haider Al-Abadi also failed to secure a third and a second term in office, respectively. It could also soon bring down Adel Abdul-Mahdi's short career as Iraqs prime minister, since he is being challenged by the post-Saddam political environment and acrimonious political rivalries. Fewer than two months into his premiership, speculation is already high that Abdul-Mahdi may not be able to continue. Iraqs hung parliament endorsed Shia politician Abdul-Mahdi on 2 October as the countrys next prime minister, authorising him to form a new government six months after the May elections that were marred by claims of irregularity and sharp divisions. Three weeks later, Abdul-Mahdi was sworn in with only a partial cabinet after lawmakers failed to reach a consensus on key portfolios including the interior and defence. Rivalry between the two main Shia blocs in the Iraqi parliament that have been jostling over ministerial positions was seen as the main obstacle to the formation of the cabinet. Even though power struggles between Iraqs ruling Shia groups could be blamed for the standoff, many Iraqis still believe that the problem lies with Abdul-Mahdi himself who was chosen as an independent prime minister after the parties failed to agree on a candidate of their own. The choice of Abdul-Mahdi was met with scepticism because it came amid an intense power struggle among Iraqi factions that have been wrestling with a lingering political crisis. His nomination also came amid ongoing US-Iranian interference in Iraqs affairs, with both Tehran and Washington robustly pushing their own candidates for the post. Abdul-Mahdis difficulties in choosing cabinet members were again underscored this week when Iraqs parliament failed to meet to approve candidates proposed to fill the still-vacant postings. The two largest parliamentary groupings that have emerged since the May elections, Saaroon, led by cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, and Al-Fatah, led by Hadi Al-Amiri, have remained deeply split over the nominees, especially the appointment of a new interior minister that has been the centre of the contentions. A vote in parliament to fill the vacant ministries in Abdul-Mahdis cabinet was put back on 4 December after Saaroon MPs walked out from the session, denying the assembly the required quorum to vote on eight additional ministers. The boycott came a day after Al-Sadr urged Abdul-Mahdi to present the rest of his cabinet without the controversial nominees for approval. He was referring specifically to Faleh Al-Fayadh, a former head of the Popular Moblisation Force, who is backed by Al-Fatah. Al-Sadr warned that his faction, which won the most seats in the elections, would resort to street protests to block the government if it was prevented from vetoing Abdul-Mahdis nominees in parliament. The leaders of Al-Fatah, meanwhile, launched similar threats and insisted that abandoning Al-Fayadh or any other nominee in the list of cabinet ministers remained out of the question. The sabre-rattling then caused Shia grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to issue a stern warning to those who might resort to violence, whether verbal or physical. There are various kinds of acts of violence, and one of them is killing rivals or threatening them or smearing them, Sistanis representative Abdel-Mahdi Al-Karbalaei said in his Friday sermon on 7 December. Sistanis warning came a day after a senior official in the Saraya Al-Salam militia, associated with Al-Sadr, was assassinated. Hussein Al-Hijami was shot by unknown gunmen in the Al-Shuala area of north Baghdad. Hachem Al-Zamili, a senior official in the Sadrist Trend in Baghdad, told local media that the murder of Al-Hijami had been related to the crisis over the government formation. While Iraq hunkers down for a prolonged government crisis, all eyes remain focused on Abdul-Mahdi, whose clumsy style of managing the crisis has been questioned by many Iraqis. Iraqs government stand-offs have long been attributed to the countrys post-Saddam dysfunctional system and the untidy political business of its ruling elites. However, there are good reasons this time round to think that Abdul-Mahdi himself bears some responsibility for the impasse. In order to understand the predicament in which Iraq now finds itself and make an educated guess as to how Abdul-Mahdis tenure might change the country, it is necessary to understand the new prime minister and whether he is the best politician to lead Iraq in one of its most difficult periods. Abdul-Mahdi has thus far failed to show the necessary guidance instinct in handling the crisis, allowing the rival political forces that are lying in wait to exploit his weaknesses and dictate the way they want the government to run the country in the coming period. On Sunday, he missed another deadline to name new candidates for his half-empty cabinet and submit the list to parliament for endorsement. The move once again disrupted Iraqs flabby and incoherent parliament. Part of Abdul-Mahdis problem is that he was a compromise candidate for the post of prime minister after the two main Shia blocs failed to secure enough seats in parliament to nominate a candidate for the job. The political expediency that gave him the chance to be prime minister of the strife-torn nation has also led him into a political minefield. Abdul-Mahdis unimpressive performance in every government he has served in since the fall of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a reason for doubting whether he was up to the task. He also seemed hardly likely to be a change from other proven dysfunctional corrupt or incompetent leaders. Abdul-Mahdi has twice resigned from government posts in the past, and a few days before he was named for the premiership he wrote in a statement that he did not consider himself fit for the job of prime minister. Critics have brushed aside an unofficial CV for Abdul-Mahdi saying that he was a graduate of the Sorbonne University in Paris and held degrees in economics, citing no evidence of professional job experience before he joined the cabinet in Iraqs post-Saddam governments. Abdul-Mahdis political background also looks shabby. He has variously been a Baathist, a Marxist, an Islamist and liberal. He joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the 1970s in the heyday of the groups fight against Israel, and he later joined the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to fight the Saddam regime. However, unlike his predecessors who have been part of the ruling party backed by a powerful parliamentary bloc, Abdul-Mahdi is not aligned to any political group, something which was always likely to make him the head of a bizarre government made up of ministers nominated by political blocs and trusted with serving their interests. All this leaves important questions unanswered concerning Iraqs likely future. So far, Abdul-Mahdi remains incapacitated by the power struggle between the two main Shia political groups that installed him in power. Abdul-Mahdi has had no time to catch his breath. He must now show leadership and competence to start the work of fighting the rampant corruption in the country, fixing the ailing economy, fighting the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group and starting the reconstruction of war-ravaged areas and providing badly needed services. The parliament will now meet again on 18 December to try to vote on the vacant ministerial portfolios. However, on the streets frustration is building with Abdul-Mahdi, and there are fears that public apathy may change into a wider rejection of the prime minister and his government. Whether or not Abdul-Mahdis downfall is imminent, the crisis in the government in Iraq seems to be paralysing efforts to rebuild a country wrecked by political turmoil, ethno-sectarian divisions, and violence. Even if Abdul-Mahdi survives the present crisis, his government will likely remain paralysed until the next elections. * A version of this article appears in print in the 13 December, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Iraqs coming government crash Search Keywords: Short link: Kurdish-led forces seized the Islamic State (IS) militant group's main hub of Hajin Friday, a milestone in a massive and costly US-backed operation to eradicate the jihadists from eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by IS, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "After a week of heavy fighting and air strikes, the SDF were able to kick IS out of Hajin," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said. The operation was completed at dawn, he said, a day after SDF forces fanned out across the large village in the Euphrates valley. On Thursday, the last IS fighters were confined to a network of tunnels and the edges of Hajin, which lies in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border with Iraq. The area held by IS is sometimes referred to as the "Hajin pocket", the last rump of a once-sprawling "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014 over swathes of Syria and Iraq. IS fighters pulled back to positions east of Hajin Friday and to Sousa and Al-Shaafa, the other two main villages in their shrinking Euphrates valley enclave. As recently as Thursday, the group posted pictures of fighting in Hajin on its social media accounts. - High death toll - According to Abdel Rahman, a total of 17,000 fighters from the Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance are involved in the operation to flush IS out of its last bastion. The operation was launched on September 10 and has taken a heavy toll, according to figures collected by the Observatory, which has a vast network of sources on the ground. At least 900 jihadists and 500 SDF fighters were killed in the fighting, the monitoring group said. According to Abdel Rahman, more than 320 civilians were also killed, many of them in air strikes by the US-led coalition. Thousands more civilians who had remained, voluntarily or not, in the Hajin area have fled their homes since the start of the offensive three months ago. US President Donald Trump this week predicted the jihadist group would be fully defeated within a month. "We've done a very, very major job on ISIS," he said on Tuesday, using another acronym for IS. "There are very few of them left in that area of the world. And within another 30 days, there won't be any of them left," he vowed. Western and other officials have repeatedly announced deadlines for a final victory over IS but the group is proving resilient. - 30 days? - The push to retake Hajin was delayed by Turkish threats on the Kurdish heartland further north and deadly counter-attacks by die-hard jihadists making a bloody last stand. The Turkish threats were renewed this week by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the army would launch an offensive within the "next few days" to "bring peace and security to areas east of the Euphrates" controlled by the SDF. Washington, which has set up observation posts along the border and launched joint patrols with the SDF, said any unilateral military action in northern Syria would be "unacceptable". Besides what is left of the pocket near Hajin, IS has a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert, a front which is managed by Russian-backed government forces. What is left of the jihadist group also has sleeper cells across Iraq and Syria that regularly carry out attacks. "ISIS anticipated its battlefield defeat and the loss of the caliphate and prepared accordingly," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington. The loss of Hajin came hours after IS's propaganda agency Amaq claimed responsibility for a Christmas market shooting in the French city of Strasbourg. The Amaq statement was posted just after the shooter Cherif Chekatt was gunned down by police but bore the hallmarks of an opportunistic claim by the embattled jihadist group. Search Keywords: Short link: Turkish authorities on Friday ordered the arrest of over 200 military personnel in new raids against suspects linked to the attempted coup in 2016, state media reported. The Istanbul public prosecutor ordered arrest warrants for 219 soldiers on active duty including four colonels and five lieutenant colonels, state news agency Anadolu said. Istanbul police launched an operation to capture the suspects on Friday morning. They are believed to have ties to the group led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, a former ally turned foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ankara accuses Gulen of being behind the failed coup but he strongly denies any links. In Ankara, the capital's public prosecutor issued arrest warrants on Friday for 48 people, mainly working in the arms industry, also over alleged links to Gulen. Turkey refers to the group as the "Fethullah Terrorist Organisation" but followers insist they have peaceful goals of promoting Islam and secular education. Over 50,000 people have been arrested since the failed putsch in a purge lambasted by human rights activists and Ankara's Western allies. Nearly 130,000 public sector workers have been sacked. Last week, dozens of people including airforce personnel were detained for suspected links to coup-plotters in nationwide operations. Turkish officials insist the raids are necessary to cleanse state institutions of the "virus" of infiltration by the Gulen movement. Search Keywords: Short link: The Bank of France has lowered the countrys economic growth forecast for this and next year from 1.6 percent to 1.5 percent, warning that the longer the unrest lasts the greater the losses will be for the national economy. Shortly after slashing its assessment of economic growth, in the final quarter, in half, the central bank has cut overall growth on Thursday. Meanwhile, the regulator remains optimistic about unemployment which they expect will continue to fall. While the new figures show that the economy is expected to slow just 0.1 percent in 2018 and 2019 compared to previous assessment, in real money the sum is quite significant. It may cost the protest-riven EU country up to $28 billion based on the IMF forecast for the countrys GDP for 2018 of almost $2.8 trillion. Also on rt.com Yellow peril? National protests may halve France's economic growth forecast Overall the more the movement lasts, the bigger the loss for the French economy, Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy, told French business newspaper Les Echos. The chief official of the French central bank added that the forecasts do not include French President Emmanuel Macrons recent concessions he made in attempt to quell raging protests. Macrons measures, including the promises to increase minimum wage and introduce special tax exemptions, will cost the country between 8-10 billion euros ($9-$11.3 billion), the junior minister for public accounts announced earlier this week. Also on rt.com Les Miserables? France is the new tax hell in Europe and beyond Meanwhile, Moodys Investors Service said that the French government measures can weaken the near-term fiscal picture and may increase the budget deficit next year. The nationwide Yellow Vest movement which began as protests against the government proposed fuel tax hikes and escalated into a general revolt against economic policies started on November 17. READ MORE: Are French protests just about fuel tax hikes? RTs Boom Bust finds out Last weeks violent demonstrations resulted in more than 200 people injured and a record number of detentions across France, with more than 1,700 people arrested. Despite President Macrons pledges and the deadly Strasbourg Christmas market shooting, protesters are still unwilling to give up and are eager to take to the streets for the fifth consecutive weekend. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section Turkeys military carried out air strikes in northern Iraq on Friday, killing eight militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), it said on Twitter. The air strikes targeted various regions in the area, including Zap, Hakurk and Haftanin, the military said. Turkey has regularly carried out air strikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq. The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Search Keywords: Short link: Indias oil imports from Iran dropped to a one-year-low in November, plunging by 41 percent from October due to the US sanctions, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing industry sources and ship-tracking data. Iran also dropped to sixth place on Indias largest oil suppliers list, from fourth in October, losing market share to fellow OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In November, the month on which the US sanctions snapped back, Indias oil imports from Iran averaged 276,000 bpd (barrels per day), a 41-percent plunge from October, as India had cut back significantly allocations for November amid uncertainties over who might be getting a US waiver to continue importing oil from Iran. Also on rt.com India to switch from dollar to rupee to pay for Iranian oil India did get a waiver, alongside seven other Iranian oil customers, including the single biggest, China. The waivers allow those eight countries to continue Iranian oil imports at reduced volumes until early May next year. Indias allowed imports from Iran are about 300,000 bpd. In November, Iran was only sixth among Indias top oil suppliers. Iraq and Saudi Arabia held the first two spots, while the UAEsixth in Octobermoved up to third place, ousting Venezuela to fourth. Nigeria held onto its fifth position, but Iran moved from fourth in October to sixth in November, according to industry and ship-tracking data obtained by Reuters. Also on rt.com Indias purchases of sanctioned Iranian crude to eclipse last years level Indias oil imports from Iran before the US sanctions returned were higher than last years low base for comparison, when India had cut back Iranian oil purchases over a dispute with Tehran that had snubbed Indian companies in developing a gas field in Iran. In April to November this year, Indias oil imports from Iran averaged 563,000 bpd, up by 32 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the data from industry sources reviewed by Reuters. In its imports of Iranian oil going forward, until the waivers last, India will have to rely on Iranian ships for the oil transportation because its own shipping firms and international companies are not risking crossing the US by carrying Iranian oil, and wound down Iranian crude shipment operations well in advance of the sanctions. This article was originally published on Oilprice.com Kosovos Parliament votes to create a 5,000-strong army despite Serbia opposition Kosovos Parliament votes to create a 5,000-strong army despite Serbia opposition Kosovos Parliament voted on Friday to create a 5,000-strong standing army. The move came a week after Serbias premier suggested the move could provoke military intervention by Belgrade. The voting, coming 20 years after Kosovo Albanians uprising against Serbia, was lauded as historic by the US but NATO criticized it as unhelpful in efforts to ease tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, Reuters said. Legislation to transform the lightly armed Kosovo security force, which was created mainly for crisis response and civil defense into an army was approved by 105 deputies in the 120-seat assembly. Eleven minority Serb deputies boycotted the vote. Serbia, which does not recognize the independence of its province, has warned that a national Kosovo army could destabilize the Western Balkans.Source : RT - Daily news Hollywood star Natalie Portman has dubbed Israels contentious nation-state law that prioritizes Jewish values racist in an interview to an Arabic newspaper. Its not the first time she has criticized her country of birth. The bill introduced this July has been slammed as discriminatory, and has sparked local and international condemnation. This is a mistake and I do not agree with it, the Oscar-winning actress told London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds. Denouncing the legislation as racist, Jerusalem-born Portman called it a political decision that has an impact on many peoples lives. In an interview marking the release of her new film Vox Lux, she also said she hopes that we will really love our neighbors and work together. This is not the first time the Hollywood diva has expressed anger over the controversial legislation. Earlier this month, she told BBC Arabic that the law is wrong and she disagrees with it. Its racist and theres nothing else to say about that. In July, the Israeli Parliament approved the nation-state bill, which enshrines Israel as the Jewish homeland, downgrades the status of Arabic, and limits the right to self-determination to Jews. READ MORE: 'Resist apartheid!' Arab Israelis protest controversial Jewish nation-state law (VIDEO) The legislation has sparked waves of protests, which spilled over the Israeli border and angered some in the Jewish diaspora across the globe. Critics argue that the bills content makes Israeli Arabs second-class citizens. The stand-off between Portman, who was born in Israel but moved to the US at the age of three, and the Israeli government started making headlines before the bill was adopted. In April, the actress refused to attend the Genesis Prize ceremony, often called the Jewish Nobel, which is given annually to Jewish people who have gained recognition in their fields. Portman said she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel because of the extremely distressing recent events and added that she cannot in good conscience move forward with the ceremony. The Great March of Return marches which started this spring at the Gaza border saw many Palestinians killed and injured. READ MORE: Israel passes Jewish-only 'national self-determination' law despite outcry She was accused of supporting the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, but claimed she was only against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus policies. Israeli MP Oren Hazan said that from the outset, the idea of granting the Genesis Prize to Natalie Portman was complete craziness, because she on the one hand cynically uses her birthplace to advance her career and on the other is proud of the fact that she managed to avoid enlisting in the IDF. Shes an actress, but she is unworthy of any honor in the State of Israel. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! The European Unions economic sanctions against Russia will be extended for another six months, European Council President Donald Tusk has said. The measures targeting Russias economy were due to expire next month. The EU unanimously prolongs economic sanctions against Russia given zero progress in implementation of Minsk agreements, Tusk said on Twitter. The prolongation of the sanctions changes nothing for Russia, according to Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the financial market committee of the State Duma (lower chamber of Russias parliament). We need to take care of ourselves, to work. We understand that this is for a long time and nothing will change in half a year or a year, and I do not rule out that in 10 years. Nevertheless, the Europeans might soon understand that this is ridiculous and will change their position, Aksakov said. READ MORE: Solid relations in time of sanctions: Germanys investments into Russia exceed 2 billion The EUs economic sanctions against Russia were initially introduced in July 2014 over Moscows reunification with Crimea and alleged involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine. The restrictions targeted finance, energy and defense sectors of the Russian economy. Also on rt.com EU lost over 100bn because of its own anti-Russia sanctions Lavrov Moscow retaliated by imposing an embargo on agricultural produce, food, and raw materials from countries that joined in the sanctions. Mutual sanctions have been prolonged and extended since then, despite proving ineffective and harmful to both Russia and Europe. Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the main bone of contention between the EU and Russia sanctions was imposed by the European nations on direct orders from Washington. He noted that while the restrictions policy did not harm the US, the EU suffered billions in losses. READ MORE: Costly affair: Sanctions on Russia have cost Hungary $8 billion, FM says He added that Russia, which had to retaliate with tit-for-tat measures, was ready to lift the restrictions it imposed on European goods back in 2014. However, Brussels should make the first step, Lavrov stressed, saying We hope that common sense will eventually prevail since, objectively speaking, the sanctions neither benefit Russia nor the EU. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section The Moscow-Damascus Intergovernmental panel has reached a series of agreements, including switching to national currencies in mutual settlements and commercial energy exploration in Syria. Mutual settlements, transport and logistics - as far as Im concerned these issues have been settled, Vladimir Padalko, Vice-President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry told journalists on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Russian-Syrian commission for trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, taking place in Damascus. Also on rt.com Crimea's lifeline to Syria: Damascus gets grain supplies from Russias Black Sea peninsula The Russian official added that the countries have picked 200 Russian and Syrian companies to take part in joint projects for rebuilding the war-torn country. The parties are set to sign an agreement that includes 10 extensive focus areas for recovering the Syrian post-war economy. The parties have also clinched a number of commercial agreements on exploration and production of energy commodities in Syria, according to the Russian office. Russias Ministry of Industry and Trade and Syrian Ministry of Industry has reportedly approved and signed a road map for bilateral industry cooperation. The countries have reached 30 agreements on investment projects. Syria and Russia have come to material consent in the area of transport and higher education, according to the Head of the Syrian Planning and International Cooperation Commission Imad Sabuni. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section German firms continue investing in the Russian economy despite facing barriers from economic sanctions, according to the chairman of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce Matthias Schepp. German business extremely rarely invested in such volumes into Russia since the collapse of the USSR, Schepp said in a statement seen by Interfax. Citing Bundesbank statistics Schepp said that net direct investments of German companies in 2017 amounted to more than 1.6 billion, and in the first three quarters of this year exceeded 2 billion. Read more German firms were interested in opening production in Russia due to the weak ruble exchange rate, according to Schepp. They (foreign entrepreneurs) use the great potential of the largest country in the world with a population of over 140 million people, and they are gradually getting oriented towards export. He noted that the chambers business is represented in Russia by 873 firms and that makes it by far the largest foreign business association in Russia. READ MORE: Berlin and Paris rebuff fresh calls for tougher sanctions on Russia report Schepp also said that the total number of German firms registered in Russia decreased from 4,965 to 4,661, or by more than six percent. The quantitative decline, which began after the Ukrainian conflict and the introduction of mutual sanctions, is compensated by qualitative growth, he explained. Earlier, Schepp told RT that the foundations of German and Russian economic relations are solid even in the time of sanctions. Sanctions against Moscow were introduced by Brussels in 2014 over Russias alleged involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The punitive measures targeted Russias financial, energy, and defense sectors; along with some government officials, businessmen, and public figures. The Kremlin responded by imposing an embargo on agricultural produce, food, and raw materials from countries that joined the sanctions on Russia. Since then, both sides have been extending the measures. Germanys business lobby has criticized EU sanctions against Russia, arguing that German companies will end up the losers, since Moscow cant be fully isolated. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section The head of the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev Patriarchate expressed his gratitude to the ex-CIA associate director, acknowledging his support for the churchs break with Moscow. Patriarch Filaret presented former CIA Associate Director Jack Devine with the Order of St. Andrew, the churchs highest decoration, local media reported on Thursday. The cleric thanked Devine for the US support for Ukraines independence and the creation of the unified autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Since the split from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate in the early 1990s, Filaret has pursued autocephaly (religious autonomy) for his church. Religious officials in Moscow do not recognize his authority and view his church as schismatic. Also on rt.com The new Great Schism? What's next for the world of Orthodox Christianity It was around that time that Jack Devine took charge of the CIAs operations outside the US, becoming the agencys associate director. Upon his retirement in 1999, Devine co-founded corporate intelligence firm The Arkin Group. He is also a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations. Receiving the award this week, Devine voiced his sincere admiration for the support Ukrainians have shown for Filarets push for autonomy from Moscow, local media reported. The former spymaster also praised his outstanding role in establishing an independent church in Ukraine. It is not the first time the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev Patriarchate has bestowed a prestigious award on high-profile US nationals. In 2015, Filaret awarded Senator John McCain with the Order of St. Vladimir First Class for his support for Ukraine during the Russian occupation of Crimea and Donbas. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Saudi Arabia on Friday hailed the accord reached at UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden between Yemen's warring parties. In a statement by King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom backed "the agreements reached in Sweden in UN-sponsored talks between a delegation of Yemen's legitimate government and the Houthi rebels", the official SPA news agency reported. "The kingdom remains engaged in the search for a political solution in Yemen which guarantees the security and stability of the country," the statement said. The statement also called on the Iran-aligned Houthis to "embark on this path" towards a political solution. Yemen's warring parties on Thursday agreed to a ceasefire on a vital port in a series of breakthroughs in the talks. If implemented, the deal on Hodeida port, a key gateway for aid and food imports, could bring relief to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine. Impoverished Yemen has been mired in fighting between the Houthi rebels and troops loyal to President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi since 2014. Saudi Arabia has led an Arab military coalition to support the government of President Hadi since 2015. The conflict has since killed nearly 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. But other rights groups believe the actual toll to be far higher. *This story was edited by Ahram Online. Search Keywords: Short link: A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said. The ministry said the man, who it did not immediately name, was shot in the stomach with live ammunition. The incident took place near the Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah in the central West Bank. Meanwhile, 75 Palestinians suffered various injuries in clashes with the Israeli army during the weekly Right of Return marches. Search Keywords: Short link: Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk! You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details. Related Wounded May seeks EU compromise to save Brexit deal British Prime Minister Theresa May returned to face EU leaders Friday after they rebuffed her pleas for help to sell her Brexit plan back home and warned of the growing threat of a "no deal." May had sought to persuade her 27 colleagues she could overcome huge opposition to the divorce deal among British MPs if they gave her some assurances over the thorny problem of the Irish border. But they were not convinced, and European diplomats said May had been unable to explain what she wanted or how she could deliver a British parliamentary majority to endorse the deal. "The signals we heard yesterday were not particularly reassuring on Britain's capacity to honour the commitments that were made," Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michael said. "So we will make sure to prepare for all scenarios and prepare also for a no deal scenario," he added, as he arrived for the second and final day of the EU summit. On Thursday, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker repeated statements made all week by European leaders that "there is no room whatsoever for renegotiation" of the deal. May postponed a vote in the House of Commons this week on the Brexit deal to avoid a crushing defeat, but has promised it will take place next month, by January 21 at the latest. This is uncomfortably close to Britain's scheduled exit day on March 29, 2019 -- and Juncker said he was stepping up preparations in case it leaves with no deal in place. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz added on Friday: "There is a withdrawal deal, and there is an urgent necessity to take decisions. We should avoid a no deal scenario." - She left with less - May did not speak as she arrived for the summit, where she met with French President Emmanuel Macron before EU-wide discussions on migration, Russia and climate change. She came to Brussels wounded by a confidence vote on Wednesday night, which she won but in which 117 MPs -- more than one-third of her Conservative party -- voted to oust her. Opposition to the Brexit deal in Britain is focused on a so-called "backstop" arrangement designed to keep open the border with Ireland if and until a new UK-EU trade deal is signed. May is seeking "legal and political assurances" that this will not keep Britain trapped indefinitely in an EU customs union. Several EU leaders have talked of offering "clarifications" and "explanations", and a statement issued after they talked without May late Thursday emphasised they will try to ensure the backstop is never triggered. But, while an early draft of the conclusions said the EU "stands ready to examine whether any further assurances can be provided" on the backstop, this was removed from the final version. "Colleagues were so exasperated that she left with less than she could have got," a European source said. May told EU leaders they must help her "change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK cannot escape", according to a British official. "With the right assurances, this deal can be passed. Indeed it is the only deal that is capable of getting through my parliament," she told them. But European sources said the room was tense, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders repeatedly interrupting May to ask her what she wanted and how she could deliver it. Another source who had been in the room told AFP on Friday that May had contradicted herself and failed to say how any assurances on the backstop might work, to the consternation of fellow leaders. - 'The problem is MPs' - On Friday, however, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel on defended May, saying she "did a good job, she got the best possible deal" despite being able to deliver her own party's lawmakers. "The problem is the MPs in London," he said. "The fact is for internal political reasons in the UK some people try to gamble the relation between the EU and the UK for the future. And it's bad." May has faced constant criticism to her Brexit strategy from hardline anti-Europeans in her party, while the Northern Irish party which props up her government also opposes her deal. They want the backstop out of the agreement entirely -- but Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar once again emphasised the need to have legal guarantees on keeping open the Irish border. "By resolving it in the withdrawal agreement we can make sure no side uses the threat of a border in Ireland as part of leverage in the future relationship talks," he said. Search Keywords: Short link: Compliance and Documentation Products; Loan Limit Changes in the Primary Markets Lots of folks in the mortgage biz like statistics and odds. They may not remember them, but they like them. (As Marcus L. writes, People still play the lottery even though most of us can't get the USB in the first time correctly and those odds are 50/50.) Plenty of home loans are impacted by student debt. For every 100 students who enroll full-time in college or university, 42 percent will graduate within four years and 18 percent more will graduate within six. This means that 40% of college students get all the benefits of student debt without obtaining a degree. And put another way, of those 60 students of every hundred who graduate, 42 will leave with student loans and five will default on those loans by the age of 33. For the 40 who dont graduate, 10 will default on those loans. Even more, 10 years down the line, 32% of the college grads end up in careers that didnt require a college degree in the first place. Business News Regarding the news about Gateway, the U.S. Government, and FAM Readers should know that management reports there is no financial impact to FAM as this was prior claim indemnified by Gateway. You may have seen some news that FAM has settled a pending matter with the Department of Justice and Department of Housing and Urban Development concerning False Claims Act allegations related to HUD-insured loans. This action is related to mortgages originated prior to Finance of Americas purchase of Gateway Funding in 2015. Finance of America has been fully cooperative with this inquiry and we are pleased that the matter is resolved. There was no admission of liability by FAM and no financial impact to FAM or UFG as a result of the settlement. Conventional Conforming Loan Amount Changes in the Primary Market Theres a lot of chatter about the potential replacement of Mel Watt Mark Calabria but lenders are more focused on the here and now and helping their borrowers. Every one knows that the FHFA announced the maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages to be acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2019. In most of the U.S., the 2019 maximum conforming loan limit for one-unit properties will be $484,350, an increase from $453,100 in 2018. As a result of generally rising home values, the increase in the baseline loan limit, and the increase in the ceiling loan limit, the maximum conforming loan limit will be higher in 2019 in all but 47 counties or county equivalents in the U.S. Click this link for a list of the 2019 maximum loan limits for all counties and county-equivalent areas in the U.S. To accommodate the new Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loan limits, from now through January 1st, US Bank correspondent lenders will need to register or lock loans at the 2018 maximum loans limits and submit a change request. Beginning December 14th, Wells Fargo Funding sellers can take down new Best Effort locks and Mandatory Commitments at the 2019 Conforming Loan Limits. Mortgage Solutions Financial posted information regarding upcoming DU and loan limit changes. As of December 6th, AmeriHome product codes and pricing are available at the new FHFA 2019 maximum conforming limits. UWM is honoring the new increased loan limits. That's an increase from $453,100 to $484,350 for regular conventional loans and from $679,650 to $726,525 for conventional high balance loans. Don't wait for the New Year to qualify more of your borrowers for conforming loans. Even though the FHFA announced the conforming loan limits will be increasing starting January 1, 2018, we are letting you submit and close your high balance loans now, no need to wait. loanDepot Wholesale is accepting the new 2019 GSE Conforming Loan Limits, click here to view the details. PennyMac announced it is aligning with the conforming loan limit increases for standard and high balance loans. With the FHFA announcement of new loan limits, PRMG will allow conventional loans with the increased standard and high balance limits to be submitted, locked and funded immediately. Loan limit changes for FHA, VA, USDA and Housing Authority products will be addressed in a separate communication later when announced by the agencies. Californias Land Home Financial Services will immediately accept locks at the new 2019 limit amounts! Lock the Loan using the applicable 2018 maximum loan amount for the transaction. LHFS will update the lock manually until such time as our systems are updated through eXPRESS/Optimal Blue. Once the system is updated, you can lock at new limits. We will send out an announcement when the system has been updated. If you have any existing locks that you would like to update, please contact the lock desk: Locks@LHFSWholesale.com. (Please address questions regarding delivery and eligibility questions to Land Home.) PennyMacs Correspondent Group posted updates regarding FHLMC Home Possible and Home Possible Advantage, an announcement referencing its alignment with the updates in Freddie Macs Bulletin 2018-12 and 2018-13, and sent out 18-39: Updates to Conventional and Government LLPAs. ditechs Freddie Mac Conforming, Expanded Criteria and VA underwriting guidelines are being updated. The Client Guide and product matrices must be referenced for complete guideline requirements. The Freddie Mac Guide Bulletin 2018-23 introduces automated income and asset assessment with Loan Product Advisor, which are effective for submissions and resubmissions on and after December 9, 2018. Sellers should recall that Freddie Mac made changes to its Scorecard and Manager Series. The Scorecard Metric Total Timeline Trend Update will no longer be impacted by loans that are sold in non-performing loan sales (NPL sales). Currently, the total timeline trend metric excludes loans in NPL sales from the numerator. Now, loans in NPL sales will also be excluded from the denominator. Last year, two new disaster workout originator codes (NG and OTM) were introduced to support accurate disaster reporting; however, these two codes were excluded from the Scorecard Metric Modification Pull-Through Rate Update. And it now includes the new Workout Originator codes for disaster modifications in the numerator. Servicers Scorecards will now reflect these workouts in the pull-through rate Manager Series REO Manager Update. Capital Markets The U.S. 10-year closed Thursday +1bp to 2.91% as shorter dated Treasuries experienced curve flattening action on more of the same international news markets have been digesting throughout the week. (The markets are global!) People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang acknowledged that economic growth in China is nearing the potential rate of output and that there is increased downward pressure on the economy. Chinese authorities also confirmed the detainment of Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, who is accused of harming China's national security, and a former Canadian diplomat, Michael Kovrig. Turning to Europe, Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed that the Italian government agreed to lower its 2019 deficit target to 2.04% from 2.40%. In France, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire acknowledged that the countrys deficit will breach the 3.0% limit in 2019 as the government looks to quash protests by increasing entitlements. British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote, but the prime minister will not stand in the next leadership election in 2022. Todays U.S. economic calendar kicked off with the November retail sales report (+.2%, stronger than expected, while the control group was seen increasing slightly over the previous reading but was +.9%). November Industrial production and capacity utilization at 9:15am are seen increasing from October figures. Markit will release both their manufacturing and services PMIs at 9:45am, 15 minutes before October business inventories are seen increasing 0.6% versus 0.3% in September. We begin today with the 10-year yielding 2.88% and Agency MBS prices better .125 versus Thursdays close. Lender Products and Services Redwood is excited to be named as the number one purchaser of expanded-credit and Non-QM mortgage loans by Inside Mortgage Finance. Redwoods expanded-prime and Non-QM programs have aided its numerous business partners in keeping volumes up as refinance opportunities continue to decline. Redwood encourages loan officers at any of their business partners to sign up for the many training sessions offered by Redwoods program experts. Redwoods expanded-prime and Non-QM programs are simple to understand and easy to implement. Its the same Redwood process and program support, now with even more opportunities for loan officers and their customers. Come see why others are having so much success working with the largest buyer of expanded-credit and Non-QM mortgage loans. Simplify your underwriting process with Loan Product Advisor asset and income modeler (AIM). Through the expertise of third-party service providers, AIM automates the manual processes of assessing borrower assets and income. AIM reduces the burden of traditional documentation, speeds up the loan origination process and helps you close loans faster. Freddie Mac is working hard to bring you solutions that create efficiencies for your business and improve the borrower experience - giving you a competitive edge. These capabilities are available for Loan Product Advisor submissions and resubmissions on and after December 9, 2018. Gain greater efficiency in your underwriting processes with AIM get your edge. Interested in offering your customers new products? The join Sierra Pacific Mortgage on December 19 at 1PM PST for a short webinar that can impact your business in a big way. You will learn all there is to know about these Sierras Access and Core products. You may have heard of these programs as the "Sierra's Bank Statement Program" and while that is true, Sierra Access and Sierra Core has much more to offer, including 1 year express tax returns and even a full doc option. The pool of opportunity to offer financing for your borrower is vast come find out why! Register today! Today, mortgage lenders are looking for ways to reduce compliance costs without sacrificing quality. Finding a solution that can respond to the ebb and flow of your business needs will be essential in forming a savvy and time-saving solution. With tailored compliance packages, Strategic Compliance Partners (SCP) can accommodate your ever-changing needs. Click here for a free savings survey and well show you how SCP can help you save up to 20% on compliance costs. Ive indicated in several posts Conquering Shifts is a must read. Make it a part of your 2019 business plan. Learning how top producers excelled during the hard times of 07 and 08 reinforces that salespeople are able to prosper in any economy. Jordan Eller, Capital Mortgage Services. The benefit of owning this book is two-fold. First, its inspiring. Secondly, its a fantastic resource to be used during our sales meetings. The book does a great job showing how some of the industry greats went from ground zero to mega producers Ben Holloway, Mountain West Financial. "Conquering Shifts is truly unique in that instead of simply teaching success principles or techniques, the reader sees exactly how they were implemented." Marty Preston, Benchmark Mortgage. If you have not taken advantage of the 15% discount offered by Authors Cindy Douglas and Kathleen Heck, Do Not Delay. Ends December 15th. Click here to purchase. Jobs American Capital is excited to welcome Brad Hodge as Retail Division Manager. Brads 45 years of industry experience will help grow ACC / Lionsgate by recruiting LOs, Branch Managers, Area Managers and Branches to join our dynamic platform of Loans and Real Estate together under one roof. If you are looking to improve your ROI and be your own best referral source, the Hybrid offering is the most powerful strategy available. The ACC / Lionsgate Hybrid offering is more than just a logo change its a transformation. Contact Brad for more information (909-702-6924). FirstBank Correspondent Lending is looking to hire an Account Executive with a proven track record and customer base in the Southeast, including the states of TN, SC, GA, AL, MS, & FL. Backed by FirstBank, a successful financial institution with $5B in assets, we have the technology, pricing and marketing to ensure your growth and success and a wide array of products including Jumbo, USDA Single Close Construction, FHA, VA, USDA, Freddie FNMA, Doctors Programs, etc., to give you the ability to fully support the changing needs of your clients. Come thrive in a culture-driven environment where your voice is heard, your opinions matter, and the client comes first. Excellent compensation package included. To learn more, please visit FirstBank Careers. A motivated and experienced investor is seeking to acquire a FULL EAGLE/HUD Designated lender. Licensed in CA would be preferred but is not required. The ideal situation is for current shareholders to liquidate all or a large portion of their equity through the transaction. Principals would be willing to negotiate/keep the existing team. Interested parties should contact me to forward their note; please specify the opportunity. Romania's president is stressing how important it is for Romanians and other European Union citizens in the U.K. to have their rights respected after it leaves bloc. In a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Brussels, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said the divorce deal was ``important... to guarantee the rights of (Romanians) who live, work or study in Britain.'' Iohannis said all EU citizens living in the U.K. should be treated in a non-discriminatory way, both those currently there and those who move there in the future. Romania takes over the rotating presidency of the EU on Jan. 1. Britain's departure from the bloc, scheduled for March 29, occurs on its watch. Search Keywords: Short link: Sports Tokyo, Singapore battle London to host ATP Finals London, Dec 14 (Agencies) | Publish Date: 12/14/2018 11:04:24 AM IST Tokyo and Singapore are battling London to host the ATP Finals from 2021 to 2025, the governing body of mens tennis announced on Friday. The shortlist for the end-of-season showpiece also includes the northern English city of Manchester and Italys Turin, while the London deal, which runs until 2020, could be extended. The announcement of the candidates follows an extensive bid application process that began in August. The final phase will see the ATP visit the cities, with a decision on the successful candidate to be made not before March 2019. The ATP Finals were first held in Tokyo in 1970 and have been staged in some of the major cities around the world, including New York, Sydney, and Shanghai. Its longest stay in a single venue was across 13 consecutive editions at Madison Square Garden from 1977 to 1989 but it has been held at Londons O2 arena since 2009 - drawing more than 250 000 fans annually. The tournament has been won by many of the all-time greats, including Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. International US backed Syrian forces seize town from Islamic State BEIRUT, Dec 14 (Agencies) | Publish Date: 12/14/2018 11:43:20 AM IST US-backed Syrian fighters have seized control of the town of Hajin in eastern Syria from Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and a source in the militia leading the battle said on Friday. According to Reuters, Hajin was the last big town held by Islamic State in its remaining pocket of territory east of the Euphrates River near the border with Iraq. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, have been battling to eradicate Islamic State fighters from the area for several months. A YPG source said the SDF was now in control of Hajin, where some small remaining pockets of Islamic State resistance would be finished off in the next day or two. After losing Hajin, Islamic State will control a diminishing strip of territory along the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the area where U.S.-backed operations are focused. The jihadists also control some desert terrain west of the river in territory otherwise controlled by the Damascus government and its allies. SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Kobani told Reuters on Thursday that at least 5,000 Islamic State fighters remain holed up in the pocket of territory including Hajin and that they had decided to fight to the death. This includes some 2,000 foreign fighters, mostly Arabs and Europeans along with their families. Kobani also said it was possible that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was in eastern Syria, but the SDF could not be sure because he often disappears. Islamic State was driven from nearly all the territory it once held in Syria last year in separate campaigns waged by the U.S.-backed SDF on the one hand, and the Russian-backed Syrian government on the other. British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that further assurances on her Brexit deal were possible after European Union leaders told her they would not be renegotiating the agreement and scorned her stilted defence of Britains departure. With the British parliament deadlocked, the ultimate end of the Brexit project remains unclear, with possible outcomes ranging from a disorderly departure with no deal to another referendum on European Union membership. May, who on Wednesday survived a plot in her party to oust her, asked EU leaders at a summit in Brussels for political and legal assurances to help her convince the British parliament to approve her deal. Further clarification and discussion, following the Councils conclusions is, in fact, possible, May told reporters. There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in coming days about how to obtain the further assurances. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron ruled out reopening last months agreement, aimed at ensuring a smooth exit on March 29, though leaders assured her that it should not bind Britain to EU rules forever. After EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said talks with the British over Brexit often led to nebulous debates, May was shown on official footage remonstrating with him. What they said was not audible but May appeared agitated while Juncker held her by the arm, shook his head and raised his palm in an apparent effort to calm her before the Dutch prime minister arrived to interrupt them. Asked if they had spoken about the nebulous remark, May said: I had a robust discussion with Jean-Claude Juncker. The exchanges had echoes of a summit in Salzburg in September where EU leaders had been expected to demonstratively offer support for May. Instead, they were irritated by Britains tactics in the run-up to the meeting, and the event ended in acrimony. BREXIT MEANS BREXIT Diplomats said May had exasperated EU leaders on Thursday by failing to outline precise proposals for what she needed to push the deal through, and even at one point used her much-derided mantra of Brexit means Brexit. If this is all she has for us, there is no point trying too hard now, one diplomat told Reuters. She still needs to do her homework - maybe shell come back in January with something concrete and then we will see. To say Brexit means Brexit more than two years after it all started was what toughened the other leaders stance, said the diplomat. Mays allies at home said the summit was a useful start, but the opposition Labour Party said May had failed and called for the parliamentary vote on the deal that she postponed on Monday, fearing a heavy defeat, to be held next week. Arlene Foster, the leader of the Northern Irish party that props up Mays minority government, urged May to stand up to the EU and win legally binding changes to the deal. On the currency market, sterling dropped almost one percent to $1.2539, and looked set for its biggest drop in seven weeks. TRUST ME After a punishing week, May was asked by a reporter for Britains generally pro-Conservative Daily Mail which was worse - the malcontents at home or the Euro bullies in Brussels - and whether she ever wanted to ditch her job and fly off to a remote island. Negotiations like this are always tough, May said. There are always difficult times and, as you get close to the very end, then that can get even more difficult because youre absolutely sorting out the last details of something. May had asked for political and legal assurances that the so-called Northern Irish backstop would be temporary, and urged the leaders to look at her track record of delivering results even when the odds looked stacked against her. The backstop is an insurance clause obliging Britain to follow EU trade regulations until a better way is found to avoid a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. May told EU leaders she believed there was a majority in parliament who want to follow through on the referendum and leave with a negotiated deal but cautioned that an accidental no deal departure was possible. Diplomats said May indicated she would want to come back for a second bite of assurances with legal force, and some said they would be willing to listen and try to accommodate her. But the EU also said it was prepared for Britain to exit with no deal, which would also mean no measures to smooth the transition. The signals we heard yesterday were not very reassuring about the capabilities of the UK to honour the arrangement that was concluded, said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, so we are going to be sure to prepare for all the scenarios, including a no-deal. Search Keywords: Short link: Manju Shettar By Express News Service BENGALURU: Could the three ill-fated employees of Holisol Logistics Private Limited, who were buried under tonnes of iron racks and material for hours, be rescued had the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) been allowed to take a crack at it? A family member of one of victims loses her cool. At least 47 personnel of the NDRF had reached the warehouse in Kadugodi within 15 minutes of being alerted at 1.45pm, about the mishap which occurred at 12.15pm. They reached the spot equipped with cutters, victim-locating cameras and a dog squad all these could have helped in extricating the three hapless victims who remained trapped until they succumbed to their injuries. Shockingly, although the NDRF team reached the spot a whole hour and 45 minutes after the mishap had occurred as they were alerted late, they ended up being mere bystanders, with only fire personnel making futile attempts to rescue the three victims Farooq, Subhash and Jnana Darshan. An NDRF personnel informed TNIE that they were not allowed to start the rescue attempt. We were alerted an hour-and-a-half after the incident. Though a team reached the spot in 15 minutes from Mahadevapura Fire Station, another 30 minutes were wasted as fire officials had taken over the situation. The rescue ops could have started early if they had involved us sooner. We are trained to handle these situations effectively and rapidly, he said. The Mahadevapura police decided to call NDRF late only because they realised that the fire force was unable to rescue the trapped people. Even three cranes pressed into service failed to budge the metal racks to release the trapped. NDRF personnel conducting rescue operations | pushkar V It was a major challenge to not only reach the victims but also to identify the precise location under the tonnes of material and metal racks which had buried them. The equipment the NDRF carried could have helped, but they were not allowed in. However, MN Reddi, DGP, Fire and Emergency Service, said: NDRF is meant to handle high level disasters; and accidents like these can be handled efficiently by our highly trained professional fire fighter rescuers. I have full faith in our state firemen. Each incident is complex and the situation varies, but our fire personnel did their best. SV Krishna Chaitanya By Express News Service CHENNAI: Powerful tropical cyclonic storm Phethai, brewing in the Bay of Bengal, may give Tamil Nadu a miss and head towards Andhra Pradesh, but Chennai and neighbouring coastal districts are likely to get heavy rain starting Sunday. As India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday declared the formation of a cyclone by Friday, alarm bells started ringing in south Andhra and north coastal TN as the forecast showed the storm intensifying into a severe cyclone generating sustained surface winds of 120 kmph enough to inflict damage on the scale of Cyclone Gaja. Though there is no consensus yet on the point of landfall, numerical models indicate the system would head to AP. The evening IMD bulletin said: Depression over the southeast Bay of Bengal... is very likely to intensify further into a deep depression in next 12 hours and into a cyclonic storm during the subsequent 24 hours. It is likely to move north-westwards towards AP and adjoining north TN coasts during next 72 hours. The probability of Phethai making landfall in AP is higher. Even if it moves towards AP, it would still be about 200-300 km from north coastal TN. So, the likelihood of Chennai getting heavy downpour from outer bands for at least a day is high, S Balachandran, deputy director-general of Meteorology said. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has predicted high waves in the range of 3.0 - 3.5 metres between 12.30 pm and 11.30 pm on December 16 along the coast of Tamil Nadu from Dhanushkodi to Pulicat. Since the sea condition is likely to be rough to very rough, the government has advised all deep sea fishing vessels to return to the coast. GS Sameeran, Director, Department of Fisheries, told Express that the weather warning issued by IMD was conveyed to all fishermen associations, cooperative societies. Issue of the fishing token has been stopped from Wednesday. All boats were alerted to come to the nearest harbour for safe berthing. As on Thursday, all boats, except 321 deep sea fishing vessels from Chennai, have reached the harbour. The 321 vessels are still in the sea about 100 nautical miles off Vizag and Krishnapattinam coast and are safe. They are sailing towards nearest harbours, he said. The Director OF Department of Fisheries said the help of Coast Guard and Navy was sought and preventive sorties for alerting the fishing boats was done. An officer from our fisheries department has been deputed to Krishnapattinam to coordinate with AP fisheries, the official said. SHAGUN KAPIL By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Two hospitals in the city have refused to treat 62-year-old Roli Somvanshi, days after her pacemaker popped out. A resident of Saifai, Uttar Pradesh, Roli got the pacemaker last year in her village. She started experiencing pain just a month after the operation, following which, her hospital treated her again and sent her home. However, in July this year, because of complications from an infection, the pacemaker started to come out and the hospital said they would have to fit a new one. Roli Somvanshis pacemaker is held together by tape | Express photo Roli was then brought to the capital for treatment. Much to her horror, two hospitals, a private national heart institute and the Delhi government-run GB Pant hospital turned her away saying they would not treat her because the machine was implanted elsewhere. The doctors at G B Pants pacemaker OPD on Wednesday said that the hospital did not implant it so they cant treat the infection. They just said a blatant no and even took her OPD card, said nephew Anand Bhadauria, who works in the city as an accountant at a private firm. My uncle (Rolis husband) died in May this year and the family could not bear the cost of the new pacemaker. I was hopeful of getting her treated in Delhi. First we approached the private hospital under the (Economically Weaker Sections) EWS category but they said they have a long list of patients in waiting and we can follow up two months later, said Bhadauria, adding that the only option left now is to move the Delhi High Court seeking help for getting immediate treatment for Roli, whose condition is critical. When contacted, G B Pant Hospital Medical Superintendent S M Raheja said he was travelling and would not be able to comment on the matter, while other officials could not be reached. Advocate and social activist Ashok Agarwal, through whom Bhadauria will file the case, said, It is the constitutional duty to of the government hospitals to preserve the life of the citizens. They cannot refuse admission on any grounds. In October, the Delhi High Court had pulled up the city government over its decision to exclude non-Delhi patients from seeking treatment at the GTB Hospital, saying it was a violation of an individuals right to healthcare . For now, they use tape to keep the pacemaker in place. Troubled past A resident of Saifai, Uttar Pradesh, Roli got the pacemaker last year in her village. She started experiencing pain just a month after the operation, following which, her hospital treated her again and sent her home By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Two air passengers from Tamil Nadu, who were smuggling gold worth more than Rs 31 lakh into the country were caught by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence sleuths at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Wednesday night. According to DRI officials, the passengers landed at the RGI airport at 7.30 p.m. in flight no SG 464. Based on a tip off, the duo were intercepted in the security hold area and were detained for questioning. Two gold bars weighing one kg, concealed with silver coating, were recovered from them. Inquiries revealed that the passengers retrieved the gold which was concealed inside the aircraft during its international run. As they could not produce any documents, the gold weighing one kg and worth more than Rs 31 lakh was recovered from them. Toby Antony By Express News Service KOCHI: The tourism industry in Kerala, which was slowly reviving after the August floods, was dealt with a loss of face as more than 2,500 foreign tourists who arrived in Kochi on Thursday in a cruise liner and chartered flights are likely to be stranded in the city on Friday owing to the hartal. Luxury cruise Marella Discovery has arrived with 1,720 foreign tourists at Cochin Port and three chartered flights arrived at CIAL with another 900 foreign tourists for sightseeing and shopping. The tour operators had organised eight different tours to various destinations in Kerala for the tourists who arrived here, but now things look uncertain following the unexpected announcement of a hartal on Friday. The arrival of a large number of tourist had provided optimism to tour operators and stakeholders. Without doubt, the hartal will have a severe impact on the tourism industry in future. This will be the largest arrival of tourists to Kerala after the tourism season started this year. These tourists will get a negative image of Kerala as they will be stuck up in the hotels. The losses for the tour operators and other stakeholders will be massive, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) Kerala Chapter chairman Paulose Mathew told Express. Tour operators have been raising the demand to exempt the tourism sector from the hartal. We had approached all the political parties to exempt the tourism industry from hartals. The revenue of the state is going to be affected as tourists will not come to Kochi fearing hartals. Last month in the hartal a convoy of German travellers was pelted with stones. Immediately, they cancelled the tour and returned, Paulose said. K P Nandakumar, Joint Director, Kerala Tourism, said if the tour operators seek protection, the department is ready to approach the police for it. The effect of Fridays hartal will be severe considering the number of foreign tourists in Kochi. Usually, the tour operators arrange security for the tourist in such a situation. If they seek any assistance, we will be providing it, he said. Tourism in the state is limping back from the effects of the ferocious floods as two chartered flight with around 600 tourists from the UK arrived at Kochi on Thursday. Another 300 more tourists will be arriving at Kochi in another chartered flight that will reach Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) on Friday. Ernakulam DTPC secretary S Vijaykumar in a press release issued by the Public Relations Department stated more foreign tourists are reaching Kochi in cruise liners as well. Kochi Muziris Biennale is also attracting tourists. The tourists from the UK will be spending two days in Kochi. The group is expected to enjoy a boat ride in the Kochi backwaters. Then the group will visit Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, Marine Drive and Broadway and venues of Kochi Muziris Biennale. The group will also visit Vaikom and Kumbalangi tourism villages. The group will spend a day in a houseboat in Alappuzha. Total number of hartals In 2018 (Stats by Say No to Hartal) (Local, district and state-wide) Total - 97 BJP and affiliated outfits - 31 UDF - 23 Left - 17 In 2017 Total - 120 BJP and affiliated outfits - 47 UDF - 32 Left - 21 By UNI AIZWAL: The Mizo National Front (MNF), which recorded a landslide victory staging a significant comeback into the northeastern state decimating Congress, seems to be much conscious about its 'understanding' with the BJP leadership in the Centre. According to sources in the MNF, the conventional and mandatory National Anthem during the swearing-in ceremony on Saturday of Zoramthanga-led ministry would be followed by "Bible reading and prayer". "This Bible reading ceremony during administering of oath of Chief Minister and his council of ministers in Mizoram is a first-time affair in the state," a MNF said. READ| No woman MLA in new Mizoram Assembly There will be a special "Hallelujah Chorus" by a local Leprosy group during the swearing-in ceremony and Rev Lalhmingthanga, a senior Christian leader and chairman of the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitute Committee (MKHC), conglomerate of leaders of 16 major churches, would lead the Bible reading. The supposed influence of churches, BJP's perceived 'pro-Hindutva' slant and the latent discomfort of the local voters vis-a-vis row over cattle slaughtering and related controversies figured prominently during electioneering in the state. Hopeful of doing well in the polls, the BJP had fielded 39 candidates for the 40-member Assembly, but it could win only one seat. The saffron party sources, however, regard this as a 'beginning' of a long journey as this is first time, the BJP is making entry into the state legislature in this predominantly Christian stronghold state. For long, politically and otherwise, it was said that Mizoram rocks were 'hard' enough where Lotus (BJP's electoral symbol) cannot bloom. Mizo National Front (MNF) chief and former Chief Minister Zoramthanga on Thursday submitted the lists of members of council of ministers to be sworn-in at Raj Bhavan circular lawn in Aizawl on Saturday. State Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan would administer the oaths to the new Chief Minister and the ministers. Zoramthanga, a lieutenant of legendary former Mizo rebel leader Laldenga, had earlier been in power between 1998 and 2008. Mizoram BJP chief Prof John V Hluna expressed 'surprise' at party's poor show and indicated that a section of BJP central leadership might have 'helped' MNF, also a constituent of BJP-led NEDA in the north east. "We had high hopes," said Mr Hluna, who is camping in Delhi to meet senior BJP leaders including party's national president Amit Shah. The saffron party's poll managers in Mizoram were hopeful of picking up three to five seats at least. The defeat of former Speaker Hiphei, who quit Congress despite offers of ticket from home turf Palak, has left many analysts surprised. BJP also had hoped of winning three seats in Mizoram-Bangladesh-Tripura border Mamit district -- Mamit, Hachhek and Dampa seats in remote Mamit district has sizable number of voters belonging to smaller sub-tribes. The poor turnout of voters at the 15 temporary polling stations at Kanhmun too might have contributed to BJP's loses, sources said. As against the state level turnout of 81 per cent, only was 56.4 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in six Bru relief camps. Former Congress leader and ex-Mizoram minister Buddha Dhan Chakma, who joined BJP in October in the presence of saffron party president Amit Shah, is the only BJP legislator to make it to the Assembly in this year's polls. Ironically, for Congress in Mizoram, the setback came on a day when the grand old party, which has been experiencing a series of electoral defeats since 2014, made a strong come back in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The Congress veteran and its longest surviving politician Lal Thanhawla, the outgoing Chief Minister, lost in Serchip to ZPM's Chief Ministerial candidate and former MP Lalduhoma while in Champhai South, he lost to MNF nominee TJ Lalnuntluanga. By IANS MUMBAI: Actress Saloni Chopra, who had accused Sajid Khan of inappropriate behaviour, is glad the change has begun with the Indian Film and Television Directors Association (IFTDA) suspending the filmmaker for a year. In a Twitter post, Saloni lauded IFTDA's action, but at the same time hoped Sajid would at least apologise to the women whom he has misbehaved with. "I'm glad IFTDA has decided to be supportive and understand their responsibility towards the behaviour and power abuse of their members. I hope this isn't temporary. ALSO READ: Bollywood director Sajid Khan suspended for one-year from IFTDA "It's about time our industry realises that accepting such behaviour as a normal routine from fellow members makes everyone in the industry equally responsible for this behaviour because you're just encouraging it," Saloni wrote. On Sajid, she said: "I really wish Sajid would apologise to the women he's behaved this way ... Apology is never the absolute answer, or the final outcome, but it's the first step to accepting your mistake and wanting to change, without that where do people really go from this? "His ignorance and denial of his behaviour is only an insult to all the people involved. If he denies everything he's done, and is banned for a year, what after that? Does he just go onto work again like he never did anything?" Saloni, who earlier worked as an assistant director with Sajid, said it's important for him to own up to his doings for anything in our country to change in the right direction. "For now, I'm glad for the decisions IFTDA has made, change must begin somewhere." She was among the women who named and shamed Sajid as the #MeToo movement gained momentum in India. By IANS MUMBAI: After Mumbai Police showed its disapproval of Dulquer Salmaan trying out "weirdo" stunts on roads, the popular actor said they should have checked some facts first and called himself "not a weirdo". A video was posted by Mumbai Police's Twitter handle on Friday. In the video, Dulquer is seen checking his phone while sitting behind the wheel. Actress Sonam Kapoor Ahuja can be heard calling him "weirdo". We agree with you @sonamakapoor ! Quite a weirdo to try such stunts while driving and putting the lives of fellow drivers at risk too! We dont quite approve of these even in reel life. #NotDone pic.twitter.com/WWoDz16hKj Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) December 14, 2018 The caption read: "We agree with you Sonam Kapoor. Quite a 'weirdo' to try such stunts while driving and putting the lives of fellow drivers at risk too! We don't quite approve of these even in 'reel' life. #NotDone." ALSO READ: No competition between us, says Nivin Pauly on Dulquer Salmaan, Fahadh Faasil Sonam was quick to defend her "The Zoya Factor" co-star. "We weren't driving. We were rigged on a truck, but I'm glad you guys are concerned. I hope and I know you show the same interest in regular folk as well. Thanks for taking care! #Reelvsreal," she replied. Dulquer attached a video taken while he was shooting and said: "The car was rigged to a low loader truck which was also the camera rig. I couldn't steer or drive the car even if I wanted to. Also, this particular car cannot steer itself." ALSO READ: Dulquer Salmaan in 'Take Off' director Mahesh Narayanans next Would appreciate it if you had checked some facts before tweeting this. In fact @MumbaiPolice helped us with permissions and traffic management during the shoot and were present the whole time. In my next tweet attaching the video I was shooting. #notawierdo https://t.co/WnKSnSDmjZ dulquer salmaan (@dulQuer) December 14, 2018 The "Kali" star also tweeted: "Would appreciate it if you had checked some facts before tweeting this. In fact, Mumbai Police helped us with permissions and traffic management during the shoot and were present the whole time. #notaweirdo." By Express News Service CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has stayed all further proceedings on a complaint against film director AR Murugadoss, pending before the Central Crime Branch (CCB). Justice N Anand Venkatesan, who granted the stay while passing interim orders on a petition from the director on Friday, posted the matter after six weeks. ALSO READ | Madras HC tells Tamil Nadu police not to arrest director Murugadoss till December 20 Following a complaint from one G Devarajan of Sembium, CCB had registered an FIR against Murugadoss. In his petition seeking to quash the proceedings, he submitted that no prima facie case was made out against him. In a free democracy, criticising the government policy was not an offence. In fact, it was a fundamental right guaranteed to citizens under Article 19(1) (a). Apart from the reasonable restrictions imposed under article 19(2), the right to freedom of expression, which are deemed to be projected as an objectionable wrong against a specific political party, will amount to a tyrannical rule, unjustifiable before the eyes of law. Further, Section 5A of Cinematograph Act created a legal bar against any such prosecution. It laid down that after granting of film certification under section 5A or 5B of the Act, the applicant of the film certification, producer and distributors were not liable for any punishment under any law in respect of any matter contained in the film. Also, the disputed scenes had already been removed. So, no offence as claimed by the complainant was committed by him, he said. By Express News Service CHENNAI: Bibliophiles in the city have something to cheer about this New Year. The 17-day Chennai Book Fair hosted by the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (Bapasi) for the year 2019 is all set to kick off from January 4 to 20. The fair which is in its 42nd edition will be held at YMCA grounds in Nandanam. The book fair which is usually held for 10-13 days has been stretched by four more days for the first time, said members from the association. During this time of the year, people usually leave the city for Pongal. Many told us that by the time they return, the book fair comes to an end. Due to their request, we have extended the duration of the fair by four days, said S Vairavan, president of Bapasi. Organisers are expecting close to 20 lakh people this time as the fair held in 2018 saw the highest ever footfall of 12 lakhs. Around 800 book stalls will be set up, a number higher than last year, as more number of publishers have come forward to launch new books. Close to 500 publishers and sellers will display books of new authors in all regional languages. We have also got calls from publishers based in Delhi, Karnataka and Kerala who want to take part in the upcoming fair, said Vairavan. Ardent fans of the fair from neighbouring countries including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia have got in touch with Bapasis organising committee to inquire about the event. This is the first time that we have got calls from readers from other countries. The app we had launched last year to guide people about the fair has also contributed to its increasing popularity. We will also be having a press briefing on December 29 or January 2 to share more details about the inauguration, he added. By PTI NEW DELHI: Noted English writer Amitav Ghosh has been honoured with this year's Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for "outstanding contribution towards literature," as announced on Friday. He becomes the first author in English to win India's foremost literary prize. "Amitav Ghosh is a path-breaking novelist. In his novels, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the modern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways. "His fiction is endowed with extraordinary depth and substance through his academic training as a historian and a social anthropologist," a statement from the Bharatiya Jnanpith read. The decision was taken in a meeting of the Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by eminent novelist, scholar and Jnanpith laureate Pratibha Ray. Ghosh, one of the most prominent contemporary Indian writers, is known for a series of novels such as 'Shadow Lines', 'The Glass Palace', 'The Hungry Tide', and the Ibis Trilogy -- 'Sea of Poppies', 'River of Smoke', and 'Flood of Fire' -- chronicling the Opium trade between India and China run by the East India Company. The writer, in a tweet, said he was "honoured and humbled". I am truly honored and humbled... https://t.co/q9k35TKEwr Amitav Ghosh (@GhoshAmitav) December 14, 2018 In another tweet responding to a fan, he said, "this is an amazing day for me. I never thought I would find myself on this list, with some of the writers I most admire." Thank you. This is an amazing day for me. I never thought I would find myself on this list, with some of the writers I most admire https://t.co/xKUXfSH8hp https://t.co/qnGtM0E4Au Amitav Ghosh (@GhoshAmitav) December 14, 2018 Born in Kolkata in 1956 to a Bengali Hindu family, the 62-year-old author currently lives in New York with his wife Deborah Baker. Ghosh, who spent his formative years in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria. His most recent book, 'The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction', was released in 2016. Ghosh is also recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award. Some of the biggest Indian writers have been awarded this prestigious literary recognition. Major names among the 58 recipients include literary icons Krishna Sobti, Kedarnath Singh, Shrilal Shukla, Nirmal Verma, Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi, Amrita Pritam and U R Ananthamurthy. By PTI PATNA: The Bihar government on Thursday sanctioned a sum of Rs 70 crore for setting up 28 "fortified" police stations in naxal-infested districts of the state. The decision was made at a state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Altogether 28 such police stations each costing Rs 2.50 crore would be built, Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat Department, Upendra Pandey, told reporters after the meeting. The nod was also given for setting up "visitors' room" at 660 police stations across the state for which Rs 34.17 crore would be released, Pandey said. Replacement of discarded police vehicles with new ones at a cost of Rs 58.73 crore was also decided. Another decision made at the meeting was the appointment of Justice Jyoti Saran of Patna High Court as the Executive Chairman of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority, Pandey said. The post was previously held by Justice Ravi Ranjan who was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Anuradha Shukla By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Post Assembly polls debacle in five states, the ruling BJP government is planning a Rs 40,000 crore package to support the agriculture sector in its upcoming budget, in a bid to woo disgruntled farmers.In the last budget itself, the government had shifted its focus to the rural sector. There were a host of schemes and announcements by the government. The government will continue with its focus on farmers and is working on an overall package for the agriculture sector, with a budgetary provision of Rs 40,000 crore, a senior Finance Ministry official told TNIE. According to the official, the package will not necessarily mean a loan waiver. It is wrong to conclude that it will be purely loan waiver. The focus is on the overall welfare of the farmers and the sector. The (Finance) Ministry is soon going to have met with Agriculture Ministry officials and members of NITI Aayog for consultation, he added. However, it was a no-brainer that farmers expect a decent share in the upcoming budget of the government, especially after its loss in the Assembly polls this week. The Bharatiya Janata Party lost its strongholds in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. As per post-election analyses, distress in the farm sector, which had brought over one lakh farmers to the national capital last month, was cited as one of the main reasons for ruling partys poor show in the polls. Also, the Congress party and many regional parties flagging loan waiver in their election manifesto is putting more pressure on the government to go for the same. However, data shows that budgetary support alone is not enough to save the sector. According to IndiaSpend data, the governments agriculture budget for 2017-18 was up by 111 per cent over four years. Despite the government hiking Minimum Support Price for farmers and taking other major initiatives, the benefits did not reach the intended. According to a Kotak report, average crop prices over the past few years show that market rates of major farm products have remained largely stagnant over the last five years. MSPs have increased steadily at a CAGR of 6 per cent for rice, 6 per cent for wheat and 5-9 per cent for pulses, but market prices have increased at a much lower CAGR of 2.5 per cent for rice, 2.7 per cent for wheat and -1.1 to -1.8 per cent for pulses, capped by higher supply, the report added. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Congress Friday said the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that "corruption" in the Rafale fighter jet deal cannot be decided by it and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the deal. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the Congress had stated earlier that the Rafale issue cannot be decided by the Supreme Court, and the alleged corruption in the defence contract can only be brought out by a JPC after examining the files and notings in the contract. "The verdict of the Supreme Court is a validation of what the Congress party stated months ago that the Supreme Court is not the forum to decide such sensitive defence contracts," he told reporters. READ| Anil Ambani welcomes Supreme Court's order dismissing Rafale petitions Surjewala said the only forum that can probe the corruption in the Rafale contract after examining the pricing process and sovereign guarantee is the JPC. "If they have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal," he said. "We again challenge the prime minister for a JPC probe to unveil every layer of corruption in the deal," he said, alleging that corruption has been "guided by the highest echelons of power". The Congress leader also alleged that the government gave a "one-sided half-baked information to the Supreme Court which has not been scrutinised by anyone". Surjewala said the Congress has maintained from day-one that it wants a JPC probe and the government should agree to it if it has nothing to hide. By IANS NEW DELHI: With the Congress coming to power in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, party President Rahul Gandhi on Friday affirmed his party's commitment to waive off farm loans in all the three states. "We are going to waive farm loans," Gandhi told the media here asserting that his party would fulfil the promise of waving loans of farmers in all the three states within 10 days of coming to power. ALSO READ | HIGHLIGHTS: After MP, Rajasthan, all eyes on Chhattisgarh now His comments came on a day when party veterans Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath were chosen as the new Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, respectively. The Congress is soon expected to announce the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh where the race for the post is primarily between state party chief Bhupesh Baghel and Ambikapur MLA T.S. Singh Deo. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday gave an extension of six months to Intelligence Bureau Director Rajiv Jain and Research & Analysis Wing Secretary Anil K Dhasmana, whose two-year terms are scheduled to end later this month. Jains tenure is to end on December 30 and Dhasmanas on December 29. Officials in the know said the decision was taken by the Prime Minister-led Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) in view of the forthcoming elections. The Centre wants the new government to take a decision on the appointments on these key posts, officials in the know said. Jain, a 1980-batch IPS officer from Jharkhand, was appointed IB Director in 2016 for two years. A recipient of the Presidents police medal, Jain has served in various IB departments, including the Kashmir desk. He was adviser to K C Pant, the previous NDA governments interlocutor on Kashmir, when talks were held with separatist leaders. The government also appointed IPS officer, Ramphal Pawar, as the new Director of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). By PTI ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR: A top court in Pakistan has given a months deadline to the Federal government to complete formalities to deport Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari, whose three-year jail term will end on Saturday. Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, is currently lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court to three years imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card on December 15, 2015. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2012 for illegally entering the country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online. A two-judge Peshawar high court bench, comprising Justice Roohul Amin and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan, on Thursday heard an appeal filed by Ansari through a senior lawyer. The petition said that the federal government hasnt taken any steps towards his release. Ansaris lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, said that his clients prison term will end on December 15 and that he should be released on the morning of December 16. Anwar informed the bench that the sentence of the Indian national would be complete after two days and both the Ministry of Interior and the authorities of the prison where he is lodged were completely silent about his release and deportation to India. After hearing this, Justice Khan asked the Additional Attorney General to explain how would they keep the prisoner in jail after completion of his term. I wonder how after two days, the jail term of the prisoner will be complete, yet the government has not completed the requirements for releasing and deporting the prisoner, the judge observed after additional attorney general informed the court that documents for release and deportation of the prisoner were not ready. An officer representing the interior ministry informed the court that a prisoner could be kept for one month while the legal documents were being prepared. After knowing the legal position, the court directed the ministry to make all the arrangements within a month for release and deportation of the prisoner. On previous hearing, deputy attorney general recorded his statement on behalf of the interior ministry and said Ansari would be handed over to Indian authorities at Wagah border after completion of his term. Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012. Finally, in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed her that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court. Ejaz Kaiser By Express News Service RAIPUR: The BJP, which claimed to have dealt a body blow to the Maoists in Chhattisgarh in the run-up to the assembly elections, couldnt find favour with voters in regions considered strongholds of the Leftwing ultras. What was fairly evident from the trends on counting day was that voters inhabiting the Naxal hotbeds in the state gave an emphatic vote of no confidence to the BJP, which ruled the state for 15 years. While the Congress nearly made a clean sweep of the Bastar zone in south Chhattisgarh, winning 11 of the 12 assembly seats, in the 6 assembly segments in Rajnandgaon district, the BJP nominees couldnt win a single seat other than outgoing chief minister Raman Singh. Both Bastar and Rajnandgaon, considered rebel strongholds, went to polls in the first phase on November 12. The outcome in Bastar and Rajnandgaon was fairly similar to how the BJP fared in the other Naxal-affected districts such as Gariyaband, Sarguja (north Chhattisgarh) and Masasamund, among others. According to officials estimates, as many as 14 of the 27 districts of Chhattisgarh are infested by Maoists. The Congress turned the tables on the BJP, which was battling anti-incumbency in the run-up to the polls, bagging 68 seats. BJPs tally dropped to 15, while Ajit Jogis Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (Jogi) bagged 7 seats in the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly. Poor harvest While the Congress nearly made a clean sweep of the Bastar zone, winning 11 of the 12 assembly seats, in the 6 assembly segments in Rajnandgaon district, the BJP also fared dismally By Express News Service KOLKATA: A 45-year-old man was arrested for allegedly killing and burying his 13-year-old daughter after raping her for over two years in Jaldhaka in Kalimpong district of West Bengal. The accused, Shukra Bahadur Pradhan from Lower Godak village in Kalimpong, allegedly killed his daughter on December 9 after she threatened to tell the village residents how the accused repeatedly raped her since her mother and the accused's wife left home in 2016. The incident came to light after the accused on December 10 told his nephew that his daughter had committed suicide and 'he buried her'. The accused's nephew ringed the alarm bells and informed the police.On digging the site, police recovered the dead body of the victim and sent it for autopsy. The accused was produced at Kalimpong district court and was sent to seven days police custody. A case under Section 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and Section 6 of POCSO Act has been registered against the accused. The incident has sent shockwaves across Kalimpong district. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: The BJP has maintained a solid lead over other political parties, including opposition Congress, in the panchayat elections of Assam. The State Election Commission on Friday evening partially declared the results. The complete results are likely to be declared late at night. Assam state election commissioner, Harendra Nath Borah, said counting, which began on Wednesday, was slow as the votes were cast in ballots. The two-phase polls were held on December 5 and 9. According to him, of the total 21,990 gram panchayat member (GPM) seats, the counting of votes in 17,677 seats was completed. The BJP won 7,540 seats, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)-1,373 seats, Congress- 5,896 seats, CPI three, CPM-27, CPI-ML-7, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF)-75, Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF)-47 and Independents 2,028. Out of the 2,199 gram panchayat president (GPP) seats, the results declared were for 1,881 seats. The AGP won 110 seats, BJP-868, Congress-645, CPM-one, AIUDF-106, BPF-two and Independents-150. Of the total 2199 Anchalik Panchayat Members (APM) seats, results declared were for 1,860 seats. BJP won 883 seats, Congress-645, AGP-96, CPM-one, AIUDF-117 and Independents-124. Similarly, the results of 347 of the 420 Zila Parishad Members (ZPM) seats were declared. The BJP won 181 seats, Congress-122, AGP-15, AIUDF- 15 and Independents 14. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal expressed his gratefulness to the people for reposing their faith in the BJP and voting for development. Riding on Narendra Modi wave, the BJP had grabbed 60 of Assams 126 seats in the 2016 Assembly elections. By winning the polls, the party opened the gateway to the Northeast as it went on to capture power in several states of the Northeast. However, in the past year or so, the BJPs image took a beating in Assam following the Modi governments bid to get the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 passed in the Parliament. Seventy organisations, opposition parties and even the AGP, which is an ally of the BJP and constituent in the Sonowal government, staged a series of protests against the controversial Bill which seeks to legitimize the stay of illegal immigrants of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who migrated to India till December 31, 2014. The protestors said the Assamese identity would be threatened if lakhs of Hindu Bangladeshis (Bengali Hindus) were dumped in the state through the Bills passage. By PTI MUMBAI: Shidharth Das, biological father of Sheena Bora, told a special court here Friday that he spoke to her for the last time on her birthday in February 2012, two months before she was allegedly murdered. Sheena (24) was a child of Das and Indrani Mukerjea, who is the prime accused in the murder case. Das, a prosecution witness, told special court judge J C Jagdale, "Last I called Sheena was on February 11, 2012 as it was her birthday. Before that, she had called me in 2011 and sought my blessing for her engagement with Rahul. After her birthday in 2012, I never received any call from Sheena". He also told the court that he met Indrani in 1986 during his college days. Both Sheena and her brother Mikhail were born out of their relationship. Sheena was born in 1987 while Mikhail a year later, Das said. During this period, he along with the two children was staying in Indrani's parents house in Guwahati, he said. Indrani suddenly left him and their children in 1989 and he never met her or talked with her again, Das told the court. He denied the defence lawyer's claim that Indrani left home due to physical abuse. To another question, Das said, "It was actually through media that I came to know that Sheena was murdered and Indrani has been arrested". Police had called him to Mumbai for DNA test, but neither the police nor the CBI (which took over the case later) conducted the test, he said. Defence lawyers pointed out that between April 2012 to May 2013, over 700 messages were exchanged between Rahul (son of former media baron and co-accused Peter Mukerjea from his earlier marriage) and Das. In one of the messages, he advised Rahul to file a missing complaint about Sheena. "Maybe I advised Rahul to file a missing complaint since she went missing from Mumbai. But I never filed any missing complaint," Das said. Sheena was allegedly killed by her mother Indrani with the help of others inside a car in April 2012. The body was disposed of in neighbouring Raigad district. The incident came to light in August 2015 after Mukerjea's then driver Shyamvar Rai, arrested by police for possessing a firearm illegally, spilt the beans. The Mumbai Police arrested Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and Rai for allegedly killing Sheena. Later, Peter, Indrani's current husband, was also arrested for allegedly being part of the conspiracy. Rai was made an approver in the case. The CBI claimed that a financial dispute was the reason for the murder. It also claimed that Indrani was opposed to Sheena's relationship with Rahul. By Express News Service VISAKHAPATNAM: Reacting strongly to extension of support to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi by the YSR Congress and Jana Sena, Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and Pawan Kalyan colluded with Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, who is against provision of Special Category Status to AP. While addressing a public meeting in Ongole on Wednesday, Naidu made a passing reference of Raos jibe of return gift after the TRS landslide victory in Telangana Assembly elections, who stated that he would interfere in AP politics. The Chief Minister reminded KCR that India is a democratic country and anyone can go anywhere and do whatever he wants. Speaking at a public meeting at Tagarapuvalasa in Visakhapatnam district on Thursday, Naidu minced no words in attacking KCR, YSR Congress and Jana Sena for working against the State interests. I raised my voice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not according SCS to AP as promised at the time of bifurcation of the State and non-fulfilment of provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act by the Centre. Modi who resorted to political vendetta, is instigating Jagan, Pawan Kalyan and even KCR against me, he said. Naidu said he wanted KCR to join hands with him to fight against Modi as the Prime Minister failed to fulfil any assurance given to the two States. KCR, however, wanted me not to join hands with the Congress. The TRS chief once supported provision of SCS to AP. Now, he is against it. ALSO READ | Despite loss, Chandrababu Naidu puts up a brave face, lauds KCR I am asking what is the problem if SCS is accorded to AP without causing any injustice to Telangana? Why TRS is opposing SCS to AP and why Jagan and Pawan Kalyan are supporting TRS, which is opposing SCS to AP? the Chief Minister questioned. Stating that he never came in the way of development of Telangana, Naidu said he wanted both the Telugu States to prosper simultaneously. On KCRs talk about forming a non-BJP and non-Congress front at the national level, Naidu made light of it and said the TRS chief was trying to mislead people. With just 16-17 Lok Sabha seats in his State, how can he come up with such a front without the support of a national party? He is just misleading the people, the TDP chief said. Making an indirect reference to KCRs tactics of raking up issues, Naidu said some people think that they cannot come into prominence, if they do not instigate others. For the past two days, they are talking in a harsh manner, but I am not the one who will be cowed down by such threats, he said. Marx Tejaswi By Express News Service CHIKKAMAGALURU: While coffee lovers continue to enjoy every sip of their favourite beverage across the globe, farmers in Karnataka are a worried lot. Mostly engaged in coffee production in Chikkamagaluru, Kodagu and Hassan districts, they are battling steep rise in cost of production, decline in productivity, climate change and man-animal conflict. The general perception is that coffee growers are rich. But we are facing a wide range of problems, like any other farmer. While big coffee planters can resist the challenges, small growers, who comprise a large number, cannot, said Ashok Kumar, who has two acres of coffee plantation at Menasina Malle Devarahalli near Chikkamagaluru. READ| We cant depend only on coffee for survival: Coffee farmer Of the 79,161 coffee land holdings in Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Madikeri and Virajpet, 76,960 holdings are of less than 10 acres, according to the Coffee Board of India data.Karnataka produces 72 per cent of coffee in the country despite increase in cost of inputs like fertilizers, chemicals, labour wages and social expenditure. Cost of several inputs has shot up by 100 per cent over the last few years, said a senior office-bearer of the Karnataka Planters Association. A bag of 50 kg of coffee beans was priced at Rs 7,000 around 20 years back. It is around Rs 7,100 to Rs 7,200 now. How is it possible to survive when on an average Rs 75,000 is invested per acre of plantation every year, but the price is so low? About seven to eight bags of beans can be grown in one acre, said B S Jairam, president of Karnataka Growers Federation. A KPA source said the productivity of Arabica variety is 478 kg per hectare in India, while it is 1,031 kg per hectare for Robusta. The productivity in Vietnam is 2,188 kg per hectare, and in Brazil, it is 1,256 kg. We are battling low price due to excess production in Vietnam, Colombia and Brazil. Unfortunately, high yielding, and disease and drought resistant varieties in Arabica and Robusta are not released in India. Due to high incidence of white stem borer menace in Arabica, productivity has declined in both Arabica and Robusta. Central Coffee Research Institute has to undertake more research to develop high yielding and disease resistant varieties, he said. Coffee plantations are affected by several factors, including high temperatures, drought, cyclone depression and high rainfall, elephant menace and flash floods, according to the farmers.Traditional rainfall-prone plantation areas of Karnataka experienced dry spells from 2014-15 to 2017-18. YEMEN COFFEE CONNECTION Coffee is said to have been introduced by Baba Budan, a pilgrim travelling to holy Islamic places. Baba brought seven coffee seeds to India from Yemen in the 17th century, which were planted in the foothills of Chandragiri of Chikkmagaluru district. Typically mild and not too acidic, the local coffee possesses an exotic full-bodied taste and a fine aroma. Ajay Kanth By Express News Service KOCHI: Another batch of Malayalees from Kannur have reportedly left for Syria to join the Islamic State (IS). For the state police and Central intelligence, it's not the journey of Malayalees from India to Syria that's worrying but the silent return of many of those who have been secretly arriving from West Asian countries to India. Though the country's enforcement agencies have been keeping a close watch on those who have left India to reach Syria via Afghanistan and Turkey, they don't have details about Keralites who have taken up clandestine activities for IS after camping in countries like Yemen, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. ALSO READ | Team probing 2015 Paris attacks grills Islamic State operative in Kerala jail So far, the agencies have been able to get UAE and other West Asian nations extradite a few of those who left India after falling for IS ideology. "It's a big challenge to keep track of those who are coming to India from West Asia after taking up activities for the IS. We only know the details of those who have left from Kerala," said a senior intelligence officer. Currently, police are verifying the details and claims of a woman in Kasargod who approached the police a few weeks back complaining her husband who was still camping in Yemen allegedly to pursue IS activities had refused to allow her to take her two children when she decided to head back home. Police have been wary of the 'silent' returnees after they got custody of Nashidul Hamzafar, 26, who had travelled to Afghanistan through the Gulf to join IS in October 2017. READ HERE | Kerala Islamic State recruitment: RAW, NIA begin probe Nashidul belonged to Kalpetta in Wayanad and Indian agencies came to know about him when he was picked by Afghan security forces while attempting to proceed to Syria. "Entering India without the agencies noticing is easy through Nepal. Anyone can fly to Nepal from any other country and use the land route to enter India from Nepal," said the officer. ALSO READ | Intel agencies on alert as Islamic State modules in Kerala switch to Wickr app As per the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), UAE alone had deported nearly five Indians between 2017 and 2018 after they were picked up by UAE authorities for their IS-related activities. "We suspect many would have operated for the IS without being traced by the agencies there. With the fall of the IS in its strongholds, these people might have taken a safe exit and have already returned to India," the officer said. By Express News Service KOCHI: An Indian Naval Ship Sunayana intercepted a suspicious fishing vessel and seized illegal arms and ammunition from the crew, off Somalian coast on Thursday. Deployed for anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden since october 6, 2018, INS Sunayna had earlier seized six AK-47s and one Light Machine Gun in previous search operations conducted on November 9 and December 07. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has doubled in 2017 and it remains a concern for ships passing the Horn of Africa. On Thursday, Sunayna, an Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) of the Southern Naval Command, sighted a suspicious fishing vessel approximately 20 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia in the Horn of Africa. The officers on board the ship intercepted the vessel and seized illegal arms such as five rifles that included AK-47 and 471 rounds of ammunition. After confiscation of the arms and ammunition, the fishing vessel was allowed to proceed. Rifles and ammunition seized by Indian navy. The vigilance exercised by the Indian Navy ships reiterates the commitment of India towards ensuring safe seas for Indian as well as international seafarers in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the Navy said in a statement. The international effort to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden/ East Coast of Somalia region involves the participation of many countries such as India, China, Japan, United States, Russia, Pakistan and the European Union Nations. Warships operating in this region for combating piracy are authorised by the United Nations Security Council Resolution to board vessels suspected of illegal activities. Image Caption Indian Navy officers conducting a search and seizure operation on board a suspicious fishing vessel off Somalian coast on Thursday. Rifles and ammunition seized by Indian navy from a fishing vessel off Somalian coast on Thursday By PTI THIRUVANAPURAM: The dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Kerala unit of the BJP affected normal life in the state Friday with most state-run and private buses keeping off the roads and shops and hotels remaining closed. The BJP had announced a state-wide hartal as a mark of respect to 55-year old Venugopalan Nair, who died after setting himself afire near the venue of the party's protest here Thursday. The saffron party claimed Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue. However, police said that Nair, in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate, said he resorted to the act due to depression and ran towards the protest venue after setting himself afire. Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has been plying services to Pamba to ease difficulties of Sabarimala pilgrims. However, three KSRTC buses were damaged in Palakkad district during stone-pelting by hartal supporters. In the capital city here, police arranged transport facilities for patients going to Medical College and the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC). "The police bus has already completed six trips till noon with more than 100 people each to the medical college and RCC route. We have also arranged a vehicle to the airport," a police official told PTI. Various traders' organisations have come out in open against the flash hartal called by the BJP as this was the second state-wide strike in less than three weeks. Shopkeepers in the famous Sweetmeat Street, a heritage street, in Kozhikode responded to the hartal by opening shops. The business capital of Kerala, Kochi, has seen a partial response to the hartal with some of the shops remaining open and vehicles plying. Certain voluntary organisations and individuals at Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway station were seen helping out the public who got stranded at the state capital. Kalesh, a courier company employee, who was seen with his bike at the railway station here, said he had already travelled over 50 km dropping various passengers at different places in the city. "About seven years ago I was stranded here even as my house is just seven kms away. From then I have been out on hartal days to help those who get stranded," he added. Humanity-First, a voluntary organisation, has also been out on the streets plying two cars and few motorcycles to help the public. The BJP district unit has also arranged vans for the students who have reached the state capital to give the NEET exam. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the BJP and said the party has itself become a "laughing stock" in the state. "The BJP has become a laughing stock by calling this hartal. The deceased had given a dying declaration to the magistrate which was against the claims made by the state BJP," Vijayan told media in New Delhi. BJP state chief P S Sreedharan Pillai Friday demanded a judicial probe into the incident of self-immolation near the party protest venue, while the state Congress chief Mullapally Ramachandran, wanted the BJP to explain why they had called a hartal. "The saffron party was exploiting the suicide of a man for political gains. This shows the political bankruptcy of the party," he said. Venugopalan Nair, a resident of Muttada near here, had suffered 90 per cent burns and succumbed at the Government Medical College Hospital, after he set himself afire. Nair tried to run towards the makeshift tent where BJP leader C K Padmanabhan is on an indefinite fast demanding lifting of prohibitory orders in and around Sabarimala hill shrine, police said. Party activists and police personnel doused the fire using drinking water and rushed him to the hospital where he died without responding to treatment. The BJP has been protesting against the state government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the Lord Ayyappa Temple and also demanding lifting of ban orders and restrictions. Anna Mathews By Express News Service KOCHI: With fears of EVM hacking and disenfranchisement of lakhs of voters reigning high, booth management was among the top priorities of the Congress during the recent Assembly elections. Managing this from behind the scenes was Kochi native Swapna Patronis, 42, one of the four national coordinators of the AICC data analytics department set up in February. Swapna, who is also Ernakulam DCC general secretary and national secretary of AICC research cell Vichar Vibhag, joined the department in May when its Shakti programme, under which every Congress worker must register, was launched. An alumnus of St Teresas College and a political science postgraduate from JNU, Swapna started working closely with the party following her MPhil thesis on the organisational structure of the Congress-I. We analysed the trends of the 2009 and 2014 elections, and gave Congress workers the responsibility to manage booths and connect with voters, said Swapna, the sole woman in the department. We started our work on the ground two months back, before the campaigning began in earnest. The Congress has lagged behind in tapping into data analytics, something the BJP has been doing since 2010. But it reaped rich rewards for the former in the recent elections, unearthing large-scale discrepancies, pointed out Swapna. From my personal experience in Telangana, I know lakhs of people from the minority community in Hyderabad were eliminated from the voters list. The Shakti programme requires every single Congress worker to register with us using their voter ID. But many complained to us that they were unable to do so. We pointed out the anomaly to the National and State Election Commission and had it rectified, she said. Swapna has been given the charge of MP, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. She felt the agrarian unrest brewing in the northern belt on a campaign visit to MPs Damoh district. We asked our workers to focus on the issues faced by farmers and also on the unemployment issue in their door-to-door campaign, she said. We were not entirely happy with the election results; we were hoping for a better margin in Rajasthan with at least 130 seats. We will have to do a detailed study to see what the flaws were and try to rectify it for the Lok Sabha elections. According to Swapna, Congress will make a return to power in 2019. We must put an end to the BJPs anti-secular policies. We are a diverse country and the peace that existed among communities has to be brought back, she said. Uma Shankar Kar By Express News Service BHAWANIPATNA: Members of the Debagunia community, who are considered harbingers of wealth as they sing in the praise of Goddess Lakshmi during the Margasira month of Odia calendar, are today languishing in poverty. Apart from reciting Lakshmi Purana during the month, they create idols of gods and goddesses by weaving paddy grains, but that does not suffice to make their ends meet. The community can be found in some pockets of Kalahandi, Nuapada, Sambalpur and Balangir districts. In Kalahandi, they have settled in Dumermunda, Banjibahal, Bhalukata, Kadopada, Tetelchuan, Mahulpada, Dhekunkupa villages. The traditional occupation of Debagunia is to visit households, particularly belonging to lower strata of society, and recite Lakshmi Purana along with playing a traditional musical instrument - Brahma Veena. They are gifted grocery items like rice and vegetables by families and in return, they present them with idols of Goddess Lakshmi and elephants for worship that are prepared by weaving paddy. This kind of paddy craft is exclusive to the Debagunia community. These days, they are preparing idols in different designs with paddy. However, whatever they earn from the occupation is not adequate and they have to depend on paddy craft items which they sell in village haats to earn living. Although those items are much in demand in both urban and rural markets, the artisans are a neglected lot in the absence of any support from Handicrafts or Industries Departments or any institutional support. Anadi Devguru of Dumermunda village under Kesinga block said there is no incentive from the Government for the craft. In 1991-92, the artisans were covered under Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) loan for promotion of paddy craft but after that, they have not been provided any financial assistance. Government officials, who were once visiting our village frequently to popularise the craft, no longer come here, he said. Assistant Manager of Directorate of Handicrafts and Cottage Industries, Debadutta Dash said as on today, there is no project to assist paddy craft or its artisans. As per the policy of the Government, a training programme on a particular craft can be organised only if there are minimum 30 artisans. However, even 30 Debagunia artisans are not present in the area which is why, we are not able to hold training camps for them, he added. By Express News Service CHENNAI : Taking strong exception to the introduction of the Dam Safety Bill, 2018, in the Lok Sabha on December 12, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to instruct the Union Ministry of Water Resources to withdraw the bill immediately as it has been introduced without consensus among the States. He also requested the Prime Minister not to proceed further with the process of legislation on Dam safety till such time that Tamil Nadus genuine concerns are addressed and a consensus evolved among all the States. Pointing out that the first proviso under Section 23 (1) of the Dam Safety Bill specifies as to if the specified dam in one State is owned by another State, then the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) would act as the State Dam Safety Organisation for that particular dam, the Chief Minister said. This implies that the dam owning State would have no rights over the safety and maintenance of the dam located in another State. At present, Mullaiperiyar, Parambikulam, Thunakkadavu and Peruvaripallam dams are owned, operated and maintained by the Tamil Nadu government by virtue of Inter State Agreements, but are located in a neighbouring State. Further, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India upheld the rights of Tamil Nadu on Mullaiperiyar dam in the judgment and decree dated May 7, 2014. Therefore, to deny Tamil Nadu the right to be the Dam Safety Authority with regard to these four dams and vesting the powers to the NDSA, would tantamount to encroaching on the rights of Tamil Nadu, which is unconstitutional. It is also a violation of the federal principles enshrined in our Constitution. The clause should be suitably amended to ensure that the Dam Safety Organisation of a State should have jurisdiction over the dams owned, controlled, operated and maintained by it, even though they are located in another State, the Chief Minister asserted. Recalling that the issue had already been brought to his notice on June 15, urging him not to legislate an Act on Dam Safety till such time all the States are consulted and consensus is evolved, the CM said the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly had adopted a resolution on June 26 expressing the concerns of the people of Tamil Nadu, on the proposed Dam Safety Bill and it was also sent to the Centre for taking immediate action. However, the serious concerns of Tamil Nadu have not been addressed at all by the Government of India and a Bill has now been introduced in the Lok Sabha without considering the views/comments of the State governments, the CM charged. Palaniswami said Tamil Nadu had suggested to include a new sub clause to ensure access to the dams by technical personnel for those dams which are located in forest areas and wildlife sanctuaries. However, this suggestion was also not incorporated. Govt giving importance to farmers: CM Namakkal: Stating that he was well aware of the difficulties farmers faced, having come from an agriculture family himself, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that the government has been focusing on the welfare of farmers and implementing the schemes introduced by the late J Jayalalithaa towards that effect. Pointing out that he still practised agriculture, he said that farmers were actually facing a tough time. Hence, considering their livelihood, the government was focusing on peasants welfare, he said. Our government has been working hard day and night for the welfare of the people. Agriculture, in which 65 per cent of the States people are involved, is the major department. We are living by them. On the other hand, steps have been taken to improve industrial activities too, he added. Betrayers moved away from party Salem: It was only betrayers who moved to other parties, while loyalists still remained with the AIADMK, stated Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Friday. The great poet Tiruvallurar talked about betrayal in his Thirukkural more than 2,000 years ago. This was for people like Senthil Balaji, he quipped. It was AIADMK that introduced him to the people and made him an MLA and a minister; Senthil should not forget that, he remarked. He made the statements after media persons asked him about former minister Senthil Balaki joining the DMK. On DMK leader M K Stalins corruption charges against the government, the CM dismissed them as mere allegations. While Stalin had claimed that the government would topple soon and the party would break, his expectations did not fulfil. Hence, he has taken to wielding this new weapon corruption allegations, the Chief Minister added. By Express News Service CHENNAI: Former Tamil Nadu transport minister and a senior functionary of Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) V Senthil Balaji finally joined the opposition DMK on Friday in the presence of the DMK president M K Stalin. Senthil Balaji, a key member in the R K Nagar MLA TTV Dhinakaran's newly launched AMMK, was one of the 18 MLAs disqualified by the Tamil Nadu assembly speaker. Senthil Balaji until Thursday did not announce his decision to jump the party, despite the media reports and people in DMK and AMMK confirming what initially spread as a rumour in Tamil Nadu's political circle. To celebrate his joining, hundreds of Senthil Balaji's supporters from Karur district thronged the opposition partys headquarters Anna Arivalayam around 12 pm on Friday afternoon. READ: Senthil Balaji's exit from AMMK brings rumblings within TTV Dhinakaran's party to fore In the pictures officially released by DMK, party president MK Stalin was seen congratulating Balaji. Two days ago, sources from DMK sources confirmed Balaji had been talking with DMK leaders in Karur and that he is most likely to join the party. On Thursday, AMMK founder TTV Dhinakaran dismissed that Senthil Balaji's exit would have any impact in his party. Former Min V Senthil Balaji says "The AIADMK led by EPS-OPS is a sinking ship; I don't want to criticise the AMMK leaders as; Since November 14, I have been away from the activities of AMMK; now attracted by the leadership of MK Stalin, I have joined the DMK now @NewIndianXpress T Muruganandham (@muruga_TNIE) December 14, 2018 However, political observers see this as a setback for the nine-month-old AMMK party as Balaji is the second senior member who has quit the party. Two months after AMMK was launched, Nanjil Sampath a staunch supporter of party deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran left the party. Balaji, who is one among the 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs, tasted his first electoral victory as a union councillor from Manmangalam panchayat in Karur union on 1996. He was elected as an independent candidate with the support of local Kongu caste outfit. He joined AIADMK in 2000 and was again given a ticket for Karur union councillor and he won the same seat for the second term on 2001. Subsequently, he was given the assembly ticket for Karur assembly segment in 2006 assembly general election. Later, he was again given a ticket for Karur assembly segment in 2011 which he and was appointed as minister for Transport department. In this situation, he was dropped from the cabinet on July 2015. By Associated Press DETROIT: Federal prosecutors in Detroit are seeking nearly 11 years in prison for an Indian man convicted of sexually assaulting a sleeping woman during a commercial flight. Prabhu Ramamoorthy is expected in federal court Thursday in Detroit. He was jailed after being accused of molesting a woman with his hands while she slept on an overnight flight from Las Vegas to Detroit in January. Ramamoorthy was in a middle seat sitting next to the victim, and his wife was sitting next to the aisle. Prosecutors called it a "brazen" assault. Defence attorneys are seeking a prison term of less than 10 years, arguing Ramamoorthy's "life as he knew it is over." Ramamoorthy had been in the US on a work visa. He'll eventually be deported to India because of the conviction. By PTI ISLAMABAD: British public broadcaster BBC has defended the omission of Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav's mention from its interview with Pakistan's Finance Minister Asad Umar, saying it was "not an act of censorship". In an interview to BBC's Stephen Sackur for the 'Hardtalk', the finance minister answered questions on various issues of national importance, including the state of Pakistan's economy and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The TV version of the interview, however, did not contain his mention of Jadhav, who was sentenced to death in 2017 by a Pakistani military tribunal on spying charges. Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari criticised the BBC for deleting the part about Jadhav, terming it "typical bias" on the part of the broadcaster. Shameful how BBC censored and chopped off Asad's mention of Indian spymaster Jhadav! Typical bias of BBC! https://t.co/sw1ReRmeJj Shireen Mazari (@ShireenMazari1) 13 December 2018 BBC 'Hardtalk' on Twitter, however, clarified that Jadhav's name had been omitted from the TV version of the interview and not the radio version, and that it was not done to censor the minister's words. His name was omitted from the TV version. This was not an act of censorship, but clearly confusion has been caused, so we are happy to restore that short section to the TV broadcast and well give the new programme an extra airing tonight as well as tomorrow morning. 2/2 https://t.co/STjcCKsWGt BBC HARDtalk (@BBCHARDtalk) 13 December 2018 As pathetic an explanation as any! BBC's bias has always been there and then there are mega bucks to be earned from India! https://t.co/F9YDKGpPk9 Shireen Mazari (@ShireenMazari1) 14 December 2018 Pakistan alleges that its security forces arrested Jadhav from Balochistan province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from Iran. India denies all the charges and maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy and that he has no links with the government. After Jadhav was sentenced to death, India moved the International Court of Justice against the verdict in May 2017. The world court has halted Jadhav's execution on India's appeal pending the final verdict by it. In October, the ICJ said it will hold hearings from February 18 to February 21 in the Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands, the seat of the court. By PTI ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR: A top court in Pakistan has given one month deadline to the federal government to complete formalities to deport Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari, whose three-year jail term will end on December 15. Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, is currently lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court to three years' imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card on December 15, 2015. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2012 for illegally entering the country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online. A two-judge Peshawar High Court bench, comprising Justice Roohul Amin and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan, on Thursday heard an appeal filed by Ansari through a senior lawyer. The petition said that the federal government hasn't taken any steps for his release. Ansari's lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, said that his client's prison term will end on December 15 and he should be released on the morning of December 16. Anwar informed the bench that the sentence of Indian national would complete after two days and both the Ministry of Interior and authorities of prison, where he was lodged, were completely silent about his release and deportation to India. After hearing this, Justice Khan asked the Additional Attorney General to explain how would they keep the prisoner in jail after completion of his term. "I wonder that after two days the jail term of the prisoner would be completed and the government did not complete requirements for releasing and deportation of the prisoner," the judge observed after additional attorney general informed the court that documents for release and deportation of the prisoner were not ready. An officer, representing the interior ministry, informed the court that a prisoner could be kept for one month while the legal documents were being prepared. After knowing the legal position, the court directed the ministry to make all the arrangements within a month for releasing and deportation of the prisoner. On previous hearing, deputy attorney general recorded his statement on behalf of the interior ministry and said Ansari would be handed over to Indian authorities at Wagah border after completion of his term. Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court. By PTI COLOMBO: Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed prime minister in a controversial move, will resign on Saturday, his son announced Friday, shortly after the Supreme Court refused to stay a court order restrained the embattled former strongman from holding the office until it fully heard the case next month. Rajapaksa was appointed as the premier on October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, plunging the nation into a constitutional crisis. "To ensure the stability of the nation, Former President @PresRajapaksa has decided to resign from the Premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation," Rajapaksa's son Namal tweeted. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) with former president, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and others will "now work to form a broader political coalition with President Sirisena", Namal, who is also a lawmaker, added. The apex court's latest ruling came a day after it unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was "illegal", in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. The Supreme Court decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand. The appeal filed by Rajapaksa will be taken up for hearing on January 16, 17 and 18. By AFP WASHINGTON DC: The US Senate dealt President Donald Trump a double blow over Saudi Arabia on Thursday, approving a resolution holding the Saudi crown prince responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and another to end US military support for Riyadh's war in Yemen. Though largely symbolic, the two bipartisan measures deliver a fresh warning to Trump, who has repeatedly signaled his backing for the Saudi regime even amid a mounting uproar over the Yemen conflict and the slaying of dissident Saudi journalist Khashoggi. On the Yemen measure, which more broadly attacks the president's prerogative to launch military actions, 49 Democrats or their allies voted in favor, along with seven Republicans, while another three Republicans abstained. Then, in a voice vote with no opposition, the Senate also approved a resolution condemning Khashoggi's murder and calling Prince Mohammed bin Salman "responsible" for it. "What the Senate did today is say that the United States Congress is sick and tired of abdicating its constitutional responsibility on matters of war," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with the Democrats. "We will not continue to have our military posture dictated by a despotic, murderous regime in Saudi Arabia." The resolutions cannot be debated in the House of Representatives before January, and would likely be vetoed in any case by Trump. But the Senate votes send a strong message to the White House over anger on both sides of the aisle towards Riyadh, intensified by the mounting civilian death toll in Yemen and the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Anger at the human cost of the war in Yemen has prompted a harder line in Congress about the US military's role in backing Saudi-led coalition strikes against Huthi rebels. The Yemen "resolution directs the president to remove US armed forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen, except those engaged in operations directed at al-Qaeda, within 30 days," the resolution states. 'Peace is possible' The resolution came the same day as UN-brokered talks in Sweden saw some progress, with Yemen's warring parties agreeing to a ceasefire at the vital port of Hodeida. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised the talks, saying "peace is possible." Four years of war in Yemen have killed about 10,000 people and are threatening up to 20 million people with starvation. Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell -- a Trump loyalist -- had called on his party to vote against the Yemen resolution. But he did back the rebuke of Prince Mohammed, crafted by Bob Corker, a Republican who has been critical of the president. Under the resolution, the Senate "believes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," the measure states. It also calls on the Saudis to release blogger Raif Badawi, his sister Samar Badawi, and Saudi women's rights activists who were arrested as political prisoners in 2018. The resolution notes "the United States-Saudi Arabia relationship is important to United States national security and economic interests" but calls on Riyadh to "moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy." The rebuke of the young heir apparent to the Saudi throne is a direct challenge to Trump, who has sought to cast doubt on the crown prince's involvement in the killing and has stressed instead the importance of US trade and military ties with Riyadh. "Here's what I believe: Saudi Arabia needs us more than we need them," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said. It's "not too much to ask -- an ally not to butcher a guy in a consulate. This is not World War II. So I'm not going to look away at what MBS did," Graham added, using the abbreviation for the crown prince. Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). Reporter Debra Pressey is a reporter covering health care at The News-Gazette. Her email is dpressey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@DLPressey). One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau For Hong Kong, we are the world's number one destination eight years in a row, handling nearly 60 million visitors per year. Many of them might be coming to our city for the second, third or many times. We also have this very gigantic number, 60 million visitors, against 7.4 million of the total population, which is eightfold of our local residents. I believe some experiences Hong Kong has encountered might be of relevance to our common challenges in this business. So I will point out four areas. First, tourists these days begin their journey well before they set foot in a city. I say so because the tour journey starts usually not by plane, nor from any hotel, but actually it starts at the desktop computer, the cellphone, the pictures on Instagram or Twitter, through word of mouth and also comments on social media. So actually the journey starts well before they set off. My second observation is that tourists know far more than before, fortunately or unfortunately, not from official channels, but from, for instance, Twitter. In fact, non-official information actually plays a more significant role than what we, the governments, are providing. The third observation is that tourists do not just come to see. The old description of sightseeing is a bit outdated because nowadays you can see a lot of things on the web. People come here to experience. Last but not the least, tourists these days instantly share their experience, real time, by split seconds, with their friends in other parts of the world. These are the major challenges that we are facing. Hong Kong experience I would also add that the typical Hong Kong experience in this business includes a highly internationalised tourist mix and a very large group of Mainland visitors. The Chief Executive mentioned just now that this year we might be seeing 60 million tourists coming to Hong Kong, with 47 million of them from the Mainland. The other 13 million are overseas visitors coming to Hong Kong, and although they capture a smaller share, it is not a small number by itself. So we are facing a very dynamic internationalised clientele coming to Hong Kong as tourists. The second experience that Hong Kong is having is that even Mainland visitors coming to Hong Kong are looking for some non-Mainland experience, because Hong Kong is not just another Chinese city. There is some uniqueness in every city, Hong Kong in particular. The third challenge we are facing is that tourism nowadays is highly cross-region and highly cross-culture. This is self-explanatory and I wont go into details. Lastly, Hong Kong is taking advantage of the multi-destination travel that we are talking about in today's forum. Multi-destination means that people do not come to a single city for tourism experience. They are hopping on - using a place to go around. A figure that I can quote is that 49%, almost half of the short-haul visitors coming to Hong Kong are having multi-destination travel. For people coming here even for a very short while, say, a few days from nearby countries, almost half of them do not stop only in Hong Kong. For long haul visitors, 88% of them coming to Hong Kong are also multi-destination travellers. This backdrop gives us the context to talk about the Belt & Road Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development. Important observations I would also share four observations and experiences with members here as a kick-off for the ensuing discussion. First, every bridge connects. I say this because Hong Kong is actually having the privilege of two major cross-boundary infrastructures commissioned in the last two months, the Express Rail Link (Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link) and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. I say every bridge connects to emphasise that infrastructures, particularly roads, railways, bridges, airports and sea ports, are important infrastructures supporting tourism. And to a certain extent, some of these infrastructures by themselves are also tourist attractions. For our case, the bridge connecting Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai is heavily patronised by first-time visitors, who come not just to Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai, but simply to have an experience of the bridge. In the initial months after the bridge opened, we had a survey which showed that about one-fifth of the visitors actually come for a single day, just to travel upon the bridge. It also says how important the investment in infrastructures that connect cities, regions and countries is, and how such investment boosts and changes the tourism landscape. The second observation also starts with every: every visitor counts. That might be easier said than done. It might be just lip service, but with the experience I mentioned, with the very interesting background that we are having among our modern day visitors, every single visitors experience in a city or country actually counts. They bring back home their experience after visiting a city, and the experience they share and the comments they make on social media are also important. So that calls for a quick response from any government or tourism industry player in tackling problems, as well as leveraging on advantages. It also calls for inter-governmental co-ordination; streamlining of cross-boundary procedures; collaboration with the travel industry; enforcement of regulations and gauging tourists' feedback. The third observation also starts with every: every bit local. It is in fact a tagline we used in one of our tourist promotions in the Sham Shui Po area in Hong Kong, a very localised district. While the world is getting highly globalised, travellers and visitors tend to focus on things that are local rather than metropolitan or international. People simply like to travel, shop, eat or dine like a local. So we discover the cities with very interesting facets that might not be revealed to visitors in the old days. We are talking about local culture, local delicacies, local traditions, local festivals, local designs or street corner cafes. This is in fact relevant to the new tagline that we are using in rediscovering our city tourism. The final observation is every difference makes a difference. Here I am talking about the diversity in any city and in our region. We are talking about rejuvenated heritage, in which Hong Kong, Macau and also Guangzhou have invested a lot. We are talking about the contrast between town and country. Yesterday night when I hosted a small dinner for incoming speakers, I talked about the wow factors created by the very stunning landscape on some of our coastline in the northeastern part of our territory, which surprised a lot of people as the common perception about Hong Kong is a metropolitan city. Actually, the hexagonal columns in the (Hong Kong UNESCO) Global Geopark in Sai Kung area are more spectacular than our skyscrapers on both sides of the harbour. These are the wow factors and differences that people coming to our city are getting. It also includes all the things about cross culture, about East meets West, and nature, which brings a contrast to a metropolitan city. To conclude, these are small things that might be too easy to neglect by policy makers or the tourism industry. But these are all little things that a big city destination like Hong Kong is facing day-in and day-out. But nothing is better than having all these dots connected and these experiences shared in the forum today. We hope this would be one of the dots that would connect Hong Kong with the neighbouring cities in the greater bay area. We hope this would connect Hong Kong and the tourism industry around the world when we explore the vast markets along the Belt & Road. Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau gave these remarks at the Hong Kong International Tourism Convention on December 12. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has commended the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in its latest assessment of the city. An IMF Staff Mission said many years of prudent macroeconomic policies have endowed the city with strong buffers to navigate through challenges and ensure continued stability despite increasing risks confronting global growth. The mission made the assessment in a statement published today, following the 2018 Article IV Consultation with the HKSAR. Financial Secretary Paul Chan welcomed the IMFs reassuring forecast for Hong Kong and reaffirmation of the citys strong buffers and robust policy frameworks. While we are well placed to navigate the challenges ahead, the Government will stay vigilant in monitoring risks, and spare no efforts in boosting economic vibrancy and promoting economic growth. To support long-term growth, the Government is working to increase labour force participation and further enhance Hong Kongs competitiveness. Mr Chan also welcomed the missions acknowledgement of the steps taken by the Government, including capitalising on the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and rapid advancement in innovation and technology. Monetary Authority Chief Executive Norman Chan welcomed the missions reaffirmation that the Linked Exchange Rate System remains the appropriate arrangement for Hong Kong, serving as an anchor of stability for the economy. The mission visited Hong Kong from October 29 to November 9 to hold discussions with government officials, regulators and private sector representatives for the 2018 Article IV consultation. Click here for the statement. Financial Secretary Paul Chan speaks with the operator of a specialty shop in Kowloon City. Financial Secretary Paul Chan visited a school and toured specialty shops in Kowloon City today. Mr Chan first visited Mary Rose School where he was briefed by its principal on the operation of the school. The school was established in 1970 to provide a good learning environment to children with intellectual disabilities. Mr Chan then visited specialty shops and exchanged views with business operators and members of the community. He said the consultation exercise for the 2019-20 Budget has been launched and encouraged people to express their views. Mr Chan also met District Councillors. Chief Executive Carrie Lam lays a wreath to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre and the Japanese invasion. Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other senior officials have attended a ceremony in commemoration of the victims of the Nanjing Massacre and the Japanese invasion. Mrs Lam laid a wreath and signed the memorial book at the ceremony held at the Museum of Coastal Defence today. Attendees included National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference Vice-Chairman CY Leung, Central Government organisations in Hong Kong, a representative from the Judiciary, Legislative Councillors and Executive Councillors, former members of the Hong Kong Independent Battalion of the Dongjiang Column, war veterans groups, community dignitaries and student groups. The Government will conduct a study on establishing an accreditation mechanism for Chinese pharmacists as suggested in the Ombudsman's report. Responding to the report today, the Food & Health Bureau and the Department of Health acknowledged that there is room for improvement on the regulation of proprietary Chinese medicine, adding that they will follow up on the reports recommendations. The bureau said improvement measures are underway, including providing support to the trade through the $500 million Chinese Medicine Development Fund. It is amending the definition of proprietary Chinese medicine under the Chinese Medicine Ordinance, and plans to brief the Legislative Council on the amendment proposals next year. The Government said it has been providing technical support in recent years, significantly improving the progress of proprietary Chinese medicine registration since the system was implemented in 2003. It will continue to explore ways to further expedite the registration process, including providing a subsidy to the trade through the fund to help them acquire the necessary technical support and testing service to complete the formal registration requirements as soon as possible. Police College Director Edwina Lau (centre) briefs the media on activities to celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the Hong Kong Police Force. The Hong Kong Police will organise a series of activities under the theme of Serve & Protect Hong Kong 175 Years in celebration of its 175th anniversary next year. Briefing the media today, Police College Director Edwina Lau said the force aims to showcase its professional performance and commitment through the activities and enhance the publics understanding on policing work. Through attending these celebratory events, definitely the general public will have more occasions, more opportunities to come to see the work of the Police, to understand more about our work culture, so as to enhance our relationship with the public. The Hong Kong Police Force 175th Anniversary Open Day will kick start the celebratory activities. The event will be held on January 12, 13, 19 and 20 at the Foundation Training School of the Police College at Wong Chuk Hang and will feature parades staged by police elite teams and a 3D video featuring local history, the establishment of the force and major events over the past decades. A total of 12,000 admission tickets for the open day will be distributed on December 16. Other events next year will include open days of police stations and [email protected] Heung, guided tours at historic police buildings, exhibitions and a charity concert. Ms Cheng (third left) visits the Hong Kong Guide Dogs Association Jockey Club Education & Training Centre. Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng (fourth left) visits SKH Tak Tin Lee Shiu Keung Primary School and watches a student demonstration on using coding programmes to control robots. Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng visited a primary school and a guide dogs centre in Kwun Tong District today. Ms Cheng visited SKH Tak Tin Lee Shiu Keung Primary School in Lam Tin to learn about the school's creative English teaching project which helps students learn the language in a fun and interactive way. She also watched student demonstrations on controlling robots with coding programmes. Ms Cheng then went to the Hong Kong Guide Dogs Association Jockey Club Education & Training Centre in Tsui Ping Estate. The centre provides free professional trained dog services for people with visual impairment, autism and other disabilities. Ms Cheng also met District Councillors. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. We all know that luxury fashion can be indulgent but for one Russian priest it has become downright sinful. After posting photos of various Louis Vuitton and Gucci accessories to Instagram, the arch priest of the Tver region in Russia, Vyacheslav Baskakov, was condemned by the Orthodox church for his "immodest and unrestrained lifestyle." Apart from clearly being unable to handle Baskakov's stone cold flexes, a spokesperson for the church said that a disciplinary committee would be opening up an investigation in order to "return him to his senses." Baskakov has since apologized for his behavior and sadly deleted his Instagram account saying that he will pay penance "since I do not know how to behave modestly and adequately." Photo via Instagram As for his motivations behind the account, Baskakov explained that he only wanted to highlight "everything that was pleasant and not sinful." Honestly, the church shouldn't fault Baskakov for appreciating the finer things in life and wanting to share that with his flock. We all remember the televangelist that earlier this year tried to raise $54 million from his followers for a private jet, at least Baskakov had some taste. Photo via Instagram "The majority of the pictures were taken inside shops...No priest can afford such things," the priest admits. Currently hospitalized for neuralgia, a chronic pain condition, Baskakov said that his doctor gave him the original inspiration for his hypebeast lifestyle saying that a "change of scenery" could help to distract from his symptoms. "So that's what it came to, changing what I could [my] shoes and scarf." Photo via Getty With Tumblr's adult content ban looming on the horizon and the unfortunate shutdowns of Backpage and Craigslist's personals section, it's no secret that sex workers have struggled to find new ways to connect with clients and the rest of their community. And though we're currently living in a world where sex work is blatantly under attack by big corporations and legislative bodies, a new resource called Switter has (thankfully) emerged and it has the potential to help organize the entire industry and keep it afloat. The brainchild of sex worker Lola Hunt, as well as technologists chendo and Eliza Sorenson who together as the Melbourne-based Assembly Four Switter is social network for sex workers, free of censorship, stigma, and misguided legislation. Unfortunately though, it's also an endeavor that has all the odds stacked against them and given the way the news has been going, it doesn't look like that'll be changing anytime soon. However, that hasn't stopped close to 200,000 people signing up for the platform since its launch eight months ago. After all, in the wake of increased scrutiny surrounding online sex work communities, Switter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for those looking to connect with clients and other sex workers. Whether it's being used for sharing safety tips, advertising, or keeping an in-depth Bad Date List alive, Switter is one of the few remaining tools available to sex workers something that's even more important in a post-FOSTA/SESTA world. "It's definitely become a refuge for a lot of workers. Particularly those in street work and many minority workers who would have had to turn back working under predatory parties," Hunt said, comparing the shutdown of sites like Backpage and Craigslist personals to having your office building gone. "We've received multiple emails from workers who have thanked us profusely for building this site, telling us they would either be homeless or they couldn't feed their kids without it." "It feels like sex workers for the first time are gaining control in terms of the services we use." Not only that, but Switter has also empowered other sex workers to start their own initiatives, products, and sites, from hosting providers to groups dedicated to building websites. "To bring a positive to it, it feels like sex workers for the first time are gaining control in terms of the services we use," Hunt explained. "And that's probably the only amount of control we have at the moment, but it's definitely a shake up." Born one night after chendo's discovery of a decentralized, open-source microblogging platform known as Mastodon, the two immediately saw the possibilities the social network could offer for sex workers and got to work right away. "I was like, 'We need to set this up for sex workers,'" Hunt said, explaining that she herself was going through the process of being banned on Twitter at the time. "We thought that maybe a few workers that had been shadowbanned on Twitter could move over there and it would be a little platform where people would share and communicate." Hunt laughed as she recalled that particular moment, "I was pushing chendo to launch that night" an urgent instinct that proved to (unfortunately) be well founded. And soon after Hunt tweeted out the link, it went semi-viral on Twitter launching a mass migration to the nascent platform. "We just didn't understand the need for this at all. I had never seen growth in that way. My Twitter account was going crazy," she said. "Then FOSTA/SESTA was signed in a week after and we realized what was on our hands." Soon, Sorenson joined the team and the trio embarked upon an eight-month journey that Hunt calls "fantastic," yet "terrifying" in its implications. After all, as Sorenson noted, the sex work community is one that "usually pretty self-sufficient" and chooses to "stay in their own sorts of spaces." However, the looming attack on their livelihoods spurred thousands of sex workers to join something that Sorenson believes "shows how needed a platform like this was." And the need for Switter has only grown, especially in the wake of Tumblr's announcement regarding their forthcoming ban on adult content. "When it comes to tech there's so much pent up stigma [...] No one really wants to touch us." However, despite their initial success and the obvious need for this platform, Switter has faced almost constant roadblocks when it comes to things many other industries take for granted, like server hosting or online banking. "When it comes to tech there's so much pent up stigma," Hunt explains. "No one really wants to touch us and from what we've experienced over the past year, we can definitely see why no one else has tackled the sex industry, because it is such a difficult industry to operate in." Enter the platform's drama with Cloudflare, the content delivery platform that shortly after Switter's founding effectively blocked it from operating, leading many to panic and believe the network had been compromised and completely shut down. "After that we decided it was too much of a risk to run with U.S.-based services," Sorenson said. "It was a real shock to learn that a U.S. law can dictate how someone in a totally different country runs their life," Hunt said. Unfortunately though, America's legislative impact on Switter doesn't stop there, as money has also been a "massive struggle" for the platform. After all, it's no secret that most (surprise, U.S.-based) fundraising sites are also anti-sex work something that makes keeping Switter up and running extremely difficult. Assembly Four's solution? In addition to a Donations page as well as a Patreon that supports the digital security workshops they run, the team has set up another endeavor known as Tryst a paid advertising platform for escorts. And while the platform is still in beta testing, the potential for Tryst to eventually act as an inclusive, streamlined directory that feeds back into the Switter community is massive. That said, however ingenious their solution, it's hard to ignore the fact that Assembly Four must work 10 times as hard as any other start-up to merely survive a horrifying realization, especially when taking into account the fact that many of the people Switter helps already have incredible odds stacked against them. However, while frustrating, both Hunt and Sorenson also agree that at the very least setbacks like the ThotAudit and Tumblr's recent decision have begun to bring mainstream tech's attention to the actual community and its needs. "As a tech worker, a lot of us built the infrastructure, the software that is running today," Sorenson said, emphasizing the fact that tech is, and always has been, politicized. "I think we have an obligation to our users for it to not be turned against them... it's simply not good for us to say this doesn't affect us." Donate to Switter via their website here. News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism. Activists Condemn Rouhani Government's Minimal Proposed Funding For Disability Rights in Iran 12/14/18 Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran Advocates for the rights of people with disabilities in Iran have condemned the minimal budgetary allocation proposed by the government of President Hassan Rouhani to implement the country's Law for the Protection of the Rights of Disabled Persons. People with disabilities in Iran ignored by officials (source: Iranian daily Khorasan) "The current proposed budget, if approved [by Parliament], would only be enough to maintain the status quo, more or less," Pouya, a disability rights activist in Iran, told CHRI. "The consequences of this bill and the economic impact on people with disabilities will be a wakeup call for the authorities and lawmakers to pay more serious attention to the demands of the community," added Pouya, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals by security forces for speaking to a foreign media outlet. In response to calls by disability rights advocates for the Rouhani government to allocate a separate budget to implement the Law for the Protection of the Rights of Disabled Persons, Member of Parliament Homayoun Hashemi said on December 5, 2018, that the Plan and Budget Organization (PBO) had approved setting aside specified funding. Hashemi, the former head of the SWO, added that the allocation would be debated in Parliament after President Rouhani submitted the draft budget bill on December 6. He did not indicate how much in state funds would be allocated. That same day, Behrouz Morovvati, chairman of the Campaign for the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, an Iran-based disability rights advocacy group, told a state-funded media outlet that the allocated budget is 11 trillion rials (approximately $261 million USD)-a tenth of what the State Welfare Organization (SWO) had requested. Morovvati had been informed of the amount by the head of the PBO. "Obviously, this amount is not enough to carry out the law," Morovvati told the Iranian Labor News Agency. "In a meeting we had with the head of the PBO, Mr. [Mohammad Bagher] Nobakht, it became clear to us that the law would not receive the needed resources." "We were told the reason is low oil revenues and the sanctions," he added. Before the government presented the budget bill to Parliament, disability rights groups reminded the Rouhani administration that according to Article 30 of the new law, which came into effect in Iran in April 2018, the government is required to set aside allocated funding for its implementation, separate from the SWO's budget. To make their voices heard, several people with disabilities and their supporters held gatherings in various cities, including in front of the PBO's headquarters in Tehran. In a statement issued December 1, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) also urged the Rouhani government to fulfill its responsibility to implement the Law for the Protection of the Rights of Disabled Persons by specifically allocating funds to enforce it. Allocating just one-tenth of the requested budget would seriously hamper the implementation process. The Rouhani government's decision to allocate a separate budget for the implementation of Iran's disability rights law is a positive step but the proposed amount is not enough to support the needs of a considerable portion of people with disabilities in Iran who are struggling to make ends meet under the current economic crisis. "Enforcing all the provisions of this law will require a lot more money," Pouya, the disability rights activist, told CHRI. "For instance... funds for nursing care were supposed to be paid for all the disabled in need, not just those with spinal injuries [as specified in the proposed budget]," he said. "That means extending nursing assistance coverage from about 24,000 people to more than 700,000 people. That needs a very large budget." "In addition, making public spaces and transportation vehicles disabled-friendly, carrying out training programs and paying tuition for students with disabilities would need a large budget in the current economic climate," said Pouya, adding that the proposed amount wouldn't be able to cover these and many other programs and services for people with disabilities in Iran. SPECIAL REPORT: People in Iran With Disabilities Face Discrimination and Abuse Related Article: World Day for Disabled People: Iranian minister calls on mayors to go to work on wheelchairs IRAN: President Rouhani Order For More Women In Top Posts 'Ignored' 12/14/18 Source: Radio Farda A member of the women's faction in the Iranian Parliament says only 17 percent of managerial positions in Iran are held by women and that President Hassan Rouhani's order to appoint women to 30 percent of managerial posts has been ignored. A Woman In Saudi Arabia was appointed as a Minister's VP "Rohani: Why all my orders are being implemented by Saudis?" Satire by Iman Khaksar, Iranian daily Ghanoon Speaking to the parliament's official site, Khane-ye Mellat (the Nation's House), Fatemeh Zolghadr says that despite their efforts, Rouhani's order has been overlooked. Although Zolghadr did not list the reasons for the order being ignored, Rouhani's deputy for women and family affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, recently announced that there are still "sensitivities" and "religious ambiguities" concerning women's service in some positions. "There are glass ceilings" that prevent Iranian women from certain appointments, Ebtekar argued, adding that "one cannot explicitly say that employing women to serve in these positions is banned or allowed by religious regulations." Referring to her managerial experience, Ebtekar said, "When I was first appointed deputy president during Mohammad Khatami's pro-reform cabinet [1997-2005], there was a religious debate over its credibility, but none of the [Shi'ite] jurists said the appointment was against Shari'a (Islamic law)." Nearly four decades ago, before the Islamic Revolution, the appointment of women as ministers and judges in Iran was a generally accepted practice. Iran was one of the first countries in the region to appoint a woman as a cabinet minister. Farrokhroo Parsa was an Iranian physician, educator, and parliamentarian as well as the first female cabinet minister under the shah, from 1968 to 1971. After the 1979 revolution, she was accused of ambiguous charges by an Islamic Revolutionary Court and later executed by firing squad. Madam Minister, Farrokhroo Parsa A book by Mansoureh Pirnia Nevertheless, in past decades, Iranian women have been banned from serving as judges, while only one woman, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, succeeded in serving as minister -- health and medical education minister (2009-2013) under conservative President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Although Rouhani has repeatedly promised to allocate higher positions to women, he has preferred to keep them out of his cabinet so far. Rouhani, a relative moderate, won re-election in May 2017 with the support of reformists and women after vowing to improve civil liberties and rebuild ties with the West. Women at a cheering for Rouhani in a May 2017 rally Nevertheless, Rouhani made it clear after the elections that he was not going to appoint women for high-level, ministerial positions, "Appointing women to serve in key positions should be done in a step-by-step manner," he said on June 24, 2017. There are discriminatory approaches against women serving in high managerial positions, Zolghadr says, adding, "The statistics show that only 17% of managerial positions are occupied by women." Zolghadr says Iranian women's share in the country's job market is only 16 percent, which is quite low compared with other countries. "The share of Iranian women in the national job market is so low and indefensible since 63 percent of university lecturers are women," Zolghadr says, calling upon Rouhani's deputy in women's and family affairs to look into the matter. According to Zolghadr, one of the main barriers for women is a "petty culture" that should be changed. My Share Of Politics Rouhani asked his ministers on December 12 to give more management positions to youth, women, and people from ethnic groups. "One of the promises that I made during my campaign was...giving management positions to them," Rouhani's official site, President.ir, reported. "The other promise I made was taking advantage of young people in management positions," he added. "I have always urged all ministers and deputy presidents to choose at least some of their deputies and advisers from women, young people, and different ethnic groups; this has been stressed by me and I emphasize this again to governors-general," he continued. No woman currently holds a ministerial role, but Rouhani appointed three women as members of his cabinet, two as deputy presidents and one as his assistant, reported the government's official daily, Iran. Iran Set to Execute Third Individual Sentenced by "Corruption Court" For Alleged Economic Crimes 12/14/18 Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran Two Men Already Executed, 1,700 Others Summoned Since Courts Set Up Four Months Ago Hamid Bagheri Iran's Sultan Of Tar Iran's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence issued against Hamid Bagheri by the country's new "corruption courts" system and handed it down for enforcement, the Chief Prosecutor of Tehran Province Gholam-Hossein Esmaili announced December 11, 2018. It is not clear whether the accused had access to legal counsel. If the sentence is carried out, Bagheri would be the third person to be executed by order of the courts, which were set up by Iran's judiciary and approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in August 2018 to try individuals accused of economic corruption. At least 1,700 people have also been summoned to the special courts, of which 540 were banned from leaving the country, 424 formally charged, and 133 detained, the capital's Chief Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi told reporters on December 11. Two of the five people who had been sentenced to death since the court was set up four months ago-Vahid Mazloumin and Mohammad Esmail Ghassemi-were hanged in November. The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has condemned the courts for gravely violating the right to due process and the right to a fair trial in Iran. 133 People Jailed by Corruption Courts in Four Months According to the state-funded Mehr News Agency, Bagheri was sentenced to death by Judge Abolqasem Salavati-notorious for issuing harsh sentences in politically sensitive cases-for the charge of "committing corruption on earth by way of the fraudulent sale of 322,343,336 kilograms of tar in a network of several individuals as the CEO of Jey Oil Co. www.jeyoil.com." Based in Tehran, Jey Oil describes itself as the largest producer of tar in the Middle East. The case included 33 other defendants, five of whom had fled the country, Mehr reported. Meanwhile, Dariush Ebrahimian Bilandi and Younes Bahaeddini are awaiting the outcome of their appeals against their death sentences issued by the special court for economic crimes in Fars Province on November 6 for the charge of "organized disruption of the country's banking and economic network." Since the courts were set up in late summer, some 133 people have also been jailed, 50 of whom were convicted of currency-related crimes," Dowlatabadi said. "We would've had greater problems if the judiciary had not taken action against recent corruption," Dowlatabadi added. "The enemies want to accuse the Islamic Republic and its officials of corruption. Therefore we must strongly press forward." In addition to the corruption courts' denials of the rights to due process and a fair trial, and the state's assumption of guilt that they reflect, these courts have been established in a context of growing violations of law by the Iranian judiciary. The refusal of the judiciary to defend citizens against rights violations by the state; the blanket approval of routine denials of due process and a fair trial; the intensified restrictions on counsel that now allow defendants in any "national security" case to pick only from a list of state-approved attorneys; and the growing number of lawyers the judiciary has put behind bars for trying to defend their clients, all speak to a judiciary that has dismissed any obligations to follow the rule of law. The United Nations and the European Union have repeatedly called on Iran to address serious violations of due process and the right to a fair trial. "These corruption courts represent yet another arena of judicial abuse in Iran," said CHRI's Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi. "The judiciary is supposed to defend the law-and citizens' protections under that law," he added. "Instead, the Iranian judiciary is leading the way in trampling citizens' rights and defending the system that allows this." Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi also condemned the courts in an interview with CHRI on November 13, 2018, describing the quick prosecution and heavy sentences as "a masquerade of justice." "Instead of implementing justice, the state is pretending to be seeking justice, meaning that ...judicial procedures, bringing charges, the right to legal counsel - none of these things are clear in these cases," she said. The Government, through the Ministry of Communication, has successfully implemented the Common Monitoring Platform (CMP) to monitor and verify revenues accrued to telecommunication firms. This brings into effect the provision in the Communications Service Tax Act, 2013 (Act 864). Mrs Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister of Communications, addressing journalists at the Meet-the Press series in Accra on Thursday, said all the concerns raised by stakeholders had been addressed and all mobile network operators (MNOs) connected to the platform. The CMP provides services such as traffic monitoring, revenue assurance, fraud management and mobile money monitoring. The Minister noted that the platform provided real-time accurate and independent monitoring of all voice traffic volumes and ensured the comprehensive billing verification and collection of all telecom-related taxes, levies and regulatory fees due government, while promoting tax compliance. It monitors the amount of revenue generated by Service Providers across various revenue streams (Data, Voice, Value Added Services, mobile money, and wholesale services among others for the purpose of computing the CST, VAT, NHIL and the 1 per cent universal access contributions, she added. Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the system offered the technological means to detect and eliminate fraudulent and unlicensed operators through the appropriate tracking of international inbound traffic. This, she said, would help reduce operations of SIM box operators as MNOs block SIM cards used for such fraudulent operations. Five thousand daily calls are generated from about 57 countries to monitor how they are terminated in Ghana. When these international calls are terminated as local calls, it confirms the fraudulent use of SIM boxes to bypass the authorised international gateways. The numbers used to perpetrate SIM box fraud are sent to operators to block and to provide data to facilitate the geographical location (geolocation) and elimination of these SIM boxes. We must emphasise that only the signalling information and data required by the NCA and GRA for their regulatory and compliance functions are received by the CMP. No customer voice or data communication is received by it, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful assured. The law enjoined the Minister of Finance to collaborate with the Communication Minister to establish a monitoring mechanism to verify the actual revenue that accrued to network vendors for the purpose of computing taxes due the Government. The legislation allowed physical access to the nodes of the vendors' network at an equivalent point in the network where the providers' billing systems are connected. This ensures that a common platform is used for the purpose of monitoring revenues under the Act as well as revenues accruing from levies under the Electronic Communications Act 2009, (Act 775). Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Minister of Communication, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has cautioned Ghanaians to pay heed to the warnings of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) against investing in cryptocurrency products not licensed by the regulator. She said any individual who ignores such warnings should not expect the government running to their aid should they lose their investments. Lets listen to the Bank of Ghana when they issue an alert. Bitcoin is not regulated by the Bank of Ghana and, so, when you invest, you do so at your own risk. Dont call on government to bail you out when you lose, she said on Thursday, 12 December 2018 at the Meet The Press series at the conference room of the Ministry of Information. What can we do using technology to protect us? Currently Im sad to say, not much. We all have to be wise, let us use our commonsense. It is not everybody who promises enormous profit who is genuine, and even that should put you on your guard. It may take a longer time to get rich but your money will be secure. If you gamble, you stand the risk of making fantastic profit or you stand the risk of losing your investment. That is an individual choice and, so, we need to be wise, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful added. Just recently exactly 109, 259 Ghanaian investors were scammed by Global Coin Community Help (GCCH), a cryptocurrency investment syndicate. The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) in November 2018 grilled the two directors of GCCH for allegedly swindling the investors of GHS135 million. The two GCCH directors, Mr Kwaku Damete Kumi and Mr David Opatey, were released on bail. The bitcoin or cryptocurrency platform serves as a medium of exchange created and stored electronically in the block chain, using encryption techniques to control the creation of monetary units and to verify the transfer of funds. It has no physical form and exists only in the network. Its supply is not determined by the central bank and the network is completely decentralised. The central bank, in early November, warned that it had not issued licences to the following companies to carry out deposit-taking activities. They are: Global Coin Community Help International Limited (GCCH), Wealth Drive Ghana Limited (WDG), Devonshire Place Capital Ghana Limited, TCL Markets Ghana Limited, FX-Crypto Traders and Sonsis Susu Services Limited. A statement signed by the Secretary to the BoG, Mrs Frances Van-Hein Sackey, warned: Anyone who does business with these entities does so at his or her own risk and the Bank of Ghana will not be liable for the refund of any deposit lost by a depositor. Source: classfmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video In its quest to meet the capital requirement set by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the Agricultural Development Bank is set to raise GH383 Million. The Bank is therefore, seeking to hold an extraordinary general meeting on December 20, to seek shareholders approval to raise the required funds. This was disclosed in a statement issued yesterday by the bank. As at September this year, ADBs stated capital was GH275 million, which is expected to increase to GH425 million if it is able to raise the planned amount. Recapitalization BoG made some reforms in the banking sector last year, directing banks to raise GH400 million minimum capital before December 31st, 2018. Twenty banks, according to BoG have so far met the requirement, and ADB is one of the remaining banks working round the clock to beat the deadline. As part of its agenda to meet the requirement, ADB, amongst others, is seeking to authorize its directors to raise a minimum of GH450 million through a renounceable rights issue subject to applicable regulatory approvals. Also the bank will authorize the conversion of a subordinated debt of GHS150, 000,000 owed the Bank of Ghana into equity as part of the capital raising process. To authorize Directors, subject to applicable rules, to determine the modalities of the renounceable rights issue. ADB would also ratify the appointment of Directors, approve Directors remunerations, and ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young as Auditors. Meanwhile, banks that will be unable to meet the capital level, will either lose their license, drop to a Savings and Loans category, or may opt to completely fold up. Source: The Publisher Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Professor Angela L. OforiAtta, the Chairperson of the Ghana Psychology Council (GPC), says approximately seven per cent of Ghanas Gross National Product (GNP) is lost to improper mental healthcare of citizens. She said many industries lost productivity due to the less importance paid to employing industrial or organisational psychologists into their various fields to monitor and evaluate the input of the workforce. Prof. Ofori-Atta, therefore, tasked leadership of institutions and organisations to employ the services of psychologists to help reduce the burden of emotional and mental disorders in schools, the workplace and communities to increase productivity and restore the seven per cent deficit of the GNP. She noted that investing such services was one of the best and surest ways to protecting people and promoting national development. Prof. Ofori-Atta said this at the Ghana Psychology Councils Second Induction ceremony for 352 Licensed Psychologists, Paraprofessionals in Psychology and Lay Counsellors in Accra, on the theme: Securing the Profession, Protecting the People. Under Act 857, the core functions of practitioners are to teach, heal and research to maintain and promote emotional and mental wellbeing of the people. Prof. OforiAtta, however, cautioned practitioners not to abuse the powers given in their bid to counsel their clients. She further urged them to seek evidence-based best practices in industry, health, education and research and work within their mandate. Touching on children, Prof. Ofori-Atta noted that mildly-intellectually challenged and learning disordered children were not assessed and helped to reach their potentials. We are losing the uplifting effects of geniuses who drop out of school because classrooms are too boring and not equipped with educational psychologists, she said. Our children and adults made ill by trauma have nowhere to turn to But to prayer camps where their very human rights are taken away from them. Prof. OforiAtta observed that television programmes were not monitored in order to prevent children from being exposed to violence and wrong values. Mr Kweku Agyeman-Manu, the Minister of Health, in a speech read on his behalf, noted that the role of practitioners, under Act 857, in promoting and maintaining emotional and mental wellbeing of the people, could not be overemphasised. He lauded the role of several hundreds of practitioners in religious and community-based organisations who have supported many Ghanaians through thick and thin. Mr Agyeman-Manu said where there were psychologists, the burden of emotional difficulties was reduced resulting in increased productivity and rise in learning potentials. He charged the Ghana Psychology Council to regulate discipline and best practices in Applied Psychology as well as ensure the absence of abuse of power among some practitioners. Mr Agyeman-Manu appealed to the GPC to expedite the completion of its Legislative Instrument so it would be put before Parliament by mid next year. Rev. Dr Dinah Baah-Odoom, the Registrar of GPC, said the theme sought to protect citizens from charlatans and extortionists. She said the Council also sought to ensure that practitioners adhered to the highest standards in the practice of Applied psychology in the country. The Council, the Registrar noted, will be conducting periodic monitoring of professional standards and conducts of licensed professionals. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Immediate past General Secretary for the Ghana Association of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists, Micheal Amo Omari has disclosed that no laboratory Scientist has been consulted on the drone healthcare delivery programme. I am saying this for a fact that no Laboratory Scientist or any of our stakeholder bodies have been consulted on the 12.5 million-dollar drone contract project, he said. According to him, no laboratory Scientist is against the introduction or implementation of the Zipline project, but the country at its health delivery level presently is not ready to welcome such a programme and has no credentials to efficiently manage it. He stated that the state will benefit more should government use the loan allocated for the Zipline contract to build more laboratory centres in the places targeted for the project, since there are a lot of prominent arrangements needed in the health sector than drone-delivery technology of blood and medicine. Mr. Amo Omari in an interview on UTVs Friday edition of Adekye Nsroma rogramme insisted, Indeed drone technology cannot control loss of lives as perceived as the brain behind the drone technology invention. Equipment, employment of staffs and policy guidelines for work implementation are very challenging problems facing the health sector that when not well addressed cannot make the zipline policy work effectively, he advised. Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Regent of Dagbon, Kampakuya-Naa Anadani Yakubu Abdulai has raised a number of concerns with the mediation process aimed at bringing peace to Dagbon. In a statement addressed to former President John Agyekum Kufuor and John Dramani Mahama as well President Nana Akufo Addo, the Dagbon Regent accused the Committee of Eminent Chiefs brokering peace in the Dagbon chieftaincy empasse [Otumfuo Mediation Committee] of bias, adding that their decisions are entirely out of tune with the principles of mediation and with Dagbon customs. The pronouncements of His Majesty Otumfuo before Your Excellency on 21st November exposes clearly the untruths on which the decisions of the Mediation Committee of the Eminent Chiefs is based. Their decisions, entirely out of tune with the principles of mediation and with Dagbon customs, appear to be aimed at achieving an agenda that should not be adopted by Your Excellency, democratic father of all Ghanaians, under the oath you took upon the assumption of office. The bias of the Otumfuo Committee against the non-partisan Kingmakers of Dagbon is quite palpable. The Eminent Chiefs ignored them to set up this Council to perform their functions. Many of the members of the Committee were Princes aspiring to chieftaincy promotions and even to the Yendi skins. Their mandate included, among others, the offer of advice on the performance of funerals, including that of the Yaa-Naa and the appointment of replacement chiefs for those deceased. The Regent expressed his dissatisfaction with what he called a deliberate attempt to prevent him from carrying out his responsibilities of administering stool lands and installing chiefs. The Regent also denied what he described as the misleading impression created by the Otumfuo during his speech at Jubilee House that he deliberately acted to prevent the performance of the final funeral rites of his late father, Naa Yakubu II. This erroneous impression, which the Mediation Committee is seeking to create cannot be supported by the facts, and appears to be the case of giving a dog a bad name, to hang it. I have consistently demonstrated by word and deed, to the knowledge of the Mediation Committee and the Government of Ghana my eagerness to see the performance of the final funeral rites of my murdered late father, in accordance with the customs of Dagbon, I write to express to Your Excellency my appreciation for your determination to bring enduring peace to Dagbon. I also wish to draw your attention to the following critical issues arising from the last meeting of the Mediation Committee (MC) set up to bring Dagbon peacefully back to its culture and traditions as it relates to the Nam of Yani and the subsequent presentation of their progress report to Your Excellency on Wednesday 21st November 2018, he said in the statement. Below is the statement from the Regent MATTERS ARISING FROM THE PROGRESS REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF EMINENT CHIEFS PRESENTED TO YOUR EXCELLENCY ON 21st NOVEMBER, 2018 I write to express to Your Excellency my appreciation for your determination to bring enduring peace to Dagbon. I also wish to draw your attention to the following critical issues arising from the last meeting of the Mediation Committee (MC) set up to bring Dagbon peacefully back to its culture and traditions as it relates to the Nam of Yani and the subsequent presentation of their progress report to Your Excellency on Wednesday 21st November 2018. The pronouncements of His Majesty Otumfuo before Your Excellency on 21st November exposes clearly the untruths on which the decisions of the Mediation Committee of the Eminent Chiefs is based. Their decisions, entirely out of tune with the principles of mediation and with Dagbon customs, appear to be aimed at achieving an agenda that should not be adopted by Your Excellency, democratic father of all Ghanaians, under the oath you took upon the assumption of office. FINAL FUNERALS RITES OF MY LATE FATHER, NAA YAKUBU II Your Excellency, I wish to categorically deny the misleading impression created by the Otumfuo during his speech at Jubilee House that I have deliberately acted to prevent the performance of the final funeral rites of my late father, Naa Yakubu II. This erroneous impression, which the Mediation Committee is seeking to create cannot be supported by the facts, and appears to be the case of giving a dog a bad name, to hang it. I have consistently demonstrated by word and deed, to the knowledge of the Mediation Committee and the Government of Ghana my eagerness to see the performance of the final funeral rites of my murdered late father, in accordance with the customs of Dagbon. I recall that, on Tuesday 12th February 2013, I invited the following senior chiefs to the Gbewaa Palace, for a discussion of related matters: 1. Kar-Naa Mahama Adam (deceased); 2. Yoo-Naa Abukari Mahama; 3. Mion-Lana Alhassan Abudu Ziblim (deceased). I expressed to them my strong desire to commence preparations for the performance of the final funeral rites for Naa Yakubu II. To give effect to this strong desire, I directed them to lend support for the reconstruction of the houses of key elders that were destroyed in the unfortunate events in Yendi in March 2002. The affected homes were those for Mba Dugu, Kpahigu, Malli and Gu-Lana. The need for the rehabilitation of the Palaces of Zohe-Naa and Kum-Lana was also tabled, because of their role in the enskinment of a new Yaa-Naa which would undoubtedly have taken place at the end of Naa Yakubus funeral rites. The three, namely, Kar-Naa, Yoo-Naa, and Mion-Lana gave their consent. The Mediation Committee, the Northern Regional Security Council and the Government of Ghana were duly informed at the time. Upon our request, those houses have long been completed, but the keys remain in the custody of the Government and the Committee of Eminent Chiefs, for reasons we have never understood. I went beyond that, Your Excellency, to personally finance the construction of parts of the Zohe-Naas Palace, which were not captured in the initial estimates. Further preparing for the funeral, I went to Lingbunga, the maternal home of Naa Yakubu II and rehabilitated the family house, which by custom, would host the last funeral rites for him, after the major one in Yendi. Of the three senior chiefs that were invited for the discussions, the only survivor today is the Chief of Savelugu who can attest to this fact. It is therefore not true that I have consciously worked to prevent the performance of the funeral. Your Excellency, the Otumfuos suggestion that I refused to respond to his invitations is also not factual. I actually met him twice at Manhyia on 1st February 2015 and 18th July 2017, once at my behest and once at his invitation. A third invitation was sent during the Bu?um (Fire) festival in September 2018, when it was inappropriate to leave Yendi. Through his intermediary, he agreed to postpone my visit to a later date. When I followed up later, the first week of October 2018, he indicated that he was traveling to South Africa and would invite me upon his return. I have since not heard from him. I did not also unilaterally get my Lawyer to go to him, but advised the Lawyer to respond favourably to his invitation, on a matter before his Committee, which, strangely, is also receiving judicial attention, at the instance of persons claiming to be leaders of the Abudu Royal Gate, for whom he has no blame. The Courts have been contemptuously ignored by the Committee. The Otumfuo further grossly erred when he claimed that a very uncustomary advisory Council of Elders he put in place could not meet. The Council met at least seven times with its last meeting in December 2011. During its lifetime, it discussed and advised me on funerals, land administration, and the customs of Dagbon. Copies of the minutes were sent to the Northern Regional Minister and the Yendi Municipal Assembly. Copies of the minutes of the last two meetings were sent to the Chairman of the Committee of Eminent Chiefs. The bias of the Otumfuo Committee against the non-partisan Kingmakers of Dagbon is quite palpable. The Eminent Chiefs ignored them to set up this Council to perform their functions. Many of the members of the Committee were Princes aspiring to chieftaincy promotions and even to the Yendi skins. Their mandate included, among others, the offer of advice on the performance of funerals, including that of the Yaa-Naa and the appointment of replacement chiefs for those deceased. Even though serious reservations were expressed by the kingmakers and some participants in the mediation process, all reluctantly cooperated, in the interest of peace. The appointment of the Kuga-Naa as Chairman of the Council could not suffice to cure the severe flaws in the creation of this Committee to undermine the centuries-old traditional institutions of Dagbon. The motives of the Otumfuo for publicly peddling untruths about me are only in the secret of the gods and his collaborators. Those motives should, however, explain the difficult situation in which he has all along tried to paint me. I must mention, in the same context, that, contrary to the Otumfuos assertion, I have never had any personal representatives among the delegations to Manhyia for the mediation. The delegations were in place before my enskinment as Regent. THE MEDIATION COMMITTEE AND THE CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF DAGBON Upon its inception, the Mediation Committee by its utterances left no party in the mediation process in doubt that it was going to be guided by the customs and traditions of Dagbon in its deliberations. The Chairman, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II indicated that he and the other eminent members of the committee have reverence for the customs and Nam of Dagbon. There was no reason for any person to doubt this, as their Majesties are highly respected and honourable traditional leaders of respected kingdoms in our country. Your Excellency, the Mediation Committee, with the support of successive governments, has tried to steer Dagbon back on course from the mess the kingdom was pushed into on 27th March 2002. It is a human institution, however, and most of its recommendations appear to be in sharp contrast to the well-established customs and traditions of Dagbon. Matters of custom previously pronounced on by the Committee, particularly on the proper venue for the funeral of the one who has come to be known as Naa Mahamadu, being the house in which he died, suddenly changed to the old Palace, to accommodate the wishes of the Abudus. This decision among other inconsistencies, a source of worry, is the reason for the eternal nature of the mediations rather than the wish of any individual. The following examples, Your Excellency, would illustrate this view: (i) His Majesty the Otumfuo, in Jubilee House, on 21st November, referred to a Clause in the Final Peace Agreement (Roadmap) of 2006, which provided that the powers of the Regent of Dagbon shall be limited such that he shall have no power to appoint chiefs or alienate lands or other resources of Dagbon. The committee explained that it took this decision owing to the peculiar circumstances of Dagbon. That decision was unprecedented in the customs and traditions of Dagbon, and against the express provisions of Article 267 of the 1992 Constitution, which provides that, (1) All stool lands in Ghana shall vest in the appropriate stool on behalf of, and in trust for the subjects of the stool in accordance with customary law and usage. As the legitimate Regent of Dagbon and acting Yaa-Naa, I have a constitutional right and customary power to appoint chiefs and administer the area, including the approval of land allocations by my subordinate chiefs. Under Dagbon custom and the law, the Yaa-Naa as the allodial owner of Dagbon land is a signatory to all land leases. He does not directly make allocations. All land transactions in Dagbon could, therefore, have been held up indefinitely if the ill-informed decision of the eminent chiefs had been given the force of law. When they were Regents of Dagbon at various periods in our history, Kampakuya-Naa Andani Yakubu and Bolin-Lana Mahamadu Abudulai, exercised the established right to enskin chiefs. All Dagbamba who lived through the regency of each of these two can attest to this. Indeed, no Dagbana accepted the provision in clause (f) of the Final Peace Agreement (Roadmap), except those who were desirous to see the obliteration of the customs of Dagbon as long as that served their parochial interest. Naabapra Bolin-Lana Mahamadu Abudulai when he was in regency as Bolin-Lana enskinned the following chiefs 1.Kukuo-Kpang-Lana Issah Salifu 2. Nyimbung-Naa Yibram 3. Balo-Naa Abdulai 4. Gu-Lana Abukari 5. Yani Liman Mahama 6. Zohe-Naa Abdulai Alhassan 7. Gagbun-Dana Abdulai Ziblim He also enskinned other chiefs to Saakpuli, Langa and Kushebihi. The validity of enskinments by regents was confirmed in the fact that, chiefs enskinned by the Bolin-Lana while he was Regent remained untouched. Those enskinned after his purported enskinment as Yaa-Naa were deskinned, following the eventual nullification of his own enskinment, on grounds (among others) that he was not enskinned Yaa-Naa by the rightful kingmakers. Going by the same custom, His Majesty Yaa-Naa Yakubu II, then Kampakuya-Naa, in his regency, enskinned the following chiefs 1. Kuga-Naa Abdulai Braimah 2. Gushe-Naa Alidu Ziblim 3. Zohe-Naa Abdulai Salifu 4. Gulkpe-Naa Abdulai Bukari 5. Balo-Naa Abukari Yahaya He also enskinned a chief for Kasuliyilli. Your Excellency, it was evident that the Mediation Committees decision that sought to prevent me as Kampakuya-Naa from enskinning chiefs and to administer Dagbon lands was contrary to the established practice and custom of Dagbon and appeared only aimed at restraining my person from the full exercise of my rights as Regent. That sought to belittle the Nam of the deceased Yaa-Naa Yakubu II and my status as the Regent of Dagbon. I must state that, in Dagbon, a Regent has the same rights as a substantive chief in making appointments. Most Dagbamba wondered and still wonder what constituted the basis of the committees decision to prevent me, a Regent of Dagbon, from administering Dagbon in line with age-long customs and traditions especially the enskinment of chiefs to vacant positions, a prerogative not denied my appointees and Regents on lower skins. The peculiar circumstances of Dagbon cited to support this bizarre decision could be none other than the murder of my father His Majesty Yaa-Naa Yakubu lI by persons in a hurry to succeed him. Were the restraining and uncustomary orders anything beyond a desire to satisfy the caprices of the murderers? Had my father Yaa-Naa Yakubu ll died a natural death, would I, the Regent, have been denied the rights exercised by all other regents in Dagbon? In a twist of fate, am I being humiliated because the Abudus murdered my father? Your Excellency, contrary to the assertions by His Majesty the Otumfuo in the Jubilee House, on 21st November, my enskinment as Regent of Dagbon was made in accordance with Dagbon custom. Neither Dagbon nor its custom was established by a Committee, and no Committee outside Dagbon could have appointed me as Regent. Neither my father nor I committed any crime to merit any restraining order on my regency. It is we who were rather wronged. Neither custom nor the law withheld the regency, but like the funeral of my father, it was only the state which prevented action, ostensibly pending the conclusions of enquiries into the murder of the Yaa-Naa, his elders and several innocent persons. As soon as the State decided it had no real interest in the murder, it was a matter of course that the regent be installed. With due respect to them, the Eminent Chiefs have no right whatsoever to determine the installation of a Regent for Dagbon and could not have exercised such right. It is noted that it was the Governments intervention to install Mahamadu Abudulai as Yaa-Naa which brought Dagbon to this deplorable situation, in the first place. It is an insult to Dagbon and the State of Ghana that the Eminent chiefs should claim to have exercised over Dagbon a prerogative that even the government, which appointed them cannot claim or arrogate to itself under the Constitution. It appears strange, Your Excellency, that the Committee of Eminent Chiefs should resurrect a deceased Regent of doubtful status, Bolin-Lana Mahamadu Abudulai, to accord him the status and rights of a Yaa-Naa against the express findings of the Supreme Court that his installation as Yaa-Naa was null and void. While at the same time, so eagerly and blatantly seeking to undermine the status, rights, and prerogatives of the sitting regent of a Yaa-Naa properly installed under the customs of Dagbon and the laws of this country. According to him, and it is nowhere in the judgment, the Supreme Court has granted the status of former Yaa-Naa to Mahamadu Abudulai, the Committee decided in its 2006 Roadmap that his funeral should be performed as that of a Yaa-Naa. His Majesty Yaa-Naa Andani Yakubu II and Bolin-Lana Mahamadu Abudulai cannot by any stretch of the imagination be accorded the same status. In fact, there is no statement in the Supreme Court judgment indicating the claim by the Committee that there is a former Yaa-Naa called Mahamadu Abudulai IV, who should be buried in the palace upon his demise and whose children should be accorded the status of Yaa-Naas children with rights to the skins of Karaga, Savelugu, and Mion. (ii) The refusal of the Mediation Committee to press for the performance of the funeral rites of chiefs who have roles in the final funeral rites for a deceased Yaa-Naa is a source of concern, being against the age-long traditions of the Dagbon Kingdom. This decision is curious indeed. On a number of occasions, I, in consultation with critical elders and kingmakers, have pressed for the funerals of the late Gushie-Naa, Tolon-Naa, and Yelizol-Lana as a prelude to the final funeral of Naa Yakubu II. Substantive chiefs in these positions are a customary requirement because there are specific duties only substantive chiefs in such chiefdoms perform. No one in living memory can point at a precedent in which regents from Gushiegu, Tolon, and/or Yelizoli have played roles in the final funeral rites of a deceased Yaa-Naa and/or after which they performed rites in the enskinment of a new Yaa-Naa, which naturally comes after a deceased Yaa-Naas funeral. The funeral of a Yaa-Naa is part of the process leading to his replacement. The Eminent chiefs cannot have a good reason to proceed to elections before providing for the appointment of electoral Officers. If the Mediation Committee insists that the final funeral rites for Naa Yakubu II should go ahead without substantive chiefs in Gushiegu, Tolon, and Yelizoli, that would not only amount to disregard for the memory of the late Yaa-Naa and the time-tested customs of Dagbon but would become another terrible precedent the other one being the murder of the Yaa-Naa, in the 21st century. It is not too late for the government to review this stance of the Mediation Committee and to reconsider its position on these three funerals for us to be convinced that the committee and government are genuinely interested in being guided by Dagbon customs in making decisions on Dagbon. I implore Your Excellency to take action in order to remedy the situation. iii. The Committee previously openly agreed with the representatives of the elders/kingmakers and some other participants in the mediation process that, the old Gbewaa Palace had been severely desecrated by the innocent blood shed in it in 1969 and 2002. It is therefore no longer suitable for continued royal occupation or activities. Surprisingly, the progress report indicates the same venue for the performance of royal funerals, as demanded by the Abudus. This decision does not appear to be the best way to respect the custom of Dagbon and its custodians, whose role the Committee seems to have usurped, in the mistaken belief that, their head, the Kuga-Naa, owes his position to them. The misgivings of the kingmakers expressed to the Otumfuo were, unfortunately, ignored. It should, therefore, come as no surprise if they do not recognize Dagbon in the new customs being introduced by the Otumfuo committee. There is nothing entrenched in a position that rejects the lawless contempt in which Dagbon and its customs are held, in pursuance of an alien agenda. NEEDLESS FEARS OF THE ABUDU ROYAL FAMILY In the organization of the Nam of Dagbon, none of the ruling houses (i.e., Abuduyilli and Andanyilli) can claim any town to be their exclusive preserve. It means that there is no town or village which any of the Royal Houses can claim to be theirs, no matter how many times and how long they have supplied chiefs to the town or village. There is therefore neither an Abudu town/village nor Andani town/village in Dagbon. Even among the Kpamba (elders), Namoglinsi (senior royal Assistants) and Worizohanima (the Equestrian class), no claim can be made by any lineage of chiefs that a particular town or village theirs. The system allows for an open contest by all who qualify, regardless of the house of origin or lineage. The Committee of Eminent Chiefs does not seem to have benefitted from this basic fact and from the over a decade and half of enquiring into Dagbon customs. If they did, could this not be just one more manifestation of a desire to strip Dagbon of its customs and traditions in chieftaincy? Your Excellency, at the ceremony at which the Mediation Committee presented its progress report to you, His Majesty the Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, explained that members of the Abudu family entertained fear that if they went ahead and performed their fathers funerals, I would not enskin them, but members or sympathizers of the Andani family in the vacant positions. That fear is baseless as it is not borne out by the facts, Your Excellency, there are examples where vacancies created by the death or promotion of Andani royals or sympathizers have been filled with royals from the Abudu family by me. The following are some of them. (i) Gundo-Naa Abiba Mahama of Andani family passed into eternity and I enskinned the incumbent Gundo-Naa Hajia Samata Abudu from the Abudu family a daughter of Naa Abudubila himself. Gundogu is the senior-most woman chiefdom of Dagbon. (ii) I promoted the present Yoo-Naa of Andani family from Kpunkpono village and I enskinned a royal from Abudu family to Kpunkpono. He is the incumbent Kpunkpono-Lana Abudulai Sulemana (iii) The Senior Regent (Gbon-Lana kpema) of His Majesty Naa Yakubu II was the chief of Ngnani. He died and was replaced by me with a member of the Abudu family. (iiii) When Zakoli became vacant, I enskinned a royal from the Abudu family to Zakoli. He is the incumbent. (v) The present Kunkon-Lana is a royal from the Abudu family, and I enskinned him in the place of a royal from the Andani family who received an appointment to Kpatinga. There is, therefore, no basis at all for any royal from the Abudu family sitting in regency today entertaining fears that if he goes ahead to perform his deceased fathers funeral, the vacancy would be filled with an Andani royal or sympathizer. Selection is based on the dictates of the oracles coupled with other considerations. Your Excellency, Regents of some localities, may be appointed to the same skins, if the appointing authorities deem them fit. if it were the norm, however, for all regents to remain on the skins of their deceased fathers, the true intentions of the rebel Regents, the Nam of Dagbon would be significantly denatured and several competent princes would forever be denied access to skins if their fathers currently occupy no skins under the alien new concept that the Otumfuo and his Committee are seeking to impose on Dagbon. That concept is not known to be practiced in Asanteman, nor is it known in the Kingdoms of the two other eminent Committee members. It should not be allowed to destroy Dagbon. As the Regent of Dagbon, I am on oath to be fair to all royals, all Dagbamba and all persons under my jurisdiction, within the confines of our established customs and traditions. Your Excellency, it is disturbing that the committee has even shown an inclination towards predetermining a successor to His Majesty Naa Yakubu II. They have remained silent on the funerals of deceased occupants of gate skins (Karaga and Mion), in flagrant disregard of the sensibilities of Dagbamba in general and the need for choice by the consecrated kingmakers in particular, who have the right, under our age-long constitution to select and enskin a successor to a deceased Yaa-Naa. It is necessary for Your Excellency to intervene to safeguard the sanctity of our customs. It is my firm belief, Your Excellency, that coming from a royal lineage yourself and having intimate knowledge of our customs and traditions, coupled with my conviction that you are out to restore the dignity of the Nam of Dagbon, you would not allow any aberration to further undermine the already dented image of our chieftaincy institution. Sadly, Your Excellency, the Chairman of the Committee announced that the Committee had not finished its work, because it has to continue until a new Yaa-Naa is enskinned. With the very uncustomary decisions dictated by the Chairman on behalf of his Committee, to Your Excellency and Dagbon, we believe that another decade in their hands will only reduce Dagbon to the status of an unrecognizable vassal State and we appeal that, Your Excellency should not allow that to happen. It is regrettable that the Committee Chairman, His Majesty the Otumfuo, spoke at the presentation ceremony to the whole world, as the veritable sovereign of Ghana, an unfortunate situation and a significant error, since his traditional authority does not flow beyond Asanteman. I pray that, Your Excellency will not be deceived into accepting the unworkable decisions of the Committee, which are neither in accord with the custom of Dagbon nor the laws of Ghana. It is Your Excellency alone who will be called upon to account to the good people of Ghana for the potentially dangerous consequences of any attempt to implement the Eminent Chiefs decisions which are not in accord with Dagbon customs. The uncustomary decisions of the Eminent Chiefs account for the decision of the Andani family not to send representatives to the ceremony of 21st November, and Your Excellency may wish to pay heed to their concerns. Contrary to the Otumfuos declaration, most of the elders who matter were at home and not in Jubilee House, where only potential beneficiaries of the injustice and their agents were paraded to applaud the insults to their custom and heritage. It is my prayer to you, Your Excellency that you commit to your oath to protect and defend the laws of Ghana by upholding the right of disputants in mediation to exercise their right at any time during the mediation to opt out of it. The Committee was not in arbitration. It is also my fervent hope that Your Excellency would take into consideration the contents of this letter and adopt a more workable solution, as the eminent chiefs do not appear capable of bringing solace to our kingdom in distress, in need of durable peace for the socio-economic development of our people. I wish Your Excellency abundant good health and the guidance of the Almighty God. Yours faithfully, REGENT OF DAGBON KAMPAKUYA-NAA ANDANI YAKUBU ABDULAI Cc: 1. His Excellency Former President Jerry John Rawlings Office of the Former President Accra 2. His Excellency Former President John Agyekum Kufuor Office of the Former President Accra 3. His Excellency Former President John Dramani Mahama Office of the Former President Accra 4. The Rt. Hon Speaker of Parliament Parliament of Ghana Parliament House Accra 5. Her Ladyship the Chief Justice Judicial Service of Ghana Accra 6. His Majesty the Chairman Otumfuo Osei Tutu Il Committee of Eminent Chiefs Manhyia Palace Kumasi 7. His Majesty the Nayiri Member of the Committee of Eminent Chiefs Nalerigu 8. His Majesty the Yagbonwura Member of the Committee of Eminent Chiefs Damongo 9. His Royal Highness Togbe Afede XIV President of the National House of Chiefs Kumasi 10. The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Ministry of Justice and Attorney-Generals Department Accra 11. The Majority Leader Parliament of Ghana Parliament House Accra 12. The Minority Leader Parliament of Ghana Parliament House Accra 13. The Hon Minister Regional Coordinating Council Tamale, Northern Region 14. The US Ambassador to Ghana US Embassy No. 19 Fifth Link Road Cantonments Accra, Ghana 15. The French Ambassador to Ghana French Embassy Accra 16. The British High Commissioner to Ghana British High Commission Accra 17. UN Resident Coordinator UN Development Programme House No. Ring Road East Near Fire Service Headquarters Accra 18. The Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana Canadian High Commission 42 Independence Avenue Ako Adjei Overpass Accra, Ghana 19. The German Ambassador to Ghana German Embassy No. 4 Sam Nujoma Close North Ridge Accra 20. The Chairman National Peace Council Accra 21. The Chairman Northern Regional Peace Council Tamale Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has announced that government intends to use Information Communication Technology (ICT) to revamp the Ghana Post Company Limited. She made the disclosure on Thursday, December 13, 2018 in Accra during the Meet-the-Press Series organized by Information Ministry. According to her, negotiations were ongoing to secure a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement for the modernization of Ghana Post. The minister indicated that ICT has taken up a lot of the core functions of postal and courier services that have left people wondering whether post offices have any use within the current global setting. She added that we, however, believe that with the introduction of new business modules, ICT can be used as a tool to revamp the postal and courier services. Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful revealed that the Ministry of Communications, in collaboration with Ghana Post, launched the National Digital Property Addressing System (NDPAS). The objective of the system is to generate digital addresses for individuals and commercial properties and also provide navigation capabilities that help with ease of finding locations. The minister added that the system has attained some milestone. There are 1,200,000 registered and verified addresses. Projects The minister also spoke about efforts being made by government to holistically the ICT infrastructure of Ghana, saying the Ministry shall promote technology to achieve President Akufo-Addos Ghana Beyond Aid vision. Already, she indicated that 400 rural telephony sites had been constructed under this project this year to provide voice and data connectivity. She explained that this has provided coverage for 2,000 communities with a population of 900,000. We intend to scale this up to cover all unserved and underserved communities by 2020. Source: Daily Guide Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Prophet clearing the air concerning his revelation about Obinim indicated that yes, he saw Obinim in Heaven but he never saw him among the Angels of God as it has been reported by some bloggers. But the question is if Obinim claims to be an Angel of God and then you saw him in Heaven in a revelation then logically you may have seen him among the Angels of God perhaps Prophet Nigel Gaisie should come clear and explain into details his revelation. He said a lot in the video blasting Ghanaians for rejecting their own Prophets and following Nigerian Prophets. The man of God added that Ghanaians should just shut up if they dont understand revelations coming from men of God! Watch the video below= Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A court has ruled that South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma must pay back the money provided for his legal fees. It is estimated that the state has paid between $1m (792,000) and $2.2m in legal costs for him. Zuma has been fighting multiple allegations of corruption for more than a decade and has incurred millions of dollars in legal fees. The court's decision marks the end of a poor year for Zuma, who was forced out of office in February. His successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, has been working to restore public confidence in the country's prosecution service. Ramaphosa recently admitted that an agreement between Zuma and former President Thabo Mbekihad formed the basis of the decision to continue paying Zuma's legal fees, more than a decade ago. A judge has now declared the agreement invalid and ordered the state attorney to take steps to recover all legal costs incurred. Zuma has a large family, and has often sought financial support from business associates a habit that lies at the heart of the many corruption scandals that have engulfed him. He faces 16 charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering stemming from hundreds of payments made to him in relation to a 1990s arms procurement deal but Zuma denies any wrongdoing. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Deputy General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress, Peter Boamah Otukunor says they will mount relentless pressure on the Akufo Addo government to deliver on its mouth watery promises. According to him, government should brace itself for more pressure from the opposition for its inability to effectively manage the affairs of the nation. Whether they like it or not we will continuously mount pressure on them until they fulfill all the promises they made to Ghanaians he told Kweku Owusu Adjei on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa Fm Thursday. The NDC yesterday in its maiden edition of the Moment of Truth series, addressed by the National Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi said the NPP has failed in delivering its promises but has rather engage in deceit and propaganda. The NPP has and will always have a DNA of lies, double talk and hypocrisy. However, no pillar built on lies can stand the test of the moment of truth. We shall continue to expose the abysmal performance of this impotent inert, nepotistic and dishonest government. Meanwhile in a counter press conference by the ruling NPP dubbed Truth Forum addressed by the National Youth Organiser of the party, Herny Nana Boakye, he refuted claims that the NPP has failed on the enormous transformation agenda they promised Ghanaians. According to him, for allegations that government is deliberately collapsing indigenous banks, he said The NDC is seeking to say that this government is collapsing indigenous banks. What is clear is that the current leadership of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) is determined to help genuine local banks who follow the rules to survive. Source: kasapafmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joined at left by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., holds a news conference after the Senate passed a resolution he introduced that would pull assistance from the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a measure to rebuke Saudi Arabia after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) You May Also Like Earlier this week, we reported that San Francisco Police Chief William Scott told his officers that they may command suspects to sit on the ground during their interaction only when "exceptional circumstances" exist. Adding insult to injury, Chief Scott decreed in his memo that officers shall documentin an incident reportany time it is necessary to seat an individual on the ground. The reason for the policy change? Chief Scott reportedly finds the practice "demeaning" to the offender. Oh my goodness. Chief Scott wrote in a memo that "sitting a subject on the ground or sidewalk should be done only as a last resort and only when necessary." SIDEBAR: Who sets the definition of "necessary?" Is it the officer at the scene of a potentially dangerous incident, or the supervisor with a cup of coffee in his hand reviewing the body camera footage several hours after the event? The potential for some really difficult times now exists for officers in the City by the Bay. Consider a scenario: An officer will hesitate to deem sitting a subject because he or she cannot exactly articulate why his or her spider sense is elevatedsomething just doesn't feel right, but they just can't put their finger on it. The officer chooses then to keep the suspect standing, handcuffed behind the back. The subject suddenly lunges forward, striking the officer squarely on the nose with a vicious head-butt move. The officer is rendered unconscious. I won't expound on this hypothetical scenario any further. You get the idea. Very, very bad things can potentially happen. And when it eventually does, I will be the first person to say, "I told you so." Okay, enough with the theoretical realmback to the real world. Sitting subjects on the ground or a sidewalk is a longstanding tactic employed for the safety of both the subject and the officer. Sitting subjects on the ground puts them at a tactical disadvantage, preventing violent attacks on officers or attempts to flee on foot. Even handcuffed subjects are potentially dangerous to an officer, especially a cop who is working alone. Ordering officers to allow subjects to remain on their feet increases the possibility of an attack or an attempt to escape. It's counterintuitive from a tactical perspective, but is completely logical when viewed through the prism of political pandering. Politics Over Tactics The political culture of a community has an enormous effect on the police department and its policiesand it is well known that San Francisco is one of the most left-leaning cities in America. It is no surprise, then, that the political pressure applied to anyone who holds the position of police chief in Fog City will cause some decisions that are not exactly pro-police. Following the fatal shooting of Mario Woods in 2016, then-Chief Greg Suhrwho I count as a personal friendcame under immense political pressure from then-Mayor Ed Lee to make changes to the department's use-of-force policy. In his recommendations, Chief Suhr included a requestfor the umpteenth timefor the agency to add TASERs to officers' duty belts. That request was deniedfor the umpteenth time. Other policy changesall less favorable to police officers on the street and all the result of pressure from political forceswere accepted. Go figure. This problem of police departments being forced into policy changes by politics is not confined to this idyllic little patch of land at the south end of the Golden Gate. Following the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, the Baltimore Police Department was forced to make sweeping policy changes, many of which were mandated in a consent decree issued by the Department of Justice. One of the principal tenets of the reforms was an increased emphasis on de-escalation. Indeed, policy changes have occurred in myriad American cities with the word "de-escalation" prominent in the textand the subtextof the document. It's the "it" word for politicians in places like Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and the abovementioned San Francisco and Baltimore. There's just one problem. De-escalation is like the Tangoit takes two for the dance to be successful. The Dance of De-Escalation Let's get one thing perfectly clear: adding time and distance to many police incidents is a laudable goal. Taking advantage of existing environmental elements such as furniture in a room or a car on the street to put a barrier between the officer and the subject is simply sound tactics. Using refined communications skills like Verbal Judo is a great way to "talk someone down" from a heightened state of mental or emotional distress. Those are all good things. Officers have been talking people into handcuffs for more than a century. However, problems arise when the person the police are talking with is unwilling or unable to listen. A subject may be high on drugs, mentally unstable, or both. A subject may have it in his or her head, "I'm not going back to jail." Reasoning with an unreasonable person is borderline impossible. A rapidly unfolding, high-stress, potentially violent incident in which the outcome is unclear must afford officers the ability to defend their own safety or the safety of innocents. This explains why things can sometimes get messy or go loud. Politicians need to recognize this reality, and account for it in the application of pressure on police administrators in setting police policy. Prevailing Political Winds Elected officials have one underlying goal that informs and influences all their other objectivesgetting re-elected. This deep-seated desire directly impacts how those politicians interact with their police departmentsspecifically with their chiefs of policein setting department policy. By extension, the chiefs themselves become political creatures, seeking to retain their jobs held at the pleasure of their political bosses. Consequently, in places where the political winds blow to the left, you're going to get policies that represent the desires of the voting majority. You get sanctuary cities, needle programs, and departments generally tolerant of certain criminal activities. You get de-policing. Where the prevailing jetstream blows in the opposite direction, you're going to see expectedly more conservative results in police policy. You get proactive policing. You get "broken windows" policing. You get Terry Stops. You get arrests. It should be noted that not all police policy changes are left-leaning. Recall that back when Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York and William Bratton was that city's chief of police, the department adopted "zero tolerance" policing polices credited for dramatic reductions in the city's crime rate. Further, not all police policy changes are negative. In cities where problem-oriented policing, evidence-based policing, and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) have been adopted, crime has generally been reduced while approval ratings of police has simultaneously risen. Unfortunately, those success stories are often overshadowed by Hug-a-Thug policy changes such as we saw this week in San Francisco. We shall soon see what we shall see here in my adopted hometown. But you can bet a waist-high stack of green money that when an officer with SFPD is assaulted by a subject who was standing instead of sitting, I'll be the first to say, "I told you so." A wave of bomb threats were reported against businesses, schools, hospitals and other places across the country on Thursday, including sites in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The threats are reportedly "not credible." The FBI in a statement said they were "aware of the recent bomb threats made in cities around the country, and we remain in touch with our law enforcement partners to provide assistance. As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activities which could represent a threat to public safety." Authorities in New York City were monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city, the New York Police Departments counterterrorism bureau said on Twitter. These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide & are NOT considered credible at this time, the NYPD said. There are reports that the perpetrators have requested a ransom in Bitcoin to call off the "bombings." Numerous sources say no ransoms have been paid and no bombs have been confirmed, NBC News reports. . Officer Edgar Flores of the DeKalb County (GA) Police Department was conducting a traffic stop on Thursday evening when a subject fled on foot, opening fire on Flores as he ran. Flores was struck and subsequently died from his wounds. Image courtesy of ODMP. Officer Edgar Flores of the DeKalb County (GA) Police Department was conducting a traffic stop on Thursday evening when a subject fled on foot, opening fire on Flores as he ran. Flores was struck and subsequently died from his wounds. Other officers then sought to apprehend the offender, and when a police K-9 located the subject a gunfight ensued. The K-9 was critically wounded and the gunman was killed. According to the Georgia Law Enforcement Facebook page, K-9 Indi was shot in the eye. The bullet entered his eye, and exited through his ear without causing any significant brain damage. Friday afternoon, K-9 Indi was reportedly alert and conscious, recovering from his injuries. Officer Flores had served with the DeKalb County Police Department for 18 months, according to ODMP. Officer B.K. Hardin of the Knoxville (TN) Police Department was directing traffic on a Saturday in late November when an unknown assailant ambushed him with a strike to the head with a blunt objectpossibly a hammer or tire ironseverely injuring him. According to WBIR News, the 51-year-old officer said at a news conference on Friday that he is recovering well, and hopes to soon return to full duty, but remains frustrated that he cannot help investigators identify his attacker. "I didn't see him and I think that's the toughest thing for me to deal with," Hardin said. "I want to know what my suspect looks like, where he may be. Not being able to give any details to investigators has been frustrating on my side of it." Hardin also spoke about the suddenness of the attack, saying that in one instant he was helping pedestrians to safely navigate through traffic, and in the next he was just trying to stay upright. "The world started spinning," he remembered. An off-duty firefighter from another county happened to be nearby with medical supplies on hand. He treated Hardin until the officer was transported to a nearby hospital where he underwent surgery. Hardin was released from the hospital two days later. He has been dealing with concussion symptoms since his injury, but is optimistic that he will make a full recovery. The Fraternal Order of Police has offered a $5,400 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible. The TBI has offered $2,500. An anonymous community member from Oak Ridge pledged an additional $5,000. The total reward is now up to $23,400. Officers with the Memphis (TN) Police Department were reportedly responding to a 911 call of a man pointing a gun at passing cars in the street when shots rang out, leaving the gunman critically wounded. According to WMC-TV News, 42-year-old Andre Horton was transported to a nearby hospital after the shooting, where he later died of his injuries. A family member said that Horton suffered from some form of mental illness. Memphis police said the officer who fired shots is relieved of duty pending the outcome of the investigation. According to the Cabell County (WV) Sheriff's Office, a 33-year-old man is accused of battery on an officer after an altercation with an officer and his K-9 on Thursday. Bradley Allen Moore has been charged with two counts of battery on an officer and obstruction. According to the Herald Dispatch, deputies were performing an area check after a caller reported a suspicious person to 911. The caller told dispatchers the suspicious person came into a gas station claiming to have been chased by a person with a knife. Deputies made contact with the suspect allegedly standing in the middle of the roadway. The suspect then reportedly opened the rear passenger door of the squad car and assaulted K-9 "Jimmy." Officers removed the subject from the vehicle and took him into custody. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Time, December 13, 2018 By Lauren Bohn It was a sunny morning in early December last year when 23-year-old Khadija set herself on fire. She kissed her three-month old son Mohammed goodbye and said a short prayer. Please God, stop this suffering, she pleaded in the sun-soaked courtyard of her home in Herat, Afghanistan as she poured kerosene from a copper lamp over her small frame. She then struck a match. The last thing she heard were birds chirping. The next morning, she realized her prayer had gone unanswered. Khadija, who asked TIME not to publish her last name or her familys, woke up at Herat Hospital in Afghanistans only burn unit, her body blanketed in third-degree burns and bandages. I am not alive, but I am not dead, Khadija told me later that week, crying and gripping the hands of her sister, Aisha. I tried running away and I failed. Like the majority of Afghan women, Khadija was a victim of domestic abuse. For four years, she said, her husband beat her and told her that shes ugly and dumb a nobody. Women never have any choices, Khadija said last December in the hospital, as tears streamed down her face, a barely recognizable charred patchwork of fresh scars. If I did, I wouldnt have married him. Were all handcuffed in this country. Khadijas decision to set herself on fire prompted her husband to be arrested on charges of domestic violence, an unusual situation in a country where abuse against women is rarely criminalized. But even while he was serving his prison sentence, Khadija felt more trapped than when she tried to take her own life. Her husbands parents, who were looking after her son, issued Khadija an ultimatum: If she would tell the police that she liedthat her husband didnt actually abuse herand if she returned home, then she could see her son. If she refused, she would never see him again. In a country racked by decades of war and a dearth of resources, Khadijas story shows how women in Afghanistan are struggling to live with dignity. It also highlights how, in the face of little governmental support and dwindling international aid, women are stepping in to help one another. It wasnt supposed to be like this for Afghanistan, the country of 35 million people where America has waged its longest war. The war was billed, in part, as a fight for the rights and dignity of women. The Taliban ruled in Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, a period in which women were essentially invisible in public life, barred from going to school or working. In a 2001 radio address to the nation, First Lady Laura Bush urged Americans to join our family in working to ensure that dignity and opportunity will be secured for all the women and children of Afghanistan. In 2004, President George W. Bush declared victory in the country. But seventeen years and almost $2 trillion later, the country is still in turmoil as the Taliban maintains its grip on almost 60 percent of the country, the most territory it has controlled since 2001. In October, the U.N. said Afghan civilian deaths were the highest since 2014: from January to September 2018, at least 2,798 civilians were killed and more than 5,000 others injured. Gallups most recent survey of Afghans, conducted in July, revealed strikingly low levels of optimism: Afghans ratings of their own lives are lower than in any country in any previous year. As in all war-torn societies, women suffer disproportionately. Afghanistan is still ranked the worst place in the world to be a woman. Despite Afghan government and international donor efforts since 2001 to educate girls, an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school. Eighty-seven percent of Afghan women are illiterate, while 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16. A September watchdog report called the USAIDs $280 million Promote program billed the largest single investment that the U.S. government has ever made to advance womens rights globally a flop and a waste of taxpayers money. Government statistics from 2014 show that 80 percent of all suicides are committed by women, making Afghanistan one of the few places in the world where rates are higher among women. Psychologists attribute this anomaly to an endless cycle of domestic violence and poverty. The 2008 Global Rights survey found that nearly 90 percent of Afghan women have experienced domestic abuse. It hurts me to say this, but the situation is only getting worse, said Jameela Naseri, a 31-year-old lawyer at Medica Afghanistan, an NGO established by German-based Medica Mondiale, defending women and girls in war and crisis zones throughout the world. Naseri oversees Khadijas case, as well as the cases of dozens of other women who are seeking refuge or divorce from allegedly abusive husbands. In the face of what she calls a war against women, she is leading an informal but determined coalition of female psychologists, doctors and activists in Herat who take on cases like Khadijas. I meet a new Khadija almost every day, she said, while fielding a call from an activist. Earlier that week, a man claimed his wife had died from a longstanding illness but activists suspect he murdered her. We do the best to help these women, but sometimes we cant. Thats hard to accept. Mariam weeps over her daughter, Najiba, 13. Najiba who had been married six months, claimed that her mother-in-law doused her with gasoline and set her on fire, through her mother, and other nurses in the hospital, were skeptical of her story, and suspected she might have burned herself in an attempted suicide. (Photo: Lynsey Addario/ NYTimes) More photos Mariam weeps over her daughter, Najiba, 13. Najiba who had been married six months, claimed that her mother-in-law doused her with gasoline and set her on fire, through her mother, and other nurses in the hospital, were skeptical of her story, and suspected she might have burned herself in an attempted suicide. (Photo: Lynsey Addario/ NYTimes) Herat, a province in western Afghanistan near the border of Iran, has some of the highest rates of violence against women in the country and some of the highest rates of suicide among women. Psychologist Naema Nikaed, who was working with Khadija, said she handles several cases of attempted suicide every week. Most go unreported due to fear of tarnishing a familys honor. The government wants to say theyre prioritizing women, a female Afghan diplomat told me, speaking on condition of anonymity during the NATO Summit in Brussels in July. But theyre really not. Supporting women in Afghanistan is something people all over the world pay lip service to, but money and aid never get to them. Its eaten by corruption, the monster of war. Transparency International ranked Afghanistan the fourth most corrupt country in the world, noting that corruption hampers humanitarian aid from getting where it needs to go. At the NATO summit, I asked President Ashraf Ghani why two-thirds of girls are still out of school. He largely blamed the numbers on ill-conceived, misguided Western aid efforts that fail to acknowledge the realities on the ground. To get to the very nitty gritty, how many girls schools at the age of puberty have a toilet? Thats fundamental, he said. How many girl schools are three kilometers away? The issue here is that international experts were male-centric. They talked about gender but their pamphlets were glossy and totally lacking content. But activists say his administration has failed to take responsibility for clear backslides in womens rights. In 2015, 27-year-old Farkhunda Malikzada was beaten to death by a mob in Kabul after being falsely accused of burning the Quran. The government did little to mete out justice and ignored demands for more action to combat violence against women. Whats more, in February 2018, Afghanistan passed into law a new criminal code that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) hailed as a milestone in the countrys criminal justice reform. However, one chapter of the code was removed before it was passed: the chapter penalizing violence against women. In June, a United Nations report took the Afghan criminal justice system to task for ignoring violence against women. Womens rights were supposed to be the success story of the 2001 invasion, Naseri said. But the legacy of war is still killing our women. Naseri knows this legacy all too well. Her own mother was forced to marry her father when she was only 12 years old and says she was then abused for years. In order to go to school, Naseri and her mother crafted lies so that her father would let her leave the house. They told him she was going to the mosque or to Quran studies. School wasnt a place for girls, he contended. Eventually, they convinced him to let her attend university; she became the first and only woman in her family with a degree. In the face of so much oppression, Naseri vowed to become a lawyer and help women like her own mother and sister, who was forced into marriage at the age of 14. Afghan women need to take matters into our own hands. We cant wait for the government and international charities to save or liberate us, she said in her office at Medica. Across the hall, a 16-year-old girl named Sahar sat waiting to speak to Naseri. Her mother brought her to Medica after she tried to jump off the sixth-floor balcony of their building. She was to be married off to her cousin in days, and said her uncle had been raping her since she was just 10. In doing this work alone, the risks are high. At any moment, we could be killed, Naseri said. Not a week goes by, she said, that she doesnt receive death threats. Just last year, an angry mob of men came to the center threatening to burn it to the ground, claiming Naseri was promoting divorce and damaging the fabric of Afghan society. I know what its like to be the victim, Naseri said. While at university, she fell in love with a classmate. She says she is the first woman in her family whose marriage wasnt arranged. TOLOnews.com (Translated by RAWA), July 30, 2018: , July 30, 2018: Samia was forced into marriage to a 33 year old man by her father , when she was just seven, in return for 1,000,000 Afghanis. Two years later, when she was just nine years old, she was killed by her husband. The incident occured in Badghis province, western Afghanistan. (Photo: TOLOnews.com) In March, on International Womens Day, she gave birth to a boy. I refuse to bring my son into a world where he thinks women are second-class citizens. Last December, the halls of Herat Hospital were lined with patients sitting on the floor, waiting for assistance. Everything is off-white: the chairs, the walls, the floors. Moans of pain echo through the hospitals burn unit. Khadijas doctor, 29-year-old Hasina Ersad, visited her a few times a day for months. I saw women like Khadija all my life, said Ersad. Shes the reason I wanted to become a doctor. Khadija said her abuse began as soon as she got married. Her father, Mohammed, was poor and sold her off. Her husband promised her that she could go to school and pursue her goal of becoming an esthetician, but by the first week of marriage she learned that would likely never happen. Her mother-in-law told her that her purpose was to raise children. After several miscarriages, she finally gave birth to her son, Mohammed. She thought the abuse would stop once he arrived, but it only got worse. Khadijas sister Aisha said domestic abuse is pervasive. My husband has hit me for years, she shrugged. Aishas husband is 71 years old; she is 26. Over the years, she said she has thought about getting a divorce, but she knows the reality: shed lose custody of her three children and likely never marry again. In cases of divorce, women have custody of their children up until the age of 7, then children are given to their fathers. We werent lucky girls, Aisha said as Khadija struggles to nod in agreement. Actually, no girl in Afghanistan is lucky. Khadijas psychologist Naema Nikaed, one of the few in Afghanistan who counsel suicide survivors, said she and her colleagues have witnessed an uptick in suicides among women over the past few years. If the government doesnt start prioritizing the lives of women, then we will be in a forever war here in Afghanistan, she said. Earlier that day, Nikaed had visited a 15-year-old patient who overdosed that morning on unidentified tablets from a pharmacy. Its really only up to us the women like Jameela, myself and others to fight this discrimination and to save lives. No one can save us but ourselves. TOLOnews.com, Mar, 22, 2017: , Mar, 22, 2017: A seven-year-old girl was raped in northern Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. Angry locals said the police had not arrested the man accused of raping her. (Photo: TOLOnews.com) When Khadija was three, her mother died from childbirth complications, leaving their father Mohammed to raise Khadija and her four siblings. (Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.) I always wanted to give my daughters a better life, but how could I? Mohammed asks as he waits on a bustling street corner to find daily labor. Its a cold December morning and he and other men warm their hands over a makeshift fire. Hes only 50 years old, but his face prematurely droops from years of depression and destitution. Both of Mohammeds parents died when he was one; he said he grew up with an abusive uncle who stole his land. War has affected this whole country, he said. Its all we know and it has made us broken and blind. When Khadija was 15, he began shopping around for dowries. The highest bid came from a working-class family in Herat with a good enough reputation. Mohammed received $3,400 for Khadija. Mohammed said he understands that his daughter is unhappy, but that she has no choice. Even if her husband is abusive, he is resolute about what his daughter should do: she must stay with him. I cant take care of her. I wish I could, but shes better off with them, he said. Trust me, shes better off. To get to Khadijas and her parents-in-laws home, you pass through a maze of trash-strewn streets and small corner shops selling nothing more than soda and chips. On the corner, theres a tiny pre-school filled with little boys in blue shirts next to a beauty store where sometimes Khadija would work her only reprieve from home life. In the familys small living room, Khadijas in-laws told me their son never touched Khadija and that because of her, they had lost their reputation. When their son called them from prison, where he was granted one call a day, he told me he was an innocent man. Naseris close friend, Hassina Nikzad, the director of Afghan Womens Network, visited Khadija weekly and reminded her that she could file for a divorce. But where will I go? Mom is dead and dad is old, she cried to her sister, Aisha. Aug. 29, 2017: Aug. 29, 2017: A woman who was wounded during an airstrike in Herat Province , Afghanistan, receives treatment. The airstrike was carried out by a drone and killed least 13 civilians, including women and children. (Photo: Mohammad Shoib/Reuters) Nikzad suggested that she could move to a shelter and learn a trade like tailoring. Khadija shook her head and looked down. Last December, Nikzad told me she wasnt sure Khadija would go through with the divorce. Its often easier to stay with the pain. Starting a new life in Afghanistan seems impossible, she said. Were not given any chances, let alone a second chance. Last June when Khadija left the hospital, she wearily told Naseri that she had made up her mind. Although Naseri suggested she move to a shelter, Khadija decided to return to her husbands parents. The pain of not seeing her son was too much to bear and raising a child in a shelter seemed too daunting. But after a month of living with her parents-in-law, Khadija called Naseri in the middle of the night, crying. Her parents-in-law had refused to let her touch her son, Khadija said. And her husband kept saying that he planned to punish her when he was released from prison. Because there was no adequate shelter space in Herat, Khadija decided to stay in her fathers one-room apartment. But her step-mother made it clear that Khadija wasnt welcome there. I dont regret doing what I did, but Im still in chains, Khadija told me in November over Skype. She hadnt seen her son in months. One day, I will try to explain to my son why I did this. I hope he understands. Naseri held her as she sobbed. In late November, Khadijas husband was released from prison. Soon after, Naseri tried to contact Khadija but couldnt reach her. Her phone has been turned off since. Naseri suspects Khadija fled across the border to Iran. Its unlikely she will see her son againat least not for a while. To Naseri, Khadija is one of far too many invisible victims in the countrys war against women. I could have been Khadija, Naseri said. Who knows what separates us? Nothing does. Originally published on Dec. 8, 2018 We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. The Bank of Japan will on Friday release the results of its quarterly Tankan Survey of sentiment, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. The large manufacturing index is called at +18, down from +19 in Q3. The outlook is pegged at +17, also down from +19. Large all industry capex is seen to have risen 12.8 percent after having been called higher by 13.4 percent in the three months prior. Japan also will see preliminary December results for the manufacturing PMI from Nikkei and final October numbers for industrial production. The manufacturing PMI had a score of 52.2 in November, while preliminary readings for industrial production suggested an increase of 2.9 percent on month and 4.2 percent on year. China will release November numbers for retail sales, industrial production, fixed asset investment, property investment and unemployment. Retail sales are expected to rise 8.8 percent on year, up from 8.6 percent in October. Industrial output is called steady at 5.9 percent, while FAI is tipped to rise to 5.9 percent from 5.7 percent a month earlier. Property investment was up an annual 9.7 percent in October, while the jobless rate came in at 4.9 percent. New Zealand will see November results for the Manufacturing PMI from BusinessNZ; in October, the index score was 53.5. Hong Kong will provide Q3 data for industrial production; in the three months prior, industrial production was up 1.6 percent on quarter and 3.8 percent on year. Malaysia will release October data for unemployment; in September, the jobless rate was 3.3 percent and the participation rate was 58.5 percent. 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. After moving sharply higher early in the sessions, shares of Ciena Corp. (CIEN) have given back some ground but remain firmly positive in late-day trading on Thursday. Ciena is currently up by 8.9 percent after reaching an eleven-year intraday high. The early rally by Ciena came after the networking equipment maker reported better than expected fiscal fourth quarter results and announced a new $500 million stock repurchase program. Ciena reported fourth quarter adjusted earnings of $0.53 per share on revenues of $899.4 million, while analysts had expected the company to earn $0.48 per share on revenues of $860.5 million. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Just a few months after being appointed to replace the late Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., Republican Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., will resign from the Senate at the end of the year. Kyl's resignation was revealed in a letter to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who is now charged with appointing a new replacement fill McCain's seat ahead of a special election in 2020. In a letter to Ducey, Kyl thanked the governor for his appointment and called it an "honor and a privilege to again serve the people of Arizona." "When I accepted your appointment, I agreed to complete the work of the 115th Congress and then reevaluate continuing to serve," Kyl wrote. He added, "I have concluded that it would be best if I resign so that your new appointee can begin the new term with all other Senators in January 2019 and can serve a full two (potentially four) years." Kyl, who previously served as Arizona Senator from 1995 to 2013, was sent back to the Senate in September after McCain's death from brain cancer in August. "Senator Kyl didn't need to return to the Senate," Ducey said in a statement. "His legacy as one of Arizona's most influential and important political figures was already without question." "But he did return, and I remain deeply grateful for his willingness to step up and serve again when Arizona needed him," he added. "I wish him and his family all the best." Ducey said Kyl served with the same integrity and statesmanship over the last few months that marked his 26 years in Congress. Possible replacements for Kyl include Congresswoman Martha McSally, R-Ariz., who lost her race against Democratic Senator-elect Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., for Arizona's other Senate seat in November. A report from Politico said other prospects include Kirk Adams, Ducey's former chief of staff and a former speaker of the Arizona House, and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Veteran Republican strategist Barrett Marson told Politico that Ducey's decision will likely be based on who would have the best chance to hold the seat in the 2020 special election and potentially win a full term in 2022. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News By SA Commercial Prop News Tony Brearley (CBRE), Tshinyi Magoro (CBRE), Marna van der Walt (Excellerate), Andreas Pudach (CBRE), Gordon Hulley (Excellerate) Global commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group (NYSE:CBRE), entered into partnership with Excellerate Property Services within a week after it ended its four-year alliance with Broll Property Group. CBRE, last week announced that it had formed a joint venture with Excellerate to meet the growing demand for real estate services in Africa and the Middle East. Meanwhile, Broll said it had ended its affiliate partnership with the US-based firm in order to pursue its transformation goals and become a black majority owned business. Jonathan Broll, Chairman of the Board at Broll, said it was time the company made an effort to improve transformation in SA. He said the decision to end the relationship with CBRE was amicable. After a protracted period of negotiations to be acquired by CBRE, it became apparent that an agreement satisfying this condition would not be reached. I believe that events have therefore unfolded to the advantage of all parties, said Broll. The company entered into an affiliate agreement with CBRE in 2014 to service the US organisations clients in regions where it had no presence: SA, Nigeria, Ghana and the Indian Ocean islands. In terms of the contract, CBRE had the right of first refusal to acquire Broll and expressed an interest in doing so. During this time, we committed ourselves in earnest to transformation and began seeking a suitable BEE partner capable of carrying the business forward with the aim of finalizing a transaction by the end of 2018, relays Malcolm Horne, Brolls Group Chief Executive Officer. We have engaged with a suitable party and are now free to conclude a transaction which should see Broll as a proudly South African majority black-owned business with increased geographic reach and a substantial increase in size, he said. Both sets of negotiations ran concurrently but, by November 2018, Broll had decided to prioritise the BEE transaction to fast track its transformation to a black-owned business. CBRE was to relinquish its right of first refusal by November 30 but chose not to do so. CBRE informed us at close of business on December 5 that it had decided not the relinquish these rights but rather to end the affiliation, said Horne. CBRE and Excellerate will merge CBREs facilities management operations in Africa and the Middle East with several of Excellerates businesses, including corporate real estate services, facilities management, valuation and project management services as well as property management services outside of South Africa. Ian Entwisle, CEO Global Workplace Solutions, EMEA, said: International corporations are increasingly looking for full service real estate solutions across Africa and the Middle East. Excellerate is the ideal partner to help us deliver these services. Gordon Hulley, CEO, Excellerate Holdings, said: Our partnership with CBRE aligns with our core values and by structuring our relationship as a joint venture, rather than an alliance, we will pool our respective skills and expertise and foster intense collaboration, which will drive superior client outcomes. Marna van der Walt, CEO of Excellerate Property Services, agrees. The joint venture partnership with CBRE will allow us to provide seamless coverage across the region and services that meet the highest global standards. It is a privilege to partner with an organisation of CBREs calibre, and we look forward to growing and strengthening our business. CBRE Group, which is based in Los Angeles, is the worlds largest commercial real estate services company. By SA Commercial Prop News The government is setting aside R4 billion for maintenance and improve conditions on the N1 highway between Kranskop and Makhado. South Africa's government is setting aside R4 billion for maintenance and improve conditions on the N1 road between Kranskop and Makhado. The property node along the N1 extending from the Buccleuch Interchange to the Samrand off-ramp in Gauteng is fast becoming the most sought after commercial real estate in the province, and possibly in SA. Meanwhile, the N1 to Musina from Gauteng is one of the countrys strategic routes. It provides a gateway to Zimbabwe and the rest of the African continent. As a result, the road carries high volumes of traffic, including trucks used for trans-border freight services. Transport Minister Blade Nzimande says government plans to invest just above R4 billion in efforts to improve conditions on the N1 between Kranskop and Makhado in Limpopo. Nzimande spoke recently at the launch of the festive season road safety campaign in Modimolle. Nzimande and officials from the province joined by religious leaders cleansed a portion of the N1 which is notorious for fatal crashes. Nzimande says future plans include the separation of traffic lanes. There is some more investments that are going to be made here in Limpopo to improve our roads, for instance we need to attend to the fact that the separation of the north bound and south bound carriage ways between Kranskop and Makhado will have to be done in future, explains Nzimande. BJP President Amit Shah on Friday demanded that Congress President Rahul Gandhi should apologize to the nation for his "brazen lies" accusing the government and the Prime Minister of corruption in the Rafale jet deal with France and said he should also disclose the source of information for his attacks. Addressing a press conference after the Supreme Court dismissed the petitions seeking a probe into the deal, he said truth had triumphed and Gandhi's "lies" had no legs to stand on. Quoting from the judgement, Shah said the court expressed satisfaction with the process followed in purchasing the aircraft and set aside the demands of the petitioners for a probe into the matter. He said the court agreed with the government's contention that the country was financially benefited in the deal. "The court observed that neighbouring countries' air forces were equipped with fourth and fifth generation aircraft. So there should not be any delay (in procuring the aircraft) in the interest of the country and it should not be stopped," he said. "The court also said that the government of India had no role in choosing the offset partner. It (judgement) is a slap on the face of Congress leaders," Shah said. Questioning Rahul Gandhi's sustained attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government, he said Gandhi had harmed the country's security interests and the morale of the forces by trying to stop the acquisition process. Asking who had "directed" Gandhi to launch the campaign against the Rafale deal, he asked the Congress leader to reveal the source of information. He also asked why Gandhi did not approach the Supreme Court if he had the evidence of corruption. "Why did you run away from the court? You should have gone there. Your B-Team went there. Who stopped Rahul Gandhi from going to Supreme Court and place evidence of corruption?" Shah also said the process for acquisition of fighter jets was initiated in 2001 and why did the UPA government not complete it during its tenure. "Whether commission (kickbacks) stopped it," he said, adding the Congress governments were experts in scams and it was laughable that they were raising doubts about Modi's integrity. The Modi government adopted a transparent process for the jet deal by going for a government-to-government deal. Replying to questions on Rahul Gandhi's description of Modi as 'chowkidaar chor hai' (watchman is a thief), he said only thieves were scared of a vigilant watchman. "People have not doubted Prime Minister Modi or his government" he said. Referring to the Congress demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the deal, Shah said first let the issue be discussed in Parliament. "Congress should come to Parliament and debate. Disruption is not a solution. The government is ready for any length of discussion. Even for constituting a JPC , there should be discussion. How will you decide it? Will the Congress President set up a committee? We do not do match-fixing," he asked. Asked about the contract given to a private company to manufacture Rafale aircraft in preference over state-run HAL, Shah said: "No Rafale aircraft will be manufactured in India -neither by the private company nor by HAL. All 36 jets will be manufactured in France." Asked whether Gandhi's campaign on Rafale during the elections had harmed the BJP, he said election defeats was a different issue. "We are not bothered about profit and loss. We are bothered about the harm it caused to the nation's security." Veteran Congress leader Ashok Gehlot was on Friday picked as Congress choice for Chief Minister of Rajasthan and his rival in the race Sachin Pilot could be the Deputy Chief Minister. The question of leadership is understood to have been sorted out by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who met both the contenders on Friday, their third such meeting in two days. Party sources said Pilot had agreed to become Gehlot's deputy as the party was keen to woo the Gujjar community to which he belongs in view of the coming Lok Sabha elections. The Gujjar community is one of the dominant communities in Rajasthan and is important in electoral battles. In a sign that the leadership question in Rajasthan has been settled, Gandhi on Friday posted his photograph with Gehlot and Pilot. The photograph of the smiling leaders had a caption "United Colours of Rajasthan!", without giving any hint as to who will be the Chief Minister. An official announcement is expected in the evening. Gandhi's tweet capped hectic consultations with Gehlot and Pilot, who put up his claim strongly even as members of the Gujjar community took to the streets on Thursday and Friday demanding that he should get the top slot. Gehlot, a two-time Chief Minister, and Pilot reached Gandhi's residence within minutes of each other on Friday. Ahead of the meeting, Gehlot took a veiled dig at Pilot saying that the party unit had already left the decision on Gandhi and it was not the time to express individual choices. "We have given the duty to the High Command. Let it decide who is to be given what responsibility. If I say my choice is this, it is not time for that. The time is to strengthen the Congress, see how its graph goes up. "If Congress is strong, everyone will be empowered and we prove to be useful in meeting the objectives of the 2019 elections. This alone should be our thinking," Gehlot said. He said a resolution had been passed by newly elected MLAs in Rajasthan authorising the High Command to take a decision. "Whether it is Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh, once a resolution is passed, the decision of the Congress President should be acceptable to all. This is what our workers, MLAs and people expect," he said. He said winning elections in the three Hindi heartland states was a big achievement and that it all started with a strong performance of the Congress in Gujarat under Gandhi's leadership. "(Prime Minister Narendra Modi) and (BJP President) Amit Shah have lost their aura. They have not been able to recover due to which we won elections in the three states," he said. Gehlot had played an active role in formulating the party's campaign strategy in Gujarat. Friday's meeting came hours after the leadership issue was settled in Madhya Pradesh, with Gandhi tweeting his picture with Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who were both chief ministerial aspirants. The picture -- akin to the one on Friday -- carried the line "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time - Leo Tolstoy." Both in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress missed the majority mark by two seats and is now dependent on external legislative support. Pilot, who stayed put in Delhi on Thursday, appealed to party workers to maintain peace and that he would welcome any decision taken by the party. Pilot reportedly has put up a strong claim to the post on the ground that he had galvanised the party after the defeat in 2013, when he was appointed the state party chief. Soon after the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale case, BJP was to be seen at its aggressive best both inside and outside Parliament. Home minister Rajnath Singh led the charge in Lok Sabha calling for Rahul Gandhis apology for misleading the country on the Rafale deal case. The ruling party matched the sloganeering of the opposition in Parliament where both sides heavily traded charges on the deal case. Both the Houses had to be adjourned till Monday. Outside the Parliament each and every BJP leader is trying to showcase the Courts judgment as an act of vindication. The party president Amit Shah launched a stinging attack on the Congress and Rahul Gandhi for targeting the Prime Minister Modi. In a press conference in party headquarter; he accused Rahul Gandhi for trying to jeopardize the nations security and attempting to create suspicion in the mind of the soldiers and the people. Amit Shah said that there was the biggest attempt to mislead the country since independence. No doubt, the Supreme Court judgment has come at a time when the ruling party has lost three very important states of the Hindi heartland. The loss in the assembly election in three Hindi heartland states is being termed as the beginning of the defeat of BJP and Modi in particular. The worry lines in the BJP are now running deep. Although, it has been trying to put up a brave front but the BJP insides are churning. Losing no time after the saddening verdict, the BJP President Amit Shah called a review meeting of the office bearers of the party. He exhorted them to single mindedly focus on the 2019 poll and gave them a clear cut message, the congress may have won but the BJP has not lost these polls. The close verdict in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan is helping the BJP redraw its strategy for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. And there could not have been a more opportune time for BJP than now when the Supreme Court Verdict has came. Although Congress and the rest of opposition are contending that the Supreme Court judgment does not stop them from demanding a JPC probe in the Rafale deal. Still, BJP has reasons to feel upbeat. The next four months are going to be crucial for the BJP as well as the Congress and the rest of the Opposition. BJP will be keeping a close watch upon the performance of the three Congress governments in the MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. And for Rahul Gandhi, the time will continue to be one of test and judgment. Born and raised in the village of Moataa, Tile Tofaeono has seen firsthand the impacts of climate change. I was brought up in Samoa. My village is quite near to the sea and Ive seen a lot of changes compared to now. Even though we have done those seawalls, you can still see that the sea is still coming in, he said to the Samoa Observer. The beach we used to play rugby on, its already gone, and all the marine life too. Climate change is something we have to consider because we have children, and if we dont do something now, it will affect the children. Although Samoa and Pacific Island countries contribute a very less percentage to climate change, we will not escape its impacts. Now acting as the Assistant C.E.O. of the Samoa Meteorological Office, Tile is able to better understand why such changes occur, through collected and analysed data. Sea level rise depends on climate variability and also the impact of El Nino and La Nina. The melting of glaciers on land also impacts the rise in sea level. After 2010, the air temperatures have increased, and most of the times the daily air temperatures have increased to 33 degrees Celsius. In the future there is likely for the temperatures will increase. I dont know if anyone noticed that it hasnt followed the trends. It seems to jump from 30-33 degree Celsius. I looked at the data from 2010 to 2016, the temperatures have increased. He said in the past, living in an open fale was comfortable and people living in closed houses didnt need air-condition, but this has changed. Anyone can feel the heat even if youre in a fale Samoa, you can still feel the heat. When I was brought up we didnt have air-condition because it was cool, now we have to have air-condition in all the rooms because we cant sleep at night because of the heat. Tile said it is important to talk about climate change now because we may not be here tomorrow, and our children will be the ones to suffer. So if we dont do it now, then who will do it? Donald Trump believes this is a normal cycle, but if we dont do it, maybe by 2030, Im already gone, you have time to see by yourself. And you will not be able to do anything. He said in 36 years, he's seen the changes, and is already thinking of what would happen in the next 36 years. Life is just like a forecast, we are just predicting whats going to happen in the future, no one knows exactly, but if we dont prepare by that time, then it is a waste of time. But if we get there and we already know that this change is going to come, then we can adapt to that kind of life. Samoans and Pacific Island countries believe in God, so it is quite hard for us to communicate these kinds of information to them that there are changes. They say, lets go with the flow and whatever life throws at us, lets just adapt to it, but we need to prepare exactly no one has seen the future. Some elders when you talk to them about these issues, they laugh and are not so much worried because their time is running out. Their children will worry about it when they get it. Tile said what concerns him is how his children will adapt to the changes if they are not aware and prepared now. I know because I was part of most of the projects and studies that were done, so I understand by thinking of how best my children can adapt to the changes. Year 13 student Filifiliga Siaosi is the 2018 valedictorian of Aana No. 2 College. He came first in mathematics, accounting, economics and visual arts and also got special awards for leadership as the school head boy, best captain and top student of Year 13 and the 2018 Dux. I would first like to thank God for all my accomplishments because without him I would not have achieved these awards today. I would like to thank the school teachers and staff for their patience in teaching us, but I would especially like to thank my family for all of they have done for me, both big and small, he said. Talking to the Samoa Observer in an interview, Filifiliga said he has attended Aana for four years and liked mathematics and economics. When he was asked who motivated him while in school, he said his teacher. My economics teacher Mr Filemoni Toa really motivated me in school. He has helped me improve in the subjects I never thought Id enjoy much less get an award for. Speaking of the challenges that he faced in school, he said his commitment to studies was one of the main ones. There are a lot of challenges during school. One of the main ones was the commitment to do the work. And that is why I am really grateful for my teachers, he said. Filifiliga is the son of Taefu Siaosi Ropeti Fuifui. His aunt Lopeta Alatise was on hand to put candy leis on him every time he was called up to get a prize. Currently he is waiting for his Samoa Secondary Leaving Certificate (S.S.L.C) results, and hopes he qualifies for National University of Samoa where he wants to continue studying commerce. A 13-year-old from Nuu who dreams of becoming a doctor is the dux of Vaimoso Primary School. Mere Junior Atanoa topped in English, science, social studies, visual arts and mathematics and dedicated her achievement to her parents and family. I dedicate all my trophies to my parents because of their hard work during the year and for helping me through tough times. And to my grandparents because I would not be here without their prayers and also all my teachers in school for always taking time out of their busy schedules to help with whatever I needed, she said. The dux initially wanted to become a teacher but recently changed her mind when she was encouraged by her uncle. My uncle told me to aim for a doctor so that I can take care of him and treat his sickness and Im willing to go for it, she said with a smile. Speaking to Samoa Observer, Mere said she has been accepted into Samoa College, and she is thrilled to start next yearas that is the institution her parents want her to attend. Mere is the daughter of Auapaau Junior and Faaleo Atanoa from the villages Manono and Lepea. We would also like to thank our Samoa Christian Universal church at Falelauniu Tai for the support theyve shown our daughter, Faaleo added. Mere said her academic achievement is the best birthday present she could ever ask for as she only turned 13 two days before her prize giving. ANKARA, Turkey (AP) A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass Thursday at a station in the Turkish capital of Ankara, killing nine people and injuring dozens, officials said. The 6:30 a.m. train from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya collided head-on with the engine, which was checking the tracks at the capital's small Marsandiz station, Transport Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan told reporters after inspecting the site. The high-speed train, which the Anadolu Agency said was carrying 206 passengers, usually passes through that station without stopping. At least two cars derailed, hitting the station's overpass, which then collapsed onto the train. Three engine drivers and six passengers were killed in the crash, Turhan said. One passenger died after being hospitalized while the others were killed at the scene. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 84 other people had sought medical help after the crash. Television footage showed emergency services working to rescue passengers from wrangled cars and debris. Hurriyet newspaper said sniffer dogs assisted efforts to find survivors. Turhan said later no one else was believed to be trapped. It wasn't immediately clear if a signaling problem caused the crash. Authorities detained three state railway employees over suspected negligence and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed a thorough investigation. Passenger Ayse Ozyurt told the IHA news agency that the accident occurred 12 minutes after the train left the main station and that it had not yet gained its maximum speed. "The train was not fast at that time yet," she said. "Suddenly, there was a frightening breakage ... and the train was off the rail." Konya, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of Ankara, is home to the tomb of the Sufi mystic and poet Jalaladdin Rumi, attracting thousands of pilgrims and tourists. The crash occurred during an annual week of remembrance for Rumi, when many travel to Konya to watch Whirling Dervishes, members of a Sufi sect, perform. Turkey has had a raft of train crashes this year. In July, 24 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in northwestern Turkey after torrential rains caused a section of the tracks to collapse. Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in Turkey's central province of Sivas. Local businessman, Samoa Roy Lee, is the new owner of a helicopter sold by the Ministry of Revenue in an attempt to recover alleged unpaid taxes. The sale was confirmed by the Minister of Revenue, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, in response to questions from the Samoa Observer. The Minister could not divulge how much the helicopter was sold for, citing a confidentiality agreement. But he confirmed that the helicopter - Model AS350VA manufactured in 1981 was auctioned with a starting price of $60,000. We did not recover what is owed to the Government on Value added goods and services tax (V.A.G.S.T.) but Im glad we have received funding as a result of the owed taxes, Tialavea said. Im also glad it is out of our hands now. The Minister confirmed that there were four bidders. We sold it to the highest bidder, he said. Im sorry but I cannot disclose how much it was sold due to confidentiality clauses under the Revenue laws. The sale was officiated two weeks ago and Samoa Roy Lee has the helicopter at his residence. Asked whether the helicopter was licensed to operate in Samoa, the Minister was not sure. The information on the licensing process can be attained from the Ministry of Works, Transport and Infrastructure; but I am not sure whether that helicopter was ever registered. Repeated attempts to get a comment from Samoa as to what his plans are for the helicopter were unsuccessful. The helicopter made headlines in Samoa in early 2016 when Samoa Helicopters Company received the Governments backing to set up Samoas first medical evacuation, search and rescue operation. But the project went bust six months later, with their office in Apia shut and Company Founder and Principal Rodger McCutcheon, leaving town. Last month, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Revenue, Avalisa Viali Fautuaalii, put the auction on hold so that the owners could pay taxes they owed the Government. This was not done and the auction took place. Falefitu Primary School is celebrating a special achievement this year. Year 7 student, Dominic Ponifasio Lino, has become the first from the school to qualify for Samoa College in years. And it came as no surprise since he took most of the year seven top prizes for Math, Samoan, Social Science, Basic Science, Visual Arts, Health and Physical Education (H.P.E). First things first, I dedicate my trophies and achievements to thank God, and then to my parents. I feel so humbled with everything God has blessed me with because I dont own the knowledge, God does and he gave it to me through constant prayer and hard work, said Dominic. The boy from Vaitele-fou said he wants to become a teacher. Asked whether hell complete his primary school or head straight for Samoa College, he answered confidently: Im going to Samoa College Im going to be working hard next year because Ill be missing out a lot from the year eight syllabus, but Im willing to push through, and work harder than I did this year Dominic is the son of Patisepa Failauga and Ponifasio Lino from the villages of Vaitele Fou, Palauli, Iva and Safotu. The Samoa Solidarity International Group (S.S.I.G.) is celebrating its first anniversary today with a peaceful march from Vaisigano to Mulinuu. And the Ministry of Police has granted them a permit for the event. The permit has been granted with conditions, in an agreement signed by the Commissioner of Police, Fuiavailiili Egon Keil and lawyer, Unasa Iuni Sapolu, who is the organiser. The march is scheduled to start at 7am for an hour. It is the responsibility of the Samoa Police Service in part to ensure the nation all civility and to safeguard the constitutional rights of all people of Samoa, the permit reads. Although approval has been granted. The conditions are that the march remains on the Beach road at all times and not divert to road arteries, make stops, obstruct or hinder the normal flow of vehicular or pedestrian traffic on Beach Road of the sidewalks. The civilians involved in the march are supposed to use the curb lane on the beach road; and not breach any statute. Use no offensive, protesting either verbal, in signage, posters, placards, writings, verbiage, caricatures etc,. Not to disturb the peace or project any obnoxious, boisterous noise and obey any lawful direction by a police officer. According to the permit, the police will remain in the vicinity to monitor the event to safeguard the participants and other members of the public. In the unlikely event the march or any of its participants breach any of the conditions set forth, the permit will immediately rescinded and considered null and void. Further careful observations must be taken by the organizers to ensure the lawful gathering does not morph into an unlawful assembly. Faleata College Head boy, Mori Faafetai Apulu Naisali, has become the first vocational student to claim the dux honour. Landing first places for computer studies, Samoan, music, design technologywhich came with a part-time job opportunity from the prize sponsorsMori also secured special prizes including head prefect, most reliable prefect 2018 and all-round best student of the year. The Faleata dux, who spent all his years at Faleata College, has proven himself to be the education institutions most hard working and persistent student. He was placed 30th in Year 9 and climbed to 12th in Year 10 and 2nd in Year 11. Last year in Year 12, he was runner-up to the dux of that year, and this year he reached the pinnacle of academic excellencewhen he was announced the Faleata College dux. Mori dedicated his achievements to his parents and grandparents, who were present at his prize giving at Tuutuuileloloto Hall recently, claiming hes been striving all year to make his family proud. I feel so happy and blessed because God has answered my prayers and this is the best I can do for my family for now, but I trust there will be more coming for me and my family, he said. Although it may seem great he said juggling his head prefect duties and school work during the year proved to be his major challenge. Id like to thank my parents for the hard work they go through to keep me in school all these years, also to my grandparents and siblings for the support. When asked about his dream job, he quickly said: I want to be an IT (office), information technology officer, maybe Id be an IT officer for SSAB, he said with a smile. Mori is the son of Fale and Faafetai Naisali and hails from the village of Faleasiu. Fifty-six Samoans will have the opportunity to further their studies and acquire new skills in Australia and Fiji in 2019. The Australia Awards is a prestigious international scholarship funded by the Government of Australia. Acting Australian High Commissioner, Amanda Jewell said during the pre-departure briefing at the Taumeasina Island Resort yesterday that they have increased the number of awardees travelling to Australia from 28 (last year) to 36. Of the 36, under the open category, which includes working people who will be doing Bachelors, Postgraduates and Masters, there are 15. Thirty-six will travel to Australia to study, which is most of you in attendance this morning (yesterday), 10 who will partake study in Fiji, and another 10 will study online with Australian Institutions, Ms. Jewell said. The 10 people going to Fiji include eight Foundation students and two for the open category. It is interesting that you all will be undertaking study in a variety of industries, including engineering, biomedical science, cybersecurity, education, management and business, medical laboratory and hospitality management all areas that are priorities for Australia and Samoa. The Australia Awards in Samoa is guided by the Australia Awards Global Strategy and the tripartite partnership Australia has with the Governments of Samoa and New Zealand. I commend the Government of Samoa for their leadership in our partnership and for engaging in the scholarships platform, which is an important component of our aid program, Ms. Jewell said. It (Australia) recognises that tertiary education is an important investment in your future. It offers you the next generation of global leaders an opportunity to study in Australia and to return home with newfound knowledge that will greatly contribute to the development of Samoa. I encourage you to make the most of your time in Australia make friends, exchange cultures, join clubs, learn new skills but never lose focus of the number one reason you are there to complete your degrees successfully. Ms. Jewell told the recipients they are the future leaders of Samoa in their chosen fields and the skills they will acquire will support the development of their families, villages and country. The Australia Awards build invaluable people to people links and trust between our nations. I look forward to continually building on this understanding of one anothers cultures, politics, economies and societies. To be eligible for the scholarship, students must be 18 years old and above, a citizen of Samoa, and their programmes are offered in Australia. Local company Island Rock reached out to the family of Muga Aukuso from Savaia Lefaga on Thursday with an early Christmas surprise. The family has been gifted with a food hamper as part of the companys 25 Days of the Spirit of Christmas campaign. The campaign particularly targets vulnerable families that were featured in the Village Voice columns of the Samoa Observer this year. Muga and her family were one of three families that received food hampers comprising a box of tinned fish, noodles, box of crackers, sacks of rice, sugar as well as toys for the children. The mother of four was touched by the gesture shown by the company. I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Island Rock for their heart to give to those that are in need. Forgive our family for not having anything to repay your generosity but all we have are prayers for Gods blessings upon your company. The bible says that he who gives are more blessed than those that receive, she said. Her familys challenges of the lack of access to water and electricity remain, but the surprising gesturewith Christmas just around the cornerwas a relief. Christmas is coming soon and I am so relieved that our family will have enough food to last us throughout this coming holiday. Our concerns are still with water and electricity, but water is the main worry because we need it for drinking, bathing, cooking food, washing clothes and also for the proper use of our waste management facility. The 46-year-old said six of them live in their small home: herself, her husband, their three children and their grandchild. Island Rock representative, Maiava Iosia, told Muga that their campaign is focused on giving back to the community. Christmas is a season of giving and we have selected families and organizations that deserve to celebrate the joy of Christmas just like everyone else. We acknowledge the assistance and work done by Samoa Observer in locating families that need help. Every family featured has different needs and concerns but we have chosen food supplies and childrens toys to bring happiness to selected families, Maiava said. The campaign, which began on November 30, ends December 24 and features a variety of programmes and activities. The Samoa Cancer Society (S.C.S.) marked its 20th anniversary this week with a gathering, reflecting on the Societys humble beginnings and achievements. The Minister of Health, Tuitama Dr. Leao Tuitama praised the credibility of the organisation with enviable track records and one that operates with integrity Over the years, the society has advocated strongly for those affected by cancer and for policies that will have a positive influence on the well-being of our community, he said. Thankfully, it has been able to provide basic palliative advice, care and other forms of support for hundreds of cancer patients and their families, as well as lending support to much needed data compilation and research. The Minister, who is also the Societys Patron, was especially pleased S.C.S. did not rely solely on Government for funding. Of course like any civil society, underfunded, under resourced, under staffed, the S.C.S. has had its fair share of challenges but the skills and resources made available to move the work of the society forward has been endless. Therefore, tonights event is to honour you, the supporter of S.C.S. You, the volunteer, you the donor, you the company and you the independent nation of Samoa. The founding President of S.C.S., Leiataualesa Daryl Clarke, talked about the organisations humble beginnings. He talked about a small group of people who shared a vision and stood by the vision to establish what is today known as the Samoa Cancer Society. This was my introduction to the world of funding applications, he said. The lesson for me was the importance of audited accounts to gain and keep the trust of society and the first two years was spent building this trust and confidence. Fast forward to today, Incumbent President, Lauaki Jason Annandale highlighted the longevity of the society appreciation to the tremendous support network and partnership not only from the government but with the business community as evidenced in the relations built, where numbers of supporters have grown over the years. The society has set realistic enough goals with the hope to implement according to its strategic plan 2018-2020 that was also launched at the anniversary celebrations. Samoa Cancer Society was established in 1998 as an independent, not for profit organisation with a constitutional mandate to help reduce the number of people who develop cancer and to help ensure the best quality of life for people with cancer. Its Chief Executive Officer is Shelley Burich. KATOWICE, Poland (AP) Bleary-eyed after almost two weeks of negotiations, officials from almost 200 countries on Friday discussed the first comprehensive draft agreement to emerge at the U.N. climate talks in Poland, mindful that the clock was ticking to reach a deal. Anticipating the need for more debate, organizers prepared to extend the meeting, which was supposed to end Friday, until Sunday. Some key issues at the talks remain unresolved, but European diplomats and activists expressed hope that a climate agreement could be reached by Saturday. The meeting in Katowice the 24th U.N. climate summit aims to finalize the rules that countries who signed the 2015 Paris climate accord need to follow. Those include how the countries transparently report both their emissions of greenhouse gases and their efforts to reduce them. Scientists say emissions need to drop dramatically by 2030 and reach near-zero by 2050 in order to prevent the Earth's average global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times. A recent scientific report found that capping global warming at that level would prevent many potentially catastrophic consequences for life on Earth. The current draft text in Katowice avoids "welcoming" the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report on the 1.5-degree target a possible concession to United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Those oil-exporting nations had blocked an endorsement of the study Saturday, angering other countries and environmentalists. Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed warned that countries such as his, which consider themselves on the front lines of global warming, would veto the current draft. "We are deeply unhappy with the way the talks are going," he told reporters, citing the lack of a clear commitment to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. Unless their demands are met, Nasheed said, island states would be "rebelling against extinction. And if necessary, we will rebel against the negotiations." One issue that has come back to haunt negotiators concerns how to establish an international market in carbon credits. Dubbed the 'Zombie of Kyoto' by some, it pits emerging economies such as Brazil, which amassed large piles of carbon credits under the 1997 treaty's rules, against industrialized blocs like the European Union, which believe the older credits aren't worth the paper they were printed on. Economists believe a functioning carbon trading system could be an effective way to drive down emissions and raise large amounts of money for measures to curb global warming. Alex Hanafi, lead counsel at the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund, claimed Brazil was trying to weaken the rules in such a way that would allow countries to count their emissions reductions twice, undermining the carbon markets. "This loophole needs to be closed so zombie credits from the old (Kyoto) Clean Development Mechanism cannot infect the climate integrity of the Paris Agreement," he said. Brazil's delegation rejected the claim. "Brazil is currently working with other parties on a bridging proposal," said the country's chief negotiator, Antonio Marcondes. Financial support for poor countries, and whether they could benefit from a levy on the carbon market, is another key issue at the talks. Poor countries insist they should get financial support not just to lower emissions and adapt to climate change, but also to make up for the global warming damages that have already occurred, caused largely by industrial nations. The draft text relegates that issue to a footnote, but a senior European official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was likely to get promoted over the coming hours. U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday waded into the debate over the cost of tackling climate change, telling Fox News that if he had remained in the Paris accord the U.S. "would be paying trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars for nothing, and I wouldn't do that." Trump announced last year that the U.S. is pulling out of the accord unless he can get a better deal a possibility that others such as the EU and China have dismissed. Germany's environment minister said the failure to curb climate change would cost the world a lot more than the trillions Trump claims that he's saving. "If we let entire stretches of this planet become uninhabitable, then it will trigger gigantic costs," Schulze told reporters. "I'm firmly convinced that if we invest in protecting the climate now, it will be an enormous advantage, a competitive advantage, for industrialized countries like Germany." San Diego County appears to be on track to build more housing this year, led by increases in apartment construction. For the first nine months of the year, San Diego County has built about 8,519 housing units, up from 6,054 at the same time last year, said the third quarter report from the Real Estate Research Council of Southern California. In each of the past three years, the county built under 10,000 homes far short of what housing advocates had hoped for given job and population growth. While the higher numbers were a welcome sign, permits were heavily skewed toward rental units. The numbers exceeded last year and thats good, said real estate analyst Gary London. The takeaway is most are apartments that are in the most urban areas. Disproportionately, we are not building homes for families. Advertisement Increases were largely led by new apartment buildings in downtown and University City. In the first nine months, 5,738 multifamily permits were pulled, an increase of more than 70 percent from the same time last year. Townhouses and condos are included in multifamily numbers but make up a much smaller portion of the market. Single-family housing permits were also up, but not by much. There were 2,781 permits pulled, about 3 percent more than the same time last year. London, who consults on housing projects with his firm London Moeder Advisors, said the numbers reflect a period of intense apartment building because of rising rents. He said he doubted the same numbers would be seen in 2019 as rent prices stabilize. Also, London said the multifamily construction showed building was mainly targeting a small segment of the market high-end urban. It is possible that San Diego County could still end up building less housing in 2018. Rising steel prices and labor shortages have been cited by developers as reasons to hold off on new projects. Also, even if the county builds more housing in 2018 than previous years, it still falls short of what experts say it needs to build based on population growth and the needs for workers in the strong economy. London said the best case scenario would be 20,000 housing units built a year with a more even distribution geographically, and by product type. The concerns that Ive always had about the housing market remain, he said. Alan Nevin, a real estate analyst with Xpera Group, said the lack of new single-family homes experienced this year could be worse at the end of 2018 and into 2019 because of a slowdown in the housing market. So far this year, Trulia Research said San Diego had the most reductions 20.5 percent of the 100 biggest metro areas in the United States. (It tied with Tampa, which also saw 20.5 percent of homes with a price cut.) (Single-family) is not doing terribly well, Nevin said. When I talk to builders, they are crying the blues. On a percentage basis, San Diego County had the biggest increase 40.7 percent in residential permits pulled in Southern California in the first nine months. Riverside County was up 35.1 percent and Los Angeles County up 7.9 percent. Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties have all built less housing so far this year. For contrast, there were 17,306 new homes built in San Diego County in 2004 and 15,258 in 2005. Following the housing boom years, building drastically reduced. During the Great Recession, in 2009, fewer than 3,000 homes were built. Even as political pressure for more housing increased locally and at the state level in the last three years, San Diego County has been building less than 10,000 homes. There were 9,975 new homes constructed in 2015, 9,972 in 2016 and 9,580 in 2017. Most forecasts predict an increase in new homes in California in 2019. The California Association of Realtors predicts an 8 percent increase in new home construction; California Department of Finance, 11.3 percent; and 4.6 percent from the UCLA Business Forecasting Project. Business phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1891 Twitter: @phillipmolnar ALSO San Diegos new single-family homes are pricey, modern and in short supply Tijuana condo craze continues in to 2018 Last years housing market broke records A couple of Wall Street guys with deep pockets and a high tolerance for risk have launched a new startup incubator in San Diego, filling a role thats been in high demand here for decades. The incubator, ThinkTank Innovation, is offering free office space to 20 technology startups in San Diego, rivaling the citys largest and most prominent startup incubator EvoNexus when it comes to size and scope. Evo is home to 21 startups. Incubators are breeding grounds for promising startups, and theyre catnip to ambitious tech talent looking to plug into a healthy ecosystem. The citys software engineers and entrepreneurs have long pined for more heavy hitters in tech, as San Diegos startup resources are often relegated to verticals in the life sciences. But the local tech scene appears to be gaining traction, as ThinkTank is the second new software incubator to launch in a matter of months. Its good to see new incubators stepping into EvoNexus arena, said two leaders in the local tech community: Mike Krenn of the San Diego Venture Group and Austin Neudecker of Startup San Diego. Advertisement The San Diego ecosystem needs more programs and accelerators that help early stage companies find product market fit, said Neudecker, who has a background in venture capital investing. Thats what Im always harping on companies to do. If these guys can help companies make that evolution from one or two founders to a growing, scalable business, then thats a good thing. Mark Bernier, the chairman and co-founder of ThinkTank, has been living in San Diego County for more than two decades, and has been watching the tech ecosystem with interest. San Diego has made a substantive commitment to innovation and theres been a significant amount of progress, Bernier said. If it was even 10 years ago, we probably wouldnt have chosen to locate this here. This first tech cohort includes 16 San Diego startups, and four companies from other regions whose founders traveled here for the program. In total, 75 people are housed at the incubator, with space for 110 max. Unlike most incubators, ThinkTank is not taking an ownership stake in its tenant companies. Instead, the startups that make it through ThinkTanks application process get a no-strings-attached, three-month course in entrepreneurship, and free space at the trendy WeWork coworking space in University Town Centre. Show me the money Bernier said theres still some ingredients missing for startups, not the least of which is money. So hes made a personal investment of $3 million to get ThinkTank started, and also set aside $10 million in family office money to make investments in startups that impress him and his colleagues. There is also a more formal effort happening behind the scenes. In conjunction with ThinkTank, which is a nonprofit organization, Bernier has launched an investment group called VentureMoney. The hope is to raise a venture fund that can invest in good startups that go through ThinkTank. Its important to note that ThinkTank tenants do not have to accept any offer of investment from VentureMoney or Bernier. However, Bernier would not discuss how much committed capital VentureMoney has for its fund, as he said the organization is still in talks with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to get approval on their method for raising funds. His goal is aggressive, however, with hopes to have $500 million in assets under management once the fund gains steam. He wont get there with small bets on San Diego startups, so the company will also co-invest with other venture firms, he said. Mark Bernier is the founder and executive chairman of new tech incubator ThinkTank Innovation. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) Founders have finance background This will be Berniers first attempt at venture capital, but hes an old friend of finance. Hes made his career as the founder and CEO of Thornton Capital Advisors and Thornton Americas Holdings, two groups that bought up distressed assets and consumer debt from banks during the 1990s and early 2000s. He also worked in private equity, often investing in distressed companies and bringing them back from the brink of financial ruin. That provided me with unique skill sets on how to evaluate businesses, how to evaluate management teams, financial systems, risk, the markets, and everything else, Bernier said. VentureMoney plans on making investments of $250,000 to $1.5 million to start, with secondary investments coming in a bit higher. Equity stakes can be anywhere from 5 percent to 90 percent, depending on the startups leadership team, experience, business traction, and other factors. Joining Bernier in founding ThinkTank Innovation is venture capitalist Paul Turino, currently at Velocity Media Ventures in New York City. Turino is also the guy who founded Citi Ventures, as in Citis corporate venture arm. Turino serves as chief innovation officer at ThinkTank. Other founders include Jim Jalil, a partner at law firm Thompson Hine, and Alan Maiss, an investment broker and former casino executive. All are minority shareholders in VentureMoney, Bernier said. Maiss had minor involvement in a casino scandal and criminal investigation in the 1990s that resulted in a misprision charge (categorized as a misdemeanor), but was later pardoned by President George W. Bush in 2008. Bernier said hes known Maiss for over 20 years and can vouch for his reputation as a clean and straight operator. Bernier said Maiss was upfront about his past involvement with the investigation, and provided Bernier with background and legal paperwork describing the case before getting involved with VentureMoney. Outside of casino leadership, Maiss has worked in securities and specialty finance, and is a trustee at the Nevada Museum of Art and a member of its investment committee. Business brittany.meiling@sduniontribune.com 619-293-1286 Twitter: @BrittanyMeiling It was a game of cat and mouse, and this cat was not about to win. I was chasing a cactus wren through a prickly patch of cholla with high hopes of getting a good photo. But the wren just kept darting out of reach. Moving through this hostile environment was nothing for this energetic little bird. For me, it was a painful challenge. Eventually I just sat down on a small patch of ground not covered by cactus and waited. Maybe it was curiosity or just indifference, but soon the cactus wren had moved close enough for good photos. Advertisement The cactus wren is one of seven wren species found in San Diego, along with house wrens, Bewicks, canyon, rock, marsh and a rare winter visitor, the winter wren. This is the largest of the wrens, measuring about 8 inches in length with short, rounded wings, a long, heavy bill and a rounded tail. One of the characteristics of most wrens is their habit of elevating their tail when perched, but the cactus wren does not exhibit this behavior. This is a distinctively marked bird with a darker brown back with bold white streaks, a white band over the red eyes from the beak to the back of the head, and a white chest with dark speckles fading to a buffy brown on the underside. The tail has black and brown barring. Both males and females have similar coloration, however juveniles have a paler coloration and the eyes are brown instead of red. While most common in the more arid eastern portions of San Diego County, there are also breeding populations in coastal sage shrub, arid chaparral and inland valleys generally below an elevation of 1,500 feet. They are absent from higher elevations. This is a bird that depends on a specialized habitat of cactus patches. Its in these patches of cholla and prickly pear where they nest and roost. In fact, watching these active little birds for a while brings amazement that they can so easily move through this harsh environment without being impaled on the imposing spines. While the eastern deserts provide plenty of cactus habitat for this wren, urbanization has had an impact on habitat in coastal lowland areas. Efforts to provide habitat suitable for the cactus wren include recent plantings of prickly pear cactus in natural areas around Lake Hodges where there has historically been a breeding population of a subspecies of this resident bird. There are other differences between the cactus wren and other wren species. This fearless bird seems to prefer being out in the open, unlike other wrens that seek cover in dense vegetation. You will often spot them sitting at the top of a cacti or shrub, letting the whole world know they are there with their repeated single-note cackle. The song has been described as similar to a car that wont start. Males do most of the vocalization, however, females do communicate with mates and their young to announce danger. This is a bird that eats mostly insects and spiders, along with other tiny bugs such as ants, butterflies and beetles. The wren I was chasing kept moving from cactus thickets to the ground where it pecked around rocks and debris to find tiny insect meals. Despite living in an arid environment, or maybe because of that, the cactus wren rarely drinks water, instead getting the moisture it needs from its food. As their name would suggest, the cactus wren builds nests that are surrounded by thorns or spines. Nest building is a joint effort by the male and female and when completed they will have built an oval-shaped ball about a foot long, including an entrance tunnel. Like most cavity nests, the entrance hole is just large enough to allow the wren to slip in, but small enough to keep predators out. Depending on habitat conditions, the pair can produce up to three broods a year, each clutch producing two to seven eggs. Many bird species abandon their nests when chicks fledge, but the cactus wren continues to use the nest for roosting throughout the year, spending nights there after a day of foraging for food. These are territorial birds, and a keen observer may notice this when they see cactus wrens spread their tails, fluff themselves up and scold or chase intruders, including snakes, cats or other birds. The cactus wren is happy little bird that should be easy to add to your life list. You may see them in the cactus patches around Lake Jennings or Lake Henshaw, but they are more often found hanging around the native plants at the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitors Center in Borrego Springs. Cowan is a freelance writer based in Escondido. Email him at BirdandErnie@gmail.com or follow him at erniesoutdoors.blogspot.com. December 14, 1967 The San Diego Union The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year. Thursday, December 14, 1967 In 1967 snow fell on the San Diego coast for the first time since 1949. The Weather Station at Lindbergh Field recorded its first snowfall in 18 years and only the second in its history. Here are the first few paragraphs of the story: City Gets A Surprise Wrapped In White 2nd Snow In Recent S.D. History By Dick Bowman A chilling air mass marked Made in Canada yesterday sprayed snow on San Diego for the first time since 1949 and the second time in recent history. It dumped 2 feet of snow on Palomar Mountain and between 12 and 18 inches in the higher Lagunas. Many schools in the back country remained closed. The icy blast also coated trees and cars with snow in Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad, Pine Valley, Campo, Vista, and La Jolla. SOME SNOWFLAKES Big soft flakes teased downtown San Diego, North Park, East San Diego, Clairemont and University City and other areas, the weatherman said. The Lindbergh Field Weather Station marked its first snowfall in 18 years and the second in its history. The Weather Bureau last night predicted scattered showers, with snow flurries on ground above 2,000 feet, through tomorrow at least. The forecast called for temperatures between 23 and 28 last night and tonight in agriculture areas of the county. Meteorologists said strong gusty northeast winds would continue in the back country. DROPS TO 38 The mercury at Lindbergh Field dipped to 38 degrees at 9:30 a.m., tying a record low for the year set Jan. 7. The coldest Dec. 13 in San Diego history was in 1901 when the temperature fell to 35 degrees. The daytime high at the airport was 48 degrees. Les Epstein, an assistant meteorologist at Lindbergh Field, said snow started falling there about 7:30 a.m. and continued until 8:50 a.m., when it bowed to raindrops. The Weather Bureau classified the snow at Lindbergh Field as a trace, and said .01 of an inch of rain was recorded. The wind at Lindbergh Field reached 20 knots, while gusts of 37 knots (gale force) whipped Brown Field. The sheriffs office said winds in Otay reached 50 knots. SUN IN SAN YSIDRO Epstein said Carlsbad got two inches of snow, while Fallbrook received three to four inches and Pine Valley, two inches. San Diego Police Sgt. John E. Mansfield said that from his traffic control helicopter The whole city of San Diego was white. View anniversary front pages online at sandiegouniontribune.com/150-years. For more from the Union-Tribune digital archives, go to newslibrary.com/sites/sdub. Searching is free, with registration. A fee is required to view full stories. Hundreds of Central American migrants who refused to leave the original Benito Juarez shelter in Tijuana and move to a second spot 11 miles away are being relocated to a new government-run shelter just a few blocks from the initial location. Conditions in the Benito Juarez shelter became so overcrowded and unsanitary several weeks after the caravan arrived that federal officials had to relocate thousands of migrants to an abandoned concert hall across town. Benito Juarez was then shuttered. But about 300 refused to leave and have been camping outside on the streets without food, running water or bathrooms, raising fears of a serious public health crisis if the situation continued to deteriorate. Some who refused to leave Tijuanas Zona Norte said they did so because they wanted to be closer to the border, giving them a better chance of being granted a chance at asylum. Advertisement The second, more distant shelter called El Barretal, has more space under roof but the 2,500 to 3,000 migrants there now will not be permitted to come back. This new shelter will be exclusively for the people here now, not for anyone to relocate from El Barretal to here, said Javier Hernandez, a representative from the office of Mexicos newly-elected president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The new, third shelter is in an abandoned building, less than a block from the first, and just a short walk to the pedestrian border crossing. Benito Juarez became filled with dirty water and sewage after heavy rains and many of the migrants fell ill. Still many refused to back track away from la linea, or the border-line with the United States. Slowly, groups have given in and trickled into El Barretal in the Torres de Matamoros section of Tijuana, which offers better conditions. On Thursday, volunteers were cleaning and preparing the new venue in the abandoned and gutted former Hotel El Cisne on Av. Mutualismo. We just have to have another place to move everyone inside, said Hernandez, who noted a storm is expected Saturday. This is exclusive for these people because a lot of them are already working and remained behind to stay close to employment opportunities. Luis Arriaga is sheltering outside Benito Juarez with his wife and their 18-month-old son, Eric. Of course, being indoors is better. Better conditions. We wont have to deal with the rain and cold, Arriaga said. Also, it will be a lot more secure, safer, for the children. Another member of the caravan, Juan Carlos Valladores, wearing clothes splashed with fresh drywall, peeked through holes in the boarding of the former Hotel El Cisne as volunteers cleaned out the space. He nearly jumped off the ground when he realized the federal volunteers were preparing the space for the migrants. The first day I came here, I started working, said Valladores, who said he remained at Benito Juarez after it was closed because he did not want to move away from the informal location where a man picks him up in the morning for construction work. Not everyone was pleased with the decision to move the migrants inside. Neighbors living right next door to the former hotel said they were angry at Lopez Obrador about the situation. I think its a very bad idea. They already have a piece of land over in El Barretal. Its far from the line, but thats not our fault, said Andrea Camacho, a neighbor. Whether its further away or on another world, its not our fault. Camacho said the group who remained at Benito Juarez has been disturbing the peace, making it hard to sleep at night. Theyre pooping right behind my fence, she said. Night and day theyre making a mess and they dont have any respect. Camacho said she didnt feel it was the responsibility of Mexico to deal with the caravan. Because here in Mexico, we already have lots of poverty, lots of poor people, so why are these people the problem of Mexico? No, said Camacho. Hernandez disagreed about responsibility for the migrants, saying: Were opening this third shelter because we are in charge of this phenomenon. Its worrisome for the entire city to have a health situation like this, he said. There are 300 people living so closely together on the streets without water or food. He said officials at El Barretal were already treating eight cases of chickenpox, and quickly working to vaccinate others so the illness doesnt spread. Its cold. A storm is coming and they dont have bathrooms, Hernandez said. Of course its a place where infection could spread. At El Barretal, Mexicos Navy is providing food services and authorities are transporting migrants by bus to immigration offices and job fairs. Operations have been running smoothly, according to local, state and federal authorities. The second shelter opened Nov. 30, the day before Mexicos federal government transitioned from its prior administration to the more liberal Lopez Obrador, a longtime champion of migrant rights. But with people out on the streets without services, its harder to track health concerns, Hernandez said. A 22-year-old woman is facing a murder charge in the death of a baby girl who authorities said she gave birth to and then left in a cardboard box near a freeway in Corona nearly five months ago. Police detectives arrested Shawna Andritch, of Corona, last week and a 17-year-old boy on Wednesday in connection with the childs death. The teens name was not released by authorities because he is a minor. Police have not said what his connection to the case is, and it is not clear whether he has been charged. The body of the infant, known as Baby Jane Doe, was discovered July 27 in the area of Cajalco Road and the 15 Freeway, said Sgt. Chad Fountain of the Corona Police Department. It had been wrapped in a striped and floral-pattered T-shirt and placed inside a box. Fountain said the baby was about a day old when she was left less than a mile from a fire station a safe-surrender site where a parent can drop off an infant within 72 hours of birth with no questions asked. Advertisement That makes it worse in our eyes, Fountain said. It didnt need to happen. On Dec. 6, police, firefighters and community members buried the baby at Sunnyslope Cemetery in Corona. A local shop donated flowers, a detectives family purchased a dress for the baby to be buried in, and police and fire unions chipped in to cover funeral expenses, Fountain said. After the funeral, detectives received a tip from individuals about the case. The information they provided led investigators to identify Andritch and the teen as possibly being involved. Detectives met with them the next day and arrested the pair based on statements they made during the interview. Fountain said officials could not determine how the baby died during an autopsy. Andritch is being held in lieu of $1-million bail. Her arraignment has been postponed to Dec. 20. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @Hannahnfry Alex Helmi walked through the stacks of Persian rugs in his gallery and admired each bundle piled waist-high on the showroom floor. A sign hanging from the ceiling pained him. Historic closing sale, the white letters read. For 30 years, Helmi has filled his Westwood shop with pieces of art that link Southern California to the Iranian villagers who weave them thousands of miles away. The 62-year-old doesnt want to close Damoka. But after President Trump reimposed an aggressive array of sanctions on Iran in November, Helmi decided he was tired of his business being caught in the middle of a geopolitical battle. Advertisement Im heartbroken, Helmi said. I dont do this for the money. I do it for the history. Why does culture need to be sanctioned? The U.S. placed an embargo on Iranian goods in 2010. When it was lifted in 2015, Iranian American business owners felt a surge of hope and anticipated that the end of the ban would reinvigorate a commercial lifeline that had gone dry. Aside from rugs, merchants looked to import other, lesser-known products such as saffron, caviar and pistachios. In 2016, Helmi received his first shipment of merchandise from Iran since the U.S. imposed the ban. Among the cargo sat 40 handmade rugs some antique, some modern. Valued at about $500,000, the shipment would replenish his assortment of older rugs. Then President Trump withdrew from the landmark nuclear accord. The administrations new sanctions target major sectors of the Iranian economy, such as energy, shipping, shipbuilding and finance. In all, more than 700 individuals, vessels, aircraft, banks, companies and other entities were put on the U.S. blacklist 300 more than before. Ive lost my patience, Helmi said. I want to get out. I dont see any hope of getting anywhere. The White House has argued that the sanctions will cause such hardships that Iranian authorities will be forced to reopen negotiations, abandon their ballistic missiles and stop bankrolling militant groups across the Middle East. Adel Tousi, who runs Tousi Rugs with his father and brother in Westwood, said that as soon as they started to feel the effects of sanctions being lifted and began to make moves, we got hit again. As things started balancing out, we ended up right back where we were, said Tousi, whose family has been in the Persian rug industry for five generations. A few months ago, a young manufacturer from Iran visited Tousis store, eager to discuss a new relationship. The man had an idea to weave machine-made rugs in Iran and sell them in the U.S. to younger customers who cant afford the thousands of dollars a handmade carpet costs. Right now, Tousi said, Asian manufacturers have cornered that market. I thought it was a really cool idea, a starter rug for a starter home, he said. Iran had never done that before, importing machine rugs that were meant to look like the real ones. Now we have no opportunity to bring that. Between the Persian rugs his family already had in the shop and more economical Afghan and Pakistani rugs they sell, the store has enough carpets in the market to weather the latest sanctions, Tousi said. But if the ban lasts several years, it will impact our business moving forward. People are reflected in a storefront as they walk down Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles Persian Square district. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times) Experts say that before the Obama-era ban, the U.S. accounted for about 20% to 30% of Irans carpet exports. The return of sanctions is simply going back to the status quo, said Farhad Alavi, an international trade compliance attorney. The back-and-forth has created a situation in which Iranians do not have the option to buy things from back home the way other ethnic communities do, Alavi said. Downstairs from my office, I can buy Japanese Kit Kat, but you cant buy Iranian khoresh, he said, referring to Persian stew. Our Walmart will have products from Lebanon like dolma leaves. We cant have that unless its made in the U.S. Those American-made Iranian specialty foods, manufactured by brands such as Sadaf in California, have helped to insulate diaspora businesses from the effects of politics, said Farid Khanlou, owner of Jordan Market in Westwood. You cant say sanctions wont have an effect, but they wont have a large one, Khanlou said in Persian. Southern California is home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Most of the Iranians who live in Los Angeles have lived here for nearly 40 years, Khanlou said. As a result, fewer people are looking for goods from their homeland. Iranians who are here, their tastes have changed. They buy Iranian products like Sadaf because theyre from here, Khanlou said. When it comes from Iran, its about twice as expensive. The main specialty product people ask for is lavashak Persian fruit leather which he stocked up on when the embargo was lifted, he said. There are workarounds for other food, such as pistachios, which are exported from Iran and brought in through Canada, he added. Helmi, the retiring rug store owner, said he emigrated from Iran decades ago with a mission of spreading his countrys art. Since then, hes curated thousands of pieces, some of them 200 years old. Many are dyed with natural ingredients such as pomegranate, walnut skins, and acorn cups. They can take a decade or more to weave. As he sipped tea on the second floor of his showroom, Helmi said he never thought he would close his store. But between the sanctions and his childrens lack of interest in the family business, he sees no other path. He may repurpose the space for community events, including Persian New Year parties and mixers for younger Iranian Americans, he said. I did the best I could, he said. Enough is enough. How many times can we pull the yo-yo up and down? About 400 residents filled an auditorium at the King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas on Thursday evening to ask questions and, at some points, demand clear information about how they can start rebuilding their homes destroyed by the Woolsey fire. The fire, which started Nov. 8 and is fully contained, was the most destructive blaze to burn through Ventura and Los Angeles counties in recent history, killing three people, burning almost 97,000 acres and destroying more than 1,600 structures. Residents had questions about the hurdles to rebuilding, what aid is available and if there are any ongoing air quality issues during the cleanup. Officials attempted to answer the range of questions from an obviously frustrated crowd. When attendees starting booing the Malibu city manager at the beginning of the Q&A portion, L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl whose district includes a large portion of the affected areas corralled the naysayers, asking them to keep their jeers to themselves or go outside and scream at the stars. Advertisement But Kuehl said she understood why so many in the audience were angry. Theres been an enormous loss, and more than that, theres been an enormous trauma, she said. And its a very individual trauma, but its also a communitys trauma. In times like this, the best rises to the top, in terms of what you do [and] how you act, and this forum is to try make the government do the same thing for you tonight and beyond. Kuehls office hosted the forum and will hold another one at 1 p.m. Sunday at Pepperdine University. Kuehl introduced a motion at the Board of Supervisors meeting this week to create a working group to review the response to and recovery from the Woolsey fire. The review will include trying to understand how the fire started, how firefighting resources were deployed and how evacuations did or didnt work. That reports going to take a while, but were very serious about it, she said. Much attention was given Thursday night to Southern California Edison, including a question from the audience about why Edison was replacing burned power poles with more wooden poles. No one from Edison came forward to answer, but Rudy Gonzales, government relations manager with the utility, said in an interview after the meeting that in areas of high fire risk, Edison is installing fire-resistant poles, including lightweight steel poles, as well as installing covered conductors with insulated wires that minimize the possibility of tree branches making contact with the lines and potentially causing in a fire. On Malibu Canyon between the 101 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway, he said, the company has replaced wooden poles with steel poles. Officials told residents to prepare for flooding and mudslides, and encouraged them to take advantage of the free sandbags available at county fire departments. You need to be considering, first, flood insurance, Los Angeles County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said. With heavy rains, it definitely is a possibility that there will be debris in your neighborhood, in your yard and hopefully not up against the back of your house. Planning officials are working to ease the permitting process necessary for rebuilding to begin.They explained that if residents build a similar home in the essentially the exact same spot as their old home, they will have fewer permits and planning issues to work through. For this simplified permitting process, residents do not have to build on their existing foundation as a portion of a houses foundation is often removed during cleanup but instead, in the footprint of where their home once stood. The Los Angeles County Fire Department is not easing any fire code restrictions for residents rebuilding, but Deputy Fire Chief John Todd, who oversees the prevention services bureau, said the agency would help residents mitigate challenges that would undoubtedly come up. Residents with homes in unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County can go to the county district office at 26600 Agoura Road, Suite 110, in Calabasas, where several agencies are providing individualized recovery planning resources. That will help residents best determine how to proceed, Pestrella said. We are here to rebuild your community with you, he said. PG&E highlights bullet-riddled equipment and downed tree branches near Camp fire in letter to state regulators During Tuesdays Oval Office confrontation over the border wall, a peculiar thing happened. At one point President Donald Trump seemed to be channeling Rep. Duncan Hunter from years ago. As the president argued over funding with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, Trump again insisted that the wall is needed because dangerous people are crossing the border with Mexico into the United States. People are pouring into our country, including terrorists. We have terrorists. We have caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time, he said. No one knew what he was talking about. There doesnt appear to be any record of such apprehensions. Government reports have discussed terrorists or suspected terrorists trying to get into the United States, but not necessarily from Mexico. Advertisement Claims that terrorists have been camping out just south of the border or, as Trump has suggested, have traveled among the migrants in the caravan up from Central America are unsubstantiated. Some have been flatly debunked. But Trumps contention Tuesday had a familiar ring to it. At least 10 ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the Mexican border in Texas, Hunter, R-Alpine, told Fox News on Oct. 7, 2014. Hunter said he was told this by Border Patrol agents, and his claim predictably became national news. It also was immediately rejected by the Department of Homeland Security. The suggestion that individuals who have ties to ISIL (an alternative name for ISIS) have been apprehended at the Southwest border is categorically false, and not supported by any credible intelligence or the facts on the ground, the department said in an email to Politifact Texas. DHS continues to have no credible intelligence to suggest terrorist organizations are actively plotting to cross the Southwest border. The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Mexican government also said there was no evidence to back up the claim. Politifact Texas gave Hunters statement the worst rating on its Truth-O-Meter: Pants on Fire. The conservative website Judicial Watch had made some similar claims around that time. More recently, the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports restricting immigration, put out a report about potential terrorists seeking to come into the United States since 2001. Hunter stood by his claim, though he did back down some, saying that those allegedly apprehended might not have been members of ISIS, the Middle East militant group. Still, he insisted terrorists or people with ties to terrorist organizations were apprehended and his spokesman at the time said federal officials just didnt want to admit it. Problem here is that this is always a zero-sum game, then-spokesman Joe Kasper said. We make the point. Official channels deny. Then, maybe in a few years from now the information will pop up on the front page of the Washington Post. That story has yet to materialize. But that was long ago. Trump may have been referring to something more recent. In February, Vice President Mike Pence said during a speech in Dallas that border agents are nabbing seven individuals a day who are either known or suspected terrorists. The national Politifact checked that out and could find no evidence to support it. Pences statement also was rated Pants on Fire. More than likely, Trump was conflating what Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen said in June. On average, my Department now blocks 10 known or suspected terrorists a day from traveling to or attempting to enter the United States, she said in a speech at the inaugural International Homeland Security Forum. That includes efforts to gain access to the United States through ports of entry for land, air and sea. On Thursday, the Associated Press published a story about how the comments by Trump and Pence probably evolved from federal security reports on potential threats which made no reference to 10 people apprehended at the southern border. Last year, a State Department report concluded there are no known terrorist groups operating in Mexico and no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States. The report expressed more concern about the potential threat from extremists in Canada. Peter Bergen, CNN analyst on national security who has authored numerous books and papers on the subject, concluded Trumps terrorism argument for the wall is bogus. In the 450 cases of jihadist terrorism in the United States since 9/11, tracked by the research institution New America, not one involved a terrorist crossing the southern border into the United States, he wrote on Tuesday. . . . And there is no evidence that any such terrorists crossing the southern border have ever been indicted or convicted of a crime. The terrorists who have infiltrated the United States overwhelmingly did so by taking flights into the country. Bergen gave a serious analysis of what Trump said. Most national news organizations, along with Pelosi and Schumer, largely ignored the president. Weve become fairly numb to Trumps claims that have no basis in fact. But it is remarkable that the president of the United States says 10 terrorists have been caught trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States and hardly anyone believes him. A judge on Wednesday ordered two men accused of fatally shooting rival gang members at Mountain View Park earlier this year to stand trial on murder charges. But before making his ruling the judge agreed with defense lawyers that the case against Shannon Bryant and Elliot Williams is largely circumstantial. According to evidence presented at a three-day hearing in San Diego Superior Court, ammunition found in one defendants car was similar, but not an absolute match, to rounds that killed Tony Jackson and Robert Brown on May 6. A witness couldnt pick the suspected shooter out of a photo lineup, and gunpowder residue on a defendants gloves could have been embeded there at any time. Advertisement Id say its a classic circumstantial case, Judge Frederick Maguire said before deciding the case still should be heard by a jury. This is a puzzle. No one fact is determinative, Maguire said. However, Deputy District Attorney Ted Fiorito said Bryant and Williams exchanged text messages and social media statements that implicated them. Williams made a social media comment, Eye opener, 90 minutes after Jackson was shot through his right eye and chest, Fiorito said. It opened his eye, the prosecutor told the judge. He said Bryant sent Williams a copy of a news article on the shooting and told him to delete it from his phone. Also, a witness testified that Bryant showed him a handgun and said it had just been used in a shooting. At the end of the hearing, the judge ruled that the prosecutor had presented enough evidence in the case against Bryant and Williams for the case to move forward. They are charged with two counts of murder with allegations of being felons in possession of a firearm and ammunition, discharge of a firearm and that the crime was for the benefit of a criminal street gang. They also face a special circumstances allegation that there were multiple victims. District Attorney Summer Stephan will decide later whether to seek the death penalty or life in prison for the pair if they are convicted. Williams, 29, is suspected of walking up to Jackson and Brown and shooting both men near a recreation center at Mountain View Park, at Ocean View Boulevard and South 40th Street. Bryant, 30, is suspected of being the getaway driver. The shootings took place about 1:20 p.m. with several people close by to report hearing the gunshots. One witness told San Diego police the shooter ran past him and jumped into a black Nissan. Fiorito said the shooting stemmed from a confrontation Williams had with Jackson around noon that day in front of a liquor store a few blocks from the park. He said Williams returned, with Bryant, and they drove around the store four times before finding Jackson and Brown, members of a rival gang, at the park. Williams attorney, Douglas Miller, argued that no one identified his client as the shooter and that Williams DNA and gunpowder residue on gloves in his car did not prove he shot Jackson and Brown. Bryants attorney, Vickie Fernandes, from the Alternate Public Defenders Office, said no direct evidence placed her client at the park or behind the wheel of the car. She said the .357-caliber ammunition seized from Bryants car had no relevance because a ballistics expert had testified that the fatal rounds were most consistent with 9mm rounds. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard A Carlsbad jewelry store owner was sentenced Thursday to 90 days in jail and placed on probation for three years for targeting young sailors and Marines with predatory loans to pay for jewelry. Ramil Randy Abalkhad, 55, who owned the now-shuttered Romanos Jewelers, will also be required to pay restitution to the victims named in the criminal complaint brought by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Romanos, which had stores across the state, and its associated lending company, MBNB Financial Inc., will be required to cancel outstanding debts owed by those same victims. Abalkhad pleaded guilty in April to felony conspiracy to engage in illegal financing and debt collection practices, according to Becerras office. Advertisement Abalkhads wife and co-defendant, 44-year-old Melina Abalkhad, and a third defendant, MBNB employee Ramiro Salinas, both pleaded guilty in April to a conspiracy charge, and both were previously sentenced. Melina Abalkhad will be required to complete a misdemeanor diversion program for her role in operating MBNB Financial. According to Becerras office, Romanos Jewelers allegedly targeted young sailors and Marines many of them just out of boot camp and encouraged them to buy jewelry for themselves and others on credit. But prosecutors say Abalkhad and his associates did not give them required documents when they took out loans, and then used illegal debt collection practices including debt collectors who falsely posed as attorneys if the service members fell behind on payments. Mr. and Mrs. Abalkhad thought they could get away with targeting our young men and women in uniform, Becerra said in a statement. Todays sentencing should send a clear message to them and others looking to commit predatory crimes against our service members: We intend to hold unscrupulous merchants and businesses fully accountable for their offenses. Becerra said Navy and Marine Corps judge advocates at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and Naval Base San Diego provided critical assistance to our investigative team on this case. Abalkhad, who could not be reached by phone and did not immediately respond to voicemail and email messages Thursday, was called a sophisticated financial criminal by San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Gina Darvas in early 2017 when he was sentenced to probation on identity theft charges in a previous case. Prosecutors in that case said Abalkhad and his associates used the personal information of dozens of active-duty Marines in a scheme to charge them for items many of them did not want, sometimes without their knowledge. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 6:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 5:30 p.m. Trial for a former Yuma police officer accused of raping a Kensington woman last year wrapped up on Thursday in San Diego Superior Court. Attorneys gave their closing arguments to a jury of three women and nine men who are expected to begin deliberating on Friday. Jared Elkins, 34, faces eight felony charges, not nine as previously reported. The charges include rape and three other sex acts by force or fear. The other counts involve the same acts performed on an intoxicated woman unable to give her consent. He faces 14 years in prison if convicted. Advertisement Elkins was with the Yuma Police Department at the time of the alleged assaults early the morning of Sept. 15, 2017. He resigned from the agency later in that year. He and his wife had come to visit her relatives in the upscale San Diego neighborhood. The couple, the alleged victim and her mother went out to eat, returned home to watch a movie and had several drinks through the night, Elkins testified on Tuesday. The alleged victim, who was 23 at the time, testified that she stayed up late with Elkins, watching part of the movie Goonies, then she went to bed. She said he came into her room, naked from the waist down, and threatened her if she did not have sex with him. The woman said she was terrified, knowing hed packed his gun for the trip, so she pretended to be passed out while he assaulted her in various ways. After he left, she said she waited until she thought he was asleep with his wife. Then, she said, she woke her mother, told her what had happened, and the two escaped out a window. The mother called police about 4:20 a.m. Elkins testified that they had consensual sex and that he never threatened or forced her. He and his wife have since divorced. Defense attorney Ellis Trip Johnston argued that the woman was not credible and the fear she felt was being found out afterward. Deputy District Attorney Lisa Fox countered by asking, Who has the motive here to lie? Jared Elkins. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard A panel of federal judges has rejected permits for the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, finding that the National Forest Service abdicated its responsibility and kowtowed to private industry in approving the project. The harshly worded, 60-page decision issued Thursday by three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is part of a string of legal setbacks for the 600-mile pipeline. The $7 billion project, being built by a consortium of companies led by Dominion Energy, is intended to carry natural gas from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. We trust the United States Forest Service to speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues, the ruling said, quoting The Lorax, Dr. Seusss 1971 book. A thorough review of the record leads to the necessary conclusion that the Forest Service abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources. The ruling, written by Judge Stephanie Thacker and joined by Judge James Wynn Jr. and Chief Judge Roger Gregory, noted that the Forest Service had raised proper environmental questions early in its permit process. But those issues were suddenly, and mysteriously, assuaged in time to meet a private companys deadlines, Thacker wrote. Advertisement The judges ordered the Forest Service to vacate and reconsider permits for the pipeline to cross parts of the George Washington and Monongahela national forests, and said the agency did not have authority to grant right of way for the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail. We strongly disagree with the courts ruling, pipeline spokesman Aaron Ruby said Thursday via email. Under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, for decades 56 other oil and gas pipelines have operated across the [Appalachian Trail.] This opinion brings into question whether or not these existing pipelines can remain in place. Ruby said Dominion and its partners will immediately appeal the decision. If allowed to stand, this decision will severely harm consumers and do great damage to our economy and energy security, he said. Lawyers for the Southern Environmental Law Center who brought the case hailed it as a major victory. The story here is Dominion went over the agencys head to apply political pressure on the decision, said Greg Buppert, a lawyer with the SELC. They went to people in the Trump administration. . . . Dominion has used influence, money and politics to bend the rules for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and that plan has backfired. In the ruling, the judges note that in October 2016, the Forest Service told the pipeline builders to submit 10 possible routes to compare environmental impacts. Much of the pipelines route through the national forests was on steep slopes that posed unusual engineering challenges. By December, the pipeline builders turned in only two routes. Both involved crossing the Appalachian Trail on Forest Service property - explicitly chosen to avoid the need for congressional approval to cross the trail in other locations, the judges wrote. Thats because other locations would have been on National Park Service property, and the Park Service had said it could not grant approval without permission from Congress. Around that time, the pipeline builders also submitted a strict schedule for getting federal permits so they could begin construction. As the process went forward, the Forest Service dropped its demand to review the other eight routes to see if there were viable alternatives to disrupting the national forests, enabling Dominion to stick to its schedule. The Forest Service approved the pipeline without information it previously determined was necessary to making its decision, and it did so without acknowledging, much less explaining, its position, the judges wrote. They called the turnabout particularly puzzling and said the record of events suggests that approving the project was a preordained decision. The judges also ruled that the Forest Service had no authority to grant permission to cross the Appalachian Trail because the trail itself is under control of the National Park Service and the Interior Department. The pipeline has to cross the trail somewhere, and Dominion got no other spots approved as backup. Fixing that now would require an act of Congress, said Buppert, the environmental lawyer. The entire project is premised on this one point, he said. Ruby, the spokesman for the pipeline, said the court is mistaken. With this decision, the Fourth Circuit has now undermined the judgment of the dedicated, career professionals at nearly every federal agency that has reviewed this project, he said. We are confident we will prevail on appeal. Work on the entire length of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was halted this month after other federal judges delayed permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the impact on endangered species. There were other stoppages over the summer related to the contested permits. The project also faces a crucial test next week when the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board considers a permit for a compressor station in Buckingham County. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is one of two major gas pipeline projects in Virginia. The other is the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which also runs from West Virginia to North Carolina. It crosses the far southwestern portion of Virginia and has faced similar legal problems - including a suit filed last week by Virginias attorney general - although construction work is further along. The Mountain Valley Pipeline faced a challenge of its own Thursday when Virginias State Water Control Board voted to reconsider a crucial permit because of the violations cited in the attorney generals lawsuit. President Donald Trump offered a simple defense Thursday to accusations he broke campaign finance law by directing attorney Michael Cohen to orchestrate hush-money payments to conceal Trumps alleged affairs: He was following terrible advice from a bad lawyer. I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called advice of counsel, Trump wrote on Twitter. The advice-of-counsel defense is a real thing. But Trumps ability to use it, if he were ever formally accused of a crime, is far from certain. And it could be risky. People talk about advice-of-counsel as a defense more than its actually asserted, and its rarely successful, said Dane Ciolino, a constitutional law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. Advertisement Courts have held that the defense applies when a person has gone to a lawyer to ask about whether something is legal, disclosed all material facts, and then relied in good faith on the professionals advice that no laws were being broken. The illegal act in this case involves payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal to keep them from talking about sexual encounters they say they had with Trump while he was married. Federal prosecutors in New York say the payments amounted to illegal campaign contributions because they were made at the height of the 2016 election season to keep voters from learning of Trumps alleged infidelities. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for the violations and other crimes, including bank fraud and tax evasion. Cohen has said that Trump was aware of the payments. In one instance, he recorded Trump giving him advice about how to buy McDougals story from the parent company of the National Enquirer. It isnt clear from that recording, or other evidence made public, whether Trump and Cohen ever specifically discussed whether the payments were legal. Cohen and prosecutors say the Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment to Daniels. Cohen, Trump and David Pecker, the chairman of the company that owns the National Enquirer, had a meeting at Trump Tower in August of 2015 to discuss ways the media company could help the campaign, including buying the silence of women who might talk publicly about affairs with Trump, according to documents made public by federal prosecutors. Trump has not specified what advice, if any, he received from Cohen. In an interview Thursday with Fox News, he said: I never directed him to do anything wrong. Whatever he did he did on his own. A lawyer who represents a client is supposed to do the right thing. An advice-of-counsel defense is not easily invoked and has far-ranging consequences and risks, said Tony Alexis, a former federal prosecutor who worked in the Justice Departments fraud and public corruption section. For one thing, a person who invokes the advice-of-counsel defense can no longer claim attorney-client privilege, meaning his or her conversations with the attorney are no longer private and can be freely explored by prosecutors. Its a very risky strategy, said Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan. In this case, it could give investigators access to records and communications between Trump and Cohen that were deemed confidential after the FBI raided Cohens office earlier this year, Rodgers said. Hed be waiving privilege with respect to everything, she added. While uncommon, the defense has had high-profile successes. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said last year he would not pursue state election law charges against New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in part because the parties involved in making legally questionable transfers of campaign funds relied on the advice of their attorneys. In the presidents case, Rodgers said, Trump would have to establish that he was actually seeking Cohens legal advice in connection with the hush-money payments and not relying on him to handle the matter as his long-time fixer. The advice-of-counsel defense is for a client who says, I want to make sure Im in compliance with the law here, Rodgers said. Trump has not been charged with a crime, and it remains unclear whether the U.S. Justice Department, under its own protocol, could even bring a case against a sitting president. South Bay community leaders won a legal victory this week in their campaign to block conversion of a run-down motel near Imperial Beach into a drug-treatment facility for homeless people. A Superior Court judge ruled the city of San Diego cant move forward with the project without getting approval from the California Coastal Commission, which has expressed concerns that the project would eliminate low-cost coastal lodging. Judge Joel Wohlfeil ruled on Monday that attorneys for San Diego erred last year when they declared the project, which is on Palm Avenue in the Egger Highlands area of Nestor, exempt from Coastal Commission approval. The project is opposed by the mayors of Chula Vista, National City, Imperial Beach and Coronado. Advertisement They say it would hurt tourism, bring criminals to the area and thwart efforts to upgrade the Highway 75 corridor economically and aesthetically. The area is undergoing a boom of new restaurants and housing developments fueled by a large Navy project under construction on the Silver Strand. In addition, the leaders note that the Otay Mesa-Nestor Community Plan recommends retention and rehabilitation of the existing hotels, retail and visitor-oriented commercial areas along the southern edge of San Diego Bay. San Diego Councilwoman Vivian Moreno, whose district includes the site of the proposed project, said its time for San Diego officials to find another location. The court spoke loud and clear, Moreno said. Our South Bay neighborhoods have the same rights as other coastal communities throughout the state. The city must find a more suitable location for this program. San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott, who is spearheading the project, says it would be a step forward for a highly praised program that gives chronic offenders a chance to get off the streets permanently. The program aims to avoid clogging the justice system by providing treatment to homeless people with a history of repeatedly committing low-level, non-violent crimes. The Nestor project would convert a 30-year-old motel with 68 rooms into a transitional housing project with 84 drug treatment beds. State officials last year awarded the program called San Diego Misdemeanant At-Risk Track, or SMART a $6 million grant after it was judged superior to proposals from 57 other jurisdictions for dealing with low-level criminals. Elliott declined through a spokeswoman on Thursday to comment on the court ruling, which the city could appeal. A spokesman for San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a strong supporter of the program, said on Thursday that no decisions have been made on how to proceed. We will be working with the city attorneys office to determine our next steps, said the spokesman, Greg Block, by email. We are committed to the SMART program and using the site to provide support for San Diegans seeking to end the cycle of incarceration and homelessness. The citys prospects for Coastal Commission appear dim, based on comments from agency staff last year. Neither the city of San Diego nor Imperial Beach currently have an abundance of existing lower-cost, overnight accommodations with close access to the coast, commission senior planner Diana Lilly wrote in a letter to the city. The Coastal Commission has the responsibility to both protect existing lower-cost facilities, and to ensure a range of affordable facilities be provided in new development along the coastline of the state. The San Diego City Council approved $11.2 million to buy and renovate the motel last year, and then approved a special use permit for the transitional housing. Morenos predecessor, former Councilman David Alvarez, cast the lone no vote each time. The lawsuit was filed by a group called Citizens for South Bay Coastal Access. This isnt the first time that potential conversion of the Super 8 motel has sparked controversy. In 2006, South Bay leaders successfully blocked a proposal by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to renovate the motel into a re-entry facility for parolees. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Two people were displaced from an apartment but uninjured when a fire broke out Thursday night at the complex in University Heights near Hillcrest, authorities said. The blaze was reported just after 9:40 p.m. at a complex on Maryland Street near Lincoln Avenue, just north of an entrance ramp that leads to both northbound and southbound state Route 163, a San Diego Fire-Rescue Department official said. Crews arrived on scene, confirmed the fire toward the back of the complex and had the flames knocked down a few minutes before 10 p.m., the Fire Department official said. Nobody was injured, but two people were displaced from the dwelling, the official said. Firefighters at the scene blamed the flames on a faulty Christmas decoration, according to NBC7. Advertisement Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com A new report on the child welfare system in the county calls for sweeping and systemic changes, from how the system is organized to giving children more say in court proceedings and making the secretive system more transparent. The recommendations from a special working group ordered in August by the Board of Supervisors were filed with the county this week. The 51-page report makes recommendations in seven areas, including creating an independent committee to investigate allegations that children in foster care are being mistreated. Overall the report concludes fundamental changes must be made to the system, which cares for children removed from the custody of their parents because of abuse and neglect and are placed in foster care homes or with relatives. In August, the Board of Supervisors called for the creation of a group and report in the wake of several news stories over the proceeding months about breakdowns and problems in the system. In July, a story in The San Diego Union-Tribune detailed the hair-raising travails of twin brothers, identified as A.G. and M.G., who were molested by their foster care parent for years, despite complaints from the youths as well as a teacher, lawyer, psychologist and others. Advertisement The foster parent Michael Hayes was eventually arrested by police and is serving a 20-year sentence in state prison. Other news stories have detailed the countys losses in lawsuits over medical exams done at the Polinsky Childrens Center without the consent of parents or permission from a judge, and a federal judge taking the rare step of reversing a jury verdict and finding the county liable for improperly removing a child from a home while striking down a longstanding county policy allowing investigators to interview children at schools without parents. Federal courts have repeatedly said conducting medical exams without consent is unconstitutional, most recently in November. The county is facing a class-action lawsuit over the practice. The recommendations address those issues, and others. Notably, it calls for creation of an independent, Emergency Response Unit to investigate reports of mistreatment and abuse from youths. When a child reports maltreatment or being harmed while in the care of the County, an independent investigation, driven by the childs voice is essential to ensure the child safety, the report said. The report called for better collaboration between the staff at Polinsky and the Juvenile Court so that parental consent or a court order can be obtained quickly in order to do the exams. It also said that secondary traumatic stress is pervasive among social workers who deal daily with dysfunctional, abusive and violent families. It said while the county has lowered caseloads, nonetheless compared to many other jurisdictions, caseworkers must still perform a multiplicity of functions and balance competing demands. The working group was comprised of lawyers and a judge, leaders of nonprofit groups advocating for child welfare, lawyers who represent parents and children and others. They interviewed people inside and outside the system, including social workers and case managers. The repeated themes were the child welfare system needs to be transparent, willing to take corrective action when necessary, invest more time and resources into the training of their staff, and requires a change in culture to focus on its outcomes and impact more than policies and statistics, the report concluded. Lawrence Richman, chairman of the group, said the group wants the county to re-evaluate every aspect of how they perform. He said he believes the system functions well overall. But its not a perfect system, and the inefficiencies that accrue over time and make their way into the newspaper are concerning, he said. Donnie Cox, the lawyer who has filed lawsuits over the medical exams and cases of children being improperly removed from homes, said that the report is a start with some good suggestions. He said the main takeaway ought to be its focus on cultural change needed at the Health and Human Services Agency, which oversees the child welfare system. If the county wants different results they need to change the culture, and they need a transparent process to make that change, he said in an email. They also need to replace those in middle and upper management, both at HHSA and County Counsel, who continue to want to run these departments behind closed doors so they dont have to change how they do things. As it stands, the HHSA and County Counsel use the shield of confidentiality that is intended to protect the privacy of their clients to protect the misfeasance and malfeasance of those who work in the system, he said. A spokeswoman for HHSA said the agency will report back to the board in 90 days with a plan on implementing the recommended changes. Twitter: @gregmoran greg.moran@sduniontribune.com District Attorney Summer Stephan on Friday released reviews of a dozen officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths over the past year, and determined in each that the police officers and sheriffs deputies acted reasonably and would not face criminal charges. Stephan said at a morning news conference in which she discussed details of the cases and played video related to some of the incidents that the central question in each was fairly straightforward: Was a crime committed by the police officers? Of the 12 cases discussed Friday, eight of them were officer- or deputy-involved shootings, many of which involved a person armed with a gun or a knife. In one case, a person used a car as a weapon, Stephan said. She described three of the shootings as instances of suicide by cop. Advertisement In all four in-custody deaths reviewed by the District Attorneys Office, toxicology tests revealed that each person who died had methamphetamine in his system. Saying that meth has an insidious grip on our community, Stephan quoted an annual report that tallied 368 meth-related deaths in the county in 2017 101 more than in 2013. The report also said 56 percent of all persons arrested last year who agreed to be interviewed about their drug use had meth in their systems. It shows (meth) is so connected to criminal behavior, Stephan said. She showed edited clips of video from a mix of officer or deputy body-worn cameras, a CHP dash-cam and store surveillance footage in six cases reviewed by her office. Stephan said she decided to not release any footage of one fatal shooting at the request of the family of the man who died. The family members were concerned about the mans children and grandchildren being exposed to the graphic images, she said. Authorities released the following facts on each case: Kristopher Birtcher, 34, died on Oct. 14, 2017 after being shot with a Taser during a struggle with sheriffs deputies outside a Hobby Lobby store in San Marcos. Deputies went to the store to check on a man possibly under the influence of drugs. In a struggle to arrest Birtcher, video showed deputies stun him with a Taser, and, with help from bystanders, put him in hand and leg restraints. One deputy can be seen striking Birtcher several times with a baton. The deputies involved were identified as Frank Stalzer, Joseph Kodadek, John Robledo, Scott Rossall, Drew Beatty, Adrian Carrillo, Roland Garza and Scott Winter. Asked about the baton strikes, which bloodied Birtchers head, Stephan said, I looked at that very carefully. In the autopsy, that was not related to his cause of death. She said law enforcement refers to such baton strikes as distraction blows to jolt a person back into reality. Guillermo Corrales, 39, died April 19 after being arrested by San Diego police officers Henry Ingram and Ko Luangamath on April 16. Corrales family called 911 for medics, saying he was harming himself and possibly on narcotics. Police officers pushed him to the floor, held him there with knees on his back and handcuffed him. Body-worn camera images show him grow still and medics step into the room to begin CPR. He died at a hospital four days later from toxic effects of meth, an autopsy said.. Javier Gomez, 41, died Dec. 20, 2017, after Vista sheriffs Deputy Kai Bowman shot him following a car chase that ended in Oceanside. Gomez, a suspect in a hit-and-run, ditched his car and ran. At some point, he pulled a handgun from his waistband and aimed it at Bowman, who fired four rounds at Gomez. Gomez died before he could be taken to a hospital. James Lacy, 47, died on Aug. 4, 2017, after being shot by court services deputies Sean Ochoa and Don Wood, who were trying to evict him from his downtown San Diego apartment. Police said Lacy threatened to shoot if the deputies entered his residence. They forced their way inside and when Lacy came out of his bedroom, he aimed a handgun at them. The deputies opened fire, killing Lacy. His gun was a BB pistol. Oscar Leal, 37, died after he was pepper-sprayed twice by deputies during his arrest on Feb. 28. Deputies had gone to Leals Vista home after multiple 911 hang-up calls, and arrested him when he failed a sobriety test. On the way to jail, he kicked the backseat and slammed his head on the interior of the patrol car, prompting the deputy to use pepper-spray, authorities said. On a deputys body-worn camera, Leal can be heard repeatedly screaming, Sir! Sir! Please! without saying what he wanted. He continued to thrash after reaching the Vista jail, and was sprayed again. Leal fought deputies trying to place him on a medical gurney, then stopped breathing. He was taken to a hospital, where he died of acute meth intoxication, according to an autopsy. The deputies involved were Michael Davis, Alfredo Genel, Guido Cozzarelli, Joshua Ramirez andTimothy Wilson. Alexander Sergio Ochoa, 26, was fatally shot on Sept. 22, 2017, by Oceanside police officers Johann Ravesi, Billy Walker and Dustin Schmidt. Police responded to a 911 call regarding a suicidal friend at shopping center on Marron Road near College Boulevard. According to authorities, officers found Ochoa behind a department store. He had a knife that he refused to drop. Officers shot him with bean-bag rounds and sent two police dogs after him. On the ground, Ochoa pulled out what looked like a gun, police said. The three officers opened fire. The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun. Investigators learned later that Ochoa had placed the 911 call himself. Osbaldo Jimenez Ramirez, 50, was fatally shot on March 17 by Escondido police Officer Terrence Pizzuti following a pursuit that ended at Valley View Casino. Police were responding to a call of a family disturbance when they spotted Ramirez driving off. They chased him more than 10 miles to the casino. He stopped in a valet area at the front doors and was holding a handgun when he got out of his car. He was shot in a confrontation with officers and died at a hospital shortly afterward. Raul Rivera, 42, was fatally shot on May 27 by San Diego police officers Michael Martinez, Samuel Rodriguez and William Torres. Authorities said Rivera came at the officers with a knife in Nestor. Officers fired a Taser and bean bag rounds at him before firing their guns. His wife said Rivera became agitated as he stood in the street and officers surrounded him. Jason Santana, 20, was wounded on Nov. 29, 2017, when San Diego police Officer Jarrel Davis shot him in Linda Vista. Officers saw Santana and a passenger sleeping in a stolen car at the Kearny Mesa Recreation Center. Police said Santana started the car and reversed, bumping Davis with his open door, authorities said. The officer feared being run over and fired one round, hitting Santanas arm. Police pursued Santana until he crashed in Linda Vista. Paul Silva, 39, died on March 28 after San Diego police booked him into county jail on Feb. 20 on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs. In jail, he acted erratically and jail deputies fired water balls and a Taser at him before taking him to the ground. He was pressed beneath a police shield and handcuffed, then was found to have no pulse, authorities said. He died in a hospital a month later. The Medical Examiner called the manner of his death a homicide because he died of medical complications stemming from cardiac arrest while being restrained by deputies. The deputies involved were Cpl. Christopher Simms, Jorge Enciso, Ryan Seabron, Diego Lopez, Aaron Vrabel, Charles De La Cruz and Tanner Sherman. Jose Trujillo, 21, was wounded on July 20, when sheriffs deputies Frank McRoberts and Nicholas Jehl fired at him at the Torrey Preserve marsh off Interstate 5. A deputy in Vista pulled over Trujillos car, suspecting him of drunken driving. During a 100-mph pursuit south on I-5, Trujillo called 911 from his car, saying he had a loaded gun. He stopped briefly to let out a female passenger, then took off again. Police said Trujillo got out of his car at the marsh and held something behind his back, prompting the deputies to fire at him. The object he held was his phone he had no gun. Stephan said Trujillo, wounded in one leg and shoulder, told deputies afterward, I dont want to live! Thats the point, the whole point of faking a gun. Robert Westbrook, 31, was wounded on Sept 8, 2017, when sheriffs Deputy Freddy Herrero shot him on state Route 125 in Santee. Authorities said Westbrook was living in his vehicle and threatened to kill himself. Deputies found him parked on the freeway shoulder. When he came out of his vehicle he was holding what turned out to be a pellet pistol. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard For a president who rails against the fake news media and dreams aloud of creating a state-run alternative, the Voice of America would seem an irresistible target. The government-owned news service beams around the world, reaching an estimated 275 million people on radio, internet and television, with a brand honed during the mid-20th century Cold War era that President Trump idealizes as a time of unquestioned American greatness. Yet two years into his administration, despite predictions that he would transform it into Trump TV, the Voice of America has remained largely untouched. Despite journalistic ethics lapses by some of its staff that have brought embarrassment and scrutiny of its foreign coverage, the services reporting on the Trump administration is hardly distinguishable from that of commercial news outlets. The bipartisan board and chief executive who oversee the network for now along with its news director and her deputy, are the same group of people who have been in place since President Obama sat in the White House. Advertisement Yet the debate over the news services future may be nearing eruption. After a six-month stall, the Senate could give a hearing early in the new year to Trumps nominee to lead the agency, Michael Pack, an ally and former filmmaking collaborator of the presidents past strategist and provocateur, Stephen K. Bannon. And Trump recently tweeted that something has to be done to counter the international influence of CNN, his media nemesis, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT! On one side of the emerging fight are Trump allies, led by Bannon, who are eager to shed some of the Voice of Americas hard-won independence and use the service more overtly to further Trumps America first agenda. VOA is a rotten fish from top to bottom, Bannon, the former leader of the conservative Breitbart news site, said in an interview. Its now totally controlled by the deep-state apparatus. He has been pushing Trump to take control of the Voice of America since he served as chief White House strategist during Trumps first seven months in office. Following his forced departure, Bannon has kept up the fight from the outside. On the other side is a bipartisan group arguing that independent reporting including controversial stories about U.S. politics offers the best advertisement for American values abroad. The potential showdown comes at an especially fraught time for the network. In October, 15 people more than half the staff for Hausa-language broadcasts to West Africa were fired or recommended for termination for taking bribes from a government official. An employee in the Voice of Americas Mandarin service was recently let go after she ignored orders to limit a live interview with a prominent critic of the Chinese government to an hour. Compounding the Voice of Americas problems: The same chief executive who oversees the network also runs American networks that long have been viewed as producing pro-democracy propaganda, including Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The Cuba network, which produces Radio and TV Marti from Miami, recently was forced to discipline employees and begin an internal investigation over the publishing of an online anti-Muslim piece and an anti-Semitic broadcast that labeled liberal philanthropist and donor George Soros a non-practicing Jew of flexible morals. Voice of America editors, who typically come from more traditional journalism backgrounds, have long had a strained relationship with Marti and the other networks. But the sister entities scandals could undermine their efforts to preserve their own independence. In the Trump era, the battle over the news network could well serve as a proxy for larger arguments the president has provoked about the value of a free press. Bannon, who shares the presidents view that open warfare with the mainstream media is the most effective tool in politics, said he told Trump long ago that he didnt need to start a new government network. You got one, he said he argued. Its called Voice of America. Trumps interactions with Voice of America have been limited to a pair of interviews with Greta Van Susteren, the former cable news host who now has a weekly show without taking a salary. To date he has largely ignored Bannons entreaties to take a more personal stake in the network. Some things dont resonate with him, Bannon said. He doesnt think its big league. Voice of Americas defenders welcome that disinterest, assuming Trump has ignored it because most broadcasts are in one of 46 foreign languages and are largely unseen inside the United States. He seems to be totally focused on what he calls the enemy of the people, which are the domestic media, so I dont think he has a focus on that. But some of his people clearly have tried to get their tentacles into it, said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has oversight of Voice of America. Menendez spoke out in March against what the mainstream news site Foreign Policy labeled a coup attempt by Bannon allies inside the operations. They attempted to overthrow the leadership of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which runs Voice of America and the other government news entities. One person identified as an instigator transferred to the Commerce Department. Another still works at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Earlier efforts to embed Trump allies during the postelection transition also stoked fears among Voice of America advocates. But Bannon may ultimately get his way. In June, Trump nominated Pack, former president of the right-leaning Claremont Institute, to become the chief executive of the Agency for Global Media. Pack, who declined to comment while his nomination is pending, has worked with Bannon on two documentaries, one on nuclear power and the other on the Iraq war. Bannon said Pack was tapped to infuse the agency with Trumps America first vision. Some critics, including congressional Democrats, fear Pack will do just that. I am concerned, Menendez said, adding that one of the reasons Packs nomination has stalled is because we havent given it a green light. But some Voice of America supporters and employees say its too soon to judge Pack, pointing out that he was not especially controversial when he served as the senior vice president for programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 2003 to 2006. Menendez is skeptical. Hes proposed a bill to weaken the power of the Voice of America chief. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said through a spokeswoman that Packs nomination had been held up only because he failed to submit the proper paperwork. But Corker, in an interview, said he shared the view that the network needed to remain free of political influence. The last thing I want to see happen with this organization is that they become a propaganda arm, he said. Obviously, we want news about America to be pumped into these countries and we want news about these countries to be pumped in. But we want that to be the truth. Corker, an occasional critic of Trump, is retiring at the end of the year and his successor, Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, has been a stalwart Trump supporter. Voice of America officials and allies are depending on the agencys charter to ensure a firewall between government officials and the professionals tapped to make editorial decisions. The charter was written into law in 1976, in response to the Nixon administrations attempts to clamp down on Voice of Americas Watergate coverage. The agencys leadership is key to protecting that firewall, however. Voice of America Director Amanda Bennett, a former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer who earlier won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, keeps the charter on her wall. She said she had tried to steer clear of questions over whether the current chief executive, John Lansing, is replaced by Pack or anyone else. A new chief executive would probably spell the end of her tenure running the news operation. Theres only two things I want out of this transition, she said to have it be done according to legal process and have it be somebody who respects the firewall. Bennett said the Voice of America had differentiated itself from the propaganda outlets of Russia, China and other foreign powers, which use them as tools of information warfare and foreign policy. Were Americas BBC, she said. Without the cool voices. David Ensor, a former Voice of America director who previously was a network news correspondent, said VOA inevitably encounters difficult confrontations with governments in countries where it reports, many of which are police states. He credits the current management with maintaining professional standards in the face of such stress. This is tough stuff, he said. This is grown-up activity. Ensor said he pushed back against domestic political pressure from Washington more than once in the job. In one instance, an assistant secretary of State called him in to convey a request for softer coverage of the human rights record of a country which he would not name that had been helpful in combating terrorism and in other intelligence issues. Ensor asked for examples of factual errors in Voice of Americas reportage. The official was unable to provide them. Well, Mr. Secretary, you did your job and Im going to do mine, which is to ignore you completely, Ensor recalled telling the official. Its absolutely inappropriate for me to interfere with the human rights coverage of country X, just because that country doesnt like it very much. Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington noah.bierman@latimes.com Twitter: @noahbierman Democrats hold every statewide office and wield supermajority power in the Legislature. Elections have consequences and many anticipated that Democrats would quickly push for more taxes, more regulations and more government. On the first day of the legislative session, they introduced nearly 100 bills that contained more than $40 billion in proposed new spending. Related Republicans may not be in the majority, but our duty as legislators is to partner where possible and speak out on excessive proposals. Advertisement There are three areas for 2019 where we hope Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and the Democrat supermajority will partner with us. First, we must continue to keep Californias budget balanced. Republicans fought for the creation of a rainy day fund in 2014; because of that common sense budgeting and some discipline by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature, we now have $16 billion in reserves to help us through the next recession. While California is in a better position to handle an economic downturn today than it was four years ago, economic cycles are inevitable and we must continue to live within our means. It is important to note that the budget surplus does not contemplate the billions of dollars California faces in unfunded pension liabilities and government employee health care obligations at the state and local levels. Second, the state must ensure first responders have the resources to prevent and fight wildfires. The recent Woolsey and Camp fires underscore the need to be vigilant and prepared. Third, the state must fulfill existing promises to our students. For example, Californias voters in 2016 approved Proposition 51, a $9 billion bond to fund school construction. However, only $572 million in Proposition 51 bonds have been sold according to the latest report from the state treasurers office, even though the Coalition for Adequate School Housing has identified $3 billion in shovel-ready classroom construction projects. New school facilities and repairs are needed statewide. Rebuilding schools destroyed by wildfires should be prioritized. If the state can spend billions on projects like high-speed rail, it can invest in projects that will benefit local communities now. The governor-elect should expedite the approval of Proposition 51 funds as one of his first acts in office. The state has other priorities that we need to address, but acting on the three priorities above would get the state off to a good start in 2019. It would be a win-win for all Californians regardless of party. Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, is the California Senate GOP leader. Put simply, we do not produce enough housing. According to a report this year by the state Department of Housing and Community Development, in the last decade, California has built an average of 80,000 homes per year. Thats far below the approximately 180,000 homes needed each year to keep up with growth. To that end, it is without question the Legislature must continue to address the housing crisis this year. But more specifically, and as Ive worked to do, we must center our attention on the creation of more affordable middle-income housing. Related To be clear, low-income, subsidized housing is not any less important. Our state desperately needs housing production at all income levels. However, not nearly enough has been done to produce housing affordable to middle-income earners Californians who work full-time, maybe even have two incomes, but will never qualify for subsidized housing on the low end, while unable to afford the saturation of luxury units at the high end. Advertisement Over my last two years in the Legislature, Ive authored legislation to help address this missing middle of the housing market. One bill authorized the San Diego Housing Commission to develop and finance units for middle-income earners. The other enables cities to offer a different development standard so more affordable units can be built on a particular land parcel than under current rules. Both are now law. These represent the kind of innovative solutions we need to spur housing production at the local level. This is why Ive co-authored a bill to bring back a modern version of former redevelopment agencies a model we know is effective, but needs some innovation. Its also why I have taken great interest in the many underutilized state-owned properties in San Diego, and am considering legislation to free up that land for the purpose of building more affordable housing. Still, we will certainly need to do more. The solution to the housing crisis is far from simple, and will not be found in one single bill. It will take numerous bills coupled with local commitments and implementation. Our objective though must remain the same: a roof over the head of every Californian at a price they can afford. Gloria is a Democratic Assembly member from San Diego. He is a former San Diego City Council member, City Council president and interim mayor. Slow down, baby ... gene editing in embryos is premature. Extremely premature. That is the opinion of scientists across the world, united in their deep concern about the actions of a scientist, He Jiankui, of the Southern University of Science and Technology in China, who claims to have edited the genomes of twin girls born last month. Just two days before the International Genome Editing Summit in Hong Kong on Nov. 27, He announced that he used CRISPR ( a gene-editing tool) to introduce mutations in a gene called CCR5 in early human embryos. Previous studies have attempted to fix mutations in human embryos. However, until now, they have never been transferred to a mothers uterus to generate a pregnancy and a baby. Excitement about CRISPR has dominated the headlines in recent years. Genome editing is propelling biology forward in ways we never thought possible. CRISPR is the newest and most elegant of the genome editing tools and is celebrated because of its power to precisely cut and paste letters of the genome. Within the billions of combinations of A, G, C and T that make up our DNA, a small mistake in just one or two letters can lead to disease or even be life-threatening. And the ability to precisely fix these errors is what allures scientists to this technology. In fact, many clinical trials are already being conducted using CRISPR to fix mutations in patients afflicted with diseases like sickle cell anemia, thalassemia or cancer. Related: Genetic engineering brings promising benefits for humanity Advertisement Since CRISPRs discovery, scientists have been tantalized by the possibility of using it to cure genetic diseases before they even begin in embryos. If a disease-causing mutation could be precisely fixed in an embryo, without harm, we have an astounding opportunity to eliminate devastating genetic diseases. The consensus among experts, however, is that the safe and ethical use of CRISPR in embryos that would lead to a liveborn baby is many years away. Or, at least, it should have been. That we still dont really know how effective or safe CRISPR is makes the actions He claims to have taken so disturbing. One obvious reason for caution before moving forward with clinical use of CRISPR for embryo editing is that editing within the germ line (eggs, sperm, early embryos) results in mutations that are permanent they will be carried on through the childs life and can be passed on to future children. If the mutation is precise and curative, this is a benefit, but if the mutation does harm, that could be passed along too. Another problem is that, while the cuts in DNA made by CRISPR are generally accurate, CRISPR can have unintended effects as well. For instance, it can sometimes modify other parts of DNA that look similar to the intended region called off-target effects. Often these off-target effects are in parts of the genome that will not cause a problem, but others can interfere with the function of a properly-working gene and have dire consequences. While we are still waiting for Hes results to be published and a full review by the scientific community, he has stated that he sequenced the DNA from a single cell of each edited embryo and found only one off-target mutation that he deemed insignificant. Most scientists, however, would argue that our current sequencing tools are not yet good enough to detect all possible unintended mutations. Another concern is the unnecessary and potentially hazardous target that He chose to mutate. CCR5 allows HIV to infect our cells, and a specific mutation of the gene can confer HIV resistance in some cases. However, the data presented suggests that mutations he induced in the babies DNA do not match the CCR5 mutation that has been shown to protect against HIV. Thus, it is unclear if the changes made would even confer HIV resistance. Even more, altering this gene may increase susceptibility to and severity of other viral infections. Hes actions blatantly violate ethical guidelines established by many organizations around the world and cannot be supported. Unfortunately, when proper channels are not followed, it results not only in unnecessary risk, but also undermines public trust and retards the very science and medicine it means to advance. In response to these events, therefore, it is important that we not shut the door or our minds to these powerful new tools. An open discussion is needed to decide what would be an acceptable use of this new technology in our society. And we must work together to develop rigorous regulations as well as to open avenues through which these experiments can be done transparently and safely. CRISPR remains a revolutionary technology with great potential for the prevention of genetic disease in the future, when the time is right. Cook-Andersen, M.D., Ph.D., is assistant professor, Reproductive Medicine and Biological Sciences, at UC San Diego. Dumdie is a medical and Ph.D. student at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Lightly edited comments from our online coverage. Re The need for subsidized housing in San Diego is apparent (Dec. 12): The recent election to the state Legislature was, in part, about issues like this one, and Todd Glorias side won big. All elections have consequences, not just the ones conservatives/GOPers win. hillcrester Joined April 16, 2016 Advertisement More subsidized housing? Based on my tax liability, Im already supporting at least a dozen people not related to me. How many more do you want me to support? satyr0 Joined June 14, 2016 No, subsidizing is not whats needed. That increases taxes on hard-working people and whats really needed is much less taxation. Stop foreign investors from gobbling up all of the housing and then charging ridiculous rent prices. Chinese buy up homes in good neighborhoods then turn them into state-funded drug rehab/flop houses. Theyre making a killing doing this. s.cramon Joined Feb. 28, 2018 Re Apple says it will establish a new location in San Diego, add 1,000 jobs over three years (Dec. 13): Isnt this just a way of skimming off Qualcomm workers, with those specialties, who dont want to leave town? Erik.Hanson Joined April 16, 2016 1,000 new jobs, especially tech jobs, is always good news. But just watch that Trump tries to take credit for Apples decision. Gilfield48 Joined Sept. 6, 2017 Why shouldnt he? Hes had Tim Cook and others in the tech industry over to the White House several times to talk about jobs in the USA. Seems as if that persuasion is bearing fruit! benwallace Joined April 16, 2016 Re We are wise to turn away from nuclear energy (Dec. 12): The numbers the letter writer put forth concerning land contamination uninhabitable for 20,000 years after shut down and productive design life of 30 years for nuclear power plants appear to be a bit extreme. My research tells me even though the design life of the worlds 439 nuclear power plants is 20-30 years, it is feasible for them to function beyond that range. And even 30 years after the worlds worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, human habitation is said to be 3,000 years away not 20,000. Indeed thats no short time but I think nuclear technology for production and safety is improving all the time. And that goes for solar and wind. Those too are improving. It is fossil fuels that continue to spew out environmentally hazardous waste. Go nuclear. neil_proffitt Joined April 17, 2016 I love solar power and wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, etc. I like efficiency and conservation even better. The sad fact is that we still need a reliable electric grid baseload source that still works when the sun dont shine, particularly if we are all going to be driving electric vehicles. Nuclear fusion (heavy hydrogen to helium) remains our single best hope for the future, but we need something now, and conventional nuclear fission helps fill that gap. This country has been bringing solar and wind on line at a good clip, but only fast enough to replace 75 percent of the nuclear we have shut down over the past decade. j.eldon Joined June 21, 2016 Re Courts, Democrats thwart our presidents efforts to secure border (Dec. 11): Trumps asylum ban clearly violated U.S. law, passed by Congress with an overwhelming majority. A president cannot just ignore the law. If he wants it changed, then he has to get Congress to change the law. at_maybe Joined Nov. 1, 2017 Neither party impresses me one bit. The goal is to conquer and alienate the other. Winner takes all, no compromise. Locally the Dems have declared war on the mayor, promising diversion and control before even addressing an issue. I may not be a Democrat or Republican, but I do expect our laws to be upheld. Open borders are indefensible. NO CODE Joined April 27, 2018 What is wrong with having a secure border? Why do the Dems fear that so much? almofff Joined Dec. 11, 2018 Youre confusing border security with a border wall. Gordon M Joined Oct. 25, 2016 Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. Dont punish taxpayers to build Trumps wall Re President threatens shutdown over border wall funding in televised clash with Pelosi, Schumer (Dec. 12): Donald Trump lied to all Americans again when he said, Mexico will pay for the wall. Now he wants U.S. citizens to pay for the wall. If Trumps supporters want to pay for the wall, then thats okay with me, but stop trying to get the rest of us Americans tax dollars that dont support a waste of our hard-earned income. Walls dont stop criminals. Trump, as far as most Americans are concerned, can start a GoFundMe wall page to get donations from his supporters to pay for it. Mark Lehman Advertisement Oceanside Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. Congratulations to clever Steve Lake for winning the top spot! He will receive Steve Breens signed original in the mail. Thanks to all those who participated. Ho! Ho! Ho! Next weeks cartoon is below. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. Good luck! Winner No, you cant invoke the Santa clause. Steve Lake, Carlsbad Finalists Dont get cute with me! Craig Claytor, Rancho Penasquitos Advertisement Enough of your small talk. William McClusky, Oceanside You were misinformed ... there is no good cop, just a bad cop and another bad cop. Gene Basye, San Diego One more time ... who do you work for? Gloriane Hartdegen, online submission How much contact did you have with Russia while making the nesting dolls? Karen Farrington, Alpine So you want us to believe it was elf defense? Ruben Escobosa, San Diego Spill it. Wheres the Grinch? Al Tarkington, Del Mar I demand to know the location of the Keebler place. Corey Donahue, Oceanside Give us the naughty list or youll be making license plates instead of toys. Louis Lin, San Diego We got you for petite larceny. David Narevsky, Poway Well decide whos naughty or nice around here, OK? Rob Cohen, San Diego We hear you were involved in a sleighing. Joseph Puzo, San Diego So who was driving when grandma got run over? Andy Attwood, Kensington K-12 Looks like were going to do this nice cop, naughty cop style. Adam Brown, eighth grade, Correia Middle School Tell us the location of individual-1. Wyatt Evans, seventh grade, Correia Middle School All right, spill the cookies. Emma Mefford, fourth grade, The Rock Academy I dont care if your criminal past stems from a long history of low elf- esteem.Jacob Mationg, 11th grade, Olympian High School Next weeks cartoon (Steve Breen) To enter, email entries to cartooncontest@sduniontribune.com by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. View last weeks winners. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/13/2018 -- Top Three Players Account for Over 18% Revenue Share of Foliar Fertilizer Market Foliar fertilizer remains an intensely fragmented landscape. In spite of the high level of fragmentation, the top three players have continued to hold onto their revenue shares. These three companies include Israel Chemicals Ltd., Helena Agri-Enterprises LLC, and Yara International ASA. Collectively, these three companies account for over 18% revenue share of the global foliar fertilizer market. Israel Chemicals Ltd., has benefited owing to its strategic location serving both emerging and developed markets. Moreover, the company operates from two ports (Port of Ashdod and Port of Eilat) that offers low plant gate-to-port cost. This also facilitates proximity to the target market along with shorter lead time. Get Experts' Insights For FREE: https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1031 Yara International ASA is focusing on diversifying across key regional markets. For instance, it launched a liquid fertilizer plant in Malmesbury to leverage its lucrativeness as a key agri exporter in South Africa. Yara International is also focusing on launching Yara Improvement Program in a bid to enhance its EBITDA in the forthcoming years. Helena Agri-Enterprises LLC is focused on diversifying its product portfolio and reinforce its global presence. Recently, it introduced four new products in its foliar fertilizer product lineup, viz., Ele-Max Sulfur LC, N-Fixx XLR, Antares Prime and Sultrus. Focus on Leveraging 'Soil Conditioning' Benefits Gaining Ground Among Foliar Fertilizer Manufacturers Multi-pronged advantage of foliar fertilizers are expected to fuel their demand in agriculture and farming sector. In addition to efficient nutrient absorption and crop yield, foliar fertilizers provide higher resistance to insects and pests owing to the presence of various hormones such as gibberellins, cytokinins and auxins. In addition, foliar fertilizer also acts as an effective soil conditioner and enhances the water holding capacity of the soil in turn facilitating the balance restoration of the microorganism populace. Use of foliar fertilizer eliminates nutrient limitations in adverse soil conditions and is considered as an additional supplement boosting crop health. On account of these factors, agriculturists recommend the use of foliar fertilizer in conjunction with granular fertilizers to achieve favorable results. Foliar Fertilizer Industry Benefiting from Broader Focus on Increasing Yield Per Hectare The growing demand for agricultural products on the back of rising population rates and per capita consumption has presented potential avenues for the use of novel agricultural techniques such as foliar fertilization. According to analysis carried out by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, kilocalorie demand per person is likely to reach 3050 kcal. In addition to this, global population is expected to touch 8.3 billion by 2030. Momentous growth in population is expected to increase the demand for agricultural commodities, in turn, creating an urgency to enhance the agricultural produce using nutrition enhancement with foliar fertilizer. This is likely to spur the demand for foliar fertilization, consequently pushing the sales of foliar fertilizer. Request Customized Report As Per Your Requirements: https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=1031 Nanocomposite Foliar Fertilizers that Offer Customization of Desired Nutrient Compositions Growing in Demand Introduction of nanotechnology in the agro fertilizer space has enhanced the nutrient absorption quotient in plants. As compared to conventional crop fertilizers such as large granules, the nanocomposite foliar fertilizer can be custom-designed to obtain smaller particles with desired nutrient compositions. In addition, nanocomposite foliar fertilizer can be synthesized and produced in one step with less energy consumption. With the enhanced absorption capacity, nanocomposite foliar fertilizer facilitates efficient binding of nutrient ions enhancing plant nutrition. In addition, application of nano-B and nano-Zn foliar fertilizer, which has been tested on pomegranate, can increase the leaf micronutrient concentration further aiding plant nutrition. Decreasing Arable Land to Influence Nutrient Demand Potential Avenue for Foliar Fertilizer Market Arable land per person is expected to witness a further decline in the years to follow, in turn, impacting the agricultural produce. According to the World Bank, arable land (hectares per person) has reduced from 0.371 in 1961 to 0.194 in 2015. This hectares per person is likely to reach 0.15 ha per capita by 20250, according to FAO. Farmland decrease per person coupled with the increasing need for agricultural produce has pushed the growers to increase crop yield by using advanced fertilizer solutions such as foliar fertilizer, in turn, encouraging its market's growth. Fertigation to Challenge Foliar Fertilizer Sales The on-going imbalance between demand and supply of water for agricultural practices has forced alterations in modern irrigation practices. This has resulted in adoption of alternative techniques such as fertigation that includes injection of fertilizers and nutrients to the irrigation system, in turn, impacting the use of foliar fertilization method. Fertigation saves time and money along with yield agriculture yield enhancement, consequently challenging the adoption of the foliar fertilizer in the agriculture industry. Competitive Landscape The report on foliar fertilizer market covers a detailed assessment on foliar fertilizer manufacturers worldwide. Various players including, but not limited to, Helena Agri-Enterprises LLC, EuroChem Group Ag and K+S AG have been covered in the foliar fertilizer market report. Companies are introducing new products in their portfolio to increase their scope of application in the foliar fertilizer space. For instance, Helena Agri-Enterprises LLC has introduced CitriFlo that is a foliar fertilizer used on flowers and fruit plants. It has also introduced Kendal, a nutrient supplement that enhances plant defenses. Furthermore, companies are focusing on strategic acquisitions to cater to the foliar fertilizer demand particularly in the emerging economies. For instance, EuroChem Group AG acquired Agricola Bulgaria Ead to develop its foliar fertilizer footprint in the Eastern Europe. It has also acquired Emerger Fertilizantes for distribution of foliar fertilizer products in Latin America. K+S AG is focusing on expanding its activities in East Africa owing to the potential opportunities in regions such as Uganda where foliar fertilizers are relatively less with marginal crop yields. It is investing in fertilizer blending facilities in Uganda with a focus on developing digital trading platform with local vendors to distribute its foliar fertilizer products. Definition Foliar fertilizers include various components in different proportions mainly comprising of phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium. Foliar fertilizer is water soluble and can be directly applied on plant leaves in its liquid form. Foliar fertilizer facilitates plant growth by boosting nutrient density and eliminating nutrient deficiencies. Foliar fertilizers are eight times more powerful and effective than soil applied fertilizers. About the Report Fact.MR has compiled vital insights on the foliar fertilizer demand and sales and has presented systematically in its new publication "Foliar Fertilizer Market Forecast, Trend Analysis and Competition Tracking 2018-2028". The foliar fertilizer market report offers complete understanding of key dynamics influencing the foliar fertilizer demand. The report includes in-depth assessment on past, present and future foliar fertilizer market scenario across regional markets. Segmentation The foliar fertilizer market has been segmented comprehensively to include all angles of the marketplace. The foliar fertilizer market is segmented by composition (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, others), by crop type (cereals & grains, fruits & vegetables, oilseeds, others), by nature (mineral, organic) and by region (North America, Latin America, Europe, CIS & Russia, Japan, Asia Pacific excluding Japan and Middle East and Africa). Country-level analysis on the adoption of foliar fertilizer has also been provided in the report. Additional Questions Answered Besides aforementioned findings, foliar fertilizer market report also includes additional insights revealing the sales scenario of the foliar fertilizer. For instance, What trends are impacting the sales of the foliar fertilizer and how can foliar fertilizer manufacturers leverage them? Which is the most lucrative regional market with respect to the foliar fertilizer adoption and demand? What is the sales valuation of foliar fertilizer in Japan? Which type of crop will account for larger sales of foliar fertilizer? To what extent can mineral foliar fertilizer contribute to the overall growth of foliar the fertilizer market? Research Methodology Data and statistics compiled in the foliar fertilizer market report have been gleaned using a unique research methodology. Primary and secondary research along with information on foliar fertilizer use from external sources have been gathered to obtain a high-level scrutiny on foliar fertilizer market. This research process enables high foliar fertilizer market data accuracy providing actionable intelligence. For more information about this report visit https://www.factmr.com/report/1031/foliar-fertilizer-market About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact us: Rohit Bhisey Fact.MR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: https://www.factmr.com/ Phoenix, AZ -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2018 -- Kimberli Lewis provides surprising information about women owned business opportunities in Africa during her interview with Jean Chawapiwa, head of WeConnect International, South Africa. This interesting and thought- provoking interview with Ms. Chawapiwa will air on 18 December at 3:00 PT and be made available to stream after the initial air date. In addition to serving as the head of WeConnect International, SA, the global network that connects women-owned businesses to qualified buyers around the world, Ms. Chawapiwa is Founder and Managing Director of Win Win Solutions for Africa Consultancy and has a seat on the Junior Achievement World Wide Board. She is one of the few women in the world to have reached the top of the South African mining industry. Ms Chawapiwa's consulting firm facilitates companies to do business in Africa through their extensive Africa networks, making her a natural choice to head the WeConnect International SA director. WeConnect International educates, trains, assesses and connects women-owned business to elevate them to be on par with their male counterparts around the world, affording them the same opportunities to do business with multinational corporations worldwide. In this interview on Leadership Beyond Borders, Ms Chawapiwa discusses the opportunities for women owned businesses in Africa. Banks in Africa have been tapped to accelerate funding for women-owned businesses, and this will have a direct effect on the next steps for business growth, from both a supplier and a buyer side. She discusses the government's role in supporting women owned businesses and provides tips for companies to stay ahead of or adhere to the mandates. Kimberli Lewis , aside from hosting Leadership Beyond Borders is the director of and founder of the Women's Leadership Academy 2020 , which has benefited from the participation in WeConnect International. Ms Lewis and Ms Chawapiwa discuss the challenges of women owned business in a traditionally male-dominated space. It is understood that on a global scale, the opportunities are growing, but still many obstacles remain. The two women discuss how to proactively move forward as opposed to waiting for opportunities to present themselves. Ms Lewis has built a loyal listenership on over the past 18 months in part due to the high-variety of informative business guests. Leadership Beyond Borders airs every Tuesday at 3:00pm Pacific Time. The Jean Chawapiwa episode will air on 18 December on Leadership Beyond Borders on VoiceAmerica Business Channel. About VoiceAmerica/World Talk Radio LLC World Talk Radio, LLC is the world leader in online media broadcasting and the largest producer and distributor of live internet based talk radio and TV, delivering over 1,000 hours of programming weekly on its VoiceAmerica Network (http://www.voiceamerica.com)). Featuring more than 200 hosts broadcasting to eight niche community based channels: its flagship VoiceAmerica Variety Channel, VoiceAmerica , Empowerment, VoiceAmerica Health & Wellness Channel, and VoiceAmerica Business Channel. VoiceAmerica /World Talk Radio, LLC is one of the pioneers in internet broadcasting, producing and syndicating online audio and video, offering an innovative, effective and comprehensive digital broadcast platform. Digital Publishing through over 20 years of broadcast and media experience along with our seasoned staff of Executive Producers, Production and Host Services Group, VoiceAmerica /World Talk Radio, LLC provides an internet radio and video platform for new, emerging and veteran media personalities to expand and monetize their business and brand in an online digital medium. Listeners can download the current versions of the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio App at: Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airkast.VA_MASTER&hl=en iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/voiceamerica-talk-radio-network/id412135954?mt=8# Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/13/2018 -- Future Market Insights (FMI) delivers key insights on the wood pellet market in its latest report titled, 'Global Wood Pellet Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 20172027'. According to the report, the global wood pellet market is projected to expand at a healthy CAGR of 8.7% during the forecast period in terms of revenue. Wood pellets are defined as are biofuel made from compressed organic matter or biomass. These technologies use a wide range of materials such as forest & wood waste, agricultural residue, and other substances. Request for more (TOC And Sample) : https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-484 Factors such as increasing consumption of wood pellets, increasing health consciousness among consumers, high consumption of wood pellets for residential heating, growing demand for wood pellets for electricity generation, growing exports of wood pellets rapidly growing demand for domestic wood pellets and energy, and climate change are the factors that drive the market. Enterprises and individuals, nowadays, need products that are environmentally-friendly. Collaborations between suppliers and producers ensure a strong bonding and progressive activities, and enhance the development process. This demand has given rise to the increased production of wood pellets. Government certification is a valuable tool to assure customers that the wood pellets are made from sustainably managed forests. Increasing certification criteria is the key restraining factor of the North American wood pellet market while exporting to other countries, where various rules mandate renewable energy production. The procurement policy of wood pellets is also one of the key restraining factors in the market here. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative and Forest Stewardship Council are the certification organizations in North America. 19% of U.S. commercial forestland is certified by major U.S. standards. According to the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, approx. 9% of the world's forests are certified. Out of them, more than 40% forests are in Canada, which makes these forests as an ideal source of wood pellets. On the basis of region, Western Europe is estimated to be the largest market for wood pellets, accounting for 72.6% value share of the global wood pellets market in 2017. The region continues to dominate the market, and is expected to continue to do so throughout the forecast period. Eastern Europe exports most of its produced wood pellets to other countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, where it requires certification for exports. Various industries are focusing on getting certified with DINplus and green energy certifications, which will help in exporting the produced wood pellets. The rapid rate of the production of wood pellets in countries like Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia is a major driving factor of the wood pellet market in Eastern Europe, owing to the high amount of exports to the other developed countries of Western Europe. On the basis of end use, the industrial pellets for co-firing segment is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 11.0% and and 9.1% in terms of market value and volume, respectively, during the forecast period. This is attributed to the increasing demand for wood pellets in a wide range of end-user applications. The markets in APEJ, Western Europe, MEA, and Latin America are anticipated to contribute majorly to the global wood pellet market. The market in Western Europe is expected to account for 69.6% share in terms of value in the global wood pellet market, and be valued at US$ 14,694.6 Mn by 2027 end. The increasing demand for wood pellets for residential heating and energy and climate change in Western Europe is expected to fuel revenue growth of the market in the region. The market in Western Europe is estimated to be valued at US$ 6,686.2 Mn by 2017 end, and projected to expand at a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period. Get Report Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-484 Factors such as increasing consumption of wood pellets, increasing health health consciousness among consumers, high consumption of wood pellets for residential heating, growing demand for wood pellets for electricity generation, growing exports of wood pellets, growing demand for domestic wood pellets and energy, and climate change are expected to drive revenue growth of the global wood pellet market. Key market participants covered in the report include Drax Biomas Inc, Rentech, Inc, Enviva Partners, LP, German Pellets GmbH, Viridis Energy Inc, AS Graanul Invest, Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc, Lignetics of Idaho, Inc, Zilkha Biomass Energy, LLC, and Energy Girvan Limited. By performing genome-wide analyses across hair colors, researchers at the University of Edinburgh, UK, have discovered eight new genetic variants that contribute to red hair. Although almost everyone with red hair has two copies of the red-haired version of a gene called MC1R (melanocortin 1 receptor), not everyone carrying two red-haired versions is a redhead. Scientists knew there must be other genes involved but these have mostly remained a mystery until now. Now University of Edinburgh professors Ian Jackson and Albert Tenesa and their colleagues have looked at DNA from 343,234 people who had taken part in the UK Biobank study. The researchers focused on people of European descent because they have greater variation in hair color. Comparing redheads to people with brown or black hair, they identified eight previously unknown genetic differences that are associated with red hair. The team also looked at the functions of the genes they identified and found that some of them work by controlling when MC1R is switched on or off. We are very pleased that this work has unraveled most of the genetic variation contributing to differences in hair color among people, Professor Tenesa said. In addition to the redhead genes, the scientists uncovered differences in almost 200 genes associated with blondes and brunettes. There is a gradient of color from black, through dark brown to light brown and blonde, which is caused by increasing number of genetic differences in these 200 genes, they said. We were surprised to find that many of these 200 genetic differences were associated with hair texture rather than pigmentation. Others are involved in determining how the hair grows whether curly or straight, for example. The findings appear in the journal Nature Communications. _____ Michael D. Morgan et al. 2018. Genome-wide study of hair colour in UK Biobank explains most of the SNP heritability. Nature Communications 9, article number: 5271; doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07691-z The contractor for the design and construction contract for the third set of locks of the Panama Canal expansion programme GUPC and its shareholders filed an arbitration against the ACP, which was carried out in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), based in Miami, US. Through this arbitration, GUPC requested the Tribunal to declare that the advances granted by the ACP for the execution of the Contract had not expired and were not liquid or enforceable until all of its claims were resolved in arbitration. Read more: Repairs to Panama Canal cracks to be completed in January 2016 On 12 December 2018, the Panama Canal Authority has been notified of the Arbitral Award issued within said Arbitration, in which the Arbitral Tribunal determined that: GUPC will have to pay the ACP the initial Advances which amount to $547,958,819.42; and, the additional Advances which amount to $ 299,671,507.68, which total $ 847,630,327.10. The ACP is authorised to immediately collect the Guarantee issued by UniCredit AG, London branch, in the amount of $13,186,719 to guarantee the payment of interest generated from the due date of the initial advances until 16 December 2018 The Panama Canal Authority was not authorised to withhold amounts payable to GUPC related to maintenance services, with which it must return such amounts to GUPCSA. Grupo Unidos por el Canal S.A. Sacyr S.A., Salini-Impregilo S.p.A., Jan De Nul N.V., Constructora Urbana S.A., and Sofidra S.A. they must reimburse the Panama Canal Authority the amount of $395,000 as costs and expenses of the Members of the Tribunal and administrative expenses of the International Court of Arbitration of the ICC. Grupo Unidos por el Canal S.A. Sacyr S.A., Salini-Impregilo S.p.A., Jan De Nul N.V., Constructora Urbana S.A. and Sofidra S.A. they must pay the Panama Canal Authority the amount of $5,444,478.50 as a contribution to the legal costs and other expenses incurred by the ACP in relation to the arbitration. All other requests for compensation required by GUPC were denied. As a result, the ACP will continue to exercise all the legal actions that assist it in the immediate collection of those advances that are pending payment and that are duly guaranteed by Letters of Credits and Corporate Guarantees. Last year, the tribunal had rejected a demand by GUPC for $192.8m to cover cost overruns. Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI) was granted RMB13.03m of state funds and CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company received RMB28.56m in grants. The state subsidies were approved by the Industry and Information Technology Commission of Guangzhou Municipality and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed Comec pointed out that the grants would have an impact on the groups profit and loss for its current financial year. As it targets emissions free operation Ports of Auckland has committed to build a hydrogen production and refuelling facility at its Waitemata port. As part of the project the port and its partners Auckland Council, Auckland Transport and KiwiRail, will invest in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles including port equipment, buses and cars. Ports of Auckland chief executive Tony Gibson explained: "We have an ambitious target to be a zero emission port by 2040. In order to meet that target we need a new renewable and resilient power source for heavy equipment like tugs and straddle carriers, which are difficult to power with batteries. Hydrogen could be the solution for us as it can be produced and stored on site, allows rapid refuelling, and provides greater range than batteries." Read more: Norway seeking zero emissions from shipping Clean Maritime Council to plot course for zero emissions from UK shipping The port will fund construction of the facility which will produce hydrogen from tap water with vehicles storing energy in fuel cells. "If this trial is successful the technology would have a very wide application. It could help Auckland and New Zealand towards energy self-sufficiency and our emission reduction goals, Gibson said. Trucks, trains and ferries could also run on hydrogen something which is already being done overseas which would be a significant benefit for the community. Hydrogen powered vehicles are quieter and emit nothing more than clean water." The New Zealand port joins a number of others globally in trialling hydrogen as a fuel source including the Port of LA and Port of Long Beach, Port of Honolulu, Port of Valencia and Port of Rotterdam. The New Zealand dollar fell below 68 US cents for the first time in two weeks after the Reserve Bank outlined plans for lenders to hold greater capital reserves, which would likely boost borrowing costs and slow the economy. The kiwi dropped to 67.96 US cents as at 5pm in Wellington from 68.57 cents immediately before the release and 68.56 cents yesterday. The trade-weighted index was at 74.31 from 74.82 yesterday. The local currency is heading for a 1 percent weekly decline against the greenback as the stiffer capital requirements added to investor nervousness in thinly traded markets. 0 The Reserve Bank's move added to general unease among investors as Chinese data showed weaker retail sales than expected, and on growing speculation that US President Donald Trump may face impeachment. Stocks across Asia fell, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 1.4 percent in afternoon trading. "That's been a bit of a negative for the kiwi," said Martin Rudings, senior dealer foreign exchange at OMF. "There's a bit of stuff going on with Trump and that's affecting equity markets, creating a risk-off feeling across Asia." Local data today showed New Zealand's housing market continued to cool in November, while a manufacturing survey indicated an upbeat outlook after a mediocre period in the middle of the year. New Zealand's two-year swap rate increased 1 basis point to 2.08 percent, and 10-year swaps were down 1 basis point at 2.76 percent. The kiwi fell to 59.80 euro cents from 60.31 cents yesterday. The European Central Bank kept its key rate unchanged overnight and confirmed plans to end its quantitative easing programme at the end of the month. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May is attempting to gain concessions from the European Union over the Brexit deal, having seen off a leadership challenge. The kiwi dropped to 53.80 British pence from 54.34 pence yesterday. The kiwi dropped to 94.45 Australian cents from 94.84 cents yesterday and declined to 4.6813 Chinese yuan from 4.7116 yuan. It fell to 77.12 yen from 77.77 yen yesterday. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Serko Limited (NZX: SKO) Announces Opening of NZ$10 Million Retail Offer Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) Rua to Accelerate Growth with Proposed Acquisition of Zalm The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Successfully Completes Placement NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Acquires BusinessDesk to Supercharge Digital Growth Cannasouth Limited (NZX: CBD) Acquisition of Outstanding Stake in Cultivation JV Complete Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Half Year Results The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) NZ announces equity raising Asset Plus Limited (NZX: APL) Result for the six months ended 30 September 2021 Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) 30 September 21 Results and Conditional Placement Oceania Healthcare Limited (NZX: OCA) Delivers Improved Performance Despite COVID-19 Infratil says it expects to invest up to another A$50 million in Canberra Data Centres to help fund its on-going growth. The data business, which Infratil bought into in 2016, has just acquired the Eastern Creek data centre in Western Sydney from DXC Technology. The site covers 145,000 square-metres and provides scope for progressive expansion over time. The transaction has been funded with a combination of debt and equity from its existing shareholders Infratil and the Commonwealth Superannuation Corp, with 48 percent each, and management. Infratil said the shareholders are reviewing the appropriate medium-term capital structure, given the DXC transaction and strong organic growth in Canberra where CDC has started work on its sixth data centre. It expects to commit up to A$50 million into CDC during the next 12 months. Wellington-based Infratil paid $412 million for its stake in CDC in 2016. It wants to profit from the increasing digitisation of services and the worlds growing need to manage the data being created, particularly for government and nationally critical infrastructure operators. The business contributed more than $30 million to Infratils first-half operating earnings, almost twice that a year earlier. Faster than expected growth will see CDCs annual earnings exceed A$110 million by 2020, Infratil said last month. Infratil said the Sydney acquisition would enable CDC to meet demand from existing customers for a data facility outside Canberra. The centre's expansion would cater for new customers In this way CDC will continue to follow its strategy of providing highly secure, reliable and flexible data centre services to leading government and commercial clients across broader geographies. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Serko Limited (NZX: SKO) Announces Opening of NZ$10 Million Retail Offer Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) Rua to Accelerate Growth with Proposed Acquisition of Zalm The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Successfully Completes Placement NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Acquires BusinessDesk to Supercharge Digital Growth Cannasouth Limited (NZX: CBD) Acquisition of Outstanding Stake in Cultivation JV Complete Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Half Year Results The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) NZ announces equity raising Asset Plus Limited (NZX: APL) Result for the six months ended 30 September 2021 Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) 30 September 21 Results and Conditional Placement Oceania Healthcare Limited (NZX: OCA) Delivers Improved Performance Despite COVID-19 The government has committed more than $2.5 million from the Provincial Growth Fund to help expand marine farming at Opotiki. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said three projects including studies for the redevelopment of the districts harbour would help the Eastern Bay of Plenty benefit from its aquaculture potential. Aquaculture provides one of the biggest opportunities for the Eastern Bay of Plenty to transform its economy, develop significant employment and improve the regions standard of living, he said. The government, through the Provincial Growth Fund, is proud to get in behind these projects. The local Whakatohea iwi has interests in forestry, dairy farming, kiwifruit and fisheries. In 2016 it started its first commercial harvest of mussels from an offshore farm. Jones said the Whakatohea Maori Trust Board will receive up to $950,000 to prepare a business case to accelerate the development of its aquaculture interests and other settlement assets. The study will include looking at the potential for a commercial mussel farm and spat-catching site, including a scientific assessment for a deep sea farm site. The PGF will also provide Whakatohea Mussels Opotiki with an initial investment of $850,000 to progress work on a business case for a mussel processing facility. The government has also agreed, subject to the successful outcome of the business case, to invest up to a further $19 million to support the construction of the on-land mussel processing factory. When fully operational this initiative has the potential to create more than 200 jobs in the region year-round, Jones said. Todays announcement also includes $750,000 to help advance more than a decade of planning to make the Opotiki estuary navigable for larger vessels year-round. In May, Jones vetoed a proposed $145 million development plan that would have used groynes to keep a river channel open to the sea. That is necessary if the harbour is to be the base for commercial fisheries. Opotiki District Council, with $3 million of central government funding in 2015, had been working on the plan with Whakatohea, the Ministry for Primary Industries, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Today Jones said the PGF funding would be used to help develop a business case for an affordable harbour redevelopment. This is the first step to transform the harbour into a productive area to support marine farming in the region, Jones said. Were committed to working alongside the region to support this important work. Other regional projects to receive funding included $646,000 for regeneration of Whakatanes town centre and waterfront, $781,700 to investigate irrigation of 640 hectares at Raukokore, and $400,000 to look at ways to improve visitor access to White Island. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Serko Limited (NZX: SKO) Announces Opening of NZ$10 Million Retail Offer Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) Rua to Accelerate Growth with Proposed Acquisition of Zalm The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Successfully Completes Placement NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Acquires BusinessDesk to Supercharge Digital Growth Cannasouth Limited (NZX: CBD) Acquisition of Outstanding Stake in Cultivation JV Complete Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Half Year Results The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) NZ announces equity raising Asset Plus Limited (NZX: APL) Result for the six months ended 30 September 2021 Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) 30 September 21 Results and Conditional Placement Oceania Healthcare Limited (NZX: OCA) Delivers Improved Performance Despite COVID-19 The big four Australian-owned banks will have to hold on to more of their domestic earnings over the next five years if the Reserve Bank goes ahead with its proposal for stricter capital requirements. The central bank, which issued a consultation paper today, wants lenders to hold more higher-quality capital on their books to help fund their credit, rather than using borrowed money. It also plans to limit the big four banks' internal models that have led to lower capital requirements, giving them a competitive advantage over the minnow lenders which have to use the standardised approach. The Reserve Bank wants to set a tier 1 capital requirement, including a 9-10 percent capital buffer, equal to 16 percent of a lender's risk-weighted assets for the big four and 15 percent for all other lenders. The current requirement is for a 6 percent minimum plus a 2.5 percent buffer. For the big four - ANZ Bank New Zealand, Bank of New Zealand, ASB Bank, and Westpac New Zealand - that would mean they'd need to increase their tier 1 capital by $12.8 billion and replace another $6.2 billion of preference shares because they will no longer count as tier 1 capital. The Reserve Bank estimates they could achieve that within five years by retaining more of their profits, or about 70 percent of their average $4.4 billion of earnings. "Having shareholders able to absorb a greater share of losses if the company fails also provides stronger protection for depositors, RBNZ deputy governor and general manager of financial stability Geoff Bascand said in a statement. "While borrowing costs may increase a little, and bank shareholders may earn a lower return on their investment, we believe these impacts will be more than offset by having a safer banking system for all New Zealanders." The Reserve Bank estimates the higher capital requirement could push up the cost of bank credit by 6 basis points. By lowering the availability of credit at a given price, the RBNZ estimates every 1 percentage point increase in the tier 1 capital ratio could slow GDP growth by 3 basis points, implying a near 0.2 percent hit to economic growth. The New Zealand dollar dropped on the news, recently trading at 67.92 US cents from 68.57 cents immediately before the release. The four major Australian banks return much of their profits to their parents. Over the past five years, ANZ has paid $11.78 billion in dividends and had retained earnings of $1.9 billion at its Sept. 30 balance date. BNZ paid $3.69 billion and had retained earnings of $3.89 billion and Westpac paid $4.16 billion of dividends with retained earnings of $2.23 billion. ASB reports on a June year. During the past five years it's paid $3.04 billion in dividends and retained $3.71 billion. ASB's parent Commonwealth Bank of Australia noted the paper. ANZ, New Zealand's biggest lender, said it was reviewing the consultation paper and will update the market once it's done so. While its tier 1 capital ratio at 14.4 percent appears close to the new target, that includes preference shares that will need to be replaced. Its common equity tier 1 ratio - made up of shares and retained earnings - was 11.1 percent. Westpac's common equity tier 1 ratio was 11.7 percent, while BNZ's and ASB's were 10.6 percent and 10.7 percent respectively. The smaller banks will need to lift their tier 1 capital by $900 million and replace another $100 million of non-compliant capital, which the RBNZ estimates will take about seven or eight years through retained earnings alone. The consultation closes on March 29. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Serko Limited (NZX: SKO) Announces Opening of NZ$10 Million Retail Offer Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) Rua to Accelerate Growth with Proposed Acquisition of Zalm The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Successfully Completes Placement NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Acquires BusinessDesk to Supercharge Digital Growth Cannasouth Limited (NZX: CBD) Acquisition of Outstanding Stake in Cultivation JV Complete Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Half Year Results The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) NZ announces equity raising Asset Plus Limited (NZX: APL) Result for the six months ended 30 September 2021 Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) 30 September 21 Results and Conditional Placement Oceania Healthcare Limited (NZX: OCA) Delivers Improved Performance Despite COVID-19 The New Zealand kiwifruit growers' association says it has gained support from the governments Provincial Growth Fund and the Ministry of Social Development to employ a labour coordinator to try to alleviate an expected staff shortage in 2019. The association said the Bay of Plenty kiwifruit industry, which accounts for more than 80 percent of kiwifruit grown, experienced a severe labour shortage this year with 1,200 vacancies at harvest unable to be filled. The aim of the labour coordinator role is to attract additional workers and increase the coordination of available labour sources to support the growth of the industry in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers said in a statement. New Zealanders will be given priority for the work, particularly those from Work and Income. Ensuring a sustainable supply of labour is the kiwifruit industrys top priority, association chief executive Nikki Johnson said. The growing appetite for our high quality, great tasting fruit, means we need more people to pick, pack and prune. Luckily, the Bay of Plenty has some of the most beautiful beaches and is a very attractive area to come to work, Johnson said. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones today announced funding of almost $100,000 for the coordinator role from the Provincial Growth Fund. The position, to be co-funded by growers and the Ministry of Social Development, is expected to be in place until the end of 2020, Johnson said. The industry has also launched a campaign to attract more pickers and packers which focuses on backpackers, retirees, students and the unemployed and has already started with articles aimed at backpackers in the European media. New Zealand kiwifruit production will increase from 123 million trays in 2017 to 190 million trays by 2027, Johnson said. To meet this demand, the industry will need more than 7,000 additional seasonal workers over the next 10 years. The association is also working on accommodation, welfare, transport, perception of pay rates and to ensure consistency of work to try to improve the labour situation, she said. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Serko Limited (NZX: SKO) Announces Opening of NZ$10 Million Retail Offer Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) Rua to Accelerate Growth with Proposed Acquisition of Zalm The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Successfully Completes Placement NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Acquires BusinessDesk to Supercharge Digital Growth Cannasouth Limited (NZX: CBD) Acquisition of Outstanding Stake in Cultivation JV Complete Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Half Year Results The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) NZ announces equity raising Asset Plus Limited (NZX: APL) Result for the six months ended 30 September 2021 Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) 30 September 21 Results and Conditional Placement Oceania Healthcare Limited (NZX: OCA) Delivers Improved Performance Despite COVID-19 Noel Leeming has been fined $200,000 for misleading consumers about their rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act following a Commerce Commission prosecution. The homeware retailer, which is owned by The Warehouse Group, was convicted on eight charges under the Fair Trading Act with each charge relating to a different complainant. The eight cases of Noel Leeming providing false or misleading misrepresentations about their rights occurred between September 2015 and January 2017 at seven different Noel Leeming stores across New Zealand Noel Leeming has 77 stores nationwide. The complainants purchased consumer goods such as mobile phones, laptops and household appliances. Noel Leeming pleaded guilty in the Auckland District Court today and was fined by Judge Nicola Mathers. The prosecution related to multiple consumers in multiple locations. It was not isolated or one off conduct, says commissioner Anna Rawlings. Consumers complained to Noel Leeming about products and were entitled to have their complaints treated seriously, investigated properly and remedied where appropriate, she said. Instead, they were misled sometimes repeatedly about their rights under the law at a moment when it really mattered to consumers that their legal rights were honoured. Consumers were misled about their right to seek remedies for faulty goods from Noel Leeming, rather than the manufacturer, about their right to a refund for a faulty product, and about their right to a replacement for a faulty product. Judge Mathers said there were direct and significant departures from the truth" in every case. "Consumers were denied their rights and had real difficulty dealing with Noel Leeming. Noel Leemings misrepresentations included telling a customer that claims under the Consumer Guarantees Act about an iPhone had to be negotiated directly with Apple, that the Act is not effective for Noel Leeming and that a consumer wasnt entitled to a refund despite false representations made about the suitability of a mobile phone and that a customer had to contact Microsoft about a faulty product. Other misrepresentations were that Noel Leeming could repair a fridge as many times as it liked and the customer was also told he could only get a store credit to purchase another fridge. Another customer was told mobile phones were only replaced within 14 days and that a new phone could only be obtained if a fault occurred three times. All of these statements are simply wrong, Rawlings said. Under the Act, it is the retailer who has to deal with complaints about faulty products and to either repair or replace the product or provide a refund. Since 2007 the commission has warned Noel Leeming, or issued it with compliance advice, about potentially misleading of consumers about their rights. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Serko Limited (NZX: SKO) Announces Opening of NZ$10 Million Retail Offer Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) Rua to Accelerate Growth with Proposed Acquisition of Zalm The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Successfully Completes Placement NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Acquires BusinessDesk to Supercharge Digital Growth Cannasouth Limited (NZX: CBD) Acquisition of Outstanding Stake in Cultivation JV Complete Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Half Year Results The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) NZ announces equity raising Asset Plus Limited (NZX: APL) Result for the six months ended 30 September 2021 Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) 30 September 21 Results and Conditional Placement Oceania Healthcare Limited (NZX: OCA) Delivers Improved Performance Despite COVID-19 Youngsters today are already exposed to various digital tools and are driving innovation in the technology sector. This has resulted in a mindshift of sorts in the education sector, with more and more institutions around the world realising the importance of adopting technology in the classroom. In the last five years digital literacy has risen beyond just being a buzzword, emerging as one of most important concepts in modern education. Technology today has become a new way of living and is entrenched in every facet of modern human life. The internet, mobile phones, computers and various other tools of information management have completely changed the way how people live, learn, interact and work. Here's a checklist of what's essential: * Terminology Without the ability to understand the relevant terminology, digital literacy can be a daunting endeavor. When students understand the various terms related to technology, using it becomes far more easier. It will also help them understand how various apps, websites and information tools work * Using the internet The staggering vastness of the World Wide Web can be both confusing and stifling for some students. So, it is important to teach students how to navigate the enormous landscape of the Internet efficiently and find the information they seek. The right set of digital skills will help students to use of technology responsibly * Coding The ability to apply computational thinking to solve problems forms the basic premise of coding. It encompasses functions like understanding structures, variables, sequential planning, learning the functions of various objects and harnessing different methods to complete tasks. Learning coding also helps develop a deeper understanding of concepts of science, maths and linguistics * Creating multimedia projects The main objective of using multimedia is to communicate ideas more creatively. Understanding and learning skills like graphic designing, and audio and video editing . help students become creators, instead of just being passive receivers of information. Teaching and learning is slowly shifting to digital platforms since the last few years. So, multimedia skills are of crucial importance for students * Content creation and curation Using technological skills like creating documents, spreadsheets, PPTs and infographics; and video and audio editing, have become an important feature of modern classrooms. Students should be able to analyse, collect, collate and assess various types of content using technology as it is one of the most important elements of digital literacy * Social media readiness It is an undisputed fact that social media has thoroughly transformed how we communicate and interact with the world. The emergence of various social media platforms has contributed to a seamless flow of information between content creators and consumers. It is helping students to connect with peers from across the world and share knowledge * Collaborative skills The digital environment requires a collaborative approach for tasks like project management. Skills like collaboration and communication across multiple platforms, are key to thrive in this scenario. Learning to utilise various technology tools allows students to experiment and collaborate * Blogging The advantages of learning to blog are manifold. Blogging doesn't just help in improving articulation and writing skills but also helps in developing creative thinking. In the context of education, it helps in creative expression of academic concepts * Understanding hardware In view of the our growing dependence on gadgets and various other technology tools, it is important for every student to understand the basics of hardware and troubleshooting related to these gadgets and tools. This requires an in-depth understanding of the components of WiFi networks, computers, processors and the like * Understanding copyright Students are often encouraged these days by their educators to use the internet for doing their background research for projects and other tasks that are part of their curriculum. This exposes young learners to a vast pool of online resources from where they can borrow information and ideas. So educators need to guide students to prevent f plagiarism, educating them on copyright and the implication of its violation. The views expressed are personal. Beas Dev Ralhan is Co-founder and CEO Next Education India Pvt Ltd. Divya Jain is Founder & CEO, Safeducate. He said the 2019 general election would be on a completely different footing where people would face a choice between a tried and tested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a highly opportunistic "coalition of rivals". New Delhi: Dealt a severe blow by the Congress in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said the outcome would have no bearing on the Lok Sabha elections next year. "We lost Delhi badly in 2013 but swept all the seats by lakhs of votes the very next year. We won the 2003 Assembly elections in all three states (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan) but lost the 2004 elections. State assemblies are always on a very different footing," Jaitley said while addressing the India Economic Conclave via video conference. The comments come after the BJP was routed in Chhattisgarh and defeated in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in closely-fought contests. Expressing confidence of winning the Lok Sabha polls next year, he said the question in front of the voters was absolutely clear. "One one hand, you have a Prime Minister and a government which has been tested for its politics, integrity, stability, ethics and decisiveness. On the other hand you have what I call a coalition of rivals -- a highly opportunistic combination with no clear policy, whose stability has always been in doubt," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said. He said that not just its stability but even the policy direction of the coalition was in doubt, with some partners wanting their state interests to be served while others focused on their vote bank even at the cost of supporting radical elements. Jaitley said the longevity of such a coalition was not beyond a few months and that it was bound to fail as it happened on previous occasions. The Finance Minister also blamed Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his supporters for the degrading quality of India's political discourse. "We comment on his politics. That is not a personal attack. But Rahul Gandhi is the one indulging in personal attacks. Not even Prime Minister Modi's mother was spared, or even his father who died 40 years ago. Personal attacks were made even on my children who are not even in politics. "Rahul Gandhi and his supporters personalise every attack. We believe there policies and politics should be commented on, not personalities and families. Rahul Gandhi is the one who started the (latter trend)," Jaitley said. Mumbai: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday was quoted as saying that there were 2-3 areas of differences with the Reserve Bank. The Finance Minister was speaking at an Economic Conclave organized by Times Network and was reported in a PTI story admitting to the differences. However, he questioned how a discussion with the Reserve Bank was undermining it's autonomy. "A discussion with an important institution, which is independent and autonomous, to tell it that its a part of your (RBIs) functions and therefore this is an important area of an economy which you must look at, how is it destruction of the institution?," Jaitley was reported as questioning. Jaitley said that the government had initiatied a discussion to convey its concerns with the Reserve Bank. Referring to the row over which RBI Governor Urjit Patel resigned, he listed former Governors who had resigned during the time of Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. "We are the sovereign government, we are the most important stakeholders as far as the management of an economy is concerned," Jaitley said, in reference to the discussions with RBI. Jaitley also added that the government is not taking over the function of credit and liquidity. He stressed that the RBIs policies also need to be in sync with the economic policies. Kushner, an influential White House adviser and husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka, met with the Republican leader to discuss the job, according to the Huffington Post, which first reported the story. : Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is on the short-list of potential candidates for the US president's next chief of staff, US media said on Thursday. "I am not aware that he is under consideration but, as I think all of us here would recognise, he would be great in any role that the president chooses to put him in," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said of the news, which was also reported by CBS. The US president has been searching in vain for a new chief of staff after announcing that John Kelly, a retired general he had reportedly fallen out with, was to leave by the end of the year. Nick Ayres, the 36-year-old chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, had been touted as favourite to get the job, but announced he was taking himself out of the running, dealing a blow to Trump. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican who heads the hard-right Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, showed more interest -- but also ultimately withdrew his candidacy. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. : The US Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to US President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end US military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end US military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemens civil war. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the worlds most dire human crisis, with the country on the brink of famine. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw US forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the presidents ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trumps fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate backed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggis murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. Khashoggi, a US resident who was a columnist for the Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The Senate vote, which was unanimous, puts pressure on House leaders to allow a vote on the Khashoggi resolution this month, before Congress adjourns for the year. US Tibet bill 'grossly interferes' in China affairs: Beijing Beijing, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 China on Friday rebuked the US Congress over legislation seeking greater access to Tibet, saying American lawmakers "grossly interfered" in Beijing's domestic affairs. The bill, which passed this week with bipartisan support, demands access to the region for US diplomats, journalists and tourists, threatening to bar Chinese officials responsible for the policy from the US if barriers remain for foreigners in Tibet. Foreign visitors are generally required to obtain a special permit, with the region completely closed off to outsiders at certain times of the year. "The relevant bill... has disregarded the facts, grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, and violated the basic norms of international relations," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular press briefing. "China is firmly opposed to this and has already made solemn representations to the US." He added that some 40,000 Americans have visited Tibet since 2015, including politicians. "We strongly urge the US administration to immediately take effective measures to prevent this bill from being signed into law, so as to avoid damage to China-US relations and the cooperation between the two countries in important areas," Lu said. The legislation now needs the signature of US President Donald Trump. The bill comes amid frictions between the United States and China over trade and the arrest in Canada on a US request of an executive with Chinese tech giant Huawei, who faces fraud charges related to violations of US sanctions on Iran. A recent op-ed piece in China's state-run Global Times denounced the Tibet bill and accused the United States of "double standards or even multiple standards on human rights," pointing to how Washington pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council over the body's criticism of Israel. Separately, US national security advisor John Bolton on Thursday lashed out at "predatory" Chinese and Russian involvement in Africa, prompting China to accuse the US of having "ulterior motives" on the continent. "When China discusses cooperation with Africa, it discusses more about what African countries need... But in his statement, this American (official) is only discussing about the needs of the United States, he is not thinking about Africa," Lu said. China's ZTE loses major German mobile contract Frankfurt am Main, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Chinese telecoms giant ZTE lost its biggest contract in Germany, network provider Telefonica on Friday told AFP, as resistance mounts across the West to Beijing's infrastructure manufacturers. ZTE's contract to maintain mobile operator O2's network, which is owned by Spain's Telefonica, "will come to an end as planned at the end of the year," said a spokesman for the German firm, confirming a report from business daily Handelsblatt. In an interview with the newspaper, Telefonica Deutschland chief executive Markus Haas held back from criticising ZTE over quality problems that have plagued O2's integration of its network with competitor E-Plus over the past four years. In future it will work with a much smaller German firm, Dortmund-based GfTD, rather than ZTE, he said. Maintenance of masts and other infrastructure that makes mobile networks run is a "local service", Haas explained. Also according to Handelsblatt, ZTE is looking to score a new big German contract with network provider United Internet as the country gears up to auction licences for upcoming 5G mobile internet frequencies. The next-generation technology is expected to form the backbone of future applications like automated driving that could reshape the economy in the coming decades. ZTE declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP. The Chinese firm's woes in Germany follow British telecoms group BT's announcement this month that it would move away from equipment provided by rival Huawei in its mobile network. Huawei has been singled out by Western leaders for its alleged links to Chinese intelligence services. The US government officially asked telecoms operators not to buy the firm's products early this year. jpl/tgb/fz/cw ZTE BT GROUP System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe23d97e8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe239bfe8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe23d97e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe239bfe8)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe22ab4c8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe239bfe8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe239bfe8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1a64320)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe23f4e80)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe23f4e80)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe1fa3388)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1f42070)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe1fa3388)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1f42070)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe1fe1b00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1f42070)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1f42070)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1a64338)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe1fca138)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe1fca138)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe23783b0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe22ba9e8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe23783b0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe22ba9e8)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe2468e48)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe22ba9e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe22ba9e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe1a63d28)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe246c2a8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe246c2a8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 When Josh Wamsley opened the popular Mazunte Taqueria in Madisonville six years ago, he was thrilled to bring authentic Oaxacan Mexican street food to his hometown. But, one may ask, what business does a white boy from Madeira have opening a taco stand in Cincinnati? Mazuntes food is really good. Its fresh, flavorful, and, even before taking a bite, its easy to imagine it being served from a walk-up window on the beach in Mexico. It feels authentic because it is. The story of Mazunte begins with Wamsley tasting his first Oaxacan mole sauce. Then, it continues with him learning how to make tortillas and tamales from native mothers and grandmothers and friends in a small town in Oaxaca. When Mazunte opened in 2012, it was the culmination of Wamsleys world travels and his love for ethnic food and storytelling. But its success has been a team effort, with Wamsley supported by a staff that has built and now maintains the companys authentic Oaxacan flavor. Seeing and sampling the world Wamsley had always liked cooking, but his first love was telling stories. After graduating from high school, he moved to Southern Florida to pursue a degree in journalism. The next six years were spent doing a little bit of school and a lot of fishing at the beach. When it came time for graduation, there was one class holding things up: Spanish. With his graduation hanging in the balance, Wamsley took out a student loan, enrolled in an online Spanish class at the local community college, and moved to Europe. He admits he had been apathetic and lazy as a kid, not very motivated. Traveling brought out something different in him. It was an adventure in non-stop problem solving and always meeting new people. I remember being very present when I was traveling, he says. In 2008, he finished his final credits while abroad, traveling between places like Prague, Italy, Hungary, and Hawaii. It was during that time when, among other things, he studied TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and officially caught the international travel bug. From 20082010, Wamsley lived in Korea where his work teaching English was enjoyable, and the afternoon office hours left plenty of time to travel. He remembers, There were times I would wake up in the Philippines or Tokyo on Monday morning and still be back at work by 2 p.m. In 2010, Wamsley was back in Cincinnati, weighing his options for what would come next. He was considering taking a teaching job in Saudi Arabia, where he could do some writing and travel around the Middle East during holidays off. Maybe hed move to Vietnam, or maybe Taiwan with a friend. Then, a quick stop for tacos on the way to visit a friend changed everything. [The tacos] were so bad, he remembers, and they were certainly not Mexican But this place had opened three locations around [Cincinnati] and I thought, If they can do that, if they can have three locations, what if I did it the right way? Wamsley says his favorite cuisine is Southeast Asian, especially from places like Vietnam and Thailand. But something about that bad taco made him more curious about Mexican food, about its diversity and true flavors. He knew he didnt want to open a full-scale restaurant, but he could imagine opening a street-food style taqueria. With the future in mind, he stayed awake that night writing the first draft menu for what would eventually become Mazunte. Ive always had an affinity for Mexican food, but I didnt know Mexican food, he says. So I told my friend, Im not gonna meet you in Taiwan. Im going to go to Mexico. Bringing Oaxaca to Cincinnati A map of Mexico made out of Cincinnati favorites at Mazunte. Wamsley knew that if he wanted to bring Mexican food to Cincinnati, he needed to start in Oaxaca, an unofficial epicenter of the blended native Mexican and imported Spanish cultures. So he secured his next teaching position at a university off the beaten path, in a small mountain town in Oaxaca. He arrived a month later, at 4:30 in the morning. He stepped off a bus onto a dirt road with chickens running in the street and not a tourist in sight. He still knew no Spanish. Oaxaca is one of Mexicos 32 states. Located in Southeastern Mexico, it is known for its indigenous cultures and destination beaches. The Oaxacan region had been planted in Wamsleys mind ever since hed tasted a regional mole (pronounced mo-lay) dish in a restaurant in Seattle, Washington a few years prior. He says that mole is the perfect fusion of native and Spanish flavors. These sauce dishes vary across Mexico and there are seven moles in the Oaxacan region alone. Over the next 11 months, Wamsley learned everything he could about Oaxacan food its history, how it developed, and how to properly prepare it. In his time off from teaching English, unless he was traveling or headed to the beach, his landlord and her daughter would teach him to cook. His students, knowing of his desire to learn, would also pass him off to their parents. They taught me everything I wanted to know, he says. And there was always more I wanted to know. The local Mole Negro was the final dish his landlord taught him to cook. It was a great way to send him off, back to Cincinnati to open Mazunte Taqueria, affectionately named after the sweetest beach on the Oaxacan coast. Building a plan and a team From the very beginning, Wamsley was strategic about designing Mazunte. The Madisonville location a full mile away from the historic business district seems odd for such a young, hip restaurant concept, but it was chosen because it met his location plan. It was near I-71, 1015 minutes from most of the city, close to a few affluent suburbs, and near a few big draws (like the AAA car wash next door and Crossroads Church down the road). Wamsley was also intentional about putting together his team. Design a business that can succeed without you, he says. [Then] hire people who are way better [than you], way smarter, and take your ego way down. One of his original business partners, John Johnston, handles the finances something that Wamsley has no interest in doing. Another, Josh Sobeck, relocated his family to Cincinnati to join the Mazunte team as the project leader. (He met Wamsley while teaching at the same university in Oaxaca.) Wamsleys father is his primary contractor, and countless other family and friends lent a hand in the initial restaurant renovation. He says the Mazunte staff has always come together very naturally and many employees have been with him since the beginning, working their way up to top leadership roles. Some of his most trusted staff was, literally, hired right off the street. His kitchen director, Eduardo Gervacio, came in looking for a job during the early renovations. He now manages all three Mazunte kitchens and works with Wamsley to craft the menus. Wendy Enriquez, Gervacios niece, was later hired as the director of operations. It was very clear that Eduardo was going to be the leader, Wamsley says. We have a unique partnership. Id give him all the credit in the world. Together, the Mazunte team has diversified the business. It has grown from one Madisonville restaurant to include the original taqueria, a Mercado, a catering business, a Kroger location, and a downtown restaurant set to open in Spring of 2019. Business, as they say, is booming. Wamsley admits that owning a restaurant can feel restrictive. Yet, those same things that he loves so much about traveling meeting new people every day, problem solving, sharing in good conversation and good food are all built into the business culture of Mazunte. Its just a different expression of those same passions. As for the Hispanic community, Wamsley says that his idea of opening a taqueria was initially met with some skepticism, which he understands. But Mazunte is not a gimmick or a fad; it really is all about the food. And Wamsley is really serious about using it to tell the story of Mexico. My friend, Lexi is Mexican, he says. She came in the first time and she said, I love your tacos; the horchata sucks. So, we fixed the horchata. When You Go: Mazunte Taqueria is at 5207 Madison Rd. in Madisonville. Counter service open daily from 11 a.m.9 p.m. A parking lot is available. Go Metro with routes 11 and 12x. The Mazunte Mercado is a mile down the road at 6216 Madison Rd., and is open daily from 10 a.m.6 p.m. (closing at 3 p.m. on Sundays). Mazunte Centro will be opening at 611 Main St. downtown in 2019. Hola! I recently went on a vacation with Jacopo to beautiful Cartagena, Colombia for my birthday celebration. It was a much needed trip, and it felt extra relaxing because for the first time in way too long, I took a personal vacation. So, in todays Friday Favorites, I want to share my 5 favorite things that I wore in Cartagena to inspire you. I think that these pieces double as perfect holiday dresses, and also make for great winter vacation options. 1. Self-Portrait Yellow Chiffon Midi Dress Since I knew the weather was hot and humid, I packed a lot of midi dresses for this trip, including this Self-Portrait Yellow Chiffon Midi Dress . I like that the color of this dress compliments the warm colors that were everywhere all over the city!2. Alice McCall Embroidered Black Lace Dress (On sale right now!) This is a dress I wore to a date night with Jacopo. I plan on re-wearing this for a few holiday gatherings and for some New Year celebrations as well!3. Caroline Constas High-Low Ruffle Skirt (63% off right now!) How amazing is this Caroline Constas High-Low Ruffle Skirt ? To finish off the look, I also wore an Agua De Coco red top and my Celine red sandals. Also, make sure to check out Agua De Coco if youve been searching for unique swimwear for your upcoming winter vacation!4. For Love & Lemons Purple Maxi Dress (similar here ) Lilac is not a color I wear often, but when I do, I wear it as a way to make a statement! I love the feminine silhouette of this dress, and while it is a very formal piece, its perfect for the holidays. Plus, the cut-outs and ruffles make it truly one-of-a-kind.5. Arje Satin Wide-Leg Pants (here is a similar style from Cami NYC which is also on sale right now!) This is pretty much the only pair of pants I wore while I was in Cartagena. These pants were light and flowy perfect for the humid weather! Im looking forward to pairing these pants with a chic camel coat as soon as Im back in L.A. Theyre a great classic to add to any wardrobe! Mention of 'fossil fuels' cut from videos at UN climate talks Katowice, Poland, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Videos produced by environmental groups to be shown to thousands of participants in a major UN climate summit were banned by organisers for mentioning fossil fuels, in a move campaigners say amounts to censorship. AFP has obtained emails sent by the United Nations to NGOs asking them to remove frames referring to "dirty energy" and "pipelines", claiming that they breached the UN climate convention's rules of participation. The COP24 climate talks, which wrap up Friday in Poland, bring together more than 20,000 officials, ministers, activists and business representatives from across the world. Among those accredited to observe the process are a host of pressure groups whose goals vary enormously. Green campaigners complain that so-called "business-interest NGOs" -- known as BINGOs -- representing big energy firms are allowed to participate with very little oversight. They allege these groups use their industry connections to influence national negotiators in the process of hammering out a global plan to limit temperature rises and avert runaway planetary warming. Environmental NGOs prepared a series of short films that were destined to be shown on large screens near the entrance to the sprawling COP24 complex in the Polish mining city of Katowice. But after submitting the films for what they thought would be a pro-forma review, the UN objected to several frames mentioning fossil fuel-related activity. In one email the UN liaison body asked for a shot containing the words "dirty energy" to be removed. It also asked that the phrases "prohibit participation of fossil fuel corporations" and "why are politicians still approving pipelines, coal plants and fracking" be cut. The climate convention prohibits "activity derisory to the UN, any of their member states, organisations or any individual or criticism that would go against basic rules of decorum". But campaigners say their videos did not contravene these guidelines, as no specific country or company was named. "The videos are otherwise of excellent quality and it would be a shame to exclude these high-quality videos on the basis of one or two short frames," the UN emailed. - 'We're being silenced' - The COP24 takes place against the backdrop of the most dire environmental warnings. In October, a landmark report by a UN body of experts, the IPCC, highlighted for the first time the need to drastically cut fossil fuel use in order to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Exponents of coal and oil have long argued the world can continue using carbon-producing fuels as long as the emissions they produce can be sucked back out of the atmosphere. The IPCC suggested the science showed otherwise. "While we're being silenced, the same coal, oil and gas companies responsible for the crisis are allowed to plaster the halls with their logos and propaganda," Pascoe Sabido, researcher and campaigner at the Corporate Europe Observatory, told AFP. "How can these negotiations help us keep fossil fuels in the ground, like the IPCC recommends, if we're not even allowed to mention dirty energy or gas pipelines?" A UN spokesman told AFP the organisation had used "our best judgement to ensure that the videos displayed at this particular site are suitable". COP24 host Poland has come in for criticism for enlisting several state-run coal and energy firms to sponsor the talks. Another group was last week prevented from handing out fliers listing coal company sponsors. Eilidh Robb, a volunteer with the UK Youth Climate Coalition said COP24 organisers were cracking down on any mention of fossil fuels. "There seems to be a real fear coming from the Polish presidency of naming both countries or corporations even though they are accredited to be here," she told AFP. Nations still worlds apart at crunch UN climate summit Katowice, Poland, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Nations at UN climate talks were haggling Friday over the world's plan to avert disaster as host Poland dumped a draft decision text on delegates just hours before the summit was due to end. Negotiators told AFP that delegates from nearly 200 states were still far apart on several crunch issues -- from how nations report reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, to the levels of help given to countries already hurting from climate change. Ministers at the COP24 talks must agree on a common rule book to make good on promises they made in the landmark 2015 Paris accord, which vowed to limit global temperature rises to "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). But with the starkest warnings yet from scientists highlighting the need to drastically slash fossil fuel emissions within the coming decades in order to meet the safer cap of 1.5C warming, delegates were urged to act now or condemn at-risk nations to disaster. As negotiations entered the final stretch, several key areas of dispute emerged, often with different alignments of developed and developing nations straddling each divide. - 'Cruel joke' - In the draft text there was no resolution on how the climate fight will be financed, and developed nations -- responsible for the lion's share of historic greenhouse gas emissions -- were accused of seeking to shirk funding promises made in Paris. Harjeet Singh, global climate lead at ActionAid, said rich countries were "playing a cruel joke" on developing nations. As it stands, "there is no obligation on their part on finance, both in terms of how much money they are going to provide and how to count that money," he said. One veteran observer told AFP that the US, despite President Donald Trump's intention to withdraw from Paris, was seeking to water down "differentiation", a bedrock principle of the underlying UN climate Convention. Washington wants countries to contribute to the climate fight based on their current emissions levels, rather than their historic pollution, meaning the US would be less bound to help developing nations green their economies. "US has let certain things slide in order to make sure they have parity," said the observer. - Loss and damage - The draft text gave short shrift to another red-line issue for poor countries exposed to the ravages brought on by global warming: so-called "loss and damage". Cutting greenhouse gas emissions and helping nations prepare for a climate-addled future have long been the twin pillars of the UN climate forum. But more recently, a third plank of the regime was added to help nations cope with deadly heatwaves, drought and floods -- amplified by climate change -- happening today. Another hot-button issue centres on how to avoid the double-counting of reductions in carbon pollution. That can occur when one country takes actions to curb emissions -- reforestation, for example -- in another country and then both nations claim the credit as part of their pledges under the Paris Agreement "If you have buyers and sellers in a carbon trading scheme, you want to be sure that those emissions reductions don't get counted twice," said David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute's Climate Change Initiative. The European Union has been particularly aggressive in pushing for strict rules on "environmental integrity". - 'We will die' - The expectation is that talks will go deep into overtime with host Poland likely to publish an updated text in the early hours of Saturday. One potential breakthrough came in the form of tentative consensus over how to treat the latest UN scientific report. Most nations wanted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- which highlighted the need for greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed to nearly half by 2030 in order to hit the 1.5C target -- to form a key part of future planning. But the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected, leading to watered down language in the draft decision. "Now that we are in the same boat we need to be able to have a rule book that sticks with the 1.5C there is no discussion, no possibility to question or have doubts on the 1.5C," said Costa Rica's environment minister Carlos Manuel Rodriguez. As well as the IPCC issue, nations are also under pressure to up their ambition in their contributions to the climate fight ahead of a 2020 stocktake. "If we don't do that, we will not survive," said former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed. "We would die. I'm sure it wouldn't be an appropriate outcome for anyone." Nations still worlds apart at crunch UN climate summit Katowice, Poland, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Nations at UN climate talks were haggling Friday over the world's plan to avert disaster as they picked through a draft text presented by host Poland that exposed several sources of disagreement. Negotiators told AFP that delegates from nearly 200 states were still far apart on several crunch issues -- from how nations report reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, to the levels of help given to countries already hurting from climate change. Ministers at the COP24 talks must agree on a common rule book to make good on promises they made in the landmark 2015 Paris accord, which vowed to limit global temperature rises to "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). But with the starkest warnings yet from scientists highlighting the need to drastically slash fossil fuel emissions within the coming decades, in order to meet the safer cap of 1.5C warming, delegates were urged to act now or condemn at-risk nations to disaster. As negotiations entered the final stretch, several key areas of dispute emerged, often with different alignments of developed and developing nations straddling each divide. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made his third trip in two weeks to the COP24 in the Polish mining city of Katowice in a bid to push a deal over the line. - 'Cruel joke' - The draft text included no resolution on how the climate fight will be financed, and developed nations -- responsible for the lion's share of historic greenhouse gas emissions -- were accused of seeking to shirk funding promises made in Paris. Harjeet Singh, global climate lead at ActionAid, said rich countries were "playing a cruel joke" on developing nations. As it stands, "there is no obligation on their part on finance, both in terms of how much money they are going to provide and how to count that money," he said. One veteran observer told AFP that the US, despite President Donald Trump's intention to withdraw from Paris, was seeking to water down "differentiation", a bedrock principle of the underlying UN climate Convention. Washington wants countries to contribute to the climate fight based on their current emissions levels, rather than their historic pollution, meaning the US would be less bound to help developing nations green their economies. - Loss and damage - The draft text gave short shrift to another red-line issue for poor countries exposed to the ravages brought on by global warming: so-called "loss and damage" This provision is designed to help nations cope with deadly heatwaves, drought and floods -- amplified by climate change -- happening today. Another hot-button issue centres on how to avoid the double-counting of reductions in carbon pollution. That can occur when one country takes actions to curb emissions -- reforestation, for example -- in another country and then both nations claim the credit as part of their pledges under the Paris Agreement. "If you have buyers and sellers in a carbon trading scheme, you want to be sure that those emissions reductions don't get counted twice," said David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute's Climate Change Initiative. The Environmental Defense Fund said Brazil had asked to insert language in the text muddying the date at which the rule book would compel countries to stop double counting emissions savings. "If Brazil's language is allowed to stay, it will embed the double counting of emissions reductions in the Paris Agreement... undermine the ability of carbon markets to drive emissions down," said EDF's Alex Hanafi. - 'We will die' - Talks were set to go deep into overtime with host Poland hoping to publish an updated text in the early hours of Saturday. One potential breakthrough came in the form of tentative consensus over how to treat the latest UN scientific report. Most nations wanted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- which highlighted the need for greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed to nearly half by 2030 in order to hit the 1.5C target -- to form a key part of future planning. But the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected, leading to watered down language in the draft decision. As well as the IPCC issue, nations are also under pressure to up their ambition in their contributions to the climate fight ahead of a 2020 stocktake. "If we don't do that, we will not survive," said former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed. "We would die. I'm sure it wouldn't be an appropriate outcome for anyone." US, Ukraine navy heads meet after Russia ship seizure Washington, Dec 13 (AFP) Dec 13, 2018 The head of the Ukrainian navy is meeting his US counterpart this week in Washington, where they will discuss the Russian navy's recent seizure of three Ukrainian vessels, a US official said Thursday. Russian ships last month opened fire on three Ukrainian navy vessels as they tried to pass through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, and detained the 24 Ukrainian crew members. Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said Ukraine's Admiral Ihor Voronchenko is meeting Thursday and Friday with US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Nicholson. Nicholson and other Pentagon officials "will reiterate the US support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters, as well as the right of its vessels to traverse international waters," Pahon told AFP. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this month blasted the Russian navy's "brazen" violation of a treaty that allows both Russian and Ukrainian ships free passage in the Kerch Strait. Pahon said the US government supports "Ukraine in its pursuit of a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the ongoing Russian aggression, including Russia's recent unprovoked attack on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea." Ukraine's foreign minister on Thursday called for a speedy international response to Russia's "aggression" after it seized the three Ukrainian navy ships and 24 sailors. The confrontation at sea on November 25 was the first open military incident between Kiev and Moscow since 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and a conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russia separatists and government forces, which has claimed more than 10,000 lives. White House asks top court to block transgender military service Washington, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 US President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday urged the nation's highest court to temporarily block the military recruitment of transgender people, pending the outcome of an ongoing legal battle. The administration said there is "too great a risk to military effectiveness and lethality" to allow transgender people to serve openly -- a policy enacted under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama. Under the policy, the military was to begin accepting transgender recruits on July 1, 2017 -- but the Trump administration pushed the deadline to January 1, 2018, before deciding to reverse the policy completely. But the ban on transgender people in the military was repeatedly challenged in court, leading to an updated policy that also contained major restrictions on transgender service, and which was also suspended because of its similarity to the original measure. The government appealed and asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, and, pending its final decision, on Thursday requested that it suspend the rulings of the lower courts. Otherwise, "the nationwide injunction would... remain in place for at least another year and likely well into 2020 -- a period too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to the nation's interests," the Trump administration argued. Iran deal, Saudi murder: Turbulent year shakes up Middle East Riyadh, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 A murdered Saudi journalist. A scrapped Iran nuclear deal. The two events alone have undone years of diplomacy in the Middle East, testing old alliances and shaking up the regional balance of power, analysts say. In another turbulent year for the tinderbox region, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad appeared ever more powerful and Washington's promised Israeli-Palestinian peace plan seemed ever more elusive. Meanwhile, Russia -- buoyed by its 2015 intervention in Syria to prop up Assad -- has steadily asserted itself as a key powerbroker in the Middle East, stepping into a diplomatic void left by what observers see as a partial US retreat. US President Donald Trump, however, has staunchly backed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a key regional ally who has faced intense global criticism over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder in Istanbul's Saudi consulate in October. Trump has asserted the petro-state's importance as a lucrative buyer of US arms and a bulwark against common foe Iran, but furious American lawmakers appear in no mood to give the prince a free pass over the murder. The stakes are high for Trump and the prince, the heir to the Arab world's most powerful throne who the CIA claims ordered the killing. - Testing US-Saudi ties - "The killing has sparked multiple battles that are likely to shape relationships ranging from that between the US and Saudi Arabia to those between Trump, his Republican Party, the US Congress and the country's intelligence community," said James Dorsey, a fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. "The fallout of the killing could also shape Trump's ability to pursue his policy goals in the Middle East, including forcing Iran to its knees and imposing a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The prince -- who sought to project he was no global pariah with an ebullient high-five with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recent G-20 summit in Argentina -- is expected to weather the crisis. But the fallout is testing the alliance between Riyadh and Washington. "It looks set to really impact US-Saudi ties very negatively in 2019, regardless of what the Trump administration thinks it can do to stop or prevent it," said Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute in the United States. The Khashoggi crisis has cast a renewed spotlight on a Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, gripped by what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, piling pressure on Riyadh to kickstart peace talks this month in Sweden between the government it backs and Iran-aligned Huthi rebels. The Khashoggi affair has also given Turkey -- allied with Saudi rivals Qatar and Iran -- unusual leverage in regional power plays. - 'Dangerous and unstable' - Through his veiled attacks on Prince Mohammed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the murder as a geopolitical opportunity to re-establish the balance of power in the Middle East, analysts say. "Between instability in the Gulf and a zero-sum game between MBS and Erdogan, the Middle East risks becoming even more dangerous and unstable," said Sigurd Neubauer, a Middle East analyst based in Washington. "It leaves every party with little option but to further entrench itself even as Trump seeks to use the Khashoggi murder as a catalyst to forge Gulf reconciliation and accelerate Yemen peace talks while seeking to pressure Iran." Turkey has also managed to consolidate its influence in Syria following an agreement with Russia to avert a regime assault on rebel-held Idlib province. With Russian and Iranian support, Assad has wrested back control of large swathes of Syrian territory while corralling what is left of the armed opposition in Idlib. "The Assad government had its best year since 2011" when the uprising against his regime began, said Nicholas Heras, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security. "The big battle in 2019 will be... over the aftermath of the war in Syria. For all of the gains it made in 2018, the Assad government still sits in the crosshairs of an American strategy that seeks to kill Assad's economy and the stability of his statelet." - 'Pressure on Tehran' - A key part of the US strategy is also to ensure that Iran does not emerge as the big winner from the Syrian conflict. Earlier this year, Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal -- a result of intense international diplomacy led by European allies and the previous Obama administration -- and imposed new sanctions on Tehran that kicked in last month. "The biggest and most far-reaching change that developed in 2018 was the aggressive American stance towards Iran," said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. "There is a lot more pressure on Tehran." A perceived threat of Iranian expansionism in the Middle East has prompted an undeclared alliance between Israel and several Arab states, observers say. That was reflected in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's surprise visit to the Gulf state of Oman in October, the first by a leader of the Jewish state in 22 years. He also sought to publicly defend Prince Mohammed following global outrage over Khashoggi's murder. Trump, whose administration in May controversially moved the US embassy to Israel to Jerusalem, has promised to deliver a so-called "deal of the century" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Diplomats and analysts claim the deal, set to be unveiled early in 2019, is secretly backed by several Arab states. But with public opinion largely pro-Palestinian, many in the Arab world view the warming ties with Israel as a betrayal. New tensions have also erupted in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip since March 30 when Palestinians launched rolling protests demanding the right to return to homes now inside Israel. Some 235 Palestinians have been killed by Israel soldiers since then. Two Israelis soldiers have died in the clashes. burs-ac/ras/jkb/ach US-backed forces retake IS hub in east Syria: monitor Beirut, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Kurdish-dominated forces backed by air strikes by a US-led coalition retook full control of a key jihadist hub in eastern Syria on Friday, a war monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by the Islamic State group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "After a week of heavy fighting and air strikes, the SDF were able to kick IS out of Hajin," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said. The operation was completed at dawn, he said, a day after SDF forces fanned out across the large village in the Euphrates valley. The last IS fighters on Thursday were confined to a network of tunnels and the edges of Hajin, which lies in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border with Iraq. The area held by IS is sometimes referred to as the "Hajin pocket", the last rump of a once-sprawling "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014 over swathes of Syria and Iraq. According to Abdel Rahman, a total of 17,000 fighters from he Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance are involved in the operation to flush IS out of its last bastion. Kosovo asserts statehood in new army Pristina, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a move that has inflamed tensions with Serbia, which does not recognise the former province's independence. Kosovo has been guarded by NATO-led peacekeeping troops since it broke away from Belgrade in a bloody separatist war in 1998-99. The new laws will double the size of a small crisis-response outfit, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), and set out a national defence mandate for a professional army of 5,000 troops. "Kosovo's parliament has adopted the law on the Kosovo Security Force! Congratulations!" parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli said. The assembly still needs to approve one final law that lays out the KSF's new organisational structure. The first two laws were passed unanimously as minority Serb MPs boycotted the session. The vote will delight many Kosovo Albanians, who are ready to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, which was declared in 2008. "Now we can say that we are a state, there is no a state without an army," Skender Arifi, a 37-year-old hairdresser in Pristina, told AFP ahead of the vote. Hamze Mehmeti, a 67-year-old pensioner, added: "It is a great joy for the citizens of Kosovo". - Kosovo Serbs oppose army - While it is a mostly a symbolic flaunting of Kosovo's sovereignty, Serbia -- which still considers the former province a renegade territory -- has castigated the move as a threat to regional stability. In particular, Belgrade has sounded the alarm over the safety of 120,000 Serbs still living in Albanian-majority Kosovo, mainly in the north near their contested border. Those Serb communities are loyal to Belgrade and also broadly against the army plan. "We do not want a Kosovo army here," said Marko Djusic, a Serb resident of Dren village near the border. "I hope that even if Albanians make some moves (against) us, the state of Serbia will do something to protect us," he added. NATO, which has four members that do not recognise Kosovo, had warned the army move was "ill-timed" amid already strained ties between Pristina and Belgrade. But Washington -- Kosovo's pre-eminent ally -- voiced public support, as did the United Kingdom. Many Kosovo roads were adorned with American flags on Thursday in a sign of gratitude. But divided allegiances were on display in the segregated city of Mitrovica, where US flags were flown in the Albanian-dominated south while Serbian flags covered the mainly Serb north. - 'Worst nightmare' - Writing on Twitter Thursday, US ambassador Philip Kosnett hailed the vote on KSF's transition as "historic". But he added that leaders should now "focus energy" on the dialogue with Serbia. Kosovo and Serbia have struggled to make progress in faltering EU-led talks to normalise their ties -- a condition for either to eventually join the bloc. Their relationship took a serious plunge last month after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tariff on Serbian goods in revenge for Belgrade's attempts to undermine it on the world stage. Serbia has blocked Kosovo from various international organisations, including the UN, and also lobbied foreign governments to revoke their recognition of its statehood. On Thursday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described the Kosovo problem as his "worst nightmare". "I go to bed with it, I wake up with it, and I do not sleep a lot." Analysts say the army move is also partly an attempt by Kosovo's government to make up for a slew of setbacks in recent months. In November Kosovo was crushed when the global police organisation, Interpol, rejected its application to become a member. Another source of widespread public frustration is the lack of visa-free travel status in the European Union, which other Balkan states enjoy. "After the failure to join Interpol and visa liberalisation, the transformation of the KSF is their only card left," said political analyst Imer Mushkolaj. "This is why they are trying to push forward this process by any means necessary." The new laws will keep KSF's name but change its mandate to "defence of the country", a move that allowed the government to bypass creating an army through constitutional changes, which would have required support from minority Serb MPs. burs-ssm/bp Kosovo asserts statehood with vote to create army Pristina, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a move that has inflamed tensions with Serbia, which does not recognise the former province's independence. Kosovo has been guarded by NATO-led peacekeeping troops since it broke away from Belgrade in a bloody separatist war in 1998-99. The new laws will double the size of a small crisis-response outfit, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), and set out a national defence mandate for a professional army of 5,000 troops. "This vote today begins a new era for our country. From this moment we officially have the army of Kosovo," parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli said as MPs hugged each other after the session, which was boycotted by minority Serb politicians. The vote will delight many Kosovo Albanians, who are ready to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, which was declared in 2008. "Now we can say that we are a state, there is no a state without an army," Skender Arifi, a 37-year-old hairdresser in Pristina, told AFP ahead of the vote. - Serbia will 'stay peaceful' - While it is a mostly symbolic flaunting of Kosovo's sovereignty, Serbia -- which still considers the former province a renegade territory -- has castigated the move as a threat to regional stability. Speaking after the vote, Serbia's Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said it was "a hard day," but that Serbia would "stay on its path of peace and prosperity". In particular, Belgrade has sounded the alarm over the safety of 120,000 Serbs still living in Albanian-majority Kosovo, mainly in the north near their contested border. Those Serb communities are loyal to Belgrade and also broadly against the army plan. "We do not want a Kosovo army here," said Marko Djusic, a Serb resident of Dren village near the border. "I hope that even if Albanians make some moves (against) us, the state of Serbia will do something to protect us," he added. NATO, which has four members that do not recognise Kosovo, had warned the army move was "ill-timed" amid already strained ties between Pristina and Belgrade. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Friday the alliance will "re-examine" its role in Kosovo in light of the vote. "NATO supports the development of the Kosovo Security Force under its current mandate. With the change of mandate, the North Atlantic Council will now have to re-examine the level of NATO's engagement with the Kosovo Security Force," he said. But Washington -- Kosovo's pre-eminent ally -- voiced public support, as did the United Kingdom. Many Kosovo roads were adorned with American flags on Thursday in a sign of gratitude. But divided allegiances were on display in the segregated city of Mitrovica, where US flags were flown in the Albanian-dominated south while Serbian flags covered the mainly Serb north. - Faltering talks - In a statement Friday the US Embassy affirmed its support for the KSF's transition, but added that Kosovo and Serbia should take "immediate steps to lower tensions" and make progress in their ongoing dialogue. Kosovo and Serbia have struggled to make progress in faltering EU-led talks to normalise their ties -- a condition for either to eventually join the bloc. Their relationship took a serious plunge last month after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tariff on Serbian goods in revenge for Belgrade's attempts to undermine it on the world stage. Serbia has blocked Kosovo from various international organisations, including the UN, and also lobbied foreign governments to revoke their recognition of its statehood. Analysts say the army move is also partly an attempt by Kosovo's government to make up for a slew of setbacks in recent months. In November Kosovo was crushed when the global police organisation, Interpol, rejected its application to become a member. Another source of widespread public frustration is the lack of visa-free travel status in the European Union, which other Balkan states enjoy. "After the failure to join Interpol and visa liberalisation, the transformation of the KSF is their only card left," said political analyst Imer Mushkolaj. "This is why they are trying to push forward this process by any means necessary." The new laws will keep KSF's name but change its mandate to "defence of the country", a move that allowed the government to bypass creating an army through constitutional changes, which would have required support from minority Serb MPs. burs-ssm/wdb NATO to 're-examine' Kosovo mission after army vote Brussels, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 NATO will "re-examine" its 19-year-old mission in Kosovo, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg warned Friday, after Pristina vowed to build an army in a move that inflamed tensions with Serbia. Stoltenberg said he regretted the decision to create a professional army of 5,000 troops, hailed by many Kosovo Albanians as an assertion of statehood. Peacekeeping forces led by NATO have guarded Kosovo since it broke away from Serbia in a bloody war in 1998-99, but Stoltenberg said that the 4,000-strong mission would now have to be reassessed. "NATO supports the development of the Kosovo Security Force under its current mandate. With the change of mandate, the North Atlantic Council will now have to re-examine the level of NATO's engagement with the Kosovo Security Force," Stoltenberg said. Belgrade has condemned the move, voicing alarm for the safety of 120,000 Serbs living in Albanian-majority Kosovo. NATO's KFOR mission, which is more than 4,000 strong, down from a peak of 50,000 in 1999, has been deployed in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-99 war, which left more than 13,000 dead. "All sides must ensure that today's decision will not further increase tensions in the region," said Stoltenberg, calling on "responsible political actors" to focus on dialogue. "I reiterate my call on both Pristina and Belgrade to remain calm and refrain from any statements or actions which may lead to escalation." Kosovo and Serbia have struggled to make progress in faltering EU-led talks to normalise their ties. The relationship took a serious plunge last month after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tariff on Serbian goods in response to Belgrade's attempts to undermine it on the world stage. Serbia has blocked Kosovo from various international organisations, including the United Nations, and also lobbied foreign governments to revoke their recognition of its statehood. The standoff has alarmed many Western European states who fear the delicate balance of peace in the Balkans could be undermined. Brazil launches first of five French-tech attack subs Itaguai, Brazil, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Brazil on Friday launched with military pomp the first of five navy attack submarines it is building under a $7.6-billion technology-sharing deal struck with France. President Michel Temer and his elected successor Jair Bolsonaro attended the hours-long ceremony in a navy base in Itaquai, near Rio de Janeiro, that saw the 72-meter (236-foot) vessel slowly lowered into Atlantic Ocean waters. Temer's wife Marcela Temer baptized the sub, called the "Riachuelo" after a 19th-century Brazilian naval victory against Paraguayan ships, with the traditional smashing of a bottle of champagne. It will now undergo two years of sea trials before entering service. The fleet of submarines is to protect Brazil's 8,500 kilometers (5,300 miles) of coastline and territorial waters, which include deepwater oil fields vital for the country's economy. Four of the new vessels, including the Riachuelo, will be diesel-powered and are all to be completed by the end of 2022. One is to be nuclear-powered, giving it far greater range and the ability to stay submerged for long periods, but is now expected to be launched in 2029, six years behind schedule. The vessels are being built as bigger versions of France's Scorpene-class of attack submarines under a 2008 deal agreed on condition that Brazil acquire the necessary technology -- except for the nuclear reactor in the last sub. "It is a combination of French technology with the capabilities and resources of the Brazilian Navy -- a sort of 'tropicalization' (of the Scorpene) to protect our vast territory," said Andre Portalis, head of the ICN consortium building the subs. Other countries have also chosen Scorpene-class subs to add to their navies, including Chile, Malaysia and India. India has been rattled by leaks to an Australian newspaper of top secret information on the six Scorpene boats it is building. The French shipbuilder behind the sub, DCNS, has taken legal action to try to stop the leaks. Australia has a deal with France to build 12 subs of a different sort -- Barracuda-class -- for its navy. Kosovo asserts statehood with vote to create army Pristina, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that has angered Serbia, which does not recognise the former province's independence. Kosovo has been guarded by NATO-led peacekeeping troops since it broke away from Belgrade in a bloody separatist war in 1998-99. Now, new legislation will transform a small crisis-response outfit, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), into an defence army with 5,000 troops. "This vote today begins a new era for our country," parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli announced as MPs embraced each other after the session, boycotted by minority Serb politicians. The vote has delighted many Kosovo Albanians, with several hundred gathering in Pristina's main street to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, declared in 2008. "This is an enormous emotion, we are happy that the creation of our country is being completed," Vlora Rexhepi, a 23-year-old student, told AFP as a group of musicians dressed in traditional costumes played for the crowd. Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci hailed it as "the best gift for the end of the year season. "We are finally closing down the state-building process," he wrote on Facebook. - 'Hard day' for Serbia - While it will take years for the troops to be fully trained, Serbia has cast the move as a dire threat to regional stability. NATO and the European Union have also criticised the move as hasty. But Kosovo felt free to move ahead with strong backing from the US, its most important ally. Responding in Belgrade, Serbia's Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said it was "a hard day", but that her country would "stay on its path of peace and prosperity". In particular, Belgrade has been sounding the alarm over the safety of 120,000 Serbs still living in enclaves across Albanian-majority Kosovo, mainly in the north near their contested border. Those Serb communities are loyal to Belgrade and also broadly against the army plan. Several hundred students protested Friday in the Serb-half of the city of Mitrovica, which was decorated with Serbian flags in response to the American stars-and-stripes draped across much of the rest of Kosovo in a sign of gratitude for Washington's support. Goran Rakic, a Serb political leader in the flashpoint city, called Pristina's decision "a gunshot into peace". But he urged local Serbs to "exercise restraint". NATO, who had warned the move was "ill-timed", said Friday the alliance would now "re-examine" its relationship with the KSF, which it has helped train. The alliance nevertheless remains committed to securing Kosovo's safety through KFOR, the peacekeeping force is has led since the war with Serbia, said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. The EU echoed the regret, saying "the mandate of the KSF should only be changed through an inclusive and gradual process in accordance with Kosovo Constitution". Kosovo's government circumvented having to make constitutional changes to create the army, which would have required support from Serb MPs, by voting on a package of laws that kept the name of the KSF but changed its mandate. - Faltering talks - The US Embassy was quick to welcome the news but also urged Kosovo and Serbia to take "immediate steps to lower tensions" and make progress in their ongoing dialogue. The neighbours have struggled to make progress in faltering EU-led talks to normalise ties -- a condition for either to eventually join the bloc. Their relationship took a serious plunge last month after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tariff on Serbian goods in retaliation for Belgrade's attempts to undermine its standing on the world stage. Serbia has blocked Kosovo from various international organisations, including the UN, and also lobbied foreign governments to revoke their recognition of its statehood. Analysts say the army move is also partly an attempt by Kosovo's government to make up for recent setbacks. In November, global police organisation Interpol rejected Kosovo's application to become a member. Another source of public frustration is the lack of visa-free travel status in the European Union, which other Balkan states enjoy. "After the failure to join Interpol and visa liberalisation, the transformation of the KSF is their only card left," said political analyst Imer Mushkolaj. "This is why they are trying to push forward this process by any means necessary." burs-ssm/jj US 'in no hurry' over N.Korea nuclear negotiations: Trump Washington, Dec 14 (AFP) Dec 14, 2018 President Donald Trump played down hopes Friday for any imminent deal to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal. "Many people have asked how we are doing in our negotiations with North Korea -- I always reply by saying we are in no hurry," he tweeted. But Trump also expressed optimism, saying North Korea's economy has "wonderful potential" and that its leader Kim Jong Un "sees it better than anyone and will fully take advantage of it for his people." A historic summit between Trump and Kim in June opened up dialogue on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula between the two countries after months of military threats. A second summit is expected to be held next year, but Trump faces criticism given that North Korea has taken few concrete steps to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The Security Council has slapped a series of tough economic sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear tests and ballistic missile firings. The United States maintains that UN sanctions will remain in place until North Korea has fully scrapped its weapons programs. The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2018 - Space Media Network. 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Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. With little detail on the future trading environment outside the EU and against a backdrop of political turmoil which drew to a crescendo in Westminster this week, producers are taking proactive measures to future-proof their operations. The survey also highlights that while the Conservative Party lurches from one conflict to the next, the day-to-day realities of farming continue, with the scourge of rural crime on a par with concerns over Brexit. Unsurprisingly, the State of UK Agriculture report, which garnered more than 1,100 responses from farmers across the, shows business confidence is fairly high currently, but takes a dip when looking beyond March 2019. Nonetheless, the survey has revealed 60 per cent are currently making future-proofing changes to their business, and only about one third said Brexit had made them change their mind on intended investment or diversification. There is however some geographical variation to the overall picture. Scotland and England responses were broadly similar to the overall view. However, respondents in Northern Ireland were decidedly lacking confidence either now or post-Brexit despite being marginally more confident in a trade deal. As far as the UKs ability to achieve new export deals once outside the EU is concerned, there is generally some confidence among respondents, albeit 18 per cent were not at all confident. England, Scotland and Wales were broadly similar to the overall view on this issue, but Northern Ireland respondents were at either end of the scale. Perhaps unsurprisingly, asked about the biggest challenges apart from Brexit, the vast majority in all parts of the UK cited the weather, and climate in general. Cheap food imports followed by a fall in subsidies were the other two factors causing angst among farmers. However, 48 per cent said they required more information on the Governments payment for public goods principle before agreeing or disagreeing with it. Thirty-four per cent disagreed with it and only 18 per cent thought it was a good idea. Rural crime featured high, though slightly less so in Wales and Scotland, and no EU trade deal was a concern for many as highlighted elsewhere in the survey. Few were worried about water shortages and nor was increased red tape and regulation a real burning issue. Ben Briggs, editor of Farmers Guardian, said: "This agenda setting survey provides an insightful glimpse in to the mindset of farmers at such a tumultuous time for the entire country. "While it is clear many are doing their best to prepare for a post-Brexit world, it shows why, more than ever, political decisions need to be made which provide some certainty for the future of their businesses." With a pleasing response to the State of British Agriculture 2018 survey, what farm sizes and enterprises were represented overall? The majority of respondents (78 per cent) were the main decision maker on their farm with those aged from 50-59 the biggest age group (30 per cent) and 20 per cent in both of the 10-year age groups either side. Sixty two per cent were the farm owner and, interestingly, 28 per cent listed other as a secondary occupation. The main farm size represented was between 100ha and 200ha (25 per cent) but with one 21 per cent between 50ha and 99ha, and another 12 per cent between 200ha and 299ha. Those in dairying followed roughly the same breakdown while more than 60 per cent of beef farms were in a range from 20ha to 199ha. There were some big sheep enterprises among the respondents 15 per cent from 500ha to 999ha and a further 15 per cent above 1,000ha although the 100ha to 199ha operations represented some 13 per cent. Organised by SAC Consulting, part of Scotlands Rural College, the SAC Association of Potato Producers 20th annual conference will take place at Perth Racecourse on Wednesday 30 January. This years theme is Resilience the key to future profitability, with a wide range of speakers including key players in the industry as well as researchers. Chairman for the day, Andy Steven from Agrovista, will welcome delegates before Innes Jessiman, Senior Potato Consultant at SAC Consulting, reflects on the past season and its implications for the future. Philip Benzie, from Gairnieston, Aberdeenshire, will explain the challenges of managing one of the largest potato enterprises in the country, while Professor Jerry Knox from Cranfield University will explain the latest advances in irrigation. Roma Gwynne from Biorational and Andrew Gough from Lallemand Plant Care will give their expert insight into the future of biopesticides a highly relevant topic given the pressure on the use of conventional pesticides. SRUCs Robin Walker and Cathy Hawes from the James Hutton Institute will present research findings from Scotlands longest-running trials on potato crop rotation. Richard Powell, NFAN Chairman says, We are delighted to announce the finalists in the annual awards. There have been more entries this year and the standard has been exceptionally high which is a tremendous reflection of the quality and range of farm based attractions around the UK. The awards celebrate the best farm attractions, the fantastic range of cafes and restaurants, the leading digital marketers, inspiring educators and the customer service champions. We also recognise the key role played by the companies who supply our members, with the Best Trade Supplier of the year award. The winners will be announced on Wednesday 30th January 2019 at the annual awards dinner in Edinburgh as part of a three-day Conference and Trade Exhibition. The annual gathering of farm attraction owners and industry suppliers is the highlight event of the year and includes visits to Edinburgh Zoo and East Links Family Park, a trade show with over 60 companies exhibiting, and conference sessions with presentations from industry leaders. Full list of 2019 Awards Finalists Jim Keetch Farm Attraction of the Year Award (Over 75,000 visitors) Finkley Down Farm, Hampshire Fishers Adventure Farm Park, West Sussex Puxton Park, Somerset Williams Den, East Yorkshire Rand Farm Park, Lincolnshire Jim Keetch Farm Attraction of the Year Award (Under 75,000 visitors) Sponsored by David Taylor Designs Cantref Adventure Farm, Powys, Wales Pink Pig Farm, North Lincolnshire Wynford Farm, Aberdeen Innovation Award Sponsored by Marsh & Co Insurance Longdown Activity Farm, Southampton Marsh Farm, Essex Odds Farm Park, Buckinghamshire White Post Farm, Nottinghamshire Best Food and Beverage Award Sponsored by Booker Wholesale Cannon Hall Farm, Barnsley Cantref Adventure Farm, Powys, Wales Cotswold Farm Park, Gloucestershire Odds Farm Park, Buckinghamshire Pink Pig Farm, North Lincolnshire A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: International trade in goods and services 2021, 2nd quarter Published: 14 December 2018 International trade in services continued growing in the third quarter of 2018 Service exports grew by five per cent in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the corresponding quarter last year. Service imports grew by eight per cent. Other business services were both sold and purchased more than in the third quarter of 2017, which most explains the growth in both service exports and imports. The data appear from Statistics Finland's statistics on international trade in goods and services, which are part of balance of payments . Imports and exports of services The combined exports of goods and services grew by three per cent and imports by eight per cent in the third quarter of 2018 compared with the corresponding quarter of the previous year. In balance of payments terms, goods exports also grew by three per cent and goods imports by eight per cent. Goods exports in customs terms grew two percentage points more than in balance of payments terms. The weaker development of goods exports in balance of payments terms was due to the exceptionally high level in the third quarter of 2017. The level of goods exports in customs terms was lower in the period in question. The levels in customs terms and in balance of payments terms can differ, because goods trade in customs terms includes flows of goods where ownership does not change. In contrast, goods trade in balance of payments terms is based on change of ownership. In addition to the changes made to the customs data, goods trade in balance of payments terms includes sales and purchases from aboard to abroad. Growth in other business services Other business services are the second biggest item of service exports after telecommunications, computer and information services (ICT). Exports of other business services grew by 25 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the third quarter of one year ago. Transport services were the third biggest item of exports and their exports grew by 12 per cent. Exports of telecommunication, computer and information services remained on level with the previous years third quarter. Exports of other business services grew mostly on account of an increase of 42 per cent in the sub-item professional and management consulting services, which include such as legal services, accounting, auditing, bookkeeping and tax consultancy services, and advertising, market research and public opinion polling. Technical, trade-related and other business services, which are also a sub-item of other business services, grew by 15 per cent. Exports of construction and project deliveries fell by 11 per cent, while imports went down by 14 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the corresponding quarter last year. Measured in euros, the fall in both imports and exports amounted to some EUR 60 million. Service imports grew by eight per cent in the third quarter of 2018. Service imports grew particularly due to increased imports of other business services, telecommunications, computer and information services and transport. Other business services were imported 15 per cent more than in the third quarter of 2017, while imports of telecommunications, computer and information services were up by 20 per cent. However, imports of other business services grew more in euros: by around EUR 0.3 billion, which was over two times more than the growth in telecommunications, computer and information services or in transport services. Imports of transport services increased by 10 per cent. Imports also grew particularly in two sub-items of other business services: technical, trade-related and other business services and professional and management consulting services. Exports of services by service item Moderate changes by country in international trade International trade in services was highest with Sweden, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom in the third quarter of 2018. Sweden accounted for 14 per cent of service exports, the United States for 11 per cent. Nine per cent of Finlands service exports were headed to Germany and four per cent to the United Kingdom in the third quarter of 2018. Russia's share of service exports was one percentage point and Chinas share two percentage points higher than that of the United Kingdom, but two times more services were imported from the United Kingdom than from Russia or China. The United Kingdom was the only trade partner where service exports fell among the countries mentioned above. The share of the United Kingdom in service exports decreased by one percentage point. Exports to the United Kingdom were EUR 50 million lower than in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, which represents a fall of 16 per cent. Exports of services to the United Kingdom were thus only close on EUR 0.3 billion. The shares of Sweden and Germany in international trade in services exports remained similar to the third quarter of 2017. Service exports to Sweden amounted to nearly EUR one billion and to the United States to close on EUR 0.8 billion. Exports of services to Germany were almost EUR 0.6 billion. The share of the services exported to United States grew by one percentage point. Measured in euros, service exports to the United States grew by around EUR 90 million, 14 per cent. The share of the services imported from the United States also grew by one percentage point and by around EUR 90 million. The growth was thus 23 per cent. Both more goods and services are still exported to the United States than imported from there. Exports of goods and services in balance of payments terms by area Statistics on international trade The statistics on international trade in goods and services are part of balance of payments . The statistics comprise breakdowns of goods and services on a more detailed level. The guidelines and recommendations of the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM6) applied to balance of payments are consistent with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010). National Accounts are published on the quarterly and annual levels. Finnish Customs publishes data on goods trade across borders. Goods trade published by Finnish Customs is used as source data for the statistics on international trade in goods and services. Removals and additions caused by definitions are made to them to achieve goods trade in balance of payments terms. Finnish Customs statistical service, tilastot@tulli.fi, +358 29 552 335. Source: International trade in goods and services 2018, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Risto Sippola 029 551 3383, Terhi Tulonen 029 551 3604, globalisaatio.tilastot@stat.fi Director in charge: Ville Vertanen Publication in pdf-format (270.7 kB) Updated 14.12.2018 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): International trade in goods and services [e-publication]. ISSN=2343-4244. 3rd quarter 2018. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 29.11.2021]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tpulk/2018/03/tpulk_2018_03_2018-12-14_tie_001_en.html Ninety-two-year-old Sonia Warshawski may look like an average Kansas City, Mo., woman on the outside, but the hardships and experiences that she endured greatly separate her from others. As a child, Sonia was taken from her hometown in Poland and moved to countless concentration camps (e.g. Auschwitz-Birkenau), where her family was tragically killed. Her story and legacy are documented in the heartwarming film Big Sonia produced and directed by her granddaughter, Leah Warshawski, a native St. Louisan who graduated from Clayton High School. Following Sonia through her early life during the Holocaust up to her current adult life, the documentary utilizes unique cartoon drawings and personal interviews of her children, grandchildren and Sonia herself. The film has put Sonia in high demand at schools, religious gatherings, and more. She also has visited jails and correctional facilities where she has inspired many men and women with her incredible story and the impact she has made on so many peoples lives. Sonia still lives in Kansas City, where she continues to work at her tailoring store. Being one of the very few Holocaust survivors still alive, she continues to speak and share her story with everyone around her. In a series of questions, Leah Warshawski shares information and perspective about the making of the film. What initially sparked your idea for the film? We initially wanted to make a short film just about Sonias shop and all of the interesting people who come in for their own redemption, not specifically for tailoring. At that time, Sonia was 85 [in 2011], and we wanted to start filming while she was still in good health. As we explored family relationships on a deeper level it became clear that we needed to make a feature instead of a short. And somewhere in the middle of filming, Sonia got an eviction notice, which provided a natural story arc for a longer film. The film took us seven years to make. What is one of the most memorable experiences you have had with someone who viewed the film? Recently, a seventh grader told me, Ill never use the word hate again. And many people have told us that the film helps them recognize and get through their own trauma. What was your overall goal that you hoped that this film would accomplish? The theme of love over hate has never been more timely and important and were honored to have the film as a tool for good. How/where can the general public see the film? DVDs for home use are on our website, www.bigsonia.com/shop. It is also available on iTunes, Amazon and GooglePlay. We have an educational toolkit for schools at www.bigsonia.com. Community screening licenses are also available on our website. 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. The launch of the airline Iberia's first commercial flight from Madrid to Barcelona on 14 December 1927 was Spain's first foray into commercial aviation. Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana, S. A. was founded in June 1927 by Horacio Echevarrieta, a Basque businessman and politician; and Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH), a German airline serving as flag carrier during the final years of the Weimar Republic. The majority share of the company was held by Echevarrieta, who became chairman of the board, but German support was crucial, because in addition to investing 24 per cent of the capital, DLH contributed materials and technical support. Iberia's objective was to provide peninsular and transatlantic air services and it immediately applied for concession to establish regular flights between Madrid and Barcelona. Founded during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, with a capital of 1.1 million pesetas, its first commercial flight took off from the airport in Carabanchel (current Cuatro Vientos Airport) and landed in Barcelona three hours later. The official flight on the ten-seater Rohrbach Roland monoplane included among its passengers the Spanish king, Alfonso XIII. Prior to the official flight, a plane first flew from Barcelona to Madrid so that the king could witness the first landing. However, extreme weather issues forced the aircraft to arrive much later than expected. The three-hour trip became a daily service that operated in both directions, and within a year of its first flight, the company was sponsored by the Spanish government to provide postal transport between Madrid and Barcelona. By 1928, Iberia had three Rohrbach Ro VIII Roland aircraft, all with a capacity for ten passengers. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the aviation companies in Spain were state-controlled and as a consequence, in 1929, Iberia, along with Union Aerea Espanola, was merged into Compania de Lineas Aereas Subvencionadas S.A. (CLASSA) and the new enterprise was granted a monopoly. CLASSA, which initially ran flights between Madrid and Seville, began regular operations in May of that year. Though Iberia as an independent entity disappeared from the air transport scene until 1937, the airline maintained its registration in the Companies Register of Madrid. At the end of the Civil War, with Barajas Airport in Madrid as its base, Iberia began operating flights between Madrid and Barcelona, Burgos, Seville, and Valencia, as well as Lisbon, in Portugal. Nationalised in 1940 when its debt to DLH was paid off, Iberia was granted a monopoly over regular domestic flights and to colonies and protected territories. Today, Iberia operates an international network of services. The Iberia Group flies to over 109 destinations in 39 countries, and a further 90 destinations through code-sharing agreements with other airlines. In 2010, British Airways and Iberia merged, making the combined operation the third largest commercial airline in the world. The newly merged company, known as International Airlines Group (IAG), was established in January 2011, although both airlines continue to operate under their own brand. The province of Malaga tops the list of Spanish provinces with safety problems on its bridges and tunnels on the trunk road network, and all of those affected locally are on the Costa del Sol. According to data from the central ministry for Infrastructure (Ministerio de Fomento) and the EU, 21 of the 113 tunnels in Spain that don't meet EU safety rules are found along the Costa. Meanwhile the same ministry has admitted in separate data, which was previously kept secret but now published in El Pais newspaper, that there are 66 sub-standard main-road bridges, viaducts or overpasses across the country, nine of which are on the Costa del Sol. Tunnel deficiencies flagged by the EU include evacuation routes, smoke extraction and lighting systems Mountainous terrain The amount in Malaga province, which tops the list of both tunnels and bridges, is being blamed on the area's mountainous terrain, meaning it has an above average share of tunnels and bridges on its motorways and main roads. The age of the roads is also being blamed. However, the government could now be facing more fines from Brussels, similar to those recently given out for not treating effluent correctly in some areas, for failing to comply with its own promise to meet the EU deadline to upgrade tunnels by spring next year. Tunnel vision In terms of the 21 local tunnels which have safety deficiencies, 11 are on the A-7 coastal dual carriageway and are in municipalities including Marbella, Mijas, Estepona, Casares, Benahavis, Velez-Malaga, Nerja, Torrox and Frigiliana. The remaining 10 are on the AP-7 toll motorway. In the case of the A-7, it is down to the government to solve the problems, which include a lack of escape routes, systems for smoke extraction in a fire and inadequate safety lighting. Whereas for the road carrying the AP-7 classification, it is the private toll road operator that needs to pay the bill. The problems arise from a 2007 law, which was enacted in response to a 2004 EU directive, that gave Spain until 30 April next year to upgrade the safety features in longer tunnels. Longer tunnels prioritised Even newer tunnels, such as the one at Churriana on the A-7 Malaga outer ring road, widely praised for its safety and only opened in 2011 after the law change, are included on the list. In all, the government says it needs to spend an estimated 27 million euros carrying out the upgrades along the Costa del Sol. It is now seeking to have the timeframe for its own law extended for the shorter tunnels, under 500 metres, where improvements are less urgent. Officials are also probing extra, remedial measures in the meantime for safety. However work on the longer tunnels, over 500 metres, is being put out to tender early next year as they are the most urgent under the EU guidelines. Improvements were delayed during the financial crisis when infrastructure budgets were cut. Bridge problems In the case of the problematic bridges, another government analysis says that nine of the 66 bridges or viaducts with the most critical problems on the state road network are in Malaga province. These are on the A-7, MA-20 (old A-7 between Torremolinos and Malaga city) and the N-340 between Nerja and Maro. The government's analysis of almost 23,000 bridges, viaducts and overpasses across Spain gave points to the condition of each bridge and each one with 81 points or more has been listed as a problem. Sixty-six were found to have the most serious problems. Only six per cent of the 23,000 were given the total all clear. No real danger for now The government has stressed that none of these bridges is in any danger and the problems, including corrosion, can be fixed in time. After the data was published this week, it promised to step up inspection on the bridges, including using drones, and blamed the previous government for doing nothing until now about the tunnels. In terms of problematic bridges, Malaga is out in front with Cadiz province, compared to other provinces. For tunnels, the northern region of Asturias is a close second to Malaga, with 20 needing a safety upgrade. Here too there are a lot of tunnels as motorways have to wend their way through mountains. Once again, the lights in Calle Larios are a major attraction of Christmas in Malaga city. The city councillor for Festivals, Teresa Porras, says they are so successful that, for the first time in 15 years, opposition councillors haven't complained about them. She is proud that Malaga is a highly-recommended winter destination and is already making plans for Christmas next year, predicting that she will still be in her post because "Paco de la Torre will win the election and be the mayor again". It is undeniable that you have been one of the pioneers in Spain in terms of Christmas lights being a type of show in cities. In Europe, not Spain. "Every city in Spain has copied Malaga's Christmas lights; they all imitate Malaga" Don't you think that on this occasion the mayor of the Galician city of Vigo, Abel Caballero, could claim that? Absolutely not. The mayor of Vigo, what has he got? A Christmas tree and decorations? Calle Larios is unique, look at the arch above us now. We have spent years making different arches, this is unique in the whole of Europe. That's why we have just been designated the best city in which to spend a sunny Christmas. Vigo doesn't have that; it has the same as all the other cities, a Christmas tree and some movable balls, some pretty, some ugly... the streets of Vigo have decorations which we in Malaga had six or eight years ago. We don't have anything of Vigo's. Vigo, on the other hand, does have things from Malaga. Well, the mayor of Vigo has challenged the mayor of New York, saying that his lights will be seen over there. Posturing, or augmented reality? Posturing. You can't please everybody all the time. Why has Calle Larios had the same lights for the past few years? Only two years, last year and this one. Two years ago we did the starry sky; that was sold on outside Spain afterwards. And last year we introduced the dome of Malaga cathedral, which is here again this year. Bear in mind that a dome like this doesn't cost 60,000 euros like a Christmas tree does; that can be paid off in two years. We paid 300,000 euros for Calle Larios, within our overall budget. How much is the overall budget? 733,000 euros. Would you like to increase the budget so you could expand the lights to other parts of the city? All the city's districts have their Christmas lights, and a budget for them. Where I live for example, Cruz de Humilladero, there is a Christmas feature in every area. But that's just one place, not in general. Well, in the Bailen district there are Christmas lights, in Carretera de Cadiz, in the Eastern district... But not like Cruz de Humilladero, Mrs Porras. That depends on how much each district wants to allocate to it. I'm only responsible for the entrances to the city, through Ciudad Jardin, Barriguilla, Carretera de Cadiz and the centre. Do the Christmas lights attract business? What do shop and restaurant owners say? You only have to go to Calle Larios to see that. If we are capable of putting more than 30,000 people in the street every day, there is bound to be more business, in shops, bars and restaurants. Did you count the number of visitors last year? Last year, for the early-December holiday weekend, I have the figure of more than 250,000 people staying in Malaga city. So this is definitely a success? Remember. This is the first time in 15 years that the opposition has not made a single complaint about the lights. I believe that is a success. I believe the opposition is now aware that the Christmas lights are an investment, not just a way of spending money. You don't think they'll bring it up at the next council meeting? I understand that they won't, because the members of the opposition, both PSOE and Malaga Ahora, have congratulated me. That's the truth. In fact Oviedo has copied us, Seville, which didn't used to have Christmas lights, has copied us; every city in Spain has copied Malaga's Christmas lights. Seeing how successful our 45 days of lights are, Madrid has invested 500,000 euros more this year. All the Spanish cities are increasing their budgets and imitating Malaga. And next year we will have to increase ours as well because we will have to change the dome, and we have to make an important innovation in Calle Larios. In view of the recent regional electoral results, don't you think this could be the last year of you putting up Christmas lights? I think that's a bit of a mischievous question! Regional elections cannot be extrapolated to council ones because when we talk about local elections we are talking about very personal ones; so far the mayor of Malaga has had nobody to overshadow him, and people value what he is doing and the way he has been transforming the city. So, presuming you will still be Councillor for Festivals, what innovations would you like to see next year? We're working on that. We plan to put LED screens along the whole of Calle Larios, and we want to do something important and spectacular in the city of Malaga, maybe the full Christmas story, for instance. For years the Guadalhorce valley regional hospital has been a chimera for the health system in Malaga province. For many people, the fact that this brand new facility had no surgical facilities when it opened reduced this 30-million-euro investment to nothing more than a large health centre. Now, after a lengthy and complex legal process in which a special plan had to be completely modified, and serious differences of opinion between different administrations, the first two operating theatres and some of the beds in the surgical ward are finally open, putting an end to a long period of waiting and a time which was marked by difficulties and delays. On Monday the Junta de Andalucia issued a statement to announce that the new facilities were now operative, and its acting delegate for Equality, Health and Social Policies, Ana Isabel Gonzalez, took a tour of the new facilities in the company of the managing director of the hospital, Jose Antonio Medina, nursing director Mari Paz Pina, the director of the Anaesthesiology and Recovery unit, Jose Cruz, and nursing coordinator of the Surgical Block, Cristina Narbona. Ana Isabel Gonzalez explained to the press that the aim is to open the facilities bit by bit, and that there will eventually be four operating theatres. The two which opened this week are for scheduled operations of different types where patients only need to stay in hospital for a short time afterwards. She also explained that these two operating theatres will be used for general and dermatological surgery, and the others will open within the next few months. Jose Cruz, the director of the Anaesthesiology and Recovery Unit at the Virgen de la Victoria hospital, said that "the opening of this new department is a major advance in terms of accessibility for patients and it will improve the response to medical needs in the surgical field, for common procedures which are not difficult to carry out". Open for two years The managing director of the hospital, Jose Antonio Medina, said that the new operating theatres "will mean that a series of surgical procedures can be carried out on a day-to-day basis, and this will improve the standards of quality and accessibility for all the users in the area". The Guadalhorce valley hospital has been open for two years, attending to a population of over 100,000 from the 13 towns and villages in the area. It cost 30.6 million euros to open the new centre, including the construction and equipment and the Malaga provincial government then provided extra funds for the access and the electricity connection. On 9 October the Arroyo Benajarafe stream broke its banks, flooded the village (which is in Velez-Malaga municipality) and left several families cut off, all because of the mud and plants that were blocking the riverbed. Two weeks later, the same thing occurred in several places in Estepona, especially around the Padron and Guadalmansa rivers which, due to the heavy rainfall, were turned into a quagmire covered in reeds and undergrowth. Just a few weeks ago it was Marbella's turn, when the rain caused the Arroyo Realejo to overflow and turned the rugby field into marshland. Contributors: Eugenio Cabezas and Charo Marquez. It is not always possible to fight the force of water, as those who have been affected know, but what is clear is that the accumulation of vegetation, sediment and waste in the rivers and streams does not exactly help to minimise the effects of a storm. Far from being an exception, the scene during one of the rainiest autumns in recent years in Malaga province is similar in many of the water courses along the coast. In most of them vegetation or accumulated earth are evidence of a lack of foresight by town halls, who are responsible for maintaining them in urban areas, as decreed in December last year by the Supreme Court. The court decision put an end to the eternal arguments between the regional government and local councils about who has to keep rivers and streams clear when they pass through towns. A year ago the Supreme Court decreed that councils are responsible for river and stream beds in urban areas Costa del Sol Marbella is facing the rainiest time of year with only four of its many rivers and streams having been cleared. As a result of the Supreme Court decision, the council allocated 30,000 euros this summer for work to be carried out on the most problematical areas. These included the Benabola and Segundo streams; the final stretch of the Arroyo Las Canas Verdes; the middle of the Arroyo La Vibora, as well as a general clearing of several others which run close to properties: Primero, La Represa, Nagueles and Guadalpin, in the town centre; Realejo, Siete Revueltas, Alicate, Real de Zaragoza, on the east side of Marbella; Pozuelo and Panorama. According to information from the Environmental Department, the works were only completed on the Benabola, Primero, Segundo and Guadalpin streams, and they involved removing rubbish and invasive species of vegetation. The remainder is due to be carried out once the rains have stopped. The council also says that it is working on putting a contract out to tender for cleaning and maintenance of nearly all the rivers and streams for one year, for an estimated 80,000 euros. In Estepona residents have also been calling for more to be done after the heavy rain on 21 October which caused several rivers and streams to overflow. Hundreds of houses in the countryside were cut off when the water tried to recover its natural path, and the owners blame the authorities for not having done enough to prevent the situation. On the eastern Costa, the biggest problems have been due to an accumulation of sediment and stones in the river and stream beds, especially in Rincon de la Victoria and Velez. This situation, combined with the amount of vegetation and other waste such as plastic in the highest areas pose a serious danger in the case of heavy rain. People in Torrox are also complaining about the vegetation in the Manzano stream and Gui river, and the situation is similar in the bed of the Seco river in Nerja. Action in Malaga In Malaga city, as a result of the Supreme Court sentence the council tripled its budget this year for clearing the three most problematical water courses (Guadalhorce, Guadalmedina y Este) but, looking at the results, those 160,000 euros were not enough. On Saturday, after the neglected condition of the Guadalmedina river bed was highlighted in this newspaper's Spanish sister publication SUR, municipal operatives were brought in to clear some of the dense vegetation. The stretch upstream from the city centre between Las Virreinas, Palmilla and Martiricos, also suffered an accumulation of rubbish and pools of stagnant water from the Limonero reservoir (water is released from it for safety reasons on the first Wednesday of every month). The risk of flooding is low because of the containing role played by the dam, but the unpleasant smell and the insects are a nuisance for people living nearby. On the eastern side of the city, people look worriedly at the streams every time the heavens open. This is understandable, not only because of previous experiences but also due to the tonnes of earth which have accumulated in the final stretch of the Galica and Jaboneros streams, effectively blocking about half the capacity of evacuation of the bridges which cross them. At the moment, an excavating machine is dredging the mouth of the river to make it easier for it to flow into the sea. At Jaboneros the problem lies in the build-up of earth, but in stretches of Las Canas, such as at Soliva and before the industrial estates on the way to the Guadalhorce river, the vegetation is so thick that the water can barely be seen. That is also the case with La Rebanadilla stream, which runs parallel to the access road to the PTA (technology park) and is almost completely blocked by undergrowth. These are not the only points in the city that need better maintenance, despite the Civil Protection plan to check rivers and streams every year to identify the critical points so that something can be done before the rainy season. Of the nearly 30,000 vehicles registered in the province in the first ten months of this year (29,826), only 53 were electric. If the statistics provided by the dealers' federation Faconauto, from data from the Traffic Department, were to include other alternatives to petrol and diesel, such as the diesel/electric hybrids, those that use compressed natural gas, petrol/electric, plug-in petrol/electric and petrol/gas, the figure would still not reach eight per cent. "There is not much choice of electric vehicles available and the price is a major problem, but another factor is that most models also have very limited autonomy," says Carlos Oliva, the president of the Malaga Automotive Association (AMA), who says the announcements made by the Ministry of Energy Transition are just "playing to the gallery". "In countries like Norway half of all cars sold nowadays are electric. We are light years away here, because we don't even have enough charging points," he says. In sectors like cargo transport, the implantation of 100 per cent electric vehicles "is a completely ridiculous idea," says the head of Malaga firm Acotral, Borja de Torres. "We have an alternative like natural gas which many companies are starting to use on a trial basis, and I have no doubt that it will be the bridge between diesel and other alternatives of the future," he says. With regard to motor manufacturers in Spain the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, says these are "lagging a long way behind" in terms of the production of electric cars, with only four models available. She has announced measures to boost the manufacture of electric vehicles, and promised to give "certainty" and "legal security" to the sector through a working group "which will focus on competitivity and sustainability". Meanwhile, the Spanish Retail Fuel Vendors Group (Aevecar) does not agree with the government making it obligatory to incorporate charging points for electric vehicles at filling stations, because "it is an investment whch is not going to pay off", says the general secretary, Victor Garcia Nebreda. However, Antonio Ariza, the president of the Professional Association of Electrical Installers of Malaga (Apiema), says the lack of apparent interest in electric vehicles is due to the fact that there are not enough charging points in the streets. "We have asked the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, to provide us with land for two charging points, one near our offices in the Calle Babel area, and the other near the Materno hospital, in Arroyo de los Angeles. They will be free to use, thanks to the national federation Fenie, with whom we are associated, and its own electricity sales company, and there will be no cost to the town hall. The president of the provincial government, Elias Bendodo, has also asked Apiema for an expansion plan for the province, a type of route map for charging points. Other big cities like Valencia, Mallorca and Madrid are doing the same. And in the province we are very advanced with three charging points in Rincon de la Victoria. At one time Malaga was a pioneer with its 'Zem2All' programme, but it has been left behind now," he says. Ariza says the future of mobility is undoubtedly going to be 100 per cent electric, and that means we need public charging points. They are nothing more than a socket, and can be installed by any electrician. "We are working with the Junta de Andalucia on this, because it is vital. Generally at a national level it is working well. Fenie already has more than 2,500 charging points in Spain, but the lack of them in the streets is a serious problem," he says. After years of campaigning by locals and environmentalists, the Sierra de las Nieves mountain range, stretching out behind the western Costa del Sol, is now just one step from being declared a National Park. It will be the first area of Malaga province with the status and only the third area in Andalucia. Last Friday, the national government's Cabinet approved the proposal document after the regional government did the same last month and this will now go to parliament for ratification. National Parks are the only protected natural areas requiring parliamentary approval. Although nothing can be certain, the formal declaration is expected to be made in the spring. The future National Park will be only the sixteenth in the country and cover 23,000 hectares. The 64,000 locals, living in both the new reserve and an outer protected area, were praised by the government for their contribution to seeking to protect the area. A unique environment The government also highlighted the authenticity of the landscape and its uniqueness. The park will cover some 65 per cent of the growing area of the protected indigenous Pinsapo pine and also samples of a rarely visible rock type from the Earth's crust called Peridotite. President of the Mancomunicad, the inter-municipal group of local town halls that lobbied for the park, Antonio Perez, said, "It looks like the declaration has reached cruising speed and everything is going to plan." Most of the Sierra de las Nieves is already a Unesco-protected biosphere. The two current National Parks in Andalucia are Donana and the Sierra Nevada. Another week of Brexit turmoil began on Monday with disappointing news for anti-Brexit campaigners in Spain and across Europe. The UK's High Court announced its decision to reject the 'UK in EU' challenge against the illegal funding limits of pro-Brexit groups, following a full day hearing last Friday. Deferring his decision until Monday, Mr Justice Ouseley ruled against the case of Susan Wilson and others versus the prime minister, saying that the claim was "out of time". Speaking after the decision, Wilson said, "While I'm obviously disappointed with this ruling, this challenge is far from over. We're working through the judgment and considering an appeal." Article 50 The decision came on the same day that the European Court of Justice ruled that Article 50 could be unilaterally revoked to stop Brexit, should the UK decide to do so. Wilson added to her statement, "We are still in good spirits over the ECJ ruling this morning that Article 50 is revocable. We believe this makes a further referendum more likely. At the very least, our case has ensured that any future referendum will be under stricter scrutiny against illegal activity." Vote delayed Also on Monday, the prime minister, Theresa May, announced that the UK parliament vote on the Withdrawal Agreement would be delayed until "before 21 January", causing the pound to drop sharply against the euro. The effects were felt strongly among pensioners on the Costa del Sol and those transferring money, who saw less money going into their euro bank accounts. The delay led to SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon tweeting that she would be prepared to merge with the Labour Party in order to topple Theresa May in a vote of no confidence. However, the call was unanswered by Jeremy Corbyn, allowing Conservative MPs to get in first with their own confidence vote on Wednesday. Vote of no confidence May survived the ballot by 200 to 117 votes, which led to mixed reactions from politicians and campaigners in the UK and abroad. Many were appalled by the decision to allow two MPs currently suspended from their roles over sex allegations to vote. Andrew Griffiths, the PM's former chief of staff, and Charlie Elphicke were registered in Wednesday's ballot despite serving suspensions. Labour called the decision, "a betrayal of women". Prior to the vote the PM gave a press conference, announcing that whatever happened she would be stepping down before the next general election, expected to be called in 2022. Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable said that the prime minister "must change course" over her Withdrawal Agreement. Meanwhile DUP leader, Arlene Foster, had already made it clear that her party, which reached a deal with the Conservatives to keep May in power after the last election, would not support the current agreement and the so-called 'backstop' arrangement which attempts to protect the Irish border. May travelled back to Brussels on Thursday morning for the latest round of talks with the EU. Guardia Civil officers, as part of Operation Golalde, have seized 322 guns, including four machine guns and seven submachine guns, as well as 50,000 cartridges. Four people were arrested for allegedly forming part of a network selling the weapons to a wide variety of criminals, say officers. The operation centred on Madrid, Asturias and Cantabria, where eleven homes and premises linked to the group were searched. The group traded weapons from Spain and other countries, including decommissioned guns that they adapted to make work again. As the serial numbers hadn't been removed and they weren't registered with the authorities, it was easier to channel the weapons into the black market. Left-wing separatist groups have promised to "sow chaos" in Catalonia later this month when the Spanish government swaps Madrid for Barcelona for one of its weekly Cabinet meetings. The Grups Autonoms d'Accions Rapides -GAAR, (autonomous rapid action groups), the most extreme version of the radical Comites de Defensa de la Republica- CDR (Republic defence committees), which were only set up last week, have begun briefing their followers with an instruction manual. In it they explain how to carry out their planned sabotage and attacks against "transport, the energy sector, IT and communications and the security services". The groups have insisted that the protests will be "non violent". The news that protests are being prepared for the Spanish Cabinet meeting near Barcelona's port on 21 December came in a week of renewed militant action in the region and an escalation in political tension between the central and regional governments. Last weekend members of the CDR blocked the main AP-7 motorway through Catalonia for much of Saturday and the following day they raised toll barriers without any intervention by the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan regional police force. Ministers in Madrid were quick to criticise the lack of police intervention, threatening to send officers from the National Police to Catalonia if regional ministers didn't carry out their constitutional duties. Madrid has already announced that is sending an extra 400 National Police for the planned Cabinet meeting next week . The tension has been added to by Catalan president, Quim Torra, last weekend calling for the region to break away in the same way that Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia, which involved violence and loss of life. "That's the kind of talk that sounds like it's calling for an insurrection," said Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell on Monday from Brussels. Later in the week, Torra had toned down his rhetoric as opposition parties in Madrid called for the ruling PSOE to suspend regional autonomous powers again. This week, Pedro Sanchez confirmed a bumper increase of 22 per cent in Spain's minimum wage from January, from 736 euros per month to 900 euros. It's a proposal made, in part, to please leftist Catalan separatist parties, who say that they won't support the Socialists' 2019 budget - tabled for a parliamentary vote in January - unless Sanchez softens his anti-secession stance. It's also a move that highlights the PSOE leader's schizophrenic tactics with regard to the Catalonia problem. Concession-driven in some respects, they're Rajoyesque in others: this week also saw Sanchez threatening to send national police into Catalonia if the region's own police force, known as the Mossos d'Esquadra, fail to restrain separatist protestors. Which approach will be more effective? Leftist Catalan parties will approve, in theory at least, of the minimum wage increase, which would be the heftiest annual hike since 1977. It's set to be approved at a meeting of Sanchez's cabinet next Friday in Barcelona - a choice of destination that's also designed to appease the region's secessionists. Yet the tone of rhetoric this week, from both Madrid and the Catalonian capital, suggests that it will take more than a piece of economic legislation to ease the tension. In an address to congress on Wednesday, Sanchez was in a less conciliatory mood towards Catalan separatists. He compared their attempts to break from the rest of Spain with Brexit, saying that both campaigns told "lies" to gain support, inventing "grievances [that] force people to choose between two identities". Hardly the words of a man prepared to cut the secessionists some slack. Sanchez's remarks followed similarly inflammatory statements made by Catalan president Quim Torra on Saturday, after the latter's visit to Slovenia. Praising the country's split from Yugoslavia in 1991, following violent clashes during the "10-Day War", Torra said that "the Slovenians decided to push ahead [with secession] despite all the consequences. Let's do the same as them and be willing do anything to live freely". It was an irresponsible and flawed comparison, one that Spain's foreign minister Josep Borrell said was effectively "calling for an insurrection". Both Sanchez's and Torra's remarks set the tone of rhetoric that makes one despair at the prospect of compromise between Barcelona and Madrid. As indeed does the Spanish prime minister's warning to the Catalan parliament this week: unless the Mossos take a harder line on separatist protesters - who blocked a Catalan motorway last weekend - Sanchez says he'll send in Spanish national police to deal with them. This is precisely what Rajoy did in October last year, in an attempt to physically dismantle the independence referendum. Unlike Rajoy, though, Sanchez also maintains that he wants to start a "dialogue" with separatists - something that the proposed wage increase is designed to facilitate. Yet Torra is inspired by Slovenia's bloody independence movement and Sanchez thinks that separatists are "liars". Some dialogue. Although it always seems to be Christmas in Lapland, the most northerly region of Finland, December is the best time of year to experience the warmth - despite the below-zero temperatures! - of the festive spirit. Winter is the ideal season to visit this far-off destination and enjoy some of the activities which this time of year makes possible: you can go on a sled safari pulled by huskies, get the adrenaline going on a snowmobile, skate on a frozen lake, walk among reindeer, tone your body with a snow sauna... or gaze in rapture at the sight of the aurora borealis at night. GUIDE How to get there Flights. Finnair has regular flights from Malaga to Helsinki in Finland. Flights go via Helsinki for a connection to Rovaniemi. Return by same route in reverse. There are also flights from Malaga via Gatwick to Rovaniemi with other airlines. Where to stay Santa Claus has ensured that there is plenty of accommodation in Rovaniemi and there is something to suit all tastes. The Guesthouse Borealis is a family hotel with simple rooms; the classic Santa Claushas a private sauna in every room; and the Arctic Light Hotel is considered the best hotel in Lapland: the rooms have skylights to enjoy the aurora borealis from the bed, and the breakfasts are a world of culinary sensations. The Arctic TreeHouse Hotel is a little further away from the centre, but it is worth seeing its architectural design and its interesting menus. Saariselka has the largest number of igloos with glass roofs, such as the Kakslauttanen Igloo Village. And in Inari, there is an emblematic hotel: The traditional Hotel Kultahovi, run by a Sami family and beside the rapids of the Janiskosi river, which is frozen in winter. Further info:www.visitfinland.com We are in the capital of Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi, after arriving from Spain with a connecting flight at Helsinki. The minuscule airport welcomes its visitors with Christmas music and flying reindeer over the luggage carousel, where children of all sizes and nationalities in colourful anoraks are running around in excitement. They can't wait to meet Father Christmas in person. Once settled in, whether travelling with children or not, the first thing to do has to be a visit to Santa, and in fact there is plenty to see in the official residence of this venerable elderly gentleman. It is exactly over the Arctic Polar Circle - called Napapiiri (nothing to do with the clothing brand Napapijri, which is not spelled quite the same and is, in any case, Italian) - that imaginary line from which at least there is at least one day a year in which the sun never sets and another which is perpetually night-time. The post office receives 15 million letters a year from countries all over the world Santa Claus Village has a reindeer farm, a gift-making workshop and the home of the elves who handle Santa's postal service. Its post office receives 15 million cards from all over the world, and the Christmas cards which are sent from here (by ordinary post) bear the original Santa Claus postmark. If we decide not to send friends and families festive greetings by email for one year, so what? They will undoubtedly be delighted to receive a card instead, bearing the emblematic stamp of the home of Santa Claus. It is interesting to note, in the words of Santa himself, that: "Although the children normally ask for toys, we are receiving more letters these days asking for peace in the world, or for wars to stop.... or for their father to find a job". Times are changing, and making Santa's mission more complicated. After this obligatory visit, the next thing to do in Rovaniemei is to head for the Arktikum (arktikum.fi), an interesting museum which explains in detail how Scandinavian countries have been able to survive amid the darkness, cold and desolation of the Great North. This visit will also give us a greater understanding of the rest of our trip to Lapland. The museum has an important exhibition on the country's flora and fauna as well as displays of magnificent nature photography. In the past, Lapland was subject to a type of gold fever, but a Nordic version. In the 1860s gold was found close to what is now the village of Saariselka, and people from all over Scandinavia came in droves to sift the waters of the Ivalo river in the hope of becoming rich. That was a long time ago, but the hope lives on. 'Gold diggers' still come here, the occasional gold nugget is found in the river, and although it is only worth enough to by a beer in a village bar, it is the feeling of being on an adventure that matters. Strong sensations No Finnish house worth its salt would be without a sauna, which was traditionally used not only as a place to get clean, but to smoke meat and even give birth. Naturally, tourists are not used to that. Many hotel rooms have a private sauna, but if not, then book a session with reception in advance, because it is usual to go naked. Once inside, follow the instructions and repeat the hot-cold-hot formula as advised. For a truly authentic experience, following the sauna, jump into the water-filled hole which has been created in the ice outside. Words cannot describe the sensation. If you pass that test, you can reward yourself with a drink in an ice bar and even spend the night in an ice hotel. The bar in question is in Tankavaara; it is a charming place with a log fire and the usual picturesque clientele, and still accepts gold as a form of currency. The owners are making sure that gold fever does not die out, and the bar is decorated as if it were an authentic saloon from the Far West. Photos of Wyatt Earp, the famous sheriff of Arizona, gunman Billy el Nino and Sioux chief Sitting Bull decorate the smoked wooden walls, along with tools used by the goldpanners. Tankavaara looks a bit like a ghost town in a film, and its few inhabitants dress like the legendary adventurers of the American West. This is also a good place to go out and look for the magical Northern Lights. If the night sky is starry, it's a question of luck. The 'revontulent', as the aurora borealis is known in Finnish, can be rather capricious, but normally it is just a matter of patience. When you have seen these lights, you will understand the mysticism and legends that surround them. According to a Lapland legend, the colourful curtains of light are foxes that swish their tails, creating sparks in the sky, which is a much more poetical explanation than the actual physical cause. In scientific terms, the aurora borealis is caused by particles with an electrical charge which come from the sun, and they collide with others as they enter the earth's atmosphere, creating different colours of light. The Sami people The Samis, who were nomads in other times, have gradually adopted sedentary customs and dedicated themselves to agriculture and livestock farming. Nowadays they even have their own parliament. However, these people are arousing interest among anthropologists because of their confusing ethnic origins, their shamanic beliefs and their language. The villages which mark the rhythm of the Sami heartbeat are Ivalo and Inari. In Inari, the Siidashouldn't be missed; it is a museum which preserves the native Sami culture and gives a general perspective of the rich tradition of beliefs of this people. The artisan manufacture of wooden items (drums, cups, skis, knives etc) which occupies a great deal of their time, is also part of their spirit. Lapland crafts are designed to be used. More than a job this was, and still is, a way of life. Therefore, when you see or buy a Sami item, remember that it is not just a souvenir; it is a reflection of a slower way of life. Posted on Friday, December 14, 2018 KINGSVILLE (December 14, 2018) The Texas A&M University-Kingsville Foundation has established the Steven and Karen Tallant Presidential Scholarship Endowment in honor of the couples service to the university. More than $200,000 has already been committed to the new fund. According to Brad Walker, Texas A&M-Kingsville Foundation Chief Executive Officer, the Foundation made the decision at a recent meeting to establish the scholarship and provide $500,000 in matching funds for any contribution of $10,000 or more. Donors must have made their gift or signed a gift agreement prior to Dec. 31, 2019 to be eligible for the match. Karen and I are truly honored by this act of generosity and kindness to the students of Texas A&M-Kingsville, Dr. Tallant said. We have thoroughly enjoyed our 10 years in Kingsville and are so proud to be able to impact future students. The Foundation announced the decision during an event held recently to honor the Tallants. Dr. Tallant has served as university president since October 2008 and announced his retirement at the end of the year. Each member of the Board of Trustees has such great respect for the job Dr. Tallant has done, Walker said. They were looking for a way to commemorate his legacy with a permanent endowment. Dr. and Mrs. Tallant have made a tremendous impact on the campus. There will be students receiving the Tallant Presidential Scholarship every year from now on, so that impact will continue. The Presidential Scholarship is the universitys most prestigious academic award for undergraduate students. Interested donors may contribute a gift of any size by mailing to the Foundation at P.O. Box 2202, Kingsville, TX 78363 or online at https://www.javelinagiving.org/tallant. -TAMUK- Industry group publishes improved cyber guidelines The third edition of the industry cyber risk management guidelines, Guidelines on Cyber Security Onboard Ships, addresses the requirement to incorporate cyber risks in the ships safety management system (SMS). It also reflects a deeper experience with risk assessments of operational technology (OT) - such as navigational systems and engine controls - and provides more guidance for dealing with the cyber risks to the ship arising from parties in the supply chain, BIMCO said. The industry will soon be under the obligation to incorporate measures to deal with cyber risks in the ships safety management system. This had not been tackled in the previous versions, explained Dirk Fry, director, Columbia Ship Management. The third edition provides additional information, which should help shipping companies carry out proper risk assessments and include measures in their safety management systems to protect ships from cyber-incidents. A new dedicated annex provides measures that all companies should consider implementing to address cyber risk management in an approved SMS, Fry said. This is much easier said than done, he added, noting that the criminals trying to exploit companies or breach their security are getting more inventive by the minute. The new guidelines are the third edition in as many years, which reflects the constantly evolving nature of the risks and challenges, the industry group said. A second key expansion in the guidelines is around operational technology. Ships have more and more operational technology (OT), which is integrated with Information technology (IT) and which can be connected to the internet, but the risks associated with OT are different from IT systems. For example, malfunctioning IT may cause significant delay of a ships unloading or clearance, but with malfunctioning or inoperative OT, there can be a real risk of harm to people, the ship or the marine environment. On a ship, the job may be less focused on protecting data while protecting operational systems working in the real world has direct safety implications. If the ECDIS system or software controlling an engine are hit with malware, or if it breaks down due to lack of compatibility after an update of software, it can lead to dangerous situations, Fry warned. Another new element contained in the guidelines is a number of examples of actual incidents to demonstrate some of the real-world situations shipowners and operators face. According to the Cyber security survey by BIMCO, Fairplay and ABS Advanced Solutions, the joint Industry Guidelines on Cyber Security Onboard Ships, are widely used across the industry. The survey also showed industry is more aware of the issue and has increased cyber risk management training, but there remains room for improvement. A third new focus area is the risk of malware infecting the ships systems via the many parties associated with the operation of a ship and its systems. The ships are not just sitting there in the middle of the ocean. More and more ships are also closely connected to security systems in the companies offices and shippers offices and agents offices, said Fry. Advice includes evaluating the security of service providers, defining a minimum set of requirements to manage supply chain or third-party risks and making sure that agreements on cyber risks are formal and written. The guidelines also underline the need for ships to be able to disconnect quickly and effectively from shore-based networks, where required. The following organisations were involved in its production - BIMCO, InterManager, INTERCARGO, INTERTANKO, ICS, IUMI, OCIMF and World Shipping Council (WSC). They were supported by: Anglo-Eastern, Columbia Ship Management, Maersk Line, Moran Shipping Agencies, as well as the cyber security experts NCC, SOFTimpact, Templar Executives and Cyber Keel. Markets --- In November, VLCC utilisation increased to the highest level seen since the beginning of this year at 60.55%, nearly as high as the level observed in November, 2017 (60.58%), McQuilling Services said in a blog. Through the first 11 months of the year, utilisation averaged 59.99%, compared to 61.95% in the same months of 2017. Although both tonne/day demand and tonne/day supply decreased month-on-month, the pace of declines in the latter was greater than the former. Tonne/day demand decreased by 1% month-on-month in November, a slight acceleration from the prior rate, while tonne/day supply decreased by a greater 1.7% month-on-month. Despite the bullish trend month-on-month, utilisation remains below November, 2017 levels and well below November, 2016 levels. Over the next month, McQuilling expected utilisation to fall as demand tempers on the back of lower import requirements in Asia, while vessels will continue to be delivered to the fleet amid lacking incentives to scrap tonnage. Indeed, As the 2018 cargo programme is drawing to a close, VLCC rates slipped, shedding some WS10 points from the beginning of the week, Fearnleys reported. Fears that announced production cutbacks will have a negative effect come January have prompted owners to try and lock in longer voyages, and thus have been willing to shed a point or two off last done levels to succeed. However, softening bunker prices have given some reprieve, and as a result TCE earnings remained comparatively strong. Also on a positive note, the western hemisphere continued to attract tonnage, and with the usual winter weather issues, a dramatic rate drop is not expected in the short term. Suezmaxes saw some of the recent gains eroded, as the fixing volume slowed in the west. TD20 returns were still respectable at close to $25,000 per day but we are close to seeing double digits again as the WS100 levels looks likely to be broken, Fearnleys said. TD6 held ground with TCE above $50,000 per day. This was helped by increased weather delays but volumes of fixing were thin. The CPC programme is now out for January so more action should be seen in the coming week. Aframaxes in the North Sea and Baltic enjoyed even stronger rates this week compared to last. This firm sentiment will continue into next week, as the tonnage list is tight for any cargoes loading in the 18th-23rd December window in the North Sea and for 25th-31st December window in the Baltic. Mediterranean and Black Sea Aframaxes enjoyed a firming market over the last week. Turkish Straits delays put further upward pressure on freight levels, as charterers have had to book forward dates for any Black Sea stems. Black Sea is currently being worked 1st decade January, 2019 with last done levels at the time of writing (Wednesday) standing at WS215 and cross-Mediterranean vessels trading at about WS10 points less. With a tightening Aframax tonnage list and Suezmaxes softening, we saw charterers looking for slightly larger tonnage if and when they could to try and take some steam out of the firming Aframax segment. In a note, VesselsValue said that the MR1 market appeared to be structurally dropping after improvements in cargo volumes in 2016 and a steady 2017. However, the fleet size has started to contract, which may help offset some of the demand drop. Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) and American Shipping Company (AMSC) have confirmed that OSG has exercised options to extend the charters for nine AMSC vessels. Five of the vessels were extended for an additional three-year term, commencing from December, 2019 and ending in December, 2022. The remaining four vessels were extended for one-year terms commencing from the same month but ending in December, 2020. OSG had previously exercised an option to extend the charter of the 10th vessel that it leases from AMSC, into 2025. OSG CEO, Sam Norton said The decision date for extending our AMSC options has been a focal point for some time. Our decision addresses the uncertainty associated with approaching contract maturities. The extension of charter agreements on all of the vessels enables continuity of our existing operations. At the same time, OSG retains continued flexibility afforded by the serial options remaining, a feature of our contracts which has always been appealing. The charter payments are fixed throughout the option periods, which are on a vessel-by-vessel basis and can be exercised individually. AMSC CEO, Pal Lothe Magnussen, commented OSGs decision to extend the charters of all the vessels ensures the stability of AMSCs cash flow going forward and maintains AMSCs exposure to an improving Jones Act tanker market through the profit share arrangement. We look forward to continuing our long-standing co-operation with OSG: Brokers reported that Hyundai Glovis had chartered the 2016 VLCC Eco Leader for 10 months at a healthy $38,000 per day, Elsewhere, Trafigura fixed the 2011-built Suezmax Shamrock for nine months at $19,000 per day, while two LR2s were reported taken for six and nine months each by Koch and Vitol for $17,000-$17,500 per day and Navig8 reportedly agreed $15,500 per day for an Aframax on a six-month charter, plus another for a year at a firmer $18,750 per day. Three LR1s were reported fixed to various charterers for $13,500-$13,750 per day. An Mr was thought fixed to ST Shipping for six months at $11,500, while two Handies, reported last week as purchased by Viken, were believed fixed for 12 months to Trafigura at $11,500 per day. In the newbuilding segment, FSL Trust Management, as trustee-manager of First Ship Lease Trust (FSLT) has signed a contract with Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Yangzhou) to build, sell and deliver two scrubber fitted Tier III LR2s. The agreed price was $97.6 mill for the pair. FSL-28, Inc and FSL-29, Inc, each a wholly-owned FSLT subsidiary, will be nominated to hold the new vessels. The LR2s are expected to be delivered to the buyers in November, 2020 and January, 2021, respectively. These acquisitions are being undertaken as part of the renewal of FSLTs ageing fleet, the company said. The Shipyard is a state-controlled shipyard, is part of COSCO SHIPPING Corporation Group and is based in the Peoples Republic of China. It has been revealed that the Ciner Shipping order reported last week was concluded on the back of a long term charter to Koch. Recent S&P deals include CP Offen possibly exiting the tanker sector by agreeing to sell two MRs and eight Handies to Tufton Oceanic for $18.5 mill each for the 2010-built MRs and $12 mill each for the 2008-built Handies, according to brokers reports. However, Tufton Oceanic Assets said on Tuesday said it had agreed to buy two product tankers for $36 mill, taking its total fleet to 10 vessels. Each vessel is operating under a timecharter of two to three years to a major commodity trading and logistics company, Tufton said. Other deals included the 2007-built LR1 King Darwin, which was reported sold to Clearlake for $13 mill and the sister LR2s Gulf Valour and Gulf Vision thought sold to Aegean for $32.4 mill and $31.7 mill, respectively. In another sale and leaseback deal, Navig8 Chemical Tankers has signed an agreements with AVIC International Leasing to sell two IMOII 37,000 dwt Interline coated tankers and bareboat charter each vessel back for 10 years. The net proceeds from the transaction were $52.4 mill. Part of the proceeds was used to repay existing loans used to finance the vessels newbuilding contracts under the multi-bank loan facility. During the charter period, the company has purchase options to re-acquire the vessels with the first option exercisable on the second anniversary of the date of delivery of each vessel to Avic. Also included are obligations to repurchase the vessels at the end of the 10-year period. Oil markets- a year of volatility This year proved volatile for global crude oil supply. This situation mainly concerned Iran, Venezuela and Angola. However, it was a promising year for US crude oil exports, Serkan Sahin, Refinitivs oil research manager, said in an industry note. US crude exports averaged 1.62 mill barrels per day for the first 11 months of 2018, peaking at 2.12 mill barrels per day in June, 2018, based on the companys crude oil flows data. Despite the strong domestic US light crude oil production, the majority of the exports were medium grades. Wide Brent/WTI spread kept an arbitrage in operation for the US medium crude trade to Asia for the buyers that were willing to substitute Iranian barrels. The trade war tensions between the US and China caused the volume of US crude going to that country to collapse to zero in October and November; however, strong South Korean and Taiwanese intake kept the total exports strong. On the other hand, the US re-introduced sanctions on Iranian crude oil and condensate exports in November. Supply concerns around vanishing Iranian barrels after sanctions became a main price driver for the year. In November, Iranian crude oil and condensate exports only reached 725,000 barrels per day, compared to the January/October 2018 average of 2.34 mill barrels per day. Production disruption in Venezuela, Houthi threats to Saudi Arabian vessels in the Red Sea and increasing Russian crude movement to Asia were other major talking points of crude oil supply globally. One of the key trends of 2018 was the use of newbuilding VLCCs to carry diesel/gasoil on their maiden voyages from East of Suez to western markets, such as Northwest Europe, Mediterranean and Americas. After European distillate inventories dropped below a five-year average, together with strong demand in Latin America, plus an unexpected cold season and unplanned refinery outages throughout the year, supported distillate prices in Europe. A combination of these factors widened the spread between LGO Futures and 10 ppm Singapore diesel during the first half this year, making the trip from East of Suez to western markets economical. Refinitiv tracked seven VLCCs that carried diesel/gasoil from East of Suez to western markets on their maiden voyage. The first VLCC recorded was the Maran Aphrodite, which loaded 280,000 tonnes of diesel in May, 2018 in Malaysia. At the beginning of this trend, the VLCCs were coming to NWE and the Mediterranean. Four of them discharged in the area. However, when EFS differential strengthened, two switched their destination and discharged in the Bahamas. The seventh VLCC, Cosnew Lake, is currently underway with its destination also being shown as the Bahamas as of 5th December. With increased global demand for diesel/gasoil, especially from western countries, upcoming spring refinery maintenance and the further demand on back of IMO 2020 indicates that this trend will continue well into 2019. The impending IMO 2020 marine fuel regulation became an even hotter topic this year, as the 1st January 2020 deadline looms closer for compliant 0.5% sulfur emissions in marine fuels globally (other than current 0.1% for ECAs). There is an expectation that the value of HSFO will plummet in the lead up to, as well as during 2020. While the market still expects this to be the case, the attitude towards the extent of the drop has shifted in 2018. There was a growing belief during the year that the loss in HSFO value will not be as low as previously predicted, due to stronger demand.This sentiment can be reflected in swaps pricing. The forward contract for Calendar 2020 Brent/Dubai swap differential saw a narrowing trend from around April until the end of the year. Dubai swap denotes heavy sour crude grades which produce higher yields of HSFO. Therefore, as the belief sets in that HSFO demand will be higher, the price also rises, which in turn pushes up Dubai swap value. This trend is also reflected by the Hilo contract for 2020, which measures the differential between HSFO and LSFO in Europe. The value has dipped from around $130 per tonne at the beginning of the year to below $90 per tonne by the end of 2018. Revised forecasts for scrubber investments has helped lift demand forecasts for HSFO in 2020, while actual scrubber installation data has helped negate speculation, which previously contributed to low HSFO pricing. Next year the market will be closely watching OPECs strategy given Qatars decision to leave the group after 57 years. OPEC will have to boost confidence and its reliability, as the US will be forcing the market with trade and political motivation. The outcome of the Iranian sanctions will be much more obvious during the first quarter of 2019. The market will try to find new balance points with only one year left to IMO 2020; however, supply problems in medium and heavy grades will be the major focus point, Sahin concluded. Lime Pictures backed indie Wise Owl Films, that launched this year, has won its first commission. The new four part series for ITV will focus on life on the Tyne and Wear Metro. Metropolis (working title) will follow the stories of the staff, the passengers and the communities whose lives revolve around the rail network. The Metro, which is publicly owned and operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, Nexus, is the second largest light railway system outside London, serving Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead, South Tyneside, North Tyneside and Sunderland and was opened by the Queen in 1980. The Metro carries 36 million passengers per year. Metropolis has been commissioned by Tom Giles, controller of current affairs at ITV. Mark Robinson, Creative Director of Leeds-based Wise Owl Films said: This is the first time that a documentary series has been made on the Tyne and Wear Metro and we feel privileged and excited to be making it. The Metro is an institution and a vital part of everyday life in the North East of England. On every train, on every journey and on every platform there are human stories for us to tell. Tom Giles, ITV Controller of Current Affairs, said: "Were delighted to be working with Wise Owl on a series steeped in the culture and people of the North-East the first time this level of access has been given to a unique network, one of the regions best-loved feats of modern engineering" Share this story if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Beata Stoczynska (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 13:16 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e24838d 3 Opinion climate-change,environmental-issues,Poland,Indonesia,maritime-affairs-and-fisheries-ministry,global-warming Free Somewhere in the world is a place where our future is being decided: In Poland, where the Katowice Climate Change Conference is well underway. It has brought together 30,000 delegates from 195 countries. Among them is a respectable Indonesian delegation of almost 600 government officials and state legislators, scholars, businessmen and journalists, with four ministers at the helm. Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti N. Bakar, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti and National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro are among the leaders negotiating the agreement on the future of our planet. The conferences main aim is to adopt a package of guidelines to implement the Paris Agreement work program, which will manage emission cuts starting in 2020. Multilateral climate negotiations have always been difficult, because of the political and economic interests of various players that are at stake. The Polish presidency is going out of its way to ensure that the final package takes into account all issues. Apart from this, the Katowice conference also pertains to the political phase of the Talanoa Dialogue, which brings together civil society, governments and companies. The Polish presidency aims to lend its political weight to three themes that are key to successful climate action: technology, nature and people. A separate ministerial declaration will be adopted on each of these themes; Indonesia is supporting all of them. But it is vital to lead not by declarations only, but rather by example. Here, Poland is doing its part. In technology, Poland is making efforts to introduce low-emission public transport. In 2018, our government introduced the Clean Transport Package, a set of laws to popularize low- and zero-emissions vehicles. The domestic industry is catching up with the projected demand. Polish manufacturers are producing electric engines, charging stations and lithium-ion batteries. Indonesia, too, seems interested in joining the electric transport revolution. It has become co-sponsor of the political declaration on electromobilty. Poland is ready to assist Indonesia in the future with the know-how to make public transportation greener. Nature, if left to itself, has an incredible ability to correct human mistakes. Forests, in particular, are filters that absorb greenhouse gases. They need to be managed in a sustainable way. Poland leads in this respect, planting 500 million trees annually. It has also introduced the Forest Coal Farms project, which aims to achieve balance between emissions and CO2 absorption by innovative forest management solutions. Finally, there is the human dimension that cannot be overlooked in the fight against climate change. A natural consequence of the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement is groundbreaking technological changes. This will disrupt many high-emission industries and cause the loss of jobs. It is instrumental that the people affected are retrained and are given new jobs in newly created clean sectors. A just and fair transition to a greener future is needed to ensure sustainable trust in the climate action. Poland makes the point that green transition is not only necessary, but also achievable. Katowice, the conference venue and the center of coal excavation, is an example of such successful transition. Only 30 years ago, factory smokestacks were an integral part of the cityscape. Today, Katowice is one of Polands greenest cities, with forests covering over 40 percent of the city area. This proves that change is possible. To save our planet, the change simply needs to be more sustained and communal; that is, implemented by all countries. I am sure Indonesia treats this challenge seriously and is ready to join. *** The writer is the Polish Ambassador to Indonesia. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin I Made Andi Arsana (The Jakarta Post) Yogyakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 More than six decades after the historic Djuanda Declaration that forever changed Indonesias territorial and maritime jurisdiction, muchhas taken place in the country regarding ocean affairs and the law of the sea. On Oct. 29 and 30, Indonesia hosted one of the biggest conferences in ocean affairs, the Our Ocean Conference, in Bali. This conference recognized Indonesias role and leadership in dealing with global ocean affairs and the law of the sea. Unsurprising- ly, Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country, the territory and jurisdiction of which is predominantly ocean. Indonesia then organized an event for Archipelagic and Island States in Manado, North Sulawesi. The two successive events constituted a big responsibility that required a lot of resources from Indonesia. They also confirmed the trust that the international community put in Indonesia. They also demonstrated global acknowledgement of Indonesias leadership in ocean affairs. It is worth looking back to understand Indonesias leadership in ocean affairs. Indonesia is among pioneers of the archipelagic principle that has now been adopted in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982. It all started on Dec. 13, 1957, when prime minister Djuanda Kartawidjaja issued the Djuanda Declaration stating that ocean space among the islands of Indonesia was regarded as an inseparable part of Indonesias sovereignty. It was in line with the view of then-president Sukarno regarding his view on Indonesias territory and jurisdiction. We have a song that goes our ancestors were sailors. The Djuanda declaration was the seed of the principle of an archipelagic state and considered an unprecedented breakthrough, which sparked different reactions from the international community. In short, in the making of the current international law of the sea, Indonesias contribution and leadership is well acknowledged globally. During Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahids presidency, Indonesia made an unparalleled step by establishing the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry. After the fall of Gus Dur, successor Megawati Soekarnoputri maintained the ministry. Thanks to the two leaders, the ministry plays important roles in managing ocean spaces and resources. During the administration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), Indonesias leadership in marine affairs was acknowledged through, among other things, the establishment of the Coral Triangle Initiative involving six countries in the region. These countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor Leste, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands agreed to collaborate in managing coral resources for sustainable utilization. The word triangle is used for the coverage of coral resources which resembles a triangle, covering the above six countries. The seventh president, Joko Jokowi Widodo, in partnership with Vice President Jusuf Kalla, came up with a vision called the Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF). This envisages Indonesia as a global player in ocean affairs and the law of the sea issues. Two main objectives of the GMF are to ensure utilization and management of ocean resources for prosperity and to put Indonesia as a global reference for ocean affairs. For the first time in history, maritime affairs are taken care of by a coordinating minister established by the Jokowi administration. The GMF vision has now been translated into a more operational National Ocean Policy, promulgated through Presidential Regulation No. 16/2017. The document covers seven pillars with 76 main policies that ideally become the main guidelines for ocean management in Indonesia. It is unprecedented since it is the first official document regarding national ocean policy, which came only 72 years after independence. Now the challenge Indonesia faces is different from the one faced by Djuanda and his generation. Good education and awareness are pivotal for a better management of our vast ocean space and resources. With over 4,000 higher education institutions, marine affairs should color our education better. Universities do not necessarily need to establish schools of marine affairs and fisheries or anything alike but ensuring contents and context of marine affairs in every discipline is a must. We need to revisit the curriculum to ensure this inclusion. Now, six decades after the historic maritime ambitions, Indonesia needs to continue its leadership in ocean affairs and the law of the sea. It is important to send a clear message that not only our ancestors, we too are sailors. *** The writer is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Geodetic Engineering, Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, He is a member of the Indonesian delegation for the 4th Indonesia-Austraia Dialogue on April 8 to 10 in Sydney. The views expressed are his own. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Bambang Darmono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 The massacre of civilians, who were state-owned construction company PT Istaka Karya workers, in the Papua highland regency of Nduga on Dec. 2 was a despicable and inhumane act. Not only has the act of killing, for which the National Liberation Army of West Papua-Free Papua Movement (TPNPB-OPM) has claimed responsibility, sparked fears, it has also harmed the established doctrine of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police. Because of the loss of 17 innocent lives in the attack, we should not only offer condolences, but also demand the government take its responsibility and assume its duty as mandated by the Constitution, which stipulates that the state shall protect all citizens. The latest killing in Nduga shows the governments failure to bear its constitutional mandate. It was evinced in the fact that the armed group committed manslaughter at will and without fear. Furthermore, the crime might have remained unknown had all the victims been dead. The incident only shows that the region has actually been controlled by the armed group instead of the law enforcers. The question is whether it occurred because of tactical or technical errors. Or purely because of ignorance? A joint team of the TNI and the National Police was deployed in a rescue operation following the attack. The team is also hunting down members of the armed group. The next question is whether the TNI or police were in charge of security in the region before the massacre occurred. This needs an immediate answer so as to avoid a blame game, which commonly follows an incident. Furthermore, the polices reference to the perpetrators of the killings as an armed criminal group has sparked another question. Based on pictures of the group members, which have circulated in social media, can we conclude they are simply criminals? In reality, they affiliate themselves with the separatist group OPM, employ military instruments and control the area that they unilaterally declare as their territory. These facts show the incident was no longer a criminal act. Rather, it is a matter of state sovereignty. If sovereignty is measured by the states positive law, the massacre in Nduga demonstrates that the region is not completely under the auspices of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. Thus, Indonesias sovereignty there is only de jure, but not de facto. In regard to the TNI-police joint operation, the decision was not unprecedented, but such operations do not exist in military doctrine. The 2004 TNI Law recognizes military operations other than war, but if this is the case in Nduga has the Papua military commander received an order to conduct the joint operation? If he has, who gave the order? To date, the person in charge of Papuas security is the Papua Police chief. If the operation is under the polices domain, why should it involve the TNI? The joint operation is said to be an implementation of synergy between the TNI and the police, but a clarification is needed just to ensure which institution carries the responsibility. Clarity is also needed because of circulating rumors of military officers who don police uniforms in the operation in Papua. Nevertheless, the massacre in Nduga cannot be categorized as a criminal act and the perpetrators cannot be classified as a criminal group. Clearly the killing is a threat to Indonesias sovereignty as it was committed a separatist group by use of its military arm. As the groups primary objective is to secede from Indonesia, the incident should be handled by the military. Political authorization, i.e. from President Joko Jokowi Widodo, is therefore needed. The Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 and Protocol Additional II provide guidelines for military operations in certain areas affected by non-international armed conflicts. The government should therefore declare the perpetrators of the killing in Nduga a separatist group and order military operations in areas vulnerable to the group without having to worry about accusations of violating human rights. Counter-separatist measures deserve support, but have to adhere to the prevailing laws. In the case of Nduga, however, is it still relevant to maintain the police as the institution in charge of ensuring security and order? Article 30 paragraph 2 of the Constitution stipulates that state security and defense follows a total defense system with the TNI and National Police serving as the main forces and the people as a supporting force. To implement the provision a law on state defense and security is needed to provide legitimacy for operations now happening in Nduga. The fact that such legislation is absent in the country is a constitutional error that follows the separation of the TNI and the National Police about 20 years ago. Meanwhile, hopes for the House of Representatives to pass the national security bill have faded because of unresolved deadlocks. The massacre in Nduga should raise public awareness of the pressing need of formulating and enacting a specific law on national defense and security that can protect the whole nation, including its citizens, from armed revolts or separatism in the future. *** The writer, a retired Army lieutenant general, is founder of the Institute for Democracy, Security and Strategic Study. He headed the Unit for the Acceleration of Development in Papua and West Papua from 2011 to 2014. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Christopher Yasiejko (Bloomberg) Fri, December 14, 2018 09:09 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e233e16 2 Food Old-Bay,New-Bae,McCormick Free Seafood junkies have been sprinkling Old Bay seasoning on their Chesapeake Bay crab since the 1930s, and the condiment has become a best-selling brand for Sparks, Maryland-based spice giant McCormick & Co. as well as a flavor enhancer in everything from sausages to popcorn to beer. So, McCormick was not amused when an upstart spice maker, Primal Palate LLC, announced in October 2017 that it would start selling a seasoning blend called New Bae. In announcing the new product, Pittsburgh-based Primal admitted the name was a terrible pun intended to promote a bay seasoning using the texting-lingo shorthand for Before Anyone Else. McCormick sued in Maryland federal court in Baltimore on Monday. The company says the New Bae name confuses consumers into thinking the two spices are related, and diminishes the good reputation and value of its Old Bay trademark. "We do not see legal merit to the claims that McCormick has made," Primal Palate said Tuesday in a statement. "Primal Palate understands and respects McCormicks desire to police its trademarks. However, in this instance, there is nothing actionable to police." In April, McCormick sent Primal a cease-and-desist letter over New Bae. A month later, Primals lawyer acknowledged that the smaller company was seeking to piggyback on McCormicks name recognition, according to the complaint. Read also: Ginger, essential spice we can't live without The lawyer said Primal is relatively new to the market and sees McCormick as a foundation of the spice industry, according to McCormick. He added, In choosing the name New Bae, Primal Palate was giving a nod to the impact that the Old Bay seasoning has made on the spice market, McCormick said. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had planned to issue a trademark to Primal Palate until McCormick filed to oppose the registration. A hearing before the agency is likely to be held early next year. McCormick wants New Bae pulled from the U.S. market. It also wants the destruction of all materials bearing the New Bae mark, and cash compensation including Primals profits and damages. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Berlin, Germany Fri, December 14, 2018 14:01 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e249ef3 2 Art & Culture Berlin,Germany,arts,UNESCO,Museum Free Berlin inaugurated a new addition to its UNESCO-listed Museum Island on Thursday, after a construction delay lasting several years and at costs that were twice the budgeted sum. Keys to the James Simon Gallery were finally handed over to Berlin's museum authorities, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Designed by British star architect David Chipperfield, the 4,600 square meters building will be a one-stop entry to the group of five museums on the island. Besides housing a common ticketing point for the museums, the gallery also features a space for temporary exhibitions, a bookstore, an auditorium and a cafe. It will be opened to the public from July next year. Read also: Top 10 most visited museums in the world Michael Eissenhauer, the director of Germany's public museums, called the new building a "gift from the sky". But some Berliners have mocked it as the "world's most expensive cloak room" as building costs exploded to 134 million euros ($151 million), close to twice the budgeted 71 million euros. An UNESCO World Heritage site, the Museum Island is home to precious artifacts including a legendary bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti and Babylon's Ishtar Gate. The group of museums in the heart of Berlin attracts 2.5 million visitors a year. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 14:31 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e24b1e3 1 Art & Culture Memories-of-My-Body,Garin-Nugroho,film,#film,film-screening,UNESCO,#UNESCO,film-director,Indonesian-films Free Indonesian film Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku (Memories of My Body) by celebrated director Garin Nugroho was screened at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris on Thursday. The screening was among the prizes received by the film upon winning the 2018 Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) Cultural Diversity Award under the patronage of UNESCO. Memories of My Body tells the story of a young Lengger dancer transitioning into manhood amid Indonesias social norms. Read also: JAFF celebrates beauty of Asian films The jury described the film as a powerful coming-of-age story of a dancer that is unafraid of traversing multiple artistic expressions and forms to understand and define his individual identity. It is a call for resistance to challenge social and cultural norms through art. A universal tribute to artistic freedom that resonates intimately with each one of us, said the jury in a statement received by The Jakarta Post. Established in 2007, APSA is an award supported by Brisbane City Council, aiming to recognize and promote Asia-Pacific regions cinematic excellence and cultural diversity to a global audience. The award and screening are said to contribute to APSA and UNESCOs common goals in promoting diversity of cultural expression and raising awareness of the value and power of culture and cultural industries at local, national and international levels. (jes/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Fri, December 14, 2018 12:04 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e240c36 2 Entertainment Keith-Richards,The-Rolling-Stones,music,Rolling-Stone Free Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones guitarist whose name is synonymous with excess, says he has virtually given up drinking. "It was time to quit," the 74-year-old Richards told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview. "It's been about a year now," he said. "I pulled the plug on it. I got fed up with it." Richards, who has been arrested several times for drug possession during his legendary hard-partying career, said he still has the occasional glass of wine or a beer but has mostly given up alcohol. "I don't notice any difference really - except for I don't drink," Richards said. Read also: Rolling Stones to restart European tour in May Fellow guitarist Ronnie Wood said Richards is "much more mellow" now that he's given up booze. "He's a pleasure to work with," Wood told Rolling Stone. "He's open to more ideas." "If he's gonna keep it up, I'll be there, full support," Wood said. The Rolling Stones are scheduled to launch a US tour in Miami in April. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jocelyne Zablit (Agence France-Presse) Los Angeles, United States Fri, December 14, 2018 22:02 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e26105c 2 Entertainment Museum,film,united-states,The-Academy-Museum-of-Motion-Pictures,hayao-miyazaki,los-angeles Free Nearly a century after the idea was first floated, a museum dedicated to the magic of cinema is finally set to open in Los Angeles, with the first temporary exhibition devoted to Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, slated to open by the end of 2019, will be devoted to the past, present and future of film, offering visitors a look behind the screen and into how movies are made. "Los Angeles was at one time and still is to some degree one of the major capitals for the production of film... so it seems the natural place to have a major museum to ensure that the legacy of film lives on," said Kerry Brougher, director of the museum, which is the brainchild of the Academy of Picture Arts and Sciences, the institution behind the Oscars. Dorothy's famed ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, a copy of a script annotated by Gregory Peck for the 1962 drama To Kill a Mockingbird, the doors to Rick's Cafe Americain from Casablanca or the typewriter used by Joseph Stefano to write the screenplay to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho are among a trove of objects that will be on display. Read also: 'Wizard of Oz,' Miyazaki to star in LA Motion Picture museum Animation master Miyazaki Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the near $400 million museum will be housed in a historic building -- the Saban Building formerly home to the May Company department store -- and will feature six floors that include exhibition spaces, a cafe, a store, plus a 1,000-seat theater. "The Museum will be a gathering place for film lovers and will invite people from all over the world to re-experience and deepen our collective love of this art form, accessible to all," said Dawn Hudson, CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences." "Like the experience of watching a movie, a trip to the Museum will be a kind of waking dream in which visitors feel as if they've slipped through the screen to see how the magic is created," she added. Several Hollywood A-listers, including Tom Hanks, Annette Bening and Laura Dern, have been involved in the project, hosting fundraising events and drumming up support both at home and abroad. "It's going to be a combination of the Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art and the Hermitage," Hanks told reporters on a recent tour, referring to world-class museums in Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Russia. "Everybody who comes to Los Angeles will want to see what's inside and they will linger for more than just a few hours." The museum will open with a retrospective devoted to Miyazaki, whose animation masterpieces include Princess Mononoke and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. Brougher said that apart from paying tribute to the genius of Miyazaki, the exhibition was also intended to reflect the global scope of the museum. "I wanted to make sure that we came out of the gate with an international figure to show people that this museum isn't going to be just about Hollywood or American cinema," he told AFP. "I was concerned that being in Hollywood and being part of the Academy, the museum might be seen as being too much about Hollywood and the Oscars." Jessica Niebel, curator of the exhibition, said the retrospective, the first of its scope in the United States, will take visitors on a thematic journey through Miyazaki's world and will include more than 200 concept sketches, storyboards and film clips, with the animator himself hopefully launching the exhibit. "Animation plays a big part in the mystery of film and is sometimes overlooked," Niebel told AFP. "And Miyazaki is a genius... and a filmmaker I admire because he is making movies generally about life... and what it means to exist in this world." The retrospective will be followed by an exhibition on the history of African-American filmmakers and their contribution to American cinema. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marcel Thee (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 09:46 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e23709f 4 Entertainment musician,#music,local-musician,folk,Harlan-Boer,album Free Leading up to the release of Bila Lapar Melukis, which roughly means paint when hungry, folk musician Harlan Boer has been presenting songs one by one in a series of intimate solo shows throughout Jakarta. These shows started in Oct. 9 and concluded with a bigger show on Dec. 11 in which he performed the whole album alongside some musician friends. The musician, who is known as Bin to most of his friends and fans, has kept his particular sense of songwriting and delivery intact. The songs on Bila Lapar Melukis present playful and observational lyrics that rest comfortably against Bins whimsical sense of melody and off-kilter delivery. The album title refers to something that the late great Indonesian painter Affandi reportedly used to do. Having read about it in a biography of the painter, Bin was inspired. Each of the 10 songs on the record features a painting as its visual representation each acting as a digital-cover sleeve for the singles digital release. I actually dont know much about the world of painting. As far as art forms go, I follow music more than any other medium. But in every artistic discipline, I have had a great emotional experience. Those experiences definitely influence my songs, either musically or lyrically, Bin explains. He is most intrigued by pieces that feel like they stand apart from the rest, feeling a kinship with the kinds of music he makes and the way he utilizes his limitations to create a form of uniqueness. My skills are limited my vocals, vocabulary, instrumental skills, general knowledge about music and even my recording skills are minimal. But I still aim for them to feel unique and personal. Bila Lapar Melukis arrives just a year after Bins debut album, Operasi Kecil(Small Operation), continuing the musicians prolific streak. He has been a member of numerous big indie bands including The Upstairs and CMon Lennon, as well as managing the popular group Efek Rumah Kaca. As a solo artist, he has consistently released singles both on and offline. He also runs an indie label called Parlente Records. Although he still works a regular job, its clear that Bin has made music a major part of his life. He never wants to miss out on an idea, no matter how miniscule. The expressive language of song and text are close to my daily routine. I often feel like I shouldnt let my inspirations go to waste, which is why I record everything onto my phone, he says. Whenever I feel like theres a really good idea that I have come up with, something that I enjoy, I feel compelled to write it and then go to a studio to record it so that others can hear it. Those inspirations include some biographical books, including the one about Affandi (Creative works are interesting, but whats more interesting is the person behind it.), as well as old Indonesian comedies from the 1970s and 1980s. For Bin, the way those comedies were delivered made it easy for him to grasp the messages they were putting out, similar to what he wants to achieve through his songs. Bin also has the honor of being the first Indonesian exclusive artist featured by the Thai digital platform Fungjai. Every week he introduces a new song; that particular track will be uploaded onto the Fungjai digital app. (The songs would still be released on other digital platforms eventually.) In fact, it was the Fungjai offer that gave Bin the idea to release his record one track a time. My hope is that by releasing things one by one, Ill be able to get the songs across in a more thorough and listenable way. A limited edition CD version of the album is also to have 500 copies pressed through the independent label (and music store) Langensrawa Records. They were one of the first music stores that supported Aubrey Fananis album, which was the first release on Parlente Records, Bin says, explaining the relationship and his comfort with them. The guys from the label are really good, helpful guys. Langensrawa also had distribution spots in places that would reach Bins fan base another plus. For Bin, the album gave him a lot of new insights. First, that it is important to release an album in which each song is equally strong. Every song should be single-worthy, he says. Second, he could relate his own art with his music instead of relying on others to provide the sleeve art and, last, that working with producers would broaden his musical knowledge. I worked with a variety of friends, including Henry Foundation from [electronic trio] Goodnight Electric and Adink Permana, as well as Adi Mamokiak who also helped with my debut. Each of these producers gave me a new insight that would certainly influence my songs in the future. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 16:31 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e254eaf 4 Art & Culture Jokowi,wayang,national-wayang-day,culture Free President Joko Jokowi Widodo has declared Nov. 7 as National Wayang Day. The declaration was made on Dec. 11 during a meeting with Indonesian artists and culture experts at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta. Among the attendees were poet M. Aan Mansyur, historian Bonie Triyana and musician Jaya Suprana. The Education and Culture Ministrys culture director general, Hilmar Farid, was also present at the meeting. He said Jokowi signed a presidential decree regarding the matter in front of the guests, tempo.co reported. Read also: Wayang suket, an almost extinct children's toy Hilmar explained that the decision to declare Nov. 7 as National Wayang Day originated from community proposals. He said this decision would help the community to celebrate and develop wayang. Wayang is one of Indonesias most prized cultural heritages, and has several forms including wayang kulit (leather puppets) and wayang golek (wooden puppets). UNESCO designated wayang kulit as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on Nov. 7, 2003. (iru/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agus Dermawan T. (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 09:21 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e235f9e 4 Art & Culture art-and-culture,painting,reproduction,Painter,Mona-Lisa,counterfeit,painting-exhibition Free Amid frequent painting forgery, a respectable enterprise called reproducing has emerged as a counter movement. The phenomenon was displayed during the launch of book by the Indonesian Fine Art Lovers Association (PPSI), titled Melacak Lukisan Palsu (Tracing Fake Paintings), at the Ciputra Artpreneur in Jakarta. Edited by Syakieb Sungkar, Seno Joko Suyono and Wicaksono Adi, the 242-page book is the latest update after Indonesian Painting Forgery ( 2016 ) and Jejak Lukisan Palsu (Traces of Forged Paintings, 2014). Dozens of paintings were displayed on the occasion, under the curatorial title of Maestros and Their Disciples. It was an interesting exhibition because of the courage to present the reality of adherence in an honest manner. In fact, the painters have always felt they are original. This reality of adherence is something that has been constant through the ages, leading to patronage. Jacopo Bellini, for example, led to the emergence of many disciples in Italy, Rembrandt van Rijn in the Netherlands, Diego Velazquez in Spain, William Turner in Britain and Picasso in the whole world. In Indonesia, Affandi gave rise to many disciples from Kartika and Rukmini to Men Sagan and JB Iwan Sulistyo. Lee Man Fong has had such disciples as Lee Rern and Cheng Sui. Abstract painter Ahmad Sadali has been followed by Umi Daclan and Tintin, and Dullah by Kok Poo, Inanta and a dozen more. This is in spite of the fact that the disciples have finally become independent and boast their existence with their respective standpoints of just following in the maestros footsteps or only being influenced. In the classical fine art discourse the reference as disciples is a respectable one for those regarded as having their own position. At the Louvre Museum in Paris, Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Prado in Madrid, tens of thousands of paintings on display are the works of disciples, who have followed in the footsteps of a number of icons called True Creators. Without the disciples canvases there would be few major museums. The Unesco Courier journal has for 30 years always asserted that galleries in Europe are indeed accentuated by the iconic masterpieces of True Creators but the breath of life inside them as well as as the public space is filled by the thousands of works of disciples. History has given examples of the position of disciples. The works of Frans Hals (1582 to 1666) are displayed in Harlem, Holland and they are accompanied by the paintings of his children; Harmen, Jan, Reinier and Nicolaes. These paintings are precisely the same as those of Frans. The works of Pieter van Roestraen, who is Frans younger brother-in-law, are also similar to those of Frans. The reality of the regenerated style has become the Dutch art communitys special pride, such that the image of Frans Hals is emblazoned on the Dutch guilder. The same is true in the Balinese traditional painting art discourse. Style symmetry: A painting by Dullah (left) and another by Kok Poo, his follower. (-/Agus Dermawan T.) The lighting style of Walter Spies paintings inspired I Gusti Agung Wiranata, Ni Gusti Agung Galuh, I Gusti Agung Kepakisan and Ni Gusti Agung Monalisa. None of them has denied this adherence. Critics and the market have later also wholeheartedly recognized this. However, not only disciples, but reproducers also legitimately deserve their place. During the 1970s in Paris, there was an artist named Antonio Bin and he was a very popular reproducer of Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. Bin was said to be capable of imitating the Mona Lisa down to its details. After finishing 1,000 Mona Lisa paintings, all selling for around US$2,000, the name of Bin entered the Guinness World Records in 1980. Literary man and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, A painter, although imitating, remains a creator. Therefore, the works of reproducers always deserve special appreciation. This is why several international auction houses, including Christies, have opened auctions entitled Copies After Old Master Pictures. The reproduced works have been sold for tens of thousands of dollars per piece. The appreciation for imitated pictures has continued. In 1984 in Italy, the Fondazione dei Falsi dAutore, a foundation managing reproducing specialists, was set up. This institution was led by Prof. Daniele Ermes Donde. Expert reproducers gathered and were grouped according to their specializations. Their works were later taken around the world under the banner of promoter Le Musee Imaginaire with the label Imitation Paintings. The market for reproduced works is remarkable. Those who have no chance of owning original paintings need not be ashamed of possessing their imitations, as long as they are of special quality. Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Roger Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Monegasque royal family have collected reproduced images. Indonesia has also once been visited by a group with such imitations. A number of Indonesian collectors enthusiastically welcomed them. Another thing worthy of note in the context of reproduced works is that the canvases have no imitations of the signatures of their original painters. The backs of the pictures even bear stamps affirming that they are Painting Copies. The moral message of these imitated paintings seems noble: Never be forgers, be reproducers. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 08:36 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e231f96 1 City mass-wedding,New-Year,jakarta Free The city administration will hold a mass wedding on the evening of Dec. 31, a new tradition that began last year. Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said the city had started planning the event three weeks ago. Weve held meetings about the plan. I will announce the details, he said as quoted by tempo.co on Thursday. Jakarta Mental and Spiritual Education Bureau head Hendra Hidayat said that every subdistrict could accommodate three couples to join the program. The administration would prepare the dowry for every couple in the form an Islamic prayer set and Rp 500,000 (US$34) cash. Well hold another meeting on Friday, Hendra said, noting that the event was supported by the Jakarta Muslim Charitable Board (Bazis). The bureau reportedly made a request in September for a budget of Rp 566 million to the Jakarta Council budget committee. The proposal, which was included in the citys 2018 budget, was enough to marry 534 couples. However, the plan was scrapped by the city council. Last year, the Jakarta administration held a mass wedding at Park and Ride Thamrin in Central Jakarta. As many as 437 couples tied the knot that day. Each of them received one gram of gold and savings from Bank Syariah Mandiri. (vla) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Andrew Beatty (Agence France-Presse) Sydney, Australia Fri, December 14, 2018 09:22 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e236b4b 2 World #Australia,#Israel,Australia,warning,citizens,Jerusalem,embassy,move Free Australia on Friday warned citizens to take care while travelling in neighbouring Muslim-majority Indonesia, ahead of an expected but contentious move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce -- as soon as Saturday -- that his government will follow US President Donald Trump's lead and recognise the contested city as Israel's capital. Scores of Australians preparing to jet off to Bali and other tropical island destinations for upcoming summer holidays should "exercise a high degree of caution", the Department of Foreign Affairs warned. Officials in Canberra told AFP they expected the announcement to come on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, but cautioned that events could yet alter those plans. Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. Critics say declaring Jerusalem the capital of either inflames tensions and prejudges the outcome of final status peace talks. Trump's decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv last May prompted tens of thousands of Palestinians to approach the heavily-protected Israeli border fence amid often violent demonstrations. At least 62 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire on the day of the US embassy move. Morrison is expected to stop short of actually shifting Australia's diplomatic corps to the Holy City, amid fears about the cost and security implications. But recognising Jerusalem would help the embattled Australian PM -- who faces the prospect of an election drubbing next year -- with Jewish and conservative Christian voters and win him friends in the White House. His supporters argue Israel has the right to choose its own capital and peace talks are dead in the water, so there is no peace to prejudge. But the move still risks heightening unrest, not least in Australia's immediate neighbour and the world's most populous Muslim nation. - Jakarta protests - Indonesia's government, facing domestic pressure at home, had reacted angrily earlier this year, when Morrison floated the idea of both recognising Jerusalem and moving the Australian embassy there. The issue has put the conclusion of a bilateral trade agreement on hold. In the meantime, Australia's foreign ministry has moved to prepare the ground. "Demonstrations have been held in recent weeks around the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the Australian Consulate-General in Surabaya," it warned in a public notice Friday. "Protests may continue at the Embassy in Jakarta or at any of Australia's Consulates-General in Surabaya, Bali and Makassar," the Department of Foreign Affairs said."Exercise a high degree of caution." Tensions are currently running high between Israel and the Palestinians. At least 235 Palestinians and two Israelis have died during violence in Gaza since March, mostly in border clashes. On Thursday the Israeli army launched raids into the Palestinian city of Ramallah after a Palestinian shot dead two Israeli soldiers at a bus stop in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu vowed to 'legalise' thousands of settlements homes considered unlawfully-built even by Israel. In total six people were killed in the most violent 24 hours to hit the West Bank and Jerusalem in months. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Karo Fri, December 14, 2018 14:54 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e24c01a 1 National orangutan,animal-conservation,Karo,Sinabung,Mount-Sinabung,deforestation Free An 11-month-old male orangutan was found dead by authorities in North Sumatra in a grim scene after it had been held as a pet by a resident who later declared he no longer had the money to nurture the great ape. Officials from the Orangutan Information Center (OIC), Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), the National Police and the Indonesian Military got a tip-off from the public that an orangutan had died in Rih Tengah village of Kutabuluh district, Karo regency. Karo 0205 military district commander Lt. Col. Taufik Rizal confirmed the finding. The team went there on Tuesday and found the remains of what they suspect was the baby orangutan. The body was mostly skeleton, except for the arms. The skull and the [other bones] were found in separate places of the village, said OIC deputy director M. Indra Kurnia. Indra said the baby orangutan had been caught by residents of Bukit Barisan forest in Karo. Later, it was kept by a resident of Rih Tengah village. He claimed that he had kept the baby orangutan for four months, Indra told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. An official from a government team holds what is believed to be the skull of a baby orangutan in Rih Tengah village of Kutabuluh district, Karo regency, North Sumatra. (Tribunnews.com/Tribun Medan) The pet keeper told the police the orangutan had died about two weeks ago and he had buried it near his house, but not long after that, a dog had dug up the grave and eaten the head. Indra said they had reported the death of the orangutan to the police and Environment and Forestry Law Enforcement Department for further investigation. To create a deterrent effect, the owner of the orangutan has to be punished. This is important, so things like this wont happen again, he said. At the end of November, a video with a message about the orangutan circulated in a WhatsApp group of Karo residents. The message said a baby orangutan had been caught near Lau Biang River in Kutabuluh district. Later a video showed a baby orangutan, believed to be the same one, being fed a banana by someone. Initially, it was believed that the baby orangutan had been forced out of the forests along with other animals because of the loss of their habitat, either to illegal logging or volcanic activity at Mt. Sinabung. Panut Hadisiswoyo from the OIC explained in late November that wild animals were entering villages because they were losing their natural habitat to illegal logging and rampant deforestation in the nearby Bukit Barisan mountain range in the regency. The forests are now barren, which is why the animals left the habitat and found food sources in villages, said Panut. Residents of Lau Kawar hamlet, about 10 kilometers from the mountains, claimed they had found a baby orangutan in the Lau Biang River in Kutabuluh district when they were fishing. The male orangutan was reportedly sitting alone on a river stone. This is the first time in decades I have seen many orangutans roaming around villages like this, said local resident Pelin in November. In addition to the orangutans, he said villagers had also encountered other animals, such as deer and wild goats. Later, Pelin said the owner of the baby orangutan was having a hard time feeding the animal. The owner asked if anyone wanted to keep the orangutan, but he asked for some money to replace the money he shelled out over the past four months. The amount he asked was more than Rp 7 million [US$489], said Pelin. Not long after the footage was circulating in WhatsApp groups, there was news that the animal had died. Karo Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Benny R. Hutadjulu said the force had opened an investigation into the death of the orangutan. The 1990 law on natural resources conservation prohibits keeping protected animals as pets. Offenses are punishable with up to five years in prison and Rp 100 million in fines. (evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Beata Stoczynska (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14 2018 Somewhere in the world is a place where our future is being decided: In Poland, where the Katowice Climate Change Conference is well underway. It has brought together 30,000 delegates from 195 countries. Among them is a respectable Indonesian delegation of almost 600 government officials and state legislators, scholars, businessmen and journalists, with four ministers at the helm. Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti N. Bakar, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti and National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro are among the leaders negotiating the agreement on the future of our planet. The conferences main aim is to adopt a package of guidelines to implement the Paris Agreement work program, which will manage emission cuts starting in 2020. Multilateral climate negotiations have always been difficult, because of the political and economic interests of various players that are at stake. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 21:14 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e2602aa 1 Business tanjung-lesung,Banten,investment,China Free Tanjung Lesung Beach, one of the destinations branded a new Bali by the central government, in Banten province on the western tip of Java, has received an investment commitment of US$1 billion from a Chinese investor to upgrade tourism facilities in the area. The commitment was stipulated in a letter of intent (LoI) between Yunnan Ice Sea Investment Group president director Wei Xiao Lin and Jababeka Budianto president director Budianto Liman during an investment, trade and tourism forum in Beijing on Friday. The document exchange was witnessed by Tourism Minister Arief Yahya and Indonesian Ambassador to China Djauhari Oratmangun. Tanjung Lesung is one of 10 destinations branded as New Balis, for which the government has set an investment target of $35 billion by 2024. Arief said that in the last four years, $12 billion had been invested to develop tourism infrastructure and facilities. We still need $23 billion more in capital injection to develop our tourism sector by developing hotels, restaurants, recreation parks, seaports and other facilities, Minister Arief said as quoted by Antara news agency. He said China had been the largest contributor to tourist arrivals in the last three years. He added that in 2017, Indonesia had welcomed 1.97 million Chinese tourists, an increase of 35.7 percent compared to 2016. He said in 2018, the government targeted 17 million tourist arrivals, 2.6 million of which were expected to come from China. He added that from January to October, the country had welcomed 1.87 million tourists from China. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 18:42 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e25ad62 1 City flood,Bekasi,river,embankment,collapse Free A river embankment by the Cahaya Kemang Permai housing complex in Jatikramat subdistrict, Bekasi, West Java collapsed after heavy rain hit the city on Thursday evening, resulting in flooding in the residential area. The embankment, 2 meters tall and 15 centimeters thick, was unable to hold back the waters of the swollen Jatikramat River. "The collapse happened during the Maghrib prayer time [at about 6 p.m.], while it was raining heavily," resident Jasmun said on Friday, as reported by tempo.co. Jasmun said the collapse let water inundate people's homes, with water levels reaching 70 cm high. Residents were worried the collapse would lead to even more severe flooding. He said the collapse began as the water volume in the river increased significantly. The 12-meter-long embankment had to endure greater pressure as a bridge between two residential areas partially blocked the flow of water. A number of residents said the embankment wall had been made higher a few months earlier as the water volume of the river had kept increasing. Bekasi Disaster Mitigation Agency deputy head Karsono confirmed that floods had hit some residents' homes along the Jatikramat River because of the heavy rain on Thursday. (ars) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14 2018 The Jakarta Police have arrested four suspects over a recent case of alleged battery against two Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel, but investigation into a mob attack against the Ciracas Police in East Jakarta has stalled. Two of the suspects, parking attendants identified only as AP, 32, and HP, 28, were arrested on Wednesday while the other two suspects, husband and wife IH and SR, were arrested on Thursday. One suspect is still at large, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said. The suspects are being charged with assault, he told reporters at the Jakarta Police headquarters on Thursday, adding that the suspects allegedly violated articles 170 and 351 of the Criminal Code. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marc Antoine Badoux and Adam Plowright in Paris (Agence France-Presse) Strasbourg, France Fri, December 14, 2018 08:15 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e231291 2 World #France,#shooting,police,kills,strasbourg-christmas-market,gunman Free The gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg was shot dead by French police on Thursday as the Islamic State jihadist group claimed him as one of its "soldiers". More than 700 French security forces had been hunting for 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt since the bloodshed on Tuesday night -- the latest in a string of jihadist attacks to rock France. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said three police tried to question Chekatt after spotting him "wandering" through the streets in the Neudorf area of the northeastern French city where he grew up, but he opened fire. "They immediately returned fire and neutralised the assailant," Castaner said. People gathered at the police cordon where Chekatt was shot and applauded, some shouting "bravo!", a source said. The propaganda wing of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack. The perpetrator of "the attack in the city of Strasbourg... is one of the soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition" against IS, the Amaq agency said in a message posted on Twitter. Chekatt, who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. France has been hit by a wave of attacks from people claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group since 2015, which have claimed the lives of nearly 250 people, according to an AFP toll. It is also not the first time a Christmas market has been targeted in Europe. In 2016, a jihadist attacked a Christmas market in Berlin and went on the run through the Netherlands and France before being shot and killed three days later in northern Italy. Defiant officials insisted the Strasbourg market would reopen as usual on Friday. - Career criminal - Chekatt was believed to have been wounded after exchanging fire with soldiers during the attack, but managed to escape and had not been seen since fleeing the attack on Tuesday. Police in several other countries had joined the hunt for the career criminal with at least 27 convictions in four European states. Officers who had already detained Chekatt's parents and two brothers on Wednesday took a fifth person into custody for questioning on Thursday. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed "the solidarity of the whole country" towards the victims. "It is not only France that has been hit... but a great European city as well," he added, referring to the seat of the European parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany. Strasbourg's location in the heart of western Europe means that Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg can be easily reached by car or train, making the search for Chekatt more complicated. Swiss police had reinforced border checks, while German authorities also widely published the photo of the suspect, which showed him with dark hair, a short beard and a mark on his forehead. - Plea to 'yellow vests' - As police hunted Chekatt, the French government urged "yellow vest" protesters angry over French economic reforms not to hold another round of demonstrations this weekend, given the strain on the country's security forces. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux called on the anti-government protesters to be "reasonable" after nearly four weeks of often violent demonstrations that have led the government to offer a range of financial relief to low earners. "Our security forces have been deployed extensively these past few weeks," Griveaux told CNews television. "It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again," he added. The "yellow vest" protesters, known for their fluorescent high-visibility jackets, had called for a fifth round of protests this Saturday. The protests began on November 17 over fuel tax increases, but snowballed into a revolt over living standards as well as Macron's perceived indifference to the problems of ordinary citizens. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 09:36 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e236f9a 4 Business Garuda-Indonesia,Kertajati-Airport-Majalengka-WestJava,routes Free Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia plans to open more routes from Kertajati International Airport in Majalengka, West Java, this month. Gada Indonesia service director Nicodemus P. Lampe said the airline would start the Kertajati-Tanjung Karang (Lampung)-Palembang (South Sumatra) route on Dec. 18 and the Kertajati-Balikpapan (East Kalimantan)-Tarakan (North Kalimantan) on Dec. 21. Nicodemus said the opening of the new routes was in line with the airlines commitment to support the governments effort to improve connectivity, particularly from West Java to the other regions in the country. The new routes are expected also to support the economic acceleration in the eastern part of West Java, he said in a press statement issued on Wednesday. He expressed his optimism about the business potentials of the routes because Kertajadi airport was surrounded by cities with various industries like Cirebon and Sumedang as well as Bandung, which is known as a shopping destination. The Kertajati-Tanjung Karang-Palembang route would be served by ATR 72-600 planes with a capacity of 70 passengers that flies three times in a week --- Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Meanwhile, the Kertajati-Balikpapan-Tarakan route would be served by Bombardier CRJ1000 Nextgen with the capacity of 96 passengers and flies twice a week. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 19:29 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e25cefa 1 City integration,payment,MRT-Jakarta,LRT,transjakarta Free The Jakarta administration is currently preparing an integrated payment card to be used on the MRT, light rail transit (LRT) and Transjakarta bus systems. The head of Jakarta's economic bureau, Sri Haryati, said charges would be paid through an electronic fare collection (EFC) system. To support the integration, which is expected to comprise not only payments but also management, the administration is to establish a joint venture involving the three transportation enterprises, namely PT MRT Jakarta, PT LRT Jakarta and PT Transjakarta. The payments would be through EFC. We have decided to establish a joint venture, she said on Thursday. She added that the administration had been discussing the draft of a gubernatorial decree about the EFC management. Sri expressed hope that the MRT and LRT fares would be announced soon. The administration has yet to decide the fares for the MRT, which is scheduled to commence operations in March 2019, but the MRT management has suggested they be between Rp 8,500 (57 US cents) and Rp 10,000. Meanwhile, the LRT is also expected to commence operations in 2019. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Semarang Fri, December 14, 2018 10:44 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e23a3ee 1 Politics #2019PresidentialElection,2019-presidential-election,Jokowi,Prabowo-Subianto,Sandiaga-Uno,Indonesian-politics Free Presidential candidates incumbent Joko Jokowi Widodo and contender Prabowo Subianto are stepping up their efforts to claim support in their opponents heartlands, believing that winning on their rivals home turf would guarantee victory. The 2019 presidential election is to be a rematch between the two, making it relatively easier to make calculations based on the results of the 2014 election. The national campaign team of Jokowi and running mate Maruf Amin has expressed its determination to claim support in West Java, Banten and West Sumatra, where Jokowi and Jusuf Kalla lost by landslides to Prabowo and then running mate Hatta Rajasa. Meanwhile, the campaign team of Prabowo and Sandiaga Uno has made it public that it has set its sights on Central Java, known as a long-time stronghold of Jokowis Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Prabowos team has just revealed its key strategy of moving its campaign headquarters to Surakarta, Central Java, the city where Jokowi grew up and rose to prominence as a politician. Jokowi began his political career as the citys mayor. The campaign team of Prabowo-Sandiaga said that it had gained confidence particularly after the Central Java gubernatorial election in June, in which Sudirman Said, who was endorsed by the Prabowo camp, managed to win 41 percent of the vote against 58.7 percent won by Jokowis fellow PDI-P member and incumbent Ganjar Pranowo, in a much closer race than preliminary polls suggested. PDI-P Central Java chapter chairman Bambang Wuryanto welcomed the opponents plan to move its main campaign base to the province, saying the plan had only further boosted their fighting spirit. We established a team called Pandu Juang five years ago, which managed to help Ganjar win. They are stronger than ever to fight now. We are on fire, he said. Over 27.5 million eligible voters are slated to cast ballots across Central Java, the third-largest constituency after West Java and East Java. Both Jokowi and Prabowo must first make sure they are safe in their respective strongholds before moving on to the [less safe] yellow and red zones, political observer Ari Nurcahyo of think-tank Para Syndicate told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. In the 2014 election, Jokowi only won four out of 26 cities and regencies in West Java, securing 40 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, Prabowo won nearly 60 percent of the vote in 22 cities and regencies. Jokowi won 66.7 percent in East Java compared to 33 percent won by Prabowo. Ari said that in 2019, the two tickets would have an equal chance to win votes in the rivals stronghold as long as they knew the key issues to address. Political analyst from pollster KedaiKopi Hendri Satrio emphasized that each ticket should know what to sell in the rivals home turf. Prabowo-Sandiaga can start with economic issues, such as high prices, unemployement and so on, while Jokowi can promote his achievements during his first term, Hendri said. To date, there were 23 leaders of cities and regencies in West Java who had declared support for Jokowi, according to Dedi Mulyadi, the head of the Jokowi-Maruf campaign team in the province. We set a 60 percent target in West Java. The political map is changing now. Jokowi is getting even more support now, including from Bandung and Tasikmalaya, he said. Jokowi-Maruf campaign team secretary Abdy Yuhana claimed that Prabowo won West Java in 2014 as the province was led by Ahmad Heryawan, a member of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Prabowos Gerindra Partys closest ally. The province is currently led by Ridwan Kamil, the former Bandung mayor who was endorsed by Jokowis coalition. West Java is home to 32.6 million out of 185 million eligible voters. Meanwhile, Prabowos campaign team spokesman Suhud Aliyudin said that Sandiaga would focus his campaign on attracting millenial voters in East Java. To date, Sandiaga has visited 818 cities and regencies in East Java, including Surakarta. This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Dec. 14, 2018, with the title "Jokowi, Prabowo gamble on winning rivals home turf". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 12:44 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e241f5d 1 City Christmas,New-Year,Train,KAI,addition Free State-owned railway operator PT KAI will add 19 train trips to its schedule over the holiday season in anticipation of increased demand for Christmas and New Years Eve. In addition to the 60 regular train trips over the period of Dec. 20 to January 7, there would be 12 more trips from Gambir Station and seven from Pasar Senen Station in Central Jakarta, said Dadan Rudiansyah, PT KAIs executive vice president of operations in the companys Jakarta 1 region. This years addition is 9 percent higher than last year's Christmas and New Years Eve addition, Dadan said on Thursday, as quoted by kompas.com. A total of 5 facultative trips and 14 supplementary trips with 10,470 seats will operate from Dec. 20 to Jan. 7. Meanwhile, the operation of the Brantas Tambahan and Mataram Premium trains commenced on Thursday. Compared to last year, Dadan said, the number of passengers during Christmas and New Year was predicted to increase around 5 percent or 1,216,442. KAI would also tighten security at the Gambir and Pasar Senen train stations with 1,062 internal and external security personnel, which also included a police dog unit, Dadan said. (mai) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 18:51 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e25b485 1 City assault,attack,TNI,parking-attendant,East-Jakarta Free The Jakarta Police arrested on Thursday night a man, identified only as D, 35, who is the last of the five suspects in an assault on two Indonesian military personnel in Cibubur, East Jakarta that had led a mob to ransack Ciracas Police station on Tuesday night until Wednesday dawn. Aside from D, the police have also arrested four other suspects, namely AP, 32, and HP, 28, on Wednesday, and husband and wife IH, 31, and SR, 23, on Thursday. The four men are parking attendants at Arundina minimarket in Cibubur, Ciracas, East Jakarta. "Based on the investigation, there won't be any additional suspects," Jakarta Police spokesman, Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said on Friday. The assault occurred following a quarrel between HP and Navy captain Komaruddin in the parking lot of Arundina. Komaruddin was fixing the muffler of his motorcycle when HP accidentally hit the captain's head with the motorcycles handlebars as HP was trying to move it. A quarrel between the two led HP and his four friends to attack Komaruddin and later also Private First Class Rivo Nanda, who happened to pass by and initially tried to calm the situation. The assault allegedly led a mob of some 100 unidentified men to raze Ciracas Police station in East Jakarta on Tuesday night until 1:30 a.m. the following day. It was alleged that the mob comprised military personnel. The mob, unsatisfied that the police had not arrested the attackers in the battery case, ransacked the building and damaged parked vehicles. They also beat up police officers on duty, including Ciracas Police chief Comr. Agus Widartono. (sau/ars) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Batam, Riau Islands Fri, December 14, 2018 12:46 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e242aaf 1 Business Batam,Status,DarminNasution,mayor,comments Free The central government has made a change to the status of the Batam Industrial Development Authority (BP Batam) that has sparked speculation about a disbandment of the authority, which Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution denied. Under the policy announced on Wednesday, Darmin said the authority was now under the control of the Batam mayor. Muhammad Rudi, the current mayor, welcomed the central governments decision but declined to comment further. I dont want to speculate, because I have no basis of reference on [the matter]. There is no document yet. Therefore, I will not comment on it. I did not know about the decision [beforehand], Rudi said on Thursday, adding that he had not been invited to the State Palace in Jakarta when the issue was discussed by the central government. Once everything is clear, I will comment. Established in 1978, BP Batam, which was initially known as the Batam Authority, was the first free-trade zone (FTZ) in Indonesia. Darmin previously said that President Joko Jokowi Widodo had introduced the new policy to end the dualism in the leadership of Batam, namely under BP Batam and the Batam mayoral administration. It is the only way [to end the dualism], Darmin said on Wednesday, adding that under the new policy, the status of Batam as an FTZ was still in place. Rudi said he had long thought of how to manage Batam effectively. He had proposed changing the FTZ into another special economic area (KEK), of which the central government has founded numerous across the country. That idea, however, did not go down well with businesspeople on the island, who feared the change would weaken the competitiveness of products manufactured on the island by increasing red tape. Rudi said he had long considered scrapping the annual fees to be paid by Batam residents, known as the annual mandatory fees for the Batam Authority (UWTO) ruled under BP Batam. I feel sorry for the people who have houses in Batam, because they are required to pay the UWTO. Such fees should not target the residential areas, Rudi said, adding that paying such a fee was no problem for investors but too much of a burden for Batam residents. Meanwhile, BP Batam head Lukita Dinasyrah Tuwo did not comment on the governments new policy on Batam. The leadership dualism has caused problem because of overlapping authority between the mayoral administration and BP Batam. It has also long confused investors. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 16:36 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e255237 1 Business Alipay,WeChat,BI,payment-service-providers Free Bank Indonesia has said Chinas WeChat Pay and Alipay as well as other foreign payment platforms can set up shop in Indonesia, but they are only allowed to target foreign tourists payment transactions. To be able to operate in the country, the central bank requires foreign platforms to cooperate with local banks that have core capital of more than Rp 30 trillion (US$2.06 billion). All global players can bring their payment instruments to Indonesia, but they are only allowed to target transactions of foreign tourists, said BI payment system policy department head Onny Widjanarko in Jakarta on Friday as quoted by kontan.co.id. He added that the requirement for WeChat, Alipay and other foreign payment platforms to cooperate with domestic players was stipulated in two BI regulations on electronic money and the payment transaction process. Onny said WeChat and Alipay were in the process of cooperating with a local bank, either state-owned lender PT Bank Negara Indonesia (BN) or privately owned lender PT Bank Central Asia (BCA). With cooperation from local banks, the transactions were expected to be in rupiah and were well-recorded, he said, adding that local banks would also benefit. WeChat and Alipay could directly cooperate with merchant aggregators like Alto Hallo Digital Indonesia (AHDI) and if the latter wants to cooperate with foreign payment providers they are required to do so with large banks. He said starting in January, BI would inform merchants and hotels in tourist destinations about the regulations, particularly Bali, where most Chinese tourists spend their holidays. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Rachmadea Aisyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 14, 2018 08:36 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e232f3c 1 Business Pegatron,investment,Batam,BKPM,thomas-lembong Free The government has yet to receive the final word on a US$1 billion investment to build a manufacturing site in Batam, Riau Islands, from China-based Pegatron Corp., a major assembler of Apple iPhones. Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) head Thomas Trikasih Lembong said on Thursday that President Joko Jokowi Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla had acknowledged the investment plan during a recent cabinet meeting. However, the government would still need to compete with its neighbors, such as Vietnam and Thailand, to secure the investment, Thomas said, adding that the planned investment was part of the impact of the ongoing trade war. This is an example of an [investment] potential as an impact of the trade war between the United States and China, Thomas told reporters on the sidelines of a World Bank seminar in Jakarta. [However], if we are offering less incentives than our competitors, it is likely we will see smaller or even no investment [from Pegatron]. On Dec. 3, listed electronics manufacturer PT Sat Nusapersada announced its partnership contract with Pegatron to assemble various electronic products that would be exported to the US. The tariff war between the two economic giants had prompted many companies, including Pegatron, to leave China and enter ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, Sat Nusapersada president director Abidin Fan was quoted as saying in a statement published by the Indonesia Stock Exchange. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Chicago, United States Fri, December 14, 2018 11:00 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e23b6e9 2 World #USA,#MurderCase,victims,serial-killer Free US investigators have so far confirmed that a 78-year-old drifter -- who could potentially be the most prolific serial killer in American history -- is responsible for more than 40 murders, authorities said Thursday. Samuel Little has confessed to 90 murders committed between 1970 and 2005, targeting mainly drug addicts and prostitutes across the country, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Bobby Bland -- the district attorney in Ector County, Texas, where Little was being held on a murder charge -- announced Thursday that at least six more of his confessions have been verified over the last two weeks, bringing the total number of confirmed killings to more than 40. "He's talking about things, cases that happened up to 50 years ago, and he's giving details on all these different murders, and none of the statements he's made have proven to be false," Bland told AFP. His office also announced that Little had pleaded guilty to the 1994 murder of Denise Christie Brothers in Odessa -- the case that initially led to his extradition to Texas and spurred him to confess. The FBI has been working with federal, state and local agencies to match Little's confessions to unsolved murders across the country. The agency said in an earlier report that Little "remembers his victims and the killings in great detail." If all 90 confessions are confirmed, Little would be the deadliest known US serial killer. Little admitted to the Texas murder after Bland agreed to waive the death penalty in that case, a concession made "to gain his trust," the prosecutor told AFP. The septuagenarian was to be transferred back to California, where he was already serving a life sentence for three murders. The former boxer also known as Samuel McDowell was first arrested at a homeless shelter in Kentucky in 2012 and extradited to California to face drug charges. Once there, DNA evidence linked him to three cold cases and he was convicted in 2014 of murdering three women in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1989. All three had been beaten and strangled. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Sydney, Australia Fri, December 14, 2018 09:50 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e23712e 2 Sports #Australia,#sports,National,rugby,sex-scandal Free Australia's National Rugby League was reeling from yet another scandal Friday with St George Illawarra Dragon's Jack de Belin charged with sexual assault. The forward, who has played for New South Wales in the State of Origin, was bailed over an alleged late-night incident with a young woman last weekend. The 27-year-old is due to appear in court on February 12. "The club is taking the matter very seriously and have been working with Jack and all relevant authorities, including the police and the NRL Integrity Unit," St George said in a statement. "Jack has been provided with welfare support to enable him the time and opportunity to deal with the matter." It is yet another off-field headache for the sport which has spent years trying to change its reputation for bad behaviour after a series of scandals. This year has been blighted by incidents, with a string of players getting into trouble. High-profile star Jarryd Hayne, who is currently without a club, was also recently charged with sexual assault while earlier this week Manly's Dylan Walker pleaded not guilty to domestic violence. In September, two Canterbury Bulldogs players were charged with obscene exposure after being pictured vomiting and stripping naked at a pub. And in November, new Australia skipper Greg Inglis was suspended for two games after being caught allegedly drink-driving just hours after his appointment. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Thomas Urbain (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Fri, December 14, 2018 08:48 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e233c70 2 World #USA,#politics,DonaldTrump,ally,publisher,sex-scandal,payment Free For two decades, Donald Trump could count on the backing of his close friend David Pecker, publisher of the tabloid the National Enquirer. No longer. Faced with possible criminal charges, his former ally is cooperating with federal prosecutors examining payments made to suppress negative stories about Trump. The legal imbroglio has brought an abrupt end to a longtime friendship between two colorful New York personalities -- the boastful real estate tycoon and the dapper, mustachioed media baron. Unlike Trump, scion of a property magnate, 67-year-old Pecker is a self-made man, the son of a bricklayer. Trump, with his flair for self-promotion, has long cultivated friendships with media personalities -- he has expressed his admiration for Rupert Murdoch on numerous occasions -- and Pecker was among them. In 1998, as chief executive of Hachette Filipacchi, Pecker began publishing an in-house promotional magazine for Trump called Trump Style. Pecker took control the next year of American Media Inc. (AMI), publisher of the National Enquirer and a slew of other titles. Over the years, the National Enquirer faithfully chronicled the ups and downs of Trump's love life and business dealings. - 'Catch and kill' - During the 2016 presidential election, the Enquirer was one of the few media outlets to endorse Trump and it ran a steady stream of negative stories about his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Like other print publications, the National Enquirer has lost hundreds of thousands of readers over the years but it retains a prominent place at supermarket checkout counters. "The National Enquirer reaches that base, Trump's base," Stu Zakim, a former AMI senior vice president, told CNN. Alongside its fawning coverage of Trump, the Enquirer was also allegedly involved in a practice called "catch and kill" -- buying negative stories about him to ensure they did not get published elsewhere -- or at all. It was this practice which allegedly led Trump and Pecker's AMI -- like Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen -- to run afoul of campaign finance laws. According to federal prosecutors, AMI paid $150,000 to a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who was going to go public during the election campaign with her claim to have had an affair with Trump. Prosecutors said AMI made the payment at the request of Cohen, Trump's attorney, who was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday. Among the crimes Cohen admitted was arranging the hush money payment to McDougal and another, of $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who also claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Trump. - 'A survivor' - The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said that in exchange for AMI's cooperation it had entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the company. "As a part of the agreement, AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election," the US Attorney's office said. Trump has sought to pin the blame on Cohen, saying he never instructed him to break the law. Trump has also insisted that the hush money payments should not be characterized as campaign contributions saying they were a "simple private transaction." The president also cast doubt on Thursday as to whether AMI ever received any money from Cohen. "I don't think we made a payment to that tabloid," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. According to US media, Pecker himself has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation. Which is no surprise to Zakim, his former colleague. "David Pecker looks out for David Pecker," Zakim told MSNBC in an interview. "So clearly the signs were saying to him -- time to take care of yourself. "David is a survivor." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Hong Kong, China Fri, December 14, 2018 14:20 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e24ad69 2 SE Asia #SoutheastAsia,#Vietnam,Mekong-river,China,bachelors,Vietnam,brides Free Divorced, in his 40s and fearing a solitary future, Zhou Xinsen went online like thousands of other Chinese men to find an affordable and fast solution to bachelordom -- a Vietnamese bride. He was among millions of his gender struggling on the sidelines of China's ultra competitive marriage market, where a decades-long one-child policy and sex-selective abortions of daughters has resulted in a massive gender gap. "It's very hard for people my age to find a Chinese wife," 41-year-old Zhou says. Single men, many in remote rural villages, are known as "bare branches", a pejorative term in a country where pressure to marry and extend the family tree is sharp. Running out of time, Zhou forked out nearly $20,000 to find his second wife -- a 26-year-old from Vietnam who he relocated to Jiangsu province. "For people my age, time is bought with money." Having fixed his romantic quandary, Zhou then opened his own match-making business, taking a small slice from China's multi-million-dollar annual trade in overseas brides. He charges around 120,000 yuan ($17,400) to connect Chinese men with Vietnamese brides via his website, which shows photos of women aged 20-35 "waiting to be married". It's "profitable", he says, remaining coy on the amount of money he has made. A portion of the money from matches is meant to be funnelled back to families in poor Mekong area countries. While many unions flourish, others quickly lurch into crisis with women disappointed at swapping village poverty in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar for life in rural China. China's single men are often older, divorced, disabled or too poor to pay the traditional "bride price" -- a dowry in gifts or cash -- for a Chinese wife. Those costs rose to between $22,000-29,000 in parts of the country last year, according to state media. Problems start when the brides feel duped about what they are getting into, says Zhou, who sends a monthly remittance to his wife's family of $175 as a show of goodwill. "This is nothing to us, but for them it's lifesaving," he adds. - Family business - Chinese men face a barrage of economic, psychological and cultural pressures to find a wife, says Jiang Quanbao, a Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University's Institute for Population and Development Studies. "Marriage is not only a personal matter, it concerns an entire family... especially the parents," Jiang told AFP. As women -- especially in the cities -- push back marriage while they work, study and enjoy single life, China's villages are fast losing their female population. Sons left unmarried become an issue of family "face" in tight village communities, says Jiang. That crushing social expectation has driven a grim trade in brides. Increasing numbers of women -- and teenage girls -- from neighbouring countries are kidnapped, tricked or forced into marriage, according to several rescue groups across the Mekong who spoke to AFP. "Buying a woman who has been kidnapped becomes a kind of hopeless choice," Jiang adds. Last year Chinese police rescued women sold into forced marriages in Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, as the buy-a-bride trade billows out to the eastern provinces. - Crime and deception - Under Chinese law, the abduction and trafficking of women or children is punishable by five to ten years jail. But critics say the law needs updating as the trade surges. "It's extremely profitable and there's no incentive at all for traffickers to stop," Mimi Vu of the Vietnam-based Pacific Links Foundation, which works to prevent human trafficking. "The demand is there and the money, the profit is there to be made." Beijing switched from a one-child to a two-child policy in 2016, but experts say it may take decades to see a rise in the number of women of marriage age. That means the bride trade is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. Zhou describes his work as "a public service" in a country where there are 33 million fewer women than men. But the outcomes for Chinese men are often far from perfect, with money warping motives throughout the system. Cautionary tales -- of dodgy brokers, trafficked women and brides pocketing money then fleeing -- abound on Chinese social media as the market widens. "It is an industry, and many of them (marriages) are fraudulent," one Weibo user wrote recently. "It's time the government takes care of this business." Another man in Hubei told state media he paid a broker $8,700 to meet a young Vietnamese woman who left him after three months, later aborting their baby as she went on the lookout for another husband. "Now I have neither a wife nor the money," he told the Chutian Metropolis Daily. "I'm a laughing stock in the village." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Banyuwangi, East Java Fri, December 14, 2018 16:18 1081 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e252353 1 News citilink,Citilink-Banyuwangi-Kuala-Lumpur,travel Free National flag carrier Garuda Indonesias low-cost subsidiary, Citilink, is slated to open a Kuala Lumpur-Banyuwangi direct round-trip route on Dec. 19. Kompas.com reported that the approximately three-hour flights would be served by Airbus A-320 with a capacity of 180 passengers. Banyuwangi Transportation Agency secretary Ali Ruchi told kompas.comthat the routes tickets could be purchased online via the carriers official website, citilink.co.id, or directly at Citilink counters. Purchasing through other platforms is possible as well, he added. This route targets Malaysian tourists seeking to enjoy the East Java citys natural attractions, especially the Ijen Crater, according to Banyuwangi Culture and Tourism Office head Bramuda. Because Malaysia has no volcanoes, he explained. Read also: Citilink to open direct route from Jakarta to Labuan Bajo this month Religious Indian Tamil groups, which account for 10 percent of Malaysia's total population, are also this routes specific targets. Agung Blambangan Temple in Muncar and Agung Kawitan Temple in Alas Purwo National Park in the city are very popular among Hindus, Bramuda said. According to its schedule, the Banyuwangi-Kuala Lumpur flight will depart from Banyuwangi at 8:20 a.m. and arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 12:10 p.m. The opposite flight will depart from the Malaysian capital at 1:20 p.m. and arrive at 3:10 p.m. (iru/mut) Unfortunately, The Content Is Not Here You have arrived at this page because the page or post you were looking for no longer exists. Please check our main navigation pages for other content: Home Page remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. MBABANE Disappointing! Since the revelation of the new SADC Public Outreach Song competition, which is offered to all SADC countries, two months ago, no Eswatini artist has joined the competition. SADC is an acronym for Southern African Development Community. In efforts to enhance awareness and visibility of SADCs Objectives and Common Agenda, the SADC Secretariat launched a competition for a public outreach song on SADC where the grand prize is USD4000 (E57 970). The competition calls for submissions of a song from both aspiring and established songwriters or musicians who are citizens of SADC, including Eswatini. memorable The SADC Secretariat said the public music outreach productions are used to establish a brand in a memorable, entertaining, educational and informative way. It is also meant to provide an impact format of relaying information about an organisation or product through music and lyrics because the more one hears a song, the greater the chance it will stick in their mind. The song is intended to promote regional integration on both domestic and external matters that affect the region, the common history and cultural heritage of the Southern African region, as well as portraying a positive overview of SADC, they said. exposure The competition offers exposure and opportunity to artists to have their song played by mainstream radio and television stations across the globe and on multiple online platforms. The winning entry will receive a prize of USD 4000 and the deadline for submission of entries was today but it has been extended to February 29, 2019. Swaziland Arts and Music Association (SWAMA) President Melusi Zox Dlamini applauded SADC for incorporating the music industry in their projects. However, Dlamini confirmed that no one was recorded to have joined the competition and said they were disappointed by the fact that no one was recorded to have taken initiative into joining the competition in the country. We would like to encourage our local artists to take full advantage of this international platform to compete. We are very good at winning things as a kingdom musically. essence If people would look at Dusty and Stones, Sands, Symphony, Mandisa, they will realise that they also won so local artists must understand that they stand an equal chance and they must join and be ready to make us all proud. The council is always ready to support and time is off essence, said Dlamini. More information about the competition can be accessed on the SADC website at https://www.sadc.int/awards/outreach-song. For enquiries, kindly contact the Communication and Public Relations Unit on +267 3951863 or email: prinfo@sadc.int. Sir, Looking at subsistence farming in some of the major economies of the world; it appears what holds the promise for this nation is transforming our subsistence farming into commercial farming. China, one of the biggest producers of maize, having scaled down on soya beans, went down this path, following a 20-year government-sponsored programme aimed at achieving food security. And recently I heard that China increased the import of grain to feed its staggering 1.3bn people; something that I believe presents opportunities to countries in Africa to grow maize/grain on a commercial scale to feed these markets. The world has pumped in billions of Dollars into Africa with nothing to show in enhanced grain production. This prompted me to turn my attention to our situation at home. The State, we understand, has farms around the country that are lying fallow, waiting to be leased and we applaud that decision as this is the only way the land would ever be used. States do not have a good history of doing too well in these endeavours as seen in Zimbabwe where white owned farms were grabbed sending the farmers helter-skelter; and the end result was that the Zimbabwe that was regarded as the food basket of Africa went hungry; and is still hungry today. When it comes to job creation, nothing creates jobs like agriculture has done on a commercial scale. South Africa next door thrives on agri-business with most of the rural populations absorbed there. And there is something our South African counterparts know that I think we dont. I mean the guys practice more dry land farming than we do, relying on rainwater for their maize crops but are able to grow thousands of hectares every year; despite devastating droughts in some years, they never seem to give up. Obviously they take out crop insurance to hedge against crop failure; something that I believe should be encouraged. The comfort of insurance to cover crop failure has to be preached to all farmers including subsistence farmers. That way people would plunge head-long into farming worrying very little about the possibility of loss resulting from drought. As a nation; apart from the commendable work that the Ministry of Agriculture is doing in terms of training, we must consider creating an agriculture-specific guarantee fund that farmers who want to go the enterprise farming route can tap into. Again the ministry must get its act together in as far as availing farm inputs is concerned. There needs to be a revolution here, a change of mindsets from subsistence to a commercial farming mode. We need to be ruthless and make people understand that those who have vast tracts of arable land lying fallow must accept that government can give that land to those (including investors) who have capacity to use it, albeit; even if only on a lease basis. B Dlamini MBABANE Matsapha Municipal Council CEO Lucky Sukati has been described as a difficult person who does not own up to his mistakes and believes he is always right. This, according to Mayor Sandlane Zwane, was the observation of council in its special meeting which was held on August 16, 2018. Zwane described the chief executive officer (CEO) as being hell-bent on a power flaunting crusade. He further said Sukati had ulterior motives in allegedly seeking to rescind the appointment of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) as the municipalitys external auditor. Allegations Zwane was responding to allegations raised by Sukati in his urgent application in the Industrial Court to, among other prayers, stop the disciplinary action against him and that it be declared unlawful. He stated that the need to apply corrective measures against Sukati was deliberated upon by council during that special meeting. According to the mayor, who is represented by Sipho Simelane of SC Simelane Attorneys, the charges against Sukati emanated from his alleged move to overturn the appointment of PWC, after the municipality advertised a tender for its audit services. Zwane narrated that the tender for the appointment of an auditor was advertised sometime earlier this year, and the procuring process was handled by the finance committee which was delegated by council, since there was no tender Board appointed for the municipality. The mayor said the best evaluated tenderer was KPMG, while PWC was the second best company. The tender, according to Zwane, was awarded to PWC. He said the finance committee considered recommended international standards set for good corporate governance regarding to external auditors. He told the court that it was on this basis that the finance committee recommended to council that KPMG had served the municipality for a long time, when considering the recommended periods. Resolution Zwane said the resolution appointing PWC as their external auditor was passed on May 31, 2018. He said since PWC was the second best tenderer, its appointment required approval from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. The ministrys approval, according to Zwane, was sought by a letter dated June 12, 2018 and it was granted. Zwane told the court that it was after PWCs appointment had been approved by the ministry that Sukati allegedly sought to draft a motion for the rescission of the resolution by which PWC had been appointed as the auditors of the municipality. In doing so, the applicant (Sukati) violated councils administrative procedure and failed to use the standard template for motions to be brought before council, said Zwane. The mayor further told the court that Sukati attempted to seek members of council to second the motion and to have the deputy mayor to sign as the mover of the motion. Since the motion was meant to rescind an already existing resolution by council, it had to conform to a particular format, and it had to be signed by three members over and above the mover. This process had to be in place before the motion could be put on the agenda, said Zwane. MBABANE While stokvels give financial relief to many, it was the exact opposite for a man who owed the saving scheme thousands of Emalangeni. As he grappled with repaying the money he had borrowed from the stokvel from around his community, he concluded that ending his life would be a better option. As such, he killed himself last week amid demands from the stokvel members to repay the money. Philani Dlamini (31) of Nyonyane was found hanging in one of the houses within his homestead on Thursday morning. His body was discovered by his elder sister. According to his uncle, who identified himself as Moses Dlamini, Philani had not shown any signs of being suicidal or having a major problem. Moses narrated that he last saw his nephew on Wednesday evening sitting with some of his friends within the family compound. Suspicions The uncle passed the group of men and went to visit another homestead. Their suspicions are that Philani killed himself on Wednesday night. After the news of his death spread in the community, the stokvel members who had given Philani the loan came to ask for their money. It was only then that the family heard that he owed them E9 000, which was the remaining balance from the initial loan of E18 000. What made matters worse was that Philani was unemployed. Philani did not tell me or his mother that there was something bothering him. My nephew was not employed and he had a wife and three children. We suspect he planned the suicide, because he did not go to his house but went where nobody could find him until it was too late, Moses said. The uncle explained that the people who loaned his nephew the money came to their homestead, stating that they wanted their money before they (family) could bury Philani. Moses said they decided to report the stokvel members to the police. It is not a matter of whether we will pay it or not but they should have given us a chance to mourn his death and bury him, he said. Moses explained that they hoped the police would be able resolve the matter. He said the police had informed them that should the stokvel members revisit the homestead, they must refer them to the police. The uncle then questioned how stokvels worked according to the law, especially if they were allowed to loan a large amount of money to people who were not employed. Something is not right about this suicide. He seemed fine when I last saw him, Moses explained. Confirmed Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the suicide. We were called to the homestead and the body was taken to the hospital where the medical practitioners confirmed Philani dead. During our investigations, we gathered that there was no suicide note but the man had ended his life because of a debt, she said. Vilakati stated that people who had debts should not resort to ending their own lives, as the family members then suffer. She then pleaded with the nation to discuss any problems they were facing with people they trusted, or to come to the nearest police station for help. According to Wikipedia, stokvels are invitation only clubs of many people serving as rotating credit unions or saving scheme where members contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis. The money is then shared among the members but interest is generated through loaning it out. Comments The decision by government to allow Members of Parliament to jump the pay-day queue to receive their settlement and relocation allowances raises serious questions about whether or not the new broom knows which direction it ought to be sweeping. For legislators, who have already been paid their normal salaries, to be rejoicing their bumper allowances while hundreds of businesspeople have been waiting for months, if not years, for payment, is unfair. Why the special treatment, especially when it takes government more than three months to pay a newly- employed civil servant. Where do our priorities lie? Is it not more beneficial for a government to pay its service providers, who have exhausted bank overdrafts, in order to keep the businesses operational to retain jobs while deriving the much needed taxes to help it meet its national obligations? How could an MPs comfort allowance be more important than hospitals facing a serious shortage of essential drugs where the lives of pregnant women and their babies are at risk of death because of this? Allowances Is it fair to have these allowances jumping the queue while government cannot afford to pay water and electricity bills, creating a serious health hazard for some civil servants whose ablution facilities are non-functional? If we are sincere that government has no money, then why do we see the return of the foreign car hire frenzy hardly weeks after such a practice was banned by the Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini? Are these cars confirmation that he was taking us all for a ride? We were given firm promises that a new broom was to sweep clean and in a direction that would see our economy rise from the ground and soar like an eagle. Financial prudence was top of the list. Can we say it still is? You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close By Trend The meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) member-states is an excellent opportunity to discuss the current relations and prospects for cooperation, Trend reports citing Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. Mammadyarov made the remarks in Baku on Dec. 14 at the 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of BSEC member-states. "Among the main topics at the meeting, which is being held under the motto "Boosting Trade through Connectivity", are an increase in the efficiency of the organizations work, trade facilitation, promotion of cooperation in such areas as energy, transit, ICT, tourism, agriculture and other important topics," he added. The minister thanked the participants for accepting the invitation and arriving in Azerbaijan. By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: The anti-terrorist operation planned to be held by the Turkish armed forces in northern Syria will be the third operation over the recent years, but obviously it will not be the last one. A complete cleansing of Syria from the terrorists, who currently control about 30 percent of the country's territory, is not easy even for the Turkish army - one of the strongest NATO armies. The first operation was called the Euphrates Shield, the second one - the Olive Branch, in which the Free Syrian Army also took part. It is not excluded that the new military operation will be called Tigris Shield. The Operation Euphrates Shield was conducted in northern Syria against "Islamic State" (IS) terrorist organization. The Operation Olive Branch, which was also carried out in northern Syria, was directed against PYD/YPG, the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist organization. Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently stated about the beginning of new military operations in northern Syria against PYD/YPG. It is clear that the matter rests in clearing Syrias Manbij from the PYD/YPG terrorists. The terrain in Manbij is flat, which facilitates holding the operation as opposed to Afrin, where the Operation Olive Branch was conducted. But on the other hand, there are the US and French military contingents in Manbij, which complicates the military operation as opposed to Afrin. Another important factor is that as opposed to Afrin, terrorists have heavy military equipment in Manbij, which was provided by the US, and as is known, the US is not considered an ally of Turkey any more due to this incident. It is not excluded that taking all this into account, the Turkish Armed Forces will conduct the operation in several stages. At the first stage, jets will be used, at the second stage - artillery, at third stage - infantry, i.e. troops of the Free Syrian Army. No matter how the new anti-terrorist operation is held, it can be considered the second round of the US-Turkish battle in Syria. You have reached a premium content area of TOL. To read this entire article please login if you are already a TOL subscriber. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). Doha, Dec 14 (UNI) Syrian Ambassador to Qatar Nizar Hasan Al Haraki on Friday said that the State of Qatar exerts great efforts to maintain the achievements of the Syrian people and its legitimate right to freedom and to live in dignity, stressing that the Qatari and Syrian people are connected with one nation, language and background and a common history. In a statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA) for Qatar National Day, Mr Haranki said the two brotherly peoples have mutual respect and similar aspiration for a bright future, especially that they both seek to restore the nation's excellence, civilization, prosperity and its youth's dignity. The Ambassador praised the State of Qatar's honorable stance in resolving disputes and tensions using peaceful methods and soft diplomacy, which reflects the wisdom of its decision makers and their farsightedness, that it is not just an instant reading for interest or corruption. He called on world countries and their leaders to follow in Qatar's footsteps and this humanitarian-political ideology which chooses principles over pure interest. Tokyo's explanation of US missile defence systems deployment in Japan unsatisfying: Moscow Tokyo, Dec 14 (Sputnik) Russia is dissatisfied with Japan's explanations of US missile defense systems Aegis deployment in the country, and believes that such actions aggravate regional security problems, Vladimir Ermakov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, told Sputnik on Friday. "We note with regret Japan's increasing involvement into destabilizing plans on newest interceptors and radars creation for the benefit of the US missile defense, elements of which are being deployed at Russian borders. We cannot be satisfied with Japan's explanations as in fact this is not the case of increasing Japanese defense capacity, this is the case of persistently continuing unilateral and uncontrolled enhancement of US global antimissile potential," Ermakov said following bilateral consultations on arms control, held in the Japanese capital of Tokyo. He specified that the characteristics of the US missile defense systems and the locations where they were being deployed showed that the systems were obviously anti-Russian and anti-Chinese. Washington, Dec 14 (UNI) Africa is a strategic battleground where countering China and Russias growing influence will be the top US priority, National Security Adviser John Bolton said Thursday as he unveiled the Trump administrations new approach on the continent. National security adviser John Bolton lay out the new strategy in remarks at the Heritage Foundation, saying the US will now choose its African partners more carefully. He took special aim at China, accusing it of wielding bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijings wishes and demands, reports Star and Stripes Bolton said the new strategy in Africa focuses on furthering American interests and priorities in the continent by encouraging economic opportunities with partner nations, the effective use of U.S. aid and peacekeeping efforts, and countering extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida by supporting regional government efforts to improve security and cooperation. One place competition in Africa is now unfolding in the small but strategic country of Djibouti, where Beijing opened its first overseas military base in 2017. For the U.S. military, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti has long been the anchor for missions around the volatile Horn of Africa and a launching pad into neighboring Somalia. The United States has a lease to continue operating out of Camp Lemonnier until 2034, with the option for a 10-year extension. But Chinas growing military presence, joined with an economic strategy that involves hefty local infrastructure investments and port deals, has been a source of U.S. military concerns. One concern is the possibility of Djibouti handing over control of the Doraleh Container Terminal that sits on the Red Sea to Chinese state-owned companies. If it happens, the Horn of Africas maritime trade region would lean in favor of China, Bolton said. And, our U.S. military personnel at Camp Lemonnier could face even further challenges in their efforts to protect the American people, he said. Earlier this year, U.S. Africa Commands Gen. Thomas Waldhauser warned if China strikes a deal to control Djiboutis ports that it could hinder the ability of the United States to operate. He also said he expects more Chinese military posts in Africa. Djibouti happens to be the first. There will be more, Waldhauser said. While much of the focus of the United States in Africa has centered recently on countering violent extremism and coordinating with local forces in impoverished countries such as Chad and Niger, Beijing has invested billions to finance mining ventures, telecommunication projects, port and infrastructure deals. Bolton said these Chinese projects are riddled with corruption and dont meet the same standards as American development projects. China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijings wishes and demands, he said. China is Africas largest trade partner and that largesse is on display all over the continent in places such as the mineral rich Democratic Republic of Congo, where massive billboards advertise Chinas role in funding road projects. Russia also has become more active in Africa, but on a much smaller scale. In oil-rich Libya, Moscow has courted Libyan strongman Kalifa Haftar, a high-powered militia leader and key political and military rival to the countrys fragile, Western-backed central government in Tripoli. Moscow also has sought to deepen military ties in countries such as the Central African Republic and others interested in acquiring arms. But those ties to Russia do not come attached to human rights issues as when dealing with the United States. In short, the predatory practices pursued by China and Russia stunt economic growth in Africa, threaten the financial independence of African nations, inhibit opportunities for U.S. investment, interfere with U.S. military operations and pose a significant threat to U.S. national security interests, Bolton said. As part of the new Africa strategy, they are pursuing an initiative called Prosper Africa, which will focus on using American tax dollars in Africa to support economic opportunities that will support U.S. investment across the continent, grow Africas middle class, and improve the overall business climate in the region, Bolton said. They will also re-evaluate supporting United Nations peacekeeping missions to make certain the United States is only supporting effective and efficient operations and will terminate missions that are unable to meet their own mandate or facilitate lasting peace. To counter the threat of terrorism, the strategy will focus on supporting key African governments to work together to provide effective and sustainable security and law enforcement services to their citizens. Our goal is for the nations of the region to take ownership over peace and security in their own neighborhood, Bolton said. UNI XC KPV 0602 US, Greece Hold First Strategic Dialogue - Pompeo Washington, Dec 14 (Sputnik) The United States and Greece held the first strategic dialogue at the US State Department on, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told reporters during the joint press address with Greek Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs George Katrougalos. "We launched today the inaugural US-Greek strategic dialogue," Pompeo said after the dialogue on Thursday. "Today our teams discussed matters as varied as far reaching as defense and security, law enforcement, counterterrorism, trade, investment and energy cooperation." The two countries expressed their readiness to modernize militaries and enhance energy cooperation, according to the joint statement on the occasion of the dialogue. A guide for labour inspectors on the identification and referral of victims of human trafficking was launched in Morocco Rabat, Morocco 17 December 2018 - The Global Action to Prevent and Address Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants ( GLO.ACT), is a four-year (2015-2019) joint initiative of the European Union (EU) and UNODC (Office United Nations on Drugs and Crime) being implemented in partnership with IOM (International Organization for Migration) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund). Under the framework of GLO.ACT, a guide for labour inspectors on the identification and referral of victims of Trafficking in Persons (TIP) was held in Rabat at the View Hotel on 03 December 2018. The purpose of this guide is to provide labor inspectors with a legal and technical tool to identify TIP cases and to strengthen their capacity to intervene in the prevention and protection of TIP victims and labor exploitation. In fact, this guide will enable government and civil society actors to have access to appropriate technical guidance to support the development of coordination mechanisms that strengthen the identification, referral, and protection of TIP victims, smuggled migrants, and other vulnerable migrants. Furthermore, the guide provides a set of recommendations for the development of national referral mechanisms to link vulnerable migrants to appropriate assistance and protective services. The workshop was attended by the Ministry of Labor and Professional Insertion and over twenty labour inspectors, including four women, representing five regions of the Kingdom, namely Rabat-Sale-Kenitra, Casablanca-Settat, Marrakech-Safi, Souss-Massa and Fes-Meknes. Mr. Boucharrou, the consultant and author of the guide and representatives from IOM also attended the launch. 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 provides 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. 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. For more information, please contact: Zahra Atbi Email: glo.act@un.org www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/glo-act/ Twitter: @glo_act GLO.ACT supports the federal police in providing training on human trafficking at the airport of Guarulhos Guarulhos, Sao Paulo, Brazil - 14 December 2018 - The Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants ( GLO.ACT) organized alongside the federal police a seminar on the "Exchange of Knowledge affected by the Surveillance, Assistance and Recognition of Victims of Trafficking in Persons" at the airport of Guarulhos, Sao Paulo, between 21 to 22 November 2018, for approximately 50 participants. The seminar promoted the better identification and assistance provided to Trafficking in Persons (TIP) victims with the support of those that operate at the international airport of Sao Paulo, in Guarulhos. The international airport of Sao Paulo is Brazil's largest and the busiest in Latin America. In 2017, 37,816,000 passengers passed through the airport, of which 23,819,000 were Brazilian nationals, while 13,997,000 were foreigners. The airport is a stage for intensive migratory movements, including vulnerable people of different nationalities who may be subject to exploitation nationally and/or internationally. At the same time, criminal networks and criminal actors engaged in human trafficking have intensified their action in the face of the national economic crisis as well as those fleeing their own national crisis. The aim of the seminar was to secure the buy-in and support of airport employees in the identification and assistance of victims of TIP. The seminar covered topics such as: national and international legislation on TIP, assistance and protection to the victims of TIP, indicators and how to identify and proceed in case of detection of a possible case of TIP, interview techniques and the rights and responsibilities of undocumented and documented foreigners in Brazil. Additional aims were to: Encourage the exchange of information between professionals who work at the airport of Guarulhos and are likely to come into contact with potential TIP victims; Promote awareness on the fight against TIP and the assistance that needs to be provided to potential victims; Train professionals on the conduct to be adopted when identifying a possible TIP victim; Sensitize professionals on the relevance of facing TIP and the relevance of their professional performance in such a crime. During the seminar Mr. Brasilio Caldeira Brant, Director of the National Identification Institute of the Federal Police highlighted the importance of the Biometric Registration of Missing Persons database, as well as the institutes tools in combating TIP. For his part, Mr. Carlos Magno de Deus Rodrigues, focal point of the Center for International Police Cooperation of the Federal Police discussed migration flows, including TIP, the Smuggling of Migrants (SOM) and related crimes, analyzing cases investigated at the airport. While Ms. Gabriela Chamorro Concha, from the INTERPOL Regional Office in Buenos Aires, gave a lecture on interviewing child TIP victim. Participants included representatives from the Immigration Police Station of Guarulhos, employees of the major airlines operating in Brazil, including LATAM, AVIANCA, AZUL, MAP, PASSAREDO, and GOL, the National Institute of identification, the Department of Private Investigation of the Federal Police, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), civil society organizations operating in Sao Paulo, the Federal Public Defenders Office, the International Airport Specialized Police Station, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Coordination to combat TIP of the Ministry of Justice, the Brazilian Association of Airlines, the Center of Reference and Assistance for Immigrants, among others. 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. For more information, please contact: Published: December 13, 2018 Grads Make the Most of UT Experiences to Land Jobs One piece of advice soon-to-be graduate Sabrina Schmidt 18, MBA 18 has for students is to take advantage of campus resources. Schmidt did, utilizing the online resources in Career Services to land an internship as an undergrad with iQor, and as a graduate student with Reed Transport Services as a freight broker intern. She attended both the Resume Day and Meet the Firms events, where she landed interviews and a job offer by DXC Technology as an ERP functional consultant, apprenticing under a senior team member who will assist in training her in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems implementation, which are used to streamline business processes. For incoming UT students, make sure you are using the campus resources. They are undervalued and underutilized, said Schmidt, of St. Petersburg, FL. It is never too early to start networking. Schmidt is in the MBA 4+1 program and will confer both her bachelor's degree in international business management and an MBA at Saturdays commencement, as well as completing a leadership certificate from the University. Schmidt is among the 667 degree candidates at UTs 147th commencement on Dec. 15, at 9:30 a.m. at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall. The ceremony will include 530 bachelors degree candidates and 137 masters degree candidates. Ibrahim Allam 17, M.S. 18 finished his UT career with $10,000 in hand as the winner in Synapse's Innovation Challenge last weekend. Allams Team Blitz created a waterproof wearable band for Epperson's Crystal Lagoon in Wesley Chapel that allow for such things as purchasing food and booking rides. Following commencement, Allam will continue to work with Synapse and Metro Development Group to further develop the app. Allam, who has his bachelors in international business and entrepreneurship with a minor in marketing and will be graduating with his masters in entrepreneurship, said one of the assets of the entrepreneurship program is the Entrepreneurs and Experts in Residence, such as Chuck Papageorgiou. He has helped me every step of the way throughout the entire program by helping me find the right people to talk to, solve obstacles I faced and give me the advice I needed to be where I am today, said Allam, of Cairo, Egypt. This program was truly a priceless experience that helps and motivates students pursue their passions, and nothing feels better than working on what you are passionate about. Have a story idea? Contact Jamie Pilarczyk, Web Writer Subscribe to News and UT Life stories Read more UT Life stories Published: December 13, 2018 Registration Now Open for NEH Summer Institute Registration is now open for The University of Tampas National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer institute focusing on the rise of the U.S. as a global power in the early 20th century as a consequence of its intervention in Cubas War of Independence. The four-week institute, Jose Marti and the Immigrant Communities of Florida in Cuban Independence and the Dawn of the American Century, will take place on the UT campus from June 17 to July 13, 2019. Up to 25 university and college professors from throughout the U.S. will be selected to participate. The institute is co-directed by James Lopez, UT professor of Spanish, and Denis Rey, associate professor of political science and international studies, who together coordinate the Center for Marti Studies Affiliate at UT. The institute will closely examine an often overlooked aspect of Cubas War of Independence, namely, the role played by the Cuban immigrant communities in the U.S., particularly in the unique and vibrant cigar towns of Florida, especially Ybor City. The lessons of this history continue to be resonant today, Lopez said. The institute seeks to heighten awareness of how American immigrant communities have helped usher in political transformations both at home and abroad, and to accentuate the rich and complex cultural world established by the Cuban, Sicilian and Spanish immigrants around the cigar industry in turn-of-the-century Florida. The institute will also study the work of Jose Marti, the man whose oratory, poetry, journalism and essays would transform the movement for political independence into a formulation of Cuban patriotic identity that would outlast the U.S. military intervention, and establish Marti, known simply as the Apostle in Cuban society, as the most important symbol and source of national identity on and off the island. The immigrant cigar workers of Tampa played an important role in Martis biography and intellectual evolution, both of which will be closely examined during the institute. The study of this seminal period from the perspective of the working class immigrants who organized, financed and, in many cases, fought and died for a patriotic ideal that they helped inspire by their example, will enrich any cross-cultural approach to the teaching of U.S. history, race and ethnicity, Latin American studies, Caribbean/Cuban studies, international relations, cultural studies, and Hispanic language and culture, Lopez said. The institute will include expert lectures, guided readings, archival materials and visits to significant historical sites. All of these are directed toward the development of innovative course modules and teaching plans to enrich the college curriculum and disseminate this history. The institute is one of 218 humanities projects across the country funded by NEH, which total $43.1 million in awards. For more information, contact Lopez at james.lopez@ut.edu, or Rey at denis.rey@ut.edu, or visit http://www.ut.edu/cjmsa/. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. UW Professor Leads Research Team on Olfactory Sensory Receptors in Mice Stephen Santoro (right), a UW assistant professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology; Pooja Gupta, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Zoology and Physiology and who works in Santoros lab; and Carl van der Linden, a graduate student majoring in the Neuroscience Program, all contributed to a paper that was recently published in Nature Communications. The research team discovered that separating male and female mice, over time, changes the way they smell. (Stephen Santoro Photo) A University of Wyoming researcher and his team have discovered that separating male and female mice, over time, changes the way they smell. The study investigates how the olfactory sensory receptors in mice change as a function of exposure to odors emitted from members of the opposite sex, says Stephen Santoro, an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology. The idea is that our experiences change our sensory system in a way that is semipermanent. This is probably true in humans as much as mice, Santoro says. We found that mice that are housed with the opposite sex all of the time have olfactory sensory receptors that are similar in composition because they are smelling similar smells. On the other hand, mice that were housed separately by sex have sex-specific differences in their olfactory receptors. As a result, they may perceive odors differently. The new study, titled Sex Separation Induces Differences in the Olfactory Sensory Receptor Repertoires of Male and Female Mice, was published Dec. 4 in Nature Communications, an open access journal that publishes high-quality research from all areas of the natural sciences. Papers published by the journal represent important advances of significance to specialists within each field. Carl van der Linden, a graduate student from Santa Ynez, Calif., in the UW Neuroscience Program, was the papers lead author. Pooja Gupta, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Zoology and Physiology and who works in Santoros lab, was a contributing author. Susanne Jakob, a preceptor in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University; and Catherine Dulac, the Higgins Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and department chair at Harvard University, and a scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, were contributing authors. Santoro is the papers corresponding author. He began this research as a postdoctoral researcher in Dulacs lab at Harvard before bringing his work to UW. The olfactory system of mice and humans is very similar, Santoro says. Mice are a very good model to understand how neural systems work, in general. They are a much better model for humans than flies and other common-model organisms. Sensory activity plays pivotal roles in the development of the nervous system. Mouse odors are a complex mixture of volatile and non-volatile chemicals derived from skin secretions, urine, tears, saliva and feces, which are known to differ substantially in their chemical compositions between males and females. Human males and females smell different, too. Men give off odors from testosterone metabolites, for example, Santoro explains. There are genetic differences in being able to detect this. Some people would say the smell is good, while others find it unpleasant or cannot detect it at all. These differences in perception are related to genetic differences in peoples receptors. Some researchers speculate that these kinds of molecules might function as pheromones in humans. Unlike most neurons in the mammalian nervous system, olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are continually born and replaced throughout life, a process that normally replaces damaged neurons in humans when we have a cold or use a zinc nasal spray, Santoro says. Changes in the abundance of specific OSN subtypes occur, in part, through a use-it-or-lose-it mechanism in which active OSNs are retained and silent OSNs are eliminated from the population, the paper concludes. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including through a grant to the Wyoming Sensory Biology Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Md. Results from this study may contribute to an enhanced understanding of sex-specific differences in olfactory function. As we age, our olfactory system gets worse. One of NIHs priorities is to understand why that occurs, Santoro says. We think our research may have some relevance to this by providing insights into why olfactory neurons die and how the birth of new neurons is regulated. When the recreational use of marijuana became legal in Michigan on Dec. 6, some communities, such as the city of St. Clair, opted out of allowing recreational pot businesses within their boundaries. The St. Clair City Council passed an emergency amendment to its code of ordinances on Dec. 3 prohibiting recreational marijuana establishments within city limits, even though 51.25 percent of voters supported Proposal 1 at the polls. Marysville, where 51.19 percent of voters cast ballots against the state proposal, has decided to adopt a wait-and-see posture. More information is better than less information, City Attorney Gary Fletcher told the city council at its final goal-setting session of the year on Dec. 10. Fletcher noted that a lot of communities have opted out if their residents opposed legalizing pot, especially by big numbers. There is no need to do anything one way or the other, Fletcher said. The head of the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs has said that there will be no licenses before 2020. Unless council decides that its just not what Marysville is about theres no reason to do anything. LARA has yet to write the rules that will govern the new business. Fletcher said opting out now would cover only marijuana dispensaries, not grow operations. The assumption around the state, he said, was that grow operations for recreational weed would follow the model established for medical marijuana in the state: Communities will have to opt in if they are going to allow growing facilities within their borders. For example, a community could opt in and say grow operations are allowed in certain areas or it could create a new zoning district for them, Fletcher said. The reality is its going to be everywhere, and what are the police going to be able to do? said Fletcher. It will be sold illegally. While communities may prohibit growing and retailing pot, they may not pass laws prohibiting the personal possession and use of marijuana, which may create some of its own problems, given the specifics of the proposal. This does not mean you can smoke in your car or at work, said Fletcher. But the new law allows personal possession up to 10 ounces and the personal growth of up to 12 plants far more than a person could consume on his or her own, said Public Safety Chief Tom Konik. Its going to lead to a lot of crime, said Fletcher. The high value of marijuana at all points of its production cycle could encourage crimes like the robbery and shootout at a grow operation for medical marijuana in Sanilac County that left two people dead in 2017, said Fletcher. Large amounts of cash will present not only temptation to potential bad guys, but practical problems, too. Because marijuana remains illegal federally, banks, which are federally chartered, will not handle marijuana money, no matter how much is involved. In Colorado, the state had to charter banks to handle hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. Is there any benefit to having a grow operation in the city? asked council member Rita Hendricks. I see no big benefit, said Fletcher. That will be answered when we find out how it will be taxed. The proposal stipulates a 10 percent tax on the retail sales of weed, which will be paid by individual consumers at dispensaries as a part of their transactions. Fletcher said a lot of the people he consulted felt like the tax should have been higher, given the proposals direction that it be used for implementation costs, clinical trials, schools, roads, and municipalities where marijuana businesses are located. The money part of it is a joke, said Fletcher, noting that by the time all of those activities and entities get their cut, there will be little left for the municipalities. Id be interested in finding more out about what it means to opt out of grow operations and dispensaries, said Hendricks. Fletcher said he would keep the council abreast of developments, including any changes to Proposal 1 that emerge from the lame-duck session in the state legislature. Jim Bloch is a freelance writer. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com. The Marysville City Council has extended the contract of Tri-County Vac Services to clean and video inspect the sanitary sewer lines in districts B and C in the southern half of the city. The work in district B will cost $160,683; district C will cost $188,358. An additional $80,000 was included in the contract for extremely heavy cutting and cleaning in all of the districts. (Districts) B and C are the last two areas that need to be completed in the town, department of public works Director Barry Kreiner told council members at their Dec. 3 regular meeting. We werent sure we were going to get this far, but if we approve this tonight and weather is favorable through the winter, it will allow them to get in there. Any day thats above 30 (degrees) theyll be able to get in there and do the televising, jet rodding and cutting. Our drop-dead date to have everything done for the (Stormwater, Asset Management and Wastewater) grant is Nov. 30 next year. Tri-County Vac Services, which is based in Fort Gratiot Township, won the original bid to clean and televise pilot area E in June 2016 in the east central part of the city. It was paid $107,000 to clean 23,300 feet of sanitary sewer pipe ranging in diameter from 8 inches to 3 feet in district E. The job included the heavy cleaning of 1,500 feet of pipe to remove excess roots and grit. The company inspected all of the manholes and internally assessed the entire sanitary sewer system in the section with a video camera. The firm held its prices, and the council extended the contract for additional districts in the city. In 2017, the city hired Tri-County Vac Services to clean and televise districts D and F. In 2018, the firm tackled district A for about $426,500, district G for nearly $102,000 and district I for about $110,900. The contract extension included an additional $15,000 for heavy cleaning. Theyre going to go until they have performed $80,000 (worth of heavy cutting and cleaning), or have you taken a look (at what needs to be done)? asked Mayor Dan Damman. Weve taken a look, said Kreiner. Its probably going to be around $72,000. The bulk of the work will be paid for through a SAW grant through the state of Michigan. Marysville applied for the maximum grant amount, $2 million, in 2013, the first year of the $450 million grant program, but did not receive funding until 2016. Does that about tap out the SAW grant? Damman asked. This will tap out the portion we needed to get our system assessed, said Kreiner. Some GIS work remains to create maps of the sewer system and pinpoint defects that need to be repaired. In addition to the maps, one of the goals of the grant is to prepare a timeline of expenses to get the sewer system operating near its full potential and to maintain the assets properly. The program was the result of a statewide popular vote in 2002 to improve the water quality of the states lakes and rivers through the better management of contaminated stormwater and other non-point sources of water pollution. The program was slated to include a loan program to repair defects discovered as part of the inspected assets. It took the state legislature a decade to fund the program, by which time it did not have sufficient money for the loan program. Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Hayman made the motion to approve the expenditure, supported by council member Paul Wessel. The contract extension was approved 7-0. Jim Bloch is a freelance writer. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com. Sovereign citizen arrested While on patrol on Nov. 26, Richmond police officers attempted to stop a vehicle in the area of Main and Water streets for equipment violations, according to a police report. The male driver did not stop and continued to his home, where he was uncooperative and would not consent to a preliminary breath test. While being transported to the hospital for a blood draw, he continued to state he was not a citizen and the police had no jurisdiction over him. He also stated he was not driving; he was traveling. He was lodged at the station for driving while license suspended and operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Motorist arrested for DUI On Nov. 24, Richmond police officers responded to a car crash at Main Street and Division Road, according to a police report. After the officer spoke with the driver, it was determined he was driving while under the influence of alcohol. The driver was arrested and lodged at the Macomb County Jail. The vehicle was impounded. Running red light leads to ticket A Richmond police officer conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle for not stopping at a red light at Main Street and Division Road on Nov. 19, according to a police report. Upon making contact with the driver, police determined he did not have a valid licensed. The driver was issued a citation. Hundreds of dollars reported stolen A resident on the 68000 block of Seymour Street reported that she was missing cash in the amount of $700 from her unlocked vehicle, according to a Richmond police report. The incident was reported to the police on Nov. 29. Uninsured driver cited for open intoxicants A Richmond police officer ran a vehicle plate that was in the parking lot of the BP gas station on Main Street in the city on Nov. 20 and found it came back with no insurance, according to a police report. The officer conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle when it left the parking lot. The officer confirmed there was no insurance for the vehicle. Police also observed an open container of alcohol inside of the vehicle. The driver was issued a citation. The vehicle was impounded. Car impounded after traffic stop A Richmond police officer conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle for speeding on Howard Street on Nov. 24, according to a police report. After the officer made contact with the driver, it was determined there was no insurance for the vehicle. The driver was given a citation. The vehicle was impounded. Failure to signal reveals suspended license A driver with a suspended license was arrested in Richmond following a traffic stop on Nov. 27, according to a Richmond police report. Police stopped a vehicle in the area of County Line and 31 Mile roads for failure to use a turn signal. After officers ran the plate, it was discovered there was no insurance on the vehicle. The driver also had a suspended license. He was placed under arrest. The vehicle was impounded. Yard art sculpture damaged Richmond police were dispatched to an address in the 67000 block of Lake Angela Drive on Nov. 21 in response to a report of malicious destruction of property, according to a police report. The officer was advised that an unknown person damaged an art sculpture that was in his yard. The homeowner said he suspected the neighbors may have done the damage and he planned to talk to them. The complainant reported back to the department that the neighbors were responsible and made arrangements to replace or reimburse for the damage. Barb Pert Templeton, For The Voice Ukraine stages new provocation in Kerch Strait: pursuing hidden agenda, by Peter Korzun / Once again the escalation is taken to a higher level. German-French arbitration offers not credible, by Karl Muller / When you want to sanction states, you call them terrorists, by Thierry Meyssan / Endanger nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine peace throughout Europe?, by Matthias Erne / Extremist nationalism in Ukraine / Federal Council and Parliament show unusual resistance. Stocktaking at the beginning of the 2018 winter session, by Marianne Wuthrich / Rostock Centuries of experience in dialogue with Russia, Interview with Roland Methling / Children Accuse Children-Victims of NATO aggression against FR Yugoslavia, by Barbara Hug / Austrias peace message to the world. On the national exhibition 200 years Silent Night! Holy Night!, by Urs Knoblauch / Cooperative founded Future of the Peter-Sodann-Library now assured. Art Supplement : Theo Dannecker On 1 Dec 2018, the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, entered Syria illegally. He participated in an International Forum on Racial Cleansing and Demographic Change, organized in the zone occupied by the United States and administered by the PKKs Kurdish militia. When the pro-US Coalition invaded Iraq, Mr Kouchner tried in vain to be appointed as the special representative of the UN Secretary General in the Iraqi Kurdistan, as he had been in Kosovo after the NATO conquest. On 4 July 2011, Bernard Kouchner and Bernard-Henry Levy were the star personalities present at a meeting that the Muslim Brotherhood and the State of Israel organized in Paris promoting the toppling of the Syrian Arab Republic. This meeting on which the media shone a glaring spot light, allows the French political class to be brought into the US project to destroy state structures in Syria. More than 150 states have registered for the conference on the adoption of the Global Pact for sure, orderly and regular migration of Marakesh [Note: the reference document in English is entitled Global Pact but the UN translates it as the World Pact]. In his introductory remarks, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, took great pains to denounce the false information on the Pact. In particular, he emphasized that the text is not binding and it will not limit state sovereignty. However this is precisely the problem: the Pact will not limit the sovereignty of States that have already partially renounced it by admitting in their juridical system that international texts have superiority over national texts. What does the expression not binding mean? For a signatory state, it means that it will not have to bring its domestic laws in line with the Pact. However, for claimants it means that they can assert that the international text is superior to the national law and thus that the Pact applies. This is why 15 states (Austria, Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, the United States, Israel, Hungary, Holland, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Serbia, Slovakia and Switzerland) decided not to participate in the conference. In the case of Switzerland, the Federal Council participated in the negotiations but withdrew at the last minute. The case of Belgium demonstrates the importance of the Pact: it is not a document with only declaratory value as Mr Guterres claims it to be. In Brussels, the Prime Minister, Charles Michel by-passed constitutional provisions to be able to sign it: the NVA, one party of the Coalition in power, rejected the Pact and resigned from office. As the government then became a minority government, it should have fallen. However the Prime Minister stayed in power and filled the places of the ministers that had quit. Only after doing so did he inform the King of the ministerial coup. The Belgian Prime Minister also went to Marrakesh to sign the Pact without first obtaining a vote of confidence from its Parliament. In 1997, Ukraine and Russia concluded a Treaty of Friendship which entered into force in 1999. This document was supposed to be automatically renewed every 10 years unless it was denounced by one party or the other. In October 2018, Ukraine decided to denounce this treaty. Then it organized the incident at Kertch. Furthermore, President Petro Poroshenko gave his administration the task of listing all the agreements concluded with Russia and identifying those that he should denounce. One of the provisions of the Treaty of Friendship and its extension in 2003 provide that the Sea of Azov falls within the territorial waters of Russia and Ukraine. As such, warships cannot enter these waters without the authorization of both states. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 does not apply in this case. Once the treaty and its extension is repealed, the Azov Sea will be governed by international law, with the Ukrainian and Russian territorial waters as well as an internationalized part. As a consequence, Nato ships will no longer need Russias consent to enter. This explains why Nato is involved in the preparation of the incident at Kertch. The Syrian Arab Republic has filed a complaint with UNESCO (the UN body dealing with Education, Science and Culture) against France and Turkey, charging them with looting cultural assets belonging to the Syrian people. Specifically, the complaint alleges that the French and Turkish armies supervised searches on the territories that they occupied (Manbij, Afrin, Idlib, Hassake and Raqqa). They looted archeological treasures that they then sent abroad. Furthermore, at the beginning of the war in Syria, a private firm based in Paris coordinated orders for goods (procured through lootings by the jihadists) for Western buyers. Part of the profits from these art sales was used to fund the terrorist organizations. In 2015, UNESCO had observed by satellite the lootings of nearly 900 archeological sites. UNESCOs Director, Irina Bokova, had declared: Numerous images taken by satellite () show archeological sites in Syria destroyed by thousands of illegal archeological digs, literally holes, which testify a looting on an industrial scale. This activity is part of a strategy of a cultural purge to destroy the past, present and future of this region known as the cradle of human civilization. On 8 March 2016, the Russian Federation filed with the UN Security Council a note on Turkeys role in this looting [1]. Since November 2017, the former French Minister for Culture, Audrey Azoulay has had leadership of UNESCO. She is a relative of King of Morocco, Mohammed VI and French President, Emmanuel Macron with whom she worked at the Elysee. She had been invited to the Bilderberg Club last June. During the Second World War, the Nazis looted artistic treasures from the areas that the Reich occupied. With the Soviet Union disintegrated 1991 a multi-ethnic state, in which lived about 100 ethnic groups. The political elites in the successor states then faced the problem of creating an independent national identity in order to protect themselves in the long term against reintegration into a successor realm. For ideological reasons, the leadership of the Soviet Union never paid much attention to the question of nationality. Relations between Soviet republics were close in every respect, and especially Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians played an important role in many smaller constituent republics. Many territorial issues remained unresolved. That was the difficult starting position at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The handling of the nationality problem did not succeed equally well everywhere. While Russia and Kazakhstan, with their more than 100 resp. 50 ethnic groups, regard themselves as multi-ethnic states, other former republics began to demarcate themselves sharply. Western countries, too, not only tolerate these goings-on, they even promote them: Neo-Nazis from the Ukraine were trained in military camps in the Baltic States, in Poland and Georgia. US, Canadian and British instructors trained these volunteers at the so-called Peacekeeping Operations Centre near Lviv. Gladly, one uses the universal argument of neo-Nazism against political opponents in ones own country. But when Ukrainian and other Nazis fight against Russian citizens in Donbass and against Russia in general, Washington, Brussels and Berlin are happy to turn a blind eye. Development in the Baltic republics This was especially easy for the Baltic republics, which had little in common with Russia in language, religious and cultural respects. The basis of their national understanding was and is their language. However, Estonia and Latvia in particular quickly began to disadvantage their Russian-speaking minority systematically. This minority today accounts for about a quarter of the population in both countries. The problem took on such proportions that the OSCE was obliged to appoint a special envoy. However, these states will not have to fear any criticism from the High Commissioner for National Minorities (HCNM): Diplomats from EU and NATO countries probably made sure that the HCNM did not become too active. More recently veteran associations of former members of the SS have become increasingly active in the Baltic republics, appearing in public in uniform, organising commemorative marches, erecting monuments and rejoicing at the high prestige they enjoy in these countries. Today they receive state pensions. And the younger generation is fully involved in this tradition. The official representatives of these countries sometimes show difficulties in distancing themselves from these activities. Central Asian republics The republics of Central Asia also succeeded in demarcation on the basis of linguistic, religious and cultural characteristics. But they coped well with the Russian minority and the Russian language. In Central Asia, unresolved territorial issues and the influence of radical Islamists especially from the Gulf region play a destabilising role. South Caucasus The situation is completely different in the South Caucasus: In Georgia as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan, political elites believe that only a person speaking the state language can be a citizen. Georgia in particular, under the leadership of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, expressed problems in dealing with national minorities. In the Djavacheti region, with its predominant Armenian population, a new minority problem is growing, because these people are not allowed to run Armenian language schools and they have to hold services in their churches according to the rites of the Georgian Orthodox Church. For the Armenians, for whom religion is part of their self-image as a nation, this is hard to bear. In Armenia and Azerbaijan, even before the final collapse of the Soviet Union, conflicts arose and pogroms occurred in some places. This severely hampers the search for a solution to the conflict in Nagornyi Karabakh. Belarus The Republic of Belarus also faced the problem of demarcating itself from the big neighbour in the East. But Belarus approached this problem with a sense of proportion, and after the events on the Maidan Nezalezhnostiin in Kiev in 2014 and later on, hardly anyone believes that the Ukrainian way is worth following. Ukraine Ukraine in its present form is a result of the secession from the former Soviet Union. Its territory was determined after the Second World War according to political and military criteria. Since independence, Ukraine has pursued a policy of Ukrainianization based on the understanding that a national understanding must be on the basis on the Ukrainian language. This culminated in a statement by former President Viktor Yushchenko that his goal was to make the use of the Russian language in Ukraine disappear within two generations. The Russian minority, which made up about a quarter of the population, became the first target of the political elite in Ukraine. This did not only apply to the Crimea and Donbass, but also to the cities on the Black Sea coast, especially Odessa, with its mixture of Russian, (Crimean) Tatar, Greek and Jewish populations. It did not bode well for the Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Belarusian minorities in the country, any more than for the autochthonous Russians in the Carpathians, who are not officially recognised as an ethnic group of its own. A first attempt to secede Ukraine from the Soviet Union was made by Ukrainian nationalists under the leadership of Stepan Bandera and Roman Schuchewitsch in the summer of 1941, after National Socialist Germany invaded the Soviet Union. During the whole war Ukrainian nationalists made a common cause with National Socialist Germany, put guards in concentration camps and participated in the brutal fight against partisans in Ukraine and Belarus. Since then, Ukrainian nationalists have always struggled to distance themselves from National Socialism. The followers of Bandera and Zhuchevich were now very much in demand with the outbreak of the conflict in Donbass. Their volunteer organisations had been important for Ukraine in 2014, one often hears, and the rulers in Kiev tolerate them. On the other hand, Ukrainian officials are always happy to point out that the nationalists can only win a few per cent of the votes in elections. On 14 October of this year, about 10,000 supporters of the Nationalist Volunteer Battalions gathered in the city centre of Kiev to commemorate the establishing of the so-called Ukrainian Uprising Army in 1942. If they are able to arm themselves from the large number of illegally circulating, unregistered weapons from the various wars of the first half of the 20th century and from the disintegration of the Soviet Army in the early 1990s, they represent a power in the state that is not to be ignored. This is also causing concern in the neighbouring states of Ukraine. And to this mass of violent protesters, the Ukrainian police held against with a ridiculous number of 200 police officers. This clearly shows that Interior Minister Arsen Awakow is happy to let these thugs act as they please. In keeping with this, on the same day in Kiev, a convention of ultra-right nationalists from all over Europe and North America was held, star guest of which was the notoriously known Greg Johnson, a white nationalist who wants to build an ethnically pure state in the US whose citizens are of white skin colour only. His understanding of the state coincides with that of many nationalists in the former Soviet Union. The list of state-tolerated abuses against national minorities in Ukraine is long. Also in the future, the rulers in Kiev want to utilise the gangs of hooligans to help establish their understanding of the state. If Ukraine is to be maintained with its present-day borders and in its form of state, then the government will have to take coercive measures, call for martial law or resort to other provocations. Western countries, too, not only tolerate these goings-on, they even promote them: Neo-Nazis from the Ukraine were trained in military camps in the Baltic States, in Poland and Georgia. US, Canadian and British instructors trained these volunteers at the so-called Peacekeeping Operations Centre near Lviv. Gladly, one uses the universal argument of neo-Nazism against political opponents in ones own country. But when Ukrainian and other Nazis fight against Russian citizens in Donbass and against Russia in general, Washington, Brussels and Berlin are happy to turn a blind eye. The WCO organized a specific training in project management with a specific focus on Monitoring and Evaluation, which took place from 3 to 11 December in Mombasa, Kenya, at the Regional Training Centre. At this occasion, the WCO had the opportunity to deliver its project management training package, which was developed under the WCO-WACAM Project. The training enabled 22 participants from the WCO ESA Regional Structures including 8 female participants and 14 male participants, to enhance their capacities in project management - to design, implement, monitor and evaluate modernization and reform projects within their administration and across the region. The workshop focused on core project management issues, including the project cycle, problem definition, project governance, logic modeling, risk management, stakeholder mapping, project reporting and monitoring. The workshop was highly interactive and was based on a mixed learning method, through the use of presentations alongside case studies conducted in groups on -specific projects extracted from the ESA Regional Strategy. The participants presented their projects to a mock donor board. This required each group to present and justify the relevance of a project based on a prepared Project Initiation Document. The WCO East and Southern Africa region adopted its 2018-2021 Regional Strategy in May 2018. The Strategy includes 4 Strategic Areas, namely Intra-Regional Regional Trade, Fair and Efficient Revenue Mobilization, Intra-Regional Compliance and Enforcement; and Professionalism through human capital development. In the spirit of regional development, the ESA Commissioner-Customs have indicated that the regional structures (Regional Office for Capacity Building, Regional Training Centres) of the region are expected to support the operationalization of the ESA Regional Strategy. As a result, the ESA region had requested the WCO Secretariat to build the capacities of the regional structures in the area of Project Management in the framework of the WCO-ESA Project, funded by Finland. In his closing remarks, the Director of the ESA Regional Office for Capacity-Building, Mr. Liza, expressed satisfaction with the level of commitment the regional structures had demonstrated and thanked them for making the training successful. He said This workshop can be considered as the catalyst and foundational workshop for the operationalization of priority initiatives of the ESA Regional Strategy. He expressed the ESA Region desire for further WCO assistance in project management and other areas of organizational development. The regional structures have agreed to finalize the ESA Regional Strategy Implementation plans in the next few months for submission to the ESA Governing Council in May 2019. For further information about this activity, please contact (capacity.building@wcoomd.org). The WCO National Workshop for Cambodia Customs on Border Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) was held on 4-7 December 2018 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, under the sponsorship of the Japanese Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF/Japan) and in close cooperation and coordination with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). A total of 10 Cambodia Customs officers from the relevant departments and sections participated in the Workshop. Resource persons from the Asia Pacific WCO Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB A/P) and Japan Customs led the Workshop and shared their expertise and knowledge including other A/P regional Members practices on the IPR border enforcement. Participants revisited the recommendations provided by the WCO team in the previous WCO National Seminar for Cambodia Customs on IPR held in 2017 and reaffirmed the responsibility and assignment for necessary actions in Cambodia Customs. This Workshop focused on the key components of the regulatory procedures of IPR border enforcement in line with the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The Workshop also provided the participants with an opportunity to identify the areas of further work to be undertaken by the relevant parties with a view to strengthening IPR border enforcement capability. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 14, 2018 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 14, 2018 | 01:46 PM | PADUCAH A federal judge has sentenced a former bookkeeper at a Paducah business to prison for using company credit cards to make more than $125,000 worth of personal purchases. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Paducah, Senior District Judge Thomas B. Russell sentenced 53-year-old Dana Thomas of Paducah Friday to 27 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release, and ordered her to pay restitution of $147,770. Thomas pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges on Aug. 21. According to court records, Thomas used company credit cards while employed at Audiology and Hearing Center to fraudulently pay for various personal items, including a $5,000 condo in Panama City, FL and a New Year's trip to New York City. Prosecutors said that after Thomas resigned last December, a new bookkeeper discovered she had stolen $125,570 from the office over the course of her employment. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Madison Sewell, and was investigated by the FBI. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 13, 2018 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 13, 2018 | 05:26 PM | PADUCAH The new Farm Bill has made it possible for farmers to legally grow industrial hemp, which could prove to be a big benefit for Kentucky. Speaking on the Greg Dunker Show Thursday morning about the industrial hemp and the Farm Bill, Kentucky Senator and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "I hope some day it will be as big as tobacco used to be. We think this will be big, we think that Kentucky is a little bit ahead of the other states, and in a position to compete in a free market." McConnell continued, "it also provides crop insurance for farmers, other than that, it's a free market activity, and we think demand will be high." McConnell pointed out that the bill has passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and is on it's way to the President's desk. Industrial hemp has many uses, some of which include fuels, textiles, nutrition, and construction materials. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 13, 2018 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 13, 2018 | 06:29 PM | PADUCAH Since Paducah's application for a BUILD grant was not selected in the 2018 group, the city will apply again next year. Sandra Wilson, with the Paducah Chamber of Commerce, told West Kentucky Star, "this was the city's first time to apply, and it usually takes multiple times to be selected." Wilson said it is expected that $1 billion dollars will be available for the 2019 BUILD grants, and Paducah will be applying again. The Paducah BUILD grant would be used to build a landing pier and area for gatherings, known as Paducah Commons. She also pointed out that this would be much safer for passengers on steamboats that dock in downtown Paducah. The grant would also be used to install a new cargo loading area, which would be managed by the Riverport Authority. Wilson added that there were three BUILD applications in Kentucky this year that were selected, all dealing with road projects. The BUILD grant program, which is an acronym for "Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development", is a way that Federal dollars are distributed to local communities for road, rail, transit, and port projects. Calvert City Jingle All the Way 5k and Fun Run set for December 4 Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 13, 2018 | MURRAY By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 13, 2018 | 04:19 PM | MURRAY A Murray family is choosing to focus on the positive side of things after their child managed to walk away from the campus of Murray Middle School without being noticed by school staff. On December 4, the child, who is has special needs and hasn't been identified, left class and was spotted by passerby Jakese Roberson, who took the boy to a nearby hospital. Someone from the school eventually came to escort the child back to class. The family is "very thankful for Mr. Roberson for what he did in helping their child," according to attorney Chip Adams, a family friend who spoke on their behalf to West Kentucky Star. When contacted about the incident, the Murray Independent School district issued a statement, saying teachers and staff began searching for the student within five minutes of when he walked away, and contacted the family within minutes. Superintendent Coy Samons said the boy was found after 10-15 minutes. The statement said school staff met with the child's parents to discuss what happened and how to keep him and other students safe in the future. Adams said the family is also pleased with the response from the school following the incident, and there are no plans for any legal action. "We're trying to be part of the solution, not part of the problem," Adams said. The family's only quibble, according to Adams, was with a television station that chose to use someone's cell phone video of the child in their reporting of the incident. He said the family's request for privacy was not honored. Here is the full statement from Coy Samons, Murray Independent School District Superintendent: On Tuesday, December 04, 2018, a special needs student was able to leave the classroom and Murray Middle School Campus undetected. In less than five minutes, the teacher and staff began to search for student. The student was unaccounted for approximately ten to fifteen minutes. To our understanding, less than a block from the school campus, an individual found the student and escorted the child to a local hospital facility. The teacher and Safety Resource Officer ( SRO) returned the child to school grounds. The schools response was immediate and contacted the family within minutes. A meeting between the parents and school officials was held to discuss the situation, and future plans to insure the childs safety. The school and district staff will continue to examine school safety procedures and areas that may need improvement. Student safety is a top priority of the Murray Independent School District. (All Safety Resource Officers are employees of the Murray Police Department) Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page New First Minister unveils Cabinet local AMs keep jobs This article is old - Published: Thursday, Dec 13th, 2018 The First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has today announced his new look cabinet to lead Wales in one of his first acts of being the new. Mark Drakeford AM unsurprisingly won the vote in the Senedd yesterday to become First Minister after Carwyn Jones resignation, and took the oath of office earlier today to formally take the role. The Official Oath, undertaken by The Honorable Mr Justice Lewis, marks the start of my tenure as First Minister of Wales. Thank you to everyone who has given their support it's an enormous privilege to be here today, to lead the people of Wales & call myself your First Minister pic.twitter.com/7yZ1lSSOmF Mark Drakeford (@fmwales) December 13, 2018 The First Minister said, It is an enormous privilege for me to be appointed First Minister of Wales. Every leader needs a strong team around them, and I am delighted to introduce my new cabinet which is a strong mix of experience, talent and passion. Brexit is our greatest challenge. In the extraordinary and regrettable circumstances created by the UK Government, it is vital that we prepare for all outcomes. I have retained Ministers in posts where their experience of Brexit preparation is key, while creating a new post to reflect the priority I attach to international relationships and trade. As a government we will continue to speak up for Wales, to fight our countrys corner and make sure the government in London is never in any doubt at all of what matters to the people of Wales. The First Minister created his first Cabinet today, and Wrexhams AM and Clwyd Souths AM both retained their positions from the Carwyn Jones era. Cabinet and ministers list issued today from Cardiff Ken Skates Minister for Economy and Transport Lesley Griffiths Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs Vaughan Gething Minister for Health and Social Services Julie Morgan Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services Eluned Morgan Minister for International Relations and the Welsh Language Dafydd Elis-Thomas Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism Lee Waters Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport Julie James Minister for Housing and Local Government Hannah Blythyn Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government Rebecca Evans Minister for Finance and Trefnydd Kirsty Williams Minister for Education Jeremy Miles Counsel General Designate and Brexit Minister Jane Hutt Deputy Minister and Chief Whip Wrexham JCB workers receive 1,000 bonus for Christmas This article is old - Published: Friday, Dec 14th, 2018 JCB has delivered some festive cheer to thousands of UK employees including Wrexham workers -by delivering the companys biggest Christmas bonus for more than a decade. Around 7,200 employees at JCBs 11 plants across Staffordshire, Derbyshire and the Wrexham Industrial Estate will receive an extra 1,000 in their pay packets. The last time a Christmas bonus of that scale was awarded in 2007. The record-equalling Christmas bonus comes in a year in which JCB machine production reached a 73-year high and in which an additional 1,500 people were recruited. This includes the awarding of permanent JCB contracts to around 550 agency employees. In making the announcement, JCB Chairman Lord Bamford said: JCB has had a very successful year and I am delighted that we are able to award a substantial Christmas bonus to thank our employees for their contribution. There are many parallels between JCB and the British economy at the moment: both are doing very well indeed and both have record levels of employment. Whats more, the signs remain extremely encouraging for 2019, with many reasons to remain positive for the future, both for our business, and the UK, which, after all, is the worlds fifth largest economy. JCB CEO Graeme Macdonald added: JCB has had an exceptional year and we are gearing up for another strong 2019. The whole JCB team has every reason to be proud of what has been achieved and we are looking forward to building on our success next year. During 2018 JCB has also launched its brand new range of X-Series excavators to industry acclaim and began work on a new 50 million UK factory at Uttoxeter, Staffordshire to build cabs for its machines. JCB also unveiled its first electric digger a 1.8 tonne mini excavator which can be charged by plugging it into a 230 volt domestic supply. THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) - Over the next few hours Thomasville is going to transform with its 32nd annual Victorian Christmas. This year the city is bringing a real Victorian element to the event. The new feature, a teatime experience that will truly transport you to another time. Elegance, manners, and, teatime. All very popular 150 years ago during the Victorian Era. An ambiance Thomasville tries to re-create for the Victorian Christmas. And this year you can get a taste of the social expectations of an era gone by. "Society is definitely different these days. We don't observe a lot of the same rules that the Victorians did," said Allyson Whittaker, Owner of Southwest Georgia Protocol School. Whittaker believes good social skills never go out of style. "Just because society is different doesn't mean we can't take some of these things and apply them to our modern society," said Whittaker. Years ago, tea was the time to socialize. Nowadays, people often grab a cup of coffee from the local coffee shop. "It's going to be a really fun way for little ones to kind of learn some of the customs of that elegant way of life," said Sarah Baggett, Marketing Manager of City of Thomasville. The City of Thomasville welcomed the addition of a traditional tea experience to its annual festival. Whittiker said people were reserved during Victorian times. She said it was a period of transformation, but there were many rules you had to follow. And teatime was no different. Around 5:00, fine china, silver, tea and biscuits would fill the table. "Back then, they definitely had more stuff that went along with teatime. People ate lunch a little earlier and they ate dinner a lot later than we do now," said Whittiker. "So tea was definitely meant to provide sustenance." And you can get a little taste of that in Thomasville during Victorian Christmas, where you can immerse yourself in another time. The event runs until 9:00 p.m. and Friday from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-06 10:53:54|Editor: Liu Video Player Close VIENTIANE, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The ongoing Lao National Assembly (NA) session has approved a reshuffle and appointments in public security, national defence and the banking sectors. According to the state-run Lao News Agency (KPL), the NA appointed Deputy Minister of National Defence Maj. Gen. Vilay Lakhamfong as Minister of Public Security, replacing Maj. Gen. Somkeo Silavong who will hold a senior position at the Ministry of National Defence. According to local daily Vientiane Times' Thursday report, the reshuffle was approved following the proposals of Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. The NA meeting also listened to a government report on its performance including the effectiveness of the public security sector over the past midterm. At their debate on the reshuffle on Wednesday, NA members expressed their support for the government decision, saying it met current administrative requirements, said the daily. The assembly on Wednesday also approved Acting Governor of Bank of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the central bank, Sonexay Sithphaxay as the new governor of the bank. The approval of the appointment was voted by members of the 8th National Assembly's 6th Ordinary Session. The NA members asked the appointed officials to strictly comply with the laws of the country, to strictly impose the rule of law, improve human resources quality, and to be good role models for new generations in respecting the law, said the Lao state-run media. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-13 19:24:51|Editor: mmm Video Player Close Israeli forces inspect the site of a Palestinian drive-by shooting attack outside the West Bank settlement of Givat Asaf, northeast of Ramallah, on Dec. 13, 2018. Earlier Thursday, two Israeli soldiers were killed and two others injured in a shooting attack carried out by unknown gunmen near Ramallah, according to the spokesman. (Xinhua/JINIPIX) JERUSALEM, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israelis and severely wounded two others in a drive-by shooting attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israeli officials said. The incident took place at a bus stop outside Givat Asaf, an illegal Israeli outpost northeast of Ramallah city, a military spokesperson said in a statement. According to the statement, the shooter stepped out of a vehicle and opened fire at Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and civilians who were standing at the bus station. The military spokesperson said that at least two people were in the car, which fled the area right after the shooting. Israeli medics told Xinhua over the phone that two of the victims were killed at the scene and two others were rushed to hospitals in Jerusalem with serious-to-critical injuries. All of the victims are people in their 20s. The military then launched a manhunt. TV live broadcast from the scene showed large military forces at the junction, which is part of Route 60, a major road that runs through the West Bank. Palestinian media reported that the car, a blue Mitsubishi, was located on the outskirts of Ramallah. No group has assumed responsibility for the attack. The attack sparked angry reactions in Israel. Deputy defense minister and lawmaker with the pro-settler party of the Jewish Home, Eli Dahan, said that Israel should react forcefully in order to "deter more attacks." "The homes of the terrorists should be demolished to the ground and their families should be expelled from their hometowns," he told Channel 2 TV news. The attack came four days after a similar drive-by shooting attack at a bus stop outside the settlement of Ofra, some 6 km north of Givat Assaf. Seven people were wounded. A baby of one of the injuries, who was delivered prematurely, has died on Wednesday. The violence was the latest in a resurging string of attacks perpetrated by Palestinian individuals. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 01:37:05|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close China's Ambassador to Iraq Chen Weiqing delivers a speech at a ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 13, 2018. Iraq and China on Thursday held a Silk Road themed culture ceremony in Baghdad on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between the two countries. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) BAGHDAD, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Iraq and China on Thursday held a ceremony in Baghdad to celebrate the Silk Road initiative on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between the two countries. Speaking at the ceremony, China's Ambassador to Iraq Chen Weiqing hailed the the Silk Road for connecting the eastern and western sides of Asia. The road reduced the distance between the Chinese and Iraqi people, strengthened their friendship by starting friendly exchanges between the two cradles of civilization in the past and the joint development of the two countries in the present, he said. He described the Silk Road as a "preliminary formula for economic globalization", citing it contributed to creating solid ties between China and the Arab world more than 2,000 years ago. "In order to continue the legacy and development of the spirit of the Silk Road, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched in 2013 the initiative to jointly build the Silk Road Economic Belt and and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, known as the Belt and Road Initiative," Chen said. He said the initiative advocates consultation and sharing in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness, cooperation and win-win, and seeks to establish closer relations of cooperation and partnership between states. The Chinese envoy said China will seize the opportunity of celebrating the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic ties to work together with Iraq to promote cooperation, and intensify bilateral cultural and personnel exchanges. The trade volume between China and the Belt and Road countries has exceeded 6 trillion U.S. dollars, while Chinese investments in these countries have surpassed 80 billion dollars, creating more than 240,000 jobs. Chen noted that Iraq is the fourth largest oil exporter to China and its third largest trading partner in the Arab world. "The Chinese companies are involved in the construction of power stations, cement factories, oilfields and others as part of their contribution to reconstruction in Iraq," he said. The Chinese envoy also commended Iraq for winning remarkable victories in the war against terrorism and the continued improvement in the security situation. Such victories led the country into a new phase of building and reconstruction, providing new opportunities for further developing the China-Iraq relations, Chen concluded. For his part, Jaber al-Jaberi, Iraqi deputy minister of culture, lauded the "deep and close historical relationship" between Iraq and China. He note that China has "distinguished and successful cultural, intellectual, economic, social positions in the world," as the Chinese people have been walking on the Silk Road for over 2,000 years. Jaberi said China has been praised by the world as it has not shown "claws of a frightening power," but has delivered "messages of production, innovation, creativity and giving to all humanity." Saad Qindil, head of West Asia Department of Iraqi Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua that Iraq appreciates the Belt and Road Initiative, and has formed a committee in the secretariat of the Ministerial Council to focus on the the issue. The ceremony, which was attended by some Iraqi parliament members, advisor of the Iraqi President and officials of the Ministry of Culture, in addition to a number of Iraqi intellectuals and artists. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 02:47:20|Editor: mmm Video Player Close KIEV, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday discussed the situation in the Kerch Strait with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the presidential press service said. During the meeting in Brussels, Poroshenko urged Stoltenberg to launch NATO mission for monitoring air and sea space in the Black Sea. The reinforcement of NATO's permanent presence in the Black Sea is needed to prevent further escalation of the tensions and ensure security in the region, Poroshenko said. For his part, Stoltenberg said that NATO is concerned over the situation in the Sea of Azov and the surrounding waters and urged Russia to release captured Ukrainian ships and sailors. On Nov. 25, three Ukrainian ships and more than 20 sailors attempting to sail through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov were seized by Russian forces for allegedly violating the Russian border. The Ukrainian Navy said that it had informed Russia in advance of the passage, while Russia said it had received no such report and the ships ignored multiple warnings by the Russian border guards. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 04:32:40|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) on Thursday signed four road projects agreements worth 244 million U.S. dollars in total with four Chinese firms. The roads, 290.5 kilometers in total, are expected to be constructed in the central, northern, eastern and western parts of the country. China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), Zhejiang Bayong Highway Engineering Co. Ltd, Hebei Construction Group Corporation Limited and Beijing Urban Construction Group will build the four road projects. Li Zhiyuan, General Manager of CCECC Ethiopia, told Xinhua that his company will construct a 103.26-km asphalt road project that is expected to be completed in three years. The road project is expected to partially alleviate transportation problems in Somali regional state, located in the eastern part of the country. "This road project starts from Jijiga, capital of Somali regional state to the Dire Dawa city. It's a good corridor that links the Somali regional state with the rest of Ethiopia," he said. Samson Mamo, ERA's public relations head, said Chinese firms are greatly contributing to Ethiopia's rapid economic growth over the past decade. "Chinese road construction firms have extensively involved themselves in road projects that have contributed greatly to Ethiopia's economic development efforts," Mamo told Xinhua. "Regarding achieving our plans on road sector, Chinese contractors play a big role. They also contribute in technology transfer to local staff," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 05:02:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GABORONE, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Science and Technology has donated seven modularized container clinics to Botswana's Ministry of Health and Wellness in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The clinics are equipped with general diagnostic equipment and other basic medical facilities. Speaking at the handover ceremony on Wednesday, Wang Bangfu, charge d'affaires of Chinese Embassy in Botswana, said it marked a beginning to provide mobile medical services to people in remote areas. Wang noted that the mobile clinics would help meet medical needs in the rural areas of the southern African country. He said health cooperation is an important part of the bilateral cooperation and demonstrates the time-honored friendship between China and Botswana. For his part, Alfred Madigele, Botswana's health minister, commended China for increasing participation in healthcare initiatives. "The donation will benefit our people in providing basic healthcare services in areas with no clinics and health posts," Madigele said, adding that the ministry's intention is to distribute the clinics to villages with a population less than 20,000. China and Botswana established diplomatic relations in 1975. China began to send medical teams to Botswana since 1981. For the past 37 years, China has sent 15 medical teams and more than 500 Chinese doctors to Botswana. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 05:17:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ZAGREB, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Croatian government submitted a proposal to parliament on Thursday to amend the Croatian Citizenship Act in order to simplify the acquisition of Croatian citizenship. If the law is adopted, applicants for Croatian citizenship will not be required to master the Croatian language or to take exams on Croatia's culture and social order. The amendment of the law would simplify the procedure for obtaining citizenship by foreign spouses of Croatian citizens on condition that the applicants prove that they have had a valid residence in the country for at least one year. The Croatian government also proposes a simpler procedure for obtaining citizenship by those without personal evidence of belonging to the Croatian people, although their parents are Croatian citizens. The government estimates that an easier procedure will enable a greater number of children of Croatian citizens who live abroad to become citizens. Under the proposed new law, a person who renounced Croatian citizenship would no longer be able to reacquire it. Since 1992, under the current law on citizenship, about 1.1 million foreign citizens have received Croatian citizenship by naturalization. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 06:58:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Britain's official adviser on heritage has lodged an objection to multi-million dollar plans for a 305-meter tall tower in the shape of a tulip, which would be the tallest structure in the City of London. Historic England said Thursday that the proposed visitor attraction would have an impact on the Tower of London, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with concerns about how the tulip tower would dominate the backdrop behind the Tower of London when viewed from London's landmark Tower Bridge. A spokesperson for Historic England said: "In our view, the proposed building would cause harm to the significance of the Tower of London, one of London's four World Heritage Sites." Michael Dunn, Historic England's principal inspector, said: "This sharp contrast, combined with the unusual eye-catching form of the proposed building, reduces the visual dominance of the Tower of London and harms an attribute of its outstanding universal value, namely the tower's role as a symbol of royal power set apart from the City of London and dominating its strategic riverside setting." Building magazine said while Historic England's objection to the Tulip will not be seen as a positive development by London-based Foster and Partners and its client billionaire banker Jacob J Safra, it will be up to City of London planners to present a weighted balance of the degree of harm against the scheme's benefits. Dunn said the view of the Tower of London from Tower Bridge's north bastion would change the relationship, creating a "vertical cliff edge" to the eastern cluster, while the unusual form of the tulip building, intended to be eye-catching, would draw attention away from the tower. As well as a main tower, the project includes an entrance pavilion with public roof terrace and a dedicated education center for children from state schools in London. The Architects' Journal reports that the application has already received numerous objections, including concerns by London City Airport demanding the scheme be checked to see if it would interfere with radar systems. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 07:13:10|Editor: mmm Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council on Thursday adopted a resolution to renew the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) till Nov. 15, 2019. Resolution 2448 also decides that the peacekeeping mission, known by its French acronym as MINUSCA, shall maintain its current personnel level -- 11,650 troops and 2,080 police officers. It decides that MlNUSCA's strategic objective is to support the creation of the political, security and institutional conditions conducive to the sustainable reduction of the presence of, and threat posed by, armed groups through a comprehensive approach and proactive and robust posture without prejudice to the basic principles of peacekeeping. The resolution sets as priority tasks of MINUSCA the protection of civilians; good offices and support to the CAR peace process, including national reconciliation, social cohesion and transitional justice; facilitation of the creation of a secure environment for the immediate, full, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance; and the protection of UN personnel, sites and equipment. France first circulated the draft resolution in early November. But by the date of expiry of MINUSCA's mandate on Nov. 15, the French text seemed not to be able to pass owing to reservations by Russia and the United States, two permanent members of the Security Council that have veto power. The Security Council had to adopt Resolution 2446 to provide a technical roll-over for a month to allow negotiations on the French draft resolution. Resolution 2448 won the approval of 13 Security Council members. Russia and China -- the remaining members of the council -- abstained. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 07:53:15|Editor: mmm Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock on Thursday urged all concerned parties to provide the authorizations for humanitarian convoy to proceed in Syria without delay. "Please provide the authorizations and facilitation letters and all the necessary security guarantees for the convoy to proceed without delay or impediment," the UN humanitarian chief told a Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria. "The situation in the north-west of Syria, where some 3 million people remain dependent on humanitarian cross-border operations, remains very challenging," he said. The recent hostilities have reportedly forced nearly 15,000 people to flee their homes for neighboring villages, "with many people living in the open without adequate shelter during the cold winter months," said Lowcock. He said the UN and non-governmental organizations continue to respond to ensure those in need get help, "but fighting and displacement make the situation more difficult and the population more vulnerable." "Idlib remains on the edge of a humanitarian disaster," he said, noting that should there be a further escalation of violence, "the needs would quickly overwhelm the ability of humanitarian agencies to respond." "Humanitarian organizations estimate that up to 6,000 people remain trapped in areas under the control of ISIL east of the Euphrates in the Deir-ez-Zor governorate, he said. Noting that civilians continue to suffer as a result of both ground fighting and airstrikes, he pointed out that the last aid to reach displaced people in the area was in October. "I also remain very concerned about the more than 40,000 people in Rukban, where we continue to receive reports of civilian suffering and death," said the UN humanitarian chief. "Sustaining and scaling up the response is critical in other parts of the country, including in areas under the control of the government, where we now estimate that 8.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance," said Lowcock. "We continue to engage with all parties to the conflict, including the Government of Syria, at multiple levels to negotiate access and ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches those most in need," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 08:03:15|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close People attend a memorial ceremony on the second Ontario's Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day at Markham Civic Center in Markham, Ontario, Canada, on Dec. 13, 2018. Hundreds of people attended the event on Thursday to commemorate the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Japanese troops occupied Nanjing, then China's capital, on Dec. 13, 1937, and began a six-week massacre. Chinese records show that more than 300,000 people -- both unarmed soldiers and civilians -- were brutally murdered and over 20,000 women raped. (Xinhua/Zou Zheng) Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 09:43:31|Editor: mmm Video Player Close CANBERRA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has launched an inquiry into how refugees are integrating into Australian society. The independent inquiry, which will deliver its final report before the 2019 general election, was announced days before the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) is expected to endorse a plan to lift Australia's refugee intake at the party's national conference on Sunday. Morrison said his government was "focused on keeping Australians together," adding the best way for refugees to integrate was for them to get jobs. "We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to help people get jobs, and integrate into the community," he told News Corp Australia on Friday. The ALP questioned the need for the inquiry saying it would cover the same ground as Parliament's joint standing committee on migration which in December 2017 recommended better-targeted job services for migrants. The ALP national conference will on Sunday sign-off on a plan to lift the annual refugee intake from 18,750 to at least 27,000 if the party is victorious at the 2019 election. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 10:03:38|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- More jobs are available this job-hunting season for 2018 and 2019 college and university graduates, Friday's China Daily quoted a newly published report as saying. In the first 11 months, the number of job hunters grew 21 percent year on year while that of job positions surged 81 percent, according to an employment report released Thursday by Zhaopin.com, China's job recruitment platform. The report was based on the job vacancies from various enterprises, including small and micro businesses, and the work preferences of more than one million student job seekers registered on Zhaopin.com. "The majority of those new jobs were in the education, consulting, internet, e-commerce, media and culture industries," Li Qiang, a senior consultant with Zhaopin.com was quoted as saying by the China Daily. The import and export industry also showed a strong demand for talent, with the ratio of jobs to job hunters in the industry increasing to 1.81 this year, compared with 0.71 last year. However, it was harder to get a job in the internet and e-commerce industry, as the pool of candidates grew faster than job openings. The industry of ratio of jobs to candidates was 2.7 this year, down 0.09 from last year. The report also said the number of job positions in private enterprises increased 109 percent, showing they were thirstier than ever for talents. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 10:03:38|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close SHANGHAI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- It is expected that 750,000 new rental apartments will be available by 2022 in China's six major cities, according to a report released by property consultancy JLL this week. The six cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province and Chengdu in Sichuan Province continue to see a growing demand in rental housing sector, Friday's China Daily quoted the report as saying. As of the first half of 2018, the cities had only 135,000 rental units with a total population of about 88 million people. Meanwhile, given the relatively higher housing prices in China's first and second-tier cities, renting is a more common option, according to the report. More than 200 million people rent apartments in China, and the country's rental market is valued at over 1 trillion yuan (about 145 U.S. dollars). China has released a series of policies to support the rental housing market in terms of land supply, financial support for developers and tax incentives for renters, according to Friday's China Daily. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 10:33:42|Editor: mmm Video Player Close CANBERRA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Australia's peak scientific body has been chosen to take over day-to-day operations at the European Space Agency's (ESA) deep space tracking center in Western Australia. The station at New Norcia, 130 km northeast of Perth, will be maintained by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), it was announced on Friday, with the ESA to continue remotely controlling its spacecraft and satellites via the station. The ESA control center in Germany uses a 35-meter antenna at the station to track, control and receive data from its spacecraft exploring the solar system. CSIRO's takeover, which will begin in March 2019, marks the first time that an Australian organization will manage day-to-day operations at the New Norcia station. "Since 1979, Australia and ESA have had treaties in place to enable European Space Agency ground stations on Australian soil to track spacecraft and interplanetary missions and Australia has unique view of the Southern Hemisphere sky that provides us with a natural advantage for viewing the Universe," Australia's Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said in a media release on Friday. "The facility at New Norcia has been in operation since 2003 and now, for the first time, an Australian organization will provide critical maintenance and operational support at the station." The CSIRO currently manages the Canberra Deep Space Communication Centre on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Friday's announcement came only days after the government said that South Australia had been chosen as the home of the Australian Space Agency, which has been tasked with tripling the value of Australia's space industry to 12 billion Australian dollars (8.66 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030. "The space industry plays an essential role in the lives of all Australians, from providing us with weather forecasts and telecommunications, to inspiring the next generation of students," Andrews said. Larry Marshall, chief executive of the CSIRO, said the new partnership would see the organization "further support humanity's exploration of our vast solar system." Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 10:48:47|Editor: Liu Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Brooklyn Nets announced that the club have agreed in principle to a contract extension with guard Spencer Dinwiddie on Thursday. "The journey is just beginning. I'm thankful that the Nets believe in me enough to give me a home," Dinwiddie said. Dinwiddie is averaging 16.9 points and 4.9 assists this season. According to the ESPN, the extension is for three years. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 11:13:51|Editor: mmm Video Player Close BRUSSELS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The European Council on Thursday voiced its support for Ukraine regarding tensions between Russia and Ukraine in the Kerch Strait and the Azov Sea but announced no further measures against Russia. Heads of the European Union (EU) states and governments met on Thursday, the first day of their two-day summit, in Brussels. Conclusions from the first day addressed the ongoing standoff between Russia and Ukraine, and attributed the acts of Russia to "violations of international law." "There is no justification for the use of military force by Russia," said the European Council, demanding the immediate release of all detained Ukrainian sailors, the return of the seized vessels and free passage of all ships through the Kerch Strait which controls access to the Azov Sea near Crimea. "The EU stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support, in particular in favor of the affected areas of Ukraine," said the European Council. On Wednesday, the European Parliament adopted a non-biding resolution calling on the EU and its member states to introduce targeted sanctions against Russia "if the Ukrainian servicemen are not released and if there is any further military escalation." Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have been escalating since last month when Russia seized three Ukrainian ships near the Kerch Strait, saying the Ukrainian ships breached its border. The Ukraine side called Russia's actions an "act of aggression" and imposed a martial law in certain regions of the country for 30 days starting Nov. 28. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 11:13:52|Editor: mmm Video Player Close YANGON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has pledged to continue assistance to Myanmar government's endeavors to achieve rule of law, socio-economic development, national reconciliation and peace process in the country, Myanmar News Agency reported Friday. The pledge was made by visiting UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Director for the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific Xu Haoliang when he met with Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi in Nay Pyi Taw Thursday. The pair's discussions also covered progress on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Myanmar, the UNDP and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in June 2018 and socio-economic development for all communities in Rakhine state. Myanmar's Labor, Immigration and Population Ministry, the UNDP and the UNHCR signed a MoU on June 6 to assist Myanmar's government repatriation process of displaced persons from Rakhine state. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 11:48:58|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai has rolled out a plan to solicit applicable artificial intelligence (AI) solutions toward widespread application of the technologies in the metropoly, China Daily reported Friday. Shanghai published 10 real-life scenarios including education, healthcare, transportation and manufacturing, all of which it hopes to upgrade with the aid of AI and seek tangible solutions from AI companies world-wide. Local schools and hospitals are exploring how AI could help finish routine tasks, including campus security management and diagnosis assistance, according to the report. Shanghai is set to build itself into a smart city of the AI age, said Zhang Ying, an engineer of the local economy and informatization commission. By carrying out the plan, the city hopes to accelerate the transformation of new technologies and products into productivity and economic drivers, Zhang said. Shanghai plans to expand the scale of its AI industry to more than 100 billion yuan (about 14.5 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020, said the report. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 11:58:59|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department said on Thursday that the United States and Germany have launched an initiative in Berlin to counter the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) threats. According to a statement, the event, held earlier on Thursday "under the auspices of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF)," aims to develop a set of non-binding good practices to assist countries in developing or expanding national action plans to identify, prioritize, and implement policies and measures to counter terrorists' use of UAS. Participants from national and local governments and international organizations at the launch event exchanged assessments of the threat, national policies, and legislative responses towards terrorist use of UAS, and established technologies to counter UAS. The two nations will also hold the first regional workshop on the initiative on Friday, which will focus on countering the UAS threat in Europe. According to the State Department, the Islamic State and other violent groups are using the UAS technology to conduct reconnaissance, drop explosives and spread propaganda. "Rapidly improving technology and easier access increase the possibility of terrorists using UAS against civilian targets," the State Department said. "As these attacks are increasing in complexity and frequency, multilateral cooperation is needed to develop a substantive guide for governments to counter terrorist use of UAS." Washington said that the initiative will convene three additional regional workshops throughout 2019 in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, so as to inform the development of a good practices document for countering terrorist UAS threats, which will be put forward for endorsement at the GCTF Ministerial next year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 12:29:03|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Bao Ronglin, 55, has witnessed China's dramatic transformation through its 40 years of reform and opening-up both within and outside the country. China's image has changed, said the naturalized Mexican, who was born in eastern China and now runs a business conglomerate in Mexico. Speaking of China's efforts to further reform and open up, Bao said he sees a country all set to step up its opening-up and committed to win-win cooperation with the outside world. "This is definitely going to create more opportunities," he said, adding that the younger generation of entrepreneurs is expected to be engaged in more "bilateral, multilateral and win-win" cooperation. Bao said the images of Chinese firms are changing, too. The best young firms, often privately owned, tap China's growing pool of university graduates, invest in research and development, and absorb international best practices in management, including intellectual property rights protection. DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION Bao's experience reflects China's changing image. His life took a key turn in the late 1980s, when he was awarded a government scholarship for further studies in economics in Mexico. He had been a lecturer for several years at Xiamen University in southeastern China. He was lucky to be admitted to the prestigious university at the age of 18 after passing the gaokao (College Entrance Examination) in 1981, three years after the launch of the reform and opening-up. He set off for the North American country with about 50 U.S. dollars. Later he managed to start his own business and grow it into a conglomerate. "I am truly grateful for the opportunity to study abroad with a government scholarship," Bao said, adding that he was allowed to stay in Mexico after his graduation with a master's degree. Bao, who heads a Chinese business association in Mexico and often leads business delegations to Zhejiang and other provinces, has witnessed the changes in China as it carries on the reform and opening-up drive. International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said in a recent interview that China's reform and opening-up "has had remarkable positive effects on China's standard of living." "Many of those effects have spilled over to other countries, particularly in East Asia and elsewhere in the emerging world," he added. GROWING PRIVATE SECTOR Bao's home province of Zhejiang, part of a key manufacturing hub in eastern China in recent decades, has been known for its robust private sector. The private sector in China has especially come a long way from its modest beginning of some 140,000 self-employed households in 1978. The economy was largely state- or collectively-owned at that time. Twenty years later, the number of registered private companies grew to 90,500. Another 20 years on, by the end of October 2018, there were 30.67 million private companies and 71.37 million self-employed households, according to statistics from the State Administration for Market Regulation. The economy has also gone through constant upgrading. The state-owned sectors have become more efficient partly due to competition from private and foreign businesses. They are leaner and stronger, but account for a much smaller part of the economy. Latest statistics show the private sector now accounts for more than half of the tax revenue, 60 percent of the output, 70 percent of technological innovations, 80 percent of urban employment and 90 percent of the new jobs in China. KNOWLEDGE-DRIVEN YOUNG FIRMS Private companies not only manufacture most products with "Made in China" tags, but have emerged as leaders in many sectors. Huawei has grown into a global telecommunications leader. Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are listed as best employers alongside foreign businesses like Microsoft, Apple and Tesla. The faces of the firms are changing. Emerging new firms are often driven by strengths in technology instead of cheap labor. They typically establish themselves in an innovative way, with huge investments in research. DJI, a company founded in 2006, is now a global leader in civil drones. It is now expanding quickly in Europe, creating local jobs in the process. Polly Yu, a project director of Frankfurt Economic Development GmbH who helped DJI enter the German market, said DJI's German branch in Frankfurt was founded with only three employees and has grown to nearly 50 employees from 17 countries and regions in a short time. The employees are on average aged 28 and use English as their working language. Barbara Stelzner, director of corporate communication at DJI Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said DJI attaches great importance to complying with strict data protection laws and regulations in Europe and guaranteeing customer data security. It launched a "local data mode" to cut off data transmission between the drone and the Internet without affecting safety. INCREASINGLY INTERNATIONAL FACES The change is partly attributable to huge investments in education, which have produced a growing talent pool. Meanwhile, more and more people go for overseas studies. In 2017, the number of Chinese students studying overseas totaled 608,400, up 11.7 percent year-on-year, while 489,200 foreign students were studying in China, up 10 percent, official statistics show. Millions of educated young people are recruited by firms like DJI, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, a reform and opening-up icon that has grown from a village to a metropolitan of about 12 million in just 30 years. VIPKID, a firm founded in 2013 and driven by IT technology, has quickly become one of the global leaders of online education. The company connects kids in China with qualified native English teachers in over 30 countries, and has also launched services connecting foreign kids with Chinese teachers. The company enables about 180,000 class sessions every day, a reflection of the enthusiasm for learning English as an international language in China. Cindy Mi, founder of the firm, said her vision is for the platform to "inspire and empower" children to become future and nurture global citizens. Chinese leaders have voiced their determination to further open China up and support private and foreign businesses. Bao has seen a change in the faces of the firms, too. "The younger generation of Chinese entrepreneurs are better educated and stronger in terms of language proficiency. I expect them to be more successful," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 12:34:03|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed and three others injured after a vehicle carrying them fell into a gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Friday. The accident took place in mountainous Reasi district, about 210 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. The cause of accident was being ascertained, police said. According to officials, the vehicle was carrying people attending a wedding. Last week 13 people were killed and 19 others injured after a passenger bus skidded off the road and fell into a gorge in region's Poonch district. Deadly road accidents are common in India due to overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving. According to officials, an average of over 400 deaths take place every day in India due to road accidents. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 12:34:04|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- A Russian citizen pleaded guilty here Thursday to one conspiracy charge, admitting that she acted as an unregistered foreign agent to advance Moscow's interests. In a court in Washington, Maria Butina, 30, reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in which she admitted to trying to establish unofficial connections with U.S. conservative groups, including the National Rifle Association. She also pledged cooperation with prosecutors in the subsequent legal process in exchange for a reduced prison time. U.S. media reported that Butina's prosecution is independent from the ongoing investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Butina admitted that at the behest of a "Russian official," she had worked with at least one U.S. national, whom prosecutors believed to be Republican Party consultant and Butina's boyfriend Paul Erickson. The Washington Post cited Department of Justice prosecutor Erik Kenerson as saying that the Russian official whom Butina referred to fitted the description of Alexander Torshin, the recently retired deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia who is on the U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions list. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Butina has no ties to Russian intelligence services, and that the whole case against her was thin, according to a Wednesday report by Russian media Russia Today. Putin added that he asked all the heads of the Russian intelligence and security services and "no one knows anything about her at all." Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told CNN that Butina used the deal "to survive," describing the prosecution as politically motivated. According to a statement by one of the prosecutors in the court, Butina drafted the "Diplomacy Project" in March 2015, suggesting that Russia forge "unofficial channels of communication" with U.S. politicians to push for its interests. Arrested without bail in July, Butina could face up to five years in jail, while her lawyer recommended zero to six months of imprisonment under federal guidelines, plus the possibility of further lowering of sentence. She will be deported to Russia after completing a jail term of whatever length. Prosecutors have not agreed on any guidelines range so far but allowed leniency if Butina provides "substantial assistance." A hearing is scheduled for Feb 12. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 13:09:09|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Losang Jamcan (3rd R), director of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Tibet Autonomous Region of China, holds talks with Catherine Dumas (2nd R), vice chairperson of the France-China Friendship Group at the French Senate, in Paris, France, on Dec. 12, 2018. A Tibet delegation of the National People's Congress (NPC) of China, led by Losang Jamcan, who is also a member of the NPC Standing Committee, visited France on Dec. 9-13. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen) PARIS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of the Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) briefed French lawmakers and local officials on the great achievements in Tibet's economic and social development during a visit in France from Sunday to Thursday. The NPC delegation, led by Losang Jamcan, director of the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Regional People's Congress, met with French deputies and community leaders, as well as Tibetans in France. Since its peaceful liberation more than 60 years ago, Tibet has seen fundamental changes under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and has become more and more prosperous and open, Chinese lawmakers said during their talks in Paris with Buon Tan, president of the France-China Friendship Group of French National Assembly, and Dumas Catherine, vice-president of the France-China Group of the French Senate, as well as four other senators. Tibet has been part of China since ancient times, the Chinese delegation said, voicing the hope that various circles of the French society will recognize the ulterior motives of the Dalai Lama, who conspires to split China under the guise of religion. The delegation also expounded on China's regional autonomy of ethnic minorities as well as the history, religions and culture of Tibet. The France-China friendship is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and many French politicians as well as the general public are curious about Tibet and expect more real voices from Tibet, said the French side, noting that the visit of the delegation will play a positive role in prompting the French society to know Tibet better. During their stay in the French city of Strasbourg, the Chinese lawmakers compared notes with Claudine Ganter, president of the International and Cross-Border Relations Commission of the Regional Council of Grand Est (Greater East) of France on cooperation in areas such as culture, tourism and human resources. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 13:24:12|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Another of China's most wanted graft fugitives returned to China Friday, according to an official source. Jiang Lei, a former senior official of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and the Automotive Industry Committee under the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, is suspected of embezzlement, said a statement by an office in charge of fugitives and asset recovery under the central anti-corruption coordination group. He fled to New Zealand in April 2007. A procuratorate in Beijing started investigating his case in May 2007 and issued an arrest warrant in June. He was listed on an Interpol Red Notice in July the same year. Jiang is the 55th of China's top 100 fugitives listed on an Interpol Red Notice for international arrest who have returned to China. The law enforcement authority of New Zealand has provided coordination in Jiang's case, the office statement said. China in August issued an announcement urging suspects of duty-related crimes who have fled overseas to turn themselves in by the end of the year if they want leniency. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 13:44:15|Editor: mmm Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton on Thursday rolled out the Trump administration's new Africa strategy, threatening to put an end to U.S. support for UN peacekeeping missions in the continent. Bolton said the new strategy, approved by U.S. President Donald Trump, will be executed "immediately." BOOSTING BUSINESS While explaining the content of the strategy in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, Bolton noted that Washington seeks to expand commercial ties with African nations across the region, combat terrorism and ensure that U.S. aid is used "efficiently and effectively." The U.S. No 1. priority will be to develop its economic ties with the region to facilitate American-African business ties and protect U.S. national security interests, he said in prepared remarks. While announcing an initiative called "Prosper Africa," Bolton urged African nations to choose "high-quality, transparent, inclusive, and sustainable foreign investment projects, including those from the United States." However, he did mention that the initiative might need "additional legislative authority" but failed to specify details such as its decision making and target countries. He said he expected the details of the initiative to roll out after Trump's first overseas travel in 2019. ENDING "INDISCRIMINATE ASSISTANCE" Bolton said that Washington, while implementing the strategy, would "reevaluate" U.S. foreign assistance to the region and around the globe so as to ensure the aid could get satisfactory results for the American people. "The United States will no longer provide indiscriminate assistance across the entire continent," he noted. "Countries that repeatedly vote against the United States in international forums, or take action counter to U.S. interests, should not receive generous American foreign aid." "We will make certain that ALL aid to the region - whether for security, humanitarian, or development needs - advances U.S. interests," he said. Bolton, a widely known critic for multilateral institutions like the United Nations, also said that Washington would seek to "streamline, reconfigure or terminate" the UN peacekeeping missions unless they "facilitate lasting peace." Washington will reevaluate its support for UN peacekeeping missions rather than providing legitimacy to missions that give large payouts to disqualified countries, Bolton said, adding that the U.S. review of its foreign aid is very near completion. It's time for African governments to take the lead themselves in peacekeeping operations, he said. AMERICA FIRST Bolton, throughout the speech, has stroked a hostile and competitive tone against countries like Russia and China. Calling the two countries' commercial cooperation with African nations "predatory practices," Bolton asserted that they "stunt economic growth in Africa; threaten the financial independence of African nations; inhibit opportunities for U.S. investment; interfere with U.S. military operations; and pose a significant threat to U.S. national security interests." After the speech that trumpeted the "America First" note, a signature philosophy of the Trump administration, Bolton tweeted that the strategy reflects "the core tenets" of Trump's foreign policy doctrine. Trump was once quoted by U.S. lawmakers as calling African countries "shitholes" when discussing immigration issue. But Bolton defended Trump by saying that his "transactional history" should be a good sign for Africa. Paul Mcleary, an analyst, tweeted after the speech that "Bolton issues direct threat against African countries who don't adhere to U.S. policy goals." Julian Hattem, another observer of Africa, noted that "from what I can tell, Trump's (read: Bolton's) strategy for Africa seems to be a 10-years-too-late and entirely rhetorical/unfunded recognition of 'oh shit! China and Russia are beating us!'" Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 13:44:16|Editor: mmm Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Thursday that a former investment adviser and his daughter were charged with making a 7.9-million-U.S. dollar Ponzi scheme. The SEC alleged Hector May, a former New York-based investment adviser, and his daughter Vania Bell misappropriated millions of U.S. dollars from investors. They even sent fake statements to clients in order to conceal their Ponzi scheme, said SEC. A Ponzi scheme means an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors, according to SEC. "May lied to investors by promising to invest their money in bonds when they actually used the money to pay for personal and business expenses, as well as extravagant items, such as jewelry, furs, vacations, and a limousine driver," said SEC. "As alleged, this father-daughter team betrayed the very people who knew and trusted them -- including family members, close friends, seniors, and local community members," said Marc P. Berger, director of the SEC's New York Regional Office. The SEC charged May and Bell with violating the federal securities laws. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York also announced parallel criminal charges against May. So far, May has agreed to the entry of "a partial judgment" against him, according to SEC. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 13:59:18|Editor: mmm Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council on Thursday adopted a resolution to renew the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) till Nov. 15, 2019. Resolution 2448 also decides that the peacekeeping mission, known by its French acronym as MINUSCA, shall maintain its current personnel level -- 11,650 troops and 2,080 police officers. It decides that MlNUSCA's strategic objective is to support the creation of the political, security and institutional conditions conducive to the sustainable reduction of the presence of, and threat posed by, armed groups through a comprehensive approach and proactive and robust posture without prejudice to the basic principles of peacekeeping. The resolution sets as priority tasks of MINUSCA the protection of civilians; good offices and support to the CAR peace process, including national reconciliation, social cohesion and transitional justice; facilitation of the creation of a secure environment for the immediate, full, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance; and the protection of UN personnel, sites and equipment. The resolution also authorizes MINUSCA to provide support for the extension of state authority in the CAR, the deployment of security forces, and the preservation of territorial integrity. In this context, the resolution allows MINUSCA to provide "limited logistical support" for the redeployment of a limited number of CAR troop units and police and gendarmerie units trained or certified by the European Union Training Mission. MINUSCA is also authorized to help with security sector reform, the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of members of armed groups, and repatriation in the case of foreign elements. The peacekeeping mission is tasked to promote and protect human rights in the CAR and to provide support for national and international justice, the fight against impunity, and the rule of law. France first circulated the draft resolution in early November. But by the date of expiry of MINUSCA's mandate on Nov. 15, the French text seemed not to be able to pass owing to reservations by Russia and the United States, two permanent members of the Security Council that have veto power. The Security Council had to adopt Resolution 2446 to provide a technical roll-over for a month to allow negotiations on the French draft resolution. Resolution 2448 won the approval of 13 of the 15 Security Council members. Russia and China abstained. Russia, which is providing weapons to the CAR and has trainers in the country, had wanted its presence and peace efforts to be recognized in the resolution. Resolution 2448 "reaffirms that the African Initiative and its roadmap constitute the only framework for a comprehensive political solution in the CAR." Although it welcomes the support of "other international and regional partners, including France, the Russian Federation and the United States," in training CAR military forces, the language clearly did not satisfy the Russians. The CAR has been in civil war since 2012, which is being fought along religious and ethnic lines. The CAR government, which controls only a fifth of the country's territory, wants MINUSCA to take up more security responsibilities. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 13:59:19|Editor: mmm Video Player Close SYDNEY, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) announced a plan on Friday to build Australia's first indigenous residential college, to encourage more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into tertiary education. The proposed 100 million Australian (71.9 million U.S.) dollar facility is set to house 250 residents at a site near their central Sydney campus. While one third of the funding provided will come from UTS, the New South Wales State government is expected to offer 10 million Australian (7.2 million U.S.) dollars for the project and the Federal Labor Party has pledged a further 20 million Australian (14.4 million U.S.) dollars if they win the next election. The remaining 37 million Australian (26.6 million U.S.) dollars is expected to raised through a donation program. With Indigenous Australians making up just 1.7 percent of all university students down under, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for indigenous leadership and engagement at UTS, Michael McDaniel, said the college will represent the "evolution of Australia" as a society. "We've gone from viewing our indigenous people as the unwanted. And what's happened is we've survived and in our own gentle and gracious way we've actually turned the nation's thinking around," he said. "This college is the symbol of the culmination of that. Now we believe it's good and proper for indigenous people to have a world-class college and its an opportunity where indigenous people can be the hosts, not the guests, in our own country." Once funding for the initiative is secured UTS will consult with local indigenous group to develop a design plan for the building, which is expected to be opened in 2022. "It's an incredibly powerful thing we can do to reduce disadvantage in this country," education spokeswoman for the federal Labor Party Tanya Plibersek said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 14:04:19|Editor: mmm Video Player Close SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's unification ministry said Friday the country was in close consultations with the United States and the United Nations (UN) to get sanctions exemptions for the groundbreaking ceremony later this month for the inter-Korean railway and road connection project. Lee Eugene, deputy spokesperson of the ministry, told a press briefing that South Korea was closely consulting with the UN and the United States to receive sanctions exemptions for the groundbreaking ceremony to modernize and connect railways and roads across the border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). South Korea and the DPRK agreed Thursday to hold the ceremony on Dec. 26 at the Panmun Station in the DPRK's border town of Kaesong to break ground for the railway and road connection works. The groundbreaking ceremony itself is not subject to the UN sanctions, but it could require the moves of materials banned under the restrictions. The two Koreas have conducted an 18-day joint inspection on the DPRK's eastern and western rail lines since Nov. 30, after receiving sanctions exemptions from the UN. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un agreed during their first summit in April to connect railways and roads across the border, agreeing in the third summit in September to hold the groundbreaking ceremony by the end of this year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 14:09:20|Editor: mmm Video Player Close TOKYO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Japan's central government on Friday began offshore landfill work for the relocation of a controversial U.S. military base in Okinawa amid staunch protests from locals. In the coastal Henoko region in Nago on the island, the planned location of the replacement facility for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, sand and soil started being dumped just before noon local time in an area spanning more than six hectares on the southern side of the landfill site. Protestors gathered from early morning to voice their opposition to the landfill work and the building of a new base, which will eventually see 157 hectares of land reclaimed from pristine waters, and the building of a V-shaped runway. A man in his 60s was quoted as saying the central government had lost the trust of the people of Okinawa over the base relocation issue. A women in her 70s held a placard stating that the will of the (Okinawa) people should not be ignored. A placard held by another lady also in her 70s read: "No more U.S. bases. Americans go home!" Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who held last-ditch talks with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya a day earlier in a bid to halt the landfill work, told reporters Friday that "I cannot help feeling strong resentment toward the work being carried out in defiance of the prefectural residents' will." Tamaki, a staunch opponent of the central government's plans to relocate the base under a pact made with Washington in 1996, said the central government maintaining such a forceful position on the issue would lead the Okinawan people to "voice their anger even stronger." Anti-U.S. sentiments were stoked on the tiny island by the rape in 1995 of an elementary school girl by three U.S. servicemen. Tamaki was elected as governor in September's gubernatorial election on a platform of opposing the base's relocation and lessening Okinawa's base-hosting burdens and has since been pushing to resolve the issue through dialogue with the central government. The central government, however, despite Tamaki's push for face-to-face talks, has forged ahead unilaterally with land reclamation work necessary to build the new base after the land ministry issued an injunction to suspend Okinawa revoking a permit for the landfill work. The Okinawa prefectural government's appeal for the suspension of work for the relocation of the controversial base was also dismissed by a lower court with the ruling upheld by the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court on Dec. 5. Okinawa hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan, yet the tiny sub-tropical island accounts for just a small fraction of Japan's total landmass. As well as shouldering the majority of U.S. bases and being victims of U.S. base-linked workers' criminal activities, which span rape and murder, to driving under the influence of alcohol, as well as a flow of accidents and mishaps involving U.S. military aircraft, the new location for the base has an extremely delicate ecosystem unique to Okinawa that the locals desperately want to protect. Tamaki had previously said that the central government's persistent push to continue with the landfill work is completely unacceptable and against the will of Okinawans who wish to see the base moved outside of Okinawa and Japan altogether. The prefectural government is urging the people of Okinawa to make their voices heard nationally and internationally by calling a referendum on the issue next year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 14:59:28|Editor: mmm Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's Fernando de Noronha archipelago on Thursday announced a ban on all disposable plastics. The archipelago, which is known as an expensive tourism destination, very much appreciated by surfers and fans of ecotourism, is the first region in Brazil to ban those plastics. The ban is applicable to items such as straws, disposable packages, plates and cutlery, plastic bags, styrofoam packages, and even small soda bottles. Items like syringes and tubes for the collection of biological material are excluded from the ban. According to the decree, signed by island administrator Guilherme Rocha, residents and tourists have 120 days to adapt to the changes; after that period, heavy fines are foreseen for those who break the rules. The decree also foresees programs to encourage the use of reusable bags, paper packages and other biodegradable materials to replace plastic items. According to Guilherme Rocha, local population supported the ban. "There was no resistance. We had the full support of hotels and restaurants," he said. In order to preserve the islands and sea life surrounding it, life at Fernando de Noronha has strict regulations. The population is controlled, as is the number of visitors permitted at the same time; agriculture and fishery have limitations; and, due to a lack of neonatal care facilities, resident pregnant women have to leave the islands to have their babies in the continent. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 15:04:29|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close by Raimundo Urrechaga HAVANA, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Until recently, the sight of distracted cellphone users walking on the streets with eyes fixed on their mobile screens was unusual in Cuba. Not anymore. Cubans across the country have been glued to their phones since the national telecom company ETECSA launched mobile Internet service a week ago. ETECSA introduced the highly-anticipated 3G service on Dec. 6 as part of a government policy to modernize the communications system in Cuba and boost Internet access in a country where most homes still lack connectivity. "The new service is great. It gives us the opportunity to connect to the Internet from our homes or anywhere. It will make our lives easier," Gabriela Reyes, a university student, told Xinhua. Since 2015, most Cubans were connected to the Internet at some 1,200 Wi-Fi hotspots set up at public spaces, including parks, hotels and cybercafes. "Being able to browse the Internet from our mobiles is very convenient," agreed Luth Lilian, a 25-year-old medical student. However, there was one downside, she noted. "The speed is really fast but prices are high," said Lilian. ETECSA is offering packages ranging from 600 megabytes for about seven U.S. dollars to four gigabytes for around 30 U.S. dollars, in line with rates elsewhere but expensive for a country where monthly wages are low as the government provides free healthcare, education, housing and food subsidies. Government authorities say prices will drop next year as the service continues to develop. "We will spend on infrastructure, in keeping with our financial possibilities, over the coming months and also start installing 4G technology, which is already used worldwide," Jose Luis Perdomo, the island's minister of communications, said recently. "It's the political will of the country's leadership that our citizens use the Internet as a tool for personal development and knowledge," said Perdomo. State employees earn on average about 30 U.S. dollars a month, so spending on Internet access is costly. "Having the Internet on our cellphones is a step forward but I think it's very expensive," said Anabel Quiaro, a young Cuban. "The amount of data for the minimum rate is too small to fully surf the web and social media. I don't think I'll buy it," she added. A plan that lets you pay per data consumption is also available, with preferential rates for local websites. "I think there should be cheaper packages and more data. ETECSA should also offer to pass on remaining megabytes to the next month or sell an unlimited plan," said student Ernesto Pedia. Pedia, who studies at the University of Havana, opted for the cheaper plan, and is pleased with the speed and efficiency of the package. The new service was gradually introduced according to users' phone numbers to avoid the congestion that struck Cuba's mobile network during a series of heavily criticized tests this year. Now all 5.3 million cellphone users can access the service if they have a 3G compatible device. Apart from the public Wi-Fi zones, the government says 670 Internet cafes around the country provide access for a dollar an hour. "We are continuing to make progress in digitizing our country," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel posted on Twitter last week to celebrate the launch of the service. 3G antennas offer coverage to some 66 percent of the island. "It's perfect that I don't have to go to parks or Wi-Fi zones, and can connect from my room with my family in my country. I think if prices go down a bit, everything will be perfect," said Lilian. Lidia Tomasina, a state employee who regularly visits a Wi-Fi park near Havana's popular Coppelia ice cream shop, in the city's Vedado neighborhood, said the service isn't for her. "The idea seems great but I don't like the data packages. I'm not really interested in buying that offer. It's cheaper for me to use Wi-Fi zones," she said. According to official data, there are more than 1,800 public Internet access sites around the country and over 5.9 million locals accessed the web last year. Home Internet access became available in 2017, and according to ETECSA, over 60,000 Cubans have the service installed. In February of last year, the government approved a comprehensive policy to boost new technologies and expand connectivity at state institutions, universities and research centers, and promote online banking, e-commerce and the creation of websites for different local governments and institutions. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 15:09:30|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu (front R) speaks at a Security Council meeting on Syria at the UN headquarters in New York, Dec. 13, 2018. The Chinese UN envoy on Thursday stressed the need to improve the humanitarian situation for returning Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese UN envoy on Thursday stressed the need to improve the humanitarian situation for returning Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Speaking at a Security Council meeting on Syria, Chinese Permanent Representative to the UN Ma Zhaoxu said the recent de-escalation of conflict in Syria has prompted an increase in the number of Syrian refugees returning from neighboring countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, which the UN refugee agency estimates to total 250,000 in 2019. In this context, Ma appealed to all Syrian parties to prioritize the nation's future and the people's well-being and thus promote stability, prevent conflict escalation and continue to create conditions for improving the humanitarian situation. Furthermore, he urged the international community to increase funding and material assistance to the Syrian people as well as to enhance support for Syrian refugee recipient countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Closing his speech, the Chinese diplomat noted the current situation in Syria provides a window of opportunity for finding a political solution to its crisis, stressing the UN's role as the main vehicle for mediation toward such a solution that takes into account the concerns of all parties through negotiations. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 15:19:31|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- South Korea and the United States failed to narrow gap in negotiations over how much Seoul would pay for the U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, local media said Friday, citing the foreign ministry. Senior diplomats from the two allies had held negotiations in Seoul for three days through Thursday to strike a deal on the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) that stipulates the cost-sharing between Seoul and Washington for the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). The current five-year accord will expire at the end of this month. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are stationed here as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with armistice. A South Korean foreign ministry official was quoted as saying that the two sides failed to reach an agreement because of the still big difference in the total amount of Seoul's financial contributions. South Korea paid 960 billion won (850 million U.S. dollars) for the stationing of the USFK, but the United States asked Seoul to sharply raise its yearly contribution, as much as to double the current amount, according to local media reports. The failure to reach the deal has been forecast to cause a problem to about 8,000 South Korean civilian workers who are employed by the USFK. About one-third of Seoul's financial contributions is reportedly used for their wages. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 15:34:33|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Multiple institutions across the United States received emails and phone calls threatening bomb attacks Thursday, which caused evacuations and law enforcement actions but were mostly confirmed by police as "not credible." The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a statement that it was aware of the recent bomb threats made in cities around the country. "We remain in touch with our law enforcement partners to provide assistance." "As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activities which could represent a threat to public safety," the FBI said. Law enforcement agencies across the country dismissed the threats, saying they were meant to cause disruption and compel recipients into sending money, and were not considered credible. The New York Police Department (NYPD) tweeted that it was monitoring "multiple bomb threats," and "these threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide & are NOT considered credible at this time." CNN reported that it was not yet clear whether these threats were connected. The threats, it said, had been received in San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Miami, Washington D.C. and other locations nationwide, targeting universities, hospitals, courthouses as well as media groups. The news cable also reported that an email demanding 20,000 U.S. dollars via Bitcoin was forwarded to its affiliate KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City by a viewer who received it at her business. "It's unclear whether everyone who received a threat on Thursday received the same email," CNN said. Emailed bomb threats demanding Bitcoin payments were also sent to locations in New York City, according to the NYPD. Searches had been conducted at those locations and no devices had been found, NYPD Sergeant Jessica McRorie told Xinhua. "At this time, it appears that these threats are meant to cause disruption and/or obtain money," she added. Credibility of these threats "can be assessed in context as likely not credible," said the sergeant, adding that they would respond to each call regarding these emails to conduct a search. The University of Washington in Seattle issued a campus-wide alert saying the FBI had "advised that the email is not a credible threat," and concluded sweeps of possibly affected buildings. The Pennsylvania State University said in a statement that its police were coordinating with the FBI in "investigating a message received by individuals in multiple locations on campus and across the state," adding that the threat "does not appear to be a legitimate threat, however, an investigation is ongoing." The police later concluded that the threat "appears to be a hoax." "We have received information that several other cities across the United States have received similar threats," police department said in San Francisco, California. Also in California, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said that several of those threats have been received in the Los Angeles area. "We are working diligently to determine the source & credibility of these threats. We will provide more information as it becomes available," the LAPD said via its official Twitter account. In Massachusetts, police tweeted that its bomb squad unit was responding to "multiple bomb threats emailed to numerous businesses in the state." "NO indications of any explosives located or detonated to this point. We will continue to communicate info when available," Massachusetts State police tweeted later. Local businesses in Florida, a courthouse in Utah, two news organizations in North Carolina, and several streets in Chicago, Illinois were also targeted by the threats. "Random email threats in Chicago are part of a similar pattern being made nationwide. We are working with federal partners on the investigation, and at this time there is no elevated threat level for the City of Chicago," tweeted Chicago Police Department. The city received 15 to 20 reports of emailed threats, according to the police. Earlier in the day, a false bomb threat was made against Columbine High School in Colorado, causing the school and 23 other schools nearby to be placed on lockdown. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 15:49:37|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BANGKOK, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A total of 668 people have been arrested in recent police crackdowns on charges involving illegal aliens in Thailand, said a police general on Friday. Of that total, 384 aliens have been rounded up for illegal entry charges including 206 Myanmar nationals, 112 Laotians, 52 Cambodians, four North Koreans, three Indians, three Vietnamese, two Nigerians, one Pakistani and one Belgian, said Deputy Immigration Bureau Commissioner Pol. Maj. Gen. Itthiphol Itthisararonchai. The deputy commissioner disclosed that 52 foreigners have been arrested for allegedly overstaying in this country, including 29 Myanmars, 10 Laotians, five Indians, three Cambodians, two Russians, two Nigerians and one Vietnamese. Meanwhile, 232 others, including 166 Thais and 66 foreign nationals, have been apprehended for allegedly breaking the law pertaining to foreign residents or committing crimes, according to the deputy commissioner. That number included 138 persons who had allegedly provided shelter to foreigners without notifying the authorities within 24 hours and 38 others who had allegedly resided at the places which were not the whereabouts earlier notified to the authorities. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 15:54:39|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close SHANGHAI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- More and more business leaders are turning to Chinese companies instead of multinationals while looking for new opportunities, according to a research report. About 40 percent of business leaders who began a new job at a local company in China over the past five years came from a multinational corporation, according to the report by global consultancy Bain & Company and employment-oriented social media platform LinkedIn China. A similar report in 2016 showed that only around 33 percent of respondents made such a decision. The observation came from an analysis of 66,000 business leaders in LinkedIn China's proprietary member database, covering 350 major corporations across 18 industries. The report attributed the turnaround to the steady expansion of the Chinese economy and the abundant opportunities offered by growing local companies. "Local Chinese companies are redefining our entire thinking of the talent market as they continue to attract leaders due to their experience, salary, training and opportunities, which go hand in hand with their fast growing operations and opportunities," said James Root, a Bain partner and co-author of the report. The report noted that China's rising tech sector is playing an increasingly prominent role in shaping the country's business and recruitment landscape, as tech firms tend to have younger leaders, more global exposure and seek talent from within the sector. "Multinationals need to rethink and adapt their value proposition to ensure that local talent feel they will have both opportunities and feel valued, thus ensuring that they don't lose out on this important generation of leaders," Root added. While the turnaround of talent flow will continue in the coming years, a sustainable trend is not guaranteed, the report said, because young and untested leaders in local firms are inclined to change companies while lack of skills and experience might drag their firms' steps for overseas expansion. "It's clear that both local firms and multinationals have areas to work on in terms of engaging with talent, but the future is bright for the market, so we expect the competition to intensify for local talent in the years to come," said Hua Lin, general manager of LinkedIn Talent Solutions at LinkedIn China. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 16:09:40|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KABUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan army continued mopping-up operations against militants as the Taliban has been attempting to take territory and consolidate its positions ahead of winter in the mountainous country, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said Friday. Forty-four militants have been killed and 11 others injured when Afghan army in coordination with police and national intelligence agency personnel conducted 18 cordon and search operations and 101 small-range special operations across Afghanistan since early Thursday, according to a statement. In restive southern Helmand province, 17 Taliban militants were killed and four others wounded after the Afghan Air Force launched airstrikes against their hideouts in Sangin, Nahri Sarraj and Washer districts. Four Taliban militants, including a local Taliban leader named Haroon, were killed in a similar incident in neighboring Zabul province, the statement said. Three Taliban militants and one member of the Haqqani militant group were killed and three militants wounded during cleanup operations in three eastern provinces of Paktia, Paktika and Laghman. In eastern Nangarhar province, 12 Taliban militants were killed and a Taliban defensive position was destroyed following a ground operation in Khogyani district. The statement said the Afghan Air Force has conducted 116 supportive flights within the period. The army personnel also seized weapons and ammunition and destroyed three militants' vehicles and two motorcycles during the raids. Three militants were killed after army soldiers pounded their position with artillery in Char Sada district of western Ghor province while four militants were killed in army shelling in northern Balkh province. The Taliban militant group has yet to make comments on the reports. The Taliban-led insurgency has been on the rampage since the beginning of 2015 when the Afghan security forces assumed full responsibilities of security from the U.S. and NATO troops. The NATO-led coalition forces also speed up their drone strikes targeting militants' hideout and bunkers in rough terrains in remote districts. The militants also intensified attacks against security forces and staged coordinated large-scale attacks against security forces' military camps and security checkpoints across the country. On Tuesday, four security force members and eight civilians were killed and six people wounded after a Taliban suicide car bomb blast struck a running military convoy in the western side of the Afghan capital of Kabul. The statement did not disclose if there were any casualties on the side of security forces. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 16:14:41|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Nine months after a Rio politician was executed, local police discovered on Thursday a plan to assassinate another prominent left-wing leader. Police said they received a tip indicating that state representative Marcelo Freixo was targeted by militia groups he had been fighting for years and was threatend to be killed in a political meeting next Saturday. Freixo called for additional protection and criticized violence against elected authorities. "It is inadmissible that, in the 21st century, these people threaten authorities in such a manner," he said. Freixo added that he does not believe the attempt on his life is necessarily connected to the assassination of city councilor Marielle Franco. Franco, who was Freixo's protege, was gunned down as she left a meeting in downtown Rio. Her driver Anderson Gomes was also killed. The unsolved crime is believed to be linked to her political work or her denouncing of police abuses, and may have been initiated by the mafia-like militia groups, which have grown rampant in Rio to dominate areas of the city. These groups, often comprising ex-policemen and firefighters, charge for protection and control the distribution of cooking gas and other necessities in poor communities. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 17:14:49|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- China and Japan will hold their 10th round of high-level consultations on maritime affairs from Dec. 17 to 18 in Wuzhen of east China's Zhejiang Province, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday. Officials from authorities of foreign affairs, defense, maritime law enforcement and maritime management of both countries will attend the talks, Lu Kang told a routine press briefing. China expects to fully exchange views with Japan on maritime issues of common concern to strengthen mutual understanding and trust, Lu said. The China-Japan high-level consultations on maritime affairs were established in 2012. The previous round of consultations was held in Sendai, Japan in April this year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 17:14:50|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MANILA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved on Friday a 408-million-U.S. dollar financing package to assist the Philippine government in rebuilding and rehabilitating the city of Marawi and regain residents' livelihoods. The Manila-based bank said the Emergency Assistance for Reconstruction and Recovery of Marawi package includes a 300-million-U.S. dollar quick disbursing loan to finance selected programs, projects, and activities under the government's Bangon Marawi Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Program covering local governance and peace-building, housing and settlement, business and livelihood, and social services. The second loan of 100-million-U.S. dollar will finance the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the damaged infrastructure by the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways, including about 25 km of roads and 1,700 meters of bridges and viaducts, the ADB said. "The infrastructure will be built back better, climate resilient, and will incorporate gender-responsive and inclusive physical design features to enable safe use by women, children, elderly, and people with disabilities," the ADB said in a statement. In addition to the loans, ADB will also provide 8 million U.S. dollars in grants to restore and rehabilitate water supply systems in 19 villages in the city. "In my interaction with residents of Marawi, they expressed their desire for a better future for their children. We hope that through this new ADB loan and grants package, we can help transform Marawi into a thriving economic center in southern Philippines, where people live in peace and prosperity," said Stephen Groff, the vice president of ADB who led a team to visit Marawi in last November. According to ADB, a portion of the grants will also construct local health units with facilities that meet or exceed national standards, procure mobile medical clinics, scale up emergency employment programs and livelihood programs, and deliver primary education in displaced people communities. The financing package followed the technical and advisory support, including the post-conflict damage and needs assessment, which were completed by the Task Force Bangon Marawi, the Office of Civil Defense, the National Economic and Development Authority, and other development partners in December 2017. The support from ADB to Marawi's rebuilding is aligned with its new Country Partnership Strategy, under which up to 1 billion U.S. dollars in development assistance is set to be prepared from 2018 to 2021 to address poverty and income inequality in Mindanao. Marawi is a city in the southern Philippines, ruined by months of fierce fighting between government and terrorists in 2017. The government is in the process of rebuilding Marawi. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 18:35:01|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will pay an official visit to Laos on Sunday and Monday at the invitation of Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Friday. Wang will attend and co-chair the fourth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) foreign ministers' meeting during his visit, Lu said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 18:55:04|Editor: mym Video Player Close LUSAKA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government on Thursday called on the international community to endorse the view of scientists that unless governments act quickly, all life forms on earth face the real risk of being endangered by 2030. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a grouping of scientists, presented a report at the ongoing 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24), warning that human activities were contributing significantly to natural disasters and unpredictable weather patterns. The experts called on countries to adopt renewable energy and ensure a significant reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels. They also suggested capping the rise in global temperature at 1.5 degrees by 2030. Anthony Mukwita, Zambian Ambassador to Germany and Poland, said there is sufficient evidence to confirm the rapid deterioration and disintegration of life support systems, hence the need for governments to act. The ambassador cited Zambia's experience in 2015 and 2016 when dry weather caused by El Nino resulted in an electricity shortage. "It is my country's firm belief that the Paris Agreement work program will ... contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the Convention by strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change," he said in a release. Zambia is deeply concerned that climate change is posing a serious threat to the country's socio-economic developmental gains and has adopted a National Policy on Climate Change that provides a framework for a coordinated response to the climate challenge, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 19:10:06|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India from Dec. 21 to 24, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced on Friday. Wang will co-chair the first meeting of China-India high level people-to-people exchanges mechanism with Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, Lu said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 19:10:06|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that some persons close to Saudi Arabia's crown prince assumed an active role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "We understand from the voice recordings that those closest to the crown prince had an active role in Khashoggi's killing," Erdogan said at a conference in Istanbul. The previous day, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution holding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud responsible for the murder of Khashoggi. Speaking about the resolution, Erdogan said there would be more developments about the issue as "Turkey submitted all the information to Americans." Erdogan also stressed that his country would continue to chase the issue until the end to reveal the naked truth behind the murder. According to the Istanbul prosecutor, Khashoggi was strangled to death after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and his body was then dismembered and destroyed. Earlier this month, Istanbul's chief prosecutor issued arrest warrants for two Saudi suspects, identified as former deputy head of Saudi intelligence and a former aide to the Saudi crown prince, over the killing of Khashoggi. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 19:15:08|Editor: mmm Video Player Close A girl stands at the main gate of a house in Sanaa, Yemen, on Dec. 13, 2018. Yemen peace consultations ended on Thursday in Sweden with uncertain deals on Hodeidah and exchange of prisoners as well as understandings on Taiz. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed) by Fuad Rajeh ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Yemen peace consultations ended on Thursday in Sweden with uncertain deals on Hodeidah and exchange of prisoners as well as understandings on Taiz. The deal on Hodeidah called for a cease-fire in port and city and redeployment of the forces of both sides under UN supervision. The UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, and the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who attended the last day of the consultations, said at a joint news conference that the UN will play a role in supervising Hodeidah seaport in accordance with the Yemeni law. "The agreement is significant although there are foreseeable implementation challenges. Both sides are on the record saying that they agreed on a cease-fire and prisoners' exchange. If this is implemented, a framework for a peace settlement should be doable in the future," said Fatima Alasrar, a Washington-based policy analyst. She believed this will lead to some type of solution, maybe not the best, but "a compromise that will spare the lives of many Yemenis." However, she said whether the agreement will be implemented is a question, considering the situation that the Houthis once reneged, the Yemeni government is weak without the Saudi-led coalition, and the international community's attention is difficult to sustain. Meanwhile, the warring parties also agreed to hold another round of talks in January 2019. But the delegation of the government stressed it will not go to the new round of talks unless the deals reached this time are implemented. "We signed more than 75 deals with the Houthis since the war began, but none of them has been implemented. We hope the Houthis will adhere to what they have agreed to over Hodeidah and prisoners," said Khalid Al-Yamani, head of the government delegation. Moreover, no progress was made on other issues including Sanaa airport, and the political and economic files. In separate news conferences at the end of the consultations, the two sides traded blames for failures to make progress on these issues. Mahmoud Shohra, the information advisor to the Yemeni embassy in Jordan, said the deals with the Houthis reached during the Sweden consultations are yet to be taken seriously because the Houthis actually do not tend to make peace. "Let's hope the Houthis will implement something this time as it was the first time they accepted to withdraw from a city," he said. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since 2014 when the Houthi rebels overtook the capital Sanaa and toppled the government of President Abd-Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. The war has killed more than 10,000 people and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. It has pushed around half of the country's population to the brink of famine, as the UN says around 22.2 million, more than two thirds of the total, are in need of humanitarian or protection aid. Hodeidah is a lifeline for the majority of the Yemeni people who live in Houthi-run regions. Around 80 percent of humanitarian aid and lifesaving imports come through the city's port. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 19:15:09|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday expressed firm opposition to a Tibet-related act passed by the U.S. Senate recently, and urged it not to be signed into law. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the comments at a daily press briefing in response to the U.S. Senate's passing of the Reciprocal Access To Tibet Act of 2018 this week. The Act, now going to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law, seeks to promote access to Tibet for U.S. diplomats, journalists, and tourists by denying entry into the United States for Chinese officials deemed responsible for restricting access to Tibet. "The Act interferes in China's domestic affairs with reckless disregard for facts and goes against the basic norms of international relations," said Lu. "China firmly opposes the Act, and has lodged solemn representations with the U.S. side over it," he added. Stressing that Tibet-related affairs belong to China's domestic affairs that no country can interfere in, Lu said any foreigners who wish to visit Tibet Autonomous Region can apply through normal channels. A large number of domestic residents and foreigners visit Tibet each year for sightseeing or business, said Lu, adding that nearly 40,000 U.S. citizens have visited Tibet since 2015, including the minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, many senators and other groups. "The accusations against China in the Act are totally groundless and absolutely unacceptable by the Chinese government and people," said Lu. "We urge the U.S. administrative bodies to take immediate measures to stop it being signed into law so as to avoid impairing China-U.S. ties and cooperation in major areas," the spokesperson said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 19:35:16|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close JAKARTA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian soldiers will take over construction in Nduga district of Papua province in eastern Indonesia in the wake of brutal assassination of 16 construction workers by an armed group earlier this month, a military officer said. Indonesian armed force will resume works of PT Istaka Karya construction firm in building the 4,000 km trans-Papua highway and bridges, Indonesian military commander in the district Jonathan B. Parluhutan revealed. About 500 military personnel along with scores of extra troop assigned to secure the works will be dispatched to Nduga district, the commander said. "May be in one or two weeks ahead, the armed force personnel will commence to enter the area (the district) and next week the equipment will be sent to the site. So that the works will resume in the next 3 weeks," Paluhutan said. President Joko Widodo has vowed that the construction of infrastructure projects in Papua province will continue, despite the violence. A total of 16 construction workers were taken hostage by the armed group and killed brutally in the district early this month, national police chief General Muhammad Tito Karnavian has said. The police and armed force are hunting the group in remote Papua, he added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:00:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkish security forces would enter the northern Syrian town of Manbij if the United States doesn't remove the Kurdish militia from the area. "They promised us that they would remove them to the east of the Euphrates," Erdogan said at a conference in Istanbul. "If you will not clean the area, we will enter Manbij," he stressed. Erdogan said that Turkey had lost enough time in intervening in the region, adding "from now it will not tolerate a single day delay." Ankara argues that Manbij is an Arab town and should be cleaned from the Kurdish militia known as the People's Protection Units (YPG). Ankara and Washington have long been at odds over the state of the YPG in Syria, as the U.S. considers the group as an ally in its fight against the Islamic State, while Turkey sees it as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party. Erdogan vowed earlier this week to launch a new operation targeting the east of the Euphrates River in Syria, sparking concern in Washington. "Turkey was determined to bring peace and security to the east of the Euphrates," the president said. Meanwhile, Turkish jets destroyed over 30 "terror targets" in northern Iraq in an overnight operation, Turkey's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The Mount Karajak area inside Iraq was hit for the first time, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. Erdogan said Turkey's "anti-terror operations" in northern Iraq will continue. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:05:21|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Wang Yang (R), chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, president of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand, in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Yang met here Friday with Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, president of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand. Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said China and Thailand share kinship-like friendship, as they are good neighbors and partners. The two countries respect each other and treat each other as equals, setting a model for win-win cooperation between countries with different systems. China appreciates the positive role played by the Thai side in promoting the development of China-ASEAN relations, said Wang. He said China will continue to strengthen exchanges at all levels with the Thai side, seek synergy between the two countries' development strategies, deepen pragmatic cooperation in such fields as the Belt and Road Initiative, and enhance people-to-people exchanges. The two leaders also agree to promote exchanges between the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:10:22|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BERLIN, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The governing parties in Germany have regained some approval ratings among German voters, the monthly survey Politbarometer published by public German broadcaster ZDF on Friday shows. According to the poll, the conservative alliance of CDU/CSU gained three percent since the last poll in November and is currently favored by 30 percent of German voters. Another poll, the weekly Deutschlandtrend, published on Thursday night by German broadcaster ARD, even saw the CDU/CSU at 31 percent, the best result in this poll for the conservative union since nearly half a year. Last Friday, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer narrowly won the party vote against her competitor Friedrich Merz to succeed Angela Merkel as the new CDU chairman. According to Friday's poll results, however, only 38 percent considered Kramp-Karrenbauer capable of becoming the next German chancellor, while 41 percent believed that Kramp-Karrenbauer would not be "suitable as chancellor". Among CDU voters, 68 percent would like Angela Merkel to remain Chancellor until the end of the current legislative period in 2021. The coalition party SPD also gained one percent and now stands at 15 percent in the Politbarometer poll. In October, the social democrats (SPD) received their worst poll results ever, with only 14 percent of support among German voters. Back in 2017, the SPD had temporarily been the strongest political force in several polls and achieved poll scores of up to 32 percent. With 19 percent, Germany's Green party remained the second-strongest party despite a loss of three percent in Friday's poll. Support of the Left Party remained unchanged at nine percent while the FDP lost one percent and dropped to seven percent. The far-right populist party AfD lost one percentage point and currently stood at 15 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:10:22|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Li Zhanshu, chairman of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, presides over a chairpersons' meeting of the NPC Standing Committee at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislature will convene its bi-monthly session from Dec. 23 to 29, according to a statement issued after a chairpersons' meeting Friday. Li Zhanshu, chairman of the 13th National People's Congress Standing Committee, presided over the meeting. Attendees of the meeting suggested that legislators would deliberate bills on the draft law on foreign investment, and draft revisions to the patent law, the land management law and the urban real estate management law. The legislators will review the drafts of the contract book and the tort book of the civil code, the draft law on vehicle purchase taxes and draft revision to laws on rural land contracts, according to the statement. The lawmakers will also review the bill on ratifying the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Convention on Countering Extremism. Also on the agenda are hearing and reviewing a number of reports, including those on the rectification of the problems found in the audit of the central government's 2017 budget and the implementation of the marine environmental protection law. The lawmakers will also deliberate on a report on deputy qualifications and review official appointments and dismissals, the statement said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:10:22|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close NAIROBI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Friday called on African governments to resort to innovative ways of gathering data on female genital mutilation (FGM). Ademola Olajide, representative of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to Kenya, said the current data gathering through demographic survey is no longer accurate enough as some people do not give the correct situation. "FGM has continued to evolve in the continent, hence the need to adopt new approaches that could allow surveys to be done on a daily basis to be able to get up to date data," Olajide said during the launch of Kenya's anti-FGM strategic documents in Nairobi. Margaret Kobia, Kenya's cabinet secretary for Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, said that Kenya is developing a national policy on eradication of FGM that will be launched in February next year. "All stakeholders will be expected to use the new policy to intensify campaigns against FGM in the country," Kobia said. She said that according to the Kenya national demographic and health survey of 2014, the national prevalence of FGM remains high at 21 percent. According to Kobia, its estimated that more than 9.3 million girls have undergone the cut and are living with the negative effects of the cut in the country. "We are forced to re-strategize to eliminate the vice since more women and girls are at the risk of undergoing the cut due to cultural and religious pressure," she added. Besides being one of the worst forms of gender-based violence and the worst form of human rights violation, the practice violates Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 which advocates for "good health and well-being" for all. Kobia said that FGM has to be fought as it is common knowledge that it adversely affects women's health, especially during child birth, leading to medical complications such as fistula. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:20:24|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close VIENTIANE, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party have exchanged experiences in party-building and anti-corruption during a CPC delegation's visit to Laos. At the invitation of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP), Lu Xi, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and member of the National Supervisory Commission, led a CPC delegation to visit Laos from Monday to Friday. The CPC delegation met with Bounthong Chitmany, member of the Central Committee of LPRD and chairman of the LPRD Inspection Committee, and Sounthone Xayachack, head of the LPRP Central Committee's Commission for External Relations. During the visit, the Chinese delegation held seminars to exchange with the Lao party the methodology and experience in strictly administering the party and anti-corruption since the 18th CPC National Congress. The Lao side hailed the achievement of the CPC in party building and expressed its willingness to continue to deepen the exchanges and cooperation between the two parties and promote the building of an unbreakable community of shared future between Laos and China. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:25:24|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close NAIROBI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government's newly announced Africa strategy is poorly informed about what Africa wants and risks further alienating itself from the continent, Kenyan analysts have said. Gerishon Ikiara, economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi and former government official, said that for many years, the United States had underestimated the China-Africa economic, political and diplomatic relations which have grown in the last two decades. The Prosper Africa initiative, published by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton on Thursday, calls China-Africa relations "predatory," which, according to Ikiara, displays an ignorance of what attracts Africa to Chinese development assistance as compared to the Western aid. "A look at key elements of the new U.S. strategy for Africa demonstrates Washington's poor understanding of China-Africa relations and could easily weaken even more Africa-U.S. economic and political relations," he said. The new U.S. strategy, observed Ikiara, is poorly informed about what Africa desires in its relations with development partners in general and with major countries in particular. "The strategy will most likely draw Africa and the United States of America further and further apart," he said. Eric Mangunyi, a senior consultant at Nairobi-based Em-Pioneer Consultants and researcher at Walter Sisulu University of South Africa, called the strategy "a sign of panic." In its new strategy, the U.S. govenrment plans to reevaluate its support for United Nations peacekeeping missions, and this, according to Mangunyi, possibly leads to terminating missions it deems ineffective or inefficient. "This might be tragic for Africa, especially for war-torn countries because they have relied on the missions for some form of stability," he said. He observed that African countries shifted to the East because the Chinese people were willing to offer loans for development without much lecturing. "While the loans have left Africa indebted, citizens are enjoying stadiums, using roads and railways -- all modern. The U.S. unfortunately has come late because African countries may not absorb more loans," he said. According to him, the Chinese loans are directed at infrastructure projects like rail and roads which have great impact on the lives of African people. "The U.S. on the other hand has invested indiscriminatingly its foreign aid (in) fighting terrorism but the problem still persists. It has tried to instill democracy but Africans have their own sense of democracy," he said. According to Ikiara, the U.S. Africa strategy signals a fresh scramble for the resources of the African continent. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:25:24|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close MANILA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Holding ceremonies to commemorate the Nanjing Massacre that happened 81 years ago can send a message of peace, expose the ugly side of war and teach the youth to embrace peace so as not to repeat the tragedy, a Philippine expert said in a recent interview with Xinhua. Michael Charleston Chua, a history professor at the Philippine De La Salle University, told Xinhua that teaching and learning history like the Nanjing Massacre is vital in making the youth understand the importance of peace. "Every time we teach and learn history, we cultivate peace. We send the message that we need peace. History tells us that wars waste lives. Communications and dialogues can resolve conflict or differences in opinions," Chua said. China held a national memorial ceremony on Thursday to mourn the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing Massacre committed by Japanese invaders in 1937. Chua said that the Philippines also suffered during World War II. "A lot of tragedies happened in the Philippines like Manila Massacre and Bataan Death March." On Oct. 30, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed a bill into law making Sept. 2 of every year as a non-working holiday in Ifugao province to mark the surrender of the Japanese Imperial Army at the end of World War II. "Setting up a memorial day, like the National Memorial Day of Nanjing Massacre victims in China and non-working holiday marks the end of World War II in the Philippines, is very important and meaningful," the Philippine historian said. Chua said that there is still the need to commemorate that part of history to keep the memory alive to the Filipinos and Chinese people about the dark past. "The meaning of memorial events is to send a message that we should remember what happened and what the aggressors did, so we don't let history repeat itself again in the future," Chua said, adding that remembering the past is not prolonging hatred. "The reason that why we are trying to remember the tragedies is to learn a lesson from history and to understand what happens in the present better," Chua added. He lamented that the remaining few survivors of the massacre are dying every year because of old age. "We should collect and study their stories, take videos and keep records. So people can know what happened even some people are denying it," he said. Chua also expressed concern that the youth in many countries are learning about wars through video games and social media nowadays."It's very dangerous because they will take wars as games," Chua said. "It's important to teach the young people especially the students to remember the history and what really happened during World War II so that they will keep the culture of peace and anti-war sentiments instead of saying go to wars easily," Chua said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:40:27|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chen Yunlin, former president of the Chinese mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), will visit Taiwan to mourn the death of Chiang Pin-kung, former vice chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party. Chen has been acquainted with Chiang for a long time, and they have established a profound friendship, said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, in response to an inquiry on Friday. To look back on their friendship and pay his respects to Chiang, Chen will make the trip on his own behalf and as a friend of the deceased, with his itinerary pending further discussion with Chiang's family, said Ma. Chiang, who passed away Monday in Taipei, was also the former chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation and former vice president of the Taiwan-based council of the summit for entrepreneurs across the Taiwan Strait. After Chiang's passing, several mainland officials, including Liu Jieyi, head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, and Zhang Zhijun, president of the ARATS, sent messages of condolences to Chiang's family. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:40:28|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Four civilians and one police officer were killed and five civilians were wounded after gunmen spread bullets on people attending a funeral ceremony in Afghanistan's northern province of Balkh on Friday, local police said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:50:30|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PARIS, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- French investigators were working to determine whether the gunman who attacked people in Strasbourg Christmas market acted alone or with accomplices, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said on Friday. "The investigation will continue to identify possible accomplices who may had helped him or encouraged him to commit his crime," Heitz told reporters. "We are now reconstructing the events of last 48 hours to see if he had benefited from any support," he added. On Tuesday evening, a man armed with a firearm and a knife, opened fire several times and stabbed people in Place Kleber and the Grand'Rue, one of the French city's main shopping streets where Christmas market is held every year. Three people were killed and one victim was brain-dead. A total of 12 passers-by were wounded, one still fighting for his life, according to Paris prosecutor. The shooter, identified as Cherif Chekatt, has been killed, on Thursday evening, 48 hours after the attack, in the Neudorf-Meinau district of the city, two kilometers from where he targeted people near the Christmas market. "At this point, seven people have been put in police custody. Four members of his family have been detained since Tuesday and three members of his close circle," Heitz said. The 29-year-old man had been on police watchlist as he developed radical religious tendencies while he was in jail. He had been convicted several times in France, Germany and Switzerland for common law offenses, including violence and robberies. A statement released Thursday on the Islamic State (IS) website claimed that Chekatt is one of its soldiers who "carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries." Attending the reopening of the Christmas market in Strasbourg on Friday, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner described the terrorist group's claim as "totally opportunistic". Prior to that, Castaner told Europe 1 radio "nothing indicates that (Chekatt) was part of a network. There is nothing to suggest that he was being protected by such, but the investigation is not yet over." Following the assault on Tuesday, France has raised its security threat level to the highest and poured additional 1,800 security forces across its cities to guarantee security in Christmas markets and for year-end holidays. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:55:30|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close HEFEI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The construction of a key facility to support the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) started Friday in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province. The new facility will serve as a test platform for the research and development of key components for fusion reactor, such as magnets, heating systems, and divertors, according to a press release of Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The facility will encompass two main research systems: the magnet and tokamak/divertor systems. It will lay a solid experimental foundation for CFETR. Led by the Institute of Plasma Physics under Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, the support facility construction is expected to be completed in five years. On completion, the facility will be a comprehensive research and test platform with multiple functions supporting global fusion research. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 20:55:30|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close CAIRO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Egypt has condemned on Friday Strasbourg shooting that left three people dead and other 13 injured in France. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry asserted "Egypt's backing for the French government and people in the face of violence, extremism and terrorism." French police shot dead the gunman who opened fire on the people in Strasbourg's popular Christmas market on Thursday. Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. The statement offered its condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery for the injured. Egypt renewed solidarity with the efforts of the international community to deter terrorism in all its forms and dry up its funding resources, the statement added. It also pledged Cairo commitment to confronting all threats that aim at destabilizing peace and security and intimidating people. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 21:00:31|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Friday refuted a U.S. official's smearing remarks on China-Africa cooperation. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton rolled out the Trump administration's new Africa strategy on Thursday, using a hostile and competitive tone against countries like Russia and China. Calling the two countries' commercial cooperation with African nations "predatory practices," Bolton asserted that they "stunt economic growth in Africa, threaten the financial independence of African nations, inhibit opportunities for U.S. investment, interfere with U.S. military operations and pose a significant threat to U.S. national security interests." In response, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang stressed, "What China cares about is African countries' needs, such as industrialization and agricultural modernization." "In contrast, it is interesting to see from the remarks of some Americans that, besides its own interests and demands, the U.S. is concerned about China and Russia rather than Africa," Lu added. He recalled that during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, many African leaders articulated their countries' desire for development and appreciation of China's support. As facilitating Africa's peace and development is the common responsibility of the international community, China has always adopted an open-minded attitude toward Africa-related international cooperation, and believed that all parties' investments in the continent on the basis of respect should be welcome, Lu said. "Meanwhile, cooperation should be carried out on the premise of Africa's will and needs and without any political strings attached and interference in internal affairs," he added. The spokesperson reiterated that as mutually-beneficial cooperation moves forward, China will continue to build relations with Africa based on sincerity, affinity and good faith, uphold justice and pursue shared interests. China and Africa will jointly implement consensus reached by the leaders during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the FOCAC and further advance their comprehensive strategic partnership, Lu added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 21:10:36|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close CAIRO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- World Bank's senior official stressed on Friday the keenness to actively contribute to development efforts in Egypt, official news agency MENA reported. World Bank's Vice President for Infrastructure Makhtar Diop hailed the successful economic reform measures taken by the Egyptian government. Diop affirmed that the World Bank looks forward to intensifying cooperation with Egypt in three main fields, namely air transport, energy and electricity linkage projects among Africa's states, in light of Egypt heading the African Union in 2019 and its unique geographic location. Meanwhile, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli welcomed the cooperation with the World Bank in promoting the development agenda in Africa. He pointed out the importance of the World Bank contribution in funding the infrastructure projects in Egypt in the past few years. On Oct. 16, the World Bank has agreed a new financing deal of 3 billion U.S. dollars with Egypt. The deals came in light of the World Bank's trust in the reform measures that have been carried out by Egypt and the bank's keenness to continue support for Egypt, Minister of Investment Sahar Nasr said. The bank gives priority for some sectors like developing Sinai Peninsula and the infrastructure, transportation and agricultural projects, Nasr added. In 2016, Egypt has started a strict three-year economic reform program based on austerity measures including fuel and energy subsidy cuts and tax hikes, after several years of instability due to turmoil that caused economic recession. The liberalization of the Egyptian pound's exchange rate encouraged the International Monetary Fund to support Egypt's economic reform plan with a 12-billion-dollar loan, two thirds of which has been delivered already. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:15:47|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PHNOM PENH, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong will attend the fourth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Foreign Ministers' Meeting to be held on Dec. 16-17 in Luang Prabang, Laos, a Cambodian foreign ministry statement said Friday. The meeting, which will be held under the theme "Enhancing Partnership of Shared Prosperity", aims to review the progress of the implementation of the Five-Year Plan of Action of the LMC (2018-2022), the statement said. It is also to discuss the future direction of this cooperation for sustainable development in the Mekong Subregion, it added. At the conclusion, the fourth LMC Foreign Ministers Meeting is expected to adopt two documents, the statement said. One is the joint press communique of the meeting, and the other is the progress report of the year 2018 on implementing the LMC Five-Year Plan of Action, it said. Initiated by China in 2014, the LMC consists of six countries -- China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. It focuses on five priority areas of cooperation, namely connectivity, production capacity, cross-border economic cooperation, water resources management, agriculture and poverty reduction. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:25:48|Editor: mym Video Player Close TOKYO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Japan's education ministry said Friday that it had found nine medical schools to have manipulated entrance exams to favor male applicants and relatives of alumni in a nationwide probe. The nine universities, including Tokyo Medical University, Juntendo University and Kitasato University, have all admitted to the misconduct and apologized. The ministry also pointed out that another medical school, St. Marianna University School of Medicine, is also suspected of similar misconduct, but the school has denied the claims. The ministry launched the probe on the admission process of medical schools after a wrongdoing of Tokyo Medical University was revealed in August. "It is deeply disappointing," said Japanese education minister Masahiko Shibayama after the results of the probe were announced, adding that he wants the universities to take immediate measures to address the issue. The ministry said it will also start to make rules to ensure the fairness of entrance exams for the 2020 school year and beyond. Tokyo Medical University admitted in August that it had routinely tampered with entrance exam scores to limit the enrollment of female students and male students who had failed the exam a number of times before. The university's admission of discriminatory practices has drawn a harsh backlash from the medical community in Japan, including representatives from the the Japan Joint Association of Medical Professional Women and the Japan Medical Women's Association. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:25:48|Editor: mym Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Mongolian parliament speaker Miyegombo Enkhbold announced on Friday that he decided to temporarily reject his power to preside plenary sessions of the parliament. The decision came after more than half of the lawmakers in the 76-seat parliament sent an official letter to Enkhbold, urging him to voluntarily step down from his post. The lawmakers and ministers have boycotted plenary sessions and meetings of standing committees of the parliament for two weeks, demanding Enkhbold's resignation over alleged conflicts of interest. "I was legally elected as the speaker of the parliament. I am confident that I did not do anything unethical and illegal," Enkhbold told the parliament. "However, I decided to temporarily reject my right to preside plenary sessions of the parliament until the parliament's standing committee on state structure will consider issues related to me and make any decision," he said. Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh also submitted a request to the constitutional court on Nov.29 to dismiss Enkhbold. Audio recordings were made public last year that some officials of the ruling Mongolian People's Party, including Enkhbold, allegedly used their government positions as a tool to run in the parliamentary election in 2016. According to Khurelsukh, Enkhbold has been interfering in attempts to properly resolve the case. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:40:50|Editor: mmm Video Player Close A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to hurl stones at Israeli troops during clashes on the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza City, on Dec. 14, 2018. A Palestinian was killed and dozens of others injured on Friday in a daylong fierce clashes between angry Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers across the West Bank and in the eastern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel, medics said. (Xinhua) RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Clashes between angry Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers broke out on Friday afternoon across the West Bank and in the eastern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel, medics said. Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the demonstrators who threw stones at the soldiers, burned tires and chanted anti-Israel slogans, they said. The Gaza health ministry said in a press statement that at least 15 demonstrators were shot by Israeli gunfire in clashes in eastern Gaza. A paramedic and a photographer were also injured in the clashes, the ministry added. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the West Bank said in a press statement that at least 12 demonstrators were injured by Israeli gunfire in Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron. The Islamic Hamas movement and other Palestinian factions in Gaza called on the Palestinians to demonstrate against the Israeli army every Friday. According to the Gaza health ministry, the Israeli army have killed 240 Palestinians and wounded 25,000 others since March 30, the first of day of the ongoing Palestinian March of Return rally. Khalil Al-Haya, a senior Hamas official, told demonstrators in eastern Gaza that the Palestinians reject all American and Israeli plans against the Palestinian people. "We praise and back the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and operations against the occupation," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:45:55|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the leading group for promoting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, presides over a meeting on promoting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng on Friday called for more concerted efforts to restore the environment of the Yangtze River economic belt to pursue green development. Although some positive advancements have been made in the environmental control along the river, problems remain serious in terms of pollutant discharge, ecological damage and environmental risks, said Han at a meeting on promoting the development of the economic belt. Han is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the leading group for promoting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. He said protecting the Yangtze River is a political task, and restoring the river's ecological environment shall be put in a dominant position. "Having stricter requirements on ecological protection will force the regions along the river to seek high-quality development and explore a new path that puts ecology first and seeks green development," he said. "Seeing no problem is the biggest problem, while purposefully evading problems is a serious mistake and dereliction of duty," Han said. He urged local governments to be problem-oriented and constantly advance environmental protection along the river belt by discovering problems and straightening them out, in particularly by tackling law-breaking practices and what people are very concerned about. Efforts must also be made to toughen the punishments against perpetrators, inadequate supervision, shielding or conniving lawbreakers and the colluding of interested parties, Han said. A new mechanism must be established to facilitate the coordinated efforts by different regions along the river, clarify duties, tighten supervision and encourage public participation, he said. A documentary revealing the environmental problems of the river was played at the meeting. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:50:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RIYADH, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia welcomed on Friday the agreements reached between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels in Sweden, Saudi Press Agency reported. A source from the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Saudi Arabia is committed to a political solution in Yemen to ensure its security and stability. The source, who remained anonymous, urged the Houthis to reach a comprehensive political solution for the interests of Yemenis. The handover of Hodeidah port in Yemen was an important step to help reduce the suffering of Yemenis by allowing the entry of humanitarian aids, he added. A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been leading a war in Yemen since 2015 in support of the Yemeni exiled government against Houthi militias. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 22:55:59|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The consul general of China in Los Angeles Thursday called on relevant sides to implement the consensus reached by leaders of China and the United States during the G20 summit on Dec.1, laying a solid foundation for future bilateral relationship. Consul General Zhang Ping made these remarks at a reception to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of China-U.S. diplomatic relations, which was attended by more than 200 local political and economic leaders including the Speaker of the California State Assembly Anthony Rendon. "We are encouraged by positive results from the recent meeting between President Xi and President Trump during the G20 Summit, where both sides reaffirmed their commitment to the common goal of win-win cooperation and agreed to pursue a China-U.S. relationship defined by coordination, cooperation and stability," Zhang said. "Despite the twists and turns, ups and downs, China-U.S. relations have managed to forge ahead and achieved historic progress.," he said. "Today, as China-U.S. relationship is about to step into the next four decades, we are standing at another crucial crossroad." He warned the attempts by some people in the United States who are pushing for "economic disengagement, restriction on people-to-people exchanges and scientific cooperation," and even confrontation between the two countries, saying it is not in Chinese and American people's interests to see the two countries fall into this trap. "The consensus reached by the two leaders charted the way for addressing the existing issues between the two countries and prevented the further escalation of their trade frictions, putting these disputes back on the track of resolution through dialogue and consultation," he said. "We urge those who still hold zero-sum mentality to abandon it and see China's development in a more positive light," he said. "China is committed to building a China-U.S. relationship of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation. There is no need to create rivals, and still less, to effectuate a self-fulfilling prophecy." "As long as we take our bilateral relationship from a long-term strategic prospective, and properly handle our differences in a constructive manner, and so long as we have the support from our two peoples, we will be able to transcend various differences and cross over various traps," Zhang said. Rendon echoed Zhang's opinion in his speech, saying California will be committed to the important bilateral partnership between the United States and China for the next 40 years. "For 40 years, relations between the United States and China have shaped the world. We have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and created global ties that will determine our collective future for generations to come," Rendon said, "We must work together to ensure continued peace and stability in the world and safeguard the dignity and rights of all people." Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 23:01:00|Editor: mmm Video Player Close MANILA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese firms Hebei Iron & Steel Group (HBIS Group) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Friday with Philippine Steel Asia Manufacturing Corporation to develop an integrated iron and steel plant costing 4.4 billion U.S. dollars in the southern Philippines. The Chinese embassy in the Philippines said in a statement that HBIS Group, Philippine Steel Asia Manufacturing Corporation and other companies are about to launch the "Philippines Iron and Steel Project" and to set up an investment consortium which will build an integrated iron and steel plant. The integrated iron and steel plant will occupy a 305-hectare land inside an industrial zone for the heavy industries in Cagayan De Oro, a city in the southern Philippines. The construction period of the plant is scheduled to span from three to five years. Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said on Friday the project "is very important to our industrial development" and "will boost the Philippine manufacturing sector, create jobs and increases the production capacity to support the growing domestic demand and export requirements." The project, which costs 4.4 billion U.S. dollars, is the largest Chinese industrial investment in the Philippines to date, according to Lopez. "This milestone is also a result of a stronger relationship between the Philippines and China," Lopez added. After construction, the integrated iron and steel plant will cover a production of eight million tons of basic irons and steel products every year, which can be made into metal sheets, nails, paper clips, and construction-grade products such as wire rod and wire mesh. As a fast-growing economy in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has a huge demand for iron and steel. Philippine government statistics show that iron and steel is the Philippines' fifth import by commodity group, which is valued at 4.91 billion U.S. dollars from January to October 2018 with a growth of 39.4 percent from 2017. Jin Yuan, the Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese embassy in the Philippines, said the Philippines Iron and Steel Project is a very important follow-up implementation in the cooperation between China and the Philippines under the Belt and Road Initiative. According to the Philippine Department of Trade and Investment, the iron and steel production base is projected to provide indirect job opportunities up to 65,000 to related businesses for local workers. HBIS Group, located in Hebei Province of the northern part of China, is one of the largest steelmakers in China. It is a major player in producing appliance grade and automotive grade steel products. Philippine Steel Asia Manufacturing Corporation has been a top rebar producer in the Philippines with six production units located in the Philippine main Luzon island, the Visayas in the central Philippines, and in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 23:01:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- London has set up creative enterprise zones for the first time to help the British capital remain a creative and forward-looking city for the future, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced Friday. The zones in Lambeth, Croydon, Hounslow, Lewisham, Haringey, Hackney Wick will see 11 million pounds of funding to support artists, small creative businesses and local people, creating 3,500 jobs and 1,000 education and training opportunities. The creative sector is growing faster than any other sector in the UK economy and provides one in six jobs in London. During a time of uncertainty surrounding Brexit, the creative enterprise zones are expected to provide investment and support for creative businesses in the capital, ensuring that London remains one of the most entrepreneurial and innovative business centers in the world. "Culture and creativity are vital to the success of our city, but it can be difficult for artists and creative businesses to stay in an area as it develops. Creative enterprise zones will help the capital remain a creative and forward-looking city for the future," Khan said. "These new zones will create much-needed affordable workspace, turning these areas into creative hubs and providing job and training opportunities that will ensure that the local community benefits from growth. They will ensure that artists and entrepreneurs, regardless of background, will be given the support they need and become our creative leaders of the future," Khan added. (one pound currently equals to 1.25 U.S. dollars) Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 23:06:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TOKYO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Japan's central government on Friday began offshore landfill work for the relocation of a controversial U.S. military base in Okinawa amid angry protests from locals opposed to the move. In the coastal Henoko region in Nago on the island, the planned location of the replacement facility for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, sand and soil started being dumped just before noon (local time) in an area spanning more than six hectares on the southern side of the landfill site. Angry protestors gathered from early morning to voice their ardent opposition to the landfill work and the building of a new base. Some took to the waters in small boats and canoes to try and physically disrupt proceedings, holding placards denouncing the contentious landfill work. One man in his 60s was quoted as saying the central government had lost the trust of the people of Okinawa over the base relocation issue. A women in her 70s held a placard stating that the will of the (Okinawa) people should not be ignored. A placard held by another lady also in her 70s read: "No more U.S. bases. Americans go home!" Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki, who held last-ditch talks with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya a day earlier in a bid to halt the landfill work, told reporters Friday, "I cannot help feeling strong resentment toward the work being carried out in defiance of the prefectural residents' will." He called on the wider Japanese public to support Okinawa's position on the base move and said that the anger of the Okinawa people would grow the more the central government pushes ahead with the controversial construction work. "The more the government forcibly proceeds with the construction work, the stronger the anger of the prefectural people will grow," said Tamaki. Tamaki, a staunch opponent of the central government's plans to relocate the base under a pact with the U.S. in 1996, has also raised the issue that the Defense Ministry initially said the reclamation work would take five years, but in actuality it will take far longer due to the construction process having been changed. As per the ministry's plans, ultimately, 157 hectares of land will be reclaimed from pristine waters and a V-shaped runway will be constructed. Tamaki was elected as governor in September's gubernatorial election on a platform of opposing the base's relocation and lessening Okinawa's base-hosting burdens and has since been pushing to resolve the issue through dialogue with the central government. The central government, however, has forged ahead unilaterally with land reclamation work necessary to build the new base after the Land Ministry issued an injunction to suspend Okinawa from revoking a permit for the landfill work. The Okinawa prefectural government's appeal for the suspension was also dismissed by court. Despite these setbacks, Tamaki intimated on Friday that he still had ways to halt the construction work by not giving his approval to specific ground improvement work the central government may need to conduct inside the landfill site. Okinawa hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan, yet the tiny sub-tropical island accounts for just a small fraction of Japan's total landmass. Tamaki had previously said that the central government's persistent push to continue with the landfill work is completely unacceptable and against the will of Okinawans who wish to see the base moved outside of Okinawa and Japan altogether. The prefectural government is urging the people of Okinawa to make their voices heard nationally and internationally by calling a referendum on the issue on Feb. 24. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-14 23:56:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIRUT, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon and Brazil signed on Friday a military cooperation agreement, official National News Agency (NNA) reported. "The military agreement includes cooperation in information exchange, technical collaboration and military training," the NNA said. The agreement was signed during a meeting at the Defense Ministry in Yarze between Lebanese Minister of Defense Yacoub Sarraf and Brazilian Minister of State Carlos Eduardo Xavier Marun. Marun emphasized the importance of the agreement while praising the Lebanese army for its victory against terrorism. "Our country vows its continuous support for the Lebanese army," he said. For his part, Sarraf suggested the creation of a joint committee with Brazil to facilitate the implementation of the agreement. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:01:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency on Friday appealed to South Sudan's warring parties to the conflict to maintain peace to help end five years of displacement. Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees reiterated his appeal to all parties to continue pursuing a sustainable and lasting peace to help heal wounds of conflict. "The people of South Sudan, many of whom have been displaced multiple times in their lives, deserve an end to their suffering," Grandi said in a statement on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of conflict in South Sudan. "Peace must prevail. The wounds of this conflict will take time to heal, but that process can only be sustained through warring parties engaging in dialogue, finding political solutions and laying down their arms once and for all," he added. The world's youngest nation has remained mired in instability and conflict, which has displaced an estimated four million people, both internally and externally, according to the UN. "UNHCR stands ready to assist efforts to achieve a genuine and inclusive peace process, including supporting the meaningful and inclusive participation of refugees in any agreement," Grandi said. President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar signed a new peace deal in September amid high hopes that this will finally end the years of brutal conflict. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:06:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Fresh clashes have erupted between two rival South Sudanese rebel groups in the northern part of the country, threatening a recent peace deal that seeks to end a five-year-old brutal civil war. Renewed fighting was reported to have begun early this week between rival forces of the South Sudan United Movement (SSUM)/Army commanded by renegade Peter Gadet and the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO) led by former deputy president Riek Machar, violating a ceasefire agreement they had signed. Lam Paul Gabriel, SPLA- IO deputy military spokesman, alleged that fighting started Tuesday after Gadet's forces attacked an SPLA-IO base killing one civilian and injuring two soldiers. The incident happened when SSUM forces came in the early hours of December 11 and attacked the SPLA-IO base of Abukitmalang, wounding two SPLA-IO officers and also killing one woman (civilian) in the process, Gabriel said in a statement. "The SPLA-IO therefore, calls upon the CTSAMM (Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring Mechanism) and UNMISS (UN mission in South Sudan) to conduct a quick and thorough investigation on this direct violation of permanent ceasefire and hold those responsible accountable," Gabriel said. South Sudan descended into civil war in late 2013, and the conflict has created one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world. The UN estimates that about 4 million South Sudanese have been displaced internally and externally. A peace deal signed in August 2015 collapsed following renewed violence in the capital, Juba in July 2016. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, his former deputy and arch rival Riek Machar and several opposition groups early September signed a new power-sharing deal aimed at ending the five-year old conflict. Under the deal, Machar will be reinstated as Kiir's deputy. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:06:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close COLOMBO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's challenged Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will step down from his premiership on Saturday after the Supreme Court earlier Friday continued a suspension order on him and his cabinet from continuing in office. Rajapaksa's son and parliamentarian from the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), Namal Rajapaksa said that his father will be stepping down from his post to ensure the stability of the nation. "Former President Rajapaksa has decided to resign from the Premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation. The SLPP with the former president, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and others will now work to form a broader political coalition with President Maithripala Sirisena," Namal said in a statement. SLPP members said Rajapaksa is scheduled to address the nation on Saturday morning. The Supreme Court on earlier Friday ordered to continue the temporary suspension on Rajapaksa and his government till the case is further heard on Jan. 15, 16 and 17. The Supreme Court issued the order after hearing the petition filed by Rajapaksa who sought the Supreme Court's verdict after the Court of Appeal on Dec. 3 issued a temporary suspension order on the government. The suspension order was issued after 122 lawmakers filed a petition saying the government had been defeated in two no-confidence motions in parliament and they could no longer continue to function as ministers. Political analysts said that Rajapaksa's resignation on Saturday is also likely to end a nearly two-month political crisis which erupted after President Sirisena on Oct. 26 sacked his cabinet and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed Rajapaksa to the post. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:11:23|Editor: mmm Video Player Close Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa addresses the annual conference of the ruling ZANU-PF party in Esigodini, Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe, Dec. 14, 2018. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said Wednesday that the ruling ZANU-PF party does not intend to invite the opposition to form a Government of National Unity (GNU) following its resounding victory in the July 30 tripartite elections. (Xinhua/Shaun Jusa) ESIGODINI, Zimbabwe, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday reiterated that his ruling ZANU-PF party will not form a government of national unity with the opposition MDC Alliance. He told the party's annual conference in Esigodini, Matabeleland South that ZANU-PF got an overwhelming mandate to govern in the July 30 polls, hence no need for a coalition government. "We were given a fresh mandate to govern Zimbabwe for the next five years, full stop. No government of national unity. The votes came from all corners of the country and it was a resounding vote for which I am truly grateful," he said. Mnangagwa won the polls by 50.6 percent, beating his main challenger and MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa who polled 44.3 percent of the votes. The ruling party also garnered a two-thirds parliamentary majority. However, Chamisa and his party have refused to accept Mnangagwa's election victory and are calling for political dialogue with Mnangagwa to come up with what the opposition party calls a "national transitional mechanism" to take the country forward. Mnangagwa said ZANU-PF will not be deterred by "irritating noise" from the opposition as it now focuses on implementing policies to grow the economy and uplift the living standards of the people. Under Mnangagwa's leadership, Zimbabwe is aiming to become a middle income country by 2030. "We must focus on implementing sustainable development programs and fulfill the promises we made to the electorate in our manifesto," he said. Addressing the same gathering, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said Mnangagwa will be the party's presidential candidate in the 2023 elections. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:16:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Burak Akinci ANKARA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that his country has run "out of patience" with its NATO partner, the United States, over its support for the Kurdish militia in Syria, threatening a renewed military offensive soon. "We will no longer tolerate a single day of delay. We are determined to bring peace and security to areas in the east of the Euphrates," he said during an international conference in Istanbul. Erdogan was referring to the territory east of Euphrates, which was controlled by Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a mainly Kurdish militia in Syria backed militarily by Washington despite Ankara's objections. On Wednesday, Erdogan said Turkish troops will be marching soon into northern Syria. "We will start an operation in the next few days to free the east of the Euphrates from the separatist terrorist organization," he said. Turkish threats have raised the specter of confrontation between the NATO allies and prompted a rebuke from the Pentagon which said any unilateral military action would be unacceptable and threaten U.S. personnel. Analysts say the nearly two-year diplomacy between Ankara and Washington over Syria, particularly regarding the strategic zones held by Kurdish fighters, has proven to be unsuccessful. "Turkey considers the U.S. policy there (northern Syria) as delaying tactics in order to win time. But this time, Turkey's patience is wearing thin and indeed has been gone," Oytun Orhan, a researcher on Syria from the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Studies, told Xinhua. Turkey and the United States have been in close contact over the Syrian town of Manbij, located in the east of the Euphrates River and held by the YPG. However, Turkey accuses Washington of dragging its feet on implementing a deal brokered with Turkey to clear Kurdish fighters from the small town near the Turkish border. On Friday, Erdogan warned that Turkey will seize Manbij if the United States fails to remove the YGP from the area. "The YPG issue is a matter of national security for Turkey. It has tried until now to have a dialogue on this vital question with the U.S. and to convince its NATO partner, but it doesn't seem to work," Orhan explained. The United States has been supporting the YPG in its fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants since 2015. Following cross-border shelling from Turkey into Kurdish-controlled territory two months ago, U.S. forces have set up three military observation posts near the border despite Ankara's sharp criticisms. "It's clear that the purpose of U.S. observation posts in Syria is not to protect our country from terrorists but to protect terrorists from Turkey," said Erdogan. Turkey sees the YPG as a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been engaged in an insurgency in southeastern Turkey for more than three decades. However, a new cross-border operation conducted by Turkey in Syria with the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army rebels, according to experts, will be a limited one for the moment. "There is no doubt that it will be a limited operation with Syrian rebels on the ground supervised by Turkish officers, but the ultimate Turkish objective with more operations in the future is to make sure that the YPG will have no presence in the area," Orhan said. Turkey has already swept YPG fighters from Afrin and other areas in the west of the Euphrates over the past two years, but has not reached east of the river, partly to avoid direct confrontation with the 2,000-strong U.S. forces deployed there. Seen by observers as a prelude to an imminent Turkish incursion into Syria, Turkish warplanes recently conducted strikes against bases of the PKK in northern Iraq, 180 km inside Iraqi territory, the deepest conducted since the 1990s, in order to cut the logistic link between the PKK in Iraq and the YPG in Syria. Erdogan on Friday said the aerial campaign in Iraq is part of a large-scale operation that would include an offensive in northeastern Syria soon. "Turkey's struggle against the terrorist organization is an existential one. We cannot let this organization control northern Iraq and northern Syria," a Turkish diplomat told Xinhua. "Turkey is a sovereign country and will do whatever necessary to eradicate what it sees as a threat to its national security. We will not let other countries compromise our security," he said on condition of anonymity, in a veiled reference to the United States. Several thousands of Syrian rebels have already reportedly announced readiness to join a Turkish offensive, which would be launched simultaneously from Turkey and Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:21:24|Editor: mmm Video Player Close VIENTIANE, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Laos and Thailand on Friday pledged to enhance and promote cooperation on economic, trade, investment, and electric energy. At the Third Lao-Thai Joint Cabinet Retreat, Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and his visiting Thai counterpart Prayut Chan-o-cha expressed their commitment to leading the relations between the two countries to a strategic partnership for sustainable development in the future, Lao News Agency (KPL) reported. Both sides signed several documents to enhance cooperation on legal and justice affairs, transport, education, immigration control, and electricity purchase. The Thai prime minister arrived here on Thursday afternoon for a two-day visit to Laos. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:21:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 people were killed while 80 others fallen ill and subsequently hospitalised Friday after consuming food offering at a Hindu temple in southern Indian state of Karnataka, officials said. The devotees gathered at Maramma temple at village Salwadi in Chamarajnagar district, about 165 km south of Bengaluru, the capital city of Karnataka state. Health officials visiting the ill said it appeared the victims consumed adulterated food. "So far 10 people were killed and 80 others who complained of vomiting and nausea have been hospitalized," a senior government official said. According to officials, there was a foundation laying ceremony of a large pyramidal tower over the entrance gate of the temple and many people had gathered for the event. "It's here at the temple that people consumed a rice-based prasadam (food offered at religious place) and later on complained of vomiting and nausea," the official said. Health officials suspect the death toll was likely to increase owing to the critical conditions of some hospitalized persons. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:26:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ANKARA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on Friday agreed to make more efficient coordination on Syrian issues during a phone conversation. According to the statement by the Turkish Presidency, the two leaders discussed bilateral relations, security and anti-terrorism issues, and especially the recent developments in Syria. Erdogan expressed Turkey's legitimate concern over the presence and actions of People's Protection Units (YPG) and other Kurdish militias in northern Syria, the statement said. Ankara regards the YPG as the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and EU. Turkish forces will enter the Syrian town of Manbij if the United States does not remove YPG fighters, Erdogan said earlier on Friday in Istanbul. Earlier this week, Erdogan warned that Turkey would soon launch a military operation in the east of Euphrates in Syria to clear terror groups in the area, in a veiled reference to the YPG. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:31:26|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close "Our 40 Years," a grand gala in celebration of the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, is held in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 14, 2018. Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan were among the Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders who joined more than 3,000 people to watch the gala at the Great Hall of the People. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A grand gala was held in Beijing on Friday evening in celebration of the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan were among the Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders who joined more than 3,000 people to watch the gala at the Great Hall of the People. On the balcony of the 2nd floor of the hall hung a banner, which read "rally closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and unceasingly advance reform and opening up in the new era". At 7:55 p.m., Xi and other senior leaders walked into the hall, shook hands with representatives of people awarded for their outstanding contributions to reform and opening up, amid warm applause throughout the venue. Named "Our 40 Years," the gala was divided into Overture, Part One, Part Two and Epilogue. Part One replayed the grand changes that have taken place in China since the beginning of reform and opening up. The part culminated with a poetry recital titled "The Great Awakening," which expressed Chinese people's gratitude and admiration for reform and opening up. Part Two comprehensively showed how socialism with Chinese characteristics entered the new era under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The gala ended with a song expressing the promising future for reform and opening up. Through art forms such as singing, dancing, plays and poetry recitals, the gala gave full expression of the determination and confidence of the Chinese people to carry out reform and opening up all the way under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:46:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BELGRADE, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Serbian government most severely condemned on Friday the decision by the parliament of what it considers its southern province of Kosovo and Metohija to establish the so-called "Kosovo army", reads a press release, assuring that Belgrade will strive to maintain peace. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia rejects it and considers Kosovo its own province. At Friday's session, the government in Belgrade opposed the transformation of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into an army, arguing that the decision by the authorities in Kosovo and Metohija that unilaterally seceded in 2008 leads in that direction, is of "great concern and represents a gross violation of the principles of international law, and above all of UN Resolution 1244." Earlier Friday, Kosovo's parliament unanimously adopted the Law on Security Forces, the Law on Service in Security Forces and Law on the Ministry of Defense, which Serbia sees as a final step towards the transformation of its existing Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into a professional army. The Serbian government recalled in the release that the decision is contrary even to Kosovo's constitution, which was drafted and adopted by the authorities in Kosovo's capital Pristina in 1999 and which Belgrade does not recognize. "It is an absurdity and proof that Pristina, apart from international agreements, does not respect even its own norms," the Serbian government said. "The Serbian government will continue to appeal to all international stakeholders and point towards the fact that Pristina ignores the principles of international law, which was apparent immediately after the signing of the Brussels Agreement in 2013, because Pristina did absolutely nothing to implement it since then," the release reads, referring to the dialogue mediated by the European Union that aims at normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Belgrade also recalled the recent decision by Kosovo to introduce import tariffs, first of 10 percent and then 100 percent, on products from Serbia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, which "directly and unambiguously violated both the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union." "The act of transformation of KSF into the so-called 'Kosovo army' is only the latest among drastic indicators of the extent to which Pristina's unilateral moves are in opposition to the basic values of democratic societies," the release reads, adding that this is also "the biggest threat by Pristina to regional peace so far." The release concludes that the Serbian government and President Aleksandar Vucic will continue to monitor the situation in Kosovo and that "Serbia remains firmly committed to peace and stability throughout the region, and all its activities will be directed towards their preservation." Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told Tanjug news agency that his country will seek an urgent session of the United Nations Security Council because of the "most direct threat to peace and stability in the region and the security of the Serbian population in Kosovo and Metohija." Vucic, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Serbian Armed Forces, started a 72-hour visit to units of the Serbian Army located in the Ground Security Zone along Serbia's border with Kosovo, as well as to the south Serbia region. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 00:51:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Marwa Yahya CAIRO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Egypt has hosted remarkable regional and international conferences and expositions over the past few months, which could accelerate the revival of the country's tourism sector, experts said. Organization of conferences and exhibitions are important for advertising security and stability in Egypt as main pillars of luring more tourists, said Ilhamy al-Zayat, former chairman of the Tourism Chambers in Egypt. "Egypt is the most qualified African country for hosting international conferences and expos for its strong infrastructure on the level of roads, exhibitions centers, hotels and different means of transport as well as security stability," al-Zayat told Xinhua. Among the important conferences hosted by Egypt in 2018 was the latest Africa 2018 Forum, which concluded in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday with the participation of 10 African leaders and more than 3,000 African entrepreneurs. In parallel, the African food expo Food Africa 2018 was held in Cairo from Dec. 8 to 10, which was attended by 300 Egyptian and foreign companies. Egypt also launched its first international defense expo EDEX 2018 this month, drawing 376 military companies from 41 countries and more than 10,000 visitors. In November, Sharm el-Sheikh also hosted two other large events, World Youth Forum with 5,000 participators from 160 countries and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Al-Zayat said these conferences could help increase revenues for Egypt through hotel and flight reservations and selling of souvenirs. The conference tourists will spend 500 U.S. dollars per day compared to 100 dollars by the ordinary tourists, while the visitors from rich countries could even spend 5,000 dollars on a daily basis, he noted. Moreover, some technical exhibitions, such as in the field of medicine, are often accompanied by showcasing products, which, in turn, will increase the chances of trade, the Egyptian expert said. Al-Zayat called on Egypt's tourism ministry to establish a special authority for advertising conferences and expos and post the list of all these events on the ministry official page. Egypt's tourism revenue jumped 77 percent in the first half of 2018 to about 4.8 billion dollars, according to the tourism ministry. The Egyptian tourism has been gradually recovering from a downturn in 2011 triggered by a popular uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. In addition, the Egyptian pound was allowed to float in late 2016, a decision that almost halved the currency's value and made a trip to the Arab country a relatively cheap bet for foreign visitors. The number of tourists travelling to Egypt in 2017 was 7.3 million compared to 14.7 million in 2010 before the uprising. Waleed al-Batoty, representative of the International Union for Tour Guides in the Middle East and North Africa, said organizing international conferences sent a message that "Egypt is a safe country." Egypt was a pioneer in organizing conferences before the 2011 uprising, and now it tries to regain its place, al-Batoty, also an advisor to a former Egyptian tourism minister, told Xinhua. These events will promote tourism in Egypt because most visitors are also keen to know more about the country's history and culture, he explained. The conference center in Sharm el-Sheikh and other expo halls in New Cairo are fully equipped to promote exhibition tourism in Egypt, al-Batoty noted. In this file photo taken on Nov. 10, 2018, fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) participate in a military parade in the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishly in northeastern Syria. (AFP file photo) ANKARA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that his country has run "out of patience" with its NATO partner, the United States, over its support for the Kurdish militia in Syria, threatening a renewed military offensive soon. "We will no longer tolerate a single day of delay. We are determined to bring peace and security to areas in the east of the Euphrates," he said during an international conference in Istanbul. Erdogan was referring to the territory east of Euphrates, which was controlled by Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a mainly Kurdish militia in Syria backed militarily by Washington despite Ankara's objections. On Wednesday, Erdogan said Turkish troops will be marching soon into northern Syria. "We will start an operation in the next few days to free the east of the Euphrates from the separatist terrorist organization," he said. Turkish threats have raised the specter of confrontation between the NATO allies and prompted a rebuke from the Pentagon which said any unilateral military action would be unacceptable and threaten U.S. personnel. Analysts say the nearly two-year diplomacy between Ankara and Washington over Syria, particularly regarding the strategic zones held by Kurdish fighters, has proven to be unsuccessful. "Turkey considers the U.S. policy there (northern Syria) as delaying tactics in order to win time. But this time, Turkey's patience is wearing thin and indeed has been gone," Oytun Orhan, a researcher on Syria from the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Studies, told Xinhua. Turkey and the United States have been in close contact over the Syrian town of Manbij, located in the east of the Euphrates River and held by the YPG. However, Turkey accuses Washington of dragging its feet on implementing a deal brokered with Turkey to clear Kurdish fighters from the small town near the Turkish border. On Friday, Erdogan warned that Turkey will seize Manbij if the United States fails to remove the YGP from the area. "The YPG issue is a matter of national security for Turkey. It has tried until now to have a dialogue on this vital question with the U.S. and to convince its NATO partner, but it doesn't seem to work," Orhan explained. The United States has been supporting the YPG in its fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants since 2015. Following cross-border shelling from Turkey into Kurdish-controlled territory two months ago, U.S. forces have set up three military observation posts near the border despite Ankara's sharp criticisms. "It's clear that the purpose of U.S. observation posts in Syria is not to protect our country from terrorists but to protect terrorists from Turkey," said Erdogan. Turkey sees the YPG as a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been engaged in an insurgency in southeastern Turkey for more than three decades. However, a new cross-border operation conducted by Turkey in Syria with the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army rebels, according to experts, will be a limited one for the moment. "There is no doubt that it will be a limited operation with Syrian rebels on the ground supervised by Turkish officers, but the ultimate Turkish objective with more operations in the future is to make sure that the YPG will have no presence in the area," Orhan said. Turkey has already swept YPG fighters from Afrin and other areas in the west of the Euphrates over the past two years, but has not reached east of the river, partly to avoid direct confrontation with the 2,000-strong U.S. forces deployed there. Seen by observers as a prelude to an imminent Turkish incursion into Syria, Turkish warplanes recently conducted strikes against bases of the PKK in northern Iraq, 180 km inside Iraqi territory, the deepest conducted since the 1990s, in order to cut the logistic link between the PKK in Iraq and the YPG in Syria. Erdogan on Friday said the aerial campaign in Iraq is part of a large-scale operation that would include an offensive in northeastern Syria soon. "Turkey's struggle against the terrorist organization is an existential one. We cannot let this organization control northern Iraq and northern Syria," a Turkish diplomat told Xinhua. "Turkey is a sovereign country and will do whatever necessary to eradicate what it sees as a threat to its national security. We will not let other countries compromise our security," he said on condition of anonymity, in a veiled reference to the United States. Several thousands of Syrian rebels have already reportedly announced readiness to join a Turkish offensive, which would be launched simultaneously from Turkey and Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 01:01:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KATHMANDU, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least 16 people were killed and five sustained injuries in a road accident in Nuwakot district of central Nepal on Friday evening, local police authorities confirmed. The incident occurred when a mini truck skidded off the mountain highway and fell 100 meters down into the gorge at Ghyangdanda area in Dupecheswor Rural Municipality of the district, according to sub inspector of police Gyanlal Yadav. "We have recovered the 16 bodies from the crash site. The death toll is expected to go up since the rescue operation is underway," Yadav told Xinhua by phone. The local police authorities have been carrying out rescue operation in coordination with local residents, Yadav said. Local media reports said that the ill-fated mini truck was carrying over two dozen people when the accident occurred. The police have yet to ascertain the cause behind the accident. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 01:46:38|Editor: mmm Video Player Close A girl cooks food outside her tent at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Aden, Yemen, on Dec. 14, 2018. Thousands of forcibly displaced Yemenis are seeking to return home as the country's internationally-backed government and the Houthi rebels agreed to a cease-fire in the Red Sea port city Hodeidah. (Xinhua/Murad Abdo) by Murad Abdo ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of forcibly displaced Yemenis are seeking to return home as the country's internationally-backed government and the Houthi rebels agreed to a cease-fire in the Red Sea port city Hodeidah. The two-warring sides concluded week-long UN-sponsored peace talks in Sweden on Thursday with an agreement on cease-fire in the flashpoint city of Hodeidah, which is still held by the Houthi fighters. At a press conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Houthi rebel fighters and the government of Yemen agreed on a partial cease-fire in Yemen's Hodeidah, paving the way for the opening of humanitarian corridors. The breakthrough also included deployment of neutral forces in Hodeidah following the withdrawal of the forces loyal to the warring factions which have agreed to meet again in late January. Just a few hours after the announcement of the province-wide cease-fire deal, thousands of internally displaced people living in a camp outside the southern port city of Aden started preparations for the journey back to their homes in war-ravaged Hodeidah. Faisal Hasoon, who has been living a difficult life in a small tent with his family members in a displacement camp for months, told Xinhua that Sweden's cease-fire deal on Hodeidah is an important victory for humanity and a great step to end the country's years-long suffering in the next months. "I'm definitely happy about Sweden's deals, particularly the cease-fire in Hodeidah. It means a lot for us as displaced people in this camp or elsewhere," said Hasoon, a father of four. He urged the warring factions to help facilitate the return of the displaced to their houses in Hodeidah and live there in peace. Fatoom Haider, 70, told Xinhua that life in displacement camps has become more difficult than in their war-ravaged areas. "Hodeidah is my city and I feel happy and live in dignity there. It's time to leave this place where we are spending our nights in suffering because of the cold weather," Fatoom said. She thanked the Yemeni warring rivals for finally deciding to end the humanitarian catastrophe and agreeing on de-escalation. However, some internally displaced people fear that their dreams will be demolished because the warring factions may backtrack on their promises to withdraw their forces from Hodeidah. Ayman Ahmed, an internally displaced civilian from Hodeidah, told Xinhua that the time of returning home remains undetermined. "It is difficult to believe the warring factions will withdraw from Hodeidah because they have never abided by political agreements. They were just deceiving the international community," Ahmed said. "Returning to our houses is going to happen only if one of the warring factions defeated the other and otherwise it will be impossible," he added. Observers also said the two-warring sides will not abide by the deals signed under the auspices of the UN in Sweden and may resume fighting more aggressively. The latest peace talks tackled a wide range of substantive issues, with an aim to put Yemen back on the path of peace and alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people. The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014. Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile. The internal military conflict between the Iranian-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has entered its fourth year, aggravating the suffering of Yemenis and deepening the already world's worst humanitarian crisis. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 01:46:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock on Friday warned against complacency over the success of UN-brokered Yemen talks, saying "a terrible tragedy is unfolding" in the country. "This week's success must not lead to complacency -- in fact it must do the opposite. Commitments must be implemented. Working toward peace must be accelerated. In the meantime, millions of Yemenis still desperately need assistance and protection," Lowcock told the Security Council, referring to progress in UN-brokered intra-Yemeni talks in Sweden. After a week of "consultations" in Sweden, the Yemeni warring parties have agreed to stop fighting in the rebel-held port city of Hudaydah, on which millions of Yemenis depend for imports of food and fuel. But Lowcock warned that there is a long way to go despite the success in Sweden. "I have earlier today chaired another detailed discussion on Yemen with the heads of all the key UN and other operational humanitarian agencies. Our collective assessment is that the good news we have heard this week has not yet had any material impact on the millions of people who need assistance," he told the council. "The lesson is two-fold: progress is absolutely possible, but we need much more of it right now." Yemen has been in civil war in the past three years, pitting Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition to support the Hadi government. A displaced girl cooks food with her brother outside their tents at an internally displacement camp on the outskirts of Aden city, Yemen, on Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Murad Abdo) ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of forcibly displaced Yemenis are seeking to return home as the country's internationally-backed government and the Houthi rebels agreed to a cease-fire in the Red Sea port city Hodeidah. The two-warring sides concluded week-long UN-sponsored peace talks in Sweden on Thursday with an agreement on cease-fire in the flashpoint city of Hodeidah, which is still held by the Houthi fighters. At a press conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Houthi rebel fighters and the government of Yemen agreed on a partial cease-fire in Yemen's Hodeidah, paving the way for the opening of humanitarian corridors. The breakthrough also included deployment of neutral forces in Hodeidah following the withdrawal of the forces loyal to the warring factions which have agreed to meet again in late January. Just a few hours after the announcement of the province-wide cease-fire deal, thousands of internally displaced people living in a camp outside the southern port city of Aden started preparations for the journey back to their homes in war-ravaged Hodeidah. Faisal Hasoon, who has been living a difficult life in a small tent with his family members in a displacement camp for months, told Xinhua that Sweden's cease-fire deal on Hodeidah is an important victory for humanity and a great step to end the country's years-long suffering in the next months. "I'm definitely happy about Sweden's deals, particularly the cease-fire in Hodeidah. It means a lot for us as displaced people in this camp or elsewhere," said Hasoon, a father of four. He urged the warring factions to help facilitate the return of the displaced to their houses in Hodeidah and live there in peace. Children get water at an internally displacement camp on the outskirts of Aden city, Yemen, on Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Murad Abdo) Fatoom Haider, 70, told Xinhua that life in displacement camps has become more difficult than in their war-ravaged areas. "Hodeidah is my city and I feel happy and live in dignity there. It's time to leave this place where we are spending our nights in suffering because of the cold weather," Fatoom said. She thanked the Yemeni warring rivals for finally deciding to end the humanitarian catastrophe and agreeing on de-escalation. However, some internally displaced people fear that their dreams will be demolished because the warring factions may backtrack on their promises to withdraw their forces from Hodeidah. Ayman Ahmed, an internally displaced civilian from Hodeidah, told Xinhua that the time of returning home remains undetermined. "It is difficult to believe the warring factions will withdraw from Hodeidah because they have never abided by political agreements. They were just deceiving the international community," Ahmed said. "Returning to our houses is going to happen only if one of the warring factions defeated the other and otherwise it will be impossible," he added. Observers also said the two-warring sides will not abide by the deals signed under the auspices of the UN in Sweden and may resume fighting more aggressively. Children stand outside their tents at an internally displacement camp for fleeing civilians on the outskirts of Aden city, Yemen, on Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Murad Abdo) The latest peace talks tackled a wide range of substantive issues, with an aim to put Yemen back on the path of peace and alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people. The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014. Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile. The internal military conflict between the Iranian-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has entered its fourth year, aggravating the suffering of Yemenis and deepening the already world's worst humanitarian crisis. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 02:06:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAKU, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Azerbaijan launched a mobile application on Friday, giving foreigners better access to online registration services, according to the country's State Migration Service. Introducing the application, the State Migration Service Chairman Vusal Huseynov said it enables foreign citizens and stateless persons to register their arrival with the migration authorities, apply for temporary and permanent residence permits, check their application status, and make online payments. He said the app provides direct connection to call centers of the migration authorities. "The mobile application also features information on Azerbaijan's history, culture, music as well as tourist attractions." "Available in Azerbaijani, English and Russian languages, the software can now be downloaded on Android devices. An iOS version of the application will soon be made available," Huseynov added. In 2016, Azerbaijan introduced "ASAN Visa" system that allows applicants to get electronic visas within three days. The Azerbaijani e-visa permits visits for up to 30 days and is valid for a 3 months' period. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 03:57:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Former Governor of the U.S. state of New Jersey, Chris Christie, said Friday he didn't want to be appointed as President Donald Trump's chief of staff, becoming another person to turn the president down in his week-long search that is still without an outcome. "I have told the president that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment," Christie said in a statement. "As a result, I have asked him to no longer keep me in any of his considerations for this post." Trump's opponent in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Christie was recently believed to be the leading contender for the head of the president' s executive office. He discussed the issue with Trump at the White House on Thursday. The president is scheduled to have lunch on Friday with another candidate for the job, his former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, Bloomberg news reported. Earlier on Friday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters that Trump is considering five names in the search for his new chief of staff. Speaking to the press on the White House lawn, Gidley said he expects a presidential decision to be made soon. He also suggested that Trump may extend the deal with John Kelly, the incumbent chief of staff who the president on Saturday said will leave the post at the end of the year. Gidley's remarks are a reiteration of what Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. "Five people, really good ones," the president said. Bloomberg news cited White House senior aide Kellyanne Conway as saying on Tuesday that Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general, will stay until at least Jan. 2. Following Nick Ayers's refusal on Sunday to fill the vacancy, Trump, in his own words, has been "in the process of interviewing some really great people for the position." Ayers, the 36-year-old chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, reportedly told Trump he could only serve until spring, but the president asked for a two-year term. As the choice still hangs in the air, U.S. media have revealed a number of possible nominees, among them Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, House Republican Mark Meadows, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. While Meadows had already withdrawn himself from consideration, Mnuchin said Thursday he is happy with his current duty, hinting, however, that he would accept the president's appointment. "I'm happy where I am ... Whatever the president wants," Mnuchin said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 04:32:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The UN envoy for Yemen told the Security Council that a "robust and competent monitoring regime" is essential and urgently needed for implementing the ceasefire reached for the Yemeni governorate of Hodeidah. The Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels agreed on the truce as well as mutual withdrawals of forces from both the three Hodeidah ports and the city in their recent negotiations in Sweden, marking the first breakthrough for the UN-led intra-Yemeni rounds of talks. "The United Nations is asked to monitor the compliance of the parties to these commitments. I am sure this council will want to address this requirement," said Martin Griffiths, the special envoy of the UN secretary-general for Yemen, in his video briefing from Amman of Jordan. "At the instruction of the secretary-general, relevant departments in New York (UN Headquarters) and elsewhere are already active on the planning for urgent deployment subject to the decisions of this council," he added. Diplomats said such a monitoring mechanism requires the support of a Security Council resolution. The Yemen conflict started in 2014 when the Houthis took over the capital Sana'a. Since 2015, a Saudi-led military coalition backing the government has been fighting the Houthis. The fighting has caused the world's largest humanitarian crisis, where, according to the UN, some 20 million people are starving. As the port of Hodeidah handles some 70 percent of the food supplies to Yemen, the international community has long been calling for de-escalation of hostilities around the port. "The council has for months called for just such an agreement; I believe we now have it," Griffiths said. Besides the Hodeidah truce, during the eight-day Sweden meeting, the two warring parties agreed on a UN role in managing three vital ports, including the port of Hodeidah. "The UN will take on a leading role in supporting Yemen Red Sea Ports Corporation in management and inspections at Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa," said the UN envoy. He expects future consolations to finalize the opening of Sana'a airport and the measures needed to improve the operations and reach of the Yemeni central bank. Looking ahead, he said the next round of talks, set for the end of January, will discuss his framework for a political solution to the conflict, adding the Houthis "are in agreement with the general tenor of all its elements" while the government has some reservations. "In this way we hope to move from the essentially humanitarian theme of Sweden to a first serious consideration of the issues that need to be addressed if this conflict is to be resolved," he noted. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 05:27:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SKOPJE, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in cooperation with European Union (EU) will grant 68.8 million euros (around 77.7 million U.S. dollars) to Macedonian government to further modernize the railway infrastructure network in the country, EBRD office said Friday. The grant agreement was signed by the Minister of Transport and Communications Goran Sugareski, Finance Minister Dragan Tevdovski, head of EU Delegation in Skopje Samuel Zbogar and EBRD head in Macedonia Anca Ionescu. The grant, co-financed from the EU through the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), will be used to co-finance the construction of nearly 34 km of the rail network from Beljakovce to Kriva Palanka -- the second phase of the railway Corridor VIII project -- as part of the Trans-European Transport Network that will link Macedonia with Albania in the west and Bulgaria in the east. The first phase of the project on the rehabilitation of a rail section of nearly 31 km in length between Kumanovo and Beljakovce is under implementation. A spate of bomb threats have been called in to organizations across the country: Businesses, government buildings, media outlets, and schools have been evacuated in response to suspicious emails about explosives. According to CNN, the University of Washington in Seattle was on alert after receiving an email threat that was ultimately determined to be not credible. The Thurston County Courthouse in Olympia, Washington, and the Park Record newspaper office in Park City, Utah, received similar threats. Chicago police have fielded between 15 and 20 bomb threat reports in recent hours. Police departments nationwide are looking into these tips, but so far, none have led to actual explosives. "We are aware of the recent bomb threats made in cities around the country, and we remain in touch with our law enforcement partners to provide assistance," read a statement from the FBI Washington Field Office. "As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activities which could represent a threat to public safety." The NYPD does not believe the threats to be credible. Authorities have searched the targeted locations and found "NO DEVICES," as the NYPD News Twitter account put it. They believe the emails, which request bitcoin payment, to be part of a scam. Still, they're asking the public to come forward about suspicious activity, and will continue to investigate reports as they come in. At this time, it appears that these threats are meant to cause disruption and/or obtain money. Well respond to each call regarding these emails to conduct a search but we wanted to share this information so the credibility of these threats can be assessed as likely NOT CREDIBLE. NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) December 13, 2018 This morning, Bronx High School of Science received a bomb threat over the phone, prompting the evacuation of 3,000 students around 11 a.m. According to the NY Daily News, assistant principal Phoebe Cooper emailed parents to say that the kids had been taken to nearby schools to wait for the all clear, and that "all students and staff [were] safe." A police sweep of the school turned up no explosive devices. It's presently unclear if this threat was part of the nationwide email campaign. This story is breaking and will be updated. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 06:12:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Carlos Tevez has committed his immediate future to Boca Juniors following the team's loss to Argentine rivals River Plate in the Copa Libertadores final. The 34-year-old said Friday he is more motivated than ever to win silverware with Boca, denying media reports in Argentina that he could leave the club. "I now want to train and work harder than ever to win the 2019 Libertadores," the forward told Radio La Red on Friday. "I want to be one hundred percent, I'm not going to leave now, when the fans are suffering. We are going to show that we can win the Copa Libertadores. The players believe that." Tevez's comments came five days after Boca's 3-1 extra-time loss to River in the second leg of the Copa Libertadores final. The result handed River a 5-3 victory on aggregate. Boca are currently sixth in Argentina's 26-team first division standings. The Superliga Argentina, as the competition is known, is currently in recess and will resume on January 27. Tevez has scored 10 goals in 34 appearances across all competitions since returning to Boca - his original club - from Shanghai Shenhua in January. The former Manchester United, Manchester City and Juventus forward's contract with the Argentine club expires next December. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 06:17:41|Editor: mmm Video Player Close LONDON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May returned almost empty handed from Brussels Friday, knowing that on Monday she faces trying to convince MPs at Westminster that her under-fire Brexit deal can still succeed. With just over 100 days to go before Britain ends its 46 year membership of the European Union (EU), a future UK-EU trading relationship is far from winning the green light. NO GUARANTEES ON BACKSTOP May returned to 10 Downing Street Friday night after a so-called charm offensive to win more support for the Brexit deal she has brokered with the EU. Her reassuring words delivered at a press conference in Belgian capital failed to win over critical MPs at Westminster, with concerns that the EU has insisted that the Irish border safety net proposals, known as the backstop, must remain as part of the deal. May was unable to win any cast-iron guarantees that the backstop would never be applied. Both sides agreed that efforts will be made in a near two-year implementation period to reach a permanent future trade deal. If that fails, the EU has said even for a temporary period, Northern Ireland would have to follow EU rules rather than build a hard border with the neighboring Irish Republic. The Democratic Union Party (DUP) which helps give May's minority government at Westminster its slender majority, has insisted it will not accept a backstop. Their main concern is that it would mean different rules are applying in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the British mainland. In Brussels Friday, May said the EU had made it clear it is their firm determination to work speedily on a future relationship or alternative arrangements which ensure there is no hard border by Dec. 31, 2020 so the backstop will not need to be triggered. May added the EU stands ready to embark on preparations so that negotiations on the future partnership can start as soon as possible. She added that as the conclusions were formal, the EU commitments have legal status and therefore should be welcomed. "There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the UK Parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal," said May. CALL FOR BREXIT DEAL VOTE The main opposition Labour Party will press May in the House of Commons on Monday to give MPs a meaningful vote on her Brexit deal before Christmas. That would mean a vote before Thursday, with MPs heading home afterwards for the Christmas and New Year holiday. With politicians returning to Westminster on Jan. 7, May has promised a vote on the deal before a crucial deadline of Jan. 21. Labour Party poured cold water on what May had achieved during two days of talks with EU leaders and European heads of state. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "The last twenty four hours have confirmed that Theresa May's Brexit deal is dead in the water." Corbyn said the prime minister had utterly failed in her attempts to deliver any meaningful changes to her botched deal. He added: "Rather than ploughing ahead and dangerously running down the clock, the Prime Minister needs to put her deal to a vote next week so Parliament can take back control." Tom Brake, Brexit spokesman for the minority Liberal Democrats, said: "Having watched the Prime Minister's botched attempt to negotiate with EU leaders, people up and down the country will be more concerned by Brexit than ever before." A 2ND REFERENDUM? AND POLITICAL STORM? Meanwhile, former British prime minister Tony Blair, a strong supporter of Britain remaining in the EU, said in a speech Friday there would soon be a majority in the British parliament for a second referendum on EU membership. Addressing a meeting at the Royal Academy in London, organised by the People's Vote Campaign, Blair said: "What has been revealed by the whole negotiation process is that all the Brexit options have significant drawbacks compared with staying in the EU. This pursuit of incompatible ends through inept means has led us to the present impasse." Blair told the meeting: "My advice to her (May) is there's no point literally in carrying on banging your head against this brick wall. It's sensible to take your head off the brick wall and think creatively." May survived a confidence vote among Conservative MPs this week by a vote of 200 to 117, but a second political storm could lie ahead. Keir Starmer, chief Brexit spokesman for the Labour Party, said in media interviews Friday it was clear the Prime Minister would not secure any meaningful changes to her deal and that she should face the music and put her deal to a vote next week. Starmer said on Sky News that confidence in May was "seeping away on all sides" and "it is a question of when, not if" the Labour Party will table a vote of no confidence in the Conservative government. Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 06:22:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Friday called for a lowering of rhetoric in the Middle East and described an Israeli settler group's poster calling for the assassination of the Palestinian president "irresponsible." "It would be up to the Israeli authorities to discuss their own response to this," said Farhan Haq, deputy UN spokesman, responding to questions about the posters in the West Bank. "From our standpoint any such threats to assassinate heads of state are irresponsible." "What we want is for all sides to lower the rhetoric before we get to any further escalation of the situation we see on the ground over the last few days," he told reporters at a regular briefing. "We want to make sure that the climate on the ground calms down once more." Shortly after Haq's statements were made, Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of the State of Palestine at UN Headquarters, sent identical letters to UN officials calling attention to "the dangerous deterioration of the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem." He said Israel "continues to act in a lawless and aggressive manner, fueling a new cycle of violence, intensifying inflammatory rhetoric and incitement, causing more civilian casualties, including by perpetration of extrajudicial killings." Mansour said the actions are "further entrenching its illegal colonial occupation, in grave violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions." "We called on all sides to avoid any escalation," said Haq referring to a plea made earlier in the week for lowering rhetoric. "That would include any sorts of rhetoric including rhetoric directed at any of the parties." "We want to make sure that the climate on the ground calms down once more," he said. "We're trying to do what we can including on the ground through the efforts of Nicolay Mladenov, our special coordinator, to lower the tensions." Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 06:27:43|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close NEW YORK, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. dollar rallied to a 19-month high in late trading on Friday, as the greenback's safe-haven demand surged due to a bearish sterling. The British pound took a dive on Friday, as British Prime Minister Teresa May failed to win over Brussels to make adjustment to her planned Brexit deal previously agreed by the EU but strongly objected by domestic opponents. The move dimmed hopes of May's bids to salvage her planned deal and later get it passed in a divided British parliament, as the embattled leader had just survived a no-confidence vote only one day after she postponed a parliamentary vote on the draft deal. With the deadline of UK's exit from the EU set only about three months away on March 29 next year, analysts cautioned that a no-deal Brexit would possibly thrust the British economy into greater volatility. In late New York trading, the euro decreased to 1.1303 dollars from 1.1366 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound was down to 1.2579 dollars from 1.2660 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar decreased to 0.7178 dollar from 0.7227 dollar. The U.S. dollar bought 113.29 Japanese yen, lower than 113.60 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar increased to 0.9977 Swiss franc from 0.9933 Swiss franc, and it was up to 1.3374 Canadian dollars from 1.3355 Canadian dollars. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2018-12-15 06:32:44|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Flamengo have made a bid to sign Galatasaray right-back Mariano Ferreira, according to widespread media reports. The Rio de Janeiro giants have offered the Turkish side five million euros (5.7 million U.S. dollars) to secure the 32-year-old Brazilian in January, the Lance news service said on Friday. Mariano is contracted with Galatasaray until June 2020, having joined the club from Sevilla for 4.3 million euros in July 2017. He has made 40 top-flight appearances for the Istanbul club and was a key player in the team's 2017-18 Super Lig triumph. The defender's career has also included spells with Cruzeiro, Atletico Mineiro, Fluminense and Bordeaux. Presedintele SUA: Varianta Omicron a coronavirusului nu trebuie sa starneasca panica Joe Biden, presedintele Statelor Unite, a declarat luni ca varianta Omicron a coronavirusului este una de interes, insa nu ar trebui sa le provoace oamenilor teama. I-a indemnat de asemenea pe americani sa se vaccineze. [citeste mai departe] While state legislators throughout the country move to legalize marijuana and expunge marijuana convictions, the case of one New Jersey father now on a path to deportation points to a wrinkle in any state law involving legal weed: Old marijuana convictions will continue to get immigrants deported. Dane Foster, a 36-year-old father of four from Westampton in Central Jersey, was arrested on December 4 after dropping off his 2-year-old daughter, Alaya, at daycare. Shes inseparable from him, and she wanted him to take the ride to drop her off at daycare, said Alexsa Foster, Danes wife. With Alexsa Foster driving and her husband in the passenger seat, three agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement pulled the couple over after they had dropped their daughter off, saying they had an immigration warrant for his arrest. Foster is a legal permanent resident who arrived in the United States in 1991, at the age of 11, and received his Green Card in 1997. His extended family left Jamaica years ago, and they now live in the U.S. Where are you sending him back to? Alexsa Foster said. His family is here. Dane Foster has three marijuana convictions on his record from 2004, 2006, and 2014, according to his attorney, Afia Yunus. All were misdemeanors handled in municipal court and resulting in fines. Two involved drivers license suspensions. None resulted in jail time. But now, Foster is wearing a prison uniform and in lock-up at Essex County Correctional Facility, which holds as many as 800 immigrants at a time under a nearly $3 million-a-month contract with ICE. In a statement, ICE said, Dane Foster, a Jamaican national, is subject to removal from the U.S. based on his criminal history. The agency also pointed to a statute that reads: Any alien who at any time after admission has been convicted of a violation...relating to a controlled substance...other than a single offense involving possession for one's own use of 30 grams or less of marijuana, is deportable. Alexsa Foster is a 28-year-old disabled Army veteran who served in the military for seven years before suffering a debilitating pelvis injury. Beyond her monthly disability payments, she relied on income from her husbands fledgling lawn care business, which he started with a single push mower before amassing several clients. Its not fair for us, and what I fought for, and who we are, and what we stand for, she said. The Fosters met at church and married in 2014. She brought two kids to the relationship; he brought one. The 2-year-old is theirs together. From jail, he calls every day when the kids get home from school and every night before they go to bed. [The kids] know him as daddy who talks about God and plays the drums at church and cuts the grass and teaches them to be good people. And to think that he could be taken away for a life that hes not even living?...Its crazy to me. I dont understand, Alexsa said. New Jerseys ICE field office in Newark has made headlines before for arresting Green Card holders. Cloyd Edralin, who had an 11-year-old conviction for possession of an air gun, spent more than three months in jail before avoiding deportation earlier this year. Yunus, Fosters attorney, believes ICE is going after Green Card holders in the wake of New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewals announcement last month that law enforcement agencies will be mostly forbidden from working with ICE, particularly in handing over released prisoners to federal custody. On the day the directive was announced, ICE issued an ominous warning: "ICE will have no choice but to conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at worksites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests." Already this week, Yunus said, she received four calls from Green Card holders in New Jersey arrested by ICE. Two had marijuana convictions on their records. According to a statement from ICEs Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Newark, There are no plans to increase arrests of illegal aliens or Green Card holders with marijuana convictions in advance of legislation that may possibly legalize marijuana. A vote to legalize marijuana and expunge marijuana convictions in New Jersey appears to be days or weeks away in the state Legislature, as Democrats who control the state assembly, senate and governors office all support the plan. Even if immigrants saw their records expunged under New Jerseys marijuana legalization law, that wouldnt help them avoid deportation. Yunus said federal authorities could still use those records against an immigrant seeking legal status. I think this should be a conversation to be had, Yunus said. [Because] ICE can still say: Well, this person had a conviction for a drug-related offense, so were going to go after them. And theres another way New Jerseys existing marijuana laws could affect immigrants. As a prior drug offender, Foster is subject to mandatory detention without bond under immigration law. Yunus is nonetheless seeking to ask a judge to exercise discretion and release him on bond pending a hearing on his deportation order. Immigration courts, though, are backlogged; Foster has yet to appear before a judge or get a date scheduled for a hearing. Marijuana convictions may particularly affect a certain group of immigrants those who are not white. According to the ACLU, black people in New Jersey are three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, despite the fact that studies show they use the drug at similar rates. Given the fact that multiple marijuana convictions are deportable offenses, even for legal permanent residents, that would make black immigrants more susceptible to deportation than white immigrants. While state legislators cannot change ICEs policy about deporting immigrants with marijuana records, Yunus said they should exercise some power here in putting pressure on local municipalities not to detain these residents. Three jails controlled by Democratic officials in Bergen, Hudson and Essex counties hold about 2,000 immigrants arrested in New York and New Jersey as part of contracts with ICE that together bring in about $6 million a month for local coffers. Yunus said ICE would be forced to limit its arrests of non-violent legal immigrants if localities in New Jersey did not provide the bed space in their jails. Foster has not told his wife much about life inside the jail, but there have already been two problems: He has yet to figure out how to add her to his list of approved visitors, so she was turned away when she tried to visit him on Wednesday. And, she said, it took eight days for him to be provided a Bible that he requested. A rally for Foster is planned for Thursday night outside the Essex County Correctional Facility. Alexsa Foster also set up a GoFundMe page to help support her family. Matt Katz reports on air at WNYC about immigration, refugees and national security. You can follow him on Twitter @mattkatz00. British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. European Union leaders expressed deep doubts Friday that British Prime Minister Theresa May can live up to her side of their Brexit agreement and they vowed to step up preparations for a potentially-catastrophic no-deal scenario. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) Read more In 2016, when Britons voted to Brexit the European Union, it was billed as part of a surging nationalist trend that was gripping Europe. With its cast of bizarre characters, the Leave campaign made grandiose promises about the benefits Brexit would bring to Britain. There was even a likely Russian connection, since, as we now know, the British financier who bankrolled the Leave campaign had extensive contacts within the Russian Embassy in London who offered him lucrative investment possibilities. That was then. The Leavers promises have fizzled, the British economy has taken a sizable hit. And Britains deep ties with the EU have proved stunningly difficult to unravel, even as a March 31 deadline for Brexit looms closer. Prime Minister Theresa May just survived a no-confidence vote brought by hard-line Brexiteers within her own party, but she still seems unlikely to find a divorce settlement acceptable to both the EU and the British Parliament. The Brits may ultimately have to hold a second referendum, an option May opposes but that may become inevitable. The whole sad Brexit tale serves as a warning if the credulous will heed it: The populists know how to woo the disaffected, but they dont deliver the goods. Its worth recapping how Brexit turned into an ordeal rather than as Leavers promised a liberation. And where things stand now. I was in London for the Brexit vote and heard voters regurgitating the litany of promises made by Nigel Farage, head of the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP. Prime among them was that leaving the EU would bring a huge cash infusion of 350 million pounds a week for Britains national health service. Farage, who was praised by Donald Trump and attended some of his rallies during the 2016 campaign, retracted that claim immediately after the referendum. (He lost all political credibility in Britain, but became a commentator for Fox News.) Also leading the Leave charge was the mop-haired Boris Johnson, a leading Conservative Party figure and Trump clone who (falsely) told Britons they would still have access to the European common market but would no longer have to freely admit workers from European countries under EU rules. Johnson claimed there would be no economic cost if Britain left the EU. This prediction was also false (although so far the costs have been less than expected). Government predictions are that economic costs of separation will be substantial; the loss of skilled European workers has already had a very negative effect on areas of the economy such as the health service. The Leavers also bragged that a trade deal with America could outdo Britains trade ties to the European Union. But Trumps zero-sum approach to trade deals makes that claim look like a joke. The Brexiteers ran a campaign based on fear, whipping up hostility to a supposed surge of Muslim immigrants although Britain admitted almost no Arab refugees in 2015-16. Justice Department special counsel Robert Muellers team is now investigating whether Russia which is eager to see the EU falter may have stirred the pot. Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told the New York Times: From what weve seen, the parallels between Russian intervention in Brexit and the Russian intervention in the Trump campaign are extraordinary. Arron Banks, the British financier who spent more than eight million British pounds promoting Brexit, has a Russian-born wife and bragged of his Russian contacts. Given all of the above, one might think that Britons would be eager to reverse course in a second referendum, and polls show a slim but not definitive margin for Remainers. Think of this in the U.S. context, suggests Sebastian Mallaby, a British journalist and senior fellow in international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. The people who supported Trump in 2016 seem pretty keen to stick by him. The same dynamics exist in Britain. Those who believe we should have remained and that Boris Johnson is selling a pack of lies have been confirmed in their opinions. But at the same time, those who wanted Brexit [still] believe crashing out of the EU wont be bad. However, the deciding factor, in the event of a second referendum, may be a category of voters who appear committed to Europe: voters in the younger generation. Polls tell us that over 70 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds backed Remain in the referendum, and 82 percent say they would do so in a second ballot, as would around 67 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds. The night before the 2016 ballot, I attended a huge party at an old London factory that had been turned into an artists cooperative. The mood of the gathering was fervently Remain but many students and young artists told me they hadnt voted. They had been certain Remain would win. If circumstances compel May to hold a second referendum, the turnout of young voters could make the difference. They, more than recognition of the populists fakery, may turn out to hold the key to Britains economic future. This may be the only optimistic scenario one can envision for resolving the convoluted Brexit mess. When Vernon Odom arrived in Philadelphia in 1976, Frank L. Rizzo was mayor, and the city was getting ready for the celebration of the nations 200th birthday. I was here the week Rizzo announced, I need [15,000 federal] troops to maintain order during the Bicentennial, Odom, 70, recalled Friday, chuckling, as the longtime 6ABC reporter took some time out of his last day before retirement to reminisce about more than four decades covering the news in Philadelphia and around the world. Its a period thats seen tremendous changes in both the city and the TV news business, but through it all, Odoms been a steady, deep-voiced presence, someone viewers could trust to put the story first. Its one of the things the 1970 Morehouse College graduate said he learned during his postgraduate studies in broadcast journalism at Columbia University. We had a great teacher there, a professor named Mel Mencher, who told his students, Just tell the damn story. That, Odom said, is what Ive tried to do. Ive always tried to be empathetic and sympathetic, and see both sides of every issue. Unless theres just a pure bunch of, you know, knuckleheads out there raising hell. Another thing Odom learned from Mencher, and on the job, is that most people can tell their stories better than I can. No matter how inarticulate they might be or afraid they might be. I can put all the rhetoric down there in the world, but nobody can tell their story better than the person affected. To-the-point questions' He understood the job of a reporter, and he never let his personal feelings affect the job that he did. And thats awfully hard to do. You have to be a terrific professional to do that. Its something that Im not sure I couldve ever done if I had his job, former Gov. Ed Rendell said Monday. I just always remember being happy to see him, said Mike Dunn, who frequently worked alongside Odom on stories during the 25 years Dunn spent at KYW Newsradio, 19 of them at City Hall. Dunn, now senior deputy director of communications for the City of Philadelphia, said that when he started at KYW, Odom was already an institution in Philadelphia. So for me, when I was starting out, working alongside Vernon Odom was a great thrill. But he never acted the part of being a big name or a big celebrity. He was always down-to-earth and always very helpful, particularly to the younger reporters. Dunn recalled being in Washington with Odom, covering the controversy over President Bill Clintons 1997 nomination of Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson to U.S. District Court, and let me tell you, Vernon was just as much at home in the U.S. Capitol, covering the Senate, as he was here covering City Hall. Odoms to-the-point questions of elected officials or attorneys in trials he covered sometimes made those being questioned squirm a bit, but he got right to the point. He didnt mince words or beat around the bush, Dunn said. Seeing the world In his years on Action News, Odoms reporting took him from Philadelphias neighborhoods and the surrounding suburbs to hot spots like Somalia, where he covered the invasion in 1992, and post-Cold War Russia, where Mikhail Gorbachev had just taken over. He was sent to El Salvador, to South Africa for the release of Nelson Mandela and the countrys first free elections, and to Europe to cover the aftermath of the 1991 release of Norristown native Joseph Cicippio, who had been flown to Germany after five years of being held hostage in Lebanon. Its been a great ride and a ringside seat to the world, said Odom, who called reporting from Somalia dangerous but exciting, and described getting off the plane in Mogadishu and seeing members of the French Foreign Legion marching around. I recognized their hats from the old Buster Crabbe shows" the 1950s Captain Gallant of the French Foreign Legion. Closer to home, there have been so many big" stories, he said, including the accident at Three Mile Island, the citys MOVE disasters in 1978 and 1985, and Wilson Goodes election as the citys first black mayor, because that sort of consolidated the black political power in the city. Vernon, more than anybody else in the city, in the TV business, understood politics, said Rendell, one of the seven Philadelphia mayors during Odoms Action News tenure. He was such a likable guy. Even when he was doing a story that had negative connotations for you as a political entity, you couldnt help liking him, and you couldnt help answering his questions. By the time I ran for governor, he knew more about politics than most people in politics. He asked intelligent questions, and he got to the heart of the matter. He never asked useless, waste-of-time questions. Odom, who last month was honored by the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia as the groups Person of the Year, is married to former Inquirer reporter Wanda Motley Odom, with whom he has two children, a 23-year-old daughter and a 21-year-old son. He was born in Atlanta and largely grew up in Akron, Ohio, the son of Vernon Odom Sr., a social worker, and Sadie Harvey Odom, a scientist. His sister, Maida, who was a longtime reporter at the Inquirer, now teaches journalism at Temple University. A street in Akron is named after their father, a civil rights activist who also graduated from Morehouse, where one of his classmates was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Odoms great-grandfather, B.T. Harvey Sr., launched the nations second African American-owned newspaper, the Columbus (Ga.) Messenger. Vernon represents the best of the best. His voice and his demeanor are warm, and strike the right tone amidst the landscape of media clickbait and a 24/7 news cycle thats at times in overdrive and unpolished, Sarah Glover, president of the National Association of Black Journalists and a former Inquirer and Daily News photographer, wrote in an email Monday. Vernons a shining example for black journalists, and all journalists, that hard work, doggedness and tenacity pays off. Odom began his broadcasting career working at a radio station in Atlanta while he was still in college, and his first big news story was the King assassination in 1968. Hearing that the civil rights leader had been shot, he grabbed a tape recorder and drove over to the King house, Odom said, and managed to get a brief interview with widow Coretta Scott King as she was leaving the house, and later talked to her at the airport. I had the first and only interview with Mrs. King for a few days, and it was picked up nationally. He later moved into TV, and before coming to Philadelphia spent six years as a reporter, anchor, and talk-show host at the ABC station in Atlanta. In more than 42 years at Action News, Odoms seen big changes in Philadelphia. Theres more racial harmony here now than there ever was, he said. And Im not going to dump it all on Frank Rizzo. Hes like [President] Trump hes just a symptom, not the problem itself. Frank had his good days. Still, in the decades since, the Police Department has dramatically changed. Its one of the best Ive ever seen now, due to the reforms and things like that. The old spaco il capo [Italian for break their heads] crowd is really gone, retired. Its a whole new Police Department. Younger in many cases, better educated, better trained, Odom said. When I first got here, they wouldnt allow me in the FOP building. The story that wont stop Though Odom cherishes memories of "smaller stories, where I thought I actually accomplished something for someone, the ones that have haunted him involved violence. Ive had to interview so many people whove lost their children to violence, or their mother or father to violence or things like that. And thats the ongoing story for me, just the awful carnage in the streets of the city. Its been terrible, and its affected me, Odom said. Before he became a father he didnt marry until he was 45 at night, I could sort of leave it behind. I would get my Chinese takeout food and go home and watch the ballgame. But after their daughter was born, I covered a story of a woman in Brewerytown who starved her young child to death in the basement over a several-month period and I became far more angry. He said his colleague John Rawlins told him, Its different, because you were remote from it before but now youve got skin in the game." Odom may not be reporting for Action News any more, but it doesnt sound as if hes planning to slow down much. Im not dying, he repeatedly told colleagues who stopped by Friday to thank him and wish him well. Ill be around. Among the plans for his second act is a book looking back at his 50 years as a reporter, including his years in Georgia, covering stories in the deep, still partially segregated South." He doesnt have a deal with a publisher yet, but is working on it. He also hopes to be doing some public speaking. I love the news, and I will continue to stay on top of it and will continue to be available for analysis, lectures interpretation of the days events. In addition, Odom said, hes now free to pursue voice-over work hes had to turn down in the past. Ill be very busy. As for the viewers hes leaving behind, Im deeply grateful to the people of this entire area the Philadelphia area and South Jersey and Delaware for their tremendous support of me, and acceptance of me and my work over the years." U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Pa.) is retiring from Congress after serving for 20 years, but he has retained his grip on Philadelphia's Democratic Party. Read more He announced his retirement from Congress this year as an FBI investigation swirled into his campaign activities. Two of his key aides may be heading to prison for crimes they committed to help keep him in office. But Bob Brady has no plans to shrink from the political spotlight. Im going to do what I always do: keep the party together, which I have for 32 years, Brady, 73, said. He spoke barely a week after his top political adviser, Ken Smukler, was convicted of nine criminal counts, including conspiring to violate campaign laws by hiding a payoff to induce Bradys 2012 primary challenger to drop out of the race. Three others, including Brady strategist Donald D.A. Jones, have pleaded guilty to charges related to the probe. Despite being implicated in court documents that became public during the investigation, and relinquishing the U.S. House seat he held for two decades, the Goliath of Philadelphia politics, as a defense attorney called him, will keep running the citys Democratic committee. There havent even been rumblings that the local party might want a change, insiders say. Not a whisper; not anything,"said Lou Agre, a Democratic ward leader. Bradys 100 percent strong. Its not that progressives newly empowered with wins in races for the Pennsylvania legislature and even ward leader have suddenly embraced Brady. But they dont think they could oust him, and see any such fight as a waste of energy. Theres some futility to it, said Jon Geeting, director of engagement for the political group Philadelphia 3.0 and former chair of the Philly Progressive Caucus. The ward leaders are not going to push him out over this. With Brady at the helm, the party is likely to play an active role in municipal elections next year, screening candidates in low-information races for judgeships, where a spot on the partys sample ballot helps determine who gets on the bench. Mayor Kenney will also be seeking reelection, and all 17 Council seats are on the ballot. Brady has declined to comment on the Smukler verdict, citing a possible appeal, but noted that he had cooperated with the government by signing several agreements extending the period of time in which he could be charged while his lawyers attempted to persuade prosecutors that they should not indict him. You know why? Brady said of his decision to sign those agreements. Cause I did nothing wrong. And they found out I did nothing wrong. Even as Brady came under greater scrutiny from authorities late last year prosecutors revealed the FBI had searched his emails and in court documents identified him as a participant in the criminal scheme no one emerged to challenge him as chairman of Philadelphia Democrats. In a unanimous vote, he was reelected to another four-year term as chairman in June by the committees 69 ward leaders. He keeps all factions happy, Agre said. Hes personally likable. He cares about everybody. Doesnt hold grudges. Does everything a leader should do. Alan Butkovitz, a ward leader and former city controller, said the governments decision not to charge Brady was taken as a clearance by everybody in Philadelphia politics. Brady has been credited with helping to save a Sunoco refinery in South Philadelphia, resolving labor disputes, and helping bring the Democratic National Convention to the city in 2016. At the same time, scores of Democratic officials have gone to prison on his watch, staining the partys image and amplifying a lack of trust in the political process. But groups like Geetings and Reclaim Philadelphia, founded by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, are instead focused on winning City Council races and other initiatives. There may also be less incentive to change a party that, like others around the country, has at least in part been supplanted by outside money and new political movements. Butkovitz and others pointed to Larry Krasners win in the 2017 district attorneys race. The party has typically tried to flex its muscle in off-year municipal races, but it stayed neutral in the crowded Democratic primary that year, and the liberal Krasner won with the help of outside spending by the billionaire investor George Soros. The structure of what everybody considered to be foundations of organized politics are just theyre kind of a nostalgic memory, Butkovitz said. Theyre not the reality of whats going on. Why would it be worth anybody's while to challenge Brady? he added. If they want to be mayor or they want to be congressman, they go out and be mayor or congressman. Butkovitz would know. Despite having the partys support in 2017, he lost the Democratic primary election for city controller to Rebecca Rhynhart, a first-time candidate. Now running against Kenney, Butkovitz is betting that he will get financial support from the beverage industry, which opposes Kenneys soda tax. For his part, Brady says hes taking an inclusive approach. Progressives are great Democrats, he said. I have great relations with them. They do a great job," he said. "Im going to continue to include them. Our party is a big tent and everybodys welcome. Staff writer Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this article. Two women were charged in separate incidents with trying to sneak drugs into Delaware Countys prison, the district attorney said Thursday. Colleen Marie Davies, 37, of Newark, Del., and Kimberley Packard, 29, of Brookhaven, were both arrested Tuesday after each was caught with illegal drugs during visits with inmates at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, said District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland. Davies allegedly passed drugs to an inmate during a visit and was immediately confronted by prison officers, Copeland said. Officers found drugs and related paraphernalia in Packards car, Copeland said. Packard was visiting an inmate who overdosed on heroin in the prison a week earlier. Packard allegedly provided the inmate with the heroin that caused the overdose. Law enforcement officials and first responders in Pennsylvania and across the nation were forced to react to hundreds of bomb threats Thursday, sent in similar emails to schools, businesses, and government buildings. The threats were made in small towns and big cities, prompting police responses and some evacuations in places ranging from California to Massachusetts. None of the threats was described by law enforcement as credible. It wasnt immediately clear whether or how the threats were linked, how many were made, or who was behind them. Some of the emails had the subject line, Think Twice. They were sent from a spoofed email address. The sender claimed to have had an associate plant a small bomb in the recipients building and said the only way to stop him from setting it off was by making an online payment of $20,000 in bitcoin. We are currently monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city, the New York City Police Departments counterterrorism unit tweeted. These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide & are NOT considered credible at this time. Other law enforcement agencies also dismissed the threats, which were written in a choppy style reminiscent of the Nigerian prince email scam. In Philadelphia, police said they had received several tips about bomb threats being made via email, but had no reason to believe them plausible. Like many other law enforcement agencies across the country, we have received several tips about bomb threats being made via email, Philadelphia police said. At this time, we dont have any reason to believe that any of these threats are credible. Still, we ask that folks remain vigilant, and to report any suspicious activity immediately. Police didnt provide additional details about the Philadelphia threats. Police in Conshohocken also responded to several bomb threats Thursday. At Pennsylvania State University, police worked with the FBI to investigate the email threat that was received by individuals in multiple locations across the state, according to a university statement. While there was an additional police presence at the buildings apparently targeted, the campuses remained open and the threat did not appear to be legitimate, the statement said. In York, students returned to class at Eastern York Middle School after K-9 units cleared the campus to investigate a bomb threat Thursday morning, as did students at Linden High School in New Jersey following a threat that was called in to the school. Lancaster City police reported an investigation into similar email bomb threats at two county businesses, noting that law enforcement across the country was responding to like threats. Threats were also reported at schools in Western Pennsylvania and businesses in the south-central part of the state. In Iowa, the Cedar Rapids Police Department posted a copy of the threat email to its Facebook page, encouraging any recipients of the message to notify law enforcement. This article contains information from the Associated Press. Johnny Bobbitt Jr., jailed since last month on fraud, conspiracy, and theft charges in a $400,000 GoFundMe scheme, was ordered released Friday to await trial. New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mark Tarantino told Bobbitt he could go free from the Burlington County jail as long as he complies with a series of conditions. Among them is a requirement that Bobbitt, 35, attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings three times a week and stay drug-free. He must also submit to drug testing and avoid contact with his co-defendants, Kate McClure and Mark DAmico. The three are accused of setting up a fradulent GoFundMe campaign in November 2017 by concocting a false story to prey on the sympathies of donors who believed the money would be used to help Bobbitt get off the streets. Bobbitt, along with McClure and DAmico, are accused of duping more than 14,000 donors when the story they told went viral. Prosecutors say the three lied when they said Bobbitt had spent his last $20 to buy gasoline for McClure when she ran out last November while alone, at night, on an I-95 off ramp in Philadelphia, where Bobbitt was panhandling. The Good Samaritan tale spread when the three appeared on national television. They told donors the funds they raised would be used to buy Bobbitt a house and ensure his financial future. Prosecutors say McClure and DAmico squandered most of the money on vacations, gambling, and designer handbags. Bobbitt received about $75,000, authorities say, and spent some of that money on drugs. He later sued the couple and accused them of stealing the money that donors intended to go to him. That got the attention of law enforcement and led to the criminal charges. McClure, 28, and DAmico, 39, who have since split up, are out on bail and are expected to have their first hearing in a Burlington County courtroom on Dec. 24. The couple previously lived together in Florence, N.J. After Bobbitts court hearing Friday in Mount Holly, his attorney, Burlington County Deputy Public Defender John Keesler, said his client was expected to return to the apartment where he had been living before his arrest. Bobbitt told a judge last month he was living in Fishtown. Keesler declined to provide details on whether Bobbitt is living alone or with others. Hes happy to be out, Keesler said. In court Friday, Bobbitt was upbeat. Yes, sir, Bobbitt said when the judge asked whether he understood that if he violates any of the conditions he could again be imprisoned. I want you be successful with the terms that have been imposed, the judge said. Keesler said he would seek to have Bobbitts case diverted to Drug Court, an alternative court process for drug addicts. To do that, Keesler said, Bobbitt would have to plead guilty to one or more charges and would have to get the prosecutors approval. Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor Saurabh Singal confirmed the prosecutor is reviewing the Drug Court application. It depends on a legal and clinical analysis that would determine whether Bobbitt is eligible, he said. Unless Bobbitt is approved for Drug Court, his next court appearance will be Feb. 6. The DistrictBuilder mapping tool allows Pennsylvanians to redraw congressional district lines for cash prizes up to $5,000. Read more Antoinette Lobello didnt think twice about party affiliations while drawing congressional district lines. She didnt try anything fancy, resisting suggestions from other people in her group. All she considered was Pennsylvanias population density and distribution, and got to work from there. Lobello, a sophomore biological sciences major at Drexel University, drew a map with six of her classmates for their political science course. And her class assignment could win her group up to $5,000 in a statewide competition sponsored by the political watchdog group Committee of Seventy. Draw the Lines PA is a civic education and engagement initiative that invites Pennsylvania residents to redraw the states congressional district lines. The program is supported by Philadelphia and Pittsburgh nonprofits, including a $500,000 grant from the William Penn Foundation. The deadline for submissions for the first round is Friday at 11:59 p.m. Regional winners in Western, Central, and Eastern Pennsylvania take home a $500 prize. Statewide winners in each category high school, college, or adult could win up to $4,500 for their mapping masterpieces. Panels of judges will choose the winners through quantitative metrics such as compactness and equal population, along with the maps personal statement. Since states usually decide behind closed doors, we only concerned ourselves with population, Lobello said. We didnt look where certain party members lie. We didnt actually pay attention to that at all, so it could be as unbiased as possible." Earlier this year the state Supreme Court ruled that the states congressional map constituted an illegal gerrymander in favor of the GOP and ordered the lines redrawn before the November election. Under law, the lines will be redrawn again in 2021, after the 2020 Census. The Draw the Lines PA competition will continue every six months through 2021, said David Thornburgh, the president and CEO of the Committee of Seventy. In future rounds, contestants likely will take on state Senate and House district lines for a state that has the second-largest legislature, with 253 members total. This is sort of to whet the appetite of folks, Thornburgh said. Its like when you try to learn how to do puzzles, you start with a the 20-piece version then you move onto the 5,000-piece one. This competition is meant to give people a hands-on understanding of how to draw political maps, in the hopes they will engage heir lawmakers in conversation about their redistricting goals and priorities, he said. Thornburgh was chosen last month to chair Gov. Tom Wolfs redistricting commission. The 15-member commission will recommend ways to remedy gerrymandering in the state. He said hell be bringing to the table the maps Pennsylvanians submit. Kate Doyle, head of Fair District PAs southeastern chapter and member of the Draw the Lines PA steering commission, said the initiative gives residents exposure to the process. And if Pennsylvania ever creates an independent commission to draw the lines, it might have some experienced hands to draw upon. Some legislators have questioned whether a non-legislator would be able to draw a map. This initiative shows it is possible and its a viable option to have folks that are not legislators draw these lines," she said. This summer, the state Senate passed a bill creating an independent commission to draw the lines but it fell victicof Pennsylvanians tasked to draw state Senate and House district lines. But the bill fell to a poison pill by Senate Republicans to include judicial districts, and later died under more than 700 amendments in the House. Maps are drawn on the DistrictBuilder tool, created by Philadelphia tech company Azavea. Committee of Seventy and its dozens of partners have hosted more than 60 map-building events since the competition began in September. Statewide winners will be announced in the Capitol Rotunda at the end of January 2019. A year after a first grader was severely poisoned from peeling lead paint in his classroom, City Council on Thursday unanimously passed historic legislation aimed at ensuring such an injury never happens again. Under the legislation, which Mayor Kenney is expected to sign, the School District of Philadelphia must certify its buildings as safe from lead-based paint hazards or meet a 90-day deadline to repair damaged paint. Until that happens, the district must clean up hazards daily and restrict student access during repair work. READ THE SERIES: Toxic City: Sick Schools The measure closes a glaring hole in the citys safety net to prevent childhood lead poisoning. For the first time, it extends some of the same protections to students who attend public schools that are afforded to children who live in city rental homes. As public stakeholders, we agree that building owners, especially those of public facilities, should take all appropriate precautions to mitigate exposure to health risks, including lead paint, said Danielle Floyd, the districts chief operating officer, during testimony before a Council committee last week. Earlier this year, an Inquirer investigation, Toxic City: Sick Schools, laid bare the districts failure to protect students from deteriorating lead paint in rundown elementary schools. Lawmakers said the investigation propelled them to act. The three-part series documented perils from deteriorating paint and asbestos inside district schools. Reporters enlisted school staffers to take wipe samples for the toxic materials, which then were analyzed by an accredited laboratory. The results found lead contamination in dust on floors and windowsills at multiple times the federal levels set for hazard limits. Toxic City" also made public School Checkup, a lookup tool that for the first time gave parents, students, and others records about lead paint hazards and other unsafe conditions inside classrooms. The investigation also detailed the story of 6-year-old Dean Pagan, who ate lead paint chips that fell onto his desk from his classroom ceiling at Watson Comly Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia. He was hospitalized with a blood-lead level that was nine times that at which doctors worry about permanent damage to the brain. Its sad that it takes a tragedy for big steps to occur, Cristine Pagan, his mother, said Thursday of the legislation. The citys Department of Public Health, which learns of lead poisoning cases through a medical alert system, visited Pagans home and found only traces of lead paint, then looked at his school as a possible source of the poisoning. Typically, when health inspectors found peeling lead paint in the apartment or home of a lead-poisoned child, they didnt also check the childs school. The landlord or homeowner must abate the lead-paint hazard or risk fines. It is surprising that the health department has not previously had a role in protecting Philadelphia children from lead and other hazards at school, Marilyn Howarth, a physician and expert in environmental toxicology at the University of Pennsylvania, told Council members during a Dec. 3 hearing on the bill. For schools that contain lead paint, the inspector, during annual visits, must certify that areas occupied by students are safe from lead hazards, including conditions such as leaky roofs that can cause flaking paint. The district has 90 days to repair or remediate the damaged lead paint. During repairs, students are not allowed to occupy the area. In many ways, the legislation adds teeth to the districts revamped strategy for tackling the lead paint crisis in its schools. Using emergency funding, the district over the spring and summer cleaned up eight elementary schools attended by 3,400 students. The district said it will take 12 to 18 months to complete 38 additional schools that have the most damaged paint. In all, the district has nearly 200 schools built before the 1978 lead-paint ban. The district estimates it will spend $1 million to hire certified lead inspectors to assess each building. Lawmakers, district leaders, and members of the Philly Healthy Schools Initiative, a coalition of parents, advocates, environmental scientists, and teachers, worked together to craft the legislation. Dean Pagan, now 7 and in second grade, attends public school in Ambler and sees a therapist once a week. This was the only reason we moved, his mother said. Comly was supposed to be one of the better schools in Philadelphia, but it had so much lead that it literally almost killed him. Her son still suffers from being poisoned. Dean is getting back what he lost academically, but he still has neurological damage, she said. Hes impulsive. He cant sit still. He bounces around. He literally interrupts himself as if someone is cutting him off and talking over him. The new Wawa has 11,500 square feet of space. Read more It was the most sublime of times, it was the most ridiculous of times. The opening of Wawas new flagship store in Center City Philadelphia Friday was peak Philly, with a parade of mascots, a declaration by Thomas Jefferson, and hundreds of excited Wawa fans who began lining up at the store more than two hours before the doors opened. And all of the convenience-store pageantry was set to live background music provided by who else the Eagles Pep Band. Well give you one guess whether they played the theme from Rocky. A group of friends from Drexel University were first in line at the store in the old Public Ledger Building at Sixth and Chestnut Streets, arriving at 5:52 a.m. Nancy Huynh, 18, a Drexel freshman from Massachusetts, said they dont have anything like Wawa where shes from and she never expected that waiting in line for a convenience store opening was something shed do when she moved to Philly. But I am getting assimilated, she said. And this is the bougiest Wawa ever." Craig Harris, 62, was next in line, arriving at 5:55 p.m. I love the free samples and how Wawa is very community-minded, he said. By 7:30 a.m., with a half hour to go before opening, the line wrapped around the corner and numbered at least 75 deep. By 10 minutes before opening, hundreds of people had flooded the line. Curious tourists visiting nearby Independence Hall looked on in amazement when informed that the line was, indeed, for the opening of a convenience store. Aunt Terri, a local Internet celebrity with 30,000 Facebook followers known for channeling her inner Philly spirit, entertained the crowd and posed for selfies with fans as they waited in line. The 11,500-square-foot Wawa, located across from Independence Hall, is the largest in the convenience-store chain. Built in just 131 days, the new flagship store is a departure from the brightly lit, box-shape designs of past Wawas. At a preview event Wednesday, Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens described the new store as testing playground for both design and products. For us, this is like Wawa heaven," Gheysens said. While people in Philadelphia are tough on us, appropriately, they also give us latitude to do a little more and explore, because they see us as more than a convenience store. When the store finally opened at 8 a.m., dozens of Wawa staff members formed a high-five line and cheered for customers who poured in the door for four straight minutes without stopping. Mikey Becht, 18, who wore his best Marvel pajama pants in fleece to the opening, had a dream of being the first customer to order a gobbler sandwich at the new store. By 8:08 a.m., hed done it. Move over Captain America, theres a new superhero in town. Other customers stocked up on Wawa merchandise, posed for photos inside the store, sampled Wawa delicacies handed out by store staff, and marveled at the high-tech fixtures in the shiny new bathrooms. While Wawa cultists were excited by the opening, some motorists in Center Center were hitting the horns after police closed off two blocks of Chestnut for a parade, causing traffic backups in the area. The parade featured an eclectic mix of colonial reenactors, Fire Department vehicles, and modern-day mascots, including the Eagles' Swoop, Wawas own Wally Goose, and the rarely seen, but endearingly adorable, Wawa Shorti hoagie mascot. Once inside the store, a news conference was brought to order by a flute and snare drum player in colonial garb who played the Star-Spangled Banner. Then, none other than Founding Father Thomas Jefferson took the podium to declare the store open, given his good track record with declarations. This couldnt be a more perfect place to bring Wawas values and our nations founding values together, he said. I hereby declare this as Wawa Values day and encourage everyone to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this beautiful new Wawa store. The store will remain open 24/7 and will serve free coffee to all customers through the weekend. Staff writer Joseph A. Gambardello contributed to this article. The NYPD has arrested a man who allegedly sucker-punched a woman on the E train because he thought she was a lesbian, hitting her so hard she fractured her spine. Police say that Harlem resident Allasheed Allah, 54, has been arrested in connection with the November incident. He has been charged with assault as a hate crime and aggravated harassment as a hate crime. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force took him into custody late Wednesday; his arraignment was pending in Queens Criminal Court on Thursday. The Hate Crimes Task Force @NYPDHateCrimes has just arrested Allah Allahseed, wanted for an anti-sexual-orientation-motivated assault on a female couple on 11-30-18 on a Queens subway. Once again, NYC has made it clear: we have #NoPlaceForHate pic.twitter.com/QKD60AwiaX Chief Dermot F. Shea (@NYPDDetectives) December 13, 2018 The assault happened just after 5 p.m. Friday, November 30th, in Queens on a Manhattan-bound E train. The 20-year-old woman and a friend were killing time making Snapchats when they exchanged a kiss on the cheek. After that kiss, Allah allegedly began making homophobic remarks to them. "He said, 'do those gay things in front of me one more time and watch what happens,'" the victim said. They got into a shouting match, during which Allah reportedly called her a "dyke." The woman and her friend started to walk away from Allah when he allegedly crept up behind them. "I felt him right behind me, I felt a punch in my back," she said. "And it all happened so quick it was just a blur." It was more than just one punch: "I turned around and he already had his hand on my chest and he threw me back which caused my head to hit the pole and my back hit the ground first, which fractured my spine," the woman said. She said others on the train got up to protect her, and the man fled the train at the next stop at Forest Hills-71st Ave. The victim was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center with a fractured spine. "Last week I spent the whole week crying and in excruciating pain," the women told ABC7. "My hopes are that he's arrested, not for revenge, it's not what I want. So he won't ever do this to anyone else. I don't want someone else to feel this." Stay the Course The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution By John C. Bogle Wiley. 320 pp. $34.95 Reviewed by Joseph N. DiStefano Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle, who turns 90 in May, has been Americas cheerfully barbed, plainspoken investment adviser for so long its easy to forget hes been retired from the Malvern investment company which now invests $5 trillion in clients' money, behind only BlackRock Inc. for even longer than he ran Vanguard (1975-96). There is a fan base for commonsense investment oracles, and Bogle fills that need (as does his admirer and contemporary Warren Buffett, still chairman and CEO at Berkshire Hathaway Corp., a very different kind of company). Bogles mostly-free-media network includes his live-event business TV and occasional congressional appearances skewering Wall Street competitors; the Bogleheads fan chatrooms; his busy small staff at Vanguard headquarters (his old Wellington Management Co. mentor, Walter Morgan, kept coming in almost to his death at 100 in 1998); and the retail brokers who peddle the hot-money Vanguard exchange-traded funds Bogle once opposed, and who now cheerfully quote Bogles aphorisms and give away his books. And now Bogle has written Stay the Course, his 12th book (if it sells like the others, it will push his lifetime sales over 1 million), in which he retells familiar Vanguard stories and industry questions with new detail. The emphasis is again against Wall Street greed and for low fees, market-index targets, and structural exceptionalism (Vanguard is owned by its funds, not its founders or outside shareholders; Bogle claims this aligns customers with bosses). Whats new includes a Bogle A-Z glossary of life lessons and a compact section evaluating each of his three Vanguard successors who are as Ivy League as Bogle but a lot lower-profile (quick, name them!). The language is diplomatic but easy to parse. Bogle says John J. Brennan got remarkably close to him (they played lots of squash) and showed a singular ability to get what he wanted. As boss, Brennan was competent, tough, and pushed a far more prominent emphasis on marketing and data-driven performance management. Bogle watched Vanguard evolve beyond him: Brennan plunged Vanguard into ETFs (the founder worried they encourage speculation); later, Brennan's successor, F. William McNabb, overrode Brennan's own skepticism to make big foreign bets. McNabb reversed Brennan's bullying, returning Vanguard "to my vision of a more personal, human place for our burgeoning crew" while also pivoting from small investors to employer plans, advisory services for wealthy clients, and cheap "robo advisory" (mostly attracting old Vanguard customers, not new ones, Bogle notes). And now comes Mortimer Tim Buckley, a onetime Bogle assistant he calls poised and prepared. But he then makes clear he sees Buckleys job running a thriving concern as easier than Bogles in building it. Bogle calls on Buckley to eschew hucksterism, improve privacy, apply artificial intelligence and to build on McNabbs incipient shareholder activism in the name of higher profits now that Vanguard owns at least 8 percent of most U.S. companies. Bogle quotes very smart people who have praised his ideas, including Buffett, former Fed chief and relentless Wall Street critic Paul Volcker, and mathy trader turned acerbic professor Nassim Taleb (Black Swan). He admits a few mistakes (he regrets that Vanguard sometimes increases fund fees; he says he should have gotten the SEC to allow only cuts) and engages a few Vanguard critics, accusing Yale law professor John Morley of sneering at Vanguard by arguing that its self-perpetuating management is not meaningfully different from that of its rivals. Bogle ignores another critic, ex-Vanguard lawyer David Danon, who says Vanguard evaded taxes; Texas paid Danon for helping collect. He quotes Thomas Carlyle, Adam Smith, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, but he doesnt point out that a favorite paean to himself by an old assistant is clearly based on World War I Canadian poet John McCraes well-known poem In Flanders Fields. Theres at least one more uncredited borrowing. (I told Bogle I expected his old masters at Blair Academy would want citations. He said hell consider it if theres another edition.) Bogle details the custom Lummi totem pole he had hauled across the country to his Adirondack compound; praises the heart doctors who keep him alive, his wife for how she raised their six kids (there are third and fourth generations), and his late mother for getting him and his brothers into Blair Academy on working scholarships during the Depression (without lingering over his father's absence, or emphasizing that his uncle was meanwhile commodore of the Greenwich Yacht Club; this poverty was mercifully transitory). Bogle has paid charity forward with hundreds of scholarships for Native American students and others at his alma maters. He praises personal forgiveness and admits he applied it grudgingly; busts on his industry lobby, the Investment Company Institute, for putting firms before customers; euologizes old teachers (and some classmates) at Blair and Princeton; and puts a word in for Joe Torsella, who ran Philadelphia's National Constitution Center when Bogle was chairman. That marks what Bogle hopes is his third legacy family, Vanguard, and public duty. Torsella, now Pennsylvanias elected treasurer, is one of the rising politicians who have adopted Bogles relentless call for cheaper, simpler indexed investments of government funds. It is, after all, the peoples money. Zina Martinez and her children suffered serious illnesses from nosebleeds. The explanation for the ailments had life-changing implications for her family. Read more When she was 5, Zina Martinez suffered occasional seizures, but doctors couldn't identify an underlying cause. After two years on a potent anti-seizure medicine, doctors decided the drug was unnecessary. Three years later, the nosebleeds started. The pediatrician said the combination of dry desert air in Las Vegas and the probability the child was picking her nose were most likely to blame. In 2003, Martinez, then 20, gave birth to her son Daunte. Born five weeks' premature, he was otherwise healthy. One night, when she was seven months pregnant with her second child, another nosebleed started, but this one was different. When Martinez pinched her nose closed to stop what was usually little more than a trickle, blood gushed out of her mouth. Her husband took her to a nearby emergency room, where a doctor cauterized a vein inside her nostril, which stopped the bleeding. Her second son, Antonio, was born in 2006. Three years later, daughter Elliyana Meade arrived prematurely by emergency caesarean section, and spent nearly two weeks in the neonatal intensive-care unit. In May 2011, Martinez received a frantic call from the nurse at Daunte's elementary school. The 7-year-old had complained of a severe headache, then began vomiting. The nurse worried he might have fallen on the playground and suffered a concussion. Martinez raced to the school, then to a hospital. A CT scan revealed Daunte had suffered a massive brain bleed caused by an abnormal tangle of blood vessels in his brain known as an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM . AVMs, which can occur in other parts of the body including the lungs, are typically present at birth and often cause no symptoms unless they rupture. If a cerebral AVM ruptures, it can cause stroke, coma, or death. A severe headache is often the first sign. Daunte was placed in a medically induced coma for several days, then underwent an embolization. The procedure involves threading a catheter through an artery in the groin and into the brain, then depositing glue or another substance to block the blood supply that feeds the AVM. Daunte spent eight days in the hospital and suffered no brain damage, nearly miraculous given the severity of his bleed, doctors said. They assured the worried mother that cerebral AVMs are very rare in children she remembers being told there was a "one in a million chance" her other children might have one and there was no need to test them. Less than 18 months later, Elliyana, then 3, awoke in the middle of the night with a severe headache, then began vomiting violently and lost consciousness. Her parents rushed her to the same hospital that had treated Daunte. A CT scan revealed the horrifying truth: An AVM in her brain had ruptured. By then, Elliyana, who had suffered two seizures, was in a coma. Martinez remembers yelling at the doctors: "You told me last year I didn't need to get these kids checked! I want answers, and I want them now." A few days later, as Martinez and her husband were sitting by their daughter's bedside, a new doctor walked in. "Which one of you has nosebleeds?" she remembers the hematologist asking. "I remember thinking, 'Wow, how does he know?'" Martinez said. "I raised my hand and said, 'I have, for almost all of my life.' " Solution The blood specialist replied, "Well, you're the reason your kids' brains are bleeding. You have HHT." Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is a genetic disorder characterized by blood vessels that fail to develop properly. Ruptured AVMs are rare in people with HHT, but they are among the most significant complications of the disorder. In people with HHT, blood vessels may be formed without capillaries, tiny structures that connect arteries to veins. These vessels are unusually fragile and tend to bleed easily. Children with one parent who has HHT have a 50 percent chance of developing the disorder themselves. Several genes are known to cause the disorder. Most can be detected through genetic testing. HHT requires lifelong monitoring and treatment of complications that result. There is no cure. The disorder is uncommon it affects about one in 5,000 people worldwide and varies in severity. The brain, lungs and gastrointestinal tract are typically affected, and it is estimated that 90 percent of those with HHT do not know they have it. The most common symptom, which usually surfaces in childhood, is recurrent nosebleeds that range from minor to severe. Other symptoms include seizures, anemia and shortness of breath that is often misdiagnosed as asthma. Only about 10 percent of people with the disorder have cerebral AVMs, and many of those tangled vessels never rupture. Delayed diagnosis is the rule rather than the exception, said interventional radiologist Justin McWilliams, co-director of the HHT Center of Excellence at UCLA . On average, people with the disorder are diagnosed in their mid-30s. "Most doctors have never heard of it and say to patients, 'Oh, you have nosebleeds.' Usually, it's kind of ignored," said McWilliams, an associate professor of radiology at UCLA. Diagnosing HHT is not necessarily complicated. Most of those affected have telltale, visible telangiectasia tiny red spots that dot their hands and the inside of their nostrils or mouths. These spots, however, often do not develop until adulthood. Scans revealed Elliyana had five AVMs in her brain; only one required immediate treatment. The others were monitored and treated later through surgery and embolization. Although Elliyana lost her peripheral vision as a result of the brain bleed, she did not suffer other brain damage. Following Elliyana's discharge, Martinez turned to the internet and found Cure HHT , a Maryland-based national advocacy and support group. Through the auspices of the foundation, she contacted experts at UCLA and was referred to McWilliams, who has treated both Daunte and Elliyana. Her middle child, Antonio, now 12, has HHT, although he has not suffered any of the complications. He does not have AVMs, and his health is being monitored. A " bubble study " test, contrast echocardiography that uses sound waves to inspect blood vessels, revealed the presence of an AVM in Martinez's lung. An MRI scan of her brain showed evidence of a prior, small stroke. In 2013, she underwent treatment for the lung AVM performed by McWilliams at UCLA. Martinez, now 36, is uncertain which of her parents has HHT; neither has been tested. She said she is devastated that all her children inherited the disorder and feels intensely guilty about passing HHT on to them. "We all have severe anxiety and panic attacks" caused by the trauma of the children's emergency hospitalizations, Martinez said. The family is receiving therapy to help them cope. "I still blame myself for what my kids have gone through. If I'd known I had HHT, I'd never have had children." McWilliams said Martinez has no reason to feel guilty and has had a "particularly tough road." All her children have the disorder despite a 50-50 chance of inheriting the gene. The family's ordeal, he added, has been exacerbated by problems with their health-insurance coverage. Martinez said her faith and the support of her extended family and her doctors, especially McWilliams, have helped her persevere. Donald D.A. Jones, pictured here leaving the federal courthouse in Philadelphia in an October 2017 file photo, pleaded guilty Friday in an ongoing probe of efforts to hide a $90,000 payoff U.S. Rep. Bob Bradys campaign made to convince a 2012 primary challenger to drop out of the race. Read more A top political strategist for U.S. Rep. Robert Brady on Friday became the latest defendant to admit his role in a scheme to illegally cover up $90,000 the congressman's campaign paid a 2012 primary challenger to drop out of the race. Donald "D.A." Jones pleaded guilty to charges of lying to federal agents and agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation in a brief hearing in federal court in Philadelphia. His admission of guilt is the first to come from within Brady's camp in a case that already has wrung guilty pleas from the congressman's 2012 opponent former Municipal Court Judge Jimmie Moore and the judge's former campaign manager. "I accept full responsibility for my actions and consider my guilty plea a first step in making amends," Jones said in a statement issued by his attorney Alan J. Tauber after the hearing. "I apologize to the people of Philadelphia and to my family for bringing this dishonor upon them." What Jones' plea means for Brady one of the longest-serving congressmen in the state and the powerful head of Philadelphia's Democratic Party remains unclear. For months, federal investigators have signaled that they were building a case against the 10-term incumbent. But last month, prosecutors allowed an agreement preserving their right to charge Brady outside the traditional statute of limitations to lapse, raising questions about their willingness to move forward with a case. Brady's lawyers took that development as a sign that their client might be in the clear, although they cautioned at the time that there were still some related charges that fell within federally mandated time limits that prosecutors could pursue if they felt they had the evidence to prove them in court. It was not immediately clear how Jones' guilty plea might complicate their thinking. Brady's lawyers, James Eisenhower and Ronald Levine, declined to comment Friday but have consistently maintained that their client did nothing wrong. In the deal he struck with prosecutors, Jones, 62, of Willingboro, N.J., agreed to testify if needed against Brady or Ken Smukler, another of the congressman's strategists who was indicted in October on charges including conspiracy and making an unlawful campaign contribution. In a series of terse responses to U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois, Jones admitted that he had conspired to hide payments from Brady's campaign and later had lied about it to the FBI a charge that carries a maximum prison term of up to five years. Jones also said Friday that he had agreed to plead guilty in an unrelated case brought against him in the Western District of Missouri. Details of that matter remain under seal and Tauber, Jones' lawyer, declined to discuss the case. Jones, known in Philadelphia political circles as a low-key technocrat experienced in get-out-the-vote efforts, also has worked for other candidates including former City Controller Jonathan Saidel and Sheriff Jewell Williams in recent years. His plea agreement laid out a narrative that has become familiar since the FBI probe of the Brady matter emerged into public view this summer. According to the document, Moore agreed to drop his primary campaign against Brady in 2012 after the congressman pledged to help him retire some of his considerable campaign debt including more than $80,000 the former judge had personally loaned his own campaign. Because federal campaign contribution limits at the time capped the amount that one candidate could give another campaign at $2,000 for a primary election, Smukler and Jones agreed to funnel the money from Brady's campaign coffers to Moore's by routing it through consulting firms they owned, the plea document says. In Jones' case, that included a $25,000 payment that his consulting firm D. Jones and Associates passed through to Moore's campaign manager, Carolyn Cavaness, for alleged consulting services. But both Jones and Cavaness have admitted that she did no work for Jones' company to earn that money and that invoices she prepared were a ruse to cover the real reason for the payments. Prosecutors say Smukler funneled the remaining $65,000 through his consulting company to Moore, disguised as a payment for polling data the judge had commissioned before dropping out of the race information Brady already had obtained. Both Smukler and Brady have defended the poll's purchase, claiming that they were paying for exclusive rights to the information and to keep it out of the hands of future challengers to the congressman. Smukler has denied the charges against him and vowed to take his case to trial. Moore and Cavaness have pleaded guilty to charges of filing false campaign reports and are cooperating with investigators. U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, leader of Philadelphia Democratic Party announcing that he will not run for reelection during a Wednesday afternoon news conference. JOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer Read more Bob Brady, the larger-than-life leader of Philadelphia's Democratic Party, announced Wednesday that he is not running for reelection to the U.S. House. After a year in which he was under the cloud of a federal investigation, he revealed the news in a way that seemed all too perfect for the decades-long party boss: Wearing a long-sleeve Eagles shirt, Brady told ward leaders at a meeting at the Democratic City Committee's headquarters that he was calling it quits. A platter of hoagies from DeNofa's in Northeast Philadelphia was served for lunch. Brady's announcement could reduce the political clout of Philadelphia's delegation, which besides Brady has two congressmen with little to no seniority in an election year in which many observers think Democrats could take back control of the House. It will also likely push more candidates to jump into the race to succeed Brady. In fact, a new contender joined just hours after Brady's announcement: Pastor Kevin Johnson. Another, State Rep. Joanna McClinton, told radio station WURD that she was considering a run. And though Brady said he is going to continue as party chairman, some will likely see his announcement as a sign the city's Democratic machine is weakening. In an interview hours before the party meeting, Brady, 72, said his family, as well as his concerns about how a new district map may affect his fellow city congressmen, factored into his decision. "I've been married for 21 years," Brady said. "For 20 of those years, I've been going to Washington four days a week. I need to come back home." At a news conference after the ward leaders' meeting, Brady reiterated that he wants to spend less time inside the Beltway. "All you can do after 4 or 5 o'clock [in Washington] is eat or drink. I don't drink, and I certainly don't look like I need something to eat." Though several candidates announced in recent months that they would challenge Brady in the Democratic primary, he said that wasn't a concern: "I am not afraid of winning." He was also adamant that last year's federal investigation into his campaign finances, which snared two of his closest political aides, played no role in his choice. Brady spent the second half of 2017 under intense scrutiny after it was disclosed that his campaign had given $90,000 to Jimmie Moore, an African American Democratic challenger in the 2012 primary who then dropped out of the race. One of Brady's aides, Don "DA" Jones, has pleaded guilty in federal court. Another, Ken Smukler, has said he will fight the charges. "I've got a complete bill of health from the federal government," Brady said. "They told my attorney I am not being charged. They told my attorney in November. No deal was made." The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia declined Wednesday to comment on Brady's characterization of its investigation. Brady's lawyers Ronald Levine and James Eisenhower were more circumspect and sought to clarify. The statute of limitations expired in January on almost all of the charges that Brady may have faced. "Based on our review of the status on the case and the fact that the statute of limitations has run we advised him that we don't believe he will be charged," Eisenhower said. Still, the investigation took a financial toll. Brady's latest campaign-finance report, filed Wednesday, showed that he paid $256,799 to three law firms in the last three months of 2017. While the cases wend through the courts, the First District that Brady represents could change. A recent order from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court requires the Republican-controlled state legislature to redraw the 2011 map that set boundaries for congressional districts. Brady said he did not want his status as a local party chairman to influence that process in his favor, to the detriment of his fellow Democratic congressmen from Philadelphia, Brendan Boyle and Dwight Evans. "I don't want to be disingenuous and wait for the lines to be drawn and then decide not to run," Brady said. "To be honest with you, are they trying to favor me? Absolutely they're trying to favor me. There's a lot of [potential] maps that have just two congressmen in Philadelphia." Brady's alleged role in influencing the state's 2011 map was already a headache. Former Deputy Mayor Nina Ahmad, who announced last year that she was challenging Brady, said it was "disgusting" that he had "rallied Democrats to support" the GOP map. Brady, however, said, "I didn't have any input." Wednesday's announcement came as a surprise to many insiders. Former City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who represents the 54th Ward Democrats on city committee, said there was much uncertainty in Brady's district because of the gerrymandering case. "I think the redistricting was the last straw," Butkovitz said, adding there were several strong potential challengers. "Then to top it off you have redistricting and you're going to have [decennial] redistricting in another two years. It's almost like a message from God." State Sen. Anthony H. Williams, a ward leader in West Philadelphia, said Brady told him before the meeting that he has served a long time and that he considered the toll of another term. "He talked about his wife, his children, his grandchildren that he wants to have an opportunity to spend time with them without the stress of public office," Williams said. "One of his kids is expecting and he's stuck in Washington, D.C." Brady, a deal-maker with a leadership post on the House Committee on Administration, was not a policy wonk with a long legislative record of accomplishment. He has also been criticized over the years for serving as party chairman as numerous Philly Democrats, including former District Attorney Seth Williams, were convicted of crimes. But Brady has also been celebrated for helping avert labor strikes, bringing home money, and voting against authorization of the Iraq war. At Wednesday's news conference, Brady highlighted an estimated $15.5 billion with a "b" in federal funding that flowed to Philadelphia since he first went to Washington in a 1998 special election. "Those are things that nobody in here knows," he said to the room full of reporters. "Maybe it's my fault that I don't profess it or brag about it." Brady also said he was proud of his recent efforts to help rewrite House rules on dealing with sexual-harassment cases. Those changes, which Brady referred to as the "Me Too Act," would pay for legal representation if a congressional staffer accused a lawmaker of harassment as well as prevent members of Congress from paying settlements with taxpayer dollars, as Rep. Patrick Meehan, a Delaware County Republican, did in a recently disclosed case. Before getting into politics, Brady worked as a union carpenter. He got involved in the Democratic Party after a friend suggested that he do remodeling work for then-Council President George Schwartz. Schwartz mentored Brady, who became Council sergeant-at-arms and a committee person. When Schwartz resigned after being charged in the Abscam scandal, he picked Brady to take his spot as leader of the 34th Ward. Brady became party chairman in 1986. Brady said he would leave it up to the city party to decide if it wants to support a candidate in the primary election for his seat. "We will get together and we will pick the person they think is best to serve," he said. But Brady did not think that selection would be any of the previously declared candidates: Lindy Li, Willie Singletary, Michele Lawrence, or Ahmad. Instead, he suggested Richie Lazer might be a good fit for the job. Lazer, who serves as Mayor Kenney's deputy mayor for labor, has been strongly rumored to be interested in seeking the seat since November. Brady said reclaiming the chairmanship of the Administration Committee if Democrats retook the House was not a strong enough lure. "How much blood do you need?" he asked. "I'm 72 years old. Am I going to be 82 years old? I don't know." Staff writer Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this article. A construction crew works near the intersection of Broad Street and Girard Avenue, with City Hall in the distance. Experts expect more construction to occur on North Broad as a result of the new Opportunity Zones located along the corridor. Read more North Broad Street could be in for a renaissance. A stretch has been chosen for a federal program that aims to encourage development in low-income areas. While it may sound great on the surface, some believe it could spell disaster for long-time residents. In Allentown, the famed Cadets drum corps leaned on their long-time director for guidance, before he was accused of sexual misconduct by several members of the organization. Now, a new Inquirer investigation has unearthed more issues within the drum corps community. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. Ray Boyd (@RayBoydDigital, morningnewsletter@philly.com) The stretch of Broad Street from Susquehanna to Allegheny Avenue has been selected for the Trump Administrations Opportunity Zones program. The initiative gives tax breaks to developers who choose to build in low-income areas. North Broad once known for its opulent mansions is now home to some of the city's deepest poverty rates and most violent crime. Many hope this program will lead to the infusion of cash that the corridor needs. But not everyone is convinced. While the program does aim to revitalize low-income areas, it doesn't specify what kind of development can take place in these neighborhoods. Some see that as a potentially bad sign for long-time residents. In April, a scandal shook the drum corps community involving one of its most decorated leaders, George Hopkins. Twelve women told the Inquirer they were sexually harassed or abused by Hopkins and he was recently charged with sexually assaulting two of them. A new investigation by the Inquirer found nearly a dozen cases over the last decade in which teachers who had been disciplined for misconduct with students went on to work in drum corps as instructors, administrators, or judges. Others had records that include crimes of a sexual nature. The records paint a troubling pattern of hiring practices in an activity that draws thousands of young participants each year. In 1990, people of color outnumbered white people in 10 boroughs, townships, and cities around Philadelphia. Now, 30 local municipalities are considered "majority-minority," reflecting a national trend, according to Census data. In our region, that means local officials will increasingly face issues that arise among groups with varying cultural norms, as different communities have different needs. Census data has also shown that poverty in the city is increasing, and the poverty rate of older Philadelphians is the highest among the country's largest cities. What you need to know today Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly Now, that's what I call #SquadGoals. Thanks for sharing, @maisy_thecorgi. Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we'll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out! Thats Interesting Opinions "Do I like homophobia? No. I have experienced it personally. It hurts. It has left lasting scars on my life and has hurt others far worse, when it has morphed into severe and violent bullying. But I dont really care to see people publicly punished for jokes they made years ago. Political consultant Albert Eisenberg on the LGBT communitys reaction to Kevin Hart hosting the Oscars. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner's radical overhaul of the office continues to disregard the suffering of victims in the city, writes former federal and state prosecutor George Parry. Columnist Christine Flowers writes that Women's March organizers should learn a lesson from women she says never "whined, or wore pink hats" saints. What were reading Your Daily Dose of | Bam Former reality star Bam Margeras massive house party at his Chester County mansion Thursday was like a skaters paradise even if it didnt deliver on every promise. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Friday dared Congress president Rahul Gandhi for a debate on the Rafale fighter jets deal, asserting that the latters lies have been exposed by the Supreme Court. Addressing a press conference in the national capital, the BJP chief said that a debate in Parliament was needed even to ascertain the need of a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the issue and hence the Congress-led opposition must stop stalling the House and agree for a debate. Attacking the Congress president after the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking probe into the Rafale fighter jets deal, Amit Shah said that Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the people of the country for misleading them. He further said that the Congress chief must reveal the source of his information on Rafale deal. Whoever has lied on Rafale deal, especially Congress president Rahul Gandhi, they must apologise to the nation. Rahul Gandhi should also reveal the source of his information to the nation, said the BJP president. Shah also questioned Rahul Gandhi on why a government-to-government deal on Rafale deal was stalled from 2007 to 2014 under the Congress-led UPA government. Why was Rafale deal stalled from 2007 to 2014, the Congress needs to explain this. They compromised with the military might of the nation, said the BJP chief. Taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi, the BJP strongman said that he should refrain from making such childish allegations in the future, adding that if all thieves join hands and call the chowkidar a thief, people of this country will not listen to them. Shah asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government was not running away from a JPC probe into the issue. We are not running from a JPC probe, I'm asking them as to why they ran away from the Supreme Court. If they had evidence, they should have become a party in the case and placed all documents before the court, said Amit Shah. He added, JPC is formed after a debate in Parliament, but the Congress is running away from a debate on the issue. Arun Jaitley asked for a debate on the floor of the House today itself. The Congress party has maintained that neither was it a party to the case in Supreme Court, nor was the judgement a setback for them. According to the Congress, the pertinent questions on the Rafale deal remained unanswered. The fresh political war of words was triggered by the Supreme Court verdict on Rafale deal. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi ruled that there would be no special investigation team to probe the deal, dismissed all petitions before it. Hours after the Supreme Court's observation on Friday saying it was "satisfied" with the decision making process in concluding the Rafale fighter jet deal and rejected demands for a probe, French aerospace major Dassault Aviation welcomed the decision. The French major issued a statement shortly after the apex court announcement and said, "Dassault Aviation welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court of India rendered today dismissing all petitions filed on the Rafale Contract signed on 23rd September 2016 in the frame of an Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and France". The statement further added, "Dassault Aviation takes note of the Supreme Court conclusions establishing the absence of any irregularities in the decision-making process to purchase 36 Rafale, pricing of Rafale jets and selection of Indian offset partners including Anil Ambani owned Reliance Defence by Dassault Aviation." The deal is absolutely clean in accordance with Indian laws and regulations, as I have stated before, and the first Falcon part is currently under delivery out of our facility in Nagpur according to Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation. The company said it is fully committed in a strong relationship of mutual trust with India. It also added that "all resources of the company have been mobilised to make the Rafale, chosen by India in 2012 following a very complete competitive bidding process and evaluation, the spearhead of the Indian Air Force (IAF)". In a major relief to the Modi government, the apex court made the announcement, sparking bitter exchanges between the BJP and the Congress. The verdict by the apex court that it found no reason to intervene on what it called the "sensitive issue" of purchase of 36 jets from France came as a political victory for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi just days after the defeat of the party in three Hindi-heartland states--Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh-- in the Assembly polls at the hands of the Congress. PM Modi had come in for a relentless attack from Congress President Rahul Gandhi who alleged corruption in procurement of the fighter jets for the IAF from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation, calling it a scam which allegedly benefitted industrialist Anil Ambani. Holding it did not find any substantial material on record to show there was "commercial favouritism" to any party by the Indian Government in choosing an offset partner, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a "fishing and roving enquiry" by the court and it cannot "sit in judgement" over the wisdom of the decision to go in for purchase of 36 aircraft in place of 126. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court," it ruled. Shortly after the verdict that comes ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was pronounced, BJP President Amit Shah launched a blistering attack on the Congress, saying it was a "victory of truth" and demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi. The court decision is a slap on the face of those who had alleged corruption, Shah told reporters. But the Congress claimed the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that the issue of "corruption" in the Rs 36,000 crore Rafale contract cannot be decided by it and challenged the Centre to constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the deal. Rahul Gandhi stuck to his allegation there was massive corruption in the contract and wondered why the CAG report on the deal was not yet shared with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament even though it was cited by the apex court. At a news conference, Gandhi also reiterated the Congress' demand for a JPC probe and claimed if it was conducted the names of Narendra Modi and businessman Anil Ambani will crop up. Both the government and the Ambani's Reliance Group have been outrightly rejecting Gandhi's allegations of any wrongdoing. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley maintained only a judicial body can carry out such a probe as there has been an experience in the past of JPCs working on partisan lines. "The SC verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope for any doubt on the deal,"he asserted at a joint news conference with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Jaitley dubbed allegations on the Rafale deal as "fiction writing" that compromised national security, Sitharaman said the matter of Rafale deal has been put to rest through the court verdict. The apex court gave its 29-page judgement on pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and a court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the jet deal, in which both India and France entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) in 2016 after Modi's summit talks with the then French President Francois Hollande in Paris the previous year. The three-judge bench dealt with "three broad areas of concern" raised in the petitions , identifying them as "the decision ?making process, pricing and the choice of Indian offset partners (IOP)". Mumbai: Finance minister Arun Jaitley Thursday admitted there were two-three areas of differences with the Reserve Bank (RBI), but questioned how a mere discussion on its functioning could be considered "destruction" of an institution. Under attack politically for creating circumstances that led to the resignation of Urjit Patel as the central bank's Governor, Jaitley listed out a string of actions initiated by past governments including Congress PMs Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi asking RBI Governors to resign. Speaking at a conclave, Jaitley said the differences with RBI included credit flow in the economy and liquidity support, and added that the government had initiated a "discussion" to convey its concerns. "A discussion with an important institution, which is independent and autonomous, to tell it that its a part of your (RBIs) functions and therefore this is an important area of an economy which you must look at, how is it destruction of the institution?," he questioned. According to reports, the government had initiated discussions under the never-used Section 7 of the RBI Act which provides for the central government forcing down decisions in public interest. It is this aspect, which led to the voicing of concerns across and also a strong speech by RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya to warn against compromising RBI autonomy. Jaitley did not elaborate on how the discussion were initiated. "We are the sovereign government, we are the most important stakeholders as far as the management of an economy is concerned," Jaitley said, in reference to the discussions with RBI. He reiterated that the RBI has the responsibility as far as credit and liquidity is concerned. "We are not taking over the function," he said, adding that the government was only initiating discussions using instruments which force a discussion. "In some situations, the autonomous institutions also have to be informed that there is some difficulty arising in the system that requires to be corrected," he added. Further, if the government is not able to convey the difficulties in the system, it would be failing its duty, he said. The FM pointed out that the country's first prime minister Nehru had written to the RBI stating that the economic policies are determined by the elected government, while RBI has autonomy over the monetary policy. The RBI's policies also need to be in sync with the economic policies, Jaitley stressed. Patel resigned amid the protracted friction with the government Monday, citing personal reasons. The government has immediately appointed retired bureaucrat Shaktikanta Das, who was at the helm of finance ministry during the controversial demonetisation exercise, as his successor. Kathmandu: The Nepal government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations, according to a media report. The government has asked the people to refrain from keeping or carrying Indian bank notes higher than Rs 100 denomination as it has not legalised them, The Kathmandu Post quoted Minister for Information and Communications Gokul Prasad Baskota as saying. The decision can affect Nepalese labourers working in India as well as Indian tourists visiting Nepal. The Indian government introduced notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations after demonetisation in 2016. People have been using new Indian currency notes in the Nepali market for nearly two years. New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has strongly rebuked Rahul Gandhi for his aggressive posturing on Rafale deal despite Supreme Court stating that no probe is required in the matter. Rahul Gandhi maintained his allegations in the Rafale deal despite what the Supreme Court said on Friday, and once again slammed PM Narendra Modi for helping secure the deal for Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence. His choice of words and body language was countered by union minister RS Prasad who said that the Congress party cannot consider itself above the apex court of the country. "Does Rahul Gandhi think he is above the Supreme Court? Does Congress think it is above the top court? And what is this shameful language used for PM Modi? It is a new low in politics," he said at a press conference held shortly after the press conference of the Congress president. Rahul had questioned the NDA government over the Rafale deal, maintaining that prices of the jets had been inflated and claimed that the CAG report on pricing was never shown to PAC. He also accused PM Modi of robbing the people of the country. "He (Rahul) is himself being probed and he dares to point a finger at the country's prime minister," said Prasad. The Congress has maintained that a Joint Parliamentary Committee is required to probe the Rafale jet deal but earlier in the day, union minister Arun Jaitley had rejected this. He had said that the Supreme Court had given a finality in the matter and had advised Rahul to stop indulging in fiction writing which only serves to demoralise forces and civil servants. An unfortunate but persistent fact about movie-going in New York is that you might get gnawed by bed bugs. While it's true this can happen basically anywhere in this city, it does seem that the risk is heightened in a dark room full of cushy fabric seats on which multiple strangers sit for hours at a time each day. This is a bummer! No one who shells out $14 for a ticket to, say, Jeepers Creepers 3: The Creeper Walks Among Us, should have to worry about real bloodsucking pests crawling up the carpet and going to town on their neck. Now, a City Councilmember is hoping legislation can help boot the unwelcome critters from the movies. A new bill introduced this week by Councilman Mark Levine would require theaters to certify on an annual basis that their seats have been inspected and deemed free of bed bugs. Private inspectors would handle the examinations, while the Department of Consumer Affairs would be responsible for oversight. "New Yorkers shouldnt have to worry about what might be lurking in the seats of a movie theater," Levine, who also serves as the Council Health Chair, told Gothamist. "This bill is a simple accountability measure that will ensure our citys movie theaters are pest free." He added, Anyone who has ever had to suffer through a bed bug infestation in their homes knows the tremendous financial and emotional toll it can take." Indeed. A spokesperson for Levine's office emphasized that their objective wasn't to fear-monger, but rather to reasonably address the outbreaks that seem to happen just about every year. We've previously noted several reports of serious bed bug infestations (and also, rats) at the AMC Empire 25 multiplex in Times Square. Bed bugs have also been spotted at the Pavilion movie theater in Park Slope and at the Sheepshead Bay United Artists movie theater. Its unclear at this point if there will be penalties for repeat offenders under the legislation, but theaters that dont certify that theyre free of bed bugs would be forced to pay $1,000. In other positive news out of the bed bug accountability world, a recent analysis found that the number of bed bug violations issued to landlords by the Department of Housing and Preservation has dropped by 28 percent in the last five years, which may point to the success of recent legislation forcing landlords to take tenant complaints seriously. Do we finally have these infernal suckers on the run? Probably not. The Supreme Court has said that there are no irregularities in NDA government's decision-making process to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault under Indo-French intergovernmental agreement. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. A country cant afford to be underprepared. Not correct for the Court to sit as an appellant authority and scrutinise all aspects," says Supreme Court. Thanks for joining the Zeenews.com live updates on Rafale deal. The live updates have been closed for the day. Here are the highlights: # "The foundation of SC judgement today mentions that pricing of Rafale jets was discussed in CAG. Where are the details? Why has PAC not seen it? Why has the PAC chairman not seen it?" R Gandhi: Govt will have to explain to us where is the CAG report. Show it to PAC chairman Kharge ji. Maybe a different PAC is running parallelly, maybe in a different Parliament, maybe in Parliament of France. It's possible Modi ji has constituted his own PAC in PMO. #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/iU2A3SgUEw ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 # Rahul Gandhi addresses press conference on Rafale deal, maintains allegations on 'inflated' prices, contract being taken away from HAL and being given to Reliance Defence, and asks why PM Modi does not speak on the matter. # Arun Jaitley flays Congress for indulging in fiction writing. (Read full report here) # Supreme Court has said nothing wrong, deciding on pricing is not the Supreme Court's job but similarly deciding on building Ram Temple is also not their job. Rafale deal issue will be sorted out in Parliament and not in SC, says Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut. # It's not about political win or loss, it is about the morale of soldiers who guard our nation, says Amit Shah. # Congress is welcome to tell people about the Rafale issue, but they should carry the Supreme Court judgement too with them, says Amit Shah. # Despite constant allegations by Rahul Gandhi, people of this country never doubted the integrity of BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says Amit Shah. # JPC is formed after a debate in Parliament, but the Congress is running away from a debate on the issue. Arun Jaitley asked for a debate on the floor of the House today itself, says Amit Shah. # We are not running from a JPC probe, I'm asking them as to why they ran away from the Supreme Court, says Amit Shah. # Congress is living in an imaginary world where there is no place for truth. They are questioning the Supreme Court now, if they have facts, they should have gone to the top court and placed the evidence before it, says Amit Shah. # Rahul Gandhi must refrain from making such childish allegations in the future, says Amit Shah. # If all thieves join hands and call the chowkidar a thief, people of this country will not listen to them, says Amit Shah. # Why was Rafale deal stalled from 2007 to 2014, the Congress needs to explain this. They compromised with the military might of the nation, says Amit Shah. # Whoever has lied on Rafale, especially Congress president Rahul Gandhi, must apologise to the nation, says Amit Shah. # Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Supreme Court verdict on Rafale deal. # Our demand was for Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) and it still stands. Main issue is pricing which Supreme Court said it did not want to comment as it is not in its jurisdiction. Home Minister is speaking on an incomplete judgement given on a PIL. # Article 136 and 32 are not the forum to decide the issue, the pricing, the process, the sovereign guarantee and the corruption in the Rafale contract. Only forum and only media is a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which can probe the entire corruption in Rafale deal, says Randeep Singh Surjewala. # The verdict of the Supreme Court today is a validation of what the Congress party stated months again, that SC is not the forum to decide on such sensitive defence contract, says Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala. # Anil Ambani's statement after SC verdict on Rafale deal: I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today, summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically-motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' policies of the Government in the critical area of defence, including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France. # Rajya Sabha adjourned after ruckus over Rafale deal verdict. # BJP president Amit Shah expected to address a press conference on the Rafale deal at 1 pm on Friday. # Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seeks debate on Rafale deal in Rajya Sabha. # Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh says that there is no need of any committee, considering that the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no irregularity in the Rafale fighter jets deal. # "There is no reason for interference in the choice of offset partner and perception of individuals can't be the basis for roving inquiry in sensitive issue of defence procurement," says CJI Ranjan Gogoi. The Chief Justice further said, "we can't compel government to purchase 126 aircrafts and its not proper for the court to examine each aspect of this case. It isn't a job of court to compare pricing details." # The court further said that the "earlier deal was not forthcoming". # The Supreme Court has also said that it is not its job to get into the issue of pricing. # On the issue of offset partner, the Supreme Court says that it is upto the ventor and not the central government to decide on the same. According to Bar & Bench, the top court added, "It is not the job of this court to go into it." # The verdict cannot be based on the belief of some people, says SC Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. # The Supreme Court has dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into Rafale deal. # There will be no special investigation team to probe Rafale fighter jets deal, says Supreme Court. Shortly after the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking investigation into Rafale fighter jets deal, Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani issued a statement, terming the allegations levelled against him as baseless and politically-motivated. Welcoming the decision of the Supreme Court to dismiss all PILs, Ambani said that the top court order established the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and him personally. I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today, summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically-motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally, read the statement. The statement by Reliance Group chairman further said that the company remained committed to Indias national security and government initiatives like Make in India and Skill India. We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' policies of the Government in the critical area of defence, including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France, the statement further read. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government also launched a scathing counter-attack on the Congress party, citing the Supreme Court verdict, in the Rajya Sabha. As the Upper House of Parliament convened, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley sought a debate on the Rafale issue, even as the Congress-led opposition reiterated the demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the same. Addressing mediapersons, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said that there were several issues that the top court did not get into, and hence there was requirement of a JPC to go through all files and documents related to the deal. However, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah took to Twitter to blunt the Congress attack, claiming that the judgement exposed the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President (Rahul Gandhi) for political gains. Shah tweeted, Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. On the contrary SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals. It therefore raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India, he added. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected all petitions seeking an investigation into the Rafale fighter jet deal with France`s Dassault Aviation. Stating that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, the top court added that there will be no special investigation team (SIT) to probe the deal. The verdict cannot be based on the belief of some people, said the SC Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre's deal for the purchase of 36 Rafale jet became a major point of political controversy after the Congress-led Opposition levied corruption and other allegations including the decision to pick Anil Ambani`s Reliance Defence for the deal. The Supreme Court has also said that it is not its job to get into the issue of pricing or interference in the choice of offset partner. Immediately after the SC ruling, BJP members demanded that the Congress and its chief Rahul Gandhi should apologise. Amid loud sloganeering, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the Lok Sabha House till noon. Here's how leaders reacted to the judgement: # Rahul Gandhi must apologise, reveal his source of information: Amit Shah on Rafale. Read more here # "Supreme Court has said nothing wrong, deciding on pricing is not the Supreme Court's job but similarly deciding on building Ram Temple is also not their job. Rafale Deal issue will be sorted out in Parliament and not in SC," Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena. # "The verdict of the Supreme Court today is a validation of what the Congress party stated months again, that SC is not the forum to decide such sensitive defence contract. Article 136&32 are not the forum to decide the issue, the pricing, the process, the sovereign guarantee and the corruption in the Rafale contract. Only forum and only media is a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which can probe the entire corruption in Rafale Deal," said Congress leader Randeep Surjewala. Randeep Surjewala: Article 136&32 are not the forum to decide the issue, the pricing, the process, the sovereign guarantee&the corruption in the Rafale contract.Only forum&only media is a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which can probe the entire corruption in #RafaleDeal. https://t.co/AFYBGKCVHe ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 # BJP president Amit Shah tweeted, "Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. #SCNailsRaGaLies. "On the contrary SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals. It therefore raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India." Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. #SCNailsRaGaLies Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 14, 2018 On the contrary SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals. It therefore raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India. Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 14, 2018 #Reacting to the development, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said, The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations levelled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage. # RafaleVerdict: SupremeCourt, in a UNANIMOUS judgment, SC dismisses ANY probe into the #RafaleDeal and vindicates the Govt's stand. NO FAVORITISM. NO REASON FOR THE COURT TO INTERVENE. ! #SCNailsRaGaLies, tweeted Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore. #RafaleVerdict#SupremeCourt, in a UNANIMOUS judgment, SC dismisses ANY probe into the #RafaleDeal and vindicates the Govt's stand. NO FAVORITISM. NO REASON FOR THE COURT TO INTERVENE. ! #SCNailsRaGaLies Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) December 14, 2018 Anil D Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Group said, "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today, summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically-motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. "We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' policies of the Government in the critical area of defence, including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France." The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions seeking an investigation into the Rafale fighter jets deal between India and France. Dismissing the pleas, the top court bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, ruled that there were no irregularities in the fighter jets deal, even as it observed that the judgement cannot be based on perception. The apex court said that it was satisfied that the procurement has been complied with. The extent of permissible of judicial review with respect to contracts relating to defence procurements have to be decided on fact to fact basis, said the bench. Observing that the court could not sit in judgement over decision to go in for purchase of 36 aircraft instead of 126, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said, "We can't compel government to purchase 126 aircrafts and it is not proper for the court to examine each aspect of this case. It isn't a job of court to compare pricing details." Though the court said that it was not its job to get into the pricing detail, it added that the earlier deal was not forthcoming. On the issue of offset partner, the Supreme Court says that it is upto the ventor and not the central government to decide on the same. According to Bar & Bench, the top court added, "It is not the job of this court to go into it." "There is no reason for interference in the choice of offset partner and perception of individuals can't be the basis for roving inquiry in sensitive issue of defence procurement," said CJI Gogoi. Following the judgement, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that the verdict made it clear that there was no need of any Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Rafale deal. The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations leveled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage, said the Home Minister. Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravi Shankar Prasad also lauded the judgement, adding that there must not be any further campaign against the fighter jets deal. The entire deal was completely transparent and honest. I would only urge that all campaign against Rafale must end now because strategic interest is more important, said Prasad. Reacting to the verdict, Anil Ambani of Reliance Group also released a statement welcoming the decision. The statement read, "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today, summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically-motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' policies of the Government in the critical area of defence, including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France." New Delhi: Who doesn't remember the gorgeous Urmila Matondkar grooving to the hit song of the 90's, 'Chamma Chamma'. The song was the party anthem of the 90's and is widely popular even today. Giving a sassy twist to the original track, a reprised version of the song featuring the beautiful Elli AvrRam has been unveiled. Elli brings a sizzling twist to the song with her terrific dance moves and captivating appearance. Check out the song here: The song is from the movie 'Fraud Saiyaan' and is winning the internet already! Sung by Neha Kakkar, Romi, Arun & Ikka, looks like this version of 'Chamma Chamma' will soon top charts. The first look of the song was unveiled in November this year and had sparked the curiosity of fans. The reprised version of 'Chamma Chamma' has been choreographed by Adil Sheikh. Coming to 'Fraud Saiyyan', the film stars Arshad Warsi and will be helmed by Sourabh Shrivastava with Prakash Jha as the producer. Elli made her foray into Hindi films with 2013 release 'Mickey Virus'. The movie starred popular television host turned actor Maniesh Paul, Manish Choudhary, Puja Gupta, and Varun Badola in lead roles. She participated in season 7 Bigg Boss and became a household name thereafter. With the song unveiled, we are quite sure that fans will be most excited to watch the actress sizzle on silver screens! Mumbai: Bollywood star Ranveer Singh said Thursday the #MeToo movement has been very impactful in India and he hopes there is a change in the patriarchal thinking of Indian men. "The #MeToo movement was historic, revolutionary. It has made guys take stock and think and, that itself, is a big thing. It has been hugely impactful and significant," Ranveer said at the Times Network India Economic Conclave 2018. Ranveer said what happened in the last two months was a revolution. "It was happening all too fast, quickly. It was a revolution. You had perpetrators who aren't working anymore. It made a huge impact from where I stand. In my perception, what the movement should have done, I think it has. It has changed to a large extent the way men think. "Every man thinks twice, they are afraid. They think if they do something wrong, it is going to be called out. It had made a huge impact at the ground level." When asked about his idea of consent, the 'Padmavaat' actor said the thinking of men needs to change. "We have, for the longest time, lived in a patriarchal society. Men feel very entitled in their species, in my surroundings at least. Fortunately, I have had an upbringing, my father has always been out, so I was raised by four women, mother, sister, grandmother and great grandmother, so I have a different way of looking at it. "I also studied in America where gender dynamics are very different, the outlook and view on sex is very different. I have had that kind of exposure. I have seen guys who have a sense of entitlement that is deeply ingrained in them and they laugh at you if you tell them otherwise." The actor said he would like to lead by example in his life. "I am hoping as a thought leader to contribute towards some positive change, by just leading in example, I am hoping I make some change. It's too slow moving," he said. Ranveer, however, thinks India needs educational training in understanding the true meaning of consent. "These things have to start from foundational, fundamental level. Parents need to pass on to kids and schools to students. What you understand of the world and the interactions while growing up," he said. Doomsday it's all over bois.. Felix Kjellberg's tweet reeks of defeat. He knows the battle between Indian record label T Series and his own channel PewDiePie could soon be over, all thanks to YouTube's action on spam subscriptions. YouTube Rewind 2018 just became the most hated video of all time: Are Pewds to blame? The tweet came hours after YouTube announced the cleansing of spam accounts on its platform. Giving a heads up, the Google subsidiary warned channels that there could be a noticeable decrease in subscriber count on December 13-14. We regularly verify the legitimacy of accounts and actions on your YouTube channel. Weve recently identified and fixed an issue that caused some spam not to be removed. Today/tomorrow, well be taking action and removing subscribers that were in fact spam from our systems. Removing spam from the platform helps ensure that YouTube remains a fair playing field for everyone and should result in higher confidence that youre organically building a community of authentic fans, YouTube wrote on its forum. Pewdiepie endorses controversial anti-semantic views to gain subscribers; stunt backfires big time PewDiePie's tweet declaring game over hints that the Swedish content creator could have a lot of fake subscribers. However, the army of Pewds (as young followers of PewDiePie call themselves), are predicting the end for T-Series. RIP T SERIES, T series is over lol, t-series aint nothing but fake subscribers and similar-natured messages turned up on YouTube's forum. T Series vs PewDiePie: The epic battle on YouTube right now T Series is a household name in India and has been existing since the 1980s. It hosts some of the biggest names in the Indian music industry, drawing millions of views. Lead by Bhushan Kumar, son of T Series founder Gulshan Kumar, the company has 29 TV channels in several Indian languages. Gulshan Kumar was allegedly murdered by the Mumbai underworld syndicate D-Company in 1997. The incident took the India media by storm back then, with television channels devoting hours to cover the shock assassination. Earlier this year, its YouTube account had about 30 million subscribers. But thanks to landmark changes in Indian mobile and data service, the subscriber list sky-rocketed to over 70 million in mere six months. The online video channel also accounts for nearly 25 per cent of its sales, which is about $100 million. PewDiePie, a game commentary and comic-oriented YouTube channel, held the mantle of most subscribed for five-years in a row. Despite the highest number of subscribers, PewDiePie failed to make it to YouTube Rewinds two years in a row over his controversial comments. His followers mostly include youngsters in the seven to ten years age bracket. At the time of filing this story, T Series had 75,446,351 subscribers, while PewDiePie had 76,600,544 subscribers. MAIDUGURI: The Nigerian military on Friday accused United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF) staff of spying for Islamist militants in northeast Nigeria, and suspended the agency`s activities there. It said UNICEF had been training people to sabotage troops` counter-insurgency efforts by uncovering the military`s alleged human rights abuses. The northeast has been torn apart by a decade-long insurgency by Boko Haram and its splinter group Islamic State West Africa, in which more than 30,000 people have been killed and many more driven from their homes. In its statement, the Nigerian military said UNICEF staff "train and deploy spies who support the insurgents and their sympathisers". These were "unwholesome practices that could further jeopardise the fight against terrorism and insurgency". It said UNICEF`s operations were being suspended in the northeast until further notice. "We are verifying the information now and will get back to you with any new information," a UNICEF spokeswoman told Reuters. The military said UNICEF had "abdicated its primary duty of catering for the wellbeing of children and the vulnerable ... and now engaged in training selected persons for clandestine activities to continue sabotaging the counter terrorism and counter insurgency efforts of troops through spurious and unconfirmed allegations ... on alleged violations of human rights by the military". "The organization commenced the said training on Wednesday 12 December 2018 at the Ministry of Finance Conference Hall, Musa Usman Secretariat, Maiduguri and ended on 13 Thursday December 2018," it added, referring to the capital of the northeastern state of Borno. With millions displaced, Nigeria`s northeast is largely dependent on international aid. In April, Nigeria`s military declared three UNICEF employees "persona non grata", in connection with alleged leaks of information about soldiers sexually abusing children in the northeast, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The declaration was rescinded days later after pressure from diplomats, the sources said. Nigeria`s military is highly sensitive to allegations of human rights abuses. The chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he would introduce on Thursday legislation holding Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and insisting on accountability for those responsible for his death. Despite President Donald Trump`s desire to maintain close relations with Saudi Arabia, the joint resolution is backed by at least nine of his fellow Republicans in the Senate: committee Chairman Bob Corker and co-sponsors including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The measure also warns that the kingdom`s purchases of military equipment from, and cooperation with, the governments of Russia and China challenge the integrity of the U.S.-Saudi military relationship. The measure is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate, but must also pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Trump, or win enough votes to overcome a veto, to take effect. House Republican leaders declined to say whether they planned to vote on any Saudi-related legislation before Congress wraps up for the year later this month. Among other provisions, the joint resolution blames the crown prince for Khashoggi`s murder in Turkey, calls for the Saudi government to ensure "appropriate accountability" for all those responsible for his death, calls on Riyadh to release Saudi women`s rights activists and encourages the kingdom to increase efforts to enact economic and social reforms. And it declares that there is no statutory authorization for US involvement in hostilities in Yemen`s civil war and supports the end of air-to-air refueling of Saudi-led coalition aircraft operating in Yemen. The Senate is due to vote later on Thursday on a separate Saudi Arabia measure, a war powers resolution that would end all U.S. involvement with the coalition involved in the Yemen war. That measure would need to pass the House and survive a threatened Trump veto to become law. The number of immigrants arrested and deported in the New York City region has surged over the last fiscal year, despite city and state efforts to resist the Trump administrations crackdown on undocumented New Yorkers. According to figures released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday, 158,581 aliens were arrested nationally in the 2018 fiscal year ending in September, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year. By comparison, arrests in the New York region went up by 35 percent, for a total of 3,476. About 64 of those detained by ICE had criminal records, consistent with national trends. Most of those who were arrested were charged with driving under the influence or drug crimes. Deportations also jumped in New York by 29 percent in fiscal year 2018again, more than the national average of 13 percent. In the Newark, New Jersey region, arrests increased by just under 7 percent and removals increased by less than 3 percent. Nationally, ICE claimed that 5,914 of the deported, undocumented immigrants were classified as either known or suspected gang members or terrorists, which is a 9 percent increase over fiscal year 2017. These local numbers might sound surprising given that New York City is a so-called "sanctuary city," where police and jails do not release immigrants to ICE unless they've been convicted of a serious crime and there's a warrant signed by a judge. The Trump administration has frequently criticized sanctuary cities for protecting dangerous immigrants, and ICE arrests in New York also went up more than the national average in New York during fiscal year 2017, President Trumps first year in office. However, Camille Mackler, director of immigration legal policy at the New York Immigration Coalition, said she suspects theres a desire by this administration to make an example of our region. Mackler said these new numbers show sanctuary cities are not "protective bubbles." Police may not cooperate, she said, "but that doesn't prevent the person from being arrested the second they walk into the street if ICE is waiting for them there." Likewise, she said sanctuary policies also don't prevent ICE from going to somebody's home or arresting them when they go to a courthouse, adding that courthouse arrests in New York are especially high. Immigration activists have been urging New York State's chief judge to ban ICE agents from courthouses, and nationwide there have been growing calls to make courthouses off-limits to ICE, but they are not considered sensitive locations like churches, schools and hospitals. A New York judge ruled last month that the Trump administration cannot withhold federal funds from cities and states with sanctuary policies. Overbroad enforcement against immigrant New Yorkers does nothing to make us safer," Matt Dhaiti, a spokesperson for the Mayors Office of Immigrant Affairs, said in a statement. "New York City works with federal partners in the interest of public safety, but not to be an arm of immigration enforcement. An ICE spokeswoman in New York did not respond to WNYCs request for comment. Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering courts and legal affairs at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig. Open source Today, December 14, the illegal armed formations violated ceasefire regime eight times in the Joint Forces Operations zone, one Ukrainian soldier sustained injuries, reports the press office of the JFO headquarters. Two uses of the weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements were recorded in the JFO area. In particular, the enemy conducted shelling from 82mm mortars at our positions in the area of Vilny farmstead and Svitlodarsk city. 'The strongholds of our forces were shelled from BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle, ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft mount, grenade launchers of different systems, heavy machine guns and small arms in the area of settlements Marinka and Pesky, as well as in the area of Vodiane and Chermalyk settlements. The operation of the enemy sniper was recorded near Hruntove village, the HQ reported. As a result of the hostilities, one Ukrainian warrior received a slight injury. On December 13, two Ukrainian soldiers died in eastern Ukraine during combat actions. They were part of one of the airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton doesn't see circumstances in the foreseeable future where such a meeting could take place until the ships and the crews are released Open source There will be no meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Russia still holds Ukrainian ships and sailors seized near Crimea, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said on Thursday, Reuters reported. I dont see circumstances in the foreseeable future where such a meeting could take place until the ships and the crews are released, Bolton told reporters at a Washington think tank. As is known, in late November, the Russian Navy attacked the Ukrainian sailors. Three Ukrainian ships were on their way from Odesa to Mariupol to join the newly created Ukrainian naval base in the Sea of Azov. Russian naval vessels and aviation opened fire and wounded three Ukrainian servicemen. The ships and their crews were captured. Currently, 24 Ukrainian sailors face charges with the illegal border crossing, as they stay in detention centers in Moscow. Ukraine has said Russia captured the two small gunboats and one tugboat illegally and accused Moscow of military aggression. Two Ukrainian navy captains being held in a Russian jail have refused to provide testimony because they consider themselves prisoners of war, their lawyers said. One of the men was killed in action, and the other one succumbed to a heart attack Two servicemen from a Detached Airborne Assault Brigade of Ukraine lost their lives in the combat area in Donbas. The HQ of the Airborne Assault Forces of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported that on Facebook. 'One of them deceased due to the gunfire, while the other died of a heart attack', reads the message. The HQ and the entire staff offered their condolences to the families and friends of the deceased servicemen. Earlier on Thursday, the Joint Forces Operation HQ reported that a Ukrainian serviceman was killed by the enemy sniper. On December 12, the illegal armed formations conducted seven attacks on Ukrainian positions in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) zone. The press office of the JFO headquarters reported this on Facebook. It is noted that the militants used the weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements twice over the day. In particular, the enemy opened fire from 82mm mortars at the position of the Joint Forces near Krymkske and Chermalyk settlements. Belarusian President thinks that Moscow wants to incorporate Belarus into its composition on the pretext of deep integration Open source President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko expressed the opinion that Moscow wants to incorporate Belarus into the composition of Russia on the pretext of deep integration as Interfax-Ukraine reported. I understand these hints: take the petroleum but come on, destroy the state and enter Russia. I always ask the question: in the name of what such things are done? Did you think about the consequences? How our and your countries will consider this, and how the international society will? They will incorporate the state into the composition of another country by hook or by crook, Lukashenko claimed. The president claimed it means to create the union from the roof, not from the basis, commenting on the renewal of the discussion about the united issuing center and currency union. Then (at the beginning of the 2000s, - 112.international) this union prescribed in the agreement was not needed. And now we have begun to talk a lot about it, and I hear even more, Lukashenko said. Earlier Belarusian President claimed that his offers on the control of the Russian-Ukrainian border and holding of the elections in Donbas were not supported, particularly by President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Earlier, Lukashenko said that three Slavic nations have to solve Donbas armed conflict The President of Belarus Oleksandr Lukashenko stated that his offer concerning control on the Russian-Ukrainian border and elections in Donbas was not supported by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, as the Head of Belarus said at the press conference in Minsk, Interfax-Ukraine reported. I was ready to stand on that border as a border guard considering that Russians and Ukrainians treat me well, and hold elections under Minsk Agreements there And what? Those who need the war to end, primarily Poroshenko and Ukrainians, started refusing it. They found a reason: Lukashenko is pro-Russian, the Head of Belarus said. Earlier, Lukashenko said that three Slavic nations have to solve Donbas armed conflict, and history will define the perpetrator. During the last meeting of Lukashenko and Poroshenko, the latter had to violate the protocol of the meeting to defend Ukraines position. It should be noted that Russia started its aggression against Ukraine in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and deployment of combat actions in Donbas. On January 25, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada recognized Russian Federation as an aggressor. Earlier, Lukashenko said that three Slavic nations have to solve Donbas armed conflict, and history will define the perpetrator Leader of Radical Party Oleh Lyashko is intended to meet with President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko, reports Informator. According to Lyashko, the President of Ukraine shouldnt have refused from the help of the Belarussian colleague in resolving the conflict in Donbas. Lyashko claimed this on Facebook. Belarussian President Lukashenko claimed that Poroshenko rejected his help regarding Donbas, since he considers him pro-Russian. Unlike Poroshenko, I will take all help we can get, in order to restore peace in Ukraine, to return the territories and preserve the life of Ukrainians, Lyashko claimed. The leader of the Radical Party hinted that he was planning to meet with the President of Belarus because he respects him as a politician. For me, Lukashenko is a great friend of Ukraine, and I am sure that he will become a great friend of mine too. We will put our every effort! Lyashko noted. Earlier, Lukashenko said that three Slavic nations have to solve Donbas armed conflict, and history will define the perpetrator. During the last meeting of Lukashenko and Poroshenko, the latter had to violate the protocol of the meeting to defend Ukraines position. Russia started its aggression against Ukraine in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and deployment of combat actions in Donbas. On January 25, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada recognized Russian Federation as an aggressor. Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, admitted to making contacts with Republicans and conservative groups at the direction of Russia, and will cooperate with prosecutors Maria Butina Reuters Maria Butina, a woman pleaded guilty in a U.S. court on Thursday to a single conspiracy charge in a deal with prosecutors and admitted to working with a top Russian official to infiltrate a powerful gun rights group and make inroads with American conservative activists and the Republican Party as an agent for Moscow, The Washington Post reported. She became the first Russian to be convicted of working to influence U.S. policy during the 2016 presidential race and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Prosecutors allege she tried to make those contacts in the US at the behest of a Russian official and at least one other person. The Russian official is believed to be Russian central bank official Alexander Torshin, a longtime figure in Russian politics and avid gun-rights activist. She was assisted in her efforts to make political contacts by a US citizen, who is identified in court documents as US Person 1 and who is believed to be Republican political consultant Paul Erickson, according to NBC News. Prosecutors say that with US Person 1s assistance and the direction of the Russian official, Butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence in US politics. They add that Butina made those contacts for the benefit of the Russian Federation, acting through a Russian official. Prosecutors in the US Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia brought the charges, which are not connected to special counsel Robert Muellers probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Butina has been jailed for nearly five months since her July arrest. In that time, her case had been embraced by the Russian government, which had vigorously protested that she was an innocent student whose incarceration was unjust. With the plea deal, Butina could be released in coming months and deported to Russia. A citizen of Moldova attempted illegally enter Ukraine, since he is banned to enter Ukraine for ten years Ukraines first criminal proceeding for illegal border crossing was initiated against a citizen of Moldova detained on December 11. Head of Ukrainian Border Guard Service Petro Tsyhykal reported this on Facebook. Here is the first criminal proceeding for illegal border crossing! This is the first but not last illegal crossing. I am pretty sure that after gaining investigation and judicial experience, the number of such criminal proceedings will increase, Tsyhykal claimed. According to him, the 32-year-old citizen of Moldova detained by border guards Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi detachment of the Southern Regional Department on December 11 tried to enter Ukraine bypassing the points of entry, since he is prohibited to enter Ukraine for ten years. The Investigation Department of the Office of SBU in Odesa region initiated a pre-trial investigation for illegal crossing of Ukraines border, providing imprisonment of up to three years. The violator was transferred to SBU officers for conducting further investigation. The representatives of Ukraine's Embassy in Poland explained why Ukrainians become participants of car accidents Open source In Poland, Ukrainians are mostly asked to pull over for driving under the influence, as the representatives of Ukraines Embassy in Poland said on car accidents, committed by the Ukrainians, UNN reported. As Ukraines Embassy in Poland informed, driving under the influence of alcohol is the most frequent ground for the detention of the Ukrainian citizens. This makes around a half of all the cases of detention of Ukrainians in Poland. Yet, there is no information on the number of Ukrainians who were guilty or injured in the car accident in Ukraines Embassy. Read about Donbas conflict, Azov crisis, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, sanctions against Russia, - the whole week on one page About Donbas Certain developments took place in Donbas over this week. Zolote, Luhansk region, was cut off from the water supplies after the attack of Russian militants. Russian militants passed the 13 inmates to Ukraine-controlled territory. The procedure took place at Novotroitske checkpoint in Donetsk region. All of them served sentence in jails on the uncontrolled part of Donetsk region. Demolitions experts of Ukraine's Armed Forces found and disarmed the explosive, which was put under the Siversky Donets-Donbas water pipeline. According to the HQ of the Joint Forces Operation, this became possible thanks to the efforts of combat engineers from one of the units of Centre for Mine Clearing. Two servicemen from a Detached Airborne Assault Brigade of Ukraine lost their lives in the combat area in Donbas. The HQ of the Airborne Assault Forces of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported that on Facebook. *** About the meeting of Poroshenko and Stoltenberg This week Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met in Brussels. Stoltenberg claimed that the alliance is concerned over the heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine for a naval confrontation in Kerch Strait. In his turn, leader of Ukraine stated that NATO will provide regional security in the Sea of Azov. *** About Azov crisis 24 Ukrainian sailors who still remain in captivity in Russia. According to the latest media reports, the seamen hold out well, unanimously stating that they are the POWs and denying to testify in the Russian court. Andriy Eyder and Andriy Artemenko, two of the detainees, wrote letters to their families from behind the bars; however, the Russian censors returned the letters to sender. Russia's Justice Ministry has responded to the official request of the ECHR about the current location of the Ukrainian sailors. Ukrainian diplomats visited six Ukrainian sailors earlier this week; Ukraines Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova posted this on Facebook. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said there will be no meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Russia still holds Ukrainian ships and sailors seized near Crimea. Admiral Ihor Voronchenko, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Navy arrived in Washington, where he is to meet a number of high-rank military officials, including John Richardson, the U.S. Admiral and the Chief of Naval Operations. *** About Tomos Constantinople approved statute of new Ukrainian church. Date of delivery of Tomos on autocephaly to future Head of Ukrainian Local Church was announced. Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate will present its candidate for primacy in the local church during the assembly on December 15. At the same time, Poroshenko opened Facebook poll on importance of Tomos for Ukraine. And on December 13, the first divine service of Ecumenical Patriarchate took place at St. Andrews Church in Kyiv. On the other hand, Metropolite of Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox Church of Ukraine was denied access to Donetsk region. *** About Sentsov and situation in Crimea On December 14, Sentsovs sister Nataliya Kaplan was present in the European Parliament during the rewarding ceremony she received Sakharov Prize For Freedom of Thought for her brother. It should be noted, that shooting took place in Strasbourg on that day, which it took four lives. This week, Crimean lawyer Emil Kuberdinov left the temporary detention center in the occupied Simferopol after the administrative arrest. He was earlier arrested for a Facebook post. Besides, Russia detained Edem Bekirov, a Crimean Tatar in annexed peninsula. He was arrested for two months. *** About Nasirov On December 11, the court decided to cancel the government decree on sacking Roman Nasirov from the office of the Head of the State Fiscal Service. However, Nasirov did not come to the Fiscal Service after reinstatement. Later the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office stated it will prepare a motion to remove Roman Nasirov from the post of the head of the State Fiscal Service. You can also read more about Nasirov here. *** About sanctions EU added nine people involved in elections in Donbas to the sanctions list and extended sanctions against Russia for another six months. At the same time, the European Parliament endorsed resolution urging for tightening sanctions against Russia. Germany vowed to be in favor of prolonging sanctions against Russia at EU Summit. Hungary also expressed readiness to support the decision on prolonging sanctions of the European Union against Russia in spite of the fact that Hungary incurs losses from the counter-sanctions. Ukraines President Poroshenko urged to extend the sanctions saying that adoption of Azov sanctions package should become next step against Russian aggression. At the same time, Ukraine paid $1.67 billion to Russia for coal supplies. *** About financial aid for Ukraine On December 11, the EU transmitted the first tranche of macro-financial aid for Ukraine. It made $566 million. In addition, it was reported that the National Bank of Ukraine expected for the positive decision of IMF on the continuation of the cooperation with Ukraine and supply of the first tranche within new stand-by program until December 25. A member of a West African royal family and an associate admitted to scamming at least 250 people who used job website Indeed.com, conning their marks into paying them for fake employment services, the Manhattan D.A.'s office said. Osmond Eweka, who says he's a prince of the Benin Kingdom in Nigeria and now lives in Montclair, and Kamel McKay were charged with multiple counts of scheme to defraud and petit larceny related to taking more than $54,000 from unsuspecting job seekers. Apparently Eweka and McKay would meet with the Indeed.com users and claim they could provide job placement services on behalf of staffing agenciesonly these agencies were created by Eweka and McKay. The D.A.'s office says that they "interviewed victims, offered them employment, and then told them that they must pay a fee for job-related expenses such as uniforms, training, licensing, and background checks before starting. Victims paid fees ranging from approximately $279 to $700 to the defendants, but never received uniforms, training, licenses, or employment." For instance, McKay allegedly posed as "Tyrone Hayes" of Trinity Advancement Group LLC, a fake staffing firm at 48 Wall Street, where he would "hire" victims after an interview and tell them that they needed to pay $279-700 in fees for training, uniforms, or background checks. Authorities say that after receiving payment, McKay would then "instruct them to complete a fire guard test with the New York City Fire Department, which he led them to believe was a prerequisite for the job" or "report to various companies for work or for training. When those victims arrived at the work sites, they, were turned away and told that the companies were not expecting them and had no relationship with Trinity Advancement Group LLC." Eweka allegedly posed as "Sean Jackson" of Stanford Consulting Firm, LLC, at an office at the Empire State Building. He "informed victims that they had been hired after a brief interview at the Empire State Building, but told them that they must pay for licenses and training before starting their new jobs," the D.A.'s office explained. Eweka's victims paid fees from $289 to $600, because he told them that "higher fees would land them positions with higher wages." They were also directed to the FDNY for a test or other companies to show up for jobs that didn't exist. Eweka and McKay also allegedly teamed up at a third location, a Fifth Avenue office, where they'd meet with hopeful people and carried out the same scheme. After an investigation from the D.A.'s office and NYPD, McKay, 27, was arrested in April and Eweka, 31, in May. In July, Eweka's lawyer had told the Daily News, "Mr. Eweka provided honest services to many satisfied clients, and never acted with mal-intent. The notion that a few disenchanted clients may have later expressed buyers remorse, does not mean that criminality was afoot." "As alleged in the indictment, these defendants raked in a princely sum by exploiting hundreds of job seekers who paid for services that they did not need and that were not ultimately provided," said District Attorney Cy Vance. In New Yorks highly competitive job market, applicants and job seekers are particularly susceptible to these types of fake employment scams. If you or a loved one have been a victim of this scheme, I urge you to report the incident to my offices Financial Frauds Bureau by calling (212) 335-8900. Makariy stated that he decided not to run for the post under the request of Bartholomew I The Head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Makariy said that he has not decided who he will be voting for at the Ecumenical Council on December 15 in Kyiv, as he said in an interview for Radio Liberty. I have not decided yet who I will vote for We signed an appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch on a provision of Tomos, I have announced immediately that I would not nominate myself, Makariy said. Besides, he said that in October he received a letter with a signature of the Ecumenical Patriarch with a request not to run for Head of the Ukrainian local church. I received a letter and, maybe, Patriarch Filaret (the Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate, - ed.) did too, with a request not to put our candidatures for voting, the Head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church said. At the same time, he said that he was worried for the procedure of carrying out the Ecumenical Council On December 15: I am worried that it (the Ecumenical Council, - ed.) would take place, I pray for our eastern neighbor would not rub his hands and be happy that Ukrainians cannot come to an agreement. We have to find a compromise, he added. Makariy commented on the connections of the Russian aggression and idea of provision of Tomos: If Putin did not annex Crimea, he sent in troops in Eastern Ukraine, I think, we would not have that Tomos, the Head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church said. Eight witnesses stated that Denis Yatsyuk took part in mass unrest in Odesa on May 2, 2014 when 48 people died and over 200 got wouned Odesa District Court sentenced the leader of the local Antimaidan and one of the participants of mass unrest on May 2, 2014 Denis Yatsyuk in absentia to five years of imprisonment, as Ukrainian News reported referring to the court's decision. The investigation proved that when in Crimea, Yatsyuk recorded a video address where he urged the residents of Odesa and other cities to show up on the streets to provoke separation of south-eastern regions to the so-called Novorosiya. The court questioned eight witnesses who informed that Yatsyuk was a participant of mass unrest in Odesa on May 2, 2014, when 48 people died and over 200 were injured (the majority died in fire in Trade Unions house). He was also a supporter of separatists in Donbas. Yatsyuk was called one of the leaders of Odesa bodyguard - Antimaidan and the initiator of creation of Odesa Peoples Republic. Odesa District Court found Yatsyuk guilty on the article of Ukraines Criminal Code on Violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in absentia. Gas explosion in Fastiv, December 14, 2018 National Police One person was injured in a gas explosion on the third floor of a house in Fastiv, Kyiv region. No report on died made, yet the rescuers continue searching people who might have stuck under debris, as Viktoriya Ruban, the press secretary of Ukraines Emergency Service in Kyiv region, said on air of 112 Ukraine. We see that the apartments of the fifth, fourth and third floors are destroyed. We will decide later whether people can live there, she said. Gas explosion in Fastiv, December 14, 2018 National Police Gas explosion in Fastiv occurred around 9:15 am. Rescuers, police and doctors arrived at the site immediately. The residents of the house were evacuated. The fashion company Prada has agreed to remove a controversial product line amid mounting backlash against "racist and denigrating blackface imagery" seen in a Soho storefront display. The "Pradamalia" merchandisewhich included wallets, earring sets and $500 keychainselicited online outrage on Thursday following a Facebook post by Chinyere Ezie, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ezie wrote that she encountered the "bewildering examples of their Sambo like imagery" after an emotional visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and that she was "shaking with anger." [UPDATE: More from Ezie below] Photos of the display drew widespread condemnation on Twitter for the apparent resemblance to anti-black caricatures. "This is extremely racist and dehumanizing imagery that needs to stay in history books... to learn from, and NOT repeat," wrote one user. "Is this move ignorant, or deliberate?" When Gothamist reporter Jennifer Hsu arrived at the Broadway and Prince Street location at around 10 a.m., she witnessed an employee lowering the blinds on the offending display. Moments later, the items were removed from the window and brought to the back of the store. Reached by phone, an employee at Prada's New York corporate headquarters told Gothamist to "do some research" in response to questions about the display. The company later provided us with the following statement: Prada Group abhors racist imagery. The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre. They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface. We abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery. We will withdraw all of the characters in question from display and circulation. Ezie noted on Facebook that she'd asked a Prada employee about the blackface imagery, and "in a moment of surprising candor I was told that a black employee had previously complained about blackface at Prada, but he didn't work there anymore." The display is the latest in a series of high-profile instances of alleged racism in the fashion industry. The co-founder of Dolce & Gabbana, which has repeatedly drawn criticism for its marketing campaigns, was caught last month sending damning messages on Instagram referring to Chinese people as "dirty" and accusing them of "eating dogs." Zara has been accused of using Nazi imagery in their products, while Dior recently came under fire for using Jennifer Lawrence in ad celebrating Mexican heritage. In a description of Pradamalia on their website, the company says that the product line was created after "a team of researchers set out to study Prada DNA that has proven to be so extraordinarily generative for over a century. The result of these experiments is Pradamalia, a new family of mysterious tiny creatures that are one part biological, one part technological, all parts Prada." Last month, Prada announced it would present its Resort 2020 show in New York City in March. UPDATE / 4:00 p.m.: In a phone interview with Gothamist, Chinyere Ezie said that she was calling for a full boycott of Prada "until there is a meaningful reckoning for its disgusting dance with racist imagery." While the company claimed earlier today to be removing the products from circulation, she pointed that they continue to list the "Sambo" items on their website. "Even in a world where Prada just didn't know what they were doing, that is an indictment of the lack of racial diversity there," Ezie added. "The fact that this was green-lit at headquarters tells me, indisputably, there are no black faces, no one who looks like me, in the company's decision making tree." The civil rights attorney also elaborated on her interaction with Prada employees on Thursday night: "Perhaps the most shocking part of all of it was when I went into the store and said, 'Don't you have any black employees? Don't you know this is blackface?' and they said, 'Why yes, our black employee told us this was black face. He doesn't work here anymore.' So it's not like they didn't have people trying to bring this to their attentionthey just didn't have the power to make the company move." She added that representatives from Prada had not reached out to her directly, and she was not accepting their "non-apology apology" statement. "This company is completely tone deaf when it comes to race and I don't think people should be shopping there anymore," Ezie concluded. We reached out to Prada earlier today with a list of follow-up questions and have not yet heard back. A cyclist was killed by a hit-and-run truck driver while riding in a bike lane in East New York on Friday morning. The victim has been identified as 21-year-old Din Rajon. Police say that he was riding an e-bike eastbound on Pitkin Avenue at around 1 a.m. when he was struck by the driver of a white box truck turning right on Atkin Avenue. The cyclist was riding in a marked bike lane at the time of the fatal crash, according to police. The driver left the scene after running over Rajon. An NYPD spokesperson told Gothamist that an investigation is ongoing, though ABC-7 is reporting that police are "exploring the possibility the driver did not know the bicyclist was struck." A precinct officer also appears to have told the NY Post that the victim was wearing a "loosely secured helmet" at the time of the fatal crash. An NYPD spokesperson offered no evidence for how either of those determinations were made. Steve Vaccaro, an attorney who often represents cyclists, told Gothamist that such details should be seen as "victim blaming nonsense" that fit into a pattern of police behavior after a cyclist is killed. "This is the same old play that has been exposed as a sore point by the safe streets community and crash victim survivors over and over again," he said, pointing to past examples of misleading police statements made in the wake of fatal crashes. "It does real damage to the crash victims in these cases when they do this," he added. "It's a hit-and-run driver, so why aren't we talking about what the driver did wrong?" Rajon's death marks at least the fourth traffic fatality involving a bicyclist or pedestrian in Brooklyn this week, according to Transportation Alternatives. The group also points out that East New York, "like many predominantly low-income communities of color in New York City," has no protected bike lanes. Photos of the crash obtained by the Post appear to show that the victim was riding a throttle-assist e-bike. The bikes are commonly used by immigrant delivery drivers, and have been the target of increased enforcement ordered by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The crackdown has proved controversial, as the city is currently in the process of legalizing app-based electric scooters while rolling out pedal-assisted Citi Bikes. "It clearly makes no difference how a bicycle is propelled when large, multi-ton vehicles are added into the equation," said TransAlt Co-Interim Director Marco Conner. "People who use e-bikes are just as vulnerable to the dangers of reckless driving as people who ride regular bikes." In a statement, Connor also called for the passage of the Vision Zero Street Design Standard," which would help require the Department of Transportation to implement safety improvements whenever a street is resurfaced. "New Yorkers lives will depend on Mayor de Blasio's willingness prioritize safety above all," he said. Opinion Good news Finally we got to hear that India will resume international flight operations from Dec.15 after nearly two years. We were vey happy. This came as a very good news for all of us. We all were waiting for this news for a very long time. But now because 1. Fill in your name or an alias. Do not leave blank or use the name 'guest' or 'anonymous'. 2. No Nivul Peh. Profanity will be deleted. By using the site you agree to our Privacy, Cookies, and Terms of Service Policies. 09:09 | Lima, Dec. 14. According to the government official, three years ago sales volume was next to nothing, and although it has increased it is still lower compared to other nations in the region. "E-commerce does not compete against physical commerce , but the trend certainly shows it is fully replacing it ," he expressed. Presidente @MartinVizcarraC: Nuestra Fuerza Aerea cumplio un papel destacado durante el fenomeno El Nino Costero, apoyando con el rescate y ayudando a los damnificados, sobre todo, en el norte del pais. Labores que demuestran su vocacion de servicio y compromiso con el Peru. pic.twitter.com/8fFY9D9Rxs YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The resumption of talks on an agreement of the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) is impossible, but Brussels is set to establish close relations with London after the process is completed, says the final EU summit statement on Brexit, TASS reported. The Union stands by this agreement and intends to proceed with its ratification. It is not open for renegotiation, the statement reads. EU leaders also stressed that the Irish border Brexit backstop will remain in the agreement as an insurance policy to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and ensure the integrity of the Single Market. The European council also reiterated its call for work on preparedness at all levels for the consequences of the United Kingdoms withdrawal to be intensified, taking into account all possible outcomes. This provision hints that the European Union would maintain its preparations for Brexit under all scenarios, including the no-deal withdrawal. UK Prime Minister Theresa May left the EU summit without making any comment. YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution calling Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, responsible for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggis brutal murder in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul had caused global outcry. The journalist was dismembered. US senators demand Saudi Arabia to ensure appropriate accountability in this case. Before this resolution was adopted, the Senate passed another motion calling on the United States to stop any kind of aid to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. A week ago, CIA Director Gina Haspel met with senators to brief them on available intelligence over the journalists death. Saudi Arabia has denied that the crown prince had any prior knowledge on the murder. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Business Armenia has published a marketing package presenting investment opportunities, production potential and key indicators of Armenian textile industry. According to the information provided by Business Armenia research team, the annual export growth of Armenian textile & apparel, leather & shoes products was 35%-43% during the last 3 years and more than 40% is exported to EU countries. In addition to mass consumption products Armenian textile companies are also famous for doing subcontracting for world-known brands. In order to stimulate the investments, Armenian government has implemented numerous assistance programs, which make Armenia an inviting platform for European, Iranian and Asian investors. Due to Armenias membership to EAEU, the investors can establish textile manufacturing factories here and export to EAEU member countries with overall population of 183 million people with 0% custom duties. The package also includes a video presenting investment incentives of Armenian textile sector. It is addressed to foreign investors and is presented under Select Armenia brand with Make your move, Select Armenia slogan. You can find the research and the full package on Select Armenia platforms. YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The donations received during the Hayastan All Armenian Funds November 22 Telethon 2018 have increased, with additional donations being received during the following period. Fundraisers and individual donations have continued after the November 22 Los Angeles Telethon 2018 too, Hayastan All-Armenian Fund executive director Haykak Arshamyan told a news conference today. Initially, $11,109,633 was raised during the telethon, but the number grew to $14,115,940 until now. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. President of the Republic of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan today visited the Artsakh Republic defense ministry, his Office told Armenpress. The President introduced newly-appointed defense minister, commander of the Defense Army, major- general Karen Abrahamyan and the first deputy commander, chief of staff of the Artsakh Republic Defence Army's military unit N19916 Jalal Haroutyunyan to the supreme command staff of the Defense Army. Bako Sahakyan rated high professional and humane qualities of major-general Karen Abrahamyan and colonel Jalal Haroutyunyan, their expertise, voicing his confidence that they would appropriately discharge their responsibilities, wishing them success in their service. President Sahakyan thanked former defense minister, commander of the Defense Army Levon Mnatsakanyan for his long-standing service, highlighting his great contribution to the army-building process, the formation and development of the Defense Army and expressed confidence that Levon Mnatsakanyan would continue to serve his Homeland with the same commitment in his new post. Chief of the General Staff of the Republic of Armenia Armed Forces Artak Davtyan, who has arrived in Artsakh within the frameworks of the programs of cooperation between the armed forces the two Armenian states and synchronization of their activities, and other officials were present at the event. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan sent a letter of condolences to President of France Emmanuel Macron on the terror attack in Strasbourg, Pashinyans Office told Armenpress. With a deep sorrow I learnt about the shooting, the terror attack on the Christmas market in Strasbourg that hit France causing casualties and injuries. I extend my deepest and sincere condolences to you, the French people and families of the victims, wishing tenacity and patience. At this difficult moment Armenia and the Armenian people stand together with friendly France. Three people have been killed and at least dozens were wounded in the shooting. The man suspected of conducting the terror attack has been killed by French police. Earlier on December 12 Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries declared a day of mourning in the city. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has held a meeting with Ambassador of Czech Republic to Armenia Petr Mikyska and People in Need NGO Executive Director Simon Panek, Pashinyans office said. During the meeting Pashinyan attached importance to the continuous development of the Armenian-Czech relations and noted that the Armenian government is interested in further deepening and expanding of economic partnership. Pashinyan in particular addressed the governments steps and projects aimed at improving the business climate, stressing that the Armenian government guarantees the security of each investment project. The ambassador congratulated the Armenian premier on the successful early parliamentary election and wished good luck in future activities. Simon Panek introduced the activities and projects of People in Need. He namely noted that an adventure tourism development project is underway in Syunik, and a project on founding a wool processing factory is carried out in Amasia. According to Panek, 500,000 Euros is invested for each of the projects. According to him, the Amasia plant is planned to be opened in spring 2019, and that 250 kilometers of hiking trail will be renovated by the Syunik program. Panek said that People in Need is also carrying out rural business development programs in Armenia. Pashinyan commended the projects and expressed the governments support in successfully fulfilling them. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Pol-Mot Holding, a Polish manufacturer of agricultural equipment, has reiterated intentions on establishing tractor manufacturing in Armenia. Today Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan held a meeting with the Pol-Mot Holding delegation led by company deputy director Marek Pol. Pol said they intend to use the capabilities of Slatsk, an Armenian company based in Vanadzor, and combine Polish technologies to establish a production of the Ursus tractors in Armenia. The company had addressed Avinyans office with the proposal recently. Avinyan said that the Armenian government is highly valuing the work with foreign investors and that it will assist Pol-Mots activities in the country. Marek Pol said the production will be used both in the domestic market and will also be exported. Given that the company is also manufacturing Ursus Bus passenger buses, the sides also discussed the possibility of manufacturing them in Armenia. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Soon after being dismissed from office as Minister of Defense, Commander of the Defense Army of Artsakh, Lt. General Levon Mnatsakanyan addressed a farewell speech to the military. Dear brothers-in-arms, today I am leaving the position of Defense Army commander. I am very proud to have served and if needed I will be ready to once again serve in the ranks of the army that has been and will continue being the main guarantor of security and defense of our people with its combat readiness, he said. I would like to assure that it has been a great honor to serve alongside all the Privates, Sergeants, Corporals, Officers and Generals, who with their duly service have every day strengthened our defense system. Mnatsakanyan called on his brothers-in-arms to be committed to the mission of the fatherlands protector. President of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan has appointed Major General Karen Abrahamyan to serve as the countrys new Minister of Defense Commander of the Defense Army, replacing Lt. General Levon Mnatsakanyan (pictured above), Sahakyans office said. Levon Mnatsakanyan was appointed Director of the State Service of Emergency Situations of Artsakh. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Russia expects that Armenia and Azerbaijan will resume the negotiations for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict after the formation of the new Cabinet in Armenia based on the results of the recent snap parliamentary elections, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said during the session of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) foreign ministerial council in Baku, TASS reported. Yesterday I had a lengthy and detailed conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. We have felt his sincere inclination to resume the negotiations and find a constructive solution. Russia, as the friendly partner of Armenia and Azerbaijan and an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair country, will do everything to create necessary conditions for reaching mutual concession, Lavrov said. The Russian FM reminded that earlier talks were held between the leaders and foreign ministers of the two countries, but they took place before the elections in Armenia. And now, when this stage is already in the past, the formation of the Cabinet is expected, and I think after that the Armenian side will be ready to resume the negotiation process with the Azerbaijani side and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, the Russian FM said. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has said that Russian news media are covering events concerning his country not objectively. He made the remarks during a meeting with Russian journalists, according to his office. As an example, Lukashenko mentioned the latest EEU summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, when he was approached by Russian reporters. They always grab my hand, knowing I wont just pass by a microphone when someone is asking a question. I respect reporters, I answer their questions, I say that the situation got so heated there that we had to apologize from one another, Lukashenko said, referring to the EEU summit. He added that Russian media reported about his dispute with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then wrote that he had to apologize to Putin for starting the conversation. God be with you. I would find it below my dignity to apologize for it. I have apologized to Nikol [Pashinyan] for attacking him for various reasons. Putin apologized to everyone. It was a mess. Nazarbayev began apologizing. And this really happened, we were apologizing from one another at this session. But they [Russian media] were deliberately spreading that info, Lukashenko said. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessed Armenias financial system as stable, but the compliance with the Basel Core Principles for Banking Supervision rated high 97%, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) told Armenpress. According to the IMF report, the stability of the financial system has been strengthened, and the flexibility has increased guaranteeing the maintenance of continuity of the financial system. Although the external risks typical to the region remain relevant, the results of the stress tests reveal that the flexibility of absorption of risks by Armenias banking system is maintained. According to the assessment of the IMF Executive Board, Armenias banking system was capable of resisting the consequences of 2014 economic slowdown, which has been greatly contributed by a number of macroprudential measures taken by the Central Bank. The level of compliance of the Armenian banking sectors regulation and supervision processes to the Basel Core Principles for Banking Supervision was rated high 97%, whereas in 2012 this number was 93%, and in 2005 70%. The IMF Executive Board welcomed the progress recorded in terms of the stability and development of the financial system. They welcomed the progress made by the authorities in strengthening financial sector oversight and promoting financial deepening to further enhance financial sector resilience. Directors commended the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) for the reforms undertaken since the 2012 Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) review, notably in adopting the prudential measures to mitigate risks from dollarization and upgrading the riskbased supervision framework. They called on the authorities to refine the riskbased supervision framework for a more granular assessment of banks capital needs, enforce large exposure limits, and amend the definition of nonperforming and restructured loans in line with international best practices. The Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), established in 1999, is a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of a countrys financial sector. YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. A court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan has denied the motion by investigators requesting to arrest Armen Gevorgyan, a former Secretary of Security Council and a former Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia. The court rejected the arrest motion, Gevorgyan told reporters outside a courtroom. Noting that a fair decision has been made, he nevertheless said that he will continue proving his innocence. Former Secretary of Security Council Armen Gevorgyans lawyer Erik Alexanyan earlier said they expect a fair outcome and justice of the judicial proceedings. Gevorgyan is currently under investigation and investigators were seeking his arrest pending trial. Yesterday Alexanyan told reporters that the main argument of investigators is that Gevorgyan will obstruct justice if not placed in custody. We will dispute both conditions of the arrest and the grounds. But if the court rules that grounds and conditions exist for his arrest we will file a motion for an alternative measure of restraint, bail, Alexanyan said earlier. The lawyer said they wont file a peremptory challenge for the judge because there are no grounds to do so. Gevorgyan maintains innocence and denies the charges. Former Secretary of the Security Council Armen Gevorgyan, a former deputy prime minister, denies the criminal charges that have been pressed by the Special Investigative Service. No comment until the court session is completed. I am familiar with the charges, understandably I do not accept the charges. All remaining clarifications will be presented by my lawyers after the court hearing, Gevorgyan told reporters earlier. As reported earlier, the Special Investigative Service (SIS) has pressed additional charges against Armen Gevorgyan, the former Secretary of Security Council of Armenia. The three additional charges are assisting the overthrowing of constitutional order, bribery and money laundering, according to his lawyer Erik Alexanyan. Gevorgyan was initially charged with obstruction of justice. The Special Investigative Service has filed a motion to court requesting the arrest of former Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan. The accusations against Gevorgyan, however, concern the time period in his capacity as Secretary of Security Council (2007-2008). The court hearing was held yesterday, but the session was adjourned and scheduled for today at 10:30. Gevorgyan is charged in the ongoing March 1 investigation concerning the 2008 post-election deadly unrest. From 2007 to 2008, he served as Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia. The charges pressed against Gevorgyan are based on information leaked by WikiLeaks. In 2008, when Serzh Sargsyan was elected president, his oppositionists had disputed the outcome of the vote to the Constitutional Court. According to the SIS, an investigation has revealed that Gevorgyan, and another official, abused power and pressured a judge at the Constitutional Court. Gevorgyan was charged with obstruction of justice and was confined to the country limits with a signature bond. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan ROME, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. By the initiative of the Armenian Embassy in Italy a conference titled Memory of the Armenian Genocide and Prevention of Genocides was held in Rome, reports Armenpress. The conference was organized on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Armenian Ambassador to Italy Viktoria Baghdasaryan in her remarks stated that although more than 100 years have passed since the first genocide of the 20th century, todays crimes against ethnic and religious groups based on identity show that the world is not free of this disgusting phenomenon. This is another signal to the international community that the threat of genocides and crimes against humanity is not eliminated yet and requires united and consistent efforts of the international structures, states and civil society, the Ambassador said. She also touched upon Armenias initiatives in high international platforms on preventing genocides and the importance of international condemnation and recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Such crimes against humanity require common actions by the international structures and the civilian community. Its worth to mention that the causes of the repetition of genocides and crimes against humanity are the absence of unity, vigilance and consistency to recognize and condemn genocides, she said. Viktoria Baghdasaryan added that Armenians, as a people who survived genocide, feel a moral responsibility for raising the issue of prevention of genocides. A number of other political, cultural figures, professors and Armenian community representatives also delivered remarks during the event. Talal Khrais YEREVAN, 14 DECEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 14 December, USD exchange rate down by 0.36 drams to 484.87 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 4.43 drams to 547.37 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.02 drams to 7.30 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 4.24 drams to 609.92 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price down by 61.19 drams to 19373.14 drams. Silver price up by 0.22 drams to 228.85 drams. Platinum price up by 53.21 drams to 12377.61 drams. YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan held a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, who congratulated Pashinyan on holding elections at a high level and added that its important not only for Armenia, but also the entire region, and the world in general. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan thanked Justin Trudeau for congratulations and highlighted the fact that the international observed gave such a high assessment to the elections min Armenia. Now greater opportunities emerge for further developing Armenian-Canadian relations and its time to work in that direction, Nikol Pashinyan emphasized. Justin Trudeau noted that the Government of Canada and personally he are ready to spare no efforts to assist Armenia. According to him, Canada has great investment potential, and his Government is ready to support its realization in Armenia. The acting Prime Minister of Armenia added that Armenia attaches great importance to the Canadian investments, which will also bring to Armenia high managerial standards. We are committed to take actions to make our country attractive for the Canadian business and the investors in general. We well comprehend that for reaching that goal its very important to have free judicial system and we are committed to improve our justice system, upgrading it to the top standards, like its in Canada. I am glad for both of us share the same vision of democracy, Nikol Pashinyan said. The leaders of both countries hoped that in the near future they will have opportunities to meet and discuss issues of bilateral agenda. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan Families say authorities have refused to issue birth certificates to their children, despite multiple attempts to obtain the documents. The regional processing centre was shut down in 2017 but at least 750 refugee and asylum seeker men remain in the country, with 580 of those on Manus Island, according to UN high commissioner for refugees estimates from July. A number of refugee men detained in the Australian-run Manus Island regional processing centre and Papua New Guinean women started relationships as early as 2015, with some children born shortly after. SYDNEY - The children of Manus Island refugees and local women are being denied birth certificates, according to their families, potentially leaving up to 39 of them stateless. I just want a marriage certificate for my wife and I, birth certificates for our two babies, citizenship and an area where we can live, Haroon Rashid, a 27-year-old Rohingyan refugee, says. Rashid fled Myanmar because of ethnic cleansing by government forces and arrived in PNG in 2013. The following year he was found to be a refugee and married a 22-year-old Manusian woman, Molly Noan. The couple says provincial authorities have refused to issue birth certificates for their two-year-old son, Mohammed, and 17-month-old daughter, Almeera. In 2016, after their eldest child was born, they asked the Manus Island provincial administrator for documents but were told to get confirmation from the PNG Immigration and Citizenship Authority. But the authority told the couple it was not its responsibility and referred the matter back to the Manus Island provincial government. Rashid and Noan have given up trying to get these documents owing to what they say are continual delays and refusals. Our marriage and life is aimless and our destiny is uncertain without him being a citizen, Noan says. The future remains unknown for these refugee and asylum seeker men without PNG citizenship, while others face a long wait for resettlement in third countries. Now their children face a risk of statelessness too, as they lack birth certificates to prove they were born and registered in PNG. Experts warn that the denial of birth certificates violates the childrens international legal right to be registered immediately after birth. Denial of birth certificates is the first step to statelessness, says Prof Helene Lambert, an expert in international refugee law at the University of Wollongong. She warns that the children could become exposed to further human rights violations that flow on from a lack of proper documentation: This could result in a whole range of social, economic, civil and political rights being denied. An Iranian refugee, Amin Abofetileh, 28, and his Manusian wife, Kate Yang, 20, have experienced similar delays in obtaining documentation for their 14-month-old daughter, Liberty. Weve tried many times to get Libertys birth certificate and they just give us excuses, Yang says. Abofetileh fled Iran in 2012 after government persecution for his Ahwazi Arab background, and arrived in PNG the next year. Since he was recognised as a refugee and married in 2016, Abofetileh has longed to become a PNG citizen who is accepted in the community. I want to stay here with my family and, if I am to leave this country one day, I have to go with my wife and baby, he says. The precarious legal status of refugee fathers places their children at further risk of statelessness, according to Dr Laura Van Waas, co-director of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion in the Netherlands. Lack of birth registration can create a risk of statelessness, which is heightened in certain circumstances where a child is born to migrant or refugee parents, or belongs to a minority community that struggles to have its ties to the state recognised, she says. Some refugees have been resettled in third countries, leaving their Manusian partners to raise their children in PNG. Beverly Francis, 21, had a child with a 25-year-old refugee, Zaher Ali, who was resettled in the US in 2017. Though their four-month-old son, Ali, died from an illness in September, Francis continues to push for his birth certificate, which was never issued. Without it, Francis says she has nothing to prove her son existed. Hilda Paul, 18, is mother to one-year-old Fatima through her relationship with a 25-year-old refugee, Jawad Hussain, who was resettled in the US in September 2017. Paul says authorities have repeatedly refused to issue a birth certificate for her daughter. The problem is growing as refugee men continue to have children with their local partners. There have been reports of between seven and 39 children born through relationships between refugees and local women. Father Clement Taulam is a Catholic priest on Manus Island who does pastoral work with refugee families. He says at least 39 children have been born from such relationships, as of 31 October. But the citizenship authority refused to confirm this number and claims there are only seven children. Attempts to confirm the number of births with Lorengau hospital have been unsuccessful. The Australian government has refused to confirm reports that the children of refugee men and local woman have been denied birth certificates. This is a matter for the government of PNG, a spokesperson for Australias Department of Home Affairs said in a one-sentence statement. Human Rights Watch says the Australian government continues to pay for their upkeep. The fact remains, I think, that Australia still has their obligation to these people, says Elaine Pearson, the Australia director of Human Rights Watch. The childrens plight is not an isolated case. Almost 50 years ago a similar situation occurred in Australias first Manus Island camp for refugees fleeing the Papua conflict. Children of PNG women and West Papuan refugees who were processed in Australias Salasia camp have waited for decades to receive birth certificates and citizenship. Terrrien Mambrasar, 30, is the eldest of four children born to a Manusian mother and a West Papuan refugee father, who arrived in PNG in 1984. Mambrasar only received her birth certificate and citizenship at 29 in 2017, along with her three younger siblings. Even though we were born in PNG, to a PNG mother, it was difficult to get these vital documents, Mambrasar says. The National Identification Office in PNG is the body responsible for issuing birth certificates to citizens. It did not respond to requests for comment. The PNG Immigration and Citizenship Service Authority (ICSA) denied allegations that its staff refused to issue birth certificates to the children of refugees. Whoever you spoke to misled you that ICA has stopped them from applying for birth certificates for the children, a spokesperson for PNG ICSA stated. It is mandatory for all citizens to be registered at birth and these children fathered by refugees are PNG citizens under PNG constitution (Citizen by Decent). ICA works with the provincial authorities to ensure all children fathered by the residents are registered. PNG ICSA claimed that since 2014, it had registered and granted citizenship to more than 3,000 children of West Papuan refugees. The PNG government through the NEC made a decision to register all West Papuans residing in PNG, including those whose spouses are PNG citizens, a spokesperson said. Experts say Australia and PNG should coordinate a response to the denial of birth certificates. In my view, they should come to an agreement whereby one of these two countries is responsible for issuing birth certificates to these children, Lambert says. Rashid is now calling upon both the PNG and Australian governments to issue birth certificates to his children: I want to call on Scott Morrison, Give me citizenship now that you are prime minister. This story was written as part of Reporting Vulnerable Children in Care, a journalism skills development program run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in partnership with UBSs Optimus Foundation Florida lawmakers might not give voting rights back to felons, even though 64% of voters want them to Some Florida lawmakers are arguing the state needs more time before restoring felons' voting rights. Nearly 65% of Floridians voted in favour of an amendment that would do just that. Governor-elect Ron DeSantis said "implementing language" must be approved by the state legislature before being signed by him. Florida lawmakers might not be ready to put Amendment 4 - a measure approved by 64.5% of Florida voters that would give voting rights back to most felons who have completed their sentences - into action. According to WFTV 9, a local news station in Florida, the state has put enforcement of the amendment on pause until the new governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, is sworn in. WFTV reported that lawmakers are waiting to see if the Florida Legislature might need to weigh in on the measure. The amendment, which would restore voting rights to more than 1.5 million felons, does not call for any involvement of this kind. In Florida, 23% of African-American adults cannot vote due to a previous felony conviction. Amendment 4, the measure that would change that, received wide support among residents in a state with strict clemency laws. It was scheduled to take effect on January 8. Now, Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles told WFTV that "it could be that the new governor and secretary of state have a new direction" regarding the establishment of the measure. Read more: The evolution of American voting rights in 242 years shows how far we've come - and how far we still have to go "So, it's just going to be a wait and see," Cowles said, adding that state lawmakers have put a pause on checking any packets of information about the measure since December 1. Last week, Florida's Secretary of State Ken Detzner, a Republican, told reporters that it would be "inappropriate" for the state to "to charge off without direction from" the legislature. The ballot language, he argued, is unclear. Democratic state Sen. Darryl Rouson, a former prosecuting attorney, told the Florida Phoenix that he "would dislike the Legislature from taking any steps that might be perceived as thwarting or slowing down the voter's intent." For his part, DeSantis, who opposed the measure, told the Palm Beach Post that the amendment should not be put into effect until after the he and the state legislature approve "implementing language." The 60-day legislative session in the state begins March 5. "There's no way you can go through this session without implementing it," he said. China's "reform and opening up" policy brought monumental changes to society in the world's most populous country since its launch 40 years ago under late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. As China marks next week the anniversary of the momentous shift agreed at a Communist Party gathering on December 18, 1978, AFP interviewed five people whose experiences provide snippets into how the policy transformed lives. These are their stories: - The factory worker - Ou Banlan, 52, is a retired garment factory worker in Shenzhen, a former southern fishing village that was the testing ground for the reforms and morphed into a major manufacturing and high-tech hub. "My life is much better than that of my parents' generation," said the diminutive woman with short black hair, standing in front of the factory where she once toiled. She was born and raised in a village outside Shenzhen. "Life was very tough. All of China was like this at the time. It was very poor. We had enough to eat, but just the bare minimum," Ou recalled. "I always wanted to live in a city, so I came here when they began to look for workers in Shenzhen." At first life wasn't easy for her in her new town, which was established as a special economic zone in 1980. "I was just a working girl, I ate cafeteria food and lived in dormitories... The environment at that time was a bit chaotic, dirty," she said, remembering that there were fewer skyscrapers back then. But in the past four decades, China's gross domestic product soared to transform the country into the world's second biggest economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. "After a few years of work, I had my own house, I could do my own hobbies, I could go travel," Ou said. "I had spare time to go to the restaurant or go shopping, or travel. Before, I couldn't even imagine that." Men can usually retire at age 60 in China. Women at age 55. Factory workers five years earlier than that. "In the last 40 years, quality of life for normal people has changed," she said, "but the protection of the rights of the low-end population still faces a lot of problems." - The investor - Born not long after the reforms kicked off, Zhao Chen is now 34 years old and on top of the world. He holds court from an office building smack in the middle of China's tech corridor in the capital of what has become the world's second biggest economy. Beyond his desk are floors of entrepreneurs his firm has funded, tapping away at code for artificial intelligence, autonomous delivery robots, smart appliances, and other projects. As a child in 1980s Beijing, Zhao imagined he would someday enter a state-owned company or the bloated government bureaucracy, following in the footsteps of his parents. Instead he benefited from the transformative reforms under way, allowing him to join a wave of young Chinese going abroad for education: he earned a master's degree in computer science and an MBA from top American universities. After eight years in California, he returned to China to build Plug and Play, an investment firm and incubator for early stage tech startups. "Top reason was family, second was opportunities. The market opportunities are here in China," Zhao said, describing the pace as way faster than in Silicon Valley. "In China people are very hungry for success and very eager to work hard," Zhao said, with many people working the "9?9?6": toiling from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm six days a week. Zhao's firm helps budding companies grow, providing them the money, time, space, advice and services to expand. It would be a foreign idea in China pre-Deng, he acknowledges. His parents have gone from making purchases with food coupons to scanning QR codes with their smartphones or buying via e-commerce platforms. "We didn't have too many options in terms of food, vacations, holidays, global travel, e-commerce and delivery services like we have nowadays," he said. "We're the beneficiaries of China's reforms." - The artist - For Chinese artists like Jin Shan, reform and opening stripped away Mao-era shackles on expression, allowing art to flourish -- to a point. "We went from not having enough to eat, to having enough to eat and having the freedom to do and think many things," said Jin, 41, a prominent Shanghai-based mixed-media artist who has exhibited internationally. "There is more freedom to create." Mao famously declared that art exists for the masses, and in his day that meant works glorifying Communism. Jin's father, also an artist, painted propaganda posters and stage backgrounds for plays that promoted officially-approved values. But reform has loosened those bonds, opening the door to outside artistic influences and allowing imaginations to run free again. "The charm of art lies in imagination. Without that, you can't create good art," said Jin, whose thick-framed glasses rest under an unkept mop of black hair. China is now one of the world's biggest art markets, with works selling for millions and stars made out of contemporary artists like Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Ai Weiwei. Jin's signature pieces are humanoid sculptures of plastic, foam, and wire depicting figures stripped of their flesh and twisted beyond recognition by unseen forces, which he says are inspired by the fragmentation and disruption of the digital age. His materials feel "dirty", he said. "I feel like that overlaps with how we feel about life now." Jin has previously described his work as representing the "many absurd, terrible and amazing stories" that emerge daily in fast-changing China. Art that is overtly political or may offend the Communist Party remains taboo, however, and authorities occasionally close exhibits. "I don't make political figures, so there isn't much restriction on content for me. There is a certain level of freedom. But it's troublesome if you do the sensitive things." - The sex blogger - For Yi Heng, the advent of the internet was a godsend. The 29-year-old, who goes by the alias "Queen C-Cup", is a prolific columnist and online consultant on a byproduct of the transformative reforms -- a new openness to talk about sex. She fields a wide range of doubts and concerns from Chinese netizens: fears of sex addiction, anguish over a cheating lover, the frustrations of a sexless marriage. On Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, some questions cost more than $20, others less than a dollar. Many are worried about being abnormal, Yi explained. "Why can't I orgasm when others can, why is this so small?" The Queen is a 1980s child, born during the wave of breakneck economic development from the reforms. But even as China's private sector raced ahead, awareness and education on sex remained stagnant. Teachers simply "skipped over" sex education, said Yi, while parents talked around the subject, unless it was about puberty, health, or the importance of modesty. But the internet changed everything. In university, Yi delved into overseas sex education websites, at a time when China's cyberspace had not yet been walled off by the censorship apparatus. It felt like "floating by different islands," she exclaimed, describing an almost giddy sense of discovery. Though many foreign websites, like Google, are now blocked, China's own internet companies have flourished and curiosity about sex is driving demand for services like Yi's. But online censorship has increased in recent months. "A lot of words are not allowed to be used, if you use those words -- including vagina, penetration, etcetera -- you will face censorship risks," she said. And while people have more discussions about sex, conservative views on female sexuality persist. Women in China lack power, she said, "while men have too much". - The dissident - The reform period was scarred by a dark and bloody chapter in China's history. Wu'er Kaixi was 21 and one of the student leaders among the protesters who occupied Tiananmen Square in 1989 to demand democratic reforms. Wu'er gained prominence as a hunger striker who stunningly rebuked then Chinese premier Li Peng on national television. But their pleas ended with the June 4 military crackdown that left hundreds of people dead -- or at least 10,000 according to a British diplomatic cable. "We see in the last 40 years there hasn't been much opening and certainly not reform in the political aspect. And that's the reason students took to the street in 1989," said Wu'er, who now lives in exile in Taiwan. "Our hope for political reform, freedom and peoples' ability to take part in 'people's rule', that is the translation of democracy in Chinese, has been completely denied after 1989." After the massacre, he fled to Hong Kong and then to the United States before settling in Taiwan after marrying a Taiwanese woman in 1996. He has tried unsuccessfully to "turn himself in" to Chinese embassies in Japan and the United States and authorities in Hong Kong, but was ignored by Chinese officials. Unable to return home, Wu'er tried twice to run for a seat in the Taiwan legislature without success. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party remains firmly in control under President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, and civil liberties have been further tightened in recent years. "Political reform has to happen from the grassroots" in cooperation with "the people at the top", he said. The West hoped economic development would lead to democracy, but Wu'er sees this as "wishful thinking and the Western world's naivety". ewx-rwm-dma-ehl/lth/aph/gle "My life is much better than that of my parents' generation" says retired factory worker Ou Banlan Born not long after the reforms kicked off, Zhao Chen is now 34 years old and on top of the world For Chinese artists like Jin Shan, reform and opening stripped away Mao-era shackles on expression, allowing art to flourish -- to a point Yi Heng is a prolific columnist and online consultant on a byproduct of the transformative reforms -- a new openness to talk about sex Wu'er gained prominence as a hunger striker who stunningly rebuked then Chinese premier Li Peng on national television The United Nations on Friday forecast that 5.3 million Venezuelans will have fled the country by the end of next year, an exodus that amounts to "a humanitarian earthquake". The UN agencies for refugees (UNHCR) and migration (IOM) announced the estimates as they unveiled their response plan to the largest displacement of people in Latin America's recent history. Some 3.3 million Venezuelans are currently living abroad, roughly 2.3 million of whom have fled the country's political and economic crisis since 2015. "We are indeed facing a humanitarian earthquake," Eduardo Stein, the UNHCR-IOM special representative for Venezuela told reporters in Geneva. The UN appealed for $738 million (654 million euros) to help displaced Venezuelans as well 16 countries currently hosting them. Stein noted that the projection of two million more Venezuelans fleeing the country next year was "a planning estimation". The numbers of people leaving Venezuela have fluctuated through the crisis. In August, about 18,000 people were leaving daily, but the figure has fallen to around 5,000, Stein said. UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi told reporters that the reasons for people fleeing varied "from pure hunger to violence and lack of security". Among those who have already left, some 365,000 have applied for asylum abroad, Grandi said. Despite sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, President Nicolas Maduro's leftist government has been consumed by a crippling economic crisis. Maduro's crackdown on the opposition and other purportedly authoritarian measures have triggered global condemnation and economic sanctions, including by the United States. Venezuelans head towards the border in August, when about about 18,000 people were leaving the country every day A judge in Brazil on Thursday ordered the arrest of an Italian wanted in his country for four murders attributed to a far-left group in the 1970s. Cesare Battisti was ordered detained for the purpose of extradition to Italy, wrote Judge Luiz Fux of the Supreme Court. Italy has repeatedly sought the extradition of Battisti, 63, who has been living in Brazil for years under protection accorded him by former leftwing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, now in prison for corruption. Incoming far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has promised to extradite Battisti. Igor San'Anna Tamasauskas, Battisti's lawyer, told AFP he had not received any notice from the court. He said his client lives in the town of Cananeia in Sao Paulo state. There was no immediate word on whether Battisti had been arrested. The judge asked that his order be sent to Interpol. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison after being convicted in 1979 of belonging to the outlawed Armed Proletarians for Communism. He was subsequently convicted in absentia of having killed two members of Italy's police forces, taking part in the murder of a butcher, and helping plan the slaying of a jeweler who died in a shoot-out which left his 14-year-old son in a wheelchair. Battisti admitted to being part of the group but denied responsibility for any deaths. He reinvented himself as an author and in 2004 skipped bail in France, where he had taken refuge. He went to live clandestinely in Brazil until he was arrested in 2007 in Rio de Janeiro. After four years in custody, Lula issued a decree -- later upheld by Brazil's Supreme Court -- refusing Battisti's extradition to Italy, and he was freed, angering Italy. Battisti, who has a five-year-old Brazilian son, last year told AFP he faced "torture" and death if he were ever to be sent back to Italy. Italian ex-leftist militant Cesare Battisti is wanted in his country for four murders, which he denies A stuffed deer stands in a former US ammunition store just outside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas, tree branches spreading up from its antlers towards the roof. The work was installed this year at Camp Greaves, a former US army facility within the buffer zone that runs alongside the DMZ that has been converted into an arts centre and tourist attraction. South Korean artist Kim Myeongbeom listens to "the whispers of objects and their intimate conversations", a plaque explains, looking to juxtapose both man-made and natural objects and representations of life and death. American forces moved out of Camp Greaves in 2004, in one of the first steps of a wide-ranging plan to relocate many of the US units stationed in South Korea to Camp Humphreys, south of the capital Seoul. The transfers have now largely been completed, leaving a host of former bases in the hands of South Korean local authorities. The most prominent is the Yongsan base in the centre of Seoul, which is set to become a public park. At Camp Greaves, north of Seoul, Gyeonggi province is attempting to cash in on the steady stream of DMZ tourism nearby. The armouries-turned-art spaces are just one of its attractions -- the former officers' mess has been converted into a youth hostel. The hugely popular 2016 South Korean television drama "Descendants of the Sun" was partly filmed at the site, and it offers fans the chance to take selfies in front of key scenes' backdrops. "From just over there you can see a North Korean flag and also the South Korean flag," Southern tourist Kim Dong-in told AFP. "It makes me realise how close North and South Korea are and hope for unification." Artist Kim Myeongbeom's installation is placed in a decommissioned ammunition store at Camp Greaves, a former US army facility in South Korea American forces moved out of Camp Greaves in 2004, in one of the first steps of a plan to relocate many of the US units stationed in South Korea to Camp Humphreys The former officers' mess at Camp Greaves has been converted into a youth hostel Gyeonggi province is attempting to cash in on the steady stream tourism nearby at the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean peninsula Tension-stirring French writer Michel Houellebecq on Thursday published a defense of US President Donald Trump, calling him "one of the best American presidents I've ever seen." In the essay printed in Harper's Magazine, a New York-based monthly, Houellebecq praises Trump for his protectionist trade policies, his disdain for the European Union and his willingness to negotiate with iron-handed leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. "It seems that President Trump has even managed to tame the North Korean madman; I found this feat positively classy," Houellebecq wrote in the article translated from French. While he kicked off by labeling Trump an "appalling clown," the French provocateur also argued enthusiastically that the US president has ushered in the end of American imperialism: "The United States of America is no longer the world's leading power." "This isn't necessarily bad news for Americans," he wrote. "It's very good news for the rest of the world." "The Americans are getting off our backs. The Americans are letting us exist." The author -- whose nihilistic works replete with swingers' clubs, anonymous sex and misogynistic men have earned him global acclaim -- also cheered the Republican leader's threats to cut NATO funding. "France should leave NATO, but maybe such a step will become pointless if lack of operational funding causes NATO to disappear on its own," he said. "That would be one less thing to worry about, and a new reason to sing the praises of President Trump." The treatise drew mostly eye rolls on social media: "Michel Houellebecq liking Donald Trump is the least controversial position Michel Houellebecq has ever taken," tweeted New Yorker writer Alexandra Schwartz. "You would have to know literally nothing about him to be scandalized by this." Houellebecq's last novel triggered furor. In "Submission" he imagined the election of a moderate Islamist as president of France in 2022 -- a controversial tome published the same day jihadists attacked the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris in January 2015, killing 12 people including one of the writer's closest friends. He has since said he would "stop writing political books." His next novel titled "Serotonin," slated for publication next month, is about love. Despite commending Trump for his first two years in office, Houellebecq admitted he also empathized "with the shame many Americans (and not only 'New York intellectuals') feel." "On the personal level, he is, of course, pretty repulsive." But he concluded that "you have to get used to the idea, worthy American people: in the final analysis, maybe Donald Trump will have been a necessary ordeal for you." "And you'll always be welcome as tourists." French writer Michel Houellebecq penned an essay praising Donald Trump, saying his presidency is perhaps "a necessary ordeal" A Palestinian teenager was shot dead on Friday as Israeli forces carried out fresh raids in the occupied West Bank, the health ministry said, as troops searched for a Palestinian who killed two soldiers a day earlier. The 17-year-old killed was named by the Palestinian health ministry as Mahmoud Nakhla, who authorities said died after being shot in the stomach by Israeli fire near the Jalazone refugee camp in the central West Bank. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the death, which came as soldiers clashed with stone-throwing protesters in multiple locations. Soldiers again entered the Al-Bireh neighbourhood of the West Bank city of Ramallah where they carried out raids Thursday, an AFP journalist said, with residents saying they seized cameras from two buildings. The army was searching for the perpetrator of Thursday's shooting in the West Bank, where 400,000 Israelis live in settlements alongside more than 2.5 million Palestinians. It was the third deadly attack by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank in two months and set off demonstrations by settler groups against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose rightwing government depends on their support. Israeli media speculated Friday about the possibility of a new Palestinian "intifada," or uprising, against Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Protests as part of a Palestinian 'day of rage' Friday were, however, smaller than anticipated. Ayman Safadi, foreign minister for neighbouring Jordan, on Friday criticised "the continuation of the occupation by Israel of Palestinian territories" and the lack of any prospect for lasting peace. The current situation "constitutes a great threat to stability in the whole region," he said. - Revenge, raids - In Thursday's attack, a gunman got out of his car and opened fire on soldiers and others outside a settlement in the central West Bank, killing two and seriously wounding another two Israelis before fleeing. The funerals of the two soldiers, Sergeant Yovel Moryosef and Corporal Yosef Cohen, were held on Friday. After the attack the army locked down Ramallah, home to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, while calling in reinforcements. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces erupted Thursday in different parts of the West Bank, including inside Ramallah during army raids. Settlers shouting for revenge threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, while an Arab bus driver was beaten by ultra-Orthodox Jews in Modiin Illit settlement, according to Israeli media reports. In overnight raids, the army said it arrested 40 Palestinians, most of them affiliated with the Islamist movement Hamas which has claimed responsibility for two recent shooting attacks. It has not yet claimed Thursday's attack, though Israeli officials point the finger of blame in its direction. The army did not say it had made arrests linked directly to the latest attack. At a checkpoint near the Beit El settlement on Friday morning, a soldier was moderately wounded after a man hit him with a rock before fleeing, the army said. - 'Blood on his hands' - Israel has controlled the West Bank since seizing it in a 1967 war. Settlements are considered illegal by the international community and are seen as one of the greatest obstacles to peace, though Israel disputes this. Hamas, for its part, has controlled the Gaza Strip since seizing it from Abbas's forces in 2007. While Abbas's Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, Hamas cells still operate in the territory. Hamas claimed responsibility on Thursday for two shooting attacks which killed three Israelis including a baby, which took place before the soldiers were shot dead. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said Thursday that the West Bank had "opened a new page" in the movement's conflict with the Jewish state. Netanyahu's coalition government, which has only a one-seat majority in parliament, relies on the support of pro-settler parties. Rightwing protesters in Jerusalem late Thursday booed Netanyahu, while an MP from the far-right Jewish Home urged him to close all West Bank roads to Palestinians or have "blood on his hands". Hugh Lovatt, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the situation was reminiscent of the buildup to the 2014 Gaza war. "What adds further danger is that we are heading into elections in Israel in 2019, so Netanyahu will have to take a more forceful hand," Lovatt told AFP. "He has long run on his security credentials, saying he keeps Israel safe, and his only real challenge comes from the right." Netanyahu, whose Likud bloc heads the government, on Thursday announced new measures to support settlements, but the Yediot Aharonot newspaper said he would need to respond forcefully. "When the settler lobby raises an outcry, the Likud ministers break into a sweat," it said. Right-wing Israelis, mostly from settlements in the occupied West Bank, protest outside the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Palestinian demonstrators stand amidst smoke during clashes with Israeli troops in Ramallah, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, in the occupied West Bank Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that prompted outrage in Serbia, which does not recognise its former province's independence. Kosovo has been guarded by NATO-led peacekeeping troops since it broke away from Belgrade in a bloody separatist war in 1998-99. Now, new legislation will transform a small crisis-response outfit, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), into an defence army with 5,000 troops. "This vote today begins a new era for our country," parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli announced as MPs embraced each other after the session, boycotted by minority Serb politicians. The vote has delighted many Kosovo Albanians, with several hundred gathering in the main street of capital Pristina to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, declared in 2008. "This is an enormous emotion, we are happy that the creation of our country is being completed," Vlora Rexhepi, a 23-year-old student, told AFP as a group of musicians dressed in traditional costumes played for the crowd. Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci hailed it as "the best gift for the end of the year season". "We are finally closing down the state-building process," he wrote on Facebook. - 'Crossed the line' - While it will take years for the troops to be fully trained, Serbia has cast the move as a dire threat to regional stability. NATO and the European Union have also criticised the move as hasty. But Kosovo felt free to move ahead with strong backing from the United States, its most important ally. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic lashed out at the move. It is "absolutely clear that behind everything that (ethnic) Albanians have been doing are the United States, Great Britain and, in the case of creating the army, Germany as well," Vucic said in a televised public address. "They do not understand that they all crossed the line," said Vucic, who called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council on the issue. In particular, Belgrade has been sounding the alarm over the safety of 120,000 Serbs still living in enclaves across Albanian-majority Kosovo, mainly in the north near their contested border. Those Serb communities are loyal to Belgrade and also broadly against the army plan. Several hundred students protested Friday in the Serb-half of the divided city of Mitrovica, which was decorated with Serbian flags in response to the American stars-and-stripes draped across much of the rest of Kosovo in a sign of gratitude for Washington's support. Goran Rakic, a Serb political leader in the flashpoint city, called Pristina's decision "a gunshot into peace". But he urged local Serbs to exercise restraint. President Vucic vowed that Belgrade would protect them if needed. "If they attack you, the state of Serbia will have strength to protect you," he said. NATO, which had warned the move was "ill-timed", said the alliance would now "re-examine" its relationship with the KSF, which it helped train. The alliance nevertheless remains committed to securing Kosovo's safety through KFOR, the peacekeeping force is has led since the war with Serbia, said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. The EU echoed the regret, saying "the mandate of the KSF should only be changed through an inclusive and gradual process in accordance with Kosovo's Constitution". And the UN said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had taken note of the adoption "with concern" and called for restraint. "The Secretary-General calls on all parties concerned to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that could raise tensions and cause a further setback in the European Union-facilitated dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina," it said in a statement. Kosovo's government circumvented having to make constitutional changes to create the army, which would have required support from Serb MPs, by voting on a package of laws that kept the name of the KSF but changed its mandate. - Faltering talks - The US Embassy was quick to welcome the news but also urged Kosovo and Serbia to take "immediate steps to lower tensions" and make progress in their ongoing dialogue. The neighbours have struggled to make progress in faltering EU-led talks to normalise ties -- a condition for either to eventually join the bloc. Their relationship took a serious plunge last month after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tariff on Serbian goods in retaliation for Belgrade's attempts to undermine its standing on the world stage. Serbia has blocked Kosovo from various international organisations, including the UN, and also lobbied foreign governments to revoke their recognition of its statehood. Analysts say the army move is also partly an attempt by Kosovo's government to make up for recent setbacks. In November, global police organisation Interpol rejected Kosovo's application to become a member. Another source of public frustration is the lack of visa-free travel status in the European Union, which other Balkan states enjoy. "After the failure to join Interpol and visa liberalisation, the transformation of the KSF is their only card left," said political analyst Imer Mushkolaj. burs-ssm/dl/jah Under the new law, the Kosovo Security Force would be gradually transformed into a professional army of 5,000 Applause in Kosovo's parliament after the vote to build an army Kosovo roads were adorned with American flags, a sign of gratitude for the US support Kosovar President Hashim Thaci, seen here without a hat, told soldiers 'congratulations on your new assignments!' Divorced, in his 40s and fearing a solitary future, Zhou Xinsen went online like thousands of other Chinese men to find an affordable and fast solution to bachelordom -- a Vietnamese bride. He was among millions of his gender struggling on the sidelines of China's ultra competitive marriage market, where a decades-long one-child policy and sex-selective abortions of daughters has resulted in a massive gender gap. "It's very hard for people my age to find a Chinese wife," 41-year-old Zhou says. Single men, many in remote rural villages, are known as "bare branches", a pejorative term in a country where pressure to marry and extend the family tree is sharp. Running out of time, Zhou forked out nearly $20,000 to find his second wife -- a 26-year-old from Vietnam who he relocated to Jiangsu province. "For people my age, time is bought with money." Having fixed his romantic quandary, Zhou then opened his own match-making business, taking a small slice from China's multi-million-dollar annual trade in overseas brides. He charges around 120,000 yuan ($17,400) to connect Chinese men with Vietnamese brides via his website, which shows photos of women aged 20-35 "waiting to be married". It's "profitable", he says, remaining coy on the amount of money he has made. A portion of the money from matches is meant to be funnelled back to families in poor Mekong area countries. While many unions flourish, others quickly lurch into crisis with women disappointed at swapping village poverty in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar for life in rural China. China's single men are often older, divorced, disabled or too poor to pay the traditional "bride price" -- a dowry in gifts or cash -- for a Chinese wife. Those costs rose to between $22,000-29,000 in parts of the country last year, according to state media. Problems start when the brides feel duped about what they are getting into, says Zhou, who sends a monthly remittance to his wife's family of $175 as a show of goodwill. "This is nothing to us, but for them it's lifesaving," he adds. - Family business - Chinese men face a barrage of economic, psychological and cultural pressures to find a wife, says Jiang Quanbao, a Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University's Institute for Population and Development Studies. "Marriage is not only a personal matter, it concerns an entire family... especially the parents," Jiang told AFP. As women -- especially in the cities -- push back marriage while they work, study and enjoy single life, China's villages are fast losing their female population. Sons left unmarried become an issue of family "face" in tight village communities, says Jiang. That crushing social expectation has driven a grim trade in brides. Increasing numbers of women -- and teenage girls -- from neighbouring countries are kidnapped, tricked or forced into marriage, according to several rescue groups across the Mekong who spoke to AFP. "Buying a woman who has been kidnapped becomes a kind of hopeless choice," Jiang adds. Last year Chinese police rescued women sold into forced marriages in Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, as the buy-a-bride trade billows out to the eastern provinces. - Crime and deception - Under Chinese law, the abduction and trafficking of women or children is punishable by five to ten years jail. But critics say the law needs updating as the trade surges. "It's extremely profitable and there's no incentive at all for traffickers to stop," Mimi Vu of the Vietnam-based Pacific Links Foundation, which works to prevent human trafficking. "The demand is there and the money, the profit is there to be made." Beijing switched from a one-child to a two-child policy in 2016, but experts say it may take decades to see a rise in the number of women of marriage age. That means the bride trade is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. Zhou describes his work as "a public service" in a country where there are 33 million fewer women than men. But the outcomes for Chinese men are often far from perfect, with money warping motives throughout the system. Cautionary tales -- of dodgy brokers, trafficked women and brides pocketing money then fleeing -- abound on Chinese social media as the market widens. "It is an industry, and many of them (marriages) are fraudulent," one Weibo user wrote recently. "It's time the government takes care of this business." Another man in Hubei told state media he paid a broker $8,700 to meet a young Vietnamese woman who left him after three months, later aborting their baby as she went on the lookout for another husband. "Now I have neither a wife nor the money," he told the Chutian Metropolis Daily. "I'm a laughing stock in the village." Increasing numbers of woman -- and teenage girls -- are kidnapped, tricked or forced into marriage in China from neighbouring countries Millions of men struggle on the sidelines of China's ultra competitive marriage market, where a decades-long one-child policy and sex-selective abortions of daughters has resulted in a massive gender gap While many unions flourish, others quickly lurch into crisis with women disappointed at swapping village poverty in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar for life in rural China As women push back marriage while they work, study and enjoy single life, China's villages are fast losing their female population Beijing switched from a one-child to a two-child policy in 2016, but experts say it may take decades to see a rise in the number of women of marriage age Marriage to a Vietnamese bride is just a click -- and a few thousand dollars -- away on a blizzard of Chinese websites promising to solve the "single problems" of China's men. A decades-long one-child policy has created a yawning demographic disparity in China, with tens of millions more men than women. Sites like Zhongyuelove.com make their margin plugging that gap, linking lovelorn Chinese men with Vietnamese women, pressed by poverty at home to marry thousands of miles away. "Vietnamese women are a blessing for this group (unmarried Chinese men)," the website says, using an image gallery of women in their early 20s backed up by poetic words on the prospective brides to seize the interest of China's bachelors. "They (the women) are pure, beautiful, traditional," it says "and possess the gentleness and virtue of Chinese women but also the romantic exoticism of a foreign bride." Its matchmaking fee for connecting bachelors is around $4,000 -- which includes non-refundable 'blind dates', an unspecified 'pre-marital medical exam' and wedding photography if all goes well. The fee does not cover wedding gifts to the bride's family or transportation fees for the bride and groom. For those concerned by the possibility of failed marriages and the shady brokering system that attracts conmen on both sides of the border, Zhongyuelove has an 'FAQ' section. It offers reassurance on the visa process for a foreign bride and warns would-be grooms to be up front about their income, living situation and any disabilities. The 'sensitive questions' tab delves deeper with blunt queries about the beauty and ethics of Vietnamese women as well as discussions over the likelihood of them running away after the marriage -- and the fees have been paid. Matchmaking is common inside China, but the overseas bride business has exploded in recent years with men fearing a lifetime of singledom while 'bride prices' -- doweries -- for Chinese women rise sharply. There are no official figures but experts believe tens of thousands of women from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia pour into China each year for marriage. Many go willingly, connected via websites as well as informal and illegal networks of brokers on both sides of the border. Others are tricked to move for work, kidnapped and forced into marriage. Websites like www.0084520.com offer and ranks the would-be brides for 'popularity' while running a photo ticker of happy marriage ceremonies, complete with Vietnamese conical hats and Ao Dai tunics, bouquets of flowers, smiles and alcohol. Several other sites, all with QR code logins and endless photos of women to scroll through, tantalise with the promise of love for China's forgotten men. "If you always get the cold shoulder or are rejected, then we welcome you to come to Vietnam... and enjoy a different matchmaking experience," reads the blurb on one. burs-apj/ecl Websites link lovelorn Chinese men with Vietnamese women, pressed by poverty at home to marry thousands of miles away Carrying a bold message of inclusion, transgender rights and a sharp rebuke to US President Donald Trump, Miss Spain's Angela Ponce is blazing a trail as the first transgender contestant in Miss Universe's 66-year history. The willowy beauty is making history since the pageant reversed a longstanding policy in 2012 that participants must be "naturally born" women. Explaining her broad appeal the plain-speaking 27-year-old says "who hasn't suffered from prejudice? Who hasn't had to deal with bullying?" Outside the walls of Miss Universe -- whose finals will be held early Monday in Thailand's capital Bangkok -- the transgender community continues to be marginalised and misunderstood, with high rates of suicide. A leaked White House report said President Trump's administration is considering pushing changes to the law to define gender by biological traits at birth, while trying to block transgender people from military service. Ponce is defiant about how to respond to Trump, a former owner of Miss Universe, and others who would try to box her in by physical traits. "I always say: having a vagina didn't transform me into a woman. I am a woman, already before birth, because my identity is here," she told AFP, gesturing to her head. She also took issue with the classification of trans people by large sections of society based on prejudice and narrow assessments of gender. "Outsiders say what I can and cannot do, what I am and what I am not,'" Ponce said. "No, I'm sorry. To be a woman is your identity. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, if you have a vagina... if you have a penis." Ponce, who works with a foundation in Spain helping children struggling with stigma linked to being trans, is aware of the visibility she brings to the Miss Universe platform. Her performance has so far drawn praise, from her portrayal of a flamenco dancer during the national costume portion of the competition to her strut down the runway in a shimmery mermaid-like gown in the evening dress category. "You can empower yourself like I have and turn something negative into your biggest strength," she said. "Children are born without prejudices and I think that if we talk to them about diversity from a young age... we can create a new generation of human beings who are raised a lot better, more tolerant and respectful." This year's event, which critics say is a throwback to stereotypes of the the pre #MeToo era, has largely preached a message of inclusivity. It boasts an all-women panel of judges made up of business leaders and former Miss Universe titleholders. But gaffes still abound -- Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers got in hot water for appearing to mock the contestants from Vietnam and Cambodia on social media for not being able to speak English. She has since posted an apology on instagram, saying she did not "intend to hurt" her fellow competitors. Monday's event will see last year's winner Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters of South Africa crown her successor among 94 countries in a live televised event hosted by American comic turned TV host Steve Harvey and supermodel Ashley Graham. The willowy contestant is making history since the pageant reversed a longstanding policy in 2012 that participants must be 'naturally born' women Ponce, who works with a foundation in Spain helping children struggling with stigma linked to being trans, is aware of the visibility she brings to the Miss Universe platform She earned praise for her portrayal of a flamenco dancer during the national costume portion of the competition At the Tanjai Cheena school in northwest Pakistan students squeeze into makeshift classrooms where plastic tarps serve as walls and electricity is sparse, as a surging population overstretches the country's fragile education system. Sandwiched behind desks like sardines, students repeat words learned in Pashto and English during an anatomy lesson: "Guta is finger, laas is hand". Two teachers rotate between four classrooms at the school, which lacks even the most basic amenities including toilets. "The girls usually go to my house and the boys to the bushes," says principal Mohammad Bashir Khan, who has worked at the school in the picturesque Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for 19 years. With birth control and family planning virtually unheard of in this ultraconservative region, the ill-equipped public school system has not kept up with population growth. "In 1984, when my father started the school, there were 20 to 25 kids. Now they are more than 140," Khan says. Pakistan sits on a demographic time bomb after years of exponential growth and high fertility rates resulted in a population of 207 million -- two-thirds of whom are under the age of 30. And each year the country gains three to four million more people, overburdening public services from schools to hospitals. - 'Emergency education' - At the Malok Abad primary school in the town of Mingora, 700 boys share six classrooms, many of which remain damaged from a 2005 earthquake with clumps of plaster still falling from their ceilings. The youngest students study in the courtyard sitting on the ground, while others are forced to gather on the roof under the baking sun. "We are doing our best. But those kids are neglected by the system," says teacher Inamullah Munir. On the girls' side, the situation is even more dire with the smallest classes hosting up to 135 students packed into a space measuring about 20 square metres. "This is emergency education," said Faisal Khalid, a local director at the education department in Swat. The stakes are high in a country where education has long been neglected and received little in the way of funding as Pakistan focused on fighting militancy. Swat shouldered the extra burden of combating a deadly Taliban insurgency that saw dozens of schools destroyed and the shooting of schoolgirl and education activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012. As peace has returned to the region, public spending on education has increased, but it still falls short of the province's growing needs. Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has made "quality education for all" its rallying cry since taking the helm of the provincial government in 2013. In the last five years 2,700 schools have been built or expanded, while 57,000 new teachers have been recruited. Authorities have also more than doubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's education budget between 2013 and 2018. "That was the biggest increase in the history of this province," explains Atif Khan, the former provincial education minister. - Low literacy levels - But the rise in spending is no match for Pakistan's swelling demographics, even as the government plans to expand existing facilities and extend working hours in an attempt to meet demand. The top-ranked public high school in provincial capital Peshawar is a striking example of the challenges facing educators and students, who number 70 to a room despite the addition of a dozen new classrooms. "The more classrooms we build, the more they will be filled," says Jaddi Kalil, who heads the educational services department in the area. Pakistan now spends 2.2 percent of its GDP on education, the country's Minister of Education Shafqat Mahmood told AFP, adding that the amount was set to double in the coming years. Even more worrying, the increased funding has failed to put a dent in the province's illiteracy rates, with only 53 percent of children above 10 years of age able to read and write. The situation is replicated across Pakistan, with 22.6 million children out of school nationwide -- a figure that is likely to increase, given the country's unbridled population growth. The quality of teaching is also a cause for concern with just one in two students able to solve basic math problems upon completing primary school, according to the finance ministry. "Only elites have access to quality education," a recent report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said. With its economy already on the rocks, Pakistan faces the unenviable task of having to create between 1.2 and 1.5 million skilled jobs annually to employ recent graduates, the UNDP report said. Poor education is a "recipe for frustration", while good education "allows for more cohesion and less extremism", said Adil Najam, the author of the UNDP study. "All the important problems of Pakistan are related to education." In Pakistan, 22.6 million children are out of school nationwide --a figure that is likely to increase with the country's unbridled population growth Each year Pakistan gains three to four million more people, overburdening public services from schools to hospitals Pakistan's ill-equipped public school system has not kept up with population growth At the Malok Abad primary school in the town of Mingora, 700 boys share six classrooms Public spending on education has increased, but it still falls short of growing needs The rise in education spending is no match for Pakistan's swelling demographics, even as the government plans to expand existing facilities and extend working hours in an attempt to meet demand The quality of teaching is also a cause for concern with just one in two students able to solve basic math problems upon completing primary school Japan on Friday resumed work to relocate a controversial US military airbase in Okinawa, prompting protests and "strong anger" from the local governor. Okinawa residents have for years called for the relocation of a US base in a populated part of the southern island, but they want it moved elsewhere in the country, rather than to the remote site on Okinawa favoured by the government. "I can't help but feel strong anger at the start of (land reclamation), which ignores the will of the Okinawan people," governor Denny Tamaki told reporters. The recently elected governor is strongly opposed to the base being relocated within Okinawa, and raised the issue earlier this year with both Japanese government officials and on a trip to the United States. Aerial television footage showed a mountain of soil piled up on the coast of Henoko in Okinawa's Nago city being ploughed into the sea as part of land reclamation work to build the new site. Local media said protestors demonstrated at the site, including some who paddled out to sea to try to block the work. Okinawa accounts for less than one percent of Japan's total land area, but hosts more than half of the approximately 47,000 American military personnel stationed in Japan. For decades, residents have asked for some of the bases to be moved, with resentment growing after a string of accidents and crimes committed by US military personnel and base workers. As a solution, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has sought to move the unpopular Futenma base to a remote site, part of which will be built through land reclamation. But many in Okinawa feel the base should be moved to somewhere else in Japan, and say the task of hosting US troops should be more fairly shared. On Friday, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga repeated that the government regards the plan as "the only solution" to maintain an important US military presence while addressing local concerns. Okinawa is set to hold a non-binding local referendum on February 24 about the planned base relocation. Okinawa residents have for years called for the relocation of a US base to somewhere else in Japan Map showing US military bases in Japan's Okinawa. A seven-year-old Guatemalan girl died in American custody after being detained by US border police in New Mexico, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. The girl who illegally crossed the border from Mexico along with her father and dozens of others died last week of "dehydration and shock," the newspaper reported, citing US Customs and Border Protection. She had "reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days," the CBP told the Post, who said she began having seizures more than eight hours after being detained. Emergency responders had measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees (41 centigrade), the Post said. She died after being flown to hospital. The name of the girl and her father have not been released. The father is in El Paso, Texas awaiting a meeting with Guatemalan consular officials, the Post said, quoting CBP, which said it is investigating the incident. President Donald Trump has made hard-line immigration policies a central plank of his presidency, drawing fire from critics who accuse him of demonizing migrants for political gain. Much attention has been focused on caravans of thousands of Central Americans who have made their way to Tijuana, Mexico, just south from San Diego, California in a challenge to Trump, who criticized them as posing an "invasion". But migrants fleeing poverty and gang violence also continue to cross over in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona after enduring dangerous treks through Mexico. The CBP expressed its condolences for the death of the Guatemalan girl, the Post said. "Border Patrol agents took every possible step to save the child's life under the most trying of circumstances," CBP spokesman Andrew Meehan said in a statement to the Post. "As fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we empathize with the loss of any child." Trump has vowed to build a wall on the border with Mexico, deployed thousands of US troops there and separated more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents as part of a "zero tolerance" policy on illegal immigration. Caravans of thousands of Central Americans have made their way to the US-Mexico border in a challenge to US President Donald Trump The 29-year-old gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg before being shot dead by police after a two-day manhunt was a career criminal with convictions in France and several other European countries. Cherif Chekatt had been convicted of crimes including violence and robbery and was added to a watchlist of possible extremists while in prison in France in 2015, by which point he was described by authorities as having become radicalised. He had since been monitored by France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, which monitors thousands of suspected extremists in France. A photograph released by French authorities showed a man with dark, deep-set eyes, black hair, a short beard and a mark on his forehead. One source said that a poster of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been found in his cell in 2008. Neighbours, however, described a man who was known in the area due to his criminal record, but kept a low profile, only venturing downstairs for a coffee and baguette. "He wasn't totally into Islam," one neighbour named Zach, 22, told AFP, describing Chekatt as "discreet, not a thug", who lived alone in a small apartment in a dilapidated building in the same area as his parents. "His family has lived around here for a while, but he lived on his own nearby," he said. Chekatt had been sentenced 27 times -- mostly in France, but also in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg, which are all easily reached from Strasbourg. He was first sentenced at the age of 13 and was described by French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner as having exhibited criminal behaviour since the age of 10. Described by one source as being aggressive at times, Chekatt was, however, said to be at the low end of the spectrum in terms of his radicalism, showing no hint of carrying out an attack. In prison, the man who shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) during Tuesday's attack was described as practising a radical form of Islam. And although the propaganda wing of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack and described Chekatt as "one of the soldiers of the Islamic State", the source said there was no sign he had any established links with Syria. Chekatt was "a familiar composite portrait of today's jihadist", Anne Giudicelli, Director of the consulting firm Terrorisc, told AFP. "He has ticked all the boxes of the profiles seen before." At the nine-storey concrete block where Chekatt's name appeared on a letterbox, one local, Bemba N'diaye, 37, painted a grim picture of the area. "People there are very isolated," N'diaye told AFP. "It's a building for desperate people. No one wants to live there." burs-jah/gle Cherif Chekatt, shot dead by police after a two-day manhunt, was a career criminal with convictions in France and several other European countries French President Emmanuel Macron visited Strasbourg on Friday, a day after police shot dead a gunman who killed four people at the city's Christmas market, as investigators probe whether the jihadist had any accomplices. Macron placed a white rose on the Kleber monument, which has become a makeshift memorial in the centre of the city with thousands of candles, flowers and messages, as soldiers sang the Marseillaise national anthem. "The whole nation stands with the people of Strasbourg. This is what I wanted to tell them tonight," said Macron, who had earlier taken part in a European Union summit in Brussels. Annette, 80, one of the hundreds attending the Strasbourg memorial, said she "came to pray for those who are no longer here". The eastern French city near the German border slowly began to return to normality on Friday, with its famous Christmas market reopening after 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, a small-time criminal turned jihadist, went on a shooting spree there on Tuesday evening. He shot dead a Thai tourist, on holiday in Strasbourg with his wife, an Afghan who sought refuge in France some 20 years ago, a 28-year-old Italian journalist in town to cover the European parliament, and a local Frenchman who had just retired. Twelve people were also wounded in his attack, including one who has been declared brain-dead. The Islamic State group's propaganda arm said in a Twitter post that Chekatt was one of its "soldiers", a claim which was dismissed on Friday by France's Interior Minister Christophe Castaner as "completely opportunistic". - How police found him - France's anti-terror prosecutor Remy Heitz said the investigation was now focusing on whether anyone "helped or encouraged Chekatt preparing or carrying out" the attack -- or assisted him while he was on the run. Seven people were in police custody on Friday, including Chekatt's parents and two brothers, Heitz said. Another brother, who like Chekatt was on France's anti-terror watchlist for suspected extremists, has been detained in Algeria, sources close to the inquiry told AFP. Officials praised the massive public help and quick police reaction that led to the death of Chekatt, a career criminal with 27 convictions in four countries, late on Thursday. He was tracked down at around 9:00 pm (2000 GMT) when a police patrol spotted him on a street in the Neudorf district where he was last seen after his gun and knife attack on Tuesday night. Around 800 people called in tips to a hotline after the authorities released his name and photo Wednesday night. Two calls in particular were "decisive" in finding Chekatt, Heitz said. The information allowed police to cordon off an area while a helicopter equipped with a heat-seeking camera flew over the gardens. Spotted by a police patrol, Chekatt tried to escape by entering a building. Unable to get in the door, he turned and shot at the three officers with a handgun as they tried to approach. Two police officers returned fire and killed him, Heitz told a press conference in Strasbourg. - 'We can't search everyone' - Questions remain over how Chekatt was able to evade the tight security perimeter set up around the Christmas market, a prime target for jihadist groups. Around 500 police, security agents and soldiers control access at checkpoints on the bridges leading to the river island, a UN World Heritage site, that houses the market. The goal is to "create a bubble with searches at the entry points," Mayor Roland Ries said after the attack, while regional government representative Jean-Luc Marx said he had not determined "any flaws in the security measures". France has been on high alert since the start of a wave of jihadist attacks in 2015, which prompted a threefold surge in the security budget for the market, to one million euros. Chekatt, a Strasbourg native who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. But Defence Minister Florence Parly rejected criticism that Chekatt's presence on the extremist watchlist should have prompted a more proactive reaction from the authorities. "You can't... arrest someone just because you think he might do something," Parly told Radio Classique on Friday. Strasbourg's deputy mayor Alain Fontanel admitted that despite patrols, plainclothes police, profilers and video surveillance, "the risks can be reduced, but not eliminated". "We can't pat down and search everyone, only carry out random checks," he said, adding that huge lines at checkpoints would only create a new potential target for terrorists. "Someone who wants to get in an area this big with a weapon can do it," he said. French President Emmanuel Macron lays a white rose at a monument near the Christmas market in Strasbourg, where four people where killed by a gunman this week Macron meets with hooded police near the Christmas market in Strasbourg Cherif Chekatt, a small-time criminal turned jihadist, killed four people and injured 12 in Strasbourg on Tuesday Strasbourg gunman shot dead by French police Officials praised the massive public help and quick police reaction that led to the death of 29-year-old Chekatt The Strasbourg Christmas market reopened Friday Marathon talks aimed at charting mankind's path away from climate catastrophe entered overtime Saturday as nations picked over a plan presented by host Poland that exposed several sources of disagreement. Negotiators told AFP that the nearly 200 states involved were still far apart on several crunch issues -- from how nations report reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, to the levels of help given to countries already hurting from climate change. Ministers at the COP24 talks must agree on a common rule book to make good on promises they made in the landmark 2015 Paris accord, which vowed to limit global temperature rises to "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). But with the starkest warnings yet from scientists highlighting the need to slash fossil fuel emissions within the coming decades in order to meet the safer cap of 1.5C warming, delegates were urged to act now or condemn at-risk nations to disaster. The summit was meant to wrap up at midnight Saturday but overran into the small hours as areas of dispute emerged, often with different alignments of developed and developing nations straddling each divide. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made his third trip in two weeks to the COP24 in the Polish mining city of Katowice in a bid to push a deal over the line. - 'Cruel joke' - The draft text included no resolution on how the climate fight will be financed, and developed nations -- responsible for the lion's share of historic greenhouse gas emissions -- were accused of seeking to shirk funding promises made in Paris. One veteran observer told AFP that the US, despite President Donald Trump's intention to withdraw from Paris, was seeking to water down "differentiation", a bedrock principle of the underlying UN climate Convention. Washington wants countries to contribute to the climate fight based on their current emissions levels, rather than their historic pollution, meaning the US would be less bound to help developing nations green their economies. Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid's International climate lead, said the US delegation was "like a bad smell" at the summit. "It's notable that the US is still working to water down negotiations for an agreement that they have said they are going to withdraw from." - Loss and damage - The draft text gave short shrift to another red-line issue for poor countries exposed to the ravages brought on by global warming: so-called "loss and damage" This provision is designed to help nations cope with deadly heatwaves, drought and floods -- amplified by climate change -- happening today. Another hot-button issue centres on how to avoid the double-counting of reductions in carbon pollution. That can occur when one country takes actions to curb emissions -? reforestation, for example ?- in another country and then both nations claim the credit as part of their pledges under the Paris Agreement. "If you have buyers and sellers in a carbon trading scheme, you want to be sure that those emissions reductions don't get counted twice," said David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute's Climate Change Initiative. The Environmental Defense Fund said Brazil had asked to insert language in the text muddying the date at which the rule book would compel countries to stop double counting emissions savings. "If Brazil's language is allowed to stay, it will embed the double counting of emissions reductions in the Paris Agreement... undermine the ability of carbon markets to drive emissions down," said EDF's Alex Hanafi. Chile on Friday announced it would hold next year's UN climate summit, after Brazil pulled out last month citing the cost of holding the two-week talks. - 'We will die' - One potential breakthrough came in the form of tentative consensus over how to treat the latest UN scientific report. Most nations wanted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- which highlighted the need for greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed to nearly half by 2030 in order to hit the 1.5C target -- to form a key part of future planning. But the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected, leading to watered down language in the draft decision. As well as the IPCC issue, nations are also under pressure to up their ambition in their contributions to the climate fight ahead of a 2020 stocktake. "If we don't do that, we will not survive," said former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed. "We would die. I'm sure it wouldn't be an appropriate outcome for anyone." Members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice protest ahead of the final session of the COP24 summit on climate change in Katowice, Poland, on December 14, 2018 The UN in its annual report shows a growing gap between greenhouse gas emissions and the objectives of the Paris climate agreement. The marathon talks ran into Saturday with delegates still locked in discussions United Nations' Secretary General Antonio Guterres was back in Katowice for the third time in a bid to push a deal over the line United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths called Friday for the urgent creation of a strong monitoring mechanism in war-ravaged Yemen, one day after fighting parties agreed to a ceasefire at a vital port. But even as the UN sought observers at Hodeida, sporadic clashes broke out nearby, highlighting the extreme fragility of even this limited truce and the potential risks to personnel in the region. Yemen's warring factions accepted at UN-brokered talks Thursday the ceasefire at Hodeida, a key gateway for aid and food imports to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine. "A robust and competent monitoring regime is not just essential. It is also urgently needed," Griffiths told the UN Security Council, adding that "allowing the UN the lead role in the ports is the vital first step." He said Yemen's warring parties told him they would welcome the monitoring and called for them to allow it "within days." Under Thursday's agreement, an "immediate ceasefire" should go into effect in Hodeida and its three ports upon signing, followed by a "mutual redeployment of forces... to agreed upon locations outside the city and the ports." Eventually, Hodeida will be under the control of "local security forces." The rival parties disagree on the term. The "UN will take on a leading role in supporting Yemen Red Sea Ports Corporation in management and inspections at Hodeida, Salif and Ras Issa," Griffiths said. But just hours after the agreement, artillery fire could be heard in south Hodeida, one resident told AFP by phone, while another living on the eastern edge of the city said they could hear an exchange of fire every 15 minutes. Diplomats said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres may propose a surveillance mechanism comprising 30 to 40 observers, and some countries may send observers on a reconnaissance mission before the formal adoption of a resolution. One diplomat suggested Canada and the Netherlands could field the observers. - Mechanism 'can work' - Griffiths said Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who has previously worked for the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had agreed to head the UN's future oversight mechanism in Yemen. Cammaert is expected "in the middle of next week in the region," Griffiths said. A diplomatic source said a monitoring mechanism at Hodeida "can work." "Is it going to work? We don't know," the diplomat said. The possible deployment of observers comes after an attempt at something similar in the Syrian city of Aleppo in 2017. In that case, observers had to eventually retreat. But unlike now, the fighters in that arrangement had not been stakeholders in the process, the diplomat noted. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, called for tougher action from the Security Council. "The world's worst humanitarian crisis demands more than hope from the Security Council that peace will come to Yemen. It demands that we take action to hold all the warring parties accountable," she said. She singled out Iran, which backs the Huthi rebels and is a constant target of US scorn, as being "at the root of the crisis." UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock has for months been warning of a worsening situation in Yemen and says the UN is asking for $4 billion to help suffering Yemenis next year. "Millions of Yemenis still desperately need assistance and protection," he said. A Huthi rebel delegation returned to the insurgent-controlled capital of Sanaa on Friday. "We wanted to prove to the world that while we are confrontational men, we are also men of peace," delegation member Jalal al-Ruwaishan said. Impoverished Yemen has been mired in fighting between the Huthi rebels and troops loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi since 2014. But the war escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition stepped in on the government's side. The conflict has since killed nearly 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. But other rights groups believe the actual toll to be far higher. UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths says a strong monitoring regime is needed in war-torn Yemen A member of the Huthi delegation (L) returning from peace talks in Sweden shakes hands with supporters upon arrival at Sanaa International Airport in the Yemeni capital on December 14, 2018 Huthi rebel delegation member Jalal al-Ruwaishan (C) speaks to reporters in Sanaa after returning from the peace talks Kurdish-led forces seized the Islamic State's main hub of Hajin Friday, a milestone in a massive and costly US-backed operation to eradicate the jihadists from eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by IS, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "After a week of heavy fighting and air strikes, the SDF were able to kick IS out", Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring group, said. The operation was completed at dawn, he said, a day after SDF forces fanned out across the large village in the Euphrates valley. On Thursday, the last IS fighters were confined to a network of tunnels and the edges of Hajin, which lies in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border with Iraq. The area held by IS is sometimes referred to as the "Hajin pocket", the last rump of a once-sprawling "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014 over swathes of Syria and Iraq. IS fighters pulled back to positions east of Hajin Friday and to Sousa and Al-Shaafa, the other two main villages in their shrinking Euphrates valley enclave. As recently as Thursday, the group posted pictures of fighting in Hajin on its social media accounts. - High death toll - According to Abdel Rahman, a total of 17,000 fighters from the Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance are involved in the operation to flush IS out of its last bastion. The operation was launched on September 10 and has taken a heavy toll, according to figures collected by the Observatory, which has a network of sources on the ground. At least 900 jihadists and 500 SDF fighters were killed in the fighting, the Observatory said. According to Abdel Rahman, more than 320 civilians were also killed, many of them in air strikes by the US-led coalition. Thousands more civilians who had remained, voluntarily or not, in the Hajin area have fled their homes since the start of the offensive three months ago. US President Donald Trump this week predicted the jihadist group would be fully defeated within a month. "We've done a very, very major job on ISIS," he said on Tuesday, using another acronym for IS. "There are very few of them left in that area of the world. And within another 30 days, there won't be any of them left," he vowed. Western and other officials have repeatedly announced deadlines for a final victory over IS but the group is proving resilient. - 30 days? - The push to retake Hajin was delayed by Turkish threats on the Kurdish heartland further north and deadly counter-attacks by die-hard jihadists making a bloody last stand. The Turkish threats were renewed this week by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the army would launch an offensive within the "next few days" to "bring peace and security to areas east of the Euphrates" controlled by the SDF. Washington, which has set up observation posts along the border and launched joint patrols with the SDF, said any unilateral military action in northern Syria would be "unacceptable". On Friday, 13 political parties in Kurdish territory in northern Syria issued a joint statement denouncing Erdogan's threat as a "declaration of war". Besides what is left of the pocket near Hajin, IS has a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert, a front which is managed by Russian-backed government forces. What is left of the jihadist group also has sleeper cells across Iraq and Syria that regularly carry out attacks. "ISIS anticipated its battlefield defeat and the loss of the caliphate and prepared accordingly," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington. Fighters of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces gather on September 13, 2018 for the US-backed offensive which has culminated in their capture of the Islamic State group's last enclave Map of Syria locating Hajin An elderly Syrian woman whose family fled the deadly US-backed offensive by Kurdish-led forces on the Islamic State group enclave around Hajin, lies in a diplaced persons' camp in Kurdish-held territory on December 8, 2018 US soldiers and fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces carry out a joint patrol of the Kurdish town of Al-Darbasiyah on the Turkish border on November 4, 2018, in a confidence-building move adopted after Turkish threats on the Kurdish heartland Kurdish-dominated forces backed by air strikes by a US-led coalition retook full control of a key jihadist hub in eastern Syria on Friday, a war monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by the Islamic State group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "After a week of heavy fighting and air strikes, the SDF were able to kick IS out of Hajin," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said. The operation was completed at dawn, he said, a day after SDF forces fanned out across the large village in the Euphrates valley. The last IS fighters on Thursday were confined to a network of tunnels and the edges of Hajin, which lies in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border with Iraq. The area held by IS is sometimes referred to as the "Hajin pocket", the last rump of a once-sprawling "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014 over swathes of Syria and Iraq. According to Abdel Rahman, a total of 17,000 fighters from he Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance are involved in the operation to flush IS out of its last bastion. Fighters of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces gather on September 13, 2018 for the US-backed offensive which has culminated in their capture of the Islamic State group's last enclave Map of Syria locating Hajin The Full Schumer turns 20. With a stop in Washington County Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer completed his annual tour of every New York county. It's the 20th consecutive year he has visited all 62 counties since he was elected to the Senate in 1998. According to a report released by Schumer's office, New York's senior senator made 135 visits to Long Island and upstate New York this year. His upstate swings included 21 stops in central New York. On Friday, Schumer held a press conference at the Byrne Dairy plant in East Syracuse to speak out against a federal proposal to change the procurement for milk provided to military installations. The change would have a negative impact on Byrne Dairy and other small dairy producers, Schumer said. Schumer's lone stop in Cayuga County was a press conference at Cayuga Milk Ingredients in April. He urged U.S. officials to ensure dairy production was part of negotiations with Canada and Mexico as the three counties discussed updating the North America Free Trade Agreement. Outside of New York City, central New York was the second-most visited region for Schumer. Long Island topped the list with 27 stops. Schumer visited the Capital Region and Rochester-Finger Lakes region 19 times each. He made 16 visits to the Hudson Valley, and 13 each to the Southern Tier and western New York. He traveled to the North Country on seven occasions. "Two decades ago, upon my election to the United States Senate in 1998, I promised that each and every year I served I would visit all 62 of New York state's diverse counties," Schumer said. "Not only has this ritual remained a steadfast passion of mine because I get to see the absolute best that New York has to offer, but because of all I learn from my constituents." The origin of the tour dates back to the 1998 Senate campaign. The incumbent senator, Alfonse D'Amato, questioned whether Schumer would be committed to upstate New York as a senator. Schumer embarked on a tour of upstate during the campaign. Schumer went on to defeat D'Amato in that election. He won re-election in 2004, 2010 and 2016. The tour has continued despite Schumer's leadership role. In 2017, he became Senate minority leader. The post comes with additional responsibilities and demands for his time. But he remains committed to visiting every New York county each year. "Although I've gained the title of minority leader, my proudest and most principal titles have been, and will always remain, New York's senator and 'New Yorker,'" he said. "At the close of 20 years, my beliefs are as clear as ever: 'Senators who stay in Washington and never return home are simply not doing their job.' That's why I go to all of the street fairs, parades, graduations and public events that I can." Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Normally, the end of Cayuga County Craft is a hodgepodge. But this time I'm going to begin with one. There's no other way to recap the year in beer, both locally and personally. And it was a good year: If I'm going by auburnpub.com's statistics, the biggest local beer story of the year one of the biggest local stories of the year, period was Prison City Pub & Brewery announcing the site of its long-awaited expansion. Located at 197-199 North St., the facility will raise production of brewer Ben Maeso's beers by a factor of 10. Owners Dawn and Marc Schulz hope to open it by next fall. But that wasn't the only good news of 2018 for Prison City. Its most popular beer, Mass Riot India pale ale, drew lines down State and Dill streets at its first 16-ounce can release in March. And Paste Magazine ensured the hop bomb will stay popular by ranking it No. 6 in a blind tasting of 324 American IPAs, the same tasting where Mass Riot placed first in 2016. Prison City's Hawaiian Trainwreck IPA also placed in the top 80. And its Chin Check barleywine placed No. 25 and its Illusion of Knowledge pale ale placed No. 7 in separate Paste lists this year. For Auburn's other brewers, 2018 was even more transformative. Garrett Shepherd opened the new location of Good Shepherds Brewing Co. at 132 Genesee St., the former PBJ on the Corner, in March. Along with the new decor, which combines industrial steel with rustic wood, the space gives Shepherd the ability to brew even more beers like There is No Spoon IPA and Franklin Park Porter, as well as 24 taps to pour them. And if Shepherd's new space wasn't visible enough at the corner of Genesee and William streets, the brick building got a new beer-inspired mural installed in June. Wilcox: Why Other Half coming to Ontario County will benefit Cayuga County breweries This week's news that Other Half Brewing will open a second location in Ontario County is no Auburn also got its third brewery in 2018: Next Chapter Brewpub, located in Genesee Center next to Thirsty Pug Craft Beer Market. Scott and Michelle DeLap's cozy space is already earning a rep for Scott's sessionable beers, fresh popcorn and fun live music every weekend. As it turns six months old, the brewpub is looking to expand its food menu with a pizza oven and other options. Outside Auburn, Lunkenheimer Craft Brewing Co. in Weedsport celebrated its fourth anniversary in October. Derric and Kristen Slocum also announced that they'll open a tasting room in Sodus in the spring. They made moves to expand Lunkenheimer's reach well beyond Weedsport this year, sending Blood Orange Kolsch to Falcon Park and distributing Buster Kolsch to area bottle shops. And in Aurora, Mark Grimaldi and Joe Shelton recently undertook a significant expansion of Aurora Ale & Lager Co. that I'll cover in a future story. The new brewing equipment and expanded space will mean much more Aurora beer, and much more availability of it. The expansion comes as Grimaldi and Shelton continue earning nice word-of-mouth about their hazy New England-style IPAs, including some soured ones with fruit and lactose. Meanwhile, Aurora also added a wood-fired pizza oven, making the scenic wine country location an even more enticing afternoon destination. I also hope to write about Cayuga County's sixth brewery in 2019: Summerhill Brewing in Summerhill. After a short period of limited production and even more limited hours, the southern Cayuga County brewery is also undergoing an expansion. Once that's finished, likely in early 2019, look for a feature story about the young brewery in The Citizen. Lastly, being a list guy, I can't leave 2018 without naming my favorite beers of the year from all these breweries: Aurora's So Damn Thirsty sour IPA and all of its New England IPAs, particularly Fresh to Death; Good Shepherds' There is No Spoon IPA and Hurricane Hailey blonde; Lunkenheimer's Russian Not So Imperial Stout and Pomegranate Berliner Weisse; Next Chapter's Dark Saison; and Prison City's Wham Whams bourbon barrel-aged coconut stout, Solitary Refinement bourbon barrel-aged dark sour and, of course, Crispy Boys lager and its incredible, unicorn-rare lime version. Have a crispy holiday everyone. What's on tap Lunkenheimer Craft Brewing Co. The 8920 N. Seneca St. brewery in Weedsport will host a Doug's Fish Fry to go sale from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 20, benefiting local members of the U.S. Ski Team. More information is available at facebook.com/lunkenheimercraftbrewingcompany, where Lunkenheimer's beer menu is now available. The menu is on its website, lunkenheimercraftbrewing.com, as well. On that menu is Lunkenheimer staple Peanut Butter Habanero Brown Ale, and coming Dec. 29 will be its 2018 barleywine. Next Chapter Brewpub The Genesee Center brewpub will release two new beers Thursday, Dec. 20. The first is a chocolate milk stout on nitro, the brewery's first nitro beer. The second is Resilience IPA, a beer project started by Sierra Nevada that has seen hundreds of breweries across America, including Prison City, participate. All proceeds from Resilience IPA sales will go to a fund supporting the victims of the recent Camp Fire in California. Prison City Pub & Brewery Now available at the State Street brewpub is its Straight Outta NoPo, a holiday version of its house porter with candied ginger, Simple Roast mocha java coffee and toasted hazelnuts. Prison City will also host its fourth anniversary celebration Wednesday, Dec. 19, with 20 of its beers on tap. Other events coming up there include holiday hours Christmas Eve and Christmas, a Give a Pint/Get a Pint blood drive with the Red Cross and a three-course beer pairing dinner on New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day brunch specials. Thirsty Pug Craft Beer Market Beer baskets and other gift options are now available at the Genesee Center bottle shop and tap room. Lake Life Editor David Wilcox can be reached at (315) 282-2245 or david.wilcox@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @drwilcox. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Senate rebukes Trump, Saudi Arabia over death of Jamal Khashoggi, Yemen war, and 9 more things to know for Friday HIT: A years-ago encounter with a student who often came to school hungry helped inspire an initiative that continues helping feed families during the holidays. Volunteers have been collecting hundreds of pounds of groceries at Genesee Elementary School in Auburn so that boxes full of food can be given to families that might not have enough. The Fill A Belly Over Break effort is designed to provide enough food for an entire family during the extended Christmas and New Year school vacation, when household funds may be stretched thin. A number of volunteers from the community support the food drive every year, and we salute their efforts. MISS: To a crime driven by addiction. A Syracuse woman was in Cayuga County Court this week to learn her fate for having broken into a home in Throop and stealing about $10,000 worth of jewelry. While her attorney explained that the crime was "a desperate act by a desperate person" in search of money to buy drugs, the court also had to weigh the harm to the victim in the case. In the end, the thief was sentenced to 1 1/3 to four years in prison, where she might take advantage of programs to treat her addiction. She was also ordered to pay $7,800 in restitution to the victim, because insurance covered only about 25 percent of their losses. HIT: A partnership aimed at helping more students succeed in college. Onondaga Community College is partnering with Jordan-Elbridge High School in a college-readiness program designed to steer students toward maintaining the academic requirements needed to qualify for the state's Excelsior Scholarship program and make a successful transition from high school to college. The result for some students will be the ability to earn their degree at OCC without accumulating any financial debt. The Citizen editorial board includes publisher Rob Forcey, executive editor Jeremy Boyer and managing editor Mike Dowd. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 In October, Moravia Town Supervisor Baxter went before the Moravia school board calling for action regarding the summer recreation program. Most recently the program was hosted at the Fillmore Glen State Park and offers around 200 children an opportunity to attend an educational, outdoor camp at little to no cost to their parents. The program provided wholesome summer kid activity that transcends economic barriers that many face in our area, in addition, to strategically locating the youth of our community at the location where the CNY food bank provides free summer time meals on a daily basis. It was outlined in October in an article published by The Citizen that the program, which annually costs $40,000 to run, was causing the town of Moravia to lose money. Assuming each of the 200 children being served by the program attended all six weeks of camp, the per child cost is approximately $35. At the Nov. 28 town board meeting, Supervisor Baxter opened the floor to the general public in attendance before the pre-written resolution was voted on by the town board. Many local community members spoke to the history of the program, the life skills such as swimming they learned as well as the many other positive impacts the program has had on them, their children and the community of Moravia as whole, and they pleaded with the board that they consider and exhaust all options available to maintain the program before making a decision. The show of community support for the Moravia summer rec program at the town board meeting was very compelling, unfortunately, it wasnt enough to sway the towns resolution to no longer administer the summer recreation program. Im shocked by the unanimous vote of the Moravia Town Board to potentially end something that has made our local community stand out in such a positive way. I believe the voice of our community was missed by the current elected administration. As a parent, a town resident and a local business owner, I am unaware of any call for support to the local community to help keep this vital program in place or to restructure its current operating system. While I do understand the financial burden depicted, there have to be viable solutions available, had issues been brought to public light. It is disappointing there was so little transparency leading up to a decision that impacts so many children, our future community! Erica Heim Moravia Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 After scrapping net neutrality earlier this year, as AVN.com has covered, allowing the big telecommunications companies greater control over what Americans see and hear on the internet, the FCC is now coming for citizens' personal text messages. The FCC on Wednesday voted on a change to how text messages are classified under the governments regulatory structure. By a 3-1 vote, with all three Republicans on the commission voting in favor, the FCC reclassified SMS text messages as an information service, rather than classifying texting as a telecommunications service, the tech news site CNet reported. While the change may seem technical, in fact it carries far reaching implications for how text messages are treated by telecom companies. The new clasisfication can have real effects on our ability to use text messaging for political speech and supporting charities, according to the digital rights watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation. FCC Chair Ajit Pai said that the new classification will allow carriers to block annoying spam messages and robo-texts, but the sole Democrat who voted on the measure, casting the lone no vote, said that Pais explanation was phony. "Today's decision offers consumers no new ability to prevent robotexts," Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said. "It simply provides that carriers can block our text messages and censor the very content of those messages themselves." Carriers have engaged in text message censorship before, according to EFF. In 2007, Verizon blocked text messages from NARAL [a pro-choice group] on the grounds of 'controversy.' In 2010, T-Mobile was accused of blocking texts from a medical marijuana service. That same year, Sprint demanded Catholic Relief Services end a texting-based drive to raise money that was started as a response to the earthquake in Haiti, the group reports. By classifying texts as an information service, a category which allowed only minimal government oversight, there will be no way to stop phone companies from blocking or censoring text message whenever and for whatever reason they choose. On the one-year anniversary of the FCC's misguided net neutrality decisionwhich gave your broadband provider the power to block websites and censor online contentthis agency is celebrating by expanding those powers to also include your text messages," Rosenworcel said. "No one should mistake today's action as an effort to help consumers limit spam and robotexts," said Harold Feld, of the open internet advocacy group Public Knowledge. "There is a reason why carriers are applauding while more than 20 consumer protection advocatesalong with 10 senatorshave cried foul." Photo By Tammy McGary/Wikimedia Commons Ahram Online and Al Ahram Weekly, by Azza Radwan Sedky, excerpt An open letter to Michele Dunne US commentator on Egyptian affairs Michele Dunne has recently been a constant critic of Egypt, with her ill-informed opinions reach a crescendo in a recent article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace In a long-winded, 2,900-word, deeply faulty article, you continue your deliberate smearing of Egypt, its military, its judicial system, its parliament, and its leader. This Egypt-bashing started long before you were barred from entering the country, and it is why you were refused entry. Lets start with this phase. You ignored the will and wishes of the Egyptian people in the 30 June Revolution. You told yourself that Egypts democratic opening might very well be over when, in the eyes of the Egyptians, their regaining of Egypt was the most democratic of all eventualities. You reckoned that the prospects of things quietening down after 30 June were unlikely, when in fact, and much to your dislike, they did. You cast an element of doubt over the 2014 presidential elections in Egypt, anticipating a great deal of vote-rigging. You assumed the elections would be a total sham, and you did not allow much room for hope both totally erroneous predictions on your part. From this point on, your animosity to Egypt turned into a vendetta. Not only have you aimed intentionally to instill antagonism to the country, but you even appeared before the US Congress to demand that the US stop its aid to Egypt. You seem to be on a mission to present the worst impression of Egypt to the rest of the world. All this is simply by way of a preface to your November 2018 article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled Al-Sisi builds a Green Zone for Egypt in which you go out of your way to find fault in Egypts New Administrative Capital. For you, the New Capital is where Al-Sisi will rule indefinitely behind a security cordon, with the echoing emptiness of the Capital symbolising that Egyptian citizens have no place in Al-Sisis vision. Your insinuations are delusional. President Al-Sisi cannot remain Egypts president forever as you well know, and your view that Egypts citizens are being disregarded in the larger scheme of things is simply bizarre. When two million Egyptians have been cured of the Hepatitis C virus in just two years as a result of government action, is it really the case that citizens have no place in Al-Sisis vision? When a massive road network has been built to connect dozens of new cities where millions of Egyptians will move from congested ones, and when thousands of new apartment buildings have been erected to replace dilapidated ones, do citizens have no place in Al-Sisis vision? Your idea that the New Administrative Capital will be a controlled-access zone separating citizens from the state is laughable, since anyone will be able to buy property and live there, and every government employee will have access to the New Capital. In a flashback to earlier times, you have applauded the way demonstrators burned down the National Democratic Partys (NDP) headquarters in Cairo and ransacked the state security offices after the 25 January Revolution, until Al-Sisi brought the whole democratic experiment to a crashing halt with a military coup on 3 July 2013. Ill sidetrack for a moment, Ms Dunne. Are you enjoying the anarchy that is now engulfing France? Are you encouraging that mayhem? Well, Egyptians werent proud of similar sights in Egypt either, and they breathed a deep sigh of relief when Fridays became holidays again and when they could walk safely in the streets without encountering chaos. You say that Al-Sisi has incarcerated 60,000 political prisoners from across the ideological spectrum. If you had mentioned that the majority of those imprisoned are members of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation that initiates most of the terrorism in Egypt today, you would have sounded more authentic. You say that those who remain in the country have chosen to keep their heads and voices down. Just a note Egyptians dont keep their heads down. They stand up straight, and they hold their heads up high. Sounding almost disappointed, you say that the Egyptian army has stopped fighting regional wars. This is a good thing, by the way. Then you continue by saying that Al-Sisi is reorienting Egypts economy to serve the interests of the army. This sounds as if the army is the sole winner in these endeavours, when in fact the current mega-projects, whether carried out by the army or private business, are for the benefit of all Egyptians. You also fault building a new Coptic Cathedral in the New Capital. Why? Because Copts will be compelled to troop out to the New Capital, and it will become a target for terrorists. Who is Doug Heyl?Members of a special legislative committee looking into the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would like to know. Heyl is a top communications official in the state Department of Environmental Quality.But what role did Heyl play in the pipeline permitting process?Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, flashed a PowerPoint presentation during a meeting of the subcommittee Nov. 14. Slide No. 7 got people's attention. It posed a simple question: Who is Doug?Newton referred to a document, from the ACP permit file, showing handwritten meeting notes from Jan. 4: "give HO report to Linda on Monday. Bridget will talk w/Doug about news release of decision." HO refers to hearing officer Brian Wrenn. "Bridget" is Bridget Munger, DEQ public information and communications specialist."Doug" is Doug Heyl.Gov. Roy Cooper announced the mitigation fund - and DEQ announced the pipeline's approval - roughly three weeks after the Jan. 4 meeting.Carolina Journal has learned Heyl, 56, spent about 30 years as a Georgia-based political consultant for Democrats before taking a full-time job Oct. 16, 2017, as a DEQ deputy secretary.CJ asked DEQ: Who is Doug Heyl, and what's his role in the ACP?DEQ spokeswoman Megan Thorpe told CJ.We asked to speak with Heyl but were told he was busy and unavailable.Heyl's experience in state government - in state communications, particularly - is nebulous. CJ failed to find a profile page from Heyl on LinkedIn, a social media networking site ubiquitous among professionals and influencers. He has a Facebook page, but we found little about him on Twitter.A state employee database lists Heyl as a deputy secretary in the DEQ, Newton noted. But Heyl isn't listed on the DEQ website as a member of the leadership team or the communications office . Mysteries surrounding Heyl and the enigmatic nature of his employment raises the question of whether the DEQ role is nothing more than a warm place for Heyl to land before leaving to help Gov. Roy Cooper win re-election.Newton said.On Oct. 15, Heyl's position with the DEQ was reclassified from non-permanent to permanent.Heyl lived in Stockbridge, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, and did business under the name of Scout Communications and All Points Communications. He was also affiliated with the Washington, D.C.-based Columbia Campaign Group. In August, nearly a year after he was hired at DEQ, he sold his Georgia home and bought a home in Garner.CJ asked DEQ what led to his employment with the state.Thorpe told us.The broader goal of the investigatory subcommittee is determining whether state approval of the North Carolina segment depended on Cooper's administration securing a $57.8 million discretionary "mitigation" fund with the pipeline operators. Cooper's office negotiated the fund and was established through a Memorandum of Understanding.The state announced the pipeline fund in January. Soon after the announcement, Republican leaders cried foul. They said it appeared to be part of a "pay to play" scheme tied to the environmental permit ACP hoped to obtain from the governor's administration.Republican leaders said the deal was illegal. The N.C. Constitution gives the legislative branch the sole power to collect and appropriate money.Cooper's chief of staff, Kristi Jones, has told legislators theLawmakers have sought answers from Cooper about the arrangement, but they haven't been satisfied with the responses. Cooper and his office, as is usual, has failed to respond to questions from CJ.The ACP is an underground natural gas transmission pipeline originating in West Virginia, traveling through Virginia, and ending in Robeson County. The project is a partnership among Richmond, Virginia-based Dominion Energy; Duke Energy; Piedmont Natural Gas; and Southern Company Gas. Gas from the ACP will supplement existing gas resources and fuel new electricity generation plants.Dominion announced Friday it was temporarily suspending construction of the entire pipeline. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked for the stoppage after finding potential environmental problems not covered by earlier federal permits. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay, and Dominion voluntarily stopped work, the company said, until it gets more clarity from the court.The money from the MOU funds originally was designated to mitigating all damage caused by the pipeline, economic development opportunities, and developing renewable energy projects.Lawmakers stepped in.In February, the General Assembly voted to direct the $57.8 million to the school systems in the eight counties along the ACP route. So far, North Carolina has seen none of that money.Cooper's office said the legislative action was politically motivated.Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said.On Nov. 14, the subcommittee voted to hire a special outside investigator to get answers from Cooper's office and the DEQ. The ACP committee is scheduled to meet 1 p.m. Wednesday.Whether the committee will return to Heyl isn't known. But the questions about him remain.In 1988, Heyl worked for Missouri U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, who lost in that year's Democratic presidential primary.Heyl joined Bill Clinton's campaign for president in 1991 and eventually became the Southern political director. In 1994, Heyl served as executive director of the Tennessee Democratic Party. Heyl managed James McGreevey's 1997 campaign for governor of New Jersey. In 1998, Heyl was campaign manager for Florida Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay in his race against Jeb Bush for governor. In 2000, Heyl worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.In 2001, Heyl managed Glenn Cunningham's campaign for mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey. Heyl managed Mark Taylor's 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor of Georgia, and in 2014 he managed Greg Hecht's campaign for Georgia attorney general.Heyl worked for North Carolina candidates, too.He was campaign manager for Charlie Sanders' 1996 democratic primary campaign for the U.S. Senate. Sanders lost to Harvey Gantt. Heyl was a consultant for John Arrowood's 2008 campaign for the N.C. Court of Appeals and June Atkinson's 2012 campaign for superintendent of public instruction.Will Heyl leave DEQ to help Cooper as he begins his re-election campaign?Thorpe said. Correspondents seemed oddly fixated on his sweat. Politico swooned, "Sweat pours off his lean, 6-foot-4-inch frame." In Vanity Fair, Peter Hamby described him "sweating through a button-down shirt at one of his jam-packed town halls." The BBC wrote, "His toes are well over the edge of the boards" of the stage "and his suede shoes are soaking up dark splashes of sweat from his brow.".... Reading through all of these profiles as they emphasize the same points over and over again - He was in a punk-rock band! He skateboards! He's handsome! He's Kennedyesque! He speaks fluent Spanish! - one keeps waiting for the section that describes what makes O'Rourke actually unique among Democratic candidates. And that section never arrives. There is no hardscrabble climb out of poverty, no tale of military heroism, no running into a burning building to save orphans, not even an occasion of helping get an old lady's cat out of a tree. On Tuesday, NBC News reported that a straw poll of MoveOn.org members - grassroots far-Leftists - favored failed Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke over Joe Biden. Some 29 percent of respondents said they didn't know who they wanted or wanted candidates not listed, but Rourke seized a narrow lead with 15.6 percent of respondents, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden at 14.9 percent and Senator Bernie Sanders at 13.1 percent.That's certainly a troubling sign for Sanders, who wants to recapitulate his 2016 run by recapturing the hearts of the so-called Bernie Bros. But it now looks like the Bernie Bros may have been wooed by the charismatic Texas representative, and may be turning away from the crotchety old Vermont socialist. What's more, O'Rourke has crossover power with the two other segments of the Democratic base: the intersectional coalition that Barack Obama captured so easily in 2008, and the mainstream base that Sanders could never consolidate against Hillary Clinton.In his Texas race, O'Rourke made intersectional concerns a priority; he campaigned heavily on the idea that police across the nation are institutionally racist.This comment is odd, on its face - should we be releasing criminals based on the color of their skin? - but it's par for the course in the intersectional race to the bottom for the Democrats.O'Rourke has also fulfilled the far-Left fantasies of a politician who will pledge to abolish ICE, ban AR-15s, and push the Leftist fantasy of single payer healthcare. He's called for impeachment of President Trump as well.But he's kept his connections with the mainstream: he was never a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, instead joining the New Democrat Coalition,according to social democratic columnist Elizabeth Bruenig . He's also been rather mild on climate change issues, at least for the radical Left.The media coverage received by O'Rourke in his race against the Left's most hated senator, Ted Cruz, was adulatory in the extreme. As Jim Geraghty noted at National Review:And apparently O'Rourke's serious DUI on his 26th birthday is no barrier to entry for Democrats complaining about the rampant immorality of President Trump.All of which means that O'Rourke is formidable. And more importantly, it means that Bernie Sanders may be done - thanks, ironically, to his success in getting the Democratic Party to swallow his mantras and then digest them. Sanders is no longer radical, standing outside the party. He's in the mainstream of the party, and there are more attractive candidates in the mainstream than a near-octogenarian with a penchant for wild misstatements. Once again lawmakers would require a primary if the state elections board calls for a new election in the 9th Congressional District after they scrapped the provision yesterday during a committee meeting.Wednesday, the House and Senate approved House Bill 1029 , a conference report which not only would restore the Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to its 2016 makeup, but also would require a new filing period and a primary if the State Board of Elections ordered a re-do in the 9th District.The House voted 82-17 and the Senate 34-3 to approve the conference report. The bill goes to the governor for his signature.Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett said during House debate on HB 1029.During a 2016 lame-duck session, Republican lawmakers approved a bill merging the elections and ethics board into one bipartisan board and stripped the governor's ability to appoint a majority. Cooper sued, arguing the changes violated his constitutional appointment powers. In a series of court cases, judges sided with the governor and ruled the board unconstitutional.The General Assembly placed a constitutional amendment on this fall's ballot to keep the merged board in place, but voters rejected it.The Superior Court panel overseeing the legal challenge to the state board has delayed dissolving it, giving lawmakers time to come up with a legislative fix.Legislators initially had until Dec. 12 to pass legislation, but the court agreed to extend the deadline to Dec. 28 because of the ongoing investigation into alleged absentee ballot irregularities in the 9th Congressional District.If H.B. 1029 becomes law, then the boards will split once again and the governor would regain his majority appointment power. The bill also increases county elections boards from four members to five, restores lobbying oversight to the Secretary of State's office, and adds restrictions on who can be appointed to elections boards.Rep. Darren Jackson, D-Wake, said.Jackson said the only part of the bill requiring immediate attention is the provision to mandate a primary if any new elections are deemed necessary.The primary requirement comes as the investigation into alleged absentee ballot irregularities in the 9th Congressional District continues. Findings from the investigation could warrant a new election, but under current state law, a special congressional election ordered by the state elections board must feature the candidates who ran earlier. In this case, Republican Mark Harris - whose campaign is the subject of the state board investigation - would appear on the ballot for a new election, as would Democrat Dan McCready and Libertarian Jeff Scott.However, lawmakers are now requiring a new primary if a new election is called for in the 9th Congressional District. If there is a new primary, then there would be a new filling period with all five political parties - Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution - able to participate.Allowing time for candidate filing, ballot printing, absentee voting, primaries, and a general election, it's likely the 9th District winner would not be seated until late spring or early summer. On Wednesday, President Trump's case against an indictment on the basis of campaign finance violations became much more difficult. Michael Cohen, the president's personal attorney for years including the 2016 campaign, was sentenced to three years in prison - and his sentencing included an open acknowledgment by Cohen that he had directed hush payments to former Trump paramour Stormy Daniels with an eye toward affecting the 2016 election.Judge William H. Pauley III said Cohen had committed a bevy of crimes with an eye toward deception. Cohen, for his part, threw himself on the mercy of the court , stating,More damaging than Cohen's open-court mea culpa, though, was the prosecution's announcement that they had reached a non-prosecution agreement with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer - the entity Cohen attempted to use to silence Karen McDougal. AMI would purchase the stories of Trump's lovers and then bury them at Trump's behest; Cohen would then attempt to reimburse AMI, so the allegations go. According to prosecutors,This evidence could be used to make the case that Cohen's payment to Daniels was indeed an unreported campaign expenditure; Trump was allegedly attempting to clean up his messes just before the election. While Cohen didn't use AMI to silence Daniels, representatives of AMI were the first to notify Cohen of Daniels' intent to go public, according to prosecutors. All of this undercuts the case Trump could make that he paid hush money on a regular basis outside of election circumstances. Trump will now have to claim that both AMI and Cohen are lying about such expenditures representing illegal campaign allocations, and that they've caved to the pressure of rogue prosecutors. Alternatively, Trump will have to disclaim knowledge of a campaign finance violation and blame Cohen for such violations - although Cohen will presumably testify that Trump instructed him to violate campaign law specifically.None of this bodes well for Trump. Trump cannot be prosecuted as president; the Justice Department suggests that doing so would violate the Constitution. But that doesn't mean that a looming indictment wouldn't change the math in 2020 for his re-election, or that Democrats wouldn't use that looming indictment as the basis for impeachment. CW ANZ - December 2018: Rise to cloud and data management challenges Use of cloud services is soaring in Australia, but a lack of cloud management skills is holding back enterprises from reaping the full benefits of the technology. In this edition of CW ANZ, we look at how enterprises in ANZ are approaching data management in the cloud, and some of the best practices that they can adopt to address cloud related challenges. Also in this issue: Australias ANZ banks on Google Cloud The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has signed up for the Google Cloud Platform to help its bankers to deliver data insights to their institutional customers VMware debuts VMware Cloud on AWS in Australia, with tempting deals on price As virtualisation juggernaut VMware rolls out its hybrid cloud service in Australia, it halves the entry price and offers hosting discounts to sweeten the deal for enterprises Apple challenges Australias proposed decryption law as a risk to security Tech giant says lack of judicial oversight could reduce customer trust and security Hungary's far-right, xenophobic government rose to power by exploiting racism and economic anxiety, just like Trump and just like Trump, they've pursued an agenda that uses performative racist cruelty to distract people while they enact policies that make the rich much richer, at everyone else's expense. The latest of these policies is the so-called "slave labour law," which allows employers to force workers to work up to 400 hours of overtime per year, and to defer payment for this overtime by three years. Police gassed protesters outside the parliament where this bill was being voted on, but even so, the speaker of the house wasn't able to reach the podium and had to call the vote from the floor. The Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban won the vote, and the slave labour law is proceeding, as is another measure to replace the courts with "administrative judges," appointed by the president's justice minister, and operating without judicial oversight, for many proceedings. In Hungary, the law previously allowed for companies to demand a maximum of 250 hours of overtime in a given year. But for someone who works eight-hour days, the new amount of 400 hours is the equivalent of an hour of extra labour every day, an extra day's work every week, or 50 extra days each year. Mr Orban's government, however, argues that the labour reform will benefit workers as well as companies who need to fill a labour shortage. "We have to remove bureaucratic rules so that those who want to work and earn more can do so," he said on Tuesday before the bill passed. Neither the country's trade unions nor the political opposition agree. Hungary 'slave labour' law sparks protest [BBC] 1000 maybe 2000 young angry protesters at parliament, tense, note similar standoffs in recent years have all ended w police restraint & protesters eventually give up, let's see pic.twitter.com/DG7gIlnP75 Peter Murphy (@MurphyPeterN) December 12, 2018 News / Local by APO Distributed by APO Group on behalf of U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe. HARARE - United States Ambassador Brian A. Nichols participated in a ceremony to launch a publication, documenting Ndebele traditional hut decoration in Matobo Hills. The U.S. embassy is leading efforts to preserve Zimbabwe's rich cultural heritage and supports preservation of Zimbabwean art as part of expanded engagement between the United States and Zimbabwe.In 2016, the State Department Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation awarded $42,000 to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe to document Ndebele traditional hut decoration, including a book on Ndebele art. The book documents the external and internal art, architecture, and decoration of Ndebele homes through schematic drawings and photographs. It highlights the significance of these forms in the context of culture, environment, and local Ndebele history.The book launch event was held at the Amagugu International Heritage Center in Matobo Hills, Matabeleland South (35 kilometers south of Bulawayo) where decorated residences are most prevalent. Amagugu International Heritage Center organizes a variety of cultural, educational and recreational programs.The Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation assists individuals and organizations to preserve museum collections, ancient and historic sites, and traditional forms of expression, and thereby helps reinforce cultural identity and community solidarity.Over the past decade, the United States has supported several projects to preserve Zimbabwe's rich cultural heritage, including the Great Zimbabwe National Monuments and the Great Zimbabwe Museum and the Naletale National Monument. News / Local by Agencies Enquiries about the initiative may be submitted to Nomagugu Nyathi on nomanyth@gmail.com. You may also contact 00263779851323 Children's right to play and the right to participate in public life are some of the overlooked human rights of our time. At a time when hard core political issues gain more attention from human rights activists, a Nketa 9, Bulawayo community-based organization, named Scotch- Scotch Bhaza is working to actualize play and inclusion as basic right. The initiative derives its name from a phrase often sung by children when playing outdoor games.On Saturdays, children in Nketa 9, are engaged in a series of sporting and play activities at their local community playground. The initiative attracts children of all abilities, including children with mental challenges.At the initiative's launch on 10 December 2018, the Councilor Mr. Mzamo Dube praised the initiative as character building. Senator Shoko and Member of Parliament, Mr. Phelela Masuku also attended in a show of support. The children played games and demonstrated that it was indeed possible for children with disabilities to play with their peers without disabilities."The model is simple and inexpensive, yet its impact is long lasting. When children with disabilities play together with their counterparts, a mindset shift happens and children begin to appreciate diversity. They also the respect the people around them and carry that in their adult lives." said the initiatives Programme Manager, Nomagugu Nyathi.Nyathi continued "We hope that our consistent presence at the community playground encourages our local government to gradually make the playground safer and inclusive.Among the supporters of the initiative are Chicken Inn who provided meals for participants at the launch and Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission whose attendance was much welcomed. In its early days the initiative leaned on the support of a fellow non-profit, Simphiwe Development Trust who offered encouragement and support. Most importantly to the running of the initiative have been the volunteer teachers who dedicate 2 to 3 hours to facilitate inclusive games; as well as the parents who have been forthcoming to the concept."Scotch-Scotch Bhaza is a community project offering a service and space to children for free. For us it is a matter of community development, education and child development. Through this project we have managed to give children who do not normally play; a chance to be included." said one of the volunteer educators. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on mines and energy Temba Mliswa has warned that his committee will be investigating the gold sector and there won't be any 'untouchables'.Said Mliswa, "For the purpose of national interest, my committee will be conducting an enquiry into the gold sector and there shall be no sacred cows. No one is going to remain unscathed if they are corrupt, be they politicians or private organisations."Mliswa further implored gold minors to desist from violence and murder telling them that no mineral is worth dying for."I implore the small scale miners to value lives and desist from killing each other as is the case at the moment, no mineral is worth loosing lives for. Live is scared and we need to hold it as such."Gold is one of the main drivers of Zimbabwe's shell-shocked economy, with artisanal and small-scale miners leading the charge. More than 1 million of Zimbabwe's roughly 16 million people are directly engaged in some form of mining work.Many artisanal and small-scale gold miners engage in improper and even dangerous mining practices that have damaged the environment and the health of those who live near the mining areas.Zimbabwe's government recently said that China has poured millions of dollars into the gold-mining industry, but it's nearly impossible to tell whether that money makes its way to miners. Despite the uncertainty, the lure of Chinese money has Zimbabweans unearthing increasingly more gold.Majority of gold claims in Matabeleland South and Midlands are alleged to be linked to ZANU PF heavyweights. News / National by Staff Reporter A ZIMBABWEAN journalist has been left hospitalised after he was assaulted by Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) members on Tuesday 12 December 2018 while carrying out his professional duties.ZRP members assaulted Panashe Makufa of Mail & Telegraph, an online newspaper, after arresting and detaining him together with Hubert Sithole aged 27 years as they conducted their professional duties in the capital city.Makufa aged 22 years sustained injuries on his body after he was assaulted by the truncheon wielding police officers.The journalists, who were detained at Harare Central Police Station for two hours, were released following the intervention of Kudzayi Kadzere of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who offered emergency legal support services to the media practitioners.The duo was released without charge but the ZRP members confiscated and smashed their camera and Kadzere is making frantic efforts to retrieve it. News / National by Staff reporter President Mnangagwa has ruled out the formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) with MDC-Alliance, saying the ruling Zanu-PF had won an overwhelming people's mandate in the July 30 harmonised elections.The President, who is also the ruling party's First Secretary, said this while opening the 110th Ordinary Session of the Central Committee at Zanu-PF Headquarters in Harare yesterday."After the announcement of the election results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Zanu-PF got a two thirds majority in Parliament which was two times more than what they (MDC-Alliance) got," he said."So when you hear them saying we want a GNU, you should ignore them. They are daydreaming. As Zanu-PF you should not even think that there would be a GNU. We don't have any plans for a GNU in our party as Zanu-PF," he said."They challenged the election results at the Constitutional Court (Concourt) and lost. They did not ask for the opening of the ballot boxes because they knew they would lose again. You now hear them making all sorts of noises, but you should not be bothered about that. That is what losers do," President Mnangagwa said."We should now concentrate on fulfilling the mandate we were given by the electorate in the next five years. We should build the economy and put politics aside."We are now seized as Zanu-PF with growing of the economy; with finding solutions to resolve all the economic challenges the country is facing as a result of sanctions which we are facing as a country."MDC-Alliance has been calling for the formation of an inclusive Government or what they call a "transitional authority" despite its electoral losses.Party leader Mr Nelson Chamisa pleaded for the formation of a GNU during a march by his party activists last month. MDC-Alliance has refused the acknowledge President Mnangagwa's victory, saying it was a result of fiddling with figures by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).The President on the other hand was prepared to work with Chamisa as leader of the official opposition from the beginning. The offer was met with insults, with MDC Alliance MPs refusing to honour the President in the National Assembly.Last week sections of the private media claimed President Mnangagwa and Chamisa were engaged in negotiations indirectly, an assertion dismissed as fiction by Vice President Kembo Mohadi this week. He said Zanu PF had won by a clear majority. In any case, he said, the focus was now on the economy, not political gamesmanship.Calls now by the opposition no longer have traction, with Sadc saying there was no need for a GNU since President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF's victory had been widely accepted. Meanwhile President Mnangagwa called for unity within the party saying all structures should implement agreed party programmes."As we work towards building the economy we should be united and implement programmes that we have agreed on. "All party organs should therefore understand where we are going and all the programmes that we have," President Mnangagwa said.Before addressing the Central Committee, the President addressed hundreds of party youths and thanked them for conducting themselves in a peaceful manner before and during the harmonised elections. He said the party and Government were now focused on economic revival to create jobs by attracting Foreign Direct Investment. News / National by newzimbabwe FORMER President Robert Mugabe and his family are expected to leave the country shortly for their annual break in the Far East, it has emerged.The government would, as ever, pick up the tab, our sources said this week.While in power, Mugabe hardly took his annual holidays at home, usually leaving Harare in December and returning in February before his birthday celebrations.Singapore - where he would also travel regularly for medical treatment - became a favourite bolt-hole after he was banned from Western capitals over allegations of rights abuses and electoral chicanery.And the city State remains a preferred foreign destination after Mugabe's forced and acrimonious 'retirement' last November.The veteran leader and his family are still being looked after by the successor administration of former protege Emmerson Mnangagwa, or so the latter claims. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu MDC Leader Nelson Chamisa has stated out that he is not interested in any Government of National Unity with ZANU PF leader Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa but is interested in a national dialogue only.In a frenzied twitter thread on Thursday Chamisa said, "We beg not for a government of National Unity. Our call is for dialogue on reforms and legitimacy. We don't know where Mnangagwa gets the this GNU idea. We must respect the will of the people who voted overwhelmingly for change on the 30th of July. We have a truly people's government."There is a difference between dialogue and GNU. The unfortunate thing is that Mnangagwa thinks everything is about power. Building a nation is much more than just love of power but the power of love."When asked whether he is willing to recognise President Mnangagwa as the legitimite leader of the country he said, "It is difficult to recognize a lie as the truth just to appease others. It is called deception wholly UnGodly and without integrity. Political banter is the menu of good politics. Maturity is in the age of utterances not just the age of he who utters them.""The secret to a great nation is vision, love and humility by its leadership. Arrogance is always ignorance disguised as invincibility. Weak leaders boast and divide. Strong leaders reach out to unify. Zimbabwe needs dialogue on reforms ,economy, legitimacy and nation building not GNU." Chamisa further said.On Wednesday President Mnangagwa ruled out the formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) with MDC , saying the ruling Zanu-PF had won an overwhelming people's mandate in the July 30 harmonised elections."After the announcement of the election results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Zanu-PF got a two thirds majority in Parliament which was two times more than what they (MDC) got," he said."So when you hear them saying we want a GNU, you should ignore them. They are daydreaming. As Zanu-PF you should not even think that there would be a GNU. We don't have any plans for a GNU in our party as Zanu-PF," he said. News / National by Staff reporter GOVERNMENT has begun deregistering over 130 000 cars for failure to comply with licensing requirements in the past two years.Initially, those with cars that had not been registered since 2016 had been given up to December 8, with a 50% discount on outstanding fees, according to Vehicle Inspectorate Department (VID) director Joseph Pedzapasi."We had given those with outstanding arrears up to December 8 to regularise their licensing issues with us, failure of which we would deregister all cars without requisite paperwork.That window has since been closed, and we are in the process of deregistration now," Pedzapasi, who however, could not provide figures and instead referred questions to Central Vehicle Registry (CVR) registrar George Makoni, said.Makoni said he was not allowed to talk to the Press."I would need permission from my bosses to talk to you.So please, write to them so they can make a formal request to me.Only then can I help you," he said.Sources at both CVR and VID said initially, over 150 000 vehicles had been flagged as failing to meet licensing requirements, but some people had since taken advantage of the discount offered during the window period announced by Transport minister Joel Biggie Matiza last month.The figure, according to Matiza, was as at July 31 this year."Thus far, only about 20 000 have come forward and taken advantage of the window period.Some 130 000 will have to be deregistered, and those who still want their cars registered will have to go through the rigorous process of proving that they, in deed, brought the said vehicles through the right channels, paid the requisite duty and that all other requirements have been met," NewsDay heard.To re-register the car, one has to pay outstanding arrears and penalties owed, including insurance and get clearance from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority that the vehicle was legally imported into the country.All cars would also have to be cleared by the Vehicle Theft Squad and the VID before they could ply the country's roads again.Matiza said government had the power to deregister defaulting vehicles."Section 12 of the said Act empowers the registrar of vehicles to cancel the registration of a vehicle if, according to his records, a registered vehicle has not been licensed or exempted for a period exceeding two years," Matiza said then.There has been a public outcry after enacting new regulations demanding payment of vehicle duty in foreign currency as part of new fiscal measures announced by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube last month. News / National by Staff reporter MDC deputy chairperson Tendai Biti yesterday accused a Zambian Deputy Police Commissioner of masterminding his abduction in Lusaka, although he was in possession of a High Court order granting his stay in that country.Through his lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, Biti said the Zambian police boss, who was not named, connived with some Zimbabwe security agents to abduct him when the High Court was expecting him to appear before it for asylum processing.Mtetwa, who was applying for alteration of her client's bail conditions, said the Zambian police deputy commissioner had also facilitated issuance of a handover certificate, which described Biti and his aides as "five items"."Your worship, the State now conceded that the accused was lawfully in Zambia.The police were called in Zambia to plot the abduction of Biti and that meeting was conducted by the Deputy Commissioner General of Police in Zambia.He had no powers to deport the accused person as the High Court had already ruled against the decision to deport him," Mtetwa said."The Deputy Police Commissioner even disguised the abduction and described the deportation of human beings as five items on the handover certificate.The persons cannot be described as items, your worship."The lawyer said charges against Biti were trumped-up since there was evidence of Zanu-PF legal secretary Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana and President Emmerson Mnangagwa making similar statements to the one Biti is being charged with, but no charges were made against them."The laws are being applied discriminately, Paul Mangwana said the same thing, but was not arrested.The President also said similarly, but was not arrested.The police must not be used to settle political differences because this is what politicians do, your worship,"Mtetwa said.Biti sought the release of his passport for him to seek medical attention outside Zimbabwe during this festive season.Mtetwa said the State would suffer no prejudice if they released the passport since the remand date had been moved to January 21, 2019."Many citizens look for medication outside our borders.Many high-profile people also seek medical attention outside our borders.Denying him his passport will be discriminatory.Denying him the passport because of his political participation will be contrary to his constitutional right."Mtetwa also wanted the court to scrap the restriction on addressing political gatherings and Press conferences.She said the conditions were a clear deliberate design to stop Biti from participating in politics.However, the State, represented by Tafadzwanashe Mpariwa, did not oppose the release of Biti's passport, but opposed the scrapping of conditions that restrict him from addressing political gatherings, saying the conditions would only be removed at the finalisation of the case.Magistrate Gloria Takundwa released Biti's passport and also returned his title deeds, but the condition on addressing political gatherings and Press conferences remains in effect. News / National by Staff reporter PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has a new regional headache after the South African Constitutional Court yesterday ordered President Cyril Ramaphosa to withdraw his signature from the 2014 Protocol, which replaced the Sadc Tribunal, a court whose rulings riled former President Robert Mugabe.The tribunal was the highest policy institution of the Sadc, responsible for interpretation of the Sadc Treaty and its subsidiary instruments, as well as adjudicates on disputes brought to it.This allowed several Zimbabweans to drag the Mugabe administration before the tribunal after failing to find justice back home, before it was replaced by the 2014 Protocol after making several unpopular rulings against the Zimbabwe government.White farmers, who lost their land to government under its often violent reform programme, led by Mike Campbell, won their case at the tribunal, which ruled that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe was unlawful.But Mugabe rejected the ruling and instead arm-twisted the regional bloc into dumping the tribunal and replacing it with the 2014 Protocol that was only restricted to inter-state disputes.But South Africa Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, in a scathing judgment delivered on Monday, said the country's former President Jacob Zuma's participation in the decisions to suspend the Sadc Tribunal in 2010 and his signature operationalising the 2014 Protocol, was "unlawful" and irrational.Mnangagwa, who took over after Mugabe was removed from power in a coup in November last year, before winning a five-year term following the July 30 election, has committed to compensating all farmers who lost their land.In his ruling, published by the South African Broadcasting Authority (SABC), Justice Mogoeng said the creation of the protocol had been designed to hamstring the tribunal, which was meant to protect the rights of citizens in the region."The President's signature of the 2014 Protocol on the Sadc Tribunal is unconstitutional, unlawful and irrational.The President is directed to withdraw his signature from the 2014 Protocol," Justice Mogoeng said.He said Zimbabwe had been behind the sinister plot to sink the Sadc Tribunal."every issue that arose for determination is, or is traceable to, an offshoot of a masterplan that was devised by the Summit at the instance of the Republic of Zimbabwe," Justice Mogoeng said.Former Commercial Farmers' Union president and spokesperson for the Sadc Tribunal Rights Watch, Ben Freeth said the ruling was a triumph for human rights in the region."This is a triumph for human rights and the rule of law.We are excited and believe this is a huge step towards re-establishment of the Sadc Tribunal, which is a court of last resort to more than 280 million citizens in the region," Freeth told NewsDay.Human rights lawyer Arnold Tsunga said under South African law, the judgment means the Sadc Tribunal remains in force."It means South Africa, for all intents and purposes, is not a member of the reconstituted (2014) Sadc Protocol Tribunal to the extent of the invalidity of Zuma's signature.This then raises significant challenges about the new Tribunal, which coincidentally is led by Zimbabwean judge Francis Bere as its president," Tsunga told NewsDay.Rightwing rights group AfriForum, which brought the application before the South African Constitutional Court on behalf of the farmers, said it would consult with a view to suing Cyril Ramaphosa's government.AfriForum pokesperson Kallie Kriel told South African broadcaster SABC that Zuma's actions had made Zimbabwe's southern neighbour an accomplice in the violation of the rights of its citizens.Early this year, South Africa's Pretoria High Court ruled that Zuma had acted ultra-vires the Constitution and because the finding involved a presidential action, it required ratification by the Constitutional Court. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu An official from Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (AACZ) has sensationally alleged that ZANU PF official Energy Mutodi was given US$500 000 by the members of the Korean cult leader Hak Ja Han Moon as a facilitation fee for them to meet President Mnangagwa and ZANU PF National Chairperson Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri.The allegations come after President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday told ZANU PF Central Committee that an official in his party charged a potential investor five million Rand to connect them to meet him."They say before I take you, pay up. One person told me that he was charged 5 million rand to come see me. He was told that three quarters of the money would go to the president (and the other quarter to the fixer),"Mnangagwa said. "So corruption, corruption, corruption, down with corruption. Being asked to pay to see (Defence minister Oppah) Muchinguri, down with corruption.""When Madam Moon's people came to the country from Korea 3 months before her arrival, they were told very clearly that for her delegation to meet President Mnangagwa and Madam Oppah they have to part with $500 000. This money they were told was a standard facilitation fee that any investor who wants to meet Senior leadership in the country must pay to the person facilitating." The official said."There was a bit of misunderstanding initially between us from AACZ and Cde Mutodi who was at the fore fronting of charging this fee because these Koreans were primarily our hosts. At the end we had to give in and the money exchanged hands. What I am not sure of is whether the money was paid in Rand or in Dollars but sure the money exchanged hands. Hence you saw Madam Moon being introduced to Cde Oppah. The President was also supposed to have a public dinner at Meikles with Madam Moon because that was part of the deal from the facilitator but the dinner was cancelled at the eleventh hour."President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been engaged in an anti-corruption crusade that has seen a number of political bigwigs being arrested or convicted. News / National by Staff reporter Junior doctors who had withdrawn their services have agreed to consult with their constituencies regarding the offers that have been made, following an urgent meeting held today (Thursday) with the Apex Council.After the bipartite negotiating panel which failed to reach a consensus, the Ministry of Health and Child Care convened an urgent meeting attended by members of the Apex Council, Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, representatives from the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA) and ministry officials.Following intensive deliberations, the parties agreed that some of the grievances raised by the junior doctors are genuine and must be addressed.Fuel arrangements are now in place at most health institutions, medicine supplies are expected to start improving while the remaining $6 million from the $10 million car loan facility is available and the doctors will be accessing the loans soon.The doctors then requested time to consult their constituencies regarding the offers put on the table.ZIMA secretary general Dr Sacrifice Chirisa expressed optimism the consultations by junior doctors will yield positive results.Expectations are that after today's meeting the junior doctors will call off the strike.Health workers apex council team leader Mr Panganai Chivese said issues raised by junior doctors are not unique as they reflect the same concerns being raised by other health professionals and efforts are being made to ensure that they are addressed.The government indicated earlier that demands for payment in US dollars were remote as it is prioritising the procurement of medicines and fuel with the scarce currency at its disposal. News / National by Staff reporter A man in his early 40s was found dead in Glen Norah A suburb in Harare in the early hours of this Thursday with his private parts missing.The body of the man, was found lying along Bindura road in Glen Norah A, approximately 200 meters away from his house, with all his particulars, including wallet and cellphone on him.When the ZBC News crew arrived at the scene the Zimbabwe Republic Police were already in the process of carrying the body to Harare Hospital Mortuary.Contacted for comment, ZRP spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed the incident saying investigations are already underway.It is suspected that the man could have been murdered elsewhere and his body later dumped along the road.Of late, there has been an increase in the number of murder cases. News / National by Staff reporter A DARING illegal diamond miner who did the unthinkable by stealing a cell phone worth $800 from a nurse who had treated his injured leg has been convicted of theft on his own plea of guilty.Thomas Chigora (22), of Farikai Village under Chief Marange, was convicted on his own plea of guilty when he appeared before Mutare magistrate Ms Perseverance Makala, last Thursday.He was remanded to today (Friday) for sentencing.Miss Perseverance Musukuto prosecuted.Allegations were that on November 27, 2018, Chigora was at ZCDC Clinic in Chiadzwa for wound treatment on his left leg.Sakile Ndlovu attended to him.After attending to Chigora, Ndlovu went outside to call a security guard to help chuck him out after he had been unmasked as an illegal diamond miner at the mine.While Ndlovu was outside, Chigora took a Samsung cellphone and sneaked out of the room.Chigora handed the phone to Admire Gomba and told him that the mobile gadget was his.He promised to collect it after being cleared by the security guards that had arrested him for alleged illegal diamond mining activities at the mine.When Ndlovu failed to locate her phone, she alerted the security guards and a search was conducted.The phone was then found in the possession of Gomba.Gomba told the guards that the cell phone belonged to Chigora.The value of the stolen phone was $800 and it was recovered. News / National by Staff reporter THE trial of former Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko's son, Siqokoqela, has been postponed to January 21 next year.He is being accused of hijacking the Choppies retail business and "looting" more than $50 000 worth of cash and goods from the outlets countrywide without board approval.Siqokoqela (40), who is facing 170 counts of fraud and theft, appeared before Bulawayo regional magistrate Mr Trynos Utawashe yesterday and was further remanded in custody pending trial.The trial dates have been set as 21 January to 24 January 2019.Siqokoqela was clad in prison garb and also in leg irons when he appeared in court yesterday.He had his bail revoked by Ms Gladmore Mushove last week for violating bail conditions by harassing State witnesses.Siqokoqela, a director of Nanavac Pvt Ltd, a partner to the Botswana-registered Choppies Distribution Centre (Proprietary) Limited, had been granted $200 bail on his initial court appearance before Bulawayo magistrate Nyaradzo Ringisai.As part of the bail conditions, Siqokoqela of Hillside suburb in Bulawayo was supposed to reside at his given address and not interfere with State witnesses.He, however, violated his bail conditions when he interfered with State witnesses and threatened to get some of the witnesses who are of Indian origin deported.Siqokoqela has since filed an application at the High Court challenging the revocation of his bail.He is accused of abusing his power to "loot" cash realised from sales at different supermarkets and replacing it with transfers.Prosecuting, Mr Jethro Mada said between July 2017 and June this year, Siqokoqela proceeded to various Choppies supermarkets where he allegedly demanded varying amounts of cash, goods and services for various purposes from the employees without approval from the board."The accused person deceived the employees into believing that he was the one at the helm of Choppies Zimbabwe and had authority to demand or collect anything he wanted from the business. He also told the employees that he had the authority to collect goods on a credit facility," he said.It is alleged that on different occasions, Siqokoqela collected cash, groceries and an assortment of building material and ordered personnel from the finance department not to deduct the money from his salary."There were occasions when he also misrepresented that he intended to replace the money through swiping from Point of Sale (POS) machines," said Mr Mada.Siqokoqela, by virtue of being a non-executive director, was entitled to a monthly gross salary of $10 000, company vehicle, fuel, telephone allowance and 3,53 percent of profit after tax as dividend at the end of each year.Although he was not supposed to be directly involved in the day to day operations of the company, Siqokoqela allegedly masqueraded as the owner of the company in Zimbabwe and even threatened to either dismiss or deport employees of Indian origin for defying his orders.The matter came to light in May 2018 when the Botswana based Choppies group chief executive officer, Mr Ottapathu Ramachandran, discovered that there were a series of financial anomalies while going through the company management accounting books.It was discovered that the company was prejudiced of $51 945,53.The matter was reported to the police and investigations were conducted leading to Siqokoqela's arrest and nothing was recovered. News / National by Staff reporter A BULAWAYO magistrate has dismissed a woman's claim for maintenance after her estranged husband said he is playing his role as a father to their minor child.Ms Vonai Waguta was claiming $210 as child upkeep for the couple's one year old child from Mr Jabulani Mawarire but she did not say why she was claiming the money.The magistrate Ms Ulukile Mlea asked Mr Mawarire how much he was offering for his child.Mr Mawarire said he could not offer anything as he was providing everything for his child."I admit that we separated with Ms Waguta but I buy formula for the child, I pay her rentals, I'm doing everything for her and the baby. I don't know why she has brought me here," said Mr Mawarire on Wednesday.When Ms Waguta was asked by the magistrate to respond to what her estranged husband had said, she said he was providing for child."I admit he is doing everything that he mentioned but l still need money for child upkeep," she said.Ms Mlea dismissed Ms Waguta's claim for child upkeep saying her estranged husband is taking care of the baby."Mr Mawarire has not neglected his duties to provide for the minor child as confirmed by Ms Waguta, therefore application for maintenance is dismissed," said the magistrate. News / National by Staff reporter Zimbabweans living abroad, including failed asylum seekers, are free to return home and help rebuild the country after years of ruinous Western sanctions. This was said by Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Mr Nick Mangwana in a statement yesterday, in response to a United Kindgom newspaper article claiming that British and Zimbabwean governments wanted to forcibly repatriate failed asylum seekers in that country.The article, published by The Independent newspaper, suggested that 2 500 failed asylum seekers who faced persecution back home, had been handed over to the Zimbabwean consulate in London for questioning.However, Mr Mangwana said Harare welcomed back its sons and daughters regardless of the circumstances under which they had left the country to settle in a foreign country."Zimbabweans from all over the world are voluntarily returning to their country. There is no single returnee that has been persecuted regardless of the circumstances of their departure. Those who have failed to meet immigration requirements in their countries of sojourn are welcome home and their safety is guaranteed," said Mr Mangwana.He clarified that Zimbabwean consular services were assisting compatriots with relevant documentation, failing which would render the emigres stateless in terms of international law."The Government does not encourage any Zimbabwean to be undocumented. Therefore, when required it facilitates appropriate documents for its citizens using its consular staff in different countries. This is in order to fulfil its constitutional responsibility that no Zimbabwean should be deemed stateless," explained Mr Mangwana."It is common consular procedure and practice that those immigrants without proper identification or documentation and alleged to be Zimbabweans by the host country be interviewed by consular officers from the embassy to establish whether indeed they are who they are purported to be, in this case whether indeed they are bona fide Zimbabweans. This is a standard consular procedure to avoid countries admitting foreign nationals into their jurisdictions in error."Mr Mangwana dismissed allegations that there was persecution of opposition supporters, saying Zimbabwe under the new dispensation had opened up the political and democratic space while upholding human rights in terms of the country's Constitution and the Universal Bill of Rights."There are no political persecutions in Zimbabwe, neither are there any political prisoners and Zimbabweans who have lived abroad for many years are returning every day and living happily and contributing to the country's development towards Vision 2030," he said.The Independent said in the article it had learnt that at least seven Zimbabwewan nationals, some of whom had lived in the UK for more than a decade, had last week been ordered to attend meetings at a Home Office building in the city of Sheffield "where they were asked 'distressing' questions by an embassy official from their country".The paper claimed the process was taking place in other parts of the UK. News / National by Staff reporter PRESIDENT Mnangagwa arrived here yesterday ahead of the official opening of the 17th Zanu-PF Annual National People's Conference in Esigodini, Matabeleland South Province, today. First to arrive at Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport was Vice President Constantino Chiwenga and his wife Mrs Mary Chiwenga.They were joined by Ministers of State for Bulawayo and Matabeleland South Provincial Affairs Cdes Judith Ncube and Abednico Ncube respectively, service chiefs, Members of Parliament and other senior party officials to receive President Mnangagwa and First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa who arrived about 30 minutes later.The President, who will officially open the conference today and the First Lady, were accompanied by Zanu-PF national chairperson Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri.Muchinguri-Kashiri said the conference was critical for introspection and mapping the way forward for the country's economic recovery."We're excited to be in Matabeleland South during this time of the year after an eventful year. It's important that we're meeting to introspect, share ideas, look at our strengths and our weaknesses and come up with resolutions as well as plans for the next four years," said Muchinguri-Kashiri."We had our primary elections where people were shaken a bit and this is the time to forget the past and strengthen the party as well as celebrate our victory in the harmonised elections," she said.Muchinguri-Kashiri said the party continues to have a clear message to the people; to remain united as the country re-engages with the outside world in the drive to improve the country's economy."This forum is expected to address a number of issues, which include corruption, economic development, creating jobs for our youths and our women. We're introspecting. Where we've failed, we will correct and chart the way forward," she said."It's critical for us to review and re-evaluate the wok that we've done as the ruling party. The people of Zimbabwe are expecting positive results from the party and we're promising not to let them down."Muchinguri-Kashiri said since the conference was being held during the agricultural season, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Climate and Rural Resettlement would give reports on where the country stands in regards to the sector.Meanwhile, delegates yesterday began trooping to the conference venue Mzingwane High School from the country's 10 provinces, singing and chanting party slogans.Several party bigwigs and security teams were also at the venue winding up preparations ahead of the indaba's official opening today.Exhibitors yesterday said they were anticipating brisk business while President Mnangagwa is expected to tour the exhibition stands today.Zanu-PF caps, straw hats, key holders, jerseys inscribed ED-PFee, among other party regalia, are available for sale at the conference. News / National by Staff reporter While President Emmerson Mnangagwa this week ruled out and a power-sharing arrangement with the MDC Alliance, saying Zanu-PF has won a two-thirds majority in the July general elections, it has emerged that dialogue is unfolding behind the scenes, facilitated by prominent for Kenyan chief justice Willy Mutunga.More to follow.... News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Choppies workers and some members of the Mthwakazi liberation movement on Thursday in a demonstration in Bulawayo calling for the immediate release of the jailed Director Siqokoqela Mphoko.The placard waving demonstrators denounced the Botswana based Choppies Enterprise CEO Ramachandran Ottapathu describing as a fraudster who must be arrested.Siqokoqela Mphoko had his bail revoked after the court officials alleged he flouted bail conditions.Siqokoqela faces up to 170 counts of fraud and theft following accusations that he looted $80 000 worth of cash and goods from Choppies Supermarkets.Siqokoqela (40), who is director of Nanavac (Private) Limited, a partner to the Botswana-registered Choppies Distribution Centre (Proprietary) Limited, had been granted $200 bail on his initial court appearance before Bulawayo magistrate Nyaradzo Ringisayi.The Mphokos are engaged in an ownership dispute over Choppies Supermarket chain with their Botswana business partners.Botswana-based Choppies group chief executive officer Ottapathu Ramachandran took the Mphokos to court, seeking to bar them from interfering with the firm's day-to-day operations. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The Secretary General of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe Raymond Majongwe has announced that countrywide marches to protest against the school uniforms being sold in United States Dollars will be held on the 18th of December.The organisation has since written to all stakeholders including the Zimbabwe Republic Police notifying them of the intended march.The march is directed at all shops who are selling school uniforms where the marchers will deliver petition letters to them.Recently Majongwe announced that, "Several parents have approached us indicating the prices being charged are unacceptable. Uniforms are being sold in US Dollars when workers are being paid RTGS salaries."Parents in Harare have raised concern over some uniform outlets which are only selling full sets of uniforms for as much as $3000 for specific schools. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) in conjunction with the Universla Peace Federation would like to make it clear that it never paid anyone anything to have access to His Excellency The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Reports that the Deputy Minister of Information Publicity and Broadcasting Services demanded a bribe to allow our officials to meet the President are false. Our regional Group Chairman has previously on couple of occasions met His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa.before meeting Hon. Mutodi without the need to buy favours. Reports that the Deputy Minister of Information Publicity and Broadcasting Services demanded a bribe to allow our officials to meet the President are false. Our regional Group Chairman has previously on couple of occasions met His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa.before meeting Hon. Mutodi without the need to buy favours. Anybody interested in the truth can have access to the veracity of this information including visuals. The Deputy Minister of Media, information and Broadcasting Services Energy Mutodi has refuted allegations that he was paid $500 000 as a 'facilitation fee' for members of Korean based cult Universal Peace Federation to meet President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Defense Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri.Said Mutodi, "There have been some attempts to scandalise the office of the Deputy Minister of Information Publicity and Broadcasting Services by some desperate enemies of Dr Hak Ja Han Moon. Both the FFWPU and UPF have issued a joint statement saying they did not pay a dime to see President ED Mnangagwa."The Joint Statement Issued said:The allegations against Mutodi came after President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday told ZANU PF Central Committee that an official in his party charged a potential investor five million Rand to connect them to meet him."They say before I take you, pay up. One person told me that he was charged 5 million rand to come see me. He was told that three quarters of the money would go to the president (and the other quarter to the fixer),"Mnangagwa said. "So corruption, corruption, corruption, down with corruption. Being asked to pay to see (Defence minister Oppah) Muchinguri, down with corruption." News / National by ZimLive Vice President Kembo Mohadi was curiously absent when President Emmerson Mnangagwa landed in Bulawayo on Thursday - triggering fresh speculation about his health.Mohadi's Matabeleland South Province is hosting the annual Zanu-PF conference in Esigodini, and as the most senior official in the province, the former Beitbridge East MP was expected to receive Mnangagwa at the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport.Instead, it was Vice President Constantino Chiwenga who welcomed Mnangagwa to Bulawayo when he landed some 20 minutes ahead of his appointed time of landing.The ailing Mohadi, 69, spent over a month in South Africa after suffering leg injuries when a bomb exploded during a Zanu-PF rally at White City Stadium in Bulawayo on June 23 this year.Nick Mangwana, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, said he had no information on Mohadi's whereabouts but promised to check with his office. He had not responded to our enquiry by the time of publication.The annual Zanu-PF conference is taking place at Mzingwane High School in Esigodini.Mohadi, as the most senior Zanu-PF leader in the host province, is expected to take centre stage."It's his moment in the sun, which makes it highly unusual that he would fail to welcome Mnangagwa at the airport," a senior Zanu-PF official told ZimLive.The Zanu-PF conference began with a Zanu-PF politburo meeting in Harare on December 11, which Mohadi attended, followed by a central committee meeting on December 12 at the party's headquarters. Opinion / Columnist Soon after the Constitutional Court ruled that Emmerson Mnangagwa had legitimately won the presidential election, throwing out the MDC's case, the president put out a Facebook post calling for unity. The post included one particularly important line "Nelson Chamisa, my door is open and my arms are outstretched, we are one nation, and we must put our nation first."This was a clear message from ED that dialogue will always be welcome, provided its goal is to put Zimbabwe first.I mention this post as this issue has returned to the news over the past few days, following EDs recent comments that there is no chance of a government of national unity, which some have seized on to argue that ED is turning his back on his offer of dialogue.However, this argument is historical revisionism, pure and simple. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.ED's rejection of a GNU is based on the fact that he won the presidential election clearly by over 300,000 votes and that ZANU-PF won over two thirds of the seats in parliament. Therefore, a GNU (which is designed for cases in which the election result is unclear or particularly close) is clearly not relevant. ED won the right to govern this country.However, what he has not done is turn his back on dialogue. The president has been consistent in his offer of dialogue and engagement with the opposition, and he has proved himself to be open to talk to anyone for the good of the country, without preconditions.Despite what some of the loudest and most outspoken MDC supporters would have us believe, the real barrier to a productive national dialogue is Nelson Chamisa.For it is Chamisa who never answered ED's offer and knocked on his open door. It is Chamisa who has placed a list of impossible conditions on dialogue, which he knows will never be answered. And it is Chamisa who has refused to accept the authority of the president, despite the people, the courts and the international community recognising the election result.At school, we were always taught to be good sportsmen and women. To be good winners AND to be good losers.ED won the election, and despite provocations and insults, has remained open to engagement with those he defeated. He has been a good winner.The same cannot be said of Chamisa, who has shown himself to be a sore loser, completely out of touch with the views of the silent majority of the public who simply want to move on.Whatever he might want us to believe, it is Chamisa who is the barrier to dialogue, and it is Chamisa who must change his stance if our leaders are to work together. To claim otherwise is to wilfully misrepresent the facts When asked about the history of Canadian taste, Toronto-based interior designer Philip Mitchell laughs before he speaks. Things were very beige here, for a very long time. But thats changing. Many would argue it already has changed. Toronto is a thriving international city, full of boutique hotels and destination restaurants. Scrolling through Instagram accounts of popular Canadian designers, one would be hard-pressed to say which side of the border theyre from (give or take a canoe or two). Canada is a cool, increasingly cosmopolitan country. Still, many American manufacturers dont maintain a strong presence there, which made it a slight surprise when New Jersey wallcovering institution Phillip Jeffries opened a local operation in Canada this year. The firms experience is a case study in the challenges and rewards that await companies looking to head north. Phillip Jeffries opened a local operation in Canada this year. Courtesy of Phillip Jeffries President and owner Philip Bershad told Business of Home that his decision to open a Canadian branch was motivated by a number of factors, ranging from the burgeoning design scene to the potential size of the market. The sheer goodwill he experienced when visiting designers in Toronto also played a role. We felt that there was a very vibrant design community there, its given us a warm embrace, and we wanted to be there to support it. Bershad is starting off small, opting for a team of traveling sales reps instead of a central showroom. But even without a brick-and-mortar location, the task is a serious undertaking. Everything from opening a bank account, customs, setting up a payroll in a different country, the list goes on and on. Its almost like starting a new business, he says. When we first went up to Toronto, we literally had no idea who our clients were. Difficulties like these help explain why so many American companies have historically relied on local showrooms to sell their wares in Canada. For those who brave the border crossing, the potential benefits are many. Bershad says cutting out the middleman has lowered Phillip Jeffries prices and cut down on shipping times. Just as importantly in an era of instant gratification, it allows the company to offer its new products without any time lag. Before, our new lines often wouldnt be available in Canada for three to six months after they were released in the states, says Bershad. Now, day one, its available in New York, Montreal and Toronto simultaneously. Going direct also gives companies a chance to make a stronger connection with an eager audience. Many Canadian designers told us that awareness of American products is rarely a problem, but accessibility can be a deciding factor. Its become such a global world, at a certain level you know about everything, says Brian Gluckstein, a Toronto-based designer with a line of home furnishings sold through Canadian department store chain Hudsons Bay. But being able to conveniently show clients the product in person makes it so much easier. Canadians are a little hesitant to show off, but they like to spend money on quality, and they get interested in the story behind the product. Meredith Heron And though Canadian designers can be fiercely proud of their homeland, many welcome American manufacturers with open arms. Theres not a lot of local competition for a company like Phillip Jeffries, says Toronto-based interior designer Meredith Heron. In general theres very little manufacturing for high-end design in Canada. We have some beautiful furniture makers, but textiles are lagging behind. She says the market is ripe for companies who approach a local audience with the right pitch. Canadians are a little hesitant to show off, but they like to spend money on quality, and they get interested in the story behind the product. Phillip Jeffries may be catching a wave of enthusiasm for high-end product in Canada, but its entering the market at a transitional moment in Torontos design community. For years, the citys showrooms have been centered around the Designers Walk, a multi-building design center in the upscale Annex/Yorkville neighborhood, but the rising cost of real estate has changed the equation. The neighborhood has been taken over by condo developments; the showrooms are scattering all over the city, says Gluckstein. You used to be able to do all of your shopping in one location, but now theres a lot of driving all over the city. Bilbrough & Co., a well-respected multi-line showroom that carries Schumacher, recently moved to Castlefield, a formerly industrial neighborhood that has become a secondary design hub. Kravet, too, has left the Designers Walk, opening up a stand-alone location in Castlefield, perhaps indicating a shifting center of gravity. This uncertainty affected Bershads decision to start with a team of reps as opposed to a physical location. We did a lot of research and talked to a lot of designers, and found that there were two or three separate districts, says Bershad. We wanted to get a better sense of the community before building a showroom. Toronto Janelle Hewines And while the design landscape in Toronto shifts, the overall outlook for physical retail remains a moving target as well. Showrooms are always going to be a part of our approach, says Bershad. But just as much, we want to focus on a great service, in person or online. With our collection, you can order on our website by 6 p.m. and itll go out the same day. The designers we spoke with echoed Bershads thinkingmost would welcome more showrooms, but will settle for good online tools and great sales reps (for now). As for other American companies eyeing the border, Canadian designers offer up a few friendly words of advice. For companies that come up with the attitude of, Like it or leave it, this is the way its going to be, thats not going to work as well as building slowly, says Mitchell. Heron offered a cautionary tale: Target came in and floppedthey had all these spaces that were way too big. We dont consume at the same volume. You cant just apply the U.S. model and assume it will work. Still, the two countries arent worlds apart. Especially in Southern Ontario, we grow up watching American news, reading American magazines and now we use American brands in our projects and follow American friends on social media, says Heron. The taste is really not that different, and design is really growing here. Bershads experience backs this up. I was blown away by the level of passion. These arent just people going through the motions of finding pretty things for clients, he says. Theyre deeply engaged in the process. And I hate to bring this up because I know its a cliche, but the people really are so nice. I have a lot of new friends in Canada. The logo of the Bank of Montreal (BMO) is seen on their flagship location on Bay Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 16, 2017. Picture taken March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Helgren By Clara Denina LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian copper producer Imperial Metals (Toronto:III.TO - News) has hired Bank of Montreal (BMO) to speed up a restructuring process that could include the sale of the company for up to $1 billion, two sources familiar with the matter said. Imperial Metals, backed by Canadian billionaire Murray Edwards, earlier this year set up a special committee to identify strategic alternatives including joint ventures and a total or partial sale of the business. It has now mandated the Canadian investment bank to start a formal process, the sources said. Imperial Metals did not respond to a request for comment and BMO declined to comment. The company produces copper and gold at its Red Chris, Mount Polley and Huckleberry mines and lead and zinc at half-owned Ruddock Creek mine, all in British Columbia. With a market capitalization of C$152 million ($114 million) and a debt of C$852.4 million in 2017, the company was guaranteed an extension of its C$200 million credit facility by a company controlled by main shareholder Edwards earlier this year. Prior to starting its review in September, the company said it had been in talks with another party for a joint venture agreement at its Red Chris mine. Copper is highly sought after by mining companies because it's viewed as having one of the brightest outlooks, with existing reserves dwindling and strong demand for use in electric cars expected. But deals in the sector have not been abundant, partly due to a lack of high-quality assets and funding complications for potential buyers. The world's largest listed miner BHP (ASX:BHP.AX - News) (LSE:BLT.L - News) this week called off the $320 million sale of Chile's Cerro Colorado mine to private equity fund EMR Capital, due to problems with financing the deal. Canada's Teck Resources Ltd (TECKb.TO), (NYSE:TECK - News) agreed to sell a 30 percent stake in its Quebrada Blanca copper mine expansion in northern Chile to Japan's Sumitomo for $1.2 billion, while Mitsubishi agreed to raise its stake in the Quellaveco copper project in Peru it shares with Anglo American Plc (LSE:AAL.L - News). Story continues Imperial's shares have fallen for five consecutive years and are down 63 percent this year, compared to a 15 percent fall in the price of copper in the same period. ($1 = 1.3387 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Clara Denina; Additional reporting by Susan Taylor in Toronto; Editing by Susan Fenton) (Bloomberg) -- Revolut, the London-based financial technology startup, has obtained a European banking license as Brexit looms, with plans to launch checking and savings accounts as well as retail and business lending. The Bank of Lithuania, the eastern European countrys central bank, granted Revolut the regulatory approval that gives it permission to operate throughout the European Union. While London has been a hotbed for financial technology startups, Brexit has driven many of these firms to seek licenses from other European jurisdictions. Once the U.K. leaves the E.U. British financial companies will no longer have the right to "passport" their regulatory approvals to other European jurisdictions. Revolut, the first London-based fintech to receive a European banking license, joins a growing number of firms that have secured permission to offer banking accounts and loans. Others include Swedish payments company Klarna Holding AB and Dutch payments firm Adyen NV as well as German startup N26. Chad West, a Revolut spokesman, said the company chose Lithuania because it has 150,000 customers there already -- or about 7 percent of the 2.25 million customers it said it had in July 2018 -- and the nations "regulatory environment is incredibly fintech friendly." West also said it was faster to get licensed in Lithuania than many other European jurisdictions. Founded in 2015, Revolut has grown from a company that offered consumers a no-fee pre-paid debit card to use while traveling internationally to one that allows consumers to access services such as foreign currency exchanges, budgeting tools, as well as cryptocurrency wallet and exchange. The company said it would target U.K., France and Poland and look to passport its Lithuanian banking license to other jurisdictions. Prior to obtaining its Luxembourg banking license, the company has operated under U.K. and E.U. e-money licenses, which allows it to offer a much more limited set of products. The company said it was considering applying for an additional e-money license in Luxembourg too, but had not yet done so. Story continues Revolut has said it will offer commission-free equity trading in the U.K. and Europe within the next year. "Our vision is that retail and business customers will be able to apply for a loan in just two minutes from within the app, and then have the money in their account almost instantly," said Nikolay Storonsky, the former Credit Suisse investment banker who is Revoluts founder and chief executive officer. Revolut has raised about $340 million in total from venture capital firms that include Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Balderton Capital and DST Global. It was last valued at about $1.7 billion when it raised $250 million in April 2018. The company has said it plans to expand beyond Europe in 2019, including the U.S., and Japan. The company, which said in February that it had broken even on a monthly basis after incurring losses previously, processes about $4 billion of transactions each month and was seeing between 8,000 and 10,000 new accounts being opened each day. (Corrects jurisdiction where Revolut had e-money license previously.) To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Kahn in London at jkahn21@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2018 Bloomberg L.P. Police have killed the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, who was the subject of a two-day manhunt after a shooting that killed at least three people near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday, according to France's interior minister. Christophe Castaner said police went to the neighbourhood where Chekatt had last been seen. He said around 9 p.m. local time, three members of the national police force came upon the suspect. As they went to arrest him, the suspect turned to fire on the officers. The police returned fire, killing him. Minutes before the police shooting, a witness reported hearing helicopters hovering near the Meinau and Neudorf districts of Strasbourg about two kilometres from where he launched his attack on Tuesday. Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images Earlier on Thursday, officials announced the death toll in the Christmas market attack rose to three. Chekatt was on a watch list as a potential security threat. Authorities say the 29-year-old was known to have developed radical religious views while in jail. The initial Christmas market shooting happened Tuesday evening local time. There were reports police officers had twice cornered the shooter and exchanged gunfire, but he managed to escape. That set off a massive 48-hour manhunt in Strasbourg, which lies on the west bank of the Rhine, and the surrounding region. In all, five people were arrested and placed in custody in connection with the investigation into Tuesday's shooting, including Chekatt's parents and two of his brothers. France raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level since the attack and deployed 1,800 additional soldiers across the country to help patrol streets and secure crowded events. French authorities said Chekatt, born in Strasbourg, appeared on a watch list of people flagged for extremist views. They said he had 27 criminal convictions, receiving the first at age 13. The people who died in the attack included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry. Five of the wounded were in serious condition, the prefecture of the Strasbourg region said. Story continues French President Emmanuel Macron was in Brussels on Thursday for a European Union summit. EU leaders held a minute of silence for the latest victims of a mass shooting in France. Vincent Kessler/Reuters Market to re-open Strasbourg's usually busy streets were eerily empty Thursday morning, with a heavy police and military presence. Some lit candles and brought flowers to a makeshift memorial at the site of the attack. "You can feel a very heavy atmosphere due all these events," said resident Lucille Romance. "People are in a state of shock and are avoiding getting out of their house." The Christmas market, closed since the shooting, will re-open Friday morning, according to Strasbourg's mayor. Trying times for Macron The attack took place at a testing time for President Emmanuel Macron, who on Monday announced tax concessions to quell a month-long public revolt over living costs that spurred the worst unrest in central Paris since the 1968 student riots. The last three consecutive Saturdays of riots in the capital have seen cars torched, shops looted and the Arc de Triomphe defaced. "We're simply saying at this stage that, given the events that are unfolding after the terrorist attack in Strasbourg, it would be preferable if everyone could go about a Saturday before the festive holidays in a quiet way," French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said. RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian during stone throwing clashes on Friday in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said. The clashes followed a surge of violence on Thursday when a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli soldiers, and Israeli forces killed two Hamas fugitives whom it blamed for earlier deadly attacks. Israeli forces also killed two Palestinians that Israel said had tried to carry out attacks. On Friday Palestinians gathered in protest in the West Bank, throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, witnesses said. One Palestinian, aged 18, was killed by Israeli fire, health officials said. The Israeli army did not have any immediate comment. In the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Hamas militant group, thousands of Palestinians also gathered along the border with Israel. Gaza health officials said 75 people were wounded by Israeli live fire during the weekly border protests. An Israeli military spokesman said Gazans hurled rocks at soldiers and the security fence. A fire bomb and several grenades were also thrown, the spokesman said, though none of them crossed into Israel. "Troops responded with riot dispersal means and operated in accordance with standard operating procedures," he said. Gazas health ministry said more than 220 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli troops since March at border protests demanding an end to an Israeli-led blockade of the coastal strip. (Reporting by Ali Sawafta and Nidal Almughrabi; Writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Richard Balmforth) A family with close ties to Montreal is coping with the loss of a newborn baby after the parents were injured in a drive-by shooting outside a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Amichai Ish-Ran and his wife Shira were waiting for a bus on Sunday when a man opened fire from a vehicle. Seven were injured before the vehicle sped away. "It's doubly difficult. One, because they're so far away, and secondly because you're completely helpless," said Jordan Charness, a Montreal lawyer who is Amichai's uncle. The couple was leaving Ofra after visiting Shira's family, who live in the West Bank settlement. Amichai and Shira live about 20 km away from Ofra, Charness said. Amichai has dual Canadian-Israeli citizenship and visits at least once a year. Charness said most of the extended family still lives in Montreal. "There's a feeling of helplessness, sadness, anger, all mixed together and a tremendous sense of loss," Charness said. He said he will be visiting his family in Israel in two weeks. His daughter lives and works there, and often travels back and forth between Israel and Canada. Shira, who was 30 weeks pregnant, was shot in the back. She was transported to a hospital in Jerusalem where her baby was delivered prematurely. The infant has since died. Charness said Amichai was shot in the leg as he tried to protect his wife from the gunfire. He has had surgery and is doing better, Charness said. Shira was in a coma for two days and is now recovering. "Hopefully she'll have a full recovery but it's going to take a long time," Charness said. Charness says it's hard for Canadians to comprehend the danger that those living in the region experience every day. "You always hope that nothing will ever happen, but there's always an undercurrent of worry," he said. Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images Ramallah locked down following attack Following the attack, Israel set up checkpoints at the entrances to the West Bank city of Ramallah, searching cars entering the city and checking drivers' IDs. Story continues Some Israeli-controlled roads were completely blocked to Palestinian traffic. The clampdown on the city, the Palestinians' economic and administrative centre, was an unusual step that signalled the severity with which Israel viewed the attack. In another attack Thursday, a Palestinian gunman got out of a car and opened fire at a bus stop outside a West Bank settlement, killing two Israeli soldiers before speeding away, the Israeli military said. Majdi Mohammed/The Associated Press "Israel's long arm will reach anyone who harms Israeli citizens," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Israeli forces said they killed two Hamas members in the West Bank this week suspected of attacking Israelis. One of them was Salah Barghouti, a Palestinian suspect wanted in the drive-by shooting. Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip and is considered a terrorist organization by many states including Canada, said Barghouti was a member, but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack. "It's just beyond comprehension for people living Canada that anybody could decide that shooting a pregnant woman in the back is going to advance the cause of anything at all," said Charness. Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..Opinion/NYT..13 December '18..In 2002, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was said to have given a speech noting that the creation of the state of Israel had spared his followers the trouble of hunting down Jews at the ends of the world. The Lebanese terrorist group has prominent apologists in the West, and some of them rushed to claim that Nasrallah had uttered no such thing.Except he had. Tony Badran of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies tracked down the original recording of the speech, in which Nasrallah carries on about occupied Palestine as the place appointed by Allah for the final and decisive battle with the Jews. By occupied Palestine, he wasnt talking about the West Bank.Sometimes anti-Zionists are surprise! homicidal anti-Semites, too.Thats a thought that cant be far from the mind of anyone living in northern Israel, where in recent days the Israeli Army has discovered at least three tunnels dug by Hezbollah and intended to infiltrate commandos under the border in the (increasingly likely) event of war. Given the breadth of Hezbollahs capabilities, the depth of its fanaticism, and the experience of Hamass excavation projects in Gaza, its fair to assume other tunnels will be found.What would Hezbollah do if it got its fighters across? In 1974, three Palestinian terrorists crossed the border from Lebanon and took 115 hostages at an elementary school in the town of Maalot. They murdered 25 of them, including 22 children.Another infiltration from Lebanon in 1978 left 38 Israelis dead. Given Hezbollahs long record of perpetrating massacres from Buenos Aires to Beirut to towns and cities across Syria, its a playbook it wouldnt scruple to follow in a war for the Galilee.All this is to say that Israelis experience anti-Zionism in a different way than, say, readers of The New York Review of Books: not as a bold sally in the world of ideas, but as a looming menace to their earthly existence, held at bay only through force of arms. Its somewhat like the difference between discussing the effects of Marxism-Leninism in an undergraduate seminar at Reed College, circa 2018 and experiencing them at closer range in West Berlin, circa 1961. Nobody can deny that supermarkets and online stores have made our lives much easier. Why waste time doing business in business, when you can find everything in one place? Buy clothing, supplies, furniture, make hotel reservations, everything can be purchased with a single click. For more confortable to be, however, this new way of buying will never be able to overcome the sensations produced by the tour's most spectacular markets of the world, where products can smell and touch. We do a tour of the more exotic. In the Cambodian town of Skuon, there is one of the more unusual markets. Known internationally as Spiderville (Villa of the spiders), specializes in a product difficult to find in other places. Between the posts with fruits and vegetables, are those who cooked fried spiders and sell them as a snack. You can see women carrying large trays filled with spiders fries and spicy. In several regions of Cambodia it is customary to eat this snack as exotic e, even the menus of certain cheap hotels may contain several dishes with these snacks. In this country it is considered spiders chips market in Skuon as a food of the gods. Damnoen Saduak floating market is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Thailand. At the time of making the booking of accommodation, many visitors request information about this particular show. Every day, from 8 in the morning to 11 pm, the market is full of sellers and buyers, that float in the vicinity in their small boats. The adjacent soil is naturally fertile, so trade is mostly concentrated in fruits and vegetables, such as orange, papaya, onion, cabbage, etc. Every tourist, when making your online reservation, we recommend that you rent a boat and go paddling up to the market. It is a unique experience. In Mexico, the market of Sonora, known as black magic or witchcraft, market is probably the only place on Earth where you can find a cure for any ailment or condition. Great amount of shamans, Voodoo practitioners and witches will gather there to give Dynamics to more bizarre medicine that has been. From the tourist point of view, it is a very interesting place, but advises each traveler about the risks to any procedure, at the same moment that makes your inquiry and your hotel reservation. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram Berlin, December 13, 2018Spanish authorities should immediately return equipment and documentation seized from the news agency Europa Press and from journalists working for the Diario de Mallorca daily newspaper and ensure that journalists can protect the confidentiality of their sources, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Spanish police on December 11 searched the newsroom of Europa Press in Palma de Mallorca, on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, seizing documents and equipment as part of an investigation into leaked police information, Spanish daily newspaper El Pais reported. Europa Press said police presented a court order demanding the editor hand over any documentation concerning a large-scale corruption case on which the news agency recently reported using unnamed police sources. The editor of the news agency, Antonia Lopez, referred to the journalists` right to protect their sources and refused the police`s request, El Pais reported. According to Europa Press, police then seized a personal mobile phone, two of the companys computers, and several paper documents in order to determine the origin of the leak. According to Spanish news website ABC Espana, later the same day police showed up in the newsroom of the local daily Diario de Mallorca, which had also reported on the corruption case. However, the police left after the newspaper informed them that it would not voluntarily hand over any material, ABC Espana reported. Yesterday, Maria Ferrer, the director of Diario de Mallorca, told Spanish TV station Antena 3 that the police had already seized two personal mobile phones with sensitive information belonging to two journalists of the daily newspaper earlier that morning, independently from the visit to the newsroom. She also told Antena 3 that the police did not present a court order during their visit to the newsroom. We call on the Spanish authorities to ensure the protection of journalistic sources, which is the cornerstone of the profession, said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJs program director, in New York. The decision to confiscate the reporters devices and materials is an unacceptable attempt to intimidate them and curb their reporting on corruption. El Pais reported today that Diario de Mallorca and Europa Press will jointly file a complaint against the police action. Outside the Diario de Mallorca headquarters, journalists held a small demonstration yesterday, holding up their mobile phones to demand the authorities respect their professional confidentiality, the Diario de Mallorca reported. More than 650 journalists from all over Spain signed a document submitted today to the General Council of the Judiciary in which they urged the governing body of judges to defend the fundamental rights of journalists against the unusual and unjustified attack on press freedom in Mallorca, Europa Press reported. The Spanish police said the investigation is not into the conduct of the two news outlets or the journalists but into the origin of the alleged leak of information from the police, Europa Press reported. The Mallorcan police declined to comment on the case when CPJ reached them by phone today. The government will set up a National Medical Devices Promotion Council (NMDPC) under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry to promote the medical devices sector. This announcement has been made by Union Minister of Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu on December 14, 2018. Proposed Structure National Medical Devices Promotion Council will have representations form concerned departments of the Government of India and also healthcare industry and quality control institutions of the country. It will be headed by Secretary of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. It will get technical support from Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone, Visakhapatnam. Objectives and Activities The key objectives and activities of the National Medical Devices Promotion Council will be as follows: To work as a facilitating and developmental body for Indian Medical Devices Industry. To conduct seminars, workshop and other promotional and networking activities to promote the sector. To identify redundant processes and provide technical assistance to simplify the approval processes involved in medical devices industry. To work towards making a export driven market in the field. To support dissemination and documentation of international norms and standards for medical devices and promote global best practices. To drive a robust and dynamic Preferential Market Access (PMA) policy, by identifying the strengths of the Indian manufacturers and discouraging unfair trade practices in imports; while ensuring pro-active monitoring of public procurement notices across India to ensure compliance with PMA guidelines of DIPP and DoP. Help validation of Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) and other such entities within MDI sector. To recommend government various measures to promote the MDI sector. Medical Devices Industry (MDI) in India The current value of India MDI industry is more than USD 5 Billion and India is one of the top 20 global medical devices markets. However, the medical devices market in India is currently dominated by imports. Currently, Indian companies are engaged in production of only low end products. There are huge possibilities in this market and the government has provided for a regulatory framework for the industry in 2017. The recently released rankings by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) have placed four Indian Public Sector Undertakings among worlds top 100 arms producers. These companies are as follows: Indian Ordnance Factories (37th Rank) Hindustan Aeronautics (38th Rank) Bharat Electronics (64th Rank) Bharat Dynamics (94th rank) Key Facts This was for the first time that four Indian companies have ranked in top 100 arms producers companies of world. These four companies have sold arms worth USD 7.52 Billion in 2017. About SIPRI Established in 1966, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is a Swedish think tank dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. Indias share in Global Arms Sale Indias current share in total global arms sales stands at less than 2%. This indicates that India has been a weak player in international markets. Successive government have tried to turn India into a global defence manufacturing hub and take multiple policy steps to involve private sector in defense production. However, most of such measures have been on papers only till now. Worlds top arms producers The global arms market is dominated by US companies which have a whopping 57% of the market share, followed by Russia (9.5%), United Kingdom (9%) and France (5.3%). As of 2017, Lockheed Martin is worlds largest arms with arms sales of $ 44.9 billion. Boeing is the second largest arms producer company in the world. Bless our families and our children, and choose from our homes those who you desire for this holy work. Heavenly Father,your divine Son taught usto pray to the Lord of the harvestto send laborers into His vineyard.We earnestly beg youto bless our Diocese and our worldwith many priests and religiouswho will love you fervently and gladlyand courageously spend their livesin service to your Son's Church,especially the poor and the needy.Teach them to respond generouslyand keep them ever faithfulin following your Son Jesus Christ,that under the guidance of the HolySpiritand with the inspiration ofSaint Damien and Blessed Mariannethe Good News of redemptionmay be brought to all.We ask this through Christ our Lord. Myanmar: Denmark confirms the commitment of 80 million USD in Development Cooperation December 14,2018 | Source: Mizzima Myanmar and Denmark have concluded their annual bilateral government-to-government talks on development cooperation in Nay Pyi Taw. Denmark used the opportunity to confirm the commitment of DKK 505 million (about 80 million USD) for continuing cooperation in the three focal areas of peace, rule of law and human rights; fisheries, climate change and SME support; and basic education. In an open and constructive atmosphere, the two governments discussed achievements as well as challenges in their bilateral development cooperation. The Danish Ambassador John Nielsen emphasized that Denmark stands ready to continue to support Myanmar in its transition towards a peaceful and inclusive democracy and that he appreciated the opportunity to discuss matters with the Deputy Minister for Planning and Finance as well as with partners across the Country Programme. One of the activities under the development cooperation programme that has shown particular good progress is the Responsible Business Fund. This Fund supports small and medium-sized enterprises through matching grants to invest in environmental improvements (energy, waste, water), a better working environment, food safety etc. By the end of 2018, more than 450 SMEs will be supported. Denmark has also urged Myanmar to address the root causes of the crisis in Rakhine and to implement the recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory Commission. Denmark is waiting to see that Myanmar establishes the conditions for a safe, dignified and voluntary return of the Rohingyas. In addition to its bilateral development cooperation programme, Denmark provides sizeable humanitarian support as well as support through civil society organisations, which amounted to about 20 million USD in 2018. Through Strategic Sector Cooperation, Denmark furthermore supports the promotion of safer and healthier workplaces and improved social dialogue in Myanmar and the Danish Development Finance Institution, IFU, invests in the countrys high-growth sectors and in developing the micro-finance industry. Gujarat: Compensation likely to kin of fishermen detained in Pakistan by G.V.R. Subba Rao December 14,2018 | Source: The Hindu The Fisheries Department is toying with the idea of providing a compensation, on the lines of Gujarat and Diu governments, to the families of fishermen who are languishing in the Pakistan jail for alleged violation of international border rules. The officials are likely to suggest to the government to pay a compensation of about Rs.150 per day or Rs. 4,500 per month to the families until the fishermen were released from the Pakistan jail. An eight-member team of the fisheries officials is studying the living conditions of fishermen, who migrated to Porbandar, Mangalore, Veraval and other places in search of livelihood. The team has studied the schemes being implemented by the governments of Gujarat, Karnataka and Diu in the wake of fishermen detained by Pakistan officials for allegedly straying into their shore in November. In Gujarat Sources say that the Gujarat government pays Rs.150 per day to the families whose members have been arrested by the Pakistani authorities and the Union Territory administration does the same in Diu and Daman. About Rs.200 is paid to the fisherman family by the Diu administration. But, the scheme is not applicable to the fishermen who migrated from Andhra Pradesh and working for boat owners or contractors in Gujarat. It is being extended only to native fishermen but not migrants. Hence, a similar exercise can be done in the State, says an official, who is a part of the team and doesnt want to be quoted. No insurance cover The fishermen from Andhra Pradesh have no insurance coverage like their counterparts in Gujarat, Karnataka and Diu. A special emphasis will be made in this regard. In those states, the next of kin of a fisherman would receive about Rs. 3 lakh in case he dies on land, Rs. 6 lakh in case of death in the sea. This apart, medical expenses are also being covered, say officials. The team has interacted with a few fishermen who are still working in Porbandar and other places. Long-term solution They are keen on coming back to the State if there are proper fishing harbours and other facilities. Instead of short or medium term, there is a need for a long-term solution. So, the focus should be on developing fishing harbours, insurance coverage and compensation on the lines of Gujarat, feels the official. Three categories The fishermen who migrate are employed as workers with fish traders there and work in three categories -- kalasi, cook, tandel (driver of the boat). For a kalasi, a monthly salary is Rs.8,000 to Rs.10,000; for a cook Rs.6,000 to Rs.8,000 and for a boat driver it is Rs.15,000 to Rs.20,000. In addition, they are given advances to meet immediate needs, sources say. Maharashtra: Fisherfolk fight to keep BMC's Central Park at Bay The Cuffe Parade fishing community won't allow the BMC to rock the boat with its ambitious plan to reclaim land in the Cuffe Parade bay and develop a 300-acre park there. Protesting that the park would threaten their livelihood, the fisherfolk have blocked the entry of consultants that the civic body had commissioned to survey the area. mid-day had reported earlier that the corporation had grand plans to build a massive green space, along the lines of New York's Central Park, by reclaiming the fishing cove between the NCPA stretch at Nariman Point and Geeta Nagar in Colaba. Last month, in a meeting with civic officials at the A ward office, the fishing community said that they would not allow the park to come up. Civic sources revealed they had not allowed entry to consultants either. The civic body had appointed an agency to figure out the area that needs to be reclaimed; the slum population, if any; and whether or not mangroves will be impacted by the project. Apart from this, the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO-GOA) and NEERI too have been roped in to study the depth of the sea and prepare a detailed impact report, which will be later presented to the Maharashtra Coastal Zone and Management Authority (MCZMA), and forwarded to the Ministry of Environment and Forests for approval. However, fishermen were of the opinion that the civic body should have taken them into confidence before planning the project, and addressed their apprehensions. They added that the government had failed to fulfill several promises in the past, and now they do not want the BMC to make anymore futile promises. Park vs parking The bone of contention is that apart for eating into their fishing territory, the park would also reduce the parking space for their boats. Bhuvaneshwar Dhanu, a member of the Macchimar Sarvoday Co-operative Society, Cuffe Parade, said, "We are not just opposing this now, but will protest against the project, if needed. There is no consideration for our future, and they are just disturbing our livelihood completely. We stopped them from surveying the land and will do that again, if need be. There are about 3,500 members in our society and about 350 boats in use; this project will eat into our space and growth." While BMC officials said that they were ready to offer them the required space for parking, the community demanded that the Corporation also allot extra space to accommodate future needs. Officialspeak A senior civic official, said, "We asked them about the space that they would require and what mitigation measures can be carried out, such as providing alternative waterway and construction of jetties, so that their livelihood is not hampered. Still there was no cooperation from the fishermen and they chose to oppose the project. Currently, the survey has been stalled because of this." "There were some objections of the fishing community, which I have forwarded to my senior officials," said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, A ward. While gruesome cases of murder and assault of female solo travellers seem to pop up every now and then, Indian women solo travellers are determined to break the boundaries of solo travelling and take the risk to enjoy their me-time. The recent murder of British backpacker, Grace Millane, has shocked many solo female travellers across the world. What is even more upsetting is that the tragic incident took place in New Zealand a country which is considered one of the safest places on the planet. In a similar incident, the rape and murder of a 25-year-old female solo traveller in Costa Rica, while she was on her first round-the-world trip, has left many a traveller, especially women, shaken. Such an environment does come across as a concern as one of the most common travel trends millennials are following nowadays is travelling solo. And while one might think that this is exclusively a mans indulgence, the fact of the matter is that there has recently been a huge increase in women travelling solo, both for pleasure and for business. However, one thing that remains a major concern for many solo female travellers is safety. Jahnavi Rao, a working professional, who loves to travel solo feels that the more the research, the better your solo trip. Making sure that one understands the local laws and customs, and respect them is also very important while travelling solo. Thankfully, I havent faced any major issues yet, however I have run into petty issues such as fights with cabbies and arguments with the local shopkeepers. You cannot always hide the fact that you are a traveller, so then it is better that you learn a few local words or gestures. These things will help you communicate with the locals better. For example, we all have grown up thinking that the thumbs-up gesture is used to signify a job well done. However, while travelling to the middle-east, I learnt that it is considered offensive and crude there. Simple research would tell you about such things and save you from any trouble. Sharing her experience about choosing an accommodation, Jahnavi says, Never rely on a single site. Go on various site/apps such as Trip Advisor, Hostelz or Oyster to know the rating of a specific place. I generally stay in hostels, as they are filled with other travellers like me and are also economical. Well-know Indian traveller, Shivya Nath, also found herself in trouble when she got mugged in Costa Rica. Sharing the horrific experience, Shivya wrote on her blog, the-shooting-star.com, I had pretty much let my guard down in Costa Rica. On a hurriedly hailed cab ride to the airport to impulsively catch a flight to the Pacific Coast, the cabbie and I chatted like long lost friends. Closer to the airport, he told me wed get stuck in traffic so its better to drop off a street before and walk; I agreed without thinking twice. When we arrived, I paid him and got off the cab, only to see him grabbing my small bag the one with my passport, laptop and everything precious asking for more money or hed take off with it. F**k. I had the equivalent of 50$ in my pocket and gave it to him, shivering at the idea of being left alone without my valuables. In retrospect, there were a lot of hints I didnt catch; he asked me if I had family in the country, or if I had a local SIM card pointed questions that should have made me wary. I felt shaken up for days, refused to trust anyone else I met along the way, and found solace in places crowded with other tourists, much unlike my usual travel style. It really wasnt about the money I lost, but the trust I lost, and its taken me months to rebuild it. Giving a few tips to solo female travellers, avid traveller, Vibha Jain says, Many times while travelling we come across people who can be potentially dangerous or might simply want to dupe you. Keep your mental guard up and trust your instincts. It is completely fine that you mingle with the locals and go out with them but ideally make sure that you either limit your conversations in mixed groups or keep conversations to local females. In todays fast-paced world many women also take a break from technology while travelling. Not a good idea, says traveller and biker, Deepa Radhakrishnan, who recommends that one shouldnt totally switch off from technology as, it is very useful to stay connected. She explains, I have travelled a lot, especially on a bike. And stopping at nights and asking for directions from the locals can be dangerous. So, I use Google map to guide me. Also, for the first few travels, make sure that at least one person family or friend has a general idea of where youll be and when, in case something goes wrong or they need to get in touch with you. Another very important thing to keep in mind when travelling solo is to make sure you have someones number on your speed dial. Chris Samples Honored At Philanthropy Day Luncheon The Texas Panhandles 26th Annual National Philanthropy Day luncheon was held on Thursday at the Amarillo Civic Center and KXDJs Chris Samples was among those honored. Samples received the Outstanding Media Award and was nominated by those in Spearman at the OLoughlin Center. Jackie Pearson had this to say on nominating Samples, When Chris Samples bought Spearmans radio station, KRDF-FM, we thought that we had lost our county lifeline for communication, for support of the Lynx and the Greyhounds and our local nonprofits. Little did we know that Chris and Chris Samples Broadcasting would continue to provide these things for Hansford County, expanding it to the NE panhandle area. The OLoughlin Center and the Golden Spread Center nominated KXDJ-FM to receive the Outstanding Media Award at the National Philanthropy Day celebration Thursday, because Chris and KXDJ-FM deserve this recognition! In addition to all the coverage he gives to area non-profits, he donates air-time for us to broadcast live our Golden Spread Center Radio Auction, helping us to continue to serve Spearman and Hansford County. You didnt have to continue this tradition, Chris, but we are so grateful that you did! Thanks to you and KXDJ, we have raised over $200,000 in the past 13 years! We are so pleased that the selection committee agreed, and congratulations! Many others were honored at the ceremony and Samples said it was an honor to be it the presence of some very giving people from the Panhandle. It was an honor to be there. For Jackie Pearson and Debbie Goodheart to take a lot of time with a lot of paperwork to nominate us was an honor. I didnt know just how big of an honor until I got there yesterday. It was quite an event. I know people appreciate what role we play but compared to these people that work so hard to raise money for projects that help others, its amazing to be around them, said Samples. I was inspired just to be in that room. More than 400 people attended the event to recognize standouts in philanthropy, whether they are banks, foundations, volunteers or radio DJs. Be Group Corporation officially launched its ride-hailing platform which includes the two functions beBike and beCar. Photo acquired by VnExpress Vietnamese technology startup Be Group Corporation officially launched its ride-hailing platform Thursday, with beBike and beCar. The latest entrant to a market dominated by the likes of Grab and Go Viet has set an ambitious target of partnering with 10,000 drivers in a few weeks, by the end of 2018, and 100,000 drivers next year. Unlike the current ride-hailing firms, Be Group has registers its service as a transportation business. "We have gathered a lot of talent, and I personally have experience running start-ups for many years. With thousands of billions of dong ($1= VND23,287) mobilised, we are confident our platform can compete in this fierce market," Be Group CEO Tran Thanh Hai said at the launch. Be Group apps will start operating in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from December 17. The company has announced an initial 25-percent royalty for beBike and beCar drivers, while specific prices and discount schemes for customers have not been revealed. Be Group hopes to become a big player like Grab or Go Viet with a comprehensive super-app. In 2019, the company plans to roll out delivery and payment services. It aims to attract tens of millions of users in the next three years. Vietnams ride-hailing market has seen new entrants after Ubers departure early this year, including Vietnamese firm FastGo, GoViet - a subsidiary of Indonesias Go-Jek, Aber and the latest Be Group. Grab, which counts Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing and Japans SoftBank Group Corp among its backers, had 175,000 drivers and bikers in Vietnam as of September and is the most prominent player in Vietnam after it pushed out Uber, according to Reuters. Rival GoJek entered Vietnam in August eyeing to grab a share of the fast-growing market. Vietnam has 95 million people and many use smartphones. A number of local taxi companies in Vietnam have come together to compete against ride-hailing firms, while Grab has been in a legal battle for more than a year with local taxi firm Vinasun Corp. Data from CBRE Vietnam shows that 31 percent of high-end apartment buyers in Ho Chi Minh City are Chinese. Photo by Shutterstock/Tommy Teo Attractive prices and returns have seen the number of Chinese customers buying high-end apartments in HCMC soar this year. Duong Thuy Dung, senior director of real estate market research firm CBRE Vietnam, said at a recent forum that 31 percent of high-end apartment buyers in HCMC in the first nine months were Chinese. This figure increased from only 2 percent in 2016 and 4 percent last year. In the last two years, Chinese were sixth among all buyers, but this year, they have surpassed Vietnamese to rank first. Only 24 percent of high-end home buyers are Vietnamese, CBRE data shows. Stephen Wyatt, country head of property service firm JLL Vietnam, said the number of Chinese buyers has been increasing because Vietnam has an attractive price compared to other markets like Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Chinese people often compare prices in Vietnam with Shanghai when they buy properties, he said, adding that they hope to gain profit from higher property prices in Vietnam in the future. A high-end apartment in the city costs around $5,000 per square meter, but the same one in Hong Kong could cost four times, said Nguyen Khanh Duy, director of residential sales at real estate service provider Savills HCMC. Nguyen Hoang, director of research and development at real estate firm DKRA, said that the number of Chinese and South Korean buyers in HCMC started to increase last year. Chinese from Shanghai and Hong Kong are buying properties as investments (not to stay in). "Most projects that foreigners bought in the last two years are under construction," he said. Other industry insiders said that the high returns that HCMC high-end apartments offer is attracting many foreign buyers. The rate of return is 5-6.5 percent in Thao Dien ward and Thu Thiem Peninsula in District 2, while in other Asian countries, this rate is only 3.7-5.2 percent, Duy said. CBRE senior director Dung added that it was not just Chinese, but foreign buyers in general who are showing an increasing interest in HCMC real estate. Dung said that each foreigner group has a different preference for high-end apartments. Customers from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan prefer large-scale projects near the downtown HCMC. South Koreans like to buy apartments in the southern District 7 that hosts a large community of South Koreans, while Western buyers often look for a quieter lifestyle in eastern District 2. Dung said HCMC is estimated to receive 40,000 new apartments in the 2018-2020 period, 60-70 percent of these in the high-end segment. In the last three years 35,000 luxury apartments have come into the market, UK newspaper Financial Times quoted CBRE as saying. This is a major increase from 2012-2014 when fewer than 10,000 units were on offer, CBRE said. Le Huynh Ha (L) and Le Hoang Thach, seen in a still image captured from a video clip, hold banners and wear T-shirts saying The tenor and content of an anti-abortion campaign launched by two men has been slammed as sexist, clueless and patriarchal. "Do you know which humanitarian crisis claims 300,000 lives each year in Vietnam?" A video calling for a ban on abortion in Vietnam begins with the above question. The video spearheads a campaign called "Mama! Dont kill me" launched on December 1 by Le Hoang Thach, 30, and Le Huynh Ha, 28. Its purpose is to collect 100,000 signatures for a petition calling the legislative National Assembly (NA) to prohibit abortion in Vietnam by issuing an anti-abortion law. The campaign website and Facebook page say that Vietnam stands third in the world in terms of the number of abortions with more than 300,000 cases each year, and this "terrible humanitarian crisis should be ended immediately." Vietnam ranks top in Asia and among the top five worldwide in abortion rate, according to official health reports, which recorded 275,000 abortions in the country in 2015. Doctors said about 40 percent of all pregnancies in the country end in abortion, and young people account for 20 percent of total abortions annually. The reasons vary from baby sex selection to the lack of sexual health education, and the fact that premarital sex remains a taboo, which leaves a young woman to be subject to harsh backlash if she gets pregnant out of wedlock. Abortion, according to Thach and Ha, can lead to under-population and negative impacts on women's physical and mental health, and that an anti-abortion law is necessary to grant women the right to demand that men use protection during sex. The men also say that the law will protect Vietnam's moral traditions. The two men say they plan to work with lawyers to come up with a draft version for the law and submit it to the NA in January next year if they collect enough signatures. Those who want to sign the petition can go to the campaign's website and register their names and emails. So far, over 40,000 have signed up. Outraged public The two founders and the campaign itself has triggered public anger and scorn, and far more opponents than supporters. Many have called the two men sexist and patriarchal. Sexism and woman blaming "is deep in your [the founders] mind," Facebook user Hoang Anh wrote in a comment. Women have the right to decide what they can do with their bodies, other social media users have said. Many have pointed out that the very name of the campaign is problematic. Why does it have to be "Mama! Dont kill me" and not "Papa! Dont kill me," some have asked. Who says the decision of having an abortion comes completely from the mother, asked Facebooker Trinh Duc Cuong. What about the babys father and grandparents, he asks, adding: "Please dont make a woman look like a monster in childrens eyes." The campaign has prompted some Facebook users to launch a parody page called, "Dad! Remember to wear condoms!" Clueless men The two campaigners do not understand enough about giving birth to or raising a child, that they are selfish and do not think of women who have unintended pregnancies or cannot keep their babies for other reasons, many Vietnamese netizens have said. What if the mothers are raped or kidnapped and forced into marriage and then got pregnant? Or if a single woman in dire circumstances cannot afford to raise a child? Or if couples want to abort sick or disabled fetuses? The campaigners first responded that these questions only emphasize the need for the law, as they prompt adults to educate their teenage children so that there is high awareness of doing the "right thing" from the start. In an interview with local media recently, the duo also said they will include in the proposed law exemptions for rape victims, incestuous intercourse and other unavoidable situations. Shocked, but determined Thach and Ha said they were "shocked" at the public response, but are determined to make the campaign succeed. "If the anti-abortion law is passed, it will force people to do the right thing in the first place and save millions of mothers from regretting their wrongful decision," Thach said. "This is a humanitarian campaign that will do good for the society. If you cant help us, why criticize us?" "I have seen and heard many abortion cases and they are all very hurtful. I think I have to act and raise my voice. I believe in the campaign. We are doing this with only one purpose: saving the babies and protecting women's rights," said Ha. "We are doing the right thing that can benefit the society. Just look at all the supporters and the signatures that we have received and you can see that," he added. Both Ha and Thach are still single and work in HCMC. Since 2015, they have been known for charity works through a foundation they co-founded, called the HTBC Foundation, through which they call for benefactors and raise funds for projects to support poor communities across the country. Thach told the Thanh Nien newspaper that he was almost a victim of abortion. His family was too poor and as his parents already had two children before him, his mother had thought about abortion when she got pregnant with him. "But my father stopped her, saying that he will work to support the family and until today, I'm still grateful for that." President Donald Trump signing an executive order on immigration policy at the White House in Washington. Photo by Reuters/Yuri Gripas John Kerry and 22 Democratic congressmen have criticized the Trump administrations attempt to subvert a U.S.-Vietnam immigration pact. At least 22 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have sent a letter to the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expressing "deep concern" about the government's reinterpretation of a treaty signed in 2008 with Vietnam, The Atlantic reported. The agreement clearly states that Vietnamese-Americans who came to the U.S. before the two countries normalized diplomatic relations on July 12, 1995, would not be subject to deportation. However, the Trump administration is reportedly seeking to overturn the deal and send thousands of Vietnamese immigrants back to Vietnam, although they have lived for decades in the United States. Many Vietnamese-Americans who came to the United States at a young age "were resettled in struggling neighborhoods without support or resources to cope with significant trauma from the [Vietnam] war," the letter says. "As a result, some made mistakes that funneled them into the criminal justice system." The letter also emphasizes that these refugees have served their time and are currently giving back to their communities. It calls on the Trump administration "to honor the humanitarian spirit embodied in the current agreement," adding: "We strongly oppose any renegotiation... that strips the current protections afforded to Vietnamese refugees." "Despicable," said former Secretary of State John Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam War, responding to the latest move by the Trump administration. Kerry posted a tweet questioning the effect it would have. "After so many from George H.W. Bush to John McCain and Bill Clinton worked for years to heal this open wound and put a war behind ustheyre turning their backs on people who fled and many who fought by our side. For what possible gain?" he said. Since 2017, the United States has begun arresting and threatening to expel many long-term immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries who are identified as "foreign violent criminals." Dozens of Vietnamese immigrants with a criminal record have been detained in immigration centers for six months or longer. Many of them have been released from prison, but new regulations have allowed them to be re-arrested. "Ive been getting so many text messages from scared Vietnamese community members over the last few days," said Phi Nguyen, legal director at Atlanta's Asian American Justice Initiative, told The Atlantic. The White House has asserted that the reinterpretation of the 2008 agreement would only apply to undocumented Vietnamese or those who have been prosecuted, not to naturalized U.S. citizens. About 5,000 Vietnamese offenders would be deported under Trumps reinterpretation, according to Katie Waldman, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. A moving, remarkable drama played out recently in Saigon, with a blind dog reunited after two weeks with a mute shoeshiner. The reunion was emotional. The dog, Vang (Gold), repeatedly jumped up and kissed Tran Khac An. Punching his chest, the An looked up at the sky and smiled as though he could not stop. On December 7, two weeks after he lost Vang, a friend helped An find him again. Hugging the dog tightly, An could not help smiling, and put his hands on his heart to show his joy and happiness. He gave himself a "day off" to take care of the dog. This is not the first time that this loving pair is making news. Three years ago, a story about the friendship between the mute shoeshiner and the blind dog had spread across the country and touched the heart of millions of readers. The pet lovers community and many young people voted it as one of 20 most inspirational stories of the year in 2015. The same year, they were voted among the Top 10 inspirational characters of the year and honored on the stage of the WeChoice Awards gala. A wedding gift To welcome his best friend home, An had someone write marriage on a cardboard sign to organize a "wedding" for Vang and Tina, a dog that An has just adopted to become the formers partner. The sign was hung in front of the hut under Thu Thiem Bridge, in District 2, where An stays with his dogs. An, who is mute and illiterate, polishes shoes everyday on Thai Van Lung and Le Thanh Ton streets, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. "An has been homeless for 20 years. He polishes shoes during the day and sleeps in a hut in the street at night, but he is very polite and honest. Though he is poor, he is very independent and will refuse to accept disingenuous acts of kindness," said Sang (60 years old), a motorcycle taxi driver, who lives in Ben Nghe Ward, District 1 and has known An for years. An takes Vang everywhere with him. This picture was taken three years ago. Photo by VnExpress/Dinh Tuan Three years ago, when An was cleaning shoes in the street, he found a blind puppy abandoned in the pavement so he brought him home. "An loves Vang as if he was his child, taking care of him very carefully. If the dog is sick, he will be so worried that he takes time off work to take care of him. He will get mad at anyone hurting Vang," Sang said. With the intention of helping him, some people have offered to buy the dog for a high price, but An wont even think of it. When Vang was young, An put him in a basket containing personal items and work tools. As the dog grew up, An used one hand to carry the basket and the other to take the dog with him. "The two are attached to each other like a shadow. They share with each other whatever food An has. Whenever his owner sleeps, the dog lies by his side protecting him," Sang said. On November 20, An lost Vang. Heartbroken, he refused to eat. Mute, he could not tell others that Vang was missing and ask if anyone had seen him. Thang (left) is making a profile card for Vang showing his picture and phone number, just in case Vang gets lost again. Photo by VnExpress/Phan Than Nguyen Thang, 32, a resident of Ben Nghe Ward in District 1, who is studying to become a vet, is an occasional caretaker of Vang. When Thang learnt Vang was missing, he decided to search for the dog. He posted information on social media and went to all the slaughterhouses, parks, other crowded places, and construction areas in District 2 and 9. "Many people advised me to stop the search, saying Vang must have been killed, but I had never seen An upset like that," Thang said. The miracle happened on December 3. A construction worker found a muddied Vang in the sewer, so he brought it home, washed and fed him. That evening, he took the dog for a walk. A passerby saw the fluffy dog running around like Vang in circles and informed Thang. Vang has a habit of running around in circles when he is trying to find An. Taking Vang back from the worker, Thang washed, groomed, and had him vaccinated before returning him to An. At the foot of Thu Thiem Bridge, District 2, An has gathered some canvas and bricks to build his "home." Inside, there is no electricity, water has to be borrowed and his personal items are just a few chairs, a table and a bench. But he has bought many items for Vang, including a special shower gel, eye drops, insect spray, clothes, snacks and bananas. The mute shoeshiner and Vang are reunited. Photo by VnExpress/Phan Than Talking about his future plans, An held up five fingers and pointed to the shoebox, indicating that he will polish shoes with the dog five days a week. Next, he held up 2 fingers and pointed to a street coffee vendor. An would help the vendor during the weekend to earn extra money. Mid afternoon, as the wind buffeted the canvas and An played with his two dogs, Thang said, using gestures: "I found Vang, so hes mine now." An shook his head: "No, Vang is mine." When the water rises, the birds gather at Tram Chim National Park in southern province of Dong Thap for their mating season. The Tram Chim National Park in the Mekong Delta was set up in 1998 with an area of 7,313 hectares. In 2012 it was recognized by the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international importance, the fourth in Vietnam and 2000th in the world. Over 230 species of birds gather here for the breeding season. Ramsar Convention is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. From October to December is a great time for wildlife enthusiasts to visit the park. At 4 a.m. photographers are ready with their cameras and other equipment. The canoe thrusts away into the water as the sun starts rising. Thousands of paperbark trees are reflected in the water, making the scene appear otherworldly. After 40 minutes they arrive at the observatory as the sounds of birds echo up into the sky; theres only room for one person and their equipment. Birds are everywhere, in the sky and on the trees. On each paperbark are some five bird nests with three or four young birds each, and there are thousands of trees in the park. The common species include the snakebird, little egret, Asian openbill, great cormorant, grey heron, purple heron, white-shouldered ibis, black-headed ibis, grey-headed swamphen. The mating season lasts from June to December as the birds court, find a partner, build a nest, and start breeding. Two months after birth, young birds begin to practice flying. Some dont make it and instead fall and drown. The Asian openbill is a rare species here. In 2016 these large birds first came to the park to build nests, but since then they have just stopped here for a short time. When the sun is high the sky is filled with packs of birds. This year the high water level is offering more food for the birds. The park is improving as a result of authorities here acknowledging its importance and putting in efforts to conserve it. The number of poachers has decreased significantly. When the birds fly away to forage, tourists can visit another area where smaller birds such as kingfisher, broad-billed motmot, bulbul, and cuculus live. Before going into the park it is a good idea to make a short tour of nearby communes to see lotus swamps or speak with locals to hear interesting stories about the Tram Chim. 4 p.m. is the right time to visit the park to watch the spectacular scene of the birds flying back to their nests as the sun sets. Wake up very early in the morning if you want to get some great photos. Just come to Tram Chim and you will fall in love even more with the southern wildlife, where the birds are filling up the sky. New hires relax at a lounge area in a Grab office in Singapore. Photo by Reuters/Edgar Su Yamaha Motors has announced a $150 million investment in Grab to collaborate on motorcycle ride-haling. The collaboration will be for Southeast Asia in general and Indonesia in particular. Through this partnership, Yamaha Motors and Grab aim to "develop next-generation mobility services by implementing solutions and innovations," Grab said in a press release issued Thursday. The two companies aim to leverage Yamaha Motors technology and knowhow to boost safety as well as make it easier for Grabs driver partners to buy motorbikes. Yamaha Motors also aims to leverage Grabs customer base in Southeast Asia and knowledge of the motorcycle ride-hailing business for future product development. The Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm is teaming up with global investors to expand its reach after forcing Uber out of Southeast Asia earlier this year. Toyota Motor Corp. had said in June it was investing $1 billion in Grab, and Hyundai Motor Co. last month agreed to put an additional $250 million into the company as well as sell Grab a fleet of electronic vehicles. The focus on Indonesia may mean that Grab is intensifying its push against local ride-hailing platform Go-Jek. Both companies now compete in the Vietnamese market after the Jakarta-based start-up commenced operations in Vietnam under the name Go-Viet some months ago. Grab entered Vietnam early in 2014, but is currently under an antitrust investigation after acquiring Ubers services in March. French police officers and forensics teams search for evidence at the site where Strasbourg Christmas market gunman Cherif Chekatt was shot dead by police. Photo by AFP The gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg was shot dead by French police on Thursday. More than 700 French security forces had been hunting for 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt since the bloodshed on Tuesday night -- the latest in a string of Islamic State jihadist group attacks to rock France. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said three police tried to question Chekatt after spotting him "wandering" through the streets in the Neudorf area of the northeastern French city where he grew up, but he opened fire. "They immediately returned fire and neutralised the assailant," Castaner said. People gathered at the police cordon where Chekatt was shot and applauded, some shouting "bravo!", a source said. The propaganda wing of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack. Messages of support for the victims, as well as candles and flowers, are multiplying in Strasbourg streets. Photo by AFP The perpetrator of "the attack in the city of Strasbourg... is one of the soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition" against IS, the Amaq agency said in a message posted on Twitter. Chekatt, who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. France has been hit by a wave of attacks from people claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group since 2015, which have claimed the lives of nearly 250 people, according to an AFP toll. It is also not the first time a Christmas market has been targeted in Europe. In 2016, a jihadist attacked a Christmas market in Berlin and went on the run through the Netherlands and France before being shot and killed three days later in northern Italy. Defiant officials insisted the Strasbourg market would reopen as usual on Friday. Career criminal Chekatt was believed to have been wounded after exchanging fire with soldiers during the attack, but managed to escape and had not been seen since fleeing the attack on Tuesday. Police in several other countries had joined the hunt for the career criminal with at least 27 convictions in four European states. Officers who had already detained Chekatt's parents and two brothers on Wednesday took a fifth person into custody for questioning on Thursday. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed "the solidarity of the whole country" towards the victims. "It is not only France that has been hit... but a great European city as well," he added, referring to the seat of the European parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany. Strasbourg's location in the heart of western Europe means that Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg can be easily reached by car or train, making the search for Chekatt more complicated. Swiss police had reinforced border checks, while German authorities also widely published the photo of the suspect, which showed him with dark hair, a short beard and a mark on his forehead. Plea to 'yellow vests' As police hunted Chekatt, the French government urged "yellow vest" protesters angry over French economic reforms not to hold another round of demonstrations this weekend, given the strain on the country's security forces. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux called on the anti-government protesters to be "reasonable" after nearly four weeks of often violent demonstrations that have led the government to offer a range of financial relief to low earners. "Our security forces have been deployed extensively these past few weeks," Griveaux told CNews television. "It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again," he added. The "yellow vest" protesters, known for their fluorescent high-visibility jackets, had called for a fifth round of protests this Saturday. The protests began on November 17 over fuel tax increases, but snowballed into a revolt over living standards as well as Macron's perceived indifference to the problems of ordinary citizens. Russia has long been using civilian infrastructure for military purposes, like creating a pretext for boosting military presence. The European Parliament this week adopted a resolution condemning the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine. The document recognizes that the pipeline poses a threat to European energy security, and also calls for the halt to the Nord Stream 2 construction. It is important that this resolution coincided in time with that of the U.S. House of Representatives, also opposing the construction. It is also worth recalling that U.S. legislators in both chambers of Congress are considering bills related to sanctions over Nord Stream 2. An almost simultaneous adoption of such resolutions will have a certain cumulative effect and further worsen the conditions for the project implementation by joint German-Austrian-Russian efforts. The documents will not directly affect the project. However, they undoubtedly harmonize, organize and strengthen resistance to the pipeline, both on the part of the European community and on Washington's part. That's because both Europe and the U.S. have clearly understood that Nord Stream 2 is not just a gas pipe, it also symbolizes the emergence of new geo-economic and geopolitical realities - a kind of Russian-German alliance bound by gas and corruption. Both Europe and the U.S. have clearly understood that Nord Stream 2 is not just a gas pipe, it also symbolizes the emergence of new geo-economic and geopolitical realities - a kind of Russian-German alliance bound by gas and corruption It is most often noted that the Russian interest in the project is to sell as much gas as possible, while the German interest is to buy Russian gas at cheaper prices and sell it in Europe, and Austrian interest is similar to German. But in reality, a new phenomenon has emerged - an alliance of the three countries, whose project has not been completed yet, but it has already shaped European and Atlantic solidarity. Most in Europe, the United States and Canada have already realized that once this pipeline is built and operational, a completely new configuration will emerge in Europe. And then the North Atlantic Alliance will unlikely be able to carry out a mission of protecting its allies, for example, in the Baltic states, if they are subjected to Russian aggression. Against the background of what Russia is doing against Ukraine, also continuing their subversive activities in Europe, as well as in the wake of the latest Black Sea incident with Ukrainian ships, it is easy to conclude that Russia will further shift their aggressive and subversive actions onto the Baltic States. Under these circumstances, if there is a need for immediate aid, including military assistance, to the Baltic States, such NATO Allies as Germany will at the very least take its time to first "figure out" what is happening and whether there is in fact an act of Russian aggression, especially if it is "hybrid type," whether it is worth taking any real steps or it would be enough to express concern. At the very most, such allies would simply block any action aimed at counteracting Russia's aggressive behavior against the Baltics. This is something that is already making many in Europe anxious, as was evident from the outcome of the vote in the European Parliament. There, they are aware of the risks that have emerged, and now these are no longer risks but threats. The European Parliament has never shown any support for Nord Stream 2, and neither had it any neutral attitude towards the project. There has always been clearly stated that the project does not meet the EU interests, especially against the backdrop of an Energy Union created in the EU as an energy solidarity mechanism. Therefore, these resolutions of the European Parliament and the United States create a cumulative effect of pressure on the governments of several countries: to a greater extent on those of Germany and Austria, and to the smaller France and the Netherlands, who support the project, but not too pro-actively. For an even greater cumulative effect, only one thing remains for NATO to express their position. After all, the project should be evaluated not only from the standpoint of business interests and energy security but also through the prism of military security, because we already know how Russia uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes. We saw this on the example of captured Ukrainian gas exploration and drilling platforms on the Black Sea shelf. After seizing them, Russia equipped them with hydro-acoustic intelligence devices for monitoring underwater movements in the north-western sector of the Black Sea. In this sector lies our main trade traffic, NATO warships enter the area, and military assistance is provided. The European Parliament has never shown any support for Nord Stream 2, and neither it has had any neutral attitude towards the project. There has always been clearly stated that the project does not meet the EU interests, especially against the backdrop of an Energy Union created in the EU as an energy solidarity mechanism Similarly, Russia has been using Nord Stream 1 in the interests of their intelligence efforts against NATO forces in the Baltic Sea. Therefore, the emergence of another Nord Stream will mean that Russia will try to strengthen its military presence in the Baltic Sea, arguing that it is necessary to protect not only Russian economic interests, but also Russian-Germanic ones. The Nov 25 incident near the Kerch Strait shows that Russia is using the emergence of new infrastructure as a pretext to increase own military presence. Once the Kerch Strait Bridge was built, there appeared a myth that Ukraine, NATO and the United States seek to destroy it. Accordingly, in order "not to allow this," Russia must protect the bridge. This was the pretext for an increase in the Russian grouping in the Azov Sea. Russia is showing who the master is there. The same will be with the Baltic Sea. Washington has figured out this strategy, and so has Europe, although their political elites is largely corrupt. Therefore, both the European Parliament and the U.S. Congress are trying to direct European politicians, in particular, German and Austrian ones, towards a comprehensive assessment of threats. In the end, all these collective efforts can ultimately have an impact and the Nord Stream 2 project will halt. If NATO's position appears, the project will have no further prospects. As we can see, the more a project is going forward, the greater the resistance to it. Russians and Germans suggested that, once they start building, everyone will perceive it as if the project had already been there in place. Actually, even here in Ukraine, many claimed that the project would succeed anyway so there is nothing to "break spears" and it is better to just get accustomed to new realities. This, in fact, was the idea of the Russian propaganda machine, as well as the entire Gazprom lobby in Europe. However, we are also seeing that a systemic, albeit not always consistent, line of American pressure on European partners is still maintained. And the behavior of Putin's regime only contributes to blocking and further cessation of the project implementation. Had it not been for the Kerch Strait aggression, everyone would have taken a "pipe is being built and it can't be stopped" approach. But since Russia has dared to engage in aggressive actions against Ukraine, the question arose of how Russia can be stopped, because the existing sanctions may be uncomfortable for the Kremlin, but they don't stop Moscow. Besides, we are seeing that, despite sanctions, the volume of trade between Russia and the European Union is growing. This all added confidence to the Kremlin, as Moscow considered they could continue acting just as arrogantly and not to reckon with Europe's calls. Therefore, it is logical that the United States has now come up with the idea of introducing a sanction regime for Russia, which they called "infernal sanctions." Before applying the mechanism of switching Russia off from SWIFT, they decided to mess with Putin's other toys: "Nord Stream-2", "Turkish Stream-2", etc. Why not hit them, really? For many in Europe, sanctions against Russia in the form of a halt to Nord Stream 2 and the second pipe of the TurkStream are generally painless. They are painless even for those European countries that have trade relations with the Russian Federation. They are only painful for Germany and Austria, and even not for these countries as a whole, but for only three companies. In fact, the German government defends the interests of these three companies, one of which is already hesitating, whether it should continue participating in the project. Therefore, it is logical that the United States has now come up with the idea of introducing a sanction regime for Russia, which they called "infernal sanctions." Before applying the mechanism of switching Russia off from SWIFT, they decided to mess with Putin's other toys: "Nord Stream-2", "Turkish Stream-2", etc. Why not hit them, really? Therefore, I don't rule out that the Nord Stream 2 project may be terminated. And it's not because the German government will reconsider its approaches it won't. The German government, wary of the growing pressure from all sides - both from Europe and from the United States, said that they have nothing to do with this because it is purely a "business project." Thus, the said group of three companies is now practically a defenseless target for U.S. sanctions. I think that these companies will be considering very thoroughly, whether it is worth grabbing a shroud of dirty Putin money for the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 only to fall in the grinder of American sanctions. So the moment of truth is approaching. The issue is now being solved: who is on whose side in this geopolitical configuration, where three players formed an informal alliance that split European and Euro-Atlantic solidarity. For Germany, relations with Russia have become more important now than those with partners from the EU and the U.S. Mykhailo Honchar is an energy expert, President of the Strategy XXI Center Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo. ULY MARTIN More than 9,000 law enforcement officers will be on duty in Catalonia next Friday, when the Spanish Cabinet is scheduled to meet in Barcelona rather than at its usual location in Madrid. If were going to be on a mountaintop, we might as well stay in Madrid Spanish government source Members of four agencies the Barcelona municipal police, the regional Mossos dEsquadra force, the National Police and the Civil Guard will be tasked with keeping the peace on a day when separatist groups are expected to stage public protests against the gathering and in favor of Catalan independence. The self-styled Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDR), a civic group that has carried out several protest acts in the region, is calling for a street battle on December 21. Via social networks and using the hashtag #TombemElRegim (lets overturn the regime) they are calling on sympathizers to be outside Llotja de Mar, the meeting venue, first thing in the morning. One CDR poster reads: On 21D we will be ungovernable. On 21D we will be ungovernable! Save the date and follow the official channels. Lets take the streets! Lets organize the response and prepare to resist! Besides the potential street protests, Madrid is concerned about the kind of support it can expect from the Catalan government, whose separatist leader Quim Torra last week defended the Slovenian way as a model for Catalan independence. His statements were widely construed as a defense of violence, as Slovenia went through a 10-day war that caused dozens of casualties as it separated from Yugoslavia. On Thursday, Spains Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo sent a letter to her Catalan counterpart, Pere Aragones, asking for maximum cooperation in organizing the Cabinet meeting. Earlier this week, Madrid sent additional letters warning that if the regional government was unable to guarantee public safety on December 21, it would send National Police and Civil Guards to do the job. The Spanish Interior Ministry has told a thousand officers to be ready for duty in Barcelona between December 18 and 23. The Cabinet meeting will be held in Casa Llotja de Mar. The Catalan regional government has since stated that the security of the Cabinet meeting must be guaranteed. Sources at the Mossos dEsquadra said that around 8,000 officers will be on duty. A few days earlier, the Catalan government had described Madrids decision to hold its weekly gathering in Catalonia as a provocation. The wisdom of holding the Cabinet meeting in downtown Barcelona was also questioned by a central government minister, Jose Luis Abalos, but Deputy PM Calvo has confirmed that the meeting will go ahead as planned. Polarization E. P. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is taking the Cabinet meeting to Barcelona against a backdrop of growing social polarization. While pro-independence groups have ramped up their street action to take down the regime, down in Andalusia a far-right party called Vox made unprecedented inroads at the recent regional elections, earning 12 seats on a platform that supports re-centralizing Spain. Sanchezs Socialist Party (PSOE), which has governed in Andalusia for 36 years, did poorly and now stands to lose power in Spains most populous region. The election is also being viewed as a sign of things to come when the country holds local, regional and European elections next year. And a snap national election is also a possibility if Sanchez who leads a minority government that relies on support from other parties, including Catalan nationalists is unable to push through his 2019 budget blueprint. Sources at La Moncloa, the seat of government, said that the meeting will take place inside Llotja de Mar, a historic building in the heart of the city, because it sends out the message to people that their government is there. The Mossos wanted to move the gathering to Albeniz Palace, located far from the city center on Montjuic mountain, for security reasons, but government sources said that if were going to be on a mountaintop, we might as well stay in Madrid. In her Thursday letter to Catalan authorities, Calvo also suggested a face-to-face meeting between Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Catalan leader Quim Torra on Friday of next week. It would be convenient for both to hold a meeting to return to the path of constructive dialogue that must cement the relationship between our governments, reads the letter. The Catalan executive has not closed the door on the possibility, as long as the one-on-one is not purely about protocol. English version by Susana Urra. About Me William Kelly I am a freelance writer, journalist and historian whose major interests are music and history, with a special emphasis on the assassination of President Kennedy. View my complete profile Blog Archive By Damali Mukhaye. The Kampala capital city authority executive director Jennipher Musisi leaves her office today following her resignation notice. Musisi wrote to president Museveni informing him about her resignation effective today, December 15th. Musisi in her resignation letter cited lack of political support and low funding among other reasons as the major factors that led to her resignation. She also informed journalists earlier that she has achieved a number of things in the city ranging from infrastructure, healthy, education among others asserting that the authority will thrive even when she departs. Meanwhile president Museveni has not yet announced the new person to replace Musisi. Related Stories.. KCCA ED Musisi tenders in her resignation By Ritah Kemigisa. The opposition has accused President Yoweri Museveni of diverting from the agenda of the inter-party organization for Dialogue summit that was held on Wednesday. The Democratic Partys legal advisor Richard Lumu says the president in his speech diverted from the four objectives of the summit and instead chose to intimidate the opposition by giving an assurance that he is not about to retire. The summit had a core objective of strengthening multi party governance in Uganda and also consolidating the constitution and electoral reforms. Lumu says much as he made it to the summit, more engagements inform of dialogue are still needed to make him believe it is time for him to retire. During the summit, Museveni said he is open and willing to talk in any dialogue when given the opportunity. Related Stories. CCEDU praises IPOSD summit NRM blasts FDC at IPOD summit DP makes U turn, back in IPOD meeting Thank you for reading! 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The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.In accordance with industry accepted best practices we ask that users limit their copy / paste of copyrighted material to the relevant portions of the article you wish to discuss (no more than 50% of the source material) provide a link back to the original articleIf you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe a post on this website falls outside the boundaries of "Fair Use" and legitimately infringes on yours or your clients copyright please contact [email protected] This website is owned by :Marco ZwaneveldDrijfriemstraat 522516 XR The HagueNetherlands.I will not rent, sell, share or otherwise disclose your personal information to any third party.We might contact you from time to time regarding your purchases or the services (like forums and announcement lists) you have subscribed to.Some of the 3rd party advertisers on lunaticoutpost.com may use cookiesto track peformance and/or to serve relevant ads.If you wish to read more and/or opt out of such cookies, please visit: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China ALADIN * weird wizard1* User ID: 478278 12-14-2018 05:24 PM Posts: 5,423 Post: #1 Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China Advertisement This headline seems suitable for "The Onion", Boeing to Open Its First 737 Plant in China Under Shadow of a Trade War. The Chicago-based planemaker will inaugurate its completion and delivery center in Zhoushan, 90 miles southeast of Shanghai, on Saturday, after more than a year of construction. The facility marks a rare industrial foray outside of the U.S. for Boeing and a joint venture with state-owned planemaker Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd. While the plant was sent in motion before U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, the ribbon-cutting risks being overshadowed by his tit-for-tat on duties with China on products ranging from cars, machinery to pork and soybeans. About one of every four jets that Boeing builds is bound for China, while the countrys airlines are the biggest buyers of the 737, the manufacturers largest source of profit. China is expected to need about 7,700 commercial planes over the next two decades to connect an increasingly mobile middle class. That represents a $1 trillion market opportunity for Boeing, Airbus SE and homegrown rivals like Comac. Boeing, the largest U.S. exporter, has urged both governments to resolve their trade differences and protect aerospace, which generates about an $80 billion annual trade surplus for the U.S. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-1...lant-china It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a ma s k on their nose and mouth ... Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In ChinaThis headline seems suitable for "The Onion", Boeing to Open Its First 737 Plant in China Under Shadow of a Trade War.The Chicago-based planemaker will inaugurate its completion and delivery center in Zhoushan, 90 miles southeast of Shanghai, on Saturday, after more than a year of construction. The facility marks a rare industrial foray outside of the U.S. for Boeing and a joint venture with state-owned planemaker Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd.While the plant was sent in motion before U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, the ribbon-cutting risks being overshadowed by his tit-for-tat on duties with China on products ranging from cars, machinery to pork and soybeans.About one of every four jets that Boeing builds is bound for China, while the countrys airlines are the biggest buyers of the 737, the manufacturers largest source of profit. China is expected to need about 7,700 commercial planes over the next two decades to connect an increasingly mobile middle class. That represents a $1 trillion market opportunity for Boeing, Airbus SE and homegrown rivals like Comac.Boeing, the largest U.S. exporter, has urged both governments to resolve their trade differences and protect aerospace, which generates about an $80 billion annual trade surplus for the U.S. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 478342 12-14-2018 05:30 PM Post: #2 RE: Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China Can't stand trump but I have to ask You're 2 weeks from opening the doors on a multi million dollar Mfg facility and a "trade war breaks out"...do you just walk away ? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 452766 12-14-2018 05:44 PM Post: #3 RE: Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China They are also moving into the UK hoping that Airbus will pull out post Brexit.. Airbus rivals confirm their commitment to UK investment https://inews.co.uk/news/business/airbus...nvestment/ they also want to get involved in the RAF Tempest Project to get them back into competing with Lockheed Martin in terms of combat jets.. Boeing would be thrilled to take part in British Tempest fighter project https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/boeing-w...r-project/ Which feathers into Boeing appointing RR to make the engine for the MQ25 Stingray project it recently won for the US navy Seems more like a clever bit of re-positioning when you factor in stuff that is happening and the direction this will probably travel in.. Rare foray outside the US eh...They are also moving into the UK hoping that Airbus will pull out post Brexit..they also want to get involved in the RAF Tempest Project to get them back into competing with Lockheed Martin in terms of combat jets..Which feathers into Boeing appointing RR to make the engine for the MQ25 Stingray project it recently won for the US navySeems more like a clever bit of re-positioning when you factor in stuff that is happening and the direction this will probably travel in.. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 478427 12-14-2018 05:46 PM Post: #4 RE: Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China gonna do like ford and bayer in ww2,play both sides of the fence. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471605 12-14-2018 05:50 PM Post: #5 RE: Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China How much more of a bad idea can there be? A Nation that we keep hearing is aggressive with Taiwan building commercial jet aircraft with who knows what will be added as backdoors and substandard substitute parts? This also gives them direct access to modern jet engine design which is the only thing holding back their military fighter jets designs. Great job there Obama... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 478411 12-14-2018 07:03 PM Post: #6 RE: Smack In Middle Of Trade War, Boeing Opens Its First 737 Plant In China ...caught smack in the middle of their treason more like it Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade The North Luzon Airport Consortium won the operations and maintenance contract of Clark International Airports existing passenger terminal, and the new terminal building set to be operational by 2020, the Department of Transportation said Friday. I think the group of Changi airport won the bidding, DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade told reporters. Tugade was referring to the North Luzon Airport Consortium whose members are Filinvest Development Corp., JG Summit Holdings Inc., Philippine Airport Ground Support Solutions Inc. and Changi Airport Philippines Pte. Ltd.The other bidder who submitted bids for the Clark O&M was X-Droid Consortium, which includes Angkasa Pura II, Globalport 900, Mazy Capital and Desco. Clark International Airport, which is being primed to be the next premier gateway to Asia, will open a new terminal in the first half of 2020. The airports new terminal building is the first of the Duterte administrations hybrid infrastructure projects, and complements other high-impact legacy projects in Central Luzon such as New Clark City and the Subic-Clark Railway. Clark International Airport is the second main gateway in Luzon. The new 100,000-square-meter terminal will double its capacity to eight million passengers a year, easing the strain on Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Paranaque City and boosting development of Central Luzon. Clark International Airport has an annual capacity of four million passengers. Airlines operating in Clark include Qatar Airways, Cebu Pacific, Tigerair, Jin Air, Asiana Airlines, Dragon Air, AirAsia Berhad, Philippine Airlines and Emirates Airlines.These airlines mount flights to Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Macau, Pudong, Incheon, Doha, Dubai, Davao, Cebu, and Kalibo. Megawide-GMR earlier won the bidding for the construction of a new passenger terminal in Clark Airport when it submitted the lowest financial proposal of P9.36 billion on Dec. 14. Megawide-GMR also won a 25-year concession agreement in December 2013 that involved the renovation of Terminal 1 of Mactan Cebu airport and the design, financing, construction, and operation of a second terminal. It submitted the highest bid of P14.4 billion. Megawide-GMR said earlier it was carefully evaluating plans to bid for Clarks O&M contract, citing that the viability could be affected by San Miguel Corp.s planned Bulacan airport and the rehabilitation of Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Megawide president and chief executive Edgar Saavedra said earlier the Clark O&M project could no longer be that attractive because of the proposed rehabilitation of Naia and the implementation of the Bulacan airport project. The numbers could be challenging because of the award of original proponent status to San Miguels Bulacan airport and the Naia rehabilitation plan, which could potentially cannibalize the market, Saavedra said. Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez HBIS Group Co. Ltd., one of Chinas biggest steel companies, along with Huili Investment Fund Management Co. Ltd., Steel Asia Manufacturing Corp. and PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority, signed Friday an agreement to build a $4.4-billion integrated iron and steel project in Misamis Oriental province. Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the latest business agreement was the biggest industrial investment from China to date. The project comprises of two phases that will generate over 20,000 additional job opportunities. This project is very important to our industrial development of having a globally competitive integrated iron and steel industry, to support the growing economy, to alleviate poverty, and to create jobs for every Filipino, Lopez said.Huili Investment Fund will fund the first phase of the project costing $3 billion and involving the establishment of two blast furnace plants to produce hot rolled coils to cold rolled coils. It is also financing $1.4 billion for the downstream steel requirement of the appliance sectors and the production of automotive-grade steel. The first phases will cover the production of 4.5 million tons of hot rolled coil and 600,000 tons of slabs. The project will increase its steel manufacturing capacity to 8 million metric tons under the second phase. Dominant iron and steel producer SteelAsia will provide the technology and technical backing for construction-grade steel production while PHIVIDEC will provide the long-term lease of the land as a preferred site.The integrated steel project will wean the country away from importing even small steel products, like wires, wire rods, nails and wire mesh. The project will occupy a 305-hectare land inside the PHIVIDEC Industrial estate, identified as the most strategically-located industrial zone in the Philippines for heavy industries. The iron and steel production base is also projected to provide indirect job opportunities up to 65,000 to related businesses. The Board of Investments said the iron and steel project will reduce the countrys trade deficit, with total domestic and export sales of slabs and hot rolled coils from the project estimated at P144.279 billion. Pernia: Economy to remain strong posted December 14, 2018 at 07:25 pm by Julito G. Rada December 14, 2018 at 07:25 pm THE Philippine economy will continue to be strong next year, backed mainly by the ambitious Build, Build, Build infrastructure program of the government that will be in full swing in the coming months, Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said. Pernia said growth would continue amid the external and domestic risks that might threaten the economy. If 2018 has not been easy for us, 2019 will not be bereft of challenges as well. The global growth expected to slow down starting next year. The external environment seems to be less supportive of our countrys potential economic growth in 2019, he said.But the resilience of the Philippine economy in 2018 will likely continue over the medium term. With key reforms scored this year, we expect the performance of the economy to be robust despite domestic and external risks. This will be supported by the Build, Build, Build program gaining steam expected next year, he said. COMMENT DISCLAIMER: Reader comments posted on this Web site are not in any way endorsed by Manila Standard. Comments are views by manilastandard.net readers who exercise their right to free expression and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the position or viewpoint of manilastandard.net. While reserving this publications right to delete comments that are deemed offensive, indecent or inconsistent with Manila Standard editorial standards, Manila Standard may not be held liable for any false information posted by readers in this comments section. SN Aboitiz Power Corp. plans to build a $28-million, 20-megawatt battery energy storage system facility in the Magat hydro electric power plant by 2020. You can think of battery energy storage as a giant power bank, SNAP Group president and chief executive officer Joseph Yu said. The facility will be used to boost SNAPs ancillary services and standby power supply that can be tapped in case the regular supply falls short of the requirement. With BESS, we will have a battery facility that is connected to the grid where we can withdraw power from when necessary, Yu said. The Energy Regulatory Commission classified BESS as a new source of frequency control ancillary services. Ancillary services are designed to support the transmission of capacity and energy from resources to loads, while maintaining reliable operation of the transmission system. These services are indispensable in ensuring the reliability of transmission systems, and in securing electricity supply in the countrys power grids.The SNAP board of directors recently approved the conduct of the feasibility study in 2019 for BESS in Magat. Construction is set to start in 2020, with operations targeted by 2022 once National Grid Corporation of the Philippines approves the facilitys ancillary services procurement agreement. SNAP is also developing floating solar projects with a capacity of about 30 MW to 50 MW from the Magat dam reservoir. We have always viewed ourselves as a renewable energy companynot just a hydro power producer, said Yu earlier. As a company pushing for greener solutions, we aim for minimal environmental impact as possible in our projects. We espouse a nexus approach to development, where we recognize the interdependence of food, water, and energy and optimize them for balance and synergy, he said. Online news site Rappler should have taken legal action against the government if it truly believes that barring its Palace beat reporters from covering President Rodrigo Dutertes activities is unconstitutional, the Palace said on Friday. Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo made the comment after Rapplers chief executive officer Maria Ressa supposedly said in an interview that the Palaces ban on the Rappler reporter Pia Ranada was violative of the Constitution. By the way, Ressa, I saw her interview this morning, she was complaining about Pia Ranada being barred here and she says that its unconstitutional. First, we said that coming here in the Palace is a privilege. And there are, certainly, rules that should be followed by members of the Malacanang Press Corps, said Panelo in a press briefing Friday. According to the Palace official, even if Ranada was disallowed from entering the Palace grounds to cover presidential engagements, the Palace still entertains questions from her regardless of the legal situation of her media outfit. The fact is, you just saw, she can still ask questions and were still responding. She can still cover; nothing has changed except her physical presence, he said. And on the matter of the theory of Ressa that it is unconstitutional, if that is true, Im wondering why she has not challenged this stand by the Palace before the courts since the incident involving a Rappler reporter has occurred several months ago, Panelo added.Ranada, however, took to Twitter to answer Panelos remarks, saying that physical presence is critical to [having] full media [coverage.] Panelo asking why Rappler has not filed legal case vs ban from presidential coverage. Is he aware we are battling seven other legal cases? she said. Earlier this year, Ranada was barred from covering Duterte and his activities after the President zeroed in on Rapplers incorporation papers, citing a revocation from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Almost two weeks ago, Ressa, president of Rappler Holdings Corporation, evaded arrest as she posted bail at a Pasig City Regional Trial Court after being charged with tax evasion. nicolas_/iStock(WASHINGTON) -- The National Institutes of Health said Thursday it has stopped procuring human fetal tissue for some research projects while it waits for the Trump administration to complete an audit of the role the tissue plays in federally-funded experiments. The NIH, a primary federal hub for U.S. medical research overseen by the Health and Human Services Department, also said it has initiated a $20 million effort to find alternatives. The review is likely to revive a fierce debate between anti-abortion groups, which contend the use of fetal tissue in science is unethical, and much of the scientific community, which says it plays a vital role in studying things like cancer in children, the impact of the Zika virus and new therapies for HIV. The dispute is reminiscent of President George W. Bush's fight to restrict stem cell research, which divided Republicans and ultimately resulted in his administration allowing government-funded research using 21 existing stem cell lines created before August 2001. President Barack Obama reversed that restriction. We are a pro-life, pro-science administration, said Caitlin Oakley, a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department, in an emailed statement to ABC News. This means that we understand and appreciate that medical research and the testing of new medical treatments using fetal tissue raises inherent moral and ethical issues, she said. This also means that we place a high value on the work NIH does in creating new discoveries that result in cures and improved quality of life. HHS Secretary Alex Azar is conducting a review of fetal tissue use in federally-funded research "with the utmost seriousness and concern," Oakley said. Last week, the Science Insider first reported that the Trump administration had ordered NIH to stop acquiring fetal tissue for experiments. HHS had already announced last September it was reviewing the use of fetal tissue. On Thursday, an NIH spokeswoman said in an emailed statement to ABC News that the organization had decided to "put a pause in place for procuring new human fetal tissue within its intramural program (research conducted by NIH investigators) until the conclusion of the audit, an action NIH thought was prudent given the examination of these procurements." The spokeswoman added that "research with tissue already on hand could proceed, and NIH leaders asked to be notified by intramural investigators if new procurement would be necessary." She said there was no procurement block for "extramural research," or work done at institutions that receive funding from NIH. "The intent was to pause procurement, not the research," according to NIH. "We are determining appropriate next steps to obtain tissue so that the research project can resume." Researchers use fetal tissue to create cell cultures that can mimic certain attributes of the human body in a way that's difficult to replicate, many scientists say. According to the Congressional Research Service, NIH began supporting research involving fetal tissue in the 1950s, and in 2017 spent $98 million on grants and projects that had some involvement with fetal tissue. "This tissue would be discarded if not donated for crucial biomedical research," said Sally Temple, former president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research and co-Founder of the Neural Stem Cell Institute in Rensselaer, New York. Temple testified Thursday on the matter before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. In prepared testimony, she said fetal tissue has been vital in studying developmental conditions such as the effects of the Zika virus on an unborn child. "The use of donated fetal tissue, including placental tissue, improved our understanding of how Zika behaves in the body and crosses the placenta to infect specific types of fetal brain cells" and cause malformations such as microcephaly, she said. Other "research models" don't exist, she said. Tara Sander Lee, an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion group, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that "very little research" currently relies on "abortion-derived fetal tissues." "We do not need fetal body parts from aborted babies to achieve future scientific and medical advancements," she said in prepared testimony. On Monday, NIH announced that it plans to spend $20 million to find other alternatives. "Research using these tissues has been important in shedding light on scientific questions fundamental to biomedical research, ranging from understanding basic physiologic mechanisms to understanding normal human tissue developmental and disease processes," the NIH wrote. "However, new technologies raise the potential of reconstituting these model systems without fetal tissue yielding more replicable and reproducible system for broader uses." House Democrats said Thursday they aren't convinced there is a viable alternative to fetal tissue, setting up a potential clash between the Trump administration and Congress when Democrats take control of the House next year. "Scientists are actively investigating potential alternative sources, and we should support those efforts," said Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "But for now, fetal tissue is simply irreplaceable, and any efforts to substitute it would be harmful to the critical research it supports," he said. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Police units and personnel on or off duty in Caraga region were ordered to observe high-level of security against possible abduction by armed partisans of the communist New Peoples Army, according to Philippine National Police spokesperson Chief Supt Benigno Durana on Friday. Durana said the Caraga Police Regional Office reiterated the warning after it uncovered plans by the CPP/NPA to take police hostages to pressure the government into declaring a Yuletide ceasefire coinciding with the 50th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines on December 26th. Police Chief Supt. Gilbert Cruz, Caraga PNP Regional Director bared this plan by the CPP/NPA following the capture of three suspects believed to be drivers of habal-habal motorcycles used in the murder of SPO1 Reil M Morgado of Santiago Municipal Police Station in Agusan del Norte who was gunned down on the night of Dec. 13 in an apparent kidnap attempt. Morgado was at home in Purok 4, Barangay Jagupit at 8:30 pm when he noticed some suspicious-looking men loitering around his house. When he went out to check, the suspects immediately fired at him from different directions. Badly woundled, he was able to return fire but later died due to multiple gunshot wounds. The suspects sped off after taking away the victims government-issued firearm and some personal belongings, An informant led police to nearby Purok 8 of Barangay Poblacion 1 where the police arrested three habal-habal drivers, believed to have driven the getaway motorcycles of the gunmen. Two Rusi 150cc. motorcycles allegedly used in the crime were also recovered. The suspects, identified as Renato Caerleng, 34; Ryan James Caerleng, 18; and Riedel Cabello, 26, are presently undergoing investigation. Durana said PNP Chief Director General Oscar D Albayalde extended his condolences to the orphaned family of SPO1 Morgado and assured them of government benefits given to uniformed personnel who die in the line of duty. SPO1 Morgado did not die in vain, because someone will take his place to accomplish the unfinished mission, the Chief PNP said.The Utrecht-based CPP leadership of Jose Ma. Sison has ordered its armed wing New Peoples Army to escalate attacks on government and civilian targets in response to the Congressional approval of an extension of martial law in Mindanao until 2019. Meanwhile, Armed Forces of the Philipopines Chief of Staff, Lt Gen. Benjamin Madrigal said the extension of martial law in Mindanao is warranted after NPA rebels threatened to conduct a nationwide offensive. "Eh 'di all the more that we have a reason dun sa extension dahil dun sa ginagawa nilang pananakot 'di ba, (then we have more reasons to justify martial law extension based on their threats)," Madrigal told reporters Thursday. Madrigal made the reaction after the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) threatened to conduct more offensives in response to the martial law extension in Mindanao until Dec. 31, 2019 in a bid to neutralize terror and other armed threats in the island. The NPA, CPP's armed wing, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Madrigal said troops are always on alert and have been ordered to take "proactive measures" to address rebel threats. He added there is nothing new with the CPP order to intensify its offensives nationwide as it has been doing so even during declared unilateral ceasefires saying that the CPP does not have control over its forces on the ground. Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos on Friday bewailed the marginalization of farmers and fishermen in the governments multi-billion-peso Pantawid Pamilya Program. Many of our farmers and fisherfolk are not included in the barangay lists of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program [4Ps] recipients even if they are the poorest of the poor because they reside in far flung communities hardly reached by welfare programs and are rarely visited by government social workers, said Marcos, the only local executive running for senator in next years midterm elections. The 4Ps is a human development measure of the national government that provides conditional cash grants to the poorest of the poor, to improve the health, nutrition, and the education of children aged 0-18. It is patterned after the conditional cash transfer schemes in Latin American and African countries, which have lifted millions of people around the world from poverty. The Department of Social Welfare and Development is the lead government agency mandated to implement the 4Ps. This year, DSWD got a budget of P89 billion to implement its flagship program. Farmers and fisherfolk are the most vulnerable to adverse climactic conditions. Walang ani, walang nahuhuling isda, walang kinikita pag tag-ulan o bumabagyo. So they do not earn enough to feed their families and improve their living conditions, she added.Marcos strongly proposed that a new program, Pantawid Kita, specifically for the benefit of farmers and fisherfolk, must be created as a distinct component of the Pantawid Pamilya program to provide monthly basic income to farmers and fisherfolk in such amounts equivalent, at least, to those given to regular 4Ps beneficiaries. She said that the basic income for farmers and fishermen takes off from the concept of a universal basic income, but it is a targeted assistance for farmers and fishermen only. We need to give our farmers and fishermen this basic income to end the tragedy that those who produce food and save many from hunger, are themselves unable to buy food or keep their families from being hungry, Marcos said. We use billions to preserve, as we must, national treasures like the Banaue Rice Terraces, she said. We must also be willing to set aside, in the national budget, a few billions more, so that we can roll out a basic income program for farmers and fishermen who are also our national treasures, Marcos said. Budget secretary Benjamin Diokno said Friday he would snub future hearings of thein the proposed 2019 national budget and simply send written replies to their questions because lawmakers were being disrespectful. They have crossed the line. They have been disrespectful. They did not give me a chance to answer their questions so next time I will just send a written report, ABS-CBN quoted him as saying. Diokno was invited to the Question Hour on Dec. 11 to explain the P75-billion insertions in the 2019 budget. The next day, the House urged President Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider Dioknos appointment. But the Palace said the President will not allow Congress to disrespect his Cabinet members. In a Palace press briefing, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo demanded respect from the lawmakers after Diokno was grilled during Question Hour at the House He will not allow any member of the Cabinet or any member of the military, policemen, and officials who are invited to a committee hearing to be treated with disrespect, Panelo said? Friday. He said it was elementary for members of one branch of government to give respect to the officials of another branch. As we have repeatedly said: while we respect the independence of each branch, it is elementary that these branches must accord respect to each other, the Palace official said, reading out the joint statement of Dutertes Cabinet members expressing dismay over the Congress treatment on the Budget chief. Every time members of Congress are invited by the President or when they make courtesy calls, they are accorded due respect. And so, we, of course, demand the same respect when they invite members of the Cabinet and for that matter, any worker in the government, Panelo added. They should exercise the demands of ethical refinements. Meaning to say, we should be exercising courtesy and civility with each other in the manner by which we perform our constitutional duty, he continued. Panelo described Andayas manner of questioning Diokno arrogant. We saw the video in the news and we saw how arrogantly he threw questions at Secretary Diokno and how he mocked him, he said, reminding lawmakers that government officials should not be put in a bad light as they were there to shed light on certain issues of national concern. This un-parliamentary behavior has no place in the hallowed grounds of Congress, where members are referred to as honorable as they represent their districts or sectors. There is no honor in browbeating a fellow worker and officer in government, Panelo added. In his previous speeches, the President has been vocal about respectfully treating military officials and Cabinet members, noting that he did not want them to follow the same fate of former Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, who committed suicide after Senator Antonio Trillanes IV shamed him at a Senate hearing in 2011.Panelo said the President continues to trust Diokno. Earlier, Minority Leader Danilo Suarez saidprovince to benefit his son-in-law, Casiguran Mayor Edwin Hamor, who faces election next year. Andaya, on the other hand, said. Diokno has denied all the allegations. Asked to describe the current relationship between the House and Malacanang, Panelo said they were cordial. The Budget chief on Friday said the President has assured him of his and the Cabinets support and urged congressmen to respect the separation of powers in government. The Cabinet is backing me up. The President is backing me up, Diokno said, adding that the lawmakers were supposed to be administration allies. Senators, meanwhile, continued to defend Diokno, with Senator Juan Edgardo Angara describing him as a man of integrity. And I wont be surprised if thats how people regard him, especially those who know him well as a UP professor and have worked with him as Budget secretary, said Angara, who heads the Senate committee on ways and means. But Senator Aquilino Pimentel III said Diokno must explain the alleged anomalies in the budget. READ: Parking budget scheme bared He said the secretarys fate should depend on how well he answers the allegations. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Friday gave his vote of confidence to Diokno, who said as an alter ego of the President, deserves to be treated with a modicum of respect, courtesy and civility by a co-equal branch of government. "How do we really feel about our joint oil exploration agreement with China?" "How do we really feel about our joint oil exploration agreement with China?" There is much ambivalence in the stand of the opposition to the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking which the country entered into with China and hurriedly joined in by Vietnam at the suggestion of former Speaker Jose De Venecia. The JMSU was signed on March 14, 2005. The Bayan Muna and a string of communist front organizations; the Liberal Party that represents the interest of the local oligarchy, the foreign interest groups, and the clerics; and the Magdalo Party, a motley group of former renegade soldiers, are all busy creating ruckus to embarrass the Republic. They are most vocal in articulating their opposition to the joint venture agreement to explore oil and gas in the South China Sea which Noynoy renamed West Philippine Sea. Perhaps he felt that romanticizing it would serve as his legacy, ignoring that since time immemorial, that body of water has been known as the South China Sea. They raise issues that are utterly ambivalent, contradictory and baseless. Principally, they claim that the joint undertaking is unconstitutional and detrimental to our national interest. Accordingly, the agreement is in derogation of our sovereignty. If the issue of constitutionality is to be raised on the basis that all agreements must be ratified by the Senate, Section 21, Article VII of the Constitution states: No treaty or international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. However, the greatest drawback to this argument is our agreement to allow the Visiting Forces Agreement signed in 2000 and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed in 2012 to operate in this country. We allowed the US to establish military bases here in violation of Section 25, Article XVIII, which states: After the expiration in 1991 of the Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America concerning Military Bases, foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty concurred in by the Senate and, when Congress so requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting State. The Philippines signed these two agreements which specifically are not allowed by the Constitution unless ratified by the Senate. However, the US in both instances refused to treat the VFA and EDCA as treaties but merely executive agreements to skip the constitutional requirement of having them ratified by the US Senate. While the Philippine Senate complied with its constitutional obligation, the US prodigiously stood pat to treat them as executive agreements until the whole issue became moot and academic when the Supreme Court finally declared the agreement as valid.Analyzing the applicability of Section 24, Article XVIII to the JMSU with China, the agreement to conduct scientific data to determine the location and volume of the undersea minerals is in the words of Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin, Jr., an agreement to agree. Unlike the VFA and EDCA, the establishment of US military bases revolves on the physical presence of foreign forces and the use of our national territory which is clearly prohibited by the Constitution. If one strictly abides by the Constitution, there are three distinct possibilities that could happen on this issue of joint exploration and foreign partnership agreement with China. First, treaties and executive agreements, to be valid and constitutional, must be ratified by the Senate. Second, some treaties or agreements, even if ratified, may nonetheless remain invalid and unconstitutional if they contain provisions in derogation of our sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interest. Third, even if a treaty or agreement does not contain provisions in derogation of our sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interest, it will remain invalid and unconstitutional if it contains a provision specifically prohibited by the Constitution like allowing a foreign power to establish military bases in this country. Our joint venture agreement with China to explore oil and gas is not one that is specifically prohibited by the Constitution or would require the approval of the Senate. The area to be explored accordingly represents 80 percent of our exclusive economic zoneabout 142,886 square kilometers. However, that area cannot be treated as part of our territorial waters where we could exercise exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction. Rather, the exclusive economic zone which is an innovation introduced by the UN Convention on the Law of Sea in 1977 gave rights to countries adjacent to the sea to explore and exploit mineral resources under the seabed and subsoil. Admittedly, Presidential Decree. No. 1599 or Establishing an Exclusive Economic Zone signed by President Marcos on June 11, 1978 merely complied to the new demarcation made by UNCLOS setting up a 200 nautical mile-limit from the outermost baseline of the Philippine archipelago as our exclusive economic zone. Marcos was intelligent and far-sighted;he did not specify or name any of those islands within the EEZ as part of our territory like naming the contested Scarborough Shoal, Panatag or Bajo de Masinloc as ours. Marcos knew that a declaration to that effect could spell trouble from other claimant states. Nonetheless, it was understood that the Philippines had a rightful claim over that shoal applying the EEZ which is located only 140 nautical miles off Zambales. Besides, Panatag Shoal or Huangyan Dao to the Chinese is far from the contested Spratly group of islands which is located at the southernmost tip of Palawan. Some say, even if China insists that Panatag Shoal or Huangyan Dao belongs to them for the fact that the island is outside the boundary demarcated in the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, Chinas ratification of the UNCLOS weakened its position from asserting ownership. The UNCLOS obligates China to recognize the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, and that means recognizing the Philippines as having prior rights in that area. Thus, if both countries are technically prevented from asserting their claim, the best formula is to go back to the original Chinese formula of a win-win solution like the sharing of the fish harvest and mineral resources that could be extracted in the area which now appears to be working after a change of policy by the Duterte administration. The joint venture with China does not violate the exclusivity principle of the EEZ. Rather, China decided to enter into a joint agreement. It likely realized that most of the area is well within the countys exclusive economic zone, which is why it acceded to the 60-40 sharing in our favor for whatever resources that may be extracted in the area. On the other hand, the motive of the opposition is clear, which is to derail any agreement with China. By urging the Supreme Court now to declare unconstitutional the JMSU agreement entered into by President Arroyo in 2005, they hope to kill two birds with one stone, which is to spoil altogether the MOU signed by Chinas President Xi Jinping and President Duterte last November. [email protected] "Where are we human beings in a world with so much evil and suffering?" "Where are we human beings in a world with so much evil and suffering?" The Third Sunday of Advent is also called Gaudete Sunday which in Latin means rejoice. It reminds us that this season of advent is a time for rejoicing because the day of our salvation is near at hand. God has revealed himself to us by being born into this world to redeem us from the bondage of sin. Tomorrows Gospel brings us back to the narrative on John the Baptist. Continuing with his message of repentance, John exhorts the crowd to be charitable and lead upright lives. To the tax collectors, he tells them not to collect more than what they are supposed to; to the soldiers, he preaches to them not to extort and be satisfied with their wages. Indeed, Johns message never loses its contemporaneity. Even in the modern environment such as ours where each one is given complex tasks, roles and duties, the foundational truth remains i.e. to perform ones role in accordance with the basic ethos of morality. From the highest official to the most abject, each one must perform his duty within a certain framework of morally and ethically accepted norms. There is always a consequence in violating this essential rule. In Johns own graphic words: His (Lords) winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and father the wheat into his barn, but the chaff will burn with unquenchable fire. Surely, those who choose to ignore and dismiss with contempt the standard rules of morality which is reflected in the Scriptures will make a proper accounting sooner or later. But our God is a merciful God. There is no sin so grave as to be beyond pardon. His love is infinite and unfathomable. While mens capacity to forgive may be finite and his sense of justice often perverted, Gods love is limitless and his justice perfect. Even the worst of sinners are given every window of opportunity to reconcile with God the loving Father. The greatest of saints are sometimes, at one point in their lives, the greatest of sinners. St. Paul was a murderer. A few days ago, when I was still in Poland, I had the opportunity to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps. These places were set up by the German Nazis to implement their final solution for what they believed was a serious problem in Europethe presence of the Jewish people Entering Auschwitz, I saw what welcomed its prisoners during World War II, the words Arbeit macht frei, a German phrase meaning work sets you free. The more appropriate phrase would have been: Death shall set you Free. Because in these camps alone (there were others in Germany and elsewhere in Europe), more than a million and a half peoplecommunists, liberal democrats, the Roma, homosexuals, and most of all, the vast majority (90-95 percent), Jews from all over Europe brought in cattle/freight cars in what is now described as holocaust trainslost their lives here. Auschwitz was built first; in a way, it was an experiment on how to do genocide. The Nazis liked what they saw and so they built Birkenau, a much bigger camp. They were so efficient herestarting with the selection process in the railway platform where SS officers chose who would live (one out of four) and who would die. The inscription in the Birkenau Memorial (in 23 languages to represent the ethnic/national origins of those killed in the two camps) located at the end of the railway and just beside the gassing chamber and crematorium where thousands were killed every day is direct to the point: For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. It was difficult touring the camps, with all the mementos of cruelty and evil - the thousands of shoes of victims, tons of their hair, pictures of the condemned, etc. I had many questions, most of all why we have governments today that act like the Nazis did and why there is a resurgence of fascism in many places - including Germany and the Philippines. The massacre of the poor in our country cannot be compared to the Holocaust in scale but it is still monstrous and terrible. It bothers me greatly that many of our citizens cheer these killings. In the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, I could not help but relate what happened there in World War II with what is and will be happening in the places that will be worst hit by climate calamities arising from human selfishness. I was in Poland to attend a climte conference.William Styron, the author of Sophies Choice, once said: Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. What I might have set down with more accuracy would have been: Someday I will write about Sophies life and death, and thereby help demonstrate how absolute evil is never extinguished from the world. Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response. The query: At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God? And the answer: Where was man? Where are we human beings in a world with so much evil and suffering? This is the paradox of Gaudete Sunday. We can only rejoice of we see though our sinfulness, if we confront the evil in and among us. In this Season of Joy, we can only recognize Christ in the manger if, like John the Baptist, our hearts and minds are not burdened with selfishness, greed, ambition and all forms of moral baggage that becloud our soul into seeing both majesty and mercy of Christ. We must wear the vest of charity, selflessness, trust and total dependence in God and most of all love which is the greatest of all virtues. In these times when so much is happening around us, good and bad, Evangelist Luke is calling us to try to recognize Christ in our midst and discern his divine will. In every event that occurs in our personal lives and the life of our nation, we must pray that we will see things from the perspective of our faith in the Lord and try to understand what he is trying to tell us. As God is the God of history, he is also the God of forgiveness and providence, and most of all the God of love and joy. I ended my trip in Poland with a pilgrimage to the Jasna Gora monastery to pray before the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, origin is traced to St. Luke who tradition says painted it. In honor of the Black Madonna, the Poles sing a beautiful song, one that resonates in our country and the world today: Madonna, Black Madonna, how it is good to be Your child, O, allow, Black Madonna, to be hidden in Your arms. In Her arms you will find peace, and you will be protected from evil, because for all Her children, she has loving heart and she will protect you, when you give Her your heart, when you will repeat these words: Madonna, Black Madonna, how it is good to be Your child; O, allow, Black Madonna, to be hidden in Your arms. Facebook: tonylavs Twitter: tonylavs Katowice, PolandThe worlds nations have a lot to figure out to make swift progress in taking forward climate action. Several scientific reports provided snapshots of the likely future impact of increasingly severe climate change, as well as the worlds progress toward avoiding them. Since last week, governments from more than 195 countries have been meeting in Katowice, which lies at the heart of Polands coal-mining region of Silesia, for the 24th Conference of Partiesunder the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change. The UNFCCC aims to finalize the rulebookrules and processes for turning the ambition into actionto implement the 2015 Paris Agreement. But actions needed to be significantly toughened at the two-week COP 24. Nations of the world have a narrow path to preventing global temperatures from overshooting. This was particularly the stark warning of the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report: Countries need to take rapid and far-reaching transition in energy, industry and transportation to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Already, climate change is significantly increasing the likelihood of extreme weather, severe, widespread and irreversible impact on billions of people and the environment. Challenges brought about by the impacts of climate change, both rapid and slow onset, are getting worse every day we spend doing nothing. Inaction has its price. Countries should embrace the massive co-benefits of ambitious climate action, said Secretary Emmanuel de Guzman, Climate Change Commission vice chairman and the head of the Philippine delegation to COP 24. As chairman of the Climate Vulnerable Forum in 2015, the Philippines, on behalf of 48 developing countries, led the advocacy for the ambitious global warming threshold of 1.5C, now enshrined in the Paris Agreement as its long-term temperature goal (stated as: limiting global average temperature to well below 2 C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C). De Guzman said the Philippine advocacy for a highly ambitious climate goal has upheld the fundamental principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, as well as historical responsibilities, and climate justice. Here in Katowice climate talks, the Philippines will be constant and persistent in our call for the provision of scaled-up, continuous, predictable, and adequate financial support of developed countries to developing countries. We continue to enjoin developed countries to improve their mitigation targets, mobilize climate finance, and accelerate its flow as well as the development and transfer of technology, De Guzman said.During the crucial second week of the climate conference, dozens of people protested and disrupted a side event inside the COP24 venue hosted by the Trump administration promoting innovation in coal and natural gas chanting keep it on the ground and unfurling a banner. During the weekend, hundreds of climate activists and environmentalists marched throughout Katowice, demanding that governments take tougher action to curb global warming.Yet, here at COP 24 in Katowice, some countries refused to welcome the IPCC report on 1.5C that a huge majority of countries wanted to put at the heart of the climate talks. Rodne Galicha, country manager of Climate Reality Philippines, said that climate justice, just and fair transition need to be highlighted in the climate talks. Climate debt must be settled once and for all. It is our moral obligation to lead the country to a more sustainable path and achieve below 1.5C. To welcome and take action on the 1.5C in the climate negotiations process are both moral and inter-generational responsibility. If we allow US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait to control climate action, this is a failed process, Galicha said. Galicha lamented that five years after Haiyan hit the Philippines, its impact continues to echo from within the communities of eastern Visayas to the halls of climate negotiations. Its survivors continue to struggle with recovering from loss and damage, he added, saying that the thousands of lives lost serve as a reminder of the consequences of allowing fossil fuels to continue dominating the energy sector globally. Everyone has a role to play in stopping further global warming within their respective capacities. Divestment is but one of the many feasible ways to contribute to solving the climate crisis, a personal investment with far-reaching benefits for current and future generations, Galicha said. Gerry Arances, Executive Director of the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development expressed his disappointment over the lack of significant policy support from the part of the government to shift from carbon-intensive coal energy to more renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. While there has been a global shift towards renewables this year, the Philippines and other ASEAN countries do not seem to be onboard, considering their energy policies and projections, Arances said. If we are to abide by the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement, global emissions must reach their highest peak in 2020, but the recent UN special report on 1.5C indicates that this may not be possible by 2030, he noted. Arances cited the International Energy Agency report that in 2017, 70 percent of global energy demand was met by oil and gas which corresponds to the 1.2 percent increase in emissions in the same year. It is alarming that two years after the Paris Accord is when we reached a record high in global emissions. This means that developing countries like the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia can no longer use development to opt out of doing their fair share in cutting emissions, he said. The return of the Balangiga bells has generated riveting interest for its historical backdrop on our relations with the United States. The bells are among the booties brought by the American soldiers who turned Balangiga into a wilderness, killing every resident of gun-carrying age in the village. The bells have no sentimental value to the American people, not even to the American soldiers who were involved in the Balangiga massacre. They can be mementos but not as prizes for gallantry of American soldiers since it was not a war in defense of their countrys freedom and independence. The Philippines did not initiate the war; it was the United States who invaded the Republic of the Philippines. The United States had no right to take possession of the Philippines. No actual battle between American and Spanish soldiers ever took place on Philippine soil. General Emiio Aguinaldo proclaimed the Philippine Republic on June 12, 1898, confident that the United States will respect the independence of the first Republican government in Asia. He was aware that the United States encouraged leaders of Spains colonies in South American in their struggle for independence and was always the first to recognize those who succeeded. The US recognized the independence of Argentina in 1816, Valenzuela and Mexico in 1821, Columbia and Peru in 1824, Ecuador and Uruguay in 1830 and Brazil in 1889. The surrender of Intramuros, by then the last and only remaining fort or garrison of the Spanish colonial government, to the American military contingent, must have been the basis for the US to claim sovereignty over the Philippines. But the surrender was a sham. It was secretly arranged by a Belgian consul in connivance with the colonial officials and the officers of the American military contingent. No actual battle between the American and Spanish soldiers took place. What was more ironic was that the news on the signing of the protocol, ending the Spanish-American war reached Manila three days after the capitulation of the Spanish colonial government. The surrender scenario should not have been held. But it was Jose Rizal who prophesied that the Philippines will fall into the hands of the United States. In his article, The Philippines A Century Hence, published on Sept. 30, 1889 issue of La Solidaridad, the countrys foremost national hero made the curious prediction that neither Germany, France, Holland, China or Japan will take interest in the Philippines once Spains colonial hold weakened. Perhaps, he wrote, the great American Republic whose interests lie in the Pacific and who has no hand in the spoliation of Africa, may someday dream of such a possession. It was the jingoists led by Henry Cabot Lodge. Theordore Roosevelt and the owners of media establishments who strongly advised President William McKinley to keep the Philippines. But the most influential advocate of US expansionist policy was Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, who became famous as the author of the book The Influence of Sea Power in History.President McKinley ignored the protests of the Anti-Imperialist League led by Speaker Thomas Reed. When asked about the Treaty of Paris, Reed acidly remarked, We just bought 10 million Malays at $2 a head, unpicked. After the war, the United States had specific plans on what to do with Cuba and Puerto Rico but none on the Philippines. In fact, McKinley admitted that he did not even know where those daned islands were. The Anti-Imperialists League and many Americans were opposed to the the acquisition of the Philippines as part of the terms in the Treaty of Paris signed on Dec. 10, 1898. They considered it a violation of the American Code of Morality and a desecration of the American Purpose. The Treaty was eventually passed in the US Senate by one vote, reflective of the divisiveness of the issue on the propriety of the young and robust American Republic flirting with imperialism. It took more than a decade before the United States could subjugate the 10 million Filipinos who fought valiantly in defense of their honor and independence. The return of the Balangiga bells could serve as a symbolic closure of the Philippine-American war which cost the lives of thousands of both American and Filipino soldiers and over 200,000 civilian casualties. Once reinstalled in the Catholic Church of Balangiga in Eastern Samar, the bells will serve as a memorial to the gallantry of the Samarenos who were among the last Filipinos forced to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Rizals prophecy became a fact of history. "Has this candidate not been making the rounds?" "Has this candidate not been making the rounds?" Last week, while waiting for a friend at the coffee shop of the Manila Peninsula, I stumbled upon a news forum in one of the function rooms of the hotel which was ongoing at that time. As luck would have it, the organizers have three biggies as guests for that particular edition of their forumSenators JV Ejercito, Grace Poe-Llamanzares and Presidential Adviser, Secretary Francis Tol Tolentino. Poe-Llamanzares had to leave early after delivering her usual motherhood statement on the issue at handtraffic problems and proposed solutions. A veteran journalist called my attention and asked my personal take on Tolentinos chances in the forthcoming elections. Barely knowing the former chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority except for things I had heard and read about him, I replied that he had a fair chance of winning this time as he placed 13thin the 2016 senatorial race despite running as an independent candidate, and amid allegations of large-scale cheating. In fact, Tolentino had placed the 2016 senatorial elections under protest, questioning Leila de Limas landing in the winning circle. To my surprise, the veteran journalist challenged me to a friendly bet, declaring there is absolutely no chance for Tolentino to win. Not much of a gambler, I asked the veteran journalist to give a few days as I personally check on him. Tolentino, who recently resigned as Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (so he could run for the 2019 senatorial elections), was, aside from being a former MMDA chair, also mayor of premier city Tagaytay for nine years from1995 to 2004. He holds a ranks of Brigadier General as a reserve officer of the Philippine Army. Listening to his proposed solutions on the worsening traffic woes,I learned that he already had initiated solutions. But the authorities failed to continue implementing them after his stint with the MMDA. For a long-term solution and to prevent similar situation happening in the provinces in the future, Tolentino now calls for the creation of a Presidential Urban Planning Commission. I agree with this. I believe that it was the lack of urban planning that dragged Metro Manila into its present abyss of traffic problems. I checked out Tolentinos platform and this is what I found out: he wants the Local Government Code amended to pave the way for an increased allocation of Internal Revenue Allotment based on performance and its automatic release to local government units; create a Police Youth Reserve Corps to help in peace, order and disaster response; establish and support community colleges offering courses attuned to their needs of communities where these are located; and for LGUs with the most resources to shoulder a greater part of the funding for community colleges. Meanwhile, LGUs with the least resources will receive a greater share of funding assistance from the national government. He also seeks disaster preparedness and speedy rehabilitation for greater resiliency in the face of climate change. He proposes that the national government allocate funds to a Community Rehabilitation/Recovery Trust Fund for LGUs, and then set up a well-planned system for rehabilitating communities adversely affected by natural and man-made disasters, with the assistance of the private sector, through appropriate tax incentives, and urban renewal programs. Tolentino is solidly behind the protection of our natural environment, the integrity of the ecology and food security, which according to him, will enable future generations of Filipinos to live sustainably. For this purpose, Tolentino is proposing the establishment of special environmental courts solely to try cases involving damages made to Mother Nature and its harmful effects on citizens.He also underscores the importance of having clean, accessible and potable drinking water, and is proposing the creation of a Department of Water Resources Management to ensure the access of all Filipinos to safe potable water. Tolentino wants children in school be automatically made direct beneficiaries of PhilHealth and educational health insurance saying this is an effective way of investing in their future and in the future of our country. Tolentino seeks greater participation and empowerment of women in the labor force as he sees this as a means to unleash their full potential for economic development, proposing womens statutory right to wellness and health facilities for their children. The former presidential adviser wants the establishment of a National Teachers Medical Centre to ensure their well-being. Seeing an urgent need to improved quality of life for our senior citizens, Tolentino seeks their continued education and the reintegration of those qualified and willing to appropriate positions in the labor force, and increase retirement benefits. Now, this guy as such a comprehensive program covering most, if not all of the interests and welfare of the different sectors in our society. Who would want this man not to win? The only criticism against him, is that he is not that visible publicly, unlike other senatorial aspirants, who have been reportedly been active making rounds. Armed with this background, I began tracking down Tolentino. And since Day One, it has been the same story, either he was out of town meeting with local townfolk, or gracing events of LGU officials, including Councilors League, etc. When we finally met last Thursday, Tolentino was to host a Christmas Party for vice mayors and barangay officials in their old house in Ermita. I thought that was my chance to interview him. But he didnt even have time to finish his own party as he was sheduled to meet with the officers of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines. And that eveninng, he was to guest in radio program in Hong Kong dedicated to OFWs. Friday morning, I called him up long distance as I had to beat my deadline, but even that early, he was already meeting with OFWs in Hong Kong, personally attending to their problems. So, who says Tolentino has been remiss in making rounds and making himself visible in the public? Maybe hes just too busy attending to legitimate concerns of the people and those of the LGUs from which he hails, he does them without media fanfare. I may not had my personal interview with him but God, this guy is so serious. And we, more than him, deserve someone like Tolentino in the Senate. Ill bet on him any day of the week and maybe twice on a Sunday. Former Special Assistant to the President Christopher Bong Go makes the headlines without even trying. Unfortunately, my friend and kumpadre Bong has also been a favorite target of anti-Duterte propagandists. Just a couple days ago, it was reported that a tarpaulin bearing a Merry Christmas greeting from Bong Go in Silay City in Negros Occidental was taken down by the local authorities because it did not have a permit to be posted. Yup, that is actually an incident worth a front-page treatment for some anti-Duterte newspapers but I have not come across a similarly sensationalized news about another senatorial candidates tarp or billboard being torn down. Bong, a strong senatorial contender in the 2019 elections, reportedly quickly asked his supporters to avoid putting any more political advertisement in any form. Although he appreciates such show of backing from various sectors all over the archipelago, he believes that such ads entail unnecessary costs. He prefers supporters might as well use their money and other resources to extend public services to the poorest of the poor. He may have divested his official post as Special Assistant to the President but the man of the hour has not stopped being a true public servant. Without mainstream media coverage, Bong has visited one locality after the other, leading medical missions and giving relief goods to calamity and fire victims.SAP Bong strongly supports the governments sustainable development, as well as the war versus illegal drugs. He is actually following the footsteps of the President who catapulted to power by the peoples support, unlike the media creature who preceded him in the Palace. Bong has quietly done so as he always did since he started running errands for the longtime mayor of Davao City. I have known him since, and I can attest that, if each and every public servant were to emulate the sincerity and selfless dedication of Manong Digongs errand boy, above all his love for helping the needy and the helpless, this government will be in a much better shape. I wish my friend Bong many, many years of fruitful years in public service. Oops, I should be careful of what I wish for, as the saying goes, Iyung mabunga, yun ang binabato. Good luck, Bai. Although the overall intensity of violence in Syria has decreased, civilians continue to be killed by air and ground-based strikes, Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs told the Security Council on Thursday, during a briefing on the current situation in Syria. Mr. Lowcock detailed several other areas of ongoing concern regarding the protection of civilians, and updated the Council on the various forms of humanitarian aid being delivered. Insecurity continues, he said, and incidents affecting civilians are reported every day. One example he gave was a mortar struck in late November which hit a primary school in Jarjnaz town just as students were leaving, killing four boys and two girls and injuring 10 other children. Humanitarian organizations estimate that up to 6,000 civilians are trapped in pockets that are still under the control of ISIL militants east of the Euphrates in the Deir-ez-Zor governerate. These civilians continue to suffer as a result of ground fighting and airstrikes, one of which reportedly hit a field hospital in the area, killing and injuring scores of civilians, including women, children and medical staff. No aid has reached displaced people in the area since October. A recent humanitarian mission, said Mr. Lowcock, was forced to turn back when its vehicles came under attack and an aid worker was shot. The Emergency Relief Coordinator expressed concern about the situation in the Rukban refugee camp on the border with Jordan, where over 40,000 people are sheltering. The UN update report on Syria delivered to Security Council members earlier this week, reported that refugees have limited and irregular access to basic services, deteriorating health conditions, and are living in a state of fear caused by criminality and the risk of violence, he said. A statement from Geert Cappelaere the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa also released on Thursday, gave further information on Rukban: freezing temperatures and a lack of basic commodities is leaving thousands of people at risk of disease and death. This week alone, two sick babies have died in the camp. Deploring the persistence of areas classified as hard-to-reach by aid, he said the UN humanitarian effort is making progress. In the last three months, over 550 missions have assessed, delivered or monitored the delivery of assistance, and the UNs field presence beyond Damascus has expanded, enhancing the Organizations ability to engage with communities, assess needs, deliver assistance and monitor impact. Saudi Arabias Red Sea Development Company has unveiled its tourism master plan, which seeks to create 70,000 jobs in the sector and contribute $5.86 billion to the kingdoms GDP. The company CEO John Pagano and his team presented the master plan to King Salman bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh earlier this week. The Red Sea development project will turn jointly 22 islands into tourism resorts that will feature 3,000 hotel rooms, an airport, marinas, residential properties, recreational facilities etcThe project is scheduled to emerge by 2022 as part of Phase One of the mega blue print. The tourism project will position the Gulf country as a global destination for luxury tourism, Pagano said. The economic contribution of the project will enable the worlds largest oil exporter to reduce its dependence on oil revenues; an objective of the ambitious Vision 2030 of the kingdom. Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who also doubles as the Chairman of the Rea Sea Development Company, attended the project presentation ceremony. The UK Ministry of Defense brushed aside reports that the European country is in talks with Kuwait to open a permanent military base as it has embarked on building a strong military presence in the region after agreeing with Bahrain and Oman to set permanent bases. London-based The New Arab reports the British ministry, in an email to the Qatari media, denied the claims made Thursday by Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu quoting Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, which itself cited Kuwaiti diplomatic sources. There is absolutely no truth in the story whatsoever, a media representative of the ministry told The New Arab. According to Al-Rai, the UK and Kuwait were scheduled to meet on Thursday to discuss aspects of this cooperation. Another local media Al-Qabas gave further details noting that the meeting would close the deal for the establishment of the military base. UK previously targeted the oil-rich country as one hosts of its planned permanent military bases in the region. Were looking at all the possibilities. Were not talking about a major deployment, I dont think, but were looking at what might work for both the United Kingdom and for Kuwait. As I say, its at a very early stage, British ambassador to Kuwait Michael Davenport said in a February interview with Forces Network. As it is set to leave the EU in March, UK has begun bolstering its military deployment in the Gulf region, an initiative dubbed a British military build-up east of Suez. Under the initiative, Bahrain and Oman have already reached agreement with London to host permanent military bases. The UK in April opened HMS Juffair naval base in Mina Salman Port with a capacity of 500 Royal Navy personnel. In the wake of a major military exercise in October that involved 5,500 British soldiers and 70,000 Omani forces, the UK announced that it would establish a permanent military facility in the Sultanate. Yemen rival sides, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi-endorsed regular forces, reached on the last day of UN-brokered talks in Sweden a cease fire in the vital Hodeidah port city. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres Thursday said the two sides represented by Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani and rebel negotiator Mohammed Abdelsalam agreed to withdraw from the city and the port to allow the global body take control of the port facility and enable aid access for civilian population. We have reached an agreement on Hodeidah port and city. We will see a neutral redeployment of forces in the port and city and the establishment of a governorate-wide ceasefire, Guterres told a press conference in Rimbo, outside Stockholm. Hodeidah and the Red Sea port had been under rebel control but had been for many months under siege by International forces led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that have been providing support to forces loyal to ousted President Mansour Hadi. The Houthi rebels overran capital Sanaa in 2014 forcing Hadi and his government to relocate in the southern city of Aden. The Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in 2015 in a move to restore Hadis government but the drive has rather compounded the conflict, which has caused over 10,000 death mostly among civilians. Guterres noted that both sides also agreed to silence guns in the Yemeni third city of Taiz, which has also been a scene of fierce fighting. The protagonists will be meeting next month for a new round of talks to discuss a political framework for peace negotiations, the UN Chief said. Several issues including the future of the airport in the capital Sanaa or economic measures needed to spare the population from further hunger have not been resolved, reports say. Saudi Arabia and its allies have come under intense international pressure mainly from western countries led by the US to halt the conflict. The western allies have provided technical assistance and experts in the conflict, which the UN has described as the worst humanitarian crisis of all times. King Mohammed VI on Thursday appointed new heads to two constitutional authorities, namely the national authority for probity, prevention and fight against corruption and the Ombudsman institution, part of the Sovereigns endeavors to promote good governance, public service performance, transparency and justice for all. Mohamed Bachir Rachdi, an IT engineer, was thus named new president of the anti-corruption watchdog, known by its French acronym as the ICPC, while Mohamed Benalilou was appointed as the countrys Ombudsman. At a meeting with Mohamed Bachir Rachdi, the King emphasized the importance he attaches to the fight against corruption in all its forms, given its negative impact on the functioning of public administrations and institutions, said the Royal Office in a statement. The King also underlined its impact on services for citizens, and the negative repercussions of this plague on the different sectors of the national economy and the achievement of a sustainable and balanced development, said the statement. On this occasion, the Sovereign urged the new president of the anti-corruption watchdog to endeavor for the optimal implementation of the missions entrusted by the Constitution to this national body, tasked with taking initiatives, coordinating, monitoring and carrying out anti-corruption policies. The national authority for probity, prevention and fight against corruption also seeks to streamline public life, uphold the principles of good governance, promote public service culture and the values of responsible citizenship. The King stressed the need for coordination, cooperation and pooling efforts with concerned national bodies, each in its field of expertise, for a collective mobilization, use of all tools of awareness-raising and legal means in order to combat this scourge in all its aspects, and apply the law against offenders, underlined the Royal Office statement. At a separate meeting with the new Ombudsman, the Sovereign stressed the need for the institution to fulfil its mission, mainly through its contribution to upholding the principles of the rule of law, transparency and good governance in the management of public services. The Sovereign also called the Mediator institution to continue making recommendations aimed at guaranteeing the equality of citizens before the law and the administration and improving the quality of services provided by public institutions, State services and local authorities, said a statement released by the Royal Office. On this occasion, the King underlined the role of the Ombudsman Institution, an independent national body, which endeavors to end injustices and defend the rights of citizens against any abuse within the frame of the respect of the principles of the rule of law, justice and equity, added the statement. The Monarch also called on the new Mediator to build on achievements made, while ensuring the full implementation of the powers of this Institution both with regard to mediation and rapprochement procedures and with respect to proposing legal proceedings, as well as in terms of the popularization of its role and powers and interaction with aggrieved citizens. In order to maintain this blog I have to pay for its upkeep including a hosting company, support services, virus and other malicious hackers. If you appreciate what I write please make a donation. Theater Emory performs Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet. Saralee Fine, a longtime patron of Theater Emory, has bequeathed $500,000 to the company. Photo by Ann Watson. Theater Emory has received a $500,000 bequest from the estate of Saralee Fine, a longtime patron. It is the single largest gift in the history of Theater Emory, and a milestone investment that advances Emory Colleges One Emory commitment to the creation of new works, faculty excellence and the student experience. Fines generosity redefines the possibilities for Theater Emory, a unique professional theater company where undergraduates work alongside professional artists. Her gift, which will create an endowed scholarship and a program fund for travel and special projects, will expand student opportunities, increase the profile of productions and make them more accessible at Emory and in the world. This gift is a statement of Saralees enduring belief in creativity, and it will be an enduring tribute to her spirit, says Pat Miller, a retired senior lecturer of theater studies. As Theater Emorys former managing director, Miller worked closely with Fine during her three years as president of the theaters board of directors. Fine, who died in 2016, had taught medieval through Renaissance literature courses at Kennesaw State University and Oglethorpe University. Her specialty was Shakespeare. She had been devoted to Theater Emory since the late 1980s and knew firsthand the impact that philanthropy has on the ability to develop and sustain artistic creation. She and her former husband, Robert, had previously endowed the Fine Award, for the best student actor in a production. She believed in the value of students working with professionals and was especially intrigued by our new play development process, frequently attending rehearsals to observe, says Miller. Her bequest expands student opportunities, making it possible for student showcases in New York City and even a potential production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, says Leslie Taylor, former theater studies department chair and Theater Emorys resident set and costume designer. Being able to take new work, by faculty or students, beyond the confines of Emory has the potential to both increase the profile of our productions and also make them more accessible, Taylor says. Brent Glenn, the companys artistic director, describes the bequest as transformational for Theater Emory. Saralee Fines gift will indeed leave an indelible mark on Theater Emory as well as the undergraduates who are involved in the company, Glenn says. This is a gift from someone who truly appreciated the experience we provide for students and is a humbling reminder of how many lives the arts can impact. The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] Japan's central government is pushing ahead with a controversial plan to relocate an American military base within the southern prefecture of Okinawa. They've started full-scale land reclamation work despite strong local opposition. Crews have begun pouring sand and dirt into the coastal area of Henoko so the base can be moved there. The reclamation had been suspended due to legal battles between the central and local governments. The US Marine Corps Futenma Air Station currently sits in a densely populated area and poses a safety concern because of the volume of military air traffic. Both Tokyo and Washington maintain the planned move is the only solution. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, "With the security environment surrounding Japan becoming increasingly serious, we want to maintain deterrence under the Japan-US alliance. And bearing in mind we also need to eliminate the risks posed by the Futenma base, relocating to Henoko is the only viable option." Tokyo's move drew an angry response from Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki. He was elected in September and wants the base moved out of the prefecture altogether, just as his predecessor did. Tamaki said, "By proceeding with the construction quickly, the central government is trying hard to make it a foregone conclusion and get the people of Okinawa to give up. But in fact, such moves will only invite strong opposition from people here. So the central government needs to understand that the more they push ahead with the work, the more they will add fuel to the burning anger of the people in Okinawa." Dozens of protestors gathered near the site on Friday morning to voice their disapproval. Many in Okinawa feel they bear an unfair burden. The prefecture hosts about 70 percent of US military facilities in Japan. Discussions over the relocation started between Washington and Tokyo more than 20 years ago. The Okinawa government plans to hold a non-binding referendum on the issue in February. King Mohammed VI has appointed Mohamed Bachir Rachdi, an IT engineer, new president of the national anti-corruption authority, lInstance nationale de la probite, de la prevention et de la lutte contre la corruption (ICPC). During the appointment ceremony Thursday, the King emphasized the importance he attaches to the fight against corruption in all its forms, given its negative impact on the functioning of public administrations and institutions and on the services to the citizens, said the Royal Office in a statement. The Sovereign also underlined the negative repercussions of this scourge on the various sectors of the economy and on achieving sustainable and balanced development. In this connection, the Sovereign urged the new President of the anti-corruption authority to endeavor for the optimal implementation of the tasks entrusted by the Constitution to this national institution. These tasks encompass, among others, initiative taking, coordination, supervision of the execution and monitoring of anti-corruption policies, and contribution to the moralization of public life, the statement said. The institution is also tasked with enshrining the principles of good governance, the culture of the public service, and the general interest, as well as the values of responsible citizenship. The King also stressed the need for the authority to promote coordination and cooperation with the national institutions and authorities concerned, and to pool efforts for collective mobilization, using all awareness-raising mechanisms and legal means in order to prevent and combat this scourge in all its manifestations. The King called for the application of legal and judicial procedures against offenders, the Royal Office said. Mohamed Bachir Rachdi, was born in 1960 in Khouribga. Holder of a degree in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Informatics from the Rabat Mohammedia School of Engineers, Mr. Rachdi is currently the President and General Manager of a Moroccan company specializing in providing IT solutions. He is member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), as well as of the Council of the National Observatory for Human Development (ONDH). Mr. Rachdi, former Secretary General of Transparency Morocco, chairs the Ethics and Good Governance Commission of the Moroccan employers association, the CGEM. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has announced a $96.6 million loan to Morocco to enable the country to implement a program on improving access to employment through vocational training. Morocco is one of the first African countries to use this innovative financing instrument that makes the disbursement cycle conditional on achieving results, while reducing transaction costs, says AfDB in a press release. In addition to facilitating access to the labor market for young people and women and improving the quality of employment in Moroccos regions, this operation will help to enhance human capital by improving the skills and employability of the workforce. For the first time in Morocco, a training center for teachers of vocational skills training will be set up under the Program, which also provides for the creation of a second facility dedicated to entrepreneurship training, the statement adds. The program is also meant to support Morocco in the implementation of its strategies targeting employment promotion and vocational training upgrading. In November, the African Development Bank lent Morocco 117 million to finance a project destined to ensure the sustainability and security of access to drinking water in several provinces, which have a combined population of 2.5 million people. The partnership between Morocco and the AfDB, which is nearly half a century old, includes more than 160 projects worth more than $10 billion. The funding, devoted mostly to basic infrastructure, covers several sectors including energy, water, transport, agriculture and social development. Morocco has been classified among developing countries that notably improved their renewable energies sector and policies since 2010. This came in the recently published World Bank report of the 2018 Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) that listed 133 countries renewable energies improvements. Morocco got a score of 74, according to the report of RISE, which informs investors of the sustainable energy policies and regulations of a given country. The World Bank surveyed 133 countries based on data provided by governments from 2010 to 2017. Alongside China, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and South Africa, Morocco emerged as a prominent example of a country that has put in place advanced policy frameworks in support of sustainable energy, reported the Morocco World News website. The report gave Morocco a score of 74 points for sustainable energy indicators, including access to electricity (100 points), energy efficiency (56 points), and renewable energy (67 points). In terms of energy efficiency, Morocco scored high with 80 points in the national energy efficiency planning indicator, 100 points in energy efficiency indicator, and 96 points in energy efficiency incentives from electricity rate structures. However, Morocco scored low in other indicators, including incentives and mandates put in place for the public sector (13 points), for industrial and commercial end users (13 points), transport (0 points), and minimum energy efficiency performance standards (32 points). Regarding renewable energies, Morocco did well in the legal framework for renewable energy (100 points), planning for renewable energy expansion (83), and attributes of financial and regulatory incentives (83 points). The report gave a medium score to incentive and regulatory support for renewable energy (62 points), counterparty risk (65), carbon pricing and monitoring (50), and use (23 points). Morocco produces 28,000 gigawatt hours of electricity, while the rest is imported from Spain. It seeks to boost its production capacity by 6,500 megawatts by 2020, with solar and wind energies each representing 2,000 megawatts, according to a US International Trade Administration 2017 report. RISE is a tool for policymakers to compare national policy frameworks for sustainable energy and identify opportunities to attract investment. RISE assesses countries policy support for each of the three pillars of sustainable energy access to modern energy, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. With 27 indicators covering 133 economies and representing 97% of the world population, RISE provides a reference point to help policymakers benchmark their sector policy framework against those of regional and global peers, and a powerful tool to help develop policies that advance sustainable energy goals. King Mohammed VI has urged the Moroccan Ombudsman institution to continue its contribution to upholding the principles of the rule of law, transparency and good governance in the management of public services. The Sovereign, who appointed on Thursday Mohamed Benalilou as Ombudsman, also called the Mediator institution to continue making recommendations aimed at guaranteeing the equality of citizens before the law and the administration and improving the quality of services provided by public institutions, State services and local authorities, said a statement released by the Royal Office. On this occasion, the King underlined the role of the Ombudsman Institution, an independent national body, which endeavors to end injustices and defend the rights of citizens against any abuse within the frame of the respect of the principles of the rule of law, justice and equity, added the statement. The Monarch also called on the new Mediator to build on achievements made, while ensuring the full implementation of the powers of this Institution both with regard to mediation and rapprochement procedures and in respect of proposing legal proceedings, as well as in terms of the popularization of its role and powers and interaction with aggrieved citizens. The Mediator Institution handles complaints lodged by citizens regarding several issues including expropriation, enforcement of court judgement, taxation, misuse of administrative procedures It issues proposals and recommendations for the simplification a complex administrative procedure, or a law whose firm implementation or incompatibility with the changing realities may cause unfairness and harm to the complainants. The Mediator Institution also seeks to bridge the gap between citizens and the public administration in a bid to restore a trust-centered relationship based on the spirit of good citizenship, rule of law and principles of human rights, justice and equity. The wall between the U.S. and Mexico near El Paso. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images On December 6, a group of 163 people were taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Texas desert after they crossed the border and approached agents seeking asylum. Among them was a seven-year-old girl. Just over eight hours after she was detained, the girl began having seizures, the Washington Post reports. With a temperature of 105.7 degrees, she was airlifted to an El Paso hospital, where she went into cardiac arrest and eventually died. According to CBP, the girl appeared to have gone without food and water for several days. Whats unclear is what was done to change that after she was taken into custody. The Post reports that food and water are typically provided to migrants in Border Patrol custody, but it wasnt immediately clear Thursday if the girl received provisions and a medical exam before the onset of seizures. In a statement, CBP offered its sincerest condolences and said U.S. agents did all they could to help her: Our sincerest condolences go out to the family of the child, CBP spokesman Andrew Meehan said in a statement to The Washington Post. Border Patrol agents took every possible step to save the childs life under the most trying of circumstances, Meehan said. As fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we empathize with the loss of any child. The tragic death has drawn swift condemnation from Democratic officials. New York Representative Jerrold Nadler tweeted that he will be demanding immediate answers to this tragedy from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Representative Beto ORourke, who represents El Paso, joined California Senator Kamala Harris in calling for a complete investigation into the girls death. It appears CBP will oblige. The agency told the Post that its investigating the incident to ensure appropriate policies were followed. But even if policies were followed, there are other issues that may have contributed to this tragedy. RAICES, a Texas non-profit serving immigrants, blamed the clogged immigration system for asylum seekers crossing through a dangerous desert rather than a port of entry. We need a total revamp of how we intake asylum-seekers. We cant let more kids die in the desert, the group said in a tweet. Meanwhile, the ACLU Border Rights Center blamed the girls death on inhumane conditions, a lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty, which have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths. Construction of high-speed rail tracks in Californias San Joachin Valley has been slow and expensive. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP/REX/Shutterstock As Jerry Brown prepares to leave office after his second eight-year stint as Governor of California, hes leaving his chosen successor Gavin Newsom a strong legacy, including a state with renewed economic and fiscal health and a Democratic super-majority in both chambers of the state legislature. But there is at least one thing Browns leaving behind that will likely be a major headache for Newsom: a much-delayed and extremely expensive high-speed rail project that has bled public support as rapidly as dollars. Veteran California journalist Dan Walters succinctly describes the problem: The messiest bit of unfinished business Govenor Jerry Brown will bequeath to successor Gavin Newsom is one of the outgoing governors pet projects, a north-south bullet train project. One could even say its a hot mess, given the revelations of a new audit of the multi-billion-dollar projects first phase. That initial segment 100-plus miles of track in the mostly flat, sparsely populated San Joaquin Valley, from Chowchilla to an orchard near Shafter, north of Bakersfield was supposed to be the easiest to design and build. State Auditor Elaine Howle told the Legislature that the High-Speed Rail Authoritys flawed decision making regarding the start of high-speed rail system construction in the Central Valley and its ongoing poor contract management for a wide range of high-value contracts have contributed to billions of dollars in cost overruns for completing the system. The San Joaquin segment was supposed to be finished by 2022, and the whole enchilada by 2029. But its not looking good, and if that first deadline is missed, the state could be exposed to the clawback of up to 3.5 billion in federal funds awarded the project in 2010 as part of the Obama administrations economic stimulus program. And the project is already looking at an estimated total cost (expected to continue to go higher) of 77 billion dollars. Things have steadily gone south since California voters authorized the initiative in 2008, as Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez recently observed: In 2008, voters approved what was supposed to be a $33-billion railroad completed by 2020. Today and check back tomorrow, because these numbers could change the cost has exploded to an estimated $77 billion and the current completion date estimate is 2033. Of the three funding sources, state money isnt nearly adequate, federal money is no guarantee and private investment is nonexistent. Hundreds of lawsuits over environmental concerns and the rail authoritys condemnations have jammed court dockets for years. Even if the very first phase of the project in the San Joaquin Valley is finished, the next phase northwards will involve tunneling through mountains. And even if the line under construction is linked to existing rail lines running up to San Francisco and down to Los Angeles, the passenger service wont be high-speed, and that could endanger some state-issued bonds requiring big improvements in speed. With vocal opposition to the project ranging from fiscal hawks to farm and environmental groups, public support has flagged considerably. A new PPIC statewide survey shows that nearly three-fourths of Californians oppose making high-speed rail a major fiscal priority for the state. And that sour opinion is held pretty consistently across party and regional lines. Gavin Newsom has long been on record supporting Browns bullet train, but as he approaches the governorship, he seems to be sending signals that he might reconsider it all, as indicated in remarks last week during an appearance in Fresno, which will be served by the first phase of the project if its ever completed: Ive been a long time supporter and I continue to support the Valley to Valley segment but I also think its time for a fresh start its time to take a more sober, honest assessment of what it is and what it isnt and thats what I intend to do. And frankly Ive been critical of some of the financing plans over the past few years but I hope to get it done but with a lot more transparency and a lot more accountability. Fresh start is one of those euphemisms politicians use at the beginning of a U-turn. But for all the obstacles that exist to completing anything like the original scheme, there remain boosters with enduring dreams if not fantasies: Congressman Jim Costa, a long time high speed rail supporter, applauds Newsoms call for a fresh start and believes congress and the President will get behind an infrastructure spending bill that will provide money for high speed rail projects around the country. Costa is the rare Democrat who still thinks Donald Trump is going to wind up backing a big bipartisan infrastructure program one, moreover, that includes a big public transit component. Meanwhile, Trumps California Republican friends are always gathering petitions for a 2020 ballot initiative that would kill the bulletin train altogether. Newsom has a tricky problem to solve. This project was not just the fond aspiration of train geeks like Cal Techs fictional scientist Sheldon Cooper. It has become integral to the states overall transportation, economic development, and environmental plans (those trains would take a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere). But getting passengers into seats and showing tangible benefits has to happen fairly soon before the missed deadlines and soaring costs make it all a legendary train wreck. Religion was an even bigger factor than class or gender in 2018. Photo: Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images Its well-known that white working-class voters are a central part of the GOPs and Donald Trumps electoral base. Its also well-known that white evangelical voters are even more prone to go MAGA. The fact that these two groups significantly overlap, especially in the South, has created some confusion in understanding the nature of these Trumpian allegiances. And it suggests that it might be a good idea to disentangle class, gender, and religion in analyzing these groups. Back before the elections, the Cook Political Reports Amy Walter drew attention to this issue, noting research showing a bigger gap in Trump approval ratings between evangelicals and non-evangelicals than between groups divided by gender or class (defined as education levels). She suggested that fact should point Democrats towards some largely undiscussed opportunities: White evangelical women without a college degree give Trump a 68 percent job approval rating, while those with a degree give him a much lower, though still positive 51 percent approval rating. Meanwhile, Trumps approval among white, non-evangelical women without a college degree is 35 percent, just five points higher than the 30 percent approval rating he gets from white, non-evangelical college-educated women First, stop assuming that all white, non-college voters are core Trump supporters. Trumps base is evangelical white voters, regardless of education level. Second, white non-evangelical, non-college women are the ultimate swing voters. Now with the benefit of exit polls, we can check to see if Walters hypothesis checked out. Ron Brownstein demonstrates that it did: Democrats ran particularly well this year among white working-class women who are not evangelicals, a group that also displayed substantial disenchantment in the exit poll with Trumps performance. Those women could be a key constituency for Democrats in 2020 in pivotal Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where relatively fewer blue-collar whites are also evangelical Christians. Nationwide, nearly three-fifths of blue-collar white women who are not evangelicals voted Democratic in last months House races, while an equal number said they disapproved of Trumps performance in office, the analysis of exit poll results found. That was well over double the Democratic share of the vote among non-college white women who are evangelical Christians. To be specific about it, Democrats led among non-evangelical white non-college-educated women by a robust 57/41 margin. Republicans won evangelical white non-college-educated women by a huge 71/22 margin. Despite a gender gap among white working-class voters, Democrats won the overall non-evangelical white working-class demographic by a 52/46 margin. The implications for 2020 are already sinking in, notes Brownstein: This bubbling private debate has given rise to a new and improbable acronym that some Democrats see as a potentially pivotal group for 2020: WNCNEW, as in white non-college, non-evangelical women. WNCNEW is the group Democrats should care about, one Democratic strategist insisted in an email. Those women represented about one in nine voters nationally this year and an even larger share in key Rust Belt battlegrounds. This realization should at least supplement the excitement Democrats are expressing about their gains among college-educated suburban voters in 2018, and the expectation that growing non-white populations will eventually tip the balance against lily-white elephants. There is an opening among certain categories of white working-class voters, and taking advantage of it does not require evading or disguising progressive cultural positions. And it just so happens the most promising of these voters disproportionately live in some of the most essential states. It could be a very big deal in 2020. At GlobalX we use that margin to invest $5m into our free-of-charge cloud based conveyancing workflow software Matter Centre, we spend $4m on our practice management software for mid-tier law firms and we spend $7m to continually innovate new legal tech products in a highly competitive market, Maloney said. PEXA have stepped well outside of their mandate by trying to leverage its near 8,000 members to crush downstream competition. This type of power is unprecedented in modern markets, and it is the regulators responsibility to curb this behaviour, he added. Monopoly GlobalX noted that the electronic lodgement network operator (ELNO) industry is currently the focus of several independent reviews. The NSW government has tapped the states Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal to review pricing in the industry. Victor Dominello, NSW Minister of finance, service, and property, warned last month that PEXA could become an Apple-like closed system and urged that the platform be opened to ensure interoperability, according to the AFR. The Australian Registrars National Electronic Conveyancing Council (ARNECC), the regulator tasked to oversee the power of ELNOs including PEXA, has engaged consultants to review the eConveyancing Intergovernmental Agreement, GlobalX said. ARNECC is also drafting operating rules that will establish guidelines on how ELNs must be operated. In the latest draft of the rules, revision 5.1, ARNECC suggested that an ELNO can participate in adjacent services given that the organisation providing those services is in a separate entity and that Chinese walls are in place. We are astounded that ARNECC would offer up such a position. In essence ARNECC are proposing that PEXA can create a holding company, put the ELNO PEXAs Exchange into one subsidiary, become a conveyancer in a different subsidiary and then throw an information broker contract into a third legal entity. In this environment the foundations are being set for PEXA to control the complete end-to-end conveyancing process, Maloney said. In a recent survey of member firms, we found that 86% strongly believed that law firms that are more innovative users of technology will have a competitive advantage. As an organization, we place great importance on helping our member firms drive change through continued innovation, said Gordon Vala-Webb, Senior Advisor, Technology and Innovation at Lex Mundi. Diligen fulfilled our key needs from both a product and service perspective. Its a natural technology offering for those looking to change the way they approach the tedious and manual contract review process. International firm re-elects management duo Watson Farley & Williams has re-elected Chris Lowe and Lothar Wegener as managing partners following a stellar period of growth for the international firm. Lowe previously headed the firms Singapore office and was global maritime sector head. Lothar was Head of WFW Germany. They became joint managing partners in 2014 and their second five-year term begins in January 2019. We are energised and enthused at the prospect of a further term. Our re-election represents a strong commitment by the firm to its investment culture together with the ambition to achieve sustainable quality growth for our services into sector strategy, Lowe said. The firm has also announced that it will welcome back Nuanporn Wechsuwanarux as counsel. She joins the firm in mid-December from Baker McKenzie, where she was a senior associate. Inthasuwan, who has nearly 30 years experience, is known for his expertise in complex, cross-border litigation and regulatory matters in a wide range of industries, with a specific focus on the banking and finance, insurance, telecoms, ITC, IP, and construction sectors. Wechsuwanarux is a specialist in matters involving Thailands energy sector. As we selectively add strength to our top tier practices, the addition of these two lawyers demonstrates our commitment to growth and exceptional client service in Thailand and the region, said Satoshi Kawai, Chandler MHM co-managing partner. While Washington prepares for new cold wars, Americas two major rivals are warming up to one another. Driving the news: Today alone, the Trump administration laid out an Africa strategy that is tied almost entirely to blocking Chinese and Russian influence, and President Trump used the word China 20 times in a relatively brief Fox News interview. U.S. foreign policy is increasingly defined by confrontation and competition with China and with Russia. But what about the third leg of that great power triangle? I sat down yesterday with Alexander Gabuev, a China expert at Carnegie Russia, who told me the two giants are moving closer together in part as a response to an increasingly confrontational Washington. Gabuev says there are "three elements of geopolitical tinder that allow Russia and China to swipe right every time" the need for security on their 2,000-mile border, the complementary natures of their economies and the similarities in their authoritarian approaches. Those elements provide the foundation for a relationship that is growing deeper and is characterized by the phrase, "not necessarily for each other, but never against each other." The long-standing issues of tension like competition for influence in Central Asia or China's copycat approach to Russian military technology have largely been put aside, Gabuev says. On military tech, he says, the Kremlin has decided that "China will get there in 5 or 10 years on their own, so we either sell it to them now or lose out." Likewise, theyre resigning themselves to the reality of China being a dominant economic player in their backyard. What it looks like ... In September, China took part for the first time in Russias Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) and its massive Vostok war games. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin emphasized their cooperation and mutual respect at EEF, going so far as to don aprons and make pancakes. Chinas ambassador to Russia, Li Hui, said, At present, China-Russia relations are at their best in history. Putin and Xi met again at the G20 on Nov. 30, though their conversation was overshadowed by Trumps high-stakes dinner with Xi and last-minute cancellation of his Putin meeting. What we're witnessing is not a true alliance, but a partnership defined by pragmatism. Russia may resent becoming the junior partner in its relationship with a rising power, for example, but it also appreciates the economic and diplomatic cover it gets from China as it faces Western rebukes and sanctions. The bottom line: I asked Gabuev if there's an existential fear of a China-led world in Moscow, as there is in Washington. He said Russian officials tend to view the U.S.-led world order as "finished," but don't believe China will simply replace America, in part because Europe and Japan won't get in line behind Beijing. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images In November, Florida voters decisively moved to restore voting rights to 1.5 million individuals convicted of felonies. But the states new Republican governor seems ready to drag his feet. Ron DeSantis told the Palm Beach Post on Wednesday that Amendment 4, which enfranchised non-violent felons in the state and is intended to be self-implementing, should not take effect until the legislature devises implementing language when it convenes in 2019. Theyre going to be able to do that in March, he added. Theres no way you can go through this session without implementing it. The amendment, which 65 percent of voters approved on November 6, ends the states practice of forcing people with non-violent felony convictions to go before the governor to plead for enfranchisement. By the time voters went to the polls in 2018, the state had a backlog of 10,000 such cases to resolve; very few individuals had their voting rights restored. Even if legislators do pass implementation language in March, the implementation of Amendment 4 will be delayed by at least two months. As the Tampa Bay Times reported on Wednesday, voting rights activists worry that conservative legislators will weaken the amendment by inserting obstacles in the path to enfranchisement. Legislator comments previously reported by the Times on December 4 seem to support those fears. How do you evaluate eligibility? a Republican state senator, Dennis Baxley said. I still have some questions What were the terms of their sentence? Do they have to meet probation? Did they complete their debt to society or not? Baxley will chair the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee when the legislature meets in March. As a candidate, DeSantis opposed Amendment 4. In a September interview with the Times, DeSantis asserted, unprompted, that he doesnt support automatic restoration of voting rights (for felons). Im going to be very tough on crime, and Im never going to budge on that. His position has relatively transparent origins. On the campaign trail, the former prosecutor modeled himself after Donald Trump, both in his tough-on-crime stance and in the delivery of bombastic dog-whistles directed at his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. As the Washington Post outlined in October, DeSantis called Gillum articulate and, referring to Gillums left-wing policy platform, told voters that the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. DeSantis also repeatedly spoke at conferences organized by David Horowitz, who has spoken of a race war and once asked why black Americans dont emigrate elsewhere if theyre truly oppressed. The Republican has other reasons to fear Amendment 4. He barely scraped to victory over Gillum; a mere four-tenths of a point separated the two in the end. Enfranchising Floridas convicted non-violent felons will mostly restore voting rights to men of color, who are overrepresented in the demographic. They arent likely to vote for DeSantis, or for another Republican candidate, and that puts the incoming governor and his party in a precarious position. DeSantis probably cant get out of implementing Amendment 4 entirely, and if he intends to try anyway, he might want to speak to Maines outgoing Republican governor Paul LePage about the legal ramifications to blocking the implementation of a successful ballot measure. But as Baxleys comments may foreshadow, DeSantis and other Republicans could still weaken enfranchisement, short of stopping it outright. Florida voting rights advocates are probably in for a fight. The Senate passed a resolution proposed by Sens. Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, and Mike Lee to pull U.S. support from the Saudi-led coalition in the war in Yemen by a 56-41 vote. President Trump says he'd veto the resolution if it reached his desk. Why it matters: This is the first time the Senate has ever used congressional authority handed to them in the War Powers Act of 1973. The move stands as a rebuke of the Trump administrations continued support of the Saudis in the face of the disaster unfolding in Yemen, and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Earlier on Thursday, the warring factions in Yemen made a significant step forward in agreeing on a ceasefire in vital the port city of Hodeidah. The UN-backed discussions in Stockholm between Yemens internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels ended on Dec. 13 in a series of agreements that, if successfully implemented, will help alleviate Yemens humanitarian crisis and may ultimately pave the way for a negotiated peace. Why it matters: The two sides have been fighting since September 2014 in a conflict that has entangled regional powers, along with the U.S., and created a humanitarian catastrophe. The results of the Stockholm meeting could herald the wars first real breakthrough, but both sides will need to quickly make good on their commitments, or the positive momentum could stall. Where it stands: Expectations for the talks were low, but they yielded several key agreements on building confidence, reducing violence, and preparing for peace negotiations and a commitment to take up outstanding issues in 2019. Both sides can claim victory: By getting the government to agree to a prisoner exchange, the Houthis shore up their manpower and their credibility. In agreeing to turn control of Hodeidahs seaport over to the UN, they also ensure that critical humanitarian aid and commercial goods will continue to flow into North Yemen. By securing the withdrawal of Houthi militias from the city of Hodeidah, the government recovers a key strategic location from Houthi control and avoids a costly offensive that could have claimed thousands of civilian lives. Yes, but: Sticking points remain. The Yemeni government did not show flexibility on an agreement that would have ensured the payment of civil servants salaries in Houthi territory, while a tentative agreement to reopen Sanaas airport, another key Houthi demand, fell apart at the last minute. The Houthis also refused to lift their siege of Taiz city (although they did agree to establish a joint committee to explore the issue) or provide locations for tens of thousands of landmines. Additionally, despite an eagerness to begin peace negotiations on the Houthis part, the government, mistrustful of Houthi intentions, deferred them until the Stockholm agreements are implemented. The bottom line: The Stockholm agreements can improve Yemens humanitarian situation, but Houthi failures to abide by past agreements, the governments belief that its winning the war and that time is on their side, and the fact that the cease-fire applies only to Hodeidah will make implementation a formidable challenge. Fatima Abo Alasrar is a senior analyst at the Arabia Foundation. The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative has announced Dr. Tom Catena, who for the past decade has been the only doctor based permanently in Sudans war-torn Nuba Mountains, as its first chairman. Why it matters: Catena is a former winner of the prestigious Aurora Prize and was named one of TIMEs Most Influential People in 2015. I spoke with him about his work, the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and the prospects for peace. Catena told me the big international players have a responsibility to end the deadlock that has starved the region of humanitarian aid. Mother of Mercy hospital, where Catena is based, is the only facility capable of treating patients who require a high level of care in an area roughly the size of Austria. He treats up to 500 patients a day. Catena arrived in 2008, during a short-lived period of peace when it was much easier to get food, drugs and supplies in and out. Everythings gotten more difficult over the past 10 years, he says. Where things stand: "Were in a bit of limbo, Catena says. There has been a ceasefire in place for the past six months. The country remains in a state of civil war, but the fighting and aerial bombardments are on hold. Numerous rounds of negotiation have passed without a breakthrough. Because the area is controlled by rebels, no humanitarian aid is allowed in despite the desperate needs of the 750,000 people living there, many of whom have been suffering from food shortages in recent months. So intense is the distrust between the rebels and government that the sides cant agree on how aid should be delivered. The government wants it to flow through Sudanese territory. The rebels want to bring it in directly from neighboring countries. For now, it is blocked almost entirely. There are significant shortages of food and medicine. A three-year period where the hospital was unable to obtain vaccines, Catena says, led to a huge measles epidemic that was entirely unnecessary. The bottom line: Overall, people are hopeful, he says. But almost everybody here, since they were born, theyve been in conflict. Theyve been disappointed so many times, and you can see it in their faces, he says. They know not to get their hopes up too high. The escalation of the U.S.-China trade war into tit-for-tat arrests suggests a new stage of hostility in their rivalry for technological and economic dominance in the coming decades. Why it matters: Everyone is a potential target in this brinkmanship as nerves fray, the global order erodes, and the old rules of international engagement are thrown out. The backstory: In recent days, China has detained two Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor for "engaging in activities that endanger Chinas national security," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said. In interviews with Axios, U.S. experts interpreted the detentions as direct retaliation for an arguably provocative new American approach toward China. In October, Belgian police arrested Yanjun Xu, a Chinese intelligence officer accused of economic espionage in the U.S., on the request of American authorities. He has already been extradited to the U.S. Yanjun Xu, a Chinese intelligence officer accused of economic espionage in the U.S., on the request of American authorities. He has already been extradited to the U.S. On Dec. 1, Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Chinese phone giant Huawei, and daughter of the company's founder. Meng allegedly violated U.S. banking fraud laws and sanctions against Iran. The U.S. is seeking her extradition. "By making a prominent example of Canada, Beijing is sending a message globally," Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council's senior director for East Asia under George W. Bush, tells Axios. "Foreign businesses and other entities operating in China need to recognize that there are no more 'grey areas' in the Xi Jinping era when it comes to conforming to the letter of Chinese law. You might get away with it in the near term, but then you will be a convenient target when tensions with your home country escalate." Chris Johnson, Center for International and Strategic Studies It's rare for the U.S. to seek and achieve the arrest of a senior official commercial, military or political from any other major country. While it's not surprising for a country to nominally file charges against the elite of a rival nation, it's highly unusual for detention and extradition to actually happen, largely because as has occurred in this situation it is hard to know where tit-for-tat would stop. "It is a clear escalation of the economic competition between China and the United States and its allies. Tariffs are one thing, putting each others citizens in jail is another," says Michael Beckley, a professor at Tufts University. The big picture: As we've reported before, the U.S. and China are racing to "reborder" the world for a new Cold War in effect redividing the world into spheres of influence. The new brinkmanship could accelerate that dynamic. Meanwhile, firms and governments on both sides are on high alert. Cisco urged some employees to postpone all nonessential travel to China for fear that they may be targets of a counterstrike, NYT reports. to postpone all nonessential travel to China for fear that they may be targets of a counterstrike, NYT reports. The government of British Columbia in Canada is rescheduling a trade trip to China for the same reason. in Canada is rescheduling a trade trip to China for the same reason. Zhang Ruimin, CEO of the Chinese appliance maker Haier, told Bloomberg Meng's arrest "has created a shadow in everyones hearts." The risks are high on both sides, and there is also potential for spillover. Just as signs emerged that China was softening on trade this week, Beijing seemed to ramp up its retaliation over the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive in Canada. Between the lines: This confusing week in U.S.-China relations has seen signs of a major climbdown from China, over trade, in parallel with a major escalation. "The Chinese really are trying to keep Huawei and trade separate," says Axios contributor Bill Bishop. On the one hand ... Last night we learned that China has detained a second Canadian citizen, apparently in retaliation for Canada's arrest of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Meng was released on bail on Tuesday, but still faces extradition to the U.S. over fraud charges tied to U.S. sanctions on Iran. Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which has targeted its ire primarily at Canada, rather than the U.S. On the other hand ... The Wall Street Journal reports that China is "preparing to replace" its "Made in China 2025" initiative to dominate key high-tech sectors "with a new program promising greater access for foreign companies." That follows news that China has begun to buy U.S. soybeans againand is reversing tariff hikes for U.S. autos. Trump is preparing to declare victory, telling Fox News today, "They're going to open the whole country. They want to please President Trump." Bishop says he's hearing that the Chinese are indeed planning to make big concessions, because they understand Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, won't "accept warmed-over promises." "So as long as Trump keeps his resolve there may actually be a chance for some significant concessions on trade, moves that Xi can spin domestically as not due to U.S. pressure but as part of the deepening of reform." A court in Yerevan on Friday refused to allow law-enforcement authorities to arrest a former senior aide to ex-President Robert Kocharian on a string of criminal charges. Armen Gevorgian was first charged in August with obstructing justice in the wake of a disputed presidential election held in February 2008, two months before Kocharian served out his second and final term. Earlier this week, Armenias Special Investigative Service (SIS) also accused Gevorgian of involvement in an overthrow of the constitutional order, bribery and money laundering. The SIS asked the district court to sanction his pre-trial arrest. The court refused to do that for reasons that were not immediately made public. I think that the court made a really just decision, Gevorgian told reporters after the announcement of the ruling. That doesnt mean the case is closed, he said. We will continue to work and present our arguments, protest my innocence and show that the accusations are unfounded. It is not yet clear whether prosecutors will appeal against the ruling. The SIS brought the three accusations against Gevorgian four days after Kocharian was arrested on charges of illegally using the armed forces against opposition supporters who protested in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008. The SIS says that amounted to an overthrow of the constitutional order. Kocharian strongly denies any wrongdoing. He says that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is waging a political vendetta against him. Pashinian played a key role in the 2008 protests. Eight protesters and two police servicemen died when they were quelled by security forces. The obstruction of justice charge leveled against Gevorgian also stems from the 2008 election. Gevorgian was the chief of Kocharians staff at the time. The SIS claims that he pressured a member of Armenias Constitutional Court to uphold the official vote results that gave victory to Kocharians preferred successor, Serzh Sarkisian. The once powerful official, who also held senior positions in Sarkisians government, denies this and other accusations. The SIS has yet to publicize details of its corruption case against Gevorgian. It has only said that the latter had received a massive bribe. Long-running efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will gain new momentum next year, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Friday. The year 2019 will give a new impetus to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process, Aliyev wrote on his Twitter page. He did not elaborate. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian tweeted about two hours later that a Karabakh settlement remains a top priority for Armenia. We will continue with the peace process for the benefit of regional peace & security, he said. Resolution requires genuine efforts of all parties. Pashinian and Aliyev spoke to each other on December 6 at a summit of ex-Soviet states held in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg. A senior aide to Aliyev said they discussed the continuation of active negotiations on a Karabakh peace. The conversation came the day after the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers held fresh negotiations in Milan in the presence of the U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group. Both ministers described the talks as useful. In a joint statement issued after the Milan talks, the co-chairs expressed hope that an intensive results-oriented high-level dialogue between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia will resume in the near future. Pashinian, who came to power in May, also briefly talked to Aliyev at the previous CIS summit held in Tajikistan in September. There has been a significant decrease in ceasefire violations along the line of contact around Karabakh and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border since then, according to the conflicting parties. Speaking in Baku on Thursday, Aliyev said that there are now more favorable conditions for ending the bitter conflict. By Narmina Mammadova There are plans to allocate loans worth 10 million manats in 2019 to farmers in Azerbaijan via the State Service on Management of Agricultural Projects and Credits under Azerbaijans Agriculture Ministry, the head of the service, Mirza Aliyev, said on December 13. We will be able to allocate these funds if we accelerate the collection of previously issued loans and return our funds, which are now in the liquidated banks, he said. Aliyev noted that lending to agriculture via the State Service was restored in May 2018. Until the end of the current year, the agency also plans to issue about 10 million manats. We aim to bring lending to agriculture to 10 million manats by the end of this year, he added. Most of this amount has already been spent. He said that farmers are mainly interested in small amounts within 10,000-100,000 manats. The average loan amount is 60,000 manats, he noted. The State Service on Management of Agricultural Projects and Credits was established by the decree of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in October 2004 on the basis of the State Agency for Agricultural Credits under the Ministry of Agriculture. The agency provides support in lending to the areas of production and processing of agricultural products, water management, land reclamation and others. At the same time, the agency participates in the development and implementation of government programs aimed at the development of the agriculture sector. The economy has entered a period of stable growth. Many banks in Azerbaijan are preparing for 2019, which should be a year of lending. And since the steady growth of the economy has begun, then, accordingly, it needs financial support, which can be provided primarily through loans. The state began to provide comprehensive support for the development of small and medium-sized businesses, and the roadmap clearly states that the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan will be a priority for the state. The strategic road maps of the national economy of Azerbaijan were approved by the head of state at the end of last year. These documents cover the priority areas of the country's economy. One of the road maps is devoted to agriculture. In line with measures to be implemented in this field as reflected in this document, until 2020 in Azerbaijan it is planned to create about 20,000 new jobs and increase the country's GDP by 1.2 billion manats. It is planned to establish an agricultural insurance fund in 2018 within the framework of the implementation of the strategic road map for the production and processing of agricultural products. The possibility of creating an insurance fund to expand the coverage of agricultural insurance will be explored. It is planned to study an international experience in this field and prepare reports including an analysis of the potential impact of creating a fund on producer insurance and the development of the agricultural sector as a whole. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Bremer, right, announcing we got em. Photo: Sabah Abar/AFP/Getty Images On this morning 15 years ago, Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, announced the capture of Saddam Hussein. In retrospect, he made this announcement in a very weird way. At a press conference in Baghdad, Bremer stepped up to the podium, stood silent for a few seconds while surveying his audience, mostly members of the press, and then said, Ladies and gentlemen we got him. Applause and cheers immediately broke out. Bremer left Iraq shortly afterward, blamed for the state of turmoil in the country, which was attributed to a number of decisions that bore his signature, such as disbanding the Iraqi army shortly after the occupation began. He is now a ski instructor in Vermont. He is also a meme. This past summer, Bremers iconic declaration, often translated into we got em, became a viral catchphrase, deployed in posts and videos. It appears in varying contexts, but is most popularly used as a shorthand for callout posts posts that out a user in one way or another. In one popular video with more than 92 retweets and more than 5 million views, a Twitter user does the math on the rapper Drakes relationship with a now-18-year-old model who hes been kinda flirty with for at least two years. After the video lays out this sequence of events in screenshots, it cuts to Bremer, and then footage of a SWAT team raiding a house (which is actually from an energy-drink ad). It is soundtracked by the song Baby Im Yours by French electronic producer Breakbot and vocalist Irfane, which sounds increasingly blown-out as the action rises (this aural texture is known online as ear rape), and whose beat drops after Bremer makes his announcement. In a similar video, the rapper 6ix9ine tells a radio host that I fear God, and I fear the FBI. In November, he was arrested on racketeering and firearms charges. Ladies and gentlemen we got em. There are many videos like this in similar but not identical use cases, each one punctuated by Bremer announcing we got em. In some cases, its similar to Chris Hanson telling prospective child abusers to have a seat on To Catch a Predator. Some dredge up old, offensive tweets; others show users falling for the Ligma/Sucon/Bofa prank. (If youre wondering, Whats Bofa?, the answer is, Bofa deez nuts. Sorry.) The meme is also often deployed in text form after getting a Twitter user gets suspended or a cat gets owned. Ladies and Gentlemen, we got em pic.twitter.com/4T64jc7Lf8 BJ (@BASEDJESUS) October 21, 2018 Ladies and gentlemen... we got em pic.twitter.com/jypBwuruKF nolan (@nolanthomps) November 20, 2018 It helps that Ladies and gentlemen we got him is a very odd way to announce that youve captured a dictator hiding in a secret bunker. The phrase combines high drama with avuncular showmanship, and has none of the stiff, bureaucratic posturing typically adopted by military officials and police officers when making formal statements. And everyone knew who he was, so Bremer could afford to be vague. Imagining, say, Obama applying the same sort of tone to his announcement of the Bin Laden raid makes the phrase even funnier. Bremer told the Daily Beast that he learned about his recent online infamy from his teenage granddaughter. Many times I couldnt figure out what the connection was with the announcement, he told the site. How are the words fitting into the memes? In Bremers defense (words I never expected to write), theres a lot going on here. The transformation of Bremers announcement into a meme calls to mind Bush did 9/11, a concise summation of the conspiracy theory that hypothesizes that what appeared to be terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were actually devised or allowed by persons within the federal government. Like we got em, the ironic catchphrase Bush did 9/11, repurposes a serious geopolitical event from the early 2000s for flippant humor. Some of the appeal of these jokes comes from the generation gap. Anyone who sees 9/11 or the start of the Iraq War primarily as fodder for humor is likely too young to have lived through it, and indeed, meme culture is largely driven by bored teenagers. The jokes are funny because of their winking impertinence, but also because they remind you that you are old. Nowhere is this more apparent than on TikTok, on which ladies and gentlemen we got em has become a staple in pranks on you, the viewer, rather than on other users. In one popular use, two hand-drawn signs are placed in front of the camera, one blocking the other. As the Bremer audio plays, that sign is knocked out of the way to reveal, in essence, a slightly more complicated not! joke. I My Friends a sign says in one video. Its then knocked out of the way to reveal another one that says, Sike! What friends!! with a (a reference to the circle game, if that was lost on you). What typifies these clips, and often what fuels their appeal, is the homespun production value folded notebook paper knocked out of the way by Nerf darts or flicked rubber bands, children hiding their identities by cinching their hoodies tightly around their faces, performing Fortnite emotes once the prank is complete. All of these lead one to assume that they cannot possibly have been alive or cognizant at the time of Bremers original declaration. There are plenty of memes that gain resonance from deliberately misrepresenting other media, like mislabeled film stills or medieval paintings used in that feel when posts. In those cases, however, the misuse is deliberate. With the Bremer meme, man, I dont know. Ladies and gentleman, we got em is such a general statement that it could apply to anything. Internet users, by and large, do not often seek out context for memes they just riff on whats in front of them. For TikTok users, Im not sure if the meme is nostalgic or if it just is. But for older users, we get to watch in real-time as recent history is ripped from its moorings and repurposed by younger generations. This has been happening on the internet, and in culture, forever (I am reminded of a once-famous GIF from the Dubya era in which Snoop Dogg dances in the background of an infamous Kent State shooting photo). Still, its strange to witness the process in action, how the internet compresses time even more drastically, turning historical moments into joke fodder at a faster and faster pace. By Narmina Mammadova Azerbaijan exported various types of aluminum profiles to Denmark, the Sumgayit Technologies Park reports on December 13. Sumgayit Technologies Park signed a contract with a private Danish company to sell 100 tons of aluminum profiles in November. The company has completed the preparation of the order, and the products were sent to the client. The aluminum plant, which was established at the Sumgait Technology Park in 2014, produces hot and cold rolled profiles, window frames, aluminum busbars, and other aluminum products in accordance with clients' orders. At the plant, together with the production of aluminum profiles, there are such areas as smelting and billet aluminum, copper smelting, etc. The productivity of furnaces is 30,000 tons a year, the design power of dry paint production is 240 tons per month. Local raw materials produced in Ganja are mainly used in the production of products. STP has been launched by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on December 22, 2009. STP is a pioneer in the creation of technology parks in the region and is a complex of giant factories specializing in various manufacturing areas. In 2017, it received a status of a resident of Sumgayit Chemical Industry Park. STP, a unique project in the region, fully meets the needs of the domestic market and is capable of exporting products to the foreign market. At present, 2,000 people work in the company, and there are 12 factories equipped with the latest technological equipment in Europe and Japan and more than 30 production areas. Raw materials used in the production process meet international standards. All factories of the Techno Park are equipped with European-produced laboratories and accredited in accordance with the AZS ISO / IEC 17025-2009 standards. All products have relevant certificates. ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 international standards are also applied at the STP. All plants of Sumgayit Technopark are equipped with modern European technological equipment. The raw materials used in the production process are also imported from leading European countries. STP plans to expand operations in the Central Asian market, as well as to enter the markets of Western Europe and Africa. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Lenovo has started supplying data storage systems to Azintelecom LLC of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan, Director General of Lenovo Global Technology Russia and the CIS Dmitry Parshin said at a conference dedicated to the launch of the first corporate blockchain platform Dec. 13, Trend reports. He said cooperation with the company began at the end of this year. We very much hope that our technological solutions will continue to be actively implemented in Azintelecom, including in the creation of backup data centers and corporate clouds for banking sector, he said. Lenovo is also a supplier of a personal identification system based on blockchain technology, which is being introduced by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, he added. Lenovo was chosen as the supplier of hardware and software, he said. Nutanix is our technology partner in the project. For us, the uniqueness of this project is that the highest performance systems of Lenovo, namely four-processor servers, which are the most reliable in the world, were chosen as the hardware platform for this system." Parshin mentioned another project, which was also implemented on the basis of the Nutanix platform. This project includes construction of a data center in the regions biggest medical center in Azerbaijan, which was opened in March this year, he noted. More than 70 different medical software products were adapted to work on the Nutanix virtualization platform, including solutions based on Microsoft and SAP, he said. Lenovo has big plans for investments and creation of a competence center in Azerbaijan." "While many companies, optimizing their expenses, reduce their presence in the region, we are trying to increase it. All this has become possible thanks to our partners. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova On 13 December, a test motorcade carrying cargo has been sent from Afghanistans western province of Herat, to be delivered through Turkmenistan and the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, Trend reports citing a source close to the transport industry of Turkmenistan. The event was attended by representatives of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Turkey - the participating countries that signed the "Lapis Lazuli" agreement during the seventh conference of regional economic cooperation on Afghanistan (RECCA VII) on November 15, 2017 in the Turkmen capital. The Turkmen delegation was headed by Minister of Automobile Transport Orazdurdy Sukhanov. President of Afghanistan Mohammad Ashraf Ghani took part in the launching ceremony of a transport corridor allowing Afghanistan to enter global markets bypassing the traditional Pakistani direction. Afghan president noted that although his country has been isolated from the world over the past 17 years, it will have trouble-free connection with its neighbors via this corridor. He praised the efforts of the Presidents of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to strengthen regional cooperation, especially the Lapis-Lazuli project. The cargo will pass from Turan to Turkganbashi International Terminal, from there to the border town of Turkmenistan, then to the Turkmenbashi International Sea Port. The caravan will then be sent across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan - the Baku International Sea Port. Thanks to the modernization of the highway, the capacity of the Torghundi station has increased, its importance in Afghanistans trade has grown, the possibilities for bringing Afghan products to international markets have increased, as well as deliveries of imported goods to the country in a short and optimal way, the Turkmenistan State News Agency reported. This railway, built entirely by the Turkmen side, has become part of the new transport and transit corridor Lapis Lazuli, the first expert meeting of which was held in April in Ashgabat. It is assumed that the railway lines and motorways will connect the city of Tourghundi in the Afghan province of Herat with Ashgabat, then with the port of Turkmenbashi on the shore of the Caspian Sea. Further, the corridor will continue through the Caspian Sea to Baku, and then through Tbilisi to Ankara and Istanbul. The project budget, which aims to facilitate transit logistics and simplify customs procedures, is estimated at $ 2 billion. The Lapis-Lazuli route will allow the participating countries to diversify their access to regional and continental markets. This, in turn, will lead to the economic development of the countries lying along this corridor. Azerbaijan, for instance, will get huge benefits being a transit country. The trans-regional corridor will encompass mainly railways and highways, which will connect the city of Torghundi in the Afghan province of Herat with the port of Turkmenbashi on the shore of the Caspian Sea via Ashgabat. From Turkmenbashi, goods will be able to travel further by ferry to Baku, where they would be placed on train cars and continue westward to Europe across the South Caucasus via the newly launched Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. Further, the corridor will pass through Tbilisi to Ankara with branches to Poti and Batumi, and, then, from Ankara to Istanbul. Barriers to regional trade and transit and transaction costs will be reduced, in part, through a new Custom Integration Procedure and, between Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, a new Cross-Border Transport Agreement. Its projected impact is considerable not only because most of the needed infrastructure is already in place, but also because most of the investment required will focus on improving policy and governance. The name Lapis Lazuli is derived from the historic route that Afghanistans lapis lazuli and other semiprecious stones were exported along, over 2,000 years ago, to the Caucasus, Russia, the Balkans, Europe, and North Africa. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Azerbaijani Finance Minister Samir Sharifov met with the delegation headed by the new President of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB), Dmitry Pankin who is on a visit to Baku to take part in the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization in Baku. The current situation and further expansion of the partnership between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the BSTDB, the draft of the Medium-Term Strategy and Business Plan for 2019-2022, as well as country strategy for Azerbaijan 2019-2022 and other issues of mutual interest were discussed. Later, the delegation led by Dmitry Pankin held a meeting at the Financial Market Supervisory Authority. The President of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, Dmitry Pankin, spoke about the projects implemented by the organization so far in Azerbaijan, his close co-operation with financial institutions and his interest in the implementation of new projects in the future. BSTDB was established in 1999 by the founder and member countries of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization - Azerbaijan, Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine and Armenia. At present, the authorized capital of the bank is 3.45 billion and the share capital is 2.3 billion euros. Azerbaijan has 5 percent share capital and is the seventh largest shareholder of 11 member countries. Since the beginning of the Bank, the bank has allocated a total of 360 million euros to the private sector in Azerbaijan on 34 projects, which is 8.3 percent of the total loan portfolio of the bank. Azerbaijan has a 5% stake in BSTDB's share capital. In 2017, 93.12 million euros were allocated to Azerbaijan, and contracts worth 91.1 million euros were signed. BSTDB supports economic development and regional co-operation, participates in member countries in granting loans for projects in the public and private sectors, opening credit lines, investing in and granting guarantees and trade financing. Today, the 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation member-states took place in Baku under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan. The delegations headed by senior officials of the BSEC member-states are taking part in the meeting. In general, during Azerbaijans chairmanship, four ministerial meetings were held, including a meeting at the level of foreign ministers, 21 thematic meetings of the working group and an ad hoc working group. The action plans of a number of working groups (tourism, ICT, energy) were adopted. More than 10 meetings of the bodies of the organization, workshops and other events were held. Moreover, the corresponding assessment documents were prepared to improve the efficiency of the organization. Moreover, during Azerbaijans chairmanship, the discussions were underway to complete the work on the project "Regional Trade Facilitation Strategy for the BSEC Region" and the project "BSEC Single Window Cooperation". After Azerbaijan, the chairmanship will be transferred to Bulgaria. The Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation is an intergovernmental organization uniting 12 countries of the Black Sea and southern Balkans. The organization was founded in 1992. The headquarters of the organization is located in Istanbul. Azerbaijan assumed the BSEC chairmanship at the 38th meeting of the Organization's Council of Foreign Ministers, which took place on June 27. Azerbaijan will chair BSEC until December 2018. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova With its rich history, Azerbaijani literature is a treasury of national values for its people. The first examples of Azerbaijani literature date to the late 1200s following the arrival of Oghuz Turks in Caucasus. They were written in Perso-Arabic script. At the end of the 19th century popular literature such as newspapers began to be published in Azerbaijani language. Azerbaijan is home to many genius writers who have excelled in all forms of literature. Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209) enriched Oriental poetry and created great monuments of Renaissance literature. His five poems, known collectively as the Khamsa (Quintet) are considered the treasury of Azerbaijani poetry. In his work, the poet revealed the living pages of history. Over the past centuries, the works of the legendary poet have been perceived as an artistic phenomenon as his works reflect social and moral values of humanity of all time. All poems and ghazals are full of deep philosophical content that call for freedom and justice. The attack of the Russians on Barda city, a fairy tale of the Russian Princess, the beautiful Shirin amazons, battles, described in various poems of Nizami - all this is historically and geographically related to medieval Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. The works of Nizami Ganjavi have been translated into many languages. The rare manuscript copies of his works are kept and preserved like precious pearls in famous libraries, museums and literary foundations in such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Baku, Tashkent, Tabriz, Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul, Delhi, London, Paris and others. Anyone with a creative bone in their body cannot fail to be inspired by the National Museum of Azerbaijan literature named after Nizami Ganjavi. Outstanding architecture, stunning location make famous building soaked with creativity. The museum attracts attention of everyone with its blue majolica on the facade where monuments of six outstanding representatives of Azerbaijani literature - Fizuli (sculptor F. Abdurahmanov), Vagif (sculptor J.Garyaghdi), Mirza Fatali Akhundov (sculptor P. Sabsay), Natavan (sculptor E. Tripolskaya), Jalil Mammadguluzade (sculptor N. Zakharov) and Jafar Jabbarli (sculptor Y. Klyatskin) - were erected. This is the building of the National Museum of Azerbaijan literature named after Nizami Ganjavi, genius poet and thinker of Azerbaijan. The building where the museum is located was built in 1850, as a one-storey caravanserai. According to the project of Gasim bay Hajibababayov (1811-1874), the chief architect of Baku Gubernia, the second floor was added to the one-stored caravanserai by the order of the new owner of the building Azerbaijani millionaire Haji Hajagha Dadashov (1828-1905). The civil engineer Alexander Nikitin (1878-1952) prepared the project of the banquet room on the second floor and in 1915 the building was transformed into "Metropol" hotel. The Cabinet of Ministers of Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan used the building as a work-place between 1918 and 1920. In 1920-1930, Trade-Union Committee of Azerbaijan was located in the building. Later, the memorial museum was changed to the Museum of Azerbaijani Literature. In connection with 800th anniversary of genius Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavis jubilee there was a decision 4972 of PCU from November 1, 1939 on establishment of the Museum dedicated to Nizami Ganjavis life and creative activity. The museum is located in the center of Baku, near the Fountain Square and next to the entrance to the Old City. The main mission of the Museum is propaganda of literary heritage of Azerbaijan. In 1943, the facade and interior of the building was decorated in national style and the monuments of prominent representatives of Azerbaijan literature were erected on the balcony. The total area of the museum is 2,500 square meters. The museum collection includes more than 3,000 manuscripts, rare books, illustrations, portraits, sculptures, miniatures, documental photos, and other exhibits in 30 general and 10 auxiliary halls of the museum. On May 14, 1945, the Museum of Azerbaijani Literature named after Nizami Ganjavi opened its doors for the first time to the guests. Museum visitors can get acquainted with valuable audio-video materials various films, fragments of performances, music pieces of well-known Azerbaijani composers and poetic examples performed by popular actors. The museum has turned into one of the most important cultural attractions in Baku. Some halls dedicated to 13th century scientist Nasiraddin Tusis life and creativity, Shams Tabrizi, Zulfugar Shirvani and Molla Gasim Shirvani, Shah Ismail Khatayi, Hasan bay Zardabi, Husein Javid attract great attention of the visitors. In the monitor room of the Museum, the visitors can get wide information about literature, culture and traditions of the nation in Azerbaijani, Russian, English, German and Persian languages. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Azerbaijan has become a reliable venue for international meetings and negotiations. The country reaffirmed its well-deserved title as one of the most important centers of world diplomacy, providing a platform for the political dialogue of the top military leadership of the world's largest military alliance and one of the world's largest powers. The Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armed Forces in Europe, Curtis Scaparotti, with the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, Valery Gerasimov met in Baku on December 12. During the meeting with Curtis Scaparrotti, President Ilham Aliyev described the election of Azerbaijan among other countries to host discussions of crucial issues of global security as a sign of respect for and trust in the country. The head of state said this is also indicative of Azerbaijan`s role in ensuring regional security, development and stability as well as of the policy the country is pursuing. Scaparrotti thanked the President for hosting a meeting with the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He said Baku is a perfect venue for a meeting in NATO-Russia format, stressing the importance of Baku`s hosting such an event for the second time. Baku is the initiator of many events, formats and processes aimed at strengthening peace, establishing intercultural and inter-civilizational dialogue, developing multiculturalism and tolerance. In addition, Azerbaijan generates many peace initiatives and is an active supporter of peacekeeping operations, which is confirmed by active participation in peacekeeping missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Sudan. Obviously, there were certain tensions in the relations between NATO and Russia. In 2014, NATO decided to suspend practical cooperation with Russia, while maintaining a political dialogue at the level of ambassadors and above. Russia has repeatedly stated that it was not Moscow that suspended agreements with NATO and that's why the alliance should take steps to reanimate the interaction. The recent meeting between Scaparotti and Gerasimov to discuss global security issues undoubtedly shows the importance that both NATO and Russia attach to Azerbaijan. There are not so many countries with a clear foreign policy in the world. Against this background, Azerbaijan evokes respect and trust, pursuing a balanced foreign policy, making efforts to ensure regional security. Moscow and Brussels decided to hold an important meeting in Baku, confirming that both the North Atlantic Alliance and the official Kremlin perceive Azerbaijan as a reliable and responsible partner. Azerbaijans cooperation with NATO only serves to strengthen peace. Similarly, strong military and military-technical ties between Baku and Moscow do not harm the interests of the North Atlantic Alliance. The significance of the meeting between Scaparotti and Gerasimov is really obvious because each such meeting brings together positions and improves the political atmosphere in the whole world. In addition, Azerbaijan is regarded as a reliable partner and this was a weighty factor to choose the country as a venue for negotiations. Azerbaijan is committed to friendship, equal partnership, openness and transparency in international relations. It is always possible to find solution to very complicated problems through dialogue, negotiations and political contacts. Scaparotti and Gerasimov held their first meeting in the Azerbaijani capital this April. The fact that it was Baku that was chosen as a platform for such difficult negotiations was particularly emphasized. This dialogue is regarded by many as important for reducing tensions between Russia and NATO not only in the Middle East, but also in the South Caucasus. It is worth emphasizing that the April meeting was the first since 2013, when the administration of ex-US President Barack Obama imposed a ban on personal contacts between the head of the Allied Forces of NATO and his Russian counterpart. It is symbolic that the renewal of contacts occurred precisely in Baku. Azerbaijan is a country with a very positive international reputation. Of course, the most graphic example of this was the election of Azerbaijan to the UN Security Council with the support of 155 countries. This is a great achievement for a young independent state, which showed that an absolute majority of the world community supports Azerbaijan. Azerbaijans active foreign policy efforts are bearing fruit. The search for political solutions to complex problems, reliable partnership, stability, security and development all together characterize better profile of the country, mirrioring its growing political influence in the world. Baku is already one of the centers of world diplomacy and expanding relations with the U.S., Russia and NATO is the best example for it. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The management of the Seaside Boulevard National Park took care of preparations for the New Year and decorated the park, trying to surprise the Baku residents and guests of the capital with new decorations. A spokeswoman of the park, Gunay Elmargizi, told Sputnik Azerbaijan that luminous garlands have already been installed along the entire boulevard. And behind the puppet theater, an artificial fir tree was installed. The second such tree will very soon be standing opposite the White City. The main decoration of the park this year was a tunnel of light bulbs with a length of 35 meters, a width of over four and a height of five meters. A glowing ball with a diameter of five meters was placed not far from this place. A similar ball on Nizami Street became a favorite place for residents and guests of Baku a year ago. After all, you can be photographed inside the ball in front of the symbols of the new year - reindeer teams. Now the ball was moved to the Puppet Theater, retro cars decorated with the same light garlands were parked nearby. But that's not all. Symbolical boxes of Christmas gifts and snowmen will appear around the perimeter of the boulevard, said the spokesman. Elmargizi assured that the process of preparation for the New Year is coming to an end. Soon the management promises to prepare an interesting program for holidaymakers on the boulevard. Seaside Boulevard is one of the attractions of Baku, a favorite resting place of capital residents and city guests. The Boulevard marked its 100th birthday in 2009. Next year Boulevard will celebrate its 110-year anniversary. The length of the Seaside National Park, which previously was 16 km, reached 25 km after the major reconstruction. Primorsky Boulevard received the status of a National Park by the decree of President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev in 1998. Repair work was carried out here. And in 2008, a reconstruction was launched again. A laser fountain unparalleled in the world appeared on the Boulevard, two musical fountains were built, a stepped descent to the sea appeared. At the same time, exotic trees, including baobabs, Canarian palms and Italian olives, began to appear here. The Seaside Boulevard Office was established under the Cabinet of Ministers according to the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan on January 10, 2008 in order to restorate the natural landscape of the boulevard, maintain its historical appearance, develop the area's rich flora, protect the boulevard, and ensure the implementation of social and cultural events. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation member-states kicked off in Baku under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan, Trend's correspondent reported from the event. The delegations headed by senior officials of the BSEC member-states are taking part in the meeting. Among the main priorities of Azerbaijans chairmanship are to render efficient, reliable and safe transport and transit services as part of BSEC, increase the export potential of agriculture and further develop the tourism sector. In general, during Azerbaijans chairmanship, four ministerial meetings were held, including a meeting at the level of foreign ministers, 21 thematic meetings of the working group and an ad hoc working group. The action plans of a number of working groups (tourism, ICT, energy) were adopted. More than 10 meetings of the bodies of the organization, workshops and other events were held. Moreover, the corresponding assessment documents were prepared to improve the efficiency of the organization. Moreover, during Azerbaijans chairmanship, the discussions were underway to complete the work on the project "Regional Trade Facilitation Strategy for the BSEC Region" and the project "BSEC Single Window Cooperation". After Azerbaijan, the chairmanship will be transferred to Bulgaria. The Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation is an intergovernmental organization uniting 12 countries of the Black Sea and southern Balkans. The organization was founded in 1992. The headquarters of the organization is located in Istanbul. Azerbaijan assumed the BSEC chairmanship at the 38th meeting of the Organization's Council of Foreign Ministers, which took place on June 27. Azerbaijan will chair BSEC until December 2018. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz And a roller coaster! Come on! Photo: Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images Workers at Teslas Buffalo Gigafactory are unionizing to demand better compensation and improved workplace conditions, WVIB News reported on Thursday morning. The United Steelworkers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are leading a joint drive to organize different job descriptions production and manufacturing within the factory. They can improve on demands from the workers that are much needed in the workplace, said Tesla worker Pete Farrell, going on to cite fairness, job security, higher wages as reasons to organize. WVIB plans to release a lengthier investigation into the Gigafactorys conditions on Thursday evening. Teslas Twitter-happy founder and CEO, Elon Musk, has yet to weigh in on the matter, but soon he may have to. Buffalos Gigafactory isnt the only Tesla facility to try to unionize. When workers at his Fremont, California, car plant announced their intention to organize with the United Auto Workers in 2017, BuzzFeed News reported that Musk accused one worker of being a union plant in an email to staff, and promised to build a Tesla electric pod car roller coaster and free frozen-yogurt machines. This did not dissuade Tesla workers from organizing, in Fremont or elsewhere. In fact, if conditions inside the Buffalo facility resemble those at Teslas other factories, the USW/IBEW organizing drive looks inevitable. A Wired report, published Thursday morning, depicts a mercurial Musk who regularly berates employees at his Nevada Gigafactory, seemingly with no check on his power. Sometimes Musk would terminate people; other times he would simply intimidate them. One manager had a name for these outbursts Elons rage firings and had forbidden subordinates from walking too close to Musks desk at the Gigafactory out of concern that a chance encounter, an unexpected question answered incorrectly, might endanger a career, Wired wrote. Several months ago, a lengthy Business Insider report on the Nevada factory described it as a crowded, chaotic place that overworked employees. People quit within the first two hours, people quit after a week. There was one guy who was fresh out of high school, 18 years old, never had a job before and was excited to work: I want to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day! By about the fifth day, he was on the floor crying, Jonathan Galescu, a welder, told Insider. Galescu is trying to organize a union at Tesla, and he, like his would-be comrades in Buffalo and Fremont, face stiff opposition from the companys management. Though Tesla has said employees are free to unionize as they choose, workers themselves have repeatedly complained of anti-union coercion and intimidation from management. One former worker, Dezzimond Vaughn, told the Guardian in September that he believes he was terminated for holding union meetings at his home. The Guardian verified Vaughns record of superlative work performance and verified, too, that his reviews suddenly took a downward turn after management learned that hed begun to organize. Other California workers said they were discouraged from wearing union shirts, and that management shut down workplace conversations about organizing. Though Tesla has taken some steps to reduce injuries, a Reveal investigation found in April that Tesla had omitted some workplace injuries from its official reports, which made the companys factories look safer than they actually were. UAW has filed several unfair labor practices charges against Tesla with the National Labor Relations Board. According to Jalopnik, one of those complaints stemmed from a meeting Musk held in 2017, during which he reportedly told workers that it would be futile for them to select a union as their bargaining representative by telling them that employees did not need a union and that [Tesla] would allow them to have a union if [Tesla] failed in its efforts to remedy their safety grievances. On December 21, representatives for Tesla and the UAW are scheduled to file new briefs in an ongoing NLRB hearing. At times, Musk himself has complicated those very NLRB proceedings; the board filed a complaint in August alleging that Musk violated labor laws when he appeared to tweet that workers would lose their stock options if the UAW organized the companys Fremont, California, plant. In July, Musks girlfriend, the musician Grimes, also inserted her foot directly into her mouth on the subject of unions; on her own Twitter account, she claimed that she had tried to instigate a union vote, whatever that means. Buffalo workers, then, are wading into an already-fraught battle. Though they arent working with the UAW, their organizing drive still increases pressure on Tesla management. And Buffalo is capable of throwing quite the gauntlet. Once a mighty steel town, Buffalo has a strong labor history with USW in particular; the union even once represented workers at the defunct steel plant that the Gigafactory replaced. Complicating matters even further, the Gigafactory was built with $750 million in taxpayer funds as part of Governor Andrew Cuomos vaunted Buffalo Billion project. Though Cuomo branded the project as a way to revitalize Buffalos economic health, the New York Times reported in July that the Buffalo Billion has achieved uneven results for the city and surrounding region. Perhaps for related reasons, eight people connected with the project were either convicted or pleaded guilty to charges of corruption. One, Alain Kaloyeros, is headed to prison for three-and-a-half years, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Some local officials had already expressed concern that Tesla wasnt on track to deliver the employment results the company had promised, something Tesla itself disputes. Musk has said that Teslas work will change the world. Cuomo wanted to change Buffalo. Buffalos Gigafactory workers look ready to call in both promises. Update: Tesla responded to this piece with the following statement: By Trend Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in connection with the accident at the railway in Ankara city. I was deeply saddened by the news of casualties and injuries caused by a train crash in Ankara, President Aliyev said. On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and the loved ones of those who died and the brotherly people of Turkey, and wish those injured swiftest possible recovery, the president added. May Allah rest the dead in peace. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan Colonel General Zakir Hasanov has met with the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk, Trend reports referring to the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan. During the meeting, an exchange of views was held on the current situation at the contact line of troops, the results of monitoring and the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has received the delegation headed by Tudor Ulianovschi, minister of foreign affairs and European integration of Moldova, in the framework of his working visit to Azerbaijan, Trend reports citing Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry. Mammadyarov noted that the current visit is praiseworthy and creates a good opportunity to coordinate the positions on a wide range of issues related to the broad agenda of bilateral relations. During an exchange of views, the sides discussed political-diplomatic issues, including the continuation of mutual visits, international and regional cooperation. The importance of the trade-economic cooperation between the two countries was noted and the prospects to arrange the next meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation as well as coordination of the work to be done by various governmental bodies and business circles with a view to improving the quality of bilateral cooperation to a new, higher level were discussed. It was emphasized that there are opportunities to continue the good partnership for further development of relations in the spheres of logistics, industry, energy, and transport. At the meeting, the sides noted with satisfaction the existence of reciprocal support within the international organizations. The sides reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to the principle position of unconditional compliance with the principles of international law, territorial integrity and the inviolability of the international boundaries as an assurance for proper regulation of the ongoing world developments, including the resolution of existing conflicts. The sides also exchanged views on expansion of the legal framework between the two countries, as well as other regional and international issues of mutual interest. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended the inauguration of the newly built Youth Center in Bakikhanov settlement, Sabunchu district, Baku. The Youth Center is located in the renovated recreation park. The renovation of the 2.3-hectare park started in 2014. A statue to national leader Heydar Aliyev was erected in front of the three-story Youth Center as part of the renovation work. The president laid flowers at the statue of national leader Heydar Aliyev. President Aliyev then cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the Youth Center, and viewed conditions created there. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The next round of talks on Azerbaijans accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be held in Geneva next week, Trend reports citing Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammadguliyev. Mammadguliyev made the remarks in Baku on Dec. 14 at the 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) member-states. "The work in this direction is underway, he said. The negotiations are being held. The next negotiations will take place in Geneva next week," Mammadguliyev said, adding that the organization itself is also undergoing reforms. Azerbaijan is holding talks on four main areas - on goods (tariffs for agricultural and industrial products), on trade in services, on improvement of legislation (bringing it in line with WTO requirements) and on support for agriculture (subsidizing), Mammadguliyev told Trend earlier. Azerbaijan expects to join the WTO as a developing country, he said earlier. "In any case, everything depends on the negotiations." Azerbaijan has recently implemented a number of reforms, adopted 12 strategic roadmaps for economic development, changed the regulation of trade, the import customs tariff system, improved trade and logistics infrastructure. The implementation of the road maps is expected to serve as the basis for Azerbaijans successful accession to the WTO. In turn, WTO calls on Azerbaijan to strengthen its work with the organizations member-states to ensure mutual access to the markets for goods and services. Azerbaijan launched negotiations with WTO member-states in 2004. The country is holding negotiations with 13 countries. The negotiations have already been completed and protocols have been signed with Turkey, the Sultanate of Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Azerbaijan is at the stage of signing protocols with China and Moldova. Azerbaijan has a WTO observer status since 1997. A working group on Azerbaijan under the WTO secretariat was established on July 16, 1997. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Azerbaijan successfully fulfills all the tasks to increase the country's transit capabilities, implements large-scale projects and makes major investments in improving transit potential. A regular meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) is being held on December 14 in Baku. Azerbaijan assumed the presidency of the BSEC in June of this year and named priorities during the presidency of the organization: the development of transport infrastructure in the region. Azerbaijan will also pay special attention to the development of tourism, agriculture, communications and other areas. Today, the BSEC is probably the only full-format international organization in the Black Sea-Caspian region, which unites states with different economic potential and different foreign policy orientations. In recent years, the BSEC has become a real platform for developing consolidated positions of the participating states. The BSEC gives new impulses to the development of bilateral and combined cooperation between the countries of the region. And the fact that the development of transport infrastructure in the region has become a priority during the period of Azerbaijans chairmanship in the organization for a country has a real basis. A strategic trade and economic corridor historically passed through the territory of Azerbaijan, which connected Europe and Asia. The modern world dictates the countries to qualitatively change the existing links, but the regional transport corridors still retain their significance in the global communication system. The role of Azerbaijan in the development of transport infrastructure in the region is growing and acquires special importance. Because of the favorable geographical position, large-scale projects being carried out, more efficient use of the potential of transit and freight provide good opportunities for a steady increase in income for all BSEC members. For Azerbaijan, the investment in transport projects aimed at developing infrastructure, increasing the availability and quality of services of the country's transport complex is of particular importance. In recent years, Azerbaijan is very seriously engaged in the development of transport infrastructure in the country and the country invested large funds in this sphere. Seven airports have been built, of which six received international status. The largest commercial port in the Caspian Sea is being built in Alat, which already operated. The railway infrastructure is being updated. Azerbaijan has the largest fleet in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan does not forget about the importance of cooperation with its neighbors, creating, along with transport infrastructure for domestic needs, a regional infrastructure. The opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in October 2017 was another historic achievement of Azerbaijan. At the same time, intensive work is underway on the North-South transport corridor. Azerbaijan - a country that has no access to the open seas, has become one of the transport centers of Eurasia. Today, Azerbaijan is the initiator and active participant in a number of large regional transport projects. Thanks to the development of the transport industry, our country is becoming the key transit, logistics center and an important transport hub in the region. International experts recognize that the same North-South transport corridor will allow increasing the transit potential of Azerbaijan. This project has not of a regional, but international scale. The project originates in India and, passing through Iran, covers the territory of Azerbaijan and extends to Russia and the Gulf of Finland. The implementation of the aforementioned project will allow a two-three-fold reduction in the period of cargo delivery to the consumer. So, the North-South corridor not only connects Iran and Russia but also India with Europe. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is of exceptional importance for turning Azerbaijan into a regional transport corridor. Launched last year, the highway connects various continents. Baku-Tbilisi-Kars is the shortest and most reliable highway between Asia and Europe. Against the background of the commissioning of the above-mentioned railway, the opening of the RO-RO terminal at the Baku International Trade Sea Port is crucial. The international sea port in Alat occupies an important place in the transport system of Azerbaijan. After commissioning of the complex, this logistics center will become the point of intersection of road, rail and sea routes in the region. The Alat port will give new content and dynamism to the transportation of goods from China to Europe and Central Asia. In addition, the creation of a free economic zone around the port will give new impetus to the increase in freight traffic. The construction of international airports in Baku and the regions, highways of international importance in the direction of East-West and North-South transport corridors and the renewal of railway lines play an important role in expanding the country's foreign economic relations. Expanding the logistics capabilities of Azerbaijan serves not only development but also contributes to enhancing the country's authority in regional and world trade. The opening on August 13, 2018 in the Lokbatan settlement of the Absheron Logistics Center is a brilliant confirmation of the work done to improve the operations in the logistics sector. Absheron Logistics Center provides all services and guarantees time saving and cost reduction. This important infrastructure facility is connected to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars, Iran-Astara-Baku, Russia-Yalama-Alat railway routes. After commissioning the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway at full capacity, the center will provide an opportunity to conduct import-export operations with neighboring countries, more flexibly transport multimodal cargoes through the territory of Azerbaijan. Moreover, Azerbaijan is planning to create logistics centers outside the country. Clear evidence of this is the functioning of the Azerbaijani production and logistics center in the Kazakh city of Aktau, which is the first logistics center of Azerbaijan abroad with a 25 percent state share. The creation of logistics centers, the restoration of the ancient Silk Road, the introduction of electronic freight, the simplification of procedural rules indicates the transformation of Azerbaijan into a strategically important transportation hub. All this expands capabilities of Azerbaijan to participate in transit traffic. On the other hand, the republic is a reliable guarantor of the effective transportation of transit cargo through its territory. The implementation of transport projects serves to create direct international road-ferry and rail links in the Black Sea-Caspian region, thereby increasing the role of Azerbaijan in export-import operations. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order regarding measures to construct Neftchala-Khol Garagashli road in Neftchala district. Under the presidential order, 18.2 million manats will be allocated to the Azerbaijan Highway State Agency for the construction of the road connecting 19 residential areas with a total population of 44,000 people. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Youth, which constitutes an important part of the worlds population, may contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) as the most dynamic social group, Speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament Oktay Asadov said, Trend reports. He made the remarks at the 5th Inter-Parliamentary Union Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians in Baku on Dec. 14. Asadov noted that youth is a carrier of a very big intellectual potential, and holds an important place in the political, economic and social structures of many countries by acting as an important factor in the spiritual development of modern society. I am sure that namely young people should play an important role in shaping the new world order, he said. The speaker added that youth policy is an important part of state policy. Thanks to the opportunities created in Azerbaijan, young people have become the leading force of society, he said. Azerbaijani youth holds important positions in the countrys parliament. Along with everyday work, it actively participates in the work of international parliamentary organizations. Asadov added that holding this conference in Baku is a very important event in the political life of Azerbaijan. I believe that young parliamentarians, representing five continents, 44 countries at the global conference, will receive comprehensive information about Azerbaijan, which plays the role of a bridge between East and West, he said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz President Trump at his creepy and also possibly crime-filled inauguration. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images President Trump is facing so many criminal investigations its difficult to keep track of them all. The latest, revealed late Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, is that the U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan is probing Trumps Inauguration. The investigation reportedly centers on two alleged crimes: embezzlement and trading money for favors. Trumps inauguration looked fishy from before it even took place. Three days prior, the New York Times noted that Trumps inauguration raised twice as much as the previous record, but How much of that the committee will spend, and how, is less clear. Nobody has managed to figure out where all the money went, especially given its relatively sparse attendance. Its inexplicable to me. I literally dont know, Greg Jenkins, who chaired George W. Bushs second inaugural, told WNYC. They had a third of the staff and a quarter of the events and they raise at least twice as much as we did, he said. So theres the obvious question: Where did it go? I dont know. Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating Russian businessmen gaining unusual access to the festivities. But the new investigation, which concerns misappropriation of funds and federal corruption laws, might not be related to that inquiry at all. The vice-chairman of the Inaugural Committee was Rick Gates, Paul Manaforts former lobbying partner, who has pleaded guilty to financial crimes and is cooperating with Mueller. It would not exactly be a surprise if Gates did something shady with the vast unexplainable sums at his disposal. Todays Journal report also notes that the investigation partly arises out of materials seized in the federal probe of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohens business dealings. As a reminder, federal prosecutors seized a vast trove of notes and recordings from Cohens office. Cohen worked closely with Trump for a decade, and since both Cohen and Trump are crooks, there could be a lot of other crimes that arise out of this investigation. The procession of criminal investigations around Trump may be just getting started. By Leman Mammadova Commissioning of Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will reduce Greece's dependence on Russian gas, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after negotiations with Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Georgios Katrougalos on December 13, Report informs. Diversification of Greece's energy flow through TAP will reduce dependence of southern Europe on Russian gas. In addition to Greece, Bulgaria will be also less dependent on Russia, he said. The Joint Statement Regarding the Inaugural United States-Greece Strategic Dialogue stated that there is a need to improve energy security and diversification in Europe, emphasizing recent spot purchase of U.S. LNG and long-term supply negotiations. The U.S. sees Greece as a pillar of stability in the Eastern Mediterranean region, appreciating its hub role in energy projects of Europe including Revithoussa LNG terminal, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, and the Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector as well LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis and the Eastern Med pipeline. Besides energy cooperation, the two sides also discussed further collaboration in the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans region, noting the need to integrate the countries of the Western Balkans into European and transatlantic institutions as well as cooperation on renewable energy and efficient coal technology. It should be noted that EBRD has stopped financing coal projects under the new strategy and views TAP as a great choice to promote coal-to-gas transition in Western Balkans, for countries that have not had access to natural gas. It is questionable how realistic U.S. hopes for the reduction of gas dependence of Greece on Russia. Recently, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said at a press conference following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Greece sees the possibility of Russian gas supplies to Europe via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) noting that Greece has technical conditions for TAP to include Russian gas. Last summer, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprom, Alexander Medvedev, stated that Gazprom allowed the use of the TAP gas pipeline capacity when implementing the Poseidon project, which involves the organization of a southern route for the supply of Russian gas through Greece to Italy. The Poseidon gas pipeline project was developed and approved to connect the gas transmission systems of Greece and Italy. It is planned to expand the gas pipeline to ensure direct gas supplies from the Turkish-Greek border to Italy. As of December 31, 2017, over 44 billion cubic meters of Russian gas have been exported to Greece for the entire period of cooperation. In 2017, deliveries to this country amounted to about 2.9 billion cubic meters, including about 950 million cubic meters through Prometheus and about 50 million cubic meters through Mitilineos. 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. Approximately 82 percent of the TAP project, including engineering, procurement and construction, was implemented. On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project. The Intergovernmental Agreement on the TAP project was signed by Albania, Italy and Greece in February 2013. The 878-kilometer-long TAP pipeline (Greece 550 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers) haing connected to the TANAP on the Turkish-Greek border, will run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italys south. In November, TAP and TANAP successfully completed their connection on the banks of the Merich River on the Turkish-Greek border. 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. The cost of the project is 4.5 billion euros, so far, 3.2 billion euros has been spent. 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). 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. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova BP is interested in developing the renewable energy sector in Azerbaijan, BP Vice President for Commercial Affairs in the Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Niall Henderson said on December 14. The company has extensive experience in the extraction of hydrocarbons in the country and works closely with government agencies in this direction, Henderson said. "We are interested in working with the state in the sphere of legislative branch regulation and the company is ready to contribute to the improvement of branch legislation," BP vice president stressed. The vice-president of BP also noted the importance of the role of renewable energy sources and the development of this sphere, as he said, will go in several directions. "One of these areas is to reduce the proportion of hydrocarbons and the development of clean energy, and BP has sufficient experience in this area. For example, in the U.S., the company implements large-scale projects in wind energy. This is about 1.3 gigawatts of energy. We are also involved in solar energy projects. In general, we operate in 10 countries in the field of alternative energy," Niall Henderson said. Recently, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, BP Azerbaijan's Vice President for Communications, External affairs, Strategy said that the Memorandum of Understanding between BP and Energy Ministry will be signed by the end of the current year. BP's Regional President Gary Jones said there is great potential for renewable energy cooperation, thus its realization will contribute to the increase in energy security, diversification of the economy and usage of gas resources in a higher margin. The capacity of the energy system of Azerbaijan is more than 6,000 megawatts. At the same time, according to experts, the potential of renewable energy sources in the country is more than 25,300 megawatts. , which will allow generating 62.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually. Most of the country's potential in this area falls on solar energy, while it is estimated at 5,000 megawatts. Some 4,500 megawatts accounts for wind power, 1,500 megawatts -- for biomass, 800 megawatts -- for geothermal energy, and the remaining 350 megawatts -- for the small hydro power plants (HPP). According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, in January-October 2018, hydropower production amounted to 1,528.4 kilowatt hours, solar energy to 35.1 kilowatt hours and wind power to 42.5 kilowatt hours. The usage of renewable sources is gaining more and more supporters, and it is obvious that the future of humanity will largely depend on this method of energy production. Today, 80 percent of world energy consumption comes from hydrocarbons (oil, natural gas and coal), and 20 percent from renewable sources and nuclear energy. Energy consumption in the world is growing every day, and traditional energy sources are rapidly being exhausted. According to the forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA), 60 percent of world energy will come from hydrocarbons in 2040, and the largest percentage will come from natural gas, while 40 percent from nuclear energy and renewable energy sources, mostly from wind and solar energy. Ecologically pure infrastructure of the production of this type of energy is of great importance. Alternative energy sources are safe for humans and the environment, as they do not produce harmful emissions into the atmosphere. On the contrary, hydrocarbon-based energy is the main source of pollution of the Earths atmosphere; it can lead to irreversible climate change on the planet. The State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SAARES) was established by Decree of the Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev on February 1, 2013, with the aim of improving the management system in the field of alternative and renewable energy in Azerbaijan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: The anti-terrorist operation planned to be held by the Turkish armed forces in northern Syria will be the third operation over the recent years, but obviously it will not be the last one. A complete cleansing of Syria from the terrorists, who currently control about 30 percent of the country's territory, is not easy even for the Turkish army - one of the strongest NATO armies. The first operation was called the Euphrates Shield, the second one - the Olive Branch, in which the Free Syrian Army also took part. It is not excluded that the new military operation will be called Tigris Shield. The Operation Euphrates Shield was conducted in northern Syria against "Islamic State" (IS) terrorist organization. The Operation Olive Branch, which was also carried out in northern Syria, was directed against PYD/YPG, the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist organization. Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently stated about the beginning of new military operations in northern Syria against PYD/YPG. It is clear that the matter rests in clearing Syrias Manbij from the PYD/YPG terrorists. The terrain in Manbij is flat, which facilitates holding the operation as opposed to Afrin, where the Operation Olive Branch was conducted. But on the other hand, there are the US and French military contingents in Manbij, which complicates the military operation as opposed to Afrin. Another important factor is that as opposed to Afrin, terrorists have heavy military equipment in Manbij, which was provided by the US, and as is known, the US is not considered an ally of Turkey any more due to this incident. It is not excluded that taking all this into account, the Turkish Armed Forces will conduct the operation in several stages. At the first stage, jets will be used, at the second stage - artillery, at third stage - infantry, i.e. troops of the Free Syrian Army. No matter how the new anti-terrorist operation is held, it can be considered the second round of the US-Turkish battle in Syria. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend On Dec. 12, the UN General Assembly at its plenary session unanimously adopted a special resolution Enlightenment and Religious Tolerance, the draft of which was developed by Uzbekistan, Trend reports on Dec. 13 referring to Uzbek media. The adoption of the resolution was the practical implementation of the initiative of President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, put forward at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in September 2017 in New York. Speaking from the high rostrum of the United Nations, the head of state said the main goal of the resolution proposed by Uzbekistan is 'to ensure universal access to education, eliminating illiteracy and ignorance'. The document is intended to 'promote the establishment of tolerance and mutual respect, ensure religious freedom, protect the rights of believers, prevent discrimination'," the press service of the Foreign Ministry said. In order to implement this initiative, the Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan, together with other state agencies, carried out work to develop the draft resolution and its coordination with all the UN Member States. Among the co-sponsors of the resolution, are such countries as Azerbaijan, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tajikistan, Japan, etc. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A bilateral meeting of Turkish and Russian Foreign Ministers Mevlut Cavusoglu and Sergey Lavrov is being held in Baku on Dec. 14, Trend reports. The meeting is being held as part of the 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). Cavusoglu and Lavrov are discussing the issues of bilateral cooperation of the countries and other topical regional issues. The 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation member-states is being held in Baku under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan. The delegations headed by senior officials of the BSEC member-states are taking part in the meeting. Among the main priorities of Azerbaijans chairmanship are to render efficient, reliable and safe transport and transit services as part of BSEC, increase the export potential of agriculture and further develop the tourism sector. The Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation is an intergovernmental organization uniting 12 countries of the Black Sea and southern Balkans. The organization was founded in 1992. The headquarters of the organization is located in Istanbul. Azerbaijan assumed the BSEC chairmanship at the 38th meeting of the Organization's Council of Foreign Ministers, which took place on June 27. Azerbaijan will chair BSEC until December 2018. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The Russian State Duma ratified the protocol to the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of Kyrgyzstan on cooperation in the supply of oil and oil products, TASS reported. The agreement was concluded in Bishkek on June 6, 2016, the protocol was signed on April 28, 2018 in Moscow. In accordance with the agreement, the Russian side does not charge export customs duties on oil and oil products supplied in the volume of domestic consumption of Kyrgyzstan, approved in the volume of indicative balances. Regarding the volumes of deliveries exceeding indicative balances, export customs duties are payable to the budget of Russia, while for export purposes, exported oil products are subject to customs declaration in Russia. Anastasia Bondarenko, the Deputy Energy Minister, said that main provisions of the protocol are aimed at restricting the use of temporary customs declaration for the supply of petroleum products from Kyrgyzstan to Russia. It will help optimize the process of such deliveries in order to prevent their unevenness depending on the actions of individual participants in foreign economic activity. The Protocol provides that a temporary periodic customs declaration is applied in 2018 when exporting oil products from Russia to Kyrgyzstan by pipeline transport in accordance with indicative balances for 2018. In other cases, temporary customs declarations for goods submitted for export of goods of group 27 of the unified Commodity Nomenclature for Foreign Economic Activity of the EAEU (mineral fuel, oil and its distillation products, bituminous substances and mineral waxes) from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, the actual export from Russia to Kyrgyzstan by which has not been produced shall be considered as not being sent. Diplomatic relations between Kyrgyzstan and Russia were established on March 20, 1992. Kyrgyzstan has traditionally close relations with Russia - both countries are strategic partners, are included in such organizations and associations as the SCO, CSTO and the EEU. Russia's exports to Kyrgyzstan following types of goods: mineral products; food products and agricultural raw materials; metals and products from them; chemical industry products; machinery, equipment and vehicles; wood and pulp and paper products; textiles and footwear. The structure of Russian imports consists of the following groups of goods: cars, equipment and vehicles; metals and products from them; textiles and footwear; food products and agricultural raw materials; chemical industry products. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz A leading coalition of civil rights groups wants federal lawmakers to focus on oversight of the U.S. Department of Education when the new Congress begins next year, as well as legislation addressing student health and school safety. In a letter to the House and Senate on Wednesday, the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights also asked lawmakers to pass legislation that deals with the restraint and seclusion of students, corporal punishment in schools, and police in schools. As for oversight, the coalition asked Congress to look into Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos actions with respect to the departments office for civil rights, enforcement of Every Student Succeeds Act requirements, and racial disparities in special education. Itll be a very different world on Capitol Hill next month when the 116th Congress begins and Democrats take control of the House from Republicans. Thanks to the midterm elections, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., is set to take over the House education committee and will have the chance to significantly shift the panels focus. (The Senate will remain in Republican hands.) We previewed what a Democratic takeover of the House could mean last month . Scott and other House Democrats have consistently and vigorously opposed what they say is lax oversight by DeVos when it comes to ensuring help for disadvantaged students under ESSA. Theyve also criticized her push to shrink the civil rights office and narrow the scope of its work to move away from investigations of systemic bias in schools, her decision to eliminate Obama administration guidance intended to protect the rights of transgender students, and more. Now that Scott and his party are in the drivers seat, the Leadership Conference wants Democrats to act on all that, and more. Not surprisingly perhaps, priorities for Democrats and civil rights groups match pretty closely in several areas. For example, last month Democrats unveiled legislation to ban the seclusion of students and sharply restrict when school staff can restrain disruptive students. Thats a big priority for the coalition as well as for special education advocates, although some educators say the issue defies blanket policy prescriptions. As the coalition indicates, school safety and student health are major ongoing topics and, particularly in light of several school shootings earlier this year, it could become a major focus of battles between DeVos and Democrats. Scott and civil rights groups are bracing for an anticipated decision by DeVos to roll back school discipline guidance from the Obama years. If she does, expect her to get grilled by the committee about it next year. Scott could also tackle what he and other Democrats have said is an inappropriate use of police in schools that disproportionately hurts students of color. Read the Leadership conferences full letter here: Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Andrew Ujifusa half of Politics K-12 @AndrewUjifusa . President Trump distances himself from his crime-filled inauguration. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators are probing the Trump inauguration for influence-trading and misappropriation of funds. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that the Trump inauguration has nothing to do with Donald Trump. That doesnt have anything to do with the president or the First Lady, explained Sanders. The biggest thing the president did, his engagement in the inauguration, was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office. The president was focused on the transition at that time and not on any of the planning for the inauguration. Apparently Trump just showed up, gave a speech, and left, never asking how the money being raised in his name was being spent or who was handing it over. And so the massive, nationally televised festival of Trump joins the list of Trump-related people or activities for which Donald Trump claims no responsibility. Michael Cohen, Trumps longtime fixer, did very low-level work for him, he told Fox News, more public relations than he did law. Of course, since Trumps defense requires professing ignorance of the law, he has also puffed up Cohens responsibility for this: He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law, he wrote. It is called advice of counsel, and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. The apparent lesson here is not to use your low-level, mostly public-relations person to give you legal advice on whether or not your covert payment is a felony. Being charged with a crime appears to be a reliable way to have your status in Trumpworld retroactively diminished. George Papadopoulos, who Trump had introduced to the Washington Post as one of his foreign policy advisers, was demoted to young, low-level volunteer and coffee boy. Carter Page, cited by Trump at the same meeting, subsequently became a very low-level member of I think a committee for a short period of time. I dont think I ever met him. Yet another person whom Trump barely knows is his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. He worked for me for a very short period of time, Trump said of Manafort last summer. Murray Waas reports that Manafort gave advice to Trump and senior White House officials on how to respond to Robert Muellers investigation. Manafort is deeply compromised, having maintained close ties to his business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence agent. The defense of Trump has always asserted that their short intersection during the campaign is their only connection, and Manaforts criminality only concerns his business as a political fixer long before he worked for the Trump campaign, as the Wall Street Journal editorial page rationalized. Kind of strange, isnt it, that Trump would coordinate his legal defense with a man he knows only slightly, and who turns out to have committed a bunch of crimes that dont implicate Trump in any way? By Leman Mammadova In the modern world, tourism is one of the most dynamically developing and profitable sectors of the economy for each country. Therefore, Azerbaijan aims to develop this sphere by all possible means. Sustainable development of the non-oil sector, in particular the tourism sector, is crucial at a time when it is impossible to fully rely on oil and gas industry. The country enjoys a great potential for the development of tourism. Nature, climate, historical monuments, cuisine, rich culture of the people and other factors lay the foundation for the development of many areas of tourism. There are wide opportunities for Azerbaijan to be recognized as a tourist destination in the world. An agreement was signed to launch official foreign tourism offices of Azerbaijan in six foreign countries. According to the contract, Travel Consul Agency Network Worldwide has acquired the right to open official tourism offices in six countries through its world-renowned divisions, the State Tourism Agency told Trend. Tourism offices in foreign countries aim to introduce Azerbaijan's tourism opportunities, conduct propaganda and campaigning. Representation offices in Frankfurt in Germany (Lieb Management & Beteiligungs GmbH), Dubai in UAE (Gulf Reps Ltd), Riyad in Saudi Arabia (Gulf Reps Ltd), Beijing in China (Brand story Inc Pte Ltd), Mumbai in India (Blue Square Consultants, a division of Ezeego One Travel & Tours Limited) and Moscow in Russia (Tourism Marketing & Intelligence Ltd) are aimed to achieve recognition of the country abroad, to increase the flow of tourists from the target markets, and to promote the development of tourism in the country as a whole. The representations will operate in areas such as propagation of tourism potential of Azerbaijan and the region in which they operate, marketing research, preparation of reports, publication of propaganda materials and conducting trainings. Organization of official tourism missions will also serve to organize seminars on Azerbaijan, as well as meetings for cooperation of tourism and travel companies in regions and Azerbaijan, support Azerbaijan's participation in international exhibitions and coordinate activities to stimulate bilateral relations. Continuous development and expansion of tourism has made this sector a key driving force in socio-economic progress. It shows itself in creating new jobs, establishing tourism related businesses and infrastructure. The beautiful nature of Azerbaijan, hospitality of its people, the country's capital with its super modern and ancient buildings draws the attention of all tourists visiting this South Caucasian country. Moreover, the recent devaluation of Azerbaijani manat much facilitated tourist inflow to the Land of Fire. All this is expected to soon place the country amongs major tourism countries of the world. The growing popularity of Azerbaijan among foreign tourists has led to the emergence of a new trend in the field of local hospitality - rural tourism as well as the traditional tourism types. The countrys regions began to attract more and more foreign and local tourists, wishing to familiarize with non-western culture and different lifestyle, which they find in rural areas. Azerbaijan is among the fastest-growing destinations for tourists. In January-October 2018, 2,420,400 foreigners and stateless persons from 194 countries arrived in Azerbaijan, and this indicates a 6.1 percent growth compared to the same period of 2017. Russians made up the majority of the tourists who visited Azerbaijan. As many as 31.1 percent of the tourists came from Russia. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan, 2 691 998 foreign tourists visited Azerbaijan last year, which is 20 percent more than in 2016. It is emphasized that most tourists came to Azerbaijan in July - 313 515 people. It is noted that in the winter, both domestic and foreign tourists prefer the Shahdag Gusar and Gabala Tufandag tourist centers. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz A Yemeni child recites a prayer by the graves of schoolboys who were killed while on a bus that was hit by a Saudi-led coalition air strike, at a cemetery in Saada on September 4, 2018. Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images In an unusual show of unity, on Thursday the Senate voted 56-to-41 to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, then voted unanimously to condemn Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Yemen resolution written by Republican senator Mike Lee and Independent senator Bernie Sanders was a rare invocation of the 1973 War Powers Act, and the most significant rebuke of President Trumps refusal to cast blame on MBS and the Saudis. The move will not have an immediate effect on the war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians and created a famine, but it contains several harbingers for the year ahead. The bipartisan consensus on Middle East policy is fading fast. For decades, even after 9/11, leaders in both parties have ignored public distaste for some of Saudi Arabias policies, and for the alliance itself. The killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi connected that public distaste with the growing concern felt by foreign policy elites over Mohammed bin Salmans policies and President Trumps apparent willingness to tie all U.S. goals in the Middle East to MBS. A number of foreign policy moderates who had opposed the Senate measure earlier this year supported it this time, and think-tank leaders who have spent years working with the Saudis applauded it. This week, two Obama administration veterans called on Washington to begin pulling back from what they called the purgatory of Washingtons overcommitment to Middle Eastern regimes whose behavior it cannot limit. It appears that a number of prominent Republicans quietly agree. The fight to end U.S. involvement in Yemen isnt going away and neither is the war. The fact that seven Republicans Mike Lee, Susan Collins, Steve Daines, Jeff Flake, Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, and Todd Young joined all Democrats in voting for an end to U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen suggests that the bill will have a decent chance of passing again in the next Congress. Why does that matter? Although a similar bill easily passed the House earlier this year (with support from Democrats and tea party Republicans), House Speaker Paul Ryan and the GOP leadership used procedural tricks to ensure such a measure could not come to the floor in the waning days of this year. Unless Ryan backs down next week, that means the Senate measure to end U.S. support for the war cannot become law. With a new Congress in January, everything starts over but presumably the measure would again pass easily in a Democrat-controlled House. Meanwhile, a round of U.N.-sponsored Yemen peace talks in Sweden wrapped up on Thursday, offering a tiny sliver of hope that progress could be made toward ending the violence and improving civilian access to food and health care. But no one thinks that the conflict can be brought to a quick close before, say, Congress reconvenes and takes the issue up again. Tragically, for now, millions of Yemenis will remain at risk of death from starvation, disease, and violence. Transpartisanship or the politics of strange bedfellows may be on the rise. The Senate resolutions passed as senators struggled to advance another measure whose origins lie in partnership between the activist left and libertarian right: criminal-justice reform. The First Step Act would loosen some of the rules governing how federal courts treat drug and other crimes, and provide more avenues to prisoner rehabilitation. It is a small subset of the changes to how crimes are prosecuted and punished that reformers have rolled out around the country including in some of the reddest states. In both cases, success relied on alliances between progressive and libertarian activists, which eventually brought around congressional Democrats and one wing of the GOP. While neither alliance has yet produced a definitive policy outcome at the federal level, expect to see more of them on issues from defense spending to climate change. Congress may finally have a real debate about where and how the U.S. uses force. Speaking of cross-partisan alliances, some of the same senators and activists who labored for months to bring the Yemen bill to a vote also share a broader interest in debating, and limiting, the many places where the U.S. is engaged in military operations. Bizarrely, they point out, the authorization for the use of force passed by Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 is still used to justify military operations from West Africa to Central Asia, the majority of which target groups which are not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and didnt even exist on 9/11 (as in the case of ISIS). This debate can very quickly get bogged down in the finer points of constitutional law. What counts as use of military force? Who are the successors to Al Qaeda? How much say should Congress have over the use of small numbers of troops, or of drones? And then theres politics to consider: Who takes the blame if an operation goes wrong or, as in the run-up to 9/11, if an emerging threat is ignored? Still, Congresss willingness to challenge not just Trump but also Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Yemen, and to invoke the rarely used War Powers Act to do so, suggests that we may be edging toward a new era of, if not congressional activism on national security, at least congressional engagement. There is precedent for this: The War Powers Act itself is part of the last great set of congressional security oversight reforms, which came about in the 1970s, as lawmakers were questioning the presidents foreign policy moves and mulling his potential impeachment. These are all Marriott hotels. Photo: Getty Images In 2016, Marriott Hotels, which had 19 hotel brands, merged with Starwood, which had 11. They didnt abolish any brands in the merger, and so the company faced a challenge: How to explain to customers, or even to its own employees, what makes all 30 of these brands different from each other. So shortly after the merger, the company produced this cutesy matrix: Dont understand Marriotts brands? Just check out the chart. Theyre all either luxury, premium, or select, and theyre either classic (normal) or distinctive (quirky). Your regular Marriott is a classic premium hotel, while a hip W Hotel is distinctive luxury, and a value-priced Fairfield Inn is classic select. It made no sense, says Gary Leff, who writes the View From the Wing blog on the travel industry, of this chart. But the wealth of brands, and Marriotts use of these terms to categorize them, persists, even if the matrix presentation does not. CEO Arne Sorenson has taken to calling the spaces occupied by similarly positioned Marriott brands swim lanes; as in a crowded pool, you may have to share one. If you ask most average consumers, they will not be able to list the brands that belong to the different companies or necessarily tell you what the differences are, says Makarand Mody, an assistant professor of hospitality marketing at the Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. Its becoming harder for these companies to develop brands that are clearly distinct from each other. But is it really a problem to have so many brands? Marriott is, after all, the worlds leading hotel company. Two years after the merger, Marriott has shown its possible to live and thrive with 30 brands, even if your customers dont really understand them all. This is because the hotel business is quite different from airlines or automobiles or other brand-centric industries. Hotel brands do matter. But they matter more to hotel owners than to hotel customers. And if customers form strong enough loyalty to an umbrella hotel brand like Marriott, they may never need to develop a clear grasp of the underlying brands; they can rely on the company to help them navigate. Marriott, like the other big hotel companies, owns very few of its own hotels these days. The hotel owners enter into multiyear contracts with companies like Marriott allowing them to use a specific brand. If we had not merged with Starwood, would we be trying to build 30 brands from scratch? Sorenson asked, rhetorically, on Marriotts November 6, 2016, earnings call, the first after the Starwood merger closed. I think the answer is probably not. At the same time, having done this deal, the 30 brands all exist. They all have substantial capital that has been invested in them, particularly by the hotel owners who have made deliberate bets about which flag they put on their hotels. And we dont have the power to, nor the desire to, try and convince them that those bets have not been good bets. Thats the first thing about Marriotts brand challenge: It cant easily get rid of any of its brands even if it wants to. The hotel owners wont let them. Consider Sheraton, the first Marriott brand Id probably put on the chopping block if I were king. In that odd matrix diagram, Sheraton is listed as a classic premium brand. It has a strong reputation in some foreign markets, but in the U.S. it faces a perception of uneven quality perhaps an outdated perception, as Starwood and Marriott have long worked to upgrade or disaffiliate the dingier Sheraton properties. But besides the quality hiccups, Sheraton is not strongly distinguished from the flagship Marriott brand, which is also classic premium. So, is Sheraton necessary? Conceivably, Marriott could be better off with just one brand in this swim lane, in the same way that all of Hilton hotels that are like a Marriott or a Sheraton are just called Hilton. (Back in 2016, Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta poked some light fun at Marriott for its excess of brands by echoing Sorensons swim lane terminology. We are very focused on having pure-bred brands that are leaders in their individual segments, that have clearly defined swim lanes, that have premium market share and, as a consequence, help us drive industry leading organic net unit growth, he said on an earnings call. Thats our strategy. Others have taken different paths.) But if all the Sheratons turned into Marriotts, you would have, for example, a Marriott LAX at 6101 West Century Boulevard in Los Angeles, and another one 1,000 feet away at 5855 West Century Boulevard. Its not strictly true that you cant have two same-flagged hotels so close together before the 9/11 attack, the World Trade Center Marriott was nearly adjacent to the Marriott World Financial Center but property owners understandably prefer to avoid the situation. Plus, reflagging a hotel is a much costlier proposition than repainting an airplane. To bring properties to a uniform brand standard, you might have to replace carpet and mattresses, even if these hadnt reached the end of their useful life not to mention the cost for new signage and stationery and printed napkins and pens. And properties that change their flag have to reintroduce themselves to customers under a new name. All of which is to say, Sorenson is right that hotel owners would stand in the way of a brand consolidation. Plus, the downside of having to present a large and confusing stable of brands to consumers is much smaller for a hotel company than it is for, say, an auto company. One of the main costs of operating several nameplates within one car company is that each must be marketed separately. The more brands GM has, the more television ads it has to run. But major hotel companies these days do very little marketing of their individual brands, focusing instead on building customer loyalty to the umbrella brand. I think the principal model today is we go to market through our loyalty platform, through our dot-com site, through our app, Sorenson said on that November 2016 earnings call. And those things allow us to essentially market a portfolio, and offer through that portfolio an incredible range of choice to our customers, which drives, actually, conversion from looking to booking that much higher and makes the economics of each brand better, not weaker. That is, Marriott doesnt have to spend a lot of money to educate the public about, say, Moxy Hotels. Marriott can just spend money to convince people to book at Marriott.com, where it can show off all its brands at once, including Moxy. That cost-benefit analysis explains why a merged hotel company like Marriott wouldnt hurry to shed weak brands in favor of stronger ones in the same swim lane. But the companies keep coming up with new brands, like Moxy Hotels, which you may have never heard of. Why is this relatively new brand necessary? Moxy is a playground that attracts Fun Hunter travelers and is designed to give guests everything they want and nothing they dont at an affordable price, according to Marriott. Moxy hotels have small rooms, but theyre balanced out by lively common spaces that encourage interaction. Like Moxy, many of the newer brands exist somewhere in the select service space, offering fewer bells and whistles than a Marriott or a Hilton but more than a Fairfield Inn or a Hampton Inn. Maybe you dont mind if your room is small, but you care a lot about the bed being comfortable. Perhaps you dont need a bellman or a pool, but you definitely want a bar. Hotel companies are developing these new brand concepts with your preferences in mind. Makarand Mody says these new concepts are appealing to owners because they provide an excellent value proposition: They can be built and operated much more cheaply than traditional full-service hotels, because rooms are smaller and staffing levels are lower, but customers are often willing to pay nearly as much as they would for a full-service hotel room, especially in supply-constrained markets like Boston. Even Hilton, the company thats proud of its restrained and clearly delineated portfolio of brands, announced in October that it will launch a 15th brand: Motto by Hilton, a micro-hotel with an urban vibe in prime global locations. The prototypical Motto hotel will have guest rooms of just 163 square feet, but those small rooms will be offset by lively public spaces meant to promote interaction. You can think of it as Moxy, by Hilton. Other brands exist to make it possible for the large hotel companies to integrate independent hotels that meet quality standards but dont fit in a specific brand box. These are called soft brands, and Marriott has three of them: the Luxury Collection, which is luxurious; the Autograph Collection, which is at the upper end of upper upscale; and the Tribute Portfolio, which runs from upscale into upper upscale. Those latter two designations come from Brian Povinelli, who is Marriotts senior vice-president and global brand leader for its premium distinctive full-service hotel brands, including the Autograph and Tribute groups, plus Westin, Renaissance, and Le Meridien. Part of Povinellis job is to help consumers, including me, understand what makes Marriotts distinctive brands so distinctive, and to ensure the properties within the brands are living up to those distinctive expectations. I will confess that Im not sure I see a clear distinction among Marriotts three soft brands; before the merger, Starwood had two (just Luxury and Tribute) and Autograph seemed to be Marriotts competitor to both of them; now all three brands live under one roof. But since a soft brand is soft, developing a clear identity is less important than with the hard brands. These are just nice, independent-looking hotels where you can earn Marriott points, and theyre an easy way for Marriott to grow its network. As for the hard brands, Westin has a clear strategy for distinctiveness: wellness. The Heavenly Bed, workout gear available to borrow, soothing pale-green tones: A Westin is supposed to leave you feeling rested and healthy. I dont believe Ive ever stayed at a Le Meridien, but these hotels are all supposed to have a European flair with a very specific mid-century modern design aesthetic, according to Povinelli. Each has a master barista. Surprisingly, he says the brand does especially well in middle-American markets like Indianapolis, Columbus, and Tampa. Where I have the greatest bone to pick with Marriotts alleged distinctiveness is Renaissance. Its focused on that element of discovery and bringing the local neighborhood to life, says Povinelli. This seems to be the official Marriott line: a Renaissance Hotel is Business Unusual; a full-service hotel, but more plugged-in and local. Theres even a Navigator, who can tell you where is cool to go in the area. (You may have heard of this service elsewhere, referred to as concierge.) I have stayed at the Renaissance Denver Stapleton hotel, which is an airport hotel that lost its airport, and I cant say I was able to identify any local flair. There was a photograph of a ski hill in my guest room. On the other hand, the Mayflower in Washington, D.C., has so much local flair, its where Bill Clinton was photographed hugging Monica Lewinsky, where Eliot Spitzer became Client No. 9 in Room 871, and where Jeff Sessions had his forgettable encounter with thenRussian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Maybe the Mayflower had too much local flair for its Renaissance flag; in 2015, the property transitioned to become a member of the Autograph Collection. All of which is to say, I cant identify a clear through-line for Renaissance as a consumer. And if the unique brand proposition to the consumer isnt obvious, its time to look for the proposition to the owner and the operator. Its a conversion brand, says Leff, the travel-industry blogger. They can reflag some other hotel and call it a Renaissance pretty easily. Indeed, rather than calling it a hard brand, Renaissance might be best described as a firm brand that uses the frame of localism to allow for fairly wide stylistic variations across properties. A reasonably nice, full-service hotel can enter the Marriott network as a Renaissance without having to rip out and replace perfectly good fixtures like it might need to do in order to align with the brand standards for Marriott or Sheraton or Westin. When you start slicing the distinctions among hotels this thinly, you start to see why it might make sense for a company like Marriott to have 30 different brands. Or at least why it would be in no hurry to get rid of any of them. So what if its not clear exactly what a Renaissance Hotel is? Its a full-service hotel thats not exactly a Marriott or a Westin, and you can get your points there. If youre an elite member, theyll give you the late checkout youre entitled to. Isnt that what you were looking for anyway? Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. as a Renaissance hotel. It changed its flag from Renaissance to Marriotts Autograph Collection in 2015. Three Beaumont women have filed suit against Brightwood College, which suddenly closed campuses across the country last week. The law firm representing them seeks to build a nationwide class-action case. The women filed the lawsuit this week in federal court in Beaumont against the president of the Beaumont Brightwood College; Brightwood's parent company, Virginia College; Virginia College's parent company; Education Corporation of America; and the CEO and equity firms that own Education Corporation. "How is it that these students paid what they were supposed to pay, did what they were supposed to do, and are somehow worse off for it?" attorney Mark Sparks of Beaumont's Ferguson Law Firm said in a phone interview Friday. Education Corporation of America announced Dec. 5 that it would close all 75 of its for-profit college campuses nationwide, including the one on Eastex Freeway near Parkdale Mall. The company released a statement saying students would be given their transcripts so they could try transferring to a different school. The school focused on diplomas and associate's degrees related to health care, including programs for dental assistants, medical assistants, medical office specialists and pharmacy technicians. RELATED: Brightwood College to close campuses nationwide, including one in Beaumont Education Corporation addressed the closures in a statement posted to its web page: "Recently, the Department of Education added requirements that made operating ECA schools more challenging. In addition, ACICS (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) suspended the schools' accreditation with intent to withdraw. The uncertainty of these circumstances resulted in an inability to acquire additional capital to operate the schools." The statement continued, "This is not the outcome that the organization envisioned and is one that ECA recognizes will have a dramatic effect on both the students that they have served and their employees." Ferguson Law Firm said in an earlier statement about the lawsuit that the closures affected "thousands upon thousands of students." It said the firm also is looking to represent employees "who have lost their jobs." Ferguson and the Bailey Reyes firm are working on the lawsuit. Education Corporation of America oversaw five different college brands nationwide, according to its website, including Brightwood College, Brightwood Career Institute, Virginia College, the Ecotech Institute and the Golf Academy of America. Brightwood College did not respond to a request for comment. Information regarding transcript requests, externships, diplomas, transfers, financial aid, stipends and more is available at ecacolleges.com/faq. On Friday, Vista College, a for-profit school similar to those owned by Education Corporation of America, released a statement encouraging former Brightwood and Virginia College students to set up appointments with its admissions representatives. "We know that they have worked hard and are now trying to figure out their next steps," Vista College CEO Jim Tolbert said in a written statement, "and we want to assist with that process." 3 1 of 3 Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Two men were arrested in connection to a house burglary Wednesday, according to information from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. On Monday officials responded to a call in reference to a burglary of a residence in the 11000 block of Clubb Road. Upon arrival the victim stated that several guns along with other property had been stolen, JCSO said. Nearly $1 million more is headed to Southeast Texas for Tropical Storm Harvey disaster recovery projects. The Texas Water Development Board on Friday approved loan forgiveness of $500,000 for the city of Bevil Oaks and $438,000 for Hardin County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1. The loan forgiveness acts similarly to a grant and no money will need to be repaid by either agency. Bevil Oaks money will be used to restore operations to two lift stations and elevate critical electrical and control equipment that was destroyed during the hurricane, according to the water development board. Lift stations are use to move wastewater from lower to higher elevations without using gravity. Bevil Oaks officials were not available Friday to give more information about the project. The money for Hardin County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1 will replace electrical control panels and restore the wastewater system that was damaged during Harvey. District board president Jack Maddox said that prior to Harvey the wastewater system had two working air compressors, which drive the treatment process forward. Both of those went under water during the storm. One was replaced, but the second will need to be replaced to bring operations back to a pre-Harvey operational level. Additionally, many of the systems automatic controls dont work the way they did prior to Harvey and the wastewater systems generators need to be replaced. We would have had to take this project on, but it would have been passed on through extra taxes without money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the water development board, Maddox said. The water development board is a state agency that collects and disseminates water-related data, helps with regional planning and prepares the states water plan for the development of the states water resources. It also administers cost-effective financial assistance programs for the construction of water supply, wastewater treatment, flood control and agricultural water conservation projects. kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/KaitlinBain Local authorities are investigating seemingly connected bomb threats mirroring a nationwide panic Thursday. Police officials in Rosenburg, Houston and the Harris County Sheriff's Office all stated they have received notification of several threats to area businesses. The suspect in each threat alerted the business and demanded payment through Bitcoin. Law enforcement found no credible threats at each of the businesses, officials said. Other areas affected by the hoax bomb threats across the country include New York City, Atlanta, Boise and Palm Beach County, Florida, according to the Associated Press. Authorities urge residents to be vigilant. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Several hospitals in Oklahoma and Tennessee managed by the same company missed payroll, prompting one CEO to resign. Shelly Dyer confirmed to News 9, an Oklahoma City TV station, that she had resigned as CEO of Prague (Okla.) Community Hospital Dec. 13 due to stress. At that time, the hospital was a week behind on payroll and had lapsed on its malpractice insurance. However, in the early morning hours of Dec. 14, employee payroll was distributed and the hospital's malpractice insurance was paid. Prague Community Hospital is managed by Kansas City, Mo.-based EmpowerHMS, which also operates several other hospitals in Oklahoma. As of Dec. 13, Fairfax (Okla.) Community Hospital and Haskell County Community Hospital in Stigler, Okla., which are operated by EmpowerHMS, were also behind on payroll, according to local news station KJRH. Lauderdale Community Hospital in Ripley, Tenn., an EmpowerHMS facility, was also behind on paying employees, according to WMC Action News 5. Lauderdale Community Hospital CEO Michael Layfield told WMC Action News 5 that the hospital is facing the same financial challenges as many other rural hospitals across the nation. "We are struggling because of volumes dropping and decreases in reimbursement," he said. More articles on healthcare finance: Private equity pushes into healthcare: 9 latest deals Partners HealthCare's annual operating income soars 489% CMS updates hospital price transparency requirement again The following hospital and health system credit rating and outlook changes or affirmations occurred in the last week, beginning with the most recent: 1. Moody's affirms Baylor Scott & White's 'Aa3' rating Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "A3," "Aa3/P-1," and "P-1" ratings for Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health. 2. Moody's affirms North Broward Hospital District's 'Baa2' rating Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "Baa2" rating for North Broward (Fla.) Hospital District, which operates Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Broward Health, affecting $317 million of debt outstanding. 3. Fitch assigns 'AA-' issuer default rating to Trinity Health Fitch Ratings assigned an "AA-" issuer default rating to Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health and affirmed the system's "AA-" long-term rating, affecting $5.8 billion of bonds. 4. Fitch assigns 'AA' rating to Lurie Children's Hospital Fitch Ratings assigned an "AA" rating to Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. 5. Fitch affirms 'BB' rating for HCA Healthcare Fitch Ratings affirmed its "BB" rating for Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, affecting $33.3 billion of debt. 6. Moody's downgrades Good Samaritan Hospital rating to 'Baa1' Moody's Investors Service downgraded the revenue bond rating of Vincennes, Ind.-based Good Samaritan Hospital from "Baa3" to "Ba1." 7. Moody's affirms Erlanger Health System's 'Baa2' rating Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "Baa2" revenue bond rating for Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Erlanger Health System, affecting $50 million of rated bonds. Hospitals may be losing significant money if their revenue cycles aren't focused on collecting from patient accounts that are most likely to generate full reimbursement, according to an analysis from TransUnion Healthcare, part of credit and information management company TransUnion. The analysis found that 30 percent of uninsured patients or patients who have out-of-pocket costs after insurance generate more than 80 percent of the hospitals' self-pay revenue. TransUnion Healthcare said this is important for hospitals to note because the uninsured population and patient balances after insurance have increased. A Commonwealth Fund's ACA Tracking Survey released last May found the number of working-age uninsured Americans grew by an estimated 4 million since March 2017. Additionally, a TransUnion Healthcare analysis earlier this year found patient balances after insurance climbed from 8 percent of the total bill responsibility in the first quarter of 2012 to 12.2 percent in the same period of 2017. Although hospitals are focusing more on cost control measures, they "still may be missing the most important part of the picture: an optimized revenue cycle which ensures earned revenue becomes paid revenue," said TransUnion Healthcare. Dave Wojczynski, president of TransUnion Healthcare, recommended hospitals look at their current approach and determine which patients or accounts are most likely to result in full reimbursement. "Determining which patients or accounts may present the best opportunities for payment is just one way a healthcare provider can increase their chances of maximizing reimbursements for services rendered," he said. Editor's note: This story was updated on Dec. 14. More articles on finance: Investment income bolstered standalone hospitals' finances, analysis finds US senator seeks information on how to reduce healthcare costs Vermont hospital struggles to pay its bills: 7 things to know Here are six recent health IT vendor contracts and go-lives: 1. Raleigh, N.C.-based WakeMed Health & Hospitals will deploy a mobile wayfinding app from Gozio Health to help patients navigate its facilities. 2. Pittsfield, Mass.-based Berkshire Health Systems will implement a web-based EHR from Meditech. 3. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City signed a 10-year agreement with Philips to implement the health technology vendor's full suite of clinical informatics tools. 4. T-Mobile will provide 70,000 lines of wireless service to Veterans Affairs Department physicians, nurses, social workers and crisis hotline staff to expand veterans' access to health services. 5. Wake Forest Baptist Health Davie Medical Center in Bermuda Run, N.C., implemented clinical communications tools from Vocera to support its opioid surveillance program. 6. University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City deployed a security service from "internet of things" analytics platform Zingbox to monitor its network of connected medical devices. A recently elected congressman from Tennessee told constituents during a town hall meeting Dec. 11 that more research needs to be done on potential links between vaccines and autism, and that the CDC and other health agencies have "fraudulently managed" data about potential links, according to a USA Today report. Here are three things to know: 1. Republican Rep.-elect Mark Green, MD, expressed concern over data presented by the CDC and other federal health agencies regarding potential links between vaccines and autism. The CDC has conducted several studies that have failed to find a link between autism and vaccines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, among other agencies, has reiterated those findings. "There is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines," Dr. Green said during the town hall meeting. "As a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against the CDC. It appears some of [the CDC's] data has been, honestly, maybe fraudulently managed. So we've got to go up there and stand against that and make sure we get that fixed, that issue addressed." 2. In a Dec. 11 statement to USA Today, Dr. Green elaborated on his comments, claiming they were in response to discussions held in the U.S. House of Representatives during recent years. He said he supports parents' decision to vaccinate their children, but said more research on the potential link between vaccines and autism must be done. "It has been suggested on the floor of the House that the CDC may have not been transparent with data. Parents should vaccinate their children, but more research definitely needs to be done," Dr. Green told USA Today. "There appears to be some evidence that as vaccine numbers increase, rates of autism increase. We need better research, and we need it fast. We also need complete transparency of any data. Vaccines are essential to good population health. But that does not mean we should not look closely at the correlation for any causation." 3. Dr. Green will be sworn into his position as a representative Jan. 3. To access the full report, click here. Physician dissatisfaction is common today, with around 54 percent1 of physicians reporting at least one major symptom of burnout, which leads to disengaged care providers and lower productivity. In some cases, physicians with severe burnout leave the profession and on average it costs $500,000 to $1 million to replace them.2 Clinician burnout presents healthcare executives across the country with similar challenges. The organizations most successful at overcoming these challenges build clinician teams with high self-perceived service capability. When providers don't feel highly capable, it's often a reflection of their environment and leadership. On Nov. 13 at the Becker's Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in Chicago, athenahealth Executive Director Jessica Sweeney-Platt led an executive roundtable discussion titled "Positioning for Change: Building High Capability Teams." For the purposes of her discussion, Ms. Sweeney-Platt defined "capability" as the ability for clinicians to make the right decisions and deliver the best treatment possible to their patients. Athenahealth conducted a survey to gather insight on physician capability; the survey was not an assessment of clinical abilities, but rather a tool to gauge the latitude, resources and organizational support physicians receive. Unsurprisingly, many physicians cited technology and EMR challenges as a hindrance to patient care and the reason for burnout, but the survey also found physicians face the structural challenges of isolation. Physicians are now more likely employed by hospitals, spread across large geographic footprints and spend less time rounding on patients than they did in previous decades. "But I don't think these challenges are unsolvable," Ms. Sweeney-Platt said. "The data would suggest that the answer to, or antidote to, a frenetic pace of practice and isolation is capable teams, appropriately staffed with work divided thoughtfully and correctly amongst colleagues who respect and trust each other." An athenahealth survey found physicians who perceived themselves as highly capable were: More productive in terms of work relative value units per day More likely to report engagement with the organization More likely to report job satisfaction Less likely to see themselves exiting the organization within three years Less likely to show signs of burnout The gulf between burnout among high capability and low capability physicians was significant; 32 percent of high capability physicians showed signs of burnout, compared with 50 percent of low capability physicians. "Burnout is taking a tremendous toll on organizations of all sizes," Ms. Sweeney-Platt said. "It's taking a toll at the human level, it's taking a toll at the patient care level and it's taking a toll at the business level. Burnout is associated with a much higher rate of both turnover and reduction in productivity. To replace a physician who decides that he or she no longer [wants to] practice is an extraordinarily expensive undertaking." Just 5 percent of the respondents replied positively to all questions in the survey, reporting adequate human resources to care for patients, strong connections with team members and confidence in the organization's personnel to provide high quality care; however, 96 percent of those respondents also met the criteria for high capability. "This is, in our opinion, one of the areas where we think leaders in the organization can really focus and have a meaningful impact across a not-terribly long period of time," Ms. Sweeney-Platt said. "It's thinking about the degree to which there are adequately staffed teams with a good mix of clinical and non-clinical personnel and that there are high trust levels within those teams, and between those teams and the rest of the organization." 5 physician capability trends influencing burnout and productivity After taking a deeper dive into the survey data, athenahealth researchers found five key trends in physician capability: 1. Most physicians feel rushed more than once per week, and the more rushed physicians were less likely to feel capable. There is about a 15 percent productivity increase among physicians who perceive high capability compared to those who don't. "On a per provider per day basis, when you start to multiply that out across every working day [and] every physician in an organization, that 15 percent productivity lift is a pretty significant one," Ms. Sweeney-Platt said. "We know that capability and productivity correlate with one another." 2. When physicians feel rushed, they are less likely to develop genuine connections with their team and more likely to experience isolation; a quarter of the physicians surveyed reported feeling isolation at least once per week. "Physicians with the highest levels of capability are two times as likely to report working in practices where they have close relationships and open communication with their clinical colleagues," Ms. Sweeney-Platt said. "Those who said they have strong connections with their colleagues were also more likely to say they feel well supported by their organizations." The physicians with a sense of connection also exhibited fewer symptoms of burnout and were less likely to exit the organization. Reducing isolation and increasing rapport through peer-to-peer networks, weekly huddles or encouraging social ties amongst colleagues can drive increased physician engagement. An executive from a hospital based in a metropolitan area in the Midwest explained how his organization builds strong patient care teams. "We're moving away from just physician training," he said. "We actually bring the entire care team together We actually go out to their site. We sit for two weeks, redesign the flow, and then retrain the entire care team, not just the provider. You get some more congealing of the care team, and then everybody understands the workflows." 3. When physicians have the right staff in the right roles as well as the right relationships, they are more likely to feel highly capable. However, developing a sense of collegiality can be a challenge for large, sprawling organizations and those in rural areas. The CEO of a Midwestern health system discussed how her organization supports the primary care physicians, both independent and employed, that aren't all based at the centralized hospital. "We started a private counsel," she said. "They all come together once a month to talk about what things are going on that impact them. That has been really well-received. We do quarterly Saturday symposiums for them on what's current in the literature that they need to know about. I think those two things have connected people much more, even though they're in disperse areas outside of the organization." 4. Physicians who are satisfied with the organization's leadership and communication are also more likely to have high capability ratings. Fifty-three percent of physicians with high capability ratings also met the criteria for engagement. "That is a really good sign," Ms. Sweeney-Platt said. "These are individuals who are not just satisfied with their job, but they're actually willing to lean in. They're willing to extend discretionary effort, roll up their sleeves, go above and beyond, and they are much less likely to attempt to leave the organization. I thought that was really interesting from a pure stability perspective." 5. The survey covered both employed and independent physicians, identifying lower capability scores among employed physicians. Ms. Sweeney-Platt theorized the lower scores for employed physicians were tied to a lack of ownership mentality. "We typically see higher levels of capability in independent physicians in independent practices," she said. "We see higher levels of productivity and higher levels of engagement in that analysis as well." A chief medical officer from another Midwestern health system discussed how his organization promotes ownership mentality among its employed physicians, even as the system implements organizationwide standardization. "As we come together, we are beginning to create a structure that operates 'like each other' to take control away from the individual," he said. "We give the providers a sense of ownership by drawing them into the problem-solving process. Before we are fully integrated, we are trying to problem solve more individually and we can give providers the space to come up with more local solutions." Take the first step to highly capable teams Over the years, athenahealth has done significant research into organizational leadership by using data from its networks to generate insights, lessons and stories for healthcare leaders. The company provides expertise through athenainsight.com with the mission of combatting burnout and helping healthcare organizations build highly capable teams. References 1. Mayo Clinic study of 2,778 physicians conducted from 2011 to 2014 2. AMA Wire. "How much physician burnout is costing your organization," posted online Oct. 11, 2018. Registered nurses from Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) General Hospital have authorized their union bargaining committee to call a strike if necessary, according to a Times Leader report. The Wyoming Valley Nurses Association, an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, represents more than 400 registered nurses at the hospital. The union has been in negotiations with the hospital's owner, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, and staffing reportedly has been a key sticking point. Elaine Weale, president of the Wyoming Valley Nurses Association, told the Times Leader understaffing is a problem at Wilkes-Barre General and contributed to workers' decision to possibly walk off the job. "While we would prefer not to fight, we remain determined to continue the fight for safer patient care for as long as it takes. Our patients' care depends on it," Ms. Weale said at a news conference. Registered nurses have gone on strike before, in May. A prepared statement from the hospital, obtained by the Times Leader, said both sides have been in negotiations since the previous labor deal expired Jan. 31, and encouraged the union "to take constructive action to reach an agreement at the bargaining table." More articles on human capital and risk: Nurses at St. Luke's Hospital in Massachusetts vote to unionize Amid unionization push, some Johns Hopkins nurses say poor working conditions jeopardize patient safety Kaiser mental health clinicians to walk off job Dec. 10 No strike date has been set. The union is required give the hospital at least 10 days' notice before workers strike. An airplane headed from Seattle to Dallas on Dec. 9 got turned back after a human heart was left on board, The New York Times reported. Passengers on Southwest Flight 3606 reportedly were told the heart was on the plane, and the plane then flew back to Seattle. Southwest Airlines told the Times there was "a life-critical cargo shipment onboard the aircraft that was intended to stay in Seattle for delivery to a local hospital." "We made the decision to return to Seattle to ensure the shipment was delivered to its destination within the window of time allotted by our cargo customer," Southwest stated.. The Times learned that the heart was supposed to be picked up by a courier company after a flight from Sacramento, Calif., to Seattle, but was mistakenly left on the plane after that flight deboarded. Deanna Santana, a spokesperson for Sierra Donor Services, a Sacramento-based nonprofit, organ, eye and tissue transplant donor network, told the Times that the heart was meant to reach LifeNet Health offices in Renton, Wash., within 48 hours of the donor's death so its valves and tissues could be used in future surgeries. Access the full Times report here. More articles on clinical leadership and infection control: Fetal tissue freeze may delay NIH cancer lab's research 68% of nurses agree flu vaccine is safe, survey finds Higher-dose antipsychotics linked to increased death risk in kids Walmart signed a three-year contract extension with pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts, which will allow Express Scripts' covered members to access Walmart's prescription services. As part of the deal, Walmart will participate in InsideRx, Express Script's pharmacy savings program, which provides discounts to any uninsured individual purchasing a brand-name prescription. The companies said the contract extension will help both insured and uninsured customers save money on prescription drugs. "Prescription drugs are the first line of treatment for many illnesses, and it is critical to create and sustain affordable access to innovative therapies," said Amy Bricker, president of supply chain at Express Scripts. "Our clients and patients value our ability to deliver quality, cost-effective care on their terms, and we are pleased to partner with Walmart to expand affordable access for insured and uninsured patients." The FDA plans to crackdown on unsubstantiated and poor quality stem cell therapies in 2019, Law 360 reports. "We'll be stepping up actions in this space in the coming months," said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, at a Food and Drug Law Institute conference in Washington, D.C., Dec. 12. "You can all expect to see brisk activity from the FDA when it comes to some rogue stem cell outfits that are putting patients at risk." At the conference, Dr. Gottlieb referenced lawsuits filed in May against stem cell clinics in Florida and California that marketed unapproved stem cell treatments. He also drew attention to the FDA's 2017 invitation for stem cell companies to have conversations with regulators about ensuring legal compliance, stating many companies have not yet responded. "Many of them will be hearing from us," he said. Melissa Mendoza, the deputy director of the FDA's office of compliance and biologics quality, denounced companies for "aggressively promoting stem cell products for a wide range of serious and often life-threatening diseases" with little scientific basis. "There's more to come in this space, and soon, so be on the lookout," Ms. Mendoza said. An orthopedic surgeon is out of a job after their employer, Rockdale, Texas-based Little River Healthcare, filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to close, according to the Killeen Daily Herald. Here are four things to know: 1. The orthopedic surgeon, Robert Hansen, MD, reported he had inquired about the health of the organization several times since Little River filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July, but was told "everybody is fine." 2. The organization's representatives said they were looking for a buyer, but no deal was made and all staff members, including Dr. Hansen, were fired Dec. 5. There are 298 employees without jobs, according to the report. 3. Since the sudden closure, Dr. Hansen has tried rescheduling patients at different locations, and had to cancel all appointments for a week because he didn't have an office. The organization did not give warning of the closure, and Dr. Hansen was unable to make prior arrangements. 4. He now operates out of two surrounding offices and is "working on a long-term plan for his Killeen office." LiveMed Media, founded by board-certified neurosurgeon John Ruge, MD, launched the latest version of the Medeligo oncology search app. Here are three things to know: 1. Medeligo is designed to help clinicians find oncology information. The latest release features access to all oncological subspecialties. 2. Medeligo features a series of curated tailored questions for each subspecialty. The app allows users to create and bookmark customized questions and an online library of frequently referenced articles. 3. Dr. Ruge is the director and chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Park Ridge, Ill.-based Advocate Children's Hospital. He specializes in complex pediatric and adult brain tumors, spinal tumors, Chiari malformations and syringomyelia. More than 80% of businesses expect to increase the number of higher-skilled roles Three-in-four businesses in Northern Ireland fear they will be unable to find sufficiently skilled people for new vacancies. A survey released today indicated that as many as 84.3% of businesses here expect to increase the number of higher-skilled roles over the coming years. Yet 72.5% fear they will be unable to do so. The Educating For The Modern World survey is produced by Pearson Business School in partnership with the CBI. Overall, employers reported graduate recruitment was on the rise last year, with 31.2% of businesses reporting an increase, compared to 10.4% reporting a decrease. The education and skills survey also noted that 86.5% of employers here still consider a 2:1 degree a good measure of academic ability. However, it found that businesses look first for aptitude and readiness for work, with 48% of employers highlighting these factors as the most important consideration when recruiting school, college and university leavers. Furthermore, 68% of employers ranked wider behaviours and attributes such as resilience, problem-solving and team work as among their top three considerations. The report also highlighted a stark drop in the number of apprentices being hired locally owing to the implementation of the Apprenticeship Levy in April 2017. The number of firms offering apprenticeship programmes dropped from 90% in 2017 to 70.5% in 2018, with 72.3% of firms involved in apprenticeship programmes reporting difficulties in recruitment. Over a third of businesses (34.3%) said they had taken the decision to absorb the levy as an added cost of doing business. When asked how to best improve the levy, most employers here suggested allowing the use of funds to cover a wider range of costs for training (64.5%). A significant number also called for greater flexibility in spending levy funds, while more than half wanted less bureaucracy. Stephen Kelly of Manufacturing NI said: "Across all of the manufacturing industry, firms are reporting a loss of skilled workers and this is becoming more pronounced as foreign nationals are choosing to return to their home countries. "These are roles that aren't usually filled by people from Northern Ireland, usually because they aren't interested in taking them on. "Skills are constantly reported as the number one factor impacting on the future success of firms here and, in addition, many of our businesses pay the levy but don't have access to the money, which makes it a significant extra cost for firms. "Greater emphasis in schools is needed to encourage students into careers where they can earn and learn." The survey highlighted that stronger links between businesses and schools are needed with 20.7% of businesses reporting an increase in engagement with young people compared to 6.9% reporting a decrease in 2018. Colin Neill of Hospitality Ulster said: "We have huge concerns about the growing skills gap and deficit, particularly in the hospitality sector... and need the Assembly and Executive to get back as soon as possible to urgently address this as we are a key driver of the economy with around 60,000 people working in the sector. "We also have significant issues around labour shortages here. For example, we will need another 2,000 chefs by 2024, and the concerns around Brexit have done little to help." A Co Tyrone building materials firm entered administration last month owing creditors nearly 3m, new documents show. Acheson and Glover called in the administrators for its precast concrete division in Ballygawley on November 6. It followed the closure of a precast plant in Magherafelt earlier in the year. At that time the division employed 162 people. A total of 105 jobs, including 85 in Ballygawley, were still on the books when the operation entered administration. Acheson and Glover had previously blamed uncertainty in the marketplace caused by Brexit for its losses earlier in 2018. Last month the firm confirmed that demand for its precast products had continued to fall by between 35% and 40%, leading to further financial losses. Documents seen by Business Telegraph show Acheson & Glover Precast Ltd entered administration owing creditors 2.9m. Its biggest and only secured creditor, Bank of Ireland, was owed 900,000, while a number of other companies were owed six figure sums. It's understood that the creditors will be notified of the proposal for managing the debt in the coming week. A meeting of creditors is keen expected to take place. Belfast-based business restructuring firm Keenan CF is handling the administration process. The list of creditors reveals that just under 103,000 is owed to HMRC UK VAT. Meanwhile, the company's continuing business, Acheson and Glover Ltd is owed 1m by its precast subsidiary. Outside of banks and the parent company, the largest debt is owed to English precast flooring installer Beresford Flooring Ltd. Based near Derby, the firm is owed 230,500. Other significant creditors include Wigan-based Ainscough Crane Hire (103,920) and the Lagan Cement Company in the Republic, which is owed 100,000. Within Northern Ireland, Hannon Transport and Brian Hughes and Sons Transport are among the creditors owed the largest sums. A former holding group for Acheson and Glover previously entered administration in 2014, after suffering major losses during the construction sector downturn. However, the company managed to continue trading after managing director Raymond Acheson reached a deal with Bank of Ireland to finance his purchase of subsidiary companies Acheson & Glover Ltd and Acheson & Glover Precast Ltd. The company, which is headquartered in Fivemiletown, had employed just under 750 people during the pre-recession construction peak in 2007. The Irish border "backstop is not on the table" as part of renewed efforts to get Brexit over the line, the Taoiseach insisted yesterday. Speaking at yet another EU leaders' summit, Mr Varadkar said the backstop will protect Irish interests in the immediate crux - and in any future talks on a big-picture EU-UK trade deal after Brexit. Mr Varadkar, who had earlier met Prime Minister Theresa May, said that efforts to get the UK Parliament to ratify a deal centre on "explanations, assurances and clarifications". For the moment, the assurances are political, but the Taoiseach notably did not rule out some kind of legal device. Though Mrs May beat a no confidence motion tabled by her Conservative colleagues, the draft Withdrawal Agreement remains as far away as ever from the necessary approval of her MPs. The Taoiseach insisted that all EU leaders were totally agreed that the EU-UK deal cannot be reopened in efforts to overcome British MPs' hostility. But every effort would be made by the EU to help the MPs understand and hopefully support the draft deal. "I can tell you the backstop is not on the table. It needs to be there for a number of reasons," the Taoiseach said on his way into the EU summit meeting. "It needs to be there to give us the assurance that there will be no 'hard border' between Ireland and Northern Ireland, thus protecting the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement," he continued. "It needs to be there for European reasons as well, giving Europe the assurance that the open border will not become the backdoor to the single market," the Taoiseach added. Mr Varadkar has said he expects assurances given by Mrs May on the Northern Ireland backstop to be honoured. "What we want is an enduring assurance that there will not be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, no matter what the circumstances," he said. He suggested Britain could lift the threat of a no-deal Brexit by suspending - or ending altogether - the Article 50 withdrawal process. "It is possible, if the UK wishes to, to revoke Article 50 or, if that is a step too far, to seek an extension of Article 50 so that the UK Parliament has more time to come together and decide what they would like the outcome to be," he said. "It is absolutely within the gift of the United Kingdom to take no-deal off the table if they wish to." Earlier, Tanaiste Simon Coveney said the backstop is not about the UK, but is about ensuring no border infrastructure re-emerges under any circumstances. He also said during Leaders' Questions in the Dail that any reassurances being sought by Mrs May could not be allowed to undermine the purpose of the backstop. "What is being looked at now seriously is how a political declaration can be put together, that is real, that provides reassurance, for many in Westminster who need it, that the backstop represents no threat to them, no threat to the UK and instead actually is about providing reassurance on the island of Ireland," Mr Coveney said. "That we can reassure people that under no circumstances in the future as a result of Brexit will there be border infrastructure re-emerging between the two jurisdictions on this island." President of Commission Jean Claude Juncker (L) and President of Council Donald Tusk (R) give a joint press on December 13, 2018 in Brussels during a European Summit aimed at discussing the Brexit deal. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP)JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images The EU has reiterated the Brexit withdrawal deal is not up for renegotiation but, in its text at the conclusion of Thursday's summit, underlined the Irish backstop would only be temporary should it come into force and pledged to work "expeditiously" to get in place a replacement should it come into force. European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gave a joint press conference in Brussels late on Thursday night. Read More A text was published on the conclusions of the summit. It said preparations would intensify on all possible outcomes. It stated the European Council was committed to the agreement reached in November - which has seen the Conservative party tear itself apart and Theresa May face a leadership challenge and the Commons unite against the deal. Earlier this week Theresa May pulled her meaningful vote on the deal as there was not enough support to see it through. After seeing off a Tory rebellion on Wednesday Theresa May travelled to Brussels to seek assurances on the deal. Mr Tusk said: "Today Prime Minister May informed the leaders about the difficulties with ratifying the deal in London and asked for further assurances that would at least in her view unlock the ratification process in the House of Commons. "After discussing the Prime Minister's intervention among the 27 leaders, and bearing in mind our full respect of the parliamentary process in the United Kingdom, we have agreed the following: first, the European Council reconfirmed its conclusions of the 25th November 2018 in which it endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement and approved the Political Declaration. "The Union stands by this agreement and intends to proceed with its ratification. It is not open for renegotiation." The text stated it wanted to "establish as close as possible a partnership with the United Kingdom in the future," and was ready to begin work on a trade deal once the document was signed off. Jean-Claude Juncker also said the UK It said the backstop was needed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and to ensure the integrity of the single market. "It is the Unions firm determination to work speedily on a subsequent agreement that establishes by 31 December 2020 alternative arrangements, so that the backstop will not need to be triggered," the text stated. "The European Council also underlines that, if the backstop were nevertheless to be triggered, it would apply temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement that ensures that a hard border is avoided. "In such a case, the Union would use its best endeavours to negotiate and conclude expeditiously a subsequent agreement that would replace the backstop, and would expect the same of the United Kingdom, so that the backstop would only be in place for as long as strictly necessary." The text continued: "The European Council calls for work on preparedness at all levels for the consequences of the United Kingdoms withdrawal to be intensified, taking into account all possible outcomes." European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker urged the UK to tell the EU what it wants in the future relationship. He said: "We also think that in terms of the future relationship our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want and so we would like within a few weeks our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications. "As we don't know what the collective reactions will be from the Europe 27 and the UK, the Commission on the 19th December will publish all the information that is generally useful for the preparation of no deal, this is preparedness." Mr Juncker added that he was "still of the opinion that Mrs May is fighting hard and bravely but we have not seen results". "We would like a peaceful relationship with the UK for the years (to come) but in particular we don't want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation whatsoever. "We can add some clarifications... but there will be no renegotiations." Theresa May speaks during a press conference on December 14, 2018 in Brussels during the second day of a European Summit aimed at discussing the Brexit deal, the long-term budget and the single market. Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted she was "crystal clear" to EU leaders at the Brussels summit about the need for assurances on the Irish border backstop in response to MPs' concerns. She welcomed commitments by the EU27 to try to get a new trade deal completed quickly enough that the backstop would not be needed, and said that as formal conclusions from the summit they had "legal status". Read More But she said that it was clear that "further clarification and discusssion" is possible. Mrs May said she had a "robust" discussion with Jean-Claude Juncker after she was asked about footage showing her speaking to the European Commission president. The Prime Minister said: "I had a robust discussion with Jean-Claude Juncker - I think that's the sort of discussion you're able to have when you have developed a working relationship and you work well together. "And what came out of that was his clarity that actually he'd been talking - when he used that particular phrase - he'd been talking about a general level of debate." Mrs May said: "The EU is clear, as I am, that if we are going to leave with a deal, this is it. "But my discussions with colleagues today have shown that further clarification and discussion following the council's conclusions is in fact possible. "There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the UK Parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal." Following reports that European Commission president Mr Juncker had described her presentation to EU leaders on Thursday as "nebulous", Mrs May said: "I was crystal clear about the assurances that were needed on the backstop, having heard the views of MPs in the House of Commons." She said it was in the interests of the EU and UK to "get this over the line", warning: "A disorderly Brexit would be good for no-one." She said that the EU27 conclusions made clear that the EU is determined to work speedily on a future relationship - or alternative arrangements - to ensure by the end of 2020 that there will be no hard border in Ireland, so that the backstop need not be triggered. The conclusions confirm that any backstop would be temporary and that, if it was ever needed, the EU would negotiate "expeditiously" an agreement to put a replacement in place. She said: "As formal conclusions, these commitments have legal status and therefore should be welcomed." But she said she had discussed with EU leaders, including Mr Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk, the fact that MPs would require "further assurances". She said: "It is in the overwhelming interest of all our people in the EU and the UK to get this done and as quickly as possible." Expand Close Theresa May speaks during a media conference during an EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. AP / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May speaks during a media conference during an EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. Mrs May managed a smile when a reporter asked if she had had a "trying week", jokingly replying: "Has something happened this week?" When asked whether the problems with her party at home and dealing with the EU had made her want to quit as leader, she said it was "our duty as a Government and as a Parliament" to see Brexit through. She added: "I never said it was going to be easy. "Negotiations like this are always tough. There are always difficult times and as you get closer to the very end that can get even more difficult because you are sorting out the last details of something." Mrs May arrives for the second day of the summit (Alastair Grant/AP) DUP leader Arlene Foster has questioned whether the Prime Minister will 'stand up or roll over' ahead of a second day of negotiations with European Union leaders. It comes after a turbulent summit on Thursday night for Theresa May, in which the leaders said the agreement was "not open for renegotiation". Following the meeting European Commission President Jean-Claude Jucker criticised the UK for not being clear about what it wanted from a future relationship. In a statement on Friday morning, DUP leader Arlene Foster said: "The reaction by the EU is unsurprising. They are doing what they always do. The key question is whether the Prime Minister will stand up to them or whether she will roll over as has happened previously. "This is a difficulty of the Prime Ministers own making. A deal was signed off which the Prime Minister should have known would not gain the support of Parliament. Read More "If the Prime Minister had listened to our warnings and stood by her public commitments, we would not be in this situation." Speaking to the media on Friday morning, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he was "very satisfied" with the current position of the EU on the backstop and what was agreed in the withdrawal agreement. "As Europe we reaffirmed our commitment to the need for a backstop, and not just because it protects Ireland and ensures no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, thus protecting the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement," he said. "But also because it's a European issue too, and an open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland can't become a back door into the single market." Arriving for the second day of the summit, Mrs May went straight into a one-to-one meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. Pooled footage from the start of the main summit gathering showed Mrs May apparently engaged in a tense exchange of views with Mr Juncker, with the Prime Minister looking visibly angry. The EU hardball approach appears to leave Mrs May with limited room for manoeuvre during the countdown to the UKs departure on March 29. The Prime Minister, who on Wednesday survived a bruising vote of no confidence by Tory MPs, said a package of assurances around the backstop could change the dynamic at Westminster. At the same time, she made clear that a failure by EU leaders to offer concessions risked the collapse of the whole agreement, with the UK leaving in March in a disorderly, no-deal Brexit. She ended with a highly personal appeal to EU leaders to put their trust in her to deliver on her promises and to give her the political room for manoeuvre she needs. Czech Europe Minister Ales Chmelar said the meeting had not been bad but that nobody knew beforehand what would be the solution. He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: I know there was in the room a strong willingness to offer something, but at the same time it would put, most probably, into question the backstop for Ireland. It was almost an impossible situation and technically speaking there was not an easy way out. A woman whose sister was murdered by the IRA has said she "felt nothing" when she learned that the man acquitted of killing her sibling had died. Ann Travers' 22-year-old sister Mary was shot dead and her father Tom seriously injured in an IRA gun attack as the family left Mass at St Brigid's Church in south Belfast on April 8, 1984. Republican Joseph 'the Hawk' Haughey was later charged with being one of those who carried out the attack. At the highly emotional trial Haughey, then aged 33, was identified by Mr Travers - a prominent magistrate who was shot multiple times - as being the man who killed his daughter. Haughey was subsequently acquitted. Last night Ms Travers said she had been informed on yesterday morning that Haughey had died of a heart attack. "Whenever I first heard, I felt a mixture of feelings: anger, a feeling of sadness. Not for him. But sadness of what happened," said the victims' rights campaigner. "As the day has gone on my thoughts and feelings changed to questioning - what was all that about?" Ms Travers, who works for the South East Fermanagh Foundation victims' group, said that she believed Haughey, who had always denied any role in the killing, had lived the life of a "hermit". "Haughey was 66. His whole life was one of violence, crimes. "He drank really heavily and lived in isolation. What was it all for? What was the point of it?" she asked. "I've no feelings about him, or his family, I feel nothing." She added: "I'm not in a position to judge him now. I was brought up in the Church and I believe he's met his maker." In a Twitter post in which Ms Travers revealed that she had learned of Haughey's death, she paid tribute to her late father, sister and mother Joan, who passed away last April. Joan Travers miraculously survived the attack when the gunman put his weapon at her face and pulled the trigger, but the weapon jammed twice. In her tweet Ms Travers said her thoughts were with "my gorgeous father, my sister and mother... Violence achieves nothing. It destroys all lives. #NeverAgain." In 2015 Ms Travers offered her condolences to the family of Dessie Boal, the barrister who helped acquit Joseph Haughey, who died three years ago at the age of 85. At the time, in a remarkable tribute, Ms Travers said her late father regarded Mr Boal, who founded the DUP along with the late Rev Ian Paisley, as "one of the best". She said her father respected the formidable criminal lawyer and former unionist MP, despite the family's upset at the outcome of the trial and subsequent judgment, stressing that Mr Boal was "only doing his job". Ms Travers stressed that Haughey's death had underlined the "futility" of the Troubles and the actions of the IRA. "Violence never pays for anyone - for the victim or the person doing it," she said. Ms Travers said instead the focus should be on the victims of the Troubles who are still waiting for a legacy process to be implemented. In 2012 the campaigner was a critic of the appointment of Mary McArdle as special adviser to the then Sinn Fein Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin. McArdle, who was later removed from her Stormont post, was convicted in 1986 for her role in Mary's murder as a member of the IRA gang behind the attack. The founding chief executive of the Belfast Trust William McKee has died at the age of 66. Born in Belfast in 1952, he oversaw the amalgamation of six separate Belfast trusts into one body in 2007. The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust is the largest in the UK. A spokesman for the Belfast Trust said: "We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of our esteemed former Chief Executive, William McKee CBE, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family at this terribly sad time." Receiving a BSc from Queen's University and an MBA from Ulster University, Mr McKee went on to hold positions at various hospitals throughout Northern Ireland including Musgrave Park and Daisy Hill. In 2006 he was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his service to the NHS in Northern Ireland. He died peacefully on Wednesday, and leaves behind his wife Ursula, his two children Catherine and William, and his siblings James, Janet and Susan. NI Civil Service Permanent Secretary Richard Pengelly said Mr McKees "professionalism and dedication" to the health service was immeasurable. "His influence and contributions to health and social care over a number of years was invaluable and he will be greatly missed," said Mr Pengelly. "William was held in very high regard and it is with great sadness that we have learned of his passing." His funeral notice says a celebration of his life will take place on Monday December 17 at 1.30pm at Ravenhill Funeral Service on the Ravenhill Road in Belfast, followed by a private cremation. "Sadly missed by brothers and sisters-in-law, nephews and nieces and a wide circle of friends," the notice adds. A Northern Ireland councillor has "hours" of recorded conversations with officials connected to a legal challenge over a planned 20m hotel and leisure complex on the north coast, he told the High Court today. Padraig McShane claimed he used an electronic device to tape the encounters. Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council is now seeking an order for him to hand over any recordings or other relevant material. A judge is expected to rule on its application for disclosure next week. The intervention by Mr McShane has already led to the challenge mounted by TUV leader Jim Allister being put on hold. Mr Allister is judicially reviewing the Council for giving the green light to the luxury accommodation facilities in Portstewart. Mr McShane was a member of its planning committee who approved the proposed resort at the heart of the North West 200 race route earlier this year. Plans include a 120-bedroom hotel, spa, holiday cottages, conference facilities and restaurant being built on the Ballyreagh Road. But the case was adjourned earlier this week when it emerged that the independent councillor has sent a sworn affidavit to both the Attorney General and the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman setting out his claims. At a further hearing today he was granted interested party status and asked about the alleged recordings. He told Mr Justice McCloskey that he has "hours" of material taped on a device other than a mobile phone. Mr McShane also claimed: "There is substantially more on the recordings that impacts on other things." A barrister representing the Council confirmed the extent of disclosure being sought. Stewart Beattie QC said: "We are seeking any recordings or documentation that is relevant to those proceedings. "At this stage the correspondence makes a series of assertions that may have wider-reaching consequences, we don't know." With no lawyer present in court to represent Mr McShane, the judge adjourned the disclosure application to next week. Permission for the hotel and leisure complex was first given in June 2017, but withdrawn after Mr Allister initially threatened legal action. The North Antrim MLA, who has a home overlooking the development site, recommenced proceedings when Council representatives passed the planning application for a second time. Another local resident in the surrounding area has joined him in seeking a judicial review. Their challenge involves claims of a flawed environmental screening process and the wrong criteria being applied for the scale of the tourism attraction. ends A DUP councillor has been suspended for three months for deliberately attempting to circumvent rules on the disclosure and declaration of interests in what was found to be a "serious breach" of the local government code of conduct. The investigation for the Local Government Commissioner for Standards also noted Coleraine Coast and Glens councillor George Duddy - a former Mayor of Coleraine - refused to attend a second interview with investigators and did not co-operated fully with the probe into his actions. The DUP said the matter would be considered by its party officers. At a hearing on Thursday the Commissioner Marie Anderson was informed Mr Duddy had a significant non-financial interest in Terrace Row Presbyterian Church, Coleraine. The council had been renting a car park from the church for a number of years and in September 2016 it considered a rationalisation of parking in the town including ending its lease with the church. Ahead of a discussion on the matter Councillor Duddy declared his interest and left the council chamber in accordance with the code. However he was found to have asked another councillor to raise issues and ask questions relating to the lease. The commissioner found the action of asking another councillor to ask questions "on his behalf" was a deliberate attempt to circumvent the rules on disclosure and declaration of interest and represented "a serious breach of the code". At a meeting later that month the councillor did not declare his interest, commented on the matter and voted in favour of extending the lease with the church. The motion approved ending the lease, however, Ms Anderson noted that there would have been a significant financial benefit to the church if it had been agreed. The Commissioner noted the previous good conduct of Councillor Duddy and exemplary public service record, as well as his willingness to learn from the events. However, she stated that these were outweighed by the deliberate nature of the breaches. Given the requirement to uphold public confidence in the conduct of local councillors, and the importance of discouraging similar conduct by others, she believed that a three month suspension was a proportionate sanction. A DUP spokesperson said: "The Party have been made aware and it will be considered by the party officers." Theresa May has faced criticised over the UKs lack of clarity on the future relationship with Europe (David Hughes/PA) Theresa May is under mounting political pressure after EU leaders rejected her attempts to win fresh concessions to the agreed Brexit deal and openly criticised her negotiating strategy. The Prime Minister went to Brussels seeking a way to get the Withdrawal Agreement through a heavily divided Commons, insisting she could do it but had to be able to convince MPs the UK would not find itself tied to the EU indefinitely through the Northern Ireland backstop. She urged EU27 leaders join her to work together intensively to get this deal over the line in the best interests of all our people. But after listening to her appeal, European Council president Donald Tusk said EU leaders had reaffirmed their determination that there could be no renegotiation. It seems that the Prime Minister has failed in her bid to deliver meaningful changes to her Brexit deal. We cannot go on like this. The Prime Minister should reinstate the vote on her deal next week and let Parliament take back control. Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) December 14, 2018 He said they had expressed a firm determination to work speedily to ensure that there was an agreement on the future relationship in place by the time the transition period ends in December 2020, so the backstop was not needed. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker went further and criticised Mrs Mays lack of clarity over what she was seeking from the future relationship. Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want, he said. So we would like, within a few weeks, our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications. He added: We dont want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation, that is crystal clear. We can add clarifications but no real changes. There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty. Expand Close Mrs May arrives for the second day of the summit (Alastair Grant/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mrs May arrives for the second day of the summit (Alastair Grant/AP) Arriving for the second day of the summit, Mrs May went straight into a one-to-one meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. Pooled footage from the start of the main summit gathering showed Mrs May apparently engaged in a tense exchange of views with Mr Juncker, with the Prime Minister looking visibly angry. The EU hardball approach appears to leave Mrs May with limited room for manoeuvre during the countdown to the UKs departure on March 29. The Prime Minister, who on Wednesday survived a bruising vote of no confidence by Tory MPs, said a package of assurances around the backstop could change the dynamic at Westminster. At the same time, she made clear that a failure by EU leaders to offer concessions risked the collapse of the whole agreement, with the UK leaving in March in a disorderly, no-deal Brexit. She ended with a highly personal appeal to EU leaders to put their trust in her to deliver on her promises and to give her the political room for manoeuvre she needs. Czech Europe Minister Ales Chmelar said the meeting had not been bad but that nobody knew beforehand what would be the solution. He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: I know there was in the room a strong willingness to offer something, but at the same time it would put, most probably, into question the backstop for Ireland. It was almost an impossible situation and technically speaking there was not an easy way out. Shadow Brexit minister Sir Keir Starmer said Mrs May had failed to achieve meaningful changes and called for a meaningful vote on the deal before Christmas. He said: We cannot go on like this. The Prime Minister should reinstate the vote on her deal next week and let Parliament take back control. PM @Theresa_May has met leaders including @donaldtusk and @Xavier_Bettel at @EUCouncil today and discussed what is needed to get the Brexit deal over the line pic.twitter.com/WMInAvAJkj UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) December 13, 2018 But Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington rejected this and defended Mrs Mays handling of the talks, telling Today: Anybody who has heard Theresa May in debate, anybody who has heard her around the Cabinet table, knows there is a very clear plan. He described the talks as a welcome first step that was the removal of uncertainty over the EUs intentions, because it had shown it wanted a speedy UK trade deal that would remove the need for the backstop in the first place. Irish premier Leo Varadkar has said the European Union (EU) is as one on the need for a border backstop in the Withdrawal Agreement. The Taoiseach said the controversial issue was not just of concern to the Irish, as fellow EU leaders saw the measure as vital to protect the integrity of the European single market. In Brussels for the second day of the European Council meeting, Mr Varadkar said he was very satisfied with the summit conclusions on Brexit which made clear the withdrawal agreement was not up for renegotiation. The Taoiseach said he still believed a no deal was an unlikely scenario despite the EU ramping up preparations for such an eventuality. As Europe, we reaffirmed our commitment for the need for a backstop, he said. It is not just an Irish issue, it is very much a European issue as well. It is very much a case of the European Union being one-for-all and all-for-oneLeo Varadkar on the border backstop An open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland cant be a backdoor to the single market. Thats why European countries also very strongly support backstop. It is not just an Irish issue, it is very much a European issue as well. It is very much a case of the European Union being one-for-all and all-for-one. The backstop, which will come into effect if a wider trade deal between the UK and EU fails to materialise, will see Northern Ireland adhere to a range of EU regulatory rules in order to facilitate free-flowing trade across the border. With @HMcEntee meeting @antoniocostapm at the start of the second day of @EUCouncil. Portugal has been very good ally to Ireland in Europe and on #Brexit pic.twitter.com/WyN0UGL4h6 Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) December 14, 2018 Prime Minister Theresa May is facing widespread opposition to the measure at Westminster amid claims it will undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom by creating an economic border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Mr Varadkar said the issue could not be deferred to the trade talks post-withdrawal. Its not just an Irish issue, its a European issue, he said. Its about protecting the peace, keeping the border open, also protecting the single market and making sure we answer this question of the Irish border now, so no side can use it as leverage in the future relationship talks, which we are willing to start as soon as the Withdrawal Agreement is ratified. The Taoiseach said while the EU was willing to offer clarifications or explanations to Mrs May, he reiterated that a renegotiation of the deal was not an option. Theresa May faced criticised over the UKs lack of clarity over the future relationship (Alastair Grant/AP) EU leaders have warned Theresa May she cannot expect a legally binding commitment that the UK will not be tied to the bloc indefinitely through the Northern Ireland backstop. The Prime Minister came to Brussels to appeal to the leaders of the 27 to give her the assurances that would enable her to get her Brexit deal through Parliament. But while they promised to do their utmost to ensure the backstop intended to ensure there is no return to a hard border between the North and the Republic was never needed, they insisted they could not re-open the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement. We can add clarifications but no real changesJean-Claude Juncker European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said: We dont want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation, that is crystal clear. We can add clarifications but no real changes. There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty. He also criticised the UKs lack of clarity over the future relationship it is seeking with the EU once it has left. Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want, he said. So we would like within a few weeks our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications. Expand Close German chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with Theresa May in Brussels (Alastair Grant/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp German chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with Theresa May in Brussels (Alastair Grant/AP) The rebuff came after Mrs May who survived a bruising vote of confidence by Tory Mps told EU leaders that she could get a Commons majority for the controversial deal, despite heavy criticism from all sides of the House. However, in a meeting with the leaders of the remaining 27, she said she had to be able to convince MPs the UK would not find itself tied to the EU indefinitely through the backstop. There is a majority in my Parliament who want to leave with a deal so with the right assurances this deal can be passed, she said in prepared remarks released by No 10. Indeed it is the only deal capable of getting through my Parliament. We have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escapeTheresa May She made clear a failure by EU leaders to offer concessions risked the collapse of the whole agreement with the UK leaving in March in a disorderly, no-deal Brexit. We have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escape. Until we do, the deal our deal is at risk, she said. It is in none of our interests to run the risk of accidental no-deal with all the disruption that would bring, or to allow this to drag on any further. PM @Theresa_May has met leaders including @donaldtusk and @Xavier_Bettel at @EUCouncil today and discussed what is needed to get the Brexit deal over the line pic.twitter.com/WMInAvAJkj UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) December 13, 2018 After listening to her appeal, European Council president Donald Tusk said EU leaders had reaffirmed that the backstop was intended as an insurance policy to prevent the return of the hard border. He said that they had expressed a firm determination to work speedily to ensure there was an agreement on the future relationship in place by the end of the transition period in December 2020 so the backstop was not needed. He said that if the backstop was ever activated it would apply temporarily unless and until it is superseded by an agreement that ensures a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is avoided. However such assurances are likely to cut little ice with critics of the agreement who have been demanding a break clause to ensure the UK cannot be held in the backstop indefinitely. Irish premier Leo Varadkar, who held a lengthy one-to-one meeting with Mrs May ahead of the main summit, said that while the EU was keen to be helpful, some of the suggestions she had put forward were difficult. In particular he warned there could be no unilateral exit clause on the backstop, as some MPs are demanding. If the backstop has an expiry date, if there is a unilateral exit clause, then it is not a backstop. That would be to render it inoperable, he said. That would mean reopening the substance of the Withdrawal Agreement and the European Union is unequivocal that is not an option. A former head of the GAA's Ulster Council has died a week after being assaulted in hospital. The death of John O'Reilly was first reported by the Irish News. He was allegedly assaulted by another male patient in a 24-bed dementia ward in the Gillis Unit in Armagh. The 83-year-old father-of-seven was transferred to Royal Victoria Hospital where he passed away on Tuesday. Police confirmed it has received a report on December 5 of an assault on a man in his 80s in the Gillis Unit in Armagh, part of Mullinure Health and Wellbeing Centre at St Luke's Hospital. OREILLY John - It was with deep regret that Armagh County Board learned the sad news of the passing of John OReilly @crossrangers Armagh County Board and all associated with the GAA wish to send sincere sympathies to his wife Angela, to his family, friends, neighbours and club. pic.twitter.com/aJEEtlWurv armagh_gaa (@Armagh_GAA) December 12, 2018 "The man was subsequently treated at another hospital for his injuries. However, he has since died," a spokesman said. "A post mortem is due to take place to determine the cause of death." The attack happened on December 4. The BBC reports the police have prepared a file for the Public Prosecution Service in relation to a man in his 70s who is also a patient in the hospital. In a statement posted to its Twitter page, Armagh GAA said: "It was with deep regret that Armagh County Board learned the sad news of the passing of John OReilly @crossrangers Armagh County Board and all associated with the GAA wish to send sincere sympathies to his wife Angela, to his family, friends, neighbours and club." The distraught young son of a man shot dead outside a west Belfast school sobbed and rested his forehead on his father's coffin at his funeral yesterday, as his family appealed for "no retaliation". Jim 'JD' Donegan was hit eight times in the head and chest by a lone gunman while waiting for his 13-year-old son outside St Mary's Christian Brothers Grammar School on Tuesday, December 4. The 43-year-old father-of-three died instantly in the shooting, which happened while he sat in his Porsche on the Glen Road at 3.15pm, as scores of terrified children left three nearby schools. Mr Donegan ran a courier firm and lived in Lisburn with his wife Laura, who was dressed all in black yesterday, and at one point tearfully caressed the coffin with her right hand before gently kissing it. She had defended her late husband amid reports that he was linked to the illegal drug trade, saying: "My Jim was not involved in any way with any criminal activity. I knew who my Jim was." Up to 400 mourners who attended the Requiem Mass at St John the Evangelist Church on the Falls Road were told by Fr Martin Magill that Mr Donegan's family was devastated by his brutal killing. "We are truly heartbroken by Jim being taken away from us in such a cruel, cold way but we wish for no retaliation, only justice for Jim," said Fr Magill, who hugged Mrs Donegan to comfort her after the service. "Jim's family were plunged into the depths of grief by his murder last Tuesday on the Glen Road not far from here. "They have known and know the anguish wrought upon them by the individual who killed Jim. Yet in the depths of their pain they are very clear - they want no one else to suffer as they have suffered and are suffering and will continue to suffer." Fr Magill told the congregation that some relatives and friends of Jim learned of his death after pictures of his car were posted on social media. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close A son rests his head on his fathers coffin Mourners follow the funeral cortege on the Falls Road Funeral for Jim Donegan Mourners follow the funeral cortege on the Falls Road Mourners follow the funeral cortege on the Falls Road Jim Donegan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A son rests his head on his fathers coffin He also added that "speculation and allegations" that Jim was involved in criminal activity had added to the family's grief. "Last Tuesday afternoon, Jim Donegan went to collect his son from school, an ordinary and everyday event in the lives of so many parents," Fr Magill said. "His murder in any circumstances was wrong, but even more so in the presence of children who were nearby and witnessed the traumatic scene, one that will stay with them for the rest of their lives." Mr Donegan was described as a "hard worker, businessman and gentleman". Fr Magill also passed on the family's gratitude to the members of the public and the teachers from nearby schools who stopped to try and help in the aftermath of the shooting. "I commend their quick thinking and sensitivity," he said. "These acts of human goodness give us hope." The priest encouraged the congregation "to hold onto the happy memories of Jim". And there was also a special message to Laura who was told that their wedding day on June 12, 2016, was "very special to Jim". Fr Magill added: "To you and Jim's sons he was a gentleman, full of charm and laughter, with a big heart who was keen to protect you his family who wanted the best for you." The priest recalled how Mr Donegan's mother passed away on September 9, 2009, adding: "We pray to God that Jim and Ann may be reunited in the eternal life of heaven." Outside the church Mr Donegan's sons wept and attempted to comfort each other as their father's coffin, which was carrying a huge bouquet of mixed flowers, including red roses, white carnations and orchids, made its final onwards journey. Mr Donegan was also remembered at a service at Roselawn crematorium after the burial. CCTV footage of the murder scene shows his assassin, wearing a high visibility jacket with the word 'security' on the back, fleeing the area. The lone gunman fired eight times at Mr Donegan in his parked Porsche Panamera. Teachers covered the car with coats so children could not see inside. Two men were arrested but released unconditionally. The former head of a south Belfast children's home has denied she caused suffering to a youngster in her care, branding the claims against her "outrageous." Ruth Colvin has been accused of six separate counts of child cruelty towards a youngster in her care between September 1974 and December 1976. The charges relate to a period when Colvin was head of Bawnmore Children's Home in south Belfast. The 75-year-old, who is formerly of Glendhu Manor but now residing in a nursing home in the east of the city, has denied all six charges and is standing trial at Belfast Crown Court. As she took to the witness stand, the wheelchair-bound pensioner - who was 31 at the time of the alleged offences - confirmed her position at the time, telling the court she was "in charge" during that period. The former resident has claimed she was beaten by Colvin with a wooden Scholl sandal and with a stick. She also claimed that Colvin pulled her hair and told her things like "you won't be a blue-eyed dolly". As she was questioned by her barrister David McDowell QC, Colvin said that after working in children's homes, she trained and became a social worker. She also confirmed that she came before the court with a clear criminal record, and no other complaints against her. When asked by Mr McDowell how she found the complainant when she arrived in the children's home, Colvin described her as "unsettled", and when asked "how did you cope with that?", Colvin replied: "By being firm with her." Mr McDowell then asked Colvin "how would you be firm with her?" to which she said "by talking strictly with her". Colvin was asked "did the children respect you?" She replied: "I would say so". Mr McDowell then asked his client: "How were you with them? Were you nice or nasty?" with Colvin saying "I was nice, normal with them". She was then asked "did you ever hit a child? Did you ever hit (the complainant?)". Colvin answered "no" to both questions. Mr McDowell's next question - "what do you think of her saying that you did?" - was answered by Colvin saying: "Personally I find it very hard to take, to accept, because I didn't do it, and I can't see the reason why she said it. I don't know, because she was unsettled and disturbed, perhaps." Colvin denied pulling her hair, assaulting her in a laundry room and hitting her with a wooden stick. And when the accused was asked "would you ever have taken your shoe off and hit her around the head with it?" Colvin replied: "No. It's outrageous. "Others would have known if she had got hit. There would be marks. There would have been questions asked of me. There would have been an enquiry." At hearing. The heartbroken family of a young Antrim mum who died this week have raised thousands of pounds for the intensive care unit that treated her and the children's charity that supports her baby son, who suffers from cerebral palsy. Laura Burns (32) was in bed with one-year-old Lorcan in the early hours of Sunday morning when she developed a severe migraine, her family said. Tragically, the former Ballymena Academy pupil lost consciousness and her heart stopped beating. Despite the efforts of staff at Antrim Area Hospital, where Laura was a nursing sister and ward manager, her condition deteriorated. Laura's family took the decision to turn off her life support on Monday. Large numbers of colleagues and friends are expected to attend her funeral today, with co-workers planning a guard of honour. Her husband Keelan (29), who is also a member of staff at the hospital, said there had been an "outpouring of grief" at work. "Laura was a beautiful, strong, compassionate, caring person," he said. "She always put me and Lorcan before herself. "On the night she took ill I was at my brother's house, and before I left I told her I loved her and gave her a kiss goodbye. "She suffered from very debilitating migraines but wasn't complaining of headaches before I left. "She rang her dad at 1.45am and said she had a migraine, and asked if he could come and take Lorcan. "He found her unresponsive and tried to resuscitate her until the paramedics arrived. They worked with her for about an hour, they got a rhythm and got her to resus and found a heartbeat." Sadly, Laura suffered significant brain damage and her condition deteriorated rapidly. Her brother Andrew Brooker, who was rushing back from Australia to be at her bedside, said goodbye on the phone as their father held it to Laura's ear. "Her death is unexplained and has to go to a coroner," Keelan added. "We think the migraine could have caused pain which got so severe that she passed out and caused her to go into cardiac arrest, then she was starved of oxygen, which led to the brain damage." Keelan said he was currently "on autopilot" after the loss of his wife of four years. "She was mine and Lorcan's absolute world," he said. "She idolised Lorcan. My mother passed away when I was six, and now my wee lad will grow up without a mum as well. "When Lorcan was born we were given the challenge of dealing with his quite severe cerebral palsy with dystonia. "He can't do any of the tasks of daily living by himself. "Laura was a very calming influence - she took his diagnosis on the chin." Just last Friday Keelan and Laura were excitedly finalising plans for a specially-adapted house designed around Lorcan's needs. He is now uncertain whether it will go ahead. He said the family had received "unbelievable" support from Laura's colleagues at Antrim Area Hospital, where she had worked for nine years and had been due to take charge of a new unit. "Everyone is absolutely devastated, they have said the hospital is in mourning," he added. "They've opened a book of condolence and have a picture of Laura in the hospital chapel. There will be a nursing guard of honour at the service, which is a lovely gesture." Keelan also thanked the community for supporting a Justgiving page set up in Laura's memory, which by last night had raised nearly 6,000. The sum will be split between the Buddy Bear Trust, which supports children with cerebral palsy and other motor disorders and has helped little Lorcan, and Antrim Area Hospital ICU. "This will be Laura's legacy," Keelan added. "The staff at Antrim ICU treated us with such respect, and Lorcan goes to the school run by the Buddy Bear Trust once a week. "The family and I are astounded by the support. Laura will be up in Heaven thinking: 'All that fuss for me!'" Speaking on behalf of their parents John and Sheila Brooker, Andrew (34) described his sister as a "very dedicated mum". "From the point where they turned off the life support Laura had 22 minutes - the first 12 of that was the drugs, but the last 10 she was trying to support herself," he revealed. "She was a lovely, caring person. She was incredibly popular at the hospital and known for being dedicated to her job. It is heartbreaking that Lorcan will grow up without his mum. My mum, dad and Keelan are so full of praise for how the nursing staff cared for Laura. "We would like to thank the community for their support, and everyone who donated. We are expecting a large turnout at the service, and we are asking people to wear bright colours. We want it to be a celebration, not a mourning." Laura's funeral Mass will take place at noon today in St Comgall's Church in Antrim. To donate, visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/laura-burns. Police forensics and fire investigation at Donore Cresent in Antrim after Fire service attended a call early this morning - Credit: Steven McAuley/McAuley Multimedia A man has been hospitalised from burns after an incident in a housing estate in Antrim. Police responded to a report of a fire at a property in the Donore Crescent area of the town at around 7.30am. Detective Sergeant Lyttle said: Officers attended the scene along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service. A man in his 20s was taken to hospital for treatment by NIAS. Enquiries are continuing and there are no further details at this time. A spokesman for the Ambulance Service confirmed it was responding to reports of a male having sustained burns. An emergency crew attended the incident, and after after an initial assessment and treatment at the scene one patient was taken to hospital. Chambers was also fined 500 for drunken behaviour. A man who "humiliated" a Belfast fast-food worker by exposing himself and talking in a mock-Chinese accent must pay 500 compensation, a judge ordered today. Karl Jason Chambers, 44, was also fined a further 500 for his drunken behaviour at a Subway restaurant in south Belfast. The 44-year-old, from Moneymore, Co Derry, pleaded guilty to disorderly behaviour and exposure with intent to cause alarm or distress. Belfast Magistrates' Court heard Chambers entered the Botanic Avenue branch on October 20, pulled down his trousers and exposed his genitals. "He wiped his penis along the counter while calling one staff member a 'cheeky China man'," a prosecution lawyer said. "He then started to talk gibberish in a mock Chinese accent." Chambers was arrested by police called to the scene. Defence lawyer Pearse MacDermott acknowledged it was "an appalling set of offences". The solicitor said: "Mr Chambers is horrified by his behaviour." The court was told he had been in Belfast that day for a concert, but drank so much that he wasn't allowed in to his accommodation. "He's a family man, deeply ashamed and has asked me to apologise to the member of staff," Mr MacDermott added. District Judge Fiona Bagnall found his actions were strongly aggravated by hostility. "The most grievous mischief in all this is the humiliation it brings to the injured party," she said. However, Mrs Bagnall accepted Chambers had displayed genuine remorse, adding that he has no previous record for similar behaviour. Imposing 250 fines for each offence, the judge further ordered: "There will be compensation of 500 to the injured party." ends A Northern Ireland solicitor who admitted a series of fraud and money-laundering offences linked to client accounts has been spared jail. 12 clients were affected by Elaine Mary Early's criminality - including an elderly asbestos suffered who died before receiving a medical claim that was owed to him. Belfast Crown Court heard that Early - the former owner of the now defunct Elaine Early Co Solicitors based in Comber - started "robbing Peter to pay Paul" - and that over a period from September 2014 to February 2016 she transferred money from client accounts to her own accounts. It also emerged that Early, from Killinchy Road in Comber, only started this illegal activity after the Law Society started investigating her practice due to concerns over her professional negligence, and that at the time she was in a "constant state of intoxication which clouded her judgement." All monies that were owed to Early's clients have since been reimbursed by the Law Society, with 178,728 remaining outstanding. Judge Patricia Smyth branded the amount of money as "significant" and said offending such as Early's had an impact on public trust. She noted that Early was a woman with a history of mental health issues and alcoholism, and had suffered a traumatic incident in the 90s which has had a lasting effect on her. After admitting to 12 charges of fraud by false representation and five of transferring criminal property, the 53-year old was handed a sentence of two years and eight months, which was suspended for three years. As she stood in the dock, Early said "thank you very much" to Judge Smyth. Before she passed sentence, Judge Smyth was told by Crown prosecutor Laura Ivers that the Law Society intervened in Early's practice in September 2014, when agents were sent to "supervise and investigate". This led to Early's certificate to practice being suspended in March 2016 when the Law Society took control of her business. As more details emerged and records were examined, police then launched an investigation, which indicated that Early had been transferring funds from client accounts to her own personal account or the office account, and vice versa. Telling the court this was a case of "robbing Peter to pay Paul", Mr Ivers said that when Early was arrested in May 2016, "she accepted her actions were criminal" and co-operated fully with the police investigation. Her criminality included transferring 58,000 from an estate without the knowledge of the executor in April, 2015, and lodging without authority 25,000 in January 2016 which was meant for an elderly man who suffered from asbestosis. He died that March and never benefitted from the money from the claim, which was subsequently paid to his family. Defence barrister John Kearney QC, representing Early, spoke of a "traumatic incident" experienced by Early in 1991 which led to psychological damage and turning to alcohol. Mr Kearney said his client's offending began after the "death of the Celtic Tiger" which affected the conveyancing element of her work. Posing the question 'where did the money go?', Mr Kearney said Early did not lead a luxurious lifestyle - rather the money was used to try and maintain properties she bought during the boom. He revealed Early found herself facing financial difficulties paying back mortgages and loans, and said: "She hit very very significant problems ... she should have closed the business down when it became apparent she was not coping. Instead, she turned to alcohol ... and tried to keep the business afloat." The barrister described Early as "a person trying to help others", and accepted her judgement was "alcohol-addled". He also described her behaviour at the time of offending as "the actions of a desperate woman trying to stay afloat." Mr Kearney ended his submission by saying Early had displayed "remorse, shame and regret", and has "tackled her demons" as she has not had a drink "for a considerable period of time." Handing Early a suspended sentence, Judge Smyth spoke of a "series of traumatic events which led to an inability to properly function and exercise the judgement that is required as a solicitor." Judge Smyth said it was surprising that Early's offending only started after the intervention of the Law Society, and accepted she didn't display any trappings of wealth. The Judge told Early: "After very careful consideration of the facts of this unusual case, I am suspending the sentence. The root cause of your offending lies in chronic mental health issues exacerbated by alcohol and trauma, and that is the reason I am suspending this sentence." Two former Irish rugby players who were acquitted of rape have lost a court bid to recoup the legal costs of their defence. Ex-Ireland and Ulster stars Paddy Jackson, 26, and Stuart Olding, 25, wanted Northern Irelands Public Prosecution Service to pay bills totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds. The men were unanimously acquitted by a jury of raping the same woman at a house party in the summer of 2016 after a high-profile trial in Belfast earlier this year. However, the pair were subsequently sacked by Ulster and Ireland amid controversy over a series of explicit WhatsApp messages that were revealed during the trial. They claimed the failed prosecution had caused them serious financial hardship and limited their earning potential in the future. Both men are now playing for clubs in France. Mr Jacksons costs were considerably higher than Mr Oldings, as the latter successfully applied for legal aid midway through the trial. Lawyers for the players insisted their prosecution was not warranted, alleging multiple failings in the police and the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Services handling of the case. Expand Close Paddy Jacksons costs were considerably higher than Stuart Oldings because Mr Olding secured legal aid midway through the trial proceedings (Niall Carson/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paddy Jacksons costs were considerably higher than Stuart Oldings because Mr Olding secured legal aid midway through the trial proceedings (Niall Carson/PA) Judge Patricia Smyth rejected their applications on Friday. She concluded that the decision to prosecute the men was justified. This was a highly complex police investigation and the prosecution was warranted albeit the jury did not consider that the charges had been proved beyond reasonable doubt, she said. Having considered all of the relevant factors, I am satisfied that there is no basis for exercising my discretion in the applicants favour. The applications are therefore dismissed. The judge noted that the players had not provided to the court details of their severance terms with Ulster and Ireland, including whether the prosecution was the official reason their contracts were terminated. In those circumstances, there is simply no evidence upon which this court could conclude that the financial circumstances of either Mr Jackson or Mr Olding have been irrevocably changed as a consequence of the prosecution for rape and that this is a relevant factor to take into account in determining the applications, she added. Ian Paisley was "unjustified" in accusing an energy official of telling lies, a barrister has told the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) inquiry. The DUP MP used his parliamentary privilege in March to launch a stinging attack on Teri Clifton, an official for the energy regulator Ofgem, which administered RHI. She had claimed that the North Antrim MP had been part of a "very intimidating" conference call on behalf of an applicant to the botched green energy scheme. Mr Paisley denied he was part of the call and said in Parliament that Ms Clifton had lied and that she should be "put through the wringer" at the RHI inquiry. At the time, he also accused the RHI inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin of putting words in Ms Clifton's mouth. The phone call concerned a disputed RHI application by Sean and Anne McNaughton. The matter was raised again yesterday by inquiry barrister Joseph Aiken, who said fresh evidence had since been received. Mr Aiken said an Ofgem official told the inquiry Ms Clifton had found Mr Paisley's comments in Parliament "deeply upsetting". She also stands by her claim she was told Mr Paisley was on the conference call. The McNaughtons deny Mr Paisley was part of the call and say there was no attempt to intimidate, with Mr Aiken adding in a witness statement that they were "very aggrieved about the entire situation". This was backed up by another participant in the call, who said Mr Paisley was not involved. The lawyer said that while the issue was one of "limited relevance" to the overall inquiry, he said it had been important to establish the facts given that such a "serious allegation" had been made against Ms Clifton. "It is one of a multitude of issues and the inquiry has endeavoured to take proportionate steps to establish such of the facts that can be established given that a witness to the inquiry was very publicly accused of lying to the inquiry," he said. Mr Aiken told the panel they could consider Mr Paisley's claims in Parliament that Ms Clifton had lied to be "unjustified in the circumstances". Mr Paisley did not wish to comment. Earlier, a claim that DUP leader Arlene Foster was "accountable but not responsible" for the actions of her former ministerial adviser was challenged. Sir Patrick took issue with the phrase during closing remarks by a DUP barrister. He said he was not clear what the DUP leader was saying in regard to her oversight of Dr Andrew Crawford. "She has a saying that she is accountable but not responsible," he said. "I, for myself, am not entirely clear what that might mean." He pressed DUP barrister Julie Ellison over whether Mrs Foster should share more of the blame for a number of failings. These included not picking up on warnings from the whistleblower Janette O'Hagan, a lack of record-keeping at ministerial meetings and not realising Dr Crawford hadn't read detailed RHI reports. Ms Ellison said Mrs Foster felt Ms O'Hagan deserved a "sincere apology", that she was unaware officials weren't taking minutes, and it was for the panel to decide whether Mrs Foster gave proper instructions to Dr Crawford. Regarding the "shadowy world" of special advisers, Ms Ellison told the panel they had broken the rule of never becoming the story. Former DUP minister Jonathan Bell has claimed top DUP 'Spad' Timothy Johnston directed another adviser, Timothy Cairns, not to introduce cuts and to work instead with fellow adviser Dr Crawford. Ms Ellison said Mr Johnston had no interest or influence over RHI in the summer of 2015. A barrister for Mr Cairns went on to say he acted "reasonably and appropriately" over RHI, but agreed some aspects could have been carried out better. Arlene Foster has warned the Prime Minister not to roll over in the face of EU intransigence. The DUP leader urged Theresa May to stand up to fellow European leaders and demand changes to the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. Mrs Foster, whose party is keeping the Government in power through a confidence and supply deal at Westminster, has vowed to vote against the draft treaty if the contentious Irish border backstop is not binned. Expand Close Arlene Fosters DUP currently keeps Theresa Mays Government in power at Westminster (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Arlene Fosters DUP currently keeps Theresa Mays Government in power at Westminster (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The DUP is vehemently opposed to the measure that would see Northern Ireland adhere to an EU regulatory framework if a wider trade deal between the UK and EU proves elusive. The party believes the measure would undermine the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating an economic border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. If the Prime Minister had listened to our warnings and stood by her public commitments, we would not be in this situationArlene Foster Responding to the EUs refusal to countenance changes to the withdrawal deal and Mrs Mays failure to secure legal guarantees that the backstop would only ever be temporary, Mrs Foster said: The Prime Minister has promised to get legally binding changes. The reaction by the EU is unsurprising. They are doing what they always do. The key question is whether the Prime Minister will stand up to them or whether she will roll over, as has happened previously. This is a difficulty of the Prime Ministers own making. A deal was signed off which the Prime Minister should have known would not gain the support of Parliament. If the Prime Minister had listened to our warnings and stood by her public commitments, we would not be in this situation. Congress has passed juvenile-justice legislation that requires academic credits children earn in detention facilities be transferred with them to their new school, along with their student records. The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018 also requires annual reports to include information on how many children have contact with the juvenile-justice system due to an offense committed on school grounds, at a school-sponsored event off campus, or via a school officials referral. The legislation, which will go to President Donald Trump for his signature after having passed Congress on Thursday, is a reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act, which was first passed in 1974. Its been a priority for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. (The sponsor of the House version of the bill is outgoing Rep. Jason Lewis, R-Minn., a member of the House education committee who lost his re-election bid in November.) Although the legislation doesnt have a tremendous impact on K-12 education policy in general, it does affect some of the most vulnerable students. The Every Student Succeeds Act also tries to make it easier for children leaving juvenile-justice facilities to make the transition into public education by addressing the transfer of their records. The juvenile-justice bill also requires that children earn full or partial credit toward their high school degrees if they finish secondary school coursework while theyre in custody. Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . Scarborough Leader Funding for the project would come from a bond and through a capital campaign. A man with connections to Northern Ireland is wanted in connection with an attempt to import Class A drugs worth more than 7million into the UK. The National Crime Agency (NCA) issued an appeal for the whereabouts of Lee James Hartness yesterday. On November 21, 2016, a lorry arriving at Dover from France was searched by Border Force, who discovered a purpose-built concealment in the trailer. Inside, officers found packages of cocaine weighing over 90kg. If cut and adulterated, the drugs would have had a potential street value of 7.2m. Following an NCA investigation Hartness (47), the driver of the lorry, was charged with importing class A drugs and a summons was sent in August this year for Hartness to attend court. However, he failed to appear at the hearing and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Hartness is known to have connections in Northern Ireland, Carlisle and Newcastle upon Tyne. NCA branch commander Matt Rivers said: "Two years ago Lee Hartness arrived at the Port of Dover and a significant amount of cocaine was seized from his lorry. "Hartness failed to attend his court hearing earlier this year and, despite our extensive enquiries, we have not yet been able to locate him." Hartness is a white male, 6 ft tall and of medium build, and speaks with a northern English accent. Both his arms are tattooed with Japanese flower designs and he has a dragon and serpent tattoo on his chest. Anyone with information can contact the National Crime Agency on 0370 496 7622 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Relatives of people killed in the Harrods bombing will gather to mark the 35th anniversary of the attack next week. Six died and around 100 were injured when an IRA car bomb exploded outside the central London department store on December 17, 1983. The bomb had been packed with Semtex supplied by Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his regime. A memorial service to mark the bombing will take place at 1pm on Monday, during which all victims of terror will be remembered. Susanne Dodd, whose Metropolitan Police officer father Stephen (34) died in the attack, founded the Harrods Victims and Survivors Group, and is helping to organise the event. She said: "I can still remembering waiting for my dad to return home on Christmas and take me to see Santa. "I, like many victims, have never recovered from the loss." Two more police officers - Sergeant Noel Lane (28) and Constable Jane Arbuthnot (22) - were killed. The others who died were Philip Geddes (24), a journalist who heard about the alert and went to the scene; Jasmine Cochrane-Patrick (25), and Kenneth Salvesen (28), a US citizen. Ms Dodd added: "The service will be attended by the survivors and the bereaved families of this appalling terror attack, and we can also confirm number senior police officers, parliamentarians, dignitaries and victims from other terrorist attacks will also be attending." Jonathan Ganesh, who was severely injured in the London Docklands IRA attack in February 1996 and is now president of the Docklands Victims Association, will be present. He said: "I'm very honoured to be attending this event. It's immensely important that we never forget the victims of terrorism. I understand the pain that these people live with every day." Ihsan Bashir, whose brother Inam was killed in the Docklands bombing, said it was important that those killed through acts of terror are never forgotten. TV presenter Gloria Hunniford later recalled how she was shopping at Harrods with her youngest son Michael, then 13, when the bomb went off. The pair were in different parts of the store at the time, and she faced an anxious wait until they were reunited. Sinn Fein has been urged to "catch a grip" of itself following a series of high-profile decisions made by the party in recent days. Yesterday the Police Federation of Northern Ireland (PFNI) defended the PSNI after Sinn Fein criticised police for their handling of a security alert in west Belfast. Last Saturday, a bomb alert in Dunmurry forced the PSNI to impose a security cordon. During the subsequent four-day operation, a school was closed and residents were evacuated from their homes. West Belfast MLA Orlaithi Flynn said she was set to meet the PSNI to raise the concerns of residents. However, the PFNI said in a tweet that "protecting people should not be the basis for political point scoring" in response to the criticism. On Tuesday, Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson - a convicted IRA bomber who was jailed for her part in a series of explosions in England during the 1980s - was caught up in the Strasbourg Christmas market terrorist attack which left three dead. In the immediate aftermath, Ms Anderson expressed sympathy for those injured and affected by the attack which she said had "shocked" the city. The development came days after it was announced that former Sinn Fein MP Barry McElduff will stand as a candidate for the upcoming council elections - 11 months after he quit amid controversy. In January, Mr McElduff posted footage on Twitter of himself posing with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre - an IRA atrocity which saw 10 Protestant workmen lined up and shot by gunmen. He said he did not realise the date and denied it was intended to offend. Kenny Donaldson, a victims rights campaigner with South East Fermanagh Foundation, said yesterday the party's actions in recent days showed a complete lack of "self-awareness" and "double standards". "To hear Martina Anderson, a convicted Provisional IRA bomber speak of the horrors of Strasbourg, to hear her speak of the fear and sense of distress experienced by those caught up the incident is absolutely sickening for those who were the innocents of her comparable actions and those of her terrorist comrades," he said. "Let Martina Anderson and her colleagues belatedly recognise the terror, fear and intimidation they caused when they carried out acts of terror similar to that carried out in the Strasbourg Christmas markets." He added: "Sinn Fein really needs to catch a grip. Is it committed to playing its part in building a peaceful and fully democratic society where there is support for the rule of law or will it continue to offer succour to terrorism through deflecting responsibility upon these seeking to keep the community (inclusive of their supporters) safe?" He also challenged Orlaithi Flynn on her remarks over the security alert in west Belfast. "Protection of life must always be the priority. The responsibility for the west Belfast security alert rests with those terrorists concerned and anyone who is in receipt of information which could lead to their apprehending." After McElduff announced his candidacy, Mr Donaldson said: "Sinn Fein talks the language of equality, the language of respect, the language of peace-building - but talk is all it ever is." A teenage asylum seeker arrested for an alleged burglary has been forensically linked to six other break-ins across Belfast, a judge heard today. Medoune Diakhate appeared before the city's Magistrates Court accused of stealing games consoles, electrical items and cash from the homes targeted. The 18-year-old Gambian national was refused bail due to the risk of re-offending. Diakhate, with an address at University Street in Belfast, is charged with seven burglaries carried out between July and October this year. He faces further counts of possessing an article for use in burglary or theft, namely a blue multi-tool, and resisting police. The alleged break-ins occurred at properties on Ravensdene Park, Malone Hill Park, Malone Park, Osborne Drive, Ardenlee Avenue, New Barnsley Crescent and Rosetta Park. Opposing his release, a detective constable said Diakhate was first arrested on August 20 in connection with one of the raids. "Since then there have been six forensic hits in relation to the defendant for further burglaries," he told the court. The detective added that Diakhate was in the UK illegally. Defence counsel Michael Boyd confirmed his client denies the charges. Mr Boyd contended that Diakhate could be released to his current address, adding: "He has made an application for asylum." However, District Judge Fiona Bagnall held there was a "strong likelihood of re-offending". She remanded Diakhate in custody to appear again by video-link on January 11. ends A Co Fermanagh woman terminally ill with motor neurone disease who needs her three young children to feed, dress and wash her says she cannot understand why she's been turned down for disability benefit. Single mum Lorraine Cox (39) doesn't know how long she has left to live, but she wants to spend as much time as possible with her children, aged 15, 10 and nine. While she still manages to hold down her job, her condition is deteriorating so fast she believes this won't be possible after February. Earlier this year she applied for Personal Independent Payment (PIP), but was shocked when she was informed that after being assessed she didn't fit the criteria and would get nothing. Under the criteria, only terminally ill people with less than six months to live do not need to undergo assessment. Ms Cox, from Derrylin, challenged this decision and was later awarded a basic payment, but was refused the enhanced and mobility payments. She said the energy she is expending fighting the Department for Communities decision should be spent making the most of the time she has left with her children. She said: "I have three young children that I adore but my children dress me, my children cut up my food, they lace my shoes, they put on my necklaces and earrings and even help me out of the bath. "This has become very normal in my house as my motor neurone has progressed and it has deteriorated rapidly over the last six months. "On top of dealing with all of this and organising my funeral arrangements, my last testament and organising my pension to be drawn down for my children, I should not have to be fighting for a basic disability benefit. "It was a shock when I got the letter to say I didn't meet the criteria for the enhanced payment and I didn't fit the criteria for the mobility. "It is horrifying. I have the mobility to fight so I can get PIP, but I don't know if I will still be physically able to do this in six months' time. "I actually cannot believe how brutal the system is and I cannot understand what they (the Department for Communities) are holding back on. "There is nothing hidden in this, my symptoms are very transparent, they are visibly clear and my diagnosis letter is clear. "I don't want to be claiming disability but I am going to have to resign from my job in a couple of months' time because I have to prioritise my time with my children. "I am going to leave my work around February while I am relatively able and have maybe two months or three months to go out with my kids and not have to be pushed in a wheelchair. "I want to be a mother to my kids for as long as I can, that's the most frustrating thing. "I actually think because I want to work for as long as I can is going against me; I am not on benefits but I am honestly trying to do the best I can for my family and plan for whatever future I can. "I had to appeal the initial decision, which got me the basic payment, but I am also appealing this latest decision to refuse me the enhanced and mobility payments. "It is exhausting and it is not where my energy should be spent. "All my energy should be spent on making the most of my time with my three children. However, I will keep on fighting this with everything I can." Among those supporting Ms Cox is Antrim and Newtownabbey UUP councillor Robert Foster. He said: "The way PIP is being assessed is causing extreme and unnecessary anxiety for so many people, including people like Lorraine who has MND, others who have other degenerative conditions like Parkinson's, and also people diagnosed with cancer." The Department for Communities said it was unable to comment on individual cases. "PIP entitlement depends on how a disability or long-term condition affects a person's ability to carry out a range of everyday activities," it said. "It does not depend on any specific medical diagnosis. "Each case is considered on an individual basis." A woman who phoned for police on the 999 emergency number saying there was a "moth in her room" which was frightening her has been put on probation for a year A woman who phoned for police on the 999 emergency number saying there was a "moth in her room" which was frightening her has been put on probation for a year. Roisin Hamill (56), whose address was given as The Traveller's Rest at Galgorm Road in Ballymena, had previously phoned the police around eight times claiming she had been assaulted causing the PSNI to waste time making enquiries in Lurgan, Ballymena and Ballymoney. She had been warned not to abuse the 999 number but when she then phoned to say she was afraid of a moth in her room police arrested her at the Traveller's Rest. She was clutching several plastic carrier bags when she appeared in the dock at Ballymena Magistrates Court yesterday and defence solicitor Andrew Kinney said that was connected to his client's mental health. Hamill pleaded guilty to a charge of "causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety" by persistently using a public electronic communications network in August this year. District Judge Nigel Broderick said the defendant was a "complex individual" with a number of previous convictions. He said she needed assistance and if she wanted to avoid going to prison she should co-operate with agencies trying to help her. The Bank of England is to reduce the amount its top officials can claim on expenses after two bigwigs came under fire for running up a near 400,000 bill for travel and flights. Donald Kohn and Anil Kashyap, members of the Banks Financial Policy Committee, came in for sharp criticism from MPs earlier this year when it emerged that they spent 390,000 on travel expenses, including more than 11,000 on one flight. On Friday, the Bank said it is placing a cap on the costs for hotels in certain locations and reducing the daily meal allowance from 50 to 40. The changes, part of an updated expenses policy, mean that the number of senior workers who must release expenses is to increase and will include executive directors and non-executive Court members. The Bank must now ensure that the new rules are followed in both letter and spirit by all staff across the organisation.Nicky Morgan Publishing the policy for the first time, the Bank said it will seek to ensure value for money and take into account the environmental impact of travel decisions. In addition, the level of detail of expenses will increase. Nicky Morgan MP, chairwoman of the Treasury Committee, said: Given the staggeringly high level of expenses claimed by some members of the Bank of Englands policy committees, the review of its expenses policy is welcome. The Bank must now ensure that the new rules are followed in both letter and spirit by all staff across the organisation. The Treasury Committee will examine the Banks expenses, as well as the review itself, in detail when we take evidence from the Court of the Bank of England in the New Year. Last month, figures released by the Bank showed that Mr Kohn, who is based in the US, spent nearly 31,000 on travel including three return flights from Washington to London in the quarter. They also show that Governor Mark Carney racked up more than 50,000 in expenses between March and May, resulting from 49,876 on foreign business travel and a further 781 on car hire and taxis. The Canadian has defended the Banks spending, claiming in June the foreign travel expenses were justified. He said at the time the Bank is the worlds leading international financial centre and the most complex in the world. Mr Carney said the Bank was at the top table of key global meetings and added we cant have all of them meet in London. A former soldier sentenced to jail in Turkey after fighting the murderous Islamic State terror group has skipped bail and returned to Britain. Joe Robinson was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison after being accused of fighting alongside the Peoples Protection Units of Syrian Kurdistan (YPG) which the Turkish state considers a terrorist organisation. The 25-year-old was arrested during a family holiday to Turkey with his fiancee Mira Rojkan last year, and spent four months in prison before he was convicted. He had been on bail in Kusadasi awaiting an appeal, but has now told the BBC he has returned to Britain secretly, without the permission of the courts, and said he did so because he had to take the matter into his own hands. It is understood the British Government did not help Robinson return to the UK. Expand Close Joe Robinson with his fiancee Mira Rojkan (Mira Rojkan/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Joe Robinson with his fiancee Mira Rojkan (Mira Rojkan/PA) The YPG is not banned in the UK and Robinson, from Accrington, Lancashire, said he only spent a month with them in Syria while providing medical support to civilians. Turkey considers the YPG to be a terror organisation because of its links to the Kurdistan Workers Party which is fighting for autonomy for the region. But Robinson was unaware of their ideology when he spent a month in Syria with them in July 2015 during which he did not see conflict, his fiancee has previously said. She said it was in the following three months in Iraq that he fought IS with the Peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurdish military. A council has admitted failings at a care home where a worker sexually abused young boys. Victims of Brian Newman came forward following the Jimmy Saville scandal and a report has revealed numerous problems at the Woodhead Road childrens unit, where the abuse took place between 1990 and 1996. The former care home worker was jailed in 2015 after being found guilty of a six-year campaign of indecency and sexual assault against six boys at the South Ayrshire home during the 1990s. An investigation by the South Ayrshire Chief Officers Group for Public Protection found that, although Newmans abuse was reported and investigated, the childrens concerns were not fully heard. Other residents at the care home said they did not report the exploitation at the time for fear they would not be believed. Newman, 58, from Kilmarnock, was convicted of 10 charges of indecency and sexual assault against six boys at the home. Incidents of abuse and concerns were reported years ago but were not investigated properly, if at allKim Leslie, Digby Brown Solicitors Kim Leslie, an abuse lawyer at Digby Brown Solicitors, said: We respect the acknowledgement by South Ayrshire Council that there were failings but it is arguably too little, too late for our clients. As the report found, incidents of abuse and concerns were reported years ago but were not investigated properly, if at all. We represent individuals whose lives have been irreversibly changed after suffering at the hands of Brian Newman. Personal injury actions for damages are now under way on the grounds that South Ayrshire Council is vicariously liable for the abuse carried out by their former caretaker which I hope provides the answers and closure his victims deserve. The review, carried out through the independent South Ayrshire Child Protection Committee, found there were missed opportunities to deal with reports of abuse made by a former resident in 2007. Although Newmans behaviour was reported by some children at the time, any action taken did not recognise the significance of these concerns, according to the report. South Ayrshire Council said the way in which young people are looked after and consulted about their care has changed significantly since the 1990s, as have the procedures for vetting those who work with children. The chairman of the South Ayrshire Child Protection Committee, Professor Paul Martin, said: The protection and care of our children and young people is one of our most important responsibilities and one that we take very seriously indeed in South Ayrshire. While there have been significant changes to modern child protection practices and procedures in the two decades since this abuse took place providing a better framework overall for the protection of children the review findings show that agencies can, and must, continue to do better to provide our young people with the best care possible. While a significant amount of work has already been undertaken by the council, Health and Social Care Partnership and Police Scotland, I will be monitoring further progress closely to ensure that we achieve this and deliver the best possible outcomes for children and young people across South Ayrshire. There were shortcomings in how staff responded to concerns raised by young people at Woodhead Road Childrens Unit in the 1990s and for that we are truly sorryPaula Godfrey Paula Godfrey, South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnerships head of childrens health, care and justice, said: This report makes it clear that there were shortcomings in how staff responded to concerns raised by young people at Woodhead Road Childrens Unit in the 1990s and for that we are truly sorry. Childrens houses should be a place of safety and a place where children and young people are cared for, nurtured and looked after and that was not the case for those abused by the individual who committed these appalling crimes and breached the trust placed in him to look after young people. We know that the provision of care and the way we support vulnerable children and young people has been transformed over the past 20 years, however, we fully accept the findings of the review and have taken positive steps to address the improvement areas highlighted. Our services and staff follow the national Child Protection Guidance at all times we have implemented all relevant statutory and regulatory requirements; we work to keep staff skills, knowledge and expertise up-to-date through extensive training and development; we regularly consult with our young people to ensure our services meet their needs; we work closely with child protection partners to share best practice, and there are robust reporting and scrutiny processes in place to monitor performance. I am determined that we will continue to do everything we can to ensure young people in our care are treated with respect and dignity, get brought up in a loving and nurturing environment, enjoy the same opportunities as other young people and are supported to succeed in whatever they do. Former BHS owner Dominic Chappell has been ordered to pay more than 120,000 for breaching pension law when the firm collapsed with the loss of thousands of jobs. The 52-year-old ex-racing driver was found guilty in January of not giving The Pensions Regulator (TPR) vital documents about the companys pension scheme after it went into administration in 2016. Chappell, of Blandford Forum, Dorset, was re-sentenced at Hove Crown Court on Friday after losing an appeal against his conviction earlier this year. Sentencing, Judge Christine Henson QC criticised Chappell for showing a complete lack of remorse in relation to his offences, that represented a blatant refusal to comply with pension law. She ordered Chappell to pay a 50,000 fine and 73,900 in court costs. I'm not a Philip Green sitting on a 100 million yacht in the south of France who writes a cheque for 350 million to make the problem go awayDominic Chappell As the director of company Retail Acquisitions, Chappell bought BHS for 1 from billionaire Sir Philip Green in March 2015. BHS went into administration in April 2016, leaving a 571 million pension deficit with Sir Philip later agreeing to pay 363 million towards this. Prosecutor Alex Stein argued Chappell had shown a persistent, deliberate and blatant refusal to comply with pension law. He said the self-described entrepreneur had not provided full and frank disclosure of his financial information ahead of sentencing including in relation to a yacht called Maverick II and a property in Marbella, Spain. Representing himself in court because he cannot afford legal fees, Chappell denied owning the boat and said he temporarily held the Spanish home in trust for his sick mother at no gain to himself. He also denied having any hidden assets and said he did not have cash available to pay any fine. Chappell argued it had been nigh on impossible to provide relevant information to TPR because he was locked out of the BHS office upon its collapse. He claimed the purchase of the High Street chain had relied on undertakings by Sir Philip Green and an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Im not a Philip Green sitting on a 100 million yacht in the south of France who writes a cheque for 350 million to make the problem go away, he said. Im a victim of the circumstances that came out of British Home Stores. I wish to god we never got involved in it. Following the sale of BHS, TPR launched an investigation over concerns about two pension schemes representing 19,000 members of staff. Information notices are a vital investigative tool for us. As this case shows, if you ignore them you are committing a crime and should expect to be prosecutedNicola Parish, TPR Chappell was issued with two notices in March and April 2016, known as section 72s under the Pensions Act 2004, before being handed a warning notice in November that year. He claimed he did everything and more to help TPR but was convicted of three charges of failing to provide information to the regulator under the Act in January after a four-day trial. At his first sentencing he was ordered to pay more than 87,000, including a 50,000 fine. Chappell lost an appeal against his sentence in September, with a judge criticising him for giving evasive and unbelievable evidence to the court. Nicola Parish, TPRs executive director of frontline regulation, said Chappell had consistently refused to provide the organisation the information it demanded. Information notices are a vital investigative tool for us. As this case shows, if you ignore them you are committing a crime and should expect to be prosecuted, she said. TPR said its separate anti-avoidance actions against Chappell in respect of the BHS pension schemes are continuing. Nigel Farage has said he believes the UK may face a second Brexit referendum in the coming months and has urged Leave campaigners to get ready for every situation. The MEP and former Ukip leader said he did not think the great Brexit betrayal is anywhere near finished and was more fearful than any point in this process. Speaking at the Leave Means Leave rally in London on Friday night, Mr Farage said: My message folks tonight is, as much as I dont want a second referendum, it would be wrong of us on a Leave Means Leave platform not to get ready, not to be prepared for a worst case scenario. He added: Weve now got to move into a different gear. Weve got to start forming branches and active groups all over this country. Weve got to re-engage with those millions of people who never voted in their lives before. And if all our efforts come to nothing because we leave at 11pm on March 29th, then so much the better. But can I urge you, can I implore you to get ready for every situation. I think they will, in the next few months, betray us completely and let us be ready not just to fight back, but if it comes, we will win it next time by a much bigger margin. Expand Close Nigel Farage with a supporter at the Leave Means Leave rally (John Stillwell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nigel Farage with a supporter at the Leave Means Leave rally (John Stillwell/PA) Mr Farage was joined at the event by other prominent Brexit campaigners including Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, Tim Martin, the owner of JD Wetherspoon, the Democratic Unionist Partys Sammy Wilson, and Labour MPs Kate Hoey and Graham Stringer. Mr Wilson and Mr Farage both made reference to Chancellor Philip Hammonds recent comments that the no confidence vote against Theresa May would flush out the extremists in the party. Mr Wilson said: In the words of the old Dads Army theme, who do you think youre kidding Mr Hammond? When Mr Farage mentioned Mr Hammond, the audience let out a loud boo, to which the MEP said: Great, a new bogeyman! In his speech, Mr Rees-Mogg attacked Mrs Mays Brexit deal, calling it a distraction. Expand Close Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks at the rally (John Stillwell/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks at the rally (John Stillwell/PA) The leader of the European Research Group of Tory MPs said: We need to remind ourselves, here we are two-and-a-bit years in and were looking at 585 pages of text. Sixty-eight pages, do you know what 68 pages do? They list one by one all the regulations that apply to Sammy and not to me. Its also a distraction from why we wanted to leave. We wanted to leave, ladies and gentlemen, because we think we can do better for ourselves. Mr Martin said he had swapped some of Wetherspoons EU imported products for UK ones, in order to show some muscle against EU scare stories. He said: We at Wetherspoon decided to do a little experiment. Were going to take French brandy and were going to take French champagne and German imported Jagermeister and were going to swap them for UK products. Expand Close Tim Martin at the event (John Stillwell/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tim Martin at the event (John Stillwell/PA) Im a free trader, so are you, Mr Martin said addressing the audience. But there comes a time, which I think has arrived now, and we have to show a bit of muscle. Mr Martin said since taking this decision his trade had gone up. All the speakers at the rally advocated rejecting Mrs Mays deal and leaving the EU on March 29 with no deal. No deal, no problem, Mr Farage said. We can look forward to big parties starting at 11pm on the night of 29th March. A man who was suspected of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence has been attacked by a fellow inmate just days into his sentence for running a 3 million drugs plot, it has been reported. Jamie Acourt was arrested after the racist stabbing of black teenager Mr Lawrence by a gang of white men in Eltham in 1993 but has always denied involvement. The 42-year-old from Eltham, south east London, was jailed for nine years earlier this month for masterminding a two-year conspiracy to sell cannabis resin. But less than a week into his sentence the 42-year-old was attacked by another prisoner at HMP Wandsworth. Expand Close Jamie Acourt, who was suspected in the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. (Metropolitan Police) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jamie Acourt, who was suspected in the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. (Metropolitan Police) The Sun reported that Acourt was punched in the back of head while preparing for exercise on Wednesday morning. Sources told The Sun Acourt instantly fell to the floor before prison officers intervened. A Prison Service spokeswoman confirmed an inmate had been put on report for punching another prisoner. She added that the victim did not require medical treatment. Expand Close Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a gang of white men in Eltham in 1993 (Family handout/PA Images) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a gang of white men in Eltham in 1993 (Family handout/PA Images) Jamie spent more than two years on the run, living in Spain under the alias Simon Alfonzo, until his arrest in May. He pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court to his part in the conspiracy which moved about 750kg of the drug with an estimated street value of around 3 million. His 43-year-old brother Neil had already been jailed for more than six years for his involvement when Jamie was sentenced on Friday December 7. Both brothers were arrested shortly after the murder of Mr Lawrence but neither was convicted. In 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted at the Old Bailey of murdering Mr Lawrence and jailed for life. Israel has arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank, and a Palestinian was killed in clashes with troops, as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a crackdown after a pair of deadly shootings blamed on Hamas militants. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Mahmoud Nakhla, 18, was shot in the abdomen and died at a medical centre in Ramallah as Israeli soldiers clashed with dozens of Palestinians throwing rocks. Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank as the army intensified a crackdown a day after Palestinian assailants killed two soldiers in an attack on a bus stop. Expand Close Palestinian protesters in the West Bank (Majdi Mohammed/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Palestinian protesters in the West Bank (Majdi Mohammed/AP) In a fresh wave of violence, an Israeli soldier was severely wounded by a Palestinian assailant who attacked him with a rock, while Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian demonstrators outside Ramallah, the military said. Elsewhere in the West Bank, Jewish settlers beat up a Palestinian bus driver, the mans family said, while Palestinian Authority forces violently broke up a demonstration by supporters of the rival Hamas movement. The unrest came a day after a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a West Bank bus stop, killing two soldiers before speeding away in a vehicle. Expand Close Israeli soldiers at the scene of the bus stop attack (Mahmoud Illean/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Israeli soldiers at the scene of the bus stop attack (Mahmoud Illean/AP) Israel responded by setting up checkpoints, closing roads and beefing up security in a broad manhunt for the assailant. Earlier in the week, another Palestinian gunman carried out a similar drive-by shooting outside a nearby settlement, wounding seven people, including a pregnant woman whose baby later died after being delivered prematurely. A Hamas official said 100 members of the group, including legislators and other senior figures, were arrested this week, including 70 arrested overnight and throughout the day on Friday. The Israeli military confirmed the overnight arrests. As Israel was burying the soldiers killed in Thursdays shooting, another soldier was severely wounded near a West Bank settlement after a Palestinian struck him on the head with a rock, knocking him unconscious, the military said. The army said it appeared the soldier was also stabbed, and Israeli forces were searching for the suspect. Expand Close A Palestinian protester faces Israeli troops near Ramallah (Mahmoud Illean/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A Palestinian protester faces Israeli troops near Ramallah (Mahmoud Illean/AP) Elsewhere in the West Bank, a group of Israelis beat up a Palestinian bus driver, Nidal Sake, near a West Bank settlement late on Thursday, Israeli police said. Thaer Sake, the bus drivers brother, said a group of Jewish teenagers blocked the bus with their car and forced themselves on board, striking the driver several times before fleeing. He said his brother remained in hospital with severe bruises and a broken eye socket. Police said they were investigating and trying to find the perpetrators. On Friday afternoon, street clashes erupted between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces outside Ramallah, with protesters slinging rocks and Israeli soldiers responding with tear gas and stun grenades to break up the crowd. The Palestinian Healthy Ministry said two protesters were wounded by bullets, one critically. The tensions also spilled over into internal Palestinian fighting in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, where 50 activists waving Hamas flags in celebration of the militant groups 31st anniversary confronted Palestinian Authority forces and blocked traffic following noon prayers. An Associated Press cameraman saw Palestinian police harshly beat Hamas activists with clubs, injuring five and arresting 15. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass Fatah movement and Hamas are fierce rivals. Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Mr Abbass forces in 2007 after winning legislative elections the previous year, and attempts to reconcile have repeatedly failed. Fridays unrest capped a deadly week that claimed seven lives, including the Israeli baby, a 60-year-old Palestinian businessman and three Palestinian assailants, two of them members of Hamas. The latest shootings prompted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to boost troop levels in the West Bank, order detentions of Hamas activists and call for the demolition of the homes of assailants within 48 hours. Amid the manhunt, Israeli forces encircled Ramallah, the Palestinians usually quiet centre of government and commerce. To prevent what it called copycat attacks, the army set up checkpoints, searched cars and blocked roads in an unusual show of force that reflected the severity with which Israel views the shootings. Our guiding principle is that whoever attacks us and whoever tries to attack us will pay with his life, Mr Netanyahu said on Thursday. Mr Abbas, meanwhile, accused Israel of creating a climate of violence by conducting frequent military raids in Palestinian cities. He also accused Israel of incitement against him. 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 Sandy Hook Elementary School has been evacuated after a bomb threat on the sixth anniversary of the massacre that killed 20 first-graders and six educators. Police in Newtown, Connecticut, said the threat was made at about 9am on Friday and pupils were sent home for the day. Lieutenant Aaron Bahamonde said there is a heightened level of anxiety in the town on the anniversary and the school superintendent decided to cancel remaining classes. It is unclear whether the alert was related to bomb threats made nationwide on Thursday. Sandy Hook Elementary School was evacuated this morning while a threat is being investigated by our police dept. Please stand with our community as we attempt to survive another tragic anniversary. #EndGunViolence #SandyHookStrong pic.twitter.com/qNsXADnoPr Newtown Action Alliance (@NewtownAction) December 14, 2018 The school where the shooting happened on December 14 2012 was knocked down and a new building was constructed on the same site. Moments of silence were observed in Newtown and other places on Friday morning in memory of the victims. Authorities said the threat specifically referenced the anniversary, but police did not believe it was credible. A 20-year-old gunman shot his way into the school in 2012 and killed the 26 victims before fatally shooting himself. The heartache we feel for those who lives were taken all too soon will never leave, and our sympathy for each and every family member who lost a loved one will forever remain. (2/7) Governor Dan Malloy (Archived) (@GovMalloyOffice) December 14, 2018 Connecticut governor Dannel P Malloy had ordered all state and US flags in the state to remain at half-mast, where they have been in honour of the late president George HW Bush. The unthinkable tragedy that occurred on this day will forever have an impact not only here in Connecticut, but throughout the entire nation, Mr Malloy said in a statement. I think about these innocent, young children and generous, kindhearted educators every single day. I will always keep them in my prayers. British solo sailor Susie Goodall is received by her mother after arriving on the cargo ship MV Tian Fu in Punta Arenas, Chile (Joel Estay/AP) Sailor Susie Goodall is back on dry land after being rescued by a cargo ship in the southern Pacific Ocean where her boat capsized during a solo round-the-world race. The Briton arrived at the Chilean southern city of Punta Arenas, where she was met by her mother and brother. The family smiled and hugged before they joined her in an ambulance for a medical checkup in the port city, which is located about 1,200 miles from Santiago. Expand Close Solo sailor Susie Goodall disembarks (Joel Estay/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Solo sailor Susie Goodall disembarks (Joel Estay/AP) Ms Goodall declined to speak to journalists. The 29-year-old was the youngest entrant and the only woman in the Golden Globe competition that began July 1 in Les Sables-dOlonne, France. A violent storm ripped off her mast and flung her yacht end over end on December 5. Race officials were in regular radio contact with Ms Goodall, who was 2,000 miles west of Cape Horn near the southern tip of South America when the storm occurred. She was rescued two days later by the Tian Fu, a cargo vessel from China. One by one, a generation of terrorists who plagued Northern Ireland through the Troubles is growing older, dying off. The latest name whose death stirs dark memories of those days is Joseph Haughey, who was charged with the 1984 murder of 22-year-old school teacher Mary Travers and the attempted murder of her father, magistrate Tom Travers. Haughey's death, at the age of 66, was announced on Wednesday night. It's a private time for his family, but he chose to be a public figure, too, and his reappearance in the headlines is bound to prompt new reflections on what men such as him did with their allotted time on earth. Particularly noteworthy is the contrast between Joseph Haughey and others of his generation. At 70, Gerry Adams is roughly the same age as his fellow republican. It's beings such as Haughey who gave beings such as Adams their power and the former Sinn Fein leader has done very nicely out of it indeed. He spent Wednesday plugging his new cook book on RTE radio in Dublin and posing for pictures with the host of Irish TV's celebrated Late, Late Show. Yesterday, he was in Drogheda, signing copies for fans. As George Orwell noted in Animal Farm, all are born equal, but some are more equal than others. As old republicans either die, or attempt to whitewash the past with their own celebrity, remembering becomes all the more important. The past cannot be changed. The best hope is that it is chronicled accurately. With each death, the deeds of that generation recede into misty legend, liable to be romanticised. The edges blur away, leaving only a vague outline of something awful, but long ago. Except it wasn't that long ago for those who still suffer the effects and it was far more awful than the most vivid description could ever convey. We mustn't allow sentimentality - or that oldest Irish hypocrisy of all, not speaking ill of the dead - to prevent us from talking plainly. Joseph Haughey was known as "The Hawk", a nickname which he presumably did not acquire due to his tender-heartedness. Nicknames matter. They're either imposed on the bearer, whether they like it or not, or fondly adopted. Like serial killers, terrorists tend to take on names that celebrate their malice - "Mad Dog", "The Jackal", "The Dark", "King Rat". "The Hawk" was another of those self-glorifying predators. He was also named in 2004 as a possible informer, who'd been passing on information to British Intelligence since the 1970s. One of the many in republican ranks, it would now appear. The Provos were said to have known his secret for some time. For such men, brutality may have been the perfect mask behind which to hide evidence of their double-dealing. What better cover for a paid informer than dealing out a perverted form of revenge to other so called "touts"? Haughey was even said to have his own catchphrase: "I'm the Hawk from the Walk and I don't squawk." (He hailed from Unity Walk in north Belfast). The finger of public suspicion was finally pointed at him just weeks after the unveiling of Freddie Scappaticci, aka "Stakeknife", who has himself been back in the news lately, thanks to his appearance in a London magistrates court on charges of accessing extreme pornography. Both men were from similar backgrounds, of similar vintage (Scappaticci is 72, another of the Four Score Years And Ten Club). Both are said to have worked alongside one another in the IRA's internal security unit. The full extent of what he did in the IRA's name has now gone with Haughey to the grave, but enough of his other deeds are catalogued to paint a dreadful picture. All killings during that period were monstrous, but some stand out in retrospect. The murder of Mary Travers was one such crime. A young woman coming home from Mass was gunned down, dying in her mother's arms. Haughey was acquitted of the murder; informers often are; but now that he is dead, there is no need for such legalistic tiptoeing. Joseph Haughey was guilty of many foul acts and there is little reason to pretend any more that the murder of Mary Travers was not one of them. He was in his early-30s at the time, already Mary's senior. He went on to outlive her by another three decades. Morally speaking, it's difficult to reduce any person to black-and-white terms, adding and subtracting the human cost of their actions as if lives could be counted like coins of the realm. No doubt he was kind to cats and small children and his family will miss him. That is their private business. Ours is to look at men such as Joseph Haughey with a cold, clear eye and tell it like it was, before they're reduced to footnotes of history. Those who would excuse, or diminish, what was done in the name of Irish republicanism cannot be allowed to have the last word, though it's clear that this is now their most fervent wish, overshadowing any political aims they may have harboured in the past. Gerry Adams himself wrote a sickly post at the weekend on his blog, Leargas, which described a meet-up of five old Belfast "comrades" somewhere in the Mediterranean to have a "wee drink" and a "ramble" and reminisce about the old days. Adams gave them sly nicknames, too, for those in the know: the Very Fine Baritone, the Gentle Pescatarian. One imagines that these individuals were known by less-whimsical names in the past. Together, the five amigos are warmly sketched as they spend time enjoying "the banter, the slagging, the comraderie (sic)", like any other group of fast friends. "Chatting. Laughing. Complaining. Giggling. Singing ... the craic was ninety." With a mawkishness typical of hard men everywhere, Adams even titled it The Last Of The Summer Wine after the BBC sitcom about a group of old codgers staving off inevitable mortality with mischief. It's not hard to see what spiders' webs of revisionist fantasy are being constructed here. They mustn't be allowed to stand without challenge. Campaigner Ann Travers, who has never allowed the memory of her sister, Mary, to fade from public consciousness, tweeted her own dignified response to Joseph Haughey's death this week. "My thoughts are of my gorgeous father, my beautiful sister and mother, and of course all of his victims. Violence achieves nothing. It destroys all lives," she wrote on Twitter, adding the hashtag #NeverAgain. These are the epitaphs we need. They are constructed from simple truth. Everything else is just public relations. In association with Lidl we offer up ten sure-fire ways to free up some time in the kitchen this Christmas so you can play a part in your own private party... Even the most selfless hosts can often resent the amount of time they spend preparing and cooking on Christmas day but with these culinary cues you can be sure to win back some hard-earned minutes to revel in the festivities. 1) Saucy tip to remember Expand Close Rustic 'get-ahead' gravy Getty Images/iStockphoto / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rustic 'get-ahead' gravy Jamie Olivers get ahead gravy is the stuff of time-saving dreams. The master chef suggests brewing yours up days or even weeks ahead of Christmas day and freezing. When your turkey is cooked he advises kitchen wizards to pour their (now defrosted) recipe into the turkey tray and heat until piping hot! 2) Fail to prepare, prepare to fail Expand Close Brussels Sprouts hot off the stove Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brussels Sprouts hot off the stove We love the idea of waking up to ready-to-cook veg and so does Savoy Grill chef Marcus Wareing. Hes an advocate of veg prepping on Christmas eve. Cut your parsnips at the top and tail and slice down the middle, then bag and refrigerate until Christmas day. He also suggests parboiling sprouts for two-minutes the night before and immediately pouring into icy water before bagging and chucking into the fridge. Then its a case of reheating in the microwave or pan (with a nob of butter) the next day. 3) Lifted and laid Expand Close Rope the family in to help lay the table Getty Images/iStockphoto / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rope the family in to help lay the table Thats exactly how youll serve your family on Christmas day so rope them in the night before to lay and decorate the dining table before bedtime. Itll take the stress out of last minute organisation as the guests arrive at the front door! 4) Stuff it Expand Close Homemade Thanksgiving Stuffing Made with Bread and Herbs Getty Images/iStockphoto / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Homemade Thanksgiving Stuffing Made with Bread and Herbs Who knew stuffing holds its own in the freezer? Mary Berry does and if the Queen of cakes is on to it then so are we. The Great British Bakeoff judges chestnut stuffing can be cooled and frozen after cooking. Just take it out the night before and crisp in the oven ahead of the main meal. 5) Less is More The minds behind River Cottage advise concentrating on your favourite Christmas components and sticking with them. Dont be tempted by last-minute delicacies sold to you on festive cooking programmes one week ahead of your bash. Know what youre good at, commit and do it well! 6) Delegate like a boss Expand Close Don't forget to make a toast Getty Images/iStockphoto / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Don't forget to make a toast They say the best leaders know how to delegate and thats exactly what you need to do to spend your cooking time wisely! While your turning up the heat in the kitchen nominate another member of the family to look after drinks. Have the glasses, cocktail equipment and garnishes ready to go the night before. 7) Accept help graciously When a guest offers to bring a dessert, or a starter, take it. Accepting offers by no means undervalues your position as host with most. You will always be the kingpin of the main event even if you do opt for a supermarket cheat! 8) Get the bird bang on Expand Close Roasted Turnkey fresh out of the oven. There is a little meat thermometer in the bird that reads 180, it's ready! Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Roasted Turnkey fresh out of the oven. There is a little meat thermometer in the bird that reads 180, it's ready! Many top chefs agree that a thermometer is the greatest device (as well as a clock and perfect timing) to avoid ruining your gastronomic centrepiece. The night before cover your bird with salt, pop in a bag and put into the fridge. Make sure you take your turkey out of the fridge around 2-4 hours before cooking to allow it to rest. Once cooked, take from the oven, wrap in a butter-soaked cooks muslin for an hour before serving. This will also free up some oven space for other dishes. And if youre really worried about getting the bird right, a turkey crown will ease your load. 9) Spuds youll like Expand Close Roast Potatoes - White potatoes roasted with garlic in goose fat in a white bowl. Getty Images/iStockphoto / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Roast Potatoes - White potatoes roasted with garlic in goose fat in a white bowl. Peel and chop potatoes the night before if you prefer to cook your roasties on Christmas day. Ensure theyre put in a container of water to prevent browning. But if you really want to cut back on time you can part-roast until just about golden and finish them the next day. The safest shortcut is to parboil the spuds for five minutes the night before and shake in a colander to fluff before bagging and refrigerating for the main roasting event the next day! 10) Roast and toast Expand Close Time-saving tips, remember less is more Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Time-saving tips, remember less is more Sometimes a refreshing gin or Champagne might just be the ticket to turning down the heat in a stress-filled kitchen. Stick on the tunes and sip away while whipping up your festive feast. Visit https://www.lidl-ni.co.uk/en/christmas.htm for more inspiration for your holiday season. Indonesias Constitutional Court on Thursday ordered lawmakers to increase the minimum marriageable age for girls, in a ruling that could pave the way for ending rampant child weddings in the country. The court gave the legislature and government three years to revise a 1974 marriage law that sets a minimum age for girls to be wed, according to the courts ruling read out by Chief Justice Anwar Usman. The court ruled on a petition filed by three former child brides, and said such marriages could deny children rights to health and education. Every year, one in seven Indonesian girls gets married before age 18, according to the U.N. Childrens Fund (UNICEF). The petition was filed by former child brides Endang Wasrinah, Maryanti and Rasminah who argued the marriages were a form of discrimination and child exploitation. Endang welcomed the ruling, but told reporters that the law should be revised sooner rather than later. I dont want any other woman to experience what I did. I should have gone to school, been pampered by my parents and instead I became a parent and had to take care of children, said the 40-year-old who was married at 14. Under the 1974 law, a girl can get married if she is 16 or older, though parents can apply for an exemption to a religious court for younger girls, while males must wait until they are 19 before they can marry. In its ruling, the court did not recommend a minimum age for marriage. Lia Angie, a child rights activist with the Indonesian Womens Coalition (KPI) who accompanied the plaintiffs, questioned why three years was needed to revise the law. During that period many more girls will be married off, she told BenarNews. Lia urged the parliament to revise the law immediately and set the same age for women and men. They dont have to wait for three years if it can be done in less than one year, she said. The same court rejected a similar petition in 2015, arguing that Islam and other religions did not set a minimum age for marriage and that puberty usually was an indication that girls were ready to wed. It determined that if a minimum age were set, there would be no allowances for future revisions. On Thursday, Judge Anwar said the law was not in harmony with a protection law defining a child as any person 18 or younger. Another member of the bench, Judge I Dewa Gede Palguna, said such marriages often meant that girls could not complete the compulsory 12 years of school. Married women have difficulty accessing education, he said. In Indonesia, 1.4 million women between the ages of 20 and 24 were married before the age of 18, according UNICEFs 2016 State of the Worlds Children report. UNICEF said that while education and economic progress should have reduced the prevalence of child marriage in Indonesia, the number of child brides held steady between 2008 and 2015. Many girls are married off by their parents because of poverty and a lack of access to education. Lia, the child rights advocate, also called on President Joko Jokowi Widodo to issue a regulation in lieu of law on ending child marriages. Meanwhile, Nasir Djamil, a member of the House of Representatives, welcomed the courts decision. Of course, we will respond immediately because this is an urgent matter. We dont have to wait for three years, he told BenarNews. Another legislator, Arsul Sani, said the debate on revisions to the marriage law was likely to be on next years agenda. I personally will fight for it to be included in the national legislation program, he told BenarNews. - Indian Motos is TVS distributor in Peru - The companies have been associated for six years - They have also inaugurated a new 3S dealership in Lima TVS launched a line-up of three motorcycles in Peru. In partnership with Indian Motos, its local distributor in the country, the company introduced its flagship motorcycle, the TVS Apache RR310, Apache RTR 160 4V and the Ntorq 125. TVS has been in partnership with Indian Motos for the last six years. The latter handles distribution and marketing for TVS in Peru and the brands together have been growing in the country, especially in the three-wheeler segment. Notably, TVS has 170 sales points across Peru and it has now opened a new, state-of-the-art showroom in the capital city, Lima. This showroom will be a 3S facility which will take care of the sales, service and spare parts retailing. The Apache RTR 160 4V is the companys premium commuter that looks similar to its elder sibling, the RTR 200 4V. Meanwhile, the Apache RR310 is a sportsbike which is the top-of-the-line product in the companys portfolio and has been received well by the audience. TVS recently ventured into the 125cc scooter segment with the Ntorq 125 which, due to its features and handling, has been immensely attracting the young chunk of buyers. On this exclusive, members-only event, Bill breaks down what you need to know about The Real Joe Biden. Who is he and how will he directly affect you and your family? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The two chambers of the Colombian Congress have dealt a hard blow to the Polisario Front and reaffirmedtheir full support for Moroccos legitimate position in the territorialconflict around its Sahara. The two chambers adopted a resolution unequivocally expressing their full support for Moroccos sovereignty and territorial integrity and for its autonomy plan for the Sahara. We reiterate our full support to the sustained efforts made by Morocco for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution to the regional dispute over the Sahara, says the resolution. It voices backing to the Moroccan autonomy plan offered for the Sahara region, a plan which has been described as serious, credible and realistic by the United Nations Security Council and by the international community. The Colombian MPs from across the spectrum denounced in their resolution the Polisario leaders for the serious violations of human rights and the inhumane treatment to which the populations sequestrated in the Tindouf camps are subjected. They voiced their deep concern about the persistence of the Polisarios serious violations of human rights, citing in this regard the restrictions imposed on the Sahrawis freedom of movement, expression and demonstration. Only a political solution to the Sahara issue, preserving Moroccos sovereignty and territorial integrity, can bring in peace and stability to the Maghreb and to the Sahel region, underline the Colombian MPs. The Colombian MPs, whodeplored the inhumane and deteriorating living conditions in the Tindouf camps,also stressed the need to conduct a census of the populations sequestered inthe Tindouf camps as stipulated by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2414 adopted on April 27th 2018, the 1951 Geneva Convention and theOffice of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Will the message be heeded in Tindouf? Thats another story! PR Newswire TORONTO, Dec. 13, 2018 Please note that the below is a corrected version of the news release previously disseminated December 13th at 5pm. Beleave Inc. has advised that changes were made to the third and fourth paragraphs. TORONTO, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Beleave Inc. (CSE: BE) (OTCQX: BLEVF) ("Beleave" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, following a detailed application and inspection process, it has received its Good Manufacturing Practices ("GMP") certification. HACCP/GMP certification is part of the quality assurance that ensures that cannabis is consistently produced and controlled in a specific way to meet the quality standards appropriate to its intended use. This certification solidifies the practices the Company has been perfecting in relation to product development and it demonstrates our commitment to food safety and hygiene. It affirms to our customers that we have control systems in place to assure safe food production and opens up new business opportunities around the world. It affects every facet of the business; growing, processing, packaging, and everything in between. This certification is only given to companies that exhibit a high standard of precision, consistency, and quality in their manufacturing practices and procedures. It is the highest level of recognition attainable by companies in the pharmaceutical space, and is the first major step for companies to supply the European market with medical cannabis. "Receiving our GMP certification is the result of many teams coming together to achieve a common goal. This was a group effort that validates the strategy and accomplishments we've worked on throughout the year," said Andrew Wnek, Beleave CEO. "Earlier this year, we announced a partnership with Canymed to expand into the German marketplace. We are looking forward to completing the next step, a GMP country audit, so we can move forward with that expansion, and potentially other highly-regulated jurisdictions. Everyone involved is very proud of this accomplishment, but we won't stop here. We will continue to look at areas where we can improve product quality and reproducibility." OPERATIONAL UPDATES "Even before I joined the team earlier this year, Beleave had committees that provided the Company with great insight and direction," said Mr. Keagan. "With the addition of the Corporate Governance Committee, we're broadening our commitment to provide transparency and clear communication for our shareholders and the community as a whole. I look forward to the productive work and collaboration that will come of these initiatives." ABOUT BELEAVE INC. Beleave is a vertically-integrated Canadian cannabis company headquartered in Oakville, Ontario, that operates streamlined facilities throughout Canada to cultivate high-quality cannabis flower, oil, and extracts with a projected funded capacity in excess of 150,000 kg per year. Fully-licensed to cultivate and sell medical and recreational cannabis, Beleave is leading the way through research partnerships with universities to bridge the gap between science and tradition and to develop pharma-grade extracts and derivatives. Beleave has developed new product lines, including cannabis-infused powder and sugar products, for 2019 as the recreational market is expected to allow for food and beverage-based cannabis products. Beleave is growing its storefront and online sales presence rapidly through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Beleave Kannabis Corp. and Seven Oaks, which are licensed for medicinal and recreational sales respectively. The company's first retail location is opening soon in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. Beleave has also developed a network of medical cannabis clinics in Ontario and Quebec under the Medi-Green banner. Through its majority ownership of Procannmed S.A.S., Beleave has access to 27 hectares of outdoor grow space and is fully licensed to cultivate, produce, extract and distribute medical cannabis in Colombia to capitalize on exports and the expanding Latin American market. In the first of a series of strategic initiatives to penetrate the European medical market, the Company has partnered with Canymed GmbH to supply the German market with medical cannabis. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law ("forward-looking statements"). The use of any of the words "plan", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur are intended to identify forward-looking information. These statements are only predictions. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the 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. Since forward-looking information addresses future events and conditions, by its very nature it involves inherent risks and uncertainties. This information speaks only as of the date of this news release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents, which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/correction---beleave-announces-gmp-certification-and-operational-updates-300765590.html SOURCE Beleave Inc. NORFOLK, Va. The U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort is scheduled to return to Naval Station Norfolk Dec. 18, after completing a deployment to South and Central America, Military Sealift Command announced in a Dec. 14 release. Returning to Norfolk signifies the conclusion of Comforts 11-week medical support mission to the region as part of U.S. Southern Commands Operation Enduring Promise initiative. Comforts embarked medical team worked with health and government partners in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Honduras, providing care both aboard the ship and at land-based medical sites, helping to relieve pressure on national medical systems caused partially by an increase in cross-border migrants. The deployment reflected the United States enduring promise of friendship, partnership and solidarity with the Americas. The ships crew included more than 465 U.S. and partner nation military doctors, nurses and corpsmen. In addition, about 90 medical and dental professional volunteers from nongovernmental organizations were aboard to support the medical assistance mission. The mission was supported by a team of civil service mariners who oversaw the ships operation and navigation. During the mission, Comfort visited Esmeraldas, Ecuador, Paita, Peru, Turbo, Colombia, Riohacha, Colombia, and Trujillo, Honduras. Health services provided during Comforts deployment included general surgery, ophthalmologic surgery, dermatology, medical evaluation and treatment, preventive medicine, dental screenings and treatment, optometry screenings, eyewear distribution, and general public health. Medical capabilities aboard the hospital ship include surgical and post-surgical rooms, a CAT-scan unit, four X-ray machines, a dental suite, an optometry lab, a physical therapy area, two oxygen-producing plants and a 5,000-unit blood bank. During the port visits, Comforts medical team treated over 26,000 patients and conducted approximately 600 surgeries to include cataracts, hernias, cleft palates and more. Additionally, Comfort hosted approximately 1,000 distinguished visitors and guests during 53 distinguished visitor and media days to include the president of Honduras and prime minister of Peru. Comforts Enduring Promise mission demonstrated U.S commitment to the Americas and is part of a continuum of support provided by U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). SOUTHCOM-sponsored civic assistance and humanitarian missions were conducted in close cooperation with partner nations in the region as well as with U.S. interagency partners at the U.S. Department of State and USAID. Similar missions include Continuing Promise, New Horizons, Beyond the Horizon, medical readiness training exercises and the Medical Civil Action Program. This mission marked the sixth time the hospital ship has provided medical assistance in the region. Since first deploying to the region on a similar mission more than a decade ago, the hospital ship has visited 18 nations in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. During those missions, military medical professionals worked with host nation and civilian partners to provide medical treatment to nearly 390,000 people, including more than 6,000 surgeries. Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION ARLINGTON, Va. A relatively small Marine Corps task force spent seven intense months operating across the vast expanse of Africa, focusing on the New Normal mission of ensuring there would be no repeat of the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. New Normal dominated. Thats why we were there, to support the State Departments missions, Col. Adam L. Chalkey, commander of the recently returned Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) Crisis Response-Africa 18-2, said Dec. 14. The task forces No. 1 operational priority, and what he considered would be the minimal mission success, Chalkey said, was we could not have another Benghazi, with a loss of American lives. Focusing on that mission, one of the SPMAGTFs five infantry platoons rotated on 24-hour alert status prepared to fly wherever needed to reinforce or evacuate a U.S. diplomatic facility that was threatened. That response force would have been augmented as required by additional personnel and transported by some of the units six MV-22 tiltrotor Ospreys, with aerial refueling and communications support by its three KC-130 tanker-transports. Asked if he was confident that they could have met their primary mission, Chalkey noted that there always is uncertainty and some places in Africa are more unstable than others. But, he said, Im confident were not going to have another flashpoint incident like Benghazi. He attributed that confidence to the fact that organizations that might think of attacking a U.S. installation know we are there, able to respond, which serves as a deterrent. And it was not just the SPMAGTF that could respond. The Marine unit was tied closely in with the U.S. European/Africa commands and the conventional and special operations forces under their authority, he said. But while part of his force was standing that fly-away alert, the rest were conducting a staggering array of cooperative security exercises across most of Western and Central Europe and the vast expanse of Africa, as far from its European operating bases as Madagascar, which is nearly twice the east-west distance across the United States. Those operations required a total of 3,077 flight hours, with no mishaps. And he had to maintain a balance between standing alert and doing unit training, Chalkey said. If all we did was standing alert, we would not be able to train and stay mission-ready, he said. They were able to maintain that balance through the security cooperative arrangements and access to allied training areas. As a result, the colonel said his units returned home better trained than when they deployed. Even though our mission was New Normal, we were operating out of Europe taking full advantage of Europe and our strategic partners, to keep his own force well trained and to help improve the combat capabilities of U.S. allies in Europe and Africa, Chalkey said at a Potomac Institute briefing. The unit, which averaged about 850 Marines and Sailors, rotated between out of Moron, Spain, and Sigonella, Italy, with most of its time at the latter facility on the island of Sicily. The efforts of and the relationships built with our host nations, Spain and Italy, gave us the opportunity to train, he said. And they also were conducting security cooperation missions across Africa, helping our partners mature their skills, to the point where they could export those skills to other African nations. That was in keeping with the intentions of Marine Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, commander of the U.S. Africa Command. A controversial recommendation to arm some teachers has generated most of the headlines. But in its 407-page preliminary report released yesterday, the state commission investigating the Parkland school shooting also suggests a number of other security changes that could have major implicationsincluding giving law-enforcement live, real-time access to all school camera systems in the nations sixth-largest school district. Read Educations Week Special Report, After Parkland Proponents say the move would help police respond to threats more quickly and effectively. Last February, when a gunman went on a shooting rampage that left 17 people dead and 17 injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Broward Schools officials did not provide such direct access to cameras, hampering efforts to locate the shooter and rescue victims, the commission wrote. And a spokeswoman for Broward Schools said the district is already working closely with the Broward Sheriffs Office to provide a live video feed from BCPS school cameras to the BSO during periods of an elevated threat level. But civil-liberties groups are already questioning the potential shift, saying it may be illegal and would almost certainly have far-reaching negative consequences, including infringing on students privacy rights. The ACLU of Florida will look into a possible legal challenge, said Michelle Morton, the groups juvenile justice coordinator. Policing would undoubtedly be very effective if police could watch us all the time, Morton said. But we dont live in a police state. Improving police response The 16-member Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission is led by Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualitieri. It also includes the fathers of two Parkland victims. The commission was formed to investigate what went wrong during the Parkland shooting on Feb. 14, as well as to make recommendations for improvement. The groups preliminary report, which is not yet final, details the convoluted chain of communications that occurred at Stoneman Douglas in the aftermath of a gunman opening fire inside a classroom building. During the law-enforcement response to the shooting, for example, an assistant principal and a security specialist were in the Stoneman Douglas camera room, watching surveillance footage. They broadcast what they saw to another assistant principal. That assistant principal then relayed the information to a sergeant, who in turn broadcast the information out to the deputies in the classroom building where the rampage occurred. Significant confusion resulted. In some cases, responding law enforcement officers believed they were getting live reports on the shooters real-time movements, when in fact the tape being described to them was on a 26-minute delay. The mix-up misled officers and deputies and adversely affected their decision-making and victim rescue efforts, the commission wrote. In response, their preliminary report suggests, the Broward County Public Schools should immediately provide law enforcement with live and real time access to all school camera systems. During the commissions public hearing Wednesday, Gualitieri said some Florida school districts already allow such access. We have access to every camera and every school in Pinellas County that we can dial up at any moment, he said. The advocacy group formed by the families of the Parkland massacres 17 victims supports the commissions call for the 271,000-student Broward school system to join their ranks. Stand with Parkland supports access for law enforcement to school cameras, said Tony Montalto, whose 14-year old daughter Gina was killed at Stoneman Douglas. We also feel they should have remote access if responding to a call for help. Legal concerns Federal law, though, could be a barrier. Its unclear whether long-term video surveillance violates the Fourth Amendments prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the senior counsel for the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Such a practice could also have a chilling effect on students First Amendment right to free expression, she said. In addition, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, prevents schools from sharing students educational records without parents consent. There is considerable uncertainty in the field as to the circumstances under which video recordings of students should be considered part of such records. There is also confusion as to the circumstances under which student information can be shared with law enforcement. The U.S. Department of Education recently issued guidance on the first point, saying that photos or videos are part of a students education record when they are directly related to a student and maintained by the school or someone acting on behalf of the school. Among the examples cited by the department in which videos would count as student records: surveillance footage showing students fighting in the hallway, that is then used to mete out discipline. But there is an exclusion to the law, the department noted, for records created and maintained by a law enforcement unit of an educational agency or institution for a law enforcement purpose. If a school resource officer, for example, creates and maintains school surveillance videos for law-enforcement purposes, then those videos are not considered education records, the department wrote. The short story is that independent access to surveillance video for law enforcement would not inherently violate FERPA, said Amelia Vance, the director of education privacy and the policy counsel at the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington think tank. But the details can get tricky. The downsides of surveillance And even if the commissions recommendation can be implemented without running afoul of FERPA, Vance said, it would likely prove extremely problematic. Schools could become more likely to hand relatively small matters over to the police, leading to more students (and especially more students of color) being referred to the criminal justice system. Law enforcement could also seek to use such surveillance footage for unrelated investigations of students behaviors outside of school. Immigration-enforcement could seek to access the footage to search for undocumented students. Levinson-Waldman of the Brennan Center shared those concerns, calling expanded law-enforcement access to school security cameras unequivocally a bad idea. Its natural for law enforcement agencies to push for tools that may help them do their jobs better, said Morton of the ACLU of Florida. But while the Parkland massacre and other school shootings are horrific tragedies, she said, they remain statistically rare, and it may not be wise to craft far-reaching policies that will shape the day-to-day lives of thousands of schools and millions of students based primarily on such incidents. The underlying question, Morton said, is whether any safety gains outweigh the consequences of even more expansive surveillance. Just because we have the technology to do this doesnt mean we should, Morton said. Photo: Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel speaks to commissioners during a meeting of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla. The commission was formed to investigate the shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. on February 14, 2018. --Josh Ritchie for Education Week See also: for the latest news on ed-tech policies, practices, and trends. This well-established Blog is worth visiting on a regular basis for a wealth of information of interest to Armenian nationals and to the Armenian Diaspora world-wide. Although it has a particular role in promoting international recognition of the Genocide, the Blog encompasses much more and includes many articles of general appeal to all those concerned with Armenian affairs. Much of the content is difficult or impossible to find elsewhere and the long list of links provided gives easy access to a plethora of material on social, political, religious, educational and cultural matters, and many news items from around the world. OTTAWA - With a little over a week before Christmas, Canada Post says it is starting to catch up on parcel deliveries that have been delayed by rotating strikes over the past two months. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Canada Post logo is seen on the outside the company's Pacific Processing Centre, in Richmond, B.C., on Thursday June 1, 2017. With a little over a week before Christmas, Canada Post says it is starting to catch up on parcel deliveries that were delayed by rotating strikes over the past two months.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck OTTAWA - With a little over a week before Christmas, Canada Post says it is starting to catch up on parcel deliveries that have been delayed by rotating strikes over the past two months. The Crown corporation says that's largely because it is taking in fewer holiday parcels than expected. At the same time, however, the agency says it cannot restore its delivery guarantees because backlogs remain sporadic across the country. Canada Post says volumes of international deliveries are also significantly less than expected, allowing postal workers to make some progress in reducing backlogs of packages from foreign locations. The corporation requested in mid-November that its international partners stop sending packages to Canada while work stoppages were held in cities across the country. Those international carriers resumed shipments Nov. 27 after the federal government passed back-to-work legislation, forcing an end to the rotating walkouts. "The international volumes now entering the country are significantly less than expected," Canada Post said in a statement. "Processing lower incoming volumes, combined with the time lag for items to arrive in Canada, has helped us make some progress this week." Letter mail deliveries, meanwhile, are "current," the corporation said, meaning that Christmas cards and other mail are expected to be delivered under normal timeframes. Canada Post said its employees are being offered voluntary overtime. As well, the agency said it has hired nearly 4,000 additional seasonal employees and bolstered its delivery fleet with almost 2,000 additional vehicles. The federal government appointed mediator Elizabeth MacPherson earlier this week to try to negotiate contract settlements between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents about 50,000 postal employees. The two sides sat down to their first meeting with MacPherson on Wednesday. She has until Monday to bring both sides to a deal, although that deadline can be extended by another week. If no agreements are reached, the former chair of the Canada Industrial Relations Board also has been given authority to begin a binding arbitration process in January. OTTAWA - Tourism Minister Melanie Joly won't go to China to mark the end of a special year of tourism exchanges, she announced Friday, as relations between the two countries continued to plummet. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie Melanie Joly rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on November 26, 2018. Tourism Minister Melanie Joly's office says Canada and China have mutually agreed to postpone a closing ceremony next week to mark a year of tourism between the two countries. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang OTTAWA - Tourism Minister Melanie Joly won't go to China to mark the end of a special year of tourism exchanges, she announced Friday, as relations between the two countries continued to plummet. The decision puts the brakes on a major Sino-Canadian initiative meant to deepen ties between the countries. Joly spokesman Jeremy Ghio said the two countries "mutually agreed to postpone" a ceremony marking the end of the Canada-China Year of Tourism to "allow us to better achieve our shared objectives." The cancellation follows Canada's arrest at the U.S.'s behest of a leading Chinese telecom executive and Beijing's apparent retaliation by detaining two Canadians. Michael Kovrig (left) and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians detained in China, are shown in these 2018 images taken from video. Canadian diplomats have been granted consular access to one of two Canadians detained in China. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP Since coming to power in 2015, the Liberals' work to broaden Canada's economic relationship with China has featured regular ministerial visits and yearly meetings between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. On a trip to Beijing a year ago, Trudeau announced that 2018 would be the year of Canada-China tourism meant to tap the economic potential of upwardly mobile Chinese travellers. Joly was in China in April when she was still heritage minister, bringing with her representatives from 60 different cultural organizations hoping to break into the Chinese market. Last month, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and International Trade Minister Jim Carr were in Beijing for meetings with their counterparts. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna recently completed a trip to China to forge links on climate change and fostering clean energy. Speaking from an international climate-change gathering in Poland, McKenna said she is still able to work with her Chinese counterpart, noting Canada has to work with China if it wants to ensure countries meet global greenhouse-gas reduction targets. "I certainly acknowledge that there are challenges at home, but in this context, my focus is on working with all countries to come up with solutions," she said on a conference call with reporters. Canada-China co-operation appears to be in tatters following the Dec. 1 arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver. Canada is now the subject of scorn in China, across social media and in the country's state-run media. The Americans accuse Meng of committing bank fraud in connection with an alleged attempt to circumvent American sanctions against Iran. She was released this week on $10 million bail, but will face a Canadian court hearing to determine whether she will be extradited to the U.S. Beijing warned Ottawa of severe consequences unless Meng is released. The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa loudly protested Meng's arrest as a violation of her human rights. Then on Monday, China arrested two Canadian men former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor. Speaking in Washington, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Chinese officials have not drawn a connection between the arrests and Meng's case whenever they have spoken with Canadian officials. "From Canada's perspective, these kinds of issues ought never to be confused with one another," she said. 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. Termination of pregnancy services will be available in Ireland from January 1 - but it will be a limited service, Health Minister Simon Harris has admitted. The minister said it would take time for termination services to fully embed and be available in every hospital in the country. But it is an awful lot better than the reality today with women getting the boat or the plane, he said on RTE radio. The Health (Regulation of termination of Pregnancy) Bill completed its passage in the Senate last night. It is likely that the bill will be presented to President Michael D Higgins to be signed into law in the coming days. Once the bill passes into law Mr Harris will authorise the HSE to start a public information campaign. A 24/7 helpline operated by counsellors and nurses will go live on January 1 and that will be able to provide women with information on all their options. Mr Harris said hundreds of doctors have already signed up to provide a termination service from January 1. He also stressed that doctors would not need access to an ultrasound for every women requesting a termination. Mr Harris said any doctor deciding "in his or her reasonable opinion, formed in good faith", that a pregnancy has not exceeded 12 weeks would not be breaking the law. He said the HSE had ensured that ultrasounds would be available through a private contractor and funding had been provided for additional sessions in maternity hospitals. So our GPs will have direct access to ultrasounds for the women that need them but I do expect that to be a small minority and not the norm. He also understood that draft clinical guidelines will be circulated over the next couple of days. Even tomorrow doctors are gathering in Dublin to receive more training and education in relation to this. Executive director of Amnesty International Ireland Colm O'Gorman said they had serious concerns that barriers to women accessing timely care remained. Mr O'Gorman said a potentially high and ambiguous threshold was created by permitting terminations where there was the risk of serious harm" to the health of a woman. There was no provision for terminations where there were severe rather than fatal foetal impairments. Other barriers included mandatory waiting periods and the continued criminalisation of health professionals. Mr O'Gorman wants the minister to commit to making further legislative adjustments if barriers to access emerge. Meanwhile, Tony McLoughlin, a Fine Gael TD who voted No in the abortion referendum last May, said he was "sad and disappointed" that his office was defaced overnight with anti-abortion slogans. Written on the front of the office were the words Fine Gael Baby Killer, Herod's Killer and scumbags. In the Christian gospel, King Herod ordered all male infants two years old and under in Bethlehem to be killed when Jesus was born. I was so disappointed to see this morning (Friday) that my busy constituency office in Sligo has been vandalised and defaced overnight, said Mr McLoughlin. We live in a proud democracy and despite anyone's opinion on any referendum, this behaviour can never be condoned. There are few sights more comforting to a weary traveller than boarding a flight to find the seat next to them empty. And while it can't be guaranteed, a search of data collected by the federal department of infrastructure reveals the flights where travellers are most likely to be able to stretch out. Qatar's flights between Canberra and Sydney appear to be the emptiest in the country. Credit:Karleen Minney Qatar Airways' daily flight from Canberra to Sydney, en route to Doha, is the emptiest flight in Australia, with only 15 per cent of seats filled in September, the figures from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics show. That means only about 50 people boarded the 358-seat Boeing 777 in Canberra for the 50-minute hop to Sydney. More than 10,000 dangerous toys and childrens products have been pulled from shelves ahead of Christmas. Projectiles, portable pools, yo-yos and cots were among the items seized by Consumer Affairs Victoria as part of a blitz on 400 businesses. Yo-yos were among the toys seized in the pre-Christmas toy blitz. Credit:Shutterstock Kidsafe Victoria president Erica Edmands has urged shoppers to be thoughtful when buying toys. Toys play an important role in helping children to learn and develop, Ms Edmands said. Its important to always consider the safety and age-appropriateness of toys when purchasing them for children. Broward County is home to one of the most advanced STD clinics in the U.S., according to at least one prominent public health advocate. Broward has the newest and most advanced testing and treatment program in the United States, said Jeffrey D. Klausner, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA. Thats a breakthrough in terms of sexual health services. There is no reason, other than funding, that this couldnt be replicated in urban areas around the United States. A recent report from the Centers of for Disease control showed in 2017, about 2.3 million cases of STDs were diagnosed. It marks the highest number ever reported, by more than 200,000 (the record previously set in 2016). The Broward Wellness Center opened in 2013 to much fanfare after the The Florida Department of Health in Broward County handed over their STD clinical services to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Last year the clinic opened a larger location at 750 SE 3rd Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. We encourage our community to make HIV and STD testing a part of regular medical checkups. The Broward Wellness Center [] will provide even greater access to sexual health services on a walk in basis at no cost, Dr. Paula Thaqi, Director, Florida Department of Health in Broward County, said in a press release when the new location opened last year. In order to make the facility a reality, AHF had to close down some of their other locations and consolidate their resources into the Wellness Center. By doing so they were able to increase the availability of services by 36 hours a week. On its first day open they saw 68 patients. It was very overwhelming and we had to change our staff plan almost immediately, said Mike McKany, National Director of Public Health Division for AHF. AHF has attempted to replicate this model elsewhere, but McKany said other places in the nation arent ready for this type of model - or say theyre not interested. This is really a revolutionary idea, he said. This is completely different and out of the box from anybody else. Since opening in 2013 the center has provided services to more than 100,000 patients. The center currently serves about 175 patients a day. Before 2013 AHF was able to serve only about 50 a day. Some of the services offered at the clinic include Chlamydia screening and treatment; Gonorrhea screening and treatment; Syphilis screening and treatment; and free HIV testing and linkage to HIV primary care all of which are free. The Wellness Center is also able to process patients gonorrhea and chlamydia tests onsite within 90 minutes. Most medical offices have to send their the tests to outsides labs to get the results, which can take four to five days. From what Ive heard were the only place doing this in the U.S., he said. Its pretty amazing. Once the results are in, the patient is notified via email or text, and they can check an app where all of their lab work is listed. You can get tested in the morningcoming back in the evening to get treated, McKany said. The speed is unheard of. Another advantage of the rapid results is reducing the overuse of antibiotics in treating STDs. Oftentimes if a patient was exposed to an STD, or exhibited the classical symptoms of one, a doctor would treat them right away, without knowing the results of the test. Thats called empirical treatment, McKany said. If someone is experiencing symptoms of gonorrhea [a doctor] might decide to treat them rather than wait. But many other things can mimic gonorrhea and chlamydia. Additionally the Florida Dept. of Health Broward provides three Disease Intervention Specialists who work closely with the staff at the Wellness Center to ensure patients receive high quality care. McKany explained that these people are able to access to the records from the states health department so theyre able to have a fuller picture of a persons health history. It enables us to put together the pieces of a puzzle, McKany said. Imara Canady, AHFs National Director of Communications & Community, added: This is core to AHFs mission to provide really cutting edge medical care. But its not just the medical care thats comprehensive the design of the center is also innovative and inviting. There are oversized labs, natural light, a large waiting room, McKany said. Its really different. But Canady added to this when asked what makes the Broward Wellness Center so unique. AHF is the only non-profit agency in the area that is providing this type of service to the community. These are cutting edge things having a positive impact on the population we are serving, Canady said. This [Wellness Center] is an example of a public-public partnership. We are a non-profit agency working in collaboration with the government. Were client focused and not looking to make a profit. This is a fourth part of a series of reportsSFGN will publish on the rising STD rates in the U.S. When Neelam arrived in Australia from Nepal in 2013, she says she worked for just $14 an hour, cash-in-hand as a cleaner in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood. Legally only allowed to work 40-hours a fortnight on a student visa, she says many international students dont report underpayment because they feared losing their visa, and dont know who they could reach out to for help. Neelam says she was paid $14 per hour cash in hand to work as a cleaner in 2014. "I was too scared to advocate about this issue because it is impossible to pay our bills and college fees if we do not work more than 20 hours a week," she said. A future Labor government would stop information about international students who report underpayment of wages from being shared between the Fair Work Ombudsman and Department of Home Affairs under a resolution to its national party conference. Girls' schools have excelled in this year's HSC results, accounting for almost half of the top 50 and generating a far higher student success rate than their all-boy or co-ed counterparts. Public girls' schools had a particularly good year, wildly out-performing their brother schools. This comes as parents in the eastern suburbs and inner west campaign against public single-sex schools, saying they would prefer co-ed high schools for their children rather than the existing single-sex ones. Phoebe Coles, who got an ATAR of 99.65, loved her time at Pymble Ladies' College. Credit:Jessica Hromas Of the 50 top schools in NSW, 23 were single-sex girls' schools, including five public schools. There were 10 boys' schools and 17 co-ed. And there were almost twice as many girls' as boys' schools in the top 150. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Theyre trying to censor the Christmas song Fairytale of New York. A series of tweets by Irish DJ Eoghan McDermott has gone global on social media, pointing out the homophobic offence given by the lyric, You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot. Ed Power of The Independent escalated McDermotts concerns. It was time, he wrote, to quietly relocate Fairytale of New York to that dark room reserved for things that were once acceptable but no longer are. Christmas classic ... Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan. The Pogues classic has entered the UK Top 20 since its release in 1987 14 times. It registers as the most played Christmas song of the 21st century. Youd have thought someone might have got offended sooner. It features Shane MacGowan and guest vocalist Kirsty MacColl as two Irish immigrants adrift in the Big Apple, bickering over their spent love while they recall youthful dreams that never quite died. When it begins on Christmas Eve, MacGowans character is in the drunk tank. Later we get an image of MacColl on a drip, and MacGowans savage description of her as an old slut on junk. A major climate summit of more than 190 nations was set to run overtime as delegates struggled to narrow gaps on guidelines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and raise aid for developing nations. Observers at the COP24 talks in the Polish city of Katowice said talks would likely extend past the 5am Saturday deadline (AEDT). Delegates to the UN's COP24 climate summit in Katowice, Poland. Credit:AP "It's not a treaty-type outcome, and some items can be pushed into [the next meeting in] 2019," said Richie Merzian, of The Australia Institute. "There's no need to kill themselves this time around." The Polish talks aim to agree on a so-called rulebook to increase transparency of national emissions-reduction pledges made at the Paris COP21 in 2015. Countries agreed then to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees. Students and staff at a number of Canberra schools were evacuated on Friday morning after receiving bomb threats. Police said the threats came via email but were believed to be linked to an overseas Bitcoin scam, after similar emails were circulated in other states and countries. As a precaution, ACT Policing said it was treating the threat seriously. Lyneham High, Hawker Primary School, Malkara School, Lyons & Narrabundah Early Childhood School and Charnwood-Dunlop School were all evacuated, but the education directorate said they had returned to schoolas of 12:30pm. "ACT Policing investigated all schools this morning and they have all returned to normal operations," a directorate spokeswoman said. The ashes of another baby may have gone missing at Norwood Park Crematorium, in similar circumstances to those of Timothy Mol, who died in 1978. Claire Falvey was stillborn in the same year, and her family had her ashes interred in a niche in a memorial wall at Norwood Park. In the 1990s, the ashes were moved with several others into the new Childrens Court Wall, but as the Falveys had changed address, they were never informed of the move. Eddy Mol, with a plaque he made for his baby, is concerned that the ashes of his baby son, who died in the 1970s, are missing from the Norwood Park memorial gardens. Credit:Elesa Kurtz When Claire's mother went to visit her daughter's plaque, she couldn't find it, and staff didn't show her where it was. With high narcissism already always in the everyday news (for chronic, incurable narcissism is routinely given as the explanation for everything Donald Trump says and does) suddenly there is another, related mention of narcissism in the news. A newsworthy new scholarly research paper, My way or the highway: High narcissism and low self-esteem predict decreased support for democracy, has just shimmered into print in the British Journal of Social Psychology. Narcissistically, seeing it mentioned in the popular press I have been quick to purchase and read the whole paper. As someone with a healthy number of tickets on himself (and with lots of tickets on dear democracy) I needed to see if the research findings tell ME anything about ME, about MY feelings about democracy. Trump and his doting deplorables lurk everywhere between the lines during the study. Credit:Bloomberg And, funnily enough, it turns out that the findings may perhaps help us not only to make some sense of our own times but also to make some sense of the anti-democratic weirdness of the Canberra of the 1970s and 1980s. But more of that in a moment. This years Smart Ride raised the most amount of money in its 15-year history with a record breaking $1.171 million. This years event crossed another milestone as well topping $10 million in total money raised since the first ride took place in 2003. Its just amazing that weve raised over $10.5 million and given back 100 percent of that money, said Glen Weinzimer, founder of the ride. The Smart Ride, an annual two-day 165-mile bicycle ride from Miami to Key West, raises awareness and money for HIV-related non-profits. This year the ride celebrated 15 years. This was Julie Seavers first year riding. I wanted to ride because I knew others couldnt. Ill admit I cried over a few of those bridges, and yes I did crash with bruises that are still healing, the Executive Director of Compass said. But thats just it, bruises and road rash heal. We are still healing from the stigma and fight against HIV/AIDS. I pedaled every single mile for friends and clients we have lost over the years, and they were truly with me the entire way. This year 416 riders took part with 280 crew members taking care of the logistics. Weinzimer said next years event is already off to a good start with 200 riders and crew members already signed up. Normally only about 100 have registered at this point. Thats already a third of our goal, he said. Hopefully we can spend more time on fundraising and training and less time on recruitment. Seaver is one of those that has already signed up for next year. There's that indescribable feeling when you finally get to Key West High School and everyone is waiting to cheer you in, waiting together, so we can ride to the closing ceremonies together, she said. The family we have built with the Smart Ride, other agencies, donors, crew and riders, and the overwhelming feeling of one team accomplishing something truly amazing together is why I signed up for next year. Next years Smart Ride will take place Nov. 15-16. Visit TheSmartRide.org for more information. Ms Agnoletto was disappointed that the proposed rebuilding of the union building block area would also take the theatre and cafe with it. "The Pizza Caffe was also so popular and busy, and the Schonell Theatre was Brisbanes art house and theatre before Dendy cinemas came along and began showing their own films," she said. Students and staff marching off campus for the 1970 Moratorium. Censorship protest at the Union Building in 1969. Students, staff and the public unite to protest UQ awarding Bjelke Petersen an honourary doctorate in 1985. "There wasn't anything in the campus where someone could eat and, with the theatre, we would have a movie and pizza deal for $25 back then. "Everyone from all over Brisbane used to come to the university for our pizza." Ms Agnoletto said the "Schonell Theatre family" would be heartbroken to see the theatre go. "Id hate to see the wrecking ball come in and knock it down. There's a lot of memories that have been made there and the Schonell has always been a lovely theatre," she said. "Its still being used even though theyve closed the cinema." A group of UQ staff and students are calling for the community to fight to keep the theatre as a historical building in the university. Alternatively, students are pushing to keep some form of a theatre at the university amid fears there may not be a replacement if the Schonell Theatre is destroyed. UQ Union president Georgia Millroy said community backlash stemmed from the master plan's lack of any replacement theatre. "As Schonell has a rich history of independent performance and student-led political and creative expression, UQU thinks it is vital that any new theatre continues to be operated by students for students, through UQU," she said. "UQU is appreciative that UQ has listened to the response from students and the community regarding the importance of the Schonell Theatre and keeping a creative space on campus." Ms Millroy said many students had chosen to study at UQ mainly because the university had its own student-run theatre. "Many law and arts students who use the space will be sad to see it go but if it has to go; we would like to preserve historical pieces from the Schonell Theatre to keep the memories alive," she said. "I think a lot of former UQ students have a soft spot for Schonell as it has been such a hub of activity since it was built." Many students would remember the 4ZZZ protests during the Joh era, watching a movie in the old theatre, or seeing a fantastic student-lead performance. "There is a significant group of current students who value Schonell due to what it represents," she said. "These include drama and performing arts students as well as those from the law and medicine faculty who utilise the theatre for the annual revue show." A UQ spokeswoman said the university was considering feedback as it continued to engage with students around their current and future requirements. "The university received 153 submissions during the 10-week public consultation period on its draft site development plan," she said. "Many of these submissions sought assurances that a performance space would continue to be provided on campus if plans for a new student hub proceeded. "The need for a new student hub was identified to meet the changing requirements of UQs students, and to provide them with world-leading education facilities so they can excel in the workplace of the future." The spokeswoman did not respond to questions on whether the university had plans to save the theatre or whether a replacement theatre would be created. An anti-corruption commission with proper powers could expose such conduct, Mr Ipp said. Loading The CIC plan also "negates the power of whistleblowers", Mr Ipp said, because only government agencies had the power to report alleged public sector corruption that must be investigated by the commission. "No whistleblower acting alone can make a report," Mr Ipp said. It meant a person working in an agency who wanted to reveal alleged misconduct in the ranks would have to ask the agency to report itself. "You can extend that from whistleblowers to the general public," Mr Ipp said. "A really good example is the Obeid case, where we started off with an anonymous phone tip-off." Mr Ipp said that under the Morrison government's plan there were at least "two complete barriers to the investigation of a report like that: one is that it doesn't come from an agency, and the other is that [the tip-off] ... alone does not create a 'reasonable suspicion' of a criminal offence". "You can't investigate unless the report to you is sufficient to establish a reasonable suspicion of a criminal offence," Mr Ipp said. "I don't think in all my time as ICAC commissioner did we ever get in one report enough evidence to create a reasonable suspicion of a criminal offence. You get a sense of something wrong and you investigate it: that's what the whole purpose of the commission is." Sydney barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, who was counsel assisting ICAC during the Obeid inquiries, said he did not believe any of the inquiries on which he had worked could have been initiated under the Morrison government's CIC model. Former ICAC counsel assisting, Geoffrey Watson SC. Credit:Rob Homer "The net effect of that is a large array of criminal matters will never be exposed," Mr Watson said. "Without commencing an investigation you can't know whether there is anything to the allegation. It's obviously circular and self-defeating." Without the broad powers given to ICAC to investigate and expose corruption, "Eddie Obeid might still be wielding power in Macquarie Street", Mr Watson said. Mr Ipp said public hearings were also "terribly important" in exposing corruption. Loading "The Obeid report was over 150 pages with very many findings. No ordinary member of the public would read that report; very few lawyers would read it," he said. "We depended on the media to report on a daily basis what was happening." Mr Ipp said applying the same strict rules of evidence to the CIC as apply in courts defeated the purpose of having an anti-corruption commission and was "another method of ensuring that it just doesn't have the teeth to do its job". "What do you need a commission for? You've got the police and you've got the courts," Mr Ipp said. "This isn't a trial. It's an investigation. It's like saying the police have to apply the rules of evidence when they're investigating a murder. That's absolutely absurd." A former Victorian police officer and a Queensland judge will lead the highly anticipated royal commission into the Informer 3838 scandal, where a defence barrister was used as a police informant. Malcolm Hyde, who left the state's police force 30 years ago and was South Australia's police commissioner until 2012, has been appointed as the commissioner. While Margaret McMurdo, former president of the Queensland Court of Appeal, will chair the Royal Commission into Management of Informants. Margaret McMurdo. The state government announced a royal commission the day the High Court lifted suppression orders, revealing a defence barrister to high-profile criminal figures was a registered police informer, and blasted the force for its conduct in the gangland investigations. Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo has taken the step of writing to the President of the Senate after he was criticised during a parliamentary debate last week. During the debate on the government's encryption laws that were passed with the help of the Labor party last week, Greens senator Jordon Steele-John went on the attack, targeting the Home Affairs secretary himself as the source of the legislation. Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo has penned an extraordinary letter defending himself. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen / Fairfax Media "This legislation is nothing more or less than the dark fantasy of a particular public servant a man who has been working his way to the top of Australian government for decades, a man of a dangerous right-wing disposition who has successfully created a department in his image and who now stands on the cusp of achieving a lifelong goal of empowering the Australian government with the ability to keep the general populace, who he regards as nothing more or less than helpless sheep, safe and sound," Senator Steele-John said. "I am talking, of course, of Michael Pezzullo, the head of the Department of Home Affairs, who has, for almost 10 years now, waited for a government stupid enough to pass this legislation and an opposition weak enough to let them do it." A House panel delayed a hearing on the federal minimum wage planned for Wednesday after a homophobic blog post written by a GOP-selected witness resurfaced. In gay sex, we have an activity that is clearly leading to disastrous health consequences. What rational person would engage in this sort of activity? There is only one solution let's tax it, Joseph Sabia wrote in a 2002 post. Sabia, a San Diego State University economist, was set to testify at an Education and Workforce hearing on the effects of raising the federal hourly minimum wage to $15. The committee rescinded the invite after discovering Sabias anti-gay posts from his college-years blog, Politico reported. Sabia went on to write In all seriousness, the bottom line is this the government has no business interfering in the lives of smokers, fatties, or gays. [Americans] should be free to make choices that could lead to heart disease, diabetes, or HIV. And if these bad outcomes materialize, he should not look to the public dole for relief, according to CNBC. Sabia already removed the blog posts from the internet, but they remained retrievable via the Wayback Machine, a web archive. "I regret the hurtful and disrespectful language I used as a satirical college opinion writer," Sabia told Politico. "[But] as an out gay man in a long-term committed relationship," he went on to say, "accusations of homophobia stemming from college nonsense I wrote nearly 20 years ago are hurtful to my family today." Kelley McNabb, communications director for the committees majority, said members were uncomfortable moving forward on the hearing after they discovered the posts of 2002. It would have been the first House hearing on minimum wage in 8 years. Democrats of the committee argued that the GOP majority should have allowed the hearing to continue regardless. My Republican colleagues on the committee should have issued a strong rebuke disavowing this witness and let the hearing go on," said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. Sabia has co-written papers on the minimum wage before, one from 2015 suggesting a New York wage boost reduced employment. Liberal National Party insiders have suggested president Gary Spence may have decided to quit his unpaid role due to internal ructions. One LNP source questioned whether Mr Spence had "jumped before he was pushed", citing internal discontent from some over whether he had overstepped the mark between the party and parliamentary matters. LNP president Gary Spence announced he would resign the position on Friday afternoon. Credit:Felicity Caldwell Another said they believed Mr Spence's leadership had been on a "slippery slope" and there was discontent about the way he ran the party. "When I saw his reason for resignation, I didn't believe it," the source said. Washington: The Trump administration on Thursday announced a sharp refocus of its Africa strategy to counter what it called the "predatory" practices of China and Russia, which are "deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage." US National security adviser John Bolton. Credit:AP National security adviser John Bolton laid out the new strategy in remarks at the Heritage Foundation, saying the US will now choose its African partners more carefully. He took special aim at China, accusing it of wielding "bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands." Russia, he alleged, is also "seeking to increase its influence in the region through corrupt economic dealings." New Mexicos highest court on Thursday reversed its own earlier decision and held that the inclusion of private and religious school students in a general program of lending textbooks to K-12 students does not violate the state constitution. The New Mexico Supreme Courts 3-2 ruling in Moses v. Ruszkowski was an about-face from its 2015 decision which held that the states Instructional Material Law could not be used to fund the loan of textbooks to private school studentseither in religious or secular schools. The court had cited several state constitutional provisions, including one that prohibits the use of public funds for the support of any sectarian, denominational or private school, college or univers ity. The New Mexico Association of Non-Public Schools had appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the provision was an example of a state Blaine amendment that was based on 19th Century animus against the growing Roman Catholic population in the United States. Some 39 states have such provisions in their state constitutions. Those amendments are named for James G. Blaine, the 19th-century congressman who led an unsuccessful 1876 effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit public funding of religious schools at a time when the growing Catholic population was pressing for government funding for parochial schools. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court held on to the New Mexico appeal while it decided Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo. v. Comer , in which it held that Missouri violated the First Amendment free-exercise-of-religion rights of a church by denying it a playground improvement grant solely on religious grounds. The justices then threw out the earlier New Mexico Supreme Court decision in the textbook case and ordered a fresh review based on the new Trinity Lutheran decision. The new decision from the New Mexico high court is the result of the second look, and the state court made no bones about the fact that the Trinity Lutheran decision was central to its decision to uphold the loan of textbooks to private school students. In Trinity Lutheran, the Supreme Court changed the landscape of First Amendment law, Justice Barbara J. Vigil wrote for the majority. Under Trinity Lutheran, if a state permits private schools to participate in a generally available public benefit program, the state must provide the benefit to religious schools on equal terms. While the provision of the New Mexico Constitution that bars aid to all private schools is religiously neutral, Vigil said, the history surrounding the federal Blaine amendment and the New Mexico Enabling Act, a 1910 federal law that required New Mexico to establish a public school system free from sectarian control as a condition for admission to the Union, lead us to conclude that anti-Catholic sentiment tainted its adoption. The majority said it was adopting a view of the New Mexico constitutional provision that avoids federal free-exercise clause problems. We conclude that the [Instructional Material Law] provides a public benefit to students and a resulting benefit to the state, Vigil said. Any benefit to private schools is purely incidental and does not constitute support within the meaning of the constitutional provision. Chief Justice Judith K. Nakamura, in a dissent joined by one other justice, said there was insufficient historical evidence that the New Mexico constitutional provision barring aid to private schools stems from discriminatory motives. The decision by the drafters of our state constitution that state largesse be directed to the public schools alone, and not to private schools, is rationally supported by the legitimate principle that doing so ensures that the public schools of our state are maximally financed, a circumstance necessary to ensure that a uniform system of free public schools sufficient for the education of, and open to, all the children of school age in the state shall be established and maintained, Nakamura wrote, quoting a constitutional passage. The original lawsuit challenging the inclusion of private school students in the textbook-loan program was brought by two New Mexico residents, Cathy Moses and Paul F. Weinbaum. It will be up to them to decide whether they wish to appeal the latest state high court ruling to a U.S. Supreme Court that is widely considered to be at least as sympathetic to federal free-exercise claims as the Trinity Lutheran court was. A NASA-led, international study finds Asia's high mountain glaciers are flowing more slowly in response to widespread ice loss, affecting freshwater availability downstream in India, Pakistan and China. Researchers analyzed almost 2 million satellite images of the glaciers and found that 94 percent of the differences in flow rates could be explained by changes in ice thickness. For more than a decade, satellite data have documented that the glaciers were thinning as the melt rates on their top surfaces increased. However, "It has not been entirely clear how these glaciers are responding to this ice loss," said the lead author of the new study, Amaury Dehecq of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The rate at which they will disappear in the future depends on how they adjust to a warming climate." Asia's mountain glaciers flow from the cold heights of the world's tallest mountains down to warmer climate zones, where they melt much faster, feeding major rivers such as the Indus and Yangtze. Scientists need to understand what is regulating the glaciers' flow speeds to project how glacial meltwater will contribute to the region's water resources and to sea level rise. Observing the glaciers from ground level is difficult because of their huge geographic expanse and inaccessibility, so the researchers turned to satellite images. Animation of satellite images revealing the flow of the Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram Range, Pakistan. Credit: NASA/EO/Joshua Stevens Dehecq and his colleagues developed algorithms to analyze almost 2 million pairs of U.S. Geological Survey/NASA Landsat satellite images from 1985 to 2017. The algorithms enabled automatic feature tracking to measure the distance that distinctive spots on the glaciers, such as crevasses or patches of dirt, traveled between an earlier and a later image. "We do this millions of times and average through the noise (errors and random disturbances) to see changes in velocity on the order of 1 meter (3 feet) a year," said study coauthor Alex Gardner of JPL. "What's surprising about this study is that the relationship between thinning and flow speed is so consistent," said coauthor Noel Gourmelen of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. In the few locations where glaciers have been stable or thickening rather than thinning, the study found that flow speeds also have been increasing slightly. The reason a glacier flows down a slope at all is because gravity pulls on its mass. The pull makes a glacier both slide on its base and deform, or "creep" -- a slow movement caused by ice crystals slipping past one another under the pressure of the glacier's weight. As the glacier thins and loses mass, both sliding and creeping become more difficult, and the glacier's flow slows as a result. However, other factors also affect a glacier's rate of flow, such as whether water is lubricating the glacier's base so that it can slide more easily. Scientists were unsure of the relative importance of these different factors. The new study shows that ice thickness far outweighs any other factor in regulating flow speed over the long term. The study published this week in Nature Geoscience is titled "Twenty-first Century Glacier Slowdown Driven by Mass Loss in High Mountain Asia." Coauthors are from JPL; the Universite Savoie Mont-Blanc in Annecy, France; the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; the Universite de Strasbourg in France; the Universite Grenoble Alpes in Grenoble, France; and the Universite de Toulouse in France. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. on Friday welcomed the decision by the Supreme Court dismissing all petitions seeking court-monitored probe into the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal. In a statement, Dassault took note of the apex court conclusions establishing the absence of any irregularities in the decision-making process to purchase 36 Rafale jets, pricing of the jets and selection of Indian offset partners, including the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Defence, by " has proudly supported the needs of the Government of India and the Indian Air Force since 1953 and the induction of the Toofani aircraft. Fully committed in a strong relationship of mutual trust with India for over 65 years now, all resources of Dassault Aviation are entirely mobilized to make the Rafale, chosen by India in 2012 following a very complete competitive bidding process and evaluation, the spearhead of the Indian Air Force," the statement reads. "The deal is absolutely clean in accordance with Indian laws and regulations, as I have stated before, and the first Falcon part is currently under delivery out of our facility in Nagpur" has declared Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation. The company further said, "Dassault Aviation is dedicated to establishing successfully the 'Make in India' as promoted by Prime Minister Dassault Aviation will ensure successful production in the country through the Dassault Reliance Joint Venture in Nagpur as well as through a full-fledged supply chain network already involving 30 with which Dassault Aviation signed contracts and additional 60 currently under discussions. Dassault Aviation stands committed to continuing its dedication to bringing full support to the needs of India in the future." ALSO READ: Modi helped Anil Ambani in Rafale deal, says Rahul as SC refuses probe The deal, signed on September 23, 2016, in the frame of an Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and France, has been on the boil over the last few months. The and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal. The fighter jet is a twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, which security analysts believe can be a 'game-changer' for India's defence system. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions seeking court-monitored probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal with France, saying that there was no occasion to doubt decision-making process in the deal. The top court said it was not its job to go into the issue of pricing. ALSO READ: Supreme Court sees no wrongdoing in Rafale deal, rules out probe The bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said that there is no need to conduct an investigation into details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercises have taken place and there is no element of financial benefits. Detailed scrutiny of RafaleDeal deal is not required," said Gogoi. Indian car wiring maker Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd is in early talks with German peer Leoni AG over a possible merger of the pair, two people close to the matter said. The car industry and its suppliers, facing a regulatory crackdown on diesel emissions and a slump in China, have issued a slew of profit warnings in recent months and companies are shaking up their businesses in order to adapt. Motherson Sumi has snapped up a number of companies in recent years, adding to its range of automotive interior products including rearview mirrors, wiring harnesses and rubber and plastic ... State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) Friday said its board will consider buyback of company shares at a meeting on December 20. This follows government pushing cash-rich PSUs to use their funds to buy back shares or pay a higher dividend. The government is looking to bridge budgetary deficit through higher receipts of dividend as well as selling its shares in PSUs in the buyback programmes. Stock buybacks refer to the repurchasing of shares by the company that issued them. A buyback occurs when the issuing company pays shareholders the market value per share and re-absorbs that portion of its ownership that was previously distributed among public and private investors. In a regulatory filing, said: "The meeting of Board of Directors of the company will be held on Thursday, December 20, 2018, inter-alia, to consider the proposal for buy-back of the fully paid-up equity shares of the company." The government holds 67.48 per cent stake in India's largest oil and gas producer Just on Thursday, state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) said it will buy back 29.76 crore shares for about Rs 4,435 crore and spend another Rs 6,556 crore on paying an interim dividend to shareholders. The board of the country's largest oil firm Thursday approved buyback of up to 29.76 crore equity shares, or 3.06 per cent, at Rs 149 per share. The government, which holds a 54.06 per cent stake in the company, is expected to participate in the share buyback. The government is targeting a minimum Rs 5,000 crore through share buyback offers of state-owned firms like Coal India, and Oil India Ltd. Besides IOC, at least half a dozen other central PSUs have disclosed share buyback programmes. Prominent among these include NHPC, BHEL, NALCO, NLC, and KIOCL that could fetch the government a little over Rs 3,000 crore. The government is expected to participate in each of the share buyback programme of these PSUs. IOC had also stated that its board has declared an interim dividend of 67.5 per cent or Rs 6.75 per share for fiscal 2018-19. The total dividend payout, excluding tax, would be Rs 6,556 crore, of which the government will get Rs 3,544 crore plus the dividend distribution tax. Last month, Oil India Ltd announced a buyback of 5.04 crore of its share for a little over Rs 1,085 crore. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), which has been set a target to raise Rs 80,000 crore for the government through stake sale in central public sector enterprises, had prodded all cash-rich PSUs to go for share buybacks. PSUs having a net worth of at least Rs 2,000 crore and a cash balance of more than Rs 1,000 crore have to mandatorily go in for share buyback. Of the Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target, the government has so far raised just over Rs 15,000 crore through minority stake sale in PSUs. (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.) Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Country's largest lender (SBI) has ordered a forensic audit of Jet Airways' books, which has been grappling with financial woes for many months, for the period between April 2014 and March 2018, according to sources in the bank. The State Bank, which is the lead banker to the airlines' over Rs 80 billion loans, has mandated EY to conduct the forensic audit of its books, which has already began the process, the sources added. The has been struggling to keep afloat following three consecutive quarterly losses of over Rs 10 billion each. The bank's action comes at a time when the Naresh Goyal-promoted is in talks with potential investors to raising funds to tide over the liquidity crisis. "...it was decided to conduct a forensic audit of the accounts of for the period April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2018," sources said. When contacted, an spokesperson declined comments saying, "it's the policy of the bank not to comment on individual accounts." Emails sent for confirmation from the and EY also did not elicit immediate responses. The audit was ordered following a complaint of alleged financial irregularities in accounts by a whistle blower, the sources said. "The forensic audit has been mandated to E&Y LLP and the firm has already started the process," the sources said. In August, government had ordered an inspection of books and papers of the airline. The outcome of the probe, however, is awaited. ALSO READ: Jet Airways' survival may rest on founder Goyal leaving the cockpit Besides, there were also reports about alleged siphoning of funds to the tune of Rs 50 billion by the promoter Goyal. With three back-to-back quarterly losses and a net debt of Rs 80.52 billion as of September 2018, the airline is working on ways to raise funds and reduce costs. The cash crunch has been so bad that it has paying salaries in tranches for months now. Last month, chief executive officer Vinay Dube had said the airline was in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing. ALSO READ: Jet Airways announces codeshare pact with Saudi budget carrier Flynas The Mumbai-based airline in which Ethihad Airways also owns 24 per cent, is negotiating a deal with the Gulf carrier to offload another 25 per cent holding, to mop up funds. Last month, there were talks that the Tatas were interested in buying out the Goyals from the airline and merge it its airline Vistara. But a board meeting of Tata Sons in mid-November had said the group was only at preliminary. The (ED) has initiated a probe against the managing director of Usha Martin, the country's largest steel wire rope maker, in connection with alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management (FEMA) Act, official sources said on Friday. They said agency sleuths questioned Rajeev Jhawar, the managing director of the Kolkata-based firm, at their office in the capital on Friday. They registered his statement under FEMA in connection with the purchase and registration of an immovable asset in in 2013 and a few other overseas transactions. The company did not respond to PTI's queries on the development. It is understood that Rajeev Jhawar is under the ED's scanner for alleged irregularities in mobilizing funds to create assets abroad and few other issues. The agency, the sources said, wants to ascertain the source of funds and compliance of required approvals. Rajeev Jhawar's uncle B K Jhawar and the latter's son Prashant Jhawar are other promoters of the company. ALSO READ: Usha Martin-Tata Steel deal: Basant-Prashant Jhawar may sell majority stake The Competition Commission had recently cleared Tata Sponge Iron's acquisition of steel business of for Rs 43-47 billion. Limited (UML) had earlier said the sale of steel business to Tata Steel will help the company in "significant reduction" of its debt. ALSO READ: CCI approves Tata Sponge Iron's acquisition of Usha Martin's steel business UML's steel business comprises the specialised 1 mtpa alloy-based manufacturing capacity in long products segment based in Jamshedpur, a producing iron-ore mine, a coal mine under development and captive power plants. is amongst the largest wire rope manufacturers in the world and a leading speciality steel producer in Fishermen would be puzzled if they netted only big and little fish, but few medium-sized fish. Astronomers likewise have been perplexed in conducting a census of star-hugging extrasolar planets. They have found hot Jupiter-sized planets and hot super-Earths (planets no more than 1.5 times Earth's diameter). These planets are scorching hot because they orbit very close to their star. But so-called "hot Neptunes," whose atmospheres are heated to more than 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, have been much harder to find. In fact, only about a handful of hot Neptunes have been found so far. In fact, most of the known Neptune-sized exoplanets are merely "warm," because they orbit farther away from their star than those in the region where astronomers would expect to find hot Neptunes. The mysterious hot-Neptune deficit suggests that such alien worlds are rare, or, they were plentiful at one time, but have since disappeared. A few years ago astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope found that one of the warmest known Neptunes (GJ 436b) is losing its atmosphere. The planet isn't expected to evaporate away, but hotter Neptunes might not have been so lucky. Now, astronomers have used Hubble to nab a second "very warm" Neptune (GJ 3470b) that is losing its atmosphere at a rate 100 times faster than that of GJ 436b. Both planets reside about 3.7 million miles from their star. That's one-tenth the distance between our solar system's innermost planet, Mercury, and the Sun. "I think this is the first case where this is so dramatic in terms of planetary evolution," said lead researcher Vincent Bourrier of the University of Geneva in Sauverny, Switzerland. "It's one of the most extreme examples of a planet undergoing a major mass-loss over its lifetime. This sizable mass loss has major consequences for its evolution, and it impacts our understanding of the origin and fate of the population of exoplanets close to their stars." As with the previously discovered evaporating planets, the star's intense radiation heats the atmosphere to a point where it escapes the planet's gravitational pull like an untethered hot air balloon. The escaping gas forms a giant cloud around the planet that dissipates into space. One reason why GJ 3470b may be evaporating faster than GJ 436b is that it is not as dense, so it is less able to gravitationally hang on to the heated atmosphere. What's more, the star hosting GJ 3470b is only 2 billion years old, compared to the 4-billion- to 8-billion-year-old star that planet GJ 436b orbits. The younger star is more energetic, so it bombards the planet with more blistering radiation than GJ 436b receives. Both are red dwarf stars, which are smaller and longer-lived than our Sun. Uncovering two evaporating warm Neptunes reinforces the idea that the hotter version of these distant worlds may be a class of transitory planet whose ultimate fate is to shrink down to the most common type of known exoplanet, mini-Neptunes--planets with heavy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Eventually, these planets may downsize even further to become super-Earths, more massive, rocky versions of Earth. "The question has been, where have the hot Neptunes gone?" said Bourrier. "If we plot planetary size and distance from the star, there's a desert, a hole, in that distribution. That's been a puzzle. We don't really know how much the evaporation of the atmospheres played in forming this desert. But our Hubble observations, which show a large amount of mass loss from a warm Neptune at the edge of the desert, is a direct confirmation that atmospheric escape plays a major role in forming this desert." The researchers used Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to detect the ultraviolet-light signature of hydrogen in a huge cocoon surrounding the planet as it passed in front of its star. The intervening cocoon of hydrogen filters out some of the starlight. These results are interpreted as evidence of the planet's atmosphere bleeding off into space. The team estimates that the planet has lost as much as 35 percent of its material over its lifetime, because it was probably losing mass at a faster rate when its red-dwarf star was younger and emitting even more radiation. If the planet continues to rapidly lose material, it will shrink down to a mini-Neptune in a few billion years. Hydrogen probably isn't the only element evaporating away: it may be a tracer for other material streaming off into space. The researchers plan to use Hubble to hunt for elements heavier than hydrogen and helium that have hitched a ride with the hydrogen gas to escape the planet. "We think that the hydrogen gas could be dragging heavy elements such as carbon, which reside deeper in the atmosphere, upward and out into space," Bourrier said. The observations are part of the Panchromatic Comparative Exoplanet Treasury (PanCET) survey, a Hubble program to look at 20 exoplanets, mostly hot Jupiters, in the first large-scale ultraviolet, visible and infrared comparative study of distant worlds. Observing the evaporation of these two warm Neptunes is encouraging, but team members know they need to study more of them to confirm predictions. Unfortunately, there may be no other planets of this class residing close enough to Earth to observe. The problem is that hydrogen gas cannot be detected in warm Neptunes farther away than 150 light-years from Earth because it is obscured by interstellar gas. GJ 3470b resides 97 light-years away. However, helium is another tracer for material escaping a warm Neptune's atmosphere. Astronomers could use Hubble and the upcoming NASA James Webb Space Telescope to search in infrared light for helium, because it is not blocked by interstellar material in space. "Looking for helium could expand our survey range," Bourrier said. "Webb will have incredible sensitivity, so we would be able to detect helium escaping from smaller planets, such as mini-Neptunes." The researcher's paper will appear in the Dec. 13 issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. Science paper by V. Bourrier et al.: https://media.stsci.edu/preview/file/science_paper/file_attachment/360/article_GJ3470b.pdf For NASA's Hubble website, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. president on Friday said in Chhattisgarh, and will soon get a loan waiver as promised by the party. The in its poll promises in the three Hindi heartland states had said it will waive the loans of as soon as it comes into power. Gandhi had given the assurance to the in his rallies in the three states. Addressing a press conference here on the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale deal, Gandhi said, "There has been a theft of Rs 300 billion and farmers, remember that in Chattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh, your loan is going to be waived." "This money that has been taken by thieves is your money," he said referring to the Congress' allegation that there was corruption in the Rafale deal. ALSO READ: Modi helped Anil Ambani in Rafale deal, says Rahul as SC refuses probe The is set to form the government in Madhya Pradesh, and following assembly polls in the three states. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, the Supreme Court said on Friday and dismissed all the petitions seeking an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Rs 580-billion deal. The government on Friday rejected the Congress partys demand that a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe the Rafale fighter jet deal, responding after Supreme Court rejected petitions seeking an investigation. The deaf will never hear an answer, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at a press conference in Delhi, referring to the Congress. Deals like Rafale cannot be reviewed in a body of partisan divisions, it can only be done in a court of law." ALSO READ: Surjewala says I challenge Modi govt for JPC probe into Rafale deal He said ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Buoyed by the dismissing all petitions asking for a probe into the deal, BJP Amit Shah Friday said the order is a slap on chief Rahul Gandhi's politics of lies and asked him to apologise to the country and its soldiers for putting security at risk. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 jets from France, the court said on Friday. It is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing, it stated. Shah asserted that the apex court order "exposes" the campaign of misinformation of the chief. Stating that his party was ready for discussion on this issue, Shah challenged the to debate the issue in Parliament. "I welcome SC order on The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the security at risk," Shah said at a press conference at the party office here. He also hit out at Gandhi for taking a jibe at Prime Minister by saying the "chowkidar" is a thief. "All thieves had gathered to call the 'chowkidar' a thief, but the country never believed it," Shah told reporters. For the sake of his own credibility, Gandhi should reveal the source of information on which he based his false allegations on the Rafale deal, Shah said. He added that the has also made it clear that there is nothing wrong with the offset partner. Earlier in the day, Shah addressed the issue in series of tweets, saying the court didn't find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. "On the contrary, the SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals," he said. "Truth always triumphs! Court's judgment on the exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress for political gains," he added on Twitter. The apex court's order raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India, he asserted. Abbeylara loves to win from off the pace. So much, in fact, that he did it for a second straight start at the Meadowlands, hitting the wire a head in front of The Bruiser to win the Dash For The G Notes Final Thursday night. Pumped Up Kicks was third. Abbeylara moved into the Nick Surick barn less than a month ago, and its been all systems go ever since. He won his first start as a Surick student on Nov. 24 at Freehold before finishing second at the half-mile track in his next outing. The nine-year-old gelded son of Dragon Again-Lisbella came to the Big M on Dec. 6 and won his Dash For The G Notes preliminary by splitting rivals late, and this time around, he was equally impressive. Driver Andy Miller had Abbeylara away in fifth, and when he moved to the outside at the half, he gapped his cover in what looked to be a sub-par effort. But Miller kept Abbeylara in the hunt, and with a little more than an eighth of a mile to go, Abbeylara started rolling, getting up in deep stretch to nail the speedy The Bruiser in a remarkably game effort in 1:53.1. Abbeylaras night was over, but Suricks had just begun. Surick, whose 136 winners at Freehold are 105 more than his closest pursuer, also won the ninth (with Ella Christina) and 10th (Ideal Romance) races on the card. His three winners doubled his Big M meet total. MELADYS MONET ROLLS: Showing no ill effects of having been on the sidelines since June 24, lifetime $1.3 million earner Meladys Monet had explosive late trot to win the overnight feature, a $15,000 conditioned event, in 1:53 as the 3-5 public choice, gunning down Misslarose at the wire after swinging three-wide at three-quarters. A LITTLE MORE: Track Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Jason Settlemoir called the races as the Big M continued its Thursday night Borrow Kens Binoculars promotion, with Ken Warkentin stepping aside to bring some new voices to the Big M faithful. Peter Kleinhans is up next Thursday. It was a good night to be a driving Miller, as eight of the 10 races on the card were taken by Andy (3), Brett (3), Dave and Marcus. Andy McCarthy won the second race to up his meet-leading driver-win total to 31. All-source handle on the card was $1,153,995. Racing resumes Friday at 7:15 p.m. Remember, there is no racing Saturday due to the New York Jets game at MetLife Stadium. (Meadowlands) About a decade ago, word went around that master chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa would visit Mumbai. The Japanese chef better known as Nobu, who owns the eponymous global chain of glitzy restaurants, was exploring the idea of expanding into South Asia. He and a small team would prepare exclusive dinners for Indian guests. About two weeks before his arrival, the event was cancelled. The reasons were unclear, but it was believed that the organisers were simply not able to sell enough seats. Things are different today. By the time you read this, one of the worlds best chefs, Andoni ... The Reserve Bank of India's board deliberated on the central bank's governance framework and has decided that the matter required further examination, the central bank said on Friday. The statement released after the central bank's board meeting, which was headed by the new RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, said they reviewed the current economic situation and various domestic and global challenges. The board also looked into matters relating to liquidity, credit delivery to the economy, issues of currency management, financial literacy and discussed the draft report on ... Former RBI Governor Friday said there is need to reduce uncompensated government mandates imposed onpublic sector banks (PSBs). This is lazy government if an action is worth doing, it should be paid out of budgetary resources. It also is against the interests of minority shareholders in PSBs, he said in Delhi. The government should incentivise all banks to take up activities it thinks desirable, not impose it on a few, especially as the privileges associated with a license diminish, he said. Along these lines, requirements that banks mandatorily invest in government bonds (the SLR requirement) should continue to be reduced, substituting instead with the liquidity coverage ratios and net stable funding ratios set by Basel, he added. He further said public sector banks still not adequately professionalised and there is a need to substantially improve risk management. In the last four years or so, Narendra Modis supporters especially the new ones have moved from exuberance (finally, the corrupt Congress is out and India has the leader it needs) to hope (it is early days, but he will change India), to resigned patience (its not an easy job) to reluctant disappointment (this government has wasted its goodwill). If there is disgust at rising communalism, it is well-hidden. Communalism, even violence against minorities, isnt a worry for those newly infatuated that is, not the Sangh parivar hardcore, but ... After several rounds of discussions on selecting the chief minister of Rajasthan, top contenders for the post, and Sachin Pilot, reached the residence of party chief on Friday for a final settlement on the issue. According to sources, both Gehlot and Pilot were called by the Congress president for an amicable settlement to the issue amid a clear fight between the old and the young guard in the party. Sources said former Union minister and party leader from Rajasthan Jitendra Singh met Pilot earlier in the day and then met Gandhi. Party's central observer for Rajasthan and AICC general secretary in-charge of party affairs in the state Avinash Pande were also present at Gandhi's residence during the discussions. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was present during the resolution of the issue in Madhya Pradesh between and Jyotiraditya Scindia, was present at Gandhi's residence Friday, though she left ahead of a meeting with Gehlot and Pilot. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, when asked about the differences within the Rajasthan unit, denied it and said a due process of consultation was on. "There is no dispute or difference within the Congress units on chief minister's post in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh," he told reporters here. "Be it Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh, a due process of discussions is on among the leaders so that we can form a good government. Madhya Pradesh has been decided and chief minister's issue will be decided for Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in a day or two also," he said. Sources said the issue would be resolved Friday itself and the announcement would be made at the Congress Legislature Party meeting. Meanwhile, there was sloganeering in favour of Pilot by some of his supporters outside Gandhi's residence when the meeting took place. Unlike Madhya Pradesh, where Jyotiraditya Scindia refused to be the deputy to Kamal Nath since he is already a deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, the Congress picked 67-year-old Ashok Gehlot the chief minister of Rajasthan and 41-year-old Sachin Pilot as his deputy. While the party's feedback from its legislators indicated more support for Gehlot, the party also needed to respect Pilot's wishes since he as the state unit chief ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Senior Congress leader said he will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 17. The swearing-in ceremony will take place at Lal Parade Ground here around 1.30 pm, Nath told reporters outside Raj Bhavan. Nath, along with senior Congress leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Vivek Tankha and others met Governor Anandiben Patel and informed her about his election as Congress Legislature Party leader, following which the governor invited him for the oath. The meeting lasted for nearly 50 minutes. The Congress has won 114 seats in the 230-member House, the poll results of which were declared on December 11. It has secured support of a total of 121 MLAs, including SP - 1 and BSP - 2 legislators as also of four independents, to cross the majority mark of 116 seats. The party Thursday night named Nath as Madhya Pradesh's next chief minister after hours of hectic parleys held by party chief Rahul Gandhi with senior party leaders. The two leaders were announced after they met Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Friday. United colours of Rajasthan, said Gandhi said after the meeting ended, tweeting a photo of the two Rajasthan politicians. .@ashokgehlot51 a stalwart of the Congress party has been elected CM of Rajasthan. We wish him the best as he takes on this new appointment with vigour, sincerity & a commitment to our democratic values. ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor The Zoram People's Movement (ZPM), which won eight seats in the assembly polls and is a new entrant in the poll scenario, could have done better had it been registered as a political party, ZPM leader People wait with their identity cards to cast their votes for the Assembly elections,| Photo: PTI said on Friday. The ZPM, a conglomerate of the Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP) and People's Conference (MPC) and four groups, had fielded 35 independent candidates in the November 28 Assembly polls. It secured three seats more than the and came second behind the Mizo National Front, which won 26 seats. "Being not registered as a political party was one of the weak points of the ZPM,", Lalduhoma, also the ZNP chief, who won from two seats and defeated outgoing Chief Minister in the latter's home turf at Serchip, said. The ZPM, he said, had won less than expected as many people were afraid that the group would break after the polls. "People want stability and reliability in the political parties," Lalduhoma, who was the chief ministerial candidate of the ZPM, said. Efforts would be made by the ZNP and the MPC to form a new political party -- the ZPM -- by early 2019 as the two parties were already working as a single entity, he said. "We will soon approach the Election Commission," Lalduhoma said. In a major policy shift, is "going to open" up the entire country, US President said Thursday amidst trade negotiations with the Chinese. "I just see this in the front page of The Wall Street Journal which just came out. is going to open its policy, a big policy shift. They are going to open the whole country, that they want to please President Trump, that they want to do things that they have to do and that people should have been after for years, I mean frankly," told Fox News in an interview. last met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Argentina on November 30 and December 1. Following the dinner summit, the two leaders decided to give themselves 90 days' time to hammer out a trade deal that addresses the concerns of the United States with regard to trade balance and intellectual property thefts. Top officials from the two countries started the talks this Monday. "I have established a fantastic relationship with President Xi, who is the head of China, the absolute head of China, and I think we are going to work a fantastic deal for both countries, but a fantastic deal for us. We are going to get China to open up," Trump said in response to a question from Fox News. If the Chinese was in trouble, it was only because of him, he said. "That is the only reason it is in trouble, because I have placed billions and billions -- we have taken in USD 11 billion worth of taxes that I taxed China. (In the past) We have not made any money with China; we lost money with China," he said. "In the last four months, we have taken in almost USD 11 billion of taxes. Nobody has ever heard of that. Nobody knows that. People do not report on that, they only report on nonsense," said the US president. Asked why was he so confident about his deal with China, Trump said he knew what he was doing. "I know what I am doing. I mean, it is business. Nobody ever went to China and said, 'Listen, you are stealing our intellectual property. You are doing all sorts of things that are wrong. You are taking out of our country USD 500 billion a year, not trillion, not million, you are USD 500 billion away, you cannot do it. You cannot take USD 500 billion out of our country," he said in response to a question. At 9 pm on Thursday the Polish presidency brought out its iteration of the Paris Agreement rulebook after two days of ministerial rounds. From then on the talks spiralled to a crisis. When countries met at 11 pm each group and several countries read out a litany of problems they saw in the new draft. The fundamental differences between the developing and the developed world remained as wide as they had at the beginning of the talks. The US said it did not want equity mentioned in the rulebook, wanted all references to equity and loss and damage scrubbed from it and the reference to ... British public broadcaster has defended the omission of Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav's mention from its interview with Pakistan's Minister Asad Umar, saying it was "not an act of censorship". In an interview to BBC's Stephen Sackur for the 'Hardtalk', the minister answered questions on various issues of national importance, including the state of Pakistan's economy and ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor. The TV version of the interview, however, did not contain his mention of Jadhav, who was sentenced to death in 2017 by a Pakistani military tribunal on spying charges. Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari criticised the for deleting the part about Jadhav, terming it "typical bias" on the part of the broadcaster. "Shameful how censored and chopped off Asad's mention of Indian spymaster Jhadav! Typical bias of BBC!," she tweeted. BBC 'Hardtalk' on Twitter, however, clarified that Jadhav's name had been omitted from the TV version of the interview and not the radio version, and that it was not done to censor the minister's words. "The reason Kulbhushan Jadhav's name was deleted from the TV version of the HARDtalk interview with has a simple technical explanation. The recorded interview was too long for our broadcast slot and so had to be edited. This was done separately for radio and TV," it tweeted. "His name was omitted from the TV version. This was not an act of censorship, but clearly confusion has been caused, so we are happy to restore that short section to the TV broadcast and we'll give the new programme an extra airing tonight as well as tomorrow morning," the broadcaster said. On BBC's clarifictaion, the human rights minister said, "As pathetic an explanation as any! BBC's bias has always been there and then there are mega bucks to be earned from India!" alleges that its security forces arrested Jadhav from province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from denies all the charges and maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from where he had business interests after retiring from the and that he has no links with the government. After Jadhav was sentenced to death, moved the Court of Justice against the verdict in May 2017. The world court has halted Jadhav's execution on India's appeal pending the final verdict by it. In October, the ICJ said it will hold hearings from February 18 to February 21 in the Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands, the seat of the court. The will conduct a proper debt sustainability analysis of Pakistan before granting it any loan, a senior official has said, amid concerns that Islamabad is seeking a multibillion-dollar bailout package from the global financial body to pay back Chinese creditors. Cash-strapped Pakistan is seeking USD 8 billion from the Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail itself out from a severe balance-of-payments crisis that threatens to cripple the country's economy. A recent meeting between the and Pakistan ended in a stalemate. "Clearly debt transparency is essential to conduct a proper analysis of the sustainability of a country's debt. That's what the does when we are going into a programme with our member countries. So that will be the case in Pakistan," IMF Director Communications Gerry Rice told reporters at a news conference here on Thursday. is making huge infrastructure investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI's flagship project is the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that is planned to run from northwest China's province to Gwadar port in Pakistan's province. There are concerns that given Pakistan's growing Chinese debt, the same could happen to the Gwadar port and other major CPEC-linked projects in Pakistan. But has rejected criticism that the CPEC projects have saddled Pakistan with expensive debt. Following Pakistan's request for financial support, IMF team visited Islamabad in November for talks. "The discussions are active. They continue to work reaching an understanding on the policy priorities and reforms to stabilise the economy, lay the foundations for sustainable and inclusive growth," he said. Rice was responding to questions on a US statement that it q making all efforts to ensure that any IMF loan to Pakistan is not used to repay its Chinese debt. "One of the things that we do in every programme is to have a very detailed debt sustainability analysis to ensure that indeed the country's debt profile is sustainable. So kind of information and that level of detail will be available at such times as we reach conclusions on discussions and go forward with the programme, he said. Rice said debt sustainability in a country's debt profile is one of the priority issues that the IMF looks at in the context of a programme discussion with a member. "So that definitely will be the case in the case of Pakistan. This level of detail and granularity will become public actually at the time of the programme agreement," he said. President on Friday said a major trade deal could emerge in the near future, saying that China's position has been weakened by the economic impact of the tariffs war. "China wants to make a big and very comprehensive deal. It could happen, and rather soon!" he tweeted. Trump said that China's decision to back off from new tariffs on cars and auto parts reflected the pain inflicted by the in its trade war. "China just announced that their economy is growing much slower than anticipated because of our Trade War with them. They have just suspended Tariff Hikes. U.S. is doing very well," Trump said. ALSO READ: Ahead of China anniversary, trade war fans calls for faster market reforms Earlier Friday, China halted extra punitive duties that had been imposed this summer. They now fall from 40 per cent to 15 per cent -- the same rate imposed on all foreign-made vehicles. Oman will be cutting oil output by 2 percent from January for an initial period of six months, according to a letter sent to customers of Omani oil by the country's oil and gas ministry, which was seen by Reuters. The output reduction is in implementation of a agreement by The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC crude exporters to reduce global supply, the letter said. Oman is not a member of OPEC. OPEC and its Russia-led allies agreed last week to slash oil production by more than the market had expected despite pressure from U.S. President ... The US Senate voted on Thursday in favour of a bill asking the administration to end the military support it is providing to Saudi Arabia in the latter's war in Yemen, a move taken amid the controversy sparked by the murder of Saudi journalist in early October at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul. The bill gives the White House 30 days to withdraw US troops from Yemen, except those that are tasked with fighting local factions of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, Efe reported. Despite having been approved by the Senate in a 56-41 vote, the bill will not have any immediate effect since the House of Representatives on Wednesday approved postponing its vote on the matter until January, when the new Congress will be seated and Democrats will regain control of the lower house. Then, both the Senate and House would be able to give the green light to the measure and send it to the Oval Office. The vote in the Senate, which is controlled by the Republicans and will remain so after January, is - however - a measure of how lawmakers view the relationship between Washington and Riyadh after Khashoggi's murder. Trump has called Saudi Arabia a great regional ally of the US and has opposed allowing Khashoggi's killing to change the bilateral relationship, and thus the Senate approval of the bill is considered to be a political rebuke of the president by lawmakers. In addition to withdrawing a portion of the US troops from Yemen, the Senate added a resolution designating Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the person "responsible" for ordering Khashoggi's October 2 murder by a hit team of security officers dispatched from Riyadh. The US-backed Arab coalition, which has admitted staging attacks in which dozens of civilians have died, began military operations in Yemen in March 2015, when the war there resurged, causing the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN. T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp expect their merger to be approved by a US national security panel as early as next week, after their respective parent companies said they would consider curbing their use of equipment from China's Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL], people familiar with the matter told Reuters. US government officials have been pressuring T-Mobile's German majority owner, Deutsche Telekom AG , to stop using Huawei equipment, the sources said, over concerns that Huawei is effectively controlled by the Chinese state and its network equipment may contain "back ... British Prime Minister Theresa May's attempt to win assurances from the European Union on her Brexit deal was cast by opponents on Friday as a humiliating failure that did nothing to ease the parliamentary deadlock over Britain's departure from the bloc. EU leaders all ruled out new legally binding accords to amend the package, though they assured her that it should not bind Britain forever to EU rules. One source said May had no solid answers on what she wanted when grilled by EU leaders. May, having on Wednesday survived a plot in her party to oust her, asked for EU ... This week is the third anniversary of the Paris climate agreement. The Trump administration marked it by working with Russia and Gulf oil nations to sideline science and undermine the accord at climate talks underway in Katowice, Poland. While I was in New Delhi this week, where I met with solar energy advocates, a comment made thousands of miles away by the journalist Bob Woodward almost jumped off my iPad: The president, he said, makes decisions often without a factual basis. This isnt a mere personality quirk of the leader of the free world. It is profoundly ... A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who was taken into United States Border Patrol custody has died of dehydration and shock. The Washington Post quoted US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as saying that the girl was taken in custody last week for crossing into the US from Mexico with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote stretch of New Mexico desert. CBP stated that the girl and her father were taken into custody on December 6 as a part of a group of 163 people who approached US agents to turn themselves in. It was further divulged that eight hours after she was taken in custody, the girl began having seizures and it was found that she had not eaten or consumed water for several days. Extending his condolences to the family of the deceased child, CBP spokesman Andrew Meehan said, "Border Patrol agents took every possible step to save the child's life under the most trying of circumstances. As fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we empathize with the loss of any child." The girl's death will now intensify scrutiny of detention conditions at Border Patrol stations and CBP facilities that are increasingly overwhelmed by large numbers of families seeking asylum in the US. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi [India] Dec 13 (ANI): Ashok Gehlot, a seasoned politician and a Congress loyalist, is in the driver's seat once again in Rajasthan as he became the Chief Minister of the state for the third time on December 14. It is a reward for his organisational skills and swift balancing act through which he got all factions on board. His acumen in setting the chess board within the organisation in a win-win style was witnessed not only in Rajasthan Assembly elections but also gave a tough fight to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat in 2017. This was no magic wand that the 67-year-old waved this time, something which he otherwise enjoys, being the son of a magician. It is learnt that he has staged performances earlier also as a magician and has shown some tricks to Rahul Gandhi when the Congress president was a child. With Sachin Pilot's hard work on the ground during last four years, Gehlot only needed to put his deep political insight to use which led the party to perform better in Rajasthan than in Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress has won only by a wafer-thin margin. For Gehlot, the challenge starts now with 2019 Lok Sabha elections coming close. Since he has ruled the state for two terms in 1998-2003 and 2008-2013, and is an experienced hand who understands the political nuances better, it is hoped that Gehlot will be able to consolidate the vote base further for the party. Upheaval as it may be, Gehlot will have to manage the Jat vote base since his earlier experience with the community has been bitter. Jats dominate in around 11 out of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in western Rajasthan, including Bharatpur, on the eastern side and it is speculated that caste rivalry will once again play a big role in the coming General elections. Gehlot belongs to Mali community and both, Jats and Malis fall in the Other Backward Class (OBC) category. In Rajasthan, Jats are about 15 per cent, Gujjars 5-6 per cent and Malis around 3 per cent. The Jat-Mali rivalry was witnessed even in 1998 when Gehlot was made the Chief Minister despite the popular perception that the-then Pradesh Congress Committee president (late) Parasram Maderna would hold the office. The Jats avenged the humility in 2004 Lok Sabha polls when Congress won only four seats out of 25. Although Maderna's granddaughter, Divya was given ticket this time from a traditional seat of the Madernas in Jodhpur, the home district of Gehlot and Divya won the seat which turned out to be a masterstroke played by Gehlot. Observers, however, say that even in this election, Congress could have comfortably taken up the tally to around 120 had ticket distribution, especially in the second list been done more judiciously. There are murmurs within the Congress party too that it lost a golden opportunity. The party has a huge task ahead. Having not made Pilot the Chief Minister who was made to shift base to Rajasthan to build the party there, it is now to be seen how his community 'Gujjar' would react in 2019. It will be up to Gehlot now how he manages to pacify the community. Gehlot, the general secretary of the party, enjoyed being the third-in-command after Rahul Gandhi and the treasurer Ahmed Patel at Akbar Road. General elections of 2019 will now be an acid test for the Chief Minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese authorities on Friday detained another Canadian Michael Spavor on the suspicion of "activities that endangered China's national security. This comes days after the Chinese authorities detained Canadian national Michael Kovrig on similar suspicions. According to CNN, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday confirmed that Canadian nationals Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are being investigated. Spavor is the founder of the Paektu Cultural Exchange, a company that helps facilitate trips to North Korea. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang stated that the authorities had taken "compulsory measures" on the two men on Monday. He further revealed that investigation in both the cases is underway. Lu said, "As far as I know, Beijing State Security Bureau and Liaoning State Security Department notified the Canadian Embassy separately, and the two persons' legal rights and interests have been guaranteed." The two arrests come after Canada detained Huawei Chief Executive Officer Meng Wanzhou. The detaining of the Canadian nationals is seen as an act of retaliation and might fuel the ongoing diplomatic crisis between Washington, Beijing and Ottawa. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti on Friday asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should welcome the Supreme Court's verdict in the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid case just the way it hailed the order on the Rafale deal. "I hope that the manner in which the decision over Rafale deal has been welcomed and no fingers have been pointed at it, similarly when the decision over Babri Masjid comes, it will be similarly awaited and people will not start pointing fingers at the Supreme Court". Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi-headed bench, which also included Justice SK Kaul and KM Joseph, today dismissed all petitions pertaining to the Rafale deal stating that there is no need to conduct an investigation. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercises have taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," CJI Gogoi said. BJP president Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were among the top BJP leaders hailing the court's verdict while demanding an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi for 'misleading' the public over the issue. With the Supreme Court having adjourned the hearing of the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit till January 2019, when the court will fix the next date for hearing, several Hindu outfits, including the Shiv Sena and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have called upon the BJP to pass a legislature to start the construction of the temple at the disputed site. Many organisations have warned BJP of a defeat in the forthcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections if they fail to enact a law to start the construction of the Ram temple. While speaking on the issues associated with Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba lauded the efforts made by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee towards establishing peace in the state and reconciling with Pakistan. She reiterated that the period between 2002 and 2005 was a "golden period" for the state since the Prime Minister (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister (Mufti Mohammad Sayeed) "were on the same page" for the first time. "They thought alike, their vision was alike and there was not much of the press who would label you 'anti-India' as soon as you mentioned Pakistan," said Mehbooba, adding that the dialogue process that Vajpayee had started with Pakistan came to a standstill once he lost the following General elections. While pointing out that "governance is only possible with peace", Mehbooba lamented lack of initiative from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in holding dialogue with Pakistan, separatists and others so that peace could prevail in Kashmir. "To restart what Vajpayee ji had left halfway, we joined hands with BJP. We put everything at stake, we knew it would be suicidal, but we still did it because we thought Modi ji will rise to the occasion. But unfortunately, he could not do so," said Mehbooba. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) While addressing the booth workers of Kerala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked Congress and Communist party and said that both parties provide Kerala with a model of efficient corruption and inefficient governance. "In Kerala, there are two governance models currently. The Congress model and the Communist model. Both models are models of efficient corruption and inefficient governance," he said. Acknowledging the death of Venugopalan Nair, who had set himself ablaze yesterday in Thiruvananthapuram, the Prime Minister endorsed the 'bandh' called by his party while advising the party workers to exercise necessary self-restraint. BJP has claimed that Nair was an Ayyappa devotee "I want to tell BJP karyakartas, this should inspire everyone across the state to avoid taking any extreme step. Whatever points we have, we should express them firmly and convince the people about them," the Prime Minister said. Lambasting the Kerala government further, he also criticised them for not performing its duty. "Those in power in Kerala, for years, have shown no respect for democracy. They have made every effort to silence the voice of BJP workers and the voice of the people of Kerala. Despite the brutal killing of BJP workers, the state government has failed to perform their duty and punish the guilty." Prime Minister Narendra Modi further added, "When a nation of 130 crore people speaks, today, that voice is heard. Be it terror or climate justice, be it in apprehending economic offenders or economic growth, today, India is at the forefront of setting the global narrative." He also affirmed that the VIP culture has changed with time and now 'the earlier buzzword VIP' has been replaced by 'EPI- Every Person is Important'. Prime Minister Modi interacted with booth workers of Kollam, Mavelikkara, Attingal, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian opined that although the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) independence is sacred, there must be "creative tension" between the central bank and government. Subramanian, who participated in an interactive session with entrepreneur and co-founder of Infosys Nandan Nilekani, was of the view that anything that damages or undermines the RBI's reputation will cost the country dearly in the long run. "We want autonomy and independence but along with communication and cooperation because both parts of the government (i.e. RBI and government) have to work together as many of their objectives are common. There will be some objectives which are different and that's why we created RBI. They will never agree, they should never agree, there has to be a creative tension," he said. Subramanian, however, noted that despite all shortcomings in the last 5-6 years, the RBI remains one of India's most respected institutions. Acknowledging the connect between financial stability and robust functioning of the Reserve Bank, Subramanian, who is a visiting professor at Harvard University, said the RBI has to be accountable for glaring deficiencies and shortcomings in the financial system or economy. "As long as autonomy (of RBI) is protected, there will be no issues," he asserted. The recent rift between the RBI and the union government is one that has been widely debated, particularly after RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya stressed on the need to ensure the central bank's independence. On Monday, Urjit Patel stepped down as the RBI Governor citing "personal reasons", weeks after differences between the central bank and the government regarding its "independence" became public. A day later, former economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das was appointed as the new governor of the central bank with immediate effect. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US law enforcement has taken note of a phishing scam that uses bomb threats via email to target victims, which led to mass evacuations across the United States on Thursday. The Grand Rapids Police Department noted that the emails asked for an electronic financial transaction in order to deactivate the bomb. The police department has so far responded to emergency calls from Michigan's University Prep Academy, the Bucher Hydrolic, and Mary Freebed Hospital amongst other places. "It is believed that these emails are originating outside the country, and are merely an opportunity to try to solicit money. We have found no validity to any of the threats reported so far, and therefore, do not believe that there is any cause for alarm or elevated threat level. If you are a recipient of one of these emails, do NOT send any money," the Grand Rapids Police Department said in an advisory on Thursday (local time). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), on the other hand, also took note of the incident and encouraged the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Falsehood has a very short life and it lowers the credibility of its creator, remarked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday while reacting to the Supreme Court verdict rejecting petitions pertaining to the Rafale fighter jets deal. "The disruptors have lost and they have lost on all counts. They have lost on the count that the need of this combat aircraft was acute and necessary," he said. Intensifying his attack on the Opposition, Jaitley said: "Now, somebody has to answer a question that after shortlisting this purchase, both in terms of quality and cost, why it was virtually stopped if not abandoned? Why was security compromised with? Why was needs of the Air Force compromised with?" "It has protected both security interest and commercial interest of India. Security interest because it increases the combat ability of our forces and commercial interest because that sealed envelope indicated that the final price was significantly lower, both for the aircraft and the weaponised aircraft, than what was being negotiated between 2007 and 20012," he further added. In a scathing remark, Jaitley also commented that those who created and manufactured this falsehood have all hurt India's larger security interest in the country. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court dismissed all petitions pertaining to multi-million dollar Rafale fighter jets deal. The bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation into details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise has taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," said CJI Gogoi. The CJI added that "Detailed scrutiny of Rafale deal is not required." Earlier also, on November 13, Jaitley had hit out at the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying that the failed politics of Gandhi scion was compelling him to rake up Rafale fighter jets deal controversy. In a series of tweets, the Finance Minister had said: "Falsehood is not a substitute for Rahul Gandhi's failed politics. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the general elections expected to take place within the next six months, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asserted that going forward, India cannot afford to have "fragile coalitions." Addressing an annual gathering of the Federation of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on Friday, Jaitley noted that the need of the hour was to formulate policies that have clarity, directional stability and decisive leadership, and establish a market economy with social consciousness for ensuring equitable growth. "The next six months would see a rise in political rhetoric with voices which may not be the expression of the real intent. The need of the hour is continuation of sound policies as against transient populism. The immediate target should be one that spells out the recipe for the next two decades; for an India where further reforms would be the only constant for aspirational people whose attitude is for change and desire for a better quality of life," he said while addressing members of the industry body. Jaitley further said that if the current growth rate and India's global position is retained, the country will be able to go beyond growth rate of 7-8 per cent. In order to achieve this, however, Jaitley said it is important to identify several unreformed sectors such as state road transportation, railways, dealing with urbanisation, focusing on science and technology and research. "India has done extremely well in infrastructure areas such as aviation and ports and it must be ensured that these success stories are not converted into challenges for the economy," he added. Amid reports of Urjit Patel stepping down as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor over the central bank's alleged stifled autonomy, Jaitley clarified that the government was in no way trying to interfere in the autonomy of the central bank. He further said he was unable to perceive how an elected, sovereign government which flags off issues of credit and liquidity could be construed as infringing on the autonomy of the institution. "Autonomy is not synonymous with isolationism, and therefore, bringing issues of concern to the notice of the central bank should not be regarded as a hindrance to the autonomy of the RBI," Jaitley asserted. A tiff between the RBI and the Centre allegedly ensued after RBI deputy Governor Viral Acharya earlier this year stressed on the need to ensure the central bank's independence. On Thursday, former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian had opined that creative tension between the RBI and the Centre should exist in line with the autonomy of the central bank. "We want autonomy and independence but along with communication and cooperation because both parts of the government (i.e. RBI and government) have to work together as many of their objectives are common. There will be some objectives which are different and that's why we created RBI. They will never agree, they should never agree, there has to be a creative tension," he had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turns out, undergoing a weekly, whole-body massage can help patients with arthritis (in their knees) experience significant improvement in pain and mobility. Researchers at the Duke University suggested that massage can offer a safe and effective complement to the management of knee osteoarthritis, at least in the short term. The finding of the study appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. "Osteoarthritis is a leading cause of disability and affects more than 30 million people in America," said lead author Adam Perlman. "Medications are available, but many patients experience adverse side effects, raising the need for alternatives. This study demonstrates that massage has the potential to be one such option." Scientists enrolled 200 patients with osteoarthritis in their knees. Patients were randomly divided into three groups: those who received a one-hour, weekly Swedish massage for eight weeks; those who received a light-touch control treatment; and those who received no extra care other than their usual regimen. Patients were assessed after every two months using a standardised questionnaire. The questionnaire measured pain, stiffness and functional limitations, including how well patients can climb stairs, stand up from sitting or lying down, bend, walk or get out of a car, among other activities. Massage significantly improved patients' scores on the questionnaire compared to light-touch and usual care. At 52 weeks, the twice-monthly massages maintained the improvements observed at eight weeks but did not provide an additional benefit. There were no significant differences between the groups at 52 weeks. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Pune Sessions Court on Friday granted bail to the accused Amol Kale, Rajesh Bangera and Amit Degvekar as the Central Bureau of Investigation failed to file charge-sheet against them within the stipulated 90-day period. Two of the accused are presently in the judicial custody of Karnataka Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is investigating the murder case of slain journalist Gauri Lankesh. On the other hand, accused Amol Kale is presently in the custody of the Maharashtra SIT, which is probing the murder of Govind Pansare. On November 17, a Pune Sessions Court granted a 45-day extension to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file charge sheet in activist Narendra Dabholkar murder case. In August this year, the CBI established a link between the murders of Lankesh and Dabholkar after it recovered the pistol used for killing Gauri Lankesh while investigating the latter's murder case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a move that may severely impact Indian tourists, traders and the Nepalese persons working in India, the Government of Nepal has banned use of Indian currency banknotes of Rs 200, Rs 500 and Rs 2000. The decision was taken in a cabinet meeting on December 10 following which a notice was issued asking the Nepalese citizens not to keep or transact in these banknotes. "Indian Rupees 200, 500 and 2,000 banknotes will not be allowed to bring in or to keep with will be illegal. So the notice about not to use, carry and possess those banknotes would be published," the press release made by Nepal's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology said while giving reference to the cabinet decision. With this decision Nepali citizens are only allowed to carry or make the transactions using Rs 100 banknotes as it is not specified in the release about ban on this or explained further. There was no specific clause or provisions about the new Indian banknotes which were issued after the demonetization move by the Indian Government last November. But the Central Bank of Nepal, the Rashtra Bank, had asked public not to transact using the new Indian banknotes issued later that year. Even though Indian banknotes are not a legal tender in Nepal, it is widely used in the country due to free flowing movement of citizens and trade from both sides. A lot of Nepalese citizens work in India who carry Indian currency back home while Indian tourists travelling to the Himalayan country find it comfortable to transact in Indian rupees. Nepalese citizens were highly impacted during demonetisation and according to estimates roughly Rs 950 crores of Indian currency was in Nepal while Indian Government announced demonetisation. The note-ban by India severely impacted the economy of Nepal following which Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli raised the matter of exchanging the demonetised currency with new banknotes with the Indian government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nepal government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2000, Rs 500 and Rs 200. The government has asked the citizens to abstain from keeping or carrying Indian currencies higher than Rs 100 which cease to be legal tender. According to Nepal's Information and Broadcasting Minister Gokul Prasad Baskota, the government has informed the public about the new decision of banning Indian currency notes above Rs 100. As many as 2,60,124 Indian tourists have visited Nepal in the last 10 months, taking the number of tourists visiting the neighbouring country to a whopping one million. A local resident said, "Whenever tourists from India visit Nepal, they want to spend money here. Nepal government should have looked into all the aspects before making such a decision that will affect both tourism and economic growth of Nepal. This will only curtail the growth of Nepal as people from India will refuse to come to the country." He further added that both the Indian government and the Nepal government talk about the smooth relationship they share with each other, but decisions like this can have a counter effect on both the countries. Nepal is home to nine out of the top 10 highest peaks in the which relies heavily on tourism as one of its sources for foreign currency. The decision was taken in a cabinet meeting on December 10 following which a notice was issued asking the Nepalese citizens not to keep or transact in those banknotes. With this decision, Nepali citizens are only allowed to carry or make transactions using Rs 100 Indian banknotes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an effort to empower enterprises with a comprehensive disbursement and payments solution, OBOPAY, the global financial technology company, today announced the launch of a new generation pre-payment instrument in partnership with Federal Bank and Mastercard. Enterprises often have to deal with legacy systems for disbursements and payments to employees and ecosystem partners. At the same time, users have to use different modes for different payments like, bank accounts for using salary, digital wallets for payments, food coupons, insurance cards for insurance claim, etc. All these existing solutions are restrictive in terms of their usage and there are gaps existing in these systems. The OBOPAY card is built as a one-stop solution that addresses all needs of the enterprise and users seamlessly and can be used at over three million Mastercard outlets in India. The highlights of the card include unique innovations such as the multi-wallet facility that allows dedicated payments and allocation of money for various purposes, the 'Split transaction' feature which provides payment flexibility to users and multiple payment scenarios among many others. While Cardholders will be able to use the OBOPAY card as a prepaid card, the card will also provide them with a host of additional features such as card to card money transfer, making online payments, withdrawing cash at ATMs among many others. The card can be availed by all the entities including corporate, distributor - retailer ecosystem, colleges, factories etc. The account can be operated with zero minimum balance and the users will not be levied any service charge on usage. "Launch of OBOPAY card is another significant landmark in our journey as it reinstates our position as a global mobile payment solutions company. We are delighted to join hands with Mastercard and Federal Bank for promoting digitization and creating a robust digital payments solution which will provide end users with the highest level of convenience. OBOPAY will play a vital role in facilitating the program management and customer life cycle management for the end-users. The Card is a customer-centric innovation from OBOPAY and we are keen that it helps us do our bit for the cause of Financial Inclusion," said CEO OBOPAY, Shailendra Naidu. "Mastercard is excited to partner with OBOPAY and Federal Bank to provide a convenient and safe payment method to the Indian consumers. OBOPAY card will encourage the use of digital payments for several needs, where the consumers often use cash. This initiative also highlights Mastercard's continuous commitment to bring digitally empowered financial inclusion to life, especially in tier 2 & 3 cities in India," said Vikas Varma, Senior Vice President, South Asia, Mastercard. Nilufer Mullanfiroze, Senior Vice President, Federal Bank, said, "We are pleased to partner with OBOPAY and Mastercard for promoting payments through prepaid cards. The card will act as a holistic solution to tackle issues in existing card payment systems in India. The prepaid card can serve multiple purposes such as food coupons, online purchases, fuel purchase, payments to cab aggregators, pharmacies, hospitals, online purchases etc. As a digital payment option, it is a firm step towards less-cash society." The OBOPAY card is a holistic payment ecosystem in itself as it caters to the needs of users, corporates and merchants and addresses multiple payment gaps that exist for corporates, distribution companies, EPC players, Pharma industry etc., which do not have a complete solution for all types of disbursements and payments to their employees, daily wage earners, distributors, retailers, doctors, etc. OBOPAY card is an answer to all the aforesaid concerns. The card has multi-wallets facility with each wallet having the potential to handle a distinct and specific role/usage as required. Users can use this card for multiple payments such as, bank accounts for using salary, digital wallets for payments, food coupons for food coupons, insurance cards for insurance claim, etc. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hours after the Supreme Court dismissed all petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Ram Madhav on Friday said that some opposition parties, including the Congress, must apologise publicly for the misleading propaganda and lies that they pedalled past few months. "Congress, its president Rahul Gandhi and some opposition parties have been making false allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and our government over the Rafale deal. Today the Supreme Court has categorically rejected all those allegations and upheld the transparent manner in which the entire deal has been worked out," Madhav told ANI. "It is time the opposition parties, including Rahul Gandhi, go before the people and apologise for the misleading propaganda and lies that they pedalled all these months and they should go to Parliament and say sorry," he added. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the top court's judgement on the Rafale deal has exposed the lies of the Congress party and its president Rahul Gandhi. "This judgement has vindicated our stand. Now Rahul Gandhi should apologise for defaming our country globally," Fadnavis added. Reacting on the same, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said that the Rafale deal issue will be sorted out in Parliament and not in the apex court. "Supreme Court has said nothing wrong, deciding on pricing is not the Supreme Court's job but similarly deciding on building Ram temple is also not their job. Rafale deal issue will be sorted out in Parliament and not in Supreme Court," Raut said. The Rafale jet deal controversy has been on the boil over the last few months. The Congress and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal. The fighter jet is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft, which security analysts believe can be a 'game-changer' for India's defence system. The top court's judgement comes as a major vindication for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was personally accused of corruption by the Congress. The Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation into details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise has taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," said CJI Gogoi. The CJI added, "Detailed scrutiny of Rafale deal is not required. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Friday said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi must issue an apology soon for misleading public on the Rafale fighter jet deal. "Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation for misleading people. What was the source of information on the basis of which he made such big allegations?" said the 54-year-old BJP chief while addressing a press conference here on Friday. Shah further said, By trying to stop the procedure to buy the aircraft, Rahul Gandhi put the security of the country in danger. I would like to ask Rahul Gandhi to present the source of your information into the Rafale deal, on the basis of which you have levied such allegations," he added. The Rafale jet deal controversy has been on the boil over the last few months. The Congress and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal. The fighter jet is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft, which security analysts believe can be a 'game-changer' for India's defence system. This statement from Shah came just a few hours after the Supreme Court dismissed all petitions pertaining to the deal. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Gogoi, said that there is no need to conduct an investigation into details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise have taken place and there is no element of financial benefits. Detailed scrutiny of RafaleDeal deal is not required," said Gogoi. Shah in his concluding statement claimed, "whenever Congress is in power, there is a string of scams, ghotalas and jumlas.We invite the Congress for a discussion on the Rafale deal in Parliament." "If Congress had all the proof then why did they not go to the Supreme Court with it? Their B team was already there. Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is formed only when there is a discussion in Parliament, I challenge the Congress for a discussion on the Rafale deal," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi tried to mislead public over Rafale deal for political benefit, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday in Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal. Demanding an apology from Gandhi, Singh said that the Congress president maligned country's image globally. "Congress President tried to mislead public for political benefit, and maligned Indian image globally, he should apologize to the house and to the people of the country. He thought 'Hum to doobe hain sanam tum ko bhi le doobenge'," Singh said. Following an uproar over Rafale verdict by the top court, the Lok Sabha was adjourned till December 17. Earlier in the day, the apex court dismissed all petitions pertaining to multi-million dollar Rafale fighter jets deal. The judgement comes as a major vindication for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was personally accused of corruption by the Opposition Congress. The SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation into details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise has taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," said CJI Gogoi. The CJI added, "Detailed scrutiny of Rafale deal is not required." The Rafale jet deal controversy has been on the boil over the last few months. The Congress and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maria Butina, an alleged Russian spy, pleaded guilty of conspiring against the United States of America for working to infiltrate the political circles of the Republican party to further Russian interests at a federal court on Thursday (local time). Butina targetted groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) to get closer to the Grand Old Party (GOP) as she believed the group "had influence over the Republicans," according to CNN. Butina mentioned that she was taking orders from a retired Russian official while pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the prosecutors in order to get a reduced term. "Butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over US politics," the prosecutors stated in Washington. The alleged spy faces a maximum term of five years in jail, following which she may be deported. At the moment, Butina has agreed to fully cooperate by submitting any evidence of the crime, testifying before juries, turning over a detailed account of her financial assets and sitting for interviews with law enforcement officials without a counsel. Butina allegedly wrote a draft proposal of the conspiracy named the "Description of the Diplomacy Project" in 2015, which outlined her plan to become an unofficial channel of communication between Russia and the USA. She received USD 1,25,000 from the Russian official, whom CNN has recognised as Alexander Torshin, to attend GOP conferences to get close with the US government. Russia, on the other hand, stated that Butina's arrest was politically motivated and she took the deal to "survive". A hearing will be held in February next year to finalise a sentencing date for Butina. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions pertaining to multi-million dollar Rafale fighter jets deal. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi,stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation in to details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise have taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," said CJI Gogoi. The CJI added that, "Detailed scrutiny of RafaleDeal deal is not required." The court was announcing its decision on the clutch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets. The apex court on November 14 had reserved its judgement in the case. The three-judge bench comprising CJI Gogoi, Justice S K Kaul and K M Joseph of the apex court heard petitioners and the government lawyers before reserving the verdict in the case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "It is a totally incorrect judgement," stated petitioner Prashant Bhushan moments after the apex court dismissed batch of petitions that demanded a probe into the controversial Rafale fighter jets deal stating that it was satisfied that the process for procurement had been followed. "We have just asked for an investigation constitute a Special Investigation Team under the supervision of the Supreme Court to investigate the reasons for cancellation of earlier deal for the purchase of 126 Rafale fighter jets. This decision is wrong in my opinion. The court has given this order citing scope of limited judicial review," Bhushan told reporters after the verdict. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions pertaining to multi-million dollar Rafale fighter jets deal. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi,stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation in to details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise have taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," said CJI Gogoi. The CJI added that, "Detailed scrutiny of RafaleDeal deal is not required." However, Bhushan alleged that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-government at the Centre did not follow the defence procurement procedure while sealing the deal with the France's Dassault Aviation. "In accordance with the law, the demand for purchasing the fighter jets must first be raised by the Indian Air Force chief. If one looks closely, the Air Force over the last couple of years have stated that they require at least 126 jets. After the Air Force, the Defence Accusation Council should have taken a call on how many jets are actually required and of what kind. The tender is then issued in the public domain. But in this case, Prime Minister Modi, all of a sudden flew to France and signed a deal with Dassault Aviation for 36 Rafale fighters," he said. Bhushan also pointed fingers at the pricing of the aircraft and alleged that earlier the budget for purchasing them was fixed at 5.2 million Euros but unilaterally the Cabinet Committe headed by the Prime Minister Modi increased the money from 5.2 million Euros to 7.8 million Euros, causing a loss of Rs 20,000 crore to public exchequer". The activist lawyer also added that he is yet to take a call on filing the review petition on the latest Supreme Court's verdict. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday congratulated his successor Kamal Nath and urged him to continue with the schemes he implemented for the welfare of the people during his tenure. Speaking to media, Chouhan said, "I would like to congratulate Kamal Nath Ji and convey my best wishes to him. I hope he will fulfil all the promises he has made and continue with the schemes we had implemented." Nath will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 17, at Lal Parade ground in capital city Bhopal. The statement from Singh came days after he quit the workplace after the Rahul Gandhi led-Congress emerged as the largest party in the state winning 114 seats in the Assembly Elections. However, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) extended their support to the party. BSP has won 2 seats and SP 1 seat, taking the total for Congress to 117, crossing the majority mark of 116. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After 13 miners got trapped in an illegal coal mine in East Jaintia Hills yesterday, Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Friday asserted that strict action will be taken against the illegal miners at the right time, however, the initiative to rescue the trapped miners are underway. Reportedly, the miners got trapped in a coal pit filled with water. Stressing upon the continuous rise of illegal mining cases even after the ban imposed by the Green Tribunal in 2014, Sangma said, "We got to know about the illegal mining incidents and appropriate action will be taken at appropriate time against people who are involved in it". Acknowledging the on-going rescue operations, which were initiated to save the miners, the Chief Minister stated: "The Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team and police have started search and rescue operations and we all are very concerned about the lives of the miners." "For now, the most important thing at this time is to save the life of individuals. And for that, I am in touch with the deputy commissioner and the Superintendent of Police on a regular basis," the Chief Minister added. Further reports in the matter are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As suspense looms over who would be the Rajasthan chief minister, senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot stated that "making decisions in such matters takes time as observers go to states for discussions." Retorting to BJP's remarks over the delay caused in the appointment of chief ministers, Gehlot pointed out that "the BJP itself took seven days to choose chief minister when emerged victorious in Uttar Pradesh." "In Maharashtra too, the BJP took nine days to choose the head of the state," he added. In Rajasthan, the party has two prominent contenders for the chief ministerial post, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot. On the one hand, Pilot has been heading the Rajasthan Congress for past four-five years and has delivered with satisfaction. On the other hand, Gehlot who held the chief ministerial post twice earlier remains popular among the public. On December 11, the Congress bagged as many as 99 seats out in the 200-member assembly. The party's ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) managed to win one seat to get the magical 100 marks, which is required to form the government. While rival BJP led by Vasundhara Raje declined drastically from 163 to 73 seats, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party managed to bag six seats and has also offered support to the Congress. The remaining 20 seats were won by independent candidates. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States President Donald Trump has said that China is interested in forging a comprehensive trade deal with the United States 'rather soon'. "China just announced that their economy is growing much slower than anticipated because of our Trade War with them. They have just suspended U.S. Tariff Hikes. U.S. is doing very well. China wants to make a big and very comprehensive deal. It could happen, and rather soon!" he tweeted on Friday (local time). Earlier in the day, Sputnik quoted the Chinese Finance Ministry as saying in a statement that Beijing will suspend 25 per cent tariffs on 144 US vehicle and auto part items and five per cent tariffs on 67 auto items between January 1 and March 31, 2019. The US and China have been at loggerheads recently over the imposition of tariffs. Earlier this month, Trump, while talking about the US-China trade truce, had stated that either Washington will have a real deal with Beijing or no deal at all. He had further asserted that if no deal is struck between the two nations, the US will slap major tariffs against Chinese products being exported to the US. "We are either going to have a REAL DEAL with China or no deal at all - at which point we will be charging major Tariffs against Chinese product being shipped into the United States. Ultimately, I believe, we will be making a deal - either now or into the future.... ...China does not want Tariffs!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday (local time). Following the meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina, Trump had tweeted that the negotiation between the two countries had begun and that he was looking forward to the possibility of having a "real deal" with China. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States President Donald Trump on Friday said that the US is in 'no hurry' to reach negotiations with North Korea, amid talks of denuclearising the Korean Peninsula. "Many people have asked how we are doing in our negotiations with North Korea - I always reply by saying we are in no hurry, there is wonderful potential for great economic success for that country...." he tweeted. "....Kim Jong Un sees it better than anyone and will fully take advantage of it for his people. We are doing just fine!" read a second tweet. Discussions over the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula gained momentum after the Singapore meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. During the meeting, the two leaders had signed a joint statement agreeing to guarantee peaceful relations as well as the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. In addition to this, Trump, during his trip to Argentina to attend the G20 summit, had reaffirmed that he was committed to holding a second summit with Kim early next year. He had also said his administration was ready to lift sanctions on North Korea but asserted that Pyongyang has to be "responsive" to Washington. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States Senate has approved a resolution to hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death at the Saudi consular premises in Istanbul on October 2. The Senate also passed a resolution to end US support for the "Saudi war in Yemen". Chris Murphy, the US Senator from Connecticut who introduced the bill, called it a "big deal" and tweeted on Friday (IST), "Two years ago, when @RandPaul and I introduced a bill to cut arms sales to Saudi Arabia, only 27 Senators voted with us." He further stated, "Today, 56 voted to end U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen. Thank you to everyone that called and urged the Senate to vote on this resolution." Both the decisions come as a major setback to US President Donald Trump, who has shown support for Saudi Arabia in the past, especially in the wake of allegations against MBS with regard to Khashoggi's death. Trump, time and again, refused to sever ties with the nation, calling it a "key ally". "Every single Senator across both parties just joined together to condemn the murder of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi and hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible. President @realDonaldTrump can no longer ignore this egregious murder," Chuck Schumer, the US Senator from New York tweeted on Friday (IST). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After V Senthil Balaji's joined Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagham (AMMK) president TTV Dhinakaran on Friday said that Balaji's resignation came as a surprise, however, he could have better joined the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). Earlier in the day, close aide to Dhinakaran, Balaji quit AMMK and joined MK Stalin's DMK. "Balaji could have better joined the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) instead. Our party has always opposed the DMK. We are in support of those who have followed Amma (Jayalalithaa). I am surprised how he could change his colour overnight to join the DMK," said TTV Dhinakaran. Dhinakaran further said that he has no regrets over Balaji's resignation and holds no grudges against him. "I know Senthil Balaji since 2006 and I have no regrets over his resignation as I can't hold anybody's hand and compel them to do anything. It's his decision and I wish him good luck wherever he goes. I don't have any problem with this," Dhinakaran said. The DMK chief also asserted that choosing to join or leave a political party is every individual's right. "Balaji tried to take other party members along with him. But they didn't accept his offer," he said. Commenting on the grand celebration held at DMK's office to welcome Balaji earlier in a day, Dhinakaran stated, "The DMK had to portray that Senthil Balaji is joining them in a big way. It shows that the DMK is jittery after their poor performance in the RK Nagar by-election in which they even lost their deposits". Earlier, Balaji served as the close aide to AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran. Also, he was among the 18 pro-Sasikala AIADMK MLAs, who were disqualified by the Speaker on September 18, 2017. Interestingly, Balaji started his political career in DMK but later joined Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and then AIADMK. He was appointed as the state Minister for Transport from 2011 to 2015. While working for AIADMK, Balaji was elected to Aravakurichi (Karur) constituency in 2006 and 2011 Assembly elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is quoting at Rs 341.75, up 2.05% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The stock is down 34.66% in last one year as compared to a 4.56% jump in NIFTY and a 1.31% jump in the Nifty Energy index. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is up for a third straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 341.75, up 2.05% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is up around 0.12% on the day, quoting at 10804.85. The Sensex is at 35966.19, up 0.1%. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd has gained around 6.18% in last one month. Meanwhile, Nifty Energy index of which Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is a constituent, has gained around 0.8% in last one month and is currently quoting at 13924.2, up 0.67% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 20.91 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 52.74 lakh shares in last one month. The benchmark December futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 339.65, up 1.16% on the day. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is down 34.66% in last one year as compared to a 4.56% jump in NIFTY and a 1.31% jump in the Nifty Energy index. The PE of the stock is 8.72 based on TTM earnings ending September 18. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Aims to give a fillip to the medical device sector The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has announced setting up of a National Medical Devices Promotion Council under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry to give a fillip to the medical device sector, a sunrise sector. The Medical Devices Industry (MDI) plays a critical role in the healthcare ecosystem and is indispensable to achieve the goal of health for all citizens of the country. The manufacturing and trade in MDI is growing steadily which includes a wide range of products. Although the industry has been growing in double digits but is predominantly import-driven with imports accounting for over 65% of the domestic market. As Indian manufacturing companies and startups move towards creating innovative products, the setting-up of the Council will spur domestic manufacturing in this sector. The Council will be headed by Secretary, DIPP. Apart from the concerned departments of Government of India, it will also have representatives from health care industry and quality control institutions. Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone, Visakhapatnam, will provide technical support to the Council. The National Medical Devices Promotion Council will act as a facilitating and promotion & developmental body for the Indian MDI. It will hold periodic seminars, workshops and all related networking activities to garner views of the industry and understand best global practices in the sector and deliberate on various parameters for inclusion in the industrial and trade policies in medical devices. It will identify redundant processes and render technical assistance to the agencies and departments concerned to simplify the approval processes involved in medical device industry promotion & development. It would also make recommendations to government based on industry feedback and global practices on policy and process interventions to strengthen the medical technology sector, including trade interventions for related markets. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ONGC rose 2.48% to Rs 146.80 at 15:09 IST on BSE after the company scheduled a board meeting on 20 December 2018 to consider a proposal of buyback of equity shares of the company. The announcement was made during market hours today, 14 December 2018. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 34.56 points, or 0.1% to 35,964.20 On the BSE, 9.24 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 7.74 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 150.30 and a low of Rs 140.60 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 212.90 on 25 January 2018. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 134.75 on 11 December 2018. ONGC's net profit rose 61.1% to Rs 8264.61 crore on 47.6% increase in net sales to Rs 27989.17 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q2 September 2017. ONGC is the largest crude oil and natural gas company in India, contributing around 70% to Indian domestic production. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Alia Bhatt says she feels shy to talk about her relationship with her "Brahamastra" co-star Ranbir Kapoor. Alia interacted with the media at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2018 here on Thursday. In a recent interview, Alia's filmmaker father had said he feels happy that his daughter is in a relationship with Ranbir. Asked how does she look at acceptance from her father on her relationship with Ranbir, Alia said: "Why are you going into future? You should stay in the present moment. To be honest, I don't want to talk about it. "I am feeling shy but I love my father and anything he says obviously means the world to me, but I don't want to talk about this right now." On her upcoming line-up of films, Alia said: ''Kalank' is releasing next year on April 18 and 'Gully Boy' is releasing on February 14. 'Gully Boy' has been selected at Berlin Film Festival and 'Brahmastra' is releasing on Christmas, so what a fabulous next year it's turning out for me." Alia made her Hindi film debut at the early age of 19 with "Student of The Year". Now other star kids like Janhvi Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan have made their Hindi film debut this year. How does it feel when people term her as 'senior' to Janhvi and Sara, she said: "I am not a senior. If you call it senior, then I am a senior to them but I don't think there is such kind of vibe between us and they are not very much younger than me. "They all are such beautiful girls. They treat me with a lot of warmth and shower upon me lot of love, so I will only give lots of love and warmth back to them." --IANS iv/rb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday slammed the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)for politicising the 1984 riots following Congress leader and former union minister Kamal Nath being named as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister. The Congress is set to form the government in Madhya Pradesh. Intervening during a call attention motion in the Punjab Assembly on the issue after it was raised by Akali Dal legislator Bikram Singh Majithia, the chief minister said that the law was taking its due course regarding allegations against the veteran leader. The fact of the matter was that Kamal Nath had been a central minister for more than 10 years after the allegations first surfaced, Amarinder Singh pointed out, adding that a mere reference about the senior Congress leader in the Nanavati Commission report could not be construed as his involvement in the case. "Only the law alone could decide the role of any individual," the chief minister said, adding that nobody should exploit the sensitive issue of the 1984 riots for their political ends. The chief minister also showed pictures of Akali Dal patron and former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal presenting a bouquet to Kamal Nath and Sukhbir Singh Badal and Parminder Singh Dhindsa attending a meeting with the former union minister to highlight the fact that the Akali leaders were just trying to politicise the issue for their petty vested interests. Opposing the move by the Congress to name Kamal Nath as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, SAD had said on Thursday that the Congress was "rewarding the perpetrators of genocide against the Sikhs". "Apparently, the Gandhi family still rewards Congress leaders who were directly involved in the genocide in 1984, a period of shame for humanity as rioting against the innocent Sikhs was perpetrated by the Congress leaders," Akali Dal leader Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal said in a statement here. He alleged that Kamal Nath led a mob against the Sikhs in the Rakab Ganj gurdwara area, where young innocent boys were burnt to death while he stood there. Kamal Nath was removed as the Congress in-charge for Punjab in 2016 following objections from Congress leaders in the Sikh-majority state. --IANS js/oeb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal government on Friday ordered a probe by the state police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the killing of three persons, including a Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, by miscreants who made an armed attack on the car of local legislator in Joynagar of South 24 Parganas district, police said. MLA Biswanath Das escaped the Thursday night attack as he had got off the vehicle some time before the incident, which has created a flutter in the eastern state. "Three people died in the attack on the vehicle that the local MLA had used through the day," a police officer said. The motor bike-borne miscreants surrounded the vehicle as it halted at a petrol pump in Joynagar town -- about 55 km from the heart of Kolkata -- for refuelling and sprayed bullets besides hurling bombs indiscriminately. The driver of the vehicle, taken on hire from a car rental company, died in the attack. The two other victims were a Trinamool Congress local leader and an onlooker. Das claimed that he was the target of the attack. "I hire this car regularly. That day also I was supposed to get down close to the petrol pump to spend time at a tea stall, but I got off earlier at a local party office. I have no clue about the identity of the attackers, or why they carried out the attack. But I am convinced I was the target," said Das. While Das did not pin the blame on any opposition party, district Trinamool chief Subhasish Chakraborty alleged that the CPI-M and the SUCI (Communist) were behind the incident. CPI-M leader Sujon Chakraborty, however, alleged that the fatal shootout was the result of "bitter infighting" within the Trinamool. SUCI-C leader Tarun Naskar claimed there were three factions in the Trinamool always at each other's throat. "One of the factions carried out the shootout targeting another faction." On Friday, the state government asked the CID to take over the investigation. --IANS ssp/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Buoyed by the Supreme Court relief to the government in the Rafale deal, BJP President Amit Shah and a battery of ministers attacked Congress President Rahul Gandhi for his campaign of "lies" and demanded an apology to the nation. However, Gandhi, hit back saying the nation knew that there was "corruption" in the deal and repeated his jibe that "watchman is a thief" who helped a private industralist. While Gandhi and his party leaders demanded constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), maintaining that it can alone bring out the truth, the government and the BJP leaders rejected it. They said the Congress should come and debate in the House instead of disrupting it. Shortly after a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi rejected a bunch of petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the controversial fighter jet deal, the top guns of BJP addressed various press conferences to come down heavily on Rahul Gandhi for his campaign against the government and the Prime Minister. They said now that the Supreme Court has given its judgement, all debate should end. In both Houses of Parliament which were disrupted on the issue, Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanded that Gandhi should apologise for throwing "false" allegations. In Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley challenged the Congress for a debate on the issue. BJP President Amit Shah held a press conference and demanded that Gandhi apologise to the nation for his "brazen lies" accusing the government and said he should also disclose the source of information for his attacks. Shah said truth had triumphed and Gandhi's "lies" had no legs to stand on. Quoting from the judgement, Shah said the court expressed satisfaction with the process followed in purchasing the aircraft and set aside the demands of the petitioners for a probe into the matter. He said the court agreed with the government's contention that the country had financially benefited in the deal. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressed a press conference with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and rejected the Congress' demand for a JPC probe into the Rafale aircraft deal. He said the "family" was not above the Supreme Court in a democracy, the apex court verdict was absolute and conclusive and the "truth in such matters come from judicial process and not on the basis of political partisan lines". Gandhi, who has spearheaded attack on Rafale, also addressed a press conference and accused the government of telling "lies". He raised questions over the statement that a parliamentary committee had examined the pricing details of the Rafale deal and asserted that there was no such meeting. He attacked Modi and persisted with demand for a JPC which, he said, would expose the "lies". Citing the Supreme Court judgement that referred to a parliamentary committee having examined the price details of the fighter jet, he said no such meeting was held. "Today Supreme Court gave a judgement and I want to read three lines from it. 'The pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).' This is the foundation of the judgment," Gandhi said. Party leader Mallikarjun Kharge, the PAC Chairman, who was at the press conference, said no such report came before the panel and the CAG was also not aware of it. Kharge had earlier told reporters in the Parliament that the government of was trying to hide its "theft" in the Rafale deal behind a court ruling. "They are trying to hide the theft under the guise" of PIL-triggered court judgement, he said. "Our demand continues to be JPC. They want to hide behind the judgement... We will not tolerate this, nor will the people of the country." Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewal alleged there was "multi-layered corruption" in the deal. "We know that the Supreme Court has no powers to look into all the aspects. So the Congress never went to the Supreme Court. I challenge (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi (to go) for a JPC probe." Former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan expressed shock and disappointment over the verdict and said it "neither addressed the documented facts nor dealt with their main prayer seeking an investigation into the deal to purchase the French fighter jets". --IANS ps/vsc/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A dawn-to-dusk shutdown called by the BJP to protest against the death of a man said to be a Sabarimala devotee derailed Kerala on Friday, sparking widespread anger over the disruption to normal life. The 50-year-old Venugopalan Nair set himself on fire at a BJP protest venue on Thursday and succumbed to his injuries in a hospital here. But in his dying declaration, he made no mention of the Sabarimala temple. Before being taken to the public crematorium, his body was brought to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) protest venue where party leaders paid their last respect. But the rationale for calling the shutdown came under fire from the ruling CPI-M, Congress, business groups as well as the man on the street. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the media in Delhi that the BJP national leadership should reign in the state unit for organising protests like this. "Frequent calls for shutdowns cause a lot of troubles to people... The cause of the death has also now come out," he said. The capital district was subjected to one shutdown called by the BJP on Tuesday to protest "police high-handedness" on their women cadres when they protested over the Sabarimala issue in front of the state Secretariat on Monday. State Congress President Mulapally Ramachandran asked the BJP to explain on why Friday's shutdown was called when it was clear that Nair committed suicide as he was fed up with life. "It's most unfortunate that the BJP is trying make political capital out of a suicide. Their emotions on Sabarimala issue are hollow and has no merit," he said. The state-run Kerala State Road Transport Corp (KSRTC) did not operate its services. In Palghat, some people stoned three buses parked at the KSRTC depot. Most shops and business establishments besides all educational institutions in the state were closed but private vehicles plied. Traders at the otherwise busy commercial market area in Kozhikode got together on Friday and decided that come what may they will not close down their shops in any shutdown in future. "We have decided to take legal steps so that we will get police protection in future when shutdowns are called," said a trader. A woman who arrived at the Kozhikode railway station on Friday morning with her from the state capital complained that she had gone to attend an interview and was now stuck till 6 p.m. as the bus to Wayanad would operate only after the shutdown ended. The shutdown also affected the release of superstar Mohanlal's magnum opus "Odiyan" that was slated to open at 412 theatres across the state. Only a few auto-rickshaws operated in Kochi, the state's commercial capital, but Kochi Metro operated normal services. In the state capital, police escorts were provided to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) buses and to vehicles carrying IT staff to the Technopark campus. Former state BJP chief C.K. Padmanabhan, who has been on an indefinite fast over the Sabarimala issue, justified the shutdown. State BJP President P. Sreedharan Pillai demanded a judicial probe into Nair's death "to know the truth". --IANS sg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP ministers on Friday came down heavily on the Congress for carrying out a misleading campaign on the Rafale fighter jet deal, with Home Minister Rajnath Singh rejecting the opposition party's demand for a Joint Parliamentary Probe on the issue. Singh said the government was confident that the Supreme Court judgment on the issue would be in its favour as the deal was "fair." He also turned down the demand for "any committee" to probe the deal. Any debate on the deal must end now in the light of the judgement, he added. Calling the Rafale deal "fair", "honest" and "transparent", Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said "I would urge that all campaigns against the Rafale must end now. The country's strategic interest is more important." Union Human Resource Minister Prakash Javdekar said the judgment has exposed the lies of the Congress. "It is a good judgment. We appreciate it," he said. --IANS spk/vsc/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) iStock/JPecha(WASHINGTON) -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her first public remarks following a health scare last month, hailed immigrants as the vanguard of an effort to remove stains of discrimination from American society. The Constitution sets out the aspiration to form a more perfect union, Ginsburg said, addressing 31 newly naturalized American citizens who had just taken the oath of allegiance. While we have made huge progress, the work of perfection is far from done. Many stains remain." As well informed citizens you will play a vital part in that endeavor, she said. First by voting in elections, serving on juries and participating in civil discourse. Ginsburg spoke in near darkness at the National Archives, standing before the delicate original documents of the U.S. Constitution. Saturday marks the official 227th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. As much of Washington remains embroiled in a heated debate over immigration and border security, Ginsburg pointed out that more than 20 million current citizens were born in other countries, coming to America to provide a better life for themselves and their families. She argued, in a striking contrast to the rhetoric coming from the White House, that the founders of the US proclaimed that the heart of America would be its citizens, not its rulers. May the spirit of liberty be your beacon, she told Americas newest citizens, who came from 26 different countries, as you play your part in helping to achieve a more perfect union. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday called on the British government and the European Union to prepare for the eventuality that Brexit could be pushed back in favour of further negotiations or a second referendum. Blair, the former leader of the Labour Party, currently in opposition to the Conservative Party, made his comments in London at an event organized by the "People's Vote" campaign group, which was pushing for another vote on the UK's withdrawal from the EU, Efe news reported. "Between now and the 21st of January, we should see whether it is possible to find a majority consensus for any form of Brexit in Parliament," Blair said during a speech. "In the meantime, we should prepare for the eventuality that there isn't such a consensus. Politicians should debate and discuss the different options." "Europe should prepare for the possibility, now morphing into the near probability that Britain will require an extension of time to the Article 50 process, either to negotiate further, or more likely to conduct a new referendum, a people's vote," the former Prime Minister said. According to Blair, the decision to leave would be "regretted by future generations" and he argued that Brexit was "manmade" and could therefore be "unmade by man". The UK is on course to leave the EU on March 29, 2019, after the electorate narrowly voted in favour of such a move in June 2016. Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 on March 29, 2017, setting in motion a two-year period of negotiations on the terms of her country's withdrawal from the EU. A deal reached between EU and May was scheduled to be put to a vote in the UK Parliament on Tuesday, but the leader ditched the vote over fears it would be defeated. She later turned to Brussels in a bid to secure assurances over the so-called Irish backstop -- a mechanism that would come into force to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit scenario. The EU, however, said there was no room to renegotiate the deal reached with the UK on its terms of leaving. The backstop has become one of the main sticking points throughout the negotiations. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) European Union leaders have refused to give UK's Prime Minister Theresa May a lifeline over Brexit, saying that the withdrawal agreement is "not open for renegotiation", despite her appeal to them to help her salvage the deal by putting a 12-month limit on the unpopular Irish backstop. May came to Brussels to plead EU leaders on Thursday at a summit to make the agreement more palatable to sceptical lawmakers in London. But after the meeting, representatives of the bloc said they were sticking with the withdrawal agreement previously agreed with London, including the Northern Ireland backstop deal which threatens to derail it in the UK Parliament. May delayed a Commons vote on the deal earlier this week when it became clear she would suffer a heavy defeat. "If we go into negotiations on the future relationship, we need to have a well-constructed proposal and a cogent idea from our British partners and friends, and then we'll look at that," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters. The UK leader had been seeking legally enforceable guarantees surrounding the Irish backstop -- aimed at preventing the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It has emerged as the crucial sticking point for many in May's Conservative Party, furious that Britain could only leave it with the approval of the EU. Critics say the backstop would keep the UK tied to EU rules indefinitely and curb its ability to strike trade deals. Conservative MPs demanded changes to the backstop to make it clear that it could not last forever, and Britain could terminate the arrangement on its own. At the summit, May was seeking legal assurances that the backstop, if used, would be temporary. "In terms of a no deal, let's not forget ultimately, it is within the gift of the UK government and the UK Parliament to take the threat of no deal off the table," Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said. "It is possible if the UK wishes to, to revoke Article 50, or, if that's a step too far to seek an extension of Article 50," he added, referring to the piece of EU law by which the UK triggered Brexit. Speaking after the Brussels summit, European Council President Donald Tusk called the backstop "an insurance policy", saying it was the EU's "firm determination" to work "speedily" on alternative arrangements. Tusk said the backstop would "apply temporarily unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement that ensures that the hard border is avoided". The European Council's conclusions on Brexit published on Thursday said that the EU would continue trying to negotiate a trade deal with the UK even if the Irish backstop had been triggered at the end of the transition period. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Regular exposure to cultural activities like cinema, theatre or museums can keep older adults away from depression, finds a new study. Depression is a major issue affecting millions of people, especially the elderly. The study showed that people who saw films, plays or exhibitions every few months had a 32 per cent lower risk of developing depression, with those attending once a month or more having a 48 per cent lower risk. "People engage with culture for the pure enjoyment of doing so, but we need to be raising awareness of their wider benefits too," said Daisy Fancourt, Senior Research Associate from the University College London in the UK. The power of these cultural activities lies in the combination of social interaction, creativity, mental stimulation and gentle physical activity they encourage, according to the study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. If we are starting to feel low or isolated then cultural engagement is something simple that we can do to proactively help with our own mental health before it gets to the point where we need professional medical help, according to Fancourt. "However, such activities on their own don't treat depression. This requires an approach based on the use of talking therapies, complemented by the use of medication where an older person does not respond or when they have more severe depression," noted Amanda Thompsell from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. For the study, the researchers studied more than 2,148 adults above 50. --IANS pb/rt/mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Brussels, Dec 15 (IANS/AKI) Italy premier Giuseppe Conte had a breakfast meeting on Friday with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel at a hotel in central Brussels to discuss populist government's expansionary budget, unexpectedly cancelling a planned press briefing to fit in the meeting. Conte, who is in Brussels for a summit of European Union heads of state and government, is also trying to arrange meetings with other EU leaders on the sidelines of the summit to get their backing for Italy's latest budget proposal and avert EU financial sanctions. Conte told the European Commission on Wednesday he was lowering next year's deficit target to 2.04 percent of gross domestic product from 2.4 percent. The Commission rejected the 2.4 deficit target in October as a breach of EU fiscal rules requiring member states' deficits to fall progressively towards a balanced budget. Italy's offer of a budget deficit of 2.04 percent is still considerably higher than the 0.8 percent planned by the previous centre-left government and it is not clear if the new target will avert EU financial penalties. On Thursday, finance minister Giovanni Tria said he would remain in Brussels until a compromise was reached on Italy's budget. The Commission has said a high deficit would only add to Italy's already massive debt burden and the government's overly optimistic forecasts would not deliver the growth promised after years of austerity measures. If it does not reach agreement with Italy, the EU executive could launch an 'excessive deficit procedure' that can result in fines of 0.2-0.5 percent of GDP, though these have never been levied on any eurozone country. --IANS/AKI vin (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Crucial decisions always take time," Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said on Friday, commenting on why the name of Rajasthan Chief Minister had not been announced yet. Gehlot was speaking to the media before the start of a meeting at the residence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the presence of state Congress chief Sachin Pilot, the other main contender for the post. Rahul Gandhi's sister Priyanka Gandhi was present at the meeting. Gehlot said the BJP had no right to comment on the issue as that party took seven days to select their state head in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, in Maharashtra, they took nine days to choose a Chief Minister. In Rajasthan, he added, the BJP could not appoint a party president for more than 70 days. The name suggested by the BJP central leadership was rejected by then Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. "It is normal for such an issue to take time. We are also trying to send out a message that crucial decisions in our party are discussed jointly," he said. The Congress ousted the BJP from power in Rajasthan despite falling short of a clear majority in the Assembly by one vote. But it got the backing of the BSP and Independents. --IANS arc/mr/soni (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Dassault Aviation on Friday welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court that dismissed petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the Rs 59,000-crore Rafale fighter jet deal. "Dassault Aviation takes note of the Supreme Court conclusions establishing the absence of any irregularities in the decision-making process to purchase 36 Rafale, pricing of Rafale jets and selection of Indian offset partners including Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Defence by Dassault Aviation," Dassault said in a statement. It said that its partnership with India goes back a long way with the Indian Air Force (IAF) inducting the Toofani aircraft in 1953. "Fully committed in a strong relationship of mutual trust with India for over 65 years now, all resources of Dassault Aviation are entirely mobilised to make the Rafale, chosen by India in 2012 following a very complete competitive bidding process and evaluation, the spearhead of the IAF," it said. "Dassault Aviation will ensure successful production in the country through the Dassault Reliance Joint Venture in Nagpur as well as through a full-fledged supply chain network involving already 30 companies with which Dassault Aviation signed contracts and additional 60 companies currently under discussions," it added. Dassault CEO Eric Trappier has said that the deal was "absolutely clean in accordance with Indian laws and regulations", and that the first Falcon part is "currently under delivery" out of their facility in Nagpur. --IANS mak/pgh/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Since I last addressed the COP in 2009, Ive been deposed in a coup, thrown into jail, and forced into exile. But almost 10 years since I was last at these climate negotiations, I must say, nothing much seems to have changed," said Mohammad Nasheed, former President of the Maldives, adding: "We are still using the same old, dinosaur language." He is now back again to for the negotiations at COP24 and started exploring more effective, urgent and enhanced ambitious targets. Nsheed's statements, in short, summed up where the climate change negotiations are going at COP24 - with just a day to go to conclude the talk. Nasheed was just short of repeating what Einstein famously said: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Even the usual optimism in such meetings had familiar and archaic language: "Window of opportunity to keep temperature rise below 1.5 C, as revealed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is closing fast. But we still have time and we can do it". That was the official tone of the conference. But unofficial tone was of talk, talk and more talk. A special report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did energise the negotiations by adding the edge to the demands of the developing countries for developed countries to move fast on their own commitment for reducing GHG emissions and fulfilling the promise of financial assistance to the developing countries. But Nasheed wondered if the developing countries should now change the narrative of their demands and instead push the developed countries to enhance their own investments in the clean renewable energy so that technology improves and the prices come down. That, as per Nasheed, would benefit the developing countries more than just asking for new and additional finances. But even there, the developed countries are unwilling to budge. The huge wolf in the herd of the sheep was Poland itself. A day after delivering the inaugural speech at COP24, Polish President Andrzej Duda made a surprise address to coal miners in the country's south, during their annual festival. He said that as long as he is in office, he "won't allow for anyone to murder Polish mining". Duda contended that under the garb of global warming, one cannot neglect the welfare of the coal miners and ignore their needs. Poland needs coal and it would continue mining it for the sustainable development of its people, was his narrative. That must have been a shock to EU delegation to which coal king Poland belongs. EU has often been very proactive in raising the ambitions for reducing the emissions in line with the IPCC 1.5C report. One of the Polish students in the conference stated that coal miners in reality can have a better quality life if they start working on the clean energy. Poland is quite skilled in making turbines for windmills and even exports them. But it does not invest in windmills in the country. "In reality, not only coal miners but even average citizen would lead a better life in Poland if we engage ourselves in clean and renewable energy," he stated. Many houses in the cities and in rural areas still burn dirty coal to heat the houses and pollute the air which, in turn, harms the lives of the present and future generations. But Duda has to please the Solidarity union of the coal miners, who are literally kept in dark about the clean energy. How can Nasheed's suggestion on enhanced investment by the developed countries in renewables would materialize in such a political scenario? In reality, the options before the present negotiations are limited. The fragmentation of the multilateralism is destabilising the negotiations. The oil kings -- the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait -- have formed another block of countries to complicate the negotiations. Even the facilitative role of United Nations Secretary General, who dashed back into the meeting after the inauguration on December 3, 2018 is unlikely to halt the fragmentation and destabilisation of the negotiations. The final days of the negotiations have also revealed that the basic tenets of environmental diplomacy are being conveniently (or deliberately) forgotten. As early as the 1992 Rio conference on and Development, the single-most tenet of environmental diplomacy has been the principle of the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. This basis of negotiations of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements is in jeopardy at COP 24. The rule book to operationalise the Paris Climate Agreement depends much on this tenet. In words of Nasheed, carbon emissions keep "rising, and rising, and rising. And all we seem to be doing is talking and talking and talking". (Rajendra Shende, an IIT alumni, is Chairman, TERRE Policy Centre and a former UNEP Director. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at shende.rajendra@gmail.com) --IANS rajendra/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The results of the much-awaited state elections are finally out. By all accounts, it was unexpected that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be voted out of power in all the three Hindi heartland states. What makes the outcome all the more surprising is that the party has held power for a decade-and-a-half in two of the three states. The party's performance makes two questions extremely pertinent. First, do the results serve as a good predictor of the 2019 general elections? And second, what can the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) take away from these results? Past trends indicate that the results of assembly elections of some states are not reflective of the mood of the voters across the country for the subsequent general elections. In the 2004 general elections, the Congress party went on to become the majority party, despite losing Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh to the BJP in 2003. Similarly, in 2008, the Congress lost Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the BJP, but went on to win the general elections in 2009. The extrapolation of sentiments from state assembly to general elections does not work for two reasons. First, in the latest state assembly election, 14.86 crore citizens went to vote across five states. Equating those voices with those of 85 crore voters across India fails to take into account the fact that the aspirations of voters across 543 constituencies differ quite significantly. Second, different dynamics are at work during assembly and general elections. Regional issues play a key role in state elections. In the state elections of northern states, the rural section of the society usually plays a decisive role as their economies are vastly agrarian. In the recent elections, the spiking costs of fertilisers, clubbed with declining agricultural commodity prices worked against the incumbent party. On the other hand, in the general elections, issues apart from farm distress will also come into play to determine voter behaviour. Another argument that is made to support such electoral extrapolations is that these results can at least serve as bellwethers for the parliamentary seats from these states and not for the entire country as such. However, there are important inferences that can be drawn about the public perception of the ruling and opposition parties from these results. The wins of the Congress party have brought it back in the reckoning as a major force in national However, given the 30-year-old trend of voting out the incumbent government in assembly elections in Rajasthan, the result should have been more decisive in Congress's favour. In Madhya Pradesh as well, despite the anti-incumbency feeling against a 15-year-old BJP incumbent, along with other major issues such as farmers' discontent, the Congress couldn't significantly impact the BJP's vote share. In fact, the BJP has managed to garner a marginally higher vote share of 41 per cent than the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, which ended up with a vote share of 40.9 per cent. Clearly, the Congress party was unable to capitalise the anti-incumbency by providing an alternative narrative. For the ruling party, these results seem to be a wake-up call, but it would be wrong to claim that BJP has lost ground in the Hindi heartland as they have put up a strong fight in both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The support garnered by BJP shows that people have not completely rejected the Hindutva ideology and The lack of public decisiveness and higher turnout on both sides may lead to further polarisation and social conflicts in the short run. The other lesson is that voting behaviour will be highly motivated by prominent social and economic issues: Farm distress in the rural areas, unemployment in urban areas, and corruption. The opposition needs to work towards providing an alternative development model that will solve the citizens' issues and address the institutional challenges that exist in the Indian system. One thing that can be concluded from the results is that 2019 is going to be an interesting contest. Before these results, despite demonetisation and implementation of GST, the popular sentiment was still seen with the BJP and it was able to sweep away state elections in major states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Now, the Congress party seems to be on the path to revival. The 2019 elections will depend on how the two national parties position themselves politically and whether they are able to provide an alternative narrative to the voters. (Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness, India. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya. Manisha Kapoor is senior researcher with Institute for Competitiveness, India) --IANS amitk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) About half a tonne of drugs hidden in car bonnets were seized and two persons were arrested in a major drug bust in Australian capital Sydney, police said on Friday. Border authorities intercepted the crystalline methamphetamine drugs, also known as ice drugs, from car bonnets in November, Xinhua news agency quoted police as saying. Nearly 5,000 packages were seized, with the drugs estimated at a street value of more than 367 million Australian dollars ($265 million), said the police. Police arrested two men, aged 17 and 19. They face maximum life imprisonment sentences. --IANS mag/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the Congress coming to power in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, party President Rahul Gandhi on Friday affirmed his party's commitment to waive off farm loans in all the three states. "We are going to waive farm loans," Gandhi told the media here asserting that his party would fulfil the promise of waving loans of farmers in all the three states within 10 days of coming to power. His comments came on a day when party veterans Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath were chosen as the new Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, respectively. The Congress is soon expected to announce the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh where the race for the post is primarily between state party chief Bhupesh Baghel and Ambikapur MLA T.S. Singh Deo. --IANS and/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran Congress leader Ashok Gehlot was on Friday picked as Congress choice for Chief Minister of Rajasthan and his rival in the race Sachin Pilot could be the Deputy Chief Minister. The question of leadership is understood to have been sorted out by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who met both the contenders on Friday, their third such meeting in two days. Party sources said Pilot had agreed to become Gehlot's deputy as the party was keen to woo the Gujjar community to which he belongs in view of the coming Lok Sabha elections. The Gujjar community is one of the dominant communities in Rajasthan and is important in electoral battles. In a sign that the leadership question in Rajasthan has been settled, Gandhi on Friday posted his photograph with Gehlot and Pilot. The photograph of the smiling leaders had a caption "United Colours of Rajasthan!", without giving any hint as to who will be the Chief Minister. An official announcement is expected in the evening. Gandhi's tweet capped hectic consultations with Gehlot and Pilot, who put up his claim strongly even as members of the Gujjar community took to the streets on Thursday and Friday demanding that he should get the top slot. Gehlot, a two-time Chief Minister, and Pilot reached Gandhi's residence within minutes of each other on Friday. Ahead of the meeting, Gehlot took a veiled dig at Pilot saying that the party unit had already left the decision on Gandhi and it was not the time to express individual choices. "We have given the duty to the High Command. Let it decide who is to be given what responsibility. If I say my choice is this, it is not time for that. The time is to strengthen the Congress, see how its graph goes up. "If Congress is strong, everyone will be empowered and we prove to be useful in meeting the objectives of the 2019 elections. This alone should be our thinking," Gehlot said. He said a resolution had been passed by newly elected MLAs in Rajasthan authorising the High Command to take a decision. "Whether it is Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh, once a resolution is passed, the decision of the Congress President should be acceptable to all. This is what our workers, MLAs and people expect," he said. He said winning elections in the three Hindi heartland states was a big achievement and that it all started with a strong performance of the Congress in Gujarat under Gandhi's leadership. "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and (BJP President) Amit Shah have lost their aura. They have not been able to recover due to which we won elections in the three states," he said. Gehlot had played an active role in formulating the party's campaign strategy in Gujarat. Friday's meeting came hours after the leadership issue was settled in Madhya Pradesh, with Gandhi tweeting his picture with Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who were both chief ministerial aspirants. The picture -- akin to the one on Friday -- carried the line "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time - Leo Tolstoy." Both in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress missed the majority mark by two seats and is now dependent on external legislative support. Pilot, who stayed put in Delhi on Thursday, appealed to party workers to maintain peace and that he would welcome any decision taken by the party. Pilot reportedly has put up a strong claim to the post on the ground that he had galvanised the party after the defeat in 2013, when he was appointed the state party chief. --IANS and-bns-ps/vsc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ending the intense jockeying for power in Rajasthan, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday picked party veteran Ashok Gehlot as the new Chief Minister of the state and Sachin Pilot, who had put up a strong claim, as his deputy. The formal announcement of Gandhi's decision was made at a press conference at the party headquarters by K.C. Venugopal, observer for the legislature party leader's election, after an over hour-long meeting between Gandhi and the two contenders, Gehlot and Pilot, at his residence. Informed sources said Gandhi is said to have convinced Pilot to become Gehlot's deputy as the party is keen to keep the Gujjar community, to which he belongs, on its side ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The Gujjars are a dominant community in Rajasthan. This was the third meeting of Gehlot and Pilot in two days with Gandhi as their respective camps strongly staked their claim for the Chief Ministerial post. "Gandhi has chosen Ashok Gehlot as the Chief Minister and Sachin Pilot will be the Deputy Chief Minister," Venugopal announced here adding it will be a mix of experience and dynamism. This is the third time the 72-year-old Gehlot will assume the reins of Rajasthan as Chief Minister while the 41-year-old Pilot, who won his maiden Assembly election, will be making a debut in the state. Expressing his gratitude over being chosen as Chief Minister, Gehlot assured the people of Rajasthan that the party would fulfil all its commitments including waiver of farmers' loans, generating employment for the youth and providing good governance. "My colleague Sachin Pilot and others will get together to fulfil the vision and promises of Rahul Gandhi," he said. Congratulating Gehlot, Pilot said the elections to the three Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh were a game changer in national and said the results had given hope to the people as regards economic development and harmony. He exuded confidence the party would win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Venugopal said a delegation of leaders including Gehlot and Pilot would be meeting Governor Kalyan Singh to convey the decision of the party. Thursday was marked by dramatic developments when Gehlot was chosen to lead the Congress Legislature Party and was headed for Jaipur when he was called back from the airport as Pilot supporters launched street protests, embarrassing the party after a tough election win. Gandhi wanted that, like in Madhya Pradesh, the power struggle should be halted and a picture of consensus should go to the people. He called for fresh consultations late on Thursday night and on Friday morning when the two leaders met and the issue was sorted out. In a sign of the tussle being resolved, Gandhi on Friday tweeted his photograph with a smiling Gehlot and Pilot with a caption "United Colours of Rajasthan!". Ahead of the meeting, Gehlot took a veiled dig at Pilot saying that the party unit had already left the decision on Gandhi and it was not the time to express individual choices. "We have given the duty to the High Command. Let it decide who is to be given what responsibility. If I say my choice is this, it is not time for that. The time is to strengthen the Congress, see how its graph goes up. "If Congress is strong, everyone will be empowered and we prove to be useful in meeting the objectives of the 2019 elections. This alone should be our thinking," Gehlot said. In Madhya Pradesh too, the party went for the old guard, preferring veteran and state party chief Kamal Nath as the Chief Minister over the youthful parliamentarian Jyotiraditya Scindia. But as of now, there is no sign that Scindia will be a Deputy Chief Minister. Jyotiraditya Scindia is the son the late Congress veteran Madhavrao Scindia while Sachin Pilot is the son of the late union Minister Rajesh Pilot. --IANS rak-and/vsc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Ghaziabad property dealer was found dead in a drain near his house here on Friday morning, police said. The body of Bagesh Sharma, 38, a resident of Noor Nagar, was found with the throat cut by a sharp edged weapon, a police officer said. The deceased ran a finance and property dealing office in Krishna Kunj in Nandgram residential locality. His scooter, bathroom slippers and shawl were found near his body. The victim's brother, Brahmesh Sharma, told IANS that Bagesh Sharma's wife informed him at 5 a.m. on Friday that he was missing since Thursday night. When a search was conducted, his body was found near his house. The crime scene suggested he resisted the attack by the assailants. Police officer Sanjay Pandey said the family of the victim had lodged a complaint naming his business rival Sonu Chaudhary for the murder. --IANS sps/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Matty Healy, frontman of the Brit Award-winning band The 1975, has been vocal about his drug addiction, but he doesn't find it "particularly brave" to talk about it in the band's new song or other platforms. "Give yourself a try" from the band's latest album "A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships" has a line -- "And you'll make a lot of money, and it's funny 'cause you'll move somewhere sunny and get addicted to drugs". Healy has also spoken about his addiction to drugs in past interviews. A lot of celebrities feel uncomfortable talking about drugs, so what made him take this brave step? "I don't think it is particularly brave... telling the truth is kind of the only option. That's why I represent it in my art and the way I speak and the way I am with people," Healy told IANS in a telephonic interview. "It is important for me to be upfront. People can deal with anything as long as it is true. When you mess around with somebody, that's when you lose people," the 29-year-old added. The songs of the Grammy-nominated group have also touched upon topics like sex, love and even US President Donald Trump. "It's just me trying to understand the world and that's what everybody is trying to do; so I think that's why people understand the record," shared the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, who once said "F*** Donald Trump" during a performance. Like their previous two albums -- "The 1975" (2013) and "I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It" (2016) -- "A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships" has also secured UK No. 1 album spot. Was there any kind of pressure on the band, which also consists of lead guitarist Adam Hann, bassist Ross MacDonald and drummer George Daniel, due to their past success? "There was probably... initial fear of not being as good as we were, but when we started making the record, we did it just for fun. If it stopped being fun, then we would move on to something else," said Healy. He is currently promoting their third album, but the announcement for their fourth one has already been done. Isn't it little taxing to move on to another album so quickly? "No. That's the safest option for us. I love making music. If we aren't making music in between, (we are) trying to tell everybody about 'A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships'... we have the opportunity to party, get loose and lazy. It's much better (to make music)," he said. Asked about their fourth album, he shared: "I don't know. I care about my music, but I don't care if the record lives up to people's expectations or if they think it's going to be like a continuation from 'A Brief Inquiry...'. I am really not interested in people's preconceptions." Next year, they will also perform in Asia, but the list doesn't include India. "We haven't been to India or Pakistan. We will definitely come to India. The fact that we have not been (to India)... is a bit crazy. I am sure we will play there," he said. And it seems like there is a lot of time as he has no plans of parting ways with bandmates anytime soon. "We have been together for 17 years already. I don't think we are going anywhere. I can't imagine that we will ever really split up," he said. (Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in) --IANS nn/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday demanded a discussion on the Rafale deal in the Rajya Sabha as the upper House was adjourned for the day amidst sloganeering and noise. "I demand that Congress party should immediately start a discussion on Rafale," Jaitley said. The Bharatiya Janata Party members were on their feet asking Congress President Rahul Gandhi to apologise. "Rahul Gandhi maafi maango (apologise)," the ruling party MPs said in a chorus. This came after the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions demanding court-monitored probe into the Rafael fighter jet deal. Earlier, as soon as the House met for the day, some members belonging to the DMK and AIADMK trooped to the Chair's podium, holding placards. They have been protesting against a proposed dam over the Cauveri river. Amid the pandemonium, Deputy Chairman Harivansh adjourned the House for 20 minutes. But as the House was reconvened at 11.30 a.m., the scene was no different. He tried to go ahead with the Zero Hour but nothing could be heard over the din. The Chair then adjourned the House for the day. --IANS mak/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Japanese animation classic "My Neighbour Totoro" is finally being screened in Chinese cinemas, 30 years after it was first released. The film, by Studio Ghibli and famed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, follows the story of two sisters who encounter Totoro and other forest creatures. Despite the movie's cult following, it has never been publicly shown in China. Though many Chinese viewers have already caught it on DVDs or pirated downloads while growing up, the BBC reported. "For China, film will always take a back seat to politics," Stanley Rosen, director at the East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California told the BBC, explaining that whether a Japanese film makes it to China often depended on the state of the political relationship. "Right now that relationship has improved significantly and there is a lot of movement on Sino-Japanese co-productions, including in anime." Rosen said Miyazaki has been publicly critical of Japan's wartime aggressions and that has been viewed favourably in Chinese media. It is the first Studio Ghibli movie to ever be released in China, which has a strict quota on the number of foreign films, the BBC report said. Nostalgic fans in China took to social media to praise the film's long-awaited release. "I can't wait," gushed a fan on the popular Sina Weibo micro-blogging site. "I used to watch it on DVD and I'm starting to feel nostalgic." Other Weibo users shared their feelings upon seeing the Chinese release poster. The critically acclaimed animation is one of Japan's most beloved children's films. Helmed by legendary animator Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli has often been called Japan's answer to Walt Disney. While some viewers draw parallels with Alice in Wonderland, the 1988 film was said to have been inspired by Miyazaki's own experiences growing up. In the film, sisters Satsuki and Mei visit their ailing mother in hospital, echoing a young Miyazaki who watched his mother recover from a severe case of spinal tuberculosis. "My Neighbour Totoro" is also often celebrated for its "innocence" - there are no villains or fight scenes -- and its hand-drawn scenes of idyllic country fields -- places a strong emphasis on cultivating an appreciation for nature. --IANS in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath will be sworn in as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 17. The 72-year-old veteran leader told reporters after meeting Governor Anandiben Patel that the ceremony will be held in the Lal Parade Ground here. Kamal Nath was accompanied by a delegation of leaders including former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, Vivek Tankha, MP, Arun Yadav and Deepak Babaria, general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh. He was chosen as the Congress Legislature Party leader at a meeting late last night after two days of consultations, including parleys held by party chief on Thursday. The party won 114 seats in the 230-member House. It fell two seats short of the halfway-mark, but ensured the support of a total of 121 MLAs with Samajwadi Party - one seat, Bahujan Samaj Party - two, and four Independents backing it. --IANS hindi-in/vsc/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka will seek a review of the National Green Tribunal's (NGT) December 6 order asking the state government to deposit Rs 500 crore in an escrow account for the revival of lakes in Bengaluru, a senior official said on Friday. "The state government will soon file a review petition against the Tribunal's ruling by taking inputs from the city civic body and the state's Bengaluru Development Authority," the city civic body legal head Keshav Deshpande told IANS here. The Tribunal had also imposed a Rs 50 crore penalty on the state, to be deposited with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), for alleged neglect of Bellandur and Varthur lakes in the city's southeast suburb. The twin lakes, about 20km from the city centre, are filled with sewage, effluents, solid municipal waste, construction and demolition waste and weed, and are often seen frothing due to the pollutants. The solid waste also catches fire occasionally. State's Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, who also holds the Bengaluru Development portfolio, said the state was not in a position to deposit Rs 500 crore in an escrow account. "The state has been making all efforts to revive and protect the lakes, which the Tribunal will be apprised of," Parameshwara told reporters earlier. Due to space constraints in the city, it was also practically not possible to implement the Tribunal's 2016 ruling of maintaining a 75m buffer zone around water bodies, Parameshwara said. "The state will bring these issues to the notice of the Tribunal," he added. The environmental watchdog had directed the state in May 2016 to maintain a 75m green belt and buffer zone around all lakes in the cities. "Several people have built their homes around the lakes and it will be practically difficult to have a 75m buffer zone as it will have grave implications," Parameshwara said. --IANS bha/mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A South Korean fashion and cosmetics firm has stirred controversy with a facial mask featuring Kim Jong-un prompting many stores to pull the product of the shelves. The so-called "nuke masks" were created by 5149, a South Korean fashion and cosmetics company. It said it has sold more than 25,000 "unification moisture nuclear masks" since June, the BBC reported. Many South Korean stores, though, halted the sales amid a public backlash and concerns over the masks' legality. In South Korea it is illegal to speak favourably of the North Korean government, though the law is rarely enforced. Dozens of Koreans have posted pictures of themselves on social media with the masks, which cost 4,000 won, the BBC said. Propaganda-style slogans claim the masks contain mineral water from Mount Paektu, the sacred, active volcano, which is the birthplace of Dangun, founder of the first Korean kingdom more than 4,000 years ago, according to Korean mythology. "Personally, I don't like merchandise promoting a certain political agenda," Irene Kim, a South Korean skincare expert, told the South China Morning Post. "A few years ago, North Korea was the largest threat to our country Kim Jong-un was seen as a dictator and a tyrant who would stop at nothing to disrupt world peace, now he's become the face of a popular face mask," she added. The North Korean leader and his regime have been criticised by the UN for "systematic, widespread" human rights abuses. Both North and South Korea are still technically at war, but leaders from both countries attended talks this year over denuclearisation. In an interview with the New York Times, 5149 CEO Kwak Hyeon-ju said she wanted the masks to celebrate the "once in a lifetime" Korean summits held earlier this year. Kim has led North Korea since the death of its former dictator, his father Kim Jong-il, in 2011. The country's communist regime has been criticised by the UN and human rights groups for "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations". --IANS in/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) If not a politician, he would have been a magician. The crafty low-profile Ashok Gehlot emerged the winner in the race for Chief Minister, apparently on the strength of his long experience in of Rajasthan which has put the Congress in the saddle of power without giving it a clear majority. And now Gehlot, picked by his party for the top post and known for political management, will be required to bring all the factions within the Congress together after infighting is said to have robbed it of what could have been a better showing. The "old guard" former Union Minister, party General Secretary and two-time Chief Minister pipped the youthful Rajasthan Congress chief, Sachin Pilot, on Wednesday to become Chief Minister for a third time. Besides running the government and striving to fulfil the high expectations of the people, Gehlot will have to utilise all his political acumen and experience to tackle the infighting within the state Congress, especially the cold war with Pilot. If the factionalism within became public over ticket distribution during the build-up to the crucial Assembly battle, the tussle between Gehlot and Pilot for the CM post peaked soon after the Congress emerged the winner. Ultimately, the Congress high command preferred to go with the "old guard" over Pilot, who was brought in as the state Congress chief in 2013 to galvanise the party organisation. Born in 1951 in Jodhpur, Gehlot cut his teeth in as a student leader and headed the Rajasthan unit of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the Congress student wing. Elected five times to the Lok Sabha from Jodhpur, he steadily acquired political stature under late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He was a Minister under Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao. Known for his proximity to both Congress President Rahul Gandhi and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Gehlot has lately been the party's "go-to" man in important matters. Gehlot was given the charge of Gujarat just months ahead of the 2017 Assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state where the Congress did not win but nonetheless gave a stiff fight to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress veteran's political acumen was again put on display during the Karnataka Assembly polls in May where he along with Ghulam Nabi Azad was instrumental in forging a post-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) to form the government. A law graduate from Jodhpur University, Gehlot partnered Pilot in reviving the Congress fortunes in Rajasthan and bring it back to power. Extensively campaigning across the state for the Assembly polls, Gehlot focused on reaching out to the rural masses, particularly farmers, which yielded desired results. The Congress won 99 of the 199 seats. With farmers' loan waiver as its major poll promise, it did extremely well in rural areas. His long association with Rajasthan politics, including his two stints as the Chief Minister and as the former head of the party's state unit, will surely be of immense help to Gehlot who has represented the Sardarpura Assembly constituency in Jodhpur since 1999. For the man who once said "I would have been a magician if I had not entered politics", the stakes are really high especially when the 2019 mega poll battle is just months away. Riding on the "Modi wave", the BJP in 2014 made a clean sweep of all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Besides delivering as a Chief Minister, Gehlot is also tasked to keep the flock together for the major battle next year. He also has to humour the smaller parties backing the Congress. He will have to honour the Congress promises of farm loans waiver and jobs for the youth as well as override the "Modi influence". The Congress ousted the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP in the Hindi heartland state, winning the election narrowly though. But with Rajasthan facing an acute agrarian crisis and unemployment galore, Gehlot's task is cut out. --IANS and/vsc/mr/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Maoist commander carrying a Rs 5 lakh reward on his head was arrested by the police in Jharkhand's Palamau district on Friday. "Mukhdeo Yadav, sub zonal commander of the banned Maoist outfit, Communist Party of India (Maoist), carrying a bounty of Rs 5 lakh on him has been arrested. He was wanted in both Jharkhand and Bihar," Indrajeet Mahatha, Superintendent of Police, Palamau, told reporters here. Mukhdeo Yadav was arrested from Guladjhari village in Palamau district. --IANS ns/oeb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who illegally crossed the US-Mexico border with her father died hours after being taken into custody, US Customs and Border Protection has said. The girl, who arrived in the US last week as part of a group of migrants, died of dehydration and shock, the Washington Post reported, citing the federal agency's officials on Thursday. The girl suffered seizures after being detained last weekend along with her father at Lordsburg, New Mexico, and was taken by helicopter to a children's hospital in El Paso, Texas. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for several days, according to authorities. In less than 24 hours after she was admitted, she suffered a cardiac arrest and later died, the Post reported. The White House didn't respond to requests for comment. "Border Patrol always takes care of individuals in their custody and does everything in their power to keep them safe," the Department of Homeland Security said late Thursday. "Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the best efforts of the medical team treating the child, we were unable to stop this tragedy from occurring," it was quoted as saying by Efe news. The Border Patrol reported arresting a record over 107,000 immigrants travelling as families during the last budget year, which ended in September. Migrants are generally given brief medical exams after their arrests. The agency said her father told authorities the girl was fine. The father remained in El Paso and was in contact with the Guatemalan consulate, the agency said. The area where the girl and her father were arrested is a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico where migrants can walk for hours or even days without being spotted. Every year hundreds of migrants die trying to cross the Mexican border. During the 2017 budget year, 294 people died. In the El Paso Sector, which includes New Mexico, eight deaths were reported. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NASA is set to work with American companies to design and develop new reusable systems, in a major step to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon. NASA is planning to test new human-class landers on the Moon beginning in 2024, with the goal of sending crew to the surface in 2028, the US space agency said in a statement on Thursday. Through upcoming multi-phased lunar exploration partnerships, NASA will ask American companies to study the best approach to landing astronauts on the Moon and start the development as quickly as possible with current and future anticipated technologies. "Building on our model in low-Earth orbit, we'll expand our partnerships with industry and other nations to explore the Moon and advance our missions to farther destinations such as Mars, with America leading the way," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "When we send astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the next decade, it will be in a sustainable fashion." To develop lunar robotic landers, NASA in November collaborated with nine commercial American companies namely Astrobotic, Deep Space Systems, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin, Mastern Space Systems, Moon Express, Draper and Orbit Beyond. These companies are eligible for competing for NASA's contracts valued at $2.6 billion, according to the US-based space agency. The agency plans to send humans to the Moon using a system of three separate elements that will provide transfer, landing, and safe return. Using the Gateway to land astronauts on the Moon allows the first building blocks for fully reusable lunar landers. Initially NASA expects two of the lander elements to be reusable and refuelled by cargo ships carrying fuel from Earth to the Gateway. The agency is also working on technologies to make rocket propellants using water ice and regolith from the Moon. Once the ability to harness resources from the Moon for propellant becomes viable, NASA plans to refuel these elements with the Moon's own resources. This process, known as in-situ resource utilization or ISRU, will make the third element also refuellable and reusable, it said. --IANS rt/mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A team of scientists have identified two genes that affect the shape of the modern human's skull and they originate from Neanderthals. Humans have unusually globular (or round) skulls and brains compared to our ancient ancestors including our closest extinct cousins -- the Neanderthals, and a new study from Germany provides a possible explanation as to why, CNN reported on Friday. "Billions of people living today carry a small fraction of Neanderthal genes in their genome -- a distant echo of admixture when our ancestors left Africa and encountered Neanderthals," lead author Philipp Gunz, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, was quoted as saying. These are typically humans with European ancestry stemming from inter-breeding between Neanderthals and modern Europeans. In the study, detailed in the journal Current Biology, the team used MRI scans to analyse the cranial shape of about 4,500 persons' brains before looking at their genomes to work out which fragments of Neanderthal DNA they carried. They also studied fossil skulls and ancient genomes to compute the shapes of both Neanderthal and modern human skulls for comparison and then looked at whether any particular genes were linked to less globular brain shape in the people that carried them. They found two gene variants that have a subtle effect on skull shape, on chromosomes one and 18, which when disrupted have major consequences for brain development, the report said. The gene variants found on chromosomes one and 18 are linked to the expression of two nearby genes called UBR4 and PHLPP1 that affect the formation of new nerve cells and their insulation. But the study does not mean that people with a more elongated skull have more Neanderthal DNA, nor can behaviour be explained by skull shape, Simon Fisher, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, was quoted as saying. Instead, the team set out to evaluate the effect of skull globularity on the distinctive brain biology of modern humans. There are potential links between evolutionary changes in skull shape and brain regions involved in the preparation, learning and coordination of movements, as well as cognitive functions such as memory, attention, planning and potentially speech and language evolution, Fisher noted. --IANS rt/mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K.Palaniswami on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the Dam Safety Bill, 2018 introduced in the Lok Sabha as it impinges on the state's rights and termed it as unconstitutional. In a letter to Modi, the text of which was released to the media here, Palaniswami said that serious concerns of Tamil Nadu on the Dam Safety Bill have not been addressed by the Central government. Palaniswami said the Bill has been introduced in the Lok Saha without considering the views/comments of all the state governments. "The Resolution, passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on 26.6.2018, expressing the concerns of the people of Tamil Nadu, on the proposed Dam Safety Bill, was also sent to the Government of India for immediate action," Palaniswami said. He said the major concern of Tamil Nadu is the vesting of rights over the safety and maintenance of dams located in one state but owned by another state with the National Dam Safety Authority. "This implies that the dam owning State would have no rights over the safety and maintenance of the dam located in another State," Palaniswami said. "Tamil Nadu's Mullai Periyar, Parambikulam, Thunakkadavu and Peruvaripallam dams are owned, operated and maintained by the Government of Tamil Nadu by virtue of Inter State Agreements, but are located in a neighbouring State," he said. "Further, the Constitution Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India upheld the rights of Tamil Nadu on Mullai Periyar Dam in the judgment and decree dated 7.5.2014," he added. "Therefore, to deny Tamil Nadu the right to be the Dam Safety Authority with regard to these four dams and vesting powers in the National Dam Safety Authority would tantamount to encroaching on the rights of Tamil Nadu which is unconstitutional," the letter notes. According to Palaniswami, the clause in the Dam Safety Bill has to be amended to ensure that the Dam Safety Organisation of a state should have jurisdiction over the dams owned, controlled and operated and maintained by it even though they are located in another state. --IANS vj/oeb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Supporters of state Congress President Sachin Pilot on Friday took to the streets demanding that he be named as Rajasthan's next Chief Minister. Pilot supporters, particularly from the Gujjar community, blocked a road in Nathni Ka Bara in Alwar district. But the protest ended following the intervention of senior Gujjar leaders. The community members also staged a protest in Rajakheda near Dholpur. On Thursday, protests wwre staged in Dausa and Karauli. Speaking to IANS, a senior Gujjar leader, Himmat Singh, said the delay in announcing a Chief Minister was splitting the party -- into Gehlot and Pilot camps. He said the Gujjar community had seen Pilot working very hard to galvanize the Congress since it lost power five years ago and now Gujjars were upset that he was being denied his due. NSUI state President Abhimanyu Puniya also backed Pilot. He threatened district level protests if Pilot was not appointed as Chief Minister. Hanuman Beniwal, leader of the newly launched Rashtriya Loktantrik Party which won three seats in the Assembly, is also backing Pilot. He warned that if Gehlot was made the Chief Minister, Congress President Rahul Gandhi would never be able to become the Prime Minister. --IANS arc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dozens of people protested on Friday at a coastal land reclamation site in Okinawa where a US military base will be relocated in Japans southern prefecture. Construction workers began pouring sand and dirt into a Henoko beach area where the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma will be located, Efe news reported. The station currently sits in a densely populated area, which many see as a safety hazard due to the volume of air traffic. The government's decision to proceed with the landfill faces strong opposition from the local population and Okinawa's governor. The Japanese and US governments say the project was justified by security concerns. "With the security surrounding Japan becoming increasingly serious, we want to maintain deterrence under the Japan-US alliance. And bearing in mind we also need to eliminate the risks posed by the Futenma base, relocating to Henoko is the only viable option," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki wanted the base to be moved out of the prefecture. "By proceeding with the construction quickly, the central government is trying hard to make it a foregone conclusion and get the people of Okinawa to give up. But in fact, such moves will only invite strong opposition from people here," he said. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Pune court on Friday granted bail to three accused in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar after the investigating agency, CBI failed to file its charge-sheet within the stipulated 90-day time-frame. The Pune Sessions Court allowed bail to Amil Kale, Rajesh Bangera and Amit Digvekar -- all of whom are also accused in the murders of Bengaluru journalist Gauri Lankesh, Kannada author M.M. Kalburgi and senior Communist leader Govind Pansare. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had taken Kale into custody last September for the Dabholkar killing after he was arrested in May by the Karnataka Police for the Lankesh murder. However, they may not walk out free immediately in the case since they are in judicial custody in connection with the Lankesh and Pansare killings. The development came after the accused, through their lawyer D.R. Chandel, filed a bail plea on Thursday seeking relief as the CBI had not sought extension of the time-limit to file a supplementary charge-sheet against them under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Incidentally, last Tuesday (December 11), the Supreme Court had said the CBI could investigate the four murders if "a common thread" is found in all the crimes, committed in Maharashtra and Karnataka. While Dabholkar was shot dead on August 20, 2013 in Pune, Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015 and succumbed on February 20 in Kolhapur, Kalburgi was killed in Dharwad, Karnataka on August 30, 2015 and Lankesh was shot dead on September 5, 2017 in Bengaluru. Maharashtra Congress spokesman Sachin Sawant sharply criticised the developments, terming it as "the government's will" that the three accused were granted bail in the Dabholkar case. "It must be remembered that they were arrested by the efforts of the Karnataka Police Special Investigating Team... The CBI never managed to reach them, the CBI lawyer remained absent from the court for two days and now the agency has failed to even file the charge-sheet on time," Sawant said. --IANS qn/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Friday amid protests both by the opposition and the treasury benches as there was a ruckus over the Rafale fighter jet deal with the Congress demanding a JPC probe and the BJP seeking an apology from Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the wake of a Supreme Court decision. Soon after the House reassembled at noon following an earlier adjournment, the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and other opposition members trooped near the Speaker's podium and started sloganeering. The Congress members were demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe on the defence deal with a French company, while the AIADMK members were protesting on the Cauvery water issue. The TDP members were demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. Amid the din, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tried to conduct the proceedings and the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2018 were introduced. Soon after the Bill was introduced, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh rose to his feet and countered the Opposition's allegation on the Rafale jet deal citing the apex court's decision. "For political gains, Rahul Gandhi tried to mislead the nation and tarnish the country's image globally," he said during Zero Hour. "As the Congress itself indulged in corruption, it tries to drag the BJP to counter the charges. With this thought process, they tried to demean the government and tarnish the nation's international image," he said. He also said there was no deficiency in the quality and purchasing process of the 36 Rafale jet fighters in a ready-to-fly condition. "Rahul Gandhi should come to the House and tender an apology to the nation," the Minister said amid loud slogans raised by the Congress and other opposition members. Amid protests, the Bharatiya Janata Party members were heard raising slogans like "Rahul Gandhi chor hai (Gandhi is the thief)" and "Rahul Gandhi mafi mango (He should apologise)". As soon as Rajnath Singh concluded his speech, Mahajan requested the agitating members to go back to their seats. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also rose to his feat asking Mahajan to allow him to speak but she did not allow. "If you want a discussion, you can discuss. First, go to your seats," Mahajan told the members. As the Congress and other opposition members continued their protests, she adjourned the House for the day. Earlier, when the House met for the day, the Congress, TDP and AIADMK members trooped near the Speaker's podium and shouted slogans against the government. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar then got up and said: "Now that the Supreme Court's decision on Rafale has come, the Congress should tender apologies for misleading the country." This was right after the apex court junked four petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of the Rafale jets holding that the decision making process was not in doubt and it cannot go into the question of pricing and choice of offset Indian partner by the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault. As the din continued, Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. The government, which was defensive after the results of the Assembly election in five states, suddenly went aggressive against the Congress following the court's verdict. --IANS rak-bns/in/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even as the Supreme Court dismissed four petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of Rafale jet fighters, the Congress on Friday persisted with its demand in Parliament for a JPC probe, leading to a heated argument between the treasury benches and the Opposition. The pandemonium over the issue forced the chairs in both houses of Parliament to adjourn the proceedings for the day. The government, however, agreed for a discussion on Rafale but kept mum on Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe. Armed with the Supreme Court judgement, the government launched a counter-offensive seeking an apology from Congress President Rahul Gandhi for "misleading" the nation on Rafale. As the proceedings began in the Lok Sabha, the Congress, TDP and AIADMK members rushed near Speaker's podium and started sloganeering. The Congress members were demanding constitution of a JPC to probe the defence deal with a French company, while the AIADMK members were protesting on the Cauvery water issue. The TDP members were demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. As the din continued, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. Scenes were, however, no different when the House reassembled. Amid the din, Mahajan tried to conduct the proceedings and the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2018 were introduced. Soon after the Bill was introduced, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh rose to his feet and countered the Opposition's allegation on the Rafale jet deal citing the apex court's decision. "For political gains, Rahul Gandhi tried to mislead the nation and tarnish the country's image globally," he said during Zero Hour. "As the Congress itself indulged in corruption, it tries to drag the BJP to counter the charges. With this thought process, they tried to demean the government and tarnish the nation's international image," he said. He also said there was no deficiency in the quality and purchasing process of the 36 Rafale jet fighters in a ready-to-fly condition. "Rahul Gandhi should come to the floor of the House and tender an apology to the nation," the Minister said amid loud slogans raised by the Congress and other opposition members. Amid protests, the Bharatiya Janata Party members were heard raising slogans like "Rahul Gandhi chor hai (Gandhi is the thief)" and "Rahul Gandhi maafi mango (He should apologise)". As soon as Rajnath Singh concluded his speech, Mahajan requested the agitating members to go back to their seats. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also rose to his feet asking Mahajan to allow him to speak but she did not allow. "If you want a discussion, you can discuss. First, go to your seats," Mahajan told the members. As the Congress and other opposition members continued their protests, she adjourned the House for the day. The government, which was defensive after the results of the Assembly election in five states, suddenly went aggressive against the Congress following the court's verdict. In the Rajya Sabha, the Congress and BJP members staged noisy protests over Rafale. Soon after the upper house met, the Congress members trooped near the chair seeking constitution of a JPC while the BJP members were on their feet asking Congress President Rahul Gandhi to apologise. "Rahul Gandhi maafi maango (apologise)," the ruling party MPs said in a chorus. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley then took charge and asked for a discussion on the Rafale deal. "I demand that Congress party should immediately start a discussion on Rafale," Jaitley said. But the Congress and other Opposition members did not relent. As the din continued, Rajya Sabha Chairman Harivansh adjourned the House for the day. Earlier, as soon as the House met for the day, some members belonging to the DMK and AIADMK trooped to the Chair's podium, holding placards. They have been protesting against a proposed dam across the Cauvery river. Amid the pandemonium, Deputy Chairman Harivansh adjourned the House for 20 minutes. Giving a clean chit to government, the Supreme Court on Friday held that the decision making process was not in doubt and it cannot go into the question of pricing and choice of offset Indian partner by the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault. --IANS bns-mak/pgh/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government on Friday accused the Congress of misleading the nation on the Rafale jet deal and tarnishing the country's image internationally, and demanded an apology from its President Rahul Gandhi. The government's attack came in the Lok Sabha soon after a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi's junked four petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets in a fly-away condition from Dassault Aviation. "For political gains the Congress tried to mislead the country and tarnish the image of the nation internationally," Union Home Minister Rajnah Singh said in the Lok Sabha during the Zero Hour citing Supreme Court's verdict in the Rafale case. "As the Congress itself indulged in corruption, it tries to drag the BJP to counter the charges. With this thought process, they tried to demean the government and tarnish the nation's international image," he said. Singh said Gandhi should come to the House and apologise before the nation for his allegations. Earlier, Gogoi said the apex court "sees no reason to intervene" in the defence deal as there was "nothing questionable" in the decision-making process and the bench was not competent to go into the question of pricing and the choice of offset partner by Rafale manufacturer Dassault. --IANS bns-rak/in/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan former President Mahinda Rajapaksa will step down from the disputed position of premiership on Saturday, his son and legislator Namal Rajapaksa said on Friday. "To ensure stability of the nation, former President Rajapaksa has decided to resign from the premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation," Namal Rajapaksa said in a tweet. "The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna with former President, Sri Lanka Freedom Party and others will now work to form a broader political coalition with President Maithripala Sirisena," he added. The news comes after the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that Rajapaksa should not exercise the powers of the office he has claimed since October 26. It also ruled as "unconstitutional" Sirisena's decision to dissolve Parliament and conduct a snap parliamentary election in early January. Sri Lanka plunged into political turmoil when Sirisena abruptly sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in late October and replaced him with former strongman Rajapaksa. When Sirisena's decision was contested, he dissolved Parliament and called for a snap parliamentary election in January. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prashant Bhushan, lawyer-petitioner in the Rafale jet deal case, on Friday termed as "totally incorrect" the Supreme Court judgment junking the plea for a court-monitored probe into the purchase of the firghter aircraft. He said the ruling was against the interests of people and that they would continue their campaign on the issue. Reacting to the verdict, he said it was "unfortunate" that "such a wrong judgement" had come from the apex court even after the government conveyed to it that Dassault gave a contract to Anil Ambani's firm when the Defence Procurement Procedure and Defence Offset Guidelines clearly said that "no offset contract can be given without the approval of the Defence Minister"."In my opinion, the judgment is totally incorrect. We had sought an investigation. If anyone alleges that there is corruption in a deal and gives a proof, an investigation must happen," Bhushan told reporters outside the court. He said the country suffered a loss of Rs 20,000 crore after Prime Minister Narendra Modi struck the deal for Euro 8.2 billion as Indian Air Force experts had earlier fixed a benchmark price at Euro 5.2 billion. He said the court dismissed the petition saying its judicial review on the issue is limited. It is a limited clean chit to government and as such the campaign against the deal would continue. The decision on filing a review petition would be taken later, Bhushan said. --IANS spk/vsc/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The public Sector banks (PSB) have no plans to shut down 50 per cent of their ATMs in the country, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla told the Lok Sabha on Friday. Concerns were raised after the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) last month said that nearly 50 per cent of the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) may be shut down by March 2019 due to unviability of operations. "As apprised by the public sector banks (PSBs), they do not have any plan to shut down nearly 50 per cent of ATMs by March 2019," Shukla said in a written reply to a question raised in the House. Replying to another question, he said that 2.21 lakh ATMs were deployed in the country as on September 30, as reported by the Scheduled Commercial Banks, Small Finance Banks, Payment Banks and White Label ATM Operators. --IANS rrb/pgh/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Taiwan's government on Friday approved two draft amendment bills banning political ads funded from abroad, including China, amid suspicions that Beijing interfered in the local elections held in November. In a Cabinet meeting, Taiwanese Premier Lai Ching-te said the measure was aimed at countering misinformation and foreign influence in Taiwan's elections, the state-run Central News Agency reported. The move came amid suspicions that money from China was used to fund the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party's campaign in November 24 elections. The bills ban newspapers, magazines, radio and TV broadcasters, digital communications providers and Internet service providers from running election-related commercials funded by sources in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao or other foreign countries. They also state that all election ads should specify the name of the advertiser and hold media organizations and advertising brokers responsible for verifying the source of the funding. Given the ruling party's absolute majority in the legislature and its opposition during the election campaign to Chinese interference in favour of the KMT, the bills were expected to be soon approved by the island's Parliament. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party suffered a resounding defeat in the elections, managing to win only six of the 22 mayoralties at stake as opposed to the 15 taken by the KMT and independent candidate Ko Wen-je. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Leading Malaysian architect-turned-artist Red Hong Yi, who paints with unconventional everyday objects and not the regular paintbrush, believes that without technology, she wouldn't be able to produce and experiment fast enough as technology allowed her "new ways of thinking". Initially into paintbrushes, the 32-year-old artist embraced technology in her art practice when she confronted it during her study of architecture. "Architecture made me think in 3D. When I was in architecture school in 2005, in my first year, everything was hand-drawn. But two years into it, they introduced computational software(s), laser cutting and more. It was a shock to us. "So we had the choice to embrace it or go the traditional path and I realised if I didn't embrace technology, I'd be behind. I wouldn't be able to produce fast enough, and experiment fast enough. It allowed me new ways of thinking," Red told IANS on the sidelines of the unveiling of her unique artwork "Aurora" here earlier this week, which takes inspiration from Alaska's Northern Lights and 2,000 glass-backs from Honor smartphone. A reflection of the fast-converging world of art and tech, "Aurora" was commissioned by the Chinese tech company Honor -- removing barriers between what are perceived as two different spheres altogether. Red, who has exhibited pieces at the World Economic Forum (Davos), Anchorage Museum (Alaska), Design Miami (Miami) and the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), also believes that technology makes the process of creating art smoother. Asked if more artists are taking to tech, Red nodded in affirmation. "I think tech makes execution a lot easier for artists. For example, murals on walls don't need to be free-handed. Now you can project something on the wall and paint on it. We have projection art as well," she said. Referring to the famous oil painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" done by 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, she reiterated the controversy that the painting often faces. "There was controversy when people said he might have cheated because he projected his subject's face using mirrors as reflectors. People said his proportions are exactly the same and questioned its possibility." If true, it could have been a traditional form of early projection art, she said about the painting. Red also highlighted the use of virtual reality (VR) devices, that allow a digital tour to places, in spreading the art viewership. "VR is another field where art and tech meet. If I am living in my hometown in Malaysia, I can actually walk into any museum through VR. It transports you to different experiences," she explained. She also cautioned against relegating artworks and artists to the number of followers and 'likes', while speaking about artists and social media marketing. "If that happens, we're going to go into shock factors, wherein the 'next big shocking thing' will generate more numbers." Red's installation "Aurora" is open for viewing here till December 23. --IANS sj/na/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav on Friday dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to form a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters in a ready-to-fly condition from France. "If Modi is honest and his government is holy, why he is not forming the JPC to probe the purchase of the 36 Rafale jet fighter jets," Tejashwi Yadav told the media at Patna airport on his return from Mumbai. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader was reacting to a Supreme Court verdict on Friday that dismissed four petitions seeking a court-monitored probe on the issue holding that the decision making process was not in doubt and it cannot go into the question of pricing and choice of offset Indian partner by the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault. He said the petitions were filed by individuals, not by the Congress, RJD or any political party. "We are demanding a JPC probe into the Rafale deal, it is our old demand. We will not sit silent but intensify our agitation for the probe." He said the Bharatiya Janata Party should not be happy as the opposition will take the issue to people's court. --IANS ik/in/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Donald Trump knew he was doing wrong when he directed hush money to be paid to two women during the 2016 presidential election to keep them silent about their alleged affairs with him, the President's former lawyer Michael Cohen said in a television interview. "Trump was very concerned about how this would affect the election if their allegations of affairs became public," Cohen told the ABC News in the interview that was broadcast on Friday. "He directed me to make the payments. He directed me to become involved in these matters," Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison earlier this week over campaign finance and other charges, told ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. Cohen's comments were his first since being sentenced for financial crimes, lying to Congress and two campaign finance violations in connection with the deals with the women -- Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels -- who claim past affairs with Trump. "I knew what I was doing was wrong. I stood up before the world (Wednesday) and I accepted the responsibility for my actions." Asked if Trump also knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen said: "Of course," adding that the purpose was to "help (Trump) and his campaign." However, the President said on Thursday that he never directed Cohen to break the law. Trump had also claimed in an interview that he "did nothing wrong" and said prosecutors had cooked up the charges to embarrass him. Responding to Trump's claims, Cohen said: "... Nothing at the Trump organisation was ever done unless it was run through Trump. He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters. "Under no circumstances do I want to embarrass the President. He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth. "And here is the truth: People of the US, people of the world, don't believe what he is saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds." The former lawyer said that he was "angry at himself" for his role in the deals, but that he did it out of "blind loyalty" to Trump. "I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty," he said. Cohen admitted in August that on the eve of the 2016 presidential election he made a $130,000 payment to porn actor Daniels and arranged for a $150,000 payment to former Playboy model McDougal. He pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes and later pleaded guilty to an additional count of lying to Congress. Cohen is now cooperating with authorities and special counsel Robert Mueller's office has said he helped in their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He is due to report to prison on March 6. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee is currently being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible financial abuses related to foreign donations raised for his inauguration, the media reported. According to a report in the New York Times on Thursday, prosecutors were examining whether foreigners illegally funnelled donations to Trump's inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over American policy. The inquiry focused on whether people from Middle Eastern nations -- including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds, the daily reported citing people familiar with the matter. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds. In a statement, Trump's inaugural committee said the celebration was "in full compliance with all applicable laws". "The (committee's) finances were fully audited internally and independently and are fully accounted," it said. Prosecutors from New York and from special counsel Robert Mueller's team were reportedly asking witnesses about whether people from Middle Eastern nations contributed money. Tom Barrack, a financier with close ties to Trump, raised money for both funds, according to the Times. But as per reports, he had not yet spoken with investigators since an interview he had with Mueller last year. The super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, was created in 2016 when Trump's campaign was cash-strapped and failing to garner funds from major Republican donors, the Times reported. According to several people familiar with the investigation, the President's then campaign manager Paul Manafort suggested that Barrack create and raise funds for the political action committee, which could collect unlimited amounts of money as long as it avoided coordinating closely with then candidate Trump. Manafort was convicted on eight federal fraud charges in August, pleaded guilty to two additional charges in September and agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 election. Prosecutors' investigation into Trump's inaugural committee was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. It said that the investigation "partly arises out of materials seized in the federal probe of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's business dealings". During a raid at Cohen's properties earlier, a recorded conversation between him and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to First Lady Melania Trump, was seized, according to the newspaper. It said that Wolkoff expressed concern in the conversation about how the inaugural committee was spending money. Rick Gates, Trump's former campaign aide who has been cooperating with Mueller's investigation, was asked by prosecutors about the committee's spending and its donors, the Journal reported. The committee had raised a record-setting $107 million and received much of its funding from wealthy donors who gave $1 million or more, the report said, adding that some of the fund's top donors, including billionaire Sheldon Adelson, AT&T Inc. (the parent company of CNN) and Boeing Co. were not currently under investigation. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi government, which has launched Operation Minimum Wage on Monday, has raided 85 government and private firms and found the violation of the Minimum Wages Act in all apart from six firms. "Our team raided 85 government and private firms and apart from 6 places, there was violation of Minimum Wages Act in all the firms," Delhi Labour Minister Gopal Rai told the media. These violations, he said, included late payment of the salary, taking back the money from the worker after making payment through the bank and keeping passbook and signed checkbook of the workers by employers. "The company heads have been asked to produce all the documents before the labour departments court on the scheduled dates they were informed to come," he said. Police case has been filed against three companies, he said. "We have also issued an advisory that no worker can be sacked from the company until the labour court gave any verdict," he added. To ensure minimum wage to all workers in the national capital, the Delhi government had launched Operation Minimum Wage and a helpline number for people to register complains regarding the same. Under the operation, 10 teams of five officials each has been constituted which conducted raids at different locations across the city and keep a check on the wages paid to the labourers according to their skills. The labourers who are not paid as per the Minimum Wages Act can call on 155214 and register their complain. --IANS nks/pgh/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 27-year-old woman was allegedly assaulted by "over 20 women bouncers" and her mother in-law in the national capital, police said on Friday. An FIR has been registered on the basis of victim's complaint. The police said the victim, Garima Chaudhary, was assaulted on Monday noon when she came back from her parents' house in Haryana's Rohtak. "When she, along with her mother, tried to enter her husband's house at Saket, a group of over 30 goons including 20 women bouncers, prevented her and her mother and dragged them out. "When Garima resisted their attempts, the women bouncers and her mother-in-law identified as Sunita Chaudhary assaulted her. They even punched her mother. The victim also stated that she has a life threat from her mother-in-law," the FIR mentioned. Garima alleged that her husband, Tejveer, was also involved in the incident and "he escaped from the backdoor on the day of crime". "I don't know why my mother-in-law doesn't want to keep me in my husband's house. She also made my husband go underground. He is not answering my calls," she added. The victim married Tajveer in November 2017. "We have registered a case and booked accused persons for making sexually-coloured remarks, stalking and other relevant sections. A hunt is on to nab the accused persons," a senior police officer said. --IANS sp/pgh/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Brand guru Alyque Padamsee had a favourite boast: Clients ask me to reposition their brands. I tell them, I never reposition my brand. I just reposition my competitors brand. Alyque passed away recently. Or else it would have been fun to go chat with him on how Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have done exactly the opposite: Blundered into becoming the opposite of the brand proposition that conquered the vote bazaar in 2014. In the run-up to the summer of 2014, Mr Modi rarely spoke any words of negativity and none of pessimism. His message was strong, consistent, convincing: ... When Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel abruptly resigned on Monday, it stunned many people in government and business circles. Patel's decision, which came after months of bad blood between India's central bank and the government, is the latest sign that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is increasingly demanding that it get its way in the country's premier institutions. From the RBI, the government demanded a reduction in lending curbs and a share of its surplus reserves. Patel was appointed by Modi, but ... A city court on Friday sentenced a man to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for abducting and raping a minor girl. Additional Sessions Judge, Sealdah, Jimut Bahan Biswas sentenced accused Nur Alam after finding him guilty of abducting the 14-year-old and raping her. Alam was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years under POCSO Act and for five years for 'procurement of a minor for sexual purpose' under Indian Penal Code (IPC). The two sentences will run concurrently. He was also directed to pay a fine of Rs 50,000, failing which he would undergo an additional six months in jail, the court said. On May 18, 2017, the girl had gone missing after she went to school and her father had filed a missing report at Phoolbagan police station in the city when she did not return. Alam was arrested and produced before the court on September 8, 2017. The accused had claimed that he was in a relationship with the girl. The girl was lured by the accused to go with him from her school here and thereafter he took her to Siliguri, where he raped her. Police rescued the girl from the Siliguri residence of a relative of Alam and arrested the accused, prosecution counsel Vivek Sharma said. It was established during the trial that the minor's consent was fraudulently obtained by the accused, who is a married man. Noting that the girl was aged 14 years at the time of the incident, the court said that "minor cohabitation is rape as her consent is immaterial in the eye of the law". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police on Friday claimed to have busted a sex racket with the arrest of 12 people, including eight women, from a guest house here. Acting on a tip-off, a raid was conducted at the guest house on Thursday night in sector 45, a police official said. "A team headed by Poonam Hooda, the SHO of Metro Police Station, raided the guest house and arrested 12 people, including eight women, on the charge of running a sex racket," Gurgaon police PRO Subhash Bokan said. "Of women arrested five are Indians and the rest belonged to Uzbekistan, Bangladesh," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thirteen people remain trapped in a flooded illegal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia hills district even a day after the incident as efforts to pump out water, which has been continuing since Thursday, failed to yield any result. After the incident came to light on Thursday morning, a pump was pressed into service around 4 pm that day and is being switched off every three hours to give it a rest, officials said Friday. Two teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) consisting of over 60 personnel reached here on Friday morning, while 12 personnel from the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) are already at the site, they said. "We are trying to pump the water out from the mine which is about 370 feet deep. The water level is about 70 feet according to the NDRF," Police DIG (eastern range) A R Mawthoh told PTI. However, the water level has not gone down and two more pumps would be put to service later in the day, East Jaintia Hills district SP Sylvester Nongtynger, who is supervising the operation, said. NDRF divers will also make an attempt to reach the trapped miners, the DIG said. Water from nearby Lytein river gushed inside the mine at Ksan village under the jurisdiction of Saipung police station on Thursday. However, there is confusion about the exact number of stranded miners, a some locals claimed that five people came out of the mine after it was flooded. But the five could not be traced till now. "The police reached at the figure 13 after talking to the local people, and as of now, the number is still 13. But it may change if we get confirmation about a fresh figure," the SP said. The National Green Tribunal has banned unscientific and unsafe rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya in 2014. Police have registered a case against mine operator James Sukhlain of Lumthari village, for running the mine illegally and at present he is absconding. The miners went in by a 15 feet by 15 feet vertical shaft which is around 370 feet deep. At the bottom of the mine, at least four to five horizontal holes are dug from which coal chips are taken out, local people said. "The chances of survival of the miners are very bleak. The mine is way deeper than the nearby river. There are also around 20 shafts," an elder from the village said, adding three of the trapped miners are from the village and the rest are non-tribals. Terming the accident "unfortunate", Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said the NDRF, the SDRF and the state police are doing their best to save the lives of the miners. Admitting that the illegal mining continues despite the NGT ban, the chief minister said, "Appropriate actions will be taken against people who are involved in illegal mining. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 16 people were killed when a mini-truck met with an accident in Nepal's Nuwakot district, 80 kms west of Kathmandu, on Friday evening. The victims died after the ill-fated vehicle rolled 500 feet down a hill, said a police officer at the Nuwakot police office. The identities of the deceased are yet to be established. The vehicle was heading for Sisiphu from Kimtang when it fell off the cliff into a river at Dupcheshwor, the police said. There were around 40-45 people travelling in the truck when the tragedy struck, said the police officer quoting eyewitnesses. The accident may have been caused due to overloading, according to preliminary investigation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nearly 50 tigers have died in India this year with the highest number of deaths recorded in Madhya Pradesh, the Lok Sabha was told Friday. Minister of State for Mahesh Sharma in a written reply said as per figures recorded till December 12, total tiger mortality stood at 49, with 13 and 10 deaths registered in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, respectively. He also said around 13 elephant casualties in train accidents have been reported in 2018-19 (up to November 15 in 2018). He said around 35 elephant died by electrocution in 2018-19 (up to November 15 in 2018), while three elephants have died during the same period due to poaching. Replying to another question, he said the total number of leopard poached during 2015, 2016 and 2017 are 194 and in the current year till October, the figure is 66. Sharma said the Ministry in partnership with the German Development Cooperation (through Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)) has approved the Indo-German technical cooperation project on 'Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation in India'. "The project aims at providing technical support to the government of India at the national level and in selected sites as pilot states like Karnataka, Uttarakhand and West Bengal only," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 83 Hindus hailing from Pakistan, who had migrated to the city years ago, were awarded Indian citizenship by the district authorities here Friday. At a camp organised at the District Collectorate, Collector Vikrant Pandey and local MLA Balram Thawani handed over the certificates of Indian citizenship, issued in accordance with the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, to these 83 applicants. Most of the applicants were either Sindhis or from Maheshwari community. Pandey said prior to this camp, over 400 people were given Indian citizenship by the Ahmedabad Collectorate, making it a leader among all the districts in the country in awarding such citizenship since the new arrangement came into effect two years ago. "In 2016, the Centre had decentralised the process of issuing citizenship to the members of minority communities, such as Hindus and Sikhs, from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Today, 83 applicants from Pakistan became Indian citizens," he told reporters. Through a gazette notification issued in December 2016, the district collectors of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Kutch in Gujarat were given powers to confer Indian citizenship to the applicants from these communities living in Gujarat, he said. Pandey added that the district administration was trying its best to ensure that such applicants get the citizenship as early as possible. "Around 280 applications, received only this year, are still under consideration. We have already cleared all pending applications of previous years. We will try to make sure that no one remains in waiting list for long," said Pandey. Talking to reporters, some of the applicants shared their experiences in Pakistan, which forced them to leave behind their businesses and loved ones and come to India. "I came here seven years back. I left Pakistan because Hindus are harassed and humiliated there. We are asked by Muslims to leave the country for being Hindus. Our women and daughters were also not safe there," said Deepak Kishanchand, who used to live in Hyderabad city of Sindh province. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as nine flights of various airlines were diverted Friday due to low visibility and fog that engulfed the Delhi airport for about two hours in the morning, an official said. Delhi airport is CAT IIIB compliant, where flights can land in visibility as low as 50 metre. However, the diversions on Friday were on account of non-compliant aircraft and flights crew, low-fuel and ATC congestion, the Delhi airport official said. All the diversions took place between 8.30 am and 10 am, the official said, adding after that the visibility improved. As per the DGCA norms, airlines are required to deploy only CAT-IIIB compliant planes as well as trained crew for operations in dense fog during winter. Of the nine flights that were diverted out of Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), three flights each were of SpiceJet and GoAir, while two were of Air India. An IndiGo flight was also diverted during the period, the official said. He, however, did not give the details of the airports where these flights were diverted to. Most of the airlines had informed passengers through social media on the possible impact of the weather conditions around Delhi airport. "Due to bad weather conditions at #Delhi flights to & from DEL may get delayed," GoAir tweeted. "Due to fog and low visibility at #Delhi airport, flight departures and arrivals might be impacted," IndiGo tweeted to its passengers flying in or out of the Delhi airport. SpiceJet, in its tweet said, "Due to bad weather (low visibility) at Delhi(DEL), all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights might get affected. The passengers are requested to keep a check on their flight status. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling AAP Friday lashed out at the opposition Congress and BJP, accusing them of making "petty-minded" attempts to "belittle" Delhi Assembly on its silver jubilee, after the two parties decided to boycott a function scheduled on December 15 to mark the occasion. The Delhi Assembly is holding the function to mark the 25th anniversary of its first sitting on December 14, 1993. AAP's chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said it is a "cheap tactic" that some political parties have issued "loaded political statements" about a non-political commemorative event. "At this juncture, it is important to place on record the petty-minded attempts by some political forces to belittle the successful evolution of the Delhi Legislative Assembly," he said in a statement. The Delhi unit of the BJP and Congress Thursday went public with their decision to boycott the function. Hitting out the two parties, Bhardwaj termed the Silver Jubilee of Delhi Assembly's first sitting a matter of pride for people of Delhi. "Some leaders who have been rendered politically irrelevant by voters of Delhi are falsely claiming to have been elected as youngest MLAs, rendering unsolicited advice to the current Speaker," Bhardwaj said, referring to Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken. Maken, claiming to be the youngest MLA and Speaker of the Delhi Assembly, had said that the current speaker should have formed an all-party committee to hold the Silver Jubilee function of the Assembly. The AAP spokesperson also lashed out at BJP's Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta. Bhardwaj said the Speaker should consider whether Gupta was "worthy" of holding the post of Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly as he was giving "factually incorrect" statements in the matter. "These two parties, through their proxies, left no stone unturned in defaming the Delhi Assembly through falsehoods," he alleged. Gupta had said BJP MLAs will boycott the function and accused the ruling AAP of throwing democratic values, the Constitution and Delhi Assembly Rules at wind during its four years at the helm. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Olympiakos dumped AC Milan out of the Europa League on Thursday after beating the seven-time European champions 3-1 in a pulsating clash in Greece, while Eintracht Frankfurt fans ran riot during the German side's win at Lazio and Celtic made the knockout stages despite losing to Salzburg at Celtic Park. Captain Kostas Fortounis' penalty nine minutes from time saw the Greeks move into second place in Group F ahead of Gennaro Gattuso's Milan, who thought they had squeaked through when Cristian Zapata had pulled a goal back less than two minutes after putting the hosts 2-0 up with a comical own goal. Olympiakos finished level on 10 points with Milan but qualified ahead of the Italians thanks to their superior goal difference following Milan's 3-1 win over the Greeks in October, and they end the group stage two points behind group winners Real Betis, who drew 0-0 at Dudelange. Five Eintracht Frankfurt fans had been arrested in clashes with police in Rome ahead of their dead-rubber Group H match against Lazio as nearly 9,000 Germans swamped the Stadio Olimpico. Eintracht had already comfortably taken top spot in the group thanks to winning all five of their previous games, while Lazio were also in the last 32 regardless of the result of the match, won 2-1 by the away side as they came back from a goal down thanks to second-half strikes from Mijat Gacinovic and Sebastien Haller. However, German fans charged the pitch after Joaquin Correa's 56th-minute opener, and subsequently threw smoke bombs and flares at both Lazio fans and the police. Last year's runners-up Marseille finished bottom of that group after losing 3-1 at home to Apollon Limassol and ending the group stage with just a single point. - Celtic get one over on Rangers - ================================== Celtic looked to be following Old Firm rivals Rangers out of the competition after Steven Gerrard's side fell 1-0 at Rapid Vienna earlier on Thursday, but Tore Reginiussen's equaliser four minutes from time for Rosenborg at RB Leipzig allowed Brendan Rodgers's side to qualify second from Group B, two points ahead of the Bundesliga outfit. Second-half goals from Munas Dabbur and Fredrik Gulbrandsen meant that Salzburg topped the group with a 100 percent record after a 2-1 win, while Olivier Ntcham's stoppage-time penalty meant nothing for the result nor the final standings. Earlier Rangers, who had to win at Rapid Vienna in their final group game in order to qualify for the last 32, finished third in Group G after losing 1-0 to group winners Rapid, Dejan Ljubicic sealing the points in the 84th minute. The Austrians are through to the knockout stages, level on 10 points with group winners Villarreal. Slavia Prague ensured qualification ahead of Bordeaux by beating Group C winners Zenit St Petersburg 2-0, a result which made the French side's 1-0 win at FC Copenhagen irrelevant. Chelsea, who had already won Group L, looked to be on their way to a perfect sixth win from six, but could only scrape a point at eliminated Vidi thanks to substitute Olivier Giroud's late free-kick, after an Ethan Ampadu own goal and Loic Nego's sumptuous volley had put the hosts a goal ahead. BATE Borisov qualified alongside Chelsea after winning 3-1 at rock-bottom PAOK. Alexandre Lacazette confirmed Arsenal's dominance of Group E with the only goal of a low-key 1-0 win over bottom side Qarabag, while second-placed Sporting Lisbon cruised past Vorskla Poltava 3-0. Malmo are in the knockout stages after snatching a 1-0 win at Besiktas that saw the Swedes leapfrog their Turkish hosts in the extremely tight Group I. All four teams in the group were in contention for qualification on Thursday, but Genk managed to hold on to first place after hammering Sarpsborg 4-0. Sevilla took top spot in Group J from Krasnodar thanks to a 3-0 win, while Rennes pipped Astana to the knockout rounds with a 2-0 victory. Bayer Leverkusen ensured first place in Group A with a 5-1 hammering of Larnaca, while Zurich drew 1-1 at Ludogorets. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The health ministry has identified 68 "fake" mobile applications and 54 websites spreading false about the government's flagship healthcare scheme Ayushman Bharat and has lodged FIR against their owners. "Consequently, 62 out of 68 fake mobile applications have been closed and 23 out of 54 fake websites have been either blocked or shut down," Minister of State for Health, Anupriya Patel told Lok Sabha on Friday while replying to queries on the issue. She said that the fake entities trying to spread misinformation about Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) are being proactively monitored. "So far a list of 68 fake mobile applications and 54 websites on internet spreading false about PMJAY has been compiled," Patel said. "Filed an FIR against such entities," she added. Patel said that the government has also issued public advisory on the official website to inform citizens about such fake entities and their list has been shared with authorities concerned including chief information security officer of India, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, requesting them to take necessary action against these entities. Responding to a question, Patel said that some private health care providers have requested to increase the package rates. States have the flexibility to decrease the rates or increase up to 10 per cent or adopt rates as per the existing state scheme depending on their suitability. She also informed that 33 states and UTs have signed the MOUs for implementing the scheme. Odisha, Telangana and Delhi are yet to adopt the scheme. Patel informed that around 7.64 crore beneficiaries have availed the scheme till December 10 and Rs 817.73 crore have been released to the states and UTs. As on December 11, the total number of hospital admissions were 4,92,073. The minister said that PMJAY is still in its implementation stage and at present its benefit packages do not cover AYUSH system of Medicine. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shares of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Friday surged up to 10 per cent a day after the telecom tribunal TDSAT struck down Trai's new rules on predatory pricing saying they lacked required transparency. Shares of Bharti Airtel increased 9.97 per cent to Rs 332.9, while Vodafone Idea gained 8.02 per cent to Rs 37.7 on the BSE, during intra-day trade. Similar movement was seen on the NSE, wherein Bharti Airtel climbed 9.99 per cent to Rs 333.4, and Vodafone Idea advanced 8.02 per cent to Rs 37.7. On Thursday, the telecom tribunal set aside sectoral regulator Trai's new norms on predatory pricing for lack of transparency in the guidelines over determining market share and rates of services. The order provides much-needed relief to operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea who had alleged that the rules were tailored for a new entrant. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's judgement in the Rafale fighter jet deal and urged that all campaigns against the Rafale deal must end now as the country's strategic interest is more important. The apex court dismissed all the petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar defence deal. "I am very happy that today the Supreme Court has given the decision, upholding the entire Rafale deal. "...I would only urge one thing, that all campaigns against Rafale must end now because the country's strategic interest is more important," Prasad said on the sidelines of an event organised by industry body CII. He further said that the country needed effective fighter planes to reinforce the strength of the Air Force. "This has been pending for a long time." "The entire deal was completely fair, transparent and honest," Prasad asserted. The Congress has been alleging that the government had put pressure on Dassault Aviation to select Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) as its offset partner. The government, RDL and Dassault Aviation rejected the charges. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi said there is a necessity for fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without the jets. The CJI, who read out the judgement for the three-judge bench, said no reasons were found to interfere in the procurement process for the fighter jets. The verdict was pronounced on a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Alok Nath, accused of rape by a woman writer-producer, has filed anticipatory bail application in a Mumbai court. The plea for pre-arrest bail was filed before Additional Sessions Judge S S Oza Thursday. The court on Friday adjourned the matter to December 20, after the complainant's lawyer sought time to file an intervention plea opposing bail for Nath. A rape case was registered against Nath by the Mumbai Police on November 21 based on a complaint filed by the writer-producer who accused him, in a social media post, of raping her 19 years ago. Nath refuted the allegations and filed a civil suit against the complainant, seeking Rs 1 as damages for defaming him. Though she did not name Nath in the post, the complainant referred to him as the actor who is known as the "most Sanskari person". Nath is known for playing characters endorsing moral values or 'sanskar' in films such as "Maine Pyaar Kiya", "Hum Aapke Hain Koun!", "Hum Saath Saath Hain" and "Vivah". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani Friday welcomed the Supreme Court order on the multi-billion dollar Rafale jet deal, saying it established the falsity of politically motivated allegations against his firm. In its ruling on a batch of petitions seeking a probe into the deal, the apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of the 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France. Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had entered into an agreement with Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) for fulfilling offset obligations. "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally," Ambani said in a statement. The Congress has been alleging that the government had put pressure on Dassault Aviation to select RDL as its offset partner. The government, RDL and Dassault Aviation rejected the charges. "We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France," said Ambani. The French firm also clarified that RDL was among many several other companies it has chosen for implementing offset obligations of the deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : At least five people, including two children, died and about 80 others took ill Friday after consuming 'prasad' at a temple at Sulivadi village in Chamarajnagar district, police said. The condition of 12 people was critical and they have been taken to Mysuru for treatment, they said. The deceased have been identified as Gopiyamma (55), Pappanna (50), Shantha (20), Anitha 14 and Anil (12). District Health Officer Prasad said it was suspected that poison might have got mixed with the 'prasad', resulting in the tragic incident. "We have collected the samples and sent it to a laboratory for investigation," he told reporters. According to police, the foundation laying ceremony of Maramma temple was organised Thursday morning and prasad was distributed after the function. Most of those who attended the event followed the 'Om Shakti' tradition. After consuming the prasad, people started vomitting and began writhing with stomach pain, police said. Commotion prevailed as people hurried to nearby hospitals for treatment. Police rushed to the spot, as also district authorities, to provide medical aid. During treatment, five people breathed their last - two ata hospital at Kamagere, two others at a hospital at Kollegala and one athospital in Ramapura, police said. Expressing shock over the incident, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy said he has directed the authorities to make all arrangements for the treatment of the affected people. The affected people said they got the smell of kerosene oil in the prasad, but ignored it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Openers Marcus Harris and Aaron Finch kept the Indian pacers at bay on a green top, taking Australia to 66 for no loss at lunch on day one of the second Test here on Friday. After the session lasting 26 overs, Finch was unbeaten on 28 runs (81 balls), while Harris was on 36 not out (76 balls). This was after the hosts won the toss and opted to bat. Australia named an unchanged eleven from the first Test, while India made two changes. Hanuma Vihari and Umesh Yadav came in for the injured Rohit Sharma and R Ashwin, as India fielded an all-pace attack for only the third time in their Test history. The Perth wicket at the Optus Stadium was talked up a raging green-top wicket, but the Australian openers defied all that speculation. For their part, Indian pacers chipped in with all possible help and bowled a poor first spell with the new ball. Ishant Sharma (0-16) started with a delivery down leg as the first Test ball to be bowled at this ground. It didn't change much for this first spell of four overs as he sprayed the ball all over. He seemed to be more concerned about not bowling any no balls, than maintaining an attacking line first up. At the other end, Jasprit Bumrah (0-26) was bowling short of length, even if he bowled quicker than Ishant. This new ball pairing proved expensive and wasteful as Umesh Yadav (0-19) came on as first change in the ninth over. The Australian opening pair was cruising at this stage with 45 runs coming in the first 11 overs and the hosts went to drinks at 47-0 in the first hour of play. Mohammed Shami (0-4) was India's best bowler of the first session and he bowled with immaculate control from the very beginning. He came on to bowl in the 12th over and immediately troubled the batsmen. His first spell, along with Yadav's, was key in pulling things back for India. Finch survived an lbw shout on account of height as India wasted a DRS review. They had another loud shout turned down on the very next ball, but this time no review was taken. The opening pair brought up their 50-partnership off 90 balls in the 15th over of the morning. Finch had attacked more in the first hour, but settled down to make it until lunch after Bumrah tested him in the next spell. Harris meanwhile was steady and left the ball well, without playing any false shots. India bowled better in the second hour of play and conceded only 19 runs in 13 overs. All pacers bowled a second spell, as Ishant and Bumrah in particular improved on their initial spells. But the damage had already been done as the duo was set and the new ball had been wasted on a fresh pitch. India had won the first Test in Adelaide by 31 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Noted English writer has been honoured with this year's Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for "outstanding contribution towards literature", Bharatiya Jnanpith announced Friday. " is a path-breaking novelist. In his novels, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the modern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways. "His fiction is endowed with extraordinary depth and substance through his academic training as a historian and a social anthropologist," a statement from Bharatiya Jnanpith read. The decision was taken in a meeting of Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by eminent novelist, scholar and Jnanpith laureate Pratibha Ray. Ghosh, one of the most prominent contemporary Indian writers, is known for a series of novels such as "Shadow Lines", "The Glass Palace", "The Hungry Tide", and Ibis Trilogy -- "Sea of Poppies", "River of Smoke", and "Flood of Fire" -- chronicling the Opium trade between and run by the Company. The writer, in a tweet, said he was "honored and humbled". In another tweet responding to a fan, he said, "this is an amazing day for me. I never thought I would find myself on this list, with some of the writers I most admire." Born in in 1956 to a Bengali Hindu family, the 62-year-old author currently lives in with his wife Deborah Baker. Ghosh, who spent his formative years in India, and Sri Lanka, studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria. His most recent book, "The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction", was released in 2016. Ghosh is also recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award. Some of the biggest Indian writers have been awarded with this prestigious literary recognition. Major names among the 58 recipients include literary icons Krishna Sobti, Kedarnath Singh, Shrilal Shukla, Nirmal Verma, Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi, Amrita Pritam and U R Ananthamurthy. Normal life was partially affected in Kerala due to the dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the state BJP on Friday as buses kept off the roads and shops and hotels remained shut. Barring sporadic incidents of stone-pelting, the stir was peaceful, police said. The BJP had announced the stir as a mark of respect to 55-year old Venugopalan Nair, who died after setting himself afire near the venue of the party's protest here Thursday. The mortal remains of Nair were brought to the protest venue where BJP leaders paid him their last respect. The saffron party claimed Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue. However, police said Nair, in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate, said he resorted to the act due to depression and ran towards the protest venue after setting himself afire. Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has been operating bus services to Pamba to ease difficulties of Sabarimala pilgrims as they were exempted from the hartal. However, three KSRTC buses which were parked along the road were damaged in Palakkad district during stone-pelting by hartal supporters. The hartal affected over 4,000 tourists, who had arrived in the state in three cruise liners and a chartered aircraft Thursday. Various organisations, including Kerala Chamber of Commerce and Kerala Management Association led by the Tourim Professionals club took out a march in Kochi with black cloth tied around their mouth to protest the frequent hartals, President of the Kochi based Tourism Professionals Club, Vinesh Vidya said. We also plan to file a petition in the Kerala High Court against hartals, he told PTI. In the capital city, police arranged transport facilities for patients going to Medical College and the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC). Certain voluntary organisations and individuals at Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway station were seen helping those who were stranded. Kalesh, a courier company employee, who was seen with his bike at the railway station here, said he had already travelled over 50 km dropping various passengers at different places in the city. "About seven years ago I was stranded here even as my house is just seven kms away. From then I have been out on hartal days to help those who get stranded," he added. The BJP district unit had also arranged vans for the students who reached the state capital to appear for the NEET exam. Various traders' organisations have come out in open against the flash hartal called by the BJP as this was the second state-wide strike in less than three weeks. Shopkeepers in the famous Sweetmeat Street, a heritage street, in Kozhikode responded to the stir by opening shops. "We all have decided to keep the shops and business establishments open on all hartals. The business was hit by Nipah and the August floods and now the continous hartals are causing us severe loss," a trader from Kozhikode said. The business capital of Kerala, Kochi witnessed a partial response to the hartal with some shops remaining open and vehicles plying. Police personnel distributed food packets to the public, especially Ayyappa devotees. Slamming the BJP over the hartal, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the party has itself become a "laughing stock" in the state. "The BJP has become a laughing stock by calling this hartal. The deceased had given a dying declaration to the magistrate which was against the claims made by the state BJP," Vijayan told media in New Delhi. BJP state chief P S Sreedharan Pillai Friday demanded a judicial probe into the incident of self-immolation near the party protest venue, while the state Congress chief Mullapally Ramachandran, wanted the BJP to explain why they had called a hartal. "The saffron party was exploiting the suicide of a man for political gains. This shows the political bankruptcy of the party," he said. Venugopalan Nair, a resident of Muttada near here, had suffered 90 per cent burns and succumbed at the Government Medical College Hospital, after he set himself afire. Nair tried to run towards the makeshift tent where BJP leader C K Padmanabhan is on an indefinite fast demanding lifting of prohibitory orders in and around Sabarimala hill shrine, police said. Party activists and police personnel doused the fire using drinking water and rushed him to the hospital where he died without responding to treatment. The BJP has been protesting against the state government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the Lord Ayyappa Temple. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Every day from dawn, a fleet of forklift trucks carries crates of roses, tulips, chrysanthemums and 22,000 other flower varieties through the world's biggest flower market. Yme Pasma, chief operating officer for Royal FloraHolland, keeps a watchful eye as workers sort stems arriving from all over the world before sending them off to destinations across Europe. But this well-oiled operation, where robotic efficiency meets a riot of colour and fragrance, is facing a challenge that could make the hardiest bloom wilt: Brexit. "We are preparing for all kind of disturbances along the way," Pasma told AFP at the huge warehouse in Aalsmeer, near Amsterdam. "The worst is a hard Brexit and we are preparing for that as well." The Netherlands has long been famous for tulips, and flowers remain a vital part of the Dutch economy, with seven billion euros (USD 8 billion) a year in sales. Britain is the third largest market for the Netherlands' flower export business, after Germany and France, accounting for 850 million euros. As it is now, flowers are flown in from around the world before being sent seamlessly to Britain or other parts of the European Union's single market. However, the political chaos around Britain's impending exit from the EU on March 29, 2019 has left businesses unsure about what kind of trade arrangements -- if any -- will follow. Businesses across the continent have been worrying about this since Britain voted to leave in 2016, but nowhere is the problem as pertinent as in a business where only the freshest produce will do. A virtual Wall Street for flowers a few miles from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Royal FloraHolland acts as both auction house and distribution centre, with more than 100,000 transactions a day. Wearing shoe covers and fluorescent jackets, 3,000 workers deal with crates full of flowers, which are then moved around the huge centre by forklift trucks moving with balletic precision. Around a third of world flower trade passes through the Netherlands, with about 20 per cent flown in direct from Africa via Amsterdam airport, and being checked by customs agents at the warehouse. Most flowers go on to Europe, with Russia and the US also major destinations. Those headed for Britain are sent by ferry -- 90 per cent -- or via the Channel Tunnel. "It's a fresh product so we have to keep it cool and we have to bring it within one or two days to the customers," says Pasma. But Brexit risks leaving some of those flowers -- whether destined for vases in people's homes, wedding bouquets or other blooms for special occasions -- stuck at the border. Political chaos in London has raised fears that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal, which would mean the return of customs and regulatory barriers. "We are working together with the fruit and vegetables industry on a 'green lane'," Pasma said, "a sort of paperless pre-clearance together with customs, so when you reach the harbour, the truck has a sort of private lane to get on the boat." "We've been preparing for two and a half years now, but still the uncertainty remains on what kind of scenarios it will be so we are waiting for the decision so we can really work on a solution." With historically close trading links to Britain, the Netherlands has been one of the countries most worried about the fallout from Brexit. A Dutch official report this month estimated the cost to the Dutch economy of a no-deal exit at 2.3 billion euros up to 2023, while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was one of only three European leaders that British Prime Minister Theresa May visited this week as she tried to win support for changes to get a deal through parliament. In fact Brexit has already hit the flower industry, said Pasma. "We are already seeing that things are changing," he said. "Because of the devaluation of the pound sterling, people in the UK can spend less on flowers in euros." However, he says he remains optimistic in the long run. "People in the UK will still put flowers on their table and they will still come from the Netherlands," he adds. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former British prime minister Tony Blair made a strong pitch Friday for a fresh Brexit referendum to break the current deadlock over a controversial Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union (EU). The former Labour Party leader's speech in London came as it emerged that Prime Minister Theresa May had failed to secure any concessions from EU leaders at a European Council summit in Brussels, which would have made the agreement more palatable to a deeply divided House of Commons and clear a crucial parliamentary vote. "Europe should prepare for the possibility, now morphing into the near probability, that Britain will require an extension of time to the Article 50 process, either to negotiate further or more likely to conduct a new referendum," said Blair, who has emerged as one of the leading campaigners in favour of a "People's Vote" or a second chance for the British public to vote on Britain's membership of the EU. The People's Vote campaign is of the view that a lot has changed since the June 2016 referendum in favour of leaving the economic bloc. With more details of Brexit now on the table and exit arrangements in disarray, there are growing calls to go back to the electorate over the issue and bypass the risk of a chaotic no-deal exit from the 28-member bloc on Brexit Day March 29, 2019. "We are now entering a new phase of Brexit. The government has lost the initiative. Parliament has taken it. We know the options for Brexit. Parliament will have to decide on one of them. If Parliament can't, then it should decide to go back to the people," Blair said. "Things do not need to be like this. We have free will. It is past time to exercise it. Brexit is not some form of natural disaster, Brexit is man-made," he said. The former premier believes Britain's Brexit crisis also affects the EU and urged the remaining 27 member-countries to make clear they still want the UK to stay in union not only for the UK's sake but also for theirs. May remains firmly opposed to the prospect of a second referendum, insisting that the people have given their verdict on the matter and it is up to the current government to "deliver the Brexit" that the people voted for in June 2016. She had dashed to Brussels on Thursday, a day after surviving an attempted coup by her Conservative Party MPs, to make a plea for further assurances from EU leaders after delaying a Commons vote on the Withdrawal Agreement. After she won a confidence vote brought by her MPs, she vowed to listen to the concerns of the 37 per cent of Tory MPs who voted against her. The central concern remains about a controversial "backstop" plan aimed at keeping an open border between the UK territory of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland, which critics say would keep Britain tied to EU rules indefinitely and curb its ability to strike trade deals. "There is a majority in my Parliament who want to leave with a deal so with the right assurances this deal can be passed. Indeed, it is the only deal capable of getting through my Parliament," said a statement released by Downing Street in reference to what May would be saying to EU leaders. May has been working hard to convince EU leaders to work with her to "change the perception" of the controversial backstop plan. However, reports from Brussels indicate that she has met with very little success on the matter. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker urged the UK to set out more clearly what it wants, adding that the European Commission will publish information on December 19 on its preparations, should the UK leave the EU without a deal in place. "Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want, and so we would like within a few weeks our UK friends to set out their expectations for us, because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications," he said. European Council president Donald Tusk also stressed that the Withdrawal Agreement was "not open for renegotiation". But speaking after the Brussels summit, he called the backstop "an insurance policy," saying it was the EU's "firm determination" to work "speedily" on alternative arrangements. Tusk said the backstop would "apply temporarily unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement that ensures that the hard border is avoided". The assurance is unlikely to convince British MPs, who must vote the deal through Parliament for it to go ahead. Downing Street has confirmed MPs will now vote on May's deal "as soon as possible in January", after MPs return from their Christmas recess. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A British man charged with trafficking 1.3 tons of cocaine into France was on Thursday described in court as a "big fish" in the international narco-trade. Robert Dawes, 46, believed to have been one of Europe's biggest drug traffickers, is alleged to have flown the drugs into France from Caracas, Venezuela, in 2013 in 30 unregistered suitcases aboard an Air France plane. British police officer Robert Hickinbottom, giving evidence by video link to the special French court composed only of judges, said Dawes operated "at the top international level". He said Dawes was suspected of involvement in the 2002 murder of a teacher in the Netherlands, money-laundering operations in the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland and dealings with Colombian drug cartels. Hickinbottom, who works for the National Crime Agency (NCA) -- Britain's organised crime unit -- said he had been tracking Dawes' criminal path for years. Dawes was arrested in November, 2015 at his home in southern Spain and extradited to France. He is on trial alongside two other Britons and three Italians, who risk up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to 7.5 million euros (USD 8.5 million) if convicted. The Air France shipment caused outrage in Venezuela where the interior minister admitted the suitcases had gone through security scanners that had clearly showed the presence of drugs. Venezuelan police arrested 25 people, including members of the military and an Air France manager. Dawes is due to testify on Tuesday with a verdict expected on December 21. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Fears grew about the economic impact of France's month-long "yellow vest" protests on Friday ahead of a decisive weekend for the grassroots opposition movement and President Emmanuel Macron. The survey of businesses released by the IHS Market research group on Friday showed a surprising dip in activity in December linked to the disruption caused by the nation-wide demonstrations. "The latest flash data pointed to an outright contraction in France's private sector for the first time in two-and-a-half years," IHS Market economist Eliot Kerr warned. Macron's centrist government is hoping that concessions announced on Monday, a terror attack in Strasbourg on Tuesday and freezing weather this weekend will deter demonstrators from taking to the streets again. France "needs calm, order and to go back to its normal functioning," President Emmanuel Macron said in Brussels in Friday. But many of the "yellow vest" figureheads, so called because of the florescent high visibility vests they wear, have called for a fifth round of protests on Saturday, sparking fears of more clashes. "It's really the time to keep going," a senior figure in the movement, Eric Drouet, said in a video posted on Facebook. "What Macron did on Monday, was a call to carry on because he has started to give ground, which is unusual for him," he added. Drouet was referring to Macron's address to the nation on Monday, billed as the most important speech of his presidency, in which he offered a range of concessions to the demonstrators. The "yellow vest" protests began on November 17 in opposition to hikes in fuel taxes, but have since snowballed into broad resistance to Macron's pro-business agenda and his style of governing. The 40-year-old head of state, who had already cancelled planned fuel tax hikes, offered a rise in the minimum wage, tax relief for pensioners and tax-free overtime work for workers in 2019. The total package has been estimated by economists to cost up to 15 billion euros (USD 17 billion), which is expected to be financed mostly by government borrowing. A fall in economic growth, which would hit tax receipts, would exacerbate the government's budget problems. "The more the movement continues, the more it will be a loss for the French economy," the governor of the French cental bank, Francois Villeroy de Galhau said in an interview with Les Echos newspaper on Thursday. The central bank has lowered its growth forecast for 2018 to 1.5 percent, saying expansion in the current quarter would be 0.2 per cent, instead of 0.4 per cent as previously forecast. Six people have died since the "yellow vests" movement began and more than 1,400 have been injured in the protests by mostly low-income people from small-town and rural France. Scenes of blockages, massive traffics jams and mobs rampaging through the streets of Paris have dented France's image, as well as Macron's hopes of forcing through more business-friendly reforms. The numbers of "yellow vest" protesters in the streets have been relatively small by French standards -- only 136,000 last weekend -- but until now they have benefited from overwhelming public support. The impact of Macron's concessions, plus a terror attack in the city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening, could be crucial in determining whether the movement peters out this weekend or continues. Two polls published on Tuesday showed that the country was split broadly 50-50 on whether the "yellow vests" should continue protesting, a fall of around 20 percentage points. On Tuesday night, a 29-year-old jihadist from Strasbourg in eastern France attacked the city's Christmas market, killing four and injuring 12 in a gun and knife rampage. He was shot dead by police on Thursday night after 48 hours on the run, leading to praise for France's highly stretched security forces which have been repeatedly targeted during the protests. "I find it inadmissable that today we are applauding our police and then tomorrow some people think it's ok to go and throw stones at them," Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Friday in Strasbourg. Around 8,000 police will be on duty in Paris on Saturday, around the same number as last weekend, backed up with 14 armoured vehicles, water cannon and horses. Around 90,000 security forces were mobilised last Saturday across France when 2,000 people were detained, around half of them in Paris. On Thursday, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux called on "yellow vests" to stay at home. "It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court Friday issued bailable warrant against a senior official of Delhi Police for not giving complete documents in a case related to an alleged casteist and derogatory question asked in the examination for recruitment of primary teachers in government schools here. Special judge Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra issued bailable warrants of Rs 5,000 against Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) of Vivek Vihar in east Delhi to appear in person and explain as to why no action should be taken against him under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The court posted the matter for further hearing on January 16 next year. The court had earlier asked the ACP to file a status report in the matter. In the report, the ACP stated that the enquiry revealed the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) had circulated a letter specifically mentioning disengagement of the paper setter from the panel, however, the board did not disclose the name of the person. The court was hearing a plea seeking lodging of FIR against the persons concerned, said senior officials who were part of the examination committee and allegedly selected derogatory and insulting question. Complainant advocate Satya Prakash Gautam said although the ACP had mentioned attaching the copy of circular, but no such document was attached with the report and the conduct of the officer warranted initiation of proceedings against him. The examination was conducted by DSSSB on October 13 this year and the multiple choice question number 61 in the Hindi Language and Comprehension paper had allegedly used some derogatory terms for describing the Dalit community. After the controversial question created an uproar, the board had said in a statement that the question with "casteist" undertones appeared due to an "inadvertent error" and added that the question would not be considered during the evaluation process. The complaint alleged, "They (DSSSB officials) want to create an atmosphere of social disharmony and officers like them promote enmity between different groups on the grounds of caste and community." It sought to summon and try the persons concerned under the provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Information and Technology Act and Indian Penal Code. It also sought appropriate action against the Station House Officer of Anand Vihar Police Station under the SC/ST (POA) Act for not lodging an FIR in the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The CBI has summoned Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar and former state minister B V Ramanaa for questioning in connection with the alleged gutka scam on Saturday, officials said. Three other people have also been asked to appear before the agency, they said. The questioning will be conducted in Chennai, and a CBI team will reach the city Friday night, the officials said. The Tamil Nadu government had banned gutka (a concoction of tobacco and pan masala) in 2013, and it is being alleged that bribes were paid to bureaucrats, ministers and politicians to allow its manufacturing and sale. The scam came to light on July 8, 2017 when income tax sleuths raided the godown, offices and residences of a Tamil Nadu-based pan masala and gutka manufacturer who had been facing charges of tax evasion to the tune of Rs 250 crore. The promoter-directors of Jayam Industries -- A V Madhav Rao, Uma Shankar Gupta and Srinivas Rao -- allegedly sold MDM brand gutka by influencing officials, politicians and regulatory authorities, the agency officials said. Jayam Industries was rechristened to Annamalai Industries to continue the sale, they said. During the raids, the department had seized a diary containing names of those who were allegedly paid bribes by the gutka manufacturers. On the plea of a DMK leader, the Madras High Court had sent the case to the CBI in April. This was challenged in the Supreme Court by a Tamil Nadu health official but the apex court sided with the order of Madras High Court and asked the agency to register a case. The agency had registered an FIR against unidentified officials of the Tamil Nadu government, the Central Excise Department and the Food Safety Department in May. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese telecoms giant ZTE lost its biggest contract in Germany, network provider Telefonica on Friday said, as resistance mounts across the West to Beijing's infrastructure manufacturers. ZTE's contract to maintain mobile operator O2's network, which is owned by Spain's Telefonica, "will come to an end as planned at the end of the year," said a spokesman for the German firm, confirming a report from business daily Handelsblatt. In an interview with the newspaper, Telefonica Deutschland chief executive Markus Haas held back from criticising ZTE over quality problems that have plagued O2's integration of its network with competitor E-Plus over the past four years. In future it will work with a much smaller German firm, Dortmund-based GfTD, rather than ZTE, he said. Maintenance of masts and other infrastructure that makes mobile networks run is a "local service", Haas explained. Also according to Handelsblatt, ZTE is looking to score a new big German contract with network provider United Internet as the country gears up to auction licences for upcoming 5G mobile internet frequencies. The next-generation technology is expected to form the backbone of future applications like automated driving that could reshape the economy in the coming decades. ZTE declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP. The Chinese firm's woes in Germany follow British telecoms group BT's announcement this month that it would move away from equipment provided by rival Huawei in its mobile network. Huawei has been singled out by Western leaders for its alleged links to Chinese intelligence services. The US government officially asked telecoms operators not to buy the firm's products early this year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A major US-China trade deal is likely to happen soon, President Donald Trump said Friday, asserting that Beijing wants to make it "big and very comprehensive". He also said China's position has been weakened by the economic impact of the tariffs war with America. Earlier in the day, China pressed on with its trade war truce with the US and announced that it will suspend extra tariffs added to 'Made in America' cars and auto parts for three months from January 1. "China wants to make a big and very comprehensive deal. It could happen, and rather soon!" Trump tweeted. "China just announced that their economy is growing much slower than anticipated because of our Trade War with them. They have just suspended US Tariff Hikes. US is doing very well," he added. Earlier this week, top officials from the US and China had a conference call on trade negotiations. The phone call follows up on the 90-day tariff cease-fire agreed to by Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a meeting in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit. The US-China trade conflict stem from the Trump administration's demands that China make sweeping changes to its intellectual property practices, rein in high-technology industrial subsidies, open its markets to more foreign competition and take steps to cut a USD 375 billion American goods trade surplus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India next week to attend the first high-level meeting of Sino-India 'people-to-people mechanism' agreed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in June, officials announced here on Friday. During the visit from December 21-24, Wang will co-chair the meeting along with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing. The two countries decided to set up "people to people mechanism" during Prime Minister Modi's meeting with President Xi at Qingdao in June this year on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. The people-to-people mechanism is aimed at building on the momentum of the informal summit between Modi and Xi at Wuhan in April this year. Prime Minister Modi met President Xi in April in an unprecedented two-day heart-to-heart' summit in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to solidify the India-China relationship after the Doklam standoff last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Outgoing Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi Friday for trying to "defame the nation" over the Rafale deal and demanded apology from him. "The Congress made mountain out of a molehill and tried to defame the nation. Those who have tried to malign the country's image should apologise to the people," Chouhan told reporters at the BJP office here. "I wanted to ask the Congress president what was his source of information. He is morally bound to reveal it, and at whose behest he is levelling these allegations," Chouhan said. The Congress president used derogatory words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi which was highly condemnable, he said. Today's decision of the Supreme Court has made it clear that truth always wins, Chouhan said. Everybody knows that during Congress rule middlemen played a major role in defence deals, while the Modi government ended this, he said. The Supreme Court earlier Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. Asked about the BJP's defeat in Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Chouhan said it was entirely his responsibility. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court said on Friday that despite having "examined closely" the pricing details of the basic Rafale fighter jet under the original Request For Proposal (RFP) of 2007 and the one under the Inter-Government Agreement (IGA) in 2016 to "satisfy its conscience", it cannot go into cost comparison as its not the job of court. The top court said despite its initial disinclination to even go into the issue of pricing, the Centre was directed to place the cost details of the aircraft in sealed cover, just to satisfy the conscience of the court. It said the government has not disclosed the pricing details except for the basic cost of the aircraft even to Parliament on the ground of sensitivity of pricing details and national security, apart from the issues of breach of the agreement between the two countries -- India and France. In relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The deal is estimated to be Rs 58,000 crore, or about USD 8 billion. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph said the central government despite its reluctance, placed the material regarding costs of the aircrafts before the Court to satisfy its conscience. "We have examined closely the price details and comparison of the prices of the basic aircraft along with escalation costs as under the original RFP (of 2007) as well as under the IGA. We have also gone through the explanatory note on the costing, item wise," the bench said. It noted that the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets are stated to be covered by Article 10 of the IGA between India and France, which provides for protection of classified information and material exchanged under the IGA and it would be governed by the provisions of the Security Agreement signed between both the governments on January 25, 2008. "It is certainly not the job of this Court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present. We say no more as the material has to be kept in a confidential domain," the bench said. It further said that even Chief of the Air Staff is stated to have communicated his reservation regarding the disclosure of the pricing details, including regarding the weaponry which could adversely affect national security. The central government has claimed that there is a commercial advantage in the purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft and that there are certain better terms in IGA qua the maintenance and weapon package, it noted. The pricing details were however shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the report of CAG was examined by the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament and only a redacted portion of the CAG report was placed before the Parliament which is in public domain, the court said. Petitioners including advocates M L Sharma, Vineet Dhanda, AAP leader Sanjay Singh and former union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan had challenged the pricing details of 36 fighter jets on the ground that there were huge escalations in costs, as per the materials available in public domain. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Coast Guard has launched an exercise along the serene sea waters of Gahirmatha marine sanctuary in Odisha to protect the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles during their mating season, a senior CG officer said. The Coast Guard has launched the 'Operation Oliva' exercise as part of its annual mission to ensure the safe mid-sea sojourn of breeding Olive Ridley sea turtles, he said. In coordination with the state Forest department, the turtle conservation programme is in full swing since last month to keep watch and vigil on illegal fishing along the turtle concentration zone, said Commandant, Paradip Coast Guard, B Nath Mahato. The Coast Guard has chalked out a pro-active plan for these marine animals conservation. With round-the-clock vigil, the Coast Guard has been able to provide adequate protection to the endangered species. Besides a ship, CG has also pressed into service an aircraft for the operation oliva. It is keeping tab on illegal fishing in Gahirmatha marine sanctuary. The coast guard has organised interactive sessions with the marine fishermen communities to sensitise them on the pros and cons of legal embargo on fishing during ridleys nesting season. "The patrol exercise for surveillance on trespassing sea-worthy trawls is on as turtles perish in large number after getting hit on trawl propellers. Besides breeding animals get entangled in fishing nets and are asphyxiated to death," said the CG commandant. As the turtles have begun arriving en masse for mating, an aircraft is being pressed into service for easy interception of illegal trawling operation along the marine sanctuary water zone. "The Coast Guard is always on alert to check trespassing of vessels. The patrol vessels engaged by Forest and Fisheries department often seek CG ship assistance in the event of exigencies. The operation to save turtles is being carried on in a coordinated manner," he said. We are always ready to help the forest and fisheries department for the safety of these delicate marine species, quipped CG officials. A state-of-the-art CG ship is maintaining round-the-clock vigil along the coastal shoreline. The CG patrol in turtle congregation sites would remain in force till the marine turtles finish laying eggs on nesting beaches, said the CG official. There is increase in awareness level among the fishermen communities. As a result, unlawful sea fishing has dropped considerably this time since the enforcement of prohibition on sea fishing from November 1 within the 20-km radius of Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, officials added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two animal activists have complained to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, seeking action against Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu for allegedly possessing a stuffed black partridge in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The bird was gifted to Punjab's minister of local government, tourism and cultural affairs by a Pakistani journalist, while he was on a visit to the neighbouring country for the launch of the Kartarpur corridor. Sidhu had on December 12 gifted the black partridge to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. However, Amarinder is learnt to have sought information from the wildlife department to know whether he can keep the bird. "I have lodged a complaint with the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau for the violation of the Wildlife Protection Act by Navjot Singh Sidhu," said animal activist Naresh Kadyan on Friday. The WCCB is a statutory body under the ministry set up to combat organised wildlife crime. A similar complaint was filed by Ludhiana based animal activist Sandeep Jain, demanding an investigation in the matter and action against Sidhu. In his complaint, Jain said that the black partridge was a protected species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot Rajasthan next chief minister and Sachin Pilot his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague over several rounds of discussions lasting more than two days. Congress observer to the state K C Venugopal made the announcement at a media briefing here, ending the suspense over who would be appointed chief minister of the state -- experienced hand Gehlot, who will be chief minister for a third stint, or the Pradesh Congress Committee chief who is credited for being instrumental in the party's turnaround in the desert state. Addressing the press conference, Gehlot, 67, thanked Gandhi for giving him the opportunity to serve the people of the state for a third time and promised that he and Pilot will give "good governance". Pilot, 41, exuded confidence that Congress' good electoral performance will continue, saying the party will get a big mandate in 2019 polls and form government at the Centre also. "Mera aur Ashok Gehlot ji ka jaadu puri tarah chal gaya hai (Gehlot and I worked our magic in the state)," Pilot said. The Congress went from 21 seats against the BJP's 163 in 2013 to getting 99 seats (plus one of the Rashtriya Lok Dal) in the assembly elections the votes for which were counted on Tuesday. Pilot said the party's manifesto will be implemented immediately. He put up stiff resistance and had staked his own claim for the top post, it is learnt. Referring to Gehlot's 'kaun banega crorepati' quip to a question on who will be CM at a press conference last month, Pilot jokingly said, "Who would have known that instead of one there will be two 'crorepatis'." Venugopal said details of the oath taking ceremony would be decided after meeting Governor Kalyan Singh in Jaipur on Friday evening. Both Gehlot and Pilot would be present at the meeting. They will arrive in Jaipur from New Delhi and will go to the Raj Bhawan to hand over the list of MLAs, sources in Jaipur added. Gandhi has met Gehlot and Pilot thrice since Thursday itself. Hectic discussions were held between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the selection of chief ministers for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Senior party leaders Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were also present during the meeting Friday. According to Congress leaders, leaders should not challenge the high command and accept the decision once MLAs in the state have authorised Gandhi to take a call. Pilot was apparently not on board on Gehlot's name, which delayed the announcement. Eventually, Gandhi successfully brokered peace with the CM-deputy CM compromise formula. "The united colours of Rajasthan," Gandhi tweeted Friday afternoon along with a photograph in which the three leaders were seen in a jovial mood. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court Friday set aside the government decision to ban private firms from producing and selling oxytocin, a drug used for inducing labour contractions and controlling bleeding. A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and A K Chawla said the government's decision was arbitrary and unreasonable. The bench also said that there was no scientific basis behind the Centre's decision restricting private companies from making or supplying the drug, which helps new mothers lactate, to prevent its alleged misuse in the dairy sector for increasing milk production. As per the Centre's April 27 notification, the state-run Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals Ltd (KAPL) was solely allowed by the Centre to make the drug to meet the country's needs. The high court on August 31 had suspended till September 30 the central government's prohibition on sale and manufacture of oxytocin by private companies for domestic use. The stay was later extended till December 15. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Discontent within the Congress in Karnataka has come to the fore again, with several party legislators holding a separate meeting during the ongoing winter session of legislature here, to express their dismay against the party leadership in the state. The legislators, mostly the party's old guard, are also scheduled to meet Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge soon, party sources said. During the meeting a few days ago, the legislators, mostly ministerial aspirants, expressed discontent over the delay and lack of clarity on cabinet expansion, and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah's style of functioning, they said. According to reports, about eight to 10 party legislators were part of the meeting, including senior MLAs Roshan Baig, Ramalinga Reddy and MTB Nagraj, among others. At least two legislators have confirmed about such a meeting taking place in Belagavi during the initial days of the session that began on Monday. "Yes, we had a meeting...we are unhappy with the way a few people are handling the entire thing and the way the CLP leader is behaving," an MLA said on grounds of anonymity. Expressing strong reservation about Siddaramaiah's absence from the session, he said "we met and shared our disappointment and decided to take up the issue with the high command at appropriate time." Siddaramaiah skipped the first half of the winter session as he was on a personal visit abroad. He has now returned to Bengaluru and is likely to attend the session from next week. Stating that the MLAs planned to meet Kharge and were waiting for him to return from Chhattisgarh, a legislator said they had no intention to destabilise the government and there was no question about them crossing over to another party. "We want to send a message to the state leadership- Siddaramaiah," the MLA added. Noting that Siddaramaiah should have called a meeting of MLAs along with Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, to discuss issues faced by party MLAs under coalition government and constituency related development activities as promised, he said the central leadership,despite understanding developments here, was quiet due to the coming Lok Sabha polls. He said Siddaramaiah's candidate for the Council chairman post S R Patil not being considered by the high command was an example of the party leadership being not happy with him. "They too understand that because of his arrogance, the party had to pay the price in the assembly polls," he said. The MLA also termed the repeated postponement of cabinet expansion as "natak", as he expressed doubts about it taking place on December 22, the date announced by the coalition leaders. "I don't think they will do it ( expansion) before Sankranti," he said. Earlier too, despite the ruling coalition leaders in Karnataka announcing December 22 as the date for the much awaited expansion of the H D Kumaraswamy ministry, several Congress MLAs had expressed doubts about it taking place till the Lok Sabha polls early next year. Meanwhile, reports suggest that amid this development, another group of Congress legislators loyal to Siddaramaiah are scheduled to meet him in Bengaluru in one or two days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Signalling an end to the nearly two-month power tussle in Sri Lanka, disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will resign on Saturday, his son said Friday, soon after the Supreme Court refused to stay a court order that restrained the embattled former strongman from acting as the premier until it fully heard the case next month. Rajapaksa, 73, was appointed as the prime minister on October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena in a controversial move after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, which plunged the island nation into a constitutional crisis. "To ensure stability of the nation, Former President @PresRajapaksa has decided to resign from the Premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation," Rajapaksa's son Namal tweeted. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) with former president, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and others will "now work to form a broader political coalition with President Sirisena", Namal Rajapaksa, a lawmaker, added. Wickremesinghe's camp was hopeful that Sirisena would now reinstate him over the weekend after Rajapaksa resigns, effectively ending the political stalemate that plagued the nation for the past seven weeks. There was no immediate reaction from President Sirisena, the architect of the current crisis. Parliamentarian Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said Rajapaksa, who ruled Sri Lanka for nearly a decade, decided to step down in the best interest of the country. He claimed Rajapaksa can hold office without resigning but that will only further drag the political turmoil in the country. So the former president decided to step down after the court ruling given on Friday and on Thursday. His Cabinet will also stand dissolved, Abeywardena was quoted as saying by the Colombo Gazette. The apex court's latest ruling came a day after it unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was "illegal", in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. The Supreme Court decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand. The appeal filed by Rajapaksa will be taken up for hearing on January 16, 17 and 18. The apex court asked all parties to provide written submissions within three weeks. The Appeal Court on December 3 issued notice and an interim order against Rajapaksa and his Government, preventing them from acting as Prime Minister, Cabinet and Deputy Ministers. The order was issued in a case filed by 122 lawmakers against Rajapaksa and his new government. Rajapaksa and the members of the purported government filed the appeal against the Court of Appeal's interim injunction that restrained them from functioning in their respective posts. The United National Front (UNF) said the order means Rajapaksa cannot be Prime Minister and so the former Cabinet must be reinstated. UNF Parliamentarian Ajith Perera said the President must now appoint Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. Parliamentarians of Wickremesinghe's UNP, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Tamil National Alliance on November 23 filed the petition in the Court of Appeal challenging Rajapaksa on continuing to hold the office of Prime Minister after a no-confidence motion was passed in Parliament against him. Sirisena, after sacking Wickremesinghe, dissolved Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. However, the Supreme Court overturned his decision and halted the preparations for snap polls. Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa both claim to be the prime ministers with the former claiming that his dismissal is invalid because he still holds a majority in the 225-member Parliament. Prior to the crisis, Wickramasinghe's UNP had the backing of 106 parliamentarians while Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine had 95 seats. Rajapaksa has, so far, failed to prove his majority in Parliament. The President has said that due to sharp personal differences with Wickremesinghe, he would not reappoint him as the Prime Minister. However, Wickremesinghe's UNP claims that Sirisena will be left with no choice as he would be the man who will command the confidence in the House. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Italian maker on Friday announced its foray into pre-ownned market in India through its Approved programme. Under the programme, only bikes less than 5 years old with certified mileage lower than 50,000 km are allowed to be sold after undergoing 35 technical checks, the company said in a statement. "Our entry in the pre-owned segment in India will make more accessible to passionate bikers who aspire for the luxurious and premium experience offered by Ducati motorcycles," Ducati India Managing Director Sergi Canovas said. Ducati Approved is a certified pre-owned motorcycle programme wherein company's qualified service technicians select and inspect every bike, certifying its history, the company said. The programme also includes extended warranty and roadside assistance, it added. "With this program, our aim is to sell bikes with the same level of sophistication and authenticity as offered with a new Ducati," Canovas said. The Bombay High Court Friday extended till January 10 the interim protection from arrest granted to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case. A bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and Sarang Kotwal also restrained police from arresting activist and co-accused Anand Teltumbde till December 17. The bench said it will hear in detail the arguments on Teltumbde's petition seeking quashing of the FIR. The court, however, refused to grant any interim relief to activist Stan Swamy who too has been named in the FIR but is yet to be arrested. Pune Police who are probing the case informed the court that Swamy was still being treated as a "suspect" and not an accused. The judges said in that case he could not be granted any protection. Navlakha, Teltumbde and Swamy have moved the high court seeking that the FIR against them be quashed. Navlakha was arrested in August this year along with Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves, all left-wing activists. Police alleged that they had links with the Maoists who had backed the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Inflammatory speeches at the conclave led to violence at the Bhima Koregaon war memorial in Pune district the next day, the police claimed. The Delhi High Court, however, ordered Navlakha's release. The other four got temporary relief from the Supreme Court which directed police to put them under house arrest while it heard petitions opposing the action against them. Later, as the SC refused to stop the probe, they were taken into custody by Pune Police. In October, another FIR was registered by Pune Police in the same case, naming eight more activists including Teltumbdeand Swamy who are yet to be arrested. The Maharashtra government has filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the apex court against the Delhi HC order in Navlakha's case. He informed the bench that the SC is slated to hear it on January 10. The bench noted that at the previous hearing, the state government had "given an impression to SC that he (Navlakha) would not be arrested till January 10". It, therefore, dismissed the government's argument opposing interim relief for Navlakha. "You gave a certain impression to the SC. We cannot override that," the judges said. Prosecutor Aruna Kamat-Pai argued earlier that police had "enough material evidence" against Navlakha and hence he should not get interim protection. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) CBS paid Eliza Dushku USD 9.5 million in a settlement after she accused Michael Weatherly of harassment and was subsequently written off from "Bull". According to the New York Times, the 37-year-old actor first came forward with the claims against her former co-star following his inappropriate remarks at the beginning of their professional relationship. Dushku appeared in three episodes of the show and had been assured of a significant recurring role, but after raising complaints, Dushku was written off the show, which she believed was in retaliation for speaking out. CBS confirmed the settlement in a statement to Deadline. "The allegations in Ms Dushku's claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done. "The settlement of these claims reflects the projected amount that Ms Dushku would have received for the balance of her contract as a series regular, and was determined in a mutually agreed upon mediation process at the time," the statement read. The Times reported that details of the settlement emerged as part of an independent examination of CBS' culture in the wake of sexual misconduct charges levelled against former CEO Les Moonves. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump agreed Friday to "more effective coordination" between their countries' operations in Syria, according to Turkish presidential sources, after Ankara threatened to launch a new offensive in the war-torn nation. The two leaders spoke by telephone and "agreed to ensure more effective cooperation on the subject of Syria", according to the source. The conversation came after Erdogan on Wednesday warned Turkey was planning to launch a new operation within the "next few days" against the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria. Ankara views the YPG as a "terrorist offshoot" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is considered a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. But the YPG has spearheaded the United States' fight against the Islamic State group under the banner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance. During their phone call, Erdogan shared with Trump "Turkey's legitimate security concerns caused by the presence and actions of the terrorist organisation PKK/PYD/YPG", the source said. Earlier on Friday at a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said he is "determined to bring peace and security to areas east of the Euphrates" River in Syria's north. Washington's support of the Kurdish militia has strained relations with Turkey over the past couple of years. American forces are with the SDF east of the Euphrates as well as in the flashpoint city of Manbij, which is west of the river. Erdogan has urged the US to drive the YPG out of the city. "Here is what we say: either you clean the city and (the YPG) leave, or we're going into Manbij as well," he warned. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Maharashtra Chief Secretary Arun Bongirwar died here on Friday following a prolonged illness. He was 76. Bongirwar, a 1966 batch IAS officer, had served as the 25th chief secretary of the state (appointed in 1999). He died in the morning and the last rites were performed in the afternoon at Chandanwadi crematorium in south Mumbai. NCP chief Sharad Pawar expressed grief over Bongirwar's death and described him as an "able administrator with industrious nature and utmost integrity". "He had deep understanding of people's issues and acumen to resolve those. May his soul rest in peace," Pawar said on Twitter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's exports grew by a meagre 0.80 per cent to USD 26.5 billion in November, according to commerce ministry data. Imports rose by 4.31 per cent to USD 43.17 billion during the month, leading to widening of the trade deficit to USD 16.67 billion. The deficit widened despite a steep decline of 15.6 per cent in gold imports at USD 2.75 billion during the month under review. During April-November this fiscal, exports rose by 11.58 per cent to USD 217.52 billion, while imports recorded a growth of 14.71 per cent to USD 345.64 billion. Trade deficit during the period widened to USD 128.13 billion as against USD 106.37 billion during April-November 2017-18. Oil imports in November jumped by 41.31 per cent to USD 13.49 billion. However, the non-oil imports dipped by 6.79 per cent to USD 29.68 billion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the BJP leading protests against the Kerala government over the Sabarimala issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday told party workers in the state to express their views firmly to convince people while following democratic and constitutional norms. In an interaction with party workers in the state as part of his nation-wide dialogue with BJP workers in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, Modi said there should be no let-up in their efforts to spread public awareness as he referred to a "sad news". He was referring to the death of 55-year old Venugopalan Nair, who died after setting himself afire near the venue of the party's protest in the state on Thursday. The BJP had called for a bandh in the state, claiming that Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue. However, police claimed that Nair in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate said he did so due to depression and ran towards the protest venue after setting himself afire. Modi asked BJP workers to "inspire" people across the state to avoid taking any extreme step. Every life is important and it should not suffer, he said in his video-interaction with party's booth workers from Attingal, Mavelikkara, Kollam, Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta. The BJP has been protesting against the state government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the Lord Ayyappa Temple and also demanding lifting of ban orders and restrictions. He also referred to killings of BJP workers in alleged political violence in the state and referred to the example of Tripura, where the saffron party defeated the Left earlier this year after its 20-year rule, to assert that such a day is not far in Kerala. "Those in power in Kerala for years have shown no respect for democracy. They have made every effort to silence the voice of BJP workers and voice of people. Despite BJP workers' killings, state govt failed to performance their duty," the prime minister said. In Kerala, he said, there are two governance models, the Congress model and the Communist model. "Both models are models of efficient corruption and inefficient governance. The BJP model of governance is a model of development. It is a model of quick development, inclusive and all round development," Modi added. BJP workers are becoming voice of the people, even if it means withstanding the brutality of political violence, he said. To a question from a party worker about how the party can expand its base in the southern state, he said they should make people's voice heard and then people will hear their voices. He recalled former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's saying that a BJP worker should have his one foot in "rail"- a reference to his willingness to travel frequently- and another in jail so that he does not care if police put him behind bars for fighting for people. He also referred to a number of figures to claim that the country had progressed a lot under his government. "Earlier, the buzzword was VIP now the buzzword is EPI - Every Person is Important," he said to highlight as to how his government has focussed on the common man. "Indian economy was among the Fragile Five before 2014. The world had turned away from India. Within four years, that perception has completely changed," he said. Modi said India is at the forefront of setting the global narrative today, adding that when a nation of 130 crore people speaks, its voice is heard. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An agitating farmers' body Friday served an ultimatum to the BJD-led Odisha government to solve their problems by January 31 or face the wrath of peasants in the next election. The threat came after the farmers under the banner of Naba Nirman Krushak Sangathan (NNKS) were stopped by police from marching towards Bhubaneswar from Raghunathpur, around 15 km away from here. Ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections due next year, BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday restructured its farmers' wing, appointing two senior leaders at its top positions. NNKS convener Akshaya Kumar said the recent results of the five state assembly elections indicated that farmers were now "united" and if the Odisha government did not make its stand clear on the farmers' demands by January 31, the agitation will be intensified from February 1. "The Odisha government may also face the same situation, if it ignores farmers' demands," he said and threatened that the state government would be responsible for the law and order situation after the January 31 deadline. Though the NNSS members' march was stopped from entering Bhubaneswar, a delegation of the body was allowed to call on Governor Ganeshi Lal and hand over a memorandum on their demands. The farmers outfit has been agitating for long demanding pension, proper price of their produces and prestige for farmers. They have also been demanding Rs 5,000 as monthly pension for elderly farmers. This is the second time the state government stopped the march of NNKS to Bhubaneswar in three months. When a large number of farmers marched to Bhubaneswar to stage a demonstration here on November 5, the police had stopped them midway at various places, triggering criticism from the opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The NNKS had earlier rejected the state government's inter-ministerial committee and refused to talk to the panel headed by Finance Minister S B Behera. "Let the government issue an ordinance announcing pension for farmers," Kumar said. The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) appointed senior leader and MP Prasanna Acharya as president of the party's farmer wing, Biju Krushak Janata Dal, and Health Minister Pratap Jena as its secretary general, party sources said. Jena comes from a farmer's family while Acharya hails from Western Odisha, considered the rice bowl of the state, where the farmers' association is strong. The restructuring came three days after the results of the assembly elections in five states were declared. Following this, Patnaik had said, "All these states that have gone for election are predominantly agrarian states. The central BJP government has done very little for the farmers.... (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Mr. Satyajeet Rajan, Director General - Tourism, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and Dr. RN Tandon, Secretary General, Indian Medical Association, presented the 2nd edition of FICCI Medical Travel Value Awards 2018 during the Advantage Health Care India - 2018 Summit at Greater Noida on December 5th 2018. The 'Advantage Health Care - India 2018' summit was organized by FICCI in association with Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and Service and Export Promotion Council (SEPC). This year's excellence awards were presented under the following 15 categories: FICCI Medical Travel Value Awards 2018 AyurvedaSr. Name of the institution Comment Somatheeram Research Institute and Ayurveda 1 Hospital, Kerala Winner Wellness Centre Kairali Ayurvedic Centre, 1 New Delhi Winner Medical Facilitator HBG Medical Assistance, 1 Gurugram Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Bariatric Surgery Asian Bariatrics Hospital, 1 Ahmedabad Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Cardiology Cardiac Surgery Apollo Health City, Jubilee 1 Hills, Hyderabad Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Cardiology Interventional Cardiology Fortis Escorts Heart 1 Institute, New Delhi Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Cosmetic Surgery Fortis Memorial Research 1 Institute, Gurugram Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Eye Surgery 1 Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital : In-Vitro Fertilization Infertility Nova IVI Fertility, 1 Ahmedabad Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Oncology 1 Apollo Hospitals, Ahmedabad Winner - First Apollo Cancer Institute, 2 Chennai Winner - Second Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Orthopedics (Joint Replacement) Shalby Multi Speciality 1 Hospitals, Ahmedabad Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Transplant - Bone Marrow 1 Artemis Hospitals Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Transplant - Transplant - Heart Fortis Malar Hospital, 1 Chennai Winner Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Transplant - Transplant - Kidney Fortis Flt Lt Rajan Dhall 1 Hospital, New Delhi Winner - Joint Award Indraprastha Apollo 2 Hospitals, New Delhi Medical Value Travel Specialist Hospital -Transplant - Transplant - Liver Indraprastha Apollo 1 Hospitals, New Delhi Winner Advantage Health Care India - 2018 aims to present India as the most preferred healthcare destination for patients from across the globe. The idea behind the summit is to provide an opportunity for India to showcase its immense pool of medical capabilities as well as help develop opportunities for healthcare collaborations between the participating countries. Visitors and delegates from over 71 countries participated in the Summit. About Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI): A non-government, not-for-profit organisation, FICCI is the voice of India's business and industry. From influencing policy to encouraging debate, engaging with policy makers and civil society, FICCI articulates the views and concerns of industry. It serves its members from the Indian private and public corporate sectors and multinational companies, drawing its strength from diverse regional chambers of commerce and industry across states, reaching out to over 2,50,000 companies. Further information is available at: http://ficci. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Friday said the government respects autonomy and independence of the RBI and raising credit and liquidity issues do not infringe on the central bank's autonomy. "If the sovereign government is pointing out that there are credit and liquidity issues in the country, how can it be infringing the autonomy," he said. The statement came days after Urjit Patel resigned as Governor of Reserve Bank of India amid talk of a face-off with the government over autonomy and independence of the central bank. "The government respects autonomy and independence of central bank," Jaitley said, adding that he hopes "things will work out well in future". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four writ petitions were filed against the government decision to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets but none of the petitioners including former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie were able to satisfy the Supreme Court to register FIR by the CBI for court-monitored probe. Sinha and Shourie along with activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan were the last among the petitioners to knock at the doors of the apex court complaining that the CBI did not register FIR on October 4 when they had approached the agency. According to them, their complaint disclosed a prima facie evidence of commission of a cognisable offence under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and prayed for a direction for registration of an FIR and investigation of the same and submitting periodic status reports to the court. Their petition along with three others was dismissed by a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph saying that perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a "fishing and roving enquiry" by this court, especially in such matters. Besides Sinha and Shourie, who have left the BJP, Sanjay Singh, the AAP MP, was the third petitioner in the matter alleging illegality and non-transparency in the procurement process. He had sought investigation into the reasons for 'cancellation of earlier deal' for the procurement of 126 fighter jets and a scrutiny of the court into the alteration of pricing and how a 'novice' company, that is, Reliance Defence came to replace the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd as the Offset partner. Singh had also prayed for cancellation of Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) and registration of an FIR into the alleged irregularities. The bench noted that before these politicians' pleas, after the statement of former French President Francois Hollande in september on the deal, advocate M L Sharma filed the first petition followed by another lawyer Vineet Dhanda and both of them sought quashing of the IGA of 2016 for purchase of 36 Rafale Jets and lodging of FIR against prominent public servants and private parties allegedly involved in the deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The German parliament on Friday approved a law allowing a third gender option on birth certificates for people who are not distinctly male or female. Chancellor Angela Merkel's left-right coalition had passed legislation permitting children born intersex to be registered as "miscellaneous". The new measure follows a ruling by Germany's top court in November 2017 that current regulations on civil status are discriminatory against intersex people, noting the sexual identity of an individual is protected as a basic right. Intersex is a broad term encompassing people who have gender traits, such as genitals or chromosomes, that do not entirely fit with a typical binary notion of male or female. According to the United Nations, between 0.05 and 1.7 per cent of the global population are intersex - about the same percentage as people with red hair. Sometimes this is apparent at birth, at other times it becomes noticeable in puberty. The new German law also allows changing a person's gender and name at a later stage, but it drew criticism because this will in most cases require a medical examination. The Lesbian and Gay Association LSVD charged that this signalled that being intersex was seen as an abnormality and demanded that "degrading assessments... must be abolished". However, conservative Christian Democrats lawmaker Marc Henrichmann argued that the official civil register must be based on evidence rather than self-assessments, reported DPA agency. Germany has since 2013 allowed babies born with characteristics of both sexes to leave the gender options of male and female blank. The Federal Constitutional Court in its ruling gave parliament until the end of 2018 to amend the current legislation. The decision was in favour of an appeal brought by an intersex adult and said that courts and authorities should no longer compel intersex people to choose between identifying as male or female. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Friday said the material placed before it shows that the Centre did not disclose in Parliament the pricing details of the Rafale fighter jet, but revealed it to the Comptroller and Auditor General. It said that CAG report was even examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament. "The material placed before us shows that the government has not disclosed pricing details, other than the basic price of the aircraft, even to the Parliament, on the ground that sensitivity of pricing details could affect national security, apart from breaching the agreement between the two countries," a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said. It said the pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). "Only a redacted portion of the report was placed before the Parliament," the bench said in its verdict as it dismissed a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into the 36 Rafale fighter jet deal and direction to the CBI for registering an FIR for alleged irregularities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that the government does not comment on the views of former RBI governors on demonetisation and the GST expressed before the media, Parliament was informed Friday. He was replying to a question in this regard by Congress parliamentarians Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath. "The government does not comment on the views and opinions of former RBI governors and economists on demonetisation and GST expressed before media/private agency etc," Jaitley said in a written reply to the House. The government, the reply said, has from time to time stated advantages to the Indian economy which accrued due to the note ban and Goods and Services Tax (GST). The two senior Congress leaders had asked whether a former Governor of Reserve Bank of India and several renowned economists have recently stated that ban on high value currency notes in 2016 and rollout of GST in July 2017 have caused 'really hard blows' to the economy. Jaitley further said after the structural reform of GST had been introduced in a record time, the economic growth bounced back vigorously. Robust growth rate of 18 per cent for 2017-18 in net direct tax collections, the highest in last seven financial years, is "indicative of the positive impact" of demonetisation on the level of tax compliance in the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bolstered by the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale deal, the government on Friday ruled out the possibility of a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the contract and mounted a strident counter-attack on the Congress, saying the "deaf" will never hear an answer. At a joint press conference with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley called the allegations relating to Rafale jet deal as "fiction writing" that compromised national security, while adding that falsehood is bound to fall apart and "disrupters" have lost on all counts. His comments were seen as an apparent reference to Congress president Rahul Gandhi who has been accusing the government of corruption in the Rs 58,000-crore deal for procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft from France. The Congress has been demanding a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to the deal. "Falsehood is bound to fall apart. Indeed it has. Falsehood always has short life. In this case it was a few months. And falsehood always lowers the credibility of its creator," Jaitley said. Asked about Congress reiterating its demand for a JPC probe even after the court order, Jaitley said, "The deaf will never receive an answer. They cannot hear it." He said defence deals like the Rafale cannot be probed by bodies like the JPC which split on the basis of political affiliations and that they can be scrutinised only in a court of law. The Congress has been disrupting Parliament demanding a JPC into the deal. In a relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the Rafale deal, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The Congress has been carrying out a political campaign against the government, alleging massive corruption in the deal. The government has been rejecting the charges. "After the SC verdict, it is absolutely conclusive. I don't think there is any scope left for a doubt or discussion or for anything for a political body which splits on partisan basis to decide the justiciability of the process," said Jaitley when asked about possibility of a JPC probe. He said the "truth" is known through the judicial process in these kind of cases and not through a "partisan way". Asked whether he was doubting the relevance of JPC in a parliamentary democracy, Jaitley talked about a similar probe into the Bofors case and said the panel was split on partisan lines. "The subsequent history proved every word of that JPC to be false," he said. Accusing Rahul Gandhi of misleading the country on the Rafale deal, the Finance Minister said there has been a precedent in democratic countries world-over that if a politician is caught lying, then he or she resigns. If the person concerned are in positions of power, then impeachment is initiated against them, he said, adding, "Those who created the untruth, should at least place the truth in the House." The Finance Minister said the price details of the Rafale deal have been given to court in sealed cover and cannot be made public. The Finance Minister also said, "If honest deals in the interest of national security and commercial interest are brought under a clout, then civil servants and armed forces officers in future will think 10 times before going ahead with such exercise." He said those who created the "falsehood" have hurt's India's larger national security interests. On Congress' charge of crony capitalism in selection of offset partner for the deal, Jaitley said, "People incapable of understanding serious issues tend to rely more on slogans than on substance. Merely a false statement of a political leader cannot taint the offset mechanism." Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has been accusing the government of putting pressure on Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, in selection of Reliance Defence as offset partner for the deal. Dassault Aviation, Reliance Defence and the government had trashed the charges. Jaitley said the aircraft being procured by the NDA were 9 per cent cheaper than the negotiations conducted with Dassault by the previous UPA, while the weaponised jets were 20 per cent cheaper. He said the overall price considering various parameters including escalation clauses will be 40 per cent cheaper. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The treasury benches Friday mounted a counter-offensive on the opposition on the Rafale issue in Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the deal, with the government seeking an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. As soon as the Question Hour was taken up, opposition members trooped into the Well carrying placards on various issues, including alleged scam in Rafale deal. But BJP members stood up and started raising slogans against the Congress and Gandhi. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said following the SC verdict, Rahul Gandhi should apologise. Amid loud sloganeering, around 11.10 AM, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. The Supreme Court Friday gave a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government Friday said it will set up National Medical Devices Promotion Council (NMDPC) to boost manufacturing, attract investments and promote exports of the fast-growing sector. "As Indian manufacturing companies and startups move towards creating innovative products, the setting-up of the council will spur domestic manufacturing in this sector," the Commerce and Industry Ministry said in a statement. It said the medical devices industry plays a critical role in the healthcare ecosystem and is indispensable to achieve the goal of health for all citizens. The manufacturing and trade in the sector is growing steadily which includes a wide range of products. Although the industry has been growing in double digits, it is predominantly import-driven, with imports accounting for over 65 per cent of the domestic market. The council, it said, will undertake several activities including facilitation, promotion and development of the sector besides holding seminars and workshops to garner views of industry and understand best global practices. It would also identify redundant processes and render technical assistance to the agencies and departments concerned to simplify the approval processes involved in the sector. It will "enable entry of emerging interventions and support certifications for manufacturers to reach levels of global trade norms and lead India to an export driven market in the sector," it said. The NMDPC would support dissemination and documentation of international norms and standards for medical devices, by capturing the best practices in the global market and facilitate domestic manufacturers to rise to international level. It will also "drive a preferential market access policy, by identifying the strengths of the Indian manufacturers and discouraging unfair trade practices in imports". Besides, it would make recommendations to government based on industry feedback and global practices on policy and process interventions to strengthen the medical technology sector. The council will be headed by the secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. Apart from the concerned departments, it will also have representatives from healthcare industry and quality control institutions. Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu announced this move at WHO Global Forum on Medical Devices at Visakhapatnam. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti Friday said her People's Democratic Party (PDP) had an alliance with the BJP knowing it will be 'suicidal'. When her party entered into a tie-up with the BJP to form government in J&K, it was expected that prime minister Narendra Modi will reach out to Pakistan, she said. "We knew it (alliance with the BJP) was suicidal for the party. Yet we put everything at stake. For a party which is seen as one that encourages talks with separatists, we thought Modi will rise to the occasion and since (former PM Atal Bihari) Vajpayee did not have that kind of a mandate, we thought he will reach out to Pakistan, to the people of J&K and start what Vajpayee had left," she said. When Vajpayee was the prime minister and her father was chief minister of J&K, the message which went out was both the Centre and the state government were on the same page and the 2002-2005 period became the "golden period", she said. The PDP ensured a crowd of 30,000 when the prime minister was invited to the Kashmir valley but he did not rise to the occasion, she said, speaking at an event organised by the Observer Research Foundation. "Modi had the mandate which Vajpayee did not. While forging an alliance with the BJP, we had thought if he (Modi) could solve Kashmir's woes, we did not mind if that meant an end of PDP. We took disillusionment (of people) on us for this purpose," Mufti said. Asked if she would be open to an alliance with the Congress and the National Conference, she said, "We had never thought we would ally with the BJP. Now, an alliance with the Congress and NC depends on the need of the hour." She said countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are being held hostage to the dispute between India and Pakistan. The countries in the regional grouping should come together and make Jammu and Kashmir a model of cooperation, the PDP chief said. "SAARC countries are being held hostage due to the animosity between India and Pakistan. Why can't all the SAARC countries come together and make Jammu and Kashmir a model for co-operation of SAARC countries," she said. "Let's have a SAARC office of all countries in Jammu and Kashmir. Let's have a handicraft university of SAARC countries in Kashmir because there is no better place for handicraft than Kashmir," she said. The need today is to make borders irrelevant, she said. Jammu and Kashmir was placed under the governor's rule after the PDP-BJP alliance fell apart in June. Last month, governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the state assembly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Friday acquitted a man sentenced to six months rigorous imprisonment by a lower court for allegedly damaging late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's photograph in the city corporation in 2001. Justice C T Selvam set aside the order of III Additional Sessions judge who convicted C Tamilvendan under IPC Sections and also the Tamil Nadu Public Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act, 1992 and sentenced him. The lower court had also imposed a fine of Rs 500. Allowing a criminal revision petition of Tamilvendan, Justice Selvam said, "The findings of conviction arrived at by courts are erroneous and this revision is to be allowed." According to the prosecution, Tamilvendan had on September 21, 2001 entered the corporation premises and damaged two photographs of Jayalalithaa by throwing them down from the second floor. By the act, the petitioner also caused a loss worth Rs 730 to the corporation, it had contended. Accepting the submission, the lower court had on January 1, 2011 convicted Tamilvendan. Justice Selvam referred to the prosecution witnesses-- a police constable, who tried to stop Tamilvendan, and employees of the Corporation. "The evidence of alleged eye witnesses is parrot like and in the circumstances, the irresistible conclusion would be that they had no room to depose freely and were bound to stick to the official tale," the Judge said. He also said examination of two witnesses, who admittedly were railway ticket brokers, in support of the recovery of broken photo frame and glass pieces, was tell-tale. Hence, he allowed the plea of hte petitioner and set aside the January 11, 2010 order of the lower court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court on Friday dismissed petitions filed by AMMK leader TTV Dinakaran challenging the reassessment of his income tax for 1995-96 and 1996-97 by the department. Justice S M Subramaniam held that the petitions were devoid of merit and dismissed them. The I-T department had sought to re-open the income tax returns filed by Dinakaran for assessment years 1995-96 and 1996-97 based on searches made by the Enforcement Department. The judge said it had been alleged that some of the amounts invested in the foreign countries were not disclosed by Dinakaran and cases were already registered under FERA on the basis of which the assessments were re-opened. He said it was premature for the court to go into the merits of the case. The judge directed Dinakaran to approach the I-T authorities for giving explanations about the materials allegedly seized during the searches. Also, the judge ordered the income tax department to give Dinakaran a chance to explain so that the long-pending litigation was settled. Dhinakaran had floated the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam party after being expelled from the AIADMK. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Hindu Jagaran Manch, a Hindu right wing group, will organise a rally here on Saturday to press for the demand of construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, a leader of the manch said Friday. Apart from the demand of construction of the Ram Mandir, the 'Virat Hindu Sammelan' rally at Shahid Minar Grounds here will also demand National Register of Citizens (NRC) in West Bengal to weed out illegal immigrants from the state, he said. "We have four specific demands. One is construction of Ram Temple at Ayodha and all the political parties should come forward to make that happen," Vivek Singha, assistant media in charge, of Hindu Jagaran Manch told PTI. The second demand is NRC for Bengal in order to identify and send back the illegal immigrants. Third is passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill in order to enable Hindu refugees get citizenship and the fourth is construction of a Gangasagar house, for Gangasagar pilgrims by the state government, on the lines of Haj House, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Agitating farmers of Odisha Friday served an ultimatum to the Biju Janta Dal (BJD) government in Odisha to solve their problems by Januray 31, or the party may face the wrath of the peasants in the next election. The farmers under the banner of Naba Nirman Krushak Sangathan (NNKS) made this announcement as its members marched from Raghunathpur area in Bhubaneswar. They are scheduled to meet Governor Ganeshi Lal later in the day. The NNKS has been agitating for long demanding pension, proper price on their produces and prestige for farmers. They have been demanding Rs 5,000 as monthly pension for elderly farmers. NNKS convener Akshaya Kumar said the results of the five state assembly elections indicated that farmers are now united and if the Odisha government does not make its stand clear on the farmers' demands by January 31, the NNKS will intensify agitation from February 1. "Odisha government may also face the same situation, if it ignores farmers' demands," he said and threatened that the state government would be responsible for the law and order situation likely to be created after the January 31 deadline. The next assembly election in Odisha is due next year. He said the organisation will submit a memorandum to the Governor demanding pension for farmers in Odisha. NNKS had earlier rejected the state government's inter-ministerial committee and refused to talk to the panel headed by Finance Minister S B Behera. "We have rejected the inter-ministerial committee and will not hold any discussion with the panel. Let the government issue an ordinance announcing pension for farmers," NKS convener Akshaya Kumar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The extent of artificial rain and its likely impact on pollution reduction in Delhi cannot be "quantified precisely" without actually carrying out the experiment, the government Friday said. In a written reply, Minister of State for Environment, Mahesh Sharma told the Lok Sabha that the Project Appraisal and Approval Committee-- Protection Charge had approved IIT Kanpur's project to induce artificial rain in Delhi but the proposed process was yet to be conducted. The remarks came after authorities said they might induce artificial rain by cloud-seeding to wash away pollutants in the air in the wake of air quality levels in Delhi reached alarming levels. Cloud seeding is the process of combining different kinds of chemical agents, including silver iodide, dry ice and even table salt, with clouds in an effort to thicken them and increase the chance of rainfall. "PAAC-EPC (Project Appraisal & Approval Committee - Protection Charge) in its meeting on November 13, 2018 in-principle approved IIT, Kanpur project to induce artificial rain in Delhi at the cost of Rs 20 lakhs plus institute overhead, GST and aircraft related expenses. The proposed experiment has not yet been conducted in Delhi." "The extent of artificial rain and its likely impact on reduction of pollution in Delhi can't be quantified precisely without actually carrying out the experiment. It has, however, been generally observed that rainfall results in lowering of the concentration of the pollutants in the atmosphere," Sharma said. The Union ministry had earlier said it was waiting for "appropriate" level and density of clouds, and a clearance from the IMD to induce artificial rain through cloud seeding in Delhi, even though experts had argued that the process was not a long-term solution to the air pollution problem. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A parliamentary panel headed by Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has expressed "serious concern" over Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd's "failure" to provide the required number of Tejas aircraft to the Air Force, adversely affecting its combat potential and posing a security threat. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on 'Design Development, Manufacture and Induction of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)', tabled in the Lok Sabha on Friday, said there were huge delays in the development and induction of the Tejas fighter jet. This resulted in two LCA squadrons not materialising and the IAF having to uprgrade several aircraft, including the MiG-BIS, MiG-29, Mirage-2000 and Jaguar aircraft at a cost of Rs 20,037 crore, the report said. Tejas is an indigenously developed light combat aircraft (LCA). The phasing out of MiG-21 had to be revised and the IAF is operating with 35 squadrons as against 42 squadrons sanctioned. The MiG-21 and MiG-27 squadrons would be retired over the next 10 years, the committee, headed by Kharge, observed. "The committee is disappointed to note that the failure of HAL/ADA (Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide the required number of aircraft has adversely affected the combat potential of the IAF resulting in security threat to the country," the panel said. The reports comes at a time the Congress has been sharpening its attack against the government for French company Dassault Aviation overlooking HAL while choosing an offset partner for making the Rafale fighter jet. "The committee notes with serious concern that due lack of R&D in the aviation sector, the country has to shell out of thousands of crores of rupees for procurement of both combat as well as civil aircraft from foreign countries. It is needless to mention that in times of war, it would be difficult for the nation to procure combat aircraft from unfriendly countries," the report said. The HAL, ADA and its work stations are miserably failing in its R&D to have much needed technology in the aviation sector, it added. As of July 2018, the IAF has only got nine out of its requirement of 200 fighter and 20 trainer aircraft, the panel added. "The ADA/HAL have also not been able to provide IAF with even a single production standard trainer aircraft till date. Further, since HAL could not augment its capacity in line with the demand of the IAD, the IAF will have to depend on imported aircraft for a longer time, given its dwindling squadron strength," the panel said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shares of Indian Energy Exchange Friday surged over 9 per cent after the company said its board will meet next week to consider the proposal to buy back the firm's equity shares. After opening on a positive note on the BSE, the scrip further advanced 9.16 per cent to Rs 171, highest during the day trade. At 1258 hrs, the scrip was trading 4.31 per cent higher at Rs 163.40. On the NSE, the share gained 5.03 per cent to touch the intra-day high of Rs 164.8. "The meeting of board of directors of the company will be held on, Thursday, December 20, 2018 at New Delhi, inter alia to consider the proposal for buyback of the fully paid-up equity shares of the company", the company said in a regulatory filing Thursday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 22-year-old popular Indian guitarist has been found dead in his apartment in Dubai, a media report said Friday. Himanshu Sharma, popularly known as Shaggy, was found dead at his apartment in Garhoud, about 14 kilometres from Dubai on Wednesday. The Dubai Police have confirmed Sharma's death. The police have referred his body to the forensic medicine department and the report showed no irregularity in the guitarist's death, the Khaleej Times reported. "His body will be handed over to his family after the completion of administrative procedures," the police said. Sharma was doing his internship as a fifth-year architecture student at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE Dubai Campus) at the time of his death. The guitarist from the local band Metal Head was very popular across all colleges in Dubai Academic City and was known for his guitar skills, said his friend and fellow rock artist Gaurav Manna. "The University has been informed today by the Police of the tragic death of Himanshu Sharma, a student of MAHE Dubai. It's a moment of shock for all of us at the University. We are awaiting further information on the same," said a spokesperson of MAHE. Sharma stood out for his great taste in music. "He was popular in college, too, as he played guitar with a couple of successful bands like Slaves of Conspiracy and Nutmeg," Manna said. "He was very friendly to everyone. It was always easy being around him. Even a stranger could become best friends with him in five minutes. His death affected everyone around him, close or not," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Indian techie from Tamil Nadu was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment on Thursday on charges of a "brazen sexual assault" against a fellow female passenger inside a commercial airplane early this year. Prabhu Ramamoorthy, 35, who came to the US on a H-1B visa in 2015, will be deported after he serves his sentence, a federal court in Detroit said as it sentenced the Indian national to nine years of imprisonment. Judge Terrence Berge hoped it would be grave enough to deter others from committing similar crimes. Federal prosecutors had sought 11 years of imprisonment for Ramamoorthy. "Everyone has the right to be secure and safe when they travel on airplanes. We will not tolerate the behaviour of anyone, who takes advantage of victims who are in a vulnerable position. We appreciate the victim in this case for her courage to speak out," US Attorney Matthew Schneider said after the sentencing was announced. Ramamoorthy was convicted in August after a five-day trial that was conducted before United States District Judge Terrence Berg. The jury deliberated approximately three-and-a-half hours before returning the guilty verdict. According to the evidence presented at the trial, on January 3, Ramamoorthy had engaged in a sexual act with a female, while she was sleeping on a flight from Las Vegas to Detroit. Ramamoorthy was seated along with his wife, when he sexually assaulted his co-passenger. During the trial, the government admitted evidence demonstrating that Ramamoorthy had digitally penetrated the woman sleeping next to him during the overnight flight. The sexual assault woke her up, she found her pants unbuttoned and unzipped, and sought help from the flight attendants. The sentence was proof that the safety and security of all aircraft passengers was a priority for the FBI, said Timothy R Slater, Special Agent in Charge, Detroit Division of the FBI. In recent years, a number of Indian nationals have been arrested or charged with sexual assaults inside a plane. The FBI says airplane sexual assault is a serious offence that is on the rise. FBI statistics indicate that investigations of mid-air sexual assaults increased by 66 per cent from 2014 to 2017. That was in part due to increasingly "cramped, confined spaces; alcohol and drugs; fewer flight attendants; and dark cabins on night flights" -- factors that "likely embolden offenders" -- the FBI said in a recent report. The cramped style of airplane seating can exacerbate trauma for victims. According to mental health professionals, victims who are violated in confined spaces feel even more helpless, vulnerable and powerless. Victims may also feel intimidated by the person sitting next to them since the seating arrangement means that the perpetrator is effectively blocking the victim from getting up, according to the FBI. According to court papers, Ramamoorthy is from Tamil Nadu, where he grew up. His parents are farmers. He came to the US in July, 2015 after his graduation to work as an IT professional. During his trial, Ramamoorthy presented himself to the court as a confused man stranded in America without English language skills despite his sophisticated technological job, federal prosecutors alleged. "His lack of empathy and remorse should not go unnoticed by this court," they argued, seeking nearly 11 years of imprisonment for him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Income Tax officials from Tamil Nadu Friday completed their two-day questioning of former AIADMK leader V K Sasikala at Parapana Agrahara Central Jail in connection with a tax matter, an official said. Sasikala, an aide of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister late J Jayalalithaa, was convicted in a disproportionate asset case and lodged in the Parappana Agrahara central jail here since February last. "The Income Tax officials from Tamil Nadu completed theirtwo-day questioning of Sasikala in the prison," Jail Superintendent Somshekhar told PTI here. As many as seven tax officials questioned Sasikala for the past two days, he said. The sleuths had arrived at the jail Thursday morning and questioned Sasikala till late evening, he added. The jail superintendent on December 7 had received a letter from I-T officials from Tamil Nadu to permit them to question Sasikala for two days. Tax sleuths had last year conducted searches at premises linked to Sasikala and her kin over suspected tax evasion in various cities, including Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Key NDA constituent JD(U) on Friday made it clear that it was not in favor of promulgation of an ordinance to facilitate the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, demand for which has been made by the sangh parivar and a section of the BJP. JD(U) national general secretary Ram Chandra Prasad Singh said the party will stick to its earlier stand it had taken on the issue in its earlier avatar as the Samata Party which was -- the issue either be solved by mutual consent between the affected communities or decided by a court of law. There should be no confusion in the minds of the people with regard to our stand on Ram temple issue at Ayodhya. If an ordinance is promulgated to facilitate construction of the temple, our party will not support it, he said. "Since the Samata Party days, we have been in favour of a resolution of the dispute by mutual consent or through a court order. We brook no third alternative," Singh, who is also the party's leader in the Rajya Sabha and a confidant of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters here. Even before walking out of the NDA in 2013, the JD(U) had always insisted that abrogating Article 370, Ram temple in Ayodhya and Uniform Civil Code should be kept out of the coalition agenda. JD(U), headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is running a coalition government with the BJP in Bihar. Earlier, the party's newly-appointed vice-president Prashant Kishor had also obliquely expressed disapproval of Ram temple being made a poll plank, pointing out that Narendra Modi had won the 2014 Lok Sabha polls without taking recourse to the emotive issue. Pressure has been mounting on the BJP from the Sangh Parivar, of which it is a part of, and a section of hardliners within the party to make headway for the construction of Ram temple, which they termed as an issue relating to peoples' faith (aastha). The Sangh Parivar has been demanding construction of a temple at the disputed site through an act in Parliament. However, with the BJP's tally in the Lok Sabha having gone down on account of loss in a number of by-polls and the party falling short of majority in the Rajya Sabha there have been demands that an ordinance be promulgated to facilitate temple construction before the general elections due next year. A number of NDA allies, including Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, have expressed discomfiture over the BJP's pursuit of the Hindutva agenda. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir administration will put in place a comprehensive elderly care system, which would include establishment of old age homes and a senior citizens welfare fund, an official said Friday. Secretary, Social Welfare, Farooq Ahmad Lone on Friday reviewed the modalities for ensuring effective implementation of J&K Maintenance & Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act-2014 which provides for a comprehensive legal framework for elderly care system in the state, a spokesperson said. Apart from establishment of old age homes and senior citizens welfare fund, the Act also provides for constitution of maintenance tribunal, appellate tribunal, state advisory council and conciliation officers to address the issues of senior citizens, he said. Officials said the proposals for establishment of maintenance and appellate tribunals have been moved to the Planning and Finance Department by the administrative department. Till formal appointments, the officials concerned shall be designated as conciliation officers in their areas of jurisdiction while district social welfare officers shall be designated as maintenance officers, they said. The spokesperson said an old age home project, with a corpus of Rs 9.73 crore, is in progress in Jammu and all deputy commissioners have been asked to identify land at the earliest for establishment of old-age homes in their areas. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Justice Madan B Lokur, who was the part of four judges to hold the controversial January 12 press conference against the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, was given a farewell on Friday by the lawyers of the Supreme Court. Justice Lokur, who is set to retire on December 31, on Friday had the last working day in the apex court which will go for the winter break and christmas holidays. Though it was a last regular working day for him on the judicial side, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said Justice Lokur will participate in several important decision making matters that will be coming up in the next two weeks. Among the matters that would come for the deliberations, the Chief Justice was hinting about the elevation of some judges to the higher judiciary for which the collegium can meet during the winter break. Justice Lokur, now the second senior-most judge, had participated in the presser led by Justice J Chelameswar (since retired) in which Justices Gogoi and Kurian Joseph (since retired) also took part and levelled several allegations against the then CJI Misra over the issue of allocation of sensitive cases. Speakers including the CJI and Attorney General K K Venugopal praised Justice Lokur who dealt with the cases on different aspects of law -- constitutional law, juvenile justice, Alternate Dispute Redressal mechanism. He also played an active role in the pursuit of judicial reforms -- computerisation of courts, judicial education, legal aid and legal services. Justice Lokur was a part of the bench which adjudicated a writ petition, Nipun Saxena vs UOI, on privacy and identity of victims of sexual harassment wherein the court took the view that privacy and reputation of victims should be protected while issuing special directives in this regard. He had taken a tough stand in the Delhi sealing matter and had severely reprimanded Delhi BJP president and MP Manoj Tiwari for breaking the civic agency's seal on a premises here in September. Justice Lokur has been a flag bearer in environment jurisprudence. In his role as a judge, he has passed significant judgements in cases like MC Mehta, Common Cause and Goa Foundation, the CJI said. Praising Justice Lokur, the CJI said he has extraordinary abilities coupled with a towering intellect, full commitment towards upholding constitutional values, human ideals and an overall empathy towards the indian society. "It is emotional for me as I will continue to have him (Lokur) as my friend but for various reasons I feel my right arm has been taken away. "All these years I have been depending on him. That would come to an end because of the virtue of the office I am holding and the virtue of the office he is demitting. There can be no debate that Justice Lokur is an outstanding judge," the CJI said, adding that Justice Lokur was a pro citizen and pro victim judge. Justice Lokur has shown a liberal attitude in dispensing justice to the underprivileged and vulnerable groups in the society, he said. Referring to another judgement delivered by Justice Lokur, the CJI said that in Mallikarjun Kodagli case, he recognised the need of criminal justice system in the country to be more victim oriented. Justice Lokur had written that the rights of an accused far outweighs the rights of the victims of an offence and there needs to be more balancing in equalising their rights so that criminal proceedings are fair to both. In the matter relating to inhuman conditions in 1382 prisons, he spoke on the importance of PIL and issued important guidelines for prison reforms. Speaking at the occasion, Justice Lokur referred to the independence of the judiciary and bar. He said if the bar loses its integrity, there's going to be problem, people will believe that there is something wrong with the legal system and that should not happen because as a flourishing democracy, we have to keep our legal system going and make it credible. "Independence is again very very important. We talk about the independence of the judiciary, yes it is very important but what about the independence of the bar. I think that is equally important. Bar cannot and should not be subordinate to the judiciary or any other institution. "I think once we are able to do that, once we are able to maintain that independence that we have, we've had from the beginning of the constitution, once we are able to maintain that independence and integrity, other things will follow," Justice Lokur said. He said there was a need to think about things like judicial reforms and highlighted the increase in pendency of cases in high courts and district courts. "I was surprised yesterday to find that the number of cases that have gone up in the district courts, it used to be in the region of 2 crore 68 lakhs. I was really shocked to find out that the number has gone up to 2 crore 91 lakhs. That's a huge number, the number of cases in the high court has gone up to about 40 lakhs so we are really facing a bit of a problem," he said. Attorney General K K Venugopal conceded that he had some disagreements with Justice Lokur in the courts role and also confessed that many schemes were made workable because of Justice Lokur's constant vigil. He said that in swaraj abhiyan case, Justice Lokur gave directions for implementing National Food Security Act and his intervention has gone a long way in ensuring basic needs of a large sections of the population. "And, his interventions have gone a long way to ensure that the next generation will be able to enjoy Taj Mahal in all its magnificent glory," the law officer added. Justice Lokur was part of the Supreme Court bench which in August said that there will be no "second chance" to preserve the Taj Mahal, asking the authorities to take a larger perspective on issues of pollution and green cover to prepare a vision document on protecting the monument. Before the farewell function, Justice Lokur as the custom of the apex court, was part of the bench headed by the CJI and heard 47 matters. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran Congress leader Karan Singh has urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to give Sita her "rightful place in Ayodhya" and install her statue alongside the proposed grand statue of Lord Ram. In a letter to Adityanath on December 12, Singh stated that during a recent visit to Simariya in Mithilanchal, the birthplace of Sita, it stuck him that the government could reduce the height of Lord Ram's statue by half and have one of Sita by its side. "After getting married, Sita came to Ayodhya, but soon after she had to accompany Ram and Laksmana on a 14-year exile. During that time, she was kidnapped by Ravana and had to live in captivity in Sri Lanka," Singh said in the letter. After Sita was saved by Ram, she had to take the 'agni pariksha' (trial by fire), he said, adding that she spent the rest of her life in exile despite being pregnant. "At least after thousands of years, Sitaji should get her rightful place in Ayodhya," he said, hoping that his suggestion would be accepted. Last month, the state government had announced that it would instal a statue of Lord Ram in the temple town of Ayodhya. While the height of the Ram statue will be 151 metres, its overhead umbrella would be 20 metres and the pedestal would be 50 metres, making it the tallest statue in the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In what could be perceived as a setback to AMMK founder TTV Dhinakaran, one of his key aides quit the party and joined the MK Stalin-led DMK Friday. Dhinakaran, however, put up a brave face, wishing his former aide V Senthil Balaji, one of the 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs, all the best in his new stint. Balaji joined the DMK in the presence of its president Stalin at the party headquarters Anna Arivalayam here, and trained guns at the ruling AIADMK. The Karur strongman called AIADMK a 'sinking ship' but avoided any strong criticism of Dhinakaran. In September 2017, Cumbum MLA S T K Jakkaiyan had quit the Dhinakaran faction and extended support to Chief Minister K Palaniswami. Balaji's defection assumes significance as it comes amid reports that Dhinakaran is finding it hard to keep his flock together in the backdrop of the October 25 Madras High Court verdict upholding Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal's order disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs. Dhanapal disqualified them last year for revolting against Palaniswami. Reports claim that not all the disqualified MLAs are happy with Dhinakaran's decision to not to appeal against the Madras High Court order upholding their disqualification. Balaji, Transport Minister in the previous 2011-16 AIADMK government headed by the late J Jayalalithaa, was elected from Aravakurichi in the Assembly polls held in 2016. But he was not inducted in the cabinet then. Balaji had represented Karur in 2006 and 2011. Balaji said he joined DMK 'inspired' by Stalin's performance, adding the DMK leader was steadfast in taking on the ruling AIADMK as well as the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. He also hailed Stalin's leadership qualities. "I joined DMK respecting the aspirations of people of Karur district. The AIADMK government by Palaniswami and (deputy chief minister) O Panneerselvam is anti-people and only toes the BJP's line," he told reporters after formally joining the DMK. The AIADMK was a "sinking ship" with more functionaries wanting to quit it and join DMK, he said. People will not only vote for DMK in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 but give the mandate to the party and make Stalin the chief minister in the next Assembly elections due in 2021, Balaji said. Asked about Dhinakaran, Balaji only indicated that he was not in favour of certain decisions taken by the former. He refrained from making any other comment on the AMMK founder. Responding to Balaji's defection, Dhinakaran said he was not really worried about it, and wished his former aide well, adding that nobody can be held back. "Engirunthalum vaazhga," he said in Tamil, meaning "prosper wherever you are." He also called Balaji a "good younger brother," but denied his quitting the AMMK will affect the party's future prospects. "A people's movement will not be affected by the defection of some persons," he said. "The fact that DMK makes it (Balaji's joining) such a big event says it all. Ever since they lost deposit in RK Nagar elections, they have been wanting do something," he said. Dhinakaran trumped candidates of the ruling AIADMK and the DMK in the December 2017 RK Nagar bypoll, with the opposition DMK candidate forfeiting the deposit amount. The election was held to fill the vacancy created by the death of Jayalalithaa in 2016. Dhinakaran said he would not have bothered Balaji if he joined the AIADMK. "Wouldn't have been surprised if he had joined EPS (Palaniswami). How can he join DMK as anti-DMK feeling is in our blood. DMK had filed the case against Amma," he said alluding to the disproportionate case against Jayalalithaa. He recalled Balaji informing him some months back that he will "stay away" from party activities due to "personal issues." On Thursday, Dhinakaran had made a veiled attack on Balaji, saying none will repent if some with selfish interests were to quit the AMMK. Dhinakaran, comparing dedicated party workers to "true gold," said no one will repent if gold plated "fake" were to move out of the party. "Our foundation is Amma's (Jayalalithaa) ideals, and people's welfare is our task," he had said. Without naming Balaji, he said it would be better if those who held views contrary to the goals of the party eased themselves out of the outfit. Considered to be among those close to Dhinakaran, Balaji, who was AMMK organising secretary, did not take part in a party procession here to observe the death anniversary of Jayalalithaa on December 5. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kosovo's parliament is convening to approve the formation of an army, a move that has angered Serbia which says it would threaten peace in the war-scarred region. The 120-seat parliament on Friday will vote on three laws to turn the existing 4,000-member Kosovo Security Force into a regular, lightly armed army. Ethnic Serb lawmakers are expected to boycott the vote. Serbia fears the move's main purpose is to ethnically cleanse Kosovo's Serbian-dominated north, something strongly denied by Pristina. In a sign of defiance, Serbs in the north displayed Serbian flags on streets and balconies while NATO-led peacekeepers deployed on a bridge in the ethnically divided northern town of Mitrovica. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic also is to visit Serbian troops on the border with Kosovo in an apparent saber-rattling move. The US Ambassador in Pristina, Philip S. Kosnett met on Thursday with the KSF commander "to underscore the US Government's commitment to the KSF's evolution as a defensive force serving all of Kosovo's communities and reflective of the country's multi-ethnic character." "Let's remember that a country's security depends on the quality of its security relationships and peaceful, mutually beneficial relations with its neighbours as much as on the strength and professionalism of its armed forces," he tweeted Friday. The new army will preserve its former name Kosovo Security Force but now with a new mandate. In about a decade the army will have 5,000 troops and 3,000 reservists, essentially operating as a security force handling crisis response and civil protection operations. Kosovo's 1998-199 war ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign in June 1999 that stopped a Serbian crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists. Kosovo's 2008 independence isn't recognised by Serbia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed prime minister in a controversial move, will resign on Saturday, his son announced Friday, shortly after the Supreme Court refused to stay a court order restrained the embattled former strongman from holding the office until it fully heard the case next month. Rajapaksa was appointed as the premier on October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, plunging the nation into a constitutional crisis. "To ensure stability of the nation, Former President @PresRajapaksa has decided to resign from the Premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation," Rajapaksa's son Namal tweeted. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) with former president, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and others will "now work to form a broader political coalition with President Sirisena", Namal, who is also a lawmaker, added. The apex court's latest ruling came a day after it unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was "illegal", in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. The Supreme Court decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand. The appeal filed by Rajapaksa will be taken up for hearing on January 16, 17 and 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shidharth Das, biological father of Sheena Bora, told a special court here Friday that he spoke to her for the last time on her birthday in February 2012, two months before she was allegedly murdered. Sheena (24) was a child of Das and Indrani Mukerjea, who is the prime accused in the murder case. Das, a prosecution witness, told special court judge J C Jagdale, "Last I called Sheena was on February 11, 2012 as it was her birthday. Before that, she had called me in 2011 and sought my blessing for her engagement with Rahul. After her birthday in 2012, I never received any call from Sheena". He also told the court that he met Indrani in 1986 during his college days. Both Sheena and her brother Mikhail were born out of their relationship. Sheena was born in 1987 while Mikhail a year later, Das said. During this period, he along with the two children was staying in Indrani's parents house in Guwahati, he said. Indrani suddenly left him and their children in 1989 and he never met her or talked with her again, Das told the court. He denied the defence lawyer's claim that Indrani left home due to physical abuse. To another question, Das said, "It was actually through media that I came to know that Sheena was murdered and Indrani has been arrested". Police had called him to Mumbai for DNA test, but neither the police nor the CBI (which took over the case later) conducted the test, he said. Defence lawyers pointed out that between April 2012 to May 2013, over 700 messages were exchanged between Rahul (son of former media baron and co-accused Peter Mukerjea from his earlier marriage) and Das. In one of the messages, he advised Rahul to file a missing complaint about Sheena. "May be I advised Rahul to file a missing complaint since she went missing from Mumbai. But I never filed any missing complaint," Das said. Sheena was allegedly killed by her mother Indrani with the help of others inside a car in April 2012. The body was disposed of in neighbouring Raigad district. The incident came to light in August 2015 after Mukerjea's then driver Shyamvar Rai, arrested by police for possessing a firearm illegally, spilled the beans. The Mumbai Police arrested Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and Rai for allegedly killing Sheena. Later, Peter, Indrani's current husband, was also arrested for allegedly being part of the conspiracy. Rai was made an approver in the case. The CBI claimed that a financial dispute was the reason for the murder. It also claimed that Indrani was opposed to Sheena's relationship with Rahul. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) European Union member countries could find a way to "clarify" the terms of Britain's divorce deal from the EU but cannot renegotiate them, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday. "There is an agreement, the only and best deal possible and we cannot renegotiate it. But we can clarify and reassure," Macron told reporters after an EU summit. British Prime Minister Theresa May had asked EU leaders for further reassurances to help her steer the deal through a sceptical British parliament. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal awarded compensation of Rs 86.79 lakh to the widow, children and mother of a man who was killed after a truck dashed his motorcycle. MACT member RS Patil Bhosale, in a recent order, asked the National Insurance Company to pay the compensation and then recover it from the owner of the truck. Madan Bhagat (37), an employee of the state-run Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company, was heading to Thane on his motorcycle on August 5, 2015 when a speeding truck rammed into his vehicle and three others near Mumbra bypass, killing him instantly. Bhagat's lawyer, SS Shetty, told the MACT that Bhagat earned Rs 45,000 per month. While the insurance firm contended that it was not liable to pay since the truck, owned by Raju Nandwani, did not have a fitness certificate at the time of the accident, the MACT asked the firm to pay and then recover the money from the truck owner. The MACT ordered the firm to make the payment along with an interest of 7.5 per cent effective from October, 2015. The claimants in the case were Teesgaon resident Mansi Bhagat, her children Jhanvi and Atharva and the deceased's mother Shakunatala Bhagat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Popularity of Korean language in India seems to be growing with many youngsters learning it after being fascinated by K-pop, a popular genre of music of that country. At the sixth anniversary of the Korean Cultural Centre India (KCCI), here, a group of Korean language students graduated, and no sooner the function had ended, another batch of youth were seen submitting application forms for the course beginning next year. "At KCCI's King Sejong Institute, we offer Korean language courses for students as well as working professionals. Majority of the applicants are college-goers, and some are high school students too," KCCI Director, Kim Kum-pyoung, said. At the anniversary function, many students sang songs in fluent Korean and performed to K-pop music, lip-synching with the lyrics blasting in the background, as the audience swayed to the tunes. "Popularity of Korean language in India is growing and many youths in big cities like Delhi are getting fascinated with our language and culture due to K-pop. They are fans of big bands like BTS and Exo, and are enrolling for the course to appreciate their songs and videos better," he told PTI. Asked as to who were enrolling more among the youths, he said, "Girls, you can see from the graduating batch too. Girls far outnumber the boys." The KCCI language course has three levels -- Basic (B), Intermediate (I) and Advanced (A). As one moves up, the difficulty level also increases. "So, about 350-400 enrol for the basic level per semester, but not everyone is able to make it to the advanced level. But, they are eager to learn, and not afraid to make mistakes, so, they learn eventually," the KCCI director said. Located on the Ring Road in Lajpat Nagar, KCCI is the cultural wing of the South Korean Embassy in New Delhi. During the course, students also get to learn about Korean cuisine, dance, music and culture of that country. "Each semester at KCCI is for three months. Students take classes every alternate days on weekdays, while working professionals, take it on weekends. We have nine Korean language teachers as part of the King Sejong Institute here," Kim said. Monami Gogoi, a journalist with a leading national daily here and an avowed fan of K-pop, aspires to visit South Korea some day. "I am learning Korean as I got fascinated with K-pop. I am a big fan of Exo, and went to Bangkok early this year just to attend their concert. Learning a new language is like having a key to a new culture. And I get to understand the lyrics," she said. Chamseul Kim, a senior official at the KCCI, said that besides Delhi, King Sejong Institute language centres are also located in Patna and Chennai. Gangnam Style, a K-pop single by the South Korean musician Psy, had become a worldwide rage after it was released in 2012, and in India too it enjoyed a massive fan following. Popular boy band BTS' film 'Burn the Stage: the movie' was also screened in the country last month and saw fans trooping to theatres. The Indian leg of the Changwon K-Pop World Festival was held in July here, which was attended by South Korean first lad, Kim Jung-sook, when she had visited India along with President Moon Jae-in as part of his first state visit to the country. "We will witness the strong and enthusiastic fandom of K-pop in India, which will surprise Korean people as well," the KCCI director had then said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mauritius will adopt Indo-Israel horticulture techniques to increase its vegetable production and provide its citizen's off-season vegetables throughout the year, officials said Friday. The agriculture and horticulture officers of Mauritius will visit the Centre of Excellence for Vegetables at Gharaunda in Karnal, this was revealed by the Acting President of Mauritius, Paramasivum Pillay Vyapoory on Friday, a Haryana government release said. During his visit to the Centre, Vyapoory was informed about the horticulture techniques being used for vegetable production and experienced first-hand how vegetables were grown in polyhouse and in fields, the release added. Vyapoory said the same methods would be adopted in Mauritius to provide its people off-season vegetables all the time and allow farmers to earn a higher income, while saving water. The president was also informed that about one lakh farmers visit the centre every year, besides 'Kisan Melas' and seminars being organised there for the awareness of farmers, the release said. The officials told Vyapoory that the Haryana government had given over Rs 53.25 crore as grant to the farmers to promote horticulture and that the farmers, after getting information from the centre, had set up about 10,000 poly houses in the state. Vyapoory had Thursday attended the international Gita festival in Kurukshetra, an event in which Mauritius is the partner country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday said the proposed Mekedattu dam across Cauvery would benefit farmers of Tamil Nadu as excess water can be stored during monsoon season for release whenever rquired by the lower riparian state. Pitching for a dialogue to sort out differences over sharing of the inter-state river water and the proposed dam, being opposed by Tamil Nadu, he said the Centre had only given preliminary approval for the detailed project report and a final decision would be taken only in consultation with all stakeholders. Talking to reporters at the airport here, Kumaraswamy said Karnataka wanted to build the dam at Mekedattu to avoid wastage of water during rainy season. He said his state released more than 394 TMC water to Tamil Nadu this year, but 50 per cent of it went into the sea. "We wanted to construct this storage reservoir so that we can store this water and whenever our Tamil Nadu farmers required, we can release it... we wanted to construct this reservoir in the interest of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka farmers", Kumaraswamy said. His remarks come days after the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution unanimously urging the Centre to withdraw the permission given for the DPR for Mekedattu and not to allow Karnataka to build any new reservoir across Cauvery. Kumaraswamy also said the Centre gave the nod for the DPR after looking into the views of every riparian state. "Thats all. Completely central government has not agreed. Without consulting the Tamil Nadu government, without taking their permission, Central government may not take a decision. It is only preliminary permission to go for DPR," he said. He appealed to the Tamil Nadu government and opposition parties not to politicise the issue. "We are like brothers. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are brothers and sisters. I request we can sit and share whatever problems are there. We can mutually come to one conclusion", he said noting that the Cauvery issue had been pending for over 125 years. He said Karnataka would utilise the water for drinking purposes and not for irrigation purposes. Tamil Nadu is opposing the project, saying it was in violation of the apex court order and would affect the farmers of the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A three-day National Conference of Pediatric Rheumatology commenced here on Friday. The conference has been organised by the Pediatric Rheumatology Society of India and Jupiter Hospital here in association with the Thane Academy of Pediatrics. Over200 delegates from across India are taking part in the conference, which is being held at Jupiter Hospital, the organisers said. Over 50 experts from Europe and Australia are also participating in this event, they said. The objective of the conference is to reach out to all levels of clinical care, pediatric rheumatologists, practicing pediatricians and trainee doctors, and provide a fusion of the latest therapeutic guidelines and approaches to various complex yet common scenarios in day-to-day practice, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government has almost finalised the National Policy on to boost manufacturing in on a big scale, and IT Minister said Friday. Prasad further said that the is pushing India's case for USD 1 trillion digital economy. "We are working on electronics policy, we have almost finalised that. We had widest consultation possible," he said at an event organised by industry body CII. The minister also asked the to focus on producing medical devices, defence and automobile items. "We are pushing India's case for USD 1 trillion digital economy and that report is almost finalised and the prime minister soon going to launch it," Prasad announced. He pointed out that today 240 companies in are making and its components. Noida and Greater Noida are emerging as mobile phone manufacturing hub, Prasad said, adding that this will employ 5 lakhs people. Speaking at the same event, Vice Chairman said that he sees as sunrise industry. Kumar also said India's should scale up and aspire to become USD 150 billion industry in the next five years. The first National Policy on Electronics was rolled out in 2012, which offered incentives to companies setting up manufacturing units in the country. Humans who carry particular Neanderthal DNA fragments have heads that are slightly less rounded, revealing genetic clues to the evolution of modern brain shape and function, a study has found. "We captured subtle variations in endocranial shape that likely reflect changes in the volume and connectivity of certain brain areas," said Philipp Gunz from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. "Our aim was to identify potential candidate genes and biological pathways that are related to brain globularity," said Amanda Tilot from Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. The researchers took advantage of the fact that living humans with European ancestry carry rare fragments of Neanderthal DNA buried in their genomes, as a result of interbreeding between Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern Europeans. Different people carry different fragments, which are scattered through the genome, according to the study published in the journal Current Biology. Researchers analysed cranial shape and identified stretches of Neanderthal DNA in a large sample of modern humans, relying on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans and genetic information for about 4,500 people. Based on computed tomographic scans, they computed the endocranial shape differences between Neanderthal fossils and modern human skulls. The researchers used this contrast to assess endocranial shape in thousands of MRI brain scans of living people. They used information from sequenced genomes of ancient Neanderthal DNA to identify Neanderthal DNA fragments in living humans on chromosomes 1 and 18 that correlated with reduced cranial roundness. These fragments contained two genes already linked to brain development: UBR4, involved in the generation of neurons, and PHLPP1, involved in the development of myelin insulation around nerve cell projections. "We know from other studies that completely disrupting UBR4 or PHLPP1 can have major consequences for brain development," said Simon Fisher, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. "Here we found that, in carriers of the relevant Neanderthal fragment, UBR4 is slightly down-regulated in the putamen. "For carriers of the Neanderthal PHLPP1 fragment, gene expression is slightly higher in the cerebellum, which would be predicted to have a dampening effect on cerebellar myelination," Fisher said. The putamen -- part of a network of brain structures called the basal ganglia -- and the cerebellum are thought to be important in movement. "Both brain regions receive direct input from the motor cortex and are involved in the preparation, learning, and sensorimotor coordination of movements," said Gunz. "The basal ganglia also contribute to diverse cognitive functions, in memory, attention, planning, skill learning, and potentially speech and language evolution," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nepal government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations, a move that could affect Indian tourists visiting the Himalayan nation where Indian currency is widely used. Indian currency is extensively used by Nepalese people and businesses for their savings and transactions. The government has asked the people to refrain from keeping or carrying Indian bank notes higher than Rs 100 denomination as it has not legalised them, Nepal's Minister for Information and Communications Gokul Prasad Baskota said. "The government has decided not to use, carry and keep the Indian bills of 200, 500 and 2000 denominations. The government will soon issue a formal notice in this matter," he said. The decision will adversely affect Nepalese labourers working in India as well as Indian tourists visiting Nepal. India is Nepal's largest trade partner and supplies the majority of its consumer goods. The Indian government introduced new banknotes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations after the demonetisation of old notes worth Rs 500 and 1,000 in 2016. However, the move hit countries such as Nepal and Bhutan where Indian currency is widely used. Nepal Premier K P Sharma Oli said earlier this year that demonetisation hurt the Nepalese people and added that he would raise the matter with Indian leaders. People have been using the new Indian currency in Nepal for nearly two years now. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre had no role in the choice of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Aerostructure as an Indian Offset Partner in the Rafale fighter jet deal and there is no substantial material to show that it was a case of "commercial favouritism", the Supreme Court said Friday. Mere press interviews or suggestions cannot form the basis for judicial review, especially when there is categorical denial of the statements made in the Press, by both the governments involved, India and France, it said. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP)-2013 envisages that the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) will chose its own Indian Offset Partner (IOPs). "In this process, the role of the Government is not envisaged and, thus, mere press interviews or suggestions cannot form the basis for judicial review by this Court, especially when there is categorical denial of the statements made in the Press, by both the sides. "We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government, as the option to choose the IOP does not rest with the Indian Government," the bench said. The court noted that two contracts were signed with Dassault and MBDA Missile Systems Limited on September 23, 2016, the same day on which the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) was signed between the Government of India and the Government of France in the Rafale fighter jet deal, estimated to be Rs 58,000 crore. Dassault and MBDA Missile Systems Limited are the French industrial suppliers of the Aircraft package and Weapon Package respectively. The court said there are stated to be no offset obligations in the first three years, but are to commence from October 2019. The bench said that it is no doubt that the company, Reliance Aerostructure Ltd, has come into being in the recent past, but the press release suggests that there was possibly an arrangement between the parent Reliance company and Dassault starting from the year 2012. "As to what transpired between the two corporates would be a matter best left to them, being matters of their commercial interests, as perceived by them," the bench said. It noted that there has been a categorical denial, from every side, of the interview given by the former French President Francois Hollande seeking to suggest that it is the Indian government which had given no option to the French government in the matter. "In this process, (DPP-2013) the role of the Government is not envisaged and, thus, mere press interviews or suggestions cannot form the basis for judicial review by this Court, especially when there is categorical denial of the statements made in the Press, by both the sides," the bench said. It added that on the basis of materials available before the court, the suggestions of former French president appears contrary to the clause in DPP-2013 dealing with IOPs. "Thus, the commercial arrangement, in our view, itself does not assign any role to the Indian Government, at this stage, with respect to the engagement of the IOP. Such matter is seemingly left to the commercial decision of Dassault," it said. The bench said that is the reason why it has been stated that the role of the Indian government would start only when the vendor/OEM submits a formal proposal, in the prescribed manner, indicating details of IOPs and products for offset discharge. With regard to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the bench said that insofar as the procurement of 36 aircrafts is concerned, there is no specific role envisaged. It also noted the submission of Centre that there were some contractual problems and Dassault was circumspect about HAL carrying out the contractual obligation, which is also stated to be the reason responsible for the non-conclusion of the earlier contract of 2007. The bench said that "it is neither appropriate nor within the experience of this Court to step into this arena of what is technically feasible or not". The court said that the issue of IOP is what has triggered this litigation and the offset contract is stated to have been governed by the Defence Offset Guidelines of DPP 2013. In relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The deal is estimated to be Rs 58,000 crore, or about USD 8 billion. Petitioners including advocates M L Sharma, Vineet Dhanda, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan in there separate petitions have alleged, among other things, that Centre has favoured a business group and for that purpose a clause of the Offset Guidelines have been amended. They alleged that the Indian Government gave a benefit to Reliance Aerostructure Ltd., by compelling Dassault to enter into a contract with them, and that too at the cost of the public enterprise, HAL. The bench noted that Centre has stated that it has no role to play in the selection of the IOP and as per the Defence Offset Guidelines, the OEM is free to select any Indian company as its IOP. It said that a joint venture is stated to have come into being between Reliance Defence and Dassault in February 2017, which is stated to be a purely commercial arrangement between the two private companies. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Friday said there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said there has been necessity of fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without fighter jets. The Chief Justice of India (CJI) is reading out the judgement for the three-judge bench. The verdict was pronounced on a batch of pleas seeking court-monitored probe in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 60,000 high school students participated in the Tata Steel's Young Astronomer Talent Search (YATS) 2018-19 programme, creating a record in its 12 year history. The number of participants this year nearly doubled to 63,000 students from 300 schools of all the 30 districts in Odisha. Around 32,000 students had participated in the competition last year. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik felicitated 20 winners of the programme at a function held at Pathani Samanta Planetarium here on Thursday, a Tata Steel release said. The winning group of aspiring astronomers and scientists will get an opportunity to visit one of the premier facilities of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to get a first-hand experience of space science in action, it said. The theme for this year's competition was "Imagine space exploration, 50 years from now" and it included quiz competitions and essay writing, it said. Speaking at the programme on Thursday, Arun Misra, vice-president, raw materials, Tata Steel said, "To make the YATS initiative more meaningful, we intend to collaborate with experts, researchers and groups working in the field of astronomy." The YATS is an initiative of Tata Steel for high school students of the state, organised in association with Pathani Samanta Planetarium, under Odisha's Science and Technology Department. Congratulating the winners and participants, director, Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Bhubaneswar, Chanakya Chaudhary said, "We seek to create a culture of scientific curiosity among our youth, both for their holistic development and the nation's progress. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Afghan official says an assault on Taliban positions in northeastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, which included US air strikes, killed at least 20 insurgents, contradicting Taliban claims of civilian casualties. In southern Helmand province, a US drone strike killed four suspected insurgents. Sakhi Mushwani, a Parliamentarian from Kunar province, said several civilians were injured in the attack late on Thursday. US military spokesman Sgt 1st class Debra Richardson said US strikes were requested by the Afghan National Security Forces, who led the Kunar offensive. They were accompanied by a handful of US soldiers acting in an advisory capacity. Taliban said 60 civilians were killed in the airstrike but they often exaggerate their claims. Richardson said both incidents are being investigated, adding that all claims of civilian casualties are taken seriously. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Gautam Buddh Nagar police Friday arrested one more director of a private builder's firm for his alleged involvement in a land fraud, estimated worth Rs 126 crore, linked to the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), officials said. The accused, Satendra Chauhan, in his 40s, of Data Infrastructure has been nabbed in the case for alleged fraud and corruption, a senior police officer said. Another of the firm's director, Ramesh Bansal, was arrested Wednesday, the police said. "Chauhan was picked up by a team of Kasna police station this morning from his home in Ghaziabad over his alleged role in the Rs 126 crore land fraud of Yamuna Expressway Authority," Circle Officer, Greater Noida 1st, Nishank Sharma said. He was being produced in a court in the afternoon where the police was to appeal for his custody to gather more information from him related to the case, Sharma said. According to the police, the accused YEIDA officials, including a former CEO, in tie-up with some private firms had purchased around 57 hectare "useless" land in 2014 from seven villages of Mathura in lieu of compensation to their owners by the Authority. But the compensation amount was much higher than what was defined by the Authority for such purchases. Also in doing so, the accused not only caused loss to the YEIDA but also made personal gains fraudulently, the police said. In June, (YEIDA) had submitted a complaint against 21 persons at the Kasna police station in Greater Noida over the alleged land fraud in 2013-2014. One of the accused is a former IAS officer P C Gupta, who was also the chief executive officer of YEIDA during the time the case transpired. Gupta, who was appointed to the post in 2013, was held this June from Datia in Madhya Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Left parties Friday said that only a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal can bring out the truth, hours after the Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging the multi-billion defence pact between India and France. "The truth about the Rafale scam will only come out through the mechanism of a JPC. We reiterate our long-standing demand for a JPC. Modi's refusal to have a JPC is the biggest evidence of guilt (sic)," CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury wrote on Twitter. The party posted on its official Twitter handle that the SC verdict was not a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government. "SC has merely stated that it doesnt have Jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution. Only a JPC can uncover the truth about #RafaleScam," it tweeted. D Raja, national secretary of the CPI, said that Parliament was supreme in a democracy and the government should agree to a JPC probe into the defence deal to ensure that the truth is revealed. "Parliament is supreme in our democracy. All opposition parties have been demanding a JPC probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. Why cannot the government agree on a JPC probe? After all, the issue is related to the country's security. Let there be a JPC probe and the truth will come out," he said "I don't know how the Supreme Court can come to such a conclusion," he added. CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said the Supreme Court order is not a clean chit to the government. "Technical know how may be confidential but the price paid by the government is taxpayers' money. Taxpayers have right to know what was the price paid by the government," Reddy said. Earlier in the day, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the process" warranting setting aside of the contract. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A collection of ancient paintings by Pahari artists from North India depicting Hindu Gods will be on display at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art here, one of the world's largest and finest art museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the exhibition focusing on early painting styles that emerged in the Pahari courts of North India during the 17th and 18th centuries. Featuring some 20 of the most refined paintings produced in South Asia during the period, 'Seeing the Divine: Pahari Painting of North India' will examine the innovative ways in which Pahari artists depicted the Hindu gods, the museum said in a press release. "By juxtaposing devotional images with emotionally charged narrative moments, the paintings gave royal patrons a novel approach to forging a personal connection with the divine through devotion," it said. Highlights of the exhibition, which will start on December 22 and end on July 21, 2019, include a rare, early 19th-century temple banner measuring 26 feet that is being shown publicly for the first time. The impressive temple banner recounts the complex story of Lord Krishna's rescue and marriage to his first wife, Rukmini, as well as dramatic scenes of Krishna and his many followers fighting a heroic battle in the Himalayan foothills --a battle that represents the great conflict between gods and demons to restore cosmic order. The majority of the works on view are recent promised gifts of collector Steven Kossak, and they "transform The Met's ability to showcase 17th- to 18th-century North Indian painting of the highest caliber." The release added that working mostly in miniatures and large-format folios, Pahari artists employed remarkably innovative vocabularies, often depicting god as a child, a lover, a terrible protector, or even a personal vision. It said famous narratives such as the Ramayana and the Gita Govinda (Song of Govinda) had tremendous appeal at the Pahari courts, and the exhibition will include folios that reference both. Founded in 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collection spans 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe. Last year it was visited by 4.7 million people. The Museum's two-million-square-foot building has vast holdings that represent a series of collections, each of which ranks in its category among the finest in the world. The Museum presents more exhibitions than any art museum in the world. The more than 30 exhibitions each year represent a wide range of artists, eras, and cultures. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cash-strapped Pakistan on Friday received USD 1 billion from its close ally Saudi Arabia as part of a second bailout package to boost the country's dwindling dollar reserves, according to media reports. The latest package has shored up the central bank's foreign reserves, hitting the USD 9.4 billion mark, said State Bank of Pakistan Spokesman Abid Qamar. He said another Saudi financial package was expected in January next year, Dawn newspaper reported. In October, Saudi Arabia agreed to provide Pakistan USD 3 billion in foreign currency support for a year to address its balance-of-payments crisis. During Prime Minister Imran Khan's visit to Saudi Arabia on October 23, it was announced that the oil-rich country will provide a USD 6 billion package to Pakistan to support its ailing economy. The package included USD 3 billion balance of payments support and USD 3 billion in deferred payments on oil import. Pakistan received the first tranche of USD 1 billion from Saudi Arabia on November 9. According to figures shared by Prime Minister Khan in October, the country's total foreign debt has surged to Rs 30,000 billion within the last decade, while circular debt has reached Rs 1,200 billion, the report said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A scuffle over vehicle parking during a wedding function in Greater Noida claimed the life of a 24-year-old villager, who was allegedly shot dead by the visiting 'baraatis' from Haryana, police said Friday. Two minors were also injured in the incident that took place around 7.30 pm Thursday in Karauli village, under Rabupura police station limits, they said. The deceased, Jagmohan, was returning home in the village along with the two minors, a cousin and a neighbour, when he asked the wedding guests to park their vehicles in an "orderly manner", a police official said. "On this, an argument broke out between the two sides which turned violent when the visitors who were carrying firearms opened fire, wounding Jagmohan and the minors," the official said. The trio was rushed to a hospital but Jagmohan had succumbed to the injuries by then, while the minors were administered primary treatment and relieved, the policeman said. The accused have been identified as Bheem Singh and Kailash, both natives of Palwal in Haryana, who had come for the wedding. A case has been registered under Indian Penal Code sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), among others, against the duo, who are absconding, the police said. The body was sent for postmortem and the autopsy report was awaited, the police said, adding they were questioning the people present for the wedding function including its organisers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The CPI Friday said that a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal will bring the truth out, hours after the Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging the multi-billion defence pact between India and France. "Parliament is supreme in our democracy. All opposition parties have been demanding a JPC probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. Why cannot the government agree on a JPC probe? After all, the issue is related to the country's security. Let there be a JPC probe and the truth will come out," D Raja, national secretary of the CPI, said. "I don't know how the Supreme Court can come to such a conclusion," he said. CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said the Supreme Court order is not a clean chit to the government. "Technical know how may be confidential but the price paid by the government is taxpayers' money. Taxpayers have right to know what was the price paid by the government," Reddy said. Earlier in the day, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the process" warranting setting aside of the contract. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Private equity investments witnessed in November a declining trend both in value and volume terms with 39 deals worth around USD 500 million, says a report. According to the Grant Thornton report, PE deal tally from January to November was 717 totalled USD 17.8 billion in valuation. The deal volume saw a 4 per cent increase over the same period a year ago, while the deal size of investments declined by 9 per cent as big ticket investments remained cautious. In November, there was only one big-ticket investment worth over USD 100 million. The month also recorded the lowest PE volume in last 4.6 years and the lowest in last 28 months in terms of value, the report said. India Resurgence Fund, promoted by Piramal Enterprises Ltd and Bain Capital Credit, invested USD 156 million in Chennai-based Archean Group's marine chemicals business -- the biggest deal of the month. Some other key deals announced in November are: Shunwei Capital's investment of USD 50 million in startup Fashnear Technologies, and TPG Growth's USD 42 million investment in non-banking finance company Ess Kay Fincorp Ltd, among others. Sectorally, startup, banking and financial services, IT and ITES and e-commerce led the PE activity by capturing 90 per cent of the total deal size in November, the report said. "PE/VCs reported deals aggregating to USD 0.5 billion in November 2018 as compared to USD 2.4 billion in November 2017. Barring the USD 1.8 billion PE investment in Axis bank in November 2017, November 2018 witnessed a 25 per cent decline in deal values and 39 per cent decline in deal volumes," Grant Thornton India LLP Director Pankaj Chopda said. The decline in the deal volumes can be attributed to longer deal completion cycles and cautious approach following the upcoming national elections and also global uncertainties, added Chopda. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Puducherry Assembly Friday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the move of the Karnataka government to construct a dam across Cauvery river at Mekedatu. The resolution also took strong exception to the permission given by the Central Water Commission through a 'No Objection certificate' to Karnataka to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) on the dam project. This comes a week after the Tamil Nadu assembly adopted a resolution unanimously urging the Centre to withdraw the permission given to Karnataka for the DPR for its proposed dam across river Cauvery at Mekedattu. Tabling the resolution, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said the construction of a dam would be "detrimental" to the interests of the ryots in Karaikal region of the Union Territory, which is among the lower riparian states depending on Cauvery river water. He said the proposal to construct the reservoir was also in violation of the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal. "Puducherry government and the Assembly register strong protest against the move of Karnataka and condemn the proposal in no uncertain terms," he said adding the House also condemned the Central Water Commission for giving permission to Karnataka to prepare the DPR. He urged the Centre to scrap the permission accorded by the Central Water Commission to Karnataka without consulting the riparian states. Earlier the members belonging to the ruling Congress and opposition block extended full support to the unanimous adoption of the government resolution. Welcoming the resolution, Leader of the opposition N Rangasamy (AINRC) said, "it is a very well worded resolution and highlights the need to protect farmers of Karaikal against the move of the Karnataka government." Earlier, the House paid homage to former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, former Speaker of Lok Sabha Somnatah Chatterjee, the ex-Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan and former Welfare Minister of Puducherry A Kasilingam who died during the recent months. The Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues, the Speaker and members of different political parties recalled the dedicated services of Karunanidhi, Vajpayee and others. All the members stood in silence for a couple of minutes in memory of the departed leaders. Later, the Speaker adjourned the House sine die. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Posters earmarking separate entry and exit points and wash basins for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students have been allegedly pasted at a mess of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, kicking up a row with a section of students alleging discrimination. While pictures of the posters bearing the name of a local caterer and pasted near the doors of the mess were circulated by some students on the social media, an official pleaded ignorance about them and said if found to be true the handbills will be removed. A student said the posters had been put up near two entrances of the north Indian mess located on the second floor of Himalaya Mess Complex, specifying separate entry points and wash basins for non-vegetarian and vegetarian students. One of the pictures of the poster circulated on read "Hand Wash Vegetarian Students" while another said "Winter vacation mess - arrangements. Entry/exit non-vegetarian students." When contacted, an official in the mess monitoring and control committee of IIT-M told that he was unaware of the posters. He also said arrangements were made for preparing Jain (without onion or garlic) and he was unaware of any discriminatory arrangements based on vegetarian and non-vegetarian. ALSO READ: New record for IIT Madras year-end placement: 195 firms make 888 job offers A research scholar alleged that what started as a demand for a mess catering to 'pure' vegetarians last year had now become full-fledged untouchability'. "This is the first time a mess has two separate entrances for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Not just that, even separate wash basins and separate utensils as well," the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. According to some students, there has been demand from a section of students for a separate vegetarian mess ever since the 'beef festival' incident in May last year. A research scholar was allegedly thrashed for taking part in the 'beef festival' by some students claimed to be Sangh Parivar supporters. President Ram Nath Kovind will lay the foundation stone of a rail station in Kevadiya in Gujarat's Narmada district on December 15, a statement from the Railway ministry said Friday. The President will also visit the Statue of Unity and pay his tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his death anniversary. This will be the first railway station for Kevadiya, a small town with a population of 6,788 and just 3.5 km from the Statue of Unity. The world's tallest statue dedicated to India's first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October this year. To visit the site, one has to reach Kevadiya first. Currently, there is no direct air or train connectivity to Kevadiya. The nearest stations to Kevadiya are Vadodara (71.94 km), Bharuch (75.36 km) and Ankleshwar (77.95 km). A smaller station, Miyagam Karjan, is 63.02 km from the town. For air travel, one has to take a flight to Surat. Kevadiya is 83 km from Surat. From the Ahmedabad airport, the Statue of Unity is almost 200 km away. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Public sector banks recovered Rs 2.33 lakh crore worth of bad loans during the four years from financial year 2014-15 to fiscal 2017-18, Parliament was informed Friday. As per RBI data on global operations for PSBs, during the financial years 2014-15 to 2017-18, PSBs recovered Rs 2,33,339 crore, of which Rs 32,693 crore was from written-off accounts, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He was responding to a question asked on non-performing assets (NPAs) and write-offs by public sector banks (PSBs) during April 2014 to April 2018 and the amount recovered by them. Shukla said, write-offs of NPAs is a regular exercise of the banks to clean up their balance sheet, tax benefit and capital optimisation. "Borrowers of such written-off loans continue to be liable for repayment. Recovery under relevant legal processes from written-off accounts may extend beyond the financial year in which the account is written off," he said. During 2014-15 to 2017-18, the PSBs witnessed reduction in their NPAs due to write-offs (including compromise) to the tune of Rs 3,16,515 crore. Aggressive lending practices, wilful default/loan defaults as well as corruption in some cases and economic slowdown were the primary reasons for spurt in stressed assets, he further said. Country's largest lender SBI, stood on a gross bad loans of Rs 2.02 lakh crore as on September 30, 2018, showed the data furnished by the minister which was sourced from the Reserve Bank. Among the rest of the 20 PSBs, Punjab National Bank had grossed NPAs to the tune of Rs 80,993 crore by end of second quarter of the current fiscal, IDBI Bank Rs 50,690 crore, Bank of India Rs 50,338 crore, Union Bank of India Rs 48,575 crore. Bank of Baroda also had NPAs to the tune of Rs 46,454 crore, Canara Bank Rs 41,907 crore, Central Bank of India Rs 37,411 crore, Indian Overseas Bank Rs 35,607 crore and UCO Bank Rs 28,822 crore. In reply to a query on gross advances done, the minister said aggregate gross advances of PSBs increased from Rs 16.98 lakh crore as at end-March 2008 to Rs 45.91 lakh crore by the end of March 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab Assembly Friday passed a resolution pressing the Centre to ensure the passage of a bill to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and legislative assemblies. The resolution was moved by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and was passed by voice vote. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had recently written to chief ministers of Congress-ruled states to move the resolution. The Women's Reservation Bill, pending in Parliament because of lack of consensus among parties, lapsed when the 15th Lok Sabha was dissolved in 2014. The resolution reminded that the Punjab government has already reserved 50 per cent seats in urban local bodies and the panchayati raj institutions for women. Amarinder Singh said reservation in legislatures would fulfil a legitimate and long-pending demand of women to ensure their empowerment. Singh said the Congress government had ensured passage of the Bill in Rajya Sabha but it lapsed in the Lok Sabha due to the indifferent attitude of the opposition. Once passed, the Bill would reserve 181 seats out the 543 in the Lok Sabha and earmark 1,370 assembly seats out of the total 4,109 across the nation for women, he told the House. Congress MLA Raj Kumar Chabbewal said the step would increase the status of women in society. Aam Aadmi Party MLA Rupinder Kaur Ruby said women from the Scheduled Castes should also get representation in the Bill. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to stabilise falling prices, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh Friday said the state government has asked the Centre for permission to export potato crop to Russia, USA, Iran and Sri Lanka. The chief minister further conveyed the state government's complete solidarity with the distressed potato growers. In response to a call attention notice raised by SAD MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala, Amarinder, who holds the agriculture portfolio, said the state government had sought the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Ministry of Commerce and Industries to allow Punjab to export crops to ensure price stabilisation Earlier, Wadala had said the issue had given way to "resentment among potato growers as they were not getting fair prices for their crops". The chief minister said the Centre had been asked for permission to allow the export of potatoes and sugarcane to Russia, UAE, Iran and Sri Lanka as both crops were hit by massive price fluctuations. "Once the Centre gives clearance for export, the farmers would be immensely benefitted with lucrative returns and assured marketability," the chief minister said. He said all possible steps would be initiated to enhance the demand of potatoes with increased consumption in mid-day meals, jails and other government departments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday slammed the Pakistan Army raising questions on its intentions to open the Kartarpur Corridor between the two countries and for trying to revive terrorism in the border state. Participating in a discussion in Punjab Assembly on a resolution on the corridor, Singh warned political parties in the state to be wary of the "ulterior motives" of the Pakistan Army. "Do you really think that the Pakistan Army is our sympathiser when it is continuously killing our soldiers at the border with the ultimate aim of destabilising the border state," he said, referring to the leaders in the assembly and urged them to contribute to maintaining peace in the state. "Why did Pakistan Army chief broke about the corridor even before the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan? What was his interest," he said. Singh had refused to visit Pakistan for the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor across the border on November 28, citing terrorist attacks by Pakistan-backed terrorists in India and killing of Indian soldiers on the Kashmir border. He, however said, he hopes the corridor would become a "bridge of peace" in the times to come and reiterated that he accompany the first 'Jatha' to Kartarpur gurdwara. The chief minister also asked Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to "reign in his army". "I want to congratulate the Pakistan prime minister (on the decision to open the corridor). My only request to him is that you are a newly elected prime minister and people have high hopes from him; he should rein in his army," Singh said. On November 26, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Singh laid the foundation stone of the corridor on the Indian side of the border. On completion, the corridor will facilitate Sikh pilgrims in visiting the historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib on the banks of Ravi river in Pakistan where Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, had spent 18 years. The chief minister reiterated his government's commitment to protect Punjab from ISI-backed terrorism and said no one would be allowed to push it back into terrorism. Though Congress leaders shared Singh's concern about Pakistan Army's designs to revive militancy in Punjab, opposition leaders said there should be no any "negativity" on the Kartarpur corridor issue. "It is a historic resolution and we unanimously support it. But there should not be any negativity. Terrorists do not have religion and they only follow their mission. It is the government of India which will ensure foolproof security," said SAD chief Sukhbir Badal. Akali leader Gurpartap Singh Wadala said there should be no room for scepticism on the issue. AAP MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan praised Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu for pushing for the opening of the corridor and rejected suggestions that there could be any recruitment of people from here for spreading terror activities in Punjab. However, BJP legislator Som Prakash said the chief minister's fears cannot be overlooked. He said Pakistan has never been sincere in mending ties with India and cited terrorist attacks in Kashmir, Pathankot and Mumbai. Following the discussion, the Punjab Assembly unanimously passed the resolution and urged the Centre to complete all necessary work before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in November 2019 and ensure that peace in Punjab is not disturbed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab Assembly passed a resolution on Friday, suggesting the swapping of land with Pakistan to bring the historic Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara across the border within the Indian territory. The resolution was initially aimed at praising the efforts of the Punjab government and the Centre for opening a cross-border passage to facilitate Indian Sikh pilgrims in visiting the gurdwara on the banks of Ravi river in Pakistan. But Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, during a discussion on the resolution in the House, demanded that land swap with Pakistan be made a part of the resolution. The House accepted it and passed the resolution unanimously. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, MLA from Dera Baba Nanak, from where the corridor is proposed to start, suggested land from his constituency could be handed over to Pakistan in the swap. The assembly also urged the Centre to complete the work for opening the corridor before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in November 2019. The founder of Sikhism is believed to have spent 18 years at the gurdwara and opening a cross-border corridor was a long-pending demand of Sikhs. India laid the foundation stone of the corridor on November 26 and Pakistan did it two days later. During the discussion in the House, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh slammed the Pakistan Army, raising questions on its intention to open the corridor and also for trying to revive terrorism in the state. He warned state political parties against its "ulterior motives". "Do you really think that the Pakistan Army is our sympathiser when it is continuously killing our soldiers at the border with the ultimate aim of destabilising the border state," he said, referring to the leaders in the assembly and urged them to contribute to maintaining peace in Punjab. "Why did Pakistan Army chief broke about the corridor even before the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan? What was his interest?" he said. Singh had refused to visit Pakistan for the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor, citing terrorist attacks by Pakistan-backed terrorists in India and killing of Indian soldiers on the Kashmir border. But his Cabinet colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu had attended the ceremony. Singh did not take Sidhu's name during the discussion in the House on Friday. The chief minister, however, said he hopes the corridor would become a "bridge of peace" and reiterated he would accompany the first 'Jatha' to Kartarpur next year. He also asked Pakistan Prime Minister Khan to "reign in his army". "I want to congratulate the Pakistan prime minister (on the decision to open the corridor). My only request to him is that you are a newly elected prime minister and people have high hopes from him; he should rein in his army," Singh said. Though Congress leaders shared Singh's concern about Pakistan Army's designs to revive militancy in Punjab, opposition leaders said there should be no "negativity" on the Kartarpur corridor issue. "It is a historic resolution and we unanimously support it. But there should not be any negativity. Terrorists do not have religion and they only follow their mission. It is the government of India which will ensure foolproof security," said SAD chief Badal. Akali leader Gurpartap Singh Wadala said there should be no room for scepticism on the issue. AAP MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan praised Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu for pushing for the opening of the corridor. However, BJP legislator Som Prakash said the chief minister's fears cannot be overlooked. He said Pakistan has never been sincere in mending ties with India and cited terrorist attacks in Kashmir, Pathankot and Mumbai. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Empowerment of defence forces with adequate technology and material support is a matter of vital importance, the Supreme Court said Friday while refusing to interfere with the government decision to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. The top court also noted that the procurement of the Rafale jet, which has been sought to be challenged, has its origins in the post-Kargil experience which saw a renewed attempt to advance the strategic needs of India's armed forces. In relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The deal is estimated to be Rs 58,000 crore, or about USD 8 billion. In its judgement, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said judicial scrutiny of the Rafale deal has to be done keeping in view that "adequate military strength and capability to discourage and withstand external aggression and to protect the sovereignty and integrity of India, undoubtedly, is a matter of utmost concern for the Nation." "The empowerment of defence forces with adequate technology and material support is, therefore, a matter of vital importance," said the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph. The bench said it has "studied the material carefully" on the deal and also had the benefit of interacting with senior Air Force Officers on different aspect and there is no occasion to really doubt the process of procurement and pricing. While noting that joint exercises have taken place and "there is a financial advantage to our nation", the bench also arrived at the findings that "the need for the aircrafts is not in doubt". The bench, which was of the view that "the quality of the aircraft is not in question," further said: "Our country cannot afford to be unprepared/underprepared in a situation where our adversaries are stated to have acquired not only 4th Generation, but even 5th Generation Aircrafts, of which, we have none." "It will not be correct for the Court to sit as an appellate authority to scrutinize each aspect of the process of acquisition," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Attorney General K K Venugopal on Friday welcomed as "excellent" the verdict on the deal case, and said it has given a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government. "I think a clean chit has been given to the government on deal," he told reporters on the sidelines of a function to give farewell to Justice Madan B Lokur, who is set to retire on December 30. "Superme Court judgement on deal is excellent and I am extremely happy," Venugopal said, adding, "The court has accepted all our arguments". A bench headed by on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The Supreme Court order on the Rafale jet deal issue Friday rocked the Rajya Sabha which witnessed intense sloganeering by the ruling BJP and opposition Congress members leading to adjournment of House proceedings. Amid noisy protests, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was heard saying that the Opposition has been demanding a debate on the jet deal and so the question hour should be suspended to take up the issue. Besides the two major parties, members of the AIADMK and the Samajwadi Party too raised slogans in support of their respective demands. No sooner the House assembled for the Zero hour, members of the Samajwadi Party raised slogans relating to the recent violence in UP's Bulandshahar district while AIADMK members trooped into the well over the Cauvery river water issue. Buoyed by the clean chit given by the Supreme Court on the Rafale jet deal, members of treasury benches were heard raising slogans demanding an apology from Congress President Rahul Gandhi for his alleged lies on the issue. Congress members too entered the Well of the House to demand a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the purchase of jets from the French company Dassault. Amidst uproar, the members were heard raising slogans -"We want JPC" and "Chowikdar Chor Hai". BJP members were heard shouting slogans like 'Rahul Gandhi Jhootha Hai' (Rahul Gandhi is a liar). The uproar started as soon as the proceedings began following which Deputy Chairman Harivansh first adjourned the House till 1130 hours. However, as the protests intensified, he adjourned the Rajya Sabha till Monday after his repeated attempts to bring order in the House failed. Before adjourning the House for the day, Harivansh tried to run the Zero Hour proceedings smoothly and some of the members even read out mentions amid uproar. Unlike other days, there was ruckus in the House even when ministers were laying listed paper on the table of the House. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The order giving the government a clean chit on the is not a setback as the issue is still live in the "people's court" and the will continue to raise it in Parliament, senior party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday. The apex court has dismissed all the petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar defense deal. "The apex court order is not a setback as the is still an issue in the people's court. And the party will continue to raise the issue in the Parliament," Scindia told reporters. has been demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there has been a necessity for fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without the jets. The CJI, who read out the judgement for the three-judge bench, said no reasons were found to interfere in the procurement process for the fighter jets. The verdict was pronounced on a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal. Home Minister Rajnath Singh Friday demanded in the Lok Sabha that Congress President Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for "misleading" the country on the Rafale jet deal issue. Opposition parties led by the Congress have been attacking the Modi government over the deal, alleging that it was struck at an exorbitant price and benefited an Indian businessman at the cost of the government-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The charges have been denied by the government. Amid protests by Congress members in the House, Singh said, "Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for misleading the country on the Rafale jet deal issue for political gains". The Supreme Court Friday gave the Narendra Modi government a clean chit on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Buoyed by the Supreme Court dismissing all petitions asking for a probe into the Rafale deal, BJP president Amit Shah Friday said the order is a slap on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's of lies and asked him to apologise to the country and its soldiers for putting national security at risk. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, the court said on Friday. It is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing, it stated. Shah asserted that the apex court order "exposes" the campaign of misinformation of the Congress chief. Stating that his party was ready for discussion on this issue, Shah challenged the Congress to debate the issue in Parliament. "I welcome SC order on Rafale. The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk," Shah said at a press conference at the party office here. He also hit out at Gandhi for taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying the "chowkidar" is a thief. "All thieves had gathered to call the 'chowkidar' a thief, but the country never believed it," Shah told reporters. For the sake of his own credibility, Gandhi should reveal the source of information on which he based his false allegations on the Rafale deal, Shah said. He added that the Supreme Court has also made it clear that there is nothing wrong with the offset partner. Earlier in the day, Shah addressed the issue in series of tweets, saying the court didn't find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. "On the contrary, the SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals," he said. "Truth always triumphs! Court's judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains," he added on Twitter. The apex court's order raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India, he asserted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) is likely to hold a fresh round of discussions Friday with and Sachin Pilot, the two chief ministerial aspirants in Rajasthan, before taking a final call for the top post. The decision of Rajasthan's next chief minister is likely to be taken before noon and will be made public at a meeting of the Legislature Party (CLP) in state capital Jaipur, sources said. After several rounds of discussions that lasted till Thursday midnight, veteran Gehlot has emerged as a front runner for the top post, while Pradesh Congress Committee is being placated in attempts to peace between the two. Party's central observer for Rajasthan K C Venugopal told PTI, "It is up to the Congress to take a final call and the decision is being awaited." Congress leaders feel once the MLAs in the state have authorised Gandhi to take a decision on the chief minister, leaders should not challenge the high command and accept the decision. Pilot, 41, is still reported not on board on Gehlot's name, which is delaying the announcement, the sources said. The PCC chief has put up a stiff resistance and his staking his own claim for the top post. AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande told PTI," Congress president heard everyone and after wide consultations he will take the final decision which will be acceptable to all." Gandhi is likely to meet and Gehlot, 67, again at his residence in attempts to peace, like he did in the case of where was declared as the next chief minister amid hectic parleys held by the Congress chief with senior party leaders in the national capital Thursday night. The Congress leadership want Gehlot and to be present together at the CLP meet. Sources said the Congress top brass was upset with the manner in which party workers resorted to arson and violence in the state in a bid to exert pressure on the party to name Pilot. They said this the first time such incidents have been reported in Rajasthan and the party has taken the matter seriously. The incidents of violence were reported in Jaipur, Dosa and other parts Thursday following which the Congress leadership asked both Pilot and Gehlot to issue appeal for peace. The party leaders feel the infighting in Rajasthan should end soon and called an amicable solution in the manner Jyotiraditya Scindia gracefully accepted the Congress's decision in (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.) SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday accused the Congress government in Punjab of violating democratic norms by reducing the legislative business to only one sitting in the winter session. Addressing the media in the press lounge of the assembly, he alleged the government has "failed" every section of society. "The Congress party led by the Gandhi family is also shamelessly promoting the perpetrators of the 1984 Sikh genocide as per its old policy by deciding to nominate Kamal Nath to the post of chief minister of Madhya Pradesh," he said. The government has said the session had been curtailed due to a lack of business. But Badal said it was strange that at a time when Punjab was facing "burning" issues, the Congress government did not have any work to do. "This itself is a reflection on the government. It amounts to admitting that it has not done any work," he added. Punjab Assembly Session was curtailed by one day and it was wrapped on December 14 instead of December 15. Badal said it was also a matter of shame that farmers were now being subjected to 'kurki' (auction of land). "We wanted a debate on this because chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh had befooled people with the slogan 'karja kurki khatam, fasal ki poori rakam' in the run up to the last assembly elections," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition backing Yemen's government, on Friday hailed the accord reached at UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden between Yemen's warring parties. In a statement by King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom backed "the agreements reached in Sweden in UN-sponsored talks between a delegation of Yemen's legitimate government and the Huthi rebels", the official SPA agency reported. "The kingdom remains engaged in the search for a political solution in Yemen which guarantees the security and stability of the country," the statement said. The statement also called on the Iran-aligned Huthis to "embark on this path" towards a political solution. Yemen's warring parties on Thursday agreed to a ceasefire on a vital port in a series of breakthroughs in the talks. If implemented, the deal on Hodeida port, a key gateway for aid and food imports, could bring relief to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine. Impoverished Yemen has been mired in fighting between the Huthi rebels and troops loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi since 2014. But the war escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition stepped in on the government's side. The conflict has since killed nearly 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. But other rights groups believe the actual toll to be far higher. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, the Supreme Court said on Friday and dismissed all the petitions seeking an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal. There was no substantial evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity, the bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said on the issue of an offset partner in its ruling on a batch of petitions. While one lot sought a court-monitored investigation into the deal, another asked for a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities. The bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, said it is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing. There has been a necessity for fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without jets, it said. The CJI, who read out the judgement for the three-judge bench, said no reasons were found to interfere in the procurement process for the fighter jets. The apex court said it does not find substantial matter to interfere with the issue of procurement, pricing and offset partner. It noted the need for induction of 4th and 5th generation of fighter aircraft like Rafale in the Indian Air Force (IAF). Both sides involved in the deal have clarified all aspects in the procurement of Rafale jets deal, the bench said. The court said nobody questioned the procurement of the Rafale fighter jets when the deal was finalised in September 2016. It added that questions were raised on jet deal only after former French president Francois Hollande came out with a statement. This cannot be the basis of judicial review, it said. The court said it cannot compel the government to procure 126 or 36 fighter jets. That depends on its decision. The apex court reserved its verdict on the batch of pleas on November 14. Advocate M L Sharma was the first petitioner in the case. Later, another lawyer, Vineet Dhanda, moved the apex court with the plea for court-monitored probe into the deal. AAP leader Sanjay Singh also filed a petition. After the three petitions were filed, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The Centre earlier defended the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets and opposed public disclosure of the pricing details. 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 Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. While reserving the verdict, the apex court said the pricing details of Rafale jets could only be discussed after it decided on whether to make it public. The observation by an apex court bench came after the government refused to publicly divulge pricing details of the deal, saying it would give an advantage to India's enemies. Hearing a bunch of pleas alleging criminality in the Rafale deal and seeking a court-monitored probe into it, the apex court had asked wide-ranging questions from the government on various issues, including lack of sovereign guarantee from the French government, selection of Indian offset partner by the Dassault Aviation and the need to enter into an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with France. The court took note of submissions and counter arguments on pricing of the fighter jets with the petitioners alleging that the government has been giving "bogus arguments" and "hiding behind the secrecy clause". Vehemently defending non-disclosure of the price publicly, Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, said that the cost of a bare Rafale jet as per 2016 exchange rate was Rs 670 crore and the disclosure of price of a "fully loaded" aircraft would give an "advantage to the adversaries". Bhushan claimed the Union Law Ministry red-flagged two issues -- absence of sovereign guarantee by France and international arbitration clause in IGA as per which the arbitration seat would be at Geneva -- but the government went ahead with the deal. Venugopal admitted there was no sovereign guarantee, but said France has given a 'letter of comfort' which would be good enough as a governmental guarantee. During the hearing, the court also interacted with senior IAF officers and enquired about the requirements of the force. The IAF officers emphasised the need for induction of 'four plus or fifth' generation fighter aircraft like Rafale, which have niche stealth technology and enhanced electronic warfare capabilities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Friday ordered status quo with regard to the sale of controlling stakes of Fortis Healthcare to Malaysian IHH Healthcare Berhad by former Ranbaxy promoters and hospital operators -- Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. The apex court was hearing the plea of Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo which is seeking to recover Rs 3,500 crore, awarded to it by a Singapore tribunal in its case against Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. The Japanese firm, which has filed the contempt plea against the Singh brothers in the apex court, has said that it was promised some shares of Fortis Healthcare by the Singh brothers. "Status quo with regard to sale of the controlling stake in Fortis Healthcare to Malaysian IHH Healthcare Berhad be maintained," said a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph. The top court also issued notices to the Singh brothers asking them to explain as to why contempt proceedings be not initiated against them for allegedly violating its earlier order by pledging the shares. The board of Fortis Healthcare had approved in July a proposal from IHH Healthcare to invest Rs 4,000 crore by way of preferential allotment for a 31.1 per cent stake. The Malaysian IHH Healthcare Bhd became the controlling shareholder of Fortis Healthcare Ltd by acquiring a 31.1 per cent stake in the company. Daiichi had bought Ranbaxy in 2008. Later, it had moved the Singapore arbitration tribunal accusing that the Singh brothers had concealed information that Ranbaxy was facing probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, while selling its shares. Daiichi had to enter into a settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice, agreeing to pay USD 500 million penalty to resolve potential, civil and criminal liability. The company had then sold its stake in Ranbaxy to Sun Pharmaceuticals for Rs 22,679 crore in 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Friday hailed the Supreme Court verdict on the procurement of Rafale fighter jets and demanded that Congress president Rahul Gandhi apologise to the nation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In its verdict Friday, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France. Dismissing all the petitions seeking an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, the SC said there was no substantial evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity. Hitting out at the Congress chief, Fadnavis accused Gandhi of "compromising" the security of the country and "defaming" the country among the international community. "TRUTH is like the Sun! Hon Supreme Court dismisses any probe into the #RafaleDeal & our stand is vindicated," Fadnavis tweeted Friday. "Rahul Gandhi and Congress must apologise to the Nation for compromising security of our country and also for defaming our country in the international community. Lies of Rahul Gandhi and Congress stands exposed. They mislead entire Nation with the misinformation campaign in the Parliament and during the recent elections," he further said. "Congress must apologise to Hon PM Narendra Modi ji too. #SCNailsRaGaLies (sic)," he said in a tweet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Buoyed by the Supreme Court dismissing petitions seeking a probe into the Rafale deal, BJP president Amit Shah Friday described the order as a "victory of truth" and demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. The Supreme Court's decision is slap on the face of those who had alleged corruption, Shah said at a press conference. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said on Friday. It is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing, it stated. Shah challenged the opposition party for a debate on the Rs 58,000 crore deal in Parliament and said the BJP will agree to as much time as it wants for a discussion after it reiterated its demand for a JPC probe into the matter. Accusing Gandhi of misleading people and endangering national security by raising questions on the Rafale deal at every meeting, Shah asked him to disclose the source of information on which he had based his claims. He also targeted the unity among opposition parties in attacking the Narendra Modi government over the deal, claiming all "thieves" had joined hands in dubbing the 'chowkidar' (watchman), a reference to Modi, a thief. But the court verdict has made it clear that they are scared by the 'chowkidar', he added. People didn't buy into the allegations, Shah said, claiming they never questioned Modi's integrity. According to the BJP chief, never before in independent India had such an attempt was made to mislead people on the basis of "blatant lies". Gandhi, he added, had started the " of lies" for his momentary political gains. "The judgement is a slap on such a of lies," he said. The court also said the government had no role in choosing the offset partners for Dassualt Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale jets, he said. "The Congress has been levelling allegations about this and the order is a slap on the face of those who have levelled these charges," he asserted. Gandhi has repeatedly accused the government of playing a role in ensuring that Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence gets an offset contract, a charge denied by the businessman, the government and the French firm. The Congress president should apologise to people and also the armed forces, Shah said. He also hit out at the Congress for its claim that the apex court's judgement is a "vindication" of its stand that the court cannot adjudicate on the matter, saying the opposition party lives in an imaginary world where truth has no place. To a question about the Congress' demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal, he said the opposition party first has to agree for a debate on the matter. Only after that can it be decided where such an investigation is required, he said. Continuing to attack Gandhi, Shah said he should refrain from levelling such "childish" allegations in future as it may boost whatever little credibility he has. Asserting that he had a suggestion for Gandhi, Shah said the sun's fire will not dim, however much mud you throw at it. The mud will only fall on you, he said. He asked the Congress chief to tell people why the previous UPA government could not seal a deal on buying Rafale aircraft between 2007-14 and questioned if it was because a "commission" on the transaction could not be finalised. Shah noted that even the Supreme Court spoke about the need for India to buy modern aircraft. "You (Congress government) harmed India's security interests," he said. Shah alleged that scams of over Rs 12 lakh crore had taken place under the Congress-led UPA government. "People of this country have not doubted even for a moment Prime Minister Narendra Modi's integrity," he said. Asked if the issue of alleged corruption in the Rafale deal raised repeatedly by Gandhi in his campaign during the five state polls impacted the BJP's showing, Shah said the matter was not about political benefits and losses but national security and the morale of armed forces. The BJP has suffered a big blow in the elections, losing power in all three states it ruled. The BJP president, however, declined to comment on the reasons behind his party's defeat, saying he would do so later and wanted the focus to be on his comments on the Supreme Court judgement on the Rafale deal. Shah also put out a series of tweets, saying the court didn't find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. "On the contrary, the SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals," he said. "Truth always triumphs! Court's judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains," he said, adding that the order raises questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India. The Congress claimed the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that the issue of "corruption" in the Rafale fighter jet agreement cannot be decided by it and challenged the Centre to constitute a JPC to probe the deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP has won only 21 of the 59 seats reserved for SC/ST candidates in Rajasthan against 50 it had bagged in the previous assembly elections, as per the election commission data. Bharatiya Janata Party won just 12 seats reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates this time, as against 32 in 2013 polls. Similarly, the party won only nine seats reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates against 18 in last polls. The party failed to win a single SC/ST seat in Alwar, Bharatpur, Dausa, Dholpur, Karauli, Swai Madhopur and Tonk districts this time. These districts saw violent protests during a nationwide April 2 Bharat Bandh called by Dalit outfits in protest against the Supreme Court order on the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Political observers have blamed the BJP's loss on the SC/ST seats on the 'Bharat Bandh' and the anti-incumbency factor against the party. Dalit groups had blocked rail and road traffic and vandalised property, including a train, in several parts of the state and a few days later upper-caste communities had observed a shutdown across the state. Riding on the resentment, the Congress has won most of these seats in the eastern districts of Rajasthan that are dominated by the SC/ST communities. BJP dissident Hanuman Beniwal's Rashtriya Lok Tantrik Party (RLTP) also emerged winner on two SC seats and one is bagged by an independent candidate. On the ST seats, two independents and two candidates of Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP) have also won this time. In the 2013 elections, the Congress could not win a single SC seat in the state, 32 were won by the BJP and one each by the National People's Party (NPP) and National Unionist Zamindara Party (NUZP). Similarly, the Congress had won just four ST seats against 18 by the BJP in the previous polls, while two seats were won by the NPP and one by an independent candidate. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Friday said although successive governments have rolled out many schemes, including the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the Mid Day Meal programme, malnutrition is still prevalent in the country. Speaking ata valedictory session of the international conference on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, here, Naidu said with constantly changing food environment, increasing nutrition awareness and health information, there has been a demand for a scientifically authenticated database of many foods. "Although successive governments have rolled out many schemes, including the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the Mid Day Meal programme, malnutrition is still prevalent in the country. I think the time has come for scientists, policymakers and planners to adopt new strategies to tackle the problem of malnutrition,"he said. India,which was ranked at 103 among 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index of 2018, hasa number of nutritional challenges, Naidu noted and added nutrition scientistsneed to accord the highest priority to eliminate "triple burden of malnutrition comprising under-nutrition, over-nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies." Naidu suggested that NIN must also look at newer vistas to make India a truly healthy nation. Nearly two thirds of the world's population with diabetes currently lives in low- and middle-income regions, including India, he noted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In back-to-back votes against Saudi Arabia, the Senate delivered an unusual rebuke of President Donald Trump's response to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and signaled new skepticism from Capitol Hill toward the longtime Middle East ally. Although the resolutions are largely symbolic because it's unclear if they will be considered by the House passage Thursday showed senators seeking to assert oversight of Trump administration foreign policy and the relationship with Saudi Arabia. It also marked the collapse of the Trump administration's effort in the Senate to contain fallout from the gruesome killing. One measure recommended that the US end its assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen. The other put the blame for the death of Khashoggi squarely on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Both had been vigorously opposed by the Trump administration, threated with potential presidential veto, and top brass was on Capitol Hill ahead of voting to prevent further action in the House. "The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who opposed the Yemen resolution but called the crown prince "so toxic, so tainted, so flawed" after the Khashoggi's killing that "you're never going to have a relationship with the United States Senate unless things change." The bipartisan votes came two months after the Saudi journalist's slaying at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and after Trump persistently equivocated over who was responsible. US intelligence officials concluded that bin Salman must have at least known of the plot, but Trump has repeatedly praised the kingdom. Senators made clear where they put the blame. The resolution, passed by unanimous agreement, says the Senate believes the crown prince is "responsible for the murder" and calls for the Saudi Arabian government to "ensure appropriate accountability." Senators voted 56-41 to recommend that the US stop supporting the war in Yemen, a direct affront to the administration's war powers abilities. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who co-sponsored the Yemen resolution with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, called passage a "historic moment." Lee said Khashoggi's death focused attention "on the fact that we have been led into this civil war in Yemen half a world away" and "we've done so following the lead" of Saudi Arabia. "What the Khashoggi event did was to demonstrate, hey, maybe this isn't a regime that we should just be following that eagerly into battle," Lee said. As Senate approval loomed, the administration dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to the House to make the case against the resolutions and warn of damage they could do to the U.S.-Saudi relationship. A congressional aide and an administration official said their appearance was aimed at stopping any House action on the resolutions. Pompeo and Mattis had made a similar entreaty to the Senate late last month. But it was roundly panned by senators angered by the secretaries' refusal to accept a CIA determination that assessed the crown prince had ordered Khashoggi's murder. CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed House leaders Wednesday on the Khashoggi slaying. The journalist, who had lived in the U.S. and wrote for The Washington Post, had been critical of the Saudi regime. He was killed in what U.S. officials have described as an elaborate plot as he visited the consulate for marriage paperwork. Saudi prosecutors have said a 15-man team sent to Istanbul killed Khashoggi and then dismembered his body, which has not been found. Those findings came after Saudi authorities spent weeks denying Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate. Trump has been reluctant to condemn the crown prince. He said the United States "intends to remain a steadfast partner" of the country, touted Saudi arms deals worth billions of dollars to the U.S. and thanked the Saudis for plunging oil prices. But Graham and Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, have rejected Trump's economic arguments. They are setting the stage for legislation next year that goes further in halting arms sales and taking other measures. Menendez says economic concerns do not overpower human rights and the U.S. must send a "global message that killing with impunity" will not be tolerated. Frustration with the crown prince and the White House prompted several Republicans to support the Yemen resolution. Seven Republicans and all Democrats voted for it. Some already had concerns about the war, which human rights groups say is wreaking havoc on the country and subjecting civilians, many of them children, to deadly disease and indiscriminate bombing. The resolution condemning Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's slaying was from Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Both Republicans opposed the Yemen resolution and voted against it. McConnell said senators have grave concerns about Khashoggi's killing, but "we also want to preserve a 70-year partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and we want to ensure it continues to serve American interests and stabilizes a dangerous and critical region." But McConnell encouraged passage of the Khashoggi resolution and said it provided "a clear and unambiguous message about how we feel about what happened to this journalist." The Senate debate came as the United Nations secretary general on Thursday announced that Yemen's warring sides have agreed to a province-wide cease-fire and withdrawal of troops in Hodeida, a contested Red Sea port city. The agreement came during peace talks in Sweden. The brutal four-year-old civil war pits the internationally recognized Yemeni government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, against the Iran-backed rebels known as Houthis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior leader of the militant outfit Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA) was shot dead by unidentified persons in Manipur's Kangpokpi district, the police said Friday. Hemkhothang Mishao (48) the chief finance secretary of KRA was shot dead on Thursday evening by some unidentified armed persons near a hotel at Saikul Bazaar in Kangpokpi district, they said. No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the killing of the KRA leader, the police said. No arrests have been made in connection with the incident, the police said, adding that a case has been registered at Saikul police station. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) District Sessions Judge S K Pachori has dismissed the appeal against the lower court judgement and upheld the conviction of a taxi driver to 10 years in prison in connection with the molestation of an American tourist. According to district government council Rajiv Sharma Thursday, the additional chief judicial magistrate had sentenced the accused, Samey Singh, to 10 years in prison. The incident took place on October 11, 2014, when the woman had come to Rishikesh in Uttarakhand from Delhi in a taxi and the driver of the vehicle tried to molest her on the Delhi-Dehradun National Highway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Trend Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in connection with the accident at the railway in Ankara city. I was deeply saddened by the news of casualties and injuries caused by a train crash in Ankara, President Aliyev said. On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and the loved ones of those who died and the brotherly people of Turkey, and wish those injured swiftest possible recovery, the president added. May Allah rest the dead in peace. Sweden's parliament on Friday voted against outgoing Prime Minister Stefan Lofven as head of a new government, more than three months after an election that has spawned political stalemate. As was widely expected, lawmakers voted 200 to 116 against the Social Democrat Lofven, who had been nominated by speaker of parliament Andreas Norlen. Both Lofven and the leader of the conservative Moderates party, Ulf Kristersson, have been unable to form a government that has the support of a parliamentary majority. Lofven's leftwing bloc holds 144 parliamentary seats, just one more than the centre-right Alliance. But that is not enough for a ruling coalition in the 349-seat Riksdag, where the threshold is 175. Neither side is willing to accept the support of the far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. With 62 seats, they are now the third-largest party in the Riksdag. The centre-right and far-right together brought down Lofven's previous administration in a no-confidence vote at the end of September, though he has stayed on as caretaker prime minister. Lofven had held cross-bloc talks in a bid to form a minority government with the informal support of the Centre and Liberal parties, which have until now been part of the four-party centre-right Alliance. But the Centre party pulled out of the talks earlier this week over a disagreement on labour market legislation, quashing Lofven's hopes. In Sweden, the speaker has four attempts to task a candidate to form a government that parliament will accept. If all four attempts fail then new elections must be held. Friday's vote against Lofven was the second attempt, after a first try by Kristersson in November failed. Speaker Norlen said Sweden was moving closer to new elections. "I regret it and I'm going to do everything I can to prevent it, but if the parties choose extra elections instead of acting in a way that would give Sweden a new government then I'm not going to stand in their way," he said. Norlen said he was therefore taking preliminary steps to prepare for the possibility of new elections. He said he would decide early next week what the next step in the process would be. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The on Friday asked the city government why former youth Sushil Kumar Sharma, serving life term in the 1995 murder case of his wife Naina Sahni, has not been released after having undergone 29 years of incarceration. Terming the issue as "serious", the court issued notice to the and sought its stand on Sharma's habeas corpus plea seeking release from custody in the case on the grounds that he has been jailed for 29 years, including the period of remission, and his continued incarceration was illegal. A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked the Secretary, Home Department and Secretary of Law and Justice department to be present before it on the next date of hearing, December 18, with the original records of Sharma's application to the Sentence Review Board (SRB) for premature release and the reasons for rejecting it. The bench said that "life and liberty of any individual is of paramount consideration" and asked the how someone can be kept in custody "indefinitely". Sharma, in prison since 1995, has contended that he has already undergone the maximum prescribed sentence as mandated under the SRB guidelines. According to his plea, the guidelines on premature release state that life convicts sentenced for a single offence are to be released after completion of 20 years of incarceration and those who had committed heinous crimes are to be granted the relief after 25 years. The petition, filed through advocate Amit Sahni, has said even though Sharma's case falls in the first category, he has also undergone 29 years of incarceration, with remission, and 23 years and six months, without remission. Now 56, Sharma had shot dead his wife in 1995 objecting to her alleged relationship with a male friend. He had then chopped her body into pieces and attempted to burn it in a restaurant oven. Known as the murder case, it is one of the landmark cases in India in which DNA evidence and a second autopsy were used to establish the guilt of the accused. In his plea, Sharma has contended that his conduct in prison and while out on parole has been "exemplary" and he has never misused his liberty. Apart from that, he has also argued that even the Supreme Court, while commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment, had held that he was not a confirmed criminal and there was no evidence to indicate that he was likely to revert to such crimes in future. Another ground on which he has sought release from custody is that both his parents are over 80 years old and suffering from various ailments and there is no one to look after them. From fiery oranges and yellows, myriad shades of blue, to black, green, rich hues of red and even copper, silver and gold, Dhaka-based Vinita Karim's canvases are a glorious riot of colour. "I love colours. I just can't work in black and white. There is no fun in that," Karim said. Her latest solo show, a new collection of abstract cityscapes titled "Magical Musings", are on display at the Gallerie Ganesha here. The 22 paintings, created in the last five years, replicate fantastical cities in the artist's mind on to the canvas. The exhibition also showcases eight sculptures, which she not sculpted but painted. The imaginary spaces featuring clusters of houses against robust skies, and sometimes beautifully coloured streams or rivers, are products of Karim's entire life, which she has, quite literally, lived out of a suitcase. Karim, 56, was born in Burma, went to school in Germany, Pakistan and Sudan owing to her father's job as an Indian diplomat. She also lived in Kuwait, Stockholm, Cairo and Manila before getting married to a Bangladeshi and settling down in Dhaka. As she travelled from one city to another, each place left a mark. She imbibed their spirits that got intertwined in her head, giving birth to cities of her own. "It was not just travelling for me. I was living in these cities. And when you live in a city, you become very intimate with its culture and people. "The best thing is that all these different cultures also get embedded in your own psyche," Karim told PTI. The artist is a fan of all things layered, and her paintings are no exception. Sometimes they are layered with different painting techniques, at other times she uses different media -- acrylic, oil, embroidery etc - to tier her works. "My works are layered -- literally the layers are the geographies, histories and the cultures of different places, and physically they are the paints, lines, embroidery," said the artist, who is exhibiting her works in Delhi after 10 years. Her rendition of the holy city of Varanasi, for instance, is overwhelmingly rich, particularly the waters. She uses impasto, a technique where one paints with a palette knife, to render almost a three dimensional texture to the Ganges river in the painting. The painting made using acrylic, gold and copper on linen, is colourfully chaotic in its juxtaposition of the multi-layered blues of the river, with multi-coloured boats. "Like I have a lot of different roles -- of an artist, a mother, a wife, similarly in my painting I want to use different media. I don't want a single flat painting. Instead, it needs to have depth in it." "I need my works to be layered because they represent many histories combined with a lot of my imagination," Karim said. Oil is her favourite medium even if it takes longer to dry out. "It is rich, soft and offers a distinctive depth to the works," Karim said. She recreates similar imaginary cities with her work on sculptures too, at the risk of making a viewer feel her work was repetitive, but not in a boring way, largely because of the judicious use of colours. Magical Musings will continue at Gallerie Ganesha here till January 5. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The Tamil Nadu government Friday expressed concern over the dam safety bill introduced in Parliament by the Centre and demanded its withdrawal, saying it's earlier concerns had not been addressed by the Centre. Chief Minister K Palaniswami wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recalling his previous communication in June, calling for consultation and consensus on the proposed legislation. The Tamil Nadu Assembly had also adopted a resolution demanding that the Dam Safety Bill, 2018, be kept in abeyance till a consensus was arrived at with all states, he said. Tamil Nadu's "serious concerns" have not at all been addressed by the union Government, he said, adding that the Bill has now been introduced in the Lok Sabha "without considering the views/comments of the state governments." The state's 'main concern' was a proviso under the Bill, which specifies that where a particular dam in one state is owned by another, then the National Dam Safety Authority would act as the State Dam Safety Organisation for that particular dam, the Chief Minister said. This implied that the dam owning state would have no rights over the safety and maintenance of the dam located in another state, he told Modi. "Tamil Nadu's Mullaiperiyar,Parambikulam,Thunakkadavu and Peruvaripallam dams are owned, operated and maintained by the Government of Tamil Nadu by virtue of Inter-state Agreements, but are located in a neighbouring state (Kerala)," he said. Palaniswami also recalled the May 2014 Supreme Court verdict, which "upheld the rights of Tamil Nadu" on the Mullaperiyar dam on increasing its height to 142 feet and ultimately to 152 feet upon completion of strengthening work. "Therefore, to deny Tamil Nadu the right to be the Dam Safety Authority with regard to these four dams and vesting the powers to the National Dam Safety Authority would be tantamount to encroaching on the rights of Tamil Nadu,which is unconstitutional. It is also a violation of the federal principles enshrined in our Constitution," Palaniswami said and sought suitable amendments. He also recalled the state's earlier suggestion to include a sub-clause in the bill to ensure access to the dams by technical personnel for those dams which are located in forest areas and wild life sanctuaries. But this was not included in the bill tabled in the Lok Sabha on December 12, the Chief Minister said. "Under the circumstances, I once again request you to kindly instruct the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation to withdraw the Dam Safety Bill, 2018 introduced in the Lok Sabha," he urged Modi. Palaniswami also requested the Prime Minister to not proceed further with the process of legislation on Dam safety "till such time Tamil Nadu's genuine concerns are addressed and a consensus evolved among all the states. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radha Krishnan Friday appeared before the Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry, which is probing the circumstances leading to the death of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa. The panel, constituted by the state government in September 2017 under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, had earlier summoned him to appear before it. "I had answered the queries raised by the commission, including from the admission (of J Jayalalithaa). It will not be appropriate for me to comment now," Radhakrishnan told reporters. He said the inquiry would continue and he was asked to appear before the commission again on December 18. "This (inquiry) will continue. I have assured to appear before it on Tuesday (December 18)," he said. The panel's terms of reference was to inquire into the circumstances leading to Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation on September 22, 2016 and treatment provided till her death on December 5, 2016. On Thursday, the panel had summoned Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam to appear before it on December 20. Panneerselvam, who had held the portfolios of late Jayalalithaa during her hospitalisation in 2016, would appear after Health Minister C Vijayabaskar, who was also directed to be present before the commission on December 18. Senior AIADMK leader C Ponnaiyan and police officer Sudhakar, part of Jayalalithaa's security team, have also been summoned to appear on December 18 and 20, respectively. After unification of the factions led by Chief Minister K Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam in August 2017, the government notified constituting the panel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP-IPFT Tripura government has initiated the process of relocating unauthorized religious structures in complaince with a Supreme Court directive, officials said Friday. The apex court directive was given in 2009 and in 2013 the erstwhile Left Front government had passed a resolution on the issue and submitted an affidavit to it stating that the order would be implemented. However, not much was done till this year when the BJP led coalition government in Tripura decided to act on it. Additional secretary in the revenue department, L T Darlong said "The issue is still sub-judice in Tripura High Court. The state government will file an affidavit to the High Court on December 19 on the unauthorized religious structures in the state." The Supreme Court passed a directive as early as 2009 to remove or demolish all unauthorized religious structures on government land which can cause inconvenience in public places. Now Tripura Chief Justice Sanjay Karol is looking after the implementation of the issue and a hearing on the subject will be held soon, the West Tripura additional district magistrate Tapan Kumar Das said. All district magistrates will have to file affidavits of progress and the West Tripura district administration has started discussing relocation of the structures built on government lands with the authorities of the religious bodies, he said. In all at least 12 small temples, like Shani and Kali temples have been relocated by the district authorities themselves and discussions are being held with those in charge of mosques, churches and big temples, Das told newsmen. Sonamura sub-divisional magistrate in West Tripura district, Saju Waheed said the unauthorized religious structures are being divided into two categories structures which were built over 30 years ago and those erected less than 30 years. We have identified 184 such structures in Sonamura sub-division of Sipahijala district alone. Among them, 61 structures are less than 30 years old. We have already removed 15-16 structures and have issued notice for the rest," he said. Notices were issued to 48 religious bodies, which include 20 temples, 26 mosques and two churches asking for relocating the structures, he said adding the local authorities are in discussion with the people to convince them in relocating the structures which are over 30 years old. Tripura has eight districts and the authorities of some of them could not be contacted. BJP spokesperson Ashok Sinha welcoming the move to evict unauthorized religious structures and said the party's government in the state has shown what can be the secular governance in Tripura. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee is being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York over allegations that it misspent funds or accepted donations in exchange for access to his administration, according to a media report. The inauguration committee had raised a record USD 107 million for expenses for Trump's inauguration and events associated with it. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that the US Attorney's office in Manhattan is also investigating whether the committee accepted donations from individuals looking to gain influence in or access to the new administration. "The criminal probe by the Manhattan US attorney's office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee's top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said, the financial daily reported. The daily said that "giving money in exchange of political favours could run afoul of federal corruption laws." The White House distanced the president from his inauguration committee, saying it had nothing to do with Trump or his wife Melania. That doesn't have anything to do with the president or the first lady," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. The biggest thing the president did, his engagement in the inauguration, was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office. The president was focused on the transition at that time and not on any of the planning for the inauguration, Sanders said. According to the daily, federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating the matter from the documents it recovered during raid at the office and residences of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen. As of now, the inaugural committee has not been asked for records, the daily said. During a raid of Cohen's properties in April, a recorded conversation between him and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to first lady Melania, was seized, according to the newspaper. Wolkoff expressed concern in the conversation about how the inaugural committee was spending money, a person familiar with the Cohen investigation told the Journal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) TVS Motor Company Friday said announced the launch of three new products -- super-premium motorcycle TVS Apache RR 310, 125cc scooter TVS NTORQ 125 and motorcycle TVS Apache RTR 160 4V -- in the Peru market. TVS Motor Company in partnership with its local distributors Indian Motos, also announced the opening of a showroom in Lima. Indian Motos distributes TVS Motor Company products to over 170 sales points across Peru, the company said in a statement. TVS Motor Company Senior Vice President, International Business R Dilip said the company is optimistic about strengthening its presence in the Peru market with the help of its distributors Indian Motos. "In our six-year association, they have helped establish our brand in the country especially in terms of three-wheelers. Today, we are delighted to launch three new products and open a state-of-the-art showroom in Peru," he added. TVS Apache RR 310 is the first super-premium motorcycle brand from the company. TVS NTORQ 125 has been developed based on the TVS Racing pedigree. TVS Apache RTR 160 4V is a 160cc motorcycle. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ashok Gehlot who emerged Friday as his party's choice for the chief minister's post in Rajasthan faced serious opposition in the race to the CM's post in 1998 and 2008 as well, with Jat leaders in the Congress opposing him. On both occasions, he overcame the opposition to be named by the Congress as the chief minister. This time, however, the challenge from Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot has been tougher. After the jockeying for power since the results of the December 7 assembly polls came in on Tuesday, the Congress picked him over Pilot on Friday afternoon to head the state government. In December 2008, Jat leaders like the then Union minister Sis Ram Ola, former Rajasthan Speaker Parasram Maderna and newly elected MLA Sonaram had openly raised the demand for a Jat chief minister. Gehlot is from the Mali community. The then Pradesh Congress Committee president C P Joshi, who later became Union minister after winning the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, also had chief ministerial aspirations. But he lost the 2008 assembly election with a margin of just one vote, ruling himself out of the race. Amid protests by the Jat community, supporters of Gehlot and Ola clashed outside the guesthouse where AICC observers including Digvijay Singh were staying. After intense consultations with the Congress MLAs the observers forwarded their report to the then party president Sonia Gandhi, who cleared Gehlot for the post. Congress party won 96 seats in 2008 and Gehlot ran the government with the support of six Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs and a few independents. Parasram Maderna's son Mahipal Maderna was made the water resources minister in the Gehlot cabinet. In 1998, when the Congress won 150 seats, Gehlot was picked as the chief minister for the first time. There were demands from the Jat community then as well that Rajasthan should get a chief minister from its ranks, with lobbying on Parasram Maderna. However, Gehlot ended up getting the job. This time, the Congress won 99 seats out of the 199 where polling was held on December 7. After meetings in Jaipur between the MLAs and the AICC office bearers in Jaipur on Wednesday, the deliberations shifted to Delhi, with Congress president Rahul Gandhi meeting both contenders and other senior leaders. Sachin Pilot's supporters from his Gurjar community held a series of protests, blocking roads in Rajasthan, on Thursday when it appeared that the announcement naming Gehlot was imminent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A sub-committee of Punjab Vidhan Sabha Friday recommended a two-fold jump in the salaries and allowances of MLAs, drawing sharp criticism from the opposition parties. The sub-committee proposed that the legislators' total monthly salary including allowances be hiked from the current Rs 95,500 to over Rs 2 lakh, Lok Insaaf Party MLA Balwinder Singh Bains, a member of the committee, said. The salary of a legislator at present is Rs 25,000 and has been proposed to be hiked to Rs 55,000, the MLA from Ludhiana said, adding that he boycotted the meeting as he was upset by the proposed hike. In addition to the enhanced salary, it was proposed that the constituency allowance be hiked from the current Rs 25,000 to Rs 60,000, while the compensatory allowance be increased to Rs 15,000, up from Rs 5,000 at present, Bains said. Similarly, the sub-committee proposed a hike in sumptuary, water and electricity and daily allowances of the MLAs, he said, adding that a hike in the fuel budget for the security vehicles of the lawmakers was proposed as well. Criticising the recommendations, Bains said the financial condition of the state was dismal and it was not in a position to bear the extra burden of the proposed hikes. "These recommendations are being made at a time when the government does not have the money to pay the salaries to government employees, buying medicines for hospitals and incur expenditure on development," Bains said. "Therefore, I protested this move and boycotted the meeting," he added. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal too lashed out at the Congress led government. "I am against this move," said Sukhbir, adding that the government should rather focus on giving complete debt waiver to farmers and salaries to government employees. However, Congress MLA and convener of the sub-committee Raj Kumar Verka said the proposed hike was just a suggestion. The sub-committee reviews the salary and allowances being given to MLAs from time to time, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) UN special envoy Martin Griffiths on Friday urged the creation of a "robust and competent monitoring regime" in war-ravaged Yemen, one day after fighting parties agreed to a ceasefire at a vital port. "A robust and competent monitoring regime is not just essential. It is also urgently needed," Griffiths told the Security Council, adding that "allowing the UN the lead role in the ports is the vital first step". If implemented, the deal on Hodeida port, a key gateway for aid and food imports, could bring relief to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA) on Friday accused the university administration of being "insensitive" and denying leaves to teachers even for one's own wedding. Members of JNUTA met Chintamani Mahapatra, Rector-I of the university, to express concerns about the "coercive" actions being taken by the administration. "The administration has become so insensitive that they are blocking renewal of CGHS cards and even denying leaves to go for one's own wedding," the association alleged. "In the recent spate of coercive measures taken by the present administration against faculty members, it has transgressed the basic parameters of human decency. Extremely grave instances of blocking paperwork and the - now all too common - denial of leaves, including casual leaves, impacting the day-to-day existence of affected faculty members, have come to light," they said. Expressing anger at the "punitive, vindictive, and dehumanising treatment" meted out to colleagues, the JUNTA said, "The Rector expressed lack of knowledge and complete mystification when these concerns were placed before him." "He asked us to provide names of the colleagues concerned so he could 'look into it'," it said. The association and the university administration have been at loggerheads over refusal by some teachers to comply with faculty attendance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 394-1, the US House of Representatives on Thursday, in a non-binding resolution, declared the crime against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar as a genocide. Such a move by the US House of Representatives comes months after the State Department released a report on alleged widespread acts of violence against the Rohingya in the northern Rakhine state of Myanmar, which the lawmakers rued had failed to label these atrocities as genocide. The atrocities have driven more than 7,00,000 Rohingya from their homes to Bangladesh, bringing the total Rohingya refugee population there to nearly 10 lakh. "The United States has a moral obligation to call these crimes genocide. Failing to do so gives the perpetrators cover and hinders efforts to bring those accountable to justice. With this resolution, the House fulfils its part of that duty," Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. "The measure also accomplishes a number of other important goals: It provides a thorough accounting of the crisis, calls out the complicit Burmese government, urges the Secretary of State to join us in formally declaring genocide and promotes multilateral agreement on that declaration," Royce said. Following the resolution, Royce urged the US government to put more pressure on the Burmese government. "We want the pressure to be felt and this message to be heard in Burma that the United States is going on record (on) the finding of genocide so that these atrocities stop," he said. "It's not only sanctions, but also increasing the pressure internally. One of the things we have to do is use social media, radio, television to tell the people inside the country what is actually happening. Because their government is giving them disinformation," Royce said. The Burma Task Force welcomed the House resolution. "The House of Representatives has now officially adopted the position that the ongoing policies of mass violence and displacement against the Rohingya by the Myanmar government constitute genocide, bringing the US closer to the emerging international consensus on the issue," it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US military says an American service member has died in a non-combat-related incident in Afghanistan, without offering further information. The military's statement says the incident happened on Thursday and is being investigated. The service member's identity was being withheld until his family could be notified. About 14,000 US military personnel are serving in Afghanistan, training and assisting Afghanistan's beleaguered national forces, which come under near daily attacks by the Taliban who hold sway over nearly half the country. The US-led NATO mission handed off Afghanistan's security to Afghan troops in December 2014, but they have struggled to quash the insurgency, which has grown to include an Islamic State affiliate. Washington has spent nearly USD 1 trillion in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster in 2001. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal BJP will "wait and watch" till Saturday for permission from the state government for the party's rath yatra campiagn in the state, top leaders of the saffron party said Friday. A division bench of the Calcutta High Court had directed the state chief secretary, home secretary and the director general of police to hold a meeting with three representatives of the BJP by December 12 and take a decision on the rally by December 14. "We had met government officials yesterday. Now we will wait and watch till tomorrow as the state government officials have told us they will inform us on Saturday. Let's see what happens, then we will decide our next course of action," Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said. "Our schedule is already in place and as soon as the government grants us permission we will announce the new dates," he said. The BJP Thursday said it will stick to its 'rath yatra' programme in West Bengal but will launch it only after hearing from the state government on the new dates. The party held a meeting with Chief Secretary Malay Dey, Home Secretary Atri Bhattacharya and state Director General of Police Virendra during the day as directed by the Calcutta High Court. After the meeting at the Lalbazar police headquarters here, Ghosh had said, "We informed the state government that we want to organise our programme the way it was scheduled. Only the dates will be changed." The 'rath yatra', touted as a "save democracy" programme and a "game changer" by the BJP, was scheduled to start on December 7 from Cooch Behar but could not as the state government denied permission on grounds that it might cause communal tension. The 'Rath yatra' in Cooch Behar was slated to be the first of three by the BJP in the state before the Lok Sabha polls next year. The other two were scheduled to be held on December 9 from Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas district and on December 14 from Tarapith temple in Birbhum district. The 'rath yatras' were supposed to cover all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. A Calcutta High Court division bench of Justices Biswanath Somadder and A Mukherjee disposed off an appeal by the BJP against a single bench order on December 6 that refused permission for the 'rath yatra' and directed the state to hold the meeting by Wednesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday urged the nation's highest court to temporarily block the military recruitment of people, pending the outcome of an ongoing legal battle. The administration said there is "too great a risk to military effectiveness and lethality" to allow people to serve openly -- a policy enacted under Trump's predecessor Under the policy, the military was to begin accepting recruits on July 1, 2017 -- but the pushed the deadline to January 1, 2018, before deciding to reverse the policy completely. But the ban on transgender people in the military was repeatedly challenged in court, leading to an updated policy that also contained major restrictions on transgender service, and which was also suspended because of its similarity to the original measure. The government appealed and asked the to hear the case, and, pending its final decision, on Thursday requested that it suspend the rulings of the lower courts. Otherwise, "the nationwide injunction would... remain in place for at least another year and likely well into 2020 -- a period too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to the nation's interests," the argued. Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday said he would discuss with the Centre on changing rules to facilitate legislators to hoist the national flag on national festivals at taluk level functions. The Chief Minister was responding to a question raised by Naganagouda (JDS) during the zero hour in the legislative assembly, which is holding its winter session here. Naganagouda questioned as to why MLAs don't get the privilege to hoist the national flag on national festivals like Independence Day and Republic day. "Hoisting national flag is a great honour... Prime Minister hoists the flag at Red Fort, Chief Minister hoists the flag at Manekshaw Parade Ground in Bengaluru, at district level MLAs do it, but at taluk level Tahsildars do it," Naganagouda said. "Why should we MLAs being public representatives be deprived of this privilege?" he asked. To this, Kumaraswamy said, this requires change in rules by the central government. "State government cannot do it, I will discuss with the Centre whether it can be relaxed. I will discuss with the Union Home Minister and see if we can get permission for MLAs to do it (hoist the flag)," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan slammed Union minister Nitin Gadkari Friday for 'defending' businessman Vijay Mallya, and asked whether the fugitive industrialist will now be inducted into the BJP. Gadkari remarked Thursday that it was unfair to brand "one-time loan defaulter Vijay Mallyaji" as a "chor" (thief) as he had repaid his debts regularly for nearly forty years. Chavan latched onto the senior BJP's leader's latest remark, as well his past statement. Last year Gadkari had said that in the BJP even criminals get reformed, the way Valya the robber turned into Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana. "This is an attempt to turn Mallya into Valmiki. Mallya was elected to the Rajya Sabha twice on BJP support," said Chavan. "Is Mallya now going to be inducted into the BJP?" the former chief minister asked. Chavan said Mallya had defaulted on loans of more than Rs 9,000 crore, and alleged that the BJP leaders were fully aware that he was planning to leave the country. "Changes were made to the look-out notice for him and the meeting Mallya had with (finance minister) Arun Jaitley before he left for London proves the government allowed him to get away. Now, after the uproar, the process of extradition has begun," Chavan said. Jaitley had denied that he had any conversation with Mallya regarding the cases against the former liquor baron. A London court earlier this week allowed Mallya's extradition to India. Chavan also hit out at Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis over the Supreme Court's notice to him with regard to alleged non-declaration of two criminal cases in the election affidavit. This has proved that Fadnavis' promise of transparency was hollow and he has no right to continue in his post, the Congress leader said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa said Friday that a report probing deadly election violence when soldiers opened fire on protesters would be released next week. The shootings triggered international outrage and undermined Mnangagwa's attempts to present the July election as a fresh start for Zimbabwe after the brutality of his predecessor Robert Mugabe. Addressing the ruling ZANU-PF party's annual conference, Mnangagwa deplored the protests, which he has blamed on the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. "I have since received the report of the commission of inquiry and will be making it public next week," Mnangagwa said, adding that he and his two deputies were analysing the report written by a panel that he instituted. Six people were killed and several others were wounded when soldiers opened fire on August 1 at protesters demonstrating in Harare against delays in announcing the vote results. Officials previously said the report might not be published. Mnangagwa appointed former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe to lead a seven-member team to investigate the killings. Witnesses including opposition politicians and relatives of the deceased gave testimonies to the inquiry, which has been accused of being a whitewash. Army commanders told the commission that soldiers did not fire at protesters, drawing widespread criticism. At the first ZANU-PF conference since the July 30 elections, Mnangagwa also ruled out a unity government with MDC leader Nelson Chamisa, who says he won the election. "We were given a mandate to govern for the next five years. Full stop... no government of national unity," Mnangagwa said in Esigodini, outside the second city of Bulawayo. Mnangagwa succeeded long-time ruler Robert Mugabe, who was ousted in November 2017 following a brief military takeover. Last month he said the former president, 94, who ruled for 37 years, was now unable to walk and had been receiving treatment in Singapore. Mugabe was due to return home two weeks ago, but his whereabouts is not known. Mnangagwa has vowed to revive Zimbabwe's ruined economy and attract foreign investors, but shortages of fuel, bread and daily essentials in recent months have exposed the country's dire financial situation. Under the theme "Zimbabwe is open for business", about 6,000 delegates wearing party regalia emblazoned with Mnangagwa's portrait chanted slogans supporting the president. Mnangagwa, 76, is an army-backed veteran party loyalist who previously served as Mugabe's vice president. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China will temporarily suspend additional 25 percent tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles and auto parts starting Jan. 1, 2019, the finance ministry said on Friday, following a truce in a trade war between the world's two largest economies.The Ministry of Finance, in a statement on its website, also said it hopes China and the United States can speed up negotiations to remove all additional tariffs on each other's goods as it reduces tariffs from 40 percent to the 15 percent level that was levied before the current trade fight began. The suspension will last for ... By Laurence FrostPARIS (Reuters) - The French government is seeking candidates to replace Renault's embattled boss Carlos Ghosn, as some board members began to voice doubts about keeping him in office after his indictment in Japan for suspected misconduct, several sources told Reuters.In a statement on Friday, interim chairman Philippe Lagayette said Renault's board did not consider replacing Ghosn at a meeting the previous day and denied reports of boardroom divisions.At Thursday's meeting, Renault directors were briefed on an investigation by alliance partner Nissan that led to Ghosn's ... How big should executive pay packets be? How widespread is lax corporate governance in Japan? And what's the future of the alliance between Nissan and France's Renault? These are the broader issues brought into focus by the indictment of ousted Nissan Motor Co Ltd chairman Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn was arrested on November 19 charged with understating his compensation by about half of the 10 billion yen ($88 million) he was awarded over five years from 2010. He was re-arrested on Dec. 10 on similar suspicions for another three years. Nissan was indicted for filing false ... By Arjun Panchadar and Angela Moon(Reuters) - An Irish regulator said on Friday it was investigating Facebook Inc following the company's disclosure that a bug may have exposed private photos of up to 6.8 million users, the latest in a series of Facebook privacy glitches.The Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), the lead regulator of Facebook in the European Union, said it was investigating to determine whether the company had complied with strict new EU privacy rules in its response to a number of breaches, including the one that exposed photos.Facebook said in a statement that it was ... By Tetsushi KajimotoTOKYO (Reuters) - Lawmakers from Japan's ruling coalition said on Friday they will give tax breaks to car buyers to offset a sales tax hike planned for next year, amid the looming threat of steep tariffs on Japanese auto exports to the United States.In its annual tax code revisions, the ruling bloc also approved tax cuts on housing mortgages, out of fear an increase in the sales tax from 8 percent to 10 percent in October 2019 could cause sales of big-ticket items to slump."We decided to take considerable steps to level off the impact on cars and housing - two main pillars ... Jet Airways Ltd's 69-year-old founder Naresh Goyal, who started out as an assistant in a travel agency, wove together charm, persistence and consummate dealmaking to build India's biggest full-service carrier. Now, his penchant for control has emerged as a major obstacle as the indebted airline tries to negotiate a rescue deal, several people who have worked closely with him or known him over the years told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "He was a visionary in his day but those days are behind us," said a senior aircraft financier who has done deals with ... (Reuters) - London Stock Exchange Group Plc said on Friday Chairman Donald Brydon would be replaced by Donald Robert, chairman of the world's biggest credit data firm Experian Plc.Robert, who has been Experian's chairman and a director at the Court of the Bank of England for more than four years, has been appointed as a non-executive director and will take over from Brydon after the company's annual general meeting in May, LSE said.Brydon's exit comes a year after activist hedge fund TCI unsuccessfully tried to oust him over the way he handled the departure of former chief executive Xavier ... By Chris Thomas(Reuters) - Indian shares edged lower in line with broader Asia on Friday as investors booked profits after a three-day rally, with financials and consumer stocks leading the losses, but Bharti Airtel Ltd surged on a regulatory win.Both the broader NSE Nifty and the benchmark BSE Sensex were down 0.17 percent at 10,773.15 and 35,868.15, respectively, as of 0551 GMT.The indexes were set to finish the week slightly lower, following three straight weeks of gains.After the recent rally, the market is taking a breather, said Deven Choksey, founder, KR Choksey Investment ... By Marcelo Rochabrun and Chang-Ran KimSAO PAULO/TOKYO (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co has filed a court claim against Carlos Ghosn's sister that references alleged "unjust enrichment", escalating a battle being waged in Brazilian courts between the car maker and its once-celebrated former chairman.A court docket dated Dec. 11 that was seen by Reuters showed the Japanese automaker filed a claim against Claudine Bichara de Oliveira. The docket showed Nissan as the claimant and Oliveira as the defendant, with the subject title "unjust enrichment". Further details were not immediately available. ... NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Supreme Court rejected petitions on Friday seeking an investigation into a fighter jet deal worth an estimated $8.7 billion with France's Dassault Aviation, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing.Prime Minister Narendra Modi's deal for the purchase of 36 Rafale planes has become a major political controversy because of the escalating price and a decision to pick billionaire Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as a domestic partner.However, the court headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the petitions calling for the establishment of a special investigation ... By Suchitra Mohanty and Krishna N. DasNEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's top court rejected petitions on Friday seeking an investigation of fighter jet deal worth about $8.7 billion with France's Dassault Aviation, handing a political victory to the ruling party months before a general election.The ruling is a setback for the opposition Congress party, which had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of corruption in the deal to buy 36 Rafale planes and a decision to pick Reliance Defence as a domestic partner.Reliance, owned by billionaire Anil Ambani, has no aeronautical expertise and ... Chinese telecom giant Huaweis Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in India, Jay Chen, said the company was ready to start 5G trials the country in the first quarter (Q1) of 2019. He was responding to speculation that the government might ban it from supplying 5G gear. Chen said: We have already received the invitation from the DoT (department of telecommunications) to conduct the trials. We expect to start the trials in Q1 of 2019, which could go on for two-three quarters or longer. The CEO said it was in talks with the government on the specifics of cities in ... Artificial intelligence bots. 3-D printed human organs. Genomic sequencing. These might seem to be natural topics of interest in a country determined to be the worlds leader in science and technology. But in China, where censors are known to take a heavy hand, several artworks that look closely at these breakthroughs have been deemed taboo by local cultural officials. The works, which raise questions about the social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, were abruptly pulled last weekend from the coming Guangzhou Triennial on the orders of ... It has never felt worse to be a technology consumer. So what can you do about it? Thats the question of the year after many of the biggest tech companies were mired in scandal after scandal or exposed as having committed necessary evils to offer the products and services that we have so blissfully enjoyed. Those instant Amazon deliveries? They sure are convenient, but Amazon warehouse workers in Europe protested the company during Black Friday, describing their working conditions as inhuman. You might have considered deleting Facebook after the social network ... In a big relief to the Modi government today, the Supreme Court ruled out an investigation into the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets worth Rs 58,000 crore. The government has come under fire from the opposition Congress and other parties for allegation of corruption over the pricing details of the Rafale deal. Opposition parties had raised the issue of corruption in Rafale deal on a war footing in the recently held state elections of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Telangana. Also read: Like Rafale, demonetisation a crime against India, guilty will be punished: Rahul Gandhi The apex court said there was no reason to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there has been a necessity of fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without these jets. The CJI, who read out the judgement for the three-judge bench, said no reasons were found to interfere in the procurement process for the fighter jets. The top court said it is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing. In a scathing criticism of the campaign carried out to malign the Narendra Modi government, the apex court said, "Mere press interviews cannot form the basis of judicial review specially when there is a categorical denial by the government. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of roving inquiry by the court." "We cannot sit on judgement of the govt of purchasing the number of aircraft; detailed scrutiny of Rafale Deal is not required," the court added. The apex court said scrutiny into the deal has to be made in the light of national security. The chief justice said there were three broad areas of concern-pricing, process and offset partner. "We have studied the material extensively. We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process," the court said. The extent of permissible of judicial review with respect to contracts relating to defence procurements have to be decided on a fact-to-fact basis, the court said. A SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said there has been a necessity of fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without fighter jets. Multiple pleas seeking court-monitored probe into the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France were filed in the Supreme Court. Earlier, the bench had reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas on November 14. Advocate ML Sharma was the first petitioner in the case. Later, another lawyer Vineet Dhanda had moved the apex court with the plea for court-monitored probe into the deal. AAP leader Sanjay Singh had also filed a petition against the fighter jet deal. After the three petitions were filed, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie alongwith activist advocate Prashant Bhushan had moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. Edited by Aseem Thapliyal Shortly after the Supreme Court dismissed pleas seeking probe into the Rafale deal for 36 fighter jets worth Rs 58,000 crore, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah took on Congress president Rahul Gandhi for levelling false allegations of corruption against the Narendra Modi government. In a tweet, Shah said, "Truth always triumphs! Court's judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didn't find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. On the contrary, SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals. It therefore raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India." Also read: Supreme Court dismisses pleas seeking court-monitored probe into Rafale deal Shah said Rahul Gandhi should apologise to people of country and its soldiers for misleading the nation for political gains. "We are ready for a discussion on Rafale deal in Parliament and challenge Congress to come and debate the issue on the floor. All thieves gathered to call 'chowkidar' a thief, but the country never believed it, " Shah said. He asked the Congress chief to tell people why the previous UPA government could not seal a deal on buying Rafale aircraft between 2007-14 and questioned if it was because a "commission" on the transaction could not be finalised. Shah noted that even the Supreme Court spoke about the need for India to buy modern aircraft. "You (Congress government) harmed India's security interests," he said. Shah alleged that scams of over Rs 12 lakh crore had taken place under the Congress-led UPA government. "People of this country have not doubted even for a moment Prime Minister Narendra Modi's integrity," he said. Asked if the issue of alleged corruption in the Rafale deal raised repeatedly by Gandhi in his campaign during the five state polls impacted the BJP's showing, Shah said the matter was not about political benefits and losses but national security and the morale of armed forces. The BJP has suffered a defeat in the elections, losing power in all three states it ruled. The BJP president, however, declined to comment on the reasons behind his party's defeat, saying he would do so later and wanted the focus to be on his comments on the Supreme Court judgement on the Rafale deal. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court ruled out an investigation into the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets worth Rs 58,000 crore. The government had come under fire from the opposition Congress and other parties for allegation of corruption over the pricing details of the Rafale deal. Opposition parties had raised the issue of corruption in Rafale deal on a war footing in the recently held state elections of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Telangana. The apex court said there was no reason to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there has been a necessity of fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without these jets. Edited by Aseem Thapliyal The Nepal government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations, a move that could affect Indian tourists visiting the Himalayan nation where Indian currency is widely used. Indian currency is extensively used by Nepalese people and businesses for their savings and transactions. The government has asked the people to refrain from keeping or carrying Indian bank notes higher than Rs 100 denomination as it has not legalised them, Nepal's Minister for Information and Communications Gokul Prasad Baskota said. "The government has decided not to use, carry and keep the Indian bills of 200, 500 and 2000 denominations. The government will soon issue a formal notice in this matter," he said. The decision will adversely affect Nepalese labourers working in India as well as Indian tourists visiting Nepal. India is Nepal's largest trade partner and supplies the majority of its consumer goods. The Indian government introduced new banknotes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations after the demonetisation of old notes worth Rs 500 and 1,000 in 2016. However, the move hit countries such as Nepal and Bhutan where Indian currency is widely used. Nepal Premier KP Sharma Oli said earlier this year that demonetisation hurt the Nepalese people and added that he would raise the matter with Indian leaders. People have been using the new Indian currency in Nepal for nearly two years now. Shares of Anil Ambani-led Reliance ADAG Group companies were trading higher in late morning deals on Friday after the Supreme Court ruled out an investigation into the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets worth Rs 58,000 crore. Reliance Infrastructure shares and its telecom arm Reliance Communications gained between 4-6 per cent after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government on Rafale deal. Hailing the Supreme Court's verdict on Rafale deal, Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani said, "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France." Boosted by the apex court's verdict, shares of Reliance Communications climbed as much as 6.66 per cent to touch an intra-day high of Rs 16.49 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange, after opening flat at Rs 15.40 against previous closing price of Rs 15.46. On the National Stock Exchange, stocks of the company were trading at Rs 16.05, up 4.22 per cent. In a similar trend, shares of Reliance Infrastructure were up 2.93 per cent to trade at Rs 295.20 on BSE, followed by Reliance Power (Rs 28.65, 2.14%) and Reliance Capital (Rs 218.95, 1.04%), among others. Edited by Chitranjan Kumar The Motherson Sumi stock rose in trade today amid report that the car wiring firm was in early-stage talks to acquire or merge with German peer Leoni. The deal could be worth more than $1.14 billion. The stock rose up to 11.12% to 179.30 level on the BSE compared to its previous close of 161.35 on the BSE. It has been gaining for the last four days and risen 11.05% during the period. It closed 3.16% higher at 166.45 on the BSE. However, it has lost 34.15% since the beginning of this year and lost 32.98% during the last one year. 24 of 33 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or 'outperform', six "hold", one "underperform" and two "sell", according to analysts' recommendations tracked by Reuters. Leoni provides wires, optical fibres, cables, cable systems, and related services. The company's main target market is the automotive and commercial vehicles industry, but it also supplies its products to the healthcare, communication and infrastructure, electrical appliances, as well as conductors and copper solutions industries. Motherson Sumi has been scouting for a sizeable acquisition target in Europe with the help of an investment bank. An acquisition of Leoni would add to Motherson Sumi's 180 facilities across 37 countries and bolster overseas sales. Motherson Sumi, which counts several global automakers including Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG, as clients, had no immediate comment. Leoni declined to comment. In April this year, country's largest automotive component maker Motherson Sumi Systems announced acquisition of Reydel Automotive Group (Reydel), a privately held portfolio company of Cerberus Capital Management that manufactures interior components and modules for global automotive customers, for $201 million. That was the company's 21st acquisition worldwide. Reydel is a diversified component player with presence in 16 countries through 20 factories. Its interiors product portfolio includes instrument panels, door panels, console modules, decorative parts and cockpit modules. It had revenues of $1,048 million and operating profit of $68 million for the year ended Dec 31, 2017.(provisional, and in accordance with US GAAP). Motherson Sumi is a joint venture between Samvardhana Motherson Group and Japan's Sumitomo Wiring Systems. It has snapped up a number of companies in recent years, adding to its range of automotive interior products including rearview mirrors, wiring harnesses and rubber and plastic components. It is a system solutions provider to automotive and other industries, offering services from design and prototyping to production and delivery of solutions across a range of products. The company's segments are automotive, which includes product categories, such as wiring harness, high tension cords, wire, plastic components, rubber components, cockpit assembly, scuff plates, thermo-formed products, mold for wiring harness components and mold parts, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) modules, plastic molded components and brass terminals, and non-automotive, which includes product categories, such as wiring harness, plastic components for white goods, household wires, plates and aerobin. The company caters to a range of customers in the automotive and other industries across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Australia and Africa. Parent company Samvardhana Motherson is one of the world's fastest growing specialised automotive component manufacturers, recording a turnover of $10.5 billion in fiscal 2017/18, according to Motherson Sumi's latest annual report. Parent company Samvardhana Motherson is one of the world's fastest growing specialised automotive component manufacturers, recording a turnover of $10.5 billion in fiscal 2017/18, according to Motherson Sumi's latest annual report. Edited by Aseem Thapliyal The Indian equities ended marginally higher in see-saw trade on Friday, helped by sustained buying across index heavyweights such as Bharti Airtel, YES Bank, ONGC, NTPC and Power Grid Corporation of India. The market sentiment remained fragile in face of rising crude prices, weak rupee and bearish cues from Asian peers. The BSE Sensex rose by 33.29 points, or 0.09 per cent, to close at 35,962.93, while the Nifty settled at 10,805.45, up 13.90 points, or 0.13 per cent. In the volatile trade, Sensex touched an intraday high and low of 36019.02 and 35813.85, while the NSE Nifty touched an intraday high of 10815.75 and an intraday low of 10752.1. In line with benchmark indices, the broader markets also ended tad higher with MidCap and SmallCap indices rising as much as 0.19 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively. On the sectoral front, oil&gas and PSU indices were among top gainers on BSE, rising as much as 1.74 per cent and 1.11 per cent, respectively. Shares of Yes bank rose over 3 per cent a day after falling over 6 per cent, after a media report suggested that Brahm Dutt could be a part-time Non-executive chairman of the lender. Brahm Dutt, who is currently serving as Independent Director of the bank, is likely to be the part-time Non-executive Chairman of the private sector lender, according to a CNBC-TV18 report. Also Read:Yes Bank share climbs 3% on report Brahm Dutt could be part-time Non-executive Chairman Fortis Healthcare shares declined over 6 per cent to close at Rs 141.65 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange after the Supreme Court today ordered a status quo on sale of the hospital chain company to Malaysian group IHH Healthcare Berhad. Also Read:SC puts Fortis-IHH deal on hold on contempt petition by Daiichi Sankyo Among others, shares of Anil Ambani-led Reliance ADAG Group companies ended in positive terrain after the Supreme Court ruled out an investigation into the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets worth Rs 58,000 crore. On the flipside, Housing Development Finance Corporation, Wipro, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Auto, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries were among top losers. Also Read: Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group shares rise after SC verdict on Rafale Deal Overseas, Asian shares tumbled after China reported a set of weak data, fanning fresh worries of a sharp slowdown in the world's second-biggest economy and leaving investors fretting over the wider impact of a yet unresolved Sino-US trade dispute. A Virgin Galactic rocket plane reached space on Thursday and returned safely to the California desert, capping years of testing to become the first U.S. commercial human flight to breach Earth's atmosphere since America's shuttle programme ended in 2011. The successful test flight presages a new era of civilian space travel that could kick off as soon as next year, with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic battling billionaire-backed ventures such as Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, to be the first to offer suborbital flights to fare-paying tourists. Branson, who said he personally put up $1 billion towards the roughly $1.3 billion development costs for Virgin's space businesses, told Reuters he viewed competition with Bezos and others as a race, though passenger safety was the top priority. "Today we get to enjoy the fact that we have put people into space before anybody else," Branson said. Virgin's twin-fuselage carrier aeroplane holding the SpaceShipTwo passenger spacecraft took off at 7:11 a.m. local time (1511 GMT) from the Mojave Air and Space Port, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Los Angeles. British billionaire Branson, wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket with a fur collar, attended the take-off along with hundreds of spectators on a crisp morning in the California desert. After the rocket plane, also called the VSS Unity, reached an apogee of 51.4 miles (83 km) above Earth, a crying Branson hugged his son and high-fived and hugged other spectators. The plane reentered the atmosphere at 2.5 times the speed of sound and landed a few minutes later to cheers and applause, concluding roughly an hour's journey. One of the pilots handed Branson a small Earth stress ball when the two hugged. Thursday's test flight - the fourth mission during which VSS Unity flew under its own power - had pilots Mark Stucky and Frederick Sturckow onboard, four NASA research payloads, and a mannequin named Annie as a stand-in passenger. The next flight test is within the next couple of months, depending on data analysis from Thursday's flight, Virgin Galactic said. Branson has said Virgin's first commercial space trip with him onboard would happen "in months and not years." The carrier aeroplane hauled the SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket plane to an altitude of about 45,000 feet (13.7 km) and released it. Seconds later, SpaceShipTwo fired, catapulting it to more than 51 miles above Earth, high enough for the pilots to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet. The ship's rocket igniting and vertical ascent through a cloudless sky could be seen from the ground. Virgin's latest flight test comes four years after the original SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight that killed the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot, dealing a major setback to Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of the London-based Virgin Group. "It's been 14 long years to get here," Branson told reporters after the landmark flight. "We've had tears, real tears, and we've had moments of joy. So the tears today were tears of joy." Nearly 700 people have paid or put down deposits to fly aboard Virgin's suborbital missions, including actor Leonardo DiCaprio and pop star Justin Bieber. A 90-minute flight costs $250,000. Virgin Galactic has received about $80 million in deposits from future astronauts, Branson said. Short sightseeing trips to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket are likely to cost around $200,000 to $300,000, at least to start, Reuters reported in July. Tickets will be offered ahead of the first commercial launch, and test flights with Blue Origin employees are expected to begin in 2019. Branson added that he "would be delighted to offer Bezos a flight on Virgin" and for Bezos "to maybe offer me a flight" on New Shepard. Bezos' New Shepard has already flown to the internationally recognised boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space known as the Karman line at 62 miles (100 km) - through the Blue Origin trip did not carry humans. Virgin's Thursday launch did not go as high as the Karman line. Its pilots were aiming to soar 50 miles into the sky, which is the U.S. military and NASA's definition of the edge of space and high enough to earn commercial astronaut wings by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Other firms planning a variety of passenger spacecraft include Boeing Co, Elon Musk's SpaceX and late Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen's Stratolaunch. In September, SpaceX said Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo, would be the company's first passenger on a voyage around the moon on its future Big Falcon Rocket spaceship, tentatively scheduled for 2023. Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric carmaker Tesla Inc, said the Big Falcon Rocket could conduct its first orbital flights in two to three years as part of his grand plan to shuttle passengers to the moon and eventually fly humans and cargo to Mars. Looking to the future after the successful flight, Branson talked about the possibility of using his space plane to link international cities, offering orbital space flights, or potentially even building a Virgin hotel in space. "One thing leads onto another. I forever dream," he told Reuters. "Actually, I said to my son today, we were sitting in the cockpit (before the flight), and I said sometimes I think life is just one incredible dream." By Daisy K, TwoCircles.net In what seems like another step in the direction of an already regressive and discriminatory food policies in campuses of Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Madras has introduced separate entry and exit points, separate wash basins and separate utensils for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students on the campus . Support TwoCircles The mess in question is R R North Indian Mess which introduced this segregation three days ago. As this is the vacation period, only three messes are currently operational at the campus. There was no official communication sent out to the students regarding the segregation. To the surprise of students, posters were put up inside the mess, indicating entry and exit points and separate wash basins for non-vegetarian students etc. The segregation has also introduced separate seating space, and separate plates for non-vegetarian students. Also, IIT Madras recently introduced a vegetarian only mess to cater to vegetarian students on the campus. One such student Mohan*, who was not aware of segregation said, Three days back I sat towards the vegetarian side, I had an egg in my plate, the management came and forced me to sit on the other side, I was told that other students do not like if non vegetarian students sit here, so they asked me to sit on the other side. Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle, a Facebook page by IIT Madras students, termed this move as full fledged untouchability. The issue of food choices and targeting of non-vegetarian food has been going on for the last few years. In 2014, the MHRD through its under secretary forwarded a letter to 14 IITs asking them not to provide tasmic food and the action taken in this regard was also sort from the Directors of IITs. Earlier this year, IIT Bombay asked the canteen in the civil engineering department to stop serving non-vegetarian food including eggs. Again, the same campus in one of the hostels asked student who have non-vegetarian food to use separate plates. Currently, students eating non vegetarian food have been forced to enter from other side of the mess, and take separate plate for food. Students intend to take up this issue and file a complaint against this segregation with the administration *Name changed to protect the student By Teng Jing Xuan / Dec 14, 2018 12:13 PM / Politics & Law Fugitive Chinese official Jiang Lei was repatriated Friday after 11 years on the run in New Zealand, according to the Communist Partys corruption watchdog. Jiang, a former top-ranking official at the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, is suspected of corruption, and had an Interpol red notice issued against him in July 2007. Lei, who was returned to China with the help of New Zealand law enforcement authorities, is the 55th Red Notice Official to be turned in so far, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said. news, latest-news The long-vacant building that helps frame the gateway to Anzac Parade could be redeveloped into a housing and office complex. The National Capital Authority is assessing developer Amalgamated Property Group's application to demolish the derelict office building at Anzac Park East, at the north-eastern corner of Anzac Parade and Parkes Way. The developer also plans to rip up the rear carpark and axe the site's trees, according to application documents. The works would pave the way for a transformation of the Commonwealth heritage-listed site, which has been vacant for more than 20 years. In an application to the authority prepared on behalf of the developer, consultants Canberra Town Planning said the future development would include a "mix of commercial and residential uses, with commercial uses to face Constitution Avenue". The application does not provide further details on the proposed development, but said it would align with the National Capital Plan's vision for a "vibrant mixed-use grand boulevard linking London Circuit to Russell". A National Capital Authority spokeswoman said buildings of about 35 meters in height were permitted on the site, which could be used for housing, hotels, offices and shops. The existing building is 25 metres, or six storeys, tall. Amalgamated Property Group did not return calls from The Canberra Times, but the developer has previously flagged the possibility of transforming Anzac Park East with a mix of housing, offices, shops and restaurants. The office block has sat idle since its last government tenants vacated the site in 1997, making it a target for vandals and an eyesore for passers-by. In 2014, The Canberra Times reported that in the previous five years the federal government had spent $1.6 million maintaining the 12,500 square metre building, which was later found to be contaminated with mould and asbestos. The federal Finance Department last year sold the land for $34.3 million as part of a wider sell-off of ageing government buildings in Canberra's parliamentary triangle. The scheme, which yielded the government a total of $122.5 million, marked the first private ownership of land inside the historic precinct. Amalgamated Property Group, headed by well-known local developer Graham Potts, also snapped up land on Constitution Avenue for $21.7 million during the sale. Anzac Park West was also sold to EG Funds Management Pty Ltd for $51 million as part of the divestment program. The sale and future redevelopment of Anzac Park East and West sparked alarm when it was first confirmed in December 2016, with heritage advocates fearing the vista from Parliament House to the Australian War Memorial could be "spoilt" unless the so-called portal buildings were rebuilt simultaneously, and in symmetry. The twin buildings, designed by National Capital Development Commission architect Gareth Roberts, were built in 1965 and 1966. They are the only Commonwealth Heritage-listed buildings on Anzac Parade, aside from the Australian War Memorial. While Anzac Park East must be redeveloped within four years under the terms of the sale contract, the west building could remain standing for the next 30 years because of a long-term lease with the Defence Department. The Walter Burley Griffin Society's Canberra chapter chair, Brett Odgers, was concerned the new development would not be "sympathetic" to Griffin's vision for the location. "The two existing buildings serve an important purpose, and NCDC designed them that way, so we would be very worried if it detracted from that," Mr Odgers said. "The new buildings that are being built [in Canberra] are not setting any great architectural standards." /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/f62f9c1e-407f-4311-bd5d-47b7cef3a9f6/r0_292_5568_3438_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news Imagine if you had to pick one item that summed up your life. What would you choose? A piece of clothing, a book, a treasured heirloom? Not an easy question for any of us. Now imagine if you had actually done something with your life. That youre one of the cave divers who rescued the boys in Thailand, or Australias greatest Paralympic wheelchair athlete, or a journalist passionate about womens rights and gender equality, or an Australian Football legend and outspoken opponent of racism, or a scientist dedicated to treating river blindness in Africa, or a man responsible for investigating online child exploitation and abuse, or a woman whos an advocate for teenage parents after having her own son at 16. What would you choose then? A new exhibition, Australian of the Year, at the National Museum of Australia showcases eight personal items selected by this years state and territory recipients. Craig Challen, one of the cave divers, has selected The Ashley Book of Knots, his go-to reference book that has complemented his cave diving. Dr Richard Harris, who joined him in Thailand, has selected his first scuba regulator he purchased as a 15 year old. Kurt Fearnleys helmet and gloves he wore in his farewell race at the 2018 Commonwealth Games sit next to Michael Longs sandals he wore on The Long Walk. A pink knitted pussyhat belonging to Virginia Haussegger, worn in protest and solidarity joins a ceramic scorpion and unit patch selected by John Rouse. Bernadette Black promised herself, pregnant and 16, that she would write a book to help other young parents, the original manuscript for that, and the book it would eventually become sit side by side. And for Mark Sullivan, he broke with tradition, and selected something that belonged to someone else: a small version of the statue which stands at the entrance to the World Health Organisation headquarters in Geneva, a young boy leading a blind man. It was very hard process, says Sullivan, the Victorian Australian of the Year. I went back through things that were from my childhood and wondered whether they were relevant, my career, one of the things I thought about was I spent some time in the UK, that first move there, the job that I did there, that was quite an important thing for me. But this ended up being a pretty easy choice for me to make. I just had to lay my hands on the statue because I don't own it. It's a beautiful statue and it's very inspirational. National Museum director Mathew Trinca said the recipients have chosen diverse and deeply personal objects reflecting their lifes journey. We are so proud to feature these fascinating objects chosen by eight exceptional individuals, said Dr Trinca, who was this week reappointed for another five year term as director. We hope many Australians will see this exhibition and reflect on the issues raised by the objects before us and the endeavours of the Australians who selected them. The exhibition will be on display at the National Museum until February 17, 2019, and then tour nationally. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/aa75afb1-d67d-4140-a488-7b98c702d3b5/r28_0_3598_2017_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news The wild weather over the Canberra region has eased but the Bureau of Meteorology's severe thunderstorm warning remained in place by Friday evening Canberra dodged the majority of bad weather forecast to hit it on Friday, despite damaging winds and large hail still being a possibility overnight. By 6:30pm on Friday, only 1.8 millimetres of rain had hit Canberra since 9am; with the capital seeing over 60 millimetres in the 48 hours before. Bureau meteorologist Byron Doyle saying Saturday could see more storms and about 10 millimetres of rain. "There is potential for them to be severe [the storms]," Mr Doyle said. The capital received 51.4 millimetres of rain on Thursday - just over a millimetre shy of the average monthly rainfall for December. The ACT Emergency Services Agency had responded to 262 calls for assistance since Thursday morning, with the majority for fallen trees and the rest consisting of leaking roofs and minor flooding. Crews were still working on about 20 of those requests at about 7pm on Friday. The agency's incident controller, Nathan Henderson-Smith, said the "luck of the Gods" had prevented widespread damage to property's across the territory during the storm on Friday. However, there had been some pockets of major damage, including to a 100-metre section of roof near Kambah Pool. A number of trees had also been uprooted in Yarralumla. Mr Henderson-Smith said crews were expected to be kept busy on Friday night, as the storm rolled through the capital. "We are asking the public to remain vigilant and we ask that parents and families, particularly with the start of school holidays, to keep children away from fallen trees, power lines and storm drains," Mr Henderson-Smith said. "We will see more volumes of water [around the city]." A strong wind warning was in place for the parts of the NSW South Coast around Bateman's Bay, with heavy rainfall expected before conditions eased on Sunday. Weather in the capital was still expected to ease on Sunday with mostly sunny conditions. South of Canberra, the Snowy Mountains were still expecting to see rain and strong winds before conditions improved slightly to mostly cloudy weather. Amid the wild weather, emergency services are reminding Canberrans to; Much of Australia's East Coast had battled wild weather for the last few days. Domestic airlines have cancelled or delayed 30 flights from Sydney Airport as stormy weather continues across the NSW coast. A severe weather warning remains in place for parts of the South Coast and Snowy Mountains on Friday, and flood watches in areas including Bega and Towamba. Another eight to 20mm of rain is forecast to fall in Sydney on Friday, with a top of 27 degrees predicted. Meantime, Queensland's far north is preparing ahead of the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Owen, but that's taking longer than expected, leaving residents with a nervous wait. Owen has been tracking over the Gulf of Carpenteria for the past few days, reintensifying on Thursday into a category 3 with authorities predicting it could reach category 4 overnight into Friday. Owen was expected to head back towards the Queensland coast by Friday but that had not yet happened. "The U-turn has taken a little bit slower and is a little bit further to the coast than we were expecting yesterday," the Bureau of Meteorology's Laura Boekel said. "Systems in this area are notoriously erratic and move quite quickly and the situation can move quite quickly as well." Victorians are also being told to watch for more flooding as the state gets deluged with record rains. With Ben Weir, Laura Chung and AAP /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/4c2f1c45-4d6f-4d96-aaf6-6bb31028aa72/r0_293_5568_3439_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. news, latest-news What a fizzer. After sitting on the Ruddock report on religious freedom for six months the best the government can come up with is to refer all five of the contentious matters to the Australian Law Reform Commission and agree to the other 15 totally innocuous ones. One might well ask, Why did the government bother? We know the answer. Not because there is any real threat to religious freedom in Australia, but because a few aggrieved conservative Coalition MPs, egged on by the News Corp-Sky News echo chamber, detested the prospect of marriage equality and wanted to return to the days of discrimination against LGBTI people. The Ruddock report and the governments reaction to it has opened a can of worms and opened Pandoras Box, and all sorts of nasties have come out. The reports recommendations (No 5 and 7) included permitting religious schools to discriminate against students, staff and contractors on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status, (provided the discrimination is founded on precepts of the religion and has been publicised). The government flicked that one to the Australian Law Reform Commission. So we have not moved very far, except to implicitly accept that this discrimination can continue until the commission deals with it. But some good may come of all this. The worms and contents of Pandoras Box are so bad that they will cause a reaction. Indeed they have already done so. As this column suggested some weeks ago when some of the recommendations were leaked, this report could easily backfire on the conservative promoters of precept that people could discriminate under the banner of religion in a way that would otherwise be unlawful. Australias top legal professional body, the Law Council of Australia, came out very shortly after the release of the report saying that while it welcomed steps to enshrine religious protections, the delicate balance between freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination would be better dealt with in comprehensive national anti-discrimination legislation. I would go further and argue for a fully fledged constitutional Bill of Rights. On the other hand, the government dodged any ire from the conservatives by even referring the tiny bit contentious recommendations 6 and 8 to the Law Reform Commission. Those recommendations say all jurisdictions should abolish any exception to anti-discrimination law for religious schools against students, staff and contractors on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status. Further, jurisdictions should ensure that any exceptions for religious schools do not permit discrimination against an existing employee solely on the basis that the employee has entered into a marriage. To most people that would be obvious, but not to the Morrison government, with Sky News, Abbott, Abetz, and News Corp flaring their nostrils at the possibility that same-sex spouses might have equal rights. The glaring inconsistency of the Ruddock report is laid bare when you compare its recommendations 5 and 7 (which would permit discrimination against staff, students and contractors on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and relationship status), on one hand, and recommendation 6 and 8 (which would prohibit discrimination on the ground of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status). Why prohibit discrimination on one set of grounds but not the other? Because the other is all about sex. The churches and the conservatives are hung-up about sex. The whole Ruddock report and the governments response to it is too silly and childish to be taken seriously, much as I have the utmost respect for some of the panel members. Yes, there are serious human-rights questions in Australia, but they are more to do with abuse by the religious not against them, and more to do with things totally outside the religious sphere. These include things like speech, privacy, unjustified incarceration, race, violence against women, violence by police, and to a lesser extent freedom of association and assembly. Freedom of speech is a major issue, especially the way defamation laws are repressing the venting of significant matters of public interest. Indeed, recommendation 3 recognises the importance of other rights, besides religion. It says, Commonwealth, state and territory governments should consider the use of objects, purposes or other interpretive clauses in anti-discrimination legislation to reflect the equal status in international law of all human rights, including freedom of religion. Logically, however, freedom of religion is the least important and most concocted freedom in the human rights handbook. This is because once you have a strong defence of freedom of association, freedom of assembly, andfreedom of speech, a separate head of freedom of religion is unnecessary. With those freedoms protected, people could belong to whatever church they liked, congregate wherever they wanted and could spout whatever doctrine or nonsense they wanted to whomever wished to listen, provided they did not harm others. But looking at it that way might give succour to those pesky unions (freedom of association) and those pesky demonstrators (freedom of assembly) and that would never sit well with News Corp and Abbott et al. The Coalition is not really interested in human rights outside a perverted view that human rights include a right to spout hate speech and to discriminate against gays. The Ruddock review was never about rights, but about former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull placating the right wing of his party. Any serious inquiry into strengthening human rights in Australia would look at all rights and how to enshrine them in the constitution so they could be upheld by the independent courts against ever-encroaching federal, state and territory legislatures and executives. www.crispinhull.com.au /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/f1e89ac6-127d-410c-a70b-4510a2e7570c/r0_254_4862_3001_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the posts of Deputy Manager and Officer. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here. The application fees is INR 500 and can be paid online. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 1,60,000 per month. The last date to apply for this government job is Jan 2, 2019. You may contact recruitment@hal-india.com for queries. Air India Express Limited Recruitment 2018 For Cabin Crew HAL Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Deputy Manager and Officer Organisation Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Educational Qualification Graduate degree in CA or ICWA Experience 1 to 3 years Job Responsibilities Preparation and finalisation of annual accounts Skills Required Managerial skills Job Location India Salary Scale INR 40,000 to INR 1,60,000 per month Industry Aeronautics Application Start Date December 13, 2018 Application End Date January 2, 2019 Maximum Age Limit: 45 years Also Read: TNPSC Recruitment 2018 For District Educational Officer How To Apply For HAL Recruitment 2018 In order to apply for HAL Recruitment 2018, follow these steps: Step 1: Log on to the HAL official website. Step 2: Click the link that reads, Register to Apply Online. Step 3: The registration form will open. Step 4: Enter your details in the fields provided. Step 5: Click Register and complete the registration process. Step 6: Log in using your credentials and complete the application process. Follow the link - https://meta-secure.com/HAL/corporate/pdf/FinanceOfficersDetailedAdvertisement.pdf to read the detailed official notification. Teachers Recruitment Board, Tripura has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the post of Graduate Teacher. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here. The application fees is INR 300 for the general category and INR 200 for the reserved category. The selection process comprises a written test scheduled on Feb 24, 2019. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 20,475 per month. The last date to apply for this government job is Dec 19, 2018. Air India Express Limited Recruitment 2018 For Cabin Crew Tripura Teachers Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Graduate Teacher Organisation Teachers Recruitment Board Educational Qualification Degree from a recognised university and BEd Experience Desirable Skills Required Communication and teaching skills Job Location Tripura Salary Scale INR 20,475 per month Industry Teaching Application Start Date December 12, 2018 Application End Date December 19, 2018 Maximum Age Limit: 40 years Also Read: TNPSC Recruitment 2018 For District Educational Officer How To Apply For Tripura Teachers Recruitment 2018 In order to apply for Tripura Teachers Recruitment 2018, follow these steps: Step 1: Log on to the Tripura Teachers official website. Step 2: Click Register. Step 3: The registration form will open. Enter your details in the fields provided. Step 4: Upload the necessary documents. Step 5: Check the I AGREE option box. Step 6: Click Register and complete the registration process. Step 7: Log in using your credentials and complete the application process. Follow the link - http://www.trb.tripura.gov.in/sites/default/files/uploaded-files/Pros-2019-IX-X.pdf to read the detailed official notification. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: In Atlanta, Soyia Ellison, soyia.ellison@cartercenter.org (En espanol) ATLANTA The Carter Center is deeply concerned about the Nicaraguan governments recent assault and continued repression of civil society organizations and the media. The National Assembly arbitrarily revoked the legal status of numerous civil society organizations and nonprofit groups that have historically worked to uphold democracy and human rights in the country. The governments violent raids on the offices of newspapers and media outlets silence those who denounce the grave situation in the country. Nicaragua has signed the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights, which contain obligations to allow freedom of expression and assembly. However, the governments recent actions intimidate and criminalize individuals who are legitimately defending their rights, without respect for due process of law. We make a fervent appeal to the government to correct these actions and restore citizens rights to articulate their opposing views without fear of persecution. Translations El Centro Carter insta al Presidente Ortega a poner fin a la represion de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil y los medios de comunicacion ### "Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope." A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide. BusinessCem Almaty ICR Research By Published 14 December 2018 BusinessCem Almaty 2018, the 16th International Central Asia Conference and Exhibition, was held at the InterContinental Almaty, Kazakhstan, between 29-31 October. Around 100 participants gathered to explore the latest industry developments taking place in the region. The conference was opened by Evgeny Valyukov, general director of BusinessCem, who welcomed delegates to Almaty and the conference itself. Mr Valyukov noted how the event was the 8th BusinessCem event held in Kazakhstans largest metropolis, Almaty, with the others held in neighbouring Uzbekistan. To continue reading this story and get access to all News, Articles and Video sections of the CemNet.com website, please Register for a subscription to International Cement Review or Login Domicem celebrates sustainable growth in 2018 14 December 2018 Domicem highlighted its sustainable growth in 2018 as the companys Managing Director, Adriano Brunetti looked back on the year during the companys Christmas dinner. "I would like to remind you that in this year we have achieved important goals such as the construction of a photovoltaic energy park, whose work started at the end of 2017 and which we recently inaugurated," Mr Brunetti said. "This new facility is a structure conceived with the most advanced technology currently available, with the capacity to generate 1.5MW and which will guarantee the production of 2.3mkW of clean energy annually. The investment represents the equivalent of having planted 50,000 trees, the reduction of 56,000gal of fossil fuel and 1500t of CO 2 emissions per year, said the company. In addition, the company entered into service a new grinding unit in Haiti, which is expected to facilitate exports from the island, reported El Dinero. Sergio Nim, Domicems commercial director, said in terms of cement demand in the Dominican Republic 2018 had turned out to be a positive year, with consumption up 4.5 per cent YoY to around 4.4Mt of cement. The economic stability of the country and the government maintaining a clear and defined policy for the construction sector as well as private-sector projects had led to an 11 per cent expansion in the sectors activity. Published under RM Rail to supply 1000 cement hopper wagons ICR Newsroom By 14 December 2018 RM Rail has been awarded the contract to supply Russias Gazprombank Leasing and VEB-Leasing on behalf of Russian cement companies as well as Kazakhstans largest cement manufacturer, Steppe Cement, with more than 1000 Type19-1217 cement hopper wagons by September 2019. The wagon producer said the Type 19-1217 has an innovative teardrop shaped body giving a capacity of 73t and volume of 60m3, taking into account the density of bulk cement. There are smooth inner walls to speed up unloading, while all hatches can be locked simultaneously and sealed with a single seal. The wagon have an axle load of 23.5t and are designed to have an active lifespan of 26 years. RM Rails Deputy General Director for Sales ,Alexander Kulikov, said there is currently a shortage of cement wagons following the widespread withdrawal of older vehicles. Customers are therefore looking for a manufacturer who is not only able to offer a successful design but can also fulfil the order very quickly. Published under Beijing confirmed on Thursday that two Canadians who are suspected of engaging in activities endangering national security have been placed under compulsory measures in accordance with Chinese laws. Canadian ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig (L) and Canadian businessman Michael Spavor [Photo: China Plus] Speaking at a regular news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the two Canadians are under investigation, respectively, by national security authorities in Beijing and Dandong, Liaoning province. Lu was speaking in response to a question about the disappearance of Canadian former diplomat Michael Kovrig and a Canadian businessman, Michael Spavor. The Canadian embassy was promptly informed about the cases, and the legitimate rights and interests of the two Canadians are being safeguarded, Lu said. The compulsory measures put upon the Canadians started on Monday, Lu added. Kovrig was reported to work for the International Crisis Group and Spavor was said to operate a tourist company in Dandong, Liaoning province. When asked whether the compulsory measures imposed on the Canadians were related to the arrest in Vancouver of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou on Dec 1 at the request of Washington, Lu said authorities' handling of the two cases is in accord with China's Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law. Lu demanded that Canada correct its wrongdoing and release her immediately. Meng, 46, has been granted bail in Canada, but she is confined to Vancouver and its suburbs. Her extradition to the US for alleged Iran sanctions-breaking dealings remains a possibility. Lu addressed what has been called concerns over Canadians' security in China, saying China welcomes foreigners to travel, study and do business in the country, and no worry is justified as long as they abide by Chinese laws and regulations. Over 780,000 trips to China by Canadians took place between January and November, and the Canadian people will arrive at a conclusion about whether China is safe or not, he said. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has suspended investment in Iran's South Pars natural gas project in response to U.S. pressure and to minimize tensions amid trade talks between Beijing and Washington, three Chinese state oil executives said. South Pars is the world's largest gas field and CNPC's investment freeze is a blow to Tehran's efforts to maintain financing for energy projects amid the re-imposition U.S. sanctions on its energy sector earlier this year. As Daily Sabah writes in an article "China national petroleum corp suspends investment in Iran's South Pars after US pressure", Iran said on Nov. 25 that CNPC replaced Total as the operator of Phase 11 project at South Pars after the French company ended its participation rather than violate the sanctions. The investment halt followed four rounds of talks in Beijing, including one as recently as October, with senior U.S. officials who urged CNPC to refrain from injecting fresh financing in Iran, said one of the sources, an executive with direct knowledge of the matter. It was not clear if the Chinese government gave direct orders for the halt, but the sources said it is politically sensible amid the trade negotiations between China and the United States. "China sees the relationship with the U.S. as paramount over anything else. As a state-owned entity CNPC will stay clear of bringing any unwanted trouble into this relationship as the U.S. China trade talks are under way," said a second source, an official familiar with CNPC's global strategy. The sources requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to the media. Total was the first global energy firm to return to Iran after earlier sanctions were lifted after the U.S., Russia, China, France, Germany, Britain, the European Union and Iran agreed to a pact limiting the Islamic Republic's nuclear program in late 2015. The U.S. quit the pact in May and re-imposed sanctions because it did not curb Iran's ballistic missile program and to pressure the country to stop supporting proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. The first source said that Iran has 120 days to review CNPC's role in South Pars and decide whether to keep the Chinese firm as a dormant investor or cancel the deal. CNPC did not respond to three requests for comment. Two Iranian oil ministry officials contacted by Reuters declined to comment. While agreeing to halt its South Pars participation, CNPC did convince the U.S. that it needed to continue investing in the North Azadegan and Masjid-i-Suleiman (MIS) oilfields to recoup the billions of dollars spent under buy-back contracts signed years ago, said the first source and a third separate official with knowledge of CNPC's oil activities. Without CNPC providing sub-contracting engineering work and supplying production equipment, the Iranian side will have difficulty maintaining the oil output, the sources said. North Azadegan, in southwestern Khuzestan province, is estimated to be pumping close to 80,000 barrels per day of crude oil after production started in 2016, according to CNPC's website. At Chattanooga State Community College, the Thanksgiving season means sharing with others who have less. Students, faculty and staff eagerly await the annual food drive that benefits LaPaz, Chattanoogas leading Hispanic and Latino organization in Southeast Tennessee, and the Tiger Food Pantry at ChattState to help students who experience food insecurity. A record-breaking total of 3,236 food items were collected and divided between LaPaz, who received 62 boxes totaling 2,289 items, and the Tiger Food Pantry that received 947 items. While savoring the good feeling that comes from helping others, catering to ones competitive side also helps make the entire project a little more exciting. Some of my colleagues in the Humanities & Fine Arts building were in stiff competition for the pinata prize, so they had piles of donations in front of their offices, remarked Spanish Club advisor Dr. Katheryn Thompson. Filled with candy and goodies, the coveted Pinata Prize is awarded to the individual or team that collects the most items. This year it was presented to Assistant Professor Josh Tucker for collecting 902 items. Tucker and friends bested last years winner, Assistant Professor Rachael Falu, by 120 items. Donors this year included individuals who spearheaded giving, as well as department and division members: Katheryn Thompson, Rachael Falu, Terry Breetzke, Nick Mansito, Mindy Griffin, Joh Tucker, Student Support Center, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Regional Health programs, Michele McCarthy, Monika Prestwood, Juan Alonso, e-Portfolio Lab, Student Services, Rex Knowles, Kolwyck Library, Ann Nicodemi, Center for Engineering, Technology, Arts & Sciences; Math & Sciences, Global Scholars, Institutional Development, and the Volleyball team. Register now for Spring 2019! Visit www.chattanoogastate.edu. Center for Creative Arts will provide a performing arts experience for fourth and fifth grade students that combines a variety of artistic mediums, such as instrumental music, dance, theatre, spoken word and vocal music. The performance will feature CCAs middle and high school students. After the showcase, student performers will conduct a Q & A session with audience members.The event will be held on Monday at 9:30 a.m. at the Center for Creative Arts, 1301 Dallas Road in Chattanooga.The performance and Q & A will last approximately an hour and a half."This event will take place in the CCA auditorium, which seats over 900 people, adding to theunique cultural experience for the student audience," officials said.The performance will be free to students in Hamilton County Schools, with priority given to fifth grade students, as part of CCAs outreach to schools. Limited funding is available for bus transportation through the support of a grant.Contact Amy Medley for more information at medley_a@hcde.org or 423-498-7365 Option 6.Reservations are required. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has suspended investment in Iran's South Pars natural gas project in response to U.S. pressure and to minimize tensions amid trade talks between Beijing and Washington, three Chinese state oil executives said. As Daliy Sabah writes in the article China national petroleum corp suspends investment in Iran's South Pars after US pressure, South Pars is the world's largest gas field and CNPC's investment freeze is a blow to Tehran's efforts to maintain financing for energy projects amid the re-imposition U.S. sanctions on its energy sector earlier this year. Iran said on Nov. 25 that CNPC replaced Total as the operator of Phase 11 project at South Pars after the French company ended its participation rather than violate the sanctions. The investment halt followed four rounds of talks in Beijing, including one as recently as October, with senior U.S. officials who urged CNPC to refrain from injecting fresh financing in Iran, said one of the sources, an executive with direct knowledge of the matter. It was not clear if the Chinese government gave direct orders for the halt, but the sources said it is politically sensible amid the trade negotiations between China and the United States. "China sees the relationship with the U.S. as paramount over anything else. As a state-owned entity CNPC will stay clear of bringing any unwanted trouble into this relationship as the U.S. China trade talks are under way," said a second source, an official familiar with CNPC's global strategy. The sources requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to the media. Total was the first global energy firm to return to Iran after earlier sanctions were lifted after the U.S., Russia, China, France, Germany, Britain, the European Union and Iran agreed to a pact limiting the Islamic Republic's nuclear program in late 2015. The U.S. quit the pact in May and re-imposed sanctions because it did not curb Iran's ballistic missile program and to pressure the country to stop supporting proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. The first source said that Iran has 120 days to review CNPC's role in South Pars and decide whether to keep the Chinese firm as a dormant investor or cancel the deal. CNPC did not respond to three requests for comment. Two Iranian oil ministry officials contacted by Reuters declined to comment. While agreeing to halt its South Pars participation, CNPC did convince the U.S. that it needed to continue investing in the North Azadegan and Masjid-i-Suleiman (MIS) oilfields to recoup the billions of dollars spent under buy-back contracts signed years ago, said the first source and a third separate official with knowledge of CNPC's oil activities. Without CNPC providing sub-contracting engineering work and supplying production equipment, the Iranian side will have difficulty maintaining the oil output, the sources said. North Azadegan, in southwestern Khuzestan province, is estimated to be pumping close to 80,000 barrels per day of crude oil after production started in 2016, according to CNPC's website. The fifth annual Bread and Words poetry reading was held at the Chattanooga State Kimball Site on Nov. 20. Bread and Words is an open-mike poetry reading held in celebration of the Thanksgiving season. Students, faculty and staff bring homemade soups and bread to share at the event, as well as non-perishable food items to donate to the Marion County Food Bank. The event is organized by Wes Jarrett, associate professor of English and sponsored by the Marion County Rotaract Club. This year the students donated 556 food items while the Rotoract Club delivered the food to the Marion County Food Bank. There were 22 students who read both published and original poems, and there were 60 students in attendance. See https://www.chattanoogastate.edu/academics/schedules to register for Spring 2019 classes in Kimball or call (423) 837-1327 for assistance. Morning Pointe Regional Vice President of Operations Mandy Taylor (left) and Morning Pointe President and CEO Greg A. Vital (right) congratulate Exceeding Expectations Award winner Heather Kerns (center), Business Office Manager at Morning Pointe of Frankfort Morning Pointe President and CEO Greg A. Vital (left) and Morning Pointe co-founder and COO Franklin Farrow (right) congratulate Exceeding Expectations Award winners Gwen Barnes (center left) and Peggy Turner (center right), Executive Assistants at the IHP home office Morning Pointe Vice President of Facility Accounting Tim Booth (left) and Morning Pointe President and CEO Greg A. Vital (right) congratulate Exceeding Expectations Award winner Cynthia Brown (center), a Certified Nursing Assistant at Morning Pointe of Spring Hill Morning Pointe Divisional Vice President of Operations Rob Pollard (left) and Morning Pointe President and CEO Greg A. Vital (right) congratulate Exceeding Expectations Award winner Bryan Boyer (center), Maintenance Director at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga Shallowford Independent Healthcare Properties (IHP) and Morning Pointe Senior Living presented its annual Exceeding Expectations Awards at the senior healthcare services companys 21st annual Christmas awards banquet at the Museum Center at 5ive Points in Cleveland, recognizing the most exceptional of its associates for demonstrating leadership and excellence in providing quality senior care. Every year, the company acknowledges top performing team members in its 31 communities in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Candidates are nominated from three regions and the corporate headquarters based in Ooltewah. Morning Pointe corporate leadership presented each nominee with a plaque of recognition during the companys annual year-end awards banquet. Five Morning Pointe associates received the Exceeding Expectations Award: Bryan Boyer, maintenance director at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga Heather Kerns, business office manager at Morning Pointe of Frankfort (KY) Cynthia Brown, a certified nursing assistant at Morning Pointe of Spring Hill (TN) Gwen Barnes and Peggy Turner, executive assistants at the IHP home office Residents and associates had nothing but praise for each of the Exceeding Expectations Award winners. At Morning Pointe of Chattanooga Shallowford, they expressed their gratitude for Boyers work ethic, dedication, and compassion. He exceeds all expectations. Bryan [Boyer] is the type of person to take the bull by its horns, said Freeman Atkins, a resident at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga Shallowford. At Morning Pointe of Frankfort, Ms. Kerns was lauded for her willingness to help out no matter the situationand for her genuine care and concern for the personal care communitys residents. She [Heather Kerns] keeps me moving. She keeps me involved in things. She is just great. She is just a special lady, said Emily Shaw, a resident at Morning Pointe of Frankfort. The residents and associates of Morning Pointe of Spring Hill praised Ms. Browns positive attitude and welcoming manner. She [Cynthia Brown] makes me more comfortable here, and she is always smiling, which I really appreciate. That is very important to me, and the biggest thing to me is that she is open and approachable, says Roma Hadley, a resident at Morning Pointe of Spring Hill. Meanwhile, it was Ms. Barnes and Ms. Turners efficiency and unwavering commitment to the vision of Morning Pointe founders Greg A. Vital and Franklin Farrow that earned them recognition. Gwen and Peggy have been with us practically since the beginning, said Mr.Vital, and the entire time, they have supported us without fail. They have helped make Morning Pointe what it is today. We couldnt have done it without them. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of all the award winners, Mr. Vital concluded. I am proud to honor them, as they have truly made Morning Pointe not just their career, but an opportunity to serve others. The Chattanooga Police Department has opened an internal investigation of a sergeant in CPD's Investigations Bureau on Thursday after he was taken into custody for solicitation of prostitution. The arrest came during a joint enforcement operation between the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Chattanooga Police Department's Vice Unit. Sgt. Peter Turk was off duty and not part of the enforcement operations. CPD immediately placed Sgt. Turk on administrative leave pending investigation. He will remain on administrative leave until a final disposition in the Internal Affairs investigation is reached. Sgt. Turk was hired by CPD in June, 2004. The TBI will be seeking an indictment as a result of this criminal investigation. The TBI's criminal case, which is separate from the CPD's Internal Affairs investigation, remains active and ongoing. Sheriff Jim Hammond said Thursday medical records from the county jail " do not reflect any of the injuries" cited by an attorney for Charles Toney at a Thursday press conference. The attorney said Toney suffered a broken finger, a collapsed lung, broken ribs, and a broken nose. The investigation of the incident was referred by District Attorney Neal Pinkston to the U.S. Justice Department after a neighbor videoed the arrest. Detective Blake Kilpatrick has been placed on desk duty. He said he used force against Toney after he bit his finger, kicked him and spat in his face. The Sheriff's Office said Toney was examined by Erlanger personnel. Sheriff Hammond said the attorney for Toney is welcome to examine Toney's medical records from the jail. The Tennessee Department of Transportation in conjunction with the City of Chattanooga will modify a 0.7-mile section of U.S. 41/Cummings Highway in the Tiftonia/Lookout Valley area of Chattanooga to add a continuous center turn lane. Beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday, TDOT contract crews will restripe the section of Cummings Highway from the entrance of the Walmart Supercenter to the CSX Railroad underpass near Drew Road to accommodate the center turn lane. The City of Chattanooga will adjust the traffic signals and add appropriate signage. This modification will also result in the reduction of travel lanes from two to one on westbound Cummings Highway (away from downtown Chattanooga). Eastbound Cummings Highway toward downtown Chattanooga will remain in its current configuration of two travel lanes. Once the restriping work begins, it could take the majority of the day to complete. Drivers are urged to be alert as this work is taking place and to be aware of the new traffic pattern once the work is completed. This work is weather dependent. Should inclement weather or unforeseen circumstances delay this work, it will be rescheduled to take place as soon as possible. There is a growing focus on education choice across the United States, especially here in Tennessee. When you discuss parent choice, everybody immediately thinks of vouchers. Vouchers are only one form of choice. When you discuss school choice, the debate is unfairly focused between public and private. Terminology is constantly changing and evolving, and the words themselves create unnecessary conflict. Before we step further into the debate, I think there is one choice that is being ignored as an option: open enrollment or voluntary public school choice. We must expand open enrollment policies in our public school districts. There are two primary types of open enrollment policies: 1) Intra-district enrollment policies, where students may transfer to schools within their home districts. 2) Inter-district enrollment policies, where students may transfer to schools outside of their home districts. Both are forms of choice.Currently, Tennessee has voluntary intra-district and inter-district open enrollment policies. That may need to change, if districts do not get more aggressive in championing parental options in public education. Hopefully, that will be led by district leaders or school boards across the state. We need to make open enrollment a high priority.Today, our workforce is highly mobile. Many adults no longer work in the community they reside. This is very clear in Middle Tennessee, which is exploding with population growth with more on the way. If we want parents involved in their childs education, it would only make sense that public school options become more convenient for the adult who then often provides the transportation.Currently, open enrollment policies may be either mandatory or voluntary. Under mandatory programs, districts must allow for open enrollment. Under voluntary programs, districts may choose whether to allow for open enrollment. It is easy to see that the direction by the state will be to move from voluntary to mandatory, if districts do not adopt open enrollment policies or do a better job of highlighting voluntary public school choice.Questions that policymakers and the media should ask: 1) What districts in Tennessee allow students to transfer to schools within their home districts? 2) What districts in Tennessee do not allow students to transfer to schools within their home districts? 3) What districts in Tennessee accept students transferring to schools outside of their home district?As the focus on education choice is elevated by Governor-elect Bill Lee, maybe the easiest place to find initial consensus is with open enrollment. Mandatory open enrollment policies will likely be promoted by the state. This could either be accomplished by funding, new legislation, or districts adopting new policies. Intra-district and Inter-district open enrollment policies must be on the table, when the subject of education choice is discussed. The message is that public schools are the best option for parents. Parents should be able to trust public schools to educate all children to the best of their ability. J.C. Bowman Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee Chattanooga National Cemetery will host Wreaths Across America, a holiday wreath-laying ceremony to honor and remember our nations Veterans, on Saturday at noon. Civil Air Patrol TN Wing Group II, veterans service organizations and citizens are coordinating the event to honor Veterans of each branch of the military, the Merchant Marines, as well as Prisoners of War and those still Missing in Action (POW/MIA). The Worcester Wreath Company, through a campaign called Wreaths Across America, began donating holiday wreaths in tribute to veterans laid to rest at VAs national cemeteries and state veterans cemeteries in 2006. Since 1992, they have donated wreaths for gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery. Civil Air Patrol TN Wing Group II is coordinating the wreath ceremony as a part of Wreaths Across America. Due to wet conditions, there will be no parking available at the Chattanooga National Cemetery. All parking, to include handicap, will be at the Tennessee National Guard Armory on Holtzclaw Avenue, with bus service available starting at 8 a.m. December 14, 2018 (Morning Star News) Police in Laos arrested a grandmother and three other Christians while they were worshipping last month, according to an advocacy group. Raiding a church service in Keovilai village, Vilabouly District in Savannakhet Province, local police on Nov. 18 arrested the 78-year-old woman identified as Grandma Bounlam and three men identified by the surnames Duangtha, Khampan and Ponsawan, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF). The four Christians have since been released, an HRWLRF source told Morning Star News. The three men had been held in handcuffs and feet stocks. Bounlam was released for medical treatment for a heart condition. Police also evicted them from their homes and property, according to an HRWLRF press statement. Villagers said the worshippers were arrested for believing in Jesus Christ, according to the rights group, and they face the threat of unspecified criminal charges. Area Christians said police have threatened more severe punishment if the Lao Christians do not renounce Christianity, which is considered an enemy of the single-party, Marxist-Leninist country, according to the HRWLRF. The three officers who made the arrests were identified by their surnames as Don, a police major stationed at Vilabouly District, and two police officers stationed in Vang District, Pim and No. HRWLRF urged the Lao government to punish the three police officers who acted illegally in arresting the four Christians, according to the press statement, and called for their homes to be restored to them. The group urged the Lao government to respect the religious rights of the Lao people and the accompanying rights as guaranteed in the Lao constitution and the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Laos in 2009. It upholds the individuals right to adopt a religion/belief of choice as well as the right to manifest that religion/belief in a corporate worship (Article 18), the HRWLRF stated. Any form of coercion impairing the freedom to have and manifest ones religion/belief of choice is condemned in the Covenant, it stated. The Lao government officially recognizes the religious umbrella groups for Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and the Bahai, but the only officially recognized Christian denominations are the Catholic Church, the Laos Evangelical Church and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, according to the U.S. State Departments International Religious Freedom Report of 2017. Government restrictions on registered and unregistered minority religious groups, particularly Protestants, remained disproportionately limiting in certain remote regions, according to the report. Reports continued of authorities, especially in isolated villages, arresting, detaining, and exiling followers of minority religions, particularly Christians, it states. There were reports authorities subjected some religious minority members to attempted forced renunciations, imprisonment, arrest, detention, and fines. Only 1.7 percent of the Lao population is Christian, according to the 2015 national census, while 64.7 percent is Buddhist, 31.4 percent has no religion and 2.1 percent identify as other or having a non-listed religion. A 2016 decree on religion states that nearly all aspects of religious practice holding religious services, building houses of worship, modifying existing structures, and establishing new congregations in villages where none existed require permission from a local Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) branch office, regardless of whether a group is recognized or registered nationally, according to the report. The decree empowers MOHA to order the cessation of any religious activities or beliefs not in agreement with policies, traditional customs, laws, or regulations within its jurisdiction, the report states. Laos ranked 20th on Christian support organization Open Doors 2018 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews. org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved. If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/ donate/ ? The maximum pressure campaign against North Korea that U.S. President Donald Trump launched in 2017 worked to bring Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table, a former adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign said Wednesday. United Press International reports in its article Trump's 'maximum pressure' on North Korea worked, analyst says that Ed Feulner, founder of The Heritage Foundation, said at the Global Peace Foundation's International Forum on One Korea in Washington, the "significant diplomatic breakthrough" between the United States and North Korea was the direct result of a Trump-led international pressure campaign. "Who could have imagined the president of the United States and the chairman of [North Korea] could actually meet in a neutral country, third country, and end up in face-to-face discussions, negotiations and hopefully some agreement principles?" Feulner said. The Singapore summit and what followed has been an opportunity for the United States and South Korea to promote lasting "peace, freedom and reunification of the Korean Peninsula," while keeping a common objective of denuclearization at the top of the agenda. Trump and Kim "surprised the world by sharing and demonstrating a common personal understanding of what must take place for the transformation in the US-[North Korea] relationship." Feulner said he met with Trump and his senior advisers after the historic summit. The president has promised better prospects for North Korea on the condition the regime gives up its nuclear weapons in a manner that can be verified. "The United States will be at the forefront of facilitating that brighter future," Feulner said. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, chairman of the Global Peace Foundation, expressed skepticism about North Korea's intentions, however. Speaking at the forum Wednesday, Moon said North Korea was becoming increasingly isolated when a welcome reversal of fortune thrust Kim to the world stage after the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Kim, who was at the center of global condemnation, received an image makeover, thanks to the pro-engagement policy of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a "willing partner" prepared to take "extraordinary steps" to coordinate policy that eventually culminated in the U.S.-North Korea summit. Kim's father and grandfather dreamed of having bilateral talks with the United States that would give North Korea "international legitimacy especially after the fall of the Soviet Empire," Hyun Jin Preston Moon said. "Kim Jong Un has turned a potential disaster into a personal triumph," he added. A Tennessee youth leader was arrested last week after a 16-year-old boy told police that they had had sex at least 10 times. The youth leader is being charged with of aggravated statutory rape and soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor. According to the Christian Post, Courtney Bingham, 35, served as a youth leader at Bethany Baptist Church in Loudon, TN where she met the boy and was later arrested. According to local news station WVLT, the local police were informed on the illegal relationship on December 3 and made the arrest the following day. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that the boys father reported the relationship to the sheriffs office. Reportedly, Bingham had had sex with the teen in her home and sent him several pornographic photos of herself. WVLT reports that Bingham did admit to police to having the sexual relationship with the boy but recalled that they had sex no more than four times. In a statement released by the sheriffs department, Sgt. Jason Smith urged the seriousness of the case saying, Its very serious. Youre dealing with somebody thats 35 years old and has sent pornographic images of herself with inappropriate comments to a juvenile. Not only that, was also having sexual intercourse with him as a member of a self-described youth leader of the church. He continued, So being in a position of an authority figure, being in a position of a caretaker at times at the residence, [its a] very serious matter as far as the crime that shes committed." Bethany Baptist Churchs pastor Rick Harrell commented on the incident noting that the church is taking extra precautions to make sure this does not happen again. He said, Were certainly looking at every avenue to prevent something like this. Meeting with our youth leaders, directors, to be more cautious about what we see and whats going on. When people are friendly and befriending people, you never know if something of the irresponsible natures going on. Its just impossible to tell unless you have some sort of clear evidence. Harrell described Bingham as bubbly and friendly. The pastor also noted that he never would have expected this to be happening at his church. You just dont think about this kind of thing going on in your Christian church family and certainly we loved her and considered her a special part of what we did here, Harrell said. Bingham is currently being held at the Loudon County jail with bond set at $57,500. She is set to appear in court in April 2019. Photo courtesy: Pixabay Ohios legislature has sent a pair of pro-life bills to Republican Gov. John Kasich, who has threatened to veto one but hasnt taken a public stand on the other. The state House passed a bill by a vote of 53-32 Friday that would prohibit abortions if a heartbeat were detected. It passed the Senate, 18-13 on Wednesday. The Senate had changed the bill to allow an abdominal ultrasound, which is less intrusive than a transvaginal ultrasound. Abdominal ultrasounds can detect an unborn babys heartbeat at around 12 weeks, while transvaginal ultrasounds can do so around six weeks, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Its my understanding a transvaginal ultrasound could possibly detect a heartbeat earlier than an external heartbeat detection method, said state Sen. David Burke, according to the newspaper. He supported the change. But we found that process is possibly intrusive. We wanted to protect the rights of women who didnt wish to have that done to them because their doctor may be under the impression that thats the only thing that bill allows. Kasich vetoed a similar bill in 2016, saying it would not survive a constitutional challenge. He was endorsed by Ohio Right to Life during his most recent election, which said he had restored a culture of life and had worked to defund Planned Parenthood. Ohio Right to Life also hailed his support for a late-term abortion ban. Ohio legislators also sent Kasich a bill that would ban dilation and evacuation, an abortion procedure in which the unborn baby is pulled apart, limb by limb, with surgical instruments. It passed the House, 62-27, and the Senate, 23-9. It is not known if Kasich will sign it. Kasich, who was ineligible to run for re-election due to term limits, is in his final days as governor. Governor-elect Mike DeWine, who will be inaugurated in January, has said he will sign the heartbeat bill. Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com. Photo courtesy: Pixabay/Public Domain In an investigation published by World magazine yesterday, former Harvest Bible Chapel leaders raise concerns over the Chicago-area megachurchs operations, including claims of shuffling funds between related ministries and efforts to restrict former staff through noncompete clauses and nondisclosure agreements. Harvest officials said in a statement to CT that the report fails to uncover desired scandal and represents the opinions of a few disgruntled former members rather than the views of the churchs current elders. In October, Harvest along with lead pastor James MacDonald filed a defamation lawsuit against the author of the World article, Julie Roys, for asserting false allegations during her eight-month investigation. In this weeks Hard times at Harvest article, Roys follows up with a trio of former Harvest elders who had a falling out with the church in 2013. MacDonald issued an apology over their unbiblical discipline in 2014. Leaders stated today that Harvest has owned its mistakes and endured to become a happier and healthier church since. Subsequent to the most vocal departures, the Elders of [Harvest] designed a system of Elder government filled with meaningful accountability for staff and active involvement of volunteer Elders that exceeds in every way the former system filled with conflicts of interest and poor decision making, they stated. However, the former elders continue to critique the financial and organizational structures at Harvest, which numbers 13,000 attendees across seven locations. World reports that Harvest shifted significant funds from MacDonalds popular radio program, Walk in the Word, and from its former church planting arm, Harvest Bible Fellowship (HBF), for Harvest Bible Chapel operations. In a letter obtained by the magazine, a pastor at a former HBF church plant indicated the 2017 split occurred because HBF pastors believed Harvest had inappropriately used fellowship funds for its own purposes. Harvest previously stated that all of the funds from the fellowship were utilized solely for church-planting purposes. The legality of transferring funds between projects within an umbrella organization depends if they were designated by donors for a particular projectlike a building fund, for exampleor are unrestricted contributions. Moving between restricted funds is a big no-no, and borrowing from restricted funds is a big no-no, said Frank Sommerville, an attorney and CPA with expertise in church legal issues. That is an area churches are very loose on generally. This week, after visiting the churchs main campus in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) reported that Harvest is in full compliance with each of ECFAs Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship and remains a member in good standing with ECFA. ECFA officials specifically reviewed internal policies around transactions between the church and related ministries, as well as compensation-setting. The former chair of Harvests elder board, Robert Jones, told World that ECFA President Dan Busby previously called MacDonalds salary unremarkable. Bob Langdon, former financial director for HBF, and Alan Tsao, former comptroller at Harvest Bible Chapel, told World that Harvest restricted access to about 20 percent of its budget to a small group of top leaders. According to church bylaws, MacDonald and four or five elders, who make up the executive committee, oversaw the portion of the budget with leaders salaries, which was controlled by the churchs chief financial officer. The reason you want to divide it up that way is because of privacy concerns, said Sommerville. I will say it is unusual in that its not the majority [of churches], but this isnt the first time Ive seen that happen. Typically thats executive compensation shielded from everybody else because they want to protect that individual piece of data from being out and being misused. ECFA found Harvest to be in compliance with its requirement that churches with individual salaries over $150,000 authorize a committee to determine compensation and those participating in the decision-making process may not have any conflict of interest in the decision, whether direct or indirect. World also heard from several former Harvest elders and employees who expressed frustration with MacDonalds leadership and the terms of their departure, noting some declined to speak on the record, citing nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreements they said Harvest pressured them to sign when they left. Sommerville noted that such measures are important for churches, since former employees have access to sensitive information about congregants and other issues. Additionally, when former employees opt to forgo nondisclosure agreements so they may speak out critically, their employers often cant respond as openly due to their own confidentiality measures, he said. [So] it becomes a one-side story. Though they are considered a legitimate legal tool to protect employers, some have criticized their use among ministries, including churches like Mark Driscolls Mars Hill and Steven Furticks Elevation Church. There's been a recent, troubling tendency in churches to use nondisclosure agreements as a condition of severance, Bob Hyatt wrote for CT Pastors. Lets just say that this is neither transparent nor authentic. Harvests noncompete agreement, which asks pastors to agree not to move to a church within 50 miles of an existing campus, is less common among churches. World shared the story of a former Elgin pastor, R. T. Maldaner, who resigned in January, to plant a church nearby. According to the article: Harvest executive ministry pastor Jeff Donaldson defended the churchs actions. Donaldson told WORLD that despite many warnings, Maldaner had been recruiting Harvest members for his new church, leading to a small church split. Harvests response to the December 13 story reads in full: Darlene Zschech reflects on new era of worship music: Songs used to be uptight, they're fearless now Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A pioneer of the modern worship era, Darlene Zschech says worship music has changed considerably compared to what it was just 10 years ago. In some ways it's just gone ahead in such amazing leaps and bounds. I love some of the lyrical content that is around at the moment, Zschech told The Christian Post in an interview about her new book, The Golden Thread, where she talks about God's faithfulness during life's battles, such as her recent journey through cancer. The acclaimed worship leader and songwriter said she loves how the musical expression of worship has progressed overall. I just love the way they feel it, said Zschech, who described her admiration for how some young worship leaders are able to express themselves in their songs. [But] theres a part of the church that got a bit caught on smoke and lights, she added. The Holy Spirit is very good at teaching this. I don't think we should walk around as the Jesus police and judge everybodys expression. Really, only God can see the content of the human heart, Zschech continued, noting that she never would've thought to put together lyrics in such ways as some popular Christian artists do now. In her 20 year career, Zschech penned the groundbreaking 1993 anthem Shout to The Lord, and more than 100 other songs, including Victors Crown, In Jesus Name, Worthy Is The Lamb, and At The Cross. Her music is regularly sung in churches across the world. Zschech told CP that she's not too concerned about modern day contemporary Christian music straying too far away from God because, she said, the pendulum always swings from one extreme to the other before it finds its way back to the middle. She went on to say that she also enjoys the acoustic feel of praise music that some groups are using. And said it makes her reflect on how King David must've been when he poured his heart out in worship. I love how people have stripped things back, and have found a way through the mess of lights, camera, action, she said. I just love it. I think we're being a little bit more fearless, free worship and flowing where even 10 years ago it was a little more uptight. There's a flow happening that I just love. The Australian native started her music career with Hillsong Church but has since planted her own ministry with her husband, Mark, in New South Wales, called Hope Unlimited Church. Her new book, The Golden Thread: Experiencing Gods Presence in Every Season of Life, chronicles her battle with cancer in 2013 and how maintaining a posture of worship before the Lord brought her peace in the midst of the storm. It also explores her journey from leaving Hillsong to plant HopeUC. For more information, visit Zschechs website. Hundreds of sexual abuse allegations in Fundamental Baptist churches, investigation finds Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Hundreds of sexual abuse allegations have been found in Independent Fundamental Baptist churches spanning 40 states and Canada, according to a new report. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram released an extensive, eight-month investigative report Sunday recounting the stories of women who were victims of sexual misconduct, including molestation and rape when they were minors, in IFB churches. Yet their perpetrators, who were in positions of church leadership, were able to weave away from accountability, and never faced criminal charges. As has been similarly uncovered in the Roman Catholic church in recent years, the network of these churches often covered up their actions and facilitated the relocation of offenders to other congregations. Over 200 current or former church members, young and old alike, shared what happened to them with the Texas newspaper pointing to a culture of strict, unquestioned male authority. The Star-Telegram exclusively uncovered 21 of the 412 allegations they found in their investigation, but victims say the numbers are much larger as most who were assaulted never speak of what they endured. "One hundred and sixty-eight church leaders were accused or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children, the investigation found. At least 45 of the alleged abusers continued in ministry after accusations came to the attention of church authorities or law enforcement," the Star-Telegram reported. Victims who spoke with the Fort Worth publication emphasized "cult-like" dynamics within the church structures that allowed abuse to continue, namely, a climate of fear and cultural pressure to never dispute with or undermine the "man of God" pastoring the church. We didnt have a compound like those other places, but it may as well have been, said one former member, who spoke with the Star-Telegram on condition of anonymity because, like many others, she remains intimidated by the church. Our mind was the compound. Independent Fundamental Baptist churches (not to be confused with Independent Fundamental Churches of America, a completely separate denomination) use the labels "Independent," "Fundamental," "Fundamentalist," "Bible-Believing" or "KJV-Only," according to Got Questions. Even the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, is deemed too liberal by the independent fundamental groups and church members are to separate themselves from them and any other worldly influence. It is estimated that over 6,000 IFB churches are in operation in the United States and in other nations. In IFB churches, the authority system that enabled such psychological manipulation was bolstered by their particular interpretations of the Bible. "Children learn the story of Elisha and the she-bears: As the prophet Elisha walks up the path toward Bethel, a group of children surrounds him and makes fun of his baldness. Two she-bears emerge from the woods and maul 42 of the children. The lesson: Dont challenge the man of God," the Star-Telegram explained. Those who left churches recount that when unfortunate events happen to them they wonder if their woes came to be as punishment from an angry God. The Star-Telegram's reporting focused considerably on Dave Hyles, who reportedly sexually assaulted many women across the country. Because his father's church was among the largest in the nation in the 1970s and 80s, he developed a celebrity persona within the movement and used it to his advantage to exploit women sexually. The investigative report traces the journey of Joy Evans Ryder, who says then Hyles raped her in his office when she was 15 years old and when he was a youth director of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, which at the time was considered the flagship parish for thousands of loosely affiliated IFB churches and universities. Hyles, who now runs a group called Fallen In Grace Ministries, a ministry hosted in Family Baptist Church in Columbia, Tennessee, says he is being slandered. In fact, I have come to realize that there is nothing we could do to satisfy them. The more we tried the less we would satisfy them, he wrote to the Fort Worth newspaper in September. Today, Ryder runs Out of the Shadows, a nonprofit group she started with other church abuse victims that helps sexual abuse survivors, particularly from the IFB movement. The extensive report comes approximately one year after the #metoo movement gained steam with the exposure of Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein. Hundreds of women began revealing their own stories online of similar kinds of abuse they endured in religious and ministry-related settings, using the hashtag #churchtoo. Earlier this year the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office released a grand jury report detailing how 301 priests abused over 1,000 children over the past several decades and how the church hierarchy shuffled the offenders to other dioceses and shielded perpetrators from accountability. John Gray says he made faith deposit on wifes $200K Lamborghini as she defends lavish gift Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment As he continues to draw flak for gifting his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus for their eighth wedding anniversary, Relentless Church Pastor John Gray revealed it was God who made the posh acquisition possible after he made a faith deposit on the vehicle in February. He also urged his haters, who are troubled by his decision to buy a lavish gift for his wife, to be blessed. [Eight] years. New beginnings. New hope. New life. And for her, a new whip. I put a faith deposit down in February and God helped me to make my wifes dream come true. Why not? Shes made mine come true! #GodIsMyWitness #BookContract #HatersBeBlessed, the leader of the Greenville, South Carolina, church wrote in a post on Instagram Tuesday night. Gray, who just two weeks ago was drawing praise for allowing congregants in need to take cash directly from his offering baskets, saw that praise quickly turn to scorn this week after a video of him gifting his wife the Italian luxury vehicle was posted on Instagram. The video has since been removed but several clips showing Aventer Gray exulting over the gift remain online. Sue Mayweather, who posted the original video clip, said Aventer Gray also gifted her husband the green box Rolex, a term used to describe the Rolex Explorer II which comes with a price of approximately $8,000. While the Lamborghini Urus can be had starting at about $200,000, according to Fortune, Aventer Gray suggested that her husband might have paid more for the luxury SUV which comes with a 4.0-liter V8 twin-turbo engine that produces 650 horsepower. It also boasts an automatic eight-speed transmission, can travel 0 to 62 miles per hour in 3.6 seconds and reaches a top speed of 189 mph. In a post on Instagram Tuesday night, the preachers wife confirmed that when her husband introduced her to the Lamborghini Urus and had her build one online in February, she didnt believe she would really get it. Now that she has it, she remains adamant that she will not apologize for enjoying the fruit of their hard work. I saved to give you one of the best gifts and a dream timepiece and my God, you blessed me, significantly when in Feb at the All-Star hotel, we sat in this phenomenal new SUV, then you allowed me to build one online and DREAM...not really believing it would happen for real, but then, we WIN FROM WITHIN Lololol &...It DID! Aventer Gray wrote. I will never apologize for how hard we work and how we want to bless each other... PSALM 112:1-3... I love you. You are mine and I am yours. Thank you for taking care of me, for the past 8, and I trust the Lord by faith that for the next 88 you will do the same, so will I, and much more. Highs, lows, mistakes, misfortune, we are STILL HERE AND THE DEVIL IS MAD BECAUSE GOD GETS THE GLORY...with God all lead back to true love! There is no one I would rather do this life with than You! she added. Atheist couple who protested Christmas classroom decorations awarded compensation Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A Canadian atheist couple who protested against religious-themed classroom decorations was awarded a compensation. The British Colombia Human Rights Tribunal awarded $12,000 to Gary Mangel and Mai Yasue after they claimed that their daughter's enrollment in the school was threatened due to their views. As Tribunal member Barbara Korenkiewicz explained in her decision on Tuesday, the dispute began in 2014 when the outspoken atheist parents complained that Bowen Island Montessori School included Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations in classroom decorations. Mangel told BIMS board members that it's not appropriate to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or any other religious/political event at preschool. He said his child is only 3 and thus "cannot consent to being involved in decorating military wreaths or Christmas trees or lighting Hanukkah candles." Mangel also cited atheist author Richard Dawkins and argued that kids do not have the ability "to understand the religious and political symbolism associated with those acts." After their complaint, the school asked the parents to sign a letter, affirming their "understanding and acceptance" of all aspects of the school's cultural program before their child's registration for the following year would be confirmed. The couple accused BIMS of discrimination on the bases of religion, race, ancestry and family status. Yasue is Japanese and Mangel is Jewish. According to court documents, longtime teacher at BIMS, identified as Ms. Davenport, "testified that the materials in the classroom are intended to offer information only and there is no insistence on what each child does. Rather, each child is guided by their own interest." The teacher also said cultural celebrations are done in the classroom throughout the year. "She testified that celebrations bring the greater world at large into the classroom and provide a way to offer information about the world. She testified that the curriculum is a reflection of the families at BIMS and the greater community," the court document states. Korenkiewicz said in her decision that she was "not persuaded that multiculturalism is BIMS primary purpose, but rather a portion of one component of its program. The fact the issue became the focus of discussions between Dr. Yasue and Mr. Mangel on the one hand, and BIMS on the other, does not elevate the cultural element of the BIMS program to one of primacy. Second, as already noted, this case is not about a challenge to BIMS curriculum or its approach to teaching about various cultural celebrations rooted in religious practices of diverse origin, she added. At its core, it is about a letter which held Child As registration hostage to a demand. Korenkiewicz dismissed the parents' claims that they were being discriminated against by individuals associated with the school. "I have given little weigh to the evidence that Dr. Yasue and Mr. Mangel say links their perception of ostracism in the community to the conduct of the Respondents which is the subject of this decision. I found it tenuous at best," she added. Stressing that the case was not about the cultural aspects of the BIMS curriculum, Korenkiewicz decided to award $12,000 to the couple due to the negative effects they experienced from the school's refusal to confirm the child's enrollment unless they signed the letter. BIMS School Board President Maria Turnbull told CBC News that the $12,000 awarded to the family is a meaningful sum, and that officials would have to examine how to pay for it. "What the decision provides is a level of certainty that is valued by the school, and we look forward to getting 100 percent back to our focus on the young people, Turnbull said. Catholic ministry spreads love of Jesus worldwide with 70,000 Box of Joy Christmas gifts Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment MIAMI The Christian Post recently visited the Box of Joy headquarters in South Florida where volunteers gathered to pack gifts for children around the world as part of their annual evangelistic initiative spearheaded by Cross Catholic Outreach. The outreach's mission is to spread the love of Jesus Christ to all of its recipients, according to a training video showed to each Box of Joy volunteer. And their goal is to reach 70,000 children living in extreme poverty in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Our Catholic ministry partners around the world have always been involved through evangelization and social outreach. They are very holistic in their approach and always had a great concern for the poor. So we work through ministry partners that are on the ground and are a part of the fabric of those communities, Director of Box of Joy Steve Bostian told CP. Before heading to screening stations to make sure every box is suitable to send, volunteers were led in prayer by Bostian and told the true heart behind the gift boxes. These gifts come [to the children] unconditionally, just like Jesus is the greatest gift of all. He is an unconditional gift from God, to us, Bostian said. It gives ministry partners a platform, an opportunity to share the Gospel with children and communities that they don't normally get to work with. In the Box of Joy promotional video, James Cavnar, president of the organization, asks, Do you know why we have Christmas gifts? It helps us to understand what a gift Jesus is from God. God the Father gave His Son, Jesus, to come for us. And when we receive the love of God, we can love one another. The Catholic organization freely admits they were inspired by the outreach initiative started by Samaritan's Purse known as Operation Christmas Child. The outreach modeled their program after the evangelical humanitarian effort and fills shoeboxes with gifts for children living in poverty. Participants fill shoe-size boxes with toys such as dolls, Legos, race cars as well as essentials like toothbrushes, soap, pencils, and books. These packages also include a booklet with the story of Jesus along with a rosary and can also hold treats like hard candy, coloring books and a letter of encouragement from the sender. A young volunteer from Africa named David said he returned for a second weekend to help sort the gifts for children, and told CP he was inspired by the fact that he's helping a faith-based initiative. I went to a Catholic High School in Nigeria and the motto is service to God and others. So that motto has always stuck with me ever since then. And then doing this, I felt like I reconnected to that and [with] faith as well. So it was something that I put my heart into, he said. Cavnar is also the leader of Cross International, an evangelical organization. In a previous interview with CP, Cavnar said he doesn't worry about receiving pushback from either side Catholics or evangelicals. Cavnar explained that he's for ecumenism the promotion of unity and cooperation of different church bodies in Christianity and said he hopes Christians will always come together in the name of Jesus to help others. When a terrorist group is persecuting Christians, he said, "they never ask what denomination you're from." Cross Catholic Outreach welcomes boxes from people of all backgrounds and receive gifts from people in nearly every state in the U.S. Cross Catholic Outreach was founded in 2001 and is named among the top 50 nonprofit relief and development agencies in America. According to its site, it serves "the poorest of the poor" internationally by raising aid to help break the cycle of poverty "while advancing Catholic evangelization." Box of Joy is an extension of its efforts and has grown exponentially since its pilot year in 2014. To donate a box or for more information about the Box of Joy program, click here. Pastors in Cuba monitored, threatened by Communist officials despite requests for greater protections: watchdog Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Church officials in Cuba have asked for greater protections for their denominations but instead pastors are being monitored and threatened as believers face increased incidents of harassment by Communist officials, a persecution watchdog group reports. Christian Solidarity Worldwide released its findings in a report on Thursday, noting that freedom of religion or belief continues to be violated in the country. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic institutions have called for greater protections, but that has led to increased harassment of religious leaders, CSW has warned. "Often this takes subtler, hard to document forms, and is focused on attempting to create divisions between and within religious groups," the watchdog explained in its summary. "Religious leaders who have taken on a leadership role in the campaign, both at the local and national levels, have reported that pressure on them remains high; over the past year many have chosen to flee the country and to seek refuge abroad," it added. "Leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches, both those belonging to and outside of the Cuban Council of Churches, report frequent visits from and meetings with state security agents and Cuban Communist Party officials. These visits and meetings seem to be intended to intimidate the religious leaders and make them aware that they are under close surveillance." The report includes several examples of the harassment churches are facing. It also noted that a number of church leaders from various denominations have reported on frequent visits from state security or Communist Party agents. Some have reported warnings from the agents and officials that the education of their children, or their own employment, could be threatened if the house church leaders continue with their activities, the report says. In August a government official paid a number of visits to house churches linked to one pastor in central Cuba. The officials threatened the owners of the homes and pressured them to stop allowing their homes to be used for religious activity. Officials threatened one owner, an elderly woman, with criminal charges if more than 10 people met in her home at any one time. CSW makes several recommendations to world leaders, including the United Nations and the United States government, about how to address this issue. "The State Department should continue to closely monitor FORB in Cuba and consider adding the country to the Special Watch List," it asked of the U.S. government. "The State Department should ensure that all FORB reporting fully reflects the views of marginalized churches and faith leaders, rather than positions of state officials and offices." Michael Mutzner, the permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva of the World Evangelical Alliance, wrote in an op-ed for The Christian Post earlier this year that evangelicals in Cuba are often controlled and repressed, but are still growing. Mutzner noted that evangelicals make up about 10 percent of the Cuban population, with most churches facing some forms of restrictions. Churches established after 1959 in Cuba face the most difficult conditions, because they are considered illegal. They represent 12 percent of Cuban evangelicals. Some are in the country since over 30 years but are still unable to register with the ministry of justice of Cuba, he told CP about churches in the most difficult situations. Their meeting locations can be destroyed, and their leaders arrested. Thus, dozens of pastors are regularly harassed and arrested. Some have been unjustly sentenced in court, such as pastor Nunez Velazquez who was sentenced on October 2016 to one-year house arrest. Cuba Plane Crash: Questions Surround Fate of 10 Orphaned Children After Deaths of Pastors Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment As Cuba and its Christian community continue to process the shock of the plane crash near La Haban last Friday, where 111 people lost their lives, one of the main priorities for the Church is determining what happens to the children who've been orphaned by the tragedy. Pastor Bill Devlin of Infinity Bible Church in New York, who is also the president of REDEEM and co-chair of Right to Worship NYC, told The Christian Post in a phone interview from Cuba on Wednesday that 10 children have lost both their parents from the Church of the Nazarene. Devlin, who said he flew to Cuba to "represent the American church" and show the Church of the Nazarene that it's not forgotten, told CP that the children are all between the ages of 8 and 17. He noted that there are "daily meetings and discussions" going on about them, with the church looking to figure out "what families are going to take care of them," whether it be other pastors, or family members. He explained that the 10 couples from the church, who died when the Boeing passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Havana on its way to Holguin, were attending a general conference on marriage in the capital. Devlin noted that the church ordains both women and men as pastors, and in many cases, for instance, where the husband served as pastor, the wife would have a role as a secretary or treasurer, and vice versa. The Church of the Nazarene released the names of the 10 couples who died on Cubana Flight 972, which included Cuba East District's Nazarene Missions International president, secretary, and treasurer. "In this moment of anguish and pain, we ask for your prayers and help to be able to get through this situation together," said Leonel Lopez, national president for the church in Cuba. Devlin said that he previously worked with two of the couples who died, Pastor Ronni Alain Pupo Pupo and Yurisel Milagros Miranda Mulet, NMI president, and Pastor Gelover Martin Perez Avalo and Yoneisi Cordovez Rodriguez, district treasurer. He noted that in late November 2017, REDEEM held a University Student Christian Conference at the Church of the Nazarene in Holguin, which was attended by over 250 people. "We will deeply miss our sisters and brothers we shall see them again at the Table of Jesus Christ when we all gather together," he said. Devlin, accompanied by Pastor Luis Batista, general secretary of the Eastern District of the Church of the Nazarene, attended several funerals of the deceased this week, where he presented a gift of $5,000 to be used to support the church in its time of grief. He shared that he met with government officials from the Cuban Communist Party, revealing that they have been very supportive. "The government is helping pay for funeral expenses," he said, adding that it has also transported the remains of the pastors and their spouses to Holguin, taking up the costs of the cremation and the transportation. "They have been very helpful in this whole situation," he said, noting that the Church of the Nazarene has a "very good relationship" with the government. Devlin, who has been traveling every three months to Cuba since 2007, working with evangelical pastors, holding youth conferences, training preachers and assisting people in need in the country, said that he has "never seen any restrictions on the practice of Christianity." He noted that in the eastern district, there are about 72 Church of the Nazarene churches, each with about 50 to 100 people. With the loss of the 10 pastors and their spouses, that is "going to [create] a real leadership gap," he said. "Our brothers and sisters are hurting," he conveyed, adding that he felt the need to personally go to Cuba and offer his condolences and his assistance. "We want to support you, not just through prayers and thoughts," he said of his message to the church, sharing his desire to find hope for the 10 children who've lost both of their parents. He also said that a website has been established for people to help with the funeral expenses and the needs of the surviving children, teenagers and family members. Devlin additionally wrote a report from Cuba that he shared with CP, noting that alongside his colleague, Pastor Julio Fernandez-Freeman in Holguin, he had the opportunity to record an hour-long meeting with Pastor Luis Batista. He said it was done "not for social media, but for local American and Canadian churches to learn about the tragic circumstances and then respond practically with Christian love and help the hands, heart and feet of Jesus." Devlin recalled: "As we sat and listened, our eyes wet with the burden of the story, I told Pastor Luis that as soon as I learned of the crash and that there were 20 leaders on board, I began to raise money for whatever needs I might confront upon my arrival in Cuba." "At the end of our time together, it was a great privilege to give to Pastor Luis a gift from several churches, families and individuals who had heard of the crash and decided to bless the Church in Cuba," he added. He wrote that during his first evening in Cuba on Tuesday, he attended the funeral of husband and wife Manuel David Aguilar Saavedra and Maria Salome Sanchez Arevalo. "The facility was packed with hundreds of Cuban people, churchgoers and otherwise, who had come to pay their respects. The government provided for the costs of each funeral and all the burials," he described. "What amazed me over my several visits to this funeral facility where the cremated remains were brought directly from Havana, was the presence of not only local Cuban Communist Party officials, but also the Provincial Secretary for the Cuban Communist Party." Devlin visited a number of the grieving relatives of the victims in the next days, including the mother and mother-in-law of Gelover Martin Perez Avalo and his wife, Yoneisi Cordovez Rodriguez. After comforting the grieving women, he also met two of the three orphaned sons, David and Darius. "David and Daniel are 16 year old twins; Darius is 14 year old boy all three now without their mom and dad. Pastor Julio and I spoke briefly to these and to five other family members who were there. I thought, 'Who would care for these young boys?'" The American pastor continued: "Amazingly, in a meeting with Pastor Julio the day before, he told me that he and his wife, Yanet, knew this entire family and had spent time with this family just 10 days before the crash. Pastor Julio said, 'My wife and I talked and we would be willing to take these three boys in and raise them as our won!'" Osmel Cruz, worship pastor and associate of pastor Fernandez-Freeman, responded to questions from CP providing further details about the deceased and the tragic situation. "For the most part all of these pastors with their families had their churches located at the countryside in small villages of rustic houses of wood and palm-tree roofs. According to Pastor Hector (the Presbyter of Holguin province), the average age of the passing pastors are around 45 years old," Cruz said. "Some of them left behind small children, but others with older sons and daughters were sustaining their older parents, who now have no one to take care of them," he added, noting that many of them were living in poverty. "All these pastoral families don't own a house, which means that for the most part they won't have a place to live in. Their churches cannot afford a sustained economic support to these families, for they barely can sustain themselves." Below are the full names of the Church of the Nazarene couples who died in the crash, alongside their situations and children left behind, as described by Cruz and edited for clarity: Mirza Rodriguez Rondon and Juan Luis Vega Velazquez In their 40s, they had three young sons. Their ministry was at La Monja, Holguin countryside. They lived in the pastoral house with their parents and children who cannot provide for themselves. Luis Manuel Rojas Perez and Maricela Pena Pastors at Dominguez, Holguin countryside, with grown up sons. The church has around 40 active members. Norma Suarez Niles and Jesus Manuel Garcia Oberto Pastors at Unas, Holguin countryside. They left behind an 11-year-old son. Maria Virgen Filandez Rojas and Rafael Vega Velazquez. They pastor at Guaramanao, a small rural town where poverty is not only seen but is also felt. Their ministry was known for sharing the little they had with many. Ronni Alain Pupo Pupo and Yurisel Milagros Miranda Mulet (NMI president) Located on Vista Alegre in Holguin City. One of the biggest Nazarene churches with a growing congregation. Their 12-year-old daughter is now left behind. She only has her older grandmother, without a house to live in. Eloy Ortiz Abad and Elva Maria Mosqueda Legra They pastor at Estrada town, it belongs to Urbano Noris municipality. They were in their 50s and live with their older parents, who have no one now to take care of them. Juan Carlos Nogueras Leyva and Noelbis Hernandez Guerrero Bocas, Holguin countryside. Leaving two young sons, still studying. With aged parents also. Gelover Martin Perez Avalo and Yoneisi Cordovez Rodriguez (pastor and district treasurer) Church located at Ciudad Jardin, Holguin City. Three orphans, a 13-year-old son and 15-year-old twins. They leave a growing church, but with many family problems because of their mentally ill grandparents, and without a house or family to care after them. Manuel David Aguilar Saavedra and Maria Salome Sanchez Arevalo (district secretary) Maria was full-time district secretary with a 15-years-old son and an aged grandmother, without family or financial support. Grisell Filandez Clark and Lorenzo Boch Bring They pastor at La Calera, Holguin countryside. They were old adults with older parents. The Karabakh conflict, which flared up more than twenty years ago, continues to affect the daily life of the entire region. Despite the signing of the Bishkek Protocol and other settlement attempts, the confrontation has not been overcome yet. The independence gave Armenia a chance to restore the diplomatic relations with Turkey, but this appeared impossible because of Ankaras unequivocal support of Bakus position in the Karabakh conflict. Once in a semi-blockade position, Armenia has gone the path of the militarization of society; the atmosphere of fear and danger of resuming the war has become the determining factor in the development of the republic, which naturally affected its investment unattractiveness. The worst thing is that the protracted conflict has become the habit of everyday life and the new generation of Armenian and Azerbaijani youth hardly imagines a joint peaceful residence. Experts and people of the older generation, who remember the times when Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived side by side peacefully and created families, are alarmed by this. The situation in Azerbaijan is also not easy - despite the possibilities for economic development, many of which have been realized, the republic was forced to take the path of militarization and for many years to increase its ground grouping. The reason for this was the long-term destructive policy of Yerevan, which tried to persuade Baku to recognize the actual result of the Karabakh war and to abandon the demands for the de-occupation of seven regions. The mental crisis also did not bypass Azerbaijan - the consequences of the ethnopolitical process in 1988-1994 led to the exclusion of Armenians from the history and life of the republic, although the events of the creation of the Armenian and Azerbaijani republics are inextricably linked. Today, both Armenia and Azerbaijan have tender spots in foreign policy. The conflict leaves its mark on the relations of Azerbaijan and Armenia with their neighbors. So, Irans cooperation with Armenia, Turkeys contacts with Azerbaijan, and the military cooperation of the Russian Federation with both sides of the conflict are not always clearly evaluated. Among other things, the Karabakh conflict created tools for foreign political influence on the countries of the region. Major global players can easily penetrate into different spheres of life of the South Caucasian countries, increasing their presence, monopolizing foreign policy cooperation. For this reason, the achievement of peace is significantly complicated, since the intervention of other countries implies the satisfaction of the interests of the mediators trying to achieve the peaceful resolution of the problem. Today, Russia is the only country in the world that is taking real steps to reduce tensions in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Without the resolution of the Karabakh conflict, it will be difficult for Azerbaijan and Armenia to join any of unions. Although Azerbaijan has established economic ties with its western partners, Russia and Kazakhstan do not exclude the intensification of the economic contacts with Baku, they see the prospects for Azerbaijans entry into the EAEU, especially since its trade turnover is primarily focused on Russia. However, if we take into account that Armenia is a member of the EAEU, it is difficult to imagine how Azerbaijan will be able to contact with the occupant country in this organization. Taking into account the current geopolitical situation, it is worth noting that peace in the region is extremely important for Russia, while Western countries are strengthening their positions in Armenia and Georgia, bearing in mind that the South Caucasus remains a bridge between Russia and the Greater Middle East. Events in Syria, Iran, Iraq affect the entire region. It is obvious that the settlement is impossible without the observance of two basic conditions: first, de-occupation of the occupied territories, and second, the determination of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is where one of the fundamental contradictions lies. The West adheres to the idea of phased implementation of the former US ambassador to Armenia, Richard Millshas plan, who stated that the conflict cannot be resolved without returning certain occupied Azerbaijani territories. The priority for Armenia is not only the exclusion of the use of military force and peace negotiations, but also the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, while Azerbaijan excludes the possibility to recognize the self-proclaimed republic, putting forward the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories as a prerequisite for the negotiations, which Armenia strongly disagrees with. Today there are many ways to resolve the conflict, but as it is known, everything old is new again. And in this case, it will probably be appropriate to recall the territorial claims and attempts to resolve the conflict between the young Armenian and Azerbaijani Republics in 1918-1920. Now, some experts say that to resolve the conflict around Nagorno-Karabakh, it is quite possible to use the ideas of the ADR founders, who tried to move away from ethnic and territorial disputes by creating a confederation capable of becoming a guarantor of political and economic security. At present, due to the deepening contradictions, we can talk about the creation of a parliamentary republic on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with equal representation in the legislative bodies of the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples. However, to do so it is necessary to ensure the possibility of returning internally displaced persons to Karabakh. At the same time, it is obvious that the leadership of Armenia will have to abandon the idea of existence in the conditions of a mono-national republic - after all, this kind of policy, based solely on force, is essentially a utopia that damages the entire region. It should be emphasized that the potential Armenian-Azerbaijani confederation in the territory of Karabakh can be based only on the principles of equal representation of both peoples in the government bodies, otherwise it will turn into a time bomb, the explosion of which will lead to unpredictable consequences. The transition from territorial confrontation to rapprochement will not only relieve the situation in the region but may also attract both Armenia and Georgia to the confederation. After all, the modern world is striving for integration, and the South Caucasus at some stage is unlikely to avoid this fate. Full lament: Southern Baptist Seminary releases report on its history of slavery, racism Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The Southern Baptist Conventions flagship seminary has released a report detailing their history of racism and support for slavery as part of an endeavor to recognize their past moral failings on race issues. We must repent of our own sins, we cannot repent for the dead. We must, however, offer full lament for a legacy we inherit, and a story that is now ours, wrote The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler, Jr., in the 71-page Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler appointed a committee last year to research the history of the Louisville-based evangelical school, which was founded in 1859 as part of the pro-slavery SBC, on the issues of race, slavery and civil rights. The committee consisted of six scholars, including Gregory A. Wills, professor of church history and former dean of the School of Theology who chaired the committee. The history of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is intertwined with the history of American slavery and the commitment to white supremacy which supported it. Slavery left its mark on the seminary just as it did upon the American nation as a whole, states the reports Summary of Findings. The belief in white supremacy that undergirded slavery also undergirded new forms of racial oppression. The seminarys leaders long shared that belief and therefore failed to combat effectively the injustices stemming from it. The report notes that the seminarys founders all held slaves, supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and up until the 1940s actively supported segregation and racial inequality. The report also found that before the 1940s, the seminary endorsed the Lost Cause narrative of American history, which promoted a pro-South perspective on slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, often to justify Jim Crow laws. There are some positives in the seminarys history, according to the report, including steps toward advancing black education before the 1940s, integrating their classes three years before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and faculty giving support for the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s. This report documents the contradictions and complexities of the experience of Southern Baptists and race in America. We have not overcome all the contradictions, but we are committed to doing so, notes the report in its conclusion. Mohler said that while these questionable positions were believed or practiced widely at the time, this does not excuse them, nor will it excuse us. As he called for repentance, he added, As Christians, we know no total sanctification or perfection in this life. We await something better, our future glorification by Christ. Mohler also noted that while the seminarys founders had moral shortcomings like slave ownership and support for the Confederacy, the evangelical school will not censor them. In light of the burdens of history, some schools hasten to remove names, announce plans, and declare moral superiority. That is not what I intend to do, nor do I believe that to be what the Southern Baptist Convention or our Board of Trustees would have us to do, he stated. We do not evaluate our Christian forebears from a position of our own moral innocence. Christians know that there is no such innocence. But we must judge, even as we will be judged, by the unchanging Word of God and the deposit of biblical truth. Over the past few years, the Southern Baptist Convention has made efforts to acknowledge and seek forgiveness for their history as a denomination founded on pro-slavery viewpoints. In 2012, the SBC, once founded by pro-slavery Baptists, elected its first African-American president, the Rev. Fred J. Luter, Jr. of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2014, the denomination passed a resolution that lamented and repudiated America's "long history of racial segregation as well as the complicity of Southern Baptists who resisted or opposed" racial integration. In 2015, then SBC President Ronnie Floyd was part of a summit with Jerry Young, president of the historically African-American denomination National Baptist Convention, USA. The summit was organized by Mission Mississippi, a Christian organization founded in the 1990s that is centered on creating racial reconciliation. The SBC's public policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has also been focused on racial reconciliation in recent years, with its president Russell Moore calling racism "anti-Christ." In April at the MLK 50 Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, Moore gave a speech in which he declared that the "White American Bible Belt" often paid homage to racism while calling it "Jesus Christ." Montana Supreme Court: No state tax credit program scholarships for religious schools Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The Montana Supreme Court has struck down a tax credit program that allowed for the funding of private religious schools. In a decision released Wednesday, the high court ruled 5-2 in Espinoza v. Department of Revenue that the Tax Credit Program, originally approved by the state legislature in 2015, violated the Montana Constitution. In 2015, the Montana Legislature passed Senate Bill 410, which allowed tax credits for donations of up to $150 to either private school scholarships or educational programs in public schools. Montanas Department of Revenue originally barred religious schools from the program, citing Article X, Section 6, which says the state government shall not make any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies, or any grant of lands or other property for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination. Montana is one of 36 states to have adopted what is commonly called a "Blaine Amendment." Named after nineteenth century Republican Senator James Blaine of Maine, these amendments were originally enacted to prevent Catholic schools from getting government aid. In 2016, a judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing students at religious schools to receive the scholarships, according to the Great Falls Tribune. Justice Laurie McKinnon authored the majority opinion, reversing the lower court decision. Calling the Tax Credit Program "facially unconstitutional," the judge wrote that the state constitution broadly prohibits any type of direct or indirect aid to sectarian religious entities. We conclude that Montanas Constitution more broadly prohibits any state aid to sectarian schools and draws a more stringent line than that drawn by its federal counterpart, wrote McKinnon. The Legislature, by enacting the Tax Credit Program, involved itself in donations to religiously-affiliated private schools The Legislature, by enacting a statute that provides a dollar-for-dollar credit against taxes owed to the state, is the entity providing aid to sectarian schools via tax credits in violation of Article X, Section 6. Justices Beth Baker and Jim Rice dissented from the opinion, with Baker writing that the majority erred by claiming that the state constitution allowed for a broad ban on aid to sectarian schools. There is little dispute that the Tax Credit Programs tax credit does not constitute a direct appropriation or payment. The Department argues instead that the District Court erred by failing to consider the indirect impact, wrote Baker. a theory based upon indirect impacts or indirect effects of the Tax Credit Program diverges from the constitutional text. Unambiguous constitutional language must be given its plain, natural, and ordinary meaning. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed an amicus brief in the case with other progressive groups, celebrated the decision. Montana taxpayers should never be forced to fund religious education thats a fundamental violation of religious freedom, said Rachel Laser, CEO and president of Americans United, in a statement released Wednesday. The Montana Supreme Courts decision protects both church-state separation and public education. Its a double win. Kendra Espinoza, one of the plaintiffs in the case, took issue with the Montana high courts decision and has expressed intentions to appeal the ruling. The courts ruling discriminates against religious families and every Montana child who is counting on these scholarships, said Espinoza, as reported by the Great Falls Tribune. For the benefit of families across the state, and the nation, we will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to right this wrong. State Dept. adds Russia to religious freedom 'watch list,' labels Pakistan a 'country of concern' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The U.S. State Department has added Russia to its special watch list for religious freedom violators and added Pakistan to its list of countries of particular concern. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Tuesday decisions made on Nov. 28 to list 10 countries as countries of particular concern, a designation required under the International Religious Freedom Act to single out the countries where governments have engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom. The CPC designation, the highest U.S. government designation for religious freedom violations committed by foreign governments, carries with it the potential for the U.S. government to enact sanctions and other diplomatic actions to pressure change in those countries. After years of outrage from human rights and religious freedom activists over the ongoing abuses against Christians and other religious minorities, Muslim-majority Pakistan was designated as a CPC for the first time. Pakistan ranks as the fifth worst country in the world for Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USAs World Watch List. This Administration has had the courage to hold Pakistan accountable for Pakistans persistent and systemic failures to protect the civil and human rights of religious minorities, Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, the author of the International Religious Freedom Act of 2016, said in a statement. This designation gives hope and voice to suffering Shia, Christian, Hindu, Ahmadi, and other minority citizens whose very presence counters religious extremism in Pakistan. The other nine countries designated as CPCs Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan had already been listed by the State Department as CPCs. Russia, Comoros and Uzbekistan were named to the State Departments Special Watch List, a designation created by the IRFA of 2016 to single out countries that are deemed not to meet all of the CPC criteria but who engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom. Although Russia has been put on the Special Watch List, some believe the U.S. should consider listing Russia as a CPC. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended a CPC designation for Russia earlier this year. Russia has been criticized for banning Jehovahs Witnesses and abusing its anti-extremism law to prosecute peaceful worshipers and nontraditional groups including Scientologists. Since the passing of Russias 2016 law criminalizing missionary activity, NGOs have reported 156 cases of religious groups being targeted that also include Christian groups from various denominations, according to U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. In a recent press briefing, Brownback explained that Russia has 145 prisoners jailed for religious beliefs, 106 of whom are Muslim. He stressed that Russia has stepped up their oppression. The violations of religious freedom in Russia are real, thoroughly documented, and at times brutal, Smith asserted a House hearing he chaired of the Helsinki Commission on Religious Freedom in Eurasia on Tuesday. The Russian government deserves this and next year we should consider carefully whether it belongs on the list of Countries of Particular Concern the CPC list for the worst of the worst. Pakistan was the first country to be put on the Special Watch List last year. In 2017, Uzbekistan was listed as a CPC. Led by Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov, Uzbekistan took part in the State Departments Ministerial for Religious Freedom in July and has now been taken off the CPC list. However, USCIRF, a congressionally mandated advisory body consisting of religious freedom activists and scholars appointed by the president and congressional leaders, recommended that Uzbekistan stay on the CPC list. We question whether Uzbekistan has sufficiently improved to be moved from the CPC list to the Special Watch List, USCIRF Chair Tenzin Dorjee said in a statement. Among other things, USCIRF had voiced concerns about the thousands of Muslims imprisoned on dubious charges in Uzbekistan and the harassment of Christians. In response to the State Departments designation, the government of Pakistan accused the CPC designation of being a "unilateral and politically motivated pronouncement. According to Dawn.com, Pakistans Foreign Office declared in a statement Wednesday that it has safeguarded the rights of its citizens through the use of administrative mechanisms. Besides the clear biases reflected from these designations, there are serious questions over the credentials and impartiality of the self-proclaimed jury involved in this unwarranted exercise, the Pakistan government's statement says. Brownback told reporters this week that Pakistan is home to half of the worlds blasphemy law victims, as the law prohibiting insults against Islam is often used by Muslims to settle scores with religious minorities and can be punishable by death or life in prison. Christian mother Asia Bibi spent nearly a decade in a Pakistani prison because Muslim field workers accused her of insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad after an argument. Although she was acquitted from her death sentence by the Pakistan Supreme Court in October, she has been barred from leaving the country until her case can be reviewed. Family groups pressure Congress to legalize VidAngel media filter service after Hollywood lawsuit Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The nations lead family television watchdog is concerned that Congress may squander an opportunity to give parents more control over the media their children consume at home as Hollywood interests stand in the way of bipartisan, evangelical-backed legislation to give them the ability to do so. The Parents Television Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to protecting families from graphic sex, violence and profanity in the media, is pressuring Congress to vote on the Family Movie Act Clarification Act before the current session comes to an end in the coming weeks. The next three weeks, the watchdog believes, will be the last true opportunity to pass the legislation that would allow parents to use technologies such as VidAngel or ClearPlay to filter graphic and sexual scenes and language from movies and television shows streamed through services like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. Although the Family Movie Act of 2005 legalizes such technology for movies and videos played on DVD players, a group of Hollywood movie studios sued in Hollywood-friendly courts in Southern California to get a ban on filtering technology from being used on programs streamed over the internet. Hollywood studios are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill it. They have spent maybe millions of dollars in legal fees by bankrupting companies with legal threats of piracy, PTC President Tim Winter told The Christian Post on Wednesday. They claim this is copywriting infringement but they made those same claims with the DVDs and lost there. H.R.6816 was introduced by Florida Republican Rep. Mia Love in September following a Ninth Circuit Court ruling in August against an appeal filed by filtering company VidAngel, which shut down in 2016 due to the legal pressure applied by Disney and other studios. The latest legislation would simply update the 2005 legislation to legalize filtering services on streaming platforms in addition to DVDs. According to Winter, the bill would bring the Family Movie Act into the 21st Century. We are hoping that Congress, just like they did in 2005 with a bipartisan passing of the bill signed into law by [George W.] Bush 43, we hope there will be bipartisanship here, Winter said. We also know that the clock is ticking on this lame-duck session. I am told that Disney and other studios spent huge lobbying trying to kill this bill before it was introduced. The bill is strongly supported by the Protect Family Rights Coalition, which is headed by the former CEO of ClearPlay. According to the coalition, H.R. 6816 was introduced by Love after a plea from prominent faith-based leaders, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and James Dobson of Family Talk radio. Other notable supporters of the bill include Maryland pastor Harry Jackson, former San Diego megachurch pastor Jim Garlow, Ted Baehr of the Christian Film and Television Commission, and former Ohio Congressman Bob McEwen. The proposed update defends the rights of families to filter when using authorized streaming services, like Netflix and Amazon, and without sacrificing studio revenue or violating the Copyright Act, the coalitions executive director, William J. Aho, wrote in a June 2017 letter, which was endorsed by the other leaders, to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. We are asking the House to pass legislation that simply clarifies that families have the right to filter streamed movies, for private viewing, without interference. Winter told CP that claims that filtering services are engaging in some form of piracy or copyright infringement are ludicrous. There is no derivative work that is being edited and resold to anybody else, Winter said. It is only when it streams and plays back on my device. So there is no derivative work that is being pirated or resold. The [studios] are actually gaining money. Winter said that studios should appreciate the fact that filtering services will enable more families to watch their programs when they wouldnt otherwise. The only thing we can figure for why Hollywood would try to kill technology that would bring in more revenue and more viewers and customers is that their agenda of pushing graphic content is even more important than the cash flow, Winter opined. With the current Congress coming to a close at the end of the year, Winter is not optimistic that the bill could get passed in the next Congress. We fear that if it doesnt pass in this session, it is unlikely to pass or even be introduced in the future, he contended. There is a lot of financial lobbying pressure. The new Congress in January is going to have to pick and choose what they are going to move forward on. I dont see that Congress moving forward with this. I am hopeful that those who felt the scorn of Hollywood in the campaign in this last election might take this moment to do something for families. "It seems like a no-brainer and the simplicity of it makes it possible before they adjourn for the year." GOP Congressmen grill Google for making SPLC a 'trusted flagger' on YouTube Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Republican members of Congress were critical of Google CEO Sundar Pichai for his companys decision to give the Southern Poverty Law Center power to help monitor the content of videos on YouTube. Pichai gave testimony on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee regarding issues of Google political bias, privacy concerns, and transparency. Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas began his remarks by commending Pichai for what his company does and by noting that he opposes excessive government regulation of Google. Rep. Gohmert then noted that his problem with Google was when the government gives it immunity from lawsuits over to a private corporation whose leader doesnt even realize that there is political bias run amok in his company. As an example, Gohmert cited Googles decision to make the Southern Poverty Law Center one of more than one hundred non-government entities that monitors YouTube's content as part of the sites "Trusted Flaggers" program. The Southern Poverty Law Center really has stirred up more hate than about any other group I know, stated Gohmert, who then cited the 2012 attempted mass shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters by Floyd Lee Corkins. A gay rights activist, Corkins explained to authorities that he decided to target the FRC because of their placement on the SPLCs list of hate groups. They stirred up hate against the [FRC] and a guy goes in shooting, Gohmert told Pichai. You consider them a trusted flagger and yet they keep creating problems for people who are not haters. Youre so surrounded by liberality that hates conservatism, hates people that really love our Constitution and the freedoms its afforded people like you, that you dont even recognize it. Gohmert argued that Google should be liable when his company and the companies they are connected to use their technology to attack conservatives. Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana also asked Pichai about SPLCs trusted flagger status, questioning what the standards are for a group to be considered a trusted flagger. The Google CEO responded that as of the present day the liberal group had never flagged a single video on our platform. Pichai also noted that Google has reached out to a wide variety of organizations, including conservative organizations for their trusted flagger program. He also welcomed suggestions for conservative groups to add to their list. Our trusted flaggers dont remove content. They can flag content for us to review and we review flagged content, explained Pichai. Its mostly used by law enforcement, many nonprofit agencies in important areas like child safety, terrorism, and so on. In recent times, YouTube and other social media sites have been criticized for their reported censorship and mistreatment of conservative accounts and posts. Last October, popular conservative YouTube account PragerU filed a lawsuit against the social media video site and Google over accusing them of using their restricted mode filtering ... as a political gag mechanism to silence PragerU. In February, YouTube restricted access to a video posted by the conservative nonprofit PragerU featuring pro-life activist Lila Rose criticizing Planned Parenthood. Titled "What You Need to Know about Planned Parenthood," the video was restricted within hours of being uploaded, making it harder for it to be viewed by people with certain privacy settings. In 2017, conservative theologian and radio host Dr. Michael Brown saw his YouTube videos demonetized and saw a drop in viewership after Google deemed his videos unsuitable for advertisers. HHS Civil Rights Office head slams Obama's treatment of Christian groups Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment WASHINGTON The Department of Health and Human Services top civil rights official criticized the former Obama administration on Tuesday for the way it treated Christian organizations who objected to Obamacares contraception mandate. Roger Severino, the director of the HHS Office of Civil Rights, spoke among friends at a lunch event Tuesday hosted by the social conservative-libertarian think tank American Principles Project Foundation in which he declared that the APP mission statement calling for public policy with human dignity at its heart should be the mission statement of his department. HHS, after all, is dedicated to the health and well-being of every American, Severino explained. We are everywhere. We are the largest federal agency. If we were to separate our budget as a country, we would be among the top-10 biggest countries in the world. With such incredible power, we can do a lot of good to respect human dignity, he added. You may note that in our recent mission statement for HHS strategic plan, we said that all Americans from conception until natural death deserver our protections. That was a change. Severino, who previously served as the director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and is at the forefront of Trumps attempt to promote religious freedom at HHS, warned that there are times that big federal agencies forget those foundational principles. The most striking example is with the Little Sisters of the Poor, Severino said, referring to the legal battle the order of Catholic nuns had against the U.S. government beginning under Obama administration as it faced crippling fines for refusing to abide by an Obamacare birth control mandate. The Little Sisters of the Poor was among many religious organizations, colleges, associations and institutions that sued the HHS over the mandate that they provide health care coverage of contraception to employees. Although the organizations were provided with an opt-out process that would allow the government to help facilitate birth control coverage to employees, many of the organizations felt that it still made them complicit in violating tenets of their religious beliefs against contraception and abortion. Many sought the same exemption to the mandate that was provided to churches. The groups faced millions of dollars in fines for not complying with the mandate, which threatened their existence. In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor and other groups by remanding the cases back to the lower courts and vacating their earlier rulings. The Trump administration ended the federal governments defense of the Obamacare mandate in court and courts have issued rulings in favor of the religious organizations in the last two years. [The Little Sisters of the Poor were] dedicated to being there for the elderly in their last days, literally, so they do not die alone so that they know that they are loved, so their life has dignity and worth, Severino explained in his remarks. Instead of supporting this incredible organization, the HHS went after them, threatening to shut them down with millions in fines because they would not assist in the provision of contraceptives to their fellow nuns. I dont know how we got to this place but it is a very topsy-turvy world where that was the official position of the federal government and the Department of Justice for years until very recently when we undid the contraceptive mandate through regulatory rulemaking, he added. Last year, the Trump HHS instituted two new rules to allow non-profits and for-profit entities to make a religious or moral objection in order to obtain an exemption to the birth control mandate. I have learned that sometimes to counteract some of the defects of bureaucracy, you need a bureaucracy, Severino told the crowd. Which is why we have stood up a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division [at HHS] to institutionalize protection of 25 conscience protection statutes that Congress has passed that have either been neglected or have been completely forgotten. Severino took a minute from his remarks to praise leaders from the HHS Office of Civil Rights and the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division. They are the foot soldiers of OCR, he asserted. We engaged in rulemaking as one of the first acts of the new division to give the same enforcement tools as with every other civil right so that people are not just discriminated against when they object to abortion, covering or paying for abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide. Severino pointed out that HHS received over 242,000 public comments to its proposed rules through Regulation.gov. I wish it were everyone. This is, in fact, democracy 2.0. This is a way you can impact agency rulemaking, Severino said. We are required to read the catalog and respond to every comment submitted to our proposed rules. I encourage you to watch Regulations.gov and when the time comes to make comments on the rules, submit the comments to become part of the official record and part of the litigation. Only good can come from having people from all stripes of society contribute their thoughts on how the government is doing business. Since taking over as the head of the HHS Office of Civil Rights, Severino has drawn the ire of left-wing activists and liberal media pundits over the fact that he has voiced opposition in the past to the political lefts LGBT agenda and has also advocated for pro-life policies. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported on the Trump administrations plans to eliminate another Obama-era regulation that critics said required faith-based hospitals, insurance providers and doctors to perform, provide or cover gender-reassignment surgeries even if they have religious convictions against such procedures. Severino said at the time that the Obama administrations interpretation of civil rights law that extended protections on the basis of sex to include gender identity "was contrary to law and exceeded statutory authority." Leading college faculty union says belief in only 2 genders is based on ideology,' not fact Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment One of Americas leading college faculty unions is decrying attempts to define gender as binary, and claims that the Trump administration and the religious fundamentalists who support such a definition are moved by ideology, not fact. The American Association of University Professors, which has 500 chapters and 39 state associations, released a statement last month titled The Assault on Gender and Gender Studies. The statement, which was created by AAUPs subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on Women in the Academic Profession, railed against the Trump administration for considering a plan to define gender as a biological, immutable condition defined by a persons sex at birth. The plan stoked fears that the word transgender could be defined out of existence. The AAUP statement also condemned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for issuing a decree prohibiting gender studies courses from being taught in universities throughout the country. The statement also went after administrations in Poland, Brazil and Bulgaria for attempts to refute the scholarly consensus that gender identity is variable and mutable. Biologists, anthropologists, historians, and psychologists have repeatedly shown that definitions of sex and sexuality have varied over time and across cultures and political regimes, the AAUP statement reads. Some of their work suggests that state-enforced preservation of traditional gender roles is associated with authoritarian attempts to control social life and to promise security in troubled times by pledging to protect patriarchal family structures. AAUP claims that those authoritarian efforts lead to a justification of racial, class, and sexual policing that disciplines forms of kinship and homemaking. Politicians and religious fundamentalists are neither scientists nor scholars, the AAUP statement asserts. Their motives are ideological. It is they who are offering gender ideology by attempting to override the insights of serious scholars. By substituting their ideology for years of assiduous research, they impose their will in the name of a science that is without factual support. This is a cynical invocation of science for purely political ends. The statement also asserts that defining gender as binary and immutable not only hurts transgender individuals and other nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals but that it will also disproportionately impact poor people and poor people of color. There is also a potential threat to academic freedom: like attacks on climate science, the effort to establish a legal definition of gender as binary could lead to denying research funding to scholars and to impugning the value and validity of their scholarly work, the statement warns. Fixing the meaning of gender in this way may undermine the open-ended forms of inquiry that define research and teaching in a democracy. Despite accusing politicians and religious fundamentalists of having ideological motives with no factual support, AAUP failed in its statement to provide any sort of citation to the biologists, anthropologists, historians, and psychologists it relies on to form its own argument. Although the AAUP statement wants to present politicians and religious fundamentalists as the main purveyor of the argument against beliefs in mutable gender, doctors and academics are also calling on the Trump administration to define gender as a biological, immutable condition. Leaders from the conservative American College of Pediatricians signed onto a petition sent last week to Trump administration officials to praise the administration for its intent to uphold the scientific definition of sex in federal law and policy. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design for the obvious purpose of the reproduction of our species, the petition reads. This principle is self-evident. XY and XX are genetic markers of male and female, respectively, and are found in every cell of the human body including the brain. Sex is established at conception, declares itself in utero, and is acknowledged at birth. The petition declares that sex differences are real and consequential. The Institute of Medicine recognized the singular importance of sex to health and the field of medicine nearly two decades ago, the petition explains. Sex chromosomes impart innate differences between men and women in literally every cell of our bodies. There are over 6,500 shared genes that are expressed differently in human males and females. These differences impact our brains, organ systems, propensity for developing certain diseases, differential responses to drugs, toxins and pain, differential cognitive and emotional processes, behavior and more. Along with ACPs Dr. Michelle Cretella and pediatric endocrinologist Quinton Van Meter, the petition was signed by professors and academics from institutions like the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame, the University of San Diego and Johns Hopkins Medical School. The petition was also signed by social conservative activists such as the Family Research Councils Tony Perkins, Liberty Counsels Mat Staver, and Alliance Defending Freedoms Michael Farris. Michael Brown, a conservative radio host and prominent Messianic Jewish author, questioned in an op-ed what the AAUP thinks of the doctors and academics who signed onto the petition. They are obviously bigots, and bigots cannot be taken seriously, Brown sarcastically joked. In other words, we know better. We are educated. We are scientists. We are free of bias. We have no agenda, no ideology, no underlying worldview. We only utter the truth. Brown said that the AAUPs argument breaks down when you look at some of the initial signatories of the statement, which includes professor J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, who is celebrated in LGBT circles for his book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Of course, this argument breaks down immediately, based on verifiable facts, Brown wrote. Evolutionary psychology professor Geoffry Miller at the University of New Mexico also criticized the AAUP statement. Disgraceful that the leading union for American faculty, @AAUP, has sided with gender feminism ('serious scholars doing years of assiduous research') over evolutionary science in defining sex & gender, he wrote in a tweet. Why take such a blatantly partisan & biased position? Students walk out to protest firing of Christian teacher for opposing transgender pronoun use rules Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Students at a public high school have demonstrated their support for a Christian teacher fired from his position because he refused to refer to a trans-identified student by their preferred pronoun. Less than 24 hours after the West Point, Virginia school board unanimously voted to terminate high school French instructor Peter Vlaming, a large group of students walked out of their classes to protest the decision. He's an amazing man, student Wyatt Pedersen told WWBT News. I think he really was going with what he believed was right and it's really unfair that hes being punished for that, especially in such a dramatic way. I feel like everyone should have the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion as well, said Junior Zachary Gonzalez. Forrest Rohde, the West Point High School junior who organized the walkout, emphasized that the protest was not about the transgender student. Rather, he said students took issue with the school board trying to force the teacher to conform to their ideologies with the threat of removal from the school. The child is going through a lot, Rohde said. We shouldnt be directing this towards her, we should be directing this towards the school board. Following a brief suspension, Vlaming was fired after the school board accused him of engaging in discrimination and contributing to a hostile learning environment. The teacher explained that while he agreed to use the student's chosen name, he drew the line at pronouns, as doing so violated his conscience. I won't use male pronouns with a female student that now identifies as a male though I did agree to use the new masculine name but avoid female pronouns, said Vlaming in response to the suspension. Administration is requiring that I use masculine pronouns in any and every context at school. I was informed that any further instances of using female pronouns would be grounds for termination. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page set up to help Vlaming cover legal fees and provide for his family has raised over $20,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. With four children under the age of 10, Vlaming, who had taught at West Point for seven years, was the only source of income for his family, the page notes. Wrote one supporter: Our prayers are with you and your family. Thank you for standing up for your beliefs; God will have the victory! A teacher that has the support of his students deserves to be supported by everyone, added another. Vlamings attorney, Shawn Voyles, maintained that the school system was not respecting the constitutional rights of his client, but praised West Point for permitting students to participate in the walkout. We are glad to see that West Point Public Schools permitted this peaceful protest today, Voyles said. That was not the case in November when the students began circulating a petition to return my client to his job. As a student testified at the hearing yesterday, the high school principal actually confiscated the petition. It unfortunately took a threat of legal action by a student to have it returned. Voyles said he is considering how to proceed, including a possible appeal with the circuit court, adding that tolerance should be a two-way street. Unfortunately, tolerance on the part of the school division has been noticeably absent, he said. It chose to impose its own orthodoxy on Mr. Vlaming and fired him because he didn't relinquish his rights protected by the First Amendment. Is the Ark of the Covenant inside a church in Ethiopia? Historians claim of having seen the Ark disputed Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The search for the Ark of the Covenant has led to renewed speculation that the biblical artifact may be hidden inside a church in Ethiopia, but historians have pushed back against the theory. Archaeologists have searched for centuries for clues and hints of where the Ark, containing the stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God, could be. The BASE Institute has sent research teams to Ethiopia, Egypt, Israel and Rome and it believes the evidence points to Ethiopia. Although it has not found the actual Ark, it stated, "As unusual as this may sound, the BASE team has uncovered compelling evidence that the Ark may well have been spirited up the Nile River to an eventual resting place in the remote highlands of ancient Kushmodern-day Ethiopia." Some claim that the artifact lies specifically inside the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Aksum, Ethiopia. Monks serving as guardians do not allow historians and archaeologists to come investigate. The chapel is said to be "off-limits to all but a few members of the Ethiopian Christian church hierarchy, hindering any independent confirmation of their authenticity. Fueling the speculation are old accounts by late British scholar and historian Edward Ullendorff, who claimed to have seen the Ark inside during World War II. Live Science spoke last week with Tudor Parfitt, who was also a professor at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, and heard Ullendorff's claim firsthand. Parfitt, now a professor of religion at Florida International University, clarified that what Ullendorff saw in 1941, when he was a British army officer leading forces into Ethiopia, was a copy, and not the actual Ark. Furthermore, he clarified that Ullendorff never actually believed it was the real Ark, but kept the pretense due to his work in the African country. "He went to the Church of Mary of Zion with a couple of soldiers," Parfitt said, but Ullendorff was refused entry by the guards, who said the church is holy. "He said, 'Well, I'm sorry, but I want to go in,'" and "he did go in with his soldiers behind him. They couldn't do anything to stop him," Parfitt explained. "What he saw was what you find in any Ethiopian church, which is a model of the Ark of the Covenant," the professor stated. Ullendorff privately admitted at the time that the artifact didn't differ in any way from many arks he had seen in other churches in Ethiopia," and that it wasnt the original biblical Ark. Since Ullendorf continued working in Ethiopia after the war and became a personal friend of the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, he did not want to hurt the peoples feelings and claim that the Ark inside the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion was not the real one. Ullendorff made such an admission in a Los Angeles Times article in 1992 but hoped that Ethiopian authorities would not become aware of it. His supposed claim to have seen the real Ark was not challenged in Ethiopia itself. In other research, archaeologists working at Shiloh in the West Bank found 10 pre-First Temple pottery jugs in July 2017, which they said could point in the direction of the Ark of the Covenant. As the Bible describes in the Psalms and in the book of Jeremiah, Shiloh was destroyed when the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines, who stole the Ark. "This is a very exciting find. The destruction could have been caused by the Philistine invasion and the fire that raged [at Shiloh]," Hanina Hizami, coordination officer for archaeology at the Civil Administration, said at the time. The meeting held Tuesday by four ministers served to remind the EU that it still has a promise to keep in terms of visa liberalization, for the implementation of which Turkey has fulfilled a set of reforms. Ankara stressed that Turkey expects the European Union to keep the promises that it has made within the framework of the migration deal, particularly in regards to enabling Turkish citizens to have visa-free access to the EU, as Ankara has already fulfilled its own responsibilities, following the fifth Reform Action Group (RAG) meeting. Daily Sabah reports in its article Turkey presses EU to make good on promise of visa liberalization that the fifth RAG meeting was hosted by Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul in Ankara with the participation of Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. "Our citizens deserve visa-free travel to Europe. We continue our works to get these unjust requirements lifted," Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference following the meeting. "We have said that the seven criteria have fallen to six. It went down when the new passports were recognized by the EU. The EU officially reported this to us. Our joint working groups on issues such as personal protection for Turkey, the Parliament's code of ethics, were met twice. We will continue to work with this determination and obtain visa liberties," Cavusoglu continued. Turkey and the EU signed an agreement on March 18, 2016, to stem the influx of refugees to Europe. Turkey has been the main route for refugees trying to cross into Europe since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. With the agreement, irregular arrivals decreased over 90 percent, saving the lives of many of those who would have attempted a treacherous journey by sea. As part of the deal, the EU promised to accelerate Turkey's EU talks and visa liberalization. The EU gave Turkey a list of 72 criteria to fulfill for visa-free travel for Turkish nationals after the two sides signed the agreement. In relation to the process regarding visa liberalization, European Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos said last month that Turkey had met nearly all of the requirements set by the EU for visa liberalization, except for seven. He underscored that Turkish officials were very determined to complete them all in the shortest time possible. The regulation that Turkey needs to fulfill for visa liberalization includes an operational cooperation agreement between Turkey and the Europol. Accordingly, Turkey and the EU Commission launched talks in Brussels on Nov. 30 for the agreement with Europol. It was also highlighted in the press conference that it would be to the benefit of both Turkey and the EU to initiate talks to update the Customs Union. In a joint statement, it was underlined that "within the framework of the March 18 Turkey-EU agreement, we expect the EU to accelerate accession talks to the EU, the implementation of the voluntary humanitarian admission, accelerating the financial aid to the Syrians who are under temporary protection and immediately launching the talks for updating the Customs Union." In relation to the funds that need to be provided for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Cavusoglu stressed there are significant delays and disruptions in the EU funding for refugees in Turkey. He also criticized the EU's decision to cut Turkey's pre-accession assistance. "If they [the EU] think that they are punishing Turkey, they are wrong," Cavusoglu underlined. Speaking at the press conference, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul underscored that the issues particularly related to (Chapter 23) the judiciary and fundamental rights and (Chapter 24) justice, freedom and security have been on the agenda. He also stressed that Turkey plans to unveil Judicial Reform Strategy Document in January 2019. In the meeting, several issues were discussed within the scope of work undertaken by the Ministry of Justice, including the implementation of the "targeted time periods" in judiciary, expanding the competence of the Human Rights Compensation Commission and increasing the number of courts of appeal. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu also said, "I believe that just as Turkey has fulfilled its responsibility for the March 18 agreement, Europe must also fulfill its responsibility. We are a preventative nation in terror and drugs for Europe. For Europe, Turkey is an indispensable country in this regard. Europe is not strong against Turkey on this issue. Europe has a promise on this matter and it has to fulfill it." In relation to the calls for changes to be made in Turkey's terror laws, Soylu underlined that the fight against terrorism has been significant for Turkey. He added that along its borders, Turkey faces terror threats while the EU does not face such threats on its borders. Meanwhile, the sixth meeting of the RAG will be held in 2019 under the chairmanship of the Treasury and Finance Ministry. South Asian nations deploy tactics to thwart conversions to Christianity, minority faiths: Report Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Countries in South Asia are increasingly employing various tactics to stop people from converting to Christianity and other minority faiths in the region, a report has warned. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released on Tuesday its latest report, arguing that such prohibitions have grown over the past decade in several South Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and others. The report explained that India, for instance, uses state legislatures to limit cases where people choose to convert from Hinduism. Christian pastors and churches have been attacked in rural areas for years, often accused of carrying out forced conversions, which they deny, several watchdog groups have warned. In Pakistan, the government was accused of continuing to use blasphemy laws meant to protect Islamic sensitives as a means to accuse Christians and other minorities of crimes and deter them from leaving the Muslim faith. In Nepal, officials were found to be cracking down on nongovernmental organizations, particularly foreign missionary groups, for fear they might lead people away from the Hindu-majority religion. A significant problem in Bangladesh was identified as forced marriages, especially when it comes to Hindu women being forced to change their religion and marry Muslims. Anti-conversion laws are frequently abused by extremists who seek to prevent anyone from leaving the majority religion, said USCIRF Commissioner Nadine Maenza. These laws abrogate the religious freedom rights of minority communities, such as Hindus in Pakistan or Christians in Nepal, and as such they should be rescinded. USCIRF Commissioner Tony Perkins said that such laws "are a major obstacle to efforts pursuing peace and tolerance among those of different faith as extremist and majority religious groups use these laws as tools to intimidate and prevent religious minorities from exercising their right to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience." He added, These laws also disproportionately affect vulnerable and disfavored groups, such as Dalit Hindus and foreign humanitarian and aid workers. One of the most famous cases of Pakistan's blasphemy laws concerns Christian mother of five Asia Bibi, who spent eight years on death row after being accused of insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, something which she denied. Bibi was finally acquitted by the Pakistani Supreme Court in October and granted her freedom, though she and her family still await asylum and are fearing for their safety. In its conclusions, USCIRF urged for governments in South Asia to look for patterns of false accusations of unethical conversions, especially when religious minorities are concerned. It called on state actors to "properly investigate and punish those acts." "Societal actors also need to ensure that social pressure is not applied to individuals who consensually wish to change faiths," it added. Among its recommendations to the U.S. government, USCIRF called for the organization of a regional conference to bring together activists, provincial politicians, police, judges, and attorneys working on religious freedom. The goal of this roundtable would be to recognize regional trends that can be addressed with cooperative efforts by stakeholders at various levels in each country, it explained. 10th anniversary celebrations are a tribute to Jewish-Christian dialogue On Sunday, December 9, the eighth and final day of Chanukah and New Moon of Tevet, the Broughton Park Jewish Christian Dialogue Group of Salford, Greater Manchester, met to celebrate its 10th anniversary in a reunion which included members both past and present from all parts of the country. Former Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the world's leading Christian theologians, Dr Rowan Williams, came up from Cambridge specially for the event and to join the group which he has encouraged since its inception. The evening started with the normal Chanukah candle lighting ceremony performed in Hebrew by Dr Lancaster, with blessings and festive songs in which the entire gathering participated. Founder member Canon Dr Andrew Shanks, sees the group as a paradigm of authentic relations between Christians and Jews. He said: 'Although I am a Christian priest, I used until recently to live in the midst of large majority Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] Jewish community. I was part of a regular local discussion group bringing together devout Jewish people. This group included both clergy and lay people; also a wide range of intellectuals and non-intellectuals. The conversation was given some grounding by the [chosen] text, but nevertheless tended to veer off in the most unpredictable directions, even on occasion quite anarchically. 'There was a frank willingness on the part of the Christians present to acknowledge the frequent ugliness of past Christian treatment of Jews, and an open discussion of ongoing tensions between Christians and Jews... 'But, above all, what developed there was a gathering of friends, bonded, very much, in a spirit of laughing, affectionate wonder at one another's sheer strangeness: Jews teasing Christian, and vice versa, but also Christian teasing Christian, Jew teasing Jew.' This is the spirit which I hoped to foster as chair of our little group, started by five people (three of whom were present on Sunday) in the heart of ultra-Orthodox Broughton Park, Salford, generally a depressed and run-down part of the UK. To have a group of individuals possessed of brains, love and the desire to understand the closest religious 'other' in their joint 2000-year history of mainly Christian hostility, with a shared delight in language, food, music and the sheer magic of juxtaposition cheek by jowl in this very difficult part of the world, participate in our interactions every fortnight even when we were snowed in on a couple of occasions has been something of a miracle. Canon Guy Wilkinson, in 2010 the group's first guest speaker as inter-faith adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, stated: 'Hospitality with added humility and humour is a powerful recipe for good human relationships, and all the more so when there is a long and troubled history to heal.' The group has always been encouraged both in word and action by the now-retired former Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch, who understands more than most in the Church the uphill struggle that groups like this face in an increasingly hostile environment, especially as he used to live in the midst of us and was our neighbour. Naturally over 10 years the nature of the group has changed. And many were hung up on kippot and dog collars. It does seem that the increasing worship of appurtenances and signs of office in inter-religious relationships is nothing less than a contemporary form of idolatry and all the more dangerous for it. Scholarship and life experience seem to count for little nowadays. And some people wear their badges of office in order to make up for much else in their lives. Our group aimed to alter the perception that the badge maketh the man or woman. An offshoot of this larger group is the more recently established diocesan Anglican-Jewish Conversation Group, the brain-child of Dr Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury constantly warned against anti-Jewish polemic in Christian sermons. At a time of Islamist extremism, including last year's Manchester Arena bombing, in which a large number of children of all faiths were murdered by a homicide bomber who frequented the Didsbury Mosque (recently twinned with Manchester's Anglican Cathedral), even in the most highly-placed echelons of the Christian Church, we hear language that perpetuates stereotypes of Jewish aggression or greed or whatever. And in a culture where less and less is known (even by clergy!) about the historical sources of both faiths, this goes unchallenged. It has been good too to welcome the recent input of the Archdeacon of Salford, Venerable David Sharples, who has been proactive on a number of issues of concern to the Jewish community. So what is the way forward in Jewish Christian relations for the next 10 years? Because it is perfectly obvious that some sort of common role is needed to combat the increasing ugliness of many of our once highly-regarded and globally respected British institutions. So the Anglican-Jewish conversation group suggested by Rowan will embark on an exploration of Jewish and Christian values. One of the boldest Orthodox Jewish theologians, Michael Wyschogrod, posited the idea that the Jewish people are a body of faith because G-d literally dwells within the bodies of Jewish people. For Wyschogrod, G-d is not a spatial and meta-temporal Absolute, but rather, as he stated in the burning bush (Exodus), 'I will be there howsoever I will be there', always and everywhere with the Jewish people in the midst of their suffering. According to Wyschogrod, 'Undifferentiated love that is dispensed equally to all must be love that does not meet the individual in their individuality, but sees them as a member of a species, whether that species be the working class, the poor, those created in the image of G-d or what not.' We, the Jewish people, espouse particularism and encounter as unfettered by prejudice as possible. It is a difficult task, but avoiding it is not an option. One of the greatest of all Jewish Bible scholars, Abraham ibn Ezra, stated in his monumental Introduction to the Commentary on the Torah (1145): 'The Lord is the only One who I shall fear. I shall be no respecter of persons when I explore...' Unfortunately, ibn Ezra was cut down in his prime - murdered en route from London to York by marauding Crusaders on the way to massacre more Jews in Europe en route to Israel. And this return to naked hatred and violence has been a constantly recurring pattern in Christian-Jewish relations over the last 2000 years. By contrast, one of the highlights of the 10 years was a recent evening of music and words celebrating the life of Germany's second-greatest poet, the Jew, Heinrich Heine, led by founder member, Jonathan Davies LLB. This is his assessment of Sunday's tenth anniversary celebration: 'It certainly was a first class evening exemplifying what a dialogue group should be about. That is tackling hard as well as soft issues with mutual respect and a willingness to truly hear other views and approaches. The group has done fine work over the last 10 years and I am sure will endure for a long time to come.' And it was a privilege to host Rowan Williams as a guest at our home and for both of us to share a meal beforehand with the Archdeacon of Salford in a local kosher restaurant which had been recently firebombed and is still suffering from the trauma. On his return to Cambridge, Dr Williams wrote the following to me: 'Thanks again for your warm welcome and kind hospitality last night. It was a fitting way of marking ten remarkable years, and I was very happy and privileged to be part of it.' Earlier the Archdeacon of Salford, together with Rowan, had invited me to share a meal beforehand in a local kosher restaurant which had been recently firebombed and is still suffering from the trauma. The gesture was much appreciated by the restaurant staff. As has truly been said: 'hospitality, humility and humour are key' to relationship, to which I would add 'the sharing of food, drink and music in an atmosphere of love and intellect'. Dr Irene Lancaster is a Jewish academic, author and translator who has established university courses on Jewish history, Jewish studies and the Hebrew Bible. Christian Aid slams British 'double standards' over war in Yemen Christian Aid has accused the UK government of 'double standards' in its engagement on war and peace and demanded that it stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia among other states. Its new report, Resourcing war and peace: time to address the UK Government's double standards highlights the fact that the UK spends around 37 billion on its military, around three times what it spends on aid. The report was released as the organisation's poll undertaken by ComRes found that three in five (61 per cent) British adults think the UK government should stop selling military equipment to Saudi Arabia, which is leading a bombing campaign in Yemen. Christian Aid supporters are sending Christmas cards to the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, echoing the demand that the UK immediately ceases to sell arms to the Saudi-led coalition. The charity says the UK's policy 'increasingly casts a shadow on the UK Government's attempts to profile itself as a values-based international actor committed to tackling global conflict'. Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark (future exports only) and Finland have all suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the US Senate voted yesterday to end its support for the Yemen war. The charity insisted to Christian Today that it did not take sides in the conflict, which it described as 'complex', though it said the 'full-blown armed conflict' was sparked by the launch of air strikes by the Saudi-led international coalition. It said: 'On one side, the UK is leading calls in the UN for a peace agreement, and is the leading financial supporter of humanitarian aid to Yemenis and the UN Special Envoy's peace-making endeavours. 'On the other, it is promoting massive new arms sales to the government of the KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] and actively supporting military operations of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which have included attacks that may amount to war crimes, such as airstrikes on residential areas, markets, weddings, and even medical facilities. 'In effect, diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, and the humanitarian response to the acute crisis, are completely undermined by the UK's complicity in fuelling the conflict through arms sales. These arms sales are in direct violation of the Arms Trade Treaty and standards such as the EU's consolidated criteria.' It said: 'The people of Yemen have been crying out for peace, and the peace talks which conclude in Sweden today [Friday] are an important step towards lasting peace. The billions of dollars of immoral arms deals undermine the likelihood of lasting peace, Yemen has been devastated by the use of weapons and the UK must cease its arms exports to repressive regimes immediately.' Christian Aid's report praised the UK's commitment to committing 0.7 per cent of its GNI to aid and development. However, it said the UK was also 'on track to be one of the world's biggest arms dealers fuelling war instead of peace'. Karol Balfe, who leads on Christian Aid's global peacebuilding programme, said: 'No other arms exporter comes close to this dependence on the Gulf market. In turn, this means that the Royal Saudi Air Force is hugely dependent on British-made aircraft and missiles maintained and supported in-country by British military and civilian technicians for its own operations. 'The UK Government risks putting its own perceived national security and domestic interests ahead of human security and protection of those living in conflict. In our work, we see that local actors make a huge difference in turning the tide of violence. 'We are heartened to see that the British public is with us on this. With 61 per cent believing these arms sales to Saudi Arabia should stop, we are calling out the UK Government's immoral policy of arms exports to repressive regimes.' Rowan Williams, Christian Aid's chair and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said: 'We can't pretend that British involvement in war is a thing of the past. We may not have experienced the direct effects of war in this country for a lifetime, and we can be thankful for that; but our overseas policies are still helping to support violence and injustice elsewhere in the world, among those least able to defend themselves. 'The scale of the humanitarian catastrophe that has overtaken Yemen is one of the most dramatic instances. 14 million people are on the brink of famine, as a result of a war that continues to claim the lives of countless civilians. And this is a war in which the government of the UK is directly complicit: arms sales from this country to Saudi Arabia have increased by two thirds since 2016 and now account for nearly half of Britain's major arms exports.' 'Christian aspect' to Christmas increases risk of terrorist attacks, says security expert There is a heightened risk of terrorist attacks at Christmas because of the 'Christian aspect' of the holiday, a security expert has warned. Europe is on high alert after a gun attack on a Christmas market in Strasbourg that killed four people. The BBC reports that a fifth person is brain dead and 11 others are wounded. The suspect in Tuesday's attack, Cherif Chekatt, was shot dead by police on Thursday night. There were echoes of an attack in Germany in 2016 when a truck was driven into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12. An unnamed senior counter-terror source told the Daily Mirror that public gatherings at Christmas were an 'obvious target' for attacks. Another security expert, Colonel Richard Kemp, told the newspaper that the Islamic State could be looking for opportunities to attack in Europe after being pushed back in the Middle East. He added that Christmas is a riskier time of the year being a Christian celebration. 'This time of year is the highest at risk period because of the combination of large crowds of people enjoying themselves, perhaps not paying as much attention to security as they would normally - and the fact that there is the Christian aspect to it,' he said. 'It is an obvious target and recent history has led us to believe we should all be on our guard at this time. 'Everybody should be vigilant against the possibility of an attack and Islamic State would of course like to hit back as a time when they are being hit so hard in the Middle East.' ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Strasbourg attack and its supporters reportedly celebrated after news of the rampage broke. Police in Aberdeen, Scotland, have told shopping centre bosses to have '60-second security' plans in place in order to ensure rapid evacuation in the event of a terrorist attack. According to the Press and Journal newspaper, police said Strasbourg showed that a terrorist attack 'can happen anywhere'. The Daily Mail reports that Christmas markets across the UK implemented numerous security measures, including large concrete blocks and crash barriers, as well as increased armed police patrols and bag searches. Human Rights Watch adds to condemnation of China over church arrests Chinese authorities should 'immediately release' a pastor detained in the southwestern city of Chengdu and dozens of members of his congregation taken into custody with him, Human Rights Watch has said. Pastor Wang Yi and over 100 members of the Early Rain Covenant Church, an unregistered and independent Protestant church, were taken into custody on December 9 and 10. Some church members who were released accused the authorities of mistreatment, including one man who said he was tied to a chair and denied water and food for 24 hours, HRW reports. In addition to detaining the pastor and church members, authorities reportedly ransacked the church's offices as well as its kindergarten, seminary, and a bible college. Church members were forced to sign a pledge promising they would no longer attend services or send their children to the schools. Its social media account on WeChat was also shut down. Human Rights Watch called upon the Chinese authorities to release those still in custody and allow the resumption of services. 'The shutdown of a Protestant church in Chengdu epitomizes the Xi Jinping government's relentless assault on religious freedom in China,' said Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. 'It makes a mockery of the government's claim that it respects religious beliefs.' Wang has been outspoken in his criticism of the Chinese government and two days before his arrest, published an essay in which he urged Christians to use 'non-violent disobedience' to resist state interference in the church. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said it was 'extremely concerned' by the detentions and called for the immediate release of Pastor Wang and the church members. 'These actions, in addition to the continued systematic repression of Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners, continue a pattern of escalating violations of religious freedom and other human rights under President Xi Jinping,' it said in a statement. 'USCIRF strongly condemns these actions by Chinese authorities and calls for the immediate release of Pastor Wang and all of his fellow church members.' Scottish shopping centre u-turns on nativity display A Scottish shopping centre that said it would not host a nativity display because it was 'religiously and politically neutral' has reversed its decision after complaints. Thistles shopping centre in Stirling, central Scotland, had initially said it would not be changing its mind despite being accused of 'Grinch-like' behaviour by the Scottish Catholic Church. The Legion of St Mary's Association had asked the shopping centre to place a nativity that would be manned to answer questions shoppers might have about the Christian origins of Christmas. When the request was turned down, MP for Stirling Stephen Kerr contacted the shopping centre asking it to reconsider. The Church of Scotland was also critical, accusing the shopping centre - which has hosted a Christmas market since November - of focusing on commercialism. The Scottish Sun newspaper put additional pressure on the shopping centre by sending two actors to play Mary and Jesus in a live nativity. It said shoppers at the centre 'loved' the mini nativity, which apparently ended when the actors were 'chucked out by security'. Now the shopping centre has agreed to let the Legion of St Mary's Association man a nativity for one day only this Sunday. Explaining its decision, a spokesman for the Thistles told the newspaper: 'We've listened carefully to everyone who contacted us about the installation and have decided to reverse our original decision.' The Scottish Catholic Church said the shopping centre management was to be 'commended'. 'They have recognised that contemporary Scotland should be a place that both respects and upholds religious liberty in the public square,' a spokesman for the Church said. The Church of Scotland said it was 'delighted' by the change in policy. University blog reinstates pro-life article on birth control after complaints The Women's Center at the University of Idaho has reinstated an article that was removed from its blog because it challenged pro-choice views on abortion and birth control. Victoria Dilone, the author of 'The Birth Control Pill: An Unethical and Eugenic History', was told the post had been removed because her personal views conflicted with the center's 'feminist' pro-choice ideals. According to Students for Life, of which Dilone is a member, she was told that although the Center tries 'very hard to allow the writers' voices and opinions to be expressed freely and without censorship, feminism is the grounding philosophy undergirding the topics we allow on the blog, and the lens through which we examine the issues that bloggers write about'. 'On more than one occasion, your personal views have been in direct conflict with one of the fundamental principles and tenets of feminismthat of choice,' the message read. 'Your article is not only not congruent with the Women's Center's views on the topic, it directly challenges them. As such, we cannot publish it. I'm sorry.' Revision notes sent back to Dilone complained that she had used the article to promote a forthcoming event with a pro-life speaker and had written that gender was determined by chromosomes. 'Leave this part out. Not all women have XX chromosomes, and not all men have XY. Gender also doesn't involve chromosomes,' the blog editor wrote, to which the center director added, 'I agree. Chromosomes have nothing to do with gender.' Additional notes from the editor said the post needed to be revised before it could be published because it 'had religious content' and 'some content is extremely hurtful to various members of our readership and larger community'. It has since been reinstated on the blog with a note at the top stating that its removal was 'an error'. Dilone said, 'When I applied to the center, I was upfront that I was active in the Students for Life group, and no one raised an issue then. It's unfortunate that the Women's Center has decided that feminism means we can't debate issues like birth control or how to best help women. I will continue to share my beliefs and won't be intimidated.' Pro-life students in Scotland have also complained of bias at universities after student councils blocked registration of their groups. Glasgow Students for Life had its application for affiliation turned down by the Glasgow University Students' Representative Council. At Aberdeen University, the students' association AUSA rejected affiliation by the Aberdeen Life Ethics Society. Without formal recognition, the groups are unable to access student association funding or place an information booth at the student fayres. It also restricts their access to campus buildings for events. Aberdeen Life Ethics Society said the decision was effectively 'censorship' of the pro-life view. 'AUSA's willingness to censor dissenting speech, even though such speech is protected by UK and EU laws, should be chilling to any fair-minded student who believes that the free exchange of ideas is essential to a university's ethos,' it said. 'Moreover, this decision exhibits AUSA's hypocritical enforcement of tolerance. Although our students' association prides itself on being radically tolerant, its willingness to block the formation of a minority-view society illuminates the lopsided nature of how tolerance is actually practised on our campus.' The New Mexico portion of the Permian Basin led a dip in the nation's tally of active drilling rigs this week with oil prices having plunged by nearly one-third since early October. The number of rigs actively drilling for oil and gas fell by four this week down to a total of 1,071, according to the energy services firm Baker Hughes, a GE company. New Mexico saw its count fall by five rigs and the Permian has a net loss of three rigs. However, Texas still had a net gain of three rigs, presumably with a small Permian gain and a single new addition to South Texas' Eagle Ford shale. Wyoming saw the biggest gain with five new rigs as its emerging Powder River Basin sees more activity. Other than New Mexico, other states that saw small declines were Alaska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. The nationwide net loss of four rigs all came from those actively seeking oil. The overall tally of rigs primarily drilling for oil fell down to 873. That leaves 198 rigs seeking natural gas. Out of the 873 oil rigs, well more than half of them - 486 - are situated in the Permian. Texas accounts for 532 rigs overall, almost 50 percent of the nation's full tally. RELATED: Oil steadies below $52, little changed a week after OPEC+ cuts Because of pipeline shortages in West Texas, many companies are continuing to drill Permian wells while leaving more of them uncompleted for the time being until new pipelines come online. The total count is up from an all-time low of 404 rigs in May 2016. The Eagle Ford remains the next most active area after the Permian with 81 rigs, although that number is closer to 100 if additional neighboring counties were counted. Oklahoma's Cana-Woodford shale with is next with 57 rigs. Statewide, Oklahoma ranks second after Texas with 140 rigs. New Mexico is next with 105 rigs. With this week's jump, the oil rig count is down 46 percent from its peak of 1,609 in October 2014, before oil prices began plummeting. However, rigs today are able to drill more wells than before and to deeper depths to produce more oil and gas. That's largely why the U.S. is producing record volumes of both crude oil and natural gas. The United States urged Germany to drop its political support for Russian monopoly Gazproms Nord Stream-2 project and warned companies that are involved in the construction of the gas pipeline that they face the risk of sanctions unless they withdraw from the controversial project. As New Europe reports, US Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources Frank Fannon told a conference call with reporters on December 11 that Nord Stream-2 and an expanded Turkish Stream Pipeline, both of which bypass Ukraine, are designed to deepen Europes dependency on Russian gas and weaken the blocs security architecture. Germany can certainly remove their political support from the projectof the gas directive. That policy has been languishing for over a year and a half. That would be a positive step in advancing energy security, Fannon said, fresh from a trip to the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Hungary. Referring to the construction of the gas pipeline, which has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters and connects Russias mainland pipelines to Germany through an underwater link in the Baltic Sea, Fannon said the US government has the ability to sanction Russias energy export pipelines under Section 232 of the Counter-Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Firms that are working with the Russian energy export pipeline sector are engaging in a line of business that carries a sanctions risk. We continue to review potential sanctions actions and encourage governments or companies to contact us if they have questions about this process, Fannon said while shying away from discussing details about future any possible sanctions. In an effort to lessen gas dependence on Russia, Fannon told reporters that the US would continue to support European energy diversification, including alternative sources of energy such as liquefied natural gas (LNG). The controversy surrounding the Nord Stream-2 project stems from the fact that most of Europes gas from Russia passes through Ukraine. Russias pipelines through Ukraine are a major source of revenue for Kyiv and a key contributor to the Ukrainian state budget. Many in the West are concerned that by allowing Moscow to bypass Ukraine by diverting European gas supplies directly to Germany, Kyiv will be effectively cut off from a vitally important money maker that would further cripple its economy. The primary concern for most observers who oppose the continued development of Nord Stream-2 makes Europe more dependent on Russian gas and pipelines at a time when the blocs own home-produced gas resources are diminishing. Responding to those concerns, Nord Streams EU representative, Sebastian Sass, told New Europe, Politically motivated interventions against Nord Stream-2 would counteract the interests of European consumers and the EUs energy security, an assertion that is in line with certain EU-based proponents of the project that include German industrial giants such as BASF, as well as the consortium financing the project Gazprom, Uniper and Wintershall of Germany, Austrias OMV, Engie from France, and Royal Dutch Shell. These companies have long asserted that Nord Stream-2 is being implemented in full compliance with both international law and EU legislation, while each considers it essential to secure Russian gas as a way to compete with rival US companies, particularly when, in their eyes, American LNG supplies are far more expensive and logistically challenging, especially taking into consideration the lucrative Asian LNG market, than betting on gas piped by corporations with ties to the Kremlin. Can boilerplate language in a business to business contract shield a company and its executives from being held accountable for committing felony fraud and other violations of state law because the victim in a civil lawsuit unwittingly signed a pact agreeing that everything was okay? Appellate law experts say the Texas Supreme Court may be on the verge of making such a legal principle - that terms of a contract override specific state laws and stated legislative policy, the law of the land in Texas. In a potentially precedent-setting case that is being closely followed by business lawyers, attorneys for Mercedes-Benz USA say their client should not be legally responsible for repeated misrepresentations and alleged fraudulent conduct against a South Texas car dealer because the dealer signed a deal agreeing that he relied only on the terms listed in the contract. The Harlingen car dealer, Carduco Inc., argues it only signed the contract because Mercedes executives lied and made multiple misrepresentations about their partnership. The dispute between Mercedes and Carduco, according to legal experts, pits the current state Supreme Court justices love affair with and reliance on business contracts against the clear and unambiguous intent of the state Legislature. If the Texas Supreme Court does indeed rule that, based on a contract between the parties, a business is free to commit felony fraud and make substantive misrepresentations, that would be one of the most significant decisions the court has made in my 20 years of practicing appellate law, said Dallas appellate law expert Chad Ruback. I was taught in law school that contracts that allowed for statutory violations were invalid. The case features some of the most prominent lawyers in Texas, including former state Supreme Court chief justices Wallace Jefferson and Tom Phillips facing off against each other. In a highly unusual move demonstrating the significance of the case, the influential Texas Automobile Dealers Association and the Texas Motorcycle Dealers Association have filed an amicus brief warning the states highest court about the importance of the case on their business and the law. Mercedes-Benz v. Carduco is a decade-long, nine-digit dollar dispute between two businesses. Carduco claims that Mercedes and three of its executives intentionally devised a scheme to defraud the South Texas car dealer by sabotaging his business. A Cameron County jury heard two weeks of evidence and ruled in 2013 that the elite automaker pressured Carducos owner to spend millions of dollars to relocate the dealership to McAllen, but that Mercedes was simultaneously and secretly negotiating a separate agreement with a competitor of Carduco to move into the same town, which Mercedes knew would severely damage revenue and profits at Carduco. Mercedes corporate representatives admitted that the information passed on to Carduco was false, misleading and untrue, says Carducos lawyer Pete Marketos, a partner at Reese Marketos in Dallas. The jury awarded Carduco $15 million in compensatory damages and also found beyond a reasonable doubt that Mercedes conduct violated the states deceptive trade practices laws and ordered the automaker to pay $115 million in punitive damages. Mercedes appealed to the Texas Court of Appeals in Edinburg, which upheld the jurys finding that the automaker committed fraud and the $15 million in actual damages. The appellate judges, however, struck down the $115 million punitive damage award as excessive. Both sides appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Marketos argues that the punitive damage verdict - or at least a large portion of it - should be reinstated. If the state justices were do to that, it would be the largest dollar award reinstated by the states highest court in decades. Lawyers for Mercedes argue that the Supreme Court should ignore completely the jurys findings that their clients committed fraud and instead focus on the fact that the two parties had a written contract that allowed the company to do what it did. The defendants argue that the $15 million in compensatory damages also should be zeroed out because Carducos complaints are directly contradicted by the terms of the contract that the car dealer signed with Mercedes-Benz. The court of appeals opinion improperly allows a sophisticated party to rewrite a commercial contract by claiming that the defendants induced it to believe it had a bargain for oral terms in direct conflict with the terms of the signed agreement, former Chief Justice Phillips wrote on behalf of his client, Mercedes. This result is indefensible. No contract is safe under the courts opinion, he states. Former Texas Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, who represents Carduco, argues that say that Mercedes position is contract law run amuck. Jefferson points out that his client signed the contract only after Mercedes officials repeatedly lied to or misled the dealership. To adopt Mercedes argument, Jefferson says, would basically be giving companies the green light to commit felony fraud as long as they have a contract that excuses it -- a position that the former chief justice says runs directly against the Legislature's stated policy. Leaders of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association, Texas Motorcycle Dealers Association and Texas Recreational Vehicle Association asked the Texas Supreme Court to rule in favor of Carduco the relationship between car dealers and the automakers is fiduciary in nature and is bound together in good faith and dependent upon fair dealing. The use of fraud, misrepresentations and intentional omissions have no place in the motor vehicle franchiser-franchisee relationship, TADA General Counsel Karen Phillips wrote in a brief to the justices. Mercedes embarked upon a scheme to defraud [Carduco] with a planned result that [the owner] would lose his business, his investment and his franchise. The fraud by Mercedes was both material and relied upon, she wrote. The fraud here cannot stand as it impacts not only the parties but the community at large. The Houston Baptist University received the largest donation in its history for a building with more classrooms and laboratories for certain science, technology, engineering and medicine programs. Sherry and Jim Smith, longtime supporters of the school, donated $20 million to construct a new building to be used by the university's College of Science and Mathematics, College of Engineering and School of Nursing and Allied Health, according to a press release issued Thursday. "Jim and Sherry have, for decades, worked tirelessly on behalf of the University, and have used their gifts as well as their wisdom to further the Christian mission of HBU," HBU president, Dr. Robert B. Sloan, said in the statement. "This gift will produce spectacular results in the important STEM-related areas of engineering, science, and nursing, not only for HBU, but also for Houston and well beyond." The university has decided to name the new building in the Smiths' honor. "(It) will allow for innovative learning and laboratory space in each area," the press release read. The couple has a long history with the university. Jim Smith's father, Orrien, was one of 25 men who made personal donations in 1958 to purchase land for the university, and in 1964 was the first chair of the University President's Council. He is considered to be one of the "Founding Fathers" of the university. "This amazing gift by Jim and Sherry Smith is consistent with their family's long history of generosity, beginning with Jim's father," Sloan stated. Jim Smith is an advisory trustee for the university, and was a member of their Board of Trustees in the 1990s. His wife is a member of The Guild, which supports graduate scholarships in education and theology. The Smiths also have founded the Orrien R. Smith Endowed Academic Scholarship, donated to the John Bisagno Chair of Christian Origins and funded a Letourneau pipe organ for the Belin Chapel. In September, the university received a $10 million gift from Stewart Morris, another founding father. The gift funded the construction of another classroom building modeled after Philadelphia's Independence Hall, and the establishment of The Morris Family Center for Law & Liberty. "The Morris Family Center for Law and Liberty will teach American founding principles, constitutional government, free enterprise, and all of the related political, social and economic implications of a nation truly committed to liberty and justice for all," Sloan stated in another press release. Archie Dunham donated $15 million to the university in 2015, which funded scholarships, provided assistance for the Dunham Bible Museum and renamed the business school the Archie W. Dunham College of Business. We had our strategy down, but it wasn't enough. By 10:03 a.m. this morning, nearly all of the good pre-sale tickets for Michelle Obama's book tour were sold out. The former first lady will be at Toyota Center on March 2. From country Texas barbecue and authentic Creole cuisine to the best pho you've ever had, Houston area cities and neighborhoods have a lot to offer foodies looking to satisfy their next craving. Staples like Gaido's Seafood Restaurant in Galveston or King's Biergarten in Pearland are always sure to draw a crowd. For finger-lickin' good barbecue, head out to Richmond for a hefty plate from the Swinging Door or Tin Roof BBQ in Atascocita. Humble ISD officials sent out a notice to parents who have kids in Timberwood Middle School of a potential Stranger Danger near campus. The 6th grader reported that as she was walking to school on Flax Burton near Timber Forest Drive a man drove up and asked if she wanted a ride to school around 9:13 a.m. on Dec. 13. Island Grill, a local restaurant focused on healthy Mediterranean-American fare, has signed on as the first retail tenant in the CityPlace 2 building in Springwoods Village. The 10-story building, at 1701 Lake Plaza Drive, is entirely occupied by American Bureau of Shipping, which has 1,200 employees there. Island Grill will open a 3,584-square-foot restaurant with an outdoor patio in mid-2019. About 21,000 square feet remains available for lease. The world's biggest buyers of liquefied natural gas will quadruple their uncontracted demand for LNG, and more buyers will be on the hunt for additional LNG soon, too, a report from Wood Mackenzie suggests. That's good news for Texas, which is transforming into an LNG export hub as companies tap into cheap natural gas supplies. By 2030, the seven major LNG buyers are expected to gobble up 80 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas over and above their existing contracts, according to Wood Mackenzie. Total demand from those buyers, including purchasing LNG on contract and off contract, will grow to 180 million metric tons, up from 150 million metric tons today, the research firm said. "As China pushes on toward a lower-emission economy, its demand for gas and LNG has grown significantly and we expect the trend to continue in the longer term," said Wood Mackenzie research director, Nicholas Browne in a statement. MILESTONE: Texas now an exporter of LNG The major seven LNG buyers are clustered in Asia, including China National Offshore Oil Corp., PetroChina, Sinopec, Tokyo Gas, Jera Co. and CPC Corp. Together they account for more than 50 percent of the global LNG market. "Other traditional major buyers, on the other hand, are facing legacy contract expires and will be on the hunt for a mix of contracts to lower average costs and security in supply sources," Browne added. LNG DEAL: Tellurian plan for $15 billion LNG terminal advances Next year could be a record year for new liquefied natural gas projects too collectively suppliers could give the green light on LNG investments totaling 220 million metric tons per a year of capacity. To put that in perspective, nearly 300 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas was traded globally last year a jump from 100 million metric tons at the start of the century, according to an outlook from Shell. Several projects are expected to get the green light next year, including the $27 billion Arctic LNG-2 in Russia, at least one project in Mozambique and at least three the U.S. Expansion projects in Australia and Papua New Guinea will also be in the running. A new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration earlier this week said the U.S. could more than double its export capacity in the next year to become the third largest LNG exporter behind Australia and Qatar. In Texas, Cheniere Energy sent out the first LNG export tanker from the state earlier this week. Cheniere's initial customers for the Corpus Christi facility hold long-term supply contracts from Europe, Asia and Australia. Cheniere started exporting LNG from the U.S. in 2016, when it sent LNG from its Sabine Pass complex in Louisiana. Dominion Energy of Richmond, Va., also is exporting LNG from the United States, and others are expected to follow in the coming months, including two Houston firms, Kinder Morgan, which is completing an export terminal in Georgia, and Freeport LNG, which will operate a Gulf Coast terminal at Quintana Island. Companies behind another four export projects on the Gulf Coast Magnolia LNG, Delfin LNG, Lake Charles and Golden Pass have federal approvals and are expected to make final investment decisions in the coming months, according to the Energy Information Administration. Several other companies, including Sempra Energy of San Diego, NextDecade of Houston and Tellurian of Houston, are working on projects expected to start up in the coming years. This week NextDecade scored state permits for its Rio Grande LNG project in Brownsville. And the federal government just released an environmental study on another Brownsville project, Annova LNG, an important milestone in the permitting process. LNG ADVANCES: NextDecade lands state permit for Rio Grande LNG project Browne said 2019 will be "the biggest year ever" in terms of LNG projects advancing and receiving final investment decisions. "Asia's major buyers will be at the forefront in ensuring this next generation of LNG supply is brought to market," he added. On December 12, honorary president of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, senior adviser of Ernst & Young company, Andrea von Knoop, gave a lecture in MGIMO Great Future - Germans in Russian Economic Life." Andrea von Knoop is considered to be one of the leading specialists on German business. In 1993, she headed representative office of the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Germany in Russia. Two years later she took post of chairman of the board of the German Economy Union. She worked at both posts until 2007. For her merits, she was awarded the Order of Friendship - highest award for foreigners. According to Knoop, today German business community is the largest in the Russian market. Representatives of German business work in almost all regions of the country, and it's not a coincidence. Economic cooperation between the two countries began in the 13th century, and after 500 years, German merchants became leaders in the Russian Empire market. "In the middle of 13th century, German entrepreneurs were the majority among foreign merchants in Russia. Situation is similar today. German entrepreneurs were extremely valued in the Russian Empire since the beginning of 19th century. They operated in different regions of the empire, largely independently of each other. Until the 1860s, foreigners worked almost exclusively on their own, using their own funds, family ties, and private partnerships. Merchant from Bremen, Ludwig Knoop, became pioneer in the Russian cotton industry. Deals Knoop signed since the 1840s with Savva Morozov and other Moscow textile entrepreneurs were based on trust. Written agreements didn't exist. Handshake secured millions of deals. Production of the Einem confectionary factory, founded in 1867 by a Ferdinand Theodor von Einem, is still popular to this day. "Einem" was one of the largest confectionery companies in Russia, which received honorary title of supplier of the court of His Imperial Majesty. Today it is known by its later name - "Red October". There's also Heinrich Schliemann. Most people know him as a prominent archeologist, but few know that he earned his large funds, through which he financed his researches, in Russia," Andrea von Knoop said. According to him, throughout 800 years, coopearion between two countries was suspended only in times of difficution conflicts, such as the Second World War. Today, despite sanctions regime, Germany remains Russia's key trading partner. "Trade turnover between Russia and Germany in 2017 amounted to 44.2 billion euros and in January-April of this year, it grew by 23.1%," Andrea von Knoop noted. During her lecture, she presented her book, in which she tells about the history of cooperation between Russia and Germany. After lecture, she answered students' questions and showed her Russian passport. In 2016, at her request, Vladimir Putin signed a decree on granting her citizenship. Acting head of the Economic Theory Department of the MGIMO, Olesya Ryazanova, told about activities of the guest of honor and said: "We hope that our cooperation will continue in the long term." A New York hedge fund this week officially launched a proxy fight against Luby's board of directors, which if successful would change the leadership of the struggling Houston restaurant chain helmed for nearly two decades by the Pappas brothers. Bandera Partners, which owns 9.5 percent of Luby's stock, on Tuesday filed its preliminary proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, asking shareholders to elect four new candidates to Luby's nine-member board. The hedge fund's candidates are: Jeff Gramm, Bandera's co-founder and portfolio manager; his father and former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas; Stacy Hock, chairwoman of Texans for Education Opportunity; and Savneet Singh, managing partner of New York-based Tera Holdings. RELATED: Activist investor calls for 'fresh faces' to turn around Luby's In response, Luby's on Wednesday filed its preliminary proxy statement, asking shareholders to elect eight incumbent board members as well as an undisclosed new board member to replace Peter Tropoli, who stepped down to be the company's general counsel. Luby's, which did not endorse any of Bandera's candidates, also is asking shareholders to approve an amendment that would eliminate a board rule that requires a supermajority of shareholder votes to remove members. CEO Chris Pappas and board member Harris Pappas combined have 36.8 percent of Luby's outstanding shares. RELATED: Luby's to fight activist investor seeking control of struggling restaurant chain Luby's annual shareholders meeting date has not yet been set, but it is expected sometime in early 2019. Bandera hired Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen to represent the hedge fund in the proxy fight. Luby's has retained Sidley Austin as its attorney. Luby's, founded in San Antonio in 1947 and known for its comfort foods such as the LuAnn Platter, has struggled to retain diners in recent years amid growing competition from new fast-casual concepts, such as Shake Shack, which offer trendy foods and limited service that appeals to younger diners looking to share their dining experience on social media. Luby's this year issued a statement of going concern, calling into question whether it can stay in business. Luby's reported a loss of $33.6 million this fiscal year, and its stock has lost two-thirds of its value since January. The company, in its latest annual financial report, posted $365.2 million in sales over the year, down 3.7 percent from the previous year. Same-store sales fell a half percent. Check back later at HoustonChronicle.com for more on this developing story. As fourth grader Wilson Murray assisted in the process of forming dough, he came to a realization. Baking bread is harder than it looks, Murray said. King Arthur Flour, a baking supply company, presented a Bake for Good Program demonstration at Keith Elementary on Dec. 13. Keith was one of four Cypress-Fairbanks ISD elementary schools to host the program during the week. Keith Elementary School fourth grade students honed their math and science skills while learning how to make bread, pizza and cinnamon rolls from scratch. However, one of the key lesson baked into the program is learning to share. Participating students were given a recipe book and supplies to bake two loaves of bread. Students took one of their loaves home to share with their families. The other loaves were donated to local nonprofits including Northwest Assistance Ministries, Cypress Assistance Ministries and Cy-Fair Helping Hands to distribute to people in need. Bake for Good Program presenter, Pam Jensen, said the free program links giving back to the community with education and baking through an exciting and interactive demonstration. It creates education and education changes lives, Jensen said. They learn to be bakers. It creates family time because the kids take home their own ingredient bag. They bake with their parents and they become the teachers. Jenson began the demonstration by asking her two assistants, Murray and fellow fourth grader CC Cacchione, to help mix the yeast, sugar and water together using tools, such as a measuring cup and bowls. Jensen connected each step to math, vocabulary and science concepts such as measurement, estimation and the forming of carbon dioxide bubbles while creating the mixture to make bread. Moisture in the air makes moisture in the flour so you have to use more flour in order to get the dough the right texture, she said during the presentation. If you live somewhere humid like Houston or San Francisco you have to use more flour. Throughout the presentation, Jensen asked students questions on steps in the process and how she should proceed. She was a great presenter, said Nicole Carroll, Keith Elementary counselor and mother of a participating student. She was able to keep the kids attention. It was really cool to see the kids engaged about learning how to bake. Cacchione said she liked learning how to bake alongside Jensen. I just learned how to make bread and braid it, she said. I already knew how to braid my hair. Murray said he liked the latter part of the presentation where he learned how to form pizza dough. My favorite part was throwing the pizza, he said. According to Jensen, King Arthur Flour presents the Bake for Good Program all school year for free in order to keep children engaged and to give back to the community. This is why I love my job, she said. chevall.pryce@chron.com A Baytown man was arrested in Navasota for allegedly stealing a car in College Station earlier this week, according to reports. According to media reports, Christopher Joseph McGowan, 29, is accused of stealing a Dodge Nitro in College Station Tuesday. He was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Humble City Council members approved a motion to reserve $1.15 million of funds from fiscal year 2018 for specific equipment, property improvements, motor vehicles, real estate and access fees to be performed during fiscal year 2019 during a monthly meeting on Dec. 13. Finance Director Aimee Phillips said half of the money being encumbered is for related generators, purchases and about $150,000 of real estate purchases for FEMA approved mitigation. Mayor Merle Aaron added most city departments have funds that will be encumbered forward. These monies have been set aside so we dont have to pay at one time for all of those expenses; so well just spread it out over a few years, Aaron said. Additionally, council members approved a motion to use nearly 18 acres of land along Hwy. 59 near Rankin Road for the construction of a farmers market. Humble council members also approved a motion to amend the unit price with Ceres Environmental Services to $5.05 per pound for disaster debris removal and disposal services. A typo listed the price at 5 cent per pound. During Thursday nights meeting City Manager Jason Stuebe said the city initially entered into a emergency agreement with Ceres shortly after Hurricane Harvey. We did an emergency bid shortly after Harvey. Ceres was the low bidder and ultimately brought those services to us. Ultimately it was discovered much later that they had a typographical error, Stuebe said. The charge for the household hazardous waste was 5 cents a pound and obviously that was misquoted; so this is just correcting that error. kaila.contreras@chron.com Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Houston resident Tiana Perea blasted her now ex-boyfriend for cheating. And while most of us would shy away from publicly sharing such a personal moment, Perea marched to the beat of her own drummer, posting footage of the incident on Twitter Wednesday for all the world to see. In a viral video that will live on longer than the actual relationship (be forewarned, there's some graphic language), the Houston resident can be seen celebrating her birthday with friends at a private residence before shining the spotlight on the shady situation. GRAPHIC LANGUAGE: After throwing back what appears to be a couple of tequila shots, Perea thanks her guests for attending the soiree, and then uses her liquid courage to express a different message of gratitude to her boyfriend. "I'd like to thank Santos for making me realize I deserve so much better," she announces, just before calling him out for "talking to some girl." "All of us have seen screenshots ... you were sexting her and sending her videos," she says accusingly. Not quite finished, Perea ends her tirade with one last zinger as her conspiring brother comes into the frame, carrying Santos' packed bag. "In case you didn't figure it out, we're over and you can get the f**k out." After the stun wears off, guests begin to cheer and chime in. "Bad b**ch," says one guest. "Damn, that's cold," remarks another. Twitter comments range from. "That boy walking out like he just got voted off a game show" to "underrated tweet." And there you have it. Revenge is a dish, apparently, best served on social media. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @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 Houston's back in the national spotlight, but this time it's not only because of this city's great dining scene. (Of course that helps, too). Lifestyle magazine Travel + Leisure asked its staff to name the 50 best destinations, from around the globe, that travelers need to visit next year. The decision process involved mulling statistics, flight ease, other expert opinions and even recommendations from lay people. Staffer Lila Harron Battis chose our favorite place: Houston. Battis chose the Bayou City for our post-Harvey recovery progress, Super Bowl hosting skills, diverse dining scene and cultural offerings. "Nearly two years after its star turn as Super Bowl host and one year since Hurricane Harvey inflicted $125 billion worth of damage, Houston has made major strides toward recovery and cemented its reputation as a lively, diverse city with a restaurant landscape that can hold its own against any coastal capital," she writes. LIFESTYLE WORTH PAYING FOR: Every week HoustonChronicle.com covers the arts, food and style that makes Houston a city worth living in. Battis mentions such fine-dining spots as Xochi, UB Preserv and Theodore Rex as well as some ethnic staples: Mala SIchuan, Pho Binh and Crawfish & Noodles. But those existing establishments are the only reason to check out Houston in 2019, there are also those newly opened and about-to-launch spots, too. Specifically food halls, which are all the rages all over the globe. "Now, with a handful of new food halls in the works, visitors can sample a cross-section of the city's food scene without spending hours traversing the urban sprawl: Finn Hall opened in December, with Bravery Chef Hall, Lyric Market Hall, and Understory still on the horizon for 2019," Battis said. Battis closes out her recommendation with a nod to Tilman Fertitta's Post Oak hotel, as well as The Museum of Fine Arts Houston's $450 million expansion and the Menil Collection's newly unveiled Menil Drawing Institute. See the other places Travel + Leisure suggest for travel in 2019 in the gallery above. Then tell us where you're planning on going in the comments. 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. For many people, the start of New Year is a customary time to assess their health and finances. And for most Texans, health plan benefits begin in January, so now is an ideal time to learn how your health plan works. Here are five tips that may lead you to better health and even help save you money this year and beyond. Understand your health plan It sounds basic, but understanding your health plan before you need to use your benefits can save you a lot of time, stress and money. Learn what your health plan covers - including medical, pharmacy and preventive benefits. When in doubt, call the number on your health plan ID card to get the most up-to-date information. Also, its a good time to make sure you understand health plan terms such as deductible, copay, coinsurance and out-of-pocket limit. If you need a refresher, there are resources online such as the Just Plain Clear Glossary to help you learn and understand these terms. Ask about lower-cost prescriptions If youre worried about the cost of a medication, mention your price concerns to your doctor who can help find the most appropriate and affordable option for you. Many doctors are now using technology that enables them to view precise medication costs in real time before leaving the exam room. You may be surprised to learn that generic medications often are more affordable, and just as safe and effective as their brand-name equivalents. In addition, some pharmacy benefit plans now offer discounts at the point of sale by providing savings from pharmacy manufacturer rebates directly to consumers. These discounts could potentially lower your out-of-pocket costs on select medications. Stay in network One way to help keep costs down is to stay in your health plans care provider network, which consists of the doctors, specialists, hospitals and other care facilities with whom your health plan has contracted to provide health care services. Your insurance company has agreed to pay those health care providers a certain amount of money for your visits - usually a discounted rate. Because of those discounts, you usually pay less when you see a health care provider in the network vs. one whos outside the network. For out-of-network care providers, your insurance may cover only a fraction of the cost of care - or none at all - depending on your plan. Before you make your next appointment, check with your health plan to make sure the provider or facility is in network. Know your care options before you go If your health issue isnt an emergency, visit your primary care doctor for care first. Your doctor knows you and your health history, can easily access your medical records, and can take care of many health needs, provide follow-up care or refer you to specialists. If its not possible to visit your regular doctor, you may be able to receive fast, professional and lower-cost care at an urgent care center, a convenience care clinic or an online doctor visit. Online doctor visits are a great option for treating conditions such as colds, migraines and allergies. Online visits often can cost as low as $40 or $50 per visit, much less than a trip to urgent care or an emergency room. Take advantage of wellness discounts and incentives Many health plans now offer financial incentives that reward you for taking healthier actions such as completing a health survey, exercising, or meeting nationally recommended health benchmarks for cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index, and no nicotine. An increasing number of employers are offering wellness discounts and incentive-based wellness programs to support their employees efforts to help improve their health. These initiatives may also lead to increased employee satisfaction, productivity and reduced costs. For more tips and information about health care, visit the UHC Newsroom at https://newsroom.uhc.com. Dave Milich is CEO of UnitedHealthcare of Texas. Crosby ISD officials will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. on Monday to discuss the districts state financial rating of a C, or also noted as standard achievement. The schools financial rating for 2017-18 is based on the 2016-17 school year, which precedes the districts financial crisis that has caused Crosby ISD to lay off more than 100 people. Homeowners affected by Hurricane Harvey may now qualify for assistance. An Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management release said the HGAC-E/Gulf Coast Region Homeowner Assistance Program helps qualified homeowners repair, rehabilitate, or rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Harvey. We had over 4,000 homes impacted by the flooding from Hurricane Harvey, said Cynthia Jamieson with the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management. Director of Communications, Community Development and Revitalization Brittany Eck with the General Land Office encouraged homeowners struggling to repair their homes to apply. She said a total of about $258 million has been allocated to the East Region, which will be shared among Brazoria, Chambers, Galveston, Liberty, Montgomery, and Walker counties. The amount is one of the highest allocated to a region and will run until the funds are expended, she said noting the office has already received interest and applications. The program is first come, first serve with the contingency that 70 percent of the funds benefit low to moderate income individuals. These were the individuals hardest hit during Harvey and have had the most difficult time recovering financially and with the rebuilding of their homes. Applicants in Montgomery County are potentially eligible for assistance if they owned their home, it was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, and it was their primary residence, among other eligibility factors. Applications will be considered, according to the priorities outlined in the Regional Housing Guidelines. Potential applicants should review the Homeowner Assistance Program Checklist to have all applicable documents ready prior to applying. This housing program is administered by the Texas General Land Office. Interested homeowners should visit http://recovery.texas.gov/hap to apply online or download a printable version of the application. Eck said the program is designed to meet unmet needs, including to take a homeowner to the finish line after insurance and to bring the home completely up to code. The homeowner does not have to deal with contractors as GLO will hire the contractors. If a house is too damaged to be repaired it will be rebuilt. From the time of application to the time of completion of the project we average about six months or less, Eck said. For assistance in applying, Montgomery County homeowners may visit the Gulf Coast Region Homeowner Assistance Center located at 110 N. Interstate 45, Suite 100A in Conroe. Hours are Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or the Homeowner Assistance Center Mobile Intake Center at the Decker Prairie Community Building at 32434 Decker Prairie Rd. in Magnolia. Hours are Tuesdays only 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information on the HAP program, including hours and days of operation go to http://recovery.texas.gov/hap. mellsworth@hcnonline.com U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has confirmed today the candidacy of ambassadorial nominee Earle Litzenberger in the post of U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, according to the U.S. Senate. Litzenberger was nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump on Sept. 4, 2018. Earlier, Litzenberger served in U.S. Embassies, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, as well as U.S. Mission to NATO. Montgomery County sheriffs deputies are searching for a man mistakenly released from the county jail on Wednesday. Edward Manning, 30, was released in place of Jeffrey Manning, Lt. Scott Spencer said in a release sent out early Friday. Jeffrey Manning was supposed to be released late Wednesday on a personal recognizance bond pending trial. CAUGHT: Houston murder suspect behind bars after 3 months on the run Edward Manning was originally arrested for felony assault family violence and was eligible to be released on a $20,000 bond. Deputies have been able to contact Edward Manning via cell phone, but, as of Friday morning, he refused to surrender to police. Manning is reported to have personal ties to the greater Houston area. An order to remand has been issued for Edward Manning and deputies are asking anyone with information on Mannings whereabouts to contact the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office at 936-760-5800 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-392-7867. mrincon@chron.com A public memorial honoring former Montgomery County Forensics Services director Dr. Sparks Veasey is being held at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Conroe at 1303 W. Semands. Colleagues and community members will be looking back on the legacy laid forth by Veasey who died Dec. 3 at the age of 67 following a short illness. Veasey, who headed the forensics center from March 2010 through November 2015, is credited with improving its services and expanding them to include postmortem examinations. Previously, autopsies had been outsourced to other medical examiner offices in the state. Under his leadership, he reestablished the program, kind of got everything back in line. (He) immediately began to provide the service for our county, which was just huge. The situation we have now is because of Dr. Veasey and all the hard work he put into the department, said District Attorney of Montgomery County special crimes bureau chief Tyler Dunman. Aside from the impact he made through his work, people are fondly recalling Veasey as a quintessential Texan with a warm demeanor. Juries always loved when he testified, Dunman said. They thought he was genuine and smart and just likable and honest. Dr. Kathryn Pinneri, the centers current forensics services director, was colleagues with Veasey for the past two years while he was contracted by the county as a pathologist. In this and other parts of Texas, he was a local legacy, Pinneri said in a statement. His intelligence was often underrated because of his friendly and unassuming appearance. Dr. Veasey was a unique person and Im thankful I got to know him. Heather Reyes, administrative manager at the forensics services center, remembers Veasey as a man full of endearing quirks. He loved telling people about how he was just a small country boy from Van, Texas, Reyes said. He was really kind of laid back. Didnt look like a doctor, didnt act like a doctor. Really smart, though. He always had dip in his mouth and his unapologetic affinity for canned sardines filled the office air with their smell. When conducting a postmortem exam, Reyes said Veasey would regularly quote actor Val Kilmers character Doc Holliday from the 1993 film Tombstone. He could often be heard belting out a show tune from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Veaseys early career in forensics took him to the nations capital where at one point he worked as a staff pathologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Once back home to Texas, he worked as a pathologist in Odessa, Amarillo, Lubbock and Galveston before he made it to Montgomery County. Veasey had been a clinical professor at Sam Houston State University since he left the forensics services center directorship. He graduated with a law degree from South Texas College of Law in 2002, working as an assistant district attorney in Brazoria County between 2006 and 2009. He was able to connect with people in a genuine and sincere way, regardless of whether he had his doctor, lawyer, or professors hat on, Pinneris statement read. The last time Tyler Dunman spoke to Veasey, the doctor reminded him to not allow his work duties to draw away from obligations he had to his family. Dont let (work) overwhelm you. Dont get in the position where this work is taking you away from your family, Dunman said Veasey told him. Make sure that youre connected to your wife and kids. Thats just the kind of person he was. He just cared about people. jose.gonzalez@chron.com twitter.com/jrgzztx Karen Warren/Staff U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore has just about had it with a years-old patent infringement case involving two companies that manufacture clear teeth aligners. Attorneys for plaintiff company Align Technology and defendant ClearCorrect filed a joint motion earlier this week asking Gilmore to extend the deadline from Saturday to Monday for a procedural matter in the case. Gilmore, of the Southern District of Texas in Houston, denied the request, but not without adding some flavor to her court order. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that some persons close to Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud assumed an active role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "We understand from the voice recordings that those closest to the crown prince had an active role in Khashoggi's killing," Erdogan said at a conference in Istanbul. Speaking about the resolution, Erdogan said there would be more developments about the issue as "Turkey submitted all the information to Americans." The Turkish leader also stressed that his country would continue to chase the issue until the end to reveal the naked truth behind the murder, Xinhua reported. The U.S. Senate recently approved a resolution holding Saudi Crown Prince responsible for the murder of Khashoggi. According to the Istanbul prosecutor, Khashoggi was strangled to death after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 and his body was then dismembered and destroyed. Several road, sidewalk and infrastructure projects are in the works for the greater northwest Houston region. Harris County Precinct 4 expects Holderrieth Road construction west of Texas 249 to continue into 2019. Pct. 4 is in the middle of extending Holderrieth Road as a four-lane roadway just west of Texas 249 toward Calvert Road. Holderrieth Roads $6 million construction was expected to be completed in November, but will be pushed back due to drainage issues. As far as Holderrieth is concerned, were looking at the first quarter finish of 2019. Its been a very tricky construction on that project, said Lindsey Trahan, Pct. 4 capital improvements coordinator. Near the Holderrieth extension, staff members have officially begun to work out of the precincts new service center. Tomball officially annexed the 375-acre plot where the center is located in May. The center will also have a dumpster for residents to dispose of waste, but will not be open to businesses. Due to its higher elevation, the center may be the future home for the Precinct 4, Place 1 courthouse, which was flooded during Hurricane Harvey and shut down for repairs for nearly a year. Trahan said the administrative staff would move into the new building by Monday and would followed by road maintenance crews. Were still looking to advertise phase 2 of our service center construction for next year. Once thats complete, well start moving more of our road maintenance guys over there, so the crews, the equipment and all of that, she said. Another major county project is the widening of Boudreaux Drive from two to four lanes between Telge Road and Rocky Road. Additionally, TxDOTs project to widen FM 2978 and Zion Road between FM 1488 and Hufsmith-Conroe Road is currently underway. The city of Tomball is working to extend Medical Complex Drive to South Cherry Street and plans to add sidewalks along the extension. Road construction, sidewalks and infrastructure projects will be among the priorities the Greater Area Tomball Chamber of Commerces mobility and transportation committee will be pursuing for 2019. Major projects will include widening and expanding roads, adding a trail system and implementing the Tomball Livable Centers Plan which was created in 2009 for infrastructure improvements. Its a study that was done about downtown years ago. Were moving forward with pieces of it as we speak, said Tomball city manager Rob Hauck. Downtown Tomball In conjunction with the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the city would focus on making Old Town Tomball more pedestrian-friendly, add more street lighting and changing parking along Main Street. Hauck said the city shifted money to the capital fund for the projects, which would include rebuilding the alleyways by moving the utilities by one block a year. According to the study, removing parallel parking along Main Street in downtown will be increased for safety. We dont like the idea of intentionally mixing pedestrians with traffic. Its one of the things city staff cringe about, Hauck said. A downtown shuttle or trolley may also be added to provide visitors with more mobility, he said. Texas 249 projects The chamber will also continue to advocate for direct connectors between Texas 249 and the Grand Parkway. In 2017, the Harris County Commissioners Court approved funds to design the connectors between both major roadways. As the construction of Texas 249 continues up north in Montgomery County, the chamber will also advocate for its extension from Highway 105 in Navasota, where the road is expected to be built. GTACC president Bruce Hillegeist said that when Texas 249 was being built through Tomball, residents originally opposed it. As traffic increased through the region, residents voiced more support for the expansion. Hillegeist said he sees Tomballs experience with the roadway as an example for Navasota and Montgomery County, where Texas 249 will be built. You cant let progress pass you by. We have a duty to be visionary and to look for the interest of the entire community. We want to be good partners together. We like to think regionally. Now that weve got it done here doesnt mean we stop. We look out for the best interests of our friends, too, he said. mayra.cruz@chron.com Russias Spartak Moscow has failed to make it to the UEFA Europa Leagues Round of 32 after being defeated 0-2 by Spains Villarreal FC in the group stage final match yesterday evening. The goals were scored by Samuel Chukwueze in the 11th minute and Karl Ekambi in the 48th minute. With five points after six matches, Spartak is fourth in Group G. Russias Krasnodar FC lost 0:3 to Spains Sevilla on the final matchday, but still advanced to the tournaments knockout stage. The goals were scored by Wissam Ben Yedder (5, 10) and by Ever Banega (49, on penalty). Both clubs now have 12 points each, but Sevilla is ranked first in Group J due to their goal difference, TASS reported. NATO is ready to expand cooperation with Tbilisi in strengthening the Black Sea region security, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg said at the NATO-Georgia meeting in Brussels, according to the Georgian Foreign Ministry. "NATO allies expressed their readiness to deepen cooperation with Georgia in strengthening Black Sea security," TASS cited the document as saying. In addition, according to the Secretary General of NATO, Georgia has made impressive progress in "implementing comprehensive reform" and is "a vivid example in terms of democratic development." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia has published a list of foreign partners that will attend the inauguration of president-elect Salome Zurabishvili, InterPressNews reported. The relevant announcement has been made by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Khatuna Totladze at a briefing today. "The inauguration will be attended: President of the Republic of Armenia, former President of France, former Minister of Defense of France, former Minister of Social Affairs of France, Vice President of Turkey, Speaker of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Speaker of the National Assembly of Serbia, President of the Senate of the Czech Republic, Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament, Marshal of Polish Senate and head of the Presidential Office, Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova, Minister of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations of Turkmenistan, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of UAE, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly of Belarus, Vice-Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, GUAM Secretary General, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, a representative of USAID from the US and a representative of the Holy See. Georgia thanks our friends and partners for arriving in Georgia to attend the ceremony", - stated Todaladze. According to her, attendance of quite a high representation at the 5th presidential inauguration indicates Georgia's important role in the international community. Provocations are characteristic of the National Movement, but we are here to prevent such provocations, Georgian Parliament Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze said when commenting on the opposition rally planned in Telavi during the inauguration ceremony, InterPressNews reported. Kobakhidze told journalists that the inauguration would be calm and the opposition would not be able to organize provocations. "I assure you that the inauguration will be held without obstacles. There may be some provocations, but we will properly meet them, in a style introduced by us in 2012. Therefore, I do not expect any incident in Telavi," said Irakli Kobakhidze. He also talked about the rehabilitation of the presidential palace and explained that after the inauguration, the President will enter the Atoneli palace. We are sure that she will be able to enter the palace in time". The terrorist group ISIS (outlawed in Russia) said the man who killed three people in Strasbourg was one of its soldiers, the groups Amaq news website said, although it provided no evidence for the claim. An online statement from the groups Amaq news agency said the attacker "was an ISIS soldier and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries" fighting the militant group in Syria and Iraq, Reuters reported. It was earlier reported that the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was shot dead yesterday in a brief gun battle with police after being on the run for 48 hours. On December 12, at about 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT), a man opened fire close to the famed Christmas market near Place Kleber, which attracts thousands of visitors. Three people have died following the shooting at the market and several more were seriously injured. A reception on the occasion of Kazakhstans 27th Independence Day anniversary was held in Baku yesterday, the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reported. The event was attended by members of the government, Azerbaijani MPs, heads and employees of foreign diplomatic missions and international organizations, members of the Friends of Kazakhstan Club, activists of the Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan Friendship Republican Society named after Heydar Aliyev, representatives of the public and leading Azerbaijani media. Kazakh Ambassador to Azerbaijan Beibit Isabayev said at a reception that Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have solid potential for further mutually beneficial cooperation. "Kazakh-Azerbaijani relations are developing dynamically in all spheres, and the two countries have solid potential for further strengthening partnership and mutually beneficial cooperation," he said. The ambassador said that over the years of independence, very close and friendly relations based on mutual trust and equality have been established between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Isabayev also briefed the guests on the achievements of Kazakhstan in the socio-economic and political spheres. Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov, in turn, noted that during the years of independence, Kazakhstan under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev achieved great success and has become one of the leading states in the region. "By implementing important projects, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have turned their countries into key international energy and transport corridors," the minister said. Shahbazov expressed confidence that the friendly and fraternal relations, as well as cooperation and solidarity between the two countries, will continue. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that U.S. presidential national security adviser John Boltons statement that it is impossible to hold a meeting of Russian and U.S. presidents, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, at the moment is not a reason for interference in the investigation of Ukrainian sailors. Russian presidential spokesman added that they are responsible for the violation of Russias state border. He agreed that three Ukrainian boats and their crews were incomparable in terms of importance to Putin-Trump talks on major international problems. "For this reason we hope, of course, that the United States will arrive at the same conclusion," TASS cited Peskov as saying. "Progress in the investigation and a court verdict, if it comes to that, may influence the fate of the Ukrainian crews," he added. Bolton said that the U.S. Administration believes that another personal meeting between the Russian and U.S. presidents would be impossible as long as Moscow held Ukraines naval ships intercepted in the Kerch Strait. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the 39th foreign ministerial meeting of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) in Baku, said that in the quarter-century of its existence, the BSEC developed as a popular regional venue. At the same time, he noted that the situation in the Black Sea region has recently deteriorated. The Russian Foreign Minister noted that the organisation's further success "will depend on how pragmatically we will be able to build up our cooperation". "Unfortunately, the situation in the Black Sea region degraded recently," he stressed. "It is important to reverse this trend and work to turn the Black Sea region into a zone of peace, stability and prosperity," Lavrov added. "I am confident that the organization should not serve as a scene for political struggles, let alone score-setting," TASS cited him as saying. The Russian foreign minister reiterated that the BSEC chiefly deals with economic issues, and the organizations mandate should be respected. "It is the guarantee of the BSECs capability to support the development of integration ties," Lavrov concluded. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Azerbaijani leadership demonstrates serious commitment to resume and continue negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. The statement was made following the foreign minister's meeting with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, which were held yesterday in Baku, the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reported. "Yesterday, we had a very detailed, lengthy conversation with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. His sincere intention to resume negotiations in order to find constructive solutions was evident," the Russian foreign minister said. "Russia as a close partner of Azerbaijan and Armenia and as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group will do its best to create conditions for reaching a compromise. We will strive to find creative ideas to help forming the basis for a settlement," the minister stressed. In this regard, the Russian top diplomat recalled the dialogue of the parties on this topic. "The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia met on the sidelines of the EEU and the CIS events in St. Petersburg, there was also a meeting of the two foreign ministers on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Milan," he said. "It is clear that it took place on the eve of Armenia's parliamentary elections. Now when it's over, the Armenian government is to be formed. After that, I think the Armenian side will be ready to resume the negotiation process with the Azerbaijani co-chairs," the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed hope. The 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation member-states was held in Baku under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan. The meeting was attended by the delegations headed by senior officials of the BSEC member-states. Among the main priorities of Azerbaijans chairmanship are to render efficient, reliable and safe transport and transit services as part of BSEC, increase the export potential of agriculture and further develop the tourism sector. Ex-Tallahassee mayor Maddox indicted in FBI investigation that hurt Gillums campaign Scott Charles Maddox Former Florida Democratic Party Chair SCOTT MADDOX, ex-Mayor of Tallahassee, INDICTED. The name of his company says it all -- GOVERNANCE, INC. As my late lobbyist friend, Larry Tucker, once explained to me, "the only difference between Democrats and Republicans in Tallahassee is that the Democrats want the money in a paper sack and the Republicans want the money in a briefcase." Corruption must be extirpated. That especially includes our Florida and local Democratic Party, which both have delusions of adequacy.By the way, note to deluded last-minute voters for shallow, callow Flori-DUH Governor-elect RONALD DeSANTIS: nothing on Andrew Gillum in this indictment. Did DeSANTIS wade through slaughter to a throne, with lies about Andrew Gillum, based on allegations from "persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy." Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 496 (1959).But DONALD JOHN TRUMP a/k/a "INDIVIDUAL 1" is an unindicted coconspirator on felony counts for which his henchmen have pled guilty and are going to federal prisons. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Dec. 14 at a meeting with representatives of the Russian media spoke about earlier proposals for participation of Russia and Belarus in settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Trend reports citing BelTA. He noted that the issue was discussed in Yerevan at one of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) summits at the time when Serzh Sargsyan was the president of Armenia. Lukashenko called on the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to solve this problem together, by making compromise decisions. At the same time, Belarus and Russia took a consolidated position and promised to deploy a military contingent, if necessary, to provide certain guarantees, Lukashenko said. The president of Belarus added that he with Putin asked Sargsyan to return five occupied Azerbaijani districts. Sargsyan replied that if he does this, Azerbaijan will take Nagorno-Karabakh by using these districts and rejected Lukashenkos proposal. The president of Belarus said he was really surprised why Sargsyan rejected this proposal, because this was a first step, and if it succeeded, both Armenia and Azerbaijan would be in the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union) and the CSTO. He stressed the importance of a peaceful settlement of the conflict, including as an important factor for attracting foreign investments. Lukashenko said that the heads of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be able to resolve the conflict, adding that international mediators did nothing actually to resolve the situation over the past years. The investigation of a Houston area priest on sexual assault allegations led law enforcement to a cache of files on more than 20 clergy members who faced claims of misconduct over the past decade, including some criminal allegations, according to court records. The files seized from the Shalom Center in Splendora include details on at least five priests publicly accused of sexual misconduct in Texas, California and Missouri, a Houston Chronicle review found. The files were listed in an exhaustive inventory stemming from a search warrant executed in September on the Shalom property by Montgomery County law enforcement and Texas Rangers. The files identified priests treated at the center, according to Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Tyler Dunman. The recent court filings do not disclose the reason for the treatment or when the clergy were at the facility, and Dunman said not all the priests faced criminal allegations. The pastoral retreat, a wooded property at 13516 Morgan Drive in eastern Montgomery County, is billed as a residential renewal and treatment center that draws its name from the Hebrew greeting. The center provides treatment for up to 20 Catholic priests, nuns and other religious figures for psychological, emotional and sexual problems; addictions; stress; grief; trauma; and interpersonal conflicts, according to its website. CONFISCATED: Cardinal DiNardo's computers were seized in search, authorities say The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, whose offices were also searched last month, does not own or operate the facility although it has sent priests there, including Manuel La Rosa-Lopez after he was accused of molesting a young Sacred Heart Catholic Church parishioner in Conroe. He is now facing four counts of indecency with a child. Search warrants were also executed in September at the Sacred Heart church and St. John Fisher Church in Richmond, where La Rosa-Lopez was assigned at the time. Shalom Center Executive Director Daniel Kidd said Thursday he could not discuss individual cases, but said the center treats a wide range of issues, primarily depression, anxiety and burnout. He said the facility does not typically treat pedophilia or ephebophilia, a sexual interest in adolescents, but said some may have checked into the facility. Out of 1,800 people in 28 years, yeah, there probably have been an occasional person to be assessed and referred elsewhere if the problem is pedophilia and ephebophilia, he said. Kidd said some of the documents seized have been returned to the center. Several bags of shredded documents The files seized at the Shalom Center were apparently created in the past decade. According to court documents, Kidd told law enforcement that records were shredded after 10 years, and several bags of shredded documents were found during the search in a dining room and under a desk. Several computers, phones, books on sex addiction and a binder labeled resident intake were also seized. Investigators believed Kidd had handed over all of his records on La Rosa-Lopez, but a search of a file cabinet in his office revealed an undisclosed memorandum, according to a sworn statement submitted by a Conroe police detective to obtain the search warrant. The document described a 2001 interview of one of La Rosa-Lopezs accusers and a note that she was credible. Kidd told an investigator that he had forgotten about the document and later assumed officials would find it anyway, according to court papers. Kidd is listed as the nonprofits principal officer in its last available tax record posted in 2014, when it reported an operating budget of $1.3 million. Nearly a dozen more priests whose files were seized in the search appear to have active assignments at parishes in Texas, Georgia, California, Florida and New Mexico. The Chronicle is not identifying priests who were not named in court records or by church officials. Houston area allegations Two former priests from the Houston area La Rosa-Lopez and Stephen Horn were among those whose files were seized. Soon after Cardinal Daniel DiNardo was promoted to his post with the archdiocese in 2008, he announced that Horn had been removed from the ministry after credible evidence that he sexually abused a boy from 1989 to 1993 at Christ the King Catholic Church in north Houston. Horn had been assigned to St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church in southeast Houston when the allegations emerged, but was removed from that post when the claim was reported to the archdiocese in November 2007. Details were not available on when he was sent to the Shalom Center. Our editorial only at HoustonChronicle.com: DiNardo should take real action for victims of pedophile priests Information on La Rosa-Lopezs treatment at the Shalom Center was found at his residence at St. John Fisher Church in Richmond, according to the sworn statement. He was sent to the facility from April 2001 to January 2002, the records show. Additional records found at the Splendora facility stated a review board considered whether La Rosa-Lopez should be re-assigned to a new parish. The following year, La Rosa-Lopez was assigned to the Richmond parish. Three accusers have now spoken to investigators about La Rosa-Lopez. Two say the priest sexually abused them while at Sacred Heart and a third says he was abused at St. Thomas More Catholic Church, where La Rosa-Lopez worked while in seminary, according to court records. The Montgomery County District Attorneys Office is continuing to investigate La Rosa-Lopez. Other Texas priests accused A priest from the Corpus Christi area was also among those whose name appeared in the 23 pages of evidence seized at the Shalom Center. John Feminelli was sued twice for alleged misconduct at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Corpus Christi. The mother of an accuser claimed Feminelli, then a deacon, was grooming her teenage son for a sexual relationship by buying him lavish gifts, the Houston Chronicle reported in 1992. Despite the mothers protests, Feminelli was ordained in 1987 because the church did not believe her son to be a credible witness. The church, however, recommended that Feminelli undergo intense counseling with regards to his prudence and his ability to form adult relationships, the Chronicle reported at the time. Feminelli has since retired but celebrated mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Gregory near Corpus Christi, according to a church newsletter published last year. A North Texas priest was also named in the inventory of seized documents. Priest Matthew Bagert was caught looking at a nude photo of a child on a computer at the rectory of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Grand Prairie in 2005. Another priest saw him and alerted the Diocese of Dallas, according to court documents. A search uncovered another 600 images and Bagert admitted to investigators that he had been viewing child pornography since 1997, when he was a priest assigned to St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in Plano. THE INVESTIGATION: Prosecutor receiving new sex abuse claims against Conroe priest as activists call for state probe Bagert pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in 2009. During sentencing, Bagert told a federal judge he had received counseling at the Shalom Center and was in therapy to treat his urge to view child porn, the Dallas Morning News reported at the time. Bagert was released from a federal prison in 2013 and is a registered sex offender in Plano, under the name Father Matthew Allen Bagert. Out of state The files also included a member of the Society of Precious Blood religious order who spent time at the Shalom Center. The Diocese of Jefferson City in Missouri announced last month that the priest, Deusdedit Mulokozi, had been expelled from the church as one of 33 clergy who had been credibly accused. Church officials said he was found to be unsuitable for ministry out of concern for the safety of our youth. A priest identified in the files as Louis Perreault appeared on a list of credibly accused clergy released last month by the Diocese of San Bernardino in California. Perreault was accused of child sexual abuse from 1990 to 1992 while he was assigned to Our Lady of the Valley in Hemet, California, according to the diocese. Church officials said they became aware of the claim in September 2011 and reported it to police that month. By then, Perrault had already retired, having left in 2000 because of health problems. He was not authorized to perform priestly duties, a diocese spokesman said, and was permanently banned from ministry in the diocese in 2011. Other documents seized included papers described as a psych eval for a priest removed from his Conway Springs, Kansas, parish in January. The priest, Andrew Seiler, was removed from St. Joseph Catholic Church after taking a group of boys on a hiking trip with no other adults in 2017. No abuse was reported after the hike, but he was ordered to undergo a personal and priestly assessment, the Wichita Eagle reported. The evaluation was found on a desk at the Shalom Center, according to court records. The Diocese of Wichita announced in May that Seiler was reassigned as an associate to the Catholic Care Center, a retirement facility in Wichita. Eager to excuse The Shalom Center operated at a Montrose location when it was first established in 1980 after former Bishop John Morkovsky commissioned a study on the needs of church personnel. It saw 50 to 75 clients a month for counseling and treatment of what was described as severe emotional problems, according to a Chronicle article in 1987. It also provided screening of clergy candidates. The Splendora inpatient facility opened in 1990. A survey commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Bishops in 1995 identified the Shalom Center in Splendora as one of eight facilities that treated clergy with issues that included sexual and other addictions, and those who faced accusations of present or past alleged inappropriate sexual behaviors. The conferences Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse heard from 127 dioceses nationwide that reported using one or more of the eight facilities, including the Shalom Center. The Splendora retreat garnered a satisfaction rating of 3.8 out of 5, according to the review. The committee, however, recommended in its report that the Shalom Center not be used for severe cases. Sometimes too eager to excuse priest offender, the review noted. nicole.hensley@chron.com Houston City Councilman Dwight Boykins on Thursday proposed charging property owners a monthly garbage collection fee to finance raises for firefighters while avoiding job cuts for other city staff. Under the proposal, most Houston homeowners would be charged a flat, monthly fee between $25 and $40 to help the city absorb the cost of raises for firefighters mandated by the pay parity charter amendment approved by voters last month. Unveiled at a Thursday press conference, Boykins' proposal comes amid a legal challenge by the city over the constitutionality of Proposition B, the charter amendment granting firefighters equal pay to police officers of corresponding rank and experience. The amendment was approved last month by 59 percent of voters. "I believe the issue of pay parity was settled at the ballot box," Boykins wrote in a Thursday letter to Mayor Sylvester Turner and his colleagues on council. "As elected leaders, our primary mission is to settle on an appropriate and responsible way forward. To this end, I am convinced that introducing a garbage collection fee is the most plausible plan to provide firefighters a pay raise while ensuring that no city worker loses their job." Turners office issued a statement in which the mayor said he was opposed to the idea: Council Member Boykins and the Firefighters Association's proposal to enact a $25 monthly garbage collection fee to pay for a firefighters 29% pay raise, underscores what I have been saying for months. The City cannot afford Proposition B. This measure will cost the city more than $100 million each fiscal year. I will not support forcing Houston homeowners to pay a costly new tax on trash collection to pay for firefighters salaries. Even before Prop B was OKd by voters, Turner had said approval could force the city to lay off hundreds of employees, including firefighters and police. The head of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, the fire union that put the pay parity measure on the ballot, has called the threat of layoffs a scare tactic. The union also has pressed the mayor since the charter amendment passed to return to contract negotiations to phase in the mandated raises for firefighters over time. Turner has rejected the idea, saying the city needed a judge to decide whether a collective bargaining agreement could supersede a voter-approved charter amendment. In response to a lawsuit by the Houston Police Officers Union, which opposed the parity amendment, a state district judge earlier this month issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the measure. A hearing is scheduled for Friday. Boykins estimated the proposed fee could raise $107 million to $172 million annually. Disabled veterans would be exempted from the fee and senior citizens would pay a to-be-determined discounted rate, he said. As envisioned by the District D councilman, proceeds from the fee would go into a "restricted special revenue fund" to support Houston's Department of Solid Waste Management, which Boykins said could be used to maintain department vehicles and prevent "frequent breakdowns that often lead to service delays." He said trash collection could occur twice a week if city council adopted a $30 monthly fee; a $40 fee would allow heavy trash pickup twice a month. Council member Michael Kubosh applauded the creativity of Boykins' proposal, but said he had never seen proposed garbage fees that were "up that high." Houston is the only big Texas city without a garbage fee. Austin charges a monthly garbage fee of between $25 and $50, San Antonio charges roughly $20, Dallas charges $27 and Fort Worth charges between $12.50 and $23. Kubosh said he could not yet support the proposal, but also expressed concern about what the potential wage hike for firefighters could mean for the city's budget. "We're going to have to come up with a way to either trim our expenses or raise revenue," Kubosh said. Its not the first time local officials have eyed or killed garbage fees: Turner shot down the idea in 2016, when it was suggested as a way to offset a new contract with trash haulers. Boykins floated the idea at an October council meeting, and previously has suggested a garbage fee as a way to raise money that would not count against a voter-imposed revenue cap. Former Mayor Annise Parker also floated a garbage fee in 2014 to plug a budget deficit, an idea that was shot down by the city council. robert.downen@chron.com twitter.com: RobDownenChron Somehow, someway, Houston managed to beat every other major U.S. city when it comes to the number of planned Evite events in 2018. And, according to an annual Evite ranking, that isn't a fluke. Houston has been tops for Evite parties for the last three years. In 2018, Houston recorded more than 70,000 Evite events with more than 2.5 million invited guests a 22 percent increase from the 57,000 last year. RELATED: Where the pro athletes party in Houston Now, that doesn't necessarily mean Houston is one big walking hangover during the day. The parties could include anything from baby showers to your 13-year-old daughter's Game of Thrones-themed birthday. Based on Evite data for the last three years, Saturday will be most popular night of the year for hosting parties with over 3 million projected guests in the country. Holiday themes will abound, but unicorns, fiestas and florals have been popular themes this year, Evite said in a news release. Dallas and Austin (of course) also made the list with 40,000 and 55,800 events, respectively. Chicago followed Houston at No. 2 with 62,700 events. Los Angeles landed at No. 5 and New York at No. 7. View the slideshow above to see where all the cities landed. 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 A new report by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows that more than a dozen gangs still maintain a presence in Houston and throughout southeast Texas. All of the most violent and threatening gangs recognized by law enforcement have strong ties to Houston and surrounding counties, according to the report. Those gangs including Tango Blast, Texas Mexican Mafia, MS-13 and Barrio Azteca have a high likelihood to engage in drug and human smuggling, violent crimes and sex trafficking. MS-13's numbers are dwarfed by those of Tango Blast, Texas Mexican Mafia and Barrio Azteca with as many as 1,000 statewide, according to the report. In contrast, Tango Blast is estimated to have up to 25,000 members across the state. While MS-13's numbers might seem insignificant, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo in a recent news conference said that the violent crimes committed by MS-13 gangsters are disproportionate to their membership. Since June, nearly 20 MS-13 members have been implicated in five murders including the machete-attack death of an informant. Acevedo said there are about 20,000 documented gang members in Houston, with approximately 300 in MS-13, during the September news conference. He estimated that the Gulf Coast region of the state has a total of about 800 MS-13 members. Other gangs, such as Crips, Bloods and the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, are listed as less significant gangs but still do violent crimes throughout Texas and have a significant presence in this side of Texas. Go through the slideshow above to see the top 14 gangs in the Houston area. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The 39th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation member-states has opened in Baku under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan. The meeting is attended by the delegations headed by senior officials of the BSEC member-states. Among the main priorities of Azerbaijans chairmanship are to render efficient, reliable and safe transport and transit services as part of BSEC, increase the export potential of agriculture and further develop the tourism sector, Trend reported. In general, during Azerbaijans chairmanship, four ministerial meetings were held, including a meeting at the level of foreign ministers, 21 thematic meetings of the working group and an ad hoc working group.The action plans of a number of working groups (tourism, ICT, energy) were adopted. More than 10 meetings of the bodies of the organization, workshops and other events were held. Moreover, the corresponding assessment documents were prepared to improve the efficiency of the organization. Moreover, during Azerbaijans chairmanship, the discussions were underway to complete the work on the 'Regional Trade Facilitation Strategy for the BSEC Region' project and the 'BSEC Single Window Cooperation' project. Azerbaijan assumed the BSEC chairmanship at the 38th meeting of the Organization's Council of Foreign Ministers, which took place on June 27. Azerbaijan will chair BSEC until December 2018. After Azerbaijan, the chairmanship will be transferred to Bulgaria. A Houston man who arranged for his ex-girlfriend to fight another female has been charged with murder after authorities said he fatally shot a teenage boy who accompanied his ex to the brawl outside a Spring Branch apartment complex last month. Quan Williams Shields, 19, was arrested on Wednesday, two weeks after 16-year-old Xavier Marshall was shot to death during the fight. Thirteen people arrived at the complex in the 1500 block of Big Bend Drive near Long Point Road for the fight the evening of Nov. 28, according to information provided by prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney's office and read during a hearing early Friday to determine if Shields should be remain in custody. Shields' ex-girlfriend told authorities she recently broke up with him after dating him for eight months. In the week before the shooting, she said he texted and posted on social media about sleeping with several women. He also wanted to set up a fight between her and another female, authorities said. The ex-girlfriend said she became upset and agreed to the fight. She, Marshall and six others showed up. The other female showed up with Shields, a female friend and two other males. The ex-girlfriend said that while she and the other female were fighting, Shields shot Marshall twice then ran. He was struck in the neck and lower back, according to the medical examiner's office. The ex and her friends put Marshall in their pickup truck and drove him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Shields is in the Harris County jail with bond set at $100,000. A defense attorney requested a lower bail amount of $30,000, saying that video evidence from the incident suggested that several others had weapons at the fight, and that someone shot at Shields as he was running. Shields is living with his father, helping him care for his ailing heart, the defense attorney said. He has been unemployed since May, the defense attorney added. While leading the nation in executions, Texas sentenced seven men to death in 2018 all people of color. Only one Ali Irsan was sent to death row from Harris County, breaking a three-year stretch without any new death sentences in a place once known as the capital of capital punishment. But despite the apparent racial disparities statewide and the return to capital punishment in Houston, the longterm decline in executions is continuing amid a number of legal wins for defense teams and death penalty opponents. This year saw the first Texas death row commutation in over a decade, six prisoners won last-minute stays, and another four men were taken off death row. Death sentences have been dropping over the course of the last 25 years and the hope always had been that as use of the death penalty declined, it would be imposed in a way that would be less arbitrary and less discriminatory, said Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center. That hasnt happened, and in many respects its gotten worse. In Harris County, every defendant sentenced to death since 2004 has been a person of color. And across the state, more than 70 percent of death sentences have been imposed on people of color over the last five years, according to a year-end report released by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. No longer the capital of capital punishment Thirteen inmates including eight men of color were put to death in Huntsville, making up more than half of the total executions nationwide this year. The first of those was Anthony Shore, a Houston-area serial murderer and rapist dubbed The Tourniquet Killer. Originally, the 55-year-old who was the last white man in Harris County sentenced to die was scheduled for execution in 2017. But a judge called off the date after investigators uncovered an alleged confession plot that could have seen Shore take responsibility for the murder that landed another man on death row. Shore was executed in January. Then, in June, Harris County serial killer Danny Bible was executed amid concerns that he was too ill to die without suffering a painfully botched procedure. The lethal injection went through as planned. The two executions represent a far smaller number than in years past, but a slight increase over last year when for the first time in more than three decades no Harris County killers were put to death. I dont think that being the death penalty capital of America is a selling point for Harris County, District Attorney Kim Ogg said at the time. In addition to the return to executions, Harris County once again sent a man to death row. Ali Irsan, a Jordanian immigrant, was sentenced to die in August for a pair of 2012 honor killings. Mixed Messages Statewide, four men were taken off death row this year for reasons other than execution. One was Harris County killer Michael Wayne Norris, who was given two life sentences after the courts tossed out his original punishment in light of flawed jury instructions. And, in February, Bart Whitaker of Sugar Land was given a rare commutation by Gov. Greg Abbott, the first such show of gubernatorial leniency in more than a decade. Statewide, six condemned men won reprieves, including two whose claims of intellectual disability got a second look in light of a Harris County case that went up to the Supreme Court in 2017. But, given what Dunham called an outlier decision from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the man at the center of that case, Bobby Moore, is still on death row even though prosecutors and defense lawyers both agree that hes too intellectually disabled for execution. Theres clearly mixed messages from the Court of Criminal Appeals this year, Dunham said. Theyve continued to grant stays of execution to require the lower courts to review new evidence and apply new decisions and they created an appropriate new standard for deciding intellectual disability but then they didnt apply it themselves in Moores case. And, he said, several Texas executions were extraordinarily egregious. Earlier this year, Dunham pointed out, the state put to death Juan Castillo without looking at evidence of innocence. Then last month, Robert Moreno Ramos was executed amid claims of international treaty violations. And this week, Alvin Braziel was put to death even though defense lawyers alleged the state had come forward with a last-minute admission of prosecutorial misconduct. Looking Ahead Six death dates, including two for men from Harris County, are already on the calendar for 2019. And, one of the CCA judges who most consistently questioned the death penalty with fiery written dissents Judge Elsa Alcala leaves the bench at the end of the year. Still, in light of recent elections and the upcoming legislative session, Kristin Houle of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty saw cause for optimism for capital punishment opponents. I think we will continue to see the reduced use of the death penalty particularly in light of the election of reform-minded district attorneys in places like Bexar County and Dallas County and Fort Bend County, she said. In those places, the candidates who won clearly acknowledge flaws in our death penalty system and they acknowledge the disproportionate imposition of the death penalty on people of color. keri.blakinger@chron.com A commission created by Gov. Greg Abbott after Hurricane Harvey released a report on Thursday that details more than 50 ways to better prepare Texas for future storms and other natural disasters. Beside making yet another case for an admittedly expensive coastal spine system to protect Galveston Bay from catastrophic storm surge, the Governors Commission to Rebuild Texas calls for better rules for contracting debris removal, more training of local officials on disaster response practices, less paperwork for victims of natural disasters who need aid and an improved radio system for emergency responders in the field. This report provides strategies to better prepare and recover from future hurricanes, flooding, as well as other natural disasters, Abbott said at a press conference announcing the report. By far the costliest potential item is building a coastal spine system, which would need Congressional approval and funding. The so-called "Ike Dike" would be a 70-mile-long coastal barrier that could cost as much as $31 billion, according to some estimates. In the report released Thursday, one section notes that while the cost is high, it would still be less than the amount of money saved annually by protecting the state from property loss and damage. John Sharp, the Texas A&M University System Chancellor who led the Governors commission, said another key to disaster planning is making sure local governments have people trained on how to respond, something that can be an issue in smaller counties. Part of what this report is about is making sure every single county in the state of Texas, there is someone or a group of people who are fully trained on disasters, Sharp said. Another major issue after Harvey was debris removal. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has estimated that Harvey produced more than 13 million cubic yards of debris. While it took weeks to remove debris in some communities, it took months in others as local officials battled with contractors hired to pick up the debris, or struggled to find one to do the work. The report calls for creating a model contract requiring contractors to make enough passes to pick up all the debris, something that didnt always happen after Harvey. The state could also vet contractors to give local communities a list of potential businesses to reach out to when a hurricane hits, the report states. Some issues, Sharp says, require coordinating with federal agencies like FEMA such as cutting the red tape for disaster victims who need help. We think it probably makes sense for disaster victims to fill out one application for disaster relief instead of half a dozen applications for disaster relief, Sharp said. A more expensive issue to tackle is radio communications. The report states that different response teams often could not talk to one another because they didnt have radio systems that allowed interagency communication. But the report acknowledges fixing that problem across Texas could cost $813 million. One recommendation in the report is already moving forward. The report calls for unifying functions of the State Department of Emergency Management with the Texas A&M University System, which already has a number of emergency management functions, like Texas Task Force 1 and Task Force 2, which do search and rescue operations. Abbott said work has already started to make that happen. He said the Texas Division of Emergency Management will now operate within The Texas A&M University System. The current leader of the Division of Emergency Management, Nim Kidd, will continue to run the agency but will also be a vice chancellor of the A&M System. jeremy.wallace@chron.com Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will legalize thousands of settlement homes built without even Israeli permits in the West Bank following a series of attacks. Netanyahu's office said in a statement he would seek to legalize thousands of homes built without Israeli permits in the West Bank. He would also look into building 82 new homes in Ofra, a settlement near to where Thursday's attack took place. "They think they can uproot us from our land, they will not succeed," AFP cited the PM as saying. Netanyahu also said they would be seeking to speed up the process of destroying homes of Palestinian attackers, so it takes place within 48 hours, as well as withdrawing Israeli work permits for family members of assailants. The recent probationary sentence of a former Baylor University fraternity president accused of sexual assault is bad enough on its own. But it is a part of broader pattern of under-prosecution of sexual assault crimes that deserves a broader response. The underlying problem in the case was the decision-making by the prosecutor. In a statement released to the media, the McLennan County District Attorneys Office said that [c]onflicting evidence and statements exist in this case making the original allegation difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. What the district attorneys office is describing is known in the trade as the convictability standard that prosecutors should pursue cases only when a likelihood of conviction exists. And perhaps in some more routine contexts, such an approach may make sense. This standard is not a formal part of the criminal law. Generally, prosecutors are allowed to take a case to the jury when a victim has presented credible allegations that, if believed, would support a conclusion of guilt. The major problem with using a convictability standard in sexual assault cases is that it institutionalizes the influence of inappropriate rape myths on criminal prosecutions. The prosecutor in the Baylor case may be correct in forecasting (although now we will never know for certain) that one or two jurors might have improperly blamed the victim for putting herself in an isolated position when she was raped. This prediction then converts improper acceptance of a rape myth into a basis for declining prosecution. The American Bar Association prosecution standards acknowledge that prosecutors can consider whether they will win a case the convictability consideration. But the same standards specifically provide that a prosecutor may file and maintain charges even if juries in the jurisdiction have tended to acquit persons accused of the particular kind of criminal act in question. The need for this proviso is obvious. Without it, racial prejudice and other forms of animus that predictability exist in society dictate prosecutorial inaction leaving disfavored communities vulnerable to attack. And victims, particularly women, who are acquainted with those who sexually assault them fare badly under the convictability standard. Researchers generally agree that low percentages of such cases are reported to police, referred to prosecutors for action, or filed by prosecutors. Prosecution rates of less than 10 percent are commonly reported. To address such systemic under-prosecution of rape cases, multiple reforms are needed. For starters, prosecutors need to challenge rape myths, not acquiesce in them. To be sure, we dont know all the facts of the Baylor case. And perhaps defense attorneys would have succeeded in convincing a juror to hold out. But value exists in a prosecutor going down fighting and educating the broader community about rape myths through expert witnesses and the attention that comes from a public trial. The Baylor case also demonstrates the need for expanding the scope of sex offenses. When presented with a stark choice of convicting for rape or acquitting, juries may opt to acquit. But we can provide juries with an expanded set of options. For example, would could create a lower level crime of engaging in sexual contact without affirmative consent the so-called yes means yes law. Such an approach is used in California universities and colleges for campus discipline and is, to a greater or lesser degree, already the criminal law of several states (Texas not among them). We also need to expand oversight of prosecutor decisions by expanding crime victims rights to challenge non-prosecution decisions or plea bargains. In Utah, I currently represent four Jane Does who are asking the Utah Supreme Court to review decisions by prosecutors not to file rape charges in their cases. And in other states, recent federal lawsuits have raised civil rights claims for women whose sexual assault cases are not being pursued. While prosecutors overwhelmingly make correct decisions, mistakes are possible. Victims should have the right to challenge prosecutors decisions not to pursue serious sexual assault charges by having a right in court to challenge both the initial failure to file or later sweetheart plea deals. All these victim-centered reforms are worth pursuing. As the Baylor victim stated in court to the prosecutors, they will have to live with this decision to let a rapist run free in society without any warning to future victims. Without a trial, we cant know for sure if thats what happened in that case. But we dont have to live with a criminal justice system that continues to make such miscarriages all too common. Cassell is the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law at the S.J. Quinney College at the University of Utah, where he teaches crime victims rights and other criminal law subjects. Russias Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Germanys Minister of Economy and Energy Peter Altmaier discussed by telephone the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and the supply of Russian gas through Ukraine, the Russian Energy Ministry said in a statement, TASS reports. "During the conversation, the ministers discussed various aspects of energy cooperation, including the prospects for Russian gas supplies through Ukraine, as well as key issues of the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project," according to the statement. No further details of the conversation were disclosed. A 6,500-word feature is a feat for any journalist to pull off. Its another thing altogether for a 19-year old music major who has never written a piece of news in his life to do so with credibility and impact. On Monday, The Michigan Daily, the student-run newspaper at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, published a lengthy investigation by sophomore Sammy Sussman detailing four decades of allegations of sexual assault and misconduct by Professor Stephen Shipps, who began teaching violin in the universitys School of Music, Theatre & Dance in 1989. Within 48 hours of the piece going live, Shipps, 66, had stepped down from his chairmanship of schools string department and resigned as director of the Strings Preparatory Academy, a pre-college program at the university. Shipps is currently on leave from the university. Neither he nor his lawyer agreed to speak with Sussman for the piece. Sussman, a native of Bedford, New York and a composition student in the School of Music, had previously written only for the Dailys art section. When a tip came his way, however, he asked to move temporarily to the news team to look into it. We spoke with Sussman about how his investigation came together. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. ICYMI: A student journalist asked her school for records of harassment complaints against teachers. She ended up uncovering a big story. Sign up for CJR 's daily email How did this story come about? Was it through a tip? We were actually investigating a tip about a different professor that I had received from a friend in the music school. Theres this online forum called Whisper Network, and the friend said someone had posted there about a professor at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan. I started working on that, and pretty soon someone said I should really be looking into Professor Stephen Shipps. This person was able to point me to a victim who I quote anonymously in the article. Once we spoke with her it became apparent that this story was pressing. It involved 40 years of allegations and numerous victims from multiple institutions. How long did you spend reporting the story? And what was your process for finding sources and determining how far back in Shippss career you needed to go? I began working on the Shipps story near the beginning of October. I was lucky that the first source I got to was a former student of his from the North Carolina School of the Arts, where Shipps previously taught, named Wendy Olsen Posner, who is quoted by name in the article. She connected us to others, including the person who provided the earliest allegations we published, from 1977, when Shipps was 27. She also knew of an allegation from the mid-1980s. From there, we started looking online. Were there any yearbooks from the North Carolina School of the Arts, for example? And there were. So I scanned through those and looked at violin students and then just started cold-calling them to hear if they had anything of relevance to the investigation. In terms of students at the University of Michigan, I had to do a little research, using records from the school and other documents. There are a couple of people who we spoke with whose senior recital programs, for example, said, Student of Stephen Shipps, but who on their professional biographies neglect to mention him. Throughout the investigation, we cold-called over 50 people. And as we progressed, we were able to be more refined. We knew we were only looking for women, for example. And he didnt seem to do these things with grad students, it seemed like it was mostly undergrads or high schoolers who he interacted with in summer programs, or in the pre-college program here. The crazy thing is that a lot of the victims knew each other. I would talk to Maureen OBoyle, another woman who I quote by name, and she would just point me to women farther up the chain. Shed say, Oh, yeah, I spoke to this person 11 years later, and she also experienced something. And I heard he did something to this woman at Michigan. A whole network existed of people who gossiped about what happened regarding Shipps and tried to tell potential students of his not to study with him because of what happened to them. How did you go about kind of corroborating accusations and the accounts of your sources? There is some degree of corroboration that comes when one victim points to another. As opposed to when I was cold-calling people, I would go into those interviews with a little bit more of a believing mindset. We also tried to call other people, friends and family, who were aware of the allegations at the time. With Maureen OBoyles allegation, in particularshe was assaulted in 1978we were able to speak to another woman who was not included in the article but who said she was also at the party I describe in the piece and was able to corroborate a lot of the details. With another one of the allegations from the North Carolina School of the Arts, we were able to speak to five of the victims friends, who all said, Yeah, we were all aware of this. We were in high school then, and we didnt know who to go to, so we all went to each other. Sometimes women pointed us to friends they hadnt spoken to in 20 or 30 years, which I think was actually really beneficial because there was distance between the sources. I would cold-call these people and say, I heard you were friends with this person in the eighties when you both went to high school together. Can you corroborate that you were aware this was going on? Then they would say, I havent thought about this in 20 years. But, yes, I definitely remember that. It was terrible. Many of the women who accuse Shipps in your piece are cited anonymously or given pseudonyms. Were there internal debates at the Daily about this, or whether or not to move forward with the piece? We had to speak to a lawyer about a potential defamation suit that we were opening ourselves up to, and the anonymous sourcing was definitely a big concern. But we felt once we had reached a certain threshold of allegations, even if many were anonymous, that it pointed to systemic behavior. And in some cases we could really justify the anonymity. We had one allegation within the past five years, for example, from a girl who was 13 at the time. Youre obviously not going to put her name out there. And a lot of people had professional concerns. Some of the allegations come from people in their thirties who studied with him or worked with him in an administrative capacity. I mean, this guy was the chair of the strings department, the director of a youth program. He ran a summer program in England. He had been an associate dean. He just had way too much power in the music world for a lot of people to consider putting their names to this, even if they wanted to speak with us. Our lawyer tried to push us to get more people to go on the record with their name, but it just got to the point where we werent making any progress. We were making more and more calls and getting more and more allegations, but none of them were going to be names attached. We realized we needed to go with what we had. Was there a specific interview or moment in your reporting that clinched this for you, when you became really confident in your articles conclusions? Early on, a lot of the allegations I was getting were second-hand. Then eventually I got in touch with a woman who we quote in the article as Anne. Anne sent me her journal entries from when she was 16. I think that that really made me realize, you know, theres a story here. A quote that I think still sticks with me from one of her journal entries is something like, Some days Shipps was willing to give me a lesson, and other times he just wanted a blowjob. Reading that in a 16-year-olds handwriting really put everything in perspective for me, and I realized that this was much more than a few uncorroborated allegationsthat this spoke to some systemic failures. ICYMI: Meet the journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class Before you this piece, you hadnt done any kind of news writing, correct? Yeah, I do classical music reviews for the Daily. (Laughs.) So can you talk a bit about the learning curve you went through pulling this together? When you write a concert review, lets say, you attend the concert, you keep the program so you can spell peoples names right, and then you just kind of share your thoughts. This was more intense than that. My first draft was only around 2,000 words, and it was mostly secondhand allegations. I brought that to my editor, Maya Goldman, and she was like, This is nowhere near enough. We need this corroborated, we need to see documents, we need to have interviews with victims. That was a lot to learn. It was an intense experience, too, because of the subject matter. Usually a first assignment for a news writer at the Daily is, like, covering a meeting with the vice provost about a new campus sustainability initiative. So taking this on was maybe a little ambitious, I think, and I learned by trial and error. I will say that Ive always loved investigative journalism, but working on something for three months is very different from reading someone elses work. Do you feel like you caught a bug for it? Is it work you would like to keep doing? I think so. Its very difficult to say now. Its been a stressful experience to see the fallout from my article. In less than 48 hours, Shipps was replaced as the strings chair. He was replaced as the director of the pre-college program. Its been intense just to walk around school, and I think I need a little separation before Ill know if I want to do this again. If I did investigate something else, I dont think I would pick something in the music school. It can be quite uncomfortable, you know, to investigate somewhere that I also have to To be graded. Exactly, yeah. As a student yourself in the School of Music, were you nervous about the potential personal ramifications of pursuing this story? Im lucky that I dont have any relationship with the strings department, which Professor Shipps chaired until Monday night. I was definitely worried about how this might affect affect my friendships at the school. A lot of Shippss current students really enjoyed studying with him, and this story is an incredibly traumatic thing for them. It also upset some of my relationships with other professors in the school. Theres been nothing retributive, but I have noticed some professors acting differently around me. Some seem like they are a little afraid to have honest conversations with students if Im in the room. To my knowledge, the music school has never had a student reporter be the first to uncover serious allegations of this nature. Previously, if you look at David Daniels who was also a professor in the School of Music who was put on leave over the summer after allegations of sexual assault, the story first came from an outside publication [the New York Daily News], and then The Michigan Daily picked it up. What feedback have you received? We received some negative feedback from people who had positive experiences with Shipps and maybe wish this hadnt come out, but I havent heard anyone arguing that the allegations are untrue or that they dont believe them. I think the school community is grateful, given the nature of these allegations, that they were brought to light and that this is something that we can now address. Now, the conversation has kind of moved from me and the Daily and our journalistic credibility toward, you know, How should we address this individual, given these claims? And, How can we address the potential institutional failures that led to his hiring and his continued employment here? Are there larger systemic issues that got us to this point, and how should we better address sexual misconduct in music and higher education? ICYMI: A reporter asked for 20 years of lottery winner data. After analyzing the records, he noticed something unusual. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Andrew McCormick is an independent journalist and former CJR Delacorte Fellow. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the South China Morning Post, and more. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewMcCormck. For months, Nancy Pelosi was written off by many in the media as a has-been and an electoral liability. Starting in March, as Democrats contested tight special elections across Trump country, Republican operatives and their boosters in the right-wing press filled the airwaves with ads and stories tagging her as a toxic asset. In June, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted Rep. Joe Crowley, one of Pelosis deputies in Democratic leadership, in a stunning New York primary victory. Suddenly, press chatter was all about the progressive vanguard to Pelosis left, as mainstream outlets reflected on their failure to see Ocasio-Cortez coming. The New York Times editorial board called on Pelosi to step aside and make way for young Democratic leaders. News headlines reflected her vulnerability to encroaching threats from both wings of her party. After Democrats won back the House early last month, coverage of Pelosi hardly let up, despite her instrumental role in the campaign. Even as Trump, mass shootings, and wildfires crowded the post-midterms news cycle, political press cast attention on how divisions in the new Democratic majority could hamper Pelosis bid for speaker: Politico Playbook, an indispensable daily newsletter aimed at Beltway insiders, for example, repeatedly gave the story top billing. In late November, Pelosi won a key vote, but reporters still voiced skepticism. Many of the newly elected Democrats in the House have voted to make Nancy Pelosi their next speaker, Michael Barbaro said, introducing an episode of the Timess Daily podcast. That doesnt necessarily mean she has their support. ICYMI: Voices on the left are rising in the US. Why arent they in mainstream media? This week, finally, Pelosi has seen a narrative shift. Much of that had to do with a fiery meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesdayin front of TV camerasduring which Pelosi stood up to President Trump, calling out his falsehoods and goading him into owning a potential government shutdown. Afterward, footage of Pelosi walking away from the White House to take press questions, wearing shades and a funnel-necked orange coat, attracted almost as much media adulation. Memes flooded Twitter (Me leaving your Holiday Party after starting major drama, a popular one read); CNN reported that the coat, by designer Max Mara, would be re-released from an old line in 2019. Columnists used the coat as a metaphor. The coat helped to transform her from a seemingly tired symbol of the establishment to one of well-dressed revolt, Vanessa Friedman, a fashion critic, explained in the Times. Like Pelosi, not only is the coat classic, sharp and staid, it wont be forgotten, even if it lived in the back of the closet for a while, Elizabeth Wellington said in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Pelosi was back. Yesterday, a flurry of coverage greeted Pelosis flipping eight lawmakers who had previously called for a changing of the guard; she had all but secured her speakership. Yet this was not a clear victory for Pelosi: in return for the votes, she had to commit to stepping down either in 2021 or, if she can command two-thirds support among her caucus, in 2023. A month ago, that concession might have been reported as an another embarrassing blow to an increasingly embattled figure. Yesterday, however, it appeared below glowing headlines: How Pelosi beat the rebels and got her gavel back (in Politico), Her skills are real: How Pelosi put down a Democratic rebellion in bid for speaker (in The Washington Post). On MSNBC, Katy Tur asked: Is Nancy Pelosi having the best week in Washington? Pelosi, as she has done so many times before, played an astute media hand this week: electrifying a Washington press corps that had forgotten what divided government looks like. Whether the positive coverage will last depends on how Pelosi manages her caucus going forward. Writing in the Post, however, Monica Hesse suggests the media may give Pelosi more leeway now shes back in office, rather than slugging it out on the campaign trail. This week readers filled my inbox suggesting that I should laud her, weeks after readers in my inbox suggested I should loathe her, Hesse writes. It felt like an illustration of a known conundrum: The public seems to like female politicians when they do their jobs. But it dislikes them when theyre campaigning for those jobs. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Below, more on Nancy Pelosi and the press: Nancy Pelosi doesnt care what you think of her: Battling an avalanche of bad press and political threats from all sides, Pelosi gave a pugnacious interview to Times Molly Ball. Balls September story was the first time Pelosi had appeared on the cover of any national news magazineeven though she served as speaker from 2007 to 2011. Battling an avalanche of bad press and political threats from all sides, Pelosi gave a pugnacious interview to Times Molly Ball. Balls September story was the first time Pelosi had appeared on the cover of any national news magazineeven though she served as speaker from 2007 to 2011. Sexist questions: Pelosi has been quick to call out unfavorable coverage in the past. In August, she accused NBC of consciously undermining her prospects as speaker. (It was one of their priorities, Pelosi said). Just after the midterms, she blasted reporters for posing questions about her future, saying they were sexist and ageist. When was the day that any of you said to Mitch McConnell, when they lost the Senate three times in a rowlost making progress in taking back the Senate three times in a row Arent you getting a little old, Mitch? Shouldnt you step aside? Pelosi asked. Pelosi has been quick to call out unfavorable coverage in the past. In August, she accused NBC of consciously undermining her prospects as speaker. (It was one of their priorities, Pelosi said). Just after the midterms, she blasted reporters for posing questions about her future, saying they were sexist and ageist. When was the day that any of you said to Mitch McConnell, when they lost the Senate three times in a rowlost making progress in taking back the Senate three times in a row Arent you getting a little old, Mitch? Shouldnt you step aside? Pelosi asked. Public enemy number one: Pelosis status as the right-wing medias top liberal hate figure has been alleviated by Ocasio-Cortezs arrival on the scene. Last week, Vices Eve Peyser reviewed obsessive recent media coverage of Ocasio-Cortez, who has shown she is not afraid to punch back at her critics. Pelosis status as the right-wing medias top liberal hate figure has been alleviated by Ocasio-Cortezs arrival on the scene. Last week, Vices Eve Peyser reviewed obsessive recent media coverage of Ocasio-Cortez, who has shown she is not afraid to punch back at her critics. Who is this deal good for? Slates Jim Newell had a less positive take on the deal which secured the speakership for Pelosi this week. Throughout the process, Pelosi had refused the so-called rebels demands to put a timeline on her retirement plans, arguing that lame-ducking herself would weaken both her position and the Democratic caucus strength, Newell writes. But per the deal that Pelosi formally announced Wednesday night, shes agreed to do just that. Other notable stories: ICYMI: A law firm in the trenches against media unions Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop. If a judge in a different country issues an order preventing the media from discussing a trial, do media outlets in the US have a duty to abide by that order? Or is there a larger duty to keep the public informed? This isnt a hypothetical example. An Australian court just found Cardinal George Pell, at one time the #3 official in the Vatican and a former Archbishop of Sydney, guilty of sexual abuse of two choirboys in the 1990s. But news outlets in that country couldnt report the conviction because of what is known as a suppression order, which bans any mention of Pells name or the details of the case. The Melbourne Herald Sun ran a front page with the word Censored! in large type on the day after the conviction was handed down. In an unusual step, the judges order also (theoretically at least) applies to non-Australian news outlets. A transcript of a discussion between the judge and another court official even shows the judge mentioning the possibility of extradition for anyone who breaches the order. As a result, international media organizations including Reuters, Associated Press, and The New York Times have avoided writing about the conviction, out of concern that their reporters in Australia could be charged with contempt of court (see update below). The Washington Post, however, ran both a news story on the conviction and a column by media writer Margaret Sullivan, one of the only mainstream publications to do so (it should be noted that the Daily Beast was the first to report the news, and the Post piece was followed by stories at NPR, Slate, The Daily Mail and several Catholic news sites). ICYMI: A reporter asked for 20 years of lottery winner data. After analyzing the records, he noticed something unusual. This story is a matter of major news significance involving an individual of global prominence. A fundamental principle of The Washington Post is to report the news truthfully, which we did. While we always consider guidelines given by courts and governments, we must ultimately use our judgment and exercise our right to publish such consequential news. Freedom of the press in the world will cease to exist if a judge in one country is allowed to bar publication of information anywhere in the world. After the Post stories were published, executive editor Marty Baron released a statement which read, in part: After her column was published, Sullivan got some blowback from Kate Doak, a journalist in Australia who said she has been working on the Pell case and similar Catholic Church-related sexual abuse cases for a number of years. Doak suggested that it was irresponsible of the Post to break the judges gag order, because doing so could jeopardize future cases against Pell that are still in the works. The judges order was designed (as most similar gag orders in Australia, Britain and Canada are) to limit the amount of information potential jurors might have about a case, so as to avoid poisoning the jury, resulting in a potential mistrial. @Sulliview Im going to be purposefully blunt. Are you and your colleagues at the @washingtonpost purposefully trying to cause a mistrial with the stunt that youve pulled on the Melbourne case? Theres still more cases going to trial & this is putting a LOT of them at risk. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Kate Doak (@katedoak) December 13, 2018 In comments to CJR about the case, Sullivanwho stressed that she was speaking only for herselfsaid: As journalists our job is to tell the truth, not to keep newsworthy events hidden to achieve a particular outcome that may or may not come to pass. While Sullivan said there are clearly times when a media outlet might refrain from publishing certain material because it could put lives at risk (in reporting on hostage negotiations, for example), the conviction of a senior Vatican official for sex abuse of children falls far outside those limits. In addition, the Post columnist said that its absurd to think word of the trial and conviction wouldnt get out via social media regardless of a gag order, and so better that it be reported accurately and professionally than rely on word-of-mouth innuendo or hearsay. In an email to CJR, Doak said that while she believes in the publics right to know about an important case, she doesnt think that goal justifies potentially jeopardizing future cases against the Cardinal by breaching the suppression order. As an investigative journalist Im deeply aware that I have a responsibility to my audience to be as accurate, informative and impartial as humanly possible, she said, but when the breach of a media suppression order may result in a mistrial occurring, we must take into consideration the additional health implications that our actions can inflict on already traumatised individuals and act accordingly. Doak isnt the only one who thinks the Post might have made a mistake in publishing news of the conviction. Raju Narisetti, former CEO of Gizmodo Media Group and now a journalism professor at Columbia University and director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowships program, said on Twitter that if a court in a democratic country comes to a decision about something like a gag order in a crucial sex abuse case, even international media outlets should abide by that decision. I dont think news companies should pick and choose which law of the land they will adhere to, especially in democratic societies with established laws, he said. To me the law of the land argument resonates in a more compelling way than the argument about holding back for future, broader justice. The question of whether US media should abide by a court decision in another country is a complex one. But from a practical point of view, gag orders like the one the Australian court issuednot to mention the super injunctions used by courts in the UK, where even mentioning the existence of a gag order is forbiddenseem doomed even if newspapers like the Post agree to them, since the news can be distributed instantly via Twitter or Facebook or WhatsApp. A transcript from the Australian case shows the judge is concerned that Wikipedia reported the conviction, and is also concerned about Twitter. In a similar case in New Zealand, the government criticized Google for not abiding by a gag order on a case involving the killing of a British backpacker. The search giant used the accused killers name in a trending topics email that was sent to some users, and the New Zealand justice minister demanded that Google change its algorithm so that information in such cases wouldnt be visible inside New Zealand. Apart from the legal issues, these kinds of gag orders raise a larger question: Does it make any sense to try to keep people in the dark about a legal ruling simply because they might one day be asked to serve as a juror in a related case? Cant we assume that reasonable human beings would be able to put aside news reports in order to come to a conclusion about someones guilt or innocence? And if we cant, then why dont all court cases include gag orders? Update: The New York Times sent CJR a statement after this post was published pointing out that a story about the Cardinals conviction appeared in US print editions of the newspaper on Friday. The statement quoted David McCraw, vice president and deputy general counsel for the Times: The Times is covering the Pell story in its U.S. print editions. On advice of our local counsel, we are abiding by the courts suppression order in Australia because of the presence of our bureau there. It is deeply disappointing that we are unable to present this important story to our readers in Australia and elsewhere. They deserve to know the truth about a public figure of global influence. Press coverage of judicial proceedings is a fundamental safeguard of justice and fairness. A free society is never well served by a silenced press. Editors note: If youre interested in these and other related questions, weve been discussing the Australian case and the Posts decision in CJRs Galley discussion forum. ICYMI: Student uncovers decades of sexual misconduct allegations against professor 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. Mobile devices continue to distract drivers in the greater Philadelphia area. Travelers recently commissioned a survey of 435 of them and found that 75 percent use a mobile device while driving, with 91 percent of millennials, 79 percent of Gen Xers and 64 percent of baby boomers engaging in this behavior. The survey also identified how drivers in the region are using mobile devices while behind the wheel. Top activities included: Reading texts or emails (48 percent). Updating or checking social media, such as Facebook or Twitter (23 percent). Recording video (18 percent). Crashes caused by people choosing to look at their phone rather than the road are entirely preventable, said Michael Klein, executive vice president and president, Personal Insurance at Travelers. Technology like a Do Not Disturb function on your phone, which only 9 percent of our survey respondents said they use, is one solution that can help more drivers stay focused. Distracted driving remains a significant danger in Philadelphia and across the country, underscoring the importance of education, research and action. When it comes to preventing driver distraction, the Travelers survey found that the greatest deterrent for all ages comes from the fear of causing a collision (40 percent). This ranked higher than having a loved one involved in a collision related to distracted driving; having the option to utilize mobile device blocking technology; and legislation prohibiting phone use. The Travelers Institute, the public policy division of The Travelers Companies, Inc., hosted a symposium, Harnessing Science, Tech and Innovation to Combat Distracted Driving, this week at the University of Pennsylvania. The program, part of the companys Every Second Matters distracted driving education series, is being held in conjunction with the Behavioral Science and Analytics for Injury Reduction Lab, the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, the Penn Injury Science Center, Penn Medicine and the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Injury Research and Prevention. The session will address the behavioral science behind distracted driving and explore research-driven approaches to increasing roadway safety. Speakers included: Michael Klein, Executive vice president and president, Personal Insurance; head of Enterprise Business Intelligence & Analytics, Travelers. Kit Delgado, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Kit Delgado, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Katherine Milkman, Ph.D., professor of Operations, Information & Decisions, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Kevin Volpp, M.D./Ph.D., director, Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics; Founders Presidents Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Policy, and Health Care Management, Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Rafi Finegold, vice president, Loyalty & Behavior, TrueMotion. The panel discussion was moderated by Joan Woodward, president, Travelers Institute and executive vice president, Public Policy, Travelers. Distracted driving has become a national public health issue, said Dr. Delgado, who is also a practicing trauma center physician. There are many lessons to be learned from the study of human behavior and behavior change. When you combine that with new, scalable technology available in todays smartphones, there may be promising avenues to explore to help combat the distracted driving epidemic. Travelers Survey Methodology The CARAVAN survey was conducted by Engine on behalf of Travelers Nov. 2025, 2018, among a sample of 502 Philadelphia residents, 435 of whom are drivers, ages 18 or older. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Stephanie Arpin at sarpin@travelers.com. Source: Travelers American diplomats affected by mysterious health incidents in Cuba showed damage in the inner ear shortly after they complained of weird noises and sensations, according to their earliest medical exams, publicized Wednesday. The detailed findings were published in a medical journal nearly two years after what the U.S. calls health attacks began and they shed no new light on a possible culprit. What caused it, who did it, why it was done we dont know any of those things, said Dr. Michael Hoffer of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who led the exams. The U.S. says since late 2016, 26 people associated with the embassy in Havana suffered problems that include dizziness, ear pain and ringing, and cognitive problems such as difficulty thinking a health mystery that has damaged U.S.-Cuba relations. The Miami researchers examined 25 of those people, who reported hearing a piercing noise or experiencing a sensation of pressure before their symptoms began. The patients failed a variety of tests that detect inner-ear problems associated with balance, whats called the vestibular system. Testing of 10 people who were in the same building at the time of the incidents found they were fine, Hoffer reported in the journal Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology. Hoffer also traveled to Cuba to check 100 other Americans stationed there, who also turned out to be healthy. Those inner-ear balance problems have been central to the governments ongoing health investigation. And earlier this year, a team of doctors at the University of Pennsylvania who also examined many of these patients, but months later, reported they suffered concussion-like brain damage, despite no blow to the head. For doctors, Wednesdays paper adds specifics about the pattern of damage, abnormalities in structures involved with sensing gravity and acceleration, said Dr. Maura Cosetti of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. She isnt involved with any research related to the Cuba incidents. This provides an important step in creating a picture of the injury that people sustained, she said. She added that often people with long-term balance problems also report a brain fog. Cuba has adamantly denied any involvement, and even questions whether there were attacks. Theres no evidence that can prove that something occurred in Cuba that could have damaged the health situation of a few U.S. diplomats, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cubas director-general of U.S. affairs, said Wednesday. The U.S. has not said what caused the incidents, although initial speculation centered on some type of sonic attack. The Associated Press has reported that an interim FBI report last January found no evidence that sound waves could have caused the damage. (The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.) Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The so-called tax maneuver will be the key topic of the forthcoming meeting of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko with President of Russia Vladimir Putin, BelTA reported. The Belarusian head of state made the relevant statement as he met with representatives of the Russian mass media community on 14 December, BelTA has learned. The meeting is supposed to take place before the end of the year. Alexander Lukashenko mentioned the tax maneuver as the key item on the agenda. The most important issue we have to deal with is an economic one the tax maneuver, he said. The head of state stressed that he was not going to resort to some trickery for the sake of personal gains and will not play games. It is necessary to develop the project of the Union State of Belarus and Russia in a proper manner and only in the interests of Belarusians and Russians, he added. BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- Citation: On Dec. 4, a school bus driver reported that his stopped bus had been passed while the flashing lights were on and children were unloading. The driver provided a valid license plate number, along with car and driver description. An officer used the information in order to identify the person involved and a traffic citation was issued. Police are searching for a man who may have posed as a police officer. Damage, Edinborough Drive: On Dec. 8, a resident reported that a wild turkey had flown into a window, breaking it, and was trapped upstairs in a bedroom. The injured turkey caused a significant amount of damage to the bedroom and its contents. The fowl was removed from the home and, because of its injuries, was euthanized. Officers removed the broken glass and placed a temporary cardboard cover over the window opening. Drunken driving, Lake Road: On Dec. 10, an officer stopped a 2008 Chevrolet Cobalt for speeding. After speaking to the driver, the officer suspected that he was under the influence of alcohol. The driver provided a breath sample on the Portable Breath Test unit and registered a 0.216 blood alcohol content. After failing roadside sobriety tests, he was arrested. Since the 26-year-old man from North Ridgeville had a prior drunken-driving arrest in 2015, his license plates were seized. At the station, he was allowed to use his personal cell phone to try to arrange for a ride, but once officers noticed that he was scrolling through Facebook, the phone was taken away and he was placed in a cell. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- When it was announced that world-renowned chef Michael Solomonov and his business partner and fellow chef Steven Cook were coming to town to discuss their latest book, "Israeli Soul," a press release referred to the duo as "rock stars" in their field. Together, the two own 12 eateries in the Philadelphia area, featuring six different concepts. Their most well-known restaurant is Zahav, a Hebrew word meaning "gold," that serves the many and varied authentic flavors of Israel in that major U.S. city. Outside of Philadelphia, the two have gained wider acclaim for writing the cookbook "Zahav: The World of Israeli Cooking." The 2015 book earned Solomonov and Cook James Beard Awards for Best International Cookbook and Book of the Year in the culinary field. Cook and Solomonov are back this year with another cookbook, "Israeli Soul," which contains more than 150 recipes that, again, gather the many influences -- Eastern European, North African, Persian and Eastern Mediterranean -- that have come together to make up Israeli cuisine. "To me, it really tries to capture the idea that Israel represents the journey of Jews from all four corners of the world back to their homeland, and coming from places they knew they would never be able to go back to," said Cook, when asked to describe what "Israeli Soul" means to him. "I think food is a powerful tool in which people, especially in those circumstances, can retain their heritage, customs and way of life that their families may have lived for centuries before they came to Israel and keep it alive in their new country," he said. Said Solomonov, when asked the same question, "I think for me, the book represents a living, breathing thing of melding cultures and traditions and the relationship between the diaspora (the dispersion of Jews beyond Israel) and the current land that so many people inhabit. But really, it's about walking up and down the street and being amazed at all the smells and all the activity." Solomonov, 40, was born in Israel, moved to the United States at age 3 and was raised in Pittsburgh. At 15, he returned to Israel with no Hebrew language skills. Looking for work, he accepted the only job he could find, in a bakery. "I got the job in a bakery just because I needed a job," Solomonov said. "I wasn't really big on cooking. I didn't really get interested in cooking until I was 22. "Originally, (his attraction to cooking was) was being able to create and be busy with my hands, and I think that the sort of hostile work environment (in restaurant kitchens) that turns people away, I enjoyed it. I liked all the distracting things happening around me. I like the pressure," he said. Solomonov said that, in his younger days, his temper showed more in the kitchen than it does these days. "At the end of the day, swearing or throwing around dishes doesn't make the food taste any better," he said. "It's ineffective." "Steve's a lot less crazy than me," Solomonov joked, "and he also became a chef." The story of how Cook was led to the kitchen is not a typical one. "I started out in finance and was working on some very abstract things, big numbers and computers," said the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. "Cooking appealed to me because you could see the result of your work right away." He switched careers to the culinary world at age 30. The two met in 2005 when Cook was looking to hire a chef at his small Pittsburgh restaurant. He was told by a friend that he "had to meet this guy Mike. We kind of knew of each other because, at the time, there weren't that many Jews in the culinary world." "At least not restaurant owners," Solomonov interjected. "We were line cooks." As for their latest book, Cook said: "It's a lot bigger than the first book. It's a result of a trip we took around Israel. We had 82 meals in eight days. And we would be on the bus after one of those meals and rewriting the table of contents, trying to shoehorn in all these things we felt we couldn't fit in. So the book grew as the meal count went up." As Solomonov and Cook spoke, they were seated in the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, where Solomonov is included in a film in the museum's current exhibit, "Israel: Then & Now." Speaking of that honor, he said: "I haven't processed it yet. It's cool." Solomonov also narrated the film "In Search for Israeli Cuisine," which, two years ago, was shown on opening night of the Mandel Jewish Community Center's Cleveland Jewish Film Fest. Nancy Zimmerman, director of Jewish life and culture at the Mandel JCC, said that she has used the "Zahav" cookbook many times, and is happy to have the new "Israeli Soul." "I like reading through it, too," she said of "Israeli Soul." "It has stories of their travels and lots of great pictures," she said. The JCC held an event Thursday evening (Dec. 13) that was expected to draw about 250 people to participate in a question-and-answer session with the authors. Some paid $200 to take part in a VIP meet-and-greet and receive an autographed book. "Nobody really knew what Israeli cuisine was and nobody's cooking Israeli cuisine," Solomonov said when asked why he believed he and Cook have gained such popularity in a world of great chefs. "I think when we started, it was something new that people really got excited about. It was probably just the right time and the right place," Solomonov said. And what about the "rock star" tag they've been given? "It's very flattering and nice," Solomonov said. "But, like everything else, it's not as glamorous as it may seem." CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Demolition crews on Friday tore down the Cleveland home where a man killed Alianna DeFreeze, a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped last year on her way to school. The abandoned home on Fuller Avenue near East 93rd Street was demolished nearly two years after Alianna was found dead there Jan. 29, 2017. By mid-morning, a backhoe had reduced the home to rubble. The demolition was emotional for Aliannas family, her stepmother WyTonya DeFreeze said Friday. We feel at peace, she said. Of course its never going to be the same, but at least this will never happen to another child. Aliannas family made a renewed push for the homes demolition during a news conference Dec. 7. The Cuyahoga County Land Bank announced a short time later that the home would be demolished this week. "We can breathe a little bit better, WyTonya DeFreeze said. That house was just a thorn in our sides. The home was already scheduled for demolition, but Environmental Protection Agency regulations require a process that can take months to complete, land bank President Gus Frangos said Friday. We cannot fault the DeFreeze family for wanting this down sooner, they have every right to be upset with this horrific monument, Frangos said in an email. Nevertheless, we acquired the property around mid-July and we are legally bound to follow the [EPA] procedures." The property will now be evaluated for a side lot, or it will be conveyed to the city of Cleveland after a required hold period, Frangos said. Christopher L. Whittaker, 45, has been sentenced to death for killing Alianna. He is incarcerated at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. A Cuyahoga County jury found Whittaker guilty of aggravated murder and other charges related to Aliannas death. Judge Carolyn Friedland imposed the death sentence March 26. Alianna disappeared Jan. 26, 2017 while transferring buses on her way to school at the E Prep & Village Prep Woodland Hills Campus. Cleveland police officers found her body three days later in the Fuller Avenue home. Family members described Alianna as a sweet and happy-go-lucky girl who cared deeply for her relatives, especially her younger brother. Her family started the Alianna DeFreeze Lets Make A Change Foundation in her memory. The foundations goals include providing safe transportation to children and pushing for the demolition of abandoned homes that may be unsafe. To comment on this story, visit Fridays crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio Two Cleveland men are accused of breaking into a Taco Bell and taking money from a safe at gunpoint. Deon Hicks, 25, and Willie Davis, 22, are each charged with aggravated robbery in the Monday incident at the fast-food restaurant on West 150th Street near Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, according to court records. Both men are in custody at the Cuyahoga County Jail, records say. Hicks and Davis wore ski masks when they broke into the Taco Bell, which was closed when the armed robbery occurred, according to police reports and court records. The robbers smashed a glass door just after 6:30 a.m. and pointed a gun at an employee who was preparing food. They forced the employee to lay on the ground, police reports say. The robbers then walked into an office in the back of the restaurant and pointed a gun at another employee. They forced her to open a safe, and stole $714 in cash before they ran from the restaurant, police reports say. Investigators found a stolen $20 bill on the ground outside the store. They also found a footprint near the safe, police reports say. Hicks and Davis were identified as suspects when investigators reviewed surveillance video from Taco Bell, court records say. Investigators arrested Davis on Thursday and Hicks on Friday, court records say. Details of their arrests were not immediately available Friday afternoon. A Cleveland Municipal Court judge set Davis bond at $50,000 during his arraignment Friday, according to court records. He is next scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing Dec. 21. Hicks arraignment has not yet been scheduled. To comment on this story, visit Fridays crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio Don Webster, who became one of the most popular personalities in Cleveland television history during 35 years at WEWS Channel 5, died Thursday at his home in Westlake. He was 79. The unexpected death was announced by WEWS, but the cause was not immediately available. Webster retired from the station 19 years ago this week, but he remained an on-air presence doing commercials and through a tour business with his wife, Kandi. The couple had returned to Cleveland after retiring to Hilton Head, South Carolina. He was one of the most humble and interesting people Ive ever met in the business, said Channel 5 General Manager Steve Weinstein, Its a sad day at Channel 5 and in Cleveland. Websters career was unsurpassed in its variety. Hired away from a TV job in his native Hamilton, Ontario, he arrived at TV-5 in September 1964 to host an American Bandstand-type series called The Big Five Show and a game show called Quick as a Wink. The latter lasted only 13 weeks in a ratings battle against The Mike Douglas Show. But Big Five, at 5 p.m. Saturdays, was such a hit that it was renamed Upbeat & nationally syndicated to 90 cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. It lasted until 1971. Webster meantime added other duties including booth announcing and delivering weather and sports. He hosted It's Academic" (now known as Academic Challenge), nine years of live Ohio Lottery shows and even the final days of "The Gene Carroll Show," after the deaths of Carroll and two replacements on the local amateur hour. He had a brief stint co-hosting "The Morning Exchange" before starting Afternoon Exchange with Wilma Smith in January 1978. He served as assistant to the general manager and then station manager 1983-89. "Management was probably the low point,'' he recalled in 1999. "It started out well, but I ended up being a bean counter and bookkeeper more than a television person. That just didnt sit well. He returned to the air in 1989 as the lead weather forecaster for Newschannel 5, and said he enjoyed it more than I ever did before because I realized it was what I should be doing." He said he left it when he was only 60 because his father had died at 34, when Don was 11, from a previously undetected congenital heart problem. The reality is, you never know how much time youve got, Webster said. When people ask me why are you (retiring), I think the answer is, I know Im on the back nine, but I dont know what hole Im on. That about sums it up youve got to get out and do what you enjoy when you can. Information on survivors in addition to his wife and on services was not yet available. COLUMBUS, Ohio The Ohio General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. John Kasich that could lengthen prison sentences for some first- and second-degree felony offenders. Senate Bill 201 is known as the Reagan Tokes Act and would largely do away with the states truth-in-sentencing laws that dictate the number of years a person is locked up, and replacing them with a range of years for a sentence. More serious crimes would mean more years behind bars, although felons could earn or lose time depending on their behavior. Tokes was a 21-year-old Ohio State University student who was raped and murdered in 2017 by Brian Golsby, a convicted sex offender who wore a GPS ankle tracker as part of his parole for an earlier crime. Additional provisions in the Reagan Tokes Act were to address monitoring of parolees, although they were removed from the bill. Lawmakers want the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to study costs and different monitoring options. The bill passed unanimously in the Ohio House, however, Rep. Stephanie Howse, a Cleveland Democrat, asked colleagues in the chamber to also consider bills honoring Ohios victims of color. Tokes was white. We bring (any bill) to this bodys attention, it falls on deaf ears and every excuse of why we cant get it done, said Howse, president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. Specifically, lawmakers havent acted on bills over the years banning toy and imitation guns or requiring them to be brightly colored or have prominent fluorescent strips. The measures have honored Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old holding an airsoft pellet gun who was shot and killed by Cleveland Police, and John Crawford III, who was killed by Dayton-area police while waiving an air rifle. WASHINGTON, D. C. - Ohio Governor-elect Mike DeWine met with President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and several cabinet members for nearly an hour on Thursday, along with a dozen future governors from all over the United States. We talked a lot about infrastructure, DeWine said after the meeting. The president reiterated how much he wants an infrastructure bill and said hes willing to work with Democrats to get that bill. .@FranDeWine and I were at the White House tonight. Earlier today I met with several members of the cabinet to talk about Ohio issues and was in a meeting with the President and other newly elected governors. pic.twitter.com/u6EkQXSGnr Mike DeWine (@MikeDeWine) December 14, 2018 DeWine and future Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also told Trump how important it is to keep voracious Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes and crowding out native game fish. In addition, DeWine said he discussed job training money with the Secretary of labor, and that he privately thanked Trump for his attention to early childhood development issues. DeWine said he and Trump get along well. I would say that it is important for the governor to have a relationship with the president, and I would say that of a president of either party, whoever the president is, DeWine said. While he was in Washington, DeWine said he also discussed the possibility of re-establishing an office for the state in the nations capital. We have not had one for some time, DeWine said. It is something I am considering. I have not made up my mind yet. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Bob Paduchik, the veteran Ohio political operative who ran Donald Trumps wildly successful 2016 Buckeye State campaign, is leaving a top position with the national Republican Party to join the presidents upcoming re-election effort. The Republican National Committee in a statement Friday morning said Paduchik will not run for re-election for his current position in January as the No. 2 ranking official with the RNC so he can join the Trump campaign. The hiring sends the signal that Trump once again is focusing closely on Ohio again as 2020 nears. During the 2016 campaign, Paduchik openly sparred with Ohio Republican Party leadership close to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Trump critic. But Trump ultimately won Ohio by more than 8 points in a race political watchers had believed to be close. After the November election, Paduchik helped Trump oust Kasichs hand-picked Ohio Republican Party chairman in favor of Jane Timken, a Trump supporter. Kasich has continued to suggest he may challenge Trump in 2020 and has been openly critical of the president. The ongoing tension prompted Paduchik to blast Kasich in an August op-ed published on cleveland.com that described Kasich as Trumps antagonist in chief, in the aftermath of a closely contested special election to fill a Central Ohio congressional seat. Paduchik previously ran George W. Bushs Ohio campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and also was Rob Portmans campaign manager when he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. In a written statement, Trump said: "Bob was a tremendous asset to my 2016 campaign and his leadership in the 2020 cycle will help us win again. Bob is a total winner. Turkeys President Tayyip Erdogan expressed concerns over the actions and presence of Kurdish militia fighters in a phone call about Syria with U.S. President Donald Trump, the Turkish presidency said, Reuters reported. It said the two leaders agreed on the need for more efficient cooperation over Syria, without giving details. Erdogan said on Wednesday Turkey would launch a military operation against the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, prompting a warning from the Pentagon that any such military action would be unacceptable. LAS VEGAS The Indians drafted two players, but lost four in Thursdays Rule 5 Draft that marks the official end of the winter meetings. The Mets selected right-hander Kyle Dowdy from the Indians in the major-league phase of the draft. The Indians acquired outfielder Leonys Martin and Dowdy from Detroit for infielder Willie Castro on July 31. Dowdy went 1-4 with a 6.52 ERA in six starts for Class AA Akron after the deal. Before the deal he went 3-4 with a 5.09 ERA at Class AA Erie. The Mets paid $100,000 for Dowdy and must keep him on their 25-man roster for the 2019 season. If not, they have to offer him back to the Indians for $50,000. In the Class AAA phase of the draft, the Indians last three players as the Angels selected right-hander Matt Esparza, Oakland selected first baseman Anthony Miller and Tampa Bay drafted right-hander Hector Figueroa. Esparza, a 14th-round pick in 2015, was injured for much of last season. Miller hit .264 (66-for-250) with eight homers and 30 RBI at Class A Lynchburg. He was the Tribes 18th-round pick in 2015. Figueroa was 1-0 with a 2.78 ERA and two saves in 14 games for the Arizona Rookie League Indians. The Indians selected left-hander Yapson Gomez from the Cubs and first baseman Wilson Garcia from Baltimore in the Triple-A phase of the draft. Gomez went 2-4 with a 3.28 in 38 games for Class A South Bend and Class A Myrtle Beach. He struck out 52 and walked 21 in 68 2/3 innings. Garcia, a switch-hitter, batted .293 (129-for-441) with 23 homers and 79 RBI for Class A Clearwater and Class A Frederick. James Harris, the Indians' director of player development, said the organization was sorry to lose Dowdy. We were excited about him, he said. We think he was going to be a good player and were sad to lose him. Harris said Miller was slated to go to Akron in 2019 and trending in a positive way. Hes a big power bat. As for Figueroa, a native of the Dominican Republic, Harris said the clock ran out on the Indians. The way this works if a guy comes from Latin America, the clock starts quick, said Harris. Before we got a real chance to dig in on him, hes Rule 5 eligible. Were sad to lose him. Regarding the two players the Indians drafted, Harris said, Gomewz is a reliever, probably at the Double-A level and were looking to develop him. Garcia is a switch-hitting first baseman. Well see where hes at. We spend a couple of months on this. We have tons of analysts look at these players. Guys are digging in to see players who can fit and who we like. They identified two guys and we were able to pick them up. Trying to pull yourself out of student debt? You could spend less, earn more or move to Newburgh Heights, Ohio. The 2,000-person town, less than 10 miles from Cleveland, is offering to help college graduates pay off their student debt. For struggling borrowers, don't expect a quick fix. Here's how it works: You need to be a graduate with student debt from a four-year accredited college or university. You'll have to purchase a house in the town valued at $50,000 or more within five years of graduating. The average house in Newburgh Heights costs $65,000, the town's mayor, Trevor Elkins, told CNBC. After 15 years, the town will pay off half of your student debt, up to $50,000. There are two pay-outs, 80 percent at the 10 year-mark and the final 20 percent after the 15 years. Even if you've paid off your student loans by that time, you'll receive the funds for the amount you owed when you first enrolled in the town's program. You don't need to work in the town, just live there. The program goes into effect in early January. Traders from across the U.S. are banding together to accuse J. P. Morgan Chase of manipulating precious metals markets for years. At least six lawsuits, all making similar allegations against the nation's largest bank, have been filed in New York federal court in the past month, since federal prosecutors in Connecticut unveiled a plea agreement with a former J. P. Morgan Chase metals trader. The cases could potentially include thousands of people who traded in the precious metals market. The White Plains, N.Y., law firm Lowey Dannenberg is asking the court to combine the cases and name it as the lead. The law firm's commodities group is led by Vincent Briganti, the attorney who filed the first lawsuit on behalf of Dominick Cognata, a New York resident who alleges he suffered losses due to J. P. Morgan's trading conduct in the silver and gold futures and options markets. A combined case, seeking class action status, would include anyone who purchased or sold futures contracts or an option on NYMEX platinum or palladium or COMEX silver or gold between at least Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2015. The lawyers believe that "at least hundreds, if not thousands" of traders would be eligible to join the case. Named as defendants in all of the lawsuits are John Edmonds, a 36-year old former metals trader at J. P. Morgan, a group of yet-to-be-identified precious metals traders and the bank. Edmonds, a New York resident, pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to defraud the market and manipulate prices of precious metals futures contracts and one count of commodities fraud. In the criminal plea, Edmonds admitted that he and other "unnamed co-conspirators" at J. P. Morgan, fraudulently manipulated precious metals markets from 2009 to 2015, the same time frame covered in the class action suits. Briganti filed the initial class action on Nov. 7, just one day after the Justice Department unsealed Edmonds' plea in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut. Edmonds admitted in his guilty plea that he deployed the illegal trading scheme hundreds of times with the direct knowledge and consent of his immediate supervisors. Plaintiffs say they have suffered economic injury, including monetary losses, as a direct result of actions by Edmonds and the other unnamed J. P. Morgan metals traders in the futures and options contracts. One of the suits alleges that "the number of unlawful trades that JP Morgan traders executed in precious metals futures markets is at least in the thousands." J. P. Morgan declined to comment. Lowey Dannenberg did not respond to a request for comment by CNBC. The Justice Department's criminal investigation is still ongoing and recently caused a separate related civil case to be put on hold for at least six months while the government continues its investigation. That civil lawsuit, which also accuses J. P. Morgan of rigging the precious metals market, was filed in 2015 by hedge fund manager Daniel Shak and two commodity traders. After reviewing the details of the plea agreement, David Kovel, the attorney for Shak's suit, sought to re-interview Edmonds, along with two other current and former senior traders at the bank. However, the government argued that reopening questioning would be detrimental to the ongoing criminal investigation. The federal judge overseeing the proceedings ordered a six-month stay in the civil case. Kovel declined to comment. Edmonds was originally scheduled to be sentenced in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday, Dec. 19, but a court filing on Nov. 27 shows the sentencing has been postponed until June. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut could not elaborate on why the sentencing was postponed since the court filing is under seal. Jack Dorsey, chief executive officer and co-founder of Square Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017. Some people celebrate their birthdays with partying, food and music. Recently, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took a different tack with a 10-day silent meditation trip to a center in Myanmar. There he practiced a technique that he said would "hack the deepest layer of the mind and reprogram it." Here's a look at Dorsey's trip last month, one he shared on Twitter this past weekend. Dorsey entered a no-music, no-talking, no-eye-contact zone The ancient 2,500-year-old meditation technique Dorsey chose, vipassana, is not the calming, relaxing practice most people envision when they think of meditation. "That's not vipassana," tweeted Dorsey last week. Vipassana, according to Dorsey, was designed to cut connections between craving pleasure or avoiding pain. Sitting cross-legged on a concrete floor will become painful in 30 to 45 minutes, he said, but not moving or changing your posture can help you better understand your potential and capabilities. Tweeted Dorsey, "It's extremely painful and demanding physical and mental work." Dorsey stayed at Dhamma Mahima, a free vipassana center in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar. For the duration of his stay, Dorsey slept in a basic room with nothing but a bed with a pillow and no mattress. While there, he couldn't read, write, exercise or listen to music. He didn't consume intoxicants or meat, and both talking and eye contact were also discouraged. While challenging, it's a practice he considers essential. Dorsey spent 10 days through Christmas and New Year's last year practicing vipassana, as well. "The time I take away to do this gives so much back to me and my work," he said. He practiced nearly 17 hours of meditation every day Dorsey woke up everyday at 4 a.m. and meditated until 9 p.m. Meditators were given breaks for breakfast, lunch and walking. For 45 minutes out of each day, Dorsey took a break to walk. One evening, Dorsey and his group mediated in a cave. There he said he reportedly suffered 117 mosquito bites. He and his group also traveled and mediated at different monasteries around the country. He broke his own personal meditation record Dorsey wore his Apple Watch and Oura ring, both in airplane mode, to measure his progress and track his heart rate. Each day's meditation brought a different outcome for Dorsey. He logged the second day as his best, where he focused entirely on his breath, without thoughts, for more than an hour. Prior to that day, the longest he could focus just on his breath was five minutes. He experienced the country's culture After traveling throughout the country, Dorsey said "the people are full of joy and the food is amazing." He also noted that the highlight of his trip was sharing these moments with other locals. He served monks and nuns food and donated sandals and umbrellas. On his return, Dorsey faced criticism from some for encouraging his Twitter followers to visit Myanmar, given the country's human rights violations. Dorsey responded to these criticisms on December 11. The CEO said he didn't consider "visiting, practicing, or talking with the people, as endorsement" of the violence occurring in Myanmar. Said Dorsey, "I didn't intend to diminish by not raising the issue but could have acknowledged that I don't know enough and I need to learn more." He explained that he took the trip to work on himself, hoping to share his experience and encourage others to consider a similar practice. After the silence A partner for a large New York law firm returned from a business trip to China just before Thanksgiving, about two weeks before the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada. Asked by CNBC on Thursday if he'd like to comment on the arrest and its effect on his future China travel plans, the lawyer had two very different responses. "On the record? Of course, business is continuing as normal. Our relationships over there remain rock solid, and this case has no bearing on our ability to work as usual. Did that sound good?" he asked. "Off the record? Are you f---ing kidding me? No f---ing way," he added. (He later gave CNBC permission to use the quote without his name.) That's an increasingly common dual-sided sentiment among executives who work in China or travel there frequently for business. They don't want to upset the increasingly delicate diplomatic balance between the two countries and bring it into their work. They also are mindful of China's powerful ability to monitor what they're saying and doing. So, many are expressing little worry in public while quietly making arrangements to stay safer in private. CNBC spoke to three other executives who had similar things to say about their work in China. All spoke on the condition they'd be granted anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak with media. The executives work in areas including technology, finance and security. One executive based in Singapore for a large multinational financial firm said he's received several "gentle, informal" inquiries from his colleagues in China about possible reassignments to cities like Tokyo or Singapore. "I think people are definitely being cautious, a little worried. Maybe trying to navigate into something with a little less political pressure behind it, the same job, just somewhere else. Not panicked or anything. Then again, these guys like to act cool under pressure," he said. When asked whether he would be traveling to China soon, as he has frequently in the past, the Singapore executive said: "No, no. I mean, I have kids." Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform many industries: Cars that drive themselves, facial recognition that enhances security, or systems that could detect cancer better than a doctor. In fact, global GDP is set to increase by 14 percent because of AI, according to PwC. The tech's deployment in the decade ahead will add $15.7 trillion to global GDP, with China predicted to take $7 trillion and North America $3.7 trillion, according to the multinational company. "Data is the new oil, so China is the new Saudi Arabia," Kai-Fu Lee, venture capitalist and author of "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order," told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "If you measure by research basic research papers published, excellence of research U.S. is and will be ahead for the next decade," he said. "But if you measure by value created, how much market capitalization, how many users, how much revenue, China probably is already ahead." Lee said AI could replace 40 to 50 percent of all jobs in the U.S. in the next 15 years. China's development plan AI development reached a symbolic moment in May 2017 during a match of Go, considered to be the world's most complex game. Ke Jie, a Chinese player known as the world's best, competed against a program from Google parent company Alphabet in a three-game match. The young pro lost all three games. Less than two month after the defeat, China's central government announced its ambitious plans to build its AI capabilities, where it aims to create "a next generation artificial intelligence development plan." The plan is broken up into three benchmarks: Keep pace with AI technologies by 2020, achieve AI breakthroughs by 2025, and to actually be the world leader in AI by 2030. In 2017, Chinese venture capital investors poured record sums of money into AI making up 48 percent of all AI venture funding globally. Chinese start-ups raised $4.9 billion in 2017 made up of just 19 investments, while their U.S. counterparts raised $4.4 billion from 155 investments. Some critics have said, however, that the sector is over-invested and they've expressed skepticism about the industry's ability to monetize. Data and regulation China has several advantages when it comes to the artificial intelligence field, but chief among them is Chinese companies' access to troves of data. "(China has) done a fantastic job of moving its economy to cashless and when you can pay with everything with your phone, you amass a huge amount of data," author and columnist Thomas Friedman told CNBC. "When you can get these giant data sets, and then apply artificial intelligence to them," he said. "You're going to see better and better and more deep insight patterns than anyone else and I think it'll be a great advantage for China." On top of that, China doesn't have the same restrictive privacy laws as many other countries, making it easier for companies to collect data. Its government buys technologies to capture unprecedented amounts of information on its citizens. The talent race Still, China is not yet the dominant force in the world of AI. "The innovation is still coming from the U.S. and that's thanks to, obviously, a huge network of universities that are fed by the world's greatest talent not just Chinese engineers coming to the U.S., and computer scientists, but also from India and everywhere else," Ben Harburg, managing partner at MSA Capital, told CNBC at the East Tech West conference last month. "That advantage, for the next few years at least, stays with the U.S." Still, Harburg noted China's large data sets, and the country's large number of graduates in STEM fields. "China will be where you monetize and, by nature of the beast, eventually they will start to innovate far beyond the U.S. but a couple years away," he added. Meanwhile, Friedman said the race in AI could potentially come down to politics. More specifically, U.S. President Donald Trump's stance on immigration. "What really drove our economy forward, what drives any economy, is that we had a higher percentage than any other country of high-IQ risk takers ... people who start new companies, and new businesses, and create new medical and new engineering breakthroughs," he said. "Trump basically has put out a sign in our front yard that says, 'Get off my lawn.'" WATCH: Chinese tech is going global China on Friday reported industrial output and retail sales growth for the month of November that missed expectations, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, as the world's second-largest economy started to show signs of slowing amid a bitter trade dispute with the U.S. Industrial output in November grew 5.4 percent from a year ago the slowest pace in almost three years as it matched the rate of growth seen in January to February 2016, according to Reuters records. The growth in industrial production was lower than the 5.9 percent analysts in a Reuters poll had predicted. Retail sales rose 8.1 percent in November the weakest pace since 2003, according to Reuters' records lower than the 8.8 percent the analysts expected. November retail sales growth was down from 8.6 percent in October. Fixed asset investment rose 5.9 percent from January to November, marginally higher than the 5.8 percent the economists had forecast. FAI rose 5.7 percent from January to October. Economic data from China is closely watched by many amid the trade spate between the world's two largest economies, with U.S. President Donald Trump taking issue with America's massive trade deficit with China. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures took a dive after the data. Markets in Japan and China fell 1.5 percent to 2 percent on Friday. Despite escalating trade tensions with the U.S., show the economy has surprised on the upside for much of 2018. Manufacturing, in particular, has held up as exporters rushed to ship their goods a phenomenon called front-loading before tariff deadlines hit. Alex Sherman Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is in early talks to acquire all of McAfee from TPG and Intel, sources say. TPG acquired a majority stake in McAfee in 2006 in a deal that valued the cybersecurity company at $4.2 billion. Thoma Bravo would pay a "significant" premium to $4.2 billion if a deal occurs, sources say. Thoma Bravo isn't likely to pursue a deal for Symantec if it acquires McAfee, sources say. Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is in early discussions to acquire security software company McAfee from TPG and Intel for a significant premium over the company's 2016 $4.2 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter. Talks may still fall apart and a deal announcement isn't expected soon, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. McAfee, founded by John McAfee in 1987, historically developed cybersecurity software for personal computers and servers, protecting users from malware and other viruses. This type of computer security prevented attacks on personal devices. More recently, it has expanded into mobile devices and cloud computing, which is where hackers have migrated. The company was publicly traded until 2010, when Intel bought it for $7.6 billion. The chipmaker hoped to closely align its chips with McAfee's security technology. That vision didn't pan out for Intel, which took a haircut of more than $3 billion when it sold 51 percent of the business to TPG in 2016 for $4.2 billion. Several months later, TPG brought on Thoma Bravo to make a minority investment. TPG's majority ownership has helped transform the McAfee business in less than two years with add-on acquisitions. In January, McAfee closed its takeover of Skyhigh Networks, which helps companies monitor which cloud services employees are using. In March, McAfee also acquired Tunnelbear, which provides virtual private networks that protect data when using shared WiFi accounts. Intel sees itself as purely a financial investor in McAfee now, according to one of the people. Still, Intel has participated in the recent value creation of the standalone McAfee by holding its minority stake and stands in line to recoup some of the lost value if the Thoma Bravo deal goes though. A deal would unify the ownership of McAfee and could put it in position to go public again, two of the people said. Reuters reported in November that Thoma Bravo had approached Symantec with a takeover offer. A deal for McAfee would rule out a Symantec purchase, one of the people said. Spokespeople for TPG and Intel declined to comment. A spokesman for Thoma Bravo did not immediately respond. --CNBC's Jon Fortt contributed to this report. About CNBC: With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and CNBC World, CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information 410 million homes worldwide, including more than 90 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. 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CNBC has a vast portfolio of digital products, offering CNBC content to a variety of platforms such as: CNBC.com; CNBC PRO, a premium service that provides in-depth access to Wall Street; a suite of CNBC mobile apps for iOS and Android devices; Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Siri voice interfaces; and streaming services including Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung Smart TVs. To learn more, visit https://www.cnbc.com/digital-products/. Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBCUniversal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/programming/cnbc. For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit http://www.NBCUniversal.com. Britains Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media after she arrives at the European Council for the start of the two day EU summit on December 13, 2018 in Brussels, Belgium. "The Union stands by this agreement and intends to proceed with its ratification. It is not open for renegotiation," the statement said Thursday. However, while EU leaders agreed to write a joint statement after discussing the latest Brexit developments, they did not change their position on U.K.'s withdrawal agreement from the EU. Ahead of the EU summit, May admitted she was not expecting an "immediate breakthrough." Instead, she hoped both sides could revisit British lawmakers' Irish backstop concerns to improve the chances of getting her Brexit deal through the Parliament. The prime minister was hoping to get "legal and political" reassurances from the other 27 member countries regarding the Irish backstop the biggest stumbling block preventing progress in the Brexit process. Britain's embattled Prime Minister Theresa May will go back to London empty-handed on Friday, after racing to Brussels to try to get a few more concessions from the European Union. The EU-27 also said it stands ready to start negotiations on future trade arrangements as soon as the U.K. leaves in March. They also repeated the Irish backstop is only an insurance policy. "It is the Union's firm determination to work speedily on a subsequent agreement that establishes by 31 December 2020 alternative arrangements, so that the backstop will not need to be triggered," the 27 countries said. The EU added that if the Irish backstop policy needed to be triggered, it would only apply "temporarily" until there's an agreement in place. The idea of the backstop is to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland a critical issue for both the EU and the U.K. Brexiteers and other U.K. lawmakers believe this plan forces Northern Ireland to follow EU rules. However, both Westminster and the EU have said this would not be their aim and if it were to happen, it would only apply until they implement new trade arrangements. "There will be no new legally binding obligations imposed on the European Union. That's crystal clear," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters in Brussels Thursday night. The U.K. Parliament is legally scheduled to vote on the withdrawal agreement before January 21. Meanwhile, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told CNBC in Brussels that it is time for U.K. lawmakers "to be responsible." "Theresa May did the best possible deal and now MPs in London should be responsible and to know if they want to have the best possible deal or want to go in the direction where they don't know what will come out," he said. "It's in the interest of their citizens," he added. Sterling was down 0.6 percent against the dollar at $1.2591, with Reuters citing May's unsuccessful Brexit trip to Brussels. The British currency also dropped 0.3 percent versus the euro to 90.025 pence. Though it faces billions of dollars in claims alleging its talc baby powder products contained asbestos and caused cancer, the financial hit to the company has yet to be determined. Johnson & Johnson stock plunged Friday following a report by Reuters that it knew for decades that its baby powder contained asbestos. The company released a statement calling the Reuters article "one-sided, false and inflammatory." Johnson & Johnson is just the latest healthcare product company to face a wave of liability lawsuits. So far, some juries have sided with the company, which maintains that independent tests have shown the product does not contain asbestos. Other juries have been unable to reach verdicts. In July, a Missouri jury ordered J&J to pay $4.69 billion in a case involving 22 women and their families. A judge affirmed the verdict in August and J&J vowed to appeal it. Even if that verdict stands, the award would fall short of the biggest medical product liability case to date, which involved a diet pill, Fen-Phen, that was linked to potentially fatal heart problems. Joe Lieberman, former U.S. Senator (I-CT), at the United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) 2018 Iran Summit in New York City. ZTE has reportedly hired former Sen. Joe Lieberman to help the Chinese telecom giant allay fears in Washington that it poses a threat to national security. He will spearhead an assessment of its products, as the company tries to ensure U.S. officials that it is not a spy for the Chinese government. Politico reported Thursday evening that the hire makes Lieberman the third former U.S. lawmaker working for ZTE in Washington. Former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and former Rep. Jon Chistensen, R-Neb., had also been tapped by the company. Lieberman, a former Democrat, left the Senate as an independent in 2013. "There are obviously still concerns about the safety of their products or the extent to which their products could be used to compromise American security in any way or even individual security," Lieberman told Politico in an interview. ZTE has "decided to really try to get ahead of those concerns and be in a position to answer them," he said. Neither Lieberman nor ZTE immediately responded to CNBC's requests for comment on the report. A ZTE spokesperson told Politico: "ZTE initiated this fact-finding mission as part of its comprehensive effort to better understand and address any national security concerns of its customers, Congressional and Executive Branch officials in the U.S., and governments across the globe." Lieberman added that while he will register as a lobbyist, he will be focused on his national security evaluation and won't actually lobby for ZTE on Capitol Hill. But he also mentioned that he has visited D.C. twice in recent weeks to meet with the company's critics in Congress. ZTE is known for making inexpensive smartphones. It also sells cellular communications equipment around the world. The company was fined more than $1 billion by the U.S. in 2017 for breaking sanctions that barred it from selling products, some of which potentially contain American-made components, to embargoed countries such as North Korea, Cuba and Iran. When the Commerce Department in April banned ZTE from buying American parts, it nearly killed the firm. U.S. lawmakers have accused ZTE of functioning as a state-backed enterprise rather than a publicly traded company. Senators of both parties, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio and Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., have warned of national security and espionage risks posed by allowing ZTE to operate freely in the U.S. Rubio tweet But President Donald Trump, who is among Washington's fiercest critics of China's trade practices, jumped to the company's rescue when it teetered on collapse. In May, Trump announced via tweet that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping were working to give ZTE "a way to get back into business, fast." Some officials were surprised by the announcement from the president, who noted that "too many jobs in China" had been lost. Trump tweet He said in a follow-up that ZTE "buys a big percentage of individual parts from U.S. companies," and that accepting the company would be "reflective of the larger trade deal" his administration was negotiating with China. Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that its baby powder contained asbestos, Reuters said in a new report that drove the company's shares down more than 10 percent Friday. Reuters based its report on a review of documents and deposition and trial testimony. It said the review showed that from 1971 to the early 2000s, J&J executives, mine managers, doctors and lawyers were aware the company's raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos. Those involved discussed the problem but they did not disclose it to regulators or the public, Reuters' examination found. The company released a statement Friday calling the Reuters article "one-sided, false and inflammatory." "Simply put, the Reuters story is an absurd conspiracy theory, in that it apparently has spanned over 40 years, orchestrated among generations of global regulators, the world's foremost scientists and universities, leading independent labs, and J&J employees themselves," the company said in a statement. Reuters stands by its reporting, a spokeswoman told CNBC. The company has faced thousands of lawsuits alleging its talc baby powder products contain asbestos and caused ovarian and other cancers. Some juries have sided with J&J and others have been unable to reach verdicts. A Missouri jury in July ordered J&J to pay $4.69 billion in a case involving 22 women and their families. A judge affirmed the verdict in August, and J&J vowed to appeal it. J&J has filed thousands of documents in court proceedings, though most have been designated as confidential. By Friday's close, J&J stock had fallen 10.04 percent, its worst day in more than a decade, when its shares closed down 15.85 on July 19, 2002. The stock dropped as much as 11.9 percent Friday. Open enrollment began Nov. 1 and runs until Saturday for most states. People who do not sign up for Obamacare insurance by the deadlines will not be able to obtain coverage until next fall, unless they have a qualifying life event such as getting married or having a child. Five states could offer extensions at the last minute. Sign-ups on the federal health insurance marketplace have fallen 11.7 percent from the same time last year, according to the latest figures from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The ACA's final enrollment numbers won't be tallied until next week. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, isn't buying the president's defense of his alleged role in hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. "Of course" Trump knew the payments were wrong, a morose Cohen told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview that was slated to air Friday morning. "First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters." Cohen also said Trump had him coordinate the payments, which came weeks before Election Day 2016, because he was worried about the potential impact of revelations about his alleged trysts with the women. "Yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election," Cohen said. Prosecutors and Cohen said Trump directed the lawyer to handle the illegal payments to Daniels and McDougal. After the sentencing, Trump attacked Cohen on social media and in an interview with Fox News, saying he "never directed" Cohen to break the law and that the campaign-finance charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty were intended to embarrass the president. Trump said those payments weren't even illegal. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Cohen interview. The interview marked Cohen's first comments to the media since he was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for federal charges including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud and lying to Congress. He is scheduled to report to prison March 6. Cohen, who worked for Trump for over a decade and had once said he would take a bullet for the man, poses a major threat to the president. Cohen has told prosecutors that he worked to cover up Trump's alleged "dirty deeds," and the lawyer continues to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. "I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty," Cohen told ABC. His cooperation is fueling other cases that could imperil Trump, too. Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators, acting in part because of evidence collected from a raid on Cohen's office and residence in April, had opened up a criminal probe into possible financial crimes involving alleged foreign contributions for Trump's inauguration. In another dire sign for Trump, federal prosecutors announced that they had granted immunity to American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, in connection to the McDougal payments. David Pecker, CEO of the company, was a friend of Trump's. He had previously been granted immunity, according to media reports. NBC News, citing a source, and other media outlets reported that Trump was in the room with Cohen and Pecker during discussions about how to help the campaign keep women quiet about their alleged affairs with the then-candidate. In the interview, Cohen tried to deflect some of the blame in the hush-money scandal. "It was really between him and David Pecker," Cohen told ABC. "I just reviewed the documents." A tape released earlier this year, which features Trump and his lawyer discussing potential payments, indicates that Cohen was involved in a bigger way than reviewing documents, however. In a case brought by federal prosecutors by the Southern District of New York, Cohen pleaded guilty to most of the charges in August. In the plea, he admitted he paid off the two women, who allege having sexual relationships with the president a decade ago, in coordination with Trump. The White House has denied the affairs happened. Then, in a deal with Mueller in late November, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Trump Organization's discussions with Russia to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Special counsel Robert Mueller has spent just over $25 million in his probe of any links between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to a new filing released Friday. The filing shows that Mueller spent a total of $4.5 million in the six-month period between April and October, with most of the fees going to personnel compensation and benefits. The probe incurred another $4 million in costs to Justice Department components not directly tied to the inquiry. President Donald Trump has blasted Mueller for the cost of the probe. In June, the president wrote in a post on Twitter that "the Russian Hoax Investigation has now cost our government over $17 million, and going up fast." Tweet But the inquiry has proceeded along relatively quickly and at less expense than similar inquiries conducted by the Justice Department, such as Kenneth Starr's investigation into President Bill Clinton. Some have noted that Mueller's prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort also netted cash for the government, thanks to asset forfeitures Manafort agreed to as part of his plea agreement. In September, Manafort agreed to hand over real estate and cash estimated to be worth as much as $46 million. That money does not contribute to Mueller's budget. In the latest filing, Mueller reported spending nearly $3 million on compensation, $580,000 on travel and transportation, $1 million on rent and related expenses, and $300,000 on contractual services, primarily related to IT. Since he began his probe in May 2017, Mueller has filed more than 100 criminal charges against 33 individuals and three companies. Twenty-five of those indicted in connection with the probe are Russian nationals. Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, leaves Federal Court on December 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday urged a federal judge to reject an attempt by President Donald Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn "to minimize the seriousness" of his crime days before his sentencing date. But Flynn should still receive a light sentence, Mueller added. Flynn had pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. In a court filing this week, Flynn's lawyers noted that he was interviewed without a lawyer present and was not told in advance that lying to the FBI was a crime. The special counsel said in its filing Friday afternoon that "nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI." The filing said that the agents who questioned Flynn gave him multiple opportunities to correct false statements he made, and told him in advance of the meeting that the questions had to do with his contacts with the Russian ambassador. "The interview was voluntary, and lacked any indicia of coercion," according to Mueller. The filing also noted that Flynn had repeatedly lied about his communications with the Russian official two weeks before sitting down with the FBI. The special counsel's filing came a day after the judge presiding over Flynn's case ordered the special counsel to submit documents related to Flynn's interview with the FBI. Two of those documents, known as "302s," are included in the government's Friday afternoon filing, though both are heavily redacted. The order fueled speculation that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan was looking for more information about the conditions surrounding Flynn's January 2017 interview with the FBI. In their sentencing memo filed earlier this week, Flynn's lawyers cited ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who said he told Flynn at the time of that interview that "the quickest way to get this done was" for him to speak with agents by himself without a lawyer present. Flynn's team also said the agents didn't provide him "with a warning of the penalties" for lying to the FBI. The new details about Flynn's interview with investigators incensed some of his supporters, who argue that the FBI engaged in tactics akin to "entrapment." Trump weighed in, too, telling reporters Thursday that "it's a great thing that the judge is looking into that situation" by ordering Mueller's team to turn over more documents about the interview. Other legal experts dispute that conclusion, however. David Weinstein, a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, said that while it's possible that some "trickery" by the FBI may have been at play, the agents were under no requirement to read Flynn his rights before questioning him. "My takeaway: He was sitting down with FBI agents. He should be prepared to tell the truth," Weinstein said. Mueller made the same point in the court filing Friday. A veteran U.S. official such as Flynn "does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth," the special counsel said. Flynn was "undoubtedly was aware, in light of his 'many years' working with the FBI, that lying to the FBI carries serious consequences," the filing added. The retired lieutenant general's sentencing hearing is set for next Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET in Washington, D.C. federal court. In prior sentencing documents, Flynn's lawyers and the special counsel had both recommended a light sentence for the highly decorated U.S. Army veteran. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. walks out of the West Wing to speak to members of the media outside of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, following a meeting with President Donald Trump. Andrew Harnik | AP Even for a former House speaker who moved some of the most consequential bills in recent U.S. history through Congress, Nancy Pelosi navigated a gantlet this week. The House minority leader riled up Democrats with a televised Oval Office spat with President Donald Trump over government funding Tuesday. She rejected his demand for border wall money and goaded him about a "Trump shutdown." Pelosi told the president not to "characterize the strength" she brings to talks after House Democrats' gain of 40 seats and a majority in November's midterms. Her day was captured in a viral image of her leaving the White House, wrapped in a red coat and putting sunglasses on a smiling face. Pelosi then made the latest in a series of deals to hold off rebellion in her own ranks Wednesday. She and House Democrats who threatened to block her bid to reclaim the speaker's gavel in January reached an agreement to limit her speakership to four more years. After she effectively wrapped up the leadership race, Pelosi threw four fingers up to reporters Thursday signifying the number of years she hopes to lead the House. The two consequential battles, both with the president and within her own caucus, were just a preview of the fights to come for Pelosi, who will be 82 in four years. Beyond the potential partial government shutdown next week, she is poised to take the speaker's gavel in the new year, where she will have to balance policy priorities and governance while contending with growing calls within the Democratic House membership to ruthlessly investigate and even impeach Trump. Pelosi's new political reality was hard-earned. She spent the midterm campaign getting clobbered by Trump, Republican super PACs and both GOP and Democratic House candidates. Many in her own party called for newer, younger leadership. Despite the criticism, Democrats cruised to a House majority, and Pelosi maneuvered through opponents to ascend to the pinnacle of her power once again. Democrats will gain a key lever of power next month as Republicans hold the Senate and an unpopular GOP president sits in the White House. To a national television audience, Pelosi showed on Tuesday that as speaker she would likely challenge Trump on immigration and the border wall. She will also take him head on over GOP efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and push for more environmental and labor protections in his North American Free Trade Agreement overhaul. The Trump balance But she has tried not to appear too extreme ahead of a 2020 election in which Democrats will aim to keep the House and reclaim the White House. Pelosi has cast the early House Democratic agenda not as one of resistance to Trump, but rather as a push for common sense, noncontroversial solutions. At a news conference Thursday, a reporter asked Pelosi what "repercussions" Trump should face after federal prosecutors implicated him in campaign finance crimes committed by his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. She briefly noted that the allegations came from the Justice Department and not special counsel Robert Mueller, whom Trump has slammed. But Pelosi did not take the bait on impeachment or any other possible backlash for the president. "From our standpoint, what we're interested in is meeting the needs of America's working families," she said. "To spend our time lowering health-care costs by reducing the cost of prescription drugs, increasing paychecks by building infrastructure of America. Both of those things are things that the president said he wanted to do during the campaign. So this is common ground." Even before drug costs and infrastructure, Democrats want to move quickly on their bill designed to stamp out corruption and money in politics, Pelosi said. Americans broadly support limiting money in politics. She stressed that the party would push for proposals "starting with those that are the most unifying and have the broadest support in the public." Of course, not every House Democratic initiative will come without controversy. The House Ways and Means Committee will likely "take the first steps" to acquire Trump's tax returns an effort the president will surely fight. Pelosi said Thursday that she sees "popular demand" for Congress to seek the documents. The party has also pledged to push for a $15 per hour minimum wage, a measure championed by labor activists. The effort will spark resistance within the White House, the Senate and powerful interest groups. Pelosi's comments this week showed a desire to alternately jab and pacify Trump. On Tuesday, she helped to provoke Trump into saying he would be "proud" to shut down the government over border security. On Thursday, she said she told Trump that "I prayed for him" as a shutdown looms after the Dec. 21 deadline to fund the government. "He said, 'That's news. Go tell the press.' So I am," she said of the Tuesday interaction with the president. Term limits and fresh faces Google will meet with New Zealand's Justice Minister on Tuesday, after he lashed out at the search engine platform said the tech giant could be prosecuted for naming the suspect in backpacker Grace Millane's murder. Internet users in the country searched the suspect's name more than 100,000 times after a Google trending alert revealing his identity was sent to subscribers, the New Zealand Herald reported. The 26-year-old man accused of murdering the British backpacker had applied for name suppression in compliance with New Zealand law. His lawyer said he would appeal to the High Court when this request was rejected, triggering a 20-working-day suppression order. New Zealand Justice Minister Andrew Little told the Herald on Thursday that the source who leaked the name would be prosecuted if police were willing to launch an investigation. He reportedly said he would tell Google representatives that "we cannot surrender the administration of justice to algorithms and machines," and that he did not believe the U.S. firm's claims that it didn't know the name was suppressed. A Google spokesperson told CNBC via email: "We respect New Zealand law and understand the concerns around what is clearly a sensitive case. When we receive valid court orders, including suppression orders, we review and respond appropriately." The New Zealand government will decide on the next course of action on this matter after their meeting on Tuesday. WATCH: How to download everything Google knows about you In this Jan. 20, 2017, image released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, surveillance aircraft spots a Dominican-flagged Yuk Tung oil tanker after it transferred fuel to the North Korean-registered Rye Song tanker in the open South China Sea. A top secret U.S. military assessment found that North Korea is still evading U.N. sanctions by transferring oil at sea, and that a coalition of U.S.-led forces deployed to disrupt the movements has failed to dent the overall number of illegal transfers, three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence told NBC News. The finding underscores the Trump administration's struggle to maintain economic pressure on North Korea amid a diplomatic bid to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and missile arsenal. The smuggled fuel provides a crucial lifeline for the regime's economy and armed forces. The U.S. Pacific Command assessment, labeled "Top Secret," found that the presence of warships and surveillance aircraft deployed by an eight-nation coalition since September has forced North Korea to adjust its tactics at sea, including transferring oil farther away from the Korean Peninsula and often in other countries' territorial waters. More from NBC News: The North Koreans are also resorting to smaller vessels to avoid recognition by the coalition's warships and surveillance aircraft, the officials said. The assessment found that while attempts to transfer oil have not decreased, the coalition presence has forced North Korea out of the East China Sea and into more logistically challenging areas to the north and south. That shift could ultimately affect the pace and number of the ship-to-ship transfers, raising the cost of smuggling for North Korea, according to the three U.S. officials. A U.S. defense official said the U.S. began surveillance flights over the East China Sea to disrupt these illicit transfers on Oct. 19, 2017. Since then, the U.S. has conducted more than 300 surveillance flights. Allied nations began flights on April 30, and have flown more than 200 surveillance flights to date. Since October 2017, there have been 30 instances when smugglers halted ship-to-ship transfers when observed by coalition naval forces at sea, according to a U.S. defense official. "We've increased pressure and have been collecting information on these illicit transfers and then feeding them back to our interagency partners for financial, law enforcement and diplomatic action," the official told NBC News. In September, the U.S. and its allies expanded surveillance of North Korea's smuggling, with an eight-nation coalition, including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, deploying warships and aircraft to better spot sanctions violations. The move came after a surge in ship-to-ship transfers this year, with North Korea obtaining black market fuel at sea often with the help of Chinese and Russian counterparts. The smuggling flouts U.N. sanctions that strictly limit oil imports. A U.N. Security Council resolution in September 2017 put a cap on refined imports at 500,000 barrels a year for North Korea. A leaked report by U.N. sanctions experts in August, based on U.S. intelligence, found the number of transfers surging, with vessels turning off the transponders that show a ship's geographic location. Between January and May, North Korean ships made 89 deliveries of refined petroleum to the country's ports, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said in July. A senior Defense Department official recently described an escalating cat-and-mouse game with North Korea, as Pyongyang adapts its tactics to avoid being spotted by U.S. and allied aircraft and naval ships. "It's a sustained effort but I would tell you the North Koreans are learning, evolving, getting better so the ship-to-ship transfers are taking place farther away from the Peninsula," Randy Schriver, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said at a discussion this month at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. "So they're getting better with their own attempts to evade, and we're evolving as well in terms of our sustained effort to disrupt that." The head of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Phil Davidson, told a small group of reporters last month that the U.S. has stepped up its participation in the coalition, recently dedicating two ships to the mission and increasing surveillance flights by 50 percent. Another effect of the North Korean ships moving into waters belonging to other nations is those countries can share their intelligence about the smuggling with the international coalition, the three U.S. officials said. Schriver said coalition vessels and aircraft have not carried out forced boardings of ships but have gleaned information that allows governments to uncover the smuggling networks. "What's equally as powerful as boarding a ship is taking a picture of the hull, getting information about the ship involved in the illegal activity, and that allows you to get to the insurers, the networks, the people financing the operation, and so we've been successful with a camera as much as we would be if we were to proceed to boardings." The crew of a Canadian naval ship taking part in the sanctions monitoring, the HMCS Calgary, reportedly saw several ship-to-ship oil transfers in recent months during its deployment in the East China Sea, with suspected blacklisted vessels taking part in some cases. The mere presence of a Western warship prompted some smugglers to quickly turn and flee the area, Canadian media reported. "We noted in a few instances that the transfers would wrap up quite quickly and they would have to escape. So our presence disrupted several of the transfers," said Cmdr. Blair Saltel. Having survived decades of economic sanctions, North Korea has honed techniques to skirt international prohibitions, using shell companies, illicit financing, stealthy shipping movements, and partners in China and Russia to smuggle in prohibited goods, experts and former officials said. Analysts and firms that track North Korean shipping data say there are numerous signs that the regime continues to use deception to move coal out of North Korean ports for sale and to obtain oil through ship-to-ship transfers at sea. "I think they're certainly trying to keep apace with the sanctions regime," said Lucas Kuo, an analyst at C4ADS, a nonprofit research organization that uses data to track illicit networks. Two ships identified in a report by a U.N. panel this year for smuggling coal to Russian ports, the Sky Angel and the Sky Lady, continue to operate and recently made port visits to Japan even obtaining insurance paperwork, according to maritime and shipping sites. The Sky Angel pulled into the Japanese port of Muroran in July, and Sky Lady made a port of call at Tomakomai on Tuesday. "The fact that they're still able to acquire this insurance at least raises some questions," Kuo said. Time-lapse videos from a San Francisco-based private company, Planet Labs, have shown coal shipments moving out of North Korean export facilities at Nampho and Rason over the past year. The videos indicate coal traffic ramped up during the course of 2018, the website NK Pro reported. Apart from smuggling, legal trade between China and its impoverished neighbor has picked up again since a drop in 2017, when Pyongyang had angered Beijing with a flurry of missile tests. Analysts that try to track the price of fuel in North Korea have detected no major spike in gasoline prices, despite the strict quotas imposed by the U.N. sanctions, with prices below peaks reached last year. "While the price of diesel and petrol in Pyongyang appeared stable between July and October, we did see a slight increase in the cost of both products in mid-October, though not above previous levels observed in 2018," said Hamish Macdonald of NK Pro. Experts and foreign diplomats say Washington's "maximum pressure" campaign has faltered since President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June, with China relaxing its enforcement of sanctions. Even the U.S. president has said he would prefer to drop the term "maximum pressure" given the positive tone of his discussions with Kim. Despite the tentative detente between Kim and Trump, the Treasury Department has continued to press ahead on sanctions against North Korea in recent months. Treasury has blacklisted more individuals, ships and companies accused of violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea, and issued warnings to businesses and insurance companies to stay away from vessels or organizations suspected of taking part in smuggling operations. Both China and Russia insist they are consistently abiding by U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. The White House and the State Department declined requests for comment. As to whether China and Russia were fully enforcing international sanctions on Pyongyang, a State Department official told NBC News that all U.N. member states were obliged to carry out U.N. sanctions. Some lawmakers have long urged the U.S. to go after major Chinese banks or firms suspected of enabling North Korea's evasion of sanctions, arguing that Beijing helps insulate its neighbor from the full effect of international sanctions. But the Trump administration, like its predecessors, so far has chosen not to penalize large Chinese companies in connection with North Korea's sanction-busting. "The United States does not comment on internal deliberations regarding sanction designations, however our actions have made clear we will not hesitate to take unilateral action against entities that conduct prohibited activities or facilitate sanctions evasion," the State Department official said. Reuters reporter Lisa Girion stands by her report that Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos was in its baby powder. "Our report on the fact that J&J was aware of small amounts of asbestos in its talc, in its baby power, in the ore that it mined in Vermont to make baby power, is based entirely on their documents," Girion told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Friday. The Reuters story sent J&J shares down 9 percent on Friday and prompted a response from the health-care company that called the article "one-sided, false and inflammatory." "Simply put, the Reuters story is an absurd conspiracy theory, in that it apparently has spanned over 40 years, orchestrated among generations of global regulators, the world's foremost scientists and universities, leading independent labs, and J&J employees themselves," the company said in a statement. In addition to the internal J&J documents from 1971 to the early 2000s, Reuters also reviewed depositions and trial testimony. "We see that historically in the '70s, '80s, that era, there were company memos and reports where they're talking about asbestos, fretting about it, what to do about it, how to detect it, how to get rid of it," Girion said. "During that era they certainly were talking about it. Today, their position is that nothing in those reports is actually asbestos that got into baby powder," she added. There is also "no evidence" that they are currently selling any products with asbestos in it, Girion pointed out. On Friday, J&J said its baby powder is "safe and asbestos-free." Johnson & Johnson has been hit with a wave of lawsuits alleging the company's talc baby powder contained asbestos and caused cancers. The results have been split, with some juries siding with J&J and others unable to reach verdicts. In July, a Missouri jury ordered J&J to pay $4.69 billion in a case involving 22 women and their families. J&J has vowed to appeal the verdict. CNBC's Angelica LaVito contributed to this report. Spanish firm Acciona Energia has commenced construction work on its second wind farm in Texas. The Palmas Altas facility will have a capacity of 144.9 megawatts and will use 46 wind turbines. It will be located in Cameron County. Investment in the project amounts to roughly 176 million euros ($198.84 million). In a statement Thursday, Rafael Esteban, the CEO of Acciona Energy USA Global, described the U.S. as being one of the company's "main strategic markets." When fully up and running, the Palmas Altas wind farm will generate roughly 524 gigawatt hours of energy annually, which is equivalent to the consumption of 43,000 U.S. homes. This will "offset the emission of 503,000 metric tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide)," according to Acciona. The U.S. is home to "one of the largest and fastest-growing wind markets in the world," according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Texas itself supports more than 24,000 wind related jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Association. A saleswoman serves customers at a Huawei shop in Beijing, China, December 12, 2018. Jason Lee | Reuters Washington's decision to arrest a Huawei executive over the Chinese telecoms giant's business dealings with Iran seems hypocritical, according to veteran economist Stephen Roach. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 at the request of the U.S. government over allegations that she misled international banks about Iran-linked transactions that are in breach of American sanctions. She has since been released on bail and is due to appear in a Canadian court in February. Canadian officials insist the arrest wasn't politically motivated, but it's widely seen as a means for President Donald Trump to gain leverage in the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. "A number of financial institutions, including JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and international banks, were all judged guilty and paid enormous fines for violating sanctions in the last several years," Roach told CNBC's Eunice Yoon on Friday. "None of their executives, of course, went to jail why is Huawei being singled out for the sanctions violations?" Iran, in 2015, was removed from the United Nations' sanctions list when the country agreed to a deal on its nuclear program. Washington, however, withdrew from that accord earlier this year and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran. The U.S. is the only one "trying to enforce something that the international community is going the other way on," Roach said. The recent sell-off in the S&P 500 has pushed the index's valuation to its lowest level since March 2016, and if history is any indication this might be a buying signal. The last time the S&P's price/earnings ratio dropped below 17.35, the index rallied nearly 20 percent in the next year. Looking at the P/E allows investors to compare companies of drastically different prices across all sectors. At the most basic level, it's what the market is willing to pay for growth. Given the S&P 500's nearly 10 percent move off its recent high, and sharp decline in valuation, one market watcher says there are plenty of bargains to be found. "As a long-term investor, I think this is definitely a buying opportunity," said Mark Tepper, Strategic Wealth Partners president and CEO. On CNBC's "Trading Nation," Tepper said Thursday that stocks will move higher once there's clarity on the Fed's rate-hike path, and once trade tensions with China ease. He also pointed out that while earnings growth has been slowing, it's not contracting, meaning there could still be upside ahead. While Tepper is adding to his portfolio on the dip, he's not buying the market generally. He believes this bull run is in its late stages, so he's specifically looking for companies that outperform regardless of overall economic conditions. "I think you should focus on companies with low debt levels. The companies that get hurt the most when the economy slows are high-debt companies," he said. "This is now a stock picker's market, so it's time to ditch your index funds." While S&P companies broadly are experiencing earnings deceleration, Tepper also pointed out that software companies are bucking that trend and delivering growth. "They're basically all subscription based, which is recurring revenue, which is the best kind of revenue. So there are great opportunities out there for stock pickers." The S&P's valuation may be at its lowest level since March 2016, but TradingAnalysis.com founder and market technician Todd Gordon believes the pain isn't over. By examining the charts he's identified 2,350 as a key level to the downside for the S&P, meaning stocks could drop another 11 percent before this pullback reverses. "I don't think the buy point will be anywhere in the next 100 points," he said. "I do think we have another push to go despite some strong points in the market. ... I'm short, I think we go lower. If you're an investor, raise some cash." Tesla is slashing prices on its Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle in China after Beijing suspended some tariffs on cars imported from the U.S.. The company confirmed the news on Friday. Tariffs on U.S.-made cars and light trucks will be temporarily reduced to 15 percent from Jan. 1 until March 31, which temporarily brings tariffs on U.S. exports in line with other World Trade Organization member countries, said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor & economics at the Center for Automotive Research. The electric car maker has been hit hard by the steep duty on all vehicles imported to the country. The tariff on imported vehicles into China had originally been 25 percent, a policy that had been in place since China joined World Trade Organization, Dziczek said. On July 1, the country lowered the duty to 15 percent for every other member of the WTO except the United States, she said. China then boosted the tariffs solely on U.S.-made vehicles to 40 percent on July 6 in retaliation for U.S. duties on Chinese imports. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been particularly vocal about the tariffs China has long levied against U.S. imports, in comparison with the mostly low tariffs the U.S. has historically charged importers. Elon Elon 2 Tesla was not immediately available for comment. China accounted for 17.2 percent of Tesla's total revenues in 2017, but only 6 percent in the third quarter due to the impact of the tariffs, said CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson. STR | AFP | Getty Images The price of shipping a container from China to the United States has risen dramatically in the last year due to uncertainty surrounding trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. That's because Chinese exporters have been rushing to get goods to U.S. ports before new tariffs kick in, but data are suggesting that trend may soon run out of steam. China and the U.S., the world's two largest economies, have been locked in a tit-for-tat tariff fight over the last year, levying duties on each other's imports worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the last few months. Increasingly strong fears of an all-out trade war have inspired exporters to push forward shipment dates a phenomenon called front-loading. In fact, freight prices for containers going from China to the U.S. have surged more than 100 percent from a year ago as of the beginning of December, according to data from Freightos, an online freight marketplace, "Transpacific ocean freight peak season has been a bonanza, with prices still more than double last year," said a report on the most recent Freightos data published on the Baltic Exchange's news website. That was as freight rates for China to the U.S. West Coast jumped 128 percent while those from China to the U.S. East Coast surged 123 percent compared to the same period a year ago. In contrast, China to North Europe freight rates were up just 11 percent in the same period due to pre-Christmas cargoes. In fact, even before a September announcement that tariffs will be hiked, many importers were already stocking up as front-loading boosted the Chinese export machinery. "Many importers from China front-loaded in advance of the 1 January scheduled increase to the 10% trade tariff. That boosted transpacific peak pricing, but there is a limit as to how much front-loading you can, or should, do," Zvi Schreiber, CEO at Freightos, said in a statement cited by the Baltic Exchange's site. Changing trade routes American tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports were set to rise sharply on Jan. 1, but those have since been put on hold following U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent meeting at the G-20 in Argentina. There, they agreed to a 90-day ceasefire on tariff escalations while the two sides continued to negotiate a potential agreement. However, analysts and markets are skeptical about a lasting truce given the back-and-forth between the two economic powerhouses. "The irony is that after ... Trump has turned up the rhetoric, the United States has started importing even more from China," said Soren Skou, CEO of Maersk, the world's largest container shipper by capacity, according to a November Reuters report. Maersk's data indicated China's shipments to the U.S. had grown 5 to 10 percent in the third quarter compared to the prior year as retailers built up their inventories to avoid any new levies, Skou said, according to Reuters. Supply chain management departments in a range of industries have been on their toes for months. Exporters and logistics executives have confirmed the shifting of trade routes as factories rush to fulfill orders before a tariff hike. The U.S.-China tariff battle is even affecting the air cargo industry: Recently, the president and CEO of airport ground-handler and catering solutions provider SATS told CNBC his company has seen changes in routes due to the trade war. Chinese data show slowing growth Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 13) Filipina beauty queen Catriona Gray is arguably the top candidate in this year's Miss Universe, with pageant observers around the world calling her "the one to beat" among over 90 delegates. And with everyone's eyes trained on her, the 24-year-old Filipina-Australian makes sure it's not just her beauty that takes the spotlight. Gray had vowed that the whole country will be well-represented in her looks for the pageant. True enough, she incorporated Filipino materials and textile made by indigenous groups in her attires during events ahead of the coronation. Here are some of her Filipino-inspired looks: A day after she flew to Thailand in a modern Thai ensemble, Gray donned a white dress by Noel Crisostomo with a Sampaguita-inspired rattan bag. Later that day, she changed into a pink and blue dress made from T'nalak handwoven fabric by Jearson Demavivas. She continued flaunting local textiles with Nino Franco's T'boli embroidered skirt paired with white top. During their tour at snail farm, she wore a denim jacket by local clothing Lahi Lifestyle embroidered with the word "Kababayan" and a Pinoy jeepney. She faced Thai media in a beige dress made with modern T'nalak fabric also by Demavives Gray slayed in a modern ladies' barong made from hand-made pinya silk callado paired with an apple green high-waist skirt painted with Sampaguita and a T'nalak belt. During the pageant's National Costume competition on Monday, Gray sashayed in a LuzViMinda-inspired outfit, incorporating native designs from different tribes in the country's major islands. She wore a body suit printed with tattoo patterns used by indigenous people "Pintados," headpiece and brass accessories from South Cotabato, and customized knee-high boots with embroidered designs inspired by different indigenous textile patterns. At her back was a giant parol (lantern) representing Pampanga. Before the much-awaited competition, Gray wore Demavives' fuchsia pink blazer with T'nalak bustier. She donned a modern terno made from Inabel fabric of Ilocos and Kalinga fabric for the preliminary interview. Ahead of the preliminary competition on Thursday, Gray was seen in a mustard dress hand-painted with "Anahaw." Gray is hoping for the country's fourth Miss Universe crown. The coronation will be held on December 17 in Bangkok, Thailand. Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday. LinkedIn today revealed its top five emerging careers and in concert with other recent data found that blockchain developer is at the top of the list. Job listings for those who can create distributed ledgers using a peer-to-peer topology blockchain's construct have grown 33-fold in the past year, according to LinkedIn's 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report. In distant second place are machine learning engineers, positions for which have grown 12-fold over the same period. Rounding out the top five jobs in 2018: Application sales executive, machine learning specialist and professional medical representative. As blockchain jobs have grown, so too have programs that train developers and others in blockchain skills. For example, after creating an online course on cryptocurrencies and business-scale blockchain networks, UC Berkeley experienced thousands of signups. "It's no surprise that we're seeing an explosion of machine learning roles and continuing growth of data science roles. In fact, we started to see glimmers of this in last year's report, however both fields are starting to see more specialized roles emerge," Guy Berger, LinkedIn's chief economist, wrote in a blog. "It also may not shock you that Blockchain Developer is topping the list following this year's surge in interest around blockchain and cryptocurrency." Even as cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have lost as much as 80% of their value this year, the number of consumers purchasing the digital currencies has nearly doubled, according to a new report from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge. Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance The current number of unique active users of cryptocurrency wallets databases that store hash keys tied to owned digital currency is estimated to be between 2.9 million and 5.8 million, according to the report. It was based on survey data from almost 150 cryptocurrency companies and individuals across 38 countries. At least 1,876 people are working full-time in the cryptocurrency industry; the actual number is likely well above 2,000 when large mining organizations and other organizations that did not provide headcounts are added, according to the University of Cambridge report. The companies surveyed indicated they have 21 full-time employees, on average, but the existence of several large companies with larger workforces could skew the average. Researchers said it's useful to also note the median number of employees, which is nine. The lines between differing cryptocurrency industry sectors are increasingly blurred: 31% of cryptocurrency companies operate across two or more sectors, giving rise to a growing number of universal cryptocurrency companies. The rush to find blockchain developers has also put upward pressure on salaries in the field. Blockchain developers now command as much as $175,000, according to Hired, a job recruitment firm. Over the past 12 months, total job openings for blockchain skills have grown to 12,006, according to job data analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies. That represents a growth rate of 316%. (In June, Burning Glass reported 5,743 blockchain developer jobs.) LinkedIn reported the top skills for blockchain developers include Solidity (a programming language for creating smart contracts); Ethereum (an open-source blockchain that includes a cryptocurrency); Cryptocurrency development; and Node.js (a JavaScript used to write command line tools on blockchain nodes or servers). The top industries hiring are IT and related services, computer software and Internet firms. The three top firms hiring blockchain developers are IBM, ConsenSys, and Chainyard. The cities where demand for blockchain developers is highest include San Francisco, New York City and Atlanta, according to LinkedIn. "Only time will tell if blockchain will be a long-standing trend in the job market," Berger noted. Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance LinkedIn is just the latest job oriented site to highlight the surge in blockchain-related jobs. Janco Associates, a management consulting firm that conducts annual salary surveys, said in October that the median salary for a blockchain developer was $127,000, with experienced individuals commanding upwards of $172,000 when they move to new organizations. Janco Associates "ERP and Blockchain jobs are in great demand. Individuals can look forward to salaries continuing to increase," Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said at the time. Hired CEO Mehul Patel said in an earlier interview that since launching blockchain as an expertise on his company's platform in late 2017, Hired has seen a 400% increase in demand for blockchain engineers. "Interestingly, blockchain engineer has not solidified itself as a standalone job title quite yet; instead, blockchain is increasingly being included as an area of expertise for back-end, solutions architects and machine-learning engineers," Patel said. One dollar bribe, five years in jail: Singapore's zero tolerance for corruption In an incredible instance of zero tolerance for corruption, Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CIPB) apprehended two migrant workers for repeated instances of accepting one Singapore dollar in bribe money. SGD1 (INR51 or USD0.73) cannot buy even a cup of coffee in the three countries of which the currencies have been quoted. The CPIB release stated, "Employees are expected to carry out their duties fairly instead of obtaining bribes in exchange for favours. Even if the bribe amount is as low as $1, they can be taken to task. Bribes of any amount or any kind will not be tolerated." Chen was also charged for obtaining similar bribes from other truck drivers over the course of nearly two years. Zhao was charged for obtaining similar bribes over the course of 3-1/2 years. Photo courtesy: Cogent Holdings On December 11, 2018, two forklift truck operators employed by Cogent Container Depot Pte Ltd (Cogent) were each charged with "small value bribes" from truck drivers at Cogent. Chen Ziliang, a 47-year-old male, was charged with one count of corruptly attempting to obtain from one Jiang Xingnian, a gratification of SG $1, as an inducement for not delaying the collection of a container onto Jiangs vehicle, an offence punishable under section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Chapter 241. In addition, he was also charged with one count of embarking on a course of conduct between May 2016 and March 2018 of corruptly obtaining gratification of similar value from truck drivers at Cogent, as an inducement for not delaying the collection or return of containers onto the vehicles of these truck drivers. As per CIPB, this constituted an offence punishable under section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Chapter 241, which is an amalgamated charge pursuant to section 124(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code, Chapter 68. Zhao Yucun, a 43-year-old male, was also charged with one count of embarking on a course of conduct between September 2014 and March 2018 of corruptly obtaining gratification of similar value from truck drivers at Cogent, as an inducement for not delaying the collection or return of containers onto the vehicles of these truck drivers. This constituted an offence punishable under section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Chapter 241, which is an amalgamated charge pursuant to section 124(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code, Chapter 68. Singapore adopts a zero-tolerance approach towards corruption. It is a serious offence to bribe, or attempt to bribe another individual or entity. Any person who is convicted of a corruption offence can be fined up to $100,000 or sentenced to imprisonment of up to 5 years or to both. Earlier in the year, Singapore's global position was improved to sixth in the annual ranking of countries that are considered least corrupt in 2017, moving up a notch from the seventh position in 2016. Singapore has alternative sources for eggs even as Malaysia signals of limiting exports Faced with the prospect of limiting of exports of eggs from Malaysia, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has said that Singapore has a wide-range of alternative sources for eggs in line with its food diversification strategy. The response of AVA came after Malaysian Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said it was looking into limiting or stopping the export of eggs to ensure sufficient supply for its domestic market. Last year, egg imports from Malaysia made up 73 per cent of Singapore's egg consumption. Photo courtesy: Wikipedia He also said that they will also investigate if there are elements of cartel activities in Malaysia causing the price of eggs to increase consistently every week for the past several months. In a statement issued, AVA said, Our importers are still getting their usual egg supplies from Malaysia. Nevertheless, in line with our overall food diversification strategy, we have a wide range of alternative sources for our eggs, including our local farms. AVA also said that last year egg imports from Malaysia made up 73 per cent of Singapore's egg consumption. Local egg farms of Singapore produce about 27 per cent for domestic consumption while less than 1 per cent was imported from accredited farms in Thailand, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The NTUC Fairprice says that about 40 per cent of its eggs come from Malaysia, and prices have increased by 5 per cent in the last week. However, the company has practised diversified sourcing to ensure a stable supply. Whilst the internal battle waging in the Conservative Party over Brexit is making all the headlines at the moment, the struggle in the Labour Party should not be overlooked. Its unusual because it cuts across the usual split in the Opposition, which is between the leadership and membership on the one hand and the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on the other. On Brexit, however, the membership is much more in tune with Labours overwhelmingly Europhile MPs. This means that whilst those around Jeremy Corbyn might want Brexit and its clear many of them do, not least because it will end a lot of legal restrictions on a hard-left economic programme they cant say so openly. The result has been a campaign of misdirection and procrastination, chronicled so well by Tim Shipman in All Out War, and waged so effectively during the campaign that our editor named Seumas Milne as The Sixth Person who Made Brexit Happen. As March 29th looms and the battle for Brexit enters its final stages, Corbyn is coming under mounting pressure to endorse a second referendum. John McDonnell, his close ally and the more adept politician of the pair, has been signalling a willingness to rethink. But the Labour leader has good reason to hesitate, and not just because he might personally support Brexit. There is also the fact that any clarification of Labours Brexit position risks undercutting its electoral coalition just before a snap general election which would almost certainly have to precede any re-run of the referendum. Yes, a majority of Labour voters back Remain. But a substantial portion are not, and one of the few bright points for the Tories in the 2017 election was the emerging evidence that Labour-inclined Leave voters can be persuaded to vote for the Conservatives as the party of Brexit. Until now, Labour has been luxuriating in the ability, as the opposition, to avoid having to be precise about what its Brexit position is. This was made plain earlier this week in Channel 4s TV debate, when James Cleverly skewered Barry Gardiner over the latters contradictory, almost utopian account of how the negotiations on the future relationship would go if only Jeremy Corbyn, and not Theresa May, were pressing the flesh in Brussels and Salzburg. The evidence suggests that Corbyns strategy, which is perfectly sensible if somewhat cynical, is simply to allow Brexit to happen without having to dirty his hands in the process. If this is the case then the Prime Ministers run out the clock strategy playing for time until the only options are her deal or none actually suits him. By avoiding a reckoning on the Withdrawal Agreement the Government has postponed the hard questions about what to do next, both for themselves and for him. All this might explain why the Labour leader is proving so reluctant to table a vote of no confidence. Its true that at present Labour would lose it the Democratic Unionists look set to vote with the Government unless the deal passes but unlike the Conservatives internal rules theres nothing to stop the Opposition (or any other party) tabling another one, and then another. James Callaghans administration fought of several before famously succumbing in 1979. But if a vote of no confidence failed then Labours current line, that they want a general election first and foremost, would be weakened. You cant secure an election, their activists could rightly point out, so what now?. Shailesh Vara is a former Northern Ireland Minister, and is MP for North West Cambridgeshire. I voted to remain in the EUU referendum, but I believe the largest ever public mandate should be respected. Parliament should deliver what the people wanted and that is to leave the European Union. In so doing, it is important that we get the very best deal possible. The current Withdrawal Agreement is clearly unsatisfactory, and that is why I resigned from my ministerial post in the Northern Ireland Office. The bedrock of dissent has been about the backstop. It strikes at our nations soul and imperils our Union by treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. If we signed up to it, we would be trapped under the thumb of the EU as its satellite, obeying its laws without a say, unless the EU and its members gave permission for us to leave. The backstop would place the UK in a single customs territory, causing two fundamental problems for our post-Brexit trading relationships. First, it would stop us from being able to strike trade deals with non-EU countries, as it would bar us from controlling our tariffs and regulations. Without control in these areas, we would be useless to any prospective trading partner. Second, with regard to the UK-EU trading relationship, the backstop would create a climate which lends itself to continued EU belligerence. The EU would have no incentive to make concessions in future trade negotiations. Once member states have the ability to wield the threat of plunging us into the backstop and keeping us there indefinitely we will have no alternative but to make concessions we dont want to. The Spanish could use Gibraltar as a bargaining chip and the French could demand continued access by EU boats to UK fishing waters. We cant possibly let the backstop hold our future trade talks hostage in this way. So we need a new approach A Better Deal and that whats been published by a team of legal and customs experts. It is supported by remainers like me, by leavers such as David Davis and Dominic Raab and crucially, the DUP. It doesnt throw out the Prime Ministers plan. Indeed, it retains the vast majority of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, whilst identifying and removing the poison pills that have prevented it from finding cross-party support. A Better Deal provides the Government with an alternative vision to present to Brussels. It is likely to command support in Parliament, closely resembles the offer made by the EU itself last March and honours the referendum result. Our proposal would restore rather than destroy the UKs leverage for future trade talks with the EU. It safeguards the integrity of the United Kingdom, since it doesnt treat Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK, and it would allow us to be a credible trade partner for third countries after 29th March 2019. A Better Deal bins the divisive and ill-thought-through Northern Ireland Protocol and replaces it with an extendable backstop. The new backstop would allow us to control our own tariff schedules and regulations so its not an inherently negative situation for the UK to be in. In fact, some may even argue that under our proposal the backstop becomes a front stop and for that reason, no EU country could use it to cajole us into having to agree to a set of appalling terms from Brussels which would let British consumers and businesses down. The new backstop would provide for tariff-free trade in goods; it would bring about regulatory cooperation between us and the EU as well as regulatory recognition based on deemed equivalence making use of the unique fact that our regulations will be identical on day one of Brexit. This new and reformed backstop include an agreement to deploy advanced customs and trade facilitation measures, including any specific measures necessary for the Northern Ireland/Ireland border, in addition to normal, free trade agreement-style level playing field provisions on labour, the environment, competition and state aid unlike the hugely one-sided commitments in the Withdrawal Agreement. And importantly, it will include a commitment by all parties not to place infrastructure on the border nobody wants to see that. Brussels wants to do a deal with us. They offered us a free trade deal back in March, and I suspect that the EU negotiators have been surprised at our inability to grab what is on offer. We have a chance to put our future prosperity in our hands as we become a great, self-governing, free trading nation once again. The proposals in A Better Deal will, I believe, meet with the approval of many of my colleagues in Parliament as well as the public. It stays loyal to the Belfast Agreement, avoids a hard border and allows us to leave the arrangement, should we wish to do so. The UK is crying out for a better deal. Lets make sure we deliver it. Adding calorie counts to menus has been a popular point of discussion recently. While some believe its key to pushing consumers to make healthier food choices, others are convinced the act is pointless. Though researchers have spoken out on both sides of the argument, a group of researchers from Dartmouth College recently found that restaurants that have both pictures of food and calorie counts are more likely to sway consumers ordering habits. Our findings suggest that calorie-labeling may alter responses in the brains reward system when considering food options, said researcher Andrea Courtney. Moreover, we believe that nutritional interventions are likely to be more successful if they take into account the motivation of the consumer, including whether or not they diet. The brains role The researchers had 42 undergraduates participate in the study, with students looking at nearly 200 images of food both with calorie counts and without. The group was split almost evenly between those who dieted and those who didnt, as the researchers believed the two groups would make different food choices. Everyone was shown the same images, and most of them included fast food items. While hooked up to an fMRI machine, the participants were asked to rate how much they wanted to eat the food on a scale from one to four, and then how likely theyd be to choose the food items in the dining hall on the same scale. The researchers found that both dieters and non-dieters were affected by the combination of food pictures and calorie counts. After seeing both, the participants were less likely to choose the unhealthy items. However, when the calorie counts came off the food pictures, the results were a bit different. Those who dieted regularly were more likely to continue to avoid fattier foods, whereas the non-dieters didnt have the same response. The researchers saw these results as positive, as they further prove that consumers who are looking for healthier options will continue to seek them out when calorie counts arent available. However, when calorie counts are present, they help guide consumers choices. In order to motivate people to make healthier food choices, policy changes are needed that incorporate not only nutritional information, including calorie content, but also a public education component, which reinforces the long-term benefits of a healthy diet, said researcher Kristina Rapuano. Posting calorie counts Earlier this year, chain restaurants with at least 20 stores were required to start providing customers with calorie information as part of the Affordable Care Act. Though experts went back and forth on the pros and cons of this venture, the goal was to have consumers making healthier choices when they eat out. Later in the year, researchers explored the effects of having calorie counts on menus and found that consumers were more likely to order something with fewer calories when the calorie information was in a prominent place. What this paper shows is that a trivially simple intervention could increase the power of calorie information on menus, said researcher Steven Dallas. The calorie labeling policy should not necessarily be deemed a failure, and could in fact become a powerful tool in combating the obesity epidemic. 100% Website 058.ba uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 72667 bytes (70.96 kb uncompressed) and 11768 bytes (11.49 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-17, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. 100% Website ijmrhs.com uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery and Boostrap. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of 49491 bytes (48.33 kb uncompressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-28, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. The Washington Post reports today that many of the incoming Democratic freshman representatives do not want to serve on the House Financial Services Committee, traditionally a plum assignment because it facilitates representatives' ability to fund-raise for their reelection. I'm proud to say that the member-elect who is proudly bucking the trend is our former co-blogger, Katherine Porter, and I can confidently say that her interest in the committee has nothing to do with fund-raising and everything to do with its jurisdiction. There are a lot of good reasons an incoming member might not want to serve on HFS--the member might have expertise or interest that more closely tracks the jurisdiction of another committee. But I worry that the lack of interest also reflects a really problematic trend on the left. While many progressive politicians like to decry abuses in the financial services industry, they often have little to no understanding of the industry and aren't interested in gaining one. The industry and its regulation are complex. Its often not as intuitively understandable as, say, issues of criminal justice reform. But its consequences are at least as far-reaching, both because all Americans depend on financial services and because of the influence of financial services on the whole political process. Any politician who is concerned about social inequality ought to be deeply engaged with financial regulation. It's not the low-hanging fruit, perhaps, but it's where the future of the middle class will be decided. Sadly, this phenomenon isn't limited to progressive politicians. It's endemic on law school faculties. I recall several years ago hearing colleagues bemoaning the financial crisis foreclosure crisis, but having absolutely no clue about what led up to it and what was contributing to it. They did, however, have lots of strong normative views on methods of Constitutional interpretation. The irony here is that my colleagues very much understand that dry, technical legal rules can have enormous social consequences. But they prefer to engage primarily with social justice, rather than economic justice issues, even though the two are intimately linked. I suspect this is part of the general phenomenon of the legal academy having disengaged with its traditional bread-and-butter---commercial law. But it meant that much of the progressive establishment was asleep at the wheel (if not financially co-opted) when financial deregulation occurred in the 1990s and 2000s. To be sure, there's a small cadre of progressive thought-leaders and politicians (most notably some of our former co-bloggers) who have taken the time to understand the financial system in depth, and they've contributed in an out-sized manner to financial regulatory debates. But the fact remains that most progressives don't want to touch financial and commercial regulation. And we're all the worse off for it. P&O Cruises has announced a series of new shore experiences, with their Food Heroes leading guests on a journey of discovery in Norway. Chef Marco Pierre White, patissier Eric Lanlard and wine expert Olly Smith will each bring their expertise and flair to the excursions. According to P&O, they will guide small groups of guests on a mission to learn more about local delicacies and to discover how top Norwegian chefs create gourmet delights with regional produce. These guest experiences will be offered across seven cruises in 2019, before going on sale for Ionas maiden season in the Norwegian fjords from May 2020. P&O Cruises president Paul Ludlow said: We know our guests want to immerse themselves in new cultures and enjoy authentic experiences that provide a sense of the locality they visit. Food has an unmatched ability to communicate a unique sense of place, with local cuisine providing a direct connection to the history of a region, the soul of its people and the rhythm of daily life. Our Food Heroes will deliver a unique menu of experiences, with all the ingredients for the most appetizing of adventures. Guests going ashore in Stavanger with Chef Marco Pierre White are promised a journey from farm to high-end cuisine. Marco will take guests to the restaurant Fish & Cow, where owner and celebrity chef Kjartan Skjelde will explain how local seasonal produce is the real star of the show. At a local farm guests will help the chefs pick the freshest ingredients. Back in the kitchen Marco and Kjartan will then transform the harvest into dishes - with guests getting their turn to recreate the meal under expert tuition. Eric Lanlard will take his guests to experience some of the countrys dairy products at a collective of fermenters and preservers in Stavanger, after learning more about the importance of local ingredients at the Scandi-chic restaurant Tango. The master patissier will then be joined in the kitchen by Mary-Ann Skjeie, an award winning local chef. The pair will whip up a dessert of yoghurt mousse with beignets and hay ice cream, made with fresh yoghurt from Stavanger Ysteri. The group will then get the opportunity to recreate the tasty treat. In Bergen, award winning drinks expert Olly Smith will take a small group of guests to a brewery. They will journey to the heart of the citys craft ale scene, discovering more about the techniques used to create seven very different types of beer at the 7 Fjell Brewery. A selection of expertly paired dishes will complement the tasting session, with Olly guiding his guests through a range of flavors and ingredients. The Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority and Costa Cruises have signed a contract extension through 2044 for the concession agreement for the port of Savona, according to a statement. The event was attended by Paolo Emilio Signorini, President of the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority and Neil Palomba, President of Costa Cruises, who signed the new agreement in the the presence of Giovanni Toti, President of the Liguria Region and Ilaria Caprioglio, Mayor of Savona. On November 3, 2019, Savona will host the naming ceremony for the new Costa Smeralda. From November 9, 2019 until spring 2021, Costa Smeralda will be in Savona every Saturday for a one-week sailing calling at Marseilles, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Civitavecchia/Rome and La Spezia. In preparation for the new ship, major work is set to take place in Savona, for a total investment of 24 million euro. The Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority will be deepening the sea bed in front of the Palacrociere main cruise terminal quay to increase the draught. The total cost of the work is estimated to be 19.35 million euros. Costa Cruises will invest a total of 4.5 million euros and also make changes to the Palacrociere cruise terminal for the bigger ship. The work will not interfere with the operation of the port, where Costa ships are expected to make 155 calls in 2019, according to a statement. The development of the cruise industry in Genoa and Savona is a key component of the Port Authoritys mission and a focal point of investment programmes currently underway to fund infrastructure projects in this thriving segment of the Ligurian ports," said Paolo Emilio Signorini, president of the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority. "The Port Authoritys commitment has been flanked by a sizable investment program implemented by Costa Cruises to upgrade the homeport facilities. Savona and Genoa rank amongst the Top 10 Italian cruise ports, with the National and Regional Tourist Agencies forecasting further increases in passenger traffic in 2019, thereby consolidating Ligurias position as Italys premier regional cruise destination. This is an important recognition for Genoa and Savonas cruise industry in the aftermath of the tragic collapse of the Morandi Bridge last August. Savona is the main home port of Costa Cruises, where we generate annual traffic of over 800,000 passengers," added Neil Palomba, president of Costa. "This new agreement is a further success in our fruitful collaboration with the Port Authority, and lays even more solid and long-lasting foundations for the investments we have already decided to make to adapt the Palacrociere in preparation for the arrival of Costa Smeralda, our new flagship, at the end of 2019." BRIDGEPORT Toshirea Jackson, 49, of Bridgeport pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to one count of health care fraud. According to the Office of the United States Attorney District of Connecticut, Jackson billed Medicaid for psychotherapy services that she never provided through a pair of Fairfield Avenue social and psychotherapy services Transitional Development and Training and It Takes A Promise. BRIDGEPORT From October 2016 through this past October, employees with the citys Public Facilities Department sold nearly $35,500 worth of scrap metal, according to documents recently obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media. What happened to those profits paid in cash is the question. There is an ongoing investigation by police and Mayor Joe Ganims administration into alleged improper scrap metal sales. In November, Police Chief Armando Perez confirmed the Office of Internal Affairs had opened a case into an anonymous letter to the City Council. The letter writer said that the public facilities department typically sells scrap metal to Sims of New Haven, and is paid with checks deposited to the city. Perez in early November had told Hearst the police probe would probably be completed the following week. But, the author claimed, more than $25,000 of off-the-municipal-books cash sales of scrap metal were made to P.C. Metals of Bridgeport. Public Facilities Director John Ricci in November acknowledged some off-the-books transactions. But Ricci said the money he estimated $5,500 collected over his three years in charge went into a special morale-boosting petty cash or sunshine fund for meals, birthday cakes, event tickets, minor equipment needs and donations to community causes. But recently, some council members and Hearst were given an eight-page printout of P.C. Metals transaction records from an anonymous source. Those documents show 90 individual sales of scrap metal-for-cash by the city totaling $35,482.55 between Oct. 18, 2016, and Oct. 27, 2018. The documents also specify the type of metal, its weight, in some cases the name of the Bridgeport employee who sold it and what they were paid. Hearst has confirmed that many of the named employees work for public facilities or for the parks office, which falls under Riccis massive public facilities operation. Any new information that has been received has been forwarded to the Chief of Police or should have been forwarded, said Council President Aidee Nieves Thursday. She declined to comment further on what she said was an open investigation. The scrap metal controversy is politically charged one for Ganim and his administration. Ganim, who ran Bridgeport from 1991 until he was convicted of corruption in 2003, waged a successful comeback in 2015 and pledged to run an ethical, transparent government. Ricci, a veteran of City Hall, is considered by many council members one of the mayors most competent department heads. Both Ricci and Perez played key roles in Ganims 2015 victory, and Ricci aided the mayors failed gubernatorial bid earlier this year. Ricci is also a good friend of Democratic Town Chairman Mario Testa. Following Hearsts initial report on the scrap metal investigation, the Finance Department shut down public facilities petty cash fund and received a little over $6,000. Ricci has said he inherited the sunshine fund when Ganim put him in charge of public facilities in 2016, though some prior employees have told Hearst the fund involved modest employee contributions, not scrap metal revenues. The Finance Department also asked other municipal offices to report any off-the-books funds and to similarly deposit the money with the city. It is imperative that all incomes derived from the various operations of city departments, including from any surplus property, be properly accounted for and that any funds derived from such transactions be deposited in the proper city bank accounts, Finance Director Kenneth Flatto wrote in a memorandum. A parks employee subsequently turned in $1,400. BRIDGEPORT - A Florida man was ordered held in lieu of $200,000 bond Friday after police said he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl here. Jason Zafrin, 50, of East Delray Beach, was charged with third-degree sexual assault, enticing a minor in a sex act and illegal sexual contact. SHELTON Lifelong Shelton resident Dina Marks has earned the 2019 Connecticut Association of Schools Middle School Assistant Principal of the Year award. Each year, applications are accepted for the elementary, middle, and high school assistant awards. Marks, the assistant principal at Shelton Intermediate School, was chosen by the CAS Awards and Recognition Committee, a selection committee consisting of active and retired principals and assistant principals. I am proud to represent Shelton Intermediate School and our educational community, said Marks, and this award recognizes the dedication of all of our educators. It reflects the great work that happens every day in Shelton schools and in schools all over Connecticut. It is a honor to bring this home to Shelton, said Marks, who was recognized for the honor during last months Shelton Board of Education meeting. We have a great team. Im proud to be just a little piece of a great leadership team and a great faculty. Nominated for the award by SIS Principal Kenneth Saranich, who said Marks is, at all times, energetically engaged in efforts to move the school forward. It is such a gift to have an assistant principal whom you can ask to perform any task, undertake any project or launch any initiative and you know it will be met with success, said Saranich. She keeps getting better and better; and the building gets better and better along with her. Superintendent Christopher Clouet praised Marks ability to balance the complexities of the work of todays assistant principal. Dina is a resourceful and skillful problem-solver and a good strategic planner, said Clouet. She has it all the technical skills, the knowledge of curriculum and instruction, and, most importantly, a deep love for kids. Marks has served the Shelton public schools and community for her entire professional career. Now in her ninth year as assistant principal of SIS, Saranich said Marks tackles her ever-increasing responsibilities with the same passion and energizing leadership which she brought to the position upon her appointment in 2009. Marks said her personal mission is to make SIS the most positive place it can be, and she is always looking for ways to create a welcoming and cheerful school environment. People who visit SIS on any given Friday will see her mission brought to life. Her weekly High-five Fridays tradition, popular among the student body, buoys kids spirits and fills the hallways with an aura of celebration and joyfulness. SIS is my extended family, and I lead our school as I do my family, with compassion and caring, said Marks. And the positive effects of her warmth and goodwill are felt throughout the entire school community, according to language arts teacher Kristen Nigretti. Dina leads from a place of kindness, said Nigretti. We feel genuinely loved here. Everything she does comes from a genuine, sincere place in her heart. Adds SIS parent Lisbeth Condo, Mrs. Marks can be firm and authoritative and students know she expects good behavior, added SIS parent Lisbeth Condo. But she is also soft and human. CUNA Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan met with senior administration officials at the White House Tuesday to discuss credit union advocacy priorities for 2019 and beyond. Among the topics Donovan addressed were data security, filling the vacancy on the NCUA board, concerns with the current expected credit loss (CECL) standard, housing finance reform and opportunities for financial services to serve legal cannabis-based business. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., introduced a NAFCU-sought bill Thursday (S. 3750) that would delay the NCUAs risk-based capital (RBC) rule an additional year moving its implementation date from Jan. 1, 2020, to Jan. 1, 2021. The NCUA in October approved of a one-year delay of the rule moving it from Jan. 1, 2019 to Jan. 1, 2020 and Rounds bill would provide credit unions with an additional year to ensure proper compliance. The agency, in its action, also amended the definition of a complex credit union from $100 million to $500 million exempting an additional 1,026 credit unions from the rule a change welcomed by NAFCU. On behalf of our membership and the entire credit union industry, we thank Senator Mike Rounds for supporting credit unions and introducing legislation to delay the NCUAs RBC rule an additional year, said NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler. While NCUAs delay was extremely welcome, we believe additional study is needed particularly as relates to ensuring that credit union capital requirements are no more stringent than those required of the banking industry. Edward Snowden Calls For Google To Stay Out Of China On the eve of Google chief executive Sundar Pichais testimony to the US Congress on 12th December, a coalition of human rights groups and activists, including former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, are demanding more details on the internet search giants potential plans to build out its China business. And so NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has added his voice to human rights groups asking Google to back out of its plans to launch a censored search engine in China. In an open letter addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, signed by Snowden and various human rights groups including Amnesty International, the signatories asked Google to kill its plans to re-enter the Chinese market, codenamed "Project Dragonfly." Snowden signed the most recent letter in his capacity as president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. In August, 14 human rights groups penned an open letter to Google asking for it to kill Project Dragonfly, to which Google's Senior Vice President for Global Affairs Kent Walker wrote a reply in October. But in this newest letter, the signatories said they found his response dissatisfactory. "Google's response - along with further details that have since emerged about Project Dragonfly - only heightens our fear that the company may knowingly compromise its commitments to human rights and freedom of expression, in exchange for access to the Chinese search market," the letter states. "New details leaked to the media strongly suggest that if Google launches such a product it would facilitate repressive state censorship, surveillance, and other violations affecting nearly a billion people in China," it continued. The letter pointed to recent media reports which the signatories found troubling, and which in some instances contradicted Walker's letter. For example, the signatories say that while Walker told them the product was not close to launch, a leaked transcript of an internal meeting obtained by The Intercept showed a Google exec saying the product could be "six to nine months [to launch]." The new letter, which has 71 signatories, came on the eve of Sundar Pichai's testimony to Congress. Business Insider: You Might Also Read: Inspired: China Measures Citizens' Trustworthiness Biden: Omicron variant a 'cause for concern, not a cause for panic' Politics Manila (CNN Philippines Life) In October, Robinsons Galleria launched a new digital campaign featuring actress Alice Dixson in an effort to advertise the malls recently renovated interiors. In the ad, Dixson can be seen browsing through racks of clothing and walking into the fitting room to try them on, but she feels as though she is being watched. A humanoid snake reveals itself but its actually just a child in a costume. In a little over a month, the campaign has reached 2.3 million views and tens of thousands of likes, comments, and shares on Facebook. If parts of this story seem familiar to you, youre not alone. The campaign makes a reference to a decades-old urban legend which claims that the mall was a secret hideaway for Robinson, supposed mutant son of John Gokongwei and twin brother of Robina Gokongwei-Pe. According to the legend, Robinson hid out in the department store fitting rooms to prey on unsuspecting young women, and certain versions state that he had attacked, or perhaps fallen in love with, Dixson herself. Celebrities tend to be common elements of urban legends, after all theres Richard Geres gerbil incident, and Lady Gagas secret life as a hermaphrodite. Urban legends are part of a broader concept that is folklore, says Prof. Carlos P. Tatel, Jr., anthropologist and coordinator of the folklore studies program in the University of the Philippines. Folklore has two root words: folk, which corresponds to people, and lore, which corresponds to stories and narratives. Put them together, Tatel explains, and it means narratives [or] things about a group of people. Operationalized, he adds, the concept boils down to a knowledge of people: What [they] do, their daily lives, their ideas, their habits, behavior, rituals, even whats on their minds. All of it make up [the school of thought called] kaalamang bayan. Collective consciousness and creating culture Specifically, urban legends are parts of kaalamang bayan that are rooted in urban areas and cities. The thing about urban legends is that they prove that folklore is not relegated to the rural area, Tatel says. Folklore is common everywhere, whether it is rural or urban. Regarding the dichotomy of city and province, the legends counter or disprove the idea that there is a divide between rural and urban sensibilities. Instead, Tatel explains, theres one continuous general consciousness of the people. More often than not, by the time we hear an urban legend, because of the speed at which it spreads and its wide reach, it will have become difficult to point out exactly where it came from and how it started. It gets told over and over and repeated, as though an object in a game of telephone or pass the message, and details are blurred and changed, resulting in different versions. Urban legends help you understand the nature of life, the nature of the people, of collective consciousness, because [the urban setting] helps you understand city norms and city life. Prof. Carlos P. Tatel, Jr. People will talk about it and some will remember what happened, and they will pass it on from one generation to another, hanggang sa maging part of the collective consciousness, Tatel explains. This is no different from other forms of culture na you dont know when or where it started, pero people just do it. In time, it becomes part of the culture. This, he adds, makes urban legends a factor of culture making. The concept of a city is fairly recent, having existed within the past 200 years or so. Urban legends, then, are fairly modern examples of folklore. Tatel says that common factors include popular culture, media, capitalists, buildings and transportation, crimes, [and other] elements that occur in or are associated with a city. A friend of a friend of a friend may have been injected with a syringe along Recto, only to find a note that said, Welcome to the HIV world. Your mother may have told you about Agapito Flores, the Filipino man who supposedly invented fluorescent lights. You may have found yourself on Balete Drive, just waiting to catch a glimpse of a white lady in the rearview. The making of a myth The Robinsons Galleria story became mythical hearsay precisely because its set in a mall, which has become a familiar part of life, if not a way of life, in Filipino municipalities. Tatel and Dax Carnay, creative director of advertising agency Echochannels which produced the Dixson campaign, are both familiar with the urban legend, and each had his own recollection of having heard of it. Tatel, who was in high school at the time, attributes its beginnings to good, old-fashioned commercial rivalry. You can say that its just a way to undermine the success of Robinsons [by other malls], kasi may competition, and it caught on. In a way, this tactic seemed to have worked for Carnay, who was in elementary school when he heard it, as he remembers that people wouldnt even go to Galleria because we were scared it was actually true. Another urban legend that appears to have been brought about by attempts to ruin a business is the rumor that Chinese food, specifically siopao, contains cat meat. The success of Ma Mon Luk, one of the countrys pioneering modern Chinese restaurants, became a catalyst for others to open restaurant of their own. Ivan Man Dy, who leads walking tours of Binondo, Manilas food culture called the Big Binondo Food Wok, told Pepper.ph that the siomeow myth may have come from their efforts to bring Ma Mon Luk down. Kowloon House, which also rose in popularity in the 90s, suffered from similar hearsay. In the same article, the Philippine Food and Drug Administration confirmed that inspections were conducted at Chinese restaurants, and no traces of cat meat were ever found. Part of the reasoning behind the persistence of this rumor is the stereotype that Chinese immigrants are cheap and would prefer to slaughter stray cats than spend on real meat. Fact-checking website Snopes states that the cat meat urban legend has been found to have been around since the earliest years of the British Empire in England and to the 1850s in the United States, and even then, it was arguably rooted in racist and xenophobic notions, perpetuated by the difference in cultures between China and other countries. As a historical figure, Jose Rizal is also the subject of a few strange myths. One such story supposes that he may have been the biological father of Adolf Hitler, following a one-night tryst in Germany or Austria. However, accounts of Rizals travels across Europe prove this false, as he was in London and then France at the time of Hitlers conception and birth between 1888 and 1889. Rizals time in London is tied to an even more interesting possibility that he was notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper, who struck fear and panic in the city when he was staying there. In historian Ambeth Ocampos book Looking Back 5: Rizals Teeth, Bonifacios Bones, he writes about this legend, noting that Rizal made a passing reference to Jack the Ripper in an essay on the Guardia Civil for La Solidaridad. Theorists reasoned that Rizal was roughly the same height (Jack stood no more than 57), had a mustache, was around the same age, and even had the same initials. Jack the Ripper killed victims with surgical precision, giving investigators the impression that the menace may have been a doctor, and Rizal was a doctor, as well. Most interesting is the fact that the killings are believed to have ceased at the same time that Rizal left London. Lore in the time of social media Perhaps one of the most well-known local urban legends in the Philippines is that of the above mentioned white lady on Balete Drive, which dates back to at least the 1950s. A story published in a newspaper in the mid-2000s purports that the myth was fabricated by a reporter in the 50s to make for an interesting story, combining multiple accounts. This reporter may have been Neal H. Cruz, who wrote in the Philippine Inquirer about his experiences investigating Balete Drive. A friend of the white lady shared that she was actually a victim of a hit-and-run; a lost soul looking for revenge. He also interviewed a police captain who said he picked up a hitchhiking woman wearing all-white, only to find that she had disappeared into thin air at the end of the street. The police captains story has become a common iteration of the urban legend; only today, its most attributed to taxi drivers on night shifts. In a modern spin, a Grab passenger now claims that her driver was dropping off a passenger at Robinsons Magnolia, only for her to vanish once they pass Balete Drive. There were supposedly records of unpaid transactions with routes along Balete Drive. Though one has to wonder, however, how a ghost can even create a Grab account. Sometimes, people spread stories because they're interesting, not necessarily because theyve been verified to be true. In social media where likes and shares are a currency, urban legends and fabricated stories will inevitably arise. Mac Arboleda In the early days of the internet, urban legends would be diligently and routinely passed along as warnings through forwarded emails. In the age of Twitter threads and Facebook posts, the viral nature of hearsay has only intensified. Various classic urban legends have actually begun popping up again and gaining thousands of interactions on Twitter, from the sperm cell in one students tissue sample in class to the kiss with a necrophiliac that results in body horror. It can be said that its now much easier for such stories to get out of hand. Case in point: You may have heard that religious groups protested and demanded the cancellation of The Killers concert in Manila in 2013 because of their band name. But the truth of it was that it was a satirical Facebook post meant only for a small group of people to see and laugh at. It was mostly inspired by the absurdity of the actual protests that happened when Lady Gaga did a concert here, says Mac Arboleda, who wrote and posted the fake article. He had done it to poke fun and to point out what a ridiculous idea it was, but when his friends began commenting, he realized that they actually believed it. The entire time I really thought they would understand that its a joke, but apparently not. The post reached nearly 3,000 shares overnight, and it was even picked up by news sites and other websites. Arboleda eventually used the event as a basis for his undergraduate thesis, which revolved around online audiences and satirical news. With social media, its so much easier now to spread misinformation, he says. But many people still lack the literacy needed to be able to distinguish [whats] satire from whats not, the motivation to read entire articles, etc. Being familiar with current news also helps, and the problem with people who arent aware of whats happening around them could easily be fooled by stories that are even just a tiny bit believable. And as with most urban legends, details are constantly being blurred the more its passed on especially online, where knee-jerk reactions have become a normal part of the conversation. Sometimes, people spread stories because they're interesting, not necessarily because theyve been verified to be true, Arboleda adds. In social media where likes and shares are a currency, urban legends and fabricated stories will inevitably arise. Making sense of the world Tatel posits that if urban legends reveal anything about us and our customs, its that we are indeed a very folkloric people. Its ingrained in our beliefs, our culture, and how we interact with the world around us. [Folk tales] did not leave us when we supposedly became more modernized or urbanized. Theyre a part of our lives. He adds that folklore, by nature, is passed down orally keeping the story alive and sustaining it by continuing to tell it. Urban legends arent just stuff that we hear; they create a world that we [dont necessarily] see, Carnay says. They stick with us because we learn about them when were kids, trying to figure out the world. Eventually, we outgrow these beliefs, but he says that the wonder never really goes away. You choose to believe [or hold on to it] because its more interesting. It makes our lives interesting as people. According to Tatel, however, urban legends also have social relevance beyond giving us tales to tell around a campfire: Urban legends help you understand the nature of life, the nature of the people, of collective consciousness, because [the urban setting] helps you understand city norms and city life, he says. They help you understand society better. Halfway through Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Mother Theresa started laughing. The last time I saw her looking that cheerful in the Commons was during Spread Fear Phil's disastrous 2017 Spring Budget speech. She did a passable impersonation of the Meg Ryan restaurant scene in When Harry Met Sally. As I watched this week's slow-motion car crash unfold, I couldn't help thinking: what on earth has she got to laugh about? Her dismal Brexit 'deal' lay in rags at her feet and a few hours later she would face a no-confidence motion from her own MPs. In order to win the support of the 1922 Committee, she had to abase herself before Conservative backbenchers, by promising that she wouldn't lead the party into the next General Election. Why was she bothering? And why, not for the first time, did I recall what Detective Constable Jones said to Cheerful Charlie Chisholm, in one of the two classic Minder episodes featuring Scotch Harry? RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: The Prime Minister's deranged dashes from Westminster to Europe have been like Fifty Shades of May After yet another abortive attempt to nick Arthur Daley, an exasperated Jones turns to Chisholm and pleads: 'All I'm saying is this: Who bloody cares?' 'Yeah,' says Cheerful Charlie, finally bowing to the inevitable. Sod it!' Funnily enough, I decided to watch this episode again on Wednesday night, rather than suffer the self-serving gabfest at Westminster in the run-up to the announcement of the no-confidence motion result. You can just imagine a version of this conversation taking place in No 10 between Mrs May and her ever-loyal husband. 'All I'm saying, Theresa, darling, is this: Who bloody cares?' But instead of throwing in the towel, Mrs May has decided to tough it out, even though 'Sod It!' appears the only sensible conclusion. Then it dawned on me. She's enjoying this. What we're witnessing here is Fifty Shades Of May. It all fell into place after reading yesterday's Femail magazine cover story on the 'pleasure gap' between men and women, written by Rowan Pelling, former editor of The Erotic Review. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: As I watched this week's slow-motion car crash unfold, I couldn't help thinking: what on earth has she got to laugh about? We're all vaguely aware that the romantic sweet-spots and indeed, fantasies of males and females are poles apart. It's why I get a bigger buzz watching Spurs score a late equaliser against Barcelona or June Whitfield trying to seduce Arthur in Minder than having to sit through that hairy ape scything stripped to the waist on Poldark. Vive la difference! But, for some reason, I've never really thought of Theresa May being similarly susceptible to such base passions. Stands to reason, though, when you come to think about it. You know what they say about vicars' daughters. Fiona Richmond, anyone? Say no more, squire. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink. We've been looking at Theresa's treatment by the EU and her own MPs through the wrong end of the kaleidoscope. Most (male) commentators see only humiliation after humiliation and, like me, can't fathom why she keeps going back for more. Then again, most (male) commentators haven't read the Fifty Shades Of Grey series, the sado-masochistic best-sellers by E.L. Wisty, or whatever her name is, which have mutated into major motion pictures, grossing gazillions around the globe. Theresa May arriving in Brussels for a European Summit aimed at discussing the Brexit deal, the long-term budget and the single market To be honest, so-called erotic fiction has never done much for me. Allegedly erotic films, neither. An usherette once threatened to throw me out of Muswell Hill Odeon for laughing too loudly at the sex scenes in Fatal Attraction. But, seemingly, the ladies have other ideas. Why else would the Fifty Shades franchise have proved so popular? I've never met a man who has read it. However, I'm guessing that Mrs May has all three volumes discreetly tucked away on her Kindle, alongside biographies of Nancy Astor and Pitt the Younger. I'm sure I don't need to explain what passes for the plot of these books to my female readers. But, in order to enlighten the gentlemen, I checked out Fifty Shades on the internet yesterday. Purely in the interests of research, you understand. Without going into the gory details, the first review I stumbled across described the heroine, Anastasia, being transported everywhere by private jet and subjected to regular, and harsh, chastisement with a leather belt. Call me old-fashioned, but doesn't that sound eerily like Theresa May's deranged dashes around Europe recently, flitting from Brussels to Strasbourg and beyond, only to be rewarded at every juncture with a good thrashing? Theresa May met with EU leaders to try and get legal assurances about the backstop proposal Then it was back home for a severe paddling from the 1922 brigade, where she emerged badly bruised but triumphant, ready to fight another day. Get me the Chief Whip. Now! In the book, Anastasia signs an agreement not to disclose details of her treatment at the hands of the dominant Christian Grey. Was this the inspiration for Theresa's initial refusal to publish the damning legal advice she had received about her backstop? Not to mention her red lines. Even those like me who think she is a truly dreadful Prime Minister, who has cynically betrayed her manifesto promises and the 17.4 million who voted Leave, have to admit there is a certain magnificence about her bovine stubbornness. It must be the abject humiliation which keeps her going. Jacob Rees-Mogg missed a trick when he dropped his ultra-polite routine. While he was damning her with faint praise, she was reeling. Once he went on full offensive, she seemed to feed off the overt hostility and become even more determined to stand firm. To what end, remains to be seen. I'm not about to revisit all the arguments about why her 'deal' is a disaster for Britain. Nor speculate about how long she will stay in the job. My guess is as long as possible, even if she has to be dragged out screaming and kicking after chaining herself to a radiator. Power is an aphrodisiac, for both men and women, although it does seem you have to be a masochist to enjoy it. Theresa May and Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (R) at the European Council in Brussels during their two-day summit in which European leaders will focus on Brexit and the EU's budget for 2021 to 2027 Tony Blair used to boast about the 'scars on my back' inflicted by the unions, who tormented him as much as the European Research Group torment Mrs May. At least Blair knew when his time was up. So, too, did our only other female Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher. Despite receiving a greater level of support from her backbenches than Mother Theresa did this week, Maggie quickly realised that no useful purpose could be served by clinging to office. I've never seen the parallels between Mrs T and Mrs May, apart from their shared gender. Where Maggie was dominant in Europe, Theresa is submissive, like Anastasia in Fifty Shades. It's only when she gets home that she tries unconvincingly to act the dominatrix. Perhaps she should take a hint from Mrs Thatcher, who, right at the end, found that her departure was actually liberating. Thatcher, too, was brought down by Tory divisions over the EU, but for standing up to Brussels, not surrendering. During her resignation speech in the Commons, Maggie was taunted as was Mrs May this week by veteran Labour hooligan Dennis Skinner, who suggested that after leaving No 10 she should become the head of the yet-to-be-founded European Bank. Mrs Thatcher burst out laughing. 'I'm enjoying this,' she said. A concealer that is sold every 12 seconds around the world has finally made its way to Australia. Tartes best-selling $37 shape tape concealer has landed at Sephora stores across the country and is known for its full-coverage,matte finish that conceals, highlights, and nourishes the skin. It is available in 30 shades and five undertones to ensure every skin tone is covered and it hides everything from acne scars and dark circles, to redness and pores. Tartes best-selling $37 shape tape concealer has landed at Sephora stores across the country It is available in 30 shades and five undertones 1,500 people commented on Sephoras Instagram announcement when they revealed the cult concealer would finally be launching in Australia. What makes this even more special is the fact that this is the only country where it can be purchased outside of the United States. According to the brand it helps to illuminate skin for a lifted effect and the addition of liquorice root extract brightens the appearance of dark circles and colour corrects. The long awaited wait is over as the concealer, which is loved by influencers worldwide and is sold every 12 seconds, has finally made its way to Australia This holy grail concealer is full-coverage, vegan, and blendable with a flawless matte finish to conceal, highlight, and nourish skin The presence of shea butter helps retain skin elasticity and protects against degeneration and the mango seed butter helps to moisturise, condition and protect against free radical damage. Tarte also claims that although it has a matte finish it won't flake or crease. Online there are an overwhelming amount of positive reviews for the product. On Makeup Alley there has been 292 reviews and it has an overall score of four out of five. According to the brand it helps to illuminate skin for a lifted effect and the addition of liquorice root extract brightens the appearance of dark circles and colour corrects 'I live and die for this concealer. It is so creamy and covers every insecurity I have. It blends so easily and sets really well,' one reviewer wrote. 'I'm in love with how smooth it makes my under-eyes look. One of the best concealers I have ever used.' Another person said it was the best concealer they've ever used. Although the majority of reviews are positive there are those who weren't won over by the product. 'I really wanted to love this product. I found it too cakey and had a yellow undertone. Pass! Over hyped,' one person said. Losing your child in a crowded shopping centre or a busy beach is an experience every parent dreads. The terror of such an experience was brought home to all Australian parents this week when a seven-year-old girl was allegedly snatched by a stranger in the toy aisle of a K-Mart while her mother was momentarily looking away. The horrifying episode prompted many parents to wonder what they would have done in those circumstances or how best to raise the alarm. The similar experience of a UK family provided one answer as to how to nip such abductions in the bud: Shout out exactly what the child looks like and is wearing as soon as you notice them gone. Sadly that terror was realised for one Australian mother this week as news broke that her seven-year-old daughter had been snatched by a stranger (stock image) What phrase was called out to find Jake? Army cadets helped Jake's mother Lucinda find him by yelling out exactly what he looked like and was wearing at the time he went missing. '"We are looking for a boy. He is four-years-old, blonde and in a red T-shirt. Have you seen him?"' They repeatedly loudly. By singling out Jake's exact appearance and starting the search instantly, it meant if anyone had taken him they would have had difficulty leaving the area without someone noticing because everyone was looking for a small, blonde boy wearing red. Advertisement In the British case, four-year-old Jake let go of his mother Lucinda Dawes' hand at a Bournemouth beach earlier this year, Kidspot Australia reported. A panicked Lucinda began to immediately call her son's name, which caught the attention of an army cadet who was scouring the beach. It was then she learned of a potentially life-saving tactic to draw on when you lose your child. According to Jake's aunt Vicky Hamilton-Ross, who recounted the tale on a now defunct blog called Oliver's Outings, the cadets called on one phrase to find the missing boy. '"We are looking for a boy. He is four-years-old, blonde and in a red T-shirt. Have you seen him?"' They repeatedly loudly. A family from the UK almost suffered through a similar situation when four-year-old Jake (pictured) let go of his mother Lucinda Dawes hand at Bournemouth beach earlier this year By singling out Jake's exact appearance and starting the search instantly, it meant if anyone had taken him they would have had difficulty leaving the area without someone noticing because everyone was looking for a small, blonde boy wearing red. When Jake was found 15 minutes later, the worst possible outcome had been realised. Jake told his parents: '"There was a bald man in a white T-shirt, he said he would take me to see a real rocket ship"'. When Jake was found 15 minutes later, the worst possible outcome had been realised (stock image) His family believe the man may have heard the shouting, and knowing he would be found easily given the description being yelled, left Jake at the beach. They urged any parent to use the same strategy of calling out specific descriptions of their child if they went missing, and not to 'feel embarrassed' in the moment. 'Even if you suspect they are just around the corner, what's the worst that could happen, you are slightly embarrassed because they hadn't gone anywhere? It's well worth that risk,' Jake's aunt wrote in the blog. Australian women have been ahead of the pack this year when it comes to sporting the latest bikini trends - and they've been racier than ever before. Within moments of a certain look appearing on social media you can visit any coastline beach across the nation to find the designs and cuts on hundreds of fashion-forward ladies. From the 'upside down' top to sideways triangle designs and Brazilian cheeky bottoms this year has been one to remember in terms of swim trends - and 2019 is set to be just as unique. Scroll down for video Australian label Heartland & Baulch shared an image of a model (left) on Instagram and American model Sierra Skye (right) has also worn the look online Regular triangle tops were given a modern update earlier this year when local label Heartland & Baulch shared an image of a model on Instagram wearing her swimsuit sideways. Fellow American models Sofia Jamora and Sierra Skye, as well as UK influencer Hollie Parsons, have also been spotted rocking the trend in eye catching colourways, but some of their followers were confused by the look. 'Where did you buy this top from? It's so unique,' someone wrote underneath a sultry photo of Sierra in a black top. Fellow American models Sofia Jamora and Sierra Skye, as well as UK influencer Hollie Parsons (pictured), have also been spotted rocking the trend in eye catching colourways You can even try the look with a one piece bikini (pictured on Sofia Jamora) What bikini trends are looking to make an entrance in 2019? * Velvet in block colours * The shade chocolate brown * 80s style high-cut bottoms * Neon colourways * Animal print Source: Popsugar Advertisement One very clued-up fan answered: 'It's a regular black top, love. The neck strings are just tied behind her back.' Equally as impressive was the rise of barely there 'baking' bikinis, which are the perfect size to get the most minimal tan line on your derriere. Made with minimal material, Australian brands like Lahana, TJ Swim, Jaymes, Petit Kini and Bambi Boutique are selling out fast online, with influencers on social media promoting the hot little numbers even in the cold. Equally as impressive was the rise of barely there 'baking' bikinis, which are the perfect size to get the most minimal tan line on your derriere The trend was started by luxury American label Minimale Animale, which promotes styles so scant you'd be afraid to wear them swimming for fear of an accidental reveal The trend was started by luxury American label Minimale Animale, which promotes styles so scant you'd be afraid to wear them swimming for fear of an accidental reveal. And while you would think these suits cost a mere few dollars given the nature of their design, some of these bottoms sell for upwards of $150. They tend to be made in one colour block rather than a pattern because there simply isn't enough material to show off the decoration. And while you would think these suits cost a mere few dollars given the nature of their design, some of these bottoms sell for upwards of $150 But there is a good reason why they're so popular - they act as an optical illusion that elongate the legs. By wearing the side straps of the bikini high on your hips it cinches the look of your waist, with the less 'granny panty' shape the better - those styles only make your behind sag and droop. Aussie Instagram influencer Gabrielle Epstein has also been a huge proponent of the 'underside' crop, which basically involves wearing a bikini top so it exposes the bottom of your breasts. It's not clear whether the cheeky idea is just for photos or whether she's able to walk around without divulging more than she planned to. Others, like Natasha Oakley and Emily Ratajkowski, have been tying the bikini straps around their middle section to cinch their waists. Aussie Instagram influencer Gabrielle Epstein has also been a huge proponent of the 'underside' crop, which basically involves wearing a bikini top so it exposes the bottom of your breasts Tie it up! Others are opting for this trend, which helps keep their top in place Others, like Natasha Oakley and Emily Ratajkowski, have been tying the bikini straps around their middle section to cinch their waists Finally, one of the wildest trends to hit our shores was that of the 'upside down' bikini, when homegrown swimwear label Cantik shared a cleavage-filled image online. Unlike the traditional triangle bikini top the suit leaves a gaping hole in the middle of your chest - highlighting cleavage more than ever before. The trick? You can create an 'upside down' bikini with any of the tops already in your wardrobe. Australian swimwear label Cantik posted an image of a model wearing an 'upside down' bikini on Thursday (pictured) Believed to be invented by Italian model Valentina Fradegrada the wearer simply ties a knot at the top of their chest with the halter straps and separates the 'triangle' portion of the material more than usual. The only issue is that the bust is the only thing holding the bikini together - it isn't supported by the straps. So one rogue wave in the ocean would be enough to dislodge that tiny thread of fabric. The trick? You can create an 'upside down' bikini with any of the tops already in your wardrobe The only issue is that your chest is the only thing holding the bikini together - it isn't held up by your neck or by straps over your shoulder Some people were astounded by how enhanced it made their chest look, calling it an 'instant boob job.' But others were less convinced by it and said the style could only suit people with 'specific breasts.' 'My boobs would fall into the hole,' one woman remarked. Some people were astounded by how enhanced it made their chest look, calling it an 'instant boob job' 'Possibly the stupidest thing I've seen all day,' another said, adding 'it's absolutely ridiculous.' Valentina, the self-dubbed creator, has started an Instagram titled 'Upside Down bikini' to showcase other wearers of the fashion. So far many of the girls involved all appear to be from Europe, and specifically, Italy. A Texas mother who played matchmaker for her son at a grocery store has gone viral after one of the girl's she met in the store tweeted about the encounter and subsequently went on a date with him. San Antonio-based woman, Patricia Gonzalez, showed a group of girls she met in her local H-E-B supermarket a photo of her son in an attempt to get him a girlfriend, and one of the girls, Charisma Valdez, subsequently Tweeted about the incident. In her tweet, which has since gone viral, Charisma said: 'If your name is Cody, youre 64, you go to UTSA, live at the Outpost, a sophomore, AND majoring in Global Affairs. Your mom truly is your wingman.' Motherly love: Cody Gonzalez pictured with his matchmaking mother Patricia (left) who scouted out a possible girlfriend for her son while shopping in her local supermarket last week Success! After meeting Patricia in a local H-E-B supermarket, Charisma tweeted about the incident during which Charisma and her roommates were shown a photo of Codey Modern love story: A few days later, Charisma posted a photo of herself and Codey looking smitten on their first date with a caption that read: 'The UPDATE yall have been waiting for!' Charisma, a student at The University of Texas at San Antonio, tweeted about her run-in with Patricia at the local supermarket on Monday 3 December. She wrote: 'If your name is Cody, youre 64, you go to UTSA, live at the Outpost, a sophomore, AND majoring in Global Affairs. Your mom truly is your wingman. 'She just showed my roommates and I your picture at H-E-B trying to find you a GF. lmao.' The tweet, which has now gathered a total of 4,716 retweets and almost 63,000 likes, received dozens of replies. One Twitter user replied, saying: '#momoftheyear', while another wrote: 'gotta tell my parents to step their game up I guess.' 'Nobody got you like your momma got you,' added another. One user said: 'Shes trying to get some grand babies.' 'Someone's about to steal this man's identity,' joked another Twitter user. Another wrote: 'The love story I've been waiting for... ima need updates on the reg. Thx.' Spreading the love: Twitter users replied to the Tweet, with many appreciating Patricia's efforts to find her son a girlfriend Charisma told KTRK-TV that the conversation with Codey's mother actually began over a dog. 'It all started off as just a normal conversation at H-E-B over a puppy. And it kind of just turned into something else. 'We were pretty excited at first because we were talking about puppies, and then once she brought up her son and that whole conversation, we got pretty serious.' At the time, Codey (whose name was misspelled as Cody in the Tweet) didn't have a Twitter account, but he appeared to have set one up the following day under the username @GonzalezCodey. He replied to Charisma's tweet on Tuesday 4 November, saying: 'What's up.' The pair then evidently hit it off, as Charisma posted a selfie of the two on their first date a couple of days later. Charisma captioned the photo: 'The UPDATE yall have been waiting for!', and tagged Codey. People on Twitter were to delighted to see that their relationship was progressing. Match-made: The two successfully organized a date after connecting on Twitter Second date! Charisma tweeted saying that the pair were in the process of planning a second date, and subsequently received an offer from Raising Cane's to host their third date there The following day, Charisma tweeted to say the pair were planning a second date. And after revealing that the two were planning to go out again, they were even offered a location for their next outing. Fast-food restaurant Raising Cane's tweeted to the pair, saying: 'By the looks of your profile picture, you are a fan of Canes. Send us a DM and your next date is on us!' Codey told mySanAntonio that he had never been set up with a girl by his mother before. The sophomore student said: 'This was the first time I have heard about her doing anything like this. 'She has always had my back. So for her to try to find a girl for me, it just shows her motherly instincts. The UTSA student told the publication that his mother was shocked to find that she had gone viral on Twitter. 'She was so surprised! She didn't know what to say, she didn't even know what Twitter was at first. The Duchess of Sussex may have toned down her wardrobe since marrying into the royal family, but one expert has revealed there's a hidden message in every outfit she wears. Image consultant celebrity stylist Ceril Campbell, who has worked with the likes of Darcey Bussell and Zara Tindall, claims Meghan's wardrobe conceals an 'underlying message' that 'subtly' promotes her values as a humanitarian and advocate for female empowerment. Speaking on ITV's Meghan: The Story So Far, the stylists highlighted the blue Veronica Beard dress and Rothy's ballet pumps Meghan wore during her tour of the Pacific earlier this year as two examples of the duchess channelling her beliefs through her sartorial choices. An expert has claimed that the Duchess of Sussex, 37, is sending hidden messages with her clothing, including a blue shirt dress by American brand Veronica Beard (pictured) which she wore in Tonga, which they claim promotes her feminist values The expert claimed that the black flats that Meghan wore on the beach in Australia (pictured) promoted her eco-friendly values because they are made from recycled plastic bottles by brand Rothy's Ms Campbell, who has worked with Meghan's close friend Serena Williams, also noted that Prince Harry's wife has often flouted tradition by wearing clothes that go against royal protocol. Meghan's blue shirt dress by American brand Veronica Beard, which she wore on her visit to Tonga in October, promoted her belief in feminist causes, according to Ms Campbell. For every outfit the brand sells they donate $10 (7.90) to women's charities. The Duchess of Sussex was vocal about her belief in feminism before she married into royalty. Ms Cambell explained: '[She's saying] whatever you put into this world you want to give back something.' Image consultant celebrity stylist Ceril Campbell revealed there is an 'underlying message' in all of Meghan's outfits that promotes her values. Pictured: Ms Campbell (right) with TV presenter Julie Etchingham (left) Rothy's ballet pumps are made from recycled plastic water bottles and sell for 109 a pair. Meghan opted to wear the eco-friendly shoes on the beach in Melbourne in October, where she spoke to a group of children about recyling plastic. Ms Campbell observed that the royal was carrying her values 'to the tip of her toes'. She explained: 'There is an always an underlying message on every single thing she wears, which gives her values and her messages out to the public; which is all about saving the planet being green empowering women but subtly.' Ms Campbell revealed how Meghan had broken royal protocol on fashion on several occasions, such as the time she wore open-toed sandals on Bondi Beach in Sydney (pictured) Meghan has also broken with tradition by wearing black when not in mourning and baring her shoulders. Pictured: The royal at The Fashion Awards in London earlier this week The stylist revealed how Meghan had broken royal protocol with the way she dresses, including having bare shoulders, bare legs, swapping heels for open-toed sandals and wearing black. But according to a recent report US Weekly, Meghan is 'fed-up' of not being able to 'stand up for herself' as the demands of royal protocol dictate she keeps a dignified silence regarding rumours of a 'feud' brewing at Kensington Palace. The royal insider told the magazine: 'She's always relied on her own voice to stand up for others, and for herself. So not being able to say anything is a debilitating feeling. 'She's always been so independent, her entire life, and that's all been taken away from her. She's always been able to clap back on social media and now she can't.' The wedding of the Prince of Wales to the Duchess of Cornwall was famously postponed following the death of the Pope - and the change of plan led to behind-the-scenes chaos for some of the organisers. Royal florist Simon Lycett revealed this week that it was a 'white-knuckle' ride trying to keep the couple's flowers fresh for an extra day. The wedding was originally supposed to be April 8 2005 but was moved to the 9th so Charles, 70, could represent the Queen at the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Speaking to Hello! Magazine, Mr Lycett described his team's efforts to reorganise as 'dramatic' as they battled to keep the blooms as fresh as possible. The florist who did the flowers for Princess Charles's wedding to the Duchess of Cornwall in 2005 (pictured) at Windsor Castle has revealed how 'dramatic' reorganisation was when the wedding was postponed Royal florist Simon Lycett (pictured) revealed that it was a 'white-knuckle' ride trying to make the couple's flowers stay fresh an extra day when Charles and Camilla wed in 2005 The florist explained that the flowers are arranged so they are at their freshest on the exact day they will be on display. He told the magazine: 'The most dramatic incident we had was when we created the flowers for the Prince of Wales wedding to the Duchess of Cornwall at Windsor Castle. 'We were creating the reception flowers and his holiness the Pope died so the Prince of Wales delayed the wedding by a day.' He added: 'We always try to have our flowers be on point for the actual day and time of the event. There was a bit of a white-knuckle ride to try and make sure that everybody was keeping everything fresh and perfect.' Camilla carried cream, yellow and mauve primroses in her bouquet, as well as lily of the valley, according to Royal Central. Many of the flowers in St George's Chapel on the day grown in Highgrove and Camilla's home at Ray Mill House, including daffodils (pictured) The wedding was originally supposed to be April 8 2005 but was moved to the ninth so Charles could represent the Queen at the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Pictured: A bush is decorates St George's Hall for the royal wedding in 2005 Many of the flowers that decorated St. George's Chapel in Windsor on the day were grown in Highgrove and Camilla's home at Ray Mill House and included daffodils. Mr Lycett was also one of the florists who worked on Princess Eugenie's wedding to Jack Brooksbank in October. The West Steps to St George's Chapel, by which the bride and groom entered, were bedecked on gorgeous autumnal foliage and four giant maple trees dwarfed the entrance door, which were later planted in the grounds of Frogmore House on the Windsor estate Prince Charles (left) and Camilla (right) were married in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall before having a blessing at St George's Chapel (pictured) Roses, spray roses, hydrangeas, dahlias and berries, and four giant maple trees were among the plants used. The Duke of York, 58, even personally thanked him and the other florists on Twitter. Sharing images from the day, Prince Andrew wrote: 'The flower arrangements displayed during the Wedding Reception for Princess Eugenie & Jack Brooksbank last Friday at Windsor Castle were created using autumnal foliage from Windsor Great Park and biodegradable oasis, following The Couple's autumnal theme and eco-friendly request.' Mr Lycett was also one of the florists who worked on Princess Eugenie's wedding to Jack Brooksbank in October (pictured) Dutch florist Rob Van Helden, who also arranged flowers for Eugenie's wedding, revealed how he was worried that the strong winds on the day would ruin the arrangements. The winds form Storm Callum left many female guests holding on to their fascinators, and some unlucky women were left chasing their hats down the street after the wind knocked them off. Speaking on This Morning a few days after the ceremony he said: ''I was sitting in the church shaking like ''Oh my god please calm down wind, because all I need is a tree on somebody's head.''' As models like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Hailey Baldwin make headlines time and time again for stepping out in barely there dresses that hardly cover a thing, a newer wave of fashionistas is pushing for modesty and looking chic while doing it. One of the biggest stars of the modest movement is Maria Al-Sadek, a 26-year-old New Yorker who goes by @mariaalia on Instagram. Maria, a Muslim American who has been wearing a hijab to cover her head since she was a teenager, sees no reason why her religion or modesty should get in the way of looking fabulous and she's setting an example for hundreds of thousands of fans. Modesty chic! Maria Al-Sadek, a 26-year-old New Yorker, goes by @mariaalia on Instagram where she has hundreds of thousands of followers Commitment: She has been wearing a hijab since she started high school in Alabama Background: Maria is the daughter of a Sunni Muslim and Puerto Rican mother. She grew up with all the women in her family wearing a hijab, including her mom Jazz it up! The blogger and fashionista doesn't believe that dressing modestly means 'just a very plain, no adornment, humble way of dressing' Maria is the daughter of a Sunni Muslim and Puerto Rican mother. She grew up with all the women in her family wearing a hijab, including her mom so when she started her freshman year of high school in Alabama, she wore one too. Though she subscribes to a belief in dressing modestly, however, she doesn't think that means looking dowdy, and has always loved experimenting with fashion. But she didn't have a fashionable hijabi role model growing up to give her clues for how to cover up but still put her most fashionable foot forward. Then five years ago, she started her blog, Maria Alia, and has become that role model for many. She now has 408,000 Instagram followers, many of whom ask her for advice. Her popularity has helped her score partnerships with Macy's, Tiffany, Giorgio Armani, UNIQLO, H&M, and Express among other major brands. Side hustle: Five years ago, she started her blog, Maria Alia, and has become a role model for other modest dressers Fashion is fun! She loves to play and experiment with fashion, shopping from both designers and mall stores and picking out what works for her and meets her standards 'I love experimenting and pushing limits to make the clothes that I find cool fit my personal level of modesty,' she said Maria told Bloomberg: 'Everyone has their own interpretation of modesty. But this idea that its just a very plain, no adornment, humble way of dressing that was some other persons definition.' She loves to play and experiment with fashion, shopping from both designers and mall stores and picking out what works for her and meets her standards. 'I love experimenting and pushing limits to make the clothes that I find cool fit my personal level of modesty,' she told The Modist in April. 'Using my imagination and playing with pieces that wouldnt normally go together is my trick to adapting a look to be more modest.' It can sometimes be a struggle, though. 'Almost everything I wear is not created specifically for a Muslim girl,' she told Racked last year. 'It usually takes browsing hundreds of different websites to hunt for one specific piece. Its very frustrating.' Stylish gigs: Her chic but covered-up outfits have earned her brand partnerships with Macy's, Tiffany, Giorgio Armani, UNIQLO, H&M, and Express 'Using my imagination and playing with pieces that wouldnt normally go together is my trick to adapting a look to be more modest,' said Maria 'Almost everything I wear is not created specifically for a Muslim girl,' she said It's slowly getting a bit easier. In 2016, Dolce & Gabbana launched a hijab and abaya collection in 2016, and Carolina Herrera put out her own the following year. 'High fashion is where it always starts,' Maria said. 'After that, it will trickle down to the more accessible retail world.' That trickle has begun. UNIQLO also launched modest clothes an hijabs in 2016, and this year Macy's launched its modest Verona Collection. That was followed by H&M's modest collection, and even high-end shopping site Net-a-Porter added a 'Modest' filter to its site. Speaking to Allure last year, Maria partially attributed the changes to the political climate, saying a lot of people are making more of an effort to be inclusive. 'I think the industry was already heading in the direction [of inclusivity], the political climate just sped up the pace this season,' she said. Times are a'changing: Maria sees some brands getting better at offering modest clothes and thinks it's become more commonplace as people try to be more inclusive More, please! She said trends like this start with designers and trickle down 'One of my biggest worries is, is this just going to be a trend?' she asked. 'Is it no longer going to be on the table after this?' Still, she's cautious to rejoice, and worries that modest attire could go come and go. 'One of my biggest worries is, is this just going to be a trend?' she asked. 'Is it no longer going to be on the table after this?' Maria isn't the only hijab-wearing fashionista to earn a huge fan following. She's joined by several others, including Halima Aden, who has over three quarters of a million Instagram followers. Halima rose to fame after competing in the Miss Minnesota pageant two years ago (and wearing a burkini for the swimsuit competition). Since then, she's modeled for Yeezy, British Vogue, and Allure. 'I have women messaging me on social media every day thanking me for essentially, in their eyes, making modest clothing cool,' Halima told Bloomberg this week. 'I never knew a black, hijab-wearing Muslim woman could be in high fashion. Its hard to visualize something you havent seen before.' Mercer expects the result of these payments to lead to private sector DB schemes in aggregate being better funded with a lower risk profile. Andrew Ward, Partner at Mercer, commented A third of a trillion pounds is a huge sum of money and shows how the UKs DB pension landscape is changing rapidly. In aggregate, UK company DB schemes are expected to be better funded and bear less risk in three years time. There are headwinds, not least the potential for Brexit to disrupt the landscape, but the direction of travel is clear. As the UK DB landscape further matures, there is potential for an emerging DB Consolidator market. How this will impact the amount paid by DB schemes depends on how the new offerings are received by scheme sponsors and trustees. The recent consultation announced by the Department of Work and Pensions and the Pensions Regulators guidance will propel discussion in this area. Record year for the buy-in and buy-out market 2018 has been a record year for premiums paid to insurers for buy-ins and buy-outs, with more than 20bn of DB obligations being insured. Mercer forecasts this market to grow again in 2019 and remain strong for the foreseeable future. Many transactions in this market are strictly scheme investments rather than payments out of the scheme; but they tend to be irreversible in nature and so are included in the overall amount paid by schemes. David Ellis, Partner at Mercer, commented Better funded and increasingly mature pension schemes have taken advantage of excellent pricing from insurers in 2018. Mercer expects the buy-in and buy-out market to smash the record again in 2019 as well-organised schemes take advantage of attractive pricing from insurers. Overall, Mercer forecasts DB schemes will pay around 90bn in premiums to insurers over the next three years. Transfers from DB to defined contribution (DC) arrangements The volume of transfer values taken by individual members has increased significantly in recent years. For many years, transfer values paid each year by DB schemes in the private sector averaged around 3bn; whereas statistics covering the first three quarters of 2018 suggest that aggregate transfer values of around 20bn will be paid in 2018 overall. Mercer forecasts this trend to continue, with broadly 60bn of transfer values being paid over the next three years. Transfer payments, paid in respect of individuals who have yet to retire, tend to reduce risk for the pension scheme making the payment, as well as reduce any gap between the value of the schemes assets and the cost of buying out and winding up the scheme. Australians have a one in two chance of getting skin cancer in their lifetime. Knowing the risks mother-of-two and Lanolips founder Kirsten Carriol took great care of her 'fair and freckly' skin, ensuring she was getting regular check ups at the dermatologist each year. She has also applied sunscreen every day and covered her skin in clothing while outside. But one day a visit to her plastic surgeon to treat nerve pain and muscle spasms in her neck saw the 46-year-old being told one of her moles looked suspicious. A biopsy confirmed it was melanoma. Scroll down for video Knowing the risks of skin cancer mother-of-two and Lanolips founder Kirsten Carriol (pictured) took great care of her 'fair and freckly' skin 'I do feel exceptionally lucky because had I not had a nerve problem and gone to that plastic surgeon that day, I probably wouldn't be here,' Mrs Carriol told Byrdie. 'I would have left behind my kids and family and that's only been avoided through a random check.' To warn others of the dangers Mrs Carriol shared images of the mole, which was on her back, what it looked like once removed and the stitches left behind. To warn others of the dangers Mrs Carriol shared images of the mole (pictured) This is the portion of skin that had to be removed surrounding her first mole The day before her 46th birthday she returned to the same plastic surgeon only to have four more large freckles biopsied. One of them also came back as cancerous. 'I now feel like my body is full of potential time bombs ready to go off at any time,' she admitted. Mrs Carriol said that she has now started triple-checking to err on the side of caution. She does her usual mole mapping, a physical look over with her dermatologist and another visual check with her plastic surgeon every year. Ultimately, though she has been left with scars, Mrs Carriol has no regrets about getting so much skin taken out Her advice is clear: Even doctors can miss certain things so it's better to get more than one opinion if you're at serious risk of skin cancer. Being at the helm of a natural skincare company like Lanolips, Mrs Carriol said she would ordinarily choose a more 'clean' version of the average formulas to put on her skin, but with sunscreen she doesn't take any chances. She explained that the sun is far more 'sinister' than the potential effects of 'non-clean' sunscreen products and she'd rather use a brand proven to protect. 'I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't choose to get as much flesh taken out as is recommended to avoid melanoma,' she said On her children she uses pure zinc - which is chalk white - and encourages those around her to cover their bare shoulders and backs while in any form of sunshine. Ultimately, though she has been left with scars, Mrs Carriol has no regrets about getting so much skin taken out. 'I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't choose to get as much flesh taken out as is recommended to avoid melanoma,' she said. With rotting floorboards, mould-infested rooms, holes in the walls and a stench so strong many refused to step inside, the property was advertised for sale as unlivable. The house was in such poor repair, a stray cat and dog were living inside. But when Sydney couple Amelia and Andrew Johnston purchased the dilapidated home for $490,000 in 2016, they saw an investment opportunity. Fast forward two years, the duo sold the home for $725,000 after transforming the rundown house with 'revolting' rooms into a spectacular property. Slide me Sydney couple Amelia and Andrew Johnston purchased a dilapidated home (left) for $490,000 and sold it for $725,000 after transforming the rundown space into family house 'I don't think I will ever forget the smell of that house when we bought it,' Mrs Johnston told the Penrith Press. The couple explained how the Cambridge Park home was the cheapest on the market in Sydney at the time. She said while nearly 100 investors attended the opening, an unpleasant smell turned some potential home buyers away. Despite the decrepit state, Mr Johnston, who's a qualified builder, said he could see a potential dream home. They completely gutted the kitchen and were able to trace where the smell had come from after finding a leak under the house The dilapidated property was transformed into a stunning, modern family home with a spectacular gourmet kitchen complete with stainless steel appliances And so the couple spent the next year carefully restoring the property. They completely gutted the kitchen and living area - and were able to trace where the smell had come from after finding a leak under the house. During the renovation process, they had to deal with damaged walls, disconnected water taps, broken frames, stained floors, and toilets covered in mould. The dilapidated property was transformed into a stunning, modern family home with fresh carpet and paint, bamboo flooring, a spectacular gourmet kitchen complete with stainless steel appliances and four bedrooms - all with built-in wardrobes. During the renovation process, they had to deal with damaged walls, disconnected water taps, broken frames, stained floors, and toilets covered in mould The property hit the market in November, with a price guide of $679,000 - $729,000 'Renovated to the highest possible standard this four bedroom family home is an absolute standout,' the advertisement previously said. 'This home ticks every box.' Other features include ducted air-conditioning, in-ground swimming pool and a double garage. The property hit the market in November, with a price guide of $679,000 - $729,000. Early in the first episode of the BBC's new adaptation of Les Miserables, one character turns to another and says: 'I wonder if you know how I am suffering.' Well, darling. My thoughts exactly. Love it or hate it, the unarguable fact about this classic is that, as it says on the tin, it is completely bloody miserable. From start to finish, from first gunshot to last guillotine, it is grim, grim, grim all the way. Be it Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Cameron Mackintosh's smash hit stage musical or the treacletastic Hollywood version of 2012, you can depend upon Les Mis for gloom piled upon doom in a cruel mille-feuille of human torment. The show features a range of characters from across class divides but producers were concerned this would not be reflected by regional French accents for a British audience. Pictured are Dominic West as Valjean, left, Lily Collins as Fantine, centre, and David Oyelowo as Javert, right The BBC version of Les Miserables will feature characters from poor backgrounds speaking in northern accents to highlight class divisions. Dominic West is using his native Sheffield accent for his character Jean Valjean, who goes from criminal, left, to respectable mayor, right I have wept buckets at all three of them, and I wept again at a preview of this new BBC1 six-part series, which begins on December 30. Although this time for very different reasons. We open on the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, a warscape of bloodied corpses and dying horses; the latter fluttering their lush equine eyelashes before carking it on the smoking fields of Europe. Merry Christmas, war is over? Well, not quite. Soon we are down at the Toulon Prison Hulks, where Jean Valjean (Dominic West) is a slave in chains, cross-hatched with whip wounds and jammy open sores, while sporting an unfortunate beard that makes him look like Fred the maitre d' from First Dates. You think things are bad? They are about to get very much worse. With its themes of workers' oppression, social justice, the treatment of women and the redemptive power of love, it would be hard to find a tale that is more politically correct than Les Miserables. But guess what? It is not quite politically correct enough for the BBC in 2018. So this version has a super 'inclusive' cast and has been given a 'contemporary relevance' by writer Andrew Davies, who has floated a homoerotic theme between Valjean and his pursuer Javert, the police inspector played by David Oyelowo, which is about as believable as a bromance between Tom and Jerry. Valjean, pictured early on in the show when a prisoner, is the central character and the series follows his efforts to make a better life for himself Olivia Colman also stars as the nefarious Madame Thenardier, pictured, an innkeeper who tries to swindle people out of money Andrew Davies is an adapter of genius, famed for sexing-up classics for television, such as Pride And Prejudice and War And Peace. Yet has he gone too far this time? He thinks that Javert was in love with Valjean 'in a strange way', and depicts this by the policeman's lingering looks when Valjean strips naked in an early scene. To be fair, officer, so did I. For Dominic West's naked bottom, which makes an appearance in nearly every role he plays, is always a sight to gladden any revolutionary's heart. Meanwhile, Davies, an incorrigible old Leftie, is keen to point out that even though Les Miserables is more than 150 years old, it still reflects the injustices and divisions within society today. To illustrate this, he spoke of the beggars he had seen on the streets and the homeless sleeping rough in London. Yes, it is wholly regrettable that times are tough for these unfortunates. But be fair. Even if you do not like the Tories, it is safe to say things have improved since early 19th-century France. Single mothers are supported financially and emotionally in society, not shunned like Fantine. There is no way underage Cosette would today be sent to work in an inn, with cruel Olivia Colman making her scrub the hearth. Fantine, centre, eventually turns to prostitution and Collins said the character resonated with her as a mother willing to do whatever it takes to support her child even at her lowest moment. Also pictured are Ayoola Smart as Zephine, left, and Charlotte Dylan as Favorite, right Lily Collins plays Fantine, a factory worker who struggles to look after her illegitimate daughter after being abandoned by her lover West and Oyelowo, pictured, whose characters are locked in a cat and mouse chase throughout the story, said they came to understand them better when they used a Sheffield and London accent respectively And no one is given 19 years' hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread, like Valjean. You don't even get 19 years for murder, Andrew! So a little bit of perspective wouldn't go amiss. Meanwhile, there are no songs in this excruciatingly right-on adaptation no songs! But even with all the box-ticking snowflakery, the power of Hugo's epic tale of redemption and uncrushable human spirit does begin to cast its spell. It is filmed on a lavish scale, with a starburst of fabulous actors and a will to be winning which transcends its demagoguery. This week, David Oyelowo said of the production: 'The really radical thing we've been doing is to take a 150-year-old novel and transpose it on to English life to make it relevant to the wide audience we want to speak to.' David, can I just say something? You don't mean English, you mean British. And that mistake is really annoying to the millions of Scots (like me), Welsh and Irish who live in the UK, but were not born or are domiciled in England. We get really fed up when people say England when they mean the UK, which they do all the time. Being politically correct on an epic Les Mis scale is exhausting but it is a two-way street, for all of us. Everyone needs a fillip like Philip Good to see that in Theresa May's most torrid week in office to date, her husband Philip was with her all the way. Philip, who quasi-retired from the City to support his wife's career, was in the Commons gallery watching her on Wednesday. Before PMQs started, MP Michael Fabricant tweeted that the Prime Minister looked upwards to find her husband, and their eyes met before she got to her feet in the House. 'It was heart-rending,' he said. Philip (pictured right), who quasi-retired from the City to support his wife's career, was in the Commons gallery watching her on Wednesday And last month, after another long day of battling those plotting against her, she told the Daily Mail how well he looked after her. 'Philip cooked beans on toast. And did the washing up!' In the same interview, she said: 'I always say he is my rock. It's hugely important to have somebody there who is supportive of you, not involved in the intricacies of politics, but there to provide human support.' What a good husband and friend he is! It doesn't matter who you are, or what you do, we all need someone to be there for us when the going gets tough. And to pick up the pieces afterwards. How the pair of them battle on, cheerful faces to the prevailing winds, I will never know. Parents who are travelling long distance for Christmas must have sighed (screamed) at Holly Willoughby's travel plans. After presenting I'm A Celebrity in Australia, her 23-hour flight back was taken in The Residence on Etihad airlines, according to reports. For 19,000, Holly had her own living room, double bed, a stand-up shower complete with Aqua de Parma toiletries, plus the services of a butler. Champagne was served in Vera Wang glasses, meals on porcelain plates and there was even breakfast in bed. Best of all? Her kids were back in standard first class with her parents, whay hey. Geordie native Dec bid farewell to the series as he thanked Holly for her time in the Australian jungle Even from half a world away, the unspooling tragedy surrounding the fate of Grace Millane was difficult to watch. The TV appeals by her father, his eyes red raw with crying, when there was still hope. Then his and her family's terrible grief when her body was found. Now they have to endure the horror of a trial. That is why it is all the more remarkable that these grieving parents have said in a statement that they hope the murder of their daughter won't stop even one young person from having an overseas experience. How courageous of them not only to think of others, but to send such a message of optimism in the middle of their own nightmare. Parents of adventuring backpackers will always worry, but the Millanes are right. You have to let them go and hope for the best. Knickers to Emily the Insta feminist She's a model, she's an actress, she's an activist, she's a swimwear designer and, for once, she is not Liz Hurley. Emily Ratajkowski has given an interview to Vogue in which she explains how posing almost naked and pouting like Donald Duck does not detract from her stance as a feminist. Emily Ratajkowski on the catwalk at Milan Fashion Week in September She also insists that she is not just a mannequin, she has a voice which she uses to empower her followers on social media. Okeydokey. However, I'd be more impressed with Emily and other Instagram 'influencers' like her if they were more honest about their goals. For every one political statement on her Insta account, Emily makes about a dozen to promote her various commercial interests. These include her porno swimsuits, her underwear ranges plus her 'paid partnerships' with perfume, shoe and handbag brands. Surely this is engineered not to empower young women, but to impoverish them by encouraging the purchase of all this rubbish. 'I have so many things to do. And so much money to make,' she told her interviewer, who thought she was joking. 'Then she put on a market trader's voice and shouted: 'Roll up, roll up. Get your knickers here. Six for a pahnd.' Actually, no she didn't. But what's the difference? Don't mourn our magical meal Christmas gets harder every year, and not just for turkeys. Down in Bristol, a group of vegans got together to do what they do best; cry over the fate of some innocent animal destined for the dinner table. The vegans were mourning nine (!) turkeys who had been dispatched to the slaughterhouse from St Werburghs City Farm, just in time for Christmas. Activist and organiser Sarah Nicol said: 'The turkeys caught people's attention because they could see them, felt that they knew them. They were nine individuals.' Yes, individually delicious when roasted, basted, served with gravy and (whisper it) pork chipolatas. St Werburgh's City Farm in Bristol had originally planned to auction the birds for charity, but the event was axed after the farm came under fire from activists Vegans are only following their hearts and, really, bless them for caring. Yet isn't it wrong of them to insist that people feel like they 'know' a turkey, even after feeding it some kibble or tickling its wattles on a city farm? Is there really any intelligent or sentient thought behind those black beady eyes? As I once asked myself after interviewing Robbie Williams. And who is going to tell these weeping vegans that nine is only a drop in the ocean of gravy? Brits consume ten million turkeys every Christmas, so they are all stuffed, in more ways than one. Meanwhile, in other feel-good festive news, Cadbury has been accused of sharp practice by selling an Ultimate Selection Box that is 50 per cent more expensive than if the bars including Crunchies and Dairy Milks were purchased individually. Santa! So grasping! Those looking to improve the health of their nails are often met with a flood of conflicting information online. So, to help women sort fact from fiction, a number of experts have busted some of the most common myths surrounding nails. From the meaning behind white nail spots to the correct way to file, here FEMAIL looks at each of the myths and how to keep your nails in immaculate condition this summer. One myth that persists is that you need to file your nails in one direction only (stock image) What is leukonychia? Leukonychia is defined as any condition that causes abnormal whitening of the nail plate. Leukonychia spots are large groups of whitish nail cells trapped inside the nail plate. Advertisement White spots on nails If you've seen white marks appear on your nails, chances are the first thing you've reached for is a mineral supplement. But as it turns out, these spots aren't always due to a deficiency. Nail technician Serenity Fox told POP Sugar, more often than not white markings on the nail tend to be the result of injury or trauma. This is because the nail itself is made up of 100 layers of tightly-packed tissue. If air gets trapped between the layers and nails are damaged in some way, this can show up as little white dots or sometimes even lines. These nail bruises, which are also known as leukonychia are nothing to worry about. They usually grow out although this can take up to four months. Leukonychia - or nail bruises - aren't the result of a mineral deficiency (stock image) Nails should only ever be filed in one direction Filing your nails in one direction only, especially if you're trying to shorten them isn't just unnecessary, it's also time-consuming. To get through the length, file nails back and forth, as well as side to side, however, finish off with a few strokes in one direction. This will ensure you won't be left with any 'scraggly bits' hanging on the underside of your nail. Serenity's pro tip is to choose a nail file with a reasonable high grit - the higher the number, the softer the file. A 180/180 grit file is her top suggestion. Nails need a break from nail polish to breathe There was a time when nail polishes were packed with all manner of chemicals that were potentially harmful. However, advances in nail polish formulas mean nails no longer need to be given a break as such. Nails, Serenity explains, don't actually breathe in the same way other bodily tissue does, but they are affected by water. 'And for that reason, I always suggest wearing a base coat on your nails, at the very least,' she said. Iman Davomoni of Purely Polished (pictured) busts other common nail myths such as UV nail curing lamps cause cancer Which types of UV lights are safe? * UV-A Light is safe. It does not cause skin cancer, or mutations to cells which can lead to cancer. UV-B Light is dangerous. It does cause skin cancer. Advertisement UV lamps to cure nails can cause cancer UV light, or ultraviolet light, is the mostly invisible form of light that is present in sunlight, tanning lamps, and nail-polish lamps used for curing nails, explains Allure. And although there have been concerns in the past about using UV nail curing lights to cure nails, said Iman Davomoni of Purely Polished speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the rays emitted by the lamps are thought to be strong enough to cause any real damage. However, she said if you are concerned about this, ask your nail technician to use an LED light instead. Always be wary of a cheap manicure It's hard to walk past a salon offering budget-priced nails. However Iman cautions, there a number of thing to be wary of including the possibility you may wind up with a fungal infection if the instruments the technician is using haven't been sterilised properly. Her advice when choosing a salon is to make sure their hygiene standards are a priority. This means all tools used are properly sterilised and disposable tools are used where possible. She adds salons that offer cheaper prices may skimp on process or the quality of products won't be as good. 'The service may be poor, the process can be rushed and the products used might be either old or low quality. 'And if the nail beds aren't properly prepared, your manicure won't last, and your polish (if it is gel) can peel off.' Prince William has returned to Sandhurst today in order to inspect the Sovereign's Parade at the Royal Military Academy on behalf of his grandmother the Queen. The Duke of Cambridge inspected the parade and presented awards including the Sword of Honour, the Overseas Sword and the Queen's Medal. The former graduate of Sandhurst, who served seven and a half years in the military, is attending the Reviewing Officer in place of the Queen. William, 36, was dressed in full military regalia as he took part in the annual parade this morning. The uniform he was pictured in today is known as the Blues and Royals uniform and is what William wore to his brother Prince Harry's wedding to Meghan in May. Prince William has returned to Sandhurst today in order to inspect the Sovereign's Parade at the Royal Military Academy The Duke of Cambridge is set to inspect the parade and present awards including the Sword of Honour, the Overseas Sword and the Queen's Medal The Sovereign Parade takes place at the end of each term and marks the passing out from Sandhurst of officer cadets who have completed the Commissioning Course. This year, 169 officer cadets from the UK and 25 cadets from 19 other countries will partake in the parade which celebrates the completion of a year's intensive training. William's brother the Duke of Sussex attended the parade last year, eleven years after his own graduation from Sandhurst. It was during Harry's visit to Sandhurst that Kensington Palace announced the date and location of his wedding to the now Duchess of Sussex. Following the parade, William gave a speech to members of the academy. William appeared to be in good spirits as he inspected the cadets on parade at the academy One female cadet appeared slightly star struck as she was addressed by the duke on Friday He said: 'It is almost 12 years ago to the day that I stood where you are. I remember the deep sense of pride that came from passing out of one of the finest military academies in the world as well as wanting a short speech delivered so I could march off the parade square that little bit quicker! 'I also remember the acute sense of relief that I would no longer be getting thrashed at Sennybridge, or having to dig trenches for 5 days in Thetford! 'For those of you commissioning, I can assure you that what you have achieved during your time here will live with you for the rest of your lives. The friendships forged will last a lifetime and you will have been fortunate enough to have shared experiences with people from many different backgrounds, countries, cultures and religions. ' William looked smart in full military regalia, the same uniform he was seen wearing at Harry and Meghan's wedding in May Prince William graduated from the Royal Military Academy twelve years ago It comes as the Cambridges release their annual Christmas card on Friday. William and Kate have opted for an autumnal photo with their children on a tree trunk for their greeting this year, following the more formal portrait of 2017. With smiles all round, the Duchess of Cambridge cradles baby Louis - who is now almost eight months old - as she rests against a tree trunk in woodland at their Anmer Hall home in Norfolk with the Duke of Cambridge. Three-year-old Charlotte stands on the trunk with her arms around her parents' shoulders, while five-year-old George playfully holds on to his father as he stands one-legged in wellies on the trunk. William and Kate chose an autumn picture taken by Matt Porteous. You might imagine that spending Christmas with the royal family is a rather formal affair. But according to a former employee of the Royal Household, Alexandra Messervy, festivities are a lot of 'fun' at Sandringham House thanks to the royals not taking themselves too seriously. In the latest installment of the Yahoo News series, The Royal Box, Alexandra - who previously worked in the Master of the Households department - said: 'They enjoy a bit of a giggle, they have a tremendous sense of humour. They're great fans of charades.' The royals follow the German tradition of exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve, but even this is a lighthearted affair. 'There's always the idea to give something useful or fun. They certainly would never have extravagant gifts,' she said. Christmas at Sandringham is a 'fun' affair, according to a former member of the Royal Household who praised the family's sense of humour. Pictured: The Queen and Meghan sharing a joke on an official visit to Cheshire in June 2018 Guests will arrive at Sandringham House on Christmas Eve and will exchange 'practical or fun' presents and cut the Christmas cake Alexandra said that depsite being the most famous family in Britian, the royals' celebrations are fairly traditional. 'They're pretty much the same as any other family in the land,' she explained. 'Possibly bigger rooms and maybe more house guests, but it really is very, very similar. Obviously they've got a lot of prestige, but it's fun.' With a lot of family members on the guest list, fitting everyone in can be a squeeze but the Queen is careful not to have to many staff on duty over the festive season. Royal rift? It could be a little tense around the dinner table this year amid rumours of a rift between the Cambridges and the Sussexes. Pictured: Both couples at church on Christmas morning in 2017 This will be the second year in a row that Meghan, 37, has joined her in-laws for Christmas after she made her debut as Prince Harry's newly-engaged fiancee last year, pictured 'The running of it is like a six seven star hotel if there was such a thing,' she said. 'But she's very mindful of the face that at Christmas everyone wants to be with their family, so she would never, ever want more people than she would need. Everyone will arrive in time for tea on Christmas Eve and that's when things start off at 5pm. That's when they cut the Christmas cake. One Christmas Day, family members tuck into roast turkey from the Royal Estate with all the usual trimmings. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to have enjoyed staying with the Cambridges at Anmer Hall in Norfolk (above) last year, which is a short drive from Sandringham where the main festivities take place When questioned if everyone has to stop eating once the Queen has finished, Alexandra revealed that 'its generally recognised, The Queen is not a fast eater and if someone was a particularly slow eater Im quite sure that she would pace herself.' And when asked if the Queen watches her own speech on the big day, she replied: 'I believe so.' Her Majesty is expecting a full house this year, despite previous claims that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would swerve the celebrations in favour of spending Christmas Day with Kate's family. It comes amid rumours of a rift between the Cambridges and the Sussexes (above at Westminster Abbey last month), following the announcement that Harry and Meghan are set to move away from Kensington Palace The reports came after rumours of a rift between the Cambridges and Sussexes, after it was announced that Harry and Meghan would be moving away from Kensington Palace to Frogmore House in Windsor. There were claims that Kate was left in tears following Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid's dress fitting, ahead of Meghan and Harry's wedding in May, as well as suggestions the pair had clashed over staff. However, royal insiders have insisted that there has been no falling out between the Cambridges and the Sussexes, but admitted the pair are 'very different people'. Both couples are expected to spend Christmas with the Queen at Sandringham, and Harry and Meghan will stay with Kate and William at their Anmer Hall home for the second year running. The Duchess of Cornwall put on a smart display as she hosted a reception for the Royal Navy medics team at Clarence House on Thursday night. Camilla, 70, opted for a deep blue skirt suit for the event, thrown in recognition of the officers' in challenging conditions supporting a UN mission in South Sudan. The Duchess, who is Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Naval Medical Services, was seen chatting to members of the team before posing for pictures alongside the attendees. Clarence House, the royal residence of Prince Charles, 70, and wife Camilla - which is attached to St James' Palace in Westminster, was pictured looking festive for the occasion, with a colourful Christmas tree seen in the background. The Duchess of Cornwall, 70, put on a smart display in a blue skirt suit as she hosted a reception to recognise the efforts of the Royal Navy Medical team at Clarence House on Thursday night Camilla cut a chic figure in a well-cut coordinated suit and skirt, teamed with a multi-string pearl necklace. Mingling with members of the medic team, Camilla looked in good spirits as she went on to pose in the centre of the sizable team. The pictures were shared on Twitter by the official Clarence House account on Friday. They tweeted: 'The Duchess of Cornwall (the medics Commodore-in-Chief) hosted a reception yesterday for Royal Navy Medics in recognition of their hard work in supporting a UN Mission in South Sudan'. Camilla, 70, opted for a deep blue skirt suit for the event, which recognised the team for their hard work in challenging conditions supporting a UN mission in South Sudan Camilla has been Commadore in Chief of the Royal Navy Medical Service for a decade, and has previously spoken about her role. In a speech as she named the Royal Navy's second new aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales last year, she said: 'As Lady Sponsor, I take great pride in my own personal connections with the Royal Navy. 'For almost ten years now, I have been Commodore in Chief of the Royal Navy Medical Service and of the naval chaplaincy service.' Her appearance comes shortly after royal florist Simon Lycett revealed this week that it was a 'white-knuckle' ride trying to keep the couple's flowers fresh for an extra day. The wedding was originally supposed to be April 8 2005 but was moved to the 9th so Charles, 70, could represent the Queen at the funeral of Pope John Paul II. The duchess, who is their Commodore-in-Chief, was seen chatting to members of the team before posing for pictures alongside the attendees Clarence House, the royal residence of Prince Charles, 70, and wife Camilla attached to St James Palace in Westminster, was pictured looking festive for the occasion Speaking to Hello! Magazine, Mr Lycett said: 'The most dramatic incident we had was when we created the flowers for the Prince of Wales wedding to the Duchess of Cornwall at Windsor Castle. 'We were creating the reception flowers and his holiness the Pope died so the Prince of Wales delayed the wedding by a day.' He added: 'We always try to have our flowers be on point for the actual day and time of the event. There was a bit of a white-knuckle ride to try and make sure that everybody was keeping everything fresh and perfect.' He's known for his adorable trademark shorts, but Prince George finally got to wear long trousers today for the first time in an official portrait. The young royal, five, was pictured perched on a tree trunk in woodland at Anmer Hall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's Norfolk home in a gorgeous new family portrait released for Christmas. The youngster wore a pair of blue-grey chinos tucked into wellies for the snap, as he playfully leaned on one leg, holding his father Prince William's shoulder's for support. It was the first time George has worn long trousers for an official portrait, or even been seen in them publicly, aside from when he acted as a Page Boy for Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie's weddings. Prince George wore long trousers for the first time ever in an official family portrait, in this family snap taken in the Autumn at the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's Norfolk home, which was released today George and his fellow pageboys wore miniature versions of the Blues and Royals frockcoat, similar to the uniforms worn by Harry and William on the big day, complete with long trousers. Since he's been old enough to walk, George has worn shorts in all the official portraits taken to mark milestones such as his birthday or the Queen's 90th birthday. He's also been wearing shorts in pictures taken in his school uniform, and when he's accompanied his parents on overseas tours to Poland, Germany and Canada. Previously, MailOnline's etiquette William Hanson told Femail that Kate put her son exclusively in shorts as it's an aristocratic way to dress. In the portrait used for the Cambridge family Christmas card in 2017, taken during the royal tour of Poland and Germany earlier the same year, Prince George was again wearing the shorts we've become accustomed to seeing him in In this image released in December 2015, taken in the grounds of Anmer Hall in Norfolk, Prince George was wearing his trademark shorts despite the Autumn weather He claimed that shorts on young boys are, in fact, a silent British class marker and trousers are deemed 'suburban', which no self-respecting royal would want to be considered. 'The Duchess of Cambridge has to dress her own children and find a balance between royal tradition and heritage and more proletariat customs, such as the "suburban" habit of making young boys wear trousers,' he explained. 'Although I don't really think that the sartorial rule of shorts for young boys would be a new one for Catherine. Back in his shorts! Prince George pictured feeding an ice cram to the family dog Lupo in aon offcial portrait taken at Sandringham in 2016 and issued in July that year to mark his third birthday 'I would suspect that her own mother and mother's friends knew this - as more well-heeled middle class mothers do - and dressed their own boys accordingly.' Princess Charlotte, three, also made a fashion statement in the newly released image, wearing a navy blue cardigan that belonged to her five-year-old brother Prince George. The 48 knitted number by royal favourite Fina Ejerique was seen on George in the family portrait released to celebrate his grandmother the Queen's 90th birthday in 2016. Tomboy Charlotte also wore the cardigan in a sweet photo of her kissing newborn Prince Louis shortly after his birth this year. Prince George wore long blue velvet trousers to Princess Eugenie's wedding in October (left). The first time he was seen publicly in long trousers was when he wore a miniature version of the Blues and Royals uniform for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding in May The button down top features a white nordic pattern around the neckline. The Cambridge photo shows the Duchess of Cambridge cradling baby Louis - who is now almost eight months old - as she rests against a tree trunk in woodland at their Anmer Hall home in Norfolk with the Duke of Cambridge. Three-year-old Charlotte stands on the trunk with her arms around her parents' shoulders, while five-year-old George playfully holds on to his father as he stands one-legged in wellies on the trunk. A 22-year-old Mormon and former porn addict has revealed how he used to watch X-rated videos obsessively for three hours a day before seeking help for his addiction. Joshua Peters, from Massachusetts, spent seven years of his life utterly addicted to watching porn after being introduced to it by his friends when he was just 11 years old. The former addict, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and attends Brigham Young University-Idaho - a University affiliated with the religious organization - is now in recovery for his addiction. Recovering: Joshua Peters, 22, from Massachusetts was addicted to watching porn for seven years after being introduced to it when he was 11-years-old A long journey: By the time he was 12-years-old ( left) Joshua, was obsessively watching porn. The now-22-year-old is a Mormon, and can be seen holding the book of Mormon (right) Joshua was first introduced to porn by his friends when he was just 11-years-old. When his peers were using terms that he wasn't aware of, Joshua felt silly for not understanding what they meant. He began looking up different terms online to try and understand them better, and thus his porn addiction began. Joshua said: 'I first became aware of porn when I was 11 years old and my friends were talking about some very explicit terms which I didnt know about. 'After hearing them talking about it, I felt dumb for not knowing anything. 'So, I went online to look up the words and I found out what it was all about. That was the beginning of it all,' he explained. After a year or so, what started out as a harmless act soon developed into an addiction as Joshua got into a routine of watching porn every day, for anywhere between an hour and a half to three hours. Watching porn obsessively affected Joshuas moods, restricted what he would do with his friends and even caused the breakdown of his first relationship. 'At around 12-years-old it really took off and it became a daily thing I had to do. When I was that young, I knew it was bad in some way, but I didnt know why. 'Perhaps it was because of how secretly my friends talked about it or even because of how my family raised me. He added: 'I was the cute kid who covered his eyes during kissing scenes in films, yet here I was stumbling onto naked people having sex.' The 22-year-old said at the height of his addiction, he was 'consuming [porn] dozens of times throughout the day, coupled with masturbation as well. 'I would say I watched porn between an hour and a half to three hours a day. Support: The 22-year-old told his parents about his addiction when he was 13-years-old and his parents, Pacha (center) and Fabiola (center right) were looking through his computer Family: Joshua's motivation for recovering from his addiction includes his dream of one day having a family of his own. Joshua pictured above with his two brothers Caleb and Andrew He added: 'It affected my mood, the way I treated my family and even the things that I chose to do with my friends. 'I watched all different types of porn, ranging from regular soft porn to BDSM, which in my opinion, is the type of pornography that inspires sexual assault. The photographer came clean about his addiction when he was 13 and his parents were trying to find something on his computer. Joshua said: 'I freaked out and I told them what Id been consuming. If they were going to find out what I was doing then it was going to be from me, not some browsing history.' Joshua knew he had to turn his life around when his addiction to porn was restricting his life, controlling his mind and warping his perception of his relationships. I watched all different types of porn, ranging from regular porn to BDSM... It affected my mood and the way I treated my family The key driving forces motivating Joshuas recovery from addiction were his religion and his dream of starting his own family, like the solid family unit he grew up in. He told EastIdahoNews.com in an interview that he and his parents, Pacha and Fabiola, went to talk to a religious counselor about the problem. 'We went to talk to a religious counselor, and I met with local religious leaders. 'I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,' he said. Joshua added that the reason he beat his addiction was through his 'heavenly father'. He added: 'I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior.' Both pornography and masturbation are frowned upon by the religious organization. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website includes an entire section devoted to addressing pornography problems and giving help to those affected. According to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, American scientist and religious leader Richard G. Scott said that sexual intimacy outside the bonds of marriage is a sin. The quote read: 'Any sexual intimacy outside of the bonds of marriageI mean any intentional contact with the sacred, private parts of anothers body, with or without clothingis a sin and is forbidden by God.' Time for change: When he turned 18, Joshua (pictured right during a summer cruise this year) decided it was time to regain the control over his life that porn had taken away from him Brotherly love: Joshua and his brother Andrew (left) pictured on a road trip in Angels Landing in Utah Spreading awareness: A snippet from the poetry video Joshua and his friend Coleman Anderton created shows Joshua kissing an actress (right) who played the part of his first ever girlfriend who he dated when he was 16-years-old He said: 'I love my family very much and my dream is to have a family like my parents made. That goal was, and still is, the driving influence behind my desire to beat porn addiction. 'My religious belief has helped me because I participated in a faith-based 12 step program where a lot relies on a higher power. But I do believe that addiction can be beaten through non-faith practices and beliefs, it was just what helped me. 'Either way, you have to think bigger than yourself. Whether its doing it for religion, a spouse, a family, your kids or even the community you live in. 'For me it was my future family, God and also myself,' he added. When he was 18, Joshua decided to regain the control over his life that hed lost to his addiction, driven by the hope to be more outgoing once again, see his friends and one day start his own family. Joshua, along with his friend Coleman Anderton, created a poetry video to show people the truth behind porn addiction, which garnered 45,000 views in just two weeks. Joshua explained: 'It talks about my first relationship which I had when I was 16 and she was amazing and such a wonderful person. 'It was cute, and I was able to be romantic for the first time, and we were each others first kisses. Unfortunately, she didnt know I was still watching pornography a lot. 'In my poem I describe how sweet kisses soon became nothing unless I felt the same way I felt while watching porn. The relationship fell apart for a variety of reasons but most of the effects were in my own thoughts. Proud: Joshua pictured looking happy with his parents Fabiola (right) and Pacha (left) after successfully beating his porn addiction Family love: Joshua pictured recently at his friend Johnathon's (middle) wedding alongside his father Pacha (left) and mother Fabiola (center right) He added: 'At the end of the day, she didnt feel special and loved around me, and I attribute her feelings to the problem I had at the time. That really hurt, and I blamed myself for it.' Joshua said that as he grew older, he began to understand better what was happening to his thoughts and the day he was beginning to view women. Strength: Joshua explained that the hardest part of his recovery is trying not to relapse He explained that the hardest part of his recovery is not relapsing. 'I always have to be on my toes and recognize when I have those urges. The urges become less common the longer I stay clean, but they never truly leave. 'The addiction is literally done in darkness and when youre alone. Other addictions might mean you consume around other people, but with porn you are most likely going to be on your own. 'There arent enough people out there who want to spark the conversation about porn addiction, or who are even aware of it. Proof of that lies in how much money the porn industry brings in. 'Porn isnt something that you can justify having in your life. It affects relationships and the industry is messed up. 'Its a pointless past time and it engenders an environment that says sexual assault is okay and men and women are merely objects used for physical satisfaction. Joshua added: 'Sexual education is okay in a variety of forms, but the pornography industry is only in it for the money and it capitalizes on the hormone-inducing emotions we feel.' The Sussexes and the Cambridges are not the only royals to have released their Christmas cards - King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain also shared their festive greeting. The Spanish king, 50, and queen, 46, shared a photograph of themselves with their daughters Princess Leonor, 13, and Princess Sofia, 11, on a visit to Asturias in September. The card, which was shared by royal Twitter account Gert's Royals, included a handwritten note in Spanish and a printed message wishing the recipient a 'Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2019'. The Spanish royal family have released their official Christmas card for 2018 which is taken from a photo of the foursome visiting Asturias in northwestern Spain in September. Pictured left to right: Prince Felipe, 50, Princes Sofia, 11, and Queen Letizia, 46 Inside the card the family have wished their followers Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2019 and each has signed their own names, including the couple's young daughters (pictured) Each member of the family also signed their own names, with Leonor and Sofia demonstrating neat handwriting. The two young royals also signed their titles, 'Princesa of Asturias' and 'Infanta de Espana', respectively. The photo was taken when the foursome went for a hike in the National Park Picos de Europa in the Asturias region in September. In the photographs the family are dressed casually, with style-conscious Letizia wearing a casual pair of brown trousers and a white shirt with the top button undone and eldest daughter Leonor wearing a strikingly similar look. The picture comes from when the family-of-four went for a hike in the National Park Picos de Europa in the Asturias region in September. Pictured left to right: Princess Sofia, Queen Letizia and Princess Leonor Sofia, whose official title is Infanta Sofia of Spain, wore a red and white striped striped top with navy trousers and red trainers. It marked her first official visit to the region from where she takes her name. King Felipe cut a handsome figure in a green jacket, a blue and white checked shirt and grey jeans. Gert's Royals shared the photo with the caption: 'King Felipe of Spain & Queen Letizia have released a photo of their Christmas card. King Felipe's parents King Carlos (right) and Queen Sofia (right) also shared their own Christmas card Inside the card was a message wishing their followers a Merry Christmas and underneath the royal couple signed their own names again (pictured) 'The photo is from Princess Leonor, Princess of Asturiass 1st official visit to Asturias in September.' King Felipe's parents King Carlos and Queen Sofia also shared their own Christmas card, which was also tweeted by Gert's Royals. The royal couple posed for a photograph togetgher, with the Queen in a chic grey dress and matching jacket and the King wearing a smart blue suit. They wished their followers a Merry Christmas and also signed the card in their own hands. Getting news coverage can prove to be a herculean task. Many times if the mainstream media is to be relied on, getting accurate news might almost be impossible. And this is so because the mainstream media ignores much information which ends up being vital to the news as a whole. 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Royal fans have been sent into a frenzy over the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's new family Christmas card. Hundreds of social media users shared posts about the photograph, which shows William and Kate with their three children, George, five, Charlotte, three, and seven-month-old Prince Louis in the grounds of their home at Anmer Hall, Norfolk. Much of the comment centered on who the young royals take after with their looks. Christmas is coming! Hundreds of social media users shared posts about the photograph, which shows William and Kate with their three children, George, five, Charlotte, three, and seven-month-old Prince Louis in the grounds of their home at Anmer Hall, Norfolk Family resemblance! Much of the comment centered on who the young royals take after with their looks One posted: 'Louis the face of the Midletone, Charlotte like the Queen and the prince like his father William.' Another added: 'Prince Louis looks like to his maternal grandfather.' Several followers pointed out that Charlotte bears a striking resemblance to her grandmother Princess Diana as a young girl. Other fans were distracted by Prince Louis' 'amazing' eyebrows. Several users pointed out how much Charlotte looks like Princess Diana as a young girl One tweeted: 'Why does Prince Louis already have better eyebrows than me? Another posted: 'The eyebrows on Louis omg.' The Cambridges' card shows Kate cradling baby Louis - who is now almost eight months old - as she rests against a tree trunk in woodland at their Anmer Hall home in Norfolk. Three-year-old Charlotte stands on the trunk with her arms around her parents' shoulders, while five-year-old George playfully holds on to his father Prince William as he stands one-legged in wellies on the trunk. Other fans were distracted by the fact Prince Louis has 'amazing' eyebrows at such a young age The photo was released on Friday along with a photo of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex taken at Windsor on their wedding night. The black and white snap shows the newlyweds standing hand-in-hand as fireworks erupt in the grounds of Frogmore House, a 17th century royal residence in Windsor near Frogmore Cottage, where they will live from early next year. Harry and Meghan were photographed by Chris Allerton on May 19, while William and Kate chose an autumn picture taken by Matt Porteous. It has been a turbulent year for Crown Princess Mette-Marit who was diagnosed with a 'life-limiting' lung disease several months ago. But the Norwegian royal was full of good cheer as she posed for the royal family's annual Christmas portrait on Friday. Mette-Marit, 45, joined her husband Crown Prince Haakon, 45, and their two children together Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 14 and Prince Sverre Magnus, 13, at the royal palace In Oslo for the photo shoot today. The family was also joined by the reigning King Harald V and Queen Sonja for the portrait. The Norwegian royal family has gathered at the royal palace in Oslo to pose for annual Christmas portraits. Back row, l-r: Princess Ingrid Alexandra, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Crown Prince Haakon and Prince Sverre Magnus. Front row: King Harald V and Queen Sonja The group gathered in one of the grand halls of the palace where a Christmas tree had been erected in honour of the occasion. Mette-Marit looked typically chic in a cream coloured roll-neck jumper and a blue velvet pleated shirt while Haakon was dapper in blue lounge suit and festive red tie. Ingrid proved she was growing into an elegant young lady, taking style tips from her mother and opting for a navy roll-neck paired with a black mini-skirt. Meanwhile her brother Sverre looked every bit the young gentlemen in his very own lounge suit with a distinguished pair of wire frame glasses. Mother and daughter both opted for chic roll-neck jumpers while father and son wore navy blue lounge suits for the occasion The King and Queen sat on thrones surrounded by their family with Harald opting for a similar ensemble to his son while Sonja opted for a cream outfit. The family is likely looking forward to Christmas following a difficult year. Last month Mette-Marit confirmed she is suffering from the life-limiting lung condition chronic pulmonary fibrosis, an illness she has been aware of for some time. She is thought to be in the early stages of the disease in which scar tissue forms in the lungs. The disease can cause serious breathing problems and there is no known cure. The King and Queen perched on thrones while surrounded by the family and a newly decorated Christmas tree The family are likely looking forward to Christmas following a turbulent year after Mette-Marit was diagnosed with a life limiting lung disease The mother-of-three released her own statement following the diagnosis where she spoke of her determination to carry on as normal. She said: 'Although such a diagnosis in times will limit my life, I'm glad that the disease has been discovered so early. 'My goal is still to work and participate in the official programme as much as possible.' Mette-Marit is a particularly rare case as the disease normally occurs in people of the age 70-75 and is very rare for anyone under 50 to suffer from it. The Crown Princess, a former waitress, met her future husband at a music festival in the 1990s when she was a single mother and married into the royal family in 2001. Queen Maxima, 47, was glowing as she stepped out in a golden dress and matching hat to christen a new boat in Rotterdam earlier today. The mother-of-four paired the yellow shift dress, complete with ruffle detail, with a matching oversized hat and chic fishnet gloves as she held a delicate bunch of pastel-coloured flowers in her hands. Dressed for the chilly weather conditions, the Dutch royal swept her hair behind her ears and placed a brown-and-white checked coat over her shoulders as she arrived at the Christening ceremony of the vessel - which was named after her daughter, Princess Catharina-Amalia. Queen Maxima beamed in her golden yellow dress and clutched a delicate bouquet of pretty flowers as she attended the baptism of trailing suction hopper dredger Vox Amalia earlier today Queen Maxima was all smiles as she attended the baptism of new trailing suction hopper dredger Vox Amalia at the cruise terminal in Rotterdam. The ceremony was to mark the 150th anniversary of Van Oord - a Dutch maritime contracting company that specialises in dredging, land reclamation and constructing man made islands. The royal performed the ceremony in the presence of Van Oords employees and guests. This vessel is the second of two new midsize trailing suction hopper dredgers for Van Oord - as it's twin, the Vox Alexia, was completed earlier this year. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and Pieter van Oord looked deep in chat at the launch of the 'Vox Amalia' All aboard: Queen Maxima performed the christening ceremony in the presence of Van Oords employees and guests It took 150 years, but now dredger Van Oord is royal. The new vessel was named after Queen Maxima and her husband King Willem-Alexander's daughter, Princess Catharina-Amalia Ship ahoy: This vessel is the second of two new midsize trailing suction hopper dredgers for Van Oord - as it's twin, the Vox Alexia, was completed earlier this year The duo have been named after two of the daughters of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. Catharina-Amalia, 15, is Maxima's eldest daughter and is the future Queen of the Netherlands. It's been a busy week for the Dutch royal, who looked chic in a blue outfit as she joined husband King Willem-Alexander in officially welcoming the President of Cape Verde, Jorge Carlos Fonseca and his wife Ligia Fonseca on Dam Square in Amsterdam, on Monday afternoon. She wore royal blue coordinated coat and hat, complete with a contrasting bright green round-neck top, along with skyscraper heels. Queen Maxima stunned in blue as she welcomed President of Cape Verde Jorge Carlos and his wife to the wreath laying at the Dam on Monday Later that same day, Queen Maxima put on a head-turning display in a red dress at a lavish state banquet thrown in honour of Cape Verde's President and First Lady on Monday evening. Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander were hosting Jorge Carlos Fonseca and his wife Ligia Fonseca on a state visit to the Netherlands. To mark the occasion, she opted for a satin gown by the Dutch designer Claes Iversen, which featured an asymmetric neckline and was embellished with delicate studs. Maxima put on a vibrant display in the satin Claes Iversen dress, which featured an asymmetric neckline and was embellished with delicate studs Queen Maxima dazzled in diamonds during the state visit of the president of Cape Verde on Monday evening While Tuesday's headlines focused on the content of Donald Trump's televised meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, Tuesday's Twitter feed was overrun with reactions to Pelosi's fashion statement. The 78-year-old Minority Leader of the House of Representatives left the White House that day bundled up in a red-orange coat with a straight silhouette and a high collar that social media users hailing her 'lewk'. And the coat's designer, Max Mara, noticed: Though the outerwear was originally released in late 2012 and hasn't been available to buy for some time, the brand will re-released it early next year due to the interest that Pelosi stirred up. We out! On Tuesday, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer met with the President at the White House, before leaving the West Wing to speak to media (pictured) Fire! The 78-year-old House of Representatives Minority Leader left the White House that day bundled up in a red-orange coat with a straight silhouette and a high collar Social media: Images of Pelosi in the quote quickly went viral A viral image shows Pelosi leaving the meeting, putting her hands up to her sunglasses as she walked outside. Quickly, Twitter users erupted, dismissing the distressing content of her meeting with Trump and focusing on her fashion in an effort to lighten the mood. 'Not the most important thing the most important thing is that Nancy Pelosi is a BALLER but this coat is ON POINT,' wrote one. 'On a brighter note, Pelosi's coat is very nice,' tweeted The Hill columnist Niall Stanage. 'Putting politics aside for a second, can we all agree that Pelosi is wearing an exceptionally stylish coat?' another writer tweeted. Loving it! People on Twitter distracted themselves from the seriousness of the meeting by discussing her outwerwear Copycat: One jokingly quoted Mean Girls, comparing Pelosi to Regina George in her popularity Bright side: The coat became a major talking point and a positive aspect people could focus on Lookin' good! Men and women came out to comment on how stylish it is Tribute: One artistic Twitter user even drew fan art that quoted Hamilton Added yet another: 'Hard to focus on the incredible words of Pelosi right now when her coat is the greatest thing I have ever seen!!! Omg. #PelosiCoat.' One fan referred to it as a 'suit of bad b**** armor' while another drew fan art of the moment, adding a quote from Hamilton. An extremely enthusiastic admirer ever created a Twitter account called I Am Nancy Pelosi's Coat, which has tweeted just once: 'We certainly had an eventful day, Nancy & I.' Pelosi's daughter, Christine, joined the discussion to, reflecting on when they went shopping for the coat years ago. 'This makes me smile: I remember shopping with Nancy Pelosi aka Mom for this coat at Christmastime 2012 for President Obamas second inaugural. (The reports say its red but expect a dark orange.)' Fun gag: Another fan set up an entire Twitter account dedicated to the coat with just one tweet Memories: Nancy's daughter Christine recalled shopping for the coat in 2012 Flashback: She wore the coat to Obama's second inaugural swearing-in ceremony Yas! Max Mara, the coat's designer, decided to re-issue it in several colors next year She did, in fact, wear it for Obama's second inauguration in 2013. Several fans were on a hunt to find the coat and were disappointed to find that it was no longer available. That's when Max Mara chimed in, saying that the style from the 2013 collection and called the Glamis coat will be 'reinstated for 2019 in a variety of color ways.' 'Max Mara is honored that U.S. House Representative @nancypelosi wore the #MaxMaraFireCoat to her recent historic meeting at the White House,' the brand's account tweeted. A frozen Christmas dinner that will feed six for just 22 from Iceland has divided shoppers, after cruel commenters hit out at 'lazy' people for eating frozen food on Christmas Day. The bargain meal was shared on the Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK group on Facebook, set up by money-saving blogger Holly Smith, where it impressed members who liked the post 4,600 times. Many said it would be a godsend for struggling families who can't afford to splash out, or those who have limited time to cook on Christmas Day due to work or family commitments. However, in comments that have now been deleted, some commenters branded it food for 'lazy' people and took issue with the idea of not preparing a dinner from fresh ingredients. The original poster Robyn Greenfield commented: 'For all those being judgmental about frozen food, scroll past then. Why people got to be so rude? A frozen Christmas dinner from Iceland that feeds six people for 22 has divided opinion on social media with most claiming it's a godsend for struggling families after it was posted on Facebook The original poster Robyn Greenfield hit out at those who had been judgmental, saying that not everyone can afford to buy fresh food when they're feeding a big family 'It's Christmas and some families can't afford a lot. I personally cook all fresh food on Christmas. But for some family's this may be a bargain to feed six 6 people. Did no one ever teach some of you if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all, simple? 'Yes it's frozen food for Christmas, get over it.' The bargain feast includes a boneless turkey joint, stuffing balls, pigs in blankets, parsnips, sprouts and an Irish cream gateau for dessert. The vast majority of commenters were delighted by the bargain buy and said that it would be ideal for struggling families or people who simply don't want to spend all day slaving over the stove And the vast majority of comments were positive with one mother commenting that it would allow her to spend more time with her kids on Christmas morning than in the kitchen. Another added: 'All you lot being bloody judgmental, why don't you find someone vulnerable or a family on little income and buy this meal for them. 'I bet they would be grateful. You obviously have a lot of money to spend on a bird.' Others pointed out that frozen food can be just as healthy as fresh because veg is often frozen right after picking, locking in the nutrients. Advertisement Starbucks is betting that customers at New York City's brand-new Starbucks Reserve Roastery are willing to spend $10 on a cup of coffee and with all of the experiences the space has to offer, they're probably right. On Friday, the coffee giant opened what is only its second Reserve Roastery in the US (following the flagship in Seattle), a three-floor behemoth featuring five different bars, seven brewing methods, and a seriously swanky gift shop. Fold-out maps near the door help customers navigate the enormous space, which has food, cocktails, and some pretty pricey espresso. Scroll down for video New to the city that never sleeps more caffeine! Starbucks opened a sprawling Reserve Roastery in Manhattan on Friday Something special: It's only the second of its kind in the United States, with the flagship in Seattle A lot of coffee! Measuring 23,000 square feet, the roastery requires a staff of 280 to keep it running, and the company expects to roast 1.5 million pounds of Reserve coffee at the location in the first year alone The new Starbucks Reserve Roastery opened its doors right next to Chelsea Market on 9th Avenue in New York City on Friday morning. Wow! The space has lots of heavy-duty machinery Measuring 23,000 square feet, the roastery requires a staff of 280 to keep it running, and the company expects to roast 1.5 million pounds of Reserve coffee at the location in the first year alone. But what, exactly, is so special? Though the location is certainly huge, it's offering much more than space to those who wander in. To start, baristas here are offering seven different ways to brew your coffee, and not a single one involves popping a pod in a Keurig. Most coffee fans are familiar the first three: espresso, coffeepress, and cold brewing. But they also offer pour over coffee (which is becoming more and more popular at coffee shops across the country), as well as Chemex, siphon, and Clover brewing methods. Some of these are certainly worth seeing. The Chemex, for example, is an hourglass-shaped brewer used to make a type of pour-over coffee, and has its own booth set up near the entrance of the store. And watching the siphon in action is like being in a science lab: Using a halogen lamp, a barista boils water that is then siphoned up from one cup into another directly above it, where it mixes with coffee grinds and is then filtered back into the first glass. The siphon station is set up at one of two bars serving coffee, out of the five bars overall. From scratch: The Starbucks Reserve Roastery has five different bars, including one wear customers can buy whole beans Try something new? There are two coffee-focuses bars (which also sell some food), where customers can buy their favorite drinks and also try special drinks exclusive to the roastery A tad pricey: Many of the special coffee drinks that are only available here run for about $10 Of course, customers can order their old favorites, too caramel macchiato, anyone? but it's at these coffee bars that they can also try some of the special brewing methods and order from the exclusive Starbucks Reserve menu, which has specialty and seasonal drinks that can only be found at Starbucks Reserve Roastery locations. This is where things get a bit pricey. Flavored lattes like the Dark Chocolate Mocha and Hazelnut Bianco Latte go for $7 (for a Tall). A Shakerato Bianco is $8.50, and a Sparkling Citrus Espresso (which is made with espresso, sparkling tonic, and bitters and is served over ice) will set you back $9. The Christmas 2018 menu, which is available for a limited time, includes a $10 Cardamom Long Black, an $8.50 Cardamom Latte, and a $10 Cardamom Affogato (which is made with Blue Marble ice cream). There are also $9.50 flavored Nitro Cold Brews and a selection of ice cream-based options, like the $13 Cold Brew Malt and the $11 Nitro Cold Brew Float. While two bars, one on the main level and one downstairs, will serve up coffee (and some food), a third functions as a beans bar, where customers can get their own beans to grind in-store or at home. Bar number four is upstairs and specializes in both beans and spirits. Called Arriviamao, the Starbucks cocktail bar is the first of its kind in the US (the other is in Milan). Arriviamao serves beer, wine, and cocktails curated by mixologist Julia Momose, all of which are made with coffee or tea and come with a $20 to $23 price tag. Yum! There is also a Princi bakery that serves up sandwiches, breads, and pastries A bar... in a Starbucks? Arriviamao, Starbucks' cocktail bar, is the first of its kind in the US (the other is in Milan) Sip, sip! The bar has wine, beer, and a menu of specialty cocktails all made with coffee or tea. The cocktails cost $20 to $23 each Signature Cocktails include the $23 Six Roads Daiquiri (cold brew, rum, lime, strawberry, tomato), the $23 Triomphe (Darjeeling tea, gin, Riesling, passionfruit LaCroix), and the $20 Black & White Manhattan (coffee, bourbon, cynar, vermouth). They also have a few non-alcoholic options for $16 each. Finally, the Princi bar on the main level is the place to go for food. The bakery has a menu of breads, croissants, pizzas, cornetti, focaccias, and desserts. Any coffee superfan would likely need several visits to experience everything the location has to offer, and there's even more to explore once you've settled on a drink. The space also has a terrarium with coffee plants, ferns, and philodendrons, as well as a 30-foot tall copper cask, fireplaces, a gift-wrapping station, and a 10-foot statue of Starbucks' siren that was made of cast copper by Brooklyn artist Max Steiner. Customers can even buy a smaller gold-colored version of the Starbucks siren, sculpted by designer Matteo Cibic, in the curated shop, where it's selling for $4,500. The shop also includes tumblers, mugs, cocktail tools, sunglasses, keychains, notebooks, jackets, and small leather goods. The roastery has seven different brewing methods for coffee, including espresso, coffeepress, cold brewing, pour over, Chemex, siphon (pictured), and Clover So much to explore! The location also has a terrarium with coffee plants, ferns, and philodendrons (left) and a gift wrap station (right) Work of art! This 10-foot statue of Starbucks' siren was made of cast copper by Brooklyn artist Max Steiner Want one? There's another version of the siren by designer Matteo Cibic, in the curated shop, where it's selling for $4,500 Advertisement A Denver woman has become the first human to volunteer their body as a 'digital cadaver'. Sue Potter, a mother-of-two who died of pneumonia at 87 in 2015, was posthumously frozen and rapidly sliced into 27,000 hair-thin pieces, which were painstakingly preserved over three years, then digitized to teach students. In the 15 years between pledging her body and her death, Sue recorded everything about her life, describing her lifestyle, feelings, aches, pains and more so that students in years to come can understand the woman behind the medical records they're reading. During that time, she requested to see the saw that would slice her, the fridge where she'd be stored, and the polyvinyl alcohol that would be poured over her body before it was ground up. She also requested that she be sawed up to the sound of blaring classical music, surrounded by roses. Now that the process has been completed, an intimate account of her entire 15-year journey has been published by in the National Geographic's January 2019 issue, The Future Of Medicine, revealing the painstaking work and emotions, and the relationships, behind this scientific feat. Sue Potter volunteered her body to science in 2000, and after she died in 2015, the process to freeze, slice and digitize her body began. In the first phase of her life after death, Potter lay encased in polyvinyl alcohol in a lab, the prelude to being frozen at -15F, sectioned into 27,000 slices, then resurrected as a digital cadaver. She donated her body to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to help students When Sue first volunteered herself, Dr Vic Spitzer said no, because of her various complications, including her hip replacement. Eventually he agreed, but it did mean some posthumous logistical acrobatics. For example, here Dr Spitzer, director of the Center for Human Simulation, prepares to pry out a titanium rod from Sue Potter's hip replacement. Left in place, it might have destroyed the cutting blade. Because she'd been frozen, the hip had to be thawed to remove the it Sue was described as 'a woman of sharp edges, narcissistic, sometimes nasty, but also generous and caring,' who demanded classical music and roses at her sawing. She is pictured here shopping by herself in her wheelchair that had a sticker saying 'God Bless America' on it. Sue emigrated to the US from Germany after the Second World War Sue grew up in Nazi Germany, abandoned by her parents who moved to New York and left her with her grandparents. She told National Geographic she has never forgiven them. She emigrated to New York from Germany after the Second World War, met and married her husband Harry Potter in 1956 and had two daughters. They later moved to Colorado when Harry retired. It's not clear what happened to Harry, nor how Sue became estranged from her daughters, but by the age of 73 in 2000, Sue was alone. Health-wise, she'd endured plenty in her seven decades. Sue had diabetes, she'd had melanoma, a brush with breast cancer, and various surgeries under her belt. In 2000, when she thought she had a year left to live, she read an article about the University of Colorado's Human Simulation Project and their groundbreaking Visible Human project. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the team had embalmed and frozen the bodies of one man (a 39-year-old death row convict, Joseph Paul Jernigan, in 1993) and one woman (a 59-year-old who disease of heart disease in Maryland in 1994), which were then sliced up and digitizing for the purpose of educating medical students. Sue (born Susan Christina Witschel in Germany) wanted to be the third - making her the first living human to volunteer their body as an 'immortal corpse'. At first, the team director Dr Vic Spitzer rejected her as too complicated: he was creating models of 'normal' bodies. Sue had diabetes, she'd had melanoma, a brush with breast cancer, and various surgeries under her belt. Eventually, she won him over - but he had one condition: that she record the rest of her life. She agreed, and Dr Spitzer contacted National Geographic to do what he imagined would be a one-year recording project. To everyone's surprise (including Sue's) she lived another 15 years, making it one of the most extensive personal accounts of any patient ever documented in research. 'For her to talk to you about her body and how she felt her disabilities, which bothered her a lot that's a different dynamic. That's not learning about her anatomy and physiology, it's learning about her humanity,' Dr Spitzer told ABC, which is screening an accompanying video story about Sue's experience. Sue loved meeting the students (some pictured here at their graduation, which she attended). They would one day be analyzing her corpse. She loved 'lectur[ing them] on the need for compassion'. Despite her fierce, demanding character, she became a beloved figure among the students, who wept at her memorial This cross section is of Sue's head, encased in polyvinyl alcohol for stability. It shows her brain, eyes, and nose as the skull is sliced, from the top down, in the cryomacrotome,as Spitzer calls the milling machine. Her sectioning into 27,000 slices took 60 work days to complete From the moment Dr Spitzer agreed, Sue was given a card to have on her person at all times in the event that she died, saying, in part: 'In the event of my death page Dr. Victor M. Spitzer, Ph.D. There is a 4-hour window for the remains to be received.' According to National Geographic's account of Sue, it's no surprise she got her way; she was hardly a retiring character. 'She was a woman of sharp edges, narcissistic, sometimes nasty, but also generous and caring,' author Cathy Newman writes. While most cases in a project like this would be anonymous, Sue was proud about her involvement, attending conferences and giving lectures. The story took 16 years to complete, the longest feature ever undertaken by National Geographic. The article and images have been published in the latest issue of the magazine, January 2019, called The Future Of Medicine She loved meeting the students who would one day be analyzing her corpse, 'lectur[ing them] on the need for compassion'. Despite her fierce, demanding character, she became a beloved figure among the students, who wept at her memorial. She made daily contact with Dr Spitzer, and wanted to see every element of the process. She came in to see every element of the process her body would go through. And she wanted to direct some of the process, asking the team to saw her body to the sound of classical music, surrounded by roses (they played Mozart's Requiem and painted some roses on the door). It wasn't simple, as Dr Spitzer had predicted when Sue had first pitched her involvement. She had a titanium rod in her hip due to a hip replacement - so robust that it threatened to destroy the cutting blade. After she was frozen, the hip had to be carefully thawed so Dr Spitzer could pry the prosthesis from her body. But, technologically, everything was a lot more advanced since the first Visible Human, Joseph Jernigan, was sawed up. By the time Sue died, they had a saw that can automatically slice hair-thin strips for 24 hours a day at astounding speed. 'Cutting the NIH-funded Visible Human Male into roughly 2,000 slices took Spitzer four months in 1993,' Newman explains. 'Twenty-four years later, Susan Potter was cut into 27,000 slices in 60 days. Next comes the painstaking, time-consuming process of outlining the structurestissue, organs, vesselson each digital slice to highlight the skeleton, nerves, and vasculature in exquisite detail. That will take two or three years.' Looking ahead, Spitzer hopes this is just the start. 'The goal someday is to have enough bodies on your 'bookshelf' that you can pull out the body that makes the most sense to simulate the pathology or procedure,' Spitzer told ABC. Newborns in all 50 states must now be screened for the life-threatening genetic condition that leaves children without immune systems. Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) is the disease that afflicted the so-called 'boy in the bubble,' David Vetter, who had to live in sealed plastic room or suit for 12 years to avoid as many germs as possible until his death in 1984. The condition is thought to be very rare, affecting a few hundred children every year and was once a death sentence. Now, a quick diagnosis and treatment via a bone marrow transplant or gene therapy can give a child with SCID the chance at a long, healthy life. And as of Tuesday, Louisiana became the final state in the US to get on board with required SCID screenings, an emotional victory for the mother of the 'bubble boy' and the army of families and organizations that have fought for more than a decade to have every child screened. David's mother, Carol Ann Demaret can breath a sigh of relief and called the nationwide screenings a 'dream come true.' David Vetter (left) died in 1984 after spending the majority of the 12 short years of his life in a sterile 'bubble' protect his immune deficient body from deadly infections. Ever since, his mother Carol Ann Demaret (right) has advocated for infant SCID screening, now in all 50 states David used his bubble suit with its eight foot tether only a handful of times. There was not a perfect match to donate bone marrow to him, which would have given him a new immune system The immune system can be compromised by a wide range of illnesses and genetic conditions. Perhaps the best known immune system attacker is HIV, which leads to a decline in germ-fighting T-cells. But HIV, other infections and chronic conditions underlie these secondary immunodeficiencies. Primary immunodeficiencis, on the other hand, occur when a child is born with a genetic condition that leaves their bodies with little or no defense against infections There are at least 250 genetic conditions that impair immune systems, but they often go undiagnosed, so prevalence is hard to estimate. The human immune system consists of the tonsils, thymus, lymphatic system, spleen, white blood cells and the bone marrow. Dysfunction in any one of these components or their subsidiary elements can leave us vulnerable to infection. But only a very small number of people in the US are born effectively without an immune system, as is the case for so-called SCID babies - like both of Carol Ann Demaret's sons. NASA made a special suit for David to be able to leave his bubble. Otherwise, an unsterile environment was too dangerous to him Errors in SCID babies' genes disrupt the development of their T and B cells, which are perhaps the body's most aggressive and specialized defense mechanisms. Without them, everything is a danger. That was the world that both of Carol Ann Demaret's sons - one where even the most innocuous germ could kill. SCID is sometimes carried on the X chromosome, which means that boys (with just one X and one Y chromosome) are at greater risk of inheriting the disease. Carol Ann's first son - David Joseph III - was born with SCID and died seven months later. Doctors warned her and her then-husband that there was a 50 percent chance that if they had another boy, he too would have SCID. When Carol Ann became pregnant with her third child, another boy (the couple had an older, healthy daughter), she and her husband decided to keep the baby. He might have SCID but this time they would be prepared, the best way possible at the time - by setting up elaborate sterile environments to which their son would be confined until a bone marrow match was found. David's plight captured the nation's fascination. The plastic chambers he lived in either at home or at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston made it seem like he was cut off from the world, though, all things considered, David's life was as normal as one could hope, complete with schooling (at school or the hospital), friends, toys and Halloween costumes. A doctor (left) could put his hands into David's (right) bubble while visiting the little boy and his sterilized toys Getting a bone marrow transplant would allow David to develop a new immune system, but the family was unable to find a perfect match. For 12 years, he lived relatively happily in his bubble, but doctors were concerned his sunny disposition and patience for life alone there would wane during David's teenage years. So David's family decided to try the transplant, using his sister marrow, which was a partial match. He didn't reject the marrow, but it was contaminated with the Epstein-Barr virus which led David to develop lymphoma. David died in 1984, after $1 million worth of medical care, four months after the transplant and before the marrow could shield him infection. 'I was grieving for 10 years,' Carol Ann told Daily Mail Online. But she became a passionate advocate for SCID screening through the Immune Deficiency Foundation (IDF). Carol Ann considers universal part of David's legacy, and says she remains proud 'I've said many times that that saved my life,' Carol Ann said. At the time of David's birth, he was lucky, relatively speaking. He was diagnosed in the first few weeks of his life - early, for the time. Doctors would not likely have suspected the rare disease if it weren't for his brother's death years earlier. Even now, only about 20 percent of infants that eventually get diagnosed with SCID have a relative with the disease that raises suspicions enough for doctors to administer the test. Instead, most babies still are not diagnosed until they are six months old, or later, and are only tested because they have suffered through months of recurring infections. If their illness is not properly diagnosed, most of these children will live only a year or two. For more than a decade, however, Carol Ann and IDF have been campaigning for all babies to be screened for SCID at birth via a simple blood test. Doctors were concerned that reaching his teenage years in a 'bubble' would be hard on David, pictured here five years before the bone marrow transplant that ultimately was his downfall Wisconsin was the first state to include SCID testing in its battery of standard newborn screens. By 2010, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended it across the country. But it's taken a decade since Wisconsin passed its screening requirement for the rest of the states to get on board. On Tuesday, laws requiring screening in Louisiana came into effect, finally bringing SCID newborn testing to all 50 states in the US. 'I just bounced a little with joy when the announcement came in,' said Carol Ann. 'As a young mother, I never dreamed that this day would come. It's been a long time coming and many people pushing for this should be proud.' David's life and death were at times mired in ethical controversy, and his death was a tragedy, but alongside other advocates, Carol Ann has long worked to ensure that proper screening, diagnosis and treatment for SCID are her son's legacy. 'The fact that David's life and death had great meaning to so many - we were told early on that there was great benefit to his life and death as we became aware of [the policy and medical] changes associated with him,' Carol Ann said. 'We could see David's impact on science and I remain very proud of him and his legacy.' A baby who was admitted to an Ebola treatment center at just six days old has been hailed a 'young miracle' after surviving her battle with the killer virus. Congo's health ministry said the girl, called Benedicte, is the youngest survivor in what is now the world's second-deadliest ever Ebola outbreak. Figures show the death toll in the African nation has jumped to 289, as neighbouring countries remain on high alert amid fears it could spread. Congo's health ministry calls the baby the youngest survivor in what is now the world's second-deadliest Ebola outbreak The ministry tweeted a photo of the infant, swaddled and with her tiny mouth open surrounded by caregivers who watched over her 24 hours a day for weeks. The baby's mother, who had been struck down with Ebola, died in childbirth, the ministry confirmed. The infant was discharged from the treatment center in Beni on Wednesday. 'She went home in the arms of her father and her aunt,' the ministry said. The Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak, which began in August, is showing no signs of slowing down. Experts have reported worryingly high numbers of children with Ebola in this outbreak, accounting for a third of all cases. And the latest figures show 515 people are feared to have been struck down, of which 467 cases have been confirmed. Data also reveals 255 confirmed deaths. Figures show the death toll in the African nation has jumped to 289, as neighbouring countries remain on high alert amid fears it could spread In video footage shared by UNICEF, Benedicte is shown in an isolated treatment area, specially set-up to deal with the outbreak She is cradled in the arms of health workers donning protective gear and by Ebola survivors, called 'nounous,' who can go without certain gear, such as masks In video footage shared by UNICEF, Benedicte is shown in an isolated treatment area, specially set-up to deal with the outbreak. She is cradled in the arms of health workers donning protective gear and by Ebola survivors, called 'nounous,' who can go without certain gear, such as masks. 'This is my first child,' her father, Thomas, said. 'I truly don't want to lose her. She is my hope.' Children who contract the hemorrhagic fever, responsible for a brutal epidemic in West Africa in 2014, are at greater risk of dying than adults. Ebola typically infects adults because they are most likely to be exposed to the lethal virus. However, children have been known in some instances to catch the disease when they act as caregivers. Few cases of Ebola in babies have historically been reported, but experts suspect transmission could happen via breast milk or close contact with infected parents. So far, more than 400 children have been left orphaned or unaccompanied in this outbreak as patients can spend weeks in treatment centers, UNICEF said. A kindergarten has opened next to one treatment center in Beni 'to assist the youngest children whose parents are isolated' there, it added. Experts say public and private health centres have inadequate control practices, spreading the virus. Pictured, a healthcare worker sits in a hospital in Bwana Suri, Ituri province of Democratic Republic of Congo, December 10 Pictured, a healthcare worker stands after cleaning a room after an Ebola patient stays in a hospital in Bwana Suri, Ituri province, December 10 HAS THE DRC HAD AN EBOLA OUTBREAK BEFORE? DRC escaped the brutal Ebola pandemic that began in 2014, which was finally declared over in January 2016 - but it was struck by a smaller outbreak last year. Four DRC residents died from the virus in 2017. The outbreak lasted just 42 days and international aid teams were praised for their prompt responses. The new outbreak is the DRCs tenth since the discovery of Ebola in the country in 1976, named after the river. The outbreak earlier this summer was its ninth. Health experts credit an awareness of the disease among the population and local medical staff's experience treating for past successes containing its spread. DRCs vast, remote geography also gives it an advantage, as outbreaks are often localised and relatively easy to isolate. Advertisement Health experts have said this Ebola outbreak, the tenth to strike Congo since the virus was discovered there in 1976, is like no other. Health workers face the threat of attack from armed groups and resistance from a wary population in a region that had never faced an Ebola outbreak before. Tracking suspected contacts of Ebola victims remains a challenge in areas controlled by rebels. Ebola can be transmitted between humans through blood, secretions and other bodily fluids of people - and surfaces - that have been infected. The treatment of Ebola itself has taken an experimental turn in DRC, where scientists are now conducting a real-time study of how well pioneering drugs work. More than 160 people there have already been treated with the drugs, and the way people are treated won't change, but scientists will now be able to compare them. Four experimental drugs are being used to try and combat the disease mAb 114, ZMapp, Remdesivir and Regeneron. Patients will get one of the four, but researchers won't know which they were given until after the study. The outbreak has been plagued by security problems, with health workers attacked by rebels in districts where the virus has been spreading. Health workers had to be evacuated from their hotel after it was hit by a shell in a nearby armed rebel attack last month. Armed groups have kidnapped and killed people trying to treat the sick, and ongoing conflict has made locals suspicious of official health workers. Last week, officials announced more Ebola cases are being diagnosed in the city of Butembo, 35 miles (56km) away from Beni, where most of the outbreak is happening. Experts warn the quick spread makes tackling the virus more complicated because containing it has been challenging enough in the one city. Ebola can be transmitted between humans through blood, secretions and other bodily fluids of people - and surfaces - that have been infected. Pictured, a health care worker arranges washed boots in a transit centre in Beni, North Kivu Province, December 6 They fear experimental vaccines which have been doled out to thousands of people, and have reportedly prevented the death toll rising into the thousands, will run out. It comes after news broke earlier this week that hundreds of health workers in South Sudan will be given Ebola vaccinations amid fears the virus will spread. No cases have been confirmed in neighbouring South Sudan yet, but the country is on 'high alert', according to the World Health Organization (WHO). More than 2,000 healthcare and frontline workers in the country will be offered a vaccine to try and stop the spread. Teams of vaccinators are ready to conduct the vaccinations, starting in the capital, Juba, on December 19. The UN Refugee Agency warned there is an influx of Congolese refugees seeking shelter in South Sudan because of conflict in the DRC. A Briton claims her cancer was dismissed as jet lag after she started to feel unwell while on holiday in Disney World, Orlando. Claire Daly, 34, was just days into the three-week break with her husband Matt, 43, in September 2015 when she became fatigued and under the weather. The environmental scientist, of Coventry, West Midlands, battled on for nearly two weeks before finally going to a Florida hospital, where she was told tiredness from the flight was probably to blame. But when her symptoms became intolerable and forced her to return to the hospital just days later, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and told she would have just weeks to live unless she started treatment immediately. Mrs Daly was rushed back to the UK where she endured three rounds of grueling chemotherapy and was forced to have a bone marrow transplant in March 2016. Now in remission, Mrs Daly has even become close friends with her 'DNA sister', 22-year-old bone-marrow donor Imogen Riddett. Scroll down for video Claire Daly claims her cancer was dismissed as jet lag after she started to feel unwell while on holiday in Disney World, Orlando. Pictured on the first day of the three-week break on September 13 2015, Mrs Daly started to feel tired and lethargic within days of the trip After being sent home from hospital, Mrs Daly returned just days later when she became more fatigued. A blood test revealed her white blood cell count was abnormally a high - a sign of leukaemia. Mrs Daly is pictured receiving treatment in hospital in the UK on March 29 2016 After enduring three rounds of chemotherapy, which left her nauseous and caused her hair to fall out, Mrs Daly then had to have a bone marrow transplant to reboot her immune system. Now in remission, Mrs Daly is pictured at home in Coventry yesterday with her husband Matt The couple decided to treat themselves to a break in Orlando after moving back to the UK from Australia, where they had been living for four years. Mr Daly, an events organiser, said: 'We were both hugely excited by the holiday as 2015 had been a long year with our move back to the UK and it was nice to go somewhere where we knew we'd be able to rest and unwind.' The pair, who married in 2012, hoped to have a relaxing three-week break, but Mrs Daly began to feel tired and lethargic shortly after landing, and started to struggle to get out of bed. 'At first, I just shrugged it off as very bad jet lag,' Mrs Daly said. 'Matt had jet lag too but he got better and I didn't. 'I just felt really tired, I didn't really have any appetite and had a lot of pain.' Despite her symptoms, Mrs Daly decided to push on and try to enjoy the break. 'I forced myself to go on rides and go for meals but I'd only have a couple of mouthfuls,' she said. 'We'd go to Disneyland or Universal Studios but we'd have to go home after just a few hours because I felt so tired.' Mrs Daly has since become close friends with her bone-marrow donor 22-year-old Imogen Riddett. The pair are pictured together in June this year after a meeting was arranged by the leukaemia charity Anthony Nolan. They call each other their 'DNA sister' Mrs Daly decided she had to see a doctor when she woke up one morning and could barely bring herself to get out of bed. 'They gave me painkillers and the doctor said that I was just under the weather coupled with the jet lag,' she said. 'They told me to see how I was after the weekend. We went back on the Monday because I couldn't get out of bed.' WHAT IS ACUTE MYELOID LEUKAEMIA? Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a type of blood cancer that starts in young white blood cells in the bone marrow. AML affects around one in 200 men and one in 255 women in the UK at some point in their lives. Approximately 19,500 new cases occur every year in the US. It is most often diagnosed in older people. Symptoms can include: Fatigue Fever Frequent infections Bruising or bleeding easily, including nosebleeds or heavy periods Weight loss Bone and joint pain Breathlessness Swollen abdomen Pale skin AML's exact cause is unclear, however, risks include: Smoking Being overweight Radiation exposure Previous chemotherapy Certain blood disorders, such as myelodysplastic syndrome Some immune conditions, like rheumatoid arthritis AML is usually treated via chemotherapy. A bone marrow or stem cell transplant may be required. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement Mrs Daly had a blood test, which revealed her white blood cell count was abnormally high - a key sign of leukaemia. 'I'd put it to the back of my mind, so to find out that it was cancer was horrendous,' she said. 'It was very surreal for us both. There were no words for something like that.' Despite the diagnosis being devastating, the couple were grateful Mrs Daly's cancer had been caught early enough for her to stand a chance at beating it. 'When Claire was diagnosed, doctors told us her acute myeloid leukaemia had grown very fast,' Mr Daley said. 'They said she needed to start treatment as soon as possible otherwise she could only have had a few weeks.' Mrs Daly flew home for chemo, which left her nauseous and caused her hair to fall out. 'After the first round I was told it hadn't worked, but I tried to remain as upbeat as possible,' she said. After eventually entering remission in December 2015, Mrs Daly was then forced to have a bone marrow transplant to reboot her immune system. She even got to meet her donor in June 2018 after it was organised by the leukaeama charity Anthony Nolan. 'The first time I met her it was hugely emotional,' Mrs Daly. 'We thought we'd be there for a few hours but we there till 11pm in the evening, we had a lot to talk about. We've become very close. 'It's very strange knowing someone else is part of you in this way. We say we're DNA sisters and she's part of my family. 'We always end up talking about it. It's nice to talk about our difference experiences and from different perspectives. 'It's brought us all together, she gave me the gift of life. I wouldn't be here without her. There's nothing I could ever do to repay her.' A dental office worker who was left with a 'bumpy' nose from two botched surgeries is finally happy after going under the knife again. Stacy, whose surname is unknown, would wear hats to hide her 'lumpy bumpy nose' after failed rhinoplasties caused her to develop neovascularisation. This occurs when new blood vessels form in abnormal tissue in an attempt to heal an injury in that area. Despite being warned by her surgeons Dr Terry Dubrow and Dr Paul Nassif - stars of the hit E! reality show Botched - that the procedure was risky and her nose could turn black and die, Stacy, of Phoenix, Arizona, went ahead with the operation. Thankfully it was a success and the dental worker, who is believed to be in her early thirties, finally has the smooth nose she has always dreamed of. Stacy, who was left with a bumpy nose from two botched surgeries, is finally happy with her appearance after going under the knife for a third time despite being a 'high risk' case Stacy had severe neovascularisation - the formation of blood vessels in abnormal tissue - at the tip of her nose after two botched surgeries. After being warned going under the knife again could cause her nose to fall off, Stacy went ahead with it and finally has the nose of her dreams Before meeting with her surgeons, Stacy admitted she was a 'high-risk' case and accepted the pair may not be able to reverse the damage of her previous procedures. Stacy first went under the knife at 30, before having a corrective 'revision rhinoplasty' at 31. After 'walking around for a good year' with her botched nose, she decided enough was enough. After examining her, Dr Nassif concluded her past doctor unskillfully attempted to restructure the tip of Stacy's nose by cutting it with a scalpel 'straight up'. He even described it as a 'big fat conglomerate of scars'. This caused Stacy, who lives with her husband Donn, to develop neovascularisation, as well as making the side of her left nostril collapse. Dr Nassif said that in order to make her nose smoother he had to 'remove everything, start afresh and build it from the ground up'. Pictured before the surgery, Stacy would often wear hats when out and about to hide her 'lumpy bumpy nose'. She admitted the damage may be too severe for surgeons to reverse Stacy felt her nose was bumpy and drooped at the tip (pictured before the surgery) After reality-star medics Dr Terry Dubrow and Dr Paul Nassif 'built her nose from the ground up', Stacy celebrated her smooth nose and has ditched hats for good WHAT IS NEOVASCULARISATION? AND WHY IS IT A RISK DURING RHINOPLASTIES? Neovascularisation occurs when new blood vessels form in abnormal tissue in an attempt to heal an injury to that area. It helps to supply the damaged area with oxygen and nutrients, as well as removing waste from the injured tissue. Neovascularisation can occur after a 'revision rhinoplasty' - more commonly known as a corrective nose job - which is often carried out if scar tissue formed between the skin and the cartilage in the first procedure. Scar tissue can leave the nose looking bumpy and may cause the person who went under the knife to be more unhappy with their appearance than they were to begin with. Surgically removing scar tissue can sever important blood vessels in the nasal region, resulting in neovascularisation. If blood supply to the area becomes compromised during any further surgeries, the wound may not heal properly and could result in tissue death that causes part of the nose to fall off. Advertisement Speaking of the risks, Dr Nassif told Stacy on the E! show: 'Can your skin start turning purple on the table? Yes. The whole tip can turn black and die.' A clearly panicked Stacy was then reassured by Dr Dubrow that they would stop operating immediately if she showed any signs of tissue death. After admitting her 'mind was spinning', a tearful Stacy went through with the procedure. Once over, Dr Nassif told her she had passed the high-risk stage. Speaking of the results of the surgery, Stacy said: 'My nose was lumpy, bumpy and the tip was drooping. But now, thanks to Dr. Nassif, my nose is smooth, my bump is gone and the tip is raised.' Ready to 'hang up her hats', Stacy said she is looking forward to being a proud wife again. In the same episode, a woman whose breasts were botched after four failed plastic surgeries also underwent an incredible transformation. Hope, whose last name is unknown, was devastated when the surgeries left her with her right breast higher than the left and with part of her nipple missing. Thanks to Dr Dubrow and Dr Nassif, the divorcee finally has a symmetrical chest. And another woman, who aims to have the largest backside in the world, asked the celebrity medics to fix her sagging breasts. Natasha Crown, 24, bragged about how her bodacious bum breaks chairs and beds but wanted her already extremely large breasts made even bigger. Pictured in recovery, Dr Nassif reassured Stacy she had passed the high-risk stage The NHS' Existing responsibilities are expected to add up to 24.66billion They blamed rising drug costs, staff pay and pensions, and paying off debts Experts said the sum promised by Mrs May is 'generous but it will not go far' The extra 20.5billion a year promised to the NHS will not even be enough to cover costs if the health service doesn't become more efficient, experts have warned. A think-tank has warned the money allocated by Theresa May earlier this year may just be spent keeping hospitals' heads above water and paying off debts. It was hoped the huge sum of money would improve treatments for patients but, at current spending levels, it won't even be enough to cope with rising costs. Staff pay rises and pensions, caring for over-75s, increasing drug prices, operating costs and hospital deficits are expected to swallow up the money. A report published today said the NHS must become radically more efficient if it wants to use any of the money to improve patient care. Theresa May confirmed in June the Government would increase the NHS budget by 20.5billion by 2023, claiming the commitment showed the health service was the Government's 'top spending priority' The stark warning comes after damning figures yesterday revealed the winter crisis for the NHS has already begun. Statistics showed thousands of people are waiting longer than four hours in A&E, beds are 94 per cent full and one in ten trusts had no free beds in the first week of December. Experts and senior politicians have warned things will deteriorate over the Christmas period as the NHS faces up to its toughest winter yet. The Institute for Public Policy Research, who produced the report, seen by The Guardian, said the funding boost was 'generous'. However, the body, who produced the report alongside former NHS executives, admitted the money 'will not go far'. It said: 'Whilst the new funding will be sufficient to meet increases in day-to-day demand and rising costs, as well as wiping out provider [hospital trust] deficits, it will not fund significant improvements in care unless the NHS radically increases productivity.' NHS IS HEADING INTO ITS 'TOUGHEST EVER WINTER' This year's NHS winter crisis has already begun as hospital beds are filling up and thousands of people face long waits in A&E departments across England. Figures released yesterday by the NHS showed things look worse than at the same time last year, which then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the 'worst ever winter'. Experts and senior politicians warn things will deteriorate over the Christmas period as the NHS faces up to its toughest winter yet. In a series of damning reports, official figures revealed: One in 10 hospitals didn't have a single bed free on at least one night last week The average bed capacity across hospitals is England is 94 per cent - way above the 85 per cent safe level Nearly 55,000 people were left waiting on trolleys in A&E for more than four hours in November. Of those patients, 258 were kept waiting for at least 12 hours One in 12 ambulances were kept waiting outside A&E for half an hour or more because there was no space inside for their patients Ambulances were turned away from overloaded hospitals 25 times last week and sent to nearby units Advertisement In the best case scenario, the report said the health service could use 5.2billion of the money for improvements. But for this it would have to improve productivity by 1.4 per cent a year over the next five years nearly double the average 0.8 per cent improvement. If the current 0.8 per cent trend continues, existing responsibilities are expected to add up to 24.66billion meaning the NHS would still run a deficit. Caring for the elderly is expected to use up a huge 16.1billion of the funding boost, at current trends. Another 7billion would be spent on staff pay, drugs and operating costs. Hospital deficits would require 1.56billion. The report was written with the help of consultants Ruth Carnall, the former head of the NHS in London, and Hannah Farrar, former executive of Monitor, the NHS's financial regulator. They said the money Theresa May promised would be fed into the health service budget by 2023 will be enough to cover day-to-day costs and not much more. 'Theresa May's NHS funding deal is generous but it will not go far,' Harry Quiler-Pinner, a senior researcher at the IPPR which did the report, told the Guardian. 'Once youve factored in an ageing population and the rising cost of staff and medicines, there is barely any money left in the coffers for the improvements in access and quality that the public really want.' The increase, confirmed by the Prime Minister in June, works out as 394million a week more than the current NHS budget. NHS Confederation, which represents senior executives in the health service, states its planned expenditure for this financial year is 126.3billion. Mrs May said at the time the commitment marked the NHS as the Government's 'number one spending priority'. However, the Prime Minister also warned that the NHS needed more than just a 'sticking plaster' when the boost was announced. The Department for Health and Social Care said the funding increase was 'historic'. And it added more funding would in future be spent on community care in order to reduce pressure on hospitals. A spokesperson said: 'Were backing the long-term plan for the NHS with a historic funding settlement of an extra 20.5billion a year to improve performance and make our health service fit for the future, ensuring every penny is spent on improving patient care.' Incredible X-rays show acupuncture needles buried along the spine of a 94-year-old woman. The unnamed woman, who had recently been diagnosed with dementia, went to the division of general internal medicine at the University of Toronto after a painful fall. Doctors took scans of her back and hips to rule out any fractures, only to discover what looked like tiny flecks along her spine and at the top of her legs. The medics were told by the woman's carers she had visited a traditional Korean Hari acupuncture clinic just once 30 years before. Hari involves leaving needles permanently under the skin in the belief they relieve pain. X-rays revealed a 94-year-old unnamed women had acupuncture needles buried along her spine (left) and at the top of her legs (right). She had visited a Hari acupuncture clinic just once 30 years before. The practice involves deliberately leaving needles in place to relieve pain Due to her suffering no ill effects from the alternative medicine, the woman was only treated for a urinary tract infection she was suffering from before being sent home. The woman arrived at hospital after she claimed to have fallen over in an incident her carers did not see, according to BMJ Case Reports. Doctors first examined her back and hips, which did not seem overly tender. They then carried out X-rays to be on the safe side. After discussing the images with the woman and her carers, the medics were told the patient, who was of Korean descent, visited a Hari clinic with the intention of gold needles being left inside her to combat her ongoing pain. The authors of the report claim it is unclear how many people have Hari needles inside them but they believe this woman's 30-year case is the longest ever. Hari originated in Japan and is commonly practiced on the island, as well as in Korea and among Asian communities in North America. Gold needles are traditionally used due to them being associated with wealth in Korean culture. Hari is a rare form of acupuncture compared to the more commonly known practice where needles are removed. There is evidence the gold needles used can migrate from the muscles they were left in to the internal organs. Gold is 'MRI compatible', however, Hari could be dangerous if someone has a scan or X-ray with other types of metal in their bodies that medics are unaware of. Metals that are attracted to magnets - including iron, nickel and cobalt - become magnets themselves when they enter a magnetic field. When two magnets are in close proximity they align themselves so their polar fields attract. This could cause metal within the body to twist and turn. The so-called 'missile effect' can also occur, which is when magnetic objects are propelled by enormous amounts of energy across the room towards an MRI scan. Both of these phenomena have caused serious injuries and even killed people. The authors warn acupuncture is on the rise in the western world as people are increasingly turning to complementary therapies over conventional medicine. They believe being aware of Hari may avoid confusion if doctors are presented with unusual flecks in X-rays and will help ensure patients stay safe while having X-rays. A new smartphone app that has been developed by scientists can detect a child's risk of developing asthma. The app - called PARS - asks just six yes or no questions to weigh up if a child is at risk of the common condition. The questions include whether the youngster has eczema or wheezing, and if either of their parents have asthma. The tool then gives a score of between zero and 15 that estimates how likely the youngster will develop asthma by the age of seven. The app (seen left) asks six questions to weigh up if a child is at risk. It gives a score out of 14 and the per cent risk of the youngster developing the condition. Dr Ramesh Kurukulaaratchy (right), University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust, was one of the scientists behind the app Researchers at Southampton General Hospital and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre developed the app. It is available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Asthma affects one in every 12 adults and approximately one in 11 children in the UK, according to estimates. Every ten seconds one of these 5.4million patients suffers a life-threatening asthma attack, with three people dying each day. The condition affects one in 13 people in total in the US and one in 12 children, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America statistics show. Asthma is defined as a long-term condition that affects the airways, making them inflamed and 'sensitive'. When a patient comes into contact with a trigger - such as smoke, mould or dust - it cause their airways to tighten and the lining to swell. The condition can be diagnosed by blowing into an instrument, called a peak flow test, that measures lung function. Professor Hasan Arshad, respiratory medicine consultant at the Southampton NHS trust, was co-author of the study The app is based on a new system, know as the Paediatric Asthma Risk Score (PARS), which does not require a blood test but asks if the child: Has parents with asthma Had eczema before they were three Ever wheezes when not suffering from a cold Wheezed before they turned three Is African American Scored two or more on a skin prick test that assess allergies WHAT IS ASTHMA? Asthma is a common but incurable condition which affects the small tubes inside the lungs. It can cause them to become inflamed, or swollen, which restricts the airways and makes it harder to breathe. The condition affects people of all ages and often starts in childhood. Symptoms may improve or even go away as children grow older, but can return in adulthood. Symptoms include wheezing, breathlessness, a tight chest and coughing, and these may get worse during an asthma attack. Treatment usually involves medication which is inhaled to calm down the lungs. Triggers for the condition include allergies, dust, air pollution, exercise and infections such as cold or flu. If you think you or your child has asthma you should visit a doctor, because it can develop into more serious complications like fatigue or lung infections. Source: NHS Advertisement Children with a score of zero are given a one in 33 risk of developing asthma before they turn seven. While those who tick just one of the boxes are given a score of two and a six per cent risk, the app states. Those who fulfill two of the six risks receive a score of five and a 15 per cent chance of developing asthma. The risk continues to rise the more criteria a child meets, with them being given a 79 per cent risk if all six criteria are met. Dr Ramesh Kurukulaaratchy, a respiratory medical consultant and part of the team at University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust, said: 'A common question parents face is whether or not their wheezy child will go on to have asthma. 'This simple tool should help clinicians answer that question with much greater confidence than before. 'It can be used reliably for populations in the US as well as the UK, suggesting it has wide applicability.' The researchers analysed PARS against the data of more than 2,000 babies born on the Isle of Wight, or in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky. Results, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, suggest that the new system is 11 per cent more accurate than existing methods of assessing the risk of asthma. Professor Hasan Arshad, co-author of the study and respiratory medicine consultant at UHS, added: 'PARS has the potential to be an important innovation. 'It does not require blood testing and has an improved ability to predict asthma development in children with fewer risk factors.' The PARS app is available online, as well as on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. At the start of December 2017, I bought 1,000 worth of bitcoin when it was $12,000 a coin. The value has since slumped and wiped out around three quarters of its value. I knew it was a speculative punt and at first the going was good - it raced towards $20,000 in the days before Christmas. I thought the only way was up. Why has the price of bitcoin, and other major cryptocurrencies, fallen? And what should I do sell now in case it drops further, or continue to hold out for a potential bounce back? Bitcoin has entered it's latest bust cycle which has seen its value teeter around the $3,300 a coin mark Myron Jobson of This is Money replies: When investing, there's a temptation to take a punt on something that you're not well versed in and that falls under the 'high-risk' banner, promising to return a tidy sum if the hype is realised. Bitcoin was that gamble for many novice investors in the run-up to Christmas last year when seemingly everyone from your dentist to taxi driver and even your dog was barking on about the original and best known cryptocurrency. But the mania of 2017, which saw the price of bitcoin soar to a peak of just shy of $20,000 from less than $1,000 at the start of the year, gave way to a bust after Christmas. Apart from a few short-lived rallies, bitcoin has been mainly on the slide since. At the time of writing, bitcoin was worth $3,400. This means it has fallen nearly three quarters compared to what you paid for it a year ago and lost 83 per cent from its peak. And it is not just bitcoin that has endured a torrid 12 months. The price of ethereum has tumbled a staggering 94 per cent from its peak of over $1,400 in mid-January to $88 a coin. This is not to say that there is no value in cryptocurrencies. Blockchain, the technology behind cryptos is impressive and might well become a mainstay in the future. But the plummet in bitcoin - and other cryptocurencies - shows that just because something has value, it doesn't mean it can't end up massively overvalued and in a bubble. It is likely many novice investors took a punt in the run-up to last Christmas and have now been badly burnt. What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a type of virtual currency that is free from government interference and can be shared instantly online. To ensure the system has value, no more than 21million bitcoin can ever be created, so values can fluctuate wildly depending on supply and demand. The underlying technology is blockchain, a financial ledger maintained by a network of computers that can track the movement of any asset without the need for a central regulator. Why has the price fallen? This is a real how long is a piece of string question. The jury is out over the root cause of the fall in price of bitcoin. Increased regulatory scrutiny is an often quoted reason. Bitcoin fell by 40 per cent a month on from its peak in mid-December while other cryptocurrencies took similar spills due to investor fears that regulators would crackdown on them to curb speculation. Over the year, the currency slipped to a low of $5,848 in July but managed to maintain a period of relative stability relatively trading between the $6,000 and $7,000 thereafter through to October. Bitcoin has since entered it's latest bust cycle which has seen its value teeter around the $3,300 a coin mark. So called cryptocurrency experts attribute part of the blame to enforcement action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission - America's financial watchdog - against start-up cryptocurrency companies Paragon and AirFox for unregistered sales of securities in November. The launch of a probe into whether cryptocurrency Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex manipulated the price of bitcoin using unscrupulous and illegal market tricks by the US Justice Department in the same month is also likely to have contribute to the downturn. What's more, much of the speculation has focused on bitcoin cash - an offshoot of bitcoin. Bitcoin cash forked away in August 2017 to be its own cryptocurrency. However, bitcoin cash has now split into two separate currencies that are now effectively in competition with each other as of last month. Bitcoin cash is now known as bitcoin ABC and the new 'fork' is called bitcoin SV. Should you sell now? It is hard to give a definitive answer to this question because cryptocurrencies are relatively new and investment experts are still spot market trends and anomalies. Bitcoin, the best known, was founded a decade ago by a mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto who published a white paper describing an electronic cash system that would give birth to bitcoin. Last year, speculation that the launch of bitcoin futures - contracts for assets bought at agreed prices but delivered and paid for later - would attract investment from institutional investors triggered the sharp hike in the price of bitcoin. The hype generated by novice investors and FOMO (fear of missing out) helped to prop up the price of bitcoin further still. Some analysts say the price of bitcoin is unlikely rally as it did last winter because a stimuli doesn't appear forthcoming. Jason Broomer of Square Mile Investment Consulting & Research gives a more damning assessment. I value bitcoin at zero and would rather invest in Zimbabwean dollars Jason Broomer - Square Mile Investment Consulting He said: 'I value a bitcoin at zero and I would rather invest in Zimbabwean dollars. 'At least Zimbabwean dollars offer a veneer of value thanks to the Zimbabwean government's credibility albeit, we are talking a very thin veneer here. 'There is no way to value bitcoin and the price moves merely reflect supply and demand from speculators and "investors". 'Gold is similarly problematic to value, though at least gold as a currency has credibility going back to the dawn of mankind.' But crypto-purests say that emerging technologies carrying radically new ideas will always see swings in their value. Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at investment platform eToro, said: 'In the past nine years, the crypto-asset market experienced five major corrections with an 85 per cent drop in value on average. Bitcoin has tumbled a staggering 83 per cent from its peak of almost $20,000 in mid December to $3,400 (as at 13 December) 'On this occasion, for bitcoin to record the same 85 percent drop, its price would have to fall to $2,950. 'While all eyes have been on the ongoing "crypto winter", blockchain projects continue to build momentum, institutional interest in crypto-assets continues to grow, and technological advances in the space are being made all the time.' But this view arguably self serving as it comes from an analyst from broker that trades cryptocurrency. Beware of panic holding There's an interesting discussion thread on social media website Reddit about 'panic holding' onto bitcoin in a hope that it will someday recover its losses. One user wrote: 'Panic holding all the way to the bottom, yippekayeeeey'. Another wrote: 'Can't make a loss if you don't sell lol.' In truth, hitting the sell button on an investment is difficult - even if you've made a profit for fear of getting out before it reaches it peak. Offloading a falling investment is even harder since it involves admitting to a mistake, giving up all hope the investment call will come good, and crystallising a financial loss. With conventional stocks and shares investments there are some metrics you can use to help you determine whether a stock is a winner or a dud, including the price to earnings ratio, and return on equity. Valuating bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies doesn't work in the same way, but looking at factors like the number of transactions in a day, the cost of transaction and mining the crypto can give you an idea of what they're worth. This sort of information is not always readily available and you might have to do some serious digging which takes time. If, after doing your own research, you think you made the wrong call on bitcoin, don't wait and compound the error. The best investors will not continue to hold a share once they realise their mistake. After all, a poor investment that has fallen by a substantial amount is less likely to recover your money than a good investment. Construction company Balfour Beatty is set to beat its full-year forecasts thanks to the additional sale of one of its infrastructure assets in December, the group has revealed. The UK-based firm said it will net about 65million in profit from the disposals over the full year, therefore exceeding its previous forecasts. Following the sale of its stake in Fife Hospital for 43million in September, the group expects to complete a sale of 80 per cent of its Edinburgh University student accommodation project for 24million. Balfour Beatty, the UK's largest construction company, is set to beat its expectations for the financial year Sales in the six months to June fell 8 per cent to 3.8billion, but underlying pre-tax profits jumped from 22million last year to 56million. The company, which is the UK's largest construction enterprise, also signalled a higher level of new work as part of a wider restructuring plan. The order book is forecast to be around 12billion at the year end, up from 11.4billion at the start of the year. It also said it is on track to meet its goal of bringing margins in line with industry standard in all earnings-based businesses. Chief executive Leo Quinn said: 'The actions we have taken since the start of 2015 have created a strong foundation for the future. 'We have consistently invested in our capabilities, systems and leadership while de-risking the business, strengthening the balance sheet and selectively building the order book. 'Going forward, we aim to drive market-leading performance by using the disciplines we have instilled to translate Balfour Beatty's expert capabilities into long-term profitable growth.' Earlier this month, the company said it had achieved a 45 per cent reduction in debt over the last year. However, financial advisors AJ Bell warn that the upgraded guidance from Balfour Beatty is no reason to get carried away. 'The boost to its full year numbers is principally driven by a series of disposals from its infrastructure investment arm rather than any significant improvement in trading,' AJ Bell's Russ Mould said. 'However, that should not detract from the job chief executive Leo Quinn is doing at Balfour which is successfully navigating a very challenging construction market in the UK.' Nobody can escape the Brexit bedlam that has been playing out before our eyes, especially in the last week. In between backstops, trade deals, Norway, contempt of parliament, no-confidence votes and the small matter of what happens in just over three months' time what is really going on? Editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost discuss Brexit in the latest This is Money podcast. Checkmate: The Brexit date is fast-approaching - so what happens next? Poll Do you want another Brexit vote? Yes No Do you want another Brexit vote? Yes 1427 votes No 2511 votes Now share your opinion Are we going to leave? Should we really have a second referendum and can you do anything to Brexit-proof your cash? We talk it all through in our Brexit special. Outside the Brexit bubble, we look into those DNA self-testing kits being plugged by a number of firms as the perfect Christmas gift could you get more than you bargained for? Simon reveals the best and worst performing funds of 2018 so far, in Top of the Pops fashion and Lee runs down the clever apps from challengers looking to encourage the savings habit. When Meghan Markle sits down with the rest of the royal family for their traditional Christmas dinner, it will be like being transported into 'another reality'. That's the opinion of Princess Diana's longtime butler Paul Burrell, who believes, based on his own experience, that the Duchess of Sussex will not be used to the intense four-nday period she'll go through at Sandringham Palace. After the year Meghan has gone through with her own dysfunctional family - from her father Thomas Sr partaking in staged paparazzi photos to half-sister Samantha's stream of vile public outbursts - she'd be entitled to think that a glass of sherry with the Windsors would make a welcoming change. Yet 60-year-old Burrell warns that other royals will be out to trip her up at Christmas, and offers the advice: 'Stay close to Harry and his granny or you're in trouble!' When Meghan Markle sits down with the rest of the royal family for their traditional Christmas dinner, it'll be like being transported into 'another reality', says Princess Diana's former butler Paul Burrell The Duchess of Sussex should prepare herself for an intense four days at the Sandringham estate, which will be 'occupied by some of the biggest personalities and egos in the country', says Burrell Burrell, who served as a footman to the Queen and butler to Diana for a total of 21 years, feels great sympathy for the baptism of fire that Markle, 37, has so far faced. Although this will be nothing compared to what will hit her on Christmas Eve when she travels up to the country estate in Norfolk, England. Burrell explains that the festive period has always been used by the royal members to curry favor with the monarch and Meghan should seize the opportunity to talk to Her Majesty about what's on her mind after a tumultuous few months where she's been saddled as 'difficult' and blamed for a rift with sister-in-law Kate Middleton. Burrell, who served as a footman to the Queen and butler to Diana for a total of 21 years, feels great sympathy for the baptism of fire that Markle, 37, has so far faced Burrell said: 'It's the most intense period of the year, I've been there for so many Christmases, this house is occupied by some of the biggest personalities and egos in the country. 'All these people are members of the royal family, they are all larger than life, have character to go with it. Everyone is jostling for position and attention, and they're bouncing off the walls after four days. It's like a pinball machine. 'They all want to please the Queen and want airtime with her, it's the one time that they can sit down with the head of the family and make an impression. 'It's what I said to Diana when she first came into the family, try to get airtime with the Queen, speak into her ear. 'The best time to do it is when she's seated at her card table, before and after dinner, she will sit and play Bridge or Canasta and she'll always ask people to join her, that's your chance to get quality time and tell the monarch what you're thinking and feeling. 'That's the time Meghan should grasp, don't be talking dresses and jewels with other royals, head for the Queen. The Queen is the most humble, approachable and kind person you'll ever meet, she's a great listener, nothing will shock her, she's heard everything, and you can tell her everything, and it will be safe. 'The Queen has to be informed from the horse's mouth, if you don't do that, you're doing an injustice, I hope that Meghan will get this advice from Harry, that granny knows best. 'If you speak your fears, she will take it onboard and speak to the right person. She will change the rules, she did it for William and Harry, she can do it, but only if she knows about it.' Burrell, who quit being a royal butler after Diana's death in 1997 (pictured together in August 1997) and now runs a florist in Farndon, Cheshire, understands the pressure cooker royal environment more than most Burrell explains the festive period has always been used by the royal members to curry favor with the monarch and Meghan should seize the opportunity to talk to Her Majesty. Above Meghan is pictured during her first Christmas with the royals in 2017 Burrell, who quit being a royal butler after Diana's death in 1997 and now runs a florist shop in Farndon, Cheshire, understands the pressure cooker royal environment more than most. He adds: 'I personally think she's finding it tough in there, no one could prepare her for it, not even on a film set, but this is the real world. Imagine Downton, but ramp it up. Sandringham is Downton Abbey on speed. 'It is daunting as everyone around that table is a very famous person on the world stage, there's not many times you can look at a dining room table and think: 'Oh my goodness'. 'I am sure Meghan will sit at that dining room table with her heart beating double time, thinking: 'Pinch me, is this real?' It's far from reality, so detached from our world. 'From the minute she arrives, she'll be met by a valet and a dresser, who will unpack her suitcase and wash and lay out her clothes every morning, then pack her bag up again when it's over. 'This will be an intense period until the minute she leaves, she'll have to give up her time completely as it's about the royal family, she'll have to understand that.' Burrell isn't surprised about the recent negative press surrounding Meghan - stories that she demanded air fresheners at her wedding in the 'musty' Windsor chapel and apparently made sister-in-law Kate cry over daughter Charlotte's bridesmaid's fitting. It's exactly what happened to his old boss, the tragic Princess of Wales. The 60-year-old has offered some advice to Meghan, saying to stay close to her husband Prince Harry and take advantage of the intimate setting to get airtime with the Queen The former butler warns that other royals will be out to get her at Christmas, explaining: 'Kate came from their [sort of] background, Meghan isn't like that. They are going to set traps, there will be pitfalls along the way' Burrell said: 'The Queen will be very aware of the media attention [on Meghan], she reads every single newspaper, every morning. 'She scans each one, then sees what they say, and makes an informed decision, based on what she reads with what she knows. She can then know if it's truth or fiction. 'She will try to resolve it, she will take her grandsons to one side, and ask: ''Is there any truth in this?'' Or: ''I've heard this, how can I be of help?'' She's their granny. She loves them very much and wants them to be very happy. The Queen is their best friend. 'At least Meghan has the support of Harry, he's been there, done it, it's part of his world. This is the way granny does it, we pay respect to it. 'She's already the same age as when Diana died, so is a mature woman, who comes from a mixed race background, and is American - these are positives that the royals should embrace to go forward in my eyes. 'But she's going to come up with opposition within the four walls of the royal household and they will be seen as negatives, like Diana did.' This Christmas will be like nothing she's experienced - a British royal family that is 'entrenched in history, tradition, protocol, timetables - it's a strict world, it's a world Meghan's not used to,' says Burrell. Pictured: Meghan with family members including her father Thomas Markle Sr Burrell continued: 'Because Kate came from their [sort of] background, Meghan isn't like that. They are going to set traps, there will be pitfalls along the way, but Harry will catch her, so stay close to him. Nothing will happen if you're close to the Queen's grandson. 'But if you stray away from him and start to do things by yourself, that's when there could be problems.' This Christmas will be like nothing she's experienced - a British royal family that is 'entrenched in history, tradition, protocol, timetables - it's a strict world, it's a world Meghan's not used to,' says Burrell. In years gone by with the Markle family as a child, she'd be delivering turkeys to homeless shelters in Skid Row, a square mile of downtown Los Angeles riddled with thousands of destitute people packed in dirty tents on the sidewalks. But that didn't stop the Markle family from helping those in need with her now divorced parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland insisting on handing out turkeys at holiday times. At one stage, Markle even volunteered at Hippie Kitchen, a long-standing Skid Row soup kitchen. In an essay on her humanitarian work, Markle later wrote: 'My parents came from little so they made a choice to give a lot: buying turkeys for homeless shelters at Thanksgiving, delivering meals to people in hospices, giving spare change to those asking for it.' In years gone by with the Markle family as a child, she'd be delivering turkeys to homeless shelters in Skid Row, a square mile of downtown Los Angeles riddled with thousands of destitute people packed in dirty tents on the sidewalks Meghan at one point even volunteered at Hippie Kitchen (pictured) a long-standing Skid Row soup kitchen, writing in her blog that she was influenced by her parents, who 'came from little so they made a choice to give a lot' In an exclusive interview, her nephew Tyler Dooley explains that she's always had the 'common touch'. He says: 'Not coming from a royal background, but very humble beginnings, she was just a commoner - as the Brits would call it. She was just a normal person, but she has always had this ability to help people and the power to change things. 'She wants to put smiles on people faces, she's happiest when among people who haven't got anything.' Dooley remembers fondly Christmases with his aunt Meghan, especially on one occasion, with Markle's father and his grandad, Thomas Sr. 'I remember one Christmas, my grandfather would take me, my brother and Meghan, and we'd go to the mall in Los Angeles, and he literally said you can get anything you want in the store. My brother and I looked at each other, and were like: ''How cool is that?'' 'My grandfather is like a big teddy bear. It was so cool, all the Christmas lights, music playing, we ran into the toy store and got whatever we wanted, it was an amazing experience,' says Dooley. Two of Russia's nuclear-capable Tu-160 strategic bombers designated as 'Blackjacks' by NATO have flown over the Caribbean sea during a 10-hour training mission with the Venezuelan Air Force amid escalating tensions between Moscow and Washington DC, coupled with allegations of meddling in Caracas. The flight of the jets was recorded on video, which Russia's Ministry of Defense then proudly shared on YouTube. The planes, known in Russia as 'White Swans', arrived at Maiquetia airport outside Caracas on Monday after completing a 6,200-mile journey. The Russian Defense Ministry said they were escorted by Venezuelan Su-30 and F-16 fighter jets during part of the training mission on Wednesday to practice interaction. It's unknown if the planes were carrying missiles, or how long they would stay in Venezuela. One of Russia's nuclear-capable Tu-160 fighter jets is pictured during an exercise with Venezuelan Air Force on Wednesday The nuclear-capable jets took off from Maiquetia airport outside Caracas and flew over the Caribbean sea, not far from the US coast Russian pilots are pictured inside the cockpit of a Tu-160 during their training mission over the Caribbean sea on Wednesday Russian Air Force crews arrived in Venezuela on Monday after a 6,200-mile flight The pilots spent 10 hours in the skies during the training mission, which angered Washington The Tu-160 is capable of carrying conventional or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles with a range of 3,410 miles and flying over 7,500 miles without refueling. RUSSIA'S TUPOLEV TU-160 BOMBER Length: 177ft 5in Wingspan: 182ft 9in (spread) Weight: 242,505lbs (empty) Range: 7,643miles (without refuelling) Speed: 1,380mph at 40,000ft Rate of climb: 13,860 ft/min The Tupolev Tu-160 is the world's largest operational bomber. With a crew of four men, the TU-160 can carry 12 Kh-55 cruise missiles as well as 24 Kh-15 attack missiles. The aircraft is part of the Long Range Aviation branch of the Russian Air Force which is involved with long-range nuclear weapons. It first entered service during the Soviet Union in 1987. In total, 35 were built with 16 remaining in service with the Russian Air Force. In 2015, Russia's Ministry of Defence announced plans to relaunch production, with a contract signed in 2018. Ten Tu-160M2 are set to be ready for delivery in 2027, costing the Russian government a rumoured 1.19bn. Advertisement One of the videos released by the Russian Ministry of Defense to RT.com shows Tu-160 pilots inside the cockpit during the flight. Another video depicts the fighter jets taking off from Maiquetia at night and then landing at the airport the following morning. The Russian bombers' deployment has infuriated Washington, where US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo characterized the joint training session as 'two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer.' The Kremlin on Tuesday rejected Pompeo's criticism, saying it was 'highly undiplomatic' and 'completely inappropriate.' 'As for the idea that we are squandering money, we do not agree. It's not really appropriate for a country half of whose defense budget could feed the whole of Africa to be making such statements,' spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza called Pompeo's comments 'not only disrespectful, but cynical,' highlighting the number of military bases the United States owns abroad. 'It's strange the U.S. government questions our right to cooperate on defense and security with other countries, when @realDonaldTrump publicly threatens us with a military invasion,' Arreaza tweeted. A view from a Tu-160's window during the exercise, during which the Russian and Venezuelan pilots practiced interaction The jets, nicknamed 'White Swans' in Russia, took off under the cover of darkness Military personnel from both nations are pictured posing outside one of the Tu-160s after the flight Wednesday Russia-US relations have reached a low point because of the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump. Russia has bristled at US and its NATO allies deploying troops and weapons near its borders, and has used its nuclear-capable fighter jets in the past to flex its military muscles under the nose of the United States. Wednesday's training mission took place in the Caribbean sea, which in October 1962 was the site of the Cuban Missile Crisis that brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of a nuclear war. On the day of the exercise, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the US of plotting to have him assassinated Russia's continued support for the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has further angered the Trump administration. Maduro, who had a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month, frequently invokes the possibility of a US invasion in Venezuela - a notion Washington denies. On the day of the Tu-160s' 10-hour training mission over the Caribbean sea, Maduro publicly accused US National Security Adviser John Bolton of overseeing a plot to assassinate and replace him with a dictator. He alleged, without providing any evidence, that Washington is using 'dirty dollars, bled from the US empire' to train 734 mercenaries with in neighboring Colombia to carry out the planned coup. Colombia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting Maduro's claim, saying the president accused the neighboring country of launching an 'imaginary war.' A key witness who used to sing with country star Blake Shelton and jokingly calls him her little brother has told DailyMail.com how she became caught up in a sensational murder trial set to be the subject of new Netflix documentary, The Innocent Man. The series is being billed as the next Making a Murderer, and like the series that made Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey household names, it focuses on the murder of a young woman and the conviction of two men on the strength of 'coerced' confessions. Tommy Ward, 58, and Karl Fontenot, 53, are both serving life sentences for the kidnap, rape, robbery and murder of convenience store clerk Donna 'Denise' Haraway, then 24. She was abducted while working a late shift on April 28, 1984 in Shelton's hometown of Ada, Oklahoma. Today, attorneys fighting to clear the men describe their convictions as an 'abomination.' For Stacy Shelton, 53, who joked that her married name makes her Blake Sheltons big sister, and was a reporter during the trial, it is a miscarriage of justice that has haunted her for more than 30 years. Stacy Shelton, 53, was a local reporter during the murder trial of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot in Ada, Oklahoma in 1985. In an interview with DailyMail.com, she describes the case as 'one of the greatest travesties' she's ever witnessed Karl Fontenot (left) 53, and Tommy Ward (right) 58, are both serving life sentences for the kidnap, rape, robbery and murder of convenience store clerk Donna 'Denise' Haraway, then 24. The men were convicted despite a lack of physical evidence and their case has been viewed as a miscarriage of justice Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com she explained: 'It's one of the greatest travesties I think I have ever witnessed in my life. It makes me sick. Every time I think about it.' Stacy maintains that the men are innocent beyond any doubt. But when she stepped forward to testify, she found herself threatened, intimidated and pressured to recant by cops who 'didn't want to know' and prosecutors intent on securing a conviction at any price. Stacy was just 19 when Ward, then 25, and Fontenot, then 20, first stood trial in the small Oklahoma town in 1985. She had paid her way through college by competing in pageants. Her talent was singing and she has happy memories of sharing a stage with Ada's favorite son, Blake. She jokingly claims the most famous person to carry the Shelton name as her 'little brother At the time of the trial Stacy was a fledgling reporter for the local radio station. Its coverage of Ward and Fontenot's sensational trial earned Stacy an Associated Press, Mark Twain Award and changed her life. She recalled: 'I was sitting there at a preliminary hearing and they were showing video of the questioning of Tommy and he was telling them that he didn't do it and that he was at a party.' Donna Haraway was abducted at some point on the evening of Saturday, April 28, 1984. Ward claimed he was at a party that night - an alibi Shelton was able to verify herself because it was her brother's graduation party During the first trial, Haraway's body had not been found but the prosecution didn't need a body since they had the videotaped confessions made by Ward and Fontenot (pictured) Ward and Fontenot were found guilty and were due to be executed on January 21, 1986 - the same day police found Haraway's skeletal remains As she listened to Ward talking about the party, Stacy's heart lurched with the realization that he was talking about her little brother's graduation party. She had been there and she knew that what Ward was saying was accurate and peppered with details that only someone present could have known. She said: 'I got up and left the courtroom and the Chief of Detectives, Dennis Smith, is standing outside and I said to him, "Dennis these guys didn't do it. That party they described, I was at and that's accuratethere's no way [anyone who wasn't there] would tell that kind of detail." Pictured above is the mugshot of Karl Fontenot. He remains behind bars 'And he just looked at me and said, "I don't want to hear it." And turned and walked off.' Looking back Stacy shakes her head at her 19-year-old self's wide-eyed belief that, 'They were going to go, "Oh my God! We've got the wrong guys. We'd better find the right guys."' She said: 'When he said that and he turned and walked off, I was stunned because I thought, "Don't you want to know the truth?" Stacy covered the trial every day. At times, she said: 'I have to admit that the prosecution did such a good job. I would sit there and think, "Maybe they did do it." But always in the back of my mind I had the thought, "But how could they?"' Haraway was abducted at some point on the evening of Saturday, April 28, 1984. Stacy knew with certainty that the party had been that night because she had written it in her calendar, which became 'a sort of diary.' Yet, the prosecution seemed to have an answer for everything. At the time of that first trial, Haraway's body had not been found but the prosecution didn't need a body. They had the videotaped confessions made by Ward and Fontenot. The jury watched as the men described how they had abducted, raped and stabbed Haraway then dumped her body west of Ada and their fate was sealed. They were convicted in August 1985 and sentenced to death. Haraway was the second of two young women to have been murdered in Ada within two years. In 1982, 21-year-old, Debbie Carter had been found dead in her apartment. She had been viciously raped and murdered. The crime remained unsolved at the time of Ward and Fontenot's arrest. An August 1993 issue of the Ada Evening News shows the lineup of the Western Heritage Jubilee in Ada featuring a young Blake Shelton (left) and Stacy Brashier (right) who would later marry into the family Stacy reveals she has happy memories of sharing a stage with Ada's favorite son, Blake. She jokingly says that having the surname Shelton as a result of her marriage makes the country star her 'little brother', although he and her husband are not actually related Haraway was the second of two young women to have been murdered in the rural town of Ada, Oklahoma within two years. The upcoming Netflix documentary may give the town a new claim to fame Today, that crime is a stain on Ada's history and one inextricably linked to Ward and Fontenot by a thread of injustice. Under the auspices of the same police force and prosecutors two men, Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, were convicted of Carter's murder in 1988. As with Ward and Fontenot, they were damned by nothing more than their confessions. In 1999, after serving 11 years in prison, they were exonerated thanks to DNA evidence that proved them innocent and nailed the true killer. It was the state's key witness who had put them in the frame in the first place. John Grisham's book, The Innocent Man - the inspiration for the Netflix series - chronicled that miscarriage of justice and referenced Ward and Fontenot's case. The series takes on their story where he left off. Stacy said: 'These murders happened within two years of each other and [at the time of the trial] they had not arrested anybody.' The DA Bill Peterson was coming up for re-election and according to Stacy, 'There was this great outcry that, "You can't find the people that are walking around murdering women. You're not going to stay in office." That pressure, according to Stacy, 'Drove them to find somebody no matter who they were and put them in prison. 'There was no body, you couldn't verify [their confessions] so unfortunately it was just the perfect storm for Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot.' On Tuesday, January 21, 1986, police found Haraway's skeletal remains. Ward and Fontenot had been due to be executed that same day, though the execution had been routinely stayed pending appeal. With the discovery of a body it became clear that their confessions differed in every aspect from the physical evidence. She had been killed with a single gunshot to the head. They 'confessed' to a stabbing never mentioning a gun. Her remains were found northeast of Ada. They 'confessed' to burying her on the west side of town. When Stacy heard there was to be a second trial she immediately approached their defense attorney to tell him she could verify the men's alibis on the night of the abduction. She testified to what she had told lead investigator Dennis Smith and she to his response. Speaking to DailyMail.com, attorney Mark Barrett described Ward's conviction on the strength of a confession that turned out to be 'garbage' based on a dream Ward had, as an 'abomination.' He is now working to appeal his conviction 'Chris Ross, the assistant DA was trying the case and Bill Peterson would sit second chair,' she said. 'Bill Peterson was furious with me. He was red faced and angry and he kept trying to get me to basically recant on the stand. By the end, Chris was yelling at me on the stand.' After she had testified, she said, Ross approached her and told her not to leave the court. 'They took me into their offices and said, "You stay right here. Don't you move." After the next recess they came back and Bill Peterson threw [a binder] down on the desk and said, "You read this. Your read this right here."' It was a transcript of Ward's account of the party. According to Stacy, '[Peterson] is just pointing his finger in my face, saying,"You're going getting back on the stand and you're recanting everything you've said." And I looked at him and said, No. I'm not.' 'He's so mad he's about spitting on me at this point. And he said to me, "Well you're not leaving until you get back on that stand."' Stacy sat in that office for the rest of the day and was compelled to come back and do so for the next four days of the trial. 'It was absolutely threatening. That's why I didn't question it. He was an authority figure. I was afraid he could put me in jail. I was afraid he could find some kind of trumped up charge of contempt if I left,' she said. 'There was definitely coercion there. Had I know then what I know now I've have gotten my own attorney and I would have left.' Despite their threats and intimidation, Stacy did not recant. But she watched in devastation as the men were convicted all over again - though this time their sentence was life, not death. Stacy said: 'At least it meant there was hope - a door that might be opened one day.' Three years ago, Stacy was approached by attorney Mark Barrett and asked to provide an affidavit as part of a bid to appeal Tommy Ward's conviction. She did so willingly and that affidavit has also become part of Karl Fontenot's legal efforts. Speaking to DailyMail.com, Mark Barrett described Ward's conviction on the strength of a confession that turned out to be 'garbage' based on a dream Ward had, as an 'abomination.' 'Tommy and Karl were both young men who did not graduate high school. Tommy has somewhat normal intelligence but he was unsophisticated and they had him in the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations Headquarters for eight or nine hours before they started running the tape,' he said. 'During the initial part of the conversation, according to both law enforcement and Tommy, he was talking about a dream that he had. 'And finally they said to him, "Enough about this dreamyou need to tell us what happened and don't say it in terms of a dream."' According to Barrett, police fed Ward information that they then claimed only the killer could have known. Later, after her body was found, they concealed crucial evidence including the medical examiner's finding that Haraway had given birth to a child. She was three months pregnant with her first child when she disappeared. The bombshell of her living long enough to give birth would have meant she was alive months after Ward and Fontenot had been jailed for her murder. And while the prosecution claimed there were no other suspects, Barrett insists there were numerous potential culprits. However, the jury that convicted the men a second time heard none of this. Today, Barrett firmly believes that Haraway's true killer remains alive and, 'out there.' He continues to push forward with his bid to see Ward freed. For Stacy, the whole affair remains a painful part of her personal history. 'It hurts my soul. To me Tommy and Karl are boys,' she said. 'When this trial happened they were boys. They were boys who were sent away and now you look at pictures of them and they're old men. 'These guys have had their whole life taken away through no fault of their own because some power hungry DA just didn't want to lose a case.' She admitted: 'I have a lot of contempt for Bill Peterson. I think to whom much is given, much is expected. And I am so disappointed that there was such an abuse of power there and in Ada and in Pontotoc County. 'He had an opportunity as District Attorney to do a lot of good. But I think his legacy is that he's done way more bad than he has done good. 'You have to look at what's really important and to me that is that you leave the world a better place than you found it. But he didn't do that. He didn't do that.' Netflix's The Innocent Man, premiers Friday, December 14. A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing and beating to death an elderly woman he was burglarizing 26 years ago, was executed on Thursday night. Jose Antonio Jimenez, 55, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 9:48pm at Florida State Prison in Starke. He was sentenced to death for the 1992 killing of 63-year-old Phyllis Minas in her North Miami apartment. He was scheduled to be executed at 6pm but it was delayed due to a last-minute appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the stay earlier on Thursday evening. He had no final words and prior to his death enjoyed a final meal of a Cuban sandwich, eggs, French fries and ice cream for dessert. Florida man Jose Antonio Jimenez, 55, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on Thursday for the 1992 killing of 63-year-old Phyllis Minas in her North Miami apartment. He was pronounced dead at 9.48pm The execution took about 15 minutes to complete. As the three-drug protocol was performed, Jimenez appeared to take numerous rapid, deep breaths and occasionally moved his head. Minas' nephew, Alan Pattee, said in a written statement that his family believes justice was done. 'Mr. Jimenez has shown no remorse or repentance for his crime. My aunt was innocent and loving, and a faithful sister to my father,' the statement said. 'His execution will allow closure to a painful memory of the vicious murder Mr. Jimenez was responsible form,' he added. Jimenez was said to be 'calm and in good spirits' on his final day and was visited by a spiritual adviser. Governor Rick Scott signed off on Jimenez's death warrant in July and he was scheduled to be executed on Thursday evening by lethal injection Court records show that on Oct. 2, 1992, Minas found Jimenez in her second-floor apartment. During his trial, neighbors said they heard her screaming, and they tried to enter, but someone inside had locked the door. Prosecutors at the trial said a fingerprint found on the inside of the apartment's front door matched Jimenez' print. Also, the building's custodian said he saw Jimenez jump from a balcony of Minas' second-floor apartment. The defense argued that Jimenez didn't stab or kill Minas, and that all of the evidence against him was circumstantial. Authorities say Jimenez was a cocaine addict who was burglarizing Minas' apartment when she came home and surprised him. Investigators said Minas, a longtime employee of the Miami-Dade Court Clerk's office, was stabbed eight times After a weeklong trial, Jimenez was found guilty and subsequently sentenced to death. After his arrest, Jimenez also was convicted of a prior burglary and second-degree murder in the 1990 death of another woman in Miami Beach. Over the years, he filed various appeals. In an appeal filed with the U.S. Supreme Court this week, Jimenez and his attorneys said detectives who investigated the case gave 'false or, at best, misleading testimony.' Also, they said, several key police reports were lost. He was burglarizing Minas' Miami home (above) when he brutally beat her to death Additionally, his attorneys filed a motion asking the court to issue a stay of execution and consider whether Florida's lethal injection protocol is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The lawyers pointed to the February execution of Eric Branch using the same drugs in which experts later concluded he felt significant pain, including screaming out the word "murderers!" several times as he thrashed about on the gurney. The justices denied Jimenez's appeals and request for a stay of execution Thursday night. In July, Gov. Rick Scott signed Jimenez's death warrant and scheduled the execution for August. But the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay to consider a number of Jimenez's claims, including that he was denied access to public records, that the Florida drug protocol can cause him harm and that it was cruel for him to be executed after 23 years on death row. In October, the court denied all those claims and lifted the stay. According to corrections officials, there have been 28 executions since Scott took office in 2011. That's the most of any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The rock legend behind festive classic 'I Wish It Could be Christmas Every Day' was left 'devastated' after 100,000 worth of his band's kit was stolen. Former Wizzard front-man Roy Wood, 72, lost 'priceless guitars and amps' when brazen thieves broke into a warehouse and stole the band's tour lorry parked inside. One thief was caught on CCTV camera breaking into the lorry's cab before hot-wiring the vehicle and smashing it through metal gates. CCTV footage shows brazen thieves breaking into a warehouse and stealing the truck The early morning raid yesterday forced the star to cancel a festive concert later that evening. Wood had been due to perform in Hull, East Yorks, last night but had to cancel as a result of the raid. The vehicle contained a trove of one-of-a-kind items including a Fender Stratocaster Wood has used for the past 50 years and a mixing desk worth 30,000. The robbery happened at 3.50am yesterday morning in Leeds, West Yorks, when a gang of thieves broke into a warehouse containing the truck. Wood had to cancel a festive gig in Hull after thieves stole his band's equipment Wizzard's frontman Roy Wood. The robbery happened at 3.50am yesterday morning in Leeds One of the yobs hotwired the vehicle and smashed it through a pair of locked gates, demolishing a neighbour's wall in the process. An appeal to find the truck posted on Wood's Facebook page and shared thousands of times resulted in police recovering the vehicle later in the day. Officers were tipped off by a woman who saw the post and then recognised the vehicle's number plate when she was walking her dog and called the police. One of the yobs hot wired the vehicle and smashed it through a pair of locked gates, demolishing a neighbour's wall in the process Roy Wood on Top of the Pops fronting the English glam rock band Wizzard This morning it emerged that police recovered the truck but it's not yet known whether the equipment is still inside. At the time of the raid it was being kept in a storage facility belonging to businessman Bob Collinson, who runs sound engineering business Yorkshire Audio and was accompanying Wood on tour. Mr Collinson said: 'The truck is packed full of priceless instruments and musical equipment. 'Roy was devastated about what happened, he might have lost so much. 'We're so grateful to the public for sharing the post about the robbery, it's down to them that the truck has been found. Yesterday afternoon Wood (third from right, on Top of the Pops) posted on Facebook saying: 'We are sorry to inform you tonight's gig at Hull City Hall has been cancelled 'The power of social media is incredible.' A post on Wood's Facebook page last night said: 'We have been informed that the truck has been found. 'The contents are yet to be checked and accounted for, it is in the hands of the police. 'Thank you so much for all your concern and to everyone who shared the post or kept an eye out for the truck.' Yesterday afternoon Wood posted on Facebook saying: 'We are sorry to inform you tonight's gig at Hull City Hall has been cancelled. 'The warehouse has been broken into and all the band equipment and truck has been stolen.' Wood rose to fame in the 1970s and 80s, when he performed with the Electric Light Orchestra and The Move. The Birmingham-born musician is on tour with his current outfit, the Roy Wood Rock 'n' Roll Band. Wood's Xmas song from 1973 is estimated to make Wood around 180,000 each year in royalties and has charted in the UK top 50 every year since 2007. Clint Eastwood's gutsy decision to both act and direct himself in his 37th feature, The Mule, at the age of 88 appears to be paying off, with the majority of critics agreeing that the deeply personal thriller might be his finest work in at least a dozen years. Few leading men in film history have been active this long, it's 63 years since Eastwood made his screen debut. The Mule is the veteran actor and filmmaker's second movie release this year, following The 15:17 to Paris featuring the real-life heroes who thwarted a terrorist attack on board a high-speed train in 2015. Eastwood's latest film, out in theaters on Friday, is an adaptation of a New York Times article by Sam Dolnick that tells the improbable tale of Leo Sharp, an 87-year-old World War II veteran who became one of the most prolific cocaine traffickers for the Sinaloa drug cartel. While Eastwood, who plays the leading role of the drug mule whose name in the film is Earl Stone, is not playing a version of himself, the Associated Press writes that 'it's hard not to appreciate, and be moved by, the film's many echoes for the filmmaker.' The review, which awards the Warner Bros.-produced flick 3 out of 4 stars, points to some 'curious parallels' between the character of Stone, a Korean War veteran, and Eastwood, like his troubled relationship with his ex-wife and grown daughter, his attitude towards modern technology and his struggle to find a place for himself in an America that is rapidly changing. Eastwood's character Earl Stone has ostracized himself from most of his family, except his granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga) (pictured above in her wedding dress) Stone, a horticulturist, finds his lily farm facing foreclosure. To pay the bills and contribute towards his granddaughter's wedding, Stone embarks on a new career path, as a drugs mule On his first run, Cartel members put a bag of drugs in Stone's beat-up Ford pickup and after he reaches his destination, he finds a wad of cash in the glove compartment Stone is a divorced horticulturist from Illinois. Stone's specialty is the daylily, a fragile flower that blooms for 24 hours a year. It soon transpires that Stone is more devoted to his flowers to the point he's neglected and alienated most of his family, including his ex-wife Mary played by Dianne Wiest and his daughter Iris, played by Alison Eastwood, the director's daughter in real life. In the film, Stone's lily farm runs into hard times and faces foreclosure. Stone receives substantial payments but has to show unwavering obedience to his employers' orders As Stone has maintained a relationship with his granddaughter Ginny, played by Taissa Farmiga, he offers to help pay for her wedding. Finding himself down on his luck financially, he follows a tip that leads to an auto shop and Stone's foray into the world of the Cartel begins. Cartel members put a bag of drugs in Stone's beat-up Ford pickup and after he reaches his destination, he finds a wad of cash in the glove compartment. It quickly becomes obvious that he's been hired to be a drug mule who receives substantial payments but also has to show unwavering obedience to his employers' orders. Federal agents working for the DEA, played by Bradley Cooper (right) and Michael Pena (left) see their path's cross with Stone's Glenn Kenny, a critic at The New York Times, described the movie as 'quite grand' The one job turns into several and many kilos are smuggled cross-country. The success of 'Tata,' meaning grandpa, the smuggler name by which Stone is known, attracts the attention of the cartel kingpin played by Andy Garcia. Throughout the film, Stone doesn't really question the legality of his new line of work. All this is against a backdrop of endeavors by federal agents, played by Bradley Cooper and Michael Pena, to nail cartel drug runners out west. IndieWire heaps praise on the film, hailing it, 'Clint Eastwood's Best Movie in More than 25 Years,' and calling it a 'tender, conflicted, and sometimes very funny meditation on what America conditions people to want for themselves on how natural it can be to forget who you are in a country where work is an identity unto itself.' Critics have said the film is poignant, personal, tender and a 'sometimes very funny meditation' Rolling Stone Magazine is not as bowled over as some of the other reviews and awards the film 3 and half stars out of a possible 5 but still sums up the film as showing 'an old man dealing with the dim possibilities of change near the end of his life,' and 'a deeply personal reckoning.' Screen Daily's review refers to the film's portrait of a flawed, aging man running out of options and second chances. 'Eastwood carries the film's themes gracefully enough particularly the notion of an aged man coming to the end of the proverbial road. And while this defiantly unflashy film may similarly feel out of step, long on mawkishness and short on dynamic, arresting moments, the purity of its gently mournful tone stays with you,' Screen Daily reports. Deadline Hollywood's review praises the film's final scenes as a 'perfect ending for another fine work from a master of the medium.' The bottom line, according to the Hollywood Reporter: 'This old mule is still kicking.' The Mule is rated R for language throughout and brief sexuality/nudity. It has a running time of 116 minutes. It was exclusively revealed by DailyMail.com this week that Clint Eastwood's secret daughter, Laurie Murray, 64, who was given up for adoption by her mother at birth, only discovered the Hollywood legend was her father after a hunt for her biological parents as an adult. She was pictured and acknowledged as Eastwood's daughter for the first time on Monday with the celebrated actor's seven other children at the premiere of his latest movie. The use of a century old law to expel the public and media journalists from court proceedings of an alleged sex offender has been blasted by a former top judge. Retired District Court judge Clive Wall QC has two decades worth of experience sitting on the Bench and told The Courier Mail he had never heard of the 'public morality' law being used as grounds for closing a court. Mr Wall's comments came after magistrate Trevor Morgan closed the court and denied public information of proceedings in the alleged Kmart sexual assault case. The use of a century old law to expel the public and media journalists from court proceedings of alleged sex offender Sterling Free (pictured) has left Australia's toughest judge scratching his head When Sterling Free appeared in Pine Rivers Magistrates Court accused of abducting a girl, 7, from Kmart at Westfield North Lakes the public and media were barred from entry When Sterling Free, 26, appeared in Pine Rivers Magistrates Court on Wednesday accused of abducting a girl, 7, from Kmart at Westfield North Lakes before molesting her in bushland, the public and media were barred from entry. 'Public interest requires unfettered access to court proceedings unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary,' Mr Wall told the publication. 'I doubt that public morality, whatever that means, satisfies that test.' Magistrate Morgan cited a provision from the Justices Act, first drafted in 1886, which stipulates a judge can close the court in the interest of 'public morality'. When police applied to close the court, magistrate Morgan obliged in the 'very significant' interest of the victim and fears of 'public or social media lynching' of the alleged attacker. When police applied to close the court, magistrate Morgan obliged in the 'very significant' interest of the victim and fears of 'public or social media lynching' of the alleged attacker The move instantly sparked a furious backlash from parents, many of whom wanted to know how the girl was lured from the shopping centre so they could better protect their own children The move instantly sparked a furious backlash from parents, who wanted to know how the girl was lured from the shopping centre so they could better protect their own children. Hetty Johnston, founder of child protection organisation Bravehearts, told Daily Mail Australia it seemed the system was protecting alleged offenders rather than victims. 'I don't understand the reasons [for the judge's decision] - and I don't pretend to. But if this is about protecting the alleged offender - that's not good,' she said. 'At the end of the day, if the courts want the community to have faith and confidence in them - and I do too - they need to be transparent about what's going on.' LNP Leader Deb Frecklington has also been vocal in her push to have the 'archaic' justice act overhauled and modernised. 'I am calling for a review of the Justices Act 1886 into closed court cases. We know that we need to protect our victims and our witnesses wherever possible, however this is a piece of legislation that is over a century old and time has moved on,' she told The Courier Mail on Thursday. Hetty Johnston, founder of child protection organisation Bravehearts, told Daily Mail Australia it seemed the system was protecting alleged offenders rather than victims Magistrate Morgan is no stranger to controversy. In 2016, he was criticised by Queensland's Chief Magistrate after applauding protesters who climbed on the roof of Peter Dutton's office before unfurling a banner labelling the then Immigration Minister an 'international criminal'. 'Despite the fact that many people might disagree with your protest, you have a valuable right in our community to protest,' he said when fining the three protesters, the ABC reported at the time. 'And if one of my daughters was caught doing like you did, I'd probably be very proud of her.' An elderly woman has chased down a bleached-blonde intruder after she broke into her home while she was watching television. The victim, 84, was watching TV in her Patterson Lane home in North Melbourne when she realised a stranger had broken in at around 1.30pm on Thursday. CCTV footage captured the moment the victim confronted the thief after chasing her out onto the street, TV remote still in hand. It is alleged the intruder crept into the home and stole a mobile phone and set of keys. As the elderly woman confronts the thief, dressed black slacks and slippers, a male appears who police believe was acting as look out. After making the woman open her bag up, the victim failed to prove anything, and the pair were able to walk away. Victoria Police have released the footage as they believe the man and woman may be able to assist with their inquiries. The 84-year-old lady (pictured in coral cardigan) chased the thieves who she alleges stole her mobile phone and a set of keys out onto the street, making the lady open her bag to search through it The woman is described as aged between 30-45-years-old, thin build with bleached-blonde hair. The man is described as 180-190cm tall, thin build and was wearing a distinctive jumper with 'H' on the back. The victim was not physically injured during the incident. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers. Even more wild weather is on the way with record rainfall, flash flooding and a tropical cyclone forecast in anticipation of the weekend. As much as 100mm of rain could fall on parts of regional Victoria on Friday, a December record for some areas, while Sydney braces for mass thunderstorms. Widespread thunderstorms and heavy rain have resulted in a flood warning being issued to coastal New South Wales, while far-north Queensland is expected to be impacted by Tropical Cyclone Owen on Friday or early Saturday. Meanwhile, the entirety of Victoria has been issued with a severe weather warning, after more than two month's worth of rain fell in less than 12 hours. Scroll down for video More wild rainfall is forecast for Victoria after flash flooding forced one south-east resident to kayak to work on Thursday (pictured) Sydney also got a brief downpour, with 40mm of rain falling in less than half an hour The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for New South Wales' coast Sydney got a brief taste of the impending storms on Thursday night, with 40mm of rain falling in less than half an hour. Winds of up to 107km/h whipped through the city's western suburbs, as nearly 700 calls for help were made to emergency services. A further 30,000 homes and businesses were left without power in the quickfire storm. But that could just be a sign of what's to come for Friday, with more lightning, hailstorms and wild winds forecast to rampage through the state on Saturday. 20 people had to be winched to safety from the roof of their cars, as the floods got the better of some vehicles Melbourne's inner-city flooded, with pedestrians forced to wade through the high waters Another month's rainfall could come down on Friday, with a further 20mm forecast in the morning Victoria also felt the pinch of the wild weather on Thursday, with more than 100 people needing to be rescued from semi-submerged cars on the Hume Freeway. More than a month's worth of rain fell in regional areas overnight. The average December rainfall for Melbourne is 59mm, with the city already surpassing that on Thursday and another 20mm forecast for Friday. The rural town of Everton had 162mm fall overnight on Thursday alone. Meanwhile, 20 homes flooded in the Central Victorian area of Birchip with 10 people evacuated. A community meeting will be held on Friday to discuss further flooding procedures, the SES say. 'It's like an ocean here where we are at the moment, our whole street is under water,' one resident told 3AW radio on Friday morning. The flash flooding in Victoria (pictured) coincides with an impending tropical cyclone A severe weather warning was issued for Victoria with heavy rainfall across the entire state Thunderstorms on Thursday night (pictured) will continue on Friday, forecasters warn The overnight rainfall continues on Friday, with the worst storms forecast to fall in the state's east, predominantly the South Gippsland area. 'Rain and thunderstorms are expected across the warning area during today and Friday, with periods of heavy rainfall likely that may lead to flash flooding,' a warning issued by The Bureau of Meteorology reads. Authorities continue to warn not to drive or even walk through flood waters, after dozens of cars and trucks were submerged in the flood waters. Torrential rains, particularly in New South Wales, are linked to a tropical cyclone brewing in the country's north. Meanwhile, a category three cyclone could hit far-north Queensland on late Friday afternoon The cyclone is currently off the coast of the Northern Territory, and is slowly heading east Cairns and the rest of far-north Queensland are meanwhile bracing for Tropical Cyclone Owen, with meteorologists saying it could hit either Friday or Saturday. WHAT IS A CATEGORY THREE CYCLONE? Tropical cyclones are categorised on a scale of one to five based on severity. TC Owen, which is expected to hit Queensland on Friday, is classed as a category three. A category three cyclone would cause: - Some roof and structural damage. Some caravans destroyed. Power failures likely. - A category three cyclone's strongest winds are very destructive winds with typical gusts over open flat land of 165-224kph. However, the cyclone could be re-classified once it actually hits land, which will be either Friday or Saturday. Source: Bureau of Meteorology Advertisement As of Friday morning, the cyclone is tracking off the coast of the Northern Territory, but has begun to move east and could hit Queensland as soon as midday. The cyclone is currently classed as a category three based on its 200km/h wind speed. But forecasters say it could become a category four, surpassing 280km/h when it crosses the Gulf of Carpentaria and into Queensland. A cyclone warning is in place from Port McArthur in the Northern Territory, to Aurukun in Queensland. Residents are being told to brace for wild winds and flooding. Some are concerned that floods will cause landslides, after wild bushfires rampaged through the state, leaving some regions' hillsides unstable. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she'd been briefed on the danger and assured Queenslanders that authorities in the cyclone danger area are well prepared. The devastating cyclone, which is deemed as 'very destructive' by the Bureau of Meteorology, is a result of a coinciding mass air movement and low pressure system. Periods of heavy rainfall led to flash flooding with totals of 30 to 50mm falling in Melbourne Some areas of Victoria recorded as much as 162mm of rain in less than 12 hours on Thursday 'It's being caused by a trough of air mass movement from the north, and with a low pressure system coming through, is generating large amounts of rainfall,' Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Peter Newham told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday. A Bureau of Meteorology forecaster previously told Daily Mail Australia the thunderstorms would be the result of a cold front in the south of the country. The cold front and low-pressure system moved from Victoria up to New South Wales which brought showers and a storm to Sydney on Thursday night. Canberra can also expect storms and upwards of 55mm of rain between Thursday and Saturday. Brisbane was also predicted to get up to 100mm of rainfall over the weekend. The grieving father of a teenage who fell to his death from a balcony after taking nitrous oxide during Schoolies celebrations has called for nangs to be banned. Des Bidgood revealed his son, Hamish, had been drinking and inhaling nitrous oxide for hours before his death in the early hours of November 29 and has called for the potentially lethal gas to be banned. Mr Bidgood told the Daily Telegraph his son had 'no idea' what he was doing when he pushed past his friends to throw himself off the eleventh floor balcony of room 1011 at Surf Regency apartments. The grieving father of Hamish Bidgood (left) who fell to his death from a balcony during Schoolie's celebrations, has said his son was hallucinating when he threw himself off the Gold Coast apartment building Bidgood reportedly fell into the grassed pool area (pictured) of the Surfers Regent Apartments Teenagers looking for a cheap thrill can get their hands on a canister of laughing gas (pictured) - which contains nitrous oxide - for just $1 The Berowra Heights man acknowledged that high school leavers will continue to celebrate the annual Schoolies week-long party event. 'Hamish is not the first and won't be the last the gas canisters they inhale for fun should be banned; shop keepers, anyone who sells them on the internet, should be prosecuted if caught selling them. 'This happens all too often. My son died not knowing what he was doing and now we have to live with that. He was a good, kind kid. People loved Hamish. 'He was having fun, he had it all ahead of him We've lost him now.' Mr Bidgood called for apartment blocks rented out to students over the Schoolies week to block off balcony access so that young revelers couldn't access them. 'The government needs to take action and ban those awful canisters. We're just devastated and lost for words.' Des Bidgood revealed his son Hamish (centre) had been drinking and inhaling nitrous oxide for hours before his death and has called for the potentially lethal gas to be banned Bidgood, 18, fell to his death from the eleventh floor balcony at the Surfers Regent Apartments (pictured) Attorney-General Mark Speakman said he would 'review with interest' the findings of the inquest into the 18-year-old's death; the cause of which is still under investigation by Queensland authorities. Mr Speakman said existing provisions under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act could potentially criminalise the supply of nitrous oxide in NSW and the dangers were 'well known', including 'potential catastrophic results from its misuse'. He said he would review the relevant recommendations made from the inquest into Hamish's death and urged young people to celebrate safely over the festive season. Des and Lyn Bidgood returned from the Gold Coast this week, where they have been arranging to fly their son's body back to Sydney ahead of the funeral. Reports from friends partying with Hamish at the time echo a similar story. Hamish Bidgood (pictured) fell into the grassed pool area of the Surfers Regent Apartments. Pictured (right) is a balcony from the building One friend in the apartment said the group had stayed up after clubbing to watch the sun rise when Hamish began behaving erratically, pushing past them and onto the balcony. The friend said the group had been drinking and doing nitrous oxide and that Hamish was hallucinating at the time he jumped from the balcony. 'It's a very tragic situation. Reports that he did not know what he was doing are consistent with what we are investigating,' a police spokesman said. Nitrous oxide canisters, otherwise known as laughing gas or nangs, can be purchased in corner stores in packs of 10 for $10. Teenagers looking for a cheap thrill can get their hands on a canister of laughing gas - which contains nitrous oxide - for just $1. Intended to be used for whipping cream, the canisters can be cracked open and inhaled to give a euphoric 20-second high. Discarded glittering canisters were found littering Surfers Paradise Beach last week. Nitrous oxide can cause permanent nerve damage, memory loss, impair judgement and, in rare cases, heart attacks. Whipped cream canisters have since been pulled from Surfers Paradise supermarket shelves following the 18-year-old's death. A spokesperson from IGA Surfers Paradise told Daily Mail Australia the store had being told by police to stop selling the canisters because they were being abused. 'We're not selling it anymore, we've being told by police that it's being used the wrong way,' the IGA spokesperson said. Last year, a Sydney university student was left with potentially irreversible damage to her spinal cord after inhaling 360 canisters of nitrous oxide a week. A motorist incredibly survived an ambush of heavily armed robbers who unleashed a barrage of more than 30 bullets in a suspected car-jacking in Brazil. David Esteves, 27, suffered two bullet wounds to his back and one to the temple and will undergo surgery but his injuries are not thought to be life threatening. Shocking footage shows the suspects ducking, diving and leaping as they try to dodge cartridges ricocheting off the ground in Tijuca, north zone Rio de Janeiro. CCTV cameras captured the mayhem as Mr Esteves stops in his white Honda Civic at traffic lights on Tuesday 11 December and is surrounded by shooters who jump out of three cars. The men jump out of their cars and surround David Esteves's white Honda Civic at the traffic lights in Tijuca, north zone Rio de Janeiro One hooded mobster with a submachine gun appears to be directing the onslaught while other accomplices point their weapons at vehicles behind and appear to rob other victims in the traffic. The gangsters machine-gun their stationery target as one getaway car speeds off breaking the stop lights. A taxi and another car caught up in the action quickly follow suit. The victim tries to escape by ramming the back of the bandit's car which is blocking his way. The ferocious assault lasts for several seconds then the intensity suddenly decreases as the traffic lights turn green. The henchmen disperse, racing back to their vehicles, and the victim again tries to flee. Cops believe the bandits had just committed a robbery at a nearby establishment and attempted to hijack the car to be used as another getaway vehicle. But when the businessman, who runs an information technology company, tried to escape, they discharged more than 30 rounds on the vehicle. More than 30 rounds were discharged on the vehicle and Mr Esteves drove for a just over a mile before he pulled over when he saw a patrol car The men run over to the white car before it moves forward and rams into the black vehicle Despite being wounded, the victim manages to drive a few yards further down the road but is pursued by the gangsters who persist with the assault. Security cameras on another building capture the aggression continuing from a different angle as the car rolls to a halt on the corner of the road. One of the assailants tries to break the driver's window and wrenches open the door. Another holding an automatic weapon fails to open the back door. It's believed they grabbed an undisclosed item from the victim. In the midst of the harrowing attack cops patrolling the area hearing the gunfire, sped to the area and began exchanging shots with the gangsters. The victim is seen slumped out of the door of the bullet riddled car as the hoodlums speed off. He appears to recover and using one arm to push himself up begins to drag himself out of the vehicle. Family members claimed he was going to ask for help but panicked when he heard more gunfire and a spurt of energy helped him to get back behind the wheel. Mr Esteves, who runs an information technology company, can be seen slumped out of his car The injured man drove for a just over a mile and pulled over when he saw a patrol car. Agents took him to Souza Aguiar Hospital. The businessman's sister, who did not want to be named, described her brother's survival as a miracle. She said to Rio Extra: 'It was a miracle David escaped alive. When I arrived at the hospital, I found him lucid but traumatised. I saw his bloody shirt and counted at least five bullet holes. 'The incident happened just after he left his father-in-law's house. He had gone to visit his three-month-old son. 'Shortly after leaving he noticed several cars racing up behind him and the attack started the moment he stopped at the intersection,' she explained adding her family are in at state of shock. 'When David heard the shootings he tried to escape. At first, he didn't realise they were targeting him. 'He knew he had been wounded but had to keep going. He told me he doesn't even remember how he managed to drive and believes he fell in and out of consciousness until he found help. He is thankful to be alive but is suffering from moments of delirium as he relives the horror.' One of the suspects who was shot during the rampage, was apparently abandoned by his accomplices and found injured near the scene by officers. Identified by police as Daniel Hansmiller da Silva, 29, he was reportedly shot during cross fire by his own gang members and died after being taken to hospital. Detective Willian Batista said: 'From what we can see, the angle the bandits took as they unloaded their weapons, means that there was a real likelihood of being hit in the cross fire because they were standing in front of each other.' Police found the victim's cell phone, wallet and a replica airgun that shoots plastic pellets in his car. He is not under suspicion of being involved in any crime. His family have transferred him to a private hospital where doctors said his condition is stable and after monitoring his health, they plan to operate to remove the bullets this week. Detectives are still hunting the assailants and are examining security footage to identify those involved. An MP fed up with wayward youth has called for parents to smack misbehaving kids, claiming it will lead to a reduction in crime. Nick Dametto advocated physical punishment following a spate of drug and property crime at Townsville in north Queensland. The Katter's Australian Party member for Hinchinbrook said children as young as 10 were running rampant on the streets because their parents had failed to properly discipline them. Scroll down for video An MP fed up with wayward youth has called for parents to smack misbehaving kids claiming it will lead to a reduction in crime (pictured is Katters Australian Party MP Nick Dametto) 'We might be kicking a bit of a hornet's nest here but we've got a whole generation that need something done with them,' he told Sky News on Thursday night. 'My mother loved me but she also loved the wooden spoon as well.' The first-term member of the Queensland Parliament, whose largely rural seat takes in Townsville's northern outskirts, said children under 10 were walking the streets 'causing this kind of havoc'. 'Alarm bells should be going off right now with society,' he said. Nick Dametto advocated physical punishment following a spate of drug and property crime at Townsville in north Queensland 'What is wrong with these kids?' Mr Dametto, a 35-year-old former jet ski shop owner, said their parents were to blame. 'I bet you look at their parents right now. They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,' he said. 'What are these parents getting up to? Because they're obviously not giving these kids the love.' Townsville is a crime hot spot in north Queensland, with the city having significantly higher rates of car thefts, burglaries and drug possession, compared with Mackay and Rockhampton, Queensland Police Service data showed. The number of drug offences in Townsville more than doubled from 2,440 in 2009 to 5,839 last year while the robbery soared soared from 57 in 2014 to 111 just two years later. The first-term MP, whose seat takes in Townsville's northern outskirts, said children under 10 were walking the streets 'causing this kind of havoc' Brisbane-based psychologist Justin Coulson said smacking children did not improve discipline, arguing it made them more likely to defy their parents. 'They just get scared or sneaky. The research tells us they become more likely to be aggressive, anti-social, delinquent, and in the worst cases, behave criminally,' he said in a blog post. Dr Coulson said smacking hurt the relationship between a parent and child and broke trust. 'Mental health challenges can occur, and once again in serious cases, children become at greater risk of either abusing or being abused as they get older,' he said. 'As for the argument that kids wouldn't be up to mischief if more people smacked them, that's a weak argument.' Almost half a tonne of the drug 'ice' has been found stashed inside dozens of car bonnets shipped to Australia from Malaysia. Australian Border Force officers made the discovery inside a container that arrived at Sydney's Port Botany on November 28. Nearly 5000 packages were allegedly located in the skin of 71 bonnets, containing 490 kilograms of methamphetamine. Almost 5000 packages containing 490 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized The estimated street value for these illicit drugs is $367.5 million. 'Further forensic testing will be carried out by forensics specialists to determine the exact weight and purity of the substance,' the AFP said in a statement on Friday. Federal police raided several Sydney properties in Granville, Rhodes and Penshurst on December 7. Police arrested a 17-year-old male and 19-year-old man during the operation. The pair were charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug, namely methamphetamine. The maximum penalty for this offence is life imprisonment. The drugs were allegedly found hidden in a shipment of 71 car bonnets (pictured) that arrived at Sydney's Port Botany from Malaysia last month It will be alleged they were set to receive the shipment before passing it on to other members of a criminal syndicated responsible for the importation. Both males were bailed refused when they appeared in court last Saturday. The 17-year-old is due to reappear in Parramatta Children's Court on Friday (December 14). The man, 19, from Granville in western Sydney will remain behind bars until his next court appearance Sydney's Central Local Court on February 6. Australian Federal Police allege two males aged 17 and 19 were set to receive the shipment before passing it on to other members of a criminal syndicated responsible for the importation Australian Border Force officers made the discovery inside a container that arrived at Port Botany on November 28 AFP Detective Acting Superintendent Kristie Cressy, Coordinator Organised Crime Sydney said the amount of methamphetamine would have had significant impact on the community. 'Had this drug seizure made its way to Australian streets, countless lives would have been affected. It could be users, health care workers that deal with drug issues each and every day, or the family that has been torn apart when deaths occur from illicit substance abuse,' Acting Detective Superintendent Cressy said. 'Police know better than most the heartbreaking impact of drugs like ice on our community. In stopping almost half a tonne of these dangerous drugs reaching our streets, countless families and friends have been saved from being torn apart by illicit substance abuse'. The estimated street value of the drugs hidden in car bonnets (pictured) is $367.5 million ABF Commander Danielle Yannopoulos added: 'Whether it be in car bonnets, clothing, meat mincing machines or even highlighters - our officers have seen it all, and they have sophisticated technology at their disposal to identify these illicit substances no matter how criminals try to hide them.' Further inquiries to identify other members of the syndicate are ongoing, and the AFP is liaising with the Royal Malaysia Police to identify the source of the shipment. The AFP urges anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. An Alabama woman has been arrested after police say she took pictures of herself performing sexual acts on her four-year-old son and sent them to a male friend. Krystal Sanspree, 30, and Corey Ashton Steele, 32, are both facing multiple child sexual abuse charges after the Foley Police Department received a tip from a concerned source and launched an investigation. Authorities alleged that Sanspree, of Foley, texted pictures of herself performing sexual acts on her son to Steele after the Loxley man solicited them. The child has reportedly been relocated by the Baldwin County Department of Human Resources. Krystal Sanspree, 30, and Corey Ashton Steele, 32, have been arrested in Foley, Alabama, on child sexual abuse charges after authorities say the mother (left) took photos of herself performing sex acts on her four-year-old son and sent them to Steele (right) Both suspects 'made admissions' to investigators after they were arrested, according to Gulf Coast News Today. Sanspree has been charged with sexual abuse of a child less than the age of 12, first-degree sodomy, four counts of production of child pornography and four counts of dissemination of child pornography. Steele has been charged with criminal solicitation of a class B felony, solicitation of sodomy, four counts of possession of child pornography and four counts of solicitation of child pornography. Authorities say more charges are pending as the investigation is ongoing. Federal charges may also be pursued. A Kentucky woman has been charged with murder after she horrifically killed her newborn baby by placing it in a trash bag and throwing it over the banister of a staircase, cops say. Amber Bowling 21, of Manchester, gave birth on Sunday and three days later her baby was found dead on Tuesday morning. She told authorities she threw her crying baby in a trash bag then threw the bag over an upstairs staircase banister of her apartment complex, according to Kentucky.com. Kentucky woman Amber Bowling, 21, has been charged with murdering her newborn child Paul Herd, a resident of the apartment, was returning from work at 7.30am on Tuesday when he saw the bag lying in leaves near the stairs to his second-floor apartment, according to LEX18. He took the child inside and called police. Officials pronounced the infant dead soon afterwards. The bag had been outside of the home for several hours. 'I couldnt sleep at night knowing, just seeing what hes seen, over and over in your mind again,' Herd's son Tyler Herd said. Bowling gave birth on Sunday and on Tuesday threw the child in a trash bag and threw it over the staircase banister in her home A resident of the apartment called police after spotting the bag lying in leaves near the stairs to his second-floor apartment (above) on Tuesday morning Courtesy of WKYT The newborn suffered fractures to the cranium and ribs and brain bleeding, according to the autopsy as per WLEX. Bowling was arrested at 3.30pm on Wednesday and is being held in the Clay County Detention Center. Her reckless treatment of the child has upset the community. 'Why didnt she take that child to the hospital and say, "I cant raise it?" Theres families waiting on these kids,' Clay County Sheriff Angie Johnson said. 'Its heartbreaking. Baffles your mind thinking about who could have done this and why,' KSP Trooper Lloyd Cochran said to Wave3. Advertisements that show boys as daring and girls as caring will be banned Advertising watchdogs are to ban 'harmful' gender stereotypes from TV commercials. Gone will be the traditional, and largely out-dated, view of the housewife. And companies will not be able to suggest men are lazy or useless when it comes to doing what used to be considered typically female roles, such as changing a nappy. The move aims to avoid pigeon-holing boys and girls at a young age in terms of how they should look and their interests. Last year, Aptamil baby milk caused controversy by showing a girl growing up to become a ballerina and a boy becoming a rock climber Gone will be the traditional, and largely out-dated, view of the housewife. Advertising watchdogs will ban 'harmful' gender stereotypes from TV commercials [File photo] It follows a review that found gender stereotypes could restrict the choices, aspirations and opportunities of children, teenagers and adults. Also banned under the new regime will be stereotypes which depict boys as daring and girls as caring. The proposals have been agreed by the Committee on Advertising Practice (CAP) and will also outlaw depictions that suggest people may not be successful in love or life because they do not have what is considered an ideal physique. The industry watchdog has issued guidance for companies and advertisers on how the ban, coming into effect in June, should be applied. Many brands such as Unilever have already taken voluntary measures to end gender stereotyping. Asda's Christmas advert from 2012 offering that showed an exhausted mum struggling to buy the presents and tree The Oxo brand also traditionally showed the mother played by the late Lynda Bellingham cooking for her husband and children. But a revamp of the commercial depicted the male partner being much more hands-on in the kitchen [File photo] For example, the firm changed its Lynx deodorant commercials which, in the past, featured women in bikinis hunting down young men. What has been outlawed? Men with their feet up and families making a mess while a woman is solely responsible for cleaning up Anyone failing at a task because of their gender, such as a woman parking a car or a man hanging out the washing Making out all boys are daring and girls are caring Belittling men who do stereotypically 'female' roles such as cooking Suggestions that not having an ideal physique causes failure in life or love Suggesting new mothers should prioritise looking attractive or keeping a home pristine over factors such as their wellbeing Advertisement Historically, the company's food brand Knorr TV adverts showed a mother and daughter in the kitchen, but more recently they featured a father and son. The Oxo brand also traditionally showed the mother played by the late Lynda Bellingham cooking for her husband and children. But a revamp of the commercial depicted the male partner being much more hands-on in the kitchen. A few years ago, Asda was criticised over a Christmas TV ad that showed a mother doing all the work, buying presents and making the dinner, while everyone else relaxed and had fun. Last year, Aptamil baby milk caused controversy by showing a girl growing up to become a ballerina and a boy becoming a rock climber. The CAP stressed the new rules specifically do not rule out the use of attractive men and women. The watchdog said: 'The rule and guidance does not intend to prevent ads from featuring glamorous, attractive, successful, aspirational or healthy people or lifestyles.' And it said companies will be allowed to use gender stereotypes as a means to challenge their negative effects. Unilever changed its Lynx deodorant commercials which, in the past, featured women in bikinis hunting down young men [File photo] Historically, the company's food brand Knorr TV adverts showed a mother and daughter in the kitchen, but more recently they featured a father and son [File photo] Director of the CAP, Shahriar Coupal, said: 'Harmful gender stereotypes have no place in UK advertisements. Nearly all advertisers know this, but for those that don't, our new rule calls time on stereotypes that hold back people and society.' Ella Smillie, who led the CAP's investigation into gender stereotyping, said: 'Harmful gender stereotypes in ads contribute to how people see themselves and their role in society. 'They can hold some people back from fulfilling their potential, or from aspiring to certain jobs and industries, bringing costs for individuals and the economy.' An army of vegan activists has raided and shut down a chicken slaughterhouse to raise awareness about the poultry industry. Animal Liberation Queensland demonstrators stormed the gates of Golden Cockerel chicken slaughterhouse at Mount Cotton just after 7am on Friday. More than 50 activists forced their way into the factory entry and shut down the production line, while another 30 people gathered with placards outside. Shocking footage from inside hundreds of bald chickens being processed, bird limbs discarded on blood-splattered floors and bins overflowing with innards. Scroll down for video An army of vegan activists has raided and shut down a chicken slaughterhouse to raise awareness about the poultry industry Up to 50 activists (pictured left and right) forced their way into the factory entry and shut down the production line, while another 30 people gathered with placards outside Mr Neal said the purpose of the protest was to get footage to show consumers chickens are more than just a food found in packets on supermarket shelves Animal Liberation Queensland spokesperson Chay Neal told Daily Mail Australia the protest was a peaceful one and police negotiated with activists inside the factory. '664 million chickens are killed every year in Australia. We are here to share their stories.' Mr Neal said on Friday morning. Mr Neal said the purpose of the protest was to get footage to show consumers chickens are more than just a food found in packets on supermarket shelves. 'I think a lot of people would be shocked when they really consider it,' he said. Shocking footage that was captured by protesters inside the factory and uploaded to their Facebook page shows hundreds of bald chickens being processed Other graphic images taken by the protesters showed bins overflowing with chicken innards Other disturbing images showed birds suspended over blood-splattered bins and floors 'Here in Queensland alone, we are slaughtering over 1.5 million chickens every week,' Mr Neal said. 'Within 10kms of this slaughterhouse, there are well over 100 massive sheds, each housing tens of thousands of individuals. 'Most of these chickens are 6-8 weeks old, and suffer greatly in their short lives as a result of selective breeding, which makes them grow at three times the natural rate.' Mr Neal said the demonstrators had tried to rescue some of the chickens during the protest but were stopped from doing so. Animal Liberation Queensland spokesperson Chay Neal told Daily Mail Australia the protest was a peaceful one and police negotiated with activists inside the factory Mr Neal said in the lead up to Christmas, the group (pictured) is urging people to consider the lives that are impacted by what they chose to eat or rather who they choose to eat He added, many people didn't realise how intelligent chickens are. 'They can communicate in 20 different vocalisations, they can learn from past experiences, and they can recognise faces,' he said. 'They are amazingly sensitive, affectionate individuals with unique personalities.' Mr Neal said in the lead up to Christmas, the group is urging people to consider the lives that are impacted by what they chose to eat or rather who they choose to eat. 'We all have a choice. But unfortunately, they don't. Choose kindly,' he said. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Golden Cockerel for comment. The lines are no longer blurred for Robin Thicke and Pharrell, who have been ordered by a California Circuit Court judge to pay $5.3 million to the estate of Marvin Gaye. The decision by Judge John A. Kronstadt affirmed the ruling he made three years ago, and provided a break down for how much was to be paid by the two men. Thicke, Pharrell and the publishing company that released the songs will be responsible for $2.9 million of the fine while Thicke himself will have to pay $1.7 million. The remaining $357,631 will come from Pharrell and the publishing company. In addition, all remaining royalties will be split with Gaye's estate. Robin Thicke, Pharrell and the publishing company that released the songs will be responsible for $2.9 million A jury sided with Gaye's family back in 2015 after they filed a complaint contending that Blurred Lines lifted sections of Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit Got to Give It Up. Jurors also found that rapper T.I., who received songwriting credit and a share of the royalties, did not commit copyright infringement. 'Mr. Thicke and Williams, and their legal team, among others, went on a public relations campaign after the jury's verdict criticizing the verdict and saying the evidence did not support the finding of copyright infringement, and did not believe the decision on liability would therefore stand,' the Gaye family's attorney, Richard Busch, wrote in a statement at the time. 'The judge who actually heard all of the evidence disagreed. I am thrilled for the Gaye family, and the thoughtful members of the jury, who had to listen to all of that while remaining silent.' Williams contended during the trial that he was only trying to mimic the 'feel' of Gaye's late 1970s music and insisted he did not use elements of his idol's work. Blurred Lines, which was the biggest song of 2013, remains Thicke's biggest hit. This is a difficult blow for Thicke, who lost his house last month in the California wildfires. An American college student has been stabbed to death in the Netherlands. Sarah Papenheim, of Minnesota, died Wednesday afternoon after she was attacked at her Rotterdam apartment. The 21-year-old was studying at Erasmus University, Rotterdam police told ABC Eyewitness News. According to police, Papenheim was stabbed by a 23-year-old Dutch man who lived in the same building as the victim. Sarah Papenheim (left and right), of Minnesota, was stabbed to death in the Netherlands on Wednesday. Papenheim was studying at Erasmus University when she was attacked inside her apartment According to police, Papenheim, who was also a drummer, was stabbed by a 23-year-old Dutch man who lived in the same building as the victim. The suspect was arrested nearly an hour after Papenheim's body was found The suspect was arrested nearly an hour after Papenheim's body was found. Police believe the two were acquaintances. His identity has not been released. A GoFundMe account set up by family and friends said the person who stabbed Papenheim was her roommate. No motive has been established. Papenheim's mother, Donee Odegard, also said the suspect was her daughter's roommate. Odegard said her daughter had complained about the suspect having a bad temper. Papenheim's mother, Donee Odegard (right), also said the suspect was her daughter's roommate. Odegard said her daughter had complained about the suspect having a bad temper Odegard (pictured) said she told her daughter to get out, but Papenheim would say that she was 'his only friend' She said she told her daughter to get out, but Papenheim would say that she was 'his only friend'. According to Odegard, her daughter was found in a pool of blood, 'beat up and stabbed to death for no reason, but trying to be his friend'. 'She'd walk right up to you like you were friends forever,' Odegard told ABC Eyewitness News. Family members said Papenheim was studying psychology with an emphasis in suicide, 'which took her 21-year-old brother's life three years ago'. The Papenheim family lost their son, Josh, in 2015. 'I've been through this before,' Odegard told Fox 9. 'I've cried so much my ducts are dry. I am in the angry stage now.' The family said they are trying raise $40,000 to help cover expensive travel costs to bring Papenheim home. Odegard will be flying to Rotterdam on Friday. A GoFundMe account set up by family and friends said the person who stabbed Papenheim (pictured) was her roommate. No motive has been established The 21-year-old was studying at Erasmus University (pictured). Family members said Papenheim was studying psychology with an emphasis in suicide, 'which took her 21-year-old brother's life three years ago' 'Sarah was a beautiful, vibrant young woman and a talented musician with a smile that could light up a room,' the GoFundMe read. 'She played with some of the best musicians on the scene in the Twin Cities and had many close relationships with them. Her presence is irreplaceable. We love you, drummer girl.' A spokeswoman for Erasmus University released a statement on ABC News. 'The university is shocked by this terrible incident and is taking care of upset students and employees and will act towards relatives according to our protocols. 'We encourage our students and staff not to let each other alone in this difficult time and to get in touch with student-advisors and psychologists if they want to,' the statement read. Just four years after it was launched, a retail application backed by billionaire James Packer and his ex-wife Erica Baxter has been put into liquidation. Booodl, was launched in 2014 and was backed by Mr Packer, Miss Baxter and shopping centre owner Scentre Group, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The app was designed for people to search the stock of nearby retail stores so they would know exactly where to go to purchase the specific item they were after. Just four years after it was launched a retail application backed by billionaire James Packer (pictured) and his ex-wife Erica Baxter has been put into liquidation The application went into voluntary liquidation meaning all creditors will be paid what they are owed. The publication reported the company owes creditors $70,456 and still has assets totalling $80,606. Booodl's founder George Freney said shareholders would not see any returns. 'There is always a huge risk associated with technology ventures, and the unfortunate reality is that many fail,' Mr Freney told the publication. Erica Baxter (pictured) and James Packer along with other shareholders will not be seeing a return on their investment since the company went into liquidation 'We are very proud of our ambition to solve what is a complicated problem for physical retail, and thank everyone who has been with us for the journey.' The app started life as an alternative to Pinterest but when that failed the business model was changed in 2015 to a retail based platform before being taken off the market completely in 2017. At launch the application had funding of $8 million with a further $2.85 million injected into the business by the Scentre Group. On submitting its declaration of solvency it was discovered very little of that capital was left. According to Forbes Magazine up to 90 per cent of all start up companies fail with tech companies being some of the most susceptible. A woman was tragically killed when a freight train collided with her car at a level crossing. Laurelle Boccalatte, 55, was driving on the crossing when a Pacific National freight train crashed into the driver's side door on Thursday. Police have appealed for witnesses and dash cam footage following the collision, in Fredericksfield, south of Townsville in north Queensland at 10.30am. Laurelle Boccalatte was killed when a freight train collided with her car at a level crossing Ms Boccalatte died at the scene, despite desperate attempts by emergency services to revive her. No one else was injured in the crash. Heartbroken friends said Ms Boccalatte had met up with former classmates from Burdekin Catholic High School the night before to organise a 40th reunion bash planned for 2019. Jeanette Garvey described her former classmate as a dedicated and loyal friend with a very kind nature. 'We're all just shocked... especially so close to Christmas,' Ms Garvey told the Townsville Bulletin. 'Laurelle was always on top of things, she had a list and was still sending out Christmas cards when everyone else had given up on others.' Ms Boccalatte's elderly father was understood to be recovering from surgery in hospital at the time of the crash, according to the publication. Police have appealed for witnesses and dash cam footage of the fatal collision involving a Pacific National freight train (stock image) She was heavily involved in the tight-knit community in the nearby town of Home Hill. 'She was very involved [in the church] she was here every Sunday,' Father Abraham Cheripuram from St Colman's Parish said. Ayr Police Sergeant Craig Hosie told the Bulletin the fatal crash was a timely reminder for motorists to treat every level crossing as though a train was approaching. Laurelle Boccalatte, 55, died at the scene (pictured) despite desperate attempts by witnesses and emergency services to revive her Rail services were immediately suspended following the incident. The railway line has since reopened. 'Our thoughts are with the ladys family and the people involved in this terrible incident,' a Queensland Rail spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia. 'Queensland Rail will conduct a full investigation into this incident and has referred it onto the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for their review.' Daily Mail Australia has contacted Pacific National for comment. The Forensic Crash Unit is investigating the fatal collision. Queensland Police would like to speak with two men who assisted at the scene who officers believe may have witnessed the incident. Anyone with information is urged to call Policelink on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. A 17-year-old boy who pressured his underage girlfriend into having sex with him, leaving her with an STI, was given just 20 hours community service. The offender pleaded guilty in Rockhampton District Court in Queensland on Thursday to four counts of carnal knowledge with a child under 16. Judge Michael Burnett told the defendant 'you are not charged with rape, but it came very close to that,' after sentencing. A 17-year-old boy who pressured his underage girlfriend into having sex with him, leaving her with an STI, was given just 20 hours community service He criticised the girl's mother for allowing the teenage boy in her bedroom without appropriate supervision. 'As a parent myself, I would never have let a young man in my daughter's room unchaperoned at any time, nevertheless late at night,' he said. Crown prosecutor Tiffany Lawrence said the young girl rejected one of the offender's advances, but after further persistence she gave up and 'allowed him' to have sex with her. Over the course of two nights, the pair had sex another three times. At one stage, the girl asked him to stop, and he did. But by the second night, she claims she had given up on pushing him away. The girl complained afterward of stomach pain and was forced to take medication to quell the sickness. Ms Lawrence said the offender called her client the following day, and asked whether he had forced her to engage in sex, and she told him he had. The offender pleaded guilty in Rockhampton District Court in Queensland on Thursday to four counts of carnal knowledge with a child under 16 The victim spoke with her father about the ordeal, who immediately took her to the hospital, and then to police. She had experienced a tear to her vagina and contracted a sexually transmitted infection. The court was told the girl's entire demeanour changed after the experience, and she began speaking of self harm. Her schooling was also affected. The young girl sat at the back of the courtroom with her father, and no longer has a relationship with her mother after the incident because she had sided with the teenage boy. Judge Burnett told the court he believed the victim 'surrendered to sex, rather than having actively engaged in it,' during sentencing. He placed the defendant on a two-year probation order along with the 20 hours of community service he was ordered to complete. Suspected cruise ship cocaine smuggler Sue Clarke has reportedly been rushed to hospital from her jail cell after suffering a hypertensive crisis. The 70-year is said to have been taken to a prison hospital around six miles from the jail near Lisbon where she has been held since December 5 following her health emergency. Respected Portuguese daily Correio da Manha said she had suffered a hypertensive crisis, which occurs when blood pressure spikes and can cause organ damage. Her condition was unknown late on Thursday night. Officials could not be reached for comment. She fell ill at Tires Women's Prison, the jail where she was remanded in custody on December 5 after being arrested a day earlier on a cruise liner with 2m worth of cocaine when the ship docked at Lisbon Port from the Bahamas. Susan and Roger Clarke, 70 and 72, were arrested on December 4 after Portuguese plain-clothes officers boarded the MS Marco Polo as it docked at Lisbon Her husband Roger, 72, was also held by Portuguese police who boarded MC Marco Polo during the second-to-last stop of their 33-day transatlantic cruise and found nine kilos of the class-A drug in four suitcases in their cabin. Roger is still being held at a men's prison in Lisbon. It is unclear whether he has been told about his wife's 999 transfer. Roger is said to have bragged to fellow holidaymakers on his 3,000-a-head cruise that they paid just 160 for the four holdalls on the Caribbean island of St Lucia and claimed the luggage would have cost them 1,500 in Harrods. Portuguese police revealed earlier this week they had intended arresting the couple when the cruise liner docked in the Madeiran capital Funchal from the Bahamas - but had to delay the arrests until it reached Lisbon because bad weather meant the Funchal stop was cancelled. The couple now live in Guardamar del Segura, Spain according to Ms Clarke's Facebook account The elderly couple, who had paid 3,000 each for their Caribbean cruise tickets, were remanded in prison following a court appearance the day after their arrest They also said it was possible the nine kilos of cocaine they discovered hidden inside false bottoms in the couple's suitcases were bound for London - as the next stop after Lisbon was the ship's final destination of Tilbury. The Policia Judiciaria said in a statement after the arrests: 'The Policia Judiciaria's National Drugs Trafficking Unit has identified and arrested a foreign couple who were travelling on a cruise line doing a circuit which took in the Caribbean and Europe. 'They were arrested on suspicion of international drugs trafficking. 'The operation, which took place with the support of the Maritime Police, was the result of the permanent exchange of information and cooperation that exists between the PJ and the British forces of law and order, specifically the National Crime Agency. The elderly pair were jailed after police seized four suitcases full of cocaine from their cabin. Pictured: Cruise liner MS Marco Polo in the harbour of Eidfjord 'The arrests occurred after the ship had reached Lisbon Port's cruise terminal and after a search of the cabin the suspects were using, where four suitcases with a high amount of cocaine hidden inside was seized. 'The suspects, who are aged 70 and 72, were questioned as suspects or arguidos before being remanded in prison. 'The investigation by the PJ and UK authorities is ongoing.' The Clarkes lived in Guardamar del Segura near Alicante on the Costa Blanca. Roger told neighbours he had been jailed in the past after being caught smuggling cigarettes. A second season of The Conners is reportedly in the works following the Roseanne spinoff's surprisingly high ratings. Preliminary talks have begun between the network and the series' leading actors - including John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert and Lecy Goranson - TVLine revealed on Thursday. The Conners debuted with 10.6million viewers and a 2.4 demo rating in October, four months after Roseanne was abruptly cancelled in reaction to a racist tweet from the actress playing the title character, Roseanne Barr. Scroll down for video ABC eyeing a second season of its hit comedy The Conners as the Roseanne reboot enjoys unexpectedly high ratings, sources revealed Thursday. A scene from the show is pictured The Roseanne spinoff received favorable reviews when it debuted in October, four months after the original series was cancelled due to a racist tweet from lead Roseanne Barr (pictured) Despite largely favorable reviews, the show's future was uncertain in the early weeks due to tumultuous ratings. However, the show's demo rating has settled at an average of 1.6, which is considered strong by broadcast standards. The Conners is currently ranked as ABC's number one comedy and number two show overall, behind Grey's Anatomy. The show's 11-episode inaugural season will resume on January 8 and the finale will air on January 22. Preliminary talks have begun between the network and the series' leading actors - including John Goodman (left), Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert and Lecy Goranson - sources said Thursday ABC executives initially worried that the show could not survive without its original title character Barr (above in September) but those concerns appear to have dissipated. The Conners features all of the cast members from Roseanne aside from its namesake, Barr. The highly-anticipated reboot of the popular 90s sitcom was axed in May just three months into its return after the 65-year-old posted a racist tweet likening former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett to to a character from Planet of the Apes. Barr wrote in a Twitter feed about Jarrett: 'muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby= vj.' ABC canceled the show and fired the actress just hours later and released a statement calling her comments 'abhorrent' and 'repugnant'. Although many applauded the network for taking swift action against the actress, the cancellation marked a premature and unfortunate end to the revival which had been considered an overall success. After months of apologies and industry speculation the show was brought back as The Conners - though there were initial concerns about whether it could survive without its main star. Eight episodes in, however, those concerns appear to have dissipated. A Georgia police officer and a suspect died Thursday night after a traffic stop led to a foot chase and shooting just east of Atlanta. DeKalb County police Chief James Conroy said at a news conference that the unidentified officer and suspect died at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta from injuries sustained during the Thursday evening shooting, according to news outlets. 'Tonight, a DeKalb County Police officer died in the line of duty serving citizens of DeKalb County,' Conroy said. The unidentified police officer was shot after a traffic stop and foot chase just east of Atlanta A police dog was also shot and was listed in critical condition after being taken to an area vet for treatment. Conroy said the shooting followed a traffic stop. Conroy said the suspect fled, shot the pursuing DeKalb County officer with a handgun and hid behind a business. The suspect then shot a police K-9, prompting officers to shoot the suspect. The suspect received several gunshot wounds, Conroy said. 'I am very proud of the men and women of the police department. They responded to the scene, were able to track the suspect, they did their job,' Conroy said, according to WSB-TV . The suspect, who also shot a police dog, was shot by other officers. The officer and suspect were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta (pictured) where they died from their injuries DeKalb County police Chief James Conroy paid tribute to his officer who died in the line of duty serving citizens of DeKalb County Conroy said the slain officer had been with the department for less than two years. The suspect was described as a man in his 20s to 30s. The DeKalb officer was the fifth Georgia officer killed in the line of duty this year, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating. Governor-elect Brian Kemp took to Twitter to acknowledge the officer's service and offer his condolences The shooting caused a nearby portion of Interstate 20 to be briefly shut down, leading to rush-hour traffic jams. Governor-elect Brian Kemp tweeted his condolences for the officer. 'We are forever grateful for his service and sacrifice,' he wrote. 'Our prayers are with those who mourn.' Harry Potter novelist JK Rowling (pictured) says the thousands of Daily Mail readers who have pledged their time to the Health Service should be applauded JK Rowling has given her support to the Daily Mail's NHS volunteer Christmas campaign. The Harry Potter novelist says the thousands of readers who have pledged their time to the Health Service should be applauded. She gave her backing to the drive to recruit volunteers across the United Kingdom as more than 22,000 people pledged their time to the cause, boosting the NHS's voluntary workforce by more than a quarter. Miss Rowling, a philanthropist who has donated millions to good causes, hailed those who have already stepped up to do their bit with the charity Helpforce. She said: 'The NHS is one of our country's most cherished institutions, one that we can truly be proud of. 'Despite the constant pressures and constraints, it never ceases to amaze me just how much work and time all those involved dedicate to continuing to make this organisation function, let alone excel. 'And now, a new army of volunteers have stepped forward. The thousands who are giving up their time to help the NHS through the Helpforce campaign should be applauded.' And fellow bestselling novelist William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart, said: 'This is a massively important and timely campaign. 'Anything we can do to support the wonderful NHS is wholly worthwhile.' The Mail is asking readers to give their time to the NHS to support patients and take some of the pressure away from overstretched staff. The campaign, which will see volunteers start helping at hospitals in spring, has won the backing of celebrities, unions and health leaders. The recruitment drive aims to fill key roles such as befriending patients, collecting prescriptions and helping at mealtimes. Since its launch on December 1, readers have flocked to pledge either three hours a week or a day a month, for six months. Theresa May encouraged readers to sign up to offer 'companionship and support', while praising the 'extraordinary dedication' of doctors and nurses. There are already about 78,000 volunteers in hospitals. A landmark report found doctors and nurses believe hospital helpers play a vital role in improving the experience of patients and staff. The overwhelming majority of those asked 90 per cent felt volunteers improved patient experience by 'bringing human kindness' to busy hospitals. It is not too late to get involved, with applications open until the end of the month. The chief executive of NHS England Simon Stevens said boosting volunteer numbers will be essential for the NHS to deliver ambitious treatment upgrades. Leading doctors are warning the NHS is braced for another 'very difficult winter'. Figures from NHS England show nearly 94 per cent of beds are already occupied, well above the 85 per cent target, despite the mild weather and low flu levels. A&E departments have had the worst November on record, with only 87.6 per cent of patients seen within four hours, against the national target of 95 per cent. Health officials said staff were working hard to deal with increased demand, with 1,000 more patients seen within four hours every day in November compared to last year. But Dr Nick Scriven, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, warned: 'After decades of reductions there are simply not enough appropriately staffed beds available to meet the current demand.' We're loving it! Meet the NHS volunteer heroes already making a difference We have the time to help Mike Pointer, 72, a former scientific consultant, lives in Salisbury with his wife, Pam, 69. He has volunteered at Salisbury District Hospital since 2011, supporting older patients. 'Seven years ago I had a heart attack, and although I recovered relatively quickly, it was a wake up call. Clearly I was just too stressed and so I decided to cut my working hours and find something useful but less demanding. 'I'd received marvellous care at Salisbury so I looked at its website where I came across the Engage programme, a volunteering scheme supporting older adults. Pictured: NHS volunteer Mike Pointer with patient Nora Burke 'The volunteers visit 16 wards in the hospital I might go to the stroke unit one morning a week, or the gastroenterology ward the next. As a volunteer what I offer is broadly similar wherever I go: I sit by their beds and talk about their feelings. 'Often when patients have shared a problem, they realise it's not as insurmountable as it first seemed. 'Our role is important because if a patient is anxious or depressed, it can have such a detrimental effect on their general wellbeing, leading to slower recovery. 'What volunteers have is time, which the medical staff don't. My record is three hours with one gentleman who was so lonely and couldn't stop crying about problems with his children. 'He wanted someone to listen and I was able to do that. I like the purpose volunteering gives me. And I love to give some sort of hope.' What we do matters Fiona Aiken, 59, a retired university manager, lives in Lancaster. She volunteers from home as a controller for the North West Blood Bike service, co-ordinating motorbike riders who deliver blood, human milk, lab samples and equipment. 'One of the things I love about this job is that I'm called 'the controller', it is quite nice being in charge. Joking aside, though, the job carries a lot of responsibility I get around 30 calls a night. 'I got involved two-and-a-half years ago after I read about the blood bike service in a newspaper and just thought: I can do that. 'I was approaching retirement and wanted something useful to do. 'I also wanted to give something back to the NHS as it looked after my mum. It's just my folder of contacts, and my house phone. Fiona Aiken, 59, a retired university manager, lives in Lancaster. She volunteers from home as a controller for the North West Blood Bike service, co-ordinating motorbike riders who deliver blood, human milk, lab samples and equipment 'I volunteer for two or three eight-hour shifts a month they run through from 6pm to 2am during week nights. 'Often I don't get to bed until 3am, but I love it: you get an adrenaline buzz when the phone rings for the first time on a shift, as you never know what you're going to get that night, you just know it is urgent and you need to work quickly. 'We touch so many peoples' lives but we never know who or how we have helped we just know that what we do matters and take pride in that. Some bikers and controllers will work over Christmas, New Year and Bank Holidays nobody moans though because they want to do it, that's the great thing about being a volunteer.' I have learned so much A-Level pupil James Grieves, 17, of Stannington, Northumberland, has volunteered once a week at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital for the past year. 'I started after the hospital gave a recruitment talk at my school,' he said. James said his role was simply to sit and talk to some of the elderly patients. 'As well as the company, this helps distract them from pain,' he said. 'To begin with, the nurses would point out who was lonely but over time, I grew in confidence and now, I walk into the ward and can tell who would like a chat. I've learned so much. A-Level pupil James Grieves, 17, of Stannington, Northumberland, has volunteered once a week at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital for the past year 'It made me realise that teenagers and older people have so much in common. 'Teenagers are at a crossroads in their lives, and we don't yet know who we are. But many elderly people have lost their identities because they've put everything into work for years and then suddenly that's all gone. 'I volunteer once a week for two-and-a-half hours, on a Tuesday after lessons.' Interviews by Angela Epstein, Jo Waters and Amanda Cable How you can give the NHS a helping hand The Daily Mail and the charity Helpforce invite you to join our Christmas campaign by giving some of your time in 2019 as a volunteer for the NHS. Here, we explain all you need to know... WILL I BE EXPECTED TO START THIS CHRISTMAS? The simple answer is no. If you join our campaign, you will start volunteering some time in 2019. Once Helpforce has put your NHS organisation in touch with you, it can take up to three months and in some cases six before you start, because of the necessary checks and training that have to be carried out. WHY DOES THE NHS NEED VOLUNTEERS? Volunteers can help provide better experiences for patients, and free-up time for healthcare workers to focus on delivering the incredible work they've been trained to do. And while there are thousands of volunteers carrying out vital work in the NHS, there is more we can do. The Join The Hospital Helpforce campaign aims to harness the power of dedicated volunteers to create a more compassionate care system. ARE VOLUNTEERS REPLACING STAFF ROLES? No they provide extra help that wouldn't be covered by a staff role. NHS Trusts need volunteers as they provide a valuable support role to busy staff and to patients who are going through a difficult time. Volunteers can make the difference to someone's day by providing simple but significant support. WHAT'S THE MINIMUM I HAVE TO COMMIT TO? Helpforce is asking for volunteers to commit to at least three consecutive hours a week for six months, or one day a month for six months. The minimum age is 16 but some NHS organisations are not able to take volunteers until they are 18 due to their own policies. Youth groups #iwill and the Pears Foundation are together aiming to increase the number of volunteering opportunities for young people visit iwill.org.uk for details. HOW DO I SIGN UP? Visit hospitalhelpforce.com and fill in the pledge form. Once you've completed it, you should hear back immediately with a thank you email, then again by February once Helpforce has matched you with an NHS organisation. If you don't, please go to the Frequently Asked Questions section of the website. WHAT TRAINING WILL I GET? Training varies between NHS organisations and the role you are taking up. But all of it will help keep you safe and give you the skills to make you feel confident when volunteering on a busy ward with staff and patients. Training typically includes some or all of the following elements: health and safety, fire training, equality and diversity, safeguarding, conflict resolution, information governance and infection control. WHAT DO THEY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ME? Once you have been matched to an NHS organisation, you will be asked to meet its volunteer co-ordinator. They will want to find out more about you your experience, interests and motivation to volunteer and you will have health and criminal record checks. You may also be required to provide a reference. IS THERE A DEADLINE? You can choose to volunteer for the NHS at any time, but this campaign is being supported during December and will close at the start of January. If it isn't a good time for you to volunteer but you may want to in the future, you can get in touch with your local hospital or other NHS organisation at a later date. You can also look at volunteering opportunities at do-it.org. WHAT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS? Go to the Frequently Asked Questions web page (hospitalhelpforce.com/faqs). The 'Need Help?' icon will link you to one of Helpforce's ambassadors who will be happy to help. CAN I GIVE ANYTHING OTHER THAN TIME? YOU can donate to Helpforce the charity will use all of the money raised to help support hospitals in the creation of new volunteering roles and bring more volunteers to their wards. There are two ways you can donate: via the donate button at hospitalhelpforce.com, or by sending a cheque. Please make it payable to Helpforce Community Trust, and post it to: Helpforce S90, South Wing, Somerset House, The Strand, London, WC2R 1LA. A homeless tradesman has been inundated with prospective jobs after a mining industry leader saw him holding a sign pleading for work and a room for the night. The man, with 26 years experience operating excavators, was holding a cardboard sign on a Melbourne city street when MMG Limited executive Luke Messer spotted him earlier this week. Mr Messer heard about Scott's situation and put out a call to his LinkedIn network in the hope an employer had a job for him in time for Christmas, with his message read 800,000 times. A homeless tradesman has been inundated with job offers after a mining industry leader saw him holding a sign pleading for work and a room for the night 'He said, 'I'll try anything, I just need a bit of luck',' he told his LinkedIn followers. Sporting a beard, Scott was sitting on a milk crate pleading for help with a sign behind a beanie holding a few coins. 'Homeless, I'm trying to raise $45 to get a room for tonight,' it said. 'I am also an experienced excavator operator needing full-time work. The man (pictured), with 26 years experience operating excavators, was holding a cardboard sign on a Melbourne city street when MMG Limited executive Luke Messer spotted him 'Please, any help with above very appreciated.' Mr Messer's call on LinkedIn to find work for Scott has so far led to 30 job leads and 10 accommodation offers in six days. 'It is extremely pleasing to report I have been inundated with offers of support,' he said in an updated LinkedIn post. 'A lot of good people are genuinely interested to know how Scott is going and if he has found a job.' Luke Messer (right with wife Emma) heard about Scott's situation and put out a call to his LinkedIn network in the hope an employer had a job for him in time for Christmas Scott, who has experience operating 22 to 30-tonne excavators in the construction and mining industries, has received a deluge of phone calls from prospective employers. 'I met with him this morning and he said he's had so many phone calls he hasn't been able to keep up,' Mr Messer. Scott told the mining executive he was thankful to 'all the people who have offered their support'. The homeless man has so far had one job interview and is arranging another with a large construction firm. Mr Messer, a group manager of organisation development in the mining industry, also set up a Go Fund Me page which has so far raised $300. Scott, who has experience operating 22 to 30-tonne excavators, has received a lot of phone calls from prospective employers, Luke Messer told his LinkedIn followers (post pictured) A Nationals leader of parliament has lost three demerit points for filming herself on her mobile phone while driving and uploading them to social media. The MLC for Central Wheatbelt, Western Australia, Mia Davies, also received a $400 fine over the video she made while driving through her rural electorate. She filmed herself talking to her followers and posted the video to Facebook. The video was forwarded onto WA Police on Monday. In WA, currents laws forbid 'creating, sending or looking at a text message, video message, email or similar communication' whilst operating a motor vehicle. WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson confirmed on Thursday that Ms Davies had been sent an infringement notice over the matter. 'I think it is important that I reaffirm the message. When you are driving a vehicle don't be distracted and don't be recording while you are driving.' Mr Dawson told Perth Now. Ms Davies reiterates that while she was using her phone, it was in a fixed mounting. 'It is my understanding that I have been issued with an infringement in relation to touching a phone in a fixed mounting while driving.' she told Daily Mail Australia in a statement. MLC for Central Wheatbelt , WA Mia Davies (left to right) posted videos of herself while talking to her followers to her Facebook in 2017 'I accept the consequences of this action. I take the issue of road safety seriously,' she said. Ms Davies posted two similar videos taken from her car in 2017 but had fallen outside the 12 month statue of limitations for police to issue a fine. She said she has yet to receive the fine in the mail. More than a quarter of Army recruits have had to wait over a year to join up, a damning report reveals today. A deal to fill gaps in the military has been beset by problems which has led to a shortage of 5,600 troops. Bungling outsourcing giant Capita was given a controversial 495million contract to handle recruitment in 2012. More than a quarter of Army recruits have had to wait over a year to join up, a new report has revealed But costs have soared to 677million as the firm has failed to enlist the required number of regular and reserve soldiers. A report by the National Audit Office published today reveals significant problems in the recruitment partnership between the Army and Capita. It accuses Capita of under-estimating the complexity of recruiting for the military. Unless the Army can find a constant flow of new recruits to replace those who leave or retire it will come under increasing strain to meet new threats, the report warns. During a six-month period this year, half of those applying to be Army regulars had to wait up to 321 days from application to the start of basic training. For 27 per cent, it took more than 400 days to complete the process. The delays are blamed for putting off potential recruits, who either give up or find other work. In 2017, only 11 per cent of applicants went on to join the Army and 47 per cent voluntarily dropped out during the process. Nia Griffith (pictured above) MP, Labours defence spokesman said the contract is letting taxpayers down There can also be long waits for medical records to be obtained from GPs and checked, the report found. In 2015, the Government set the Army a target of 82,000 regulars and 30,000 reserves by 2020 a goal it will fall far short of reaching. In July, the force was 5,600 regular soldiers and officers or 7 per cent below its required strength. There were also significant skill shortages in certain areas, the report found. Under the contract, the number of recruitment offices was cut from 131 to 68 along with a switch to an automated online system. But the report said both Capita and the Army failed to recognise how complex such a change would be in a military context. The automated system launched more than four years late and cost triple its original budget of 113million. It then encountered significant problems and applicants found it hard to use, the report found. Military chiefs estimate there were 13,000 fewer applications between November 2017 and March 2018 alone, which could lead to 1,300 fewer enlistments. The report said the Army and Capita have since made significant changes but have still not delivered an increase in recruitment. Nia Griffith MP, Labours defence spokesman, said last night: This disastrous contract is letting down taxpayers and soldiers alike. The Conservatives ideological obsession with outsourcing has driven up costs and resulted in the failure to recruit enough personnel to the Army. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson (pictured above) called recruitment rates atrocious Last month, the Government announced that foreign nationals who have never lived in Britain could join the Army in order to fill gaps. It means those from Commonwealth countries including India, Australia and Kenya will be considered for roles. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has called recruitment rates atrocious. Capita yesterday said applications were now at a five-year high following an overhaul. An Army spokesman said: We have put in place a plan to address the challenges. The Army has developed a range of measures to speed up the recruitment process. It is the time of year when friends and family come together, but half a million older people are likely to be on their own this Christmas, a survey has revealed. And as well as being isolated, the report by the charity Age UK suggests many of them will spend the festive period grieving for happier times before the deaths of loved ones. The report said that for 530,000 over-65s, Christmas will be just another day, while around a quarter of a million said being lonely is a normal part of life for them. Survey reveals more than half a million elderly are likely to be alone at Christmas. Stock picture Caroline Abrahams of Age UK said: There is far more awareness now of the problem of loneliness, and as a result I think many families and friends make a real effort to be kind to older people, especially at this time of year. However, as our research shows, sadly, some older people are still being left out in the cold and have no one at all to turn to for advice or support. No one should have to live like that in old age. The older people who will feel the pain of isolation at Christmas are among 1.7million who can go for long periods of time without ever seeing a friend, Age UK said. The findings come at a time of growing concern over large numbers of people who go from day to day without talking to any friends or family members. The report said: Although loneliness is by no means an inevitable part of ageing, difficult life events that many experience as people get older, such as bereavement, serious illness or reducing mobility, can all be triggers for becoming more isolated and feeling lonelier. It added: Christmas isnt something to look forward to because it brings back too many memories of people who have passed away and happier times. Earlier this year the Government appointed the first minister for loneliness, after research found evidence that the problem is widespread among young people as well as the oldest generation. In October, Theresa May launched a campaign to reduce isolation, and suggested people could be prescribed cookery and art lessons on the NHS in a bid to get them out and about. Age UKs assessment said that 1.7million older people in England have not seen a friend in a month, and that 300,000 people over the age of 65 have not had a conversation with a family member or a friend over the same period of time. Actress Joanna Lumley, who supports the charity, said: Sadly, the feelings of loneliness are too common in many older peoples lives and its really quite a worry. It can affect your mental and even physical health. We can see from this latest research that so many older people accept loneliness as part of life, so my plea is to take action for yourself or an older relative or friend who you think might be feeling isolated. The figures were gathered from a poll of 1,917 people aged over 65, together with evidence of population estimates from the Office For National Statistics. Actress Eliza Dushku claims she was written off the CBS drama Bull (pictured) after reporting sexual harassment by the show's lead actor Michael Weatherly - allegations that resulted in the network agreeing to a $9.5million settlement Actress Eliza Dushku claims she was written off the CBS drama Bull after reporting sexual harassment by the show's lead actor Michael Weatherly - allegations the network tried to bury by paying her a $9.5million settlement. Dushku, who is best known for her role in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, signed on for three episodes of Bull and was slated to be added as a full-time cast member before her interactions with Weatherly got in the way, according to a bombshell report from the New York Times. The report claims that the two actors - who played love interests - got along well in the beginning and that Dushku thought Weatherly 'seemed friendly'. Things took a turn after Weatherly allegedly made a series of comments in front of other cast and crew members that made Dushku uncomfortable - including remarks about her appearance, a rape joke and a mention of having a threesome. Dushku, who says she had been told by Bull producer and writer Glenn Gordon Caron that her character would become more prominent, flagged the comments up to the network. Soon after she was pushed off the show out of what she claims to be retaliation. Dushku says she was slated to become a full-time cast member on Bull before she reported inappropriate comments that Weatherly made to her on set. The pair are pictured in the show Mediation with CBS resulted in the network agreeing to pay Dushku a confidential settlement of $9.5million - roughly the amount she stood to earn if kept on the show for four seasons. That settlement surfaced during an investigation into the network that began in August after former chief executive Les Moonves was ousted over allegations of sexual misconduct made by multiple women. After his departure, the CBS Corporation board instructed a team of outside lawyers to look into 'cultural issues at all levels of CBS' in addition to the accusations against Moonves. A draft of the investigation report obtained by the Times calls the networks handling of Dushku's complaints misguided as well as emblematic of larger problems at CBS. The lawyers wrote that the company had a tendency to protect itself at the expense of victims when faced with allegations of wrongdoing, the Times reported. Weatherly, who is best known for his role on NCIS, apologized for his behavior toward Dushku in a statement to the New York Times. The 50-year-old is pictured at an event in October CBS confirmed the settlement with Dushku in a statement on Wednesday. 'The allegations in Ms. Dushkus claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done,' the statement said. 'The settlement of these claims reflects the projected amount that Ms. Dushku would have received for the balance of her contract as a series regular, and was determined in a mutually agreed upon mediation process at the time.' Weatherly apologized for his behavior toward Dushku in a statement to the Times, saying: 'During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script. 'When Eliza told me that she wasnt comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized. After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza.' A Melbourne man who brutally bashed his girlfriend and left her to die has been found guilty of murder and will spend at least 20 years behind bars. Alexander Dow Freeburn, 29, was sentenced at the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday after being found guilty of murdering Elizabeth Wilms, 29, in 2016. Ms Wilms died in late June or early July and was found at a Kew property in the CBD with 43 separate injuries, including a broken nose and extensive bruising. Freeburn fled the flat after the assault and travelled to a woman's house and started a sexual relationship with her, before police caught him in the Warrnambool area. Alexander Dow Freeburn, 29, was sentenced at the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday after being found guilty of murdering Elizabeth Wilms, 29, at Kew in Melbourne's CBD in 2016 Elizabeth Wilms died in late June or early July and was found at a Kew property in the CBD with 43 separate injuries, including a broken nose and finger and extensive bruising Freeburn, an ice user, also believed he could 'summon voodoo demons' and had bound and gagged his ex-girlfriend before bashing her to death. During the trial, the court heard Ms Wilms was found to have the drug GHB in her system at the time of the attack. Senior forensic pathologist Michael Burke, who performed an autopsy, previously told the court clear tape had been wrapped around Ms Wilms' neck numerous times. Police also claimed in the days before her death, Ms Wilms had confided that she was 'petrified' of the accused and that they were 'finished'. She also told a friend Freeburn had threatened to kill her if she didn't leave her family. Witness Christopher Belfiore said Ms Wilms had told him on one occasion Freeburn had been hitting her and didn't let her leave the house for three days. Freeburn fled the Kew flat after the assault and travelled to a woman's house and started a sexual relationship with her, before police caught him in the Warrnambool area When handing down her sentence at the Victorian Supreme Court, Justice Hollingworth said Ms Wilms had a mild intellectual disability, which made her particularly vulnerable When handing down her sentence, Justice Hollingworth said Ms Wilms had a mild intellectual disability, which made her particularly vulnerable to exploitation. 'You left Elizabeth, dying and alone, on the floor of your room,' Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said. 'Thereafter you made only half-hearted and totally ineffectual efforts to obtain assistance for her.' 'It is clear that Elizabeth was a loving and much-loved member of her family and her death has affected them greatly in many different ways,' the judge said. Several of Ms Wilms' family members wept during the sentencing. Freeburn was jailed for 25 years, with a non-parole period of 20 years. Sporting a black-eye, Freeburn wrote in a notepad in court and was expressionless when jailed. Stephen Lawrence murder suspect Jamie Acourt, 42, pictured, was attacked by a fellow inmate days into sentence at Wandsworth prison One of the men suspected of the murder of Stephen Lawrence was punched to the floor by an inmate in prison, it was reported last night. Jamie Acourt, 42, was apparently attacked by a black prisoner just days into his cannabis smuggling sentence at Wandsworth jail in South London. He was jailed for nine years last week, after admitting his role in a 3million drugs plot on the second day of his trial at Kingston Crown Court. Acourt is suspected of taking part in the 1993 racist stabbing of Stephen Lawrence, 18, by a gang of men in Eltham, South-East London. Acourt's attacker was named as fellow HMP Wandsworth inmate Tyrone Archer, 39, from Croydon in South London, The Sun reported. The incident allegedly occurred on Wednesday morning as Acourt was being readied for exercise with other inmates. Archer, serving a sentence for assault, is said to have hit the back of Acourts head as he walked on to the prison landing. Acourt fell, but did not need medical assistance. A source said: Archer grew up in South London. He was 13 when Stephen Lawrence was murdered. Its not too hard to see why he might want to have a pop at Acourt. HMP Wandsworth inmate Tyrone Archer, 39, pictured, has not given his reasons for the attack but a fellow inmate said having grown up in Lawrence's southeast London at the time of the murder, Archer's motives were 'not too hard to see' Acourt, pictured after his arrest in Spain, pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and Kingston Crown Court last week Acourt and Archer are both prisoners at HMP Wandsworth, where the attack occurred on Wednesday morning Archer is understood to have refused to reveal the motive for wanting to injure Acourt. He has been put on report by governors. Jamie Acourts reputation goes before him. His ties to the Lawrence case mean a lot of people want to do him hes a massive target, a source added. Tyrones made himself a bit of a name inside by taking him down. Acourt and his brother Neil, 43, were ringleaders of a gang that couriered up to four tonnes of cannabis between London and the North-East. Neil is serving six years for the drug plot. Both were among those arrested after the stabbing of Stephen by a gang of white men in Eltham, South-East London, in 1993, but have always denied involvement. Of the others accused of murder by the Daily Mail in our landmark front page of 1997, Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted of the murder and jailed for life in 2012. Luke Knight is the only one still walking the streets. The Prison Service confirmed an inmate had been put on report after punching a fellow inmate on December 12. Two bushwalkers survived four days alone in the wilderness before being found alive and well by emergency crews late on Friday morning. William McCarthy, 59, and Francesca Boterhoven De Haan, 60, planned a three-day bushwalk in the Ettrema Gorge within the Morton National Park on Saturday. The pair were expected to return home on Tuesday after their trek in the south coast of New South Wales. Scroll down for video William McCarthy (left), 59, and Francesca Boterhoven De Haan (right), 60, have been rescued by emergency crew after being stranded in the bush Search crew found the bushwalking pair on Friday morning with the Morton National Park The bushwalkers urged family and friends to contact police if they hadn't returned home in time. A search operation was launched by police after they were notified Mr McCarthy had not returned to his Canberra home on Tuesday at 1.30pm. Search crew found Mr McCarthy's car parked on Tolwong Road in Ettrema a short time later. Concerned friends and family flew to the location to stay close to the operation carried out by the search crew. 'Whatever she's doing currently, she's trying to lift the trail and get back to her family - that's my mum,' Ms Botherhoven De Haan's son Shannon Rogers told 9News. Searchers on Thursday night confirmed the walkers were safe, uninjured and had found shelter. Search crew found Mr McCarthy's car parked on Tolwong Road in Ettrema a short time after the search began New South Wales Police estimated the track would be an estimated two-hour walk into gorge. 'Due to deteriorating weather conditions, a decision has been made to suspend a retrieval operation until first light tomorrow,' said police. Emergency services said the walking track was steep and took an SES unit six hours to walk just two kilometres. Torrential rain posed a risk to authorities and delayed the search. 'We've got to look after our own safety first and with the conditions deteriorating that's paramount for me to make sure my guys are safe out there,' said SES incident commander David Bere. Among the rescue team on Friday was Shannon who was relieved to have been reunited with his mother. 'The family and I are happy to say thank you to emergency services for their incredible work once this rescue is completed,' he said. The rescue team and bushwalkers are on their way back to the starting point. Prosecutors have dropped assault charges against a student model who was accused of attacking her boyfriend because he wanted to break up with her. The attorney for Kathryn Mahoney told DailyMail.com that prosecutors in Connecticut are not going forward with their case against her. She was accused of punching swimmer and rugby player Ben Kebbell in her dorm at Fairfield University on March 1, 2018. Her attorney Frank Riccio II told DailyMail.com: All criminal charges against Kathryn Mahoney were dismissed after a motion was filed with the Court. That request was granted after the Court considered all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the matter. Prosecutors have dropped charges against student model Kathryn Mahoney (left and right) after she was accused of attacking her boyfriend because he wanted to break up with her Now that all charges have been dismissed, she will continue her collegiate studies which have placed her in the top of her class. Her future is extremely bright! DailyMail.com contacted Mr Kebbel and the prosecutors for comment. Neither has responded. It is not clear why they have dropped the charges. Kebbell, who is also on the school's swim team and hails from the Isle of Man in the UK, appeared to be in good spirits and even joked about his injuries after the alleged attack earlier this year. 'The katie thing comes with a broken nose lol,' the six-foot-one, 184-pound athlete wrote on one picture, showing blood streaming out of his nose and into his mouth. In a later picture, the freshman smiled after some of the blood had been cleaned off of his face. The attorney for Kathryn Mahoney told DailyMail.com that prosecutors in Connecticut are not going forward with their case against her Benjamin Kebbel showed off pictures of his bloodied nose after claiming he was hit by his girlfriend last week when he tried to break up with her The couple are seen together in happier times The bloody incident happened on March 1 in a dorm on the small Connecticut school's campus. Kebbell told police that Mahoney hit him after he mentioned the end of their relationship. He told police he grabbed the Nashua, New Hampshire native's shoulder to get her to stop but he failed and had to run to a friend's dorm room to get help. He took himself to St. Vincent hospital to be treated for a swollen and bloody nose after the incident, the Fairfield Citizen reported. In addition to swimming on the swim team, Mahoney has also worked as a model. Her Instagram page has more than 100,000 followers. However Riccio II told DailyMail.com her model career is in a hiatus. She was charged with third-degree assault and disorderly charges and ordered held on $1,500 bail. The school is a small private university with approximately 5,100 students. A body presumed to be that of a missing Quebec woman has been found near the Mexican hotel she was staying in just days after her boyfriend's suicide. Christine St-Onge, 41, and a mother of two went missing in the luxury resort of Los Cabos on December 4. Sergeant Claude Denis, a spokesperson for the Surete du Quebec, who'd launched an international investigation to find the 41-year-old, said an autopsy would have to be performed to determine that the remains are those of St-Onge who's from the Montreal suburb of Laval, according to The Montreal Gazette. Christine St-Onge, 41, and a mother of two went missing in Los Cabos on December 4 St-Onge had left Quebec on November 29th along with her boyfriend Pierre Bergeron, 53, for a week-long trip to Los Cabos. They were due to return to Quebec on December 6 but Bergeron returned home alone the day before without luggage and carrying St-Onges ticket. Police said he killed himself the next day. St-Onge left Quebec on November 29th along with her boyfriend Pierre Bergeron for a week-long trip. On Thursday a woman's body was found near the hotel where they had been staying Mexican police said it appeared that the woman, found dead near the hotel where St-Onge and Bergeron were staying, had died of severe brain injuries. It's estimated she had been dead for at least five days. Investigators reportedly found traces of blood in St-Onge's hotel room. St-Onges family have been notified of the discovery. She was a travel agent and had two sons, aged 7 and 11. A GoFundMe campaign was set up to raise money for an outing to distract St-Onge's sons, now the campaign is raising money for expenses related to St-Onge's possible death. Sir Lenny Henry would never appear on the TV programme Who Do You Think You Are? because his ancestors were slaves and he fears becoming too emotional. The actor, 60, is playing head slave Godfrey in the new BBC1 drama The Long Song. Sir Lenny also said he wants the BBC series to create a national conversation about the UK's involvement in the slave trade. The British comedian, 60, said the tale of a woman enslaved under British rule in 19th century Jamaica had renewed relevance in today's political climate. Ahead of the show's release next week, he said: 'My family are from Jamaica, it's why I don't do Who Do You Think You Are? because within two or three generations is slavery and I'd be there two minutes in crying ''They're all slaves!''' Sir Lenny Henry as Godfrey in the new BBC1 drama The Long Song which airs this month 'I did a documentary called Caribbean Kid recently and we went back to my grandmother's house which was in the grounds of a plantation and we went up past my grandmother's house into the back area and there were all these slave graves, some small ones for babies, big ones for adults. 'That's how slaves lived, they buried them on the property.' Sir Lenny, who stars as Godfrey in the BBC One series, said he wanted the adaptation to become the British equivalent to American miniseries Roots. That 1977 book adaptation followed the family of Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka warrior enslaved and sold to a plantation in the southern United States. Set during the final days of slavery, The Long Song follows strong-willed young slave July, played by Tamara Lawrance, and was adapted by Sarah Williams from Andrea Levy's book. Hayley Atwell (left), Sir Lenny Henry and Tamara Lawrance at a photocall for the new BBC One Drama The Long Song He said: 'When you make something you want it to be part of the national conversation and I think this will evoke a conversation about the past. 'We're in a place where racism is on the agenda - Black Lives Matter, and also this idea of knowing (that) if you don't know what happened, you're not going to know what's happening. 'We need to look at the past so we can think about what happens going forward. Slavery is still happening, so we need to watch these things and be informed going forward.' Sir Lenny said he would never appear on the TV programme Who Do You Think You Are? because his ancestors were slaves and he fears becoming too emotional Sir Lenny said it was important the British public learnt about their country's role in the slave trade, adding that the UK's full involvement had been omitted from schools. He said: 'I wanted to be part of this story because the retelling of the story of slavery and the British empire's involvement is something that needs to be known because this is stuff we didn't learn at school. 'I went to Blue Coat Secondary. We learned about Clive of India and the triangle, but we didn't learn about Bristol or Liverpool or Manchester and Preston and Carlisle, and all those ports that were built from the profits of slavery, and the Black Country's involvement in the Industrial Revolution, making irons and chains and guns for the slave trade.' The series also features EastEnders actress Dona Croll, The Boy With The Topknot star Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Chewing Gum's Ayesha Antoine. The Long Song will air on BBC One on December 18. The Daily Mail's three-year battle to win sanctuary for Afghan interpreters has scooped the prestigious Campaign of the Year award at the British Journalism Awards. Judges at the event, organised by Press Gazette, the journalists' trade paper, honoured the work to help dozens of translators who were the 'eyes and ears' of British troops in Afghanistan but were later abandoned to their fate with the Taliban. The Mail's Betrayal of the Brave campaign spearheaded by journalists. David Williams and Larisa Brown led the fight for them and their families to be brought to safety in the UK. The Afghan translators were injured in Helmand Province (shown in a stock picture) alongside UK troops The judges said: 'The campaign to provide sanctuary in Britain for Afghan interpreters was a classic example of the Daily Mail's relentless campaigning strength. 'When the Daily Mail believes in something it goes for it, and in this case it was also backed up with great journalism about a cause which is counter to what some people would expect of the paper.' The campaign continues on behalf of those interpreters left in Afghanistan who have been shot at, issued with death threats and even executed on their doorsteps. The Mail's sister paper, The Mail on Sunday, also won two awards. Ian Birrell took the Popular Journalism prize for writing about a boy with epilepsy and medical cannabis law. Jeff Prestridge won the Business, Finance and Economics Journalism award. President Donald Trump has reportedly spoken to some of his closest friends about his concern of impeachment, while his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen has sat down for an interview with Good Morning America. Despite Trump publicly stating that he isn't concerned about being impeached, he has reportedly told allies in his closest circle that he is alarmed by the possibility. 'The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: (National Enquirer boss) David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation,' a friend of Trump's told NBC News. Weisselberg is the chief financial officer for the Trump organization who was allegedly in the center of the hush money operation, according to NBC. He was granted immunity for his testimony. Pecker was also granted immunity as part of prosecutors' probe. Meanwhile, Cohen sat down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos which will air on ABC on Friday morning. According Stephanopoulos' tweet Cohen will discuss his 'sentencing and President Trump'. He will have to report to prison in Otisville, around 70 miles from New York City, to begin his 36-month sentence on March 6. On Thursday, the president was revealed to be the third man who attended a 2015 meeting with Cohen and Pecker where they forged a plan to keep Trump's alleged affairs out of the press. Scroll down for video President Donald Trump has reportedly spoken to some of his closest friends about his fears of impeachment, despite publicly stating that he was not concerned with it at all Meanwhile, Cohen sat down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos which will air on Good Morning America on Friday morning. According Stephanopoulos' tweet Cohen will discuss his 'sentencing and President Trump' 'The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: David Pecker (left) and Allen Weisselberg (right), both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation,' a friend of Trump's claims The meeting, which was referenced in a letter federal prosecutors sent to National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc, included an offer by company CEO to 'help deal with negative stories about the presidential candidate's relationships with women'. With Trump identified as having been there, it means he was present when a plan was developed that ultimately led to Cohen pleading guilty to a felony and getting three years in jail. It also led to Pecker's cooperation agreement by AMI with prosecutors not to be prosecuted 'for any crimes' related to campaign finance law resulting from the meeting. Trump, therefore, is now the only person in the room who claims that the hush money wasn't used to impact the outcome of the election. US attorneys in the Southern District of New York announced the deal with American Media Inc shortly after a judge in Manhattan sentenced Cohen to three years in jail. Cohen was involved in discussions with Pecker - who had been one of Trump's closest friends - over the $150,000 payment that went to McDougal. The documents revealing the deal make clear that Pecker agreed to flip - and is still cooperating with federal authorities. They do not say who he and his company flipped on, raising the possibility that he has handed over information on his former friend, Trump. The news comes amid a spike in talk in Washington about the possibility that the president could be charged with directing a federal crime, even if it is ultimately held that he is immune from such charges due to his office and the Justice Department's prior interpretation of the Constitution that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, only impeached. After the bombshell development, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders suddenly turned up to brief reporters and claimed when asked if Trump was worried about Pecker flipping: 'Not at all.' Sanders added: 'The president was clear that he directed no one to do anything wrong, particularly Michael Cohen. He's been clear on this.' The catch and kill deal was concocted between American Media Inc and Cohen (pictured on Wednesday). The firm got immunity and he will be jailed for three years in March Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign and banking violations after he created a shell company to transfer $130,000 to Stormy Daniels (right), who claims she had an affair with Trump. AMI gave $150,000 to model Karen McDougal (left) who claims she had an affair with Trump But the revelation threatened to create more turmoil in the White House and for Trump's legal team. The plan the three reached included an agreement to help the campaign 'identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided'. At the meeting, 'Pecker agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such negative stories,' according to the letter. NBC confirmed Trump's attendance a day after prosecutors referenced it in the letter which revealed that AMI, like Cohen, was cooperating with the government. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump was involved in or briefed on 'nearly every step' of the agreements. And so-called 'catch and kill' agreements did emerge over the course of the campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign and banking violations after he created a shell company to transfer $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump. AMI gave $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who says she had a 10-month affair with the president. That could leave Trump as the odd man out if he continues his denials that he did nothing wrong and never 'directed' Cohen to break the law. Trump distanced himself from the $150,000 deal in an interview with Fox News on Thursday DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel determined during the Nixon Administration that a sitting president could not be indicted, although its position has not been tested in court. Amid the swirling developments of the week, one powerful Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, is calling for that interpretation to change. Although the founders included impeachment in the constitution as a political remedy, critics of the status quo have argued they never intended to give the executive a 'free pass' for crimes just by holding office, including alleged crimes that helped a president obtain the White House. 'I think the Justice Department needs to re-examine that OLC opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel opinion, that you cannot indict a sitting president under circumstances in which the failure to do so may mean that person escapes justice,' Schiff told CNN on Wednesday, hours after Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other matters. Meanwhile, impeachment a subject Democratic leaders sought to tamp down before the elections continues to hover over the courtroom developments. If it is determined that the Justice Department can't or won't charge Trump, even with a recommendation from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, it would then fall to House Democrats to begin the process that can result in the president's removal from office. Adding to the pressure on Democrats will be the statute of limitations on potential campaign finance crimes. That could allow Trump to avoid facing charges by winning election to a second term even as his subordinate Cohen cools his heels in jail well past the time Trump would again take the oath of office. Former Acting Solicitor General under President Barack Obama, Neal Katyal, wrote Wednesday on Twitter that existing special counsel regulations 'put thumb on scale of Mueller asking Acting AG to indict, as that is the one way Mueller can be sure info he has uncovered in his investigation is provided to Congress. EVEN if Mueller thinks AG would say no, he may need to ask'. Despite the current regulations, Mueller could ask the Justice Department to allow for a waiver to indict, according to Katyal. If the official overseeing the Russia probe refuses, Mueller would be required to report it to Congress which would then have that information as it considered any impeachment proceedings. It is not entirely clear who is even overseeing the probe who would make that call. Trump installed loyalist Matt Whitaker as Acting Attorney General, but Justice has refused media requests for information on whether Whitaker received an ethics review of any potential conflicts, following a slew of comments critical of the Mueller investigation. If he weren't in an oversight role, it could be Deputy Attorney Gen Rod Rosenstein who would make the call. Trump 'and his Republican supporters do not appreciate what legal analysts do: that the president is in serious legal jeopardy and it is mounting,' wrote former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti in Politico. Prosecutors revealed the immunity deal with the publisher of American Media Inc A statement of facts spelled out the $150,000 payment to a former Playboy model AMI knew about federal campaign laws at the time it reached the deal, it agreed Trump distanced himself from the $150,000 payment Thursday in an interview with Fox News. 'Let me just tell you about that tabloid I don't think - and I have to go check - I don't think they even paid any money to that tabloid. Okay?' Trump told the network in an interview. Prosecutors said 'at no time' did AMI intend to publish the story it was buying. Cohen in August and September 2016 called Pecker and said he wanted to purchase the 'limited life rights' to the story, and Pecker agreed to provide the rights in exchange for $125,000. Pecker signed the agreement on September 30, 2016, but in October 2016 a month before the election Pecker called Cohen and said the deal was off. He told Cohen to 'tear up the assignment agreement,' according to prosecutors. The 'principal purpose' of the deal was 'to suppress the model's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election' according to a government 'Statement of Admitted Facts' included in the letter to AMI. Trump's inauguration is probed for 'accepting cash-for-access from the Middle East' Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether some of the top donors to Trump's 2017 inauguration gave money in exchange for access to his administration, policy concessions or to influence the administration. The inquiry is particularly focusing on Middle Eastern donors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. According to The New York Times, investigators are trying to determine whether those nations used straw donors to disguise their donations to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee and the pro-Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, in hopes of buying influence. Foreign nations are prohibited from contributing to federal campaigns, PACs and inaugural funds by law. Federal prosecutors are also examining whether Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. The investigation came partly out of materials seized in the federal probe of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's business dealings, according to The Wall Street Journal. During April raids of Cohen's home, office and hotel room, federal agents obtained a recorded conversation between Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. In their conversation, Wolkoff expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending its money. Wolkoff, a former Vogue staffer who is one of the first lady's longtime friends, left the administration in February after reports her firm, WIS Media Partners, received $26million in payments to help plan the inauguration. She was an unpaid adviser to the first lady. It's unknown when the conversation between Wolkoff and Cohen took place or why it was recorded. Advertisement In a statement, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District said it agreed not to prosecute AMI after the company admitted 'that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election'. Representatives for AMI and Pecker could not be immediately reached for comment. Federal prosecutors in New York are also examining whether Trump's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. The investigation is looking into whether some of the top donors to Trump's crowning event gave money in exchange for access to his administration, policy concessions or to influence the administration, according to The Wall Street Journal. Money in exchange for political favors could violate federal corruption laws. There could also be a violation of federal law if funds were diverted from the inaugural committee, which was registered as a nonprofit. 'That doesn't have anything to do with the president or the first lady,' White House press secretary Sanders said Thursday night. 'The biggest thing the president did in his engagement for the inauguration was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office. The president was focused on the transition during that time and not on any of the planning.' Authorities say 70-year-old Thomas Ballenger (pictured) fatally shot his wife Rebecca in a suspected mercy killing at a rehab center in Clinton, Mississippi, on Tuesday A 70-year-old man has been accused of fatally shooting his wife of 40 years at a Mississippi rehab center in what police say may have been a mercy killing. Thomas Ballenger reportedly told investigators with the Clinton Police Department that he shot his wife Rebecca, 70, because she had suffered a stroke and said she didn't want to live that way. Rebecca was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds at Woodlands Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center on Tuesday night. Dramatic video shows the moment Thomas was arrested by police after surrendering to the nursing staff outside of his wife's room following the shooting. He has been charged with murder and denied bond. Scroll down for video Shocking video shows the moment Thomas was arrested by police after surrendering to the nursing staff outside of his wife's room following the shooting late Tuesday After his arrest Thomas told police that he was depressed and had been feeling guilty about his wife's stroke. When asked if Thomas was on suicide watch, Clinton police Lt Josh Frazier told local news outlets: 'We're keeping a close eye on him.' The lieutenant also remarked: 'This is the saddest crime I've ever worked. 'They were married. They were each other's shadows. They cared for each other a lot. But there is some indication the victim said she did not want to live like that.' Rebecca had been in the rehab center since she suffered a stroke in November, according to WJTV. Mercy killings are illegal in most states, including Mississippi. The suspect is reportedly a retired firefighter with a long history of service to the Hinds County community. In a statement Wednesday afternoon, the Jackson Fire Department said: 'To the family of Thomas and Rebecca Ballenger, this family has suffered a great loss. On behalf of Fire Chief, Willie G. Owens and the entire Jackson Fire Department, we are so very sorry for your loss. Our condolences and prayers are with the entire family at this time.' Thomas has been charged with murder and denied bail. He is pictured above in his mugshot A man who stabbed a young woman to death after their arranged marriage fell through has been sentenced to life in jail. Senthill Arumugam, 36, pleaded guilty to the murder of Singaporean student Meena Narayanan after originally claiming the pair had a suicide pact at her time of death. But Justice David Boddice said Arumugam traveled from his home of South Africa to Brisbane in March 2014 with the intention of killing his bride if she decided not to go ahead with the marriage. Ms Narayanan (pictured) was stabbed 32 times and her throat had been slit in what was described as a 'frenzied attack' Senthill Arumugam, 36, pleaded guilty to the murder of Singaporean student Meena Narayanan (pictured) after originally claiming the pair had a suicide pact at her time of death Ms Narayanan was stabbed 32 times and her throat had been slit in what investigators described as a 'frenzied attack,' The Courier Mail reported. Arumugam also stabbed himself in an attempt to make his story more believable, but medical evidence determined he carefully chose targets on his body that he knew would minimise risk to himself. Justice Boddice described Arumugam's planning as meticulous and calculated, and he claims the accused knew exactly what he was doing during the attack. 'The frenzied attack was ferocious. Your intent in taking the life of the deceased involved brutality beyond comprehension.' Ms Narayanan had expressed doubts about the arranged marriage before Arumugan arrived in the country, crown prosecutor David Nardone argued 'Your motivation was anger and jealousy and her continuation of a relationship with someone other than yourself,' Justice Boddice said. Ms Narayanan had expressed doubts about the arranged marriage before Arumugan arrived in the country, crown prosecutor David Nardone argued. Mr Nardone claims Arumugam threatened to kill himself if she refused to marry him before telling an associate if he 'couldn't have her, nobody would.' He also alleges that Arumugam attempted to purchase a gun, but when he learned he wouldn't be able to bring it into Australia, said he would buy a knife on arrival. Justice Boddice determined Arumugam's life sentence began 1725 days ago, when he was first taken into custody. A Texas mother, who left her two toddlers to die in a hot car while she partied, has been jailed for 40 years. Two-year-old Addyson Overgard-Eddy and one-year-old Brynn Hawkins died on June 8, 2017, two days after their mother, Amanda Kristene Hawkins, 20, left them strapped in their car seats inside a hot car. Hawkins left the children in the vehicle on June 6, 2017, around 9pm. They sat helpless in their car seats for more than 15 hours until noon on June 7, 2017, when it was discovered both were in serious condition and close to death as temperatures rose into the high 80s. Texas mother, Amanda Kristene Hawkins (left), 20, who left her two toddlers, Addyson Overgard-Eddy, two, and Brynn Hawkins (both pictured, right), one, to die in a hot car while she partied, has been jailed for 40 years Hawkins left the children in the vehicle on June 6, 2017, around 9pm. They sat helpless in their car seats for more than 15 hours until noon on June 7, 2017, when it was discovered both were in serious condition and close to death as temperatures rose into the high 80s In September, Hawkins pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless injury to a child and two counts of abandoning or endangering a child. On Thursday, a judge sentenced her to 40 years in prison. The Kerr County Sheriff's Office said Hawkins initially took the girls to Kerrville hospital saying that they had collapsed while smelling flowers at a park. The girls were later taken to a San Antonio hospital, where they died on June 8, 2017. Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said investigators determined that the children had been left 'intentionally' in their mother's vehicle while she and some friends partied. Authorities said Hawkins had been inside a barn smoking marijuana with her friends while her daughters sat helplessly in her vehicle. The Kerr County Sheriff's Office said Hawkins initially took the girls to Kerrville hospital saying that they had collapsed while smelling flowers at a park. The girls were later taken to a San Antonio hospital, where they died on June 8, 2017 Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said investigators determined that the children had been left 'intentionally' in their mother's vehicle while she and some friends partied Kevin Franke, then 16, slept in the car with the girls, and the next day went with Hawkins and the children to the hospital. He said he was unaware the girls were in the car while he was sleeping. Franke, now 18, was later arrested. He pleaded not guilty in April to two counts of manslaughter, two counts of injury to a child and two counts of child endangerment. Kevin Franke, then 16, slept in the car with the girls. He said he was unaware the girls were in the car while he was sleeping. Franke, now 18, was later arrested His trial is scheduled for January. The toddlers were in 'grave condition' when they were finally taken to the hospital. Hawkins apparently had warnings that all was not well with the girls after one person in the home could hear the the girls crying outside and asked if they should be brought in. 'She said, "No, they'll cry themselves to sleep,"' the sheriff said. When Hawkins found the girls unresponsive around noon on June 7, 2017, she first bathed them instead of calling an ambulance. She did not take them to the hospital immediately because she was 'afraid of getting in trouble', the sheriff's office said. Hierholzer said the girls' deaths were 'by far the most horrific case of child endangerment' in his decades of law enforcement. The girls had different fathers, neither of whom were present that night. Hardline Muslims preaching Sharia law could be protected from criticism under new religious freedom laws, secular groups fear. Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week flagged a new Religious Discrimination Act, following a review into faith freedom by former attorney-general Philip Ruddock. This proposed law would make it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their religion and would create a new Religious Freedom Commissioner. A senator is worried it 'will be used as a Sharia shield protecting mad Mullahs and Islamic hate preachers'. Scroll down for video Hardline Muslims preaching Sharia law could be protected under new religious freedom laws, secular groups fear (pictured is Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association preacher Jamil El Biza) The federal government proposal was made after the Islamic Council of Victoria put in a submission calling for 'a protection for people to safely practise their freedom of religion in Australia'. It comes after some hardline Muslim groups affiliated with this council made a string of controversial statements in line with their interpretation of Islamic law. A recent sermon from hardline Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association preacher Nassim Abdi said married women had a duty to make themselves available for sex with their husband. Another Saudi-funded sheikh from this group, Jamil El Biza, has declared it is sinful for Muslims to wish Christians a Merry Christmas and last year described homosexual men as 'f****ts'. The Wollongong sheikh is a member of the Australian National Imams Council, the peak body for Sunni preachers, and is part of the ASWJ which also has mosques in Sydney and Melbourne. Prime Minister Scott Morrison (right with Attorney-General Christian Porter) this week flagged a new Religious Discrimination Act, following a review into faith freedom by Philip Ruddock The law change was floated despite a sermon from Muslim preacher Nassim Abdi (pictured), which said married women had a duty to make themselves available for sex with their husband Secular Party of Australia president John Perkins fears a religious freedom law would embolden hardline Muslims to preach Sharia law practices, like child marriage, that breached Australian law. 'Yes, indeed it could. That's exactly the concern,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Friday. 'All of those things, if you look at them, they're all mandated on the Quran, various forms of human rights abuses. 'Protecting Christians from criticism, which is probably the motivation, it could very well have this side effect, that all religions become beyond criticism including all of the egregious practices that you can think of.' Dr Perkins said a new law against religious discrimination could see Australians charged with blasphemy for criticising Islam. Secular Party of Australia president John Perkins (pictured) feared a religious freedom law would embolden hardline Muslims to preach Sharia law practices 'That is exactly what we are worried about because if you start putting restrictions on what people can say, it comes almost like a blasphemy law,' he said. 'You should be able to criticise religions without criticising the believers. 'Denigrating Muslims is not good but we must have the freedom to criticise the religion itself. That's a very big concern.' University of New South Wales constitutional law professor George Williams said religious freedom laws could potentially restrict freedom of speech. 'I believe it is certainly a problem to protect freedom of religion in this way without also providing strong and equivalent support for freedom of speech,' he told Daily Mail Australia. Independent senator Fraser Anning (pictured) said a religious freedom law could see someone hauled before the Australian Human Rights Commission for criticising hardline Muslims Independent senator Fraser Anning said a religious freedom law could see someone hauled before the Australian Human Rights Commission for criticising the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association. The hardline ASWJ runs the Hume Islamic Youth Centre in Melbourne, which was attended by Somali-born terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, who in November fatally stabbed cafe owner Sisto Malaspina during a knife rampage on Bourke Street. 'If you openly disagree with the Hume Islamic Centre's interpretation of Islam it's likely you'll be hauled before the Religious Discrimination commissar,' Senator Anning said, adding such a law 'will be used as a Sharia shield protecting mad Mullahs and Islamic hate preachers'. Senator Anning was expelled from Katter's Australian Party after calling in Parliament for a 'final solution' plebiscite on Muslim immigration. Manila (CNN Philippines Life) It seems the world has gotten smaller in the year 2018, as far as food in Manila is concerned. More cuisines have become more accessible to diners, foreign brands have entered the scene, and meals are available with a few taps on the phone. It has been the year that local flavors and produce have been given due credit, with sustainable dining locally seen as a possibility on the horizon. At the same time, more international brands have become players in the food scene, like the arrival of the likes of Kams Roast, Hawker Chan, and M Bakery; as well as announcements on the arrival of establishments like Popeyes, Panda Express, and the hotly anticipated Shake Shack. This year, diners have embraced the future with the boom of food deliveries, yet they have also managed to stay true to former favorites like milk tea. Here are a few bites of the food trends that shaped it. Samgyupsalamat: The new eat-all-you-can champ The steady rise of Korean BBQ was once limited to small village locations like Malate, the far end of Poblacion, QCs Scout area, and BF in Paranaque. Then, more K-BBQ shops opened up in more central locations, but none more than Samgyupsalamat has made this eat-all-you-can bbq so accessible, and has branches located on practically every major road in the city. For less than 1,000, diners are guaranteed as much pork or beef as they can take. The only inevitable downside is having to wait hours at a time for a table. Given how aggressive Samgyupsalamat has been in the last few months alone however, more shops are likely to be expected, which means alleviating those long lines or just making new ones. At The Grid, Mecha Umas Bruce Ricketts has a taco stand and Helms Josh Boutwood has a burger stall, among many others. Photo from THE GRID/FACEBOOK The Grid: The place to be Food halls are arguably the next phase in the evolution of casual restaurants. In Manila, the Tasteless Group seems to have this concept ironed out by means of The Grid. Tasteless initially introduced the premium food hall concept locally through Hole in the Wall in Century City Mall; the space popped of color and decor, with stalls that were individually and heavily branded, with food concepts that bordered excessive. The introduction of The Grid in Rockwell this year saw them take a different approach to their existing idea. Here, a muted space was filled up with similarly dressed stalls, with just numbers above each to separate one from the other, in order to highlight food offerings instead of brand creativity. A smart move made in creating this concept was rounding up some big names in the local restaurant scene, and offering them spaces of their own in the hall. At The Grid, Mecha Umas Bruce Ricketts has a taco stand, while Helms Josh Boutwood has a burger stall. Bun Appetit is also present serving up their signature lobster rolls and garlic noodles, Buckys has found a new spot to serve their baked ziti and soft serve ice cream, and the Bistronomia group (formerly La Lola group) has put up an area for their pintxos. EDSA BDG is right at the center, pulling near-perfect shots of coffee from the time the mall opens, up until closing time. Apart from the great offerings, The Grids sameness in look, with the least possible distractions, is likely what welcomes in the steady crowd of people that often end up staying longer than they intended to. Mo' Cookies have six different flavors; all with a crisp outer shell with a gooey inner core, in a size big enough to share. Photo from THE MOMENT GROUP/FACEBOOK Mo Cookies: The trend that became its own brand When The Moment Group planted their roots at what is now the Moplex (their official headquarters), they opened up The Mess Hall, a lunch place tucked into a little corner of Makatis outskirts. The menu board read mostly Manam dishes, which was enough to draw in a lunch crowd but its a small acrylic box kept by the register that really had the place buzzing. Inside it? Cookies. The minds behind TMG wanted to create a sweet end to every meal which was simple enough to sire a smile from diners, and the classic chocolate chip cookie was it. To be specific, a chocolate chip cookie that weighed in heavy on the hand, and practically as big as one, too. The Mess Hall started off baking a small batch of cookies each day, only for them to be wiped out before lunch could even end. Batches baked grew, but so did the demand for this classic confection. Two years since its creation, what was meant to be just an after-meal bite has become bigger than the sum of its parts through Mo Cookies. The pop-up cookie stand deals out six different flavored cookies in the same Mess Hall style; crisp outer shell with a gooey inner core, in a size big enough to share (or feast on alone sans guilt). Small versions called Crumbs are also available, though a Mo Cookies full glory is best experienced in their original Palm size. Attaboy's Otis Florence mixing a drink at Bank Bar, where he served as a guest bartender for three days. Photo courtesy of THE MOMENT GROUP Restaurant Collaborations and Bar Guest Shifts: The trend that shines a light on Philippine talent and the local F&B scene It comes as no surprise that in this day and age, there is a bigger curiosity that exists towards the food and beverage scene in the Philippines. Those that travel to eat and drink now have an option that is, quite literally, closer to home. A trove of established foreign chefs and bartenders have continuously been flocking to the Philippines in the last three years, and 2018 has proven to be the year this trend has been most visible. In the last couple of months, Toyo Eatery worked alongside the likes of Florilege, Balis Locavore, and Suhring, Mume, JL Studio, and Le Du; Gallery by Chele welcomed in Richard Ekkebus from Amber, Balis Bikini, and most recently Gaggan Anand from the top-billed restaurant on Asias 50 Best Restaurants list, Gaggan. On the bar front, Bank Bar played host to Agung Prabowo of The Old Man, Alex Pun of The Woods, and Attaboys Otis Florence; The Curator in the meantime had Aki Eguchi, Native Singapores Vijay Mudaliar, and Proof & Cos Chris Lowder; at Oto, The Pontiacs Ana Souza, as well as Manhattan Singapores Philipp Bischoff and Cedric Mendoza. Actively shining a light on Philippine flavors and produce, Margarita Fores in the meantime has been a constant presence in foreign conferences. Now, more than ever, the capabilities of locally bred creatives in the field of food and their approach to local flavors are given due recognition. Heres hoping this is only the beginning of a flourishing new generation in the food industry. The popularity of cold brew coffee in local coffee shops has even gotten Starbucks to release their own line of cold brew. Photo from TYPE A/FACEBOOK Cold Brew Coffee: Best perk-up In a country as warm as the Philippines, cold ways to stay caffeinated in the past have (more often than not) come in the form of energy drinks and sickly sweet coffee frappes. In the last two years, however, cold brew coffee has finally gained more traction amongst coffee drinkers locally, seen in places like Yardstick, Habitual, Caravan Black, La Unions El Union, and cold brew-centric coffee stand Type A. The drinks popularity has even gotten Starbucks to release their own line of cold brew. To be clear, cold brew is not synonymous to iced coffee. In the former, coffee is brewed cold for hours at a time and never exposed to heat, whereas the latter is brewed the traditional way then poured over ice. Given the long amount of time coffee is left to sit, more caffeine is rendered, yet it is less acidic than a normal cup of brewed coffee. Something about diners in 2018 has given milk tea its second wind, much like how pop songs from the 90s seem to come back in cycles to young listeners. Photo from CoCo/FACEBOOK Milk Tea: Best revival Roughly ten years ago, somewhere between 2007 and 2008, Manila erupted with milk tea shops. Practically every street corner had a milk tea store stocked with at least 20 different things to choose from, and just as many sinkers to boot. It was the drink of the times. Years later, the drinks popularity wavered as talks of its high sugar content grew. Milk tea hit a plateau then silenced into a slow hum, as things like bottled juices became the healthier alternative for thirst quenchers. Amid the numerous buko juice stands and stalls making freshly squeezed lemonade (with more syrup than actual juice), milk tea stands remained present albeit quietly. Something about diners in 2018, however, has given milk tea its second wind, much like how pop songs from the 90s seem to come back in cycles to young listeners. Veterans like Cha Time, Gong Cha, Happy Lemon, and Serenitea are still around. This time, theyre joined by the likes of Macao Imperial Tea, and the infamous CoCo that is rarely without a line. Will milk tea possibly relive its past decline? With the way things are going, that may be highly unlikely. To minimize their carbon footprint, cautious diners have started bringing around mess kits (in them: metal straws, reusable cutlery, a tumbler, and a washable container) to use for meals purchased. Photo from ZERO-WASTE PHILIPPINES/FACEBOOK Zero Waste: Best social initiative An aggressively growing problem worldwide is plastic pollution; one felt in the Philippines especially, as the country has been called out as the third largest contributor to ocean plastic. In 2016 alone, plastic production was at 335 million metric tons, with a large number of these plastics being single-use materials for food and drinks: straws, glasses, containers, cutlery, plastic-packaged food items. A few people have taken this alarming issue as a wakeup call to rethink their habits as a consumer, and so zero-waste initiatives have come into view. To minimize their carbon footprint, cautious diners have started bringing around mess kits (in them: metal straws, reusable cutlery, a tumbler, and a washable container) to use for meals purchased. It is an initiative that has not gone unnoticed, though it remains to be a slow-moving drive amongst apathetic consumers. In response to this issue, WWF-Philippines recently introduced the #AyokoNgPlastik movement, with the main intent of raising a bigger awareness of plastic pollution to the public. Their bigger efforts are seen through transformative partnerships, as different establishments have opted out of using certain single-use plastics. The aspiration that comes attached to this is hoping diners become more conscious about the items they consume. Where to start? Skip the straw, refuse single-use. Easy. Celebrities went crazy for the tin can cakes, as seen and heard in short video clips of them using dessert spoons to crack into the cakes hard top shell, and scoop up a chocolatey spoonful. Photo from LE SUCRE LAB/FACEBOOK Tin Can Cakes: Most copied food item Le Sucre Lab may have started off with a number of praline offerings, but their Dreamcake is what put their name on the radar of dessert fiends all over town. A thin layer of chocolate cake is topped up with a layer of chocolate ganache, covered in thin chocolate shards, then dusted with cocoa powder all within a little copper-sized tin. Celebrities went crazy for it, as seen and heard in short video clips of them using dessert spoons to crack into the cakes hard top shell, and scoop up a chocolatey spoonful. Other bakers went crazy for the idea of this as well, in turn creating their own versions of this cake. To date, there are close to a hundred versions of this cake, some even branching off and offering other cake flavors in a tin. Truth be told, it stands to be just any normal chocolate cake, assembled in pretty new packaging. Delivery systems like Foodpanda, GrabFood, and Honestbee have become popular this year. These apps list several cuisines to choose from with options of selecting where and what time to have those orders delivered. Photo from HONESTBEE/FACEBOOK Food Deliveries: Best enabler In this age of advanced technology, as if fast food wasnt fast enough, mobile delivery services have allowed food to move even speedier. Sure, certain establishments have had in-house delivery systems in place for a while now, but tapping on an app and having numerous meals to choose from at your fingertips is another thing altogether. Delivery systems like Foodpanda, GrabFood, and Honestbee list several cuisines to choose from (as well as groceries in the case of Honestbee) with options of selecting where and what time to have those orders delivered. App users dont even have to punch in a registered address to make an order; drop a pin anywhere on the map and deliveries can likely get to you, whether its in a parking lot, or at a random street corner. With this kind of access, it has become hard to say no to appetites that need sating, because all that has to be done is click a few buttons and wait. The east-coast of Australia has been lashed with another thunderstorm causing traffic and travel days on Friday afternoon. The Bureau of Meteorology released a severe thunderstorm warning for Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night with the possibility of giant hailstones, torrential rain and rampaging winds hitting the coast - as the country's north braces for a category four cyclone. Sydney's airport has gone into lockdown, with all services suspended for the time being due to the wild weather. More than 30 flights have been cancelled at Sydney Airport. Scroll down for video A pair of supercell thunderstorms (pictured in red) are bearing down on Sydney and Newcastle Sydney also got a brief downpour, with 40mm of rain falling in less than half an hour Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jordan Notara said the storm travelled through Sydney at about 4pm on Friday. 'Those storms were mostly in the west, but we did see some strikes on the coast,' he told Daily Mail Australia. Mr Notara said there was still a severe thunderstorm warning which could continue into the evening. 'There is still a threat into the evening,' he said. Mr Notara recommended to check weather updates amid the temperamental conditions. Travellers are urged to contact their airlines about cancellations and delays due to the weather. More wild rainfall is forecast for Victoria after flash flooding forced one south-east resident to kayak to work on Thursday (pictured) The conditions have also had an impact on Sydney's roads and public transport services. Trains between Hornsby, Gosford, the Central Coast and Newcastle have been cancelled due failing signals brought on by the weather. 'Trains are currently suspended between Hornsby and Gosford in both directions due to urgent power supply repairs affecting signals as a result of severe weather conditions,' NSW TrainLink North Tweeted on Friday afternoon. 'Please delay travel if possible. If you need any travel assistance please let us know.' Commuters were forced to line for packed buses due to the cancellations. A single-vehicle crash on the Sydney Harbour Bridge is causing traffic chaos across the city. The crash occurred when a Mitsubishi Mirage hit a stationary vehicle on the bridge at about 4.45pm. The driver refused to undertake a breath test and has been arrested. Two children, a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, were in the vehicle at the time of the crash and are being assessed for possible minor injuries. The Bureau of Meteorology is warning residents to prepare to 'batten down the hatches' Severe thunderstorms and heavy rain could hit the New South Wales coastline and go as far inland as Orange and Tamworth, about 250km from the coast. The New South Wales State Emergency Services have advised residents to use sandbags under their doors to help keep flood waters from leaking into their homes. The Bureau of Meteorology shared the sentiment, warning people to 'be prepared to batten down the hatches'. Mr Notara said the rainfall was not as strong as what was recorded on Thursday evening when Sydney braced another storm. Most rainfall was recorded in Sydney's west on Friday with between 20-30mm recorded from 9am. Wild storms are ravaging Sydney (pictured), as experts warn people to expect the worst The Bureau said about 10mm was recorded on the coast. On Thursday night, 40mm of rain fell in less than half an hour. Winds of up to 107km/h whipped through the city's western suburbs on Thursday night, as nearly 700 calls for help were made to emergency services. A further 30,000 homes and businesses were left without power in the quickfire storm. But that could just be a sign of what's to come for Friday, with more lightning, hailstorms and wild winds forecast to rampage through the state on Saturday. Victoria also felt the pinch of the wild weather on Thursday, with more than 100 people needing to be rescued from semi-submerged cars on the Hume Freeway. The two supercell storms (pictured) will pass over Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night But that could just be a sign of what's to come for Friday, with more lightning, hailstorms and wild winds forecast to rampage through the state on Saturday Melbourne's inner-city flooded, with pedestrians forced to wade through the high waters Another month's rainfall could come down on Friday, with a further 20mm forecast in the morning More than a month's worth of rain fell in regional areas overnight. The average December rainfall for Melbourne is 59mm, with the city already surpassing that on Thursday and another 20mm forecast for Friday. The rural town of Everton had 162mm fall overnight on Thursday alone. Meanwhile, 20 homes flooded in the Central Victorian area of Birchip with 10 people evacuated. A community meeting will be held on Friday to discuss further flooding procedures, the SES say. 'It's like an ocean here where we are at the moment, our whole street is under water,' one resident told 3AW radio on Friday morning. Periods of heavy rainfall led to flash flooding in both Sydney and Melbourne on Friday The flash flooding in Victoria (pictured) coincides with an impending tropical cyclone A severe weather warning was issued for Victoria with heavy rainfall across the entire state Thunderstorms on Thursday night (pictured) will continue on Friday, forecasters warn The overnight rainfall continues on Friday, with the worst storms forecast to fall in the state's east, predominantly the South Gippsland area. 'Rain and thunderstorms are expected across the warning area during today and Friday, with periods of heavy rainfall likely that may lead to flash flooding,' a warning issued by The Bureau of Meteorology reads. Authorities continue to warn not to drive or even walk through flood waters, after dozens of cars and trucks were submerged in the flood waters. Torrential rains, particularly in New South Wales, are linked to a tropical cyclone brewing in the country's north. Meanwhile, a category three cyclone could hit far-north Queensland on late Friday afternoon The cyclone is currently off the coast of the Northern Territory, and is slowly heading east Cairns and the rest of far-north Queensland are meanwhile bracing for Tropical Cyclone Owen, with meteorologists saying it could hit either Friday or Saturday. WHAT IS A CATEGORY THREE CYCLONE? Tropical cyclones are categorised on a scale of one to five based on severity. TC Owen, which is expected to hit Queensland on Friday, is classed as a category three. A category three cyclone would cause: - Some roof and structural damage. Some caravans destroyed. Power failures likely. - A category three cyclone's strongest winds are very destructive winds with typical gusts over open flat land of 165-224kph. However, the cyclone could be re-classified once it actually hits land, which will be either Friday or Saturday. Source: Bureau of Meteorology Advertisement As of Friday morning, the cyclone is tracking off the coast of the Northern Territory, but has begun to move east and could hit Queensland as soon as midday. The cyclone is currently classed as a category three based on its 200km/h wind speed. But forecasters say it could become a category four, surpassing 280km/h when it crosses the Gulf of Carpentaria and into Queensland. A cyclone warning is in place from Port McArthur in the Northern Territory, to Aurukun in Queensland. Residents are being told to brace for wild winds and flooding. Some are concerned that floods will cause landslides, after wild bushfires rampaged through the state, leaving some regions' hillsides unstable. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she'd been briefed on the danger and assured Queenslanders that authorities in the cyclone danger area are well prepared. The devastating cyclone, which is deemed as 'very destructive' by the Bureau of Meteorology, is a result of a coinciding mass air movement and low pressure system. Some areas of Victoria recorded as much as 162mm of rain in less than 12 hours on Thursday 'It's being caused by a trough of air mass movement from the north, and with a low pressure system coming through, is generating large amounts of rainfall,' Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Peter Newham told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday. A Bureau of Meteorology forecaster previously told Daily Mail Australia the thunderstorms would be the result of a cold front in the south of the country. The cold front and low-pressure system moved from Victoria up to New South Wales which brought showers and a storm to Sydney on Thursday night. Canberra can also expect storms and upwards of 55mm of rain between Thursday and Saturday. Brisbane was also predicted to get up to 100mm of rainfall over the weekend. Chris Christie ruled himself out of being Donald Trump's third chief of staff early Friday afternoon - just over 12 hours after being interviewed by the president in the White House residence for the role. Christie, the sharp-elbowed ex-governor of New Jersey, is now the third person to publicly rule themselves out of taking the job being vacated by John Kelly. In a statement Friday he said: 'It's an honor to have the President consider me as he looks to choose a new White House chief of staff. 'However I've told the president that now is not the right time for me and my family to undertake this serious assignment. 'As a result I have asked him to no longer keep me in any of his considerations for this post.' Trump had claimed Thursday afternoon that he had narrowed the list of candidates to five. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney are said to be on it. The president has also been encouraged by some of his advisers to consider his son-in-law Jared Kushner for the job, sources told Reuters an idea Trump's aides appeared to pour cold water on. Kushner and Christie have a log-running rivalry because Christie had been the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey who prosecuted and convicted Kushner's father and had him jailed. Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and outgoing chief John Kelly seemed to enjoy the frenzy that the job opening has created, as they attended a reception for Republican National Committee members. The pair posted a photo of themselves grinning, Kelly with his arm slung around his predecessor's shoulders, at the holiday party hosted by the president and first lady at the White House. Not much to smile about: Jared Kushner was somber as he left his Kalorama, Washington D.C., home - with his rival Chris Christie talking to the president about becoming chief of staff Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and outgoing chief John Kelly seemed to enjoy the absolute frenzy that the job opening has created as they attended a reception for Republican National Committee members at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday President Trump said Thursday afternoon that he had narrowed the list of candidates to five - and interviewed Chris Christie later that day. It took just over 12 hours for Christie to say he would not take the job Kelly was slated to leave the administration by the end of the year. His plans were upended when Trump's first choice for the job turned him down. A source familiar with Trump's thinking told Reuters the president had a positive meeting with Christie, confirming a report by Axios.com, and considered him a top-tier candidate for the position. Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley had declined to say whether Christie was on the shortlist as he spoke to reporters on Friday morning after a television a television appearance. 'The president said yesterday he has about five names in the hopper. We expect him to make an announcement pretty quickly,' Gidley said. He also suggested that Kelly could stay longer than anticipated, having already agreed to remain at the helm of the West Wing through the first of the year. 'Obviously, if the president and the chief of staff make another deal and extend it, they can do that. It's their prerogative to do so,' he stated. 'Right now, currently, John Kelly is expected to leave at the first of the year. The president is also expected to make an announcement imminently. I'm not going to tell you who that's going to be and I definitely don't have any tips for you.' A former New Jersey governor, Christie, a brash, tough-talking politician, was a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but abandoned the attempt after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary. He subsequently endorsed Trump, becoming his adviser throughout the 2016 campaign and running his transition team early on. He and Kushner have bad blood dating back to Christie's prosecuting days. He sent Kushner's father to prison for illegal campaign contributions. Sources told Reuters that Trump was hearing appeals from some advisers to consider Kushner, a top White House aide who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, for the chief of staff job. But one person, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kushner was currently not inclined to pursue the position. Kushner was reported in another publication on Thursday to have lobbied to become his father-in-law's chief of staff. The first son-in-law, already an adviser to the president with an office next to the Oval Office, was reported by the Huffington Post to have pushed his own candidacy and been rewarded with a meeting Wednesday about the role. He apparently claimed he could work with Democrats - a claim ridiculed by one of the sources for the report who said: 'I don't know why he thinks that, when the Democrats are mainly going to be coming after Trump.' Kushner's potential candidacy emerged shortly after the president claimed he had five candidates who actually want the job fighting it out. 'Five people. Really good ones. Terrific people. Mostly well known, but terrific people,' Trump told reporters on Thursday afternoon. The claim was met with skepticism in wider Washington D.C. given that Trump pushed out John Kelly without a successor in place, and was turned down by his first choice to replace him. One source told Reuters that over the last few days 'numerous people have reached out to the president to suggest' picking Kushner on the thinking that he is close to the president and has had a number of successes, such as helping negotiate a new trade pact with Mexico and Canada and advancing prison reform legislation. The president's spokeswoman said that Kushner was not being considered for the job, as far as she knows, however. 'I'm not aware that he's under consideration,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. 'But as I think all of us here would recognize, he will be great in any role that the president chooses to put him in.' 'He has done a tremendous job on a number of fronts, whether it was on trade or what we've seen play out over the last week on criminal justice reform. He's done a great job on all those efforts,' Sanders said. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney (right) is said to be on the president's shortlist. He is a former congressman Those urging Kushner include some of the president's outside advisers and some administration officials, the source said. 'It's possible that this is why this is appearing at this moment in time, especially because what everyone knows you need is someone who has a good relationship with the president,' the source said. But Kushner is happy with the work he is doing. 'He's not currently inclined to pursue it,' the source added. Kushner and wife Ivanka had been advocating for Nick Ayers, the chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence. But Ayers turned down an offer for the position last weekend because he could not commit to the full two years Trump wanted. One Trump confidant, who asked to remain unidentified, said Trump should just pick his son-in-law. 'You want consistency, knowing he'll be here for two more years, just name Jared and let him do it the way he wants,' the confidant told Reuters. Another potential pick as chief of staff, former campaign adviser David Bossie, was at the White House for meetings on Thursday, but was not believed to have met with the president. Two men who posed as police officers in order to rob a supermarket are on the run after making off with a cashier's gold chain. The pair were caught on CCTV casually entering a shop dressed as police officers in Campsie, south west Sydney, at about 7.30pm on Thursday. One man can be seen approaching the counter to produce a makeshift fake 'police identification' badge in order to convince the employee of their dubious disguise. Scroll down for video Two men who posed as police officers (centre and right) in order to rob a supermarket are on the run after making off with a cashier's (left) gold chain in southwest Sydney One man (centre) can be seen approaching the counter to produce a fake 'police identification' badge in order to convince the employee of their dubious disguise as another watches on After demanding $2,000 in cash, the worker appears unconvinced and puts up a fight against the intruders. During the altercation, the 32-year-old supermarket employee is hit in the face and can be seen recoiling from the men in pain. The men make a last ditch attempt to steal an item from the shop and grab the attendant's gold chain before fleeing the store. They were last seen walking north on Beamish Street in Campsie, police have said. 'When people utilise police names to commit crimes it can undermine people's feeling of safety,' a Campsie Police Area Command spokesman said. 'The images are high quality ... there are many people in the area who would know who these people are.' After demanding $2,000 in cash, the worker appears unconvinced and puts up a fight but is hit in the face and can be seen recoiling from the men in pain (pictured) Bystanders who witnessed the argument flagged down real police officers who have since appealed to the public for help in identifying the two men. One man is described as being of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance, 30 to 40 years old, of a medium build, and with short dark hair. He was last seen wearing a black t-shirt, pants and thongs, a lanyard around his neck, and reading glasses tucked into the front of his shirt. The second man is described as being of white appearance, aged in his 30s, of a medium build, with blonde hair tied up in a bun. He was last seen wearing a suit, white shirt, black tie with clip, brown shoes, and sunglasses. The employee was treated by paramedics for cuts to his face before being taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. As inquiries continue, anyone with information is urged to contact Campsie Detectives or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Chris Dawson will be remanded in custody after laughing as the prosecution accused him of threatening to 'get rid of' his wife during a counselling session. The 70-year-old former rugby league player intends to plead not guilty to the murder of the mother of two of his children, Lynette Dawson. Dawson was charged on December 6 with the murder of his wife on Sydney's northern beaches in early 1982 after fresh statements from at least two witnesses, including from Dawson's former flame Joanne Curtis. Appearing in court via video link on Friday, Dawson yelled 'that's a joke' and 'you're kidding', before being reprimanded by the magistrate in a fiery bail hearing. Scroll down for video Chris Dawson is expected to apply for bail after he was charged with the historic alleged murder of his wife 40 years ago The former Newtown Jets player shook his head while sobbing as the allegations about the closed door marriage counselling session were discussed. Crown prosecutor Craig Everson said during the appointment, Dawson told his wife 'if this doesn't work, I'll get rid of you,' ABC reported. His lawyer, Greg Walsh, said during the proceedings the case against Dawson was entirely circumstantial. In addition, he argued Dawson hadn't been given a fair trial due to media persecution. 'It is difficult to know whether people's beliefs and memories had been shaped by the disappearance of Lyn Dawson,' he said. 'This commentary has been fundamentally prejudicial in giving this man the right to the presumption of innocence,' he said. 'It is very important that his arrest and charge is not a determination of guilt this man is entitled to the presumption of innocence, it's a fundamental right.' Mr Walsh said during a December 6 court hearing his client 'strenuously asserts his innocence' and that Dawson was 'anxious and stressed about the situation' and planned to plead not guilty. Dawson also learned he could be denied bail despite his willingness to post a $1.5 million surety because prosecution argues he could flee using his twin brother's passport. Dawson scoffed at the suggestion, and said 'you're kidding,' after the crown's argument, 9News reported. But the judge chose not to make a decision on the matter in Friday's session. Instead, he pushed the decision on Dawson's bail application until Monday. Ms Dawson (right) was 33 when she disappeared in 1982, leaving behind two young daughters Ms Dawson was 33 when she disappeared in 1982, leaving behind two young daughters. Her husband reported her missing almost six weeks later, and her body has never been found. The case was the subject of The Australian newspaper's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet, which brought the case back into the public eye. NSW Police, which reopened the cold case in 2015, said fresh statements from at least two witnesses led to the arrest of the former Newtown rugby league player on the Gold Coast on December 5. The accused killer, who was living at Coolum Beach, was extradited from Queensland on December 6. A well-known Michigan TV meteorologist and mother-of-two is allegedly one of at least 11 people who have killed themselves after suffering complications from Lasik laser eye surgery, according to a well-known online support group. Jessica Starr, 35, took her own life on Wednesday, one month after telling fans that she was struggling to recover from the surgery she got so she could finally stop wearing contact lenses. Starr had recently undergone Lasik SMILE surgery to correct her nearsightedness. An alarming number of Lasik patients suffer from agonizing, chronic pain following the surgery, according to Paula Cofer, the founder of a support group called Lasik Complications, which strives to educate potential patients about the risks of the surgery. In October, Canadian father-of-two Paul Fitzpatrick killed himself and blamed 20 years of post-Lasik pain in his suicide note. It remains unclear if Starr took her life as a direct result of complications from the surgery. Fitzpatrick was unequivocally clear when he died. He wrote a suicide note where he said he had been suffering excruciating pain for two decades years. Cofer tells CTV at least 10 other cases of suicide after Lasik have been documented in the US. Scroll down for video Well-known Michigan TV meteorologist and mother-of-two Jessica Starr (above) is allegedly one of at least 11 people who have killed themselves after suffering complications from Lasik laser eye surgery, according to a well-known online support group Canadian father-of-two Paul Fitzpatrick, 56, (above) killed himself in October and blamed 20 years of agonizing post-Lasik pain in his suicide note Starr and Fitzpatrick now serve as heartbreaking examples of just how wrong the popular eye surgery can go - as Lasik Complications support group founder Paula Cofer claims at least 10 other cases of Lasik-linked suicide have been documented in the US Starr, 35, worked for WJBK Fox 2 since 2011. On Thursday morning, her colleagues cried as they announced her death on the air. Starr, whose married name was Rose, left behind two young children and her husband of eight years, Daniel. Her devastated colleagues at the WJBK news station, where she had worked since 2011, announced her death on Thursday morning. 'Last night we were informed of the heartbreaking news that our friend and colleague, meteorologist Jessica Starr took her life,' the station said in a statement. 'All of us here at FOX 2 are in deep shock and cannot believe that such a wonderful, bright and intelligent individual will no longer be with us. 'Her family and friends will be in our thoughts and prayers in the coming days as we all deal with our grief.' Starr's colleagues announced her death tearfully on Thursday morning Starr and her husband Daniel have two young children. They are shown with their kids, in a photograph she shared with Fox fans on Facebook, and her parents Starr and her husband Daniel had been married for eight years before she took her own life Over the last month, Starr said she had been facing 'challenging times' since undergoing Lasik SMILE eye surgery. The procedure was approved by the FDA in 2016 and is carried out by doctors across the country. It involves the surgeon using a femtosecond laser to create a small piece of tissue within the cornea then, using the same laser, they make an arc-shaped incision on the cornea's surface to extract the tissue through and discard it. It changes the shape of the cornea and corrects nearsightedness. Ordinarily, patients' incision heals within a few days, without stitches, and their vision is quickly improved. It is unclear where Starr underwent her procedure in Detroit. She had the surgery in October and took four weeks off then returned to work for one day in November but it was too much of a struggle for her and she was back at home the next day. In a video uploaded to her Facebook page on November 13, the day she went back to work, she was downcast as she asked viewers for their prayers and well wishes. 'I am struggling a little bit so I need all the prayers and well wishes. This is a hard go. 'If you have any tips I'd appreciate it, I'm trying to stay strong and get through this recovery. 'Thanks again for all the wishes, I'm excited to be back I just want to get my vision back so I can keep you guys smiling,' she said. The following day, she posted that she had not yet been ready to go back to work. Yesterday was a struggle for me. I really wanted to come back but I need more time to recover. 'Please keep me in your thoughts during this challenging time. Will keep you updated,' she said. It was her final post. In a video she uploaded on November 13, Starr said she was having a 'hard go' recovering from the surgery and asked fans on Facebook for their prayers and well wishes Just weeks earlier 56-year-old Fitzpatrick killed himself under similar circumstances 20 years after undergoing laser eye surgery in 1996. Since then, the father-of-two suffered headaches and described feeling needles in his eyes as well as an unbearable dry and burning sensation. Fitzpatrick's case is the first-known suicide from laser eye surgery in Canada He left a suicide note when he took his life in October, which described the pain he felt that pushed him to death. 'I cannot experience any type of pleasure anymore,' Paul wrote. 'Just the pain of burning eyes inside my head and throughout myself Since 1996 Pain, pain and more pain, please forgive me for not being strong enough to cope. The past few months have been unbearable.' His parents Gene and Christine Fitzpatrick, of Ontario, spoke to CTV about their son's condition. 'It ruined his life, and it also left a lot of people around him suffering,' Gene said. 'He had always worn glasses, maybe since he was about 12 and he just thought it would be great not to have them,' Christine said. 'He researched it and he made sure that he was going to the best place. He felt the PRK was safer because there was less cornea used.' In his suicide note he wrote: 'Just the pain of burning eyes inside my head and throughout myself. Pain, pain and more pain' His parents, Glenn and Christine Fitzpatrick, believe he suffered from a rare condition known as corneal neuralgia. They are pictured in an interview with CTV PKR, or photorefractive keratectomy, was the first form of laser eye surgery and typically safe. However, Paul's family said he began suffering from migraines and dry eyes shortly after his surgery. Canadian doctors were unable to diagnose what was causing his pain, so the self-made-millionaire traveled to Europe and the US to find a specialist who could help. He began treatments and underwent more surgeries which only made the pain worse. Paul's family said in the months leading up to his death, the pain was so unbearable he would keep his eyes closed for most of the time, walking with a cane and planned to move in with his parents. 'We didn't know what to do for him,' his mother told CTV. 'We would recommend pain killers and he would take some. He wasn't one to take pain killers much, but when they wore off he said the pain was worse so he'd keep his eyes closed most of the time.' Now his family believe he suffered from a rare, yet severe condition known as corneal neuralgia. Corneal neuralgia can cause nerve damage to the eye causing excruciating pain. 'Had he been aware (of his condition)he definitely would not have continued with subsequent surgeries,' his brother Kevin Fitzpatrick said. Paul's case is the first-known suicide from laser eye surgery in Canada, according to CTV. If you or anyone you know is struggling and needs confidential help, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or visit their website here. The fiance of a missing Colorado mother is finally speaking out to clear any suspicions on his reserved behavior over her disappearance. Kelsey Berreth, 29, vanished on November 22 and was last recorded on surveillance cameras in a grocery store in Woodland Park, Colorado with her baby girl. After remaining mum in front of reporters and failing to appear at a police news conference earlier this week, her fiance Patrick Frazee has faced intense public scrutiny. On Thursday he released a statement via his attorney saying he's actively cooperating with authorities. A candlelit vigil was held for Berreth in Woodland Park, Colorado, on Thursday nearly three weeks after she inexplicably vanished, but Frazee was noticeably not there. Patrick Frazee, the fiance of missing Colorado woman Kelsey Berreth, has released a statement saying he is cooperating with police. Pictured above with Berreth and their one-year-old daughter His lawyer said Frazee has been interviewed with police, voluntarily released his phone to be searched, given buccal swabs and photographs. Frazee pictured above refusing to comment on his fiancee's disappearance on Tuesday His attorney Jeremy Loew also explained that Frazee failed to appear at a news conference on Monday because he was told about the meeting just an hour prior to its start WATCH: Exclusive video shows Kelsey Berreth's fiance being questioned Exclusive video captured by ABC News shows Kelsey Berreth's fiance, Patrick Frazee, leaving a law firm in Colorado Springs while being questioned in her disappearance. https://www.krdo.com/news/missing-woodland-park-mother-requested-time-off-work/917304896 Posted by KRDO NewsChannel 13 / KRDO.com on Tuesday, December 11, 2018 'Mr. Frazees cooperation includes interviews with law enforcement, voluntarily releasing his phone to be searched by law enforcement, buccal swabs, and photographs,' his attorney Jeremy Loew said in a statement to People. Loew also cleared the air on why Frazee failed to appear at a police press conference on Monday, even though he was invited. 'Much has been said over the news and social media about Mr. Frazee's absence at the local news conference,' he said. He explained Frazee was 'first notified of the press conference approximately an hour prior to its commencement' and 'had he been given more advance notice, he would have participated.' Frazee's lawyer said he would not be giving any interviews. On Thursday the Woodland Park, Colorado community held a candlelit vigil for missing mother Kelsey Berreth who was last seen on Thanksgiving day grocery shopping with her baby Berreth's mother Cheryl Berreth pictured above at the vigil on Thursday evening Friends and family shared prayers and lit candles hoping for Berreth to be found Berreth disappeared without a trace but her phone pinged days later in Gooding, Idaho - about 700 miles from where she was last seen. The candelit vigil for her on Thursday above The vigil was organized by locals Vanessa Nichols (left) and her sister Amber Overton (right) 'Mr. Frazee hopes and prays for Ms. Berreths return. Mr. Frazee will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and continue to parent the child he shares with Ms. Berreth,' Loew said. Frazee and Berreth, a flight instructor, are engaged but do not live together. They share a one-year-old daughter together. The child is in the custody of the father Frazee. Berreth was last seen and heard from on Thanksgiving weekend. She was seen on the video at the local grocery store then spoke twice with her mom that same day. 'We talked just Thanksgiving morning. No big Thanksgiving meal at her home or anything like that,' her mother Cheryl recalled. She told CBS News that her daughter sounded normal and 'happy'. Her mother and police held a press conference on Monday to appeal for information about the mother-of-one's disappearance. Frazee was not present at the conference and has since faced public scrutiny for not speaking publicly about his missing fiance Berreth, mother to a one-year-old child, is described as 5ft3in tall and weighing 110 pounds She dropped off her baby girl at Frazee's house - that was the last time anyone saw her. She sent a text to her employer on November 25 saying she would not be at work the next week. She also sent a text to Frazee, but it's not clear what that text said. That same day her phone last pinged near Gooding, Idaho - about 700miles from where she was last seen. Cheryl's mother lives in Idaho. On December 2 around 12.30pm, Berreth's mother Cheryl reported her missing. Frazee hasn't commented on why he didn't report his fiancee, the mother of his child, going missing earlier. Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young has declared her disappearance a missing person case and said no suspects have been identified and he has 'no reason to believe [Frazee] is a suspect, while speaking with Today. Police say they plan to announce an award for information on her disappearance on Friday. A candlelit vigil for Berreth was held Thursday evening in Memorial Park, organized by two women she never met. 'Its just devastating being so close to home,' Amber Overton, who is organizing the vigil along with Vanessa Nichols, said to KDVR. 'We just feel like its really important that they know she is loved. I just really think its really important to keep the awareness going,' Nichols said. Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether some of the top donors to Trump's 2017 inauguration gave money in exchange for access to his administration, policy concessions or to influence the administration. The inquiry is particularly focusing on Middle Eastern donors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. According to The New York Times, investigators are trying to determine whether those nations used straw donors to disguise their donations to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee and the pro-Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, in hopes of buying influence. Foreign nations are prohibited from contributing to federal campaigns, PACs and inaugural funds by law. Federal prosecutors are also examining whether Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. Scroll down for video Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether some of the top donors to Trump's 2017 inauguration gave money in exchange for access to his administration, policy concessions or to influence the administration The inquiry is particularly focusing on Middle Eastern donors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Money in exchange for political favors could violate federal corruption laws. There could also be a violation of federal law if funds were diverted from the inaugural committee, which was registered as a nonprofit. 'That doesn't have anything to do with the president or the first lady,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Thursday night. 'The biggest thing the president did in his engagement for the inauguration was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office. The president was focused on the transition during that time and not on any of the planning.' The investigation came partly out of materials seized in the federal probe of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's business dealings, according to The Wall Street Journal. In April raids of Cohen's home, office and hotel room, federal agents obtained a recorded conversation between Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. Wolkoff, in their conversation, expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending its money. Wolkoff, a former Vogue staffer who is one of the first lady's longtime friends, left the administration in February after reports her firm, WIS Media Partners, received $26 million in payments to help plan the inauguration. She was an unpaid adviser to the first lady. It's unknown when the conversation between Wolkoff and Cohen took place or why it was recorded. According to the committee's tax filings, Wolkoff's WIS Media Partners was formed 45 days before the inauguration and got paid the most of any vendor for its work. Federal prosecutors are also examining whether Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. Prosecutors were acting off a tip from a conversation found on a recording during a raid of Michael Cohen's home, office and hotel room The call was between Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events Trump's inaugural committee raised more than double what former President Barack Obama's first inaugural committee did. Supporters said the president's inauguration was so costly because no one expected him to win so all the planning was done at the last minute. Trump's funds came largely from wealthy donors and corporations who gave $1 million or more - including casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, AT&T Inc and Boeing Co, according to Federal Election Commission filings examined by the Journal. A lawyer close to the matter told the Journal that the inaugural committee has not been contacted by prosecutors. 'We are not aware of any evidence the investigation the Journal is reporting actually exists,' the lawyer told the newspaper. Prosecutors have asked Richard Gates, a former campaign aide who served as the inaugural committee's deputy chairman, about the committee's spending and its donors. Supporters said the president's inauguration was so costly because no one expected him to win so all the planning was done at the last minute Gates has met with prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office and the special counsel's office. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has examined whether any foreign money came into the inaugural fund, which is prohibited from accepting foreign contributions. In August, the US attorney's office in Washington, on a referral from Mueller, obtained a guilty plea from a DC consultant who admitted he used a US citizen to serve as a 'straw purchaser' so that a 'prominent Ukraine oligarch' could attend the inauguration. The names were never disclosed, the paper noted. There have been other reports that prosecutors were interested in individuals with Russian ties attending Trump's inauguration. The Washington Post reported in January that the FBI expressed concerns about several Russians connected to the Kremlin who were in DC, that weekend, and ABC News reported in June that Mueller was looking into how several Russian oligarchs were given access to invitation-only parties. Since pleading guilty to eight counts in August, Cohen has been cooperating with prosecutors in New York and the special counsel's office. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to three years in prison. Advertisement The Trump family ate, drank and enjoyed a merry evening with special guests Thursday at the annual White House Christmas bash. President Trump waved and gabbed with visitors as he walked downstairs alongside First Lady Melania, who flashed a smile while wearing black formal wear to coordinate with her husband. Ivanka donned a pretty light-purple sweater and white and purple knee-length skirt for the occasion. Tiffany looked her usual chic in a sparkly black number with a slit up the front, paired with pointed-toe pumps. Trump's youngest daughter posed alone for a social media photo in front of a Christmas tree and with friends. President Trump waved to guests as he walked downstairs alongside First Lady Melania who flashed a smile Thursday night at the White House Christmas party First Daughter Ivanka chatted with visitors and donned a pretty light-purple sweater with a white and purple knee-length skirt Tiffany looked her usual chic in a sparkly black number with a slit up the front, paired with pointed-toe pumps Tiffany posed for photos with guests. Laurin Cabralissa took to Instagram: 'My first time at the White House and meeting @tiffanytrump tonight' Lara and Eric Trump stood side-by-side for a sweet snap in front of a holiday shrub, wearing coordinating red attire. Donald Trump Jr. and the remaining family were not pictured in social media photos. Earlier Thursday, Trump announced he cancelled the holiday party invitation for the press, Fox News initially reported. Last year's gathering for the press turned out to be a flop as Trump refused to pose for photos and CNN boycotted the event 'in light of the president's continued attacks on freedom of the press'. Lara Trump shared this sweet snap next to Eric in front of a Christmas tree, along with the caption: 'Merry Christmas' The first family and guests gorged on extravagant food at the annual holiday gathering at the White House Thursday The first family appeared to have had a lovely evening despite the conflict and mounting claims he and the Trump Organization broke campaign laws. On Thursday, the president was revealed to be the third man who attended a 2015 meeting with former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer boss David Pecker. The group was said to have forged a plan to keep Trump's alleged affairs out of the press. The meeting, which was referenced in a letter federal prosecutors sent to National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc, included an offer by company CEO to 'help deal with negative stories about the presidential candidate's relationships with women'. With Trump identified as having been there, it means he was present when a plan was developed that ultimately led to Cohen pleading guilty to a felony and getting three years in jail. It also led to Pecker's cooperation agreement by AMI with prosecutors not to be prosecuted 'for any crimes' related to campaign finance law resulting from the meeting. Trump, therefore, is now the only person in the room who claims that the hush money wasn't used to impact the outcome of the election. Police officers must fill in a form every time they shout at a suspect they are restraining, with 165,000 uses of 'tactical communication' recorded last year. National guidelines for England and Wales require officers to note down each occasion they use 'force' in their duties - which includes actions like drawing a firearm or putting someone in handcuffs. While shouting at an assailant to follow an instruction is not technically considered a use of force, it must be recorded if it is used in conjunction with another restraining tactic, according to a Home Office data release. National guidelines for England and Wales require officers to note down each occasion they use 'force' in their duties. Pictured: A police officer shouting instructions at protesters outside Downing Street on May 15 The revelation has sparked concern officers are wasting their time on data collection while they should be dealing with frontline duties. Simon Kempton, from the Police Federation of England and Wales, told the Daily Telegraph: 'There is no problem in principle in officers recording this information but we have to ensure that when it is done it takes the least possible time. 'At the moment in some force areas it might take five minutes, while in others it can take 20. If you have dealt with three people in one incident that is 20 minutes per subject, so it is an hour out of your day.' Forces in England and Wales recorded 313,000 uses of force last year - with 200,000 of these involving a suspect being put in handcuffs and 111,000 where officers physically restrained someone without the use of a weapon. Officers only discharged a firearm on 12 occasions. The National Police Chiefs' Council said: 'This release of this new national data shines a light on how police use force, and offers unprecedented transparency to the public.' While shouting at an assailant to follow an instruction is not technically considered a use of force, it must be recorded if it is used in conjunction with another restraining tactic. Pictured: A police photographer shouts at G8 protesters in London on It comes as Home Secretary Sajid Javid said police forces will be expected to show results with an extra 970 million funded partly by increases to council tax. The Government announced what it called the largest overall increase to police funding since 2010 with a potential 970 million rise but one rank-and-file leader described the move as a 'sticking plaster solution'. Police uses of force last year 313,000 - total uses of force last year Of these, 200,000 were putting people in handcuffs 111,000 when officers physically restrained someone without the use of a weapon Firearms were discharged on 12 occasions across England and Wales. Advertisement Unveiling the provisional funding settlement of up to 14 billion for 2019/20, Mr Javid said demand and pressures on police had risen this year as a result of 'changing crime'. And writing in the Telegraph today, Mr Javid said the funding 'recognises the challenges the police are facing'. The bulk of police force funding comes directly from central government, but around 30% is drawn from council tax through the policing precept levy. Under the provisional settlement announced on Thursday, police and crime commissioners have been given the green light to ask for an additional 24 a year per band D household. Recently, Government ministers have come under sustained pressure to provide a cash injection as forces attempt to tackle rising levels of serious violence, and knife crime in particular, as well as a severe terror threat. Police funding has fallen by 19% in real terms since 2010. Over the same period, officer numbers have decreased by more than 20,000. A nasty verbal fight broke out between two couples during a dispute over a parking space in a busy car park during the Christmas rush. The two parties hurled nasty insults at one other after one car slid into the parking space another car had indicated for at a large Adelaide shopping centre on Friday. The fight took on a different tone as one woman shouted: 'You come to this f**king country and you think you can take advantage of us.' A nasty verbal fight broke out between two couples during a dispute over a parking space in a busy car oarj during the Christmas rush The two parties hurled nasty insults at one other after one car slid into the parking space another car had indicated for at a large Adelaide shopping centre on Friday The woman began shouting at the man who she claimed had taken her parking space. The angry shopper claimed he had started indicating for it after she had and demanded he drive out of it. 'You indicated after us, get out of our f**king space,' she can be heard shouting in the video. Her partner was forced to hold her back as she ran towards the man, shouting: 'You wanna fight?' Fortunately a physical fight was avoided and the woman eventually got back into her vehicle. Chris Dawson's fiery bail hearing was followed by his lawyer brother lashing out at reporters and accusing one of them of them of assault. The confrontation came after Dawson, who was appearing at Sydney's Central Local Court via video link on Friday, yelled 'that's a joke' as the prosecution accused him of threatening to 'get rid of' wife Lynette during a counselling session. The former rugby league player, 70, will remain behind bars before a decision on his bail application is made on Monday. Chris Dawson's (pictured at Sydney Police Centre after being extradited from the Gold Coast on December 6) fiery bail hearing was followed by his lawyer brother lashing out at reporters and accusing one of them of assault Peter Dawson, who the court heard was prepared to offer a $750,000 bail surety to ensure his brother's freedom, pointed his finger at the 7 News reporter (left) as he clashed with the media outside the Sydney courthouse Dawson is charged with the murder of his wife on Sydney's northern beaches in early 1982 after fresh statements from at least two witnesses, including Dawson's former teenage flame. Peter Dawson, who the court heard was prepared to offer a $750,000 bail surety to ensure his brother's freedom, could be seen pointing his finger at a 7 News reporter as he clashed with the media outside the Sydney courthouse. The reporter and Mr Dawson were filmed rubbing shoulders after the former asked the latter 'how was that seeing your brother in prison greens?' The reporter and Mr Dawson were filmed rubbing shoulders (pictured) after the former asked the latter 'how was that seeing your brother in prison greens?' Having refused to answer the initial question, Mr Dawson said angrily 'don't you push me, get out of the way', before adding 'I'm entitled to walk down the street without idiots like you getting in my face'. Mr Dawson's explosive clash with the journalist follows the lawyer's claim earlier this week notorious backpacker serial killer Ivan Milat could have killed Lynette. Chris Dawson, an ex-Newtown Jets player, intends to plead not guilty to the murder of the mother of two of his children. After yelling 'you're kidding' Dawson was reprimanded by the magistrate during the hearing - who told him it was 'best you stay quiet', according to news.com.au. Having refused to answer the initial question, Mr Dawson (pictured centre before confrontation) said angrily 'don't you push me, get out of the way', before adding 'I'm entitled to walk down the street without idiots like you getting in my face' Dawson shook his head while sobbing as the allegations about the closed door marriage counselling session were discussed. Crown prosecutor Craig Everson said during the appointment Dawson told his wife 'if this doesn't work, I'll get rid of you,' ABC reported. Before his confrontation with reporters, Peter Dawson (pictured) earlier this week claimed notorious backpacker serial killer Ivan Milat could have killed Lynette His lawyer, Greg Walsh, said during the proceedings the case against Dawson was entirely circumstantial. In addition, he argued Dawson hadn't been given a fair trial due to media persecution. 'It is difficult to know whether people's beliefs and memories had been shaped by the disappearance of Lyn Dawson,' he said. 'This commentary has been fundamentally prejudicial in giving this man the right to the presumption of innocence,' he said. 'It is very important that his arrest and charge is not a determination of guilt this man is entitled to the presumption of innocence, it's a fundamental right.' Mr Walsh said during a December 6 court hearing his client 'strenuously asserts his innocence' and that Dawson was 'anxious and stressed about the situation' and planned to plead not guilty. The prosecution had argued 'the irresistible conclusion' Dawson had covered his tracks following Lynette's 1982 death, 9 News reported. Dawson also learned he could be denied bail despite his willingness to post a $1.5 million surety because prosecution argues he could flee using his twin brother's passport. But the judge chose not to make a decision on the matter in Friday's session. Instead, he pushed the decision on Dawson's bail application until Monday. Ms Dawson was 33 when she disappeared in 1982, leaving behind two young daughters. Her husband reported her missing almost six weeks later, and her body has never been found. Ms Dawson (pictured right with Mr Dawson) was 33 when she disappeared in 1982, leaving behind two young daughters The case was the subject of The Australian newspaper's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet, which brought the case back into the public eye. NSW Police, which reopened the cold case in 2015, said fresh statements from at least two witnesses led to the arrest of the former footy player on the Gold Coast on December 5. The accused killer, who was living at Coolum Beach, was extradited from Queensland on December 6. Neighbours in a family-friendly community have slammed an Airbnb party house after a property rented out individual rooms, causing chaos in the once-peaceful neighbourhood. Residents in Wantirna, Melbourne, claim their street, Blackfriars Close, has become riddled with crime after the rooms of a home were advertised on Airbnb for $25 a night. The short-stay residence has negatively affected the local community with residents saying its brought littering and badly-behaved guests, the Herald Sun reported. Mum-of-two Natalie Mitchell said the four-bedroom house used as an Airbnb was discovered in June. Residents in Wantirna, Melbourne, claim their street, Blackfriars Close (pictured), has become riddled with crime after the rooms of a home were advertised on Airbnb for $25 a night 'Can you imagine the calibre of people that have been coming into our court?' she said. 'It started off with overflowing rubbish, multiple cars, people coming and going at all hours of the night or early morning, and then we had a few more sinister things happen.' Ms Mitchell said one Airbnb tenant allegedly stabbed a taxi driver in an attempted robbery. She said a neighbour reported a 'peeping Tom' while she was in a bathroom and another neighbour had rubbish dumped in their yard. In another incident, which could be connected to tenants at the property, a truck was stolen from an adjacent street. The residents have been forced to ban their children from playing outside amid the threats from tenants staying at the property. The short-stay residence has negatively affected the local community with residents saying its brought littering and badly-behaved guests (stock image) Ms Mitchell said the Airbnb landlord would screen guests to prevent more problems. But Ms Mitchell wants to shut the house down. 'Safety is my main concern - it looks like it's bringing crime to our area,' she said. The neighbours have reportedly taken their issues to Knox Council, Consumer Affairs Victoria and local politicians. Ms Mitchell said she hopes the laws could change in Victoria to give residents more of a voice in regards to their streets. The residents have been forced to ban their children from playing outside amid the threats from tenants staying at the property (stock image) Knox Council Mayor Jake Keogh said they were investigating concerns regarding the Airbnb but could not provide detail due to privacy reasons. Consumer Affairs Victoria spokesman Ben Radisich said they did not have jurisdiction to regulate short-stay accommodation at private stand-alone houses. Airbnb spokesman Julian Crowley said specific concerns about a listing should be raised on the online 'Neighbour Tool'. The Irish parliament voted to legalise abortion on Thursday after a referendum earlier this year, a decision hailed by Prime Minister Leo Varadkar as a 'historic moment'. Ireland is a predominantly Catholic country but the influence of the Church has waned in recent years and 66 per cent voted for the change at a referendum in May. In August, 200,000 turned out for the Papal Mass in Phoenix Park, Dublin, compared to 1.25 million at Pope John Paul II's in 1979. 'Historic moment for Irish women. Thanks to all who supported and well done to @SimonHarrisTD (the health minister) for steering this through both Houses,' Tweeted Varadkar, who supported the referendum. Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar arriving in Brussels on Thursday; he praised his parliament's vote, writing on Twitter: 'Historic moment for Irish women. Thanks to all who supported' Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was in Brussels to speak at a summit on Brexit but Tweeted his happiness over the decision to legalise abortion Some 170,000 Irish women have been forced to travel to neighbouring Britain for abortions since 1980. The new legislation permits terminations to be carried out up to 12 weeks of pregnancy - or in conditions where there is a risk to the life, or of serious harm to the health, of the pregnant woman. It would also allow terminations in cases of foetal abnormality which could lead to the death of the foetus either before or within 28 days of birth. The change means Malta is now the only European Union country to totally ban abortion. 'Just over 200 days ago, you, the people of Ireland, voted to repeal the 8th so we could care for women with compassion,' Health Minister Simon Harris said on Twitter after the bill passed the upper house. 'Today we have passed the law to make this a reality. A vote to end lonely journeys, end the stigma and support women's choices in our own country.' The Irish health service is now being primed to provide the first abortions to women in January. The only step remaining in the legislative process is the ceremonial signing of the bill into law by President Michael D. Higgins. The vote to repeal the abortion ban followed a vigorously mobilised pro-choice campaign. The Irish health minister Simon Harris Tweeted his praise on Thursday for the bill going through the Irish parliament Yes campaigners celebrate as the result of Ireland's referendum on abortion law are announced in Dublin in May Voters and campaigners share their joy after they won a 66 per cent on the referendum to repeal the eighth amendment 'I want to thank the campaigners who fought for 35 years to change a nation, to change hearts and minds,' Harris said in a statement. 'I want to thank the minority who fought the battle in here when it was convenient for the majority to ignore.' 'We welcome the passage of this bill, and fully appreciate the importance of its enactment by year's end so that abortion services can begin in January,' said Colm O Gorman, head of Amnesty International Ireland. 'Women have waited 35 years for this, the daily violations of their human rights must come to an end.' However he said some concerns remained over conditions outlined in the bill - which has been the subject of sustained and emotional parliamentary debate in recent weeks. A British doctor who paid for sex with girls as young as nine has been jailed for five years in Cambodia. Clive Cressy, 70, was found with a sickening suitcase full of Barbie dolls, tiny dresses and girls' shoes, mixed in his collection with condoms and lubricant. The physician was arrested at his apartment in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh along with his Vietnamese wife, 27, who procured vulnerable youngsters for him. He was found guilty at a court in the city yesterday, where prosecutors said he had paid up to $3,000 (2,400) to his victims to have 'unlimited sex' whenever he wanted. British doctor Clive Cressy, left, paid up to $3,000 for sex with girls as young as nine, while his wife Chea Sokhty, right, helped him procure the victims from poor families The girls he preyed on lived with Cressy and his wife and were aged between nine and 13, the court was told. Prosecutors said Cressy from Hove, East Sussex, had moved to Cambodia in 2015 before starting a job as an English literature teacher at a private school. He claimed that he and his wife Chea Sokthy, 27, 'adopted' the four young Vietnamese girls, all from poor rural families, to educate them and give them a better life. But while living at their apartment, Cressy paid each victim to 'have sex with them any time he wanted' while his wife received $1,000 (790) for each girl she recruited. Police rescued the four traumatised girls from the Phnom Penh apartment when it was raided and Cressy arrested on April 27, 2017. Cressy's wife initially went on the run but was re-arrested in June this year. She denied any knowledge of his actions but was found guilty. Presiding Judge Thlang Phaneth jailed Cressy for five years but the victims may appeal what their lawyers regard as a light sentence. A stash of young girls's shoes and clothes in a suitcase belonging to Cressy, who was arrested in April last year and was yesterday found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison A collection of children's toys among the British doctor's possessions, which also included condoms and lubricant which were found at his home in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh Cressy, pictured with the red towel on his head, is led away from court in Phnom Penh yesterday after he and his wife were both jailed for five years Judge Phaneth said: 'The court has jailed each of the suspects for five years. They will be deported from Cambodia after they are released. 'Clive Cressy is guilty of the purchase of child prostitution and Chea Sokthy is guilty of soliciting child prostitution. ' 'He paid his young victims between 2,000 dollars and 3,000 dollars to allow him to have sex at whatever time he felt like it.'' The two defendants must also pay a total of 12,000 USD in compensation, which will be split between the four victims. Welcoming the guilty verdict, prosecutor Sorn Sony branded Cressy a predator who had deliberately targeted the young girls. But Mrs Sony said the sentence of five years was to light. She said: 'I laud the court's verdict but I think that Mr Kingsley's sentence is too light and does not fit the crime. 'I do not know whether my clients will accept the sentence or will appeal for a heavier one.' Japan has selected the Chinese character for 'disaster' as its defining symbol for 2018, a year that saw the country hit by deadly floods, earthquakes and storms. Japanese TV stations broadcast the annual announcement, with Seihan Mori, master of the ancient Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto, writing the character on a huge white panel with an ink-soaked calligraphy brush. Organisers of the event, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, said: 'Many people experienced the threat of natural disasters such as earthquakes, heavy rain, typhoons and heatwaves.' Seihan Mori, master of the ancient Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto, wrote the Chinese character for 'disaster' on a huge white panel with an ink-soaked calligraphy brush on Wednesday At the end of every year, the general public votes for the Chinese character they think embodies the key news and events of the previous 12 months. A total of 20,858 people out of 193,214 chose the character 'disaster'. The country was hit by a series of natural disasters in 2018, starting with massive flooding in western regions that killed over 200 people. It was also battered by a typhoon that inundated a major international airport, and an earthquake in the north that triggered landslides and disrupted supply lines. An 'unprecedented' heatwave also struck the country over the summer, causing more than 150 deaths, with over 80,000 people hospitalised. The series of disasters hit GDP, with the country's economy shrinking in the three months to September. Heavy rainfall killed 65 people in Hiroshima in July 2018 after record rainfall caused mudslides in southwestern and western Japan. Japanese authorities had issued evacuation orders to more than one million people as Typhoon Maria passes the area Organisers cited a 42-year-old woman from quake-battered northern Hokkaido, who said: 'I was reminded of how scary natural disasters are. The power went out immediately after the quake and I spent days for the first time without electricity.' Last year, Japan picked 'North', following a series of North Korean missile launches. The year before the choice was 'gold', in celebration of the success of Japanese athletes at the Rio Olympics. Chinese characters, or Kanji, are widely used in Japanese, along with other types of alphabets. Advertisement Festive revellers stumbled out of bars and pubs dressed as Santa and his elves as Christmas party season swept the nation last night. Celebrating the Yuletide with your colleagues, over a glass of sherry or two, is as traditional as roast turkey and the Queen's speech for most Britons. As the big night approached, workers pulled on their Christmas jumpers, donned the silliest costumes they could find and headed out for a night on the town. Smiling party-goers were spotted enjoying themselves all the way from Newcastle down to Bristol and across to Cardiff, with many happy to pose for pictures as they painted the town red and green. After a long night of dancing to festive hits, many looked slightly worse for wear as they walked arm-in-arm with friends or tucked into a late night snack on their way home. While others were happy to play-fight, take a bike ride or even celebrate the holiday season was a little peck or hug with a friend. Party-goers were spotted enjoying themselves all the way from Newcastle (left) down to Cardiff (right), with many happy to pose for pictures as they painted the town red and green After a long night of dancing to festive hits, many looked slightly worse for wear (pictured in Newcastle) as they walked arm-in-arm with friends or tucked into a late night snack on their way home A reveller dangerously climbs scaffolding on a building in Bristol city centre after a big night out celebrating Christmas party season Festive revellers stumbled out of bars and pubs dressed as Santa and his elves as Christmas party season swept the nation last night in Newcastle (pictured left and right) Workers are pictured on the streets of Newcastle in festive attire last night after attending their work Christmas party The city of Bristol saw hundreds of revellers hit the various pubs and clubs, including one man who donned a remarkable red suit for the occasion Three gents make their way home after a big night partying on a Thursday night as workers hit the town for one of the biggest nights of the month for Christmas parties Friends film on their phones as a reveller climbs up scaffolding in Bristol (left), while three friends share a joke in Newcastle Workers in Bristol let their hair down for a mid-week knees up after with colleagues as Christmas party season gets into full swing this week A lady serenades a friend in Newcastle after a heavy night of drinking and dancing (left), while co-workers also had fun elsewhere in the city (right) Two friends don Christmas red as they make their way back home following a busy night of drinking in Newcastle's city centre One lad looks slightly worse for wear (middle) as he takes a moment to compose himself outside a bat in Bristol last night One woman is given a helping hand home by two friends as the festivities momentarily wind down for the evening in Cardiff A man wearing a festive snowman jumper gets chatting to two people in the street in Newcastle last night as festivities continued into the early hours Christmas jumpers were out in force in Newcastle last night (shown left), while some donned their own while tucking in to some chips (right) Despite the cold weather in Newcastle, workers donned their best glad rags last night as Christmas party season hit the city once again Hundreds were spotted out in Cardiff city centre last night as festive jumpers were donned and Santa hats sported into the early hours of this morning Co-workers get in to the festive mood by donning Father Christmas hats in Newcastle, where many revellers were happy to don their best party wear despite the bitter cold Two friends help each other home after a heavy night in Newcastle (left), while two more revellers in the city hit their best dance moves for the cameras (right) One worker dons his best tuxedo and paper crown as he escorts two friends through Newcastle on one of the biggest nights of the year for Christmas parties Partygoers in Cardiff couldn't help themselves as they began making their way home following another big night of drinking in the city centre this month Revellers tuck in to some food post-Christmas party antics in Bristol (left), while two festive colleagues show off their outfits in Newcastle (right) Father Christmas hats were out in full force in Cardiff last night, as workers let down their hair for a rare night out in the middle of the week A reveller takes a break for all the action to text a friend during a night out in Bristol, which has been the scene of several big evenings of festive frivolities this month Revellers take a break from partying to take on some fast food in Newcastle, which has been full of work Christmas parties throughout the month Workers protect themselves from the cold in Newcastle with some Christmas-inspired jumpers (left), while things get heated in the city centre (right) One man certainly didn't pull any punches when it came to donning a Christmas-inspired outfit for his work party, as he proudly displayed his festive hat and jumper combo Newcastle was plastered red and green last night as workers and revellers donned Christmas-inspired clothes to mark the festivities A group of young men enjoy a laugh in Bristol after painting the town red last night, in what is traditionally one of the biggest nights for Christmas parties in the UK Two revellers share a moment in the street following a night of drinking and partying in Cardiff last night, with sore heads expected in the morning Festive revellers, merry from a night of fun and frolics, make their way back home for some much-needed sleep haed of work tomorrow Cardiff was abuzz with merry partygoers last night, with one such reveller even taking her wine glass out into the street (right) The family home of murdered drug kingpin Carl Williams will be auctioned on Saturday after his former wife failed in her bid to block the sale. Roberta Williams went to the Supreme Court to stop the sale by the Australian Taxation Office to pay off a $959,714 tax debt owed by her former father-in-law George Williams' estate, linked to money he made importing drugs. Williams was relying on revelations about the supergrass lawyer, known as Lawyer X, who she argued in affidavits to the court had represented 'family members' including Carl and George Williams. Scroll down for video The family home of murdered drug kingpin Carl Williams will be auctioned on Saturday after his former wife failed in her bid to block the sale Roberta Williams went to the Supreme Court to stop the sale by the Australian Taxation Office to pay off a $959,714 tax debt owed by her former father-in-law George Williams' estate, linked to money he made importing drugs (pictured: Roberta Williams (centre) and daughter Dakota (second right) arriving at Melbourne Supreme Court on December 14) Ms Williams sought the injunction as executor of George's estate (pictured: Roberta Williams (centre) and daughter Dakota (second right) arriving at Melbourne Supreme Court on December 14) Justice Steven Moore on Friday rejected the argument, allowing Saturday's sale to go ahead. The property has a reserve price of $750,000, which he said would fall short of the amount owed to the tax office. George Williams was first notified of the debt after he pleaded guilty to trafficking in November 2007. The tax office issued revised income tax assessments for 2001 to 2004, putting George in arrears. The original debt proceedings were dropped, but fresh ones were brought in 2011 and in 2013 he agreed to mortgage his Primrose Street, Essendon property to the Commonwealth for $576,000 to cover the debt. With interest, the figure is now just shy of a million dollars. Ms Williams sought the injunction as executor of George's estate. Her daughter with Carl, Dhakota Williams, was bequeathed the house in her grandfathers' will. Justice Stevens said Ms Williams' lawyers had argued the conduct of Lawyer X tainted the settlement agreement, but had presented no evidence of her involvement in any of the dealings involving the ATO. The family home of murdered drug kingpin Carl Williams will be auctioned on Saturday after his former wife failed in her bid to block the sale (pictured: Carl Williams leaving Melbourne Supreme Court, May 2004) ustice Stevens said there were arguments for blocking the sale, including that it had been Dhakota's family home since birth (pictured: Carl Williams congratulated by a friend after being granted bail at Melbourne Magistrate's Court, December 2003) He said if evidence existed the court would have expected it be presented. Justice Stevens said there were arguments for blocking the sale, including that it had been Dhakota's family home since birth. She was evicted by the ATO in September and it was revealed she and Ms Williams have been couch surfing since. But he decided that it was not appropriate to hold off on the sale until after a royal commission into Lawyer X's dealings - set to begin next year - because it would be at least 12 months before a finding. By that time the debt would likely outgrow the property value more than it does now. He also said if Lawyer X was found to have had wrongful dealings in respect of the settlement, Ms Williams would be able to seek damages that would ameliorate the financial loss. News that British holidaymakers will be charged 7 to visit the EU after Brexit has sparked a furious social media reaction - prompting calls to charge Europeans for coming to the UK. The backlash comes after an announcement that UK citizens will have to purchase a security check known as the European Travel Information and Authorization System when travelling to the continent. Under the system, travellers would have to apply online by providing personal information and passport details, before noting the first country they are travelling to and answering background questions. A spokeswoman for Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured last night) confirmed that a new visa system for visiting the bloc will apply after Brexit if no other agreement is reached Theresa May travelled to Brussels today to seek more concessions from the EU, but just hours after arriving news broke of the new charge to be levied on UK citizens But reaction to the news has been mixed with dozens taking to Twitter to complain about the upcoming charge. Lynette Craig said: 'So we are going to need an ETIAS to go to an EU country. What happened to passports? 'And will they use the dosh for helping migrants or just for better wine at dinner?' While Ian Jones said: 'Let's charge the Europeans 6 to come here'. Not everyone was angered by the news, however. With some suggesting it was only fair we had to pay. Erecan Essilor said: 'No doubt ETIAS will get all the remainers in a froth but this is an extremely small price to pay for the money Brexit saves.' While Vincent Franklin said: 'So, we'll have to buy an ETIAS if we want to visit Europe. It seems like they're getting control of their borders back.' Several on Twitter have expressed anger at the news they will have to fork out on travel to Europe. But others were more sympathetic to the news saying it was only fair we should pay (above and below). A three year travel pass would cost 7 - around 6 Brussels confirmed the charges will be levied on UK citizens as Theresa May fought for more concessions on her deal at a summit. A spokeswoman for Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed that the new system for visiting the bloc will apply to the UK after Brexit. Natasha Bertaud, Mr Juncker's spokeswoman, tweeted: 'Yes Etias will apply to the UK as 3rd country post-Brexit 7 euros for a 3 year pre-travel authorisation. 'Simple form, like Esta to the US, but way cheaper.' What is ETIAS? The new security check that will come into force in 2021 ETIAS stands for European Travel Information and Authorization System, it is a form of electronic travel authorization. From 2021, visitors travelling to the Schengen Area will need to obtain an ETIAS travel authorization prior to their trip. It is designed to improve the security of the region by screening travellers before their arrival in the Schengen Area. The process will determine whether a citizen can enter the Schengen Area or not. By cross-checking information against various databases, the system will be able to detect if a person is a security threat. The new electronic system means that travellers from Britain will be treated in the same way as those from the US and Australia. Advertisement A three year travel pass would cost 7 - around 6. And will be levied despite no-deal plans released by the EU last month stating UK citizens will be handed a visa exemption. Responding to the news, shadow arts minister Kevin Brennan said: 'This will have a direct effect on British families, holidaymakers, and those travelling for work. 'The Government should listen to the tourism sector's warnings and urgently reconsider this disastrous Brexit deal.' The ETIAS regime will apply to nationals visiting from almost all non-EU countries - an estimated 39million people a year. The registration information will then be checked against EU crime-fighting databases. While most decisions will take just minutes, problematic cases could lead to further requests before being finally answered within four weeks. The EU commission previously announced that anyone staying less than 90 days will be able to visit freely as long as the UK reciprocates. While stressing that it would need to be approved by the European Parliament, the commission said: 'In the scenario where the UK leaves the EU without a deal, this would apply as of 30 March 2019. 'If a deal is reached, however, it would apply as of the end of the transition period.' The move was 'entirely conditional upon the UK also granting reciprocal and non-discriminatory visa-free travel for all EU member states'. UK citizens will have to pay a small fee for EU travel after Brexit, the European Commission has confirmed The Association of British Travel Agents warned UK citizens not to be too panicked by the news, stressing that it does not come into force until 2021. An ABTA spokeswoman said: 'Europe is the number one destination people plan to visit next year, so it's really important holidaymakers are aware that the new ETIAS system won't apply until 2021. 'When it does apply ETIAS will mean that you don't have to get a visa. There have been some helpful reassurances recently that, even in a no-deal scenario, flights will still operate between the UK and EU, and a visa is not required.' Luxury clothing retailer Canada Goose has postponed the launch of its first flagship store in mainland China one day before its scheduled grand opening amid consumer outrage following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. The Toronto-based apparel brand was originally scheduled to open its physical store in Beijing tomorrow in the capital's trendy Sanlitun area in Chaoyang district. However, following Meng's arrest in Vancouver on December 1, calls for a boycott of the Canadian retailer in China spread quickly on social media platform Weibo and were echoed by experts cited by state-run Global Times. Calls for a boycott of the Toronto-based apparel brand in China spread quickly on social media platform Weibo and were echoed by experts cited by state-run Global Times. Pictured above is one of the brand's boutique store at a shopping mall in Shanghai Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, arrives at a parole office with a security guard in Vancouver after she was released on bail on Tuesday evening Stocks of the high-end retailer have tumbled 20 per cent since December 3, the first trading day after Meng's arrest. Canada Goose parkas, which retails up to 995 apiece, have quickly become a style icon in China since the brand launched in the country last year. The brand also gained popularity after celebrities including Alibaba Group's billionaire chairman Jack Ma were spotted wearing the coats at events. 'Our Beijing store has been delayed slightly due to ongoing construction. We look forward to opening our newest store in the near future, but first and foremost we want to ensure that we provide the best experience for our fans and customers,' Canada Goose said in a statement to MailOnline, adding that the expansion plans in China will continue to move forward. Canada Goose parkas, which retails up to 995 apiece, have quickly become a style icon in China since the brand launched in the country last year Canada Goose also gained popularity after celebrities including Alibaba Group's billionaire chairman Jack Ma were spotted wearing the coats at events. Ma is seen wearing the popular parka at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province in December last year The brand announced in May that it would open flagship stores in Hong Kong and Beijing as well as establish a regional head office in Shanghai. The company also launched e-commerce operations in partnership with Alibaba. The hashtag, 'Canada Goose shares plummet', has gathered more than 220 million views as Chinese consumers called for the ban in the world's largest luxury market. Comments under the brand's official Weibo account were still littered with calls for a a boycott of the fancy parkas. 'Boycott Canada Goose!' One typical comment read. 'Just leave China,' another comment read. 'Ask your country to leave Ms Meng alone!' another user said. Supporters hold signs and Chinese flags outside British Columbia Supreme Court during the third day of a bail hearing for Meng Wanzhou. She was released on bail for C$10 million Meng was detained in Vancouver on December 1 at the request of the U.S., which accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. She is the also vice chairman of Huawei, the second-largest smartphone creator in the world and the daughter of the company's founder, Ren Zhengfei. After three days of hearings, Meng was released on bail of C$10million (US$7.4million) on Tuesday evening - on the condition she surrender her two passports and agree to wear an ankle bracelet. She will have to stay in Vancouver and its suburbs and confine herself to one of her two Vancouver homes from 11pm to 6am. Her case has set off a diplomatic furore among the three countries and complicated high-stakes U.S.-China trade talks. In apparent retaliation of Meng's arrest, an ex-Canadian diplomat, Michael Kovrig (pictured), has been detained in China since Monday and is facing accusations of harming state security A second Canadian, Michael Spavor (pictured), a businessman with deep ties to the North Korean government, has been detained for 'activities that endanger China's national security' In apparent retaliation, China has detained a former Canadian diplomat, Michael Kovrig, since Monday. Kovrig is facing accusations of harming state security. A second Canadian, Michael Spavor, a businessman with deep ties to the North Korean government, has been detained also for 'activities that endanger China's national security', Beijing confirmed on Thursday. Following the arrest of Meng, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau maintains that Canada's involvement in the case is not politically motivated and that the incident is for Canada's courts to decide. Canadian Foreign Ministry spokesman Guillaume Berube said in a statement that the authorities are working hard to ascertain Spavors whereabouts and would continue to raise the issue with the Chinese government. Shocking footage has emerged showing two hunters eating the still-warm heart of a dead wolf after killing the whole pack. The video, which was filmed in Kazakhstan, shows a hunter taking a bite of the raw heart before passing it on to another hunter who also takes a bite out of it. One of the hunters then lifts the head of the killed wolf, to show the camera the head of the slaughtered animal. WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT Disgusting: Villagers in Kazakhstan hunted down and slaughtered the pack of wolves after they killed some of their sheep in a shed the night before The video has caused outrage and condemnation online after depicting two of the hunters (left) biting and chewing on the still-warm heart of one of the wolves, before lifting its head to face the camera (right) The footage was reportedly taken two weeks ago in an unspecified region of Kazakhstan, moments afters a few dozen villagers hunted down the wolves after some of their sheep were killed in a shed overnight. The video of the incident has caused outrage after being shared online, with people condemning the undue cruelty towards the wolves. The second hunter approaches the camera and also takes a bite out of the raw heart of the killed wolf 'These hunters are such cruel beasts!: The slaughter of the wolves has been widely condemned online These wolves were killed just because they needed to eat. You have to protect your sheep better instead of killing such gorgeous animals, commented Karim Isaev. And Alina Baktiyarova said: The ritual with the heart is awful. Aset Tazabekov added: These hunters are such cruel beasts! A 43-foot Christmas tree delivered from 1,180 miles Norway was taken down after locals complained about its crumbling state. After the traditional gift was hauled down in the town of Grimsby a local prankster intervened, hilariously putting 12in high tree in its place. Someone even added lights to it before the town council spruced the area up by replacing it with the latest in a string of three trees, ending a month-log debacle. The dying tree drew the ire of locals when it began to die prematurely and branches fell off The saga started with a 15-year tradition between the coastal town in north east Lincolnshire and a municipality in the far reaches of Norway. Grimsby receives a gift from the people of Sortland, Norway every year in the form of a, usually, beautiful Norwegian spruce for their town centre. The tree arrived at Grimsby port on November 9 like it has done for the last 15 years, with local representatives and the Norwegian ship captain exchanging pleasantries and posing for pictures. After responding to complaints, Grimsby council removed the tree and a prankster replaced it Over a month on from the delivery of the first tree, the town finally got one that will last to Christmas. It was erected by council workers yesterday and has since been decorated Why does Norway send a tree to Grimsby? Owing to their cultural links dating back to the times of the Vikings, the town has maintained a good relationship with Norse countries. Grimsby is even host to honorary consulates of Denmark, Iceland and Norway. The modern relationship stems from shipping links to the countries. Norwegians have been sending trees to the town since the end of World War Two. For 40 years the city of Trondheim sent it and since 2013 it has been sent by the people of Sortland in the north. Advertisement Local media in Sortland even reported that their tree had been taken down and Grimsby representatives 'will send mayor Tove Mette Bjrkmo a small gift of beer from the new local brewery Dock Beers' as a thank you and sign of respect. In the interim between the new tree replacing the gift from Sortland, a tiny version took centre stage in the town, surrounded by metal hoardings that dwarfed it. North East Lincolnshire Council confirmed that the miniature tree was not erected on their behalf. But soon after the 43-foot tree was erected on Victoria Street on November 22, locals began to complain that it was a crumbling eyesore and not a good representation of the town - despite the council saying it had received no complaints. Many people quipped online that the dying tree put the 'Grim' in 'Grimsby' as it turned brown and crumbled. The council soon caved and began a new search for a replacement after it cleared the Norwegian tree on Monday. Grimsby Town Hall representatives including the mayor greet staff from Norwegian ship at the town's docks after they delivered the tree that died an untimely death Councillor Hazel Chase, the Mayor of North East Lincolnshire greets ship captain Tommy Jenssen Local reporter Phillip Norton, who was at the scene, tweeted: 'Somebody has even put lights on it tonight! One guy also bought a star at Wilkos and asking me to put it on for him earlier...which I did! A smile we all needed!' Alex Wright said on the social media site: 'Is the Christmas tree in Grimsby small or far away?' 'Its been replaced! Or the alternative theory, it grew spectacularly overnight,' tweeted Katy Austen as the town finally seems to have a tree that will see them through to Christmas. US-backed militia killed at least 900 ISIS fighters in the ferocious capture of the jihadists' largest remaining fortification on Friday. Hajin, east of the Euphrates, was the last big town held by the terrorists before 17,000 troops from the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance began their operation in September. The SDF, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, have been battling to eradicate ISIS. According to Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 900 jihadists and 500 SDF fighters were killed in the battle for Hajin. Mazloum Kobani, SDF commander in chief, said on Thursday 5,000 ISIS fighters still remained in the last of their diminishing territory, which included Hajin, where 900 were said to have fought to the death A picture from Twitter purportedly shows an airstrike raining down on the ISIS held town of Hajin before its capture A map showing the south east of Syria, where ISIS have been pushed into a narrow corridor east of the Euphrates where one of their last strongholds, Hajin, was taken by US-backed militia on Friday; a pocket of desert territory to the west still remains under jihadist control According to Rahman, more than 320 civilians were also killed, many of them in air strikes by the US-led coalition. US President Donald Trump this week predicted the jihadist group would be fully defeated within a month. 'We've done a very, very major job on ISIS,' he said on Tuesday. 'There are very few of them left in that area of the world. And within another 30 days, there won't be any of them left.' According to another Twitter user, this was the aftermath of US-led bombing in Hajin Western and other officials have repeatedly announced deadlines for a final victory over IS but the group is proving resilient. The push to retake Hajin was delayed by Turkish threats on the Kurdish heartland further north and deadly counter-attacks by die-hard jihadists making a bloody last stand. 'ISIS anticipated its battlefield defeat and the loss of the caliphate and prepared accordingly,' said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington. Besides what is left of the pocket near Hajin in the Euphrates valley, IS has a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert, a front which is managed by Russian-backed government forces. What is left of the jihadist group also has sleeper cells across Iraq and Syria that regularly carry out attacks. SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Kobani said on Thursday that at least 5,000 IS fighters remain holed up in their last Syrian pocket of territory including Hajin and that they had decided to fight to the death. This includes some 2,000 foreign fighters, mostly Arabs and Europeans along with their families. Donald Trump speaking on Tuesday; he said: 'We've done a very, very major job on ISIS,' and claimed they would be utterly routed within the next 30 days Kobani also said it was possible that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was in eastern Syria, but the SDF could not be sure because he often disappears. The loss of Hajin came hours after IS's propaganda agency Amaq claimed responsibility for a Christmas market shooting in the French city of Strasbourg. The Amaq statement was posted just after the shooter Cherif Chekatt was gunned down by police but bore the hallmarks of an opportunistic claim by the embattled jihadist group. Islamic State was driven from nearly all the territory it once held in Syria last year in separate campaigns waged by the U.S.-backed SDF on the one hand, and the Russian-backed Syrian government on the other. Fugitives Laura Kiseliova, 39, and Raimondas Titas, 37, of Little Hulton, Salford, Greater Manchester, pictured at an earlier court hearing Two puppy traffickers who made 300,000 by illegally selling designer dogs from Eastern Europe have been sentenced in absence after fleeing the country during their trial. Lithuanian nationals Laura Kiseliova, 39, and Raimondas Titas, 37, set up an online 'puppy farm' called 'Pets313' and advertised 'British bred' breeds such as pugs and French bulldogs. When customers arrived at their home in Salford, Greater Manchester they were sold severely ill puppies who had not been given important vaccinations. Customers reported the dogs' health rapidly deteriorated after they were taken home, with many suffering potentially fatal lung conditions. Despite being told they were receiving British-bred dogs, customers were actually sold dogs that had been trafficked to the UK from Eastern Europe. Trading Standards, Bury Council and the RSPCA investigated the couple who were confronted at their home in May 2015. At the home they found numerous cats and dogs kept starving, freezing and shivering in squalid conditions, covered in scabs and discharge. The couple admitted various offences two years ago, in June 2016. But sentencing was delayed for a year, after Kiseliova unsuccessfully tried to withdraw her guilty plea. Some of the dogs, which included French and English bulldogs, were found trapped locked in cages The pair fled the country, where they are believed to be hiding in Eastern Europe. An European Arrest Warrant has been issued. At Manchester Crown Court Kiseliova was sentenced to four years jail and Titas got three and a half years imprisonment. They will be ordered to serve half their sentences once they are located. Sentencing the pair in their absence, Judge Richard Mansell QC said: 'These offences arose out of the running of the company Pets313 from your home address from December 2012. 'During that period 729 animals, 341 dogs and 388 cats, were in receipt of a Pet Plan which came with free insurance for 28 days. 'They travelled from Europe into the UK frequently and you abused the Pet Passport scheme which states the pets have been examined by vets and vaccinated before travelling to reduce the risk of diseases such as rabies. 'The majority of the dogs came from Eastern European countries such as Hungary, Belarus and Poland and you had people who would bring the dogs back in multiples of up to five at once. 'You detected customers and mislead them by making false representations to tell them the business had been approved by the Kennel Club. The RSPCA said they found 'cages and pens containing different breeds of dogs in almost every room' when they raided the couple's home 'Many customers made purchases of sums from 100 to 1,000, and the dogs they purchased had health problems from the moment they got home. 'On December 12th, Jason Marshall bought his wife a pug for Christmas, he paid you 800 for that pug, which he named Coco. 'He was told he received vaccinations and was cared for by way of the Puppy pack. But Coco became ill and was taken to the local vets where she was examined and it was revealed she had lung problems, problems with her hips and she had to have a hernia removed. 'He said he wished he never had purchased her from you because she was so ill when he bought her. 'Gemma Walker bought a French bulldog from you called Bella. You met her before the purchase and showed her a pet pack which stated she had been to the vets, she left and paid 720. 'She asked for further medical notes, to which you asked for 500 extra payment for them. The charity said a number of animals, including these cats, left and right, needed urgent veterinary treatment 'When she was taken home Miss Walker realised she wasn't breathing properly and called you, to which you told her that the dog wasn't your problem anymore. 'Taking Bella to the vet, Miss Walker was told the tablets she was giving her dog, prescribed by you, were for humans and once analysis was undertaken of the microchip, they discovered the dog was from Denmark and had a number of physical health problems. 'Miss Walker was back and forth to the vet numerous times and paid over 4,500 in vets bills. 'When the RSPCA came to your address they discovered animals kept in cages with little stimulation for space to run around. Two bulldogs that were rescued unfortunately died within a few days because they were in such ill health. 'No dogs with infections were kept in isolation, and hence this made other dogs infected. Puppies were kept in cages in the bedroom upstairs and some were kept in crates in the garage. 'The treatment of those animals was nothing short of appalling. They put their desire and greed before the welfare of animals. Customers reported the dogs' health rapidly deteriorated after they were taken home - having been kept in squalid, cramped conditions since birth 'This was sophisticated offending which you involved others in and was over a substantial period of time. They made just over 300,000. 'They were driven solely by your greed. The conditions the animals were kept in were appalling, keeping them in crowded cages. Many were in pain and your treatment of them was utterly shameful.' Speaking on behalf of Titas, his lawyer Stella Massey said: 'It does not bode well that Mr Titas is not here. I have met Mr Titas before. 'He did not come to the UK with the intention of finding himself in the position he was when he was arrested. He was working as a mechanic, working 12 hour days. He wasn't manipulated at court. He was the director of the company, but it was not his idea to set up the company. 'It was the co defendant who met with the customers and set up the website. He was directed by her when they needed taking to the vets or feeding. He had long term employment as a mechanic. 'He was working long hours six days a week, he was working towards his level three qualifications in mechanics. He comes from a stable and supportive background.' A lifetime order under the Animal Welfare Act was placed on them, disqualifying them frown owning or looking after animals. Speaking after the case, the investigating officer for Trading Standards, Mr Gareth Hollinsworth, said: 'We received intelligence that animals were being sold illegally at an address in Salford in January 2013. 'We went to the address and met with the female defendant. She said she was acting as an interpreter for the male defendant but was giving more information that was the male was. 'We left the address and began receiving more intelligence and complaints which linked back to the address, so we contacted the RSPCA. 'We found evidence of animals in the property and we arrested them. Now there is a European arrest warrant out for them and it's out of our hands unfortunately. 'She is the most calculating and manipulative person I've met. People went to her house and she knew she was going to sell them something. 'People bought an animals thinking they were rescuing them, but they weren't. 'We want to send out a message to people who are thinking of buying a pet this Christmas, it's a choice that you must keep for many years. Don't click and collect. 'Please do your research. Make sure the buyer is regulated with the local authority. Make sure you know which animal you are getting. It's vital for the health and safety of that pet.' As the country's biggest supermarkets go head-to-head during the festive season, the product that's set to take centre stage amid the billion-dollar battle is Christmas ham. This time of year is important for the grocery sector and the fierce competition between Coles and Woolworths could come down to a single product. December is the biggest time of the year for supermarkets, bringing in billions during the month alone. It's estimated Australians will spend $51 billion in the lead up to Christmas and New Years, with $21 billion of that alone spent on food, news.com.au reported. Scroll down for video The product that's set to take centre stage amid the billion-dollar battle is the Christmas ham (pictured, Woolworths Christmas ham) This time of year is extremely important for the grocery sector and the competition between Coles and Woolworths (pictured) could come down to a single product Coles and Woolworths dominate the grocery sector and both will be fighting for the top spot, trying to convince customers they've got the best deals on ham. Head of fresh food at Woolworths Paul Harker said that results in December have a big role to play in the company's yearly growth. Christmas can be more than one-third of a supermarket's yearly profits. Woolworths has seen a 4.3 per cent growth over 2018 while Coles has only increased by 1.6 per cent. Woolworths will be fighting to keep their spot at the top after coming out with a win during the festive season fight in 2017. Australian Retailers Association's (ARA) Russell Zimmerman said 40 per cent of spending that occurs during December is on food. 'People treat themselves at Christmas. There's lots of splurging going on,' Mr Zimmerman said. He also said that because a good ham could cost up to one hundred dollars, customers are most likely to purchase fruit and vegetables also. Coles (pictured) and Woolworths dominate the grocery sector and both will be fighting for the top spot, trying to convince customers they've got the best deals on ham Coles is offering an 'Australian supermarket first' by giving their customers a chance to buy a ham with crispy crackling - but it costs $20 per kilogram, which is double the price of a standard ham. Coles' brand head Mark Field said this innovative dish had been discussed for more than a year and had high hopes of flying off the shelves. 'You need to understand what customers want and where they will give you permission to innovate,' Mr Field said. On the other hand, Woolworths offer both glazed ham to their customers and regular ham with ready-made glazes available. Aldi are infamous for not stocking roast chickens, but when it comes to Christmas staples, they're keen to throw their hat in the ring. Woolworths will be fighting to keep their spot at the top after coming out with a win during the festive season fight in 2017 (pictured Woolworths leg ham) With a range of Australian pork hams the German supermarket argues they offer the best value compared to their competitiors, offering ham for $6.99 per kilogram. Consumer organisation CHOICE took up the challenge at Aldi, Woolworths and Coles to find the cheapest Christmas groceries. The shopping list included half a leg ham, turkey breast roast, smoked salmon, prawns, pudding, fruit mince pies, chocolates and decorations. CHOICE found all three supermarkets were all closer in price this year. German-owned discount retailer Aldi came out on top, with a total basket price of $175.15 - 15 per cent cheaper than its nearest competitors. Despite being cheaper by $30, some essentials such as candy canes and baubles were not available at the store - so the items were not included in the receipt. The cost at Coles was $205.24, while rival Woolworths came in at third by a whisker with a total of $207.30. Mother-of-four Khristiee Jazairy has been identified as the woman killed when the driver of a B-double truck lost control and veered onto the pavement in a Sydney suburb - injuring five others. The 44-year-old executive assistant from Sans Souci, in the city's south, was trapped in rubble for most of Wednesday after the truck threw her into a disused building, which then collapsed. The driver is understood to have suffered a medial episode. Tributes for Ms Jazairy, who was training to be a graphic designer, were led by her former husband Baha Jazairy. Scroll down for video Mother-of-four Khristiee Jazairy, 44, (pictured) has been identified as the woman killed when a a B-double truck veered onto the pavement in a Sydney suburb - injuring five others He told The Sydney Morning Herald she was 'a lovely woman'. 'There's not enough that can be said about her to be honest. She loved her children,' he said. Mr Jazairy also paid tribute to his ex-wife of 22 years in a series of Facebook posts, one of which read 'rest in peace my queen'. In another he wrote: 'Oh my beautiful Khristiee, I will miss you so much, no one will ever love you as much as I did, you have never left my heart, even after all these years.' Ms Jazairy died and five others were injured after the truck plowed into pedestrians in Sydney's Alexandria on Wednesday morning, before hitting a power pole Her son Leon, 26, added 'you will always be in my heart mum' and 'love you till eternity'. Mr Jazairy added after watching dashcam footage of the large truck hitting his wife, he thought she had been looking in another direction. He said: 'From the footage I have seen it looked like she was facing south so I dont think she saw it coming'. Ms Jazairy said he still hasn't been able to tell the youngest of their children, their five-year-old son, that his mother has died. He said: 'Everybody is devastated, shocked - Khristiee was so full of life.' The mother's siblings, two brothers and one sister, are flying from out-of-state to be with her family. The terrifying dashcam footage, filmed from a car driving in the opposite direction, showed the enormous truck swerving into oncoming traffic at around 7.45am in Alexandria, in the city's inner south. Tributes for Ms Jazairy, who was training to be a graphic designer, were led by her former husband Baha Jazairy (pictured together) A driver moved quickly to get out of the way and narrowly avoided the collision. As the car passed the truck, a flash could be seen from behind as the accident sent debris flying. The 44-year-old woman died and two of the five injured are fighting for their lives in hospital. Terrifying dashcam footage emerged of the moment a B-double truck veered onto the wrong side of the road and onto the pavement in a Sydney suburb The horrific scene unfolded about 7.45am on Wednesday on Botany Road in Alexandria when the truck veered onto the wrong side of the road This is the shocking moment a woman narrowly misses being hit by two cars as they collide on a busy street in Russia. Footage shows the woman, dressed in a blue jacket, waiting to cross the road in the city of Rostov-on-Don in the south-western Rostov Oblast region when the vehicles spin out of control on either side of her. The crash and near-miss, filmed by a CCTV camera, shows the unnamed woman standing at a crossing while waiting for the green light. The woman wearing a blue jacket miraculously escapes unharmed after two colliding cars narrowly miss her The unnamed woman waits to cross a road in the city of Rostov-on-Don in Russian's south-western Rostov Oblast region when the yellow taxi begins to turn left As the yellow taxi turns left it enters the path of an approaching silver Audi and both vehicles crash A yellow taxi turns into the path of an oncoming silver Audi and they crash head-on several feet from where the woman is standing. The vehicles splinter off in different directions and the wreckage nearly hits the woman standing right in the middle of them both. Following the collision, the woman, who appears to be in shock, hurries away from the scene. A witness told local media: 'The Audi driver violated several traffic rules and crossed the intersection on a red light. Both cars veer off in different directions and the wreckage narrowly missed the female pedestrian The shaken woman rushes away from the scene video as broken car parts lie on the floor 'He was driving at over 100 kph (62 mph).' Both drivers lost consciousness during the horror smash and were later rushed to hospital. According to reports, the cab driver, who was wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the driver's seat into the back seat. There was also a female passenger in the cab who sustained minor injuries. Police are now investigating the incident. Sydney and Melbourne have been lashed by wild thunderstorms during the Friday afternoon commute. Streets in the Victorian capital were turned to rivers as rained pelted the city, with 21mm of rain falling in just 10 minutes. Pictures and videos shared to social media showed flooded streets and inundated walkways across the CBD. 'Flinders street is like Venice,' one person wrote on Twitter with a video of the conditions. Streets in the Victorian capital were quickly turned to rivers as rained pelted the city The CBD was saturated with more than 37 millimetres between 5 and 6pm and traffic chaos ensued Pictures and videos shared to social media showed numerous streets were flooded from the severe conditions The Bureau of Meteorology said 35mm was recorded between 5 and 5.30pm in Melbourne's CBD. Rainfall will be highest in coastal areas with 50mm to 80mm, according to the Bureau. The SES were called more than 200 times in the space of an hour. A spokeswoman said most calls were for flooding and Richmond was hit the hardest with 23 callouts. Public transport has also been affected by the weather with services facing a number of delays VicRoads advised major roads Dudley Street, Montague Street, Punt Road, Swan Street, Albert Road and Queens Road were affected by the conditions. 'Avoid the area and never drive into floodwater,' VicRoads warned. South Melbourne, Albert Park, South Yarra, Richmond, East Melbourne and West Melbourne are all experiencing travel delays. Public transport has also been affected by the weather with services facing a number of delays. South Yarra train station was flooded and a staircase at Flinders Street turned to a waterfall in images shared online. South Yarra train station became flooded by the heavy rain (pictured) Rain flowed down a staircase like a waterfall in footage shared to Instagram (pictured) The Bureau of Meteorology said 35mm was recorded between 5 and 5.30pm in Melbourne's CBD Metro Trains have tweeted a number of updates and urge commuters to 'consider the use of alternative transport'. Train services at Alamein, Belgrave, Glen Waverly and Lilydale have been impacted. The Bureau of Meteorology tweeted: 'SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING for the #Melbourne metropolitan area. Activity heading southwest through the western suburbs towards #Geelong with heavy rainfall.' The severe thunderstorm warning says heavy rain is anticipated. 'A millimetre a minute is very significant,' senior forecaster Richard Carlyon said A car drives through flood water on Davis Avenue in South Yarra on Friday afternoon The Bureau of Meteorology warned of heavy rain in Melbourne on Friday afternoon Sydney was also lashed with another thunderstorm on Friday afternoon causing traffic and travel delays. The Bureau of Meteorology released a severe thunderstorm warning for Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night with the possibility of giant hailstones, torrential rain and rampaging winds hitting the coast - as the country's north braces for a category four cyclone. Sydney Airport went into lockdown and more than 30 flights were cancelled. Sydney was also lashed with another thunderstorm on Friday afternoon causing traffic and travel delays Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jordan Notara said the storm travelled through Sydney at about 4pm on Friday Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jordan Notara said the storm travelled through Sydney at about 4pm on Friday. 'Those storms were mostly in the west, but we did see some strikes on the coast,' he told Daily Mail Australia. Mr Notara said there was still a severe thunderstorm warning which could continue into the evening. 'There is still a threat into the evening,' he said. Mr Notara recommended to check weather updates amid the temperamental conditions. Travellers are urged to contact their airlines about cancellations and delays due to the weather. More wild rainfall is forecast for Victoria after flash flooding forced one south-east resident to kayak to work on Thursday (pictured) The conditions have also had an impact on Sydney's roads and public transport services. Trains between Hornsby, Gosford, the Central Coast and Newcastle have been cancelled due failing signals brought on by the weather. 'Trains are currently suspended between Hornsby and Gosford in both directions due to urgent power supply repairs affecting signals as a result of severe weather conditions,' NSW TrainLink North Tweeted on Friday afternoon. 'Please delay travel if possible. If you need any travel assistance please let us know.' Commuters were forced to line for packed buses due to the cancellations. A single-vehicle crash on the Sydney Harbour Bridge is causing traffic chaos across the city. The crash occurred when a Mitsubishi Mirage hit a stationary vehicle on the bridge at about 4.45pm. The driver refused to undertake a breath test and has been arrested. Two children, a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, were in the vehicle at the time of the crash and are being assessed for possible minor injuries. The Bureau of Meteorology is warning residents to prepare to 'batten down the hatches' Severe thunderstorms and heavy rain could hit the New South Wales coastline and go as far inland as Orange and Tamworth, about 250km from the coast. The New South Wales State Emergency Services have advised residents to use sandbags under their doors to help keep flood waters from leaking into their homes. The Bureau of Meteorology shared the sentiment, warning people to 'be prepared to batten down the hatches'. Mr Notara said the rainfall was not as strong as what was recorded on Thursday evening when Sydney braced another storm. Most rainfall was recorded in Sydney's west on Friday with between 20-30mm recorded from 9am. Wild storms are ravaging Sydney (pictured), as experts warn people to expect the worst The Bureau said about 10mm was recorded on the coast. On Thursday night, 40mm of rain fell in less than half an hour. Winds of up to 107km/h whipped through the city's western suburbs on Thursday night, as nearly 700 calls for help were made to emergency services. A further 30,000 homes and businesses were left without power in the quickfire storm. But that could just be a sign of what's to come for Friday, with more lightning, hailstorms and wild winds forecast to rampage through the state on Saturday. Victoria also felt the pinch of the wild weather on Thursday, with more than 100 people needing to be rescued from semi-submerged cars on the Hume Freeway. The two supercell storms (pictured) will pass over Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night But that could just be a sign of what's to come for Friday, with more lightning, hailstorms and wild winds forecast to rampage through the state on Saturday Melbourne's inner-city flooded, with pedestrians forced to wade through the high waters Another month's rainfall could come down on Friday, with a further 20mm forecast in the morning More than a month's worth of rain fell in regional areas overnight. The average December rainfall for Melbourne is 59mm, with the city already surpassing that on Thursday and another 20mm forecast for Friday. The rural town of Everton had 162mm fall overnight on Thursday alone. Meanwhile, 20 homes flooded in the Central Victorian area of Birchip with 10 people evacuated. A community meeting will be held on Friday to discuss further flooding procedures, the SES say. 'It's like an ocean here where we are at the moment, our whole street is under water,' one resident told 3AW radio on Friday morning. Periods of heavy rainfall led to flash flooding in both Sydney and Melbourne on Friday The flash flooding in Victoria (pictured) coincides with an impending tropical cyclone A severe weather warning was issued for Victoria with heavy rainfall across the entire state Thunderstorms on Thursday night (pictured) will continue on Friday, forecasters warn The overnight rainfall continues on Friday, with the worst storms forecast to fall in the state's east, predominantly the South Gippsland area. 'Rain and thunderstorms are expected across the warning area during today and Friday, with periods of heavy rainfall likely that may lead to flash flooding,' a warning issued by The Bureau of Meteorology reads. Authorities continue to warn not to drive or even walk through flood waters, after dozens of cars and trucks were submerged in the flood waters. Torrential rains, particularly in New South Wales, are linked to a tropical cyclone brewing in the country's north. Meanwhile, a category three cyclone could hit far-north Queensland on late Friday afternoon The cyclone is currently off the coast of the Northern Territory, and is slowly heading east Cairns and the rest of far-north Queensland are meanwhile bracing for Tropical Cyclone Owen, with meteorologists saying it could hit either Friday or Saturday. WHAT IS A CATEGORY THREE CYCLONE? Tropical cyclones are categorised on a scale of one to five based on severity. TC Owen, which is expected to hit Queensland on Friday, is classed as a category three. A category three cyclone would cause: - Some roof and structural damage. Some caravans destroyed. Power failures likely. - A category three cyclone's strongest winds are very destructive winds with typical gusts over open flat land of 165-224kph. However, the cyclone could be re-classified once it actually hits land, which will be either Friday or Saturday. Source: Bureau of Meteorology Advertisement As of Friday morning, the cyclone is tracking off the coast of the Northern Territory, but has begun to move east and could hit Queensland as soon as midday. The cyclone is currently classed as a category three based on its 200km/h wind speed. But forecasters say it could become a category four, surpassing 280km/h when it crosses the Gulf of Carpentaria and into Queensland. A cyclone warning is in place from Port McArthur in the Northern Territory, to Aurukun in Queensland. Residents are being told to brace for wild winds and flooding. Some are concerned that floods will cause landslides, after wild bushfires rampaged through the state, leaving some regions' hillsides unstable. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she'd been briefed on the danger and assured Queenslanders that authorities in the cyclone danger area are well prepared. The devastating cyclone, which is deemed as 'very destructive' by the Bureau of Meteorology, is a result of a coinciding mass air movement and low pressure system. Some areas of Victoria recorded as much as 162mm of rain in less than 12 hours on Thursday 'It's being caused by a trough of air mass movement from the north, and with a low pressure system coming through, is generating large amounts of rainfall,' Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Peter Newham told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday. A Bureau of Meteorology forecaster previously told Daily Mail Australia the thunderstorms would be the result of a cold front in the south of the country. The cold front and low-pressure system moved from Victoria up to New South Wales which brought showers and a storm to Sydney on Thursday night. Canberra can also expect storms and upwards of 55mm of rain between Thursday and Saturday. Brisbane was also predicted to get up to 100mm of rainfall over the weekend. British glamour model Chloe Ayling has been mocked for claiming she is too 'vulnerable' to attend her alleged kidnapper's trial. The 21-year-old is said to have told prosecutors she is too 'worried' to testify at the trial of Michal Herba who is accused of helping his brother Lukasz kidnap her in Italy in July 2017. But his lawyers say she can't be vulnerable because she's been flying all over the world for photoshoots and sharing snaps of her jetset life on Instagram. Chloe Ayling has been mocked for claiming she is too 'vulnerable' to attend a trial because she has been sharing snaps of her all over the world such as this one in the Maldives 'Worried': Miss Ayling, 21, shared this snap of her in Hollywood, California in October Alleged kidnapper: Michal Konrad Herba, 36, (centre) is accused of helping kidnap Miss Ayling Chloe Ayling was spotted with new boyfriend Lewis G from Big Brother on their first date skating at Winter Wonderland this week Herba's lawyer Simone Zancani has demanded she attend, saying she needs to be questioned on her story because it 'doesn't add up,' reported The Sun. He told the hearing in Milan: 'We find it quite hard to believe Ms Ayling says she cannot come to Milan because she is vulnerable. 'It appears she is happy to travel thousands of miles across the world to the west coast of America, to Thailand and to other places for photoshoots. 'You just have to look at her Instagram to see that she is not afraid of travelling to various places across the world and pose in her swimwear for glamorous publicity campaigns.' Mr Zancani said it was only fair that Miss Ayling, who appeared on Celebrity Big Brother this year, be cross-examined in person. Judges will decide if she must attend or can appear via video link next month. The trial continues. On Tuesday, Miss Alying's kidnapper Lukasz Herba, 30, was handed a 17-year jail sentence. Herba's lawyer Simone Zancani has demanded she attend, saying she needs to be questioned on her story because it 'doesn't add up'. Miss Ayling shared this picture on December 4 Continuing her day job: Miss Ayling shared this picture of her in Thailand in November He was found guilty of luring Ayling to a fake photoshoot where he drugged her and bungled her into a suitcase in the boot of a car. During his trial in the Italian city, Herba claimed Miss Ayling willingly participated in the kidnapping as a publicity stunt to boost her modelling career. But his story was rejected by the court and he was jailed for 16 years and nine months. Speaking after the sentencing, Miss Ayling said: 'I am very pleased and relieved by the outcome of today's hearing and feel that justice has been served and I can get closure on what has been a terrible time for me. 'I am desperate to put this ordeal behind me, move on with my life and forge a new path now that the world can see I was telling the truth. I refuse to be labelled as simply a kidnapped model, or a victim forever.' The mother-of-one said she was grateful to the Italian legal system for believing her version of events while 'some seemed to doubt them'. Mr Zancani said it was only fair that Miss Ayling (pictured in June), who appeared on Celebrity Big Brother this year, be cross-examined in person Agent Adrian Sington, who represents Miss Ayling said: 'This has been an incredible burden on her shoulders for the last yearand this is vindication - her story is true. And it means now she can get on with her life.' Miss Ayling was snatched after attending a fake photoshoot last year. She was drugged with ketamine, stripped and handcuffed before being bundled into a suitcase in the boot of a car. Lukasz, who is Polish, then drove her for five hours to a remote farmhouse in Borgial, near Turin, where she was held hostage for six days. The former DHL delivery driver sent an email to Miss Ayling's agent Philip Green, saying: 'I am mid-level hitman with Black Death. She has been taken by our group and will be sold by our group to Middle Eastern buyers.' He sent another email claiming that Black Death - a shadowy online trafficking network - would auction her for around 300,000. On Tuesday, Miss Alying's kidnapper Lukasz Herba, 30, was handed a 17-year jail sentence. Pictured: Miss Ayling in July Lukasz suggested he could act as a mediator, if Mr Green paid a 230,000 ransom in Bitcoin, the online currency. On the second email, Lukasz attached a photo of Miss Ayling wearing a pink bodice. Suspicions over Miss Ayling's version of events arose after it emerged that she had been in contact with her kidnapper in 2015 when she was just 17. The model, of Coulsdon, south London, had accepted a 'friend' request from him on Facebook and sent him at least two messages. In another twist, footage of the pair holding hands during her ordeal was played to the court. The following day, Herba released her at the British consulate in Milan. In his initial statement to police, he said he did so out of sympathy for the fact she was a mother. Herba, who used to live in the West Midlands, said they planned the kidnap together over Facebook so that they could share the ransom. A former soldier jailed in Turkey has revealed he has secretly returned to the UK because he is 'not a criminal'. Joe Robinson, 25, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years' imprisonment after being accused of fighting alongside the People's Protection Units of Syrian Kurdistan (YPG), which the Turkish government considers a terrorist group. The YPG is not banned in the UK and Robinson, from Accrington, Lancashire, said he only spent a month with them in Syria to provide medical support to civilians. Mr Robinson was arrested in Didim, Turkey on a family holiday in July 2017 and spent months in detention but was later released on bail after appealing the conviction in September 2018. Joe Robinson, 25, right, pictured with fiancee Mira Rojkan, 23, has revealed he has secretly returned to the UK after being handed more than seven years in prison in September for allegedly fighting for 'terror group' YPG in Syria in 2015 Mr Robinson, pictured in Syria, said he was 'not a criminal' and could not stay in Turkey to be jailed. He claimed he was 'unaware of the YPG's ideology' and only provided medical help He said he had to 'take matters into his own hands' and left the country because he was 'not guilty'. Mr Robinson, of Accrington, Lancashire, told the BBC he left without permission of Turkish authorities and added: 'I could not accept the sentence and charges as I am not a criminal.' He added he had only 'helped civilians and saved lives' during a month in Syria in 2015. After his arrest his legal team said he was kept in poor conditions at a high-security prison in south-western city Denizli and was 'not in a good place emotionally'. Speaking at the time, his fiancee Kaya Sertkaya told the Guardian: 'He told me he is being kept in one room, alone, for 23 hours a day. He is trying to remain positive but it is difficult because he only gets an hour of fresh air a day and cannot speak to anybody. The former British soldier, pictured in Syria, who served in Afghanistan in 2015, was arrested on holiday in Turkey with his girlfriend in 2017 after officials spotted photos of his time in Syria on Facebook He later fought against ISIS in Iraq, pictured, with the local military for three months in 2015 'When I spoke to him he was uncomfortable saying any more because there were two officers in the room listening to us.' Mr Robinson was arrested in Turkey alongside Bulgarian fiancee Mira Rojkan, 23, who was later given a suspended prison sentence for supposedly engaging in terrorist propaganda, for what she said was sharing pro-Kurdistan messages on Facebook. She previously called for Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to intervene following the sentencing in September. Speaking at the time, she said the Bulgarian state provided her with more support than Britain has her fiancee. She said: 'The UK should stop saying they can't do it, we know they can. We're talking about a veteran.' Mr Robinson said he was unaware of the YPG's ideology when he spent a month in Syria with them in July 2015 during which he did not see conflict. He then spent the following three months in Iraq and fought against ISIS with the Peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurdish military. Ms Rojkan, pictured with Mr Robinson, had previously campaigned for the Foreign Office to intervene and secure his release His family previously spoke of their joy at his return from Iraq in 2015, although his mother Sharon revealed she did not support his actions. Mr Robinson was arrested by police upon his return at Manchester Airport but no charges were brought against him. He had been serving a suspended sentence for grievous bodily harm after admitting breaking a teenager's jaw a year earlier. In September 2014 he received 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, with 240 hours' unpaid work. He travelled to Syria after a warrant was issued for his arrest in July after he failed to appear in court to deal with conditions of his sentence. Mr Robinson joined the Army when he was 18 and toured Afghanistan with the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment in 2012. MailOnline has contacted the Foreign Office and the Home Office for comment. It is understood the British Government did not help Robinson return to the UK. Greater Manchester Police said the matter was being dealt with by the Home Office. The British pensioners arrested with allegedly 2m worth of cocaine on a cruise ship have both served prison sentences for drug smuggling, Mail Online can reveal. Roger and Susan Clarke were arrested in Norway ten years ago after they were found with a hidden quantity of drugs. The expat pensioners were able to leave the country when they were released on bail but were later extradited back to Norway where they were put on trial and given substantial prison sentences. Roger, 72, was jailed for five years while his wife Sue, 70, was given a four-year sentence. Sue - who was rushed to a Portuguese hospital on Thursday for high blood pressure - served three years in a Norwegian jail before being transferred back to the UK where the remainder of her time was behind bars at Holloway prison in North London. Susan and Roger Clarke, 70 and 72, were arrested on December 4 after Portuguese plain-clothes officers boarded the MS Marco Polo as it docked at Lisbon The elderly couple, who had paid 3,000 each for their Caribbean cruise tickets, were remanded in prison following a court appearance the day after their arrest The couple's arrest in Lisbon, Portugal, has not come as a surprise to former friends who were aware of their criminal past. For years many had been puzzled how the pensioners were able to live such a luxurious lifestyle. The only source of income according to one friend was from Roy's pension from his job as a truck driver. 'When we heard that a British couple from Spain had been held for drug smuggling Roy and Susan's name immediately came to mind,' said a former friend. 'We all knew they had been jailed in Norway so it was not a big surprise. We just thought they are up to their old tricks as they have always seemed to be living the high life with lots of cruises each year. A friend of Sue has revealed that she left her first husband and their three teenage children when she met second husband, Roy 'It was always a mystery where they got their money from as Roy had lots of cash and they took many expensive cruises.' The pair are being held in Portugal and Sue was transferred back to prison on Friday after being taken to hospital for high blood pressure on Thursday night. A Portuguese prison service spokesman said: 'She had high blood pressure and as a precaution she was taken to a public hospital. 'She was observed and given medication after which she was taken back to prison where she is doing okay.' A source said: 'She's obviously under a lot of stress at the moment and the high blood pressure is probably linked to it. 'No doctor was available in prison to see her when she had her health scare which is why she was taken to hospital.' Police in Lisbon arrested the couple on December 4 when the Marco Polo cruise ship docked having sailed from the Caribbean island of St Lucia. Portuguese Police, reportedly acting on a tip off from the British National Crime Agency, boarded the cruise liner and arrested the pair in their cabin. The nine kilograms of cocaine, with a street value of 2 million, were allegedly found inside the couple's cabin, hidden in false bottoms of their suitcases. Susan's ex-husband John and her three children Neal, Laura and Katy from her first marriage have refused to make any comment about the arrest. But a close friend said they were fully aware of their mother's previous drug conviction. 'They really have nothing to do with her but this would not have surprised them,' said a close friend. The pensioners, who have been remanded in custody in Portugal, have both previously served prison sentences for drug smuggling after they were arrested with 'a large quantity' in Norway Susan has lived as an ex-pat in Spain with her second husband for the past 15 years. The couple have a three bedroom villa in Guardamar del Segura, just south of Alicante, where many drugs gangs are known to operate. Friends who knew Susan when she worked as a secretary for the now defunct package holiday airline Air 2000 in Manchester said she 'abandoned' her family to begin a new life with Roger. 'She just left the children with her husband and walked out on them. She had to make a choice and she chose to start a new life with Roger and that did not include the children,' said a former work colleague. 'The children were in their teens and you can imagine they were very upset and they have had very little to do with their mother ever since. 'It was a very emotional time for the family but she chose a path that did not include her children. 'From what I have been told there has never been any attempt at a reconciliation on her part. She has remained very distant.' Colleagues who knew Susan in the late 1990s and introduced to Roger described him as a 'brash cockney'. 'He was very cocksure and confident who was full of himself,' said a former friend of the couple. The elderly pair who were allegedly found with four suitcases on board the cruise liner MS Marco Polo (pictured) were released on bail and fled to the Spain. The Norwegian authorities applied for their extradition and the pair were sent back to stand trial 'He wasn't flash with money, but he was full of confidence. All we knew was that he worked as a truck driver going all over Europe. Susan was smitten with him.' The mother-of-three and her first husband had separated after 19 years of marriage when she met Roger, who was living near her home in Cheadle, Cheshire. At the time Roger was travelling all over Europe and living in a one bedroom flat in Whitefield, Manchester. When Susan left the marital home they moved into a flat in Manchester before settling in Orpington, Kent. After the move south Susan failed to keep in close contact with her family, according to a friend. The three children, who were in their late teens when she walked out on the family, only received the occasional telephone call, sources claim. The couple travelled to Norway where they were arrested with a large quantity of drugs. It is not known if the haul was cocaine or another class A drug. They were released on bail and fled to the Spain before they could be put on trial. The Norwegian authorities applied for their extradition and the pair were sent back to stand trial. 'Susan never talks about it and being jailed for drugs smuggling is not the sort of topic that comes up in conversation,' said the friend. 'All I know is that after they were arrested they somehow managed to leave Norway. But the authorities applied for their extradition and they were sent back to Norway and jailed. 'Susan got a four year sentence and Roger was given an lengthier sentence with a year extra.' Members of Susan's extended family from Northampton last saw her in 2013 a year after her release from Holloway prison when she attended a family event. Guests at the event in 2013 remember Susan as being 'very happy and chatty.' However, there was no mention of recently completing her jail sentence. 'There was no mention of her being in jail. It just wasn't talked about in her family. She came on her own to the event as Roger was still in prison. 'Many people at the party knew she had been in jail but she did not show any embarrassment or shame. She just carried on as normal and enjoyed the party. She was quite chatty.' While living in Spain the pensioners made no secret of their love of cruising particularly to the Caribbean. Their latest cruise, which cost 6,000, was due to end in Tilbury. Portuguese Police took the decision to arrest the couple rather than allow them to continue on the final part of the trip. An Anglican vicar has sparked outrage after banning yoga classes from his church hall - because of its 'religious connotations'. Instructor Melissa Makan had held sessions of Yoga Nidra - a relaxation practice with Hindu and Buddhist origins - for the last seven months. However, she got a text 'out of the blue' ending her weekly sessions at the hall of St John the Baptist church in Halifax, West Yorkshire, which regularly attracts up to 17 people. Instructor Melissa Makan had held sessions of Yoga Nidra - a relaxation practice with Hindu and Buddhist origins - in the hall of St John the Baptist church in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Both these images are undated Ms Makan, 37, said the vicar of St John's, the Rev James Allison, had discovered the sessions were being held in the hall when a friend of his wife attended a class. She claimed that she has been banned because he is 'totally against yoga.' The ban is not Anglican Church policy and decisions are left to the discretion of individual vicars. Some half of evangelicals surveyed in Britain said Christians should avoid the activity, according to the Evangelical Alliance. The Rev Allison, 57, later said several members of his congregation had issues with some yoga teachings and the ban followed a Parochial Church Council (PCC) meeting. Ms Makan claims she has attempted to speak to the vicar directly to explain her classes did not promote Hinduism. Ms Makan, 37, (seen in an undated image) said the vicar of St John's, the Rev James Allison, had discovered the sessions were being held in the hall when a friend of his wife attended a class The instructor says she has been 'forced out' after being told the decision was final. Followers in the west often use yoga purely for fitness purposes and Ms Makan says she purposely stays clear of spirituality. Her classes utilise 'deep relaxation' techniques and encourage participants to slow their breathing to embrace mindfulness. Ms Makan said: 'It's ridiculous. I've been teaching for about seven months at the church hall. 'I was told a friend of the vicar's wife said she had been to the class, the vicar found it out was yoga, and he is totally against it. 'I was then told it's not just the vicar but also the PCC. Yoga isn't a religion. If I could explain it to him, or he could come and see it for himself, but they haven't tried to understand it.' She continued by emphasising that her version of yoga did not include any ancient Hindu elements. 'My style and my teachings have zero Sanskrit words, it has no mantras, the language is completely clean and that's because I'm personally not religious. Yoga classes taking place in Coley Community Hall - the name of the venue attached to St John the Baptist. Image undated 'He probably knows more about Hinduism than I do. What he is doing is causing a division when the world is already so divided, he is openly saying that's ok. I just think, what are you representing? 'Even if it does have Hindu origins, so what? Tea has Chinese origins, you could go on forever. Where do you want to start and where do you want to stop? People are people.' The church's decision has sparked outrage from members. Ms Makan said: 'It's ridiculous. I've been teaching for about seven months at the church hall.' Image undated Catherine Horsfall said: 'I have been attending Melissa Makan's Yoga Nidra classes since April and have found Melissa to be extremely professional, friendly and dedicated to helping people with relaxation. 'I am a working mum-of-two, my husband work longs hours, therefore, I get very little time to relax and therefore struggle to de-stress. 'I also have some medical conditions including a chronic migraine and chronic insomnia. The class helps me release stress and tension and has improved the quality of my sleep.' The Rev Allison, who has been the vicar for six years, said there has been a debate within the Christian community for many years as to whether to embrace yoga, which has Hindu origins. 'We had a meeting and took the unanimous decision not to renew the yoga class agreement in the hall,' he said. 'Yoga is a rainbow of different experiences and some of our congregation have issues with some styles and teachings. 'We don't know enough about this class to pick our way through it. She is saying it is not a faith. Some open-mind meditation can be unhelpful to certain people and great care has to be taken over how it is taught. 'We've got no reason to doubt the teacher, but much like in the case of not allowing gambling or alcohol in the community hall, we can't be responsible for that.' The Rev Allison also insisted he hadn't 'kicked [the group] out' but had allowed them time to find a new venue. The classes will resume at Wade House Community Centre in neighbouring Shelf. Donald Trump's longtime lawyer and 'fixer' Michael Cohen delivered a scathing tell-all interview Friday where he said his former boss 'directed' him to negotiate hush payments in order to benefit Trump and his campaign implicating his ex-boss in a crime that is putting him in jail. Cohen told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on 'Good Morning America' that 'of course' the President knew it was wrong to pay off two women, and said he had only an advisory role in the $150,000 that went to former Playboy model Karen McDougal as part of a plan prosecutors say was hatched by Trump, Cohen, and National Enquirer boss David Pecker. Cohen's disclosures came as Trump was in increasing legal peril over the $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, which Cohen made through an LLC he had set up for the purpose, and the payoff to McDougal in exchange for the 'life rights' to her story of an affair. Both women claim they had affairs with Trump, who denies it. Cohen and Pecker have both admitted to the scheme happening and admitted it was a crime - Pecker through a non-prosecution deal and Cohen in his guilty plea. Cohen also provided new details on his role regarding a $150,000 payment that National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. made to bury McDougal's story, and put it in the context of Trump's furious effort to capture the White House. 'Of course' Trump knew what he was doing was wrong, said Cohen, who regretted his 'blind loyalty' to his longtime employer. 'And he was doing that to help his election?' asked Stephanopoulos. 'You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about two weeks or so before the election. Post the Billy Bush ["p**** tape"] comments, so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election,' Cohen replied. 'To help his campaign?' the host inquired. 'To help him and the campaign,' Cohen responded. Cohen: 'People of the United States of America, people of the world, don't believe what [Trump] is saying' Trump 'directed' Cohen to make a $130,000 to Daniels, a porn star, as well as review a separate hush agreement with McDougal, a former Playboy model, 'to help him and the campaign.' That language relates to the felony crime that Cohen pleaded guilty to, contributing to his three year jail sentence. It has also brought Trump in increasing legal peril, with the president's word going up against not only Cohen, David Pecker of the National Enquirer, which reached its own cooperation agreement with prosecutors. Cohen asserted repeatedly that it was not just his word against Trump's, mentioning 'others' who know what happened. 'He knows the truth, I know the truth, others know the truth, and here is the truth: The people of the United States of America, people of the world, don't believe what he is saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds,' Cohen said. 'You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about two weeks or so before the election. Post the Billy Bush ["p**** tape"] comments, so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election,' Cohen said when asked about the payment to McDougal He also sought to rebut the president's claim of Thursday: that he was a victim of bad lawyering, and that Cohen was to blame if any crime was committed, which Trump maintains didn't happen. 'I don't think there is anybody that believes that. First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump,' Cohen said. 'He directed me, as I said in my allocution and I said as well in the plea, he directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters. Including the one with McDougal, which was really between him and David Pecker and then David Pecker's counsel,' Cohen continued. 'I just reviewed the documents ... in order to protect him. I gave loyalty to someone who truthfully does not deserve loyalty.' Cohen's slashing comments aired a day after Trump was revealed to be the third man who attended a 2015 meeting with Cohen and Pecker where they forged a plan to keep the president's alleged affairs out of the press. That 2015 meeting was outlined in a letter prosecutors sent to AMI that revealed its cooperation and statement of facts about the 'catch and kill' arrangement opening up yet another dangerous avenue for Trump. To those who would doubt Cohen due to his lies in the past, the former Trump loyalist pointed to the language Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office put in a sentencing memo vouching for his cooperation. 'Because the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them is credible and helpful. There is a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth,' Cohen said. The explosive interview is Cohen's first since he was sentenced to three years in prison for the McDougal and Daniels campaign finance violations among other crimes. He did not mince his words, issuing the people of America a stark warning. 'Here is the truth,' he said. 'People of the United States of America, people of the world, don't believe what he is saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.' Cohen (right) was sentenced to three years in jail on Wednesday for multiple crimes sat down for an interview on Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos (left) in which they discussed his sentencing and Trump Admitting it is 'never good to be on the wrong side of the president of the United States of America' Cohen also said he is 'angry at himself' for helping Trump because he 'gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty,' he said. Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail on Wednesday for multiple crimes - including bank fraud, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. However he does not have to report to prison in Otisville - around 70 miles from New York City - to begin his 36-month sentence until March 6. In the GMA interview, Cohen expressed his wish to 'not be the villain' of the saga and defended himself against the President, who has publicly attacked him numerous times since he pleaded guilty to a 'veritable smorgasbord' of charges in August. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign and banking violations after he created a shell company to transfer $130,000 to Stormy Daniels (right), who claims she had an affair with Trump. AMI gave $150,000 to model Karen McDougal (left) who claims she had an affair with Trump President Trump (left) and his former lawyer Michael Cohen (right) have traded blows since Cohen pleaded guilty to crimes that implicate the President The crime that is most perilous for Trump - who is said to be 'privately fretting over impeachment' is Cohen's campaign violation payments. Prosecutors say a figure identified as 'Individual-1' Trump 'directed' Cohen to make a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with the president. Trump initially denied any payment, but on Thursday put forward the defense that it was his lawyer's job to know the law. Trump distanced himself from the $150,000 deal in an interview with Fox News on Thursday 'I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law,' Trump wrote on Twitter yesterday. 'He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made.' But Cohen told Stephanopoulos: 'I don't think there is anybody that believes that. 'First of all, nothing at the Trump organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters.' Trump said Cohen agreed to plead guilty before a federal judge 'in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence,' after his former lawyer was sentenced to three years in jail Trump then went on to say Cohen agreed to plead guilty before a federal judge 'in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence.' In his GMA interview, Cohen hit back saying: 'It is absolutely not true. Under no circumstances do I want to embarrass the president. He knows the truth. I know the truth.' The President's Twitter outburst also appeared to dangle a hint that Cohen's family members will be facing prosecution in the future. Cohen, who was engaged in the taxi medallion business with his father-in-law, furiously slammed this comment, telling Stephanopoulos: 'Instead of him taking responsibility for his actions, what does he do? He attacks my family.' An anguished Cohen also said his family come first and he was 'done with the lying'. 'I am done being loyal to President Trump and my first loyalty belongs to my wife, my daughter, my son and this country,' he said. However, Trump's former trusted fixer is not quite done fixing - although his priorities are different now. 'I will spend the rest of my life in order to fix the mistake that I made.' Trump's previous attacks on Cohen, in which he called him 'a weak person and not a very smart person' as well as a 'rat' were repeatedly mentioned during the lawyer's dramatic trial. Cohen also gave an emotional explanation of what it took to provide information against the President. Michael Cohen's weepy statements in court I stand before your honor humbly and painfully aware that we are here for one reason. I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to: The personal ones to me and those involving the President of the United States of America. This may seem hard to believe, but today is one of the most meaningful days of my life. I have been living in personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired. In fact, I now know there is little to admire. Recently the president tweeted a statement calling me weak and it was correct, but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds. I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today and it was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. Seeing the unbearable pain that my associations and my actions have brought to my entire family this is why I did not enter into a cooperation agreement. I do not need a cooperation agreement in place to do the right thing. I will continue to cooperate. I want to apologize to the people of the United States. You deserve to know the truth and lying to you was unjust. I am committed to proving my integrity and making sure history will not remember me as the villain in his story. I'm truly sorry and I promise I will be better. Advertisement He told the courtroom: 'I have been living in personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen I deeply admired. In fact, I now know there is little to admire.' 'Recently the president tweeted a statement calling me weak and it was correct, but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.' 'I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today and it was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light,' Cohen added. The President said in an interview with Fox News yesterday that he made a mistake in trusting Cohen, saying: 'I hire usually good people.' 'I liked him and he was a lawyer,' he said. 'In retrospect I made a mistake.' In the same interview Trump also made a jibe at Cohen by claiming former national security advisor Michael Flynn - also caught up in the Mueller investigation into possible Russian interference in Trump's election - faces no jail time because 'He's a tougher kind of a guy than Cohen.' Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, appeared on CBS 'This Morning' and suggested his client still had more information to share. Davis quoted back a term used by Mueller's sentencing memo, which argued that Cohen's help had been 'core' to his investigation. Cohen himself said of GMA that: 'the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them is credible and helpful.' 'Theres a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth.' Cohen refused to answer specific questions about the investigation, saying he did not want to jeopardize it had respect for due process. But asked whether he thinks the Trump is telling the truth about the Russia probe, Cohen did tell Stephanopoulos simply, 'No.' Ahead of the interview, Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis told Vanity Fair that this interview could make Cohen the 'next generation of what John Dean was to Richard Nixon'. Dean was Nixon's former White House Counsel who covered up the Watergate scandal and then struck a deal with prosecutors to become a key witness in exchange for reduce jail time. He is regarded as instrumental in Nixon's downfall. 'Go to Congress, and turn the television cameras on, and tell us all that you know about Donald Trump over the years. Not just about the Mueller investigationover the years,' Davis told Vanity Fair. Trump, meanwhile has reportedly told allies in his closest circle that he is alarmed by the possibility of impeachment, despite publicly stating that he isn't concerned. On Thursday, the president was revealed to be the third man who attended a 2015 meeting with Cohen and American Media Inc. boss David Pecker where they forged a plan to keep Trump's alleged affairs out of the press. 'The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: David Pecker (left) and Allen Weisselberg (right), both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation,' a friend of Trump's claims The meeting, which was referenced in a letter federal prosecutors sent to National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc, included an offer by the company CEO to 'help deal with negative stories about the presidential candidate's relationships with women'. With Trump identified as having been there, it means he was present when a plan was developed that ultimately led to Cohen pleading guilty to a felony and getting three years in jail. It also led to a cooperation agreement with prosecutors in which Pecker - one of Trump's former best friends - would not be prosecuted 'for any crimes' related to campaign finance law resulting from the meeting. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign and banking violations after he created a shell company to transfer $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump. AMI gave $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who says she had a 10-month affair with the president, and Cohen was involved in discussions relating to this. That could leave Trump as the odd man out if he continues his denials that he did anything wrong and never 'directed' Cohen to break the law and he is now the only person in the room who claims that the hush money wasn't used to impact the outcome of the election. The documents revealing the deal make clear that Pecker agreed to flip - and is still cooperating with federal authorities. They do not say who he and his company flipped on, raising the possibility that he has handed over information on his former friend, Trump. The news comes amid a spike in talk in Washington about the possibility that the president could be charged with directing a federal crime, even if it is ultimately held that he is immune from such charges due to his office and the Justice Department's prior interpretation of the Constitution that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, only impeached. A statement of facts spelled out the $150,000 payment to a former Playboy model and that AMI knew about federal campaign laws at the time it reached the deal After the bombshell development, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: 'The president was clear that he directed no one to do anything wrong, particularly Michael Cohen. He's been clear on this.' DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel determined during the Nixon Administration that a sitting president could not be indicted, although its position has not been tested in court. Amid the swirling developments of the week, one powerful Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, is calling for that interpretation to change. Although the founders included impeachment in the constitution as a political remedy, critics of the status quo have argued they never intended to give the executive a 'free pass' for crimes just by holding office, including alleged crimes that helped a president obtain the White House. Trump's inauguration is probed for 'accepting cash-for-access from the Middle East' Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether some of the top donors to Trump's 2017 inauguration gave money in exchange for access to his administration, policy concessions or to influence the administration. The inquiry is particularly focusing on Middle Eastern donors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. According to The New York Times, investigators are trying to determine whether those nations used straw donors to disguise their donations to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee and the pro-Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, in hopes of buying influence. Foreign nations are prohibited from contributing to federal campaigns, PACs and inaugural funds by law. Federal prosecutors are also examining whether Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. The investigation came partly out of materials seized in the federal probe of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's business dealings, according to The Wall Street Journal. During April raids of Cohen's home, office and hotel room, federal agents obtained a recorded conversation between Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. In their conversation, Wolkoff expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending its money. Wolkoff, a former Vogue staffer who is one of the first lady's longtime friends, left the administration in February after reports her firm, WIS Media Partners, received $26million in payments to help plan the inauguration. She was an unpaid adviser to the first lady. It's unknown when the conversation between Wolkoff and Cohen took place or why it was recorded. Advertisement 'I think the Justice Department needs to re-examine that OLC opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel opinion, that you cannot indict a sitting president under circumstances in which the failure to do so may mean that person escapes justice,' Schiff told CNN on Wednesday, hours after Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other matters. Meanwhile, impeachment a subject Democratic leaders sought to tamp down before the elections continues to hover over the courtroom developments. If it is determined that the Justice Department can't or won't charge Trump, even with a recommendation from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, it would then fall to House Democrats to begin the process that can result in the president's removal from office. Adding to the pressure on Democrats will be the statute of limitations on potential campaign finance crimes. That could allow Trump to avoid facing charges by winning election to a second term even as his subordinate Cohen cools his heels in jail well past the time Trump would again take the oath of office. Former Acting Solicitor General under President Barack Obama, Neal Katyal, wrote Wednesday on Twitter that existing special counsel regulations 'put thumb on scale of Mueller asking Acting AG to indict, as that is the one way Mueller can be sure info he has uncovered in his investigation is provided to Congress. EVEN if Mueller thinks AG would say no, he may need to ask'. Despite the current regulations, Mueller could ask the Justice Department to allow for a waiver to indict, according to Katyal. If the official overseeing the Russia probe refuses, Mueller would be required to report it to Congress which would then have that information as it considered any impeachment proceedings. It is not entirely clear who is even overseeing the probe who would make that call. Trump installed loyalist Matt Whitaker as Acting Attorney General, but Justice has refused media requests for information on whether Whitaker received an ethics review of any potential conflicts, following a slew of comments critical of the Mueller investigation. If he weren't in an oversight role, it could be Deputy Attorney Gen Rod Rosenstein who would make the call. Trump 'and his Republican supporters do not appreciate what legal analysts do: that the president is in serious legal jeopardy and it is mounting,' wrote former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti in Politico. In a statement, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District said it agreed not to prosecute AMI after the company admitted 'that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election'. Representatives for AMI and Pecker could not be immediately reached for comment. Federal prosecutors in New York are also examining whether Trump's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. The investigation is looking into whether some of the top donors to Trump's crowning event gave money in exchange for access to his administration, policy concessions or to influence the administration, according to The Wall Street Journal. Money in exchange for political favors could violate federal corruption laws. There could also be a violation of federal law if funds were diverted from the inaugural committee, which was registered as a nonprofit. 'That doesn't have anything to do with the president or the first lady,' White House press secretary Sanders said Thursday night. 'The biggest thing the president did in his engagement for the inauguration was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office. The president was focused on the transition during that time and not on any of the planning.' Advertisement A fourth victim of the Strasbourg Christmas market shooting died as a French minister denied the shooter was an ISIS soldier but a 'man consumed by evil,' on Friday. The terror group last night claimed Cherif Chekatt was acting for them when he killed four and injured 12 in a gun and knife rampage on Tuesday night. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner dismissed the claim as 'completely opportunistic'. 'We're dealing with a man who was consumed by evil,' he said while visiting the market which re-opened this morning with a heavy police presence as cops investigated if Chekatt had any accomplices. Scroll down for video Neutralised: Three policemen found Cherif Chekatt (pictured is his corpse) walking in a street in the Neudorf area of central Strasbourg at 9pm. They tried to stop him but he opened fire and they shot him dead outside a warehouse The Strasbourg Christmas market gunman was killed by police on Thursday night. Pictured: Police surround the man's body Cherif Chekatt, 29, was being hunted by French police after opening fire at a Christmas market in Strasbourg this week, killing four Cherif Chekatt (pictured is his corpse) opened fire on anti-terror police who tried to stop him outside a warehouse - but was shot dead in the street Chekatt hid out in a warehouse a few hundred yards from his parents' house where he grew up in the northeastern French city. Pictured: The aftermath of his killing A French military patrols during the reopening of the christmas market of Strasbourg, eastern France Today, the market re-opened with a heavy police presence after Cherif Chekatt was killed by armed cops last night The market was back to bustling on Friday morning after the terrorist was shot dead on Thursday night in the street Checkatt, 29, had criminal convictions in France and Germany and was radicalised in jail. Pictured: Armed police at the market Chekatt's fourth victim was confirmed dead by a Paris prosecutor on Friday afternoon and was previously described as being in a critical condition. Two were declared dead at the scene and a third died on Thursday night, with French media reporting a fifth victim remains in a brain dead state. Jubilant crowds shouted 'bravo' and applauded French police last night at the scene where Chekatt was shot dead around 9pm. More than 720 anti-terror cops had been looking for the 29-year-old for two days after he walked through a Christmas market, shooting and stabbing pedestrians before escaping wounded in a hijacked taxi. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz told a news conference on Friday that seven people are in police custody, including four of his family members. 'We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support,' Heitz said. After his escape, Chekatt hid out in a warehouse a few hundred yards from his parents' house where he grew up in the northeastern French city. He was tracked down at 9pm on Thursday when police in a patrol car spotted him on a street in a district where he was last seen after Tuesday night's attack. Around 800 people had called in tips to a hotline after the authorities released his name and photo Wednesday night, including two which Heitz called 'decisive' in finding Chekatt. The information allowed police to home in on an area in the Neudorf neighbourhood, where he tried to escape into a building after being spotted by a patrol. Unable to get in the door, he turned and shot at the three officers with a handgun when they tried to approach. Two returned fire and killed him, Heitz said at a press conference in Strasbourg. A French police officer running during an operation in the Plaine des Bouchers area of Strasbourg near the Neudorf neighbourhood where the suspected ISIS terrorist was gunned down in a shoot-out with cops French police officers raided a warehouse in Plaine des Bouchers area of Strasbourg near the Neudorf neighbourhood where terrorist Cherif Chekatt was gunned down French special police forces secured an area during a police operation where the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was killed last night Chekatt was killed after firing on police officers, who returned fire, as a police helicopter had been circling overhead Questions remain over how Chekatt was able to evade the tight security perimeter set up around the Strasbourg Christmas market which has long been a prime target for jihadist groups. Around 500 police, security agents and soldiers control access at checkpoints on the bridges leading to the river island, a UN World Heritage site, that houses the market. The goal is to 'create a bubble with searches at the entry points,' Mayor Roland Ries said after the attack. Chekatt was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. But Defence Minister Florence Parly rejected criticism that Chekatt's presence on the country's so-called 'S file' of extremists should have prompted a more proactive reaction from the authorities. 'You can't... arrest someone just because you think he might do something,' Parly told Radio Classique on Friday. Strasbourg's deputy mayor Alain Fontanel admitted that despite patrols, plainclothes police, profilers and video surveillance, 'the risks can be reduced, but not eliminated'. 'We can't pat down and search everyone, only carry out random checks,' he said, adding that huge lines at checkpoints would only create a new potential target for terrorists. 'Someone who wants to get in an area this big with a weapon can do it,' he said. Crowds play Bob Marley's I Shot The Sheriff where gunman Cherif Chekatt was killed A French news channel has caused a stir by playing Bob Marley's I Shot The Sheriff in the background to coverage on last night's killing of Strasbourg terrorist Cherif Chekatt. The song was being played by someone in crowds at the scene and was picked up by BFM TV's microphones. The channel let the tune play on air during a discussion of Tuesday's Christmas market attack which killed four and injured 12. It is believed the onlooker chose the song because of the lyric 'sheriff' sounds like the attacker's first name, Cherif. Viewers could scarcely believe their ears. One wrote on Twitter: 'Am I the only one to have heard I Shot the Sheriff behind the footage of the killed terrorist on BFM TV?' Another added: 'Surreal! I shot the sheriff is playing in the background.' BFM has yet to comment. Advertisement Police thanked people who spotted him for helping track Chekatt down tweeting: 'Thank you for your reports that helped to find the wanted individual.' Police officer Emmanuel Georg told BFM TV station that three police officers patrolling the neighbourhood tried to intercept a suspect corresponding to Chekatt's description as he was about to enter a building. The officer said: 'He opened fired, they responded and managed to shoot him down.' A witness said he heard shots and rushed to the window to see what was happening and closed the shutters when he spotted the cornered suspect across the street. Cem Akcakaya said: 'I was very afraid for my children, I told them to go away, and I went to the side.' More than 720 French security forces had been hunting for the 29-year-old terrorist since the bloodshed at a Christmas market in the city on Tuesday night French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in Neudorf in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France Investigators working on the street during a police operation in which the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, who killed four people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, was killed this evening Heavily armed police swooped on the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg Thursday amid a massive manhunt for the Christmas market shooter Forensic and armed officers working at the scene where Chekatt was killed in a shoot-out on Thursday night Checkatt, 29, had 27 criminal convictions in four countries and was radicalised in jail. After his death, ISIS propaganda news agency Amaq claimed he was a 'soldier' of Daesh. Police found weapons and jihadist propaganda in his flat and on Wednesday arrested his parents, two brothers and a friend in connection with the attack. On Friday, they arrested his third brother in Algeria to see if he was involved. The propaganda wing of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, calling Chekatt one of its 'soldiers' who responded to its calls to target citizens of nations in the coalition fighting the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. Among the 12 injured in the attack, two remain in critical condition while three others have been released from hospital, Castaner said Thursday. Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told reporters after news that Chekatt had been killed: 'I think it will help to get back to a life that I would describe as normal. With the death of this terrorist... citizens, like me, are relieved.' Neighbours on the housing estate where Chekatt family's lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes. A leader of a community group said outside Chekkat's apartment building in Strasbourg: 'He was a little gangster, but I didn't see any signs of him being radicalised.' The Paris prosecutor's office said Chekatt's parents and two brothers were being held in custody, while two of his sisters in Paris were also questioned today and one of their homes was being searched. Rescue workers walked past hooded police officers standing guard in Strasbourg, eastern France last night, where Chekatt was shot and killed Hooded police officers block the access in the Meinau district in Strasbourg, eastern France, as the manhunt for the terrorist continued as night fell Police cars at the scene of the shooting in the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg this evening as officers in body armour and carrying rifles hunted for Chekatt throughout the day The Paris prosecutor's office said Chekatt's parents and two brothers were being held in custody, while two of his sisters in Paris were also questioned and one of their homes was searched A hooded police officer holding his gun in Strasbourg, eastern France, as armed officers combed the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg in search for the gunman French President Emmanuel Macron expressed 'the solidarity of the whole country' towards the victims as he arrived for a European summit in Brussels last night. 'It is not only France that has been hit... but a great European city as well,' he added, referring to the seat of the European parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany. A relieved Strasbourg prepared to reopen its popular Christmas market on Friday after French police shot dead the gunman who killed four people there in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Cherif Chekatt was killed late Thursday after a two-day manhunt when a police patrol spotted him on a street in the district where he was last seen after Tuesday night's attack on Christmas shoppers. The lights on the market's towering Christmas tree were illuminated Friday for the first time since the attack ahead of the official re-opening of the market at 11am. 'I hope life will get back to normal but I'm not too sure,' said Franck Hoffmann as opened his wooden chalet offering Christmas candles and ornaments on Friday. 'Business isn't going to be what it was,' he predicted. Questions remained over how Chekatt was able to evade the tight security perimeter set up for an event long known to be a prime target for jihadist groups. Heavily armed French police descended on a street in the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg on Thursday amid a manhunt for Christmas market shooter Cherif Chekatt Officers blocked a street in the east of the French city, though it was not immediately clear whether they had tracked Chekatt down The raid comes two days after Chekatt killed four and wounded 12 after opening fire at the city's Christmas market before fleeing when he was shot in the shoulder Officers sweep the streets in Neudorf, the neighbourhood where Chekatt was dropped off by a taxi driver after his rampage Officers have been searching for two days for any sign of shooter Cherif Chekatt, amid fears he might strike a second time French special police forces were also spotted in the Meinau neighbourhood, close to Neudorf, while heavily armed Around 500 police, security agents and soldiers control access at checkpoints on the bridges leading to the river island, a UN World Heritage site, that houses the market. The goal is to 'create a bubble with searches at the entry points,' Mayor Roland Ries said after the attack, while regional government representative Jean-Luc Marx said he had not determined 'any flaws in the security measures'. Many residents, however, were not convinced after Chekatt managed to slip through the controls with a handgun and a knife. 'It doesn't surprise me,' said Emeline, 38, who works in the city centre. 'You wear a heavy coat, put something in the bottom of your bag. You can bring in what you want.' France's anti-terror prosecutor Remy Heitz is to hold a press conference in Strasbourg on Friday while Interior Minister Christophe Castaner will attend the reopening of the market, which usually draws two million people every year. France has been on high alert since the start of a wave of jihadist attacks in 2015, which prompted a threefold surge in the security budget for the market, to one million euros. French police have appealed for members of the public to look for Chekatt and to contact them if they have information, but not to approach him In total 720 police and gendarmes had been searching for Chekatt across a vast swathe of eastern France, using helicopters, roadside searches and border surveillance Hundreds of troops were also drafted in to guard public places, including Christmas markets, amid fears Chekatt will attack again Anupong Suebsamarn, 45, who was shot dead at the market had not initially planned to be there and was supposed to be in Paris, but changed his plans at the last minute Police warned that Chekatt should be considered dangerous and that members of the public should inform authorities and not approach him Chekatt, a 29-year-old career criminal who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. Strasbourg's deputy mayor Alain Fontanel admitted that despite patrols, plainclothes police, profilers and video surveillance, 'the risks can be reduced, but not eliminated'. 'We can't pat down and search everyone, only carry out random checks,' he said, adding that huge lines at checkpoints would only create a new potential target for terrorists. 'Someone who wants to get in an area this big with a weapon can do it,' he said. Such reasoning was little comfort to the residents and tourists who flock to the Strasbourg market. 'We thought this would happen only in Nice or at the Bataclan, but here it is at home,' said Sylvain, who works at another market in the city centre. He was referring to the truck attack which killed scores at Bastille Day festivities in Nice, southern France, in 2016, and the massacre at the capital's Bataclan concert hall in November 2015. 'I'm not going to forget this anytime soon. It's too painful. I'm not even sure I'm able to cry,' he said. Residents of Strasbourg's Neudorf neighborhood expressed relief, such as Pierre Plasse, who said: 'Everybody's quite happy that the killer has been finally shot. I think now, the city and life can keep going on in Strasbourg.' Yellow Vests urged to stay off the streets The French government has urged Yellow Vest protesters to hold off another round of demonstrations scheduled to take place in Paris this weekend. Spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said ministers decided against banning the marches outright, but asked people to be 'reasonable' amid a massive manhunt for Strasbourg shooter Cherif Chekatt. It comes after conspiracy theorists accused the government of staging the terror attack in order to quash the Yellow Vest movement. Writing in online forums, one protester said: 'You'll see next week there won't be a single yellow vest. Well played, Macron.' President Emmanuel Macron has already offered the marchers a 9billion package of concessions including pay rises and tax cuts. But many complained that the measures were too little, too late, and vowed to continue with weeks of protests, which have often turned violent. 'Our security forces have been deployed extensively these past few weeks,' Griveaux said, while insisting that 'it's not up to us to say if the movement should be called off or not.' In the wake of the Strasbourg attack, 'it would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again.' Last Saturday nearly 90,000 police were mobilised across the country for the protests, with 8,000 officers and a dozen armoured vehicles deployed in the capital where scores of stores, museums and monuments were closed. Advertisement Candlelit vigils were held in Strasbourg for the victims of the shooting on Wednesday. Four people died and 12 more were wounded Advertisement A fascinating collection of images from the American Civil war representing both armies have been brought to life via colorization, giving further insight into the most studied episode of U.S. history. The selection of images taken over the course of the war which ran from 1861 to 1865, show some famous faces including General George A Custer, a commander who rose to fame as an officer during the war. In of one of the historic photographs, a young Custer sits alongside Confederate prisoner Lieutenant James B. Washington, who was one of his classmates at U.S. Military Academy West Point before the conflict broke out. It has previously been reported that when Custer heard about the apprehension of his friend, he appealed for Washington to be his aide while in captivity under the Union army. Also pictured in the collection is President Abraham Lincoln, considered to be one of the great American leaders he steered the nation through the war while defining it as a struggle to save the Union. In January 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in areas still under Confederate occupation, an vital gesture that identified the Union's struggle to end slavery. Almost all of the images show the soldiers posing in their uniform, sometimes holding a form of weapon such as a gun or knife, while another depicts the 7th Illinois Infantry Regiment holding their color guard. The pictures were colorized by Irish artist Matt Loughrey, who has been adding vibrancy to black and white images for years, with some of his work featuring in National Geographic. General George A Custer, pictured right, sits alongside Confederate prisoner Lieutenant James B. Washington, who was one of his classmates at U.S. Military Academy West Point before the conflict broke out. General Custer earned himself an impressive reputation during the Civil War, and is known to have fought alongside some of the conflict's most prominent officers. It has previously been reported that when Custer heard about the apprehension of his friend Lieutenant Washington, he appealed for his former classmate to be his aide while in captivity under the Union army. Although most of the photographers who took photographs during the war are now unknown, Matthew Brady was one of the known few who took this image of General Custer in field uniform The Civil War, which saw the free states of the north fighting against the salve-owning states of the south, raged on from 1861 until 1865, beginning with the Battle of Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay in April of that first year. The event is widely believed to be one of the most significant in American history, with the eventual victory of the Union Army from the north determining the indivisible future of the United States. In this colorized image, Union soldiers from the color guard of the 7th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment are seen posing informally together in 1862. Francis Brownell was a soldier in the Union Army, and was the first to receive the Medal of Honor during the Civil War, after killing James W. Jackson, the man who shot Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, colonel of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, with whom Brownell served. After watching Colonel Ellsworth be fatally shot by Jackson, Brownell stabbed the Confederate sympathizer. However, it took him three attempts to successfully earn his Medal of Honor, having made two failed requests for recognition for his actions. It was only after a third attempt that Brownell was awarded the prestigious award in 1877, more than ten years after the war ended. William Mahone (left) was an American civil engineer and railroad executive who served as a General in the Confederate Army. During his time in the war, he made his mark while fighting in Petersburg, Virginia, where he helped his fellow Confederate fighters to regain some ground against the Union soldiers, eventually resulting in a victory for the Confederates. After the war, he returned to railroad building, and eventually moved on to a career in politics. Meanwhile, Pierre-Gustave Toutant de Beauregard (right), who was known simply as P. G. T. Beauregard, another civil engineer, joined the Confederate Army after briefly serving in the United States Army, and commanded the attack on Fort Sumter. It is believed that this unnamed young soldier, wearing a Confederate chasseur jacket, may possibly have served in a New York regiment. During the Civil War, New York provided more troops to the Union Army than any other state, with the Confederate Army not holding a huge amount of influence over its population. General Albert J. Myer (left) was a surgeon who fought in the United States Army as a general, during which time he organized and commanded the US Army Signal Corps. He then went on to serve in the Union Army, with his new signaling system being put to use during the Civil War - ironically by a Confederate soldier at first, who had served under Myer in the United States Army. Alfred Washington Ellet (right) was a civil engineer and brigadier general in the Union Army who commanded the United States Ram Fleet, a small group of naval rams based on the Mississippi River during the war. Alpheus Starkey Williams was a lawyer, judge, and journalist who served as a general in the Union Army, before later being elected as US Congressman in 1875. At the start of the Civil War, Williams trained the first army volunteers; he then rose through the ranks and was eventually promoted to Major General. In addition to his service records, Williams was also known for having two horses - Yorkshire and Plug Ugly - whom he rode during battle. An unknown Union soldier pictured in a gold gilded frame (left) alongside Captain Augustus C. Thompson, a Georgia native who fought in the Confederate Army. In September 1862, he led his company in the fighting at Crampton's Gap before being seriously wounded. Although severe, Thompson did recover from his injuries, going on to remain in the Confederate service until he resigned in August 1863, two years before the war ended. The Civil War first broke out in April of 1861, not long after President Abraham Lincoln (left) was inaugurated, and it continued throughout the entirety of his presidency. In January 1863 while the Civil War raged on, Lincoln used the war powers of his presidency to push the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution through Congress, permanently outlawing slavery. Cavalry officer John Buford who is best known for having a major role in the first day of the Battle Of Gettysburg on July 1 1863 Almost all of the images show the soldiers posing in their uniform, sometimes holding a form of weapon such as a gun or knife including this unidentified soldier who held a 11' Derringer single shot pistol A Confederate soldier stood holding a bible for his picture while his Union counterpart posed with a blade in his pocket A framed image shows an unknown Confederate soldier wearing artillery uniform and a kepi Thomas P 'Boston' Corbett (left) was a Union army soldier who shot President Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth while James Hepburn Campbell (right) served as a major of the Twenty-fifth Regiment of Pennsylvania Infantry This is the shocking moment a shop worker was battered with a wrench when two men robbed a cell phone store in Philadelphia. CCTV footage shows the pair, one armed with the chrome-colored tool, enter the Star One Wireless store at 5916 Germantown Avenue on Wednesday at 2.18pm. After leaping over the counter, one of the suspects starts hitting an employee with the wrench, while the second offender tells another worker to open the cash register and give them cell phones. Despite being hit several times, the first employee manages to escape, sending merchandise on the counter-top crashing to the ground. The two men approach the Star One Wireless cell phone store on Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, on Wednesday afternoon - one armed with a chrome-colored wrench One of the suspects leaps over the counter before an employee is hit several times with the tool during the robbery, which occurred shortly after 2pm While the store worker is being attacked, the second offender tells another worker to open the cash register and give them cell phones Both male suspects then fled the store on foot with phones worth around $400 and were last seen south on Germantown Avenue then west on Rittenhouse Street. The victim was taken to a local hospital for treatment of injuries sustained during the assault. Philadelphia police have begun an investigation into the robbery. The first suspect is a black male, aged 18 to 25, 6ft to 6ft 2in, and wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, faded gray-colored pants, yellow/black sneakers, dark-colored Jan Sport brand backpack, a dark mask partially covering his face, and armed with a chrome-colored wrench. The second suspect is a black male, aged 18 to 25, 6ft to 6ft 2in, thin build, wearing an army green/gray-colored hooded jacket, light gray pants, blue/white sneakers, and a dark-colored mask. A car smashed into a steamed buns shop today in a city in central China, leaving at least one person dead and eight people injured. The white SUV, driven by a 59-year-old man, ploughed into the food store popular for breakfast at around 10am after hitting a cyclist on an electric bike on the way in Zhengzhou, according to the police. Zhengzhou traffic police are treating the incident as an accident as they carry out further investigation. Online video shows victims lying on the ground and the shopfront completely wrecked after the white SUV smashed into the steamed buns shop in Zhengzhou, China, today In a statement on its official social media account on Weibo, the second squad of traffic and patrol police of Zhengzhou said the crash took place near the junction of Gongren Road and Huaihe Road. Zhengzhou, city of nearly 10 million people, is the provincial capital of Henan. The driver, known by his surname Chen, is now under police control. He is said to be from the nearby city of Kaifeng. Eyewitnesses told BJ News that the car crashed into the shop after coming out of a car park at the other side of the street. Officers from the second squad of traffic and patrol police of Zhengzhou investigate the scene One person was said to be killed instantly and eight people have been injured in the incident It is claimed that the vehicle did not slow down when it hit the store. Online video shows victims lying on the ground and the shopfront completely wrecked in the aftermaths of the event. One person was said to be killed instantly. Police are yet to release more details of the matter. Sydney peak-hour chaos was sparked by a woman who allegedly refused a breathalyser test following a car crash. The woman allegedly refused to take the breathalyser test after the Mitsubishi Mirage she was driving crashed into a stationary vehicle on the Harbour Bridge. The crash happened at 4.30pm on Friday afternoon, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The woman allegedly refused to take the breathalyser test after the Mitsubishi Mirage she was driving crashed into a stationary vehicle on the Harbour Bridge The crash happened at 4.30pm on Friday afternoon The crash caused three lane closures on the bridge and held up traffic in both directions. A five-year-old boy and three-year-old girl were in the car at the time of the alleged crash. The woman has since been arrested. The incident happened as the city was struck with wild thunderstorms and lashed with rain, causing widespread traffic and travel delays. The Bureau of Meteorology released a severe thunderstorm warning for Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night with the possibility of giant hailstones, torrential rain and rampaging winds hitting the coast - as the country's north braces for a category four cyclone. Sydney Airport went into lockdown and more than 30 flights were cancelled. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jordan Notara said the storm travelled through Sydney at about 4pm on Friday. The Bureau of Meteorology released a severe thunderstorm warning for Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jordan Notara said the storm travelled through Sydney at about 4pm on Friday 'Those storms were mostly in the west, but we did see some strikes on the coast,' he told Daily Mail Australia. Mr Notara said there was still a severe thunderstorm warning which could continue into the evening. 'There is still a threat into the evening,' he said. Mr Notara recommended to check weather updates amid the temperamental conditions. Travellers are urged to contact their airlines about cancellations and delays due to the weather. High risk weather warnings have been issued by Spain's meteorology agency, with snow, high winds and waves expected to batter the country. Frightening winds ripped across Andalusia last night, with meters clocking 80 mile per hour gusts, and similar winds are expected in the Balearic Islands. The Islands have been warned that the storm will bring huge waves, after their coast received a pounding in October. Waves are sent crashing into the sea wall in San Sebastian in Spain's northern Basque country on Friday morning Palm trees bend in the ferocious winds on El Zapillo beach in Almeria, Andalusia in southern Spain on Thursday The AEMET put out a picture of snow in San Miguel, Valencia, where four centimetres had fallen yesterday The Spanish meteorological agency put high risk warnings out for the most serious areas in red; including high winds, waves and snow, with many other regions facing moderate warnings as a cold front moves across the country A lone jogger bravely makes his was along El Zapillo beach during strong winds in Almeria, Andalusia, Spain, on Thursday; AEMET predict more rough weather coming in from the sea and have issued warnings In addition the AEMET put out warnings for snow in northern Aragon and Lleida in Catalonia. Around four centimetres of snow reportedly fell in San Miguel in Valencia on Thursday. The northern Atlantic coast including Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Bay of Biscay and the Basque Country is facing yellow warnings for wind. The alerts come as an extreme weather system pushed through the country earlier this week. A passenger checks their phone on a bus in Pamplona as they take cover from the downpour on Thursday Pedestrians ran for cover and took cover under umbrellas as heavy rains fell in Pamplona, northern Spain on Thursday A pedestrian can be seen in the distance with an umbrella and the cobbles are slick with water after heavy winter rains struck on Thursday; more rain is predicted over the weekend Pedestrians ran for cover as heavy rains struck Pamplona in north eastern Spain with more predicted over the weekend. Almeira was rocked by winds which swept over beaches and sent waves crashing into the shore. The Basque Country was also smashed by water which spilled over the sea-wall onto roads Friday morning. A pickup truck smashed through a home in Massachusetts, barely missing a woman who was asleep on her couch, and crashing into the family's Christmas tree and gifts. Police say the crash happened around 11:30am on Thursday in Templeton. Tracy Samuels, who was sleeping on the sofa in her front room says she heard a loud bang, woke up and said, 'Why is there a truck in my living room?' The vehicle came in one wall and out through the other missing her by six inches A nap turned into a real nightmare for a woman in Templeton when she woke up to a pickup truck flying past her face Samuels was rocked out of her deep sleep by the pickup truck that came in crashing through one side of the home and out through the other, missing her head by six inches. 'I heard a loud bang and I woke up and saw the truck in my living room,' Tracy Samuels said. 'Six inches to the left, 6 inches to the right could've taken me out completely.' 'I was like, 'Oh my God,' she said to Boston 25. The truck destroyed the family's Christmas tree and their gifts, but no one was injured in the crash. Samuels, who works as a bus driver, was just trying to get a nap in between routes. Tracy Samuels, who was sleeping on the couch, says she heard a loud bang, woke up and said, 'Why is there a truck in my living room?' She clung to her couch as the truck bulldozed through the wall closest to her, bringing down everything in its path. 'It came fully out the other side. It pulled the whole wall with it. Everything that was there, the Christmas tree, presents, right out through the other wall,' Samuels said. 'I'm counting my lucky stars and thanking God we're all still alive. Right now the only thing that matters is family,' she said. Samuels' 20-year-old son was also home at the time, on the second floor in his bedroom, when the truck came crashing through. The stairs leading down to the living room where his mom was napping no longer exist. After seeing the crash that obliterated the first floor of her home, she got up onto her feet and found the driver who had come to a stop outside. The driver was not seriously injured but was taken to hospital for examination The house has now been condemned after the structure took a serious blow during the crash From the air, the true impact of the accident can be seen with the side of the house demolished 'He saw me and was like, 'Oh my God, are you OK?' I'm like, 'I'm fine. Are you OK?' At that point I didn't think it had set in, of what really happened,' she said. The driver was taken to the hospital for evaluation. No charges have been filed. Investigators aren't sure what caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle. Tracy Samuels' husband, Jason, says the items they lost are replaceable. But he says he and his wife have been together for 27 years, and he can't replace her. 'I'm amazed is a better way to put it. There's not a scratch on her. Thank God,' he said. The home has been temporarily condemned. Theresa May's hopes of passing her Brexit deal suffered a body blow last night as EU leaders deleted compromises from a draft document aimed at helping her. After the PM made a 10-minute plea for help, the other 27 leaders discussed what to do over dinner - after kicking her out to eat elsewhere. Mrs May had asked for legal assurances the Irish border backstop would only be temporary, if it had to be used at all. But the draft conclusions of the summit were then heavily edited, removing references saying the backstop was not a 'desirable' outcome and instead saying it was a crucial insurance policy to 'ensure the integrity of the single market'. The draft promised the EU would use its 'best endeavours' to get a final trade deal - but the final version added a clause saying Brussels would explicitly 'expect the same of the United Kingdom'. The changes mean the final version of the document is likely to be of little help to Mrs May as she fights to save her deal. But the draft conclusions of the summit were then heavily edited (pictured), removing references saying the backstop was not a 'desirable' outcome and instead saying it was a crucial insurance policy to 'ensure the integrity of the single market' After the PM made a 10-minute plea for help in the summit room (pictured) before the other 27 leaders discussed what to do over dinner - after kicking her out to eat elsewhere More than 100 Tory MPs have vowed to vote against any deal containing the backstop, which effectively leaves the UK bound to the EU customs union until a final trade deal can be agreed - a process which could take many years. The DUP hate it because Northern Ireland must also follow many single market rules meaning there is a regulatory divide between the province and mainland Britain. The EU has always insisted the backstop is necessary to ensure there is always an open border in Ireland despite the UK Brexit demand to leave the customs union and strike trade deals. As her hopes of a breakthrough faded, Mrs May had an extraordinary confrontation with Jean-Claude Juncker today after EU leaders dismissed her plea for more Brexit concessions and he ridiculed her negotiating strategy. The changes mean the final version of the document is likely to be of little help to Mrs May (pictured returning to the summit today) as she fights to save her deal The PM - wielding her handbag - was seen locked in a tense standoff with the EU commission chief as the second day of the summit gets under way in Brussels. Although the sound was switched off, TV cameras caught the pair exchanging what looked to be heated words for at least a minute. The apparent clash, which will evoke memories of Margaret Thatcher's 'handbagging' of EU leaders to secure Britain's rebate in 1984, came after Mrs May's latest appeal for 'legally binding' assurances over the Irish border backstop to save her Brexit deal fell flat. France and Ireland are said to have be spearheading the resistance to more concessions at a stormy Brussels summit - even torpedoing calls for another gathering next month to try to thrash out a way forward. The bloc has also pledged to ramp up preparations for the UK crashing out - with threats to charge British holidaymakers 6 to visit the continent if there is no deal. But the EU's stance provoked fury from Brexiteers, while DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted Mrs May must 'stand up' to her counterparts rather than 'roll over as has happened previously'. An elderly couple who have spent years living in a warzone and dodging hand grenades have put their romantic success down to never falling asleep on a row. Barbara Hamilton, 95, and her husband Jimmy, 96, first met in 1940 but did not becoming romantically involved until six years after, when Jimmy returned from serving in India. Speaking about the secret to their success, the couple revealed the last thing they say to each other is 'night night, love' and they never fall asleep without patching things up if they have fallen out. Jimmy and Barbara Hamilton, from Hamilton, Lanarkshire, who are celebrating 70 years of marriage after being married in 1948 The couple tied the knot in 1948 at Stonehouse Congregational Church, Scotland They spent most of their lives in Scotland but moved to the Middle East for 14 years, during a turbulent era when the Colony of Aden became South Arabia - now known as Yemen. Mrs Hamilton said: 'We have really had a very happy life, and an interesting life too, in as much as we've done things that an awful lot of people would never imagine would happen in their life.' Jimmy, who was training to be a plumber, met shorthand student Barbara at night school and invited her to a dance hosted by the Scouts. He arrived at her house during the blackout imposed during the war years, so Barbara could not see who he was. She agreed to go to the party, but received news that her aunt had died and was told to go home rather than stay out with her new lover. Later they bumped into one another at a different dance hosted by the Scouts and hit it off once again. Jimmy and Barbara Hamilton on their wedding day at the Stonehouse Congregational Church, Scotland Barbara, 95, and her husband Jimmy, 96, said they fell in love at first sight Mr Hamilton said: 'I fell in love with Barbara from the minute I met her, and I never stopped. 'I found her speech was to my liking - it wasn't course or sloppy. I asked her home and we've been together ever since.' The couple moved to London after seeing a post for a flat in Islington, north London, which was on offer for a married couple. Their wedding was brought forward from Hogmanay in Janauary to November 6, 1948 and relocated to the capital. They returned to Scotland and in 1949, Barbara gave birth to their only child, Ken. Mrs Hamilton was enthralled by the film Lawrence of Arabia when she was younger and spotted a job advert in the Colony of Aden, now known as Yemen. Jimmy applied for the role in the civil service and the couple relocated, spending 14 years in the Middle East from 1953. The war-torn country became increasingly ravaged by landmines, snipers and hand-grenades became a part of everyday life. Barbara said: 'We knew quite a few people who were killed. 'Sometimes the smell of cordite would come into the house from the window. 'It was a warzone more or less, from the time of our second leave.' The Colony of Aden became the Federation of South Arabia in 1963, and eventually became a part of unified Yemen in 1990. A photograph of Jimmy and Barbara Hamilton from the mid 1980s As the country descended into factional conflict, Arabic graffiti began to appear with slogans such as 'Bring back the dirty British'. Both Barbara and Jimmy learnt to speak some Arabic, which they can still recall to this day, and tune into television programmes on the troubles in Yemen. Barbara added: 'Colonial wives were expected to do good works by helping in clinics. 'We used to give out gee, and at some clinics we used to give out powdered milk - but you never saw thin fathers. 'This is what I feel is still happening in Yemen.' She joked: 'I'd have gone anyway - it was quite a nice film.' They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary with a party at the retirement home where they live in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire - and invited around 70 guests. They dote on their three great-granddaughters, and were joined by relatives for a meal at a nearby hotel. Jimmy said: 'It was a really happy day.' Pro-Leave demonstrators donning yellow vests took over three bridges in central London today as they demanded Britain's exit from the EU. Campaigners chanting 'Brexit now' stopped cars from crossing Westminster Bridge, Tower Bridge and then Waterloo Bridge as Theresa May held crunch talks with EU leaders in Brussels. About 60 people wearing yellow vests similar to those worn during protests in France gathered by the Houses of Parliament at noon to first occupy Westminster Bridge. The protestors were eventually moved on by police after about 15 minutes before heading to Downing Street, where they chanted pro-Brexit songs before moving on to Tower Bridge. While blocking the iconic bridge for about 20 minutes, campaigners were seen angrily remonstrating with motorists and bystanders. The group occupied Waterloo bridge at about 4pm this afternoon, bringing traffic to a standstill for about 15 minutes Pro-Leave demonstrators donning yellow vests took over Tower Bridge (pictured) today as they demanded Britain's exit from the EU While blocking the iconic bridge, campaigners were seen angrily remonstrating with motorists and bystanders Shortly after being moved on by police, the group made its way onto the Southbank before heading to the Royal Courts of Justice and then Waterloo Bridge. The identified themselves as the 'Fighting for Justice' Group, which was set up following the deaths of George Wilkinson, Josh McGuinness, both 16, and 17 year-old Harry Rice. The three teenagers were killed by drink driver Jaynesh Chudasama when he lost control of his Audi A5 trying to overtake another vehicle in Hayes, west London. Former EDL leader and far-right figure Tommy Robinson lent his support to the families by attending the court hearings, which ended with Chudasama being jailed for 13 years. Pro-Brexit demonstrators donning yellow vests blocked Westminster Bridge this morning Protestors chanting 'Brexit now' stopped cars from crossing as Theresa May holds crunch talks with EU leaders in Brussels today The group wore yellow jackets, reminiscent of the gilet jaune movement in France, in which demonstrators donning yellow vests have brought Paris to a standstill on consecutive weekends this month over minimum wage and tax complaints. The protesters, who take their name from the fluorescent safety vests that French drivers are legally obliged to carry, have wreaked havoc on retailers and the tourism industry. Department stores, museums and monuments including the Eiffel Tower had to close. The interior ministry said 136,000 people took part in Saturday's anti-government protests, and more than 1,700 were arrested, with Paris seeing more damage than last week. Protests also took place in Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux. Transport for London tweeted: 'Buses serving routes via Westminster Bridge Road may be delayed because of a demonstration which is blocking the road.' Metropolitan Police told MailOnline it was on the scene of the protest and had made no arrests. About 60 people wearing yellow worker vests similar to those worn during protests in France this month gathered in the road Severe Tropical Cyclone Owen in the north and a low pressure system in the south have combined to wreak havoc across Australia's east coast. Queenslanders braced damaging winds and gusts of up to 170km/h and massive rainfall over night. Now, forecasters warn the extreme weather conditions are set to continue over the weekend. Severe Tropical Cyclone Owen and an associated trough are generating intense wind, rain and storms near western Cape York. Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecaster Nicholas Shera told Daily Mail Australia there is a severe weather warning in Queensland's east with the expectation of heavy rainfall and damaging winds. Scroll down for video Tropical Cyclone Owen in the north and a low pressure system in the south have combined to 'wreak havoc' across Australia's east coast. Some areas of Victoria were hit with flash flooding and as much as 162mm of rain Some areas of Victoria recorded as much as 162mm of rain in less than 12 hours on Thursday Cyclone Owen is expected to move out of the east coast and into Innisfail from early tomorrow morning. WHAT IS A CATEGORY THREE CYCLONE? Tropical cyclones are categorised on a scale of one to five based on severity. TC Owen was classed as a category three on Friday. A category three cyclone would cause: - Some roof and structural damage. Some caravans destroyed. Power failures likely. - A category three cyclone's strongest winds are very destructive winds with typical gusts over open flat land of 165-224kph. However, the cyclone could be re-classified once it actually hits land, which will be either Friday or Saturday. Source: Bureau of Meteorology Advertisement Last night winds of up to 120km/h and gusts of 170km/h hit Queensland as Cyclone Owen, which was still a category three tropical cyclone at the time, passed. Owen has downsized to a category two in the early hours of Saturday morning with wind gusts of up to 140 kilometres per hour, according to a recent Bureau of Meteorology update. 'It's moving pretty quick around 26 kilometres an hour towards the south-east and will continue to weaken during the morning hours,' BOM's Gabriel Branescu said in a statement. Heavy rainfall of up to 200mm and flash flooding are likely as the cyclone continues east of the state. Meanwhile the thunderstorms and heavy rainfall is not set to end anytime soon for those in New South Wales. BOM NSW forecaster David Wilke told Daily Mail Australia, 'We've seen quite a lot of rainfall and severe storms prevalent in the last few days and we're expecting this general pattern to continue in Sydney today.' He said the thunderstorms are likely to continue tomorrow before clearing up on Monday. Forecaster Mr Wilke said 'The two systems are interacting giving a lot of humidity and moisture in eastern New South Wales which explains the mugginess in Sydney' Severe storms (pictured) will passed over Sydney and Newcastle on Friday night BOM forecaster Mr Wilke said the extreme weather results from a combination of a low pressure systems over western NSW and Queensland's tropical cyclone. Powerful Tropical Cyclone Owen has wreaked havoc across Queensland with remote communities bracing for 280km/h Flash flooding in Melbourne forced three residents to get in an inflatable boat and paddle across the city (pictured) Mr Wilke said most rainfall in the last 24 hours was over in western Sydney with 45mm recorded. In Sydney's east, 40-50mm rainfall was recorded. He said the rainfall has been quite 'sporadic'which is quite characteristic with thunderstorms. Bendora dam in Western ACT received 62.6mm of rainfall recorded at 9am on Saturday. Mr Wilke said said the extreme weather results from a combination of a low pressure systems over western NSW and Queensland's tropical cyclone. 'The two systems are interacting giving a lot of humidity and moisture in eastern New South Wales which explains the mugginess in Sydney,' he said. BOM VIC forecaster Chris Godfred told Daily Mail Australia said that severe thunderstorms will continue today and tomorrow in Victoria. He said a severe thunderstorm warning has been issued for central Victoria including Melbourne from this afternoon to tonight. Flash flooding in Victoria forced one south-east resident to kayak to work on Thursday (pictured) Flash flooding hit parts of Victoria due to the severe thunderstorms and rainfall that lashed the city over the last few days Melbourne's inner-city flooded, with pedestrians forced to wade through the high waters Mr Godfred said Olympic Park had the the highest recorded rainfall in Melbourne at 41.2mm. Mt Cowley recorded 72mm of rainfall and Altona 55mm. Mr Wilke said Melbourne was hit with intense flash flooding associated with the thunderstorms and heavy rain on Thursday and Friday. Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk previously said the state has done all it can to be prepared for the severe category four storm. 'We've just been through horrendous bushfires and now we're dealing with a ... cyclone. Owen will wreak havoc across our state and come down the east coast,' the premier told the Seven network on Friday. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the state has done all it can to be prepared for the severe category four storm (pictured: Cyclone Debbie closes in at Airlie Beach in 2017) A personal trainer who sold performance enhancement drugs to keep his clients from leaving him has avoided going to jail. James William Blatch was caught providing prohibited drugs amid fears he was losing clients at Potts Point Anytime Fitness in Sydney in 2015. The 30-year-old appeared at Downing Centre District Court and avoided jail time, instead receiving a two-year community corrections order. James William Blatch (pictured), who sold performance enhancement drugs to keep his clients from leaving him has avoided going to jail The 30-year-old appeared at Downing Centre District Court and avoided jail time, instead receiving a two-year community corrections order Blatch was also charged for four counts of drug possession and was ordered to pay a $1000 fine, the Daily Telegraph reported. The personal trainer began using steroids at just 18 and would frequent Thailand, where they were legal, for months at a time. Judge John Pickering described the 30-year-old's behaviour as reckless and said he didn't consider how serious an offence it was providing testosterone to people. 'Merely because they would look better with more muscles tells me nothing about what it does to the organs inside,' Judge Pickering said. Blatch reasoned his drug distribution due to being scared he was going to lose his clients to other trainers. On three different occasions, the personal trainer unknowingly supplied performance enhancement drugs to an undercover police officer. While in the Anytime Fitness gym, he gave the officer vials of testosterone and boldenone - a drug used on horses. James William Blatch was caught providing prohibited drugs amid fears he was losing clients at Potts Point Anytime Fitness in Sydney in 2015 The fourth time an undercover police officer approached him, he agreed to supplying 30 vials of testosterone, 12 vials of boldenone and 12 vials of nadrolone decanoate for $6000. Nandrolone decanoate is a steroid sometimes used to treat women after menopause. Following the conversation with the undercover officer, police searched the 30-year-old's home and found multiple vials and 1500 steroid tablets. Judge Pickering came to the decision not to imprison Blatch as the case had endured a three-year delay in sentencing, despite his guilty plea. The court also heard that the 30-year-old endured an horrific assault from fellow inmates during his time in jail. Three women were fighting for their lives after being stabbed within four hours of each other in Nuremberg on Thursday night, as the police hunt a knifeman. There was no immediate word on the type of blade used and no suspect was detained despite police hounds and a helicopter being scrambled. Police said there was no indication of terrorism with forces on the continent on high alert after the shooting in Strasbourg. The police put out a description of 25-30-year-old with a light complexion, according to Bild, who reported a single perpetrator. German police officers stand guard at the Christmas market in Nuremberg on Wednesday after the terror attack in Strasbourg on Tuesday; the police said there was no indication of terrorism in Thursday night's triple stabbing in Nuremberg A patrol car whizzes through the St Johannis district of Nuremberg on Friday after three women were stabbed on Thursday night The stabbings took place in the Bavarian city's St. Johannis district; the first victim at around 7pm was a 56-year-old who was rushed to hospital for surgery, after being stabbed by a man who ran off. The next stabbing took place at 10.45pm, according to Bild, with a 26-year-old woman being wounded. Another took place shortly afterwards with a 34-year-old sustaining injuries. A forensics marker sits on a street in the St Johannis district as the suspect or suspects remain at large after the triple stabbing Police said on Friday that all of the victims had been treated successfully and their lives were no longer in danger. They said that they could not rule out the same person having carried out all three attacks and this morning they put out just one description of a suspect. Police beefed up their presence in the area on Friday, with both uniformed and plainclothes officers. A Russian billionaire embroiled in Britain's costliest divorce has had his 5m helicopter seized and sold with the money going to his ex-wife. Bailiffs acting for Tatiana Akhmedova took control of the Eurocopter when it landed in Turkey. Her ex husband Farkhad Akhmedov, 62, had used the six seat chopper to fly from his 300m super yacht Luna which is at the centre of an extraordinary tug of war between the couple. The helicopter was seized as part of a High Court order that all assets belonging to the oligarch be sold until he pays his wife half his share of his estimated 1bn fortune. Two years ago a court ruled 42-year-old Tatiana was entitled to 453m. Akhmedov, who made his fortune in oil and gas, has refused to recognise the British divorce court ruling and refused to hand over a penny of the settlement. Russian billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, embroiled in Britain's costliest divorce, has had his 5m helicopter (pictured) seized and sold with the money going to his ex-wife Akhmedov (pictured), who made his money in oil and gas, is fighting a High Court order to award his ex-wife Tatiana 453m of his 1bn fortune, insisting they are already divorced Akhmedov's ex-wife Tatiana (above) successfully won a freezing order on his worldwide assets after he refused to pay her the sum awarded by the court. As a result of the court order her ex-husband's helicopter was seized in Turkey and sold with money going to Tatiana He claims he divorced his wife in Russia over a decade ago and the British court judgement is invalid. His prize asset, the super yacht Luna, is being held in Dubai while lawyers wrangle over who has ownership. Lawyers for mum-of-two Tatiana said the sale of the helicopter was a sign that the financial net was slowly closing in on the oligarch. 'The net has been closing on Mr Akhmedov for a while now, and the sale of the helicopter proves that our enforcement methods are not just working but bearing fruit,' sad Jonathan Wild from Isle of Man based law firm Callin Wild. 'We have a long way to go until the full judgment debt is satisfied but we move closer to seizing and beginning to liquidate the remaining assets everyday.' The Eurocopter EC155 was seized earlier this year in a complex operation when it landed at an airport near Bodrum in Turkey. Mr Akhmedov says he has given millions to his ex-wife so she can still live in luxury. Tatiana, a British citizen, was given the family's 20m Surrey home (pictured) and a 30m art collection While they were together, the Akhmedov's lived a life of luxury flying around the world to their various mansions in a private jet (pictured) with an army of domestic staff in tow Ballifs acting for the billionaire's ex wife instructed the pilots to fly the chopper into nearby Greek airspace before flying back to the Isle of Man. The helicopter was sold for just under 5m. Other assets belonging the Akhmedov that have been seized include a private jet and motor yacht. Lawyers for the couple are engaged in a long and costly legal battle to gain control of the mega yacht Luna. Akhmedov has vowed to sell it for scrap rather than hand control to his ex-wife. Luna, a mega yacht built for Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich before Akhmedov bought it in 2014, has at least nine decks, space for 50 crew, two helipads, a vast swimming pool and a mini submarine. Since the beginning of the year it has been impounded in Dubai. A spokesman for Akhmedov said the net value of the helicopter was 'negligible' in the context of the sums his former wife had spent on legal actions around the world. As a result of the High Court's ruling, Mr Akhmedov had his 300m superyacht (pictured) -once owned by friend Roman Abramovich - seized in Dubai as the pair argue over ownership As one of the world's super yachts, the 115m boat called 'Luna' boasts a 20-metre outdoor swimming pool (above), a helicopter landing pad and a mini-submarine 'The sale of this helicopter amounts to little more than small change for Tatiana and her backers Burford Capital in comparison with the many millions invested in their legal actions around the world,' they said. 'Since the helicopter had been in the UK for some considerable time, this outcome is completely unsurprising. 'There is very little equity in its sale and its net value is to Tatianas legal and financial backers is negligible. Meanwhile, Mr Akhmedov and the Akhmedov family trust remain confident that their legal efforts will continue to be successful in preventing the seizure of any meaningful assets. 'Those assets are for the benefit of the whole family and Mr Alkhmedovs dependents, not simply for one greedy ex-wife. Advertisement Londoners are continuing to mock the New York Times with hilarious stories more than 24 hours after the newspaper requested for readers' experiences of 'petty crime' in the capital. From coffee controversies to overpriced pints, brazen queue jumpers to awkward eye contact on the underground, residents of the capital are proving relentless in their sarcastic send-ups of the original message. One such response said: 'I offered my American friend a cup of tea and she said "sure" instead of "yes, thank you"... things have never been quite the same since.' Another said: 'I was walking down Regent Street and saw a sign in the shop saying "coming this Fall". It is not Fall, the correct term in autumn. What next? Studying Maths without the S?' The NY Times appeared to take the mocking in good grace however, simply posting a GIF captioned 'Touche' earlier today, but even that was used as a springboard for more tongue-in-cheek comebacks from witty Londoners. The New York Times has finally responded to Londoners' hilarious reactions to its tweet asking for their experiences of petty crime in the capital after a day of being mocked mercilessly on Twitter. Responding 24 hours after the original tweet, the NYT simply posted a GIF captioned 'Touche', but even that was used as a springboard for more tongue-in-cheek comebacks More Britons continue to pile in with their brilliantly sarcastic experiences of crime in London including overpriced pints, brazen queue jumpers and awkward eye contact on the underground during rush hour One social media user said of the thread: 'This made me laugh so loud today, although did ensure I was in a private space and no one could hear me. Best of British', while another said: 'You've been British-ed!' Meanwhile more tweets directed at the original New York Times request continue to flood in. One said: 'I was in a cafe that was advertising Afternoon Teas. It was around 3pm. An American couple came in and ordered coffee. Being British the other customers all pursed our lips & gave each other knowing glances. I have reported the matter as a diplomatic incident'. Meanwhile more tweets directed at the original New York Times request continue to flood in. One more posted: 'I offered my American friend a cup of tea and she said "sure" instead of "yes, thank you"... things have never been quite the same' And another added: 'I inadvertently tried to hail a black cab that had its light off. Passers by tutted. After that I then had to walk into the nearest shop and pretend to be interested in buying vaping equipment for 10 minutes until anyone who had witnessed my faux pas had left the vicinity.' The tidal wave of mockery initially began yesterday after a NYT journalist asked Londoners to describe their experiences of 'petty crime'. In an article linked to the tweet, written by the Times's London correspondent Ceylan Yeginsu, the journalist claimed that a decade of austerity has left police in the capital 'unable to pursue most suspects involved in minor property crimes'. Ms Yeginsu put out a call for people to re-tell their stories of the police's failure to deal with so-called 'petty crimes', and said she had been the victim of a burglary herself during her time in London. The New York Times - which recently claimed all Londoners subsisted on boiled button and porridge until well into the 2000s - received a series of mocking responses after asking Londoners for their tales of petty crime 'Only 4 percent of all domestic burglaries in London were solved between April 2017 and April 2018,' Ms Yeginsu's appeal read. 'While the number of suspects caught for all crimes has halved over five years to 9 percent. 'I am a London-based reporter for The Times who has covered crime in Britain for the past two years. Two months ago my apartment was burgled, and I have had my own experience with this. 'If you live in London and have had issues with the polices response to petty crime, I would like to hear about your experience.' Unfortunately for Ms Yeginsu, her tweet promoting the campaign on the New York Times's Twitter page quickly descended into farce as British social media users unleashed a tsunami of sarcasm. One woman recounted the story of being handed a Darjeeling tea despite ordering an Earl Grey. And there were plenty of tall tales, such as a man who claimed to have been pick-pocketed by a Fagin-like old man and his gang of orphan children. New York v London: Which has the highest crime rate? Earlier this year, London's murder rate overtook New York City's for the first time ever. February marked the first month in history that London had more murders than the American city with a total of 15 homicides. Out of the 15 killed, nine were aged 30 or younger. According to a report by the Sunday Times, New York City's murder statistics have decreased by 87 per cent since the 1990s. Donald Trump has previously claimed knife crime in London is out of control and the capital is 'like a war zone' Meanwhile, London's rate has grown by nearly 40 per cent in just three years, not including deaths caused by terrorist attacks. But in July it was reported that in every other month of 2018, there has been more murders in New York than London, despite it having a smaller population. With a population of around 10.6 million, London is considerably larger than the Big Apple, which has around 8.6 million residents. Between January and June, there were 80 homicides in London, reports the BBC. But in the same six months, New York has had almost twice as many murder cases 141 so far. The February statistics prompted Donald Trump to wade into the debate during a speech to the National Rifle Association in May, claiming there was blood all over the floors of a London hospital, although he failed to declare which one. He added: They say its as bad as a military war zone hospital. Knives, knives, knives, knives.' Although New York last year had nearly double the number of murders than London, experts are concerned the gap is steadily closing. Advertisement But perhaps the worst misdemeanour of all perpetrated by one Londoner on another was recounted by @olibradley, who wrote: 'I asked someone how they were... and they actually told me.' Noting the enduring importance of queues to Brits, @Peta-Moxon tweeted: 'When I worked in London someone pushed in front of me in a queue.' 'Someone held the door open for me when I was still ten feet away and then I had to run and pretend I was grateful. I was sweaty and fuming,' @harriet1marsden wrote. 'I said 'after you' to a woman entering a cafe and instead of saying 'no no please, my good lady I insist, after YOU' she went in, ordered exactly what I was going to order for lunch, and got the last one,' wrote Twitter user @ericabuist. 'I almost tutted but I am not an animal,' she said. And @jimxant pointed out that London's wildlife aren't exempt from criminal activity. 'I once saw a pigeon nick a mayonnaise sachet from an old couple on a park bench,' he reported. The unspoken laws of using the London underground featured highly in the replies as well. 'Someone made eye contact with me on the tube once. The culprit is still at large, despite a massive police operation,' wrote @ralasdair. 'Once on the Northern Line in Clapham a small group of people spontaneously sung a christmas song - council and police failed to issue ASBOs to any offenders,' replied an aghast @SamANutt. And @chazpLDN tweeted: 'A charlatan didn't have his Oyster card ready this morning before getting to the front of the underground queue. Audible tutting ensued.' Then there were a suspicious number of 'crimes' which mirrored fictional events. 'A woman with a flying umbrella and her grubby friend accosted me and tried to shove me into a floor painting,' wrote @juliamcfarlane. The expense of living in the UK capital came up again and again as something which should be made illegal. 'My landlord charges us 2,000 a month in rent and a lady from the council just told me my bedroom is too small to be legally occupied,' tweeted @indiablock. And @GarethAOwen1 wrote simply: '6 for a pint. Daylight robbery!' Meanwhile, @eapbee said: 'The Rivoli Bar in the Ritz charged me 90 for a Negroni. Incredible scenes.' Neither the New York Times nor the journalist who made the appeal have responded to the overwhelming number of case studies they have received. Advertisement This adorable set of pictures shows a pride of lions cuddling up for a family photo at a wildlife park in South Africa. In one of the cute images the largest male lion is lying with his eyes closed while a female and another male rub their faces against him and a younger animal climbs on top. Meanwhile in another picture the animals strike a more menacing pose with the leading male baring his teeth while the female gazes watchfully ahead. Jihad Adnan, the Lebanese photographer who took the pictures, said he was expecting the big cats to fight but was delighted by the heartwarming display he saw. The 37-year-old, who has been a nature photographer since 1999, snapped the images at a lion park in Johannesburg, saying: 'I saw the lions getting close to each other so I thought they would fight. 'But suddenly, after the lioness came with her cub, they started licking each other. I felt the love between them - the lion in the middle is the one saving this family.' Family photo: A male lion lies on the ground with his eyes shut with another male licking against his face, a female rubbing her nose against him and another, younger lion climbing on top of her at the animal park in South Africa Keep away: The lions put on a sterner look as the largest male lion bares his teeth and the female gazes straight ahead Scary face: The male opens his mouth wide and shows off his teeth while he lies on his side with the other lions around him Upside down: The male lion relaxes on the ground out while a younger animal lies on his back and licks the larger one's mane A fatal crash involving Montana billionaire Dennis Washington's 332 ft yacht and a fishing boat which killed a man is being investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The collision between Washington's The Attessa IV, worth an estimated $150 million, and the commercial vessel also injured another man who was on board the fishing boat. The Attessa collided with the Prowler off the coast of Imperial Beach, San Diego on October 26 and the Coast Guard was called to the scene of the smash at 7.50pm, USA Today reports. According to officials across the two boats there were 29 people on board and Washington, founder of the Washington Cos. and owner of Montana Rail Link, was not on the boat at the time of the crash. A fatal crash involving Montana billionaire Dennis Washington's 332 ft yacht (pictured) and a fishing boat which killed a man is being investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard Richard Neff, 66, from San Clemente in California, who was retired following a 40 year career in construction, was airlifted from the Prowler to San Diego hospital but later died after suffering head trauma. Two other victims of the collision were injured on board the Prowler during the crash. The boat was extensively damaged on the right had side, and its captain waited aboard the vessel until commercial salvage arrived. The Coast Guard cutter Sea Otter, the United States' Marine Protector class, stayed with the captain until this point. Following the collision The Attessa sailed back to San Diego with its 10 passengers, the Coat Guard reported. Washington (pictured) has previously been listed by Forbes magazine as Montana's richest person According to officials across the two boats there were 29 people on board and Washington, founder of the Washington Cos. and owner of Montana Rail Link, was not on the boat at the time of the crash It has been suggested by officials that the investigation into the boat crash could take between six months and a year to finalize. Washington Cos. Executive Vice President Tim McHugh said that they were 'cooperating fully' with the investigation but were waiting on more details of the crash to better understand what occurred. Washington has previously been listed by Forbes magazine as Montana's richest person, estimating that his net worth is $5.9 billion. He and his wife, Phyllis, have put around $840 million into their foundation over the years, which has issued around $300 milion to almost 1,000 organizations. The Attessa, previously dubbed Evergreen, was sold to Washington in 2007 proceeding three and a half years of renovation. An advert which featured a picture of a topless Father Christmas has been banned amid claims it sexually objectified the 58-year-old model. The dating app advert showed Paul Orchard, wearing braces and holding a phone with the caption: 'Pull a cracker this Christmas.' Exterion Media, Transport for London's advertising firm, said the caption must be changed to something 'less suggestive' and the model must be covered up. The advert by Lumen was ruled as 'objectifying' the male model in the advert Exterion Media, Transport for London's advertising firm, said the caption must be changed to something 'less suggestive' and the model must be covered up. Pictured: The new advert released by Lumen Lumen, a dating app exclusively for over-50s, was accused of not being 'compliant' with the Committee of Advertising Practice guidelines and 'could be seen as objectifying the man and his physique'. Model Mr Orchard said: 'I'm surprised these ads have been banned, especially when you consider the other images you regularly see on the Underground of younger people wearing much less than I am. 'We worked hard to ensure the photographs were tasteful as well as fun, and it's a shame TfL don't see it that way.' Tube bosses have clamped down on what they deem inappropriate adverts, but Lumen's founders have labelled the decision as 'absurb'. A more 'appropriate' version of the advert is now on display in Euston station despite the topless version appearing on other parts of Transport for London. Billboards with the original image and tagline will appear across the country from next week. Co-founder Charly Lester said: 'This campaign is only meant to be a bit of fun. I didn't think it would get banned, I thought it was funny. I don't think it is rude it is cheeky. 'Our app is all about anti-ageism, body confidence and being yourself, so to have this banned is a bit depressing. It's ridiculous and absurd.' The advert has already gone up in parts of London, but a new version will soon be rolled out Exterion rejected the advert due to 'social responsibility and potential offence', emails seen by the Evening Standard revealed. Lumen had to use another version with the model in a red three-piece suit with the tagline 'Santa, Baby.' Ms Lester said the 'sensitivity' was born out of the controversy of a Protein World advert in 2015 which had a toned woman wearing a bikini asking 'Are you beach body ready'. TfL said if an advert is deemed 'not compliant' they work with advertisers to amend it. The Committee of Advertising Practice said adverts which reinforce gender stereotypes, like men struggling with household tasks or women as bad drivers, will be banned from next June. President Trump's two ex-chiefs of staff posed together at the White House Christmas party last night amid speculation over who will be brave enough to take on their former job. Reince Preibus - who served as under Trump between January 20 and July 31 2017, posted a photograph of himself on Twitter with his successor John Kelly, whose resignation was announced by the president on December 8. 'Having a great time at the Whitehouse Christmas Party!' wrote Preibus, who handed in his resignation last year after the shortest tenure of any non-interim White House Chief of Staff in American history. Donald Trump's former chief of staff Reince Preibus (right) posted this photo at the White House Christmas party last night with John Kelly, his successor who will be leaving in the new year Reince Priebus (left) served as Trump's first chief of staff and was followed by John Kelly (right) Photographs from the evening showed Trump and first lady Melania, as well as the President's children from his previous relationships, enjoying the evening with their special guests. Earlier Thursday, Fox News reported that Trump had cancelled the holiday party invitation for the press. The annual event gave members of the press corps a chance to dine in the White House, wander around the mansion and take photos with the president and first lady. But the president has attacked the media throughout his time in office, calling the press 'dishonest, 'lying' and slinging accusations of 'fake news'. Last year, Trump held the party but refused to pose for photos and CNN boycotted the event 'in light of the president's continued attacks on freedom of the press'. This time he has reportedly pulled the plug on it altogether, although the White House has not confirmed this. The Presidents daughters Tiffany (left) and Ivanka (right in pink jumper) were both in attendance The first family and guests dined on extravagant food at the annual holiday gathering at the White House on Thursday Meanwhile it is unclear who will replace current chief of staff Kelly, who is on the brink of leaving. The president confirmed on Saturday that Kelly would be out by year's end and said a replacement would be announced in a matter of days. However his plans were turned upside down when Trump's first pick for the position, Nick Ayes, unexpectedly turned the his proposition down. The White House subsequently said that Kelly would be staying on until early January 'at least' to the manage the West Wing while the president conducts his search for a replacement. Meanwhile President Trump also told the only Republican openly expressing interest in the chief of staff position that he wants him to stay in Congress. Politico reported on Monday that North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a leading pro-Trump Republican congressman, was interested in the gig that nobody else seems to want. 'Serving as Chief of Staff would be an incredible honor. The President has a long list of qualified candidates and I know he'll make the best selection for his administration and for the country,' Meadows told the publication. But the White House said in a statement on Wednesday said that Trump had ruled out Meadows for the top White House position. Nick Ayers (left) took himself out of the running for the chief of staff job but Rep. Mark Meadows (right) said he was interested after a report he didn't want the gig 'Congressman Mark Meadows is a great friend to President Trump and is doing an incredible job in Congress. The President told him we need him in Congress so he can continue the great work he is doing there,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. The announcement makes it anyone's guess as to who Trump will select to be his next chief of staff after suddenly announcing the job was coming available. Amid reports that nobody wants the position - sometimes considered the second most powerful role in the nation - Trump said the 'fake news' media was getting the story 'purposely wrong.' The president claimed Tuesday that more than 10 people were competing for the chief of staff job. He wrote on Twitter: 'Many, over ten, are vying for and wanting the White House Chief of Staff position. 'Why wouldnt someone want one of the truly great and meaningful jobs in Washington.' However nobody appears to be in the lead and it is unclear how much any of them actually wants to do it. Everyone Trump is thought to be considering is a man. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (left) and Director of Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney (right) are said to be in consideration for the chief of staff job The list includes Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Director of Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, and the United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, according to the New York Times. President Donald Trump told reporters he was 'in no rush' to fill the spot, after his succession plan blew up on Sunday evening. 'We are in no rush. Over a period of a week or two or maybe less we'll announce who it's going to be, but we have a lot of people who want the position,' Trump said in a Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders on Tuesday morning that Kelly attended. He said, 'A lot of friends of mine want it. A lot of people that Chuck [Schumer - Senate minority leader] and Nancy [Pelosi - House speaker-designate] know very well want it, I think people you'd like,' Trump said, talking up the position. 'We have a lot of people that want the job of chief of staff. So we'll be seeing what happens. We're in no rush.' The reason, Trump said: Because we have a wonderful chief of staff right here.' Trump confirmed what counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway slipped into an appearance on 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday morning just days after the White House said Kelly's tenure was nearly over. 'He will stay on the job through January 2nd at least, and I think there were will be a very peaceful and pragmatic transition to the next chief of staff,' Conway said. 'But the president has many people who want to serve here.' Trump is said to be considering former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (left) and United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (right) Later in the day, the president held a bill signing in the Oval Office that Mulvaney and Meadows were a part of. The two men allegedly competing for the same job who worked closely together in Congress stood side by side as the president talked. By Wednesday afternoon, the White House had announced that Meadows, at least, was out of the running. The public unraveling of Trump's search is already provoking ridicule among Democrats. 'Help wanted: White House Chief of Staff. No experience necessary. Must respond well to infighting, backbiting, dishonesty and dishonor,' quipped Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who is set to take over the House Intelligence Committee. Contenders for Trump Chief of Staff Steven Mnuchin: Treasury secretary who has a previous relationship going back with Trump to when they were both businessmen in New York; Trump attended his wedding Mick Mulvaney: A former House member who joined Trump's administration to lead the budget office; he has pushed the president to the right fiscally Robert Lighthizer: As U.S. Trade Rep. Lighthizer has pushed Trump to talk tough on trade, particularly in recent negotiations with China Matt Whitaker: Trump named him acting attorney general after Jeff Session left the top job at Justice and is said to get on well with him Chris Christie: The former governor of New Jersey has had his name bandied about for a number of administration jobs, including attorney general David Bossie: He is the president of Citizens' United and co-wrote a book with Corey Lewandowski about working on Trump's campaign Advertisement Jessica Starr, 35, died on Wednesday by hanging herself A beloved Fox TV meteorologist and mother-of-two who killed herself on Wednesday is one of 11 people to have taken their own life after undergoing Lasik eye surgery. Jessica Starr, 35, was found dead on Wednesday night. She was married with two young children and had a successful television career. Questions remain over why she killed herself but her final public remarks were to tell fans that she was still struggling to recover from Lasik SMILE eye surgery. She underwent the widely performed procedure in October to correct her nearsightedness so that she could stop wearing contact lenses. Ordinarily, patients take a few days to regain their sight but Starr complained on November 13, a month after her procedure, that she was still having trouble. On Friday, the Oakland County Medical Examiner confirmed her manner of death. A spokesman told Radar Online the coroner found a 'gruesome scene'. It is not yet known what time she was found, where she died or who found her. WHAT IS LASIK SURGERY? LASIK, an acronym for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, is the most commonly performed laser eye surgery to treat nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism. It reshapes the cornea to allow light to be better focused onto retina for clearer vision. There are other forms of laser eye surgery (PRK and epi-LASIK), but LASIK accounted for 596,000 of the 604,000 laser eye surgeries in 2015. HISTORY OF LASIK: 1. The first laser & the first technique Laser eye surgery came into being after IBM created a new excimer laser to use for manufacturing devices in the early 1980s. Three IBM researchers decided to see if it could be used for other things. In 1981, after Thanksgiving dinner, they tried it on the turkey bones, and it did indeed produce a clear incision. In 1987, they were still experimenting when ophthalmologist Stephen Trokel of Columbia University tried to use an excimer laser on a patient's eyes - and it worked. That same year he patented his technique as Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK). Then he learned of the IBM group. He contacted them to collaborate on the first medical paper showing a laser could sculpt the cornea to prevent refraction. 2. LASIK: adding a surgical slice to the laser for quicker recovery In 1991, two ophthalmologists Stephen Slade and Stephen Brint tried a new technique, devised and patented in 1989 by hall-of-famer retina specialist Dr Gholam Peyman. The technique involved making a surgical incision first to create a thin flap in the cornea. Then the laser is beamed at it to better reshape the cornea. This localizes the beam, making recovery quicker. 3. Approval: PRK first, then LASIK PRK was approved by the FDA in 1995, then LASIK in 1996. Now LASIK is easily the most popular. Advertisement An alarming number of Lasik patients suffer from agonizing, chronic pain following the surgery, according to Paula Cofer, the founder of a support group called Lasik Complications, which strives to educate potential patients about the risks of the surgery. In October, Canadian father-of-two Paul Fitzpatrick killed himself and blamed 20 years of post-Lasik pain in his suicide note. It remains unclear if Starr took her life as a direct result of complications from the surgery. Fitzpatrick was unequivocally clear when he died. He wrote a suicide note where he said he had been suffering excruciating pain for two decades years. Paula Cofer, who underwent Lasik in 2000 and has suffered from severe dry eyes as a result, told CTV that at least nine others she knew of had committed suicide after having the procedure. Other doctors have specifically warned against the procedure. Among them is Dr. Edward Boshnick of the Global Vision Rehabilitation Center who writes on his website: 'Over the years I've had the misfortune of examining hundreds of patients who have lost quality vision and suffered severe depression as a result of lasik surgery. 'Two of these patients were so depressed by their post-surgical vision loss that they attempted suicide. In fact, there are several documented cases of post-lasik suicides. 'My feeling is that lasik surgery and other refractive surgical procedures exist solely to enrich doctors and the corporations that manufacture the laser equipment and not to benefit mankind.' Starr worked for WJBK Fox 2 since 2011. On Thursday morning, her colleagues cried as they announced her death on the air. Starr, whose married name was Rose, left behind two young children and her husband of eight years, Daniel. Her devastated colleagues at the WJBK news station, where she had worked since 2011, announced her death on Thursday morning. 'Last night we were informed of the heartbreaking news that our friend and colleague, meteorologist Jessica Starr took her life,' the station said in a statement. 'All of us here at FOX 2 are in deep shock and cannot believe that such a wonderful, bright and intelligent individual will no longer be with us. 'Her family and friends will be in our thoughts and prayers in the coming days as we all deal with our grief.' Starr was a well-known television meteorologist who worked for Fox 2 in Detroit. She had returned briefly to work in November for one day but had to take time off again afterwards because she was still struggling from the surgery Over the last month, Starr said she had been facing 'challenging times' since undergoing Lasik SMILE eye surgery. The procedure was approved by the FDA in 2016 and is carried out by doctors across the country. It involves the surgeon using a femtosecond laser to create a small piece of tissue within the cornea then, using the same laser, they make an arc-shaped incision on the cornea's surface to extract the tissue through and discard it. It changes the shape of the cornea and corrects nearsightedness. Ordinarily, patients' incision heals within a few days, without stitches, and their vision is quickly improved. It is unclear where Starr underwent her procedure in Detroit. She had the surgery in October and took four weeks off then returned to work for one day in November but it was too much of a struggle for her and she was back at home the next day. Starr's colleagues announced her death tearfully on Thursday morning Starr and her husband Daniel have two young children. They are shown with their kids, in a photograph she shared with Fox fans on Facebook, and her parents Starr and her husband Daniel had been married for eight years before she took her own life In a video uploaded to her Facebook page on November 13, the day she went back to work, she was downcast as she asked viewers for their prayers and well wishes. 'I am struggling a little bit so I need all the prayers and well wishes. This is a hard go. 'If you have any tips I'd appreciate it, I'm trying to stay strong and get through this recovery. 'Thanks again for all the wishes, I'm excited to be back I just want to get my vision back so I can keep you guys smiling,' she said. The following day, she posted that she had not yet been ready to go back to work. Yesterday was a struggle for me. I really wanted to come back but I need more time to recover. 'Please keep me in your thoughts during this challenging time. Will keep you updated,' she said. It was her final post. In a video she uploaded on November 13, Starr said she was having a 'hard go' recovering from the surgery and asked fans on Facebook for their prayers and well wishes Just weeks earlier 56-year-old Fitzpatrick killed himself under similar circumstances 20 years after undergoing laser eye surgery in 1996. Since then, the father-of-two suffered headaches and described feeling needles in his eyes as well as an unbearable dry and burning sensation. He left a suicide note when he took his life in October, which described the pain he felt that pushed him to death. 'I cannot experience any type of pleasure anymore,' Paul wrote. 'Just the pain of burning eyes inside my head and throughout myself Since 1996 Pain, pain and more pain, please forgive me for not being strong enough to cope. The past few months have been unbearable.' His parents Gene and Christine Fitzpatrick, of Ontario, spoke to CTV about their son's condition. 'It ruined his life, and it also left a lot of people around him suffering,' Gene said. 'He had always worn glasses, maybe since he was about 12 and he just thought it would be great not to have them,' Christine said. 'He researched it and he made sure that he was going to the best place. He felt the PRK was safer because there was less cornea used.' PKR, or photorefractive keratectomy, was the first form of laser eye surgery and typically safe. However, Paul's family said he began suffering from migraines and dry eyes shortly after his surgery. Canadian doctors were unable to diagnose what was causing his pain, so the self-made-millionaire traveled to Europe and the US to find a specialist who could help. He began treatments and underwent more surgeries which only made the pain worse. Paul's family said in the months leading up to his death, the pain was so unbearable he would keep his eyes closed for most of the time, walking with a cane and planned to move in with his parents. 'We didn't know what to do for him,' his mother told CTV. 'We would recommend pain killers and he would take some. He wasn't one to take pain killers much, but when they wore off he said the pain was worse so he'd keep his eyes closed most of the time.' Now his family believe he suffered from a rare, yet severe condition known as corneal neuralgia. Corneal neuralgia can cause nerve damage to the eye causing excruciating pain. 'Had he been aware (of his condition)he definitely would not have continued with subsequent surgeries,' his brother Kevin Fitzpatrick said. Paul's case is the first-known suicide from laser eye surgery in Canada, according to CTV. If you or anyone you know is struggling and needs confidential help, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or visit their website here. Two of the three people who were miraculously found alive after spending four days trapped in a West Virginia coal mine on Wednesday have told how they thought they would die in its web of dark tunnels and never be found. Cody Beverly, 21, Kayla Williams, 25, and Erica Treadway, 31, got lost in the Rock Powellton Mine near Clear Creek on Friday night. They had gone into the abandoned coal mine with Kayla's cousin Eddie, 43, but they became separated from him once they were inside. Eddie escaped on Monday and raised the alarm with authorities but it took rescue teams two additional days to locate the other three in the mine's labyrinth of tunnels. On Friday morning, Cody told Today that he was sure he was going to die in the tunnels and that he feared they would never be found. 'We dropped to our knees and started thanking God, there's our guardian angel,' he said of the moment rescuers finally arrived. Scroll down for video Cody Beverly, 21, and Erica Treadway, 31, spoke out about their ordeal in the mine on Friday after being cleared by doctors. They spent four days trapped inside the cold, dark and wet mine tunnels with their friend Kayla Williams (not pictured) after getting lost while 'exploring' 'There was a couple of times where I thought they wont find our bodies. Theres not going to be a burial, they're not even going to know we passed away,' he said. He said they had entered the mine not to look for copper, as Kayla's father suggested, but because they were 'just exploring'. 'I mean, taking two girls into a mine Do you think you're going in there to take the copper? We were just exploring, ' he said. Treadway, who emerged the mine barefoot and with soaking trousers, said it was 'dark and dangerous'. 'Its a whole nother world down there... I am just grateful for everybody,' she said. Beverly added that his family had described his rescue as a 'Christmas miracle.' 'My family said they're going to wrap me up under the tree. I'm the Christmas present this year.' Cody said his family had told him it was a Christmas miracle that he made it out alive. He described the rescuers who found them as their 'guardian angels' Cody Beverly, 21, Kayla Williams, 25, and Erica Treadway, 31, were rescued from the Rock House Powellton in West Virginia on Wednesday night after being trapped in its labyrinth of tunnels since Friday night Rescue teams battled depleted oxygen levels during their search and used fans to circulate fresh air through the network of tunnels, all the while unsure if the trio was still alive. It remains unclear where they found them but, on Wednesday, they were rescued and brought back to a community meeting point where dozens of people had gathered waiting for news. Beverly later told how they survived by drinking water from a stream in the mine and praying that it was not contaminated. 'It's a considerably large mine. There are tunnels that go thousands of feet into the mountains... sometimes people who go in are never found' Raleigh County Sheriff's Department Lt. M. McCray The group had some snacks when they ventured into the mine to look for copper on Friday but their supplies quickly ran out. 'We drank mine water. We had no food. We just found a stream in the mine, just started drinking and hoping and praying to God that it was not contaminated,' told WVVA. As they were brought back to a meeting point where their terrified families and friends had gathered on Wednesday, there were cheers and cries of 'Praise the Lord'. Some people burst into an impromptu rendition of Amazing Grace Speaking at the meeting point on Wednesday night, Beverly sobbed as he buckled under his grandfather's arm. 'It was terrible!' he cried, clutching a can of Coca Cola to replenish him. When the trio emerged from a Fire Department Truck at the meeting point where their families were gathered, there was roaring applause and cheers. Some people started singing 'Amazing Grace' as others labeled their return a 'Christmas miracle' Beverly sobbed as he reunited with his grandfather and screamed 'it was terrible' when someone asked him how the last four days had been. They were reunited briefly at a meeting point where dozens of others gathered in anticipation of news Kayla cried as she was held by a relative at the meeting point on Thursday before being taken to the hospital Treadway lost her shoes in the mine. She complained that she could not keep her feet warm as she was helped onto a gurney in her soaking trousers Treadway lost her shoes in the mine and was seen being placed on a gurney with soaking feet and trousers. Kayla was cradled by a relative as she walked into an ambulance. She did not appear to have serious injuries. As the paramedics waited to close the door to take her away, she yelled: 'Love y'all!' to the crowd. The trio cried during the brief reunion and spoke to reporters to say they were grateful for the search efforts before being taken to the hospital. 'Anybody who was involved in searching for us, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 'This is the biggest lesson I have ever learned in my life,' Beverly said, placing one arm around Kayla. Among those who waited at the meeting point for news on Wednesday night was the Governor, Jim Justice. He was cheerful after the group returned safely, saying in an interview: 'We didn't quit and we found them!' DailyMail.com can reveal that all three of them were discharged on Thursday morning and are now at home awaiting charges. Lt. M. McCray of the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department shared some of the details of how they survived on Thursday. 'They may have had a few snacks but no water or, a small amount. 'They did not expect to be down there for so long,' he said. The mine was closed two years ago after functioning as a coal mine for decades. The mine spans thousands of feet under the mountains and straddles two local counties. 'At one point, the search teams went 11,000ft in and at another, they went in 4,000ft. 'It's a considerably large mine. There are tunnels that go thousands of feet into the mountains,' McCray told DailyMail.com. Cody and Kayla (pictured) spoke briefly to reporters before being taken to the hospital with Erica . All three of them were discharged on Thursday morning and they are now awaiting criminal charges The dozens of people who had gathered to wait for news were emotional and elated on Wednesday night after the trio returned safely There were emotional scenes at the meeting point on Wednesday night where the trio's families were gathered to wait for news Dozens of people gathered at the meeting point, the Salamy Memorial Center, to await news of the rescue effort. They are pictured on Wednesday, before the trio were brought to safety Among those who waited for news was West Virginia Governor Jim Justice who on Wednesday night declared: 'We didn't quit! He said it was not the first time people have had to be rescued from one of the several abandoned mines in his jurisdiction and that the group was lucky to be alive. 'Sometimes they are never found,' he said morbidly. Where the group's ATV was found was known as a 'punch-out' - a point in the mine where, for either ventilation purposes or through accident, there is a point of access. It is not where workers would have started their shifts and unless they stumbled upon it during a trek through the area, something the cop said was plausible, they would have had to have known about it to get there. 'The people in this area, they go into the woods, hunting and fishing and they discover these things. They could accidentally run across it,' he said. They were searching for copper wire to sell, according to Kayla's father Randall who said they were desperate and unemployed. '[They] whatever they can do to make money if they ain't got a job,' he told CBS on Wednesday night. He said it was 'typical' for people to illegally enter the mines to steal copper wire and sell it but that it remains to be seen whether that was what the group planned. The mine is located in the mountains near Clear Creek which is around 50 miles southeast of Charleston The mine was closed two years ago. Its labyrinth of tunnels spans thousands of feet in the mountains, with sporadic entrance points Two mechanics were left 'flabbergasted' when they discovered an entire traffic island sign stuck under a 'posh gentleman's' car - who had driven around with it there for five days. The customer had reportedly brought the vehicle into the Edinburgh, Scotland, garage last Tuesday complaining that he had 'fallen in a pothole' and damaged the bumper. But motor vehicle technicians and work pals Andy Dixon, 40, and Kevin Melrose, 33, discovered the 3.5ft traffic sign wedged under the Ford Fiesta. The 3.5ft traffic sign that the mechanics discovered underneath a confused driver's car The man was so flummoxed when he was shown the signpost that he wouldn't believe it had been found under his car until he was shown pictures of it melted on to his exhaust. Dad-of-three Andy says he doesn't believe someone could hit a traffic island without realising it unless they were intoxicated - and says the damage will cost 2,500 to fix. Andy, from Edinburgh, said: 'The gentleman's initial complaint to our reception was that he thought the car had fallen into a pothole. 'He thought that the exhaust was blowing and there was some damage to the front bumper. 'We had to book the car in, and it had happened a couple of days before he called, so he had been driving around Edinburgh with it like that for about five days. 'As soon as we got it in we noticed the damage on the front of the car so I put it up on the ramp about waist height and shone a light under it. Kevin Melrose, 33, and Andy Dixon, 40, who discovered the sign underneath the Ford Fiesta 'As I did, something caught my eye so I looked underneath - but I thought 'no, that cannot be'. 'So I stuck the ramp up [higher] and that's when I saw the 'keep left' sign. 'It was stuck to the exhaust and wedged under the exhaust bracket. It was melted to the exhaust. 'It must have taken me about 30 seconds for my brain to realise exactly what it was. I tried to move it but it was wedged solid. 'He has obviously hit a traffic island and gone over it and then this has got wedged underneath the car.' Andy called his pal and fellow technician Kevin over to take a look at the ridiculous discovery, before the duo eventually brought the rest of the garage to see it as well as their manager. The duo claims they were left in stitches at their find. Dad-of-four Kevin, also from Edinburgh, said: 'It is totally flabbergasting. Andy, from Edinburgh, said: 'The gentleman's initial complaint to our reception was that he thought the car had fallen into a pothole' but it was actually this sign melted under the car 'It was a shock. We have no idea how he has done it. He would need to be drunk or be lying about what he has done. 'He has either gone over the traffic island and lied about it or he has been intoxicated and done it, discovered the damage and thought 'o-oh'. 'For that to be stuck in there while he drove around for five days, something is wrong.' The Fiesta was badly damaged and the pair estimate the 2,500 repair bill will include work on the front lights, radiator, front grill, bumper and more. However the customer took a bit of convincing to believe the sign had been under his car. The Fiesta was badly damaged and the pair estimate the 2,500 repair bill will include work on the front lights, radiator, front grill, bumper and more Andy said: 'Our service advisor came through with the traffic sign and showed it to the customer and he was like 'no, that couldn't have been under my car'. 'So we had to show him the pictures and everything. He seemed very, very shocked so I didn't think [he was lying]. 'But I don't understand how he could have done that and not known. 'The area the gentleman lives in is a nice area with expensive houses. It's quite a posh area. Maybe he's just a really bad driver. 'The fact that he was totally oblivious that it was there in the first place, he must have been crazy.' After sharing photos of the sign wedged underneath the vehicle with pals, Kevin says they were accused of faking the images so they were forced to pose with it in a selfie to prove it was real. Kevin said: 'I have never seen anything like it before. We've seen things get stuck under the car but nothing to this extent. 'You can imagine how thick the sign is, it's four inches thick and there's some weight in it as well. It was heavy, very heavy. 'We have seen the odd cat or rabbit or whatever stuck under a car or in the grill but never a traffic island sign. 'Everybody who has seen it has been laughing at how shocking and bizarre that somebody can do that and drive around for five days without knowing.' A Chinese supermarket owner and his landlord nearly got run over by a car while sitting inside the store after the vehicle smashed through a wall. The white car rammed through the wall behind the pair, wrecking shelves and expensive goods including wine and cigarette, according to CCTV footage. It came to a halt before hitting the two men, missing them by inches. The supermarket owner claimed the driver smelt of alcohol. The car crashes through the wall and shop shelves, missing two men by inches in China The owner of the Xinxin Supermarket said: 'I saw a car driving towards us from behind. It was fast judging from the sound it made.' The car had veered off the road before smashing the shop The incident took place on Tuesday night at Xinxin Supermarket in Xiangtan, southern China's Hunan Province. The shop owner, Mr Zhou, and his landlord both sustained injuries after being thrown forward by the momentum of the crash, reported local Xiaoxiang Morning Post. The car had been travelling on a traffic lane on the far side of the road from the shop. It was said to have veered off course at high speed, smashing through the traffic barrier in the middle of the road before ploughing into the small store. The owner of the supermarket and his landlord were found to have multiple injuries on the hand, waist and legs, but their condition was stable, according to a local report Mr Zhou told a reporter from Xiaoxiang Morning Post: 'I saw a car driving towards us from behind. It was fast judging from the sound it made.' The two victims were taken to the People's Hospital of Xiaoxiang County and were found to have multiple injuries on the hand, waist and legs. They were reportedly in stable condition. The police authorities of Xiangtan are investigating the case, reported BJ News. Police arrested a beggar masquerading as homeless before finding his pockets stuffed with cash and free food vouchers. The officers also found class A drugs on the man in his 40s and upon searching his home address they found further drugs and more cash. The man was regularly seen begging around Totnes in Devon and was given cash by locals and tickets for a free meals, leaving the police 'disappointed' that he would try to exploit charitable causes. A spokesperson for Totnes Police said: 'This morning a male in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply class A drugs, following a search under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Wads of cash and a controlled substance found on a suspected drug dealer posing as a homless person in Totnes, Devon 'This (purporting to be) 'homeless' male, a regular street drinker who is often seen begging, then had his home address searched where a large quantity of cash and further class A drugs, bound for our streets, were located. 'We were disappointed to find a couple of food vouchers in this male's possession, introduced recently, which are redeemable for a hot meal and given out to our homeless community to ensure nobody goes hungry.' Local residents said they were angry that genuine homeless people were being cheated, with many people actually needing to use the vouchers this male was found with. Julie Foster wrote on facebook: 'It is maddening but it (is) so difficult to tell the difference between the genuinely homeless/hungry and this sort of person.' Another local resident Shanaz John added: 'How frustrating. I feel it is so important to help those in need but it is so hard to know who is genuine and who is not. 'I don't want to stop helping but am at a loss of what to do.' .A suspected drug dealer who was posing as homeless has been arrested by police who discovered Class A drugs, a wallet stuffed with wads of banknotes and a free food voucher Speaking to local media, police said they recognise that there are genuine homeless people living on the streets of Totnes but begging opportunists coming from nearby places like Plymouth and Exeter to try their hands in the more forgiving Totnes was becoming an issue. 'Typically, beggars in Totnes are raising between 50 and 100 a day. I heard one individual bragging that he raised 139 a few days ago,' a police spokesman said. 'Our approach in maintaining the status quo coupled with how attractive it has become to beg in Totnes, has drawn others from further afield who have brought with them their own begging style.' Sergeant Tim Perrin, the neighbourhood team leader of Totnes Police, said to Totnespulse: 'We have made efforts, as have partner agencies and local organisations to highlight this to the local community.' Between 1st April 2017 and 31st March 2018, The Trussell Trust's foodbank network distributed 1,332,952 three day emergency food supplies to people in crisis, a 13% increase on the previous year. Some 484,026 of these went to children. This is a higher increase than the previous financial year, where foodbank use was up by 6%. The man, who wasn't homeless, had a food voucher which is used by those in need People can turn to begging when their income doesn't cover the cost of living but Officer Perrin said some of the begging in Totnes is giving rise to anti social behaviour, including aggresive begging, and related drug use. He urged that to support genuine homeless people, donations should be sent to the local drop in centre instead. In March this year, police in Manchester arrested two people pretending to be homeless before finding out one was sleeping rough despite having a flat and the other was living in a hostel and in receipt of benefits. The latter held a sign that read: 'Homeless. Please help towards food + accomodation. Thank you. God Bless.' Reacting to a Facebook post from police in Manchester City centre, Hannah Burchall wrote: 'If they are genuinely homeless and need to beg to survive then leave them alone. 'Where is our humanity people we should be looking out for those less fortunate than us... Stop our government preying on those that need help and have nothing to positively impact on the rich and entitled.' The begging in Totnes is likely to have a negative impact on genuine homeless people, whom the charity Shelter UK number at more than 250,000 across the UK. A 12-year-old boy who knifed his mother to death out of anger has been freed without punishment in a case that sparked heated debate in China. But the small town child is now facing a life without a proper home or school as the Chinese law is not developed enough to provide him with suitable education or rehabilitation. Wu, from the village of Dong'anyuan in Hunan province, stabbed his mother more than 20 times with a kitchen cleaver at home on the night of December 2 after she allegedly whipped him with a leather belt for smoking. Wu (centre), 12, has been freed without punishment after killing his mother at home in China It is said that Wu's father and late mother are both migrant workers and the boy has been raised by his grandparents who are relaxed on his education in their hometown of Sihushan. Speaking to his uncle in a police station after being arrested, the sixth-grade pupil reportedly showed no remorse towards his action and said 'the person I killed was my mother, not anyone else'. It is reported that the body of the 34-year-old woman was only discovered the next morning when concerned neighbours who found the victim missing called the police. Wu and his two-year-old younger brother allegedly spent the night at home with their mother's corpse. After killing his mother, Wu used her phone to message his teacher - pretending to be her - to take a leave for the next day, reported The Paper. He also lied to his grandfather in a calm manner that 'my mother went out' when the elderly man came to find his daughter the next morning, the same report said. Earlier this week, Wu was released by police without any punishment because he was deemed too young to be penalised by law. At present, the minimum age for one to be charged with a crime in China is 14. He is not old enough to be sent to a juvenile detention centre either. All such facilities in China require their detainees to be at least 14 years of age. Although Wu does not have to bear any consequences for his behaviour, life for him would never be the same. The child stabbed the 34-year-old woman with a kitchen knife and spent the night with her corpse with his two-year-old younger brother at their home (pictured) in Hunan province The child has been sent back to his father to be looked after, but his father, a migrant worker, told Chinese media that the family were facing great difficulties taking care of the child. Wu's father told reporters that the child's school refused to take him back due to the protest from other parents, who fear that Wu could harm their children, reported The Cover. The article said the education authorities suggested Wu's family choose a different school for him. However after the news spread out on social media, Chinese web users, already shocked by Wu's criminal act, say they would not let any child like Wu to be near their sons and daughters - potentially leaving Wu to have no school to go to at all. It's not just Wu's education that his family worry about. The family of five - Wu, Wu's father, brother and grandparents - have had to live out of a hotel room after the child was released because their neighbours were furious with Wu, said The Cover. One of their neighbours, who saw the crime scene, told BJ News that the community did not welcome Wu and his family to live there any longer. Wu and his family have had to live in a hotel room (pictured) after he was released by police. BJ News reported that their neighbours were enraged by the case and did not want them back The authorities' decision of releasing Wu back home, free of consequences, has sparked heated debates among the Chinese public, with many people urging the government to revise the current legal system to better handle juvenile crime cases. In a commentary, state-run gmw.cn urged Chinese authorities to lower the minimum age of a person who could be charged with a crime. The article said: 'Perhaps, someone people would think the leniency of law would make underage people feel grateful and correct their own mistakes; but the reality could be different.' Experts have also demanded the government find better solutions to educate and rehabilitate juvenile delinquents. Chinese news outlet Caixin said according to law Wu should be sent for 're-education through custody', which is a vague term. Pi Yijun, a specialist in juvenile delinquency at the China University of Political Science and Law, told Caixin that there were few institutional provisions for such rehabilitation. 'That's why in a large number of cases, the police have no alternative but to return these underage children to society,' Pi said. Wu's father is hoping the local government to step in and help him find a way to guide his son and bring his life back to normal. BJ News reported that the Sihushan government had already drafted a plan to deal with Wu's future life and education, but a government spokesperson said they could not reveal the details out of protection for Wu. An 18-year-old German race car driver who survived a horror crash at 172mph is speaking out one month later after having undergone extensive spinal surgery. Harrowing video of the moment Sophia Floersch's car went hurtling off the track at the Macau Grand Prix, in China, made international headlines as horrified fans feared the worst for the young Formula Three phenomenon. Floersch had a surprising response when asked about her reaction to the crash during an interview with Good Morning America that aired Friday. 'I wasn't really afraid because, for me, it was a normal crash,' the teen said. 'When I saw the video, I was quite shocked as well, because it looks horrible and, all the flying parts, it feels different in the car.' Scroll down for video German race car driver Sophia Floersch, 18, spoke to Good Morning America about her horror crash during a Formula Three race last month after having undergone extensive spinal surgery Gripping video shows the moment Floersch's car was flung off the track after she clipped a guard rail and three other drivers during the Macau Grand Prix on November 18 Five people were hospitalized following the crash that left Floersch with a fractured spine Floersch underwent 11 hours of surgery to repair spinal damage that could have paralyzed her Five people were hospitalized after Floersch lost control of her car as she was trying to pass Jehan Daruvala on November 18 in Macau, China. Her vehicle clipped a rail and spun out of control, causing it to strike the cars of Lisboa Bend and Sho Tsuboi before being flung through the guard fence and into the photographers pit. After the crash doctors spent 11 hours surgically repairing Floersch's fractured spine and removing a bone splinter that had lodged itself dangerously close to her spinal cord, threatening permanent paralysis. While Floersch admits the crash was the worst she's ever had in the 14 years she's been driving, it hasn't frightened her into abandoning the track. 'It doesn't scare me at all because every race driver knows the risk,' she said. 'I have one big crash now and nothing really bad happened. So it doesn't scare me, no.' She added: 'It was never a thought to not continue racing. I want to drive again.' Floersch's vehicle is seen flying over the top of driver Sho Tsuboi, traveling at 172mph Her race car crashed hurtled through the guard rail and into the photographer's pit In an interview airing Friday, Floersch said: 'I wasn't really afraid because, for me, it was a normal crash. When I saw the video, I was quite shocked as well, because it looks horrible' Floersch said she hopes to be back racing in February or early March, which her doctors have said is a possibility. 'The next weeks are going to be to build up the body again, to build up the muscles again,' she said. She explained that her toughness is the result of her desire to excel in the male-dominated sport. 'Most of the people think it's a man's world and a man's sport - for sure, it's still a man's world, but it's not a man's sport,' Floersch said. 'There's no difference between women or men in the car, so I always say I'm the same as any other man in the car. 'Outside I may be a different type but in the car no one cares and everyone is a driver and everyone is fighting to win.' Addressing aspiring female racers, the teen said: 'Keep doing what you love and believe in yourself, because as a girl it's not always easiest, especially in karting. You need to learn to be self-confident and not believe in what everyone is saying.' The 18-year-old is seen wearing a back brace while posing for a photo with her doctors Floersch said she hopes to be back on the racetrack by this coming February or March Australia is on track to follow in the footsteps of the US and formally recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Prime Minister Scott Morrison will deliver a speech to the Sydney Institute on Saturday to throw his support behind Israeli government, The Weekend Australian reported. Mr Morrison will support the push to name the contested city as Israel's capital on the belief it will progress peace talks in the Middle East. 'The Australian government has decided that Australia now recognises West Jerusalem, as the seat of the Knesset and many of the institutions of government, is the capital of Israel,' Mr Morrison is expected to say. Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) will deliver a speech to the Sydney Institute on Saturday to throw his support behind Israel He will also take aim at the United Nations and accuse them of anti-Semitism. Mr Morrison will hit back at the UN's refusal to acknowledge Israel's claims of self-defence as the militant Palestinian group Hamas continues to hurl attacks at the country. The Morrison government will also seek to recognise a future Palestinian state. Mr Morrison first made his view on West Jerusalem public days before the Wentworth by-election in October. At the time he openly aired his support of moving the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Mr Morrison will support the push to name West Jerusalem (pictured) Israel's capital on the belief it will progress peace talks in the Middle East He is expected to put the move on ice, at least until a peace settlement determines the final status of the city. 'And we look forward to moving our embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of, and after, final-status determination,' Mr Morrison will say in his speech. In the meantime, a defence and trade office will be set up in Jerusalem. The symbolic gesture is intended to reflect the bilateral relationship between the two sides. Mr Morrison's comments about recognising West Jerusalem have also sparked severe blowback from the international community, and placed Australia and Indonesia on rocky ground. Head of the Palestinian delegation in Canberra Izzat Abdulhadi also warned the decision could strain Australia's relationship with Middle Eastern countries. Mr Morrison is also expected to support the Iran Nuclear deal, a u-turn on his previous desire to scrap it. He will also look to bring in 'autonomous sanctions' against Iran, a response to the country's role in sponsoring terrorism in the Middle East. Mr Morrison will also draw on the settlement activity in the Palestinian territories and say the current settlements 'undermine peace'. 41-year-old Amber Clark was shot and killed Tuesday night outside the library she worked A man from northern California has been charged with the killing of a Sacramento librarian who was found shot in her car on Tuesday night. Ronald Seay, 56, was arrested Wednesday in connection with the shooting death of Amber Clark. Clark was killed in the parking lot of the North Natomas Public Library on, police said. Detectives believe Clark was targeted and are investigating the motive for the shooting, said department spokesman Sgt. Vance Chandler. Seay lived a few miles from the North Natomas Public Library and had been told not to set foot inside the library after causing a disturbance there in October. Clark had been a supervisor at the library at the time and police say she interacted with Seay before calling the authorities. Seay was arrested Wednesday morning after a short, slow-speed chase at 5:30am. He was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail Thursday on suspicion of felony homicide and shooting into an occupied vehicle. 12 hours later, Ronald Seay, 56, left, was arrested following a brief police chase. Seay had previously caused a disturbance at the library in October when Clark was working, right Seay had been told not to return to the library, pictured, after the incident Clark, 41, was sitting in her car when Seay allegedly approached her and shot her in face and head on Tuesday night. Chandler said a handgun was used and Clark was shot multiple times. A number of weapons were found during the investigation. Police responded to the shooting shortly after 6pm on Tuesday and found Clark 'unresponsive' in her car. Clark, who did not have any children, had worked as an educator in Oklahoma before joining the Sacramento Public Library in 2015. Clark had been an advocate at the library for those with special needs Clark's husband, Kelly, said his wife 'pursued professions that served to benefit young people and the betterment of society,' in a statement emailed to The Sacremento Bee. 'She selflessly gave of herself to her community,' he said. The director of the library, Rivkah Sass, said at a press conference that Clark had been an advocate for those with special needs. 'She had a great, compelling, charismatic personality, because she felt so deeply about the work that she did. We're especially grateful for all she did for us, to raise our awareness as a library staff, on serving people with special needs,' Sass said. 'She changed how we program for that particular audience.' Sass said Clark's death feels like losing a member of her family. 'She was fierce,' said Sass. 'She did not suffer fools, I would say. She knew what she wanted and she was very direct with people about making sure that staff felt comfortable and safe, that the services we offered really were ones that met the community's needs.' A funeral procession in Argentina was diverted to a hospital after occupants of the hearse thought they heard noises coming from the coffin. The funeral of the unnamed Argentinian woman, 65, who died in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, was diverted to a hospital after family members accompanying her thought they heard banging noises and muffled cries coming from the casket. The funeral procession was rerouted to a nearby hospital so that doctors could check if the woman was still alive. Video footage shows a doctor, several hospital colleagues and the woman's family gathering around the back of the hearse to check inside the coffin. After hearing the banging and muffled cries coming from the coffin, relatives diverted to the Hospital Blas L. Dubarry to have the corpse inspected, but the doctor there confirmed the woman had been dead for at least 24 hours. The funeral director and family members reportedly heard muffling noises and banging coming from the coffin in the back of the hearse It is thought that the noises coming from the corpse were caused by build-up of gases or the stiffening of muscles controlling the vocal chords The funeral procession in Argentina was diverted to a hospital so doctors could check whether the woman, 65, was in fact dead or alive The funeral company had released a press statement to say the driver heard 'loud noises' coming from the coffin. It is presumed the occupants of the hearse were either mistaken in what they heard or that he corpse was releasing sounds caused by a build-up of gases or the stiffening of muscles controlling the vocal chords. The parents of British businessman savagely murdered by his Chinese ex-wife are preparing for a bitter custody battle for their grandchildren in China. Michael Simpson, 34, from Wimborne in Dorset, was stabbed to death by Fu Weiwei in a domestic row at his apartment in Shanghai while their children slept in the next room. She was jailed for life in July this year and the couple's children have been with her family since. Michael Simpson (pictured with his children), 34, from Wimborne in Dorset, was stabbed to death by Fu Weiwei in a domestic row at his apartment in Shanghai in March 2017 Mrs Simpson's parents and brother Andrew, 39, have been fighting to get custody of Jack, eight, and Alice, six, racking up 100,000 in legal costs. Pictured: Ian Simpson (right) with his son Andrew in Bournemouth But Mrs Simpson's parents and brother Andrew, 39, have been fighting to get custody of Jack, eight, and Alice, six, racking up 100,000 in legal costs. On Thursday a mediation and custody hearing will begin in a remote part of China where there has never been a case involving a foreigner before. The Simpsons claim the children have still not been told their father is dead and that their mother has been jailed for life. They accuse her family of only being interested in money after they offered to let the Simpsons take Alice, but not Jack, and demanded 63,000 for 'travel expenses'. The British couple have only been allowed to see the children once for five hours since their son died in March 2017. Mr Simpson, 69, said: 'We were trying not to upset Jack and Alice in the hope we could come to an agreement. Fu Wei Wei (pictured) was jailed for life in July this year and the couple's children have been with her family since 'But the Fu family just demanded tons of money. They said they wanted 63,000, which is half a million renminbi, which was supposed to be for travel expenses to see the children if they lived with us. 'But that amount of money would cover first class travel and staying at hotels on a level with the Dorchester. It was a joke, they basically wanted money. 'Even the judge who was trying to broker the deal said they were just an unbelievable family and if we'd offered the 63,000 they would just ask for more. 'I visited Weiwei in jail in October and she has been lied to by the family... They told her we asked for just Alice and that we had asked them for money. 'After we saw the children in March, Linda was so disgusted by the way the family behaved she was desperate to get the children away from them. 'The problem we face is they've never had a custody case in the whole of the Hubei Province where a foreigner is trying to get custody. 'The hearing is taking place in Nanzhang, 1,000km away from Shanghai and there's nobody who can translate so we're having to pay for a translator from Shanghai. 'For most of the people in that area, we will be the first Europeans they have seen. Mr Simpson (pictured with his children) was an operations manager for Next and was overseeing the retailer's expansion in the Far East 'So although we believe the case we are putting forward is absolutely right, we are worried that it's a Nanzhang court and Nanzhang judges.' After the case, the Simpsons have been warned by their lawyers that they face at least a month's wait for a decision. Mr Simpson was an operations manager for Next and was overseeing the retailer's expansion in the Far East. He had lived in China since 2009, met Weiwei, a store assistant, married and had two children. They separated in 2015 and he had a new partner Rachel Lin, who was badly injured in Fu Weiwei's frenzied attack on March 20, 2017. The Simpson family is being supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which will have two representatives attending the hearing. Spanish lawyers have declared that sex without consent does equal rape, in the wake of a bitterly disputed decision to clear five men of the crime because they did not use violence. The panel of legal experts was set up to recommend changes after the 'Wolf Pack' gang were convicted of sexual assault but not rape against a teenage girl, sparking protests. Today the panel has called for tougher laws, saying rape should be redefined and that violent attacks should carry the 'maximum penalty', BBC News reported. Assault by more than one person - as in the Wolf Pack case - will also be treated in the same way as a violent assault under the changes. The Wolf Pack gang, from left: Jose Angel Prenda, Alfonso Jesus Cabezuelo, Jesus Escudero, Angel Boza and Antonio Manuel Guerrero, were sentenced to nine years The maximum penalty for rape will be a jail sentence of 15 years, the same as before, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais. Under the changes the five men convicted of gang-raping an 18-year-old would have received a tougher sentence than the nine years they were handed for the crime. The men, who called themselves the Wolf Pack, assaulted the woman during Pamplona's San Fermin bull-running festival in 2016. A court was told that that the five had assaulted the woman in the doorway of a residential building and recorded it on their mobile phones. The men had also joked about the attack in a WhatsApp group, in which they gave themselves the nickname. But because there was no physical evidence of violence the court could only hand them a nine-year prison sentence. The original ruling in April this year sparked a wave of protests amid the global #MeToo movement against sexual violence. Earlier this month a court in Navarra upheld the ruling, which can still be appealed in Spain's Supreme Court. The original ruling was met by a wave of protests in Pamplona and other cities across Spain, amid the global #MeToo movement against sexual violence Evidence against accused murderer Chris Dawson will show the 70-year-old is 'lying to cover his tracks', prosecutors allege. Dawson, a former Newtown Jets rugby league player, has been charged with the murder of his wife Lynette in Sydney's northern beaches in early 1982. At Sydney's Central Local Court on Friday, senior crown prosecutor Craig Everson said there was no indication Lynette wanted to leave her family, The Australian reported. 'She didn't collect her last pay cheque she left her contact lenses at home her clothes were left behind, all of them,' he said. Scroll down for video Evidence against accused murderer Chris Dawson (pictured) show the 70-year-old is 'lying to cover his tracks', prosecutors allege Dawson intends to plead not guilty to the murder of the mother of two of his children. The former PE teacher, who appeared via video link from Silverwater prison, snapped when the prosecutor argued bail was dangerous as his identical twin brother, Paul, could pretend to be him allowing Dawson to flee the country. 'You're kidding,' Dawson responded with the magistrate later telling him it was 'best you stay quiet'. Mr Everson told the court Dawson was very 'persuasive' and was able to convince family and friends Lynette walked out on the family. But they were seemingly unaware Dawson had been 'grooming' his 16-year-old student turned lover - who he later had a child with. He wrote her a Christmas card the month before the disappearance of his wife, reading: 'To my darling Joanne, wishing only our happiness forever.' Dawson shook his head while sobbing as the allegations about the closed door marriage counselling session were discussed. Mr Everson said during the appointment Dawson told his wife: 'If this doesn't work, I'll get rid of you,' ABC reported. Lynette, pictured with Dawson, was 33 when she disappeared in 1982 leaving behind two young daughters He said Dawson claimed Lynette called him several times the week after disappearing but no one else heard from here. Further, sightings of Lynette in the months after her disappearance were from a distance or unconfirmed, Mr Everson told the court. One of the sightings alleged Lynette had been driving a vehicle despite being unable to drive and without a car. Dawson's lawyer Greg Walsh said during the proceedings the case against Dawson was entirely circumstantial. In addition, he argued Dawson hadn't been given a fair trial due to media persecution. 'It is difficult to know whether people's beliefs and memories had been shaped by the disappearance of Lyn Dawson,' he said. 'This commentary has been fundamentally prejudicial in giving this man the right to the presumption of innocence,' he said. Dawson's lawyer Greg Walsh said during the proceedings the case against Dawson was entirely circumstantial 'It is very important that his arrest and charge is not a determination of guilt this man is entitled to the presumption of innocence, it's a fundamental right.' Lynette was 33 when she disappeared in 1982, leaving behind two young daughters. Her husband reported her missing almost six weeks later, and her body has never been found. The case was the subject of The Australian newspaper's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet, which brought the case back into the public eye. NSW Police, which reopened the cold case in 2015, said fresh statements from at least two witnesses led to the arrest of the former footy player on the Gold Coast on December 5. The accused killer, who was living at Coolum Beach, was extradited from Queensland on December 6. Bail will be determined on Monday. Nearly 380,000 households in one Australian state are suffering from rental stress - and paying more than 30 per cent of their wages on rent - a report has revealed. A study by the University of New South Wales as part of the Everybody's Home campaign also found some of those affected were on low income jobs like forklift drivers and employees in the aged care sector. Those workers earned just $20 an hour, and a campaign spokesman said the statistics proved it was not just millenials' in the inner city who could not afford to buy a house. 280,000 households in one Australian state are suffering from rental stress - and paying more than 30 per cent of their wages on rent - a study has revealed (stock image) 'Housing affordability is not an inner city phenomenon experienced by Millenials consuming too much avocado,' Everybody's Home spokeswoman Kate Colvin told The Daily Telegraph. 'It is being experienced most acutely by ordinary working Australians in electorates in Western Sydney and regional NSW,' she added. Single father and forklift driver Paul Murphy, 44, said he spent 70 per cent of his income on rent. He puts $430 of a $650-a-week wage on renting a two-bedroom apartment in the southern Sydney suburb of Rockdale. He said: 'It's crazy but I have no choice.' Rental stress is classified as being when a person spends more than a third of their income on rent. Rental stress is classified as being when a person spends more than a third of their income on rent (stock image) The study's shocking findings echo a report released in August which found the average Melbourne resident must earn a wage of at least $130,000 a year to rent a three-bedroom home in the inner suburbs and not be considered to be in housing stress. That report, by Compass Housing, found those rentals were beyond the reach of middle-income earners like teachers, nurses or journalists. The Everybody's Home campaign is a movement focused on 'bringing balance back to the system, so that everybody has a place to call home'. Cameron Sterling, 18, has been charged with raping an eight-year-old boy The son of Alton Sterling who was shot dead by police in Baton Rouge in 2016 has been charged with raping an eight-year-old boy. Cameron Sterling, 18, was arrested after the boy's 12-year-old brother confessed to their mother that Sterling had allegedly 'touched' his younger sibling. Police were called at around 12.30am on December 9, after the incident was reported to authorities and Sterling is currently being held in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. Sterling was left alone with the boy and two other children for around 90 minutes before their mother returned home and was informed of what had allegedly happened by her son. Following this information she questioned the young child who apparently told her that Sterling had performed oral sex on him. Sterling, who was reportedly arrested on Wednesday, has previously been diagnosed with severe depression and bi-polar disorder, reports the Advocate. The alleged victim, who had been taken to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital was questioned by authorities. Sterling's father, Alton Sterling, was shot dead by police in Baton Rouge in 2016 He confirmed to police that he believes Sterling performed oral sex on him and asked the defendant to stop. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in protest at the fatal police shooting of street seller Alton Sterling - just hours after a graphic new video emerged showing the moment cops pinned him to the ground and pulled the trigger. The graphic footage shows Sterling being thrown to the ground by officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II after they received a complaint about a man making threats with a gun while selling CDs outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in protest at the fatal police shooting of street seller Alton Sterling The cops are seen yelling at Sterling to 'get on the ground' - but he does not - before he is tackled by the officers. As Sterling continues to move on the ground, the officer believed to be Lake reaches for his gun and then points it at the father-of-five's chest. One of the officers then yells: 'He's got a gun! Gun! You f****** move and I swear to God.' Less than two seconds later, the first shot is heard, followed quickly by another two. Three more shots are heard as the startled shop owner momentarily turns his camera away from the scene. Protestors place a sign on a car parked in front of Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was killed As Sterling lies on the ground with blood seeping from his chest, one of the officers leans over and grabs what appears to be a gun from the street seller's pocket. It is not clear whether Sterling was reaching for his gun, but he was not holding it at the time he was shot. Baton Rouge police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. later confirmed that Sterling was indeed armed and a witness said they saw one of the officers pull the handgun out of Sterling's pocket as he lay dying, CNN reports. Sterling was legally allowed to carry a gun in public, since Louisiana is an open carry state. After the deadly incident, police took CCTV footage from the store without the owner's permission, but said they would be handing the video over to investigators. Some held placards calling police murderers and pleaded for justice over Sterling's death. Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Guiliani compared the campaign violations that Michael Cohen committed and that could implicate President Trump to parking tickets. The former New York mayor, who earned his his anti-crime bona fides when the NYPD' pioneered broken windows' policing and once called street-side squeegee guys a 'menace,' put forward the argument just as Cohen was about to be sentenced to three years in jail for personal tax and finance violations as well as campaign finance crimes. Prosecutors said Trump 'directed' Cohen to engage in the felony crime, although Trump said Thursday he never told Cohen to do anything wrong or illegal and blamed Cohen for bad lawyering. 'Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed This was not a big crime,' Giuliani told the Daily Beast Wednesday for a story that delved into the $150,000 payment that American Media Inc. made to Karen McDougal, who claims she had an affair with Trump. 'Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed This was not a big crime,' Rudy Giuliani said regarding potential campaign finance violations of hush payments to two women who claim they had affairs with President Trump Giuliani added in a dig at the sprawling Mueller probe: 'I think in two weeks they'll start with parking tickets that haven't been paid.' But on Friday, as his comments drew scrutiny, Giuliani issued a response labeled 'CORRECTION.' 'CORRECTION: I didnt say payments were not a big crime. I have said consistently that the Daniels and McDougall payments are not crimes and tweeted a great article yesterday making that point . If it isnt a witch-hunt why are they pursuing a non-crime,' he added. President Trump initially denied knowing anything about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors revealed this week they had agreed not to prosecute American Media Inc., assuming it's continued cooperation with investigators. The letter included stipulations that Trump, Cohen, and AMI CEO David Pecker hatched a plan to bury damaging stories about Trump. Cohen told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on 'Good Morning America' Friday that 'of course' Trump knew it was wrong to pay off two women, and said he had only an advisory role in the $150,000 to McDougal. Playboy model Karen McDougal got a $150,000 payment in exchange for her story, which never ran President Donald Trump faces legal exposure now that Michael Cohen testified that Trump directed him to make a deal that resulted in his guilty plea on a campaign finance charge AMI CEO David Pecker helped hatch a plan with Trump and Cohen to bury negative stories, prosecutors say Porn star Stormy Daniels got a $130,000 payment not to reveal her alleged affair with Trump 'Of course' Trump knew what he was doing was wrong, said Cohen, who regretted his 'blind loyalty' to his longtime employer. 'And he was doing that to help his election?' Stephanopoulos asked him. 'You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about two weeks or so before the election. Post the Billy Bush ['p**** tape'] comments, so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election,' Cohen replied. 'To help his campaign?' the host inquired. 'To help him and the campaign,' Cohen responded. A woman claims Royal Caribbean Cruises is responsible for a zip line accident that killed her husband on the Honduran island of Roatan during their honeymoon cruise. Attorneys for 27-year-old Shir Frenkel filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court last month, seeking more than $1 million in damages over the death of husband Igal Tyszman, 24. The Israeli newleyweds were passengers on the Allure of the Seas in July when they booked the Extreme Caribe Zip Line Tour at the ship's excursion desk, according to the suit. The suit claims they collided in midair on the zipline, killing Tyszman and seriously injuring Frenkel. Israeli newleyweds Shir Frenkel, 27, and Igal Tyszman, 24, (seen together last year) were on a honeymoon cruise when he died after colliding into her on a zip line excursion Attorneys for 27-year-old Shir Frenkel (seen with Tyszman in 2016) filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court last month, seeking more than $1 million in damages They were passengers on the Allure of the Seas (seen in file photo) in July when they booked the Extreme Caribe Zip Line Tour at the ship's excursion desk Frenkel suffered an array of serious injuries. She is currently in Israel after receiving treatment for multiple rib fractures, a splenic fracture, multiple transverse fractures and more, her attorney says. She has also been undergoing intensive therapy for mental trauma and emotional distress. The collision occurred on the third and longest zip line of the the excursion, Frenkel's lawyer Debi Chalik told Law.com. 'Shir goes first ahead of her husband, through the jungle, and now you don't see her,' Chalik said. 'All of a sudden, she completely comes to a halt and starts coming backwards, toward the initial platform that she took off from.' Then the guide sent Tyszman down the same line - but in a plank position rather than the seated position they'd been told to use in a safety briefing, according to Chalik. Frenkel became stuck on the zip line when her husband collided with her from behind The couple were on their honeymoon cruise when the fatal accident occured 'He's in that plank position going backwards, so he's not seeing anything,' Chalik said. 'He's flying at a very quick rate of speed and literally crashes head-on into his wife.' The suit says the excursion was operated by an independent contractor, but guests were misled to believe it was operated by Royal Caribbean. A Royal Caribbean spokesman says the company doesn't comment on pending litigation. A suspected drone has crashed into a passenger plane in Mexico ripping holes into the front of the craft as it attempted to land in Tijuana. The crew on board the flight had to request help in order to land the mauled aircraft however nobody was injured during the incident. They reportedly heard a 'very strong blow' on the plane and then asked for help from the control tower after becoming concerned. It was completing its route from Miguel Hidalgo and Costilla Airport in the city of Guadalajara an object smashed into the side of the plane. A drone has crashed into a passenger plane in Mexico ripping holes into the front of the craft as it attempted to land in Tijuana In the photos, the nose of the plane can be seen damaged, with a huge dent in its tip and chunks of the nose are missing. The Aeromexico Boeing 737-800's radome was also affected by the collision, which protects the plane's radar, according to local media. Sources believe the damage caused to the aircraft were consistent with a collision with a drone although this has yet to be confirmed by the airline or the airport. The pilot reportedly told the co-pilot 'we didn't see anything, just a strong hit' after the incident. Aeromexico confirmed the plane managed to land without problems and told reporters they are waiting to see the accident report before giving more details. The crew on board the flight had to request help in order to land the mauled aircraft however nobody was injured during the incident The Aeromexico Boeing 737-800's radome was also affected by the collision, which protects the plane's radar The plane had taken off from Guadalajara at 6.41am and landed in Tijuana at around 7:40am after three hours in the air. The aircraft will stay grounded and be repaired and the investigation into the incident is ongoing. Although the passengers were all able to leave the plane safely it left people fearing that it could have been a more serious incident. Mike B, who appeared angered by the event, took to Twitter to comment on a picture of the aircraft, writing: 'It's only a matter of time before one of these b****y things brings an airliner down. 'There are too many idiots using the b****y things its inevitable something major will happen.'(sic) While Steve Freeman, who didn't condone people flying drones near landing spaces, added on he social media site: 'People flying drones near airports and planes need to be whacked with the full force of the law.' This is the incredible moment drone footage captures every home on Britain's most festive street lit up with Christmas decorations. Neighbours living in Mill Crescent in Westerleigh, South Gloucestershire, joined forces for their 14th year of colour. Every year, residents come together to decorate the street in aid of a charity and to help spread a little festive cheer. The drone captures the brightly lit homes on Mill Crescent, Westerleigh, South Gloucestershire The homes display Santas, reindeers and stars in an effort to spread a little Christmas cheer One house features a star above the doorway and a snowflake in the far left corner As the drone soars across the residential street it captures trees covered in fairy lights and houses illuminated with colour. The breathtaking spectacle, that looks like it is a film set, also features a large inflatable Santa Claus outside one home. Residents raise thousands of pounds for a different charity each year. The street is decorated for the 14th year - and annually raises thousands of pounds for charity One house features a giant inflatable Santa Claus and several trees are draped with fairy lights This year residents are fundraising for Winston's Wish - a charity supporting grieving children This year they are fundraising for Winston's Wish, a charity which supports grieving children - after raising 2,850 for Different Strokes in 2017. One resident said: 'I get in the spirit every year as soon as the first few decorations go up. 'We'll be buzzing until New Year now - and hopefully can make a few quid for charity too.' A thug has admitted a 'flying kung fu kick' attack on a female police officer that almost sent her into the path of a moving bus. Kursan Euell, 20, and friend Martin Payne, both pleaded guilty to ABH over the assault on a pair of officers on traffic patrol in Wimbledon which left PC John Collins with a broken rib and the PC Lorraine McGinty with a cut to the head. But the judge questioned why the more serious GBH with intent charge had not been brought against them and said she was 'concerned the charges did not reflect the full criminality of the offence'. The attack was caught on camera and prompted a nationwide debate on whether police get enough protection and whether the public should intervene in such incidents. Euell had previously claimed he was at his grandmother's 80th birthday party when the assault happened and said he had 'six witnesses' who could back him up. Kursan Euell, left, and Martin Payne, right, have admitted ABH against two police officers after assaulting them in Wimbledon last month when they pulled over their BMW on a routine stop Euell was caught on camera attacking PC Lorraine McGinty with a kung fu kick, pictured, causing her to fall back into the road Kingston Crown Court heard PC McGinty, a mother, has still not returned to work since the attack on November 17, which followed the police officers pulling over Euell's BMW for a routine stop. The court heard both offenders have previous convictions for assaulting police officers. After the Crown accepted their pleas, Judge Sarah Plaschkes QC raised concerns over why the Crown Prosecution Service had not charged the pair with more serious assault charges before adjourning the case for reports to be made on the pair. Possible sentences for ABH and GBH offences A charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The offence will fall within three categories - category one being the most serious, and three being the least. Sentencing guidelines for the least serious offence recommend a 'Band A fine' to a 'high level community order'. For the more serious charge of causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment, but judicial guidelines recommend a jail term ranging between three and 16 years. Time will be taken off the sentences for guilty please. An admission at the earliest possible opportunity will mean a reduction of one third, and an admission on the day of trial will result in a ten per cent reduction. Mitigating and aggravating factors will also be taken into account. Advertisement She said the ABH charges carried a maximum of five years in prison and added: 'The court is concerned if these counts reflect the full criminality of this offence. 'These offences were committed on the street at night in the presence of members of the public. 'I'm not giving any indication one way or another as to the court's eventual sentence. 'I've indicated already my concern. As I say it's a matter for the Crown.' Earlier the court heard that Euell kicked PC Lorraine McGinty in the back of the head and fractured one of PC John Collins ribs after they pulled over their BMW in a routine check. An earlier hearing at Wimbledon magistrates court in which Euell indicated a not guilty plea was told the 20 year old has 20 previous convictions. In police interview Euell claimed he was at his grandmother's 80th birthday party that night and had never visited the Streatham Hill area in south London that weekend. He even said he had six witnesses who would say he was not in Wimbledon. The court also heard that PC McGinty was not the first female police officer that Euell had attacked. Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick called on the public to 'get involved' if they see police officers being attacked in the wake of the attack. Wearing glasses, Euell, of Catford, south east London, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) at Kingston Crown Court. Payne, 19, of New Malden, south west London, who wore a bandage around his left wrist in the dock, admitted ABH against PC Collins as well as driving without insurance or licence during the incident. They were remanded in custody ahead of sentencing in January when the horrifying footage of the attack in Merton, south London, will be played in court. Prosecutor Stephen Apted said: 'This incident took place shortly before eight in the evening on the 17th of November this year. The pair also left PC John Collins with a broken rib after the fracas, pictured, which spilled into the road, and a judge asked why more serious GBH charges were not brought against them 'When PCs McGinty and Collins carried out a routine traffic stop of a BMW motor vehicle in which Payne was the driver and Euell was one of the passengers. 'During the course of that routine stop the officers were assaulted. 'PC McGinty sustained a wound to the back of her head and PC Collins sustained cuts and grazing, an injury to his finger as well as a fractured rib. 'To my knowledge PC McGinty has still not returned to work.' She told the court both defendants had a long criminal history including assaulting police officers, robbery and of violence. Euell, 20, has an extensive criminal record, including other assaults on police officers going back to 2011. 19-year-old Payne's first conviction was in 2014 was for attacking a police officer while resisting arrest. Referring to Euell, Judge Plaschkes QC said: 'He has a history, albeit he's only 20, of previous convictions going back to 2011 for attempted robbery, batter, further counts of battery and robbery. 'Through 2012 there's a history of failing to comply with court orders, burglary and offences of assaulting police officers. 'On the 24th of September 2013 he appeared before South London Juvenile court for possession of an offensive weapon in a public place, an offence of robbery and an offence of assaulting a constable.' The attack on PC McGinty left her inches away from being hit by a moving bus, pictured Euell, who will be subject to psychiatric reports before his sentencing, was given a detention order in 2016 for possessing a weapon in public and assaulting a police constable on April 26 that year. The judge said his most recent conviction was in April last year and added: 'So in this circumstances I'm minded to to adjourn for a pre sentence report. 'Mr Payne also has a long list of previous convictions.' His earliest was 'assault with intent to resist arrest, robbery, theft, possessing a prohibited weapon and affray in 2014. 'Breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order, violent disorder, possessing an offensive weapon in 2016. 'Further offences - I needn't specify them all. I think his most recent offence is for drugs offences.' Thomas Broomfield, defence barrister for Euell, said psychiatric reports will be made on him ahead of sentencing on January 21. He and barrister Brian Kennedy, for Payne, both applied for pre-sentence reports to be made on the defendants. The court heard Euell was 'under the wing' of Wandsworth Children's Services and had been since he was two-years-old because of his mother's mental health issues. He lives alone in a flat in south-east London that has been provided to him by Wandsworth Children's Services and receives a subsistence grant for attending a property development apprenticeship, plus housing benefit and tax credits. Reacting to claims that the charge was too light, a CPS spokesman said: 'Having looked at the level of injury we were satisfied that the charge was correct and that it gave the court the right level of sentencing powers. 'You should also note that GBH should include permanent or life-changing injuries. 'Grievous bodily harm means really serious bodily harm. It is for the jury to decide whether the harm is really serious. However, examples of what would usually amount to really serious harm include: Injury resulting in permanent disability, loss of sensory function or visible disfigurement; Broken or displaced limbs or bones, including fractured skull, compound fractures, broken cheek bone, jaw, ribs, etc; Injuries which cause substantial loss of blood, usually necessitating a transfusion or result in lengthy treatment or incapacity; Serious psychiatric injury. As with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, appropriate expert evidence is essential to prove the injury.' Meanwhile Met Police chiefs today announced a member of the public will be formally commended for stepping in to help the officers. This is after footage of the assault went viral on social media, sparking a public debate on filming assaults on officers instead of helping them. Following the pleas, District Crown Prosecutor Charlotte Chirico, of the CPS, said: 'The CPS looked at the evidence provided to us by police, which included shocking camera footage. 'Because of the injuries suffered by the male officer, along with the deliberate way Kersan Euell took a run-up before launching a flying kick on a female officer, we pursued charges of actual bodily harm. The court heard Euell and Payne, pictured during the assault, both had previous convictions for attacking police officers 'Both attackers have now pleaded guilty to ABH against both police officers, whichreflects the severity of the attack. 'I hope this case acts as a deterrent to anyone who might try to assault a police officer thinking they will get off lightly.' A spokesman added: 'The CPS will ask the court to pass an increased sentence to take into account the new Assaults on Emergency Workers Act which makes assaulting an emergency worker an aggravating feature.' After his guilty pleas today (Fri) Chief Superintendent Colin Wingrove, OCU Commander for Roads and Transport Policing and Chief Superintendent Sally Benatar, South West BCU Commander said in a joint statement: 'The impact of this despicable assault has been considerable, not only on the two officers involved but on their families, friends and colleagues. 'Whilst police officers are rightly expected to handle difficult and hostile situations on a regular basis, we do not accept that assaults are part of the job, and we feel that our officers deserve the protection of the law in order to do their jobs effectively. 'We are pleased that the two suspects have been brought before the court swiftly thanks to the hard work of Detective Constable Jean-Paul Ricot-Gomez and the rest of the team. 'We would also like to publicly thank the member of public who stepped in to assist at the time and his actions will be recognised at a formal commendation ceremony. 'We are also grateful to the many members of public and colleagues from the emergency services who passed on their best wishes to our officers, having seen the video of the incident in the media. We really value your support.' Award-winning British rapper J Hus has been jailed for eight months at Snaresbrook Crown Court today, after he was caught in possession of a knife in June. The 23-year-old - real name Momodou Jallow - was detained by police earlier this year after police stopped his car in Stratford, east London and found him in carrying a knife or a bladed article. The rapper, who had success with the hit single Bouff Daddy, has been nominated for a Brit Award three times, a Mercury Music Prize once, and won NME's best album prize this year for his debut release Common Sense. Award-winning British rapper J Hus has been jailed for eight months at Snaresbrook Crown Court today, after he was caught in possession of a knife in June Jallow, who also won best song at the Mobo awards last year, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday. Wearing a black T-shirt and dark jeans while surrounded by three dock officers, the rapper did not react as the sentence was passed. J Hus, who the court heard has six convictions for 10 offences, had initially pleaded not guilty to possession of a blade in a public place but changed his plea at a further hearing in October. Judge Sheelagh Canavan told the rapper, who has a number of previous convictions: 'You are a role model to many yet you have failed to leave your past behind you.' She added: 'This, in such a young life, is the fourth occasion when you have gone out armed with a knife.' In a letter read to the court by his barrister Henry Blaxland QC the rapper said: 'My decision to carry a weapon was careless, ill-advised and utterly stupid. 'Being a public figure that many look up to, I simply should have known better.' He said he had not been in his 'right state of mind' and spoke of the effect the stabbing of a close friend days earlier had had on him. The 23-year-old - real name Momodou Jallow - was detained by police in June this year after they stopped his car in Stratford, east, and found him in possession of a knife or a bladed article He added: 'I am in no way trying to justify my actions as they are unjustifiable. I am deeply sorry, I regret my foolish actions.' The court heard J Hus had been sitting in his Audi with a female at the wheel and another passenger outside Westfield in Stratford at 12.35pm on June 21 when they were stopped by police. Prosecutor Helen Owen said there was a smell of cannabis from the vehicle and when asked by an officer if he had anything on him, the star said he had a knife in his pocket. Asked during the incident why he was carrying what was described in court as a folding knife, he replied: 'You know, it's Westfield.' The court heard J Hus, pictured performing at Manchester's Parklife festival in 2017, had been sitting in his Audi with a female at the wheel and another passenger outside Westfield in Stratford at 12.35pm on June 21 when they were stopped by police The court heard J Hus's friend had been knifed and paralysed just days earlier and that the rapper, who was himself stabbed in 2015, had fears he would be the victim of another attack. Judge Canavan said that while she accepted J Hus had been shopping and had not been trying to provoke a response to the attack on his friend by returning to the area, he must have been aware of the risks. The sentencing comes amid a wave of knife crime in London and a day after new figures showed the number of criminals being caught with knives or dangerous weapons is at the highest level since the start of the decade. Judge Canavan said: 'The dangers of knives in public places are obvious to us all. Sadly, rarely a week goes by without one or more reports of young men harming, and sometimes killing each other with knives. The rapper's first conviction, the court was told, was in 2011 when, aged 16, he produced a knife from his shoe in a dispute over a bicycle sale. In July 2017 he was nominated for a Mercury Music prize for his debut album Common Sense 'You, better than just about anyone, know the dangers of knives being wielded by young men in public places.' Mr Blaxland said going back to the area with a knife had been a 'profoundly stupid' thing to do, but it had not been deliberately provocative. He said his client's fame had left him feeling 'relatively isolated', adding: 'It may be for that reason he found himself drawn back to the Newham area (where he grew up) like a moth to a flame.' Mr Blaxland said J Hus had also suffered mild post-traumatic stress disorder following the attack in which he was injured three years ago. The rapper's first conviction, the court was told, was in 2011 when, aged 16, he produced a knife from his shoe in a dispute over a bicycle sale. A year later he pleaded guilty to violent disorder after two groups of young people clashed at Westfield, and in 2016 he was convicted of offences including affray and possession of an offensive weapon, having been seen chasing someone with a machete and, on another occasion, caught with a large combat knife. J Hus, of Peterborough, was also ordered to pay a 140 surcharge. The court also made a criminal behaviour order banning him from entering or travelling through the Newham borough for the next three years and from associating with a number of named individuals. Shocking video footage from a court in Argentina shows the moment a man picked up a aluminum garbage can and attacked a prosecutor during the middle of a hearing. Evelio Ramallo, 33, reached down to his right and rose from his chair and flung the garbage can at the prosecutor. It hit the lawyer's head and the contents spill across the floor. The career criminal's attorney could be seen running to the opposite side of the court chamber while prosecutor Guillermo Loyola sat behind the desk in confusion following Thursday's attack. Ramallo is serving a 20-year sentence stemming for earlier crimes, including shooting a cop in the head four years ago. Evelio Ramallo attacked a prosecutor with an aluminum garbage can inside a courtroom in Argentina Ramallo (left) is caught by a court surveillance camera reaching down before he attacks prosecutor Guillermo Loyola (right) Ramallo was quickly detained by court officers to prevent him causing any further harm to Loyola. According to Argentine news outlet Movil Quique, Ramallo, who was not in handcuffs at the time of the court session, was immediately removed from the room. The attack came after the prosecutor added two additional counts to the 10 charges that the jailed man already had in his ledger after Argentine authorities accused him of two attempted homicides, instigating, coercion and menacing through a series of phone calls and text messages. The career criminal (left) got enraged with Loyola (right), who charged him with 12 counts for new crimes that included two attempted homicides and drug dealing A pair of cell phones containing messages that implicated Ramallo were confiscated during a recent search of his jail cell. Ramallo has been locked away since 2015 after judge found him guilty of shooting a cop in the head during an October 2014 search of a home in the city on Morteros. Ramallo fired at the cop with a gun he was accused of stealing and sped away in a stolen car before he was eventually arrested following a manhunt. The bullet grazed the surviving cop's head. Ramallo was looking at a 2032 release but he jeopardized it when he allegedly issued a hit on a Andrea Jorgelina, whom he blames is the sole reason he is behind bars. It remains unclear why he's made such claims. According to Diario Castellanos, Ramallo accused Jorgelina of owing him $8,000 and a kilo of drugs. On December 2, two men aboard a motorcycle shot at Andre Jorgelina in front of her home. The young woman survived the assassination attempt after one of the bullets went through her backpack and struck her cell phone. Court officers immediately detain the furious convict (left) after he hit a prosecutor (right) with a garbage can A convicted criminal, accused of two homicide attempts, used a garbage can (pictured right) to assault a prosecutor inside an Argentine courtroom Moments after the failed hit job, Ramallo allegedly sent a text message to one of the woman's three siblings, telling him, 'I wanted to catch your sister. She's saved herself from that one. How many more times can she save herself? One, two?' She was not injured during the shooting and was immediately placed in a witness protection program. Authorities were also investigating Ramallo's possible role from the inside with a street gang that was peddling drugs. The hearing eventually resumed and a judge ordered Ramallo held in solitary confinement. Ten people died and dozens of others fell sick after eating a vegetable curry during a temple ceremony in India. Worshippers were served the religious offering, described as a 'vegetable pulav', before falling ill at Maramma temple in Chamarajnagar, southern India. The health crisis even spread beyond humans as 60 crows were found dead nearby after eating the leftover food. The tragedy in the state of Karnataka has killed at least 10 people including a 15-year-old girl, the Times of India reported. Patients are treated in an Indian hospital after falling ill from a vegetable curry they were served at a temple ceremony in the state of Karnataka Guests at the ceremony apparently started falling ill within an hour of eating the Prasad, a religious offering. Police are said to be investigating foul play, with two people arrested amid fears that poison was deliberately added to the food. One of the worshippers told News18: 'We came to temple and they gave us tomato rice which was smelling. 'Some people at the front of the queue consumed the food and fell sick, many others threw the food away and were saved. 'The ill were vomiting and frothing at the mouth.' The ceremony was reportedly taking place to mark the laying of a foundation stone for a new tower at the temple. Former Indian Prime Mister H.D. Deve Gowda was among those to express his 'shock' at the tragedy. He said on Twitter: 'Families who have lost their lives in the disaster should have the strength and courage to endure pain.' Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), circa 1940 A statue of Mahatma Gandhi on a university campus in Ghana has been pulled down by lecturers arguing that India's most renowned independence leader was racist. After campaigning for the statue's removal for two years, teachers at the University of Ghana in the country's capital Accra took matters into their own hands on Wednesday. The statue was unveiled in June 2016 by India's former President Pranab Mukherjee, who also gave a speech encouraging students to 'emulate and concretise' Gandhi's ideals. However shortly afterward lecturers started a petition to get rid of the statue, which had been located in the university's recreational quadrangle. According to the BBC, the petition said that Gandi was 'racist' and called for African heroes to be honoured instead. The teachers removed the Gandhi statue removed from University of Ghana on Wednesday after campaigning for two years Lecturers and students stand triumphant in front of the empty plinth after they pulled down the statue of Gandhi from the university's recreational quadrangle The professors said that the fact that the only historical figure memorialised on the university campus was not African was 'a slap in the face that undermines our struggles for autonomy, recognition and respect', The Guardian reported. They also reportedly cited several of Gandhi's writings which refer to black South Africans as 'kaffirs' (a highly offensive racist slur), accuse the South African government of trying to 'drag down' Indians to the level of 'half-heathen natives' and describe Indians as 'infinitely superior' to black people. Gandhi (1869 30 January 1948) is the most famous leader of India, where he is referred to as Bapu (papa). He led the country to independence from British rule, which it achieved in August 1947. Gandhi pictured as a law student in London, shortly before he went to South Africa, where he lived for 21 years He is remembered for his tactics of peaceful civil disobedience, which have inspired civil rights movements throughout the world. From age 23, Gandhi spent two decades living and working as a human rights lawyer in South Africa, where he developed his political and ethical views. While there he also faced persecution because of his race and served four prison terms totalling seven months for resisting racially-biased laws. Nana Adoma Asare Adei, a law student at the University of Ghana, told the BBC: 'Having his statue means that we stand for everything he stands for and if he stands for these things [his alleged racism], I don't think we should have his statue on campus.' The University of Ghana lecturers are not the only group to have raised objections to honouring Gandhi on the grounds that he was 'racist'. In October this year, construction work was stopped on a statue of the Indian leader being built in Malawi after more than 3,000 people signed a petition arguing against the statue citing the fact Gandhi had referred to black people as 'savages'. A judge granted an injunction saying that construction should be halted until a hearing could be carried out, or another court order was given. In their court application, activist group 'Gandhi Must Fall' said his remarks on black people 'have invited a sense of loathing and detestation.' The statue was being built in the city of Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital, as part of a $10million construction project in conjunction with the city of Delhi. The site was due to host a concert hall which would also be named after the Indian independence fighter, and was due to be inaugurated by India's Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu. Construction work on a statue honouring Gandhi in Malawi has been halted after thousands of campaigners claimed he was a racist (pictured, a building bearing his face in Delhi) Malawai's foreign ministry official Isaac Munlo previously defended the statue, saying 'Gandhi promoted values of simplicity, fight against social evils'. 'Gandhi is a role model of a human rights campaigner for both Africa and India,' he said. Malawi and India established diplomatic ties in 1964 and New Delhi is one of the country's leading aid donors. Gandhi's grandson Rajmohan Gandhi has said he was 'undoubtedly...ignorant and prejudiced about South Africa's blacks' but says he was ultimately 'more radical and progressive than most contemporary compatriots'. Rajmohan Gandhi quoted his grandfather's 1908 Johannesburg speech, in which he said: 'If we look into the future, is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity, that all the different races commingle and produce a civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet seen?' Statues have sparked charged debates in Africa in recent years as the continent wrestles with the on-going legacy of colonialism and history of racism. Students in South Africa successfully campaigned in 2015 for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a notoriously racist mining magnate who died in 1902, from the University of Cape Town campus. A man who had a bizarre habit of sniffing his smelly socks every day after work has been diagnosed with severe fungal infection in his lungs in China. The 37-year-old man, surnamed Peng, was admitted to hospital in Zhangzhou, south-east China's Fujian province when he complained of a cough and chest pains. While doctors examined him, Peng told them that he had been 'addicted to smelling his socks that he had been wearing', according to Chinese media reports. A man who had a bizarre habit of sniffing his smelly socks every day has been diagnosed with severe fungal infection in his lungs in Zhangzhou, China's Fujian province (file photo) The 37-year-old man, surnamed Peng, was was admitted to hospital in Zhangzhou, south-east China's Fujian province when he complained of a cough and chest pains As a result, the patient caught an infection from a fungus that had developed in his footwear and spread to his lungs when he inhaled the spores. 'The infection could also be attributed to the patient's lack of rest at home as he had looking after his child, leading to a weaker immune system,' Dr Mai Zhuanying at the Zhangzhou No. 909 Hospital told Fujian Daily. The man was immediately hospitalised and treated. He is expected to make a full recovery, according to the report. Net users were bewildered by the news, with many of them admitting to having the same habit and fearing for their health. 'The infection could also be attributed to the patient's lack of rest at home as he had looking after his child, leading to a weaker immune system,' Dr Mai Zhuanying (pictured) said As a result of constantly sniffing his socks, the patient caught an infection from a fungus that had developed in his footwear and spread to his lungs when he inhaled the spores 'The reason I smell my socks is to know if I can continue wearing them the next day!' one of the top-rated comments read. 'Oh no! Maybe I should stop sniffing my socks after wearing them for an entire day,' another user said. 'I promise I'll wash my socks every day now,' one user said. The hashtag, 'lung infection caused by sniffing of smelly socks', gathered nearly 65 million views on Twitter-like Weibo on Friday. Lung fungal infection is a critical health problem and could be fatal, according to a study published in Science Direct. The diagnosis of pulmonary fungal infection can be difficult because the signs and symptoms of disease can be nonspecific, and noninvasive diagnostic tests often have a low sensitivity. Advertisement The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol is refusing to take responsibility for the death of a seven-year-old girl who died of dehydration a day after being arrested at the border despite the fact that she stopped breathing on a US government bus and was not taken to hospital for more than an hour later. The Guatemalan government identified the girl as Jackeline Caal Maquin on Friday. Her father is 29-year-old Nery Caal. She was arrested along with her father as they tried to enter the US at the Antelope Wells Port of Entry in New Mexico at 9.15pm on December 6. They were among 163 migrants who were met by four Customs and Border Patrol Agents. At 10pm, she was checked over by an agent who did not observe that she had any health issues or visibly concerning attributes. According to DHS and CBP officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity on Friday during a conference call with reporters, the girl's father also told an agent in Spanish that she did not have any health problems and it was marked on a form used to process them. The DHS official who repeatedly refused to go on the record said the girl would have 'died alone in the desert' had it not been for the 'life saving measures' that were taken by agents, despite the fact that she died 36 hours after entering their custody. Between 10pm and 4.30am, she remained at the Port of Entry, apparently with access to food, water and restrooms, until both she and her father were put on a bus to be taken for processing 95 miles away at the Lordsburg Border Patrol Station. At 5am, the child started vomiting and her father alerted the agents on the bus but there was nothing they could do other than carry on, according to government officials, and alert medical staff to be prepared at the other end of the journey. Ninety-minutes later, the child's father told agents that she had stopped breathing at the same time they arrived at the patrol station. 'There wasn't a whole lot for them to do. Really, in that part of the border, there is no faster means to get her to where she needs medical treatment,' the official said on Friday. Scroll down for video Jackeline Caal Maquin died on December 8th a day after being detained on the border with her father. Her death has sparked humanitarian concerns about the US's treatment of illegal migrants in their custody. Above is an illustration of her final hours The child was airlifted from the Lordsburg Border Patrol Station in New Mexico (shown) at 7.45am on December 7 but she had stopped breathing more than an hour earlier while being transported on a bus from the Antelope Wells Port of Entry where agents say she was checked over, showed no signs of illness and had access to food and water They say it was around the time that they arrived at the patrol station but the exact number of minutes between her stopping breathing and their arrival is unclear. She was then airlifted to hospital in El Paso, Texas, at 7.45am - more than an hour later - and went into cardiac arrest. After being revived, a CT scan revealed that Jackeline had brain swelling. She died the next day, early in the morning, from liver failure. They insist that there was nothing else they could have done to save her and that she was properly checked over despite the border agents not having medical training. 'The initial screening revealed no evidence of health issues. There is no indication that it was a lack of attention. The questions were asked... there were plenty of opportunities in that period of time for her father to alert agents. 'He had already been asked questions about her health, he knew we were interested in it,' the CBP official said. GOVERNMENT TIMELINE OF GIRL'S DEATH December 6th, 9.15pm: Jackeline is detained at the Antelope Wells Port of Entry 10pm: She is looked over by border agents who clear her and say she has no signs of ill health December 7th, 4.30am: Jackeline is put on a bus with her father to be taken to the Lordsburg Patrol Station 5am: The child begins vomiting on the bus Agents call ahead to the Lordsburg station and keep driving 6.30am: Jackeline's father tells agents she has stopped breathing 6.45am: EMTs treat Jackeline at the border patrol station 7.45am: She is airlifted to Providence Children's Hospital in El Paso, Texas December 8th: Jackeline Dies in the early morning after a CT scan revealed brain swelling, liver failure, dehydration, and septic shock Advertisement OUTNUMBERED AGENTS AND NO MEDICAL STAFF Asked by DailyMail.com if it was possible the girl was not thoroughly checked over due to the fact there were so few agents and so many migrants to process, the official denied that there was a lack of care. 'Our agents are almost always outnumbered in the middle of the night on the border,' they said. There were no medical staff on the scene when they were first apprehended and the checks carried out boiled down to a visual observation and a list of questions, the officials said. FATHER SAID SHE HAD NO HEALTH PROBLEMS One thing that has been repeated by officials on and off the record is that no one raised the alarm that the girl was ill until she was being sick on the bus. During the call on Friday, agents said that the girl's father was interviewed and answered, like others, around 20 questions. Because she was a minor, he answered on her behalf. Crucially, the officials said that the interview was conducted in Spanish and that 'all' border patrol agents had to be 'proficient' in the language in order to keep their jobs. His answers were translated and used to complete the form where it was written that the girl had no medical problems. LONG WAIT TO GET ON BUS IN REMOTE, UNDER-RESOURCED BASE The first group, which contained predominantly unaccompanied minors, was taken from Antelope Wells to Lordsburg at 10pm. There was only one bus that was available to agents in the area which is extremely remote. While she was waiting for her ride, the girl and her father had access to food, water and restrooms, according to the officials. 'The resources that we have to use, we have to use as efficiently and effectively as we can. These are difficult and remote areas,' the official said. 'Antelope Wells is a forward operating base, it is different to a station. 'These are locations we put in very remote regions. No one lives out there and the roads are very limited.' The agency previously said she 'had not eaten or drank any water' for days but they did not indicate how they knew that. By the time she arrived at the border patrol station, after the journey, her temperature was 105.7 degrees. When she was flown to hospital, her father was driven to be with her. He was present for her death but has since been returned to custody. A group of migrants are arrested at the border in Tijuana on December 2 by US Border Patrol Agents. The child who died has not been named INSPECTOR GENERAL LAUNCHES PROBE INTO GIRL'S DEATH In a statement on Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan said his agents did 'everything in their power' to save her once they knew she was ill. 'Despite our trained EMT agents best efforts fighting for Jakelins life, and the work of the Hidalgo County and Providence Childrens Hospital medical teams treating her, we were unable to rescue her. 'The agents involved are deeply affected and empathize with the father over the loss of his daughter.' The Department said it would review its procedures for releasing information such as this one in light of the delay in announcing the child's death. REPUBLICANS SAY IT WAS THE FAMILY'S FAULT FOR TRYING Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen reiterated the government's previous statements on the matter during an interview on Friday, saying it was 'an example of the dangers of this journey. 'Its heart-wrenching, is what it is. And my heart goes out to the family. All of DHS. You know this is just a very sad example of the dangers of this journey. 'This family chose to cross illegally. What happened here was that they were about 90 miles away from where we could process them. 'They came in such a large crowd it took our Border Patrol folks a couple times to get them all.' She insisted that she and the other migrants were given 'immediate care' but did not go into further detail. 'We'll continue to look into the situation, but again, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this journey when migrants choose to come here illegally,' she said. White House Deputy Press Secretary John Hogan Gidley described her death as 'horrific'. 'It's a horrific, tragic situation. Obviously, our hearts go out to the family and to anyone who's suffered any type of danger and peril that they see so often when they make that trek up from the southern border. It's a horrific situation. 'There's no two ways about it and it's it's a sad time, but it's also senseless. It's a needless death and it's 100 percent preventable. 'If we could just come together and pass some common sense laws to disincentivize people from coming up from the border and encourage them to do it the right way, the legal way, then those types of deaths, those types of assaults, those types of rapes, the child smuggling, the human trafficking that would all come to an end. 'And we hope Democrats join the president.' All CBP would say on Friday when contacted by DailyMail.com earlier in the day was that its agents 'were unable to stop this tragedy.' 'As we have always said, traveling north illegally is extremely dangerous. Drug cartels, human smugglers and the elements pose deadly risks to anyone who comes across the border illegally. 'Border Patrol always takes care of individuals in their custody and does everything in their power to keep them safe. Every year the Border Patrol saves hundreds of people who are overcome by the elements between our ports of entry. 'Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the best efforts of the medical team treating the child, we were unable to stop this tragedy from occurring. 'Once again, we are begging parents to not put themselves or their children at risk attempting to enter illegally. Please present yourselves at a port of entry and seek to enter legally and safely,' a spokesman said. FURY FROM DEMOCRATS AND CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS The case has outraged civil rights groups including the ACLU and sparked further concerns over the humanitarian component of the ongoing border crisis. Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement was among the first to abhor the incident and demand answers. 'It's heartbreaking and unacceptable that a 7-year-old girl died of dehydration and shock last week in Customs and Border Protection custody. 'It's illegal and simply barbaric to deny water to a young girl in custody, particularly after they turned themselves in to authorities. 'Families walking hundreds of miles across the desert for a chance of refuge in the United States are desperate. This country owes them compassionate, humane treatment. 'We will be demanding answers from Commissioner Kevin McAleenan as to how this was allowed to happen,' she said. Cynthia Pompa, advocacy manager for the ACLU Border Rights Center, said migrant deaths increased last year even as the number of border crossing dropped. 'This tragedy represents the worst possible outcome when people, including children, are held in inhumane conditions. 'Lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths,' Pompa said. A college professor has come under fire after including a racially charged question in his student's final exams at California State University Long Beach. Matt Fischer, who has taught at the university for 16 years, is now being investigated after asking students which race was least likely to graffiti. One of Fischer's students, Alex Rambo, 31, told the New York Post that he couldn't recall the topic ever being discussed during the course. A college professor has come under fire after including a racially charged question (pictured) in his student's final exams at California State University Long Beach Rambo, who is African-American, also recalled the white professor uncomfortably calling him 'Big Dawg' as well as some of the female students 'sister-licious'. The question was included in a Health Science paper for students studying to become teachers at the university, said Rambo. It read: 'Which of the following gangs generally do the least graffiti?' the question read, with the multiple-choice answers provided as: 'A. Black, B. Asian, C. Hispanic, D. White.' The question was included in a Health Science paper for students studying to become teachers at California State University Long Beach (pictured) He told The Post that he nor his classmates could work out what data the question had been based around. Since the incident Fischer told the Long Beach Press-Telegram that the question 'wasn't meant to be racist', while apologizing for any offence caused to his students. Another student, Jeanette Ruiz, 23, said that she was concerned the question could create confusion around the narrative about people of color. She said that she received an apology from the professor, who also questioned what she would consider a 'culturally insensitive' question. A CSU spokesperson said that the allegations have been taken very seriously and have begun an investigation into the matter. One of the killers of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was heard saying 'I know how to cut' on an audio tape of the killing, President Recep Erdogan said today. Erdogan also slammed Riyadh for its changing account of how Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and prominent critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Turkey shared the audio of the killing found by investigators tape with U.S. and European officials to put pressure on the Saudis. The journalist had gone into the consulate to collect divorce documents for his forthcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancee. The case has caused global outrage and has damaged the international standing of the 33-year-old crown prince, the kingdom's de facto ruler. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said one of the killers of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was heard saying 'I know how to cut' on an audio tape of the killing The U.S. Senate yesterday delivered a rare rebuke to President Donald Trump for his support of the crown prince, whom it blamed for the killing. Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul today: 'The United States, Germany, France, Canada, we made them all listen... The man clearly says "I know how to cut". 'This man is a soldier. These are all in the audio recordings,' . But he did not give further details about the recording. Istanbul's chief prosecutor has said Khashoggi was suffocated by his killers in the consulate, before his body was dismembered and disposed of. His remains have not been found. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was said to have been killed by a hit squad in the consulate in Istanbul on October 2 Khashoggi repeatedly told his killers 'I can't breathe' during his final moments, CNN reported on Monday, quoting a source who said they had read the full translated transcript of an audio recording. Saudi Arabia has said the prince had no prior knowledge of the murder. After offering numerous contradictory explanations, Riyadh later said Khashoggi had been killed when negotiations to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. Erdogan renewed his criticism of Riyadh's explanation of the killing. Originally it had said Khashoggi had left the consulate. That was disputed by his Turkish fiancee, who had waited outside the building and said he never emerged. Khashoggi was last seen alive going into the Saudi consulate and he has not been seen since 'The prince says Jamal Khashoggi left the consulate. Is Jamal Khashoggi a kid? His fiancee is waiting outside,' Erdogan said. 'They think the world is dumb. This nation isn't dumb and it knows how to hold people accountable.' Turkish officials said last week that the Istanbul prosecutor's office had concluded there was 'strong suspicion' that Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide to Prince Mohammed, and General Ahmed al-Asiri, who served as deputy head of foreign intelligence, were among the planners of Khashoggi's killing. After Riyadh ruled out extraditing the two men, Turkey said this week that the world should seek out justice for Khashoggi under international law. Erdogan has repeatedly said he would not give up the case. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government and the prince, despite the CIA assessment that it was probably the prince who ordered Khashoggi's killing. Turkey is seeking the arrest of two allies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Khashoggi U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he stood by Saudi Arabia's crown prince despite a CIA assessment that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and pleas from U.S. senators for Trump to condemn the kingdom's de facto ruler. Trump refused to comment on whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the murder, but he provided perhaps his most explicit show of support for the prince since Khashoggi's death more than two months ago. Turkey is seeking the arrest of two allies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Khashoggi. The pair were removed from their positions in October while Saudi Arabia has detained 21 people and says it is seeking the death penalty for five over the slaying, which sparked international outrage. Turkey has been seeking to extradite 18 suspects, including 15 members of an alleged assassination squad accused of murdering and dismembering the writer. Advertisement Theresa May looked angry today following tense meetings with fellow EU leaders after she accused Commission President Jean-Claude Junker of calling her nebulous. Twitter users rejoiced after lip readers reported the cutting barb allegedly used by Mr Junker to describe Mrs May's Brexit demands. Mrs May, who regularly prefaces her statements with the words 'let me be clear', was offended by suggestions that he was hazy and imprecise when ventilating her Brexit strategy. Theresa May was clearly annoyed when she confronted European Commission president Jean-Claude Junker, pictured, during a meeting in Brussels earlier today over suggestions the former Luxembourg PM described Mrs May as 'nebulous' Twitter today exploded over allegations the EU Commission President Dean Claude Junker described Theresa May as acting in a nebulous manner. Mrs Junker strongly denied the claims during a meeting in Brussels eariler otoday Social media fans decided to have some fun this afternoon at Mrs May's expense. Theresa May was in Brussels to meet EU leader in the hope they would alter the Withdrawal agreement she had previously agreed with them as it is unlikely she will have enough support to push it through Westminster One Twitter user claimed it was the best insult since Kim Jong-un described US president Donald Trump, while a second person suggested the word could be used as a playground insult by enterprising bullies next week The PM - wielding her handbag - was seen locked in an extraordinary standoff with the EU commission chief on the second day of a tense gathering in Brussels. Although the sound was switched off, TV cameras caught the pair exchanging heated words for at least a minute. According to lipreaders, Mrs May took the Eurocrat to task for comments he delivered to journalists in the early hours of this morning, saying: 'You called me nebulous. Yes you did!' Mr Juncker, who had one hand on Mrs May's arm, looked to be trying to soothe her anger by denying making the jibe. But body language experts said Mrs May successfully disrupted Mr Juncker's usual 'Godfather' demeanour and put him on the back foot. Some Twitter users admitted the former Luxembourg's knowledge of the English language exceeded their own However, some clearly had an understanding as to the meaning of the word with this Tellytubby-esque effort Some Twitter users - even Larry the Downing Street cat - picked up on the scandal, while others suggested the use of the word Neubulous was one of the kinder descriptions used to define the PM Twitter users were very critical of Mrs May's handling of the Brexit process suggesting the use of nebulous is justified Pro Brexit supporters have been surprised by the unit of the European Union in keeping a coherent message during talks The clash could garner Mrs May some much needed points with Tory Eurosceptics and the DUP at home, as she struggles to find a way through the Parliamentary impasse over Brexit. They have been urging her to show she won't 'roll over' as the EU turns up the heat by dismissing calls for 'legally binding' guarantees that the UK will not be stuck in the Irish border 'backstop' for ever. In a press conference late last night - and wearing a green tie in solidarity with Ireland - Mr Juncker said: 'It is the UK leaving the EU. Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want. I find it uncomfortable.' 'So we would like, within a few weeks, our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications.' One Liverpool fan admitted that Jean-Claude Junker may have increased his knowledge of the English language today It is unlikely Theresa May will be raising a glass tonight like Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous, played by Joanna Lumley Someone decided to dig out the meme of Guy Goma, a cab driver accidentally interviewed on BBC News Google showed that searches for nebulous have rocketed as a result of the heated row in Brussels The Prime Minister hoped that European leaders would provide her with a lifeline and did not expect a hostile reception The European Union has ruled out re-opening the withdrawal agreement with the UK Theresa May's domestic critics have slammed the PM for her failure to change the terms of her withdrawal agreement The PM - wielding her handbag - was seen locked in a tense standoff with the EU commission chief as the second day of the summit gets under way in Brussels Theresa May was grim-faced at the EU summit venue in Brussels today as she endured another bruising round of talks Mrs May held bilateral talks with Emmanuel Macron (left) at the summit. Dutch PM Mark Rutte (right) is an ally of the PM, but has also taken a tough line on Brexit Lipreaders said the exchange began with Mrs May saying: ''What did you call me? You called me nebulous.' Mr Juncker seemingly failed to understand, and asked her to repeat herself. Mrs May then spelled out the word 'nebulous' slowly. As the camera moved around behind them a clearly frustrated Mrs May said: ''Nebulous, yes you did.'' How the bruising exchange between May and Juncker unfolded This is how lipreaders say the exchange between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker went: Mrs May: 'What did you call me? You called me nebulous.' (Mr Juncker shakes his head slightly seemingly to deny it) Mrs May: 'Yes you did.' (Mr Juncker seems unclear what word she is saying) Mrs May: 'Nebulous.' As the camera moves around behind them a clearly frustrated Mrs May says: 'Nebulous, yes you did.' Mr Juncker: 'No, I didn't, I didn't.' As the TV shot backs away from the confrontation, Dutch PM Mark Rutte comes over, apparently in an effort to defuse the situation. Advertisement But Mr Juncker says: 'No, I didn't, I didn't.' As the TV shot backed away from the confrontation, Dutch PM Mark Rutte came over, apparently in an effort to defuse the situation. Behaviour experts Judi James told MailOnline: 'Caught in a moment with Junker his body language suggests a conciliatory sense of concern while May does seem from her stern facial expression, head tilt and eye contact to be having quite a firm word in the style of a complaint,' The face-off evoked memories of Mrs Thatcher's 'handbagging' when she secured Britain's rebate on budget contributions in 1984. Before Mrs Thatcher confronted fellow leaders at the former French royal palace at Fontainebleau, the UK had far less favourable contribution terms than other member states. Britain was receiving around 1 in spending from the EU for every 2 it pumped into the bloc's coffers. But the then-PM was able to narrow the gap by securing a 'rebate' that closed around two thirds of the gap. Francois Mitterand, the French president at the time, memorably described Mrs Thatcher as having the 'eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe'. The showdown with Mr Juncker came after Mrs May's latest appeal for 'legally binding' assurances over the Irish border backstop to save her Brexit deal fell flat. France and Ireland are said to be spearheading the resistance to more concessions at a stormy Brussels summit - even torpedoing calls for another gathering next month to try to thrash out a way forward. The bloc has also pledged to ramp up preparations for the UK crashing out - with threats to charge British holidaymakers 6 to visit the continent if there is no deal. At her own press conference at the close of the summit today, Mrs Mrs May said she had been 'crystal clear' with leaders what she needed to win support for the Brexit deal at home. Thatcher's 1984 'handbag' moment is still totemic for Brexiteers The PM secured her reputation as a fierce negotiator by demanding 'our money back' from what was then the European Community Margaret Thatcher's 1984 'handbagging' of the EU is still a totemic moment for Eurosceptics. The PM secured her reputation as a fierce negotiator by demanding 'our money back' from what was then the European Community. Before she confronted fellow leaders at the former French royal palace at Fontainebleau, the UK had far less favourable contribution terms than other member states. Britain was receiving around 1 in spending from the EU for every 2 it pumped into the bloc's coffers. But Mrs Thatcher was able to narrow the gap by securing a 'rebate' that closed around two thirds of the gap. Francois Mitterand, the French president at the time, memorably described Mrs Thatcher as having the 'eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe'. Some claim it was the biggest concession ever made by the EU to a member state - although others argue that Mrs May still did not get everything she wanted. Advertisement 'I had a robust discussion with Jean-Claude Juncker,' she said. 'I think that's the sort of discussion you're able to have when you have developed a working relationship and you work well together. 'And what came out of that was his clarity that actually he'd been talking - when he used that particular phrase - he'd been talking about a general level of debate.' In a ten minute pitch at the summit dinner in Brussels last night, Mrs May begged the other 27 leaders to guarantee that a new trade deal is in place by 2021 so the contentious arrangements to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland the Republic will never be triggered. But after kicking the PM out so they could consider the situation in private, Mr Juncker emerged to complain that Britain's position was 'nebulous and imprecise'. He added: 'We don't want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation, that is crystal clear. We can add clarifications but no real changes. 'There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty.' The EU's hardball approach appears to leave Mrs May with nowhere to turn, just weeks before she must stage a critical showdown in Parliament. Mrs May was forced to promise she would secure 'legally binding' assurances in order to survive a Tory leadership coup this week - as well as publicly admitting that she will not lead the party into the 2022 general election. She asked EU counterparts to help her out last night, saying a package of assurances around the backstop could 'change the dynamic' at Westminster. She ended with a highly personal appeal to EU leaders to put their trust in her and give her the political room for manoeuvre she needs. Urging them to 'hold nothing in reserve' in helping rescue her deal, she highlighted the torrid political situation at home. 'I hope I have shown you can trust me to do what is right, not always what is easy, however difficult that might be for me politically,' Mrs May said. However, delivering a statement on behalf of the EU's 27 national leaders afterwards, European Council President Donald Tusk warned the Withdrawal Agreement was 'not open for renegotiation' - and said they are stepping up preparations for a 'no deal' scenario come March. The conclusions were even tougher against the UK than a draft that had been leaked earlier in the week - suggesting Mrs May's efforts had sent the process into reverse. Arriving at the summit this morning, EU leaders still were not holding back with their attacks on the UK. Irish PM Leo Varadkar expressed 'satisfaction' with the tough line taken by the bloc, and said the best Mrs May could hope for was 'clarifications and explanations'. 'We can discuss what form that akes but what we won't be doing as a European Union is renegotiating,' he said. Luxembourg's Xavier Bettel said 'for internal political reasons some people try to gamble the relations between the EU and the UK for the future'. May spoils Juncker's 'Godfather' act at Brussels summit By Judi James, body language expert The normal format for a Junker greeting ritual at these events entails a powerful blend of signals of power and quasi-parental warmth. He usually remains seated in the style of the Godfather and May normal indulges him be bending to kiss the Junker cheek. Here though there is a suggestion of less friendship and more hectoring from May. She entered the chamber at a whirlwind pace that was in direct contrasted to the other leaders' slower, more sociable air of relaxed bonhomie. Caught in a moment with Junker his body language suggests a conciliatory sense of concern while May does seem from her stern facial expression, head tilt and eye contact to be having quite a firm word in the style of a complaint. She usually mirrors Junker's tactile displays of public affection but although he places a hand on her arm there is no reciprocal warmth visible here from the PM. Junker looks rather surprised at what he's hearing but May's rapid pace of movement here suggests she's keen to get her point across quickly. Advertisement 'It's bad. This is the best possible deal,' he said. 'Theresa May is clear. Westminster is not clear. The problem is the MPs in London.' Belgium's prime minister Charles Michel said there was 'gigantic doubt' about whether Mrs May will be 'able to honor the engagement that was undertaken'. 'We are going to be sure to prepare for all hypotheses, including the hypothesis of a `no deal,' he said. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said he does not now expect a special Brexit summit in January to agree a way forward. He said they now need the British Parliament to back the deal agreed with Mrs May. 'We need a positive vote from the British Parliament, not a summit,' he said. 'We want a vote. We need a vote from the British Parliament to continue. 'We very much hope this will be a positive vote. We count on that.' But the EU's stance provoked fury from Brexiteers, while DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted Mrs May must 'stand up' to her counterparts rather than 'roll over as has happened previously'. Mrs Foster - whose 10 MPs are propping the Tories up in power - said: 'The Prime Minister has promised to get legally binding changes. 'The reaction by the EU is unsurprising. They are doing what they always do. The key question is whether the PM will stand up to them or whether she will roll over as has happened previously.' Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Mrs May had failed to achieve 'meaningful changes' and called for a vote on her deal before Christmas. European Council President Donald Tusk (pictured right at the summit today) also warned that the Withdrawal Agreement is 'not open for renegotiation' Irish PM Leo Varadkar (pictured today) expressed 'satisfaction' with the tough line taken by the bloc, and said the best Mrs May could hope for was 'clarifications and explanations' Angela Merkel (pictured left with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban today) is still a key powerbroker in the EU The intense Brexit wrangling is taking place at the summit at the EU council's headquarters in Brussels today He said: 'We cannot go on like this. The Prime Minister should reinstate the vote on her deal next week and let Parliament take back control.' But Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington defended Mrs May's handling of the talks, telling Today: 'Anybody who has heard Theresa May in debate, anybody who has heard her around the Cabinet table, knows there is a very clear plan.' He described the talks as 'a welcome first step that was the removal of uncertainty' over the EU's intentions, because it had shown it wanted a 'speedy UK trade deal' that would remove the need for the backstop in the first place. The Brexit deal was finally struck last month after nearly two years of tortuous negotiations, with Mrs May forcing it through Cabinet at the cost of a series of resignations, and pledging to put it to MPs this week. But the vote was chaotically shelved when it became clear the government was on track for a catastrophic defeat, in the face of opposition from Tory Brexiteers and Remainers, the DUP, Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems. In a desperate bid to salvage the situation, she vowed to go back to Brussels for more 'legally binding' assurances on the Irish border backstop. Mrs May is thought to have been hoping for a legal addendum to the Withdrawal Agreement that would set a start date for the future relationship between the EU27, or some other binding commitment to ensure the backstop is temporary. What does the word 'nebulous' actually mean? Google searches for the meaning of the word 'nebulous' spiked as news of the standoff between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker emerged. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word can mean 'in the form of a cloud or haze', and 'vague and ill defined'. The origins of the word are said to be from the Middle English for 'cloudy', and ultimately the Latin word for 'mist' - nebula. Advertisement But the response of the EU was to delete key parts of the draft summit conclusions that might have given the UK a glimmer of hope. EU council president Donald Tusk said: 'Prime Minister May informed the leaders about the difficulties with ratifying the deal in London and asked for further assurances that would at least in her view unlock the ratification process in the House of Commons... 'The Union stands by this agreement and intends to proceed with its ratification. It is not open for renegotiation,' Tusk concluded. There was said to have been sympathy for Mrs May inside the leaders dinner after her ordeal yesterday, but sources inside the dinner said it was made clear that not much would be expected from today's talks. As the summit began yesterday, leaders including Angela Merkel and Holland's Mark Rutte held out an olive branch by speaking of their 'admiration' for the PM. Leaked draft conclusions appeared to offer a glimmer of hope by emphasising that the Irish border backstop was an 'insurance policy' and only intended to be 'temporary' if it comes into force. Former Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso also appealed for EU leaders to help Mrs May - warning a Brexit had to be concluded without 'resentment'. But any optimism quickly evaporated as leaders arrived at the summit with an uncompromising message, insisting that the legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened. Mrs Merkel said Mrs May's victory in the confidence vote was 'pleasing', but added: 'I do not see that this Withdrawal Agreement can be changed.' While acclaiming Mrs May in English as he spoke to reporters in Brussels today, Mr Rutte was less helpful when he addressed Dutch journalists in his own language. 'If anyone in the Netherlands thinks Nexit is a good idea, look at England and see the enormous damage it does,' he said. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz suggested another summit could be convened in January to try and sign off more assurances, but said it was hard to know what the EU should give to May because 'not all the arguments of Brexit supporters are rational'. And Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite put it more bluntly. 'Brexit Christmas wish: finally decide what you really want and Santa will deliver,' she said on Twitter in posting a picture of a chocolate Christmas tree. As she arrived at the summit, Mrs May publicly conceded for the first time that the Brexit crisis will cut short her stay in Downing Street, saying although in her 'heart' she wants to fight on, she will need to quit before the next general election. 'I think it is right that the party feels that it would prefer to go into that election with a new leader,' she said. Mrs Merkel today again flatly dismissed the prospect of renegotiating the Withdrawal Agreement, while the Finnish PM warned the best she can hope for is 'political' assurances. 'We can discuss whether there should be additional assurances, but here the 27 member states will act very much in common and make their interests very clear. 'This is always in the spirit that we will have very, very good relations with the UK after it has departed from the European Union.' French president Emmanuel Macron said there could be a 'political discussion' but added ominously: 'One cannot reopen a legal agreement.' Mr Rutte was effusive in his praise of Mrs May's 'tenacity'. 'I feel respect. She is an able leader. I admire her tenacity and resilience. She's a great leader. And if you saw the Labour people laughing at her when she said 'I listened', I felt this was not very British,' he said. 'She stood there and kept her composure and won this fight within her party. I have the highest admiration for her.' Finnish PM Juha Sipila warned: 'Legally binding will be a little bit difficult. 'But we all want to help her first of all, and then our goal is that the new relationship will be before the backstop. 'So I think, at the political level, we can (offer assurances). That's our primary goal. And let's see if we can find something from the legal side also, but it's open still.' A Commons vote on the PM's Brexit deal was pulled at the last moment this week to avoid a catastrophic defeat. Trade Secretary Liam Fox has put down a clear marker by warning it may never be put to a Parliamentary vote unless changes are made. In a sign of the simmering divisions, other ministers including Philip Hammond, Amber Rudd, David Gauke and Greg Clark are urging an early vote on the package - and then if it is defeated a series of Commons votes on different options for how to move forward. Mrs May also played down hopes of any shift soon, saying: 'I don't expect an immediate breakthrough, but what I do hope is that we can start to work as quickly as possible on the assurances that are necessary.' The White House insisted Friday that a probe into the Donald Trump's inaugural committee has 'nothing' to do with the sitting president as it attempts to distance itself from allegations of inappropriate conduct - saying he just turned up for it. Federal prosecutors in New York are examining whether Trump's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the $107 million it raised. Investigators are also exploring charges that top donors gave money in exchange for access to and influence within the Trump administration. The inquiry is particularly focusing on Middle Eastern donors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. According to The New York Times, investigators are trying to determine whether those nations used straw donors to disguise their donations to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee and the pro-Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, in hopes of buying influence. Foreign nations are prohibited from contributing to federal campaigns, PACs and inaugural funds by law. Federal prosecutors are also examining whether Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the $107million it raised. White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley contended on Friday that the pay-for-play allegations have 'nothing' to do with President Trump. The White House is insisting that a probe into the Donald Trump's inaugural committee has 'nothing' to do with the sitting president as it attempted to distance itself from allegations of inappropriate conduct Investigators are also exploring charges that top donors gave money in exchange for access to and influence within the Trump administration White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley contended on Friday that the pay-for-play allegations have 'nothing' to do with President Trump Federal prosecutors in New York are examining whether Trump 's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the $107 million it raised 'As you guys know, at the time of the inauguration, the president was trying to establish a government and right all the wrongs of the Obama administration. He did both of those things, quite frankly, at historic levels,' Gidley told reporters. 'But the President of the United States has one job at the inauguration. It's to show up, to thank everyone for the service to get him elected, and then also dance with the first lady. He did all of those things. This charge has nothing to do with the president of the United States and it has nothing to do with this administration.' The Wall Street Journal first revealed the existence of the investigation on Thursday evening, just in time for the evening news. 'That doesn't have anything to do with the president or the first lady,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Thursday night. 'The biggest thing the president did in his engagement for the inauguration was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office.' Sanders said, 'The president was focused on the transition during that time and not on any of the planning.' Money in exchange for political favors could violate federal corruption laws. There could also be a violation of federal law if funds were diverted from the inaugural committee, which was registered as a nonprofit. Federal prosecutors in New York are examining whether President Donald Trump 's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the $107 million it raised The investigation came partly out of materials seized in the federal probe of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's business dealings, the Journal reported. In April raids of Cohen's home, office and hotel room, federal agents obtained a recorded conversation between Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. Wolkoff, in their conversation, expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending its money. A former Vogue staffer who is one of the first lady's longtime friends, Wolkoff left the administration in February after reports her firm, WIS Media Partners, received $26 million in payments to help plan the inauguration. She was an unpaid adviser to the first lady. It's unknown when the conversation between Wolkoff and Cohen took place or why it was recorded. According to the committee's tax filings, Wolkoff's WIS Media Partners was formed 45 days before the inauguration and got paid the most of any vendor for its work. Trump's inaugural committee raised more than double what former President Barack Obama's first inaugural committee did. Supporters said the president's inauguration was so costly because no one expected him to win so all the planning was done at the last minute. Trump's funds came largely from wealthy donors and corporations who gave $1 million or more - including casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, AT&T Inc. and Boeing Co., according to Federal Election Commission filings examined by the Journal. A lawyer close to the matter told the Journal that the inaugural committee has not been contacted by prosecutors. 'We are not aware of any evidence the investigation the Journal is reporting actually exists,' the lawyer told the newspaper. Prosecutors have asked Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide who served as the inaugural committee's deputy chairman, about the committee's spending and its donors. Gates has met with prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office and the special counsel's office. The one-time deputy to Paul Manafort has plead guilty to financial crimes he says he committed with his former business partner before they worked for Trump. His sentencing has been delayed by the special counsel's office as he continues to provide assistance to the federal government. Prosecutors were acting off a tip from a conversation found on a recording during a raid of Michael Cohen's home, office and hotel room. The call was between Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events Supporters said the president's inauguration was so costly because no one expected him to win so all the planning was done at the last minute Special Counsel Robert Mueller has examined whether any foreign money came into the inaugural fund, which is prohibited from accepting foreign contributions. In August, the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, on a referral from Mueller, obtained a guilty plea from a D.C. consultant who admitted he used a U.S. citizen to serve as a 'straw purchaser' so that a 'prominent Ukraine oligarch' could attend the inauguration. The names were never disclosed, the paper noted. There have been other reports that prosecutors were interested in individuals with Russian ties attending Trump's inauguration. The Washington Post reported in January that the FBI expressed concerns about several Russians connected to the Kremlin who were in Washington, D.C., that weekend, and ABC News reported in June that Mueller was looking into how several Russian oligarchs were given access to invitation-only parties. Since pleading guilty to eight counts in August, Cohen has been cooperating with prosecutors in New York and the special counsel's office. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to three years in prison. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping package of Republican-written legislation Friday that restricts early voting and weakens the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general, brushing aside complaints that he is enabling a brazen power grab and ignoring the will of voters. Signing the bills just 24 days before he leaves office, the Republican governor and one-time presidential candidate downplayed bipartisan criticism that they amount to a power grab that will stain his legacy. Walker's action Friday came as Michigan's Rick Snyder, another Midwestern GOP governor soon to be replaced by a Democrat, signed legislation in a lame-duck session that significantly scales back minimum wage and paid sick leave laws that began as citizen initiatives. Michigan's Republican legislators also are weighing legislation resembling Wisconsin's that would strip or dilute the authority of incoming elected Democrats. The push in both states mirrors tactics employed by North Carolina Republicans in 2016. Speaking for 20 minutes and using charts to make his points, Walker detailed all of the governor's powers, including a strong veto authority, that will not change while defending the measures he signed as improving transparency, stability and accountability. 'There's a lot of hype and hysteria, particularly in the national media, implying this is a power shift. It's not,' Walker said before signing the measures during an event at a state office building in Green Bay, about 130 miles from his Capitol office that has frequently been a target for protesters. Legacy: Scott Walker went to Green Bay to sign three measures during his lame duck period as Wisconsin governor which mean his successor Tony Evers will have fewer powers than he did. Evers is a Democrat and Walker is a Republican Not what the Democrats say: Scott Walker used a venn diagram during a 20 minute presentation before he signed the bill into law in an attempt to show why it is not a power grab Walker was urged by Democrats and Republicans, including Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers and former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, to reject the legislation. Walker, who was defeated by Evers for a third term, had earlier said he was considering partial vetoes, but he ultimately did not strike anything. Evers accused Walker of ignoring and overriding the will of the people by signing the bills into law. 'This will no doubt be his legacy,' Evers said in a statement. Walker, speaking after he signed the bills, brushed aside what he called 'high-pitched hysteria' from critics of the legislation. He said his legacy will be the record he left behind that includes all-but eliminating collective bargaining for public workers, not the lame-duck measures. 'We've put in deep roots that have helped the state grow,' Walker said. 'You want to talk about legacy, to me that's the legacy.' Democrats and liberal advocacy groups are expected to sue within days over the bills, which was pushed through the Republican-controlled Legislature during a lame-duck session last week. Republican leaders and Walker moved forward with the proposals immediately after Evers defeated the GOP governor as part of a Democratic sweep of statewide offices in the midterm election. The Wisconsin bills focus on numerous Republican priorities, including restricting early in-person voting to two weeks before an election, down from as much as nearly seven weeks in the overwhelmingly Democratic cities of Milwaukee and Madison. The legislation shields the state's job-creation agency from Evers' control until September and limits his ability to enact administrative rules. The measures also would block Evers from withdrawing Wisconsin from a multistate lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act, one of his central campaign promises. Not so civil now: The legislation imposes a work requirement for BadgerCare health insurance recipients, which Walker won federal approval to do earlier this year, and prevents Evers from seeking to undo it. It eliminates the state Department of Justice's solicitor general's office, which outgoing Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel used to launch contentious partisan litigation. Doing away with it ensures Democratic-Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul can't use the office to challenge Republican-authored laws. The bills also allow lawmakers to intervene in lawsuits, ensuring Republicans will be able to defend their policies and laws in court if Kaul refuses to do it. Kaul also would need approval from the Legislature's budget-writing committee before he can reach any settlements, further increasing the power of that GOP-controlled panel. The Republican-controlled Legislature introduced and passed the bills less than five days after unveiling them late on a Friday afternoon two weeks ago. Outraged Democrats accused the GOP of a power grab that undermined the results of the November election. Evers and others have argued Walker will tarnish his legacy by signing the bills, and Kaul has predicted multiple lawsuits challenging the legislation. Republican legislative leaders countered that they were merely trying to balance the power of the executive and legislative branches. They said they wanted to ensure Evers must negotiate with them rather than issue executive orders to undo their policy achievements. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said by signing the bills, Walker was 'acknowledging the importance of the Legislature as a co-equal branch of government.' Walker's signing of the bills comes a day after he announced a $28 million incentive package to keep open a Kimberly-Clark Corp. plant in northeast Wisconsin. One of the lame-duck bills would prevent Evers from making such a deal, instead requiring the Legislature's budget committee to sign off. Storm Diego wreaked havoc across the US south-east over the weekend but that hasn't stopped one family enjoying the snow... by dancing in their swimsuits outside. Video footage sees the Gilliam family, of Alamance County, North Carolina, appear one at a time as they show off their moves in the deep snow. First to bound into view in the freezing weather - around -2C - is Sean, wearing just shorts, and a smile on his face. Video footage sees the Gilliam family, of Alamance County, North Carolina, show off their moves in the deep snow First to bound into view in the freezing weather - around -2C - is Sean, wearing just shorts, and a smile on his face The father is soon joined by his first and then second daughter in their swimming costumes who show off their crazy moves Last in is the girls' mother Kelly who immediately starts shimmying along in her one-piece with the rest of the clan While doing some 'Dad dancing', he is soon joined by his first and then second daughter in their swimming costumes. Last in is the girls' mother Kelly, who uploaded the video to Facebook on December 9. She immediately starts shimmying along in her one-piece with the rest of the clan. The dance has been a regular fixture of the family's Christmas for the past three years. The family dance and boogie in the deep snow as they perform their routine to the camera Braving the cold, the family dance in just their swimsuits. The boogie has been a regular fixture of the family's Christmas for the past three years And with each passing year, it attracts more attention. Their latest effort has gone viral, racking up more than 55,000 views on Facebook. While sunny skies helped North Carolina thaw on Tuesday, temperatures dropped again overnight, putting a winter weather advisory in effect for western parts of the state through late Wednesday morning. This is the 23-year-old Dutch man who has been arrested in the stabbing death of an American student. Record show that Joel Schelling was arrested on Wednesday at the Eindhoven Railway Station on Thursday shortly after the body of Sarah Papenheim was discovered in her dorm room. A fellow musician photographed the moment that police surrounded Schelling at the station and ordered the platform to be cleared so that authorities could examine the young man's double bass case. The suspect, dressed in jeans and a black nylon coat, was ordered on her knees and held his behind his back as police handcuffed him and conducted their search before taking him into custody. 'I was in the same train as him, I checked in at den Bosch and went out in Eindhoven. Then I saw a lot of police at the platform, also undercover. They went to this guy when he left the train. He stayed extremely calm, like he had just finished a yoga session,' said the musician who took the photos. 'Maybe he was just in a psychotic state of mind. He did not speak and almost didn't blink his eyes.' He went on to describe Schelling as 'apathetic.' In custody: Joel Schelling (above) was arrested at the Eindhoven Railway Station shortly after the body of Sarah Papenheim was discovered in her dorm room Tragedy: The 21-year-old college student (above) was pronounced dead on the scene after being stabbed to death on Wednesday Emotionless: Schelling was taken into custody after police searched the double bass case he was travelling with at the time and cleared the platform Papenheim was found covered in blood and announced dead on the scene by emergency workers, who responded to her residence after hearing loud noises and arguing coming from the young woman's room. She was just 21, and preparations are now being made to return her body to Minnesota just before the holiday. A GoFundMe page has been created to help her family with those costs. The suspect and victim were both residents of De Snor, a building that largely housed students studying at Erasmus University. Papenheim, who had been studying in Rotterdam since 2016, occupied a studio apartment on the third floor of the building. The motive remains unclear at this time, and is another devastating blow for the young woman's family. She had traveled to Europe to pursue her studies in psychology, and later took up a minor in suicide when her brother took his own life just days after their mother remarried. Detectives are now combing the scene of the crime for any cles and trying to determine why Schelling boarded the train to Eindhoven. Happier times: She was in a relationship with another student at the university, Nico Karsemeijer (above), who had recently graduated with a degree in business administration Brother and sister: She was majoring in psychology and had minored in suicide in the wake of her own brother taking his life, and was sympathetic to those with mental problems (the victim and her brother in a childhood photo) Family: Papenheim's mother said the young woman tried to help those with mental problems in the wake of her brother's suicide (the v ictim with her mother and brother in an undated photo) Authorities believe that Papenheim was still alive when Schelling fled the scene, leaving her to bleed to death. Papenheim was committed to helping people with mental problems in the wake of her brother's suicide, which might explain her relationship with Schelling. 'Theyd talk music all night. They kinda clicked on that. Then as time went on, hed get highs and lows,' Pappenheim's mother said in an interview with the Star Tribune. Things had gotten worse recently according to Donee Odegard, who said in the interview that just a few days ago 'two people from mental health came over, but she shooed them away because she was afraid he would think she called them.' That is when she told her daughter to 'get out of there.' She believes that Paperheim was going to her room to retrieve clothes so she could stay at her boyfriend's dorm room when the murder occurred on Wednesday. She was in a relationship with another student at the university, Nico Karsemeijer, who was majoring in business administration. In addition to her studies, Papenheim was also an avid drummer. The university issued a statement saying it was shocked by her death and was taking care of students and staff. 'Our deepest condolences go out to all Sarah's family and friends at this poignant time,' the said Erasmus University ina statement on Friday. Dominic Chappell has blasted former BHS owner Sir Philip Green and said he wished he'd never bought the high street chain Entrepreneur Dominic Chappell has blasted former BHS owner Sir Philip Green and said he wished he'd never bought the high street chain from him after he was hauled before the courts and ordered to pay almost 125,000. The ex-racing driver was found guilty in January of not giving The Pensions Regulator (TPR) vital documents about the company's pension scheme after it went into administration in 2016. Today, Chappell, 52 was fined 50,000 with 73,900 costs after his appeal for failing to hand over the vital documents was rejected. Chappell launched an astonishing broadside against the Arcadia boss. He said that unlike Sir Philip Green he wasn't a billionaire who could simply wave his chequebook at the problem. In an emotional address he told the judge: 'In 2015 when I bought BHS I relied heavily on the undertakings Philip Green, a Knight of the Realm, a billionaire and a high street guru.' Chappell said he had also relied on an audit of the company by Green's accountants PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC). Chappell who had no retail experience, bought BHS from billionaire Sir Philip Green for just 1 in March 2015. The company crashed just 13 months later with stores including this branch in Newport, Wales, closing Green pictured on board one of his yachts in Miami in December last year He said: 'I'm the victim of circumstances that came out of British Home Stores. I wish to God we had never got involved in it.' Chappell who had no retail experience, bought BHS from billionaire Sir Philip Green for just 1 in March 2015. The 88-year-old company crashed just 13 months later in April 2016 with the loss of 11,000 jobs and 164 stores, leaving a pensions black hole of more than 500million. The Regulator, which has a responsibility to safeguard pensions, moved to protect the pensions of 19,000 members. Between May 2016 - August 2017 the Regulator and made three Section 72 requests for documents relating got the pension scheme from the new owner, Chappell. It later agreed a deal with Sir Philip Green that he should pay 363million towards the pension deficit. When Chappell failed to comply he was charged with three counts of neglecting or refusing to provide documents contrary to the Pensions Act 2004 and after a trial in January he was found guilty and 50,000 with court costs of 37,000. The self-described entrepreneur took his case to appeal and lost and today was hauled before the courts for re-sentence. Representing himself at Hove Crown Court, claiming he could not afford a barrister or solicitor, he said he had very few assets or business interests and had been forced to rent a car to get to the hearing from his home in Blandford Forum, Dorset. He said: 'I'm not Philip Green sitting on a 100m yacht in the south fo France who just wrote a cheque for 350m to make the problem go away. But in court today Chappell launched a strongly-worded broadside against the Arcadia boss. He said that unlike Sir Philip Green (pictured) he wasn't a billionaire who could wave his chequebook at the problem He said during his 13-months at the helm of BHS he had contributed 4.5million to the pension fund and had helped the Regulator recoup the 350million that Sir Philip Green took from the fund. He said: 'I have not been convicted of any wrongdoing at BHS apart from the Section 72s. We did the best job available in the time we had. I tried everything I could to get information for them.' The entrepreneur said he had exhausted his savings and now relied on a wage from his current employer but added that he was unlikely to receive a 4,000 predicted Christmas bonus due to poor trading conditions. Chappell added: 'I've been worn out. I cannot play this game anymore. I can't afford to do so.' In deciding the level of the fine the court took into account his present financial circumstances and commitments. Chappell denied he had a stake in a yacht called Maverick II or a flat in Marbella which he said had belonged to his mother but had been sold. Judge Christine Henson QC said evidence put forward by Chappell was 'untrue' and not 'credible'. She said: 'The culpability was high, it was deliberate, it was persistent. In terms of harm we found that his refusal to comply caused significant delays to TPR task. 'It made their task significantly more difficult. It must have cause them stress and anguish. It undermined the proper function of the Regulator.' Nicola Parish for TPR said: 'Dominic Chappell has consistently refused to provide the information about the sale of BHS that we demanded, despite the courts being clear he should provide it. 'His repeated claims that he does not have to give us what we had been seeking have now been rejected by two different courts.' ABC's late night host Jimmy Kimmel has mocked President Donald Trump for reportedly considering his son-in-law Jared Kushner as White House chief of staff. 'I guess the thinking is, if he's good enough to screw my daughter, he's good enough to screw the country,' Kimmel said in his monologue on Thursday night, eliciting groans from the audience. 'I really hope he hires Jared and then he fires Jared so we go through the whole thing,' Kimmel added. Kushner, who along with his wife Ivanka Trump is a senior advisor to the President, is said to be among the names Trump is mulling to replace outgoing chief of staff John Kelly. 'I guess the thinking is, if he's good enough to screw my daughter, he's good enough to screw the country,' Kimmel said in his monologue on Thursday night, eliciting audience groans Kushner, who along with his wife Ivanka Trump is a senior advisor to the President, is said to be among the names Trump is mulling for his new chief of staff Kelly is slated to leave the administration by the end of the year. Trump's plans for the role were upended when his first choice for the job turned him down. Some of Trump's advisers have urged him to consider Kushner for the job, sources told Reuters an idea Trump's spokeswoman appeared to pour cold water on. 'I'm not aware that he's under consideration,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. 'But as I think all of us here would recognize, he will be great in any role that the president chooses to put him in.' One person, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kushner was currently not inclined to pursue the position. The first son-in-law, already an adviser to the president with an office next to the Oval Office, was reported by the Huffington Post to have pushed his own candidacy and been rewarded with a meeting Wednesday about the role. He apparently claimed he could work with Democrats - a claim ridiculed by one of the sources for the report who said: 'I don't know why he thinks that, when the Democrats are mainly going to be coming after Trump.' Trump said on Thursday that he has five candidates for the job who are fighting it out Outgoing chief John Kelly (left) and former chief Reince Priebus are seen at a White House event on Thursday. Trump is now looking for what will be his third chief of staff Kushner's potential candidacy emerged shortly after the president claimed he had five candidates who actually want the job fighting it out. 'Five people. Really good ones. Terrific people. Mostly well known, but terrific people,' Trump told reporters on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, reports surfaced that Trump was meeting about the job with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - an arch-nemesis of Kushner. A source familiar with Trump's thinking told Reuters the president had a positive meeting with Christie, and considered him a top-tier candidate for the position. Christie, a brash, tough-talking politician, was a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but abandoned the attempt after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary. He subsequently endorsed Trump, becoming his adviser throughout the 2016 campaign and running his transition team early on. He and Kushner have bad blood dating back to Christie's prosecuting days. He sent Kushner's father to prison for illegal campaign contributions. Charles Stratton, 50 (pictured), is being held in jail after admitting to snatching Janice Allen's purse 'to pay for crack' at a Florida McDonald's and nearly running her over in the parking a lot after she chased him down on December 6 The elderly woman who was nearly run over at a McDonald's parking lot after she chased down the man who snatched her purse said she is praying for him as she shows her injuries from the ordeal. Charles Stratton is in jail on a $40,000 bond on charges of aggravated battery, grand theft and robbery after turning himself in relation to the December 6 incident involving Janice Allen, 76, the Okeechobee Police Department said on Friday. Stratton, 50, turned himself in to authorities in another county, saying he stole the purse to buy crack cocaine, police said. But all he got was $4, according to Allen, who said it was her daughter's purse and she barely had anything in it. Following her release from the hospital with injuries from the ordeal, Allen said she's not mad at Stratton. 'I pray that his heart will be softened so he can find the Lord, whether he goes to prison or whatever happens to him,' Allen said. Allen was having dinner with a friend at the McDonald's on 70 East in Okeechobee, Florida on December 6, when a man came up behind her and grabbed her purse. 'We always have a Happy Meal, which I didn't get to finish by the way,' Allen said. Surveillance cameras in the fast food restaurant captured the deed on camera, including the moment Allen took quick action and pursued the thief, even though she didn't have much to lose in the handbag, which didn't even belong to her. 'My daughter, it was her purse,' she said. 'All I had in it was my phone, charge cards and $4. He didn't get anything but $4, so it's amazing anybody would even do something like that.' Janice Allen (on the pavement) tried to chase down the man who stole her purse and ended up almost run over in the process as he tried to flee the McDonald's in Okeechobee, Florida All the man got was $4, according to Janice Allen (pictured), who said it was her daughter's purse and she barely had anything in it Describing the moment she decided to chase the man down, anyway, Allen said, 'Well I just slid out the booth and ran after him.' When Allen got out to the parking lot, exterior security cameras caught the rest of the terrifying incident. Allen raced up to the car that the man was getting into, determined to get back her belongings. 'He started to close the door and I yanked the handle with my left hand,' she said. Now, after two days in the hospital, the Ohio grandmother is still awaiting results of an MRI and her arms are black and blue Showing the lower half of her leg to WPTV cameras while wincing in pain from trying to take off her slipper, Allen said, 'This was all swollen and it's still swollen in my foot' Allen was having dinner with a friend at the McDonald's on 70 East in Okeechobee, Florida on December 6, when a man came up behind her and grabbed her purse Describing the moment she decided to chase the man down, Allen said, 'Well I just slid out the booth and ran after him.' Police have identified the suspect as Charles Stratton Surveillance cameras in the fast food restaurant captured the deed on camera, including the moment Allen took quick action and pursued the thief, even though she didn't have much to lose in the handbag, which didn't even belong to her As Allen successfully opened the door, the man backed up, Allen was knocked down by the door and slid right underneath it with the front wheels of the car barely missing her body as the man sped away. When she went down, Allen smacked her head hard on the concrete, and she said everything went black. Doctors diagnosed her with suffering a concussion and and she said she also had a blood drop on her brain. The man first ran out the door, and approached a car parked in a handicap accessible parking spot, near the exit door that he ran out of The man can clearly be seen on surveillance footage getting in to the car that nearly hits Allen Allen raced up to the car that the man was getting into, determined to get back her belongings 'He started to close the door and I yanked the handle with my left hand,' Allen said As Allen successfully opened door open, the man backed up, and Allen was knocked down Allen slid right underneath the door with the front wheels of the car barely missing her body as the man sped away. When she went down, Allen smacked her head hard on the concrete, and she said everything went black Now, after two days in the hospital, the Ohio grandmother is still awaiting results of an MRI and her arms are black and blue. Showing the lower half of her leg to WPTV cameras while wincing in pain from trying to take off her slipper, Allen said, 'This was all swollen and it's still swollen in my foot.' Ever the optimist, she added, 'I have no broken bones, but I'm badly bruised.' Allen is a snowbird, who spends the winter months in Florida to escape the Cincinnati cold with her husband, Bill. Bill said he's thankful she wasn't more seriously injured. 'I really thought the worst,' he said, 'but I'm grateful to the Lord that she's not hurt any worse than what she was.' Ever the optimist, Allen added, 'I have no broken bones, but I'm badly bruised.' She is shown immediately after the incident, being helped by witnesses Police made a public plea Friday for the fiance of missing mom Kelsey Berreth to sit down for questioning with investigators - 23 days after she vanished and hours after they started a search of his ranch with cadaver dogs and digging equipment. Patrick Frazee, 32, is yet to sit down with detectives probing Kelsey's disappearance despite his lawyer telling the media he had been co-operating. Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young used a press conference - down the road from Frazee's sprawling cattle ranch - to ask him to come in for questioning about the disappearance of Kelsey, with whom he has a year-old baby daughter Kaylee. Chief De Young said: 'We are asking Patrick to sit down with investigators since he is the last person to talk with Kelsey face to face based on our investigation. 'There have been numerous questions about whether Patrick is a suspect or a person of interest, at this point we are considering every possibility and I'm not willing to jump to conclusions or label people involved in this highly complex investigation.' He added: 'He is communicating with us through his attorney and that's about all I can say.' De Young said they received the go ahead from a judge Thursday to search Frazee's ranch in Florissant, Colorado, and executed it on Friday morning - but declined to reveal what new evidence they had uncovered that led to the warrant being issued. At the ranch Friday Frazee was driven away in a blacked out sheriff's department SUV with Kaylee in his arms - but was not arrested and did not answer officer's questions. Patrick Frazee and his one-year-old daughter just left his property in the back of this sheriff SUV. Officials plan to update us at a news conference today at 4:30 PM ET. #KelseyBerreth pic.twitter.com/baCIGWL1W6 Clayton Sandell (@Clayton_Sandell) December 14, 2018 Police are searching the home of Patrick Frazee (left) after his fiancee Kelsey Berreth (right) went missing on Thanksgiving Day. The couple have a daughter named Kaylee (pictured) Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young is pictured here at Friday's press conference An @FBI Evidence Response Team just pulled in to assist with the operation taking place right now on the property of Patrick Frazee, the fiancee of missing mom #KelseyBerreth @ABC pic.twitter.com/Wnjyl71arP Clayton Sandell (@Clayton_Sandell) December 14, 2018 Officers (pictured) are seen combing the area around Frazee's property in Florissant on Friday The chief said they wanted to ask Frazee if he traveled at all in the days after Kelsey was last seen. And asked why it took 12 days for them to search Frazee's home, he said: 'Thats a very good question why did it take so long to search the home, there are a number of other things that we have done up to this point that have led to us being able to search the residence at this point.' The police chief also revealed Frazee has not yet allowed Kelsey's mother - the grandmother of their one year old baby Kaylee - to see the child since her disappearance. He said: 'Good question, no the grandmother has not seen her baby, her granddaughter at this time.' Asked if it was wise to leave the baby with Frazee when they don't know if he was involved in her mum's disappearance, he said they did 'see Kelsey's daughter last week, yes we are looking into that', adding: 'I have no information at this time that I need to take that child away at this point.' He spoke as the Woodland Park Police Department, together with the FBI, executed a search warrant at the farm of Patrick Frazee where he is a rancher. They hope to find information about the whereabouts of his fiance Kelsey Berreth, 29, who disappeared on November 22 in Denver, Colorado. Frazee was the last known person to see Berreth before she went missing and the search of his ranch in Florissant could last three days, according to Woodland Park Police Chief Miles DeYoung. Footage emerged on Friday morning of an FBI team arriving at Frazee's property to search for information which could lead to the mother-of-one being found. The couple have never lived together despite being engaged and sharing a daughter. On November 25, three days after Kelsey disappeared, police say her cellphone pinged near Gooding, Idaho, nearly 800 miles away. On the same day, two text messages were apparently sent from the device. One told her employer she would not be showing up to work the following week. The second message was sent to Frazee. KHQ reported that The FBI confirmed Tuesday that it was offering its resources to local and state investigators in whatever capacity needed. And today law enforcement enforcement agencies were vague in their replies when asked at a press conference why it has taken them over three weeks to act and search Frazee's property. An FBI spokesman in Denver said: 'At the request of Woodland Park Police Department the FBI is assisting with their investigation. Police from Teller County Sheriff's Office (pictured) talk at a sealed off area of Patrick Frazee's ranch FBI and other law enforcement agencies are seen moving in to search Frazee's property Law enforcement agencies moved in today with digging equipment and a K9 dog search team in the hope of finding Kelsey Berreth At a press conference today, Wooldand Park police chief Miles De Young said: 'There are are a number of other things we have done up to this point that have led to us searching the residence today. 'The search warrant started this morning and will take a number of days to complete, we haven't had a briefing on what they found so far. Asked if Frazee was cooperating he said: 'We are asking Patrick to sit down with investigators as he is last person to talk with Kelley face to face. 'There is speculation as to whether Patrick is a suspect or person of interest, at his point we are considering every possibility and i'm not willing to jump to conclusions'. Deputies arrived and cut the lock on the gate that leads onto Frazee's property, according to ABC News Correspondent Clayton Sandell. Frazee was present when they arrived and later left the house with his daughter in the back of a sheriff's vehicle, according to ABC News. Several law enforcement vehicles - including a K9 search dog unit and an FBI pick up with a wheelbarrow in the back- were seen driving up the dirt road towards the farm where Frazee keeps cattle and horses. Later a convoy of search personal from Teller County Search and Rescue drove up. Greg Couch, Sheriff's Office PIO at the scene, told Daily Mail.com: 'We're just giving him a courtesy ride off the property. 'He just left in one of those two cars. We're just giving him a ride, I don't know where he's en route to but he was on the property when we got here. 'When we do a search warrant we remove everyone so he's gone.'. Frazee, a farrier (horse shoer) and cattle rancher, also lives with his mother Sheila police confirmed has also left the farm. PIO Couch said: 'No ones on the property. The baby is with him (Patrick), everybody's safe. 'We just basically giving him a courtesy ride to where ever he needs to go. Giving him a ride to his other ride so he can get out of here'. Asked if police gave digging equipment on the farm for the search, he added: 'I'm sure they do, what we're looking for is any evidence at all, whether it's above ground or below ground. 'It's a county search and rescue team but they are going to be run by the FBI's evidence recovery team. 'Cadaver dogs, item dogs any item laying out there that could be of value'. Frazee's attorney Jeremy Loew said that he is cooperating with law enforcement. In addition to the FBI, local police, officials with Colorado Bureau of Investigation and Teller County Sheriff's Office were also at the scene. Berreth, 29, vanished on November 22 and was last recorded on surveillance cameras in a grocery store in Woodland Park, Colorado. After remaining silent in front of reporters and failing to appear at a police news conference earlier this week, Frazee has faced intense public scrutiny. Police say the search of Patrick Frazee's home in Florissant could take up to three days An FBI evidence response team arrives at the home of Patrick Frazee with a search warrant When asked why Frazee was not participating in an emotional press conference set up to help find her on Monday, the police chief heading up the investigation said frostily: 'You'd have to ask him.' On Thursday he released a statement via his attorney saying he is actively cooperating with authorities. 'Mr Frazee's cooperation included interviews with law enforcement, voluntarily releasing his phone to be searched by law enforcement, buccal swabs, and photographs,' his attorney Jeremy Loew said in a statement to People. Loew also cleared the air on why Frazee failed to appear at a police press conference on Monday, even though he was invited. He explained Frazee was 'first notified of the press conference approximately an hour prior to its commencement' and 'had he been given more advance notice, he would have participated.' Frazee's lawyer said he would not be giving any interviews. He claimed that speculation about Frazee was fueled by his absence at the conference on Monday. Authorities said explicitly that Frazee had been invited but implied he had chosen not to attend. 'Much has been said over the news and social media about Mr. Frazee's absence at the local news conference,' Loew said. Berreth, a 29-year-old flight instructor, has been missing since November 22 On Monday police released footage of Berreth entering a Safeway in Woodland Park with her baby on November 22, which is the last visual confirmation police currently have of her 'Mr. Frazee hopes and prays for Ms. Berreth's return. Mr. Frazee will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and continue to parent the child he shares with Ms. Berreth'. According to investigators, Frazee said he last saw Berreth on Thanksgiving when he picked up their daughter. Police say Berreth was seen with their child on video at a local grocery store at about 12.27 pm that day. Frazee was seen earlier this week speaking to a reporter at his home (left) and was also pictured with his daughter on the same day (right) An aerial image (pictured) of police searching Patrick Frazee's property at Wildhorn Road in Florissant On Wednesday, authorities released grocery store surveillance footage that showed Berreth shopping with her baby just before she disappeared. The video of Berreth entering a Safeway in Woodland Park with her baby at 12.27 pm local time on November 22 is the last visual confirmation police currently have of her. On November 25, co-workers got a text message from Berreth's phone saying she would not be coming to work the following week. Frazee told police he received a similar message. That same day, Berreth's cellphone signal was recorded in Gooding, Idaho, some 700 miles from where she vanished. It remains unclear when Berreth as meant to collect her daughter from Frazee's home or what the text he received from her said shortly before her disappearance Berreth, mother to a one-year-old child, is described as 5ft3in tall and weighing 110 pounds It was not until December 2, however, that police searched Berreth's home after her mother reported her missing. Frazee had never contacted police. It remains unclear when Berreth, who is a flight instructor, was meant to collect her daughter from Frazee's home or what the text he received from her said. Police are yet to officially rule her disappearance suspicious and said they have no evidence to indicate anything other than she is a missing person. When they searched Kelsey's home, they found cold cinnamon rolls which had been left out, presumably to cool. The only thing missing was her purse. 'She's not the kind that runs off. This is completely out of character. She's reliable, considerate and honest,' Cheryl, Kelsey's mother, said at the press conference on Monday. Kelsey's mother Cheryl Berreth (pictured) said her disappearance is highly out of character On Thursday the Woodland Park, Colorado community held a candlelit vigil for missing mother Kelsey Berreth who was last seen grocery shopping with her baby 'She doesn't run off and someone knows where she's at. Kelsey we just want you home. Call us if you can and we won't quit looking.' Cheryl confirmed that she lives in Idaho - the same state where Kelsey's phone was last tracked to, but her home is more than 500 miles away from Gooding. Cherly said she spoke with Kelsey twice on the phone on the day of her disappearance. Asked what they talked about she told Today: 'it was just small things, initially she needed a recipe. 'Her voice was fine, it was a normal day for her'. Cheryl said while the couple did not live together, their bond was strong. She added: 'The relationship has been good, they are loving'. Kelsey's brother Clint Berreth had earlier revealed he went to her home shortly after realizing she was missing and is adamant she didn't pack to go anywhere. Her luggage and makeup remained untouched, and her two vehicles were still at her home. A candlelit vigil was held for Berreth in Woodland Park, Colorado, on Thursday nearly three weeks after she inexplicably vanished, but Frazee was noticeably not there. Cheryl confirmed that she lives in Idaho - the same state where Kelsey's phone was last tracked to, but her home is more than 500 miles away from Gooding. Kelsey's brother Clint Berreth had earlier revealed he went to her home shortly after realizing she was missing and is adamant she didn't pack to go anywhere. Jacob Walter Anderson, 24, (seen leaving court earlier this week after taking his plea deal) is still in the midst of completing his finance degree from The University of Texas in Dallas The former Baylor fraternity president accused of raping a 19-year-old girl will still be able to graduate from the University of Texas if he passes his finals which he will sit off-campus, DailyMail.com can reveal. Jacob Walter Anderson, 24, is still in the midst of completing his finance degree from The University of Texas in Dallas. On Thursday, the university announced that while he would not be allowed to attend commencement ceremonies and was now banned from campus, he would still be able to obtain his degree if he meets all its requirements. The university would not go into detail when asked about how he would be able to finish the degree but a source familiar with the matter told DailyMail.com that in scenarios such as his, special arrangements would be made for the exams to be completed. If he passes his exams, he will receive his degree, like other students, in the mail. In his letter on Thursday, the university's president said he was admitted without anyone in the university knowing about the allegations despite them being reported in national and international media. 'Two years ago we admitted a student without knowing their legal history. Based on recent court action and other information over the last several days, that student will not participate in UTD commencement activities, will not attend UT Dallas graduate school and will not be present on campus as a student or as a guest. If he passes his exams, he will receive his degree, like other students, in the mail from the University of Dallas at Texas 'However, if the student successfully satisfies all the requirements of the degree program, the student will have earned a degree,' Richard C. Benson wrote. Benson said the university would not be more stringent when it reviewed applications, adding: 'These last few days have been difficult for all of us.' The decision is likely to further outrage Anderson's alleged victim who says he repeatedly orally and vaginally raped her, gagged her with his penis and left her for dead in the dirt at a party in 2015 while he was the president of Phi Delta Theta. Earlier this week, Anderson took a plea deal earlier this week which involved him pleading no contest to one charge of unlawful restraint. He does not have to register as a sex offender and the plea is not an admission of guilt but is used when a defendant has no defense. His unnamed victim told the judge in their case that she was 'devastated' by the prospect he would not have to spend anytime behind bars or be registered as a sex offender. In a two-page letter to the judge, she begged him to reconsider the decision, saying: 'I would have loved to have stayed at Baylor, laughed and made memories with my friends, learned from my professors....I would love to be living away from home, pursuing my career the way I had planned. The victim, known as Donna Doe, read her impassioned impact statement in court, condemning Anderson and the county's justice system Anderson (pictured in court Monday, left), was given three years of deferred probation, ordered to seek counseling and pay a $400 fine 'Not be on medication. Not be getting therapy. Not be in and out of the doctor's office. Not having nightmares... 'To be happy and carefree and enjoy life. I am known of those things because you raped me and almost killed me and stole them all from me.' She is now suing Anderson, five of his fraternity brothers, the national Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Baylor's chapter of Phi Delta Theta and a woman who owned the home where she claimed the rape took place for $1 million in damages The lawsuit, obtained by KCEN Channel 6, said that the fraternity failed to have adequate policies and procedures in place to monitor their guests' alcohol consumption. Phi Delta is also accused of 'knowingly and intentionally serving alcohol to minors' at the party. The suit also said it failed to properly, and in a timely fashion, report claims of sexual assault. Monday's plea deal from prosecutors allowed Anderson to receive three years of deferred probation. The ex-Phi Delta Theta president agrees to seek counseling and pay a $400 fine. An online petition had been created to oppose the plea bargain, which the woman said more than 85,000 people have signed. According to court records, Anderson's accuser said she was at the Phi Delta Theta party on February 20, 2015, in South Waco when someone handed her a glass of punch and told her to drink it. She said she soon became disoriented and that Anderson took her outside to a secluded area in the backyard so she could get some air, at which point he sexually assaulted her, according to police reports. The woman lost consciousness and woke up alone in the same area, lying face down in her own vomit, reports indicate. A friend later took her to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. His victim said Anderson (left and right) repeatedly orally and vaginally raped her, gagged her with his penis and left her for dead in the dirt at a party in 2015 A lawsuit filed on the victim's behalf said that the fraternity failed to have adequate policies and procedures in place to monitor their guests' alcohol consumption Anderson was expelled from Baylor following the private Christian university's investigation. In her searing victim impact statement on Monday, Anderson's accuser, known only as Donna Doe, described her alleged rape at the hands of the fraternity president in graphic detail, saying that he repeatedly orally and vaginally penetrated her. The then-19-year-old Baylor freshman said she was a virgin saving herself for marriage until that night, reported KVUE. 'I had no control over my body and no way to stop him,' the woman said of Anderson. 'When I collapsed on the ground he pulled down his pants and shoved his penis in my mouth and down my throat gagging me. 'When he forcefully picked me up and shoved me into a wall to rape me vaginally from behind he calmly and coldly said 'Its fine. Youre fine'. The woman told the court that after she lost consciousness, Anderson left her for dead in the dirt. 'He had taken what he wanted, had proven his power over my body. He then walked home and went to bed without a second thought to the ravaged, half dead woman he had left behind. The victim went on to say she believes that Anderson will go on to rape again, and slammed Assistant District Attorney Hillary LaBorde and McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna for letting 'a rapist run free in society without any warning to future victims'. Anderson was kicked out of Baylor University after the woman told police about what had allegedly happened but was admitted to the University of Texas afterwards. Disabled people, accompanied by Yellow Vests protesters, managed to invade the runway at Toulouse-Blagnac airport on Friday afternoon causing all inward bound flights to be held or diverted. They were protesting against the plight of people with disabilities and demanding better accessibility and a decent income. The demonstrators are also highly opposed to the new ELAN law, which was adopted by the Senate on 16 October, as it lowers the standards of accessibility in new housing in order to build more homes more quickly. Activists had no trouble accessing the runway - appearing to enter through an unmanned and unlocked gate Disabled activists were joined by yellow vest protesters who invaded the runway at Toulouse airport on Friday A video uploaded by France 3 shows the activists, in electric wheelchairs and one clad in a high-vis vest, entering the runway with ease through an unlocked gate and making their way toward the grounded aircraft. Odile Maurin, president of the Handi-Social association of Toulouse, was one of those who managed to access the tarmac of the airport. Maruin told France 3 that it was vital that the protests 'have an economic impact'. The demonstrators were quickly joined by the police, ordering them to leave the tracks immediately. Some of the protesters wore high vis jackets in the style of the yellow vest movement which has swept across Europe in recent weeks Activists ran entered by a gate onto the runway which inexplicably remained open but they reportedly have undergone identity checks All inward bound flights to Toulouse airport were held or diverted on Friday because of demonstrators on the tarmac France 3 reported that they have undergone an identity check. The protesters entered by a gate onto the runway which inexplicably remained open. The 'Yellow Vest' demonstrations - named after the fluorescent outerwear French drivers must keep in their vehicles - have wreaked havoc up and down France over the past few weeks and have even crossed borders in Belgium, Germany and Britain. The view of the Place de la Republique as riot police tried to keep protesters away from major landmarks but struggled with the weight of numbers on Saturday evening Riot police fire tear gas canisters at yellow-vested protesters gathered on the Paris' famed Champs-Elysees Avenue, France, Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018 The movement started as a protest against higher taxes for diesel and gas, but quickly expanded to encompass wide frustration at stagnant incomes, the rising cost of living and other grievances. Rioters in Paris set fire to cars, burned barricades and smashed windows in pockets of violence across the city centre. Police reinforcements were boosted to 8,000 across the city at the weekend, with armoured vehicles deployed in Paris for the first time ever. Nationwide, 89,000 police officers were on duty in towns, cities and on numerous motorways which caused havoc on France's road network, including a blockade of a border crossing with Spain. Macron on Wednesday agreed to abandon the fuel tax hike, which aimed to wean France off fossil fuels and uphold the Paris climate agreement, but that hasn't defused the anger. Tory MPs have been ordered to cancel early Christmas getaways amid fears Labour could try to bring down the Government next week. Chief Whip Julian Smith has written to the party's MPs telling them they must not leave Westminster until Wednesday night because of concerns about 'opposition tactics'. A minister revealed that several backbenchers had booked holidays for before Parliament rises for Christmas on Thursday. Chief Whip Julian Smith (pictured in Downing Street on Monday) has written to the party's MPs telling them they must not leave Westminster until Wednesday night because of concerns about 'opposition tactics' They told the Mail: 'Some of our MPs had been planning an early getaway because they thought it would be quiet in the Commons, but now they have been forced to cancel their holiday plans. 'The whips are worried that Labour will take advantage and call a confidence motion in the Government if Tory MPs have snuck away for Christmas.' In an email to all Tory MPs, Mr Smith confirmed that they would be on a 'three line whip' until Wednesday, meaning they must remain available to vote in Parliament. He wrote: 'I would like to thank colleagues for your patience and support this week. I would also like to remind you that we must be alive to opposition tactics in the run up to recess. 'We are therefore operating three line whips on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.' Jeremy Corbyn has been under pressure from his own MPs to table a vote of no confidence in Theresa May. Tory MPs have been ordered to cancel early Christmas getaways amid fears Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured leaving home on Monday) could try to bring down the Government next week After the Prime Minister earlier this week confirmed she was pulling the vote on her Brexit deal, dozens of Labour MPs and peers signed a letter to demand Mr Corbyn try to force an election. The leaders of the Lib Dems and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists also urged him to do his 'duty'. A motion of no confidence was last successful in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher forced the end of Jim Callaghan's Labour administration. A Labour Party spokesman said: 'We will put down a motion of no confidence when we judge it most likely to be successful.' An Uber driver who allegedly tried to attack police with a Samurai sword outside Buckingham Palace has told a court he became angry after watching news which he recalls being put out by the Russian television station RT. Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 27, from Luton, said he was watching news produced by the controversial channel on the day he decided to 'confront' police outside the royal palace. Choudary is allegedly seen here at a Sainsbury's supermarket where his sister worked. On his way to the store he claimed he had become 'paranoid' that his plan to 'confront' armed police officer and get shot would come apart because his sword did not look realistic Chowdhury is alleged to have driven his Toyota Prius (pictured) through traffic cones at a marked police van and reached for this blade on August 25 last year On the morning of August 25 last year he woke up sometime after midday after doing a night shift and checked his phone. 'Basically I opened the news up, I think on RT, and I saw that more bombs had been dropped and what struck me was that this bomb had been dropped on a wedding and there was a 'double tap' and they threw a bomb and then another so that there were no survivors.' He said he remembered thinking: 'If they can kill these people then they can kill me as well. I know the British government is involved in this war and the weapons are ours. 'These people are innocent people why are they getting killed? It doesn't make any sense. I feel like I am complicit in it as well. 'I just thought I wanted to die at that point and I thought I should do something.' He told the Old Bailey that he felt guilty because he believed that Britain was committing war crimes by supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia who are using them in Yemen. 'Because I'm paying tax and these guys represent us. The decisions they make are on our behalf,' he added. Choudary is alleged to have paid for a sharpener at the self check-out and then gone to the kiosk where his sister was working His plan he said was to 'die at the hands of the authorities and the best way was to show them a weapon and it would be just like in America where they would shoot them on sight and don't ask any questions.' Chowdhury said it 'wasn't about furthering any political or religious cause or intimidating people', adding: 'It was like I want to die just like they die in Yemen to clear my guilty conscious.' He explained that committing suicide is forbidden in Islam because it was the 'same as killing an innocent person.' 'It's not something I can do,' he added. 'I had to get that out of my mind.' He assumed 'I'm going to be dead by the end of the day' and decided to visit his sister at the store where she worked. 'I want to see my sister before I'm going to get killed but I also wanted to leave her a goodbye letter,' he told the Old Bailey. 'I wanted to leave it on her laptop so that when she goes on it, she sees it. I had lost her password, and that's why I went to Sainsbury's.' On his way, Choudary claimed he had become 'paranoid' that his plan to 'confront' armed police officer and get shot would come apart because his sword did not look realistic. 'I am not thinking things through, but I thought I should sharpen it, so that it's shiny and they know it's not a fake sword,' he said. The coal black samurai sword Choudary is alleged to have driven to an area outside Buckingham Palace - he is also said to have taken a knife sharpener He paid for the knife sharpener at the self check-out, then went to the kiosk where his sister was working, making 'meeowing noises' as part of a 'joke' between them. Chowdhury said he had wrote a 'very emotional and angry' letter which he posted on her computer. In the letter, he called his sister 'Shrimp', and told her 'I love you most in the world,' adding: 'By the time you read this Insha'Allah [god willing] I will be with Allah. Do not cry and be strong. 'The shaheed [martyr] will take 70 members of his family with him to paradise. I will take you there Insha'Allah.' He also told her: 'the Queen and her soldiers will all be in the hellfire. They go to war with Muslims around the world and kill them without any mercy. They are the enemies that Allah tells us to fight.' His sister claimed she did not read the letter on the computer until after the failed attack but Chowdhury said he told her he intended to die during a phone call as he drove to London. He said he told her: 'I'm going to die, by the end of the day, I'm going to be dead.' Chowdhury claimed he also added: 'I'm not going to do anything bad, I'm not going to harm anyone, I'm just going to face these soldiers and get killed.' 'There was a lot of crying in the phone call as well. Obviously she was saying don't do this, come back,' Chowdhury said. But he threw his phone sim card and battery out of the car window so that she could not ring back, he said. Chowdhury denied that he had driven to a pub in Windsor instead of the castle because he put the wrong address in his SatNav. Chowdhury - who is alleged to have been in possession of this sword - was born in London in May 1991 and later moved to Luton, working as a self-employed Uber driver Chowdhury was allegedly disarmed of his blade (pictured) during a violent struggle with police officers He claimed that he had put the street address of the pub into the device because it was close to the actual castle where he had first planned to die at the hands of police as a protest. 'The reason I chose it is obviously the royal family, the Queen lives there and I assumed there would be a whole bunch of guys with guns outside it,' he said. But when he arrived he could not find any armed guards so he drove on to Buckingham Palace, where he swerved in front of a police van and was disarmed during a violent struggle with police officers. As he grappled with the officers, Chowdhury shouted 'Allahu Akbar' [god is great] and explained: 'I thought I'm going to get killed. The last words I wanted to say were the words of god.' Asked if he still felt suicidal, he told the court: 'I started to pray more and go to Islamic classes and I felt better.' Chowdhury had earlier told a friend in an online chat on Whatsapp 'I support ISIS' and changed his display picture to the black flag used by the terrorist group, But he claimed he had considered participating in charity or aid work when he first started seeing news about the war in Yemen at the end of June or early July last year, before deciding it was pointless. Chowdhury denies preparing terrorist acts by obtaining a Samurai sword, purchasing a knife sharpener, preparing a suicide note, and driving to the area adjacent to Buckingham Palace. Advertisement The finest roosters in Turkey gathered to show off their glossy feathers and perfectly trimmed claws at the country's annual National Poultry Show in Izmir. A wide variety of poultry came out to fight for the top spot, from a Light Brahma rooster which boasts fluffy white feathers and a red bill to a Bantam rooster which has tiny body structures with colorful feathers. The competition was judged by five referees and 10 assistants from different counties, who ensured that the birds were ranked in the correct pecking order. Among the group was a Silkie chicken, which are of Dutch origin, and are a species known for their soft and light feathers giving them a rare appearance. However the chicken had hot competition as also vying for the win was a Sablepoot rooster, a colorful species which are known for their flirting moves, which he certainly proved to the camera. Also a natural in front of the camera was the Brakel chicken who flapped its wings in a magnificent fashion, it has a straight banding pattern of the feathers and a uniform solid neck colour. Light Brahma species are known for their tiny comb, feathered feet and their posture (left) while Bantam roosters have tiny body structures with colorful feathers as their species go way back in history Silkie chickens are of Dutch origin and are a species known for their soft and light feathers giving them a rare appearance (left) in contrast to a Sablepoot rooster which is a colorful species known for their flirting moves (right) Amrock Barred Bantam roosters lay large eggs despite their size and known for their calm posture with patterned feathers (left) while White Crested Black Polish Bantams are of Polish origin The Japanese bantam or Chabo is a breed of chicken originating in Japan and these species have big combs and long tails (left) but a Cochin Bantamare known for their round body type and great appearance (right) Bantam roosters have a tiny body structure with colorful feathers (left) and battled it out against the likes of the Sultan chickens which have a great deal of decorative plumage, including large, puffy crests, beards, long tails, and profuse foot feathering Araucana is a breed of domestic chicken from Chile which has a pea comb and lays approximately 250 blue or green eggs per year (left) and a Cream Legbars also lay eggs in lay eggs in blue and green tones (right) The Ayam Cemanis are of Indonesian origin and their beaks and tongues, black combs and wattles, and even their meat, bones, and organs appear black (left) in contrast to the Sultan which have a great deal of decorative white plumage The Wyandotte (left) is an American breed of chicken developed in the 1870s and Light Brahma (right) species are known for their tiny comb, feathered feet and their posture The Appenzeller (left) behaviourally, it is an active breed that doesn't do well in tight confinement, can forage well, and will roost in trees if given the opportunity while the Ameraucana (right) is one of the few chicken breeds to lay blue eggs The Wyandotte is a fairly large bird, but compact and rounded (left) and the Brakel is one of the older European chicken breeds (right) The Blue Buff Brahma rooster are one of the largest chickens in weight, structure, length and form and is a cross between two Asian breeds (left) and Light Brahma species are known for their tiny comb, feathered feet and their posture (right) An eight-month-old Light Brahma rooster is seen during National Poultry Show (left) along with a Cochin species known for their round body type and great appearance A caring vet dressed up as a giant mouse to calm a nervous rescue dog that needed surgery. Mike Farrell donned the huge grey and pink onesie-style outfit in order to examine Dalmatian Rupert, who needed an operation on his leg. Owner Sonya Schiff had brought her furry mouse romper suit for her devoted pet to sleep on because it smelt of her. Vet Mike Farrell at Davies Veterinary Specialists in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, donned the huge grey and pink onesie-style outfit in order to examine Dalmatian Rupert, who needed an operation on his leg But when the poorly pooch proved reluctant to be handled, Mike jumped into the costume to help him relax. The result - while hilarious - was highly effective and Mike Farrell was able to examine Rupert safely and then perform surgery on his ligament Sonya, from London, said: 'When I adopted Rupert from Dogs Trust a couple of years back he had some quite serious guarding issues and aggression, which we believe were pain associated. 'It took a year for him to bond with me after his rehoming, at which point he developed separation anxiety if I left him.' Sonja took Rupert to Davies Veterinary Specialists in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, to be checked out after he began suffering from a lame leg. But he was very protective and showed signs of aggression if the vet tried to touch him. He was eventually diagnosed with hip dysplasia and cruciate ligament problems, and 18 months later needed surgery. Mike, an orthopaedic specialist at the clinic, said: 'Initially Rupert growled when I tried to examine him in my usual clothes. 'His owner was worried about his aggression towards strangers and how he would respond to being in hospital.' Mike decided to dress up in the furry mouse outfit to see if Rupert would be less anxious. Owner Sonya Schiff had brought her furry mouse romper suit for her devoted pet to sleep on because it smelt of her. But when the poorly pooch proved reluctant to be handled, Mike jumped into the costume to help him relax The result - while hilarious - was highly effective and Mike was able to examine Rupert safely and then perform surgery on his ligament. Monika Kafno, a dog behaviourist at the surgery, said: 'As dogs have a superior sense of smell and ability to smell between 10,000 and 100,000 times better than people, their brain processes information in a very short period of time. 'This triggers an association of the smell with a particular experience or event in their life.' This is the bizarre moment a topless man is rescued from the ventilation shaft of a block of flats after taking drugs and deciding to clamber down it from the 17th floor. Aleksandr Zinchenko, 33, was filmed as he was pulled free by rescuers in a building in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, after reportedly taking narcotics. Mr Zinchenko was heard calling for help from the ventilation shaft by a woman leaving a flat on the ground floor and she called rescuers. Aleksandr Zinchenko, 33, is pulled out by his legs by recuers who had to make a hole in the cement to free him in Krasnodar Krai, Russia In the video, the rescuers can be seen removing cement as Mr Zinchenko's legs dangle through the hole in the plaster as they try and help him out. They continue trying to pull him out as he can be heard shouting in pain and at one point he seemingly tries to escape back up the shaft as they pull him down. Mr Zinchenko is eventually pulled out of the shaft after lowering himself down once again. He is topless, covered in plaster and has cuts all over his body as he says: 'I am a miner you know!' Rescuers can be seen removing cement as Mr Zinchenko's legs dangle through the hole in the plaster as they try and help him out After freeing Mr Zinchenko, the rescuers found his rucksack with his passport on the 17th floor - the service floor of the block of flats. Local media reported that Mr Zinchenko went to the 17th floor to find some hidden drugs left there for him by a dealer. He allegedly found the drugs and took them and is believed to have climbed into the ventilation shaft legs first when he was high. As he squeezed down through the shaft he found himself on the ground floor with no way to escape and was forced to call for help. After being rescued, Mr Zinchenko was taken to hospital for a medical examination. The banker accused of beating a high-class escort to death with a pestle told police he was 'shocked' at her injuries before failing to explain them in a mumbling police interview played to jurors in court today. Zahid Naseem, of Amersham, Bucks, told investigators that the death of sex worker Christine Abbotts, 29, in her Crawley flat in May represented 'two lives ruined'. He crossed his arms across his chest and refused to meet the eyes of detectives as he told them he failed to call police after thinking 'I can't see anything positive coming out of this.' In an interview with Sussex Police Naseem, 47, was asked whether he had thought to call for help. He replied: 'I did and I was just thinking about what happens next. 'I did think about it, and then I thought "what the hell's going to happen next?". 'I can't see anything positive coming out of any of this.' Pressed again he said: 'I just couldn't see what was going to happen that was going to change anything.' Asked by detectives whether he considered calling an ambulance he admitted he did not think Ms Abbotts was alive. Miss Abbots (pictured left) was believed to have lived a secret life as a high-class escort but told her friends and family she worked in IT. Naseem is pictured right arriving in handcuffs at Lewes Crown Court earlier this week In the video, played in Lewes Crown Court today, jurors heard detectives ask Naseem to 'just take in' the extent of Miss Abbotss' injuries, included 13 separate blows to her head. Naseem sighs and shifts in his seat, looking down and away. Asked what he has to say about that, he replies with a snort: 'Nothing, I'm just shocked, that what I have to say about that.' When police ask him how she came to suffer those injuries, he replies: 'No. I don't know, that's why I'm shocked. There was no fight, there was no, I don't know, I just don't know.' He said he was still trying to piece together' the night, saying he had 'no frame of reference' to help him do so, and adding: 'It's not me. 'I'm not that person. I don't remember hitting her, I don't remember throwing her, I don't remember any of that.' The pair were seen together on CCTV on the night Ms Abbotts died, prosecutors said Police found the body of Miss Abbotts in a flat where she was housesitting in Crawley Bodycam footage from Sussex Police shows Naseem 'unconscious' on the couch when they broke down the door of the flat, but police were unconvinced he was out cold, a court heard As Sussex Police detectives ask their suspect why, if he had 'such a good relationship' with her, he did not think of trying to get help, Naseem's head sways from side to side and his arms remain wrapped tightly around his body. 'I don't know,' he says, repeating: 'I don't know. 'Do I wish it was Thursday afternoon again? Yes. I do wish it was Thursday afternoon again. 'Do I wish I'd never come to her flat? Yes I do. 'I can't turn the clock back I can't change things. 'But do I wish any of this outcome? No. It's two lives ruined - and many others as well probably.' His interview came after police burst in to the flat where Christine Abbotts was housesitting in Crawley on May 25 this year, to find her blood-covered body naked and battered on a bed and Naseem apparently unconscious on a sofa in the next room. Miss Abbotts' father said he was unaware of what she did for a living Mr Naseem, 48, of Elm Close, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, who earned 250,000 a year as a banker in the City of London, denies murdering Miss Abbotts on her birthday in May. He says the pair had a drug and drink-fuelled night together, after which he woke to find her dead. On Monday Lewes Crown Court heard the Christina Abbotts told friends and family she was working as an IT consultant in London but in reality she was a secretly earning 2,000 a time as a 'high-class escort'. Using the pseudonym, Tilly Pexton, she advertised her sexual services online and clients could make contact with her through the website. The pair had met several times before after Naseem, a father of two, had picked her out on the adult website after she described herself as a 'privately-educated' City girl. He told friends she was 'more like a socialite than a sex worker' and claimed she was 'very posh.' However the court heard Miss Abbotts was a university drop-out who had flitted between various jobs before being forced to move to Crawley due to the cost of living in London. Fellow sex workers told the court she drank heavily and used a lot of cocaine and other drugs. After a drug-fuelled night of Miss Abbotts, 29, was repeatedly beaten around the head with a kitchen pestle in a 'savage and brutal' attack in a flat. During their search of the two-bedroom top-floor flat police found cocaine and the sex drug, amyl nitrate, as well as a blood-stained bottle of Courvoisier brandy. The case continues. A Georgia police officer who was gunned down after a traffic stop and foot chase has been identified as a rookie who graduated from the police academy last year. Slain Officer Edgar Isidro Flores, 24, was hired by the Dekalb County Police force in May 2017 and graduated from the academy about six months later, the department said of Friday. The suspect, who was shot by officers, was also killed in the Thursday evening exchange of gunfire. DeKalb County police Chief James Conroy said at a news conference that both men died at an Atlanta hospital from their wounds. A police dog was also shot in the incident and was listed in critical condition. Officer Edgar Isidro Flores, 24, was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Thursday night in Dekalb County, Georgia, just east of Atlanta The shootout occurred in the parking lot of a suburban Piggly Wiggly grocery (above) 'Tonight, a DeKalb County police officer died in the line of duty serving its citizens of DeKalb County,' Conroy said. The DeKalb County officer is the fifth Georgia officer killed in the line of duty this year, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The shooting followed a traffic stop just east of Atlanta, Conroy said. The suspect fled, shot the pursuing officer and hid behind a Piggly Wiggly, 11Alive reported. The suspect then shot the police K-9, prompting officers to shoot the suspect, Conroy said. The shooting prompted a massive police response and the shooter was killed by police Police respond to the scene where a suspect shot and killed rookie officer Edgar Isidro Flores 'I am very proud of the men and women of the police department. They responded to the scene, were able to track the suspect, they did their job,' Conroy said. The suspect was described as a man in his 20s to 30s. Police have not yet released his name. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating. The shooting caused a nearby portion of Interstate 20 to be briefly shut down, leading to rush-hour traffic jams. Governor-elect Brian Kemp tweeted his condolences for the officer. 'We are forever grateful for his service and sacrifice,' he wrote. 'Our prayers are with those who mourn.' A paramedic has been struck off after he told a patient 'What a load of b******s, it's only a migraine' - when she had suffered a stroke after a bleed on the brain. Kristian Williams, who did not attend the tribunal in Lambeth, London and gave evidence over the phone, dismissed concerns from colleagues who said that the woman was in so much pain she was rocking back and forth and retching. He even refused to give her painkillers after arriving on the scene in February 2016 - despite her saying she had a 'thunderclap headache'. Kristian Williams was struck off as a paramedic after he told a woman that she only had a migraine - when she had suffered a stroke (STOCK photo) Williams' colleagues told a Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) hearing that the paramedic made a string of mistakes, leaving the patient in considerable pain until she was taken to hospital. She described feeling a 'pop' go off inside her head followed by intense pain. The ambulance crew member first on the scene described telling Williams how she had given the patient pain relief, but it had been vomited up. She added that she repeatedly asked Williams to give the patient more pain relief, which he did not. She and her colleague both reported hearing him say: 'What a load of b******s, it's only a migraine'. Williams claimed the patient did not say she was in pain, was not feeling sick and did not, in his experience, 'look like someone with a severe subarachnoid haemorrhage'. It was later discovered the patient had suffered a stroke caused by bleeding on the surface of the brain - a condition which can be fatal. Williams, who joined the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust in 2004, has now been struck off for the allegation alongside five other counts of misconduct. A report by the HCPTS said: 'The first responder explains that Patient A had had a sudden ''thunderclap headache'' and she felt as though something had gone ''pop'' inside her head. 'She was rocking back and forth, retching and largely unable to communicate. 'The first responder said she repeatedly asked Williams to give Patient A pain relief. 'Williams did not give pain relief and this is accepted by him and his evidence is corroborated by the evidence given from the witnesses. 'Both witnesses refer to Williams using the words 'what a load of bollocks' and 'it's just a migraine'.' In the panel's decision, they said that the continuing risk to patients meant it would be inappropriate to take no action. It said: 'Williams demonstrated no real insight into his clinical failings. Further, in acting dishonestly, Williams abused the trust his employers were entitled to place in him. 'As a result of Williams' failings, this patient suffered harm. She was left suffering, in considerable pain, wholly unnecessarily, until she was taken to the hospital and treated there. 'The Panel found that, given the seriousness of the misconduct, the continuing risk of harm to patients and the continuing risk of dishonest behaviour, it would be inappropriate to take no action. 'The Panel, therefore, considered that the only appropriate and proportionate order would be a striking off order.' A striking off order prohibits the Williams from practising as a paramedic. A new Homicide for the Holidays will air tonight on Oxygen. The episode, entitled Silent Night, revisits the murders of the Wholaver family who were killed in their home on Christmas Eve 2002. Jean Wholaver, 43, and daughters Victoria, 20, and Elizabeth, 14, were found dead in their Middletown, Pennsylvania after being shot in their sleep. Only Victoria Wholaver's baby daughter was left unharmed. The killer was later revealed to be the Jean's husband Ernest Wholaver who was soon to be tried on rape charges after allegedly molesting his daughters. More will be revealed when the episode airs Sunday at 8pm on Oxygen. A senior civil servant at the Inland Revenue today vowed to stand by her fiance as he was jailed for nine years for raping a heavily-pregnant woman. Gavin Carey, 28, ignored his victim's desperate pleas that her unborn child could be hurt as he carried out the shocking attack, Newcastle Crown Court heard. He was convicted of rape following a trial in October and the court heart how his victim desperately tried to protect her baby bump during the attack at a house. After a jury found him unanimously guilty, Carey proposed to his partner Lisa Finn, a manager at HMRC, who told the court in a statement: 'I will stand by him with good reason.' Lisa Finn, a senior civil servant at the Inland Revenue today vowed to stand by her fiance Gavin Carey (both pictured) as he was jailed for nine years for raping a heavily-pregnant woman Carey, 28, (pictured today at court) ignored his victim's desperate pleas that her unborn child could be hurt as he carried out the shocking attack, Newcastle Crown Court heard Miss Finn, who has worked for HMRC for 25 years, filed a statement to the court about her rapist fiance in which she said she was standing by him 'with good reason, he is a good man' Miss Finn watched on in court as Carey was jailed and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life. He was sentenced just days after hosting an 'engagement and farewell' party with Miss Finn in a function room at their local pub in Washington, Tyne and Wear. The couple hired a DJ and put on a buffet for around 30 friends and family in a room decorated with banners and balloons for the party, which began at 12pm on Sunday. One source with knowledge of the party said: 'A number of civil servants were in attendance. It is wrong that civil servants are condoning this disgusting crime.' Yesterday at Newcastle Crown Court Judge Sarah Mallet told Carey: 'You got on top of her and you raped her. Carey was jailed for nine years today and made to sign the sex offenders register for life 'She tried to tell you you were hurting the baby, as she tried to wriggle away.' The court heard Carey, who is a musician, met Miss Finn just before he was interviewed over the rape allegation. Miss Finn, who has worked for HMRC for 25 years, filed a statement to the court about her rapist fiance. The 41-year-old said: 'Even though Gavin is much younger than myself, he is very mature. 'He has family values, is hard working and will help anyone.' She added that she is a 'good judge of character' who has her own car and home and is independent. She said: 'If Gavin wasn't in my life I would be heartbroken, plans to marry and have babies would be ruined. 'Gavin means everything to me and that is why I am committed to him. 'He has brought so much positivity to my life. 'I will stand by him for good reason, he is a good man.' His victim said in an impact statement: 'I think about it every single day. It has changed me as a person. My priority was to protect my baby bump. Carey (pictured arriving at court today with Miss Finn) was sentenced just days after hosting an 'engagement and farewell' party with his fiancee at a pub in Washington, Tyne and Wear The couple hired a DJ and put on a buffet for around 30 friends and family in a room decorated with banners and balloons for the party, which began at 12pm on Sunday 'I keep replaying it over and over again in my head, thinking what I could have done differently so this wouldn't have happened.' The woman said Carey had 'crazed, focused and determined' eyes during the attack and added: 'I don't think I will ever forget that image'. She said she cried for days after the attack and added: 'I kept apologising to my baby bump and cried every time I thought about it. 'To do that to someone at their most vulnerable is disgusting and low. 'After my baby was born I felt so guilty. I felt it was an attack on both of us.' Cathy McCulloch, defending, said Carey, who was supported by family and friends at court, was a 'confident and kind' person. Miss McCulloch said Carey will co-operate with the authorities while serving his sentence despite the fact he continues to deny his guilt over the attack. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon said the Philippines should just build its own weather station in the Pagasa Island, following reports that China has began operating weather stations in the disputed Spratly Islands. "Our troops can use them if we have our own weather station in Pagasa [Island,]" Esperon told CNN Philippines in a text message Friday. He has said that having weather stations in the Spratlys would benefit the government's civilian operations. "That gives better capability for our troops to plan their movements there for civilian purposes," Esperon said. The Chinese foreign ministry announced last month that Beijing had begun operating weather stations on artificial islands in the South China Sea, specifically Nansha Islands or what are locally known as the Spratlys. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang said China's construction in disputed waters are meant to provide "public goods and services" to countries in the region. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana earlier said the government could not confirm this. Esperon echoed this, but added that the government "will take steps" to verify the reports. "I will not tell you how to do it. We will have the equipment soon," he said. Beijing and Manila, along with four other countries, have overlapping claims in the South China Sea. China has refused to observe a 2016 international tribunal ruling recognizing the Philippines' claims. Despite China's announcement on the new structures in areas the Philippines claims, President Rodrigo Duterte did not bring the matter up at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China Summit in November. Maritime experts have raised concern that letting China operate the controversial weather stations would lead to the Philippines' acceptance of the Asian giant's claim on the islands. But Foreign Secretary Teddyboy Locsin Jr. downplayed the issue, saying that the weather stations are not China's claims of sovereignty. CNN Philippines Multi-platform Writer Xave Gregorio contributed to this report. Jury deliberations have begun in the murder trial of Denise Williams, pictured above during closing arguments in Leon County court on Friday morning Jury deliberations have begun in the love triangle murder trial of a Florida woman accused of conspiring to kill her husband with the help of her married lover nearly two decades ago. During closing arguments in Leon County court on Friday, the prosecution painted defendant Denise Williams, 48, as cold-hearted adulteress who hatched the plot to murder her husband Mike Williams so she and her married lover Brian Winchester could collect his $1.75million insurance policy. Mike vanished while duck hunting on a lake near Tallahassee, Florida, in December 2000. Winchester allegedly confessed last year to luring his friend on the trip and shooting him in the face. Assistant State Attorney Jon Fuchs on Friday reminded the jury of how emotionless Denise appeared as Winchester recounted the details of the gruesome murder while testifying against his ex-mistress days earlier. Prosecutors also played a secret recording of Denise being confronted about the affair and her involvement in Mike's disappearance by Winchesters first wife Kathy Thomas, who became a police informant after the victim's body was discovered last year. In the recording, Thomas reveals that she knew about the elicit affair and accuses Denise of plotting her own husband's murder. Prosecutors argued that the fact that Denise did not appear upset by the accusation and never denied it is proof that she is guilty. 'Its not just what she says, its what she doesnt say,' Fuchs told the jury. 'She was accused of murder and the only thing she wanted to know is if Marcus was involved.' 'Why? Because the pact she had with Brian Winchester was that no one else would know.' Winchester's first wife Kathy Thomas (above in court on Thursday) testified Thursday about her husband's affair with Denise. Thomas became a police informant after Mike's body was found and recorded a phone conversation in which she confronted Denise about his murder earlier this year During closing arguments in Leon County court on Friday, the prosecution painted Denise as cold-hearted adulteress who hatched the murder plot so she and Winchester could collect his $1.75million insurance policy In closing arguments Friday, Assistant State Attorney Jon Fuchs (left) noted that Denise did not appear upset by Thomas' accusations and said her lack of denial serves as proof of her guilt. Defense attorney Ethan Way (right) responded by trying to convince the court that the entirety of the blame belongs on Winchester Defense attorney Ethan Way responded by trying to convince the court that the entirety of the blame belongs on Winchester, whom he painted as an untrustworthy opportunist who was only cooperating with prosecutors to save his own skin. 'Take Brian Winchester away and there is nothing that supports any of these three charges,' Way said in his closing arguments. 'No tangible evidence. 'This is not a case about suspicions, this is not a case about guesses. Its a murder case.' The phone call between Thomas and Denise earlier this year was first played in court on Thursday as the informant testified about her suspicions that her husband was having an affair with Denise beginning back in 1999. Reading from a script given to her by police, Thomas asked Denise about the murder plot and said: 'Brian told me that y'all planned it.' Denise responded: 'Planned what? Oh my God.' Thomas later said: 'I know that you know something, Denise'. In another segment of the recorded conversation, Thomas says: 'Ive always just pretended like I dont know anything - and I do know. Denise interrupts her and ask: 'What do you know?' Thomas breaks down in tears as she reveals she knew about the affair before Mike's disappearance and speculated about whether he would still be alive if she had said something. 'Ive always thought to myself if I had said: "Mike, I think Brian has a girlfriend" Ive always wondered if hed still be here,' Thomas said. 'Why couldnt you all just have gotten a divorce? Ive always known youve loved each other.' Florida prosecutors have said Denise planned the 2000 slaying of her husband Mike (pictured together on their wedding day) so she could get a $1.75million insurance payout The two couples had been close for several years because they all attended North Florida Christian School together. They frequently went on double dates after both pairs got married in 1994. Thomas testified that she began to suspect her husband's affair in 1999 after Winchester told her he was on a hunting trip and she later received a call from police that his car was abandoned in a lot near Denises home. She also said that on one occasion Winchester asked her to participate in a threesome with Denise. She told the court: 'Whenever it was just me with Brian [Winchester] and Denise, it was uncomfortable. I felt like a third wheel. I felt like I was on a date with the two of them.' Thomas confirmed that she went on a spring break trip to Panama City Beach with Denise and Winchester in 2001 after Mike's death. The court had earlier heard that photos were taken during the trip of the two women kissing at a strip club. Winchester and Thomas eventually split and he then later married his friend Mike's widow five years after his death. Their relationship soured and they divorced in 2015. Denise, Mike, Winchester and Thomas were all close friends and attended North Florida Christian School together. Thomas testified that she became suspicious about an affair between Winchester and Denise beginning in 1999. Denise (top row center) Mike (bottom row second from right) and Winchester (bottom right) are circled in red above in yearbook photos Courtesy WTXL When Mike first disappeared, it was initially believed he had fallen from his boat and that his body had been devoured by alligators. It was revealed years later that Williams had died from a shotgun blast to the head and had been buried near a lake. Winchester confessed last year to the cold case murder, which resulted in Denise's arrest in May on murder, fraud, conspiracy and accessory after the fact charges. Mike's body wasn't found until last year after prosecutors offered Winchester immunity in the murder case while he was being sentenced to 20 years in prison for kidnapping Denise at gunpoint, making her promise not to reveal their alleged secret. Thomas testified on Thursday that a week after Winchester was arrested in 2016, Denise had contacted her and asked her to tell him that: 'I'm not talking'. Mike (left) disappeared in December 2000 while duck hunting near Tallahassee. His death was ruled an accident until his body was found 17 years later. Denise (right) was arrested and implicated in May of this year Denise, 48, (left, in court on Thursday) stands accused of conspiring to kill her husband Mike Williams with the help of her married lover Brian Winchester (right, in court Wednesday) nearly two decades ago in Florida Earlier in the trial, prosecutors argued that Winchester was the person who helped Mike fill out forms for a $1million life insurance policy. He also helped Denise apply for $1.75million in insurance funds following Mike's death. Winchester also took to the stand to detail how he and Denise allegedly plotted the murder during their three-year affair. Winchester told the court that his friend Mike told him Denise had stopped having sex with him and that he was growing suspicious about her activities. He said the growing suspicion and the fact that one of Mike's insurance policies was about to lapse led him and Denise to kill him. 'We knew our window of opportunity was closing,' Winchester testified. Winchester then tearfully described the plot to kill Williams. He had invited Mike duck hunting on a cold December morning and Winchester said he had intended to drown him by pushing him from his canoe. But he said he panicked when he saw Williams struggling in the water to get out of his jacket and duck waders and shot him. 'He started to yell and I didn't know how to get out of that situation. I had my gun in the boat, and so I loaded my gun and I just made one or two circles around and I ended up circling closer towards him and he was in the water, and as I passed by, I shot him,' he said. Mike married his high school sweetheart Denise in 1994 and welcomed a daughter with her five years later. The child was 18 months old when her father vanished and is now aged 18 He said he dragged Williams' body back to shore, put him in his truck and buried him hours later. 'When I shot him, it was dark and there was a bright flash,' Winchester testified, adding later, 'I had to make it happen, I had no choice.' He also described helping the rescue crews search for his friend's body. 'I think [my father and I] were the last ones. My dad didn't want to give up... He loved Mike.' Denise's attorney, Philip Padovano, told jurors on Tuesday there was no evidence his client was having an affair with Winchester or that she helped plot the killing. 'There's no tangible evidence or physical evidence to connect Denise Williams to this crime,' Padovano said. Denise's attorney, Philip Padovano, told jurors on Tuesday there is no evidence his client was having an affair with Winchester or that she helped plot the killing 'No confession, no admission, nothing.' He told them that Winchester has been given immunity from murder charges in exchange for his testimony and that he was given a lighter sentence in his kidnapping case. In order to find Williams guilty, Padovano told the jury that 'you will have to rely on the word of a murderer and a convicted felon.' On cross-examination, Denise's attorney asked Winchester if he was a murderer and a liar, to which Winchester said: 'Yes, sir'. Mike and Denise were high school sweethearts and married in 1994 before welcoming a daughter five years later. The child was 18 months old when her father vanished and is now aged 18. He disappeared on what would have been the couple's sixth wedding anniversary. Authorities launches an exhaustive 44 day search for Mike's body after he vanished in 2000. Six months after his disappearance, waders believed to belong to Mike were found floating in perfect condition in the search area. They reportedly showed no signs of an alligator attack. Without a body, Denise petitioned to have her husband declared dead due to accidental drowning and she collected his death benefits. She married Winchester in December 2005 before they divorced in 2016. A British sailor who had to be rescued from her capsized yacht on a solo round-the-world race is back on dry land for an emotional reunion with her family. Yachtswoman Susie Goodall was taken to Chile after getting stranded in the southern Pacific Ocean for two days. The 29-year-old was competing in a 30,000-mile round-the-world race when her boat lost its mast during a 'ferocious' storm 2,000 miles west from Cape Horn in southern Chile's Tierra del Fuego archipelago. She was rescued by a 40,000-tonne Chinese cargo ship before being brought ashore in Chile by the country's navy. Goodall, from Falmouth, Cornwall, was lying in fourth place in the Golden Globe Race when 60-knot (69mph) winds destroyed her Rustler 36 yacht DHL Starlight on December 5. British solo sailor Susie Goodall walked into the waiting arms of mother after arriving on the cargo ship MV Tian Fu in Punta Arenas, Chile, today Goodall arrived in Chile today where she embraced her mother after arriving on the cargo ship MV Tian Fu in Punta Arenas Goodall said she was knocked unconscious and was 'thrown across the cabin and was knocked out for a while' during the 'massive seas' which broke her yacht's mast The moment Susie Goodall was rescued by the Tian Fu cargo vessel in Chilean waters in the Southern Ocean two days after her mast snapped She said she was knocked unconscious and was 'thrown across the cabin and was knocked out for a while' during the 'massive seas'. The vessels mast snapped, ending her dream of winning the 30,000-mile contest, and she was forced to cling to her bunk for two terrifying days as cargo ship Tian Fu raced to her rescue. She was hoisted from her stricken vessel and taken aboard the cargo ship where to was transported to Chile. Her joy at being rescued from her crippled yacht in the Pacific was tempered when she was forced to scuttle the 200,000 vessel earlier this month. She arrived in Chile today where she embraced her mother after arriving on the cargo ship MV Tian Fu in Punta Arenas. Goodall is welcomed by her mother and TV camera crews after arriving from the cargo ship MV Tian Fu today She also embraced the Chilean Navy Comdr. Carlos Cerda after disembarking from the cargo ship MV Tian Fu in Punta Arenas, Chile Goodall, who is an ocean sailing instructor who took up the sport at the age of three, also embraced Chilean Navy Comdr. Carlos Cerda after disembarking from the cargo ship. Goodall said in a blog post she arrived in Chile: 'After arriving in Punta Arenas today, Im still a little wobbly both emotionally and physically as I find my land legs again. 'I arrived with a heavy heart, no longer a competitor in the Golden Globe Race but here is certainly a lot better than the alternative. And I wouldnt be here today without the incredible support and seamanship shown by so many people over the past 10 days.' The cargo ship rescued Goodall last week after a violent storm ripped off her mast and flung her yacht end over end in the Southern Ocean. Goodall told officials soon after the storm: 'I have been dismasted. Thought I had holed the hull because the boat filled with water, but the hull is not holed. 'The hull is OK. The boat is destroyed. I can't make up a jury rig. The only thing left is the hull and deck which remain intact. 'We were pitchpoled [rolled end over end] and I was thrown across the cabin and knocked out for a while.' Goodall's mast on her yacht snapped, ending her dream of winning the 30,000-mile race DHL Starlight yacht as she set off from Les Sables d'Olonne Harbour in July at the start of the solo around-the-world Golden Globe Race Her family said in an earlier message a day after she was rescued: 'We would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone involved in the successful rescue of Susie. 'She managed to get a few hours sleep last night but is struggling to eat or drink. Because of the damage on deck, water is making its way into the boat. The bilge fills every hour, but she can easily pump it out.' Referring to her ordeal, they wrote: When she was younger, Susie loved doing somersaults on trampolines. We just never thought shed do one in a boat. The Golden Globe race encompasses the three great capes of the Southern Ocean: Chile's Horn, South Africa's Good Hope and Australia's Leeuwin. Goodall was the fifth Golden Globe Race entrant this year to have abandoned the race due to their boat being dismasted. A Northern California utility has said its workers found a bullet-riddled power pole, downed tree branches and damaged towers at sites where the Camp Fire wildfire is believed to have started. The fire claimed the lives of at least 85 people and destroyed thousands of homes and Pacific Gas & Electric faces lawsuits alleging its equipment started the state's most deadly and destructive wildfire on November 8. PG&E made the revelations in a letter to California Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday. The finding of bullet holes in PG&E equipment and felled tree branches could limit the utility's liability in lawsuits, shifting blame to another party and away from its alleged faulty equipment. Pacific Gas & Electric on Tuesday told regulators in a letter that the utility had a transmission line outage near the town of Pulga in Butte County around 6am on November 8 - the day California's most deadly and destructive wildfire started PG&E said it had a transmission line outage near the town of Pulga in Butte County around 6am on the day the fire started. Shortly after the outage, a PG&E employee called 911 at 6.15am to report seeing flames around the tower. Camp Fire started at 6.33am that day in that same area, according to officials. When inspectors went out to investigate the outage site, they found a broken hook and a 'flash mark' on a high-voltage tower, suggesting a power line broke free and made contact with the tower, the letter states. At another location a few miles away in Concow, workers found a fallen power pole riddled with bullet holes after responding to an outage that occurred at 6.45am also on November 8. Also in this area, workers found fallen tree branches covering wires. PG&E said when workers were sent out to inspect the outage site where flames were seen in Pulga, they found a broken hook, and pieces of a suspension insulator and a transposition jumper, according to the letter. The equipment had become separated from an arm of the tower and was left hanging, PG&E's letter states. At a separate site in Concow, workers investigating an outage that occurred around 6.45am on November 8 found a pole on the ground 'with bullets and bullet holes at the break point of the pole and on the equipment,' according to the letter. Workers also found tree branches on top of power lines in the area. PG&E made the revelations in a letter to California Public Utilities Commission, as it faces lawsuits alleging that its equipment started the fire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed at least 86 people The letter states: 'On Nov. 12, 2018, a PG&E employee was patrolling Concow Road north of [the bullet site] when he observed wires down and damaged and downed poles at the intersection of Concow Road and Rim Road. 'This location is within the Camp Fire footprint. At this location, the employee observed several snapped trees, with some on top of the downed wires.' Steve Campora, who is the lawyer for more than 400 people who are suing PG&E, told the Los Angeles Times that the letter is a clear attempt to point the finger of blame away from the firm. He said: 'I think thats why theyre talking about it, but I dont think thats what happened.' Travis Miller, a utilities analyst at Morningstar Research Services in California, told the San Francisco Tribune after reviewing the letter: 'Its becoming clear that PG&E did have a role in the fire. 'The big question remains whether PG&E was maintaining the system appropriately.' Steve Campora, who is the lawyer for more than 400 people who are suing PG&E, told the Los Angeles Times that the letter is a clear attempt to point the finger of blame away from the firm Official investigators have not determined what caused the wildfire but has noted there were two separate points where the fire originated. 'These incidents remain under investigation, and this information is preliminary,' Meredith E. Allen, senior director of Regulatory Relations of PG&E, said in the letter. She added: 'The cause of these incidents has not been determined and may not be fully understood until additional information becomes available, including information that can only be obtained through examination and testing of the equipment retained by CAL FIRE.' The cleanup costs for last month's fires will far surpass the record expense of $1.3 billion the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers spent on debris removal in Northern California in 2017. So far, around $7 billion in insurance claims were made due to Camp Fire. Henry Vincent Bennett, 26, was found guilty of abusing his young daughter on Thursday A jury in West Virginia has taken less than 30 minutes to convict a man of incest with his three-year-old daughter, after he repeated his confession that he mistook the child for his 24-year-old wife. The brief trial of Henry Vincent Bennett, 26, began on Wednesday in Bluefield and ended on Thursday with his conviction on two counts each of first-degree sexual assault, sexual abuse by a parent, and incest. The sickening case took a dramatic twist when Bennett, who had claimed police pressured him into a false confession, slipped up on the witness stand and repeated his confession in front of the jury. 'It's a TV moment. It's a thing that happens on crime shows like Perry Mason,' prosecutor George Sitler told WVVA after the trial. 'You wait your whole career to get somebody to actually confess to what they're accused of on the stand, and this is the first time I've ever seen it happen,' the prosecutor added. Bennett is seen with his wife April and daughter. He told police that he mistook the girl for his wife on two occasions, one involving oral sex and another involving a sex toy Bennett was first arrested in February, after his daughter told family members and then state child safety workers that she had been sexually abused. The young girl at one point made a model of a penis out of Play-Doh and said it was Bennett's 'butt', and said that her father had put his 'butt on her butt', testified Cindy Lambert, a child advocacy worker. When police first brought Bennett in for questioning, he denied sexually assaulting the three-year-old girl. Eventually, Bennett confessed to sexually assaulting the girl on two occasions: once involving a sex toy, and once involving oral sex. Bennett told police that both incidents were accidents, after the child crawled into the bed while his wife was away in the bathroom. He claimed he mistook the 30-pound girl for his 185-pound wife both times. In the first instance he said he he 'accidentally' placed a sex toy in the child's buttocks. The second time, he said his wife was performing oral sex on him, and then got up to go to the bathroom. He claimed the girl came into the room and began performing oral sex on him before he realized she was not his wife. Both Bennett and his wife, 24-year-old April Bennett, were arrested. April was originally charged as an accessory to Bennett's crimes, but later took a deal pleading guilty to a charge of child neglect. Bennett and his wife April were both arrested in February, after the girl told family members and social workers horrible allegations of sexual abuse at her father's hands Videos of Bennett's confession were played before the jury at trial. His lawyer argued that his diminished mental capacity made him susceptible to police pressure tactics, and that the confession was false. During the trial, Bennett took the stand in his own defense. He said that his confession had been coerced by police, who promised him he could go home if he just confessed, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph reported. Bennett testified that he had been in special education, dropped out of school in ninth grade and twice failed to earn a GED. Under cross-examination by the prosecutor Sitler, Bennett repeatedly denied that his confession to police was true. 'You thought making up a story would give you can chance to go home?' Sitler asked, handing Bennett a box of tissues to wipe away his tears. 'Why did you do it?' 'Because I was scared,' Bennett replied. Sitler then pointed to a table in the courtroom full of sex toys, and reminded Bennett he had told police which one he'd used on the young girl. At trial, Bennett was tearful under cross examination. The prosecutor handed him a box of tissues, and then tripped the defendant up, getting him to confess to the crime The prosecutor then grilled Bennett on how he possibly could have mistaken the tiny girl for his wife. 'I was laying on my back... I thought it was April, and when I rolled over (the girl) yelled,' Bennett said, apparently repeating his confession before the jury in a moment that stunned the courtroom. 'You told Officer Fox after that incident happened, you regretted that,' Sitler said. 'I regretted saying thatI regretted talking to him, yes,' Bennett stated. The jury was sent into deliberation at 11.35am on Thursday. The returned a verdict just before noon: guilty on all counts. April Bennett is free on bail and scheduled to be sentenced next month. She faces a sentence of one to five years in prison. Henry Bennett is being held in the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver. He is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced on March 26. If sentenced consecutively, he could face 80 to 270 years behind bars. Advertisement Jean-Claude Juncker was captured ruffling a woman's hair as he arrived at the European Council summit today before claiming he had 'kissed' and made up with Theresa May following a confrontation. Bizarre footage captured the EU commission president walking up to Pernilla Sjolin - the EU's deputy head of protocol - and erratically running his hands through her hair before kissing her cheek. Shortly afterwards Mr Juncker brushed off his extraordinary confrontation with Theresa May - insisting they ended up 'kissing' after he explained he had not insulted her by calling her 'nebulous' and 'imprecise' . The PM and the EU commission president had a 'robust' showdown in the full glare of cameras as she demanded to know why he had branded her with those words in a late-night press conference. But as the summit in Brussels drew to a close this evening, Mr Juncker insisted Mrs May is a 'great friend' and the incident was down to a misunderstanding. 'I did not refer to her but to the overall state of the debate in Britain,' he said. 'I was following the debate in the House and I cannot see where the British Parliament is heading at.' Jean-Claude Juncker arrives at European Council summit in Brussels today and walks up to greet Pernilla Sjolin - the EU's deputy head of protocol The EU commission president erratically runs his hands through Ms Sjolin's hair as he greets her before kissing her on the cheek Shortly afterwards Mr Juncker brushed off his extraordinary confrontation with Theresa May - insisting they ended up 'kissing' after he explained he had not insulted her To laughter from journalists, Mr Juncker said: 'In the course of the morning, after having checked what I said yesterday night, she was kissing me'. EU council chief Donald Tusk also intervened to jibe that the leaders of the bloc had treated Mrs May with 'greater respect and empathy than some British MPs'. Earlier, Mrs May evoked memories of Margaret Thatcher as she wielded her handbag while berating Mr Juncker. Although the sound was switched off, TV cameras caught the pair exchanging what looked to be heated words for at least a minute. Mrs May took the Eurocrat to task for comments delivered to reporters in the early hours of this morning, saying: 'You called me nebulous. Yes you did!' Mr Juncker, who had one hand on Mrs May's arm, looked to be trying to soothe her anger by denying making the jibe. As the summit in Brussels drew to a close this evening, Jean-Claude Juncker insisted Theresa May is a 'great friend' and the confrontation today was down to a misunderstanding The PM - wielding her handbag - was seen locked in a tense standoff with the EU commission chief as the second day of the summit gets under way in Brussels EU council chief Donald Tusk (pictured centre) jibed that the leaders of the bloc had treated Mrs May with 'greater respect and empathy than some British MPs'. Speaking at her own press conference at the close of the summit this afternoon, the premier admitted they had a 'robust' exchange. She said she had been 'crystal clear' with other leaders about what she needed to win support for the Brexit deal at home. 'I had a robust discussion with Jean-Claude Juncker - I think that's the sort of discussion you're able to have when you have developed a working relationship and you work well together,' she said. 'And what came out of that was his clarity that actually he'd been talking - when he used that particular phrase - he'd been talking about a general level of debate.' The clash, which evoked memories of Margaret Thatcher's 'handbagging' of EU leaders to secure Britain's rebate in 1984, came after Mrs May's latest appeal for 'legally binding' assurances over the Irish border backstop to save her Brexit deal fell flat. France and Ireland are said to be spearheading the resistance to more concessions at a stormy Brussels summit - even torpedoing calls for another gathering next month to try to thrash out a way forward. The bloc has also pledged to ramp up preparations for the UK crashing out - with threats to charge British holidaymakers 6 to visit the continent if there is no deal. But the EU's stance provoked fury from Brexiteers, while DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted Mrs May must 'stand up' to her counterparts rather than 'roll over as has happened previously'. Although the sound was switched off, TV cameras caught Mrs May and Mr Juncker exchanging what looked to be heated words for at least a minute Theresa May told a press conference closing the summit today that she had been 'robust' with Mr Juncker about his remarks Mrs May held bilateral talks with Emmanuel Macron (left) at the summit session got under way. Dutch PM Mark Rutte (right) is an ally of the PM, but has also taken a tough line on Brexit Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage jibed that Mr Juncker might have had a 'good dinner' when he made the remark about the PM being 'nebulous' In a ten minute pitch at a summit dinner in Brussels last night, Mrs May begged the other 27 leaders to guarantee that a new trade deal is in place by 2021 so the contentious arrangements to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland the Republic will never be triggered. But after kicking the PM out so they could consider the situation in private, Mr Juncker emerged to complain that Britain's position was 'nebulous and imprecise'. Thatcher's 1984 'handbag' moment is still totemic for Brexiteers The PM secured her reputation as a fierce negotiator by demanding 'our money back' from what was then the European Community Margaret Thatcher's 1984 'handbagging' of the EU is still a totemic moment for Eurosceptics. The PM secured her reputation as a fierce negotiator by demanding 'our money back' from what was then the European Community. Before she confronted fellow leaders at the former French royal palace at Fontainebleau, the UK had far less favourable contribution terms than other member states. Britain was receiving around 1 in spending from the EU for every 2 it pumped into the bloc's coffers. But Mrs Thatcher was able to narrow the gap by securing a 'rebate' that closed around two thirds of the gap. Francois Mitterand, the French president at the time, memorably described Mrs Thatcher as having the 'eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe'. Some claim it was the biggest concession ever made by the EU to a member state - although others argue that Mrs May still did not get everything she wanted. Advertisement In a brutal late-night press conference - and wearing a green tie in solidarity with Ireland - he said: 'It is the UK leaving the EU. Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want. I find it uncomfortable. 'So we would like, within a few weeks, our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications.' He added: 'We don't want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation, that is crystal clear. We can add clarifications but no real changes. 'There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty.' But today Mr Juncker said Mrs May was doing her job in the 'best possible way' and he wanted to 'take the temperature down'. The EU's hardball approach appears to leave Mrs May with nowhere to turn, just weeks before she must stage a critical showdown in Parliament. Mrs May was forced to promise she would secure 'legally binding' assurances in order to survive a Tory leadership coup this week - as well as publicly admitting that she will not lead the party into the 2022 general election. She asked EU counterparts to help her out last night, saying a package of assurances around the backstop could 'change the dynamic' at Westminster. She ended with a highly personal appeal to EU leaders to put their trust in her and give her the political room for manoeuvre she needs. Urging them to 'hold nothing in reserve' in helping rescue her deal, she highlighted the torrid political situation at home. 'I hope I have shown you can trust me to do what is right, not always what is easy, however difficult that might be for me politically,' Mrs May said. However, delivering a statement on behalf of the EU's 27 national leaders afterwards, European Council President Donald Tusk warned the Withdrawal Agreement was 'not open for renegotiation' - and said they are stepping up preparations for a 'no deal' scenario come March. The conclusions were even tougher against the UK than a draft that had been leaked earlier in the week - suggesting Mrs May's efforts had sent the process into reverse. Arriving at the summit this morning, EU leaders still were not holding back with their attacks on the UK. Irish PM Leo Varadkar expressed 'satisfaction' with the tough line taken by the bloc, and said the best Mrs May could hope for was 'clarifications and explanations'. 'We can discuss what form that akes but what we won't be doing as a European Union is renegotiating,' he said. Luxembourg's Xavier Bettel said 'for internal political reasons some people try to gamble the relations between the EU and the UK for the future'. How the bruising exchange between May and Juncker unfolded This is how lipreaders say the exchange between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker went: Mrs May: 'What did you call me? You called me nebulous.' (Mr Juncker shakes his head slightly seemingly to deny it) Mrs May: 'Yes you did.' (Mr Juncker seems unclear what word she is saying) Mrs May: 'Nebulous.' As the camera moves around behind them a clearly frustrated Mrs May says: 'Nebulous, yes you did.' Mr Juncker: 'No, I didn't, I didn't.' As the TV shot backs away from the confrontation, Dutch PM Mark Rutte comes over, apparently in an effort to defuse the situation. Advertisement 'It's bad. This is the best possible deal,' he said. 'Theresa May is clear. Westminster is not clear. The problem is the MPs in London.' Belgium's prime minister Charles Michel said there was 'gigantic doubt' about whether Mrs May will be 'able to honor the engagement that was undertaken'. 'We are going to be sure to prepare for all hypotheses, including the hypothesis of a `no deal,' he said. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said he does not now expect a special Brexit summit in January to agree a way forward. He said they now need the British Parliament to back the deal agreed with Mrs May. 'We need a positive vote from the British Parliament, not a summit,' he said. 'We want a vote. We need a vote from the British Parliament to continue. 'We very much hope this will be a positive vote. We count on that.' But in an angry retort, Mrs Foster - whose 10 MPs are propping the Tories up in power - said: 'The Prime Minister has promised to get legally binding changes. 'The reaction by the EU is unsurprising. They are doing what they always do. The key question is whether the PM will stand up to them or whether she will roll over as has happened previously.' Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Mrs May had failed to achieve 'meaningful changes' and called for a vote on her deal before Christmas. European Council President Donald Tusk (pictured right at the summit today) also warned that the Withdrawal Agreement is 'not open for renegotiation' Irish PM Leo Varadkar (pictured today) expressed 'satisfaction' with the tough line taken by the bloc, and said the best Mrs May could hope for was 'clarifications and explanations' Angela Merkel (pictured left with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban today) is still a key powerbroker in the EU The intense Brexit wrangling is taking place at the summit at the EU council's headquarters in Brussels today He said: 'We cannot go on like this. The Prime Minister should reinstate the vote on her deal next week and let Parliament take back control.' But Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington defended Mrs May's handling of the talks, telling Today: 'Anybody who has heard Theresa May in debate, anybody who has heard her around the Cabinet table, knows there is a very clear plan.' He described the talks as 'a welcome first step that was the removal of uncertainty' over the EU's intentions, because it had shown it wanted a 'speedy UK trade deal' that would remove the need for the backstop in the first place. Body blow for May as the EU DELETES crucial compromise passages from summit conclusions But the draft conclusions of the summit were then heavily edited (pictured), removing references saying the backstop was not a 'desirable' outcome and instead saying it was a crucial insurance policy to 'ensure the integrity of the single market' Theresa May's hopes of passing her Brexit deal suffered a body blow last night as EU leaders deleted compromises from a draft document aimed at helping her. After the PM made a 10-minute plea for help, the other 27 leaders discussed what to do over dinner - after kicking her out to eat elsewhere. Mrs May had asked for legal assurances the Irish border backstop would only be temporary, if it had to be used at all. But the draft conclusions of the summit were then heavily edited, removing references saying the backstop was not a 'desirable' outcome and instead saying it was a crucial insurance policy to 'ensure the integrity of the single market'. The draft promised the EU would use its 'best endeavours' to get a final trade deal - but the final version added a clause saying Brussels would explicitly 'expect the same of the United Kingdom'. The changes mean the final version of the document is likely to be of little help to Mrs May as she fights to save her deal. Advertisement The Brexit deal was finally struck last month after nearly two years of tortuous negotiations, with Mrs May forcing it through Cabinet at the cost of a series of resignations, and pledging to put it to MPs this week. But the vote was chaotically shelved when it became clear the government was on track for a catastrophic defeat, in the face of opposition from Tory Brexiteers and Remainers, the DUP, Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems. In a desperate bid to salvage the situation, she vowed to go back to Brussels for more 'legally binding' assurances on the Irish border backstop. Mrs May is thought to have been hoping for a legal addendum to the Withdrawal Agreement that would set a start date for the future relationship between the EU27, or some other binding commitment to ensure the backstop is temporary. But the response of the EU was to delete key parts of the draft summit conclusions that might have given the UK a glimmer of hope. EU council president Donald Tusk said: 'Prime Minister May informed the leaders about the difficulties with ratifying the deal in London and asked for further assurances that would at least in her view unlock the ratification process in the House of Commons... 'The Union stands by this agreement and intends to proceed with its ratification. It is not open for renegotiation,' Tusk concluded. There was said to have been sympathy for Mrs May inside the leaders dinner after her ordeal yesterday, but sources inside the dinner said it was made clear that not much would be expected from today's talks. As the summit began yesterday, leaders including Angela Merkel and Holland's Mark Rutte held out an olive branch by speaking of their 'admiration' for the PM. Leaked draft conclusions appeared to offer a glimmer of hope by emphasising that the Irish border backstop was an 'insurance policy' and only intended to be 'temporary' if it comes into force. Former Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso also appealed for EU leaders to help Mrs May - warning a Brexit had to be concluded without 'resentment'. But any optimism quickly evaporated as leaders arrived at the summit with an uncompromising message, insisting that the legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened. Mrs Merkel said Mrs May's victory in the confidence vote was 'pleasing', but added: 'I do not see that this Withdrawal Agreement can be changed.' While acclaiming Mrs May in English as he spoke to reporters in Brussels today, Mr Rutte was less helpful when he addressed Dutch journalists in his own language. 'If anyone in the Netherlands thinks Nexit is a good idea, look at England and see the enormous damage it does,' he said. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz suggested another summit could be convened in January to try and sign off more assurances, but said it was hard to know what the EU should give to May because 'not all the arguments of Brexit supporters are rational'. And Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite put it more bluntly. 'Brexit Christmas wish: finally decide what you really want and Santa will deliver,' she said on Twitter in posting a picture of a chocolate Christmas tree. As she arrived at the summit, Mrs May publicly conceded for the first time that the Brexit crisis will cut short her stay in Downing Street, saying although in her 'heart' she wants to fight on, she will need to quit before the next general election. 'I think it is right that the party feels that it would prefer to go into that election with a new leader,' she said. May spoils Juncker's 'Godfather' act at Brussels summit By Judi James, body language expert The normal format for a Junker greeting ritual at these events entails a powerful blend of signals of power and quasi-parental warmth. He usually remains seated in the style of the Godfather and May normal indulges him be bending to kiss the Junker cheek. Here though there is a suggestion of less friendship and more hectoring from May. She entered the chamber at a whirlwind pace that was in direct contrasted to the other leaders' slower, more sociable air of relaxed bonhomie. Caught in a moment with Junker his body language suggests a conciliatory sense of concern while May does seem from her stern facial expression, head tilt and eye contact to be having quite a firm word in the style of a complaint. She usually mirrors Junker's tactile displays of public affection but although he places a hand on her arm there is no reciprocal warmth visible here from the PM. Junker looks rather surprised at what he's hearing but May's rapid pace of movement here suggests she's keen to get her point across quickly. Advertisement Mrs Merkel today again flatly dismissed the prospect of renegotiating the Withdrawal Agreement, while the Finnish PM warned the best she can hope for is 'political' assurances. 'We can discuss whether there should be additional assurances, but here the 27 member states will act very much in common and make their interests very clear. 'This is always in the spirit that we will have very, very good relations with the UK after it has departed from the European Union.' French president Emmanuel Macron said there could be a 'political discussion' but added ominously: 'One cannot reopen a legal agreement.' Mr Rutte was effusive in his praise of Mrs May's 'tenacity'. 'I feel respect. She is an able leader. I admire her tenacity and resilience. She's a great leader. And if you saw the Labour people laughing at her when she said 'I listened', I felt this was not very British,' he said. 'She stood there and kept her composure and won this fight within her party. I have the highest admiration for her.' Finnish PM Juha Sipila warned: 'Legally binding will be a little bit difficult. 'But we all want to help her first of all, and then our goal is that the new relationship will be before the backstop. 'So I think, at the political level, we can (offer assurances). That's our primary goal. And let's see if we can find something from the legal side also, but it's open still.' A Commons vote on the PM's Brexit deal was pulled at the last moment this week to avoid a catastrophic defeat. Trade Secretary Liam Fox has put down a clear marker by warning it may never be put to a Parliamentary vote unless changes are made. In a sign of the simmering divisions, other ministers including Philip Hammond, Amber Rudd, David Gauke and Greg Clark are urging an early vote on the package - and then if it is defeated a series of Commons votes on different options for how to move forward. Mrs May also played down hopes of any shift soon, saying: 'I don't expect an immediate breakthrough, but what I do hope is that we can start to work as quickly as possible on the assurances that are necessary.' Fox News presenter Jesse Watters read a text out loud from his mother on-air in which she urged him not to take the job of Donald Trump's chief of staff if the president offered it. Watters broadcast her advice of 'DO NOT accept an offer to be Chief of Staff' on the news channel during an segment called 'Mom Texts' in which he reads messages that have been sent to him by his liberal-leaning mother, Anne Watters. Several people have reportedly turned down the offer to become the next White House Chief of Staff replacing John Kelly. Jesse Watters aired a segment on Fox News where he reads texts that come in from his mom Messages read: 'We are a nation of laws. Please tone down the attack on our court system We all know you are a Trumpet you need not scream it.' Jesse's mother Anne, 70, (pictured with her husband Stephen) lives on Long Island, New York Anne is apparently a 'liberal Democrat' and doesn't appear to hold back when it comes to speaking her mind Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Representative Mark Meadows and Nick Ayers, the current chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence have all declined the opportunity to replace Kelly. During the show hosted by the Watters, a conservative political commentator, he read a number of text messages sent to him by his mom that were said to be 'piling up fast'. The first text read: 'Pau] Manafort is a criminal,' after Robert Mueller said Trump's former campaign chairman had lied to the special counsel's office during the Russia investigation, after Manafort had previously been found guilty on eight felony fraud charges. 'Short and sweet, Mom,' Watters said about the text. In the another text, Watters's mother wrote: 'Jesse, the Mueller investigation is now a 3 pronged attackyou read Axiosand you are coming across as utterly unethical and valueless? Why do that? 'You don't have the expertise nor the knowledge to question the special counsel's investigation until you know what they know,' Anne Watters added. 'Hush Jesse.' Jesse appeared to have a broad smirk on his face as he read the text out on-air from his mom Jesse, 40, was brought down to earth by his mother who told him to keep his thoughts to himself and to stop speculating on the Mueller investigation In further messages Watters reminded her son 'we are a nation of laws' and asked him to 'tone down the strident attack on our court system. 'You end up presenting as lacking a moral compass honey. We all know you are a TrumpetYou don't need to scream it.' In a two-part text message to the host, Anne Watters said: 'Please bring just a TAD more measured caution to your heretofore overly exited support of this president; you really are presenting as really out there Jesse. And above all, please stay in your wheelhouseyou can have an opinion but let's acknowledge you have no legal expertise.' Jesse wasn't afraid to read out text that showed him being chastised by his mother over his enthusiasm for President Trump The messages appeared on a special segment called 'Mom Texts' Anne's Motherly advice often appears on Watters' Mom Texts segment. In a previous segment of 'Mom Texts,' Anne Watters attacked Trump following his tweet directed at adult film actress Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, in which he called her 'horseface.' 'Any political arena is fraught with name calling, as well as wretched accusations by all sorts of players, but not by the president of the United States. 'To normalize his behavior [of] calling a woman 'horseface' demeans you and makes you appear crass, and quite awful and misogynistic,' she wrote, reported the blog Fox News Insider. Theresa May finished a punishing week at the hands of MPs and Eurocrats by opening a children's hospice in her constituency today. The Prime Minister, who recently suggested she would not be leading the Conservative Party into a 2022 election, returned from a mission to Brussels and attended the opening ceremony of The Alexander Devine Children's Hospice Service just outside Maidenhead. A spokesperson for the charity said the centre currently helps care for more than 113 families, offering support to children with 'life-limiting and life-threatening illnesses'. Also in attendance at the opening was Sir Michael Parkinson, a founding patron described by the charity's CEO as 'a much valued and committed supporter' who has 'always been passionate about our work, sensitive to the needs of the children and their families'. Theresa May rounded of a punishing week with an opening ceremony at The Alexander Devine Children's Hospice in her Maidenhead constituency Sophia Bird, aged four, presents the Prime Minister with flowers after the ceremony. Sophia was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia last year and has been receiving support at home and at the new hospice from the Alexander Devine care team The Alexander Devine Children's Hospice was set up by John and Fiona Devine, from Windsor, in memory of 'their extraordinary little boy' who died in early 2006 from a rare brain tumour, aged only eight years old. The Maidenhead Advertiser reported that Mrs May, arriving straight from Brussels, said: 'I think today is a remarkable day and it's reflecting not just the effort that's been put in by Fiona and John over these years but a dedication, a commitment and a determination that I have never seen in anyone else. 'For all the children and families that are going to benefit, they will owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. 'Their lives will be improved, their lives will be given that comfort and that support and that hope because of your determination and conviction.' During the ceremony the Prime Minister was presented with a bouquet of flowers by four-year-old Sophia Bird. Sophia was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia last year and has been receiving support at home and at the new hospice from the Alexander Devine care team. A statement from the charity said: '[Mr and Mrs Devine's] personal experience, and subsequent extensive research, led them to realise that there was a vital need for a local children's hospice service and hospice. 'The charity funds The Alexander Care Team (paediatric palliative care children's nurses, trained care staff, and a play specialist) who support children aged 0-19 years with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in their own homes across Berkshire and the bordering areas of surrounding counties.' Mrs May was joined by Sir Michael Parkinson at the opening ceremony in Berkshire today It continues: 'Alexander Devine relies on the generosity and support of local communities to carry out the vital work that they do. All of the services are free of charge.' The Prime Minister attended the event after a week-long bruising at the hands of MPs and Brussels negotiators. She tore into EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker today - the second day of a tense gathering at the heart of the European Union. Although TV footage of the meeting was muted, the pair were caught exchanging heated words for at least a minute, with lipreaders claiming the exchange began with Mrs May saying: 'What did you call me? You called me nebulous.' Mr Juncker seemingly did not understand, asking Mrs May to repeat herself, before she slowly spelled out the word 'nebulous'. Body language experts said the Prime Minister had successfully disrupted the EU chief's usual 'Godfather' demeanour and put him on the back foot. The Prime Minister - wielding her handbag - was seen locked in a tense standoff with the EU commission chief at the second day of the summit in Brussels Last night, during a ten minute pitch at the summit dinner in Brussels, Mrs May pleaded with the other 27 leaders to guarantee that a new trade deal would be in place by 2021 in order to steer clear of triggering the contentious arrangements intended to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland. After Mrs May was booted out so the EU leaders could consider the proposals in private, My Juncker complained that the UK's position was 'nebulous and imprecise'. The Prime Minister was forced to promise she would secure 'legally binding' assurances in order to survive a Conservative coup earlier this week - and Mrs May even admitted publicly that she will not lead the party into the 2022 general election. Mrs May's trip to Brussels came at the end of a week that saw her delay the vote on her Brexit deal in Parliament before winning a no confidence vote brought by MPs. President Donald Trump says his Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney will lead the West Wing until he can find a permanent replacement for John Kelly. Trump effectively let Kelly off the hook on Friday, saying in a tweet that Mulvaney would serve as 'acting chief of staff' once the retired general leaves the administration. A senior official indicated that Mulvaney's tenure will be indefinite however, telling reporters at the White House minutes after the announcement, 'Theres no time limit.' Just this morning, the White House was claiming that Kelly could stay longer than planned, having already agreed to extend his tenure longer than Trump initially said to ensure a smooth transition. Trump said in an early evening tweet that he had changed his mind and Kelly would be departing at the end of the year. 'I am pleased to announce that Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management & Budget, will be named Acting White House Chief of Staff, replacing General John Kelly, who has served our Country with distinction. Mick has done an outstanding job while in the Administration,' he announced. Hours later he sent a follow up tweet insisting 'MANY' people wanted the job. President Donald Trump says his Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney will lead the West Wing until he can find a permanent replacement for John Kelly Trump effectively let Kelly off the hook on Friday, saying in a tweet that Mulvaney would serve as 'acting chief of staff' once the retired general leaves the administration Hours after naming Mulvaney, the president tweeted that 'MANY' people wanted the job Mulvaney has a lot on his plate as Office of Management and Budget head. A White House official said Friday that his job at OMB will be filled by his deputy Russ Vought Mulvaney is seen here chatting up Mark Meadows, a Republican congressman that Trump denied the job this week In naming Mulvaney, the president went on, 'I look forward to working with him in this new capacity as we continue to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! John will be staying until the end of the year. He is a GREAT PATRIOT and I want to personally thank him for his service!' Mulvany heads the Office of Management and Budget within the White House and earlier this year wore two hats as he filled the top job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. OMB would oversee a partial government shutdown in the case that Congress and the president are unable to resolve their differences ahead of a Dec. 21 deadline to pass legislation to pull unfunded areas of the government out of limbo. Trump was said on Friday to be shopping a two-week delay in hostilities after declaring on Tuesday that he would 'absolutely' preside over a shutdown until Congress approves $5 billion for his border wall. That would push the fight that could furlough federal workers over the Christmas holiday into early next year. Trump will have lost much of his leverage by then, as Democrats take the majority in the House, but as he made clear in a Thursday tweet he now sees the value of avoiding an expensive and potentially toxic government closure. 'Lets not do a shutdown, Democrats do whats right for the American people!' Trump had tweeted. His appointment of Mulvaney to Kelly's post on Friday evening suggests that Trump, whose White House is already stretched thin, is seriously considering his options. A senior official told reporters on Friday evening that the OMB job will be filled for now by Mulvaney's deputy Russ Vought. The person stressed Mulvaney's credentials for chief of staff as a former Member of Congress, representing South Carolina as a Republican from 2011 until the president appointed him OMB head. 'He knows Congress. He knows Capitol Hill,' the official said. Mulvaney and Trump met at the White House on Thursday afternoon prior to the announcement to discuss the impending fiscal cliff. Trump said in a tweet hours later that Mulvaney would be his interim chief of staff. Hours prior to the president's announcement that Kelly would be succeeded by Mick Mulvaney, the White House said Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was not under consideration. Kushner is Ivanka Trump's husband and a senior adviser to the president like she is Trump promoted the job as a temporary assignment, but White House officials signaled that Mulvaney could fill the position for an extended period of time. 'Hes the acting chief of staff, which means hes the chief of staff,' a senior official who requested anonymity said. 'He got picked because the president liked him they get along.' The person said that Mulvaney was named 'acting' chief instead of permanent chief, 'because thats what the president wants.' 'Well see,' a second official said of the appointment. 'Its what the president wants right now.' Ivanka Trump quickly blasted a a congratulatory note to her new boss on Twitter, telling Mulvaney, 'You will undoubtedly continue to inspire and impress in this new role just as you have at OMB. Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to the president, had been a dark horse for the job. The couple routinely clashed with Kelly, and the president's daughter eagerly welcomed his exit. 'Thank you General Kelly for almost 2 years of leadership in this Administration and for a lifetime of service to our great nation!' she said in her tweet. Prior to holding federal office, Mulvaney served as a state representative and state senator in South Carolina. Before that, he practiced law and worked for his family real estate business. Mulvaney and his wife Pamela have three children. In Congress, he was known as a fiscal-hawk and social conservative who ran with the right-wing Freedom Caucus and was willing to shut the government down to trim down the federal deficit. Since joining the Trump administration he has taken flack for claiming that there is such a thing as a 'good shutdown' that could permanently fix the appropriations process. He has also been dogged by a claim that he says was meant to be a joke that he would only meet with lobbyists as a congressman who'd contributed to his campaigns. Chris Christie became the latest contender for chief of staff to take himself out of the running on Friday, saying in a statement that it is an honor to have been considered, but it's not the right time in his life for the assignment Mulvaney was the obvious choice for acting White House chief of staff after having been one of two rumored picks for the position for close to six months. The other contender, Nick Ayers, turned the job down over the weekend. Chris Christie also took himself out of the running, saying in a Friday afternoon statement that it is an honor to have been considered, but it's not the right time in his life for the assignment. He told the New York Times that he had asked Trump 'to no longer keep me in considerations for this post' following a meeting on Thursday to discuss the position. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway meanwhile confirmed that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was not under consideration. 'I haven't heard either Jared or the president mention Jared on the list,' she asserted. 'But I think he's doing a great job at what he's doing.' Asked whether the president spoke to Christie and what exactly happened she said: 'I do know the answer, but I can't comment. They had a great meeting last night.' She smiled and said nothing as DailyMail.com asked if she is interested in doing the job that no one else seems to want. Conway suggested to reporters that the president does have a 'front-runner' in mind for the job he's been openly trying to fill for the last week. 'I'm not saying, although I know. I know the answer, not telling you,' she teased. Reporters, throwing names out and hoping that someone sticks, queried the potential appointment of senior communications aide Bill Shine, who joined the administration earlier this year after working as an executive for many years at Fox. 'I love that Bill Shine is the communications director,' she said, 'and it's added a lot to our press and coms shop.' It was unclear on Friday night whether Trump told Christie that he wouldn't be getting the job and that's why he abruptly pulled out. Christie sent Kushner's father to jail when he served as U.S. attorney for illegal campaign contributions. Kushner was reported Thursday to have lobbied to become his father-in-law Donald Trump's chief of staff. The first son-in-law, already an adviser to the president with an office next to the Oval Office, was reported by the Huffington Post to have pushed his own candidacy and been rewarded with a meeting Wednesday about the role. He apparently claimed he could work with Democrats - a claim ridiculed by one of the sources for the report who said: 'I don't know why he thinks that, when the Democrats are mainly going to be coming after Trump.' Kushner's potential candidacy emerged shortly after the president claimed he had five candidates who actually want the job fighting it out. 'Five people. Really good ones. Terrific people. Mostly well known, but terrific people,' Trump told reporters on Thursday. The claim was met with skepticism in wider Washington D.C. given that Trump pushed out John Kelly without a successor in place and was turned down by his first choice. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly attends a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Governors-elects in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Thursday Trump told the only Republican openly expressing interest in the job that he wants him to stay in Congress. A White House statement on Wednesday said that Trump ruled out North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows for the top White House position. 'Congressman Mark Meadows is a great friend to President Trump and is doing an incredible job in Congress. The President told him we need him in Congress so he can continue the great work he is doing there,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. Trump's plans were turned upside down when Trump's first pick for the position, Nick Ayes, unexpectedly turned the president's proposition down. The White House subsequently said that Kelly would be staying on until early January 'at least' to the manage the West Wing while the president conducts his search for a replacement. Politico reported on Monday that Meadows, a leading pro-Trump Republican congressman, was interested in the gig that nobody else seemed to want. 'Serving as Chief of Staff would be an incredible honor. The President has a long list of qualified candidates and I know he'll make the best selection for his administration and for the country,' he told the publication. The White House told the publication Wednesday that the president asked the congressman who had a double-digit victory in November to remain his position in the House. Meadows is the House Freedom Caucus chairman. The president claimed Tuesday that more than 10 people were competing for the chief of staff job but none appeared to be in the lead and it was unclear how much any of them actually wants to do it. 'We are in no rush. Over a period of a week or two or maybe less we'll announce who it's going to be, but we have a lot of people who want the position,' Trump said in a Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders on Tuesday morning that Kelly attended. He said, 'A lot of friends of mine want it. A lot of people that Chuck and Nancy know very well want it, I think people you'd like,' Trump said, talking up the post. 'We have a lot of people that want the job of chief of staff. So we'll be seeing what happens. We're in no rush.' Kellyanne Conway told reporters this week that Kelly will stay on as chief of staff 'at least' through the beginning of the year The reason, Trump said: 'Because we have a wonderful chief of staff right here.' Conway had said during an appearance on 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday morning just days after the White House said Kelly's tenure was nearly over that he wouldn't be leaving at the end of the year as planned. 'He will stay on the job through January 2nd at least, and I think there were will be a very peaceful and pragmatic transition to the next chief of staff,' Conway said. 'But the president has many people who want to serve here.' Later in the day, the president held a bill signing in the Oval Office that Mulvaney and Meadows were a part of. The two men allegedly competing for the same job who worked closely together in Congress stood side by side as the president talked. By Wednesday afternoon, the White House had announced that Meadows, at least, was out of the running, and on Friday, ex-congressman Mulvaney was the last one standing. A Green activist who was deceived into an intimate relationship with an undercover police officer has lost a High Court appeal against the decision not to prosecute him. The woman, known only as Monica, wants former detective Jim Boyling to be prosecuted for rape, procurement and misconduct in public office. The two had an 'intense' six-month relationship after Boyling infiltrated environmental group Reclaim The Streets in the 1990s, under the code name Jim Sutton. He is thought to have had sexual relationships with three women during his time undercover. Boyling was dismissed from the force in May and is the first police spy to be dismissed for sexual misconduct. Jim Boyling, who infiltrated left-wing groups for five years, formed a relationship with the campaigner, known only as Monica, while spying for the Met Police Prosecutors decided not to charge him with sexual offences as they considered the relationship to be genuine and that his deception did not make her consent invalid. Giving judgment in London on Friday, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and Mr Justice Jay ruled there was 'no merit' in Monica's claim against the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The judges said Monica's lawyers had contended for a 'substantial leap' in the definition of consent, and 'it would be wrong for such a fundamental change in the understanding of consent to be brought about by judges rather than the legislature'. At a hearing in November, Monica's barrister Phillippa Kaufmann QC said the 'critical question' as to whether deception 'vitiated' consent was 'whether the woman agreed to the sexual act by choice, when she had the freedom and capacity to make that choice'. Ms Kaufmann said: '(Mr Boyling's) deception was one sponsored by the state that went to every aspect of his identity apart from his body. 'Both his past and present was entirely fabricated, carefully crafted to ensure that his true identity would not be revealed to those in the groups and movements he infiltrated.' That resulted, she said, in a 'fictitious identity with a detailed history' which resulted in Monica being 'robbed of her freedom to choose by the adoption of a wholly fictitious identity'. As 'Jim the Van', he drove for Reclaim the Streets, taking protesters around the country and would become a key player in the protest movement run by anarchists and anti-capitalists Ms Kaufmann said 'had (Monica) known of Boyling's true identity, she would not have had a relationship with him'. She added: 'This case forces the courts to confront what changes the huge advances in women's emancipation in the course of the 20th century has wrought upon the law of rape and, in particular, how the law conceives of consent. Ms Kaufmann also said that her client would never have consented to a relationship with a police officer. She said: 'She hated the police when she was in the movement. She said in her police interview, 'it's sexual abuse on some level, whatever you dress it up as, it's sexual abuse'. Monica also added: 'There's one thing I want to make very clear. I would never have consented to having a relationship with a police officer, I would never ever ever have done that. 'I feel very abused by the sexual contact and sexual intimacy I had with him.' The DPP, however, said that Boyling's relationship was 'genuine' and that his undercover identity was 'entirely incidental' to his sexual relationship with Monica. Boyling's barrister Ben Brandon argued his client's deception was not used to persuade Monica to have sex with him. He added that Boyling was 'the same person who had sex with Monica'. The judges concluded the lawyer who reviewed the decision not to prosecute Mr Boyling in 2017 'was correct in approaching her decision on the basis that the claimant's case involves not just a step but a leap in the way in which consent is interpreted'. They added: 'In our judgment, she was entitled to reach the conclusion that ''consent'' could not be interpreted by a court in a way which undertook that leap applying, as she put it, ''current legal principles''.' The High Court also dismissed Monica's claim that Boyling should have been prosecuted for procurement of sexual intercourse or misconduct in public office. In May, Boyling was dismissed from the Met following a complaint made by another woman, known as Rosa, whose relationship with Mr Boyling began in 1999. He was sacked for gross misconduct for disclosing confidential information and trying to conceal his relationship with Rosa, whom he married and had two children with after leaving the SDS in the early 2000s. At least 12 women have received compensation after unwittingly being involved in intimate relationships with undercover officers, and in 2015 the Met admitted the relationships were 'abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong'. A public inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales, which was announced by then home secretary Theresa May in 2014, is ongoing and is not due to conclude until 2023. Twenty-eight people were injured in a tram crash in Portugal last night. Casualties were rushed to hospital when the tram overturned at around 6pm near Rua de Sao Domingos a Lapa in Lisbon. Among those pulled from the wreckage by emergency services was a six-month-old and a seven-year-old, according to local media. Around 28 people are said to have been injured in the crash (pictured), which took place at around 6pm The incident is reported to have taken place near Rua de Sao Domingos a Lapa in Lisbon. Emergency services are currently at the scene (pictured) Local media reports initially suggested they children were British, but the Foreign Office told MailOnline that no Brits were involved in the incident. A witness at the scene told Portuguese newspaper Publico that the tram appeared to 'fail to stop' and derail at a corner following a failed braking attempt. Pictures taken in the area show a large number of emergency service vehicles in attendance, including police cars and fire engines. The tram appeared to have flipped over and sustained significant damage to its side as a result of the crash. Among those pulled from the wreckage by emergency services was a baby and a child, according to local media Police and emergency services stand by the crushed tram which overturned near Rua de Sao Domingos a Lapa Around 50 rescuers were dispatched to the scene, and remain in the area dealing with the injured Local media reports suggest around 50 rescuers were dispatched to the scene. With several firefighting vehicles also at the incident. Some of those injured were reported to have sustained visible wounds and were taken away on stretchers. The tram operator, Carris, confirmed there had been a crash but said only minor injuries were sustained. The company also said it would carry out a 'thorough investigation' to determine the cause of the crash. Jared Kushner has been revealed to have been the primary point of contact between Donald Trump and National Enquirer boss David Pecker after the 2016 presidential election. Kushner's role, reported by the Daily Beast, is gaining exposure just as Pecker's participation in a 'catch-and-kill' arrangement to bury negative stories about Trump is being examined as a potential criminal liability for the president. Kushner's broad portfolio has inspired envy as well as some ridicule. But his connections to Pecker now connect him to a Trump friend whose role in 'hush' agreements have brought potential criminal exposure for the president. Prosecutors say Trump, Pecker, and lawyer Michael Cohen hashed out a plan to 'bury' negative stories about Trump, and both Cohen and Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. are cooperating with investigators. Cohen and Pecker have each admitted to the scheme to have AMI pay $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal. They each admitted to its occurrence and admitted it was a crime - Pecker through a non-prosecution deal and Cohen in his guilty plea. That has dramatically increased what is seen as the legal peril for Trump Pecker's role grew as former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's stock diminished, according to the account. Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail this week in part due to campaign finance violations connected to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner became the primary point of contact between Donald Trump and National Enquirer boss David Pecker beginning during the presidential transition President Trump, Pecker, and Cohen discussed a plan to protect Trump from negative stories, according to prosecutors Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign and banking violations after he created a shell company to transfer $130,000 to Stormy Daniels (right), who claims she had an affair with Trump. AMI gave $150,000 to model Karen McDougal (left) who claims she had an affair with Trump Enemies: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski became a target for the president; now his son-in-law is facing claims he talked dirt about them with the National Enquirer's boss David Pecker His role diminished as it became clear he would not be following Trump to the White House. Cohen, who Trump now calls a liar, also worked with Pecker on the McDougal payment. At the start of the Trump administration, Pecker and Kushner spoke about topics ranging from international relations to gossip, four sources told the publication. Pecker visited the White House and met with Trump and Kushner in 2017 along with a French businessman ties to Saudi Arabia. Kushner, whose wife is Ivanka Trump, has been under fire for his close connections to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the murder of Jamal Kashoggi. Kushner and Ivanka both work in the White House in senior roles. In March AMI published a 100-page glossy magazine with the crown prince on the cover under the headline 'The New Kingdom' with a story on MBS' 'new vision for 2030.' Kushner helped organize Trump's first trip as president, to Saudi Arabia. The Enquirer hammered Hillary Clinton during the campaign with unfavorable stories, endorsed Trump, and ran a story claiming one of Trump's top GOP rivals was having multiple affairs. The Pecker-Trump relationship also came to light when MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski made the astonishing claim that Trump threatened to sic the tabloid on them unless they 'begged' Trump to intervene. 'This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. We ignored their desperate pleas,' the hosts, now a married couple, wrote in the Washington Post in June. Trump countered that Scarborough asked him to stop an unflattering Enquirer story. The president wrote on Twitter: Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.' Scarborough responded, writing: 'Yet another lie. I have texts from your top aides and phone records. Also, those records show I haven't spoken with you in many months.' The host followed up: 'Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?' Earlier in the day, the Enquirer had posted an article: 'Joe & Mika: TV Couple's Slaezy Cheating Scandal.' It was a reposting of a seven-part photo essay with claims about the couple. 'Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski started hooking up while married to other people - and the "Morning Joe" co-hosts have used ironclad divorce deals to keep their dirty secret!' the Enquirer wrote earlier in June of 2017. AMI said at the time it had 'no involvement' in any discussions between the White House and the hosts. Trump went after the couple on August 22, 2016: 'Some day, when things calm down, I'll tell the real story of @JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, @morningmica. Two clowns! In their Washington Post op-ed, the couple also wrote: 'During the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, Joe often listened to Trump staff members complain about their bosss erratic behavior, including a top campaign official who was as close to the Republican candidate as anyone.' With both Cohen and Pecker spilling the beans on the 'hush' payments to women, that could leave Trump as the odd man out if he continues his denials that he did nothing wrong and never 'directed' Cohen to break the law. DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel determined during the Nixon Administration that a sitting president could not be indicted, although its position has not been tested in court. Amid the swirling developments of the week, one powerful Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, is calling for that interpretation to change. Although the founders included impeachment in the constitution as a political remedy, critics of the status quo have argued they never intended to give the executive a 'free pass' for crimes just by holding office, including alleged crimes that helped a president obtain the White House. 'I think the Justice Department needs to re-examine that OLC opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel opinion, that you cannot indict a sitting president under circumstances in which the failure to do so may mean that person escapes justice,' Schiff told CNN on Wednesday, hours after Donald Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other matters. Tweets: 'If it was a Conservative that said what 'crazed' Mika Brzezinski stated ... that person would be banned permanently from television,' said Trump Meanwhile, impeachment a subject Democratic leaders sought to tamp down before the elections continues to hover over the courtroom developments. If it is determined that the Justice Department can't or won't charge Trump, even with a recommendation from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, it would then fall to House Democrats to begin the process that can result in the president's removal from office. Adding to the pressure on Democrats will be the statute of limitations on potential campaign finance crimes. That could allow Trump to avoid facing charges by winning election to a second term even as his subordinate Cohen cools his heels in jail well past the time Trump would again take the oath of office. Former Acting Solicitor General under President Obama Neal Katyal wrote Wednesday on Twitter that existing special counsel regulations 'put thumb on scale of Mueller asking Acting AG to indict, as that is the one way Mueller can be sure info he has uncovered in his investigation is provided to Congress. EVEN if Mueller thinks AG would say no, he may need to ask.' Despite the current regulations, Mueller could ask the Justice Department to allow for a waiver to indict, according to Katyal. If the official overseeing the Russia probe refuses, Mueller would be required to report it to Congress which would then have that information as it considered any impeachment proceedings. It is not entirely clear who is even overseeing the probe who would make that call. Trump installed loyalist Matt Whitaker as Acting Attorney General, but Justice has refused media requests for information on whether Whitaker received an ethics review of any potential conflicts, following a slew of comments critical of the Mueller investigation. The special counsel slapped down a claim by lawyers for President Donald Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn that they tricked the ex-White House official into lying. 'Nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI,' a court filing said. Flynn asked a judge on Tuesday to spare him prison time, saying he had devoted his career to his country and taken responsibility for an 'uncharacteristic error in judgment,' prompting Robert Mueller respond on Friday. Prosecutors said that Flynn should be granted leniency from the court but only if he continues to be contrite. 'The seriousness of the defendants offense cannot be called into question, and the court should reject his attempt to minimize it,' the document said. Lawyers for President Donald Trump's former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn (seen above in July), asked a judge Tuesday to spare him prison time Mueller's office last week said that Flynn's cooperation including 19 meetings with investigators was so extensive that he was entitled to avoid prison when he is sentenced next week. Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations during the presidential transition period with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States, will become the first White House official punished in the Special Counsel's ongoing probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. In court papers Tuesday, he requested probation and community service for his false statements. The filing came as lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said they were still deciding whether to dispute allegations that he lied to investigators and breached his plea agreement. A judge gave Manafort until Jan. 7 to respond to prosecutors' claims that he misled them about his interactions with an associate who they say has ties to Russian intelligence and with Trump administration officials. The defendants, their fortunes sliding in opposite directions, represent starkly different paths in Mueller's investigation - a model cooperator on one end and, prosecutors say, a dishonest and resistant witness on the other. Even as prosecutors recommend no prison time for Flynn, they've left open the possibility they may seek additional charges against Manafort, who is already facing years in prison. They signaled on Friday that Flynn could face jail time, too, if he continues to 'attempt to minimize the seriousness of those false statements to the FBI' about contacts during the transition with the Russian ambassador. And they revealed that he was interviewed by Peter Strzok, one of the FBI lovers who would later be fired for his anti-Trump texts. 'A sitting National Security Advisor, former head of an intelligence agency, retired Lieutenant General, and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents. He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth,' the document said. 'The defendant undoubtedly was aware, in light of his many years working with the FBI, that lying to the FBI carries serious consequences.' Flynn lied to the vice president, the transition team and the media about his conversations, which he claimed at the time had not been about overturning U.S. sanctions. Trump had not been inaugurated as president at the time and Flynn did not have the authority to negotiate with Russia on behalf of the United States federal government. In a document, Mueller said, 'The circumstances of the defendants interview also show that his decision to make false statements was voluntary and intentional.' 'During the interview, the FBI agents gave the defendant multiple opportunities to correct his false statements by revisiting key questions,' the filing says. 'When the defendant said he did not remember something they knew he said, they used the exact words the defendant had used in order to prompt a truthful response.' Mueller further notes that the Jan. 24 interview 'was voluntary, and lacked any indicia of coercion' and was conducted in Flynn's office at the White House without counsel present. 'As the interviewing agents noted, the defendant was relaxed and jocular during their interactions with him.' In fact he was so relaxed and jocular, he chatted with the agents at length about a series of other topics. He even gave them a tour of the West Wing before the start of the interview - where they saw 'Trump and some movers who were discussing where to place some art work'. The president walked between Strzok and the other agent - who has not been named - without acknowledging them and the two were not introduced. Flynn spoke about hotels he has stayed in during the campaign and Trump's 'knack for interior design'. 'Flynn was so talkative, and had so much time for them, that Strzok wondered if the National Security Adviser did not have more important things to do than have such a relaxed, non-pertinent discussion with them.' Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI over statements he made about meeting the then-ambassador of Russia during the Trump transition. Trump is seen above in Oval Office on Tuesday Donald Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that the special counsel tried to scare Flynn into lying, but he wouldn't budge, and so they agreed to keep him out of jail. 'The FBI said he didn't lie, but Mueller said he did lie, so they took a man who's a general and a respected person and a nice man, and I don't even know what he said about me,' Trump told 'Outnumbered Overtime' host Harris Faulkner, 'because maybe they scared him enough that he'll make up a story, but I have a feeling that maybe he didn't.' 'He's a tougher kind of a guy than Cohen,' Trump added. The president was referring to his former attorney who was sentenced to three years of jail time this week after he cracked. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani tweeted a Fox News report about the new filing, that referenced an initial '302' report that stated Strzrok and another agent 'both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying.' It also referenced a claim by Flynn's legal team that the FBI urged him to bring a lawyer to the interview. An Andrew McCabe memo about lining up the interview stated: 'I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between him and the agents only, and that if Flynn wanted to include the White House counsel's office, McCabe would 'need to involve the Department of Justice.' Wrote Giuliani: 'The following article shows from beginning the Mueller-Comey inquiry was not of a crime but traps set to invent them. It was Stroyks insurance policy to get President Trump out of office. See how they trapped a General into a false statement they didnt believe was false .' Giuliani was referencing August 2016 text from FBI agent Peter Strzok to his lover and fellow FBI employee Lisa Page. 'I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andys office that theres no way he gets elected but I'm afraid we cant take that risk. Its like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40,' Strzok wrote, prompting some Trump backers to conclude it could reference a deep state plan to keep Trump from taking office. A court sentenced Michael Cohen to three years in jail on Wednesday for a 'smorgasbord' of illegal activities, including illegal payments to two women the former Trump fixer says he made at the president's direction. Trump tore Cohen apart in Thursday morning tweets that were followed by a gracious statement on Flynn. 'They gave General Flynn a great deal because they were embarrassed by the way he was treated - the FBI said he didnt lie and they overrode the FBI,' Trump asserted. 'They want to scare everybody into making up stories that are not true by catching them in the smallest of misstatements. Sad!' A judge will be the ultimate decider, but Flynn is likely to stay out the slammer, unlike Cohen and Manafort. Flynn will become the first White House official punished in the Special Counsel's ongoing probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, is seen in the above photo Given the men's extensive conversations with prosecutors, and their involvement in key episodes under scrutiny, all three could pose a threat to Trump, who in addition to Mueller's investigation is entangled in a separate probe by prosecutors in New York into hush-money payments paid during the campaign to two women who say they had affairs with the president. Since his guilty plea a year ago, Flynn has stayed largely out of the public eye and refrained from discussing the Russia investigation despite encouragement from his supporters to take an aggressive stance. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, spent three decades in the military, including five years in combat. In a public statement after his plea, Flynn has said he cooperated with prosecutors because it was in 'the best interests of my family and our country.' In Manafort's case, prosecutors have accused him of repeatedly lying to them even after he agreed to cooperate. They say Manafort lied about his interactions with a longtime associate they say has ties to Russian intelligence, his contacts with Trump administration officials and other matters under investigation by the Justice Department. Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in Washington in September and faces sentencing in a separate case in Virginia, where he was convicted of eight felony counts related to his efforts to hide millions of dollars he earned from Ukrainian political consulting from the IRS. Trump claims that Mueller and his prosecutors are badgering witnesses and forcing them to lie or face serious jail time. 'They took a general that they said didn't lie, and they convinced him he did lie, and he made some kind of a deal, and now they're recommending no time,' Trump told Falkner of Flynn. 'You know why? Because they're embarrassed that he got caught,' he added, answering his own question. Fishing nets released and trailing along behind, this French vessel is so close to the UK you can see British soil in the background. The fishermen were caught on camera just six nautical miles from Cornish shorelines twice as close as they are supposed to get under EU regulations. They were likely attempting to catch sea bass, haddock or mackerel. EU rules allow the French to work up to 12 nautical miles off the UK coast. Older boats can use a special clause known as Grandfather Rights to move within six. This photograph, taken six nautical miles from land in January last year, which clearly shows a boat towing nets to trap fish. The Cornish coast can even be seen in the background However, Cornish fishermen fear newer vessels are exploiting the loophole to access better fish stocks. The warning comes amid rising tensions between British and French fishermen, with access to UK waters set to be a crucial battleground in Brexit negotiations. It follows summers scallop war, which led to violent clashes at sea. Last weekend up to 20 boats were spotted sitting off the Cornish coast, in what one expert described as the biggest ever invasion. Fishermen say the influx was likely down to bad weather meaning British boats remained in dock, unable to confront them. Westerly winds gave the French boats perfect cover to claim they were simply seeking shelter. But skippers who have spent their lives working the area say the phenomenon is nothing new. The aggressive angling has led to further Anglo-French water tensions which could lead to a repeat of scenes (pictured) earlier this year. That clash saw violent clashes which led to flares and rocks being thrown on board trawlers One produced this photograph, taken six nautical miles from land in January last year, which clearly shows a boat towing nets to trap fish. Official records show the 22.5m-long vessel, Erispoe, was built in the year 2000. This would mean it is not entitled to Grandfather Rights, which allow foreign vessels to access other countries coastal waters if they had historically done so before the Common Fishery Policy was introduced in 1970. It is therefore not entitled to come closer than 12 nautical miles off UK land but Erispoe has continued to do just that, and was one of the boats spotted around six miles from the Cornish coast on Sunday. It was not alone, with around eight other boats fishing at the same time. Among them was Lazalai, a 25m trawler, which was built in 2010. It was joined by Scuderia, built in 2013; Daytona, built in 2001; and Cezembre, built in 1984. Fishermen fear the boats are plundering stocks of mackerel, haddock and sea bass. Last weekend up to 20 boats were spotted sitting off the Cornish coast, in what one expert described as the biggest ever invasion Captured earlier this week on Monday, this chart shows the fishing wars have erupted off the coast of Cornwall following the 'biggest ever invasion' of French trawlers in British waters Angus Bateson, 62, from Looe, said: The biggest problem here is that no one is policing things around here. The French are just pulling up here and putting their nets down. Now theres not enough fish there for us. Dave Bond, 60, skipper of Mystique II, added: Theyre pushing it. They shouldnt be that far in. Tensions have been simmering for months, with footage showing fishermen ramming into each others boats during a war over scallops in August. Fishing in UK waters Currently the UK is part of the London Fisheries Convention, which was signed in 1964. It allows vessels from five European countries (France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands) to fish within six miles (12 nautical miles) of the UK's coastline. The agreement sits alongside the EU Common Fisheries Policy, allowing European vessels access between 12 and 200 nautical miles of the UK. In July last year, Environment Secretary Michael Gove announced the UK will leave the London Fisheries Convention. As part of the EU withdrawal the UK will also no longer have to abide by the Common Fisheries Policy. As has already been announced, new rules on fishing will come via a Fisheries Bill to control access to UK waters and set quotas. Michael Gove previously said: 'Leaving the London Fisheries Convention is an important moment as we take back control of our fishing policy. It means for the first time in more than 50 years we will be able to decide who can access our waters. 'This is an historic first step towards building a new domestic fishing policy as we leave the European Union - one which leads to a more competitive, profitable and sustainable industry for the whole of the UK.' Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, said: 'This is welcome news and an important part of establishing the UK as an independent coastal state with sovereignty over its own exclusive economic zone.' Advertisement Britons had been accused of looting scallops in the Bay of Seine, in Northern France. British fishermen can collect them all year round, but the French are restricted by local law to a scallop season of October 1 to May 15. In September, French trawlers were accused of being behind hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage to Cornish fishing gear. The French were also accused of double standards that same month when they were caught taking thousands of pounds of bluefin tuna. The UK has no EU quota to catch the fish, but France does so its boats are effectively given free rein in British waters. A spokesman for Frances agricultural ministry said: All alleged infringements of EU laws are investigated as appropriate. A furious Oklahoma mother named Stephanie (above) claims that her 14-year-old son was arrested and taken to a juvenile detention center in Muskogee because he'd missed 18 days of school An angry Oklahoma mother claims her 14-year-old son was arrested for missing too many days of school. Stephanie, whose last name has been redacted by local media, said Muskogee Public Schools called her on Wednesday to inform her that her son had been taken in handcuffs to the Community Intervention Center. The school claimed that the action had been taken because Stephanie's son has already missed 18 days of class less than halfway through the academic year, though the mom says many of those absences were excused by doctors. The school system's policy is to send out a warning when a student misses class four times in a single month, and upon the fifth absence they issue a citation that requires a parent signature. Stephanie admitted that she received the citation but neglected to sign and return it because she couldn't make it to school due to family issues, according to FOX23. Muskogee Public Schools contacted authorities after Stephanie failed to return a signed citation (above) issued after her son received a preliminary warning for his absences However, she said that it was unfair for her son to be punished for missing school since it is her responsibility to get him there. Muskogee Public Schools said that escorting a student to the CIC is a last resort. The attendance policy states: 'If within five days after a warning has been issued, and the parent, guardian or custodian of such child does not comply with the provisions of attendance, the attendance officer shall make a complaint against the parent, guardian or custodian of such child in a court of competent Jurisdiction for the attendance violation. 'If a child is absent without valid excuse four or more days or parts of days within a four-week period, or is absent without excuse for ten or more days or parts of days within a semester, the attendance officer shall notify the parent, guardian or custodian of the child and immediately report such absences to the city attorney.' The policy does not appear to address what happens after the absences are reported. Advertisement Boeing has released images of three design concepts that could be used inside its groundbreaking new 777X jets - which include master suites, stylish interior design and spacious living space to add luxury to long haul travel. The BBJ 777X, a new Boeing Business Jet model that can fly more than half way around the world without stopping, was announced on December 10 and can fly farther than any business jet ever built. Two versions of the new jets, BBJ 777-8 and BBJ 777-9, will be available and both come with a large cabin space ready to be transformed into a five-star space for VIP customers. Renderings of the interiors show beautiful bedroom suites with their own hammam, cinema areas and futuristic shower pods in the middle of a marble floor. The bedroom in Unique Aircraft's renderings show a luxury space complete with artwork on the walls and storage space Blinds cover the jet's windows in the tiled bathroom area with modern lighting fixtures on the XXX7 plane Concepts for the cabins designs were made by Greenpoint Technologies, Jet Aviation, and Unique Aircraft Design. Greg Laxton, head of Boeing Business Jets said: 'Our most exclusive customers want to travel with the best space and comfort and fly directly to their destination. 'The new BBJ 777X will be able to do this like no other airplane before it, redefining ultra-long range VIP travel,' he added while speaking at the bi-annual Middle East Business Aviation Association Show (MEBAA). The BBJ 777-8 offers the longest range of 11,645 nautical miles (21,570 km) and a spacious 3,256 sq. ft. (302.5 sq m) cabin. While the BBJ 777-9 provides an even larger cabin measuring 3,689 sq. ft. (342.7 sq m), while still offering ultra-long range of 11,000 nautical miles (20,370 km), and is expected to enter service in 2020. One of the designs features stylish grey furniture and leather seats to make long-haul journeys comfortable and relaxing A futuristic pod shower stand in the middle of a marble floor in the bathroom design from Greenpoint Technologies The Jet Aviation Design Studio in Basel, Switzerland cabin concept for the 777X jets uses modern and classic features, and is called Shaheen (Royal White Falcon), reports Business Jet Interiors International. It was designed to accommodate 43 passengers plus a crew of 11 and features lounges, a game and cinema area, an office, private work spaces, three guest bedrooms. There's also a master suite with its own lounge, bedroom, dressing area, shower and hammam. Matt Woollaston, vice president of completions sales at Jet Aviation Basel, said: 'We incorporated forward-thinking concepts such as intelligent, digital LED lighting throughout the cabin, as well as OLED and smart glass technology on all the window panels. 'This allows the windows to be dimmed and virtual curtains or window shades to be displayed.' Boeing Business Jets has only 261 orders in its history, but the aircraft it makes are made to the highest standards of design and quality, reports Business Insider. The cabin space is transformed into a stylish, neutral space, with a textured ceiling and multiple seating areas for passengers A rendering from Jet Aviation shows white chairs matched with opulent dark wood in the spacious cabin area The office design incorporates the plane's windows but ensures the decor is modern throughout with armchairs and a desk Boeing's new Business Jet 777-8 will be designed to fly from Perth to pretty much anywhere in the world, with a huge range of 21,570km and the ability to carry up to 350 passengers. The airline Qantas is looking to buy the new Business Jet model for its Sunrise Project, Perth Now reported. The Sunrise Project hopes to create an extreme long-haul flight which travels directly from Sydney to London, an unprecedented 20-hour journey halfway round the planet. However the luxury interior can sometimes cost as much as the aircraft itself, Perth Now reported. The bedroom is kept minimal with clean design and a modern light feature over the bed in this rendering for the jet Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg were pictured awkwardly sitting next to each other at a pro-Brexit rally in London on Friday night, before breaking into grins and giggles. At the Leave Means Leave rally, Farage revealed that he expects there to be a second Brexit referendum within months. Both he and Rees-Mogg gave impassioned speeches in central London, with the former UKIP leader urging Brexit campaigners to 'get ready for every situation'. There was a sizable crowd in attendance at the rally, with many of them holding up signs with pro-Brexit slogans. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage both spoke at the Leave Means Leave rally, held in central London on Friday night - seeming a little awkward in each other's presence Speaking at the Leave Means Leave rally, Farage said: 'My message folks tonight is as much as I don't want a second referendum it would be wrong of us on a Leave Means Leave platform not to get ready, not to be prepared for a worst case scenario. 'If I'm wrong, we've lost nothing. We've not got to move into a different gear. We've got to start forming branches and active groups all over this country. 'We've got to re-engage with those millions of people who never voted in their lives before. We've got to connect with them. 'And if all our efforts come to nothing because we leave at 11pm on March 29, then so much the better. Later on, however, they looked to be in high spirits as they exchanged jokes before taking to the stage to give impassioned speeches As well as Rees-Mogg and Farage, several other Brexiteers spoke, including Tim Martin, the found of pub chain JD Wetherspoon 'But can I urge you, can I implore you to get ready for every situation. 'I think they will in the next few months betray us completely and let us be ready not just to fight back, but if it comes we will win it next time by a much bigger margin.' Tim Martin, the founder of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, also spoke at the rally. The former UKIP leader revealed how he believes that a second referendum is just months away Speaking to those who voted to leave, Farage said: 'Can I implore you to get ready for every situation' At one point during the rally, the former UKIP leader stood up to wave a Union Jack - to the delight of the audience Speaking at the 'Save Brexit' rally, Farage also said: 'We've got to re-engage with those millions of people who never voted in their lives before' He said his business has swapped some of its EU imports for UK products in order to 'show a bit of muscle' against 'scare stories'. Speaking at the Leave Means Leave 'Save Brexit Rally' in London on Friday night, Mr Martin said: 'The other scare story is that Kent will become a lorry park - now I don't believe that and neither do you. We at Wetherspoons decided to do a little experiment. 'We're going to take French brandy and we're going to take French champagne and German-imported Jagermeister ... and a number of other products, and we're going to swap them for UK products. Jacob Rees-Mogg's son Peter attended the event, along with his nanny - who also used to be the MP's nanny Conservative Party MP and chairman of the European Research Group (ERG) Jacob Rees-Mogg also spoke at the event Like the former UKIP leader, he gave an impassioned speech to the pro-Brexit crowd in attendance 'I'm a free trader ... but there comes a time which I think has arrived now and we have to show a bit of muscle.' Mr Martin said since taking this decision his trade had 'gone up'. He added: 'The EU is only 7 percent of the world, there's a lot of arguments in favour of doing the deal because we need frictionless trade. 'If you believe in frictionless trade for 7 percent of the world, what about the other 93 percent?' There was a sizable crowd in attendance to watch several leading Brexiteers talk about Brexit Many were eager to meet the leaders, including this young woman who posed with Farage after his speech Attendees hold up signs with slogans at a political rally organised by the pro-Brexit Leave Means Leave campaign group Rees-Mogg, Wetherspoons' Chairman Tim Martin, sit as the vice-chairman of Leave Means Leave group, Richard Tice, Farage, Labour MP Kate Hoey, the DUP's Sammy Wilson and Chairman of the pro-Brexit Leave Means Leave group, John Longworth, hold up signs The family of a drunk 19-year-old who died of hypothermia inside a walk-in freezer has sued the hotel where she died for $50 million. The suit filed on Tuesday accuses the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare Hotel of negligence in the September 2017 death of Kenneka Jenkins in Rosemont, a suburb of Chicago. Though the case attracted suspicion of foul play even after surveillance video showed Jenkins stumbling through the hotel in a drunken stupor, the medical examiner ruled that she had accidentally died after becoming stuck in the freezer. Even the release of graphic photos of Jenkin's body did not quell the family's suspicions, with an attorney for the family claiming the images raised more questions than answers. Police reports say Chicago teen Kenneka Jenkins was found lying face down inside a walk-in hotel freezer last year. Her death has been ruled accidental, but family suspect foul play Kenneka was filmed by friends partying in the hotel room (L) and in an elevator (R) hours before she died The lawsuit contains new claims about the circumstances of the death of Jenkins, who was partying at a room in the hotel and had been using alcohol. KENNEKA JENKINS DEATH: A TIMELINE Friday 11.30pm: Kenneka goes to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont with her friends Saturday 1.30am: She sends her final text message Saturday 1.36am: Kenneka's friends appear in Facebook live video Saturday 4.30am: Her friends call her family to report her missing Saturday 1.18pm: Kenneka is reported missing Saturday 1.56pm: Kenneka's 'best friend' posts video which shows her at the hotel Sunday 1am: Kenneka's body is found inside hotel freezer Sunday 2am: The same friend posts another video showing Kenneka in hotel elevator Advertisement The suit claims that the hotel had other walk-in freezers which were kept locked and were not accessible to the public. The freezer Jenkins was found dead in was not only unsecured but had 'a sticker affixed that was completely faded and failed to instruct how to release the lock system of the door,' the lawsuit contends, according to the Chicago Tribune. Police investigators found that the interior mechanism to release the door from the inside was working. The only way to open the door from the inside was to push a circular handle to release the latch. Rosemont police found in their investigation that the door could not be opened from the inside unless a circular handle was pushed to release the latch. The mechanism appeared to be working properly, police said. A spokesman for the Crowne Plaza told the Tribune in a statement that the hotel would fight the lawsuit. 'The death of Kenneka Jenkins was a tragedy, but the proximate cause of her death were the unsavory individuals who used a stolen credit card to book a room and host an illegal party which Ms. Jenkins attended,' he said. 'Those criminals escaped the hotel before police arrived and have never truly been held accountable. This lawsuit has no merit and we will vigorously contest it.' Kenneka Jenkins is seen struggling to maintain her balance in the hallway of the The Crowne Plaza Hotel and Conference Center in Rosemont The video of Jenkins walking by herself into the kitchen appears to disprove the social media speculation that foul play was involved The Cook County Medical Examiner's autopsy report showed that Jenkins died from accidental hypothermia. Police also released dozens of reports and witness statements filed in this case, in an apparent effort to dispell some of the conspiracy theories that were swirling around Jenkins' death. According to documents obtained by Chicago Tribune, Jenkins was found by a Crowne Plaza staffer lying face down on her side inside a freezer located in a kitchen that was not in use by the hotel at the time. The kitchen was equipped with a motion-activated camera that had not turned on until Jenkins' body was found on September 10. One of Jenkins' shoes was off and there were no visible injuries to her body, except for a small cut to her foot. Initially, hotel administrators only checked footage recorded by surveillance cameras at entrance and exit points, and only later reviewed footage from the hallways. Police records show that Kenneka's mother, Tereasa Martin, twice refused to allow investigators to conduct a forensic analysis of her daughter's phone, saying that she had looked through its contents herself and found nothing suspicious. Police released a series of graphic photos to show how Jenkins was found inside the freezer The photos showed that Jenkins had one shoe off which was also inside the freezer Jenkins had no trauma or injuries except for a small cut on her foot, an autopsy showed The lawsuit claims that the hotel was negligent for failing to secure the freezer Friends who attended that ill-fated party at the hotel with Jenkins reported getting death threats from people who suspected them of harming the 19-year-old. One of the partygoers said the harassment stemming from Kenneka's death had prompted her to relocate to another city. A toxicology screening found evidence that Kenneka Jenkins had used alcohol and topiramate, a prescription migraine and epilepsy medication that can cause drowsiness and confusion, but no illegal narcotics were found in her system. Jenkins' mother said her daughter had not been prescribed any medications. The medical examiner ruled that Jenkins died accidentally of hypothermia due to cold exposure in the freezer, with intoxication a significant contributing factor. The victim's friends reported seeing her drink cognac at the party, and her blood alcohol level was found to be above the legal limit for driving in Illinois. Speculation about foul play had swirled on social media in the aftermath of the unusual death, with local activists and family members insisting that investigators were covering something up. A Chicago activist revealed he saw the video before it was released to the public that shows Jenkins alone in the hotel hallway and kitchen Police plan to show he woman's mother, Tereasa Martin (above outsider her home), the same surveillance footage that Holmes viewed. Authorities say they will release it to the public once the investigation is complete Surveillance video was released showing Jenkins stumbling around the hallways and kitchen of the hotel where she was found dead inside of the walk-in freezer hours later, cooling suspicions. Video shows the teen leaving the elevator alone at 3.20am then struggling to maintain balance as she navigates the hallways. She was at the hotel the night of September 8 for a party with friends on the ninth floor. Jenkins was officially reported missing on the next day at 1pm and found dead in the freezer September 10 at 1am. Though the footage doesn't show the moment Jenkins enters the freezer, authorities believe she did when she walked out of the frame. In a 911 recording made after Jenkins vanished but before she was found, her mother tells a dispatcher that she fears her daughter has been drinking after speaking to her friends. Martin said 'one cup is too much for her' and asks if detectives can get the hotel surveillance video. But the dispatcher tries to allay her concerns and assures her that Jenkins will probably turn up. The family filed a missing persons report at 1.15pm, at which time the hotel searched for Jenkins but failed to find her. It was only after the teen's parents went to the hotel herself at 6pm that staff phoned police, a second search was mounted and her body was found. Advertisement French President Emmanuel Macron visited the Strasbourg Christmas market this evening to pay his respects to the victims of a jihadist gunman who was killed in a shoot-out with police last night. The president went to the market and laid a single white rose at a nearby monument to the terrorist outrage and stood silently for over two minutes in tribute after the official re-opening of the market at 11:00am this morning. As he looked solemn and closed his eyes in reflection, the crowd spontaneously began singling La Marseillaise - the French national anthem - in memory of the fallen victims. He then hugged market stallholders, shook hands with the crowd and was handed an gift from a trader. Macron earlier met with some members of the police involved in the hunt for Chekatt for more than half an hour, including the four soldiers of Operation Sentinel who injured the gunman during the attack on Tuesday night. One of the officers recounted how one of the shooter's bullet ricocheted off his assault rifle during the gun battle. Macron also spoke with police officers who exchanged fire with the jihadist and the man who shot him dead last night, congratulating them for their 'courage' and their 'professionalism'. Macron, who earlier in the day took part in a European Union summit in Brussels, then met with families of the victims of the attack. Scroll down for video. French President Emmanuel Macron lay a white rose at a monument near the Christmas market in Strasbourg's Kleber square, used as a makeshift memorial for the victims of the December 11 attack who killed four people As Macron looked solemn and closed his eyes in reflection, the crowd spontaneously began singling La Marseillaise in memory of the fallen victims President Macron visited Strasbourg to pay his respects to the victims of Tuesday's terrorist attack at a nearby monument where flowers, candles and cards were laid Macron hugging a visitor to the Christmas market, as he visited the terror attack scene in Strasbourg today President Emmanuel Macron was given a Christmas teddy bear as a gift from a visitor of the market as he met with the crowd The 29-year-old was said to be a small-time criminal turned jihadist who went on a shooting spray on Tuesday evening in Strasbourg's popular Christmas market. Chekatt, who was born in this eastern French city, killed four and wounded 12 before going to ground for 48 hours in his home district. Police finally caught up with him yesterday evening in a warehouse in the Plaine des Bouchers area of Strasbourg and he was killed after opening fire on a street police patrol. His victims were a Thai tourist, on holiday in Strasbourg with his wife, an Afghan who sought refuge in France some 20 years ago, a 28-year-old Italian journalist in town to cover the European parliament, and a local Frenchman who had just retired. Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte tweeted his 'deep sorrow' at the death of Antonio Megalizzi, who became the fourth victim when he passed away in hospital. While in Strasbourg Macron also visited the Christmas market, which reopened Friday morning after being closed for two days. He placed a white rose on the Kleber monument, in the centre of town, where locals have been placing flowers and lighting candles since Tuesday's deadly attack. Macron also shook hands with visitors of the Christmas market in Strasbourg as he paid his respects to the victims of Tuesday's attack Macron met crowds of people as he paid his respect at the Christmas market today after it re-opened this morning Crowds of Strasbourg market visitors greeted President Macron as he walked through the market stalls and shook hands with shoppers and stall-holders Macron getting into a car and leaving after visiting the Christmas market in Strasbourg following his meeting with police officers involved in the hunt for gunman Chekatt French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner accompanied Macron to Strasbourg. A fourth victim of the shooting died in hospital earlier today and a fifth victim was declared brain-dead. But French minister denied the shooter was an ISIS soldier, despite the group claiming responsibility for him soon after his death, but said he was a 'man consumed by evil'. The terror group last night claimed Chekatt was acting for them when he killed four and injured 12 in a gun and knife rampage on Tuesday night. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner dismissed the claim as 'completely opportunistic'. 'We're dealing with a man who was consumed by evil,' he said while visiting the market which re-opened this morning with a heavy police presence as cops investigated if Chekatt had any accomplices. Following the attack the threat level was raised to its highest, but today the 'Vigipirate plan' - France's national security alert system - was reduced to the level second level of 'Risk Attack', the French government said. As the Christmas market reopened armed police and soldiers patrolled the area. Neutralised: Three policemen found Cherif Chekatt (pictured is his corpse) walking in a street in the Neudorf area of central Strasbourg at 9pm. They tried to stop him but he opened fire and they shot him dead outside a warehouse The Strasbourg Christmas market gunman was killed by police on Thursday night. Pictured: Police surround the man's body Cherif Chekatt, 29, was being hunted by French police after opening fire at a Christmas market in Strasbourg this week, killing four Cherif Chekatt (pictured is his corpse) opened fire on anti-terror police who tried to stop him outside a warehouse - but was shot dead in the street Chekatt hid out in a warehouse a few hundred yards from his parents' house where he grew up in the northeastern French city. Pictured: The aftermath of his killing A French military patrols during the reopening of the christmas market of Strasbourg, eastern France Today, the market re-opened with a heavy police presence after Cherif Chekatt was killed by armed cops last night The market was back to bustling on Friday morning after the terrorist was shot dead on Thursday night in the street Checkatt, 29, had criminal convictions in France and Germany and was radicalised in jail. Pictured: Armed police at the market Chekatt's fourth victim was confirmed dead by a Paris prosecutor on Friday afternoon and was previously described as being in a critical condition. Two were declared dead at the scene and a third died on Thursday night, with French media reporting a fifth victim remains in a brain dead state. Jubilant crowds shouted 'bravo' and applauded French police last night at the scene where Chekatt was shot dead around 9pm. More than 720 anti-terror cops had been looking for the 29-year-old for two days after he walked through a Christmas market, shooting and stabbing pedestrians before escaping wounded in a hijacked taxi. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz told a news conference on Friday that seven people are in police custody, including four of his family members. 'We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support,' Heitz said. After his escape, Chekatt hid out in a warehouse a few hundred yards from his parents' house where he grew up in the northeastern French city. He was tracked down at 9pm on Thursday when police in a patrol car spotted him on a street in a district where he was last seen after Tuesday night's attack. Around 800 people had called in tips to a hotline after the authorities released his name and photo Wednesday night, including two which Heitz called 'decisive' in finding Chekatt. The information allowed police to home in on an area in the Neudorf neighbourhood, where he tried to escape into a building after being spotted by a patrol. Unable to get in the door, he turned and shot at the three officers with a handgun when they tried to approach. Two returned fire and killed him, Heitz said at a press conference in Strasbourg. A French police officer running during an operation in the Plaine des Bouchers area of Strasbourg near the Neudorf neighbourhood where the suspected ISIS terrorist was gunned down in a shoot-out with cops French police officers raided a warehouse in Plaine des Bouchers area of Strasbourg near the Neudorf neighbourhood where terrorist Cherif Chekatt was gunned down French special police forces secured an area during a police operation where the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was killed last night Chekatt was killed after firing on police officers, who returned fire, as a police helicopter had been circling overhead Questions remain over how Chekatt was able to evade the tight security perimeter set up around the Strasbourg Christmas market which has long been a prime target for jihadist groups. Around 500 police, security agents and soldiers control access at checkpoints on the bridges leading to the river island, a UN World Heritage site, that houses the market. The goal is to 'create a bubble with searches at the entry points,' Mayor Roland Ries said after the attack. Chekatt was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. But Defence Minister Florence Parly rejected criticism that Chekatt's presence on the country's so-called 'S file' of extremists should have prompted a more proactive reaction from the authorities. 'You can't... arrest someone just because you think he might do something,' Parly told Radio Classique on Friday. Crowds play Bob Marley's I Shot The Sheriff where gunman Cherif Chekatt was killed A French news channel has caused a stir by playing Bob Marley's I Shot The Sheriff in the background to coverage on last night's killing of Strasbourg terrorist Cherif Chekatt. The song was being played by someone in crowds at the scene and was picked up by BFM TV's microphones. The channel let the tune play on air during a discussion of Tuesday's Christmas market attack which killed four and injured 12. It is believed the onlooker chose the song because of the lyric 'sheriff' sounds like the attacker's first name, Cherif. Viewers could scarcely believe their ears. One wrote on Twitter: 'Am I the only one to have heard I Shot the Sheriff behind the footage of the killed terrorist on BFM TV?' Another added: 'Surreal! I shot the sheriff is playing in the background.' BFM has yet to comment. Advertisement Police thanked people who spotted him for helping track Chekatt down tweeting: 'Thank you for your reports that helped to find the wanted individual.' Police officer Emmanuel Georg told BFM TV station that three police officers patrolling the neighbourhood tried to intercept a suspect corresponding to Chekatt's description as he was about to enter a building. The officer said: 'He opened fired, they responded and managed to shoot him down.' A witness said he heard shots and rushed to the window to see what was happening and closed the shutters when he spotted the cornered suspect across the street. Cem Akcakaya said: 'I was very afraid for my children, I told them to go away, and I went to the side.' More than 720 French security forces had been hunting for the 29-year-old terrorist since the bloodshed at a Christmas market in the city on Tuesday night French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in Neudorf in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France Investigators working on the street during a police operation in which the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, who killed four people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, was killed this evening Heavily armed police swooped on the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg Thursday amid a massive manhunt for the Christmas market shooter Forensic and armed officers working at the scene where Chekatt was killed in a shoot-out on Thursday night Checkatt, 29, had 27 criminal convictions in four countries and was radicalised in jail. After his death, ISIS propaganda news agency Amaq claimed he was a 'soldier' of Daesh. Police found weapons and jihadist propaganda in his flat and on Wednesday arrested his parents, two brothers and a friend in connection with the attack. On Friday, they arrested his third brother in Algeria to see if he was involved. The propaganda wing of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, calling Chekatt one of its 'soldiers' who responded to its calls to target citizens of nations in the coalition fighting the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. Among the 12 injured in the attack, two remain in critical condition while three others have been released from hospital, Castaner said Thursday. Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told reporters after news that Chekatt had been killed: 'I think it will help to get back to a life that I would describe as normal. With the death of this terrorist... citizens, like me, are relieved.' Neighbours on the housing estate where Chekatt family's lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes. A leader of a community group said outside Chekkat's apartment building in Strasbourg: 'He was a little gangster, but I didn't see any signs of him being radicalised.' The Paris prosecutor's office said Chekatt's parents and two brothers were being held in custody, while two of his sisters in Paris were also questioned today and one of their homes was being searched. Rescue workers walked past hooded police officers standing guard in Strasbourg, eastern France last night, where Chekatt was shot and killed Hooded police officers block the access in the Meinau district in Strasbourg, eastern France, as the manhunt for the terrorist continued as night fell Police cars at the scene of the shooting in the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg this evening as officers in body armour and carrying rifles hunted for Chekatt throughout the day The Paris prosecutor's office said Chekatt's parents and two brothers were being held in custody, while two of his sisters in Paris were also questioned and one of their homes was searched A hooded police officer holding his gun in Strasbourg, eastern France, as armed officers combed the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg in search for the gunman French President Emmanuel Macron expressed 'the solidarity of the whole country' towards the victims as he arrived for a European summit in Brussels last night. 'It is not only France that has been hit... but a great European city as well,' he added, referring to the seat of the European parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany. A relieved Strasbourg prepared to reopen its popular Christmas market on Friday after French police shot dead the gunman who killed four people there in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Cherif Chekatt was killed late Thursday after a two-day manhunt when a police patrol spotted him on a street in the district where he was last seen after Tuesday night's attack on Christmas shoppers. The lights on the market's towering Christmas tree were illuminated Friday for the first time since the attack ahead of the official re-opening of the market at 11am. 'I hope life will get back to normal but I'm not too sure,' said Franck Hoffmann as opened his wooden chalet offering Christmas candles and ornaments on Friday. 'Business isn't going to be what it was,' he predicted. Questions remained over how Chekatt was able to evade the tight security perimeter set up for an event long known to be a prime target for jihadist groups. Heavily armed French police descended on a street in the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg on Thursday amid a manhunt for Christmas market shooter Cherif Chekatt Officers blocked a street in the east of the French city, though it was not immediately clear whether they had tracked Chekatt down The raid comes two days after Chekatt killed four and wounded 12 after opening fire at the city's Christmas market before fleeing when he was shot in the shoulder Officers sweep the streets in Neudorf, the neighbourhood where Chekatt was dropped off by a taxi driver after his rampage Officers have been searching for two days for any sign of shooter Cherif Chekatt, amid fears he might strike a second time French special police forces were also spotted in the Meinau neighbourhood, close to Neudorf, while heavily armed Around 500 police, security agents and soldiers control access at checkpoints on the bridges leading to the river island, a UN World Heritage site, that houses the market. The goal is to 'create a bubble with searches at the entry points,' Mayor Roland Ries said after the attack, while regional government representative Jean-Luc Marx said he had not determined 'any flaws in the security measures'. Many residents, however, were not convinced after Chekatt managed to slip through the controls with a handgun and a knife. 'It doesn't surprise me,' said Emeline, 38, who works in the city centre. 'You wear a heavy coat, put something in the bottom of your bag. You can bring in what you want.' France's anti-terror prosecutor Remy Heitz is to hold a press conference in Strasbourg on Friday while Interior Minister Christophe Castaner will attend the reopening of the market, which usually draws two million people every year. France has been on high alert since the start of a wave of jihadist attacks in 2015, which prompted a threefold surge in the security budget for the market, to one million euros. French police have appealed for members of the public to look for Chekatt and to contact them if they have information, but not to approach him In total 720 police and gendarmes had been searching for Chekatt across a vast swathe of eastern France, using helicopters, roadside searches and border surveillance Hundreds of troops were also drafted in to guard public places, including Christmas markets, amid fears Chekatt will attack again Anupong Suebsamarn, 45, who was shot dead at the market had not initially planned to be there and was supposed to be in Paris, but changed his plans at the last minute Police warned that Chekatt should be considered dangerous and that members of the public should inform authorities and not approach him Chekatt, a 29-year-old career criminal who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. Strasbourg's deputy mayor Alain Fontanel admitted that despite patrols, plainclothes police, profilers and video surveillance, 'the risks can be reduced, but not eliminated'. 'We can't pat down and search everyone, only carry out random checks,' he said, adding that huge lines at checkpoints would only create a new potential target for terrorists. 'Someone who wants to get in an area this big with a weapon can do it,' he said. Such reasoning was little comfort to the residents and tourists who flock to the Strasbourg market. 'We thought this would happen only in Nice or at the Bataclan, but here it is at home,' said Sylvain, who works at another market in the city centre. He was referring to the truck attack which killed scores at Bastille Day festivities in Nice, southern France, in 2016, and the massacre at the capital's Bataclan concert hall in November 2015. 'I'm not going to forget this anytime soon. It's too painful. I'm not even sure I'm able to cry,' he said. Residents of Strasbourg's Neudorf neighborhood expressed relief, such as Pierre Plasse, who said: 'Everybody's quite happy that the killer has been finally shot. I think now, the city and life can keep going on in Strasbourg.' Yellow Vests urged to stay off the streets The French government has urged Yellow Vest protesters to hold off another round of demonstrations scheduled to take place in Paris this weekend. Spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said ministers decided against banning the marches outright, but asked people to be 'reasonable' amid a massive manhunt for Strasbourg shooter Cherif Chekatt. It comes after conspiracy theorists accused the government of staging the terror attack in order to quash the Yellow Vest movement. Writing in online forums, one protester said: 'You'll see next week there won't be a single yellow vest. Well played, Macron.' President Emmanuel Macron has already offered the marchers a 9billion package of concessions including pay rises and tax cuts. But many complained that the measures were too little, too late, and vowed to continue with weeks of protests, which have often turned violent. 'Our security forces have been deployed extensively these past few weeks,' Griveaux said, while insisting that 'it's not up to us to say if the movement should be called off or not.' In the wake of the Strasbourg attack, 'it would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again.' Last Saturday nearly 90,000 police were mobilised across the country for the protests, with 8,000 officers and a dozen armoured vehicles deployed in the capital where scores of stores, museums and monuments were closed. Advertisement Candlelit vigils were held in Strasbourg for the victims of the shooting on Wednesday. Four people died and 12 more were wounded The six women who filed a class action lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein are trying to to prohibit his legal team from releasing any email exchanges between themselves and the disgraced mogul. Lawyers for the women have requested an order of protection that would block any communication being released on the heels of Weinstein's lawyer Ben Brafman including emails with two of the women accusing him of rape in court filings. Those filings were then obtained by members of the media, including DailyMail.com, and published in stories. The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report on the court filing. Scroll down for video Accusers: The six women who filed a class action lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein last december are trying to prohibit the release of personal email exchanges (Geiss left and Sagemiller right) Class action: The filing comes after Weinstein's legal team released emails from accusers in his criminal case which they hope will lead to charges being dismissed (Sarah Ann Masse above) Allegation: Winstein's lawyer Ben Brafman 'told Plaintiffs' counsel he intended to unleash these emails in the media to sway the court of public opinion' (Brock left and Kendall right) The request for a protective order that has been filed states that Brafman 'told Plaintiffs' counsel he intended to unleash these emails in the media to sway the court of public opinion.' It continues: 'Despite these threats, Weinstein has not produced any of the documents with Plaintiffsand discovery is not open in this case.' The filing goes on to state: 'These are hardly the actions of a Defendant concerned about his Fifth Amendment rights.' The women filed their suit in December of last year. In it, they stated that Weinstein had a network of people who allowed his alleged sexual harassment and assault go unchecked for decades. That network included staff, board members, hired corporate spies and other investigators, attorneys, casting directors and agencies, National Enquirer writers and others who allegedly facilitated the abuse through what it calls the 'Weinstein Sexual Enterprise.' The filing goes on to state: 'These are hardly the actions of a Defendant concerned about his Fifth Amendment rights' Their work to 'facilitate and conceal his pattern of unwanted sexual conduct' violates the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the filing alleges. 'Each participant in the Weinstein Sexual Enterprise had a systematic linkage to each other participant through corporate ties, contractual relationships, financial ties, and the continuing coordination of their activities,' state court papers. Hagens Berman said the six women named in the complaint - Louisette Geiss, Katherine Kendall, Zoe Brock, Sarah Ann Masse (Thomas), Melissa Sagemiller and Nannette Klatt - were 'lured' by Weinstein or his staff for meetings or auditions, or to discuss their role in a project. 'Harvey Weinstein is a predator. Bob knew it. The board knew it. The lawyers knew it. The private investigators knew it. Hollywood knew it. We knew it. Now the world knows it,' the women said in a statement last December. 'Let's finally do something about it.' Lawyers said the women were 'assaulted, imprisoned in hotel rooms, airplanes and his home, and faced career-ending threats if they refused his unwanted advances and requests.' Weinstein has denied all claims of illegal sexual activities. The family of a California businessman who was murdered over a $1.2million debt by his partner will speak out for the first time since his death in 2010. Chris Smith, 32, was beaten to death in June 2010 by business partner Edward Shin, who helped run their debt-consolidating company 800XChange. Shin later hijacked Smith's identity and for months sent emails to his family saying he was traveling to Africa to throw them off the scent. In a two-hour Dateline broadcast set to air on Friday, the family will reveal the moment they learned the harrowing reality that the emails were not coming from Chris and that their son was actually dead. Chris Smith, 32, was beaten to death by business partner Edward Shin, who helped run their debt-consolidating company 800XChange. Shin later hijacked Smith's identity and for months sent emails to his family saying he was traveling to Africa to throw them off the scent '[He said] He was gonna head back up into Rwanda and exchange some gold krugerrands that he was carrying in his pocket, supposedly, for cash,' Smith's brother Paul says in an exclusive clip. 'At that point, I was like, okay, he's lost his marbles. And that's when, you know, the possibility of it being something that you hope it's not starts to come to the door of your mind. And it's--you don't wanna let it in.' Upon hearing the news, Smith's mother Debi says she urged her son to be safe, but immediately sensed something was off. 'We still love you, and don't do anything, you know, and we just kept saying how much we all miss him. But my gut instinct told me something was really, really, wrong. So and then they ended there.' Chris's emails stopped in December 2010 and his body has never been found. Work and Penions Secretary Amber Rudd calls for compromise over Brexit to avoid a No Deal outcome Brexit is in danger of getting stuck and that is something that should worry us all. If MPs dig in against the Prime Ministers deal and then hunker down in their different corners, none with a majority, the country will face serious trouble. We will be on a path to something almost everybody agrees mustnt happen: No deal with the European Union. Its tempting to ask: whats the harm in that? Well, it would mean the current uncertainty we all find distressing would be magnified rather than resolved. Our car makers the centre-piece of our manufacturing industry, who depend heavily on exports to the EU would face short term disruption and long term uncertainty about their ability to compete. Our airlines and freight hauliers and retailers would all find it difficult to guess what would become of their businesses. For the sake of all our futures, this mustnt be allowed to happen when we have the power to prevent it. I acknowledge we should make preparations just in case. But I will do everything in our power to find a constructive solution. In order to protect the country from the short and long term disruption of a no-deal exit, we need to find a plan that a majority in Parliament can support. Its something thats eluded us. The Prime Minister had to put her proposal on hold because it would have been defeated. I support the PMs deal, because it can deliver Brexit and allow us to move forward. But many of my colleagues arent yet persuaded. Its possible enough will be but they might not. We need to acknowledge the risk that Parliament could spend the next precious few months debating about preferred solutions and end up with no compromise, no agreement and no deal. So whats to be done? We need to try something different. Something that people do in the real world all the time, but which seems so alien in our political culture to engage with others and be willing to forge a consensus. Tory MPs loyal to the Prime Minister applauded the result of a secret ballot on Wednesday night in which she won the confidence of 200 out of 317 MPs who voted On the steps of Downing Street afterwards Theresa May said she was getting on with the job That requires politicians to be more prepared to work with anyone who like me is willing to accept you cant always get what you want. It means taking a more practical, sensible and healing approach. These may not be words to make the heart beat faster, or fill the soul with excitement but they are whats needed in a country that has seen everything from families to political parties split down the middle and that now needs some Brexit certainty. It also requires everyone to abandon outrage and accusations. Its not weak to create a safe environment for Parliament to find a solution its strong. There may be lost votes along the way as we edge towards a solution, but so be it. Each one will help us get to something that is workable and possible. There will be those outside Parliament that say this approach is naive. Others may call it treachery. My colleagues across the House of Commons should ignore such siren voices calling us to the rocks of no deal. This is a great country. I believe it can have a fantastic post-Brexit future but only if politicians are willing to try a different way and only if a coalition of those who want whats best for this country argue a little less and compromise a little more. If we dont start having these grown up conversations we also risk stumbling into a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Government. AMBER Rudd steps forward today as the Tories Brexit peacemaker. The Work and Pensions Secretary calls for a ceasefire among warring MPs to prevent the UK economy crashing on the rocks by leaving the EU without a deal. She said it is time to make Parliament a safe space to discuss how Britain can cut its ties with Brussels. Miss Rudd stressed that the Conservatives must be ready to join forces in coalition with moderate Labour MPs to break the Brexit deadlock. And in a move which could anger Downing Street, she questioned whether Theresa May will ever get Tory MPs to back her Brexit deal despite returning to Brussels this week for fresh talks. Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has called for colleagues to heal Brexit wounds In an article for the Daily Mail today, Miss Rudd said it was vital for Conservative MPs to heal Brexit wounds and talk to Labour colleagues prepared to find another solution. The cabinet minister, who campaigned for Remain in the referendum, did not spell out her favoured Brexit alternative. She backs Mrs Mays deal but has also expressed sympathy for the so-called Norway option, under which the UK would stay in the customs union and EU single market but have less power to curb immigration. Miss Rudds call for Parliament to be made safe follows angry clashes between Tory MPs this week. Conservative Andrew Bridgen, a member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG), stormed out of a TV interview with party deputy chairman James Cleverly. One minister said he would like to punch the ERG in the face. Another MP called Chancellor Philip Hammond a t*** for denouncing Brexit extremists ahead of the confidence vote on Wednesday. Conservative Andrew Bridgen, a member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG), stormed out of a TV interview this week when asked to share a platform with his own party deputy chairman James Cleverly In her article, Miss Rudd says Brexit is stuck and unless feuding MPs stop digging in, Britain is heading for a no deal outcome which would be a disaster for the car industry, airlines, hauliers and others. Appearing to pour cold water on Mrs Mays hopes of winning over Tory rebels, she writes: Many of my [Conservative] colleagues arent yet persuaded. Its possible enough will be but they might not. The only hope is to try something different engage with others and forge a consensus with a practical, sensible and healing approach, she said. She said that means an end to outrage and accusations, adding: It is not weak to create a safe environment for Parliament to find a solution it is strong. Miss Rudd said she expects to be accused of treachery by Brexiteers but will not be deterred in her plea to ignore siren voices calling us to the rocks of no deal. The UK can prosper after Brexit but only with a coalition of MPs who want it to succeed and who argue a little less and compromise a little more, she warns. Her intervention comes amid reports that Miss Rudd and fellow soft Brexit cabinet ministers are pushing for a series of Commons votes on alternative plans such as no-deal and Norway outcomes. The reported aim of the so-called indicative and non binding votes is to show that none commands a Commons majority, thereby helping to persuade sceptical MPs that Mrs Mays proposal is the only practical one. However, some Tory Brexiteers maintain it is a back door ploy to pave the way for a second referendum, as favoured by some Remain supporters. Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage told a pro-Brexit rally in London on Friday night that he expects there to be a second referendum within months because the government will 'betray us completely'. Both he and Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg gave impassioned speeches at the Leave Means Leave rally in central London, with the former UKIP leader urging Brexit campaigners to 'get ready for every situation'. Rees-Mogg, meanwhile, said that Brexit was about taking back control because 'we can do things better ourselves'. He also said that Britain should be competing with the world and 'not with the small, narrow, outdated European system' The former UKIP leader revealed how he believes that a second referendum is just months away Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg also gave an impassioned speech to the pro-Brexit crowd saying that they wanted to take back control The leading Brexiteers appeared glum as they sat waiting for their turn to speak, before later breaking into smiles and giggles. Speaking at the Leave Means Leave rally, Farage said: 'I don't trust the prime minister, I dont trust this cabinet, I dont trust our politicians. I think they will in the next few months betray us completely Let us fight back. 'My message folks tonight is as much as I don't want a second referendum it would be wrong of us on a Leave Means Leave platform not to get ready, not to be prepared for a worst case scenario. 'If I'm wrong, we've lost nothing. We've not got to move into a different gear. We've got to start forming branches and active groups all over this country. 'We've got to re-engage with those millions of people who never voted in their lives before. We've got to connect with them. 'And if all our efforts come to nothing because we leave at 11pm on March 29, then so much the better. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage both spoke at the Leave Means Leave rally, held in central London on Friday night - seeming a little awkward in each other's presence 'But can I urge you, can I implore you to get ready for every situation. 'I think they will in the next few months betray us completely and let us be ready not just to fight back, but if it comes we will win it next time by a much bigger margin.' As well as Rees-Mogg and Farage, several other Brexiteers spoke, including Tim Martin, the found of pub chain JD Wetherspoon In his speech, Rees-Mogg outlined how he believes that Britain will prosper after Brexit. He said: 'The EU takes away democracy. We want to leave because we can do things better ourselves. 'It's in our nation's hands to succeed. 'We are taking this wonderful, exciting, generational opportunity. It will make us stronger, more prosperous and more successful in generations to come. 'Taking back control is about doing things better, succeeding and prospering.' There was a sizable crowd in attendance at the rally, with many of them holding up signs with pro-Brexit slogans. Tim Martin, the founder of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, also spoke at the rally. Speaking to those who voted to leave, Farage said: 'Can I implore you to get ready for every situation' At one point during the rally, the former UKIP leader stood up to wave a Union Jack - to the delight of the audience Speaking at the 'Save Brexit' rally, Farage also said: 'We've got to re-engage with those millions of people who never voted in their lives before' He said his business has swapped some of its EU imports for UK products in order to 'show a bit of muscle' against 'scare stories'. Speaking at the Leave Means Leave 'Save Brexit Rally' in London on Friday night, Mr Martin said: 'The other scare story is that Kent will become a lorry park - now I don't believe that and neither do you. We at Wetherspoons decided to do a little experiment. 'We're going to take French brandy and we're going to take French champagne and German-imported Jagermeister ... and a number of other products, and we're going to swap them for UK products. Conservative Party MP and chairman of the European Research Group (ERG) Jacob Rees-Mogg also spoke at the event 'I'm a free trader ... but there comes a time which I think has arrived now and we have to show a bit of muscle.' Mr Martin said since taking this decision his trade had 'gone up'. He added: 'The EU is only 7 percent of the world, there's a lot of arguments in favour of doing the deal because we need frictionless trade. 'If you believe in frictionless trade for 7 percent of the world, what about the other 93 percent?' There was a sizable crowd in attendance to watch several leading Brexiteers talk about Brexit Many were eager to meet the leaders, including this young woman who posed with Farage after his speech Attendees hold up signs with slogans at a political rally organised by the pro-Brexit Leave Means Leave campaign group Rees-Mogg, Wetherspoons' Chairman Tim Martin, sit as the vice-chairman of Leave Means Leave group, Richard Tice, Farage, Labour MP Kate Hoey, the DUP's Sammy Wilson and Chairman of the pro-Brexit Leave Means Leave group, John Longworth, hold up signs But the draft conclusions of the summit were then heavily edited (pictured), removing references saying the backstop was not a 'desirable' outcome and instead saying it was a crucial insurance policy to 'ensure the integrity of the single market' Theresa May's hopes of passing her Brexit deal suffered a body blow last night as EU leaders deleted compromises from a draft document aimed at helping her. After the PM made a 10-minute plea for help, the other 27 leaders discussed what to do over dinner - after kicking her out to eat elsewhere. Mrs May had asked for legal assurances the Irish border backstop would only be temporary, if it had to be used at all. But the draft conclusions of the summit were then heavily edited, removing references saying the backstop was not a 'desirable' outcome and instead saying it was a crucial insurance policy to 'ensure the integrity of the single market'. The draft promised the EU would use its 'best endeavours' to get a final trade deal - but the final version added a clause saying Brussels would explicitly 'expect the same of the United Kingdom'. The changes mean the final version of the document is likely to be of little help to Mrs May as she fights to save her deal. It's been a record breaking year for crane numbers in the UK with the highest numbers now found in the country since the 17th century. The latest survey of the UK's tallest bird revealed a record 54 pairs producing 25 chicks, bringing the national total population to around 180 birds. Cranes, which stand at 4ft (120cm) tall, were once widespread in this country before they became extinct, not to be seen again for 400 years. This was as a a result of hunting and the loss of the wetlands in which they make their home. Scroll down for video It's been a record breaking year for crane numbers in the UK with the highest numbers now found in the country since the 17th century The latest survey of the UK's tallest bird revealed a record 54 pairs producing 25 chicks, bringing the national total population to around 180 birds The survey, conducted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), revealed this year has been the most successful year for common cranes in the UK since they were wiped out. In 1979 a small number of wild cranes returned to the UK and established themselves in an area of the Norfolk Broads. They then slowly spread to other areas of eastern England with help from conservationists who worked to improve the habitat they need. In 2010 the 'great crane project' run by the RSPB, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust started working to create and improve existing habitat. They also began hand-rearing birds for release on the Somerset Levels and Moors to help boost the UK's population. Cranes, which stand at 4ft (120cm) tall, were once widespread in this country before they became extinct, not to be seen again for 400 years Wild cranes are now breeding in the Norfolk Broads, East Anglian Fens, Yorkshire and east Scotland as well as in south-west England, the conservationists said. Damon Bridge, chairman of the UK Crane Working Group, said: 'Cranes were once found throughout the UK, but disappeared from Britain over 400 years ago because of hunting for food, and the draining of their wetland breeding areas. 'To see them starting to spread back across the country after all this time is just brilliant - and a true reflection of how important the UK's wetland habitats are to cranes as well as the many other species they support.' Andrew Stanbury, RSPB conservation scientist, said: 'This success story highlights the importance of the UK's protected sites and nature reserves.' He said these places offered the seclusion needed for cranes to breed successfully and called for better protection of existing sites, and for new areas to be created and maintained to ensure the crane's expansion continues. Your next Starbucks latte might be delivered by an adorable roving robot. Postmates, the food and grocery delivery company, has debuted its new autonomous delivery robot, named 'Serve.' The four-wheeled rover closely resembles a brightly colored cooler, except it has huge, saucer-shaped eyes and an array of cameras meant to help it navigate the streets. Scroll down for video Your next latte might be delivered by an adorable roving robot. Postmates, the food and grocery delivery company, has debuted its new autonomous delivery robot, named 'Serve' WHAT IS POSTMATES? Postmates is a food and grocery delivery service that brings items to your doorstep. The service will deliver from a variety of restaurants and businesses not available on apps like GrubHub or Seamless, such as McDonald's. Accepts late-night deliveries 24/7, 365 days out of the year. About 4 million deliveries are placed each month in over 550 cities. Advertisement For now, Postmates will dispatch the first Serve robots in Los Angeles before it plans to roll out more robots in several cities across the U.S. over the next year. The firm says Serve will replace human deliverymen when items only need to be delivered short distances, such as a couple blocks around the corner. When a user places an order, a Serve might be dispatched and show up at their door. From there, they'll either enter a code on the device's touchscreen or use their phone to unlock the latch at the top of the device. They simply reach in, grab their food item and then Serve is on its way. Serve is 'all-electric,' can carry a payload of up to 50lbs and can travel up to 30 miles on a single charge. Serve is 'all-electric,' can carry a payload of up to 50lbs and can travel up to 30 miles on a single charge. It uses combination of cameras and LIDAR technology to get around town The Serve robots closely remember Disney's Wall-E, featuring huge, saucer-like eyes. A touchscreen on top of the device acts as a way for customers to interact with it The robot uses a combination of cameras and LIDAR technology to get around town. 'Using Lidar and the most advanced sensors of any automated delivery rover, Serve creates a virtual picture of the world in real time,' Postmates explained. 'An interactive touch screen is a part of how Serve communicates.' It also moves at 'walking speed' so as to not get in anyone's way while rolling down the sidewalk. There's several flashing strips of LED along the sides of the device that act as turn signals and will flash if it changes directions. A touchscreen on top of the device acts as a way for customers to interact with it. Serve is meant to appear human-like, with huge eyes that blink and it'll even play music like a pseudo-ice cream truck. Postmates said the Serve robots will replace human deliverymen when items only need to be delivered short distances, such as a couple blocks around the corner Even though the robot is semi-autonomous, a human is always monitoring the device from a remote area and is able to take over operating Serve at any time using a game controller The display is equipped with video chat software in case of an emergency, while a 'Help' button on the device can also be triggered if a user has a question. Even though it's semi-autonomous, a human is always monitoring the device from a remote control room and is able to take over operating Serve at any time using a game controller. Postmates created Serve with the community and regulators in mind. It faces stricter regulations in cities like San Francisco, where tech companies must obtain a permit before they can test robots on the streets. The firm describes Serve as a 'respectful member of the community' that yields to pedestrians and won't hog the sidewalk. 'Serve safely walks alongside pedestrians, navigates around fire hydrants, and respects our sidewalks,' Postmates said. The firm said it hopes Serve will help cut costs and save time on deliveries. And in the future, Postmates envisions even more capabilities for the roving robot. 'It could patrol the neighborhood,' Bastian Lehmann, Postmates' co-founder and CEO, told Wired. 'Or you could use it for evil things, like it could write parking tickets.' You could soon be charging your phone with your clothes thanks to scientists working on creating a pocket which acts like a charging dock. The pocket will contain tiny solar panels woven into the fabric of your garments to charge smartphones, fitness trackers and tablets. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University say that the innovation would promote a sustainable way of generating power and lead to cutting carbon emissions. The panels measure just 3mm long and 1.5mm wide, which is small enough to be sewn into fabric so people can charge while they're on the go, without the need for power banks or plug sockets. Scroll down for video The panels that measure 3mm long and 1.5mm wide are are small enough to be sewn into fabrics and promote a modern, sustainable way of generating power The fibres in the technology are made out of a network of miniature cells that create electricity and allow devices to be charged from the energy generated. The cells are almost invisible to the naked eye and cannot be felt by the wearer and are encapsulated in a resin which allows the fabric to be washed like any other garment. 'It could do away with the need to plug items into sockets and reduce the demand on the grid while cutting carbon emissions,' said Professor Tilak Dias, who is leading the research. 'The electrical power demand for smart e-textiles has always been its Achilles heel and this technology will allow people to use smart textiles while on the move.' Professor Tilak Dias, pictured here, from the Nottingham Trent University's school of art and design says it could reduce demand on the grid while cutting carbon emissions. The university have created a proto-type of the forward thinking textile that measures 5cm by 5cm which contains 200 cells he university have created a prototype of the forward thinking textile that measures 5cm by 5cm which contains 200 cells. Professor Dias says the clothing would behave like any other fabric even when the panels are embedded into the yarn. The team say that around 2,000 panels would be needed to charge a mobile phone or a fitness tracker, but so far the concept model they have created has just 200. This proved powerful enough to charge a mobile phone and a Fitbit but they say if the 2,000 solar cells were incorporated it would generate enough power to charge a smart phone. Nasa has taken the closest ever image of the sun in a bid to understand the workings of our star. The Parker Solar Probe was about 16.9 million miles (27.1 million km) from the Sun's surface when the image was taken. This makes the probe 76 million miles (122 million km) closer to the surface of the sun than Earth is - which orbits around 93 million miles (150 million km) away. Mercury can be seen as a bright blob in the centre of the image and the black dots are said to have been caused by 'background adjustment' from the camera. A coronal streamer - solar material near highly active regions of the sun - can be seen as a flashing streak across the image. Astronomers are hoping the Parker mission can provide valuable data to help understand the mysterious processes of the sun. Scroll down for video This image from Parker Solar Probe's WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument shows a coronal streamer. Nasa said the Parker Solar Probe was about 16.9 million miles from the Sun's surface when this image was taken. Mercury can be seen in the centre of the image 'Parker Solar Probe is going to a region we've never visited before,' said Terry Kucera, a solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. 'Meanwhile, from a distance, we can observe the Sun's corona, which is driving the complex environment around Parker Solar Probe.' Nasa hopes its Parker Probe can explain three main mysteries that have long confounded scientists. These include: Why the corona is heated to temperatures about 300 times higher than the surface below, how the solar wind accelerates at such vast speed and how does the sun eject some particles at half the speed of light. Parker has only just started beaming data back to scientists back on Earth despite launching back in August. Parker's WISPR instrument was pointed sideways from behind the dense heat shield of Parker when it captured the image. 'We don't know what to expect so close to the Sun until we get the data, and we'll probably see some new phenomena,' said Parker researcher Nour Raouafi. 'Parker is an exploration mission the potential for new discoveries is huge.' Measurements of the sun's atmosphere from a plethora of scientific measurements will give scientists new tools to discover how how the star operates. HOW IS THE SOLAR WIND FORMED? The sun and its atmosphere are made of plasma a mix of positively and negatively charged particles which have separated at extremely high temperatures, that both carries and travels along magnetic field lines. Material from the corona streams out into space, filling the solar system with the solar wind. But scientists found that as the plasma travels further away from the sun, things change. Views of the solar wind from NASA's STEREO spacecraft (left) and after computer processing (right). Scientists used an algorithm to dim the appearance of bright stars and dust in images of the faint solar wind The sun begins to lose magnetic control, forming the boundary that defines the outer corona the very edge of the sun. The breakup of the rays is similar to the way water shoots out from a squirt gun. First, the water is a smooth and unified stream, but it eventually breaks up into droplets, then smaller drops and eventually a fine, misty spray. A recent Nasa study captured the plasma at the same stage where a stream of water gradually disintegrates into droplets. If charged particles from solar winds hit Earth's magnectic field, this can cause problems for satellite and communication equipment. Advertisement The solar wind, the Sun's outflow of material, along with one-off eruptions of solar material called coronal mass ejections carry the Sun's magnetic field out through the heliosphere, producing space weather effects on Earth This video clip shows actual data from another NASA spacecraft called Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory Ahead (STEREO-A). It shows Parker Solar Probe flying through the sun's corona during its first pass in November Parker Solar Probe will give scientists another new perspective on the Sun and is currently 133 million miles (214 million km) closer to the surface of the sun than planet Earth - which orbits around 150 million miles (241 million km) away The spacecraft's ISIS suite will also help with understanding the energetic particle acceleration and the FIELDS instrument will detect electrical activity will understand the coronal heating. Thermal properties of ions ejected from the sun will be studied by the Solar Probe Cup instrument and this, combined with FIELDS, will shed light on the behaviour of the solar wind. Parker got within 15 million miles (25 million kilometers) of the sun's surface in November. Twenty-four such orbits - dipping into the sun's upper atmosphere, or corona - are planned over the next seven years. The gap will eventually shrink to 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometers). The unmanned spacecraft is on an unprecedented quest that will take it straight through the edges of the corona, or outer solar atmosphere, just 3.8million miles from the sun's surface. Previously, the closest an aircraft had come to the sun was 27 million miles (43 million km). This mission will require 55 times more energy than would be needed to reach Mars, according to NASA. Understanding the solar winds is a key goal of the Parker Solar Probe and this animation is from a model showing how the solar wind flows out from the Sun, with the perspective of Parker Solar Probes WISPR instrument overlaid Flying: At it's fastest spacecraft went travels at 119miles per second, pictured taking off. At this speed, it would take two minutes to travel from London to New York HOW WILL THE PARKER SOLAR PROBE GET SO CLOSE TO THE SUN? The Parker Solar Probe mission will require 55 times more energy than would be needed to reach Mars, according to NASA. It launched atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy, one of the most powerful rockets in the world, with a third stage attached. But, its trajectory and speed are critical in getting to the correct orbit. As Earth, and everything on it, are traveling at about 67,000 miles per hour in a direction thats sideways to the sun, craft must be launched backward to cancel out the sideways motion, NASA explains. The Parker probe is heading past the sun, so it will need to remove about 53,000 miles per hour, according to the space agency. The Parker Solar Probe will swing around Venus a total of seven times, with each pass slowing it down some and pushing it closer and closer to the sun. These orbits are shown in the animation above This will require a boost from the powerful Delta IV rocket, and several gravity assists from Venus to slow it down. The probe will rely on a series of gravity assists from Venus to slow down its sideways motion, allowing it to get just 3.8 million miles away from the suns surface. In this case, rather than speeding up the spacecraft, as in a typical gravity assist, Venus slows down its sideways motion so the spacecraft can get close to the sun, NASA explains. When it finally does get close, Parker Solar Probe will have lost much of its sideways speed, but gained a great deal of overall speed thanks to the suns gravity. Parker Solar Probe will hurtle past the sun at 430,000 miles per hour. At its closest approach, it will get just 3.8 million miles from the surface of the sun, making it the only spacecraft to ever venture so close. Advertisement The $1.5billion (1.17billion) Parker Probe blasted off atop one of the most powerful rockets in the world. It will eventually hit record-breaking speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour as it completes 24 orbits of the sun over the course of seven years. At this speed, it would take two minutes to travel from London to New York. While orbitting the sun, the craft will swing around Venus seven times, using the planet's gravity to push it closer and closer to our star with each pass; eventually, the Parker probe will get within 3.8 million miles of the sun's surface. It made its first fly past Venus in October, and is protected by a revolutionary new heat shield. It will be subjected to temperatures of roughly 2,500F (1,371C) when it comes closer to the sun than any spacecraft in history but, behind its thick heat shield, it will only feel like a hot summer day, with this sheltered region maxing out at about 85F (29C). The craft is named for Dr Eugene Parker, who first predicted the existence of solar wind back in 1958, and is the only living person to have ever had a NASA mission named for them. The probe is also towing the names of over 1.1 million people who signed up to have their names sent to the sun. Amazon's use of facial recognition has sparked fears of an authoritarian future resembling that described by George Orwell. Privacy advocates and campaigners have said Amazon using facial recognition in its smart doorbells could provide the perfect tool for extreme surveillance. The campaigners called the technology 'nightmarish' and 'disturbing'. Amazon bought the US-based firm Ring earlier this year. The doorbell company has previously filed for a patent to use facial recognition in its products. It is thought the technology could scan the faces of any people passing by and eventually compile a vast database of names and faces of innocent people. Scroll down for video Amazon bought the US-based firm Ring earlier this year and the doorbell company had previously filed for a patent to use facial recognition in its products. A patent for the use of facial-recognition has sparked outrage from privacy campaigners The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has slammed the integration of facial recognition as 'disturbing'. The patent currently shows plans for police to match faces of people walking by your house who might be deemed 'suspicious.' Owners of the technology would be able to review the footage and add photographs on anyone they wish to the database of suspicious images. If the face of an unwelcome visitor is detected by the technology, it will spring a police alert who will arrive on scene in minutes. 'It's rare for patent applications to lay out, in such nightmarish detail, the world a company wants to bring about,' said Jacob Snow, a technology and civil liberties attorney at the ACLU. 'Amazon is dreaming of a dangerous future, with its technology at the centre of a massive decentralised surveillance network, running real-time facial recognition on members of the public using cameras installed in people's doorbells.' WHAT IS RING AND WHY DID AMAZON BUY IT? Amazon acquired home security startup Ring for a reported 700 million ($1 billion). The home security startup sells doorbells that capture video and audio. Clips can be streamed on smartphones and other devices, while the doorbell even allows homeowners to remotely chat to those standing at their door. Ring sells doorbells (left) that capture video and audio. Clips can be streamed on smartphones and other devices, while the doorbell even allows homeowners to remotely chat to those standing at their door Ring promotes its gadgets as a way to catch package thieves, a nuisance that Amazon has been looking to remedy. Amazon late last year unveiled its own smart lock and camera combination called Amazon Key in a move into home security. Key is designed to provide a secure and trackable way for packages to be delivered inside homes when people aren't there. Amazon has bought home security startup Ring for a reported 700 million ($1 billion) Ring's doorbell could work well with Amazon Key, which lets delivery personnel put packages inside a home to avoid theft or, in the case of fresh food, spoiling. California-based Ring first caught the spotlight with a failed quest for funding about five years ago on reality television show Shark Tank. Ring went on to win backing from the likes of billionaire Richard Branson and Amazon's Alexa Fund. Advertisement It was revealed in September that more than 450 Amazon employees urged CEO Jeff Bezos to quit selling the tech giant's controversial facial recognition technology to cops.. The ACLU lawyer concludes by saying: 'Amazon is building the tools for authoritarian surveillance that advocates, activists, community leaders, politicians, and experts have repeatedly warned against. 'It is doing so without regard for how the technology will be exploited by law enforcement, ICE, and other government agencies prone to violence and racial discrimination.' Amazon's use of facial recognition has been under scrutiny recently and is marred by widespread outrage at the use of its Rekognition software by police and customs departments. It pitched its product to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials this summer, leaked emails show. It was revealed in September that more than 450 Amazon employees urged CEO Jeff Bezos to quit selling the tech giant's controversial facial recognition technology to cops. At the Wired25 summit Bezos, the world's richest man, defended his firm's involvement in government contracts. He said that 'we are in big trouble' if tech companies turn their back on the Pentagon. Bezos also added: 'This is a great country, and it does need to be defended.' Large companies regularly file many patent applications and sources close to the patent reiterate that a patent filing does now mean the feature will become prevalent in future technology. MailOnline has approached Amazon for comment. Facebook has revealed a bug may have exposed the private photos from up to 6.8 million users to third-party apps. The bug allowed roughly 1,500 apps that had been given permission to access users' photos to also see pictures they never shared on their timeline. This includes images shared in Marketplace and Facebook Stories, as well as photos users began to upload but ultimately 'chose not to post.' It marks the latest case in a long string of Facebook's user data mishaps, many of which have occurred within the last year. Worryingly, Facebook said the bug was active for 12 days, between September 13th to September 25th, before it was discovered and fixed. The firm is now disclosing the bug more than three months later, saying it waited to do so until it investigated which apps and users were affected by the issue, according to TechCrunch. Scroll down for video Facebook has revealed a bug may have exposed private photos from up to 6.8 million users to apps. The bug gave developers access to photos that never finished sharing on the site HOW TO TELL IF YOU WERE HIT BY THE PHOTO API BUG Facebook has begun notifying users who were affected by the Photo API bug via an alert on their News Feed. It will direct you to a Help Center page, where it will break down which apps had access to your private photos. Facebook is telling developers who had access these to these photos to delete them. But the firm also recommends users login to any apps they've shared photos with to see which pictures they have access to. To change your privacy permissions for certain apps or games, navigate to Settings > Apps and Websites > View and Edit. From there, you can manage what kinds of content these apps have access to, or remove them entirely. Advertisement Companies that discover bugs are supposed to disclose the issue within 72 hours, or else they could be subjected to hefty fines. Facebook risks being handed a fine of up to 20 million pounds (about $25 million), or 4 percent of its annual global revenue, as outlined in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulations. However, Facebook may yet escape fines because the firm says it notified the Irish Data Protection Commission of the bug within the 72-hour window, according to TechCrunch. In a blog post, Tomer Bar, an engineering director at Facebook, apologized for the bug. 'We're sorry this happened,' Bar said. 'Early next week we will be rolling out tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug. 'We will be working with those developers to delete the photos from impacted users,' he added. Pictured is the notice Facebook sent to users affected by the Photo API bug. The incident may have affected up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers, the firm explained Bar said the bug stemmed from an issue in Facebook's Photo API, or application program interface. 'Our internal team discovered a photo API bug that may have affected people who used Facebook Login and granted permission to third-party apps to access their photos,' Bar explained. 'When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline. 'In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories,' Bar added. Most importantly, the bug also affected photos that users uploaded to the site 'but chose not to post.' 'For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn't finish posting it - maybe because they've lost reception or walked into a meeting - we store a copy of that photo so that the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post,' Bar noted. The incident may have affected up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers, the company said. The bug disclosed on Friday marks the latest case in a long string of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's user data mishaps, many of which have occurred over the last year Facebook expects to begin notifying affected users soon via an alert on their News Feed, as well as roll out tools for developers to help them see if they were impacted by the bug and delete the private photos in question. The incident is just one of many other privacy scandals that's hit Facebook this year. In September, presumably as Facebook discovered the Photo API bug, the firm was also hit with its worst-ever data breach. The breach resulted in some 30 million users' data being exposed to hackers as a result of a flaw in Facebook's 'View As' feature, which lets people see what their profiles look like to other users. That's after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in January, which resulted in approximately 87 million users' information being shared without their knowledge with the Trump-affiliated research firm. Volkswagen is resurrecting the classic dune buggy as a modern electric car, according to an anonymous source inside the automaker. The new car is 'under active consideration' as a possible addition to the firm's upcoming range of zero-emission 'ID' vehicles, it's claimed. It will be inspired by the classic 1960s Meyers Manx dune buggy, which itself was built on an original VW Beetle chassis. Like the 60's version, the modern two-seater open-top buggy will feature a freestanding windshield, oversized tires and a roll bar, according to the source. It comes after news emerged in September that the revitalised Beetle was itself to be axed 80 years after it was first introduced. Scroll down for video Volkswagen is understood to be releasing a Meyers Manx inspired electric dune buggy to replace the iconic Beetle next July. A source familiar with the the German automaters plans told Autocar magazine that the new car is 'under active consideration' The 1964 Meyers Manx shaped the rise of the dune buggy phenomenon in the United States and abroad beginning in the mid 1960s named after Bruce Meyers, a pioneer of the dune buggy craze and a significant person in the context of off-road vehicles Speaking to Autocar magazine, the anonymous source said that the dune buggy concept is currently under construction and is expected to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2019. Volkswagen never built it's own dune buggy, but many were created using Beetle frames or chassis, from which the body could easily be removed. The 1964 Meyers Manx shaped the rise of the dune buggy phenomenon in the United States and abroad beginning. It was named after Bruce Meyers, a pioneer of the dune buggy craze who built car kits to convert VW beetle chassis for off-road use. In a similar fashion, the new dune VW buggy will be based on the company's new battery-powered chassis platform, which has been designed to accommodate a variety of body styles. The firm is said to be working on two other retro-themed electric concept models under the 'ID' moniker to fit this base. Despite its own flower power associations, the Beetle (pictured) itself was introduced in Germany in 1938 under Hitler as 'The People's Car' and came to the US eleven years later The car attained further popularity with 1968 Disney movie The Love Bug, the story of a racing VW Beetle named Herbie (pictured) The first is a a five-door hatchback, a 'contemporary re-creation of the iconic Beetle', planned for the third quarter of 2019. The second, known as the ID Buzz, will be based on the iconic microbus van that became synonymous with hippies during the 1960s, which has been confirmed for production and launched in 2022. Despite its own flower power associations, the Beetle itself was introduced in Germany in 1938 under Hitler as 'The People's Car' and came to the US eleven years later. The car attained further popularity with 1968 Disney movie The Love Bug, the story of a racing VW Beetle named Herbie. Volkswagen announced in September that they will stop making the Beetle car next July. Volkswagen's head designer Klaus Bischoff told Fox news at the US debut of the microbus last year that they are also considering bringing back some 'open off-roadish vehicle that stands for a lot of fun.' Dr. Herbert Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management for the Volkswagen brand, says the new electric cars will offer more than what we've seen from other car makers and will be 'much more affordable'. VW are said to be working on the new buggy alongside two other retro-themed electric 'ID' concept models. The second, known as the ID Buzz (pictured), will be based on the iconic microbus van which became synonymous with hippies during the 1960s Scientists have identified a specific gene which is involved in determining the sex of a child. The crucial gene is found on the Y-chromosome and is involved in the development of the testes. If this is faulty, scientists claim it can lead to sexual development disorders and improper development of the testicles. Scroll down for video Scientists have identified a specific gene which is involved in determining the sex of a child. The crucial gene is found on the Y-chromosome and is involved in the development of the testes (stock image) The presence of either an X or a Y chromosome is pivotal in the determination of gender but this Y-located gene is integral to ensuring proper development, scientists say. Sex chromosomes called 'XX' and 'XY' are separated, with girls carrying the former and boys the latter. A baby will be a girl if it carries an X chromosome and the embryo will be male if the fertilising sperm has a Y chromosome. Ms Croft, a PhD student at Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, said: 'The sex of a baby is determined by its chromosome make-up at conception. 'An embryo with two X chromosomes will become a girl, while an embryo with an X-Y combination results in a boy.' However, the Australian team found this dynamic has an added complication. They discovered a 'regulator' that controls the activity of some genes which impacts if a child will be male or female. SRY is a gene found on the male chromosome (Y) and this directly impacts a protein called SOX9. Sex chromosomes called 'XX' and 'XY' are separated, with girls carrying the former and boys the latter. A 'regulator' controls the activity of some genes which impacts if a child will be male or female (stock image) WHAT IS THE Y CHROMOSOME AND WHY IS IT DISAPPEARING? The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes found in humans - the other is the X chromosome. It is the only chromosome in an organism that isn't essential for life - women survive just fine without one, after all. In humans, the 22 other pairs of chromosomes - the autosomes - are identical. The Y chromosome spans more than 59 million building blocks of DNA and represents almost 2 percent of the total DNA in cells. But the human Y-chromosome is still one of the smallest in the genome. It is carried by roughly half of a man's sperm, and dictates whether a child will be male or female. Despite this, it carries very little other important information. And researchers think it is quickly disappearing. The number of genes on the Y has dropped from over 1,000 to roughly 50, a loss of more than 95 per cent. If the same rate of degeneration continues, the Y chromosome has just 4.6 million years left before it disappears completely. But the Y chromosome hasn't always been so small. It was once the size of the X chromosome and contained all the same genes. The problem, however, is that Y chromosomes are only ever found as a single copy, passed from fathers to their sons, rather than a pair This means that genes on the Y chromosome cannot undergo something known as 'genetic recombination'. This is switch of genes that takes place in each generation which helps to eliminate damaging gene mutations. Advertisement Professor Sinclair, a paediatrician at the University of Melbourne, said the SOX9 gene is regulated by enhancers - and sex development disorders are triggered by damage to them. If there is some disruption to the expression of SOX9 it can stunt the development of the testicles, according to the paper published in the Nature Communications. Developmental biologist Brittany Croft said: 'The Y chromosome carries a critical gene, called SRY, which acts on another gene called SOX9 to start the development of testes in the embryo. 'High levels of the SOX9 gene are needed for normal testis development. However, if there is some disruption to SOX9 activity and only low levels are present, a testis will not develop resulting in a baby with a disorder of sex development.' Four patients with sexual development disorders were studied and could shed new light on the genetic causes behind sex development disorders. Lead author Professor Andrew Sinclair explained: 'These regulatory segments of DNA are called enhancers. 'If these enhancers that control testis genes are disrupted it may lead to a baby being born with a disorder of sex development. 'We discovered three enhancers that together ensure the SOX9 gene is turned on to a high level in an XY embryo - leading to normal testis and male development. 'Importantly, we identified XX patients who would normally have ovaries and be female but carried extra copies of these enhancers - high levels of SOX9 - and instead developed testes. 'In addition, we found XY patients who had lost these SOX9 enhancers - low levels of SOX9 - and developed ovaries instead of testes.' The trio of enhancers are required for normal testes and male development. Professor Sinclair said across the human genome there were about one million enhancers controlling about 22,000 genes. He added: 'These enhancers lie on the DNA but outside genes, in regions previously referred to as junk DNA or dark matter. 'The key to diagnosing many disorders may be found in these enhancers which hide in the poorly understood dark matter of our DNA.' Advertisement 'Have you had a very long journey today, Mr Hanson?' the receptionist gently enquired as we moved from lobby to lift to bedroom corridor. After travelling around America it made a refreshing change to have an almost perfect stranger engage me in idle, innocuous small talk to pass the time of day. He probably didn't care about my journey but it was that harmless insincerity that I had been missing during my transatlantic jaunt, which so few service professionals today understand. Thankfully, the Olympic-standard polite chit-chat prowess of the first employee I met at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills was matched by all of his colleagues during my stay. William Hanson checked into the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills after travelling around America for two weeks The 170 bedrooms and suites have contemporary, pale blue and teal interiors with Art Deco influence Mr Hanson says: 'It fits in well into the stable of high end hotels in the city, but unlike one of the most famous in the area it doesn't feel like a tired flamingo retro-fest' Having had two long weeks of overt American try-hard service it was a relief to be free from someone looming over me, smiling ear to ear, while piercingly announcing their name was Candi and that they'll be my server tonight. Before the summer of last year, the hotel and hospitality options in Beverly Hills were dominated by the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Beverly Hilton. Then last year, very subtly and via the now essential hotel marketing tool of Instagram, I had become aware of a different, newer jewel in the diamante cluster that makes up the most famous Los Angeles suburb: the Waldorf Astoria. As a brand, the recent history of Waldorf Astoria is interesting. The eponymous original in New York City is currently undergoing an extensive renovation - not a moment too soon. The lingering lustre from its heyday had quickly begun to fade. But the Hilton-run hotel has spawned a global chain, with offshoots from the Manhattan original appearing first throughout America and now the rest of the world, totalling 33 properties with more in development. London is getting one in 2022, in perhaps the best location for any hotel ever: Admiralty Arch, at the bottom of The Mall, looking straight up to Buckingham Palace (though from 2025 it may well be covered in scaffolding as renovation work is due to start in that year). Mr Hanson waxes lyrical about the interior of the hotel. He says: 'No fine detail has been missed and tranquility is the consistent theme' The Hilton-run hotel has spawned a global chain, with offshoots from the Manhattan original appearing first throughout America and now the rest of the world, totalling 33 properties with more in development Gadgets in the bedrooms include a Dyson hairdryer and Amazon Alexas - plus the usual battery of USB points The original Waldorf Astoria is in New York - London is getting one in 2022, within a stone's throw of Buckingham Palace TRAVEL FACTS Visit the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills website for more information. Rooms start at $815 (650). Advertisement The Beverly Hills incarnation is its newest and has just celebrated its first anniversary. It fits in well into the stable of high end hotels in the city, but unlike one of the most famous in the area it doesn't feel like a tired flamingo retro-fest. For however imposing the streamlined moderne exterior and grand, looming triple-height ceilings of the ground floor are, no fine detail has been missed and tranquility is the consistent theme. The 170 bedrooms and suites have contemporary, pale blue and teal interiors with Art Deco influence. The now-standard USB points are there as well as Dyson hairdryers and Amazon Alexas (with clear instructions as to how to switch it off - in case you are worried that an intelligence agency may overhear how many undergarments you're sending to the laundry). The nuanced service and style is extended into the restaurant: Jean-George Vongerichten's first in California. During dinner, the olive oil offered with the bread did not rush out of the jar. However lovely many parts of America may be, my stay was the perfect way to gently adjust me from the less than subdued charm of transatlantic life to the more refined subtlety this side of the pond. The Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills blends American can-do innovation with discreet, attentive British service. Advertisement The 101 largest superyachts in the world for 2018 have been revealed and there are eight 'stunning' new entries that launched this year. The list has been produced by London-based Boat International magazine, which describes itself as the 'global superyacht and luxury lifestyle authority'. This year's Top 101, it says, includes 'some of the most innovative yachts yet, with all entries showcasing unique luxury features, from the largest yachts ever built in Australia and China, to a boat with a helicopter hangar, right through to a shark inspired superyacht'. The superyacht Dar, pictured, which was built by Oceanco and designed by Luiz de Basto, is one of the eight new entries to Boat International's 101 largest yachts list that the magazine has deemed as 'stunning' One of the new entries is the 90-metre (295ft) Dar, which has luxury accommodation for 14 guests, including a private owner's deck with a curved, rotating 6.5m (21ft) sofa and a secluded terrace with a spa pool overlooking the bow. Before she was christened, her project name was Shark, which reflected the fin shape of her mast in profile and, in plain view, her wing stations replicating a hammerhead shark's eyes. The key communal area is the main deck saloon, which boasts stunning views out to sea through 2.3 metre-high (7.5ft) windows, while the bridge deck swimming pool is flanked by sun pads and fed by a cascading waterfall. Other star features on this Dutch-built yacht include a helipad, dive centre, hammam, sauna and submarine storage as part of a sprawling beach club. Dar is also equipped with two lifts one for guests, surrounded by a spiral staircase, and a second that allows for discreet service by the 31-person crew. At 110m (360ft), Anna, another new entry, is the largest yacht ever built by legendary Dutch superyacht builder Feadship and is the second-biggest yacht ever built in the Netherlands. New entry White Rabbit is the biggest superyacht ever built in Australia. She measures a staggering 275ft White Rabbit is the world's biggest aluminium superyacht and the world's largest trimaran superyacht Styled inside and out by award-winning Sorgiovanni Designs, with naval architecture by One 2 Three Naval Architects, the swim platforms at each hull's stern can link via a hydraulic bridge to create one long terrace for water sports This boat was built in collaboration with UK-based studio Michael Leach Design, which developed her distinctive profile with an eye-shaped curve amidships, between her main and upper decks, and a particularly striking 14m-high (45ft) navigation mast. As well as being the largest superyacht ever built in Australia, 84m (275ft) White Rabbit, which also launched this year, is the world's biggest aluminium superyacht and the world's largest trimaran superyacht. In terms of gross tonnage (internal volume) she is 2.5 times the size of the next biggest Australian-built yacht. Styled inside and out by award-winning Sorgiovanni Designs, with naval architecture by One 2 Three Naval Architects, the swim platforms at each hull's stern can link via a hydraulic bridge to create one long terrace on the water for water sports. At 110m (360ft), Anna, another new entry, is the largest yacht ever built by legendary Dutch superyacht builder Feadship Anna was built in collaboration with UK-based studio Michael Leach Design, which developed her distinctive profile with an eye-shaped curve amidships Stewart Campbell, Editor of Boat International, said: 'It's been another exceptional year for the superyacht sector' White Rabbit is powered by a complex and energy efficient diesel-electric propulsion system for a top speed of 19 knots. She will be accompanied on adventures by her owner's other yacht, 51m (167ft) catamaran Charley, which was also built at Aussie yard Echo Yachts. Other new entries to the Top 101 list include the mammoth 135.5m (445ft) Crescent, delivered by German builder Lurssen, which features an innovative temporary helicopter hangar that folds out from the navigation mast, as well as a three-deck high window amidships. Illusion Plus, meanwhile, at 88.5m (290ft), is the largest yacht ever built in China. She has eight cabins for 12 guests and has an unusual layout with a two-storey saloon. She has a touch-and-go helipad and two large spa pools, one with a waterfall feature aft on the main deck and one forward on the top deck. Greek-built 86m (282ft) O'Ptasia has guest accommodation for 24, including two large forward-facing VIP suites one of 85-square-metres (914 square feet) on the main deck and one of 95-square-metres (1,022 square feet) on the deck above. There is also an 85-metre-square beach club, which includes a steam room, massage room and beauty parlour and bar. On the top deck, a gymnasium opens out on to a 5m (16ft) swimming pool, while the touch-and-go helipad is on the foredeck. Stewart Campbell, Editor of Boat International, said: 'It's been another exceptional year for the superyacht sector with stunning new entries to this year's Top 101 list, all of which embody the very best of design and construction. My personal highlight is the 84 metre trimaran White Rabbit not only the largest trimaran yacht in the world, but also the largest superyacht ever built in Australia. 'It's a design that truly pushes the boundaries of what's possible in this industry. We're tracking some exceptional projects expected to be delivered in 2019, so next year's list should break new ground again.' Hull of a ship: New entry Lonian (pictured), is 83rd on the list. She is 87 metres (277ft) long Airline passenger Seth Allen, who despite having a business class ticket was told to move out of the business class queue on a recent flight from Gatwick to Marrakech A black business class airline passenger has accused a white airport worker of 'blatant racism' after he claims he told him told to move out of a business class queue at the gate. Seth Allen, a frequent flyer, was travelling out of London's Gatwick Airport on a British Airways flight earlier this week to Marrakech when the alleged incident occurred. The entrepreneur, from Reading, says after he joined a boarding queue for business class passengers, a white staff member shouted at him and repeatedly told him he would have to join a general queue. And Mr Allen, who often travels business class, believes the colour of his skin was the reason he was targeted. The 28-year-old said he was waiting to board the flight in a line of around eight predominantly white passengers when an airport worker shouted 'this is the business line, general boarding is that way', according to The Sun Online. However, Mr Allen remained in the business class queue and went through the gate, but not before the same worker apparently insinuated he was a guest of a white passenger by saying: 'Oh, so you were with that guy then?' Following the incident, Mr Allen immediately took to Twitter to complain about his treatment. He wrote: 'Disgusted at the casual racism I encountered today @Gatwick_Airport. We talk about British values, yet today I experienced a painful reminder that racism is alive and well in Britain.' He added, to the Sun Online: 'I can only assume that I was being targeted because of my skin colour. I wasnt trying to jump the queue I had paid to be there. I am a frequent flyer, and I often travel business class but this has never happened to me before.' A spokeswoman from Gatwick Airport, pictured, said that it is now investigating the alleged incident involving Mr Allen Gatwick Airport and British Airways are now investigating the incident, though it's not been confirmed whether the worker at the centre of the controversy is employed by the airport or the airline. A spokeswoman told MailOnline Travel: 'We are appalled to hear this report of Mr Allens recent experience travelling through Gatwick Airport and apologise to him on behalf of the airport community. 'We are investigating the matter fully in conjunction with the airline that Mr Allen was travelling with. 'Gatwick does not tolerate such behaviour from anyone working at the airport and these attitudes do not reflect our values. 'Gatwick and the airline will ensure the necessary measures are taken, to address such behaviour with the member of staff involved, once identified.' BA said: 'We take such matters extremely seriously. We are urgently investigating this with the airport. We are in contact with our customer to reassure him that everything possible is being done to identify the individual.' According to an 'insider' at Karl Stefanovic's recent wedding in Mexico, the Today show's Richard 'Dickie' Wilkins had a bit of a meltdown during the reception. Richard, 64, who has worked at Channel Nine for more than three decades, reportedly snapped at a British guest who asked him 'what he does for a living'. On Wednesday, however, the spiky haired TV presenter denied that the incident took place. 'First I've heard of it': Richard Wilkins denied he had a meltdown in Mexico at Karl Stefanovic's wedding on Wednesday... when an English guest allegedly asked Dickie what he 'did for a living'. Richard is pictured with fellow TV host Sonia Kruger In reference to the alleged incident, Dickie said at Sydney Airport on Wednesday: 'First I've heard of it.' The veteran TV host, who flew economy back home to Australia, continued: 'A British guest? Why would a British guest know who I was?' 'I don't think we're on in Britain,' he added. According to an 'insider' at Karl's recent wedding in Mexico, Richard had a meltdown during the reception. Richard, 64, reportedly snapped at a British guest who asked him 'what he does for a living'. He is pictured with his girlfriend, Virginia Burmeister The incident in question allegedly happened on Saturday night during Karl and wife Jasmine Yarbrough's wedding reception in Los Cabos, Mexico. A source explained that a wedding guest from the United Kingdom was supposedly making friendly chitchat with Richard, in spite of the fact she had 'no idea who he was'. At one point during the exchange the woman innocently asked the Channel Nine star, 'So what do you do?' Denial: On Wednesday, however, the spiky haired TV presenter denied that the incident took place, saying at Sydney airport: 'First I've heard of it' But the woman's question reportedly sent Richard into a state of 'holy guacamole' shock. 'Richard, apparently aghast, blustered, "Don't you watch television?", and walked off in a huff,' the source claimed. The insider went on to allege the exchange left the guest feeling rather confused and thinking, 'Who the hell was that?' Karl Stefanovic's new wife Jasmine Yarbrough has established many connections with high-profile figures over the years thanks to her position in the fashion industry. And it emerged this week that Jasmine, 34, has a surprising link to Australian model Lara Bingle, which goes back to the Mara & Mine co-founder's own modelling days. The newly-married shoe designer has known Lara, 31, for more than seven years, and they even share a handful of mutual friends. Jasmine Yarbrough's surprising connection to Lara Bingle: Karl Stefanovic's new bride is 'good friends' with the Australian model's ex Nick Cohen - and he was even the DJ at her Mexican wedding reception. Pictured: Lara and Jasmine in Los Angeles in 2011 While the model-turned-beauty entrepreneur still follows Jasmine on Instagram, she did not attend her wedding in Los Cabos, Mexico over the weekend. The earliest photo of the pair together appears on Jasmine's Instagram account from 2011, around the same time both women were both based in Los Angeles. It seems they would often enjoy nights out together, including dining at the popular LA eatery The Little Door on West 3rd Street. Small world! Jasmine is friends with Lara's ex-boyfriend, Nick Cohen (left), and even flew him to Mexico to be the DJ at her beachside wedding reception at the One&Only Palmilla resort Exes: Nick (pictured) previously dated Lara in 2013 after being friends for some time, but split a few months into their long-distance relationship. Pictured in NYC on December 12, 2017 Jasmine and Lara also have a shared connection through American DJ Nick Cohen. Nick previously dated Lara in 2013 after being friends for some time, but split a few months into their long-distance relationship. 'Nick and I have been close friends beyond our romantic relationship and will continue to be always. Unfortunately the distance [Nick was based in New York] got the better of us but my schedule for work will surely keep me busy,' Lara said at the time. Meanwhile, Jasmine is also good friends with Nick and even flew him to Mexico to be the DJ at her beachside wedding reception at the One&Only Palmilla resort. Beauty products for the bride! In June, just six months before her wedding to Karl Stefanovic, Lara sent her friend Jasmine some beauty gifts from her label, The Base Jasmine and her business partner Tamara Ingham launched cult shoe label Mara & Mine in 2013. The brand has a celebrity following, including the likes of Cara Delevingne, Chanel Iman, Kendall Jenner and Margot Robbie. In June, just six months before her wedding to Karl Stefanovic, Lara sent her friend some beauty gifts from her label, The Base. 'Exciting delivery from Lara Worthington, The Base,' Jasmine captioned a photo of the surprise delivery. Just married! After Karl and Jasmine's four-day wedding celebrations, the couple headed to LA on Monday to begin their honeymoon. Pictured on their wedding day on Saturday After Karl and Jasmine's four-day Mexican wedding celebrations, the couple headed to Los Angeles on Monday to begin their honeymoon. After spending the night at the Beverly Hills Hotel a select group of wedding guests, the group jetted off to a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado. After a few days of relaxing and hitting the slopes, the newlyweds will return to Australia and continue their honeymoon in Port Douglas in Far North Queensland. She stunned in a one-of-a-kind white mini dress on her wedding day in Mexico over the weekend. And it seems that Jasmine Yarbrough's couture frock wasn't the only unique part of her big day with new husband Karl Stefanovic. According to WHO magazine, the 34-year-old shoe designer gave her bridesmaids special gifts, and even included a sweet tribute to her 92-year-old grandmother Bel, who was unable to travel to the ceremony. Jasmine Yarbrough's wedding secrets: From special gifts for the bridesmaids to her tribute to the grandmother who couldn't make the ceremony - the last-minute touches that made her nuptials to Karl Stefanovic truly magical The publication reports that Jasmine gave her bridesmaids white personalised slippers from her label Mara & Mine, which she co-owns with friend and bridesmaid Tamie Ingham. The slippers featured the initials of her bridesmaids. Jasmine shoes typically start from $346 (AUD). Jasmine's bridesmaids - who stunned in flowing black Rachel Gilbert dresses on the day - included Tamie, Jasmine's sister Jade Yarbrough, and her friends Jimilla Houghton, Sophie Pentland, Sarah Johnson, Stoj Bulic and Georgie Fleming. That's different! The publication reports that Jasmine gave her bridesmaids white personalised slippers from her label Mara & Mine, which she co-owns with friend and bridesmaid Tamie Ingham Pricey! The slippers featured the initials of her bridesmaids, with her shoes typically starting from $346 (AUD) (pictured are shoes from her label) Friends: Jasmine is pictured on her wedding day on December 8 with one of her bridesmaids As her grandmother Bel couldn't make the ceremony, Jasmine wore one of her rings so that she was close to her. Karl's new bride also revealed her grandmother bought the couple fireworks as a wedding gift, which were let off at the couple's romantic beachside reception. 'Nan bought us fireworks as a gift so we could have her in our hearts when we saw the sky light up,' the shoe designer said. Jasmine and Today star Karl tied the knot at the luxurious One&Only Palmilla resort in Cabo, Mexico, on December 8. They were surrounded by 200 close family and friends, including Julie Bishop, Richard Wilkins and Karl's brother Peter and his wife Syliva Jeffreys. Sweet: As her grandmother Bel (pictured) couldn't make the ceremony, Jasmine wore one of her rings so that she was close to her Their special place: Jasmine told WHO about the significance of Cabo for her and Karl, saying the father-of-three 'fell in love' with the popular destination when they celebrated her brother Josh's 30th birthday there The pair held lavish four-day celebrations at the resort - including a Studio 54-themed disco party - before jetting to their honeymoon in Aspen, Colorado, on Monday. The pair married in the white chapel at the resort, before hosting a wedding reception on the beach underneath a tent of fairy lights. The couple confirmed their engagement in February this year, with New Idea reporting that Karl had proposed to Jasmine while on holiday in Fiji. It's believed they first met at a Sydney boat party in December 2016, just months after Karl's separated from ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn, 47. They know how to celebrate! The pair held lavish four-day celebrations - including a Studio 54-themed disco party - before jetting to their honeymoon in Aspen, Colorado, on Monday (pictured in Cabo with Nova's Tim Blackwell) Read more: The latest edition of WHO magazine is out now They have been holidaying all over Australia since declaring their love for each other during the finale of The Bachelorette, last month. And on Wednesday, Ali Oetjen and Taite Radley were spotted on yet another trip, this time in Darwin. The inseparable pair documented a fishing trip to Instagram, with Taite, 32, sharing a collection of clips of the couple on a boat. Another day, another getaway: Bachelorette sweethearts Ali Oetjen and Taite Radley go fishing in Darwin after fans question whether couple 'ever work' Tagging Tiwi Island Adventures, the two were seen casting their lines out into the water, hoping for the catch of the day. Putting up a poll, bank manager Taite wrote: 'Who will catch the big one?' It appeared only 20% of his fans voted for him, while 80% vouched for his lady love. 'Day three': The inseparable pair documented a fishing trip to Instagram , with Taite, 32, sharing a collection of clips of the couple on a boat Flaunting their feat later on, Taite shared a happy selfie of the lovebirds holding up a big fish they caught. 'We didn't catch the million dollar fish, but The Tiwi Islands produced an amazing experience,' he captioned the post. Since The Bachelorette finale aired, the pair constantly seem to be on the move - with fans questioning whether they no longer have day jobs. 'Who will catch the big one?' Tagging Tiwi Island Adventures, the two were seen casting their lines out into the water, hoping for the catch of the day More trips: Since The Bachelorette finale aired, the pair constantly seem to be on the move - with fans questioning whether they no longer have day jobs Taking to Instagram on Sunday, 32-year-old account manager Ali shared another photograph of the happy couple in Darwin. Fans were quick to point out this is yet another out-of-state holiday for the couple in comments underneath the Instagram photo. 'When do you guys work,' one social media user wrote while another said: 'For real? Do you guys even work or?' The couple have taken many trips together - including to Wombat Forest in Victoria and Splash Bar at the Ville in Queensland. She's the glamorous PR queen known for her lavish lifestyle. And it seems that Roxy Jacenko even sleeps in style, if her latest Instagram post is anything to go by. The 38-year-old went makeup free as she slipped into $240 leopard print pyjamas for a pre-bed mirror selfie on Wednesday. She even sleeps in style! Makeup-free Roxy Jacenko slipped into $240 leopard print pyjamas on Wednesday after a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles The mother-of-two flaunted her slender figure in the Neue Blvd sleepwear, pairing shorts with a matching shirt. 'Twelve hours on the ground then back to Melbourne tomorrow,' she wrote in the caption. Roxy has previously worn a black and white polka dot set from the brand, which retails for around $250. Sleeping in style! Roxy has previously worn a black and white polka dot set from the same brand, Neue Blvd, which retails for around $250 On Sunday, Roxy returned to Sydney from a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles, where she was apparently 'shopping for furniture'. At the time, there were rumours she would be attending Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough's wedding in Mexico, which took place on December 8. 'No wedding for me!' the Sweaty Betty PR founder told Daily Mail Australia last week. Furniture hunt? On Sunday, Roxy returned to Sydney from a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles, where she was apparently 'shopping for furniture' for her new mansion in Vaucluse (pictured) Family: Roxy owns the Vaucluse with her husband, former investment banker Oliver Curtis Roxy claimed the purpose of her trip to America was to 'source furniture for [her] new home' in Sydney's Vaucluse, which she owns with husband Oliver Curtis. The couple are currently renovating the $6.5million property, which the publicist snapped up at auction in September. The house is only a decade old but Roxy is nonetheless keen for a makeover. Tara Pavlovic has showed off the results of her new fitness routine. The Bachelor In Paradise star displayed her toned tummy and slimmed-down physique in a leopard print crop top and matching leggings on Wednesday. In a photo shared to Instagram, the 28-year-old nanny also held a medicine ball and appeared to have just finished a gym workout. Scroll down for video 'A month ago I wouldn't have been able to wear a crop top and tights in public': Bachelor in Paradise's Tara Pavlovic has debuted her incredible revenge body - five months after her bitter split with Sam Cochrane. Pictured left: on The Bachelor 2017, and right: on Wednesday In the caption, Tara explained how a month ago she would not have been confident enough to wear activewear in public. 'Focus on YOU. Starting to train has not only helped me feel stronger physically but also mentally,' she wrote. 'A month ago, I wouldn't have been game enough to wear a crop and tights in public but here we are. Find a type of exercise you love and DO IT. A healthy body is a healthy mind. 'The occasional cheeseburger is still totes okay though.' Candid: Tara previously revealed she gained weight during her time on The Bachelor last year Tara previously revealed she gained weight during her time on The Bachelor last year. 'I'd be there bingeing on a whole block of M&M's chocolate,' she told News.com.au of her experience in the mansion. 'I'd already put on enough weight, because there's so much downtime and nothing to do but eat. It wasn't that much but I just looked a lot more flabby. 'I'd be like, "Great, I've just eaten a whole block of chocolate, I'm going to look really hot on my date tomorrow".' Broken engagement: After failing to win Matty Johnson's heart on The Bachelor, Tara went on spin-off series Bachelor In Paradise. She met Sam Cochrane (left) on the show, but it didn't last After failing to win Matty Johnson's heart on The Bachelor in 2017, Tara went on spin-off series Bachelor In Paradise and met Sam Cochrane. However, their relationship fell apart within a few months amid accusations of 'abuse' on both sides. After splitting with Sam in July, the Gold Coast local began dating a man named Nick Shepherdson. He flaunted his impressive abs in a daring sheer outfit while attending Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough's four-day wedding extravaganza in Mexico. And now Christian Wilkins has joked that the secret behind his incredible physique is the alcohol he drank during the trip. The 23-year-old took to Instagram on Thursday to share a throwback photo from his vacation. 'Alcohol dehydration does wonders for the body': Christian Wilkins shows off his washboard abs in a colourful vest in throwback photo from Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough's wedding In the picture, he wore a colourful vest jacket that was unbuttoned to reveal his toned torso and matching shorts that showcased his trim legs. Christian teamed the look with combat boots and a pair of sunglasses. He captioned the photograph: 'Alcohol dehydration does wonders for the bod (sic).' 'And the bride wore a subtle crop top to the welcome drinks': The part-time model made a statement during his time in Los Cabos, almost upstaging the bride and groom The part-time model made a statement during his time in Los Cabos, almost upstaging the bride and groom. The couple held welcome drinks for their guests last Thursday night, and Christian went all out for the occasion. Embracing the hot weather and the bridal theme, the socialite arrived at the dinner in an off-white ensemble by Sydney designer YOUKHANA, which retails for $155. Happy wedding day! For the ceremony itself Christian posed in a sheer shirt and velvet trousers with model Montana Cox Christian paired the two-piece with white underwear that could be seen under the transparent cotton. 'And the bride wore a subtle crop top to the welcome drinks,' he captioned a flawless photo of himself on Instagram. For the ceremony itself Christian posed in a sheer shirt and velvet trousers with model Montana Cox. He paired the look with a wide-brim hat, sunglasses and a Moschino cross-body bag. She recently revealed she 'would have a baby by now' if it wasn't for her career. And Elyse Knowles told fans she's planning a 'big' 2019 while reflecting on all she has achieved this year, on Thursday. The 26-year-old displayed her extreme cleavage in a revealing selfie alongside a reflective post about her dreams and achievements. Extreme: Elyse Knowles flaunts her extreme cleavage in a crop top in reflective post about her successful year... after urging fans to stop admiring influencers and model 'So close to the end of an incredible 2018,' she wrote. 'I can't believe that I have ticked off so many of my dreams that I have had since I first started modelling when I was 10.' She added: 'I hope we are all planning big for 2019 #weCAN #weWILL #watchUS.' In November, the Myer model, who is dating tradie Josh Barker, said she would already have a baby by now if it wasn't for her busy schedule. Plum gig: Elyse has had a whirlwind year since appearing on The Block in 2017, as she was announced as the new face of Myer in July. Pictured at Melbourne cup last month 'If I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, and having the dreams I have, I would have a baby by now,' she told Who magazine. 'I love babies, adore them! I'm always babysitting for friends and I can't wait to have a family.' Last year, she told TV Week that the couple aren't ready to get married just yet, despite being together for five years. Lending her star power for a good cause: In addition to modelling and beauty campaigns, she is also using her platform to do charity work with WaterAid Australia, after touring urban slums in India last month 'I get told to wait by everyone,' Elyse said. 'It's not going to happen anytime soon. We've got so much happening in our lives that we couldn't even think about that.' Elyse has had a whirlwind year since appearing on The Block in 2017, as she was announced as the new face of Myer in July. Smitten! Elyse has also enjoyed success on a personal front as her relationship with tradie boyfriend, Josh Barker, is stronger than ever The following month she was named a national brand ambassador for Aveda. In addition to modelling and beauty campaigns, she is also using her platform to do charity work with WaterAid Australia, after touring urban slums in India last month. In October, Elyse, who has posed for countless magazine photo shoots and regularly documents her glamorous life on Instagram, urged fans to stop admiring social media influencers and models, in an uplifting Instagram post about self-confidence. The model, who is hailed for her girl-next-door appeal, told her followers to 'quit trying to be like everyone else' and to embrace their unique qualities. 'Quit trying to be like everyone else on Instagram': Elyse previously told fans to stop admiring influencers and models and instead celebrate inner beauty 'As I often say in this book, there is only ONE of you in this world,' she began. 'Your unique qualities, look and personality are special and it's important to embrace them.' She continued: 'Quit trying to be like everyone else on Instagram and in magazines and focus on being your best self. It's amazing how beautiful and confident you will feel if you own who you are. Nothing is more exquisite than self confidence.' Elyse often shares glamorous photos with her 800,000 Instagram followers - but in May she shared her concerns about the effects of social media on young people. 'The common issue we have in our generation is that we are surrounded by images that aren't real,' she told Body and Soul. 'Everyone puts their best version of themselves on social media; it's hard but we have to remember that that person doesn't look like that all the time, so definitely don't compare yourself to that person you see on social media.' Imparting wisdom: The model, who is hailed for her girl-next-door appeal, told her followers to 'quit trying to be like everyone else' and to embrace their unique qualities She's got an incredible figure and isn't afraid to show it off. And on Thursday, former Australia's Next Top Model winner Tahnee Atkinson stripped off into in a skimpy bikini, flaunting her best assets. Proving she's her own best advertisement, the 26-year-old posed seductively in a costume from her own brand, Kenni and Kai. She's her own best advertisement! Former Australia's Next Top Model winner Tahnee Atkinson flaunts her incredible figure as she strips down into a skimpy bikini from her own label Sharing a sultry snap to Instagram, Tahnee can be seen standing on a platform on the beach, putting her hands through her hair. The brunette beauty - who won Australia's Next Top Model back in 2009 - shows off a deep bronze tan. Her bikini is khaki in colour and flaunts her underboob. White hot! On Tuesday, Tahnee shared a snap of herself on the beach in a white full piece from the brand, which she teamed with a Polo Ralph Lauren cap Tahnee captioned the post telling her fans to get their orders in quick before Christmas. On Tuesday, Tahnee shared a snap of herself on the beach in a white full piece from the brand, which she teamed with a Polo Ralph Lauren cap. The stunner meanwhile recently enjoyed a trip to the Philippines, where she enjoyed a trip on a boat in a hot pink bikini. 'Peaceful in the Philippines,' Tahnee captioned the makeup free snap. Pretty in pink! The stunner meanwhile recently enjoyed a trip to the Philippines, where she enjoyed a trip on a boat in a hot pink bikini Fancy seeing you here: She enjoyed the trip with model pal, Jordan Barrett, 22 (M) She enjoyed the trip with model pal, Jordan Barrett, 22. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph last month, Tahnee encouraged young women to embrace their figures and bust sizes. 'It is important to embrace your shape, whether you have a bigger bust like me or no bust,' the former TV star explained. 'I am known for my curves,' she added. And the urge comes after Tahnee revealed that she also struggles with body insecurities. 'Girls that have bigger busts really struggle, and I did as well,' she told OK! Magazine. 'But the Bras N Things range [I modelled for] is perfect. They go up to E cups,' she said. She is the PR queen who enjoys the finer things in life. And Roxy Jacenko has taken to her Instagram Story to show off her favourite things. Before flying to Melbourne for a whirlwind business meeting, the 38-year-old shared a snap of her gold Rolex Daytona watch with a green face, worth over $44,000. Luxe for life! PR queen Roxy Jacenko flaunted her crocodile skin Hermes Birkin Bag and her gold Rolex watch during a quick business trip to Melbourne In the caption she wrote, 'green is the new black' tagging luxury watch boutique Kennedy. A few hours later she was done with her meeting and took a quick moment to flaunt her classic Hermes Birkin Bag. In the past, Daily Mail Australia has reported her elegant black crocodile leather had an estimated value of $84,350. 'Green is the new black': Before flying to Melbourne for a whirlwind business meeting, she shared a snap of her gold Rolex Daytona watch with a green face, worth over $44,000 Elegant: A few hours later the PR maven was done with her meeting and took a quick moment to flaunt her classic Hermes Birkin Bag. In the past, Daily Mail Australia has reported her elegant black crocodile leather had an estimated value of $84,350 The black crocodile leather designer tote is not the only bag she owns from the luxury label, in fact Roxy owns more than 30 Hermes Birkins, worth an estimated $1 million. With more than 30 handbags in the growing collection, Roxy has previously defended the accumulation of designer goods. Her simple explanation to OK Magazine earlier this year was: 'Theyre appreciating assets.' Collection: The black crocodile leather designer tote is not the bag she owns from the luxury label, in fact Roxy owns more than 30 Hermes Birkins, worth an estimated $1 million She has previously told Daily Mail Australia that she stores the majority of her bags in a secure location away from her property. Roxy treated herself to the beautiful black crocodile leather tote in 2016. In her then Instagram post, she said, 'I Dreamed of adding this to my @hermes collection.... And then, made it a reality.' Simone Callahan certainly has a unique way of mourning her pet dog, Hachi. Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the 48-year-old yogi shared a video of herself performing both a downward facing dog pose and an upward facing dog pose. Simone said the exercise was in 'honour' of her dog, Hachi, who passed away earlier this week. Scroll down for videos Puppy love: Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, Simone Callahan shared a video of herself performing both a downward facing dog pose and an upward facing dog pose 'Thank you so much for all your beautiful kind words and support, Hachi will be deeply missed and always loved,' she captioned the video. 'Lots of Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog) & Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (upward facing dog) to honour our Gorgeous Pup... Namaste Hachi.' Only days earlier, Simone had announced Hachi's passing in a heartfelt post on Instagram. 'Rest In Peace Hachi, My Best Friend,' she captioned yet another video of herself carrying out a series of yoga poses, this time as Hachi wandered over to her. Tribute: Simone said the exercise was in 'honour' of her dog, Hachi, who passed away earlier this week Emotional: 'Thank you so much for all your beautiful kind words and support, Hachi will be deeply missed and always loved,' she captioned the video 'Miss you and will always have you in my Heart. Gone to soon. Death leaves a Heartache no one can Heal, but Love leaves a Memory no one can Steal.' The mother-of-three has become something of a yoga connoisseur, with her Instagram filled with videos of her impressive moves. In an interview with the Herald Sun back in May, Simone revealed she first began practising yoga while going through a rough patch with her now ex-husband Shane Warne, 49. Practice makes perfect: The mother-of-three has become something of a yoga connoisseur, with her Instagram filled with videos of her impressive moves 'I got into yoga about 15 years ago, when I started going through stuff with Shane and I wasnt really coping,' she told the newspaper. 'Id see pictures of yogis and Id think they look so at peace, they look well and healthy, and thats what attracted me. 'Its a sanctuary... it instills a lot of good in you through the poses and the shifting of energy and not holding onto stuff.' Bhad Bhabie has spent the past week flying all around Australia. And as the rapper, 15, landed in Adelaide on Thursday, it appeared the constant travelling had finally caught up with the teenager. The former 'Cash me outside' sensation kept a low profile as she stepped off the aircraft with her entourage. All rapped out? Bhad Bhabie, 15, keeps a low profile in Adelaide airport as her debut Australian tour draws to a close ...following fan incident in Brisbane Bhad Bhabie, real name Danielle Bregoli, travelled in a comfortable grey tracksuit. In an attempt to refrain from drawing attention to herself, Danielle kept her hood up and famous red hair undercover. She clutched a fleeced blanket as she strolled through the terminal. Danielle will perform at Adelaide's HQ on Thursday night, following shows in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. A big week! The former 'Cash me outside' sensation kept it casual as she stepped off the aircraft with her entourage, including security, dancers and mother Barbara Ann Bregoli Sleepy? Danielle clutched a fleeced blanket as she strolled through the terminal and avoided drawing attention to herself by focusing on her mobile phone Danielle was accompanied by her security and mother Barbara Ann Bregoli, 50, as she landed in Adelaide airport. Barbara avoided being photographed, following an incident with several teenage fans of her daughter in Brisbane airport on Saturday. The incident occurred after Danielle 'refused' to take selfies with the fans after landing in Brisbane following a show at Perth's Astor Theatre. Keeping a low profile! Barbara, 50, avoided being photographed in Adelaide, following an incident with several teenage fans of her daughter in Brisbane airport on Saturday Video footage shows the internet sensation repeatedly walking past the group of 10 Aussie supporters, failing to say as much as hello. As Danielle climbed into her car, Barbara got into a verbal spat with the fans. Referencing Barbara and Danielle's rise to fame on US show Dr Phil discussing their strained relationship, one fan asked: 'Remember when you hated your daughter?' Barbara furiously responded: 'No, I never hated my daughter! Remember when your mother taught you a little respect?' The footage then ends as the fan filming fled back inside the airport terminal. Guy Sebastian released his latest hit Before I Go in November. And it appears Australians aren't the only people loving the track. A fan direct messaged the father-of-two on to let him know about his popularity among fans in the Netherlands. Breaking into the Dutch market! Guy Sebastian (pictured) receives message from fan in the Netherlands who reveals the surprising level of popularity of his new song in the European country The 37-year-old shared the heartfelt message to his 313,000 Instagram followers. 'Yes yes yes! Before I Go is playing on the Dutch radio,' the fan said. 'It was on a program called Repeat or Niet. It means repeat or not and 98 per cent [of listeners] voted repeat.' 'Ninety-eight per cent doesn't happen much - actually, like never': A fan direct messaged the father-of-two to let him know about his popularity in the Netherlands The fan couldn't stop gushing over the result, telling Guy that it is an extremely high percentage of votes. 'Ninety-eight per cent doesn't happen much - actually, like never,' the fan explained. Guy appeared to be stoked with the news, saying that he loved the heads-up from the fan. Earlier this week, Guy spoke about the carols concert he would be hosting with wife Jules to help raise money for victims of domestic violence. Happy Guy! Guy appeared to be stoked with the news, saying that he loved the heads-up from the fan Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Guy said it was especially important this time of year because it was often at towards the end of the year that abusers would use money to emotionally blackmail women to stop them from leaving. 'That's what a lot of men will use against their partners, telling them "good luck buying Christmas presents for the kids",' he said. The couple be joined by Reece Mastin, Sam Moran and Johnny Ruffo among others. Carols in the Crescent will be held in Parramatta Park on Saturday. Style guru Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen will host and judge the second season on Channel Seven's Instant Hotel, it was announced on Thursday. The House Rules star will take up the mantle in 2019, travelling to locations throughout Australia in search of the best Instant Hotel. He will be joined by fellow judge and award-winning designer Juliet Ashworth. Ding, dong! On Thursday, House Rules' Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (pictured) was announced as host and judge on the second season of Instant Hotel in 2019 'Instant Hotel gives you the opportunity to look at where people live and judge for yourself whether it is an experience you want to share in,' Laurence said in a statement on Thursday. He added: 'From a design point of view, it's great fun to be able to see how people's personalities are expressed in an Instant Hotel offer.' On the reality series, which was previously hosted by Luke Jacobz, teams of homeowners compete for the title of best Instant Hotel by staying overnight in one another's rentals and rating their experiences. Hat's off! Style guru Laurence will host and judge the second season on Channel Seven's Instant Hotel, it was announced on Thursday Checking out, checking in: Former Instant Hotel host Luke Jacobz (left), with award-winning designer Juliet Ashworth who will returning to the show in season two in 2019 Teams award points on aspects including the house, location, value for money and the quality of an overnight sleep. In the new season of the show, Laurence and Juliet will go on junkets to lush tropical rainforests, wine country, coastal havens and even the Outback, all in search of the fabled best Instant Hotel. Instant Hotel caused quite a stir for one participant in 2017. 'Instant Hotel gives you the opportunity to look at where people live and judge for yourself whether it is an experience you want to share in,' Laurence said in a statement on Thursday Serena De Comarmond was painted as the 'villain' on the Channel Seven reality show and was mercilessly trolled online by viewers as a direct consequence. Serena slammed the network for supposedly doing nothing to deal with online hate directed at her during the aired season. In an interview with Daily Mail Australia, the 39-year-old said they 'they couldn't give a sh**' when she begged Channel Seven to moderate comments online and did not act when she brought the vile posts to their attention. He added: 'From a design point of view, it's great fun to be able to see how people's personalities are expressed in an Instant Hotel offer' Serena said she was slayed online on a Facebook page set up for the show, with comments labeling her a 'sl*t', 'whore' 'stuck-up snob' and 'bit**'. At the height of the trolling, Serena received a scary death threat at 3.11am via her business contact-us inbox, with the anonymous person claiming they were willing to pay $25,000 to have her killed by drowning. The author described the situation: 'I freaked out and called the cops and they did an IP search. They found out the person was in regional New South Wales, so because of that I was like, "Ok, forget it, it's not like some random around the corner is coming around to kill me". ' 'They couldn't give a sh**!' Instant Hotel star Serena De Comarmond (left) slammed Channel Seven for doing nothing after she claims vile online trolling wasn't taken seriously during last year's season She's due to have her first child next Tuesday. And former Big Brother contestant Skye Wheatley looked as though she is about to pop in her most recent photos uploaded to social media on Thursday. The 24-year-old shared pictures of herself to her Instagram Story, where she can be seen in outfits that accentuate her baby bump. Not long now! Heavily pregnant Big Brother star Skye Wheatley shows off her burgeoning baby bump as she prepares to give birth to her first child with beau Lachlan Waugh next week In the first snap, Skye wore a white off-shoulder dress that hugged her curves. She completed the look with white sneakers and sunglasses as she posed with a friend. Her second look for the day saw her blonde hair perfectly styled in loose curls. How times have changed! Skye announced that she was expecting her first child in June She wore a cropped beige shirt which appeared to be salsa inspired with flared sleeves and a knot in the centre. Skye paired the look with a tight silk leopard-print skirt, rubbing her hand over her stomach for the social media post. The former reality TV star announced that she was expecting her first child in June. In October, she and Lachlan, 30, revealed the gender of their child with a gender reveal party. It's a boy! In October, she and Lachlan, 30, revealed they were expecting a boy at a gender reveal party Opting away from tradition, the couple decided not to cut a cake or pop a balloon, but let off a flare that billowed blue smoke, meaning they will be having a boy. That same month, the couple celebrated their one-year anniversary. Skye is expected to welcome her new bundle of joy on December 18. When it comes to beauty treatments, the types that Kiki Morris gets are definitely not for the faint-hearted. Taking to Instagram Stories on Thursday, the 31-year-old former Bachelor star shared a photo of a vial of her blood after getting a Platelet-Rich Fibrin procedure, better known as a 'vampire facial'. 'My VERYYYY healthy blood,' she captioned the somewhat stomach-churning photo. True beauty: When it comes to beauty treatments, the types that Kiki Morris gets are definitely not for the faint-hearted According to the Revive Clinics website - which is where Kiki had her procedure done - the former reality star underwent the Platelet-Rich Fibrin procedure, which boasts the ability to 'enhance treatments provided by plastic surgeons, dermatologists and dental professionals'. The procedure involves a nurse collecting a sample of the client's blood, which then 'gets separated from the rich platelet plasma in our laboratory thanks to a centrifuge machine'. The plasma then gets injected back into the client's face, rejuvenating cells and promoting the production of collagen. Bloody: Taking to Instagram Stories on Thursday, the 31-year-old former Bachelor star shared a photo of a vial of her blood after getting a Platelet-Rich Fibrin procedure Miracle worker: According to the Revive Clinics website - which is where Kiki had her procedure done - the procedure has the ability to 'enhance treatments provided by plastic surgeons, dermatologists and dental professionals' 'When this is used in plastic surgery, it can fill in facial folds, promote the survival of fat cells and help those who have had facelifts to heal more quickly,' reads the website. It's not the first time Kiki has gotten creative with her beauty treatments. In January last year, she spoke about getting a 'slight facelift' after getting muscle relaxant injections, as reported by Daily Mail Australia. Brave: It's not the first time Kiki has gotten creative with her beauty treatments. In January last year, she spoke about getting a 'slight facelift' after getting muscle relaxant injections Involved: The procedure involves a nurse collecting a sample of the client's blood, which then 'gets separated from the rich platelet plasma in our laboratory' The injections - which are often used to soften the appearance of the jawline and treat teeth clenching - were apparently to relieve the severe headaches she suffered from. 'I'm a notorious jaw clencher in my sleep, so much so I wake up with migraines, and from that it's contributed to my strong jawline,' she wrote on Instagram at the time. Kiki also said the procedure helped her 'achieve a slimmer jaw while correcting my jaw clenching habits'. They had a famously tumultuous relationship in the Love Island villa this summer. But 'loyal' Georgia Steel was there to support close friend Dani Dyer in her hour of need as she attended her co-star's InTheStyle Christmas party at Tonight Josephine in London's Hoxton Square on Wednesday night. The reality star, 20, turned heads in a white tweed strapless mini-dress with black trim and belt detailing as she helped Dani, 22, through a dramatic week of break-ups and make-ups with her boyfriend Jack Fincham, 27. I'm loyal, babe: Love Island's Georgia Steel was there to support close friend Dani Dyer in her hour of need at the InTheStyle Christmas party at Tonight Josephine in London on Wednesday The former dance student showed off her toned and tanned legs by adding height to her petite frame with a pair of towering black strappy heels. Georgia completed her look with a black patent crocodile skin handbag, and draped a long black coat over her shoulders as she left the trendy new bar. The Love Island star wore her long brunette locks in loose curls and accentuated her pretty features with expertly applied make-up. Dani was seen for the first time since revealing all about dumping her reality star boyfriend of six months, as she headed to the bash. Chic: The reality star, 20, turned heads in a white tweed strapless mini-dress with black trim and belt detailing as she helped Dani, 22, through a dramatic week of break-ups and make-ups Leggy lady: The former dance student showed off her toned and tanned legs by adding height to her petite frame with a pair of towering black strappy heels Elegant: Georgia completed her look with a black patent crocodile skin handbag, and draped a long black coat over her shoulders as she left the trendy new bar Pretty as a picture: The Love Island star wore her long brunette locks in loose curls and accentuated her pretty features with expertly applied make-up Dani showcased her toned legs in an orange denim shirt dress, which teased a glimpse of her cleavage as she walked along. She boosted her height with a pair of silver studded black stilettos. Her caramel flecked brunette tresses were styled in a high ponytail while her pretty features were enhanced with metallic shadow mascara and a coral lipstick. The star accessorised with a floral print leather satchel bag. The sighting comes as Dani blamed dumping Jack on 'being in the public eye,' as she also told fans she was 'just a normal girl trying to grow into a woman.' Strut: Dani was seen for the first time since revealing all about dumping her reality star boyfriend of six months, as she headed to the bash Leggy: The reality champion showcased her toned legs in an orange denim shirt dress, which teased a glimpse of her cleavage as she walked along En route: The stylish dress wrapped around her slender waist and flashed her lacy bra It comes after Jack and Dani appeared to confirm their relationship was well and truly back on, as they were snapped looking happier than ever leaving his parents home on Tuesday night. In her candid post she wrote: 'Just want to put all comments to bed. All I can say is Im still 22 trying to get my s*** together and grow into a woman but doing it in the public eye is sometimes hard and scary. 'But arguments are arguments and I love him. I can only please people who want to be pleased and I am having to learn that opinions are just opinions. 'Hope everyone can understand that i am just a normal girl.' Brunette beauty: Her caramel flecked brunette tresses were styled in a high ponytail while her pretty features were enhanced with metallic shadow mascara and a coral lipstick Sassy and stylish: She boosted her height with a pair of silver studded black stilettos Blooming lovely: The star accessorised with a floral print leather satchel bag Ups and downs: Dani and Georgia had a famously tumultuous relationship in the Love Island villa this summer, but eventually emerged close friends It came after Jack and Dani appeared to confirm their romance was well and truly back on, as they were spotted driving away from his family home in good spirits. Dani appeared a little sheepish as she sat in her denim jacket, while Jack was wearing a tweed style coat. Jack also seemed to show that him and Dani were back on happier terms, after he took to Instagram stories to post a video of a delicious stir fry he had cooked for her. More of a blip? Dani posted a statement confirming her split from boyfriend Jack Fincham on Instagram stories last Thursday Confusing: Jack and Dani won the 2018 series of Love Island and won over the hearts of the nation with their wit and humour In the video, he can be heard saying: 'How's the dinner I made you?' leading Dani to reply: 'It's lovely, but I won't be buying Tesco chicken again!' News broke last Thursday that the pair had called time on their relationship, as Dani shared a statement announcing their split via Instagram. Dani and Jack initially fell for each other on the fourth series of ITV2 dating show Love Island that aired this summer. They went on to win the show and had moved in together once filming wrapped and they were back on home soil. She's been detoxing her body during her refreshing retreat after her shocking split from her ex-fiance John Noble. And Vicky Pattison showed off the results of her healthy juice getaway in Portugal as she shared a series of sizzling snaps on her Instagram on Thursday afternoon. The former Geordie Shore star, 31, posed up a storm as she slipped her gym-honed frame into a plunging crochet bikini top with matching briefs by ASOS. Ab-tastic! Vicky Pattison showed off the results of her healthy juice getaway in Portugal as she shared a series of sizzling snaps on her Instagram on Thursday afternoon Turning up the heat, the reality star's periwinkle ensemble showcased her toned midsection and lean figure while serving as a striking contrast to her tanned complexion. The TV personality ensured focus remained on her killer physique as she went without flashy accessories. Flaunting her naturally radiant beauty, Vicky swept her tresses into a loosely-tousled bun to reveal her make-up free visage. Sizzling hot! The former Geordie Shore star, 31, posed up a storm as she slipped her gym-honed frame into a plunging crochet bikini top with matching briefs by ASOS Racy: Turning up the heat, the reality star's periwinkle ensemble showcased her toned midsection and lean figure while serving as a striking contrast to her tanned complexion During her time at the retreat, the star pined for cheese while thanking the retreat organiser. She captioned the image: 'Specifically thinking about extra mature cheddar... The spa at @juicemasterretreats is the most relaxing and beautiful place... I could spend hours in it (lets have it right... I do!) @jasonvale have I told you I love you today?!! Because I doooooo.. Good night everyone and god bless' (sic). Set up by author and motivational speaker Jason Vale, the retreat focuses on juice, yoga and fitness. Brunette beauty Vicky announced her split from John in November, following two years of dating. Well-deserved break: Set up by author and motivational speaker Jason Vale, the retreat focuses on juice, yoga and fitness Getaway: She's been detoxing her body during her refreshing retreat after her shocking split from her ex-fiance John Noble It came after he was said to have been seen kissing two women while on holiday in Dubai. The former flames were reported had been filming a reality show based on their upcoming wedding at the time of the split. The fly-on-the-wall style show was said to be planning on covering all aspects of their nuptials, from food tasting to dress shopping and what would have been their stag and hen parties. A source told the MailOnline at the time: 'She was excited to be starting wedding planning and looking at venues, but life has changed now.' They've reportedly been together for just over a year and he is said to be 'infatuated' with her. And it seems supermodel Elle Macpherson, 51, and her disgraced anti-MMR vaccine boyfriend Andrew Wakefield, 61, are still going strong. The couple, who kept their outfits quite casual, were spotted enjoying a bite to eat at a French bakery while out and about in Miami on Thursday. Two of a kind! It seems Elle Macpherson, 54, and her disgraced anti-MMR vaccine doctor boyfriend beau Andrew Wakefield, 61, headed out to a French bakery in Miami on Wednesday Flattering! It appeared the former supermodel painted her famous visage with only a bit of eye make-up, subtle rouge and rose-tinted lipstick Elle wrapped up warm in a black padded gilet layered over a white long sleeve t-shirt for the outing, as she walked alongside her man. Black leggings highlighted her famously long and lithe legs, while a pair of tan flip flops rounded out her laid-back look. The mother-of-two parted her mixed brunette tresses in the middle and allowed her unstyled locks to fall down past her shoulders. Keeping it cosy: Elle wore a black padded gilet layered over a white long sleeve t-shirt for the outing Carefree! The mother-of-two parted her mixed brunette tresses in the middle and allowed her unstyled locks to fall down past her shoulders Andrew was equally dressed down in a trendy white short-sleeve shirt, light wash jeans and grey sneakers. It seems the once-married father-of-four has managed to swap out his dowdy wardrobe with trendy linens and slim-fit outfits to impress his world famous girlfriend, according to close friends. Earlier in July, DailyMail.com revealed that Wakefield had lost inches off his waistline after replacing his favorite foods with nutrition-packed 'wellness shakes' recommended by healthy-eating Elle. Nothing fancy: Former doctor Wakefield, 61, was equally dressed down in a trendy white short-sleeve shirt, light acid wash jeans and grey sneakers Dining duo: The couple appeared to be locked in deep conversation while they enjoyed their meal Dubious doc: After decamping to the United States, Wakefields cause was adopted by Hollywood stars, promoted by online conspiracy theorists and picked up by populist politicians Wakefield was banned from practicing medicine in his native Britain eight years ago after helping spawn the modern anti-vaccination movement with widely discredited research, claiming the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine causes autism and bowel disease. 'He's obviously a bit infatuated. He did say to me "Brian how did this happen?" I laughed and said I really don't how this happened. I'm just really happy for him.' Brian Burrowes, who edited Wakefield's 2016 documentary In his now notorious 1998 paper, Wakefield - who was born in Berkshire, England - speculated that being injected with a 'dead' form of the measles virus via vaccination causes disruption to intestinal tissue. As a result of his dire warnings, the UK's vaccination rate fell from 92 per cent to 84 per cent by 2002. Wakefield's theory was found to have been based on false evidence and it was retracted by the leading medical journal, The Lancet, in 2010. After decamping to the United States, Wakefields cause was adopted by Hollywood stars, promoted by online conspiracy theorists and picked up by populist politicians. His powerful supporters include Donald Trump, whose inauguration ball Wakefield attended, while leaders of two populist parties in Italy exploited his claims to win an election earlier this year. Brian Burrowes, 48, who edited Wakefield's controversial 2016 documentary Vaxxed, said the former doctor started dating Macpherson after meeting her at an awards ceremony in November. The black tie gala held in Orlando, Florida was to honor alternative medicine practitioners, with Macpherson handing out an award and Wakefield receiving one. 'He sent me a photo of them together asking "do you know who this is?" I said of course I do, I remember Sports Illustrated,' Burrowes told DailyMail.com earlier this year. 'I asked what was happening and he said he was at a ceremony when she sat next to him. They hit it off and then a while later I heard she flew to LA where he was living at the time. Past love: Andrew and his estranged wife Carmel were seen together in 2007 'They also came to Austin together for a couple of days and he introduced her to us. They were very couply, they went for a walk and he showed her around the place. 'He's obviously a bit infatuated. He did say to me "Brian how did this happen?" I laughed and said I really don't how this happened. I'm just really happy for him.' But Wakefield's wife's brother claimed that he only told his estranged wife that their relationship was over in April of that year. His business partner and fellow autism campaigner Polly Tommey insisted Wakefield's 31-year marriage was over long before his chance meeting with 'The Body'. 'He separated from his wife a year ago, whatever anyone else says is false,' Tommey, 51, told DailyMail.com. 'It's too bad but these things happen. Why stay in a marriage when you are unhappy? 'Elle is such a sweetheart. She's got him on these shakes now for his lunch and dinner. He's lost weight, he's swapped his dodgy jackets for linens, he looks fitter than ever. 'He's portrayed as some horrible child killer but it's bulls**t he's just a lovely guy who only wants to protect children. He deserves happiness as much as anyone. 'I actually think she's lucky to have him. They are really, really happy together. He's deliriously in love and we are all thrilled about that.' Following: Andrew and Elle follow each other on Instagram and both posted from Provence, in the south of France in July. Macpherson commented on his post from the childhood home of the post-Impressionist painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Sun's out: Elle also posted emojis on one of his rare instagram posts, also from France. The two have also traveled to Los Angeles, his hometown of Austin, Texas, and Miami, where she lives Wakefield and Macpherson both posted photos from the South of France from their respective Instagram accounts in late June and early July. The Australian has commented under several of Wakefield's photos, writing 'Love those red shutters' under an image of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's childhood home, Chateau Bosc in Albi. Elle is currently based in Miami, having relocated from London with her sons by her ex partner Arpad 'Arki' Busson - Flynn, 19, and Aurelius, 14 - to live with her second husband, the billionaire real estate developer Jeffrey Soffer. They married in 2013 at the exclusive Laucala Resort in Fiji but divorced four years later. Bristol Palin might regret picking a fight with her Teen Mom co-star Farrah Abraham. The daughter of politician Sarah Palin appears to have infuriated the reality star by comparing her to the 'drama of Jerry Springer'. 'I've left the Jerry Springer s***, Abraham shot back to a TMZ reporter while catching a flight back to Los Angeles on Thursday. 'I think Bristol isn't prepared to be on national television, or on Teen Mom.' And she said Bristol was jealous of her. 'I think she just wants to a Farrah Abraham herself, like many of the other women who say they just hate me,' she said with a calm confidence. 'They think the worst of me, but then they only wish that they could have what I have.' War of words: Farrah Abraham hit back at Bristol Palin, right, for comparing her to Jerry Springer drama; 'I think Bristol isn't prepared to be on national television, or on Teen Mom' The war of words all started on a recent episode, when Palin ranted about the way she has been portrayed on the reality show. 'All they want with my little segment each week is some fake fill-in Farrah Abraham/Jerry Springer BS.' The 28-year old daughter of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin thinks the show should focus more on her work ethic as a single mother who juggles parenting three kids by herself. But Farrah was unimpressed. 'I mean she doesn't matter to me and nor does Teen Mom,' she said. How it all began: 'All they want with my little segment each week is some fake fill-in Farrah Abraham/Jerry Springer BS,' Palin griped recently about Teen Mom OG and MTV; she is pictured with her three children Tripp (l) and daughters Sailor (c) and Atlee (r) Drama: 'I think she just wants to a Farrah Abraham herself, like many of the other women who say they hate me,' Abraham said; she is pictured with her daughter Sophia in September 2018 She then went on to take her own swipe at the show, and the network, that helped launched her career as a TV personality. 'The only thing that Teen Mom's and MTV use my name for is to get attention for the show, and not pay for the publicity of the show.' She ended by offering some words of advice for Palin. 'I wish her the best and I don't think she's prepared for Teen Mom; I think she should just leave if she can.' Palin joined Teen Mom OG this season after Abraham left the show. Aquaman (12A) Verdict: Ocean-going nuttiness Rating: A loopy combination of superhero movie, Bond film, the legend of King Arthur, David Attenborough's Blue Planet and for those old enough to recall ITV's World Of Sport, the Saturday afternoon wrestling from Brent Town Hall, Aquaman is like the weirdest dream you will ever have. It is also at least 25 minutes too long, thereby accomplishing the neat trick of being both a blast and a bore. It begins with Nicole Kidman, looking even more airbrushed than she did the other week on Graham Norton's sofa, washing up on some rocks next to a lighthouse. She is Atlanna, Queen of Atlantis, but she's not too grand for a spot of inter-species romance. She duly settles down to a life of domestic bliss with Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison), the lighthouse keeper, and soon they have a son, Arthur. Arthur, as if you need telling, is otherwise known as Aquaman, and this sixth instalment of the so-called DC Extended Universe is the first time he has carried a movie on his own [File photo] He grows up to become the kind of hairy tattooed hunk who, had he not been heir to the mighty underwater realm of Atlantis, might well have ended up grappling with Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy on World Of Sport. Arthur, as if you need telling, is otherwise known as Aquaman, and this sixth instalment of the so-called DC Extended Universe is the first time he has carried a movie on his own. He is played by Jason Momoa, who could probably carry a Range Rover on his own. Momoa was even born in Hawaii, for heaven's sake, and looks as if he has been waiting all his life to be cast as Aquaman. By the time Arthur/Aquaman reaches maturity and boy, what maturity! his mother has left the lighthouse and returned to look after her deep-sea interests. But there's a brouhaha brewing in the briny. It is also at least 25 minutes too long, thereby accomplishing the neat trick of being both a blast and a bore [File photo] Atlanna is sent into exile, presumed dead, which leaves her younger son, Arthur's half-brother, in charge. He is a peroxided rotter called Orm (Patrick Wilson), who is in league with a grumpy king called Nereus (Dolph Lundgren). Orm is determined to unite the seven underwater kingdoms and declare war on the 'surface world'. Until now, Orm has just been strutting around beneath the waves mobilising his troops, or if you prefer, flexing his mussels. But, contrary to the advice of his vizier Vulko (Willem Dafoe, no less), he is bent on war as revenge on humanity for polluting the oceans. That doesn't sound entirely unreasonable if you're half-man, half-fish, but Aquaman can't let him wreak havoc, and predictably needs only a sacred trident (guarded, even more predictably, by a fearsome sea monster) to stop him. The other King Arthur had his Excalibur, and this Arthur has his giant golden pitchfork. There is also some love interest, of course, in the form of Amber Heard's flame-haired warrior Mera, King Nereus's daughter [File photo] All this is stretched out to well over two hours, but it's easy enough to see why director James Wan was swept away on a tide of his own ambition. After all, why not have an entirely pointless but impressively filmic excursion to the Sahara desert, if your whopping budget (a reported $200 million) extends to it? And there are some truly exhilarating action sequences, including a chase across the terracotta roofs of a picturesque Italian town that looks rather like Wan's audition to direct a Bond film. Atlantis, too, is gorgeously realised. If Las Vegas remodelled by Donald Trump were plunged underwater, and we live in hope, this is what it might look like. There is also some love interest, of course, in the form of Amber Heard's flame-haired warrior Mera, King Nereus's daughter. The script, by Will Beall and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, works hard on the jokey banter between her and Aquaman, and for that matter between Aquaman and everyone else, which in truth feels a little forced, like a DC movie trying to emulate a Marvel movie. But there is plenty here to admire and enjoy. Too much, really. If only Dafoe's wily vizier had whispered 'less is more' into the director's ear. Mortal Engines (12A) Verdict: Dystopian nonsense Rating: Mortal Engines is another crazy fantasy, set well over a thousand years in the future. It is based on Philip Reeve's dystopian novel for young adults about cities that come to life and eat each other, in a bonkers expression of 'municipal Darwinism'. First on the menu in this 'age of the great predator cities of the west' is a small Bavarian mining town, which presumably tastes of bratwurst, and is gobbled up by a voraciously greedy London. Mortal Engines is another crazy fantasy, set well over a thousand years in the future [File photo] The basic set-up could hardly be madder, but at least there's an old-fashioned goodie and baddie. The former is Hester Shaw (Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar), an orphan scarred both figuratively and literally by life, and more especially by evil Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), a twisted archaeologist who also murdered her mother. The story chronicles Hester's tireless quest for revenge, but to believe in it, you have also to believe in the notion of 'traction cities' and 'static cities' being pitched against one another in mortal combat. And I didn't, frankly. Still, the involvement of Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson, who was co-writer and producer, helps to explain the grandeur of some of the special effects, and the outlandish design choices, which have the law-enforcers of the far-off future dressed like Victorian policemen. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (PG) Rating: Verdict: An endurance test Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is another disappointment, a monumentally long Marvel animation which is at least 30 per cent less witty than everyone involved seems to think it is. It riffs on the idea that anyone 'lucky' enough to be bitten by a radioactive spider can be Spider-Man not just Peter Parker and our upwardly mobile hero is mixed-race schoolboy Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), son of an African-American cop and a Hispanic nurse. But if ever a film could be described as being pleased with itself, this is it. At only a whisker under two hours, it feels like an endurance test long before the end [File photo] A strong voice-cast also includes Hailee Steinfeld as the girl of Miles's dreams, Mahershala Ali as his uncle, Liev Schreiber as his evil nemesis, and Nicolas Cage as a black-and-white Spider-Man from the world of Forties film noir. There are some nice touches such as a cameo from Spider-Man's creator, the late Stan Lee, in cartoon form and the actual animation is often wonderful. But if ever a film could be described as being pleased with itself, this is it. At only a whisker under two hours, it feels like an endurance test long before the end. Lizzie (15) Rating: Verdict: Claustrophobic drama More than 125 years since she (allegedly) slaughtered her father and stepmother with an axe, Lizzie Borden remains one of America's most notorious killers. On this side of the Atlantic, however, I'm not sure how much is really known about her. Lizzie fills in some of the gaps in our knowledge, but somewhat prejudicially, in that it depicts its title character as a woman quite understandably driven to the end of her tether. It is a slow-moving, intense, rather claustrophobic drama, but with two enthralling performances at its heart. Whether all this is an accurate telling of the Lizzie Borden story I'm not sure, and I don't suppose the filmmakers can be sure either [File photo] Chloe Sevigny plays Lizzie, and Kristen Stewart the family's Irish maid, Bridget. The empathy between the pair grows and even becomes sexual, as they are driven together by their loathing of Lizzie's rich, tyrannical father (Jamey Sheridan). He regularly rapes Bridget and there is some suggestion that he has abused Lizzie, too. A controlling, joyless bully, he presides over an utterly wretched New England household filled with women who fear him, though Lizzie is the only one who dares defy him. Sevigny doesn't make her particularly likeable, although there is no doubt where this film's sympathies lie. The Borden menfolk (not just Lizzie's father, but also his brother) are irredeemably nasty, almost panto-like in their villainy, while the women are all depicted as victims, even though Lizzie is given good reason to hate her stepmother (Fiona Shaw). Of course, there is hatred, and there is savage murder. The film presents the latter as a downright reasonable consequence of the former, to the extent spoiler alert for readers outside the United States that it feels like a relief when Lizzie is acquitted. Whether all this is an accurate telling of the Lizzie Borden story I'm not sure, and I don't suppose the filmmakers can be sure either. But as a depiction of stuffy New England society in 1892, and of a crime that belonged very much to its time and place, it's worth seeing. Bird Box (15) Rating: Verdict: Good cast, daft plot From the miserable past to an even more miserable future, the Netflix film Bird Box is set in a post-apocalyptic America where something is compelling people to kill themselves. If they don't see it, whatever it is, then they stay alive. The Netflix film Bird Box is set in a post-apocalyptic America where something is compelling people to kill themselves [File photo] Sandra Bullock leads a decent cast, which also includes John Malkovich and Tom Hollander, but this horror-thriller is rarely scary and only fitfully suspenseful, largely because the being behind all this malevolence is never seen by us, either. Despite Bullock's best efforts as, blindfolded and shrieking ominous warnings, her character rows two young children down a mist-shrouded river, it all becomes just a little bit silly, puncturing the suspense altogether. This year's rightly-acclaimed film A Quiet Place covered similar ground much more memorably. She gave birth to a baby girl a month ago. And on Thursday night, Diane Kruger, 42, showed off her post-pregnancy figure in an eclectic ensemble as she headed to an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The actress arrived at the CBS Studio in New York bare-legged in tiny black shorts and a black tailored blazer cinched with three black leather belts. Wow factor: She gave birth to a baby girl a month ago. And Thursday, Diane Kruger, 42, showed off her post-pregnancy figure in an eclectic ensemble as she headed to The Late Show She wore a black top under her jacket and stepped out in perspex heels with black tips and nude ankle straps. Her bobbed blonde hair was swept back from her face and she was made up with a little brown eye-shadow and black eye-liner along with rosy blush and red lipstick. Kruger carried a black tasseled purse and accessorized with tiny pendant earrings. Always stylish: The German-born actress arrived at the CBS Studio in New York bare-legged in tiny black shorts and a black tailored blazer cinched with three black leather belts Kruger wore a black top under her jacket and stepped out in perspex heels with black tips and nude ankle straps. She carried a black tasseled purse and accessorized with pendant earrings Natural beauty: The pretty blonde wore her bobbed hair swept back from her face and was made up with brown eye-shadow and black eye-liner along with rosy blush and red lipstick During her visit to the talk show, she soke about her new film Welcome To Marven. 'Were performing on a green screen, which is great and terrifying all at once because theres no other actors a lot of the time,' she explained. 'Most of my scenes are with a tennis ball and I was totally freaked out because, you know how do I profess my undying love to a tennis ball?,' Diane continued. 'And then, I realized, the tennis ball will always love me. Thats what I thought anyway, it cant talk back.' Meanwhile, the German-born actress welcomed her new daughter with boyfriend Norman Reedus whom she met while making the film Sky in 2015. He was seen arriving separately to support his partner on The Late Show accompanied by a female assistant. The couple had maintained a public silence about the birth but during publicity for her movie, Kruger let slip to Extra that their child was female. Asked about becoming a first-time mother, she responded: 'It's very rewarding. She's very little but I'm tired. I feel like a superhero right now.' Her man: Kruger welcomed her new daughter with boyfriend Norman Reedus who arrived separately to support his partner on The Late Show, accompanied by a female assistant Kruger is busy promoting her new movie Welcome to Marwen. She stars with Steve Carell, Leslie Mann, Janelle Monae and Eiza Gonzalez in the fantastical drama that is based on a true story. At the film's premiere this week, she revealed to E! about her plans for her first Christmas as a mom. 'I'm just going to be home,' she explained. 'It's my baby's first Christmas so I just really want to be on a couch with her and my man and just realize how bloody lucky I am.' Kruger told E! she's spending the holiday at home, explaining: 'It's my baby's first Christmas so I just really want to be on a couch with her and my man and just realize how bloody lucky I am' Back to baby: Kruger and Reedus were snapped heading home together after the show Holiday cheer: On the show, Stephen Colbert poured the actress some rum, now that she's done with her pregnancy Memory lane: The actress chat about her past role in 2004's Troy and her current turn in Welcome to Marwen Olivia Colman played snaggle-toothed Nanny McPhee in a test run of Emma Thompsons new stage musical about the stern-looking but soft-hearted nursery nurse. Thompson, who played the role on the big screen, told me Colman, whos been picking up awards and major nominations for her deliciously unconventional portrait of Queen Anne in The Favourite, was wonderful in the title role when the first act of her show was workshopped. Thompson adapted Christianna Brands Nurse Matilda stories and wrote the lyrics to go with music composed by Scots songwriter Gary Clark. Emma Thompson (left) said Olivia Colman (right) was wonderful when the stage version of Nanny McPhee was workshopped The black-clad nanny arrives, uninvited, at the home of the Brown family, ready to rid recalcitrant children (and their parents) of their worst habits. Rory Kinnear was cast as Mr Brown, and Lily James played Evangeline, the kitchen maid, for the session. It was very helpful to see how to work the book, Thompson said of the exercise. Next May, she and Clark along with producer Eric Fellner from Working Title will hold a music workshop to see how the spine of the music is and take it from there. She laughed and said its as long, or an even longer process than a film . . . it takes forever. Thompson said she would direct the production, perhaps in 2020 or 2021, because if someone else does it, Ill interfere and Ill be annoying. She cautioned that we shouldnt think ahead to Colman playing Nanny McPhee in the West End. Who knows what shell be doing when we get round to the bloody thing?! But she conceded it would be heaven if she were available. Thompsons currently co-producing the socially alert romance Last Christmas that director Paul Feig is shooting in London, starring Game of Thrones Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding from Crazy Rich Asians, for Universal Pictures. Gifted Giles will clock on for TWO roles in shake-up of Miller classic The multi-talented Giles Terera, who won a top Olivier award for his performance as Aaron Burr, the vice president who shot Alexander Hamilton in the hip-hop musical of the same name is moving on to a different beat. He has joined American director Rachel Chavkins Old Vic production of Arthur Millers play The American Clock, set during the Great Depression. Giles Terera, pictured at the Whatsonstage Awards, has joined the Old Vic production of Arthur Miller's The American Clock The playwright worked on several versions of the play about Moe Baum, a once wealthy businessman, and his family, who lost their fortune in the Wall Street Crash. Terera will play one version of Baum (there will be three), as well as the part of Arthur Robertson, a savvy tycoon who survives the downfall and acts as narrator. The London-born actor told me Chavkin had been given permission to pull the play around and shake it up. Chavkin said: At the centre of the play is an American family, modelled on Millers own white Jewish family. She continued: In thinking about the play in the light of 21st century America, it felt important to be expansive with the face of this American family. She said her production would feature three incarnations: A white Jewish family, a southeast Asian family and a black family. The cultural background changes, but the challenges of keeping food on the table and maintaining family bonds amid stress are shared. Composer Justin Ellington and sound designer Darron West will create a contemporary score, based on the period music Miller wrote into the script of a production at the National Theatre (which I saw). Terera (left) will play one version of Baum (there will be three), as well as the part of Arthur Robertson, a savvy tycoon in the play. Pictured (left to right) are Terera, Cleve September, Rachel John, Jamael Westman and Leslie Garcia Bowman at the 2019 WhatsOnStage Awards Terera said he was keen to work with Chavkin and at the Old Vic, both for the first time. The actor said the narrator questions why people behaved the way they did, and what caused it. Hes always asking: Could this happen again? It does speak very much to now, he added. The large company includes Clare Burt, Josie Walker, John Marquez, Golda Rosheuvel, Fred Haig and Jyuddah Jaymes. The play starts previewing on February 4. Watch out for... Tamara Lawrance beating heart of the three-part adaptation of Andrea Levys The Long Song. Ms Lawrance displays a sly sense of humour as the one-time plantation house slave who finds herself at the beck and call of Barbie-esque mistress Caroline Mortimer played by Hayley Atwell. Both actresses are powerful enough to give substance to characters who came across as overly comedic in Levys novel. Im impressed by the dramas tone and the company that also includes Lenny Henry, Jack Lowden, Jordan Bolger, Leo Bill and Sharon Duncan-Brewster. The Long Song starts on BBC1 on Tuesday, December 18. Emily Mortimer plays the grown-up Jane Banks in Mary Poppins Returns, with Ben Whishaw in the role of brother Michael. Emily Blunts magical nanny has come back to save the pair as much as she has Michaels three children. During filming, Mortimer commuted between her home in Brooklyn which she shares with her actor husband Alessandro Nivola, son Samuel, 15, and daughter May, eight and the Poppins set. She said she hadnt wanted to take the children out of school and relocate them to London during the shoot. Emily Mortimer with her husband, Alessandro Nivola and their daughter, May, at Mary Poppins Returns European Premiere at The Royal Albert Hall in London on Wednesday Emily has a fondness for the 1964 original that starred Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins and Glynis Johns as Mrs Banks (mother of Jane and Michael). She loves a line Mrs Banks sings: Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group theyre rather stupid, she recited, eyeing me and Whishaw as she did so. Ive seen Mary Poppins Returns twice, and been charmed by it. Later, when I see Emily, her husband and daughter at the Poppins party at the V&A, she ushers us all into a makeshift kitchen. Im probably not supposed to know, but I wanted to ask her if its true that shes adapting Nancy Mitfords The Pursuit Of Love and Love In A Cold Climate for the BBC (each a three-part mini-series). She reluctantly admits that she is. Emily Blunt (pictured) plays magical nanny Mary Poppins in the film She and Nivola make a formidable duo. They run King Bee Productions from their brownstone townhouse. Initially, they set it up to produce the Doll & Em comedy series (which Mortimer starred in). Now theyre making films such as To Dust, starring Matthew Broderick, and developing different TV series for eOne Studios with Rachel Weisz, Steve Coogan and Woody Harrelson. We like to keep busy, Emily said, adding that her husbands the star, pointing out that he just won a BIFA award for his performance in Weiszs film Disobedience. Nivola has landed the lead in a $50 million Warner movie in which he plays Tony Sopranos mentor Dickie Moltisanti. Tonys nine years old in the film, the actor explained. Penned by Sopranos writer David Chase, its set in the Sixties, against the backdrop of the race riots in New Jersey. As hes speaking, a security guard pops his head in and asks us to take the East Wind back to the party. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jack the cheery lamplighter in Mary Poppins Returns, paid careful attention to his surroundings on set. He watched how director Rob Marshall set up intimate moments and the sumptuous musical numbers. Mirandas probably better known as the creator of the multiple prize-winning theatre phenomenon Hamilton he wrote the score and lyrics and played the founding father Alexander Hamilton both off and on Broadway. Lin-Manuel Miranda plays Jack the cheery lamplighter in Mary Poppins Returns The actor, producer, composer and cultural visionary was observing Marshall with interest because, Im equipping myself to direct my own movie musical. Sometime in 2020 Miranda will direct a film version of an early work by Jonathan Larson, who wrote Rent. Miranda will make a picture based on Larsons Tick, Tick . . . Boom!, an autobiographical piece about an artist who wants to create something of worth before he hits the age of 30. Larson died aged 35, days before Rent opened in downtown New York. It went on to win a Tony for best musical . . . and a Pulitzer prize. Mary Poppins Returns is set in the Thirties during the Great Slump. Miranda said its no accident given the state of the world that movie musicals are coming back (he mentioned La La Land, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and A Star Is Born). Screen musicals were prevalent in the Thirties and Forties, when folk needed cheering up, same as now. They perform a cathartic function for us, he said. Miranda opens the new Poppins film with a number called Underneath The Lovely London Sky which cleverly embraces the audience. He said its the equivalent of Oklahoma! opening with Oh, What A Beautiful Morning, which was revolutionary for 1943. It didnt start with a big bang and a line of chorus girls. It lets the audience breathe and relax, he said, adding that the secret of the number is that Jacks singing about being under the lovely London sky but that sky is grey . . . rainy. Miranda (pictured in character) opens the new Poppins film with a number called Underneath The Lovely London Sky which he said is the equivalent of Oklahoma! opening with Oh, What A Beautiful Morning That tells us were with a character who will guide us to the light. Miranda moved his family wife Vanessa Nadal and son Sebastian, now four to England for ten months while he worked on Poppins. By the time they left, we knew we were having our second child. Francisco was born in February on the same day the couple watched an early cut of the film in Rob Marshalls office and is now ten months. Francisco is my Mary Poppins baby, Miranda told me proudly. In The Heights, an early Miranda work, will film next year with Jon Chu, who made Crazy Rich Asians, directing and Miranda producing. A film version of Hamilton is a long way off, Miranda told me, although a movie of the original Hamilton cast was filmed over three days in 2016 and fully edited by the shows director Thomas Kail. But, its locked away in a vault. It will eventually get a cinema release, he said; but no time soon. Our goal is to let as many people see Hamilton as a stage show in theatres, in as many cities around the world, as we can find. And when we feel the time is right, the idea is to get the film out of the vault and put it in cinemas. Even further off is the possibility of a proper film treatment of Hamilton. Miranda stressed that there are no plans for an adaptation any time soon. Meanwhile, he can be found lighting lamps and kicking up his heels with Emily Blunts Mary Poppins from next Friday. Watch out for... Emily Blunt, indescribably delightful as Mary Poppins in sequel Mary Poppins Returns. Blunt called the spit-spot nanny a superhero. Well, shes magical, she can fly, she can slide up the stairs, she shrugged. Its her job to infuse you with childlike wonder. Thats certainly a superpower. She based her accent on Princess Margaret and golden age actress Rosalind Russell. Russell wasnt British, so the voice is a combination of Rozs energy and the Princesss imperiousness. It felt very true to Mary, said Blunt, nominated for a Golden Globe for the role. Danny John-Jules reportedly sparked another row with his professional partner Amy Dowden during rehearsals for the final of Strictly Come Dancing. The actor, 58, was said to have been given the cold shoulder by other contestants on Thursday, leading him to blame the Welsh dancer, 27, for 'ruining his reputation'. Back in November, Danny left the show under a cloud of scrutiny after it was reported he had been issued with a 'final warning' by show bosses over his 'bullying' behaviour towards Amy. Feud? Danny John-Jules reportedly sparked another row with his professional partner Amy Dowden during rehearsals for the final of Strictly Come Dancing A source told The Sun: 'Danny has been vocal to members of the production team that Amy has really 'turned him over' and he blames her for them not being booked on the Strictly Tour in January. 'Danny has been really angry, he turned up and was ignored practically by everyone and was furious with Amy- to say the atmosphere is tense between them is an understatement. 'They dont talk, they dont look at each other and when they arent being forced to dance together they are on separate sides of the room.' Frustrated: The actor, 58, was said to have been given the cold shoulder by other contestants on Thursday, leading him to blame the Welsh dancer, 27, for 'ruining his reputation' Angry? The source continued to say the Red Dwarf star has been vocal to other celebrities at rehearsals, telling them he thinks Amy has 'deliberately tried to damage his reputation The source continued to say the Red Dwarf star has been vocal to other male celebrities at rehearsals, telling them he thinks Amy has 'deliberately tried to damage his reputation. MailOnline has contacted Danny's and Strictly's representatives for comment. Last month, Amy was left in tears when she appeared without Danny on the show's spin-off It Takes Two following their eviction. It came after reports claimed Danny refused to appear on the show after launching into a tirade at the Strictly judges, branding them 'imbeciles' upon his exit. He is claimed to have declared 'I should have won' and even called the judges 'imbeciles', with a source telling The Sun: 'Danny lashed out at the judges calling them imbeciles and told friends and family he would have won the show.' Addressing his absence, Zoe had told fans: 'Sadly I'm afraid Danny has decided not to join us tonight but I'm delighted to have the gorgeous Amy here tonight.' Amy was then seen breaking down in tears and reaching for tissues as she was played a montage of her and Danny's time together in the competition. Controversial: Back in November, Danny left the show under a cloud of scrutiny after it was reported he had been issued with a 'final warning' over his 'bullying' behaviour towards Amy Despite reports of tension between the couple, she paid credit to Danny and insisted she was 'so proud' of his performances. Amy said: 'I'm so proud of Danny. Watching his journey - he is such a talented performer and I know and believe he belongs on the stage.' Danny hit the headlines during his stint on the show after it was alleged he left Amy in tears after he 'repeatedly shouted and swore' in their training session during their final week in the competition. Flying solo: Amy then appeared without Danny and broke down in tears on It Takes Two as she spoke to host Zoe Ball about their time in the competition together Danny was reportedly issued with a 'final warning' by show bosses over his 'bullying' behaviour, but Amy was quick to dismiss the claims - stating the pair had a 'minor disagreement' that was resolved. Danny later claimed he is 'the victim of a vendetta' in an interview with The Sun. 'I'm a man who says what he means and means what he says, my conscience is clear over all of it. It seems to be turning into a vendetta. 'For some reason, some don't want me to be successful on Strictly', he added. Amid a tumultuous time for Michelle Williams, the Destiny's Child diva covers Amare magazine's latest issue. 'Im so grateful to be on the cover of @AmareMagazines Second Anniversary Believe Issue!' she wrote on Instagram with a picture of the magazine cover. Williams, 38, has made headlines in the year's final month, as she earlier announced her split with fiance, pastor Chad Johnson, 40; and on Wednesday, took a leave of absence from her role as Erzulie in Tony-winning Broadway production Once On This Island at the advice of her doctors. Scroll below for video Glam: Amid a tumultuous time for Michelle Williams, the Destiny's Child diva, 38, covers Amare magazine's latest issue The shoot for the publication, which marked the second anniversary Believe issue, was documented on Chad Loves Michelle, her OWN show with her former fiance Johnson. In the clip, Williams said she had jitters about the photo shoot, as it was her first since leaving a mental health facility she checked into earlier this amid her battle with depression. 'This is my first photo shoot since I've been out of the hospital and I'm a little nervous about my weight loss, if I'm gonna look too thing, and just wondering, what does my countenance show?' said Williams, the latter referring to her facial expression. She added: 'After everything I've been struggling with, after my depression, after being hospitalized, feeling so low, this is a triumphant moment for me, it is a time to celebrate.' Turbulent time: Williams has made headlines in the year's final month amid a number of developments in her life The lady in red: Michelle wore a red dress with a long train in part of the shoot She added, 'There's still work to be done, it's going to be a daily thing, but I feel really, really good.' Amare founder George Rojas complimented the starlet on the 'perfect fit' of the dress she was wearing as she struck a series of poses in a luxe mansion. In between shots, Michelle chuckled and said, 'I cannot be goofy in this dress.' Focused: The songstress has been bravely battling depression throughout the year Poised: In the clip, Williams said she had jitters about the photo shoot, as it was her first since leaving a mental health facility she checked into earlier this amid her battle with depression At that point, her now-ex-fiance, Johnson, entered the room and embraced her. He said in an off-camera segment, 'One of the biggest things that attracted me to Michelle is that she is a career woman, that she does have goals and ambitions and dreams of her own and she goes for it. So I love seeing her do her thing.' In the segment, Michelle complimented Johnson for the massive support he showed her in her professional endeavors. 'Some men wouldn't be so supportive and Chad is,' she said, 'and I'm so thankful and pray that I can be just as supportive of him when he makes his new moves.' Williams took to Instagram Stories last week and revealed that the pair had parted ways on seemingly-amicable terms. She wrote: 'I still remain fearless. I guess I still remain single. Things didn't work out. The healing that needs to take place is a must! I don't wanna destroy another relationship. Blessings to him, his family and ministry,' adding the hashtag, '#FEARLESS.' A couple featured on TLC's reality show 90 Day Fiance claim they're getting death threats and are quitting the series. Eric and Leida Rosenbrook appeared in a social media video this week, shared on a fan Instagram account, in which Indonesian native Leida, 29, sobs as Eric, 41, sits behind her. In the clip, Leida says the pair won't be returning for another season of the show after receiving death threats from viewers, People reported Thursday. 'Didn't sign up for this': Eric and Leida Rosenbrook appeared in a social media video this week claiming they're getting death threats and are quitting the TLC reality show 90 Day Fiance The backlash appears to have been sparked by Leida telling Eric's daughter Tasha, 19, from his first marriage to leave the apartment she shares with her father. 'How can people wishing me die?' Leida asks in the video. 'This is not fair. I'm a human, too I didn't sign up for this. We didn't know they're going to portray us that bad.' She added: 'We put our lives in danger. We put our lives on the frontline. This is not fair.' 'This is not worth it at all. We are never going to do this again I swear to God, once the contract is done, we will reveal everything that they didn't on the show.' Drama: Indonesian native Leida, 29, sobs in the clip as Eric, 41, sits behind her. 'We put our lives in danger. We put our lives on the frontline. This is not fair,' she wails Family clashes: The backlash appears to have been sparked by Leida telling Eric's daughter Tasha, 19, from his first marriage, to leave the apartment she shares with her father According to Radar Online, Leida also posted to Instagram that the couple, who live in Wisconsin, would not be continuing on 90 Day Fiance but has since deleted the post. InTouch reported that the Rosenbrooks called police about the threats they were receiving. An officer was dispatched because Leida received threatening messages through social media,' the local Chief of Police Mark Schauf told InTouch. 'The officer gave them advice and counseled them on what they could do to ensure their safety.' Schauf added that the couple asked for a police presence at their home 'because of their profile on 90 Day Fiance.' The mother of rapper Bhad Bhabie 'snapped' at a group of teenage fans waiting to meet her daughter at in Brisbane last weekend. And on Friday, the 15-year-old Internet sensation - whose real name is Danielle Bregoli - managed to avoid another confrontation before a flight to New Zealand. The Gucci Flip Flops hitmaker stayed under the radar at Adelaide Airport, dressing for comfort in a red and black tracksuit and covering her head with a white blanket. In a Bhad mood? Cash Me Outside rapper Danielle Bregoli, 15, looked tired at Adelaide Airport on Friday - after her mother 'snapped' at teenage fans wanting photographs last weekend Danielle went makeup free for the occasion and appeared rather tired after a busy few days on tour in Australia. The sighting comes after Danielle's mother Barbara Ann Bregoli, 50, 'snapped' at a group of fans waiting to meet her daughter at Brisbane Airport last Saturday. Footage showed the teenage musician repeatedly walking past the group of about 10 fans, failing to say as much as 'hello'. As one person shouted to Danielle that they had travelled seven hours to take a photograph with her, they were once again ignored. Keeping a low profile? The Gucci Flip Flops hitmaker stayed under the radar this time around, dressing for comfort in a red and black tracksuit and covering her head with a white blanket 'I've never seen somebody be so rude to their fans!' one fan then shouted. As Danielle climbed into a car, Barbara responded angrily: 'Excuse me? You've never seen someone be so rude? Have you been on as many flights as we have?' The person replied: 'It's not hard for her to say hi or take a photo.' Continuing to defending her daughter, Barbara said: 'You were told by security no photos, but you still followed [to the car]. How did you know we were here? It's a hard knock life! Danielle went makeup free for the occasion and appeared rather tired after a busy few days on tour in Australia 'How did you know what time we were leaving? Oh, your friend told you? Really... I don't believe that. Really? Okay.' The fan then reference Barbara and Danielle's previously strained relationship, which was featured during an episode of Dr Phil in 2016. 'Remember when you hated your daughter?' they said. Barbara snapped back: 'No, I never hated my daughter! Remember when your mother taught you a little respect?' Meltdown: The sighting comes after Danielle's mother Barbara Ann Bregoli (right) 'snapped' at a group of fans waiting to meet her daughter at Brisbane Airport last Saturday The footage ended with the fan fleeing back inside the airport terminal. Barbara later referenced the incident on Instagram, saying: 'Sad how little snot noise girls tell me how to parent when their mothers were too busy sucking d**k than teaching their daughters how to respect an adult. 'Apparently little kids think I really care what they think. Don't come at me with disrespect.' She's one of Hollywood's most fashionable stars. And Amy Adams proved that once again on Thursday as she made her way to Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles. The 44-year-old American Hustle star looked quite chic as she entered the studio. Chic chick! Amy Adams demonstrated her style prowess once again on Thursday as she made her way to Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles A pair of Madewell jeans with unique black stripes running down the outside of each leg emphasized her lithe legs while a pair of black leather high-heel booties added a few inches to her 5ft4in frame. She bundled up in a classic black trench, under which she layered a forest green blouse that she partially tucked into her trousers. Her only accessory appeared to be a stylish black leather tote with a metallic accent. One of a kind? A pair of Madewell jeans with unique black stripes running down the outside of each leg emphasized her lithe legs while a pair of black leather high-heel booties added a few inches to her 5ft4in frame Beauty! Amy wore a stunning green blouse, and parted her silky auburn tresses on the left, and let them fall in waves down past her shoulders She parted her silky auburn tresses on the left, and let them fall in waves down past her shoulders. Dark eye-liner, subtle blush and pale rose lipstick ensured the five-time Oscar nominated actress was ready for her appearance on the show. It looked as though the mother-of-one was in good spirits, as she even waved to fans as she passed by on her way to the stage door. High spirits! It looked as though the mother-of-one was in good spirits, as she even waved to fans as she passed by on her way to the stage door Ready to win? And why not, when her latest film, Vice, has just garnered an impressive six Golden Globe awards And why not, when her latest film, Vice, has just garnered an impressive six Golden Globe awards. The yet to be released Vice, the untold story of Dick Cheney's rise to power at George W Bush's side, received the most nominations of all motion pictures - six total - including nods in the Best Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy category and one for Christian Bale in the Best Performance By An Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy category. The film will hit theaters in the U.S. on Christmas Day. Amy was also nominated for her work in the HBO series Sharp Objects. She's a big screen star with a flair for fashion. And Olivia Munn showed off her adventurous dress sense again on Thursday, when the 38-year-old slipped into a distinctive orange jumpsuit. The star of The Predator flashed her white lace bra beneath the outfit as she entered West Hollywood hotspot Craig's for dinner. Orange you glad you came? Olivia Munn showed off her adventurous dress sense again on Thursday, when the 38-year-old slipped into a distinctive orange jumpsuit A black belt cinched the he X-Men: Apocalypse actress' slender waist, and on her feet she wore a pair of simple black pumps. Olivia wore her dark, wavy tresses loose and cascading over her shoulders. But the standout of the outfit was definitely the visible underwear, which showed off the Oklahoma native's ample cleavage. Peep show! But the standout of the outfit was definitely the visible underwear, which showed off the Oklahoma native's ample cleavage Well-heeled: A black belt cinched the X-Men: Apocalypse actress' slender waist, and on her feet she wore a pair of simple black pumps Earlier in the day, animal lover Olivia dropped off some gifts for dogs in need at the Wags And Walks shelter. The Hollywood starlet donated toys, leashes, chew toys and beds to the rescue organization. Munn was joined by Santa Claus for the good deed. Giving back: Earlier in the day, animal lover Olivia dropped off some gifts for dogs in need at the Wags And Walks shelter She's not afraid to walk her own path, calling out Hollywood sexism before the #MeToo movement. And Megan Fox stepped out solo in a literal sense on Thursday, doing some holiday shopping in Los Angeles on her lonesome. The 32-year-old Transformers star turned heads in ripped jeans and white boots for the outing. Walking her own path: Megan Fox stepped out solo in a literal sense on Thursday, doing some holiday shopping in Los Angeles on her lonesome On her upper half, the Jennifer's Body star wore a white T-shirt. She covered her raven tresses with a beanie and a leopard print jacket was slung over her left arm. Fox recently addressed why she's hesitant to speak out about her experiences with harassment and sexism in Hollywood, even in light of the #MeToo era. The mother-of-three explained why she didn't think her stories would be taken seriously and why she's chosen to stay quiet about her specific experiences in an article with the New York Times, out Friday. 'I just didn't think based on how I'd been received by people, and by feminists, that I would be a sympathetic victim,' the star admitted. Boot-scooting baby: The 32-year-old Transformers star turned heads in ripped jeans and white boots for the outing Trailblazer: Megan called out sexism in the industry years before the upheavals of the #MeToo movement; a move which many say unfairly stilted her career. Seen here last month Megan called out sexism in the industry years before the upheavals of the #MeToo movement; a move which many say unfairly stilted her career. In a 2009 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, she revealed some unsavory behavior from Transformers director Michael Bay. 'The first time I ever met him, I was 15 and I was an extra on Bad Boys II,' Fox told the late night host. 'We were shooting this club scene, and they brought me in, and I was wearing a stars and stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat, and six-inch heels. And they took me to Mike and he approved it. 'And they said, "You know, Michael, she's 15, so you can't sit her at the bar and she can't have a drink in her hand." So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet. And that's At 15. I was in 10th grade. So that's sort of a microcosm of how Bay's mind works.' Warning: Content below is explicit Amber Marchese is standing by her husband James after he made a series of controversial remarks on Twitter in defense of Kevin Hart, and the homophobic remarks the comic made years back that led him to pull out of hosting the 2019 Oscars. 'My husband is the kind of man who wants to stand against injustice,' the 41-year-old reality star told US Thursday. 'He sees what happened to Kevin Hart as an injustice. The one-time Real Housewives of New Jersey star said her spouse 'sees a cultural moment when people with honest views on topics continually get silenced or villainized.' Scroll below for video Standing by: Amber Marchese, 41, is standing by her husband James, 49, after he made a series of controversial remarks on Twitter in defense of Kevin Hart, and the homophobic remarks the comic made years back. They were snapped in 2014 in NYC On Monday, James, 49, took to the social media site to defend Kevin Hart in the wake of the comic's exit from the Academy Awards after his own anti-gay remarks circulated following the announcement he would host. Among the offensive tweets included a 2011 tweet from the comedian that read, 'Yo if my son comes home & try's 2 play with my daughters doll house I'm going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice "stop that's gay."' While Hart apologized to the LGBTQ community 'for [his] insensitive words from [his] past,' the father-of-two - to son Corbin and daughter Isabella, with Amber - made clear he agreed with Hart's 2011 sentiments. James wrote: 'So true NO STRAIGHT MALE wants his son to be gay. A gay son is a curse that takes away your #family #traditions #heritage #lgtbiq is a parents nightmare that destroys families. Ruins holidays like #Christmas #KevinHart we support you! #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder.' Perspective: Amber said James's remarks were 'his way of standing up for anyone who has an unpopular opinion that has cost them respect or opportunity' Rant: James expressed his beliefs via Twitter after Hart's exodus from the Oscars Amid push-back from others on the social site, Jim said he was not a bigot, before launching into a detailed rebuttal aimed at his critics: 'First: bigots are intolerant of others opinions. The comments below prove you are all bigots. Second, not one comment from a straight male who has sons.' He followed up in saying that 'Europe is importing muslim men because #lgtbiq has caused a crisis due to lack of children being born' then delivered a divisive opinion regarding gay people. 'For those pushing #LGTBIQ agenda,' Jim wrote, 'show me a single credible study which links genetics. Being gay is a physical act derived in sexual deviance by definition. He continued: 'No one is born gay it is a lifestyle choice like being vegan. Get over it,' wrapping up in quoting President Donald Trump in writing, 'You are #FakeNews.' Amber said that James' remarks were 'his way of standing up for anyone who has an unpopular opinion that has cost them respect or opportunity,' adding, 'I agree that no one should be silenced, punished, or attacked for their personal beliefs, even when in opposition of our own.' Family shot: The couple and their children shared a shot from an Italian vacation Outspoken: The one-time reality star has often took to social media to proffer his views on parenting and politics Amber differed from her husband in saying that 'everyone on God's green earth has the right to basic human dignity and equality. NO ONE should ever be made to feel less than anyone, in any way. 'We are all equal and perfectly made by God,' she wrote. 'I understand how hurtful his tweet is to many and I am deeply sorry for any pain that this tweet has caused. Everyone deserves to be loved and I believe that you have a Father in heaven who loves you.' She also differed from James' remarks that being gay 'is a lifestyle choice,' as many LGBTQ people have told her 'that it has been a burden' and 'that life would have been easier if they had been straight.' She said that James 'wouldn't want a child to have to carry that burden' and 'would love his child even if he or she was attracted to the same sex. 'It is far more important to Jim and I, as parents, for our children to be honest, loving, respectful, honorable, trustworthy human beings above all, rather than any other quality to possess.' She encouraged critics of her husband's sentiments to 'flood his Twitter feed with nothing but love and understanding! Show him how beautiful, kind, patient and loving everyone in the LGBTQ community can be.' Advertisement She's often pictured on the beach while on her annual Cowell Christmas trip to Barbados - and Lauren Silverman has been spending her time reading all the gossip on MailOnline. Simon's girlfriend, 41, flashed her phone screen after she ran after little Eric, four, on the beach while looking stunning in a teal bikini and she has some pretty good taste in reading material. No doubt she was reading up on the stories about herself and checking out her sensational holiday wardrobe, which is always a hit with her fans. App-y family: Simon Cowell's bikini-clad girlfriend Lauren Silverman, 41, checked out her holiday snaps on MailOnline while walking along Barbados beach with her son Eric, four, on Thursday And it seems as though Lauren wasn't yet ready to put the app down as she headed for a walk with her youngest son, as she failed to close it before going on her way. No doubt she was keen to quickly pick up where she left out as soon as she could as she was engrossed in what she was reading. The socialite, 41, looked incredible as she showed off her phenomenal figure in a teal halter-neck bikini with a head-turning plunging neckline. Evidently in high spirits, Lauren beamed as she splashed around in the surf during a rare outing without music mogul Simon. On another warm day on the idyllic Caribbean island, the brunette kept her eyes shielded behind a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses, while her hair was neatly tied in a loose bun. Lauren was on hand to keep a watchful eye over boisterous Eric, who wore a pair of swimming goggles as they ventured into the shallow water. Life's a beach! All eyes were on Lauren in her stunning teal bikini as she paddled through shallow waters That's my boy: The brunette stayed close to Eric as they ventured into the water during their latest appearance on the idyllic Caribbean island Upbeat: Evidently in high spirits, Lauren beamed as she splashed around in the surf during a rare outing without music mogul Simon Making a splash: Eric let his hair down in the shallow water during his latest appearance in Barbados Lauren has been dating Simon for six years, and the pair had quite a tumultuous start to their romance. In 2013, it was revealed the television honcho had been in a relationship with his then-best friend Andrew Silverman's wife, after pictures emerged of them kissing on a yacht. The pair then welcomed their son Eric in February 2014. They named him after Simon's late father, who died in 1999. Keeping it simple: On another warm day on the idyllic Caribbean island, the brunette kept her eyes shielded behind a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses, while her hair was neatly tied in a loose bun Simon has just recently wrapping filming for The X Factor this year. He narrowly missed out on his act winning the series, as Scarlett Lee was beaten to the title by Dalton. His family's appearance out in Barbados comes after Simon revealed he is hoping son Eric will take over his music empire as he gets older. Good times: Eric sported a life-jacket as he prepared to take to the water on Thursday I've got you: The youngster held his mother's hand as they walked close to the shoreline Cute: Eric was dressed appropriately in a pair of vibrant red Bermuda shorts while walking alongside his mother Good vibes: Lauren grabbed a beach towel in preparation for another relaxing day on the sandy beaches close to their Barbados hotel Don't mind me: But the American was hard to miss as she made her way across the beach on Thursday afternoon Main man: Simon Cowell was also seen on his jet-ski as they relaxed during their latest day in Barbados Here we go: The music mogul was seen cruising across the water on Thursday Fans were delighted to see Eric appear on the judging panel on The X Factor, with Simon joking during an interview on This Morning: 'I'm getting him ready to do my job.' Simon also touched on whether he had 'left it too late' to become a father - he welcomed son Eric when he was aged 55 - and admitted he no longer dwells on that thought. 'If you have asked me earlier I would have said I might have left it a little too late,' said Simon, before quickly adding: 'Whatever happens happens.' My boy: X Factor judge Simon kept a close eye on Eric as they relaxed on the sand High jinks: The playful youngster had some fun with his famous father, who caught the eye in a pair of green beach shorts Watch yourself: Simon pointed a reprimanding finger at his young son Here we go: Eric looked ready for a swim as he raced across the sand in his life jacket and goggles Wading in: The youngster was seen splashing around in the shallow surf She dressed to impress when she attended the British Fashion Awards with fellow bandmate Jade Thirlwall on Monday. And Little Mix's Leigh-Anne Pinnock turned up the heat as she showed off her incredible abs in a bra top to perform with the band on the Graham Norton show, set to air this Friday. Leigh-Anne, 27, owned the stage in a snakeskin blazer and trousers while performing Think About Us from the band's new album LM5. Strut your stuff: Leigh-Anne Pinnock (centre) showed off her abs in a bra top and snakeskin outfit as she joined her bandmates for a racy performance on the Graham Norton show Beauty: The hit girl group never compromise on their glamour and looked every-inch the pop queens as they laughed on the red sofa, (L-R) Leigh Anne, Perrie, Jesy and Jade Leigh-Anne left her shoulder-length locks loose and sported plenty of glamorous makeup for the appearance on the hit BBC show. Her bandmate Perrie Edwards, 25, oozed glamour in a strapless orange top and leather trousers. She accessorised the bold look with plenty of chunky gold jewellery and opted for 90's style crimps in her long blonde tresses. Work it: The band owned the stage as they sang along to Think About Us from their new album LM5, as they showed off their synchronised moves Style: The band all worked their own take on statement 90s outfits with flared trousers, platform trainers and crimped hair Jesy Nelson, 27, sported a black bra and long-sleeve fishnet jumper which covered up her many tattoos but showed off her figure. The beauty also opted for the leather look in a pair of patchwork red trousers which she wore with platform black trainers. She left her raven hair loose and looked sensational with her sultry eye makeup and gold hoop earrings. Fellow bandmate Jade Thirlwall, 25, commanded attention in a tiger-print jumper complete with gloves over flared denim jeans and pristine white trainers. The beauty left her hair in loose waves around her shoulders and accentuated her stunning features with heavy eye makeup and a slick of nude lipstick. The band made their appearance alongside actor Jason Momoa, Strictly Come Dancing judge Darcey Bussell and comedian Bill Bailey who spoke to host Graham Norton about their latest projects. Another brother of Cherif Chekatt, the man believed to be responsible for the Strasbourg attack, has been detained in Algeria, Le Parisien reports. The French newspaper said that the man, Sami Chekatt, 34, was also currently on an S-Fiche radical watch list and was wanted for terrorist association. Cherif Chekatt's older brother had left France a while before the Tuesday night attack in Strasbourg. Investigators are looking into whether Chekatt was helped by family members to carry out the deadly shooting spree. Police also detained two other brothers, their parents and a friend. French police on Thursday night confronted and fatally shot the man believed to be responsible for killing three people and wounding many more in Strasbourg. Emmerdale stars flooded social media with congratulations after actress Michelle Hardwick broke the news she had got engaged to producer Kate Brooks. Michelle, 42 and best known for her role as Vanessa Woodfield, popped the question to Kate Brooks, 41, just two months after they went public with their romance. Danny Miller and Adam Thomas led the tributes from Emmerdale co-stars while Coronation Street star Bhavna Limbachia also celebrated the engagement. So happy: Emmerdale stars flocked to congratulate Michelle Hardwick and producer Kate Brooks... as actors Danny Miller and Adam Thomas led the tributes on Friday Danny, who plays Aaron Dingle, enthused: 'Amazing news, amazing couple! Congratulations you two!' (sic) Ryan Thomas' brother Adam, who stars as Adam Barton, tweeted: 'Hahaha yesss congrats babe xx.' (sic) Emily Head, who plays Rebecca White in the soap, also threw her support behind the couple's happy news when she simply penned three heart emojis. Good pals: Danny Miller and Adam Thomas led the tributes from Emmerdale co-stars while Coronation Street star Bhavna Limbachia also celebrated the engagement Karen Blick, who has the onscreen alter ego Lydia Hart, commented: 'Congratulations! Lovely news xx.' Sandra Marvin, who plays Jessica Grant in the long-running British soap, used the applause, smiley face and heart emojis to congratulate her co-stars. Former Emmerdale star Jonathan Wrather, who played Pierce Harris from 2016 until 2017 on the soap, paid his tribute to the duo. Pictured: Danny, who plays Aaron Dingle, enthused: 'Amazing news, amazing couple! Congratulations you two!' (London, January 2018) He penned: 'Oh wow!!.. congratulations to you both. Amazing.' Having portrayed a same-sex couple in Coronation Street's controversial storyline, Bhavna Limbachia extended her congratulations to the stars. She wrote: 'Ahhh congratulations to you both!' Meanwhile, Tony Maudsley of Benidorm LIVE fame wrote: 'Awwwwww that is brilliant news. So happy for you both, babes xxx.' (sic) Good spirits! Ryan Thomas' brother Adam, who stars as Adam Barton, tweeted: 'Hahaha yesss congrats babe xx' (London, November 2017) The stars posted their congratulations after Michelle announced her engagement to girlfriend Kate Brooks, two months after confirming their relationship. The actress broke the news across social media on Wednesday evening sharing a shot of herself and Emmerdale producer Kate. The pair could be seen drinking celebratory champagne, as Michelle revealed that she proposed after meticulously arranging the special moment for months. Sweet: The announcement comes shortly after she revealed has revealed their relationship in a sweet Instagram post for National Coming Out Day, which takes place annually on October 11 She tweeted: 'So after months of planning, I popped the question!!! She said yes!!!' The announcement comes shortly after she revealed has revealed their relationship in a sweet Instagram post for National Coming Out Day, which takes place annually on October 11. The actress took to the social media platform to share two black and white pictures of herself with her girlfriend. She captioned the pictures with: 'It will all work out in the end [rainbow emoji] #behappy #nationalcomingoutday #loveislove @thekatebrooks.' Kate previously worked on Emmerdale as an assistant producer, but was promoted to shared title of producer with series script producer Laura Shaw after boss Iain MacLeod left to work on Coronation Street. Michelle's fans were quick to gush over the sweet Instagram post and the loved-up couple. One person said: 'Aww you two. It certainly worked out for you both. Lots of love and hugs xx.' Loved-up: Michelle took to the social media platform to share two black and white pictures of herself with her girlfriend Smitten: She captioned the pictures with: 'It will all work out in the end [rainbow emoji] #behappy #nationalcomingoutday #loveislove @thekatebrooks.' A different fan put: 'Beautiful photo of a gorgeous couple and gorgeous Ladies. Always be proud of who you are.' Another show watcher commented: 'Aw you guys! So b****y adorable. Happy national coming out day to the both of you!' While a different fan added: 'You have no idea how much I needed that- thank you for being amazing... so much love for you both .' Talented duo: Kate previously worked on Emmerdale as an assistant producer, but was promoted to shared producer with series script producer Laura Shaw after Iain MacLeod left Michelle had previously posted pictures of herself with Kate for months before announcing their relationship. The actress revealed in September that the two had been on a romantic holiday to San Francisco as they posed in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. She also shared a picture of herself and Kate preparing for the TV Choice Awards, an event that saw her co-star and on-screen girlfriend Emma Atkins win Best Soap Actress for her role as Charity Dingle. Holiday time! Michelle had previously posted pictures of herself with Kate for months before announcing their relationship Michelle was previously married to Rosie Nicholl, but announced their separation just 24-months after exchanging vows. She has since revealed that despite their amicable split in February 2017, she is still good friends with the music teacher. Michelle's character Vanessa has recently embarked in a relationship with Charity on Emmerdale, with the couple affectionately nicknamed Vanity by fans. Soap storyline: Michelle's character Vanessa has recently embarked on a relationship with Charity on Emmerdale, with the couple affectionately nicknamed Vanity by fans And the storyline has helped several soap watchers, with the actress revealing she has been contacted by fans with their own stories. Talking to The Sun, she said: 'The reaction has been incredible. 'But I think what's great is this is two women who are in their early 40s and one of them is discovering her sexuality and who she is. 'It's lovely and it's refreshing and it happens in real life so it's great to be telling that story.' She is no stranger to pulling off bold looks on the red carpet. And Zendaya proved why she's a fashion queen as she dressed to the nines for the launch of jewellery brand Ame in Los Angeles on Thursday. The actress, 22, turned heads as she rocked a quirky, voluminous Marc Jacobs orange and pink dress complete with plenty of layered ostrich feathers, before poking fun at her OTT look on Instagram later that evening. Glamorous: Zendaya proved why she's a fashion queen as she dressed to the nines in the orange and pink number for the launch of jewellery brand Ame in Los Angeles on Thursday She paired her glamorous number with pink Christian Louboutin heels and accessorised with a mini orange handbag. The style icon scraped her brunette locks into a tight bun and opted for dewy skin and subtle eye makeup to accentuate her natural beauty. Zendaya showed off the brand's gold drop earrings as she snapped pictures of the chic jewellery displays. Wow thing: The actress, 22, turned heads as she rocked the voluminous Marc Jacobs orange and pink dress with pink Christian Louboutin heels Not serious: The Greatest Showman actress poked fun at herself as she took to Instagram to share a picture of herself in the statement dress with caption: 'The invitation said cocktail casual' Getting into it: Zendaya showed off the brand's gold drop earrings as she snapped pictures of the chic jewellery displays Later that evening, The Greatest Showman actress poked fun at herself as she took to Instagram to share a picture of herself in the statement dress with caption: 'The invitation said cocktail casual'. The starlet's career has gone from strength to strength after her initial launch to fame as part of Disney Channel's Shake It Up in 2010. She then went on to star in a host of television shows before coming second on the US show Dancing With The Stars in 2013. Stunning: The style icon scraped her brunette locks into a tight bun and opted for dewy skin and subtle eye makeup to accentuate her natural beauty Rising: The starlet's career has gone from strength to strength after her initial launch to fame as part of Disney Channel's Shake It Up in 2010 More recently Zendaya appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming and the all-singing all-dancing film The Greatest Showman alongside Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron in 2017. She won the Teen Choice Award earlier this year for Best Actress and Best Liplock after her passionate embrace with Zac in the film. More recently, the beauty lent her voice to the children's film Duck Duck Goose and played Meechee in the animated version of Smallfoot while also filming for Spider-Man: Far From Home which will release next year. She's returned to the UK following a hugely successful debut run as Declan Donnelly's co-host on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! But Holly Willoughby already seemed to be longing to go back to Australia as she posted an adorable family snap from her time Down Under to her Instagram page on Friday morning. In the photo shared with her 4.8million followers, the TV presenter, 37, sent a sweet smile to the camera while holding her youngest child, Chester, four, in front of the iconic Sydney Opera House. 'This feels like a dream ago...': Holly Willoughby already seemed to be longing to go back to Australia as she posted a snap from her time Down Under to Instagram on Friday morning The This Morning host's other two children, Harry, nine, and Belle, seven, stand next to their doting mother as they peer across the harbour towards the iconic landmark. Holly shared the photo with the caption: 'Australia... you are beautiful and brilliant! This feels like a dream ago...' Showcasing her chic sense of style, the TV personality wore a yellow sundress with floral details for the cute picture. Dream job: The TV presenter, 37, enjoyed a record-breaking debut stint on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! (pictured with winner Harry Redknapp and co-host Declan Donnelly) Family fun: Holly uploaded a snap last week, posing inside the jungle camp alongside her three children Holly stepped in to co-host the show with Dec this year, after Ant McPartlin stepped away from the limelight to focus on his drink and drug addiction. Yet ITV bosses reportedly want Holly to make a return to the Australian jungle next series, after this year's proved to be the most successful yet, garnering the show its highest ratings in its entire history. A peak audience of 12.1million viewers tuned in to watch Harry Redknapp crowned the King of the Jungle on Sunday night's finale, capping off weeks of record-breaking numbers for ITV's 16-year-old ratings juggernaut. Family affair: Holly was joined by her brood over in Australia and revealed they were being home-schooled while overseas Lovely: Holly was joined by her three children on set last week, as she shared a sweet behind the scenes photo of the trio in personalised t-shirts Loving it: Holly's parents, Brian and Linda, also joined her Down Under, with the Willoughby clan making the trip to Australia one to remember Holly arrived back home to London on Thursday in style after having paid 19,000 for the Penthouse in the Sky. The Im A Celebrity star touched down in Heathrow at 12.05pm after a 25-hour Etihad flight from Australia with her three children and parents. Holly's television producer husband Dan Baldwin flew home a few days earlier. The TV presenter was welcomed by her sister Kelly, 40, who was waiting for her in the terminal building, and the pair gave squeals of delight as they saw each other. Penthouse in the Sky: Holly flew home in style on Thursday after having paid 19,000 for her flight accommodation with Ethiad (pictured) The good life: Holly and her family enjoyed use of this private bar (pictured) in the three room luxury suite which transported her home to London Flying in style: The living room has a 32in flat-screen LCD TV, leather double sofa and two fold-away dining tables, with bespoke meals prepared by an on-board chef The star then hugged her niece before chatting exclusively to MailOnline, and said: 'I had a great time. It was amazing. It was an adventure thats for sure.' When asked about whether she hoped to return next year, she just smiled coyly. 'Now Im just going to go home,' she said. 'It will be nice to see some Christmas trees. 'You dont really feel it is Christmas when you are out there. So Im going to get home and get the tree up. She has been busy promoting her new country album Story Of Me. But Megan McKenna took a break from her musical ventures to concentrate on her makeup brand Mouthy by Megan as she led a beauty masterclass at The Shankly Hotel in Liverpool on Thursday. The former TOWIE star, 26, oozed confidence in a glamorous fur coat, teamed with a statement red lip. Many talents: Megan McKenna led a beauty masterclass for her makeup brand Mouthy by Megan at The Shankly Hotel in Liverpool on Thursday Showcasing her style savvy ways, the country music star slipped her slender physique into a matching black skirt, with a ankle-grazing hemline. Putting her best fashion foot forward, the TV personality donned a pair of trendy trainers to complete her ensemble. The blonde beauty enhanced her stunning visage with lashings of mascara and a bright red lipstick. With her makeup brand's goody bag in hand, the reality TV star styled her luscious locks into a voluminous straight hair 'do. Stylish: The former TOWIE star, 26, oozed confidence in a glamorous fur coat, teamed with a statement red lip Radiant: Showcasing her style savvy ways, the country music star slipped her slender physique into a matching black skirt, with a ankle-grazing hemline Megan's outing comes after she was accused of spending the night with TOWIE's Adam Oukhellou weeks before her make or break holiday with ex Mike Thalassitis. The star reportedly got close to him after they partied at London's Libertine nightclub with his sister Yazmin Oukhellou and her boyfriend James Lock in September. It's claimed their romantic tryst came as Megan's ex Mike was away filming for raucous reality TV series Ex On The Beach. According to The Sun, the former Celebrity Big Brother star hopped across town to party with Adam and their pals shortly after attending a film premiere in the capital. All in the details: Putting her best fashion foot forward, the TV personality donned a pair of trendy trainers to complete her ensemble A source told the publication: 'They all decided to continue the night at Adams place which was where he got close to Megan. 'At the time Megan was single and free to spend her days getting to know whoever she wanted. 'Pals close to Megan said she had fun that night and there was definite chemistry between her and Adam but nothing ended up developing between them.' A representative for Megan has since denied the accusations, claiming that the pair partied together at Adam's house but did not become intimate. She is swept up in rumours she's dating Cara Delevingne. But Ashley Benson was riding solo when she headed out to grab a lunch to go in Studio City, of Los Angeles, California on Thursday. The Pretty Little Liars actress, 28, displayed her well-earned abs in a black crop top and casual elastic waistband sweatpants. She's a Pretty Little (Liar) movie star! Ashley Benson exhibited her fantastic abs in a crop top as she grabbed lunch to go in Los Angeles on Thursday Cara Delevingne's rumoured girlfriend was hampered with a small wardrobe malfunction as she flashed a glimpse of briefs before she readjusted her pants. Ashley allowed her natural beauty shine through as she only applied light touches of make-up to enhance her stunning movie star looks. Layered up, the actress wore a anorak open over the crop top but she added shades to keep the winter sun out of her eyes. Keep it casual: The Pretty Little Liars actress, 28, displayed her well-earned abs in a black crop top and casual elastic waistband sweatpants Whispers of Ashley's romance with Cara started to swirl in April when the pair were seen holding hands together during a late night in New York City. Rumours reached fever pitch when the showbiz duo were both seen sporting a thin ring on their engagement fingers. The 13 Going On 30 star refused to confirm or deny her relationship with the model-turn-actress in an interview with PEOPLE. Keep warm! Layered up, the actress wore a anorak open over the crop top but she added shades to keep the winter sun out of her eyes Ashley insisted she always keeps her romances 'very private' because she thinks that it is 'better' for them to stay out of the limelight. 'I think it's the best way in any relationship. I've always been very private about them, and I think it's just better,' she told the publication. The actress admitted it was 'hard' to keep out of the limelight following her success on teenage mystery drama Pretty Little Liars. She added: 'I mean its hard, I dont know, you kind of cant get away from that if youre in the public eye. I just kinda try to keep myself as private as possible.' She has been busy on the promo trail for new movie Nona, which she has produced alongside her husband Michael Polish. And stepping out for the feature film's premiere in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, Kate Bosworth looked effortlessly chic as she sported double denim. The actress, 35, looked nothing short of stylish as she nailed the tricky trend, pairing together a smock-style blouse and flared jeans. Fashion savvy: Kate Bosworth looked effortlessly chic as she sported double denim while stepping out for the premiere of new movie Nona in Los Angeles on Tuesday Showcasing her savvy sense of style, Kate opted for denim on denim, with her light-wash jeans boasting a high waist and flattering flared leg. She tucked her blouse, complete with puffed sleeves, into the waistband of her trousers to accentuate her slender frame and boosted her getup with a pair of embellished heels. The beauty added a pop of colour to her ensemble by toting a small leopard print handbag on one arm and appeared to pare things back on the beauty front. Highlighting her natural beauty, Kate favoured a minimal make-up look that comprised of a dewy complexion, rosy cheeks and a slick of shimmering pink lipstick on her lips. Chic: The actress, 35, looked nothing short of stylish as she nailed the tricky trend, pairing together a smock-style blouse and flared jeans She parted her tresses in the middle, pinning them back behind her ears in a sleek low ponytail. Appearing in high spirits ahead of the premiere, Kate flashed a smile on her arrival before playfully posing and making a peace sign with her fingers. The Young Americans star has been celebrating the release of her latest movie, Nona, produced by Kate - she also features in the film as a detective - and her husband Michael Polish under their company Make Pictures Productions. The movie highlights the issue of sex trafficking in Central America and tells the story of a girl from Honduras who meets a boy that promises he can get her safely to America to reunite with her mother. Labour of love: The Young Americans star has been celebrating the release of her latest movie, Nona, produced by Kate and her husband Michael Polish (above) under their company Make Pictures Productions He, however, isn't able to deliver on that promise and she instead faces a perilous journey. Speaking about the movie, Kate has said: 'Michael and I are devoted to Nona, and we feel the subject matter is more crucial than ever.' She and Michael celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in August. They married in Phillipsburg, Montana in 2013 - two years after they first met. The pair were introduced on set of movie Big Sur, which Polish had directed and Bosworth starred in, shortly after her split from Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard in 2011. She has retained her title of the highest paid model in the world for the second year running. And Kendall Jenner showed off her stylish flair as she joined Kate Beckinsale at the Fleetwood Mac concert at The Forum in Inglewood, California on Thursday. The supermodel, 22, looked glamorous in a cream-coloured fur coat which complemented her all white ensemble, while the actress, 45, opted for a similar look. Looking good, ladies! Kendall Jenner showed off her stylish flair as she joined Kate Beckinsale at the Fleetwood Mac concert at The Forum in Inglewood, California on Thursday The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star flashed a peek of her flat stomach in a cropped white top which she teamed with high-waisted trousers. Wrapping up, the brunette opted for an opulent faux-fur lined coat, and completed the look with a glamorous slick of make-up. Hot on her heels was Kate, who opted for a similar statement coat, which was effortlessly draped on her shoulders. Striking: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star flashed a peek of her flat stomach in a cropped white top which she teamed with high-waisted trousers Work it: The supermodel, 22, looked glamorous in a cream-coloured fur coat which complemented her all white ensemble Silver lining: The reality star added to the glamour with a pair of dazzling silver earrings and pins in her hair Beauty: Wrapping up, the brunette opted for an opulent faux-fur lined coat, and completed the look with a glamorous slick of make-up Model on form: All eyes were on Kendall as she strutted along in a pair of matching white ankle boots Youthful: Hot on her heels was Kate, 45, who opted for a similar statement coat, which was effortlessly draped on her shoulders The Pearl Harbor star toted her belongings in an oversized black handbag, and pulled her brunette locks up in a flirty ponytail. Meanwhile, Kendall's appearance comes after she was named as 2018's highest paid model for the second year in a row, according to Forbes. The star, who raked in $22.5million, completely annihilated the competition, with second place Karlie Kloss earning nearly half on $13 million. Gorgeous: Kendall's sleek white coat had a leopard-print lining on the back Fashionista: Continuing her style run, Kendall toted her belongings in a small white handbag Glamorous: Kate offset her fluffy coat with form-fitting black trousers and a sleek shirt Killer heels: Kate boosted her figure in a pair of stylish heeled boots Date night: Also out and about was Brody Jenner and his wife Kaitlynn Carter Chic: Kaitlynn looked stylish in a furry beige jacket, white-washed jeans and beige boots Finishing touches: Kaitlynn accessorised with a small black handbag Rock on: Brody put his hand up in the sign of the horns as the pair walked to the venue 2018 HIGHEST PAID MODELS 1. Kendall Jenner - $22.5 million 2. Karlie Kloss - $13 million 3. Chrissy Teigen - $11.5 million 3. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley - $11.5 million 5. Cara Delevingne - $10 million 5. Gisele Bundchen - $10 million 7. Gigi Hadid - $9.5 million 8. Bella Hadid - $8.5 million 8. Joan Smalls - $8.5 million 10. Doutzen Kroes - $8 million Advertisement While Kendall has walked some of the world's top shows including Burberry, Versace and Fendi, her impressive salary have come from her hefty contracts with a slew of top brands. The elder Jenner sister has posed this year as an ambassador for companies including Estee Lauder, Adidas, Longchamp and Calvin Klein. Thursday even saw sister Kim Kardashian congratulate the Vogue model, tweeting: 'Damn sis!!!!!!!! Get it giiiiirrrrrrrlllllllll'. The calculated earnings were documented between June 1, 2017, and June 1, 2018. The brunette beauty earned $22 million in the 2016-2017 year. But while Kendall's salary has continued to soar, not all of her fellow co-workers have been impressed with her, after she received backlash for saying she was 'super selective' about what brands she walks for earlier in the year. Casual chic: Chelsea Handler accentuated her trim frame in a black jacket and slim-fit jeans Stylish footwear: The comedian complemented her ensemble with a pair of black ankle boots Upping the glamour: Liberty Ross looked gorgeous in a green velvet gown Stars and stripes: Liberty's husband Jimmy Iovine stayed warm in an American-flag themed jumper which he wore over denim jeans and red suede canvas shoes Top of her game: Kendall's outing comes after she was named as the highest paid model for the second year in a row by Forbes, after they revealed she earned $22.5 million in 2018 Always busy: While Kendall has walked some of the world's top shows including Burberry, Versace and Fendi, her salary have come from her hefty contracts with a slew of top brands Kendall controversially claimed to Love Magazine: 'I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f**k those girls do. More power to 'em' Earned $500,000 more! The brunette beauty earned $22 million in the 2016-2017 year On $13 million! Kendall's reign as the highest paid model continued, earning $9.5 million more than second place recipient, Karlie Kloss 'Since the beginning weve been super selective about what shows I would do. I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f**k those girls do. More power to 'em,' she told Love Magazine back in August. However, many models including Victoria's Secret's Jac Jagaciak were less than impressed. 'This makes me so angry,' Jac wrote. 'So disrespectful to literally 99% of people in the industry yes, they had to work their way up. Please get in touch with the real world!' Sports Illustrated Swimsuit star Vita Sidorkina also hit back at Kendall, writing:'Maybe "those girls" need to pay their bills thats why they are doing 30 shows? No words' Busy bee: The model-turned-coding advocate has represented the likes of Adidas, Away and Swarovski Working moms: Tying for third place on $11.5 million was the much-loved Chrissy Teigen and Rosie Huntington-Whitely 2017 HIGHEST PAID MODELS 1. Kendall Jenner - $22 million 2. Gisele Bundchen - $17.5 million 3. Chrissy Teigen - $13.5 million 4. Adriana Lima - $10.5 million 5. Gigi Hadid - $9.5 million 5. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley - $9.5 million 7. Karlie Kloss - $ 9 million 8. Liu Wen - $6.5 million 9. Bella Hadid - $6 million 10. Ashley Graham - $5.5 million Advertisement And while many models didn't approve of her comments, Kendall's reign as the highest paid model continued, earning $9.5 million more than second place recipient, Karlie Kloss. Karlie, who's been working in the industry for the past ten years took home $13 million, and again, the coin was due to a slew of lucrative deals. The model-turned-coding advocate has represented the likes of Adidas, Away and Swarovski. The newlywed used social media to get her message across much of the time, telling Forbes: 'I could be seen as well as heard.' Tying for third place on $11.5 million was the much-loved Chrissy Teigen and Rosie Huntington-Whitely. Working hard: The wife of John Legend is the long-standing co-host on Lip Sync Battle and also released her second cookbook this year Making money moves: Rosie, the mom to Jack, one, spent the year debuting her new beauty site and line, Rosie Inc After making $17.5 million in 2017, Gisele Bunchen slipped to fifth place in 2018, tying with Cara Delevinge on $10 million Both Chrissy and Rosie have had other ventures outside of the modeling world that have contributed to their third place position. The wife of John Legend is the long-standing co-host on Lip Sync Battle and also released her second cookbook this year. Rosie, the mom to Jack, one, spent the year debuting her new beauty site and line, Rosie Inc. 2017 saw Kendall overtake Gisele Bunchen as the highest paid model in the world. The wife of Tom Brady racked up $17.5 million in 2017, however dropped to fifth place in 2018 on $10 million. Fifth place saw her tie with model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne. Working for top brands: Gigi and Bella walked for Rihanna's Savage X Fenty show earlier in the year Working hard: The sisters have continued to score lucrative ambassador deals with brands such as Maybelline, Reebok and Dior Makeup over the past 12 months While the world seems to be sister Gigi and Bella Hadid's oysters, the girls reached the seventh and eighth places as the highest earning models in 2018. Gigi beat her younger sister by $1 million, earning $9.5 million, while Bella was on $8.5 million. Both the girls, who are best friends with list topper Kendall Jenner, have continued to score lucrative ambassador deals with brands such as Maybelline, Reebok and Dior Makeup over the past 12 months. Gigi, Bella and Kendall all returned to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show last month. Cashing it in: Joan Smalls tied with Bella with an earning of $8.5 million this year The 2018 list of highest paid models was rounded up by Joan Smalls tying with Bella on $8.5 million and Doutzen Kroes returning to the top ten after years of hiatus with $8 million thanks to her lucrative deal with L'Oreal and Piaget. Dropping off the list this year were Adriana Lima, Ashley Graham and Liu Wen, who all earned just below the $8 million cut off, according to Forbes. All the figures are pretax earnings before agents, managers and lawyers fees and are based on incomes from all contracts. Love Island star Zara McDermott has spoken of how she was blinded by pain when a cyst on her ovary burst. The reality TV personality, 22, was rushed to hospital last week with suspected appendicitis, but later discovered her ailment was the result of excess fluid behind on womb pressing against her organs. Speaking to The Sun, Zara explained how the painful infection in her began: 'I threw up around 11 times in a really short space of time, it was ridiculous. I was getting really anxious about what was going on. Emergency: Love Island star Zara McDermott has spoken of how she was blinded by pain when a cyst on her ovary burst in a terrifying incident last week (pictured in hospital) 'I couldn't see even a metre in front of me. I was so weak from the infection.' Zara added her Love Island boyfriend Adam Collard, 23, rushed her to hospital and in a bid to remain by her side, was subjected to receiving a parking ticket. The former government advisor revealed her symptoms confused even the doctors and she was forced to receive five different opinions before scans showed a cyst had burst on her right ovary. The result was an infected ovary and excess fluid behind her womb which was pressing on her organs and causing the pain. Supportive: The reality star, 22, added boyfriend Adam Collard, 23, rushed her to hospital and in a bid to remain by her side, was subjected to receiving a parking ticket (pictured last month) Loved up: Despite the painful ordeal, Zara has been taking to social media to share snaps of her birthday celebrations, kicking off with a visit to Winter Wonderland with Adam on Thursday The brunette beauty revealed a week on from the ordeal she feels like 'a new woman' and turned to her Love Island co-star Dr Alex George for advice. She said: 'I talked to Doctor Alex about it and he said it's like a pocket of fluid that you can't control where they grow. 'Some are painless and you don't know you have them, or others are really painful. It was good to get hear his thoughts.' Despite the painful ordeal, Zara has been taking to social media to share snaps of her birthday celebrations, kicking off with a visit to Winter Wonderland in London with Adam on Thursday. Exciting: Zara felt recovered enough from her ordeal to upload snaps of her birthday celebrations with Adam, including a pair of envy-inducing Valentino heels (right) The couple, who fell head over heels for each other during the ITV2 show earlier this year, look every inch the couple in love as they posed in matching black outfits during the Christmas outing. Zara also took to Instagram to reveal her beau bought her a pair of 685 Valentino heels for her birthday. She also shared birthday tributes from her fellow Islanders, including Georgia Steel calling Zara 'one of the sweetest and kindest girls'. Samira Mighty said: 'Happy birthday my absolute Queen! Love you girl'. And Ellie Brown penned: 'Happy [birthday] to my beautiful Zara McDermott'. Best buds: The brunette also shared birthday tributes from her fellow Islanders, including Georgia Steel calling Zara 'one of the sweetest and kindest girls' Celebrating: Samira Mighty said: 'Happy birthday my absolute Queen! Love you girl' Stunners: Ellie Brown penned: 'Happy [birthday] to my beautiful Zara McDermott' Last Friday, Zara took to Instagram stories to reveal she had spent nine hours in a ward after seeking urgent medical attention. Posting a video from her hospital bed, the former government advisor admitted 'this week is not my week' after injuring her ankle just a few days previously. Pulling a sombre facial expression, she wrote: 'How's your Friday I was rushed to hospital in the night with suspected appendicitis... been here for 9 hours now.' Zara's hospital stint comes just weeks after fellow Islander Laura Crane endured a 10-day hospital stint after being diagnosed with sepsis, a potentially deadly disease. Her casting as DC Comic's first lesbian superhero Batwoman/Kate Kane has been marred with controversy. But Ruby Rose didn't let the backlash have an effect on her great mood following her debut during the Elseworlds crossover on The CW's Arrow on Monday. Celebrating her success with her fans on Thursday, the actress, 32, shared a fun throwback photo where she enjoyed a brief break from filming to check her phone while in her full Batwoman costume. Hilarious: Ruby Rose shared a fun throwback snap dressed as Batwoman on set on Thursday... after fans gushed over her on-screen debut in Arrow's Elseworlds crossover Ruby's scarlet locks were pulled back and wrapped around her black bat-shaped mask, while her slim figure was accentuated by the black and red suit, which had the distinctive bat symbol on the front. The actress could be seen trying to use her phone despite still wearing her latex gloves, and Ruby poked fun at this in her caption. She mentioned co-star Melissa Benoist, who plays Supergirl, and joked: #TB When you cant work out whether to text @melissabenoist Kara Danvers or Supergirl.. so you text all 3.' The actress made her highly-anticipated debut in the DC universe during the second part of the Elseworlds crossover on Monday. Exciting: The actress made her highly-anticipated debut in the DC universe during the second part of the Elseworlds crossover on Monday Ruby was confident as Batman/Bruce Wayne's butt-kicking heiress cousin, and overall the reaction was that she didn't disappoint. The genderfluid actress shared one excited fan's response to her Batwoman costume with a red coiffed wig attached which said: 'Yass girl put that suit onnn!' A self-described 'non-binary wonder gal' tweeted: 'Non binary actor with tattoos playing a lesbian superhero. I'm here for it.' And there were a fair amount of vitriolic Twitter haters calling Ruby's acting 'disgustingly bad,' which was the sort of backlash that prompted her to quit the social media platform after getting cast in August. Impressive: The genderfluid actress shared one excited fan's response to her Batwoman costume with a red coiffed wig attached which said: 'Yass girl put that suit onnn!' Many fans were in favour of more one-on-one scenes between the Orange Is the New Black alum and the charming Melissa, who plays Kara Danvers. Canadian heartthrob Stephen Amell - who plays Green Arrow/Oliver Queen - was definitely in favor of shipping the powerful pair, tweeting: 'Batwoman & Supergirl. I'm here for it.' LGTQIA publication PinkNews weighed in on the ladies' onscreen chemistry, wrote: 'Are we seriously still supposed to believe Kara is straight after she takes the bait and x-rays Kate Kane for naughty tattoos? I think not.' Romance on the cards? Many fans were in favour of more one-on-one scenes between the Orange Is the New Black alum and the charming Melissa, who plays Kara Danvers They ship it: LGTQIA publication PinkNews weighed in on the ladies' onscreen chemistry Caroline Dries has been developing a standalone series for The CW since early this year, and she hopes fans were intrigued by the Gotham City-born masked vigilante's introduction. 'We wanted an in to her,' the 38-year-old executive producer told THR on Monday. 'In our minds, Kara obviously has a cousin [and she's] sort of in his [Superman's] shadow. Her story was getting out of his shadow, and that's exactly Kates story. And so it was important for us to find a moment for them to bondIt felt like the right moment, the right move.' It was a chilly 47F in Manhattan on Friday morning. But Meg Ryan had her love to keep her warm. And a sensibly long black padded coat. Glued to her phone, the You've Got Mail actress, 57, pulled a black woolly hat with a faux fur pom-pom over her blonde tresses. Snug and warm: Meg Ryan was spotted out in a chilly NYC on Friday morning the say after her new fiance John Mellencamp revealed he was 'engaged to the funniest woman I've ever met' She completed her winter ensemble with jeans, fingerless gloves, sneakers and dark glases Meg's stroll comes a day after fiance John Mellencamp, 67, gushed about her saying: 'I'm engaged to the funniest woman i've ever met.' John opened up about their relationship in an interview with Today posted on Thursday. He was on the show to promote his new album Other People's Stuff, a compilation album of cover songs that was released on December 7. Glued to her phone: The You've Got Mail actress, 57, donned a black padded coat, a black woolly hat with a faux fur pom-pom. jeans, sneakers and fingerless gloves to keep warm He's also set to embark on a 39-date John Mellencamp Show Tour early in 2019 His romance with Meg has been an on-off love affair and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee admitted: 'One can well imagine, I'm probably not the easiest guy to get along with. Let's leave it at that.' Meg confirmed the couple's engagement last month with an Instagram post. They started dating in 2010 before splitting in 2014 and reuniting in 2017. She has two children: son Jack, 26, with ex-husband Dennis Quaid, and adopted daughter Daisy, 14. On a stroll: The couple were spotted out and about in NYC on December 3. On November 8 she took to Instagram captioning a cartoon of her and John with the word 'Engaged' John, who has been maried three times, has five: Michelle, 48; Teddi Jo, 37; Justice 33; and sons Hud, 24, and Speck 23, Meanwhile, Meg is lined up to star in TV series Picture Paris next year, which she will also executive produce. It's Meg's first regular TV role in 30 years, although she has made guest appearances in shows including The Simpsons (1989) and Web Therapy (2011) she last appeared as a series regular in the short-lived ABC series Wildside in 1985. Israel arrests Hamas members following West Bank attacks ANP security services disperse Hamas demonstrations (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 14 - The Israeli Army on Thursday night arrested 35 members of Hamas, following recent attacks in the West Bank. Among those arrested were Hamas political leader Mustafa al-Nashar and two deputies, Yasser Mansur and Muhammad al-Tal. Meanwhile in Gaza on Friday, Hamas is getting ready to celebrate the anniversary of its founding. Palestinian National Authority (PNA) security services used force to disperse protests convened by Hamas in Hebron and Nablus, according to local media. In the West Bank, the Israeli Army is on a state of high alert because Hamas and the Palestinian al-Fatah party have proclaimed Friday as a "Day of Wrath" at the end of prayers in the mosques. It is a protest against the Israeli Army killing on Wednesday night of three Palestinians responsible for attacks. Tension is also high at the border between Gaza and Israel, where, as in recent weeks, Hamas has also organised mass demonstrations. (ANSAmed). Jenni 'JWoww' Farley has filed a restraining order against her estranged husband Roger Mathews. The 43-year-old was removed from his house by officers early Friday morning, hours after he called the police to report her. Mathews detailed the drama in several emotional Instagram videos through the morning, in which he broke down in tears several times at the thought of being separated from their children. However Jenni's co-star Snooki defended her friend on Friday morning, posting Nest security footage from inside the home showing Jenni specifically asking police not to block him from seeing their kids. Kicked out: Jenni 'JWoww' Farley has filed a restraining order against her estranged husband Roger Mathews The father of two shared the first video at 2.30am from the back of the cop car. He alleged that he and his estranged wife had had a disagreement earlier in the night and she became 'hysterical', screaming that she was going to call the cops on him. Mathews claimed he called the police himself, fearing Jenni 'would make up some fake story'; officers came to the house and said he was in the clear. 'I was afraid she would go hit herself in the face in the bathroom, which is not out of the f***ing the realm of possibility for Jenni,' he exclaimed. After leaving the house to record a podcast, he said he came home without interacting with his ex and went straight to bed. Broken: Mathews detailed the drama in several emotional Instagram videos through the morning, in which he broke down in tears several times at the thought of being separated from their children (pictured November 14) But he was woken up at 2am by police, informing him a judge had agreed to grant a restraining order against him. In a number of increasingly emotional videos from a friend's couch, Mathews said he was trying to avoid putting the former couple's drama on broadcast, fearing their children would one day see it; however he felt he now had no choice. 'I'm at a friends house... no game plan, no change of clothes,' he said. 'I have NO idea how she convinced judge.... truth is stranger than fiction.' Drama: The father of two shared the first video at 2.30am from the back of the cop car He broke down in tears as he talked about his children, four-year-old daughter Meilani and two-year-old son Grayson. 'She made children pawns, something I would never do,' he claimed. He accused Jenni of purposely staging the fight in front of the children, telling the kids she was sorry she'd ever had children with him. 'This is the level my ex wife takes it to after telling my kids their dad is a piece of s**t and shes sorry she ever had children with him, he captioned the cop car video. 'She gets so emotional and irrational in her anger this is the level she brings it too. Cornered: In a number of increasingly emotional videos from a friend's couch, Mathews said he was trying to avoid putting the former couple's drama on broadcast 'Saddest day of my life watching her tell my daughter "she is sorry she had children with your daddy". The truth will come out. The truth will set you free. I will never stop fighting for my kids.' He also accused Jenni of working on a 'side deal' with Jersey Shore producers to discuss her divorce on the show for $70k, claiming: 'Everything is about money with her.' Farley meanwhile posted a solitary statement on Instagram: 'While Jenni has refrained from making any public statements relating to her impending divorce, in light of recent events we have decided to make an official statement. 'Certain events transpired last night which lead Jenni to involve the authorities, as she felt it was in her best interests, and the best interests of her children to do so. 'Any statements and social media posts depicting anything to the contrary are entirely false, misleading and intentionally designed to cast Jenni in a negative light. 'He's not a bad dad': Snooki defended her friend on Friday morning, posting nest security footage showing Jenni specifically asking police not to block him from seeing their kids 'She is proud to be a hardworking parent who provides for her children,' the statement continued. 'While we have chosen not to comment further, we will note that a judge immediately ruled in Jennis favor and issued a temporary order of protection last night. Please respect Jennis decision for privacy in an effort to protect herself and her children during this time.' Jenni's representatives confirmed she wanted to make no further comment beyond her Instagram post. On Friday Morning, Snooki jumped to her friends defense by posting a nest cam video, showing Jenni asking cops if the restraining order could not include the children. 'I dont wanna do that to him, he should be allowed to see them,' Jenni can be heard telling two officers. 'Hes not a bad dad.' Defense: In a lengthy accompanying post, Snooki claimed Jenni too had been trying to keep the drama off social media for the sake of the kids In a lengthy accompanying post, Snooki claimed Jenni too had been trying to keep the drama off social media for the sake of the kids. 'She doesnt leave her kids for months at a time for work. She leaves filming to care for her children that you dont see,' she wrote. 'Her character is being tarnished and Im here to show whats really going down. She wants nothing but for the kids to have their dad. She HAS BEEN asking the cops to tell the judge to allow Roger to see the kids.' Her side: Farley meanwhile posted a solitary statement on Instagram 'There is MANY layers to this. And more videos. Legally i cannot post those but will be used when necessary,' Snooki concluded, asking followers to stop attacking Jenni. The former couple had been together for eight years and married for three when Jenni filed for divorce in September. Roger had insisted he was going to fight for the relationship, and the two had continued to cohabit and co-parent since then. She divulged she had finally learnt to love her curvy figure in an impassioned Instagram post. And Emily Atack stayed true to her word when she showed off her phenomenal curves in a revealing split dress on her way to lunch at the Ivy, in Soho on Friday. The I'm A Celebrity princess, 28, looked divine when she showed off a lot of leg in the thigh-split of her floral dress which also had colourful flowers scattered across it. She's blooming lovely! I'm A Celebrity's Emily Atack wowed in a flirty floral thigh-split dress in London after she shared she had learnt to love her curves Inbetweeners star Emily, who was accused of having a 2016 fling while Seann Walsh was dating fellow actress Rebecca Humphries, waved to the cameras. Leaving the warm climes behind her in Australia, the actress dressed for the freezing temperatures in the UK with an edgy leather jacket and tan suede boots. A natural beauty, the I'm A Celebrity star framed her make-up free face with her Eighties-inspired crimped golden mane. Mane attraction: A natural beauty, the I'm A Celebrity star framed her make-up free face with her Eighties-inspired crimped golden hair Emily's appearance comes after she shared a bikini picture of herself taken just before she went into the jungle. The jungle camp mate vowed to celebrate her body and she said she would never again to use slimming apps. She wrote: 'Morning mud crabs. just catching up on everything. I am back in London! Cant believe the amount of articles & comments about my bod. Leggy lady: The I'm A Celebrity princess, 28, looked divine when she showed off a lot of leg in the thigh-split of her floral dress which also had colourful flowers scattered across it Seasonal style: Leaving the warm climes behind her in Australia, the actress dressed for the freezing temperatures in the UK with an edgy leather jacket and tan suede boots 'Some good, some bad. I will never EVER use a Slimming App ever again. We are all different shapes & sizes. We are all unique. 'Some have rock hard abs, some have a bit of Jam Roly-poly, its all ok!!!' Going onto the show has clearly been a special experience for Inbetweeners actress Emily who cried when she left the show, after saying she had gained confidence. Happy to be home! Inbetweeners star Emily, who was accused of having a 2016 fling while Seann Walsh was dating fellow actress Rebecca Humphries, waved to the cameras Noted! Emily carried a notepad as she strutted her stuff through the streets, touching down in the UK after spending time in Australia She said: 'I came into this not with a difficult start to the year. I didnt know what I was doing. I have so much self acceptance. 'I worry about things constantly at home. I realise I dont have to do that.I will never doubt myself again. I can survive in the jungle so now I can do anything. 'Its the most mental thing ever. I found new love and respect for myself.' Elsewhere, Emily's mum Kate Robbins claimed her family members would have to contribute to the 400-500 bill of their festive meal. Back to normal: The actress added shades to her look as she hoped to bring some of the Australian sunshine home with her The I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here runner-up's mum dropped the bombshell her guests would have to pay for the Christmas meal on Good Morning Britain. Quickly, the fiery brunette was locked in a fierce debate with Binky Felstead's mother on the controversial topic about asking guests to fork out for the meal. Kate stated: 'I'm not going to have an invoice for people when they get here. No more: The jungle camp mate vowed to celebrate her body and she said she would never again to use slimming apps 'In a big family like mine, there's millions of us, when it's our time to host we ping each other a bit of money. 'I think whoever is holding it, there's so many relatives, it's going to be in our family 400 or 500 for the festivities. We just do it without asking in our family. 'Lets face it, hardworking people in this country who work long hours find Christmas financially crippling. That's the reality of it.' Binky's mother Jane responded: 'I think it's a privilege (hosting). If someone's going to come to my house and eat and drink everything they wont be invited again probably. If they do I'll buy them a rubbish bottle of wine.' Revealed: Emily's appearance comes after she shared a bikini picture of herself taken just before she went into the jungle Happy in her skin: Emily shared a snap of her 'jam roly poly' bikini body and vowed never to use a slimming app again following her confidence boosting jungle experience His sister Kendall Jenner attended the Fleetwood Mac concert at The Forum in Inglewood, California on Thursday night. And Brody Jenner was spotted at the same concert with his wife Kaitlynn Carter. The 35-year-old reality star sported a hoodie and dark hued bottoms while Kaitlynn, 30, donned a heavy furry coat with jeans and boots. Brody Jenner and his wife Kaitlynn Carter were at the Fleetwood Mac concert at The Forum in Inglewood, California on Thursday night The Hills star donned a graphic black and white hoodie with navy bottoms, adding two tone sneakers. The scruffy star was joined by his gorgeous wife Kaitlynn. She sported a burnt orange knit top with light wash denim bottoms, adding cream colored knee-high boots. Kaitlynn donned a furry camel and beige winter coat with a dark hued handbag. Sweet: The 35-year-old reality star sported a hoodie and dark hued bottoms while Kaitlynn donned a heavy furry coat with jeans and boots She pulled her hair back with just a touch of makeup to round out her look. His younger sister Kendall also attended the concert on Thursday night. Brody and Kaitlynn, a social media influencer, tied the knot on June 1 at a destination wedding on Sumba Island, off the coast of Indonesia. They wed at an outdoor ceremony at the Nihi Sumba Resort; afterwards, they celebrated with fireworks. Fairy tale: Brody and Kaitlynn, a social media influencer, tied the knot on June 1 at a destination wedding on Sumba Island, off the coast of Indonesia None of the Kardashians or Kylie or Kendall Jenner attended the wedding; dad Caitlyn Jenner did not attend either. Brody told People days after he tied the knot that Caitlyn not being there 'was a big disappointment.' Adding: 'Especially considering that she had known about the wedding for a year.' Brody and Kaitlynn met in 2013 at a party; the lovebirds got engaged three years later in 2016. He made a name for himself as the dashing Danny Zuko in Grease. And John Travolta appeared to be harking back to the iconic musical, as his silver locks were slicked back into a Grease-worthy quiff. The actor, 64, sported the quirky look as he supported pal Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Christian Perez, during his hand and footprint ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Friday. Grease-worthy quiff: John Travolta sported a quirky slicked back hairdo as he supported pal Pitbull's hand and footprint ceremony at Hollywood's iconic Chinese Theatre on Friday John looked ruggedly handsome at the event as his hair fell in a middle parting and he sported a close cropped beard. Keeping things smart casual, the Pulp Fiction star rocked jeans and a navy blazer which he teamed up with a dark sweatshirt and grey button-up shirt. The rapper, 37, looked typically snazzy in a blue blazer and black shirt, and he threw caution to the wind as he opted to wear a pair of white trousers. The duo have been close pals ever since the rapper composed the music for Travolta's John Gotti biopic which was released earlier this year. Good friends: The duo have been close pals ever since the rapper composed the music for Travolta's John Gotti biopic which was released earlier this year Quirky style: John looked ruggedly handsome at the event as his hair fell in a middle parting and he sported a close cropped beard Unlike Hollywood's other famous list of names the Walk Of Fame, which contains near 3,000 entries, the line-up immortalised outside the former Grauman's Theatre is far more exclusive, at closer to 300. However this decade has seen more additions than any other, with 65 ceremonies taking place since 2010. Nevertheless, the ones placed within the inner forecourt are still chosen by a special committee which selects celebrities based on their contributions to Hollywood cinema. Sharp: The rapper, 37, looked typically snazzy in a blue blazer and black shirt, and he threw caution to the wind as he opted to wear a pair of white trousers Be cool: Keeping things smart casual, the Pulp Fiction star rocked jeans and a navy blazer which he teamed up with a dark sweatshirt and grey button-up shirt Gotti was Pitbull's first foray into film composing, while he wrote Back in Time, the lead single to 2012's Men in Black 3. Many of his tracks have appeared on the soundtracks of the likes of Penguins of Madagascar, The Emoji Movie, and Despicable Me 2. Later on Friday, Pitbull was also scheduled to take part in his second handprint ceremony in San Diego, becoming the inaugural set of prints at the opening of the new Theatre Box. She is currently in a row with her The Reel co-host Tamera Mowry-Housley over their respective salaries. But Adrienne Bailon left the job place battlefield behind on Friday as she headed to Build Series in New York City. The 35-year-old television personality cut a chic figure while appearing on the interview show. Chic: Adrienne Bailon left the job place battlefield behind on Friday as she headed to Build Series in New York City Adrienne sported a plaid grey pencil skirt that hugged her curves, highlighting her figure. She added a shimmering black blouse with puffed shoulders on top and pulled her brunette tresses into an easy ponytail. A pair of pointed black heels added a couple inches to her 4ft 11in frame and she accessorized with a variety of necklaces and gold watch. Headed in: The 35-year-old television personality cut a chic figure while appearing on the interview show Taking a break: Adrienne sported a plaid grey pencil skirt that hugged her curves, highlighting her figure On Friday, DailyMail.com learned that the onscreen friendship among the hosts of Warner Bros' The Real may not be as 'real' as it seems. An insider at the daytime talk show has revealed tensions have flared among Mowry-Housley, Adrienne, Jeannie Mai, and Loni Love over the Sister, Sister star's high-paying salary. Mowry-Housley, 40, is reported to be raking in the most cash on the show with Loni being the second-best paid, while Adrienne and Jeannie are only being paid a third of the other women's salaries. Battle lines were drawn earlier this year when Mowry-Housley and Loni refused to help Adrienne and Jeannie get raises, leading to threats of a staged walkout, a source close to the show told DailyMail.com. Further heightening tensions is the belief that Mowry-Housley 'isn't keeping it real' with viewers because she refuses to acknowledge her Republican views and skirts around her support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election on air. Real drama: The Real's Tamera Mowry-Housley, 40, is the highest paid of the show's four co-hosts, a source tells DailyMail.com. Loni Love (second from right) has the second highest salary, while Adrienne (far left) and Jeannie Mai (far right) are making significantly less Further heightening tensions is the feeling Mowry-Housley 'isn't keeping it real' with viewers because she refuses to acknowledge her Republican beliefs and that she and her husband supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election Life on set had been going smoothly after producers gave controversial host Tamar Braxton the boot in 2016, but working relationships started to deteriorate in April following the show's Emmy win. An insider told DailyMail.com: 'Once they won the Emmy, Jeannie and Adrienne started complaining about how they knew they weren't being compensated the same as their fellow co-hosts Loni and Tamera. They were even talking about staging a walk out. 'Initially, they wanted both Tamera and Loni to support them in their quest to get better deals on the show, but when both ladies declined that definitely meant that lines were drawn.' Jeannie and Adrienne have even started referring to their co-hosts as 'The Have and The Have Nots' - a play off the name of the Tyler Perry TV drama on the OWN Network, the source claims. 'That's the term they'd use to address the pay discrepancy between them.' A spokesperson for The Real declined to comment. The backstage tension over salaries is reportedly why Tamera and Jeannie had an uncharacteristically heated blow-up on camera in September during a discussion over the sexuality of Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. 'That argument had nothing to do with whether two puppets were in a same sex relationship and had everything to do with the drama going on behind the scenes,' the source explained. Tamera suffered a personal loss when her 18-year-old niece by marriage Alaina Housley was gunned down in the Borderline Bar and Grill shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, in November. She took two weeks off for bereavement leave. An insider told DailyMail.com: 'Once they won the Emmy, Jeannie and Adrienne started complaining about how they knew they weren't being compensated the same as their fellow co-hosts Loni and Tamera. They were even talking about staging a walk out' Jeannie and Adrienne were quick to notice that ratings for the show improved by 13 per cent the week the Sister, Sister star was gone and the show saw its highest growth in more than a year. The source said: 'Of the four hosts, Tamera has the highest salary. And while she was gone from the show, the ratings jumped. 'Both girls kept saying, "How's she making the most money and the show is doing better without her being here?" That gave them the leverage they needed to justify their ask for more money.' The three co-hosts were also upset that during Tamera's absence, her husband Adam Housley gave an exclusive interview to CBS News about his niece's death, instead of appearing on his wife's show. 'So while they had to read a text message that Tamera sent them on air, her husband is off talking to news cameras about what went down. He couldn't find the time to come talk to the show that employs his wife? 'Especially since he's out of work and she's the only one working these days. It was a smack in the face of The Real and just added to the tension among the ladies,' the source disclosed. It doesn't help that Tamera's husband has previously been accused of being racist, forcing Tamera to use her show earlier this season to shoot down the claims. Blogs had uncovered past controversial social media posts made by Housley, a former Fox News reporter, in which he denied race was the reason George Zimmerman murdered the African-American teenager Trayvon Martin; as well as him condemning protesters in the cities where Mike Brown and Freddie Gray were killed. The backstage tension over salaries is reportedly why Tamera and Jeannie had an unusual blow up on camera in September over Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie (pictured) Co-hosts were also upset that during Tamera's absence, her husband Adam Housley (together left) gave an exclusive interview to CBS News about his niece Alaina Housley's (right) death, who died in the Borderline Bar shooing in November, instead of appearing on his wife's show Tamera said on The Real: 'There are some people who think that my husband is racist because he worked for a certain channel, I'm gonna look in that camera right there and let everybody know my husband is not a racist.' Her co-hosts have not commented on the speculation on Housley, however, they apparently do feel she 'isn't keeping it real' with the viewers because she doesn't want to acknowledge her Republican beliefs. During The Real's 2016 special evening election show, Loni, Adrienne and Jeannie were in utter shock about Trump being elected while Tamera was in the corner cheering off camera. 'There's a reason when the show does do the rare political topic or something regarding the POTUS, she sits in her seat with her lips zipped hoping nobody asks her to chime in,' offered the source. Tamera's adamant resistance to share her politics is even a topic of contention for Loni, whom she's the closest with. Loni is regularly complaining to producers that she hates the show topics and feels the conversation is too immature and she is always begging to do more politics and social issues, according to the insider. 'While Loni wants to do more serious topics like The View, the other three co-hosts make snide remarks about her wanting to turn the show into Meet The Press and how they don't want this to be AARP TV,' shared the source. 'Overall, the ladies of The Real don't speak behind the scenes until they hit the stage door to come out. They play girlfriends on TV, but in real life, their relationship is strained to say the least. 'Regardless, it's clear that Jeannie and Adrienne are lobbying for bigger paydays and their co-hosts aren't interested in helping them achieve that.' The Real has been renewed through 2020 and only time will tell if the current hosts are there for the next year and a half. He's one of Hollywood's most legendary actors with a career spanning seven decades. And Dick Van Dyke was in high spirits as he paid a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood to celebrate his 93rd birthday on Thursday. The actor donned a fawn blazer with a black jumper and blue jeans for the day out, where he paid a visit to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and went on the ride Harry Potter And The Forbidden Journey for the first time. All smiles: Dick Van Dyke was in high spirits as he paid a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood to celebrate his 93rd birthday on Thursday Dick is known for his iconic role as Bert the chimney sweeper in Mary Poppins, released in 1964. The actor has returned to the franchise with a cameo role in this year's Mary Poppins Returns, which recently had its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Dick plays Mr Dawes Jr., the chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank in the sequel. Along with his role as Bert, he also played Mr Dawes Snr. in the original film, which earned him his cameo. Actor: Dick is known for his iconic role as Bert the chimney sweeper in Mary Poppins, released in 1964 Emily Blunt portrays the eponymous character in the new film while Lin-Manuel Miranda stars as Jack, a cockney lamplighter and a former apprentice of Bert from the original film. Speaking recently on This Morning, Emily described working with Dick on the new film as 'magical' and said he frequently would break into dance to entertain the crew. She said: 'He was so magical. We all just sat around him and just wanted him to tell us about the first film. 'He was always dancing and entertaining the crew. Iconic: The actor has returned to the franchise with a cameo role in this year's Mary Poppins Returns, which recently had its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London Back in business: Dick plays Mr Dawes Jr., the chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank in the sequel 'He was just having a moment where he sat there and there was a pause in the conversation and he leaned across and took my hand and he goes, "it's a jolly holiday with Mary." 'I was like, "Dick, you're going to make me cry." It was so special.' The actress also opened up about taking on the iconic role first made famous by Julie Andrews. Co-stars: Emily Blunt portrays the eponymous character in the new film Pals: Emily said of Dick: 'He was so magical. We all just sat around him and just wanted him to tell us about the first film. 'He was always dancing and entertaining the crew' She said: 'I was really shocked but I think quite quickly the thrill of playing her overwhelmed my fear.' The film has several new songs with Emily undergoing intense rehearsals to perfect her dance moves. She said: 'We had about nine weeks to rehearse those. Those huge show-stopping numbers did take a bit of work.' She reportedly faced the wrath of ex-boyfriend Charlie Brake at the Love Island Reunion, set to air on Monday. But Ellie Brown, 20, was all smiles as she joined fellow islanders, including Gabby Allen at the Boohoo Christmas party at Hilton Deansgate in Manchester on Friday night. The blonde beauty turned heads in a plunging black gown with a sweetheart neckline while Gabby, 26, put on a leggy display in monochrome mini dress and thigh high boots. Islanders: Ellie Brown, 20, was all smiles as she joined fellow islanders, including Gabby Allen the Boohoo Christmas party at Hilton Deansgate in Manchester on Friday night Girls together: Ellie and Gabby where joined by Season Four star Alexandra Cane as they partied the night away Ellie channelled Hollywood glamour in the skin-tight LBD which she paired with nude heels and a Yves Saint Laurent bag. Adding extensions to her long blonde hair, the star styled her golden tresses into loose curls that tumbled down to her waist. Finishing off the look was a glamorous silver necklace and matching earrings. Every inch the star: Ellie channelled Hollywood glamour in the skin-tight LBD which she paired with nude heels and a Yves Saint Laurent bag Hard at work: Meanwhile, Gabby showed off the results of her gruelling gym routine in snakeskin boots and a polo-neck t-shirt dress with chunky belt to emphasise her enviably tiny waist Meanwhile, Gabby showed off the results of her gruelling gym routine in snakeskin boots and a polo-neck t-shirt dress with chunky belt to emphasise her enviably tiny waist. Adding a touch of cool to the ensemble was a grey beret, which the reality TV star stylish wore to one side. Never failing to look glam, Gabby opted for a full face of make-up as she joined stars including Alexandra Cane and Kendall Rae Knight. Ellie's appearance comes as fellow former Islander Zara McDermott has boldly claimed that Charlie 'verbally attacked' ex-girlfriend at the Love Island: The Christmas reunion, which airs on Monday. The former government adviser, 23, told The Sun that the former car sales manager, 20, and the multimillionaire, 23, had a furious row as they saw each other for the first time since their split. Zara revealed to the publication: 'I can't say too much, but tensions did run very high. Argument: Ellie's appearance comes as fellow former Islander Zara McDermott has boldly claimed that Charlie 'verbally attacked' ex-girlfriend at the Love Island: The Christmas reunion, which airs on Monday Eek: Love Island: The Christmas reunion will due to be awkward viewing as there are only four surviving couples from this season 'I was so mad when he split with Ellie and I was even more mad after the Christmas Reunion. 'As a best friend, when someone is attacking them, you want to go in and defend them and say "how dare you say that".' But Ellie seemed a world away from any woes as she partied with her fellow islanders at the star-studded bash. Stunning: Joining Ellie was Alexandra Cane, 27, who looked stunning in a Aztec print mini-dress which she paired she strappy golden heels Joining Ellie was Alexandra Cane, 27, who looked stunning in a Aztec print mini-dress which she paired she strappy golden heels. Showing off a full face of make-up, Alexandra styled her raven tresses into a loose curl that tumbled past her waist. Meanwhile, Kendall Rae Knight, 26, looked every inch the star in a futuristic silver jumpsuit with a one-shoulder detail. Chic: Meanwhile, Kendall Rae Knight, 26, looked every inch the star in a futuristic silver jumpsuit with a one-shoulder detail Party on! The girls shared snaps of them at the Christmas party as Gabby pouted with Alexandra while Kendall was thrilled to be reunited with Ellie EastEnders dropped their dramatic Christmas trailer on Friday night. The gripping 30-second video shows Kat Slater threatening to kill Alfie Moon during a dramatic showdown in Albert Square. At the start of the trailer, it sees the family enjoying a festive family meal but it's not long until the feisty character appears to discover that her estranged husband has fathered a secret love child with her cousin Hayley. Scroll down for video Eek!: The gripping 30-second EastEnders Christmas trailer shows Kat Slater threatening to kill Alfie Moon during a dramatic showdown in Albert Square And it's safe to say Kat does not take the news well as she destroys the Christmas meal table and goes on to scream at her partner: 'What have you done? Don't you touch me!' The Walford legend goes on to threaten Alfie with a metal pole, as she chillingly declares: 'I will do time for you...' before smashing up a nearby car. While Hayley watches on from the doorstep in tears as she starts shaking and looking stunned at the scenes in front of her. Watch out, Alfie!: At the start of the trailer, it sees the family enjoying a festive meal but it's not long until she appears to discover that her estranged husband has fathered a secret love child with her cousin Hayley Uh-oh!: And it's safe to say Kat does not take the news well as she destroys the Christmas meal table and goes on to scream at her partner: 'What have you done? Don't you touch me!' And it has since been reported that Alfie will be 'left for dead' in the Christmas special, with his fate left on a cliffhanger for soap watchers. A source told The Sun: 'It will all kick off big-time. Kat will confront him about the baby before all hell breaks loose. The scenes will leave him for dead. 'Alfie is a huge character and this is going to be classic EastEnders drama. The cliffhanger will leave viewers guessing his fate.' Not good: The Walford legend goes on to threaten Alfie with a metal pole, as she chillingly declares: 'I will do time for you...' before smashing up a nearby car Distraught: While Hayley watches on from the doorstep in tears as she starts shaking and looking stunned at the scenes in front of her MailOnline has contacted BBC One for comment. While Shane Richie, who plays Alfie, teased to the publication that 'someones got blood on their hands'. He added: 'Without giving too much away, this is a tough one to come back from after you see what happens.' More romance?: Ahead of the Christmas carnage, the trailer sees Hayley trying to seduce Alfie as she blocks him leaving the room Secret parents: While the duo share several secret moments and glances as she holds their baby, Cherry Ahead of the Christmas carnage, the trailer sees Hayley trying to seduce Alfie as she blocks him leaving the room and they exchange several glances as she holds their baby, Cherry. Meanwhile, this isn't the only drama in-store for Albert Square's residents as Mick Carter returns home from prison with revenge on his mind. The pub landlord's wife, Linda, is worried that he wants Stuart Highway to pay for trying to attack her and sending him behind bars. Payback: Meanwhile, this isn't the only drama in-store for Albert Square's residents as Mick Carter returns home from prison with revenge on his mind Baby incoming!: Meanwhile, it looks as though badboy Phil Mitchell has to turn his hand to midwifery as he finds himself in a room with a pregnant Kim Fox-Hubbard In the trailer, he says: 'Let's get ready for the old Carter Christmas, hey?' as he looks menacingly into Albert Square. Meanwhile, it looks as though badboy Phil Mitchell has to turn his hand to midwifery as he finds himself in a room with a pregnant Kim Fox-Hubbard, who appears to go into labour as she says: 'I think it has started!' Catch all the festive EastEnders drama on BBC One. A Queensland magistrate has backed police moves to withhold information about an alleged abduction and sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl, fearing a "public lynching". The case of a 26-year-old man, who allegedly lured the girl from a shopping centre north of Brisbane and took her to bushland to sexually assault her, was heard in a closed court for a second-straight day on Wednesday. Police did not release details of the incident on Saturday until three days later - after the man was charged with deprivation of liberty, taking a child for immoral purposes and indecent treatment of a child under 12. They said the decision was "for the sake of" the investigation. When police again applied to close the court, Pine Rivers magistrate Trevor Morgan obliged in the "very significant" interests of the victim. "It's also important I take into account the interests of the administration of justice and ensuring that proceedings proceed according to the fundamental principle of fairness and the application of the rule of law, and not by a public or social media lynching," Mr Morgan said on Wednesday. "I also note there have been comments from politicians criticising the behaviour of police in not disclosing more information than had been disclosed earlier. "I entirely support the view, the position taken by police, in not disclosing more information than has been. "In my view, less information would have been more helpful than has already been disclosed." The girl was allegedly approached at Kmart at Westfield North Lakes shopping centre before going missing for more than an hour. It is unknown if the man has applied for bail. On social media, members of the public have threatened the accused's life and shared his profile. The boss of ANZ's Australian consumer bank is leaving after 17 years with the lender for a career break in his native Sweden. Fred Ohlsson, who was ANZ's NZ boss before becoming Australia group executive in 2016, will step down on December 29 but assist with a handover to interim replacement Mark Hand throughout January. "Fred approached me saying that he and his wife feel that their children are at an ideal age to spend some time living in Sweden," ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott said. "While I'm disappointed Fred will be leaving, I respect his decision to put his family first and take an extended break." ANZ said Mr Hand, who has been with the bank since 1988 and currently heads business and private banking, would lead Mr Ohlsson's unit "while we look at the best structure for the Australia division". ANZ shares fell two cents, or 0.1 per cent, to $25.18 in the first 15 minutes of trade on Thursday. Strasbourg: Cherif Chekatt's older brother held in Algeria The man also on fiche 'S' radical watch list (ANSAmed) - PARIS, DECEMBER 14 - Another brother of Cherif Chekatt, the man believed to be responsible for the Strasbourg attack, has been detained in Algeria, Le Parisien reports. The French newspaper said that the man, Sami Chekatt, 34, was also currently on an S-Fiche radical watch list and was wanted for terrorist association. Cherif Chekatt's older brother had left France a while before the Tuesday night attack in Strasbourg. Investigators are looking into whether Chekatt was helped by family members to carry out the deadly shooting spree. Police also detained two other brothers, their parents and a friend. French police on Thursday night confronted and fatally shot the man believed to be responsible for killing three people and wounding many more in Strasbourg. (ANSAmed). The former South Australian Labor government's decision to sell off some of the state's land services has largely been given a clean bill of health by the SA auditor-general. Andrew Richardson has investigated the $1.6 billion deal and says sound processes and controls were adopted and it involved a fair and transparent procurement process. But Mr Richardson has raised some concerns including a lack of specific analysis relating to some of the risks and that the contracts were not publicly disclosed in line with government requirements. A HISTORY OF BIOSECURITY INTERCEPTS AT AUSTRALIAN AIRPORTS AND SEAPORTS 2018 * Squirrels * French bulldog * Customs officers in Melbourne intercepted two child-like sex dolls in an air cargo consignment from China. * Biosecurity officers at Sydney Airport confiscated a goat foetus. 2017 * An Australian man was charged with trying to smuggle native shingleback lizards to Sweden, and also tried to bring packages into the country from Thailand containing turtles, snakehead fish, sugar gliders, chameleons and stingrays. * A person allegedly tried to bring a bag of lizard feet into Australia through Brisbane Airport. * Melbourne customs officers discovered live tarantulas in a box labelled "shoes" en route from Australia to Europe. * Officials seized a crucified bat at Brisbane Airport. * A man tried to smuggle fighting fish, live snails and shrimp into Sydney from Vietnam. * Officers seized 5.5kg of cow dung being brought through Brisbane Airport. 2016 * A man was busted with endangered specimens including leopards, bears, lions, a gray wolf, a cheetah and an orangutan in his South Australian home. 2014 * A Czech man travelling from Dubai to Sydney was busted smuggling 16 parakeet eggs in his underwear. * Customs officers seized 4kg of frozen frog meat at Melbourne international airport brought in by a man from Vietnam. * A man tried to bring half a suckling pig in his airline luggage into Sydney. 2012 * A full bird's nest destined for soup, pig trotters and gizzards, and a fungus-growing caterpillar were seized from Chinese tourists arriving in Cairns to celebrate Chinese New Year. 2009 * A tourist travelling from Dubai to Melbourne was allegedly caught with two live pigeons stuffed into his trousers, as well as two bird eggs in a vitamin containers. * A man flying from the Middle East to Melbourne had live animals in his pant legs, and an eggplant stuffed into the front of his underpants. 2007 * A woman was busted trying to smuggle 51 live tropical fish concealed under her skirt when Melbourne Customs officers heard "flipping" noises coming from her waist. 2005 * Three small fish were found swimming in a cosmetic jar brought into Brisbane Airport by a 50-year-old woman. 2004 * Sydney Airport officials seized a taxidermy armadillo dressed as a cowboy which a man tried to bring from the US. Renowned light air supermaxi Black Jack is set to perform better in heavier winds in the Sydney to Hobart after modifications to the boat. The Queensland boat, a prime contender for line honours, is one of the few in recent times to get the better of a battle with Comanche. She capitalised on favourable conditions in the latter stages of this year's Sydney to Southport race to beat rival supermaxis and fellow Sydney to Hobart contender Comanche, Wild Oats XI and InfoTrack. While those boats have traditionally had the wood on Black Jack in heavier breezes, skipper Mark Bradford is confident changes to his boat will make it more competitive in those conditions. "We identified in the last Hobart race some significant weaknesses in our yacht," Bradford told AAP. "So while our plan is to always be the strongest light air boat, we're prepared to give a bit of that back to get back at the Wild Oats and Comanche-style boats in mid range. 'We've increased the righting moment in the boat, changed the layout in the boat, making special sails. "There's been a lot going on to improve our boat in the mid range for sure and the upper range. "There's no free lunch, but I think the way we've done it we've held onto our light air strength." Owner Peter Harburg pointed out Black Jack's performance in last year's Hobart, when she finished third across the line in conditions which didn't favour her, wasn't too shabby. 'We can perform in heavy weather and in the last Hobart we broke the old (race) record," Harburg said "But in stronger winds other boats are more in their sweet spot. Our sweet spot is in lower winds. "A touch of light weather would help us a lot." Black Jack, which took Sydney to Hobart line honours in 2009 as Alfa Romeo, has plenty of top-end talent in her crew. Navigator Tom Addis, Australian Olympian Anthony Nossiter and New Zealand's America's Cup star Brad Butterworth are all aboard. Bradford rates the talent spread across the fleet, and especially the five supermaxis, very highly. "The calibre of the people that are sailing this year, if you spend some time and got around and really got your teeth into who is on the water, it's pretty high end," Bradford said. "I'd challenge it to be the best group of sailors to be involved in - this is going to be a risky comment - in offshore sailing for some years. "These five supermaxis this year have got some real depth on board every boat." THE MORRISON GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REVIEW * The government has accepted 15 of the 20 recommendations and it will consult with the states and territories on for the remaining five. * Religion will be established as a protected attribute in a new Religious Discrimination Act, rendering discrimination on this basis unlawful. * Look to establish a new position of Freedom of Religion Commissioner in the Australian Human Rights Commission. * A Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill will be introduced to parliament as soon as practicable. * Give support to the Australian Human Rights Commission to increase community awareness of the importance of freedom of religion. ALL 20 RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Existing laws that create exemptions in anti-discrimination laws for religious bodies - with respected to race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status - should be reviewed in line with community expectations. 2. The Siracusa Principles - UN criteria to determine if protections exist when rights are restricted - should be considered when drafting laws that would limit the right to freedom of religion. 3. Clauses should be considered in anti-discrimination legislation to reflect the equal status in international law of all human rights, including freedom of religion. 4. Commonwealth charity laws should clarify that advocacy of a "traditional" view of marriage would not, of itself, amount to a "disqualifying purpose". 5. Commonwealth sex discrimination laws should be amended so religious schools can discriminate against staff and contractors on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status - if based on religious teachings. 6. Any exceptions to such laws should be abolished. 7. Commonwealth sex discrimination laws should be amended so religious schools can discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status - if based on religious teachings and the best interests of the child is the primary consideration. 8. Any exceptions should be abolished. 9. Policies should be developed for when parents can remove their children from classrooms if they are being taught about topics that are inconsistent with their religious beliefs. 10. The Attorney-General should update information for marriage celebrants regarding religious protections made available to them. 11. The Attorney-General should consider updating the marriage regulations code of practice to suit the needs of smaller and emerging religious bodies. 12. Draft laws should be progressed to "make it clear" that religious schools don't have to make their facilities available, or provide goods or services, for any marriage - if the refusal is based on religious beliefs or is necessary to prevent followers from being offended. 13. All remaining offences of blasphemy should be abolished. 14. Regulations should be changed so ships can't have offensive names. 15. Commonwealth laws should make it unlawful to discriminate against a person's religious belief or activity, even if that person does not hold religious beliefs. Exceptions should be considered for religious bodies, schools and charities. 16. NSW and SA should change their laws so it's unlawful to discriminate against a person's religious belief or activity, even if that person does not hold any religious belief. Exceptions should be considered for religious bodies, schools and charities. 17. The federal government should collect and analyse incidents when people in the community are exposed to violence, harassment and discrimination because of their faith. 18. A religious engagement and public education program should be developed about human rights and religion in Australia, including the importance of the right to freedom of religion and belief. 19. The Australian Human Rights Commission should take a leading role in protecting freedom of religion through increased community engagement. 20. The prime minister and attorney-general should take leadership of the recommendations. (Source: Religious Freedom Review) A Sydney teenager has had to be airlifted to hospital after seriously burning himself while setting fire to his HSC notes. The 18-year-old was left with multiple burns to his upper and lower body after torching piles of school study notes at a property in Arcadia - a semi-rural suburb in Sydney's northwest - on Thursday morning. A CareFlight rescue helicopter treated the boy, as other emergency services arrived at the scene. The teen was flown to Royal North Shore Hospital in a stable condition. Australia's $50 billion fleet of new submarines will be known as the "Attack class" and delivered to the Navy in the early 2030s. Defence Minister Christopher Pyne has confirmed protracted negotiations with French shipbuilder Naval Group on all key aspects of the strategic partnership are complete. The agreement will be signed early next year and govern the delivery of the fleet in the decades to come. "The Attack class represents the inherent stealth, long-range endurance and lethality of a submarine," Mr Pyne said. Chief of Navy Michael Noonan described the new fleet as "regionally superior". "The Attack class will meet the Navy's capability needs and help protect our security and prosperity for decades to come," Vice Admiral Noonan said. Late last week, the defence minister rubbished reports the new fleet could arrive late and cost billions more than expected. Defence and Naval Group officials were locked in negotiations for several years to produce the 12 submarines. Prime Minister Scott Morrison discussed the submarine negotiations with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the G20 Summit last month. The Queensland Opposition leader has called for a review a 132-year-old law which allowed a court to close "in the interests of morality". Pine Rivers Magistrate Michael Morgan denied media and public access to a hearing involving a man, 26 accused of abducting a girl, 7, from a shopping centre north of Brisbane on Saturday. The man has been charged with taking a girl for immoral purposes, deprivation of liberty and indecent treatment of a child under 12. But his court appearances this week were shrouded in secrecy after Mr Morgan closed the court citing a provision from the Justices Act, first drafted in 1886. Opposition leader Deb Frecklington said the court system needs to be "as open as possible" to ensure confidence in the justice system. "We know we need to protect our victims and our witnesses wherever possible, but this is a piece of legislation that is over a century old and time has moved on," Ms Freckington said. "With the advent of social media we see details of these cases everywhere online and yet our journalists and their trusted sources can't report on those cases. "Justice wherever possible must been seen to be done." Queensland Council for Civil Liberties vice-president Terry O'Gorman was also concerned by the role of social media and said the law needed to "catch up". He said that while mainstream media was bound to obey the law but social media sites were "ablaze" with details. Mr O'Gorman went further and said the identity of accused sex offenders should be protected until they are found guilty, to prevent innocent people from being bashed in jail. He says if the complainant in sexual offences is entitled to anonymity, the accused "should be afforded that same right". "For two reasons - if the accused is in jail and named there is an increased risk of being bashed by other prisoners who regard people who abuse children with contempt and disgust," Mr O'Gorman said. "If you are not in jail and remain in the community on bail, the mud forever sticks even if you are not convicted." Premier Annastasia Palaszczuk refused to be drawn on the issue. "I understand it's an extremely sensitive matter and that is why we need to respect the independence of the judiciary", she said. Laura Ashley will shut shop in Australia by the end of the year if none of the three potential buyers for the troubled retailer submit a firm bid within the next four days. KordaMentha Restructuring says it is in discussions with three parties interested in the clothing and home furnishing group, which entered administration on December 3, and has set a deadline of Monday for them to provide a firm offer. "If there is no sale, all stores will be closed by the end of the month," administrator Craig Shepard said in a statement on Thursday. The clothing and home furnishing group, operated under licence from the original Laura Ashley company in the UK, had 18 stores and 100 employees in Australia when it entered administration for a second time in less than three years. It has since closed its Brisbane store. Mr Shepard again cited challenging retail conditions, rising fixed costs and fierce competition from online retailers as factors in Laura Ashley's woes, but said sales had risen more than 300 per cent in response to deep discounting. "It has an incredibly loyal customer base which has responded magnificently in the last fortnight," Mr Shepard said. The retailer, famed for its pastels and prints, first fell into administration in January 2016 before being slimmed down and sold to a private buyer six months later. Laura Ashley entered Australia in 1971 and, at its peak, had more than 45 stores. It still had 38 stores in 2016. Laura Ashley followed retailers including Roger David, Marcs, Pumpkin Patch, Payless Shoes and Rhodes & Beckett in entering administration, although some brands have survived under new owners. Virat Kohli is thrilled with the green-tinged pitch that has been produced for the maiden Test at Optus Stadium, backing a pace attack widely considered India's best ever to rattle Australia. Kohli's team hold a 1-0 lead in the four-match series and will retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy if they defeat the hosts in the Perth Test that starts on Friday. "I was pretty happy to see the pitch the way it is," Kohli told reporters. "I hope no more grass is taken off the pitch. Because that will mean the first three days will be very lively and we as a team are pretty happy with that. "This pitch is going to offer significantly more to the bowlers than Adelaide. "That's something we're very excited about. "It's fast ... we're not alien to pitches like this. We've played on these kind of wickets in the past, it's nothing new to us." Kohli's wish is set to be granted with curator Brett Sipthorpe unlikely to trim the deck that he hopes will offer similar pace and bounce to what the WACA did in its glory days. "It was very much like the old WACA (in a recent Sheffield Shield match), so that's what we want to see," Sipthorpe said. "We've just been told make it fast, make it bouncy, if you can. "We're just trying to produce the bounciest pitch we can." reuters Boxing-Kambosos says next fight will be at home in Australia By Frank PingueNov 29 (Reuters) - Australian boxer George Kambosos, who stunned the boxing world on the weekend to become unified world lightweight champion,... Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The special counsels office has filed court documents in response to retired Army Lt. Gen Michael Flynns sentencing memorandum, in which attorneys for the former national security adviser suggested he was unguarded during an FBI interview in 2017. Nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI, the special counsel retorted in court documents on Friday. The special counsel's team underscored that it felt Flynn's actions were his own. The defendant chose to make false statements about his communications with the Russian ambassador weeks before the FBI interview when he lied about that topic to the media, the incoming Vice President, and other members of the Presidential Transition Team. The special counsel's comments come in response to a filing by Flynn's defense team on Tuesday in which they gave more information on the January 2017 interview between Flynn and two FBI agents. In December of that year, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the interview about contacts he had with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, during the presidential transition -- from election day 2016 until President Donald Trump's inauguration. Earlier this week, the judge set Friday as a deadline for the government to turn over documents related to the January 2017 meeting for review. Heavily redacted versions of those documents were submitted alongside the filing Friday. Flynn, who served as Trumps national security adviser before he left the White House in February 2017, has been cooperating with investigators since, though most of his 19 interviews with the special counsel team occurred early this year, a source close to Flynn has told ABC News. In the filing earlier this week, Flynn's defense team maintained his guilty plea but suggested that additional context was needed to understand his lies during the FBI interview in January 2017. Flynn's defense team said that he was not warned of the consequences of lying to the agents before his interview. The filing said that the agents were concerned that warning Flynn "might adversely affect the rapport." The office of the special counsel recommended in a filing last week that Flynn receive no jail time in exchange for what they called his "significant" cooperation with the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Flynn's legal team echoed calls for leniency in his sentencing. President Trump tweeted about Flynn on Thursday, alleging that the special counsel had recommended a lighter sentence because prosecutors were "embarrassed" by the way Flynn was treated and suggesting in interviews throughout the day on Thursday that Flynn had not actually lied to investigators. "The FBI said he didnt lie and they overrode the FBI," Trump tweeted. "They want to scare everybody into making up stories that are not true by catching them in the smallest of misstatements. Sad!......" The White House did not clarify what FBI statements the president was referring to when asked by ABC News. Last year, however, Flynn departed the White House in a move Trump explained in a tweet at the time. "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI," Trump wrote in the 2017 tweet. "He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!" Flynn's supporters have long insisted he didn't lie to the FBI agents, who included Peter Strozk, a senior agent later dismissed because of embarrassing texts he exchanged with now-former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. The meeting with Flynn in the White House was set up by then-FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe, who served as the agencys acting director after James Comey was fired by Trump as FBI director in May 2017. McCabe was fired himself this year by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after Trump repeatedly complained about McCabe. Flynn's lawyer noted the firings in his sentencing memo. Sessions, in turn, was fired last month. Flynn is set to be sentenced on Tuesday. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) The historic bells taken by American troops as "war trophies" have finally come home in Balangiga, Eastern Samar Friday afternoon after 117 years in the hands of the U.S. The three bells, which were returned to the country Tuesday morning, would be turned over to the local government and then to the St. Lawrence the Martyr Parish in Balangiga town, within the Diocese of Borongan in rites expected to be attended by President Rodrigo Duterte. However, Duterte said he would not attend the High Mass which would be celebrated during the turnover ceremony at the church plaza. Over 10,000 people are expected to come and witness the homecoming of the bells, but the church can only accommodate 600 people. An LED screen would be placed outside so everyone can watch the turnover. Roads around the church will be closed beginning 4 a.m. on Saturday. As early as Thursday, local and foreign tourists have been coming to see the memorials from the encounter between Filipino and American troops in 1901, which was one of the bloodiest chapters in the Filipino-American War. An American law previously prohibited the Balangiga Bells from being returned to the Philippines, but it has expired in September 2017 and a new law expressly allowed the return of the historic bells. CNN Philippines Correspondent Carolyn Bonquin contributed to this report. Four million children have been born in Syria since the start of the civil war there, with half of Syrian children having known only war during their lives, according to the UN International Children's Fund (UNICEF). It said every eight-year-old Syrian child has been growing up in a climate of danger, destruction, and death. "These children need to be able to return to school, receive their vaccinations, and feel safe and protected," said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore at the end of a five-day visit to the conflict-ravaged country. "We need to be able to help them," she said. Fore was able to visit some of the newly accessible areas in Syria and saw how the conflict has affected families, children and the communities in which they live. In Douma, for example, displaced families are beginning to return to their homes, but the threat of unexploded ordnance is pervasive, UNICEF said. "In Douma, families are living amidst the rubble, struggling for water, food and warmth," Fore said. UNICEF said for children who have missed years of learning due to the war, the age of first-grade students can vary from 6 to 17 years old. Queensland has signed up to a new national school funding agreement, leaving Victoria as the only jurisdiction holding out on the deal with the Commonwealth. Most of the states and territories have signed onto the national school reform agreement in the past seven days. "Every other state and territory has accepted our record school funding and committed to implementing reforms that will improve student outcomes," Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said on Thursday. "We want to make sure that our record funding flows to all schools in Victoria. Every Victorian student deserves our record funding." Another threatened species has been found in the same area which could be flooded under the NSW government's plan to raise Warragamba Dam wall. The vulnerable-listed painted honeyeater was discovered by Australian National University researcher Ross Crates last week in the Burragorang Valley which sits within the Blue Mountains National Park. Mr Crates says the bird is rarely seen that close to Sydney or the coast and suggests they are most likely seeking drought refuge. "If they start losing their drought refuge due to the dam proposal, it's not going to end well," he told AAP on Thursday. The plan to raise the dam wall by about 14 metres will see the area flooded through a "controlled release" of water which Mr Crates says will mean the species will lose its habitat alongside the critically endangered regent honeyeater. An 18-year-old has been charged over a violent mugging at a St Kilda foreshore that left two men unconscious and another injured. The trio were approached by a group of males about 11.15pm on December 1, and when they tried to leave, they were punched and kicked. A 24-year-old Burwood East man, who had his mobile phone and wallet stolen, suffered a broken nose and facial bruising, while a 26-year-old Wheelers Hill man got lacerations to his face. Both men were taken to hospital. The third victim, a 20-year-old Vermont South man, sustained minor injuries but declined treatment. Police on Thursday charged the Point Cook teen with intentionally and recklessly cause injury, affray, riotous behaviour and assault with a weapon. The 18-year-old has been remanded to appear in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Friday. Investigations are ongoing and several more males are wanted over the attack. Australian couch surfers are generally young, female and without a job. That's the findings from the first in-depth analysis of couch surfers by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare as the nation grapples with its growing number of homeless people. The AIHW followed 16,300 adult and teenage couch surfers who sought help from specialist homeless services over a period of four years from 2011. It described couch surfers as being among the most hidden groups of people experiencing homelessness, mainly because they often move between the homes of friends, relatives and strangers. Almost half of the couch surfers were aged between 15 and 24, while 60 per cent were female. Fewer than one in 10 had a job and more than a third had either experienced family violence or mental health problems. More than five in 10 sought help from specialist homeless services more than once during the four-year period. "Couch surfers most frequently sought help with accommodation, followed by assistance with interpersonal relationships and financial difficulties," AIHW spokesman Matthew James said. Overall, the AIHW found that there's a rising number of Australians turning to specialist homeless services. Almost 288,800 people - or one in 85 Australians - sought help last financial year, 13 per cent more than four years ago. Nearly two thirds were female, more than one third were single parents, and close to three in 10 were under 18. The number of people over 45 needing help has continued to rise, particularly those who are 65 and older. "It's important to note that most - close to six in 10 - clients were not homeless when they sought assistance but were at risk of becoming homeless," Mr James said. For many, the main reasons they needed help was because they were fleeing family violence or facing eviction. Around the country, the Northern Territory recorded the highest rate of people seeking housing support, while NSW has seen annual growth of seven per cent in demand for housing services during the past four years. Homelessness Australia chair Jenny Smith said a lack of affordable accommodation for people on low incomes was driving demand for help from homeless services. "The waiting list for social housing has blown out to 200,000 and rising rents in the private rental market are pushing low income earners into rooming houses, motels and caravans," she said. 'Families on low incomes have simply run out of options when it comes to finding a home they can afford." PROFILE OF AUSSIE COUCH SURFERS * Six in 10 are female * 49 per cent are aged 15-24 * Nine in 10 are unemployed or not in the labour force * 15 per cent are enrolled in some form of education * 37 per cent have experienced mental health issues * One third have experienced domestic/family violence (Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, pictured in London in September 2018, were both nominated by the Screen Actors Guild for their partnership in 'A Star Is Born' "A Star Is Born" led the pack in the movies category Wednesday at the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations, seen as a bellwether in the run-up to the Oscars. The music romance reboot earned Bradley Cooper a nod for best actor, Lady Gaga for best actress and Sam Elliott for best supporting actor. The fourth nomination was for best cast. Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman," the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a white partner, came in second with three nominations for best actor (John David Washington), best supporting actor (Adam Driver) and best cast. Other films nominated for best cast -- the SAG's top award -- are superhero movie "Black Panther," "Bohemian Rhapsody," about Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, and summer rom-com hit "Crazy Rich Asians." On the television side, Amazon's breakout comedy "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and the Netflix drama "Ozark" led the pack with four nominations each. Other shows nominated include FX's Cold War spy thriller "The Americans," NBC's "This Is Us" and "The Handmaid's Tale," the runaway hit series based on the dystopian 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood. Among the plethora of actors nominated are Antonio Banderas, who received an outstanding performance nod for his portrayal of Pablo Picasso in the National Geographic mini-series "Genius," Patricia Arquette for "Escape at Dannamora," and Anthony Hopkins for "King Lear." Some of the surprising snubs for movies include Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma," seen as an Oscar frontrunner, "First Man," about Neil Armstrong's moon landing, and "Widows," about a group of women who try to pull off a heist after their husbands are killed in a botched robbery. - 'Great perfomances ignored' - On the television side, Oscar-winner Julia Roberts came out empty-handed for her role in Amazon drama "Homecoming" as did Donald Glover for "Atlanta." "Look at how many great performances were ignored because their films were not popular," tweeted Sasha Stone, the founder of specialized industry website Awards Daily. "Does it have anything whatsoever to do with the performance? NO. Does it ever? NO. Sorry but no." Last week, "Vice," a biopic about Dick Cheney starring Christian Bale as the former US vice president, earned the most Golden Globe nominations with six, including best comedy film. The movie -- which only opens in US theaters on Christmas Day -- bucked some predictions, earning one more nod than "A Star Is Born." Rapper/actress Awkwafina (left) and actress Laverne Cox (in Cristina Ottaviano) present the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Nominations announcement at the Pacific Design Center, in West Hollywood, California, on December 12, 2018 This year's awards are taking place after the #MeToo movement -- sparked by bombshell sexual assault claims against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein -- dominated the prizegiving season last year, as Hollywood dealt with the fallout from the crisis. Although less high-profile than the Golden Globes, the SAG awards are seen as more of an indicator of Oscars glory, since members represent a disproportionately large section of the roughly 8,000 voters for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place on January 27 in Los Angeles. Negotiators were trying to solve the dispute over Sanaa airport, shut down for years in the conflict between the Saudi-backed government and northern rebels linked to Iran With just hours left before the close of negotiations, UN mediators rushed to broker a truce Wednesday between government representatives and rebels in Yemen, a country teetering on the brink of famine. The UN talks opened last week in Sweden, the first meeting in two years between Yemen's Huthi rebels and the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, backed since 2015 by a behemoth military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. Taiz, the southwestern city controlled by the government and surrounded by the rebels, is no longer under discussion at the talks, scheduled to close on Thursday. The city has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting in a war that has pushed 14 million people to the edge of famine. Intense talks, however, were continuing on Sanaa airport, shut down for years in the conflict between the Saudi-backed government and northern rebels linked to Iran. Negotiators are also seeking a de-escalation of violence in rebel-held Hodeida, a port city vital to the supply of humanitarian aid, and a cooperation deal on the country's crumbling economy. Hodeida, the lifeline to millions dependent on aid to survive, is home to major frontlines. - 11th hour - Another round of talks has been tentatively scheduled for January, according to UN and Yemeni officials. The head of the Huthis' revolutionary council, Mohammed Ali Huthi, on Wednesday said the insurgents had proposed Yemen's rebel-held capital, Sanaa, to host the next round. A UN official said the organization had received no such request. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was due at the talks in Rimbo, Sweden, for Thursday's closing round of consultations. The office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (C) said it had evidence the rebel Huthis were using Iran-made missiles Ahead of the UN's chief's arrival, his office said it had evidence the rebel Huthis were using Iran-made missiles -- a charge the Saudi-led alliance levels against the rebels as grounds for restrictions on the Hodeida port and Sanaa airport. Both government and rebel representatives have traded accusations of unwillingness to negotiate, particularly on rebel-held Hodeida, the main route for 90 percent of food imports and nearly 80 percent of aid deliveries. UN special envoy Martin Griffiths has submitted a proposal on a political framework for the future of Yemen, an agreement on the reopening of Sanaa airport, a paper on addressing the economic situation and a draft agreement on Hodeida, spokeswoman Hanan Badawi told reporters. "The two parties have officially received the drafts and we are waiting on a response," Badawi said. Members of both delegations contacted by AFP said agreements could be signed by morning. Yemeni Prime Minister Moeen Abdulmalik Saeed told AFP a full agreement on Hodeida was unlikely "given the time constraints". - Airport, port - Abdelmagid al-Hanash, of the Huthi delegation, told AFP an agreement on Sanaa airport was close, with the rebels open to a government proposal for flight searches in Sayoun or Aden, two cities under the control of the state. "For now, the search will be in Aden but will not cause harm or trouble. No one will be asked to disembark," Hanash said. The war in Yemen has pushed 14 million people to the brink of famine An advisor to the government team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his delegation would not confirm any agreement until the documents had been signed. Yemeni ministers Othman Mujalli and Marwan Dammaj told reporters Wednesday their camp would hold firm to UN Security Council Resolution 2216 -- which calls for the Huthis to withdraw from all areas seized in a 2014 takeover, including Hodeida. Representatives of both the Huthis and government contacted by AFP late Wednesday blamed the other party for the lack of a truce on Hodeida. The last official statement by a spokesman for the Saudi-led government coalition said military operations were ongoing in Hodeida on Monday night. - Saudi soldiers on missing list - The two camps signed a mass prisoner exchange deal at the Sweden talks, which two Yemeni government officials confirmed include Saudi soldiers fighting alongside state troops. The Huthis had said Tuesday that the list included Saudi soldiers. A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition and a UN official did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The prisoner swap includes the names of more than 15,000 detainees and disappeared persons taken on frontlines since 2015. The deal will be overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which warns the exchange could take weeks. The Yemen conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people since the Saudi-led coalition joined the war in 2015, according to the World Health Organization, triggering what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Both parties stand accused of failing to protect civilians. The Saudi-led alliance has been blacklisted by the UN for the killing and maiming of children. US President Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen arrives for sentencing Donald Trump's former lawyer apologized Wednesday for covering up the "dirty deeds" of his ex-boss as he was sentenced to three years for multiple crimes including hush money payments implicating the US president. Pleading for leniency in a packed Manhattan courtroom before US District Court Judge William H. Pauley III, Michael Cohen said he had been led astray by misplaced admiration for Trump. An emotional Cohen, 52, Trump's longtime "fixer," told the court he accepted responsibility for his personal crimes and "those involving the President of the United States of America." Cohen's lawyers had argued for no jail time after he admitted charges brought by federal prosecutors in New York of tax evasion, providing false statements to a bank and illegal campaign contributions. Cohen also pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress -- a charge stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected. US President Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen leaves US Federal Court in New York on December 12, 2018 But Pauley said Cohen -- as a lawyer -- "should have known better" and sentenced him to three years in federal prison, ordering him to surrender to custody by March 6. He was also ordered to pay $2 million in fines and restitution. "Each of these crimes standing alone warrant considerable punishment," Pauley said, adding that Cohen was "motivated by personal greed and ambition." "A significant term of imprisonment is fully justified in this highly publicized case to send a message," the judge said. Before Pauley passed sentence, Cohen addressed the court, saying it was his devotion to Trump that caused him to choose "a path of darkness over light." "Today is the day that I am getting my freedom back," he said. "I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen I deeply admired," Cohen said. "I now realize there was little to admire," he said. - 'Dirty deeds' - Cohen referred to a recent tweet from Trump calling him "weak," saying his only weakness had been "blind loyalty" to his former boss. US President Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen arrives with family members for his sentencing for multiple crimes "Time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass," he said. Among the charges against Cohen was making secret payments to silence two women threatening to go public during the election campaign with claims they had affairs with Trump. Cohen told prosecutors the payments totaling $280,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal were made "in coordination with and at the direction" of Trump -- referred to by prosecutors as "Individual-1." Both women have claimed to have had sexual encounters with Trump before he was the Republican candidate for president and prosecutors have characterized the payments as illegal campaign contributions intended to influence the election. Michael Cohen "Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election," prosecutors said. The payment to McDougal was funnelled through American Media Inc, publisher of the National Enquirer, and prosecutors announced following Cohen's sentencing that AMI had been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for its cooperation. Trump this week sought to minimize the importance of the payments to the two women saying they were a "simple private transaction" and were "wrongly" being called campaign contributions. "Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced," Trump tweeted. "WITCH HUNT!" There was no immediate reaction from Trump to Cohen's sentencing. - Lied to Congress - While federal prosecutors said Cohen's cooperation was limited and selective, the Special Counsel's office said Cohen had "gone to significant lengths" to assist their investigation. Last month, Cohen acknowledged that he had lied to Congress about his contacts with Russia during the election campaign about building a Trump Tower in Moscow and the extent of Trump's own involvement in the negotiations. Cohen, wearing a dark suit with a light blue tie, arrived for the sentencing with his wife, son and daughter, who was walking with a crutch. Other family members were also in the audience including his 83-year-old wheelchair-bound father. For 12 years, Cohen was vice president of The Trump Organization, the umbrella company for Trump's real estate businesses, and one of the principal confidants of the New York billionaire. Investigators raided Cohen's offices and New York home in April, seizing stacks of documents and electronic devices. Prosecutors have granted immunity to a publisher who paid $150,000 to a Playboy model to prevent her from speaking about her claim to have had an affair with Donald Trump Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they have granted immunity to a publisher who paid $150,000 to a Playboy model to prevent her from going public with her claim to have had an affair with Donald Trump. The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said it had reached a "non-prosecution agreement" with American Media Inc (AMI), publisher of the tabloid the National Enquirer. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for various crimes, including paying a total of $280,000 in "hush money" to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump before he was a candidate for president. One of those women was porn actress Stormy Daniels, who prosecutors said was paid $130,000 by Cohen to keep quiet about her sexual encounter with Trump. The other was a former Playboy model named Karen McDougal, who was paid $150,000 by Cohen through AMI, whose chairman and chief executive, David Pecker, is a longtime friend of Trump. "As a part of the agreement, AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election," the US Attorney's Office said in a statement. "AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election," it said. The US Attorney's Office said AMI had provided "substantial and important assistance in this investigation, and its agreement to provide cooperation in the future." Cohen admitted to committing campaign finance violations by making the payments, which prosecutors have said were made at the direction of Trump. Trump this week sought to downplay the significance of the payments claiming that they were a "simple private transaction" and were being "wrongly" characterized as campaign contributions. Tunisian women hold up saws and signs saying in Arabic, "No welcome, Tunisians against the visit of the Saudi Crown Prince to Tunisia", during an anti-Saudi Crown Prince protest in Tunis on November 27, 2018 Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed will head to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, two weeks after protesters rallied against a visit to the North African country by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Hundreds of Tunisians demonstrated the arrival of the crown prince in Tunis on November 27, condemning the kingdom's role in the Yemen war and urging justice over the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Chahed's three-day trip "comes at the request of the Saudi crown prince... and is part of pushing bilateral relations between the two countries to wider horizons," according to a statement put out Wednesday by the presidency. Prince Mohammed's visit last month to Tunis came as part of a wider regional tour, the first since coming under intense criticism over the October 2 killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince's stop in Tunis was the first from a member of the Saudi royal family since Tunisia's 2011 revolution. During the visit he met with Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, who said the crown prince was "not merely a guest of Tunisia, he is at home here". But Prince Mohammed continues to face international pressure over the Khashoggi killing, with Turkey saying on Tuesday it was in talks over a possible United Nations investigation into the murder. The journalist's killing has led to increased scrutiny over Riyadh's role in the devastating Yemen war. Some 10,000 people have been killed since 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the government in its fight to push back Huthi rebels, according to World Health Organization figures. Some rights groups estimate the death toll could be five times higher. An SDF fighter holds a sniper rifle on his shoulder as he attends the funeral of a slain Kurdish commander in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli on December 6, 2018 A US-backed Kurdish militia in Syria warned Wednesday that an offensive against it by Turkey would hinder the battle against Islamic State jihadists. The warning came just hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would launch an operation "in the next few days" against territory held by Kurdish forces in northern Syria. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) partners with Washington in the fight against IS, but Turkey says the group is a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The YPG forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-led coalition's key ground partner in the fight against IS currently battling to oust jihadists from their last holdout in eastern Syria. "The (Turkish) threats coincide with the advance of our forces against the terrorists, this time with the entrance into the town of Hajin," YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud said. The SDF launched an offensive on September 10 to expel IS from the Hajin pocket, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River close to the Iraqi border. "Undoubtably, any attack on the north of Syria will have a direct impact on the battle of Hajin. The forces who are fighting (there) will return to defend their areas and their families," Mahmud said. In the chaos of Syria's brutal seven-year war, the long-oppressed Kurdish minority has carved out a semi-autonomous region in the north of the country. Ankara fears an entrenched Kurdish presence across the border will stoke separatist ambitions at home. In January, Turkish forces backed Syrian rebels to clear the YPG from its northwestern enclave of Afrin, west of the Euphrates River. Erdogan said Wednesday that Turkish forces would soon begin moving to clear Kurdish fighters from the east of the river. The semi-autonomous administration's executive council appealed to the United Nations, the anti-IS coalition and the broader international community "to take a stand against Erdogan's aggressive plans". "We also call on the Syrian government to take an official position against these threats," the council said in a statement Wednesday. The YPG spokesman blamed "Turkish threats" for already interrupting the fight against militants. The SDF temporarily halted anti-IS operations in late October after Turkey shelled Kurdish positions in northern Syria. "In case of attack, we will use the right of legitimate defence of our regions, and we will resist right to the end," Mahmud said. There are American forces with the SDF east of the Euphrates as well as in the flashpoint city of Manbij, which is west of the river. Erdogan's announcement came a day after the Pentagon announced the US had set up observation posts on the northeast Syria border region, intended to prevent altercations between the Turkish army and the YPG. Mahmud said the observation posts were there "to demonstrate that Turkish security is not threatened", despite criticism from Ankara against the move. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the annual GPO (government press office) New Year's toast in Jerusalem on December 12, 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel would be prepared to attack inside Iran if the Jewish state's survival was at stake. "Our red line is our survival," Netanyahu said at a meeting with foreign media where he was asked what his "red line" was for attacking Iranian territory, rather than its proxies in Syria and Lebanon. "We do what is necessary to protect the state of Israel against the Iranian regime that openly calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state." "I'm not ruling out doing anything that we need to do to defend ourselves," added Netanyahu, who sees Iran as the most dangerous threat to Israel. He said that Israel is the only country whose military is "directly engaging Iranian forces" with air strikes in neighbouring Syria, where Iran supports the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu said Wednesday that Iran's aggressive regional behaviour, in contrast to Israel's fight against radical Islamic militants and its advanced technology, had brought once-hostile Arab states closer to the Jewish state. "The Arab countries understand exactly that Israel is not their enemy, but their indispensable partner" against extremists, he said, speaking of "new relationship between Israel and the Arab world". Israel has diplomatic relations with only two Arab countries -- Egypt and Jordan -- but has recently been pushing to broaden regional ties. A rapprochement with Saudi Arabia in particular, a regional heavyweight and rival of Iran, would be a considerable breakthrough for Israel. Netanyahu said that a balanced diplomatic response was needed to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country's consulate in Istanbul on October 2, which sparked a global outcry. While he described the crime as "horrific, nothing short of that," he said that every country, especially those with formal relations with Saudi Arabia, must decide how to react. "It's balanced by the importance of Saudi Arabia and the role it plays in the Middle East, because if Saudi Arabia were to be destabilised the world would be destabilised... and I think that has to be taken into account, there's a balance," he said. Michigan state Republicans have approved a bill to limit the ability of Democratic governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer (pictured August 2018) to tighten environmental rules and other state regulations, sparking protests More than 100 protesters took to Michigan's state capitol on Wednesday to oppose efforts by the US state's Republican-led legislature to limit the powers of its incoming Democratic governor. Similar scenes played out last week in nearby Wisconsin, where state Republicans passed measures to significantly curb the authority of the Democrat who beat the incumbent Republican governor in the November midterm elections. Critics say the legislative maneuvers are a concerted effort by Republicans to deny power to Democrats who will be taking office in January in states where Republicans control the legislature but have lost executive offices. In response, Michigan Democratic leaders called for an end to legislative sessions that immediately follow elections. Facing less pressure because they are either about to leave office or simply do not face an imminent election, lawmakers can take advantage of so-called "lame-duck" sessions to enact unpopular measures. "As we're seeing now, with Republicans pushing vindictive legislation meant to strip powers away from the incoming Democratic executive officers, this period of time is often abused," Democratic state representative Kristy Pagan said in a statement. Republicans approved a bill Tuesday to limit the ability of Democratic governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer to tighten environmental rules and other state regulations. They have also passed bills to weaken minimum wage and paid sick leave guarantees. While the Michigan measures are less sweeping than those in Wisconsin, they still inspired protesters to fill the state capitol's rotunda on Wednesday. "What we know is your voice is not being represented," state lawmaker Donna Lasinski told a boisterous crowd. Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican who will vacate office in January, has not indicated whether he will sign the measures into law. CIA Director Gina Haspel arrives for a briefing with US House leaders about the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on December 12, 2018 The US Senate sent a fresh warning to President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia Wednesday by greenlighting a vote that could end US military support for Riyadh's war in Yemen. Anger at the human cost of the war, as well as outrage over the killing of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, have prompted a harder line in Congress about the US military's role in backing the Saudi-led coalition fighting to bolster the Yemeni government against Huthi rebels. That mounting anger may prompt a separate measure in the coming days accusing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of direct involvement in the journalist's killing -- in line with the reported conclusions of the CIA, whose director Gina Haspel briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday. That would be a direct challenge to Trump, who has sought to cast doubt on the crown prince's involvement in the killing and has stressed instead the importance of US trade and military ties with the kingdom. The Senate voted to advance the resolution that ends US backing for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen by 60 votes to 39, with 11 Republicans joining Democrats to back the measure. The final Senate vote is expected to take place on Thursday, although even if the upper house approves the resolution, it is likely to run aground in the lower House of Representatives where Republicans hold the majority until January 3. And even if Congress does back the measure, Trump will be able to deploy his veto power. It remains, however, a powerful symbol of growing unease at US backing for the young heir apparent to the Saudi throne. Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell -- a Trump loyalist -- had called on his party to vote against the resolution. But he did back a pending non-binding resolution that would hold the Saudi crown prince responsible for the Khashoggi killing. That resolution, crafted by Bob Corker, a Republican who has been critical of the president, is expected to enjoy broad bipartisan support. In the meantime, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are set to defend the alliance with Riyadh in a closed-door briefing to Congress on Thursday. The Shin Bet announcement came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) vowed that those who carried out Sunday's shooting near a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West bank would be found and brought to justice Israeli security forces on Wednesday shot dead a Palestinian suspected in the shooting of seven Israelis including a pregnant woman whose baby later died. The Shin Bet security service said in a statement that a suspect named as Salah Omar Barghouti, 29, who tried to evade capture during a raid on a West Bank village was shot and killed. The statement did not say if Barghouti was suspected of being the gunman or an accomplice. It said an unspecified number of other suspects were arrested. The Shin Bet announcement came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that those who carried out Sunday's drive-by shooting near a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West bank would be found and brought to justice. He spoke shortly after a Jerusalem hospital announced the death of the baby boy, delivered by emergency caesarean section after his mother was shot. She was 30-weeks pregnant. "We lost a few hours ago a newborn baby, four days old," Netanyahu said in an address to foreign media. "We will find the killers, we haven't stopped searching. We will find them and bring them to justice," he said. The newborn was buried late Wednesday on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, opposite the walled Old City. US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt said in a Twitter message that the death was "absolutely heart-breaking". "My thoughts & prayers are with the family of the baby who died today as a result of the despicable terror attack on Sunday," he wrote. "This is an attack Hamas praised as 'heroic'". "The world must strongly condemn this terror and not remain silent," Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said in a statement. The Islamist Hamas movement, which runs the Gaza Strip, saluted the shooting and in a statement said it proved "resistance" was still alive in the West Bank. Following the attack the 21-year-old mother was reported as stable, but the Shaare Zedek hospital said Monday that her baby had taken a turn for the worse. The child died "despite the medical efforts of the premature baby unit to save him," the hospital said on Wednesday. Palestinian attacks against Israelis occur sporadically in the West Bank. Sunday's shooting north of Jerusalem was the most serious attack in the West Bank since October 7, when Palestinian Ashraf Naalwa shot two Israelis dead in an industrial zone for a nearby settlement. A measure to legalize large-scale hemp cultivation in the US was supported by both Republicans and Democrats The US Congress on Wednesday approved the legalization of large-scale hemp cultivation and its removal from a list of controlled substances. "This is the culmination of a lot of work by a number of us here in Washington but really the victory is for the growers, processors, manufacturers and consumers who stand to benefit from this growing market place," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. The measure was supported by both Republicans and Democrats who argued it was an opportunity for American farmers. It appears in a major law on agriculture that was adopted by a clear majority in the House of Representatives (369-47) after comfortably passing the Senate (87-13) the day before. The law has not yet been signed by President Donald Trump. "I'll be happy to loan him my hemp pen for the occasion," joked McConnell, a conservative from the state of Kentucky who had vigorously defended the measure after already pushing for the authorization of pilot programs in 2014. The measure "legalizes hemp as an agricultural commodity" and removes it from the controlled substances list, while allowing researchers to apply for federal grants and makes hemp eligible for crop insurance, McConnell said. This "will encourage new opportunities for struggling farmers and their families, news products... and new jobs," he said. The Pentagon has repeatedly warned that any fighting between Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces alliance would be a dangerous distraction from the core mission in Syria of battling the Islamic State jihadist group Any unilateral military action in northern Syria would be "unacceptable," the Pentagon warned Wednesday after Turkey said it would soon launch an operation against a US-backed Kurdish militia. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would begin the operation "within days" to target the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), "Unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern," Pentagon spokesman Commander Sean Robertson said in a statement. "We would find any such actions unacceptable." American forces have worked closely with the YPG under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, which has played a key role in the war against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. American forces are with the SDF east of the Euphrates as well as in the flashpoint city of Manbij, which is west of the river. "Coordination and consultation between the US and Turkey is the only approach to address issues of security concern in this area," Robertson said. "We are committed to working closely and recently held a high level working group on Syria with our Turkish partners precisely to enhance our cooperation, coordination, and consultation." The Pentagon has repeatedly warned that any fighting between the Turks and the SDF would be a dangerous distraction from the core US mission in Syria of fighting IS. "We should not and cannot allow (IS) to breathe at this critical point or we will jeopardize the significant gains we have made alongside our coalition partners and risk allowing (IS) to resurge," Robertson said. The Pentagon on Tuesday said American observation posts in northern Syria, meant to prevent altercations between the Turkish army and the YPG, have been erected, despite Ankara's request to scrap the move. Washington's relationship with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) is one of the main sources of tensions between Turkey and the United States Any unilateral military action in northern Syria would be "unacceptable", the Pentagon said Wednesday after Turkey announced it would launch an operation against a US-backed Kurdish militia. The warning came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would soon begin a mission targeting the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers a "terrorist" group. "We will start an operation to free the east of the Euphrates from the separatist terrorist organisation in the next few days," Erdogan said during a speech in Ankara, referring to territory held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). American forces have worked closely with the YPG under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, which has played a key role in the war against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group The Pentagon has repeatedly warned that any fighting between the Turks and the SDF is a dangerous distraction from the core US mission in Syria of fighting IS. Pentagon spokesman Commander Sean Robertson said any unilateral military action in northeast Syria would be a "grave concern", as it could potentially jeopardise US troops working with the SDF in the region. "We would find any such actions unacceptable," he said in a statement. Turkey says the YPG is a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. "The target is never American soldiers but terrorist organisation members active in the region," Erdogan told the audience at a defence industry summit. American forces are with the SDF east of the Euphrates as well as in the flashpoint city of Manbij, which is west of the river. "We should not and cannot allow (IS) to breathe at this critical point or we will jeopardise the significant gains we have made alongside our coalition partners and risk allowing (IS) to resurge," Robertson said. The YPG also said a Turkish offensive would be to the benefit of IS. "The (Turkish) threats coincide with the advance of our forces against the terrorists, this time with the entrance into the town of Hajin," YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud said. The SDF launched an offensive on September 10 to expel IS from the Hajin pocket, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River close to the Iraqi border. "Any attack on the north of Syria will have a direct impact on the battle of Hajin. The forces who are fighting (there) will return to defend their areas and their families," Mahmud said. - 'Compel a change' - Washington's relationship with the YPG, seen as a key ally, is one of the main sources of tensions between the United States and NATO member Turkey. Ankara has repeatedly lambasted Washington for providing military support to the Kurdish militia. Erdogan has previously threatened to attack areas held by the YPG. In a bid to avoid any clash, the NATO allies agreed a "roadmap" for Manbij in June. Erdogan's comments came a day after the Pentagon announced the setting up of US observation posts on the northeast Syria border region intended to prevent altercations between the Turkish army and the YPG despite calls from Ankara not to go ahead with the move. Erdogan claimed Turkey was not being protected from terrorists but "terrorists were being protected" from possible action by Turkey. Elizabeth Teoman, analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said Erdogan may be threatening the attacks "to compel a change in US policy regarding the US observation posts along the Syrian-Turkish border". She added that "Turkey may attempt to target YPG rear areas without a definitive US presence in the form of an observation posts." Turkey has previously launched two operations in northern Syria. The first offensive began in August 2016 with Turkish forces supporting Syrian opposition fighters against IS and was completed by March 2017. Then in January 2018, Turkish military forces backed Syrian rebels to clear the YPG from its northwestern enclave of Afrin. In March, the operation was completed with the capture of Afrin city. Flames from the Camp Fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend, California Insurance claims from the recent devastating California wildfires that killed at least 89 people and destroyed 19,000 homes and businesses have reached at least $9 billion, the state's insurance commissioner said Wednesday. "The devastating wildfires of 2018 were the deadliest and costliest wildfire catastrophes in California's history," said California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. "The tragic deaths ... and over $9 billion in insured losses to date are shocking numbers -- behind the insured loss numbers are thousands of people who've been traumatized by unfathomable loss." He said the figures released in connection with the three wildfires -- the Camp Fire, The Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire -- are preliminary. State and federal authorities announced on Tuesday that it will cost at least $3 billion to clear debris from the blazes. Most of the insurance payouts -- some $7 billion -- concern the Camp Fire in Northern California, which wiped out the town of Paradise and killed 86 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in recent California history. Three other people died in the Woolsey Fire, which destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Southern California, including the homes of several celebrities in Malibu. The third blaze, the Hill Fire, also in Southern California, scorched thousands of acres in the Santa Rosa Valley. Insurance claims for those fires are expected to top $2 billion. Nancy Kincaid, spokeswoman for the California Department of Insurance, said claims could very well exceed the record-breaking $10.4 billion paid out last year following deadly wildfires that ripped through the state's wine country. "These are the first numbers we've recorded so far ... and it's possible that very quickly last year's record will be broken," she told AFP. A Houston jury convicted Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes for helping their daughter relocate her young son to Brazil in 2013 under allegedly false pretenses and without the permission of his American father Chris Brann (L, pictured February 2018) A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday sentenced a Brazilian couple to short prison terms for helping to kidnap their grandson from the US. A Houston jury had convicted Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes in May for helping their daughter relocate their grandson Nico Brann to Brazil five years ago, without his American father's permission. The grandparents faced up to three years in prison, but a federal judge sentenced Carlos Guimaraes to three months and Jemima to one month. They were each also fined $75,000. The case generated international headlines after the couple in their 60s were arrested in February while arriving in Miami for vacation. The couple's daughter Marcelle Guimaraes relocated her then-three-year-old child to Brazil in 2013 under allegedly false pretenses and without the permission of his American father Chris Brann, a Houston physician. They divorced in 2012. Brann claims his ex-wife told him the trip would only last a few weeks, but the child was never brought back to the US. Guimaraes's parents allegedly helped her hide her motives, before the South American country's legal system granted the mother full custody. The grandparents presented evidence during trial that the child's mother was fleeing domestic violence, according to local media. "The world needs to know the truth because I married a monster," Marcelle Guimaraes, who is now a fugitive wanted by the FBI, told Houston TV station KHOU prior to the sentencing. "My ex-husband's lies and manipulation has destroyed my family, my whole family." Brann testified before the US Congress in 2016 to ask Washington to impose sanctions on Brazil for violating an international standard requiring the return of children to their home country, if they were taken in violation of custody agreements. A similar dispute led to the Sean Goldman Act in 2014, authorizing Washington to take action in international child custody disputes. Sarder removes billboards, thick nails and spikes from abused trees across the country Ohid Sarder prises a rusted nail from a tree and drops it into his bucket, another eyesore scrubbed from the countryside as he embarks on a one-man mission to clean up Bangladesh. The 53-year-old self-professed tree hugger has been riding his bicycle across the country, in a grassroots effort to free trees of the billboards and clutter nailed to their trunks. Trees in Bangladesh are often used as free advertising space, with every available inch of wood plastered with placards until the trunk is barely visible. The billboards might disintegrate over time but the nails remain embedded deep in the wood -- agitating tree-lover Sarder, who has devoted his life to healing these wounds. "Trees have life. They feel pain just as we do," the self-styled conservationist told AFP in Jessore district in the country's southwest. "I have seen how these nails have killed trees, and how they are causing them pain." It is arduous and thankless work, leaving his hands scarred Sarder grew up idolising Jagdish Chandra Bose, a prominent Bengali botanist who wrote about the emotions of plants in the early decades of the 20th century. Inspired, Sarder began planting trees in Jhenaidah, his home district, and neighbouring Jessore, a passion he kept up for decades. But this year it occurred to him that planting trees was not enough -- he needed to protect those already under threat. Traversing battered roads with a bicycle, bucket and a metal rod welded with prongs, Sarder began prying thick nails and spikes from abused trees across the country. Since he began his beautification drive in July he has collected more than 80 kilogrammes (176 pounds) of them. "It looks easy, but it isn't. It takes a lot of effort to pull out a rusted nail that has been there for years," he said. - Seeking to inspire - It is arduous and thankless work. His wife complains that Sarder, a mason by trade, spends too much time with his trees doing unpaid volunteer work His wife complains that Sarder, a mason by trade, spends more time with his trees doing unpaid volunteer work than earning a wage. Often, he doubles back on a section of road to discover fresh billboards hammered into his beloved trees. "You know what breaks my heart the most? Most of these banners are advertising doctors, lawyers, tutors and other clinics," he said. "They all are well educated. Why on earth can't they refrain from destroying a tree?" Sarder often attracts crowds of curious onlookers as he goes about his work. "No one really does this work. People thought I was crazy," he said. But sensing an opportunity to educate the public about his mission, he attached a placard to his bicycle extolling the benefits of trees and merits of conserving nature. "I try my best to explain the importance of having more trees and inspire them to plant and save more trees." Sarder often attracts crowds of curious onlookers as he goes about his work Sarder has appealed to local politicians to try and outlaw this form of vandalism, but has not had much success. But he intends to keep up the fight, saying a growing awareness of climate change and environmental conservation in his impoverished homeland could spur change in the future. Bangladesh, a low-lying riverine country of 160 million, is particularly prone to floods. Experts say trees, by soaking up water and reducing soil erosion, can help mitigate the devastation brought by yearly deluges. "What we have failed to understand is that to keep the balance in nature, we need more trees," he said. Migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Morocco to Spain have not been put off by the rougher weather and sea conditions A radio message comes in from a Spanish maritime rescue boat to the service's command centre in the southern town of Tarifa: "34 migrants rescued". The onset of autumn, with the cold, storms and fog, has not stopped migrants from crossing the Mediterranean from Morocco to Spain, a journey that has this year claimed the lives of hundreds of youths. From the heights of Tarifa, veteran sailors work in shifts behind radar screens at the rescue service command centre monitoring the Strait of Gibraltar, through which 100,000 ships transit every year. Just 14 km (nine miles) separates northern Morocco from Spain's southern Andalusia region at the Gibraltar Strait's narrowest point but conditions can change very quickly "When the weather is good we can see homes in North Africa from here," said its head, Adolfo Serrano. Just 14 kilometres (nine miles) separates northern Morocco from Spain's southern Andalusia region at the Strait's narrowest point. "But with a quickly changing sea, strong currents, fogs that can surprise you, it's a dangerous crossing," added Serrano. It is especially perilous because human traffickers put migrants on packed inflatable boats or plastic canoes that can easily overturn, he said. - 'Many can't swim' - "I can't remember an autumn like this. Boats keep arriving with pregnant women, children," said Jose Antonio Parra, a mechanic of 25 years experience with the Guardia Civil police force's maritime unit. "I can't remember an autumn like this," says Jose Antonio Parra (pictured), a veteran mechanic with the Guardia Civil police force's maritime unit, adding: "Boats keep arriving with pregnant women, children." The 34 migrants rescued from an inflatable boat -- including six females who appeared to be in their teens -- were taken to the port of Algeciras, where they were first attended to by the Red Cross before being handed to police. Small migrant boats are hard to detect by radar. They are often only located when the migrants themselves sound the alarm by telephone. Rescuers did not detect the boat which sunk on November 5 during a storm off the coast of the town of Barbate, an hour's drive west of Algeciras, killing 23 young Moroccans. Only 21 people on board survived. The Spanish maritime rescue service's command centre in the southern town of Tarifa monitors the Strait of Gibraltar "There was a hell of a storm. Many of them did not know how to swim," said spokesman for the Guardia Civil in Cadiz province, Manuel Gonzalez. Andalusia's regional government took charge of nine minors who survived, while police jailed two passengers suspected of having steered the boat. The other 10 adults who were on board were ordered back to Morocco under an agreement between Madrid and Rabat. - 'Toy-style boat' - Since then, more bodies have washed ashore on other beaches. Between January and December 2, 687 migrants died trying to enter Spain by sea, more than three times as many as last year, according to IOM figures Nine sub-Saharan African migrants drowned after spending a week adrift at sea, according to the only survivor of the ordeal, a Guinean teenager who saw his brother die, said Gonzalez. The migrants had paid 700 euros ($800 dollars) each for what they had been told would be a trip on board a rigid-hulled inflatable boat with an engine but were instead forced to take a "toy-style boat" with just one oar, he added. Under an agreement between Rabat and Madrid, Moroccans face deportation back to Morocco if caught Between January and December 2, 687 migrants died trying to enter Spain by sea, more than three times as many as last year, according to International Organization for Migration (IOM) figures. More migrants have died trying to reach Italy and Malta this year -- nearly 1,300 -- but Spain has become the main entry point for migrants trying to reach Europe by sea. More than 55,000 migrants have arrived in the country so far this year. - 'Even the men cried' - Rescuers describe two types of migrants: Sub-Saharan African migrants, who sing when rescuers arrive to pluck them from the sea, and Moroccans who try at all costs to reach the shore without being detected because they face deportation back to Morocco if caught. The head of the Spanish maritime rescue service command centre Adolfo Serrano says it's a dangerous crossing, especially because human traffickers put migrants on packed inflatable boats or plastic canoes "Our boat rocked, there was so much joy," Abou Bacari, an 18-year-old who left Ivory Coast two years ago after he lost his job at a banana plantation, told AFP in Madrid, as he recalled his rescue at sea off the Spanish coast in October. There were 70 people on board the inflatable boat, including four children and eight women, when it departed Tangiers for Spain, he said. "Guineans, Malians, Ivorians... we were lost at sea for two days," Bacari said, adding "even the men cried" when the boat developed a puncture. Thirty-four migrants rescued recently from an inflatable boat were taken to Algeciras to be attended to by the Red Cross, before being handed to police On some days -- such as last weekend -- as many as over 500 migrants can be brought to shore by Spain's maritime rescuers. "I had never before seen a boat just with 45 migrants aged around 14-15 on board. Even the one who steered it, who supposedly worked for the traffickers, was a minor," said Parra. - Names tattooed - It's now 30 years since the first photo of the body of a drowned migrant on a beach in Andalusia was published. There are rows of tombstones in Tarifa where unnamed migrants are buried Today rows of tombstones at Tarifa's cemetery mark where unnamed migrants are buried. "Sometimes we find migrants with their names tattooed on their arms in case they die. We are seeing a normalisation of death and that is unacceptable," said Jose Villajos, the head of an association that helps migrants founded in Algeciras in 1991. He accused the European Union of "using North African countries to stop migration and act a bit like Europe's police but this policy leads to even more deaths." "When agreements are being ironed out with African countries like Morocco, curiously, the number of migrant boats increase greatly because it is a way to put pressure on Europe," he claimed. Maria Jesus Herrera, the head of the IOM mission in Spain, said that while it was important to increase cooperation with the migrants' country of origin to help boost their living standards, Europe must at the same time "open regular channels of emigration, which are safe and dignified". Malagasy fishermen say their traditional ways are threatened by the arrival of Chinese fishing boats in their waters The sun glistens on waves lapping against wooden fishing boats as their sails ripple in the breeze coming off the Indian Ocean. Nearby a young man with a diving mask bobs below the water's surface armed with a stick to lure his catch into a net while also trying to snare fish on a nylon line. In Anakao, a traditional fishing community in southwest Madagascar, the community known as Vezo -- which means "rowing strength" -- has fished for generations. But the arrival last year of six fishing trawlers off the coast, and a subsequent deal between a local private body that promotes Madagascan businesses and Chinese investors, have stirred anger in recent months, at a time when the country is going to the polls in presidential elections. Local fishing communities say the Chinese boats threaten their livelihood "If this carries on, we'll be eating sand," warned Fulgence, a fisherman in Anakao. He does not dare venture out when the six Chinese vessels are at sea, claiming that a number of his nets have been cut. - 'The Chinese take everything' - "The Chinese take everything and chuck the little dead fish back into the sea," complained Marco Randrianjaka, echoing the grievances of many of his fellow seafarers. "Without the small ones, they won't be able to reproduce down the line." But China's Mapro South, the company responsible for the six new vessels, denies the claims. The arrival of six fishing trawlers off the coast, and a subsequent deal between a local private body that promotes Madagascan businesses and Chinese investors, have stirred anger Their nets' mesh is large enough to allow the smaller fish to escape, said Lifujun Li, a company manager in Toliara, a port town one hour away from Anakao by boat. Against the backdrop of an already tense situation both locally and nationally due to the presidential poll, a new fisheries deal with Chinese investors has provoked an outcry on the island where malnutrition is widespread. The deal, which was not publicised, is understood to go much further than the six Chinese-funded trawlers already in operation. The $2.7-billion (2.4-billion-euro) agreement includes, among other things, 330 modern, refrigerated vessels of up to 14 metres long (up to 46 feet) being delivered to Madagascan fishermen. Under the deal, the 330 new boats will eventually produce 130,000 tonnes of fish annually, according to the AMDP agency that promotes Madagascan business -- roughly the equivalent of the country's entire production in 2016 They will "replace the traditional wooden boats", according to Madagascar's Development and Business Promotion Agency (AMDP), which negotiated the deal with China's Taihe consortium. The ships, supplied to local fishermen free of charge, will help them "increase their production capacity", according to an AMDP official, who declined to be named. - 'Pre-judging'? - A proportion of fish caught by those participating in the scheme will be sold locally. The Chinese will buy the "surplus" at a favourable but undisclosed price, said the AMDP official. According to him, the deal will promote "local development" in Madagascar -- one of the world's poorest countries, which is also blighted by corruption. The official blamed the outcry on the fishing community "pre-judging" the project -- something they deny. Under the deal, which was not publicised, local fishermen will get more modern boats that will allow them to catch more fish The 330 new boats will eventually produce 130,000 tonnes of fish annually, according to the AMDP -- roughly the equivalent of the country's entire production in 2016. "But we already face over-fishing in some regions," said Rijasoa Fanazava, a fisheries expert at the World Wildlife Fund in Madagascar. Fanazava believes that tens of thousands of fishermen risk losing their livelihoods if stocks are diminished. "How will they live?" he said. A recent round table that brought together the AMDP and 30 affected organisations failed to allay their fears. "The only impact assessments given by the AMDP have been economic in nature, we haven't had anything on the environmental and social impacts of the project," said not-for-profit groups in a joint statement. The AMDP stresses that the deal provides for an environmental initiative to protect the sustainability of marine life off Madagascar's coasts. Campaign groups are "unconvinced" that the deal will truly create economic opportunities for local fishermen and reiterated their opposition to the scheme. - 'Not at all legal' - Even Fishing Minister Augustin Andriamananoro has his doubts. He claims he was not even briefed on the deal. The Chinese company responsible for the six new vessels denies claims by local seafarers that they throw the little dead fish back into the sea harming the reproduction process. Some local people fear the new deal will not leave enough fish to feed local people It was signed on the sidelines of a China-Africa cooperation summit in Beijing in September attended by Hery Rajaonarimampianina, just days before his resignation as president to contest the polls. He was knocked out in the first-round vote last month. "(The AMDP) can't sell treasures which aren't even theirs," said Andriamananoro. "The deal isn't at all legal" and shouldn't be executed, added the minister, an ally of Andry Rajoelina, who will stand in the December 19 second-round vote against Marc Ravalomanana. But the AMDP, though reluctant to comment publicly, is adamant the project will go ahead. "(The deal) is between two private companies from the two countries -- it's not an agreement between states," insisted the anonymous AMDP official. The first Chinese-made trawlers are due to be delivered within a year. But in Anakao, the fishing community fears "unfair competition". "We're already catching less and less," said Mananaina. "Before, it was more than 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds) a day -- now just 10." "There's simply not enough fish to feed everyone," added Fulgence. "So why send them to China?" Vu, whose name has been changed, knew trying to escape could mean being beaten or even killed by her pimp Two girls sprint from a hair salon into a car that will lead them back to safety in Vietnam -- a snapshot of the daring rescues taking place each month to free women and girls from forced marriages or sex slavery in China. Filmed on a shaky camera phone, the successful rescue saved the Vietnamese teenagers from a brothel in China, where a huge surplus of males has fuelled the lucrative trade for brides and sex workers. Bringing them home is dangerous work, pitting rescuers against vengeful husbands, pimps and organised trafficking networks who spin tens of millions of dollars selling women from poor Mekong countries. "No one wants their business to be broken," says a rescuer from Blue Dragon, a Hanoi-based non-profit. Blue Dragon has helped bring about 400 trafficked women and girls home from China since 2007. They are among tens of thousands trafficked into China from impoverished pockets of Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. Now 21, she is training to be a spa technician They are tricked, lured or kidnapped and sold as wives and prostitutes across the border, some ending up deep inside the tightly-controlled Communist country. Rescues are a complicated and all-consuming job, says the Blue Dragon rescuer whose identity has been concealed for safety reasons. The stress is constant and the phone buzzes around the clock. "But I couldn't walk away," the rescuer says. "Imagine your child didn't come home at dinner time. What would you do?" - 'Please help me' - Victims reach out via Chinese messaging services like WeChat and QQ or call the non-profit -- if they can get their hands on a phone. Women trafficked out of Vietnam "I was trafficked to China please help me," reads one text. "I'm praying for a miracle," says another. But most girls -- especially sex workers -- are barred from contact with the outside world; an escaped girl means thousands of dollars lost for traffickers. With risks high, each rescue can take months to plan and execute. One girl faked illness and checked into hospital where she called Blue Dragon rescuers, leading them to a remote corner of China where she had been trafficked as a bride. Another who had been sold into a brothel secretly used customers' phones to contact rescuers before evading bouncers by escaping via a back door. Blue Dragon helps to bring home up to eight people a month and gets one or two desperate pleas for help each day. The organisation keeps photos and videos of successful missions -- weeping mothers reunited with daughters, teenaged girls grinning widely after being saved -- morale-boosting reminders of their work. "If we don't get her out of there she's stuck, she's in slavery," said Michael Brosowski, the Australian founder of Blue Dragon, which also rescues and rehabilitates street kids, sexual abuse victims and other kids in crisis. - 'Alive again' - Le Thi Vu knew trying to escape could mean being beaten or even killed by her pimp, who kept her in a brothel for four months in China's Guangxi province where she was forced to sleep with up to 12 men a day. Traumatised and fearing pregnancy, she secretly bought a phone and got in touch with her family who connected with Blue Dragon. She had no idea of her location and could not read the Chinese street signs outside, but Vu -- whose name has been changed -- found a phone number for a hotel across the street and relayed it. One morning two months later, the rescue unfolded. She went into a hair salon next to the brothel with another Vietnamese woman and suddenly made a dash for the waiting car, praying not to get caught. Within days the pair were back in Vietnam. "I felt like I had come back to life again, I was so happy to see my mother," said Vu, now 21 and training to be a spa technician. Rescues have helped Blue Dragon prosecute 76 traffickers over the past five years in Vietnam, where the maximum sentence for selling people outside the country is 20 years. Vu's traffickers -- her friend and her friend's boyfriend -- were both jailed. Nguyen Trang was saved last year, eight months into a forced marriage to a poor Chinese labourer in Hunan province. She slipped out of the house early one morning to meet a Blue Dragon contact, who guided her onto a bus bound for the border. She was offered $2,100 not to testify against her trafficker -- a former boyfriend who sold her to brokers in China. But Trang, also using a pseudonym, refused and her ex was jailed in August for seven years. Today, the slight 20-year-old works in a Hanoi restaurant and has tried to put the dark chapter behind her. "In Hunan my spirit hurt... now I can live again," she says. Martin Fayulu, one of the opposition candidates running in DR Congo's December 23 elections A fire broke out in an electoral commission building in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo in early hours of Thursday, officials said, 10 days ahead of presidential elections that have been foreshadowed by violence. The blaze came after three people were killed on Wednesday in clashes with police on the sidelines of an opposition rally in eastern DR Congo. The fire broke out around 2am in a building where election materials were being kept, the head of the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) said. A thick cloud of black smoke was still visible above the city by early morning, AFP reporters said. The cause of the blaze was not immediately clear but the run-up to the vote has seen a wave of violence. On Wednesday, clashes erupted in Kalemie, a town on Lake Tanganyika, as opposition candidate Martin Fayulu was campaigning there. Two witnesses said live rounds were fired after the opposition candidate arrived and headed to the rally venue. Fayulu blamed the violence on police as well as on "armed youths on drugs" who, he said, were "dressed in PPRD clothing," a reference to the country's ruling party. On Tuesday, two of Fayulu's supporters were killed and 43 hurt in clashes at a rally in Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of Congo's second-largest city. Fayulu, 62, a little-known lawmaker and former oil executive, has made a late surge after being named the joint candidate for several opposition parties. The DRC is in the throes of a major campaign ahead of the December 23 election to choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the vast central African country since 2001. The nation has never known a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Michael Spavor focuses on introducing foreign businesses to North Korea Irrepressible, linguistically adept, and astonishingly well-connected: the second Canadian being investigated for allegedly harming Chinese state security is a businessman whose relationships in North Korea go right to the very top. Michael Spavor is among only a handful of Westerners who met Kim Jong Un between his inheriting power in the North in 2011 and this year's Singapore summit with Donald Trump. He was instrumental in arranging visits by former Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman to Pyongyang, where the player known as The Worm struck up an unlikely friendship with Kim, on one occasion singing him "Happy Birthday". Spavor has been pictured sitting next to Kim, sharing cigarettes and cocktails on board the North Korean leader's private yacht, moored off the country's east coast. Other images show the two grinning broadly, or shaking hands. For years, Spavor has been based in the Chinese city of Dandong, on the border with the North. His Paektu Cultural Exchange describes itself as a "non-profit social enterprise dedicated to facilitating sustainable cooperation, cross-cultural exchanges, tourism, trade, and economic exchanges" involving the North. It runs a rural educational project in Samjiyon county, promotes sporting events in the North, occasionally sends tour groups to the isolated country, and has a consulting arm. Spavor focuses on introducing foreign businesses to the North, which is subject to multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. But a rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the peninsula has raised the possibility that the measures could be relaxed -- a key demand of Pyongyang's. For now new investments are largely barred, but Spavor told AFP earlier this year that he was getting inquiries from investors interested in market research and "face-to-face matchmaking with potential DPRK ministries and future partners" for when sanctions are lifted. North Korean economic officials were also contacting him "more regularly", he added. Spavor, who is in his early forties and from Calgary in Alberta, first became intrigued by North Korea during a short stay in Seoul in the late 1990s, and lived in Pyongyang for a time in 2005 while working for a Canadian NGO. He now speaks fluent Korean -- with a distinct northern accent. Most successful projects with the North were "facilitated through trusted interlocutors or businesses that have strong and long-term 'relationships' with their DPRK partners, which take many years to develop", he told AFP. "Negotiating a business deal with the DPRK is complicated and can be quite difficult for a number of reasons," he added. "You also need to know how to connect with the right people inside the country, which can also be challenging." Jorge Rafael Albornoz Gammara of Peru, left, and Frank Zeidler of Germany are under arrest suspected of smuggling drugs and may even face the death penalty Five foreigners have been arrested in Bali for drug trafficking, authorities said Thursday, with a German and Peruvian possibly facing execution if convicted under Indonesia's strict drug laws. The accused smugglers -- also including a Chinese, a Malaysian and a Briton -- were arrested separately over the past two weeks, Bali police said. The arrests come less than a month after the first member of the Bali Nine heroin-trafficking gang was released from a prison on the holiday island after serving 13 years. The Australian gang's accused 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 stiffest drug laws. Bali police said Thursday they arrested 44-year-old Peruvian Jorge Rafael Albornoz Gammara after he arrived at Ngurah Rai international airport from Dubai last week. "Officers found 4.08 kilograms of cocaine that he was hiding inside the interior of his luggage," head of local immigration office Untung Basuki told a press conference Thursday. German Frank Zeidler, 56, en route from Bangkok, was later arrested after officers said they found 2.1 kilos of hashish inside his luggage -- an amount that could also make it a death penalty case. Meanwhile, a 45-year-old British designer, who was not identified, was detained after he received a package from Thailand with some 31 grams of liquid marijuana poured into essential oil bottles. On Saturday, 29-year-old Chinese national Cui Bao Lin was arrested at the airport with more than 200 ecstasy pills and over 160 grams of ketamine found in his bag, police said. Malaysian Hamdi Izham Hakimi was also arrested the same day with a bag containing nearly 15 grams of marijuana and 11 ecstasy pills, according to authorities. Foreigners are regularly caught trying to bring drugs into Bali, which draws millions of visitors annually. There are dozens of traffickers on death row in Indonesia, including 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. The premise asks film-makers to wrestle with the subject of what their country will be like 10 years from now With cat-like humans, soldiers infiltrating an art gallery and brainwashed cadets, dystopian "Ten Years Thailand" is the latest in a pan-Asian film series aiming to stir political debate that debuted in the kingdom Thursday. The original in the "Ten Years" series came out in Hong Kong in 2015 on the back of the "Occupy" pro-democracy protests, with versions from Japan and Taiwan exploring nuclear fallout and socioeconomic problems. The premise asks film-makers to wrestle with the subject of what their country will be like 10 years from now, resulting in unsettling visions of bleak futures. Big guns from Thailand's new wave cinema, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Wisit Sasanatieng, worked on the four short, dark satires on army rule, censorship, mob mentality and cramped free expression, that premiered at Cannes in May. The creators of the omnibus movie, which made it past Thailand's unpredictable film censorship board, see it as a clarion call to encourage critical thinking in a nation run by generals since a 2014 coup. Big guns from Thailand's new wave cinema worked on the four short, dark satires The target audience are "people worried about the direction the country is going and unhappy with the military being so powerful for the next 20 years", director Aditya Assarat told AFP. Aditya's episode, "Sunset", shows soldiers scouring an art gallery for politically incendiary works, inspired by a real-life confrontation last year in which security forces showed up at a show and ordered exhibits to be removed. Thailand's junta has kept a tight lid on any form of dissent since seizing power, bringing with them a culture of censorship and banning gatherings of more than five people, an order it only lifted this week. Censorship "harms the artists and... it harms the military as well", Aditya told an audience at an early screening this week in Bangkok. - 'Catopia' - The Hong Kong version made a splash, picking up the top prize at the Hong Kong Film Awards in the aftermath of the massive pro-democracy protests in 2014. The Thai directors hope to reach an audience beyond the arthouse crowd The film, which painted a picture of a city under Chinese control, drew condemnation from mainland Chinese authorities. The Thai directors hope to reach an audience beyond the arthouse crowd and strike a wider chord at a time when the country is at a turning point. The military has set elections for February 24 but has used its four years in power to dilute the checks and balances of the country's democratic institutions. The country also remains bitterly divided between pro-junta elites and supporters of the Shinawatra clan -- whose political parties have won every election since 2001 but have been hit by military coups and court cases. Director Wisit explores that rift in the ghoulish "Catopia", which imagines a world in which a man has to try and blend in among a society of human-like cats. Dressed in suits with cat heads they represent the groupthink that takes hold among fractured political classes. Viewers of the early screening were surprised it emerged unscathed from the censor's red pen "Thailand is divided between pro-democracy and pro-dictatorship people," he said. "Some people think that if you fight for democracy you are a dirty guy." Apichatpong's "Song of the City" focuses on groups milling around a statue of former dictator Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat while using a soporific device that dulls their senses. The most fiercely anti-junta vignette is "Planetarium" by Chulayarnnon Siriphol. It uses 80s sci-fi imagery to envision cadets trained to spy on citizens and report to a female general in a pink uniform. Opponents are expelled into space through a system controlled by a monk whose face is concealed with a motorcycle helmet. Monks are venerated in Buddhist-majority Thailand and use of their images is considered inappropriate. Viewers of the early screening were surprised it emerged unscathed from the censor's red pen. "I am surprised that the film has passed censorship," Bangkok entrepreneur Naya Adam-Ehrlich told AFP. "We need these young intellectuals, this film makes you want to act politically," she said. Official estimates suggest there are between 12,000 and 14,000 leopards in India A Buddhist monk has been killed by a leopard while meditating in a protected forest for the big cats, the fifth such attack in the area this month, Indian police said Thursday. Rahul Walke Bodhi was seated beneath a tree in Ramdegi forest in western India for morning prayers on Tuesday when the leopard pounced. The 35-year-old monk was fatally injured, police in Maharashtra state said. Two other devotees meditating with him at the time escaped unscathed to alert police, who started a search for his body. "His badly mauled body was found further into the forest, indicating the animal tried to drag it along," Krisna Tiwari, a senior police officer in the region, told AFP. The forest, roughly 825 kilometres (510 miles) west from the state capital Mumbai, falls within a protected reserve for big cats where four other fatal attacks have occurred in recent weeks. The monks, in the area for an annual prayer conference, had ignored warnings from local officials about venturing too far into the forest, police said. The attack followed a separate fatal incident on Monday, when shopkeeper Sandeep Arjun was killed outside his stall on the outskirts of the forest. It was unclear whether the same leopard was responsible for both attacks. Three more deaths attributed to leopards and tigers have been reported around the reserve in the past month, officials say. Official estimates suggest there are between 12,000 and 14,000 leopards in India. Urban expansion has reduced their numbers as forest habitats shrink, bringing them into closer contact -- and conflict -- with humans. An estimated 431 leopards were killed in 2017, according to government figures. Most were killed by poachers for their hides and body parts. There are no figures on the number of humans killed by leopards, but experts say there are hundreds of deaths each year. Social media firms have been slammed for targetted adverts on topics that people may find painful A woman whose child was stillborn has slammed the targeted advertising of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram after she returned home from the hospital and kept getting baby-related sales pitches. Gillian Brockell, a journalist with The Washington Post, said that if those social media giants were clever enough to know she was pregnant they should also have figured out she'd lost the baby. She shared the bad news last month in a tweet. "I know you knew I was pregnant," Brockell wrote to the companies in a letter posted Wednesday on The Washington Post and Twitter. "It's my fault, I just couldn't resist those Instagram hashtags - #30weekspregnant, #babybump. And, silly me! I even clicked once or twice on the maternity wear ads Facebook served up." "But didn't you also see me googling 'braxton hicks vs. pre-term labor' and 'baby not moving'?", Brockell added. "Did you not see my three days of social media silence, uncommon for a high-frequency user like me? "And then the announcement post with keywords like 'heartbroken' and 'problem' and 'stillborn' and the 200 teardrop emoticons from my friends? "Is that not something you could track?" Facebook's vice-president of advertising Rob Goldman responded to Brockell apologetically, lamenting her "painful experience with our products." "We have a setting available that can block ads about some topics people may find painful - including parenting. "It still needs improvement, but please know that we're working on it & welcome your feedback," Goldman wrote. Brockell said she knew there was such a setting but that it was not easy to find at first, especially amid all her grieving. "We never asked for the pregnancy or parenting ads to be turned on; these tech companies triggered that on their own, based on information we shared," Brockell wrote. "So what I'm asking is that there be similar triggers to turn this stuff off on its own, based on information we shared." She said that after she blocked the baby ads, she got ads on how to adopt a child. Singapore is regularly ranked among the world's least corrupt countries and its leaders are sensitive about accusations of graft The editor of a Singaporean website was charged with defamation Thursday for publishing a letter alleging corruption among the city-state's leaders, with rights groups criticising the "heavy-handed" response from authorities. Singapore has long been criticised for restricting free speech and other political rights, as well as slapping critics with financially ruinous libel suits. The affluent financial hub is regularly ranked among the world's least corrupt countries and its leaders are sensitive about accusations of graft. Terry Xu was charged in court with defaming government ministers after his independent media website, The Online Citizen, published a letter stating there was "corruption at the highest echelons" of Singapore's government, according to court documents. Police seized computers and other devices used to operate the website from Xu's residence after receiving a complaint. The website ceased publication temporarily but is now up and running again. Xu faces a maximum jail term of two years and a fine, or both. The letter's author, Daniel De Costa Augustin, was also charged with defamation and breaking computer crime laws for allegedly sending the piece from another person's email account without their consent. Augustin's letter was published in September under the name "Willy Sum", and did not mention the names of any allegedly corrupt officials or provide any evidence of graft. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that Singapore authorities had "once again responded to criticism with criminal charges". "The government should respond to any inaccuracies in the letter by seeking a correction, apology or retraction, rather than with a heavy-handed criminal prosecution," he said. Singapore's media scene is dominated by pro-government publications, with critical commentary expressed mostly online. Officials insist tough libel laws are necessary to protect their reputation from unfounded allegations. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are backed by the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State group Kurdish-led forces on Thursday moved deep into Hajin, the main village in the last pocket still held by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, a war monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with support from air strikes conducted by the US-led coalition, deployed across the Euphrates Valley village. "The SDF managed to break the defences of the Islamic State group after massing a large number of fighters backed by the international coalition," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "They achieved quick progress inside Hajin, the largest of the villages that were controlled by IS," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said. The SDF said on social media they had "liberated the city centre of Hajin and the big mosque". Hajin lies on the east bank of the Euphrates in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border with Iraq. The area held by IS is sometimes referred to as the "Hajin pocket", the last rump of a once-sprawling "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014 over parts of Syria and Iraq. The SDF Kurdish-Arab alliance launched an operation in September to flush out IS but their advance has been fraught with obstacles. The push to retake Hajin was delayed by Turkish threats on Kurdish heartlands further north and deadly counter-attacks by die-hard jihadists making a bloody last stand. "Now IS is confined to tunnels and to the edges of town," Abdel Rahman said. "Fighting on the group and air strikes are continuing. The mines planted by the jihadists are the main remaining obstacle," he said. No casualty toll was immediately available for the latest fighting but according to the Observatory close to 500 SDF fighters have been killed since the start of the operation on September 10. Around 300 civilians have also been killed, many of them in coalition air strikes, and thousands have been forced to flee their homes. Atiku Abubakar is the frontrunner who will challenge Muhammadu Buhari for the Nigerian presidency in February's elections The main challenger to President Muhammadu Buhari in next year's presidential poll has signed a deal committing to peaceful elections a day after missing the initial ceremony in the capital. "Earlier today, I appended my signature to the Peace Accord," Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) wrote on Twitter late Wednesday. Abubakar, 72, was conspicuously absent from Tuesday's ceremony in Abuja at which Buhari and dozens of other presidential candidates signed a deal to ensure non-violence during February's crucial polls. The PDP had put Abubakar's absence down to a "communication lapse between the National Peace Committee (NPC) and our party's national secretariat". On Wednesday, Abubakar signed the pact with his running mate Peter Obi. Local media said another presidential candidate, Oby Ezekwesili, a former education minister and ex-World Bank vice president who was also absent, had signed as well. Voters in Africa's most populous nation will choose a new president and parliament on February 16 next year, with gubernatorial and state assembly elections following two weeks later. Security around polling is a recurrent concern in Nigeria which has a history of violence sparked by identity politics, ethnicity and religion. In 2011, about 1,000 people were killed during clashes after Buhari was defeated by Goodluck Jonathan. The text of Tuesday's agreement is the same as one signed before the 2015 polls, which Buhari won in the first opposition victory in the nation's history. Israeli forces and forensic experts inspect the site of a gun attack at Asaf Junction in the West Bank on December 13, 2018 A Palestinian shot dead two Israelis and wounded at least two others at a bus stop in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the army said. "A Palestinian opened fire at a bus stop killing 2 Israelis, severely injuring 1 & injuring others at Asaf Junction, north of Jerusalem," the Israeli military said on its Twitter account. An army spokesperson was unable to confirm reports that the assailant targeted Israeli soldiers. The attack occurred near the Israeli settlement of Ofra, on the main road that crosses the West Bank from north to south. It came only hours after Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the West Bank after attacks that claimed the lives of three Israelis, including a baby. One of them was Salah Barghouti, a 29-year-old accused of shooting at Israelis on Sunday at a bus stop also near the Ofra settlement. That attack wounded seven people including a woman who was seven months pregnant. Doctors tried to save the baby boy with an emergency cesarean but he died on Wednesday and was buried in Jerusalem. His mother remains in hospital in a serious condition. The other Palestinian killed by Israeli forces overnight had been suspected of shooting dead two Israelis two months ago. Ashraf Naalwa, 23, was killed when forces tried to arrest him near Nablus in the West Bank, the Israeli Shin Bet security service said. South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma is battling to quash the charges against him over a $2.5-billion corruption case linked to a 1990s arms deal Former South African president Jacob Zuma must pay back state funds and cover his own costs, a court ruled Thursday, leaving him facing massive legal bills as he fights graft charges. Zuma, who was ousted in February over multiple graft scandals, could be liable for a $2 million legal bill but that figure would rise sharply, according to local media. "The state is not liable for the legal costs incurred by Mr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma in his personal capacity in criminal prosecutions instituted against him," judge Aubrey Ledwaba said in his ruling at the High Court in Pretoria. The judge also ordered the recovery of state funds previously spent defending Zuma, ruling in a case which was brought by opposition parties. Zuma is expected to appeal. His ruling African National Congress (ANC) party said that Zuma had done nothing wrong as the court had only just ruled. "Nothing was wrong until today... We will need to study this order," acting party spokesman Dakota Legoete told the eNCA broadcaster. But the main opposition Democratic Alliance party said in a statement that Zuma's "system of corruption" had been shut down by the ruling. "(The system) where those who loot the state are then able to defend themselves using public money has been stopped today," the party said in a statement. Zuma, who is thought to have little personal wealth, is due back in court in May for a hearing on whether the corruption charges against him should be dropped. The former president, who served from 2009 until earlier this year, is battling to quash the charges against him over a $2.5-billion corruption case linked to a 1990s arms deal. He has been charged with 16 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering. He is accused of taking around four million rand ($340,000, 280,000 euros) in bribes from French defence company Thales. Both Zuma and the French arms maker deny all charges. The charges were first brought against him in 2005 but dropped by prosecutors in 2009 shortly before he became president, before being reinstated in 2016. Beset by scandal, Zuma was forced to resign after a long stand-off with the ruling ANC party. His successor Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to root out corruption in government and the party. Hiba Jan's maiming underscored the contentious use of pellet shotguns against civilians in Kashmir, a disputed Muslim-majority region where protests against Indian rule often turn violent Doctors have removed a metal shard from the eye of a toddler shot in Kashmir, whose horrific injuries became symbolic of India's controversial use of pellet-firing shotguns in the conflict-torn region. Surgeons who operated on Hiba Jan said it was too early to know if the 20-month-old girl would ever use her eye again after being shot with a pump-action gun that discharges high-velocity fragments. The girl's parents said they were shot at while trying to escape from clouds of tear gas during clashes between Indian forces and villagers in late November. Her maiming underscored the contentious use of pellet shotguns against civilians in Kashmir, a disputed Muslim-majority region where protests against Indian rule often turn violent. "We have removed the pellet, but her eye was devastated," said one of the surgeons who operated on Hiba at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar on Wednesday. "It is difficult to say (if surgery was successful) in the case of an infant, who cannot take a vision test or describe what can be perceived by the damaged eye," said the doctor, who was not permitted to speak to the press and requested anonymity. Hiba's father Nisar Ahmad, seated by his daughter's hospital bed, told AFP she was calm following her second surgery. India introduced the officially "non-lethal" 12-gauge pellet shotgun in Kashmir in 2010 when major anti-India protests and clashes with government forces left over 100 dead. Reliable data is hard to come by in the disputed Himalayan region, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan. But government data from 2017 revealed the weapon killed 13 people and injured more than 6,000 in eight months alone -- including nearly 800 with eye injuries. "We deal with such devastation every day at the hospital. Hiba is no different," her surgeon said. An insurgency in Kashmir against Indian rule has left tens of thousands of people dead since 1989 -- most of them civilians. But this year has been the deadliest since 2009, with more than 500 people killed so far. Authorities said Wednesday that incidents of violence were on track to double this year compared to 2017. Various rebel groups seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan have fought against half a million Indian troops stationed in the territory. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947. The Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX vanished from radar about 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29 Dozens of family members whose loved ones were killed in a Lion Air plane crash rallied in the Indonesian capital Thursday, demanding the search for the jet continue. The Boeing 737 MAX vanished from radar about 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29, crashing into waters off Indonesia's northern coast and killing all 189 people onboard. Authorities called off the grim task of identifying victims of the crash last month, with 125 people officially recognised after testing on human remains that filled some 200 body bags. Some of the victims' families gathered in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta Thursday afternoon, where they called on authorities to help retrieve the remaining 64 bodies and pay compensation. "Right now only around 30 percent of the planes body has been found," the group said in a statement. "We hope the search for the victims will use vessels with sophisticated technology." The protest comes just a day after Indonesian media reported that 25 victims' families would file a new $100 million legal suit against Boeing due to faults with the 737 MAX. Several relatives of the crash victims have already filed lawsuits against Boeing, including the family of a young doctor who was to have married his high school sweetheart last month. The preliminary crash report from Indonesia's transport safety agency suggested that pilots struggled to control the plane's anti-stalling system immediately before the crash. Investigators also found that the Lion Air jet should have been grounded over a recurrent technical problem before its fatal journey, but did not pinpoint a cause of for the accident. A final report is not likely to be filed until next year. Lion Air owner Rusdi Kirana told Bloomberg on Wednesday the airline was contemplating cancelling a $22 billion order with Boeing following the October crash. AFP could not immediately reach Kirana for comment on the report. Lion Air Group has expanded rapidly in the past two decades to capture half the domestic market and now has Southeast Asia's biggest fleet. But the accident has thrown the spotlight on the air safety record of Lion and other Indonesian carriers, which until recently faced years-long bans from entering European Union and US airspace. Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki (L) and Somalia's President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo reviewed an honour guard after the Eritrean leader arrived in Mogadishu to firm up bilateral ties Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki arrived Thursday in Mogadishu, marking improved relations in his first visit to neighbouring Somalia since he took office in 1993. Isaias was welcomed at the airport by Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed after announcing on Twitter that he aimed to strengthen historical ties between the Horn of Africa countries. "They're now in the airport VIP zone and they will later travel together to the presidential palace," police official Mohamed Abdullahi told AFP. Somalia and Eritrea, two poor nations ravaged by war, established diplomatic ties in July in the wake of Eritrea's landmark peace pact with Ethiopia, which became possible with new leadership in Addis Ababa. Relations between Somalia and Eritrea grew tense more than 10 years ago because Mogadishu believed that Isaias's government supported the Shabaab Islamist militia, affiliated with Al-Qaeda and determined to bring down the government. The Somali leader visited Asmara late in July to sign an agreement on bilateral relations, in a visit that was also the first since Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993. Isaias has been head of state ever since. Isaias and Mohamed both went to northern Ethiopia in late November for talks in which leaders of all three Horn of Africa countries and former rivals discussed steps towards economic integration. A handout photo released by the Syrian Arab Red Cross on November 5, 2018, shows displaced people receiving vaccinations at the Rukban desert camp for displaced Syrians along Syria's border with Jordan Two babies have died of illness in the past week at a camp for displaced people on the Syrian border with Jordan, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said Thursday. The deaths prompted UNICEF to reiterate calls for humanitarian access for the thousands of people at Rukban camp, which lies in an inhospitable stretch of desert. "Another sad week for children and families in Rukban. Two sick babies under six months old died in Rukban," said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. "Freezing temperatures and lack of supplies including of basic commodities, threaten the lives of nearly 45,000 people -- among them many children, leaving them at the risk of disease and death," he said in a statement. Last month the United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent announced the first delivery of humanitarian aid at Rukban in 10 months. Civilians trapped at the camp face the risk of starvation amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation after Jordan sealed its border following an Islamic State attack on its soldiers. Soon afterwards, the army declared Jordan's desert regions that stretch northeast to Syria and east to Iraq "closed military zones". Amman believes the responsibility of the camp lies with Damascus since it is inside Syrian territory. Syria has been embroiled in a civil war that killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011. mz/dv Several Touareg defence groups have been working with the Malian army to fight against jihadist violence in the country's northeast Several dozen civilians have been shot dead by gunmen who raided an area in northeastern Mali near the border with Niger, local officials and a Touareg self-defence group told AFP Thursday. The attack, which took place early Wednesday, occurred in an area which has been badly hit by jihadist violence that has claimed several hundred lives this year, most of them civilians of Touareg or Peul ethnicity. "Gunmen riding on motorbikes raided many areas in the southern part of the Menaka region and executed civilians from the (Touareg) Idaksahak community," said the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA), which spoke of 47 people killed. Local officials, who confirmed the attack, put the number of dead at several dozen but said they couldn't. The MSA, part of a Touareg rebellion movement in the north, said the assailants headed for the Niger border after first setting a bushfire. A Menaka official who wished to remain anonymous said he could not give an exact death toll as "by the time the Malian army arrived, MSA fighters had already buried the bodies." Another local official said he had been able to speak with one person hurt in the attack and transferred to Menaka and accused the assailants of "firing on civilians". The regional governor's office was not immediately available for comment on the attack. MINUSMA, the UN mission to Mali, did not give a figure for casualties but deplored the attack on Twitter, urging the Malian authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice. It also said it was deploying a human rights team to investigate what had happened. In August, a panel of experts said in a report to the UN Security Council that inter-communal conflicts in the region were exacerbating existing tensions resulting from clashes between jihadists groups and international and Malian forces. France helped Malian forces stave off a jihadist insurgency that took control of large parts of the troubled north in 2012, but large swathes of the country remain out of the government's control, despite a 2015 peace accord designed to isolate the Islamists. Since then, attacks have extended to central and southern regions of Mali and over the borders into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. The Sri Lankan Supreme Court's ruling is a major blow to President Maithripala Sirisena Sri Lanka's Supreme Court opened the way for potential impeachment proceedings against the president on Thursday, ruling that he broke the law by dissolving parliament last month. The verdict is a major blow to Maithripala Sirisena, seven weeks into a political crisis in the Indian Ocean island nation that has sparked alarm abroad and concern over its finances. The seven-judge bench unanimously agreed that Sirisena violated the constitution when he dissolved parliament last month and called a snap election nearly two years ahead of schedule. "I make order that the November 9 Gazette (decree) sacking parliament... has no force or effect in law and declare its operation illegal," Chief Justice Nalin Perera said as he delivered the landmark judgement to a packed courtroom. Sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's party had said it would await the outcome of Thursday's decision before deciding whether to open impeachment proceedings. Sirisena triggered the unprecedented political crisis on October 26 when he fired Wickremesinghe and appointed contentious former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse in his place. There was no immediate comment from either Sirisena or Rajapakse. However, Rajapakse's legislator son, Namal, told reporters outside the court house that they did not agree with the verdict. "We do not agree with the decision of the court, but we do not have a higher court to appeal to," he said. - 'Coup' - The leftist JVP, or the People's Liberation Front, said the sacking of the prime minister in October was a "coup orchestrated by Sirisena and Rajapakse" and called for a resolution in parliament to bring them to justice. "This first thing this (restored) parliament should is to investigate the coup and bring both the president and his illegal prime minister to justice," JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said. Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) welcomed the verdict as a victory for democracy. "As a country we have to be joyful that we have an independent judiciary that acted as a check on an errant executive," UNP deputy leader Sajith Premadasa said. Sirisena dissolved parliament on November 9 when Rajapakse, the man he appointed as prime minister, was unable to prove a majority in the 225-member assembly. Constitutional provisions were clear that he could not dissolve the legislature until it completes four and a half years out of its five-year term, which ends in August 2020. Four days later after parliament was sacked, the Supreme Court issued an interim ruling suspending Sirisena's decree and restoring parliament, which almost immediately passed a no-confidence motion against Rajapakse, the purported premier. Wickremesinghe's party and their allies command a majority in parliament. On Wednesday, the legislature voted overwhelmingly to demand the reinstatement of Wickremesinghe with the power struggle just weeks away from a government shutdown. Members of Wickremesinghe's party and their allies voted 117-0 asking Sirisena to reverse his October 26 dismissal of his former ally. However, Sirisena has vowed he will not reinstate Wickremesinghe. Courts have also prevented Rajapakse and his disputed cabinet exercising power until they can prove their legitimacy. A hearing by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday was put off until January 16. Former finance minister Ravi Karunanayake said the entire public sector will come to a complete standstill from January 1 in the absence of a budget for the New Year. Officials have expressed similar fears and urged Sirisena to resolve the crisis urgently. Sri Lanka's credit ratings have already been cut. Michael Cohen (left) apologized for covering up the "dirty deeds" of US President Donald Trump Donald Trump on Thursday denied directing his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen to break the law after the US president's longtime close ally was sentenced to three years for campaign finance violations and other crimes. "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law," Trump tweeted. "It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid." Cohen, 52, apologized Wednesday for covering up the "dirty deeds" of his ex-boss as he was handed jail time for multiple crimes including hush money payments implicating Trump. Pleading for leniency in a packed Manhattan courtroom before US District Court Judge William H. Pauley III, Cohen said he had been led astray by misplaced admiration for Trump. An emotional Cohen told the court he accepted responsibility for his personal crimes and "those involving the President of the United States of America." In his first public comments since Cohen's sentencing, Trump said on Twitter that legal experts had cleared him of any wrongdoing and repeated his denial that he had broken campaign finance laws, arguing that Cohen's crimes did not involve campaign finance. "Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not guilty even on a civil bases," Trump tweeted. "Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!" Cohen admitted charges brought by federal prosecutors in New York of tax evasion, providing false statements to a bank and illegal campaign contributions. Cohen also pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress -- a charge stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected. Among the charges against Cohen was making secret payments to silence two women threatening to go public during the election campaign with claims they had affairs with Trump. Ivorian opposition leader and former head of state Henri Konan Bedie takes part in a meeting in Abidjan in July 2018 The head of Ivory Coast's main opposition party, Henri Konan Bedie, has announced that ousted president Laurent Gbagbo would back a party alliance to fight the next presential election. "I informed him, he gave me his approval, recently, to contact the FPI" -- Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front -- about forming a "joint platform" to take on President Alassane Ouattara and his supporters at the 2020 polls, Bedie told France 24 in an interview broadcast late Thursday. The former head of state from 1993 until 1999 is leader of the Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI), which was allied with Ouattara's Rally of Republicans (RDR) until August. "There are contacts between the PDCI and the FPI at a preliminary stage," confirmed an FPI spokesman, Franck Anderson Kouassi. "The talks are going to go on." Kouassi declined to discuss an alliance in the West African country. A top world producer of cocoa, coffee and timber, Ivory Coast is recovering from civil war marked by territorial and ethnic divisions under Gbagbo's rule in 2000-2010. After a presidential poll he claimed to have won, Gbagbo was forced in March 2011 to quit by troops backing Ouattara. He was later delivered to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be tried on charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and rape by his loyalists. "It's seven years now that Laurent Gbagbo has been in prison. Whatever the crimes he committed, that's enough to do justice," Bedie told France 24. "I strongly hope that he will be freed and come home to Ivory Coast." Gbagbo's lawyers on Thursday asked the ICC for the release on bail of their "elderly and fragile" client, who is 73. They argued there was no flight risk, but seven years on, "an elderly person held in detention ages faster." Bedie also appealed to the speaker of the National Assembly, Guillaume Soro, who headed rebel forces during the war, and then joined the government under Gbagbo. Soro is a member of the RDR, but is rumoured to have fallen out with Ouattara and possibly harbour his own presidential ambitions. 'Dirty deeds': Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen gets 3 years in prison NEW YORK (AP) - Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's one-time fixer, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to conceal his boss' alleged sexual affairs, telling a judge that he agreed time and again to cover up Trump's "dirty deeds" out of "blind loyalty." Separately, the legal and political peril surrounding Trump appeared to deepen when prosecutors announced that another major piece of the investigation had fallen into place: The parent company of the National Enquirer acknowledged dispensing some of the hush money in concert with the Trump campaign to fend off a scandal that could have damaged his bid for the White House. Cohen, 52, shook his head slightly and closed his eyes as a judge pronounced his sentence for evading $1.4 million in taxes, lying about Trump's business dealings in Russia and violating campaign-finance laws in buying the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal, who claimed they had sex with the candidate. Cohen and federal prosecutors have said the payments were made at Trump's direction to influence the election. "Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass," said a choked-up Cohen, a lawyer who once boasted he would "take a bullet" for Trump. "My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands." The twin developments represented a double dose of bad news for the president, who ignored reporters' questions about Cohen during an appearance at the White House later in the day. ___ UK's May wins no-confidence vote by MPs unhappy over Brexit LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a political crisis over her Brexit deal Wednesday, winning a no-confidence vote by Conservative lawmakers that would have ended her leadership of party and country. But the margin of victory - 200 votes to 117 - leaves May a weakened leader who has lost the support of a big chunk of her party over her handling of Britain's exit from the European Union. It also came at a steep price as she promised not to run for re-election in 2022. Britain's Brexit problem, meanwhile, remains unsolved as May seeks changes to her EU divorce deal in order to make it more palatable to Parliament. May said she was "pleased to have received the backing of my colleagues" but acknowledged that "a significant number" had voted against her in Wednesday evening's secret ballot. "I have listened to what they said," May promised as she stood in a darkened Downing St. after what she called a "long and challenging day." The threat to May had been building as pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers grew increasingly frustrated with the prime minister's handling of Brexit. Many supporters of Brexit say May's deal, a compromise that retains close economic ties with the EU, fails to deliver on the clean break with the bloc that they want. ___ Gunman from Christmas market attack in France still at large STRASBOURG, France (AP) - Hundreds of security forces combed eastern France for a 29-year-old man with a long criminal record who shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and sprayed gunfire during a deadly rampage in Strasbourg's famous Christmas market, officials said. Tuesday night's attack at the Christmas market in Strasbourg killed two people, left a third brain-dead and injured 12, and was a stark reminder to a nation wounded by previous assaults that terrorism remains a threat, even as anti-government protests roil the country. National police distributed a photo of the wounded fugitive, identified as Cherif Chekatt, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." France raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level and bolstered troops around France. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told lawmakers that the French native, born in Strasbourg, had run-ins with police starting at age 10 and his first conviction at age 13. ___ A look at where the investigations related to Trump stand A look at where the investigations related to President Donald Trump stand and what may lie ahead for him: WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT? Trump is facing criminal investigations in Washington and New York. Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia and whether the president obstructed the investigation. Trump also plays a central role in a separate case in New York, where prosecutors have implicated him in a crime. They say Trump directed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen to make illegal hush money payments to two women as a way to quash potential sex scandals during the campaign. ___ ___ Trump comments upend US approach to Huawei, trade talks WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States and China have taken pains this week to emphasize that their trade talks are entirely separate from the U.S. case against a top Chinese technology executive. But with a few words, President Donald Trump obliterated the distinction, saying he'd wade into the case if it would help produce a trade agreement with China. China has already detained a former Canadian diplomat in what appears to be retaliation for Canada's arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei. On Wednesday, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland expressed concern that another Canadian may have also been taken into custody. A Canadian court on Tuesday released Meng on bail, confining her to Vancouver and its suburbs while she awaits possible extradition to the United States. The U.S. accuses Huawei, the biggest global supplier of network gear for phone and internet companies, of using a Hong Kong shell company to do business with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. But on Tuesday, Trump raised the possibility that a U.S.-China trade deal might be reason enough for him to intervene. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made - which is a very important thing - what's good for national security - I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump told Reuters in an interview. ___ APNewsBreak: Julian Castro moves toward 2020 White House run SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Former Obama housing chief Julian Castro says he's taking a step toward a possible White House campaign in 2020 by forming a presidential exploratory committee. The Texas Democrat tells The Associated Press that he will announce a decision Jan. 12. The move Wednesday gives the 44-year-old former San Antonio mayor an early start to what's shaping up as a crowded Democratic field without a clear front-runner to challenge President Donald Trump. Castro indicated in an AP interview that his mind was all but made up. "I know where I'm leaning, for sure," said Castro, who has said for weeks that it was likely he would seek the nomination. An exploratory committee usually is a formality before a candidate launches a presidential campaign. It legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. ___ Attorneys for ex-Baylor student break silence over rape case DALLAS (AP) - Attorneys for a former Baylor University student accused of rape have broken their silence after a judge allowed the former fraternity president to avoid serving jail time, attacking the ex-fraternity president's accuser and saying she gave "inconsistent" statements to the prosecution. Attorneys Mark Daniel and Tim Moore said that a statement in a Waco, Texas, court Monday by the woman who accused Jacob Walter Anderson was "riddled with distortions and misrepresentations." They said Anderson and the woman were seen by many people "kissing passionately" at a fraternity party where she says the assault occurred. They also said her claim that she was choked was "absolutely contrary" to evidence. Anderson's attorneys had declined comment when Judge Ralph Strother accepted a plea agreement Monday allowing Anderson to avoid jail or be listed as a sex offender. The judge's decision sparked outrage and on Tuesday Anderson's attorneys spoke to the Waco Tribune-Herald to respond to what they called "significant misrepresentations" about the case. The woman has sharply criticized both the judge and prosecutors, saying Anderson stole her power over her body. The woman has said she was plied with a drink of punch at the fraternity party in 2016 and became disoriented. Anderson, the woman said, led her behind a tent and repeatedly raped her while she was gagged and choked. Anderson's attorneys said no drugs were found in her system. ___ France's Macron caught between protests, Strasbourg attack PARIS (AP) - French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to take back control of his nation after a month of protests that caused mayhem across the country - and now a new extremist attack that's putting France on renewed terror alert. Striving to show he's responding to "yellow vest" protesters' demands for tax relief, the French leader maintained his planned agenda Wednesday: He held his weekly Cabinet meeting and talks with big public and private companies, notably to encourage them to give a tax-free, year-end bonus to their employees. At the same time, Macron's office said he was staying constantly informed about the investigation into Tuesday's Strasbourg attack and hunt for the gunman, still on the run. Macron said "the terrorist threat is still at the core of our nation's life," in comments reported by government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux. "Public order must prevail in every place and every circumstance," Macron added. ___ AP Interview: Jones says farmers scared by Trump's tariffs WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Doug Jones said Alabama's soybean farmers and automobile manufacturers are "scared to death" over President Donald Trump's tariff wars, but he cautioned Democrats from spending too much time attacking the president as the party tries to win back heartland voters ahead of the 2020 presidential election. In an Associated Press interview, the Democrat who won a stunning victory from the Deep South a year ago Wednesday said he doesn't think there's enough evidence to impeach the president, even as prosecutors allege Trump directed his lawyer to make illegal hush money payments. Democrats' time would be better spent conducting oversight of the administration, he said, and working with the president to improve trade policies, the Affordable Care Act and other issues. "I don't think you have to just jump into that right now because it can not only politically backfire," he said about impeachment. "There would be backlash. Our country is divided enough as it is. Democrats right now have an opportunity to try to get some things done." Thanks to Republican victories in midterm elections last month, Jones will soon be one of the few remaining Democratic senators from a deeply conservative state. That status has made him something of a guide for his party on how to win back Democrats who voted for Trump 2016. As longtime friend of Joe Biden, Jones said he hopes the former vice president makes a run as the party's pick for 2020. ___ UN chief calls for compromise, sacrifice at climate talks KATOWICE, Poland (AP) - The United Nations secretary-general called on countries to make compromises in tackling global warming, amid concern that the U.N. conference on the issue could end without a substantial agreement. In his second dramatic appeal at the talks in Poland in the space of 10 days, Antonio Guterres told ministers and senior diplomats from almost 200 countries they should consider the fate of future generations. "This is the time for political compromises to be reached," he said. "This means sacrifices, but it will benefit us all collectively." His call came as the two-week meeting in Katowice shifted from the technical to political phase, with ministers taking over negotiations. Campaign groups warned of the risks of failure and accused powerful players such as the European Union of not pushing hard enough to reach an agreement. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - The panel investigating the Florida high school massacre recommended Wednesday that teachers who volunteer and undergo extensive background checks and training be allowed to carry concealed guns on campus to stop future shootings. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission voted 13-1 to recommend the Legislature allow the arming of teachers, saying it's not enough to have one or two police officers or armed guards on campus. Florida law adopted after the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead allows districts to arm non-teaching staff members such as principals, librarians and custodians - 13 of the 67 districts do, mostly in rural parts of the state. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commission's chairman, pushed the measure at the Tallahassee meeting. He said most deaths in school shootings happen within the first few minutes, before officers on and off campus can respond. He said suspect Nikolas Cruz stopped to reload his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle five times, all of which would have been opportunities for an armed teacher to shoot him. "We have to give people a fighting chance, we have to give them an opportunity to protect themselves," Gualtieri said. He said there aren't enough officers or money to hire one for every school, but even then officers need backup. "One good guy with a gun on campus is not enough." The state teachers union and PTA have previously expressed opposition, saying teachers are hired to educate, not be police officers. Commissioner Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died in the massacre, cast the lone vote against the motion. He said the state should focus on hiring more police officers for campuses and allowing non-teaching staff to carry guns. FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018 file photo, Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz sits in the courtroom for issues dealing with procedural motions at the Broward Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There were plenty of missteps in communication, security and school policy before and during the Florida high school massacre that allowed a gunman to kill 17 people. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission will consider proposals Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, and Thursday, Dec. 13, including whether to arm trained teachers who volunteer. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool) "We do need more good guys with a gun on campus - nobody understands that and wishes we had more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas than myself," Schachter said. But arming teachers "creates a host of problems." The father and wife of other victims, who are not on the commission, also spoke against arming teachers. After the shooting, Florida law was changed to allow school districts to train and arm employees other than teachers except those who are former or current police officers, current members of the military or Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps instructors. Currently, teachers in 28 states can carry firearms, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center, a conservative nonprofit organization. District approval is required in most states and restrictions and training requirements vary. The 15-member commission, which has been meeting periodically since April, will present a report to Gov. Rick Scott, incoming Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature by Jan. 1. The commission includes law enforcement, education and mental health professionals, a legislator and the fathers of two slain students. Also Wednesday, a judge rejected former Stoneman Douglas campus deputy Scot Peterson's contention that he had no obligation to confront Cruz. Refusing to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the parent of a victim, Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning found after a hearing that Peterson did have a duty to protect those inside the school. Video and other evidence shows Peterson, the only armed officer at the school, remained outside while shots rang out. The negligence lawsuit was filed by Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed. Pollack said it made no sense for Peterson's attorneys to argue that a sworn law enforcement officer with a badge and a gun had no requirement to go inside. "Then what is he doing there?" Pollack said after the ruling. "He had a duty. I'm not going to let this go. My daughter, her death is not going to be in vain." Peterson attorney Michael Piper said he understands that people might be offended or outraged at his client's defense, but he argued that as a matter of law, the deputy had no duty to confront the shooter. Peterson did not attend the hearing. "There is no legal duty that can be found," Piper said. "At its very worst, Scot Peterson is accused of being a coward. That does not equate to bad faith." The commission voted Wednesday to condemn Peterson's actions, calling him "derelict" in his duties. Cruz, a 20-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student, has pleaded not guilty, but his lawyers have said he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. A 16-year-old pleaded guilty Wednesday to two charges of murder for fatally shooting his father in their home and a 6-year-old boy at the South Carolina elementary school he once attended. Jesse Osborne faces 30 years to life in prison without parole when he is sentenced several months from now in an extensive hearing in Anderson County that will take into account his age, his chance for rehabilitation and the circumstances of the crime. Solicitor David Wagner said he thinks Osborne should die in prison. He detailed in court how the teen spent weeks planning the shooting at Townville Elementary School and days discussing it in a secret Instagram group that Wagner described as a "sleeper cell of would-be school shooters." Osborne told the group, "I think I'll probably most likely kill around 50 or 60," then followed up with a message saying, "If I get lucky maybe 150," according to the messages retrieved by investigators. Osborne said he first considered shooting students at the middle school he was suspended from after he had shown up there with a hatchet and a machete. "The middle school has tons of cops," he said in the chat group six days before the shooting. "The elementary school doesn't." Jesse Osborne waits for a hearing to start in the Anderson County Courthouse in Anderson, S.C., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Osborne pleaded guilty to two counts of murder for shooting his father in their home and a 6-year-old student outside at recess at Townville Elementary School in Sept. 2016 when Osborne was 14 years old. A prosecutor said he will ask for a life sentence without parole when Osborne is sentenced later. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) Osborne detailed how he wanted to shoot his way through a window and into a classroom at the elementary school, kill the students and the teacher and then throw pipe bombs into other classes, according to the messages. Osborne's lawyer said the sentencing hearing would be the time to argue about the messages, not Wednesday's plea hearing. During a previous hearing that resulted in a judge deciding Osborne could be tried as an adult, his lawyers argued the youth was angry because he was bullied and because his father would get drunk and belittle and try to fight Osborne and his mother. "He and I talk about a lot of things. But he is still a kid," Osborne's lawyer Frank Eppes said outside the courtroom Wednesday. Jesse Osborne shot his 47-year-old father, Jeffrey Osborne, three times in the back of the head as he sat in a chair reading on Sept. 28, 2016, in part because he needed his dad's pickup truck to drive to the school, Wagner said. In his confession, Jesse Osborne said he kissed his bunny Floppy and other pets goodbye and called his grandmother before driving the 3 miles (5 kilometers) to Townville Elementary School. Osborne crashed the truck into a playground fence and fired several shots at a group of students outside for recess. Six-year-old Jacob Hall was shot in the leg and died three days later from blood loss. Witnesses said Osborne threw down the gun and was crying, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" as a volunteer firefighter held him down while waiting for police. Osborne said he loaded the wrong type of ammunition in the gun and it jammed after every shot at the school. Teachers outside with their first-graders said he never tried to enter the school as the children rushed inside. "It jammed again every time, and I thank God for that," Osborne said in his videotaped confession hours after the shooting. "Please say no one died. Did anyone die?" Detectives didn't answer. Osborne also pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted murder. Two students and a teacher were wounded but survived. The teen, dressed in a sweater vest and a button-down shirt, said little in court Wednesday. When Circuit Judge Lawton McIntosh asked him if he understood his guilty plea might mean he would die in prison, he simply answered, "Yes, sir." Several people at the school were in the courtroom, but Wagner said they wouldn't testify until the sentencing hearing. Townville Elementary School is still traumatized after the shooting and Jacob Hall's funeral, where people dressed as their favorite superheroes. The principal said earlier this year that the sound of a balloon popping at the school sent children into a panic. The South Carolina Supreme Court set guidelines on life sentences for juveniles after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that juveniles could only be kept in prison for the rest of their lives in the most extreme cases. ___ Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP. Read his work at https://apnews.com/search/jeffrey%20collins Jesse Osborne, center rear, stands before a judge as his attorneys talk to each other, foreground, in the Anderson County Courthouse in Anderson, S.C., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Osborne pleaded guilty to two charges of murder for shooting his father in their home and a 6-year-old student outside at recess at Townville Elementary School in Sept. 2016 when Osborne was 14 years old. A prosecutor said he will ask for a life sentence without parole when Osborne is sentenced later. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) Circuit Judge Lawton McIntosh presides over Jesse Osborne's guilty plea to two charges of murder at the Anderson County Courthouse on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in Anderson, S.C. Osborne faces 30 years to life in prison without parole when McIntosh sentences him later for killing his father in their home and a 6-year-old student outside at recess at Townville Elementary School in Sept. 2016, when Osborne was 14 years old. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2018 file photo Jesse Osborne waits for a ruling at the Anderson County Courthouse. Osborne, a teen charged with shooting at a group of South Carolina elementary school students outside for recess, killing one of them, is set to appear in court. Prosecutors would not say why Osborne will appear Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 at the Anderson County courthouse. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP, Pool) LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a political crisis over her Brexit deal Wednesday, winning a no-confidence vote by Conservative lawmakers that would have ended her leadership of party and country. But the margin of victory - 200 votes to 117 - leaves May a weakened leader who has lost the support of a big chunk of her party over her handling of Britain's exit from the European Union. It also came at a steep price as she promised not to run for re-election in 2022. Britain's Brexit problem, meanwhile, remains unsolved as May seeks changes to her EU divorce deal in order to make it more palatable to Parliament. May said she was "pleased to have received the backing of my colleagues" but acknowledged that "a significant number" had voted against her in Wednesday evening's secret ballot. "I have listened to what they said," May promised as she stood in a darkened Downing St. after what she called a "long and challenging day." The threat to May had been building as pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers grew increasingly frustrated with the prime minister's handling of Brexit. Many supporters of Brexit say May's deal, a compromise that retains close economic ties with the EU, fails to deliver on the clean break with the bloc that they want. The balloting came after May's Conservative opponents, who circled the beleaguered prime minister for weeks hoping to spark a no-confidence vote, finally got the numbers they needed to call one. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session, at parliament in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) The vote was triggered when at least 48 lawmakers -15 percent of Conservative legislators - wrote letters asking for a no-confidence ballot. On Monday, May postponed a vote to approve the divorce deal to avoid all-but-certain defeat. She has until Jan. 21 to bring it back to Parliament after- she hopes - winning concessions from the EU. The result of the vote was announced to loud cheers from lawmakers gathered in a stuffy, ornately wallpapered room in the House of Commons. Under party rules, May cannot be challenged again by fellow Conservatives for a year. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, an ally, said the result showed that May "has the support of her party." "This is a clear statement by the parliamentary party they want her to go forward, they want her to lead us through Brexit," he told Sky News. But pro-Brexit lawmaker Mark Francois said the result was "devastating" for May, who has lost the support of a third of her party in Parliament. "If I were her, I wouldn't be pleased with this at all," Francois said. "I think she needs to think very carefully about what to do now." Before the vote Wednesday, May had vowed to fight for the leadership of her party and the country "with everything I've got," and spent the day holed up in the House of Commons trying to win over enough lawmakers to secure victory. In a bid to win over wavering lawmakers, May indicated she would step down before the next election, due in 2022. Solicitor-General Robert Buckland said May told lawmakers at a meeting that "it is not her intention to lead the party in the 2022 general election." May's victory is a reprieve but does not lay to rest uncertainty about Britain's EU departure, due on March 29. Opposition lawmakers expressed astonishment and outrage at the Conservative civil war erupting in the middle of the fraught Brexit process. "This government is a farce, the Tory party is in chaos, the prime minister is a disgrace," Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford said during a pugnacious Prime Minister's Questions session in the House of Commons. British business figures expressed exasperation at the continuing political uncertainty. "With news that the prime minister remains in place, business communities will hope that these political games can finally be put to bed," said Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce. "Westminster must now focus all its energy on urgently giving businesses clarity on the future and avoiding a messy or disorderly Brexit." The vote confirms May's reputation as a dogged, determined political survivor. But on Thursday she will head to an EU summit in Brussels facing another difficult task. She is seeking changes to the withdrawal agreement that can win support in Britain's Parliament. But EU leaders say the legally binding text won't be reopened, and the best they can offer are "clarifications." May said she would "be seeking legal and political assurances that will assuage the concerns" of lawmakers. Among EU leaders there is sympathy for May's predicament - but also exasperation at Britain's political mess. The European Parliament's Brexit point man, Guy Verhofstadt, could not contain a note of annoyance, tweeting: "Once again, the fate of EU-U.K. relations, the prosperity of businesses & citizens' rights are consumed by an internal Conservative party catfight over Europe." On the streets of London, some felt sympathy for the embattled leader. "It's embarrassing for a start to the rest of the world and I feel really sorry for Theresa May - she's being battered by everybody," said Abby Handbridge, who was selling Christmas cards and wrapping paper at a London street market. "I hope she stays in power and sorts it out." ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit crisis at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit ___ Associated Press writers Danica Kirka, Jo Kearney and Gregory Katz in London contributed. A sculpture depicting Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May stands opposite Parliament as the protest against Brexit continuous in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May makes a media statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during the regular scheduled Prime Minister's Questions inside the House of Commons in London, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, later Wednesday, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Mark Duffy/UK Parliament via AP) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session, at parliament in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after.(AP Photo/Tim Ireland) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to make a media statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in May's leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result announced soon after. (Kirsty O'Connor/PA via AP) Flags of European Union and United Kingdom are draped together on the ground opposite Parliament during a protest against Britain's Brexit split from Europe, in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during the regular scheduled Prime Minister's Questions inside the House of Commons in London, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, later Wednesday with the result expected to be announced soon after. (House of Commons/PA via AP) Protestors wave a European flag opposite Parliament as the protest against Britain's Brexit split with Europe continuous in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May won a no-confidence vote by lawmakers from her party Wednesday. Fellow Conservatives who object to some terms of the Brexit deal May's government struck with the European Union initiated the challenge that would have ended her leadership of both the party and the country. May said after the results were in that she plans to keep pursuing an agreement that Parliament will support before Britain's departure from the European Union, set for March 29. These are the next steps as she tries to win approval for her proposed Brexit deal: LOBBYING EU LEADERS FOR CONCESSIONS May plans to attend a two-day summit starting Thursday in Brussels and try to convince remaining EU leaders to sweeten the divorce deal now on the table. She needs to do so because strong opposition to the existing agreement exists in all of the U.K.'s political parties, including May's own. The Conservatives' 200-117 no-confidence vote illustrates the deep resistance she faces. WHAT KIND OF RECEPTION CAN MAY EXPECT IN BRUSSELS? Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves after a speech outside 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a brush with political mortality Wednesday, winning a no-confidence vote of her Conservative lawmakers that would have ended her leadership of party and country. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Europe's key power brokers have said they are unwilling to renegotiate the legally binding agreement that has been agreed to by May's government and the bloc's other members. However, EU leaders indicated willingness this week to consider statements that might make it easier for May to persuade the reluctant Parliament to pass the plan. The main sticking point, as it has been almost from the start of negotiations, is the post-Brexit border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and Ireland, which is an EU country. Critics in May's party don't like how the current deal proposes dealing with customs checks, taxes and trade issues the U.K. hasn't had to consider as an EU member. HOW LONG DOES SHE HAVE TO WIN PARLIAMENT'S BACKING? May has said she intends to bring the proposed agreement to Parliament for a vote by Jan. 21. A vote originally was scheduled for Tuesday night, but the prime minister acknowledged lawmakers would reject the deal if they considered it then. Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, so there is significant time pressure for progress. MAY COULD FACE ANOTHER "NO-CONFIDENCE" VOTE Her victory on Wednesday means Conservative Party members cannot try to oust May as their standard-bearer in the next year. However, the prime minister's still could be the subject of a confidence vote in Parliament's House of Commons. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has indicated his party would trigger such a vote when it was likely to pass. Smaller parties have pressed Corbyn to challenge May sooner not later. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech outside 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a brush with political mortality Wednesday, winning a no-confidence vote of her Conservative lawmakers that would have ended her leadership of party and country. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in May's leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result announced soon after. (Kirsty O'Connor/PA via AP) Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result announced soon after. (Renee Bailey/PA via AP) British Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement outside 10 Downing Street, in London, Wednesday December 12, 2018. British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a brush with political mortality Wednesday, winning a no-confidence vote of her Conservative lawmakers that would have ended her leadership of party and country (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina prosecutor says authorities failed to act last year on evidence linking a 2016 rape to a released felon now accused of raping and killing a 13-year-old girl. Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt said Tuesday that deputies didn't follow up after DNA evidence from the earlier rape matched that of Michael Ray McLellan. Only after McLellan's DNA was again found, this time in a vehicle involved in the kidnapping of Hania Noelia Aguilar, did authorities connect the cases. "At some point, it obviously fell through the cracks," Britt said in a News & Observer report . "You hate it. You punch yourself." McLellan, 34, is now jailed on charges of raping and killing Hania, who was kidnapped from outside her Lumberton home on Nov. 5. Authorities said she was forced into an SUV. Her body and the SUV were later found several miles away. The newly elected sheriff, who took office Dec. 3, said in a statement Wednesday that his office has opened an internal affairs investigation to determine why deputies failed to act on the previous rape evidence. Sheriff Burnis Wilkins promised to make citizens aware of the findings. Investigators said DNA collected from the SUV helped lead to McLellan's arrest. McLellan's DNA had been collected for the federal database after he was convicted in 2007 of felony assault with a deadly weapon and first-degree burglary. This undated photo provided by Robeson County Sheriff's Office shows Michael Ray McLellan. A statement issued by the FBI says McLellan has been charged in connection with the kidnapping and murder of 13-year-old Hania Noelia Aguilar. The 34-year-old McLellan faces first degree murder and other charges. He is being held without bond in the Robeson County Detention Center. He will appear in court at the Robeson County Courthouse on Monday, Dec. 10, 2018. (Robeson County Sheriff's Office via AP) But that information wasn't utilized by law enforcement after he was paroled in 2016. Later that year, a woman was attacked by a man who removed an air-conditioner from a home, crawled through a window and assaulted her at knifepoint. Britt says she had tried to defend herself with a gun, but it didn't fire. As the state crime lab worked to reduce a backlog of ignored rape kits last year, it discovered that DNA from the 2016 kit matched McLellan. Britt said that information was sent to the district attorney's office and the sheriff's office and should have prompted investigators to obtain a new DNA sample from McLellan to confirm the test, but no one followed up. McLellan remained free. In February, he was convicted of felony breaking and entering, and motor vehicle larceny - and released in June, with credit for time served. In October, police said he pointed a gun at a woman, tried to take her car and demanded money. He left that scene without hurting the woman, and surrendered to police in that case on Nov. 13, eight days after Hania was kidnapped. Prosecutors charged McLellan in Hania's case while he was in custody for the October attack, but didn't publicly identify him until Saturday, the day of Hania's funeral. Only after that did they charge him with rape and burglary in the 2016 case. Officials say McLellan will get public defenders, including those who specialize in death penalty cases. ___ This story has been corrected; some references to his surname, McLellan, were misspelled. ___ Information from: The News & Observer, http://www.newsobserver.com LONDON (AP) - The Latest on political turmoil in Britain (all times local): 9:40 p.m. Prime Minister Theresa May says she is "grateful" for the support she received from Conservative Party lawmakers who voted to keep her as their leader. The prime minister acknowledged Wednesday after she survived a party confidence vote with a 200-117 tally that a substantial number of Conservatives voted against her. May says she will keep pursuing a deal on Britain's departure from the European Union. She said she will attend an EU summit on Thursday seeking more assurances and concessions from other European leaders. The goal is to improve the deal to the point where lawmakers now refusing to endorse it are willing to give their approval. She has promised to bring it to Parliament for a vote by Jan. 21. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech outside 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a brush with political mortality Wednesday, winning a no-confidence vote of her Conservative lawmakers that would have ended her leadership of party and country. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) ___ 9:00 p.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May has won a confidence vote by Conservative Party lawmakers that could have brought her leadership to an abrupt end. In secret ballot on Wednesday, 200 lawmakers backed May and 117 voted against her. The result means May can keep her positions as party leader and prime minister while continuing an uphill battle to win parliamentary approval for her Brexit plan. Her victory means fellow Conservatives cannot challenge her for another year. May could still face a challenge in Parliament if the opposition Labour Party seeks a confidence vote in the House of Commons over the EU divorce plan. She plans to lobby European Union leaders for changes to the proposed divorce deal, which is unpopular with many lawmakers. ___ 8:15 p.m. British lawmakers have finished voting in the Conservative Party challenge of Prime Minister Theresa May's leadership. Three black metal boxes were taken to a room for counting after Conservative lawmakers spent two hours voting on Wednesday. The more than 300 paper ballots they cast are being counted by hand. The tally is expected to be announced later tonight. May needs a majority vote to hold onto her position as prime minister and Conservative Party leader. If she is defeated, she will have to resign although she will remain as a caretaker prime minister until a new Conservative leader is chosen. ___ 6:10 p.m. A British government minister says Prime Minister Theresa May has told restive lawmakers she will step down as the Conservative Party's leader before the next national election, due in 2022. May addressed party backbenchers in private ahead of a no-confidence vote on her leadership taking place Wednesday evening. Solicitor General Robert Buckland says May told them, "In my heart I would like to lead the party into the next election." Buckland called the statement "the introductory phrase to her indication that she would accept the fact that that would not happen, that is not her intention." A promise to make way for a new Conservative leader would be a way to win over wavering lawmakers ahead of the vote that could end her leadership. May has not said what she will do if, as many expect, Britain's Brexit crisis triggers an early election. ___ 5:35 p.m. Prime Minister Theresa May is speaking to dozens of Conservative lawmakers, less than half an hour before a no-confidence vote among them that will decide her fate. May was greeted by table banging as she entered a room in the House of Commons to address backbenchers. That is a customary sign of approval, but May faces a tough crowd that includes rivals such as former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis. Both are among critics of May's Brexit deal with the European Union. Tory Brexiteers are hoping to topple May in Wednesday evening's vote. She is making a last-minute appeal, saying ditching her now would plunge the country into even more uncertainty. One lawmaker who attended, James Cleverly, said May "made it very clear that there is a job of work to be done (on Brexit) and this is a delay and a distraction." ___ 4:25 p.m. British bookmakers William Hill say they've suspended betting on the question of whether Prime Minister Theresa May will win a confidence vote by her party. William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams says that the odds favored May from the beginning of the day, and did nothing but improve as Wednesday night's vote neared. Before betting was suspended, people putting money on a May win had to wager 10 pounds to win one pound. Adams says the firm suspended betting because "we're 100 percent certain she's going to win." ___ 4 p.m. Some Londoners are reacting with sympathy at the news that Prime Minister Theresa May faces a confidence vote that may remove her from power. Abby Handbridge, a trader at Chapel Market in north London, said Wednesday that the spectacle was "embarrassing" for Britain in the eyes of the world. "I feel really sorry for Theresa May," she said. "She's being battered by everybody and Boris Johnson has just come out with a haircut and weight loss so we know what he is looking for." Another trader, 61-year-old David White, compared May's Conservative Party challengers to "rats deserting a sinking ship." "I don't think it should have come to this," he said of the formal challenge to May. Support was hardly unanimous, though, with some traders saying May is power hungry. Lawmakers casting their votes of confidence in a secret ballot later Wednesday. ___ 1:45 p.m. Germany's Cabinet has approved legislation to protect British residents' rights in the country in the event of a no-deal Brexit and to make the country a more attractive location for banks seeking to relocate. Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said ministers have approved a bill safeguarding the German health insurance, unemployment insurance and pension status of British citizens living in Germany and German citizens living in Britain at the time of Brexit. The future status of those citizens affected by the Brexit process remains especially uncertain following the news earlier that Prime Minister Theresa May will face a no-confidence vote later from lawmakers in her own party. A withdrawal agreement ahead of Britain's exit from the European Union in March has yet to be voted on by the British Parliament. Another German bill foresees loosening the requirement for banks to justify why they're ending a contract with a highly paid employee deemed to be a "bearer of risk," such as heads of department or high-volume traders. Germany has much more restrictive rules on dismissing workers than Britain, which is seen as a disincentive for Britain-based banks to shift operations to Frankfurt. ___ 12:25 p.m. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is underlining the European Union's insistence on sticking to the Brexit agreement as it stands, but stressing that she remains committed to an orderly British withdrawal. Merkel, who met Tuesday with British Prime Minister Theresa May, noted that "things are in flux" in London. She said that "we do not have any intention of changing the withdrawal agreement" but otherwise didn't go into detail. Merkel said that Germany remains committed to securing an orderly British withdrawal, and said that "we don't have much time, but we still have time." ___ 10:55 a.m. Business figures have expressed alarm about the political uncertainty in the U.K. ahead of a Conservative Party confidence vote on Prime Minister Theresa May later. Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said politicians should understand the impact of their "high stakes gambles" with Britain's economy. "At one of the most pivotal moments for the U.K. economy in decades, it is unacceptable that Westminster politicians have chosen to focus on themselves, rather than on the needs of the country," he said after the Conservative Party said there would a vote on May's leadership. He said there was "utter dismay" among businesses about the vote on Wednesday evening. Federation of Small Businesses chairman Mike Cherry said the current turmoil is "weighing heavy" on entrepreneurs. ___ 9 a.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May says a change of national leader would result in Britain's departure from the European Union being delayed or stopped, as she vowed to fight to stay in power. May made the defiant statement outside Downing Street on Wednesday, arguing that stepping aside at a time of crisis would "put our country's future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it." The U.K. leader is facing a no-confidence vote that will see her removed as party and government leader if she loses. ___ 8:50 a.m. U.K. leader Theresa May is vowing to fight a no-confidence vote "with everything I've got," appealing to party colleagues to support her leadership. The announcement of the challenge to May's leadership throws Britain's already rocky path out of the European Union, which it is due to leave in March, into further chaos. Many Tory lawmakers have been growing angry with May over her handling of Brexit, and the challenge comes days after she postponed a vote to approve a divorce deal with the EU to avoid all but certain defeat. If she loses Wednesday's vote, May must step down and there will be a contest to choose a new leader. She will remain leader, and prime minister, until the successor is picked. If she wins, she can't be challenged again for a year. ___ 7:55 a.m. A British Conservative Party official says Prime Minister Theresa May will face a no-confidence vote from party lawmakers. Graham Brady says the threshold of 48 letters from lawmakers needed to trigger a leadership vote has been reached. Brady chairs the party committee that oversees leadership contests. Many lawmakers have been growing angry with May over her handling of Brexit. If she loses the vote of party legislators, taking place on Wednesday evening, May must step down. If she wins, she can't be challenged again for a year. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session, at parliament in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after.(AP Photo/Tim Ireland) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, talks to British Prime Minister Theresa May after a meeting in the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. May is visiting several European countries to seek "assurances" on the Brexit agreement with the European Union to aid its passage through Britain's parliament. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) Pro-Brexit demonstrators who oppose British Prime Minister Theresa May, hold placards outside the Houses of Parliament, in London, Wednesday December 12, 2018. British Conservative lawmakers forced a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Theresa May for Wednesday, throwing U.K. politics deeper into crisis and Brexit further into doubt. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) Pro-Brexit demonstrators who oppose British Prime Minister Theresa May, hold placards outside the Houses of Parliament, in London, Wednesday December 12, 2018. British Conservative lawmakers forced a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Theresa May for Wednesday, throwing U.K. politics deeper into crisis and Brexit further into doubt. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) In this Dec. 11, 2018 photo British Prime Minister Theresa May smiles in front of a Christmas tree when arriving for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the chancellery in Berlin. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result announced soon after. (Renee Bailey/PA via AP) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to make a media statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May makes a media statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May makes a media statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) British Prime Minister Theresa May, center, walks past a holiday tree as she leaves the Europa building after a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Tuesday, Dec. 11 2018. Top European Union officials on Tuesday ruled out any renegotiation of the divorce agreement with Britain, as Prime Minister Theresa May fought to save her Brexit deal by lobbying leaders in Europe's capitals. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result announced soon after. (Kirsty O'Connor/PA via AP) British Prime Minister Theresa May walks from 10 Downing Street to make a statement, in London, Wednesday December 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) KATOWICE, Poland (AP) - The United Nations secretary-general called on countries to make compromises in tackling global warming, amid concern that the U.N. conference on the issue could end without a substantial agreement. In his second dramatic appeal at the talks in Poland in the space of 10 days, Antonio Guterres told ministers and senior diplomats from almost 200 countries they should consider the fate of future generations. "This is the time for political compromises to be reached," he said. "This means sacrifices, but it will benefit us all collectively." His call came as the two-week meeting in Katowice shifted from the technical to political phase, with ministers taking over negotiations. Campaign groups warned of the risks of failure and accused powerful players such as the European Union of not pushing hard enough to reach an agreement. "A new leadership must step up," said Vanessa Perez-Cirera of the environmental group WWF. "We cannot afford to lose one of the 12 years we have remaining." U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, talks to U.N. climate conference president, Poland's Deputy Environment Minister Michal Kurtyka, left, after flying back to the event to urge more effort from the negotiators as they seek ways of fighting climate change, in Katowice, Poland, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018.(AP Photo) She was referring to a recent scientific report by a U.N.-backed panel that suggested global warming can only be capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) if urgent action is taken by 2030, including a sharp reduction in use of fossil fuels. Endorsing the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became a crunch issue over the weekend, with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposing the move. Jean-Pascal Ypersele, a former deputy chair of the panel, said whether or not countries believe the report's conclusions is irrelevant because the science is clear. "Nobody, even the so-called superpowers, can negotiate with the laws of physics," he said. Ypersele called for the 1.5-degree target - mentioned in the 2015 Paris climate accord - to be recognized in the final text. "It's a question of survival for a large part of humanity, and many other species," he said. The Polish official chairing the talks circulated a condensed draft text Wednesday that still contained many question marks in areas where countries disagree. "Parties are progressing," Michal Kurtyka told The Associated Press. "Nevertheless it is a very complex, a very wide array of issues that we are discussing in parallel at the same time." The Dec. 2-14 meeting is supposed to finalize the rules that signatories of the Paris accord need to follow when it comes to reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce them. Jennifer Morgan, the head of environmental group Greenpeace, said the current drafts contain too many loopholes to be effective, including one proposal allowing countries to choose how to calculate the amount of emissions absorbed by trees when submitting their reports. "There's no scientific integrity in that," Morgan said. Poor countries, meanwhile, want assurances on financial support to tackle climate change. Many say they are already seeing the effects of global warming in droughts, floods and other disasters made worse by emissions generated mostly by developed nations. A third objective of the talks is getting governments to make a firm commit to raising ambitions for addressing climate change in the coming two years, although without precise figures. Within hours of Guterres' appeal, dozens of countries announced they would step up their efforts to curb global warming to help kick start stalled climate talks. The so-called High Ambition Coalition - which includes rich nations such as Germany and Canada as well as developing countries such as Mexico and Fiji - also backed the call to keep the average global temperature rise at 1.5 Celsius. "The High Ambition Coalition helped to reach the Paris agreement. Now we have to secure this achievement," said Svenja Schulze, Germany's environment minister. Guterres, who made a detour on his way to Yemen peace talks in Sweden, said failure to reach agreement in Katowice "would compromise our last best chance to stop runaway climate change." "It would not only be immoral, it would be suicidal," he added. Guterres said that while he and most people in the room wouldn't be alive by the end of the century, children alive today would be. "I do not want my granddaughters or anybody else's to suffer the consequences of our failures," he said, "They would not forgive us if uncontrolled and spiraling climate change would be our legacy to them." ___ Associated Press reporter Monika Scislowska contributed to this report. ___ Read more stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/Climate In this slow-shutter zoom effect photo, commuters backed up in traffic during the morning rush hour Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in Brussels, a city that regularly experiences pollution alert warnings. Predictions from international climate expert, warn that global warming is set to do irreversible environmental damage, with pollutants from burning fossil fuels as one of the main contributors to climate changes. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Former U.S vice president and climate activist Al Gore makes a speech on acting for climate to participants in a U.N. climate summit that is to work out ways of keeping global warming in check, in Katowice, Poland, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Former U.S vice president and climate activist Al Gore makes a speech on acting for climate to participants in a U.N. climate summit that is to work out ways of keeping global warming in check, in Katowice, Poland, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Former U.S vice president and climate activist Al Gore makes a speaking during a side event outside of the COP24 UN Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Participants in a U.N. climate conference walk by a screen showing high U.N. official for combatting climate change Patricia Espinoza, as she addresses the delegates in Katowice, Poland, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) A Brazilian indigenous woman speaks during a side event outside of the COP24 UN Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) NEW YORK (AP) - Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's one-time fixer, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to conceal his boss' alleged sexual affairs, telling a judge that he agreed time and again to cover up Trump's "dirty deeds" out of "blind loyalty." Separately, the legal and political peril surrounding Trump appeared to deepen when prosecutors announced that another major piece of the investigation had fallen into place: The parent company of the National Enquirer acknowledged dispensing some of the hush money in concert with the Trump campaign to fend off a scandal that could have damaged his bid for the White House. Cohen, 52, shook his head slightly and closed his eyes as a judge pronounced his sentence for evading $1.4 million in taxes, lying about Trump's business dealings in Russia and violating campaign-finance laws in buying the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal, who claimed they had sex with the candidate. Cohen and federal prosecutors have said the payments were made at Trump's direction to influence the election. "Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass," said a choked-up Cohen, a lawyer who once boasted he would "take a bullet" for Trump. "My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands." The twin developments represented a double dose of bad news for the president, who ignored reporters' questions about Cohen during an appearance at the White House later in the day. Cohen is the first and, so far, only member of Trump's circle during two years of investigations to go into open court and implicate him in a crime, though whether a president can be prosecuted under the Constitution is an open question. Michael Cohen, left, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) In a possible sign of further trouble for the president, Cohen said he will continue cooperating with prosecutors, and one of his legal advisers said Cohen is also prepared to tell "all he knows" to Congress if asked. At the sentencing, defense attorney Guy Petrillo pleaded for leniency for Cohen, saying, "He came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our country." U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said the defendant deserved modest credit, but his assistance "does not wipe the slate clean." "Somewhere along the way Mr. Cohen appears to have lost his moral compass," the judge said. The judge also ordered Cohen to pay $1.39 million in restitution to the IRS, forfeit $500,000 and pay $100,000 in fines. He was ordered to report to prison March 6 and left court without comment. The prison sentence was in line with what prosecutors asked for. Sentencing guidelines called for around four to five years, and the government asked in court papers that Cohen be given only a slight break. The sentence was the culmination of a spectacular rise and fast fall of a lawyer who attached himself to the fortunes of his biggest client, helped him get elected president, then turned on him, cooperating with two interconnected investigations: one run by federal prosecutors in New York, the other by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russia's efforts to influence the presidential election. Beyond the guilty pleas, it is unclear what Cohen has told prosecutors or what he has left to say, though one of Mueller's prosecutors, Jeannie Rhee, said in court that Cohen has "provided consistent and credible information about core Russia-related issues under investigation." Legal experts said Cohen could get his sentence reduced by cooperating. In the hush-money case, Cohen arranged for American Media Inc., parent of the pro-Trump National Enquirer, to pay $150,000 to McDougal to buy and bury her story, according to prosecutors. Cohen also said he paid $130,000 to Daniels and was reimbursed by Trump's business empire. Both payments were made during the heat of the 2016 campaign. Prosecutors said those secret payouts were not reported as campaign contributions and violated the ban on corporate contributions and the $2,700 limit on donations by an individual. Shortly after Cohen's sentencing, federal authorities announced a deal not to prosecute AMI. As part of the deal, prosecutors said, AMI admitted making the payment to McDougal "in concert" with the Trump campaign to protect him from a story that could have hurt his candidacy. An AMI representative had no comment. Trump has denied any sexual relationship with the women and argued on Twitter earlier this week that the payments to the women were "a simple private transaction," not a campaign contribution. And if it was a prohibited contribution, Trump said, Cohen is the one who should be held responsible. "Lawyer's liability if he made a mistake, not me," Trump wrote, adding, "Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. WITCH HUNT!" Trump's legal culpability could hinge on whether the payments to the women were, in fact, made at his direction, and whether he intended them to influence the election. In a case with some parallels, prosecutors in 2011 charged former Sen. John Edwards with funneling nearly $1 million in under-the-table campaign contributions to hide his pregnant lover during his 2008 run for president. Edwards had argued that the payments were a personal matter - intended to keep things secret from his wife - and had nothing to do with the election. A jury acquitted the Democrat on one charge and deadlocked on other counts. He wasn't retried. In addition to pleading guilty to the campaign-finance and tax charges, Cohen admitted lying to Congress to conceal that he was negotiating a proposal to build a Trump skyscraper in Moscow well into the presidential campaign season. He said he lied out of devotion to Trump, who insisted during the campaign that he had no business ties whatsoever to Russia. Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who played a major role in exposing the hush-money discussions, said outside the courthouse: "We will not stop until the truth is known relating to the conduct of Donald Trump." But he added: "Let me be clear, Michael Cohen is neither a hero nor a patriot" and "deserves every day of the 36-month sentence he will serve." ___ Associated Press writer Jim Mustian contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to fix "felt" to "thought" in Cohen's quote about covering up "dirty deeds." Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) In this courtroom sketch, Michael Cohen listens as he is sentenced in federal court, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 in New York. President Donald Trump's once-devoted lawyer and all-around fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for allowing what he said was his "blind loyalty" to Trump to lead him astray. "I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds," he said. (Elizabeth Williams via AP) In this courtroom sketch, Michael Cohen, second from left, listens as his attorney Guy Petrillo, right, addresses the court during his sentencing hearing, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 in New York federal court. President Donald Trump's once-devoted lawyer and all-around fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for allowing what he said was his "blind loyalty" to Trump to lead him astray. (Elizabeth Williams via AP) Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) In this courtroom sketch, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III sentences Michael Cohen, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in New York. President Donald Trump's once-devoted lawyer and all-around fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for allowing what he said was his "blind loyalty" to Trump to lead him astray. "I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds," he said. (Elizabeth Williams via AP) ADDS NAME OF FAMILY MEMBERS - Michael Cohen, center, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, accompanied by his children Samantha, left, and Jake, right, arrives at federal court for his sentencing, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in New York, for dodging taxes, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) In this courtroom sketch, Michael Cohen addresses the court during his sentencing hearing, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 in New York federal court. President Donald Trump's once-devoted lawyer and all-around fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for allowing what he said was his "blind loyalty" to Trump to lead him astray. "I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds," he said. (Elizabeth Williams via AP) Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) In this courtroom sketch, Michael Cohen, center, listens during his sentencing hearing, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in New York federal court. Cohen, President Donald Trump's once-devoted lawyer and all-around fixer, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after telling a federal judge that his "blind loyalty" to his boss led him to cover up Trump's "dirty deeds." (Elizabeth Williams via AP) Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey will launch a new military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria "within a few days," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, a move likely to further strain ties between NATO allies Turkey and the United States. In recent months, Turkey has shelled Kurdish positions across the border in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, and has threatened to drive out the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG. The YPG is the main component of a Kurdish-led militia in Syria that rolled back the Islamic State group with the help of the U.S.-led coalition. Ankara views YPG fighters as terrorists because of their links to the Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey. U.S. troops are deployed with the Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, in part to prevent clashes with Turkey. "We will begin our operation to rescue the east of the Euphrates from the separatist organization within a few days," Erdogan said. "Our target is not the American soldiers, it is the terror organizations that are active in the region." He called on the U.S. not to allow "deep" disagreements over Syria policy to impede future cooperation between the two countries. Turkey has been incensed by American support for the Kurdish-led forces. More recently, it has been frustrated by delays in the implementation of an agreement that was reached between Washington and Ankara that would effectively push the Kurdish militia out of the key northern Syrian town of Manbij, west of the Euphrates. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a defence industry meeting event in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Erdogan said Turkey will begin "within a few days" a new military operation to drive out U.S-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria, east of the Euphrates River. The move is likely to increase tensions between NATO allies, Turkey, and the United States. (Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool) "They are not being honest, they are still not removing terrorists (from Manbij)," Erdogan said. "Therefore, we will do it." Erdogan's statement, given at a defense industry meeting, follows U.S. moves to set up observation posts in northern Syria, despite Turkey's objections. Turkey says the observation posts are aimed at protecting the YPG, while the U.S. says the posts were established to address Turkey's security concerns. "We know that the aim of the radar and observation posts set up by the United States (east of the Euphrates) is not to protect our country from terrorists, but to protect the terrorists from Turkey," Erdogan said. Commenting on the Erdogan remarks, a Pentagon spokesman said U.S.-Turkish coordination and consultation is the "only approach" to security issues in this area. "Unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as U.S. personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern," Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson said. "We would find any such actions unacceptable." Robertson said uncoordinated military operations will undermine the shared U.S.-Turkish interests in security in Syria. "The campaign against ISIS is not over," he said. "Coalition forces are working closely with the Syrian Democratic Forces who are in the midst of offensive operations against ISIS in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. The SDF remains a committed partner against ISIS and we remain committed to working with them to ensure ISIS's enduring defeat. We should not and cannot allow ISIS to breathe at this critical point or we will jeopardize the significant gains we have made alongside our Coalition partners and risk allowing ISIS to resurge." On Tuesday and Wednesday, Turkey sent convoy of troops and military equipment to the border with Syria as reinforcements, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. Turkish troops have already driven back Syrian Kurdish forces in two cross-border operations west of the Euphrates, in 2016 and earlier this year. Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war-monitoring group, said at least four people were killed in two explosions in Syrian towns held by Turkey-backed local administrations shortly after Erdogan's announcement. A motorcycle exploded near a mosque in the town of al-Bab, killing three people. The second explosion occurred in the town Azaz, where one child was killed, the Observatory said. There were other, smaller explosions in al-Rai and Dabiq, it said. No one was reported killed in those blasts. ___ Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report. STRASBOURG, France (AP) - Hundreds of security forces combed eastern France for a 29-year-old man with a long criminal record who shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and sprayed gunfire during a deadly rampage in Strasbourg's famous Christmas market, officials said. Tuesday night's attack at the Christmas market in Strasbourg killed two people, left a third brain-dead and injured 12, and was a stark reminder to a nation wounded by previous assaults that terrorism remains a threat, even as anti-government protests roil the country. National police distributed a photo of the wounded fugitive, identified as Cherif Chekatt, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." France raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level and bolstered troops around France. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told lawmakers that the French native, born in Strasbourg, had run-ins with police starting at age 10 and his first conviction at age 13. Chekatt had been convicted 27 times, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany, for crimes including armed robbery. He had been flagged for extremism and was on a watch list, but the interior minister said "the signs were weak." A man lights a candle as he pays respects to the victims the night following an attack that killed three persons and wounding at least 13, in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. More than 24 hours after a man sprayed gunfire at crowds in France's largest Christmas market as he shouted "God is great!" over 700 security forces combed the eastern city of Strasbourg on Wednesday for the 29-year-old suspect who's been in trouble with the law since age 10. (AP Photo/Jean Francois Badias) The emerging profile seemed to point to an increasingly common hybrid extremist who moves from acts of delinquency to sowing terror. "It's a large zone and the search is difficult," senior Interior Ministry official Laurent Nunez said on France-Inter radio. Strasbourg is on the border with Germany, where the suspect was convicted in 2016 of breaking into a dental practice and a pharmacy in two towns. His parents and two brothers, also known for radicalism, were detained, a judicial official said. Prosecutor Remy Heitz said the man attacked with a handgun and a knife about 8 p.m. Tuesday, and was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with soldiers during his rampage. He then took a taxi to another part of the city, boasting of the attack to the driver, and later exchanged more gunfire with police and disappeared, Heitz said. Witnesses described shots and screams after the gunman opened fire and yelled "God is great!" in Arabic, the prosecutor added. Swaths of the city were under lockdown for hours. The dead included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to Thai Foreign Ministry and the website of the Khao Sod newspaper. It quoted his uncle as saying he and his wife had originally planned to visit Paris, but the protests there prompted them to change plans and go to Strasbourg instead. One Italian was reported to be among the wounded. Italian media said Antonio Megalizzi, 28, was in critical condition. Italian daily La Repubblica reported he was in Strasbourg to follow the session of the European Parliament. After initially reporting that three people had died, authorities revised that and said one was brain-dead, while 12 people were wounded, six of them gravely. About 720 police, soldiers and SWAT team officers in Strasbourg were being reinforced with 500 more soldiers and another 1,300 in the coming days to guard public places, especially other Christmas markets, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said after a crisis meeting. The government raised the security level after the attack. The attack in the heart of old Strasbourg, near its famous cathedral and within the Christmas market that draws many tourists, unsettled the border city that also is home to the European Parliament. The German government said it had stepped up controls on the border with France but did not change its threat level. "All terrorist attacks touch all of France, and it's plain to see each of the attacks have hit a highly symbolic point or moment," Philippe told parliament. He listed violence since 2015 that killed more than 200: at the Charlie Hebdo satiric newspaper, a Kosher store, restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Paris; along the famed seaside promenade in Nice; and even inside a church in a quiet suburb of the northern city of Rouen, among others. Strasbourg's Christmas market "is a family and brotherly celebration that speaks about hope and what unites us. It's this celebration that was hit yesterday by a terrorist act," he said. The city was in mourning, with candles lit at the site of the attack, and the Christmas market was closed at least through Thursday, according to regional prefect Jean-Luc Marx. The attack came as President Emmanuel Macron sought to take back control of the nation after a month of anti-government protests that have spread violence across the country. It came only 24 hours after he broke a long public silence and appealed for calm amid the mushrooming "yellow vest" protest movement that seeks a better standard of living for ordinary citizens. He offered a package of measures, but it wasn't clear if that would halt the weekend protests. "The terrorist threat is still at the core of our nation's life," government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux quoted Macron as saying at the weekly Cabinet meeting. Reflecting the distrust and anger at Macron, some social media said they viewed the Strasbourg attack as a handy distraction. Interior Ministry official Nunez said Chekatt had been radicalized in prison and had been monitored by French intelligence services since his release in late 2015, because of his suspected religious extremism. Nunez told France-Inter that police went to his apartment in an outer neighborhood of Strasbourg on Tuesday morning. Authorities said he was not there, although five other people were detained. Police seized a grenade, a rifle and knives in the operation, Heitz said, and began guarding the apartment building. A neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the gunman was still at large, said Chekatt was rarely home and last saw him Monday from her window, which looks out on a common hallway, with another man. Young men from the apartment block said they knew him as someone who seemed destabilized by his time in prison. "You can just tell," said one, touching the side of his head. They, too, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was still on the run. ___ Ganley reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Angela Charlton, John Leicester and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Kaweewit Kaewjinda in Bangkok and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed. German police officers control cars at the French-German border following a shooting in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) A French gendarme stands guards in the street of the scene following a shooting in the city of Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level. (AP Photo/Jean Francois Badias) People pay respect and light candles the night following a shooting in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Police union officials identified the suspected assailant as Frenchman Cherif Chekatt, a 29-year-old with a thick police record for crimes including armed robbery and monitored as a suspected religious radical by the French intelligence services. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) French police officers patrol next to Notre-Dame cathedral of Strasbourg following a shooting in the city of Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level. (AP Photo/Jean Francois Badias) A placard reads "Tribute to the victims. I am Strasbourg", in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) German police officers patrol at the French-German border following a shooting in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Police vehicles move at the center of the city of Strasbourg following a shooting, eastern France, Tuesday Dec. 11, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level.(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) Police vehicles move at the center of the city of Strasbourg following a shooting, eastern France, Tuesday Dec. 11, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level.(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) Emergency services patrol at the center of the city of Strasbourg following a shooting, eastern France, Tuesday Dec. 11, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level.(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) Emergency services patrol at the center of the city of Strasbourg following a shooting, eastern France, Tuesday Dec. 11, 2018. A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg's famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level.(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) Emergency services patrol at the center of the city of Strasbourg which is close following a shooting, eastern France, Tuesday Dec. 11, 2018. A shooting in the French city of Strasbourg killed at least two people and wounded more than others, officials said, sparking a broad lockdown and major security operation around a world-famous Christmas market. Authorities said the shooter remains at large. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) France's Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, prepares to hold a press conference in Strasbourg, eastern France, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. A shooting in the French city of Strasbourg killed at least two people and wounded more than others, officials said, sparking a broad lockdown and major security operation around a world-famous Christmas market. Authorities said the shooter remains at large. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) France's Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, center, prepares to hold a press conference in Strasbourg, eastern France, Tuesday, Dec.11, 2018. A shooting in the French city of Strasbourg killed at least two people and wounded more than others, officials said, sparking a broad lockdown and major security operation around a world-famous Christmas market. Authorities said the shooter remains at large. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) Basket ball supporters wait to leave after a match at the Rhenus Sport stadium in Strasbourg, eastern France, Tuesday Dec.11, 2018. A shooting in the French city of Strasbourg killed at least two people and wounded more than others, officials said, sparking a broad lockdown and major security operation around a world-famous Christmas market. Authorities said the shooter remains at large. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) People pay respect the night following a shooting in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Police union officials identified the suspected assailant as Frenchman Cherif Chekatt, a 29-year-old with a thick police record for crimes including armed robbery and monitored as a suspected religious radical by the French intelligence services. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) A French police officer controls a car in the city of Strasbourg, eastern France, following a shooting, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Police union officials identified the suspected assailant as Frenchman Cherif Chekatt, a 29-year-old with a thick police record for crimes including armed robbery and monitored as a suspected religious radical by the French intelligence services. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) People pay respect to the victims the night following an attack killing three persons and wounding at least 13, in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Police union officials identified the suspected assailant as Frenchman Cherif Chekatt, a 29-year-old with a thick police record for crimes including armed robbery and monitored as a suspected religious radical by the French intelligence services. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) A woman pays respects to the victims the night following an attack that killed three persons and wounding at least 13, in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. More than 24 hours after a man sprayed gunfire at crowds in France's largest Christmas market as he shouted "God is great!" over 700 security forces combed the eastern city of Strasbourg on Wednesday for the 29-year-old suspect who's been in trouble with the law since age 10. (AP Photo/Jean Francois Badias) A man pays respects to the victims the night following an attack that killed three persons and wounding at least 13, in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. More than 24 hours after a man sprayed gunfire at crowds in France's largest Christmas market as he shouted "God is great!" over 700 security forces combed the eastern city of Strasbourg on Wednesday for the 29-year-old suspect who's been in trouble with the law since age 10. (AP Photo/Jean Francois Badias) WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional leaders were digging in Wednesday for a fight over government funding, a day after a combative White House meeting with President Donald Trump that seemed to raise the likelihood of a partial government shutdown. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump was holding parts of the government "hostage to a petty campaign pledge" to build a border wall with Mexico in order to "fire up" his political base. Republican leaders, meanwhile, said they have the votes in the House to approve Trump's request for $5 billion for the southern border wall in a must-pass spending bill - but weren't sure they wanted to bring it up with no assurance that the plan could get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate. The burden "is on the Senate to negotiate what they can get with 60 votes," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. , a member of House leadership and a key vote-counter. "It is my hope and it's my thought that the Senate should work this thing out," McHenry said. That appeared unlikely Wednesday, as Democrats reiterated their opposition to spending more than $1.6 billion on border security and Republicans urged Trump to remain steadfast. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., left, walk out of the West Wing to speak to members of the media outside of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, following a meeting with President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) "This is a fight we're going to have. He needs to dig in and not give in," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a key Trump ally. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said the central question is, "Who's going to give? The president doesn't look to me like he's going to budge. I don't think he's bluffing." Kennedy said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi appeared to be calling the shots for Democrats, "and she's not going to make any concessions because she wants to be the next speaker." The funding fight is something leaders of both parties had hoped to avoid as Congress seeks to wrap up its work for the year and adjourn for the holidays. But Trump, who for months had suggested he'd be willing to force a shutdown over wall funding, dashed hopes for a quick resolution on Tuesday, sparring with Pelosi and Schumer during an extraordinary Oval Office meeting that he made sure played out in front of television cameras. Trump told the Democrats he will be "proud to shut down the government" in the name of border security, declaring: "I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down." Schumer said the American people will "suffer needlessly" if Trump follows through on his threat to shut down parts of the government as of Dec. 21 unless he receives the $5 billion he is demanding. On Twitter on Wednesday, Trump said a deadly shooting attack in France shows the need for the border wall. "Chuck and Nancy must give us the votes to get additional Border Security!" he wrote, referring to Schumer and Pelosi. But the suspect accused of spraying gunfire at a Christmas market in the city of Strasbourg on Tuesday is a French native, not an immigrant. Police were hunting Wednesday for Cherif Chekatt, born in Strasbourg and well-known to law enforcement. Meanwhile, House Republicans debated whether to try to pass the wall funding to put pressure on Democrats, but it was far from clear if that plan would succeed. With many Republicans who lost bids for re-election or retired staying away from the Capitol, finding enough GOP votes to approve the wall remained a steep challenge. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who supports Trump's $5 billion request for the wall, said House leaders were "working through" the funding bill. Asked if the House would vote on the $5 billion request, McCarthy said, "That's the number I always search for." Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who is set to become the No. 3 House Republican in January, said House Republicans "stand ready to pass whatever the Senate can get passed" and Trump will sign. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the Oval Office spectacle likely helped Republicans get the votes needed in the House to approve Trump's $5 billion wall request. Republicans were incensed at Pelosi's repeated statements to Trump that he does not have the votes for the wall in the House. "There's nothing like the other side saying 'You can't get this' to make it easier for GOP leaders to say to wavering Republicans, 'Hey guys we need you on this one,' " Cole said. Still, the question remains, Cole said: "Why ask people to take a hard vote when you know it's going nowhere in the Senate?" Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., who lost his bid for re-election, said he would oppose the $5 billion request unless it also includes relief for young immigrants who face deportation after Trump moved to terminate a program that allows them to remain in the country. "I'm for border security, but I'm also for preserving the potential deal we've been talking about for some time" on immigration, said Curbelo, who supports a pathway to citizenship for young immigrants known as Dreamers. Schumer said Wednesday it is "nearly impossible" to negotiate with Trump, accusing the president of peddling "blatant and dangerous falsehoods" about the wall, including his widely refuted claim that Mexico will pay for it. If the two sides do not make a deal by Dec. 21, about one-quarter of the government will be affected, including the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Agriculture, State and Justice, as well as national parks. ___ Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. President Donald Trump speaks to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., during a meeting with Democratic leadership in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Vice President Mike Pence, center, looks on as House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Donald Trump argue during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) LONDON (AP) - She is a quiet, determined vicar's daughter who rose to the heights of British political power by outmaneuvering better known, more outspoken men. The favorites in a 2016 Conservative Party leadership competiton were Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The winner was Theresa May, who became prime minister on a difficult mission to deliver Brexit. May, 62, became prime minister after Britain's shock June 2016 vote to leave the EU toppled Prime Minister David Cameron, who had called the referendum and then argued for remaining in the bloc in a bid to squelch a long-running party squabble. And she has spent her entire premiership trying to deliver on the voters' decision. Before the referendum, May had backed remaining in the EU bloc, but she has become one of the staunchest advocates of Brexit. "Brexit means Brexit" became her mantra - a meaningless one, according to her detractors. For a time, May was able to unite the warring factions of her party, which for decades has been divided over policy toward Europe. But her authority was severely dented when she gambled in April 2017 by calling a snap election in hopes of strengthening her hand in divorce negotiations with the EU - only to lose her majority in Parliament. May kept her government going by cobbling together a deal with the small Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, which is now threatening to withdraw its support because of opposition to her Brexit deal. The party's rejection of her deal will leave May's government in a perilous position even if she survives the no-confidence vote. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during the regular scheduled Prime Minister's Questions inside the House of Commons in London, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, later Wednesday, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Mark Duffy/UK Parliament via AP) Much of May's Conservative Party also hates the agreement, struck after a year and a half of tough negotiations between Britain and the EU. The pro-Brexit wing of the party says it gives too much away and will leave Britain bound to EU rules after it leaves. Pro-EU Conservatives criticize May for ruling out a softer Brexit in which Britain remains in the EU's single market and customs union. May vowed that she would "see this through" and secure Parliament's backing for her deal. She came close to losing it all on Wednesday after angry Conservative lawmakers called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament. But she won it, 200 votes to 117. Few doubt her fortitude and commitment to an idea of public service instilled in her upbringing as the daughter of an Anglican vicar. May was first elected to Parliament in 1997, and soon established a reputation for unflashy competence and a knack for vanquishing her rivals. She served for six years in the notoriously thankless job of home secretary, responsible for borders, immigration and law and order. In 2016 she beat flashier and better-known politicians, including flamboyant Brexit-backer Johnson, to the post of prime minister. But her fabled stubbornness alone may not be enough. As Britain's second female prime minister, May is inevitably compared to the first, Margaret Thatcher, whose steely determination May admires. In November 1990, Thatcher faced a leadership challenge from Conservative rivals. She won the ballot, but not by enough to avoid a second-round vote. "I shall fight on," Thatcher said defiantly. "I fight to win." Within a week, she had been replaced. ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit crisis at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit Backdropped by members of the ruling Conservative Party, Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, centre, stands as she speaks during the regular scheduled Prime Minister's Questions inside the House of Commons in London, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, later Wednesday, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Mark Duffy/UK Parliament via AP) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session, at parliament in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session, at parliament in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. May has confirmed there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May makes a media statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result expected to be announced soon after. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) A sculpture depicting Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May stands opposite Parliament as the protest against Brexit continuous in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on the sentencing of Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for President Donald Trump (all times local): 2:15 p.m. The U.S. attorney's office in New York says it won't prosecute the National Enquirer's parent company over its efforts to suppress an embarrassing story about Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. The agreement was announced Wednesday shortly after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen's crimes included working with American Media Inc. to buy the silence of a model who says she had an affair with Trump. The president denies the affair. Like Cohen, the tabloid publisher admitted it was trying to influence the election by protecting Trump from a damaging story. Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at the direction of Trump. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) As part of the deal, AMI acknowledged it made a $150,000 payment to the model "in concert" with the Trump campaign with the intent of influencing the election. It requires AMI to cooperate with federal prosecutors in any investigation. ___ 12:40 p.m. An adviser to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says the former political fixer will "state publicly all he knows" about President Donald Trump after special counsel Robert Mueller completes his investigation. Lanny Davis said Wednesday that Cohen "continues to tell the truth about Donald Trump's misconduct over the years." Davis, who was previously an attorney for Cohen, said he will assist Cohen in testifying before any Congressional committee "interested in the search for truth and the difference between facts and lies." Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for orchestrating payments to alleged Trump mistresses, other financial misdeeds as well as lying to congressional investigators. He said nothing as he walked out of court. He has been ordered to turn himself in March 6 to start his sentence. ___ 12:20 p.m. A judge says Michael Cohen's cooperation with prosecutors "does not wipe the slate clean" of his crimes. U.S. District Judge William Pauley III made the comments Wednesday as he handed down a three-year prison sentence to the former lawyer for President Donald Trump. Pauley said that Cohen "appears to have lost his moral compass" and that the lawyer "should have known better" than to dodge taxes, lie to Congress and violate campaign finance laws. The 52-year-old Cohen pleaded guilty to those offenses. He said Wednesday he takes "full responsibility" for the crimes he admitted committing. But he also said his "blind loyalty" to Trump made him feel a duty to "cover up" the president's "dirty deeds." Trump had called for a tough sentence for Cohen, whom he labeled a liar. ___ 12:05 p.m. President Donald Trump's former lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison. U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said Wednesday that Michael Cohen deserved a harsh punishment for crimes including tax evasion, lying to Congress and arranging illicit payments to silence women who posed a risk to Trump's presidential campaign. The judge rejected arguments by Cohen's lawyers that he should be spared jail time because he cooperated in multiple federal investigations involving Trump. Cohen said his "blind loyalty" to Trump made him feel a duty to "cover up" the president's "dirty deeds." Cohen's crimes included evading $1.4 million in taxes and misleading Congress about his talks with Russians about a Trump skyscraper project in Moscow. Trump had called for a tough sentence for Cohen, whom he labeled a liar. ___ 11:55 a.m. President Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen says his "blind loyalty" to Trump led Cohen to "cover up his dirty deeds." Cohen said at his sentencing Wednesday that he takes "full responsibility" for the crimes he admitted committing. But he went on to say his allegiance to Trump led him "to take a path of darkness instead of light." Cohen has pleaded guilty to dodging taxes, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws. Cohen, who used to be the president's self-described fixer, could get about four to five years in prison. His lawyer is arguing for leniency, noting Cohen's cooperation with prosecutors investigating whether Russians attempted to influence Trump's campaign. But a prosecutor on the case against Cohen says Cohen's crimes showed a pattern of deceit, brazenness and greed. ___ 11:50 a.m. A prosecutor with special counsel Robert Mueller's office says President Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen "has provided consistent and credible information about core Russia-related issues under investigation." Jeannie Rhee didn't elaborate on that information as she spoke Wednesday at Cohen's sentencing. But she did say that Cohen "has sought to tell us the truth, and that is of the utmost value to us." The 52-year-old Cohen served as Trump's personal lawyer and self-described fixer. Cohen has pleaded guilty to dodging taxes, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws. Cohen could get about four to five years in prison, but his lawyer is arguing for leniency. His attorney, Guy Petrillo, says Cohen "came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our country" when he cooperated with prosecutors. ___ 11:25 a.m. A defense lawyer says Michael Cohen "came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our country" when he cooperated with prosecutors investigating whether Russians attempted to influence President Donald Trump's campaign. Cohen's lawyer, Guy Petrillo, told a judge Wednesday that Cohen "stood up to power and influence." Petrillo spoke as Cohen faced sentencing after pleading guilty to dodging taxes, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws. Cohen could get four to five years in prison, but his lawyers are arguing for leniency. The 52-year-old served as Trump's personal lawyer. ___ 10:35 a.m. The outspoken lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels has turned up at the federal courthouse in Manhattan where Michael Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced for crimes including a hush-money payment to the performer. Michael Avenatti represented Daniels in a legal dispute with Cohen in which she sought to be released from the non-disclosure agreement. Avenatti has bashed Cohen for months on cable television, saying President Donald Trump's former lawyer deserves to go to prison. Cohen's sentencing will begin Wednesday at 11 a.m. Cohen pleaded guilty to evading $1.4 million in taxes, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Prosecutors say the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels exceeded legal limits. His lawyers say some of his crimes were motivated by overenthusiasm for Trump. New York prosecutors have urged a judge to give Cohen substantial prison time. ___ 10:10 a.m. President Donald Trump's former lawyer has arrived at the courthouse in Manhattan where he is scheduled to be sentenced for evading taxes, lying to Congress, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Michael Cohen was accompanied Wednesday by his wife and two college-aged children. He didn't stop to speak with a crowd of reporters. Cohen is facing the possibility of four years in prison. His lawyers have asked for leniency. They say some of his crimes were motivated by overenthusiasm for Trump. New York prosecutors have urged a judge to give Cohen substantial prison time. Cohen pleaded guilty to evading $1.4 million in taxes. He also admitted misleading Congress about a Trump real estate project in Moscow and orchestrating prohibited payments to two women who said they had affairs with Trump. ___ 1:05 a.m. A lawyer who made his career protecting President Donald Trump is set to learn whether cooperating with federal investigators will lessen his punishment for dodging taxes, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws. Michael Cohen's sentencing hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. at a courthouse in Manhattan. He could get around four years in prison. His lawyers have asked for leniency. They say some of his crimes were motivated by overenthusiasm for Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty to misleading Congress about a Trump real estate project in Moscow and orchestrating prohibited payments to two women who said they had affairs with Trump. Cohen also dodged $1.4 million in taxes. New York prosecutors have urged a judge to give Cohen a substantial prison term. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on the commission that is investigating the Florida high school massacre (all times local): 6:10 p.m. The panel investigating the Florida high school massacre is recommending that teachers who volunteer and undergo extensive background checks and training be allowed to carry concealed guns on campus to stop future shootings. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission voted 13-1 Wednesday to recommend the Legislature allow the arming of those teachers, saying it's not enough to have one or two police officers or armed guards on campus. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commission's chairman, pushed the measure, saying that most deaths in school shootings happen within the first few minutes, before officers responded. Seventeen people died in the Feb. 14 attack. Suspect Nikolas Cruz stopped five times to reload. FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018 file photo, students are evacuated by police from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., after a shooter opened fire on the campus. There were plenty of missteps in communication, security and school policy before and during the Florida high school massacre that allowed the gunman to kill 17 people. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission will consider proposals Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, and Thursday, Dec. 13, including whether to arm trained teachers who volunteer. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File) __ 3:45 p.m. The commission investigating the Florida high school massacre has given tentative approval to several recommendations for school security statewide that members believe will make future campus shootings more difficult. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission gave its nod Wednesday to recommendations calling for all schools to have single points of entry, that open gates be staffed, that all classroom doors remain locked and that every district have active shooter policies and staff training. The panel also recommended that teachers have intercoms in their classrooms and that districts allow law enforcement agencies access to school video feeds. The commission was formed after the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead. It must file its initial report to Gov. Rick Scott, incoming Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature by Jan. 1. __ 10:50 a.m. A Florida judge has refused to dismiss a negligence lawsuit filed by the parent of a slain Parkland school student against a former deputy who failed to confront the shooter. The judge on Wednesday rejected arguments by attorneys that ex-deputy Scot Peterson had no legal duty to rush into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the Feb. 14 massacre that killed 17 people. Peterson remained outside the entire time. Attorneys for parent Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow died in the shooting, contended that as the school's assigned resource officer armed with a gun he had an absolute duty to try to protect the people there. The lawsuit is one of many filed in the wake of the shooting. Twenty-year-old Nikolas Cruz faces the death penalty if convicted in the slayings. He has offered to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison, but prosecutors reject that. ___ 10:15 a.m. The commission investigating the Florida high school massacre is wading through dozens of findings and recommendations that members hope will prevent future shootings. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission began a two-day meeting Wednesday with a discussion on findings that contributed to the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead. The commission discussed security lapses that allowed suspect Nikolas Cruz to enter the school, including unlocked and unstaffed gates and doors. The members will also consider arming security on all campuses, with explicit orders to confront shooters; improving communication systems on campus; and imposing more statewide uniformity in how troubled students are identified and helped. The commission must file its initial report to Gov. Rick Scott, incoming Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature by Jan. 1. ___ 12:30 a.m. There were plenty of missteps in communication, security and school policy before and during the Florida high school massacre that allowed the gunman to kill 17 people. Now, the state commission investigating the shooting will consider a long list of recommendations addressing these problems statewide. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission will consider proposals Wednesday and Thursday, including whether to arm trained teachers who volunteer. The members will also consider arming security on all campuses, with explicit orders to confront shooters; improving communication systems on campus; and imposing more statewide uniformity in how troubled students are identified and helped. The commission, created weeks after the Feb. 14 shooting, must file its initial report to Gov. Rick Scott, incoming Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature by Jan. 1. SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Former Obama housing chief Julian Castro says he's taking a step toward a possible White House campaign in 2020 by forming a presidential exploratory committee. The Texas Democrat tells The Associated Press that he will announce a decision Jan. 12. The move Wednesday gives the 44-year-old former San Antonio mayor an early start to what's shaping up as a crowded Democratic field without a clear front-runner to challenge President Donald Trump. Castro indicated in an AP interview that his mind was all but made up. "I know where I'm leaning, for sure," said Castro, who has said for weeks that it was likely he would seek the nomination. An exploratory committee usually is a formality before a candidate launches a presidential campaign. It legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. But just as important for Castro, the step gives him an early jump on bigger name Democrats who are considering running but are taking a slower approach. Democrat Julian Castro poses for a photo at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. Castro says he is launching a presidential exploratory committee ahead of a likely White House run in 2020. Castro was the nation's housing secretary until 2016 and spent five years as mayor of San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) No potential contender is more ascendant than outgoing Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who lost last month in a surprisingly close race against Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. O'Rourke has excited donors and activists who are now prodding him to seek the presidency. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey, along with former Vice President Joe Biden, are also potential candidates. Castro would be among the youngest candidates in the field and the most prominent Latino. He played down the attention that others are generating and pointed to past election cycles in which early favorites ended up faltering. "People might say right now, 'Well, hey, you're way down here in polling that's taken.' The most dangerous place to be right now is actually in the pole position," Castro said. "It doesn't bother me that in December of 2018 I'm not right up at the top of the list. If I decide to run, it would be because I believe I have a compelling message and I'm going to work hard and get to the voters and I believe I can be successful." Castro, who attended O'Rourke's election-night party in El Paso last month, said O'Rourke doesn't complicate his own chances. "He's talented. He ran a good race against Ted Cruz," Castro said. "I'll let him talk about his future." Castro said he has not spoken to former President Barack Obama about his potential candidacy but plans on consulting Democratic leaders. Obama has spoken to O'Rourke, who has said he won't make a decision on 2020 until after leaving Congress in January. Obama picked Castro to take over the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2014. Two years later, Castro was on the short list of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's potential running mates. For Castro, running for president would fulfill a destiny that Democrats have projected since he was elected San Antonio mayor at 34, followed by his star-making turn as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2012. He is the grandson of a Mexican immigrant and son of a Latina activist. His twin brother, Joaquin Castro, is a Democratic congressman from Texas. Julian Castro said the Latino community has been treated "like a pinata" under Trump and deserved a candidate in the field. "I'm also very mindful, especially now for the Latino community, that there's a particular meaning to my candidacy," Castro said. "We can't go through the 2020 cycle with nobody on that stage because of what's happened over the last couple of years." Young and telegenic, Castro rose to national prominence early in his career as a Latino leader from a state that Democrats are eager to retake after decades of Republican dominance. But in Texas, O'Rourke has eclipsed Castro after getting closer to a statewide victory than any Democrat in a generation. It now puts Texas in the formerly unthinkable position of having two Democratic presidential candidates in the same year. The last Texas Democrat to run for president was Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, who had a short-lived campaign in 1976. Maryland Rep. John Delaney is the only declared 2020 Democratic presidential candidate so far. Others are expected to announce their intentions in the coming weeks. ___ Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber Democrat Julian Castro talks about exploring the possibility of running for president in 2020, at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. The announcement Wednesday gives the 44-year-old Castro a jump-start on what's likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field that has no clear front-runner. He tells The Associated Press he plans to announce his ultimate decision in early January. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Democrat Julian Castro talks about exploring the possibility of running for president in 2020, at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. The announcement Wednesday gives the 44-year-old Castro a jump-start on what's likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field that has no clear front-runner. He tells The Associated Press he plans to announce his ultimate decision in early January. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Democrat Julian Castro talks about exploring the possibility of running for president in 2020, at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. The announcement Wednesday gives the 44-year-old Castro a jump-start on what's likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field that has no clear front-runner. He tells The Associated Press he plans to announce his ultimate decision in early January. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Democrat Julian Castro poses for a photo at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. Castro says he is launching a presidential exploratory committee ahead of a likely White House run in 2020. Castro was the nation's housing secretary until 2016 and spent five years as mayor of San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Democrat Julian Castro talks about exploring the possibility of running for president in 2020, at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. The announcement Wednesday gives the 44-year-old Castro a jump-start on what's likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field that has no clear front-runner. He tells The Associated Press he plans to announce his ultimate decision in early January. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Democrat Julian Castro talks about exploring the possibility of running for president in 2020, at his home in San Antonio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. The announcement Wednesday gives the 44-year-old Castro a jump-start on what's likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field that has no clear front-runner. He tells The Associated Press he plans to announce his ultimate decision in early January. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to again ban Iranian ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and to maintain an arms embargo that is scheduled to be lifted in 2020 under the landmark Iran nuclear deal. He also urged the council to prevent Iran from circumventing existing arms restrictions by authorizing the inspection of ships in ports and stopping them on the high seas. "Iran's ballistic missile activity is out of control," Pompeo said. "Iran has been on a testing spree and a proliferation spree that must come to an end." Pompeo spoke at a Security Council meeting on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement that the Trump administration pulled out of earlier this year and the council resolution endorsing it. The United States faces an uphill struggle in getting Security Council approval for Pompeo's proposals, especially following U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, which is still supported by the five other parties - Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. The Trump administration's re-imposition in November of sanctions against Iran that it had eased under the nuclear deal has also angered some key council members as well as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Pompeo criticized the council for weakening the ban on nuclear-capable Iranian missiles that was in effect from 2010 to 2015. The resolution adopted in 2015 to endorse the nuclear deal "calls upon" - but does not require - Iran to halt such activity, and it also supports lifting the arms embargo in 2020. American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo adjusts his tie during a Security Council meeting on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador, Eshagh Al Habib, accused the United States of "another series of lies, fabrications, disinformation and deceptive statements" about its ballistic missile program. He told the Security Council that "Iran's ballistic missile program is designed to be exclusively capable of delivering conventional warheads required to deter foreign threats." He said it has no nuclear component. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Iran is not banned from conducting ballistic missile launches and there is no proof its missiles are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Pompeo accused Iran of building the largest ballistic missile force in the region, one capable of threatening the Mideast and Europe, saying it has more than 10 ballistic missile systems in its inventory or in development and hundreds of missiles. He quoted the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's airspace division, Amir Ali Hajzadeh, boasting Monday that Iran is capable of building missiles with a range beyond 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). "Iran has exploited the goodwill of nations and defied multiple Security Council resolutions in its quest for a robust ballistic missile force," Pompeo said. "The United States will never stand for this. No nation that seeks peace and prosperity in the Middle East should either." He said the Trump administration will exert "American leadership" to build a coalition of countries around the world to acknowledge and deter Iran's continued missile proliferation. Pompeo said the U.S. and Europe have a different view on the Iran nuclear deal. "They view it as the linchpin; I view it as a disaster," he said. But, he added, Europeans are concerned about the Iranian ballistic missile buildup. Before the council meeting, eight European Union nations underlined their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal while urging Tehran to stop its "desta6bilizing regional activities" especially the launch of ballistic missiles. Ambassadors of the eight nations - Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom - said "it has been confirmed that Iran continues to implement its nuclear related commitments." But they warned that "ballistic missile related activities such as the launch of nuclear capable missiles and any transfers of missiles, missile technologies and components ... would be in violation of Security Council resolutions." Russia's Nebenzia lashed out at the Trump administration for abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal and for "trying to punish all other member states" for implementing the agreement and the Security Council resolution endorsing it. He said "Iran is ready for a dialogue" but the United States and other Security Council members appear to be more interested in further escalating "anti-Iran hysteria and to demonize Iran." "To lower the crisis what we need to do is pool international and regional efforts," Nebenzia said, saying that one way to start is to hold a conference with countries in the region and then broaden it to the entire Middle East. French Ambassador Francois Delattre also stressed that a long-term strategy in the Middle East cannot rest on "exerting pressures and sanctions" on Iran but must include "a firm and frank dialogue" with the Iranians on issues including their ballistic missiles and destabilizing activities. Dialogue is the only way the international community will be able to lay the foundations for a new agreement with Iran that will include the nuclear issue, its ballistic missile activity and regional stability, he said. "There is no other way to make sure there is lasting stability in the region or to attain the goal of Iran never obtaining nuclear weapons," Delattre said. American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, speaks to Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United Nations Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi during a Security Council meeting on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu speaks during a Security Council meeting on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Doug Jones said Alabama's soybean farmers and automobile manufacturers are "scared to death" over President Donald Trump's tariff wars, but he cautioned Democrats from spending too much time attacking the president as the party tries to win back heartland voters ahead of the 2020 presidential election. In an Associated Press interview, the Democrat who won a stunning victory from the Deep South a year ago Wednesday said he doesn't think there's enough evidence to impeach the president, even as prosecutors allege Trump directed his lawyer to make illegal hush money payments. Democrats' time would be better spent conducting oversight of the administration, he said, and working with the president to improve trade policies, the Affordable Care Act and other issues. "I don't think you have to just jump into that right now because it can not only politically backfire," he said about impeachment. "There would be backlash. Our country is divided enough as it is. Democrats right now have an opportunity to try to get some things done." Thanks to Republican victories in midterm elections last month, Jones will soon be one of the few remaining Democratic senators from a deeply conservative state. That status has made him something of a guide for his party on how to win back Democrats who voted for Trump 2016. As longtime friend of Joe Biden, Jones said he hopes the former vice president makes a run as the party's pick for 2020. "Democrats need to do a better job at reaching the heartland of America," he said. Biden is "probably the best one qualified to do that. He's been doing it for a long, long time, and I'm hoping to see that. I am sure, I feel confident, that there are others as well. We may not know who they are just yet." Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., speaks during an interview with Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace and Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro, at the Associated Press in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Trump remains popular in Alabama, but that's shifting, Jones claimed, as voters in the middle "don't like a lot of the hateful rhetoric." And while partisans on both sides will remain dug in, for or against the president, others "really can't point to a lot of things" that are better now, other than tax cuts, after the president's first two years in office. "They're beginning to question," he said. Jones says the path for Democrats is to stay focused on the "kitchen table" issues that helped him defeat conservative Republican Roy Moore, who faced decades-old allegations of improper sexual relations with young women, to become the first Democrat to the Senate from Alabama in a generation. The senator said that even in Alabama people are starting to question whether Trump's "nationalistic approach" on tariffs is a threat to their financial well-being. Soybean farmers are watching their crops rot and automobile manufactures, which he says have played a leading role in boosting the economy after other industries declined, face high costs of steel and aluminum tariffs. "They're beginning to say, Ok, we put you in here to try to get us a better deal, but there's got to be an end game. Tell us what the end game is and how long this is going to last." Facing his own re-election in 2020, Jones acknowledged having taken some tough votes in the Senate, including against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. "It's a mixed bag," he said. But he said Democratic gains being made in the Deep South - as evidenced by his own election and the closer than expected race for a Senate seat in neighboring Mississippi won by the Republican - shows that the shift. "Things are changing," he said. Follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lisamascaro Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., speaks during an interview with Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace and Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro, at the Associated Press in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., speaks during an interview with Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace and Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro, at the Associated Press in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., speaks during an interview at the Associated Press in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is debating a resolution that would call on the U.S. to pull assistance from the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a measure that has won new support in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Senate voted 60-39 on Wednesday to open debate on the resolution, signaling there is enough support to win the 50 votes needed. But it's unclear how amendments to the measure could affect the final vote, which is expected to come Thursday. While enough Republicans support the resolution for it to pass, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and most other Republicans oppose it. The resolution was sponsored by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "I think every single member of this body shares grave concerns about the murder of Khashoggi and wants accountability," McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning. "We also want to preserve a 70-year partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and we want to ensure it continues to serve American interests and stabilizes a dangerous and critical region." Senators have been enraged over Khashoggi's October killing and the White House response. U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known of the plot, but President Donald Trump has been reluctant to pin the blame. That outrage prompted several Republicans to support the Yemen resolution because it would be seen as a rebuke to the longtime ally. Others already had concerns about the war in Yemen, which human rights groups say is wreaking havoc on the country and subjecting civilians, many of them children, to indiscriminate bombing and disease. CIA Director Gina Haspel leaves the Capitol after giving a classified briefing to the House leadership about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the involvement by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. T (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, is preparing a separate, alternate resolution condemning the journalist's killing. McConnell urged senators to vote for Corker's measure, which he said "does a good job capturing bipartisan concerns about both the war in Yemen and the behavior of our Saudi partners more broadly." Corker has not released the full text of that resolution. It appears unlikely that the House would be willing to consider either measure. House leaders added a provision to an unrelated House rule that would make it harder for lawmakers there to call up a Yemen resolution if the Senate passes it. The rule barely passed, 206-203, after Democrats railed against the Yemen provision. "We should not be sitting idly by waiting for the start of the next Congress as this conflict rages on," said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern. "We should be doing something today." CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed House leaders on the Khashoggi murder Wednesday, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are scheduled to brief the full House on Thursday. Pompeo and Mattis briefed the Senate last month and told senators there was "no direct reporting" and "no smoking gun" to connect the crown prince to Khashoggi's death at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. But a smaller group of senators leaving a separate briefing with Haspel days later said there was "zero chance" the crown prince wasn't involved. Lawmakers leaving the House briefing with Haspel, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, declined to comment, saying it was classified. Khashoggi, who had lived in the U.S. and wrote for The Washington Post, had been critical of the Saudi regime. He was killed in what U.S. officials have described as an elaborate plot as he visited the consulate in Istanbul for marriage paperwork. Pressed on a response to the murder, Trump has said the United States "intends to remain a steadfast partner" of the country, touted Saudi arms deals worth billions of dollars to the U.S. and thanked the country for plunging oil prices. "It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event," Trump said in a lengthy statement Nov. 20. "Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't!" Saudi prosecutors have said a 15-man team sent to Istanbul killed Khashoggi with tranquilizers and then dismembered his body, which has not been found. Those findings came after Saudi authorities spent weeks denying Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate. Whatever is passed this month, lawmakers in both chambers have signaled that they will continue to press Saudi Arabia next year. The top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, is pushing tough legislation with a growing bipartisan group of senators that would halt arms sales and impose sanctions to send what he called a "global message" to not just the Saudis but other regimes. "Just because you're our ally, you can't kill with impunity," Menendez said. "The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who supports Menendez's measure and is expected to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019. "You're never going to have a relationship with the United States Senate unless things change." House Democrats are also expected to keep the issue alive when they take the majority in January. The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, California Rep. Adam Schiff, said he intends to lead a "deep dive" into Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the likely incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would hold hearings on Saudi Arabia early next year. ___ Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, speaks to reporters at the Capitol before a classified briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel to the House leadership about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the involvement by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators believe hackers working on behalf of China's main intelligence agency are responsible for a massive data breach involving the theft of personal information from as many as 500 million guests of the Marriott hotel chain, a U.S. official said Wednesday. Investigators suspect the hackers were working on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, an official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said investigators were particularly concerned about the data breach in part because Marriott is frequently used by the military and government agencies. Marriott, which announced the data breach on Nov. 30, has not disclosed what it knows about the source of the hack, which included the theft of credit card and passport numbers over four years from guests who stayed at hotels previously operated by Starwood. Marriott acquired Starwood, which includes such brands as Sheraton, W Hotels and St. Regis, in 2016. "Our primary objectives in this investigation are figuring out what occurred and how we can best help our guests," Marriott spokeswoman Connie Kim said. "We have no information about the cause of this incident, and we have not speculated about the identity of the attacker." FILE- This May 19, 2014, file photo shows the master bedroom in the Abu Dhabi Suite at the St. Regis in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Investigators believe hackers working on behalf of China's main intelligence agency are responsible for a massive data breach involving the theft of personal information from as many as 500 million guests of the Marriott hotel chain, a U.S. official said Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File) The revelation of suspected involvement by China comes amid heightened tension with the U.S. over trade; the arrest in Canada on an American warrant of a top executive of Chinese electronics giant Huawei; and alarm among law enforcement officials about Chinese efforts to steal technology to bolster its growing economy. President Donald Trump said he would get involved in the Huawei case if it would help produce a trade agreement with China, telling Reuters in an interview Tuesday that he would "intervene if I thought it was necessary." Officials from the Justice Department, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that China is working to steal trade secrets and intellectual property from U.S. companies in order to harm America's economy and further its own development. Chinese espionage efforts have become "the most severe counterintelligence threat facing our country today," Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence division, told the committee. "Every rock we turn over, every time we looked for it, it's not only there, it's worse than we anticipated." Priestap said federal officials have been trying to convey the extent of the threat to business leaders and others in government. "The bottom line is they will do anything they can to achieve their aims," he said. Cyber-security expert Jesse Varsalone, of University of Maryland University College, said the Marriott hack does have signs of a foreign intelligence agency involvement. They included its duration and the fact that the information stolen, including details about travel by individuals, would be valuable to foreign spies. "It's about intelligence, human intelligence," he said. "To me, it seems focused on tracking certain people." Priscilla Moriuchi of Recorded Future, an East Asia specialist who left the National Security Agency last year after a 12-year career, cautioned that no one has put out any actual data or indicators showing Chinese state actor involvement in the Marriott intrusion. In the last few months, the Justice Department has filed several charges against Chinese hackers and intelligence officials. A case filed in October marked the first time that a Chinese Ministry of State Security intelligence officer was extradited to the United States for trial. Prosecutors allege the operative, Yanjun Xu, recruited employees of major aerospace companies, including GE Aviation, and attempted to persuade them to travel to China under the guise of giving a presentation at a university. He was charged with attempting to steal trade secrets from several American aviation and aerospace companies. Such investigations can be time-consuming and difficult. The Justice Department is training prosecutors across the country to bring more of these cases, Assistant Attorney General John Demers told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We cannot tolerate a nation that steals the fruit of our brainpower," he said. ___ Associated Press writers Frank Bajak in Boston and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., left, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., listen to testimony as the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing to examine China's non-traditional espionage against the United States, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Peter Harrell, an economics and national security expert, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing to examine China's non-traditional espionage against the United States, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Wednesday establishing a panel to oversee construction of an oil pipeline tunnel in the waterway linking Lakes Huron and Michigan, while opponents insisted the battle isn't over and could widen from the state Capitol to the courts. Snyder also appointed the three members of the new Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority, furthering his push to ensure that oil will continue flowing through Enbridge Inc.'s Line 5 after he leaves office at the end of December. The Republican governor praised the lawmakers who rushed the bill to enactment following the election of Democratic Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer, a critic of Line 5 and the tunnel plan. "By working together, they helped garner bipartisan support to ensure we are protecting the Great Lakes while securing better energy infrastructure for Michigan," Snyder said. Line 5 has carried crude oil and natural gas liquids used in propane 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) from Superior, Wisconsin, through northern Michigan to the Canadian city of Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953. Critics have long sought to decommission a more than 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) segment lying on the lake floor. Snyder and Enbridge have agreed to replace the twin-pipe segment with a new pipe housed in a tunnel drilled through bedrock beneath the straits. east leg of the pipeline near St. Ignace as Enbridge prepares to test the east and west sides of the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac in Mackinaw City, Mich. Gov. Rick Snyder has signed legislation Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, establishing a panel to oversee a hotly disputed tunnel that will house an oil pipeline beneath the waterway linking Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Snyder acted Wednesday, a day after the Republican-dominated Michigan Legislature gave the bill final approval. (Dale G Young/Detroit News via AP, File) Enbridge, based in Calgary, Alberta, praised the new law and said the tunnel plan "makes a safe pipeline even safer." Groups fighting to decommission Line 5 said they would renew the effort after Whitmer and Dana Nessel, a Democrat recently elected attorney general, take office next month. Both have criticized the tunnel proposal but haven't said how they might try to block it. With the state House and Senate remaining under Republican control, prospects are remote for repealing the new law. Kelly Rossman-McKinney, spokeswoman for Nessel, declined comment on whether the new attorney general might challenge the law in court. "Her top priority is to protect the people of Michigan," Rossman-McKinney said. "Line 5 would certainly be one of the issues that she, and I'm sure the governor, will be looking at very closely." Opposition groups said lawsuits are likely, with potential targets including the law enacted this week and a series of agreements between Snyder's administration and Enbridge. "We have no choice but to continue fighting this," said David Holtz of the Sierra Club. "The stakes are too high." Under a deal announced in October, Enbridge would pay the estimated $350 million to $500 million cost of designing, building, operating and maintaining the tunnel. After completion, it would be owned by the state and leased to Enbridge for 99 years, overseen by the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority. The authority's members will include Geno Alessandrini of Iron Mountain, business manager for the Michigan Laborers District Council; Anthony England of Ypsilanti, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn; and Michael Zimmer, Snyder's cabinet director. Zimmer, a Republican, will resign a recent appointment to the Mackinac Bridge Authority to join the corridor panel. Alessandrini and England are Democrats, according to Snyder's office. Still to be completed this month is a final deal with Enbridge detailing how the tunnel would be built and operated. Snyder said among its provisions would be a plan for using Michigan workers on the project; limits on the state's liability; and a requirement that the tunnel be "built to last" in a way that would contain potential pipeline spills. Liz Kirkwood, executive director of Traverse City-based For Love of Water, said the project carries substantial risks for Michigan's taxpayers and environment, particularly with the existing Line 5 pipes continuing to operate up to 10 years as the tunnel is built. "The Snyder administration has failed to take action against an imminent and serious risk of allowing a 65-year-old pipeline to operate in the open waters of the Great Lakes," she said. SAO PAULO (AP) - Close to 1,000 people attended a memorial service Wednesday for the people gunned down inside a cathedral in southeastern Brazil, and authorities said the toll of dead had risen to five. Investigators said they were still trying to determine what led 49-year-old Euler Fernando Grandolpho to attack worshippers after Tuesday's midday service at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Campinas. After taking a bullet in the ribs in a firefight with police Grandolpho shot himself in the head, authorities said. Somber, teary-eyed faithful sat quietly as Monsignor Rafael Capelato said, "Through prayers and solidarity we are supporting each other in this time of suffering." Pope Francis sent a message to the Archdiocese of Campinas in which he urged that "forgiveness and love prevail over hate and vengeance." After the service. the Mario Gatti hospital reported that one of the four wounded in the shooting had died, adding to the four who died earlier. Police stand guard outside the Metropolitan Cathedral after a deadly shooting in Campinas, Brazil, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. A man opened fire in the cathedral in southern Brazil after Mass on Tuesday, killing four and leaving four others injured before taking a bullet in the ribs in a firefight with police and then shooting himself in the head, authorities said. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano) Grandolpho, a systems analyst, was not a member of the church, authorities said. According to public records Grandolpho had held various jobs with government entities, including a stint as an assistant to the prosecutor in the public ministry in Sao Paulo. Inspector Jose Henrique Vantura told reporters that Grandolpho lived as a recluse with his widowed father in a gated community and that he was once treated for depression. Rita Franco, a former girlfriend, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that Grandolpho was an "extremely bright person. President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has promised to crack down on violence, in part by loosening gun laws so more civilians could arm themselves. Among other things, Brazil's gun control laws require people wanting to buy a weapon to explain why they need a gun. JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian suspect wanted in a drive-by shooting at a West Bank bus stop, shooting him Wednesday just hours after an Israeli baby delivered prematurely as a result of the weekend attack died. The Shin Bet security agency said Salah Barghouti, 29, was killed while "attempting to harm" Israeli forces as he sought to escape from an arrest raid. It said an unspecified number of additional suspects were arrested. In Sunday night's attack, assailants in a Palestinian vehicle opened fire at a bus stop outside a West Bank settlement, wounding seven people before speeding away. Israeli forces have been on a manhunt for the attackers in the West Bank since then. Among the wounded was a pregnant woman who was critically injured. Her baby was delivered by cesarean section after the attack. On Wednesday, Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital said the boy had died. Speaking to foreign reporters Wednesday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attackers as "the most deviant criminals on Earth." "The security forces are pursuing them and I hope that there will be news soon on this matter," he said. Israeli soldiers conduct a search for suspects of a shooting attack yesterday in the West Bank City of Ramallah, Monday, Dec. 10, 2018. Israeli officials say seven people have been wounded, one critically, in a shooting by a suspected Palestinian assailant outside a Jewish settlement of Ofra in the West Bank. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - An FBI corruption investigation that became an issue in the Florida governor's race led to a 44-count federal indictment Wednesday against a city commissioner who once ran the state's Democratic Party. The indictment charges Tallahassee Commissioner Scott Maddox with bribery, extortion, bank fraud, racketeering and other crimes. Not mentioned in the indictment is Democratic nominee for governor Andrew Gillum, who served as Tallahassee's mayor during the investigation. Gillum lost the governor's race to Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who repeatedly said Gillum was being investigated by the FBI. Gillum repeatedly said he wasn't a target. Gillum lost by 32,463 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast - a margin so close it required a statewide recount. Maddox once served as Tallahassee's mayor. In 2002, he was elected as chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. He resigned in 2005 to run for governor but dropped out of the race before the primary. He has also unsuccessfully run for attorney general and agriculture commissioner, both Cabinet positions. Republican Gov. Rick Scott suspended Maddox from office shortly after the indictment. Longtime Maddox associate Paige Carter-Smith is also charged. The indictment alleges that when Maddox returned to the city commission in 2012, he falsely claimed that he sold his interest in a lobbying and consulting firm to Paige and no longer had an interest in it. FILE - In this Nov. 25, 2003 file photo, Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox talks with a reporter in Tallahassee, Fla. An FBI corruption investigation that became an issue in the Florida governor's race led to a 44-count federal indictment Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, against Maddox, a city commissioner who once ran the state's Democratic Party. The indictment charges Tallahassee Commissioner Maddox with bribery, extortion, bank fraud, racketeering and other crimes. Not mentioned in the indictment is Democratic nominee for governor Andrew Gillum, who served as Tallahassee's mayor during the investigation. (AP Photo/Phil Coale, File) The indictment alleges that Maddox and Carter-Smith continued to work together while Maddox was on the commission and took money from clients in exchange for favorable votes by Maddox, including ride-hailing company Uber. It also alleges the two conspired to defraud a bank of more than $250,000 through two fraudulent short sales of real property and lied to investigators about their business arrangements and other matters. Carter-Smith served as chief executive officer of the Tallahassee Downtown Improvement Authority during the investigation, which also involve the Internal Revenue Service. Maddox and Carter-Smith appeared in federal court wearing leg shackles Wednesday afternoon. They pleaded not guilty to all charges. There were released under the condition they turn in their passports and not leave the region. A trial date was set for Jan. 14. During the investigation, Gillum spent time with undercover FBI agents in New York City, joining them on a boat ride and accepting tickets to the Broadway show "Hamilton." The agents were posing as businessmen interested in Tallahassee development projects. The state ethics commission is considering a separate complaint that Gillum accepted illegal gifts, including from the undercover agents. Assistant U.S. Attorney' Stephen Kunz told federal Judge Charles Stampelos the FBI corruption investigation is ongoing. MIAMI (AP) - American diplomats affected by mysterious health incidents in Cuba showed damage in the inner ear shortly after they complained of weird noises and sensations, according to their earliest medical exams, publicized Wednesday. The detailed findings were published in a medical journal nearly two years after what the U.S. calls "health attacks" began - and they shed no new light on a possible culprit. "What caused it, who did it, why it was done - we don't know any of those things," said Dr. Michael Hoffer of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who led the exams. The U.S. says since late 2016, 26 people associated with the embassy in Havana suffered problems that include dizziness, ear pain and ringing, and cognitive problems such as difficulty thinking - a health mystery that has damaged U.S.-Cuba relations. Cuba has adamantly denied any involvement. The Miami researchers examined 25 of those people, who reported hearing a piercing noise or experiencing a sensation of pressure before their symptoms began. The patients failed a variety of tests that detect inner-ear problems associated with balance, what's called the vestibular system - although there were no pre-symptom medical records to compare. Testing of 10 other people who were in the same building at the time of the incidents found they were fine, Hoffer reported in the journal Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology. Hoffer also traveled to Cuba to check 100 other Americans stationed there, who also turned out to be healthy. Dr. Michael Hoffer, of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, speaks during a news conference, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in Miami. Hoffer and a group of doctors presented their findings in the case of U.S. diplomats who experienced mysterious health incidents while working at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) Those inner-ear balance problems have been central to the government's ongoing health investigation. And earlier this year, a team of doctors at the University of Pennsylvania who also examined many of these patients, but months later, reported they suffered a concussion-like brain injury, despite no blow to the head. In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Hoffer said the two studies aren't contradictory, but they have different findings because patients were tested at different times and in different ways. "Is the brain affected from the ear? Is the brain affected directly? We don't know yet," Hoffer said at Wednesday's news conference. For doctors, Wednesday's paper adds specifics about the pattern of damage, abnormalities in structures involved with sensing gravity and acceleration, said Dr. Maura Cosetti of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. She isn't involved with research related to the Cuba incidents. "This provides an important step in creating a picture of the injury that people sustained," she said. She added that often people with long-term balance problems also report a "brain fog." Cuba has expressed doubts that anything happened to the diplomats. "There's no evidence that can prove that something occurred in Cuba that could have damaged the health situation of a few U.S. diplomats," Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba's director-general of U.S. affairs, said Wednesday. The U.S. has not said what caused the incidents, although initial speculation centered on some type of sonic attack. The AP has reported that an interim FBI report last January found no evidence that sound waves could have caused the damage. ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Carey Balaban, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, center, speaks during a news conference with Dr. Michael Hoffer, of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, left, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in Miami. Hoffer and a group of doctors presented their findings in the case of U.S. diplomats who experienced mysterious health incidents while working at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) ATLANTA (AP) - Railroad company Norfolk Southern Corp. is moving its headquarters from Norfolk, Virginia, to Atlanta, bringing with it 850 jobs and more than $500 million in economic investment, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal announced Wednesday. The company plans to build a new headquarters campus with 750,000 square feet (69,600 square meters) of office space in the city's Midtown area, according to records from Atlanta's economic development authority. "When you consider those 850 new jobs on top of -in excess of - 4,700 jobs that are currently Norfolk Southern employees in the state of Georgia, they suddenly become a major player in our state's economy," Deal said at Wednesday's news conference. "This is the 17th Fortune 500 company to come to our state either initially or by way of relocation," Deal added. The move reflects a broader trend among larger companies that are moving to major cities for their deeper pools of talent, busier airports and other amenities that attract skilled workers. Robert McNab, an economics professor with Old Dominion University in Norfolk, said Norfolk Southern's decision reflects the same qualities online retailer Amazon was looking for while scouting locations for its second headquarters. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal speaks during a press conference at the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced Wednesday that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Caterpillar made a similar move from Peoria, Illinois, to suburban Chicago. Boeing also moved its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. "What we're seeing across the United States and really across the world is that as corporations become more global and complex, they need an area that offers your workforce a high quality of living," McNab said. "But also you need the ability to travel. You need an airport that goes anywhere." It also was inevitable that Norfolk Southern would consolidate corporate operations between Norfolk and Atlanta, where about 2,000 employees already work, McNab said. Plus, he said Atlanta and the state of Georgia offered strong financial incentives. Stefanie Paupeck Harper, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, said official numbers were not available because "all the incentive documents have not been signed." Norfolk Southern's railroad subsidiary operates in 22 states and the District of Columbia, transporting freight that includes automotive and industrial products and coal. It says it serves every major container port in the eastern U.S. "As a city founded as the terminus of a railroad line, it means so much for Atlanta to have Norfolk Southern choose to locate their headquarters here," Eloisa Klementich, president and CEO of Atlanta's economic development authority, said in a statement shortly after the announcement. The company's future depends on collaboration with its customers, suppliers and partners, along with "ready access to technology, talent, and our 22-state network," Norfolk Southern CEO James Squires said in a statement. "A unified office team in a new Atlanta headquarters will connect Norfolk Southern with every resource needed for success," he said. The effect of the company's move on Norfolk and the surrounding Hampton Roads' region will be more psychological than it is economic, said McNab, the economics professor. The area is losing hundreds of well-paying jobs as well as people who had served on charitable boards and as mentors. But the number is a minute fraction of the area's 790,000 jobs. More notable is the loss of a Fortune 500 company in a region that only had three. The remaining two are Dollar Tree and Huntington Ingalls Industries, which builds the U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers. Bryan K. Stephens, president & CEO of the Hampton Roads Chamber, said his main concern "is the optics of this from other businesses. When you lose other Fortune 500 companies, it can be misinterpreted that the company was disappointed with the area." Stephens said Norfolk Southern's move is purely a business decision and he disputed any claims that the region lacks a deep talent pool. Norfolk Southern formed in 1982 as a merger between The Southern Railway and the Norfolk & Western Railway. The railroad then opened its headquarters in Norfolk. Southern had its headquarters in Washington and N&W in Roanoke, Virginia. ___ Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal speaks during a press conference at the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced Wednesday that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Norfolk Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Jim Squires speaks during a press conference in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced Wednesday that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Georgia Governor-elect Brian Kemp , left, and Governor Nathan Deal listen as Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks during a press conference in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced Wednesday that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Georgia Governor-elect Brian Kemp, from left, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Norfolk Southern CEO Jim Squires, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development Pat Wilson stand for a photo following a press conference in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced Wednesday that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development Pat Wilson, from left, Norfolk Southern CEO Jim Squires, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Georgia Governor-Elect Brian Kemp react to a speaker during a press conference in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. During the presser, Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Norfolk Southern CEO Jim Squires speaks during a press conference as, from left, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Georgia Governor-elect Brian Kemp listen at the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Fortune 500 company Norfolk Southern officially announced Wednesday that they will be moving their headquarters to Atlanta. They will be building in Atlanta's Midtown community. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Insurance claims from last month's California wildfires already are at $9 billion and expected to increase, the state's insurance commissioner announced Wednesday. About $7 billion in claims are from the Camp Fire that destroyed the Northern California city of Paradise and killed at least 86 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in at least a century. The rest is from the Woolsey and Hill fires in Southern California. Collectively, the fires destroyed or damaged more than 20,000 structures, with the vast majority in and around Paradise. On Tuesday, state and federal authorities estimated it will cost at least $3 billion just to clear debris. "As the claims get perfected, as individuals get access to their former homes and neighborhoods, as they dialogue with their insurance companies and share more information about the scope of their loss, we expect these numbers to rise," Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said of the $9 billion estimate. There are more than 28,000 claims for residential personal property, nearly 2,000 from commercial property and 9,400 in auto and other claims for the fires. That's well above the number of claims filed following a series of fires that tore through Northern California's wine country last year. Losses from those fires were initially pegged at $3.3 billion but eventually grew to $10 billion. FILE - In this Dec. 3, 2018 file photo, a vehicle rests in front of a home leveled by the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. Authorities estimate it will cost at least $3 billion to clear debris of 19,000 homes destroyed by California wildfires last month. State and federal disaster relief officials said Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, that private contractors will most likely begin removing debris in January from Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties and costs are likely to surpass initial estimates. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) While the Camp Fire destroyed about double the number of structures as the 2017 fires, home values in Butte County are far lower than those in Sonoma County. That's part of the reason total claims may seem low compared to the 2017 figures, Jones said. Median home values in Sonoma County are more than double those in Butte. Jones advised home owners to be cautious of "fraudsters and scam artists" trying to take advantage of vulnerable communities. He also said its time for California to start rethinking how and if it builds in fire-prone areas. Ken Pimlott, outgoing director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told The Associated Press this week the state should consider banning construction in vulnerable areas. Jones said local governments may not be fully considering the long-term impacts of building in areas at high risk of fire, floods and rising sea levels. "That's going to be a hard conversation. Everybody likes to build new, people obviously want to rebuild their communities," he said. "We're in a new era where these risks are so bad I think we've really got to take a look at how we're making these decisions." Authorities are still determining what caused the fire. Pacific Gas & Electric told regulators that a high-voltage power line malfunctioned at the time and spot that investigators believe the fire started on Nov. 8. The San Francisco-based utility told the California Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday that several miles away workers found a fallen power pole and equipment with bullet holes. A number of fire victims have filed lawsuits alleging that PG&E's equipment started the fire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed at least 86 people. The cleanup costs for last month's fires will far surpass the record expense of $1.3 billion the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers spent on debris removal in Northern California in 2017. California Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said the state will manage cleanup contracts this time. Last year, hundreds of Northern California homeowners complained that contractors paid by the ton hauled away too much dirt and damaged unbroken driveways, sidewalks and pipes. The state OES spent millions repairing that damage. Ghilarducci said the state OES will hire auditors and monitors to watch over debris removal in hopes of cutting down on the number of over-eager contractors. "We learned a great number of things," last year, Ghilarducci said. He said the U.S. Corps of Engineers was asked to lead the effort last year because state resources were stretched thin after responding to more than a dozen wildfires. This year, he said state officials can manage the cleanup and costs will be shared among state, federal and local authorities. Cleanup is expected to begin in January and take about a year to complete. State and federal officials are currently removing hazardous household materials from the damaged properties. ___ Associated Press writer Paul Elias in San Francisco contributed to this story. FILE - In this Nov. 8, 2018 file photo a home burns as the Camp Fire rages through Paradise, Calif. Insurance claims from last month's California wildfires already are at $9 billion and expected to increase, the state's insurance commissioner announced Wednesday, Dec. 12. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) FILE - In this Nov. 11, 2018 file photo, a home burned down by a wildfire sits on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, Calif. Authorities estimate it will cost at least $3 billion to clear debris of 19,000 homes destroyed by California wildfires last month. State and federal disaster relief officials said Tuesday, Jan. 11, that private contractors will most likely begin removing debris in January from Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties and costs are likely to surpass initial estimates. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones talks about the costs of recent wildfires during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Insurance claims from last month's California wildfires already are at $9 billion and expected to increase, the state's insurance commissioner announced Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kathleen Ronayne) HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - Melania Trump made history Wednesday by flying in a V-22 Osprey aircraft and onto the deck of an aircraft carrier. The White House says it's the first time a first lady has flown in an Osprey. The tiltrotor aircraft takes off and lands vertically. Mrs. Trump flew from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington to Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia, and onto the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush and back. She later tweeted about her "incredible flight" and visit with service members. In Virginia, Mrs. Trump checked out the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet and addressed service members, noting that many had recently returned from deployment. Some had responded to such natural disasters as Hurricane Michael, which devastated some Florida Panhandle communities. "I'm honored to be able to say welcome home and thank you for answering the call of duty," she said. "I have said this before, but it's worth repeating. We know that we are free because you're brave. And I speak on behalf of my husband when I tell you we are forever grateful for your service." The first lady exchanged high-fives with elementary schoolchildren and posed for selfies with some of those in military garb. She also spent time with the crew aboard the USS George H.W. Bush and toured part of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the former president, who died in November. First lady Melania Trump , right, poses with an airman during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) In an interview with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity aboard the carrier, Mrs. Trump said the hardest part of being first lady was dealing with "the opportunists who are using my name or my family name to advance themselves - from comedians, to journalists, to performers, book writers." She said, "The problem is they're writing history and it's not correct." Mrs. Trump's stops at a pair of military bases Wednesday came during an unusually busy week of public appearances for the first lady. It was her second day in a row at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Mrs. Trump visited a different area of the base Tuesday to support an annual toy drive sponsored by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. On Thursday, she planned to continue a decades-old tradition of first ladies reading to patients at Children's National hospital in Washington. ___ Superville reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, contributed to this report. First lady Melania Trump greets children from the Burbank and Bethel Manor Elementary schools during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First lady Melania Trump, front left, talks with Col. Jason Hinds, Commander of the First Fighter Wing as he gives her a tour of an F22 fighter at Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First lady Melania Trump, right, talks with Col. Jason Hinds, Commander of the First Fighter Wing as he shows her the cockpit of an F22 fighter at Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First lady Melania Trump greets children from the Burbank and Bethel Manor Elementary schools during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First Lady Melania Trump, right, greets members of the crowd during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First lady Melania Trump speaks in front of an F22 fighter during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First lady Melania Trump speaks in front of an F22 fighter during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) First lady Melania Trump, back to camera, poses for photos during a tour of Joint Base Langley in Hampton, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) A man accused of shooting at a state police trooper who was rushing to the scene of a triple slaying in Kentucky was captured Wednesday when officers found him walking on a road near where the killings happened, police said. Paul Douglas Sizemore was charged with attempted murder of a police officer and was being questioned about the three deaths in eastern Kentucky, said Kentucky State Police Master Trooper Jody Sims. Sizemore, 52, was unarmed and put up no resistance when he was arrested a few miles (kilometers) from where a husband and wife and their adult son were found dead in two neighboring homes Monday evening, Sims said. Police searched for Sizemore on foot and by air in a heavily wooded, hilly area of eastern Kentucky. Authorities say Sizemore rammed a police cruiser and shot at Trooper Ethan Lewis, who was not injured. Sizemore then fled on foot. A short time later, sheriff's deputies found the bodies of Larry Bowling, 64, and his wife, 61-year-old Norma Bowling, in their home in Leslie County, Sims said. Their 38-year-old son, Chad Bowling, was found dead outside a neighboring residence in the Yeaddiss community. All three had been shot, Sims said. As the search continued, state police received calls from across Kentucky from people thinking they had spotted Sizemore. It was a call from the same area as the slayings that helped police track him down, Sims said. Police who responded spotted Sizemore walking down the middle of the road. He surrendered immediately, dropping to the ground when confronted by police, Sims said. "There's a sense of relief for investigators and especially for the residents in the area ... that he has been taken into custody," Sims said. "Those people who were concerned for their safety can relax a little bit now." Sizemore told police that his feet hurt from exposure to cold weather, Sims said. He was being taken to a hospital to be checked out before being taken to jail. HONOLULU (AP) - No single employee was directly responsible for the escape of a man from a Hawaii psychiatric hospital, a state investigation found, but questions remain about how he was able to walk out of the facility and fly to California, officials said Wednesday. The state attorney general's office completed an administrative investigation more than a year after Randall Saito escaped from Hawaii State Hospital. Officials on Wednesday released findings of the investigation, but they said a redacted report will be posted online later Wednesday or Thursday. The investigation found that the hospital's inability to adjust to patients sent there through the criminal courts system was partly to blame. Staff members were complacent about Saito's escape risk, state Health Director Bruce Anderson said. Saito was sent to the hospital in 1981 after being found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing a woman in 1979 in a shopping mall. "If there was any problem at the state hospital it was one of complacency with regard to Randall Saito in particular," Anderson said. "He was there for 30 years. People got used to the idea of him being there." FILE - In this April 26, 2018 file photo Randall Saito appears in court for a hearing on his mental competence to stand trial in Honolulu. Hawaii officials said they are ready Wednesday, Dec. 12 to discuss findings of an investigation into Saito's escape from a psychiatric hospital. The state attorney general's office has completed an administrative investigation more than a year after Saito escaped from Hawaii State Hospital. Saito was sent to the hospital in 1981 after being found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing a woman. He was captured in Stockton, California, days after walking out of the hospital last November. (Craig T. Kojima/Honolulu Star-Advertiser via AP, Pool,File) He caused no problems before he escaped in November 2017, Anderson said: "He spent 37 years there without incident." Saito was a model patient, Suzuki said. In 1993, a court denied Saito's request for conditional release, saying he still suffered from sexual sadism and necrophilia. Psychiatrists who evaluated him over the years also said he could be personable, charming and had good social skills. Dr. Gene Altman, who evaluated Saito in 2010, said he had six significant relationships since being committed. Three of those were reportedly with hospital staff members and the others were with women in the community, including Saito's first and second wives, according to Altman's assessment, filed in court records. Saito was the impetus for a rule change in 2003, when the state attorney general's office decided mental patients committed to the state hospital have no legal right to conjugal visits. The issue came to light when the hospital administrator learned Saito had been escorted home for weekend conjugal visits over two years. The administrator blocked the visits away from the facility and on its grounds. After Saito's escape, six hospital employees were placed on off-duty status. Two have since retired, and the other four will be reinstated to their positions. No hospital employees will be disciplined. Saito was captured in Stockton, California, days after walking out of the hospital. After leaving the hospital, Saito called a taxi that took him to the airport, where he took a chartered flight to Maui. He used an alias to arrange the flight and paid $1,445 cash for it, prosecutors said. Then he took a commercial flight to San Jose, California, prosecutors said. When he was arrested three days after his escape, he had more than $6,000 in cash and fake Washington state and Illinois driver's licenses bearing his photos with different names, prosecutors said. The fake licenses contained convincing-looking holograms that are difficult to reproduce. No employee provided Saito with materials that helped him escape, including a cellphone, cash and fake IDs, state Attorney General Russell Suzuki said. "If anything it would have been an outsider," he said. Anderson said Saito's escape was a "wake-up call" that prompted changes at the hospital including a fence around the facility and logs that better track patients' whereabouts. There have been no escapes since, he said. "We realize there's still many questions regarding Saito's escape," Anderson said. Hospital surveillance footage shows Saito taping door locks for a lounge and retrieving a garbage bag from a combination-locked cabinet on the morning of his escape, according to a detective's affidavit. He took clothes out of the bag and changed. He threw the bag with his old clothes in a trash bin and then opened a combination lock to get out of the hospital, the affidavit said. It's not known how he knew the combination. Suzuki said he doesn't have information about the combination and would look into it. In the taxi, Saito had a backpack that he didn't have when he left the hospital grounds. It took the hospital at least eight hours to notify law enforcement that Saito was missing. While jailed in California after his capture, Saito gave various interviews with reporters, including The Associated Press. He said he escaped to show that he should be free. Saito remains incarcerated in a Honolulu jail. He pleaded not guilty to escape and identity theft charges. His attorney, Michael Green, has said his family doesn't plan to post $500,000 bail. Saito prefers Oahu Community Correctional Center to the state hospital, Green said. A court hearing is scheduled for Thursday. __ This version corrects that Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said Saito caused problems before his escape. Anderson said Saito caused no problems before the escape. COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) - White police officers in a Washington, D.C., suburb have used racist slurs, circulated text messages expressing a desire to "reinstitute lynching" and put a black face and Afro wig on a training dummy, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. Civil rights groups sued Maryland's Prince George's County and its police chief on behalf of several current and former officers. The suit accuses police officials of condoning racist, abusive behavior by white officers and retaliating against black and Hispanic officers who complain about misconduct. The suit claims the county's police chief, Henry Stawinski, has allowed racism to "thrive" in his department since his appointment nearly two years ago. It seeks unspecified monetary damages, including punitive damages, as well as a court order requiring the county to abolish racial discrimination within its police department. In October 2017, Stawinski said the Justice Department was investigating allegations that the department's employment practices discriminated against Hispanics and blacks. At the time, Stawinski said he would cooperate with the federal investigation and end any "structures or practices" that negatively impact officers. Police department spokeswoman Jennifer Donelan said Wednesday she can't comment on pending litigation. The police department isn't named as a defendant, but Stawinski and three other police officials are. The suit claims they have "perpetuated a long-standing pattern and practice of discrimination." Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said in an email that she can't confirm or deny the "existence or nonexistence" of investigations. Dana Vickers Shelley, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, speaks during a news briefing in unincorporated Prince George County, near College Park, Md. Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. White police officers in a Washington, D.C., suburb have used racist slurs, circulated text messages expressing a desire to "reinstitute lynching" and put a black face and Afro wig on a training dummy, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. (AP Photo/Michael Kunzelman) However, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit said the federal investigation remains open. Investigators are interviewing officers "on a regular basis," added Deborah Jeon, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. Police Capt. Joseph Perez, a plaintiff and president of Hispanic National Law Enforcement Association National Capital Region, claims he has been passed over for promotions because he has spoken out against discriminatory and retaliatory misconduct. "The minute that you open up your mouth and say, 'Hey, that's wrong,' guess what? You're not a team player any more. You're a snitch. You broke that blue wall of silence," Perez said. Dana Vickers Shelley, executive director of the ACLU of Maryland, said officers deserve praise and not punishment for blowing the whistle on racist policing practices. "Any police department that fosters a culture of racial harassment and retaliation against officers of color within its ranks cannot hope to gain the community trust and support that is so necessary for achieving better public safety for everyone," she said. The suit claims three white officers repeatedly circulated racist text messages such as "we should bring back public hangings." A complaint about the texts apparently didn't lead to any investigation or discipline for the three officers, the suit adds. In August, Stawinski apologized for a since-deleted Facebook Live video in which an officer speaking to children refers to a "black bad guy." The officer, who was giving a K-9 demonstration, said police dogs could smell detect a person's odor "if a black bad guy is running and drops" an item. Perez said the officer's remark on the video isn't an aberration. "We see that on the street from other officers," he said. In February 2017, Perez showed Stawinski copies of photographs of the black face and Afro wig that someone had placed on a training dummy, according to the lawsuit. "Chief Stawinski subsequently denied seeing the photos prior to a later press conference," the suit says. The officers named as plaintiffs in the suit also are represented by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Prince George's County abuts the nation's capital to the east. About 64 percent of the county's more than 900,000 residents are black, while nearly 27 percent of residents are white. Whites account for 47 percent of the department's officers, with blacks accounting for nearly 43 percent, the suit says. BALTIMORE (AP) - A new effort in Maryland to prosecute more fentanyl cases in federal court is designed to help combat an alarming increase of fatalities caused by the potent synthetic opioid that's fueling the deadliest overdose epidemic in U.S. history. Fentanyl - a synthetic opioid both cheap to produce and up to 50 times more powerful than heroin - was the driving force behind Maryland's all-time high number of drug fatalities last year, rising from 1,119 in 2016 to 1,594 in 2017. But this year's projected total exceeds 2,000 deaths from fentanyl, a 25 percent increase from last year's grim milestone. To stem the surge in a state that already had one of the country's most severe opioid overdose mortality rates, U.S. Attorney for Maryland Robert Hur said "every single arrest" made by Baltimore police involving fentanyl distribution will now be jointly reviewed by U.S., state and city authorities to determine if they can be handled in the federal system. Federal time includes stiffer sentences, no parole, no suspended sentences and terms in prisons frequently far from home. "I want word to get out far and wide: If you choose to sell fentanyl on the streets, then you run the very real risk of federal time," Hur said at a news conference in downtown Baltimore. There's no shortage of people selling fentanyl and fentanyl-laced drugs on the streets of Baltimore, where the large majority of Maryland's opioid deaths have occurred. Just this month, three Maryland men were indicted in federal court on charges they were involved in a conspiracy to distribute 400 grams of fentanyl trafficked by a group with ties to Mexican drug cartels. Todd Edwards, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Baltimore district office, said fentanyl has become so ubiquitous that it's showing up in laced cocaine, marijuana and counterfeit prescription pills. "You are actually seeing fentanyl coming into every single part of the drug war," Edwards said. The escalation in fentanyl fatalities comes as the hard-hit state is actually starting to see evidence of a dip in deadly heroin overdoses. Patrick Jennings, a prosecutor with the state's attorney's office in Baltimore, said "it's very rare that we see heroin anymore." Baltimore's interim police commissioner, Gary Tuggle, described the new collaborative effort as a strategic tool that will allow authorities to go after "the worst of the worst" - not small-time, nonviolent offenders. The DEA has said China is a main source of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids that have been flooding the U.S. market. The agency's National Drug Threat Assessment, released in early November, shows that heroin, fentanyl and other opioids continue to be the highest drug threat in the nation. ___ Follow McFadden on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dmcfadd BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - Four states that say burning coal will hurt their residents as it makes climate change worse are trying to stop the Trump administration from selling vast reserves of the fuel that are beneath public lands. Attorneys for California, New Mexico, New York and Washington argue the coal sales have been shortchanging taxpayers because of low royalty rates and cause pollution that puts the climate and public health at risk. The states were joined by conservation groups and Montana's Northern Cheyenne tribe in a lawsuit that seeks to revive a coal leasing moratorium imposed under President Barack Obama. The moratorium blocked new lease sales from federal lands that hold billions of tons of the fuel. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris is presiding over a Thursday hearing on whether the moratorium should be reinstated. The Trump administration said in court filings that ending the moratorium last year was of critical importance to the economy. That claim comes despite the slow pace of lease sales in recent years and a precipitous drop in demand for the heavily polluting fuel. U.S. lands in Western states including Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Colorado are a major source of coal for mining companies. There are 7.4 billion tons of the fuel in roughly 300 leases administered by the Bureau of Land Management . FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2014, file photo, rail cars are filled with coal and sprayed with a topper agent to suppress dust at Cloud Peak Energy's Antelope Mine north of Douglas, Wyo. Four states with climate change worries are asking a judge to stop the Trump administration from selling coal from public lands. Attorneys general from California, New Mexico, New York and Washington are due in a U.S. courtroom in Montana on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018, to argue the sales put the climate at risk and shortchange taxpayers. (Ryan Dorgan/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP, File) Morris, who was appointed by Obama, recently ruled in a separate case that the administration must consider reducing coal mining in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana to help combat climate change. The judge has played the role of spoiler to Trump on another Obama administration policy reversal - the contentious Keystone XL oil sands pipeline from Canada. Trump approved the pipeline last year, but Morris blocked it temporarily in March. The judge said further environmental reviews were needed for the line to comply with federal laws. Some of those same laws are at the center of the coal moratorium dispute. The states and their allies want push to stop further leasing and resume a sweeping review of the program's environmental effects. Government attorneys and the National Mining Association say the review started under Obama was a voluntary step and the Trump administration is within its rights to end it. "We view this as a legal issue and believe this is an open-and-shut case," said Conor Bernstein with the mining association, which has intervened in the case. Growing concerns over climate change have put a spotlight on the once-obscure coal leasing program, which has gone largely unchanged and not been through a major environmental review since 1979. Companies have mined about 4 billion tons of coal from federal reserves in the past decade, contributing $10 billion to federal and state coffers through royalties and other payments. The Obama administration blocked the sale of new leases in 2016 out of concerns over climate-changing greenhouse gases from burning coal and to review royalty rates paid by mining companies for federal coal. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke withdrew the moratorium in March 2017. He said the Obama administration's environmental review would cost "many millions of dollars," and improvements to the program could be made without prolonged study. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Zinke's actions fly in the face of a government report released last month that predicted dire consequences from climate change for the U.S. economy. "He ignored the law in opening the door to expanded coal leasing without taking a hard look at the environmental consequences," Becerra said in a statement. Federal officials and members of Congress have said for years that royalty rates were shortchanging taxpayers. Under Obama, officials began considering raising rates, but it was not done. After the Trump administration ended the moratorium, Zinke appointed a committee to review royalty rates. Critics contend he has stacked the panel with industry-friendly representatives interested in maintaining the status quo. Since January 2017, the government has sold leases for 134 million tons of coal on more than 13,000 acres of public land in six states, according to figures provided by the Interior Department. That's a relatively small amount compared with previous years, for example 2011 and 2012, when more than 2 billion tons were sold in Wyoming alone. Despite the slowdown in sales, the outcome of the court case could be pivotal to the industry's long-term outlook and determine if it has access to a cheap and readily available supply of coal. For environmentalists, it's a question of making sure that coal is never burned to prevent carbon dioxide emissions tied to climate change. "The idea that they lease millions of acres of public lands every year to private companies so that they can extract the coal and we've never once studied the climate impacts, that should bother people," Sierra Club attorney Nathaniel Shoaff said. ___ Follow Matthew Brown at https://twitter.com/matthewbrownap MILAN (AP) - Italy lowered its proposed deficit to just over 2 percent of GDP in a revised budget submitted Wednesday to the EU Commission in a bid to avoid costly sanctions. Premier Giuseppe Conte told reporters in Brussels after meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker the new draft lowers the budget deficit to 2.04 percent of GDP from 2.4 percent of GDP. Conte said the government had identified additional financial resources to allow room for negotiations with the commission, without specifying what they were. "We hope to bring home a positive solution," Conte said, adding that the climate in the meeting was "fruitful." Conte said both parties represented in Italy's coalition government back the new proposal, which retains both the basic income for job-seekers promised by the 5-Star Movement and a rollback on an unpopular pension reform pledged by the League. "We have been correct and honest with the citizens, respecting electoral promises, and at the same time responsible with the EU," Conte said. The EU commission rejected Italy's previous budget, saying the populist government's spending plans would break promises to lower public debt. The EU is expected to take a few days to evaluate the new proposal before indicating whether it is acceptable, but the Milan Stock Exchange gained nearly 2 percent before closing on expectations that Italy would take steps to address Brussels' concerns. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, greets Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (Francisco Seco) While the Italian government has argued that the spending increases were necessary to relaunch growth after years of austerity, the Commission said the measures would not boost growth and would force new budget cuts in the future. Italy risks sanctions for excessive debt, which has been stuck at 131 percent of GDP, well above the limit of 60 percent. Italy's debt load is the second highest in Europe, after Greece, and concerns about its ability to keep up debt payments have caused borrowing costs to spike. That, analysts say, is not sustainable and could wipe out any benefits to citizens from social programs in the new budget. MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) - Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is gearing up to finally send its tourism rocket ship to the edge of space. If successful, it would be a major step toward the long-delayed dream of commercial space tourism. The next test flight could come as early as Thursday with two pilots taking Virgin Space Ship Unity high above California's Mojave Desert. CEO George Whitesides said Wednesday they will try to exceed an altitude of 50 miles (80.4 kilometers), which Virgin Galactic considers the boundary of space. Whiteside said that's the standard used by the U.S. Air Force and other U.S. agencies. That differs from a long-held view that places the boundary at 62 miles (99.8 kilometers.) But Whiteside cited new research that favors the lower altitude and said that as a U.S. company it will use the U.S. standard. Reaching the threshold of space would demonstrate significant progress toward the start of commercial flights that were promised more than a decade ago. Virgin Galactic's development of its spaceship took far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot. This May 29, 2018 photo provided by Virgin Galactic shows the VSS Unity craft during a supersonic flight test. The spaceship isn't launched from the ground but is carried beneath a special aircraft to an altitude around 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). There, it's released before igniting its rocket engine and climbing. (Virgin Galactic via AP) "It's a day that we've been waiting for for a long time," Whitesides said. More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides in the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. They have been waiting years to feel the kick of the rocket's ignition, a near-vertical high-speed ascent into the blackness of space and several minutes of weightlessness with a view of the Earth far below. The spaceship isn't launched from the ground but is carried beneath a special plane to an altitude around 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). It then detaches from the plane, ignites its rocket engine and climbs. The rocket is shut down and the craft coasts to the top of its climb - and then begins a descent slowed and stabilized by unique "feathering" technology. The twin tails temporarily rotate upward to increase drag, then return to a normal flying configuration before the craft glides to a landing on a runway. The endeavor began in 2004 when Branson announced the founding of Virgin Galactic in the heady days after the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft that made three flights into space. Branson's goal: Open up space travel to more and more people. Funded by the late billionaire Paul G. Allen and created by maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The prize was created to kick-start private development of rocket ships that would make spaceflight available to the public. Branson isn't alone in the space tourism business: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is planning to take space tourists on suborbital trips, using the more traditional method of a capsule atop a rocket that blasts off from a launch pad. SpaceX's Elon Musk recently announced plans to take a wealthy Japanese entrepreneur and his friends on a trip around the moon. When Branson licensed the SpaceShipOne technology, he envisioned a fleet carrying paying passengers by 2007, launching them from a facility in southern New Mexico called Spaceport America. But there were significant setbacks. Three technicians were killed in 2007 by an explosion while testing a propellant system at Scaled Composites LLC, which built SpaceShipOne and was building the first SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic. Then, in 2014, SpaceShipTwo broke apart during a test flight by Scaled Composites when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked the "feathering" system and it began to deploy. The co-pilot was killed but the injured pilot managed to survive a fall from high altitude with a parachute. New versions of SpaceShipTwo were built by a Virgin Galactic sister company and flight testing taken in-house. VSS Unity has made three rocket-powered supersonic test flights so far. The sister of a missing Blackfeet woman in Montana expressed frustration Wednesday over law enforcement's initial response to her loved one's disappearance, telling U.S. senators that numerous Native American families are troubled by inadequate investigations into their missing persons cases. The prepared testimony from Kimberly Loring was part of a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in Washington to examine what authorities call a "silent crisis" - the deaths and disappearance of hundreds of Native American women. Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, said factors compounding the crisis include poor coordination among the multiple law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating crimes on Indian reservations. He and other senators also shared concerns over a lack of government data to measure the scope of a problem that has gained attention following both the #MeToo movement and years of legislative efforts to address the high rates of violence against Native American women. "The loss is horrific," said John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming. "That they are not represented in the data is also horrific." Ashley HeavyRunner Loring vanished in June 2017 at age 20, leaving her sister Kimberly Loring and others to suspect she was in danger or hurt - possibly even left in the mountains of her reservation near Glacier National Park. Loring recalled that despite these concerns, both Blackfeet tribal police and Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement seemed dismissive, saying two months into the search that, "Ashley is of age and can leave whenever she wants to." Kimberly Loring, right, whose sister, Ashley Loring HeavyRunner disappeared from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana in 2017, is comforted by Patricia Alexander of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, left, as the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs holds a hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Loring also was critical of the BIA's handling of evidence, saying agents failed to ensure a crime lab test was conducted on a stained sweater found early in the investigation and that witnesses believed belonged to HeavyRunner Loring. A BIA spokeswoman said the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women has become a priority for the Interior Department, but that she could not provide comment in response to Loring's concerns about evidence, citing the ongoing investigation. The FBI early this year became the lead law enforcement agency in the case. "I am asking you to recognize that indigenous women matter, and the way our missing and murdered women cases are handled needs to be corrected," Loring said. "We are going missing, we are being murdered. We are not being taken seriously." An Associated Press report this year found that Native Americans and Alaska Natives, who comprise less than a percentage point of the population, made up 1.8 percent of ongoing missing cases in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database - a figure the agency's assistant director of criminal investigations cited Wednesday in prepared testimony. Native women, who represent 0.4 percent of U.S. residents, accounted for more than 0.7 percent of the missing cases, or 633. Advocates say that figure likely represents an undercount. In AP interviews earlier this year, multiple families - including HeavyRunner Loring's - described feeling disappointed or dismissed after initially taking the cases of missing female relatives to police on their reservations. "We all share the same experience when working with law enforcement," Kimberly Loring said. Patricia Alexander, who co-chairs a task force on violence against women for the Tlingit and Haida tribes in Alaska, called on lawmakers to increase funding for crime prevention, victims' services and data collection. Charles Addington, who is the deputy director of the BIA's Office of Justice Services, acknowledged before the committee that more coordination among law enforcement agencies is needed early in police investigations to solve missing persons' cases. He outlined a series of measures his agency has taken amid mounting concerns about missing women, starting with adding human trafficking courses for officers at the BIA-Indian Police Academy in Artesia, New Mexico. Addington's comments came amid pointed questions from lawmakers over his agency's handling of investigations. "Where's the problem? Is it with the BIA? Is it with the FBI? Is it with tribal law enforcement?" asked Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana. "Something is not happening that needs to be happening." ___ Associated Press national writer Sharon Cohen in Chicago contributed to this report. ___ Read AP's full coverage on missing Native American women: https://apnews.com/tag/MissingInIndianCountry . Kimberly Loring, whose sister, Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, a 20-year-old college student, disappeared from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana in the summer of 2017, testifies as the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs holds a hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Kimberly Loring, whose sister, Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, a 20-year-old college student, disappeared from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana in the summer of 2017, testifies as the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs holds a hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Amber Crotty from Window Rock, Ariz., left, a delegate of the Navajo Nation Council, and Patricia Alexander of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, right, exchange words of encouragement to each other before testifying as the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs holds a hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., tells a panel of law enforcement officials that efforts to prevent and solve the deaths and disappearance of Native American women must improve, during a hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) From right to left, Vice Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., the chairman, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., conduct a hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., center, confers with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, left, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., right, as the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs holds a hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., tells a panel of law enforcement officials that efforts to prevent and solve the deaths and disappearance of Native American women must improve, during a hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., listens at left. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, left, and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., speak before the start of a hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., joined at right by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, addresses Kimberly Loring, whose sister, Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, a 20-year-old college student, disappeared from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana in the summer of 2017, at a hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Amber Crotty from Window Rock, Ariz., left, a delegate of the Navajo Nation Council, and Rep.-elect Deb Haaland, D-NM, the first Native American woman elected to Congress, embrace each other during a hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) From left, Amber Crotty from Window Rock, Ariz., a delegate of the Navajo Nation Council, Lissa Loring, from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, Vice Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Rep.-elect Deb Haaland, D-NM, the first Native American woman elected to Congress, and Kimberly Loring, of the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, meet before the start of an Indian Affairs hearing to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) From left, Amber Crotty from Window Rock, Ariz., a delegate of the Navajo Nation Council, and Rep.-elect Deb Haaland, D-NM, the first Native American woman elected to Congress, listen to testimony by Charles Addington, deputy associate director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, center, and Robert Johnson, right, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, at a hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to examine concerns about investigations into the deaths and disappearance of Native American women, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) File - In this July 13, 2018, file photo, Kimberly Loring holds a photo of her sister, Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation as she stands in her grandmother's home in Browning, Mont. Loring, the sister of a missing Blackfeet woman in Montana is expressing frustration over police's initial response to her loved one's disappearance, telling U.S. senators in prepared testimony Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, that "dysfunctional" investigations into missing persons cases have troubled numerous Native American families. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) HOUSTON (AP) - A wealthy Brazilian couple were sentenced Wednesday to minimal U.S. prison terms for helping their daughter keep her son in Brazil for the past five years in violation of the terms of her divorce to the boy's American father. Carlos Guimaraes, 68, was sentenced in Houston federal court to three months in prison while his wife, 66-year-old Jemima Guimaraes, received a one-month term. The couple told the judge they were only helping their daughter because they believed she was a victim of domestic abuse. Prosecutors allege that the couple helped their daughter, Marcelle Guimaraes, keep her son in Brazil after she took him there in 2013 and failed to return to the U.S., violating a custody order in a divorce case out of Houston. They were arrested in February after flying to Miami. A jury in May convicted them of kidnapping but acquitted them of a related conspiracy charge. Marcelle Guimaraes, who was also indicted in the case, is a fugitive and remains in Brazil with her 9-year-old son, Nico. Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes stand outside the Bob Casey Federal courthouse in Houston after they were sentenced to federal prison on Wednesday, Dec 12, 2018. The wealthy Brazilian couple were sentenced to minimal U.S. prison terms for helping their daughter keep her son in Brazil for the past five years in violation of the terms of her divorce to the boy's American father. (Gabrielle Banks/Houston Chronicle via AP) The boy's father, Christopher Brann, lives in Houston. He has denied that he physically abused his ex-wife and he has never been charged with having done so. Before announcing his sentence, U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett said he believed evidence showed the marriage was volatile and that Brann and his ex-wife had physically abused each other. Bennett also expressed concerns about the role the defendants played in the case, saying they had no custodial rights over the boy. "I'm seeking a just sentence," Bennett said. "There is no sentence I can impose that will resolve this family fracture." Bennett imposed a sentence that was below the sentencing guidelines, which called for the Guimaraeses to get a year and three months to a year and nine months in prison. During an emotional victim impact statement, Brann said he has spent the last five years fighting to get back his son, but that Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes had done everything they could to prevent him from doing so. "When they took my son away from me, they took everything away from me," Brann said as he cried while standing before Bennett. After the court hearing, Brann said he was disappointed in the sentence and worried he might never see his son again. "I love my son and I will continue to fight for him," Brann said. In brief statements before sentencing, the Guimaraeses denied they had done anything wrong. "We deeply regret where we are today. We are at your mercy," said Carlos Guimaraes. The couple will remain free on bond until they report to federal prison early next year. In a Skype call with reporters in Houston from her apartment in the Brazilian city of Salvador, Marcelle Guimaraes said her parents shouldn't spend any time in prison. "They haven't done anything wrong," she said. Marcelle Guimaraes accused Brann of being violent with her on numerous occasions, including punching her and throwing her against a wall. But Marcelle Guimaraes said she didn't initially make these allegations in her divorce proceedings because she didn't want them to become public. Rusty Hardin, attorney for Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes, said they have never been in a position to forge a solution in this case. "It's their daughter's decision that they have no control over," he said. Carlos Guimaraes is president of ED&F Man Brasil, a commodities trading firm, while his wife owns a young children's school in Brazil. Brann's attorneys are appealing a ruling in 2015 by a Brazilian judge that denied the boy's return to the U.S. under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international treaty for governmental cooperation on such cases. Nico Brann's case is one of several in recent years involving Brazil and the U.S. that have attracted international attention, including the case of Sean Goldman, whose father, David Goldman, spent years in American and Brazilian courts before he finally took Sean home to New Jersey in 2009. Sean's case prompted a 2014 law giving the State Department more tools - including the suspension of economic support - to pressure foreign governments to send home abducted American children. It's unclear if the U.S. is using such leverage to push for the return of Nico Brann. David Goldman, who attended Wednesday's sentencing, said he wanted to show his support to Brann and bring attention to the plight of other parents who are also fighting to get their children back. In its 2018 report on international child abduction, the State Department said Brazil in 2017 demonstrated a pattern of noncompliance to the Hague Convention child abduction treaty and that the country has been cited as noncompliant since 2006. ___ Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70 Dr. Christopher Brann, father of abducted minor Nico Brann, talks to reporters after sentencing of Nico's grandparents Wednesday, Dec 12, 2018. A wealthy Brazilian couple were sentenced to minimal U.S. prison terms for helping their daughter keep her son in Brazil for the past five years in violation of the terms of her divorce to the boy's American father. (Gary Fountain/Houston Chronicle via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the congressional response to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (all times local): 3:45 p.m. The Senate has started debate on a resolution calling on the U.S. to pull assistance from the Saudi-led war in Yemen. It's a measure that has won new support in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Senate voted 60-39 to open debate on the resolution, signaling that it has enough support to win the 50 votes needed. But it's unclear how amendments to the measure will affect the final vote count. Senators have been enraged over Khashoggi's killing in October and over President Donald Trump's equivocating on who is to blame. U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known of the plot to kill Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, speaks to reporters at the Capitol before a classified briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel to the House leadership about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and, the involvement by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. The Senate is preparing for a possible vote on two resolutions to condemn Saudi Arabia for its role in the slaying. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) ___ 12:35 p.m. CIA Director Gina Haspel has briefed House leaders on the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as the Senate prepared for a possible vote on two resolutions that would rebuke Saudi Arabia for its role in the slaying. Two people familiar with the meeting said House leaders received a briefing from Haspel Wednesday morning, a day before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are to brief the full House on the killing. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the classified briefing. Lawmakers leaving the briefing, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, declined to comment, saying it was classified. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Is good moral character required to wax eyebrows and give facials? In the state of Pennsylvania it is, and two women denied licenses to work as cosmetologists because they ran afoul of that regulation are challenging the law in court. Courtney Haveman and Amanda Spillane filed suit on Tuesday, with the help of non-profit law firm the Institute for Justice, claiming the state's good moral character requirement for cosmetologists is unfair and unconstitutional. The women both suffered from addictions in the past, which led to criminal records, they said. Haveman said her addiction to alcohol led to a number of misdemeanor infractions that inspired her to turn around her life. She has been sober for over five years, got married, had a baby and now mentors women who struggle with alcohol abuse. She decided to pursue a career in cosmetology, completed beauty school and had a job lined up at a salon. So she was shocked when she learned her license application was denied, citing her moral character. Courtney Haveman and Amanda Spillane speak with members of the media during a news conference in view of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Haveman and Spillane, who were denied licenses to work as estheticians as a result of running afoul of a state good moral character rule, due to past drug-related convictions, are challenging the regulation in a lawsuit. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) "I made mistakes in my past, I paid my dues and I had learned and grown from them," she said at a press conference Wednesday announcing the lawsuit. Spillane said her addictions led her down a path of criminal behavior and she was incarcerated for burglary. While she was locked up, she said she went through extensive rehabilitation, became a Christian and changed her life. When she was released on good behavior, she worked in fast food until she decided to be a cosmetologist. "I thought cosmetology was a career I could pursue despite having a record," she said, adding that the prison where she was incarcerated taught cosmetology to inmates. She, too, had a job lined up at a salon. "It is very frustrating and upsetting to know that you're a different person and that nobody would give you a chance," she said. Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, laws prohibiting people from working must actually protect the public. The women's lawyers say that isn't the case for cosmetologists, that good moral character has nothing to do with skincare, painting nails or cutting hair. "In fact, there is no requirement like this for barbers, so it requires good moral character to tweeze a hair, not to shave one," said Andrew Ward, one of the lawyers with the Institute for Justice. Pennsylvania requires good moral character for a number of jobs, ranging from landscape architect to poultry technician. "People deserve a second chance, and when you deny it to them, they are more likely to wind up committing more crimes," said Erica Smith, an attorney with the Institute for Justice. Gov. Tom Wolf commissioned a review of occupational licensing board requirements back in 2017, and the department of state's findings were released in June. Among them was a determination that the requirement to demonstrate good moral character is "loosely defined" and "there is the potential for it to be applied unevenly across boards." It recommends the administration examine the impact of criminal history bans and good moral character requirements. Wolf's spokesman said Wednesday he couldn't comment on the lawsuit, but said the governor believes Pennsylvania must be a place where people can put their skills, experience and education to work. Emails and phone messages seeking comment from the state board of cosmetology and the bureau of professional and occupational affairs were left. For Haveman and Spillane, their goals aren't complicated, saying they just want to make an honest living. "I just feel like there needs to be opportunities for people in our situation, to have a career so they can provide for themselves and not have to rely on the state or other people," Spillane said. Amanda Spillane, right, listens to Courtney Haveman speak with members of the media during a news conference in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Haveman and Spillane who were denied licenses to work as estheticians as a result of running afoul of a state good moral character rule, due to past drug-related convictions, are challenging the regulation in a lawsuit. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Courtney Haveman speaks with members of the media during a news conference in view of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Haveman and Amanda Spillane, who were denied licenses to work as estheticians as a result of running afoul of a state good moral character rule, due to past drug-related convictions, are challenging the regulation in a lawsuit. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Attorneys with the Institute for Justice, Andrew Ward, left, and Erica Smith, center, take part in a news conference with Courtney Haveman, second from right, and Amanda Spillane, in view of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Haveman and Spillane, who were denied licenses to work as estheticians as a result of running afoul of a state good moral character rule- due to past drug-related convictions- are challenging the regulation in a lawsuit. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) DALLAS (AP) - Attorneys for a former Baylor University student accused of rape have broken their silence after a judge allowed the former fraternity president to avoid serving jail time, attacking the ex-fraternity president's accuser and saying she gave "inconsistent" statements to the prosecution. Attorneys Mark Daniel and Tim Moore said that a statement in a Waco, Texas, court Monday by the woman who accused Jacob Walter Anderson was "riddled with distortions and misrepresentations." They said Anderson and the woman were seen by many people "kissing passionately" at a fraternity party where she says the assault occurred. They also said her claim that she was choked was "absolutely contrary" to evidence. Anderson's attorneys had declined comment when Judge Ralph Strother accepted a plea agreement Monday allowing Anderson to avoid jail or be listed as a sex offender. The judge's decision sparked outrage and on Tuesday Anderson's attorneys spoke to the Waco Tribune-Herald to respond to what they called "significant misrepresentations" about the case. The woman has sharply criticized both the judge and prosecutors, saying Anderson stole her power over her body. The woman has said she was plied with a drink of punch at the fraternity party in 2016 and became disoriented. Anderson, the woman said, led her behind a tent and repeatedly raped her while she was gagged and choked. Anderson's attorneys said no drugs were found in her system. Vic Feazell, a spokesman for the woman's family, told the newspaper that it's easy for Anderson's attorneys to make the statements after the fact, describing their comments as untrue. In this Monday December 10, 2018 photo, former Baylor University fraternity president Jacob Anderson walks out of the courtroom in Waco, Texas. Anderson, accused of rape, will serve no jail time after a Waco district judge accepted a plea bargain for deferred probation (Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald via AP) "If they wanted to cross-examine her, we should have had a trial," he told the newspaper. The woman has not been identified and The Associated Press generally does not name possible victims of sexual assault. Anderson was indicted on sexual assault charges and the deal allowed him to plead no contest to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint. He agreed to seek counseling and pay a $400 fine. He was expelled from Baylor after a separate university investigation. Anderson now is a senior at the University of Texas at Dallas, according to a directory. An online petition calling for Anderson to be removed from the school has garnered thousands of signatures. The school acknowledged the petition in a post on Facebook, saying the "safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff are of the utmost importance." In a later statement that did not name Anderson, University of Texas at Dallas President Richard Benson said the school admitted a student two years ago "without knowing their legal history." He said the student will not be allowed on campus as a student or guest and will not take part in the university's commencement activities. "I am grateful to the UT Dallas students, faculty and other community members who have shared their concerns, disappointment and outrage over this student's presence on our campus," he said in the statement. Previously filed court records show Anderson works at BDRC Partners, a commercial real estate development and acquisition group. ST. LOUIS (AP) - A suspect was killed and an officer injured Wednesday afternoon following a confrontation outside a St. Louis gas station, according to authorities. The shooting happened after two patrol officers spotted a recently stolen SUV at the service station, Police Chief John Hayden said at a news conference. One officer got out and approached the driver, who was alone in the vehicle. With the driver's side door open, the SUV suddenly accelerated backward before crashing, Hayden said. The officer "was caught between the door and the actual car itself" and fired his gun, the chief said. Hayden didn't know how many shots were fired. The suspect was struck in the chest and was pronounced dead a short time later at a hospital. The officer was not shot but suffered what Hayden described as a significant but not life-threatening head injury. Police were trying to determine how the officer was injured. Asked if the officer fired out of fear for his life, Hayden said investigators are determining that. The suspect did not fire a gun and Hayden wasn't sure if he was in possession of a weapon. As reporters gathered outside the hospital just prior to Hayden's news conference, an upset woman near the emergency room entrance could be heard screaming, "The police shot my (expletive) baby!" Hayden said the officer, 31, has been on the force for two years. The suspect was a black man believed to be in his mid-20s. Hayden did not state the officer's race. Police are gathering video from surveillance cameras in the area as part of the investigation, Hayden said. UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The latest on U.N. Security Council meeting on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement (all times local): 4:20 p.m. Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador is accusing the United States of what he says is "another series of lies, fabrications, disinformation and deceptive statements" about the Iranian ballistic missile program. Eshagh Al Habib told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that "Iran's ballistic missile program is designed to be exclusively capable of delivering conventional warheads required to deter foreign threats." He said it is not to deliver nuclear weapons. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier urged the council to again impose a ban on Iranian missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Al Habib accused the U.S. of violating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by pulling out of the pact and the council resolution that endorsed it. He urged the council "to hold the U.S. accountable" for recently re-imposing sanctions it lifted after the 2015 nuclear deal. Iranian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Eshagh Al-Habib speaks during a Security Council meeting on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) ___ 12:40 p.m. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged the U.N. Security Council to again ban Iranian ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and to maintain an arms embargo that is scheduled to be lifted in 2020 under the landmark Iran nuclear deal. He also says the council should prevent Iran from circumventing existing arms restrictions by authorizing the inspection of ships in ports and stopping them on the high seas. Pompeo spoke at a Security Council meeting Wednesday on Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement that the Trump administration pulled out of earlier this year, and the council resolution endorsing it. In the half-century since the original "Mary Poppins" debuted, we've learned a lot about refined sugar, frankly none of it good. Doctors tell us it can lead to obesity, heart disease and all sorts of other detriments to our health. But let's face it, there are times when a little sugar - oh what the heck, let's say a spoonful - is just what we need, if not for health then for happiness. So it's sweet news indeed that "Mary Poppins Returns," a sequel 54 years in coming, provides just that spoonful of happiness in the form of Emily Blunt, practically perfect in every way as the heir to Julie Andrews. "Spit spot!" ''Pish Posh!" ''Jigetty Jog!" (Did we spell that right?) These Poppins-isms slip effortlessly off Blunt's tongue. It's also no simple feat to gaze at one's reflection and say "practically perfect in every way" and not seem egotistical, but Blunt's easy warmth and charm shine through. Of course she can also sing, and dance, with partners both live and animated. And she's funny - witness her priceless indignation when a child asks how much she weighs. But then she can spin on a dime and convey that steely Poppins nerve, that sense that in a crisis, she knows exactly what must be done, and everybody else had better stand aside. There's further happy news here: It's not just Blunt that's at the top of her game in this thoroughly delightful enterprise by director Rob Marshall and a crack team of artists devoted to both honoring a time-worn classic and finding something new to say. The visuals are lovely, from the oil paintings in the opening credits to the balloon-filled spring fair at the end. And Sandy Powell's costumes are fabulous, especially the reds and blues and stripes and polka dots that adorn Mary, from her straw-hatted head to her turned-out feet (What we wouldn't give for one of those slender-waisted, caped overcoats, or polka-dot bow ties). And those candy-hued clothes that Mary, Jack and the Banks kids wear in the centerpiece scene mixing live action and animation? They're literally hand-painted, to delectable effect. This image released by Disney shows Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Disney via AP) Blunt's star power is complemented here by appealing turns from Lin-Manuel Miranda as the afore-mentioned Jack, a kind-hearted lamplighter who once worked for Bert the chimney sweep (aka Dick Van Dyke); Ben Whisham and Emily Mortimer as the elder Banks children, a slimy Colin Firth as the bank chief, and, for icing on the cake, a flame-haired Meryl Streep as Mary's vaguely Eastern European cousin Topsy ("Vat do you VANT?"). Then there's the icing on the icing: a cameo by Van Dyke himself, still spry at 92, that is hands-down the emotional peak of the film - even before he starts to twinkle those toes. The setting is Depression-era London, where widowed Michael lives with his three young children at 17 Cherry Tree Lane, struggling to stay afloat. Sister Jane, a labor organizer, lives in a flat across town. As we begin, Michael learns he's behind on loan payments, and the bank wants to take his house. He's given five days to find proof that his father owned shares there, which could save the home. Searching desperately, he comes across an old kite but tosses it in the trash. Luckily it's a windy day, and who flies in with that kite? Yep, Mary, emerging from the sky with her bottomless bag and umbrella (If you're crying already here, and you might be, you're in trouble). "It's wonderful to see you," exclaim a shocked Michael and Jane. "Yes it is, isn't it," Mary replies. Just like that, Mary's sliding up the banister again. First order of business: the children's bath, which turns into a wild adventure down the drain and into the colorful sea, flying dolphins and all. "Can You Imagine That?" Mary sings, one of the catchy original songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. There's also the mournful "The Place Where Lost Things Go," about loss, and Streep's tour de force, "Turning Turtle," and the brassy performance number "A Cover is Not the Book." Each song has its spiritual antecedent in the original film, including the lamplighters' dance number "Trip a Little Light Fantastic," a nod to "Step in Time." As for Miranda, though the role he's given could have used more of a backstory, his presence injects a warm and sunny vibe into gray Depression-era London, and it's totally infectious. His Cockney accent is better than his predecessor's, too, and it's nice that he gets to rap a bit in the animated fantasy sequence, as did Van Dyke (sort of) in the original. Mortimer and especially Whisham are both touching in roles that could have felt perfunctory. Perhaps no more explanation is necessary - after all, as Jack says, "Mary Poppins never explains anything." Will we meeting her yet again? Who knows. But it was wonderful to see her, especially in Blunt's loving hands. "Yes it was, wasn't it," she'd surely reply. "Mary Poppins Returns," a Walt Disney Studios release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America "for some mild thematic elements and brief action." Running time: 130 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four. MPAA definition of PG: Parental guidance suggested. Follow Jocelyn Noveck on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/JocelynNoveckAP This image released by Disney shows Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Disney via AP) This image released by Disney shows Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Jay Maidment/Disney via AP) This image released by Disney shows Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Disney via AP) This image released by Disney shows Lin-Manuel Miranda, center, and Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Jay Maidment/Disney via AP) This image released by Disney shows, from left, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Pixie Davies, Joel Dawson, Nathanael Saleh and Emily Blunt in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Jay Maidment/Disney via AP) This image released by Disney shows Emily Mortimer, Ben Whishaw and Emily Blunt in "Mary Poppins Returns." (Disney via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - After months of debate and negotiation, Congress voted final approval Wednesday to a massive farm bill that will provide more than $400 billion for agriculture subsidies, conservation programs and food aid. The House voted 369-47 for the legislation, which sets federal agricultural and food policy for five years, after the Senate approved it 87-13 on Tuesday. It is now headed to the desk of President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The measure reauthorizes crop insurance and conservation programs and pays for trade programs, bioenergy production and organic farming research. It also reduces the cost for struggling dairy producers to sign up for support programs and legalizes the cultivation of industrial hemp. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, said the final bill looks at "stresses and strains across all of rural America, economic development issues and just the practice of farming and ranching. It says: here are federal resources we want to put against those problems." One thing the bill doesn't include: tighter work requirements for food stamp recipients, a provision of the House bill that was celebrated by President Donald Trump but became a major sticking point during negotiations. Another contentious piece of the House's original legislation, relaxing restrictions on pesticide use, also didn't make it into the final text. FILE - In this May 16, 2018, file photo, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, speaks about the farm bill during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. The House easily passed on Dec. 12, the farm bill, a massive legislative package that reauthorizes agriculture programs and food aid. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) Conaway championed the stricter work requirements, and fought to restrict the ability of states to issue waivers to exempt work-eligible people. The House measure also sought to limit circumstances under which families who qualify for other poverty programs can automatically be eligible for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and earmarked $1 billion to expand work-training programs. The bill does increase funding for employment and training programs from $90 million to $103 million. The original House bill failed during its first floor vote when 30 GOP members blocked it over an unrelated immigration issue. It passed a second time around, but without any support from Democrats, who insisted they wouldn't vote for a bill with the new work requirements included. "The version we passed in June took bold steps to reforming SNAP and moving in the direction most of us believed was supported by the American people," Conaway said. "That was not supported broadly by the body across the building, and we made the compromise necessary to get us to this place." The House and Senate also clashed over portions of the bill's forestry and conservation sections. Negotiations were complicated in recent weeks when the White House asked Congress to make changes to the forestry section in response to deadly wildfires in California, giving more authority to the Agriculture and Interior departments to clear forests and other public lands. The final text doesn't significantly increase the agencies' authority. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the bill will help producers "make decisions about the future, while also investing in important agricultural research and supporting trade programs to bolster export." But he voiced disappointment over the failed changes to work requirements. "While I feel there were missed opportunities in forest management and in improving work requirements for certain SNAP recipients, this bill does include several helpful provisions and we will continue to build upon these through our authorities," he said. The bill maintains current limits on farm subsidies, but includes a House provision to expand the definition of family to include first cousins, nieces and nephews, making them eligible for payments under the program. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - With ballot fraud allegations hanging over a disputed North Carolina U.S. House race, state lawmakers have agreed to change the way such "do-over" congressional elections are handled. The state House and Senate voted Wednesday to require new primary elections, in addition to a new general election, if the state elections board decides a redo is needed because ballot irregularities or other problems in a congressional contest cast the true outcome into doubt. The primary election requirement - contained in a measure reworking who oversees the enforcement of state elections and ethics laws and heading to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's desk - would apply to the current 9th Congressional District race. The current nine-member state elections and ethics board is investigating absentee ballot problems in the district, where unofficial results show Republican Mark Harris leading Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled on or before Dec. 21, after which the board could already call for a new 9th District general election, but not necessarily a primary race. Both primary and general elections are required when a North Carolina U.S. House seat is officially declared vacant, such as when Rep. Mel Watt stepped down in 2014. State Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican who helped shepherd the bill through the legislature, told colleagues Wednesday the directive would align with what the governor is required to do during an official vacancy. It would be the board that would set dates for new primary and general elections in the 9th. On Tuesday, Lewis said holding new primaries in the 9th also made sense because it appears absentee ballots also were an issue during last May's primary elections in the district. Harris won 96 percent of the mail-in ballots in Bladen County on the way to his narrow victory over GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger. The legislation would open the door to Pittenger or anyone else running again in a primary. The probe has chiefly focused on mail-in absentee ballots in the general election. Bladen was the only county among the eight within the 9th District where Harris won a majority of mail-in absentee ballots over McCready. A Bladen man, McCrae Dowless, has been identified by the board as a "person of interest" related to an alleged absentee ballot operation. He worked for the Harris campaign's chief strategist. The measure affecting the 9th District is part of broader legislation that could end a two-year power struggle between Cooper and GOP legislators over control of the elections board. The legislation would largely return elections, ethics enforcement and lobbyist reporting to how it was before Republican lawmakers altered them in a December 2016 special session just before Cooper took office. Cooper sued successfully three times over GOP versions of a combined ethics and elections board that Republican leaders argued would help produce bipartisan results. But Cooper said Republicans were only trying to erode his power and cause gridlock on where to put early-voting sites and in corruption investigations. Judges ruled the GOP's previous efforts to rework the board were unconstitutional since they failed to give the governor control over an executive agency, in part because the proposals didn't allow him to choose a majority of board members. The latest bill, which cleared both chambers by wide margins, would again give the governor the majority of seats on a reconstituted elections board. A separate state ethics commission would be revived. The changes wouldn't take effect until Jan. 31, however, so that the current elections and ethics board could complete its 9th District investigation. "This bill makes every effort to comply with the court's ruling and gives Gov. Cooper the partisan control over the State Board of Elections that he has sued for," Lewis said in a release. Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said the governor will review the bill. He can sign it, veto it or let it become law without his signature. Other changes in the bill would address absentee balloting. It would require two people who witness a mail-in absentee voter marking a ballot to also certify the voter's identity. Some lawmakers contend requiring that identification could discourage fraud like what's being investigated in the 9th District. MEXICO CITY (AP) - Federal agents said Wednesday that they detained four people in a raid on a clandestine lab that apparently produced the synthetic opioid fentanyl in Mexico City. Only a few such labs have been detected in Mexico in recent years, though Mexico is one of the main suppliers of the deadly drug. Much of the illicit fentanyl consumed in the U.S. originates in China, but is often smuggled through Mexico. Mexican cartels have also been known to produce the drug from precursor chemicals mainly imported from China. The Attorney General's Office said the lab was in a middle-income neighborhood on Mexico City's north side. The lab apparently had its own automated pill press. Fentanyl is often mixed with heroin, but is also pressed into pills made to resemble other drugs. An accidental overdose of fentanyl was determined to have killed music legend Prince in April 2016, apparently when he took fentanyl pills made to look like another drug. On Sept. 10, police in the Mexico border city of Mexicali, in Baja California state, raided a clandestine fentanyl lab and detained two suspects, one of them a Russian man. Police found 20,000 fentanyl pills at the building. In a 2018 report, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said: "Mexican traffickers order fentanyl from China, adulterate it, and smuggle it into the United States themselves, meaning an unknown amount of seized Mexican parcels containing fentanyl are ultimately of Chinese origin. In addition, Mexican traffickers' primary source of supply for fentanyl precursor chemicals is also China." MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - President Daniel Ortega's allies in Nicaragua's legislature are canceling the legal status of non-governmental groups identified as supporting months-long opposition protests. In the past two weeks, Ortega's Sandinista party, which controls 70 of the 92 votes in the National Assembly, took action against the Center for Health Research, the Institute for Strategic and Public Policy Studies, Let's Make Democracy and the Nicaragua Center for Human Rights. The Sandinistas contend the groups promoted and financed what they say was a failed coup attempt against Ortega. In April, protests against changes to Nicaragua's social security system were violently repressed. Demonstrations continued for months, but after regaining its footing, Ortega's government has methodically pursued its perceived enemies, particularly university students. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights says at least 320 people have died in the violence. "Let's Make Democracy and the (Nicaragua Center for Human Rights) form part of the interventionist policy of the United States through NGOs, which have served to finance the destabilization and attempted coup in the country," Sandinista lawmaker Jose Figueroa said during a recent legislative session. Vilma Nunez, the long-time head of the human rights center, said Wednesday that the government is just trying to stop those who draw attention to its abuses. "They want to silence us, but they're not going to do it," Nunez said, adding that her group "will be around for a while." Nunez and the other groups say the government has not met due process requirements giving them an opportunity to defend themselves. Political analyst Oscar Rene Vargas said the cancellation of the groups is the Ortega administration's response to sanctions imposed by the United States against members of the government, including Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is Ortega's wife. "Their objective is to silence the human rights defenders, the NGOs, the non-governmental media outlets," Vargas said. "The repression is generalized. It would appear that Ortega's logic is: power or death." On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against Roberto Jose Rivas Reyes, president of Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council. The designation was "due to his involvement in significant corruption," the agency said in a statement. It makes Rivas Reyes and his immediate family members ineligible for entry into the U.S. Also Wednesday, a group of 12 countries, including the U.S., issued a warning at the Organization of American States in Washington that reports of forced disappearances and kidnappings continue to emerge from Nicaragua despite Ortega's assurances that everything is under control. Luis Alvarado, Nicaragua's representative at the OAS, said the government does not recognize the group. "We denounce that this working group's objective is to promote the economic, political and social terrorism against the Nicaraguan people," he said. ___ Associated Press writer Luis Alonso Lugo in Washington contributed to this report. SUPERIOR, Wis. (AP) - A hole in a valve was the source of an April explosion at a Husky Energy refinery in northwestern Wisconsin that injured 36 people and required the evacuation of a large part of the city of Superior, according to findings of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board presented Wednesday. According to the update that was shared at a town hall meeting in Superior, erosion created a hole in the slide valve, allowing air to mix with hydrocarbons. The resulting blast sent debris hurtling into an asphalt storage tank. The puncture spilled about 15,000 gallons of hot asphalt, which later ignited and burned for hours. The report linked the Superior explosion on April 26, 2018, to a 2015 explosion in Torrance, California, the Star Tribune reported . The board says in both cases, an explosive mix of air and hydrocarbons formed inside a fluid catalytic cracking unit because of ineffective safeguards. The unit converts hydrocarbons in petroleum into gasoline. In both cases, the fluid catalytic cracking units were not in normal operating mode when the explosions happened and were nearing dates for upgrades, the board said. Several people at the meeting said they want the Superior refinery to stop using hydrogen fluoride to process high-octane gasoline. The highly corrosive chemical can produce toxic vapor clouds. The tank containing hydrogen fluoride was not damaged by the explosion or fire. While some people who lived nearest to the refinery were told to evacuate due to the presence of hydrogen fluoride, others should have been told as well, said the Rev. Michelle R. Rowell of Concordia Lutheran Church in Superior. FILE - In this April 26, 2018, file image from video, smoke rises from the Husky Energy oil refinery after an explosion and fire at the plant in Superior, Wis. A hole in a valve was cited as the source of the explosion at the refinery last spring that injured 36 people and required the evacuation of a large part of the northwestern Wisconsin city. The latest findings of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board were shared Wednesday, Dec. 12 at a town hall meeting in Superior. According to the update, erosion created a hole in the slide valve, allowing air to mix with hydrocarbons. (KSTP-TV via AP, File) "After that nearest evacuation was done, I think it was irresponsible that the rest of the community was not informed about the presence of that very dangerous chemical," Rowell said. A spokesman for Husky Energy said Wednesday the Canada-based company will continue working with the board to understand the cause of the explosion. Husky Energy does not expect to resume normal operations at the Superior refinery until 2020 but says no one will be laid off because of the explosion. "We've appointed an engineering contractor to oversee design work for the rebuild and as part of that process, we continue to evaluate options around the use of hydrogen fluoride," Husky spokesman Mel Duvall said in an email. ___ Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) - The latest on a teen pleading guilty to a fatal school shooting in South Carolina (all times local): 5:30 p.m. A prosecutor say he will ask for a life sentence without parole for a teen who was 14 years old when he shot and killed his father and an elementary school student outside for recess. In a statement issued Wednesday after Jesse Osborne pleaded guilty, Solicitor David Wagner said Osborne deserved to die behind bars for the September 2016 killings in Anderson County. Earlier in court, Wagner said he might seek a life sentence. Osborne pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder for wounding two students and a teacher at Townville Elementary School. FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2018 file photo Jesse Osborne waits for a ruling at the Anderson County Courthouse. Osborne, a teen charged with shooting at a group of South Carolina elementary school students outside for recess, killing one of them, is set to appear in court. Prosecutors would not say why Osborne will appear Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 at the Anderson County courthouse. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP, Pool) He faces 30 years to life in prison on the murder charges. An extensive sentencing hearing will be held next year during which a judge will consider Osborne's age, his family life and the details of the crime. ___ 4:45 p.m. A prosecutor says he may ask for a life sentence without parole for a teen who had just turned 14 when he killed his father and an elementary school student outside for recess. Jesse Osborne pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in Anderson County. The 16-year-old will be sentenced later after an extensive hearing that will consider his age, his chance for rehabilitation, the circumstances of the crime and how he has behaved in custody. Solicitor David Wagner says he "very well may call for a life sentence." Osborne and his attorney said little at the hearing. The attorney said there was no dispute over the teen's guilt. Six-year-old Jacob Hall died in the shooting at Townville Elementary School in September 2016. Two other students and a teacher were wounded. ___ 4:05 p.m. A teen has pleaded guilty to two charges of murder for fatally shooting his father in their home and a 6-year-old boy at a South Carolina elementary school. Sixteen-year-old Jesse Osborne entered his plea Wednesday afternoon. He will be sentenced at a later date. Authorities say Osborne had just turned 14 when he shot and killed his father in their home on Sept. 28, 2016, then drove his dad's pickup truck 3 miles (5 kilometers) to Townville Elementary School. Investigators say Osborne crashed the truck into a playground fence and fired several shots at a group of students outside for recess. Six-year-old Jacob Hall was shot in the leg and bled to death. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Congress on Wednesday gave final passage to legislation that would shut down legal cockfights in U.S. territories including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, ending an institution dating from the colonial era that generates millions of dollars each year. Opponents of the measure approved by the House said it will have a devastating effect on the islands' economies, noting that in Puerto Rico alone the cockfighting industry generates some $18 million a year and employs some 27,000 people. "We're all going crazy. Everybody is desperate," said 86-year-old Angel Ortiz, who owns a cockfighting ring in the city of Bayamon. "There are so many people who make a living off of this." Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello traveled to Washington to demand that the island be excluded, but he arrived too late. Legislators unexpectedly moved up the vote and approved the bill, which already passed the Senate. Cockfighting in Puerto Rico was first officially recognized in 1770, but the practice was banned after the U.S. invaded the island in 1898. It wasn't until 1933 that it was declared an official sport and became known as the "gentleman's sport" because of its honor-based betting system. In October 2010, Puerto Rico legislators voted in favor of a resolution to protect cockfights, stating they are an integral part of the island's folklore and patrimony. Officials warn that the ban will lead to unemployment on an island already dealing with a 12-year recession. FILE - In this July 6 2012 file photo, owner of a loosing rooster pays his bet as the cockfight judge removes sharp plastic spurs from the defeated bird at Las Palmas, a government-sponsored cockfighting club in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Legislators approved a bill Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, shutting down legal cockfights in U.S. territories including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, ending what many consider a cultural institution that generates millions of dollars and dates back to the colonial era. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo, File) "It is a cultural and economic pillar for Puerto Ricans," Public Affairs Secretary Ramon Rosario said. "In addition to its cultural value, the cockfighting industry is the only source of livelihood for thousands of Puerto Rican families." Some critics reject that cockfighting has any cultural value. Ashley Byrne, associate director with PETA, said in a phone interview that the bill was long overdue and will help protect animals. "Money and tradition are never an excuse for cruelty," she said. "We need to make sure that business is keeping pace with our ethics." She said most people would be appalled to learn that cockfighting is still legal in U.S. territories. "In a modern society, forcing animals to fight for their lives is cruel," she said. "Cockfighting is a horrific blood sport." Many in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were saddened by approval of the ban, which is expected to go into effect in a year. Stacey Plaskett, the U.S. Virgin Islands' congressional representative, said she would continue to fight the bill. "I believed it to be a tremendous overreach of the federal government, which has not supported other basic needs of the territory," she said in a statement. Other opponents of the bill said they would struggle to find other types of work. Miguel Trinidad, who owns a cockfighting ring in the northern Puerto Rican town of Caimito, said he was stunned by the vote. He recently invested $50,000 cash to rebuild his business after Hurricane Maria. "Now they say they're going to shut it down," he said with a sigh, noting that his father first opened the business 50 years ago. "It makes me very sad." Supporters say many people beyond owners of cockfighting rings will be affected. They note that thousands of people are hired to raise the animals, shear them, feed them and shelter them. Pedro Casillas, administrator of an animal supply store in Bayamon, said he fears having to lay off employees and possibly close his business. "Food for cocks is what we sell the most," he said. "It represents three-fourths of our sales." But Casillas and Ortiz also think the legislation won't succeed because the ban will only drive cockfights underground. WASHINGTON (AP) - House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on a bill to overhaul the process for handling sexual misconduct allegations in Congress. The bill updates the decades-old Congressional Accountability Act, which governs how lawmakers and aides report sexual misconduct claims. The law has been widely criticized as confusing, cumbersome and unfair to victims of harassment and abuse. The push for the legislation took on new urgency in the past year, as more than a half-dozen lawmakers resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct and Capitol Hill found itself squarely at the center of the growing #MeToo movement. Both chambers passed their own versions of the bill earlier in the year. But negotiations dragged on for more than six months as lawmakers tried to reconcile them. The sticking points included a $300,000 cap for lawmaker liability in the Senate's version. The language of the bill had not been released as of Wednesday evening. But according to the Senate Rules Committee, it holds lawmakers, including those who leave office, financially liable for settlements resulting from all types of harassment and retaliation, but doesn't cover discrimination claims. It also eliminates mandatory counseling, mediation and the "cooling off" period victims are currently required to wait before filing a lawsuit or requesting an administrative hearing. The bill requires public reporting of settlements, including identifying lawmakers who are personally liable, and extends protections to include interns, fellows and other staff. FILE - IN this Nov. 16, 2018, file photo, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., departs following a Medal of Freedom ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on a bill to overhaul the process for handling sexual misconduct allegations on Capitol Hill. The push for the legislation took on new urgency in the past year, as more than a half-dozen lawmakers resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) House staffers will have access to legal representation, while Senate staffers will be given access to a confidential advocate able to offer legal advice but not act as a representative. The deal was announced just days before the end of the legislative calendar. "A lot of this was our belief that we had an obligation to fix this ourselves, and while I have no doubt a new Congress could have gotten it done I think we needed to fix the mess," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the Senate bill's sponsor. "The focus was to make sure we had a system that protected victims and not politicians." The final bill doesn't include some House measures, including making lawmakers liable for discrimination settlements and requiring an independent investigation into harassment complaints at the beginning of the process. But Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., says she's working with House Democrats and Republicans to introduce a separate bill next Congress to address those issues. Speier became a poster child for the #MeToo movement and champion of anti-harassment legislation on Capitol Hill after sharing her own story of being sexually assaulted by a high-ranking aide when she was a young staffer. "Having spoken with many survivors, the process of going up against a lawyer for the institution and the harasser was as traumatic, if not more traumatic, than the abuse they suffered," Speier said. "The House has remained focused on taking a system rigged in favor of the harassers and making it more victim-centric. We are committed to offering victims the tools they need to pursue justice. We will address these issues in the next Congress." House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., along with Committee on House Administration leadership, released a joint statement Wednesday praising the bill but acknowledging that more work lies ahead. "The agreement reflects the first set of comprehensive reforms that have been made to the Congressional Accountability Act since 1995," it reads. "We believe this is a strong step toward creating a new standard in Congress that will set a positive example in our nation, but there is still more work to be done." The statement says members of both caucuses "remain committed to working in a bipartisan manner to address outstanding issues." OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - An eastern Nebraska city will continue paying former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach at least $10,000 a year to defend its immigration ordinance even though the last legal challenge to the rule ended in 2014. Fremont's City Council unanimously approved its annual agreement with Kobach on Tuesday. Since 2010, the city has paid the Republican, who lost his bid to become Kansas governor this fall, a total of $101,817.29. Kobach earned more than $800,000 in legal fees from several communities, including Fremont, for his immigration work over more than a decade. Fremont Mayor Scott Getzschman said the city wants to maintain its contract with Kobach, so he could defend the ordinance he wrote against new challenges and answer any enforcement questions that come up. "As Fremont continues to grow, if there ever would be a challenge, the City Council wanted to have Kris Kobach in their corner," Getzschman said. The city of 26,000 people is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Omaha. Fremont voters twice supported the rule that bans renting homes to immigrants living in the country illegally and requires employers to use a federal online system to check whether prospective employees are permitted to work in the U.S. FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2018 file photo Republican Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach addresses the crowd during a campaign rally in Topeka, Kan. An eastern Nebraska city will continue paying Kobach at least $10,000 a year to defend its immigration ordinance even though the last legal challenge to the rule ended in 2014. Fremont's City Council unanimously approved its annual agreement with Kobach on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, file) Kobach didn't immediately respond Wednesday to phone messages from The Associated Press, but he has previously defended his work for small cities as being part of a mission he believed in. In addition to helping communities such as Valley Park, Missouri and Fremont craft ordinances related to immigration, Kobach served on President Donald Trump's commission on combating voter fraud that was shut down after a bevy of lawsuits challenged it. In Kansas, Kobach championed a state law that had required proof of citizenship to register to vote. In June, a federal judge struck it down. Kobach hasn't said what he plans to do after he leaves office. Fremont's housing rule requires residents to apply for a $5 permit and swear they have legal permission to live in the country. Only applicants who say they aren't U.S. citizens are investigated. The rental permit rule took effect in 2014 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to it. The employment provisions, which were less controversial, took effect in 2012. Many larger employers, including major meatpacking plants just outside Fremont, were already using that federal E-Verify system before the ordinance was adopted. DUNCAN, Okla. (AP) - Oscar-winning movie director Ron Howard says he still feels connected to the Oklahoma town where he was born but never lived, after visiting the now-shuttered hospital of his birth. Howard this week posted a photo of himself on Instagram posing outside the boarded-up building in Duncan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City. Howard says his family lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, but that his mother wanted to give birth in Duncan, her hometown. Howard says he never lived there but feels "a connection to the town & people." The family later moved to California where Howard's father, Rance Howard, was an actor. His mother, Jean Speegle Howard, also acted. Both appeared in their son's movies "Cocoon" and "Apollo 13." Jean Howard died in 2000. Rance Howard died in 2017. DALLAS (AP) - The CEO of United Airlines says his pilots don't need any additional training on the new Boeing jet that is at the center of the investigation into a deadly crash in Indonesia. Oscar Munoz says that's because United's pilots are prepared to respond to problems that might surface with automated systems on modern planes. "When any trouble arises, our pilots are trained to fly the damn aircraft, period," Munoz told reporters Wednesday. He said pilots are taught to disconnect automated systems, fly the plane by hand, and gain altitude to buy time while they trouble-shoot problems. He said the Boeing 737 MAX is safe and reliable. The remarks were Munoz's first public comments about the plane since the Oct. 29 Lion Air accident, which killed 189 people when the Boeing 737 MAX plunged into the Java Sea. Indonesian investigators are examining the role of faulty sensor readings from an anti-stall system that repeatedly pushed the nose of the Lion Air jet down. Information from a preliminary report indicates that the pilots tried to counter the downward pitch and deal with other cockpit warnings but lost control of the plane a few minutes after takeoff. FILE - In this May 2, 2017 file photo, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, before a House Transportation Committee oversight hearing. Munoz says his pilots don't need any additional training on the new Boeing jet that is at the center of the investigation into a deadly crash in Indonesia. Munoz spoke to reporters Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 and said the Boeing 737 MAX is safe and reliable. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) United, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines all use the new Boeing model, which was first delivered to airlines around the world last year. Pilots at American and Southwest complained that they were not told about a new feature that could push the nose of the plane down automatically based on a sensor measurement. The pilots' union at American has asked for additional training on the anti-stall system. American said it has added information about the system to its regular pilot-refresher training. Munoz's comments came during a wide-ranging call with reporters in which he announced new international flights from San Francisco, boasted about United's performance on the stock market this year - its shares are up more than 30 percent while many other airlines stocks are down - and criticized an Italian carrier's plan to launch more flights to the U.S. Air Italy is 49 percent owned by Qatar Airways, which United, American and Delta have accused of unfair competition due to heavy subsidies from its government. In January, the Trump administration and Qatar reached an agreement under which Qatar Airways will eventually disclose more details about its finances. In a side letter to the deal, Qatar Airways said it was not considering new flights to the U.S. from third countries. Munoz said Air Italy's planned flights from Milan to Los Angeles and San Francisco would violate the agreement and amount to "kind of an in-your-face" to the Trump administration. ___ David Koenig can be reached at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Nancy Pelosi all but ensured Wednesday that she will become House speaker next month, quelling a revolt by disgruntled younger Democrats by agreeing to limit her tenure to no more than four additional years in the chamber's top post. Within moments of announcing she would restrict her time in the job, seven of her critics distributed a statement promising to back the California Democrat. Democrats widely agreed that the pledge meant Pelosi had clinched a comeback to the post she held from 2007 until January 2011, the last time her party ran the House and the first time the speaker was a woman. Wednesday's accord gives Pelosi a clear path to becoming the most powerful Democrat in government and a leading role in confronting President Donald Trump during the upcoming 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. It moves a 78-year-old white woman to the cusp of steering next year's diverse crop of House Democrats, with its large number of female, minority and younger members. The agreement also ends what's been a distracting, harsh leadership fight among Democrats that has been waged since Election Day, when they gained at least 39 seats and grabbed House control for the next Congress. It was their biggest gain of House seats since the 1974 post-Watergate election. Democrats have been hoping to train public attention on their 2019 agenda focusing on health care, jobs and wages, and building infrastructure projects. They also envision investigations of Trump, his 2016 presidential campaign and his administration. To line up support, Pelosi initially resorted to full-court lobbying by congressional allies, outside Democratic luminaries, and liberal and labor organizations. She cut deals with individual lawmakers for committee assignments and roles leading legislative efforts. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, walks past reporters at the Capitol after a classified briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel to the House leadership about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the involvement by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) But in the end, she had to make concessions about her tenure to make sure she'll win a majority - likely 218 votes - when the new House convenes Jan. 3. Democrats are likely to have 235 seats, meaning she could spare only 17 defections and still prevail if, as expected, Republicans all oppose her. Pelosi had described herself as a transitional leader over the last several weeks. But she'd resisted defining how long she would serve as speaker, saying it would lessen her negotiating leverage to declare herself a lame duck. On Wednesday, she gave in to her opponents' demands that she limit her service. Under the deal, House Democrats will vote by Feb. 15 to change party rules to limit their top three leaders to no more than four two-year terms, including time they've already spent in those jobs. "I am comfortable with the proposal and it is my intention to abide by it whether it passes or not," Pelosi said in her statement. Pelosi's opponents have argued it was time for younger leaders to command the party. They also said her demonization as an out-of-touch radical in tens of millions of dollars' worth of Republican television ads was costing Democrats seats. While some Democrats are still certain to vote against Pelosi - especially incoming freshmen who promised to do so during their campaigns - most Democrats have remained solidly behind her. She's been a strong fundraiser and unrelenting liberal who doesn't shy from political combat, and her backers complained that her opponents were mostly white men who were largely more moderate than most House Democrats. Pressure to back Pelosi seemed to grow after she calmly went toe-to-toe with Trump at a nationally televised verbal brawl in the Oval Office on Tuesday over his demands for congressional approval of $5 billion for his proposed border wall with Mexico. "We are proud that our agreement will make lasting institutional change that will strengthen our caucus and will help develop the next generation of Democratic leaders," the rebellious lawmakers said in a written statement. To be nominated to a fourth term under the agreement, Pelosi would need to garner a two-thirds majority of House Democrats. Several aides said they believed restlessness by younger members to move up in leadership would make that difficult for her to achieve. The limits would also apply to Pelosi's top lieutenants, No. 2 leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and No. 3 leader James Clyburn of South Carolina. Both are also in their late 70s. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., was among 16 Democrats who had signed a letter demanding new leadership but who ultimately helped negotiate the deal with Pelosi. Joining Perlmutter in saying they would now back her were Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; Tim Ryan of Ohio; Bill Foster of Illinois; Linda Sanchez and Rep.-elect Gil Cisernos, both of California; and Filemon Vela of Texas. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, the speaker-designate for the new Congress in January, walks past reporters at the Capitol after a classified briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel to the House leadership about thekilling of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and, the involvement by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. The Senate is preparing for a possible vote on two resolutions to condemn Saudi Arabia for its role in the slaying. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he spoke by telephone Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump about migration and job creation. The issue came to the fore last month when a caravan of about 7,000 migrants arrived in the border city of Tijuana and some attempted to enter the United States. "In respectful and friendly terms, we spoke about the migration issue and the possibility of implementing a joint program of development and job creation in Central America and our country," Lopez Obrador wrote in his Twitter account. The Mexican president has called on the United States to join in a "Marshall Plan" effort to commit about $20 billion in public and private investment in Central America to create jobs, so people there won't have to emigrate. Despite their differences in background and policy, the relationship between the two leaders has been quite cordial. Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1, has said he hopes to make migration a choice, not a necessity, for poor people of the region. Earlier Wednesday, Mexico's top security official said the government will close off illegal entries at its southern border with Guatemala, but didn't say exactly how the country plans to accomplish that daunting task. FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2018 file photo, Salvadoran migrants cross the Suchiate River near Tecun Uman, Guatemala, the border with Mexico, as the caravan of Central American migrants make its way north with the stated purpose of entering the United States. Mexico will end the practice of undocumented or illegal crossings over the Suchiate River, which marks much of the border between the two countries, Mexico's Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero said on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Oscar Rivera, File) Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero said the new administration will end the practice of undocumented or illegal crossings over the Suchiate River, which marks much of the border between Mexico and Guatemala. "In the south there will be only one entry, on the bridge," she said. "Anyone who wants to enter illegally, we are going to say: 'Get in line and you can enter our country.'" Sanchez Cordero offered no details on how that would be done, however. In late October, Mexican authorities briefly tried to block a migrant caravan from crossing the river with ranks of police and military personnel, a helicopter and boats but the migrants crossed anyway. Sanchez Cordero said the migrant caravan that crossed the southern border in October "is no longer an issue." "Do you know why it is no longer an issue? Because in five days this administration solved the issue, five days," she said, referring to the first week since Lopez Obrador took office. "The United States was impressed." The new administration has mobilized material and equipment to improve conditions at the migrants' shelter in the northern border city of Tijuana, but problems continue because the Central American there are frustrated by the slow pace at which U.S. officials are processing asylum requests. Sanchez Cordero said Mexico will promote a "Christmas at Home" campaign to encourage many of the migrants to return to their home countries for the holidays. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina man sentenced to prison for impersonating an Army general is now charged with impersonating a law enforcement officer. WRAL-TV in Raleigh reports an arrest warrant says 58-year-old Christian Gerald Desgroux of Raleigh called 911 on Nov. 27 and told a dispatcher he was a federal officer following a white van carrying 10 people with an explosive device inside. The warrant said that when police arrived, Desgroux continued to represent himself as a federal officer. Desgroux was sentenced to six months in prison in July for impersonating a three-star general while landing a chartered helicopter at the corporate campus of SAS Institute, saying he was on a mission authorized by the president. Authorities say his story was meant to impress a woman who worked there. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) A special congressional session to pass the 2019 budget before the yearend is no longer in the works, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said Friday. "The Senate feels that it does not enough time to finish plenary debate. The House submitted the GAB (General Appropriations Bill) to the Senate with a great deal of delay," Diokno told CNN Philippines in a message. READ: Budget chief to recommend to Duterte: Call for special Congress session on 2019 budget Senate President Tito Sotto earlier said even if Congress is called to a special session next week, there is no more time to introduce amendments in the 3.757-trillion budget bill. Congress adjourned on December 14 for the holidays, and will resume in January 14, 2019. The Constitution states that until a new budget law is passed, government will operate on the previous year's budget, which, among others, means there are no new projects. Diokno had said re-enacting the budget may cause delays in infrastructure projects, job losses, and higher poverty level. He added the reenacted budget could result in a economic growth impact of -1.1 to -2.3 percent in 2019. The House of Representatives passed the budget bill on November 20. MIAMI (AP) - Authorities say a Florida police officer is dead following an all-terrain vehicle crash. Miami-Dade police say the officer was patrolling an area near a canal Wednesday afternoon when he hit a tree. Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez says officers had been in the area west of Cutler Bay following nuisance and theft complaints by residents. Police say the officer had been called to an enforcement action just before the crash. Perez says the crash is being investigated. The officer's name wasn't immediately released because officials were still trying to notify members of his family. WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the government agency that monitors climate change says that in nearly two years he has never discussed the issue with President Donald Trump. Acting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Adm. Timothy Gallaudet said in a press conference at a scientific meeting this week, "I personally have not briefed the president on climate change." Gallaudet said he doesn't know if others had briefed the president. He did note that he was in the room when Trump signed a bill aimed at keeping plastic trash out of the ocean. By contrast, Oregon State University marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco, who served as NOAA chief in the first four years of the Obama administration, said she talked with President Barack Obama about climate change every two to three months. "I have been told by my various predecessors that most never met with the President, of if they did, it was only once or twice," Lubchenco said in an email Tuesday. "I think this says more about President Obama than it does about other NOAA Administrators." Obama, she said, "consistently highlighted science as a key underpinning of his administration." President Donald Trump attends a ceremony to sign an executive order establishing the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Obama's science adviser, John Holdren, estimates that over eight years he briefed the president about climate change more than 50 times. Trump has dismissed his administration's warnings about the impact of climate change, including a recent government forecast that it could lead to economic losses of hundreds of billions of dollars a year by the end of the century. "There is no sign that President Trump is interested in input from anybody on the scientific facts around climate change," said Holdren, now a professor of environmental policy at Harvard. "And his uninformed rejection of those facts - reflected in his administration's misguided policies on coal, offshore drilling, automotive fuel economy, clean-energy R&D, the Paris Agreement, and assistance to developing countries on climate-change mitigation and adaptation - is doing immense damage to the prospects for averting a wholly unmanageable degree of global climate change." The White House Office of Science and Technology and Policy hasn't been briefing the president because it is waiting for its director to be confirmed by the Senate, according to a source familiar with the office who asked not to be identified so as not to conflict with White House messaging. Trump nominated University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Kelvin Droegemeier in July, 18 months after taking office. Commerce Department spokeswoman Rebecca Glover, asked about whether Trump had been briefed, said in a statement that NOAA representatives meet "with the White House on a regular basis on a wide variety of topics that impact the U.S. and U.S. policy." She did not say whom at the White House was briefed. The White House said the president gets energy and climate briefings from its own policy people, not specifically addressing briefings from scientists and on climate science. Gallaudet acknowledged the lack of presidential briefings during a meeting this week of the American Geophysical Union. "Climate change is real, and we are already suffering the serious consequences. Humans are the dominant cause and if we don't take urgent action it will only get worse. That's a conclusion based on real scientific data," said Chris McEntee, chief executive officer of the 100-year-old scientific society. "The president of the United States has access to some of the best scientific data and the brightest scientific minds in the world - in his own agencies and through reports like the recent National Climate Assessment. It is critical that he access that expertise and data to avoid further risk to the health and safety of the American public." Pennsylvania State University ice scientist Richard Alley, a Republican most of his life, said: "Many scientists_dedicated, nonpartisan, knowledgeable - would happily provide administration officials with briefings or background information. The science is solid, and the full scholarship shows that making efficient use of our scientific knowledge will help the economy as well as the environment." NEW YORK (AP) - The parent company of magazines including the National Enquirer, Us Weekly and In Touch has admitted to engaging in a journalistically dubious practice known as "catch-and-kill" in order to help Donald Trump become president. Federal prosecutors revealed Wednesday they had agreed not to prosecute American Media Inc. for secretly assisting Trump's campaign by paying $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump. The company then intentionally suppressed McDougal's story until after the election. Wednesday's development brought fresh attention to "catch-and-kill," in which a publication pays for exclusive rights to someone's story with no intention of publishing it, either as a favor to a celebrity subject or to gain leverage over the person. Media organizations have a right not to run stories, but AMI acknowledged that its payments to McDougal were done specifically to assist Trump's election bid and were made "in concert" with his campaign. Prosecutors said that makes the payment an illegal corporate campaign contribution. Prosecutors announced their non-cooperation agreement with AMI the same day that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including helping to orchestrate the McDougal payoff. The non-prosecution agreement also requires AMI to train employees on federal election law standards and hire a lawyer to consult regarding any future payments "to acquire stories involving individuals running for office." The Associated Press has reported that AMI kept a safe that stored documents on hush-money payments to McDougal and other damaging stories it killed as part of its relationship with Trump, who is longtime friends with the company's president, David Pecker. In this Dec. 11, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a meets with Democratic leaders the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The parent company of magazines including the National Enquirer, Us Weekly and In Touch has admitted to engaging in a journalistically dubious practice known as "catch-and-kill" in order to help Trump become president. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) The company, in keeping such secrets, ingratiated itself with celebrities and used the information to ask for favors in return. Former National Enquirer employees told The Associated Press that damaging stories about Trump were deemed dead on arrival at the tabloid dating back to when Trump starred on NBC's "The Apprentice." The president has denied the affairs and said the payments were "a simple private transaction," not a campaign contribution. According to AMI's statement to prosecutors, Pecker approached Trump in August 2015 with an offer "to help deal with negative stories" about his relationships with women by identifying such stories "so they could be purchased and their publication avoided." AMI declined to comment Wednesday. It had previously denied killing stories for anything other than journalistic reasons. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A former Sacramento Kings top executive agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to siphoning $13.4 million from the team to buy Southern California beachfront properties, court records showed. Federal prosecutors in Sacramento simultaneously filed felony fraud charges and a plea agreement signed by former chief revenue officer Jeffrey David admitting to forging the team president's signature to divert sponsorship payments to a bank account he controlled. Court records showed David agreed to relinquish the properties, which have been sold for $14.8 million and the team is expected to recoup the stolen funds. David, 44, is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud and identity theft in January and faces at least two years in prison, court records show. David's lawyer Mark Reichel didn't return a phone call. The Sacramento Bee first reported the plea deal Wednesday. Prosecutors say the scheme was uncovered soon after David left the Kings in June after his position was eliminated and he accepted a similar post with the Miami Heat. The Heat in September said the team and David "parted ways" after the Bee reported he was under investigation in August. A Kings employee reviewing computer files David left behind found a folder labeled "TurboTax" that contained incriminating evidence, court records showed. According to prosecutors, David convinced sponsors with 20-year contracts to make larger initial payments in exchange for lower annual payments later. David had the authority to negotiate those deals but needed the approval of the team's president and forged his signature, court records showed. Kings chief operating officer Matina Kolokotronis thanked the FBI and federal prosecutors for their "swift action to hold Jeff David accountable and to recover all of the Kings organization's assets." HOUSTON (AP) - The Latest on a Brazilian couple sentenced in Texas for helping their daughter kidnap their grandson. (all times local): 6:10 p.m. A Brazilian woman who remains a fugitive from U.S. authorities over charges she abducted her son says she's shocked and saddened by a judge's decision to send her parents to prison. Marcelle Guimaraes' parents received light sentences Wednesday for helping their daughter kidnap their grandson and keep him in Brazil the last five years, away from his father in Houston. In a Skype call with reporters in Houston from her apartment in the Brazilian city of Salvador, Marcelle Guimaraes says her parents have done nothing wrong. Her parents, Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes, say they helped their daughter because they believed she was a victim of domestic violence. Marcelle Guimaraes accused her ex-husband, Christopher Brann, of being violent on numerous occasions. Brann has denied being abusive toward his ex-wife. ___ 2:40 p.m. A federal judge has sentenced a Brazilian couple to minimal prison sentences for helping their daughter kidnap their grandson, who has been living in Brazil for the last five years after being taken from Texas. Carlos Guimaraes was sentenced to three months in prison while his wife Jemima received a one-month term during a court hearing Wednesday in Houston federal court. The couple told the judge they believed they did nothing wrong and were only supporting their daughter because they believed she was a victim of domestic abuse. They were arrested in February after flying to Miami. A jury in May convicted them of kidnapping but acquitted them of a related conspiracy charge. The daughter Marcelle Guimaraes, who violated a custody order in a divorce case, is a fugitive and remains in Brazil with her 9-year-old son, Nico. The boy's father is American and lives in Houston. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Two former North Carolina state troopers accused of beating a pedestrian face new charges they sought to obstruct the investigation. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said in an email that Tabithia Davis and Michael Blake were charged this week with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice. Davis and Blake were among officers previously charged in the videotaped assault on Kyron Hinton in Raleigh April 3. A deputy was also charged. The grand jury also charged former Highway Patrol Sgt. Rodney Goswick with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice. Attorneys for Blake released a statement saying he is a longtime public servant who neither committed criminal assault nor obstructed justice. Attorneys for Davis and Goswick didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment. LAS VEGAS (AP) - A man washing windows at the Trump International hotel near the Las Vegas Strip has fallen to his death. Authorities declined to release any other details about the how the man died early Wednesday afternoon. Teri Williams of Nevada's Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed that the state agency is investigating the death. A statement released on behalf of the Trump Organization says the business is deeply saddened by the death and working with the third-party owner to investigate the details. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on cyber threats from China (all times local): 7:05 p.m. Investigators believe hackers working on behalf of China's main intelligence agency are responsible for a massive data breach involving the theft of personal information from as many as 500 million guests of the Marriott hotel chain. That's according to a U.S. official briefed on the investigation, who spoke Wednesday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an ongoing investigation. The official says investigators suspect the hackers were working on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, based on. The official says investigators are particularly concerned about the breach in part because Marriott is frequently used by military and government officials. The hack included the theft of credit card and passport numbers over four years from guests who stayed at hotels previously operated by Starwood. - Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington __ 11:20 a.m. National security officials say cyber threats from China and its theft of intellectual property from American companies pose large economic and national security challenges for the United States. Officials from the Justice Department, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security told the Senate Judiciary Committee that China is working to steal trade secrets and intellectual property from U.S. companies in order to harm America's economy. Assistant Attorney General John Demers says, "We cannot tolerate a nation that steals the fruit of our brainpower." Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence division, says federal officials are doing everything they can to convey the current threat to business leaders and government officials. ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Five people on trial for an alleged ring that prosecutors said sold Thai women for sex in the U.S. were convicted Wednesday on sex trafficking charges. A federal jury in Minnesota found all five guilty of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and other charges, the Star Tribune reported . Jurors returned their verdict just a day after receiving the case. The defendants were Michael Morris, 65, of Seal Beach, California; Pawinee Unpradit, 46, of Dallas; Saowapha Thinram, 44, of Hutto, Texas; Thoucharin Ruttanamongkongul, 35, of Chicago; and Waralee Wanless, 39, of Colony, Texas. Prosecutors alleged during the six-week trial that the defendants, along with 34 co-conspirators, ran a sex trafficking operation that lasted more than a decade and crossed borders. "Sex trafficking is an industry that is built on supply and demand, and this organization fed that industry," U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said Wednesday, calling the case one of the largest trafficking networks ever dismantled at the federal level. "It exploited, it abused, enslaved and sold women in response to the high demand for commercial sex that exists not only in the United States but here in Minnesota." Government attorneys called it a case of "modern day sex slavery," with Thai women forced to have sex with multiple men daily to pay off "bondage debts" owed to traffickers for help coming to the U.S. Some victims testified during the trial. After the verdicts, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Erica MacDonald called the sex trafficking operation one of largest, most sophisticated transnational sex rings ever dismantled on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in St. Paul, Minn. Five people on trial for an alleged ring that prosecutors said sold Thai women for sex in the U.S. were convicted Wednesday on sex trafficking charges. (Stephen Montemayor/Star Tribune via AP) Prosecutors said the victims were misled about how much they owed. The women were threatened if they tried to leave the business, prosecutors alleged. Defense attorneys for all five contended the women were willful participants. Paul Engh, an attorney for Thinram, predicted all five defendants will appeal. ___ Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com GALLUP, N.M. (AP) - A judge on Wednesday reduced bail for the mother of an 8-month-old girl who police say was shot in the face at a New Mexico motel. Following a hearing, New Mexico State District Judge Robert Baca decided to decrease the bond for Shayanne Nelson from $50,000 to $20,000. Nelson, 18, was arrested after telling police she was in a Gallup motel shower with her boyfriend, Tyrell Bitsilly, 21, when her 3-year-old boy found a gun and accidentally shot the infant. Nelson said she believed the gun was left in the room by a prior occupant. Nelson and Bitsilly are facing child abuse charges. Bitsilly also was charged with tampering with evidence. He remained held on $70,000 bond. It was not clear if Nelson had posted bail. Her attorney, Teresa Gomez, didn't answer her phone and her voicemail wasn't accepting messages. Bitsilly's attorney, John Bernitz, said police believe the shooting was an accident. FILE - In this May 29, 2007, file photo, vehicles drive past in Zia Motel on Historic Route 66 in Gallup, N.M. The medical condition of an 8-month-old girl who police say was shot in the face at the motel remains a mystery. The girl's mother Shayanne Nelson, says her 3-year-old son found a gun and accidentally shot the infant while Nelson and her boyfriend were in the shower. (Brian Leddy/Gallup Independent via AP, File) "The hotel they were staying in is often frequented by people who are down on their luck," Bernitz said. "(Nelson and Bitsilly) believe the gun was left by a previous occupant." Police said no other adults were in the room at the time of the shooting. A witness told police he saw Bitsilly wipe the handgun after it occurred. The criminal complaint does not detail the severity of the baby's wound. "Right now detectives are combing through leads," Gallup Police Capt. Marinda Spencer said. "The investigation is ongoing." Police said the baby was taken to Gallup Indian Medical Center - a hospital on the border of the Navajo Reservation and a facility with the U.S. Indian Health Service. Spencer said the department has not received any medical updates since Tuesday when the center listed the baby in critical condition. Genevieve Notah, a coordinator for the U.S. Indian Health Service on the Navajo Nation, did not immediately respond to an email. University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center spokeswoman Alex Sanchez declined to say if the girl was being treated at the University of New Mexico Hospital - the state's only trauma center for children. Gallup is located 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Albuquerque and borders the Navajo Nation near the Arizona border. The unemployment rate in city is roughly twice the national average. This combination of Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018 booking photos providing by McKinley County Adult Detention Center shows Shayanne Nelson, left, and Tyrell Bitsilly, right. Nelson's 8-month-old girl is fighting for her life after police say her 3-year-old brother accidentally shot her in the face Saturday in a Gallup, N.M., motel room while Nelson and her boyfriend Bitsilly were in a shower. Nelson and Bitsilly face child abuse charges. (McKinley County Adult Detention Center via AP) This Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018 booking photo providing by McKinley County Adult Detention Center shows Shayanne Nelson. Nelson's 8-month-old girl is fighting for her life after police say her 3-year-old brother accidentally shot her in the face Saturday in a Gallup, N.M., motel room while Nelson and her boyfriend Tyrell Bitsilly were in a shower. Nelson and Bitsilly face child abuse charges. (McKinley County Adult Detention Center via AP) Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad: ___ Dec. 12 The Telegraph on British Prime Minister Theresa May surviving her leadership challenge: Theresa May will travel to Brussels to seek further assurances about the status of the Irish backstop provision in the EU Withdrawal Agreement, in an attempt to salvage the deal she has yet to put to Parliament, fearing its defeat. In other words, despite yesterday's dramas at Westminster, where the Prime Minister survived a challenge to her leadership of the Conservative Party, nothing appears to have changed, save in one crucial respect. Her authority has been further damaged by the fact that 117 of her MPs have no confidence in her stewardship of the party or the Government. That represents well over one third of the party and a sizeable chunk of the backbenchers, assuming that the so-called payroll vote of ministers and aides supported her. When Margaret Thatcher defeated Michael Heseltine in the first round of their leadership contest in 1990, albeit not by enough to avoid a second ballot, she was told by the Cabinet that her time was up and she resigned. At the time, she had a Commons majority of 100 and had never lost an election. By contrast, Mrs May has no Commons majority and has never won an election outright. Yet she is sustained in position by the party's terror of what might happen if she leaves office in the current circumstances. Yes, she has won a confidence vote; but she has been weakened. She has also confirmed what many had already assumed: that she will not fight the next general election. She meant 2022 - but it might be much earlier than she anticipates and this will cause more unsettling ambiguity. This gives the Cabinet greater power, which could yet be her undoing. Liam Fox, the Trade Secretary, gave an early sign of ministerial muscle-flexing by saying the Cabinet might not let her put the Withdrawal Agreement to Parliament without further cast-iron guarantees to ensure that it is passed. For now, the Prime Minister has been given some breathing space. The long-anticipated coup mounted by the Brexiteers backfired when the Prime Minister and Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee chairman, agreed to expedite the contest once he had received the required 48 letters needed to trigger one. Brexiteers had worked on the assumption that the vote would be staged next week, by which time the Prime Minister's fate might have been sealed by a long weekend of speculation about her future. However, Downing Street denied them that chance by calling the vote immediately, allowing her critics no time to mobilise. She chose the ground and the timing for the fight and saw them off. But how has that helped matters? The Prime Minister remains in the same quandary, wedded to a deal that she cannot get Parliament to agree or the EU to change. She is adept at delaying decisions, largely because she knows confronting them will bring matters to a head. That is why she pulled the Commons vote on Tuesday, knowing she would lose heavily but without a plan for winning. Online: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ ___ Dec. 11 The Washington Post on Google chief executive Sundar Pichai's appearance before Congress: Google Chief executive Sundar Pichai's appearance before Congress on Tuesday augured an era of increased scrutiny for technology companies. The hearing was also a swan song for a Republican majority that has chosen to prioritize political posturing over more pressing issues about how powerful firms manage consumer data, and how they wield their influence in the world. Members of the conservative majority on the House Judiciary Committee spent much of their time hammering Mr. Pichai with baseless accusations that Google rigs its search results to censor conservative content. Black-box algorithms will inevitably prioritize some content over other content, and to the extent companies can be transparent about how their systems work, they should be. But a single-minded and mindless focus on a nonexistent left-wing conspiracy within Google has had the paradoxical effect of discouraging companies from properly policing their platforms, as they hesitate to remove content that should be removed for fear of unfounded criticism. In a visit to The Post after his hearing, Mr. Pichai said the moderation of misinformation and domestic extremism on YouTube is an area where Google could improve. He also cautioned, fairly, that such actions must be weighed against the importance of free speech. The bias obsession has distracted from the more important subjects that Congress has failed to address these past two years. That seems likely to change when Democrats take control of the House in January. The first subject likely to draw more attention is privacy. Mr. Pichai was pressed to lay out, piece by piece, each treasure in the trove of information his company collects on consumers, from name to age to address to minute-by-minute location - mostly used for targeted advertising. Google has gotten ahead of the impending debate by signaling its support for a federal privacy framework, but it's up to lawmakers to turn vague protection principles into meaningful policy. That means ensuring users know and have some say in what data companies are collecting from them, exactly what it is being used for and who else is getting to see it. Committee members also expressed interest in examining Google's potential anticompetitive behavior. The incoming chairman of the antitrust subcommittee, Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), indicated his interest in "structural antitrust," code for corporate breakups. But the broader appetite for so radical a move is probably limited. Initially, Google seems more likely to face increased attention to charges that it systemically downranks local search results from its competitors. Finally, legislators lambasted Mr. Pichai over Project Dragonfly, Google's exploratory effort to launch a search engine in China. Mr. Pichai insisted time and time again that Google has "no plans" to re-enter the Chinese market, but he refused to rule out the possibility of a product that would aid in government repression and surveillance. These questions represent only a start at confronting Google's role in society and how lawmakers might regulate it. Fewer minutes spent harping on bias allegations might have allowed time for further-reaching inquiries. Hopefully, that's what the new year will bring. Online: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ___ Dec. 11 Los Angeles Times on William Barr's qualifications for attorney general and protecting special counsel Robert Mueller from White House interference: President Trump's announcement that he will nominate William Barr to serve as U.S. attorney general - a position Barr also held under President George H.W. Bush - eases concerns that he would seek to replace ousted Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions with a loyalist with meager legal credentials. But Barr needs to convince the U.S. Senate of something far more important than his undeniable qualifications: his commitment to protect special counsel Robert S. Mueller III from White House interference. Such an assurance is important first and foremost because of Trump's outrageous attacks on Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. But it's also necessary because of past statements by Barr that echo some of Trump's jabs at Mueller. Barr also seemed to defend Trump's call for a Justice Department investigation of Hillary Clinton, telling the New York Times last year: "There is nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation." That falls far short of saying "Lock her up," and Barr did add that "an investigation shouldn't be launched just because a president wants it." But his comment was still troubling. Finally, Barr suggested that Clinton's limited role as secretary of state in approving a Russian agency's acquisition of a majority stake in a uranium company was worthier of investigation than a possible conspiracy involving Trump campaign associates and Russia. Trump has called the uranium deal "the biggest story that Fake Media doesn't want to follow!" The Mueller investigation produced new information about contacts between former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and a Russian who offered the Trump campaign "political synergy." Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in New York have linked Trump more clearly to secret hush-money payments to alleged mistresses. Yet the president, who continues to insist that there was no collusion, tweeted Saturday that it's "Time for the Witch Hunt to END!" Barr must promise unequivocally that if he is confirmed he will allow Mueller and other prosecutors to complete their work freely and without political pressure. Online: https://www.latimes.com/ ___ Dec. 12 Boston Herald on President Donald Trump's promise of a wall on the border with Mexico: If President Trump is going to get his border wall built, this is the time to do it. Soon, he'll be dealing with a Democratic Congress and their leader, Nancy Pelosi, and that will likely be the end of any wall talk. The president has been tweeting about the issue this week and insists the utility of a wall has been on display. "Despite the large Caravans that WERE forming and heading to our Country," he wrote, "People have not been able to get through our newly built Walls, makeshift Walls & Fences, or Border Patrol Officers & Military. They are now staying in Mexico or going back to their original countries..." Trump also insisted that he looked forward to meeting with Sen. Charles Schumer and Pelosi, but suggested that they were eschewing a wall for "strictly political reasons." "If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall. They know how important it is!" Trump said. The president is seeking $5B to deliver on a major campaign promise. Despite all of the machinations in Washington, D.C., a wall is a matter of national security. The ball is in Trump's court. Excuses are easy to make. We will soon know the verdict on his much-touted negotiation prowess. Online: https://www.bostonherald.com/ ___ Dec. 11 Chicago Tribune on four journalists and a newspaper as Time magazine's Person of the Year: All journalists enjoy getting recognition for their work. But by nature and tradition, they'd much rather tell the story than be the story. What motivates reporters, from Maryland to Myanmar, is not the desire for fame. It's the hunger to break news, explain the world and hold the powerful accountable. A savvy reporter, if asked theoretically to choose between writing a Time magazine cover story and appearing on the cover, would surely pick the former. Why would a journalist ever get that spotlight? More likely than not due to some kind of bad news. Alas, it is so. Time's 2018 Person of the Year, revealed Tuesday, is a small group of intrepid journalists from around the world lauded in a cover story titled "The Guardians and the War on Truth." Six of the guardians are dead. Two are in jail in Myanmar. One faces charges in the Philippines. Journalists in many countries without guaranteed press freedom must take risks to report news that is critical of the government. In America, where the Constitution provides protections, anger and disdain toward the news media permeate hyperpartisan discourse. President Donald Trump has deemed pesky reporter types to be enemies of the people. Such inflammatory rhetoric, if taken to an extreme here or abroad, is dangerous. Yet as much as Time's story is focused on tragedy and injustice, it's also a defiant, affirming tale that shows reporters are tenacious souls. Their commitment to news is an occupational trait and occupational hazard. Journalists chase the truth the way first responders chase fires. A few hours after the shooting massacre at Maryland's Capital Gazette last June in which five people were killed, colleague Chase Cook, a reporter, declared in a tweet: "I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow." Journalists in any country would recognize that call to arms. And yes, the Gazette did publish the next morning. Time gave the staff of the Gazette its Person of the Year honor along with murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi; Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who faces tax fraud charges after her aggressive reporting on the government; and Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned in Myanmar after reporting on alleged genocide against the Rohingya Muslims. The inclusion of the Gazette staff is personal to us because it's a sister publication to the Chicago Tribune. The five Gazette employees killed by a gunman who allegedly held a grudge against the newspaper were Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith and John McNamara. Part of Time's purpose in honoring journalists is to highlight the jarring irony of assaults on the truth in the age of information: "This ought to be a time when democracy leaps forward, an informed citizenry being essential to self-government. Instead it's in retreat." A true though rather dour assessment of the digital age. Social media can be a great equalizer between the public and the powerful. Tweets from the streets can galvanize opposition to a dictator overnight. But the dictatorial don't give up without fighting back, and the internet doesn't take sides. Facebook and the like are merely tools available to all, for better and worse, in pursuit of facts or fictions. What can make a difference, Time submits, is the work of journalists dedicated to fair, diligently reported news and analysis. For journalists to be recognized, and remembered, is an honor. Many people in our profession were pleased to get the support, humbled by a moment in the limelight. Employees of our parent company, Tribune Publishing, paused Tuesday to reflect anew on the loss of our Gazette colleagues. And then we all went back to work. Online: https://www.chicagotribune.com/ ___ Dec. 11 The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia, on a government response to unwanted robocalls: How many of us have missed an important phone call because we didn't recognize the number? Nowadays if you don't recognize the number, you don't answer the phone. Why? Because of all those annoying robocalls. Some robocalls mask themselves by using a local number when the call really is made from far, far away. You can't even trust the caller ID on your phone anymore. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, reports of unwanted phone calls are rising. Nearly half of all cellphone calls next year will be spam, according to projections by First Orion, a caller ID firm. An article in USA Today quoted statistics from YouMail, a company that provides a service to block robocalls. The article said U.S. consumers and businesses received about 30.5 billion robocalls in 2017. That broke the record of 29.3 billion calls set the previous year. YouMail estimates the 2018 total will jump to roughly 48 billion. U.S. phones received some 6.1 million robocalls per hour in September 2018 alone, YouMail said. Help may be on the way. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said last week he had joined a bipartisan group of 40 attorneys general to stop or reduce annoying and harmful robocalls. The coalition is reviewing the technology major telecom companies are pursuing to combat illegal robocalls, which can make it appear that the incoming call is coming from a legitimate source, such as a well-known financial institution, business and/or government entity. "Our office receives numerous calls from West Virginia consumers annoyed by the prevalence and frequency of robocalls," Morrisey said in a news release. "By joining forces, I believe our coalition can work with the telecom companies and produce real results to quell these intrusions and stop scammers from taking advantage of West Virginians." Attorneys general from Ohio and Kentucky are also part of the coalition. Morrisey said the multi-state group he has joined has had in-depth meetings with several major telecom companies. The attorneys general share information about the technological capabilities already in existence or in development to fight these calls. The coalition is working to develop a detailed understanding of what is technologically feasible to minimize unwanted robocalls and illegal telemarketing, engaging the major telecom companies to encourage them to expedite the best possible solutions for consumers, and considering further recommendations the states should make to the Federal Communications Commission, Morrisey said. The coalition's efforts will enhance West Virginia's ability to enforce anti-spoofing legislation passed earlier this year, which prohibits any seller or telemarketer from misrepresenting its caller identification data in order to deceive the call's recipient, Morrisey said. Meanwhile, the FCC is considering action to create a national database of phone numbers that have been terminated and reassigned. The database would help prevent accidental robocalls to numbers that are no longer assigned to consumers who signed up to receive those calls. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who offered the FCC proposal on robocalls, has offered another proposal that he says will help prevent spam text messages. But spam messaging via texting is not nearly as troublesome as robocalls. Pai's announcement says as much. It says the spam rate for texts is estimated at 2.8 percent, while the spam rate for email is estimated at more than 50 percent. The sheer volume of robocalls renders cellphone service almost useless at times. It's good to see efforts are underway to limit the damage robocallers are doing to our ability to enjoy our phone service. Online: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/ HONOLULU (AP) - A Hawaii Air National Guard civilian contractor was in serious condition Wednesday after his plane crashed off the coast of Honolulu during a military exercise, authorities said. The pilot of the Hawker Hunter jet ejected safely from the plane, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam said in a statement. He was initially rescued by a private sailboat and then transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard. Honolulu Emergency Services spokesman Dustin Malama said the 47-year-old appeared to have traumatic injuries and was taken to a hospital. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said a Hawker Hunter jet went down in the ocean around 2:25 p.m. after taking off from Honolulu's airport. The pilot was rescued about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of Oahu near Honolulu's Sand Island, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The pilot had been participating in a military exercise called Sentry Aloha, which was temporarily suspended after the crash. The exercise will resume Thursday morning. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flies over rescue boats at the scene of plane crash off Honolulu, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said a Hawker Hunter jet went down in the ocean around 2:25 p.m. after taking off from Honolulu's airport. A civilian contractor for the Hawaii Air National Guard who was participating in a military exercise survived after his plane crashed off the coast of Honolulu, authorities said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones) The Hawaii Air National Guard was hosting the exercise, which involved about 800 personnel and 30 aircraft from nine states. The cause of the crash was under investigation, the military said. Departing flights from the Honolulu airport were held as a precaution for about 20 minutes, said Tim Sakahara, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. The Hawker Hunter is a British jet developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, said the website of defense contractor BAE Systems. Initially, a single-seat version was used as a maneuverable fighter aircraft. It was later used as both a fighter and bomber and for reconnaissance missions. The British navy and air force continued to use a two-seat version into the early 1990s. Britain exported the plane, and it was also used by the air forces of 21 other nations. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flies over rescue boats at the scene of plane crash off Honolulu, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said a Hawker Hunter jet went down in the ocean around 2:25 p.m. after taking off from Honolulu's airport. U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Sara Muir said the pilot is in stable condition after being rescued about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of Oahu near Honolulu's Sand Island. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones) MEXICO CITY (AP) - A U.N. rights group is criticizing a proposal by Mexico's leftist Morena party to broaden the list of charges that require suspects be jailed while on trial. The bill passed last week by Mexico's Senate adds four crimes to those considered so serious that suspects can't be released on bail or personal recognizance. The list currently includes serious crimes like murder, rape or terrorism, and the measure would broaden add corruption, weapons possession, child sex abuse and fuel theft from government pipelines. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention wrote in a statement Wednesday that pre-trial imprisonment should be imposed only on a case-by-case basis. At present, Mexican prosecutors can ask judges for pre-trial detention based on the threat a suspect could represent to society, witnesses or victims. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's return visit to Seoul appears unlikely to take place this month, a senior South Korean official said. Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in had agreed on Kim's visit to Seoul "in the near future" following their September summit in Pyongyang. Moon later said that Kim would come "within this year." Kim's possible trip to Seoul has been the focus of media attention in South Korea in the past two weeks. The presidential Blue House on Thursday quoted senior presidential adviser Yoon Young-chan as saying in a text message to local reporters on Wednesday that Kim's visit this year was "difficult." Yoon said Kim's trip early next year was still possible. Experts say Kim is reluctant to come because of stalled nuclear negotiations with the United States and worries about security arrangements in the South. FILE - In this April 27, 2018 file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in stroll together at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea. A senior South Korean official says it's unlikely that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Seoul this month. After a September summit in Pyongyang, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed on Kim's return visit to Seoul "in the near future." Kim's possible trip to Seoul has been the focus of media attention in the past days. The presidential Blue House on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018, quoted senior presidential adviser Yoon Young-chan as saying that Kim's visit within this year is "difficult." (Korea Summit Press Pool via AP, File) If Kim does visit Seoul, he will become the first North Korean leader to do so since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The Koreas are divided by the world's most heavily fortified border, and about 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea. Kim and Moon have taken a series of steps to reduce military tensions and boost ties this year. But they find it difficult to launch economic cooperation projects as the United States says it will maintain international sanctions on the North until it completes its nuclear disarmament. The negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea have produced no major breakthrough since Kim's summit with President Donald Trump in Singapore in June. In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, South Korean army Col. Yun Myung-shick, right, shakes hands with North Korean army Lt. Col. Ri Jong Su before crossing the Military Demarcation Line inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to inspect the dismantled North Korean guard post in the central section of the inter-Korean border in Cheorwon, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Dozens of North and South Korean soldiers crossed over the world's most heavily armed border Wednesday as they inspected the sites of their rival's front-line guard posts to verify they'd been removed, part of inter-Korean engagement efforts that come amid stalled U.S.-North Korea nuclear disarmament talks. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A California lawmaker arrested on suspicion of child cruelty said Wednesday the allegation stemmed from spanking his 7-year-old daughter. Democratic Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula said he spanked his daughter Sunday night and it's a punishment tool he rarely uses, the Fresno Bee newspaper reported . He said he has no plans to resign. "Everyone who knows us in the community and has seen us in the community knows that I'm a loving father," Arambula said while standing next to his wife, Elizabeth. "I care about my daughters deeply. And I'm just going through a process and trying the best I can to be a husband and father who's putting us back together again." Arambula is a former emergency room doctor who was elected in 2016 to represents parts of Fresno County. He has three daughters, ages 3, 6 and 7. He was arrested Monday after officials at Dailey Elementary Charter School reported a child with an injury, Fresno police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Arambula said he believes his daughter went to school angry and told a teacher about what had happened. He thanked the school, child protective services and the police for doing their jobs. File - In this Aug. 15, 2016 file photo, Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, D-Kingsburg, speaks at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. Arambula, arrested on suspicion of child cruelty, says he spanked his 7-year-old daughter. The Fresno Bee reports Arambula described what happened Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, and said he has no plans to resign. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) Arambula was released shortly after his arrest and has not been formally charged. His daughters stayed with his parents for two nights until child protective services said they could go back home Wednesday, the newspaper reported. "There's a process to be played out, and this process played out, and they determined that the kids should go back home," Arambula said. "I'm excited about that. But we have a job and a responsibility to continue to be good parents, and that's what I want to work on and will strive to do." Authorities will check in on the Arambulas in 30 days and suggested the family seek therapy, he said. Arambula's arrest was for a misdemeanor not a felony because the injury did not require medical attention, Dyer said, according to the Bee. Spanking a child is generally legal if it's in a fleshy area such as the buttocks but not if it's in a place likely to cause injury like the face, he said. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon hasn't commented on the arrest. ___ Information from: The Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com TOKYO (AP) - The surprise arrest of Nissan's former chairman on charges of falsifying financial reports is providing a window into possible corporate intrigue at the Japanese automaker. Japanese media and some analysts have raised the possibility that the charges against Carlos Ghosn were engineered to sideline him and give Nissan an excuse to end a lopsided alliance with French automaker Renault SA. "What is fascinating about this story is the politics of it," said Egor Matveyev, an assistant professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. "It certainly appears that it wants more power and control within the alliance. This whole situation may give Nissan the opportunity to reset, and to put all the blame on Renault and Ghosn." Ghosn's absence while he is held for questioning gives Nissan's side time to maneuver for more power, he said. Renault dispatched Ghosn to Nissan in 1999 to lead a spectacular turnaround and owns 43 percent of Nissan Motor Co., while Nissan owns 15 percent of Renault with no voting rights. Now, Nissan is more profitable than Renault. Talk of a merger between the two companies was raising resistance in Japan, where sentiments seem to be running in exactly the other direction. Nissan already feels it's more than paid back what it "once owed" Renault, while Renault doesn't want to lose "the golden egg" that is Nissan, said Etsuo Abe, a business management expert at Tokyo's Meiji University. In this May 12, 2016, photo, then Nissan Motor Co. President and CEO Carlos Ghosn speaks during a joint press conference with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. in Yokohama, near Tokyo. The Tokyo District Court decided Ghosn and another executive Greg Kelly, both arrested Nov. 19 for allegedly falsifying financial reports to underreport Ghosn's pay, will remain in custody through Dec. 20. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) "But when things get this messy, the only way out is divorce," he said. Long simmering dissent within Nissan's Japanese ranks is the backdrop to the Nov. 19 arrest of Ghosn and an American executive, Greg Kelly, on suspicion of falsifying financial reports. "Ghosn shock" and "Just like a coup," shouted headlines in both mainstream media and tabloids. As chairman at Nissan and chief executive of Renault as well as the alliance, Ghosn answered to a board headed by himself, holding key roles in determining pay packages and other decisions. Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa, who became co-CEO with Ghosn in 2016 and then sole chief last year, says the problems stemmed from his boss having too much power. In response to a reporter's question he denied the shake-up was a coup, but called Ghosn and Kelly the "masterminds." It's unclear if Saikawa will be tapped to replace Ghosn as chairman following his dismissal last month. Whether an executive from Renault or Nissan gets the job may signal where the Yokohama-based maker of the Leaf electric car and Infiniti luxury models is headed in the short run. A source close to Ghosn and his family told The Associated Press Ghosn was stunned and has been asserting his innocence. She said the allegations were unfounded, since the suspected unreported pay was deferred income he had not yet received. After Ghosn's arrest, Saikawa said Ghosn had misused company funds and assets. Japanese media pointed to spending on several luxury homes as evidence of such misconduct. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Ghosn's legal team has not released any statements, said the homes in Brazil, Lebanon and other cities were needed for security reasons. Nissan as a legal entity was charged Monday, along with Ghosn and Greg Kelly, another board member, with violating financial laws in underreporting Ghosn's income by millions of dollars over several years. But Nissan has not been put under any kind of supervision, and so far only Ghosn and Kelly have been named in the charges. They are being held at a Tokyo detention center at least until Dec. 20. Whatever the motivations for their arrests, Ghosn has been effectively sidelined indefinitely: Under Japan's legal system, long criticized as "hostage justice," a suspect can remain in custody for months. Trials often take years. The latest scandal followed other setbacks for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, despite it having led the industry with sales of 10.6 million vehicles in 2017. Under Saikawa, Nissan's sales and profits have faltered, especially in the key North American market. The company also has acknowledged a slew of violations of inspection rules for emissions and mileage tests and faulty checks of its finished vehicles at plants in Japan. Some fear Nissan's relationship with Renault may have been damaged beyond repair: Renault has demanded more information from Nissan, and held off on replacing Ghosn as chief executive, while naming Deputy CEO Thierry Bollore as acting chief. A breakup with Renault would be painful. The alliance's shared components, technology, production plants and personnel have helped drive its success. Losing that synergy and scale could put the companies at a disadvantage with rivals like Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp. At a time when the industry is undergoing a shift to electrification, net connectivity and artificial intelligence, the advantage of scale is likely to accelerate in coming years. So far, the alliance has stayed intact, at least in public. Both French President Emanuel Macron - France has a 15 percent stake in Renault - and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are voicing their support. To gain more balance in alliance stake-holdings, Nissan could issue new shares. It also could raise its stake in Renault, though that process could get complicated and involve legal battles. Some analysts say Ghosn's ouster also reflects nationalism at Nissan. "There is a strong sense among Nissan employees that Nissan must be Japanese," said Tetsuya Watanabe, a critic on economic issues, describing the handling of Ghosn's case as "kamikaze." Takaki Nakanishi, auto analyst and chief executive at Nakanishi Research Institute Co. in Tokyo, said the "traditional people at Nissan" were unhappy that foreign interests had more say in management than they did. "They were also afraid Nissan will be unfairly used for French stakeholders or the ambitions of Carlos Ghosn," he said. "Inside Nissan, I felt, there was a lot of confusion, complaining, fear." ___ Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama On Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/yurikageyama/?hl=en In this Nov. 21, 2018, photo, a man walks past the logo, left, of Nissan Motor Co. at its Global Headquarters in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Japanese media say Tokyo prosecutors charged Nissan former chairman Carlos Ghosn on Monday, Dec. 10, 2018, with underreporting his income by 5 billion yen ($44 million) over five years, with another executive and the company. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodia's Parliament passed legislation Thursday that could allow the lifting of a five-year ban on political activity by some top opposition politicians. The action is the latest in a low-key charm offensive to improve relations with Western nations that accuse Prime Minister Hun Sen's government of suppressing human and democratic rights. The U.S. and Germany have already instituted some diplomatic sanctions against Cambodia, and Washington and the European Union have threatened to extend economic ones as well. The main point of contention has been this past July's general election, which critics charge was neither free nor fair because the only credible opposition party had been dissolved and its candidates barred from politics. The late-2017 dissolution of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party by court order was generally seen as a move to ensure an election victory by Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party. The legislature's action would allow the 118 top members of the Cambodia National Rescue Party to apply to have their bans lifted. However, there are conditions for restoring political rights that some opposition politicians have already rejected. Hun Sen, at a meeting Wednesday with garment workers, said the ban would be rescinded only for those politicians who had honored it, while those who violated it could face a prison term. FILE - In this July 29, 2018, file photo, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen shows off his inked finger after voting at a polling station in Takhmua, Kandal province, southeast of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Cambodia's Parliament on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018, passed legislation that could allow a five-year ban on political activity by top opposition politicians to be lifted. The action was the latest in a low-key charm offensive to improve relations with Western nations that accuse Hun Sen's government of suppressing human and democratic rights. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith, File) Cambodia's Foreign Affairs Ministry earlier this month listed the legislation that could cut short political bans as one of several examples of how the government is seeking "to improve the political climate and democratic space for the citizens to exercise their legitimate rights and freedoms in the spirit of national reconciliation." Since the election, Hun Sen's government has made a series of gestures in an effort to burnish its reputation. These include the freeing, either on bail or with pardons, of political prisoners including the head of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, Kem Sokha, who was charged last year with treason on the basis of scant evidence. He is now being held under house arrest. Many of the banned opposition politicians fled Cambodia in fear of arrest, and restoration of their political rights alone would appear to leave them in the political wilderness. There are no guarantees that new legal actions would not be taken against them in the courts, which are generally seen as being under the government's influence. Sam Rainsy, another former leader of the opposition party now in exile, said on his Facebook page Tuesday that he wished to tell Hun Sen "that he doesn't need to reconsider our cases because we are not interested in recovering our political rights as long as Mr. Kem Sokha, who is the CNRP President, has not recovered his full freedom and as long as all charges against him have not been dropped." However, feuding between factions of the opposition party loyal to its two former presidents, Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy, jeopardize a united front against the government's invitation to rejoin the political scene. Senate rebukes Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi, Yemen war WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators voted Thursday to recommend that the U.S. end its assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and put the blame for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi squarely on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a direct challenge to both the longtime Middle East ally and President Donald Trump's handling of the relationship. The succession of bipartisan votes came two months after the Saudi journalist's slaying at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and after Trump persistently equivocated over who was responsible. U.S. intelligence officials concluded that bin Salman must have at least known of the plot, but Trump has repeatedly praised the kingdom. Senators made clear where they put the blame. The resolution, passed by unanimous agreement, says the Senate believes the crown prince is "responsible for the murder" and calls for the Saudi Arabian government to "ensure appropriate accountability." Senators voted 56-41 to recommend that the U.S. stop supporting the war in Yemen, a direct affront to the administration's war powers abilities. The floor action brought an unusual show of bipartisan resolve in the Senate over U.S foreign policy, even amid an uncertain outcome as the measures move to the House. ___ EU leaders wary of May's plea for help selling Brexit deal BRUSSELS (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May implored European Union leaders Thursday to help her sell the Brexit divorce deal at home, only to be told that her proposals are not clear enough for the bloc to offer a helping hand now. Instead, the EU said it would plow ahead with plans for a cliff-edge "no-deal" Brexit on March 29, with a raft of contingency measures to be presented next week. May came to an EU summit in Brussels seeking support after a week that saw her Brexit deal pilloried in Parliament and her job threatened by lawmakers from her own party. She pleaded with the 27 other EU leaders to "hold nothing in reserve" in helping her sell the Brexit deal to hostile British lawmakers. "There is a majority in my Parliament who want to leave with a deal, so with the right assurances this deal can be passed," May said, warning her EU counterparts that failure could mean Britain crashing out of the bloc without a deal, "with all the disruption that would bring." EU officials, however, seemed exasperated at the lack of concrete new ideas from Britain. A proposal for encouraging wording offering to give the U.K. further assurances was left out of the leaders' final summit conclusions on Brexit. ___ Strasbourg market attack suspect killed in police shootout STRASBOURG, France (AP) - The man authorities believe killed three people during a rampage near a Christmas market in Strasbourg died Thursday in a shootout with police at the end of a two-day manhunt, French authorities said. The Paris prosecutor's office, which handles terror cases in France, formally identified the man killed in the eastern French city as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, speaking earlier from Strasbourg, said police had spotted a man matching the suspect's description in the city's Neudorf neighborhood. "The moment they tried to arrest him, he turned around and opened fire. They replied," killing the man, Castaner said. Chekatt was suspected of killing three people and wounding 13 near Strasbourg's Christmas market on Tuesday night. Castaner said earlier Thursday that three of the injured had been released from hospital and three others were still fighting for their lives. ___ Canada caught between 2 powers, feeling alone in the world TORONTO (AP) - First U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Canada on trade. Then Saudi Arabia punished it for speaking up for human rights. Now China has the country in its cross-hairs, detaining two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive on behalf of the United States. Canada is caught between two super powers and taking the punishment - and its ally to the south has been conspicuously absent in coming to its aid. "We've never been this alone," historian Robert Bothwell said. "We don't have any serious allies. And I think that's another factor in what the Chinese are doing. ... Our means of retaliation are very few. China is a hostile power." The two Canadians, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat in China, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur who lived in northeastern China near the North Korean border, were taken into custody Monday on suspicion of "engaging in activities that endanger the national security" of China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said. Canadian consular officials have had no access to them. Their detentions ratchet up pressure on Canada, which arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants her extradited to face charges that she and her company misled banks about the company's business dealings in Iran. A Canadian judge released Meng on bail Tuesday. ___ 7-year-old immigrant girl dies after Border Patrol arrest LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) - A 7-year-old girl who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her father last week died after being taken into the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol, federal immigration authorities confirmed Thursday. The Washington Post reports the girl died of dehydration and shock more than eight hours after she was arrested by agents near Lordsburg, New Mexico. The girl was from Guatemala and was traveling with a group of 163 people who approached agents to turn themselves in on Dec. 6. It's unknown what happened to the girl during the eight hours before she started having seizures and was flown to an El Paso hospital. In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said the girl had not eaten or consumed water in several days. The agency did not provide The Associated Press with the statement it gave to the Post, despite repeated requests. ___ Pelosi's triumph: House speaker-to-be, this time with memes WASHINGTON (AP) - It has been quite a week for Nancy Pelosi. The televised meeting with President Donald Trump. The deal with restless Democrats to secure their votes to become House speaker. The fashion statement of her burnt-orange winter coat, swooshing out the doors of the White House, going viral in social media memes. It all showed the staying power of the Democratic leader, who is relentless in her drive to reclaim the gavel and wield it with a strength that is nothing like Washington has seen - at least since the last time she did it. "We've seen some strong speakers like Pelosi and some weaker speakers," said Matthew Green, a professor of political science at Catholic University who has written a book about House speakers. "What we've seen this week is another demonstration of how effective Pelosi is, in both her negotiation skills and in her ability to stand up publicly to a president of the opposite party," he said. "The most dangerous place to be in Washington is between Pelosi and an undecided vote. It's like a beeline; she goes right for that person. That's her thing." ___ In plea deal, Russian woman admits to being a secret agent WASHINGTON (AP) - A Russian gun-rights activist admitted Thursday that she was a secret agent for the Kremlin who tried to infiltrate conservative U.S. political groups as Donald Trump rose to power. Maria Butina, 30, agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a deal with federal prosecutors. "Guilty," Butina said in a slight accent when asked how she wanted to plead. Dressed in a green jail uniform with her red hair pulled into a long ponytail, Butina spoke softly and mostly kept her eyes on the judge. The Butina case has provided a vivid glimpse into Russia's influence operations in the United States at a time when the U.S. intelligence community has determined that Russia was trying to help elect Trump by releasing emails stolen from Democrats and conducting a social media campaign in an attempt to sow political discord. The case also lays bare how Russia tried to exploit one of the most sensitive social issues in the U.S. - gun control - to gain access to the political sphere. ___ Authorities: Wave of hoax bomb threats made across US NEW YORK (AP) - A wave of bomb threats emailed Thursday to hundreds of schools, businesses and government buildings across the U.S. triggered searches, evacuations and fear - but there were no signs of explosives, and authorities said the scare appeared to be a crude extortion attempt. Law enforcement agencies across the country dismissed the threats, saying they were meant to cause disruption and compel recipients into sending money and were not considered credible. Some of the emails had the subject line: "Think Twice." They were sent from a spoofed email address. The sender claimed to have had an associate plant a small bomb in the recipient's building and that the only way to stop him from setting it off was by making an online payment of $20,000 in Bitcoin. "We are currently monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city," the New York City Police Department's counterterrorism unit tweeted. "These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide & are NOT considered credible at this time." Other law enforcement agencies also dismissed the threats, which were written in a choppy style reminiscent of the Nigerian prince email scam. ___ Virgin Galactic tourism rocket ship reaches space in test MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) - Virgin Galactic's tourism spaceship climbed more than 50 miles high above California's Mojave Desert on Thursday, reaching for the first time what the company considers the boundary of space. The rocket ship hit an altitude of 51 miles (82 kilometers) before beginning its gliding descent, said mission official Enrico Palermo. It landed on a runway minutes later. "We made it to space!" Palermo exclaimed. The supersonic flight takes Virgin Galactic closer to turning the long-delayed dream of commercial space tourism into reality. The company aims to take paying customers on the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said there will be more test flights and if all goes well he will take a ride before the public gets its chance. ___ Janet Jackson, Def Leppard, Nicks join Rock Hall of Fame NEW YORK (AP) - Janet Jackson joins her brother Michael and the Jackson 5 as members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, earning induction on Thursday along with Stevie Nicks and the top fan vote-getter, Def Leppard. Radiohead, the Cure, Roxy Music and the Zombies will also be ushered in next spring at the 34th induction ceremony. It will be held March 29 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Jackson's induction comes after her third time as nominee and many saw it as overdue, given her prowess as a hitmaker with "All For You," ''That's the Way Love Goes," ''Nasty," ''Together Again" and "What Have You Done For Me Lately." Her career suffered from the fallout after the infamous 2004 Super Bowl appearance where her bare breast was briefly exposed by Justin Timberlake; both said it was a mistake. But she's had a resurgence of late including an acclaimed tour, headlining festival stints, multiple lifetime achievement honors and a No. 1 album on the main Billboard chart. BAGHDAD (AP) - The Islamic State group's deliberate destruction of agriculture in northern Iraq has hindered the return of hundreds of thousands of residents, Amnesty International said in a report released Thursday. The New York-based rights group said IS fighters burnt or chopped down orchards and sabotaged wells by filling them with rubble, oil or other materials. The militants also stole or destroyed pumps, cables, generators, transformers and vital electricity lines. Amnesty called on the Iraqi government to repair rural infrastructure and compensate the displaced so they can return to their homes. IS seized control of much of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces gradually drove the militants from all the territory under their control, declaring victory a year ago after a costly campaign that destroyed entire neighborhoods and towns. "The damage to Iraq's countryside is as far-reaching as the urban destruction, but the consequences of the conflict on Iraq's rural residents are being largely forgotten," said Richard Pearshouse, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty. He said the report focuses on the "deliberate, wanton destruction" around the area of Sinjar, where the extremists massacred and enslaved thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority. About half of Sinjar's residents have returned, with many others saying they have nothing to go back to. FILE - In this June 23, 2014 file photo, fighters from the Islamic State group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq. In a report issued Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018, the New York-based rights group Amnesty International said the IS group's deliberate destruction of agriculture in northern Iraq has hindered the return of hundreds of thousands of residents. The rights group said IS fighters burnt or chopped down orchards, sabotaged wells and stole or destroyed vital farming equipment. (AP Photo, File) Beyond Sinjar, Amnesty's report gave sobering figures for all of Iraq. "The conflict against IS eviscerated Iraq's agricultural production, now an estimated 40 percent lower than 2014 levels," it said. "Before IS, around two-thirds of Iraq's farmers had access to irrigation - only three years later, this had fallen to 20 percent. Around 75 percent of livestock was lost, spiking to 95 percent in some areas." Syrian and Iraqi forces have gradually driven IS out of nearly all the territory it once held. But the group still maintains a presence in the Syrian desert and remote areas along the border. Many have warned it could stage a comeback if economic grievances are not addressed. "Unless there is urgent government assistance, the long-term damage inflicted on Iraq's rural environment will reverberate for years to come," Pearshouse said. "When IS tore through Iraq in 2014, it thrived off rural poverty and resentments, so Iraq's government should be concerned that something similar could happen again." WASHINGTON (AP) - For some time now, President Donald Trump has been encouraging people to think of Mexico as a portal for international terrorists who "pour" into the U.S. Except, he says, for 10 who were recently caught by the U.S.: "These are very serious people." These 10 do not exist, except as a federal statistic that Trump and his vice president put through a rhetorical grinder in service of describing emigrants from Mexico as a menace. There is, in fact, genuine concern about the potential for Islamic extremists to make their way across the border into the U.S. But that concern applies more to the Canadian border, where Trump is not planning to put up a wall. Here is how the myth of the "very serious" 10 developed over the months, culminating this week in Trump's assertion that "we caught 10 terrorists. These are over the last very short period of time - 10." ___ In July 2017, a State Department report on terrorism comes out, breaking down perceived threats by country, and it does not fit into Trump's story about danger from the south. FILE - In this Oct. 23, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks following a ceremony signing the "America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018" into law in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. For some time now, Trump has been encouraging people to think Mexico is a portal for international terrorists who "pour" into the U.S. Except, he says, for 10 who were recently caught by the U.S.: "These are very serious people." These 10 do not exist, except as a federal statistic that Trump and his vice president put through a rhetorical grinder in service of describing emigrants from Mexico as a menace. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File) It says: "There are no known international terrorist organizations operating in Mexico, no evidence that any terrorist group has targeted U.S. citizens in Mexican territory, and no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States." At most, it notes that "Mexican government officials observed on social media an increase in terrorist group sympathizers in its territory over the previous year." That report dwells much more on the northern neighbor, home to "Canada-based violent extremists inspired by terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida and their affiliates and adherents." Moreover, Canada has experienced episodes of terrorism at the hands of sympathizers of those organizations. And, the report says, Canada faces a "significant challenge in prosecuting individuals who have traveled abroad to engage in terrorism, due to the difficulty in proving association with terrorist organizations or having committed specific terrorist acts." Yet the State Department credits both Canada and Mexico with cooperating with the U.S. on terrorism and strengthening protections. And no evidence has emerged that terrorists are pouring in from Canada, either. ___ In January, a joint report by the Homeland Security and Justice departments states that Homeland Security had 2,554 "encounters" worldwide with people on a terrorist watch list who were trying to travel to the U.S. That breaks down to an average of seven per day, and is the seed of what becomes Trump's claim about the "very serious" 10. The vast majority, 2,170, were trying to come by air, with 335 by land and the rest by sea. Nothing ties them specifically to Mexico. Vice President Mike Pence misrepresents the finding the next month, attributing all of those encounters to the Mexico border: "I learned yesterday at the Hidalgo border center that along the southern border of the United States, we actually still apprehend 1,100 individuals a day, who are attempting to enter this country illegally, including seven individuals a day who are either known or suspected terrorists." There's more wrong with his statement than that. The people encountered by Homeland Security were denied entry to the U.S., not apprehended en masse as Pence says. In some cases law enforcement authorities were notified for "appropriate action," says the report, giving no detail on arrests or any charges. As well, it may be a stretch to characterize everyone on the watch list as a "known or suspected" terrorist. The list is an initial trip-wire identifying people who, rightly or wrongly, raise some concern. The standard for placing someone on the list is reasonable suspicion, a lower bar than the probable cause needed to arrest someone for an alleged crime. ___ In June, the average of seven per day grows to 10, without new statistics being announced. "On average, my department now blocks 10 known or suspected terrorists a day from traveling to or attempting to enter the United States," says Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. ___ In September, the next annual State Department terrorism report is released, finding "no credible evidence indicating that international terrorist groups have established bases in Mexico, worked with Mexican drug cartels or sent operatives via Mexico into the United States. The U.S. southern border remains vulnerable to potential terrorist transit, although terrorist groups likely seek other means of trying to enter the United States." More episodes of terrorism are noted in Canada. Late in the month, with the Trump administration signaling concern about Central American migrants making their way north, and Trump continually prodding for money to build his wall, the statistic is brought out, and misshapen, again. "In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as other than Mexico," Pence says. "That means from the Middle East region." The average of 10 a day has grown again, to more than 10. And Pence again says this all happened at the Mexico border. This time, when Pence's office is asked about the claim, his people acknowledge the error. Later the same day, the vice president correctly attributes the number to all points of entry into the U.S. Trump, though, continues to drum up fear about Muslim extremism coming via Mexico and migrants, tweeting Oct. 22: "Sadly, it looks like Mexico's Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!" The next day he tells reporters in the Oval Office: "I spoke with Border Patrol this morning. ... They say that over the course of the year, over the course of many years, they have intercepted good and bad people, including people from the Middle East." Yet he acknowledges, "There's no proof of anything." ___ This month, Trump's proposed southern wall becomes the prickly centerpiece of a budget struggle that threatens to idle parts of the government starting Dec. 21 barring a deal. In his contentious public meeting with the Democratic leaders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, Trump makes a case for varied menaces from Mexico, describing those trying to get into the U.S. as carriers of disease - an assertion he did not support - and criminals. He renders the average of 10 watch-list travelers per day encountered by Homeland Security last year as "10 terrorists," never mind suspects, recently "caught" trying to get in. The White House's support for that assertion? The same report that got the ball weirdly rolling almost a year ago: a daily average of encounters in 2017, not 10 terrorists in the flesh, very serious or not. ___ Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Colleen Long contributed to this report. FILE - In this July 6, 2018, file photo, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speaks at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in Washington. For some time now, President Donald Trump has been encouraging people to think Mexico is a portal for international terrorists who "pour" into the U.S. Except, he says, for 10 who were recently caught by the U.S.: "These are very serious people." These 10 do not exist, except as a federal statistic that Trump and his vice president put through a rhetorical grinder in service of describing emigrants from Mexico as a menace. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - The Latest on the train crash in Ankara (all times local): 2:20 p.m. Turkey's state-run news agency says authorities have detained three state railway agency employees suspected of negligence over a deadly train crash in the capital Ankara. Anadolu Agency says the three were detained Thursday after the high speed train heading for the city of Konya crashed into a rail engine and hit a pedestrian overpass. Nine people, including three engine drivers, were killed. The agency did not immediately provide detail on the detained employees. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed a thorough investigation and said those responsible would be brought to justice. Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) ___ 10:15 a.m. The Ankara governor's office has increased the death toll in a high-speed train crash in the capital to seven. A statement says 46 other people have been injured in the crash and three of them are in serious condition. The 6:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) train from Ankara to the city of Konya hit a railway engine that was inspecting the tracks before crashing into a pedestrian overpass at the city's Marsandiz station. The cause of the crash is under investigation. ___ 8:40 a.m. An official says at least four people have been killed and 43 injured when a high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara. Private NTV television says at least two cars derailed in the crash. Parts of the overpass collapsed onto the train. The train was en route from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya on Thursday morning. ___ 8 a.m. Turkey's state-run news agency says several people have been injured after a high-speed train crashed into an overpass in the capital Ankara. Anadolu Agency says two cars of the high-speed train derailed in the crash. The train was en route from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya. Several ambulances have been sent to the scene. The cause of the crash is not immediately known. Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at the station in the Turkish capital Thursday, killing several people and injuring scores of others, officials and news reports said. (IHA via AP) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Police officers attend as members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident, rear, in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Police officers attend as members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident, rear, in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) This image made from video shows aftermath of a high-speed train crash at a station in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. The train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at the station on Thursday. (DHA via AP) ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass Thursday at a station in the Turkish capital of Ankara, killing nine people and injuring dozens, officials said. The 6:30 a.m. train from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya collided head-on with the engine, which was checking the tracks at the capital's small Marsandiz station, Transport Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan told reporters after inspecting the site. The high-speed train, which the Anadolu Agency said was carrying 206 passengers, usually passes through that station without stopping. At least two cars derailed, hitting the station's overpass, which then collapsed onto the train. Three engine drivers and six passengers were killed in the crash, Turhan said. One passenger died after being hospitalized while the others were killed at the scene. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 84 other people had sought medical help after the crash. Television footage showed emergency services working to rescue passengers from wrangled cars and debris. Hurriyet newspaper said sniffer dogs assisted efforts to find survivors. Turhan said later no one else was believed to be trapped. It wasn't immediately clear if a signaling problem caused the crash. Authorities detained three state railway employees over suspected negligence and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed a thorough investigation. Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Passenger Ayse Ozyurt told the IHA news agency that the accident occurred 12 minutes after the train left the main station and that it had not yet gained its maximum speed. "The train was not fast at that time yet," she said. "Suddenly, there was a frightening breakage ... and the train was off the rail." Konya, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of Ankara, is home to the tomb of the Sufi mystic and poet Jalaladdin Rumi, attracting thousands of pilgrims and tourists. The crash occurred during an annual week of remembrance for Rumi, when many travel to Konya to watch Whirling Dervishes, members of a Sufi sect, perform. Turkey has had a raft of train crashes this year. In July, 24 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in northwestern Turkey after torrential rains caused a section of the tracks to collapse. Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in Turkey's central province of Sivas. __ Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul contributed. ___ This version corrects the death toll in a July 2018 train accident in northwestern Turkey. Twenty-four people were killed, not 10. Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Members of rescue services work at the scene of a train accident in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing more than 5 people and injuring more than 40 others, officials and news reports said. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) BEIJING (AP) - Police have confirmed they have arrested a prominent Chinese photographer who had been missing more than a month, his wife said. Authorities informed relatives of award-winning photographer Lu Guang, whose work focuses unsparingly on the harshest realities of life in China, that he was arrested in Kashgar city in the country's far west region of Xinjiang, his wife Xu Xiaoli told The Associated Press on Thursday. Xu, who lives in New York, said police contacted family members Wednesday. They have yet to receive a written notice with his charges, which are unclear. Lu disappeared while travelling in Xinjiang on Nov. 3, according to Xu. He had connected with photographers in Urumqi, the capital, one week before and was scheduled to see a friend in Sichuan province on Nov. 5, but he never showed up for the meeting. Lu won first prize in the prestigious World Press Photo contest for a series on poor Chinese villagers who became infected with HIV after selling their own blood to eke out a living. His photos tackle gritty subjects like pollution and industrial environmental destruction - issues traditionally avoided by Chinese media because they risk punishment for exposing societal problems that the government may consider sensitive. FILE - In this July 2018, file photo, and released by Xu Xiaoli on Nov. 28, 2018, Lu Guang poses for a photo in New York. Police have confirmed that the prominent Chinese photographer who went missing more than a month ago was arrested, his wife said. Authorities informed relatives of award-winning photographer Lu, whose work focuses unsparingly on the harshest realities of life in China, that he was arrested in Kashgar city in the country's far west region of Xinjiang, his wife Xu told The Associated Press on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. (Xu Xiaoli via AP, File) A stifling security apparatus has been imposed on Xinjiang in recent years as the government combats what it calls terrorist threats from the region's predominantly Muslim ethnic Uighur and Kazakh populations. CAIRO (AP) - Shady Lewis Botros says his recently published novel - "Ways of the Lord" - can be broadly viewed as an attempt to answer one question: What it's like to be a Christian in Egypt? The answer, given in stories narrated by the book's chief character, is complex and often disheartening. It's giving your children neutral names that don't identify them as Christians in hopes they'll have a sporting chance of progress in the mainly Muslim nation. It means facing baseless but dangerous charges of spying for Israel at time of war. It means turning off the lights at home and gathering the family in one room to escape the attention of a Muslim mob on the street. Beyond entrenched discrimination, the Arabic-language novel explores what the author says is the victimization of Egypt's Christians by a "politically engineered harmony" between the state and their own church, seeking to control their lives. "Ways of the Lord" is a rare example of an Egyptian work of fiction whose primary characters are Christian. The result breaks stereotypes that many of the country's Muslims hold about their minority compatriots. But it also turns the look inward, dispelling the secrecy surrounding the ancient Coptic Orthodox Church - the predominant denomination in Egypt - and addressing its controlling practices and its rivalries with smaller churches. "Most Coptic literature is about the discrimination or oppression Christians endure with a dose of rights advocacy. That's understandable but that is also about as far as it goes," Botros told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from London, his home of 13 years. "This work introduces Egyptians to the reality of Copts as a people who are not always praying, singing hymns and waiting on every word from the church. The novel opens the world of Copts to both Copts and Muslims." The novel, the author's first, takes on added relevance because the Coptic Church leadership has adhered closer than ever to the government. It's an alliance that gives the community a measure of protection but has raised questions over its independence and has drawn the wrath of Islamic militants, who have over the past two years killed more than a 100 Christians in attacks. In this Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018 photo, journalist and author Shady Lewis Botros poses with a copy of his book, "Ways of the Lord," in London. The new Arabic-language novel, the author's first, explores the lives of Egyptian Christians, dealing with discrimination but also a Church aligned with a state seeking to control them. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) The church's unity is also being tested, partially over calls for it to modernize some of its rigid rules, like those governing marriage and divorce. The killing in July of the abbot of a monastery, for which two monks are on trial, has led to soul searching about the practices of monasticism, traditionally a cornerstone of the church's identity. The novel tells the story of a young Christian man in Cairo, Sherif, who has abandoned the church. He's in a relationship with a German woman, but to marry her he must first get a church document. So he goes to his neighborhood priest each week for interviews that turn into confessionals. Sherif relates a series of tales to explain to the priest why he never comes to church. He tells of his family's past rebellions, like a grandfather who left the Coptic Church because the priest would not baptize his newborn child before her death. As a young man, he says, he hopped from one Christian denomination to another to explore his identity. His father is cynical about his spiritual search, telling his son, "Generally, they are all con artists." The confession sessions with the priest are one of two plot tracks running through the novel. The other follows Sherif's political activism, which lands him in trouble with the police. His one hope to escape jail time is to marry his girlfriend and go to Germany, but in the end, the girlfriend returns home. He spends a year in jail for a white-collar crime he did not commit. "Sherif was painted as a character in crisis and that's not just on account of being a member of a minority, but rather as someone facing an existential crisis over his problems with the church and the state," said literary critic Ahmed Shawqy Ali. The novel ends with Sherif surrendering to the powers that crush his rebellion. Jobless after losing his government engineering job, he survives on a small income from doing little jobs for the church, while telling his stories to whoever will listen. "The ways of the Lord are strange and tough to understand," Sheriff says of his return to the church's embrace. Botros said the book's "fatalistic" ending "shows that, in a place like Egypt, religious minorities like Christians don't have many choices." The church presents itself as the protector of Egypt's Copts, and many in the community adhere to it fervently. "The church is a peacemaker that is in harmony with everyone, from the ruling government and civil society groups to al-Azhar," said a church spokesman, Boulis Halim, referring to the top Muslim institution in Egypt. "We cannot deny that there are shortcomings in some respects, especially the social field, but that will evolve going forward." But critics say the interests of individual Christians get lost under the church's communal leadership. Kamal Zakher, a Christian who is one of Egypt's top experts on the Coptic Church, said the church has become a "hostage" to the government for safety, particularly since the rise of Islamic hard-liners starting in the 1970s. It and the government leadership deal with each other directly, but "they have all forgotten that ordinary Christians deal on daily basis with bureaucrats who, like everyone else, have been influenced by that Islamic revival," Zakher said. Karoline Kamel, a researcher on church affairs from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the novel's main character is not typical of Coptic youth, who in large part associate closely with the church. But she said the novel gets the theme of control right. "The church's protection is focused on itself as an institution, as walls and buildings regardless of what happens to Christians," she said. ___ Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report. In this Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018 photo, journalist and author Shady Lewis Botros, author of the book, "Ways of the Lord," poses for a portrait in London. The new Arabic-language novel, the author's first, explores the lives of Egyptian Christians, dealing with discrimination but also a Church aligned with a state seeking to control them. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) In this Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018 photo, journalist and author Shady Lewis Botros, author of the book, "Ways of the Lord," poses for a portrait in London. The new Arabic-language novel, the author's first, explores the lives of Egyptian Christians, dealing with discrimination but also a Church aligned with a state seeking to control them. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) In this Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018 photo, journalist and author Shady Lewis Botros, author of the book, "Ways of the Lord," poses for a portrait in London. The new Arabic-language novel, the author's first, explores the lives of Egyptian Christians, dealing with discrimination but also a Church aligned with a state seeking to control them. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) DENPASAR, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesian police said some of the five foreigners who have been arrested for alleged drug smuggling on the tourist island of Bali since the end of November face the death penalty if convicted. Police paraded the citizens of Peru, Britain, China, Malaysia and Germany at a news conference Thursday in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province. The men were arrested in five separate operations by customs and police since Nov. 30 in which 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) of cocaine as well as marijuana, ecstasy and ketamine were seized. Indonesia has strict drug laws and dozens of convicted smugglers are on death row. Its last executions were in July 2016, when an Indonesian and three foreigners were shot by a firing squad. A police statement said the 4 kilograms of cocaine was smuggled by a Peruvian citizen in the lining of his suitcase and had a value of about 10.2 billion rupiah ($700,000). A British man was arrested for allegedly receiving nearly 31 kilograms (68 pounds) of cannabis oil in the mail and a German for allegedly trying to smuggle 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of hashish on a flight from Bangkok. Peruvian Jorge Albornoz Gamarra, center, and German Frank Zeldler, right, sit next to evidence and Indonesian custom officers during a press conference in Bali, Indonesia Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. Indonesian police say some of the five foreigners arrested for drug smuggling on the tourist island of Bali since the end of November face the death penalty if convicted. Police paraded the citizens of Peru, Britain, China, Malaysia and Germany at a press conference Thursday in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province.(AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) Police said the Chinese citizen was arrested with 200 ecstasy tablets and ketamine powder, and the Malaysian had small quantities of synthetic cannabis and ecstasy. BERLIN (AP) - Germany's governing coalition is trying to resolve a long-running dispute over a ban on doctors advertising abortions. Chancellor Angela Merkel's junior governing partners, the center-left Social Democrats, want to remove the ban from Germany's criminal code. It provides for a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years. But Merkel's center-right party insists it should stay. Leading ministers on Wednesday hammered out a proposed compromise under which the advertising ban would remain, but the law would be reformed to state more clearly how doctors and hospitals can inform potential patients that they carry out abortions. That plan will now go to lawmakers. Ralph Brinkhaus, the parliamentary leader of Merkel's bloc, said Thursday that it was "a first step" and the parliamentary group will consider detailed proposals in January. STOCKHOLM (AP) - Sweden is banning outdoor smoking in certain public places, including playgrounds and train station platforms. In a 142-120 vote Wednesday, the Riksdagen extended the smoking ban as of July 1, 2019. Smoking in outdoor restaurants and entrances to booths for smokers will also be banned. In Sweden, smoking is currently allowed in designated smoking areas in most workplaces and public places. Official figures show only 11 percent of the Swedish population of 10 million smoked daily in 2016, with about 10 percent smoking occasionally. In May 2005, Sweden banned smoking in bars and restaurants. According to the new law, the goal is to make the Scandinavian country smoke-free by 2025. BERLIN (AP) - The European Union's highest court has ruled that a fee all German households have to pay to finance the country's public broadcasters complies with EU law. The European Court of Justice decided Thursday the system, which allows broadcasters to enforce collection, doesn't constitute illegal state aid. Germany's long-standing fee system was tweaked in 2013 to make all households pay it, regardless of how many people live there or whether they have a television or radio. Previously, it depended on the number of devices in a household. The court said the change wasn't a problem. The monthly fee is currently 17.50 euros ($19.85). A state court in Tuebingen had asked the EU court about its compatibility with EU law. In July, Germany's highest court rejected complaints against the fee. STOCKHOLM (AP) - A man has been arrested in western Sweden on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack, the country's security services said Thursday. The SAPO agency said "preparations for the suspected terrorist offense have been underway for some time" and added that "there are international links." It did not elaborate. The person was not identified. Several raids were carried out early Thursday in western Sweden and several people were brought in for questioning. The Goteborg Tidning newspaper says the raids took place in Goteborg, Sweden's second largest city, and in suburbs to its north. The operation was not linked to the events in Strasbourg, France, that left two dead, one person brain dead and 12 others injured, SAPO's Gabriel Wernstedt told the Swedish daily Aftonbladet. Sweden's terror threat remained unchanged at elevated - the third level on a five-degree scale, meaning that an attack can occur, SAPO said. Two attacks have hit Sweden in the past eight years. On April 7, 2017, an Uzbek man drove a stolen truck into a crowd in Stockholm, killing five people and wounding 14 others. He was convicted of terror-related murder and given a life sentence. In December 2010, a suicide bomber blew himself up in downtown Stockholm among panicked Christmas shoppers, injuring two people. PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) - A Montenegrin court says it will try in absentia a suspect in a failed 2016 pro-Russia coup who fled to the Serbian Embassy to avoid detention. Branka Milic walked out of the courtroom during a hearing last month, complaining that her rights had been violated. The court then ordered her detained but she has taken refuge at the Serbian Embassy. Milic, who has Serbian citizenship, is among 14 suspects on trial for plotting to overthrow the Montenegrin government in October 2016 to avert the country's NATO bid. Two Russians are also on trial, but Moscow has denied involvement. Judge Suzana Mugosa said Thursday the trial will continue though Milic is out of reach of the authorities. Montenegro has summoned Serbia's ambassador in the country over the incident. LONDON (AP) - As U.S. President Donald Trump re-imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran last month, hackers scrambled to break into personal emails of American officials tasked with enforcing them, The Associated Press has found - another sign of how deeply cyberespionage is embedded into the fabric of US-Iranian relations. The AP drew on data gathered by the London-based cybersecurity group Certfa to track how a hacking group often nicknamed Charming Kitten spent the past month trying to break into the private emails of more than a dozen U.S. Treasury officials. Also on the hackers' hit list: high-profile defenders, detractors and enforcers of the nuclear deal struck between Washington and Tehran, as well as Arab atomic scientists, Iranian civil society figures and D.C. think tank employees. "Presumably, some of this is about figuring out what is going on with sanctions," said Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written about Iranian cyberespionage and was among those targeted. Kagan said he was alarmed by the targeting of foreign nuclear experts. "This is a little more worrisome than I would have expected," he said. The hit list surfaced after Charming Kitten mistakenly left one of its servers open to the internet last month. Researchers at Certfa found the server and extracted a list of 77 Gmail and Yahoo addresses targeted by the hackers that they handed to the AP for further analysis. Although those addresses likely represent only a fraction of the hackers' overall effort - and it's not clear how many of the accounts were successfully compromised - they still provide considerable insight into Tehran's espionage priorities. This image shows a Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018 phishing message sent to Jim Sisco of the Virginia-based risk advisory firm Enodo Global, Inc. The email was allegedly sent by the hacking group known as Charming Kitten whose spying campaign closely aligns with Iran's interests. The email address of the recipient has been redacted to protect his privacy. (AP Photo) "The targets are very specific," Certfa researcher Nariman Gharib said. In a report published Thursday , Cerfta tied the hackers to the Iranian government, a judgment drawn in part on operational blunders, including a couple of cases where the hackers appeared to have accidentally revealed that they were operating from computers inside Iran. The assessment was backed by others who have tracked Charming Kitten. Allison Wikoff, a researcher with Atlanta-based Secureworks, recognized some of the digital infrastructure in Certfa's report and said the hackers' past operations left little doubt they were government-backed. "It's fairly clear-cut," she said. Calls to Iranian officials were not returned late Wednesday, the beginning of the weekend in the country. Iran has previously denied responsibility for hacking operations, but an AP analysis of its targets suggests that Charming Kitten is working in close alignment with the Islamic Republic's interests. The most striking among them were the nuclear officials - a scientist working on a civilian nuclear project for the Pakistan's Ministry of Defense, a senior operator at the Research and Training Reactor in the Jordanian city of Ramtha, and a high-ranking researcher at the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria. The trio suggested a general interest in nuclear technology and administration. Others on the hit list - such as Guy Roberts, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs - pointed to an eagerness to keep track of officials charged with overseeing America's nuclear arsenal. "This is something I've been worried about," Roberts said when alerted to his presence on the list. Still more targets are connected to the Iran deal - a 2015 pact negotiated by former U.S. President Barack Obama's administration and other world powers that called for Tehran to curb its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Trump tore up the deal in May over the objections of most of America's allies and has re-imposed a series of punishing restrictions on Iran since. One of Charming Kitten's targets was Andrew J. Grotto, whose tenure on the U.S. National Security Council straddled the Obama and Trump administrations and who has written about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Jarrett Blanc, the State Department coordinator responsible for the implementation of the nuclear deal under Obama, was also on the list. He said news of his targeting was no shock. "I've retained contact with Iranian counterparts since leaving government," he said. "I'd be very surprised if there were not Iranian groups trying to hack into my various email accounts." Like the Russian hackers who have chased after America's drone, space and submarine secrets , the list indicates that Iranian spies were also interested in the world of U.S. defense companies. One of those targeted is a senior director of "breakthrough technology" at the aerospace arm of Honeywell International Inc., the New Jersey-based industrial conglomerate; another is a vice president at Virginia-based Science Applications International Corp., a prominent Pentagon contractor. Honeywell said it was aware that one of its employees had their personal account "exposed," adding that there was no evidence that the company's network was compromised. SAIC said it found no trace of any hacking attempt against its employee's account. There were Iranian targets too, including media workers, an agronomist and a senior employee of the country's Department of Environment - a possible sign that Tehran's crackdown on environmentalists , which began earlier this year, continues apace. Hacking has long been a feature of the tense relationship between the United States and Iran, whose militant brand of Shia Islam has challenged American interests in the Middle East since 1979. It was against Iran that U.S. and Israeli spies are said to have deployed the pioneering, centrifuge-rattling computer worm dubbed Stuxnet in a bid to sabotage the country's uranium enrichment capabilities. Iranian hackers in turn are blamed for denial of service assaults on American banks and computer-wrecking cyberattacks in Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional archrival. The Charming Kitten campaign uncovered by Certfa is far less sophisticated, generally relying on a password-stealing technique called phishing. Two Nov. 17 emails provided to the AP by Jim Sisco of Enodo Global Inc., a Virginia-based risk advisory firm that was targeted by Charming Kitten, mimic the look and feel of Gmail security alerts, a technique used by hackers across the globe. An analysis of Certfa's data shows the group targeted at least 13 U.S. Treasury employees' personal emails, including one belonging to a director at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which fights money laundering and terror financing, and one used by the Iran licensing chief at the Office of Foreign Asset Control, which is in charge of enforcing U.S. sanctions. But a few employees' LinkedIn profiles referenced back office jobs or routine tax work. That suggested "a fairly scattershot attempt," said Clay Stevenson, a former Treasury official who now consults on sanctions and was himself targeted by Charming Kitten. Others' experience suggests a more professional effort. Georgetown University professor and South Asia security expert Christine Fair said she had only recently returned from a conference in Afghanistan attended by Iranian officials and a visit to the Iranian border when she learned she was in the hackers' sights. "The timing is uncanny," she said. Another Charming Kitten target was an intern working for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that has been one of the Iran deal's fiercest critics. How the intern - whose email isn't public and whose name appears nowhere on the organization's website - crossed the hackers' radar is not clear. The foundation issued a statement calling the revelation "yet another indicator that Iran must be viewed as a nefarious actor in all theatres in which it operates." Kagan, the scholar, said most signs pointed to a serious, state-backed operation. "It doesn't look like freelancers," he said. ___ Monika Mathur and Desmond Butler in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Online: Certfa's report: https://blog.certfa.com/posts/the-return-of-the-charming-kitten ___ Raphael Satter can be reached at: http://raphaelsatter.com Certfa researchers Nariman Gharib, left, and Amin Sabeti look at a computer at a cafe in London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2018. The Associated Press drew on data gathered by the London-based cybersecurity group Certfa to track how a hacking group often nicknamed Charming Kitten spent the past month trying to break into the private emails of more than a dozen U.S. Treasury officials. Also on the hackers' hit list: high-profile defenders, detractors and enforcers of the nuclear deal struck between Washington and Tehran, as well as Arab atomic scientists, Iranian civil society figures and D.C. think tank employees. (AP Photo/Raphael Satter) MOSCOW (AP) - Russia says it has ordered the expulsion of a Slovak diplomat, responding in kind to a move by Slovakia over allegations a Russian diplomat was working as a spy under diplomatic cover. Slovakia's Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini said last week his country has expelled the Russian diplomat, saying his activities were against the interests of Slovakia and NATO. Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday expressed regret about Slovakia's "unfriendly move" and announced that Moscow has ordered a Slovak diplomat expelled in a quid pro quo response. Unlike many other European countries, Slovakia didn't expel Russian diplomats in March in response to the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury. Britain blames Russia for that attack, a claim Moscow denies. PALM COAST, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say two white teens sent threatening and racist messages to each other on school-issued computers about a black teacher at a Florida high school. A Flagler County Sheriff's Office news release says the boy and girl, both 16, were charged with misdemeanor assault on Wednesday, though no arrests were immediately made. The charge for each student was enhanced as a hate crime under state law. Investigators say the Flagler Palm Coast High School students were questioned Monday about making plans to harm the teacher. The teens claimed they were joking. The teacher told investigators Tuesday that she wanted to press charges because she believes the students are capable of harming her. TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A Florida felon has been sentenced to five years in prison for possessing nearly four tons of explosive fuses. Court records say 57-year-old Marc Jason Levene, of Sarasota, was sentenced Wednesday in Tampa federal court. He pleaded guilty in September to two counts of possession of explosives by a convicted felon. He has had prior felony drug convictions that prohibited him from possessing or selling explosive materials. A plea agreement says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating Levene in 2016 for selling explosives without a federal license or permit through a website called ThePyroPro.com. The ATF and Sarasota County Sheriff's Office searched Levene's home and storage unit in February and uncovered about 7,700 pounds (3,500 kilograms) of explosive fuses. A video recorded by an eyewitness Thursday captured the terrifying moment a massive fireball overwhelmed a dozen firefighters battling a five-alarm blaze in Queens. The inferno raged through a row of businesses on Queens Boulevard overnight, collapsing part of a roof and injuring 12 people including seven firefighters. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, Emergency Medical Services Chief James Booth said at the scene. Members of the FDNY were working on the scene of the five-alarm fire in Queens Thursday when a terrifying blast shook the neighborhood A 'smoke explosion,' also known as backdraft, sent orange flames and smoke into the sky, obscuring everything from view Firefighters on the scene were overwhelmed by the fireball and smoke that enveloped Queens Boulevard early Thursday morning The explosion occurred when oxygen was quickly reintroduced to an oxygen-depleted combustible environment during a blaze The fire was reported inside a restaurant called New York Style Eats at around 2.15am, and the flames spread between the roof and ceilings to neighboring stores. In all, six businesses were ravaged by the fire, according to Assistant Fire Chief Anthony DeVita Jr, including New York Style Eats, a Vietnamese noodle shop, a UPS store, a hardware store, a newly opened sex shop called Romantic Depot and a popular, only recently renovated bar called Sidetracks. Orange flames shot into the air and smoke engulfed the neighborhood of Sunnyside. At least a dozen firefighters were working at the scene when an apparent 'smoke explosion,' also known as backdraft, erupted and the roof collapsed, DeVita said. Queens resident Joseph John Ramos had his camera trained on the scene of the fire when the backdraft occurred, sending a cloud of thick black smoke and orange flames into the night sky that blotted everything from view, including members of the FDNY on the scene. When the smoke cleared, it was revealed that all the firefighters survived, prompting New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro to call it a 'miracle' The fire claimed a half-dozen businesses, including a bar, a noodle shop and a UPS store 'The chiefs on scene were proactive,' DeVita said later. 'They saw this was an advanced fire and they began to back the troops out. Because they took that action, that more than likely prevented more serious injuries.' New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said it was 'a bit of a miracle' that the fireball, produced by oxygen being quickly reintroduced to an oxygen-depleted combustible environment during a blaze, did not kill or seriously hurt anyone, reported New York Times. Nearly 200 firefighters and emergency personnel worked to prevent the fire from spreading to other structures. The fire was reported in a restaurant called New York Style Eats and then spread to nearby businesses, including the sex shop Romantic Depot Nearly 200 firefighters and emergency personnel worked to get the inferno under control Fire officials said the blaze was under control and the cause was under investigation. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign called 'Sunnyside Fire Relief Fund' has been launched to help the owners and employees of the businesses affected by Thursday's fire. As of Friday afternoon, the fundraisers has drawn more than $27,000 in donations. MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian parliament on Thursday announced a rap song competition amid a crackdown on contemporary music that evoked Soviet-era censorship of the arts. A dozen rappers have had their shows cancelled recently after warnings from officials who claim that their music promotes the wrong values. At least three musicians have been detained. In a symbolic gesture of reconciliation, the State Duma announced it would run a competition for the best rap song - but it has to be on the subject of travel in Russia. The winner, according to lawmaker Mikhail Degtyarev, will win a trip around Russian cities. "We want to give a platform for open discussion and highlight the opportunities as well as drawbacks of this or that town," he said. "If, for example, there is a bad road near a tourist attraction, there should be a video about it." Rap has emerged as one of the most popular music genres among Russia's youth - and a target for Russia authorities - thanks to its frank portrayal of daily realities and scathing criticism of the government. Last month, a rapper known as Husky, whose videos have garnered more than 6 million views on YouTube, was arrested for staging an impromptu performance after his show was shut down in the southern city of Krasnodar. A court sentenced Husky to 12 days in jail on charges of hooliganism, but he was released four days later - hours before a solidarity concert in Moscow by popular hip hop artists protesting his detention. In this photo taken on Monday, Dec. 26, 2018, people cheer during a concert in support of rapper Husky, in Moscow in Moscow, Russia. In recent months, Russian artists have experienced a spike in pressure from the authorities, with a string of concert cancellations and arrests that have brought an outcry from critics who see it as the latest expression of censorship against Russian musicians. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) The electronic duo IC3PEAK had six out of their 11 gigs cancelled in recent weeks, and on Dec. 1 they were briefly detained in a Siberian city. Eager not to alienate young people, top Russian officials in recent days took steps to distance themselves from the arrests and show cancellations. The State Duma last week hosted a round table with some of Russia's most popular pop acts, and the presidential ombudsman for human rights said on Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin had asked her to investigate why the gigs are being shut down. BERLIN (AP) - Berlin has completed a new addition to its Museum Island complex aimed at complementing the popular museums there and making it more user-friendly. The five-museum complex, a UNESCO world heritage site built in neoclassical style from 1830 to 1930, has undergone far-reaching restoration over recent years. It includes the Pergamon Museum, home to treasures such as the Pergamon Altar and Babylon's Ishtar Gate, and the Neues Museum, which houses a famous bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. On Thursday, the keys to the new James Simon Gallery were handed over to Berlin's museum authority. Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, it's intended as a central reception building and will house ticket offices, a shop and cafe, an auditorium and special exhibitions. The building opens to the public next summer. A worker cleans the square in fron of the new James Simon Gallery in Berlin Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. Berlin has completed a new addition to its Museum Island complex aimed at completing the ensemble of popular museums and making it more user-friendly. (Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa via AP) Ian Paisley is facing fresh calls to quit amid claims the DUP MP failed to declare another luxury holiday to parliamentary authorities. Political rivals have urged the North Antrim representative to resign after allegations he holidayed in the Maldives courtesy of the Indian Ocean nations government. The DUP has pledged to examine the very serious claims levelled in a BBC Spotlight NI investigation. Mr Paisley has denied the holiday was paid for by the Maldives government, instead insisting an unnamed friend part-funded the 2016 vacation. Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Ulster Unionists have written to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone urging her to investigate the case. Mr Paisley himself contacted Ms Stones office on Wednesday to seek a meeting to discuss the claims made. Sinn Fein and the SDLP said Mr Paisley should resign and, if he did not, DUP leader Arlene Foster was obliged to take action against him. Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister said the programme raised serious questions over his rivals judgment. Sinn Feins Michelle ONeill, second left, told reporters in Belfast that Mr Paisley should have resigned months ago (David Young/PA) The claims aired by Spotlight came days after Mr Paisley returned to Parliament having served a 30-day suspension for failing to declare two holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government and lobbying on its behalf. He narrowly avoided facing a by-election after Parliaments first ever recall petition fell short of the number of constituent signatures required to oust him by around 450. Commenting on the latest claims, Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill said the MP should have resigned months ago. Its the latest in a long line of scandals associated with the DUP and Ian Paisley in particular, she said. I think Ian Paisley should have resigned many months ago and I think where he finds himself again today at the centre of another scandal is not anything befitting of someone who holds public office. At last months party conference in Belfast, DUP leader Mrs Foster apologised after acknowledging that standards of conduct within the party had fallen short in a number of areas. At a press conference on Wednesday, Mrs ONeill said: I think that what we need to see now is more than fine words at a party conference, I think those fine words need to be acted upon and I think this will be the first test of Arlene Fosters comments at her party conference. I've written to the Parliamentary Commisioner for Standards asking her to investigate Spotlight's allegations on Ian Paisley. pic.twitter.com/wGxxgJJxr8 Colum Eastwood (@columeastwood) December 12, 2018 SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has called for Mr Paisley to quit. It really is time for Ian Paisley to resign, he said. If he doesnt, then the onus is on Arlene Foster to remove him from the DUP. UUP leader and fellow North Antrim representative Robin Swann said: There is an onus on Mr Paisley to cut the bluster and offer openness and transparency to the people of North Antrim. The allegations raised by Spotlight are extremely serious and deserve a credible response from Ian Paisley and the DUP. The DUP also need to be open about when they learned of these allegations and what they know. They cannot simply hide behind a statement saying they will investigate. This is yet another stain on North Antrim and the reputation of politics in Northern Ireland. Mr Allister, a North Antrim Assembly member, said the circumstantial case raised by Spotlight was very persuasive. Following the Sri Lankan scandal, fresh allegations from the compelling Spotlight programme about a luxury family holiday in the Maldives, paid for by a third party, and the non-declaration of same to the Commons authorities, reopens serious questions about Mr Paisleys judgment, he said. The trip under scrutiny came months after Mr Paisley travelled to the country on parliamentary business. The North Antrim representative had argued against sanctions being taken against the Maldives over alleged human rights abuses. Mr Paisley denied the holiday was paid for by the authorities in the Maldives and said he is satisfied he did not need to declare the trip on the register of interests at Westminster. The MP said he paid for part of the holiday himself, while the rest was paid for by a long-term friend who was unconnected to his work. He declined to reveal the identity of the friend. Mr Paisley had been suspended from the DUP pending a party investigation into the Sri Lankan controversy, but the censure was subsequently lifted. On Wednesday morning, a DUP spokesman said: The party officers will want to consider these very serious matters being mindful of the high standards we require of elected representatives. In a statement in response to the programme, Mr Paisley said: The government of the Maldives did not organise or pay for my family vacation in 2016, which I do not intend to go into with you. Im satisfied the vacation did not have to be recorded on the register. Mr Paisleys record suspension from Parliament was imposed following the findings of an investigation by the standards commissioner Ms Stone. It is unknown whether she is investigating the latest claims, as she is prevented from publicly confirming details of any probe until it concludes. Mr Paisley has been MP for North Antrim since 2010. His father Ian Paisley, a former first minister of Northern Ireland and Democratic Unionist leader, had previously held the seat since 1970. Irelands main opposition party has agreed to extend its parliamentary deal with the countrys minority coalition government. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said it was in the national interest to have political stability as Ireland faces the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Mr Martins decision to renew the confidence and supply arrangement with Taoiseach Leo Varadkars Fine Gael-led administration will ensure Ireland avoids a general election in the months around the UKs planned EU exit. Irelands deputy premier Simon Coveney said the political system had responded in the right way to Brexit uncertainty. Mr Coveney, deputy leader of Fine Gael, praised Fianna Fail for making a mature decision. The historic pact between two parties founded from opposing sides of Irelands Civil War of the 1920s was struck in the wake of the inconclusive 2016 general election. It lasted for three budgets. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Tom Honan/PA) Following the third and final budget in October, negotiating teams from both parties engaged in talks aimed at securing an extension. The renewed deal will last the duration of 2019. The country will now go to the polls in early 2020. Criticising the performance of the government, Mr Martin said his party had reached the decision reluctantly, but he said it was unavoidable given the concerns posed by Brexit. He said business as usual in the Dail parliament was not acceptable in the circumstances and there was a need to put the national interest ahead of party interests. Fianna Fail is determined that the political chaos we see in London will not be allowed to spread to Ireland, he said. We simply do not believe that the national interest could in any way be served by taking up to four months during next year to schedule and hold an election campaign and then form a government. With business and communities already fearful about the impact of Brexit and with Ireland manifestly not ready for many of the potential outcomes, how could it possibly be in the national interest to have extended political uncertainty next year? This is why Fianna Fail will extend a guarantee that government will be able to operate throughout 2019. This will allow the introduction of any emergency legislation and budgets, as well as the full end of year Budget and associated legislation. This will in turn allow the holding of an election early in the following year. Mr Coveney said the timing of the announcement was important. At a time when there is clearly a lot of uncertainty about Brexit and the British political system, the Irish political system has responded in the way that it should, to work together to ensure that we will have certainty for at least another year and probably more, to ensure that we can prepare the country for whatever may unfold in the context of our closest neighbour leaving the European Union at the end of March, he said. Mr Coveney said the move allowed the government to plan in the medium term on Brexit and other domestic concerns. From our perspective this is good news, he said. I want to thank Fianna Fail for the maturity of the decision that has been made today. It is not easy for a large political party in opposition to essentially facilitate government and extend that facilitation beyond what was agreed a few years ago but I think Fianna Fail have recognised that it is in the interests of the country to provide the kind of certainty in Irish politics that is needed. At a time when we have a minority government here, I think we are showing that the Irish political system responds when the country needs that to happen and I want to thank Micheal Martin for his leadership and Fianna Fail for facilitating the confirmation of that extension that we expect will go well into 2020. Addressing the Dail, Mr Martin criticised the performance of Mr Varadkars administration, particularly in the areas of housing, health and tax policy. This decision has been reached reluctantly but it is unavoidable, he added. Mr Martin said one of his partys key priorities was ensuring the country was prepared for a no-deal Brexit: Of course we cannot guarantee that the government will not undermine itself and stumble out of office, but it is receiving a guarantee of stability unprecedented for a minority government in its situation. If we could have a new government in days then we would be able to act differently. But it will take a process of months and Ireland doesnt have months which it can waste on putting politics before the peoples interests. Mr Martin said he would be meeting representative from fellow EU countries on Thursday. I will be telling them that Ireland will be a stable and reliable partner for them in the months ahead, he said. The contagion of political chaos will not spread here from London. There is a clear majority in Dail Eireann which will ensure stability and the national interest will be put first. President Donald Trumps former lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison. A New York judge said that Michael Cohen deserved a harsh punishment for crimes including tax evasion, lying to Congress and arranging illegal payments to silence women who posed a risk to Mr Trumps presidential campaign. District Judge William H Pauley III rejected arguments by Cohens lawyers that he should be spared jail because he cooperated in multiple federal investigations involving Mr Trump. Cohen said his blind loyalty to Mr Trump made him feel a duty to cover up the presidents dirty deeds. Cohens crimes included evading 1.4 million dollars (1.1m) in taxes and misleading Congress about his talks with Russians about a Trump skyscraper project in Moscow. Mr Trump had called for a tough sentence for Cohen, whom he labelled a liar. Michael Cohen was accompanied to court by his children and wife (Craig Ruttle/PA) The judge said Cohens cooperation with prosecutors does not wipe the slate clean of his crimes. Mr Pauley said that Cohen appears to have lost his moral compass and that the lawyer should have known better than to dodge taxes, lie to Congress and violate campaign finance laws. After the case, an adviser to Cohen said the former political fixer will state publicly all he knows about Mr Trump after special counsel Robert Mueller completes his investigation. Lanny Davis said that Cohen continues to tell the truth about Donald Trumps misconduct over the years. Davis, who was previously a lawyer for Cohen, said he will assist him in testifying before any Congressional committee interested in the search for truth and the difference between facts and lies. Cohen has been ordered to hand himself in on March 6 to start his sentence. The US attorneys office said it will not prosecute the National Enquirers parent company over its efforts to suppress an embarrassing story about Mr Trump during the 2016 campaign. The agreement was announced shortly after Cohen was sentenced. Cohens crimes included working with American Media Inc to buy the silence of a model who said she had an affair with Mr Trump. The president denies the affair. Like Cohen, the tabloid publisher admitted it was trying to influence the election by protecting Mr Trump from a damaging story. As part of the deal, AMI acknowledged it made a 150,000 US dollar payment to the model in concert with the Trump campaign with the intent of influencing the election. It requires AMI to co-operate with federal prosecutors in any investigation. Arun Jaitley said 'disrupters' have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised security of country. 'Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Allegations on Rafale was fiction writing that was compromising national security,' Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: Finance Minster Arun Jaitley on Friday dubbed allegations on the Rafale jet deal as "fiction writing" that compromised national security, after the Supreme Court dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets. In an apparent attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been alleging corruption in the purchase of the fighter jets, Jaitley said "disrupters" have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country. Falsehood is bound to fall apart and it has, Jaitley said, adding that if honest deals are questioned, then civil servants and armed forces will think twice before undertaking such a process in future. Buoyed by the verdict, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who addressed a press conference along with Jaitley said the matter of Rafale deal has been put to rest through the apex court's order. Jaitley said every figure cited by Rahul Gandhi in his allegations has been false. He said the government would again press for a debate on the issue in Parliament. He claimed that there has been a tradition in democracies across the world of leaders quitting their positions when their lies are caught. "Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Allegations on Rafale was fiction writing that was compromising national security," Jaitley said. To a question about the Congress demand of Joint parliamentary Probe (JPC) into the deal, he said only judicial body can carry out such an investigation as there has been experience in the past of JPCs working on partisan lines. The Supreme Court verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope of any doubt on the deal, he said. In relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The apex court rejected the pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and the court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, in which both the countries have entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA). Theresa May has seen off an attempt by rebel backbenchers to oust her as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. But she sowed the seeds for her eventual departure by telling Tory MPs that she would not lead the party into the next general election, expected in 2022 The Prime Minister won a confidence vote of the 317 Conservative MPs by a margin of 200 to 117 in a secret ballot at Westminster. The vote was triggered by party grandee Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, early on Wednesday after he received letters of no confidence in the PM from at least 15% of the parliamentary party. Sir Graham Brady announces the result (Stefan Rousseau/PA) In a day of high drama, a defiant Mrs May vowed to fight with everything Ive got to defend her position, warning that a change in prime minister might mean Brexit being delayed or halted. In an early-morning statement outside 10 Downing Street, Mrs May said that securing a Brexit deal which will deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum was now within our grasp and said she was making progress in securing reassurances from EU leaders on MPs concerns about the proposed backstop for the Irish border. Every MP in her Cabinet swiftly issued statements of support and she was greeted by loud cheers from the Tory backbenches when she faced the House of Commons for her weekly session of Prime Ministers Questions. Addressing assembled MPs at a meeting of the 1922 Committee moments before the crucial vote, Mrs May said that she accepted she could not fight the next election as their leader. Solicitor general Robert Buckland told reporters: She said In my heart I would like to lead the party into the next election and then that was the introductory phrase to her indication that she would accept the fact that that would not happen, that is not her intention. And, according to MPs present at the meeting, she also promised to find a legally binding solution to ensuring that the UK does not get permanently trapped in a backstop arrangement to keep the Irish border open after Brexit. Conservative MPs listen to Theresa May at a meeting of the 1922 Committee immediately before the crucial vote (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The scale of this task was highlighted by Irish premier Leo Varadkar and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who insisted in a phone call as MPs voted that the UKs Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened or contradicted. And DUP leader Arlene Foster, who met Mrs May shortly before the ballot, insisted that tinkering around the edges of the agreement would not be enough to win her partys support for the deal. Mrs Foster, whose 10 MPs prop up the minority Conservative administration, said she told the PM that we were not seeking assurances or promises, we wanted fundamental legal text changes. Anger over the backstop among Tory backbenchers and their Democratic Unionist Party allies was the main obstacle to Mrs May getting her Brexit deal through the House of Commons earlier this week. Her decision to defer the vote sparked a new wave of letters of no confidence which pushed the total beyond the threshold of 48 needed to trigger a ballot. By the time of the vote, Mrs Mays survival looked assured, with the tally of Tory MPs publicly declaring they would support her passing the threshold of 159 needed to secure her position. Proud to have voted in support of the PM, thank you to the many people who have contacted my office today to urge me to do just that pic.twitter.com/pF5ChA4xHh Margot James (@margot_james_) December 12, 2018 Mrs Mays victory in the confidence vote means that another challenge cannot be mounted against her position as Tory leader for a year. But she still faces the danger of a no-confidence motion in the House of Commons, which could bring her Government down if backed by more than half of all MPs. So even if she wins this duck is lame https://t.co/EIpnWxlmo3 Sir David Hanson (@RTHondavehanson) December 12, 2018 And Labour MPs branded her a lame duck PM because of her decision to pre-announce her departure. Theresa May lives to fight another day after dramatically defeating a bid to oust her as Tory leader. But with major Brexit difficulties still unresolved and European leaders seemingly unable to offer the fundamental reforms demanded by Mrs Mays critics, is the Prime Minister safe or has she merely bought herself time? Here are the challenges still facing Mrs May in the weeks to come: Back to Brussels After a whistlestop tour of European capitals on Tuesday, Mrs May returns to Brussels on Thursday for a summit of EU leaders. The political crisis in the UK has forced Brexit on to the agenda for the summit, which was already in the diaries of the continents leaders. Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street (Stefan Rousseau/PA) I have decided to call #EUCO on #Brexit (Art. 50) on Thursday. We will not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop, but we are ready to discuss how to facilitate UK ratification. As time is running out, we will also discuss our preparedness for a no-deal scenario. Charles Michel (@eucopresident) December 10, 2018 In his invitation letter to leaders of the EU member states, European Council president Donald Tusk said given the seriousness of the situation, Brexit would be discussed, with the heads of the 27 remaining states expected to hear from Mrs May and adopt conclusions on the next steps. He has insisted that the EU wants to help Mrs May but the question is how. This week the Government delayed the 'meaningful vote'. One of the major issues MPs are unable to agree on is the backstop. What is it? How likely is it to be used? And can the UK exit from it? Our latest Insight explains https://t.co/iB5JEoWg1u pic.twitter.com/Pr4sGeQren Commons Library (@commonslibrary) December 12, 2018 The Prime Minister wants further concessions about the backstop the contingency measures designed to prevent a hard border with Ireland even if trade talks break down. She has suggested the Government is looking at how to give democratic legitimacy to the backstop through giving MPs a vote on it and enabling the Commons to force the Government to ensure it cannot be in place indefinitely. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has stressed that the Withdrawal Agreement will not be renegotiated, but further clarifications are possible measures which are unlikely to go far enough to win over Tory Eurosceptics. I will meet @theresa_may this evening in Brussels. I remain convinced that the #Brexit deal we have is the best - and only - deal possible. There is no room for renegotiation, but further clarifications are possible. Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) December 11, 2018 Finally facing the Commons The decision to postpone a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration, which was due to go ahead on Tuesday, was instrumental in persuading Tory critics to trigger the confidence motion. The Prime Minister cannot avoid facing the Commons indefinitely if she wants an agreement in place by the UKs departure date from the European Union on March 29 2019. Mrs May has promised to bring the deal, with any late tweaks she can secure in Brussels, back to MPs by January 21. Unless major reforms are secured, it appears highly likely that the coalition of Tory rebels and opposition parties opposed to the Brexit plan will have enough support to defeat the Government. A Commons motion of no confidence in the Government Labour did not table a motion of no confidence after Mrs May pulled the Commons vote on her Brexit deal, preferring to wait on the sidelines while Tory MPs fought among themselves. But other opposition parties at Westminster the SNP, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party have called on Jeremy Corbyn to table a confidence motion before it is too late for Parliament to take control of the Brexit process. Its not enough to just demand #PeoplesVote Jeremy Corbyn is a friend & we share a commitment to also tackling social inequality Today I've urged him to no confidence the PM asap I've also stressed #PeoplesVote mustn't be used to further any party political agenda over another Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) December 11, 2018 A defeat when the deal is finally put to the test in the Commons could be the event which prompts Mr Corbyn to strike. There is now belated recognition that Jeremy Corbyn is the main stumbling block to a #PeoplesVote and #NoBrexit .He wants to help Theresa May deliver #Brexit. Time for Labour MPs, activists and unions to stand up and get their leader to do his job. https://t.co/fnXb6HKzyH Vince Cable (@vincecable) December 11, 2018 The Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 MPs the Tories rely on for a majority, have promised to support the Government in a confidence motion if Mrs Mays Brexit plan is scrapped or defeated. But their support is not tied to Mrs May personally and they would not back her if she sought to press ahead with her deal. How can the @HouseofCommons express "No Confidence" in the Government? What are the consequences? Our new report explains. Read a summary here: https://t.co/zEi7AUyqbs pic.twitter.com/5QIzPevhpC PACAC Committee (@CommonsPACAC) December 11, 2018 If a majority of MPs back a motion of no confidence, it would start a countdown which could lead to an early election. Unless a government can win a confidence vote within 14 days, there would be another general election. Close to 1,000 people have attended a memorial service for the people gunned down inside a cathedral in southeastern Brazil, and authorities said the toll of dead had risen to five. Investigators said they were still trying to determine what led 49-year-old Euler Fernando Grandolpho to attack worshippers after Tuesdays midday service at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Campinas. After taking a bullet in the ribs in a firefight with police Grandolpho shot himself in the head, authorities said. The faithful sat quietly as Monsignor Rafael Capelato said: Through prayers and solidarity we are supporting each other in this time of suffering. An area roped off with crime scene tape (Rovena Rosa/Agencia Brasil/AP) Pope Francis sent a message to the Archdiocese of Campinas in which he urged that forgiveness and love prevail over hate and vengeance. After the service, the Mario Gatti hospital reported that one of the four wounded in the shooting had died, adding to the four who died earlier. Grandolpho, a systems analyst, was not a member of the church, authorities said. According to public records Grandolpho had held various jobs with government entities, including a stint as an assistant to the prosecutor in the public ministry in Sao Paulo. Monsignor Rafael Capelato leads a memorial service (Rovena Rosa/AP) Inspector Jose Henrique Vantura told reporters that Grandolpho lived as a recluse with his widowed father in a gated community and that he was once treated for depression. Rita Franco, a former girlfriend, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that Grandolpho was an extremely bright person. President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has promised to crack down on violence, in part by loosening gun laws so more civilians could arm themselves. Among other things, Brazils gun control laws require people wanting to buy a weapon to explain why they need a gun. Theresa Mays authority has been fatally undermined despite winning a confidence vote, Nicola Sturgeon has said. Scotlands First Minister described the 200 to 117 vote result as barely even a Pyrrhic victory and said it cannot be used by the Prime Minister to claim the only Brexit choice is between her deal or a departure from the EU without any deal. Ms Sturgeon had earlier called on Mrs May to resign along with her Cabinet because its made such a mess of Brexit. Hard to see Tory leadership vote resolving anything. If PM does badly, shes damaged; if she wins easily, its only because shes promised to go soon, making herself a lame duck PM. And either way, shes still selling a Brexit deal Parliament wont vote for. Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 12, 2018 After the result of the Conservative MPs vote, Ms Sturgeon said: She may have clung on to the Conservative leadership, but her remaining authority has been fatally undermined. In any normal situation, the Prime Ministers position would be untenable. The crisis and chaos currently facing the UK is entirely a result of the vicious civil war that has engulfed the self-centred Conservative Party at a crucial time in the UKs history, it has a lame duck Prime Minister saddled with a lame duck Brexit deal. The cost to Scotland of being under Westminster control and at the mercy of a Tory civil war has never been clearer. The Prime Minister cannot and must not use this result to support her claim that the choice is now between her bad Brexit and a catastrophic no-deal Brexit. Parliament is simply not going to approve her deal and is also likely to make clear that there is no majority for no-deal. Every day that she refuses to accept this is another day wasted. Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, announced the result of the vote (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The First Minister added: The Scottish Government and SNP will continue to make the case for Scotlands overwhelming vote to stay in Europe to be respected, and we will support any second EU referendum which has remain as an option. Our priority is to do all we can to stop the UK Government dragging Scotland off the Brexit cliff-edge, which is set to do so much damage to jobs, communities and living standards. Scottish Secretary David Mundell backed the Prime Minister in the confidence vote and said it was now time to get on with delivering an orderly exit from the EU. Prime Minister has won vote of confidence convincingly. Time to move on and get on with delivering an orderly exit from the EU #BackTheBrexitDeal David Mundell MP (@DavidMundellDCT) December 12, 2018 Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson who is on maternity leave also tweeted her support for Mrs May in the lead up to the confidence vote. Labours shadow Scottish secretary Lesley Laird said: Theresa May has already lost all authority. She has clung on for now to lead a Government that was the first in history to be found in contempt of Parliament and she is still dodging a vote on her Brexit deal because she knows she will lose. She is in office, but not in power. Theresa May has urged her party to come together after seeing off an attempt by rebel backbenchers to oust her as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. The Prime Minister won a confidence vote of the 317 Conservative MPs by a margin of 200 to 117 in a secret ballot at Westminster. But she sowed the seeds for her eventual departure by telling Tory MPs that she would not lead the party into the next general election, expected in 2022. And she immediately faced calls to resign from Brexit-backing MPs including Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said that she had lost the confidence of more than one-third of her MPs and a majority of backbenchers. Speaking in Downing Street moments after the result was announced, Mrs May acknowledged that a significant number of her MPs had voted against her and said: I have listened to what they said. She pledged to seek legal and political assurances on the Brexit backstop to allay MPs concerns about her Withdrawal Agreement when she attends a European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday. And she said she and her administration had a renewed mission, saying: Following this ballot, we now need to get on with the job of delivering Brexit for the British people and building a better future for this country. She said this must involve politicians of all sides coming together and acting in the national interest. But Mr Rees-Mogg told the Press Association Mrs May should resign as soon as the Queen has a moment in her diary to see her. Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks to the media outside the Houses of Parliament (David Mirzoeff/PA) The chairman of the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory eurosceptics told the BBC: Its a terrible result for the Prime Minister, it really is. With the payroll vote of ministers, parliamentary aides and trade envoys all likely to have backed Mrs May, a majority of the remaining 160-170 backbenchers voted no confidence in her, he said. Of course I accept this result, but the Prime Minister must realise that under all constitutional norms, she ought to go to see the Queen urgently and resign. The ERG vowed to continue opposing Mrs Mays disastrous Brexit deal. A spokesman urged her to bring it back before the Commons without delay, warning: The parliamentary arithmetic remains unchanged. Congratulations to @theresa_may on her victory, now is the time to unite and get on and deliver Brexit. I look forward to the EU Withdrawal Agreement coming before the Commons in the New Year but importantly with the legally binding solution that will make the backstop temporary. Will Quince MP (@willquince) December 12, 2018 But other Brexiteers said they would end their efforts to unseat the Tory leader. Nadine Dorries said: The PM has secured the confidence of the Parliamentary party tonight. Its not the way I voted, however, I will fully respect the result. And Crispin Blunt said: The leadership question is now behind us for a year and we must get behind Theresa May in delivering Brexit. It was Mrs Mays decision to pull a vote on her deal in the face of what she acknowledged would have been a heavy defeat earlier this week which sparked a new wave of letters of no confidence from Tories, triggering the challenge to her position. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the dismal deal should be put before MPs next week. Tonight's vote changes nothing. Theresa May has lost her majority in Parliament, her Government is in chaos and she's unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first. She must now bring her botched deal back to Parliament next week Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) December 12, 2018 The Prime Minister has lost her majority in Parliament, her Government is in chaos and she is unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first, Mr Corbyn said. Its clear that she has not been able to negotiate the necessary changes in Europe. She must now bring her dismal deal back to the House of Commons next week so Parliament can take back control. Labour MPs described Mrs May as a lame duck due to her decision to pre-announce her departure, which prompted renewed speculation about the possible succession. So even if she wins this duck is lame https://t.co/EIpnWxlmo3 Sir David Hanson (@RTHondavehanson) December 12, 2018 Speaking in Downing Street following the announcement of the result, Mrs May said: While delivering Brexit is important, we also need to focus on the other issues that people feel are vital to them and matter to them today. The issues that we came into politics to deal with, building a stronger economy, delivering first-class public services, building the homes that families need. We owe it to the people who put us here to put their priorities first. So here is our renewed mission: delivering the Brexit that people voted for, bringing the country back together, and building a country that truly works for everyone. Theresa May makes a statement in 10 Downing Street after the vote results (Victoria Jones/PA) Mrs Mays victory in the confidence vote means that another challenge cannot be mounted against her position as Tory leader for a year. But she still faces the danger of a no-confidence motion in the House of Commons, which could bring her Government down if backed by more than half of all MPs. The day of drama in Westminster was kicked off by the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady early on Wednesday after he received letters of no confidence in the PM from at least 48 MPs 15% of the parliamentary party. In an early-morning statement outside the famous door to Number 10, a defiant Mrs May vowed to fight with everything Ive got to defend her position, warning that a change in prime minister might mean Brexit being delayed or halted. Theresa May faced the House of Commons for Prime Ministers Questions ahead of the confidence vote (PA) Every MP in her Cabinet swiftly issued statements of support and she was greeted by loud cheers from the Tory backbenches when she faced the House of Commons for her weekly session of Prime Ministers Questions. Addressing assembled MPs at a meeting of the 1922 Committee moments before the crucial vote, Mrs May said that she accepted she could not fight the next election as their leader. Solicitor general Robert Buckland told reporters: She said In my heart I would like to lead the party into the next election and then that was the introductory phrase to her indication that she would accept the fact that that would not happen, that is not her intention. And, according to MPs present at the meeting, she also promised to find a legally binding solution to ensuring that the UK does not get permanently trapped in a backstop arrangement to keep the Irish border open after Brexit. Conservative MPs listen to Theresa May at a meeting of the 1922 Committee immediately before the crucial vote (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The scale of this task was highlighted by Irish premier Leo Varadkar and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who insisted in a phone call as MPs voted that the UKs Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened or contradicted. And DUP leader Arlene Foster, who met Mrs May shortly before the ballot, insisted that tinkering around the edges of the agreement would not be enough to win her partys support for the deal. Mrs Foster, whose 10 MPs prop up the minority Conservative administration, said she told the PM that we were not seeking assurances or promises, we wanted fundamental legal text changes. Unionist parties in Northern Ireland have said that Theresa May must now focus on the task at hand after dramatically defeating a bid to oust her as Tory leader. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, speaking shortly after the 200-117 vote of confidence in the Prime Minister, said his partys focus was on the draft agreement. Our focus has very much been on the Withdrawal Agreement and the changes that need to be made to it to get our support, and support across Parliament. I dont think this vote really changes very much in terms of the arithmetic of that, he said. We had a good meeting with the Prime Minster today, she understands what our concerns are about the legally binding and indefinite arrangements we are tied into. Whether or not she delivers anything that changes that remains to be seen. DUPs Nigel Dodds responds in the Commons (PA) She knows what has to be done and hopefully that is what has got through. In terms of trust, Mr Dodds noted it was actions not words that the DUP were interested in from the Prime Minister. There are commitments that havent been lived up to in terms of actions, so whatever she says, its whatever is delivered in the text that well be examining very closely. We wouldnt be supporting (any Labour-tabled) no confidence motion, it would be illogical to do this while we still have to wait for the outcome of the work the Prime Minister is now engaged in, and while were still engaged in getting the withdrawal agreement changed. .@NigelDoddsDUP - Sec of State telling everyone the Withdrawal Agreement is a wonderful deal. On the other hand the Prime Minister is saying that no-one wants it. How does she explain the utter contradiction in her argument. pic.twitter.com/R3dWvO3uRj DUP (@duponline) December 12, 2018 Obviously, if the deal as it is currently proposed was to pass, that would be a different situation, but were not at that stage. Ulster Unionist Party leader, Robin Swann said a no-deal Brexit still needed to be avoided. Now that the question of the leadership of the Conservative Party has been settled, we now need to see the Prime Minister and her Government working to ensure that our concerns in relation to the backstop are addressed, he said. It is vital that minds now focus on the most important task at hand to make sure that the United Kingdom leaves the European Union with a deal that works for the nation in its entirety. The Prime Minister must return to the negotiating table to get a deal which preserves the economic and constitutional integrity of the UK. And if more time is needed to get the right deal, then the Prime Minister should seek to extend Article 50 and ensure that we dont leave with no-deal. Melania Trump has made history by flying in a V-22 Osprey aircraft during a visit to a pair of military bases. The White House said it was the first time a first lady has flown in an Osprey. We are off to visit some of our brave men & women in uniform today & thank them for their service. Ill be visiting Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Joint Base Langley-Eustis & the #USSGeorgeHWBush aircraft carrier today. Looking forward to meeting everyone! #USA pic.twitter.com/XrYsFyItJJ Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) December 12, 2018 The tilt-rotor aircraft takes off and lands vertically. Mrs Trump flew from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington to Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia, for an appearance. An incredible flight today on a V-22 to visit the service members aboard the USS George HW Bush. Thank you to ALL who serve! pic.twitter.com/ylRIl37qwa Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) December 12, 2018 First ladies usually do not take solo helicopter rides. When they do travel by helicopter, they often are accompanying the president aboard Marine One, a more traditional aircraft. In Virginia, Mrs Trump inspected the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet and addressed an audience of service members, noting that many had just returned from deployment. First lady Melania Trump , right, poses with an airman (Steve Helber/AP) Some had been responding to natural disasters such as Hurricane Michael, which devastated Florida Panhandle communities. The first lady said she was honoured to welcome them home and thanked them for answering the call of duty. She exchanged high-fives with children from a local school and posed for selfies with some of those wearing military garb. An Osprey helicopter (Kirsty OConnor/PA) She also spent time with the crew aboard the USS George H.W. Bush and toured part of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the former president, who died in November. Michael Gove has been heckled by a bell-ringing anti-Brexit Santa who told him: Youve been a very naughty boy. As the MP attempted to walk across College Green on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Gove was followed by the man clad in the red suit and beard. Santa got more quotes from Gove then the press did. pic.twitter.com/oHmwjiaeRE Jenny Lou BETH (@JennyLouiseBe) December 12, 2018 The man shouted: Ho! Ho! Ho! All the benefits of Brexit in Santas sack. Happy Christmas. Which one would you like, sir? Which one would you like? Take your pick, there is plenty to go around, he continued. As he followed Mr Gove across the green, the protester held a red sign reading: Brexit: A Ho Ho hopeless mess. Mr Gove declined to respond to the mans questions. The reduced drink-drive limit in Scotland has had no impact on cutting road accidents, a new study has found. The Scottish Government cut the legal blood alcohol limit for motorists from 80 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood to 50 in December 2014. It argued the change would help save lives and make the countrys roads safer. But Jim Lewsey, professor of medical statistics at Glasgow Universitys Institute of Health and Wellbeing, said the unequivocal results of the research were this simply did not have the intended effect of reducing RTAs. The most plausible explanation for this surprising finding was the lower limit in Scotland was not backed up with sufficient police enforcement or media campaigning, he added. The research, which was carried out alongside NHS Health Scotland, the University of Stirling and the University of East Anglia, looked at police data on road traffic accidents in not just Scotland but also England and Wales where the drink-drive limit has remained at 80 millilgrammes of alcohol. The drink drive limit in Scotland was reduced in December 2014. (Andrew Milligan/PA) This was combined with market research data showing alcohol consumption rates with the researchers believing the design of the study allowed them to isolate the impact of the policy change. Prof Lewsey said: Our findings are surprising, given what we know from previous international evidence, which generally supports a reduction of RTAs following the same lowering of a blood alcohol concentration limit. However, the results of our high-quality study are unequivocal they indicate that the reduction in Scotlands drink-drive limit in December 2014 simply did not have the intended effect of reducing RTAs. When the lower drink driving limit was introduced, then-Scottish justice secretary Michael Matheson said he believed the change would not only reduce accidents but also reduce fatalities on Scottish roads and in that way make Scottish roads safer. Prof Lewsey added: In our view, the most plausible explanation for our findings is that the change in legislation was not backed up with additional police enforcement, nor sustained media campaigning. It is also perhaps an indication of the safety of Scotlands roads more generally, following continual improvements in recent years, and the fact that drink-driving is increasingly socially unacceptable. He stressed: Drink-driving remains highly dangerous and against the law. It is important to stress that these findings should not be interpreted to imply that any level of drink-driving is safe. In response to the study Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland said: Reducing the drink-drive limit was the right thing to do as the risk of having an accident rises in direct relation to the amount of alcohol consumed. The safest thing to do is avoid alcohol completely before driving. We need to increase public understanding and awareness of the risks and the limit. There were at least 6,070 road traffic accidents in the UK in 2016 that involved drink-driving, while such incidents are estimated to cost the Scottish economy about 80 million a year. The study, which was published in the medical journal The Lancet, also looked at the impact the lower limit had had on alcohol sales. Here it concluded there had been no change to sales in supermarkets and off-licences, while sales in pubs, restaurants and bars were found to have reduced by less than 1%. Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: We warned at the time that the SNP Government was focusing on the wrong end of the scale with these changes. We wanted more attention on those whose irresponsible behaviour actually cause death and destruction. This report seems to back that approach up and I hope the SNP Government takes this on board. We all want to see a reduction in drink-driving and the accidents it causes, and its vital that we work towards that. SNP MSP Emma Harper responded: The Tories are absurd and deeply irresponsible. Theyre attacking the SNP for leading the fight against drink-driving despite supporting us by voting for lower limits. And, to top off this hypocrisy, their own spokesperson was posing outside Parliament for a photo op for an anti-drink drive campaign which backs the Scottish Governments approach. Meanwhile, a Scottish Government spokeswoman said ministers would look at the research carefully. She said: The 2010 independent North Report found that drivers are six times more likely to die in a road traffic accident with a blood alcohol concentration between 50mg and 80mg than with zero blood alcohol. That is why the Scottish Parliament agreed unanimously to set the drink-drive limit based on the scientific evidence as to when impairment begins to increase significantly bringing Scotland in line with most European nations. The number of mentally-ill children treated in non-specialist wards in Scotland has risen, latest figures show. The lack of psychiatric care facilities in Scotland has been blamed after almost 100 incidents of children and young people being admitted to non-specialist adult wards, some containing criminals. A report by the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland shows there were 98 admissions to intensive care psychiatric units (ICPUs) designed for adults, while another five were into general paediatric wards. After two years of falling, these figures involving 90 children show an increase from the 71 admissions involving 66 young people in the previous year. Commenting on the disappointing increase, Colin McKay, chief executive of the Mental Welfare Commission, said: We believe the rise may reflect capacity issues within the mental health system as a whole. We are also very concerned about the continued lack of intensive psychiatric care facilities in Scotland for children and young people, something we have raised for several years. The number of mentally-ill children being treated in non-specialist wards has increased (Niall Carson/PA) Adult intensive care psychiatric units can often be unsuitable environments for adolescents. They are specialised environments for adults who are very unwell and present with high risk to themselves or others. They are also used routinely to provide care for adults who are engaged in the criminal justice system and court processes due to the security of the environment. We continue to discuss the need for an IPCU facility for children and young people with government, and are asking that it becomes part of the Mental Health Strategy. A Scottish Government spokesperson said: We welcome this annual report from the Mental Welfare Commission, which will help us in our work to redesign and improve services for children and young people. We agree with the reports recommendations to improve bed-use efficiency and the provision of intensive psychiatric care. This will be delivered as part of actions of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 and the Child and Young Persons Mental Health Taskforce. A new national secure child and adolescent psychiatric inpatient facility will be built by NHS Ayrshire and Arran with an intended opening date of late 2020. Scottish health boards have a legal duty to provide age-appropriate services and accommodation. The country has just three specialist units for inpatient treatment for children and young people, however, Skye House in Glasgow covering the west of Scotland, the Young Peoples Unit in Edinburgh for the east, and Dudhope House in Dundee, which takes patients from the north of Scotland. A spokesperson for the Scottish Childrens Services Coalition, which campaigns to improve services for vulnerable young people, said: Despite a greatly increased demand on mental health services, there are currently only 48 specialist hospital beds provided by the NHS in Scotland for adolescents with mental health problems. Given admissions to non-specialist mental health wards, it is clearly arguable whether appropriate services are being provided. There are a number of differences between specialist units and wards designed to treat the needs of adults with serious mental illness, both in terms of staff training, experience and the overall ward environment. The Scottish Government needs refocus its efforts on prevention and early intervention, ensuring that issues do not escalate so that they require the provision of these specialist services, but we also need to ensure that we have adequate specialist bed numbers that can deal with the requirements should the need arise. The news comes days after NHS figures revealed 221 young Scots have been waiting more than a year for specialist help with mental health problems and that there were 197 cases where children with such conditions were treated on adult wards in 2017-18. They were released at the same time as official data showing just four out of 14 health boards in Scotland met the target of having 90% of youngsters accepted by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) start treatment in 18 weeks. The meeting was also attended by state unit chiefs and organisational secretaries of the states teams and continued till late evening. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, BJP president Amit Shah and other dignitaries at a ceremony to pay tribute to the martyrs of 2001 Parliament attack on its 17th anniversary at Parliament in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: With the just-concluded Assembly polls results of five states giving a major jolt to the BJP, the saffron party will hold national conventions of its seven morchas in different states to garner support and volunteers for the 2019 electoral battle. Also, the two-day meet of BJPs national council will be held from January 11 in the national capital, first major meeting of the partys central and state leadership after the recent polls rout. The decision to hold national conventions of partys morchas was taken during a meeting of office-bearers and was headed by party president Amit Shah. The meeting was also attended by state unit chiefs and organisational secretaries of the states teams and continued till late evening. When asked whether the party leaders discussed about the recent poll rout in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan, national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav said that the meeting was scheduled earlier and was to discuss only organisational matters. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the national conventions of the mahila morcha and the kisan morcha, Mr Shah and other senior leaders, including Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Thawarchand Gehlot among others will address the meets. Amid concern within the BJP and the Modi government over feedback that there is growing unrest among the farming community over the poll promises, the BJP leadership decided that the kisan morcha should be addressed by the Mr Modi who would try to assure and convince the farmers that the government has been working diligently from day one for their betterment. One of the key reasons for partys poll rout in MP, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan is said to be farmers unrest. The kisan morchas two-day meet will take place from February 21 in Uttar Pradesh. The venue is yet to be decided. Mr Modi has a major support base among the women voters and he will address the mahila morchas national convention will be held in Ahmedabad on December 21-22. The partys youth morchas national convention will take place on December 15-16 in the national capital. The partys SC morchas will hold its national convention on January 19-20 in Nagpur, which will be addressed by Mr Shah, Mr Gadkari and Mr Gehlot. BJPs minority morcha will meet in Delhi on January 31 and February 1 and will be addressed by Mr Shah. Odisha capital Bhubaneshwar will be the venue for the partys ST morchas convention and will be addressed by Mr Rajnath Singh. The BJP leadership will hold the national convention of its OBC morcha in Patnas Gandhi Maidan on February 15-16. Prince Charles and the First Minister will join descendants of those killed in one of the UKs worst maritime disasters to mark 100 years since the tragedy. More than 200 people died when the HMY Iolaire, which was carrying sailors home from the First World War, hit rocks around 20 yards from shore and sank near Stornoway in Lewis on New Years Day in 1919. A National Commemorative Service will take place on January 1, 2019, organised by WW100 Scotland in conjunction with Western Isles Council to mark the centenary of the tragedy. Hundreds of people including Iolaire descendants, Scotlands most senior Naval Officer Rear Admiral John Weale, Ms Sturgeon, Prince Charles and Norman A Macdonald, convener of Western Isles Council, will attend the event at the Iolaire Memorial in Stornoway. Professor Norman Drummond, chairman of the Scottish Commemorations Panel, said: It is beyond our comprehension that over 200 men perished so close to home after surviving the war in what remains one of the worst UK maritime disasters of the 20th century. When you look out from the Iolaire Memorial to where HMY Iolaire hit the rocks of The Beasts of Holm, you are struck by just how close they were to shore. It is hard to imagine the relief and excitement of the men and their families on their return and then the sorrow that was to follow. It is right and fitting that we hold a WW100 Scotland Commemoration in their memory and reflect on the lasting impact this tragic incident had on future generations on the Western Isles and far beyond. At the end of the service, to be conducted by the Very Rev Dr Angus Morrison, the prince will unveil a new sculpture to commemorate the tragedy, a bronze depiction of a coiled heaving line that references the heroism of John Finlay Macleod, who swam ashore with a rope to rescue 40 of the 79 men who were saved. It was created by artists Will Maclean, Marian Leven and Arthur Watson, and will bear the names of those lost and the communities they came from as well as a bronze wreath composed of maritime insignia. More than 200 people died when the HMY Iolaire sank off Lewis (Lewis Museum Trust/PA) More than 200 people died when the HMY Iolaire sank off Lewis (Lewis Museum Trust/PA) While the service on land is taking place, a similar event, led by Rev James Maciver, of the Stornoway Free Church, will be held on board Caledonian MacBraynes MV Loch Seaforth ferry, which will be situated near where the Iolaire hit the rocks just off Holm in view of the Iolaire Memorial. More than 500 people will be on board, including schoolchildren from the Western Isles who will throw 201 red carnations into the sea, one for each of the men that perished, as the service draws to a close. At 3pm on December 31, a special commemoration will be held by Legion Scotland at Kyle Railway Station where the sailors disembarked before heading for the Iolaire 100 years ago. Historian Malcolm Macdonald, who has co-written a book titled The Darkest Dawn about the tragedy, lost his grandfather in the disaster. He said: Two ships left that night bound for Stornoway, one HMY Iolaire, the other SS Sheila, which left later. There are many sad tales of those that swapped places to ensure that friends could get home to their families earlier. Theresa May heads to Brussels on Thursday seeking fresh concessions for her Brexit deal after emerging from a confidence vote by Tory MPs bloodied and bruised but victorious. The Prime Minister will address EU leaders at the two-day European Council after seeing off rebels who attempted to remove her from the party leadership, winning by 200 votes to 117 in a secret ballot. She will hold one-on-one talks with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar before the summit opens, after cancelling a planned trip to Dublin on Wednesday in order to fight for her leadership. After a day of drama in Westminster, the Prime Minister was still faced with the dilemma of how to convince the EU to tweak the Withdrawal Agreement so that it will be passed by Parliament. Speaking in Downing Street moments after the result was announced, Mrs May acknowledged that a significant number of her MPs had voted against her and said: I have listened to what they said. (PA Graphics) She pledged to seek legal and political assurances on the Brexit backstop to allay MPs concerns about her Withdrawal Agreement when she attends a European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday. And she said she and her administration had a renewed mission, saying: Following this ballot, we now need to get on with the job of delivering Brexit for the British people and building a better future for this country. She said this must involve politicians of all sides coming together and acting in the national interest. (PA Graphics) But she had earlier sowed the seeds for her eventual departure by telling Tory MPs at a meeting of the backbench 1922 committee that she would not lead the party into the next general election, expected in 2022. According to MPs present at the meeting, she also promised to find a legally binding solution to ensuring that the UK does not get permanently trapped in a backstop arrangement to keep the Irish border open after Brexit. The scale of this task was highlighted by Irish premier Leo Varadkar and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who insisted in a phone call as MPs voted that the UKs Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened or contradicted. DUP leader Arlene Foster, who met Mrs May shortly before the ballot, insisted that tinkering around the edges of the agreement would not be enough to win her partys support for the deal. Mrs Foster, whose 10 MPs prop up the minority Conservative administration, said she told the PM that we were not seeking assurances or promises, we wanted fundamental legal text changes. Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks to the media outside the Houses of Parliament (David Mirzoeff/PA) Immediately after the vote result was announced by 1922 chairman Sir Graham Brady, she faced calls to resign from Brexit-backing MPs including Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said that she had lost the confidence of more than one-third of her MPs and a majority of backbenchers. Mr Rees-Mogg told the Press Association Mrs May should resign as soon as the Queen has a moment in her diary to see her. The hardline European Research Group (ERG) vowed to continue opposing Mrs Mays disastrous Brexit deal, with a spokesman warning: The parliamentary arithmetic remains unchanged. But other Brexiteers said they would end their efforts to unseat the Tory leader. Sir Graham Brady announces that Theresa May has survived an attempt by Tory MPs to oust her as party leader (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Crispin Blunt said: The leadership question is now behind us for a year and we must get behind Theresa May in delivering Brexit. It was Mrs Mays decision to pull a vote on her deal in the face of what she acknowledged would have been a heavy defeat earlier this week which sparked a new wave of letters of no confidence from Tories, triggering the challenge to her position. Mrs Mays victory in the confidence vote means that another challenge cannot be mounted against her position as Tory leader for a year. But she still faces the danger of a no-confidence motion in the House of Commons, which could bring her Government down if backed by more than half of all MPs. Tonight's vote changes nothing. Theresa May has lost her majority in Parliament, her Government is in chaos and she's unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first. She must now bring her botched deal back to Parliament next week Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) December 12, 2018 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the dismal deal should be put before MPs next week. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell hinted that Labour could call the motion next week if Mrs May does not get changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that it wants, telling ITVs Peston: We will just have to judge what she comes back with on Sunday night, Monday morning, see what the statement is in the House of Commons on Monday and take a proper judgment then. Hundreds of security forces have combed eastern France for a 29-year-old man suspected of opening fire near Strasbourgs famous Christmas market. Tuesday nights attack at the Christmas market in Strasbourg killed two people, left a third brain-dead and injured 12, and was a stark reminder to a nation wounded by previous assaults that terrorism remains a threat, even as anti-government protests roil the country. National police distributed a photo of the wounded fugitive, identified as Cherif Chekatt, with the warning: Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene. Cherif Chekatt, the suspect in the shooting in Strasbourg, France (French Police via AP) France raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level and bolstered troops around France. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told politicians that the French native, born in Strasbourg, had run-ins with police starting at age 10 and his first conviction at age 13. Chekatt had been convicted 27 times, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany, for crimes including armed robbery. He had been flagged for extremism and was on a watch list, but the interior minister said the signs were weak. Its a large zone and the search is difficult, senior Interior Ministry official Laurent Nunez said on France-Inter radio. People pay respect and light candles the night following the shooting in Strasbourg (Christophe Ena/AP) Strasbourg is on the border with Germany, where the suspect was convicted in 2016 of breaking into a dental practice and a pharmacy in two towns. Prosecutor Remy Heitz said the man attacked with a handgun and a knife about 8pm local time on Tuesday, and was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with soldiers during his rampage. He then took a taxi to another part of the city, boasting of the attack to the driver, and later exchanged more gunfire with police and disappeared, Mr Heitz said. Witnesses described shots and screams after the gunman opened fire and yelled God is great! in Arabic, the prosecutor added. Swaths of the city were under lockdown for hours. The dead included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to Thai Foreign Ministry and the website of the Khao Sod newspaper. It quoted his uncle as saying he and his wife had originally planned to visit Paris, but the protests there prompted them to change plans and go to Strasbourg instead. One Italian was reported to be among the wounded. Police officials identified the suspected assailant as Cherif Chekatt (French Police via AP) Italian media said Antonio Megalizzi, 28, was in critical condition. Italian daily La Repubblica reported he was in Strasbourg to follow the session of the European Parliament. After initially reporting that three people had died, authorities revised that and said one was brain-dead, while 12 people were wounded, six of them gravely. About 720 police, soldiers and Swat team officers in Strasbourg were being reinforced with 500 more soldiers and another 1,300 in the coming days to guard public places, especially other Christmas markets, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said after a crisis meeting. The attack in the heart of old Strasbourg, near its famous cathedral and within the Christmas market that draws many tourists, unsettled the border city that also is home to the European Parliament. The German government said it had stepped up controls on the border with France but did not change its threat level. All terrorist attacks touch all of France, and its plain to see each of the attacks have hit a highly symbolic point or moment, Mr Philippe told parliament. He listed violence since 2015 that killed more than 200: at the Charlie Hebdo satiric newspaper, a Kosher store, restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Paris; along the famed seaside promenade in Nice; and even inside a church in a quiet suburb of the northern city of Rouen, among others. A French gendarme patrols the streets of Strasbourg (Christophe Ena/AP) Strasbourgs Christmas market is a family and brotherly celebration that speaks about hope and what unites us. Its this celebration that was hit yesterday by a terrorist act, he said. The city was in mourning, with candles lit at the site of the attack, and the Christmas market was closed at least through Thursday, according to regional prefect Jean-Luc Marx. The attack came as President Emmanuel Macron sought to take back control of the nation after a month of anti-government protests that have spread violence across the country. It came only 24 hours after he broke a long public silence and appealed for calm amid the mushrooming yellow vest protest movement that seeks a better standard of living for ordinary citizens. He offered a package of measures, but it was not clear if that would halt the weekend protests. The terrorist threat is still at the core of our nations life, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux quoted Mr Macron as saying at the weekly Cabinet meeting. Interior Ministry official Mr Nunez said Chekatt had been radicalised in prison and had been monitored by French intelligence services since his release in late 2015, because of his suspected religious extremism. Mr Nunez told France-Inter that police went to his apartment in an outer neighbourhood of Strasbourg on Tuesday morning. Authorities said he was not there, although five other people were detained. Police seized a grenade, a rifle and knives in the operation, Mr Heitz said. The UKs highest court will rule on a challenge brought over Brexit legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. Supreme Court justices will announce their decision on Thursday on the competence of the Scottish Bill following a hearing in London in the summer. The court has been asked to rule on whether the EU exit bill passed by Holyrood in March is constitutional and properly within devolved legislative powers. SNP ministers in Edinburgh brought forward the legislation after branding the UK Governments European Withdrawal Act a power grab fearing this will mean responsibilities they believe should come to Holyrood after Brexit will instead go to Westminster. When the Bill was passed, Scottish Government ministers insisted it was within Holyroods competence although the Scottish Parliaments Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh ruled against them on this. As a result of the UK Governments legal challenge, the Supreme Court has been asked to decide if the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland Bill) is indeed within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. A Saltire flag decorated with stars representing the European Union At a hearing in July, a panel of seven justices, including the courts president Lady Hale and deputy president Lord Reed, were urged to find that the legislation cannot stand. The issue was referred to the court to seek legal certainty in the public interest by the Attorney General and the Advocate General for Scotland, the UK Governments senior law officers. Advocate General for Scotland Lord Keen told the justices their case was the Scottish Bill as a whole cannot stand. He submitted the Bill impermissibly modifies the UK Act on withdrawal from the EU. The UK Bill was given Royal Assent on June 26 and became the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The law officers said in their written case before the Supreme Court that the Scottish Bill was passed without knowledge of the outcome of negotiations between the UK Government and the EU institutions and pre-empts them. They stated: The effect of what the Scottish Bill does is to make provision for the future relationship with the EU and EU law when that relationship is under negotiation. They submitted that this could serve to undermine the credibility of the UKs negotiation and implementation strategy in the eyes of the EU. As well as hearing the case put forward by the law officers, the justices received submissions in response from Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC. He argued the justices should rule in the negative on the question posed by the law officers relating to whether the Bill as a whole is outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. He pointed out that although the reference to the court arises in a politically contentious context, the issues which arise for the courts determination are strictly issues of law. Mr Wolffe said: The purpose and effect of the Scottish Bill is to promote legal certainty by making provision for the continuity within the domestic legal system of existing EU-derived law upon and following withdrawal. Regardless of any treaty on the future relationship which may be entered into between the UK and the EU, there is a need to provide for legal certainty and continuity when the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, and that is the purpose and effect of the Scottish Bill. The issue the Supreme Court has been asked to decide is whether the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland Bill) is within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. A dramatic day in Westminster has given Thursdays newspapers plenty to talk about as Prime Minister Theresa May survived a vote of no confidence. But views on Mrs Mays Brexit plan, the future of the party and Mrs Mays position within it are subject of fierce discussion and debate among the nationals. The Times runs with the headline May scrapes home after the vote went 200 votes for Mrs May and 117 against, but added that her critics remained unbowed. The Times 13/12/2018 Prime minister Theresa May returns to No.10 Downing Street and eventually survives the no-confidence vote. Photo: Times Photographer Jack Hill #thetimes #tomorrowspaperstoday #theresamay @thetimes pic.twitter.com/3WDqLvrLQ2 The Times Pictures (@TimesPictures) December 12, 2018 Inside the paper, Conservative peer Lord Finkelstein questions whether the hectic day has actually changed anything. He writes: Almost every problem Theresa May had yesterday she still has today. She still has to win support for the withdrawal agreement despite overwhelming opposition. She still has to pass a bill to ratify the agreement. And she still has to keep her government in office despite the threat that the Democratic Unionist Party will withdraw its support if the deal is agreed. He adds Mrs May should focus on making sure her deal is the only thing left on the table and concludes: Meanwhile we are 24 hours closer to leaving the EU, without being any wiser about how. The Daily Telegraph contains a front-page column from Mrs Mays former chief of staff Nick Timothy in which he says her deal is as dead as a dodo, while Mansfield MP Ben Bradley said the country needed a prime minister who had not just determination, but who is pointing that determination in the right direction. Mr Bradley, who resigned as vice chair of the party over the Chequers Agreement, adds: I have never doubted Theresa Mays steel and determination, but I do doubt her understanding of what the Brexit vote means. You cannot seek to deliver on a vote for change if all you aim to do is replicate the status quo. Yes, we want a relationship with Europe, but it has to be a different one I honestly dont think its complicated, but this Government has made it complicated. The Daily Mirrors Kevin Maguire says Mrs May lives to die another day, saying it was the hollowest of victories, while the Daily Mail and Daily Express both urge the party to let Mrs May get on with her job. Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail calls the rebels silly fools who have blown themselves up, writing: Mrs May is not the greatest prime minister in British history, not by a long shot. But shes incredibly fortunate in her opponents both on the Opposition benches and in her own party. But she now looks stateswomanlike indeed thanks to the half-baked challenge launched by colleagues such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Suns leader column attempts to sum up the problems facing Mrs May, saying she is caught between the devil and the DUP. It says much of Britain is in disarray pointing to rail services, police, hospitals and the military as problem areas but warns: Every single Tory needs to remember one thing: if you dont get your act together, well end up with Corbyn. The front pages of tomorrow's Irish Examiner and Irish Examiner Sport. Available in-store and online: https://t.co/rdKlwaMzs4 pic.twitter.com/mxKV7vm1h4 Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) December 12, 2018 The Irish Examiner writes Mrs May is not going anywhere for now pointing out the struggle to sell the Brexit deal remains. In continental Europe, Mrs May also makes the fronts with Le Soir in Belgium running the headline May saved, her Brexit still under threat and De Standaard refers to the vote result as a pyrrhic victory for the Conservative leader. The front page of De Standaard (Screenshot) Politiken in Denmark talks of drama in Mrs Mays future, while Het Belang Van Limburg, a Dutch regional paper in Belgium, says Survival artist May does it again. A high-speed train has hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital of Ankara, killing seven people, officials and news reports said. The train was en route from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya. Ankara governor Vasip Sahin said the high-speed train crashed into an engine that was checking the tracks at Marsandiz station in Ankara. Rescue teams sent to the scene were looking for more survivors, he said. At least 46 people have been injured. Our hope is that there are no other victims, he said. Rescue services work at the scene (Burhan Ozbilici/AP) Private NTV television said at least two carraiges derailed. Parts of the overpass collapsed on to the train. Several ambulances and rescue teams were sent to the scene. It was not immediately clear if a signalling problem caused the crash. Mr Sahin said a technical inspection has begun while NTV television, quoting unnamed officials, said three prosecutors were assigned to investigate. In July, 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in north-western Turkey, after torrential rain caused part of the tracks to collapse. Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in the central province of Sivas. Konya, about 160 miles south of Ankara, is home to the tomb of the Sufi mystic and poet Jalaladdin Rumi, attracting thousands of pilgrims and tourists. The number of homicides in London so far in 2018 is the highest in a calendar year this decade as mayor Sadiq Khan has been told drastic action is needed on violent crime in the capital. Jay Sewell was the victim of the latest violent death in the capital when he was stabbed to death in a fight in Lee, south east London, shortly before 10pm on Tuesday. The death of the 18-year-old brings the grim tally of violent deaths in the capital this year to 125, the largest number in a calendar year since 2009 when there were 131. It comes as Mr Khans plans for a violence reduction unit (VRU), which would see health, police and local government focus on young people, poverty and social alienation to cut the risk of children getting involved in crime, require more detail, according to London Assembly members. (PA Graphics) The unit, which has been given initial funding of 500,000, is modelled on a similar scheme in Scotland, but members of the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee have said Mr Khan needs to take further and drastic action to reduce violence. In a letter to Mr Khan, committee members said: We are concerned that the narrative around the VRU may give some Londoners the impression that it is set up and taking action, when in fact it is very much in the early stages of development. They claim the VRUs funding from surplus business rates is far from sufficient to resource the unit over the long term, and called for a move away from the focus on young people, knife crime and gangs. Members want the unit to tackle a broad range of violence and the particular issue of adverse childhood experiences. A spokesman for Mr Khan said he was leading from the front and that it was clear there is no one single solution to tackling this complex issue. (PA Graphics) Meanwhile, Scotland Yard said six people are in custody on suspicion of Mr Sewells murder, including a 16-year-old boy taken into custody following a raid on a property in Avery Hill on Wednesday afternoon. Three men aged 22, 31 and 56 and two women aged 29 and 53 have also been arrested and taken to police stations in south London for questioning. Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding said: We are at the very early stages of our investigation into this tragic murder. We urgently need to hear from anyone who saw what happened in Alwold Crescent. We have already spoken to a number of people as part of our initial inquiries, but we would like to hear from anyone who lives near the scene who saw anything that might assist our investigation to contact us. Did you see either group going to and from the scene? Did you see the fight? Perhaps you saw something after the incident that in retrospect may be linked. Police investigating the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Jay Sewell in #Eltham yesterday have arrested a 16-year-old male on suspicion of murder today. Five other people already arrested remain in custody. https://t.co/xOfmgXPcBv Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) December 12, 2018 We would urge you to get in touch right away. In 2018 there have been 72 deaths involving a knife, 13 involving a gun, one involving a knife and a gun and one a crossbow. Just over a third of victims, 44, were aged 16 to 24, of whom 10 were shot, 32 were stabbed and one was killed in an attack involving a knife and gun. Twenty-five of the victims were aged 19 and under, six of whom were shot and 16 of whom were stabbed. Earlier this month Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick insisted the tide was turning against knife and gun offences, although she admitted it would take time to tackle the 180 violent gangs in London who drag children into crime. Researchers are developing new artificial intelligence to tackle a surge in hate crimes after they rose to their highest levels since records began. It is hoped the technology will allow police and the government to preempt outbreaks of hate crime by monitoring online speech responding to national events including Brexit. The Online Hate Speech Dashboard is being designed by Cardiff University researchers at its HateLab, a project that has been tasked with assessing the impact of national events on levels of hate crimes and speech. Hate crime rose by 17% to reach its highest level since records began during 2017/18, with 94,098 incidents recorded by police. Hate crime reached its highest ever levels during 2017/18 which experts believe are connected to terror attacks in London (Cardiff University) Experts believe the terror attacks in Westminster, Manchester Arena, London Bridge and Finsbury Park last year were the main reasons behind the rise, and authorities are wary that the UKs departure from the EU could trigger a further spike. Principle investigator Professor Matthew Williams, said: Brexit has drawn sharp divisions in society, and the seemingly impossible promises made by leave-backing MPs have created a great sense of disillusionment in millions of citizens. In 2019, Britain is likely to be in its most severe crisis in peacetime, and whatever the outcome, be it a second referendum, a soft-Brexit or a no-Brexit, there is concern that events will motivate more hate crime. As we saw following the 2016 vote, and to a more extreme extent following the 2017 terror attacks, surges in online hate speech coincided with significant increases in hate crimes offline. Professor Pete Burnap, computational lead on the projects, said: To date, there have been significant delays in getting information to staff following trigger events. The dashboard will allow key personnel to gain aggregate insights into online reactions to events, such as our exit from the EU and terror attacks, in the so-called golden hour. The online dashboard is being developed with the National Online Hate Crime Hub, which was announced by then-home secretary Amber Rudd in 2016 in response to a rapid increase in online hate speech after the EU referendum. An additional grant, awarded under the Economic and Social Research Councils Governance After Brexit programme in November, will enable HateLab to assess if events of national interest led to genuine rises in hate crime perpetration, which would counter arguments that recorded spikes were only down to victims being more willing to report crimes to police. The HateLab research will be showcased to MPs, Lords, senior civil servants and policymakers at an All-Party Parliamentary Group meeting at Westminster in early 2019. The Prime Minister may have rebuffed attempts to oust her, but Tory in-fighting over Europe has continued unabated. Arch-Brexiteer and European Research Group leader Jacob Rees-Mogg led calls for Theresa May to step down after the vote, pointing out that she had lost the confidence of more than a third of her MPs and a majority of her backbenchers. But her supporters hit back, with the rift spilling out onto social media. Foreign minister Alistair Burt tweeted: They never, ever stop. Votes against them, letters going in late nothing matters to ERG . After the apocalypse, all that will be left will be ants and Tory MPs complaining about Europe and their leader. They never, ever stop. Votes against them, letters going in late- nothing matters to ERG. After the apocalypse, all that will be left will be ants and Tory MPs complaining about Europe and their leader. https://t.co/n3Jt04CjJe Rt Hon Alistair Burt (@AlistairBurtUK) December 12, 2018 Business Secretary Greg Clark posted that now the PMs position is confirmed MPs must move from being critics to being responsible participants. Jacob Rees-Mogg called for Theresa May to resign despite her winning the confidence vote (PA) He added: No one wants a crash out, so we must now come together to agree a deal that works & supports jobs and industries across our country. Now the PMs position is confirmed MPs must move from being critics to being responsible participants. No one wants a crash out, so we must now come together to agree a deal that works & supports jobs and industries across our country Greg Clark (@GregClarkMP) December 12, 2018 Former communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles also threw his weight behind Mrs May, stating on Twitter that the sensible thing is for all Tories to support the Prime Minister. There must be no recriminations. Lets all work to deliver Brexit for the British people. To do otherwise plays into Corbyns hands, he added. The sensible thing now is for all Conservative MPs is to support the PM. There must be no recriminations. Lets all work to deliver Brexit for the British people. To do otherwise plays into Corbyns hands Lord (Eric) Pickles (@EricPickles) December 12, 2018 Braintree MP James Cleverly tweeted: Some colleagues, perhaps out of frustration, saying foolish things about other Conservatives. Now would be a good time to stop. Respect the results of the two referendums; 52% to leave the EU and 63% to support Theresa May. Theres work to do. Some colleagues, perhaps out of frustration, saying foolish things about other Conservatives. Now would be a good time to stop. Respect the results of the two referendums; 52% to leave the EU and 63% to support @theresa_may Theres work to do. James Cleverly (@JamesCleverly) December 13, 2018 Ahead of the vote, in a confrontation that summed up the animosity bubbling over in the Tory ranks, Mr Cleverly and Andrew Bridgen who voted against Mrs May were caught in a painfully awkward exchange. Appearing on BBC News, presenter Victoria Derbyshire drew attention to how they did not necessarily want to talk to each other, before Mr Bridgen paused and made his escape, leaving Mr Cleverly to speak alone. .@vicderbyshire: "I gather you don't necessary want to talk to each other" Andrew Bridgen MP: "...I'll go" Tory backbencher who supports no confidence vote walks off TV set as colleague, James Cleverly, puts case for supporting Theresa May Updates: https://t.co/aiJQkfNxO5 pic.twitter.com/uY03QPVHUR BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) December 12, 2018 During an interview with ITVs Good Morning Britain on Thursday, Mr Bridgen said he will consider what the next steps are following the vote of confidence. But I cant support the withdrawal agreement thats so deeply flawed and neither will a large number of my colleagues, he added. Simon Hart, a former Remain supporter turned founder and leader of the Brexit Delivery Group of Tory backbenchers, said he has had potential leadership candidates approach him. Ive had people I havent spoken to in nine years since I was first elected in 2010 using this opportunity to sell their own credentials and engage in a private beauty parade, he said. Veteran Eurosceptic Peter Bone also reiterated his calls for Mrs May to step down, and told Good Morning Britain: It seems to me we need to have a leader who can unite the party and unite the country and deliver a proper Brexit. Owen Paterson posted on Twitter that the vote of confidence result for the Prime Minister was very poor, and she must listen to those of us concerned that she is failing to deliver our clear Manifesto pledges to leave Single Market, Customs Union and remit of ECJ. V poor result for PM - setting aside the Payroll, she has secured well under half of the Backbench vote. She must now listen to those of us concerned that she is failing to deliver our clear Manifesto pledges to leave Single Market, Customs Union and remit of ECJ. Owen Paterson (@OwenPaterson) December 12, 2018 Richard Drax who also does not support Mrs Mays leadership told Good Morning Britain he did not understand how so many colleagues on both sides of the house dont seem to understand the word leave'. We want a Brexiteer (in charge). This is nothing personal against the Prime Minister herself, he added. I would suggest, were the Prime Minister thinking carefully this morning, she would offer her resignation and allow someone who can deliver this to take over. Five foreigners including a Briton who have been held for alleged drug smuggling on the tourist island of Bali since the end of November face the death penalty if convicted, police in Indonesia said. Police paraded the citizens of Britain, Peru, China, Malaysia and Germany at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province. The men were arrested in five separate operations by customs and police since November 30 in which 8.8lb of cocaine were seized as well as marijuana, ecstasy and ketamine. Indonesia has strict drug laws and dozens of convicted smugglers are on death row. Its last executions were in July 2016 when an Indonesian and three foreigners were shot by a firing squad. A police statement said the cocaine was smuggled by a Peruvian citizen in the lining of his suitcase and had a value of about 10.2 billion rupiah (554,000). A British man was arrested for allegedly receiving nearly 68lb of cannabis oil in the mail, and a German for allegedly trying to smuggle 5.7lb of hashish on a flight from Bangkok. Two suspected drug smugglers in Indonesia (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) Police said the Chinese citizen was arrested with 200 ecstasy tablets and ketamine powder, and the Malaysian had small quantities of synthetic cannabis and ecstasy. The Congress said the party would keep up its demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate the Rafale deal. New Delhi: The government demanded Rahul Gandhis apology as the Supreme Court on Friday gave a clean chit to the Modi government on the Rafale deal. Congress leader Anand Sharma said, Supreme Court has not commented on many important aspects of the deal. We will continue to demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Rafale deal. The JPC has the right to summon all documents. There is no reason for PM Modi and BJP government to celebrate Supreme Court order which in itself is contradictory. Supreme Court has said it wont be proper for it to go into details, added Sharma. Senior party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the clean chit to Modi government is not a setback as the issue is still live in the peoples court and Congress will continue to raise it in the Parliament. Congress spokesperson, Randeep Surjewala said, The verdict of the Supreme Court today is a validation of what the Congress party stated months again, that Supreme Court is not the forum to decide such sensitive defence contract. Surjewala added, Article 136 and 32 is not the forum to decide the issue, the pricing, the process, the sovereign guarantee and the corruption in the Rafale contract. Only forum and only media is a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which can probe the entire corruption in the deal. We challenge PM Modi for JPC probe into Rafale deal to unveil every layer of corruption "It is a totally incorrect judgement," stated petitioner Prashant Bhushan moments after the court dismissed batch of petitions that demanded a probe into the controversial Rafale fighter jets deal stating that it was satisfied that the process for procurement had been followed. "We have just asked for an investigation constitute a Special Investigation Team under the supervision of the Supreme Court to investigate the reasons for cancellation of earlier deal for the purchase of 126 Rafale fighter jets. This decision is wrong in my opinion. The court has given this order citing scope of limited judicial review," Bhushan told reporters after the verdict. The activist lawyer also added that he is yet to take a call on filing the review petition on the latest Supreme Court's verdict. Congress has been demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions pertaining to multi-million dollar Rafale fighter jets deal. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation into details of Rafale pricing. A high-speed train has hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital, killing nine people and injuring 47 others, officials said. The early morning train from Ankara to the central city of Konya collided head-on with the engine, which was checking tracks at the capitals small Marsandiz station, Transport Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan said. The high-speed train normally passes through that station without stopping. At least two carriages derailed, hitting the stations overpass which then collapsed on to the train. Three engine drivers and six passengers were killed in the crash, Mr Turhan said. One of the passengers died after being taken to hospital while others were killed at the scene. The aftermath of the crash (Burhan Ozbilici/AP) Television footage showed emergency services working to rescue passengers from mangled carriages and debris. The Hurriyet newspaper said sniffer dogs assisted efforts to find survivors.Mr Turhan said everyone has been removed from the debris and no one else is believed to be trapped. It was not immediately clear if a signalling problem caused the crash. Ankara governor Vasip Sahin said a technical inspection has begun while NTV television, quoting unnamed officials, said three prosecutors were assigned to investigate. Rescue services work at the scene (DHA/AP) In July, 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in north-western Turkey, after torrential rain caused part of the rail tracks to collapse. Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in the central province of Sivas. Konya, about 160 miles south of Ankara, is home to the tomb of the Sufi mystic and poet Jalaladdin Rumi, attracting thousands of pilgrims and tourists. The crash occurred during an annual week of remembrance for Rumi when many travel to Konya to watch whirling dervishes perform. A man covered in grease has been rescued by police from a restaurant vent after being stuck there for two days. Alameda County Sheriffs Office said officers and firefighters were called to an abandoned Chinese restaurant in San Lorenzo, California, on Wednesday after someone heard a faint voice calling for help. Officers found the grease-covered man stuck inside the metal vent of the vacant building, said Sergeant Ray Kelly. After almost an hour, firefighters were able to rescue the 29-year-old, who was said to be physically exhausted and suffering from dehydration as a result of the ordeal. It is not yet known why the man was in the vent (Alameda County Sheriffs Office) Sgt Kelly said the man was being investigated for trespassing and vandalism, adding it was unclear if he had been attempting a burglary at the abandoned restaurant. The man was taken to hospital, and a decision will be made later on whether to seek a prosecution, Sgt Kelly added. He said: We are very thankful to our citizen reporter and our firefighters for saving this man. It is likely he would not have survived another day given the circumstances. The suspect is expected to make a full recovery. Police have seized 20,000 of cannabis at a railway station. Officers recovered the drugs at Aberdeen station after a routine stop-and-search following the arrival of a train from the Edinburgh area on Wednesday. Police said a 35-year-old old man from Aberdeen has been charged. He is expected to appear at Aberdeen Sheriff Court at a later date. Detective Constable Johnny Campbell said: The recovery was made as a result of a routine stop-and-search following the arrival of a train from the Edinburgh area. Vicious feuding within the Conservative Party has continued despite Theresa Mays victory in Wednesdays vote on her leadership and her call for politicians to come together in the national interest. Brexiteers led by Jacob Rees-Mogg repeated demands for the Prime Minister to quit as Tory leader, insisting the 200-117 vote showed she had lost the confidence of more than a third of her MPs and a majority of backbenchers. However, loyalists hit back, with one minister comparing members of the hardline European Research Group to ants surviving a nuclear holocaust. After Mrs May told MPs she would not be leading the party into the next general election, backbench Tories reported that campaigns were already getting under way on behalf of potential successors. Prominent former minister Nicky Morgan even suggested that the party may split, telling the BBC: I think theres an inevitability that some of these people the hardest Brexiteers are going to walk. There may be some sort of reconfiguration of parties on the right of the UK political spectrum and that may be something we are going to have to accept in order to get a Brexit deal through the House of Commons. Staunch Brexiteers were smarting at Chancellor Philip Hammonds description of them as extremists who had been flushed out by the confidence vote. Results of the confidence vote were announced by Sir Graham Brady on Wednesday evening (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Describing the comment as an example of hopelessly inaccurate and politically biased Treasury forecasting, Mr Rees-Mogg said: Dont take the Chancellor too seriously when he gets a little bit over-excited an unusual state for him, it has to be said. Former party leader Iain Duncan Smith whose Commons office was reportedly used as an HQ by rebel Tories during Wednesdays voting told the Chancellor to moderate your language. I have one simple message for the Chancellor: When you start turning on your own party and making accusations about them, thats the beginning of the end for your party, Mr Duncan Smith told Radio 4s Today programme. One of Mr Hammonds Cabinet colleagues, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay, distanced himself from the comment, telling Today: I think all of us say sometimes things in interviews which we perhaps could have phrased in a better way. Its not the phraseology I would have used. Both Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Rees-Mogg denied reports that the rebels had nicknamed their Commons base for the vote the kill zone, with the ERG chair claiming the deeply disagreeable moniker was invented by May supporters in the hope of discrediting them. Mr Rees-Mogg said it was not impossible that, on reflection, Mrs May would decide to stand aside. You may remember that Margaret Thatcher said We fight on, we fight to win, he said. Nobody was tougher than Mrs Thatcher and the next day she resigned. So, its not impossible. I think Theresa May should consider what she said last night. I agree with her that we do want somebody who can unite the country and the Conservative Party, and she has to ask herself is she realistically that person? The PM won this confidence vote. Not the way I wanted it to go but I am a democrat and therefore accept the result. I will continue to fight to honour our referendum result. So if the PMs bad deal comes to parliament, I will not support it. #BinTheBackstop #KeepOur39Billion Andrea Jenkyns MP (@andreajenkyns) December 12, 2018 Fellow Leave-backer Richard Drax said the party needed a Brexiteer as leader, telling ITV1s Good Morning Britain: I would suggest, were the Prime Minister thinking carefully this morning, she would offer her resignation and allow someone who can deliver this to take over. Other Brexiteers, including Andrea Jenkyns, said they accepted the result of Wednesdays vote but would continue to oppose Mrs Mays Withdrawal Agreement in Parliament. A Conservative supporter of a second referendum, Totnes MP Sarah Wollaston, said that replacing Mrs May with one of their favourites would not enable the ERG to get their version of Brexit through the Commons. A new leader wont change the maths of this place, thats the point here, she said. There were appeals for unity and calm from supporters of the Prime Minister. Some colleagues, perhaps out of frustration, saying foolish things about other Conservatives. Now would be a good time to stop. Respect the results of the two referendums; 52% to leave the EU and 63% to support @theresa_may Theres work to do. James Cleverly (@JamesCleverly) December 13, 2018 Business Secretary Greg Clark posted that now the PMs position is confirmed, MPs must move from being critics to being responsible participants. He added: No-one wants a crash out, so we must now come together to agree a deal that works and supports jobs and industries across our country. Tory deputy chair James Cleverly said: Some colleagues, perhaps out of frustration (are) saying foolish things about other Conservatives. Now would be a good time to stop. Respect the results of the two referendums 52% to leave the EU and 63% to support Theresa May. Foreign minister Alistair Burt was more blunt: They never, ever stop. Votes against them, letters going in late nothing matters to ERG . After the apocalypse, all that will be left will be ants and Tory MPs complaining about Europe and their leader. They never, ever stop. Votes against them, letters going in late- nothing matters to ERG. After the apocalypse, all that will be left will be ants and Tory MPs complaining about Europe and their leader. https://t.co/n3Jt04CjJe Rt Hon Alistair Burt (@AlistairBurtUK) December 12, 2018 Former minister David Jones suggested that campaigns for the leadership succession were already under way. Ive no doubt that there will have been people in the room there who applauded the Prime Minister but are part of one campaign or another, he said. Simon Hart, a former Remain supporter turned founder and leader of the Brexit Delivery Group of Tory backbenchers, said he had been approached by potential leadership candidates. Ive had people I havent spoken to in nine years since I was first elected in 2010 using this opportunity to sell their own credentials and engage in a private beauty parade, he said. Mrs Mays former policy adviser George Freeman said there was no hope of long-term survival for any Tory leader taking the country through Brexit. Whoever leads through this, I think, will be finished by it, he said. People in Scotland have been urged to describe their experiences of dealing with police in a move to build public confidence in the service. An independent review by former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini is scrutinising the arrangements in Scotland for complaints handling, investigations and misconduct in relation to policing. Evidence is to be gathered from members of the public, former and serving police officers, and a wide range of organisations. A review was announced after concerns were raised over the way in which investigations are carried out into senior police officers, including former chief constable Phil Gormley. Mr Gormley resigned five months after a series of probes had begun into allegations of gross misconduct. The review, which was jointly commissioned by Justice Secretary Michael Matheson and Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC, aims to make recommendations to improve transparency and strengthen confidence in policing in Scotland. Former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini QC is carrying out the review (Mark Runnacles/PA) Dame Elish said: I have been asked by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and the Lord Advocate to make recommendations to help strengthen public confidence in policing in Scotland. Only by listening to a broad range of views and looking at the respective roles and practices of Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service will I be able to achieve that. There has been a lot of public debate about police complaints. I want to hear about peoples real-life experience of their dealings with Police Scotland, as well as gathering evidence from police officers and interested organisations. It is in all our interests public, police and staff that we have trust and confidence in the system; know that it is fair, transparent, accountable and proportionate, and be sure that it will always protect the rights of all those involved. Workers on South Western Railway are to stage two fresh strikes, including on New Years Eve, in the bitter dispute over guards on trains. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union will walk out for 24 hours on December 27 and 31, in addition to a previously announced strike on December 22. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: This latest phase of action in the long-running dispute on South Western Railway comes solely as a result of the companys intransigence when it comes to reaching a negotiated settlement that would underpin the guard guarantee on their trains. South Western Railway stubbornly refuse to make any progress at all in resolving this dispute, which is about safety, security and access. The company is hell-bent on opening up a loophole that would allow them to run services driver-only at their discretion. Recent figures have shown a shocking surge in violence on our railways across the festive season and it is frankly appalling that South Western Railway are looking for a green light to throw the guard off their trains as and when they see fit in the name of profit. RMT workers at South Western Railway have announced new strike dates (Victoria Jones/PA) The RMT called on the company to negotiate a guard guarantee it has agreed with other firms. RMT members on Arriva Rail North are striking on every Saturday for the rest of the year in the same dispute. A South Western Railway spokesman said: We had already offered to meet with the RMT again next week to try and resolve this dispute. By announcing further strike dates, the RMT has shown it has no intention of finding a solution and is only interested in inflicting more misery on passengers as they try to enjoy the festive season. This strike action is totally unnecessary. We have guaranteed to roster a guard on every train, and we need more, not fewer guards. Should this strike action go ahead, we will do everything we can to provide the best service possible for our customers. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will consider publishing his legal advice on Theresa Mays revised Brexit deal. The Prime Minister is currently seeking fresh concessions from the EU on her deal after surviving a confidence vote with Tory MPs. She pledged to seek legal and political assurances on the Brexit backstop to allay MPs concerns about her Withdrawal Agreement when she attends a European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday. Mr Cox faced calls from DUP and Labour MPs to publish any advice if Mrs May manages to get a revised deal. Shadow solicitor general Nick Thomas-Symonds, speaking in the Commons, said: The Prime Minister said last night on the steps of Downing Street that she is seeking, and I quote, legal and political changes to the Withdrawal Agreement and the backstop. As a matter of honour if nothing else, if the Attorney General advises on any changes or additions the Prime Minister brings back, will he disclose his advice upon that to this House? Attorney General Geoffrey Cox (PA) Mr Cox responded: The Government will consider very carefully, particularly in the light of this Houses expressed wishes for assistance on these matters, what assistance it and I as Attorney General can give. DUP MP Jim Shannon (Strangford) later added: Can the minister further outline when legal opinion based on the changes that have been sought by the Prime Minister for the Withdrawal Agreement will be released clarifying any legal change and advice? Mr Cox responded: I will consider, of course, what assistance the House might require and indeed I shall listen to the House in connection with that very carefully as to any changes that are introduced to the Withdrawal Agreement and what the Government should do in terms of publishing legal opinion on it. Labour MP Lyn Brown (West Ham) earlier asked if the Attorney General was ashamed that the Government had been found in contempt a remark that led Solicitor General Robert Buckland to gesture towards Speaker John Bercow and shake his head. Mr Bercow intervened in the debate to say: The previous exchanges were entirely orderly and I would have ruled otherwise if they were not, that is the position which frankly the Solicitor General ought to take to heart and upon which he might usefully reflect. I will be the arbiter of what is orderly, not the honourable gentleman. Theresa May has embarked on a fresh round of Brexit diplomacy after emerging from a confidence vote of Tory MPs bloodied and bruised but victorious. The Prime Minister flew to Brussels where she will ask EU leaders for assurances on the temporary nature of backstop arrangements for the Irish border in the hope of securing MPs support for her Withdrawal Agreement. Reports from the European Council summit suggested the leaders are considering a draft document stating the EU stands ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided to the UK on the backstop. Ahead of the formal opening of the two-day summit, Mrs May met Irish premier Leo Varadkar and was also due to speak with Council president Donald Tusk and Luxembourgs PM Xavier Bettel. It is understood she may also have a one-on-one meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. First meeting of the day here in Brussels is with @theresa_may Summit in the Irish delegation rooms before this afternoons @EUCouncil. Were talking state of play with #Brexit pic.twitter.com/ZqQjEhORy3 Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) December 13, 2018 After a day of drama in Westminster, the Prime Minister continued to face calls for her resignation from hardline Brexiteers including Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said her 200-117 victory indicated she had lost the confidence of a third of her MPs and more than half of backbenchers. She still had to figure out a solution to the dilemma of how to convince the EU to tweak the Withdrawal Agreement so it will be passed by Parliament. Mrs May was forced to pull a Commons motion endorsing the deal earlier this week after admitting she was facing a heavy defeat if she took it to a vote. (PA Graphics) Speaking in Downing Street after Wednesdays vote, she promised to seek legal and political assurances on the backstop, which would keep the UK within a customs union with the EU until a broader trade deal is concluded, to avoid a hard border in Ireland. The scale of this task was highlighted by Mr Varadkar and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who insisted in a phone call that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened or contradicted. DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted that tinkering around the edges of the agreement would not be enough to win the support of her party, which wanted fundamental legal text changes. Arlene Foster (Jeff Overs/BBC) Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said the PM should take a tough line with EU leaders, threatening to withhold a divorce bill of up to 39 billion agreed last year as the price of UK liabilities on its departure. He urged Mrs May to say to the EU now your 39 billion is fully at risk. We are not committed to the 39 billion unless we get some resolution. They know that this backstop can be completely replaced by an open borders policy. Push them to the point where they recognise they have to do that and it resolves everything. (PA Graphics) Tory Leavers and the DUP have branded the backstop unacceptable as it would prevent the UK from doing trade deals and subject the country to EU rules with no means of leaving without approval from Brussels. Mrs May has made clear she still intends to push her Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament, with the remaining two days of debate and votes due to take place before January 21. But Downing Street said no date had been fixed for returning the agreement to the Commons. Mrs Mays victory in the confidence vote means another challenge cannot be mounted against her position as Tory leader for a year. But she still faces the danger of a no-confidence motion in the House of Commons, which could bring her Government down if backed by more than half of MPs. John McDonnell (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Shadow chancellor John McDonnell urged Mrs May to bring her deal back to Parliament to establish what outcomes MPs were willing to accept. I think theres an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons against no deal, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Lets establish that once and for all and use parliamentary mechanisms to narrow that option away. Then lets get a proper debate going. Thats why it would have been better to have the vote this week as she promised. That would have tested the will of Parliament, that would have set parameters, and it would have been a clear message to our EU partners as well. Police are appealing for help to locate a missing mother and her eight-year-old daughter. Sian Duili, 47, and daughter Aisha were last seen in Barry, South Wales, on Tuesday but they are believed to have travelled to the north of England and Scotland. South Wales Police said concerns are growing for their welfare and officers are appealing to the public to help track them down. Sian Duili has been missing with her daughter for two days and is said to have links with Cumbria and Swindon (South Wales Police) A police spokeswoman said: It is believed that they have travelled to the Cumbria area, north of England, and then into Scotland. Sian has links to the Newcastle and Swindon areas. Anyone with any information on their whereabouts should contact 101, quoting reference 1800467620. A paedophile police constable with an insatiable appetite for preying on young girls has been jailed for 25 years. Ian Naude, 30, was convicted following a trial of the rape and sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl who he met while serving as a student police officer with Cheshire Police. Liverpool Crown Court heard Naude, who was sentenced for a total of 37 offences, joined the force in April 2017 and was obsessed with taking the virginity of teenage girls who he groomed online. He first met his rape victim in October last year when he was called to a domestic incident at her home and days later picked her up in his car and raped her in the back seat, filming the assault on his phone. Sentencing him on Thursday to 25 years in prison with an extended licence period of five years, honorary recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone QC said: In order to impose your will on a young girl, three weeks past her 13th birthday, and to commit offences of rape and sexual assault against her, you used and abused your position as a Cheshire Police officer, thereby enabling you to satisfy your lust and perversion. Naude, wearing a grey suit and burgundy tie, was ordered to pay attention by the judge as he looked down at a folder of evidence while he was sentenced. Ian Naude has been jailed for 25 years (Cheshire Constabulary/PA) Judge Goldstone said: Having seen and heard you during the trial, I am wholly persuaded that you do not, even now, have any inkling or appreciation of the extent of your perversion or of the psychological harm and damage you have caused. He said Naude, of Market Drayton, Shropshire, was out of control with an insatiable appetite for young girls and described a selfie he took after raping his victim as showing his smug self satisfaction and total lack of shame. Naude, who was based at Crewe police station, had denied rape, telling the jury the sex was consensual. In a statement read to the court, her mother said the victim would no longer leave the house without close family and friends. She said: She will no longer walk past the local police station and hides when a police car drives past. Other parents said their daughters had gone on to self-harm after being groomed online by Naude, who would blackmail and threaten his victims, persuade them to send pictures of themselves undressed, tell them to call him daddy and send them videos of himself masturbating. Naude, who was suspended and dismissed by Cheshire Police following his arrest, was also found guilty by a jury of four charges of attempting to arrange commission of a child sex offence and one charge of arranging commission of a child sex offence. He pleaded guilty to 30 other offences, including inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, making indecent photos of children and misconduct in a public office. He groomed six girls, aged between 12 and 16, online and admitted using his position as a police officer to find contact details of two other teenage girls. He also admitted possessing 1,443 indecent images of children, including pictures of girls aged as young as 18 months. The court heard South African-born Naude would gain the trust of young girls by posing on social media as a 15-year-old boy called Jake Green. The father-of-one, who previously served in Afghanistan as a machine gunner with the Royal Irish Regiment, was named as a suspect in cases in neighbouring forces before taking up his post in Cheshire Police. The force said his appointment was delayed from January 2017 to April because he was alleged to have raped a woman in Staffordshire. No further action was taken in the case and Naude was allowed to join but reports of child grooming in Staffordshire and West Mercia which named him as a suspect in January and February 2017 were not picked up by Cheshire Police until after his arrest in November that year. Saul Brody, defending, said there was very little mitigation and conceded the defendant was a dangerous offender. He added: Its unclear whether he entered the police force specifically to exploit vulnerable victims but he undoubtedly sought opportunities to do so once appointed. While the Lok Sabha was adjourned Wednesday without transacting much business, the Rajya Sabha passed a bill amid noisy scenes. Besides the Opposition members, Shiv Sena MPs also held protests in the House seeking a law for construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. New Delhi: The proceedings in both Houses of Parliament were washed out for the second consecutive day on Thursday as the Opposition members and even NDA ally Shiv Sena continued their protests on several issues, mainly the alleged corruption in the Rafale deal, the building of the Ram temple and Cauvery river waters. While the Lok Sabha was adjourned Wednesday without transacting much business, the Rajya Sabha passed a bill amid noisy scenes. The Lok Sabha saw repeated adjournments amid the Opposition protests. The House was adjourned twice during Question Hour, and later adjourned for the day during Zero Hour, where only two members got a chance to speak. Besides the Opposition members, Shiv Sena MPs also held protests in the House seeking a law for construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Speaking in the House, Sena leader Anandrao Adsul said that the BJP had got a full majority but forgot Hindutva, which was the main reason behind the alliance between the two parties. As the protests continued, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked the members to allow the House to function, but in vain. The House was then adjourned for the day. Earlier, as soon as Question Hour began after paying tribute to the martyrs of the 2001 Parliament attack, Congress, Telugu Desam and AIADMK members rushed to the Well raising slogans, after which the Speaker adjourned the House. TDP member Venkateshwara Rao (Babu) used a mike put in the Well for the oath of a new member to prop up a poster seeking special status for Andhra Pradesh. A Lok Sabha secretariat staffer tried to convince him not to use the mike. Parliamentary affairs minister Narendra Singh Tomar too tried to persuade him to keep down the mike, but in vain. The TDP members action invited the ire of Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, who warned him that he would be named. Once a member is named, he or she has to leave the chamber. Congress member Sunil Jakhar was seen wearing a neon-reflective vest while standing in the Well. The Speaker adjourned the House for nearly 10 minutes till 11.20 am. When the House reassembled, Ms Mahajan reminded members that they could raise issues under various rules. Apparently referring to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she said it was a crucial time and urged members to use it to raise issues related to the public. She said the Lok Sabha was for all states and regions, and all should get a chance to raise their respective issues. The Opposition members, however, were unconvinced and returned to the Well. As the bedlam continued, the House was adjourned for nearly 30 minutes till noon. The Rajya Sabha was also adjourned for the day without transacting any business after protests by Tamil Nadu parties inside the Well over the Cauvery river issue. Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu warned that he would be forced to adjourn the proceedings for the day if the members did not return to their seats and allowed the House to function. He said discussion on all issues, including on Cauvery river waters, would be allowed. As his repeated pleas to members to allow the House to function fell on deaf years, he adjourned the proceedings till Friday. Yemens warring sides have agreed to a ceasefire covering the Red Sea port of Hodeida following peace talks in Sweden. The United Nations secretary general said the rival parties have also agreed to a withdrawal of troops from the contested city. Antonio Guterres thanked the Yemeni delegations for what he called an important step and real progress toward future talks to end the conflict. He spoke at the closing ceremony for the talks in the Swedish town of Rimbo. Mr Guterres said to the Yemeni parties: Thank you for coming here to discuss a better future for Yemen. He said that the next round of talks is planned for the end of January. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the agreement (Mosaab Elshamy/AP) The four-year civil war, which pits the internationally recognised Yemeni government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, against the Iran-backed rebels known as Houthis, has made Yemen the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations, 22 of its 29 million people are in need of aid. The two sides have for months been locked in a fight over Hodeida which is a key port for aid deliveries. The UN-sponsored talks had low expectations for halting the conflict immediately, but saw some progress with the agreement of a prisoner swap to include 15,000 people at the start of the discussions last week. Both sides have said they sought to build on goodwill for future talks, although it was unclear how far they have come in agreeing on a draft agreement given to them a day earlier to consider by UN envoy Martin Griffiths. The document consists of a set of proposals, including one for a political framework for a post-war Yemen, the reopening of the airport in the capital, Sanaa, and a proposal for Hodeida, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis dependent on international aid. A serial fraudster who built his own bespoke device to help him defraud hundreds of people of an estimated 500,000 has been jailed for nearly two years, police said. Tony Muldowney-Colston, 53, built the hi-tech machine to con people into thinking he was their banking provider. When he was arrested in June this year, Muldowney-Colston told police he created the device with the intention of gaining access to genuine customer accounts and retrieving the available funds. Officers also seized a hard drive containing details of passports and identity cards, 32 credit cards, and a spreadsheet containing names, addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers pertaining to a private members club in central London. Police believe Muldowney-Colston obtained more than 500,000 from the accounts he accessed. Muldowney-Colston, of Clifton Street, Brighton, Sussex, was charged with nine counts of possession of an article for use in fraud and two counts of making or supplying an article for use in fraud. Tony Muldowney-Colston has been jailed for 20 months (Met Police/PA) He pleaded guilty to the 11 charges and was jailed for 20 months at Southwark Crown Court on December 12. Detectives from the Met Polices cyber crime unit began investigating Muldowney-Colston in January after identifying him as a key player in UK-wide cyber crime. The fraudster, who is also known as Tony Colston-Hayter, was previously jailed in 2014 for five-and-a-half years for his role in plundering 1.25 million from British banks. He led the gang which used a Trojan horse device to hijack computers at branches of Barclays and Santander and siphon off cash. Muldowney-Colston, the son of a university lecturer and solicitor, had gained notoriety in the late 1980s for throwing acid house raves in the Home Counties. He had once been a successful businessman and had been on the Jonathan Ross show. But his life turned and he started to abuse Class A drugs. Detective Inspector Philip McInerney, from the Met Polices cyber crime unit, said: The scam carried out by MuldowneyColston affected hundreds of people across the UK, and had the potential to affect many more. He is an audacious criminal who only recently was released from prison for carrying out very similar offences. He shows no concern for the welfare of any individual or organisation, and has made it clear he will use a range of methods to achieve significant financial gain for himself. I am very grateful to our partners in the banking industry who have worked closely with us on this and a number of investigations. This should send a clear message to anyone considering committing crimes of this nature that we have the tools and methods to identify you and bring you to justice. A former NHS Tayside boss was given double the payoff she was entitled to because of the total incompetence of the assistant chief executive, MSPs have learned. A settlement payment of more than 64,000 to former chief executive Lesley McLay was in lieu of six months notice, despite only having three in her contract. The payoff came under intense scrutiny at the Scottish Parliaments audit committee, where Scotlands auditor general gave evidence about the struggling health board. Addressing MSPs, Caroline Gardner said: There was real confusion in the advice given to the acting chief executive and chair about the notice period which was relevant to the former chief executive. Her contract clearly stated that she was on three months notice. She explained that, because of advice from the health boards assistant chief executive, Ms McLay was awarded six months cash and her contract amended months after she had left the role. My report identifies that the person providing advice (about the severance pay) to the interim chief executive and interim chair was the assistant chief executive, she said. Assistant chief executive and strategic director of workforce at NHS Tayside Dr Annie Ingram who is still in the post was unable to justify the decision, according to auditors. Ms Gardner revealed three other Scottish NHS board bosses have three-month notice periods and said: The assistant chief executive wasnt able to provide the auditor with evidence for why she believed the notice period be six months rather than three months. Former health secretary Alex Neil was incredulous at the auditor generals suggestion the payoff was due to a misunderstanding. Mr Neil said: The director of workforce supposed to be the person who is the professional in relation to contracts and employment. Its not just confusion, its total incompetence if she changes the period of the contract and doesnt even check. Alex Neil MSP said of the payoff: "Its not just confusion, its total incompetence" (Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament/PA) He added: Is it not time we introduced some sanctions for such poor governance, because the poor taxpayer is picking up the tab every time for this and they are fed up to the back teeth with people on film-star salaries getting film-star severance payments and particularly where it would appear theyre not even entitled to it? The auditor general gave evidence following her report warning urgent action is needed to tackle the worsening performance and financial problems at NHS Tayside. The health board achieved just seven out of 20 national standards in March 2018 down from from nine the previous year. It is also facing a potential budget deficit of 18.7 million for 2018-19 despite receiving 50.2 million of Scottish Government brokerage loans in the last six years. The Scottish Government was forced to intervene in the running of the board earlier this year after it emerged cash from public donations had been used to fund new technology. Health Secretary Jeane Freemans announcement that outstanding loans to NHS boards will be written off at the end of the year reduces the pressure on the board but does not address the underlying financial problems, Ms Gardner said. Previous reports by the spending watchdog have highlighted the expensive operating model in NHS Tayside compared to other NHS boards, with this described as a main contributory factor to its financial difficulties. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in a gun attack near a West Bank settlement. The Israeli military said a Palestinian gunman got out of a car and opened fire at a bus stop before speeding away. Two other people were injured, including another soldier who was critically wounded. The deaths extend a violent week that began with a shooting outside a West Bank settlement on Sunday, resulting in the death of a baby who was delivered prematurely. While the West Bank experiences occasional deadly violence, often between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters, much of the Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent months has been limited to the Gaza Strip, where some 175 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in border protests. Israeli soldiers are investigating the attack in the West Bank (Mahmoud Illean/AP) In recent days, we definitely feel like the situation (in the West Bank) is getting worse, Shalom Galil, a paramedic who assisted at the scene of the shooting, said. Following the attack, Israel set up checkpoints at the entrances to the West Bank city of Ramallah, searching cars entering the city and checking drivers IDs. Some Israeli-controlled roads were completely blocked to Palestinian traffic. The clampdown on the city, the Palestinians economic and administrative centre, was an unusual step that signalled the severity with which Israel viewed the violent flare-up. Walid Whadan, spokesman of the Palestinian civil affairs ministry, said Israel had not taken such measures in Ramallah since the second Palestinian uprising that ended more than a decade ago. Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the gunman fled toward Ramallah and that the measures were also meant to prevent additional attacks. We know that when there is one attack there may be others, he told reporters. He said the army was bolstering its forces in the West Bank with a focus on securing roads and launching a massive manhunt for the Palestinian gunman. Mr Conricus declined to comment on whether there was a connection between Thursdays shooting and the attack earlier this week, but he said the army was investigating such theories, and responding to the current environment of incitement in the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the latest round of violence, criticising both militant attacks and the tough Israeli response. In a statement, he accused Israel of creating a climate conducive to violence through its frequent military operations in Palestinian cities. He also accused Israel of incitement against him. This atmosphere created by the frequent Israeli raids of the cities, and the incitement against the president and the absence of the peace hopes, lead to this series of violence that both people are paying the price for, he said. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians claim the territories for their hoped-for state. The latest shooting came hours after Israeli security forces tracked down and killed a Palestinian accused of killing two Israelis. Israeli police said Ashraf Naalweh was found armed near the West Bank city of Nablus and was killed during a raid. A Palestinian boy looks at the damage after an Israeli raid killed Ashraf Naalweh (Majdi Mohammed/AP) Israel accuses Naalweh of shooting to death two Israelis and wounding another at an attack on a West Bank industrial zone in October. He fled the scene and Israeli forces have been searching for him since. Israels long arm will reach anyone who harms Israeli citizens, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Police said it had made a number of arrests in its attempt to hunt down Naalweh and suspected he was planning on carrying out another attack. On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed Salah Barghouti, a Palestinian suspect wanted over a drive-by shooting earlier this week at a West Bank bus stop. In Sunday nights attack, assailants in a Palestinian vehicle opened fire at a bus stop outside a West Bank settlement, wounding seven people, including a 21-year-old pregnant woman, before speeding away. The militant Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip said that both Barghouti and Naalweh were its members but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attacks the two carried out. The flame of resistance in the (West) Bank will remain alive until the occupation is defeated on all our land, Hamas said. With an aim to provide customer services through online shopping portals, a Delhi based DVCom group has launched Indias first Tech supported e -store DVComm.in. The site offers a wide range in IT , Communication and Electronics among other related products. The company is said to have deployed a team to help, guide buyers with their pre-sales assistance & Free Tech Consultation. DVComms big advantage is that they are providing pre-sale guidance, post sales service with direct liaisoning with OEM during the warranty period of the product, this begets customer comfort & huge confidence, a service that is provided by non other DVComm also provides a chargeable installation as required & guarantees delivery anywhere in India. Presently its product line includes a wide range in IT, Networking, Telecom, CCTV Security Electronics, UPS products from leading Global brands such as Cisco, Alcatel, Polycom, CPPlus, Samsung, Nikon, Huawai, LG, Dell, HP, Emerson, APC and others. Surya Murugaian from Ericson Global Services India, Bengaluru said The Hub motors from DVComm.in are good, their components are really trust worthy. Rahul Gandhi has a tough job in keeping both his CMs and his peers harmonised till 2019 Congress chief Rahul Gandhi may scream united colours of Rajasthan and claim the diversity of experience and youth, maturity and raw energy as an ideal detente of governance but will it rid the Congress age-old malaise of infighting and undercutting? Thats a question he has to answer as his young Turks are getting increasingly restless for relevance. Otherwise he may run the risk of being labelled an inheritor of dynastic fortunes seeking pliant courtiers rather than as a team-builder of equally aspirant and capable men and women. Yes, a decisive mandate would have undoubtedly helped him but given the slim margins of victory in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, he had to do some bridge-building in consultation with his mother Sonia Gandhi. Truth be told, though he has handed over the throne to old loyalists, he will have to work out a suitable operable area for both Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia to feel needed and keep them invested enough for all the work they have put in towards resurgence of the partys fortunes. Scindia has even said that he will continue to serve the state as he has age and time on his side but both Gandhi and he know that prospect wont hold infinitely. Satisfying both peers frankly will be a tall order given that their activities should not in any way tread the egos of the senior Chief Ministers. Or else the inter-generational tussle could cost the party heavily before the 2019 polls, both in terms of governance and perception. The new Congress Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath, has always been assessed in terms of his elitist associations and negotiating strategic worth with the central leadership so far. Having steered the party through difficult troughs before, he did manage to push the baseline voter grid in the state this time too and had bet big on stitching alliances with the BSP even before the verdict became sure. In fact, his younger partner Scindia was more cautious as Nath worked the ground and negotiated a way for himself through swift political management. But as one who has undoubtedly nurtured his home ground of Chhindwara, even touting his model of development there better than Modis, he is yet to develop a pan-state appeal. In this respect, he falls far short of his predecessor Digvijay Singh, who had a keen eye on statistics of each district and knew people by name, and even BJPs Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was a crowd favourite for 15 years. Scindia scores slightly better on image. Naths biggest challenge now will be portfolio allocation, humoring the Scindia group enough and breaking through angry farmers who turned the tide. For Rajasthan, Gandhi was under pincer attack with Pilot actually moving to the state from Delhi to develop the Congress vote base and Gehlot becoming one of the key floor managers in keeping the RSS and its affiliates at bay. And when all hope was lost, the latter did manage to script the Congress revival story in the Gujarat elections and is now party national general secretary in-charge of organisation. Besides, vote share charts show the BJP still remains a force to reckon with both inside the Assembly and outside. Managing legislative business, therefore, remains a task at hand for both governments. Which is why the old guard is needed to keep up the momentum for 2019. Gandhi can still toss the national challenge of rebuilding to these young leaders and can reward them if they do deliver selflessly at the hustings for long-term gains than claim a prize for a one-time job well-done. Can everybody put party first? Accusing India of perpetuating "dynamic rivalry", Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua has said New Delhi's negative attitude was not only unhelpful for improving bilateral ties, but was also stopping South Asia from making progress and attaining peace. Speaking at a conference on 'Conflict and Cooperation in South Asia: Role of Major Powers' hosted by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), Janjua said that India, by refusing to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad, was holding the regional body's summit process hostage. Referring to India's approach on ties with Pakistan, Janjua said India was "spinning hatred" and perpetuating "dynamic rivalry", according to Dawn newspaper. This, she maintained, "was not only unhelpful for improving Pakistan-India ties, but was also stopping South Asia from making progress and attaining peace". India, which blames Pakistan for several terror attacks in the country, has firmly told Islamabad that terror and talks cannot go together. She regretted that India tried to drown in controversy Pakistan's gesture of agreeing to the Kartarpur Corridor, for facilitating Sikh pilgrimage to one of their holiest sites, due to its domestic politics, but Islamabad ignored the Indian negativity and decided to "stay the course". "We are convinced that we will continue to try for peace and stability in the region," she said. About the new Pakistan government's policy on India, Janjua spoke of Prime Minister Imran Khan's first address to the nation after the July elections in which he had offered to take two steps for every single step that India would take for normalisation of ties with Pakistan. She said Khan in his letter to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi expressed willingness to discuss all issues that were part of the 'Composite Dialogue'. "Unfortunately we haven't seen the kind of reciprocation that was required," she said. The ties between India and Pakistan nose-dived in recent years with no bilateral talks taking place. The ties strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The sentencing of alleged Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav to death by a military court in April over espionage charges last year further deteriorated bilateral ties. The two sides often accuse each other of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control, resulting in civilian casualties. The foreign secretary also criticised India for "spending massively on force modernisation" and questioned the support being extended to it by the world powers in its acquisition of weapons. "Recently held India-US 2+2 dialogue provides India access to advanced and sensitive US military hardware, technology and weaponry," she said. She also took a jab at Russia for signing a deal with India for providing it advanced S-400 air defence systems. "This would undermine the delicate strategic balance in the region and beyond," she said. Reiterating Pakistan's position on the Indian arms build-up, she said: "Pakistan is concerned that such an arms race will be detrimental to peace and stability of the region. Pakistan doesn't subscribe to any nuclear or conventional arms race in the region." Janjua said Pakistan would continue to pursue its policy of "credible minimum deterrence" to maintain strategic stability and cater for its interests. Contending that Pakistan's foreign policy has been successful, the foreign secretary said it was proven by the country's counterterrorism operations, the progress achieved by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the emerging consensus on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Afghan conflict. "Our view point on Afghanistan on the futility of kinetic approaches and merit of pursuing Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process is finding greater traction today than ever before," she underscored. President Donald Trump calls India a "true friend", a top American diplomat has said as she highlighted the steps taken by the US over the last two years to strengthen its ties with India for the benefit of a broader Indo Pacific region. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice Wells' remarks came at a farewell reception hosted by the State Department in honour of the outgoing Indian Ambassador to the US, Navtej Singh Sarna. "President Trump calls India a true friends and Secretary (of State Mike) Pompeo has characterise the US-India bilateral relationship as one deeply bound by our shared values," she said. Top officials of the State Department and the White House were present at the farewell reception for Sarna held at the historic Blair House, which is the official guest house of the US President. It is quite rare that the Blair House is used for a State Department farewell reception for an outgoing diplomat. The US tenure of Sarna, who is retiring from Indian foreign service after an illustrious career of 38 years, has been extraordinary, Wells told the select audience. Sarna took charge as India's ambassador to the US on November 5, 2016. "Over the last two years, we have been able to host Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi here in Washington for a successful summit with President Trump," Wells said. During Sarna's tenure, the two countries have inaugurated a new 2 +2 Dialogue to elevate their cooperation on security and strategic priorities for the benefit of their people and for the benefit of a broader Indo Pacific region where the leadership of the two nations matters so much. "Under your leadership in our countries have negotiated and finalised a landmark communications compatibility and security agreement, which makes our military cooperation more profound and advanced. We have also taken significant steps to build on India's status as a US major defense partner, including elevating India to strategic trade authorization, tier one status, Wells said. "In your engagements with Americans across the country and also with the more than three million Indian Americans and this incredibly vibrant business leaders, the students, the technologist, the artist, you really helped bring our people in other countries together," she said as she praised Sarna. Sarna said that the successful visit of Prime Minister Modi in June 2017 was the high point of his term here in Washington DC. "The fact that the outcomes were so strong from the visit, the personal chemistry between Prime Minister Modi and President trump was so, so evident... And the joint statement that we came out with really set the chart for the months to follow," the Indian ambassador said. Listing some of the major highlights of his posting in US, Sarna said "today we can look back on and say that, well, yes, we are truly strategic global partners". "We have found a huge amount of understanding for our political space, for our strategic autonomy, for the needs of our economy, for our role, for our taking into account our art history and our regional position vis a vis several other countries," he said. "I think this entire process of building the bilateral relationship has been to work with each other to find while each country fulfils its national objectives the US as well as India at the same time, we find ways and means of growing together," he said. India and Russia discussed the entire range of issues related to Defence during the 18th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) here on Thursday. The meeting was co-chaired by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Russian counterpart General Sergei Shoigu. In the framework of the bilateral Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership, the IRIGC-MTC meeting discussed a wide range of issues relating to Defence equipment, industry and technological engagement between India and Russia as well as after sales support and upgradation of military equipment of Russian origin. The Ministers expressed satisfaction at the dynamism and progress in bilateral Defence cooperation. Intensive discussions were held on joint manufacturing projects, including the Kamov-226T helicopters, naval frigates and projects related to land systems. The two sides also agreed to take forward Inter-Governmental arrangements for facilitating joint manufacturing of spares for Russian origin equipment in India, under the Make in India initiative, officials said. With a view to enhancing military-to-military engagement and rationalising the functioning of the Commission, a revised Inter-Governmental Agreement on restructuring the existing IRIGC-MTC to the IRIGC on Military and Military Technical Cooperation was also signed by the two Ministers. An additional institutional Working Group headed by Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman COSE (CISC) and Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of General Staff of Armed Forces of Russian Federation would be set up under the expanded Commission. The Ministers expressed satisfaction progress in structured engagement between their armed forces, including joint exercises, resumption of training exchanges and other interactions in the framework of the Bilateral Road Map on Defence Cooperation signed in June 2017. The inaugural meeting of the IRIGC-MTC is proposed to be held in Russia in 2019 on mutually convenient dates. The Nepal Government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations, a move that could affect Indian tourists visiting the Himalayan nation where Indian currency is widely used. Indian currency is extensively used by Nepalese people and businesses for their savings and transactions. The Nepal Government has asked the people to refrain from keeping or carrying Indian bank notes higher than Rs 100 denomination as it has not legalised them, Nepals Minister for Information and Communications Gokul Prasad Baskota said. The Government has decided not to use, carry and keep the Indian bills of 200, 500 and 2000 denominations. The government will soon issue a formal notice in this matter, the Minister said. The decision will adversely affect Nepalese labourers working in India as well as Indian tourists visiting Nepal. Nepal Premier KP Sharma Oli said earlier this year that demonetisation hurt the Nepalese people and added that he would raise the matter with Indian leaders. Decision of Rajasthan's next CM is likely to be taken before noon and will be made public at a meeting of Cong Legislature Party. The Congress leadership want Gehlot and Pilot to be present together at the CLP meet. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to hold a fresh round of discussions Friday with Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the two chief ministerial aspirants in Rajasthan, before taking a final call for the top post. The decision of Rajasthan's next chief minister is likely to be taken before noon and will be made public at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in state capital Jaipur, sources said. After several rounds of discussions that lasted till Thursday midnight, Congress veteran Gehlot has emerged as a front runner for the top post, while Pradesh Congress Committee president Pilot is being placated in attempts to broker peace between the two. Party's central observer for Rajasthan K C Venugopal told PTI, "It is up to the Congress president to take a final call and the decision is being awaited." Congress leaders feel once the MLAs in the state have authorised Gandhi to take a decision on the chief minister, leaders should not challenge the high command and accept the decision. Pilot, 41, is still reported not on board on Gehlot's name, which is delaying the announcement, the sources said. The PCC chief has put up a stiff resistance and his staking his own claim for the top post. AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande told PTI," Congress president heard everyone and after wide consultations he will take the final decision which will be acceptable to all." Gandhi is likely to meet Pilot and Gehlot, 67, again at his residence in attempts to broker peace, like he did in the case of Madhya Pradesh where Kamal Nath was declared as the next chief minister amid hectic parleys held by the Congress chief with senior party leaders in the national capital Thursday night. The Congress leadership want Gehlot and Pilot to be present together at the CLP meet. Sources said the Congress top brass was upset with the manner in which party workers resorted to arson and violence in the state in a bid to exert pressure on the party to name Pilot. They said this the first time such incidents have been reported in Rajasthan and the party has taken the matter seriously. The incidents of violence were reported in Jaipur, Dosa and other parts Thursday following which the Congress leadership asked both Pilot and Gehlot to issue appeal for peace. The party leaders feel the infighting in Rajasthan should end soon and called an amicable solution in the manner Jyotiraditya Scindia gracefully accepted the Congress's decision in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthan Chief Minister and Sachin Pilot as his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered a peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague after several rounds of discussion lasting more than two days. They will take oath of office of December 17. Congress observer to Rajasthan KC Venugopal made the announcement and said details of the oath-taking ceremony would be decided after a meeting with Governor Kalyan Singh in Jaipur. Addressing a Press conference, Gehlot thanked Rahul Gandhi for giving him the opportunity to serve the people of the State for a third time and promised that he and Pilot will give good governance. Rahul met Gehlot and Pilot thrice since Thursday. Hectic parleys were held between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too is understood to be involved in the decision-making process. Senior party leaders Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were present during the meeting on Friday. The united colours of Rajasthan, Rahul tweeted on Friday afternoon along with a photograph in which the three leaders were seen in a jovial mood. Gehlot and Pilot were welcomed with pomp and splendour at the Jaipur airport after the announcement. Pilot, 41, exuded confidence that Congress good electoral performance will continue, saying the party will get a big mandate in 2019 polls and form a Government at the Centre also. Mera aur Ashok Gehlotji ka jaadu puri tarah chal gaya hai (Gehlot and I worked our magic in the State), Pilot said. The Congress went from 21 seats against the BJPs 163 in 2013 to get 99 seats (plus one of the Rashtriya Lok Dal) in the Assembly elections. Pilot said the partys manifesto will be implemented immediately. However, the name of Chhattisgarh CM has been kept under wraps. The official announcement will be made on Saturday in Raipur. All the four contenders TS Singh Deo, Bhupesh Baghel, Tamradhwaj Sahu and Charan Das Mahant were called to Delhi. They took turns to meet Rahul during the day after the name of Rajasthan CM was finalised. Rahul authorised AICC Central Observer for Chhattisgarh Mallikarjun Kharge to announce in Raipur the CM candidate after the CLP meeting on Saturday. Gehlot will be the fourth leader to become Chief Minister of Rajasthan for a third time. Mohan Lal Sukhadia was the Chief Minister of the State for four times, while Hari Dev Joshi and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat were three-time Chief Ministers of the State. Both Sukhadia and Joshi were Congress leaders while Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was from the BJP. The Supreme Court on Friday provided a major relief to the Modi Government by dismissing the demand for a court-monitored CBI probe into the Government-to-Government deal with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, saying there is no occasion to really doubt the decision-making process warranting setting aside of the contract. A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi went into three broad areas of concern raised in the petitions the decisionmaking process, pricing and the choice of Indian offset partners and said there was no reason for intervention by the apex court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 fighter jets. The apex court said the Indian Air Force (IAF) needs advanced fighter jets as the country cannot afford to be unprepared or under prepared in a situation where adversaries have acquired fourth and fifth generation fighter aircraft, of which, we have none. In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircraft by the Indian Government, the Bench, also comprising Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph, said in its 29-page judgment. Attorney General KK Venugopal welcomed the verdict terming it as an excellent and very good judgment, which in his opinion has given clean chit to the Government by accepting all its arguments. I think a clean chit has been given to the Government on Rafale deal, he told reporters on the sidelines of a function to give farewell to Justice Madan B Lokur, who is set to retire on December 30. The court said perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by the court in such matters and it cannot sit in judgment over the wisdom of Governments decision to go in for purchase of 36 aircraft in place of 126. We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court, the Bench said. It noted that process for procurement of 36 Rafale jets was concluded on September 23, 2016 and no questions were raised at that time and the petitions were later filed after reported statement of former French President Francois Hollande with regard to selection of Indian offset partners. The Bench said it was certainly not the job of this court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present and the material has to be kept in a confidential domain. On the offset partner, the Bench noted that this issue had triggered the litigation as petitioners had alleged that the Government gave a benefit to Reliance Aerostructure Ltd by compelling Dassault Aviation to enter into a contract with them at the cost of public enterprise, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government, as the option to choose the IOP (Indian offset partners) does not rest with the Indian Government, it said, adding that it is neither appropriate nor within the experience of the court to step into this arena of what is technically feasible or not. It said mere press interviews or suggestions cannot form the basis for judicial review by the court, especially when there was categorical denial of the statements made in the press by both the sides. It said in June 2001, an in-principle approval was granted to procure 126 fighter jets and on June 29, 2007, the Defence Acquisition Council granted acceptance of necessity for procurement of 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircrafts (MMRCA). The Bench noted that commercial bids for 126 jets were opened in November 2011 and later, negotiations commenced with Dassault Aviation. On April 10, 2015 an Indo-French joint statement for acquisition of 36 Rafale jets in fly-away condition through an IGA was issued and later, in June 2015, the request for proposal (RFP) for 126 MMRCA was finally withdrawn. It said the court was informed that contract negotiations for procuring 126 fighter jets could not be concluded due to unresolved issues for over three years between the OEM and HAL. The need for the aircrafts is not in doubt. The quality of the aircraft is not in question. It is also a fact that the long negotiations for procurement of 126 MMRCAs have not produced any result, and merely conjecturing that the initial RFP could have resulted in a contract is of no use, it said. It also added, We cannot possibly compel the Government to go in for purchase of 126 aircraft and it would not be correct for the court to sit as an apellate authority to scrutinise each aspect of the process of acquisition. Former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan, had moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. Before them advocates M L Sharma and Vineet Dhanda and AAP leader Sanjay Singh had also filed pleas. The court also said it cannot seek clause-by-clause compliances of Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP) in the Rafale fighter jet deal and opined that the processes have been broadly followed. It also expressed satisfaction with the Governments decision-making process which led to the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to really doubt it. The top court dismissed the key allegation that the Government changed the deal and decided to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets instead of 126. It said, The need for the aircraft is not in doubt. The quality of the aircraft is not in question. It is also a fact that the long negotiations for procurement of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) have not produced any result, and merely conjecturing that the initial RFP could have resulted in a contract is of no use. The hard fact is that not only was the contract not coming forth but the negotiations had come practically to an end, resulting in a recall of the RFP. We cannot sit in judgment over the wisdom of deciding to go in for purchase of 36 aircrafts in place of 126. The top court said it cannot possibly compel the Government to go in for purchase of 126 aircrafts. Our country cannot afford to be unprepared/under-prepared in a situation where our adversaries are stated to have acquired not only 4th generation, but even 5th generation aircrafts, of which, we have none. It will not be correct for the court to sit as an appellate authority to scrutinise each aspect of the process of acquisition, it said. The Bench also took note of the reasons, including unresolved issues between Dassault Aviation and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, which had led to annulment of earlier deal for procurement of 126 Rafale jets. Manhours that would be required to produce the aircraft in India: HAL required 2.7 times higher manhours compared to the French side for the manufacture of Rafale aircraft in India, it noted, adding issues related to contractual obligation and responsibility for 108 aircraft manufactured in India could not be resolved. Indian Negotiating Team (INT) held as many as 74 meetings, including 48 internal and 26 external INT meetings with the French side, it said. It is the case of the official respondents that the INT completed its negotiations and arrived at better terms relating to price, delivery and maintenance, as compared to the MMRCA offer of Dassault. This was further processed for inter-ministerial consultations and the approval of the CCS was also obtained, finally, resulting in signing of the agreement. This was in conformity with the process, as per...DPP 2013, it said. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on Thursday said the Odisha Government has not strictly followed the guidelines for protection of children at shelter homes. The State Government has not followed guidelines for protection of children at shelter homes strictly. Concerned officials dont have proper data on the number of child homes, where they are functioning and who are running them. This shows their lackadaisical attitude towards the childcare institutions, said NCPCR Member Yashwant Jain. Jain said the NCPCR has asked police to carry out further investigations whether religious conversion is being carried out in the shelter homes. The NCPCR teams on the day started inspection of 56 randomly-selected childrens home in 19 districts in the State in the aftermath of the alleged sexual abuse of minor girls at a shelter home in Dhenkanal district. The Dream Centre shelter home run by NGO Good News India in Dhenkanal, which was sealed recently, was also inspected by an NCPCR team. District Child Protection Units and Child Welfare Committees also participated in the inspections at their respective districts. The NCPCR team members also held a meeting with the State Government authorities on the day. Notably, the inspections were conducted on the direction of Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, who asked the NCPCR to get all the homes inspected in Odisha. On December 7, Gandhi, in a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, had said it is a matter of great concern that the Dhenkanal shelter home affairs only came to light when some girls residing there confided in media and accused the shelter home in-charge of sexual abuse. nIn their bid to appeal Members of Parliament (MPs) to extend their support for the passage of Anti Trafficking Bill, 2018, in the ongoing Winter Session of the Rajya Sabha, 13 survivors of human-trafficking from different States came forward at a national consultation on Human Trafficking, organised by Prayas Juvenile Aid Centre (JAC) Society. Noted Parliamentarians across different parties D Raja (CPI), Akhilesh Prasad Singh (INC), Pradeep Tamta (INC), N Gokulakrishnan (AIADMK), Satyanarayan Jatiya (BJP) and Bhubaneshwar Kalita (INC) attended the consultation to extend their support. Survivors from various survivor collectives Utthan, Vimukthi, Aazaad Shakti Abhiyaan, Bandhan Mukti and Worker Survivor Support group attended the consultation to share their experiences and point out the gaps in legislations. Its time that Indian laws have necessary provisions to tackle the complex organized crime of Human Trafficking. We are thankful to the government for drafting a comprehensive and robust law which provides for necessary tools to address the crime and safeguards the interest of the victims, Amod Kanth retired Indian Police Service (IPC) officer and founder General Secretary, Prayas, said. The survivors shared their experiences of human trafficking, ranging from sexual exploitation, bonded labour, forced marriage, organ trafficking, child labour, forced domestic labour and other forms of trafficking. They urged for strong mechanisms for voluntary rehabilitation and victim-protection. Its important for the Indian society to talk about such grave issues and therefore we reached out to the citizens in various parts of India and sought their support in our fight against Human Trafficking. Collectively we have collected more than 1.15 lakh post-cards addressed to the Prime Minister, in support of the Trafficking of Persons, Bill 2018, said Ranjan (name changed) a survivor of organ trafficking at the consultation. Chandrima (name changed), was trafficked at the age of 18. She was lured into commercial sex trade by a neighbour. She was rescued after 7 years. After I was rescued, we filed an FIR against my neighbour, but she was bailed only after 20 days in jail, she said. Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said that the Supreme Court decision on the Rafale fighter jet deal had vindicated the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party while exposing the lies spread by the Congress on this issue. Meanwhile, the BJP State president Ajay Bhatt said that Congress national president Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation. Addressing the media, Rawat said that the Congress president Rahul Gandhi had been spreading lies about there being a scam in the Rafale deal. However, the Supreme Court decision in this case has exposed the lies of the Congress and vindicated the PM Narendra Modi. He said, The BJP wanted a debate on the issue in the parliament and a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) but the Congress refused this and continued to spread lies. Some people linked to the Congress filed a case in the Supreme Court questioning aspects of the deal but this was rejected by the apex court. The three judge bench headed by the chief justice of India was satisfied at Government stand on the three points questioned by the petitioners. The Rafale deal was the first instance in recent times when a contract was signed directly between Governments in a transparent manner to procure the fighter jets at a lower price. Earlier, the Congress had entered into various defence deals through middlemen. The Congress president even used cheap words to target the Prime Minister but the supreme court decision has proved that the Prime Ministers intention was genuine and that the faith of the public in him remains undiminished. Referring to what the BJP national president Amit Shah had stated, Rawat said that those who were spreading lies and avoiding JPC were the thieves in this case. The Congress had even questioned the surgical strikes by the Indian Army in which several terror launchpads were destroyed in enemy territory. Meanwhile, BJP State president Ajay Bhatt demanded that the Congress president should apologise to the nation. The Congress leaders in Uttarakhand should also apologise to the public as they had burnt the Central Government in effigy on the Rafale issue. He said that the Congress president and leaders had made all attempts to misguide the people on the basis of baseless allegations. The Congress demoralised the army, which is unpardonable and also defamed the nation at the international level. Haryana Police has made elaborate security arrangements to ensure smooth conduct of general elections in 5 municipal corporations and 2 municipal committees on December 16. Director General of Police (DGP), BS Sandhu on Friday said that entire police administration is fully geared up to conduct free, fair and peaceful elections. All the concerned range ADGPs/IGs and district Superintendents of Police have been directed to ensure adequate Police arrangements for ensuring peaceful conduct of polls with the help of district administration, he said. Police arrangements have been made with a view to ensure that people can exercise their right to cast vote without any fear. Besides this, elaborate security arrangements have also been put in place in and around the polling centres, he said. Divulging the details about arrangements, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Mohd Akil said, Instructions have been given to ensure smooth plying of traffic on national and state highways passing through cities. Prompt and effective action will be taken against anybody who tries to take law in his hands and tries to disrupt the polling process. Akil said that flag marches are being conducted through the roads and streets of the poll bound areas. Naka bandi, patrolling and checking has been intensified. The cities have been divided into sectors and duty magistrate have been appointed alongwith the police parties, he added. The Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University on Thursday tendered an apology in connection of a controversial question asked in law exam held on December 7. The move came after the Delhi Government ordered a probe in into the matter. The university had also constituted a committee on Tuesday to look into the matter and asked it to come up with an answer in 10 days. In regard to the Law of Crimes-I examination paper (LLB205) held on December 7, 2018 of third semester BA/BBA LLB programme, the University expresses sincere and unqualified regrets for the hurt caused to the sentiments of any person, community or members of society in general, said the statement issued by the university. According to the statement, the university has decided to wipe out the question from the records. Further the university is taking all possible measures to avoid recurrence of such an incident in the future, the statement said. The university on December 7 from its undergraduate law students had asked if a Muslim man killing a cow in front of Hindus a crime or not. Ahmed, a Muslim kills a cow in a market in the presence of Rohit, Tushar, Manav and Rahul, who are Hindus. Has Ahmed committed any offence, stated the question paper given to third semester LLB students. The question carried five marks. Following the incident, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had sought a report into the matter on Tuesday. Terming the question as reprehensible and with a communal overtone, Sisodia had directed the Higher Education Secretary to submit the report within five days. The university also constituted a committee on Tuesday to look into the matter and has asked it to submit the report within 10 days. The Controller of Examinations (Operations) of the Indraprastha University, Delhi, took cognizance of some media reports regarding the question asked in the examination held on December 7 for LB-205 Law of crimes-1 and constituted a committee to look into the issues involved and submit a report within 10 days, said a statement from the varsity. The police have arrested a youth, identified as Balia Bhoi, from Lahanga village on the charges of raping a minor girl on Thursday. Reports said that Bhoi had been maintaining a love affair with the minor since months. On Wednesday night, he was spotted with the minor in the latters house in objectionable position. The parents of the girl had locked the duo from outside and called Bhois guardians for settlement of the case without police action. Later on Thursday, local gentlemen and youths father came at minor girls house and finally it was decided that Bhoi has to marry the minor girl after she attains the marriageable age. However, the proposal was discarded by Bhois father. As a result, an FIR was lodged from the minor girls side. Religion and identities of religious minorities are very often being discussed these days while some are complaining against the minority appeasement policy of Government. The minorities are being projected as vote banks. The United Nations Minorities Declaration based on consensus in 1992 in its Article 1 says minorities based on national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identities should be protected by the State. There is no internationally agreed definition over groups that constitute as minority as in case of indigenous people also. But minority groups are prone to multiple discriminations based on their social identities based on caste, race, gender, disability and sexual orientation. The Government of India has enacted the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 and notified six religions as religious minority groups in India. As per the 2011 Census, religious minority constitutes about 6 per cent of the total population of Odisha which includes 2.77 per cent Christians, 2.17 per cent Muslims and others are Sikh, Buddhists and Jains constituting a very insignificant number. Historically, it is a fact that people under lower social status of Hindu social order are being converted to other religions. Thus, a major section of minority population carries multiple social identities in a caste ridden society like ours. Though they have changed their faith but their social status and living condition has not changed much because of the influence of the dominant religion in every spheres of social life. The Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims are such groups who have been facing multiple forms of discriminations in their everyday life as a religious minority and also because of their past social identities. They are also a minority within the marginalised sections. The change in their religion status has deprived them of many of the Constitutional rights and provisions of law thatguarantee protection against caste based discrimination and untouchability and most important, their participation in different spheres like education and Government jobs. After the Mandal Commission recommendations based on the criteria of social and educational backwardness, many of such minority groups are enlisted as OBC and SEBC but the issues of protection against social discrimination remain unaddressed and they are pushed into unequal competitions. There have been cases of complaints that even within their religion they face discrimination by fellow faith followers when it comes to marriage and other social relationship and holding posts in religious hierarchy and getting access to top decision making bodies and most importantly sharing of resources within provinces. There is use of words such as upper caste Christians, Dalit Christians, ASRAF and AJLAF, Majbhi SIKH etc. which sound a hierarchical division within. The converts from higher caste Hindus still maintain distance in social relationship with people convert from lower social strata. There are a number of studies which have established that the conditions of these marginalized sections within religious minority are worst. It is being suggested that there must be provision of land, basic amenities, education, credit, employment and scope of participation in governance, including political participation and most importantly, protection against dominance and discrimination. It is important to know about the status of a group before going for any kind of formulation of policy or for implementation of any schemes or programmes. There has been lack of disaggregated data about religious minority of the State in order to know their status for formulation of schemes and programmes. The institutional arrangement to address the very specific issues of minority at policy level is most significant and under this provision the State must have a minority commission, a separate minority department and a minority finance development corporation under the leadership of representatives from these communities. The State minority commission is to represent the concerns of minority communities, policy and legal issues between the Government and groups and also for ensuring socio-economic justice to these groups in realisation of their constitutional rights as citizens of this country while getting protected as minority under the provisions of the law. The Minister for Minority Development Department would be held responsible to the State Assembly and the matter of minorities will get appropriately focused. The department can appoint officers in minority concentrated areas to look into the welfare and development issues along with facilitating the participation and protection mechanism for the groups. The present department of SCs, STs, OBCs and Minority Development Department of the State should be split into four independent departments with four ministers from representing four different groups because the specific issues of each group are different while these four groups constitute more than 90 per cent of the population of the State. Therefore their protection and development is very much vital to the inclusive development of the State. But unfortunately the specific institutional mechanism has not been developed yet. Similarly, there are many States having State Minority Commission and State Minority Finance Development Commission but the Government of Odisha has not initiated such process which can be a first step towards minority protection and development. There are 18 States such as TN, Maharashtra, AP, Telangana, UP, WB, Rajasthan, Punjab and Manipur having the State Minority Commissions. The independent Minority Finance Development Corporation must have adequate funds allocated by the State Government under budget and tap funds from ministry of minority and credit facilities with nationalized and cooperative banks to develop self-employment schemes for minority youths and entrepreneurs for generating employment, income and economic participation in mainstream social life. The schemes must be designed to suit into the complex situations where the youths of the minority groups are well protected from all kinds of peculiar situation, but not just credit rather with social and administrative support to do business and develop as equal entrepreneurs. The allocation of shops and commercial establishments, lands and infrastructural facilities by the Government must be available to minority communities and the State and local Government must have such provisions that ensure a reasonable representation of minority groups in business and industry. The minority educational institutions are protected under the constitutional provisions but minority educational institutions in the State are not so well equipped to impart quality education for higher studies and employment opportunities. Therefore, there must be provision for minority groups in Government run educational institutions to ensure scope of access to quality education in field of medical, engineering, and other technical and higher studies. The State run universities, colleges, schools and technical institutions must offer such facilities to the minority groups and areas having minority concentration. Studies found that minority habitations in Odisha have been suffering with lack of basic amenities such as homestead land, housing, sanitation, toilet, electricity, linking road, and common land for various use of the community. The various schemes of the Central Government especially the 15-point programme of Government of India has not reached to the minority hamlets. Unfortunately the various committees headed by Chief Secretary and Collectors are not meeting regularly to change the situation. It is being much debated in recent times that the minority groups in Kandhamal and Bhadrak have been facing dominance and threat and are living in fear while celebrating their faith based festivals and functions. The Government must take into seriously the issue and ensure that minority groups can have a life of dignity without fear and discrimination as fellow citizens of this secular country. (manasbbsr15@gmail.com) nMauritius will adopt Indo-Israel horticulture project to increase its vegetable production and to provide its citizens off-season vegetables all the time. For the purpose, Agriculture and Horticulture Officers of Mauritius will visit the Centre of Excellence for Vegetables at Gharaunda in Karnal, said Acting President of Mauritius, Paramasivum Pillay Vyapoory during his visit to the Centre on Friday. Vyapoory took information about all horticulture techniques being used for vegetable production and went around the Centre to see the vegetables grown in Polyhouse and in fields. He said that the technique of Indo-Israel project would also be adopted in Mauritius to provide its people off-season vegetables all the time and farmers could earn higher income at a low cost and also save on water. Vyapoory was informed that about one lakh farmers come to visit this Centre every year and Kisan Melas and seminars are organized from time to time for the awareness of farmers. Apart from this, farmers are also imparted training in the Centre. To promote horticulture, the State Government is also giving grant and so far an amount of over Rs 53.25 crore has been made available to farmers, it was informed. Vyapoory was also apprized that after getting information from the Centre, the progressive farmers have set up about 10,000 poly houses in the state and some have even taken sapling from here and has increased their earnings with increased vegetable production. Chouhan indicated that he would galvanise the party in the state for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. Bhopal: Caretaker chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday dismissed the speculations that he would shift to Centre following defeat of BJP in the Assembly elections in MP. Talking to reporters here, Mr Chouhan said, My soul is and will always remain in MP. I desire to serve people of the state till my last breath. I am not shifting to Centre. Mr Chouhans remarks assumed significance in view of speculations making rounds in BJP circle that he along with caretaker chief ministers of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje respectively who lost power in their states in the just-concluded Assembly elections would be inducted in the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Mr Chouhan said he would launch Abhar Yatra in the state soon to express gratitude to the voters for almost bringing BJP to power in MP in the elections. He would cover all the 52 districts in the state during the yatra. However, the date of the programme was yet to be finalised. Mr Chouhan indicated that he would galvanise the party in the state for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. With a view to provide one lakh employment in one year the Department of Labour, Training and Employment organized a job fair on December 12 and 13 under the State governments scheme called Dattopanth Thengari Rojgaar Mela successfully concluded on Friday. Informing about the employment fair Department of Labour, Training and Employment, Assistant Director Rajesh Ekka said, At 2018 Skill Summit which was organized by Jharkhand government, Chief Minister Raghubar Das had said that till January 12, 2019 the Government will provide one lakh employment to the youths of the state. The Department of Labour, Training and Employment has got target to provide jobs to twelve thousand jobs to the youth of the state. Ekka further said, As many as 23 companies participated in the job fair of first day and 21 companies on the concluding day of the fair. Some of them are big companies and some of them are local companies. A large numbers of registered and un- registered aspirants were participated the fair from various districts of the adjoining areas of the state capital. As it is prescribed earlier that the interested candidates had to participate in interview with their original certificates, two copies of biodata and two passport size photos. The Director further said, As many as four hundred candidates have been shortlisted by various companies. The department has a total of three hundred offer letters which will be distributed on Saturday at the office premises. Ekka said, The companies had offered for the various posts in the packages of Rs three thousand to Rs 25 thousand. The companies had also announced that they will give incentives other than package. A numbers of jobs were being reserved for women also. Different eligibilities were made for various posts from eight pass to graduate. The MBA degree holder and technical degrees like ITI, Engineering can participate in the fair. Informing about the participating companies name he said, A numbers of renowned companies participated in the fair including Eureka forbs, Sudha Motors, Ishan BPOs, Black Kobra Securities, Arvind Smart Textiles, PMF Engineering Limited Telangana, Exchange Private Limited Lucknow, Nirmaan Services Private Limited, Reliance Retail Limited, Ranchi, Nimbus BPO, CMC Mitconmega Skill Private Limited, Sewa Sahyog Security Facility Management Private Limited, Jamshedpur etc.. The much awaited process for the nursery admissions for approximately 1,600 private schools in the national Capital will begin from Saturday with private schools making their criteria public on Friday. Distance of students residence from school, sibling quota, parents being alumni of the school, single child, first child are some of the criteria listed by schools for admissions to the entry level classes. According to the schedule released by the Directorate of Education (DoE), the application window will be open from Saturday and the last date of submitting application forms for nursery class admission for 2019-20 session is January 7. The first list of selected children, along with marks secured by them, will be out on February 4. The second list will be out on February 21 and the nursery admission process will conclude on March 31. Twenty-five per cent seats in pre-school, pre-primary and Class 1 will be reserved for economically weaker sections/disadvantaged groups (EWS/DG). The directorate had instructed all private schools to upload their criteria (with points for each criterion) for admission in open seats, on its official website by December 14. There is however, no clarity yet on the schedule of EWS admissions. The government has also set an upper age limit of less than four years to be eligible for nursery, less than five years for kindergarten, and less than six years for admission to Class 1. The proposal for an upper age limit was challenged in court last year. Though a Delhi High Court order last year had allowed the imposition of the upper age limit, the DoE had decided that the order will be applicable only from 2019 academic session. Apart from the abolished criteria, the schools have been given autonomy to come up with their own points system. The State health and family welfare department is gearing up to start the universal health insurance scheme-Atal Ayushman Yojana (AAY)- from December 25. Under the scheme, every family, residing in Uttarakhand, would be brought under the ambit of the health insurance plan in which an annual cover of `5 lakh would be provided. It is worth mentioning here that 5.37 lakh families of the state have already been brought under the Ayushman Bharat Yojana (ABY), the flagship scheme of Narendra Modi Government. The beneficiaries of the scheme are the economically backward families listed in the economic survey of 2011. On the order of the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, the Uttarakhand Government decided to extend the benefit of the scheme to all the families residing in Uttarakhand. The nodal officer of the scheme, Dr Saroj Naithani said that the department has made the necessary preparation to implement the scheme which covers every family of the State. She further said that the department has selected families on the basis of national food security survey. There are about 23 lakh families in Uttarakhand out of which 5.37 families are already covered under ABY. The remaining families, including about three lakh families of the State Government employees, would be brought under AAY on the birthday of the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. A total of 30 private hospitals have so far been included under the scheme while the process to empanel 19 hospitals is underway. The State health agency-set up to implement the scheme-has appointed Arogya Mitras in all the empanelled hospitals for assisting patients on all issues related to treatment under the scheme. For treatment under the scheme in any empanelled hospital, the patients should have to show their ration card and AADHAR card to the hospital authorities. The scheme is being run on a trust mode and the State health agency has selected a Hyderabad-based company, Family Health Planning Limited, for technical help. The Union Government is providing 90 percent of the budget for the scheme while the State Government would contribute remaining 10 percent. Demanding halt of the Bhubaneswar-Balangir Intercity Express at the Bamur railway station in Angul district, locals under the banner of the Railway Users Consultative Committee on Friday staged a Rail Roko at the railway station disrupting train services in the State. The agitators headed by local BJD MLA Sanjeev Kumar Sahu also staged a demonstration in front of the railway station as part of their 12-hour Bamur Bandh. Several trains were stranded at various railway stations due to the stir. Shops and other business establishments, Government offices were closed while vehicles stayed off the roads during the protest. The activists alleged that that despite repeated requests for stoppage of the Bhubaneswar-Balangir Intercity Express at the railway station, the authorities have remained indifferent to their demand. nWith the arrest of 12 people, including two foreign nationals, Gurugram police on Friday claimed to have busted a high-profile sex racket operating out of a guest house at sector-45 in Gurugram. According to a senior police official, twelve people were arrested including two women from Uzbekistan, one from Bangladesh, three from West Bengal, two from Uttar Pradesh and four men, including the owner of the guest house, manager and two customers. They have been booked under different sections of the Immoral Trafficking Act and an First Information Report (FIR) under appropriate sections have been registered against them at the Sector-40 police station, said the senior police official. Specific inputs were received about an illegal prostitution racket running in Krishna Residency guest at sector-45.Before raiding the premises a constable was sent as a decoy customer who visited the spot on Thursday evening. The police team that lay in wait raided the guest house after the decoy signaled to them about the deal being struck. Twelve people were arrested from the spot, said the senior police official. The raid was conducted by a police team led by Inspector Poonam Huda, who reached the spot and nabbed the culprits who were soliciting sex red-handed. The men are aged between 25 and 30 years, while the women are around 26 to 30 years. They used to charge Rs 6,500 per customer for the services. At the time of the raid, a room in the guest house was occupied where a woman and man were found in an objectionable position, the police said. Police sources said for the past few days, the police had been receiving complaints about a prostitution business being carried out in the guest house. We are investigating if the accused had a proper licence and permissions to operate even a guest house. A case has been registered and a probe is underway, said Subhash Boken spokesperson of the Gurugram police. The accused were sent to judicial custody for 14 days after being produced before a magistrate, he added. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has exhorted the students to be job providers and not job seekers. He was speaking at the fifth convocation of the Delhi Technological University (DTU) during which a total of 2,099 degrees were conferred. Two Chancellor medals and 43 Vice Chancellor medals were also awarded at the event.The nation expects you to be job providers, thats the greatest need of the country today, Sisodia said, while addressing the students on Thursday. He stressed that top institutes like IITs, DTUs should take a resolution that the students passing out will majorly be job providers, not job seekers. DTUs Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh urged the students to always remember their responsibilities towards the nation and to never indulge in any activity which is not in the interest of the country. Delhi L-G Anil Baijal, the Chancellor of DTU emphasised on preparing individuals for contributing to social issues, like healthcare, environment, cyber security and artificial intelligence. Your mind is a powerhouse of energy and unrealised potential. With your skills, knowledge and creative energies, you must offer a part of your life for changing other lives. If each one of you is able to bring a positive change in one persons life, imagine the high surge of overall accomplishment that you shall bring to yourself, your family members, friends and your university, he said. He advised the university to keep revising its syllabus in order to cope with the demands of highly competitive industry. UGC chairman Prof DP Singh said the Higher Education Institutions should come up with solutions to combat pollution and provide environmental sustainability. Excellence does not comeby accidents rather it is a process of striving to better oneself, he said. Sleuths of the Special Task Force have sought the help of Nepal police to arrest prime accused in Bulandshahr violence and Bajrang Dals city chief Yogesh Raj. The violence which erupted in Bulandshahr on December 3 claimed the lives of the Inspector of Syana police station and a local youth. We have inputs that to avert his arrest, Raj has fled to Nepal. We are in contact with our Nepalese counterparts and are trying to drop the net on the mastermind of Bulandshahr violence, said a senior STF officer posted in west UP. On Thursday night, the STF team arrested another accused, identified as Saurabh Payal, from Bulandshahr. He was produced in a local court on Friday morning and the court sent him to jail. Earlier, the probe agencies had arrested armyman Jitendra Malik aka Jeetu Fauji in connection with the Bulandshahr violence. Later, a hunt was launched for arresting some aides of the armyman who were at the scene on the fateful day. Interestingly, all accused named in the FIR and with saffron links have been freely uploading videos on social sites and giving interviews, pleading their innocence, but the law enforcers have preferred to look the other way. Following the trend of Madhya Pradesh, in Chhattisgarh too, an announcement over the next Chief Minister of the State would be made in the meeting of Congress Legislative Party (CLP) to be held at State Congress Office here on Saturday. As in Madhya Pradesh, in an attempt to display unity, all the chief ministerial aspirants would be present in the meeting when the declaration would be made. Observer of All India Congress Committee, Mallikarjun Kharge, himself would declare the name of the next Chief Minister of the state in the meeting at State Congress Office. The aspirants for the chief ministerial post while coming out from the meeting with AICC Chief in the national Capital informed media persons on Friday that they have left the matter to him and would obey whatever decision he takes. The Congress has come up as winner in three States. President Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee is being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York over allegations that it misspent funds or accepted donations in exchange for access to his administration, according to a media report. The inauguration committee had raised a record USD 107 million for expenses for Trump's inauguration and events associated with it. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that the US Attorney's office in Manhattan is also investigating whether the committee accepted donations from individuals looking to gain influence in or access to the new administration. "The criminal probe by the Manhattan US attorney's office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee's top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said, the financial daily reported. The daily said that "giving money in exchange of political favours could run afoul of federal corruption laws." The White House distanced the president from his inauguration committee, saying it had nothing to do with Trump or his wife Melania. That doesn't have anything to do with the president or the first lady," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. The biggest thing the president did, his engagement in the inauguration, was to come here and raise his hand and take the oath of office. The president was focused on the transition at that time and not on any of the planning for the inauguration, Sanders said. According to the daily, federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating the matter from the documents it recovered during raid at the office and residences of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen. As of now, the inaugural committee has not been asked for records, the daily said. During a raid of Cohen's properties in April, a recorded conversation between him and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to first lady Melania, was seized, according to the newspaper. Wolkoff expressed concern in the conversation about how the inaugural committee was spending money, a person familiar with the Cohen investigation told the Journal. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, flew higher than it ever has before on Thursday, surpassing what the US Air Force considers the boundary of space, and marking the first manned flight to space from US soil since 2011. The brief, suborbital flight -- with two pilots on board -- marked a key milestone for the company headed by British tycoon Richard Branson, who is striving to send tourists to space at a cost of USD 250,000 per seat. No spacecraft with people on board has taken off from US soil since the American space shuttle program ended, as scheduled, seven years ago. Since then, the world's space agencies have relied on Russian Soyuz rockets to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. In the meantime, a burgeoning commercial space industry is rushing to close the gap, as companies hurry to complete spacecraft that can carry astronauts and tourists into microgravity. "Today, for the first time in history, a crewed spaceship, built to carry private passengers, reached space," Branson said in a statement afterward. "This is a momentous day and I could not be more proud of our teams who together have opened a new chapter of space exploration." Virgin Galactic's spaceship did not launch on a rocket but took off attached to an airplane from Mojave, California. After reaching a certain altitude, higher than 43,000 feet, it fired its rocket motors for 60 seconds and made it to a peak height, or apogee, of 51.4 miles (82.7 kilometers). "We made it to space," the company said on Twitter. The commonly-accepted international definition of space is 62 miles high (100 kilometers), but the US Air Force considers the space boundary to be a bit lower, at 50 miles. Virgin Galactic has said it would use the US Air Force's definition of space as its standard. "What we witnessed today is more compelling evidence that commercial space is set to become one of the 21st century's defining industries," said George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company. "Reusable vehicles built and operated by private companies are about to transform our business and personal lives in ways which are as yet hard to imagine." The US space agency paid Virgin Galactic to fly four space science and technology experiments on the VSS Unity, "making this Virgin Galactic's first revenue generating flight", the company added. "Congrats to @VirginGalactic on SpaceShipTwo successfully flying to suborbital space with our four @NASA_Technology payloads onboard," NASA said on Twitter. "With a good rocket motor burn, the mission went beyond the 50-mile altitude target." In July, after burning the rocket motor for 42 seconds, the VSS Unity reached a height of 32 miles. Commercial airplanes typically fly at an altitude of about six miles, while the orbiting International Space Station is some 250 miles high. Another US rocket company, Blue Origin, founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is also working to send tourists to space, but using a small rocket to get there. SpaceX and Northrop Grumman operate cargo ships that launch from the United States, toting supplies and food to the space station, but not people. The first crew tests of SpaceX and Boeing's astronaut capsules are expected next year. Virgin's first flight date had been pushed back multiple times, following a test flight accident that killed a co-pilot in 2014. Branson told CNN in November he hoped to send people to space "before Christmas." More than 600 clients have already paid USD 250,000 for a ticket. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) The government assured the public on Wednesday that its security camera project with a company affiliated with a Chinese government-owned firm will not compromise national security. "The public also doesn't have to worry about data breaches in the project as there will be no storage of classified data or information inimical to national security in the CCTV (closed-circuit television) system," said Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano in a statement. On November 19, the Interior and Local Government Department signed a $396.8-million (P20 billion) loan with state-owned China International Telecommunication Construction Corporation (CITCC), for the "construction and installation of monitoring systems." The department said the system was not for surveillance as it is for improving "police response time." It added necessary firewalls will be installed to provide protection from hackers and other threats. The project, called "Safe Philippines," will give local government units (LGUs) in Metro Manila and Davao City with integrated operations and command centers and a remote back-up data center. On Tuesday's budget deliberations, Senator Ralph Recto raised concern over the project's involvement with state-owned CITCC and Huawei Technologies. He said Huawei has been blacklisted in many countries. "Don't you think there's a security threat that China Telecom and Huawei will do surveillance system in Metro Manila, and in Davao?" Recto said during the session. CITCC, according to its website, is an affiliate of state-owned China Telecom. China Telecom is a member of the Mislatel Consortium led by companies of Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy that won the bid for country's third major telco. Rajnath Singh demanded in Lok Sabha that Rahul should apologise on floor of the House for 'misleading' the country on Rafale issue. Shah said, 'We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the country's oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies.' (Photo: ANI | Twitter) New Delhi: As the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions seeking probe into Rafale deal, BJP chief Amit Shah welcomed the decision and said it exposed the campaign of misinformation against the government headed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and asserted that the truth always triumph. Shah said, We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the country's oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologize to the nation for misleading people. Want to ask Rahul ji what was the source of information on basis of which he made such big allegations?, questioned Shah. Challenging Congress and its allegations, Shah said, If Congress had all the proof then why did they not go to the Supreme Court with it? Their B team was already there. JPC is formed only when there is a discussion in the House (Parliament), I challenge Congress for a discussion on it Rafale deal. Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanded in the Lok Sabha that Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for misleading the country on the Rafale issue. Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis said, Supreme Court judgement's on Rafale deal has exposed the lies of Congress and its President Rahul Gandhi. This judgement has vindicated our stand. Rahul Gandhi should apologize for defaming our country globally. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad welcomed the judgement and urged that all campaigns against the Rafale deal must end now as the country's strategic interest is more important. "I am very happy that today the Supreme Court has given the decision, upholding the entire Rafale deal. ...I would only urge one thing, that all campaigns against Rafale must end now because the country's strategic interest is more important," Prasad added. "The entire deal was completely fair, transparent and honest," Prasad asserted. The Supreme Court Friday gave the Narendra Modi government a clean chit on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The BJP has demanded an apology from the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi for levying false allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. China is positioning itself to supplant America as the worlds next superpower through economic aggression and relentless theft of US assets, the Trump administration has told a powerful Congressional committee. Assistant Director of counter-intelligence Division, FBI E W Bill Priestap told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on Chinese espionage activities that after the World War-II, the US and its allies created an international order that has led to greater peace, prosperity and human rights than at any other time in human history. The Chinese government has been exploiting this order while simultaneously trying to challenge and replace it. The resulting double standards are everywhere, he said . China tries to dominate Internet governance to benefit Chinese telecom companies, yet China censors its own Internet and eliminates data privacy, Priestap alleged. It is alarming that the Chinese governments economic aggression, including its relentless theft of US assets, is positioning China to supplant us as the worlds superpower, he alleged. 4 hours ago Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey steps down as CEO Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who was the social platform's first CEO in 2007 until he was forced out the following year, then returned to the role in 2015, is once again out of the job this time, Read Article The following companies are subsidiares of BorgWarner: B80 Italia S.r.l., BERU AG, BW El Salto S.A. De C.V., BWA Receivables Corporation, BWA Turbo Systems Holding LLC, Borg Warner Europe Holdings (PDS) B. V., BorgWarner (China) Investment Co. Ltd., BorgWarner (Reman) Holdings L.L.C., BorgWarner (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner Aftermarket Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Alternators Inc., BorgWarner Arden LLC, BorgWarner Arnstadt RE GmbH & Co. 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Knopf Auto Parts L.L.C., NSK-Warner (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., NSK-Warner K.K., NSK-Warner Mexico S.A. de C.V, NSK-Warner U.S.A. Inc., New PDS Corp., Old Remco Holdings L.L.C., Old Remco International Holdings L.L.C., Remy International, SeohanWarner Turbo Systems LLC, Sevcon, Sevcon New Energy Technology (Hubei) Company Limited, and Transmission Systems AutoForm LLC. BrightSphere Investment Group, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of asset management services. It also focuses on the development of new business opportunities in domestic and international markets. The firm operates through the following segments: Quant & Solutions, Alternatives and Liquid Alpha. The Quant & Solutions segment leverages data and technology in a computational, factor-based investment process across a range of asset classes and geographies, including Global, non-U.S., emerging markets and managed volatility equities, as well as multi-asset products. The Alternatives segment comprises liquid and differentiated liquid investment strategies that include private equity, real estate and real assets; including forestry, as well as a growing suite of liquid alternative capabilities in areas such as long/short, market neutral and absolute return. The Liquid Alpha segment comprises of specialized investment strategies with a focus on alpha-generation across market cycles in United States. The company was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Boston, MA. Read More Gadkari, however, clarified that he has no business dealing with Vijay Mallya, who faces extradition from the UK for alleged bank fraud. Gadkari has for long been calling for a more considerate and realistic approach to NPAs, and indirectly blamed the bankers for the NPA mess, saying our banking system is such that it does not support sick companies. (Photo: File) Mumbai: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday suggested that it is unfair to tag a "one-time loan defaulter Vijay Mallyaji" as a "chor" (thief), adding that the embattled businessman has a four-decade-long track record of timely debt servicing. Gadkari, however, clarified that he has no business dealing with Vijay Mallya, who faces extradition from the UK for alleged bank fraud and money laundering amounting to an estimated Rs 9,000 crore. "40 saal Mallya regular payment kar raha tha, byaaj bhar raha tha. 40 saal baad jab wo aviation mein gaya....uske baad wo adchan mein aaya to woh ekdum chor ho gaya?...jo pachaas saal byaaj bharta hai wo theek hai, par ek baar wo default ho gaya...toh turant sab fraud ho gaya? Ye mansikta theek nahi hai." (For 40 years Mallya was regularly paying interest on loans. After entering the aviation sector, he started facing problems, and suddenly he became a thief? If a person repays the interest for 50 years, and if he defaults once, then suddenly everything is fraud? This mindset is not correct), Gadkari said at an economic summit organised by the Times Group. Gadkari said the loan he was referring to was from the Maharashtra government-owned entity Sicom to Vijay Mallya, extended 40 years ago, which he repaid on time without any default. Stating that ups and downs are part and parcel of any business, the road transport minister said if someone goes through a downward cycle, then he or she has to be supported. "There are risks in the business, be it banking or insurance, there are ups and downs. But, if the mistakes are bona fide, because of global or internal factors in the economy like a recession, then that person who is facing difficulties must be given support," the minister said. Likening an election loss to a business failure, he recalled how he lost an election when he was all of 26, but underlined that the loss did not mean that his political career ended. "If Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallyaji has committed (financial) fraud then send them to jail, but whoever comes in distress, and if we label them as fraudster then our economy will not progress," he said. Earlier this week, a London court had ordered Vijay Mallya's extradition, in a major boost to the government's efforts to bring back the fugitive businessman. Ahead of the extradition hearing, the 62-year-old former boss of the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines offered to repay the entire principal amount to banks. Gadkari has for long been calling for a more considerate and realistic approach to NPAs, and indirectly blamed the bankers for the NPA mess, saying our banking system is such that it does not support sick companies. "When someone is serious then we put him/her in an ICU, but our banking system first puts a sick company in the ICU and then ensures that it dies," he said. Last month, Gadkari had blamed the RBI for "complicating" project finance, saying over 150 projects involving over Rs 2 trillion investments are struggling to get financial closure. "Unfortunately, many times ...the circulars issued by the RBI are creating more complications and this is one of the reasons why I am facing problems as far as financial closure is concerned," Gadkari had said. SC cannot decide Rafale issue and alleged corruption in defence contract can be brought out only by JPC, says Randeep Surjewala. If they (the BJP) have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal, Cong spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said. New Delhi: The Congress on Friday claimed the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that the issue of "corruption" in the Rafale fighter jet agreement cannot be decided by it and challenged the Centre to constitute a JPC to probe the deal. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said his party had said the apex court cannot decide the Rafale issue and the alleged corruption in the defence contract can be brought out only by a Joint Parliamentary Committee. He said the only forum that can probe the deal after examining the pricing process and sovereign guarantee is the JPC. His statements have come after the Supreme Court earlier Friday said there's no occasion for it to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France. Dismissing all petitions seeking an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Rs 58,000-crore deal, the court said it is not its job to deal with the comparative details of the pricing in the contract. Following the judgment, BJP chief Amit Shah said the court order "exposes" the campaign of misinformation of the Congress party. He also said his party is ready for a discussion on this issue in Parliament. Surjewala, however, reiterated the demand for a JPC probe, and said the SC verdict is a "vindication of our stance" on November 15, 2018 that the apex court is not the forum to decide pricing, process and specifications of Rafale. "If they (the BJP) have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal," he said. "We again challenge the prime minister for a JPC probe to unveil every layer of corruption in the deal," he said, alleging that corruption has been "guided by the highest echelons of power". He also alleged that the Union government gave a "one-sided half-baked information to the Supreme Court which has not been scrutinised by anyone". The Congress on its Twitter handle said the Supreme Court has clearly stated that it is outside their jurisdiction to probe the Rafale deal. The party also posted a petition on the social media and asked people to digitally sign it "to demand transparency". "Instead of misquoting the Supreme Court it is the responsibility of the media to report on the judgement in its entirety. This was the concluding statement by the bench on the Rafale deal," it said. The party said the media and the BJP should read the judgement before spreading "misinformation". "This was not a criminal petition for a 'clean-chit' to be given," it said. "Three pertinent questions on the #RafaleScam still remain unanswered: If the specification of the Rafale jets are the same as those under the UPA deal, why was there a 300% rise in the price of each aircraft. "Why did PM Modi push for the inexperienced and debt-ridden Reliance over HAL which has over 70 years of experience in the defence manufacturing sector. "Why did PM Modi violate the DPP guidelines & influence the vendor to choose Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence," the party asked. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said, "Our demand was for Joint Parliamentary Committee and it still stands, main issue is pricing, which SC said it did not want to comment as it is not in its jurisdiction. The home minister is speaking on an incomplete judgement given on a PIL." Party leader Anand Sharma said there is no reason for the prime minister and the government to celebrate Supreme Court order which in itself is "contradictory", as some important questions have not been looked into. "There is no reason for PM and BJP government to celebrate Supreme Court order which in itself is contradictory. Honourable SC has said it won't be proper for it to go into details. Supreme Court has not commented on many important aspects. We continue to demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Rafale deal. JPC has the right to summon all documents," he told reporters outside Parliament. Sharma alleged that the country was denied technology and HAL was eased out. "It is sad to see that the Supreme Court did not look into these aspects," he said. The prime minister had made a pre-condition asking the French government that for the 36 Rafale jets purchase, that the partner for the joint venture shall be Reliance Aerospace Defence, Sharma said. Surjewala said the Congress party rejects "the BJP-sponsored PIL on Rafale scam" which, it said, was instituted to misdirect and derail investigation of the Rafale deal. Keane Group Inc (NYSE:FRAC) issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October, 31st. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.19 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $558.91 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $545.56 million. Keane Group had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 7.21% and a net margin of 0.53%. Keane Group's revenue for the quarter was up 17.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.04 earnings per share. View Keane Group's earnings history. Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, and Refining and Marketing segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen in northeast Alberta. Its bitumen assets include Foster Creek, Christina Lake, and Narrows Lake, as well as other projects in the early stages of development. The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, and Clearwater operating areas of British Columbia and Alberta, as well as various interests in natural gas processing facilities. The Refining and Marketing segment transports and sells crude oil, natural gas, and NGLs. This segment owns a 50% ownership in Wood River and Borger refineries located in the United States; and owns and operates a crude-by-rail terminal in Alberta. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More The North West Company Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the retail of food and everyday products and services to rural communities and urban neighborhood markets in Canada, Alaska, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. The company's Canadian operations comprise 118 Northern stores, which offers food, financial services, and general merchandise; 5 NorthMart stores that provides fresh foods, apparel, and health products and services; 25 Quickstop convenience stores that provides ready-to-eat foods, and fuel and related services; 5 Giant Tiger junior discount stores, which offers family fashion, household products, and food; 2 Valu Lots discount center and direct-to-customer food distribution outlet; 2 Pharmacy and Convenience stores; 1 Solo Market store for rural market; and 1 North West Company motorsports dealership offering sales, service, parts and accessories for Ski-doo, Honda, Can-am and other premier brands. The Canadian operations also provides contract tele-pharmacist services to rural hospitals and health centers; water and air-based transportation services; and produce and fresh meats to independent grocery stores. Its International operations include 27 Alaska Commercial Company stores that provides food and general merchandise to remote and rural regions; 12 Cost-U-Less mid-size warehouse stores, which offers discount food and general merchandise; 5 Quickstop convenience stores; 8 Riteway food markets; and 1 Cash and Carry store. The North West Company Inc. was founded in 1668 and is headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada. Read More 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. Read More Hindu fringe outfit Makkal Katchi seeking direction to allow black flag demonstration against Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan is scheduled to participate in unveiling of the statue of late DMK chief M Karunanidhi (Photo: PTI) Chennai: The Madras High Court on Friday dismissed a petition by Hindu Makkal Katchi seeking a direction to police to allow black flag demonstrations against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during his visit to Chennai on December 16. Vijayan is scheduled to participate in a function to unveil the statue of late DMK chief M Karunanidhi at the party headquarters in Chennai in which UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will also take part. When the petition by Arjun Sampath, leader of Hindu Makkal Katchi, a fringe outfit, came up before Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, the government counsel submitted that the demonstration is against the Supreme Court order which allowed women of all age groups to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala and would create law and order problems. Hence, permission for the demonstration was rejected by the city police commissioner, the counsel said. An application was filed before the commissioner by the HMK seeking permission to show black flags to Vijayan at the airport and Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters in Chennai to protest the Kerala government's decision to implement the top court's verdict on the Sabarimala issue. The HMK approached the court after Sampath's application to stage black flag protests against the Kerala chief minister was rejected by the police commissioner. The judge dismissed the petition after recording the submission made by the government counsel that the proposed protest is against the apex court order and would create law and order problems. Aberdeen Australia Equity Fund, Inc. is a closed ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Limited. The fund is managed by Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Limited. It invests in the public equity markets of Australia. The fund makes its investments in firms operating across diversified sectors. It employs fundamental analysis with a bottom-up and top-down stock picking approach with focus on factors like growth prospects, competitive positions in domestic and export markets, technology, research and development, productivity, labor and raw material costs, profit margins, return on investment, capital resources, quality of management, and government regulation to create its portfolio. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the S&P ASX 200 Accumulation Index. It also uses proprietary research to create its portfolio. The Aberdeen Australia Equity Fund Inc. was previously known as The First Australia Fund, Inc. Aberdeen Australia Equity Fund, Inc. was formed in September 30, 1985 and is domiciled in the United States. Read More 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 Read More Those benefits were also independent of whether or not people had contact with friends and family or took part in social activities. The researchers believe the power of these cultural activities lies in the combination of social interaction, creativity, mental stimulation and gentle physical activity (Photo: AFP) London: Regular visits to the cinema, theatre or to museums could dramatically reduce the chances of becoming depressed in old age, a study claims. Researchers at University College London in the UK found a clear link between the frequency of cultural engagement and the chances of someone over 50 developing depression. The study is the first to show that cultural activities not only help people manage and recover from depression but can actually help to prevent it. The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found people who attended films, plays or exhibitions every few months had a 32 per cent lower risk of developing depression, with those attending once a month or more having a 48 per cent lower risk. "Generally speaking, people know the benefits of eating their five-a-day and of exercise for their physical and mental health, but there is very little awareness that cultural activities also have similar benefits. People engage with culture for the pure enjoyment of doing so, but we need to be raising awareness of their wider benefits too", Daisy Fancourt, Lead Author of the study said. The study looked at data on more than 2,000 people over the age of 50, who took part in the long-running English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). The researchers were able to look at data collected from people's answers to questionnaires and in one-to-one interviews over the course of ten years. This included information about how often they visited the theatre, concerts or the opera, the cinema, art galleries, exhibitions or museums. Even when the results were adjusted to take account of differences in people's age, gender, health and their levels of wealth, education and exercise, the benefits of cultural activities remained clear. Those benefits were also independent of whether or not people had contact with friends and family or took part in social activities like clubs and societies. The researchers believe the power of these cultural activities lies in the combination of social interaction, creativity, mental stimulation and gentle physical activity they encourage. There is not enough analysis data for HighPoint Resources. 4.1 Community Rank Outperform Votes HighPoint Resources has received 160 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes HighPoint Resources has received 102 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment HighPoint Resources has received 61.07% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about HighPoint Resources and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe HPR will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe HPR will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. 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De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MOA Enterprises Inc, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V.. The anticipatory bail application (ABA) came up for hearing before sessions judge S.S. Oza on Friday. Mumbai: Anticipating arrest in a rape case filed against him by television writer-producer Vinta Nanda, veteran actor Alok Nath has filed a pre-arrest bail plea in the Dindoshi sessions court. The anticipatory bail application (ABA) came up for hearing before sessions judge S.S. Oza on Friday. However; a lawyer appeared in cou-rt on behalf of Ms Nanda and sought time to file an intervention application in the matter so that he could oppose the ABA. Following this req-uest, the judge adjo-urned the hearing on the plea till December 20. The police had registe-red an FIR against Nath under sections of the IPC dealing with rape and unnatural offences. The mission was executed by INS Sunayna, which has been deployed for anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden since October 6. Mumbai: The Indian Navy intercepted a suspicious vessel during an offshore patrol on December 13 and during a Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) operation approximately 20 nautical miles (nm) off the coast of Somalia, seized illegal arms including five rifles (with AK-47) and 471 rounds of ammunition. Only after the confiscation of arms and ammunition to prevent its misuse by the crew for piracy-related activities, the fishing vessel was allowed to proceed further. The mission was executed by INS Sunayna, which has been deployed for anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden since October 6. During a search operation carried out on Nov-ember 9 and December 7, the ship seized six AK-47s and one Light Machine Gun. The vigilance exercised by the Indian Navy (IN) ships reiterates the commitment of India tow-ards ensuring safe seas for Indians as well as international seafarers in the In-dian Ocean Region (IOR), stated a Navy release. The international effort to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden east coast of Somalia region involves the participation of many countries such as China, Japan, United States, Russia and the European Union (EU) nations apart from India. Warships operating in the region for combating piracy are authorised by the United Nations Secu-rity Council Resolution 2383 (2017) to board vessels suspected of engaging in illegal activities. In a similar seizure in November, INS Sunayna had confiscated arms and ammunition from a number of boats approximately 400 nautical miles northeast of Mogadishu off the coast of Somalia. The only wealthy country yet to make this transition is ironically the worlds biggest economy the United States. After decades of underfunding, it is commendable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has committed his government to more than double public health spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2025. (Photo: PTI) Health is a human right. When people are not able to access the healthcare they need, especially if this is for reasons of cost, their human rights are denied. The world has just marked Human Rights Day on December 10. Two days later, December 12, was an equally significant date: the very first official Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day endorsed by the United Nations. As Secretary-General of the UN, I was proud to launch the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 as a roadmap to a better planet for current and future generations. All world leaders committed to delivering UHC when they signed up to the goals, and they now have 12 years to deliver on their promise. After stepping down from the UN, I joined The Elders, a group of independent world leaders set up by Nelson Mandela who work for peace, justice and human rights. I am delighted that UHC is one of The Elders top priorities. As a young man growing up in the Republic of Korea, I witnessed our transition to UHC, when in 1977 President Park Chung-Hee launched nationwide health reforms which meant that everyone could access life-saving healthcare. This process is now occurring across the world at all income levels, as governments realise that to reach UHC, it is necessary to replace private voluntary health financing with compulsory public financing. The only wealthy country yet to make this transition is ironically the worlds biggest economy the United States. Despite spending 17 per cent of its GDP on health, 30 million Americans are without health insurance, while many more are underinsured and dont use the services they need because of high copayments. Sadly, the present administrations determination to derail President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act is only going to make this situation worse. However, on two occasions over the last year, I have participated with my fellow Elders in health events in New York and California which suggest that at a state level, there is an appetite to move more quickly towards UHC. With health now at the top of the political agenda across the US, there is a real chance for progressive states to launch publicly financed health systems which might catalyse similar reforms nationwide. Ultimately, I believe they will. But progressive states in the US are not the only places striving to make progress towards UHC. Many middle-income countries that historically had inequitable, privately financed systems now have the financial resources to switch to a publicly financed system. What is required to catalyse this change is genuine political will. Over the last three years, The Elders have been working with leaders to encourage them to bring publicly-financed UHC to their people. President Jokowi of Indonesia is good example of a leader committed to UHC, who is using savings from cutting fuel subsidies and increasing tobacco taxes to finance UHC. India is another country on the verge of massive health reforms and it was a privilege for myself and fellow Elder Gro Harlem Brundtland to visit Delhi and Ahmedabad in September to witness progress being made at a national and state level. After decades of underfunding, it is commendable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has committed his government to more than double public health spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2025. However, we were concerned to see that the main emphasis seems to be insuring people against expensive inpatient tertiary hospital care rather than investing in more cost-effective primary care services. We saw this primary care services (PHC) working very well in Delhi, where people are returning to the public sector to access free PHC services in the state governments impressive Mohalla Clinics. Finally, we are also very excited by recent developments in Africa, where in the last few months the Presidents of South Africa and Kenya have made UHC a top priority for their governments. In both cases the Presidents themselves are overseeing reforms that will use mostly tax financing to bring universal free health services to everyone. All countries on the path to UHC face a crossroads: one path leads to a US-style, privately financed, fragmented health system, where the rich have unlimited choice of expensive services but the poor fail to access care or suffer bankruptcy if they do. The other is the path increasingly being taken in the rest of the world, where even in highly capitalist economies everyone gets access to care because the state makes the rich pay for the poor. Our advice to US states, to India, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya and other countries approaching the crossroads like Nigeria and Pakistan is to take this path, as this is the only navigable route to health for all and just, stable and prosperous societies. By arrangement with Dawn The stepping down of Rajapaksa signals an end to a turbulent seven-week long struggle for power in the island nation. Mahinda Rajapaksa was appointed as the premier on October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, plunging the nation into a constitutional crisis. (Photo: File | AP) Colombo: Sri Lanka Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will step down from his disputed post of premier on Saturday after an address to the nation. The stepping down of Rajapaksa signals an end to a turbulent seven-week long struggle for power in the island nation. The announcement was made by his son, Namal Rajapaksa, who took to Twitter and said his father Mahinda Rajapaksa will quit to ensure stability of the nation, after the Supreme Court ordered that he should not exercise the powers of the office he has claimed since October 26. To ensure stability of the nation, Former President @PresRajapaksa has decided to resign from the Premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation. The SLPP with Frm President, SLFP & others will now work to form a broader political coalition with President Sirisena. Namal Rajapaksa (@RajapaksaNamal) December 14, 2018 The Sri Lanka Supreme Court in its latest ruling had unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was illegal. This came as a blow to Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. Rajapaksa was appointed as the premier on October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, plunging the nation into a constitutional crisis. The Supreme Court decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand. The appeal filed by Rajapaksa will be taken up for hearing on January 16, 17 and 18. by NAT da Polis Russian Orthodox believers have doubts about participating in the Masses of the Patriarch of Constantinople, after the excommunication launched by Moscow. For Bartholomew "it is inadmissible to use the interruption of Eucharistic communion as an instrument to impose one's own opinions". Orthodox bishops must take care of all ethnic groups: "Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and so on". Istanbul (AsiaNews) - "It is unacceptable" to use the rupture of Eucharistic communion "to leverage pressure and coercion, to impose on one's own opinions" states the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I. He is referring to the situation of relations between Constantinople and Moscow, after the promise of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Because of this, the patriarchate of Moscow interrupted communion with Constantinople. Bartholomew has reassured the Russian faithful in Istanbul by saying that "I am also a spiritual father of the Russians". Yesterday, December 13, the feast of St. Andrew according to the Julian calendar, the ecumenical patriarch participated in the church of the Apostle Andrew in Galata, attended by the Russian and Slavic faithful who live in Istanbul, about 70 people (see photo) . Bartholomew took the opportunity to talk about the difficult relations between Constantinople and Moscow, caused by the announced grant of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. "I find myself among you my dear children - said Bartholomew - aware of your widespread concerns and your dilemmas that surround you. But I want to be honest with you, because we are all a family, as I am your father and you are my spiritual children. This concern and this dilemma, prevalent in the Russian community of our city and more generally, of Turkey, is due to the extreme decision of the Most Holy Church of Russia and of the patriarchate brother of Moscow, to interrupt Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, your mother Church ". "Having different and divergent opinions on various problems - underlined Bartholomew - is human and democratic. However, interrupting Eucharistic communion to leverage pressure and coercion, to impose one's own opinions, is unacceptable ". "I am sure - said the orthodox primate - that soon the sister Church of Russia will review this extreme decision". He added that "when the sister Church of Russia invites the Russian faithful not to participate in the sacraments" in the churches of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, "it certainly creates problems of conscience". Bartholomews invitation is "not to listen to these exhortations and to have no concerns". As "your spiritual Father here in Turkey", is the patriarch of Constantinople He urged them to attend all the Orthodox churches in Turkey. Explaining the reasons that generate such situations, he pointed to "national and racial factors [that] are mixed with jurisdictional, purely ecclesiological and normal things of the Church". And he recalled that ethno-filettism was condemned as heresy in the synod held in Constantinople in 1872. Bartholomew also recalled that - according to the canons of the Orthodox tradition - "every city must have its bishop, who should be the spiritual father of all believers, of all the Orthodox who live in that city, regardless of their race, be it Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and so on ". Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) Malacanang on Friday asked lawmakers to reconsider the proposed federal constitution approved by the House of Representatives, saying it could be rejected by the people. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo noted the objections raised by former Chief Justice and Consultative Committee (ConCom) chairman Reynato Puno, who described the House's draft as "bogus federalism." Puno also noted that the proposed charter removed the term limits of the members of Congress and dropped the anti-political dynasty provisions in the version endorsed by ConCom. "I hope Congress would listen to former Chief Justice Reynato Puno and open themselves for amendments," he said in a press briefing. "Otherwise, there might be the danger of people rejecting the proposed amendments to the Constitution and that would be a waste of people's money." The Lower House on Tuesday passed the controversial charter, roughly three months after it was filed by House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her allies. However, senators are not so keen on charter change, with some saying the proposed new constitution was as "good as dead." They expressed suspicion that if passed, Arroyo planned to use the new constitution to stay in power. The former President denied this speculation. Puno told CNN Philippines in October that the House's draft did not create federal states but only gave Congress the power to create them. READ: ConCom chair: House version of charter is not 'real' federalism "This cannot be given by a law passed by Congress. That is the essence of federalism. In this House version, there's no allocation of powers between the federal government and the states," he noted. Puno was among 22 legal experts appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte to the ConCom to review and recommend changes to the 1987 Constitution. Panelo on Friday said the House should not have disregarded the draft crafted by ConCom or any other body that submitted proposals on amending the Constitution. "One does not have a monopoly of ideas or amendments to the Constitution," Panelo said. He raised the possibility of having multiple drafts submitted in a plebiscite from which the public could choose. "I have a suggestion, if it's feasible, all of the drafts - these should be submitted to the people and let the people decide which draft is good for them," Panelo said. He said the President has said in a Cabinet meeting that he would campaign against the ratification of a proposed federal constitution "that is against the interests of the people." The shift to federalism was among the promises Duterte made during his 2016 presidential campaign. He believes it would pave the way for a more equitable distribution of wealth and political power throughout the regions and bring lasting peace in Mindanao. The event is set for tomorrow. Bible readings and Gospel-inspired hymns will accompany the mandatory national anthem. A choir from a leprosy group will sing a special "Hallelujah". Christians represent over 87 per cent of the States population. Aizawl (AsiaNews/Agencies) - For the first time in the history of Mizoram, a State located in north-eastern India, Christian prayers will be read during the swearing-in ceremony of the new State government. In addition to the mandatory national anthem, the ceremony will include songs inspired by the Gospel and Bible prayers. Rev Lalhmingthanga, president of the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitute Committee (MKHC), an association of some 16 Christian Churches, said that a special "Hallelujah" will be sung by a choir from a leprosy group. Recent state elections saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffer major losses in key states, to the benefit of the Indian National Congress. In the case of Mizoram, the Mizo National Front (MNF) won as pre-election opinion polls had predicted. Its leader Zoramthanga took the oath of office this afternoon as Chief Minister at Government House (Raj Bhavan) in the State capital of Aizawl, whilst the state cabinet will be sworn in tomorrow. The ceremony will include the mandatory Indian national anthem along with Christian hymns, Gospel-inspired songs and Bible readings. "We are doing it for the first time," noted Lalruatkima, a newly elected State Assembly Member for the MNF. Based on the 2011 census, Christians are a majority of the population of Mizoram (87.16 per cent), followed by Buddhists (8.5 per cent) and Hindus (2.7 per cent). The MNF won 26 seats in the 40-membe State Assembly. Eight seats went to the Zoram People's Movement and five to the Congress Party (which had been in power). The BJP won only one seat, its first in the history of the State. Local Churches were influential in the vote, and the BJP was seen as too close to Hindutva, Hindu nationalist ideology. The dissatisfaction over sacred cows slaughter was another factor. As days of protest against austerity draw hundreds, security forces show an iron fist. The crisis highlights the countrys weak political institutions. Some fear criminal and jihadist infiltrations. The political class must be renewed and economic and social reforms must be implemented. Amman (AsiaNews) The atmosphere in Jordan is tense and things could get worse as hundreds of people continue their protest in the streets. What is more, old problems have been compounded by an unprecedented fragility of the kingdoms political institutions, this according to Amer Al Sabaileh, a Jordanian scholar who spoke to AsiaNews about recent demonstrations in Amman. Prime Minister Omar Razzaz has shown himself to be weak and incapable. The royal entourage is not up to it nor are the heads of the services. There have been disturbing signs for some time, but they were treated superficially." This has forced Jordanian authorities to deploy hundreds of anti-riot police in the streets of the capital, with activists and demonstrators urged to remain within the law. For their part, protesters intend to continue their action against austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The protest has begun in early June only to fizzle out until recently. A judicial source said authorities have detained several people for chanting slogans against King Abdullah, a first in the history of the country. In fact, demonstrations are not only targeting policies or the government but also the main institutions of the state. Reacting to the situation, government spokeswoman Jumana Ghunaimat warned against violence. There are those who want to sow destruction ... We must safeguard Jordans stability and security, she said. However, dissatisfaction is widespread across the country. Many Jordanians say the government, which faces a record public debt of around billion and desperately needs to raise revenue, is eroding the disposable incomes of poorer and middle-class Jordanian. For Al Sabaileh, "The government is no longer the issue but the person who appoints the prime minister. Anger has been slowly simmering but the authorities have reacted with an unprecedented use of force. They brought in Bedouin units, which had not been seen since the 1989 revolution. Not even during the Arab Spring was there such a violent response, and this shows the incapacity of political leaders to understand what is going on. People are "desperate" and there is a firm belief that "this system is unable to deal with the problem". And "King Abdullah is paying a high price for his alliance with certain circles none of whom understand the real extent of the challenges. This is one of the reasons anti-monarchy slogans can be heard during the protests. For now, This is still a domestic issue. Things are not bad enough to elicit the intervention of regional players either for or against the establishment. In addition, we should also not forget that there are protests all around the world and that they are liable to criminal or terrorist infiltration. In Jordan, there is a jihadist risk and extremist (Islamic) groups could exploit the situation." Jordan "is a closed, isolated country that has not been able to produce and renew itself," Al Sabaileh notes. It lacks a serious political class, capable of dialogue. It is at a crossroads and in need of change, first of all at the political level to bear fruit at the economic and institutional levels." Solutions must be found that can have an "immediate effect on people's lives. We need to go from a dependent economy to an independent one. We need development plans in agriculture, transport, infrastructures. "Jordan is strategically located the Middle East and must find a way to exploit this, including developments in the energy sector. It must attract again Chinese, European and American investment. We need to overcome immobility and if this does not happen the crisis is destined to get worse." New Delhi: Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court order on the multi-billion dollar Rafale jet deal, saying it established the falsity of politically motivated allegations against his firm. In its ruling on a batch of petitions seeking a probe into the deal, the apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of the 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France. Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had entered into an agreement with Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) for fulfilling offset obligations. "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally," Ambani said in a statement. The Congress has been alleging that the government had put pressure on Dassault Aviation to select RDL as its offset partner. The government, RDL and Dassault Aviation rejected the charges. "We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France," said Ambani. The French firm also clarified that RDL was among many several other companies it has chosen for implementing offset obligations of the deal. After consuming the prasad, people started vomiting and began writhing with stomach pain, police said. (Photo: ANI) Bengaluru: At least six people, including a girl and a woman, died and 75 others took ill on Friday after consuming 'prasad' at a temple at Sulivadi village in Chamarajnagar district, police said. The condition of 11 people was critical and they have been taken to Mysuru for treatment, they said. "Six people died, including a girl, a woman and four men. 75 persons admitted in different hospitals," Superintendent of Police of Chamarajnagar district Dharmender Kumar Meena told PTI. Two people from the temple management have been detained for questioning, said police sources. District Health Officer Prasad said it was suspected that poison might have got mixed with the 'prasad', resulting in the tragic incident. "We have collected the samples and sent it to a laboratory for investigation," he told reporters. According to police, the foundation laying ceremony of Maramma temple was organised on Friday morning and prasad was distributed after the function. Most of those who attended the event followed the 'Om Shakti' tradition. After consuming the prasad, people started vomiting and began writhing with stomach pain, police said. Commotion prevailed as people hurried to nearby hospitals for treatment. Police rushed to the spot, as also district authorities, to provide medical aid. Expressing shock over the incident, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said he has directed the authorities to make all arrangements for the treatment of the affected people. The affected people said they got the smell of kerosene oil in the prasad, but ignored it. Both the leaders had one-on-one meetings with party president Rahul Gandhi late Thursday night and a decision was deferred till Friday on who will be chief minister. (Photo: File) New Delhi: After day-long meetings and consultations, the Congress on Thursday night picked Kamal Nath over Jyotiraditya Scindia for Madhya Pradeshs chief minister. However, the race for the top job is still on in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Sources suggest that the party leadership prefers Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan but the state Congress chief Sachin pilot is not giving up. Both the leaders had one-on-one meetings with party president Rahul Gandhi late Thursday night and a decision was deferred till Friday on who will be chief minister. KC Venugopal, party observer for Rajasthan, who was also at the meetings, said taking leadership was not easy but it will be announced on Friday. "Taking decision on CM is not an easy job. The final decision will be taken tomorrow (today, Friday) in a meeting to be held around 10 am," he said. For Rajasthan, Gehlot, a seasoned political manager, holds an edge, but Sachin Pilot is believed to be fighting hard for the post that he believes he has earned after leading the party for the past four years in the state and rebuilding it after its 2013 rout. Amid reports of highway protests by Congress workers, Sachin Pilot appealed on Twitter for "peace and decorum" and said he would welcome "whatever Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi decide". For Chhattisgarh, frontrunners TS Singh Deo and Bhupesh Baghel have been called to Delhi from Raipur for discussions with top party leaders. Earlier on Thursday, a scuffle took place outside the house of Baghel, where the party supporters had gathered, waiting to hear Delhi's pick for the Chief Minister's post. It is not known who were involved. New Delhi: Veteran politician and senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot has been named as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot, who was also eyeing for the Chief Ministerial post in the state, has been named the deputy chief minister of Rajasthan. Pilot will also continue with his post as Rajasthan Congress Chief. The announcement came minutes after Gehlot and Sachin pilot met the Congress President for the consecutive day on Friday. After the meeting, Rahul Gandhi tweeted a photo with Ashok Gehlot and his rival for the top job, Sachin Pilot and mentioned United colours of Rajasthan! The united colours of Rajasthan! pic.twitter.com/D1mjKaaBsa Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 14, 2018 It was quite similar to what Rahul Gandhi tweeted on Thursday evening before the formal announcement of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister. Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia flanked the Congress president in the post tweeted with Leo Tolstoy's quote: "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. - Leo Tolstoy pic.twitter.com/MiRq2IlrIg Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 13, 2018 Hours later, Kamal Nath was named as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi met the Gehlot and Pilot separately thrice since Thursday. There have been hectic discussions between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the selection of chief ministers for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Senior party leaders K C Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were also present during the meeting Friday. Ashok Gehlot, a Gandhi loyalist with close ties to the family for three generations, first came into prominence when he became one of the youngest members of Parliament (MP) from Jodhpur in the 1980 general elections. Gehlot rose from the ranks, from being a member of the National Students Union of India (NSUI) to a district president and then chosen by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to become a member in her council of ministers. Hailing from a family of magicians, Gehlot was first spotted by Sanjay Gandhi. During his tenure as a minister in Indira Gandhis government, Gehlot handled tourism, civil aviation and sports. At 34-years-old, he went on to becoming the youngest chief of the Congress in Rajasthan under the leadership of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. Gehlot again became a Union minister in 1991 when P V Narsimha Rao was the prime minister. This was his last stint in national politics, and he soon announced he would focus only on Rajasthan. Gehlot once again became Congress state president in 1994 and became the chief minister for the first time in 1998. His second term as chief minister started in 2008 when defeated the Vasundhara Raje government. 'Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Allegations on Rafale was fiction writing that was compromising national security,' Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: Finance Minster Arun Jaitley on Friday dubbed allegations on the Rafale jet deal as "fiction writing" that compromised national security, after the Supreme Court dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets. In an apparent attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been alleging corruption in the purchase of the fighter jets, Jaitley said "disrupters" have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country. Falsehood is bound to fall apart and it has, Jaitley said, adding that if honest deals are questioned, then civil servants and armed forces will think twice before undertaking such a process in future. Buoyed by the verdict, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who addressed a press conference along with Jaitley said the matter of Rafale deal has been put to rest through the apex court's order. Jaitley said every figure cited by Rahul Gandhi in his allegations has been false. He said the government would again press for a debate on the issue in Parliament. He claimed that there has been a tradition in democracies across the world of leaders quitting their positions when their lies are caught. "Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Allegations on Rafale was fiction writing that was compromising national security," Jaitley said. To a question about the Congress demand of Joint parliamentary Probe (JPC) into the deal, he said only judicial body can carry out such an investigation as there has been experience in the past of JPCs working on partisan lines. The Supreme Court verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope of any doubt on the deal, he said. In relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The apex court rejected the pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and the court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, in which both the countries have entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA). Rafale deal was crystal clear from the beginning and the allegations of corruption into the deal were politically motivated, said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) New Delhi: Rafale deal was crystal clear from the beginning and the allegations of corruption into the deal were politically motivated, said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh soon after the Supreme Court dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal. "The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations leveled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage," Singh told reporters in one of the first reactions by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government after the verdict. In a major relief to the central government, the top court on Friday dismissed all petitions pertaining to multi-million dollar Rafale fighter jets deal. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, stated that there is no need to conduct an investigation in to details of Rafale pricing. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process. Joint exercise has taken place and there is no element of financial benefits," said CJI Gogoi. The CJI added that, "Detailed scrutiny of Rafale deal is not required." The court was announcing its decision on the clutch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets. The apex court on November 14 had reserved its judgement in the case. The three-judge bench comprising CJI Gogoi, Justice S K Kaul and K M Joseph of the apex court heard petitioners and the government lawyers before reserving the verdict in the case. The Congress leadership want Gehlot and Pilot to be present together at the CLP meet. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to hold a fresh round of discussions Friday with Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the two chief ministerial aspirants in Rajasthan, before taking a final call for the top post. The decision of Rajasthan's next chief minister is likely to be taken before noon and will be made public at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in state capital Jaipur, sources said. After several rounds of discussions that lasted till Thursday midnight, Congress veteran Gehlot has emerged as a front runner for the top post, while Pradesh Congress Committee president Pilot is being placated in attempts to broker peace between the two. Party's central observer for Rajasthan K C Venugopal told PTI, "It is up to the Congress president to take a final call and the decision is being awaited." Congress leaders feel once the MLAs in the state have authorised Gandhi to take a decision on the chief minister, leaders should not challenge the high command and accept the decision. Pilot, 41, is still reported not on board on Gehlot's name, which is delaying the announcement, the sources said. The PCC chief has put up a stiff resistance and his staking his own claim for the top post. AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande told PTI," Congress president heard everyone and after wide consultations he will take the final decision which will be acceptable to all." Gandhi is likely to meet Pilot and Gehlot, 67, again at his residence in attempts to broker peace, like he did in the case of Madhya Pradesh where Kamal Nath was declared as the next chief minister amid hectic parleys held by the Congress chief with senior party leaders in the national capital Thursday night. The Congress leadership want Gehlot and Pilot to be present together at the CLP meet. Sources said the Congress top brass was upset with the manner in which party workers resorted to arson and violence in the state in a bid to exert pressure on the party to name Pilot. They said this the first time such incidents have been reported in Rajasthan and the party has taken the matter seriously. The incidents of violence were reported in Jaipur, Dosa and other parts Thursday following which the Congress leadership asked both Pilot and Gehlot to issue appeal for peace. The party leaders feel the infighting in Rajasthan should end soon and called an amicable solution in the manner Jyotiraditya Scindia gracefully accepted the Congress's decision in Madhya Pradesh. Shah said, 'We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the country's oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies.' (Photo: ANI | Twitter) New Delhi: As the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions seeking probe into Rafale deal, BJP chief Amit Shah welcomed the decision and said it exposed the campaign of misinformation against the government headed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and asserted that the truth always triumph. Shah said, We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the country's oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologize to the nation for misleading people. Want to ask Rahul ji what was the source of information on basis of which he made such big allegations?, questioned Shah. Challenging Congress and its allegations, Shah said, If Congress had all the proof then why did they not go to the Supreme Court with it? Their B team was already there. JPC is formed only when there is a discussion in the House (Parliament), I challenge Congress for a discussion on it Rafale deal. Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanded in the Lok Sabha that Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for misleading the country on the Rafale issue. Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis said, Supreme Court judgement's on Rafale deal has exposed the lies of Congress and its President Rahul Gandhi. This judgement has vindicated our stand. Rahul Gandhi should apologize for defaming our country globally. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad welcomed the judgement and urged that all campaigns against the Rafale deal must end now as the country's strategic interest is more important. "I am very happy that today the Supreme Court has given the decision, upholding the entire Rafale deal. ...I would only urge one thing, that all campaigns against Rafale must end now because the country's strategic interest is more important," Prasad added. "The entire deal was completely fair, transparent and honest," Prasad asserted. The Supreme Court Friday gave the Narendra Modi government a clean chit on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The BJP has demanded an apology from the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi for levying false allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. TRS supporters welcome Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Raos son K.T Rama Rao who was appointed as the partys working president at TRS Bhavan on Friday. (DC) Hyderabad: In a significant development in the ruling TRS supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao appointed his son and Sircilla MLA K.T. Rama Rao as the TRSs working president. He will assume charge on Monday. Party leaders said Mr Rama Raos new appointment made sense in view of the decision of the Chief Minister to concentrate more on national politics. The Chief Minister wants to implement the TRS governments promise to complete all pending irrigation projects during his second term, and also implement the welfare schemes he has promised. So he entrust the responsibility of overseeing this on his son, party sources said. Mr Rama Raos responsibilities will also include expansion of party membership, constructing party offices in all districts and developing a strong party. Mr Rama Rao proved his abilities during the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, with the TRS winning 99 wards in Greater Hyderabad. He was in charge of the recently concluded state elections and ensured the opposition got a bloodied nose. Several party leaders including senior party leader, T Harish Rao, welcomed the appointment and congratulated Mr Rama Rao. Mr Rama Rao said he "humbly accepts the responsibility as working president conferred on me by our president." He also tweeted that he would "serve to the best of my abilities to strengthen the confidence shown by people in the leadership of KCR Garu." As working president he will look after the day to day affairs of the party which include strengthening the party at grassroots level by touring the state and holding periodic meetings with party cadres and leaders. K Chandrashekar Rao as chief minister will still call the shots, though. He alone has the power to choose ministers and issue party tickets and in policy matters. KTR requires his approval for any programme he may want to implement. The pastor at the Early Rain Covenant Church drafted the letter over time, asking that it be made public two days after his arrest. In it, he expresses his disgust for Communist persecution of Christians, but says he is not interested in changing the countrys social system. His goal is to bear witness through non-violence and slam violations of religious freedom. God will bring down the communist regime. The Church has existed for thousands of years, but no political power has lasted thousands of years. Chengdu (AsiaNews) Wang Yi, pastor of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan, wrote a letter before his arrest last week-end along with about a hundred members of his congregation. Although he expresses his disgust for the Communist Party of China and its persecution of Christians, he reiterates his support for non-violence and accepts Chinas social order whilst claiming the right to proclaim the Gospel. The clergyman drafted the letter over time and asked that it be made public 48 hours after his arrest. In it, Wang says that he is filled with anger and disgust at the persecution of the church by this Communist regime, at the wickedness of their depriving people of the freedoms of religion and of conscience. At the same time, he notes that changing social and political institutions is not the mission I have been called to, and it is not the goal for which God has given his people the Gospel. Following the Bible, he accepts and respects the fact that this Communist regime has been allowed by God to rule temporarily. Indeed, As the Lords servant John Calvin said, wicked rulers are the judgment of God on a wicked people, the goal being to urge Gods people to repent and turn again toward Him. For this reason, I am joyfully willing to submit myself to their enforcement of the law as though submitting to the discipline and training of the Lord. At the same time, I believe that this Communist regimes persecution against the church is a greatly wicked, unlawful action. As a pastor of a Christian church, I must denounce this wickedness openly and severely. The calling that I have received requires me to use non-violent methods to disobey those human laws that disobey the Bible and God. My Saviour Christ also requires me to joyfully bear all costs for disobeying wicked laws. In his long letter, Wang says that he is not trying to change any institutions or laws in China. The only thing he cares about is the disruption of mans sinful nature by this faithful disobedience and the testimony it bears for the cross of Christ. Im not even interested in the question of when the Communist regimes policies persecuting the church will change. Regardless of which regime I live under now or in the future, as long as the secular government continues to persecute the church, violating human consciences that belong to God alone, I will continue my faithful disobedience. For the entire commission God has given me is to let more Chinese people know through my actions that the hope of humanity and society is only in the redemption of Christ, in the supernatural, gracious sovereignty of God. For the clergyman, the persecution of Christians is driving many Chinese to lose hope in their future; yet, it is leading them through a wilderness of spiritual disillusionment and through this to make them know Jesus. The persecution of Christians is the most wicked and the most horrendous evil of Chinese society. But This is not only a sin against Christians. It is also a sin against all non-Christians. For the government is brutally and ruthlessly threatening them and hindering them from coming to Jesus. There is no greater wickedness in the world than this. If this regime is one day overthrown by God, it will be for no other reason than Gods righteous punishment and revenge for this evil. For on earth, there has only ever been a thousand-year church. There has never been a thousand-year government. There is only eternal faith. There is no eternal power. Finally, Jesus is the Christ, son of the eternal, living God. He died for sinners and rose to life for us. He is my king and the king of the whole earth yesterday, today, and forever. I am his servant, and I am imprisoned because of this. I will resist in meekness those who resist God, and I will joyfully violate all laws that violate Gods laws. Asserting that allegations of corruption have been levelled against both the Congress and the BJP in defence deals raising doubts of the public, she said that both the parties are alike as Congress government had faced the allegations in Bofors and BJP government in the Rafale deal. New Delhi: The Congress on Friday said the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal cannot be decided by it and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the deal. Referring to both the Congress and the BJP as ek hi thali ke chatte batte (birds of a feather), BSP supremo Mayawati called for fundamental reforms in all defence related procurements in order to address the doubts and common perception over such issues. In a statement, Ms Mayawati said the Supreme Courts verdict would bring some relief for the Central government but there was a need for basic changes at the level of the government in matters of defence-related deals. Asserting that allegations of corruption have been levelled against both the Congress and the BJP in defence deals raising doubts of the public, she said that both the parties are alike as Congress government had faced the allegations in Bofors and BJP government in the Rafale deal. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the Congress had stated earlier that the Rafale issue cannot be decided by the Supreme Court, and the alleged corruption in the defence contract can only be brought out by a JPC after examining the files and notings in the contract. Taking on Congress president Rahul Gandhi over the Rafale issue, Union home minister Rajnath Singh said the Congress leader tried to mislead people on Rafale deal for political benefit and maligned Indias image globally. Mr Singh said that the Congress president should apologise to the people of the country. Union minister of road transport Nitin Gadkari echoed the views of his Cabinet colleague Meanwhile, notwiths-tanding the Supreme Courts verdict on the Rafale deal, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday maintained that there was massive corruption in the contract and wondered why the CAG report cited by the Supreme Court on Rafale deal had not yet been shared with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. Welcoming the apex court's order, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath demanded an unconditional apology from the Congress president for spreading false propaganda. New Delhi: Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashan Bhushan, who were among the petitioners before the Supreme Court, issued a statement saying the SC judgement was shocking as it is disappointing. They said that they were disappointed that the court has taken a conservative view of judicial review in cases of defence deal corruption involving high functionaries and were shocked that the judgment was based on completely false information about the CAG report. No CAG report on Rafale has been submitted or examined, the statement said. They also expressed shock over the courts acceptance of Mukesh Ambanis RIL being a parent company of Anil Ambanis Reliance Defence. The scandal will continue to agitate the public mind new disclosures are expected soon, they said. Mr Sinha, Mr Shourie and Mr Bhushan had challenged the pricing details of 36 fighter jets on the ground that there were huge escalations in costs, as per the materials available in the public domain. They had sought a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The courts judgement does not even address the documented facts stated in our petition or even deal with our main prayer seeking an investigation. On the contrary it proceeds on the basis that we were challenging the contract itself and uses the facts stated by the government either in the short open affidavit filed or perhaps facts claimed in the sealed cover handed only to the court which was never shared with us. In fact some of the facts mentioned in the court judgement are not only not on record but are patently incorrect, they said in a statement. States main concern was a proviso under the Bill, which specifies that where a particular dam in one state is owned by another, then the National Dam Safety Authority would act as the State Dam Safety Organisation for that particular dam, the Chief Minister said. (Photo: File) Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Friday expressed concern over the dam safety bill introduced in Parliament by the Centre and demanded its withdrawal, saying its earlier concerns had not been addressed by the Centre. Chief Minister K Palaniswami wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recalling his previous communication in June, calling for consultation and consensus on the proposed legislation. The Tamil Nadu Assembly had also adopted a resolution demanding that the Dam Safety Bill, 2018, be kept in abeyance till a consensus was arrived at with all states, he said. Tamil Nadu's "serious concerns" have not at all been addressed by the Union government, he said, adding that the Bill has now been introduced in the Lok Sabha "without considering the views/comments of the state governments." The state's 'main concern' was a proviso under the Bill, which specifies that where a particular dam in one state is owned by another, then the National Dam Safety Authority would act as the State Dam Safety Organisation for that particular dam, the Chief Minister said. This implied that the dam owning state would have no rights over the safety and maintenance of the dam located in another state, he told Modi. "Tamil Nadu's Mullaiperiyar, Parambikulam, Thunakkadavu and Peruvaripallam dams are owned, operated and maintained by the Government of Tamil Nadu by virtue of Inter-state Agreements, but are located in a neighbouring state (Kerala)," he said. Palaniswami also recalled the May 2014 Supreme Court verdict, which "upheld the rights of Tamil Nadu" on the Mullaperiyar dam on increasing its height to 142 feet and ultimately to 152 feet upon completion of strengthening work. "Therefore, to deny Tamil Nadu the right to be the Dam Safety Authority with regard to these four dams and vesting the powers to the National Dam Safety Authority would be tantamount to encroaching on the rights of Tamil Nadu, which is unconstitutional. It is also a violation of the federal principles enshrined in our Constitution," Palaniswami said and sought suitable amendments. He also recalled the state's earlier suggestion to include a sub-clause in the bill to ensure access to the dams by technical personnel for those dams which are located in forest areas and wild life sanctuaries. But this was not included in the bill tabled in the Lok Sabha on December 12, the Chief Minister said. "Under the circumstances, I once again request you to kindly instruct the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation to withdraw the Dam Safety Bill, 2018 introduced in the Lok Sabha," he urged Modi. Palaniswami also requested the Prime Minister to not proceed further with the process of legislation on Dam safety "till such time Tamil Nadu's genuine concerns are addressed and a consensus evolved among all the states." Hyderabad: AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi cautioned AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu that he would enter Andhra Pradesh to teach him a lesson. Addressing a public meeting, Mr Asaduddin Owaisi said, Mr Naidu, I am coming to Andhra Pradesh, be prepared. You campaigned in our constituencies and we will surely campaign in Andhra Pradesh in the 2019 elections. I am sure that you will not win two seats out of the 25 Parliament seats in AP. He said the anti incumbency on Mr Naidu government would ruin the Telugu Desam in AP and Mr Naidu will learn a lesson. He said the results in Telangana has proved that the whisper campaign and money power would not impact the people. Referring the remarks of Mr Naidu with regard to settlers in Hyderabad, he said that they are not settlers they are people of Telangana though they had roots in AP. Hyderabad: The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) is reviewing the reasons for the partys defeat in the recent assembly elections in the state. The TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy conducted the review with the candidates at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday for more than three hours. Most of the Congress leaders said that EVMs were the cause. While some other leaders alleged that the number of votes counted was higher than the total number of votes polled. According to Congress leaders, the total votes polled in Kodangal constituency was 1,52,110 but the total votes that were counted was 1,65,429. The Congress alleged that in some of the polling booths, the count was higher than the votes and in some of the booths, the number of votes counted was less than the total number of votes. The same complaints were received from constituencies like Kalwakurthy, Vikarabad and some other constituencies. Considering the complaints, the Congress party released an RTI form with a few questions. The TPCC asked the candidates to file the RTI seeking a response under the RTI Act, 2005. The demands included furnishing of the Register of Voters in the constituency, accounts of votes recorded during the elections, furnishing the record of events mentioned in each presiding officers diary in the constituencies and furnishing the time when the Close button was pressed. The Congress also demanded that it be allowed to inspect VVPAT slips against each EVM used. Speaking to media persons, Khairatbad Congress candidate Sravan Dasoju said, We have condemned the deletion of 22 lakh voters, how can the Election Commission give the schedule and notification for the elections when the case is under trial. CEO (Chief Electoral Officer) Rajat Kumar and other EC (Election Commission) officials have behaved like TRS employees. The Congress party will raise the issue in the ongoing Parliament session. We will demand an enquiry by a Joint Parliament Committee and will make sure that the guilty are punished. The Congress has decided to initiate a movement demanding that the paper ballot be brought back. We will fight for paper ballots in the High Court and Supreme Court. The election results are the machines mandate, but not the peoples mandate. The people have rejected entry to TRS candidates in more than 40 to 50 constituencies, what can we say when the same candidates won the elections with a huge majority. HYDERABAD: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy is being blamed by party leaders for the defeat in the recent Assembly elections. Spokesperson of the party, Gajjala Kantham alleged that Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy was destroying the prospects of party in the state. Mr Kantham has also made several other allegations against the TPCC chief. Taking the allegations of some TRS leaders into consideration, Kantham said Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy was involved in a few scams when he was a minister. To escape from these scams, Uttam Kumar Reddy followed the directions of caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, he said. Speaking to the media, Mr Kantham said, The people of Telangana did not trust Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy. He said that he would take responsibility for the result and now he is not talking about it. When Mr Ponnala Lakshmiah was the TPCC president, the Congress could secure only 21 constituencies and for this, he was asked to resign from the post. But, now the Congress is down to 19 seats. After Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy became the party chief, we have only got two seats in the GHMC elections. The SCs, STs and the BCs are not accepting the leadership of Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy. Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy has compromised with the TRS on the condition of hiding the scams that occurred during his tenure as housing minister. He has also misguided the high command on the alliances. He has collected crores of rupees by selling the party. Instead of resigning as the party chief, he has shamelessly given a call for a meeting at Gandhi Bhavan. He should immediately resign as the TPCC president. The leadership of the TPCC and the CLP should be given to SC, ST and BC leaders, he added. Later, the Congress disciplinary committee issued a show-cause notice to spokesperson Gajjala Kantham for making such allegations against the TPCC president. New Delhi: In a major relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court Friday said it was satisfied with the decision making process in concluding the Rafale fighter jet deal and rejected demands for a probe, sparking bitter exchanges between the BJP and the Congress. The verdict by the apex court that it found no reason to intervene on what it called the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 jets from France came as a political victory for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr Modi had come in for a relentless attack from Congress President Rahul Gandhi who alleged corruption in procurement of the fighter jets for the IAF from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation, calling it a scam which allegedly benefitted industrialist Anil Ambani. BJP president Amit Shah launched a blistering attack on the Congress and demanded an apology from Mr Gandhi. However, Mr Gandhi maintained that corruption had taken place in the contract which he asserted will be proved by his party and claimed that the basis of the court judgement is a CAG report that has neither been seen by anyone, nor shared with Parliaments Public Accounts Committee. Holding it did not find any substantial material on record to show there was commercial favou-ritism to any party by the Indian Government in choosing an offset partner, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by the court. We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court, it ruled. The court noted that the petitions were filed after reported statement of Hollande with regard to selection of Indian offset partners after he demitted office. The bench said it was certainly not the job of this court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present and the material has to be kept in a confidential domain. In these troubled times it is tempting to view the Assembly election results as indication of the revival of the secular republic, the rejection of doctrinaire politics and governance, and evidence of mandate correction. However, by dwelling excessively on the change of government in the three states where the ruling BJP has been unseated by the Congress, the resurgent Grand Old Party and its supporters would lose sight of the graver challenges ahead. While the first of these is undoubtedly the Lok Sabha election, the rollback of majoritarianism is the long-term task. To understand the test ahead there is first a need for a deep dive into the verdict from the states where the Congress wrested power. While everyone heaved a sigh of relief after the Congress tally rested at 114, just one short of the halfway mark, the figure which should worry the party and its backers is 47,827 the number of votes which the BJP polled more than the Congress in Madhya Pradesh. Although the Congress eventually edged out the BJP in a humdinger of a contest, the latter led the former by a whisker in terms of its voteshare 41 per cent for the BJP to 40.9 per cent for the Congress. It is due to the vagaries of the first-past-the-post electoral system that often legislative strength does not represent popular support. After all, even the BJPs Lok Sabha tally of 282 in 2014 was way beyond what its 31 per cent voteshare would have reflected. Or that the 37 per cent that the party got along with allies was way below their commanding presence in the Lok Sabha. The Congress would seek solace in the fact that if the votes polled by four rebel Independents, who after becoming MLAs are back into the fold although formal induction is still awaited are added to its voteshare, the Congress would nose ahead of the BJP and actually become Party No. 1 in the state. Despite this, the two parties would remain at par, evidence that the Congress will face with a sterner test in the Lok Sabha elections and that this verdict has not automatically reopened the path of its electoral comeback at a national level. In Rajasthan too, the Congress is dogged by its voteshare being discomfortingly close to the BJPs 39.3 per cent of the former to the latters 38.8 per cent. In terms of actual number of votes which separated the two, the figure was just 177,699. Party leaders, however, would argue that there is a need to factor in the votes polled by 13 Independent candidates, most of who are Congress rebels, and they would eventually either back the party from outside or make a homecoming. These Independents polled 9.5 per cent of the total votes cast, a whopping 33,72,206, and even if almost half of these were bagged by inconsequential candidates, it would still add up sufficiently to the Congress tally, providing it an element of comfort. But this notional lead over its rival has to be converted. This would, however, not be possible without taking steps that strike at the endemic problem within the party across states rebels are encouraged and put up by faction leaders whenever they fail to secure nominations for their favourites. To counter this, the party high command has to deploy authority and cannot hide behind the argument of being more democratic because it should never become an excuse for indiscipline. Paradoxically, of the three states, the Congress secured the most comfortable mandate in Chhattisgarh, a state expected to be the tightest for two reasons. First, almost its entire state leadership was wiped out in the terrorist attack in 2013, and second, the alliance between Ajit Jogi and the Bahujan Samaj Party had the potential to cut significantly into the anti-BJP vote. Yet it is here that the Congress secured a comfortable 10 per cent voteshare margin, and this is due to its weakness becoming its strength the absence of strong faction leaders and the possibility of a split in the anti-BJP vote instilled fear that any internal division would finish whatever chances the party had. In addition, the Congress benefited by the strong sentiment against the BJPs approach of centralising the entire issue of left-wing extremism, which the people in the state see as the result of the refusal of successive governments, especially under the watch of Raman Singh, to tackle the roots of the unrest. While the BJP at the national level progressively increased the use of the issue of Urban Naxals as another stick to beat liberal-radical India with, the epicentre of this discord became boggy for the party. The lessons for the Congress and other Opposition parties are obvious. But even if one assumes that the Index of Opposition Unity will rise significantly in the states, and the most where it is most required, it cannot be ignored that the Narendra Modi factor was utilised only in Rajasthan. It was the Prime Ministers thrust towards the end of the campaign which had significantly reduced the Congress victory margin. That Mr Modi retains the ability to turn this election in his partys favour even when issues were chiefly local provides a hint of what confronts the Congress and other Opposition parties in 2019. There is no denying that the race has opened up, but the BJP cannot in any way be written off. It still remains the party most likely to emerge at the top of the tally next year. To deny the BJP this position, the Congress has to stop being in reactive mode and set the agenda. Instead of awaiting the BJP to implode like in Chhattisgarh, the Congress must provide an alternate vision for India. It must stop being the B-Team of the BJP and return to its inclusive past. It will be tempting for the Congress to continue pursuing soft Hindutva, but the real cause for cheer will be when it sheds diffidence of articulating issues concerning the well-being of those on the margins of society, including the religious minorities. Margaret Thatcher, even when Prime Minister, made breakfast for her husband Dennis, to remind herself that she was also a spouse. Pakistans Prime Minister revealed recently that, of an evening, his spouse has to remind him that he is the Prime Minister. Had PM Imran Khan concentrated in his biology class at Aitchison College, he would have noticed that organisms are like governments. Each has its own gestation period. Lions and tigers take about 108-9 days. Chimpanzees are closer to humans with 240 days. Donkeys need 365 days. Governments need up to four years, and even then, they do not always deliver. It was masochistic, therefore, for the PTI government to have set itself the target of delivering even in part its electoral promises within the first 100 days. It would have been success enough during that time to have mastered the elements of Pakistans complicated governance. Instead, the PTI government has expended its green energies castigating its predecessors and in trying to resuscitate a system immobilised by institutional apathy. That is now compounded by fear. Decision makers at every level of government are in a spasm. They dread the consequences of their actions. Politicians in Opposition are fearful at the cadavers of their past misdeeds being disinterred. Politicians in power bay for an odd-handed accountability of others, not of themselves. The PTIs crusade against corruption is laudable. Corruption is a social cancer that has spread deep, too deep, into Pakistans vitals. The malodour of corruption though clings to both hands involved in such sordid transactions. Paraphrasing what Napoleon said: The hand that gives is as bad to the hand that takes. Money has no fatherland; financiers are without patriotism. But even the Napoleonic code never envisaged one law for the receiver and no law for the giver. After 100 days, the Pakistani public has grown weary watching a new government conducting post-mortems on live adversaries, just as the revolutionary Parisian mobs eventually sickened at the slicing sound of the guillotine. Many feel it is time the country moved forward, and not just by looking through the rear-view mirror. Changes without improvement or U-turns without alternative destinations are a poor substitute for policies. The behaviour of the PTI government since it assumed office this summer has oscillated between nobility of intent and crassness of action, between disguised democracy and faux fascism, between inexperience and incompetence. Ministers still bicker over territorial boundaries. Others battle for space on the front page or for more prime time television coverage. Provinces behave towards each other as if the federation is an unproven myth. The PM has hinted that he might have to govern through presidential ordinances, bypassing the very Parliament that gives him constitutional authority. PM Imran Khan must be inundated already with advice proffered by his friends, his critics, his wives. He is known to watch television. Should he by chance read this paper, he might care to scan this extract from an anonymous article about Jawaharlal Nehru, published in the Modern Review in November 1937. The author was later revealed to be Nehru himself: Men like Jawaharlal, with all their capacity for great and good work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart and logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irrepressible urges of a person. A little twist and Jawaharlal might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy. And yet he has all the makings of a dictator in him vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and, with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and the inefficient. His flashes of temper are well known and even when they are controlled, the curling of the lips betrays him. His over-mastering desire to get things done, to sweep away what he dislikes and build anew, will hardly brook for long the slow processes of democracy. He may keep the husk but he will see to it that it bends to his will. In normal times he would be just an efficient and successful executive, but in this revolutionary epoch, Caesarism is always at the door. For a politician, Jawaharlal Nehru had an unusual feel for history. He wrote it; he made it; he became it. He understood all too well why in Roman times, a victor on his triumphal march through adoring crowds needed someone beside him on the chariot, murmuring into his ear: Hominem te memento (Remember you are only a man). Todays press is that cautionary whisperer. By arrangement with Dawn British PM Theresa May emerged triumphant from a Conservative Party trust vote, but the Brexit problem isnt over. The 200-117 Tory vote isnt a confidence booster. Ms May and the UK remain in a hard place on Brexit as Parliament is unlikely to accept the deal Ms May negotiated with the EU, which is why she postponed the Commons vote. As long as the Irish border backstop remains (the border between the Republic of Ireland and UKs Northern Ireland is a soft one, with free movement of people and goods), the Brexit problem may be unsolvable. That takes us back to the casual manner in which a referendum was agreed upon by David Cameron. Brexiters had only a four per cent lead in numbers at a time when all the implications of a divorce werent known. Ms May will attempt to further pursue reopening of EU negotiations, but all the vibes indicate Europe will not bend to accommodate, even though a UK no-deal Brexit may prove catastrophic for both sides. There is a EU trade surplus with the UK to consider, and a $39-billion settlement sop for EU and disorder for UK, by which essential goods may stop coming from Europe, so there could be food shortages too. The scary scenario for both sides leaves Europe more in turmoil after the problems facing Frances Emmanuel Macron and a weakened Angela Merkel leaving the continent with no strong leader capable of showing the way, as populism rears its head in Hungary and Poland. Ms May also faces the prospect of a Labour Party no-confidence motion, which might however come only after Ms Mays stock falls further as she grapples with Brexit. The handover in the state hotel in Beijing, in the presence of Msgr. Claudio Maria Celli. Pope Francis reportedly asked for this "sacrifice" from Msgr. Guo to save the unity of the Church and to guarantee the signing of the agreement between China and the Holy See. Msgr. Celli also requested the withdrawal of the elderly Bishop of Shantou, Msgr. Zhuang Jianjian. Mindong (AsiaNews) - Msgr. Vincent Guo Xijin, an underground bishop of Mindong, recognized by the Vatican, but not by the government and to date ordinary bishop of the diocese, will leave his ordinary post and give it to Msgr. Vincenzo Zhan Silu, recognized by the government, and one of the seven formerly excommunicated bishops whom Pope Francis has re-admitted to communion. The news was given yesterday by some diocesan priests. According to one of them, yesterday in the afternoon, Msgr. Guo gathered his priests to communicate the new situation in which he now becomes auxiliary bishop. The prelate had just returned from a trip to Beijing where he met with Msgr. Zhan and with Msgr. Claudio Maria Celli, head of a Vatican delegation (see photo). Msgr. Celli presented a letter signed by card. Pietro Parolin, secretary of state, and by card. Fernando Filoni, prefect of Propaganda Fide to Msgr. Guo in which they asked the underground bishop to cede his role as ordinary to Msgr. Zhan. Also according to the report of the priests of Mindong, Msgr. Celli would have told Msgr. Guo that Pope Francis himself asks for this gesture of obedience "and of sacrifice for the general situation of the Chinese Church". Many priests and lay faithful are saddened by this news. In the past, when an official bishop reconciled with the Holy See, and in the same diocese there was an underground bishop, he remained as ordinary and the other, just reconciled, became the auxiliary. In this case the opposite occurred. Moreover, in the case of Mindong there is a great imbalance: out of the more than 90 thousand members of the diocese, at least 80 thousand belong to the underground Church, served by 45 priests, 200 nuns, 300 consecrated lay women and hundreds of lay catechists. The official bishop Zhan counts some members among the faithful and 12 priests who serve in different parishes. According to the report received from AsiaNews, Pope Francis expressed his great appreciation for Msgr. Guo and asked him to personally continue to take care of pastoral care for the underground parishes, but also to find a certain integration with Msgr. Zhan Silu. At the meeting in Beijing, Msgr. Celli also announced that the underground bishop of Shantou, Msgr. Pietro Zhuang Jianjian will give way to the official bishop Giuseppe Huang Bingzhang, also recently reconciled with the Holy See. In any case, the decision to give the ordinary position to the two official bishops, much appreciated by the government, seems to have been already made a year ago, on another trip to Beijing by Msgr. Celli. On that occasion, Msgr. Celli would have explained to Msgr. Guo that the Pope himself demanded this step back "because otherwise the [sino-vatican] agreement cannot be signed". The Pope feared that without the agreement - on episcopal appointments - the Chinese Church would be invaded by dozens of illegitimate bishops, with serious consequences for Church unity. Some priests of Mindong point out that in this way, after 40 years of existence the underground Church will die Others appreciate the extreme obedience shown by Msgr. Guo. According to other priests, with this passage, the Vatican has consigned the Church into the hands of the government. It should be noted that the meeting between Msgr. Celli and the two bishops of Mindong took place at Diaoyutai, one of the Chinese state hotels for official guests. One more point remains: in order to be able to exercise his episcopal ministry in an open way, Msgr. Guo needs the approval of the government and the Council of official Chinese bishops. On December 5, it was five years since Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela died. In much of the world, particularly in the United States and Europe, Mandela was hailed as another Gandhi. Like everyone else on this planet, I too mourned Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. There can be little disputing that he was possibly the greatest man of our times. But Nelson Mandela being equated with Mahatma Gandhi, and by many people who should know better, was a bit too much to stomach. Nothing could be more misplaced. They were two very different people. The closest Gandhi went to war was as the founder of the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps, a group of volunteers who served as stretcher-bearers during the second Boer War in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was the founder of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military arm of the African National Congress. Mandela had said that Fidel Castros July 26 movement inspired him. The Umkhonto was founded in 1961 after the Sharpeville massacre. Explaining this, Mandela wrote: At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela said: We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the government had left us with no other choice. Following this Mandela went underground. But the South African police arrested him in 1962. The American CIA, who saw him as another Fidel Castro, informed the apartheid regime of his whereabouts. The CIA was interested in Mandela for another reason. He was a Communist and belonged to the Joe Slovo faction of the ANC. On the day Chief Albert Luthuli of the ANC and an admirer of Gandhi and his ways was awarded the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize, the Umkhonto set off 57 bombs all over South Africa. After what became known as the Rivonia trial, Mandela was sentenced to be imprisoned for life on Robben Island in 1964, for seeking to overthrow a democratically elected government. This was not his first experience with imprisonment. He was repeatedly imprisoned by the apartheid regime for his political activities since 1952 when he became president of the ANCs Transvaal branch and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in 1956 in the 1956 treason trial. It was after this that Mandela secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Mandela spent 27 years imprisoned on the desolate Robben Island till his release by President F.W. de Klerk, who was now seeking to find a way to end apartheid. The Umkhonto in the meantime ran a campaign of attacking the apartheid regimes installations all over South Africa. Its campaign of armed engagement with the South African military and bombings lasted till 1987. The entire Western world, led by the United States, denounced this war of freedom and considered apartheid-practicing South Africa a democratic nation. During this period the ANC enjoyed full diplomatic recognition and support by India. It had a full-fledged mission in New Delhi. Its long-time ambassador in India, Abdul Minty, was a prominent figure in New Delhis diplomatic circuit, just as the PLAs representative still is. Apart from supporting the ANC generously with financial grants, the Government of India was liberal with military assistance. Officers and men of the Umkhonto were trained in India in guerrilla warfare. Indian Air Force aircraft regularly transported arms to ANC camps in Zambia, Tanzania and other places. Thats why India was the first country Nelson Mandela visited after he was released from prison in 1990. V.P. Singh was the Prime Minister and, thanks to my friend the late Harikishore Singh, then MoS in the MEA, I had the honour of meeting him in New Delhi. The Umkhonto campaign was halted only in 1987 after the apartheid regime had initiated talks with Mandela in prison. This relentless pressure and the increasing global opprobrium of the nations supporting the despised apartheid regime forced the South African authorities to initiate a dialogue. It even offered to release Mandela, but he told President de Klerk that this was not the time. He had now begun to think of a transition when majority rule was inevitable. He wanted a South Africa that would succeed and not become like other post-colonial African nations. This willingness to forgive and to look ahead is the Mandela we know and recognise. This was Mandelas greatness. But whatever he was, and however great he was, however gentle and steadfast he was, he was no Mahatma Gandhi. There is a unique place in the history of man and only one man can occupy that. That is the man who defeated the greatest empire ever in the world, with a staff in his hand, wire glasses and a toothless smile on his face, and a twinkle in his eyes: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) underlines the challenge facing the company in convincing Western governments its equipment is safe. (Photo: AP) Huaweis relations with British authorities hit a low last month when a top official walked out of a meeting with the Chinese company over its perceived failure to fix security holes in its products, sources familiar with the talks told Reuters. Although Huawei responded with a pledge to spend USD 2 billion on a security overhaul to address the British concerns, tensions between London and the worlds biggest producer of telecoms equipment remain high as it fights US-led allegations of Chinese state spying. Previously, you very much had British civil servants saying please do this and asking rather than telling or banging the table, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Huawei HQ now have the message. The fraught nature of the meeting between Huawei executives and Britains National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) underlines the challenge facing the company in convincing Western governments its equipment is safe. A spokesman for the NCSC - part of Britains GCHQ spy agency - said the meeting in late November ended prematurely because of increased tensions, but declined to provide any further details because the conversations were private. Huawei did not respond directly to questions about the meeting or its talks with the NCSC, but said British officials had identified some areas for improvement in our engineering processes. We are grateful for this feedback and committed to addressing these issues, it said in a statement. Huawei has come under intense scrutiny as countries including Australia, New Zealand and Japan follow US moves to restrict access to their markets, citing security concerns. The company has repeatedly denied allegations that it facilitates Chinese espionage. The arrest last week in Canada of its chief financial officer and founders daughter, Meng Wanzhou, on the US charges that she misled multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions has ramped up the pressure. Meng, who has been freed on bail, has said she is innocent and will contest the allegations in the United Staes if extradited. Huawei now increasingly needs to secure the approval of British authorities, who have so far resisted the US calls to act against the company and say they guard against security threats by having Huawei products reviewed at a special company laboratory. But a British government report released in July found that technical and supply-chain shortcomings with Huawei equipment had exposed national telecom networks to new security risks. Sources told Reuters that NCSC officials had become frustrated by Huaweis slow response to the report and its findings, which included issues raised in previous years about limitations on checking internal product code. The reports critical language and NCSC Technical Director Ian Levys dramatic exit from the November meeting showed company officials in China they needed to take prompt and significant action, the sources said. The NCSC spokesman said relations with Huawei have been strained since the report, but underlining that is a commitment to find solutions. We continue to have consistent dialogue. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Washington: The US Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end US military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end US military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemens civil war. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the worlds most dire human crisis, with the country on the brink of famine. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw US forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the presidents ability to commit US forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trumps fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate backed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggis murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. Khashoggi, a US resident who was a columnist for the Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The Senate vote, which was unanimous, puts pressure on House leaders to allow a vote on the Khashoggi resolution this month, before Congress adjourns for the year. Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear, said Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the resolution. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government and the prince, despite a CIA assessment it was likely he ordered Khashoggis killing. He promised to veto the war powers resolution. Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to take any action to disrupt the strategic US relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close US ally Israel. Administration officials also see Saudi support as a linchpin for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan yet to be unveiled by the Trump administration. And they have argued that ending US support could complicate Yemen peace talks. Shared Strategic Interests Asked to comment on the Khashoggi resolution, a White House spokesperson noted sanctions imposed on 17 Saudis over the killing and said, Our shared strategic interests with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remain, and we continue to view as achievable the twin imperatives of protecting America and holding accountable those responsible for the killing. But backers of the resolutions, including some Republicans, promised to press ahead. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators promised to push in the new Congress legislation for humanitarian sanctions and a ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Whats next is to do everything possible to demand that the House of Representatives do what the members of the House want done, an opportunity to vote on this, Senator Bernie Sanders told Reuters. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he would bring the resolution up again after the new Congress convenes in January, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives. The measure could pass the Senate again, given the bipartisan support it received on Thursday, even though Trumps Republicans will have a larger majority in the upper chamber next year. I think were going to win in the Senate and I think we are going to do what the American people want, that is to end our participation in this horrific and destructive war, Sanders said. There was no immediate word from House leadership on whether they would allow a vote on either resolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, who briefed House members on Thursday, urged senators during a briefing last month to keep supporting the Saudi-led coalition. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said her members supported congressional action. There certainly is an appetite in our caucus for that, Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House Speaker, told reporters. Yemens warring parties agreed on Thursday to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for UN-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. Qaisar and Amoon Ayub have been in Jhelum Jail since 2015. The sentence was read in prison for security reasons. Their lawyer, this could be another Asia Bibi case. Lahore (AsiaNews/Agencies) Two Christian brothers have been sentenced to death in Pakistan on blasphemy charges, the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) announced today. Qaisar and Amoon Ayub, from Lahore, were arrested in 2015 after one of the two was accused of posting offensive material against Islam on their website. Qaisar and his wife Amina have three children, whilst Amoon is married to Huma, a teacher at Lahore Cathedral School. The allegations surfaced in 2011 when they were accused of posting disrespectful material on their website; however, the accused say that their website was not active since 2009. The two brothers have been held in Jhelum District Jail since their arrest. Additional Session judge Javed Iqbal Bosal informed them of the sentence directly in the prison for security reasons. CLAAS, an interdenominational organisation dedicated to the victims of religious intolerance, has been representing the accused and now plans to appeal the sentence before the Lahore High Court. Blasphemy charges tend to trigger violent reaction among Islamic radicals, who interfere with the proper operations of the court system and threaten judges. Unfortunately, because of threats from hardliners lower courts pass their responsibility to the higher court and then it takes years to prove the accused innocent, said CLAAS-UK director Nasir Saeed. We have seen this in the recent case of Asia Bibi. MEDIA COURTHOUSE A Tinicum man Friday was convicted in a brutal attack on his roommate with a machete and metal pipe. Sebastian Garro, 39, of the 400 block of Seneca Street in the Lester section of Tinicum Township, was convicted of aggravated assault in the January 2017 attack. Following a jury trial before Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge George A. Pagano, Garro was found guilty of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, endangering the welfare of a child, a felon not to possess a firearm, and possessing instruments of a crime. He faces sentencing scheduled for Feb. 15, 2019. Sebastian Garro is an extremely dangerous and violent individual who brutally attacked his roommate in the middle of the night, said District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland. As the result of his reckless and violent actions, he is now in prison where he will stay for a very long time. I would like to commend Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Riley for bringing this case to justice, Sergeant James Simpkins for his thorough investigation, and our Criminal Investigation Division who assisted with this case. The investigation was led by Sgt. James Y. Simpkins Jr., of the Tinicum Township Police Department with assistance from the Delaware County District Attorneys Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Authorities offered this account of the incident: On Jan. 27, 2017, at 3:41 a.m., officers from the Tinicum Township Police Department responded to a residence on Seneca Street in Lester for a report of a home invasion. Upon arrival, the victim, who is the homeowner, was located in his bed with severe lacerations to his head, arm and ankle. He was transported to Chester Crozer Medical Center for his injuries. Also present was the victims roommate, Sebastian Garro, who claimed that he was in Norwood when he received a call from his roommate, telling Garro that he was injured. According to the victim, he was in bed when Sebastian Garro attacked him with a machete and a metal pipe. As a result, he received numerous severe and large lacerations to his head, along with his right arm and left ankle. Garros 2-year-old daughter was at the residence at the time of the attack. Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Riley prosecuted the case. Merry Christmas. Delaware County is putting a little jingle back in residents pockets. County Council Wednesday signed off on the 2019 budget, which includes a 2.55 percent reduction in real estate taxes. That amounts to $25 bucks for the average homeowner with a property assessed at $100,000. Dont laugh. Do you know a lot of government entities that are giving money back to taxpayers these days? Neither do we. The countys largesse stems from a healthy reserve fund of $53 million. The county is mandated to keep at least 10 percent in this reserve, but council voted to use $4.3 million from the unassigned fund balance to decrease property taxes. Very good budget management, sound fiscal policies and the continued economic expansion in Delaware County grew the countys tax base by $228.5 million, Council Chairman John McBlain explained. That swelled the county coffers to the tune of an additional $1.25 million in revenue. Perhaps even more impressive is something else the county has managed to do, and most certainly a rarity when it comes to governing bodies these days. The county is spending less money. Expected expenditures are going down, a decrease of $2,174,000 from the 2018 numbers. That was not the only big economic news in the county Wednesday. Despite months of protests and concerns raised concerning conditions inside the George W. Hill Correctional Facility and the private company operating it, and calls for the county to bring operation of the jail back under country control, thats not going to happen. The county lockup will remain the only privately operated prison in Pennsylvania. Thats because the Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors voted unanimously to award a new five-year contract to GEO Group Inc and an affiliate to continue operation of the prison. The price tag? A hefty $264 million. Tack on two 2-year options and the deal swells to nine years and nearly $500 million. The current contract between GEO and the county was due to expire Jan. 1, and council had been under pressure from several groups to bring operation of the prison back under county control. Questions were raised concerning a multitude of issues at George Hill, including health care and programs for inmates, to chronic staffing problems. The county currently is awaiting the results of a study of prison operations they ordered from Phoenix Management at a cost of $100,000 to evaluate the differences and similarities between privately run and publicly operated jails, along with the advantages and cost factors associated with both. The study, which council was supposed to have in its hands while it reviewed bids on a new prison contract, has been delayed several times. Opponents of private operation, who showed up at Wednesdays prison board meeting, asked them to delay the vote on a new contract until the report could be received and shared with the public. A plea to extend the current deal for 180 days instead of offering a new contract was rejected. Board Chairman John C. Hosier vowed the new contract, which gives the county the option to terminate it at any point with 180 days notice, addresses citizen concerns. He said the new deal specifically addressed many of the issues raised by the public. Basically, were getting everything we asked for, Hosier said. Under the deal, GEO picks up the cost of health care, insurance and liability, as well as any capital expenses up to $5,000. GEO, one of three companies that submitted bids, also said they will spend more than $3 million to improve security, health care, transportation and living units in George Hill. The company said it will expand rehabilitation offerings, behavior treatment and other programs to better prepare inmates for life after incarceration. Thats one of the crucial goals that opponents of GEOs operation have pointed to, a lack of services for inmates. As you might expect, the new deal for GEO was not exactly the kind of holiday greeting citizens groups were hoping to receive. They showed up at the meeting toting signs reading, People Not Profits, We are People Not Profits, and GEO Must Go. GEO isnt going anywhere. In fact, it could be around for another nine years. The deal could save the county $10 million. Thats the bottom line. Now its up to GEO to prove the critics and the studies wrong, that the notion of profiting off the incarceration of citizens does not put profits over people. They have said they are ready to meet that challenge, and make the changes at George W. Hill Correctional Facility that critics have sought. Now they must be good to their word. And County Council must see to it that they do. They already are taking heat in some quarters for abdicating the decision in this process to the prison board, in effect leaving the question of how to spend $495 million of taxpayer money to a board that is not elected by the citizens. Theyve cut taxes. Theyve kept a tight rein on spending. Now they need to hold GEOs feet to the fire, making sure they do the things they say they are planning to do at the prison. And if they dont, they should not hesitate to exercise that option to terminate the deal. Years ago, I was working as a reporter at The Trentonian in Trenton, New Jersey. It was election season and every day or so Elliott Somebody a candidate for some minor office running on an obscure third-party ticket kept bringing in press releases predicting that the world was going to end in a nuclear war on a certain date. To no ones surprise, the date came and went, and the world did not end. A few days later, Elliott showed up in the newsroom with a press release about some other crackpot conspiracy. Hey, Elliott, the world didnt end last Friday, we savvy journalists observed. How do you explain that? Well, he responded nonchalantly, Thats because by publicizing it, I prevented it from happening. BOOM! Thats the trouble with conspiracy theories that boast something is going to happen on a specific date when it doesnt, their advocates look like the idiots that they are. Jesus didnt return to Earth in 1844 as the Millerites predicted and so they slinked off to join other less absolutist religious sects. The 39 members of the Heavens Gate cult who committed mass suicide in 1997 so their souls could reach a spaceship supposedly trailing the Hale Bopp comet likely did not arrive at their destination. And the Obamas and Clintons were not arrested at George H.W. Bushs state funeral at the National Cathedral Dec. 5 as QAnons followers predicted. The Obamas, the Clintons and maybe the Carters, as well as former members of their administrations were supposed to have been put in handcuffs and marched out of the cathedral to waiting buses where they would be carted away to prison. QAnon says he (she, they?) is a mole buried in the deep state, who communicates cryptic clues to be deciphered by his most astute minions, but not, of course, by us ordinary folks. Ever since the 2016 election, the anonymous group has been signaling the start of the Great Awakening, the Coming Storm, the delivery of MAGA, the Avalanche of Truth, etc., etc. and so forth. But QAnon has not had a great track record. First there was Pizzagate, the theory that Hillary Clinton and her followers were running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant that doesnt have a basement. That theory went south on Dec. 4, 2016, when Edgar Welch fired three shots into the restaurant with an AR-15-style rifle. Welch told police that he was self-investigating the conspiracy theory. A year later, QAnons followers were sure he was telling them that a military coup, mass arrests of journalists and the ushering in of the Trump Golden Age would occur Nov. 3 and 4, 2017. Didnt happen. So lately QAnon followers had been focusing on D5 or Dec. 5. That was the day we would finally learn that the Justice Department has been investigating Pizzagate and other Democratic Party perfidies (drug running, treason, the assassination of William McKinley) all along. George H.W. Bushs dying so that his state funeral could happen Dec. 5 was all part of the plan. The funeral conveniently would bring all those criminal Democrat former presidents (and Hillary) into one place so they could be rounded up and arrested on national TV. QAnon followers were further reassured that was going to happen by the fact that one of the buses bringing mourners to the national cathedral had D5 on its side. That was the bus that was going to do the carting away, you see. But Dec. 5 came and went without any of that happening. All those would-be criminals just walked out of the cathedral as if they didnt have a care in the world. So how did the QAnon idiots deal with that? According to some of their internet posts, there really isnt one specific date when the glorious MAGA moment is going to come (but it may happen sometime in January so stay alert). Other posters said the Dec. 5 great arrests were meant to coincide with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynns birthday, but Wikipedia erroneously reported his birthday was Dec. 5. It turns out Flynn secret paid foreign agent, convicted liar, hopefully soon to be jailbird was really born Dec. 24. Maybe Christmas Eve will be the great day, though its not clear why Flynn or his birthday is significant to QAnon. He did strut on the Republican Convention stage saying of Hillary Clinton, Yes, lock her up. I would be in jail too if I had done a tenth of what she did. Turns out he did a great deal more, the details of which we will get when he is sentenced in the near future. I hope at his sentencing he tells us whether hes sorry for that foaming-at-the-mouth performance. Elliotts end-of-the-world fantasy was before the Internet and all he could do to spread his message was pass out some flyers on a street corner. But today, cable TV and social media can spread a fact-free whacko conspiracy theory to millions of wanna-be believers in their airtight little information bubbles as fast as the click of a mouse. Most of us just laugh them off for the nonsense they are. But it does great harm when they inspire mentally ill citizens to make anonymous death threats or self-investigate or run over protesters or shoot up a newsroom. And it does great harm when the president of the United States welcomes the QAnon nuts to his (never-ending) rallies as Donald Trump has done. Hillary was said to have been rude to the president at the Bush funeral. How should she have acted to a man who has been leading chants of lock her up for two and a half years when she has in fact never been charged with any crime over 30 years of intense hostile scrutiny? I dont blame her for not being cordial. She probably wouldnt be very polite to Flynn either. OREM Hale Center Theater Orem received an early Christmas present this week: a $1 million pledge for the construction of a new facility at University Place. The pledge comes from the Woodbury Corporation, the real estate and development company behind University Place, the 120-acre mixed-use community formerly known as University Mall, according to a news release. Financing and construction of a performing arts facility like we have planned would not be possible without strong support from a committed city entity and developer, Anne Swenson, HCTOs artistic director, said in an email to the Deseret News. We are very optimistic to be currently partnered with Orem City and Woodbury Corporation. The intended site for the theater is next to the Orchard, the outdoor community gathering space at University Place. Current plans call for a 568-seat main stage theater with a proscenium thrust stage meaning the audience surrounds three of the stages four sides as well as a 200-seat black box theater and a grand lobby. HCTO officials hope the new theater will relieve some of the pressure it has felt by way of ticket demands; the theater recently hit the benchmark of serving 150,000 patrons a year, according to the news release. Were consistently in the 97 percent fill rate for our shows, but our current location doesnt allow us to grow in the way we need to, said Cody Swenson, executive director at Hale Center Theater Orem, in the news release. After working closely with city officials on how to best turn our expansion ideas into reality, the obvious location was University Place because it is in essence the center of everything in Orem. Although the new theaters seating capacity is slated to increase by 265 seats, Anne Swenson assures that HCTO intends to bring the intimacy and magic of its current space to the University Place theater. I emphasize our organization-wide dedication to maintaining our long-held mission statement to provide a high quality, intimate, theatrical experience while maintaining affordable ticket prices; furnish an excellent venue for artists to express their talents and gain valuable experience; and invest in people by providing a positive place for children and adults to learn and perform, she said. The Woodbury pledge kicks off HCTOs fundraising push to move forward with the project. Although Anne Swenson said additional information about the facilitys projected cost will be forthcoming as construction estimates are finalized, she said it will be funded with public and private contributions as well as substantial funds from the theater itself. As a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, the support of our patrons and community is paramount to our success and will be even more so with a project of this magnitude, she said, adding that Orem City is committed to the project and is currently working to solidify their contribution. HCTO has continued to outgrow the converted veterans hall at 225 N. 400 West it has called home since the theater company was founded in 1990 by Ruth and Nathan Hale, and the University Place project is not the first time HCTO has sought to build a new theater. In the early 2000s, HCTO announced plans for a $5 million facility on 800 North in Orem and started campaigning for financial support, but that project stalled and fizzled out with 9/11 and its economic shock, according to a previous Deseret News article. Again in 2007, HCTO moved forward with building plans, this time in Orems Midtown Village, and even got so far as to have an official groundbreaking on the project. But by 2008, the Great Recession put the brakes on the Midtown Village development as a whole. If all goes as planned with the fundraising and city approvals for the University Place project, construction on HCTOs new home could start as early as 2020. We are grateful to the City of Orem for bringing both parties to the table and facilitating this partnership, said W. Richards Woodbury, chairman at Woodbury Corporation, in the news release. University Place is committed to both the arts and the community, so the idea of having Hale Center Theater Orem here as the crown jewel of our growing town center is very exciting. For additional information on HCTOs fundraising efforts or to make a donation, visit haletheater.org/support. Overnight, a double Senate vote struck a blow to the White House's foreign policy. The Senate has "unanimously" established that bin Salman is involved in the death of the dissident journalist. And the majority want to stop military support of Riyadh. Trump determined to push ahead; parliamentarians promise battle. Washington (AsiaNews / Agencies) Overnight, a double Senate vote struck a blow to President Donald Trump and to the American foreign policy impressed by the current administration in charge of the White House. The Senate voted - a non-binding choice, but with a strong symbolic value - the end of support (military and otherwise) to Riyadh in Yemen; in addition, hereditary prince Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs) is responsible for the death of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Last week the senators had already marked a clear distinction with respect to President Trump, stating that there is "no doubt" about the involvement of the crowned prince in the brutal assassination that took place on October 2nd at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The votes, even that of yesterday, have no legal value and to be able to become binding they need the approval of Congress. And in the assembly the Republican deputies have repeatedly blocked motions against Riyadh. However, it remains a historic decision, with 56 favorable senators (and 41 against) to stop supporting the Saudi Arab military coalition in Yemen which, according to the UN and humanitarian agencies, is responsible for the death of civilians, including children. For the first time, therefore, the two chambers are in favor of the withdrawal of the armed forces, using the powers provided by the War Powers Act. A 1973 law, which limits the powers of the head of the White House to dispose of the armed forces without the consent of Congress. Yesterday, seven Republican senators voted together with the Democrats. And the Senate voted a second motion in which he accuses Mbs of Khashoggi's death and urges Riyadh to punish those responsible, whoever they may be. "Unanimously, the Senate said that the crowned prince is responsible for the murder. It is a strong and clear statement ", said Bob Corker, president of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and leader of the motion. So far there has been no official reaction from President Trump, who backs support for Saudi Arabia and the number two bin Salman. There are also billion dollar weapons sales at stake, which the Senate has criticized for their use in Yemen. A White House spokesman recalled the "strategic interests" at stake with the kingdom that "remain" in spite of the senators' choices; however, proponents of the motion, including Republicans, promise to continue their battle. SALT LAKE CITY Utah's top federal law enforcers question the effectiveness of treatment programs for child sex offenders. "In our career and our experience, rehabilitation although a laudable goal is unrealistic in dealing with these types of offenders," U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber said Thursday. "Stiff justice is an appropriate remedy, first and foremost, for keeping people safe." Huber and Eric Barnhart, FBI special-agent-in-charge in Salt Lake City, met with reporters Thursday to talk about current crime trends in the state. Huber called the proliferation of sex crimes involving children troubling. Federal prosecutors filed 54 child exploitation cases involving possession, distribution and production of child pornography this year 10 more than last year and 13 more than they year before. "We cannot tolerate this. We should not tolerate any of this," Huber said. Some of the images are so "unimaginable," including rape and sodomy of toddlers, that they can't be talked about on television, he said. "This isnt looking at a dirty magazine." The offenders, Huber said, are the "worst of absolute worst," including an Ogden man who had 600 pictures on his computer and is now serving an 11-year prison term with 20 years of federal monitoring to follow. He had previous state convictions and is on the sex offender registry. Barnhart, who is retiring in Friday after 22 years with the FBI, said he's skeptical about government and law enforcement sex offender treatment programs. "Theres management, but in my mind first and foremost the goal has to be protecting innocence, and a second very distant second is rehabilitation because I have just not seen the data that backs it up," he said. Barnhart and Huber say offenders are likely to commit the same crimes after being released from even lengthy prison terms and the best treatment efforts. Incarceration, they say, is the major tool they have to keep children safe. "This is very different than a drug addict who falls off the wagon," Huber said. Barnhart said offenders need intensive supervision and management after prison. "The compassionate part of us always wants to say a second chance should be given, but my experience is these people will victimize again," Barnhart said. "I have not see any credible data, and I think that people who say that there is, it's putting their compassion and their hope ahead of these victims." Child pornographers have a "certain level of cockiness" and are brazen about sharing images online," Huber said. "It's supply and demand, and there's a great demand. I don't know what we do as a society to cure that problem, to lessen that problem, but it is a growing demand and it's ever present and our children are, unfortunately, the fodder and the currency in that world," he said. Barnhart also challenged the idea that most child sex offenders, whether they be pornographers or rapists, were abused themselves. He called it an "excuse" that becomes accepted. "Our investigations show in many, many, many instances that is just not the case," he said. "These people are the lowest of the low." PROMONTORY, Box Elder County Blasting off into orbit is risky even under the best of conditions, and making sure the engines responsible for protecting astronauts can operate even in frigid cold weather is one way to mitigate the inherent danger of human space exploration. On Thursday, Northrop Grumman conducted a ground test of its launch abort motor that will be used for NASAs Orion spacecraft an effort to ensure astronaut safety in case of a worst-case scenario during launch or early stages of flight. The Orion spacecraft is designed to carry a crew and launch on NASAs heavy-lift Space Launch System for missions beyond the moon. This particular test was specifically conducted to determine how the motor performed at cold temperatures in this case at 27 degrees. "Being a cold test means we can fire the motor down in Florida at these colder temperatures and have confidence that the motor will perform as expected," Erica Sandoval, team lead for the Northrop Grumman rocket motor and loaded motor program, said. "This is very important because we need to show that our new system for safety works properly for the astronauts." "You really want to make sure you have a reliable product that will work in all of the situations required," she added. The abort motor is the primary motor in the launch abort system on Orion and in an emergency, the system would safely eject the crew module away from the launch vehicle, she said. "Our motor pulls the capsule away from the main (rocket) stack if there were an issue," she said. Previous large-scale tests of the launch abort motor included a development motor test in 2008, a launch pad abort test of the complete system in 2010 and the qualification motor-1 static test in 2017. This most recent test is the next step in the ongoing progression of the launch abort system, she said. Standing over 17 feet tall, the abort motor is 3 feet in diameter and equipped with a manifold that has four nozzles and turns the flow of the flames to create a pulling motion, explained Steve Sara, program director for Northrop Grumman's launch support system. The abort motors function is to pull the crew capsule to safety in an emergency situation on the pad or during launch, up to 300,000 feet in altitude, he said. The abort motor is fitted into a specially designed vertical test stand, with the nozzles pointed toward the sky. During the test, the motor fired for five seconds with the exhaust plume flames reaching up to 100 feet in height emitting smoke thick enough to temporarily obstruct the sun. Thrust delivered by the motor can reach 400,000 pounds in one-eighth of a second, he added. "(The motor) is really important for safety," Sara said. "This system greatly enhances astronaut safety." Engineers and scientists will examine data produced by the motor and the hardware to check the results against what was to be expected in their computer models, he said. The Orion spacecraft will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry an astronaut crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain astronauts during their missions and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities, he said. Sandoval noted that Exploration Mission-1 will be the first integrated test of NASAs deep space exploration systems using the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first series of increasingly complex missions scheduled for 2019 will be unmanned flight testing that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, she said. A manned space flight using the abort system is planned for 2023, she said. During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown, traveling 280,000 miles from Earth far beyond the moon over the course of about a three-week mission, Sandoval said. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before, she said. While safety is the main focus of the testing, the allure of space travel continues to be one of the major motivations for scientists working on projects such as the Orion program, said Mike Fuller, strategy and business development manager for Northrop Grumman. "It's still so inspirational and it still grabs you. It's going out (in space) and seeing things you don't get to see every day," he said. "The chance to go out and see things that (humans) have never seen before, that's still something we should be striving for." Correction: An earlier version indicated the first manned space flight using the abort system is planned for 2020. The date is actually 2023. LAS VEGAS The head of the federal agency controlling the Colorado River said Thursday the U.S. government will impose unprecedented restrictions on water supplies to the seven Southwestern U.S. states that depend on the river unless everyone agrees by Jan. 31 on a plan to deal with an expected shortage in 2020. Water users from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming should have had a pact to sign at an annual water users' conference this week in Las Vegas, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman said. They didn't. However, a flurry of approvals in several states in recent weeks signaled urgency and set a stage for an overall agreement to use less water from a river beset by drought and locked into promises to deliver more water than it takes in. Burman identified California and Arizona as the holdouts. "Close isn't 'done,' " she told a standing-room crowd at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference at a Las Vegas Strip resort. "Only 'done' will protect this basin." The river that carries winter snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico is plumbed with dams to generate hydropower and meter water releases. It provides drinking water to 40 million people and cities including Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Phoenix and Las Vegas. It irrigates crops in wide areas once deemed as reclaimed desert in the U.S. and Mexico. The keys to contingency plans are voluntary agreements to use less water than users are allocated from the river's two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell behind the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah state line and Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam just east of Las Vegas. Lake Powell is currently at 43 percent capacity; Lake Mead at 38 percent. To date, entities including agricultural districts and municipal suppliers in five states have reached what Burman characterized as a complex puzzle of agreements. Indian tribes also are involved, and Burman on Thursday announced publication of a report called the Colorado River Basin Ten Tribes Partnership Tribal Water Study . It charts water claims and use by tribes that hold rights to divert almost 20 percent of the water in the river. A drought-shortage declaration next year would cut 11.4 percent of Arizona's usual river water allocation beginning in 2020, and 4.3 percent of Nevada's share. That amount of water, combined, would serve more than 625,000 homes. California would voluntarily reduce its Colorado River use by about 6 percent. Arizona gained approvals for conservation, mitigation and payment plans from its Department of Water Resources and the key Central Arizona Project irrigation district. Unlike the other states, it also needs state Legislature approval for water agreements. Lawmakers convene in January. In California, the largest municipal suppliers have signed on, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California serving some 19 million people. However, the sprawling Imperial Irrigation District, which holds some of the largest and oldest rights to river water, has so far granted only tentative approval. James Hanks, board president, said in an interview the district wants to be last to sign so it can see what others agree to. It also wants government help to save the Salton Sea, a briny shallow desert lake east of Palm Springs, California, that is fed primarily by agricultural irrigation runoff. Dusty hot winds blowing across exposed former shorelines are blamed for asthma by area residents who also complain of sometimes brackish smells. Burman didn't say what the federal government plans if it is left to impose restrictions. But local officials warned that a free-for-all could lead to crippling lawsuits and legislative gridlock. John Entsminger, chief executive of the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas, predicted "complete chaos" if negotiations that he compared with nuanced scalpel work are overridden by federal sledgehammer rules. "Everyone thinks their own water use is justified and no one else's is," observed Kathryn Sorensen, Phoenix city water services director. Keith Moses, vice chairman of the Colorado River Indian Tribal Council in Arizona, offered what he saw as a key to complex water questions. "To me, the best way of conserving water is not to use it," he said before adding that he knew that would mean limiting growth so as not to continue to drain the Colorado River. "Realistically," he added, "looking at it, that's not going to happen." KEARNS Oquirrh Hills Elementary School is facing closure after a three-year effort to improve student achievement resulted in lower test scores and a school grade of "F." Top Granite School District administrators met with the school community Thursday night to inform parents, students and other community members that they will recommend that the Board of Education close the school at the end of the current school year and change boundaries of nearby schools to serve affected students. The school board will take up the matter in January. Anna Dees, whose children attend Oquirrh Hills, said the students had been "failed by the previous administration and the school district" for not doing more to monitor what was happening at the school. Others wanted assurances the students would not be failed a second time as they moved to other schools. Rick Anthony, assistant superintendent over Title 1 schools, school improvement and educator support and development, said the school and district entered the turnaround effort with "an expectation of improvement. There really was." Anthony said he did not want to "point fingers or place blame. It's everybody's fault. It's my fault. I have some ideas what I can do better. I want you to know I own my part." In 2015, Oquirrh Hills was identified by state education officials as a turnaround school, which meant it had three years to improve student performance or face sanctions. Turnaround schools are those in the lowest 3 percent of student achievement statewide as measured by end of year SAGE tests in math, language arts and science. SAGE is short for Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence. Schools identified as a state's lowest performing receive grants and assistance from experts intended to increase student achievement. The school forms a turnaround committee that includes parents, educators, a school administrator and the local school board representative. Oquirrh Hills' school grade was a "D" in 2015, according to year-end state assessments. Three years later, it was an "F." According to a letter to the Granite school board, Oquirrh Hills "did not grow sufficiently to either exit turnaround status or qualify for a two-year extension," wrote Superintendent Martin Bates. In 2015, eight elementary schools and two junior highs in Granite School District were identified by state education officials as turnaround schools. They included Bacchus, Granger, Lincoln, Oquirrh Hills, Redwood, Roosevelt , South Kearns and Wilson elementary schools, along with Jefferson and Westlake junior highs. Eight improved student achievement and improved one letter grade, which allowed them to exit the state's turnaround program. Redwood Elementary improved enough to qualify for an extension of its turnaround program. "Oquirrh Hills did not. They did not improve enough to receive an extension," said Anthony. Parents voiced concerns that their children would be labeled as they moved to other schools. Some expressed similar fears for the school staff. "We plan in facilitating the transition in a very healthy manner to make sure your kids can be successful," said Ben Horsley, district communications director. Statewide, 90 percent of schools that entered the turnaround program met exit criteria or qualified for an extension, according to the Utah State Board of Education. During the three-year period, one school closed and two others Oquirrh Hills and Midvale Elementary School in Canyons School District remained in the program. State statute says schools unable to exit turnaround after three years and do not qualify for an extension may be converted to charter schools, be placed under contract management or the state can take over the school. Granite District elected to change the boundaries of other schools in the area so they can serve displaced Oquirrh Hills students. Those schools include Arcadia, Western Kearns and David Gourley elementary schools, which are higher performing and have enrollment challenges. Oquirrh Hills educators and staff will be subject to "involuntary transfer" as required under state law, said Anthony. "We will work with them to find employment at other locations," Anthony said. "We are not firing anyone at Oquirrh Hills." Oquirrh Hiils is one of the older elementary schools in the school district dating back to 1957. The building may be used to temporarily house students as the school district rebuilds schools in the area. According to the Utah State Board of Education's Oct. 1 headcount, Oquirrh Hills' enrollment has dropped 14 percent since October 2015, when it enrolled 392 students. This fall, the enrollment was 336, making it one of the smallest elementary schools in Granite School District. Correction: An earlier version of this story said state statute says schools unable to exit turnaround shall be converted to charter schools, be placed under contract management or the state can take over the school. The law actually says they may be subject to those actions. SALT LAKE CITY Benn Thorderson of Tupelo, Mississippi, planned to be ordained a deacon sometime after his 12th birthday on May 31, 2019, the same age boys have received the priesthood for the past 110 years in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now his ordination may be accelerated to January after the First Presidency of the church announced Friday that youths will advance from one class or priesthood quorum to another together as age groups instead of individually on their birthdays. "I am very, very shocked," Benn said Friday afternoon after he got home from school and his parents shared the news with him and his three sisters and brothers. "I'm feeling nervous. I did not expect it to come so soon. I was waiting until I turn 12." The change had immediate, major ramifications for young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It will affect priesthood ordinations, Young Women advancement, the Primary program,Young Women and Young Men camps, teen ministering assignments and the ages at which children may first attend the temple and participate in church dances. Parents and children said they liked the changes, though some parents, especially those whose oldest child is 11, took to social media to say they weren't ready for the instant move of their children from Primary to youth programs. "That was sudden," Michael Newton said with a laugh. His oldest, a girl, turns 12 in May. "We didn't expect that." Benn's mother called it "better than Christmas morning." "Eleven can be a tough age with the transition from Primary to Young Men and Young Women," said Julie Thorderson, who also has two teenagers and an 8-year-old. "And it can be hard to wait to turn 12 when your friends turn 12 and move on without you. Wonderful changes have been happening for adults and the youth. Now these children will be able to say, the Lord sees me, the Lord loves me, and I can be doing things to build the kingdom." Bishops, Young Women and Young Men leaders and Primary presidencies also face adjustments. "Though these adjustments lead to some significant logistical changes, I encourage you to focus first on the spiritual benefits," church President Russell M. Nelson said in a Facebook post. "Our youth and children are among the best the Lord has ever sent into this world. They have the capacity to be smarter and wiser and have more impact on the world than any previous generation! We must do our part to help them realize their potential." Primary The changes begin with the Primary. In fact, they start with 7-year-olds. Children may begin attending activity days in January of the year they turn 8. They will complete Primary at the beginning of the year they turn 12 instead of waiting until their 12th birthday. The church will discontinue the Valiant 11 Primary class next month. Girls and boys will attend Sunday School together and the Beehive class or deacons quorum at the beginning of the year they turn 12. "I'm happy I can start now in Young Women and go to the temple instead of waiting another year in primary," said Sophia Puertas, who lives in Provo and will turn 12 on Oct. 23. "We desire to strengthen our beloved children and youth through increased faith in Jesus Christ, deeper understanding of his gospel, and greater unity with his church and its members," the First Presidency said in a letter sent to congregations around the world and signed by Presidents Russell M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring. Ordinations, advancement Boys now are eligible to be ordained deacons in January of the year they turn 12. They also can be ordained teachers at the beginning of the year they turn 14 and priests at 16. The same goes for girls, who can advance to Beehives (12), Mia Maids (14) and Laurels (16) in January of the year they turn the required age. Boys have been ordained deacons on or after their 12th birthday since 1908. However, age requirements are not doctrinally mandated, allowing for the change, the First Presidency said. "I'm excited and happy," Benn said. "I'll be able to help with the sacrament and go to Young Men's and mini youth conference and the temple." Benn's father, Jedd Thorderson, is bishop of the Tupelo Ward. He is happy to tackle a new set of advancement interviews for 11-year-olds in the coming weeks. "We'll finish tithing settlement and go start interviews for youth," he said. "I guess that's our new way to operate. "I'm most excited about being able to get them into the temple earlier, especially with all the things they're exposed to at an earlier age, so that they can feel the Spirit there at an earlier age." Temple, camps The First Presidency said children may now receive limited-use temple recommends in January of the year they turn 12. Lilly Newton of Morgan said she's looking forward to joining older friends and her aunt in the Young Women program months before she turns 12 on May 23. "I'm really excited I get to go to the temple and be in Young Women's," Lilly said. "The temple is going to be really special because I'll get to do things I haven't done before for people that are dead." With parental permission, girls and boys may begin to attend camp in the summer of the year they turn 12. Until now, boys and girls who turned 12 after camp or later in the year could not attend camp with their friends who turned 12 in the first half of the year, even though they had been in the same Primary classes. Until Friday's announcement, Sophia's sisters Isabel, 14, and Natalia, 12, were going to go to camp in 2019 without her. "I was sad I couldn't go with my sisters to girls' camp this year," she said. "When I came home from school today, my mom was acting really excited and told me she had big news." They jumped for joy around the living room together. "I was so happy because my sisters always told me stories about how fun camp was and how spiritual it is," said Sophie, who has five older sisters and is one of 10 children. "I was always so jealous I had to wait another year. Some of my friends are older than me, and now I get to go with them at the same time." Bishop Thorderson said congregations with large numbers of children who turn 12 in 2019 may now face unexpected costs as they send more youth to girls and boys camps this summer. "It'll be interesting to see how the church will figure that out," he said. "We'll find a way to make it work." Ministering assignments The changes in age-group progression also affected ministering assignments. Girls and boys may now receive assignments to minister to families at the beginning of the year they turn 14. Dances The announcement also included a change to church dances. Mia Maids and teachers now may attend dances and youth conferences before their 14th birthdays. However, the First Presidency reaffirmed that "a young woman or young man should be at least age 16 before beginning to date." Scouting Cub Scouting and 11-year-old Scouts will remain the same until the church's new initiative for children and youth launches in 2020. Boys will continue to progress between dens on their birthdays and join 11-year-old Scouts when they turn 11. But when their age-group moves from Primary to priesthood, boys will join Boy Scouts. Some parents pointed out on social media that this means 11-year-old Scout troops will empty out next month and only gain members as 10-year-olds turn 11. When The First Presidency directed local leaders to implement the changes in January. It said children should change classes and organization at the beginning of the month but that sustainings and ordinations could take place anytime during the month to accommodate schedules. In one final change to current practice, bishoprics no longer will recognize children and youth in sacrament meeting as they move between organizations, classes and quorums. Young men must still be sustained in sacrament meeting but will stand in the congregation instead of at the podium. President Nelson announced in October that sacrament meeting the faith's weekly worship service will be one hour long instead of 70 minutes beginning in January. That change is part of a larger effort to create a more home-centered church. "President Nelson wasn't lying when he said, 'Eat your vitamin pills. Get your rest. It's going to be exciting,'" Julie Thorderson said of the change's place amid others undertaken by the church president. "We're super-excited for Benn. He's been looking forward to becoming a deacon." Local leaders and parents can work together if they feel a child's circumstances dictate the child not move on within the outlined schedule. Additional information is available at childrenandyouth.lds.org. For interviews with church leaders about the announcement, see the Church News. SALT LAKE CITY Heres a look at the news for Dec. 14. Kristin Chenoweth brought laughter and plenty of high notes to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. Read more. Joe Biden spoke for more than an hour in Utah. He didnt say anything about a 2020 presidential run. Read more. After a year immersed in teen anxiety, heres what we know. BYU falls in straight sets to Sanford in NCAA womens volleyball semifinals. Read more. There were numerous bomb threats across Utah and the United States on Thursday. Read more. Everything you need to know about Decembers free video games. Hale Center Theater Orem moves forward with plans for a new home at University Place. Read more. ESPN report blasts Utahs Vivint Smart Home Arena for food violations. Read more. A look at our most-read stories. A look ahead to your weekend: A look at national headlines: PROVO Police say a Provo couple used water torture on their 9-year-old daughter as a form of punishment. Joseph Maseser Mitchell, 29, and Ilaria Catherina Mitchell, 28, were arrested and booked into the Utah County Jail Thursday for investigation of child abuse. Joseph Mitchell was also arrested for investigation of unlawful possession of a bank card. The investigation began Dec. 3 when Provo police received a report from the Division of Child and Family Services regarding possible abuse, according to a police affidavit filed in 4th District Court. The 9-year-old girl was interviewed on Wednesday. She said her father and stepmother "have punished her three separate times by putting a towel over her face and pouring water on it," the affidavit states. "The 9-year-old went into detail saying that Joseph and Ilaria would take her to the bathroom and tie her hands behind her back. They would then hold her down in the bathtub and place a towel over her face and pour water on it. The 9-year-old stated that she cannot breathe and it hurts when this happens." The girl went on to describe other types of abuse, including being hit with a closed fist by Ilaria Mitchell, causing her nose to bleed, according to the report. Doctors examined the girl and found marks on her wrist "that would be consistent with her hands being tied up," police wrote. While being booked into jail, officers found a credit card on Joseph Mitchell that was "connected" to his wife's account, but issued under his 7-year-old nephew's name, the affidavit states. In 2017, Joseph Mitchell pleaded no contest to having an animal running at large in exchange for a charge of animal cruelty being dismissed, according to court records. In 2013, court records show he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for making unreasonable noises in public place" in a domestic violence case. In exchange for his plea, five counts of domestic violence were dismissed. CLEARFIELD A Clearfield man faces criminal charges in connection with an alleged swatting incident over the summer. Austen Robert Humphreys, 31, was charged Friday in 2nd District Court with emergency reporting abuse, a third-degree felony. On July 23, 911 dispatchers received text messages "reporting an ongoing home invasion at a specific address. Officers responded to the residence and found nothing happening," according to charging documents. Clearfield Assistant Police Chief Kelly Bennett said dispatchers received the texts just before 3:30 a.m. claiming someone was being held hostage in the house. Officers conducted surveillance when they arrived at the home, but did not notice any abnormal activity, he said. Investigators determined the incident was a swatting prank. Fortunately, the SWAT team was not called out, Bennett said. "Swatting" is when a person contacts 911 to report a false crime, usually of an extremely violent nature, with the intent of getting a SWAT team to respond. The caller is sometimes able to manipulate computers and other technology to make it appear that the call is coming from a certain address, even though the caller may actually be in another state or even another country. After reviewing phone records, investigators were able to track the source of the call to Humphreys, court records state. Friday's charges are the latest in a recent series of crimes Humphreys has been accused of this month. On Dec. 3, he was charged with robbery, a second-degree felony, and aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, for attacking his ex-girlfriend at her Clearfield home in November, according to charging documents. The house targeted in the allege swatting incident also had ties to the former girlfriend, Bennett said. After he was arrested on Dec. 4, Humphreys allegedly broke the overhead sprinkler and a light cover in his cell at the Davis County Jail, and was charged Dec. 10 with damaging a jail, a third-degree felony. Additional charges against Humphreys for damaging jail cells were pending on Friday. According to a Davis County Jail report filed on Wednesday, "Humphreys took a meal tray and broke one of the sprinklers in his housing unit. Humphreys has done this several times over the past few weeks, so Humphreys knew this would create a flood in the unit." Telia and Turkcell have sold their combined 75% stake in Kazakhstans KCell to the countrys state-owned operator Kazakhtelecom. In a deal worth $446 million, Telia is divesting the 24% stake it holds directly as well as the 51% stake it owns jointly with Turkcell via Fintur Holdings. The valuation suggests that KCells total enterprise value is around $771 million. Telia CEO and president Johan Dennelind noted that the deal was especially significant to Telia as it marked the end of the journey of exiting Eurasia, a process that it began in 2015 after a 2013 investigation into its activities in Uzbekistan found it guilty of offering around $330 million in bribes to strengthen its foothold in the market. Dennelind said: It has been a complex process with many interests and considerations, but we are now pleased with the completion of this process. The operator will now focus on its core markets in Scandinavia and the Baltics. Ealier this year, Telia and Kazakhtelecom had discussed a potential deal for KCell but talks fell through in September as the companies disagreed on the units value. However, the new agreement has received the approval of Kazakhstans anti-monopoly watchdog, and so is on track to complete by the end of the month. Separately, Telia has bought out Turkcell from Finture Holdings. The Turkish operator held a 41.45% stake in the unit; now that Telia is the only shareholder, it can repatriate funds from the holding firm. by Sumon Corraya Voting will take place on 30 December. Hundreds of protesters from both sides have been hurt; at least a thousand opposition sympathisers have been arrested. Opinion polls give the ruling party a 66 per cent lead. Soldiers will be deployed at polling station as of 24 December. Dhaka (AsiaNews) At least three supporters of Bangladeshs ruling Awami League (AL) were killed in clashes at pre-election rallies. The vote is set for 30 December. With the country engulfed in chaos and violence, conscious that violence often mars Bangladeshs election, the countrys Christians leaders have called on the authorities not to hold the vote during the Christmas period. The latest victims died from beating and knife wounds in two separate incidents: two in Noakhali, in the south of the country, and one in Faridpur, Dhaka division. The latter victim was attacked by opposition supporters. He was rushed to hospital but was declared dead upon arrival by the doctors, a police spokesperson said. Today the Electoral Commission announced that army troops will be deployed across the country to protect voting. The military will remain in charge of sensitive areas from 24 December to 2 January, after the vote. During the ongoing campaign, hundreds of protesters from both sides have been injured and about a thousand sympathisers of opposition parties, including the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), have been arrested. Wholesale arrests are aimed at harassing leaders and activists, said Kamal Hossain, head of the Jatiya Oikya Front. "Our leaders and activists are getting arrested every day, he lamented. Its not a sign of fair polls. But we will be in the election until the end. We must work for fair polls. So far, opinion polls have put the Awami League of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the lead with 66 per cent of voter support, far ahead of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of her historic rival Khaleda Zia (who is prison for corruption), which is stuck at 19.9 per cent. Another 8.6 per cent are undecided. This would give the ruling party between 168 to 200 seats in the 300-member Parliament. The Awami Leagues margin of victory will be even greater than [in] the 2008 elections, wrote Hasinas son Sajeeb Wazed Joy on Facebook. US-based chipmaker Qualcomm is now trying to get the 2018 iPhone lineup (iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR) banned in China. According to a report by Rappler.com (via The Financial Times), the company has filed the same patent infringement lawsuit that got the older generation iPhones banned in the country. A few days ago, a Chinese court banned the import and sale of select Apple iPhones, including the iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. The injunctions were based based on an alleged patent infringement relating to photo manipulation and touchscreen apps. The new lawsuits were filed in courts in Beijing, Qingdao and Guangzhou. We plan to use the same patents to file suit against the 3 new iPhone models, Jiang Hongyi, the lawyer representing Qualcomm, was quoted as saying. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are Apples third-largest market, accounting for about one-fifth of Apples $265.6 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year, says Reuters. Rappler's report also notes that Apple has not complied with the ban, and is continuing with the import and sale of the banned iPhone models, citing that the injunction only applies to phones running on iOS 11. The Cupertino-based giant has reportedly argued that the banned phones have already been updated to iOS 12. Apple also said that it has filed a request for reconsideration with the court ban. Qualcomms effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world, Apple was quoted as saying. The latest development is a part of numerous lawsuits that Qualcomm has filed against Apple accusing it of engaging in unlawful import and sale of iPhones in the US. Recently, Huawei sub-brand Honor announced the View 20 smartphone with a punch-hole front camera and now it seems that its parent company, Huawei, also plans to release a similar looking phone, the Huawei Nova 4. Rumoured to be launched in China on December 17, Nova 4 could be the companys first smartphone to feature a punch-hole for the front shooter - just like Samsungs Galaxy A8s, which was launched a few days back in China. However, a few days before the expected launch, press renders of the upcoming Huawei handset have been leaked and they delve out a lot of information on its design, cameras and the colour variants. Contrary to the belief that Huawei (or its sub-brand Honor) has already launched the View 20 device with a punch-hole camera, it needs to be clear that this is not the case. Huawei claims to be the first to announce a phone with the new punch-hole front camera design and the View 20 will officially be launched at an event, on January 22 in Paris, France. Now coming back to the Nova 4, we already know that Huawei was working on a phone with a cut-out in the display, for the camera. Previously, two images were leaked hinting the Nova 4 smartphone in the making, however, they did not reveal anything about the design. According to the latest press renders, the smartphone will come in four Blue, Red, White and Black colours. It will also have a triple camera setup on the back, which are aligned in the same fashion as the Huawei P20 Pro. There is a fingerprint sensor on the back panel as well and this suggests that it may not have an in-display fingerprint sensor. The device is speculated to sport a 6.4-inch display with Full HD+ resolution and a 19.25:9 aspect ratio. The Nova 4 is expected to be powered by the Kirin 970 processor and could feature 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. In terms of optics, it is rumoured to come equipped with a 48MP + 16MP + 2MP setup on the back. On the front, the handset is reported to have an AI-powered 25MP snapper. It could be fueled by a 3750mAh battery with fast charging support. Additionally, there's also a possibility of a toned down version of the phone with a 20MP + 16MP + 2MP main camera setup. Huawei is speculated to be working on its P30 Pro smartphone for the coming year and its leaks have commenced. Just recently we came across a report that the phone might be equipped with the unannounced 38MP Sony IMX607 sensor and now, the leakster Ice Universe has tweeted that the handset could feature a curved OLED display. Additionally, the tipster claims that display for the P30 Pro will be manufactured by China's BOE or South Korea's LG Display. Another previous rumour suggested that Huawei might use an in-display front camera on the phone, however, the new report suggests this might not be the case since only Samsungs OLED panel currently support a punch-hole for the display. As mentioned above, the P30 Pro is also expected to come equipped with the 38MP Sony IMX607 sensor. The sensor is speculated to come with features like Advanced Noise Reduction, Quad Pixel Phase Detection Auto Focus, High signal to noise ratio (SNR), Ambient Light Sensor, exceptional low-illumination performance and more. As per a leaked product brief document, the 38MP Sony IMX607 sensor is said to be specifically designed for use in cellular phone, tablet pc and pc camera. When using this for another application, Sony does not guarantee the quality and reliability of the product. Therefore don't use this for applications other than cellular phone, tablet pc and pc camera. The IMX607 measures 9.990mm (Type 1/1.8) diagonally and is CMOS active pixel type stacked image sensor with a square pixel array. Coming back to the rumour of curved OLED display bring used on the P30 Pro, the company's latest Mate 20 Pro also features the same curved OLED display. The device also comes with a three-camera setup on the back and features a 40MP main sensor with an aperture of f/1.8, 20MP secondary imaging sensor with ultra-wide lens and a third 8MP sensor with a telephoto lens. All three lenses have been manufactured by Leica. Check out our Huawei Mate 20 camera samples here and the smartphone review You can see our Huawei Mate 20 camera samples here and for the smartphone review, click this link. Samsung recently rolled out the third Android Pie beta update for Galaxy S9 devices, which fixed bugs and also brought in some improvements. The list included issues like lift-to-wake function, crashes of the Phone app, an update error in Galaxy Apps or Google Play, among others. But now it seems that a few flaws remained unaddressed in the update and to remove them, the South Korean company has issued a hotfix for the third beta. Users who have enrolled for the Samsung beta programme and are using the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ devices will get firmware version G960NXXU2ZRLA and G965NXXU2ZRLA respectively, after the hotfix is applied. The update has been released in South Korea and issued to fix a problem with the reception setting and the visibility of some features in night mode. This is not the first time that Samsung has sent out a hotfix update. Two weeks ago, when the company released the second beta, users had complained about mobile data connection not working. One UI is a new moniker being used by Samsung for its next update to the Samsung Experience 10 skin. It is based on Android 9 Pie and is expected to bring a lot of new changes to the devices interface and adds loads of new features. Samsung is looking to make single-handed operations on its devices a lot easier with this UI. Critical actions like expanding notifications bar can be done with a single swipe from the middle of the screen, as per a previous report. Samsung has already confirmed that the new UI will officially be rolled out for the Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9 smartphones in January 2019. It is already available for Galaxy Note 9 in India. The confirmation was announced during the company's keynote at the Samsung Developer Conference 2018 in San Francisco. The new UI was also announced to be made available for the older flagship Samsung devices like the Galaxy Note 8 and the Galaxy S8 family of smartphones. The upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphones are expected to come preloaded with the new OneUI when they launch next year. Juno, the NASA space probe studying Jupiter, will reach halfway through its data collection mission on December 21, 8:49:48 AM PST (10:19 PM IST). The day, and time, will mark the spacecrafts 16th science pass of the gas giant as it will travel at a speed of 207,287 kilometers per hour. The orbiter was launched back on August 5, 2017, from Cape Canaveral, Florida and its on a 53-day highly-elliptical orbit around Jupiter. Each orbit comprises of the orbiter passing over the planet's cloud deck, where it flies a ground track that extends from Jupiter's north pole to its south pole. "With our 16th science flyby, we will have complete global coverage of Jupiter, albeit at coarse resolution, with polar passes separated by 22.5 degrees of longitude," said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator from the Space Research Corporation in Annapolis, Maryland. "Over the second half of our prime mission science flybys 17 through 32 we will split the difference, flying exactly halfway between each previous orbit. This will provide coverage of the planet every 11.25 degrees of longitude, providing a more detailed picture of what makes the whole of Jupiter tick." NASA says Juno packs a slew of scientific instruments that probe the planets atmosphere to learn more about it, like its origins, interior structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. The Stellar Reference Unit collects engineering data, which is used for navigation and attitude determination. There is also the JunoCam imager that was conceived as an outreach instrument to bring the excitement and beauty of Jupiter exploration to the public. "While originally envisioned solely as an outreach instrument to help tell the Juno story, JunoCam has become much more than that," said Candy Hansen, Juno co-investigator at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "Our time-lapse sequences of images over the poles allow us to study the dynamics of Jupiter's unique circumpolar cyclones and to image high-altitude hazes. We are also using JunoCam to study the structure of the Great Red Spot and its interaction with its surroundings." The cover image of this article has been constructed with the help of the JunoCam imager, by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstadt and Sean Doran. To make Mobile Number Portability (MNP) easier and simpler for users, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sped up the process of Mobile Number Portability. Under the new Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018, timeline for porting a mobile number to another service provider within the same circle is two days and for a different circle its four days. The regulator also said that a telecom operator will be fined up to Rs 10,000 for any misinformation about portability and each wrongful rejection of a portability request. If any access provider or mobile number portability service provider contravenes the provisions... (it shall) be liable to pay an amount, by way of financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 10,000 for each wrongful rejection of the request for porting, TRAI said. TRAI has also cut-short the validity period of Unique Porting Code (UPC) to four days from the previous 15 day period. The limitation has been revised for all Licensed Service Areas (LSA), except for the ones of Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and North-East. The validity of UPC in these areas remains unchanged. For the cases of corporate porting, the present limit of 50 numbers in single authorisation letter has been enhanced to 100 numbers per authorisation letter. Post implementation of this regulation (amendment), appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) parameters will be devised by the authority to monitor the role of MNPSPs (Mobile Number Portability Service Providers) and Access Providers in the new scenario," the circular said. The process for withdrawal of porting requests has also been made simpler and quicker through SMS. Subscriber content preview Women make up just 13 percent of the AI workforce in the U.S., and gender and racial misfires in AI systems are getting attention. By MATT O'BRIEN AP Technology Writer The challenges of making the technology industry a more welcoming place for women are numerous, especially in the booming field of artificial intelligence. To get a sense of just how monumental a task the tech community faces, look no further than the marquee gathering for AI's top scientists. Preparations for this year's event drew controversy not only because there weren't enough female speakers or study authors. . . . Subscriber content preview Complaints about short-term renters taking the place of long-term residents have been especially strong in the Marigny and Treme neighborhoods. By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS A ban on whole home short-term vacation rentals in New Orleans was proposed Thursday by a City Council member, a move long-awaited by critics who say investors were driving up housing costs and marring the character of historic neighborhoods by buying up properties and renting them to out-of-towners. Kristen Gisleson Palmer's measure had also been awaited with dread by property owners who own short-term rental properties. And it drew an immediate rebuke in a news release from HomeAway, a business that facilitates online vacation rentals. Spokesman Philip Minardi said the proposal was an extreme measure that would penalize property owners who have invested in the community. . . . Subscriber content preview A new report says 9,000 jobs mainly in construction and engineering were either lost or not added because of the tariffs. By CATHY BUSSEWITZ AP Business Writer NEW YORK The solar industry is blaming tariffs for delays and cancellations of major solar energy projects. An estimated $8 billion worth of utility-scale projects were canceled or put on hold for the five-year period that ends in 2022, according to a new report from the Solar Energy Industry Association and Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. The report says 9,000 jobs mainly in construction and engineering were either lost or not added because of the tariffs. . . . Subscriber content preview By DAVID McFADDEN Associated Press BALTIMORE The nearly 150-year-old Baltimore track that hosts one of Americas premier horse races should be torn down and rebuilt at a cost of $424 million, according to a report issued Thursday. The Maryland Stadium Authority, in the second phase of a comprehensive study of Pimlico Race Course, recommends demolishing all existing structures at the historic track that hosts the Preakness Stakes, the middle jewel of the Triple Crown of thoroughbred horse racing. . . . Subscriber content preview Bellevue developer John Su has filed preliminary plans to build the first high rise project in the 30-acre Yesler Terrace redevelopment. A city of Seattle community outreach blog describes the tower as a 22-story apartment building with 365 residential units, 24,000 square feet of commercial space and below-grade parking. . . . SC puts Fortis Healthcare sale to IHH on hold over Daiichi dues The Supreme Court today ordered status quo on the Rs4,000-crore sale of Fortis Healthcare Ltd to Malaysian group IHH Bhd after Japanese pharma company Daiichi Sankyo sought a stay on the sale as Fortis promoters, the Singh brothers, failed to fulfil their commitment to pay the drug maker as per the Delhi High Court orders. Daiichi Sankyo had moved the SC in a contempt plea against Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, alleging the former promoters brothers Malvdinder and Shivinder Singh violated undertakings and court orders. The Supreme Court, which took up the petition for hearing for the first time today, put the sale on hold and issued notices to Singh brothers and Fortis Healthcare. The three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi also issued notices to Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd and other holding companies of the Singh brothers. Daiichis lawyers argued in court that the Singh brothers created encumbrances on their shares even after the court order. On 13 November, Fortis Healthcare said it had issued 235.3 million equity shares through preferential allotment to IHH Healthcare Berhad for around Rs4,000 crore. The allotment was done at Rs170 per share giving IHH 31.1 per cent stake in the company. The Malaysian firm was to acquire an additional 26 per cent stake in Fortis Healthcare through an open offer commencing on 18 December and closing on 1 January 2019. Northern TK Venture Pte Ltd together with IHH Healthcare Berhad and Parkway Pantai Ltd had made an open offer to the equity shareholders of Fortis Healthcare to acquire up to 197 million shares, representing 26 per cent of the expanded voting share capital, at a price of Rs170 per share payable in cash, the letter said. Fortis Healthcare shareholders had, in August, backed the deal with IHH as the deal was superior to rival TPG-Manipals offer. As per the criteria set by the Fortis board, the buyers had to make a minimum investment of Rs1,500 crore into Fortis Healthcare by way of preferential allotment apart from having a plan for funding the acquisition of RHT Health Trust (RHT) and a plan for providing an exit to private equity investors of diagnostic arm SRL. Competition Commission of India (CCI) also approved the IHH Healthcares acquisition of a controlling stake in Fortis Healthcare on 31 October. Shares of Fortis Healthcare slumped as much as 7.6 per cent to Rs140 apiece after the court pronounced its order. SC rejects RCom's plea for more time to pay to Ericsson Anil Ambani-led telecom company Reliance Communications Ltd faces contempt proceedings if it fails to pay Rs550 crore to Ericsson in order to proceed with the spectrum sale to Reliance Jio, the Supreme Court told the company today reiterating its earlier order. The apex court was hearing a petition filed by RCom in which it sought an extension of the 15 December deadline to clearing payment that are due to its service provider Ericsson. The apex court had, in October, told RCom that the 15 December date was the final deadline for the company to pay up and any delay would attract an interest of 12 per cent per annum. RCom, meanwhile, told the court that it has not so far received the no objection certificate that they had sought from the Department of Telecommunications for the Reliance Jio deal. The Supreme Court had ordered the DoT to issue the NOC after RCom agreed to deposit corporate guarantee of Rs1,400 crore. RCom also filed a contempt plea against the DoT for failing to issue the NOC. The contempt plea will come up for hearing in the apex court tomorrow. If RCom fails to pay up the amount due to Ericsson, it could be staring at prospect of insolvency after the SC declined to grant it two weeks extra time to clear the Rs550 crore dues of Ericsson. RCom had reached the agreement to pay up the Rs550 crore dues it owes to Ericsson on service contracts at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). While asking RCom to clear the dues, the NCLAT had said Ericsson could revive the insolvency petition against the company if it failed to pay within the stipulated deadline. SC dumps pleas demanding probe into Rafale fighter jet deal Rahul Gandhis Rafale bomb failed to explode as the Supreme Court today dismissed a group of petitions demanding an investigation into the NDA governments Rafale fighter jet deal, saying that it was satisfied that the process for procurement had been complied with. There is no reason to doubt the decision-making process followed in the Rafale deal, the court said, in a verdict that blasted opposition Congress partys propaganda of alleged government connivance with industrialist Anil Ambani in the award of offset business to an Indian partner. Delivering the judgement, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph said the apex court could not sit in judgement over the decision to purchase 36 aircraft instead of 126. It is a hard fact that the 36-jet-deal was negotiated after the earlier RFP for 126 jets came to nothing, the court said. So far as the decision-making is concerned, we have studied the material and interacted with senior air force officer, Chief Justice Gogoi said, adding, there was no occasion to doubt the process. We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court, he added. On the acquisition of 36 fighter aircraft for 7.85 billion euros, the court reiterated that it wasnt its job to examine specific financial details such as the cost of an individual aircraft. On the issue of offsets being awarded to Anil Ambanis Reliance Group, the bench said that it was the job of the government and the vendor to decide. The ruling comes on a batch of petitions filed by lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma, AAP legislator Sanjay Singh and the trio of Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhushan over the Modi governments purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassult Aviation of France. The petitions had alleged last-minute raking up of the price of the fighters and impropriety in awarding offsets to Anil Ambanis Reliance Group in the procurement process. The Supreme Court noted that it was not appropriate or feasible for it to look into the offsets contract. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this court, especially in such matters, the bench said. Activist-advocate Prashant Bhushan said the Supreme Courts verdict was not a clean chit for the government. This is a limited clean chit. The court hasnt dealt with many of the issues that we raised, Bhushan said, adding that they would consider whether a review petition should be filed. All we wanted was a probe. There were indications that there were wrongdoings in the deal and they need to be probed, that was our request to the Supreme Court. India, Russia to upgrade defence cooperation India and Russia today discussed in detail proposal for joint manufacturing projects, including the Kamov-226T helicopters, naval frigates and projects related to land systems. The two sides also agreed to take forward inter-governmental arrangements for facilitating joint manufacturing of spares for Russian origin equipment in India, under the Make in India initiative. With a view to enhancing military-to-military engagement the two countries also signed a revised Inter-Governmental Agreement on restructuring the existing IRIGC-MTC to the IRIGC on Military and Military Technical Cooperation. The decisions were taken at the 18th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) held in New Delhi today. The meeting was co-chaired by Indias defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and minister of defence of the Russian Federation General Sergei Shoigu. The IRIGC-MTC meeting discussed a wide range of issues relating to defence equipment, industry and technological engagement between India and Russia as well as after sales support/upgradation of military equipment of Russian origin, within the framework of the bilateral Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. The ministers expressed satisfaction at the dynamism and progress in bilateral defence cooperation. Intensive discussions were held on joint manufacturing projects, including the Kamov-226T helicopters, naval frigates and projects related to land systems. The two sides also agreed to take forward inter-governmental arrangements for facilitating joint manufacturing of spares for Russian origin equipment in India, under the Make in India initiative. With a view to enhancing military-to-military engagement and rationalising the functioning of the commission, a revised Inter-Governmental Agreement on restructuring the existing IRIGC-MTC to the IRIGC on Military and Military Technical Cooperation was also signed by the two ministers. An additional institutional Working group headed by Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman COSE (CISC) and Deputy Chief of the main operational directorate of General Staff of Armed Forces of Russian Federation would be set up under the expanded commission. The ministers expressed satisfaction in the progress of the structured engagement between their armed forces, including joint exercises, resumption of training exchanges and other interactions in the framework of the bilateral road map on defence cooperation signed in June 2017. The inaugural meeting of the IRIGC-MTC is proposed to be held in Russia in 2019 on mutually convenient dates. PSBs seek roll-back of Rajan-Urjit regulations A day after the newly-appointed Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das took charge, chiefs of public sector banks under the banner of Indian Banks Association made a beeline at the central bank demanding easing of the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework regulations, including the time frame for resolution of stressed assets, capital adequacy norms and asset classification. During the meeting that comes ahead of the crucial RBI board meeting on Friday, bankers are understood to have demanded that the RBIs revised rules that an account that becomes stressed should be resolved within 180 days of a default, be reviewed and the deadline extended. PSB chiefs also sought changes in capital adequacy norms and a review of guidelines on using lockable cassettes in ATMs. A relaxation in capital adequacy ratio, which has been set at 9 per cent for Indian banks against the Basel III requirement of 8 per cent, at least temporarily, will allow banks to lend more. This will also ease the pressure on government that is hard-pressed to pump more capital into the PSBs, they pointed out. Also, the risk-weight assigned to assets (loans/investments), which is prescribed by the RBI, and the capital required to make the loans/investments are directly proportional. For loans with higher risk-weight banks will need to set aside more capital. It may be noted that 11 of the 21 public sector banks have been placed under the prompt corrective action (PCA) and face restrictions on their lending activity. If they are unable to lend, it makes their turnaround more difficult, they point out. Overall, banks wanted the risk-weights on several classes of loans be reduced so that the capital needed to be set aside for high-risk loans be proportionally reduced. Banks argue that their growth depends on lending that the more they lend the more they earn. They, however, tend to undermine the risks associated with easier lending norms and the catastrophe of non-productive assets or stressed loans. The meeting was attended by the chiefs of Mumbai-based State Bank of India, Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Central Bank of India and Dena Bank, besides the MD and CEO of Punjab National Bank Sunil Mehta, who is the current chairman of the Indian Banks Association. During his first interaction with the heads of top state-owned banks as RBI governor, Das is understood to have told the bankers to come up with alternatives. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday expressed regret at how Filipino household service workers are treated abroad, especially in some Arab nations. He said rape was inevitable in some Arab nations where slavery remains a culture, even as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have to endure it just to send money home to their families. "So how many stories, sad stories do you hear? Are all of these incidents there reported? No. Why? Because they will have to go home. You start to complain, you lose the employment. So magbili na lang sila sa mga pills diyan kung saan nila makuha and they endure bestiality, they endure human degradation, and the loss of human dignity. Titiisin nila 'yan p***** i** dahil kailangan na ng pera para ipadala dito," he said in a speech during the unveiling of a drug rehabilitation center in Las Pinas City. In February, Duterte ordered a total deployment ban to Kuwait after the body of household helper Joanna Demafelis was found in the freezer of her employer's home. The ban was lifted months later after Kuwait agreed to the President's conditions for better treatment of Filipino workers. The President added that drug sellers target the families of OFWs, knowing they receive money from abroad. "Ipapadala dito tapos pagdating dito itong mga p***** i** gaganunin talaga nila 'yan hanggang bumigay ang bata," he said. Enterprise IT Lead Generation Services Fuel Your Pipeline. Close More Deals. Our full-service marketing programs deliver sales-ready leads. 100% Satisfaction Guarantee! Learn more. The borderless promise of e-commerce doesn't mean one size fits all. Your business can have customers from around the globe, but if you want to keep them and grow, it is crucial to understand local shopper preferences and behaviors, and be able to respond to them. Without localization, you won't have an effective go-to-market strategy, and your opportunity for growth will stall. Sure, the advent of selling online means that conventional borders no longer exist. Consumers are expected to spend US$1 trillion on cross-border e-commerce by 2020, according to a report by McKinsey. Also, online buyers are not afraid to purchase goods from foreign merchants, as a recent KPMG study confirms, with international sales making up more than 40 percent of the total for the countries located in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. However, selling across borders is not the same as selling at home. If you can't create a localized, trusted and customized experience for shoppers, you definitely will suffer from low conversion rates -- or even worse, fail to win their business at all. Shoppers may be willing to browse an offshore merchant, but the quality of the buying experience and how much the vendor is trusted factor heavily into consumers' decision-making. Localization is critical, as it contributes to the trust that is so important to global buyers. Vendors need to start by crafting a localization strategy. However, many don't understand what the minimum requirements need to be and where to begin. Following are a few things to consider. Audit Your Local Audience, Markets and Resources Once you have prioritized your markets and determined which ones you want to optimize, focus on auditing the unique aspects of those markets that will impact buying behavior the most. Any strategy that doesn't consider the language, culture, preferences, needs and even idiosyncrasies of the local market is doomed to fail. Connecting with global buyers requires an approach that treats each market differently. This means localizing each aspect of the buying experience, which includes everything from the payment method, currency, prices, text, labels and messages, to date and time, phone number, graphics, formatting, punctuation and addresses. Creating an audit of the market will help you determine the must-haves to be successful in the region. Translating Your Site Is Not Enough Many sellers still believe that translating a site into the local language solves the localization issue. It doesn't. English is the language of the digital world, but the reality is that in most countries, 80 percent of transactions occur in the local language. However, translation is only a small piece of the puzzle. Localizing content, product, all documents, pricing, communication and onboarding also should be considered. Ultimately, support must be offered in the local language, too. Consider a Different Layout, Flow and Shopping Cart Besides language translation, there are many localization elements to consider. The design of a website for China should differ greatly from one for Japan -- even if you're selling the same product. Likewise, user experiences that work in Europe don't always have the same impact for shoppers in North America or other regions. As with website content layout and flow, buyers expect your shopping cart to reflect their local preferences and norms. Conversion rates for non-localized shopping carts are significantly lower. This involves localizing every aspect of the cart -- which means text, labels, messages, dates, times, phone numbers, prices, graphics, formatting, number of steps in the ordering process, length of forms, information that is prefilled and more. It's essential that you research the best layout and flow that will work in each region, and then fine-tune them by testing different versions and comparing their conversion rates. Online shoppers in France, for example, prefer carts with a blue and white color scheme and a more formal tone to their text. French customers also react better to positive language versus negative -- such as "what to do" instead of "what not to do." Plus, in France, they are very fond of the Carte Bancaire payment method. On the other hand, in China you need to offer Alipay as a payment method or WeChat Pay. In our experience, businesses that sell in the Chinese market conduct more than 50 percent of their transactions via Alipay alone. It's not just payment or colors schemes either. Cultural and societal considerations are critical. In China, it is recommended that you avoid the number four, which is considered unlucky. In some countries, selling online can be more difficult for foreign companies. For example, Latin American countries such as Brazil, Chile and Argentina have stringent currency laws that make it illegal even to publish prices in currencies other than the local one. In addition, it's a prerequisite that customers have a nationally issued bank card for any payment purposes. You need to know the lay of the land in every country you want to have a presence in. The Price Needs to Be Right An important deciding factor when buying online is the price. While some aspects may be beyond your control, such as shipping and handling or fulfillment, many others are not, such as regional-appropriate pricing. Just because your product is priced competitively in one market, that doesn't mean the same is true in another. Transparency can be accomplished by giving shoppers the option to view the price in their local currency. However, a better practice is to use GeoIP detection technology, which identifies the shopper's location and displays the local currency automatically. Being able to set the pricing by location allows you to adjust your strategy to the economic reality of each market, and to the costs that you incur by doing business in that particular geography. Payments Change Everything Payment localization isn't just a matter of convenience. It's a determining factor in the buying decision, and it's a good way to establish a level of trust and comfort that no amount of marketing or promotion can provide. In addition to increased conversions, card purchases transacted with the combination of a local payment method, gateway and merchant bank have a much higher chance of being approved than any type of foreign payment. However, creating the necessary infrastructure to localize payments is neither cheap nor easy. The typical payment processor will be able to provide coverage only for a single country or region. That means you'll need to source and sign a processor for every region or country in which you intend to sell, as well as set aside time and resources to integrate and maintain them. If your plans include expansion into multiple markets, finding an e-commerce platform that can help you scale is the best option. To be successful on a global scale requires payment capabilities that involve more than just completing transactions. Advanced payments can be an invaluable tool to increase conversion or renewal rates, reduce churn, and improve the customer experience. Among them are solutions such as credit card updating services, which ensure that recurring billing remains intact by updating a customer's card expiration date automatically, or intelligent payment routing, which redirects the payment through to the most appropriate gateway or processor, and configurable retry logic, which recovers up to 20 percent of failed transactions due to soft declines. Local Customer Support Is a Must Seventy-eight percent of consumers have abandoned a transaction because of a bad service interaction, according to American Express. Hence, it's critical to your localization strategy to provide good shopper support -- from providing a local phone number, a localized email system (sent in local languages and during business hours) and even a toll-free number. Additionally, email follow-ups, order recovery, lead management, and even marketing messages all need to be localized for an optimal experience. The Certainties in Life Are Death and Taxes OK, let's not get too gloomy here. Even taxes can be manageable. Regardless of where your company is based, you're legally required to properly manage and collect sales and value-added taxes levied on each transaction. The amount, the authority responsible for collecting it, and the rules governing it can differ from country to country. You need to know how much tax to charge and which entities and businesses are exempt. Many of these details can be automated with templates that support pan-regional commerce and have GeoIP location detection to identify the shopper's country of origin. Other details, such as how and where to distribute the tax proceeds, must be handled by the seller (as the merchant of record) or its proxy. Companies wanting to accelerate sales can leverage a digital commerce provider to act as a merchant of record in each country. In addition to tax handling, such providers can manage all the financial aspects of the transactions, leaving you with just the proceeds. Data Protection Compliance: A Reality We're increasingly seeing more regulation to protect citizens' personal information across multiple borders. In the case of GDPR, any company that interacts or does business with EU citizens or EU-based companies must comply. New laws in the U.S., such as in California and Vermont, have similar mandates protecting local citizens and businesses. Compliance is essential as a result, because the failure to comply can result in crippling fines. Hence, it makes business sense for merchants to work with an e-commerce partner that has an established governance structure that supports broad compliance, and that conducts regular compliance assessments and audits. Where Do We Go From Here? E-commerce continues to represent a huge opportunity for businesses, with no signs of slowing down. However, the companies that capitalize on this growth the best will be the ones that have comprehensive strategies in place to deal with optimizing sales in prioritized markets. This includes plans for international growth in which localization plays a critical role. However, as we've seen, global e-commerce isn't one size fits all. It requires careful consideration of the marketplace you are entering, and it may seem truly beyond the scope of most companies. Before expanding, businesses need to arm themselves with knowledge about where to prioritize their efforts. They also need to choose a partner with the right combination of skills to get them there: expertise in global e-commerce capabilities, relationships, even access to local affiliates and resellers that can help any merchant penetrate into a local market quickly, effectively, and with the right knowledge and marketing power behind them. Erich Litch is president and chief operating officer of 2Checkout. It's pretty common this time of year to hear the song White Christmas, but at EcoWatch we want folks to have a green Christmas. With a couple of tips, you can make sure your winter festivities have a smaller carbon footprint. Here are five ways you can have a more environmentally friendly holiday. 1. Give Green Gifts Share your love of the planet by giving gifts that are good for the environment. Need ideas? The EcoWatch staff rounded up their favorite gifts, and USA Today highlights items such as iTunes gift cards, reusable straws, organic wine and non-toxic cosmetics in their story about purchasing green presents. After you decide on the perfect gift, don't forget to also be mindful about the way it's wrapped. Not all wrapping paper can be recycled. In the U.S., you can recycle paper that does not have metallic, velvety or glittery elements, USA Today explains. Alternatives to conventional wrapping paper include recycling brown grocery bags, reusing old newspapers or wrapping gifts in reusable cloth (a 400-year-old Japanese practice called Furoshiki), Madeleine Somerville writes in The Guardian. 2. Dim the Lights Christmas lights certainly make the season bright, but there's an ecological cost to all that electricity. The U.S. consumes 6.6 billion kilowatt hours of energy each year on seasonal light displays, The Center for Global Development reports citing a 2008 study from the U.S. Department of Energy. That's more energy than developing countries like El Salvador, Ethiopia, Cambodia or Nepal use in a year! So what can you do if you think of lights as synonymous with Christmas? In The Guardian, Jessica Aldred suggests switching to LED, solar-powered or rechargeable-battery-powered lights. She also points out that "paraffin candles are made from petroleum residue ... Candles made from soy, beeswax or natural vegetable-based wax are more eco-friendly because they biodegrade and are smoke-free." 3. Choose the Right Tree Christmas trees are so popular that 75 percent of Americans display a Christmas tree, with a majority of them choosing an artificial one, The New York Times reports, based on an analysis from the American Christmas Tree Association (ACTA). But is that the greenest option? While a new study by ACTA found that an artificial tree is more environmentally friendly than a real tree if you use the artificial tree for five years or more, others dispute that claim. Bill Ulfelder, New York's Nature Conservancy executive director, told The Times that "real trees were 'unquestionably' the better option." When bought locally, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. Other ways to make your real tree purchase more environmentally friendly are to buy trees that can be replanted or find a local program that recycles trees and turns them into mulch. 4. Have a Glitter-Free Christmas EcoWatch has written before about the dangers of glitter, which contributes to the microplastic pollution plaguing the oceans. Olga Pantos, a research scientist with New Zealand's Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), told Stuff that on a recent shopping trip that "it was almost impossible to find anything that didn't have glitter." So, choosing non-glittery decorations can help keep microplastics out of the oceans. 5. Help Fight #PointlessPlastic Greenpeace UK is calling out supermarkets for their unnecessary plastic packaging of festive items, and they want you to join the fight. With the hashtag #PointlessPlastic, they are encouraging people to share photos of the worst offenses in supermarkets. Greenpeace will then ask the public to vote on the most egregious. "By exposing the worst festive plastic offenders, we'll be showing supermarkets that their use of plastic is unacceptable, and that their customers have had enough," Greenpeace states on it website. A much-anticipated lawsuit argues that, despite nowhere mentioning the word education, the U.S. Constitution does guarantee the provision of an education for the intuitive reason that it is impossible to vote, exercise free speech, or serve on a jury without one. Filed last month in federal court in Rhode Island on behalf of more than a half-dozen students, the lawsuit faces very long odds on its way to lawbook fame, particularly given the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. But from another vantage point, the timing is spot on, reflecting a resurgence of interest in civics education, as well as general concern over the strength and resilience of Americas civic institutions. On the one hand, for the legal question, this moment in time may not be the best for the plaintiffs, but the social context might be a really good time to raise this question in the public court, given just how bad peoples knowledge of civic institutions are and just how much they are under threat, said Mark Paige, an associate professor in the public-policy department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with expertise in education law. In the K-12 world, Massachusetts recently became the first state to require secondary students to engage in civics projects as part of the curriculum. And Washington state, Illinois, and New York state have also recently passed laws or convened panels to reassess how they prepare students for citizenship. Heres a look at the key questions in A.C. v. Raimondoand what comes next for the plaintiffs. Whats this lawsuit about again? And what are its odds? The lawsuit is shaped as a class action against Rhode Island. Lawyers for the plaintiffs allege that, among other things, the state doesnt require students to complete any civics or history classes or exams, doesnt provide enough extracurricular civic opportunities for students, and does not provide English-learners with strong instruction, all of which hinder their civic development. Theres one major obstacle to establishing the principle that the Constitution guarantees some level of education: the Supreme Courts decision in a 1973 case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. In that case, the court ruled that the Constitutions equal-protection clauses didnt extend to school district finance inequities. But the case also left open the question of whether the document might guarantee some minimum level of education, and the architects of the current lawsuit hope to force an answer to that question. Importantly, the case isnt directly about school finance, although any remedy, like revamping civics education across the nation, would inevitably incur costs. In addition, federal district courts are often reluctant to read new rights into the Constitution. And when the legal theories underpinning the case were being developed, the political landscape looked a lot different. President Donald Trumps appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court gave conservatives a majority and makes a victory there unlikely. Nevertheless, pointed out Derek W. Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, the lawsuit echoes widespread concern about the state of civic knowledge, and so the outcome remains a bit of a wild card. Trumps election has made an enormous swath of the judiciary concerned about the rule of law, the operation of our democracy, and citizens ability to make informed decisions far more important than it was, he noted. After years of state education adequacy lawsuits, why are we seeing federal action again? Testing the Waters Over the past two years, legal experts have devised creative new arguments for why courts should recognize a right to education in the U.S. Constitution. Martinez v. Malloy Filed: Aug. 23, 2016, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut Argument: The Constitution guarantees substantial equality of education opportunity; Connecticuts policies limiting charter schools, magnet schools, and interdistrict transfers violate students due process and equal-protection rights. Status: Judge Alvin W. Thompson dismissed all but one claim in the lawsuit, charging the state with failing to fulfill its duty of public administration. That claim is pending. Gary B. v. Snyder Filed: Sept. 23, 2016, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Argument: The Constitution contains an implied right of access to literacy instruction; state policymakers provided Detroit students with such a substandard literacy education that it fell afoul of the students due process and equal-protection rights. Status: Judge Stephen J. Murphy III dismissed the lawsuit. The plaintiffs have appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. A.C. v. Raimondo Filed: Nov. 29, 2018, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island Argument: The Constitution contains an implied right to an education that prepares young people to be capable citizens, including voting and serving on a jury. Rhode Islands failure to provide this education violates multiple constitutional rights and a section of the Constitution guaranteeing a republican form of government. Status: Pending Source: Education Week Several other lawsuits are testing out related legal theories, though those cases, like the one filed in Michigan focusing on student literacy, are more narrowly tailored. Legal experts point to a slowdown in state-level education equity cases following bruising battles in Washington state and Kansas, among other places, as one reason behind the interest in a federal education case. Its unclear whether the spate of federal litigation could affect potential state-level action, the legal experts said. Some feel that it wont, while others suggest that state courts might not want to make any sudden moves on school finance or equity until the federal question is resolved. Why do the plaintiffs cite an obscure provision of the ConstitutionArticle 4, Section 4? Nearly all previous education equity lawsuits at the federal level have been brought on the grounds of equal protection or due process under the 14th Amendment. This lawsuit includes those claims, too, but also cites this portion of the founding document, which contains a guarantee that every state will establish a republican form of government. The clause has been more or less ignored for 200 years, but was the basis of a Stanford Law Review article Black published earlier this year. In it, he notes that under that clause, and subsequently under the 14th Amendment, the U.S. government forced Southern states to include public education in their own state constitutions as a condition of rejoining the Union after the Civil War. The plaintiffs decision to include the unusual historical argument gives the courts additional options to considerparticularly for those judges worried about extending the definition of equal-protection rights, already a well-developed part of constitutional law. They may have some concerns about a precedent here, what it will mean for equal-protection cases, Black said. But the republican guarantee, if they hold it, applies only to education. Its not going to apply to anything else. What happens if the plaintiffs succeed? The plaintiffs seek legal clarity, rather than any specific remedy for the students, which means that if the courts uphold the principle in question, they would then require policymakers to develop a program for schools that would supply adequate preparation for citizenship. There may well be 50 different approaches, or more than that, taken among the different school districts, said Michael Rebell, the lead counsel on the case and an education law professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Were not going to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to come up with a laundry list of what should be in a civics course or what extracurricular opportunity should be afforded to students. A lot of that depends on context, and its not the kind of nuts-and-bolts work the Supreme Court would want to be involved in. The plaintiffs brief contains some clues about what they feel should happen: teacher training; a curriculum that includes media literacy, civic experiences both inside and outside of the classroom; and supports for students learning English. Could this lawsuit be settled? Possibly. A spokeswoman for the Rhode Island attorney general said she could not comment on pending litigation. What happens if the lawsuit is dismissed? It would throw cold water on the legal arguments advanced in the litigation, making them harder to use for other test cases. That does worry other education law experts. The risk, of course, is that a federal court could say no, and then we have another Rodriguez problem, Paige said. I worry slightly that it would foreclose a theory that might be viable in a different context. Mexico City, Dec 14 (efe-epa).- President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced Friday that Mexico will integrate all areas of the country into a new federally run nationwide healthcare system within two years, saying that at least 115 billion pesos ($5.7 billion) will be invested in that sector over the next year. "We'll have a new public health system in two years," the president said at his daily press conference, just hours before he officially unveils the so-called National Health Plan in the southeastern state of Yucatan. Funds from a 90-billion-peso designated health fund will be used over the next year to overhaul the sector and improve working conditions, while an additional 25 billion pesos will be invested in the eight states - Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo - that the new system will initially encompass. Mexico's remaining 24 federal entities - 23 states and the Federal District (Mexico City) - will be gradually incorporated into the system at a rate of eight every six months. "While we're working on the model plan in the eight southeastern states, services will continue as usual in the rest of the country. But we're aware that good health service isn't being offered, and that's what this intervention is for," the president said. Lopez Obrador was referring to the current Seguro Popular program, which he has criticized as fragmented because responsibility is shared by both the states and federal entities. Concerning the 2019 budget bill to be submitted to Congress on Saturday, funding for the healthcare sector will rise by 50 billion pesos compared to last year, Lopez Obrador said. The president also said Friday that he wants to eliminate temporary employment - which currently affects around 80,000 employees - in the health system. Asked about the budget impact of the increased spending on social programs, the president said more revenue can be raised through measures such as cracking down on tax evasion and fighting the theft of fuel from state oil company Pemex's pipelines. "I'm optimistic. I think it'll be enough," Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1, said. Council shake up to bring fairer representation claims Leader The Leader of Douglas Council hopes a shake up in membership will make a big difference to public perception of the authority. An inquiry opened today on cutting the number of Council wards from six to four, and the number of seats from 16 to 12. The move is hoped to pave the way for fairer representation by addressing discrepancies in the population numbers of the different wards. The four new local areas would also align with national constituencies, making it easier for MHKs and local politicians to work together. Should the inquiry chair find no issue with the proposal, its understood the changes would take affect during the 2020 local government elections. Leader David Christian has pushed for the reorganisation of the Council over the last decade. He says with various services transferred to central government over the years, its right the local authority changes size to reflect that. The Hills Ward representative is sure councillors will be able to cope with the workload, and believes fewer spaces could prompt more contested elections. Local Democracy Reporter Ewan Gawne asked Mr Christian whether the change is down to over-governance, or a push for fairer representation: Media David Christian on inquiry Bulgaria likely option for TurkStream 2nd route Bulgarian route for TurkStream's 2nd line both economically and politically more likely says EPPEN head. Turkey will transform from an end user to an intermediate user with the commissioning of the second line of the TurkStream natural gas project while eliminating transit risks through Ukraine, Volkan Ozdemir, head of the Ankara-based Institute for Energy Markets and Policies (EPPEN), said in an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency. THE PROJECT WILL ELIMINATE THE RISKS OF UKRANIAN RISKS Russia will sell gas to Europe via Turkey for the first time, which will lead to the forging of more interdependent relations between Russia and Turkey, Ozdemir told Anadolu Agency, confirming the economic and political returns of this pipeline project. "This is a very important win for Turkey," he said, adding that, "Turkey, with more than 30 years of natural gas trade with Russia, has not previously experienced such a situation." He stressed that Turkey is now in a position through the TurkStream project to eliminate Ukrainian transit risks at a time when tension between Russia and Ukraine is still ongoing. "The tension between Russia and Ukraine is continuing, while the contract period between the two will end in a year's time. Any crisis in Ukraine would have serious repercussions for Turkey. However, Turkey with the TurkStream project will be protected," he asserted. Terror targets destroyed within the scope of N. Iraq operation Drones, refueling aircrafts, over 20 warplanes used in an overnight operation, says Turkish Defense Ministry. Turkish jets have destroyed over 30 terror targets in northern Iraq in an overnight operation, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The army used over 20 warplanes as well as drones and refueling aircrafts during the operation in which the Mt. Karajak area -- some 165 kilometers (102 miles) inside Iraq -- was hit for the first time, it said. UTMOST CARE FOR THE SAFETY OF CIVILIANS It further stated that the terror targets in northern Iraq were determined in coordination with the intelligence units, adding the utmost care for the safety of civilians and environment was taken. The Airborne Early Warning and Control (HIK) aircrafts also contributed to the regulation of air traffic in the region during the anti-terror operation, the statement read. Meanwhile, Turkish National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar dubbed the operation "highly satisfactory and successful". "All together, shoulder to shoulder, with the same perseverance and determination, we will continue operations until the last terrorist is neutralized," Akar said. On Thursday, the Turkish army conducted airstrikes in northern Iraq to neutralize PKK/KCK/PYD/YPG and other terrorist elements in Sinjar and Mt. Karajak regions. In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of some 40,000 people, including women and children. The YPG is its Syrian branch. Turkey continues supporting for Black Sea bloc Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu calls on member states of Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation to meet financial obligations. Turkey reiterated on Friday its ongoing financial and technical support for the activities of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). MEMBERS NEED TO PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT Speaking at the 39th meeting of the organizations Foreign Ministers council in Baku, capital of term chair Azerbaijan, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called on members to take an active part in blocs activities and fulfill financial obligations. "We will continue our joint efforts to transform our region into a zone of peace, stability and prosperity," Cavusoglu said. He added that Turkey expects members to provide technical support for the working groups of the organization. Citing progress in various projects on agriculture and trade as well as the functioning of BSEC, Cavusoglu thanked Ambassador Michael B. Christides, the Secretary-General of the Permanent International Secretariat of the bloc, for his efforts and Azerbaijan for its term chairmanship. He wished success for Bulgaria as the organizations next term chair. Headquartered in Istanbul, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization was established in 1992 with the aim of acting in a spirit of friendship and good neighborliness and enhancing mutual respect and confidence, dialogue and cooperation among the member states. The group has 12 members; Turkey, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine. Turkish foundation to award real-life heroes Diyanet Foundation is receiving submissions for benevolence awards. Turkey's Diyanet Foundation (TDV) will award real-life compassionate heroes from across the world in 2019. In a statement on Friday, the foundation said this was the fifth iteration of the awards. The foundation is receiving stories on [email protected] till Dec. 31. The International Benevolence Awards will be announced in March after the decision of a jury. Mehmet Savas Polat, general director of TDV, said they were aiming to share unheard stories of compassion with the public with the aim to create a domino effect in the society. Turkish, US generals discuss Syria Turkish Chief of Staff General Yasar Guler and his US counterpart Joseph Dunford held a phone call late Dec. 13 to discuss Syria, a Foreign Ministry official said. Amid tensions with Turkey over Syria, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dunford spoke today with his Turkish counterpart Gen. Yasar Guler. GENERALS DISCUSS OBSERVATION POINTS The two generals discussed "the US observation posts in the northeast Syria border region" according to Dunford's spokesman. The two commanders issued the statements of the observations points located in Syria and mutual security interests, said Colonel Patrick Ryder in a written statement. Ryder also expressed that the observations points are to provide the security of Turkey as well. US forces recently set up new observation points in a Syrian town controlled by its allies, PKK/YPG terror forces, along the border with Turkey in northeastern Syria. Turkey has repeatedly conveyed its discomfort to the US officials over their observation points in the region. Last week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the US Army, General Joseph Dunford, announced that the US-led coalition is planning to train 35,000 to 40,000 locals to stabilize the northeastern part of Syria by defeating the Daesh. Turkey has repeatedly objected to US support for the terrorist YPG/PKK in Syria, which Washington considers a reliable ally in the fight against Daesh. In the wake of the global enthusiasm for smart cities, the central government launched the ambitious Smart Cities Mission in 2015. Based on a detailed analysis of proposals of the top 60 cities, the mission is located within the larger urban reform process initiated in the 1990s. An attempt has been made to define smart cities to understand how they envisage questions of urban transformations, inclusion and democracy. The proposals reveal an excessive reliance on consultants, lack of effective participation, a common set of interventions that are accepted as smart solutions, and a shift towards greater control of urban local bodies by state governments. The term smart cities, as an idea and a practice, is the new avatar of urban planning and development policies and has permeated into debates within the worlds of academia, policy and trade. Despite the ubiquitousness of the term, there remains great ambiguity, both internationally and in India, regarding its contents. The only consensus refers to the transition to a more efficient urban management that relies on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and digital capabilities as well as the potential of big data. However, there are differences within these definitions as well (Hollands 2008; Meijer and Bolivar 2016; Albino et al 2015). Acknowledging the importance of this debate, the UN Habitat III (2016) conference devoted one of its 22 preparatory texts to smart cities. It highlighted the Indian interpretation of the term, as set out in the 100 Smart Cities Mission (SCM) formally launched in 2015 by the Government of India. The SCM aims to leverage smart solutions to provide high-quality urban infrastructure and services to urban citizens, but it insists on two elements: the importance of offering a decent quality of life to citizens who must participate in defining the content of projects; and the absence of a single definition of the smart city because, [T]here is no universally accepted definition of a Smart City The conceptualisation varies from city to city and country to country A Smart City would have a different connotation in India than, say, Europe. Even in India, there is no one way of defining a Smart City. (GoI 2015)1 Nevertheless, all Indian smart cities must comply with some common features. Candidate cities must propose two types of interventions in accordance with the programme guidelines. The first one is with a focus on area-based development that will transform (retrofit and redevelop) an existing area which should ultimately serve as an example for the entire city. The programme stated that it does not impose conditions, as local authorities have to decide whether to develop a peripheral zone (or even a new city). The second form of intervention is pan-city and includes projects using smart technical solutionsvideo surveillance systems, integrated road traffic management, etcthat will be rolled out throughout the city (Bhattacharya and Rathi 2015). The idea is to provide adequate infrastructure services like water supply, electricity, sanitation, public transport along with e-governance, IT connectivity and a sustainable environment. As for funding, 1,00,000 crore will be available for smart cities development, with the central government contributing 48,000 crore over a period of five years, which represents a yearly average of 100 crore per city. An equal amount, on a matching basis, will have to be contributed by the state/urban local bodies (ULBs). See our full list of Top Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Vendors See user reviews of GuardiCore Infection Monkey Bottom Line If your security budget is already stretched, Infection Monkey offers a free option for adding breach and attack (BAS) simulation to your cyberdefenses. Its probably best for organizations with good in-house security expertise, as consulting and paid support are not available. However, its capabilities are on par with or better than many of the proprietary solutions available. Company Profile Founded: 2013 Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel Funding: $46 million Like some of the other vendors that offer BAS products, GuardiCore was founded by veteran cybersecurity experts from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). The companys primary product is the Centra Security Platform, an integrated security solution for hybrid clouds. Its areas of expertise include microsegmentation, threat detection and response, container security and cloud security. Product Description Unlike most of the BAS products on the market, Infection Monkey is available under an open source license, so it is completely free. The latest version includes the ability to detect cached credentials, identify the risk from unpatched servers and test network segmentation. It offers the same sorts of features as the proprietary BAS solutions, but the company does not provide paid support. It is available for download through the Infection Monkey website or GitHub. Key Features Support for VMware, AWS, Docker, Google Cloud, Windows Server, Azure and Debian Automatic attack simulations Continuous and safe assessments In-depth testing Easy to deploy Provides visualizations of attacker moves Scalable Actionable security reports Community support Target Market CISOs at large enterprises and security researchers. Customers Information about Infection Monkey users is not available. GuardiCore customers include Beckman Coulter, Blue Bastion, Optimal+, Genome.One and OpenLink. Awards and Certifications GuardiCore has been named a Gartner Cool Vendor for 2019, a Cyber Defense Magazine InfoSec Award Winner, an Info Security Products Guide 2018 Global Excellence Gold Winner and an SC Magazine Group Best Buy for cloud security. Pricing Free See our full list of Top Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Vendors Bottom Line Picus Security offers one of the more mature products in the breach and attack simulation (BAS) market, and it includes both network and endpoint detection capabilities. It takes a little longer to deploy than some of the other available solutions, but offers superior flexibility with no platform or technology dependencies. Company Profile Founded: 2013 Headquarters: San Francisco, California Funding: $200,000 Picus Security claims to be the pioneer of breach and attack simulation technologies, and with five years of experience with BAS technology, it is one of the oldest companies in the market. The firm has close ties to Turkey, including an office in Ankara and several management team members of Turkish descent. It also has a corporate headquarters in San Francisco and an office in London. Investors include Scalex, ACT and Social Capital. Product Description The Picus Security BAS platform helps organizations challenge their security technologies to help identify security gaps in real time. It also provides mitigation guidance that helps them double their success in stopping cyberattacks. Picus integrates with popular SIEM products, such as ArcSight, McAfee NitroSecurity, IBM QRadar, LogRhythm and others, as well as with security products from organizations like Check Point, McAfee, ModSecurity, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, F5 Networks and Snort. The firm also offers a partner program for management security providers that want to add BAS capabilities to their arsenal. Key Features Deploys in hours and begins returning results just minutes later No technology dependencies Works in complex production environments Identifies weaknesses in real time Includes modules for HTTP, HTTPS, endpoints and email Dashboards and alarms Prioritizes security needs Target Market Security managers, defensive managers and offensive managers at medium to large companies Customers AKBank, Exclusive Networks, Garanti, ING Bank, QNB Finansbank, Turkcell, Vodafone, YapiKredi Pricing Available on request Breach and attack simulation (BAS) is a relatively new IT security technology that can automatically spot vulnerabilities in an organizations cyber defenses, akin to continuous, automated penetration testing. BAS offers more than just pen testing and red team insights, going further in recommending and prioritizing fixes to maximize security resources and minimize cyber risk. Just a few years into BASs entry into the cybersecurity marketplace, vendors range from startups to fast-growing mid-sized companies. Some consolidation has already taken place, but more is sure to come and the race to obtain a sustainable market share is far from over. As the industry develops, several vendors refer to advanced BAS solutions as security validation. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are an increasingly important part of this market, as automated cybersecurity tools need to be able to adjust as new threats emerge. Here are 11 of the top movers in the BAS market. For an adjacent market, please see our top vulnerability management solutions. Top 11 Breach & Attack Simulation Solutions AttackIQ CyCognito Cymulate DXC Technology FireEyes Mandiant FireMon Picus Security Qualys Rapid7 SafeBreach XM Cyber AttackIQ AttackIQ calls San Diego, California, home and started as an automated validation platform in 2013. Its platform, previously known as FireDrill, enables organizations to test and measure their security posture across environments. Informed by the MITRE ATT&CK matrix and its wealth of cyber adversary behavior, clients can run advanced scenarios targeting critical assets and continuously improve their defensive posture. AttackIQs Anatomic Engine is a differentiator, as it can test machine learning and AI-based cybersecurity components. With the capacity to run multi-stage emulations, test network controls, and analyze breach responses, AttackIQ remains a top contender among BAS solutions. See our in-depth analysis of AttackIQs BAS platform CyCognito CyCognito is committed to exposing shadow risk and bringing advanced threats into view. One of the youngest BAS vendors, the vendor started operations in 2017 and resides in Palo Alto, California. Named a Gartner Cool Vendor for Cyber and IT Risk Management in 2020, CyCognito identifies attacker-exposed assets to enhance visibility into the attack and protect surfaces. According to the vendor, clients identify up to 300% more assets than they knew existed on their network. Through the CyCognito platform, organizations can define risk categories, automate offensive cybersecurity operations, and prepare for any subsequent advanced attack. See our in-depth analysis of CyCognitos BAS platform Cymulate Cymulate is the first of two Israeli vendors on our top BAS solutions list. Founded in 2016, the Rishon LeZion-based vendor specializes in breach and attack simulation and security posture verification. By employing the MITRE ATT&CK framework and mimicking an array of advanced hacker strategies, the Cymulate platform assesses network segments, detects vulnerabilities, and optimizes remediation. To confront the dynamic threat landscape, Cymulate offers continuous security validation that provides consistent guidance for action. Deploying Cymulate with near-unlimited attack simulations can be completed within minutes via a single lightweight agent. See our in-depth analysis of Cymulates BAS platform DXC Technology DXC Technology has over 40 years of infosec experience, most of which as HPEs Enterprise Services. In 2017, HPE spun off the segment and merged with Computer Sciences Corporation to establish DXC. The DXC BAS offerings are a part of their Cyber Defense product line, which crafts tailored security solutions for the digital enterprise and prioritizes the evolving threat landscape. Services include tools for managing incident response, breaches, threats, and vulnerabilities, threat intelligence feeds, OT and IoT security, and cyber maturity reviews. The most comprehensive and enterprise-ready BAS solution is the DXC Security Platform, which includes DXCs IT management platform, ServiceNow. DXC security platform also provides automated security services, advanced vulnerability management, and a managed SIEM. FireEye Mandiant Verodin was an upstart BAS vendor out of Washington, D.C., as of our last update. This time around, the same platform is now under a notable cybersecurity vendor, FireEye. Initially founded in 2014, Verodin was acquired by FireEye in May 2019 for $250M and integrated into the vendors Mandiant Security Validation platform. With integrated threat intelligence, automated environmental drift detection, and support for optimizing existing cybersecurity tools like SIEM, Mandiant eases a clients monitoring job to focus on taking action. FireEyes Mandiant notes clients can save big financially in the form of controlled vulnerabilities and speed response time to advance TTPs by almost 600%. See our in-depth write up on predecessor Verodin FireMon FireMon is a Dallas-based vendor for cybersecurity, compliance, and risk mitigation started in 2004. FireMons BAS solution is Risk Analyzer, covering advanced vulnerability management, risk analysis, and threat modeling software. With the capacity to categorize risks, simulate attacks, and craft policy-based remediation, Risk Analyzer offers a broad BAS solution. FireMons attack path graphics and analysis are good for administrators who desire greater visibility. Picus Security Picus Security is a continuous security validation vendor located in San Francisco and founded in 2013. Recognized in 2019 as a Gartner Cool Vendor, the Picus Security Control Validation (SCV) platform scans for vulnerabilities and offers guidance on germane configuration of security controls. By integrating into an existing SIEM, the Picus SCV helps identify logging and alert gaps where additional action is required to optimize your SIEM. With MITRE ATT&CK and kill chain visibility, administrators deploying SCV can take the necessary steps to prevent the next advanced attack. While still a new industry, Picus currently holds the top Gartner Peer Insights rating at an average of 4.8/5 stars with 33 reviews. See our in-depth analysis of Picus Security Qualys Qualys is a leading provider of cloud security and compliance solutionsand the oldest vendor to make our list, founded in 1999 in San Francisco. Their most popular product and top BAS solution is the Vulnerability Management, Detection, and Response (VMDR) platform. From analyzing vulnerabilities with six sigma accuracy to identifying known and unknown network assets, the Qualys VMDR is a single app solution thats fully cloud-based. In line with its cloud hosting, the vendor offers a set of included features and several add-ons for organizations requiring more. Add-on features include mobile device support, cloud security assessments, and container runtime security. Rapid7 Rapid7 kicked off operations in 2000 and, fifteen years later, released the Insight platform, bringing together vulnerability research, exploit knowledge, attacker behavior, and real-time reporting for network administrators. Rapid7s BAS solution is InsightVM and comes with an easy-to-use dashboard where clients can manage everything from risk prioritization and automated containment to integrated threat intelligence feeds. With features devoted to remediation and attack surface monitoring, Rapid7s InsightVM goal is to make cyber risk management seamless. While not the top-ranked on Gartner Peer Insights, Rapid7 by far has the most reviews at 309, with a solid score of 4.5/5 stars. SafeBreach SafeBreach holds multiple patents and awards for their BAS technology. Founded in 2014, the California-based vendor is a pioneer in breach simulation. The BAS platform can detect infiltration, lateral movement, and data exfiltration by offering cloud, network, and endpoint simulators. With an ever-changing threat landscape, SafeBreach continuously validates tools and the organizations overall security posture. When flagged, administrators have the visibility to take prompt action against potential vulnerabilities. With the SafeBreach platform deployed, organizations can expect increased security control effectiveness, real threat emulation, and improved cloud security. See our in-depth analysis of SafeBreach XM Cyber XM Cyber is a Tel Aviv-based cyber risk analytics and cloud security vendor launched in 2016. Born from the thought leadership of the Israeli intelligence sector, the XM Cyber Breach and Attack Simulation, previously known as HaXM, is a leading BAS solution. In its short history, the vendor has been at the forefront of BAS innovation, winning several awards and pushing other vendors forward. XM Cyber identifies an organizations most critical assets and works backward with attack-centric exposure prioritization, identifying the exploit routes. Analyzing every potential attack path and crafting remediation options informed by risk impact give administrators visibility in real-time to secure their network. See our in-depth analysis of XM Cyber Guide to BAS solutions Breach and attack simulation is the next generation of vulnerability assessment tools and an essential deterrent to advanced persistent threats (APTs). To help in finding the best solution for your organization, we offer an overview of BAS, what it is, standard features, options for deployment, case studies, and more. Also Read: How to Fight Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) What is breach and attack simulation (BAS)? Breach and attack simulation solutions go beyond vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and red teaming by offering automated and advanced breach simulation. To test the strength of network security, organizations must put themselves in the shoes (or hoodie) of the worlds malicious actors. In the process, administrators lean on existing threat intelligence, outsource system auditing to cybersecurity firms, and pray they fend off the next advanced attack. BAS as a software, hardware, cloud, or hybrid solution offers the latest vulnerability management, risk analysis, and network testing. Why BAS? Malicious attacks and advanced persistent threats pose a constant risk to SMB and enterprise organizations. In response to the ever-evolving nature of threats, a number of security tools have evolved, among them vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, red teaming, and breach and attack simulation. Without disrupting business continuity, these methods can test attacks and other malicious activities that provide valuable insight into present and future defensive needs. Penetration Testing Penetration testing is the practice of testing a network for vulnerabilities and complex configurations. Also shortened to just pen testing, this method is a foundational cybersecurity practice today, but the truth is its no longer enough for organizations who want to take all precautions against breaches, Pen testers can offer valuable insight as they move across your network and attempt to exploit vulnerabilities. These tests are often scheduled, limited to an assessment of known vulnerabilities for reporting pertinent patches, and run during a 1-2 week sprint. Also Read: How to Conduct a Vulnerability Assessment: 5 Steps toward Better Cybersecurity Red Teaming In-house and third-party red teams refine penetration testing by targeting specific attack vectors, utilizing social engineering, and avoiding detection. The idea is simple enough: hire ethical hackers to simulate multi-layered attacks against the home network. Like real-world malicious actors and APTs, these ninjas aim for the most precious virtual assets. While pen testing can take as much as a couple of weeks, red team assessments typically last 3-4 months. Naturally, the next generation of vulnerability and breach detection is BAS, an around-the-clock solution. Also Read: Apple White Hat Hack Shows Value of Pen Testers Active, Automated, and Simulated Automated breach simulation addresses current threats. No longer does an organization have to worry about potential vulnerabilities for weeks or months in between a visit by a third-party pen tester or red team. With an on-premises or cloud-based breach and attack solution, administrators can automate vulnerability scans and attack scenarios for the most substantial visibility into a networks defensive position. Insights into existing vulnerabilities or vulnerable routes to critical assets can be the difference in withstanding the next advanced attack. All the while, BAS solutions work inside the network without disrupting the business-critical production environment. Also Read: Fighting Advanced Persistent Threats with Emulation BAS features APT Simulation Breach and attack simulators assess and verify the most recent and advanced tactics, techniques, and practices (TTPs) circulating the globe. Advanced persistent threats, in particular, are a daunting threat to organizations due to social engineering, zero-day vulnerabilities, and an incredible capacity to go unnoticed and undetected. In 2020, Russia-aligned APT29 was responsible for a prolonged and devastating breach of the SolarWinds Orion management software. No tool is guaranteed to stop every attack. Still, a BAS system in place can put a dent in detecting zero-day vulnerabilities and present potential attack routes for malicious actors moving through a network. Also Read: Best Penetration Testing Tools for 2021 Automated vs. Manual For penetration testing, red teaming, or in-house security audits, organizations and third-party security contractors were responsible for manually designing and executing each passthrough. Whether the scan was targeting a critical asset or doing a vulnerability assessment of the entire network, manual network testing is resource-exhaustive with any frequency. BAS solutions have the technological prowess to mitigate this problem by automating the deployment of custom scans and attacks pertinent to the specific network, informed by threat intelligence feeds and the industry ecosystem. Real-Time Insights Malicious actors dont care what time it is for the organization and will gladly take advantage of a small window of opportunity. Given this, SMB and enterprise organizations know that 24/7 monitoring is necessary if not an objective in progress. By outsourcing BAS, firms can save internal resources devoted to vulnerability and attack simulations. Network administrators can rest assured knowing breaches should result in a timely notification. For ongoing attacks, prompt notice and action can stop the attacker in their tracks before any additional damage. Also Read: Top Cybersecurity Products for 2021 Flexible for Evolving Infrastructure As organizations move to the cloud or consider alternatives to on-premises infrastructure, they require a solution covering everything. As a newer technology, breach and attack simulation can deploy to most infrastructures or network segments, including organizations moving towards a hybrid cloud or SD-WAN. Add to this the headaches caused by mergers and acquisitions. For a global economy chock full of digital transformation and network changes, deployment flexibility for diverse environments is critical. Also Read: Top Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) Vendors Deployment options for BAS Agent-Based Vulnerability Scanning The most straightforward deployment of BAS is the agent-based method. Similar to a vulnerability assessment but offering more visibility, this approach means placing agents in the organizations LAN to continue testing network segments. A critical downside to the agent-based method is its lack of oversight of the perimeter and typically an inability to exploit or validate vulnerabilities. That said, the agent-based process for deployment is still an improvement from past tools thanks to its ability to report vulnerabilities and map out potential attack routes. Malicious Traffic-Based Testing Monitoring traffic, including malicious packets, is an inherent component of any modern cyberinfrastructure. Whether its an NGFW, IDPS, SIEM, EDR, or combination of these tools, the comprehensive solutions to address risks are a focal point for advanced network security. The malicious traffic-based testing approach comes down to attacking the network to identify vulnerabilities andmore importantlyreport instances where comprehensive security solutions like IDPS and SIEM miss malicious traffic. Like agent-based scanning, several agents in virtual machines (VMs) sit positioned throughout the network. Using a database of breach and attack scenarios, these VMs serve as the targets for testing. However, like the agent-based method, the traffic-based deployment option also leaves your perimeter out of the equation. Blackbox Multi-Vector Testing The most advanced approach to BAS typically involves cloud deployment of agents to network locations, while the software solution maintains communication with the BAS platform. Unlike the previous two methods, the blackbox multi-vector approach for deployment includes analysis for perimeter-based breaches and attacks. Much like the classic blackbox example for agent-machine I/O, this method aims to test as many inputs on multiple attack vectors to detect malfunction. Suffice it to say that this method is most desirable for enterprises because it offers the most visibility into its defensive posture. Also Read: Top 22 Cybersecurity Startups to Watch in 2021 BAS market Looking ahead, the breach and attack simulation market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 37%, jumping from $278M in 2020 to nearly a billion ($984M) by 2025. Here is more on some of the leading players: BAS Vendors Vendor HQ Est. Product Description AttackIQ San Diego, CA 2013 AttackIQ delivers continuous validation of your enterprise security program so you can find the gaps, strengthen your security posture and exercise your incident response capabilities. CyCognito Palo Alto, CA 2017 CyCognitos SaaS platform continuously simulates sophisticated attackers actual reconnaissance and examination processes across live infrastructure and network assets to provide comprehensive attack surface analysis in real-time. Cymulate Rishon Le Zion, Israel 2016 Cymulate comprehensively identifies the security gaps in your infrastructure and provides actionable insights for proper remediation. Picus Security San Francisco, CA 2013 Independent from any vendor or technology, the unparalleled Picus Platform is designed to continuously measure the effectiveness of security defenses by using emerging threat samples in production environments. SafeBreach Sunnyvale, CA 2014 Our unique software platform simulates adversary breach methods across the entire kill chain, without impacting users or your infrastructure. FireEye Mandiant Mclean, VA 2014 Verodin is a business platform that provides organizations with the evidence needed to measure, manage and improve their cybersecurity effectiveness. XM Cyber Herzliya, Israel 2016 XM Cyber provides the first fully automated APT Simulation Platform to continuously expose attack vectors, above and below the surface, from breach point to any organizational critical asset. DXC Technology Arlington, VA 2017 DXC Cyber Defense includes comprehensive advisory and managed security services to mitigate breaches and help you fully understand the threats you face. FireMon Overland Park, KS 2004 FireMon Risk Analyzer provides best-in-class vulnerability management through real-time risk analysis and threat modeling to uncover exposures, score network risk, and prioritize remediation. Rapid7 Boston, MA 2000 InsightVM uses secure platform capabilities to provide fully available, scalable, and efficient ways to collect your vulnerability data and turn it into answers. Qualys Redwood City, CA 1999 Qualys Vulnerability Management, Detection, and Response (VMDR) uses built-in orchestration to discover, assess, prioritize, and patch critical vulnerabilities in real time from a single solution. Other breach and attack simulation vendors include Aujuas, Cronus Cyber Technologies, Foreseeti, Guardicore, IronSDN/WhiteHax, Keysight, MazeBolt Technologies, NopSec, Pcysys, Randori, ReliaQuest, Scythe, Skybox Security, and Sophos. BAS: Next-gen vulnerability and risk management When honing a skill, the saying goes, practice makes perfect. And then someone interjects, Actually, perfect practice makes perfect. While maybe a bit too literal, theyre right in the context of cybersecurity. All it takes is one hidden misconfiguration and an advanced TTP for a network to fall victim to malicious actors. Threats today require proactive defensive strategies and cant wait to be attacked to prepare. Pen testing and red team services continue to make organizations more robust, offering critical insight into vulnerabilities, breach detection, and attack vectors. Breach and attack simulation is a natural step for SMB and enterprise organizations that require the latest in cybersecurity tools. In an age where APTs wreak massive damage to critical infrastructures, the need for constant, active scanning for the newest threats makes sense. Also Read: Automating Security Risk Assessments for Better Protection Article revised May 6, 2021 by Sam Ingalls A stunning MRI-image of a mouse kidney, entitled 'Kidney Rainbow' is the winner of the second annual BMC 'Research in progress' photo competition. From striking microscopy images, to researchers at work, and the various forms of life they investigate, the competition received submissions that reflect the innovative spirit, curiosity and integrity of research in progress around the world. All images are open access and available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. The overall winning image by Nian Wang at the Center for In Vivo Microcopy, Duke University, USA, has been obtained by diffusion tensor imaging, an MRI-based imaging technique. It shows a mouse kidney, the bright neon colors representing the orientation of different tubules, which collect filtrate from blood passing through the kidney and process it into urine. Nian Wang said: "It's my great honor to receive this award. The image shows the complex 3D tubular structures of a mouse kidney. It was taken at the Center for In Vivo Microscopy (Directed by Prof. G. Allan Johnson), where our research focuses on developing novel MRI methods to detect tissue microstructures. The non-destructive nature of MRI and its ability to assess the renal microstructure in 3D make it a promising tool to understand the complex structures of the renal system." Rachel Burley, Publishing Director, BMC and SpringerOpen, said: "The as yet unseen detail and striking colours in this image very much appealed to our judges. For us, it demonstrates the ability of science and research to offer new perspectives on aspects of life that are familiar to everyone but whose details are still being explored, leading to fascinating new discoveries. It also shows how unexpected beauty can be revealed almost as a side-effect of a researcher's main work." The runner up by An-Lun Chin, at the Brain Research Center, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, entitled 'Synchrotron x-ray tomographic 3D reconstruction of the Drosophila brain circuitry structure,' is a high-resolution 3D reconstruction of a Drosophila head, showing the nervous system, muscles, cuticles, and visual sensory system. Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fly, known generally as the common fruit fly. It is widely used for biological research. Rachel Burley said: "Drosophila melanogaster will, of course, be familiar to researchers as a model organism and to people more generally as a common pest in homes, restaurants, and other places where food is served. Our judges felt that the image by An-Lun Chin shines a new light on this commonly known species by giving us a look inside its head." The winner was chosen from 373 entries and a total of fifteen images - including the winner, runner-up, two highly commended and eleven special mentions - were chosen for visual appeal, as well as originality, photo quality, creativity and composition. They reflect the variety of research published in BMC's over 300 open access journals and are available to journalists. Rachel Burley said: "The BMC 'Research in progress' photo competition was created to celebrate the innovative and progressive spirit of the research community, as seen from the perspective of scientists, researchers, and authors. In 2018, BMC started expanding its portfolio of journals beyond biology and medicine, and this will continue in 2019. The variety and range of the images submitted to our competition reflects our commitment to advancing discovery, as we and our communities move forward together in the new year." ### Media Contact Anne Korn Communications Manager BMC T: +44 (0)20 3192 2744 E: anne.korn@biomedcentral.com Notes to editor: 1. The winning image and runner up are available here: https://bit.ly/2PlI9Bi Highly commended images are available here: https://bit.ly/2Uj2w61 Special mention images are available here: https://bit.ly/2G17RvD All images are available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Please credit the photographers in any re-use. Credit and caption information can be found here: https://bit.ly/2BTZq19 2. Announcement: After the embargo lifts, a blog announcing the winners will go live here: https://bit.ly/2SAc9vk If you are writing for the web, please link to the blog. 3. A pioneer of open access publishing, BMC has an evolving portfolio of high quality peer-reviewed journals including broad interest titles such as BMC Biology and BMC Medicine, specialist journals such as Malaria Journal and Microbiome, and the BMC series. At BMC, research is always in progress. We are committed to continual innovation to better support the needs of our communities, ensuring the integrity of the research we publish, and championing the benefits of open research. BMC is part of Springer Nature, giving us greater opportunities to help authors connect and advance discoveries across the world. BOSTON - Already affecting more than five million Americans older than 65, Alzheimer's disease is on the rise and expected to impact more than 13 million people by 2050. Over the last three decades, researchers have relied on neuroimaging - brain scans such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) - to study Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Yet these studies have so far failed to deliver consistent findings, leaving scientists with no clear path to finding treatments or cures. In a study published today in the journal BRAIN, neuroscientists led by Michael D. Fox, MD, PhD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) used data from the human brain connectome - a publicly available "wiring diagram" of the human brain based on data from thousands of healthy human volunteers - to reassess the findings from neuroimaging studies of patients with Alzheimer's disease. "In neuroimaging, a common assumption is that studies of specific diseases or symptoms should all implicate a specific brain region," said Fox, director of the Laboratory for Brain Network Imaging and Modulation at BIDMC and an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. "However, cognitive functions, neuropsychiatric symptoms and diseases may better map to brain networks rather than single brain regions. So we tested the hypothesis that these inconsistent neuroimaging findings are part of one connected brain network." Fox and colleagues, including corresponding author, R. Ryan Darby, MD, PhD, formerly a fellow in Fox's lab at BIDMC and now at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, analyzed results from 26 neuroimaging studies of Alzheimer's disease. The studies investigated abnormalities in structure, metabolism or circulation of the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease; however, the findings were seemingly inconsistent, with studies locating abnormalities in disparate brain regions. No single brain region consistently demonstrated neuroimaging abnormalities. However, when Fox's team mapped these various neuroimaging abnormalities to the human connectome - the wiring diagram of the human brain - a different picture emerged. "When we applied this approach to our 26 studies, we found that 100 percent of studies reported neuroimaging abnormalities that were part of the same connected brain network - both within and across imaging modalities," Fox reported. "These results may help reconcile inconsistent neuroimaging findings as well as improve our ability to link brain symptoms or diseases to neuroanatomy." Fox and colleagues have previously used the network mapping technique - pioneered by Fox and others - to reveal which parts of the brain are responsible for a number of symptoms, conditions, behavior and even consciousness. Now the method could pave the way to a deeper understanding of Alzheimer's and other brain diseases. The findings also suggest a unique solution to the "reproducibility crisis" in the field of neuroscience. Reproducibility - the potential for different investigators to run the study again and obtain the same results - is one of the main tenants of the scientific method and critical for translating research findings into treatments. In this study, Fox and colleagues use the human connectome to change the way reproducibility is measured. "This is a new way to combine results across many different studies to determine the brain circuit most tightly associated with a given symptom or disease," Fox said. "By shifting our focus from specific brain regions to networks, we show that seemingly inconsistent neuroimaging findings are in fact reproducible." ### Juho Joutsa of BIDMC's Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation and of Massachusetts General Hospital also contributed to this work. Investigators were supported by funding from the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation; the National Institutes of Health, (R01 MH113929, K23 NS0837410); the Nancy Lurie Marks Foundation; the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation; the Alzheimer's Association; the BrightFocus Foundation; the Vanderbilt Faculty Research Scholars Award; Academy of Finland and the Finnish Medical Foundation. The authors report no competing interests. About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and consistently ranks as a national leader among independent hospitals in National Institutes of Health funding. BIDMC is in the community with Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth, Anna Jaques Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Lawrence General Hospital, MetroWest Medical Center, Signature Healthcare, Beth Israel Deaconess HealthCare, Community Care Alliance and Atrius Health. BIDMC is also clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and Hebrew SeniorLife and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Jackson Laboratory. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit http://www.bidmc.org. How does a normal cell turn into a deadly cancer? Seeking an answer to this question, and working alongside other international working groups, researchers from Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin examined the tumor genomes of nearly 300 prostate cancer patients. Their findings describe the ways in which changes in the prostate cells' genetic information pave the way for cancer development. Using a newly-developed computer model, it is now possible to predict the course of the disease in individual patients. It is hoped this will enable clinicians to develop tailor-made treatments. On Monday, 10 December 2018, the results of this study were published in the latest issue of the journal Cancer Cell*. In Germany, prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in men, with close to 60,000 new cases diagnosed every year. These Tumors are usually slow-growing, meaning that not all patients require immediate treatment. Until recently, physicians had been unable to distinguish between benign and aggressive forms of the disease, particularly when dealing with tumors diagnosed at an early stage in the disease process. Working alongside a number of other research groups from within Germany and abroad, Charite-based researchers helped to develop criteria that would make this type of classification possible. To do so, they studied the molecular profiles of close to 300 prostate tumors. They sequenced the information encoded within the cells' genetic material, recorded chemical changes to the genetic code, and measured the activity of specific genes within cancerous tissues. An analysis of their data has shed light upon the temporal order of mutational events involved in the development of prostate cancer. "We were able to identify tumor subtypes that progress at different rates and therefore require different types of treatment," says one of the study's lead authors, Prof. Dr. Thorsten Schlomm, Director of Charite's Department of Urology. He adds: "We now know which of these mutations occur first, initiating the process of change from prostate cells to tumor cells, and which of them are more likely to follow later." The researchers then used these results to develop a computer-based model capable of predicting the likely course of the disease in individual patients. "When an individual patient's tumor shows a specific mutation, we are now able to predict which mutation is likely to follow, and how good the patient's prognosis is," explains Prof. Schlomm. "Our team is currently busy incorporating our computer model into the treatment process at Charite. This will enable clinicians to model a particular treatment's likelihood of success. As for the timescale involved, we expect it will take two to three years for this algorithm-based method to become clinical routine." In an effort to improve the reliability of prognoses, the research consortium is planning to spend the next few years collating additional data on thousands of patients, which they will then use to further develop and enhance their computer model. They will achieve this by working with Berlin's newly established urology network (Hauptstadt-Urologie-Netzwerk), which brings together urology specialists from Charite and private practice. Their ultimate aim is to make it easier for physicians to decide on the most suitable treatments for individual patients. ### SAN FRANCISCO (December 14, 2018) - Scientists from the United States and Brazil warn that the current global progress toward United Nations (UN) sustainability goals is not fast enough to avert the biodiversity crisis. A scientific team led by the California Academy of Sciences evaluated progress toward current biodiversity targets put forth by the UN Convention for Biological Diversity specifically aimed at protecting the world's oceans and seas. In an essay published yesterday in Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, they argue that most signatory countries are not on track to achieve target goals, some of the targets are structured to give a false sense of conservation achievement, and that these targets must be restructured to incorporate adequate conservation incentives that instill valid hope for the future. "We want to call attention to the fact that while the commitments of signatory parties to UN sustainability goals are important and necessary, they're also overlooking critical conservation challenges," says lead author and Academy postdoctoral researcher Dr. Hudson Pinheiro. "We want policy leaders to recognize that some targets need to be reassessed and improved in order to optimize the sustainability of the world's marine ecosystems and make real progress towards averting the biodiversity crisis." In their assessment, the team considered the Paris Accords, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (more specifically SDG-14, which deals with ocean issues), and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (Target 11 to protect 10% of the ocean by 2020). These goals are continually promoted by the UN Convention for Biological Diversity and signatory countries, which most recently convened in Egypt last week. The team presented challenges and recommendations related to the following areas of conservation priority: marine protected areas, coastal ecosystem management, overfishing, marine pollution, and ocean acidification. One sustainability target highlighted by the team requires signatory countries to protect 10% of their coastal waters as marine protected areas, or MPAs, by the year 2020. However, many countries are protecting large expanses of ocean that are low-conflict and of little biological diversity--rather than focusing on coastal regions most in need--in order to meet the target. "Near-shore waters have a greater diversity of species and face more immediate threats from energy extraction, tourism, development, habitat degradation and overfishing," says Dr. Luiz Rocha, Academy co-leader of the Hope for Reefs initiative, who in a New York Times op-ed last year argued that the establishment of a large, open-ocean MPA in Brazil was well-intentioned but significantly flawed. "If we leave these highly vulnerable and biodiverse places at risk, we're not really accomplishing the goal of protecting the seas." To dissuade countries from protecting large swathes of ocean habitat that favor low-conflict, low-diversity areas, the team recommends dropping the numerical target of protecting 10 percent of a country's marine territory. Instead, countries should focus on protecting the highest number of species and ecosystem types to better align with end conservation goals. The team also evaluated sustainability targets that aim to minimize the impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems by slowing greenhouse gas emissions. They note that, in order to reduce fossil fuel consumption to meet these targets, many countries have turned their focus to expanding "clean" energy sectors, like hydroelectricity, that still depend on environmentally polluting practices. The team supports several adaptive management approaches, including encouraging industry leaders and local governments to promote policies that further marine conservation despite the position of their respective national governments. For example, the California Academy of Sciences became the first major museum to sign onto the Paris Accords last year when the federal government refused to commit, and the states of California and Sao Paulo are advancing at a much faster pace to reaching targets than their home countries (United States and Brazil). "Investment in education and outreach is essential," says Pinheiro. "Now is the time for scientists, managers, and stakeholders to work together to defend marine biodiversity, ecosystem services, and resources that the world depends on. And it starts with a critical re-evaluation of sustainability targets, how they are being met, and how they motivate marine conservation." ### For a more detailed evaluation of current challenges--and hopeful recommendations--presented by the team, read the full perspective. About Research at the California Academy of Sciences The Institute for Biodiversity Science and Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences is at the forefront of efforts to understand two of the most important topics of our time: the nature and sustainability of life on Earth. Based in San Francisco, the Institute is home to more than 100 world-class scientists, state-of-the-art facilities, and nearly 46 million scientific specimens from around the world. The Institute also leverages the expertise and efforts of more than 100 international Associates and 450 distinguished Fellows. Through expeditions around the globe, investigations in the lab, and analyses of vast biological datasets, the Institute's scientists work to understand the evolution and interconnectedness of organisms and ecosystems, the threats they face around the world, and the most effective strategies for sustaining them into the future. Through innovative partnerships and public engagement initiatives, they also guide critical sustainability and conservation decisions worldwide, inspire and mentor the next generation of scientists, and foster responsible stewardship of our planet. Pasadena, CA-- Miguel Roth, director of Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile from 1990 to 2014 and the current representative of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) in Chile was awarded the Bernardo O'Higgins Order by the Chilean Foreign Affairs Ministry in Santiago today. The honor is in recognition "of his contribution to the development of astronomy in Chile, and for inspiring appreciation and knowledge of astronomy among students and people of all ages." The award is the highest civilian honor for non-Chileans. O'Higgins was one of the founders of the Chilean Republic. The award was established in 1965 to recognize "achievements in the field of arts, sciences, education, industry, trade, humanitarian and social cooperation." Roth was director of the National Astronomical Observatory at San Pedro Martir in Baja California, Mexico, before his tenure as director of Las Campanas. During his Carnegie tenure as director, the 6.5-meter twin Magellan Telescopes were planned, constructed, and began operations in 2001 and 2002. Roth oversaw the construction and operations. The twin telescopes have been extremely important to advancing astronomy. They were used to find the most distant black hole yet, and the first spectrum of a neutron star-neutron star merger. Roth has led the Giant Magellan Telescope project in Chile since 2014. "During his many years of service, Miguel has been heavily involved in public outreach and connecting the community to the joys of astronomy," remarked Carnegie Observatories director John Mulchaey. "It began with the Andes-Carnegie Summer School for young students and has continued with more recent activities, such as an astronomy mobile laboratory. Astronomy is a very important connection that we have with the Chileans, and Miguel cannot be more deserving of this distinction." Roth earned a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chile. His interest was in instrumentation, which led him to astronomy. He has studied observational astronomy, including star formation and the early evolution of stars and planetary nebula. More recently he has participated in the Carnegie Supernova Project. ### The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science. The latest recipients of Germany's most prestigious research prize have been announced. In Bonn today, the Joint Committee of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) selected ten researchers, four women and six men, to receive the 2019 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. The recipients of the prize were chosen by the selection committee from 122 nominees. Three of the ten prizewinners are from the humanities and social sciences, three from the life sciences, two from the natural sciences and two from the engineering sciences. Each will receive prize money of 2.5 million. The recipients can use these funds for their research work in any way they wish, without bureaucratic obstacles, for up to seven years. The awards ceremony for the 2019 Leibniz Prizes will be held on 13 March in Berlin. The recipients of the DFG's 2019 "Funding Prize in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme" are: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sami Haddadin, Robotics, Technical University of Munich Prof. Dr. Rupert Huber, Experimental Physics, University of Regensburg Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz, Sociology, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) Prof. Dr. Hans-Reimer Rodewald, Immunology, German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), Heidelberg Dr. Melina Schuh, Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute), Gottingen Prof. Dr. Brenda Schulman, Biochemistry, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB), Martinsried Prof. Dr. Ayelet Shachar, Law and Political Science, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen Prof. Dr. Michele Tertilt, Economics, University of Mannheim Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wernsdorfer, Experimental Solid-State Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Wessling, Chemical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University and Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials (DWI), Aachen The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize has been awarded annually by the DFG since 1986. Each year, a maximum of ten prizes can be awarded, each with prize money of 2.5 million. With the ten prizes for 2019, a total of 368 Leibniz Prizes have been awarded to date. Of these, 120 were bestowed on researchers in the natural sciences, 106 in the life sciences, 85 in the humanities and social sciences, and 57 in the engineering sciences. The number of award recipients is higher than the number of awarded prizes because, in exceptional cases, the prizes and money can be shared. Accordingly, a total of 395 researchers have received the prize, including 339 men and 56 women. The Leibniz Prize is the most significant research prize in Germany. Seven past prizewinners have subsequently received the Nobel Prize: 1988 Prof. Dr. Hartmut Michel (Chemistry), 1991 Prof. Dr. Erwin Neher and Prof. Dr. Bert Sakmann (Medicine), 1995 Prof. Dr. Christiane Nusslein-Volhard (Medicine), 2005 Prof. Dr. Theodor W. Hansch (Physics), 2007 Prof. Dr. Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry) and in 2014 Prof. Dr. Stefan W. Hell (Chemistry). Profiles of the 2019 Leibniz Prize winners: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sami Haddadin (38), Robotics, Technical University of Munich Sami Haddadin was selected to receive the 2019 Leibniz Prize for his pioneering research in the field of robotics. The award particularly recognises his work at the interface between humans and machines, where he investigates the foundations of safe, intuitive and reliable physical human-robot interaction. Using the human locomotor system as a starting point, he developed a combination of non-linear soft and reflexive torque control and intrinsically elastic and active mechanical design. Robots built in this way move more like humans and can safely interact with people. Haddadin has also used artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to equip robots with reliable collision-free route planning and artificial reflex systems. He has transferred much of his fundamental research into usable computer programmes, allowing them to be used in modern industrial robots. Overall, his work has made a significant contribution to the advancement of robotics in recent years. Sami Haddadin earned his doctorate from RWTH Aachen University in 2011 with a dissertation on humanoid robots. In 2014, at the age of 34, he was appointed professor of control engineering at the University of Hannover. In April 2018 he was appointed to a professorship at the Technical University of Munich, where he is currently establishing a new integrative research centre, the Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence. He has won many awards for his work, most prominently the Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2017, awarded by the Federal President of Germany. Prof. Dr. Rupert Huber (45), Experimental Physics, University of Regensburg The Leibniz Prize for Rupert Huber recognises his outstanding experimental work in terahertz and solid-state physics at the interface between optics and electronics. Huber first achieved prominence with his research on light wave electronics. The innovative idea behind this field of research is the use of atomically strong light fields as alternating current in solid-state systems in order to observe completely new quantum phenomena on very short timescales. In the future, this fundamental research could be used in ultrafast atomic-resolution microscopes or quantum information processing. Huber is the first to have investigated the very fast charge dynamics in solids in interaction with strong light fields. He discovered that it is not possible to unambiguously determine the energy of the electrons within a very short time span after excitation by the strong light field; instead, the electrons are in oscillating mixed states that cancel each other out or amplify each other depending on the orientation of the light field. In a similar way to collision experiments in elementary particle accelerators, Huber was also able to deliberately collide so-called quasiparticles into each other in solid-state systems. These collisions produce ultrashort light flashes which provide information about the structure of the quasiparticles. Huber has also recorded molecular movement triggered by light waves in an atomic slow-motion film. Rupert Huber studied physics at the Technical University of Munich, where he also earned his doctorate in 2003. After spending three years at Berkeley, USA, he returned to Germany, where he led a DFG-funded Emmy Noether independent junior research group in Konstanz. In 2010, he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Regensburg, where he works at the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics. Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz (48), Sociology, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) Andreas Reckwitz, one of today's leading and most original social diagnosticians, will be presented with the Leibniz Prize for his outstanding research work. He has produced wide-ranging and detailed analyses of structural change in modern western societies, combining sociological investigations of everyday life, work and consumption and digital subjectification. In his habilitation thesis "Das hybride Subjekt" ("The Hybrid Subject"), published in 2006, Reckwitz developed his central theme of modern subjectivity, which he analysed with the aid of a series of 'subject cultures' since the 18th century. He further advanced this approach in his widely received book "Die Erfindung der Kreativitat" ("The Invention of Creativity") in 2012. Here, he classified processes of social change as dynamics of aestheticisation in art, consumption and the working world. In 2017, Reckwitz's work culminated in the social-theoretical design of a 'society of singularities'. In this work ("Gesellschaft der Singularitaten") he details the evolution from an industrial society to a knowledge and culture economy, in which the aim is to increase 'singularity capital'. On this basis, he proposed a new theory of social classes and illuminated the forms of politics that correspond to this society. Andreas Reckwitz studied sociology, political science and philosophy in Bonn, Hamburg and Cambridge and earned his doctorate in Hamburg, where he completed his habilitation in 2005. In the same year he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Konstanz, where he was involved in the Cluster of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Social Integration". Since 2010 he has been Professor of Comparative Cultural Sociology at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder and a regular visiting professor at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Prof. Dr. Hans-Reimer Rodewald (60), Immunology, German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), Heidelberg The Leibniz Prize for Hans-Reimer Rodewald recognises his outstanding work on haematopoiesis, the formation of blood cells. He has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of the biology of the thymus, a lymphatic organ. He has also analysed the development of immune system cells, particularly T cells, which develop in the thymus and are key to the cellular immune response, and mast cells, which are involved in many allergies. In his research on the development of the thymus and T cells, Rodewald demonstrated through meticulous experiments that if adequate replenishment does not take place in the thymus, autonomous cell production occurs, which can lead to leukaemic transformation. By using fundamental biology research, he explained the development of leukaemia following gene therapy of haematopoietic (blood-forming) cells. In haematopoiesis research, Rodewald's work has clarified the formation of special blood cells. He has also investigated how different kinds of immune cells develop from stem cells and together form a functioning defensive system. Since 2010, Hans-Reimer Rodewald has led the Cellular Immunology department at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg. He studied veterinary medicine in Hanover and wrote his doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg. After stays at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, Harvard Medical School and the Basel Institute for Immunology, in 1999 he was appointed professor at the University of Ulm, from where he moved to his current role. In 2016, Rodewald was awarded the German Immunology Prize by the German Society for Immunology. Dr. Melina Schuh (38), Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute), Gottingen Melina Schuh was selected for the 2019 Leibniz Prize for her fundamental research into reproductive biology. Her work focuses on the production of fertilised egg cells by a type of cell division known as meiosis. This process forms the basis of sexual reproduction in higher organisms. Studying the basic mechanisms of egg development in mammals is complex because egg cells are only available in small numbers and they develop differently according to species. However, Melina Schuh has demonstrated that human egg cells differ significantly from mouse egg cells and that work with mouse models therefore provides only limited insights into human fertility and reproduction. She has also developed a method for observing chromosome segregation in individual human egg cells using imaging techniques. This method allowed her to investigate in more detail faulty segregation, which can result in trisomy 21. To switch off individual proteins in egg cells in order to understand their molecular functions in meiosis, Schuh developed a technique for the manipulation of gene development, which she was able to observe live under the microscope. It is hoped that this technique will lead to new approaches for the treatment of reduced fertility and congenital disorders in humans. Melina Schuh studied biochemistry in Bayreuth and earned her doctorate in 2008 at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. She then moved to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge as a group leader, subsequently becoming a programme leader. In 2016 Schuh was appointed director of the meiosis lab at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen. Prof. Dr. Brenda Schulman (51), Biochemistry, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB), Martinsried The Leibniz Prize for Brenda Schulman recognises her important work in the fields of biochemistry and structural biology on the molecular mechanisms of the ubiquitin system. Her research focuses on forms of posttranslational modification in which a cellular protein is modified after complete translation. This modification can be triggered by the small protein ubiquitin (UB) or structurally related ubiquitin-like proteins (UBLs). Thanks to Schulman's work, modification by UB or UBLs is now better understood: it is now known that faulty regulation results in many functional problems such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Schulman has also answered the question of how UB and UBL modifications cause the structure and function of their protein targets to be modified so as to regulate diverse cellular processes such as protein transport, cell division and autophagy. She achieved this by combining protein crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy with biochemical and cell biology methods. She has also developed strategies to stabilise transient intermediates of ubiquitination and thus obtain detailed insights into the associated molecular mechanisms. In addition to these fundamental studies, Schulman is working on the transfer of her findings into therapy. Brenda Schulman studied biology in Baltimore, Maryland and earned her doctorate in 1996 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She held postdoctoral posts in Boston and New York and until 2017, she worked in Memphis at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, most recently as co-director of the Cancer Genetics, Biochemistry and Cell Biology programme. In 2016 she became director of the Molecular Machines and Signalling department at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, and in October 2018 she was also made an honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich. Prof. Dr. Ayelet Shachar (52), Law and Political Science, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen Ayelet Shachar's multidisciplinary work on citizenship and legal frameworks in multicultural societies has made her one of the leading experts in her field, for which she has been selected to receive the 2019 Leibniz Prize. Shachar achieved global resonance with her first book, published in 2001, "Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women's Rights". In this work, she investigated the status of women in religious minorities and analysed the tensions between tradition, religious diversity and the general standard of gender equality. In her second book, "The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality" (2009), Shachar addressed questions of justice that arise from the fact that citizenship is typically acquired at random and not due to merit. She called for those who have been fortunate in the 'citizen lottery' to reduce inequalities in the global distribution of opportunities, for example in the form of transnational obligations on the part of affluent states towards poorer ones. More recently, Shachar has turned her attention to the phenomenon of shifting borders, the resolution of nation-state border regimes with a clearly defined territory into flexible and variable zones, and areas in which more intensive control and surveillance measures are permitted. Ayelet Shachar studied political science and law at Tel Aviv University. She earned her doctorate in 1997 from Yale Law School in the USA and then taught in various roles at the University of Toronto, Canada. In 2007, the University of Toronto appointed her to the Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism. Since 2015, she has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Gottingen. Prof. Dr. Michele Tertilt (46), Economics, University of Mannheim Michele Tertilt is being presented with the Leibniz Prize for her work and achievements at the interface of macroeconomics, development economics and family economics, with which she has opened up new perspectives in economic studies. Tertilt's research focuses on the influence of gender roles and family structures on economic growth, investments in human capital and economic development. Through this approach she has integrated family economics into development economics and macroeconomics. In her paper "Women's Liberation: What's in It for Men?" (2009), for example, she investigated the assertion of women's rights in the second half of the 19th century. Especially in its early phase, this was associated in Great Britain and the USA with a drastic decline in the birth rate and a rapid increase in general school education. For this topic, as with others, Tertilt combines complex economic equilibrium models with empirical and economic-historical investigations. She also engages in debates on current economic policy issues. Michele Tertilt studied economics in Bielefeld and at the University of Minnesota, where she also earned her doctorate. For eight years she was Assistant Professor at Stanford University before returning to Germany in 2010 to accept a professorship at the University of Mannheim. In Mannheim she is currently a project leader in the DFG-funded CRC "Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges". Between 2013 and 2017, she also served as a Managing Editor of the "Review of Economic Studies", one of the most renowned journals in economics. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wernsdorfer (52), Experimental Solid-State Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Wolfgang Wernsdorfer will be presented with the Leibniz Prize in recognition of his pioneering work on nanomagnetism and single-molecule magnets. Wernsdorfer epitomises the enormous progress that has been made in this field, which ranges from fundamental investigations of single-molecule magnets to molecular quantum spintronics. As a doctoral researcher he developed a groundbreaking measuring instrument known as nano-SQUID that allowed him to study the magnetic properties of individual nanostructures and molecules. Using this apparatus he was also able to investigate other physical phenomena, including the mechanism of magnetisation reversal. In addition, Wernsdorfer demonstrated that individual molecules have a significant magnetic moment and can exhibit a stable orientation similar to conventional magnets for a long period of time - something previously considered impossible. These single-molecule magnets possess not only the classic properties of magnets but also quantum properties that could be used in the development of quantum computers. To this end, Wernsdorfer is currently working on integrating small molecular quantum processors into state-of-the-art quantum electronics. Wolfgang Wernsdorfer studied physics at the University of Wurzburg. He then moved to the Louis Neel Institute in Grenoble, where he earned his doctorate in 1996 and completed his habilitation in 2002, serving most recently as Research Director. In 2016 he was appointed a Humboldt Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Wessling (55), Chemical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University and Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials (DWI), Aachen Matthias Wessling is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of membrane technology and polymer research. He has been selected to receive the Leibniz Prize for his seminal work on the synthesis, description and understanding of semipermeable synthetic membranes. Membranes are generally thin material layers that separate two spaces. This makes them important components in many industrial processes, such as water desalination and the treatment of wastewater and waste gas, as well as the production of high-performance batteries and fuel cells. Wessling's research made it possible for the first time to precisely adjust the functionality of a membrane and to analyse and understand the resulting mechanisms of action. His fundamental work is now put to practical use in many products in industry and medical technology, for example in kidney dialysis. Wessling is currently working to combine synthetic and biological membrane technology. Matthias Wessling studied chemical engineering in Dortmund and Cincinnati. He then worked as a researcher in the Netherlands, where he earned his doctorate from the University of Twente and held a professorship in membrane technology. In 2010, he was appointed Humboldt Professor at RWTH Aachen University as part of the research initiative "Next Generation Processes and Products". In Aachen he has also helped to expand the Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials (DWI). ### Award Ceremony The 2019 Leibniz Prizes will be bestowed on 13 March 2019 at 3.00 pm at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin. A separate invitation will be sent to members of the media. Further Information Media contact: DFG Press and Public Relations, Tel. +49 228 885-2109, presse@dfg.de DFG Head Office contact: Annette Lessenich, Scientific Prizes, Tel. +49 228 885-2835, annette.lessenich@dfg.de Additional information about the 2019 prizewinners can be requested at the start of the new year by contacting the DFG Press and Public Relations Office or can be found at http://www.dfg.de. Detailed information about the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme is available at: http://www.dfg.de/en/funded_projects/prizewinners/leibniz_prize Topics range from rheumatoid arthritis to the effects of volcanic eruptions on the Earth's climate system; approximately 28 million for the first funding period The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is establishing nine new Research Units and one new Clinical Research Unit. This decision was made by the DFG Joint Committee upon recommendation by the Senate during its winter session in Bonn. The new groups will receive a total of approximately 28 million, including a 22% programme allowance for indirect project costs, for an initial 3-year period. Research Units are generally funded for two three-year periods. In addition to approving the ten groups, the Committee extended eight Research Units and one Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences for a second funding period. Research Units enable researchers to pursue current and pressing issues in their research areas and to take innovative directions in their work. Clinical Research Units are also characterised by the close connection between research and clinical work. Centres for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences are tailored to the working methods used in these disciplines and can be funded for two four-year periods. With today's decisions, the DFG is now funding 184 Research Units, 11 Clinical Research Units and 14 Centres for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The ten new Research Units (in alphabetical order by spokesperson's university) A deeper understanding of mass distribution and transportation in the Earth system is important to analyse central issues in the research areas of hydrology, oceanography, glaciology, geology and climatology. Researchers obtain the required information from satellite data describing the Earth's gravitational field. The Research Unit "New Refined Observations of Climate Change from Spaceborne Gravity Missions (NEROGRAV)" will now work on the development of novel evaluation methods and modelling approaches allowing more precise evaluation of the data gathered by satellite missions. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Flechtner, TU Berlin) The aim of the Research Unit "Constructing Scenarios of the Past: A New Framework in Episodic Memory" is to develop a theory of episodic memory based on scenarios. The starting point is the assumption that when remembering past experiences and events, stored information is not simply retrieved from memory. Rather, using different memory contents, a scenario of the past is constructed from which the desired information is obtained. The Research Unit will therefore examine the cognitive and neuronal mechanisms behind the constructed scenarios that make up episodic memory. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Sen Cheng, University of Bochum) The focus of the Clinical Research Unit "Phenotypic Therapy and Immune Escape in Cancer (PhenoTImE)" is on melanoma, a malignant form of skin cancer. Its work will also encompass research into tumours affecting the brain and pancreas. The Research Unit aims to identify unifying concepts of tumor plasticity and the associated development of therapy resistance across different tumor types and to elucidate underlying mechanisms. The long-term objective is to create a new approach for tumour treatments with the diagnosis and monitoring of tumour plasticity. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Dirk Schadendorf, University of Duisburg-Essen) Rheumatoid arthritis is a common chronic inflammatory disease of the peripheral joints. Previous research has primarily focused on the mechanisms underlying joint inflammation and the associated destruction of bone around the joint. The Research Unit "PANDORA - Pathways Triggering AutoimmuNity and Defining Onset of Early Rheumatoid Arthritis" will investigate the currently unanswered question of what early factors contribute to the manifestation of the disease. Its work will also consider exogenous factors such as alcohol consumption. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Kronke, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) More accurate prediction of the climatic consequences of future volcanic eruptions requires a differentiated understanding of the effects of volcanic eruptions on the Earth's climate system. This is the objective of the Research Unit "Revisiting the Volcanic Impact on Atmosphere and Climate - Preparations for the Next Big Volcanic Eruption". Its investigations will be based on recently available methods for consistent modelling over a wide spectrum of scales and use of a diverse range of new satellite data. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Christian von Savigny, University of Greifswald) The Research Unit "Understanding the Institutional Context of Health Inequalities among Young People. A Life Stage Approach" brings together researchers from the fields of medical sociology and public health. The starting point is the statistically well-documented correlation between social and health inequalities in children and adolescents, for which there is little resolution after six years of age. The Research Unit will analyse the underlying mechanisms to identify the causes of this correlation. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Matthias Richter, University of Halle-Wittenberg) Physicists assume that some fundamental physical processes can be examined in the interaction of light with the quantum vacuum at maximum light intensities. However, previously there was no suitable technology for this. The Research Unit "Probing the Quantum Vacuum at the High-Intensity Frontier" seeks to draw up sound theoretical predictions for these quantum vacuum processes and research them in experiments using modern high-power lasers and new precision measuring techniques. (Spokesperson: Dr. Holger Gies, University of Jena) In the Research Unit "Amorphous Molecular Materials with Extreme Non-Linear Optical Properties", researchers from the fields of chemistry and physics will examine the physical phenomenon of non-linear optical properties - more specifically, the emission of white light following radiation with a laser diode. The long-term aim is to understand what conditions substances need to meet to emit white light, how the emission is produced and how this property can be tailored to an even greater extent. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Stefanie Dehnen, University of Marburg) Until now, damages in infrastructure such as bridges have been investigated using direct ultrasonic signals, as and when required. The Research Unit "Concrete Damage Assessment by Coda Waves (CoDA)" is pursuing a new approach based on the application of coda wave analysis methods from the geosciences. The objective is to develop a novel method for assessing the safety and stability of reinforced concrete structures. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Gehlen, TU Munich) The Research Unit "Local Self-Governance in the Context of Weak Statehood in Antiquity and the Modern Era" brings together researchers from numerous areas of the humanities, social sciences and geography. Its work will focus on the local level, as little consideration has been paid to this aspect in previous research. On the basis of case studies from the Mediterranean region in Antiquity and the global south of the present, the Research Unit aims to carry out a comparative analysis and typological recording of local regulatory patterns in order to be able to make generally valid statements beyond concrete periods and cultures. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Rene Pfeilschifter, University of Wurzburg) The nine research collaborations extended for a second funding period (in alphabetical order by their spokesperson's university, with links to project descriptions in GEPRIS, the DFG's online project database): FOR "Determination of the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy with the JUNO Experiment" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Achim Stahl, RWTH Aachen University) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/268668443 FOR "Discursivizations of the New. Tradition and Innovation in Medieval and Early Modern Texts and Pictures" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Huss, FU Berlin) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/265293505 FOR "G Protein Signalling Cascades: With New Molecular Probes and Modulators Towards Novel Pharmacological Concepts" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Evi Kostenis, University of Bonn) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/273251628 FOR "Integrated Planning for Public Transportation" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Anita Schobel, University of Gottingen) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/238487308 FOR "Plasticity versus Stability - Molecular Mechanisms of Synaptic Strength" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Matthias Kneussel, University of Hamburg) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/278170285 Advanced Studies Centre in SSH "Jewish Scepticism (HCAS-JS)" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Veltri, University of Hamburg) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/267222884 FOR "Calcium Homeostasis in Neuroinflammation and Degeneration: New Targets for Therapy of Multiple Sclerosis?" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Ricarda Diem, University of Heidelberg) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/262890264 FOR "Interactions at the Neurovascular Interface" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Ralf H. Adams, University of Munster) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/269353708 FOR "Crossing the Borders: The Interplay of Language, Cognition, and the Brain in Early Human Development" (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Barbara Hohle, University of Potsdam) http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/258522519 ### Further Information Media contact: DFG Press and Public Relations, Tel. +49 228 885-2109, presse@dfg.de Further information will be provided by the spokespersons of the units. DFG Head Office contact: Ursula Rogmans-Beucher, Quality and Programme Management Division, Tel. +49 228 885-2726, ursula.rogmans-beucher@dfg.de Further information on DFG Research Units: http://www.dfg.de/for/en http://www.dfg.de/kfo/en http://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/programmes/coordinated_programmes/humanities_centres TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Hawksbill turtles aren't the only marine turtles threatened by the destabilizing effects of climate change, but a new study from researchers at Florida State University shows that this critically endangered species could be at particular risk. In a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers from FSU's Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science suggest that projected increases in air temperatures, rainfall inundation and blistering solar radiation could significantly reduce hawksbill hatching success at a selection of major nesting beaches. Earth's history abounds with examples of climate shifts, but researchers say today's transforming climate, paired with unabated human development, imperils hawksbills and other marine turtles in new and alarming ways. "Marine turtles have been around for millions of years, and during this time they have adapted to substantial climatic changes," said Assistant Professor of Oceanography Mariana Fuentes, co-author of the study. "In the past they have adapted by shifting their nesting grounds and nesting season to align with more favorable conditions. However, increasing impacts to nesting habitats from coastal construction, storms and sea level rise are jeopardizing their ability to adapt." To evaluate climate change's effects on hawksbill hatching success, FSU researchers analyzed more than 5,000 nests from the five Brazilian beaches where a majority of the region's hawksbill nesting occurs. The team focused specifically on five climatic variables -- air temperature, rainfall, humidity, solar radiation and wind speed -- in order to render a more comprehensive model of the various and subtle effects of a changing climate on the sensitive incubation process. "Research is lacking on how climate change may influence hawksbills, and this population in particular," said former FSU graduate student Natalie Montero, who led the study. "We chose to study how climate change may impact hatchling production because significant changes to how many baby marine turtles are born can dramatically alter population stability." As reptiles, marine turtles' body temperature regulation relies on external sources of heat. That makes hawksbills and their cousins especially dependent upon and responsive to air temperature. Nowhere is that responsiveness more apparent than in marine turtle nests, where extreme temperature fluctuations can influence egg incubation, dictate sex ratios and determine hatching success. For some marine turtle species, rising temperatures may not necessarily mean less successful incubation. For example, a study from Montero and Fuentes published earlier this year revealed that, for loggerhead turtles in the temperate nesting beaches of North Florida, changing conditions could yield potential short-term increases in hatching success by 1 to 7.6 percent. The outlook for the hawksbills, however, is not as rosy. Montero and Fuentes found that rising air temperatures, accompanied by increased rainfall and solar radiation, are projected to reduce overall hatching success at the Brazilian nesting sites by up to 11 percent by the year 2100. Higher temperatures may warm nests beyond the threshold for healthy incubation, they said, and increased rainfall could saturate the soil and suffocate the embryos. If the turtles do incubate successfully and hatch, they then have to contend with skyrocketing solar radiation, which could bake the sand and cause the nests to cave in -- a major hazard for the hatchlings as they seek the safety of the open sea. While that may seem a dire and difficult future for a species whose numbers are already dwindling, Montero said there's still time for humans to soften the blow. "Humans can help marine turtles in many ways," she said. "Reducing coastal construction and protecting more coastal habitat will help ensure present and future nesting habitat is available. Reducing human impacts on dune structure and beach vegetation is also important. Additionally, reducing trash and microplastics on the beach can create a higher quality nesting and incubating environment." ### Maria A.G. dei Marcovaldi, Milagros Lopez-Mendilaharsu, Alexsandro S. Santos and Armando J. B. Santos from the Fundacao Pro-Tamar in Brazil contributed to this research. The study was supported by grants from the Sea Turtle License Plate Grants Program. Pulling off a Band-Aid may soon get a lot less painful. Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Xi'an Jiaotong University in China have developed a new type of adhesive that can strongly adhere wet materials -- such as hydrogel and living tissue -- and be easily detached with a specific frequency of light. The adhesives could be used to attach and painlessly detach wound dressings, transdermal drug delivery devices, and wearable robotics. The paper is published in Advanced Materials. "Strong adhesion usually requires covalent bonds, physical interactions, or a combination of both," said Yang Gao, first author of the paper and researcher at Xi'an Jiaotong University. "Adhesion through covalent bonds is hard to remove and adhesion through physical interactions usually requires solvents, which can be time-consuming and environmentally harmful. Our method of using light to trigger detachment is non-invasive and painless." The adhesive uses an aqueous solution of polymer chains spread between two, non-sticky materials -- like jam between two slices of bread. On their own, the two materials adhere poorly together but the polymer chains act as a molecular suture, stitching the two materials together by forming a network with the two preexisting polymer networks. This process is known as topological entanglement. When exposed to ultra-violet light, the network of stitches dissolves, separating the two materials. The researchers, led by Zhigang Suo, the Allen E. and Marilyn M. Puckett Professor of Mechanics and Materials at SEAS, tested adhesion and detachment on a range of materials, sticking together hydrogels; hydrogels and organic tissue; elastomers; hydrogels and elastomers; and hydrogels and inorganic solids. "Our strategy works across a range of materials and may enable broad applications," said Kangling Wu, co-lead author and researcher at Xi'an Jiaotong University in China. While the researchers focused on using UV light to trigger detachment, their work suggests the possibility that the stitching polymer could detach with near-infrared light, a feature which could be applied to a range of new medical procedures. "In nature, wet materials don't like to adhere together," said Suo. "We have discovered a general approach to overcome this challenge. Our molecular sutures can strongly adhere wet materials together. Furthermore, the strong adhesion can be made permanent, transient, or detachable on demand, in response to a cue. So, as we see it, nature is full of loopholes, waiting to be stitched." ### This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and by the NSF MRSEC. A study using a PET scan tracer developed at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified, for the first time, epigenetic differences between the brains of individuals with schizophrenia and those of unaffected study participants. In their report published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the MGH team describes measuring differences in the expression of histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzymes, important regulators of gene transcription, in a brain structure known to be important for key cognitive functions. While reduced HDAC levels had previously been observed in postmortem brain samples from patients with schizophrenia, use of the tracer, named Martinostat, allows measurement of HDACs in the brains of living individuals. "HDAC enzymes can profoundly influence gene expression in the brain and may alter cognition," says lead author Tonya Gilbert, PhD, formerly of the Martinos Center. "With Martinostat, instead of being confined to analyzing small tissue samples, as in earlier studies, we can now assay HDAC expression and distribution across the entire living brain in a single PET scan. Beyond comparisons between healthy and disease states, this will enable long-term studies exploring the relationship between HDAC levels and disease onset, progression and symptom severity." Martinostat was developed by a Martinos Center team led by Jacob Hooker, PhD , senior author of the current report, which is the first to use the tracer to compare HDAC levels in the brains of living individuals with and without a neuropsychiatric disorder. Previous animal studies had linked disruption of HDAC levels to cognitive issues, such as memory formation, and HDAC inhibitors have had beneficial effects in mouse models of several neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. For the current study the investigators focused on HDAC levels in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region known to be important for aspects of executive functions - such as working memory, planning and flexibility - that are impaired in people with schizophrenia. A previous study from the research team had observed lower expression of an important HDAC in DLFPC tissue from deceased patients with schizophrenia than in tissue from unaffected individuals. The current study enrolled 14 individuals with schizophrenia or the related schizoaffective disorder, all receiving long-term treatment for moderately severe symptoms, and 17 healthy control volunteers. All participants completed a standard assessment of cognitive functions typically affected by schizophrenia, and those with schizophrenia had an interview to assess symptom severity prior to PET scanning with the Martinostat tracer. As expected, the scans revealed that Martinostat uptake indicating binding to HDAC2 - the enzyme that was reduced in the postmortem study - was significantly lower in the DLFPC of participants with schizophrenia than in the control group, with levels of reduction corresponding with worse cognitive performance scores. An analysis of Martinostat uptake across the whole brain indicated not only that HDAC expression was lower in some structures adjacent to the DLFPC but, unexpectedly, that it was higher in cerebral white matter and in the cerebellum, structures that also have been associated with schizophrenia. "While we found preliminary correlations between the relative Martinostat signal in the cerebral white matter and multiple aspects of cognitive testing - such as processing speed and working memory - we don't yet know which types of cognitive factors HDAC is most closely correlated with," says Gilbert, who joined Eikonizo Therapeutics Inc. after completing a postdoctoral fellowship on Hooker's team, with whom she continues to collaborate. "Moving forward we hope to apply advanced cognitive measures to our studies to help better understand the relationship between HDAC levels and human cognition." Hooker, an associate professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, adds, "We're very interested in understanding the role of HDACs across mental illness, as well as neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease. Martinostat is being used by several teams at MGH to study Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, substance use disorder and several non-brain but HDAC-relevant diseases like heart failure and cancer. It's also being used at other academic medical centers to help learn how epigenetic alterations relate to disease processes." ### The diverse, interdisciplinary team that conducted this study includes Nichole Zurcher, PhD, Martinos Center; Joshua Roffman, MD, and Hannah Brown, MD, MGH Psychiatry, and Stephen Haggarty, MGH Neurology. Support for the study includes National Institute of Mental Health grant R21 MH11197101A1, and grants from the Brain and Behavior Foundation and the MGH Research Scholars Program. 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 more than $900 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." FORT LAUDERDALE/DAVIE, Fla. - Nova Southeastern University (NSU) researchers recently discovered that by testing the level of NER (nucleotide excision repair) gene expression, pediatric oncologists can determine the likelihood of early relapse (less than three years) in their acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. This is a critical finding because NER gene expression levels can now help guide doctors in their rationale for appropriate treatment targeted to each patient's disease. ALL is the most common childhood cancer. Treatment has improved dramatically due to evolving methods of determining risk factors and genetic analysis. Five-year survival rates have increased substantially from 57% in 1975 - '77 to 92% in 2006 - '12. Yet, the current genotoxic chemotherapy regimens are still extremely debilitating. "Our research found a correlation between high NER expression levels and early relapse of ALL among relapsing patients," said Jean Latimer, Ph.D., director of the NSU AutoNation Institute for Breast and Solid Tumor Cancer Research and associate professor and cancer research scientist in NSU's College of Pharmacy. "Being able to identify patients with the highest risk of early recurrence who are not detectable using present clinical measures and then treating them with a more targeted therapy is crucial to overcoming the cancer." This is critical, according to the research recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, BMC Medical Genomics, because while ALL is much more treatable than in the past, the survival rate after relapse is poor. "By being able to accurately predict if a child's cancer is likely to recur early or not, we may also spare many children who have low NER levels from the most toxic chemo regimens,'" said Latimer. ### The AutoNation research team also included Stephen Grant, Ph.D., project director and associate professor, Public Health, Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine; Homood As Sobeai, Ph.D., assistant professor, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, and Omar Ibrahim, post-doctoral fellow. Their complete findings can be found in an article titled, "Nucleotide excision repair is a predictor of early relapse in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia" in BMC Medical Genomics. This work was supported by funding from AutoNation and the Children's Leukemia Research Association. About Nova Southeastern University (NSU): Ranked among U.S. News & World Report's Top 200 National Research Universities and located in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is a dynamic research institution dedicated to providing high-quality educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional degree levels. A private, not-for-profit institution, NSU has campuses in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa Bay, Florida, as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico, while maintaining a presence online globally. For more than 50 years, NSU has been awarding degrees in a wide range of fields, while fostering groundbreaking research and an impactful commitment to the community. Classified as a research university with "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU is 1 of only 50 universities nationwide to also be awarded Carnegie's Community Engagement Classification, and is also the largest private, not-for-profit institution in the United States that meets the U.S. Department of Education's criteria as a Hispanic-serving Institution. Please visit http://www.nova.edu for more information about NSU. Paint and coatings maker PPG Industries Inc. is leveraging a non-toxic anti-corrosion coating formula developed by a U.S. Navy laboratory. Pittsburgh-based PPG said Thursday that it had signed a non-exclusive patent license agreement with the Naval Air Warfare Center's Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) for a trivalent chromium pre-treatment (TCP) coating. PPG's Global Segment Manager Randall Brady said the company will use the Navy's formula in its commercially-available products. "After evaluating the coating, we found it to be so beneficial that we knew our customers would be interested," Brady said, adding that PPG would also be qualifying the new coating products to military specification Mil-C-81706 in early 2019. PPG is the largest coatings company in the U.S. and the second largest in the world by revenue. Its global aerospace business offers coatings, sealants, transparencies, packaging and application systems, and transparent armor, as well as chemical management and other services. Like the military's aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles, the cars, airplanes, boats, and buildings used by the public require protective anti-corrosion coatings. Navy scientist Craig Matzdorf leads the research team at the Navy research center in Patuxent River, Maryland. His investigations have led to multiple U.S. patents on anti-corrosion formulations that avoid using hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen. "Even though it works very well technically, hex chrome is toxic to people and animals," Matzdorf said. TechLink, the Department of Defense's national partnership intermediary for technology transfer, has contacted dozens of companies, providing information on the capabilities, and availability, of the Navy's trivalent chromium technologies. TCP has been widely licensed and commercialized globally and will expand its aerospace applications with recent improvements. Dan Swanson, senior technology manager at TechLink, initially contacted PPG in 2004 and has maintained supportive communications since. PPG has increased collaboration with NAWCAD in recent years but had not previously licensed this technology. "We've been helping labs and companies partner since 1999 and we have supported the commercialization of TCP since 2004," Swanson said. "This gives us an institutional memory which we can leverage with companies like PPG and DoD inventors like Craig Matzdorf who have been innovating for a long time. We're very happy to see this agreement completed and look forward to hearing about PPG's success." ### Four growing seasons after the engineered spring flood of the Colorado River Delta in March 2014, the delta's birds, plants and groundwater continue to benefit, according to a report prepared for the International Boundary and Water Commission by a binational University of Arizona-led team. The report "Minute 319 Colorado River Limitrophe and Delta Environmental Flows Monitoring Final Report" was released today by the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission Jayne Harkins at the Colorado River Water Users' Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas. "This report provides solid scientific information about our restoration efforts. The findings will help us apply environmental water more effectively in the future," Harkins said. Karl W. Flessa, UA professor of geosciences and co-chief scientist of the Minute 319 monitoring team, said "We learned that a little bit of water, in the right places, does a lot of environmental good. The report is really a road map for restoration in the delta." The report documents the effects of the environmental flows in the delta from the initial release of a pulse of water from March 23 through May 18, 2014, plus subsequent supplemental deliveries of water through December 2017. The 2014 pulse flow delivered a fraction of the water the pre-1960 spring floods delivered. People from the Sonoran Institute and Pronatura Noroeste cleared two areas of non-native vegetation beforehand. Restauremos el Colorado has since cleared a third site. The restoration teams hoped reducing competition would allow native plants such as willows and cottonwoods to germinate and grow after the pulse flow. The teams planted more than 275,000 willows, cottonwoods, mesquite and palo verde trees in three actively managed restoration sites that total 915 acres (370 hectares). Survival rates for the trees range from 75 to 95 percent. Some of the trees are now more than 14 feet (4.2 meters) tall. "The restoration teams from the Sonoran Institute, Pronatura Noroeste and Restauremos el Colorado are applying what we've learned to locate and prepare restoration sites, plant native trees and deliver just the right amount of water at just the right times," Flessa said. The diversity and abundance of birds of special conservation concern increased after the pulse flow and remain high in the restoration sites, the researchers write in the report. In addition, the researchers found the pulse flow recharged groundwater in the delta and showed it was possible to reconnect the Colorado with the Gulf of California. "The people living in the riverside communities celebrated when the pulse flow briefly restored water to their river," Flessa said. "Kids splashed in the water, a brass band played under the San Luis Rio Colorado bridge and people picnicked on the riverbank." Flessa, Eloise Kendy of The Nature Conservancy, Karen Schlatter of the Sonoran Institute and J. Eliana Rodriguez-Burgueno of the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California compiled and edited the "Minute 319 Colorado River Limitrophe and Delta Environmental Flows Monitoring Final Report" on behalf of the International Boundary and Water Commission. Minute 319 is the 2012 addition to the 1944 U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty that authorized environmental flows of water into the Colorado River Delta from 2013 to 2017. The Minute 319 monitoring team included 39 scientists from universities, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations from both Mexico and the U.S., including El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, the Ensenada-based Pronatura Noroeste, Restauremos el Colorado, the National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, the Tucson-based Sonoran Institute, the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, the University of Arizona, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Other UA members of the monitoring team are the late Ed Glenn of the UA Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, and Martha Gomez-Sapiens and Hector Zamora of the UA Department of Geosciences. The International Boundary and Water Commission in El Paso, Texas, funded the UA portion of the Minute 319 monitoring program. The International Boundary and Water Commission and its partners continue with their restoration efforts under Minute 323, an agreement covering a nine-year period through 2026. Minute 323 provides for at least 210,000 acre-feet of water for environmental purposes, $9 million for scientific research and monitoring, and $9 million for restoration projects. The UA's Flessa is the lead scientist for the science and monitoring effort. ### Researcher contacts: Karl W. Flessa University of Arizona 520-621-7336 kflessa@email.arizona.edu Eloise Kendy The Nature Conservancy Office - 406-495-9910 ekendy@tnc.org Karen Schlatter Sonoran Institute 520-290-0828 kschlatter@sonoraninstitute.org Languages spoken - English, Spanish J. Eliana Rodriguez-Burgueno Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, Mexicali 01 52 686-5664150 ext 110 eliana.rodriguez@uabc.edu.mx Languages spoken - Spanish, English Media contact: Mari N. Jensen University of Arizona 520-626-9635 mnjensen@email.arizona.edu Traditional cultural values and government policy influence how Chinese backpackers use technology while travelling, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA). The study looked at how independent Chinese tourists use the internet during their trips abroad and found strong social influences on their digital behaviour. These result from their embedded culture, social circles, and the trust placed in word-of-mouth review platforms. Researchers found that backpackers enjoy receiving comments and complements on their social media posts, and the process of editing and posting photos. Interacting with comments is an essential element of their trip. They also highly value digital word-of-mouth recommendations when travelling abroad, making good use of their familiar review platforms, as well as popular ones banned in China. This requires them to learn to use new technologies more commonly used outside their home country. The findings, published in the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, also show that Chinese travellers rely hugely on digital technologies such as Ali Pay and WeChat Pay for mobile payments. The independent travel phenomenon is becoming increasingly important in China both domestically and internationally. Chinese travellers are known as tech-savvy and the study's lead author, UEA's Dr Brad McKenna - who worked with colleagues at the University of Greenwich, and University of Jyvaskyla in Finland - said 'Collective' and 'Confucius' values of Chinese culture play a major role in their IT use. "From a collectivistic culture, the relationship between generations is very close. In addition, for the past 30 years the Chinese one-child policy has had enormous social impacts, such that the new generation has become the core of the family," said Dr McKenna, a lecturer in information systems at UEA's Norwich Business School. "This has led to a strong usage of social media when travelling, so that families can keep in contact. It has been suggested that the use of social media when travelling has developed into the issue of surveillance through IT. Chinese independent travellers are expected to have a constant virtual presence to appease their families' worries and feel obligated to maintain connectedness with them." The Chinese concept of guanxi, which requires them to be continuously connected, also influences the way independent travellers use technology. The 'social glue' function of the technology allows them to maintain the high level of connectedness when travelling. Social media posts enable Chinese travellers to not only share their travel experiences, but also to receive emotional support by replying to comments from their friends and families. Technical infrastructure plays a strong role in their IT use and Dr McKenna said the findings have implications for the tourism industry: "Tourism providers should realise that Chinese independent travellers derive social inferences predominantly when using digital technology on holiday. How to ensure they can constantly maintain this virtual connection, and how to transfer tourism products into memorable and 'sharable' experiences is crucial. "Currently, there is a gap between China mobile technology use and the rest of the world. There is a network of Chinese technology, such as WeChat, Weibo, Alipay, and DazhongDianping, and most of the popular Western apps have their Chinese equivalent." The authors say that when Chinese travellers go abroad they face many unfamiliar apps, and some of those they normally use in China do not work as efficiently, for example Baidu Maps and Baidu.com can be slow. Also, electronic word of mouth (eWoM) review platforms do not have as much information as they would in China. "Tourism providers should bridge this gap to provide a smooth experience," added Dr McKenna. "Maybe eWoM platforms can work in partnership. For instance, a Chinese online review platform could work with TripAdvisor so that Chinese tourists are able to access more reviews." The study followed 14 Chinese backpackers in three groups as they travelled in Europe - to Spain and Portugal, the UK and Poland. A Chinese-speaking researcher accompanied the groups, conducting interviews and collecting participant observations. Online data such as participants' posts on their social media, group chat histories and online travel journals were recorded before, during, and after the trip, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of their travel experiences. The researchers then identified and analysed seven of the main technology-related tasks the backpackers used while planning their travel or during the trip. These included: using an online travel forum to look for a travel companion or information; using word-of-mouth apps on their mobile device to look up restaurants, bars and attractions nearby; sharing travel experiences on social media; and maintaining connections with friends and families. ### 'Technology Enabled Information Services Use in Tourism: An Ethnographic Study of Chinese Backpackers', Brad McKenna, Wenjie Cai and Tuure Tuunanen, is published in the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Collagen is the fundamental building block of muscles, tissues, tendons, and ligaments in mammals. It is also widely used in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Although scientists have a good understanding about how it behaves at the tissue-level, some key mechanical properties of collagen at the nanoscale still remain elusive. A recent experimental study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Washington University, and Columbia University on nanoscale collagen fibrils reported on, previously unforeseen, reasons why collagen is such a resilient material. Because one collagen fibril is about one millionth in size of the cross-section of a human hair, studying it requires equally small equipment. The group in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at U of I designed tiny devices--Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems--smaller than one millimeter in size, to test the collagen fibrils. "Using MEMS-type devices to grip the collagen fibrils under a high magnification optical microscope, we stretched individual fibrils to learn how they deform and the point at which they break," said Debashish Das, a postdoctoral scholar at Illinois who worked on the project. "We also repeatedly stretched and released the fibrils to measure their elastic and inelastic properties and how they respond to repeated loading." Das explained, "Unlike a rubber band, if you stretch human or animal tissue and then release it, the tissue doesn't spring back to its original shape immediately. Some of the energy expended in pulling it is dissipated and lost. Our tissues are good at dissipating energy-when pulled and pushed, they dissipate a lot of energy without failing. This behavior has been known and understood at the tissue-level and attributed to either nanofibrillar sliding or to the gel-like hydrophilic substance between collagen fibrils. The individual collagen fibrils were not considered as major contributors to the overall viscoelastic behavior. But now we have shown that dissipative tissue mechanisms are active even at the scale of a single collagen fibril." A very interesting and unexpected finding of the study is that collagen fibrils can become stronger and tougher when they are repeatedly stretched and let to relax. "If we repeatedly stretch and relax a common engineering structure, it is more likely to become weaker due to fatigue," said U of I Professor Ioannis Chasiotis. "While our body tissues don't experience anywhere near the amount of stress we applied to individual collagen fibrils in our lab experiments, we found that after crossing a threshold strain in our cyclic loading experiments, there was a clear increase in fibril strength, by as much as 70 percent." Das said the collagen fibrils themselves contribute significantly to the energy dissipation and toughness observed in tissues. "What we found is that individual collagen fibrils are highly dissipative biopolymer structures. From this study, we now know that our body dissipates energy at all levels, down to the smallest building blocks. And properties such as strength and toughness are not static, they can increase as the collagen fibrils are exercised," Das said. What's the next step? Das said with this new understanding of the properties of single collagen fibrils, scientists may be able to design better dissipative synthetic biopolymer networks for wound healing and tissue growth, for example, which would be both biocompatible and biodegradable. ### The study "Energy dissipation in mammalian collagen fibrils: Cyclic strain-induced damping, toughening, and strengthening," was co-authored by Julia Liu, Debashish Das, Fan Yang, Andrea G. Schwartz, Guy M. Genin, Stavros Thomopoulos, and Ioannis Chasiotis. It is published in Acta Biomaterialia. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health and by the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Engineering MechanoBiology. Das' effort was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Two leading University of Texas at Arlington faculty have been named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, bringing the total number of UTA fellows to 14, the highest number for a Texas university. The 2018 class includes Provost Teik C. Lim, also a professor of mechanical engineering, and L.K. Mestha, an affiliated adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded to inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. "The election of Drs. Lim and Mestha further emphasizes UTA's focus on being the model 21st century urban research university through impactful research and the creation of an innovation ecosystem within, and around, the university," UTA President Vistasp Karhbari said. "The work of our two latest fellows exemplifies the power of innovation to create tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development and welfare of society. They help underscore UTA's commitment to not only spearhead academic discovery and inquiry, but also lead with innovative and inventive solutions. I am extremely proud of all our faculty for their efforts in ensuring that UTA continues to truly impact, and serve as a catalyst for, the communities we serve." Lim is an internationally recognized leading scholar in the field of structural vibrations and acoustics, as well as modeling and simulation technology. He holds three patents for active noise cancellation in collaboration with colleagues at Ford Motor Co. Ming-Ran Lee of Ford Motor Co., who collaborated with Dr. Lim on research, said Ford uses those critical patents to improve the driving experience and maintain a technical competitive edge in vehicle quietness. He added that Dr. Lim's research collaboration with Ford has been "one of my most interesting, challenging and fruitful projects at Ford Motor Co. The research investigation led to three landmark U.S. patents and one application still pending. One of the U.S. patents issued is being refiled in Germany, China, Mexico and Russia, all major Ford markets and the automotive industry." Lim said, that "None of the patents I received, papers I've published or work that I've done in industry would have been possible without countless other people who helped along the way." Mestha, an adjunct professor in UTA's Department of Electrical Engineering and director of biometric research at KinetiCor Inc., specializes in electrical engineering and bioengineering. He has received 246 patents and has worked for such business stalwarts as GE Global Research, Xerox Research Center, the Superconducting Super Collider and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. "When you work shoulder to shoulder with industry on a problem you know they have, it's very satisfying to experience the positive results from your work in the classroom and labs," Mestha said. As part of his biometric research at KinetiCor, Inc., he is responsible for developing solutions in the healthcare field. Earlier in his career, Mestha was a principal engineer at GE Global Research and a research fellow at Xerox PARC. In addition to 246 patents, Mestha also has 80-plus patents pending, 80-plus papers and three books to his credit. Lim and Mestha represent the most recent UTA faculty to be elected as fellows of the National Academy of Inventors. With the election of the NAI 2018 class, there are now more than 1,000 NAI Fellows, representing more than 250 research universities and government and non-profit research institutes. The 2018 fellows are named inventors on nearly 4,000 issued U.S. patents, bringing the collective U.S.-issued patents held by all NAI Fellows to more than 35,000. ### UTA faculty elected as fellows in previous years include: 2012 - Khosrow Behbehani, bioengineering; George Kondraske, electrical engineering and bioengineering; Robert Magnusson, electrical engineering; 2013 - Carolyn Cason, nursing; Vistasp Karbhari, civil engineering, and mechanical and aerospace engineering; Frank Lewis, electrical engineering 2014 - Daniel Armstrong, chemistry and biochemistry; Richard Timmons, chemistry and biochemistry 2015 - Duane Dimos, materials science and engineering; David Nygren, physics; Ken Reifsnider, mechanical and aerospace engineering 2017 - Dereje Agonafer, mechanical and aerospace engineering Last year, The University of Texas at Arlington was granted 23 U.S. patents, a success that contributed to UT System's overall No. 3 ranking in the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents in 2017. In the past two years, 10 startups have emerged at UTA, with seven of those companies based on UTA technology. The companies include those aimed at improving crop growth and yield, sensors development, apps for businesses, cancer therapeutics and hyperspectral imaging, among others. this news is not available Privacy Settings This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit. NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using. Now that Congress has OKd the sale of hemp legally separating the fibrous plant from its more laidback cannabis cousin Texas farmers are prodding state lawmakers to join the 41 other states allowing cultivation of a crop thats now more lucrative than corn or cotton. The 2018 farm bill, a five-year, $867 million agriculture and nutrition-program spending plan that passed the U.S. House in a landslide last week, allows farmers across the nation to legally grow and sell hemp. If we have the availability, and everything is in order, I would probably plant (hemp) this coming summer, said West Texas rancher Jeff Williams, who sits on the board of directors of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable and chairs the newly-formed U.S Hemp Farmers Alliance. Quite frankly, in Texas, were behind the eight ball as we speak, because so any other states have legalized it. Kentucky is one of them, and the states senior senator Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been a champion of clearing the hurdles to cultivating hemp. With the dwindling number of tobacco users, his states farmers needed a new key crop. At the turn of the 20th century, Kentucky produced 75 percent of U.S. hemp fiber. Production faded as tobacco became king, and the 1970 Controlled Substances Act roped hemp in with marijuana and made it illegal. More for you Marijuana-derived CBD oil for sale all over San Antonio With President Donald Trumps signature hes expected to sign the farm bill this week hemp and its cannabinoid derivatives and extracts will no longer be categorized as an illegal drug. Instead, the plant will become a commodity eligible for federal support programs such as crop insurance, low-interest loans and access to federal water. These products are now regulated as agricultural crops, said Shawn Hauser, an attorney who represents the American Hemp Campaign. That is a federal change that certainly impacts Texas and all other states directly. Its a huge deal considering hemp production and hemp wares are expected, within the next five years, to grow from a $700 million industry to $20 billion. In addition to providing farmers with a valuable new crop, it will fuel job creation across a variety of different business sectors, Hauser said. There are currently more than 25,000 uses for the hemp plant, and we have only scratched the surface. There is incredible opportunity here." Hauser said the ideal path for Texas is getting pilot programs set up. That way farmers can experiment with seeds and soils while the U.S. Department of Agriculture writes the federal rules for growing and selling hemp. If Texas lawmakers dont take action on hemp in their 2019 session, farmers could grow it once the federal law is finalized. It seems like there is a lot of support for a hemp program, a hemp economy in Texas, Hauser said. And legislators are working. Theyre further discussing a bill that would allow for cultivation and production and meet the minimum federal standards. State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a staunch social conservative, surprised many observers with a Dec. 6 news release in favor of growing hemp. This all about taking the shackles off the American farmer, he said. In todays economy, our farmers need maximum flexibility to diversify their production and thrive. Before its nearly five-decade prohibition, hemp was a source of fiber for use in clothing, paper, canvas and other products. Of late, one of the plants byproducts is feeding a market of elixirs that use cannabinoid oil, a non-psychoactive chemical found in the cannabis plant that is believed to have healing powers. Williams is setting his sights on industrial uses such as car dashboards, biodegradable plastics and construction materials. He envisions establishing co-ops around the state so farmers can pool resources to process hemp harvests, much like cotton gins. I see it as more of a farmers right, he said. Is it going to save every farmer? Its not. But it will help a lot of farmers across the country. And I do know theres lots of companies that are chomping at the bit for Texas to get legalized. The 2014 farm bills allowed states to establish pilot programs for hemp production. Kentucky started one, and claims about $17 million in gross product sales that generated $7.5 million for hemp farmers and created nearly 100 full-time jobs. Williams believes Texas hasnt experimented hemp production because state lawmakers still think legalizing the plant is essentially legalizing marijuana. Like marijuana, hemp is a variety of the cannabis genus, but the two plants are different. Hemp grows tall and spindly while marijuana is shorter and densely packed. More importantly, hemp has nominal amounts of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound that caused cannabis to be outlawed as a perceived danger to society. A bill filed by state Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, in November focuses on ensuring hemp plants stay below a 0.3 percent THC threshold. The fear is that hemp could be cross-pollinated with marijuana plants. The Menendez measure calls for a university-led hemp research program, licensing and renewal procedures for growers, plant inspections and GPS coordinates of where hemp is grown. You want to be communicating with law enforcement and educating them on what this crop is, Coleman Hemphill, chairman of the trade group Texas Hemp Industries Association, said of the GPS provision. Because without that communication, its not unreasonable that they would assume that that product was marijuana. Michael Welch, CEO of Rocky Mountain High Brands, a Dallas company that distributes a wide array of Colorado-grown hemp products, said his company is expanding whether Texas farmers grow hemp or not. It would certainly be beneficial to us for hemp to grow in Texas and for us to be able to source hemp here as a company, but its not going to hold us back if it doesnt, he said. Its going into more and more products. The different applications are pretty much endless. Lynn Brezosky is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering trade, agriculture and the economy. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | lbrezosky@express-news.net | Twitter: @lbrezosky One export industry in which we Americans enjoy extraordinary advantages is higher education. Because it takes place entirely within U.S. borders, secondary school and university educations offered to non-US students might not look like an export industry. However, from a trade perspective, college tuition received from foreign nationals absolutely is a U.S. export product, just as American an export as if wed sent a shipping container of Wheaties boxes to China. (Im picturing 1977 Bruce Jenner on the cover of all the Wheaties boxes, obviously.) As threatened tariffs with China and other trade partners heat up, few industries will be spared in 2019. The arrest of the CFO of Huawei in Canada earlier this month marks a new sign of bad times ahead in trade. One of the little-publicized but clear trends in secondary school and university admissions offices over the past decade is to seek full tuition-paying families from China and other Asian nations such as Korea and Taiwan as a strategy to boost revenue. The Brookings Institution estimated that Chinese students paid nearly $7 billion in college tuition between 2008 and 2012. Eric Maloof, vice president for enrollment management at Trinity University in San Antonio, says that universities look to admit and enroll non-U.S. students for four main reasons: To increase campus diversity, to boost academic quality, to maintain adequate student headcount and to increase revenue. In a hot trade war, how would the worst-case scenario play out for universities? Of course, Im speculating here, but in an autocratic nation like China, the government could simply forbid its nationals from attending U.S. universities. Canadian and European universities would be beneficiaries of that kind of decision, and U.S. universities would take a big financial hit. Like any business threatened by a trade war, universities have to worry about a drop off in international students since they make up an important part of their revenue. If they lose these students, they can attempt to replace lost revenue with domestic students, although they may lose something in terms of revenue or academic quality or headcount or diversity. Some universities will be able to shift more easily than others. The headcount and revenue hit to universities resulting from tightened immigration and a trade war could be severe. Think this is highly speculative and unlikely to happen? The University of Illinois Business School has reportedly begun purchasing insurance that will pay out in case they are unable to enroll enough Chinese students, who made up as much as 12 percent of their student body in 2015. According to the University of Illinois insurance policy, the drop in enrollment could be triggered by visa restrictions, a pandemic or a trade war. Thanks to something known as the Common Data Set Initiative among US higher education institutions, we can estimate the revenue to U.S. universities provided by foreign students. So, how big is the revenue from foreign students paying for undergraduate education in Texas? I calculated the revenue impact of non-US undergraduates for Texas universities by multiplying the cost of tuition and room and board by the number of international students, then adjusting for the size and prevalence of scholarship aid, as reported by the Common Data Set. With these calculations, two facts stand out. First, revenue from international students is large. Two, the impact on total higher education revenue varies by institution, but we can see which institutions would be affected the most. UT Austin reports the highest number of foreign students in the past year at 2,095. UT also derives the most estimated revenue from foreign families, at $58.3 million. The next highest, Texas Tech with 1,575 non-U.S. students, counts on an estimated $51.3 million in revenue from foreign students. Texas A&M has one of the lowest percentages of non-U.S. undergraduates, at 1.3 percent, among Texas universities. But as a very large campus A&M still has 623 full-time foreign students. I estimate the revenue impact there as $24.9 million. At much smaller Rice University in Houston, the revenue impact of non-U.S. students is greater than at Texas A&M, at approximately $26.4 million, despite having less than one-tenth the total number of undergraduates. And heres where the details get really interesting. The university reports that nearly half of Rices foreign students come from China -- 57 students -- followed by South Korea with 7 and Taiwan with 5. We can imagine, with a sudden shift in immigration policy or a trade war, that the revenue impact at Rice would be significant. In that worst case, could schools adjust and make up the revenue? Sure, eventually, over a few years and by managing costs, as would any business with a mixture of domestic and foreign sales. A trade war does not kill the business right away -- it just makes everyone a little bit poorer, possibly permanently. Calls to the enrollment offices of Rice, UT Dallas, UT Austin, Texas Tech, and the University of Houston were not returned as of this writing. One final thought: In examining narrowly the potential revenue hit to local universities from declining foreign enrollment numbers, I am grossly underestimating their true economic impact on the U.S. economy. The United States has held a strategic economic advantage in higher education over the last fifty or so years, as globalization attracts the worlds best minds to our country. The worlds brain drain has long been the United States massive competitive advantage. Not every newly-minted college graduate or PhD holder decides to stay in this country, but many do. Essentially, until now, our economy has gotten a first look at ambitious, highly educated, young people from Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia who want the chance to train with the worlds leading scholars. I have no way of backing up this statement with specific numbers, but the damage from losing this edge whatever one calls the opposite of a brain drain would be immeasurable. Speaking of brain drain, Trade wars are good and easy to win, tweeted a guy once in March 2018. A guy who had no idea what the heck he was talking about. If you think of Boeings and StandardAeros local operations as industry bellwethers, the business of maintaining and repairing aircraft is starting a comeback in San Antonio. Both companies, long-standing tenants at Port San Antonio, have scored new contracts and are gearing up to add hundreds of jobs. About a quarter of Boeings roughly 3,800 employees in Texas, or about 950, work at the companys Port San Antonio site. The company expects to double that number in the next year and a half, said site leader Jay Galloway. StandardAero started the year with about 350 workers. Theyve added about 100 since Jan. 1 and could hire several hundred more in the next two or three years, especially if they win several new contracts, said vice president and general manager Mark Buongiorno. We see San Antonio as a place where we want to grow and invest in product lines, he said. This is Boeings 20th year at the former Kelly Air Force Base, and StandardAero will celebrate the same milestone next year. Neither have had an easy ride at Port San Antonio. In recent years, many aerospace companies at the port, including Boeing and StandardAero, have had to contend with long-term reductions in military spending, which has meant fewer defense contracts. Both companies as well as other aviation tenants at the port are hiring again after trimming their workforces in recent years. Boeing had more than 1,600 employees and StandardAero as many as 700 several years ago before laying off workers, according to news reports. After slicing its workforce by more than half in 2017, Lockheed Martin decided to shutter its facility in San Antonio. StandardAero acquired Lockheeds assets at the port last year. To offset the drop in defense projects, the companies have added more commercial and services-oriented work on newer products, which has helped them compete with others in the industry. To compete, Boeing and StandardAero have had to keep abreast of the technological advances that are reshaping aerospace. New technology has made it easier to determine how long a project might take. Companies now use materials that contribute to greater fuel efficiency, which drives down costs, said Chris Combs, an assistant aerodynamics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Dee Howard Foundation fellow. Aircraft control is more computerized, with more automated controls in the cockpit. Theres also been an industrywide push to incorporate data analytics collecting and interpreting information to figure out when a plane will need repairs before something breaks, said Port CEO Jim Perschbach. Planes and engines are more connected than ever, and older aircraft that dont have new technology are in need of upgrades. Focusing on new technologies and analytics can help smooth the ebbs and flows of military and commercial work. It becomes a necessity for survival, Perschbach said. Local aerospace companies employed just over 10,000 workers in 2018 and delivered an economic punch of $3.4 billion, according to a survey released earlier this month. Thats down from 13,616 jobs and $5.4 billion in 2010, respectively. An economist who worked on the new survey warned that it wasnt as comprehensive and numbers couldnt be compared apples to apples, but there have been substantial job losses. On the bright side, workers wages rose from an average of $58,729 in 2010 to $78,850 this year. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonios aerospace industry has lost jobs but may be rebounding Boeing has repaired and delivered more than 2,000 aircraft since coming to the city, according to the survey. StandardAero handles more than 70 percent of the maintenance, repair and overhaul work on T56 and AE2100 engines, valued at nearly $500 million annually. Both companies have poured millions into upgrading their facilities. Boeings 168-acre site is home to one of the largest freestanding hangars in the world and serves as the service depot for the militarys Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes. Starting next year, the company will upgrade F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets to extend the life of and modernize the planes. On ExpressNews.com: Fighter jet work coming to Boeing facility in San Antonio Boeing also maintains the Air Force One fleet at its Port San Antonio facility, work that was transferred here after the company closed its facility in Wichita, Kan. It was a big milestone, Galloway said. A new pair of Air Force One planes will also be retrofitted in San Antonio. On ExpressNews.com: $3.9 billion Air Force One planes will be built in San Antonio Workers hard to find As they prepare for new work, its increasingly difficult to find skilled employees. Many positions require government security clearance, and everyone is competing for the same talent, Galloway said. In its 2018 Pilot & Technician Outlook, Boeing estimates the industry will need 754,000 new maintenance technicians over the next 20 years, along with 790,000 new civil aviation pilots and 890,000 cabin crew personnel. Boosting the number of skilled workers is crucial, Combs said, adding: We need more trained STEM professionals. Boeing and StandardAero have hired many military veterans, a benefit of operating in San Antonio, home to four military bases. However, while Boeing hopes to find most of the new hires in the region, for the numbers we need, we will not find them all here, Galloway said. The company plans to work with outside organizations and recruit from other Boeing sites. StandardAero is also preparing for new work. Training programs at Alamo Academies and Hallmark University and internships have helped them fill open positions, but it may get harder as they grow, Buongiorno said. Last year, StandardAero was awarded a five-year contract to overhaul T56 series 3.0 engines, which power military transport planes and other aircraft, and the series 3.5 engines. The contract could extend to more than eight years, said Dan Gonzales, vice president of business development. The StandardAero facility will work on the Rolls-Royce RB211 jet engines for the Boeing 757, a contract expected to run through at least 2040. The company will also get a cut of a 20-year deal with Rolls-Royce to overhaul AE-2100, AE-1107 and T56 Series IV engines. The work will be shared with facilities in Tennessee and Canada. StandardAero also works on the F-110 jet engines in F-16 and F-15 fighter planes. In addition, it assembles and tests the engines for General Electric. Older aircraft thatll be flying for the next 10 or 20 years will continue to need maintenace and support, Buongiorno said, but the company has shifted its strategy to newer products as well. Last year, Boeing launched a new unit to capture a larger slice of the growing services market. Its San Antonio facility is part of the division, which includes maintenance, data analytics and supply-chain management, and its helped them add more commercial work, Galloway said. They recently set up a rapid-response hangar for quicker repairs and modifications. The tasks had been going to a lot of our competitors and became just too big to ignore, Galloway said. At their busiest, Boeing was never at more than 60-percent capacity, but with the new work, Galloway expects to hit 95 percent in 2020. And while projects like the C-17 program is still their bread and butter, Galloway anticipates a mix of contracts that includes more commercial work. Staff writer Rye Druzin contributed to this report. madison.iszler@express-news.net Ellen DeGeneres got sick of dancing, and really, can you blame her? She has to be the only 60-year-old woman in America who is expected to dance with total strangers wherever she goes. Theres been times someone wants a picture, and while Im doing a selfie, theyre like: Youre not dancing!,' DeGeneres said in her office on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California. Of course Im not dancing. Im walking down the street. As she prepares to release her first comedy special in 15 years, DeGeneres is considering a much bigger change, retiring from the long-running hit show that bears her name. Shes been receiving conflicting advice from her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, and from her older brother, Vance DeGeneres, a comedian, and has changed her mind more than once. At a transitional moment in her remarkable career, DeGeneres agreed to sit for a rare series of interviews over two days. As much as anyone possibly could, she has taken on Oprah Winfreys mantle as the queen of inspirational daytime talk, providing an oasis of positivity and escapist comedy in a culture short on both. But with DeGeneres status as a sunny stalwart come certain burdens and constrictions, like the expectation to dance, which she finally stopped doing on her show two years ago, after some agonizing over how her audience would react. In person, she is more blunt, introspective and interesting than she is on the show, willing to express mild irritation that might seem off-key in front of a national audience. Shes also much more likely to explore dark corners of her psyche, regrets, second thoughts, anxieties that linger. And DeGeneres is appealingly open about the tensions in her career between providing a cultural safe space and delivering laughs, and says she has learned to care less about being liked. Spoofing her own approachable, down-to-earth image, her surprising new special, Relatable (available Dec. 18 on Netflix), doesnt just reveal a refreshingly irreverent version of Ellen DeGeneres. It also provides a window into her state of mind. In sharp contrast to her public image as everyones good friend, happy to listen, she presents herself with tongue in cheek as cartoonishly aloof and indifferent, stuck in a privileged bubble, cracking several jokes, for instance, about her fabulous wealth. (Forbes reports that she earned $87.5 million this year, making her the 15th-highest-paid celebrity in the world.) When she mentions a seat in the 10th row of an airplane, she admits, with practiced cluelessness, that the back of the plane is a mystery to her, asking if the seats even go that far. For a famously nice talk show host, this is risky stuff. Yet the most jarring jokes in this special are those that subvert her reputation for kindness. After a lifetime of clean comedy, she startles her crowd with a curse. Comic Tig Notaro calls it a decades-long payoff, adding, Then youre like: Ellens a real person with a foul mouth. Notaro, a friend who co-directed this special with Joel Gallen, said that while these are jokes, they are rooted in honesty. Being trapped in the world of being asked to dance and expected to be nice, its real, Notaro said by phone, after noting that, of course, DeGeneres is exceedingly grateful. Im sure theres people who think shes kidding. Or cant have a bad day. But she does. Its an interesting pickle shes in. Asked why his sister returned to stand-up, Vance DeGeneres, a former correspondent for The Daily Show who helped create the Mr. Bill shorts for Saturday Night Live, said: After doing the show for 16 years, its second nature. She wanted to break out of, not a rut, but a mold. DeGeneres put it another way, emphasizing the kind of expression stand-up allows. I wanted to show all of me, she said. The talk show is me, but Im also playing a character of a talk-show host. Theres a tiny, tiny bit of difference. Because daytime talk shows get less attention than their late-night counterparts, DeGeneres is often overlooked in discussions of important hosts. But make no mistake: No other current daily host has been as successful or celebrated. Among her vast collection of awards are the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and 32 Emmys. And apart from Conan OBrien, no one matches her television longevity (shes been daytime host for as many years as Jon Stewart led The Daily Show) or her influence. Years before Jimmy Fallon turned games into standard elements of The Tonight Show, DeGeneres regularly invited guests to play them. Fallon has become known for these segments, and they have been imitated on other shows, but they all clearly owe DeGeneres a debt. (Last year, she started a hit game show Ellens Game of Games, which returns for a second season in January.) Im flattered that hes taken stuff, DeGeneres told me, adding: He said he was going to steal everything, so its fine. During an October taping of her show, what stood out was the stark contrast between the relaxed, low-key charisma of DeGeneres and the chaotic, charged-up energy of her audience. The crowd is encouraged to stand and dance, but they dont need to be told; they are ready to party, while DeGeneres projects a seemingly paradoxical blend of warmth and reserve, actively engaging, waving at people, listening intently to guests, adding a quip here and there, but never pushing too hard. With the supreme confidence of a professional who has seen it all before, she pingpongs from a monologue of topical jokes to an interview with a chef dying of cancer, from playfully joking with Sean Hayes of Will & Grace to talking to a Tennessee assistant principal whose dance video went viral. Some guests cry. More than one leaves with a big check. DeGeneres is clearly having a good time, but her energy remains steady. She doesnt look like someone going through the motions, ready to retire, nor does she appear particularly challenged. After the show without her makeup on, she still looks a decade younger, her alert blue eyes her most distinguishing feature she sat in an elegantly airy office surrounded by paintings as she analyzed her performance, beat by beat, with the authority of a doctor explaining lab results. In this post-mortem, she said one of her trickiest challenges involved a segment focusing on a 6-year-olds romantic duet of Meant to Be with her dad. After hearing this youngster sing to her father about her broken heart, DeGeneres chuckled off camera, turned away and smothered a smile. In that moment she thought of a joke to use when the song was over: That was adorable and ... and ... and, she said, employing her characteristic stammer, really, really creepy. She knew this would get a big laugh, but would that embarrass the girl? Would she be hurt? DeGeneres held off, concluding this would not suit her show. Its escapism for whats going on, one hour of feeling good, she said. At the core its a comedy show. But if its not funny, at least it feels good. The next morning, DeGeneres, in jeans and a casual white shirt, sat staring at the ocean from her beach house outside Los Angeles in Carpinteria, where you can see dolphins leaping from the water. George Lucas lives two doors over, and Conan OBrien is down the way, as are Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. She has a farm nearby and a place in the city, but she seems to prefer this tranquil spot, where she walks her dogs and chats with neighbors. Its the most community I have ever felt, she said. As her private chef dropped off a drink, she explained that she spent a year struggling to come up with a subject to make comedy about. I used to talk about airplane food, she said, summing up her gentle mainstream style of observational humor. What do I do now? Her breakthrough, she explained, came when she developed a bit about whether she was still relatable, which, considering the extravagant surroundings (she and de Rossi have works by Richard Serra, Tracey Emin and Basquiat), does sound like a joke. But it is a subject DeGeneres understands in a personal, idiosyncratic way. It was interesting to me that I was more relatable when I was closeted and dishonest than when I came out, she said. When she came out of the closet in 1997, the first out lesbian lead of her own sitcom, Ellen, she became a huge star, on the cover of Time, accompanied by the headline Yep, Im Gay. But whats remembered less is what happened next. ABC put a parental advisory warning on the show and canceled it the next season. According to DeGeneres, her straight audience left her and she received wounding criticism from gay viewers for not being political enough. (Elton Johns comment that she should stop talking about her sexuality and be funny still stings.) She sank into a depression. And yet, while DeGeneres has a spikier, more confessional style in her new special, this is more of a recalibration than a reinvention. She still dances and shows videos of adorable animals, even though de Rossi told her it was too much like her talk show. DeGeneres inclusive sensibility remains fundamental to her outlook. Shes too much of an old-school entertainer to pour out her neuroses onstage, as some comics do. Her vision of comedy is old school, too. She said that she loved Nanette by Hannah Gadsby, who stopped by Largo, in Los Angeles, to see DeGeneres work out material for her special, but described Gadsbys celebrated special as less stand-up than solo show. She also disagreed with Gadsbys biting critique of the art form, saying, I think comedy is the best medicine. Before DeGeneres stumbled into stand-up, really honing her craft at a comedy club in New Orleans, near where shes from (Metairie, Louisiana), she had little idea what career she would pursue. In fact, DeGeneres said, in elementary school she didnt think she would live to see adulthood. I just didnt think Id be alive, she said, vaguely. Asked why, she said without a trace of self-pity that she was a very sensitive kid. She remains sensitive, she added, confessing that she stayed up the night before worrying that she had sounded like she was accusing Jimmy Fallon of stealing her show. (She not only raved about him, but also texted me on Thanksgiving wishing me a happy holiday and mentioning she should also have praised James Corden and Seth Meyers along with Jimmy Kimmel. Then, after this article went online, she asked if we could add Stephen Colberts name to that list.) Of the few memories she recalls from her youth, many are of feeling out of place or bottled up, in part because of her upbringing as a Christian Scientist. She recalls the other kids being given shots, but her parents barred her from getting them or taking aspirin. With glassy eyes, she described her father, an insurance salesman who died in January, as kind and cautious, someone who wanted above all else for things to be harmonious. He was a very fearful man, she said. He couldnt hear or engage with anything not pleasant. DeGeneres stays off social media and entirely avoids the news. She finds Donald Trump upsetting and dangerous, so steers clear. I dont want to put that in me, she says. As she spoke, she glanced at her phone on the kitchen counter, made a call and immediately tensed up. What do you mean? she asked urgently. Is anything broken? Baby! She put the phone down and explained that de Rossi had been riding, fell off her horse during a jump and sustained a concussion. She was taken to the hospital and was now heading to the beach house. This is my biggest fear, she said, sounding shaken. Im scared all the time for her. The mood darkened and the interview seemed beside the point. But as she does so smoothly on her show, DeGeneres shifted gears, asking her chef for an iced tea, and explained how her wife had helped her with her new special, attending every performance, giving feedback and appearing onstage. DeGeneres said her wife also had a note about this interview. Portia said: Just remember, the nicer they are, the more they are going to screw you, DeGeneres said, smiling disarmingly. Unsure how to respond, I replied awkwardly: Thats good advice. Then I started feeling self-conscious and several minutes later, asked my least-nice question, about the tabloid stories featuring anonymous complaints that she isnt always kind to those she works with. That bugs me if someone is saying that because its an outright lie, she said. The first day I said: The one thing I want is everyone here to be happy and proud of where they work, and if not, dont work here. No one is going to raise their voice or not be grateful. Thats the rule to this day. DeGeneres said that she stopped reading her press years ago, but that she knows what people say. I hear Portia and I are divorcing every other week or having a baby or whatever, she said, shaking her head. Minutes later, as if on cue, de Rossi entered in full riding gear, cutting a glamorous figure in jodhpurs and dark sunglasses. DeGeneres embraced her and shouted, Baby, stop riding horses! De Rossi seemed unscathed, although her condition would worsen the next day, when she would have trouble concentrating. (Shes doing better, but is still healing.) And as she bantered lovingly with her wife, she seemed charming and at ease, talking effusively about the special. Shes just a bit more complicated than she appears on the show, de Rossi said. Theres more range of emotion. DeGeneres recently took the option to extend her contract until the summer of 2020 although she had been close to declining. On the question of leaving, she changes her mind all the time. Her brother has been an advocate for staying on, making the case that in the age of Trump, the country needs her positive, unifying voice on television every day. She gets mad when my brother tells me I cant stop, DeGeneres said, glancing over at de Rossi to see if shes gone too far. I just think shes such a brilliant actress and stand-up that it doesnt have to be this talk show for her creativity, de Rossi said. There are other things she could tackle. DeGeneres, who has largely done voice work in film, most famously as Dory in Finding Nemo, said she would love to do another movie and play someone unappealing; her wife mentions doing radio or a podcast. I dont see the end of her show as her career ending, de Rossi said. DeGeneres smiled and considered the comment for a second. But she skipped the kindest response and went straight for the laugh: You have a concussion. What do you know? This article originally appeared in The New York Times WASHINGTON - The incoming House Democratic majority has an expanded liberal faction that is already making waves. The Progressive Caucus will grow to nearly 100 members next year, giving it tremendous potential influence. By comparison, the Freedom Caucus, the uber-conservative wing of the Republican Party, successfully blocked bills it didn't like with only about three dozen members. After the 2016 election, when Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., energized a big segment of voters, Democrats began to consider whether they were better off pushing for boldly liberal policies. So, throughout 2018, many Democratic candidates embraced ideas like Medicare-for-all as they rode the wave of backlash to President Trump. Now many of the candidates who did that - they call themselves progressives - are making their way to Washington. How will they shape it? Here's what you should know about them. What role will these liberals play? Will they get along with leadership? The first test of whether the new left flank will get along with leadership came during House Democrats' vote to nominate the next speaker. The progressives supported Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., whereas Freedom Caucus members didn't always back the Republican caucus choice. So far, the moderate Democrats have caused more headaches for leadership. They are most at risk when it comes to getting reelected, so they don't want the party to skew too far left. But the liberals are likely to set the agenda and are unlikely to accept compromises with Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. For instance, Democratic negotiators agreed to appropriate $1.67 billion to fund Trump's border wall (he wants $5 billion), but the progressives are insisting that the Democrats shouldn't give anything. Democratic leaders face a difficult choice: whether to compromise to benefit more-vulnerable lawmakers or follow the party's more liberal direction. Who are the faces of the resurgent left? The most high-profile incoming freshman in this group is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, N.Y. She's the youngest woman ever to be elected to the House, and she gained celebrity with her shocking upset of a longtime incumbent in a Democratic primary. Minority women are the rising stars of the left. Ocasio-Cortez's "squad" includes freshmen Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. They appear to be bonding with incumbent Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Wash., who was just elected co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The 2020 presidential field will be crowded with candidates who consider themselves progressives, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, as well as Sanders, whose last campaign's impact was so great that those who share his views are often referred to as the "Sanders wing" of the party. What do they care about? The left has some big-ticket items they want, like the "New Green Deal," which would create a committee to develop ideas to move the country to 100 percent renewable energy within the next decade, and Medicare-for-all, a universal health system modeled after the Medicare program. Expect the group to push for immigration reform with a path to citizenship and free college tuition. Will they pull their party left as it relates to 2020? Some of the ideas the new liberal faction in Congress puts forward may end up being litmus tests for the couple dozen Democrats eyeing a run for president. They have support from many grass-roots organizations, and they're hoping to tap into them to pressure 2020 candidates to adopt big liberal ideas. Already top Democratic contenders have sworn off donations from Corporate PACs. Now that the media is watching, they will see how far left they can push Democratic leadership. Currently, the party is divided over whether it needs a presidential candidate who pushes a liberal agenda or a more moderate politician who can appeal to voters in the South and the Midwest. On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, members of the University of the Incarnate Word community and local activists gathered at the Chapel of the Incarnate Word to call for an end to gun violence. The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word were founded because people were suffering, Sister Martha Ann Kirk said. And people are suffering from gun violence now. The event was held in conjunction with vigils across the country in partnership with the Newtown Foundation, and it marks six years since 26 people were killed at the Connecticut elementary school. We have stood with candles lit, flags at half-mast, over and over again, said Becca DeFelice, leader of San Antonios chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. We can break the cycle of gun violence, thoughts and prayers and acceptance. We dont have to accept this. DeFelice called on attendees to listen to and learn from communities of color that are disproportionately affected by gun violence and to hold legislators accountable for making laws to keep families safe. Dr. Lillian Liao, an associate professor in trauma and emergency surgery at UT Health San Antonio, called gun violence a public health crisis. Gun control is so polarizing, she said, but the two sides can see eye to eye in conversations about safe gun and ammunition storage and safe gun use, which can reduce violence. Firearm safety is something we can all work towards, Liao said. How in the world can we not even be honest to ourselves in saying that we have a problem? asked Alexandra Brkic, co-director of March for Our Lives San Antonio. Conversations about gun violence often leave out the voices of many affected by it, she said, including victims of domestic violence, people who take their own lives and thousands of people from underrepresented communities who are marginalized and killed by guns each year. No child should be afraid of going to school, said Brkic, a senior at North East Independent School Districts International School of the Americas. Drive-bys should not be a recurring event. She called for thorough background checks and red flag laws to curb violence. Fellow ISA senior Samantha Bergner, who spoke on behalf of the Womens Global Connection, a ministry of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, also spoke about the effects of gun violence on students. She described security policies in the school district, including clear backpacks and monthly active shooter drills. Time spent preparing students for a shooting should be spent on education, she said, not preparing for something that should never be happening. As the vigil ended, lights were dimmed and Sister Kirk called on attendees to make a commitment to working for change. Then attendees lit candles to illuminate the chapel. LTeitz@express-news.net A city councilman who was surprised when he was elected and didnt like the power struggles he saw behind the scenes is leaving before his first term is over. District 2s Cruz Shaw ousted his predecessor in a fiesty 2017 election that he said later he didnt expect to win. He has accepted an appointment to serve as an associate judge handling juvenile cases in 436th District Court. I expect the lessons and skills Ive learned while serving as the District 2 city councilman for the city of San Antonio will serve me very well in my new position, Shaw wrote in the resignation letter he turned in Thursday. Thursdays council meeting was his last; his resignation is effective Jan. 7, and the council doesnt meet again until later in January. OnExpressNews.com: City Council OKs changes to housing incentives that financed pricey downtown condos Asked to make parting remarks at the meeting, Shaw at first declined. Pressed, he finally made a few short comments, thanking his colleagues for their support and praising the city staffers, noting the staff can work with the council to do amazing work when we work together. He counseled his colleagues to put aside egos and false pretenses of titles. Shaw ran against incumbent Alan Warrick, whod made news during the election for passing out on a City Hall park bench after a night of heavy drinking. Shaw said he ran because he wanted to push the then-councilman to be a better representative. I didnt think I was going to win, honestly, Shaw said. I just wanted to show my predecessor (he should) do the work, represent us well. But it didnt work that way I won. Hed said earlier this year that he was going to run for re-election in 2019, but Thursday he acknowledged that he had been looking for his replacement. Im not a career politician, he said. Observers have noted that Shaw had little appetite for the political theatrics that unfold regularly at City Hall or the sausage-making process that often includes lengthy meetings rife with loquacious colleagues. Shaw doesnt make long speeches; Mayor Ron Nirenberg noted Shaw is a man of few words but when he speaks its because he has something to say. Cruz is a no-nonsense leader who will be missed at City Hall. His quick wit and incisive analysis of the issues have been a tremendous asset, Nirenberg said. The mayor said Shaws decision to take the bench is sure to benefit the communitys youths. He now has an opportunity to significantly extend his personal impact by being directly engaged in the justice system as a judge, Nirenberg said. Cruz is a person of unimpeachable ethics and moral character. He is exactly the kind of person who should be presiding in that court. OnExpressNews.com: Retired dentist wants to be San Antonio's next mayor Shaws resignation triggers a council-led process of appointing a successor to fill the East Side seat until the May 4 election. City Clerk Leticia Vacek is expected to post the vacancy this week, sparking a 10-day timeline for interested candidates to submit applications. The council then will whittle the list to as many as three finalists who likely would be interviewed by the full council in a briefing session before a next-day appointment. Shaw is the first councilman to step down since a spate of resignations during the 2013-15 term, including then-Mayor Julian Castro, who went to work as housing secretary for President Barack Obama, and Councilman Diego Bernal, who won a seat in the Texas Legislature. During his tenure, Shaw secured tens of millions of dollars for infrastructure improvements in his district, from streets, sidewalks and drainage to park improvements. As the chairman of the councils Public Safety Committee, Shaw advocated a cite-and-release policy for police officers handling low-level marijuana-possession situations, along with safe-gun initiatives and tighter massage-parlor regulations. Soon after winning the election, Shaw joined with Councilman Roberto Trevino to push for the removal of the century-old Confederate statue in Travis Park. In doing so, he became a target of right-wing groups that fought to keep the monument in place. Such controversy wasnt what bothered Shaw about governance, he indicated. It almost entirely was the political power struggles and infighting he watched unfold before him, though never engulfing him or his office. The judgeship presented itself quickly and he decided taking the job was the best thing for his family, he said. Still, Shaw noted hes not one to quit and said its not easy to leave before he completes his term. This is one of the hardest things Ive had to do, he said. At the end of the public portion of Thursdays meeting, Shaw said goodbye in his trademark casual, frank style. Ill see yall on the other side, he said. Later. And with that, he left the chamber. Robin Jerstad /Photo Correspondent /San Antonio Express News William Cruz Shaw, the District 2 councilman who won his seat last year, is stepping down to accept an associate judge appointment to a state district court in Bexar County. He submitted his letter of resignation to the City Clerk on Thursday. AUSTIN The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday dumped Texass odd attempt to prove in court the constitutionality of a 2017 anti-sanctuary cities law before it went into effect, ruling Attorney General Ken Paxtons case was unconvincing. Paxton filed the lawsuit hours after Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 4 in an attempt to keep critics of the controversial law at bay. Not only did passage of the law draw protests to the state capitol, but Paxton anticipated officials in Austin and San Antonio and other opponents would sue the state, which they later did. A district court found portions of the law unconstitutional, although the 5th Circuit later upheld most of the law on appeal. In recent days, many have sought to contrast President Donald Trump with President George H.W. Bush. But there is one area where Trump is channeling his inner George H.W. Bush and not in a good way. His response to the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate echoes Bushs handling of Chinas crackdown on peaceful democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. We only recently learned how ruthless that Chinese crackdown really was when a secret 1989 cable by Britains then-ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald, was declassified. Student protesters were crushed by armored personnel carriers, which rolled over their bodies repeatedly until their pulverized remains were collected by bulldozer, incinerated and hosed down drains, the document said. Wounded girl students begged for their lives but were bayoneted, Donald wrote. A three-year-old girl was injured, but her mother was shot as she went to her aid, as were six others. One thousand survivors of the initial assault were told they could leave but were then mown down by specially prepared MG (machine gun) positions. The cable ends with this chilling sentence: Minimum estimate of civilian dead 10,000. Chinas murderous brutality put Bush in an impossible position: He had to uphold American values while at the same time preserving a critical relationship with the men who carried out these horrific crimes. It is much the same quandary that Trump has faced in the wake of Khashoggis murder. Like Bush, Trump was faced with an inhuman act of violence that shocked the conscience of the nation. Like Bush, Trump had to impose consequences on the regime while balancing U.S. national interests in a critical part of the world. And like Bush, Trump has handled the situation poorly. Bush was unapologetic about his outreach to Chinese leaders after the massacre in June 1989. What I certainly did not want to do was completely break the relationship we had worked so hard to build since 1972, Bush later wrote. While angry rhetoric might be temporarily satisfying to some, I believed it would deeply hurt our efforts in the long term. At the time, Bush lashed out in his diary at congressional leaders who wanted him to take a harder line, including Rep. Stephen Solarz, D-N.Y., whom he called the kind of guy that was delighted about the overthrow of the Shah, not worrying about what follows on. He sent a cringeworthy letter to Deng Xiaoping, in which he called the Chinese leader his genuine lao pengyou (old friend) and apologized for the punitive measures his administration had taken. Worse, Bush sent national security adviser Brent Scowcroft to Beijing, where he was photographed cordially clinking wine glasses with Chinese leaders at a state banquet. Bush was right that the relationship had to be preserved. The opening to China was critical to peacefully ending the Cold War. But his eagerness to placate Chinese leaders, and his reticence in condemning those who committed such horrific crimes, harmed Americas moral standing in the world. Today, when it comes to Saudi Arabia, Trump is like Bush in an impossible position. The United States must stand for human rights. But it must also preserve its relationship with Saudi Arabia, the only nation in the Middle East that can serve as a bulwark against Iran, the main strategic threat to U.S. interests in the region. Trump has tried to balance these conflicting responsibilities by imposing sanctions on 17 Saudis under the Global Magnitsky Act and declaring Khashoggis murder an unacceptable and horrible crime while refusing to publicly blame Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for ordering it. He has correctly determined that the crown prince is not going anywhere and that a permanent breach with Riyadh is unacceptable. But the unapologetic way in which he has gone about it touting how much we make from Saudi arms purchases while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo castigates critics in Congress and the media for caterwauling has been unseemly. One of the toughest challenges of the presidency is upholding American values while dealing with pro-American tyrants. Few presidents have done it well. In this sense, Trump is no different from his predecessors. We dont know what Trumps back-channel communications with the Saudi leadership have been like perhaps he has been tougher in private than public. But we do know this much: They cant be any worse than Bushs plaintive entreaties to the butchers of Beijing. @marcthiessen Among the rumblings tweeted or not about the recent filings involving the investigation into the president and his campaign, there is this distressful defense: No big deal. It goes like this: Even if Donald Trumps secret payments to two women to keep them silent about his affairs with them could be construed as illegal campaign expenditures, other presidential campaigns have run afoul of campaign finance law and simply paid fines. No big deal. This is poppycock. What the filings in the case of Trump fixer Michael Cohen allege are in an entirely different category than technical violations that involve failing to report contributions properly or in a timely manner. Here, what the prosecutors claim, is that candidate Trump knowingly paid hush money over sexual dalliances to aid his campaign. If so, this is no private transaction. It was very much a deal that should have been public knowledge because the money was paid to pull the wool over voters eyes. It was payment to keep voters from knowledge that would have been accorded them if campaign finance laws were properly followed. Cohen claims there was a willful attempt to keep this information from the public. Translated: Evading campaign finance requirements because to have adhered to them could have been costly to Trump and his campaign, not just to him and his family. One can argue that Trumps philandering and misogyny were well known by then Access Hollywood tapes, anyone? And this is entirely beside the point. There were many previous Trump embarrassments made public mostly, thank you, journalists. But, plain and simple, these hush-money expenditures should have been a matter of public record, disclosed by the Trump campaign. And if the cloaking was, as Cohen claims, directed by Trump or with his knowledge and cooperation, this is illegal and Trump is personally responsible. Transparency is the main point of campaign finance filing requirements, even if these have been weakened by the Supreme Courts Citizens United ruling a some years ago. These laws exist so voters can know what they need to know about a candidate and a campaign. Disclosure is not optional, and it very much matters why the disclosure didnt occur. Was it a mistake? Or was it deception? Tellingly, Trump is not denying the payments were made. Simply, if Cohen is correct, Trump didnt want voters to know about these affairs, including one while his wife was home with a recently born son, because he could have paid a political price. They were, therefore, campaign expenditures. And it doesnt matter if Trumps base or party wouldnt have cared a whit about any of these affairs. It only matters, if the allegations are true, that the law was purposely and with deception aforethought broken. Is this an impeachable offense? This is treacherous territory for the country and for Democrats. It will be better entirely for the new Democratic majority installed in January to wait for a complete report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But the hush money private deals? Not even close. Along with Mueller team disclosures of more contacts between Trump people and Russians than previously known and Trump business dealings with Moscow, this is all quite the opposite. If true, this subverts the transparency that our system of campaign finance disclosure requires and it, therefore, subverts our democracy. If the Cohen allegations are true, this all, of course, goes to the presidents character. But even this is besides the point. Was the law purposely broken for campaign gain? And, if so, what was Trumps role in the deception? Those are the only pertinent questions at the moment. Finding the answers is very much a big deal even if the conduct doesnt ultimately rise to the level of an impeachable offense all on its own. Consider: Trumps own Justice Department now accuses him of felonies. Low cost carrier easyJet has announced its expansion plans for the Croatian market in 2019. It involves the introduction of five new seasonal summer routes and a considerable increase in capacity for next year with over one million seats on sale to and from Croatia. Pula forms the main focus of easyJet's expansion in Croatia in 2019 for a second year in a row, with new flights from Amsterdam and Geneva. Services from Berlin's Tegel Airport and Nantes in France will be added to Dubrovnik, while the budget carrier will also commence operations from London Gatwick to Zadar, complementing its existing services from London Luton, Berlin Schonefeld and Milan. easyJet will see some competition on its new routes. It will face off directly against Croatia Airlines on flights between Amsterdam and Pula, as well as Swiss International Air Lines on services from Geneva to the coastal city. In Dubrovnik, the airline faces direct competition on its new Nantes route from Volotea and TUIfly Belgium and will go head to head against Eurowings on its Berlin Tegel service. The low cost airline will offer flights from a third airport in London to Zadar, with Luton and Stansted already served by Ryanair, Titan Airways and easyJet itself. The buidget carrier will operate over 3.100 flights to Croatia during the peak travel months of July and August next year. Commenting on the airline's new flights to Croatia, easyJets UK Country Manager, Ali Gayward, said, "With more than fifty services operating in Croatia, easyJet is committed to providing Croatian clients with affordable trips, offering them a broad network of connections with major European cities". She added, "Pula is very trendy both with young people who want to go to the various festivals of Croatia, but also with more mature people as well, and we expect all our new routes to be especially popular with passengers". Sophie Dekkers, easyJet's UK Country Director noted, "This announcement of our expansion highlights our commitment to providing affordable routes to summer holiday destinations. Were sure that they will prove extremely popular for those looking for a summer break or visiting friends and family". iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF's stock was trading at $25.60 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EWU shares have increased by 26.3% and is now trading at $32.33. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Ecolab: AO Ecolab, Abednego Environmental Services, Abednego Environmental Services LLC, Abednego Mexico Holdings LLC, Abednego de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Alcide Corp., Anios America S.A., Anios Diffusion SAS, Anios Manufacturing SAS, Bioquell, Bioquell Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Bioquell Global Logistics (Ireland) Ltd., Bioquell Holding SAS, Bioquell Inc., Bioquell Limited, Bioquell SAS, Bioquell Technology (Shenzhen) Ltd., Bioquell Technology Canada Ltd., Bioquell UK Limited, Bioxyquell Limited, CALGON EUROPE LIMITED, CALGON LLC, CID LINES HOLDING NV, CID LINES INVEST NV, CID LINES NV, CID Lines, CID Lines Beijing Animal Hygiene Co Ltd., CID Lines France Sarl, CID Lines Iberica SL, CID Lines LLC, CID Lines Mexico S.A. DE C.V., CID Lines R&D NV, CID Lines Sp. z o. o., CORPAK MedSystems, Cascade Water Services, Champion Technologies, Chamtech L.L.C., Chemlawn, Chemstaff Inc., Chemstar Corporation, Cirlam BVBA, Copal Holding NV, Copal Invest NV, DERYPOL SA, DMD, E&M Bio-Chemicals LLC, ECOLAB NL 10 B.V., ECOLAB PEST FRANCE SAS, Ecolab (Antigua) Ltd., Ecolab (Aruba) N.V., Ecolab (Barbados) Limited, Ecolab (China) Investment Co. Ltd, Ecolab (Fiji) Pty Limited, Ecolab (GZ) Chemicals Limited, Ecolab (Guam) LLC, Ecolab (Proprietary) Limited, Ecolab (Schweiz) GmbH, Ecolab (St. Lucia) Limited, Ecolab (Taicang) Technology Co. Ltd., Ecolab (Trinidad and Tobago) Unlimited, Ecolab (U.K.) Holdings Limited, Ecolab A.E.B.E., Ecolab AB, Ecolab AP Holdings LLC, Ecolab AT 2 GmbH, Ecolab AU2 Pty Ltd, Ecolab Acquisition LLC, Ecolab ApS, Ecolab Argentina S.R.L., Ecolab Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Ecolab B.V., Ecolab B.V.B.A./S.P.R.L., Ecolab Bahrain S.P.C., Ecolab CDN 2 Co., Ecolab CDN 4 ULC, Ecolab CH 1 GmbH, Ecolab CH 2 GmbH, Ecolab CH 3 GmbH, Ecolab CH 5 GmbH, Ecolab CH 6 GmbH, Ecolab Chemicals Limited, Ecolab Co., Ecolab Colombia S. A., Ecolab DE 1 GmbH, Ecolab Deutschland GmbH, Ecolab EOOD, Ecolab East Africa (Kenya) Limited, Ecolab East Africa (Tanzania) Limited, Ecolab East Africa (Uganda) Limited, Ecolab Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Ecolab Engineering GmbH, Ecolab Europe GmbH, Ecolab Export GmbH, Ecolab FR 1 SAS, Ecolab FR 4 SAS, Ecolab Finance Company Designated Activity Company, Ecolab Food Safety & Hygiene Solutions Private Limited, Ecolab G.K., Ecolab Global Business Services LLC, Ecolab GmbH, Ecolab Gulf FZE, Ecolab HK 1 Limited, Ecolab HK 2 Limited, Ecolab Hispano-Portuguesa S.L., Ecolab Holding Italy S.r.l., Ecolab Holdings (Europe) LLC, Ecolab Holdings Inc., Ecolab Holdings Mexico S. de R. L. de C. V., Ecolab Hygiene Kft., Ecolab Hygiene d.o.o., Ecolab Israel Holdings LLC, Ecolab JVZ Limited, Ecolab Korea Ltd., Ecolab LLC, Ecolab LUX & Co Holdings S.C.A., Ecolab LUX 1 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 2 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 4 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 7 Sarl, Ecolab LUX Sarl, Ecolab Limited, Ecolab Ltd., Ecolab Lux 10 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 12 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 13 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 14 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 15 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 9 S.a.r.l., Ecolab Lux Partner LLC, Ecolab MT Holdings LLC, Ecolab MT Limited, Ecolab Malta 1 Limited, Ecolab Malta 2 Limited, Ecolab Malta GPS, Ecolab Manufacturing IE Limited, Ecolab Manufacturing Inc., Ecolab Manufacturing UK Limited, Ecolab Maroc Societe a Responsabilite Limitee, Ecolab NL 11 B.V., Ecolab NL 15 BV, Ecolab NL 16 B.V., Ecolab NL 23 B.V., Ecolab NL 3 BV, Ecolab NL 4 BV, Ecolab Name Holding Limited, Ecolab New Zealand, Ecolab Peru Holdings S.R.L., Ecolab Pest Deutschland GmbH, Ecolab Philippines Inc., Ecolab Production Belgium B.V.B.A., Ecolab Production France SAS, Ecolab Production Italy Srl, Ecolab Production LLC, Ecolab Production Netherlands B.V., Ecolab Production Poland sp. z o.o., Ecolab Pte. Ltd., Ecolab Pty Ltd., Ecolab Quimica Ltda., Ecolab S. de R.L. de C.V., Ecolab S.A., Ecolab S.A. de C.V., Ecolab SAS, Ecolab SIA, Ecolab SNC, Ecolab SRL, Ecolab Sdn Bhd, Ecolab Services Argentina S.R.L., Ecolab Services Poland Sp. z o o, Ecolab Sociedad Anonima, Ecolab Sp. z o o, Ecolab Spain Services S.L.U., Ecolab Temizleme Sistemleri Limited Sirketi, Ecolab U.S. 2 Inc., Ecolab U.S. 6 LLC, Ecolab U.S. 7 LLC, Ecolab US 1 GP, Ecolab USA Inc., Ecolab Viet Nam Company Limited, Ecolab Water Holding LImited, Ecolab a.s., Ecolab d.o.o., Ecolab s.r.l., Ecolab s.r.o., Ecolab y Compania Colectiva de Responsabilidad Limitada, Ecolab-Importacao E. Exportacao Limitada, Ecolabone B.V., Ecolabtwo B.V., Endoclear Equipamentos Medicos Hospitalares Ltda., Enviroflo Engineering Limited, Food Protection Services, GCS Service, Gallay Medical & Scientific Pty Ltd, Gallay Medical & Scientific Pty Ltd., GallayTrac Pty. Ltd., Georgia-Pacific - Paper Chemicals Business, Gibson Chemical Industries, Green Harbour Mainland Holdings Ltd, Guangzhou Green Harbour Environmental Operation Ltd., HYDROSAN LIMITED, Henkel-Ecolab, Hicopla SL, Holchem Laboratories, Huntington Laboratories, Hydenet SAS, INDUSTRIAL) UNIPESSOAL LDA, INTERNATIONAL WATER CONSULTANT B.V., Immobiliare R.E.O.P.A. SRL, Instrunet Hospital SLU, Jianghai Environmental Protection Co., Jianghai Environmental Protection Co. Ltd., KATAYAMA NALCO INC., Kay BVBA, Kay Chemical Company, LHS (UK) Limited, Laboratoires Anios, Laboratoires Anios-Distribution SAS, Les Produits Chimiques ERPAC Inc., Lobster Ink, Lobster Ink Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Lobster International S.A., London & General Packaging Ltd, MALAYSIA SDN. BHD, MANUFACTURING S.R.L., MOBOTEC AB LLC, Master Chemicals OOO, Meratech Rus Group LLC, Microtek Dominicana S.A., Microtek Italy S.R.L., Microtek Medical B.V., Microtek Medical Europe Limited, Microtek Medical Holdings, Microtek Medical Holdings Inc., Microtek Medical Inc., Microtek Medical Malta Holding Limited, Microtek Medical Malta Limited, Midland Research Laboratories, Midland Research Laboratories UK Limited, NALCO (SHANGHAI) TRADING CO. LTD., NALCO AB, NALCO ACQUISITION ONE, NALCO ACQUISITION TWO LIMITED, NALCO AFRICA (PTY.) LTD., NALCO ASIA HOLDING COMPANY PTE. LTD., NALCO BELGIUM BVBA, NALCO CHINA HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO COMPANY OOO, NALCO DANMARK APS, NALCO DE MEXICO S. de R. L. de C.V., NALCO DELAWARE COMPANY, NALCO DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, NALCO DEUTSCHLAND MANUFACTURING GMBH UND CO. KG, NALCO DUTCH HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO EGYPT LTD., NALCO EGYPT TRADING, NALCO ESPANOLA MANUFACTURING S.L.U., NALCO ESPANOLA S.L., NALCO EUROPE B.V., NALCO FINLAND MANUFACTURING OY, NALCO FINLAND OY, NALCO FRANCE, NALCO FRANCE SNC, NALCO GLOBAL HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO GLOBAL HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO HOLDING B.V., NALCO HOLDING COMPANY, NALCO HOLDINGS G.m.b.H., NALCO HOLDINGS UK LIMITED, NALCO HONG KONG LIMITED, NALCO INDUSTRIAL OUTSOURCING COMPANY, NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES, NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (NANJING) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (THAILAND) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES CHILE LIMITADA, NALCO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO INVESTMENTS U.K. LIMITED, NALCO ISRAEL INDUSTRIAL SERVICES LTD, NALCO ITALIANA, NALCO ITALIANA HOLDINGS S.R.L., NALCO ITALIANA SrL, NALCO KOREA LIMITED, NALCO LIMITED, NALCO LUXEMBOURG HOLDINGS SARL, NALCO MANUFACTURING BETEILIGUNGS GMBH, NALCO MANUFACTURING LTD., NALCO NETHERLANDS B.V., NALCO NORTH AFRICA LIMITED, NALCO OSTERREICH Ges m.b.H., NALCO OVERSEAS HOLDING B.V., NALCO PAKISTAN (PRIVATE) LIMITED, NALCO PHILIPPINES INC., NALCO PORTUGUESA (QUIMICA, NALCO PWS INC., NALCO SAUDI CO. LTD., NALCO TAIWAN CO. LTD., NALCO TWO INC., NALCO U.S. HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO UNIVERSAL HOLDINGS BV, NALCO WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO ZAO, NALFLOC LIMITED, NALTECH INC., NANOSPECIALTIES LLC, NLC PROCESS AND WATER SERVICES SARL, Nalco (BN) SDN BHD, Nalco (China) Environmental Solution Co. Ltd., Nalco Anadolu Kimya Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Nalco Canada ULC, Nalco Company LLC, Nalco Contract Operations LLC, Nalco Grundbesitz GmbH & Co. KG, Nalco Gulf Response Corp., Nalco Japan G.K., Nalco Libya, Nalco Middle East FZE, Nalco Polska Sp. z o. o., Nalco Production LLC, Nalco Real Estate GmbH, Nalco Schweiz GmbH, Nalco US 1 LLC, Nalco Wastewater Contract Operations Inc., Nalco Water India Limited, Nalco Water Pretreatment Solutions LLC, Nalco Worldwide Holdings S.a.r.l./B.V., Nigiko, Nuova Farmec S.r.l., Oksa Kimya Sanayi A.S., Oy Ecolab AB, PT Ecolab International Indonesia, PT Ecolab Technologies and Services, Purate business - AkzoNobel, Quantum Technical Services LLC, Quimicas Ecolab S.A. de C.V., Quimiproductos S.A. de C.V, RP Adam Ltd, Research Fumigation Co., Royal Pest Solutions, Shield Holdings Limited, Shield Medicare Limited, Shield Salvage Associates Limited, Soluscope International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Soluscope SAS, Swisher Hygiene, Technical Textile Services Limited, Techtex Holdings Limited, Terminix, Ultrafab, Wabasha Leasing LLC, and vanBaerle Hygiene AG. Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. distributes and sells propane and related equipment and supplies. The company transports propane to propane distribution locations, tanks on customers' premises, or to portable propane tanks delivered to retailers. It conducts its portable tank exchange operations under the Blue Rhino brand name through a network of independent and partnership-owned distribution outlets. The company's propane is primarily used for space heating, water heating, cooking, outdoor cooking using gas grills, crop drying, irrigation, weed control, and other propane fueled appliances; as an engine fuel for combustion engine vehicles and forklifts; and as a heating or energy source in manufacturing and drying processes. It serves residential, industrial/commercial, portable tank exchange, agricultural, wholesale, and other customers in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. As of July 31, 2018, it operated 72 service centers and 859 propane distribution locations. The company is also involved in the sale of refined fuels; provision of common carrier services; and retail sale of propane appliances and related parts and fittings, as well as other retail propane related services and consumer products. Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas. Read More by Sean Fitzpatrick | Suns Correspondent | Thu, Dec 13th 9:43pm EST Devin Booker has been ruled out for Thursday's game versus the Dallas Mavericks due to a left hamstring injury. De'Anthohy Melton will start again in his place. (Kellan Olson on Twitter) Fantasy Impact: Booker is not expected to play the next few games and with the Suns playing so poorly, why rush back their best player. Rumors are the team may look to deal Trevor Ariza, which only bumps his value and Josh Jackson. by Blaine Blontz | Broncos Correspondent | Thu, Dec 13th 6:31pm EST Melvin Gordon is not expected to play Thursday night as he continues to recover from his knee injury. (Omar Ruiz on Twitter) Fantasy Impact: Gordon entered the week with some hope of playing, but he indicated prior to tonight's game he doesn't expect to give it a go. While it's an important game for the Chargers, they certainly don't want to risk their star RB ahead of the playoffs. With Austin Ekeler already ruled out with an injury, Justin Jackson will be the team's primary ball carrier and is a strong RB2 with RB1 upside this week against the Chiefs. LOUDONVILLE, Ohio As landowners in the Ashland-Holmes-Wayne County area await official production results from exploratory wells drilled by Cabot Oil and Gas, attorneys for the landowners say it also makes sense to wait before signing any new lease agreements. A group of approximately 50 area farmers and landowners, many whom are part of the Mohican Basin Landowners Association, met in the basement of a church Dec. 13 for an update on drilling and leasing activity. Houston-based Cabot Oil and Gas has drilled two test wells in the area, with plans for several more, through a sublease agreement with TransCanada, the company that owns many of the old Columbia Gas leases in the area. Seeking signatures Over the past couple years, Cabot has had representatives in the area, seeking signatures from landowners that would amend and ratify existing leases, allowing Cabot to perform horizontal fracturing of wells that go beneath the Utica Shale formation. Cabot insists that because the leases are currently held with TransCanada, that Cabot has the sole right to whatever oil and gas may be extracted. In exchange for signing their lease amendment, they are offering landowners $25 an acre and 12.5 percent production royalties. But attorneys for the landowners say there are many reasons to wait before signing. Cody Smith, with the Emens and Wolper Law Firm of Columbus, and Tom White, of the White Law Office in Millersburg, said each lease is unique to each landowner, and should be made on an individual basis, after all factors are considered. Types of leases According to Smith, some existing leases contain only storage language, which means Cabot may not have mineral production rights for all leases. Smith cautioned against signing the lease now, which he said essentially gives up any opportunity for the landowner to claim production rights later. We agree that this is a business decision for each individual landowner, but were not sure its worth giving up that right to make the claim for just $25 an acre, Smith said. If we wait until the Kamenik (first well) starts producing, then we can see how well it is producing and then that can give you sort of a gauge of what to expect in this area. A spokesperson from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said the company is required to report its production by March 31. Farm and Dairy will publish those results once they become available. White also said it probably makes more sense to wait. He said signing a lease is a often one-shot deal, and it can have ramifications for generations to come. You shoot too soon and youve lost that shot, he said. You only have one chance to do it right. Do it in a way that your grandkids dont end up cursing you. Compensation Landowners not only need to think about monetary compensation but also compensation for potential damages to their property. The Mohican Basin group presented a more landowner-friendly lease to Cabot, which they said Cabot adopted, in part, but there are still concerns with some of the language in the Cabot leases, according to the attorneys. One of the biggest concerns, Smith said, deals with how royalties are calculated, and whether the energy company has the right to charge post-production costs. While it appears that the proposed amendment ratification prohibits an oil and gas company from taking these post-production deductions from a royalty, theres a very strong argument that it doesnt, Smith said. Energy companies have argued that oil and gas is marketable or ready for sale as soon as its brought to the surface, which allows the energy company to charge post-production costs at any point in the process. Forced pooling Landowners at the meeting said theyve been contacted by Cabot representatives multiple times who urge them to sign, in some cases threatening to force pool, or force a unitization of a landowners property, if he or she does not sign. While force pooling is an option, the attorneys said its unlikely to happen at this point in the process, and without the landowner being compensated. An application would have to be filed with the Department of Natural Resources, and the criteria of a forced unit would have to be met. Dont believe everything you hear, White said. Especially when youre talking to somebody who might not have your best interests at heart. Peter Huntress, senior landman for Cabot, was also at the meeting. Huntress said theres no incentive for landowners to wait to sign, because Cabot has the exclusive contract with TransCanada. Theres not a reason to wait, because theres no competition, and on the other side, the amendment is a benefit to the landowner it improves the lease that they currently have. Vertical wells He said TransCanada could drill vertical wells, if producers do not sign the amendment allowing for horizontal drilling, but both companies prefer horizontal drilling because its more efficient and disturbs less ground at the surface. He said landowners have challenged the mineral ownership with Columbia in the past, and failed, and that the long-standing leases are still valid. Columbia (TransCanada) has an exclusive agreement with Cabot for those rights, he said. The amendment and ratification provides more protection for the landowner than the current Columbia lease. They get some benefits in exchange for signing. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Researchers studying ancient corn cobs found at a Native American archeological site have recovered a 1,000-year-old virus, the oldest plant virus ever reported. Only a few RNA viruses had been discovered previously from archaeological samples, the oldest dating from about 750 years ago. The new discovery came as the research team examined ancient plant material from Antelope House, an Ancestral Puebloan ruin in Arizonas Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The Ancestral Puebloans who lived in the canyon planted crops such as maize, beans and squash. During the excavation of Antelope House by the National Park Service in the 1970s, more than two tons of plant refuse, in highly recognizable form, were recovered. Its clear from these remains that maize was a major food source for the inhabitants, said lead researcher Marilyn Roossinck, professor of plant pathology and environmental microbiology, College of Agricultural Sciences, Penn State. The maize remnants recovered at Antelope House consisted of cobs, ears with kernels, individual kernels, husks, leaves, shanks, stem portions and tassels. Using carbon 14 dating, researchers confirmed that the age of the ancient samples was about 1,000 years old. While analyzing cobs, the scientists isolated three nearly complete genomes of a previously unknown virus of the family Chrysoviridae, which infect plants and fungi. The researchers, who report their findings in the January 2019 issue of the Journal of Virology, noted that chrysoviruses are persistent plant viruses that are transmitted from generation to generation through seeds and can remain in their hosts for very long time periods. Persistent viruses typically do not cause disease and rarely are detected. Noteworthy This is the first chrysovirus described from maize, Roossinck noted. When we analyzed modern corn samples, we found the same chrysovirus with only about 3 percent divergence from the ancient samples, she said. Most RNA viruses, with short generation times and error-prone replication, evolve rapidly. However, persistent viruses have very stable genomes. Roossinck said the most interesting aspect of the findings for the team is that the virus has been maintained in corn for so long. That implies that the virus might confer some potential benefit to the plant, but we havent shown that yet, she said. The research team Other members of the research team were Mahtab Peyambaria and Nicholas Stoler, Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Penn State; and Sylvia Warner and Drew Rainer, Noble Research Institute, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Oklahoma. The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Penn State, supported this work. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Nicanor Faeldon on Friday pledged to kill his son if proven guilty of drug charges. In an exclusive interview with CNN Philippines, Faeldon said his 31-year-old son and namesake had no vice as far as he knew. "Hindi nga ho nagsisigarilyo yan (He doesn't even smoke) as far as I'm concerned," Faeldon said. "Baka lang behaved lang sa harap ko (but maybe he's only well-behaved in front of me)." "But ang ina-assure ko sa lahat, if it turns out later on that he's involved, sabi ko 'wag na natin gastusan sa litigation. Magagastusan pa ang gobyerno. Papatayin ko na lang 'yung bata para wala nang mapinsala pa siya," he added. [Translation: "But what I assure you, if it turns out later on that he's involved, as I said let us not spend money for litigation. That would cost the government. I will just kill my son so he does not do any harm."] The BuCor chief also vowed to resign from his post to hunt down his son if the drug charges are proven. "Ako nang ano, buburahin ko na 'yan sa lupa (I will do it. I will erase him from the land)," he pledged. Faeldon said this was how serious he was in eliminating drugs even if it involved his eldest child. "I will not send even one centavo for whatever he needs in his case. I will not send a lawyer. Bahala siya sa buhay niya kasi ang katwiran ko diyan kung wala siyang kasalanan, mare-release siya (he's on his own because if he is innocent, he would be released)," he stressed. Nicanor Jr. and three others were arrested in a drug raid on a house in Naga City Friday morning. The police went inside the house where the younger Faeldon was staying to serve a search warrant for possession of illegal drugs on a certain Russel Lanuzo Bermudo. Seven plastic sachets containing suspected shabu were recovered. READ: BuCor Chief Faeldon's son arrested in Naga drug raid The BuCor chief explained that six months ago, his son asked for permission to study and live with his girlfriend in Naga City. Faeldo said he knew nothing about any involvement of the girlfriend's father in illegal drugs. Faeldon said Nicanor Jr. grew up with his mother. Amid the controversy involving his son, Faeldon said he requested for a leave but Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, who has supervision over the BuCor, said he should do his job. "Of course he is my son but I don't think it can affect my job," Faeldon said. Prior to his BuCor post, Faeldon stepped down as Customs Commissioner in August 2017 amid the controversy over the P6.4-billion drug haul from China that entered the country May of the same year. He was also accused of accepting bribes, a claim he has repeatedly denied. Faeldon on Friday said people should stop saying that the massive shabu shipment "slipped past" him. "Hindi nakalusot, hinabol ko e. Dapat parangalan niyo ko kasi hinabol ko e. (It did not slip past, I went after it. You should commend me because I went after it)," he said. "I owned the responsibility as the [Customs] Commissioner." READ: Despite reassigning sacked officials: Duterte says no second chance for corrupt officials Alan Titchmarsh has urged the British public to support farmers this Christmas or risk losing them forever. In a new video for the Prince's Countryside Fund, the TV Presenter highlights that the British countryside is idyllic, but the realities faced by those living and working in it can be harsh. Titchmarsh, who is an ambassador for the Princes Countryside Fund, says some farmers make less than 10,000 per year. It is vital that we ensure our rural communities and family farms have a secure future, and the Princes Countryside Fund works tirelessly to do exactly that, helping to lift the weight off the shoulders of farmers across the UK, he says. He also speaks to Edward Richardson from regional charity FarmCornwall to find out more about how the Fund supports farming families across the UK. Mr Richardson says FarmCornwall is witnessing an increase in cases of farmers contemplating suicide due to financial uncertainty and pressure. More than one agricultural worker commits suicide a week, according to Farm Safety Foundation, which aims to highlight mental health awareness in the industry. Farmers have also urged the British public to keep their Christmas shopping local to show support for rural and farming businesses. A farming company has been fined 40,000 for breaches of health and safety legislation after an employee sustained severe injuries following a fall from height. Based in Moray, Alan Twatt Potatoes Limited, which turns over more than 1m a year, is a family business with five full-time employees. But Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard how, on 29 November 2017, the company asked an employee to install an electric cable through four barns at a height of approximately 4 metres. A potato box lifted by a forklift was used as a working platform. The worker fell approximately 2.5-3.5 metres and suffered a head injury as well as multiple fractures. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the potato box was inherently unsafe and should not have been used with the forklift truck in any circumstances. Further, the company had failed to follow their own procedures in relation to safe working at height. Alan Twatt (Potatoes) Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 Banff and has been fined 40,000. Speaking after the hearing HSE inspector, Norman Schouten said: This incident could so easily have been avoided by using the correct equipment, such as a scissor lift. A potato box or other makeshift equipment is never a suitable platform for working at height. Cereal production and the area of cereals grown in Scotland have decreased in 2018 due to the severe winter and sustained heatwave in the summer. The final estimates for the 2018 cereal and oilseed rape harvest in Scotland were released this week. Around 420,000 hectares of cereals have been grown this year, three per cent lower than 2017. This drop in area, combined with a nine per cent decrease in yield, led to a 12 per drop in production, to 2.5 million tonnes. This was due to the unfavourable weather conditions experienced in winter 2017, as well as spring and early summer of 2018. It has been particularly bad for barley and wheat crops, which resulted in a number of farmers choosing to whole-crop due to the low yield and quality. Barley decrease The figures, released by Scotlands Chief Statistician, showed that spring barley, Scotlands main cereal crop, experienced a fall in yield of six per cent and production fell by three per cent. Although the area of spring barley increased by three per cent, yields and production were down due to the bad weather during the last year. Winter barley was also affected by the poor weather, with area dropping by a fifth. This, along with a four per cent drop in yield resulted in production decreasing by a 24 per cent. This was the lowest production tonnage since 1993 and the lowest area since records started in 1982. Wheat, oats and OSR Wheat production has decreased, due to area grown decreasing by nine per cent and the yield decreasing by 16 per cent. Oats and oilseed rape also seen reductions in area, yield and production over the last year. Final estimates of the Scottish Cereal and Oilseed Rape Harvest are based on final yield results from the 2018 Cereal Production Survey. These are combined with final crop areas from the 2018 June census to produce production totals. Final estimates were broadly similar to the first estimates published in October 2018. Differences in the first and final estimates are due to the amount of information available when calculating first estimates. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. 2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning -- 4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS. We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover. We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come. Jaya Bachchan & French Minister Jean Yves Le Drian Jaya Bachchan is seen here interacting with the French Minister, Jean Yves Le Drian. According to the French Institute of India's Facebook page the meetings included round table conferences, one-to-one B2B meetings and group meetings to explore, initiate and execute projects and programmes in the areas of filming, media content distribution and joint ventures in cinema and TV programming. Kalki Koechlin Attends Indo-French Meetings Kalki Koechlin attended the meeting held at Sofitel Mumbai BKC. She is seen in formal wear, wearing a dark green pant suit and dark green sandals. We all know that Kalki is of Indo-French heritage and we are sure that she had a lot to contribute to the meetings, the creative and unconventional artist that she is. Kalki has acted in several critically lauded movies such as Dev.D, That Girl in Yellow Boots, Margarita with a Straw and more. Kalki will next appear in Zoya Akhtar's Gully Boy alongside Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. Gully Boy will have its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. Sudhir Mishra At Indo-French Professional Meetings National Award winning director Sudhir Mishra was also present at the meetings. Sudhir Mishra is known for directing and screenwriting for films such as Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Chameli and Inkaar. In 2010, he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres award by the French Government, which is equivalent to knighthood. Jaya Bachchan With Other Delegates The first day of the meetings was said to be full of exchanges, opportunities to discuss practices and possibilities. French and Indian partners discussed one on one, in round tables and were also able to view content available during the upcoming market segment today. Sara Ali Khan's mother Amrita Singh cries BADLY; Here's why| FilmiBeat Sara Ali Khan made her debut in Bollywood this December in Abhishek Kapoor's Kedarnath. Starring alongside Sushant Singh Rajput, she won her audience's hearts and received much praise from critics as well for her portrayal of Mukku, a pleasant, lively and rebellious character. In an interview with DNA, Sara Ali Khan revealed her mum Amrita Singh's reaction to her acting in her debut film. Talking about her mum Amrita Singh's reaction to Kedarnath and Sara's first appearance on the big screen, Sara Ali Khan told DNA, "Mom had heard the narration and she had also seen some rushes. But she still cried in the climax, so that was a big one for me." On a similar note, just a few days back Saif Ali Khan had praised his daughter for her performance in Kedarnath. In an interview with Pinkvilla, he was asked if he was surprised by his daughter's confidence on screen. Said replied, "Yes and no. The thought behind her shot is clear. It's amazing. Way better than what I was." Adding further, the Sacred Games actor said, "I'm so happy for her. This was her choice all the way. She chose this and made it happen. And I thought she was brilliant. A thinking actress who is expressive and inventive in every shot. I see a fantastic future for her." Kedarnath, with a romantic storyline, is set against the backdrop of the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. It presents the story of star-crossed lovers, a Muslim porter and a Hindu pilgrim girl falling in love amidst backlash from their families. Sara Ali Khan and Jhanvi Kapoor are both star kids who have made their debut in Bollywood this year. Sara apparently had always wanted to be an actor. She has definitely shone in her first performance and entry to Bollywood. Further on the work front for Sara, her next movie is Rohit Shetty's Simmba is set to have a Christmas release on Dec 28 this year. Simmba will be an action film with Sara appearing in a love angle again. This time, she will be seen on the screen with Ranveer Singh. Simmba also stars, Ajay Devgn and Sonu Sood. Simmba is the remake of the Telugu film Temper. Aren't we all excited to get a double dose of the lovely Sara with one movie after another? MOST READ: 'Fraud Saiyan' Releases First Song: Remixed Version Of Hit Urmila Track 'Chamma Chamma' 'It Has Not Been Easy To Digest' "I'm so shaken up with what has happened. It has not been easy to digest the whole thing, I flew back from Goa this morning. What happened is so unfortunate." Zareen Is Inconsolable Since Then "The guy (biker) lost his life and my heart goes out to his family. I haven't stopped crying since it happened. The car was not even moving. It was stationary." 'I Feel Really Bad That Someone Lost His Life' "Some months ago, I had a similar accident where a scooterist rammed into my car. Kuch nahi hua usko, but I took him to the police station because he rammed into my car. But in this case, I feel really bad that someone lost his life and I can't imagine what his family must go going through." By the grace of God nothing much happened to me. If you see the car, you will understand how bad the impact." Here's What Exactly Happened "We were waiting to take a turn at a spot between Calangute and Mapusa. It was around 6 pm and we were leaving for Mumbai. I was on this trip with my friends in Goa, they decided to take a flight back to Mumbai , while me and another friend decided to drive back instead. We just started our journey and that's when this terrible accident happened." 'The Car Literally Shook' I didn't get a chance to meet the biker's family. When it happened my friend just got out of the car, picked him up in his arms and we rushed to the hospital. Later, when we were on the way to the police station, we got the news that he was no more. He wasn't wearing a helmet and because of the speed at which he was riding, he rammed into the car and then, must have hit his head on the divider. The car literally shook." 'My Car Was Full Of Blood' "I didn't know what happened, as I was looking in the front direction, and right then, he crashed into our car on the right. My car was full of blood, it was a horrifying sight and I can't get over it. It's all fresh in front of my eyes." Zareen Has A Message For All Bike Riders "I want bikers to ride safely, wear helmets and realise that their families are waiting at home for them. Even in Mumbai, I have seen that they don't wear helmets and are always in a hurry." The dashing and handsome Rana Daggubati is beyond any doubt, one of the biggest and most successful young stars in the Telugu film industry today. The young man enjoys a reasonably good fan following thanks to his macho looks, charismatic personality, cool nature and effective performances. Over the years, he has starred in some of Tollywood's biggest and most popular films and this has made him an integral part of the industry. Now, here is some awesome news for his fans. Today(December 14, 2018) is Rana Daggubati's 34th birthday. And, on this special occasion, the makers of his eagerly-awaited NTR biopic have released a poster of the film. In it, Rana can be seen in a smart and youthful avatar. The Ghazi actor is playing Chandrababu Naidu in the film and he seems to have carried off the look quite well. Earlier while talking about shooting for the NTR biopic, he had said that it was a dream come true for him. "From the time I was a child I was fascinated by NTR, his films and politics, his influence on society and on Telugu as a language. So, getting an opportunity to recreate his life was a big deal for me. My excitement doubled when the first call sheet I received for this film read 'Location: NTR residence, Abids'," he had added. Interestingly, this is a busy time for Rana. Besides the NTR biopic, he also has Haathi Mere Saathi and 1945 in his kitty. We wish him a happy birthday and hope that he has a good year ahead. NTR Biopic: Rana Daggubati Joins The Cast Of The Balakrishna Starrer! Awareness program to expand distribution of Company's updates to retail and institutional investors Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - December 13, 2018) - CardioComm Solutions, Inc. (TSXV: EKG) ("CardioComm" or the "Company"), a global medical provider of consumer heart monitoring and medical electrocardiogram ("ECG") software solutions, announced that it will makes its first issuance of shares under its online marketing and awareness program with AGORA Internet Relations Corp. ("AGORACOM"). The Company initially announced the online marketing and awareness program in its press release dated November 8, 2018. Under this first share issuance, the Company will issue 226,000 common shares of the Company ("Shares"), representing a price of $0.05 per Share, for services valued at $10,000 plus 13% HST that have been provided by AGORACOM to date. The Company also confirmed that it will be issuing an aggregate of a further $40,000 worth of Shares, plus HST, for further services provided. These additional Shares will be issued in $10,000 allotments at the completion of each three month period ending March 10, 2019, June 10, 2019, September 10, 2019 and December 31, 2019. The number of Shares to be issued at the end of each period will be determined by using the closing price of the Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange on the first trading day following each period for which the services were provided by AGORACOM. To learn more about CardioComm's products and for further updates regarding HeartCheck ECG device integrations please visit the Company's websites at www.cardiocommsolutions.com and www.theheartcheck.com. About AGORACOM AGORACOM is the pioneer of online investor relations, online conferences and online marketing / branding services to North American small and mid-cap public companies, with more than 250 companies served. More than just lip service, AGORACOM is the home of more than 808K investors that visited 5.6 million times and read 52.4 million pages of information every year (Average 2008 - 2015). AGORACOM traffic ranks within the top 0.5% of all websites around the world. These traffic results are independently tracked and verified by Google analytics. AGORACOM traffic can be attributed to its strategy of maintaining the cleanest, moderated small-cap discussion as a result of implementing the first ever Investor Controlled Stock Discussion Forums. AGORACOM Founder, George Tsiolis, publishes the leading blog on small & mid cap investor relations. His 50 Small-Cap CEO Lessons are a must read for CEOs looking to increase their education and knowledge about online investor relations. About CardioComm Solutions CardioComm Solutions' patented and proprietary technology is used in products for recording, viewing, analyzing and storing electrocardiograms for diagnosis and management of cardiac patients. Products are sold worldwide through a combination of an external distribution network and a North American-based sales team. CardioComm Solutions has earned the ISO 13485 certification, is HIPAA compliant and holds clearances from the European Union (CE Mark), the USA (FDA) and Canada (Health Canada). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Etienne Grima, Chief Executive Officer 1-877-977-9425 x227 egrima@cardiocommsolutions.com investor.relations@cardiocommsolutions.com Forward-looking statements This release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of CardioComm Solutions and certain of the plans and objectives of CardioComm Solutions with respect to these items. Such statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. By their nature, forward-looking statements and forward-looking information involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. In evaluating these statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this release other than as required by applicable laws, including without limitation, Section 5.8(2) of National Instrument 51-102 (Continuous Disclosure Obligations). 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. BENGALURU, India and TOKYO, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- JV to accelerate business process transformation for enterprises leveraging digital procurement platforms Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced the formation of a joint venture with Hitachi, Ltd., Panasonic Corporation and Pasona Inc., strategically enhancing its presence in Japan. Executing on its strategy to help clients navigate their digital journey, the entity formed by complementary, iconic companies coming together, will accelerate business process transformation leveraging digital procurement platforms for the local and global needs of Japanese corporations. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/633365/Infosys_Logo.jpg ) Infosys will acquire 81% of the shareholding in Hitachi Procurement Service Co., Ltd., Hitachi's fully owned subsidiary that currently handles indirect materials purchasing functions for the Hitachi Group. Hitachi, Panasonic and Pasona will be minority shareholders of the entity. Infosys will bring its global expertise in procurement processes, consulting, analytics and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to the venture. Combined with Hitachi and Panasonic's knowledge of their procurement functions and local teams, and Pasona's human capital and BPM networks in Japan, the entity will provide differentiated, end-to-end, efficient and high value procurement capabilities to corporations. Ravi Kumar, President, Infosys, said, "This joint venture will help Japanese corporations transform their procurement processes using next-generation digital platforms, as we bring together the combined power of deep procurement expertise, technology, global expertise and local skills. We are very excited to partner with the Hitachi group, Panasonic Corporation and Pasona, established conglomerates in this market." Deepak Padaki, Executive Vice President & Head, Corporate Strategy, Infosys, added that, "Japan is a strategic market for Infosys. This transaction is a significant demonstration of our commitment to building a local presence in the region in order to partner with our Japanese clients and accelerate their digital journey." Masashi Murayama, Chief Procurement Officer, Hitachi said, "We are delighted to build this new partnership, combining strengths and unlocking potential of Infosys, Panasonic, and Pasona. The procurement functions role is critical to Hitachi's success, and this partnership will strengthen Hitachi Procurement's global competitiveness with new operating models, and high quality delivery at speed enabled by digital technologies." 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 www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next. About Hitachi Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2016 (ended March 31, 2017) totaled 9,162.2 billion yen ($81.8 billion). The Hitachi Group is a global leader in the Social Innovation Business, and it has approximately 304,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation, Hitachi is providing solutions to customers in a broad range of sectors, including Power / Energy, Industry / Distribution / Water, Urban Development, and Finance / Government & Public / Healthcare. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com. Safe Harbor Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements concerning our future business opportunities and growth prospects. Such forward-looking statements 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, 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 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. MANCHESTER, England, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- - Public transport was the biggest cause of people being late for work (20%). - 16% was caused by "being stuck in traffic" or traffic delays. - A total of 9% of employees "slept in" or "slept through alarm". Employees being punctual and turning up to work on time is a vital part of any business functioning properly. However, sometimes you can't help being late for work. Things happen and disasters strike when we least expect them. The UK's most popular HR software company, BrightHR, logged that was a total of 1,360 employees late throughout the month of November and public transport issues (trains, buses and the tube) was the most used reason for employees reporting to work late. This comes after it has been reported this week that more than one in seven trains were late or delayed, over the last year. The RAC say there's around 16.7 million of us that drive to and from work so it's no surprise to see why "being stuck in traffic" came in second as the most used response for being late with 16%. Surprisingly nearly 10% of BrightHR users logged that their employees had slept in or had slept through their alarm as for why they were late to work. This could due to employees struggling to adjust to morning being darker when the clocks go back or also has the potential to be from staff being burnt out due to not taking their required rest. The city with the highest number of staff being recorded as late was Manchester, as the city's transport was brought to a standstill with delays, cancellations and strikes. It's been reported that nearly a quarter of Manchester's trains were late or cancelled, during the run-up to November and the city's buses were rated as less reliable than previous years. The city with the lowest amount of staff being recorded as late was Bath. With access to major motorways and good transport links, employees from Bath enjoyed little to no disruptions to their commutes to work. Throughout November there were some excuses for being late that flagged up as 'out of the ordinary': - The employee claimed they "needed a long walk". - The employee claimed they "had to go to Primark to get fishnet tights". - The employee claimed they were "fixing their pet snakes heating system". - The employee claimed they "saw a bus driver purposely drive through a puddle to soak him" and had to go home and get changed. Alastair Brown, Chief Technological Officer at BrightHR said: "At BrightHR, we advise employers that prevention is the best tactic when it comes to reducing employee lateness. "Employers should ensure they have implemented an up-to-date policy regarding employee conduct and a procedure for notifying someone when an employee is going to be late. "However, honesty is the best policy when it comes to employees reporting lateness, as lying will reduce trust within the business, as one employer found out when it was logged that an employee said: "he had been stuck in traffic but he walked in with a McDonalds". Editors notes https://www.brighthr.com/sick-leave-and-lateness BrightHR is the UK's most popular HR software and support service. Their cloud-based software offers users single place to record their employees' absences, respond to annual leave requests and make shifts and rotas. Jane Pearson +44(0)161-830-2400 jane.pearson@brighthr.com Election will take place at the next Annual General Meeting David Nish will not stand for re-election Ms. Staiblin is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Alpiq, a leading Swiss energy services provider and electricity producer in Europe, but recently announced that she will step down from this role as per end of 2018. Ms. Staiblin had been proposed for election to the Board in March 2018 but withdrew her candidacy due to conflicts with other corporate commitments that she had at that time. Prior to becoming Alpiq CEO in 2013, Ms. Staiblin worked for 15 years at ABB in both local and global management positions. She is a non-executive director of Rolls-Royce and Georg Fischer. Michel M. Lies, Chairman of the Board at Zurich, said: "Jasmin Staiblin will offer insights based on her wealth of experience and knowledge gained through leadership roles in key industries. She brings a deep understanding of the changing needs of businesses, and the emerging risk landscapes that are of increasing importance especially to our commercial customers. Jasmin Staiblin will be a welcome and valuable complement to our Board, and as such, help Zurich to succeed in its ambition to be a truly customer-led insurer." Mr. Lies also thanked David Nish, a member of the Board since 2016, who will not stand for re-election at the next Annual General Meeting. "On behalf of the board and all shareholders, I would like to thank David for his outstanding service and commitment to Zurich. Thanks to his profound knowledge of the insurance industry and his experience in the UK, he has helped to position Zurich for an exciting future." Subject to the election and re-election of the members of the Board by the shareholders on April 3, 2019, the Board of Directors of Zurich will consist of the following members: Michel M. Lies, Chairman (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/michel-lies) Joan Amble (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/joan-amble) Catherine Bessant (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/catherine-bessant) Dame Alison Carnwath (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/alison-carnwath) Christoph Franz (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/christoph-franz) Jeffrey Hayman (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/jeffrey-hayman) Monica Machler (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/monica-maechler) Kishore Mahbubani (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/kishore-mahbubani) Jasmin Staiblin The invitation to the Annual General Meeting along with the Annual Report 2018 will be published on www.zurich.com (http://www.zurich.com/) on March 8, 2019. Further information More information about Zurich's Corporate Governance structure can be found here (https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance). Media Release Basel, 14 December, 2018 Dufry wins new duty-free concession at Kuwait International Airport's new Terminal 4 Dufry has signed a 5 years contract with Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC) to operate the duty free store in Kuwait airport's newly constructed Terminal 4. Overall retail space of 1,563 sqm will be operated by World Duty Free in partnership with That Al Salasil. The new duty free store is due for completion in Q2 of 2019. The longstanding partnership of Dufry and That Al Salasil is a proven cooperation as it has been successfully operating at Kuwait International Airport for over 12 years, during which both partners have built up a detailed understanding of the customer profile and expectations. The new walkthrough store will be a key retail area in Terminal 4. It will offer a wide assortment of products across the core categories of beauty, confectionery and tobacco. The Beauty area will be a real focal point, with a large area dedicated to fragrance, skincare and cosmetics, including many regional fragrances popular with travelers in the Middle East. In addition to the core categories, the store will also offer electronics, some fashion accessories and gold jewellery. Commenting on the new contract, Andrea Belardini, Dufry Divisional CEO for Eastern Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia said, "I am very happy that we have won this new concession, and thank our partners at Incheon International Airport Corporation and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for the trust given to us to operate at the newly developed Terminal 4. Thanks go as well to our local partners That Al Salasil for their ongoing support and the close and collaborative working relationship we have with them. For Dufry this is an additional step to grow our footprint in the Middle East, which is one of the fastest growing regions of our industry." Mr Abdallah Al Mansour, General Manager of That Al Salasil concludes, "We are both happy and proud to win this concession with Kuwait Airways - the national carrier - and take our partnership forward into 2019. We look forward to strengthening our position with this new milestone and to providing a world class airport retail experience for passengers." For further information please contact: Renzo Radice Rafael Duarte Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Global Investor Relations Phone: +41 61 266 44 19 Phone: +41 61 266 45 77 renzo.radice@dufry.com rafael.duarte@dufry.com Sara Lizi Karen Sharpes Investor Relations Americas & Communications Div. 4 Global Media & Events Phone: +55 21 2157 9901 Phone: +44 0 208 624 4326 sara.lizi@br.dufry.com karen.sharpes@dufry.com Dufry Group - A leading global travel retailer Dufry AG (SIX: DUFN; B3 S.A - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcao: DAGB33) is a leading global travel retailer operating over 2,200 duty-free and duty-paid shops in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations and downtown tourist areas. Dufry employs over 30,000 people. The Company, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, operates in 65 countries in all five continents. Social Responsibility Dufry cares for children and supports social projects from SOS Kinderdorf in Brazil, Cambodia, Mexico, Morocco and Ivory Coast. SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-political and non-demonstrational organization established for orphaned and destitute children all over the world. 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. Lyon, 14 December 2018 - Theranexus, a biopharmaceutical company innovating in the treatment of neurological diseases and pioneer in the development of drug candidates modulating the interaction between neurons and glial cells, today announces the appointment of Jerome Martinez, Chairman of BMI SYSTEM, as an independent director on its Board of Directors. Mr. Martinez is set to replace steping down Ms Celia Hart, representative of the investment fund Amorcage Technologique Investissement SAS - a fund managed by the asset management firm Supernova Invest. His appointment will be subject to ratification at the next shareholder's meeting. Jerome Martinez, Chairman of healthcare software publisher BMI SYSTEM since 2017, boasts more than 30 years' experience managing companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors in France and abroad. Before joining BMI SYSTEM, Jerome Martinez served from 2012 to 2017 as Head of Operations in France for the Japanese pharmaceutical laboratory SANTEN, specialized in ophthalmology and rheumatology. From 2004 to 2011, Martinez was Chairman of the Management Board of the Novagali Pharma laboratory, specializing in ophthalmology, where he was in charge of Novagali Pharma's initial public offering and its eventual sale to SANTEN labs in 2012. Trained as a pharmacist, Jerome Martinez earned a Master of Law in Health Administration from the University of Paris XI, an MBA from HEC Paris, and an MBA from Keio University in Japan. He is also a graduate of the JL Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago and the Agence des Negociateurs (ADN) in Paris. "I would like to thank Amorcage Technologique Investissement and especially Celia Hart for her contribution to shaping Theranexus and its development strategy since its creation in 2013. We are delighted to welcome Jerome Martinez to our Board of Directors. His wide-ranging experience as an executive in successfull pharmaceutical and biotech companies in France and abroad as well as the successful partnerships he forged will prove invaluable in the successful development and enhancement of our portfolio," explains Franck Mouthon, Chairman and CEO of Theranexus. "I would like to thank the Board of Directors for the trust it is placing in me. Theranexus benefits from its groundbreaking technology for the treatment of neurological diseases, for which medical needs remain high. The Theranexus platform's unique development model and the company's diversified portfolio of drug candidates are solid assets to leverage in the biotech world. I am very excited to share my experience with Theranexus as it moves forward into its next phases of growth," concludes Jerome Martinez, Theranexus' new independent director. ABOUT THERANEXUS Theranexus is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that emerged from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 2013. It develops drug candidates for the treatment of nervous system diseases. Theranexus identified the key role played by non-neuronal cells (also known as "glial cells") in the body's response to psychotropic drugs (which target the neurons). The company is a pioneer in the design and development of drug candidates affecting the interaction between neurons and glial cells. The unique, patented technology used by Theranexus is designed to improve the efficacy of psychotropic drugs already approved and on the market, by combining them with a glial cell modulator. This strategy of combining its innovations with registered drugs means Theranexus can significantly reduce development time and costs and considerably increase the chance of its drugs reaching the market. The proprietary, adaptable Theranexus platform can generate different proprietary drug candidates offering high added-value for multiple indications. Theranexus is listed on the Euronext Growth market in Paris (FR0013286259- ALTHX). More information at: www.theranexus.com Contacts THERANEXUS Thierry Lambert Financial and Administrative Director investisseurs@theranexus.fr ACTUS finance & communication Caroline Lesage / Theo Martin Investor Relations +33 (0)1 53 67 36 79 /+33 (0)1 53 67 36 75 theranexus@actus.fr FP2COM Florence Portejoie Media Relations + 33 (0)6 07 76 82 83 fportejoie@fp2com.fr ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-56310-theranexus_pr_jerome_martinez_vdef.pdf DONGGUAN, China, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Dongguan Entrepreneurs Convention 2018 was held in Dongguan from December 13 to 14. More than 1,200 overseas Dongguan businessmen had a grand reunion in their hometown for expanding business cooperation. In recent years, the southern Chinese city has welcomed an increasing number of outstanding global companies and projects as its business environment continues to improve. Dongguan was home to 391,000 private enterprises and 586,900 individual businesses by the end of 2017, with the total registered capital exceeding 18 billion yuan (USD 2.62 billion). The favorable policies and sound business climate have made it possible for the city's private sector to thrive sustainably. In 2017, Dongguan launched the plan of improving both the scale and efficiency of major enterprises. Focusing on the policy, industry, land, capital and talents, Dongguan offers the pilot companies 20 inclusive preferential policies plus a panel of experts to consult with, to ensure these firms multiply their size and economic benefits. "The biennial event provides overseas Dongguan entrepreneurs with an opportunity to grasp a deeper understanding of the city's investment realities and boost business exchanges and cooperation with Dongguan. As the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the strategy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area further unroll, it is stepping up the pace of building a new open economy and rolling out preferential policies to shape a better business climate. Thus, these businessmen are more confident and looking forward to investing in the city," said Yin Hongwei, director of the Convention's executive committee and chairman of World Dongguan Entrepreneurs Federation (WDEF). A signing ceremony was held by the Dongguan Investment Group Co., Ltd. (DIG) and WDEF. These signed projects, including four for industrial investment and seven for financial services, fall into such fields as the emerging intelligent industries development, private equity investment and sci-tech financial services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). At the signing event, investment in industries and in private equity are worth over 27.5 billion yuan (USD 3.99 billion) and 3.5 billion yuan (USD 508.7 million), respectively, and SMEs are granted a credit line worth 20 billion yuan (USD 2.9 billion) for sci-tech financial services. According to Yin, the Western European Dongguan Entrepreneurs Federation was founded in September, during which, representatives from WDEF and DIG attended the Frankfurt-held China (Dongguan)-Germany (Frankfurt) Economic and Trade Cooperation Conference and signed the framework agreements of two cooperative projects in healthcare with famous German corporations. It is expected that the World Dongguan Entrepreneurs Convention 2018 will attract more quality projects. Today, Chinese and overseas businessmen are more inclined to invest in Dongguan, demonstrating marked progress in the city's endeavor to cultivate a business environment that is law-based, internationalized and business-friendly. Beyond that, more benefits are unlocked. This November, Dongguan rolled out a series of measures to ensure private companies enjoy quality development, which is expected to help Dongguan-based private businesses reduce about 30 billion yuan (USD 4.36 billion) in various costs and offer value-added services that are worth 50 billion yuan (USD 7.26 billion) in the coming three years. On top of lowering costs and strengthening capacity, the city is providing more entrepreneurial opportunities and expanding market access on major fronts for those enterprises. It has introduced an array of policies so as to form a system that befits its quality development. All these positive signals are offering Dongguan entrepreneurs more advantages and business opportunities. 14 December, 2018 U.S. Oil & Gas Plc. ("US Oil" or the "Company") Placing of Ordinary Shares U.S. Oil & Gas Plc, ("USOIL" or the "Company"), the oil and gas exploration company with assets in Nevada, is pleased to announce that it has placed with private investors 1,367,566 new ordinary shares of .0001 Euro each (the "Placing Shares") at a placing price of STG .30 per share including a share premium of .3399 Euro on each Placing Share to raise gross proceeds of circa $527,539. Each Placing Share will rank (pari passu) with each ordinary share currently in existence. The proceeds of the placing will be used to provide US Oil with additional working capital, including the funding of drilling operations. Since no commissions are payable, the net proceeds to be received by the Company are circa $527,539. The 1,367,566 Placing Shares will shortly be issued through CREST. Following the placing, the issued share capital of the Company will increase to 62,239,152 ordinary shares of .0001 Euro each. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the Disclosure and Transparency Rules. The following parties have an interest of more than 3% in the shares of the Company: Name No of Shares Percentage holding Brian McDonnell 3,927,940 6.3% FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS The statements in this communication reflect the current thinking of the Board and the Company's present plans. The Company reserves the right to alter plans in the light of developing knowledge and circumstances. Shareholders' attention is drawn to the note below concerning Forward-looking Statements. This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information". Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to: business plans and strategies of US Oil and Gas; operating or technical difficulties in connection with drilling or development activities; availability and costs associated with inputs and labour; drilling and exploration costs; the speculative nature of oil exploration and development; diminishing quantities or quality of reserves; synergies and financial impact of completed acquisitions; the benefits of the acquisitions and the development potential of properties of US Oil and Gas; the future price of oil; supply and demand for oil; the estimation of reserves; the realization of reserve estimates; costs of production and projections of costs; success of exploration activities; capital expenditure programs and the timing and method of financing thereof; the ability of US Oil and Gas to achieve drilling success consistent with management's expectations; net present values of future net revenues from reserves; expected levels of royalty rates, operating costs, general and administrative costs, costs of services and other costs and expenses; expectations regarding the ability to raise capital and to add to reserves through acquisitions, assessments of the value of acquisitions and exploration and development programs; geological, technical, drilling and processing problems; treatment under governmental regulatory regimes and tax laws. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements THE DIRECTORS OF THE COMPANY ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENTS OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT Neither this announcement nor the information contained herein constitutes an offer or solicitation by U.S. Oil and Gas Plc for the purchase or sale of any securities nor does it constitute a solicitation to any person in any jurisdiction where solicitation would be unlawful. For further information contact: Brian McDonnell, Chief Executive Officer +353 (1) 631 9022 About U.S. Oil & Gas: U.S. Oil & Gas plc is an oil and gas exploration company with a strategy to identify and acquire oil and gas assets in the early phase of the upstream life-cycle and mature them. The Company's main asset is in Nye County, Nevada where it holds the entire share capital of US-based company, Major Oil International LLC ("Major Oil"). Major Oil has acquired rights to exploration and development acreage in Hot Creek Valley, Nye County, adjacent to the oil and gas rich Railroad Valley area of Nevada, both of which are part of the Sevier Thrust of central Nevada and western Utah, USA. KANAZAWA, Japan, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent study published in iScience researchers at Kanazawa University describes the role of a molecule, Netrin, in creating borders inside the brain to compartmentalize the functions of the brain. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798599/Slit_Robo_Nitrin.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798597/Glia_Netrin.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798598/Netrin_mutant_brain_IPC_OPC.jpg ) Boundaries between different regions of the brain are essential for the brain to function. Research to-date has shown that molecular machineries located at the cell membrane such as cell adhesion molecules are responsible for regulating the boundary formation. Specifically, Slit and Netrin are diffusible guidance molecules that regulate the attraction and/or repulsion of the cells. Cells that receive Slit or Netrin are repelled from its source. However, it is also known that some cells are attracted to the source of Netrin. Makoto Sato at Kanazawa University and colleagues report in iScience that these diffusible molecules are essential for the boundary formation in fly brains. The visual center of the adult fly brain can stem from two parts of the larval fly brain, the inner proliferation center (IPC) and the outer proliferation center (OPC). Glial cells separate the IPC neurons and OPC neurons (Fig. 1). Keeping the IPC and OPC separated ensures that they give rise to distinct brain regions. Netrin becomes effective when received by the two receptor molecules Fra and Unc5. To examine the effects of Netrin, the researchers used gene editing and inactivated it in the larva visual centers. These flies were found to have the IPC neurons penetrating the OPC, with disrupted distribution of the OPC neurons and glial cells (Fig. 3). The same effects were seen in Fra and Unc5 inactivated flies. Similarly, Slit becomes active when bound to its receptor, Robo. Inactivation of either Slit or Robo resulted in similar boundary defects. The researchers also found that Netrin expressed in the IPC and OPC neurons is received by Fra and Unc5 expressed in the glial cells situated between the IPC and OPC. In contrast, Slit expressed in the glial cells is received by Robo expressed in the IPC and OPC (Fig. 1). These unique findings are important because the guidance molecules are different from molecules that act at cells membranes. However, it is very difficult to imagine how these guidance molecules govern the boundary formation. So, Sato and his team formulated a mathematical model of the functions of Slit and Netrin and demonstrated that these guidance molecules can indeed regulate the formation of boundaries. The exchange of Slit and Netrin with their respective partners, between the neurons and glial cells were simulated. Slit produced by glial cell always repels neurons. However, given that Netrin possesses attractive and repulsive properties, then how does Netrin function? The key idea of their model is that Netrin produced by neurons attracts glial cells when its concentration is low. But it is switched to become repellent when its concentration is high. This model shows that the balance between attraction and repulsion between neurons and glial cells regulates the boundary formation in the different brain regions (Fig. 2). Thus, the report establishes a link between the diffusible guidance molecules and the boundary formation mechanism in multicellular organisms. "Since these signaling pathways are evolutionarily conserved from insects to mammals, their roles in establishing the tissue border may also be conserved across species", the team concludes. An elucidation of these novel pathways paves the way for preventing structural and thereby functional deformities in the brains of higher species, such as humans. Inhibition of cell mixing also aids in keeping toxic cells, such as cancer cells, from invading healthy ones. Background Drosophila: This genus of flies, known as small fruit flies, are commonly found hovering about fruit. Contrary to this pesky attribute, the fruit fly is exceptionally useful in medical science. They make a great model to study the function of different genes, as gene editing is easily achieved in them. Additionally, fruit flies used in the laboratory, share majority of their genes with animals and are thoroughly bred. The life-cycle of the fly includes four distinct stages: the egg, larva, pupae and the adult fly. Glial cells: Cells in the brain do not comprise neurons only. Glial cells are supportive cells found in the brain and adjacent tissues, with functions such as combatting infectious agents, clearing the brain of used up nutrients, providing them with new nutrients and oxygen, and lastly, a function most apposite here, holding neurons in place. Reference Takumi Suzuki, Chuyan Liu, Satoru Kato, Kohei Nishimura, Hiroki Takechi, Tetsuo Yasugi, Rie Takayama, Satoko Hakeda-Suzuki, Takashi Suzuki, and Makoto Sato. Netrin Signaling Defines the Regional Border in the Drosophila Visual Center. iScience, October 26th, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2018.09.021 About Kanazawa University As the leading comprehensive university on the Sea of Japan coast, Kanazawa University has contributed greatly to higher education and academic research in Japan since it was founded in 1949. The University has three colleges and 17 schools offering courses in subjects that include medicine, computer engineering, and humanities. The University is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan in Kanazawa - a city rich in history and culture. The city of Kanazawa has a highly respected intellectual profile since the time of the fiefdom (1598-1867). Kanazawa University is divided into two main campuses: Kakuma and Takaramachi for its approximately 10,200 students including 600 from overseas. Kanazawa University website: http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/ Further information Kanazawa University Kakuma, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-1192, JAPAN E-mail: intl.pr@adm.kanazawa-u.ac.jp Tel: +81(76)264-5963 WHO and Merck must do more to ensure vaccines are available and that healthcare workers are protected throughout the Congo, where the second worst Ebola outbreak in history has killed almost 300 people and has reached a major population center. With the world's second worst Ebola outbreak in history recently spreading to a major city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Merck must do more to ensure all options are on the table to fight the virus, including ensuring vaccines are available to all who need them. Although there have been marked improvements compared to the 2014 outbreak response in West Africa, a more ambitious effort is needed now in the Congo. The WHO has yet to declare the crisis an international emergency, even though it meets its own criteria for what constitutes one. Additionally, Merck Pharmaceuticals only has 300,000 doses of its proven Ebola vaccine on hand-far too little than what is needed now that the virus has reached Butembo, a sprawling urban area home to over 1 million people. WHO's own Deputy Director-General for Emergency Preparedness and Response Dr. Peter Salama voiced his concerns over insufficient quantities of the vaccine just last week. AHF urges the WHO to expedite the approval process for Merck's vaccine and the other vaccine options that have a proven to be effective against Ebola. The costs for these delays are being paid for with valuable lives-lives that can be saved with a more ambitious effort. Merck should also be stockpiling and preparing to expedite enough vaccines should the virus break ring-vaccination containment, which would require vastly more doses than what are currently being used. If cost is an obstacle, Merck should use funds it has allocated for humanitarian relief. Equally important is the safety and security of the healthcare workers operating throughout the country. Armed groups are systematically disrupting efforts to vaccinate and educate the populace, often with fatal consequences. The WHO and UN must protect the men and women working to reach and vaccinate people in remote areas, including by deploying troops, if necessary. "Now is not the time to waver in our response to Ebola, as we have seen the devastation it can cause," said Dr. Penninah Iutung, Africa Bureau Chief for AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "AHF urges the World Health Organization to immediately declare this outbreak an international emergency and bolster vaccine options before it is too late. AHF also implores Merck to make sure enough vaccines are ready for immediate use. There is too much at stake and no worthwhile reason to wait." For more information, please contact AHF Senior Director of Communication Ged Kenslea at gedk@aidshealth.org or (323) 791-5526. About AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over one million people in 43 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005054/en/ Contacts: WASHINGTON John Hassell, National Director of Advocacy, AHF +1.202.774.4854 [cell] John.hassell@aidshealth.org LOS ANGELES Denys Nazarov, Director of Global Policy Communication AHF +1.323.533.9842 mobile denys.nazarov@aidshealth.org Ged Kenslea, Senior Director, Communications, AHF +1.323.791.5526 [cell] +.323.308.1833 [work] gedk@aidshealth.org LONDON and NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Clayton, Dubilier & Rice announced that Gregory Lai has been named a Partner of the Firm. Since joining the Firm in 2007, Mr. Lai has been actively involved in sourcing and evaluating investments across Europe, as well as working with portfolio company management teams on post-acquisition value-building strategies. He has played a leadership role with several of the Firm's investments, including B&M Retail (2013), BUT (2016), Exova (2008), HD Supply (2007), Motor Fuel Group (2015), and Rexel (2005). In recent years, he has contributed to building CD&R's Consumer/Retail franchise, as well as broadening the Firm's coverage in France. Mr. Lai worked in the investment banking division of Citigroup prior to joining CD&R. He subsequently served as an investment professional at Mubadala Development Company before returning to CD&R in 2011. Mr. Lai is a graduate of the ESCP-EAP European School of Management in Paris. "Greg has been a critical member of CD&R's European team for more than a decade and has played important roles on some of our most successful investments," said David Novak, who leads CD&R's European business. "He has built trust-based relationships with corporate and family sellers, management teams, and advisers, which makes him an extremely strong representative of the Firm's core values, culture, and investment strategy." About Clayton, Dubilier & Rice SLENTEX non-combustible thermal insulation for building applications receives CE marking approval NORTHBOROUGH, Massachusetts, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspen Aerogels, Inc. ("Aspen Aerogels") today announced the receipt of a European Technical Assessment (ETA-18/0011) for SLENTEX, the non-combustible, high performance aerogel insulation to be commercialized in partnership with BASF. This European Technical Assessment has been issued pursuant to the Construction Products Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 and will allow a CE mark to be affixed to SLENTEX products. "We are pleased to be authorized to affix the CE mark to SLENTEX on behalf of our partner BASF and to demonstrate the product's adherence to strict European standards. SLENTEX represents the cutting edge of non-combustible thermal insulation. The product's unique combination of a Euro Class A2 reaction to fire performance and a strong 19mW/mK thermal conductivity was a considerable technical challenge that Aspen Aerogels and BASF are proud to have achieved," said Gregg Landes, Vice President, Strategic Development at Aspen Aerogels. "We expect that SLENTEX will be of significant interest to architects, engineers and insurers impacted by, or at risk of, recent or expected regulatory changes requiring the use of non-combustible products in high-rise buildings. SLENTEX can help to ensure that a building's fire and thermal performance can be achieved without trade-offs to safety, space, comfort or design," Mr. Landes continued. "The issuance of the European Technical Assessment is an important milestone for Aspen Aerogels in the building materials industry and in our relationship with BASF. We look forward to continuing to partner with BASF to introduce additional high performance, non-combustible solutions for building and commercial applications," Mr. Landes concluded. About Aspen Aerogels, Inc. Aspen Aerogels is an aerogel technology company that designs, develops and manufactures innovative, high-performance aerogel insulation used primarily in the energy infrastructure and building materials markets where thermal energy efficiency is at a premium and Aspen's products offer unique value. Headquartered in Northborough, Mass., Aspen Aerogels manufactures its Cryogel, Pyrogel and Spaceloft products at its East Providence, R.I. facility. Note: SLENTEX is a registered trademark of BASF SE. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/373154/Aspen_Aerogels_Logo.jpg CHENGDU, China, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 9, local time, Halogaland Bridge in Norway, built by Sichuan Road & Bridge (Group) Co., Ltd. (SRBG), was officially opened to traffic. The bridge is located in the Norwegian northern port city of Narvik, just 200 kilometers north from the Arctic Circle, and is dubbed a "bridge accompanying aurora". As the construction was extremely challenging, Discovery documented the construction of the bridge and called it an unprecedented feat. Four major problems had to be overcome to complete the construction of the bridge and ensure its long-term safety and stability. First, the long span. The bridge over the 300-meter-deep rombaken must have a clear span of nearly 1.6 kilometers. Second, high wind speed. The wind speed in the Arctic Circle can reach 130 kilometers per hour, which places an enormous demand on the ability of the bridge to withstand wind. Third, difference in temperature. A temperature difference of up to 40 degrees will lead to thermal expansion and contraction of the bridge body, causing cracks in the concrete and, in worst-case scenarios, collapse of the bridge floor. Fourth, tight construction schedule. Normally, due to the extreme weather conditions in the Arctic Circle, the annual construction time does not exceed 6 months. To complete the project within the time limit, the workers must race against time. StatensVegvesen Nord Region (SVV), the project owner, had special requirements for the construction environment, the project scale and the steel bridge structure. It not only sought offers from the EU countries, but also looked for main contractors worldwide. The "Northern European Standard" is the most stringent European standard. Even German construction companies, which are famous for strictness, hesitated. The great challenge posed by design and construction placed the Halogaland Bridge Project in the center of international attention after the announcement of the tender. On October 23, 2013, after fierce competition with well-known construction contractors from the United States, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland and other countries, a joint venture made up by Sichuan Road & Bridge (Group) Co., Ltd. (SRBG), affiliated to Sichuan Railway Investment Group from China, and VNG from Serbia, relying on first-class technology and outstanding record performance in bridge construction, won the bidding for the 755-million-kronor (USD 96 million) steel structure contract of the Halogaland Bridge Project to produce all parts -- cables and steel box beams -- and undertake the construction of the project. SRBG, as the first Chinese enterprise to build a long-span bridge in developed European countries, faced many practical problems. The first problem was language barriers. According to Norwegian Law, all bidding documents must be drafted in Norwegian -- a language not in popular demand in China. Translators are extremely scarce. To produce bidding documents in Norwegian, a high price must be paid for translation. What's more, it is extremely difficult to find a talent well versed in both Norwegian and construction terminology. In addition, problems including the harsh construction environment in Norway, the high requirements that the owner imposed on environmental protection and occupational health, the stringent "Northern European Standard" and so on were all successfully addressed by SRBG. The project was officially launched on June 1, 2015. The high efficiency and superior quality that SRBG manifested in the construction of the Halogaland Bridge won the recognition of the Norwegian government. The project manager of the Norwegian Highway Administration commented, "Although Norway and China adopt different standards, the Chinese side is very flexible, good at learning new things and cooperated well with us." The opening of the Halogaland Bridge will not only make it easier for local people in northern Norway to travel, but will also be an important link connecting the west coasts of Norway and Sweden, a shortcut to the E6 highway, and a new landmark in Norway. This is not the end of the story between SRBG and Norway. With the support of the Norwegian government, the group won the bidding for another Norwegian bridge project -- the Batstadtsander Bridge. According to Lu Wei, head of SRBG's Halogaland Bridge Project, said, "When Batstadtsander Bridge called for bidding, the owner of the Halogaland Bridge recommended us on his own initiative. After their visit, they were very satisfied with our construction quality and efficiency and helped us win the bidding for another Norwegian bridge project." In addition to Norway, SRBG has set its footprints all over China, and also conducts business in Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia and other overseas markets. Over several decades, the company has built roads, bridges, and airports in Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen, Uganda and many other countries. In recent years, it has contracted a host of international engineering projects in African countries including Eritrea, Tanzania, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait as well Southeast Asia countries such as Cambodia. Today, infrastructure projects such as Halogaland Bridge that are undertaken by China are scattered across the world. As the China-initiated Belt and Road Initiative progresses, China's engineering companies, such as SRBG, are becoming a global provider of quality infrastructure in the 21st century, and the "Made in China" brand they represent is becoming an iconic strength of China. Findings include stable disease and prolonged time on treatment vs. prior therapy in heavily pretreated metastatic pancreatic and colorectal cancer patients Data supports best-in-class pharmacology for NOX-A12 Regulatory News: NOXXON Pharma N.V. (Euronext Growth Paris: ALNOX) (Paris:ALNOX), a biotechnology company focused on improving cancer treatments by targeting the tumor microenvironment (TME), publishes top-line efficacy data from the second part of its ongoing open label Phase I clinical trial (NCT03168139). The trial in 20 patients is testing NOX-A12 (olaptesed pegol) in combination with Merck Co./MSD's PD-1 inhibitor Keytruda in metastatic, microsatellite stable pancreatic (PaC) and colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Data will be presented at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, December 13-16, 2018. Patients enrolled in the study had a mean number of 3 (PaC) or 5 (CRC) lines of prior treatment. Of the patients who were still alive after three months, as targeted in the inclusion criteria and to allow sufficient time for treatment to have an effect, 70% were still alive at 24 weeks and 50% at 36 weeks. This unexpectedly high number of patients with extended time on study relative to prior therapy and stable disease included mostly patients who progressed rapidly on their prior therapy and whose best response to prior therapy was progressive disease. Five of the patients, representing 25% in the study achieved stable disease according to the RECIST criteria used (22% PaC, 27% CRC). Dr. Jarl Ulf Jungnelius, CMO of NOXXON, said: "Normally when patients move from one line of therapy to the next, we expect they will do less well, however what we saw repeatedly in this study was that patients who progressed very rapidly to their last therapy were able to stay on the NOX-A12/Keytruda combination therapy for longer in fact, up to ten times longer. This combination appears to bend the tumor growth curve downward and could benefit patients even if they do not achieve stable disease." "These results are very encouraging for these two difficult to treat cancers. When we look at the results obtained with only one dose of NOX-A12 per 3-week Keytruda cycle, we believe that NOX-A12 has best-in-class pharmacology. We believe that further studies with NOX-A12 are needed in these indications and we are currently refining the design of the next trials," said Aram Mangasarian, CEO of NOXXON. The study confirmed the mechanism of action of NOX-A12 in these tumor types where both proteomic and immunohistochemical analyses confirmed abundant expression of the CXCL12 chemokine drug target in both tumor types. The extent of neutralization of the target by NOX-A12 correlated with a "hotter" immune response and clear clinical benefit for patients. The poster is available on the NOXXON website. About NOXXON NOXXON's oncology-focused pipeline acts on the tumor microenvironment (TME) and the cancer immunity cycle by breaking the tumor protection barrier, blocking tumor repair and exposing hidden tumor cells. Through neutralizing chemokines in the tumor microenvironment, NOXXON's approach works in combination with other forms of treatment to weaken tumor defenses against the immune system and enable greater therapeutic impact. Building on extensive clinical experience and safety data, the lead program NOX-A12 has delivered top-line data from a Keytruda combination trial in metastatic colorectal and pancreatic cancer patients in 2018 and further studies are being planned in these indications. The company initiated an additional trial with NOX-A12 in brain cancer in combination with radiotherapy, for which an orphan drug status has been granted in the US and EU. The company's second asset, NOX-E36 is a Phase 2 TME asset targeting the innate immune system. NOXXON plans to test NOX-E36 in patients with solid tumors both as a monotherapy and in combination. Further information can be found at: www.noxxon.com Keytruda is a registered trademark of Merck Sharp Dohme Corp. https://www.linkedin.com/company/noxxon-pharma-ag https://twitter.com/noxxon_pharma Disclaimer Certain statements in this communication contain formulations or terms referring to the future or future developments, as well as negations of such formulations or terms, or similar terminology. These are described as forward-looking statements. In addition, all information in this communication regarding planned or future results of business segments, financial indicators, developments of the financial situation or other financial or statistical data contains such forward-looking statements. The company cautions prospective investors not to rely on such forward-looking statements as certain prognoses of actual future events and developments. The company is neither responsible nor liable for updating such information, which only represents the state of affairs on the day of publication. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005162/en/ Contacts: NOXXON Pharma N.V. Aram Mangasarian, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer Tel. +49 (0) 30 726247 0 amangasarian@noxxon.com MC Services AG Raimund Gabriel, Managing Partner Tel. +49 (0) 89 210228 0 noxxon@mc-services.eu Trophic Communications Gretchen Schweitzer or Joanne Tudorica Tel. +49 (0) 89 2388 7730 or +49 176 2103 7191 schweitzer@trophic.eu NewCap Alexia Faure Tel. +33 (0) 1 44 71 98 51 afaure@newcap.fr PORTLAND, Oregon, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Increasing dependence on robotics due to advent of artificial intelligence, growing penetration of smartphones, and declining cost of batteries are expected to propel the growth of the global robotic lawn mower market Allied Market Research recently published a report, "Robotic Lawn Mower Market by Range (Low Range Robotic Lawn Mower, Medium Range Robotic Lawn Mower, and High Range Robotic Lawn Mower), End-User (Residential User, and Commercial User), and Distribution Channel (Retail, and Online): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018-2025." The research offers detailed analysis of the industry dynamics, key investment pockets, major market segments, top investment factors, and the competitive landscape. According to the report, the global robotic lawn mower market accounted for $538 million in 2017 and is estimated to reach $1,437 million by 2025, registering the CAGR of 12.9% through 2025. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg ) Increasing use of robotics due to advances in artificial intelligence and growing penetration of smartphones for controlling lawn mowers drive the growth of the global robotic lawn mower market. However, high installation cost required for the initial setup hampers the market growth. On the contrary, declining cost of batteries and robotic lawn mowers are expected to create lucrative opportunities for the market players in the coming years. Request Sample Report at:https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5117 Medium range robotic lawn mower segment to create lucrative opportunities by 2025 The medium range robotic lawn mower segment held the largest share in 2017, contributing about 47% share in the market, owing to larger area coverage and convenience of machine labor. In addition, the segment is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 14.5% during the forecast period. The other segments analyzed in the report include low range robotic lawn mower and high range robotic lawn mower. Major end users in the market The major end users analyzed in the report, include residential users and commercial users. The residential user segment held the largest market share in 2017, contributing about the three-fourths share of the total revenue, as residential users prioritize on saving time and efforts when it comes to lawn management. However, the commercial user segment is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 14.4% during the study period. For Purchase Enquiry:https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5117 Retail distribution channel to portray highest revenue through 2025 Retail distribution channel held the largest share in 2017, contributing about 75% share of the market, as leading vendors sell their products and accessories through organized retail network to reach maximum number of consumers. However, the online distribution channel segment is expected to portray the fastest CAGR of 16.4% during the study period. Asia-Pacific region to manifest fastest growth through 2025 The Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR of 17.7% during the forecast period, owing to rapid urbanization and rise in construction of new residential properties. However, Europe region dominated the market in terms of revenue, contributing about 40% share of the market. The other regions are analyzed in the report include North America and Latin America, Middle East and Africa (LAMEA). Buy now at:https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/checkout/331228 Major market players The major market players analyzed in the report include DEERE & COMPANY, Hitachi, Ltd, Husqvarna Group, Stiga S.p.A, The Kobi Company, Robert Bosch GmbH, Honda Motor Co., Ltd, Zucchetti Centro Sistemi S.p.a., LG Electronics, and MTD. Access KNOWLEDGE TREE (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) at:https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/knowledgetree Knowledge tree is a cloud-based intelligence platform that offers more than 2,000 selective, off-the-shelf reports on niche markets to enable our clients gain deep insights on the latest trends, dynamic technologies, and emerging application areas. Similar Reports: Robotics Technology Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2014 - 2020 Warehouse Robotics Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017 - 2023 About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Google Cloud recognizes SoftServe's technical proficiency and proven success AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 14, 2018, a leading digital authority and consulting company, announces it achieved the Machine Learning Partner Specialization in the Google Cloud Premier Partner Program . The Partner Specialization affirms SoftServe's expertise and success building customer solutions in the machine learning field using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) technology. The Google Cloud Partner Specialization Program is designed to provide Google Cloud customers with qualified partners that demonstrate technical proficiency in the specialized solution and service areas. Specifically, the Machine Learning Specialization demonstrates SoftServe's expertise in data exploration, preprocessing, model training, model evaluation, model deployment, online prediction, and Google Cloud's pre-trained machine learning APIs. "We teach machines to learn, read, see and understand business data, and make accurate predictions across virtually all industry verticals to solve the 'human' types of problems by digitally mimicking the power of the human brain," said Serge Haziyev, senior vice president for advanced technology at SoftServe. "Our machine learning and cloud computing expertise makes us a solid development partner and go-to-resource for opportunities on Google Cloud. The Machine Learning Partner Specialization validates our success in providing clients with cutting-edge technology solutions that prepare them for the future." SoftServe joined the Google Cloud Partner Program in April 2017 and became a Google Cloud Premier Partner in August 2018, having completed extensive technical training and successfully delivered numerous complex implementations on GCP. To date, SoftServe has 150 GCP professional certifications. St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador--(Newsfile Corp. - December 14, 2018) - Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSXV: SIC) ('Sokoman' or 'the Company') is pleased to announce that it has received additional assay results for diamond drill holes completed on the high-grade Moosehead Project in north-central Newfoundland. The recently received results include outstanding samples from previously announced holes, as well as results (generally rush assays) representing selected intervals from holes in the Eastern Trend (see table below). Drilling operations have been suspended for the holiday period and until all outstanding assays have been received, compiled and interpreted. Drill hole MH-18-39 returned a 5.10 m (core thickness) intercept averaging 124.20 g/t Au, including a 1.10 m* visible gold bearing quartz vein averaging 550.30 g/t Au. This intercept lies 35 m up-dip (above) drill hole MH-18-01 that returned 11.90 m averaging 44.96 g/t Au, including a high-grade vein that averaged 385.85 g/t Au over 1.35 m (true thickness of vein is believed to be 90% of core length). The 5.10 m interval, beginning at a down-hole depth of 79.40 m (50 m vertically), includes two 1.0 m samples above the high-grade vein that averaged 2.89 g/t Au, as well as two 1.0 m samples below the vein which averaged 11.15 g/t Au. Assays are pending for 12.80 metres of core up-hole and 4.50 metres of core down-hole from the reported 5.10 m interval. The high-grade vein included a 0.60 m core length sample that assayed 199.99 g/t Au and a lower, 0.50 m core length sample that assayed 970.69 g/t Au. (*Note: vein true thickness estimated to be 95% of reported thickness) Other Phase 2 program highlights include: Eastern Trend mineralization extended by 34 m up-dip and at least 45 m north and 15 m south of the discovery hole MH-18-01, and remains open; MH-18-34 returned 12.40 m core length grading 2.76 g/t Au including 9.84 g/t Au over a core length of 2.25 m in a 15 m step-out to the south of MH-18-01; Gold mineralization in the Eastern Trend has now been traced to a vertical depth of 230 m and remains open; MH-18-41, drilled 25 m behind historical hole MH-02-34, intersected sulphide bearing quartz vein zones with 4 specks of visible gold and assays are pending; MH-02-34 is 500 m south of Eastern Trend. Timothy Froude, P. Geo., President and CEO, states: "Phase 2 has expanded the footprint of the Eastern Trend with step-outs to the North and South of the Discovery Hole, as well as 35 m up-dip. Assays are pending from two holes drilled up-dip from MH-18-01 and MH-18-17 and shoulder samples from the above noted 5.10 m intercept from MH-18-39. As we have reached the limit of practical drilling from the west side of North Pond, we are currently permitting a Phase of winter drilling from the ice of North Pond to more effectively test the Eastern Trend while also cutting costs." The Phase 2 program consisted of 7,243 metres of core in 35 holes, including 11 holes in the Eastern Trend, 13 holes in the Western Trend, and 11 holes focused on targets up to 1.0 km north and 500 m south of the Eastern and Western Trend areas. A total of 2,148 core samples were cut in the current Phase - 44% of which (approximately 945 samples) remain outstanding. The Company expects to have all results in hand by early January 2019, with drilling to resume shortly thereafter pending receipt of the required permits. The Phase 2 additional 13 holes completed on the Western Trend showed 11 of 13 with quartz veining and associated wallrock sulphide mineralization extending for two to three metres from the veins including 4 holes with visible gold in the quartz veins ranging from 0.50 to 1.5 m in core length. All assays from the Western Trend holes are pending. Phase 2 also saw the discovery of a potentially significant new zone of gold mineralization in MH-10-103, located approximately 1 km to the north of the Eastern Trend and in the general vicinity of a cluster of historical quartz vein boulders that returned assays* ranging from less than 5 ppb Au to a maximum value of 180 g/t Au in rock float samples. The historical float samples occur over a 400 metre strike length and were drill tested by previous operators in 2002. Historical drill hole MH-02-39 reported an eight metre zone of brecciation and veining with maximum assays of 552 ppb Au over 2.3 m* in a broader zone of anomalous gold values. *Values reported are historical in nature and not verified by Sokoman Iron Corp. MH-18-103, collared 30 metres ahead (west) of MH-02-39, intersected the historical brecciated zone, but continued beyond the termination of the 2002 drill hole and intersected a second, more strongly mineralized (3-5% pyrite/sphalerite/boulangerite) vein zone over a 2.40 m core length, similar in appearance to the Western Trend (true thickness is unknown at this time). The interval returned an average grade of 1.01 g/t Au, lower than anticipated, but given the nuggety nature of gold mineralization on the property and that gold mineralization is rarely uniform, additional drilling was completed. Two step-out holes were drilled 25 m to the north and south respectively of MH-18-103 - assays are pending. Sokoman believes that the source of the high-grade float is local. In addition, two holes (MH-18-41 and 42) have been drilled down-dip (25 and 40 m respectively) from historical hole MH-02-34 located 500 m south of the Eastern Trend. MH-02-34 returned a 5.50 m interval (core length from 67.64 m down-hole) averaging 4.15 g/t Au, including 1.05 m averaging 18.31 g/t Au*. MH-18-41 reported 4 specks of visible gold between 91.50 and 93.90 m down-hole and all assays are pending.*Values reported are historical in nature and not verified by Sokoman Iron Corp. Table of Results: Eastern Trend (Holes MH-18-16 to MH-18-20 previously reported) Note: Core length intercepts reported are 50 to 95% of true thickness. Table 1: Table of Results To view an enhanced version of the Table of Results, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6079/41661_table1.jpg QA/QC A total of 2148 samples, including duplicates, blanks and standards, have been submitted to Eastern Analytical Ltd. in Springdale, Newfoundland for gold and ICP analysis. Samples with possible visible gold were submitted for total pulp metallics and gravimetric finish. All other samples were analyzed by standard fire assay methods. Eastern Analytical is an accredited assay lab that conforms to requirements of ISO/IEC 17025. Total pulp metallic analysis is a result of a whole sample being crushed to -10 mesh and pulverized to 95% -150 mesh. The total sample is then weighed and screened 150 mesh. The +150 mesh fraction is fire assayed for Au, and a 30 g subsample of the -150 mesh fraction is fire assayed for Au. A calculated weighted average of total Au in the sample is reported as well. The Company included in the sample stream one blank and one industry approved standard for every twenty samples submitted, as well as random duplicates of selected samples. This is in addition to the in-house standard and duplicate policy of Eastern Analytical. QP This news release has been reviewed and approved by Timothy Froude, P. Geo., a "Qualified Person" under National Instrument 43-101 and President and CEO for Sokoman Iron Corp. Drilling services is being provided by the Diamond Drilling Division of Springdale Forest Resources Inc., a diversified natural resources-focused company based in Springdale, NL. The Company would also like to thank the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for approving the Moosehead Program for 2018 JEA Funding. About Sokoman Iron Corp. Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSX-V: SIC) is a discovery-focused company with projects in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. Sokoman's primary focus is its portfolio of gold projects in Central Newfoundland. The Company also has interests in early-stage gold, base-metal and antimony projects in Newfoundland, as well as a 100% interest in the Iron Horse (Fe/V/REE) project in Western Labrador. To learn more, please contact: Timothy Froude, P. Geo., President & CEO 709-765-1726 tfroude@sokomaniron.com Cathy Hume, Investor Relations 416-868-1079 cathy@chfir.com Website: www.sokomaniron.com Twitter: @SokomanIron Facebook: @SokomanIron Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements: Investors are cautioned that trading in the securities of the Corporation should be considered highly speculative. Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Sokoman Iron Corp. will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect financial results is included in the documents filed from time to time with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities by Sokoman Iron Corp. Map 1: Moosehead Project East Trend To view an enhanced version of Map 1, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6079/41661_3baf691504a78b9a_003full.jpg Map 2: Moosehead Project To view an enhanced version of Map 2, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6079/41661_3baf691504a78b9a_004full.jpg VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / DECEMBER 14, 2018 / ALCHEMIST MINING INC. (CSE: AMS) ("Alchemist" or the "Company") announces that it has closed the first tranche of its non-brokered private placement offering, as previously announced on September 25, 2018 (the "Private Placement") for total gross proceeds of $689,000. The Company has allotted and issued 13,780,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.05 per Unit. Each Unit is comprised of one common share and one transferable share purchase warrant, with each warrant entitling the holder to purchase one additional common share of the Company for a period of up to 12 months at a price of $0.075. In addition, the Company has paid finder's fees of a total of $7,150 and issued 143,000 finder's warrants (the "Finders Warrants"). Each Finders Warrant is exercisable into one common share for a period of up to 12 months at a price of $0.075. The Company will use the proceeds from the Private Placement towards the closing acquisition of a 100% interest in the Oddysee Software Platform and general working capital. The Company anticipates completing the last tranche of the Private Placement in the coming weeks. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD For further info on the Company, please email dgdanski@alchemistmining.com. Dave Gdanski, President Alchemist Mining Inc. (778) 903-7325 Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on assumptions and judgments of management regarding future events or results. Such statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to revise or update such statements. SOURCE: Alchemist Mining Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/530542/Alchemist-Mining-Closes-Financing LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH.PA), the world's leading luxury group and Belmond Ltd. (NYSE: BEL), owners, part-owners or managers of 46 luxury hotel, restaurant, train and river cruise properties, today jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for LVMH to acquire Belmond. LVMH is to acquire Belmond for $25.00 per Class A share in cash. This represents an equity value of $2.6 billion in a transaction with an enterprise value of $3.2 billion. In the twelve months ended September 30, 2018, Belmond recorded total revenues of $572 million and adjusted EBITDA of $140 million. The transaction is expected to complete in the first half of 2019 subject to the approval of Belmond's shareholders and clearance by the relevant competition authorities. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005235/en/ Established over 40 years ago with the acquisition of Hotel Cipriani in Venice, Belmond owns and operates a global collection of exceptional hotel and luxury travel adventures in some of the world's most inspiring and enriching destinations. The company operates in 24 countries with its unique and distinctive portfolio of 46 hotel, rail and river cruise experiences. Belmond's iconic properties include hotels like Hotel Cipriani in Venice, Hotel Splendido in Portofino, Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire, Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg, Maroma Resort Spa in Mexico, Hotel das Cataratas in the Iguassu National Park in Brazil, and Cap Juluca in Anguilla. Legendary trains, such as the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express and Belmond Royal Scotsman and exceptional cruises such as Belmond Afloat in France fleet and Belmond Road to Mandalay, complete a portfolio that offers extraordinary experiences with curated activities and an understated personal service to a globally-diverse, highly refined customer. Through this acquisition, LVMH will significantly increase its presence in the ultimate luxury hotel world. Synonymous with history, heritage and timeless experiences, Belmond has a seasoned management team and is an ideal complement to the Cheval Blanc maisons, renowned for their exceptional service, architecture and unique gastronomy. Roland Hernandez, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Belmond Ltd, commented: "Following a strategic review that attracted broad and deep interest from a wide range of real estate and lodging companies, sovereign wealth institutions and other financial buyers around the world, the Board has concluded that this transaction with LVMH provides compelling and certain value for our shareholders as well as an exciting path forward with a group that appreciates Belmond's irreplaceable assets and strong management team." Roeland Vos, Belmond's President and Chief Executive Officer, said: "Today's announcement is the result of the strong execution of our strategic vision that builds on our pioneering legacy and is an exciting development for all stakeholders, including our employees. We are confident that, as part of LVMH's world-class family of brands, Belmond's ability to deliver timeless, one-of-a-kind luxury experiences will reach new levels." Bernard Arnault, Chairman and Chief Executive Offer of LVMH, added: "Belmond delivers unique experiences to discerning travelers and owns a number of exceptional assets in the most desirable destinations. Its heritage, its innovative services, its excellence in execution and its entrepreneurship resonates well with the values of the Group and is complementary to our own Cheval Blanc maisons and the Bvlgari hotels activities. This acquisition will significantly increase LVMH's presence in the ultimate hospitality world." LVMH LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is represented in Wines and Spirits by a portfolio of brands that includes Moet Chandon, Dom Perignon, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Krug, Ruinart, Mercier, Chateau d'Yquem, Domaine du Clos des Lambrays, Chateau Cheval Blanc, Colgin Cellars, Hennessy, Glenmorangie, Ardbeg, Belvedere, Woodinville, Volcan de Mi Tierra, Chandon, Cloudy Bay, Terrazas de los Andes, Cheval des Andes, Cape Mentelle, Newton, Bodega Numanthia and Ao Yun. Its Fashion and Leather Goods division includes Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior Couture, Celine, Loewe, Kenzo, Givenchy, Thomas Pink, Fendi, Emilio Pucci, Marc Jacobs, Berluti, Nicholas Kirkwood, Loro Piana, RIMOWA and Jean Patou. LVMH is present in the Perfumes and Cosmetics sector with Parfums Christian Dior, Guerlain, Parfums Givenchy, Kenzo Parfums, Perfumes Loewe, Benefit Cosmetics, Make Up For Ever, Acqua di Parma, Fresh, Fenty Beauty by Rihanna and Maison Francis Kurkdjian. LVMH's Watches and Jewelry division comprises Bvlgari, TAG Heuer, Chaumet, Dior Watches, Zenith, Fred and Hublot. LVMH is also active in selective retailing as well as in other activities through DFS, Sephora, Le Bon Marche, La Samaritaine, Groupe Les Echos, Cova, Le Jardin d'Acclimatation, Royal Van Lent and Cheval Blanc hotels. BELMOND LTD Belmond (Belmond.com) is a global collection of exceptional hotel and luxury travel adventures in some of the world's most inspiring and enriching destinations. Established over 40 years ago with the acquisition of Belmond Hotel Cipriani in Venice, its unique and distinctive portfolio now embraces 46 hotel, rail and river cruise experiences, excluding one scheduled for a 2019 opening in London, in many of the world's most celebrated destinations. From city landmarks to intimate resorts, the collection includes Belmond Grand Hotel Europe, St. Petersburg; Belmond Copacabana Palace, Rio de Janeiro; Belmond Maroma Resort Spa, Riviera Maya; and Belmond El Encanto, Santa Barbara. Belmond also encompasses safaris, seven luxury tourist trains, including the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, and two river cruises. Belmond also operates '21' Club, one of New York's most storied restaurants. Further information on the Company can be found at investor.Belmond.com A conference call will take place on Friday 14th December at 3pm (Paris time). Number to call from: -France: +33 1 72 72 74 03 PIN: 61941923# -UK: +44 207 1943 759 PIN: 61941923# -US: +1 646 722 4916 PIN: 61941923# "This document may contain certain forward looking statements which are based on estimations and forecasts. By their nature, these forward looking statements are subject to important risks and uncertainties and factors beyond our control or ability to predict, in particular those described in LVMH's Reference Document which is available on the website (www.lvmh.com). These forward looking statements should not be considered as a guarantee of future performance, the actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by them. The forward looking statements only reflect LVMH's views as of the date of this document, and LVMH does not undertake to revise or update these forward looking statements. The forward looking statements should be used with caution and circumspection and in no event can LVMH and its Management be held responsible for any investment or other decision based upon such statements. The information in this document does not constitute an offer to sell or an invitation to buy shares in LVMH or an invitation or inducement to engage in any other investment activities." View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005235/en/ Contacts: LVMH CONTACTS Analysts and investors Chris Hollis LVMH + 33 1 4413 2122 Media Jean-Charles Treihan LVMH + 33 1 4413 2620 MEDIA CONTACTS France Michel Calzaroni, Olivier Labesse, Hugues Schmitt, Thomas Roborel de Climens DGM Conseil + 33 1 4070 1189 Italy Michele Calcaterra, Matteo Steinbach SEC and Partners + 39 02 6249991 UK Hugh Morrison, Charlotte McMullen Montfort Communications + 44 7921 881 800 US James Fingeroth, Molly Morse, Anntal Silver Kekst CNC + 1 212 521 4800 BELMOND CONTACTS Martin O'Grady EVP CFO + 44 20 3117 1333 Jocelyn Betts Corporate Communications Director +44 20 3117 1362 SARD VERBINNEN CO US International George Sard Robin Weinberg Stephen Pettibone +1 212 687 8080 UK & International Jon Aarons Conrad Harrington +44 20 7467 1050 TEWKESBURY, England, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading Claims Validation Partner I-COG announces the launch of its unique Conversation Management Risk-Identification and Cost-Containment Solution in the US Insurance Market. A solution that has led the way for UK Insurers and saved Millions by swiftly identifying non-genuine insurance claims, I-COG has successfully launched its first partnership with ICORP Investigations Inc in the State of New York. ICORP can now for the first time in US history offer this fast-working, customer-centric highly reliable desktop tool that quickly finds the claims to pay within 72 hours of first notification. This psychologically-based tool was designed by Tara Shelton, the Founder and CEO of I-COG and whose unique background paved the way for her to pioneer on the subject of fraud identification within the Global Financial Market. Tara stated "The US market has for many years been totally focused on Workers Compensation Claims. We saw a huge opportunity, as all first-party claims should also be subject to ethical risk screening to protect all genuine policyholders. Our approach is the only human-factor way to quickly find the claims to pay." She further added "This simple solution does not exist in International Markets, so I am utterly delighted that we can launch such innovation. Now US Insurers can enjoy the rewards of this world-leading solution. We want all continents to have this tool at their fingertips, so any interested parties should reach out to learn more about how it can transform their financial landscapes whilst also improving the journey of all their customers." About I-COG For more than a decade, I-COG has been an ever-evolving trusted partner to UK Insurers wishing to lead the way in risk identification methods. Their clients are standard, mid and high net worth Insurers, Banks and Financial Institutions who only want the best customer service delivery yet need to quickly ring-fence potential risk. I-COG consistently produces leading results, utilising highly trained and experienced handlers and leveraging the best available technology. Please visit www.i-cogservices.com for more information. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798675/I_COG_Logo.jpg ) BETHESDA, Maryland, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwest Biotherapeutics (OTCQB: NWBO) -- ("NW Bio"), a biotechnology company developing DCVax personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, announced that the package transaction involving the Company's UK property, which the Company announced earlier this week, closed today in the UK. The closing included the transaction elements previously announced: The funding of approximately $47.3 million in gross proceeds, in gross proceeds, The lease-back of the 87,000 square foot manufacturing facility and adjacent areas for up to 40 years (in two 20-year terms), on favorable terms, and The retention of the Company's ownership of 17 acres of the property, which the Company believes will have substantial additional value in the future. "We are pleased to finish out the year strongly, with the recent updated interim data from our Phase 3 trial of DCVax-L for Glioblastoma, and with this UK transaction providing a sizeable war chest of non-dilutive funding," commented Linda Powers, CEO of NW Bio. "We believe these accomplishments position us to move forward strongly in the new year on the months of work associated with completion of the Phase 3 trial," Ms. Powers continued. "We are also looking forward to moving forward with Phase 2 trials of DCVax-Direct." About Northwest Biotherapeutics Northwest Biotherapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on developing personalized immunotherapy products designed to treat cancers more effectively than current treatments, without toxicities of the kind associated with chemotherapies, and on a cost-effective basis, in both North America and Europe. The Company has broad platform technologies for DCVax dendritic cell-based vaccines. The Company's lead program is a 331-patient Phase III trial of DCVax-L for newly diagnosed Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). GBM is the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer, and is an "orphan disease." The Company is also pursuing a Phase I/II trial with DCVax-Direct for all types of inoperable solid tumor cancers. It has completed the 40-patient Phase I portion of the trial, and is preparing for Phase II portions. The Company previously conducted a Phase I/II trial with DCVax-L for metastatic ovarian cancer together with the University of Pennsylvania. Disclaimer Statements made in this news release that are not historical facts, including statements concerning future treatment of patients using DCVax and future clinical trials, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "expect," "believe," "intend," "design," "plan," "continue," "may," "will," "anticipate," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. We cannot guarantee that we will achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. Specifically, there are a number of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, such as risks related to the Company's ability to complete its clinical trials on a timely basis, uncertainties about the clinical trial results and data, uncertainties about the timely performance of third parties, risks related to whether the Company's products will demonstrate safety and efficacy, risks related to the Company's ongoing ability to raise additional capital, and other risks included in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") filings. Additional information on the foregoing risk factors and other factors, including Risk Factors, which could affect the Company's results, is included in its SEC filings. Finally, there may be other factors not mentioned above or included in the Company's SEC filings that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or developments, except as required by securities laws. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/783522/NW_Bio_logo_Logo.jpg ECG technology integration across CREO's platform to be launched in 2019 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - December 14, 2018) - CardioComm Solutions, Inc. (TSXV: EKG) ("CardioComm" or the "Company" or "CCS"), a leading global provider of consumer heart monitoring and electrocardiogram ("ECG") acquisition and management software solutions, and Virginia-based connected health provider Creo Wellness, LLC ("CREO") confirm the companies have committed to integrate CardioComm's ECG monitoring service technologies and ECG devices to support the CREO physician network's management of patients and enhance the services offered through the CREO patient engagement platform. CREO developed and supports its home-based, physician-directed patient care software platform to improve the health outcomes of its patients. CREO selected CardioComm as a preferred ECG services solutions provider to enhance its patient care software platform, specifically CardioComm's over-the-counter ("OTC") HeartCheck handheld ECG devices, and its traditional ECG monitoring services, such as Holter, resting 12 lead and 14 day event monitoring. CREO's platform is currently used by many employers, hospital and physician groups who collectively manage up to 300,000 patients each month. CREO estimates that the number of managed patients per month using its platform will triple to 900,000 by 2020. CardioComm will integrate its GEMS Mobile Smartphone app into CREO's existing mobile application and workflow to support the option to record an ECG at any time. All ECG's will be managed through CardioComm's cloud-based GEMS Flex software. All ECGs will be ready by the Company's SMART Monitoring ECG reading service. CREO will be notified of any reviewed ECGs with abnormalities. The ECGs will also be flagged for remote review by the patient's physician based on the severity of the abnormality found. The partnership between CREO and CCS will bring new product offerings to the USA market in early 2019. For CardioComm Solutions, this will generate multiple new revenue streams resulting from the licensing of CardioComm's GEMS cloud and Smart phone app ECG management tools, the purchase of GEMS compatible OTC and Rx ECG devices and a fee-for-use based on CardioComm's SMART Monitoring ECG reading service. CREO will place the devices into their patient care software platform, which will be prescribed through CREO member physicians. Use of these devices will generate revenue through the provision of ECG readings under established USA Current Procedural Terminology ("CPT") codes. CREO will manage all CPT code billings for the ECG services performed. CPT codes are maintained by the American Medical Association to provide information about medical services and procedures among physicians, coders, patients, accreditation organizations and payers. All ECGs will be managed by CardioComm's cloud-based GEMS Flex software where all ECGs will be interpreted by the Company's SMART Monitoring ECG reading service. CREO will be notified of any reviewed ECGs with abnormalities which will be flagged for remote review by the patient's physician in accordance with the severity of the abnormality found. Both companies expect that at least 30% of CREO patients will require ECG monitoring ranging from routine baseline recordings to regular daily monitoring for prolonged periods of time. The first phase of technology integration is expected to be completed in Q1 2019, followed by the full launch of the ECG services across the CREO platform. To learn more about CardioComm's products and for further updates regarding HeartCheck ECG device integrations please visit the Company's websites at www.cardiocommsolutions.com and www.theheartcheck.com. About Creo Wellness, LLC Founded in 2015, Creo Wellness, LLC is a private digital health solutions company that offers healthcare providers a truly connected population health platform that is integrated with their electronic medical record. Creo's solutions offer a hyper-personalized patient centric approach to improved health outcomes, cost reduction and patient engagement. See how we create change at www.creochange.com. On Facebook, Creo Wellness, LLC. On Twitter @creowellness. About CardioComm Solutions CardioComm Solutions' patented and proprietary technology is used in products for recording, viewing, analyzing and storing electrocardiograms for diagnosis and management of cardiac patients. Products are sold worldwide through a combination of an external distribution network and a North American-based sales team. CardioComm Solutions has earned the ISO 13485:2016 certification, is HIPAA compliant and holds clearances from the European Union (CE Mark), the USA (FDA) and Canada (Health Canada). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Etienne Grima, Chief Executive Officer 1-877-977-9425 x227 egrima@cardiocommsolutions.com investor.relations@cardiocommsolutions.com Forward-looking statements This release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of CardioComm Solutions and certain of the plans and objectives of CardioComm Solutions with respect to these items. Such statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. By their nature, forward-looking statements and forward-looking information involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. In evaluating these statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this release other than as required by applicable laws, including without limitation, Section 5.8(2) of National Instrument 51-102 (Continuous Disclosure Obligations). 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. New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - December 14, 2018) - CannabisNewsAudio announces the Audio Press Release (APR) titled "Political Breakthrough Heralds the End of the Prohibition on Hemp," featuring Marijuana Company of America, Inc. (OTCQB: MCOA). To hear the CannabisNewsAudio version, visit: http://cnw.fm/3DVew To read the full editorial, visit: http://cnw.fm/vQ9t8 On both sides of the border, partnering with other companies is helping MCOA maintain a high pace of innovation and expansion. The company is currently looking for opportunities to work with a cannabinoid extraction player in the United States to make the most of its crops. For MCOA, this has meant a move into mainstream advertising. The company's hempSMART subsidiary has partnered with asseenontv.pro to launch a television advertising campaign for its Full Spectrum Pet Drops, a pet well-being product using CBD. About Marijuana Company of America Inc. MCOA is a corporation which participates in: (1) product research and development of legal hemp-based consumer products under the brand name "hempSMART", that targets general health and well-being; (2) an affiliate marketing program to promote and sell its legal hemp-based consumer products containing CBD; (3) leasing of real property to separate business entities engaged in the growth and sale of cannabis in those states and jurisdictions where cannabis has been legalized and properly regulated for medicinal and recreational use; and, (4) the expansion of its business into ancillary areas of the legalized cannabis and hemp industry, as the legalized markets and opportunities in this segment mature and develop. For more information, visit the company's website at www.MarijuanaCompanyofAmerica.com About CannabisNewsWire (CNW) CannabisNewsWire ("CNW") is a specialized information service that (1) aggregates cannabis news, (2) provides CannabisNewsBreaks that quickly updates investors in the space, (3) enhances corporate press releases, (4) helps companies with distribution and optimization of social media, and (5) delivers comprehensive corporate communication solutions. CNW is uniquely positioned in the cannabis market with a strong team of journalists and writers who can help private and public companies reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public through our ever-growing dissemination network of more than 5,000 key syndication outlets. CNW is bringing unparalleled visibility, recognition and content to the cannabis industry. For more information please visit https://www.CannabisNewsWire.com Please see full terms of use and disclaimers on the CannabisNewsWire website applicable to all content provided by CNW, wherever published or re-published: http://CNW.fm/Disclaimer Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain as they are based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should review carefully various risks and uncertainties identified in this release and matters set in the company's SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. CNW Corporate Communications Contact: CannabisNewsWire (CNW) Denver, Colorado www.CannabisNewsWire.com 303.498.7722 Office Editor@CannabisNewsWire.net BEIJING, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / December 14, 2018 / On December 14th, HoloMatic held a launch event in Beijing to unveil a smart automated valet parking solution called HoloParking developed independently in house. It is the first smart parking solution for autonomous driving capable to operate around the clock and under all weather conditions, from vehicle drop-off to pick-up. HoloMatic will join force with partners over the "2020 Plan" to implement the HoloParking technology. Furthermore, HoloMatic announced that it has completed series A financing at tens of millions of USD recently. Dr. Kai Ni, founder of HoloMatic, launches HoloParking HoloMatic is dedicated to delivering an autonomous driving solution based on cutting-edge AI and automotive technologies. It is one of the very few companies in the industry with full-stack autonomous driving R&D capabilities. According to Dr. Kai Ni, founder of HoloMatic, the original intent to start the company is to implement the technology at an earlier date for the consumers to enjoy the benefits of autonomous driving. The newly launched HoloParking will apply the L4 autonomous driving technology in the parking scenario such that people will be freed from the pain of searching for parking spots. Unlike the parking assist systems in the market, HoloParking does not require the vehicle to be driven next to the parking spot. The driver could get off the vehicle at the entrance of parking lot. The vehicle will then finds a parking spot and complete the parking maneuver on its own without human supervision. For pickup, the driver can start the system remotely, and the vehicle will automatically drive from the parking spot to the boarding area. Throughout this process, the driver does not need to enter the parking lot. Dr. Kai Ni believes that the value of the system lies in its ability to save time and efforts for drivers under all environments and at all time. According to Dr. Kai Ni, compared to other parking solutions, HoloParking excels at being able to operate in a wide range of scenarios. Whether it's a surrounding with inadequate lighting, a complex parking lot with mixed people and vehicles, and severe weather conditions, such as heavy rain, snowstorm, strong wind and heavy fog, HoloParking can function as usual, providing users with safe and reliable autonomous parking services. Dr. Kai Ni stated that the autonomous parking system must be smart, robust and implementable. HoloParking realizes its functionalities from a unique combination of infrastructure, vehicle and HD maps. He continued that a common practice in the industry is to take vehicles as the only platform to implement autonomous driving. However, solutions solely relying on the vehicle end at the current stage are not able to satisfy all three requirements - smart, robust, and implementable - at the same time. In the HoloParking system, HoloMatic introduces infrastructure and HD maps. Along with the vehicle end, they form a "three in one" solution. Having the three-end integration, HoloParking is more intelligent in perception, localization and planning. With sufficient layers of redundancy, the HoloParking system achieves a higher degree of robustness to be able to navigate complex road structures, severe weather conditions, and accidents. In addition, with the infrastructure support, the sensors and the computing platform on vehicles can be automotive-grade. During the launch event, HoloMatic demonstrated HoloParking to the audience. In the first demonstration, a staff member initiated the HoloParking service for vehicle drop-off via the mobile phone app about 100 meters away from the parking lot. While the vehicle automatically progressed to its destination, a pedestrian suddenly stepped into the driveway. The vehicle stopped promptly and waited for the pedestrian to be in the safe zone before completing parking. For vehicle pick-up, when the summoned vehicle perceived a parked vehicle in its planned route, it recalculated the route to by-pass the parked vehicle and arrive at the boarding area. In the second demonstration, HoloParking system showcased that its intelligence and reliability under multi-car scenarios - three vehicles with HoloParking functionalities simultaneously received instructions, two for drop-off and one for pick-up. The vehicles successfully completed the entire process, even with a water cart nearby pumping water to imitate downpour in the path. HoloMatic unveiled its plan for system implementation, the "2020 Plan". Dr. Kai Ni held that the commercialization of HoloParking will start with selected key cities and will gradually expand. HoloMatic will collaborate with industry partners, businesses and investors to form a smart parking alliance. Starting from 2019, HoloMatic will be a critical player in the "Last Mile" pilot project with Shanghai International Automobile City. With the Automobile City as the center, the project will radiate over Shanghai Auto Museum and Shanghai Auto-Expo Park. HoloParking will be horning its technology in day-to-day operations. By 2020, HoloParking will support over 20 cities, each with at least 20 parking lots. To this end, HoloMatic will collaborate with Easy Parking, a smart parking solution provider, to scale up the intelligence level of the parking lot infrastructure for HoloParking applications. In terms of sensors, HoloMatic has formed a strategic partnership with Velodyne, a leading global LiDAR supplier. HoloMatic will enter Velodyne's priority purchase program. The two will work along side to reduce the cost for the autonomous driving system. HoloMatic looks to realize an average cost of 2020 CNY for remodeling a single parking spot. Dr. Kai Ni said that for all the plans to be materialized, capital support is indispensable. Recently, HoloMatic completed its series A financing at tens of millions of USD, with Sequoia Capital China as the lead investor. The sum will be used for stepping up the R&D input, extensive testing of HoloPilot (HoloMatic's high-way autonomous driving solution), and implementing the HoloParking solution. pr@holomatic.com SOURCE: HoloMatic View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/530580/HoloMatic-Launches-a-Smart-Automated-Valet-Parking-Solution-HoloParking 14 December 2018 PHSC PLC (the "Company") Director's Dealing PHSC plc, a leading provider of health, safety, hygiene and environmental consultancy services and security solutions to the public and private sectors, announces that Stephen King, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, today sold 100,000 ordinary shares of 10p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares"). The transaction was effected at a price of 10.00p per Ordinary Share. Simultaneously Mr King repurchased 100,000 ordinary shares at a price of 10.05p each into his SIPP account. Following this transaction, Mr King's interest in the Company remains at 3,190,000 Ordinary Shares, representing 21.73% of the issued share capital of the Company. The notification below, made in accordance with the requirements of the EU Market Abuse Regulation, provides further detail in respect of the transaction as described above. 1. Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities/person closely associated a) Name: Stephen King 2. Reason for the notification a) Position/status: PDMR, CEO b) Initial notification/Amendment: Initial notification 3. Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor a) Name: PHSC plc b) LEI: 213800H1B3AR1XRE2674 4. Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted a) Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument: Identification code: Ordinary shares of 10p each GB0 33113456 b) Nature of the transaction: Sale and Repurchase c) Price(s) and volume(s): Price(s) Volume(s) 10.00p 10.05p 100,000 100,000 d) Aggregated information: Aggregated volume: Price: n/a (single transaction in each case) e) Date of the transaction: 2018-12-14 f) Place of the transaction: London Stock Exchange, AIM Market (XLON) For further information please contact: PHSC plc Stephen King 01622 717 700 Stephen.king@phsc.co.uk www.phsc.plc.uk Strand Hanson Limited(Nominated Adviser) 020 7409 3494 Richard Tulloch/Frederick Twist Novum Securities Limited (Broker) 020 7399 9427 Colin Rowbury About PHSC PHSC plc, through its trading subsidiaries Personnel Health & Safety Consultants Ltd, RSA Environmental Health Ltd, QCS International Ltd, Inspection Services (UK) Ltd and Quality Leisure Management Ltd, provides a range of health, safety, hygiene, environmental and quality systems consultancy and training services to organisations across the UK. B2BSG Systems Ltd offer innovative security solutions including tagging, labelling and CCTV. 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"). SpendEdge, a well-known procurement intelligence solution provider, has announced the completion of their latest supply market intelligence engagement for a food industry client. The client is one of the world's foremost organic food manufacturers and suppliers. Based out of a California city, the client generates an annual revenue of over USD 30 billion. With increasing competition and evolving customer preferences in the organic food market, the client realized the need to leverage a supply market intelligence engagement to build a robust and automated procurement approach to enhance integration with the suppliers and manage indirect spend across the supply chain. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005327/en/ Supply market intelligence engagement for a food industry client. (Graphic: Business Wire) As digitization takes the forefront and customer expectations evolve, organic food industry is expected to face unprecedented challenges. Supply market intelligence empowers organizations to keep abreast of the ongoing market disruptions to achieve long-term strategic business goals. Also, the strategic use of supply market intelligence paves way for organizations to confront the ever-increasing procurement and supply chain challenges. Request a free demo and see for yourself why we're the preferred sourcing and procurement partner for leading Fortune 500 companies. According to the procurement experts at SpendEdge, "Supply market intelligence engagement helps enhance productivity and achieve tighter control and compliance across the supply chain." With the help of SpendEdge's supply market intelligence solution, the organic food store achieved- tighter control and compliance across their business units, obtained better visibility on corporate spend across suppliers and subsequently improved their overall capability and productivity. On a broader sense, the client gained a more comprehensive knowledge of the supply market and achieved its goal of supplier diversification to address the increasing importance of emerging markets. This subsequently helped the client cut down direct and indirect costs and altogether helped the organic food store enhance market share, improve ROI, and achieve an annual cost savings of $15 million. To know more about the complete scope of this engagement and the real benefits of supply market intelligence engagement for businesses, request a free proposal SpendEdge's supply market intelligence engagement helped the client to: Enhance integration with their suppliers and manage indirect spend across the supply chain Gain detailed insights into supply and demand fluctuations in the market To know more about the supply market intelligence strategies followed by different firms, Talk to an analyst The supply market intelligence engagement also offered predictive insights on: Conducting a detailed analysis of the supply market and developing a precise commodity profile Gaining in-depth insights into the suppliers' segments and the cost of commodities Read the complete article to know more: https://www.spendedge.com/casestudy/supply-market-intelligence-organic-food Are you interested in purchasing procurement reports? Our subscription platform, SpendEdge Insights, provides ready-to-use procurement market research reports for multiple categories. Now access latest supplier news, innovation landscape, markets insights, supplier tracking, and much more at the click of a button. Start your 7-day FREE trial now About SpendEdge: SpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are the preferred procurement market intelligence partner for 120+ Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence reports and solutions. To know more, https://www.spendedge.com/request-free-proposal View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005327/en/ Contacts: SpendEdge Anirban Choudhury Marketing Manager US: +1 630 984 7340 UK: +44 148 459 9299 https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us BILBAO, Spain, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report details the findings of a major project in which the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) brought together experts and policy-makers from across Europe to examine and discuss alert and sentinel approaches for the early detection of new risks and work-related diseases. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798732/EU_OSHA_Unsplash.jpg ) (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/772617/EU_OSHA_Logo.jpg ) The report 'Alert and sentinel approaches for the identification of work-related diseases in the EU' shows how these systems operate to identify emerging health problems at work, initiate early health interventions and prevention, and support evidence-based policy-making. This project demonstrates how useful alert and sentinel systems are to complement the instruments already used to monitor known occupational diseases as they help detect new work-related diseases. Examples include 'popcorn disease', a serious lung disease in factory workers and heart problems from carbon monoxide exposure at a coffee-processing plant. It also recommends how policy-makers and occupational safety and health (OSH) actors can implement them. The project was designed to encourage information exchange and to promote success stories. EU-OSHA director Christa Sedlatschek emphasises the potential benefits of such systems: "Work-related ill-health and injury is costing the European Union 3.3 % of its GDP (ILO, 2017). That's 476 billion every year that could be saved with the right occupational safety and health systems, policies and practices. We hope that EU-OSHA's project will serve as an inspiration to implement alert and sentinel systems in those countries where they do not already exist." The report identified 75 surveillance systems used in 26 countries. In-depth analysis on 12 of the systems shows the different approaches that can be followed and showcases their strength and versatility. Practical aspects of their implementation and links with prevention and policy-making are described and the report also shows how an alert and sentinel function can be added to an existing monitoring system. For example, SIGNAAL is a sentinel system based on an online reporting service to collect in a practical, quick and easy way suspicions about new relations between ill health and work; the system was developed by Dutch and Belgian experts. The Norwegian Registry of Work-Related Diseases (RAS) is a national registry run by the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority that implements a framework for sentinel health events with a low reporting threshold to make the reporting of suspected work-related cases as easy as possible. The key findings also reflect on the following issues: There is no ideal surveillance system. Several systems are described, each with strong points and disadvantages. Stakeholders should consider the context in which the system will operate, learn from good practice examples and aim to implement approaches that complement those already in place. Some monitoring gaps were identified. Specific groups of work-related diseases, in particular multifactorial and long-latency work-related diseases such as mental illnesses, musculoskeletal disorders and certain cancers, or the potential health effects of new and emerging technologies such as nanotechnologies or advanced robotics, are not currently well monitored. In addition, the focus tends to be on traditional sectors such as agriculture and construction, and should be expanded to incorporate neglected sectors such as the hotel, restaurant and catering sector and growing sectors such as communication and IT services. Important factors in developing these systems include sharing success stories about the contribution of these systems to the identification of new work-related diseases and their prevention. This is vital both to motivate people to report cases and to secure political and financial support. Strengthening collaboration with national OSH bodies, and with public health bodies, is also a key success factor to transfer the systems' findings into policy-making. International cooperation and data sharing between Member States is important to improve alert and sentinel surveillance in the EU. Links: Read the final report and summary 'Alert and sentinel approaches for the identification of work-related diseases in the EU' Visit EU-OSHA's web page on alert and sentinel systems The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work(EU-OSHA) contributes to making Europe a safer, healthier and more productive place to work. The Agency researches, develops, and distributes reliable, balanced, and impartial safety and health information and organises pan-European awareness raising campaigns. Set up by the European Union in 1994 and based in Bilbao, Spain, the Agency brings together representatives from the European Commission, Member State governments, employers' and workers' organisations, as well as leading experts in each of the EU-28 Member States and beyond. Now you can follow us on Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn , YouTube or subscribe to our monthly newsletter OSHmail. You can also register for regular news and information from EU-OSHA via RSS feeds. http://osha.europa.eu Press inquiries news@osha.europa.eu Birgit Muller International press +34-944-358-359 Marta Urrutia Spanish press +34-944-358-357 Brenda O'Brien Brussels Liaison Office +32-2-401-68-59 The Diverse Income Trust plc (the "Company") The Company announces that Ms Lucinda Riches will be retiring as a non-executive Director of the Company with effect from 1 January 2019. Ms Riches has been on the Board since the Company's IPO in 2011 and the Board would like to thank her for her contribution and commitment to the Company over seven years of service. The Board is pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew Bell and Caroline Kemsley-Pein as non-executive Directors of the Company with effect from 1 January 2019. Mr Bell has a depth of experience both as a non-executive director and chairman of investment trusts and is currently a director and the CEO of Witan Investment Trust plc. Prior to this, his experience includes positions at Barclays de Zoete Wedd and Credit Suisse First Boston, and Carr Sheppards Crosthwaite where he spent 10 years as head of research & strategy. Mr Bell was previously a non-executive director of Henderson High Income Trust plc, Framlington Innovative Growth Trust plc, where he also chaired the audit committee for a period, and Gabelli Value Plus+ Trust plc, where he was chairman from its launch in 2015 to 2018. Mr Bell was also a director of The Association of Investment Companies from 2005 to 2015 and held the position of chairman for the last two years of his appointment. Ms Kemsley-Pein is a qualified solicitor and has been advising corporate clients for a number of years. She is principal and sole owner of Kemsley & Company, a specialist corporate and commercial solicitors' practice. Throughout her career, Ms Kemsley-Pein has gained experience in mergers, acquisitions and disposals of companies and businesses within the UK market, shareholder and joint venture arrangements, corporate restructuring and complex contractual arrangements. There are no other details or disclosures required under LR 9.6.13R of the Financial Conduct Authority's Listing Rules. 14 December 2018 AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of "a-" of Humboldt Re Limited(Humboldt Re) (Guernsey). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) remains stable. The ratings reflect Humboldt Re's balance sheet strength, which is categorised as strongest by AM Best, as well as its adequate operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM) framework. Humboldt Re's balance sheet strength is underpinned by its risk-adjusted capitalization being at the strongest level, a flexible retrocession programme, which minimizes counterparty credit risk, and a relatively conservative investment profile. AM Best expects prospective balance sheet strength to remain at the strongest level as Humboldt Re expands its portfolio. Humboldt Re is a privately owned entity based in Guernsey that provides mainly short-tail property and specialty lines reinsurance. Since it started operating at the end of 2015, the company has derived all of its business solely using the origination capabilities of Credit Suisse's Insurance-Linked Strategies team, a leading insurance-linked securities hedge fund, which has approximately USD 9 billion of assets under management. During 2018, the company is projected to underwrite a globally diversified insurance portfolio producing more than USD 240 million of gross written premiums, with a heavy bias toward catastrophe-exposed business lines. The company is anticipated to report a technical and operating loss for the year, driven by catastrophe losses in North America and Japan during the second half of the year. As a result, AM Best expects Humboldt Re's combined ratio for 2018 to be in excess of 105%. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Understanding Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper media use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best press releases, please view Guide for Media Proper Use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best Rating Action Press Releases AM Best is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright 2018 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005377/en/ Contacts: Rishwinder Grewal Financial Analyst +44 20 7397 0321 rishwinder.grewal@ambest.com Salman Siddiqui Associate Director, Analytics +44 20 7397 0331 salman.siddiqui@ambest.com Christopher Sharkey Manager, Public Relations +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159 christopher.sharkey@ambest.com Jim Peavy Director, Public Relations +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5644 james.peavy@ambest.com Outcome of EU-wide Transparency Exercise ABN AMRO notes the announcements made by the European Banking Authority regarding the information of the 2018 EU-wide Transparency Exercise. The data set includes data on the capital position, risk exposure amounts, sovereign exposures and asset quality. The outcome of the exercise related to ABN AMRO can be found on the EBA website (https://eba.europa.eu/risk-analysis-and-data/eu-wide-transparency-exercise/2018). Background 2018 EU-wide Transparency Exercise This disclosure provides the public with a tool to access data on the EU banking system and includes over 900,000 data points on about 130 EU banks. The Transparency Exercise is an important component of the EBA's responsibility to monitor risks and vulnerabilities and foster market discipline. The Transparency Exercise is exclusively based on supervisory reporting data. The templates were centrally compiled by the EBA and sent afterwards for verification by banks and supervisors. ABN AMRO Press Relations ABN AMRO Investor Relations Jarco de Swart, senior press officer Ruud Jaegers, Deputy Head Investor Relations pressrelations@nl.abnamro.com (mailto:pressrelations@nl.abnamro.com) investorrelations@nl.abnamro.com (mailto:investorrelations@nl.abnamro.com) +31 20 6288900 +31 20 6282282 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: ABN AMRO via Globenewswire FURTH, Germany, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Catalogue from art therapy for young people Onlineprinters has continued its support of Refugio, a non-profit counselling and treatment centre for traumatised refugees, by donating EUR 5,000 this year. Along with the donation, Onlineprinters printed exhibition catalogues of project pictures made in art therapy class. The catalogue highlights the healing effect of art to process traumatic experiences. This makes the catalogue a valuable tool for Refugio to support their public relations and as a gift to donors and sponsors. The centre offers various services to help young refugees find their way back to a normal life after suffering traumatic experiences. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798770/Onlineprinters_Refugio.jpg ) "On the move" exhibition catalogue The art workshop of Refugio exhibits pictures from refugee children about being on the move and has issued an accompanying exhibition catalogue. Margit Papamokos, who founded the art workshop 25 years ago, emphasises the importance of artistic expression: "Art is a very effective means to communicate with children and adolescents who fled their home, non-verbally at first allowing language barriers to be overcome." In the next step, they talk about the pictures which promotes language. Throughout the artistic process, the children have an experienced art therapist of the association at their side. Migration resolution signed The online print shop has been supporting Refugio for several years now. "Onlineprinters employs people from more than 20 nations including refugees. Refugio makes an important contribution to integrating them. And companies such as ours benefit from these efforts as well," points out Michael Fries, the CEO of Onlineprinters. Back in November, Onlineprinters signed a resolution calling for politicians to step up their efforts to integrate refugees. The adhesive bound exhibition catalogue has 76 pages. 800 copies were printed on FSC certified paper. It can be requested via press@onlineprinter.com free of charge. The greenhouses gases generated during production were compensated for within the scope of our carbon neutral printing programme. About the company The Onlineprinters group is one of Europe's leading online printers. The company employs a staff of more than 1,400 and produced 3 billion+ printed advertising products last year. More than 1,500 print products including business cards, letterheads, flyers, catalogues, brochures, large-format advertising systems and more are sold to a million customers in 30 European countries through 18 web shops. British market leader Solopress and LaserTryk, the Scandinavian number one, are members of the Onlineprinters Group. The video "A look behind the scenes of Onlineprinters": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im8eJN8jbwg Press contact: Onlineprinters GmbH Patrick Piecha Head of Press & Public Relations press@onlineprinters.com Phone: +49 9161 6209807 Mobile: +49 174 30 77 250 LONDON, December 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Catalogue from art therapy for young people Onlineprinters has continued its support of Refugio, a non-profit counselling and treatment centre for traumatised refugees, by donating EUR 5,000 this year. Along with the donation, Onlineprinters printed exhibition catalogues of project pictures made in art therapy class. The catalogue highlights the healing effect of art to process traumatic experiences. This makes the catalogue a valuable tool for Refugio to support their public relations and as a gift to donors and sponsors. The centre offers various services to help young refugees find their way back to a normal life after suffering traumatic experiences. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798770/Onlineprinters_Refugio.jpg ) "On the move" exhibition catalogue The art workshop of Refugio exhibits pictures from refugee children about being on the move and has issued an accompanying exhibition catalogue. Margit Papamokos, who founded the art workshop 25 years ago, emphasises the importance of artistic expression: "Art is a very effective means to communicate with children and adolescents who fled their home, non-verbally at first allowing language barriers to be overcome." In the next step, they talk about the pictures which promotes language. Throughout the artistic process, the children have an experienced art therapist of the association at their side. Migration resolution signed The online print shop has been supporting Refugio for several years now. "Onlineprinters employs people from more than 20 nations including refugees. Refugio makes an important contribution to integrating them. And companies such as ours benefit from these efforts as well," points out Michael Fries, the CEO of Onlineprinters. Back in November, Onlineprinters signed a resolution calling for politicians to step up their efforts to integrate refugees. The adhesive bound exhibition catalogue has 76 pages. 800 copies were printed on FSC certified paper. It can be requested via press@onlineprinter.com free of charge. The greenhouses gases generated during production were compensated for within the scope of our carbon neutral printing programme. About the company The Onlineprinters group is one of Europe's leading online printers. The company employs a staff of more than 1,400 and produced 3 billion+ printed advertising products last year. More than 1,500 print products including business cards, letterheads, flyers, catalogues, brochures, large-format advertising systems and more are sold to a million customers in 30 European countries through 18 web shops. British market leader Solopress and LaserTryk, the Scandinavian number one, are members of the Onlineprinters Group. The video "A look behind the scenes of Onlineprinters": http://bit.ly/onlineprinters-en-video Press contact: Onlineprinters GmbH Patrick Piecha Head of Press & Public Relations press@onlineprinters.com Phone: +49 9161 6209807 Mobile: +49 174 30 77 250 Acacia today notes the media speculation claiming an SFO investigation into the Company. Acacia is not aware that the SFO is investigating the Company. However, Acacia has been in contact with the SFO about the allegations of corrupt activities in Tanzania which are the subject of proceedings in Tanzania 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. Pendragon PLC ("Pendragon" or the "Company") Directorate Change Pendragon PLC ("the Company") today announces that Trevor Finn has informed the Board of his decision to retire as Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The Board would like to thank him for his significant contribution to the Company over the last 30 years. The Company confirms that Trevor has agreed to continue to perform his role as Chief Executive Officer for an interim period until no later than 31 March 2019 in order to facilitate an orderly transition process and allow the Company's operations to continue without interruption. The Company has now commenced a formal process to appoint a new Chief Executive Officer and a further announcement will be made in due course. Chris Chambers, Non-Executive Chairman of Pendragon, commented: "I would like to thank Trevor for all his efforts throughout a long and successful career approaching 30 years with the Company. The Board fully respects Trevor's decision and wishes him well for the future". Trevor Finn said: "Pendragon is, and remains a great company full of talented people, and I feel privileged to have led the business during its formative period and ignite the transformative period of development currently underway. The time is now right to hand over to a successor to see the Company through the next phase of its development." Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - December 14, 2018) - Crown Mining Corporation (TSXV: CWM) ("Crown" or the "Company") announces a proposed non-brokered private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $100,000 comprised of up to 1,000,000 units at a price of $0.10 per unit (each such unit being comprised of one common share and one warrant) (the "Offering"). Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share for $0.16 at any time within 2 years after closing subject to an acceleration clause. All securities issued pursuant to this private placement will be subject to a four (4) month hold period. The Company proposes to pay to eligible finders a finder's fee equal to a cash payment of 10% of the gross proceeds raised. Completion of the Offering is subject to receipt of all required regulatory and TSX Venture Exchange approvals. The Company intends to use the proceeds of the Private Placement for general working capital purposes. About Crown Mining Corp. Crown controls approximately 15 square miles of patented and unpatented federal mining claims in the Light's Creek Copper District in Plumas County, NE California; essentially, the entire District. The District contains substantial copper (silver) sulfide and copper oxide resources in three deposits - Moonlight, Superior and Engels, as well as several partially tested and untested exploration targets. The Superior and Engels Mines operated from about 1915-1930 producing over 161 million pounds of copper from over 4 million tons of rock containing 2.2% copper with silver and gold credits. The Moonlight Deposit was discovered and drilled by Placer Amex during the 1960's. A Preliminary Economic Assessment Study ("PEA"), prepared by Tetra Tech Inc., had the following highlights: After-tax NPV of US$179M at a 8% discount rate and a $3.15 copper price After tax IRR of 14.6% Initial Capital Cost: US$513M, including a contingency provision in the amount of US$71M Plant Processing Rate: 60,000 tons per day (STPD) Average Copper Recovery: 86.0% Mine Life: 17 years, based on the existing Mineral Resource estimate Life of mine copper production of 1.5 billion pounds Please note the PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. Furthermore, there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Readers are encouraged to read the technical report when it is filed. Further details of the PEA and the resources on Crown's property and the parameters used to calculate them can be found in the "Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Moonlight Deposit, Moonlight-Superior Copper Project, California, USA" dated April 12, 2018 on both the company's website at www.crownminingcorp.com or on www.sedar.com under the Crown Mining Corp profile. Mr. George Cole is the Qualified Person pursuant to NI 43-101 responsible for the technical information contained in this news release, and he has reviewed and approved this news release. For more information please see the Crown website at www.crownminingcorp.com. For Further Information Contact: Mr. Stephen Dunn, President, CEO and Director, Crown Mining Corporation (416) 361-2827 or email info@crownminingcorp.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 press release. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws and regulations, including statements regarding the future activities of the Company.Forward-looking statements reflect the current beliefs and expectations of management and are identified by the use of words including "will", "anticipates", "expected to", "plans", "planned" and other similar words.Actual results may differ significantly.The achievement of the results expressed in forward-looking statements is subject to a number of risks, including those described in the Company's management discussion and analysis as filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities which are available at www.sedar.com.Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon forward-looking statements. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy the securities in any jurisdiction. The common shares will not be and have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or applicable exemption from the registration requirements. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - December 14, 2018) - C21 Investments Inc. (CSE: CXXI) (the "Company" or "C21") wishes to clarify the status of our Ukraine license for CBD. Our prior news release dated November 6, 2018 stated the Company had the right to conduct CBD processing within the Ukraine. As clarification this means raw CBD extract is imported and this raw CBD is processed into a commercial consumer product (such as a chocolate bar) and is then exported. The license does not include the ability to process hemp or cannabis into CBD extracts. The Company has not commenced any operations in the Ukraine other than importing to the Ukraine sample CBD products for testing purposes only and registering those products for import and export under the license. The Company is discussing the potential for utilizing the Ukraine as a distribution centre for CBD with potential strategic partners. The Company is in the process of applying for further license opportunities in the Ukraine. There is no guarantee the Company will receive any further licenses in the Ukraine. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD SIGNED: "Michael Kidd" Michael Kidd, CFO, Secretary, Director For more information contact: Michael Kidd Tel: (604) 336-8613 www.cxxi.ca The CSE has not accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Shares of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea on Friday surged up to 10 percent a day after the telecom tribunal TDSAT struck down TRAI's new rules on predatory pricing saying they lacked required transparency. New Delhi: Shares of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea on Friday surged up to 10 percent a day after the telecom tribunal TDSAT struck down TRAI's new rules on predatory pricing saying they lacked required transparency. Shares of Bharti Airtel increased 9.97 percent to Rs 332.9, while Vodafone Idea gained 8.02 percent to Rs 37.7 on the BSE, during intra-day trade. Similar movement was seen on the NSE, wherein Bharti Airtel climbed 9.99 percent to Rs 333.4, and Vodafone Idea advanced 8.02 percent to Rs 37.7. On Thursday, the telecom tribunal set aside sectoral regulator TRAI's new norms on predatory pricing for lack of transparency in the guidelines over determining market share and rates of services. The order provides much-needed relief to operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea who had alleged that the rules were tailored for a new entrant. A division bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and S V Kotwal also stayed a show cause notice issued on 2 November this year by the CIC to former RBI governor Urjit Patel for non-disclosure of the information sought and for defiance of its orders. Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday granted interim stay on orders passed by the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing the Reserve Bank of India to submit a list of wilful loan defaulters. A division bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and S V Kotwal also stayed a show cause notice issued on 2 November this year by the CIC to former RBI governor Urjit Patel for non-disclosure of the information sought and for defiance of its orders. The RBI had petitioned the high court last month challenging orders passed by the CIC directing it to disclose the bad debt details of defaulters worth more than Rs 1,000 crore at the beginning and those worth Rs 500 crore or less at a later stage. On 2 November this year, the CIC had issued a show cause notice to Patel for "dishonouring" a Supreme Court judgement on disclosure of wilful defaulters' list. The notice was issued after the RBI failed to give the list. The CIC had in its notice said it considers the RBI governor as deemed Public Information Officer (PIO) responsible for non-disclosure and defiance of CIC orders. The commission asked Patel to explain why the maximum penalty should not be imposed on him. On 16 November, the CIC once again asked the RBI to submit the list and also the previous RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan's letter on bad loans. The CIC was hearing the plea of one Sandeep Singh who had sought details of bank loan defaulters. Senior counsel Venkatesh Dhond, appearing for RBI, told the high court Friday that the CIC order has been passed without giving a hearing to RBI. "Information of such nature if disclosed could harm the national economy. In such situation, the CIC order and the impugned notice issued on 2 November are ex facie illegal, arbitrary and unsustainable," RBI said in its petition. The bench, after hearing brief arguments in the case, issued a notice to CIC and posted the matter for further hearing on 10 April. "Ad-interim relief sought in the petition for staying the operation, effect, finishing and other conclusions of the respondent (CIC) is granted," the court said. (Reuters) - (The story corrects the date of Doug Oberhelman's retirement in fourth paragraph) Caterpillar Inc said on Thursday Chief Executive Officer Jim Umpleby would take on the additional role of chairman, effective immediately. Umpleby, a member of the board and CEO since Jan. (Reuters) - (The story corrects the date of Doug Oberhelman's retirement in fourth paragraph) Caterpillar Inc said on Thursday Chief Executive Officer Jim Umpleby would take on the additional role of chairman, effective immediately. Umpleby, a member of the board and CEO since Jan. 1, 2017, is widely credited for pulling the company out of its longest downturn - from 2012 to 2016 - when sales dropped more than 40 percent. Deerfield, Illinois-based Caterpillar, which boosted its full-year profit outlook twice in 2018, announced the closure of two facilities earlier this year and was also considering closing an engine plant that could eliminate 880 jobs. Doug Oberhelman, the company's last executive chairman, retired on March 31, 2017. The industry bellwether also said on Thursday its November retail sales rose 16 percent worldwide, led by a jump in orders across all geographies, especially in North America and Asia Pacific. (Reporting by Rachit Vats in Bengaluru and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Editing by Maju Samuel and Phil Berlowitz) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. 'The government does not comment on the views and opinions of former RBI governors and economists on demonetisation and GST expressed before media/private agency etc,' Arun Jaitley said in a written reply to the Parliament New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that the government does not comment on the views of former RBI governors on demonetisation and the GST expressed before the media, Parliament was informed on Friday. He was replying to a question in this regard by Congress parliamentarians Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath. "The government does not comment on the views and opinions of former RBI governors and economists on demonetisation and GST expressed before media/private agency etc," Jaitley said in a written reply to the House. The government, the reply said, has from time to time stated advantages to the Indian economy which accrued due to the note ban and Goods and Services Tax (GST). The two senior Congress leaders had asked whether a former Governor of Reserve Bank of India and several renowned economists have recently stated that ban on high-value currency notes in 2016 and rollout of GST in July 2017 have caused 'really hard blows' to the economy. Jaitley further said after the structural reform of GST had been introduced in a record time, the economic growth bounced back vigorously. The robust growth rate of 18 percent for 2017-18 in net direct tax collections, the highest in last seven financial years, is "indicative of the positive impact" of demonetisation on the level of tax compliance in the country. Medical devices industry plays a critical role in the healthcare ecosystem and is indispensable to achieve the goal of health for all citizens. New Delhi: The government on Friday said it will set up National Medical Devices Promotion Council (NMDPC) to boost manufacturing, attract investments and promote exports of the fast-growing sector. "As Indian manufacturing companies and startups move towards creating innovative products, the setting-up of the council will spur domestic manufacturing in this sector," the Commerce and Industry Ministry said in a statement. It said the medical devices industry plays a critical role in the healthcare ecosystem and is indispensable to achieve the goal of health for all citizens. The manufacturing and trade in the sector is growing steadily which includes a wide range of products. Although the industry has been growing in double digits, it is predominantly import-driven, with imports accounting for over 65 percent of the domestic market. The council, it said, will undertake several activities including facilitation, promotion and development of the sector besides holding seminars and workshops to garner views of industry and understand best global practices. It would also identify redundant processes and render technical assistance to the agencies and departments concerned to simplify the approval processes involved in the sector. It will "enable entry of emerging interventions and support certifications for manufacturers to reach levels of global trade norms and lead India to an export driven market in the sector," it said. The NMDPC would support dissemination and documentation of international norms and standards for medical devices, by capturing the best practices in the global market and facilitate domestic manufacturers to rise to international level. It will also "drive a preferential market access policy, by identifying the strengths of the Indian manufacturers and discouraging unfair trade practices in imports". Besides, it would make recommendations to government based on industry feedback and global practices on policy and process interventions to strengthen the medical technology sector. The council will be headed by the secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. Apart from the concerned departments, it will also have representatives from healthcare industry and quality control institutions. Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu announced this move at WHO Global Forum on Medical Devices at Visakhapatnam. Mumbai: Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has ordered a forensic audit of Jet Airways' books, which has been grappling with financial woes for many months, for the period between April 2014 and March 2018, according to sources in the bank. The State Bank, which is the lead banker to the airlines' over Rs 8,000 crore loans, has mandated EY to conduct the forensic audit of its books, which has already began the process, the sources added. The airline has been struggling to keep afloat following three consecutive quarterly losses of over Rs 1,000 crore each. The bank's action comes at a time when the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline is in talks with potential investors to raising funds to tide over the liquidity crisis. "...it was decided to conduct a forensic audit of the accounts of Jet Airways for the period 1 April, 2014 to 31 March, 2018," SBI sources said. When contacted, an SBI spokesperson declined comments saying, "it's the policy of the bank not to comment on individual accounts." Emails sent for confirmation from the airline and EY also did not elicit immediate responses. The audit was ordered following a complaint of alleged financial irregularities in Jet Airways accounts by a whistle blower, the sources said. "The forensic audit has been mandated to E&Y LLP and the firm has already started the process," the sources said. In August, government had ordered an inspection of books and papers of the airline. The outcome of the probe, however, is awaited. Besides, there were also reports about alleged siphoning of funds to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore by the promoter Goyal. With three back-to-back quarterly losses and a net debt of Rs 8,052 crore as of September 2018, the airline is working on ways to raise funds and reduce costs. The cash crunch has been so bad that it has paying salaries in tranches for months now. Last month, chief executive officer Vinay Dube had said the airline was in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing. The Mumbai-based airline in which Ethihad Airways also owns 24 percent, is negotiating a deal with the Gulf carrier to offload another 25 percent holding, to mop up funds. Last month, there were talks that the Tatas were interested in buying out the Goyals from the airline and merge it its airline Vistara. But a board meeting of Tata Sons in mid-November had said the group was only at preliminary. By Marcelo Rochabrun SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The battle between Nissan Motor Co Ltd and its ousted Chairman Carlos Ghosn in Brazil's courts escalated on Thursday after the Japanese carmaker sued his sister alleging 'unjust enrichment' and his lawyers alleged Nissan could have planted evidence. In the afternoon, Nissan faced a setback in its battle to secure the contents of a beachfront apartment in Rio that Ghosn used when he ran the company and which it says may contain evidence of wrongdoing. An appellate judge ruled that Ghosn or his daughter must be allowed into the apartment for 24 hours to retrieve personal belongings By Marcelo Rochabrun SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The battle between Nissan Motor Co Ltd <7201.T> and its ousted Chairman Carlos Ghosn in Brazil's courts escalated on Thursday after the Japanese carmaker sued his sister alleging "unjust enrichment" and his lawyers alleged Nissan could have planted evidence. In the afternoon, Nissan faced a setback in its battle to secure the contents of a beachfront apartment in Rio that Ghosn used when he ran the company and which it says may contain evidence of wrongdoing. An appellate judge ruled that Ghosn or his daughter must be allowed into the apartment for 24 hours to retrieve personal belongings. Brazilian-born Ghosn was arrested last month and indicted this week in Japan for allegedly underreporting his income. Nissan also alleges he diverted company funds to pay for personal expenses. He has been held in a Japanese court since his arrest. The Rio apartment has become the centre of a side battle to the case being fought in Japan. Nissan says it has found three safes there that could contain evidence of Ghosn's alleged crimes. Ghosn and his daughter, however, have sued to retrieve what they say are personal items, such as "photographs, jewellery, watches and books." In court papers, lawyers for Ghosn said that since Nissan had entered the apartment after his arrest, the automaker could have "inserted objects or documents that could compromise his good reputation." A representative for Nissan in Brazil declined to comment. A Ghosn family representative had no comment on the "unjust enrichment" lawsuit and did not respond to a request for comment on the apartment decision. Additional details regarding the unjust enrichment lawsuit were not immediately available and it was unclear how long it might take to resolve the case. The Japanese press had already reported that Ghosn's elder sister, Claudine Bichara de Oliveira, could be embroiled in the scandal. Nissan's internal investigation found that Ghosn had instructed the company since 2002 to pay about $100,000 a year to his sister, according to a November report by the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily by circulation, that cited unnamed sources. The compensation was supposed to be for a role as an adviser. The paper added that Bichara de Oliveira had in fact been living in and managing the Rio apartment that Nissan had bought for the use of Ghosn and that she had done no advisory work for the carmaker. (Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; editing by Christian Plumb, David Gregorio and Richard Chang) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania's parliament approved a 2019 budget on Tuesday that boosts defence spending but does not meet demands of teachers who have gone on strike to demand higher wages. Revenues are expected to be 17.2 billion euros ($19.6 billion) and expenditures 17.0 billion euros next year, including 1.9 billion euros in EU support. VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania's parliament approved a 2019 budget on Tuesday that boosts defence spending but does not meet demands of teachers who have gone on strike to demand higher wages. Revenues are expected to be 17.2 billion euros ($19.6 billion) and expenditures 17.0 billion euros next year, including 1.9 billion euros in EU support. The government expects a surplus of 1.5 billion euros by year-end. Lawmakers voted to raise the outlay for defence to up to 2.05 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a finance ministry spokesperson said, from 2 percent of GDP planned for this year. The NATO member state's main political parties are committed to increasing defence spending every year for the next decade, reaching at least 2.5 percent of GDP by 2030. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed European allies in NATO to pay more for collective defence. Lithuania's central bank, however, has warned the government it is unlikely to meet its revenue target and will face a "significantly worse" public finance balance in 2019 than the stated goal of a surplus of 0.4 percent of GDP. Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis has refused to raise pay for teachers, thousands of whom have been on strike over wages. Last week Skvernelis blamed the strikes on the opposition Homeland Union Party, which has expressed support for teacher demands, for what he described as an attempt to topple his government by "stoking chaos". ($1 = 0.8790 euros) (Reporting By Andrius Sytas; Editing by Simon Johnson and Mark Heinrich) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The RBI board meeting will review the progress with respect of some of the decisions taken in the last meet on 19 November New Delhi: The central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under new Governor Shaktikanta Das will meet today where the directors are likely to push for greater say in the decision making of the central bank. The meeting will review the progress with respect of some of the decisions taken in the last meet on 19 November. Among other things, the crucial board meeting is expected to take a stock of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), which is under stress due to demonetisation and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). This scheduled meeting comes in the backdrop of surprise resignation by Urjit Patel earlier this week citing personal reasons. However, the tussle between the Finance Ministry and RBI was attributed as the reason for the sudden exit of Patel, who would have completed his 3-year term in September 2019. According to sources, one of the key agenda for the upcoming board meeting will be governance issue -- the role of central board in the decision making of the RBI. Given the current structure, the central board plays advisory role but there is growing clamour to make it operational and have greater participation in key decisions of the central bank. The government as one of important stakeholders also wants greater involvement in the RBI's decision making as it feels the current practice leaves it out on many critical issues like single-day default turning a loan into an NPA, sources said. However, former governors and other experts have pitched for the independence and autonomy of the RBI and want the board to play advisory role with given composition. The central board of the RBI is headed by the governor and includes two government nominee directors and 11 independent directors. Currently, the central board has 18 members, with the provision of going up to 21. Soon after taking reins of the RBI, Das said, he will try to uphold the autonomy, credibility and the integrity of the "great institution" and take every stakeholder, including the government, along in a consultative manner. The former Economic Affairs Secretary, who took over as the 25th Governor Wednesday said, he will take measures which the economy requires in a timely manner. On the second day, he held consultation with heads of the Mumbai-based public sector bankers to discuss issues faced by them. It is expected that relaxation of the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework for weak banks would also come up for the discussion under the new the governor. Of the 21 state-owned banks, 11 are under the PCA framework. These are Allahabad Bank, United Bank of India, Corporation Bank, IDBI Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Dena Bank and Bank of Maharashtra. The PCA framework kicks in when banks breach any of the three key regulatory trigger points -- namely capital to risk-weighted assets ratio, net non-performing assets (NPA) and return on assets (RoA). With regard to economic capital framework, the new governor said as decided in the board meeting an expert committee in consultation with the government will be constituted soon to examine the issue. As per RBI data on global operations for PSBs, during the financial years 2014-15 to 2017-18, PSBs recovered Rs 2,33,339 crore, of which Rs 32,693 crore was from written-off accounts, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. New Delhi: Public sector banks recovered Rs 2.33 lakh crore worth of bad loans during the four years from the financial year 2014-15 to fiscal 2017-18, Parliament was informed on Friday. As per RBI data on global operations for PSBs, during the financial years 2014-15 to 2017-18, PSBs recovered Rs 2,33,339 crore, of which Rs 32,693 crore was from written-off accounts, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He was responding to a question asked on non-performing assets (NPAs) and write-offs by public sector banks (PSBs) during April 2014 to April 2018 and the amount recovered by them. Shukla said, write-offs of NPAs is a regular exercise of the banks to clean up their balance sheet, a tax benefit and capital optimisation. "Borrowers of such written-off loans continue to be liable for repayment. Recovery under relevant legal processes from written-off accounts may extend beyond the financial year in which the account is written off," he said. During 2014-15 to 2017-18, the PSBs witnessed a reduction in their NPAs due to write-offs (including compromise) to the tune of Rs 3,16,515 crore. Aggressive lending practices, wilful default/loan defaults as well as corruption in some cases and economic slowdown were the primary reasons for the spurt in stressed assets, he further said. Country's largest lender SBI, stood on gross bad loans of Rs 2.02 lakh crore as on 30 September, 2018, showed the data furnished by the minister which was sourced from the Reserve Bank. Among the rest of the 20 PSBs, Punjab National Bank had grossed NPAs to the tune of Rs 80,993 crore by end of second quarter of the current fiscal, IDBI Bank Rs 50,690 crore, Bank of India Rs 50,338 crore, Union Bank of India Rs 48,575 crore. Bank of Baroda also had NPAs to the tune of Rs 46,454 crore, Canara Bank Rs 41,907 crore, Central Bank of India Rs 37,411 crore, Indian Overseas Bank Rs 35,607 crore and UCO Bank Rs 28,822 crore. In reply to a query on gross advances done, the minister said aggregate gross advances of PSBs increased from Rs 16.98 lakh crore as at end-March 2008 to Rs 45.91 lakh crore by the end of March 2014. The central board also placed on record its appreciation of the valuable services rendered by Urjit Patel during his tenure as governor and deputy governor of the bank, RBI said. Mumbai: The crucial central board meeting of the Reserve Bank, the first under the new governor Shaktikanta Das, on Friday agreed to discuss the governance framework of the central bank further. The meeting, which lasted for nearly four hours, also reviewed the current economic situation, both global and domestic challenges, matters relating to liquidity and credit delivery, and issues related to currency management and financial literacy. "The board deliberated on the governance framework of the RBI and it was decided that the matter needs further examination," RBI said in a terse statement after the meeting. This is the first board meeting chaired by Das, who took over as the 25th governor on Wednesday after the surprise resignation of Urjit Patel on Monday. The 18-member board also discussed the draft report on the trends and progress of banking (2017-18), the RBI said. In the previous meeting held on 19 November, which lasted over 10 hours, the board had decided to constitute a committee of experts to fix an appropriate level of economic capital framework (ECF) for the central bank which would decide how much contingency reserves it should hold any given time and the membership and terms of reference of which will be jointly determined by government and RBI. Nothing has officially progressed on the matter as government and RBI are not yet on same page on the name of the chairman of the six-member panel. The issue of transfer of RBI's excess reserves, which stood at Rs 9.43 trillion as of June 2018, to government has been one of the contentious issues between the government and the central bank for a long time and also one of the key reasons for the sudden exit of Patel. At the last meet, the RBI board had also decided to refer the issue of relaxing the PCA framework-- under which are 11 of the 21 state-run banks--to the board of financial supervision of the central bank. It can be noted that some of the new government nominees to the RBI board have been demanding that the central bank should be run by the board and not just by the management. Apart from some key North Block mandarins, the votaries of this view include the Sangh ideologue S Gurumurthy who was appointed to the board only in August and ex-chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian. They say RBI should also be run by the board. Thursday evening, coal minister Piyush Goyal also turned his guns at RBI over this issue and alleged that the RBI management--the governor and the four deputies-- arbitrarily decided on the PCA framework, keeping the board in the dark. If the board votes for a board-driven RBI, then that will be the biggest blow to the operational independence of the central bank, say many central bank watchers. Unlike the last meet, which lasted for 10 hours, Friday's meeting is likely to get over by afternoon. Mumbai: The crucial central board meeting of the Reserve Bank is underway Friday morning to discuss contentious issues including a new economic capital framework (ECF) for the central bank and relaxation in the prompt corrective action norms for at least some of 12 state-run banks. This is the first board meet chaired by the newly-appointed Shaktikanta Das, who took over as the 25th governor on Wednesday. In the previous board meeting, held on 19 November, the board had decided to constitute a committee of experts to fix the appropriate level of economic capital framework (ECF) that the central bank should hold at any given time and the membership and terms of reference of which will be jointly determined by government and RBI. The issue of transfer of RBI's excess reserves, which stood at Rs 9.43 lakh crore as of June 2018, to the government has been one of the contentious issues between the government and the central bank for a long time and also one of the key reasons for the sudden resignation of Urjit Patel on Monday. The 18-member RBI board will also deliberate on relaxation of prompt corrective action norms. Of the 21 state-owned banks, 11 are under the PCA framework, which imposes lending and other restrictions on weak lenders. These are Allahabad Bank, United Bank of India, Corporation Bank, IDBI Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Dena Bank and Bank of Maharashtra. On Thursday, Das met the chiefs of a few state-run banks to discuss their concerns. Lenders requested the governor to ease the PCA norms and also sought relaxation in the one-day default norm announced in the 12 February RBI circular on reclassification of NPAs. At the November 19 meeting, the RBI board had also decided to refer the issue of relaxing PCA framework to the Board of Financial Supervision (BFS) of the central bank. Unlike the last meet, which lasted for 10 hours, Friday's meeting is likely to get over by afternoon. The government should incentivise all banks to take up activities it thinks desirable, not impose it on a few, especially as the privileges associated with a banking license diminish, Raghuram Rajan said. New Delhi: Pointing out that privatisation of public sector banks is not panacea for all ills, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on Friday made a case for reduction of uncompensated mandates like lending targets and pushing government schemes through branches of state-owned lenders. He also said there is a need to reduce the Statutory Liquidity Ratio and substituting this with the liquidity coverage ratios and net stable funding ratios set by Basel. Last week, the RBI decided to reduce SLR, the portion of deposits required to be mandatorily invested in government bonds, by 0.25 percent every quarter beginning January 2018. The calibrated reduction in SLR will continue till it reaches 18 percent from the existing 19.5 percent. The banking system is overburdened with non-performing loans and there is a need to adequately professionalise boards of PSBs, Rajan said adding the government should do away with board appointments to avoid unnecessary politicisation. "Much of the problem lies in PSBs but private sector banks like ICICI and Axis Bank, as well as some of the old private banks, have not been immune. Some of the malaise comes from a general need to improve governance, transparency and incentives in the system. However, the difficulties in even some private banks suggest that 'simple' solutions like privatising all public sector banks may be no panacea," he said. The former RBI governor also expressed concerns over uncompensated government mandates being imposed on PSBs for a long time. "This is lazy government if an action is worth doing, it should be paid for out of budgetary resources. It also is against the interests of minority shareholders in PSBs. Finally, it does not draw the private sector in to compete for such activities," he said. The government should incentivise all banks to take up activities it thinks desirable, not impose it on a few, especially as the privileges associated with a banking license diminish, Rajan added. Noting that among the more dangerous mandates are lending targets and compulsory loan waivers, he said government-imposed credit targets are often achieved by abandoning appropriate due diligence and creating the environment for future NPAs. He also emphasised that the government should keep its banks well capitalised. "This is simply good accounting practice, for it prevents the government from building up contingent liabilities on bank balance sheets that a future government will have to pay for," he said. Rajan, who was 23rd Governor of the RBI, also observed that too many risks devolve onto banks, including those of interest rate volatility that banks elsewhere typically lay off in markets. "Too much project risk stays with banks because other financial instruments such as equity and subordinate debt cannot be issued cheaply. Risk also returns through the backdoor; Banks do not make loans to housing developers because of their intrinsic risks. Nevertheless, they make loans to NBFCs, who make loans to developers," he said. To prevent risk from returning to bank balance sheets, NBFCs must be able to raise money directly from markets, he added. TDSAT said that TRAI could not impose financial disincentives and ordered it to rework the predatory pricing rules within six months. New Delhi: The telecom tribunal on Thursday struck down Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) new norms on predatory pricing saying they lacked required transparency, an order that provides much-needed relief to operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea who had alleged that the rules were tailored for a new entrant. The TRAI had following allegations of Reliance Jio's entry tactics of life-long free voice calls and dirt cheap data constituting predatory rates in February defined what would constitute significant market power (SMP) that could abuse the market with a predatory pricing. These were, however, contested by old operators who felt the norms favoured Jio. In a strongly-worded order, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) said that TRAI could not impose financial disincentives and ordered it to rework the predatory pricing rules within six months. "The impugned tariff amendment order is set aside in so far as it changes the concept of SMP (significant market power), non-predation and the related provisions," TDSAT bench comprising Justice SK Singh and member AK Bhargava said on Thursday's order. It further added: "...the impugned decisions on the issue of SMP and predation cannot be sustained for the reasons of lacking the required transparency". The tribunal further held that segmented offers and discounts in ordinary course of business to existing customers without any discrimination do not amount to a tariff plan and therefore "need no reporting in manner prescribed for regular tariff plans". This means operators would not be duty-bound to disclose to the regulator, the details of such tailormade offerings typically meant to retain customers. TDSAT, however, pointed out that the regulator can call for details of any segmented offer about which it may receive specific complaints. TRAI, in its contentious February order, had tweaked the definition of significant market power to state only players with substantial revenue and subscriber base could potentially abuse market with predatory pricing. The earlier criteria also took into account high volume of traffic. An operator would be liable to cough up a penalty of up to Rs 50 lakh per telecom circle, if a tariff was found to be predatory. Jio's introductory offer of free voice and data in 2016 had generated massive traffic on its network, which was largely sustained when it started charging for data at nominal rates last year. TRAI's changed rules had sparked-off a furore in the industry. Older and established telecom carriers had alleged that the order virtually permitted a telecom service provider, an "effective significant market player", to indulge in predatory pricing to the severe detriment of others. In its ruling on Thursday, TDSAT observed that it would not be proper to adopt a definition which provides artificial protection to an operator who may have the capability and intent to destabalise the sector through predatory pricing before it attains the defined status of SMP. "If a new entrant needs to be protected from the rigours of non-predation, it can be done through the provisions like "Welcome Offer" and promotional scheme as availed by Reliance Jio...but to allow freedom from requirements of non-predation till acquisition of 30 percent of total activity in a given market prima facie appears to be an extreme step and unnecessary abdication of its regulatory powers by TRAI in the context of tariff conditions and their enforcement," TDSAT said. It further said that powers and jurisdiction of a statutory authority like the Competition Commission should not be blocked or abridged by issuing order or directions like those impugned which do not have the flavour of a subordinate legislation such as regulations. When contacted, TRAI said it is looking at the telecom tribunal's ruling and may appeal in the Supreme Court if it found any "legal issues for deliberation". "We are looking at the order by TDSAT, and are examining the issues...prima facie there seems to be certain law points for deliberation and if that is so, we may go to the SC," TRAI secretary S K Gupta said. Mallya's case is not an example of genuine business failure alone but a clear case of alleged serious financial irregularities, frauds, fund diversions Former Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) boss Vijay Mallya, who is on a self-imposed exile in the UK since 2 March, 2016 after his airline defaulted Rs 10,000 crore loans, must have had a smile on his face after a long time. One of the top cabinet ministers in the Narendra Modi government uttered a few words of sympathy for him on Thursday. Speaking at the Times Networks India Economic Conclave in Mumbai, Nitin Gadkari said it is unfair to call Vijay Mallyaji a chor for one loan default. "If Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallyaji have committed fraud then send them to jail, but if we label everyone who is in financial trouble as fraudsters, then the economy will not progress," Gadkari said. The minister also questioned wilful defaulter status' of Mallya and cited the businessmans repayment records in the past before he stepped into civil aviation. But, Mallyas joy was short-lived. Gadkari later clarified his comment was aimed at those entrepreneurs who are facing genuine business failure on account of business downturns and was not about fraudsters. There is a clear difference between business cycle downturns and financial fraud. My statement is about support during downturns to protect jobs. FRAUD is completely UNACCEPTABLE. Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) December 14, 2018 Gadkaris comment and clarification came at a time when the government is fighting hard in UK courts to get Mallya extradited back to India and is smelling a victory after the case tilted in Indias favour last week when a UK court ordered his extradition. Of course, the show isnt over yet; Mallya can still appeal the verdict. The following observations in the Mallya case give us interesting details on how Mallya took the banks for a ride and colluded with them to flout rules: Mallyas case is not an example of genuine business failure but a clear case of alleged serious financial irregularities, frauds, fund diversions and misrepresentation of facts colluding with bank officials. The judge has also dismissed an allegation of political conspiracy against Mallya. This is what Westminster Magistrates' Court Chief Magistrate Judge Emma Arbuthnot notes in her findings responding to the allegation that Mallyas case is politically motivated. Read Westminster Magistrates' Court full verdict on Mallya's extradition here: Comment from the judge: I find that because both Congress and the BJP are blaming him and others for the state banks losses that does not mean that he is being prosecuted for his political opinions, even in the wide sense of the word. By a finding of a prima facie case, I acknowledge that this case is being brought on evidence which may or may not lead to the conviction of the RP. There is no sign that this is a false case being mounted against him to assuage CBIs political masters as Professor Saez would have it." (Professor Lawrence Saez is a political-economic scientist who was presented as a witness by Mallya's legal team.) 1) The very reason why banks have been chasing Mallya to get back the money Kingfisher owed them was that Mallya had given a personal guarantee to secure the loan. He is not being unduly dragged into this case. Remember, Mallya, the guarantor wasnt willing to honour his assurance to banks till 2016. When he finally agreed to come with a settlement offer, banks called it a vague proposal. 2) Another critical point the Judge has noted in last weeks judgment was the use of bank money for purposes other than the stated ones. Comment: I find that there was a misrepresentation about what the loans would be used for. I do not accept that KFA at the point of applying for the loans was intending to use the money just for the services set out in the SBI Appraisal Note. At that stage, with the desperate financial situation the company was in, it was going to use the money in any way it wanted to, whatever the terms of the loan or loans. Mentions of round robins in the documentation show what KFA was capable of doing. There is a prima facie case of making false representations to make a gain for himself or a loss to another." 3) To illustrate the case of misrepresentation of facts, the judge highlighted what A Raghunathan, the former CFO of Kingfisher Airlines did. Raghunathan represented that the loss for FY2009 of Kingfisher is around Rs 1,600 crores, whereas the court found that this is a misrepresentation and the actual figure showed a loss of 2,155 crores. 4) Similarly, in the memorandum sent to the credit committee on 7 October 2009, IDBI officials were given the impression that KFA's performance was showing an improvement following the growth in domestic and global economy. The court observed that this is simply untrue if the forecast for FY2010 is compared with the actuals in Q1 and by 7th October, Q2. Comment: It is a misrepresentation that is being made to rely on the projections of a loss of 1609 crores being reduced to a loss of 174 crores in FY2010 when it is known that the first half of FY2010 has shown a loss many times greater than the total projected loss for the year. 5) The judgment notes that IDBI Bank, one of the lenders to Kingfisher Airlines, treated it differently from other customers. Even mandatory credit ratings were not insisted upon before the loan was sanctioned. When the credit rating was finally done, it was set at a level which would normally lead to a refusal to sanction the loans," according to the judgment. 6) The judge lashed out at IDBI Bank officials for flouting golden rules of lending in the Kingfisher case blinded by the charm of Mallya. The following quotes sum it up. It is either a case that the various continuing failures were by design and with a motive (possibly financial) which is not clear from the evidence that has been put in front of me, or it is a case of a bank who were in the thrall of this glamorous, flashy, famous, bejewelled, bodyguarded, ostensibly billionaire playboy who charmed and cajoled these bankers into losing their common sense and persuading them to put their own rules and regulations to one side. 7) The judge has found a prima facie case of fraud on money laundering charges against Mallya and noticed that the bank money was clearly used to fund two of his vanity projects---Formula 1 racing team and a jet for personal use. In the case of Force India formula 1, IDBIs loan proceeds were used to clear a bill discounting facility with the Bank of Baroda and to release credit facilities which were later used to fund sponsorship payments to Mallyas motor racing team in July 2010. Comment: Essentially it appears as if KFA was funding Dr. Mallyas team, the judgment says, adding, There is clear evidence of dispersal and misapplication of the loan funds and I find a prima facie case the Dr Mallya was involved in a conspiracy to launder money. It is common sense that had Mallyas default been a genuine result of a business failure, he would not have escaped to the UK; instead, he would have stayed back in India and fought his case in Indian courts. From the very beginning, Mallya exhibited a defiant approach towards Indian investigators and openly challenged Indian authorities, alleging that media is running a hate campaign against him for political reasons. The Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate and banks have presented evidence in the UK court to prove that Mallya KFA shutting down was not a genuine business failure. Thus, there are clear charges of wilful default, alleged financial fraud including money laundering activities by Mallya to fund his personal needs. The evidence has been argued and acknowledged by Judge Arbuthnot when she found a prima facie case against Mallya, recommending his extradition. The judgement leaves no room for speculations on the nature of Mallyas case. From the Reserve Bank of India, the government demanded a reduction in lending curbs and a share of its surplus reserves. New Delhi: When Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel abruptly resigned on Monday, it stunned many people in government and business circles. Patels decision, which came after months of bad blood between Indias central bank and the government, is the latest sign that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is increasingly demanding that it get its way in the countrys premier institutions. From the RBI, the government demanded a reduction in lending curbs and a share of its surplus reserves. Patel was appointed by Modi, but he resisted the demand. With him gone, and his replacement being a loyal ex-government bureaucrat, Modi is now expected to get most of what he wanted. Other institutions know what its like. Those who have been in the Hindu nationalist governments crosshairs include Indias equivalent of Americas FBI, its statistics authority, the civil service, the state media, and even Modis own cabinet. Sources in all of those areas have told Reuters they face political interference and a drive for centralised decision-making from a government under pressure to deliver results before a general election due by May next year. The BJPs defeats in some key state elections this week will pile on additional pressure. The prime ministers office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the subject. The governments main spokesman declined to comment. Modi has not held a news conference during his time as prime minister and interviews are few and far between. He prefers to use Twitter to communicate and has a monthly radio broadcast to the nation. Some political analysts and government officials label him as authoritarian. They say such autocracy is a dangerous game in India given the complex ethnic, religious and caste divisions among its 1.3 billion people. You cant govern like you do in China, said Mohan Guruswamy, founder of the Centre for Policy Alternatives think-tank and a former finance ministry official. You have to constantly build consensus. Even the British consulted people, and the Mughals co-opted local kings into their army, he said, referring to rulers in India before independence. Others see the RBI merely as the latest battleground in a broader culture war between right-wing Hindu nationalists allied with the BJP, and a liberal intelligentsia that still dominates Indias legal system, academia and English language media. The right feels like these institutions are rigged by the left, said Harsh Pant, a political scientist at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation. At least 13 people are feared dead in Lumthari village in East Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya due to an overflow of water from a nearby river into an illegal coal mining area on Thursday Guwahati: At least 13 people are feared dead in Lumthari village in East Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya due to an overflow of water from a nearby river into an illegal coal mining area on Thursday. "The coal mine was old and it was inside a jungle near Lytein river. The mine collapsed after it filled with water from inside while the labourers were digging it, said Sylvester Nongtngr, Superintendent of Police of East Jaintia Hills district. The coal labourers were allegedly engaged in rat-hole mining an unscientific method of extracting coal by digging a deep and narrow tunnel inside the earth. The police added that teams of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have rushed to the spot to take out the people trapped inside. Of the 13 people, four were from Assam, six were from the West Garo Hills District and three were locals. They have been identified as: Mozid Sk, Raziul Islam, Omor Ali, Mezamur Islam, Mominul Islam, Shirapat Ali from West Garo Hills, Samsul Haque, Amir Hussain, Munirul Islam, Saiar Islam from Assam. The other three Chal Dkhar, Long Dkhar, and Nilam Dkhar are from Lumthari village itself. "All 13 people inside are feared dead, but no body has been recovered by the teams as yet. The water is being pumped out and we expect to get more updates by Friday," Nongtngr said. This comes as a shock since the National Green Tribunal had banned unsafe rat-hole mining in Meghalaya four years ago. When questioned on why the illegal mining was still in practice, Nongtngr said, "I did not have any information on coal mining in my area previously. Also, the site where the mining is going on is very remote. The police has registered a case against it." In 2014, NGT had imposed a statewide blanket ban on coal mining following a petition filed by civil society groups from Meghalaya and Assam. Since then, the state government has been trying to lift the ban citing huge revenue losses and livelihood issues of coal miners and coalfield owners of Meghalaya. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, who is also in charge of the Mining and Geology Department, has been in talks with the Union coal ministry over lifting the ban on coal mining and allowing responsible mining. On 31 August this year, however, the tribunal retained the ban on illegal coal mining and transportation of already-extracted coal in the state. In an official statement, Sangma said the incident in which 13 miners have been trapped in East Jaintia Hills was very unfortunate and that the government is concerned about their lives. "The NDRF, the district administration and the police are doing all they can to save the lives of the miners stuck there. We are praying for them, he said, adding that his government is aware of illegal coal mining in the state. "We are aware that illegal activities are going on and this is again something not correct at all. I think appropriate action will be taken at appropriate time against people who are involved into illegal mining. This is something that is not acceptable to us," he said. Sangma also said that efforts to save the lives of those trapped since Thursday morning are in progress. "What is more important right now is to save the lives of these individuals and so continuous efforts have been going on. I have been in touch with the deputy commissioner and the SP on a continuous basis and I hope and pray that we will be able to rescue them," Sangma said. Claiming the existence of a nexus between the police and government over illegal coal mining in the state, noted journalist and social activist Patricia Mukhim said, "This has established the fact that illegal mining is going on in the state which people have been denying for so long. Although the people in power, including the MLAs who are involved in mining, have been denying the fact, they are exposed now." She added that the state government has also failed to come up with a policy on mining as instructed by the NGT in 2014. "How is it that we can do mining without a policy? How can we allow mining without any environmental and human safeguards for the miners and labour insurance? There is no accountability in this whole thing. This needs to be taken up very seriously by the Supreme Court," Mukhim added. Partha Jyoti Das, an environmental activist said, "Apart from the issues of environmental degradation, coal mining itself is anti-human and anti-labourer. The fact that mining is still going on in Meghalaya also shows the huge corruption in the state." Thursday's incident comes only days after environmental activist Agnes Kharshiing, who had allegedly been attacked by members of the coal mafia on 8 November, was recently released from a hospital. Kharshiing, an RTI activist, was brutally attacked in the same district as she was said to be tipping off the police about the illegal coal mining there. The author is a freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com A day after the BJP's poll debacle in three Hindi heartland states, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said the Ram temple issue might not work in favour of the saffron party again, unlike in the past, if it is raised ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Mumbai: A day after the BJP's poll debacle in three Hindi heartland states, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said the Ram temple issue might not work in favour of the saffron party again, unlike in the past, if it is raised ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He alleged that the BJP may try to create a communal divide on the temple issue which is a "matter of concern". The BJP is under pressure from its ideological mentor RSS, alliance partner Shiv Sena and Hindutva organisations which are demanding a parliamentary law or an ordinance for construction of Ram temple. Sena MPs on Wednesday staged a protest in the Lok Sabha demanding immediate construction of the temple. "The issue of Ram temple was used once in the past and the BJP stood benefited by it. In case they (the BJP) raise the issue again, people do not accept an issue twice... So, I don't think it (Ram temple) will benefit them (the BJP)," Pawar said. The veteran politician was speaking to reporters after meeting scores of party workers who had gathered here to greet him on his 78th birthday. The BJP, which was in power in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh since the last 15 years, lost to the Congress in the assembly polls, results for which were announced Tuesday. The Congress also looks set to form government in Rajasthan, ruled by the saffron party until now. Stating that people do not accept the same issue twice, Pawar referred to the general elections held post Emergency and the assembly polls held in Maharashtra over the issue of 'Samyukta (joint) Maharashtra' in 1950s and 1960s. He said Indira Gandhi-led Congress had to taste defeat in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls which was held after imposition of Emergency. The Janata alliance of parties, opposed to the ruling Congress party, had won that elections riding on the anti-Congress wave. "But that issue (Emergency) did not appeal to the people when the (Lok Sabha) elections were held again (in 1980)," he noted. Pawar also recalled the Congress was defeated in Maharashtra in 1955-56 Assembly polls over the issue of the Samyukta Maharashtra. "But in the 1962 Assembly polls, the Congress came back to power as people did not accept the Samyukta Maharashtra issue," he added. In his annual Vijaya Dashmi rally held in Nagpur this October, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had demanded a law to pave the way for construction of the temple on the disputed site in Ayodhya. Many Hindu organisations have been demanding construction of the temple, as promised by the BJP before coming to power in 2014. The BJP has been saying that it was committed to the construction of the temple, but is silent on bringing an ordinance in Parliament for the purpose. The matter of Ayodhya title suits is currently pending in the Supreme Court. The Bombay High Court on Friday extended the interim protection from arrest granted to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, till 10 January Mumbai: The Bombay High Court Friday extended till January 10 the interim protection from arrest granted to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case. A bench of Justices BP Dharmadhikari and Sarang Kotwal also restrained police from arresting activist and co-accused Anand Teltumbde till 17 December. The bench said it will hear in detail the arguments on Teltumbde's petition seeking quashing of the FIR. The court, however, refused to grant any interim relief to activist Stan Swamy who too has been named in the FIR but is yet to be arrested. Pune Police who are probing the case informed the court that Swamy was still being treated as a "suspect" and not an accused. The judges said, in that case, he could not be granted any protection. Navlakha, Teltumbde, and Swamy have moved the high court seeking that the FIR against them be quashed. Navlakha was arrested in August this year along with Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves, all left-wing activists. Police alleged that they had links with the Maoists who had backed the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on 31 December, 2017. Inflammatory speeches at the conclave led to violence at the Bhima Koregaon war memorial in Pune district the next day, the police claimed. The Delhi High Court, however, ordered Navlakha's release. The other four got temporary relief from the Supreme Court which directed police to put them under house arrest while it heard petitions opposing the action against them. Later, as the SC refused to stop the probe, they were taken into custody by Pune Police. In October, another FIR was registered by Pune Police in the same case, naming eight more activists including Teltumbdeand Swamy who are yet to be arrested. The Maharashtra government has filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the apex court against the Delhi HC order in Navlakha's case. He informed the bench that the SC is slated to hear it on January 10. The bench noted that at the previous hearing, the state government had "given an impression to SC that he (Navlakha) would not be arrested till January 10". It, therefore, dismissed the government's argument opposing interim relief for Navlakha. "You gave a certain impression to the SC. We cannot override that," the judges said. Prosecutor Aruna Kamat-Pai argued earlier that police had "enough material evidence" against Navlakha and hence he should not get interim protection. When members of the Hindu Right answer questions about 2002 by bringing up 1984, they ignore salient differences between the two genocides The BJP, Shiromani Akali Dal and AAP are doing an admirable job in holding the Congress accountable for 1984. Even three decades later, the Justice Nanavati Commission Report makes for chilling reading. 1984, more than any other riot, leeched the Congress party of its moral standing in Indias violent political landscape. It opened the door for comparisons between it and other pogroms and political riots. Whatever investigations can be vigorously and independently pursued must be followed through to their conclusion, and in this matter the appointment of a Special Investigating Team is welcome. Whether Kamal Nath was involved or not, is a difficult question to answer. Part of the difficulty is the fact of the Nanavati Commission being constituted so many years after the incidents in 1984. The Commission itself found it difficult to prosecute Nath, citing evidence from a few eyewitnesses who said Nath was actually trying to placate and not incite the mob outside Gurudwara Rakab Ganj, but it did not fully absolve Nath either, stating that In absence of better evidence, it is not possible for the Commission to say that he had in any manner instigated the mob or that he was involved in the attack on the Gurudwara. Nevertheless, Naths presence in the mob cannot be disputed; as mentioned by Manoj Mitta and HS Phoolka, this was unprecedented, as no leader of a political party had been spotted with a mob and by journalists until then, including top accused like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar. Nor can it be denied that it took the NDA government to appoint the Nanavati Commission, and its findings to lead to then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs apology. Singhs words are evocative; he said, Four thousand people were killed in this great national tragedy that took place in 1984 I have no hesitation in apologising not only to the Sikh community but the whole Indian nation On behalf of our Government, on behalf of the entire people of this country, I bow my head in shame that such a thing took place. There are some similarities between 1984 and 2002. The first has to do with two of the most shameful statements made by politicians in Indian history. In 1984, Rajiv Gandhi justified the riots by saying, When a big tree falls, the earth shakes. In July 2013, Narendra Modi equated victims of the 2002 riots to a puppy, saying, if someone else is driving a car and we are sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will we not feel pain? Of course we will. The second has to do with failures to accept party involvement in the massacres. Narendra Modi has consistently refused to take any responsibility for the events in 2002, except for one statement in April 2013 when he apologised for failing to protect the lives of innocent victims. For that failing of the state government, I offer my unequivocal apology, he said. But it is hard to take this apology seriously when just three months later he was making the puppy comment. In the same vein, Rahul Gandhi has failed the victims of the 1984 tragedy by denying Congress involvement in the riots in the face of overwhelming evidence. In fact, it is probably because of his statement in August that the Kamal Nath controversy is raging this strongly. Rahul Gandhis statement reflects very poorly on the sincerity of the Congress partys apology in 2005. But when members of the Hindu Right answer questions about 2002 by bringing up 1984, they ignore salient differences between the two genocides. The first and most salient difference is that the Congress party did not come to power on the back of anti-Sikh sentiment. In fact, the assassination of Indira Gandhi occurred because she refused to replace her bodyguards; she said, I would not be worthy of being a daughter of the Indian revolution if I were to start suspecting people on the basis of their religion or community. This is not to minimise the atrocities committed during the Punjab insurgency, but it can be unambiguously said that the atrocities were not based on the demonisation of Sikh identity. Indira Gandhi proved this when she lost her life to her Sikh bodyguards. Nor has the Congress party made targeting Sikhs or blaming them for the problems our country faces into a political platform. It has not erected entire machineries of propaganda, featuring fake news, rath yatras and incendiary speeches to attack the Sikh community. These machineries, like radioactive materials, have a long half-life. Riots, too, have long half-lives, the trauma living on in communities across decades Rahul Gandhis statement has re-victimised those affected by the violence, over 30 years later but the difference is that the propaganda machineries carry within them the seed of fresh violence against new victims. Lastly, we have to consider the political consequences of an apology. Rahul Gandhis error is egregious in that there appear to be no benefit in maintaining an innocence no one else believes; Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, and even Rahul himself have apologised before and not faced any political consequences. His failure to do so slips into the territory of obstinacy and blindness. The difference between 1984 and 2002 is that an unequivocal apology by the BJP for 2002 will alienate the small but vital chunk of its base that believes 2002 was justified, that its victims deserved the harms done to them, and that the violence was a necessary political act that they are ready to repeat in the future. Even if the party leadership wanted to, and there is no indication that they do, it would cost them too much to apologise. It is this bind that has to be loosened so that victims in India can get the bare minimum a sincere apology and so that violence ceases to be a valid tactic in our countrys political landscape. BJP alleged that the 49-year-old killed himself disheartened with the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government's handling of the Sabarimala issue. Police, however, said that was not the reason. The death of a Thiruvananthapuram native in front of the venue of its indefinite hunger strike outside the Kerala secretariat has given a fresh ammunition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reeling under the recent poll debacle it has suffered in the Hindi heartland. The party has insisted that 49-year-old Venugopalan Nair, who allegedly set himself on fire at around 2 am on 13 December was an Ayyappa devotee and he had resorted to the extreme step, disheartened with the Left Democratic Front (LDF) governments handling of the Sabarimala issue. The saffron party held chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan responsible for the death and called for a dawn-to-dusk state-wide shut down strike (hartal) on 14 December. However, the dying declaration given by Nair before he succumbed to the burn injury at the Trivandrum Medical College Hospital around 4 pm has no mention about Sabarimala shrine and the ongoing protests against the entry of menstruating women in the hill shrine, according to police. The declaration recorded by the doctor who treated him and a magistrate said that he was disillusioned with his life and had no desire to continue with it, police officials said. The deceased, an autorickshaw driver from Muttada in the capital city, had allegedly poured kerosene oil over his body and setting himself ablaze. The man in flame advanced towards the makeshift tent, where former BJP state chief C K Padmanabhan was sitting on fast. The police and the BJP workers present at the spot doused the fire with drinking water stored at the tent and rushed him to the Trivandrum Medical College Hospital. However, the doctors could not save his life. Nair succumbed to the burn injury around 4 pm. Padmanabhan said Nair was an Ayyappa devotee and he was mentally upset with the failure of the LDF government to address the concerns of the devotees and pay heed to the protests. He said that the man had advanced towards the protest venue chanting 'Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa'. The devotee set himself ablaze saying that he could do only this for Lord Ayyappa. The incident shows the emotional turmoil caused to the devotees by the governments anti-Sabarimala stand. The Chief Minister, who is trying to curry support for the entry of young women in the shrine, is playing with fire. The state will witness more such incidents if it does not realize the sentiments of the devotees and change its stand, the former BJP chief said. The Cantonment police, which is investigating the incident, suspects family issues behind the extreme step that the deceased man has taken. Cantonment station sub-inspector Jijin G Chacko told The Indian Express that Nair was abandoned by his family, including his two wives and children. He said that family issues could be the reason for the suicide. However, why Nair chose the BJP protest venue for the suicide is a mystery. State Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran wondered how a man could set himself ablaze in front of the protest venue, where several people were present at that time. Alleging mystery behind the incident, the minister said that the government will conduct a high-level investigation into the incident. The family members of the deceased have not come up with any complaints against the death. Sources close to the family said he was a sympathiser of the Sangh Parivar. A family member was heard telling a local television channel that he was associated with the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the trade union wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, state BJP general secretary M T Ramesh has denied this. He said inquiries by his party workers showed that he was not a member of the Sangh Parivar. Nair was a strong devotee of Ayyappa and he used visit Sabarimala on the 1st of every month, Ramesh said adding that Nair had not visited the partys protest venue before. "He came to the venue about 15 minutes before the incident took place and talked to our people. He told our workers that he was a strong Ayyappa devotee and was ready to give his life for the Lord. The people there didnt take his words seriously, but a few minutes later, he poured kerosene oil over his body and set himself on fire," Ramesh said. 'We need to do something drastic to lift the morale of the cadres', say BJP workers The suicide by the Thiruvananthapuram native has come at a time the indefinite hunger strike that the party launched in front of the secretariat since 1 December had started losing steam after the political focus shifted to the electoral debacle that the party suffered in the assembly election in the five states, especially in the Hindi heartland. A senior party leader said that the electoral setbacks the party suffered in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had affected the morale of the cadres. The leader, who did not want to be identified, said that the number of party workers visiting the protest venue was dwindling since the declaration of the election results. We need to do something drastic to lift the morale of the cadres. Our national leadership would like to make up the loss that the party may suffer in the north in the coming Lok Sabha election from the southern states. The party is banking heavily on Kerala in this regard, he added. State BJP president P S Sreedharan Pillai had described the Sabarimala issue as a golden opportunity for the party to make inroads into the state. However, a section of his colleagues and the RSS in the state as well as the national leadership are of the opinion that he has failed to cash in on the tempo. In fact, the RSS is learnt to have started touting for a new leader to head the party. Top RSS leaders have mooted the name of general secretary K Surendran, who was put behind the bars by the police for his mission in Sabarimala. Massive crowds of party workers had gathered outside the Poojapura Central jail in Thiruvananthapuram to welcome him when he was released from the jail last week. Pillai has been trying to bring national president Amit Shah to Sabarimala in order to infuse vigour into the party cadres. However, party sources are doubtful whether Shah can come to the state in view of the post-poll exercises. Pillai, who is in Delhi to take part in the meeting convened by the party president to take stock of the electoral reverses, is expected to meet him and urge him to visit the hill shrine before 20 January when the Mandala Pooja - Makaravilakku season ends. Meanwhile, the Sabarimala Karma Samithi and the Congress-led opposition United Democratic Front are gearing up for a fresh offensive against the attempt by the government to create women wall from Kasargode to the state capital on 1 January to drum up support for gender equality. While the Karma Samithi, which include some Sangh Parivar outfits, has decided to counter the women wall by lighting Ayyappa Jyothi across the state, from the southern tip of Parasala to the northern tip of Manjeswaram on 26 December, the UDF is planning to hit the streets after calling of the 11-day satyagriha in the state Assembly. The opposition, which disrupted the proceedings of the assembly on all 11-days it met demanding the withdrawal of police restrictions in the hill shrine, has shifted the focus by calling the human chain by the women a communal wall. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala alleged that the womens wall being organised by the government with the help of a section of community organisations was intended to communally divide the people and asserted that they would defeat the move. The idea that India was ever meant to be a Hindu country is laughable and the high court's observations on this point, apart from being unwarranted, fly in the face of reason. The Meghalaya High Court while disposing of a petition concerning domicile made some rather controversial remarks concerning the Partition of India. These remarks have not gone down well and rightfully so. The high court observed that post-partition in 1947 Pakistan was declared to be an "Islamic State" and consequentially India should have been declared a "Hindu Nation". This is problematic for many reasons. First and foremost the historical context is lost by such an observation. Partition was one of the greatest tragedies of the last century and while the sub-continent was divided along communal lines. The lines were not as straightforward as one Hindu Country and one Muslim Country. The Pakistan movement was one that sought the secession of certain Muslim majority provinces of British India to be reconstituted as a separate country. India, as it was British India then, was to remain as India but sans these provinces and these new provinces were to from then-new dominion of Pakistan. India remained, it was Pakistan that left in 1947. There can be no question of India becoming a Hindu State as the secular character of the state never changed. In fact, this is why Pakistan had to apply separately for UN Membership post its independence while India occupied British India's seat at the UN. India is the legitimate successor state to British India as far as international law is concerned while Pakistan is the new state. India has always been a multicultural multi-faceted nation that does not have one single unifying cultural character. The absence of this cultural character is what unites India, India being united in her diversity. It makes democracy the only viable political force and promotes a natural check against dictatorship. Even if we were to assume that India was to be the "Hindu" country, as the high court encourages the government to do for the purpose of immigration control. We cannot extend that logic to India being a "Hindu State" the same way Pakistan is an "Islamic Republic". If India is a Hindu State, then which sect of Hinduism should govern the national ideology? The norms of which strain should be followed while determining policy? For Hindus are as diverse as people as they come, each in firm disagreement with the other on the overall nature of the universe but respectful of the others sentiment. The idea that India was ever meant to be a Hindu country is laughable and the high court's observations on this point, apart from being unwarranted, fly in the face of reason. National Energy Conservation Day is marked every year in India on 14 December, to drive mass awareness about the importance of energy efficiency and conservation. National Energy Conservation Day is marked every year in India on 14 December, to drive mass awareness about the importance of energy efficiency and conservation. The Energy Conservation Act in India was executed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in the year 2001, a constitutional body that comes under Government of India and helps in the development of policies and strategies in order to reduce the energy use. BEE recognises and encourages endeavours of industries in reducing energy consumption by felicitating them with National Energy Conservation Awards. BEE also awards prizes to the national winners of the annual National Painting Competition on Energy Conservation. Last year, over 1.22 crore children participated in the National Painting Competition and 322 industrial units and establishments from key sectors participated in the National Energy Conservation Awards 2017. President Ram Nath Kovind give away National Energy Conservation Awards and National Painting Competition Prizes this year. In India, many energy conservation competitions are organised by the government and other organisations to make national energy conservation campaign more effective and special. Many politicians celebrated the day, urging Indian citizens to do their bit and conserve energy. 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. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday suggested that it is unfair to tag a 'one-time loan defaulter Vijay Mallyaji' as a 'chor' (thief), adding that the embattled businessman has a four-decade-long track record of timely debt servicing. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday suggested that it is unfair to tag a "one-time loan defaulter Vijay Mallyaji" as a "chor" (thief), adding that the embattled businessman has a four-decade-long track record of timely debt servicing. Gadkari, however, clarified that he has no business dealing with Mallya, who faces extradition from the UK for alleged bank fraud and money laundering amounting to an estimated Rs. 9,000 crore. "40 saal Mallya regular payment kar raha tha, byaaj bhar raha tha. 40 saal baad jab wo aviation mein gaya....uske baad wo adchan mein aaya to woh ekdum chor ho gaya?...jo pachaas saal byaaj bharta hai wo theek hai, par ek baar wo default ho gaya...toh turant sab fraud ho gaya? Ye mansikta theek nahi hai." (For 40 years Mallya was regularly paying interest on loans. After entering the aviation sector, he started facing problems, and suddenly he became a thief? If a person repays the interest for 50 years, and if he defaults once, then suddenly everything is fraud? This mindset is not correct), Gadkari said at an economic summit organised by the Times Group. Gadkari said the loan he was referring to was from the Maharashtra government-owned entity Sicom to Vijay Mallya, extended 40 years ago, which he repaid on time without any default. Stating that ups and downs are part and parcel of any business, the road transport minister said if someone goes through a downward cycle, then he or she has to be supported. "There are risks in the business, be it banking or insurance, there are ups and downs. But, if the mistakes are bona fide, because of global or internal factors in the economy like a recession, then that person who is facing difficulties must be given support," the minister said. Likening an election loss to a business failure, he recalled how he lost an election when he was all of 26, but underlined that the loss did not mean that his political career ended. "If Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallyaji has committed (financial) fraud then send them to jail, but whoever comes in distress, and if we label them as fraudster then our economy will not progress," he said. Earlier this week, a London court had ordered Vijay Mallya's extradition, in a major boost to the government's efforts to bring back the fugitive businessman. Ahead of the extradition hearing, the 62-year-old former boss of the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines offered to repay the entire principal amount to banks. Gadkari has for long been calling for a more considerate and realistic approach to NPAs, and indirectly blamed the bankers for the NPA mess, saying our banking system is such that it does not support sick companies. "When someone is serious then we put him/her in an ICU, but our banking system first puts a sick company in the ICU and then ensures that it dies," he said. Last month, Gadkari had blamed the RBI for "complicating" project finance, saying over 150 projects involving over Rs. 2 trillion investments are struggling to get financial closure. "Unfortunately, many times ...the circulars issued by the RBI are creating more complications and this is one of the reasons why I am facing problems as far as financial closure is concerned," Gadkari had said. Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, is currently lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court to three years' imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card on 15 December, 2015. Islamabad/Peshawar: A top court in Pakistan Thursday gave one-month deadline to the federal government to complete formalities to deport Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari, whose three-year jail term will end on 15 December. Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, is currently lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court to three years' imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card on 15 December, 2015. Ansari was arrested in Pakistan in 2012 for illegally entering the country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online. A two-judge Peshawar High Court bench, comprising Justice Roohul Amin and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan, on Thursday heard an appeal filed by Ansari through a senior lawyer. The petition said that the federal government hasn't taken any steps for his release. Ansari's lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, said that his client's prison term will end on December 15 and he should be released on the morning of December 16. Anwar informed the bench that the sentence of Indian national would complete after two days and both the Ministery of Interior and authorities of prison, where he was lodged, were completely silent about his release and deportation to India. After hearing this, Justice Khan asked the Additional Attorney General to explain how would they keep the prisoner in jail after completion of his term. "I wonder that after two days the jail term of the prisoner would be completed and the government did not complete requirements for releasing and deportation of the prisoner," the judge observed after additional attorney general informed the court that documents for release and deportation of the prisoner were not ready. An officer, representing the interior ministry, informed the court that a prisoner could be kept for one month while the legal documents were being prepared. After knowing the legal position, the court directed the ministry to make all the arrangements within a month for releasing and deportation of the prisoner. On previous hearing, deputy attorney general recorded his statement on behalf of the interior ministry and said Ansari would be handed over to Indian authorities at Wagah border after completion of his term. Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court. Kala Azar is a neglected disease and is characterised by bouts of fever, weight loss, anaemia, and an enlargement of the spleen and liver that shows up as a pot belly Editor's note: Kala Azar is a neglected disease and is characterised by bouts of fever, weight loss, anaemia, and an enlargement of the spleen and liver that shows up as a pot belly. It is largely a disease of the poor. This is the first in a three-part series on the disease and those it affects. Azmat Ali, 19, had a bout of Kala Azar, a life-threatening neglected tropical disease, when he was around 10 years old and was treated for it. A few years later, he began getting a skin rash, but did not show it to any doctor. "I did not have time," said Azmat. Azmat is an orphan and lives with his elder sister's family, running an electric rickshaw in a village near Chhapra city in Bihar's Saran district one of the highly endemic areas for Kala Azar. He had large boils on his face, but they did not seem to bother him much. He was detected with Post-Kala Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis or (PKDL), a neglected skin manifestation of Kala Azar. While the disease does not cause considerable harm to the patient, it is considered to be a reservoir of the parasite that causes Kala Azar, and could spread in the community. The rising number of PKDL cases could act as an impediment to plans of eliminating Kala Azar in the country. After missing the goal of eliminating Kala Azar in 2017, the Indian government decided to postpone the deadline for eliminating the disease to 2020. But many scientists and even government officials are not sure if the goal will be achieved. Kala Azar, also known as visceral leishmaniasis, is a potentially fatal infectious disease caused by the Leishmania parasite and is spread by female sand flies. Referring to the increasing number of PKDL cases in the community, Dr Pradeep Das, the director of Rajendra Memorial Research Institute or RMRI, Patna said, "I know the goal is to eliminate the disease by 2020. But I still doubt whether we will achieve the goal or not." He made this statement in in a presentation before all stakeholders at an international conference on visceral leishmaniasis in Delhi last month. Kala Azar is a neglected disease and is characterised by bouts of fever, weight loss, anaemia, and an enlargement of the spleen and liver that shows up as a pot belly. Kala Azar is largely a disease of the poor. In case of PKDL, more than 80 percent of the patients have a history of Kala Azar which can manifest after six months to even 10 years. But the disease is considered a reservoir of the Leishmania parasite. That is, if a sand fly bites them, they will carry the parasite and spread Kala Azar to others in the community. PKDL is known to play an important role in spreading Kala Azar in the periods before the epidemic spreads in the community. Since 2015, the number of cases have been rising. Health officials say that it is a result of active surveillance. Here are the figures provided by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme on its website: Year Kala Azar cases PKDL cases 2015 8,500 655 2016 6,249 1,657 2017 5,758 1,982 2018 (till October) 3,837 1,037 Although the cases all over India appear to have reduced, it is because fewer cases are coming from West Bengal and Jharkhand. But the figures in Bihar, which is the pulse of the epidemic in the country, are still steadily increasing from 542 in 2016, to 593 in 2017 to 624 this year (till October). Das said that this indicated different stages of elimination in the states, with West Bengal closer to elimination, and Bihar still a distance away. Bihar gets more than than 70 percent of all the cases in the country. The other states include Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The target of eliminating the disease target is set as having less than one case per 10,000 population in a block. Although 33 districts are considered endemic to Kala Azar, now only 458 blocks in the state in the 10 districts of Bihar contribute to a majority of the cases. For the past three years, the government has been looking to detect and treat these patients. Why should PKDL be treated at the earliest? Scientists have been trying hard to understand the role of PKDL in increasing the transmission of Kala Azar in the community. In 1980, Dr A Nandy and his associate from Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine demonstrated that sand flies that bit PKDL patients with nodules (they look like abscess or boils) from 24 South Parganas had the parasite in their guts. This infectiousness of PKDL patients was thought to be an explanation for the outbreak of Kala Azar in 1980. More recently, a multi-partner study involving World Health Organisation or WHO, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative or DNDI, International Centre For Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh and some others conducted a study wherein sand flies bit 47 PKDL patients. More than 50 percent of the patients infected the sand flies. This experiment raised questions on earlier beliefs that only nodular PKDL can infect, and not the macular kind that is characterised by hyperpigmentation or a papular form (red rashes). With an eye on elimination, the government has been looking to detect these cases and treat them. The government has organised training of doctors and health workers such as ASHAs to identify PKDL cases and treat them. While earlier in 2016, PKDL had to be treated from RMRI in Patna only, now the treatment has been decentralised to some district hospitals and primary health centres. Besides, treated Kala Azar patients should be ideally told that they should look out for signs of discolouration of skin, or rashes or boils on the body and come to the government hospital for treatment. Hard to detect But the disease is hard to detect because it can be confused with other diseases such as leprosy, vitiligo among other skin diseases, said Das. "In my experience, the disease starts with discolouration of skin (macular) and later progresses to nodules. We now see more cases with macular forms of PKDL than earlier. It shows that we are catching the disease early," said Dr Ram Shankar, a senior doctor who handles all the Kala Azar cases in Chhapra District Hospital. PKDL is expected to affect approximately 10 to 15 percent of treated Kala Azar cases, said Dr MP Sharma, Bihars vector-borne disease control officer. "It has exceeded that in Bihar because we were finding both old and new cases. We expect that it is on a decline after this year," added Sharma. The trouble with identifying PKDL cases and treating them is that the disease doesnt affect people very much, while the treatment lasts three months and has side effects. "In PKDL, the patient does not suffer. The problem is more cosmetic or of ornamental value. Many of those who are 40 to 50 years old, whether a man or woman, may not come for treatment. It does not affect their day-to-day lives. It is only with active case-finding, does one find PKDL cases," said Sharma. Although the morbidity of the disease is low, it has a major epidemiological impact. However, many young women face stigma because of the disease. Das said that some members of his team did some case-finding work in Vaishali district which showed that there were many undetected cases. "Unless we do house-to-house surveys to look for these cases, there is still a chance that Kala Azar will spread," said Das. Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative supported the reporting of this series The Supreme Courts Rafale deal judgment is what I would like to call a judgment delivered out of institutional trauma. The Supreme Courts Rafale deal judgment is what I would like to call a judgment delivered out of institutional trauma. This is not the trauma suffered by an individual in an institution but the trauma that the institution itself is suffering due to past events and mistakes. This may seem incongruous after all, an institution is not flesh and blood and certainly not capable of emotions, so where does the question of trauma come in? It comes in, I think, because the individuals who are in charge of the institution are keenly aware of the institutions past and its mistakes, and are responding to the deeply negative feedback the institution received because of such mistakes. One could see the entire set of procedural innovations that led to the growth of public interest litigations as a response to the institutional trauma the Supreme Court underwent during the Emergency and its failure to uphold the rule of law. In a similar vein, I would argue that the mistakes it has made in PILs in the past has made the Supreme Court as an institution wary of venturing too far in recent PILs, especially where they involve getting into complex questions of fact and setting in motion the criminal law. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi may not say it, but underlying the reluctance to enter into the controversy in the Rafale deal is the backlash the Supreme Court has faced over the failure of prosecutions in the Jain diaries and the 2G spectrum allocation case . Even the coal scam seems to have snagged no big fish and led the bureaucracy to feel that they are being unfairly targeted in the process. The present proceedings in the Supreme Court were the result of former French president Francois Hollande seeming to suggest that Dassault (and the French) had to accept Reliance Defence as a partner on the insistence of the Indian side. Assuming this to be true, (even though Hollande attempted to walk it back) it is a somewhat thin basis to demand criminal prosecution of all concerned. For one, it does not, per se suggest the violation of a criminal law. There are two kinds of decision-making which are punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as it stood when the Rafale Deal was entered into) a decision motivated by personal gain and a decision motivated by gain to another with no public interest. Public interest is a tough thing to define in regular circumstances, but hardest perhaps when it comes to matters of defence. Its one thing for two reasonable people to disagree on what constitutes public interest it is completely another for the court to say that its definition of public interest should prevail over the governments in this field. To argue that there was absolutely no element of public interest in the Rafale deal and it was only entered into for the benefit of Reliance would not be borne out by the facts. That Reliance might benefit out of this is not the sole basis for initiating criminal prosecution. The threshold for the petitioners to prove was much higher and it has not been established. For similar reasons, the court was also not inclined to set aside the deal itself. Sticking strictly to the letter of the law, the court found that there was nothing per se illegal, irrational or procedurally improper about the Rafale deal. Underpinning this is perhaps a keen awareness that the Supreme Court realises that the public will judge it with a you broke it, you bought it yardstick. It is not as if the court can guarantee a better fighter jet or a better price by striking down this deal. Unstated in this judgement is the trauma from the blame that the court got for economic disruption that resulted from the cancellation of 2G licenses and coal allocations in the recent past. Perhaps some of the blame was less than justified but the court seems reluctant to go searching for dragons to slay in this case. Does that mean that the Rafale deal has gotten a clean chit from the Supreme Court? Hardly. It is possible to make bad decisions without them being illegal or unconstitutional. A decision to raise taxes with retrospective effect might be a bad one without also being illegal or unconstitutional. Demonetisation may have caused widespread economic devastation and misery, but it was not per se illegal or unconstitutional . I could multiply examples to the same effect but the point remains that a bad decision need not be an illegal one or unconstitutional one as well. Theres a good case to be made out that the terms of the Rafale Deal are bad whether in terms of pricing , or in terms of strategic needs , or simply in terms of Reliance Defences capacity to deliver . None of these arguments are rendered invalid because of the courts judgement. One only wishes that the court had found this admirable restraint more often, in the right cases. Rafale deal verdict: It's ironic that Congress is casting aspersions on the capability and integrity of the Supreme Court, an institution which all Indians look up to for delivery of justice Until some years ago, there seemed to be an unwritten code on how parties or persons would react to a verdict delivered by the by Supreme Court, even if they were adversely affected by the judgment with full faith in the judiciary, they would abide by a judgment that was not in their favor, and some would even add welcome it. But lately, there is an increased tendency among sections of activist lawyers, supposedly left-liberal commentators, and Congress leaders, to attack the mechanism of the apex court if a verdict or even the proceedings of the court are not of their liking. It does not matter to them that the Supreme Court didn't find merit in their allegations and dismissed their petition. A bunch of them committed top lawyers would still argue and vow to take their campaign to another level. This is exactly what happened today when Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi-led three-judge bench dismissed all petitions casting aspersions on the government to government deal between India and France on purchasing Rafale fighter jets, ruling out any probe of any kind. A petition in the Supreme Court was first filed by ML Sharma. Then another lawyer Vineet Dhanda petitioned the court seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal. Aam Admi Party leader Sanjay Singh also filed a petition on the deal. Then two disgruntled former Union ministers in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government who have now become kind of informal allies of AAP, Congress and Left-liberals Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and activist advocate Prashant Bhushan moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. These four sets of petitions were filed broadly questioning three things the procedure followed in the Rafale deal, the pricing of the fighter jets and the selection of offset partners. Now consider what the CJI-headed bench said, "We don't find substantial matter to interfere with issue of procurement, pricing and offset partner in Rafale jet deal there is no reason for interference in the choice of offset partner and perception of individuals can't be the basis for roving inquiry in sensitive issue of defence procurement not a case of commercial favouritism by Government of India." The court said it had studied the matter "extensively" and was "satisfied that there is no occasion to doubt the process". The court couldnt have been more clear in its order. The verdict obviously was delivered after lengthy arguments by both sides. But instead of accepting the judicial verdict from the highest court of the land, a barrage of angry reactions came from Prashant Bhushan, Arun Shourie, and senior Congress leaders. They are practically refusing the unanimous verdict of the three-judge bench led by CJI Gogoi. Bhushan said the judgment is totally wrong, against interest of the nation, also declaring that their "campaign will certainly not drop". The question is, did he along with Sinha and Shourie approached the Supreme Court to carry their campaign a step forward? The Supreme Court, as per the law established and as per the perception of 130 crores of Indians, is the highest forum to seek justice, not to be a party or an arbitrator in some campaign unleashed by individuals, activists, lawyers, and political parties. Courts are where one goes to settle a question of law, especially when one feels their rights are being usurped or they have been wronged. The Supreme Court is the final word on all such matters. It doesnt work to our liking. It works on what is in front of it, in the form of evidence and what the Constitution says. Is the countrys top court a place to launch, anti-corruption or political, campaigns? Surely, the court has more serious matters to concern itself with. But it didnt matter either to these petitioners or to the Congress that the apex court had used very strong words about their plea and their perceived charge of corruption in the Rafale deal: the "perception of individuals can't be the basis for roving inquiry in sensitive issue of defence procurement. The big bang 2019 parliamentary election is only over four months away and there is fear among the Congress leaders and Narendra Modi detractors of all hues that a strong verdict of this kind on an issue which Rahul and his cheerleaders spread over a variety of professional space were trying to make electoral corruption plank against Modi. Rahul rather distastefully charged "Hindustan ka chowkidar chor" and his assertion helped the Congress snatch three Hindi heartland states from BJP, but now it is established that PM Modi is corrupt has fallen flat. The court verdict has punctured Rahuls Modi is a "thief" charge. BJP president Amit Shah held a special press conference at party headquarters at 1 pm to blast Rahul. Quoting from the Supreme Court verdict, Shah said the Rafale deal "is a financial advantage to the nation". It was his day to go ballistic against Congress and its president "chor ka boom wahi laga rahe the jinhe chowkidar ka dar tha (those who were complaining against the chowkidar were afraid of the chowkidar)". But the Congress continues to be unrepentant disregarding the Supreme Court verdict and saying only a Joint Parliamentary Committee (not even the Supreme Court) was competent to take up the Rafale issue. The party is even insinuating that the petitioners in the Supreme Court were proxies for BJP. It's ironic that the party which ruled the country for over 60 years is making such claims and casting aspersions on the capability and integrity of an institution which all Indians look up to for delivery of justice. The verdict has clearly turned the table on Congress. On Thursday and the day before, Congress adjourned the proceedings of the Parliament on the Rafale deal. On Friday, when the Supreme Court verdict came about 20 minutes before the Parliament could start, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha and Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Lok Sabha challenged the Congress for a debate on Rafale. Congress benches did not respond and both Houses were adjourned on some trivial matter. Outside the Parliament, Congress leaders had a lot to say (repeating old charge) in 30-second television bites, but they would not participate in a structured debate in both the Houses of the Parliament. 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 deal is estimated to be about Rs 58,000 crore (about $8 billion). New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce the verdict on pleas seeking court-monitored probe in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France on Friday. The verdict is likely to be pronounced at 10.30 am. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas on 14 November. Advocate ML Sharma was the first petitioner in the case. Later, another lawyer Vineet Dhanda had moved the apex court with the plea for court-monitored probe into the deal. AAP leader Sanjay Singh has also filed a petition against the fighter jet deal. After the three petitions were filed, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan had moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The Centre has defended the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets and opposed public disclosure of the pricing details. 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 deal is estimated to be about Rs 58,000 crore (about $8 billion). The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. While reserving the verdict, the apex court had said that the pricing details of Rafale jets could only be discussed after it decides on whether to make it public. The observation by an apex court bench had come after the government refused to publicly divulge pricing details of the deal, saying it would give an advantage to India's enemies. While hearing a bunch of pleas alleging criminality in Rafale deal and seeking court-monitored probe into it, the apex court had asked wide-ranging questions from the government on issues including lack of sovereign guarantee from the French government, selection of Indian offset partner by the Dassault Aviation and need of entering into Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with France. The court had taken note of submissions and counter-arguments on the pricing of the fighter jets with the petitioners alleging that the government has been giving "bogus arguments" and "hiding behind the secrecy clause". Vehemently defending non-disclosure of price publicly, Attorney General KK Venugopal, appearing for Centre had said that the cost of a bare Rafale jet as per 2016 exchange rate was Rs 670 crore and the disclosure of price of a "fully loaded" aircraft would give an "advantage to the adversaries". Bhushan had claimed that the Union Law Ministry had red-flagged two issues the absence of sovereign guarantee by France and the international arbitration clause in IGA as per which the arbitration seat would be at Geneva but the government went ahead with the deal. Venugopal had admitted that there was no sovereign guarantee, but said that France has given a 'letter of comfort' which would be good enough as a governmental guarantee. The court during the hearing on the bunch of pleas had also interacted senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officers and enquired about the requirements of the force. The IAF officers had emphasised in the apex court the need for induction of 'four plus or fifth' generation fighter aircraft like Rafale, which have niche stealth technology and enhanced electronic warfare capabilities. The ordinance route remains as an option left for the Modi government to achieve the primary objective of the bill - granting citizenships to the six non-Muslim minority communities in Assam. The window for submitting applications for claims and objections seeking inclusion or exclusion of names in the final updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has been extended and will close on 31 December. However, an amendment in the Citizenship Rules already notified by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 18 October will keep open a window of possibilities in respect of over 40 lakh NRC applicants excluded from the complete draft of the updated NRC list published on 30 July. Till 11 December, altogether 11.40 lakh have submitted claims when the initial deadline for claims and objections was on 15 December. This triggered speculations about the fate of more than 25-28 lakh applicants excluded from the final draft but have not filed their claims even as the previous date was closing in. The Supreme Court on 12 December extended the last date till 31 December following a plea by the Assam government. The apex court in its directive also relaxed the date of issuance of documents that are required to be submitted along with the application for claims for proving residency prior to 24 March, 1971. The standard operating procedure for disposal of claims and objection earlier allowed the NRC authorities to accept documents issued prior to 31 December, 2015 which was the last date for filing the application for inclusion in the updated NRC. Having considered the prayers made and the circumstances set out, we direct the NRC authority to accept List B documents (linkage documents) that are found be legally valid, regardless of the date of issuance of the same, stated the Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohintan Fali Nariman in its order. The court also directed the NRC authority to facilitate the filing of objections against wrongful inclusion in the complete draft by making the copies of the draft available for inspection and filing of the objections at the district headquarters. While the number of filing claims and objections is expected to pick up following the apex court directives, speculations are rife about the voting rights of these applicants pending publication of the final NRC list after disposal of all claims and objections. Media reports, quoting officials at the Ministry of Home Affairs, say that disenfranchisement may be the first possible step in respect of those electors among those excluded in the complete draft who fail to submit the claim, supported by documents related to Indian citizenship, for inclusion in the NRC. The Ministry of Home Affairs on 18 October notified Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2018 making it mandatory for a person applying for Indian citizenship to declare his or her religion. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, on the other hand, seeks to remove illegal migrants tag on Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan so that they are eligible to apply for Indian Citizenship. Declaration of religion will make it easier for the MHA to segregate the applications of Muslim applicants from other applicants belonging to six religion groups. Earlier on 23 December, 2016 the ministry notified amendment in the Citizenship Rules under which applicants belonging to these six communities from these three countries will be required to pay Rs 100 with citizenship application and Rs 100 for grant of the certificate of registration. For other applicants, the fee is Rs 500 with application and Rs 5,000 under Section 5 (1) (a) and Section 5 (1) (b) and Rs 10,000 under Section 5 (1) (c) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 for grant of certificate of registration. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) headed by BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal which is examining the bill is yet to present its report to Parliament. The last meeting of the JPC failed to arrive at a consensus on recommendations to be made by the committee. This triggered speculations in the political circles that BJP-led government at the Centre may adopt the ordinance route as the bill is not going to be tabled in the winter session from 11 December to 8 January, 2019. The term of the JPC is scheduled to come to an end on the first day of the last week of the current session of Parliament. The bill does not figure among 45 bills listed by the Narendra Modi government for the current session. In such a situation, the ordinance route remains as an option left for the Modi government to achieve the primary objective of the bill - granting citizenships to the six non-Muslim minority communities in Assam. An ordinance can be issued only when both the Houses of Parliament are not in session. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 will automatically lapse after the current Lok Sabha is dissolved after completion of its term. Therefore, the window for issuing an ordinance will now be kept open only after 9 January till the commencement of the last budget session of the Narendra Modi-led government which will be sometime in February next year. Besides, the Model Code of Conduct comes into force from the day the election dates are announced by the Election Commission which normally happens 30-45 days ahead of polling. The final NRC will exclude names of all those who fail to prove residency anywhere in India prior to midnight of 24 March, 1971. Naturally, a new window will be opened for those who fail to submit claims before the NRC authorities for want of required documents to prove their citizenship but would be eligible to apply for Indian citizenship under the amended citizenship laws. Declaration of religion in the application form will help expedite disposal of applications and grant of citizenship. Verification of the claims and objections will commence on 15 February, 2019. While the date for publication of final list is yet to be set by the Supreme Court, given the fact that verification will involve hearing of applicants, the compilation of final NRC list is not likely to be over before 2019 Lok Sabha polls which are due in April-May. After the publication of the final list Election Commission will have both NRC final list and the citizenship registrations issued to these applicants to fall back on for reference for deciding on inclusion or exclusion of electors among them. Pending publication of the final NRC list the Election Commission is not likely to refer to the complete draft of the NRC as the Supreme Court had issued a directive that the Complete Draft NRC which naturally being a draft cannot be the basis of any action by any authority. However, the Election Commission will be open to referring to citizenship registration certificates that might be issued based on an ordinance promulgated in lieu of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The Election Commission's "Manual on Electoral Rolls" published in October 2016 states: "Although currently, there is no standard and uniform document throughout the country to determine citizenship, there are some documents that could be referred to by the Electoral Registration Officer while inquiring the question of citizenship of the concerned person. These documents are (i) The National Register of Citizens, wherever it exists; (ii) A citizenship certificate issued by a competent authority; (iii) A valid passport issued by the Government of India; and (iv) A birth certificate." If the ordinance is issued, then the MHA will just have to segregate the applications for citizenship applications of Hindu Bangladeshis and five other non-Muslim communities by referring to the ministrys 18 October notification in respect of Assam and grant citizenship certificates to the applicants belonging to these six communities who do not have documents to prove residency prior to the cut-off date of 24 March, 1971 for inclusion in the final NRC. In accordance with the law, an Indian citizen can register his or her name till the last date of submission of nominations by candidates notified by the Election Commission of India for the general election or any bye-election. However, the application is to be filed 10 days prior to the last date of nominations to enable the Electoral Registration Officer to act on the application to decide on inclusion or exclusion ahead of the scheduled election. All eyes are now on Modi government on its next move vis-a-vis the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as ruling the BJP has been aggressively campaigning in support the bill despite stiff opposition in Assam and other northeastern states. The BJP has called a statewide hartal on Friday, claiming an Ayyappa devotee immolated himself near a BJP protest site in Thiruvananthapuram protesting the 'adamant' stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government in Kerala over implementing an SC order on Sabarimala Thiruvananthapuram: A 55-year-old man, said to be an Ayyappa devotee, died after setting himself afire nearBJP's protest venue over the Sabarimala issue in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. Calling a statewide hartal on Friday over the death, BJP claimed the man immolated himself protesting the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government in Kerala over the issue of continuing prohibitory orders and restrictions at the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Venugopalan Nair of Muttada near Thiruvananthapuram, who suffered 90 percent burns, succumbed at the Government Medical College Hospital in the evening, police said. Chanting 'Swamiye saranam Ayyappa' mantra, Nair set himself afire near the venue in front of the state secretariat in the early hours. He tried to run toward the makeshift tent where BJP leader CK Padmanabhan is on an indefinite fast demanding lifting of prohibitory orders in force in and around Sabarimala hill shrine, police said. Party activists and police personnel, who were present near the venue, in front of the Kerala Secretariat, doused the fire using drinking water and rushed him to the hospital, where he died without responding to treatment. Quoting his relatives, police said Nair was an Ayyappa devotee. BJP announced a dawn-to-dusk hartal across the state Friday as a mark of respect to Nair. A BJP release claimed that Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue. The party has been protesting against the state government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the temple and also demanding lifting of the ban orders and restrictions. The state government has said it was constitutionally bound to implement the September 28 Supreme Court. After a large number of devotees came out against the apex court order, the BJP and main opposition Congress have backed their stand. The BJP is opposing any move to allow women in the 10-50 age group to trek the holy hill for 'darshan' at the Ayyappa temple. When the temple was opened for monthly and special pujas in October and November, there were massive protests by devotees, following which severe restrictions, including prohibitory orders, were imposed by the state government. However, so far no women in the previously banned age group had been able to enter the temple. Since the two-month long pilgrim season began on November 16, this is the second state-wide hartal called by the BJP on the Sabarimala issue. Earlier, it had observed a hartal to protest the detention of KP Sasikala, president of the Hindu Aikya Vedi. Meanwhile, officials said examinations scheduled to be held by various universities, including Mahatma Gandhi and Kerala varsities, Friday have been postponed. Calling a statewide strike on Friday over the death, the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the man immolated himself protesting the 'adamant' stand of the state government, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, over the issue of continuing prohibitory orders and restrictions at the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Police said late Thursday night that a 55-year-old man, who died after setting himself afire near the venue of the BJP's protest here, had committed suicide due to personal reasons and do not have any relation to the ongoing agitation over Sabarimala issue. Calling a statewide strike on Friday over the death, the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the man immolated himself protesting the "adamant" stand of the state government, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, over the issue of continuing prohibitory orders and restrictions at the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. "The deceased, in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate, said he resorted to the act due to depression and ran frantic towards the protest venue after setting himself afire," the police said in a release. Police said the man, who used to work as a plumbing and electrician assistant, do not have any political connections. "This matter is not connected with any ongoing protest over Sabarimala," the police said. Meanwhile, Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran on Thursday night lashed out at the BJP's call for strike and said the saffron party was trying to provoke the police. "Tomorrow's strike is the result of desperation faced by the BJP due to failure of its plan to create 'balidanis' (martyrs) by provoking the police at Sabarimala and other places." Venugopalan Nair, a resident of Muttada near here, suffered 90-per-cent burns and succumbed at the Government Medical College Hospital in the evening, police said. Nair poured kerosene and set himself on fire near the venue of the BJP protest in front of the state secretariat early in the day. Nair tried to run towards the makeshift tent where BJP leader CK Padmanabhan is on an indefinite fast demanding lifting of prohibitory orders in force in and around Sabarimala hill shrine, police said. Party activists and police personnel doused the fire using drinking water and rushed him to the hospital where he died without responding to treatment. The party has been protesting against the state government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the temple and also demanding lifting of the ban orders and restrictions. The BJP announced a dawn-to-dusk strike across the state on Friday as a mark of respect to Nair. A BJP release claimed that Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue. The state government has said it was constitutionally bound to implement the September 28 Supreme Court. The BJP is opposing any move to allow women in the 10-50 age group to trek the holy hill for 'darshan' at the Ayyappa temple. When the temple was opened for monthly and special pujas in October and November, there were massive protests by devotees, following which severe restrictions, including prohibitory orders, were imposed by the state government. However, so far, no women in the previously-banned age group had been able to enter the temple. Since the two-month long pilgrimage season began on November 16, this is the second statewide strike called by the BJP on the Sabarimala issue. Earlier, it had observed a strike to protest the detention of K P Sasikala, president of the Hindu Aikya Vedi. Meanwhile, officials said examinations scheduled to be held by various universities on Friday have been postponed. After the Supreme Court's verdict dismissing all petitions demanding a probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal on Friday, the BJP demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and said that 'truth always triumps'. After the Supreme Court's verdict dismissing all petitions demanding a probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal on Friday, the BJP demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and said that the verdict was a "slap on the Congress' politics of lies". The apex court's ruling vindicated the party, which had been accused of corruption in the Rafale deal and favouring a certain company as the offset partner for political gains. BJP president Amit Shah asked Rahul to apologise to the country and its soldiers for putting national security at risk. Stating that his party was ready for discussion on this issue, Shah challenged the Congress to debate the issue in Parliament. "I welcome SC order on Rafale. The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk," Shah said at a press conference at the party office here. For the sake of his own credibility, Rahul should reveal the source of information on which he based his false allegations on the Rafale deal, he said. Shah also tweeted, "Truth always triumphs!" and added that the apex court's judgment "exposed the campaign of misinformation" by the Congress. "The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. On the contrary, the Supreme Court held that the government had no role in selecting offset partners and found no merit in the demand for a probe based on the mere perception of individuals. "It therefore raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India," Shah said. Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. #SCNailsRaGaLies Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 14, 2018 Home Minister Rajnath Singh led the government's rebuttal on the issue as he slammed the Congress for "maligning India's image", and demanded that the party and Rahul apologise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "levelling false allegations". The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 17 December, following ruckus after the verdict. ANI also quoted Singh as saying, "The Rafale deal was crystal clear from the beginning." Anil Ambani, Chairman of the Reliance Group, whose company is the offset partner of French aviation company Dassault in the deal, said that he "welcomed" the judgment, which "summarily dismissed" all the petitions on the Rafale contracts. He said, "(The judgment) conclusively established the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically-motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. "We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' policies of the Government in the critical area of defence, including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France, Ambani added." However, one of the petitioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan said that they will not back down with the campaign against the deal. He said, "In our opinion, the Supreme Court judgment is completely wrong. We will decide if we will file a review petition." He also said slammed the Supreme Court and said, "This isn't the first time when the SC has failed us in ordering a probe in cases of high-level corruption. In the Birla/Sahara case, where IT & CBI had recovered documents showing large payoffs to politicos which tallied with their books of accounts, the apex court had also refused to order a probe." SC also accepted govt claim that selection of Ambani as offset partner was done by Dassalt and the government has no role in it, despite the fact that defence procurement procedures and offset guidelines require that all offset contracts must be approved by the Defence Minister! Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) December 14, 2018 Congress leader Anand Sharma said that there was "no reason" for the prime minister and the BJP to celebrate about the apex court's verdict. He also said that the fundamental issues were not discussed by the court. "We insist on the JPC probe," Sharma said. The demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into the deal was echoed by several other Congress leaders, who also noted that the Supreme Court, in previous hearings, had clarified that the bench would not consider technicalities of the case. Hence, the Congress leaders said, the verdict is incomplete. Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala accused the government of providing "one-sided, half-baked evidence" on an "unsigned affidavit which was not released for public scrutiny". He added, "The verdict of the Supreme Court is a validation of what the Congress had already stated: The court is not the forum to decide on the issue of a sensitive defence deal, it is not the forum to take a decision on the details of the deal. Only JPC would be able to probe the details and find out who are the people involved." Another Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge said that he condemned the home minister's statement, and reiterated the party's demand for a JPC investigation. Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the order is not a setback as the issue is still live in the "people's court" and the Congress will continue to raise it in Parliament. "The apex court order is not a setback as the Rafale deal is still an issue in the people's court. And the party will continue to raise the issue in the Parliament," Scindia told reporters. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said he did not see the Rafale deal remaining an election issue in view of the verdict given by the Supreme court. "Can't see how Rafale Deal remains an election issue after this," Omar wrote on Twitter after the top court verdict. "Have to ask whether the Supreme Court was the right place to fight this battle? Some fights are best fought in the political arena," he added. BJP leaders and ministers, however, welcomed the verdict. Satyamev Jayate: Once again, Rahul Gandhi's blatant lies stand exposed. Supreme Court has dismissed any probe into the Rafale Deal. The entire nation has been lied to for political mileage #SCNailsRaGaLies https://t.co/cAS0URWeyD Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) December 14, 2018 In the dismissal of Rafale petitions SC not only upholds GOI stand but also exposes false narrative of Opposition. Rahul Gandhi & Co.s relentless campaign to malign the PM & mislead the Nation just got delivered a death knell. #SCNailsRaGaLies Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) December 14, 2018 That @RahulGandhi is a Liar of the first order is established with the Supreme Court Rafale verdict. His father was accused of 'dalali' in Bofors and Rahul & Mom are recipients of 'family' loot in Agusta Helicopter deal.His attempts to blame PM resulted in a tight slap for Rahul. GVL Narasimha Rao (@GVLNRAO) December 14, 2018 With inputs from agencies The Supreme Court ruling in Rafale Deal, extradition of Christian Michel and Vijay Mallya and now the warrant against Choksi comes at a time when the Parliament's Winter Session is underway and despite their poll victory (which has come after a long wait) Opposition is cornered in both Houses. Supreme Court's verdict on the Rafale deal has come as a shot in the arm for the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government. After recent electoral jolts in three crucial states Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh BJP has been in a dire need of a win or so it may seem even as several BJP leaders have tried not to make a big deal of the losses. However, when the Supreme Court of India on Friday ruled that the there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, all the big guns of the BJP came out with confidence and slammed the Congress for "discrediting" a defence deal which is crucial for India. Soon after the Supreme Court verdict, senior BJP leaders, including party president Amit Shah, Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman slammed the Congress and its chief Rahul Gandhi for rallying with the tirade of false allegations against the Modi government. Jaitley refused to entertain any demands 0f a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal while Shah dared Rahul to have a debate over Rafale deal in Parliament. Speaking to the media, Shah said that the BJP will ensure that there will be an adjournment motion in Parliament if Congress and Rahul Gandhi agree to debate over Rafale deal. Even news channels flashed headlines as, Rafale Soars, Rahul Grounded; Disruptors have lost the plot with BJP leaders claiming loudly that Congress is only interested in sullying India's name. Rafale is among the few bits of good news the BJP received this week amid the poll debacle. Apart from the Rafale verdict, the BJP will try and eclipse its electoral losses with the extradition of Christian Michel, an accused in the VVIP chopper AgustaWestland case and the extradition order against the fugitive defunct Kingfisher Airlines promoter Vijay Mallya. Claiming that the current dispensation was responsible for 11 fugitives being extradited in the past three years, the Centre was already thumping its chest rubbishing claims of corruption alleged by the Congress. Adding one more feather to their cap was when the Interpol issued a Red Corner notice against absconding billionaire Mehul Choksi, who is an accused of cheating state-run Punjab National Bank to the tune of Rs 13,000 crore in alleged collusion with his nephew Nirav Modi. The international police cooperation agency has issued the notice against Choksi on Wednesday on the request of the CBI rejecting his contentions of being persecuted by Indian agencies and the case of being political in nature, they said. Choksi, 59, managing director of Gitanjali Gems Ltd, who escaped in January this year along with his nephew Nirav, his wife Ami Modi and brother Nishal Modi, has taken citizenship of Antigua. "The Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice against Mehul Choksi on the request of the CBI," CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said. Choksi had challenged the CBI application seeking issuance of Red Corner Notice against him calling the case a result of a political conspiracy, sources said. The Supreme Court ruling on Rafale and the developments on Michel and the Mallya's extradition and now the warrant against Choksi come at a time when the Parliament's Winter Session is underway and despite their poll victory (which has come after a long wait) Opposition is cornered in both Houses. While Mallya is likely to appeal and it'll be a long time before we see him in India provided he exhausts all legal options and is compelled to return. Politically, the BJP can and will still claim it as a win. BJP will take this opportunity to counter-punch the Congress-led secular front, which includes parties like Trinamool Congress, Telugu Desam Party and NCP, with all the saffron party big guns coming out in criticism of the Congress. Right after the Supreme Court verdict, Shah held a press conference and declared that the top court's ruling proves that chowkidar can never be a chor. Senior BJP leaders like Jaitley and Sitharaman also slammed the Congress for "frivolous corruption claims". The fact that the top court of India questioned the need to bring the case to the judiciary even before a probe was conducted on it, is quite a failure on part of the Opposition who has been attacking the Centre for allegedly shielding industrialists and loan defaulters. Now, the Opposition may find their ammo severely depleted considering that their main weapon against the Modi government, apart from the BJP 'fracturing India's social fabric', has been corruption. Subodh Gupta, referred to as the Damien Hirst of Delhi, has been accused of inappropriate touching, passing lewd remarks and making unwelcome advances towards his female assistants India's leading contemporary artist has been named in a new #MeToo allegation that emerged on social media on Thursday, 13 December. Subodh Gupta known for his massive installations that incorporate stainless steel utensils and everyday Indian objects and described as 'Delhi's Damien Hirst' has been accused of sexual harassment in an anonymous account shared on Instagram. The anonymous post which seemingly includes testimony from Gupta's female assistants was shared by the Instagram handle @herdsceneand, that has been addressing #MeToo stories from the Indian art world in recent weeks. While Firstpost has not received permission yet to quote directly from the accounts concerning Gupta on Instagram, the accusations levelled against the artist include inappropriate touching, passing lewd comments, and repeatedly making unwelcome advances towards his assistants. The allegation further claims that Gupta dismissed an assistant who rejected his advances as being "too young and inexperienced", and unable to discharge her professional duties. Gupta has denied the allegations, calling them 'false and fabricated'. "I deny the anonymous allegations made on the Instagram account @herdsceneand in their entirety; I have never behaved in an inappropriate manner with any individual who worked with me and several of my former assistants can attest to this. These allegations are entirely false and fabricated," he said to Firstpost. Repeated requests sent to representatives of the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa on 13 December, where Gupta is among the curators, yielded no statement. Nature Morte, the gallery that represents Gupta, has not issued a statement at present (Firstpost reached out via Twitter on 14 December). However, Hauser & Wirth, which represents Gupta internationally, told ARTnews: We have been made aware of the statements being made about Subodh Guptas behaviour towards women and are deeply troubled by them. Hauser & Wirth upholds the highest standards of mutual respect and maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward all forms of harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment. Meanwhile, art critic Rosalyn D'Mello said she had heard of nearly all the incidents mentioned in the @herdsceneand post in September 2017 and wished to bear witness to them. "In the last few days in Kochi [at the Biennale], I've been privy to many conversations that have been dismissive of #herdandscene. I, too, have had some issues with the tone, but have found it very empowering as a platform through which one can at least talk about situations of abuse and sexual misconduct in the art world," D'Mello wrote on Facebook. "I read on #herdandscene about the allegations against Subodh Gupta. My first fear was that the art world was going to be dismissive of it once again because by dissing the site so much, many had seemed to find a convenient way to de-legitimise its testimonies. I am writing this here to bear witness," her post read. "I know it will come at a huge personal cost and may directly impact my livelihood as an art writer," she added. "Since September, I learned about almost all the instances mentioned in the #herdandscene testimony. I could not speak about it because they were not my truths to tell, and I was told them in confidence, and the survivors didn't feel ready to come out. I will write more about this later. But if it helps anyone, I want to state that the post pertaining to Subodh is not 'made up' or isn't 'revenge' or isn't 'attention-seeking'. They are true. They happened. Unless you choose not to believe them. That's your prerogative." Previously, artists such as Jatin Das, Riyas Komu and photographer Shahid Datawala have been named in #MeToo allegations. The gallery TARQ pulled down Datawala's exhibition while Komu had to step down from his position with the Kochi Muziris Biennale Foundation after the accusations against them were reported. In November, Sotheby India's managing director Gaurav Bhatia was sent on leave following accusations of sexual misconduct that were first aired on @herdsceneand. *** Network 18, of which Firstpost is a part, has received complaints of sexual harassment as well. The complaints which are within the purview of the workplace have been forwarded to our PoSH committee for appropriate action. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions demanding a probe into the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that the pricing and decision-making process of the deal were not in doubt. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all petitions demanding a probe into the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that the pricing and decision-making process of the deal were not in doubt. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, "Our country cannot afford to be unprepared when it comes to fighter aircrafts." The bench also observed that defence preparedness needs to be looked after. Meanwhile, reports have said that home minister Rajnath Singh has ruled out the need for a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the Rafale deal. The Supreme Court verdict came at a time when Parliament's Winter Session is underway and reports said that while Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pushed for a debate in the House, BJP ministers raised slogans against Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Disruptions caused by MPs forced adjournments of both the Houses Rajya Sabha till 11.30 am and Lok Sabha till 12 pm. The bench pointed out that it was "not correct" for the apex court to sit as an "appellant authority" and scrutinise all aspects. Gogoi said, "(The court) cannot sit in judgment over the decision to go in for the purchase of 36 aircraft in place of 126." According to reports, the bench ruled out a probe into the details of the deal, and asserted that the Rafale deal was not a case of "commercial favouritism". The CJI also said, "Its not a case of commercial favouritism as offset doesn't require to be chosen by Indian government. The perception of individuals can't be a subject matter of initiating inquiry." The bench said, "We studied the materials carefully, interacted with the defence officials, we are satisfied with decision-making process." Advocate Prashant Bhushan, while addressing the media, rejected the Supreme Court's judgment and called it "completely wrong" and added that the petitioners had been asking for details of the deal, but the government had denied access. How can the government say that Dassault gave the deal to Reliance without consulting it, when all the guidelines clearly say that such a deal cannot happen without the Defence Ministrys approval? he asked. The bench had earlier reserved its verdict on petitions on 14 November. The apex court was to decide on whether the government followed the correct procedure in making the deal, and the induction of the offset partner. Advocate ML Sharma was the first petitioner in the case. Later, another lawyer Vineet Dhanda had moved the apex court with the plea for court-monitored probe into the deal. AAP leader Sanjay Singh has also filed a petition against the fighter jet deal. After the three petitions were filed, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan had moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The Centre had defended the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets and opposed public disclosure of the pricing details. 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 deal is estimated to be about Rs 58,000 crore (about $8 billion). While reserving the verdict, the apex court had said that the pricing details of Rafale jets could only be discussed after it decides on whether to make it public. The observation by an apex court bench had come after the government refused to publicly divulge pricing details of the deal, saying it would give an advantage to India's enemies. While hearing a bunch of pleas alleging criminality in Rafale deal and seeking court-monitored probe into it, the apex court had asked wide-ranging questions from the government on issues including lack of sovereign guarantee from the French government, selection of Indian offset partner by the Dassault Aviation and need of entering into Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with France. The court had taken note of submissions and counter-arguments on the pricing of the fighter jets with the petitioners alleging that the government has been giving "bogus arguments" and "hiding behind the secrecy clause". Vehemently defending non-disclosure of price publicly, Attorney General KK Venugopal, appearing for Centre had said that the cost of a bare Rafale jet as per 2016 exchange rate was Rs 670 crore and the disclosure of price of a "fully loaded" aircraft would give an "advantage to the adversaries". Bhushan had claimed that the Union Law Ministry had red-flagged two issues the absence of sovereign guarantee by France and the international arbitration clause in IGA as per which the arbitration seat would be at Geneva but the government went ahead with the deal. Venugopal had admitted that there was no sovereign guarantee, but said that France has given a 'letter of comfort' which would be good enough as a governmental guarantee. With inputs from PTI The NGO in its petition had challenged Rakesh Asthana's appointment, saying it was illegal as his name had surfaced in a diary recovered during a raid. New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed a curative petition seeking to re-examine its verdict upholding the appointment of Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as special director of CBI. The apex court rejected the curative petition filed by NGO Common Cause, whose review petition was also earlier held to be devoid of merits. After an in-chamber hearing, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said, "We have gone through the curative petition and connected papers. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court (in the case laying down guidelines to deal with the curative petition)." The bench, also comprising Justices MB Lokur, AK Sikri and AM Sapre, passed the order on 11 December and was made public on the apex court's website on Friday. A curative petition is heard in the chamber of judges in the absence of lawyers. The decision of the apex court came amidst a bitter feud between Asthana and CBI Director Alok Verma. Both have been divested of powers and sent on leave by the central government on 23 October. The apex court, on 28 November, 2017, had dismissed the PIL filed by the NGO against the appointment of Asthana to the post of CBI special director, saying it cannot question a "unanimous" decision taken by the selection committee and the decision is not illegal. Later, the court also dismissed the plea seeking review of the verdict. The top court had said there cannot be any doubt that if the statute provides for consultation with any person before making a recommendation for appointment to any post, the consultation with that person has to be made. The NGO in its petition had challenged Asthana's appointment, saying it was illegal as his name had surfaced in a diary recovered during a raid conducted by the Income Tax Department at the offices and other premises of company Sterling Biotech Ltd. The Centre had said that Asthana, who was earlier an additional director in CBI, was looking after its eleven zones and had supervised the investigation and trial of several scam cases, including Augusta Westland, Ambulance Scam, Kingfisher, Hassan Ali Khan, Moin Qureshi and coal allocation. It had said the selection committee had given good reasons for not accepting the contents of the letter submitted by the CBI director and recommended Asthana for appointment as CBI special director. India needs to address 'deeply rooted social norms' that discriminate against women as it could prevent the country's development, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi said. New Delhi: India needs to address "deeply rooted social norms" that discriminate against women as it could prevent the country's development, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi said. Abdi, while giving the example of a children's clinic in Bihar's Patna, said it was seen there that families were not bringing girls for treatment, which reflected that there are issues of considering them as a "financial burden" that prevented the parents from bringing them. "There are some inter-connected social issues that need to be addressed which could be done through education and government policies like cash transfer schemes," he told PTI. He also said the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme can play a crucial role in addressing gender inequality to show how investment in a girl child can empower them. "There are some deeply related issues associated with gender on how society addresses girls in comparison to boys that need to be addressed and will take time. What is needed to be added is the stimulation component, responsive caring for parents to be taught," Abdi said. "There needs to be integration of ECD into curriculum of health workers," he added. Noting that first 1,000 days are very crucial for a child, he said apart from the survival of a child, it is also needed that the baby develops to its full potential, which includes not only physical growth, but also brain development. According to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), investing in ECD is one of the most cost-efficient and powerful strategies to achieve fair and sustainable development. The benefits are reaped in better education and health outcomes, lower crime and higher individual earnings. Intervening in the early years is more affordable than later remedial interventions and it makes later interventions more likely to succeed, it added. "Globally, it is estimated that every $1 invested in ECD can provide a return of up to $13 for the most disadvantaged. The cost of investing in ECD can be surprisingly affordable because many early childhood interventions can be integrated into existing services for an estimated average of USD 0.50 per person annually," said Pia Rebello Britto, chief and senior advisor of ECD at the UNICEF. She said the early childhood development programmes can bring together the key interventions that are needed for body and brain to thrive. Investments in children's early development can lead to better individual adult incomes of up to 25 percent. Investing in Early Childhood Development programme also benefits nations supporting a more skilled workforce that is better prepared to take on the future challenges of a global and digital economy, she said. "We have studied it in many communities the benefits of implementing ECD programmes that help in closing gender gap," she added. Congress leaders will on Friday evening meet the Rajasthan governor and will decide on the details of the oath-taking ceremony. Ashok Gehlot has been named the chief minister. Auto refresh feeds Veteran Congress leader Ashok Gehlot to be the next Chief Minister of Rajasthan, sources told ANI. The picture, though had became clear on Thursday evening with Pilot, who stayed put in Delhi, appealing to party workers to maintain peace and saying that he would "welcome" any decision that will be taken by the party. PTI had reported on Thursday that though Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot had given up after putting up a spirited claim for the post. The deliberations went on till late night on Thursday, however, no official announcement was made. On Thursday, Congress leader KC Venugopal, who is also the party's election observer for Rajasthan, had told news channels that Rahul met all the contenders for the post of chief minister, and that a decision will be announced on Friday. The name of 67-year-old Ashok Gehlot, a two-time chief minister, is expected to be announced by the party. Both Gehlot and Sachin Pilot had met Rahul Gandhi at his residence in Delhi on Thrusday where he was joined by his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. According to PTI, Sonia Gandhi is understood to have counselled Rahul Gandhi over relying on "experience" as it was a verdict with a narrow margin of victory and a seasoned leader would be better equipped to deal with a situation in which the party would need the backing of MLAs belonging to BSP and Independents, who won 13 seats. Most of them are Congress rebels. In most cases, the protesters were from Pilot's Gujjar community. Pilot had urged his supporters to remain calm and maintain decorum. According to the police, groups of people had tried to stop traffic at places in Dausa, Ajmer and Karauli districts. Protesters blocked the Jaipur-Agra highway at Dausa for some time, burning old tyres. There was a similar disruption on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway and attempts to block traffic on other roads, PTI had reported. As deliberations for the next chief minister went on Thursday and Ashok Gehlot's name emerged as Rahul Gandhi's pick, supporters of Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot blocked roads, burnt tyres in protest. Gehlot said the BJP had no right to comment on the issue as that party took seven days to select their state head in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, in Maharashtra, they took nine days to choose a Chief Minister. Gehlot was speaking to the media before the start of a meeting at the residence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the presence of state Congress chief Sachin Pilot, the other main contender for the post. "Crucial decisions always take time," Congress leader Ashok Gehlot had said on Friday, commenting on why the name of Rajasthan Chief Minister had not been announced yet. The official announcement is expected at 4.30 p.m. It is expected to put an end to two days of intense speculation and turf wars over the chief minister's chair in Rajasthan. Senior party leaders K C Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were also present during the meeting Friday. There have been hectic discussions between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the selection of chief ministers for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Though ANI claimed that Rahul has picked Gehlot, and his name will be announced officially at 4.30 pm today, the delay irked supporters of both Pilot and Gehlot. Rahul Gandhi met Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot separately thrice since Thursday and is learnt to have decided the chief ministerial face in the state. As the Congress leadership in Delhi deliberated over the chief minister's post, groups of people tried to stop traffic at places in Dausa, Ajmer and Karauli districts, police said. On Thursday, Sachin Pilot supporters had burnt tyres and blocked roads in Rajasthan on Thursday, demanding his appointment as the next chief minister. Senior party leaders K C Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were also present during the meeting Friday. There have been hectic discussions between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the selection of chief ministers for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Gandhi has met the two leaders separately thrice since Thursday and is learnt to have decided the chief ministerial face in the state. Sources said Gehlot's name is likely to be announced as the party's pick for the post in the evening. "The united colours of Rajasthan," Gandhi said in a tweet along with a photograph in which the three leaders were seen in a jovial mood. Ashok Gehlot is likely to be the Congress' pick for Rajasthan chief minister, sources said Friday, after party president Rahul Gandhi appeared to have successfully brokered peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague Sachin Pilot following several rounds of discussions. Sachin Pilot may be the Rajasthan deputy chief minister, CNN-News18 quoted sources as saying. Rahul Gandhi appears to have attempted to strike a balance between the two most prominent Congress leaders in the state. Sources have also told CNN-News18 that portfolios will also be split equally between supporters of Gehlot and Pilot. Striking a balance between youth and experience will be key for the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Congress leaders are now addressing a press conference. Both Gehlot and Pilot are present. "The chief minister of Rajasthan will be Ashok Gehlot," Congress announces. Addressing the media, KC Venugopal said that the leadership has reached the decision after many deliberations. It's official; Ashok Gehlot is the new Rajasthan Chief Minister The Congress has made the official announcement on its Twitter handle and has termed Ashok Gehlot as a "stalwart" of the party. The Congress has heaped praise on Sachin Pilot as well, terming him a "young, dedicated leader", while announcing his name as the deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot said at the press conference, "I would like to thank Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other legislators for taking this decision to make Ashok Gehlot the Chief Minister of Rajasthan." "We'll form the government with a big mandate in 2019," Sachin Pilot has said after being named Rajasthan deputy chief minister. Congress leader KC Venugopal said that the party would meet the Rajasthan governor on Friday evening and decide on the details of the oath-taking ceremony. But he lost the 2008 assembly election with a margin of just one vote, ruling himself out of the race. The then Pradesh Congress Committee president CP Joshi, who later became Union minister after winning the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, also had chief ministerial aspirations. In December 2008, Jat leaders like the then Union minister Sis Ram Ola, former Rajasthan Speaker Parasram Maderna and newly elected MLA Sonaram had openly raised the demand for a Jat chief minister. Gehlot is from the Mali community. After the jockeying for power since the results of the 7 December Assembly polls came in on Tuesday, the Congress picked him over Pilot on Friday afternoon to head the state government. This time, however, the challenge from Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot has been tougher. On both occasions, he overcame the opposition to be named by the Congress as the chief minister. Ashok Gehlot, who emerged on Friday as his party's choice for the chief minister's post in Rajasthan, faced serious opposition in the race to the chief minister's post in 1998 and 2008 as well, with Jat leaders in the Congress opposing him. Ashok Gehlot had faced opposition in race for CM chair earlier as well Sachin Pilot may be the Rajasthan deputy chief minister, CNN-News18 quoted sources as saying. Rahul Gandhi appears to have attempted to strike a balance between the two most prominent Congress leaders in the state. Sources have also told CNN-News18 that portfolios will also be split equally between supporters of Gehlot and Pilot. Striking a balance between youth and experience will be key for the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Congress leaders are now addressing a press conference. Both Gehlot and Pilot are present. "The chief minister of Rajasthan will be Ashok Gehlot," Congress announces. Addressing the media, KC Venugopal said that the leadership has reached the decision after many deliberations. It's official; Ashok Gehlot is the new Rajasthan Chief Minister . @ashokgehlot51 a stalwart of the Congress party has been elected CM of Rajasthan. We wish him the best as he takes on this new appointment with vigour, sincerity & a commitment to our democratic values. pic.twitter.com/eMvwuZYMM9 The Congress has made the official announcement on its Twitter handle and has termed Ashok Gehlot as a "stalwart" of the party. Our best wishes to Shri @SachinPilot , the new Deputy CM of Rajasthan. A young & dedicated leader, he is sure to bring development, peace & happiness to the people of Rajasthan. pic.twitter.com/0UlcCDESFl The Congress has heaped praise on Sachin Pilot as well, terming him a "young, dedicated leader", while announcing his name as the deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot said at the press conference, "I would like to thank Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other legislators for taking this decision to make Ashok Gehlot the Chief Minister of Rajasthan." "We'll form the government with a big mandate in 2019," Sachin Pilot has said after being named Rajasthan deputy chief minister. Congress leader KC Venugopal said that the party would meet the Rajasthan governor on Friday evening and decide on the details of the oath-taking ceremony. But he lost the 2008 assembly election with a margin of just one vote, ruling himself out of the race. The then Pradesh Congress Committee president CP Joshi, who later became Union minister after winning the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, also had chief ministerial aspirations. In December 2008, Jat leaders like the then Union minister Sis Ram Ola, former Rajasthan Speaker Parasram Maderna and newly elected MLA Sonaram had openly raised the demand for a Jat chief minister. Gehlot is from the Mali community. After the jockeying for power since the results of the 7 December Assembly polls came in on Tuesday, the Congress picked him over Pilot on Friday afternoon to head the state government. This time, however, the challenge from Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot has been tougher. On both occasions, he overcame the opposition to be named by the Congress as the chief minister. Ashok Gehlot, who emerged on Friday as his party's choice for the chief minister's post in Rajasthan, faced serious opposition in the race to the chief minister's post in 1998 and 2008 as well, with Jat leaders in the Congress opposing him. Ashok Gehlot had faced opposition in race for CM chair earlier as well Ashok Gehlot is new Rajasthan CM LATEST updates: Congress leaders will on Friday evening meet the Rajasthan governor and will decide on the details of the oath-taking ceremony. "We will form the government with a big mandate in 2019," Congress leader Sachin Pilot said after being named Rajasthan deputy chief minister. The chief minister of Rajasthan will be Ashok Gehlot," Congress announces. Addressing the media, KC Venugopal said that the leadership has reached the decision after many deliberations. Sachin Pilot may be the Rajasthan deputy chief minister, CNN-News18 quoted sources as saying. Rahul Gandhi appears to have attempted to strike a balance between the two most prominent Congress leaders in the state. Ashok Gehlot is the Congress' pick for Rajasthan chief minister, sources said Friday, after party president Rahul Gandhi appeared to have successfully brokered peace. On Thursday, Sachin Pilot supporters had burnt tyres and blocked roads in Rajasthan, demanding his appointment as the next chief minister. Gehlot was speaking to the media before the start of a meeting at the residence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the presence of state Congress chief Sachin Pilot, the other main contender for the post. Reports have confirmed that Ashok Gehlot, senior Congress leader, will be the next Rajasthan chief minister. Congress president Rahul Gandhi held fresh round of discussions on Friday with Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the two chief ministerial aspirants in Rajasthan, before taking a final call for the top post. The decision of Rajasthan's next chief minister is likely to be taken before noon and will be made public at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in state capital Jaipur, sources said. After several rounds of discussions that lasted till Thursday midnight, Congress veteran Gehlot has emerged as a front runner for the top post, while Pradesh Congress Committee president Pilot is being placated in attempts to broker peace between the two. Party's central observer for Rajasthan K C Venugopal told PTI, "It is up to the Congress president to take a final call and the decision is being awaited." Congress leaders feel once the MLAs in the state have authorised Gandhi to take a decision on the chief minister, leaders should not challenge the high command and accept the decision. Pilot, 41, is still reported not on board on Gehlot's name, which is delaying the announcement, the sources said. The PCC chief has put up a stiff resistance and his staking his own claim for the top post. AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande told PTI," Congress president heard everyone and after wide consultations he will take the final decision which will be acceptable to all." Gandhi is likely to meet Pilot and Gehlot, 67, again at his residence in attempts to broker peace, like he did in the case of Madhya Pradesh where Kamal Nath was declared as the next chief minister amid hectic parleys held by the Congress chief with senior party leaders in the national capital Thursday night. The Congress leadership want Gehlot and Pilot to be present together at the CLP meet. Sources said the Congress top brass was upset with the manner in which party workers resorted to arson and violence in the state in a bid to exert pressure on the party to name Pilot. They said this the first time such incidents have been reported in Rajasthan and the party has taken the matter seriously. The incidents of violence were reported in Jaipur, Dosa and other parts Thursday following which the Congress leadership asked both Pilot and Gehlot to issue appeal for peace. The party leaders feel the infighting in Rajasthan should end soon and called an amicable solution in the manner Jyotiraditya Scindia gracefully accepted the Congress's decision in Madhya Pradesh Given his rich experience as a two-term chief minister, Gehlot is time-tested and has a strong appeal across political parties in Rajasthan. After deliberations spanning three days, the suspense over the name of the new Rajasthan chief minister finally ended. Congress veteran and two-time chief minister Ashok Gehlot will take the reins yet again. In the end, Congress president Rahul Gandhi chose experience over energy. According to KC Venugopal, the Congress observer for Rajasthan, while Gehlot has been appointed as chief minister, Sachin Pilot, who is known to be close to Rahul, will be deputy chief minister. However, the selection of Gehlot, a member of the party's old guard, was not a smooth one. His candidature was strongly contested by Pilot, the young state Congress president credited with the revival of the party after the 2013 drubbing. In the recently concluded Assembly polls, the Congress trounced the BJP. While it managed 99 seats one short of the majority mark of 100 in the 199-seat Assembly the BJP ended up with 73 seats. In the previous election, the Congress was decimated by the BJP, managing only 23 seats. However, the more interesting story in the long-drawn political drama is the tussle between Gehlot and Pilot. Why Gehlot? Gehlot, 67, has vast experience in the state, at the Centre and within the organisation at national level, which worked in his favour. A two-term chief minister, he is the national general secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC). A five-time Lok Sabha member, Gehlot represents Sardarpur constituency in Jodhpur. Prior to this, he was a minister at the Centre thrice during the tenure of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao, and also twice served as Pradesh Congress Committee president. Known for his organisational skills, he was Congress in-charge of 2017 Gujarat Assembly election. It is a well-known fact that former prime minister Indira Gandhi was the first to identify his organisational skills: when Gehlot was undertaking social service in the camps of East Bengal refugees in 1971. Gehlot was later appointed first state president of National Students Union of India. Given his rich experience as a two-term chief minister, Gehlot is time-tested and has a strong appeal across political parties in Rajasthan. Besides, a large section of voters want to see him as chief minister. Politically-savvy and quiet, Gehlot has been working closely with Rahul for the past year to chalk out strategies for the Congress. High drama Just five years ago, in the winter of 2013, the Congress party was routed in Rajasthan by the BJP. The latter got 160 seats, while the incumbent Congress had got 23 in the 199 seat-assembly. Ashok Gehlot was the losing chief minister. This time, the Congress won 99 seats. In the interim, the grand old party did a lot of work to regain lost ground. It elevated Sachin Pilot, who was made Pradesh Congress Committee president in January 2014, and there was no looking back. Pilot ensured partys comeback within five years through sheer hard work, connected with people by travelling over five lakh kilometers and strengthened the organisation at the grassroots-level. Though branded as a leader of Rahul's young brigade, Pilot displayed maturity in maintaining both urban and rural image: both as a tech-savvy leader engaged in high-level discussions with top leaders, and someone equally comfortable with the masses. While staking his claim for the post of Rajasthan chief minister, Pilot said he'd been working on the ground to facilitate Congress comeback since 2014, while Gehlot left to work at the central level. Unlike Pilot, who was made Rajasthan Congress chief almost five years ago, Rahul appointed Nath senior party leader and Lok Sabha member from Chhindwara Madhya Pradesh Congress president only in April, just eight months before the state went to polls. Former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan used this fact in his campaign to project the battle between himself and Nath as the outsider versus insider. While he portrayed Nath as a para-trooped leader from Delhi, Chouhan called himself 'son of the soil'. Here, the supporters and a large section of voters of Rajasthan may question: If Nath as a PCC chief could be chief minister, then why not Pilot? Almost three days and rounds of meetings between Congress president and the two contenders failed to resolve the deadlock, in spite of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhis intervention on Thursday. Running out of patience, supporters of both contenders took to the streets, raised slogans, blocked roads, and created a ruckus: which unfortunately brought out the rift and infighting within the state Congress. Despite putting up a brave, united front during campaigning, the ugly factional side of the party emerged. Per media reports, Pilots supporters warned that if a youth (read Pilot) wasnt made chief minister, a youth (read Rahul) couldnt be prime minister in 2019. It was a tug-of-war between an old war horse and a new generation leader. Rahul emphasised a lot on the power of youth and also said during the plenary session of the Congress that hard work would not go unrewarded. Why the delay? The Congress top leadership might have had its own reasons for a delay. Perhaps they were unable to ignore that Gehlot is a seasoned politician and a two-term chief minister, who played an instrumental role in Gujarat and Karnataka Assembly elections. Maybe Rahul wanted an experienced and mature leader to take the post: as he did in Madhya Pradesh by appointing Kamal Nath instead of Jyotiraditya Scindia. But Pilot and Scindia are different. Pilot, 41, represents the youth brigade: promising and emerging Congress leaders. A two-term MP, Pilot has served as a minister at the Centre during the UPA regime. He proved his organisational skills and worked hard at the grassroots more than Scindia. He spent more years strengthening the party in Rajasthan than Scindia did in Madhya Pradesh. Known to be affable and approachable, Pilots leadership won him a large number of supporters within the party and admirers outside of it. He was able ko keep his late father and former Congress leader Rajesh Pilots popularity among masses intact since 2004, when he was first elected as the youngest Lok Sabha MP from Dausa constituency at the age of 27. He undoubtedly helped steer the Congress from the depths of defeat in 2013 to victory in 2018. As both the contenders were not ready to budge till 3.30 pm today, it made the job tougher for the Congress president. It also shows how Congress Legislative Party meeting in Jaipur was mere optics. Congress top leaderships decision is final. Like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh is waiting for high command to turn its attention to the task of selecting its chief minister. This has also proved to be a litmus test for Rahuls crisis management skills, which he successfully resolved. The decision of the high command is final. Were waiting for it and were sure justice will be given), a Rajasthan Congress leader told Firstpost on Thursday evening, speaking on condition of anonymity. As this Firstpost piece posited, the choice between Pilot and Gehlot proved a tightrope walk for the Congress leadership. Gehlot and Pilot were visibly upbeat after the announcement was made and their supporters raised slogans for both outside AICC headquarters in Delhi and PCC office in Jaipur. After all, the chief minister will have to play a pivotal role in maximising the Congress tally in Rajasthan in 2019 general election and also ensure a second term, defying the normal practice in Rajasthan of having alternate governments. The BJP went into the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh with a strong leadership advantage at national and state levels alike The BJP went into the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh with a strong leadership advantage at national and state levels alike. There seemed to be a consensus within and outside the party that the There-Is-No-Alternative (TINA) factor was a shot in the arm for the BJP. It is under these circumstances that a 3-0 verdict against the BJP has provoked a debate. While the 3-0 scoreline was projected by the CVoter exit poll, it is the details of the verdict that are pregnant with learnings for future. On the eve of 11 December, pollsters and pundits expected Rajasthan to be a washout for the BJP, while Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were seemingly close fights. In the end, Madhya Pradesh stayed true to the script while Rajasthan witnessed a surprisingly close fight and Chhattisgarh ended up being the most surprising. Why Chhattisgarh one may ask? It's because Chhattisgarh carries many important lessons for BJP going into 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress was faceless, leaderless and rudderless going into the polls. On the other hand, the BJP was led by a charismatic chief minister in the form of Raman Singh, who had successfully implemented welfare policies at the grassroots level. Yet, he was routed in a waveless election by more than 10 percent of the votes. Anger against the local MLAs and MPs ended up subsuming his work and track record. So, what happened to 'Chawal Baba' (Singh's sobriquet) and his leadership advantage? Simply put, Chhattisgarh witnessed its '1967 moment'. In 1967, a faceless and disjointed Opposition was able to defeat a towering Indira Gandhi in many states. It propped up unknown faces as chief ministerial candidates across many states. When people wanted to effect a change of power, they voted with verve for an amorphous political grouping. Pertinently, even well-executed welfare schemes acted as vote-catchers for two electoral cycles in the case of Chhattisgarh. Herein lies a lesson that the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti may do well to mull over in an hour of euphoria over its well-deserved win. If Chhattisgarh had its '1967 moment', then Rajasthan had its 'Bhairon Singh Shekhawat' moment. The close fight in Rajasthan was a surprise given the amount of anti-incumbency against the state BJP. So, what accounted for the close result in terms of vote share? The late surge imparted by BJP's Sachin Tendulkar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the internal saboteurs accounted for by Ashok Gehlot, who ensured that the Congress did not go beyond a certain seat threshold. The idea was that a weak majority government of the Congress will have to depend on the old guard to shepherd the requisite numbers in the Assembly, leaving little space for political experiments. This was directly from the playbook of Shekhawat, who was knows to keep the BJP in the 90s, with two dozen loyal Independents popped up across the state, only to find their way back to the BJP only on the condition that Shekhawat would be sworn in as chief minister. Gehlot copied that model to dwarf Pilot. His bad luck was that the Congress just about touched the majority, making his 20-odd "others" practically useless. Thus, the BJP's better-than-expected performance in Rajasthan was helmed by the twin pillars of prime minister's appeal and internal sabotage. Which brings us to Madhya Pradesh. This state gave a verdict that was split down to the last polling machine. A hung Assembly has thrown up a Congress-led coalition that is reminiscent of former prime minister VP Singh's ascension to the PMO. Back then, it was Chandrashekhar who was a force to reckon with in fostering a non-Congress government, who ended up a big zero with Devi Lal proposing Singh's name for the prime minister's post. Digvijaya Singh pulled a 'VP moment' on Jyotiraditya Scindia by putting his weight behind Kamal Nath. In this case, Scindias youth appeal benefited the party immensely but, as it turned out, Nath is set to be the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Whether he will have a 'Chandrashekhar moment' some time in the future with his supporters remains to be seen. Despite a galaxy of leaders at state and national level, a cadre-based party like BJP was humbled at the hustings. The electoral losses become salient in the light of decent performance turned in by the governments on human development indices, basic infrastructure and welfare measures. In effect, there is no such thing as TINA factor in a vibrant democracy. For example, closer home, when Modi was in charge of the Gujarat BJP, the state BJP won the Assembly polls and catapulted Keshubhai Patel as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 1995. The average Gujarati hardly knew much about Keshubhai then. For for that matter, few even knew Modi's name back then. But that status of being "faceless" did not stop Gujarat from experimenting in 1995 and in effect, changing India's political landscape in the process forever. Modi did not stop his march anywhere just because the TINA factor favoured the Congress at that point of time. And the faceless Congress did not stop in Chhattisgarh either. This can work perfectly in other places as well, provided the Congress doesn't make it a Rahul Gandhi versus Modi match. But given the history of trademark Congress sycophancy, that is probably too much to ask for. Nationally there is no comparison yet between Modi's popularity ratings and those of Congress president Rahul. However, the BJP also runs the risk of depending too much on its best asset. It is conventional knowledge that presence of Modi alone is enough to impart a bounce of a small percentage of votes to the BJP. However, there are two emerging points of discord that may queer the pitch for BJP in 2019: 1. Agrarian distress: The rural economy is facing doldrums countrywide. The landed and comparatively middle-class farmers have gone in a subsistence mode. This has cut off the lifeline for landless labour and other members of the rural poor who depend on the bigger farmers for their source of income. Thus, a rural crisis is in the offing and should be addressed at the earliest. 2. The middle class sat out this election in a repeat of 2004. While in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the middle class did not have much to complain about, this time the middle class is feeling abandoned and economically hard-pressed. Since it is a traditional supporter of the BJP, it will be pertinent to investigate this group's grievances in a serious manner. Finally, it pays to be humble in the business of politics, no party should think of itself as carrying the mandate of the heavens. The mandate in a democracy rests wholly and solely with the electorate, and the existence of TINA is a comforting illusion that none should rely on. Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao appointed his son KT Rama Rao as the party's working president n Friday, a day after Chandrasekhar Rao, commonly known as KCR, was sworn in as chief minister. Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao appointed his son KT Rama Rao as the party's working president on Friday, a day after KCR was sworn in as chief minister. He reportedly took the decision in the wake of his plans to concentrate on national politics. KTR is the current Sircilla MLA and made his electoral debut by winning from Sircilla Assembly Constituency in 2009 and later retained that seat in 2014, and on Thursday he retained the seat for the third time. KTR beat Congress' KK Mahender Reddy in the Sircilla constituency with a majority of 1,21,758 votes. In the previous cabinet, KTR was the Minister for Information Technology, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Industries and Commerce, Mines and Geology, Public Enterprises and NRI Affairs. KTR has been the face of the government in the state, a report in The News Minute said. He has been praised for introducing several IT and startup-friendly policies and initiatives in the state. KCR, who led TRS to a landslide victory in the Assembly election, on Thursday took oath as the chief minister of Telangana for a second term in a row. KCR is likely to expand his cabinet next week. The TRS retained power by winning 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly. KCR won from Gajewal constituency by over 50,000 votes. Prajakutami, an alliance of the Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) won 21 seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged only one seat. All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won seven seats. The treasury benches on Friday mounted a counter-offensive on the Opposition on the Rafale issue in the Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the deal, with the government seeking an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. New Delhi: The treasury benches on Friday mounted a counter-offensive on the Opposition on the Rafale issue in the Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the deal, with the government seeking an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. As soon as the Question Hour was taken up, Opposition members trooped into the Well carrying placards on various issues, including the alleged scam in the Rafale deal. But BJP members stood up and started raising slogans against the Congress and Rahul. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said following the SC verdict, Rahul Gandhi should apologise. Amid loud sloganeering, around 11.10 am, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. The Supreme Court on Friday gave a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. Welcoming the judgement, BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said,"Every deal is not Bofors deal." He said, "It is the culture and tradition of Congress and its top leadership to mint money from such deals on the cost of country's national security." Rahul and the Congress should apologise to the prime minister for making false allegations against him and questioning his credibility, he added. After the Supreme Court verdict on Rafale deal, after a three-judge bench gave a clean chit to the deal, BJP members created a ruckus in both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha forcing the Houses to adjourn for the day. The government demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. After the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale deal, wherein a three-judge bench gave a clean chit to the deal, BJP members created a ruckus in both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha forcing the Houses to adjourn for the day. The government demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for alleged lies on the issue. The Rajya Sabha was adjourned on as both the Opposition Congress and ruling BJP staged noisy protests in the House on the Rafale jet deal issue. Amid huge uproar, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was heard saying that the Opposition has been demanding a debate on the jet deal and so the question hour should be suspended to take up the issue. While members of the Congress trooped into the Well of the House seeking constitution of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe the Rafale deal, most BJP members sought an apology from Rahul. As the uproar continued, Deputy Chairman Harivansh first adjourned the House till 11.30 am and then later for the day. The Supreme Court on Friday gave a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. No sooner than the House assembled for Zero Hour did members of the Samajwadi Party raise slogans relating to the recent violence in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahar district while AIADMK members trooped into the well over the Cauvery river water issue. Unlike other days, there was uproar in the House even when ministers were laying listed paper on the table of the House. Similarly, in the Lok Sabha, the treasury benches mounted a counter-offensive on the opposition on the Rafale issue in Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the deal. As soon as Question Hour was taken up, opposition members trooped into the Well carrying placards on various issues, including an alleged scam in the Rafale deal. But BJP members stood up and started raising slogans against the Congress and Rahul. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said following the Supreme Court verdict, Rahul Gandhi should apologise. Amid loud sloganeering, around 11.10 am, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. With inputs from PTI Rahul Gandhi also repeated his 'chowkidar chor hai' taunt at the prime minister, while addressing a press conference on the Rafale deal. A combative Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a press conference on Friday, thundered that Prime Minister Narendra Modi can "run and hide all he wants" but will have to face allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal. He also repeated his "chowkidar chor hai" taunt at the prime minister and left the press conference abruptly without responding to several questions of reporters. In a relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court earlier in the day dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. Rahul, however, continued to take on the government on the issue and asked why there has been no probe by a joint parliamentary committee on the matter. "Our basic question is how the price of each aircraft has gone up to Rs 1,600 crore from Rs 526 crore," Rahul said, and alleged that Modi does not want to be "exposed in front of the media." The Congress president also said, "As per the government's statement in the Supreme Court, pricing details have been shared with the CAG and with the Public Accounts Committee. Mallikarjun Kharge (who was present at the press conference) is the chairman of the PAC and he says that no such report regarding pricing was submitted." He added, "Perhaps some other PAC is also there, and perhaps it is functioning in France's parliament. Or perhaps Modi has got the PAC to work out of his office." No cause for intervention, says SC A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dealt with "three broad areas of concern" raised in the petitions the decision making process, pricing and the choice of Indian offset partners (IOP) and said there was no reason for intervention by the court on the "sensitive issue" of purchase of 36 jets. It said the Indian Air Force needs advanced fighter jets as the country cannot afford to be "unprepared" or "under prepared" in a situation where adversaries have acquired fourth and fifth-generation fighter aircraft, "of which, we have none". "In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircrafts by the Indian government," the bench, also comprising Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph, said in its 29-page judgment. With inputs from PTI Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) Four Hong Kong nationals arrested over a "floating shabu laboratory" in Subic were found guilty of possession of illegal drugs. In its verdict handed down Friday, the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court Branch 74 sentenced the four to life imprisonment plus fine of P5 million each. However, the court dismissed the charge of manufacturing illegal drugs. The four were arrested in an alleged floating shabu laboratory off Subic, Zambales in July 2016. The police said the floating shabu lab was believed to be on a Chinese fishing vessel operated by an international drug syndicate doing business in Luzon. Authorities recovered half a kilogram of shabu worth around P10 million and a hydrogenator, an equipment used in the manufacture of illegal drugs. The Department of Justice welcomed the conviction but expressed dismay over the court's decision to acquit them of manufacturing illegal drug charges. The defection assumes significance as it comes amid reports that Dhinakaran, AMMK founder, is finding it hard to keep his flock together in the backdrop of the October Madras High Court verdict upholding Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs. Chennai: In what could be perceived as a setback to rival AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, one of his key aides and a disqualified party MLA joined the MK Stalin-led DMK on Friday. V Senthil Balaji joined the DMK in the presence of its President MK Stalin at the party headquarters Anna Arivalaya in Chennai. The defection assumes significance as it comes amid reports that Dhinakaran, AMMK founder, is finding it hard to keep his flock together in the backdrop of the October Madras High Court verdict upholding Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs. Dhanapal disqualified them last year for revolting against Chief Minister K Palaniswami. Reports claim that not all the disqualified MLAs are happy with Dhinakaran's decision to not to appeal against the Madras High Court order upholding their disqualification. Balaji, Transport Minister in the previous 2011-16 AIADMK government headed by the late J Jayalalithaa, was elected from Aravakurichi in the Assembly polls held in 2016. But he was not inducted in the cabinet then. Balaji had represented Karur in 2006 and 2011. Sensing the defection, Dhinakaran had made a veiled attack on Balaji on Thursday, saying none will repent if some with selfish interests were to quit the AMMK. Dhinakaran, comparing dedicated party workers to "true gold," said no one will repent if gold plated "fake" were to move out of the party. "Our foundation is Amma's (Jayalalithaa) ideals, and people's welfare is our task," the AMMK leader had said. Without naming Balaji, he said it would be better if those who held views contradictory to the goals of the party eased themselves out of the outfit. Considered to be among those close to Dhinakaran, Balaji, who was AMMK organising secretary, did not take part in a party procession here to observe the death anniversary of Jayalalithaa on 5 December. Meanwhile, another disqualified AIADMK MLA, R Murugan, questioned Balaji's decision to join the DMK, saying the late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa had to face the disproportionate assets case which was filed only by the earlier DMK government. Kamal Nath was picked as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday after day-long meetings and deliberations. However, in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh the race for the top job is still on. The Congress leadership is grappling with tussle between the young and the old guards of the party. Kamal Nath was picked as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday after day-long meetings and deliberations. However, in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the race for the top job is still on. The Congress leadership is grappling with tussle between the young and the old guards of the party. Party president Rahul Gandhi has deferred the decisions on chief ministers of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as he wanted to hold further discussions with party leaders, Congress sources told PTI, even as one of the top contenders for the desert state, Sachin Pilot, met the party chief for a second time late Thursday night. Rahul held discussions with party leaders in Chhattisgarh on Thursday to decide on the new chief minister for the state, the party sources said, but postponed the decision to Friday for holding wider discussions with the contenders. The Congress chief had earlier held a series of meetings with chief minister aspirants in Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot and Pilot but no consensus emerged between the two and Pilot asserted his right for the top post. Even though the suspense over Rajasthan chief minister continued, a few reports also said that Gehlot was Rahul's choice. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. - Leo Tolstoy pic.twitter.com/MiRq2IlrIg Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 13, 2018 Party observer for Rajasthan KC Venugopal, who was also at the meetings, told the media later that taking decision on leadership was not easy but it will be announced on Friday. "Taking decision on the new chief minister is not an easy job. The final decision will be taken tomorrow in a meeting to be held here around 10 am," he said. Pilot reached Rahul's residence at 10.30 pm on Thursday. The meeting came hours after the leadership issue was settled in Madhya Pradesh, with Gandhi tweeting his picture with Kamal Nath and Scindia, who were both chief ministerial aspirants. The smiling picture carried the line "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time - Leo Tolstoy." Pilot's supporters also shouted slogans in his favour outside Rahul's residence. While Gehlot is learnt to be leading the race for chief minister's post, Pilot is also putting up stiff resistance and is staking his claim. Kamal Nath was chosen as the new Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and both he and Scindia flew down to Bhopal to announce the decision. Party sources said Rahul is keen to give a similar message for Rajasthan as well. Both in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress missed the majority mark by two seats and is now dependent on some external support. Pilot, who stayed put in Delhi, appealed to party workers to maintain peace and saying that he would "welcome" any decision that will be taken by the party. He issued the appeal on Twitter as reports emerged that Gehlot has been picked by the party leadership to lead the government and that his (Pilot's) supporters were protesting on the streets demanding that Pilot should be made the chief minister. The name of 67-year-old Gehlot, a two-time chief minister, is expected to be announced by the party on Friday. Earlier, Gehlot and Pilot met Rahul. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is understood to have counselled Rahul over relying on "experience" as it was a verdict with a narrow margin of victory and a seasoned leader would be better equipped to deal with a situation in which the party would need the backing of MLAs belonging to BSP and Independents, who won 13 seats. Most of them are Congress rebels. The party won 99 seats and with its pre-poll alliance partner it managed to touch the halfway mark in the 200-member Assembly. Pilot reportedly put up a strong claim to the post on the ground that he had galvanised the party after the defeat in 2013, when he was appointed the state party chief. Gehlot, who was planning to leave for Jaipur but was asked to stay back in Delhi, also appealed to workers to maintain peace and said any decision taken by the leadership will be acceptable to all. Asked by the media why he returned from the airport, he said he could leave at night or on Friday accompanied by central party observer K.C. Venugopal and Avinash Pande, who is the party in charge in the state. About the delay in announcing a decision, Gehlot said: "Such decisions take time because three states are involved. It is good that the leadership has decided to consult various leaders and workers." Replying to another question, he said, "What right BJP has to question us on the decisions? A signal has gone from the elections to the country that those who created an atmosphere of hate have been wiped out from the Hindi heartland. And this is what will happen in the Lok Sabha elections too." Pilot visited Rahul's residence again late in night amid speculation on whether the race was still open and could go down to the wire. The party president also met Venugopal and the AICC state in-charge Avinash Pande for the second time. Rahul held a late meeting on Thursday with party's central observer Mallikarjun Kharge, who said that further deliberations will take place on Friday with state leaders before arriving at a final decision on chief minister. AICC in-charge of party affairs in Chhattisgarh PL Punia was also present during the meeting with Rahul. "The meeting has been postponed for tomorrow (Friday). There will be a meeting again tomorrow," Kharge told reporters after meeting Rahul. The sources said TS Singh Deo and Bhupesh Baghel have also been called to the national capital from Raipur for discussions with top party leaders. With inputs from agencies tech2 News Staff Google seems to separate itself from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon in the area of facial recognition technology, which created somewhat like a blowback for other companies who are driving towards selling facial recognition services. Microsoft recently announced its ethical principles for use of its facial recognition technology but said that it would formally launch these principles, together with supporting framework, before the end of March 2019. Google, on the other hand, as of now has pledged to not sell its facial recognition technology as it is yet to come up with policies that can curb abuse of the technology. "However, like many technologies with multiple uses, facial recognition merits careful consideration to ensure its use is aligned with our principles and values and avoids abuse and harmful outcomes," says senior vice president of Global Affairs Kent Walker in a blog post today for 'AI for Social Good in Asia Pacific'. Face recognition brings up various issues about privacy and the idea of mass surveillance to which Google discusses how it has chosen not to offer general-purpose facial recognition APIs before working through important technology and policy questions. Kent Walker also noted Googles current outlook on facial recognition as an example of how Google is considering responsible development of AI. Recently, Google also said that it was no longer vying for a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the US Defense Department, in part because the companys new ethical guidelines do not align with the project, without elaborating. Microsoft is said to show-off its Face AI, a part of Azure, which works to identify previously tagged people in images. Also, Amazons got its competing service, Rekognition in play. But, according to report in Gizmodo, in recent months, Microsoft workers have protested its partnership with authorities and Amazon workers have also protested the company's working on the same lines. Google's step to refrain from selling its facial recognition is seen to be by some as a making a moral statement. As per the report in ACLU, Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director for the American Civil Liberties Union of California says, This is a strong first step. Google today demonstrated that, unlike other companies doubling down on efforts to put dangerous face surveillance technology into the hands of law enforcement and ICE, it has a moral compass and is willing to take action to protect its customers and communities." Indo-Asian News Service The Indian government made information requests for 355 Twitter accounts in the January-June 2018 period while law enforcement agencies in the country asked the micro-blogging platform to remove 237 accounts for violating the law of the land. According to Twitter's 13th biannual Transparency Report, the company provided some information to the Indian government in 11 percent of cases. "Twitter withheld two accounts and 23 Tweets in response to a legal demand from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) under Section 69A of the India Information Technology Act, 2000, for propagating objectionable content," the company said in the report late Thursday. When it comes to legal requests (including 9 requests in the form of court order) from India, 19 accounts and 498 Tweets were withheld as per the rules. In total, Twitter met the legal demands to withhold some content from India in 5 percent of the cases. "Governments (including law enforcement agencies), organisations chartered to combat discrimination, and lawyers representing individuals are among the many complainants that submit legal requests," said Twitter. In July-December 2017, the Indian government made information requests for 315 Twitter accounts and law enforcement agencies had asked the social network to remove 144 accounts. Globally, Twitter received 10 percent more government information requests (combined emergency disclosure requests and non-emergency requests), which is the largest percentage increase since its July-December 2015 report. "The latest report shows that Twitter received approximately 80 percent more global legal demands, impacting more than twice as many accounts compared to the previous reporting period. "Similar to the last reporting period, roughly 87 percent of the total global volume originated from only two countries: Russia and Turkey," Twitter said. For the first time, Twitter published metrics pertaining to its actions to fight spam and other malicious forms of automation. "We challenge millions of potentially spammy accounts every month, requesting additional details, like email address and phone numbers to authenticate them. From January to June, 2018, approximately 75 percent of accounts challenged ultimately did not pass those challenges and were suspended," informed the company. The average number of reports it received through reporting flow continued to drop - from an average of approximately 868,349 in January to approximately 504,259 in June. "These report decreases indicate the effectiveness of our proprietary built technology in proactively identifying and challenging accounts at source and at scale," said Twitter. In the same period, Twitter suspended 487,363 accounts for violations related to child sexual exploitation. Nearly 97 percent of these accounts were proactively flagged by a combination of technology, including PhotoDNA, and other purpose-built internal proprietary tools. Twitter also suspended a total of 205,156 accounts flagged for promoting terrorism. Of those suspensions, 91 percent consisted of accounts that were proactively flagged by internal, proprietary tools. "The number of reports we received from governments of terrorist content decreased by 77 percent compared to the previous reporting period," said Twitter. Shambhavi Naik Chinese researcher He Jiankui who announced on YouTube in November that he successfully modified the genes of Lulu and Nana, healthy newborn twins has taken mankind one step closer to becoming the superpower that can triumph even nature in selecting our own genes. Scientists worldwide are appalled at Jiankuis violation of a self-imposed moratorium by enabling the birth of genetically edited children. But before we dread a future of designer children and super soldiers strutting around, we need to look at how germline gene editing an inheritable change in the genetic code may be particularly relevant for India with a high predisposition to genetic disorders and lack of affordable healthcare for the less-privileged. So, it makes sense for the country to invest in prophylactic technologies instead of therapeutic approaches. Lulu and Nana are not the first children to harbour genetically modified cells. In 2015, one-year-old Layla Richards received genetically altered immune cells to remedy her leukaemia. She was subsequently declared cancer-free, with the hope of a healthy future. The remission of her cancer heralds the relief that gene editing could bring to victims of genetic diseases. The advent of CRISPR Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats emboldened that relief, positioning it as the future of healthcare. The difference between Lulu, who is likely insusceptible to HIV infection, and Layla, is that Layla cannot transfer her gene-edited cells to her offspring. Lulu, on the other hand, could pass on her HIV immunity to her child. Layla only has gene-edited immune cells while all cell types in Lulus body possibly carry the edited gene. The scientific risks are apparent the universal gene deletion could result in unanticipated side effects. These secondary responses may manifest at any time, and so the study entails monitoring the childrens health till they are 18 and subsequently also, if they consent. The study raises an ethical question: should we genetically manipulate our future generations without their consent? This is a debatable claim, since we have already been conducting activities that impinge on their lives without their consent. For example, industrial revolution occurred without much concern of its future impact. Only now with looming climate change can we fathom the grave future consequences. There is no denying that our activities have released mutagens that cause genetic diseases. Is it then ethical to deprive our future generations the very tools that can help them lead healthy lives? A cost-benefit analysis of individual gene-editing applications is a better evaluation of their advantage to society instead of a one-dimensional interrogation of its morality. So should germline gene editing, or human germline engineering, be approved in India? And what would be the relevant concerns? One question is whether the use of germline gene editing for enhancements such as intelligence or strength would result in an inequitable society. This scenario is very distant. We currently have very little understanding of how complex traits such as intelligence are genetically controlled. Also, many traits are regulated by multiple genes and editing them without side effects will be difficult. Finally, most biological processes are not governed in an on and off manner. For example, skin tone is not black or white but, instead, a series of incremental shades. To achieve this gradation, biology deploys layered control on the genes, something that will be extremely difficult to achieve through mere gene editing. However, to fear that doomsday scenario to the extent of denying diseased individuals a healthy future is unreasonable. Gene editing is obviously a powerful tool and can yield negative consequences if used incorrectly. Biohackers have misappropriated it to create DIY kits that are unscientific and could have serious health impacts. In a society besieged by strong stereotypes, gene editing could be used as a tool to select only desirable embryos such as males over females. However, India needs to set robust governance frameworks to deter such unwanted uses of gene editing. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved a trial of CRISPR in treating blindness in adults and as the world moves ahead with gene editing, India needs to join the bandwagon. The question we need to address is what standards would such studies follow? India needs to create relevant standards for regulating experiments in human cell lines, animal models, embryos and human clinical trials. Informed consent attuned to the local conditions and educational background of the participants would be obligatory. If India chooses to take this bold step, or not, there is an urgent requirement for governance frameworks to regulate gene editing in the country. As observed with stem-cell therapies, the absence of a governance structure resulted in mushrooming of illegal and unscientific stem cell clinics. Given that the guidelines are not legally binding, it makes sense that we create minimum standards for researchers to abide instead of broadly banning areas of research. That wall may crumble soon. For a long time, the Western world called for the ban on any embryonic gene editing. But now the US, Europe and Japan have allowed such modification to take place. The birth of these children is a sign that others may also open up to following this line of research. It is up to India to join the race and control its own healthcare solutions, or wait and depend on other countries to lend a genetically modified hand. The author is a research fellow with Takshashilas technology and policy programme By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian woman pleaded guilty in a U.S By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian woman pleaded guilty in a U.S. court on Thursday to a single conspiracy charge in a deal with prosecutors and admitted to working with a top Russian official to infiltrate a powerful gun rights group and make inroads with American conservative activists and the Republican Party as an agent for Moscow. Maria Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, entered the plea to a charge of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent at a hearing in Washington. She became the first Russian to be convicted of working to influence U.S. policy during the 2016 presidential race and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Butina admitted to conspiring with a Russian official and two Americans from 2015 until her July arrest to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, a group closely aligned with U.S. conservatives and Republican politicians including President Donald Trump, and create unofficial lines of communication to try to make Washington's policy toward Moscow more friendly. Alexander Torshin, who was a deputy governor of Russia's central bank, has been identified by Butina's lawyers as the Russian official. Torshin was hit with U.S. Treasury Department sanctions in April. Paul Erickson, a conservative U.S. political activist with deep Republican ties who was romantically linked to Butina, was one of the two Americans to whom prosecutors referred. Butina, a 30-year-old native of Siberia, agreed to cooperate "fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly" with any and all U.S. law enforcement agencies and could provide interviews, sworn statements and lie-detector tests and participate in under cover law enforcement stings. She was jailed after being charged in July and initially pleaded not guilty. Other Russian individuals and entities have been charged in a separate investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller regarding Moscow's role in the 2016 election. Clad in a green jumpsuit with her red hair pulled back in a long braid, Butina replied "absolutely" when asked by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan if her mind was clear as she prepared to plead guilty. Prosecutors dropped one other charge as part of the plea deal. The actions Butina acknowledged taking occurred during the same time period that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Russia engaged in a campaign of propaganda and hacking to sow discord in the United States during the 2016 race and boost Republican candidate Trump's chances against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. In a statement of offence read aloud in court, a prosecutor said Butina drafted a March 2015 "Diplomacy Project" calling for establishing unofficial back channels of communication with high-ranking American politicians to help advance Russia's interests. Although there are no U.S. sentencing guidelines for her specific crime, her lawyer, Robert Driscoll, estimated that under guidelines for similar crimes Butina could face up to six months in prison. Butina faces possible deportation to Russia after finishing her sentence. Because of Butina's ongoing cooperation, the judge did not set a sentencing date but scheduled a status hearing for Feb. 12. Leonid Slutsky, head of the lower house of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, reacted to Butina's case by calling it a "modern political inquisition," in comments quoted by the RIA news agency. Erickson's description appears to match "Person 1" mentioned in the prosecution's statement of offence. Person 1 helped advise Butina on which American politicians she should target for meetings, and her plan was carried out on behalf of the Russian official, the statement said. 'CIRCUMSTANCES WERE FAVOURABLE' "Butina opined that the circumstances were favourable for building relations with a certain U.S. political party," the statement added, in an apparent reference to the Republican Party. "Butina predicted that the candidate nominated by Political Party #1 would likely win the upcoming U.S. presidential election," as Trump did. The "Diplomacy Project" document was crafted by Butina with help from Person 1, prosecutors said. To carry out the plan, Butina requested $125,000 from a Russian billionaire to attend conferences and set up "separate meetings with interested parties" such as other Russian businessmen or people with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they added. Erickson is a well-known figure in Republican and conservative circles and was a senior official in Pat Buchanan's 1992 Republican presidential campaign. Erickson's lawyer William Hurd said in an email, "Paul Erickson is a good American. He has done nothing to harm our country and never would." In April 2015, prosecutors said, Butina travelled to the United States to attend a gun rights event whose description appears to match the NRA's annual meeting. At that event, she was "introduced to influential members of Political Party #1," they added. The prosecutors said Butina invited "powerful members" of the NRA for a visit to Moscow where they met with high-level Russian officials. Apparent photos of the NRA Moscow trip are posted on her social media accounts. After the visit, according to court records, she sent a Russian official a message apparently referencing the NRA saying, "We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later." Butina also hosted "friendship dinners" in the hope of establishing ties with people who "would have the ear of the next U.S. presidential administration," prosecutors said. After the 2016 election, she proposed creating a dialogue with Trump's advisors, but the Russian official told her he did not think the foreign affairs ministry would "go for it," prosecutors said. Butina even asked then-candidate Trump a question at a gathering of U.S. conservatives in 2015 about relations with Russia and economic sanctions imposed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump responded that as president he would "get along very nicely" with President Vladimir Putin and "I don't think you'd need the sanctions." Mueller is investigating whether Trump's campaign conspired with Moscow to help him win the 2016 election. Trump has denied collusion with Moscow. Russia has denied interfering in American politics. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow; Editing by Will Dunham) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Can US President Donald Trump be indicted while in office? After Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen implicated the US president in a criminal case and is now going to jail for 36 months, this is the hottest question in American politics right now. New York: Can US President Donald Trump be indicted while in office? After Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen implicated the US president in a criminal case and is now going to jail for 36 months, this is the hottest question in American politics. The judge who sentenced Cohen made a reference to the US President without naming him in his statement which basically said Cohen made hush payments to two women (with the intention of influencing the 2016 US election) at the direction of and in co-ordination with Individual 1" which happens to be Donald Trump. Every lawyer in town is saying Trump is an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a federal crime and Watergate era lawyers are saying the facts here are "way beyond Watergate" level already. Trump, of course, refutes this daily in public and fumes in private about impeachment fears. Late Thursday evening, news has just broken on NBC that Donald Trump was in the room when the hush money deal was sealed. Donald Trump's impeachable fears just went up a couple of notches after the Michael Cohen sentencing and the drip-drip of Mueller investigations have reached fever pitch. Trump has reportedly confided in friends saying he is concerned about impeachment. Trump's latest legal troubles are not coming directly from the Mueller probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 elections, it's coming from a new direction - career prosecutors from the Southern District of New York who have detailed exactly how Cohen paid off the women and what Donald Trump's role was. Here's the breakdown of where things stand on the Mueller investigation at this time: Four people have been jailed or sentenced to jail, including Michael Cohen; Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been convicted and will be sentenced soon; two have pleaded guilty - Michael Flynn and Rick Gates; more than two dozen people including Russian nationals have been charged and finally, Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and two others are 'persons of interest'. So, where do we go from here? A handful of legal experts have been hammering away at the 'yes, Trump can be indicted' theme on American news media. "Has anyone thought to tell DonaldTrump that he has the right to remain silent?", says Mathew Miller, formerly with the Department of Justice, in reaction to how each time Trump tweets, he drives himself and the White House into deeper political and legal peril at a time when multiple cases threaten to nail him. Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman compares the Trump organization to the mafia but says "even mafia bosses are way smarter than the way Donald Trump runs his business." "Can you imagine your own fixer taping you while you're talking about paying off women to protect your campaign?!" Everyday, an additional piece of the puzzle comes together. He (Trump) knew about it (hush payments), it was not for personal reasons that he tried to keep these women silent. This (Cohen sentencing) brought back to me a lot of memories about John Deans book called Blind Ambition - especially when Cohen said it was blind loyalty to the president that led him to this, says Jill Wine Banks, another Watergate era prosecutor. Banks says the facts tying Trump to a criminal offence are "way beyond Watergate" level already. Sentencing memos in the Michael Cohen case implicate Trump in illegal campaign expenditure and links to Russians involvement in the 2016 elections. All this is leading to a few dominant themes on American newspapers' front pages: - If theres enough here already to indict Cohen, theres enough to indict Trump. - Not so fast. A Justice Department memo from the 1970s suggests sitting presidents should not be indicted. - If impeachment is the only option, thats nearly impossible in a divided government Republicans control the Senate, Democrats control the House. "This isnt settled law, though most legal analysts conclude that an indictment is unlikely the Justice Department has had an internal policy since 1973 that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. But there is another policy that can use the 1973 Office of Legal Counsel opinion to its advantage and achieve the same effect as an indictment without having to issue one: the special counsel regulations under which Robert S. Mueller III is appointed", writes Asha Rangappa, senior lecturer at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University and a former FBI agent, in Washington Post. "Article II, section four (of the US Constitution) outlines the process for impeaching and removing a president from office. It declares that the president, vice president and other civil officers of the United States can be removed from office by impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. While treason and bribery have clear meaning, what are high crimes and misdemeanors?, asks David Schultz, professor of political science at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a professor of constitutional law at the University of Minnesota. Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General makes an important distinction between settled law, the DoJ guidance and the torrent of Trump dirt that's spewing from the sentencing memos and where all these paths meet. "This goes to the heart of how Trump became president in the first place. You can't have a winner takes all system that sends the message that if you lie often enough and well enough, you can win and stay there. If the president continues to say he's above the law, then he is inviting impeachment proceedings". Civil society organisations from India as well as other countries have dubbed the draft rulebook released at COP24, UN Conference on Climate Change, in Katowice, Poland, as weak and inadequate to fight the challenges that the world faces Civil society organisations from India as well as other countries have dubbed the draft rulebook on climate change released at 24th Conference of the Parties (COP) on Thursday in Katowice, Poland, as weak and inadequate to fight the challenges that the world faces currently. Protests erupted in several areas at the COP venue pressurising negotiators for a stronger text. For developing countries, the biggest bone of contention was the financial commitments that developed countries are willing to make to help developing countries in mitigating climate change. The Paris Agreement urges developed countries to jointly mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, address gaps in the provision of technology, finance and capacity building to enable increased mitigation and adaptation ambition of developing countries, read the second draft of the rulebook that was released at 10.15 am on Friday. This draft could be revised, and sources say that the final text would come out by Saturday morning. The money is clearly not enough, some civil society organisations believe. The cost of climate action is not in billions but in trillions. Even the UNEP report in 2016 said that by 2020 we need $280 billion per year and $500 billion per year by 2050. Indias own NDC says we need over $2 trillion for climate action, said Harjeet Singh, Global Lead on Climate Change at ActionAid International. This $100 billion is the least you need and the rulebook says it can be in the form of loans, concessions, guarantees or insurance. It has to be real money in the form of grants that can be given to people and governments for adaptation, he added. Speaking at a press conference at the India pavilion at the COP venue, lead negotiator AK Mehta said that all of Indias concerns were well received and addressed. We need to build a system that is transparent, we must show that we care for everybody, particularly the poor and the marginalised and that we are a collective. We feel that support in terms of finance and technology and capacity building need to be given to developing countries. We also feel that developing countries need a certain differentiation to enable to move them together. I see this happening substantially. There have been no unaddressed concerns that India has, he said on Friday. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said the rule book has diluted the accountability of developed countries in finance. The money they provide cannot be reviewed ex-ante. The references to loss and damages are very weak, said the deputy director general of CSE, Chandra Bhushan. He also said that there is no mention of raising ambition in action and support post-2020. Loss and damages (in the draft) are the weakest and it clearly implies that developed countries have turned a blind eye to the most existential impacts of climate change on poor and vulnerable countries, he added. US President Donald Trump offered up a handful of legal arguments in a series of tweets on Thursday distancing himself from former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who was sentenced to prison on Wednesday for arranging 2016 hush-money payments to women who say they had affairs with the married president. Washington: US President Donald Trump offered up a handful of legal arguments in a series of tweets on Thursday distancing himself from former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who was sentenced to prison on Wednesday for arranging 2016 hush-money payments to women who say they had affairs with the married president. Cohen admitted his actions were aimed at influencing the election in violation of campaign finance laws and said they were directed by Trump. But the president said in his tweets he never told Cohen to break the law and that the payments were unrelated to the campaign. The early-morning tweets came as the legal pressure on Trump intensified. Also on Wednesday, federal prosecutors in New York announced they had reached a cooperation deal with National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc, which admitted making a hush payment to a former Playboy model to prevent her from going public with Trump affair allegations before the 2016 election. Trump has offered a shifting defence on the payments, first saying in April he did not know about them. Later, he seemed to acknowledge the payments were made, but said they were unrelated to campaign finances, as he said again in the latest tweets. Cohen, who once said he would "take a bullet for Trump," was sentenced in New York to three years in prison for orchestrating the payments in violation of campaign finance laws before the 2016 US presidential election. He called the payments part of the "dirty deeds" he did at Trump's behest. Federal prosecutors said Trump ordered the payouts to protect his campaign from the allegations of sexual affairs. Trump wrote on Twitter: "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel.' ... This was not campaign finance." The president continued: "Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me." The main defence Trump and his lawyers have put forth in recent weeks is that the payments were not subject to campaign finance laws because they were aimed at protecting his personal reputation and would have been made even if he had not been a candidate for president. His claim on Twitter to have relied on advice of counsel was new though, but legal experts expressed scepticism it would work. Jessica Levinson, a professor of election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, explained that the defence, often invoked by corporations in complex transactions, depends on a party relying on lawyers in good faith. But, if Trump had wanted legal advice on this issue, he would have sought out specialised campaign finance lawyers rather than Cohen, Levinson said. Trump's campaign did have such specialised counsel, a team of election lawyers from Jones Day led by Don McGahn, who would go on to serve as White House counsel. Justice Department policy is not to indict a sitting president, but some legal experts have said Trump could be charged after leaving office. Democrats and other critics also have raised the issue of impeachment by Congress. Trump has denied the affairs. He has also denied the main focus of the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller: whether his campaign colluded with Moscow in its meddling in the 2016 campaign. The Kremlin has denied that any meddling occurred. Trump has routinely blasted the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt." Mueller referred the Cohen prosecution to federal prosecutors in New York earlier this year. Prosecutors on Wednesday also said the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid had struck a deal to avoid charges over its role in one of the payments made "in concert" with Trump's presidential campaign. Cohen, who also pleaded to tax evasion and lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Organization building in Moscow, in court on Wednesday said his "blind loyalty" led him to cover up for Trump. Cohen is the latest Trump associate to be swept up in Mueller's investigation following Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, among others. In an interview with Reuters this week, Trump slammed Cohen for cooperating with prosecutors and said he was unconcerned about possible impeachment. He also called any of his potential business dealings with Russia "peanut stuff." Kushner, an influential White House adviser and husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka, met with the Republican leader to discuss the job, according to the Huffington Post, which first reported the story. Washington: Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is on the short-list of potential candidates for the president's next chief of staff, US media said Thursday. Kushner, an influential White House adviser and husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka, met with the Republican leader to discuss the job, according to the Huffington Post, which first reported the story. "I am not aware that he is under consideration but, as I think all of us here would recognize, he would be great in any role that the president chooses to put him in," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said of the news, which was also reported by CBS. The president has been searching in vain for a new chief of staff after announcing that John Kelly, a retired general he had reportedly fallen out with, was to leave by the end of the year. Nick Ayres, the 36-year-old chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, had been touted as a favourite to get the job but announced he was taking himself out of the running, dealing a blow to the president. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican who heads the hard-right Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, showed more interest but also ultimately withdrew his candidacy. Kushner was a key player in negotiations with Canada and Mexico to preserve a free trade pact between the North American countries. He has also led efforts to draft a Middle East peace plan that the Trump administration said it will unveil in early 2019. The 37-year-old has also cultivated close ties with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is accused of playing a role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a case that has rattled the kingdom's ties with the West. The news is sure to set off warnings of nepotism, however, especially considering that Kushner had no prior experience in government before Trump's election. Like his father-in-law, he left New York real estate to become one of Washington's most powerful political players. By Gabriela Baczynska and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders assured Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday that the Brexit treaty she agreed last month but is struggling to get through UK parliament should not bind Britain forever to EU rules. The leaders, meeting over dinner in Brussels, were responding to a plea from May, 24 hours after she survived a bid in her own party to oust her By Gabriela Baczynska and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders assured Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday that the Brexit treaty she agreed last month but is struggling to get through UK parliament should not bind Britain forever to EU rules. The leaders, meeting over dinner in Brussels, were responding to a plea from May, 24 hours after she survived a bid in her own party to oust her. She sought help to overcome resistance at home to the treaty's "Irish backstop" - an insurance clause obliging Britain to follow EU trade regulations until a better way is found to avoid a damaging "hard border" across Ireland. The meeting seemed only to stall for time until after Christmas, when May must win parliamentary approval for her deal or face a risk of a chaotic Brexit in March. Many diplomats expect further high-stakes talks in the new year. It is questionable the EU has done enough to ensure May can win a vote due within five weeks in a House of Commons bitterly divided over how and even whether to leave the European Union. But it was not clear what more Brussels might offer because they cannot be sure what London still wants, EU officials said. In a break with the norm of the past couple of years when May's statements to the other 27 leaders have been met largely with silence, she was peppered with demands for close to an hour to spell out more clearly what she was seeking. Leaders all ruled out new, legally binding accords to amend the package. Some EU officials also ruled out any further movement. Leaders quashed a line in an earlier draft of their statement which had held out the prospect that further "assurances" could be given in January. British officials said they were still holding out hope for further help. "Trust me," May had told her peers, according to a British official. Warning of the risk of an "accidental" failure to get a deal, she said a majority in parliament wanted to avoid that but needed assurances the backstop was not a "trap". [L8N1YI6OV] One person briefed on the exchanges said May was "grilled" by leaders. "Everybody asked: What exactly do you want?," he said. "She had no solid answers." German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others ruled out any reopening of last month's treaty aimed at easing Britain out of the bloc on March 29. May pulled a parliamentary ratification vote this week facing a heavy defeat. If she cannot turn that around, Britain could crash out chaotically into legal limbo. It could also ask to stop the clock or, just possibly, hold a new referendum to reverse its 2016 vote to leave - something May herself has insisted her government will not do. BACKSTOP PLEDGE "It is the Union's firm determination to work speedily on a subsequent agreement that establishes by Dec. 31, 2020, alternative arrangements, so that the backstop will not need to be triggered," the 27 EU leaders said after hearing May out. The date refers to the end of a status-quo transition period when a new EU-UK free trade pact is supposed to take effect. "If the backstop were nevertheless to be triggered, it would apply temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement that ensures that a hard border is avoided," the statement added, before concluding: "The backstop would only be in place for as long as strictly necessary." For now, that assurance of what is already obvious in the treaty seems unlikely to appease its British opponents. But EU diplomats said leaders were unwilling to go further. "Our British friends have to tell us what they want," said EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker. "We often find ourselves in a nebulous, vague debate and it is time we got clarity." Diplomats said May indicated she would want to come back for a second bite of "assurances" with "legal force" and some said they would be willing to listen and try to accommodate her. But leaders also warned that the EU was prepared for Britain to leave without a deal rather than to risk unravelling its own system of close integration: "We have postponed the showdown moment. It will come back in January," one EU diplomat said. "There is little we can actually do to save the deal -- if it falls it's because there is no will in the UK parliament." May won Wednesday's party ballot among Conservative lawmakers 200-117 but the size of the vote against her deepened divisions. Victory also came at a price - May promised she would step down by the next election scheduled for 2022. (Additional reporting by Kate Holton, Kylie MacLellan, William James and Paul Sandle in London and Elizabeth Piper, Jan Strupczewski, Alissa de Carbonnel, Michel Rose and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Editing by David Stamp and Sonya Hepinstall) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The incident happened on a nighttime Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Detroit in January. Prabhu Ramamoorthy, who came to the US on an H-1B visa in 2015, will be deported after he serves his sentence, a federal court in Detroit said as it sentenced the Indian national to nine years of imprisonment. Washington: A 35-year-old Indian IT professional was sentenced in the US to nine years in prison for a "brazen sexual assault" against a sleeping woman during a flight early this year and will be deported to India after the completion of his jail term. The incident happened on a nighttime Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Detroit in January. Prabhu Ramamoorthy, who came to the US on an H-1B visa in 2015, will be deported after he serves his sentence, a federal court in Detroit said as it sentenced the Indian national to nine years of imprisonment. Judge Terrence Berge hoped it would be grave enough to deter others from committing similar crimes. Federal prosecutors had sought 11 years of imprisonment for Ramamoorthy. "Everyone has the right to be secure and safe when they travel on airplanes. We will not tolerate the behaviour of anyone, who takes advantage of victims who are in a vulnerable position. We appreciate the victim in this case for her courage to speak out," US Attorney Matthew Schneider said after the sentencing was announced. Ramamoorthy, who hails from Tamil Nadu, was convicted in August after a five-day trial that was conducted before United States District Judge Terrence Berg. The jury deliberated approximately three-and-a-half hours before returning the guilty verdict. According to the evidence presented at the trial, on 3 January, Ramamoorthy had engaged in a sexual act with a female, while she was sleeping on a flight from Las Vegas to Detroit. Ramamoorthy was seated along with his wife, when he sexually assaulted his co-passenger. During the trial, the government admitted evidence demonstrating that Ramamoorthy had digitally penetrated the 22-year-old woman sleeping next to him during the overnight flight. The sexual assault woke her up, she found her pants unbuttoned and unzipped, and sought help from the flight attendants. The victim, who was a model, sat paralysed in disbelief, and texted her boyfriend. The sentence was proof that the safety and security of all aircraft passengers was a priority for the FBI, said Timothy R Slater, Special Agent in Charge, Detroit Division of the FBI. According to court papers, Ramamoorthy's parents are farmers. He came to the US in July, 2015 after his graduation to work as an IT professional. During his trial, Ramamoorthy presented himself to the court as a confused man stranded in America without English language skills despite his sophisticated technological job, federal prosecutors alleged. "His lack of empathy and remorse should not go unnoticed by this court," they argued, seeking nearly 11 years of imprisonment for him. In pleading for leniency, Ramamoorthy's lawyer, James Amberg, argued that his client lived a clean and productive life before this incident. He had no criminal record in the US or India. Amberg also said that his client had already been assaulted in prison since his arrest months ago, and that he faces a lifetime of shunning when he returns to India. "He will suffer long after this sentence is done," Amberg said. In recent years, a number of Indian nationals have been arrested or charged with sexual assaults inside a plane. The FBI says airplane sexual assault is a serious offence that is on the rise. FBI statistics indicate that investigations of mid-air sexual assaults increased by 66 per cent from 2014 to 2017. That was in part due to increasingly "cramped, confined spaces; alcohol and drugs; fewer flight attendants; and dark cabins on night flights" factors that "likely embolden offenders" the FBI said in a recent report. The cramped style of airplane seating can exacerbate trauma for victims. According to mental health professionals, victims who are violated in confined spaces feel even more helpless, vulnerable and powerless. Victims may also feel intimidated by the person sitting next to them since the seating arrangement means that the perpetrator is effectively blocking the victim from getting up, according to the FBI. By Christian Hartmann, John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry STRASBOURG/PARIS (Reuters) - The suspected gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was shot dead on Thursday in a brief gun battle with police after being on the run for 48 hours, police sources said. Cherif Chekatt, 29, was killed in the Neudorf/Meinau area of the city shortly after a big police operation was launched around 2100 hrs (2000 GMT) on Thursday about 2 kilometres from where he launched his attack on Tuesday. Chekatt was killed after firing on police officers, who returned fire, one of the sources said. By Christian Hartmann, John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry STRASBOURG/PARIS (Reuters) - The suspected gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was shot dead on Thursday in a brief gun battle with police after being on the run for 48 hours, police sources said. Cherif Chekatt, 29, was killed in the Neudorf/Meinau area of the city shortly after a big police operation was launched around 2100 hrs (2000 GMT) on Thursday about 2 kilometres from where he launched his attack on Tuesday. Chekatt was killed after firing on police officers, who returned fire, one of the sources said. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters later three police officers came across a man they believed to be Chekatt and went to arrest him. He turned to fire on them and they shot and killed him, Castaner told reporters. "I think it will help to get back to a life that I would describe as normal," Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told reporters after news that Chekatt had been killed. "With the death of this terrorist ... citizens, like me, are relieved," he said Reuters reporters near the scene heard three to four gunshots after armed police officers and units launched their operation, backed up by a helicopter circling overhead. The death toll from Tuesday's attack rose to three while police on Thursday combed the city in the east of France for a second day and manned checkpoints on the German border in their search for Chekatt. Three others were fighting for their lives on Thursday, Castaner told a news conference before news broke that Chekatt had been shot dead. Police issued a wanted poster in multiple languages for Chekatt, who was the main suspect in the attack and who had been on a watchlist as a potential security threat. He had spent time in French, German and Swiss jails for a theft and violence and authorities say he was known to have developed radical religious views while behind bars. Islamic State claimed him as one of its soldiers on Thursday, who "carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries" fighting the militant group, according to a statement on its Amaq news website. The group provided no evidence for the claim. Earlier in the day armed and masked police had swooped on the same Strasbourg neighbourhoods fanning out across three locations in late afternoon, including the area where Chekatt was last seen. He was killed not far from there. Witnesses had told investigators that the attacker cried out "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater) as he opened fire on Tuesday on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, a target Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz suggested may have been chosen for its religious symbolism. French soldiers, who are part of anti-terrorism patrols across the country, had shot him in the arm but he managed to escape and elude capture for 48 hours. BFM TV citing investigators said a taxi driver, who had taken him away from the attack site, had told him he had carried out the attack to avenge his brothers in Syria. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2QQL0XG) MILITANT ATTACKS Chekatt's police file photo shows a bearded man of North African descent, with a prayer bruise on the centre of his forehead. Neighbours on the housing estate where Chekatt family's lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes. "He was a little gangster, but I didn't see any signs of him being radicalised," said a leader of a community group standing outside Chekkats apartment building, who asked not to be identified while discussing him. The Strasbourg attack was the latest in a succession of attacks linked to Islamist militancy in France going back to March 2012. Since January 2015 more than 240 people have been killed in various attacks, although the last one had been in May. With the gunman still on the run and officials dubbing the attack an act of terrorism, France raised its security threat to the highest level. More than 700 police took part in the manhunt. French and German police had manned controls on either side of the Europe Bridge, which spans the frontier running along the Rhine river, causing hours of logjams. The Christmas market, a hugely popular attraction in historic Strasbourg, will reopen on Friday, Castaner said. People began returning to the area on Thursday with many marking their respects for the victims by leaving candles in the main Kleber square. (Additional reporting by Gilbert Reilhac, Vincent Kessler and Antony Paone in Strasbourg, Elizabeth Pineau, Myriam Rivet, Richard Lough, Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, Michelle Martin, Paul Carrel in Berlin and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Richard Balmforth) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Christian Hartmann, John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry STRASBOURG/PARIS (Reuters) - The suspected gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was shot dead on Thursday in a brief gunbattle with police after being on the run for 48 hours, police sources said. By Christian Hartmann, John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry STRASBOURG/PARIS (Reuters) - The suspected gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was shot dead on Thursday in a brief gunbattle with police after being on the run for 48 hours, police sources said. Cherif Chekatt, 29, was killed in the Neudorf/Meinau area of the city shortly after a big police operation was launched around 2100 hrs (2000 GMT) on Thursday about 2 kilometres from where he launched his attack on Tuesday. Chekatt was killed after firing on police officers, who returned fire, one of the sources said. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters later three police officers came across a man they believed to be Chekatt and went to arrest him. He turned to fire on them and they shot and killed him, Castaner told reporters. "I think it will help to get back to a life that I would describe as normal," Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told reporters after news that Chekatt had been killed. "With the death of this terrorist ... citizens, like me are relieved," he said Reuters reporters near the scene heard three to four gunshots after armed police officers and units launched their operation, backed up by a helicopter circling overhead. The death toll from Tuesday's attack rose to three while police on Thursday combed the city in the east of France for a second day and manned checkpoints on the German border in their search for Chekatt. Three others were fighting for their lives on Thursday, Castaner told a news conference before news broke that Chekatt had been shot dead. Police issued a wanted poster in multiple languages for Chekatt, who was the main suspect in the attack and who had been on a watchlist as a potential security threat. He had spent time in French, German and Swiss jails for a theft and violence and authorities say he was known to have developed radical religious views while behind bars. Earlier in the day armed and masked police had swooped on the same Strasbourg neighbourhoods fanning out across three locations in late afternoon, including the area where Chekatt was last seen. He was killed not far from there. Witnesses had told investigators that the attacker cried out "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater) as he opened fire on Tuesday on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, a target Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz suggested may have been chosen for its religious symbolism. French soldiers, who are part of anti-terrorism patrols across the country, had shot him in the arm but he managed to escape and elude capture for 48 hours. BFM TV citing investigators said a taxi driver, who had taken him away from the attack site, had told him he had carried out the attack to avenge his brothers in Syria. MILITANT ATTACKS Chekatt's police file photo shows a bearded man of North African descent, with a prayer bruise on the centre of his forehead. Neighbours on the housing estate where Chekatt family's lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes. "He was a little gangster, but I didn't see any signs of him being radicalised," said a leader of a community group standing outside Chekkats apartment building, who asked not to be identified while discussing him. The Strasbourg attack was the latest in a succession of attacks linked to Islamist militancy in France going back to March 2012. Since January 2015 more than 240 people have been killed in various attacks, although the last one had been in May. With the gunman still on the run and officials dubbing the attack an act of terrorism, France raised its security threat to the highest level. More than 700 police took part in the manhunt. French and German police had manned controls on either side of the Europe Bridge, which spans the frontier running along the Rhine river, causing hours of logjams. The Christmas market, a hugely popular attraction in historic Strasbourg, will reopen on Friday, Castaner said. People began returning to the area on Thursday with many marking their respects for the victims by leaving candles in the main Kleber square. (Additional reporting by Gilbert Reilhac in Strasbourg, Elizabeth Pineau, Myriam Rivet , Antony Paone, Richard Lough, Emmanuel Jarry in Paris and Michelle Martin and Paul Carrel in Berlin; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Richard Balmforth) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. MILAN/PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Italy's biggest construction company Salini Impregilo does not expect any impact from Wednesday's Panama Canal arbitration award beyond a worst-case scenario of $334 million. On Wednesday, the Panama Canal Authority said an arbitration tribunal had ordered the construction consortium behind the waterway's expansion, which includes Salini, to pay back nearly $848 million to the canal authority. The ruling from the Miami-based tribunal stems from a long-running dispute between the authority and a group of builders led by Salini and Spain's Sacyr . MILAN/PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Italy's biggest construction company Salini Impregilo does not expect any impact from Wednesday's Panama Canal arbitration award beyond a worst-case scenario of $334 million. On Wednesday, the Panama Canal Authority said an arbitration tribunal had ordered the construction consortium behind the waterway's expansion, which includes Salini, to pay back nearly $848 million to the canal authority. The ruling from the Miami-based tribunal stems from a long-running dispute between the authority and a group of builders led by Salini and Spain's Sacyr . The dispute involves cost overruns for the construction of a third set of locks for the waterway, which was completed in 2016. Salini General Manager Massimo Ferrari told Reuters on Thursday the group would pay back advance payments made by the Panama Canal Authority for $217 million immediately. The repayment of a further $117 million in advanced payments and relating to variation orders depends on a court decision expected in March. "That means $334 million is a maximum," Ferrari said. The company said it had already booked the amount as a liability in its balance sheet. The canal authority said the $848 million accounted for advances that had been granted to the consortium, called GUPC, or Grupo Unidos por el Canal, which also includes Belgium's Jan De Nul and Panama's Constructura Urbana. Last year, the tribunal rejected a demand by GUPC for $192.8 million to cover cost overruns. Salini said on Thursday the arbitration award would not affect the outcome of outstanding arbitration cases between GUPC and the Authority amounting to some $5.2 billion. "The arbitration is split up in different stages with a first decision expected at the end of 2019," Ferrari said. Shares in Salini fell almost 20 percent on Thursday. (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes, Paola Arosio and Elida Moreno; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Sandra Maler/Sherry Jacob-Phillips/Jane Merriman) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Muyu Xu and David Stanway BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Amid a slowing economy and a slew of mixed signals from the environment ministry, China's embattled local governments are facing a dilemma: do they go all out to curb smog this winter, or do their best to keep factories humming? China has promised to put an end to a 'growth at all costs' economic model, which has blackened its skies and contaminated large stretches of its water and soil By Muyu Xu and David Stanway BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Amid a slowing economy and a slew of mixed signals from the environment ministry, China's embattled local governments are facing a dilemma: do they go all out to curb smog this winter, or do their best to keep factories humming? China has promised to put an end to a "growth at all costs" economic model, which has blackened its skies and contaminated large stretches of its water and soil. The government just embarked on another winter campaign against polluters in a dozen smog-prone provinces and regions. Environmental compliance has become a key test of political loyalty among local officials, but this year they must plot a course that will also keep the economy on track. That could be tricky, as China's third-quarter growth is at its slowest since the global financial crisis a fact Beijing has acknowledged. "Local governments in the polluting regions are working hard to reduce air pollution but also are exhausted," said Zhu Shu, the regional director of the East Asia Secretariat of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a Bonn-based think tank that helps local governments tackle pollution. Though local authorities have been asked to show more flexibility in cracking down on polluters, the new approach has already sown confusion. If officials show leniency, they are accused of chasing growth, but if they come down hard, they are considered brittle bureaucrats. With the goalposts constantly shifting, few know how to strike the right balance, experts said. "We have seen 'name and shame' statements from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment accusing (local governments) of either 'failing to do their duty' or 'overdoing it in a wrong way,'" said a researcher with ties to the ministry who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to talk to the media. A TRICKY BALANCE China last year forced 28 northern cities to curb industrial output, traffic and coal consumption to reduce emissions of small, breathable particles known as PM2.5 by at least 15 percent from November 2017 to March 2018. Economists with China's Tianfeng Securities said last year's controls - which included the closure of vast numbers of industrial plants, some permanently - would cost 40,000 jobs in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region alone. Heavy industrial cities throughout the north have struggled to diversify their economies, and delegates to parliament this year urged Beijing to provide more financial support. The targeted cuts for 2018 are much lower, though the controls have now been extended to as many as 79 cities. Many are under pressure to cut PM2.5 by about 3 percent, but some are still making provisions to close up to half of their factories when required. According to Reuters analysis of official government data, PM2.5 readings in the 79 cities stood at an average of 69.8 micrograms in November this year, 14 percent higher than the same period last year. Of the total, only 32 cities saw improvements over the period. To minimise disruptions, companies in Hebei province - normally China's most polluted - have also been placed into four categories, with only those in the lowest class subject to stringent shutdowns this year. "From what I understand, the government is turning a blind eye as long as air quality is good enough for them to meet the targets," said an official at a steel mill in Tangshan, Hebei's top steel-producing base, who did not wish to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. "Production cuts are just a measure, not the final aim." Nevertheless, regions that missed targets last year will come under increased pressure to make deeper cuts. Jincheng, which saw emissions rise and its economy tank in the first quarter, is still planning to shut at least half of its industrial plants during smog build-ups. Authorities must also outperform neighbours. In Hebei, the poorest-performing counties and towns are fined 1 million yuan ($145,490) and the money is awarded to regions that overachieved. Officials from the worst-ranking districts also face disciplinary measures. There are concerns that unfavourable weather conditions will put cities at risk of missing targets. An official with a government-run environmental think tank in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu said poor weather could to boost smog by 5-10 percent this year. FLEXIBILITY Last winter, a crude "one size fits all" approach to the war on pollution disrupted large parts of the industrial economy, with inspectors forcing companies to shut down whether they caused smog or not. Environment minister Li Ganjie promised to set up dedicated inspectorates to help make enforcement more nuanced. Authorities were also encouraged to set their own targets based on local circumstances. This year, they have also been instructed to help violators comply instead of simply shutting them down. Environment ministry spokesman Liu Youbin told a media briefing in November that officials would be punished if they went too far - or not far enough. Hundreds have already been reprimanded. While China wants to make long-term environmental improvements by devising new laws, raising standards, taxing pollutants and forcing companies to adopt cleaner production methods, it still relies on short-term crackdowns to meet its targets. Many local economies still depend on polluting industries like coal or steel. "The core solution to this dilemma is to adjust the industrial structure," said Zhu. "That is a problem they will face and have to deal with sooner or later." (Reporting by David Stanway and Muyu Xu; Editing by Gerry Doyle) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Elizabeth Piper BRUSSELS (Reuters) - 'Trust me,' Prime Minister Theresa May told other European Union leaders on Thursday, saying that with their help, she could win the British parliament's backing for her Brexit deal and prevent a chaotic departure. A day after a failed attempt to oust her by lawmakers in the governing Conservative Party, May told leaders of the other 27 EU members she believed there was majority in parliament for her Brexit deal, she just needed a little more from them. May postponed a parliamentary vote on the deal this week for fear of suffering a resounding defeat and is asking the EU to help her find a way to break the deadlock over Brexit, Britain's biggest shift in trade and foreign policy for more than 40 years By Elizabeth Piper BRUSSELS (Reuters) - "Trust me," Prime Minister Theresa May told other European Union leaders on Thursday, saying that with their help, she could win the British parliament's backing for her Brexit deal and prevent a chaotic departure. A day after a failed attempt to oust her by lawmakers in the governing Conservative Party, May told leaders of the other 27 EU members she believed there was majority in parliament for her Brexit deal, she just needed a little more from them. May postponed a parliamentary vote on the deal this week for fear of suffering a resounding defeat and is asking the EU to help her find a way to break the deadlock over Brexit, Britain's biggest shift in trade and foreign policy for more than 40 years. Asking for political and legal assurances that the so-called Northern Irish backstop would be temporary, May urged the leaders to look at her track record of delivering results even when the odds looked stacked against her. "Over the last two years, I hope I have shown that you can trust me to do what is right, not always what is easy, however difficult that might be for me politically," she said, according to a senior British official. Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron said the legal agreement could not be reopened, adding: "We can't renegotiate what was negotiated for several months." May said she believed there was "a majority in parliament who want to follow through on the referendum and leave with a negotiated deal" but asked for help in changing the perception that the backstop arrangement was a trap. "I am in no doubt the best result for all of us is to get this deal delivered in an orderly way and to get it done now. It is in none of our interests to run the risk of an accidental no deal (exit) with all the disruption that would bring, or to allow this to drag on any further." With less than four months before Britain is due to leave on March 29, May's deal agreed with the EU last month has only hardened positions at home, throwing up more uncertainty for businesses trying to predict what will happen next. Scenarios range from Britain leaving without a deal to no Brexit at all, but May said all the uncertainty could come to an end if she secured the additional assurances -- including measures that have legal force -- on the backstop. The backstop aims to ensure there is no return to controls on the border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. However, it is the main stumbling block for lawmakers in London who fear Britain will become stuck in the fallback arrangement, hindering trade deals beyond the EU. "We have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escape. Until we do, the deal, our deal, is at risk," she said. "There is a majority in my parliament who want to leave with a deal so with the right assurances this deal can be passed, indeed it is the only deal that is capable of getting through my parliament." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; editing by David Stamp) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end U.S. military support for the Saudi Arabian-led campaign in Yemen. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a foreign military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973 during the Vietnam War, limits the president's ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trump's fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi's murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. "Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear," Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government, and the prince. He promised to veto the war powers resolution. The White House declined comment on the joint resolution beyond pointing to his previous veto threat. But backers of the resolutions, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans, promised to press ahead. NEW CONGRESS "What's next is to do everything possible to demand that the House of Representatives do what the members of the House want done, an opportunity to vote on this," Senator Bernie Sanders told Reuters. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he would bring the resolution up again in the new Congress, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives. The measure could pass the Senate again, given the bipartisan support it received on Thursday even though Trump's Republicans will have a larger majority next year. "I think we're going to win in the Senate and I think we are going to do what the American people want, that is to end our participation in this horrific and destructive war," Sanders said. There was no immediate word from House leadership on whether they would allow a vote on either of the resolutions. Earlier on Thursday, Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 3 House Republican, declined to respond earlier when asked whether he would support a House vote on legislation seeking action against Saudi Arabia. Pompeo and Mattis urged senators during a briefing last month to keep supporting the Saudi-led coalition. In January, control of the House shifts to the Democrats, who won sweeping victories in November's mid-term elections. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said her members supported congressional action. "There certainly is an appetite in our caucus for that," Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House Speaker, told reporters. Yemen's warring parties agreed on Thursday to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a framework for political negotiations would be discussed at the next round of talks at the end of January between the Iranian-aligned Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Western nations, some of which supply arms and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015, had pressed the two sides to agree confidence-building steps to pave the way for a wider truce and a political process to end the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people. The conflict has pushed Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, to the verge of famine. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Ginger Gibson; Editing by Grant McCool and Alistair Bell) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Steve Holland and Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to counter the rapidly expanding Chinese and Russian economic and political influence in Africa, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said on Thursday, calling business practices of the two nations 'corrupt' and 'predatory.' Washington's No 1. priority will be developing economic ties with the region to create opportunities for American businesses and protecting the independence of African countries along with U.S By Steve Holland and Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to counter the rapidly expanding Chinese and Russian economic and political influence in Africa, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said on Thursday, calling business practices of the two nations "corrupt" and "predatory." Washington's No 1. priority will be developing economic ties with the region to create opportunities for American businesses and protecting the independence of African countries along with U.S. national security interests, he said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation. "Great-power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa," Bolton said. "They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States." U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, leaders of the world's two largest economies, have been trying to resolve trade disputes that have roiled markets. "China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands. Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption," Bolton said. He had equally harsh words for Russia. "Across the continent, Russia advances its political and economic relationships with little regard for the rule of law or accountable and transparent governance," he said. He accused Moscow of selling arms and energy in exchange for votes at the United Nations "that keep strongmen in power, undermine peace and security, and run counter to the best interests of the African people." Bolton said "predatory practices" by China and Russia stunt economic growth in Africa and threaten nations' economic independence. He said the United States was developing the "Prosper Africa" initiative to support U.S. investment in Africa and a growing middle class in the region. He gave no details. Landry Signe, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Africa Growth Initiative in Washington, welcomed the administration's focus on trade and investment as opposed to security, but wanted details on planned U.S. action. "The Trump administration's new Africa Strategy reflects a more accurate understanding of the fast-changing dynamics within Africa," he said, "but the strategy doesn't seem sufficient to effectively address the United States' threatened economic, security, and influence interests." Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said release of an Africa strategy was welcome after two years of "conflicting narratives" by the administration. Devermont said he was disappointed that China dominated Bolton's presentation, which lacked details on U.S. plans. "China loomed over everything, and loomed over really important issues on trade and investment, and transparency," said Devermont. "We didn't get many details on what the 'Prosper Africa' approach looks like and how it would be resourced. Those should have been the headlines of the strategy." "We need a greater articulation on what are the sectors that the U.S. government wants to prioritise in Africa for U.S. investment," Devermont said, "They should be transparent with the Africans to explain why certain countries are getting the bulk of the investment." China's policies in Africa have concerned Washington as the United States seeks to ramp up development finance in the face of China's global ambitions. In July, the head of the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC) said China was saddling poor nations with unsustainable debt through large infrastructure projects that are not economically viable. Bolton said the American approach contrasted with China's "bait and switch" policies. "The way we do business is much more straightforward." In October Trump signed legislation overhauling the way the federal government lends money for foreign development, creating a $60 billion agency intended largely to respond to Chinas growing influence. The new U.S. International Development Finance Corp combines OPIC and other government development organizations. Xi's "Belt and Road" initiative, unveiled in 2013, aims to build an infrastructure network connecting China by land and sea to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Bolton said the lack of economic progress in Africa has created a climate conducive to violent conflict and the proliferation of terrorism. He said the United States has little to show for the billions of dollars it has poured into Africa. He said the administration will work to ensure U.S. aid is used more efficiently and effectively, with investments in health, education, government and fiscal transparency measures and rule of law. "We will make certain that ALL aid to the region - whether for security, humanitarian, or development needs - advances U.S. interests," he said, adding that Washington will also re-evaluate its support for U.N. peacekeeping missions. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and David Gregorio) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The US Senate dealt President Donald Trump a double blow over Saudi Arabia on Thursday, approving a resolution to end US military support for Riyadh's war in Yemen, and another holding the Saudi crown prince responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Washington: The US Senate dealt President Donald Trump a double blow over Saudi Arabia on Thursday, approving a resolution to end US military support for Riyadh's war in Yemen, and another holding the Saudi crown prince responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Though largely symbolic, the two bipartisan measures deliver a fresh warning to Trump, who has repeatedly signalled his backing for the Saudi regime even amid a mounting uproar over the Yemen conflict and the slaying of dissident Saudi journalist Khashoggi. On the Yemen measure, which more broadly attacks the president's prerogative to launch military actions, 49 Democrats or their allies voted in favour, along with seven Republicans, while another three Republicans abstained. Then, in a voice vote with no opposition, the Senate also approved a resolution condemning Khashoggi's murder and calling Prince Mohammed bin Salman "responsible" for it. "What the Senate did today is say that the United States Congress is sick and tired of abdicating its constitutional responsibility on matters of war," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with the Democrats. "We will not continue to have our military posture dictated by a despotic, murderous regime in Saudi Arabia." The resolutions cannot be debated in the House of Representatives before January, and would likely be vetoed in any case by Trump. But the Senate votes send a strong message to the White House over anger on both sides of the aisle towards Riyadh, intensified by the mounting civilian death toll in Yemen and the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. Anger at the human cost of the war in Yemen has prompted a harder line in Congress about the US military's role in backing Saudi-led coalition strikes against Huthi rebels. The Yemen "resolution directs the president to remove US armed forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen, except those engaged in operations directed at al-Qaeda, within 30 days," the resolution states. The resolution came the same day as UN-brokered talks in Sweden saw some progress, with Yemen's warring parties agreeing to a ceasefire at the vital port of Hodeida. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised the talks, saying "peace is possible." Four years of war in Yemen have killed about 10,000 people and are threatening up to 20 million people with starvation. Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell a Trump loyalist had called on his party to vote against the Yemen resolution. But he did back the rebuke of Prince Mohammed, crafted by Bob Corker, a Republican who has been critical of the president. Under the resolution, the Senate "believes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," the measure states. It also calls on the Saudis to release blogger Raif Badawi, his sister Samar Badawi, and Saudi women's rights activists who were arrested as political prisoners in 2018. The resolution notes "the United States-Saudi Arabia relationship is important to United States national security and economic interests" but calls on Riyadh to "moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy." The rebuke of the young heir apparent to the Saudi throne is a direct challenge to Trump, who has sought to cast doubt on the crown prince's involvement in the killing and has stressed instead the importance of US trade and military ties with Riyadh. "Here's what I believe: Saudi Arabia needs us more than we need them," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said. It's "not too much to ask an ally not to butcher a guy in a consulate. This is not World War II. So I'm not going to look away at what MBS did," Graham added, using the abbreviation for the crown prince. By Eric M. Johnson MOJAVE, Calif. By Eric M. Johnson MOJAVE, Calif. (Reuters) - A Virgin Galactic rocket plane reached space on Thursday and returned safely to the California desert, capping years of testing to become the first U.S. commercial human flight to breach Earth's atmosphere since America's shuttle programme ended in 2011. The successful test flight presages a new era of civilian space travel that could kick off as soon as next year, with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic battling billionaire-backed ventures such as Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, to be the first to offer suborbital flights to fare-paying tourists. Branson, who said he personally put up $1 billion towards the roughly $1.3 billion development costs for Virgin's space businesses, told Reuters he viewed competition with Bezos and others as a race, though passenger safety was the top priority. "Today we get to enjoy the fact that we have put people into space before anybody else," Branson said. Virgin's twin-fuselage carrier airplane holding the SpaceShipTwo passenger spacecraft took off at 7:11 a.m. local time (1511 GMT) from the Mojave Air and Space Port, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Los Angeles. British billionaire Branson, wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket with a fur collar, attended the take-off along with hundreds of spectators on a crisp morning in the California desert. After the rocket plane, also called the VSS Unity, reached an apogee of 51.4 miles (83 km) above Earth, a crying Branson hugged his son and high-fived and hugged other spectators. The plane reentered the atmosphere at 2.5 times the speed of sound and landed a few minutes later to cheers and applause, concluding roughly an hour's journey. One of the pilots handed Branson a small Earth stress ball when the two hugged. Thursday's test flight - the fourth mission during which VSS Unity flew under its own power - had pilots Mark Stucky and Frederick Sturckow onboard, four NASA research payloads, and a mannequin named Annie as a stand-in passenger. The next flight test is within the next couple of months, depending on data analysis from Thursday's flight, Virgin Galactic said. Branson has said Virgin's first commercial space trip with him onboard would happen "in months and not years." 51.4 MILES ABOVE EARTH The carrier airplane hauled the SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket plane to an altitude of about 45,000 feet (13.7 kms) and released it. Seconds later, SpaceShipTwo fired, catapulting it to more than 51 miles above Earth, high enough for the pilots to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet. The ship's rocket igniting and vertical ascent through a cloudless sky could be seen from the ground. Virgin's latest flight test comes four years after the original SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight that killed the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot, dealing a major setback to Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of the London-based Virgin Group. "It's been 14 long years to get here," Branson told reporters after the landmark flight. "We've had tears, real tears, and we've had moments of joy. So the tears today were tears of joy." EXPENSIVE TRIP Nearly 700 people have paid or put down deposits to fly aboard Virgin's suborbital missions, including actor Leonardo DiCaprio and pop star Justin Bieber. A 90-minute flight costs $250,000. Virgin Galactic has received about $80 million in deposits from future astronauts, Branson said. Short sightseeing trips to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket are likely to cost around $200,000 to $300,000, at least to start, Reuters reported in July. Tickets will be offered ahead of the first commercial launch, and test flights with Blue Origin employees are expected to begin in 2019. Branson added that he "would be delighted to offer Bezos a flight on Virgin" and for Bezos "to maybe offer me a flight" on New Shepard. Bezos' New Shepard has already flown to the internationally recognised boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space known as the Karman line at 62 miles (100 km) - though the Blue Origin trip did not carry humans. Virgin's Thursday launch did not go as high as the Karman line. Its pilots were aiming to soar 50 miles into the sky, which is the U.S. military and NASA's definition of the edge of space and high enough to earn commercial astronaut wings by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Other firms planning a variety of passenger spacecraft include Boeing Co , Elon Musk's SpaceX and late Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen's Stratolaunch. In September, SpaceX said Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo, would be the company's first passenger on a voyage around the moon on its forthcoming Big Falcon Rocket spaceship, tentatively scheduled for 2023. Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric carmaker Tesla Inc , said the Big Falcon Rocket could conduct its first orbital flights in two to three years as part of his grand plan to shuttle passengers to the moon and eventually fly humans and cargo to Mars. Looking to the future after the successful flight, Branson talked about the possibility of using his space plane to link international cities, offering orbital space flights, or potentially even building a Virgin hotel in space. "One thing leads onto another. I forever dream," he told Reuters. "Actually, I said to my son today, we were sitting in the cockpit (before the flight), and I said sometimes I think life is just one incredible dream." (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Mojave, California; Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Leslie Adler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. After Qualcomm was granted a preliminary injunction to ban the sale and import of Apple iPhone 6s through iPhone X in China, Qualcomm now plans to file for an injunction on the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR in China. This would prevent the sale of those devices in the country. Qualcomm has granted the preliminary injunction after it ruled that the devices violated two Qualcomm patents. The first Qualcomm patent reportedly enables users to adjust and reformat the size and appearance of photos, while the second is said to relate to managing applications using a touch screen when viewing and navigating apps. However, Apple has continued to sell the affected iPhone models in China because it believes the patent infringement ruling does not apply to iOS 12 and this led Qualcomm to Fuzhou Intermediate Peoples Court to enforce the injunction. This move suggests that Qualcomm is forcing Apple into settling its on-going legal battle, primarily over chip-related licensing fees. Apple says that a Chinese ban on sales of the iPhone will force it to settle long-standing licensing battle with Qualcomm Inc., This outcome that may end up harming the countrys smartphone industry and give its fiercest legal rival a boost. The ruling on Apple comes at times when Washington and Beijing are in sensitive trade negotiations. Apple said it will push out a software update in China early next week with iOS 12.1.2 update which will address functions covered by the patents in question. Apple had argued for years that Qualcomm which owns a lot of patents to modern wireless communications is abusing its position and levying punitive fees. China is also the production base for most iPhones as well as the iPad and Mac. Apple warned that the ban would hurt manufacturers like Foxconn and other suppliers. The company has noted that it has created 5 million jobs across the countrys supply chain and third-party software developers. Qualcomm seeking bans on the sale of iPhones would force Apple to the negotiating. Apple regarding the court order said: Apple will be forced to settle with the Respondent, causing all mobile phone manufacturers to relapse into the previous unreasonable charging mode and pay high licensing fees, resulting in unrecoverable losses in the downstream market of mobile phones. Source 1, 2 Google Home Speakers in the US can now choose between an Australian-accented voice and a British-accented voice for your Google Assistant across devices. All the other settings and features including setting a timer, checking the weather and getting an overview of your commute and everything else remain the same while your Assistant will speak with a new accent. The Google Assistant speaking in an Australian-accented voice and a British-accented voice are built using DeepMinds speech synthesis model WaveNet, which uses deep neural networks to generate raw audio waveforms resulting in more realistic and natural-sounding voices for the Google Assistant. To try out these new voices on your Assistant, navigate to Settings on your phone, tap on the Assistant tab, and select Assistant voice. Youll now see two new voices that you can select, either Sydney Harbour Blue for the Australian voice, or British Racing Green for the British voice. Source Google, a few years ago worked with eye specialists in India and the U.S. on an AI system to help doctors analyze images of the back of the eye for signs of diabetic retinopathy. The AI model now detects diabetic retinopathy with a level of accuracy on par with human retinal specialists. This means doctors and staff can use this assistive technology to screen more patients in less time, sparing people from blindness through a more timely diagnosis. The company is rolling out this diabetic retinopathy initiative in clinics in India with its partner Verily, and it also conducting research in Thailand over the past few months. At the AI for Social Good Summit in Bangkok hosted by Google and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the company has announced a partnership with the Rajavithi Hospital, which is operated by the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand, kicking off a forward-looking research pilot using AI to detect diabetic retinopathy in Thailand. To ensure that all sectors contribute to the development of AI in the Asia Pacific, Google is supporting the creation of an Asia Pacific AI for Social Good Research Network with a grant. This network will bring together leading academics from the Association of Pacific Rim Universities to produce research on AI for social good. It will also have a governance framework to guide the responsible development of AI. The network will also be a forum for researchers to discuss these issues with the government, civil society, and the private sector. Google said that it will continue to work with many organizations to identify and address these challenges, and unlike some other companies, Google Cloud has chosen not to offer general-purpose facial recognition APIs before working through important technology and policy questions. Source ASUS has announced that its long-time CEO Jerry Shen is stepping down ahead of the companys comprehensive corporate transformation part of a major shift in mobile strategy to focus on gamers and power users. Meaning, we might see more ROG phones and fewer Zenfones. During his 11 years serving as CEO, Shen oversaw the launch of the PadFone series, Transformer series, ZenBook series, and ZenFone series. Prior to that, Shen was also credited as the main creator of the Eee PC, the small machine that kickstarted the netbook in 2006. In a statement, Shen announced that he will be running a new AIoT startup, iFast, as chairman and CEO, with its business targeting B2B applications. Despite his departure, Shen will still maintain a link with ASUS thanks to its 30% stake in his new venture. Shen added that he will devote myself to assisting ASUS effectively transition into the AIoT industry.As for ASUS vacant CEO role, it will be split between PC business lead S.Y. Hsu and global customer service lead Samson Hu as of January 1st, 2019. ASUS was quick to clear the air regarding the future of Zenfones; in a statement, the company said: With regard to the doubts raised by some on the continuation of the ZenFone brand, we confirm that we will continue to develop the ZenFone series, while also aiming to expand the gaming smartphone market. We will focus on perfecting solutions for gamers and power users. This does answer few questions as the company took a year-long break from smartphone and gave a strong comeback in 2018 with the launch of Zenfone Max Pro M1 and Zenfone 5Z in India, and most recently with the Zenfone Max M2 and Max Pro M2 smartphones. Source Arla Foods Ingredients bakery mixes and other bakery products; cheese products - natural and imitation; dairy products - natural and imitation; minerals and food supplements; nutraceutical and functional food ingredients; proteins - animal or plant origin Arla Foods Ingredients is a leading whey ingredient supplier for infant nutrition, baking, dairy, medical applications and sports nutrition. Were known for having the industrys highest levels of quality, innovation and food safety. Our functional and nutritional whey proteins, milk minerals, lactose and whey permeate can promote nutrition, improve texture, prolong freshness and increase yield for industrial food products. 45 scientific staff and 22 food and dairy technicians work to discover and carefully document the effects of our functional and nutritional ingredients. At application level, some 40 dairy technicians, scientists and engineers, work in well-equipped pilot plants to help our customers prepare these discoveries for success on their production lines and in the marketplace. Arla Foods Ingredients Group P/S is a subsidiary of Arla Foods, a global dairy cooperative owned by dairy farmers in six countries. The marijuana industry has had a truly phenomenal year. In Canada, nine decades of recreational marijuana prohibition came to an end on Oct. 17, thanks to the passage of the Cannabis Act in June. Having gained legitimacy, cannabis growers are ramping up capacity as quickly as they can to garner their piece of the multibillion-dollar marijuana market. In the U.S., a handful of new states legalized cannabis in some capacity. Residents in Utah and Missouri gave the green light to medical marijuana initiatives in November, with Michigan and Vermont approving recreational weed in 2018. All told, 32 states now allow medical cannabis in some capacity, with 10 states having legalized adult-use pot. The potential for marijuana stocks is enormous, and none may be more polarizing than Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQ:ACB). Aurora Cannabis has been expanding like mad in 2018 When the year began, Aurora Cannabis was working on its flagship property, known as Aurora Sky. When complete, the 850,000-square-foot greenhouse was expected to be the most state of the art in the world, according to management, with around 100,000 kilograms of peak annual yield. When combined with existing assets (Aurora Mountain and Aurora Vie), the company looked to be on track for a little over 100,000 kilograms of peak annual production. Then, Aurora Cannabis got hungry. In addition to announcing a new organic project in Medicine Hat, Alberta, known as Aurora Sun, and partnering with Alfred Pedersen & Son in Denmark to retrofit vegetable-growing greenhouses for cannabis production, the company has made quite a few notable acquisitions. In May, it finally closed on its $852 million purchase of Saskatchewan-based CanniMed Therapeutics. On top of added production capacity, CanniMed was working on a number of alternative weed products, including oils and softgel capsules. These alternative products generate significantly better margins than dried cannabis flower. In July, Aurora Cannabis closed on a $2.5 billion acquisition of Ontario-based MedReleaf -- the largest buyout to date in the marijuana space. MedReleaf had about 35,000 kilograms in combined annual capacity from its Markham and Bradford facilities, but purchased 164 acres of land in 2018, complete with the Exeter facility. This facility is being retrofitted for 105,000 kilograms of annual peak cannabis yield. All told, MedReleaf adds 140,000 kilograms of potential output. In November, Aurora Cannabis closed its ICC Labs acquisition in South America. ICC Labs has 92,000 square feet of active production capacity, with roughly 1.1 million under construction. Like MedReleaf, ICC Labs also comes with plenty of adjacent land for expansion, should Aurora choose. Following this deal, yours truly suggested that Aurora Cannabis could comfortably get to 700,000 kilograms of peak annual production within the next three to five years. Aurora is at it again And yet, the company still isn't done. On Monday, Dec. 10, Aurora announced that it was acquiring its Mexican medical cannabis partner, Farmacias Magistrales. Why the purchase? Aside from the fact that Mexico has around 130 million potential customers, Farmacias holds the unique distinction of being the only company (for now) that's able to import, manufacture, store, and distribute medical cannabis that contains over 1% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is the cannabinoid responsible for getting a user high. As the only company to possess this license, Farmacias opens the door for Aurora to provide Mexico's consumers with non-flower medical cannabis products containing THC, and do so without any competition. Furthermore, by purchasing Farmacias, Aurora Cannabis will be able to recognize all of the margin benefits of selling these non-flower THC products in Mexico, rather than just garnering a percentage of sales as a partner. Since more than half of all marijuana sales from Canadian growers are eventually expected to occur beyond Canada's borders, consider this another attempt by Aurora to diversify its sales channels. The press release notes that Farmacias will also be broadening its product line to include capsules, topical solutions, sprays, and other delivery options. The price for the deal is still up to some interpretation, with the press release noting only that it'll be conducted in shares of Aurora Cannabis' stock "based on a valuation of the proforma distribution revenue projections of Farmacias." Growth at any cost (to shareholders) Aurora's expansion could aptly be described as "growth at any cost" in an effort to secure its spot as the clear production leader. With Aurora's presence in 22 countries on five continents, its output and breadth should give the company a good chance at securing long-term supply deals and possible beverage/tobacco industry partnerships. But this "growth at any cost" mantra is really costing shareholders in the near term, and potentially over the long run. While not oblivious to the importance of cash for cannabis companies -- most financial institutions are still leery about lending to pot-based businesses -- Aurora has made a habit of financing its acquisitions with its common stock. The Farmacias deal is the fourth time this year Aurora will be issuing common stock to aid in the purchase of another company. These share issuances -- along with bought-deal offerings that see the company sell common stock, convertible debentures, stock options, and/or warrants -- are a negative for shareholders for two reasons. First, it weighs down the value of existing shares, even if added value is being assigned by Wall Street for the acquisition in question. Second, and most importantly, a higher number of outstanding shares makes it that much harder for Aurora to generate meaningful earnings per share. With Canada having legalized recreational weed, Wall Street and investors are going to be looking for tangible top- and bottom-line results. Following its ICC Labs acquisition, and now Farmacias, it's almost a certainty that the company's outstanding share count will surpass 1 billion. For context, it was just 16.2 million less than five years ago. Aurora's management team may have all the right intentions, but it's absolutely destroying shareholder value with its buying spree. I just put two Napa 7565 850 CCA batteries in my truck. Napa or interstate batteries would be the only brand I used, leaning more towards the Napa's. Last edited by danno676; 12-08-2018 at 06:10 PM . Reason: Number dash Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Silver Lining is going to be the third chapter of Marvels Spider-Man DLC called The City That Never Sleeps. Ryan Smith, Game Director at Insomniac Games via PlayStation Blog announced the release date of the Silver Lining chapter, and also shared a teaser trailer which features Silver Sable, and our hero Peter Parker/Spider-Man. In Silver Lining, Sable objective is to reclaim her stolen Sable Internation Tech. This time around Spider-Man has to rely on some of the unlikely allies in order to keep the New York City safe from Silver Sable because NY Police Chief Yuri Watanabe is on an administrative leave following her exploits against Hammerhead. Silver Lining will also give players a chance to unlock three new Spider-Man suits: Cyborg Spider-Man, Aaron Aikman, and Into The Spider-Verse Suit. You can take a look at all these new suits below. Silver Lining DLC will launch on December 21. It is already up for pre-order on PlayStation Store, carries a price tag of $9.99. If you havent tried any of the post-launch DLC content of Marvels Spider-Man then you can get The City That Never Sleeps bundle (features all three chapters) for $24.99. Enjoy the teaser trailer of Silver Lining DLC below. Microsoft has stopped mentioning Xbox One sales a long while ago, but it seems like theres a new milestone from that perspective to celebrate. According to an estimation of VGChartz, indeed, the console has sold 40 million units worldwide, also thanks to the recent boost of Xbox One X. The console sold 207,143 units to bring its lifetime sales to 40,020,713 units as of the week ending November 17. Xbox One has sold best in the US with 22,539,411 units sold (56%), compared to 10,877,912 units sold in Europe (27%) and 101,483 units sold in Japan (0.3%). As for Europe, the console has sold an estimated 4,472,877 units in the UK, 1,311,467 units in Germany, and 1,554,968 units in France. Five games have sold more than five million units; 36 games have sold more than two million units; and 73 games have sold more than one million units. Grand Theft Auto V is the top selling Xbox One game at retail with an estimated 8.31 million units. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 has sold 7.32 million units and Call of Duty: WWII has sold 6.17 million units. Halo 5: Guardians is the best-selling first-party game with sales of 4.89 million units, followed by Minecraft with sales of 4.79 million units. Forza Horizon 3 has sold 3.91 million units, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition has sold 3.61 million units and Halo: The Master Chief Collection has sold 3.44 million units. Remember these information are not official and could easily be debunked by Microsoft as they are just an estimation, but sure enough they give a quite good idea about the state of the console. For comparisons sake, this generation console war winner PlayStation 4 currently is at over 86 million units. Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021. New Zealand rapper Scribe will take part in a documentary on the war against methamphetamine, despite facing sentencing for possessing the Class A drug. Scribe, whose real name is Malo Ioane Luafutu, has been placed on six months' supervision after he admitted to breaching a protection order and wilful damage in the Christchurch District Court on Thursday. He was earlier found to be guilty of possessing methamphetamine, and is set to be sentenced for that charge in April. The rapper's defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger told Judge Tom Gilbert how his drug issues have been widely publicised. "He himself thinks there is something for him to contribute in the war against methamphetamine," Ms Bulger said. "He has resolved to take part in a documentary which will do just that." The rapper has now been clean for four months, and hopes to kick-start his music career again. Scribe also thanked Judge Gilbert, who put him in custody, for the change it's made in him. Scribe found fame in the early 2000s. His debut single 'Stand Up' won Single of the Year at the 2004 New Zealand Music Awards. Newshub. Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49 receives a major software update with improved HDR support News oi-Vivek Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49 runs on Android 8 Oreo Xiaomi is known to offer timely software updates for their whole suite of smartphones, and the company is doing the same for their smart television series as well. Xiaomi has started to roll out a new software update for the Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49, which is a mid-tier smart television from Xiaomi with a 1080p display, which retails for Rs 31,999. The updates add some of the new features and improve the already available features on the latest Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49 smart-television. Here are the complete details on the newest software release for the Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49. New Features and improvements Long press power key on Mi Remote to turn off the screen with content playback in background Auto detect source name Detect external device source name for connected devices Improved Wi-Fi connection for more stable connectivity Improved responsiveness for special use case Improved HDR performance for video output for HDR content from connected devices Dynamic background changes with color picked from selected posters New font across PatchWall UI New Universal search UI with One page design How to update to the Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49? Connect the television to the internet via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, Go to settings, Software-update, and check for the latest software update and click install. Xiaomi Mi TV 4A Pro 49 specifications The Xiaonu Mi TV 4A Pro 49 comes with a 49-inch IPS LED screen with 20W dual stereo speaker setup with custom PatchWall UI on top Android TV OS. The display offers 1920 x 1080p resolution with 60Hz refresh rate and 178 degrees of viewing angle with a response time of 6.5ms. The smart-television is powered by a 64-bit Amlogic quad-core processor (Cortex A53 CPU and Mali-450 MP3 GPU) with 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage with dual USB-A ports, triple HDMI ports, ethernet port, AV out, and an S/PDIF port. This is the one of the first television from Xiaomi with Android TV OS (certified by Google with a smart remote that supports voice search via Bluetooth connectivity). Users can switch between stock Android skin on PatchWall UI skin with a menu option. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Qualcomm wants to ban iPhone XS and XR sales after defeating Apple News oi-Karan Sharma Qualcomm asks China courts to ban the sale of iPhone XS and XR in the country after winning the lawsuit against Apple. Chipset maker Qualcomm is been in a conflict with Cupertino tech giant Apple from a long time. Now the company has asked the courts in China to ban the sale of Apple's latest iPhone XS and XR after winning a preliminary injunction against older models. Qualcomm has confirmed the news on Thursday. On Monday, a Chinese court passes an ordered to ban the sales of some older Apple iPhone models for the violation of patents of Qualcomm. "We plan to use the same patents to file suit against the three new iPhone models," Jiang Hongyi, a lawyer at Lexfield Law Offices who is representing Qualcomm in its patent suits, told the FT, which first reported the news on Thursday. Qualcomm bought this case as a part of a global patent dispute between the two US companies. Both the tech giant companies are indulged in includes dozens of lawsuits against each other. On Monday Apple said that all its phone models will remain on sale in mainland China and the company has filed a request for reconsideration with the court. In addition, the company has also mentioned that the three newly launched models were not part of the case. Let's see what Apple is going to do about the sales ban in China and how Qualcomm will oppose Apple to sell its iPhones in the country. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Vivo to invest Rs 4000 crore in new manufacturing plant News oi-Priyanka Dua Vivo also pointed out that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath welcomed the initiative and congratulated it for the upcoming facility. Chinese smartphone Vivo has announced an additional investment of Rs. 4000 crore to set up a new manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh.' The company has acquired additional 169-acre of land has been acquired near the existing 50-acre manufacturing facility that will help expand Vivo's manufacturing capabilities and support its continued growth in the country. Nipun Marya, Director-Brand Strategy, Vivo India said, "Vivo entered India in 2014 with a commitment to bring product innovation, focus and value to our consumers. India is a key market for us, and today we have reiterated our commitment by entering the next phase of growth in India, all the while aligning ourselves with the 'Make in India' initiative. Additionally, we're proud that the new plant will offer a major benefit to the surrounding area through high-quality job creation and training opportunities." Vivo also pointed out that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath welcomed the initiative and congratulated it for the upcoming facility. The smartphone company said that the new manufacturing facility will help in achieving its vision of providing best-in-class mobile phones with an affordable pricing in addition to the already existing facility at Greater Noida. The existing manufacturing set-up, which saw an investment of Rs. 300 crore already functions at a capacity of 2 million units per month with more than 5,000 workforces. Furthermore, Vivo will generate 5000 additional employment in the first phase of expansion. During this phase, Vivo also plans to double the current production capacity to 50 million units per annum. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Russia expels Slovak diplomat in apparent tit-for-tat move Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 10:53AM The Russian Foreign Ministry says it has declared a military attache in the Slovak Embassy in Moscow as "persona non grata" and ordered the diplomat to leave Russia. In a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova announced the news, adding that the Slovak attache had only two days to leave the country. "Several days ago, a Slovak military diplomat in Russia was declared persona non grata. He is to leave our country within two days. A corresponding note was filed with the Slovak ambassador in Moscow on December 11," she said. On November 22, Bratislava had expelled a member of the military attache's office at the Russian Embassy in Slovakia over "spying" charges. Earlier this month, the Slovakian government said that it had expelled the Russian diplomat after receiving information from the country's military intelligence purportedly showing that the suspect had engaged in espionage activities against Slovakia, which is a member state both to NATO and the European Union (EU). Zakharova described the expulsion of the Russian diplomat as an "unfriendly act." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian National Butina Pleads Guilty To U.S. Charge Of Foreign-Agent Conspiracy By Mike Eckel December 13, 2018 WASHINGTON -- A Russian woman has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a case that the U.S. government said highlighted Moscow's efforts to influence Washington's foreign policy. Maria Butina, who had earlier denied the charge, entered the new plea in a U.S. federal court in Washington on December 13, and also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Butina "sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics," according to the plea agreement read out loud by prosecutors in court. Dressed in a green prison jumpsuit, wearing glasses and her hair pulled back in a braid, Butina spoke in English as she answered U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's questions. "Are you pleading guilty today because you are guilty?" Chutkan asked. "Yes," Butina replied. No sentencing date was set. However, Chutkan said Butina could face up to five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine. Chutkan also said it was not up to her whether Butina would be deported after she completes her sentence. Prosecutors have alleged that Butina, who received a graduate degree from American University in Washington and who publicly advocated for gun rights, sought to build relationships with influential conservative political groups, including the powerful National Rifle Association. In Russia, Butina had established a group that advocated for Russians to own firearms, something that is strictly proscribed under Russian law. The charge of conspiracy opens the possibility that other people could also be charged in the case. Paul Erickson, an American man and conservative activist identified as Butina's boyfriend, is also under investigation. Erickson's name appears nowhere in the court filings; the filings identify only a "U.S. Person 1." However, the descriptions given by prosecutors match up with Erickson's background and past activities. 'Diplomacy Project' The plea that Butina agreed to details that she sought to cultivate relationships in the United States. "Butina opined that the circumstances were favorable for building relations with a certain U.S. political party," it said. "Butina predicted that the candidate nominated by Political Party #1 would likely win the upcoming U.S. presidential election." Prosecutors said Butina in March 2015 crafted something called the "Diplomacy Project" with help from "U.S. Person 1," and to carry out the plan, she requested $125,000 from a Russian billionaire to attend conferences and set up "separate meetings with interested parties." Those parties included Russian businessmen or Foreign Ministry officials, they said. Butina's lawyers have previously identified the Russian official with whom she worked closely as Aleksandr Torshin, a former Russian lawmaker who is deputy governor of Russia's Central Bank. He was hit with sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department in April. Torshin has also been linked to Russian organized crime figures according to Spanish investigators who spent years tapping phones and monitoring Russians. Salacious Accusations When Butina was first arrested on July 16, prosecutors leveled a series of salacious accusations, including that she had tried to seduce some of her contacts, as part of the effort to build back-channel communications and influence people. Prosecutors later withdrew the accusations, saying they were based on a misreading of some of Butina's text messages and emails. They also withdrew accusations that she had been in contact with Russian intelligence agents. Her defense lawyers had argued that the portrayal made by prosecutors was an exaggerated caricature. They said that her efforts to build friendships and contacts with U.S. political figures were genuine. The case against Butina was brought by federal prosecutors in Washington, not by the better-known effort led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Russian officials have strenuously defended Butina, asserting that the U.S. case was exaggerated or outright false. Earlier this week, after court filings indicated Butina was about to change her plea, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned her in a Moscow meeting. "She risks 15 years in jail. For what?" Putin asked rhetorically. "I asked all the heads of our intelligence services what is going on. Nobody knows anything about her." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/butina-pleads-guilty-in -russian-spy-case/29654740.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Expels Slovak Diplomat In Spy Dispute December 13, 2018 Russia has declared a Slovak military diplomat persona non grata following Bratislava's expulsion of a Russian diplomat suspected of spying last month. Calling Slovakia's move an "unfriendly act," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on December 13 that the diplomat in the Slovak Embassy in Moscow had been given two days to leave the country. Earlier this month, the Slovak government said it had expelled a member of the military attache's office at the Russian Embassy in Bratislava in late November after information provided by Slovakia's Military Intelligence Service indicated he "conducted intelligence-gathering activities" against the interests of the country and NATO. Slovakia is a member of the NATO and the European Union. The dispute between Moscow and Bratislava comes amid persistent tension between the West and Russia over issues including Moscow's aggression in Ukraine, its alleged election meddling in the United States and Europe, and massive international cyberattacks. Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-expels-slovak -diplomat-in-spy-dispute/29653840.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian National Butina Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy Against US Sputnik News 19:39 13.12.2018(updated 21:15 13.12.2018) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Russian national Maria Butina has pleaded guilty in US court on Thursday to one count of conspiracy against the United States. Butina said "yes" when asked if she knowingly engaged in a conspiracy against the United States. According to the US Judge Tanya Chutkan, who accepted the guilty plea, Butinab faces a maximum of 5 years in prison and $250,000 fine. The judge also noted that she may be deported from the country, stressing, however, that the decision would be made by other US agencies. Commenting on the case, chairman of the Russian lower house's international affairs committee Leonid Slutsky called it an example of "political inquisition". "The vaunted American justice in Butina's case is an example of modern political inquisition. All charges were fabricated, the entire process is clearly politicized, starting with the fact that she was detained on the eve of the meeting of the Russian and US presidents in Helsinki, and it was hardly a coincidence", Slutsky told reporters, adding that Russia should still seek Butina's return from the United States. The next hearing on the case to take place on 12th of February. The news comes a few days after the US media reported that Butina had agreed to cooperate with US authorities as part of a deal made with prosecutors. Butina, arrested in mid-July, previously pleaded "not guilty" to charges of acting as a foreign agent and conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation in the United States. She was residing in the country on a student visa while completing a masters degree in international relations at American University in Washington, DC. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Accused Russian Agent Pleads Guilty to Conspiring Against US By VOA News December 13, 2018 A Russian woman pleaded guilty Thursday in Washington to acting as a Kremlin agent to conspire to build ties with the powerful National Rifle Association gun rights group in the U.S. and infiltrate Republican Party circles to pass information back to Moscow. Maria Butina was charged in July with acting illegally as an unregistered Russian agent and conspiracy. She initially entered a not-guilty plea. But Butina admitted to U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan that she had, in fact, been working for the Russian government. As part of an agreement with prosecutors to change her plea to guilty, the 30-year-old Butina agreed to help them with insight into Russian meddling in U.S. political affairs. Her actions were directed by Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia's central bank, who in April was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his alleged ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Butina faces up to five years' imprisonment and remains jailed while awaiting sentencing Feb. 12. She could be deported to her homeland after serving any prison term. Republican activist boyfriend Butina allegedly developed a personal relationship with an NRA-linked Republican activist, Paul Erickson, and lived with him. Butina also enrolled as a graduate student at American University in Washington, where she earned a master's degree in international relations earlier this year. The U.S. Justice Department alleged that Butina was a "covert Russian agent" who maintained connections with Russian spies in a mission aimed at penetrating "the U.S. national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation." They alleged that her work in the United States was directed by a former Russian lawmaker who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his alleged ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian denial The Russian leader said Tuesday he had never heard of Butina until her July arrest. Putin said that when he asked Russian intelligence services for information about her, he was told that "no one knows anything about her." The Butina case is separate from special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing, 19-month investigation into whether President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign colluded with Russia to help him win the presidency and whether, as president, Trump obstructed justice to try to thwart the probe. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Artificial intelligence experts address getting capabilities to warfighters By Terri Moon Cronk, Defense.gov December 13, 2018 WASHINGTON -- Two Defense Department artificial-intelligence experts testified on Capitol Hill yesterday on DOD's efforts to transform delivery of capabilities enabled by artificial intelligence to the nation's warfighters. Lisa Porter, deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, and Dana Deasy, DOD's chief information officer, testified at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019 directed the defense secretary to conduct a comprehensive national review of advances in AI relevant to the needs of the military services. Section 238 directed the secretary to craft a strategic plan to develop, mature, adopt, and transition AI technologies into operational use. "Today we are experiencing an explosion of interest in a subfield of AI called machine learning, where algorithms have become remarkably good at classification and prediction tasks when they can be trained on very large amounts of data," Porter told the House panel. Today's AI capabilities offer potential solutions to many defense-specific problems, such as object identification in drone video or satellite imagery and detection of cyber threats on networks, she said. However, she added, several issues must be addressed to effectively apply AI to national security mission problems. "First, objective evaluation of performance requires the use of quantitative metrics that are relevant to the specific use case," she said. "In other words, AI systems that have been optimized for commercial applications may not yield effective outcomes in military applications." CHALLENGES, VULNERABILITIES DOD is working to address such challenges and vulnerabilities in multiple ways, she said, most of which will leverage the complementary roles of the new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and the department's research and engineering enterprise. Second, Porter said, existing AI systems need enormous amounts of training data, and the preparation of that data in a format that the algorithms can use, in turn, requires a large amount of human labor. "AI systems that have been trained on one type of data typically do not perform well on data that are different from the training data," she noted. The JAIC's focus on scaling and integration will drive innovation in data curation techniques, while the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will pursue algorithms that can be "robustly trained with much less data," Porter said. "The high-performance computing modernization program is designing new systems that will provide ample processing power for AI applications on the battlefield," she added. Countering adversarial AI is one of the key focus areas of DARPA's "AI Next" campaign, she emphasized. "Ultimately, as we look to the future, we anticipate a focus on developing AI systems that have the ability to reason as humans do, at least to some extent," Porter said. "Such a capability would greatly amplify the utility of AI, enabling AI systems to become true partners with their human counterparts in problem solving. It is important that we continue to pursue cutting-edge research in AI, especially given the significant investments our adversaries are making." THREE THEMES OF JAIC EFFORT Deasy detailed the JAIC and highlighted three themes of its effort. "The first is delivering AI-enabled capabilities at speed," he said. "JAIC is collaborating now with teams across DOD to systematically identify, prioritize, and select mission needs, and then rapidly execute a sequence across functional use cases that demonstrate value and spur momentum." The second theme is all about scale, he said. "JAIC's early projects serve a dual purpose: to deliver new capabilities to end users, as well as to incrementally develop the common foundation that is essential for scaling AI's impact across DoD," he explained. "This means [the use of] shared data, reusable tools, libraries, standards, and AI cloud and edge services that helped jumpstart new projects." The third theme is building the initial JAIC team. "It's all about talent," he said. "And this will be representative across all the services and all components. Today, we have assembled a force of nearly 30 individuals. Going forward, it is essential that JAIC attract and cultivate a select group of mission-driven, world-class AI talent, including pulling these experts into service from industry." Two weeks ago, before more than 600 representatives of 380 companies, academic institutions and government organizations at DOD's AI Industry Day, Deasy said, he announced that the department had achieved a significant milestone: "JAIC is now up and running and open for business." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Release No. NR-344-18 December 13, 2018 Navy to Christen Littoral Combat Ship St. Louis The Navy will christen its newest Freedom-variant littoral combat ship, USS St. Louis (LCS 19), during a 10 a.m. CST ceremony Saturday, Dec. 15, in Marinette, Wisconsin. The future USS St. Louis, designated LCS 19, honors Missouri's major port city along the Mississippi River. She will be the seventh ship to bear the name St. Louis. The first was a sloop of war, the second a Civil War gunboat, followed by a Spanish-American War-era steamer troop ship, a World War I cruiser, a World War II light cruiser, and a Cold War era attack cargo ship. The principal speaker will be U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt from Missouri. Barbara Taylor, wife of Andy Taylor, chairman of Enterprise Holdings, will serve as the ship's sponsor. In a time-honored Navy tradition, she will christen the ship by breaking a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow. "The future USS St. Louis honors not just the great city of St. Louis, Missouri, but also the skilled industrial workforce who built this ship," said Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer. "This christening marks the transition of USS St. Louis being a mere hull number to a ship with a name and a spirit, and is a testament to the increased lethality and readiness made possible by the combined effort between our industrial partners and the Navy and Marine Corps team." The future USS St. Louis is a fast, agile, focused-mission platform designed for operation in near-shore environments as well as the open-ocean. It is designed to defeat asymmetric "anti-access" threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface craft. Media may direct queries to the Navy Office of Information at (703) 697-5342. Click here for more information about the Littoral Combat Ship class. Additional information about the future USS St. Louis (LCS 19) can be found here. https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1713117/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Under Secretary of the Navy Strengthens Alliances in Norway Navy News Service Story Number: NNS181213-13 Release Date: 12/13/2018 11:01:00 AM By Cmdr. Paul Macapagal, Under Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs VAERNES, Norway (NNS) -- Under Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, completed a three-day partnership-building visit to Norway, Dec. 12. Modly met with senior military and civilian officials to discuss security and stability issues and efforts along with touring some of the Norwegian assets and facilities. Meetings were held with the U.S. ambassador, State Secretary of Defence, Chief of Royal Norwegian Navy, Commander of Norwegian Defence Liaison Office, members from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Army and Navy, and U.S. Marines on rotation to Norway. "The U.S. and Norway share a very close military relationship and collaborate on many global, regional and bilateral issues," said Modly. "Being able to see it first hand was impressive and helped underscore the enduring value of investing in cooperative security relationships." During his visit, Modly toured a Royal Norwegian Navy Skjold class Corvette and Fridtjof Nansen class frigate and the facilities at the Marine Corps Pre-Positioning Program-Norway (MCPP-N). "By working together with one of our closest allies, we create force multipliers that enhance our capabilities and build a better understanding of each other," said Modly. "I look forward to fostering this relationship through our Navy and Marine Corps team." On his final day, Modly had the opportunity to have lunch and a discussion with some of the U.S. Marines from the Marine Rotational Force - Europe. "Marine training in Norway improves cold weather and mountain readiness in Artic conditions," said Modly. "It also enhances interoperability between U.S. And Norwegian forces. Our marines are getting great training and building enduring relationships with their Norwegian partners." Modly is on a multination visit to the European region focused on strengthening partnerships and cooperation in support of the second line of effort of the National Defense Strategy: Strengthening Partnerships and Alliances. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump's ex-lawyer Cohen sentenced to 3 years in jail People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 07:34, December 13, 2018 WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former long-term personal attorney, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in jail after pleading guilty to a series of crimes, including campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress. Prosecutors had recommended a "substantial term of imprisonment" for Cohen, pushing back on an earlier argument by Cohen's lawyers that he should serve no prison time. Cohen's sentencing came after he pleaded guilty in cases with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and with special counsel Robert Mueller's team that is investigating into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. "I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to, the personal ones to me and those involving the president of the United States of America," Cohen said during a hearing at a federal court in New York. At times he paused to control his emotions and shed tears. "Somewhere along the way Mr. Cohen appears to have lost his moral compass," U.S. District Judge William Pauley said. "As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better." Cohen, 52, pleaded guilty in August to evading 1.4 million U.S. dollars in taxes related to his own businesses, as well as paying hush-money in the eve of the 2016 Election Day to two women who alleged affairs with Trump, then a presidential candidate. "It was my blind loyalty to this man that led me to take a path of darkness instead of light," Cohen said of Trump. "I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds." Referring to the cover-up payments, federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing, "In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1." Individual-1 is the term prosecutors have been using to refer to the Trump. Trump tweeted Monday that the payments were "a simple private transaction," not election-related spending subject to campaign-finance laws. Before his sentencing was announced, Cohen was expected to get a four-year prison time. A slight break was granted to him because of his assistance to law enforcement as well as cooperation with the Mueller team. However, Pauley said Cohen's plea to guilty and assistance "does not wipe the slate clean." Cohen is ordered to surrender on March 6. Part of Cohen's cooperation with the Mueller team involves the alleged Trump Organization real-estate project in Moscow, about which Cohen admitted on Nov. 29 that he lied to Congress. Trump reacted on the same day by calling Cohen "a weak person and not a smart person." "Very simply, Michael Cohen is lying, and he is trying to get a reduced sentence for things that have nothing to do with me," the president said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran hails 'promising' deal between warring Yemeni sides Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 07:32PM Iran has hailed preliminary deals between Yemeni parties as "promising", expressing hope that they would prepare the ground for the next round of talks in order to reach a final agreement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi on Thursday welcomed "positive confidence-building measures" taken by the warring groups under the supervision of UN chief Antonio Guterres in Sweden. Guterres said Thursday the Yemeni parties had reached an agreement on a ceasefire in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, bringing the first round of the talks to a close. The two sides agreed that the world body would play a "leading role" in Hudaydah which is currently controlled by the Houthis. Qassemi referred to the deal on Hudaydah as a very important one, and praised the Yemeni parties for discerning the catastrophic situation which the impoverished country is going through. "The agreement shows that the Yemeni groups participating in the talks have carefully and correctly understood the catastrophic situation of the innocent people of Yemen, and have preferred the continued dispatch of humanitarian aid to their own interests," he noted. He also expressed hope that the agreements would be implemented within the specified framework, paving the way for holding the next round of talks in the near future with the aim of clinching a final deal. Qassemi highlighted the "constructive" role played by the Islamic Republic of Iran in facilitating the Yemeni-Yemeni talks in Sweden, saying Tehran made the contribution as part of its responsible approach toward regional crises. "Iran still believes that the final solution to the Yemen crisis lies in the cessation of war and bloodshed and the continuation of Yemeni-Yemeni talks, as stipulated in the four-point plan earlier proposed by the Iranian foreign minister," Qassemi added. In April 2015, the Iranian foreign minister submitted a four-point peace plan for Yemen to the United Nations in an attempt to end the bloodshed in the Arab country. 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 Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the country's Houthi Ansarullah movement. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel won't succeed if it launches another war on Lebanon, says Hariri Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 04:52PM Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri says the Tel Aviv regime would not succeed in case it opts to launch a new military aggression against his country. Delivering a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London on Thursday, Hariri downplayed the possibility of Israel waging another war on Lebanon, questioning what the Israeli military's previous wars had accomplished. "Did Israeli attacks weaken Hezbollah?" he commented. The remarks came four days after Hezbollah deputy secretary general said the Lebanese resistance movement's arms capability has deterred Israel from aggression against Lebanon, stressing that "there is not a point in Israel not exposed to Hezbollah rockets." "Ever since 2006, Israel has been deterred by the ability of [Hezbollah]," Sheikh Naim Qassem said in an interview with Iranian Arabic-language al-Vefagh newspaper published on December 9, adding that all of Israel, "even Tel Aviv," is subject to Hezbollah's rockets. Hariri noted that whilst Beirut does not want war, the Tel Aviv regime does not want peace. "[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu doesn't want peace. He wants a little piece of Lebanon, a little piece of Jordan and a little of Palestine," the Lebanese premier-designate pointed out. Hariri said that Lebanon wants peace based on Arab League decisions, "but do they [Israel] know what they want?" "You open the news and see headlines like, 'Lebanon has tunnels into Israel' and some allegations that it's Hezbollah," he said, referring to a recent operation that the Israeli military has undertaken to block what it claims are tunnels Hezbollah has dug into occupied territories. Hariri underscored that Israel violates Lebanon's sovereignty on a daily basis. "Have you ever heard of how many sorties into Lebanon or its international waters from Israel? Has anyone? Do you think this is fair?" he questioned. He said that Israel conducted 150 incursions into Lebanon last month. "Do you think it's fair for our international waters to be penetrated 10 to 20 times a month?" Hariri concluded that Israel still occupies parts of Lebanon, namely Shebaa Farms. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN chief: Yemen's Houthis, ex-govt. agree to ceasefire in Hudaydah Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 03:30PM UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the Yemeni warring parties have reached an agreement on a ceasefire in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, as a new round of peace talks aimed at ending nearly four years of a brutal Saudi-led war on its southern neighbor came to a close in Sweden. The UN chief made the announcement on Thursday, shortly after the delegations of Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement and the country's former Saudi-backed government agreed that the world body play a "leading role" at the vital port, which is currently controlled by the Houthis. "There is a ceasefire declared for the whole governorate of Hudaydah in the agreement and there will be both from the city and the harbor a withdrawal of all forces," Guterres said, adding that after the pullout, the UN would begin facilitating aid access to the civilian population. More than 70 percent of Yemen's imports used to pass through the docks of Hudaydah. Hudaydah has, however, been placed under a tight siege since June, when the Saudi-led coalition and their allied militia loyal to the government of Yemen's ex-president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, launched a full-scale military push to seize the strategic port city in defiance of international warnings. The significant agreement came a week after the rival Yemeni sides began peace negotiations, brokered by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths and his team, in Rimbo, a locality near the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The Riyadh-backed side had on Friday said the Houthis must hand over the vital port. However, Mohammed Abdulsalam, the head of the Houthi delegation at the peace talks, strongly rejected the proposal, saying that Hudaydah must be kept apart from the military conflict, and that a government should be formed first before all parties are disarmed. Griffiths, for his part, said on Thursday that the pullout of all forces should take place "within days." He is due to brief the UN Security Council on Yemen on Friday. The fate of the international airport of Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, has also been a hot issue on the agenda of the talks. The capital is under the control of the Houthis, but the Saudi led-military coalition controls Yemen's maritime borders and airspace. The airport has been closed to commercial flights for the past nearly three years. Griffiths said its fate would be discussed at the next round of talks, which will take place at the end of January 2019, according to the UN chief. "It's clear and it's public knowledge that starting point is opening up to commercial flights, maybe domestic at first, and eventually (international)," he added. Guterres, who arrived in Sweden late Wednesday to attend the closing session, further announced in a press conference on Thursday that both parties had also reached a series of other breakthroughs regarding the bloody conflict in Yemen, including a "mutual understanding" on Yemen's third city of Ta'izz, another hotspot in the war-ravaged country and the scene of some of the most intense clashes between the rivals. Leading a coalition of its allies, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Hadi, who had resigned amid popular discontent and fled to Riyadh. The imposed war initially consisted of an aerial campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground mercenaries to Yemen. Furthermore, armed militia forces loyal to Hadi, in line with invaders, launch frequent attacks against Yemeni people in regions held by Houthis. Since the onset of aggression, the Yemeni army, backed by fighters from Houthi Ansarullah movement, has been defending the impoverished nation against the invaders. The coalition is also resolute to crush the movement as another goal in its war on Yemen, which is teetering on the edge of famine. The aggression is estimated to have left 56,000 Yemenis dead. Riyadh had declared at the start of the invasion that the war would take no more than a couple of weeks. The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has 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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Afghan forces eliminating Taliban field commanders seen obstacle to peace Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 03:10PM Afghan forces, backed by US aerial raids, are targeting Taliban field commanders whom they see as a major obstacle to possible peace talks with Kabul and Washington, officials and security sources say. Najib Danish, Afghan interior ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that government forces would use all means to remove hurdles to peace and stability. An unnamed senior security official said the current campaign is part of a strategy to apply heavier battlefield pressure on the Taliban. "The war-hardened Taliban field commanders are the biggest obstacle to peace efforts because they believe they are winning militarily," media outlets quoted the official as saying. "The plan was designed to eliminate them and pave the way for future talks," he added. US military commanders have pressed Afghan government forces to go on the attack to strengthen their hand in any talks. "We've realigned support and precision lethal assets to precisely target the Taliban more often and more effectively to set conditions for the negotiated settlement," said Colonel David Butler, spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan. "We don't consider the death of these leaders decisive, unfortunately many more will die until the Taliban decide to stop fighting. The only lasting solution will be a political settlement," he said. Senior commanders have been targeted regularly in recent weeks. Abdul Manan, the shadow Taliban governor of the southern province of Helmand and the militants' top commander in the south, was killed in a joint operation by US and Afghan special forces on Dec. 2. Two days later, the Taliban shadow governor of central Ghor province was killed while on a visit to Helmand and on Saturday, the shadow governor of Paktika was killed in a raid by Afghan special forces on the border with Pakistan. As air and ground operations have surged in recent weeks, so has the risk of civilian casualties. But Afghan security officials say despite the danger, the local commanders remain high priority targets. The Taliban, whose fighters briefly overran the central city of Ghazni in August, have steadily increased territorial gains in recent months. Meanwhile, the Kabul government has stepped up efforts to convince the Taliban to end the 17-year militancy amid Washington's failures on the battleground. Contacts have already started between US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban representatives to build a favorable position in advance of any talks. At the request of the US, a Taliban office was established in Doha in 2013 to facilitate peace talks. In recent months, Taliban representatives and Khalilzad have discussed their conditions to end the war in Afghanistan. US forces have been bogged down in Afghanistan through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump, with militants now launching attacks on both Pakistan and Afghanistan. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address I 'never directed Michael Cohen to break the law': Trump Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 01:50PM US President Donald Trump says he has "never directed Michael Cohen to break the law" after his longtime attorney was sentenced to three years for campaign finance violations and other crimes. "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law," Trump tweeted. "It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid." Manhattan's District Judge William Pauley on Wednesday sentenced Cohen to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to eight federal charges. Cohen paid hush-money on behalf of his client to women alleging affairs with Trump in order to prevent damaging information from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign and for lying to Congress about a proposed project in Russia. Cohen had pleaded guilty on the charges in a plea bargain with investigator for a reduced sentence. In a follow-up tweets, Trump said Cohen agreed to charges "in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence." "As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!" the president added. On August 21, Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of tax and financial fraud. He also pleaded guilty to violating election campaign finance laws by paying an adult film actress hush money on Trump's behalf during the 2016 presidential campaign. Then on November 29, he pleaded guilty to an additional charge of lying to Congress over matters related to an investigation led by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation probed Russia's alleged collusion with Trump's 2016 election campaign to influence voters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Diplomat To Press European, Balkan Allies On 'Russia's Aggression' By RFE/RL December 13, 2018 WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. diplomat on December 13 held talks with officials in Bratislava and attended the signing of an agreement under which Slovakia is to buy 14 F-16 military jets from Lockheed Martin as it seeks to replace Soviet-era jets. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan is on a tour of Central Europe and the Western Balkans to shore up support against what the State Department calls "Russia's aggression on the region." Slovak Defense Minister Peter Gajdos signed the contract on December 13 with Lockheed Martin's vice president of international business development, Ana Wugofski. "I'm delighted to be here today to witness this historic, very important moment," Sullivan said. "This is a significant step for Slovakia in it is own defense, as an important NATO ally, and as an important step forward in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Slovakia." The first four jets are scheduled to be delivered by 2022, and the remainder a year later. The F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jets will replace the Slovak Air Force's Soviet-made MiG-29 jets. Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini said his country will pay over 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) for the warplanes. The deal also includes ammunition and the training of pilots. Sullivan is also scheduled to visit Vienna, Sofia, Sarajevo, Skopje, and Warsaw on the trip, which will run through December 20. In Vienna, Sullivan is expected to thank Austria for its contributions to security cooperation in Afghanistan and the Western Balkans "and will emphasize to senior officials the need to counter Iranian and Russian malign activities," the statement said. It added, though, that "notwithstanding continued concerns with Russia's destabilizing activity," Sullivan will in Vienna lead a "counterterrorism dialogue with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov, aimed at exploring areas "in which cooperation could benefit the security of the American people and prevent future terrorist attacks." On December 16, in Sarajevo, Sullivan will press officials to work to "maintain stability and continue reforms and a path to the West." The State Department said Sullivan's stop in Skopje on December 18 will represent the highest-level U.S. diplomatic visit to Macedonia since 2001. He will discuss regional issues, including efforts to implement the 2018 Prespa Agreement, under which Macedonia agreed to rename itself North Macedonia in exchange for Athens' promise to stop blocking its entry into NATO and the EU. Greece has long maintained Macedonia's current name implies a claim on its own northern province of the same name and to Greece's ancient cultural heritage. In Warsaw on December 19, Sullivan will "reaffirm the United States' ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance," the State Department said. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-russia-austria-slovakia- bosnia-macedonia-poland-iran/29653486.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Humvees Shine Headlights On Kosovo's Controversial Vote On Army By Alan Crosby, Krenare Cubolli December 13, 2018 Kosovo received 24 armored, high-mobility, multipurpose vehicles, or Humvees, this week from the United States. Consider them an early Christmas gift for Pristina ahead of a December 14 parliamentary vote on establishing an army. Also consider them the latest sign that tensions are once again rising in the Balkans. Kosovar lawmakers will hold a final vote to transform the lightly armed, 2,500-member, NATO-trained Kosovo Security Force into a national army of some 5,000 troops that the government says is needed to secure the country and wean it off international security support. But the move has angered Serbia and comes after Kosovo upped crippling tariffs tenfold on goods from Serbia until Belgrade recognizes the country, and after reports suggest Serbia helped scupper attempts for its former federation to join Interpol. Serbia, claiming "continuous provocation," says Pristina's moves will jeopardize regional stability and may leave it no choice but to react to protect minority Serbs in Kosovo. Even if it may no longer be the powder keg it once was, the Balkan region arguably remains a crisis zone with a very short fuse. "It is time to stop warning each other and start getting your act together on all sides -- not reactive, passive, or passive-aggressive but proactive, creative, and constructive," warned Vedran Dzihic, co-director of the Center for Advanced Studies of Southeastern Europe. A former province of Serbia, Kosovo declared independence in 2008 -- nearly a decade after the 1998-99 war that ended with NATO air strikes on Serbia that forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops from Kosovo to end a conflict that killed some 13,000 people. Kosovo's 1.8 million population is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanians and about 5 percent Serbs, and it remains deeply divided. Stark Warning The depth of that rift was evident in January with the assassination of a perceived moderate Serbian politician in the northern Kosovar city of Mitrovica and reactions that included Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj's suggestion of involvement by "institutions beyond Kosovo." Mitrovica is a divided city, a front line in the extended standoff between Belgrade and Pristina. Hardly a month goes by without an incident there, despite the presence of EU and NATO forces. The prospect of a Kosovar army, which is also planned to have some 3,000 reservists, has predictably prompted a stark warning from Serbia's leadership. "The irresponsible behavior of Pristina could lead to a catastrophe, because Serbia cannot peacefully watch the destruction of the Serbian people," Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said in response to the situation. Then, on the eve of the vote, Vucic pledged that Serbia would "do its best to preserve peace and stability" but called the possible construction of a Kosovar army "illegal." The diplomatic waves created by the upcoming vote have also rocked the international community's boat. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that, while it won't leave the country, the establishment of an official army in Kosovo could prompt it to "reexamine the level of NATO's engagement in Kosovo." Serbia has been drumming up support from traditional Orthodox-ally Russia as well as China, meeting with their ambassadors in Belgrade. On the other side, U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Kosnett said in an interview with Kosovar state broadcaster RTK on December 6 that the evolution of the security force into an armed force "is a positive step and that it is only natural for Kosovo as a sovereign and independent country to have its own defense capability." "A further escalation must be urgently prevented," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a speech in Paris on December 11 at a meeting on curbing the spread of small arms from the Balkans. "The successes of the dialogue on normalization must be preserved," he added. 'Gradual Transformation' Kosovo Security Force Minister Rrustem Berisha has said the new laws, if approved as expected, foresee a "gradual transformation" of the force into a professional army capable of protecting "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo." While that process could take up to a decade, according to government officials, Kosovars have been quick to warm to the concept. Many see the transition as a natural step in the development of a country that has been recognized by more than 110 countries. While the Humvees are a reminder of one of the Kosovo's main supporters, the United States, a flood of American flags hanging from windows in Pristina have reinforced the friendship in recent days. The flags are said to have been put out to commemorate the Millennium Challenge Corporation for raising funds for Kosovo. But on the capital's streets, many people see them as a statement with a broader meaning. "What more can you say than Kosovo will be the 53rd state of the United States," says Valdrin Ismaili. "Without its support, we wouldn't be able to create our own army." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo- army-humvees--controversial- vote-serbia/29654784.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Yemen Medicators in Sweden Announce Plans for Reciprocal Withdrawal in Hodeidah Saudi Press Agency Thursday 1440/4/6 - 2018/12/13 Stockholm, December 13, 2018, SPA -- Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres announced that the Yemeni legitimate government and the Houthi rebels reached an agreement on a number of issues during the consultations held in Rimbo, Sweden. In a press conference following the final consultations held in Rimbo today, the UN Secretary General said that the two sides agreed on a ceasefire in Hodeidah and other files, including a swap of prisoners of war. He affirmed that there would be a full withdrawal of troops from the city and port of Hodeidah in addition to offering a supervisory role to the United Nations. He added that the local authorities will make security arrangements. The UN Secretary General disclosed that the withdrawal includes two stages by the two sides (troops of the Yemeni legitimate government and Houthi rebels) accordance to a specific timetable. He added that the two sides also agreed to open corridors. --SPA 20:18 LOCAL TIME 17:18 GMT 0022 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Senate Votes to End Military Assistance in Yemen War Sputnik News 23:20 13.12.2018(updated 23:58 13.12.2018) S.J. Resolution 54, "a joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress," passed the US Senate on Thursday afternoon. The chamber voted back to back on two resolutions related to Saudi Arabia: one to end US support for the kingdom's war in Yemen and a second to hold Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman responsible for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The latter, in particular, is seen as a reprimand to US President Donald Trump for his noncommittal stance on the crown prince's involvement in the death and cover-up. The Senate voted unanimously to condemn the crown prince for the columnist's murder. The final vote on the bill to end support for the war in Yemen was 56 voting in favor, 41 against. The resolution needed a simple majority to squeak through. Technically, Congress never authorized the use of the US military in Yemen, though for years US forces refueled Saudi vessels engaged in the conflict and provided targeting information for Saudi bombers. US special forces also aided Saudi forces on the ground near the Yemen border. The resolution forces Trump to withdraw any US forces involved in the conflict within 30 days. Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told reporters this week the move is "a strong denouncing of a crown prince and holding [him] responsible for the murder of a journalist. It's a pretty strong statement for the United States Senate to be making, assuming we can get a vote on it." Corker is also fighting for a one-year ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, which could be included as an amendment to another bill, The Hill reported. Corker and Senate Democrats are still negotiating whether this will pan out, however. "I am optimistic that a bipartisan coalition of senators will vote to make clear that the United States will no longer support Saudi Arabia's despotic regime in its incredibly destructive war," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont and a potential 2020 presidential candidate. The resolution stipulates that the White House must withdraw any US military forces in Yemen unless they are engaged in operations against Al-Qaeda, the president makes a new request for troops in Yemen and Congress authorizes the request, or Congress passes a declaration of war or a bill authorizing the use of military force in Yemen. As the text of the legislation points out, "no specific statutory authorization for the use of the United States Armed Forces with respect to the conflict between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis in Yemen has been enacted, and no provision of law explicitly authorizes the provision of targeting assistance or of midair refueling services to warplanes of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates that are engaged in such conflict." According to an internal Pentagon memo, the US Department of Defense has not been properly charging Riyadh for refueling services and jet fuel during the Saudi campaign against Yemen, an oversight attributed to "errors in accounting." That's meant US taxpayers paying out tens of millions of dollars to refuel Saudi coalition jets attacking Yemen so far, according to estimates. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Maduro Says Visits by Foreign Military Aircraft to Continue Amid Tu-160 Arrival Sputnik News 07:58 13.12.2018(updated 08:47 13.12.2018) MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said foreign military aircraft will continue arriving in the South American country over the coming months amid a visit by Russian planes to Venezuela. On Monday, two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers, an An-124 military transport aircraft, and an Il-62 plane landed in Venezuela. The Russian planes conducted interoperability drills with the Venezuelan Air Force this week. "The planes arrive and they will arrive in the coming months", Maduro told a press conference that was broadcast on his Twitter page. The arrival of Russia's planes was in line with bilateral cooperation programmes, Maduro added. The Venezuelan president also commented on the criticism over the visit of the Russian aircraft by Colombian President Ivan Duque, who suggested that the move was unfriendly. Maduro argued that "having mercenary camps inside a country, like those in Colombia, is unfriendly". Meanwhile, the Organisation of American States (OAS) has expressed concern over the presence of Russian military aircraft in Venezuela. "The General Secretariat of the Organisation of American States (OAS) takes note with the greatest concern of the news coming from Venezuela about the possibility that aircraft capable of using nuclear weapons from Russia are in its territory", the OAS said in a statement. The alliance suggested that the presence of Russian military aircraft in Venezuela was a violation of the South American country's law because it had not been approved by its lawmakers. Moreover, OAS claimed that the arrival of the Russian aircraft had violated international law because Venezuela was a party to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, which banned the receipt, storage, or possession of nuclear weapons on its territory. The Russian military aircraft's arrival in Venezuela has also been criticised by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who referred to Moscow and Caracas as "two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer". The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on Pompeo's remarks by calling them unacceptable and absolutely unprofessional. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen talks: Truce agreed over key port city of Hudaydah 13 December 2018 - The announcement of a ceasefire between Yemen's warring parties in and around the key port of Hudaydah, was hailed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday as a deal which would improve the lives of millions of people. Speaking on the last day of UN-led talks in Sweden to decide the future of the war-torn country, where its people are in the grip of the world's worst humanitarian crisis, Mr. Guterres told those present that they had "the future of Yemen" in their hands. "You have reached an agreement on Hudaydah port and city, which will see a mutual re-deployment of forces from the port and the city, and the establishment of a Governorate-wide ceasefire," he said, noting that the UN would play "a leading role" in the port. "This will facilitate the humanitarian access and the flow of goods to the civilian population. It will improve the living conditions for millions of Yemenis," he insisted. Nearly four years after fighting escalated between the Government of Yemen and Houthi opposition movement, known officially as Ansar Allah, more than 24 million people three-quarters of the population need some form of assistance and protection. Some 20 million are food insecure and 10 million of these people do not know how they will obtain their next meal. While noting that "pending issues" have yet to be resolved, the UN chief said that representatives from the internationally-recognised Government of Yemen and the opposition had made "real progress" which had yielded "several important results". These included a "mutual understanding to ease the situation in Taizz", Mr Guterres said, in reference to the country's third largest city. "We hope this will lead to the opening of humanitarian corridors and the facilitation of demining," he added. On the previously-agreed issue of a mass exchange of prisoners, the UN Secretary-General noted that both delegations had drawn up a timeline and provided further details on when it might happen. This would allow "thousands - I repeat, thousands - of Yemenis to be reunited with their families," Mr Guterres said, with UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, at his side. Breakthrough over talks framework Looking ahead to a new meeting between both parties in the new year, the UN chief insisted that another "very important step for the peace process" had been agreed, namely a willingness to discuss a framework for negotiations. "You have agreed to meet again to continue to discuss this further at the end of January during the next round of negotiations," Mr. Guterres said, adding that it was a "critical element" of a future political settlement to end the conflict. "We have a better understanding of the positions of the parties," he added, noting their "constructive engagement", while also crediting the Governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait for their "concrete support" in making the meeting happen. Welcoming the announcement on the Hudaydah ceasefire, the World Food Programme (WFP) underlined that the Red Sea port was "key" to importing some 70 per cent of Yemen's humanitarian and 90 per cent of its commercial needs. "Any progress towards peace is good progress, as long as it helps the Yemeni people who have suffered so much in this conflict," said WFP Executive Director David Beasley, noting that what Yemen needed most was lasting peace. "Today's announcement gives us hope that the World Food Programme's work to feed 12 million severely hungry Yemenis may be made easier in the coming weeks and months." Owing to the conflict, in recent weeks imports have decreased by about half at Hudaydah's docks, WFP spokesperson Herve Verhoosel said. "In November, our target in Hodeidah Governorate was to reach 800 000 people in need of food assistance. This ceasefire will of course help us in our daily activities as the region is one of WFPs priorities." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Rising insecurity in Central Africa Republic threatens wider region, Security Council told 13 December 2018 - Rising violence in the Central African Republic threatens to spill across the border into neighbouring countries, creating further instability, a senior United Nations official warned on Thursday, urging continued and coordinated regional efforts to bolster peace and security. In particular, a comprehensive and cautions approach is needed against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) as the African Union works to replace its ongoing initiative against the rebel group, said Francois Lounceny Fall, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Central Africa and the head of the UN Regional Office for the region (UNOCA). Replacing the AU's initiative to neutralize the LRA, should not leave a security vacuum that the group could exploit to relaunch and intensify its campaign of violence, he said, briefing the Security Council. Mr. Fall said that the Nigeria-based Boko Haram extremist group was also a malicious threat to the region that the international community needed to watch carefully, said Mr. Fall, as it continues to launch "indiscriminate attacks" against security forces as well as civilians. Efforts to stamp out Boko Haram should also focus on addressing the root causes of the insurgency, said the UN envoy. Regional developments Turning to the developments in the Central African sub-region, Mr. Fall, informed the 15-member Council of a number of recent election campaigns, including the October parliamentary ballots in Sao Tome and Principe, as well as legislative and local elections in Gabon. Elections in Chad, scheduled for November, had been postponed however, he reported. "I encourage the Chadian authorities to organize these elections as soon as possible and call on the international community to provide the necessary financial support to the Government, as required," said Mr. Fall. On Cameroon, the senior UN official raised concern over continuing reports of alleged human rights violations and called on the Government to speed up its efforts towards decentralization as well as promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism, as tensions between French and English-speaking communities continue. Cameroon's Anglophone regions the country's northwest and southwest regions have seen multiple strikes and demonstrations over the past year as tensions have mounted over what the country's English-speakers see as discrimination against them in favour of the majority French-speaking population. Subregional cooperation Also in his briefing, Mr. Fall urged nations in Central Africa to "remain committed" to institutional reform at the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), particularly with regard to funding mechanisms to ensure the effective implementation of key projects in the areas of peace, security and governance. Founded in 1983, ECCAS includes Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo and Sao Tome and Principe as its members. Council adopts resolution urging UN mission support for national rule of law institutions In an earlier meeting the same day, the Security Council adopted a resolution urging the alingment of support programmes for rule of law institutions in countries with a UN peacekeeping mission, with the mandates of those missions. Unanimously adopting resolution 2447 (2018), the Council requested that the Secretary-General enhance the coherence, performance and effectiveness of such support and ensure coherence between UN country teams and other actors of the Organization in order to help Governments improve prisons and other criminal justice facilities. Members called on the Secretary-General to ensure that the planning of peacekeeping and special political missions entails a thorough analysis of the context, capacities and needs of criminal justice sectors in host States, highlighting the importance of treating each case based on local needs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Senate Votes to End Backing for Saudi War Effort in Yemen By Michael Bowman December 13, 2018 The U.S. Senate on Thursday dealt a historic rebuke to Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally, passing a resolution to end American support for the kingdom's military intervention in Yemen's civil war and another measure condemning the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist. After hours of passionate debate, the Republican-led chamber voted 56-41 to approve the first resolution. Moments later, it adopted the second resolution by a voice vote. In both cases, the chamber acted in defiance of the Trump administration, which has strenuously argued against a rupture of cooperation between Washington and Riyadh. "Yemen is now experiencing the worst humanitarian disaster in the world," Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "The United States has been Saudi Arabia's partner in this horrific war. We have been providing the bombs that Saudi Arabia is using, refueling the planes that drop those bombs, and assisting with intelligence." "Eighty-five thousand kids [in Yemen] under the age of 5 have died from starvation and disease," Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy said. "All the evidence points to the fact that the Saudis are using our bombs to deliberately target either civilians or civilian infrastructure." Seven Republicans joined a unified Democratic caucus in backing the initial Yemen-related resolution, which asserts Congress' constitutional duty to declare war and approve prolonged U.S. military engagements. The U.S. legislature has not authorized America's support role in Saudi Arabia's campaign to combat Iranian-backed Yemeni rebels, a conflict that has led to widespread civilian deaths. But some argued that, in this instance, the case for asserting war powers authority is weak. "The United States is not involved in combat [in Yemen]. It is not dropping ordinance. It is no longer even providing air-to-air refueling [for Saudi warplanes]," Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. "If the Senate wants to pick a constitutional fight with the executive branch over war powers, I would advise my colleagues to pick a better case." "If we set the precedent that even an operation such as the refueling of aircraft of allied countries needs congressional authority, we would severely limit the executive branch's ability to respond to international crises and safeguard our global national security interests," Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan said. That argument did not sway resolution co-author Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, who countered that direct U.S. support for Saudi military actions constitutes unambiguous involvement in the war in Yemen. "We're involved in this conflict as co-belligerents [with Saudi Arabia]," Lee said. A symbolic gesture While the Senate resolution sends a strong signal of displeasure to Saudi Arabia, it is likely to stand as a largely symbolic gesture for now. Swift House action became less likely after the chamber advanced a rule blocking a vote on any war powers resolution relating to Yemen for the remainder of the current Congress. "You look at the humanitarian crisis in Yemen today and it wasn't started by the Saudi air campaign," Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said. "It was started by the Houthi rebels and denial of access for food overthrowing the legitimate government." Congressional ire toward Saudi Arabia had been simmering for years as Yemen's civil war dragged on with ever-higher civilian death tolls. Anger spiked sharply after dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the kingdom's consulate in Turkey two months ago. The second resolution approved by the Senate blames Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi's death, expresses support for Yemeni peace talks, and states: "there is no statutory authorization for United States involvement in hostilities in the Yemen civil war." President Donald Trump has said that responsibility for Khashoggi's death remains an open question, and noted Riyadh's repeated denials that the kingdom's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, played a role. Speaking at the United Nations on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "America's interests in the region are important and we intend to continue to work with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to keep America safe." Trump's critics in the Senate slammed the White House's posture. "This administration is putting the Saudi government on a pedestal that stands above American values," New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez said. "They continue to extend a blank check to certain players within the Saudi government, no matter how brazen their actions." The Senate voted as news emerged of progress in U.N.-sponsored Yemeni peace talks in Sweden, raising hopes that desperately needed humanitarian aid may reach the country. "The pressure of the international community and the United States Senate, making it clear we will not continue to participate in that war, is helping the peace process," Sanders said. Other senators drew a different conclusion. "We're actually actively pushing the players to the table to resolve this," Oklahoma Republican James Lankford said. "This is the worst possible moment for this body to start arguing about whose side we should be on." Senators of both parties signaled they intend to push for further sanctions against Saudi Arabia when the new Congress convenes in early January. "The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working for America," South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham said. "To be an ally of America, more is expected of you, not less. I just want everybody in the [Middle East] region to know that if you're thinking about doing what MBS [Mohammed bin Salman] did and you want to have a relationship with the United States, good luck. It's not going to happen." Only the beginning "This [resolution] is just the beginning unless this administration and the Saudi regime make a decision to start acting differently in resetting the foundation of our relationship," Murphy said. Others urged that Saudi Arabia's actions be weighed against those of other powers in the Middle East. "Nobody in this debate seems to want to talk about Iran," Sullivan said. "If we cut off U.S. military assistance to Riyadh, you better believe that the one capital in the Middle East that will be cheering the loudest is Tehran. And our allies, including Israel, would feel less secure." Even so, there is bipartisan appetite on Capitol Hill for further action to punish Riyadh. "This is not going away," New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen said. "This is something we are going to continue to work at, because people need to be held accountable for what's happened." Before passing the resolution, the Senate approved several amendments, including one prohibiting a resumption of U.S. refueling of Saudi warplanes for missions over Yemen. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen Rival Parties Agree to Hand UN Control of Hodeida By Edward Yeranian December 13, 2018 Talks between Yemen's two opposing sides outside the Swedish capital, Stockholm, ended Thursday with a key agreement to hand control of the key Red Sea port of Hodeida to the United Nations. But delegates failed to agree on reopening Sana'a Airport or resolving economic disputes. They will tentatively attend a fresh round of talks late next month. The audience clapped in approval as the lead negotiators for both the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi and the Houthi delegation unexpectedly shook hands, under the watchful eye of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.N. chief lauded the agreement. "You have reached an agreement on Hodeida port and city, which will see a mutual redeployment of forces from the port and the city and the establishment of a governorate-wide cease-fire," he said. The U.N. is expected to administer the port and unblock humanitarian aid to the capital, Sana'a, and other parts of the country suffering from a humanitarian crisis. Each side also agreed to allow the U.N. to remove mines and explosives in the region. Guterres said both parties will continue peace talks in January and attempt to reach agreement on outstanding issues, including reopening the airport and resolving economic disagreements. "[Both sides] have agreed to engage in the discussions on a negotiating framework at the next meeting [in January]," he said. "This is a critical element for the future political settlement to end the conflict." Guterres stressed that there is "no military solution to the conflict" and that negotiations are a "complex and lengthy process." He thanked his special envoy, Martin Griffiths, for the "many shuttle trips" he made between capitals and delegations to reach an agreement. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, whose country hosted the lengthy talks, expressed gratitude for the goodwill shown by both sides. "We came here a week ago with low expectations, but high ambitions," she said. "And we are happy that consultations have been taking place in a good spirit and in good faith and a good, concrete result in the end." The top Houthi negotiator, Mohammed Abdul Salam, told journalists at a press conference that his delegation tried to be flexible and made many concessions. He says that the Houthis agreed to mutual redeployment in Hodeida with the U.N. playing a role in overseeing the port and inspecting ships. He maintained that the Houthis made concessions over Hodeida for the sake of the Yemeni people. But he said the Hadi government did not agree to discussions for a political settlement and expressed anger over the lack of an accord to reopen Sana'a Airport. The Houthis say international flights should be searched by outside parties in either Egypt or Jordan. The Hadi government demands they be inspected at Aden Airport, which it controls. Foreign Minister Khaled al Yamani, who headed the government delegation, said the Houthis failed to carry out "71 previous agreements." He argued the present agreement to hand Hodeida over to the U.N. was made "with the hypothetical understanding that [the Houthis] would carry it out." Yamani also laid blamed the Houthis for the failure of economic talks, claiming they insisted that back salaries be paid to government employees that they hired, other than those on the payroll before the conflict began in 2014. Houthi negotiator Abdul Salam, however, called this "political posturing." He also criticized the Hadi government's demand that planes be inspected at Aden Airport "because some Yemenis from Sana'a" were "arrested [there] in the past." But Abdul Salam praised the agreement on the port, calling it a "good thing ... which reinforces the chances of peace in Yemen." He added that "everyone hopes to end the war and lift the blockade of the country." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Former Al-Shabab No. 2 Arrested in Somalia By Mohamed Olad Hassan December 13, 2018 The former deputy leader of al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab has been arrested in southern Somalia, sparking clashes between his supporters and pro-government forces that left eight people dead. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity say Mukhtar Robow, also known as Abu Mansoor, was invited to a meeting Thursday at the regional state presidential palace in Baidoa, 250 kilometers northwest of Mogadishu. They say upon arrival, he was immediately detained. Telecommunications in Biadoa were briefly shut down as disgruntled Robow supporters took to the streets. Robow's militia along with his supporters clashed with Ethiopian soldiers providing security to the palace, leaving eight people dead and more than 10 others injured, witnesses and officials told VOA's Somali service. Two Somali lawmakers who spoke to the VOA accused the Somali government of arresting Robow using Ethiopian military forces. A VOA stringer reports that sporadic gunfire could still be heard across the town Thursday after midday. Calls VOA made to several federal government officials to comment on the incident were not answered. In hiding Robow, who was trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan, was one of the founders of al-Shabab in 2006 and served as its number-two leader for several years. In 2012, the U.S. government offered $5 million for information on his whereabouts. But a rift within al-Shabab, between parts of the group seeking to establish a global caliphate and others like Robow who were more focused on national issues, drove him away from the group. In 2013, fearing for his life, Robow went into hiding, protected by his own loyal militia in South Western region of Bakol, starting secret negotiations with the Somali government. He finally turned himself over to authorities of the Somali Federal Government in August 2017, after the United States removed the bounty on his head. Presidential candidate In October, he announced that he was running for president of Somalia's South West region, but the federal government issued a sharp "no" to his candidacy. A statement by the internal security ministry said Robow was not eligible to run for the post because he is still under international sanctions. The move angered his supporters in the region and within the Somali parliament, and comes amid high tension in the Somali capital, where lawmakers are threatening to impeach President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Meanwhile, security was tight Thursday in Mogadishu as Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki made his first visit to the Somali capital and met with the Somali president. Relations between Eritrea and Somalia have warmed since Eritrea made peace with longtime rival Ethiopia earlier this year. Mukhtar Atoosh contributed to this story in Baidoa, Somalia NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sweeping Change to US Policy for Africa Announced By Steve Herman December 13, 2018 The United States is immediately instituting a new policy for Africa that was just approved by President Donald Trump, his national security adviser, John Bolton, announced Thursday. "Under our new approach, every decision we make, every policy we pursue, and every dollar of aid we spend will further U.S. priorities in the region," said Bolton, speaking in Washington. "Our first priority, enhancing U.S. economic ties with the region, is not only essential to improving opportunities for American workers and businesses. It is also vital to safeguarding the economic independence of African states and protecting U.S. national security interests." The policy shift is also meant to counter on the continent the rapidly expanding financial and political influence of China and Russia. "They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States," Bolton said at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "We want our economic partners in the region to thrive, prosper and control their own destinies. In America's economic dealings, we ask only for reciprocity, never for subservience." China uses big loan, opaque deals Bolton said China is using big loans and opaque agreements to make Africa "captive to Beijing's wishes and demands," singling out projects in Zambia and Djibouti where he said Chinese enterprises are set to take over a state power company and a key port, respectively. Some analysts caution against looking at the African continent as a battleground for U.S. competition with China. "It can undermine our actual strategies with many countries in Africa by seeing them through the prism of competition," says senior fellow Michael Fuchs at the Center for American Progress, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Obama administration. Russia shows 'little regard for rule of law' Russia in Africa, according to Bolton, "advances its political and economic relationships with little regard for the rule of law or accountable and transparent governance." While Fuchs welcomes the attention by the Trump administration to Africa, he does not expect what Bolton announced to convince many partners and the continent of a U.S. commitment there. "I think that he potentially undermined some of the potential for these partnerships with some of the policy proposals that he made," Fuchs told VOA. The immediate reaction overall to Bolton's speech from African officials appeared to be cautious optimism. "We are happy to understand that finally America has a strategy that is purposeful towards Africa," David Gacheru, the deputy chief of mission at Kenya's embassy in Washington, told VOA, adding the Trump administration is potentially filling a void that has existed for many years. All Africa aid under review The United States has provided more than $8 billion in aid to Africa in each of the past two fiscal years and a review of all aid is being finalized, according to Bolton. The many more billions of U.S. tax dollars spent there over recent decades, Bolton said, have failed to stop terrorism, radicalism and violence, nor have they prevented other powers from increasing their own power and influence. "And, they have not led to stable and transparent governance, economic viability and increasing development across the region," said Bolton. Administration officials are not saying whether total aid to Africa will be cut and how involved Trump will be in making decisions as to how much each country will get and for what projects as the president touts a transactional approach to foreign assistance. When the president's budget "comes out, that's when you will see the outcome," Bolton said in response to a question from VOA. South Sudan a likely target In his speech, Bolton said Washington will no longer fund "corrupt autocrats who used the money to fill their coffers at the expense of their people, to commit gross human rights violations." One likely target for significant cuts in U.S. assistance is South Sudan, where a civil war is entering its sixth year. "We will not provide loans or more American resources to a South Sudanese government led by the same morally bankrupt leaders," vowed Bolton. Noticeably absent from the new plan is any "commitment to advancing human rights and democracy," according to the global humanitarian group Mercy Corps, which says its research in Africa "has consistently found that government neglect and injustice, including human rights abuses and corruption, are primary drivers of support for violent extremism and armed conflict." The organization is calling on the Trump administration to make central to its Africa policy goals of "alleviating suffering, poverty and oppression and promoting good governance." Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Rethinking Peacekeeping Role in Africa By Carla Babb December 13, 2018 The United States is rethinking its role in U.N. peacekeeping missions across Africa, with White House National Security Adviser John Bolton and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis looking to place U.S. forces and resources elsewhere. When Bolton outlined the administration's new Africa policy Thursday, he announced the U.S. would no longer support "unproductive, unsuccessful and unaccountable U.N. peacekeeping missions." "We will not provide legitimacy to missions that give large payouts to countries sending poorly equipped soldiers who provide insufficient protection to vulnerable populations on the ground," he said in a speech at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank. The United States is the U.N.'s top peacekeeping donor, providing nearly a third of its $6.7 billion budget for the fiscal year July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019. Last year, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley led administration efforts to trim the overall peacekeeping budget, which the U.N. agreed to tighten by $500 million. Mattis asks for options Pentagon leaders are of a similar mindset, with Mattis recently recommending the pullout of all U.S. peacekeepers from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, an official told VOA. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Mattis had asked for options on how to free up the troops for other missions. The Pentagon has been re-evaluating its troop presence and operations in Africa since an ambush in Niger last year that killed four U.S. soldiers, four Nigerian troops and a Nigerian interpreter. The U.S. has a very small presence in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), contributing less than two dozen troops to a force that includes more than 13,000 military personnel, mostly from Burkina Faso, Chad, Bangladesh and Senegal. The mission has been labeled the most dangerous U.N. mission across the globe, with more than 100 peacekeepers killed in the last six years. Al-Qaida linked groups have been tied to over 200 attacks in G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) since January 2017, primarily targeting MINUSMA forces while terrorizing civilians and destroying infrastructure, according to U.S. Africa Command. 'End of creative thinking' Bolton on Thursday criticized the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers on the continent as the "end of creative thinking" to resolving conflicts. He singled out the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSA), which has been deployed nearly three decades and has yet to conduct the referendum it was initially tasked with securing. Resources devoted to MINURSA could instead be used toward "economic betterment in the region," Bolton suggested. He added that the U.S. was reviewing its assistance to South Sudan, where the U.N. has placed thousands of peacekeepers. There are "no regular U.S. armed forces" in this mission, an UNMISS official told VOA, but there are a small number of U.S. military advisers and staff officers. According to the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping data, of the more than 100,000 U.N. troops and police, the U.S. supplies only 51 personnel in U.N. missions. Bolton said the review was to ensure U.S. aid is not prolonging the South Sudan civil war, now entering its sixth year. "We will not provide loans or more American resources to a South Sudanese government led by the same morally bankrupt leaders," he said. Margaret Besheer at the United Nations contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US to Reorient Trade Deals, Aid to Africa By VOA News December 13, 2018 The Trump administration has unveiled a new strategy toward Africa, saying that U.S. interests and priorities must come first in all dealings with the continent. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton outlined at the new strategy in Washington Thursday. He said trade and commercial ties must benefit both the U.S. and African countries. And he said the U.S. will no longer provide "indiscriminate aid" and will no longer support "unproductive, unsuccessful and unaccountable U.N. peacekeeping missions." "We will target U.S. funding toward key countries and particular strategic objectives. All U.S. aid on the continent will advance U.S. interests, and help African nations move toward self-reliance," Bolton told an audience at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. China Part of Bolton's speech dealt with China, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in Africa over the past decade, much of it on large-scale infrastructure projects. Bolton said China is using big loans and opaque agreements to make Africa "captive to Beijing's wishes and demands." He singled out cases in Zambia and Djibouti where he said Chinese enterprises are set to take over a state power company and a key port, respectively. Bolton said that in contrast, the U.S. will pursue bilateral trade agreements with African countries that help support American jobs and expand access for U.S. exports, while promoting sustainable growth in Africa. Bolton also said the administration is developing a new foreign assistance strategy to improve the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid. The U.S. has provided more than $8 billion in aid to Africa in each of the past two fiscal years. Corruption Bolton said the U.S. will not fund "corrupt autocrats who used the money to fill their coffers at the expense of their people, to commit gross human rights violations." He said the U.S. is reviewing assistance to South Sudan to ensure its aid does not prolong a civil war there, now entering its sixth year. "We will not provide loans or more American resources to a South Sudanese government led by the same morally bankrupt leaders," he said. Bolton also promised continued U.S. support to fight ISIS, al-Qaida and their affiliates on the continent. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ugandan Opposition Vents Concerns About Repression By Halima Athumani December 13, 2018 Heads of Uganda's political parties have gathered to address growing criticism among opponents of longtime President Yoweri Museveni and growing political repression in the country. The roundtable discussion known as the Inter Party Organization for Dialogue served as a forum for leaders who are voicing concerns on whether Uganda's 2021 elections will be free and fair. Uganda's opposition political parties used the Inter Party organization for dialogue summit to push for constitutional reforms, improved governance, stop electoral fraud and bring an end to torture and other human rights abuses. Among those attending was President Yoweri Museveni. The 74-year-old leader's mandate began in 1986 and was extended to a fifth term in 2016 elections that were marred by widespread reports of fraud and intimidation. The next elections are set for 2021 and Mr. Museveni has shown signs he may not relinquish power, telling attendees he has no plans to retire. "You're talking about only election, elections for what, to do what? To have new members of Parliament, so they do what? To have a new President, so that he does what? Me, I am in politics because of the prosperity of our people. Number two, strategic security," he said. Human rights violations As the world marked the International Human Rights Day, December 10, with the theme, "Get up, stand up for Rights," both Ugandan and International human rights activists called attention to human rights violations in the country. Amnesty International in its 2017-2018 Report on Uganda noted that rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly were restricted. The report said journalists and others who criticized the president or his family were arrested, detained and harassed. Asuman Basalirwa, a local party head, demanded that these injustices stop. "That from today onwards no activity, meeting, rally or event organized by registered political party shall ever be blocked by Police or any other agency. We are here to get assurance and commitment that political opponents shall not be treated as enemies and their activities should never be criminalized," said Basalirwa. Growing repression Norbert Mao, head of the opposition Democratic Party, voiced concerns about what he and other critics say is growing repression despite the government's pledges to improve governance. "We have amplified our disappointments, over the many broken promises. The instances when we have moved further away from the path of constitutionalism and rule of law and respect for fundamental rights," said Mao. The next Inter Party Organization for Dialogue set for May 2019 and it is not clear, if it will be fruitful -- especially for Ugandans yearning for change in the 2021 general elections. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sri Lanka's High Court Declares President's Dissolution of Parliament Unconstitutional By VOA News December 13, 2018 Sri Lanka's Supreme Court has ruled that President Maithripala Sirisena's move to dissolve parliament last month was illegal. In a unanimous decision announced Thursday, the seven-member court said that Sirisena violated the constitution when he called a snap election nearly two years before the parliamentary session was due to end. The decision adds another chapter to a political crisis that began on on October 26, when President Sirisena fired Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, claiming that an informant told police that a Cabinet minister was part of a plot to assassinate him. He replaced Wickremesinghe with Mahinda Rajapaksa, the country's former president and strongman, then suspended parliament the next day. In an apparent bow to international pressure, Sirisena summoned lawmakers back to work last Monday. But when it became apparent that Rajapaksa would not survive a no-confidence vote, Sirisena dissolved parliament on November 9 and called for snap elections. The Supreme Court overruled the president's decree in a ruling issued just days later. Wickremesinghe has remained in the prime minister's official residence in Colombo in defiance of Sirisena's actions. The push to oust Rajapaksa dragged Sri Lanka's parliament into chaos. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya held a voice vote on November 14 on the no-confidence motion after Rajapaksa's supporters staged an noisy, impromptu protest in the chamber before debate began. The next day, rival lawmakers exchanged blows after Jayasuriya declared that Sri Lanka had no prime minister or a cabinet, with some of Rajapaksa's supporters hurling water bottles and other objects at Jayasuriya. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks by National Security Advisor Ambassador John R. Bolton on the The Trump Administration's New Africa Strategy December 13, 2018 As delivered on December 13, 2018. Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. Well, Kim, thanks very much, and thanks to you and Kay for inviting me here. I'm delighted again to be here at the Heritage, an institution that really has contributed so much to the public policy debate for many decades now in the United States. And I'm particularly pleased to be here to unveil the Trump administration's new Africa Strategy, which the President approved yesterday, and which the administration will begin executing immediately. This strategy is the result of an intensive interagency process, and reflects the core tenets of President Trump's foreign policy doctrine. Importantly, the strategy remains true to his central campaign promise to put the interests of the American People first, both at home and abroad. The White House is proud to finalize this strategy during the second year of President Trump's first term, about two years earlier than the prior administration's release of its Africa strategy. We have prioritized developing this document because we understand that lasting stability, prosperity, independence, and security on the African continent are in the national security interest of the United States. Under our new approach, every decision we make, every policy we pursue, and every dollar of aid we spend will further U.S. priorities in the region. In particular, the strategy addresses three core U.S. interests on the continent: First, advancing U.S. trade and commercial ties with nations across the region to the benefit of both the United States and Africa. We want our economic partners in the region to thrive, prosper, and control their own destinies. In America's economic dealings, we ask only for reciprocity, never for subservience. Second, countering the threat from Radical Islamic Terrorism and violent conflict. ISIS, al-Qaida, and their affiliates all operate and recruit on the African continent, plotting attacks against American citizens and targets. Any sound U.S. strategy toward Africa must address this serious threat in a comprehensive way. And third, we will ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars for aid are used efficiently and effectively. The United States will no longer provide indiscriminate assistance across the entire continent, without focus or prioritization. And, we will no longer support unproductive, unsuccessful, and unaccountable U.N. peacekeeping missions. We want something more to show for Americans' hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Under our new Africa strategy, we will target U.S. funding toward key countries and particular strategic objectives. All U.S. aid on the continent will advance U.S. interests, and help African nations move toward self-reliance. Our first priority, enhancing U.S. economic ties with the region, is not only essential to improving opportunities for American workers and businesses; it is also vital to safeguarding the economic independence of African states and protecting U.S. national security interests. Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa. They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States. From 2016-2017, China's foreign direct investment toward Africa totaled $6.4 billion dollars. And, over the past several years, China has devoted considerable state-directed and state-supported financing to projects in the region. China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands. Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption, and do not meet the same environmental or ethical standards as U.S. developmental programs. Such predatory actions are sub-components of broader Chinese strategic initiatives, including "One Belt, One Road"a plan to develop a series of trade routes leading to and from China with the ultimate goal of advancing Chinese global dominance. In Africa, we are already seeing the disturbing effects of China's quest to obtain more political, economic, and military power. The nation of Zambia, for example, is currently in debt to China to the tune of $6 to $10 billion dollars. China is now poised to take over Zambia's national power and utility company in order to collect on Zambia's financial obligations. Similarly, from 2014 to 2016, Djibouti's external public debt-to-GDP ratio ballooned from fifty percent to eighty-five percent, with most of that debt owed to China. In 2017, China established a military base in Djibouti that is only miles from our U.S. base, Camp Lemonnier, which supports critical U.S. operations to counter violent terrorist organizations in East Africa. In May, U.S. officials accused China of using military-grade lasers from this base to target and distract U.S. pilots on ten different occasions. Two of our American pilots suffered eye injuries from exposure to laser beams. And soon, Djibouti may hand over control of the Doraleh Container Terminal, a strategically-located shipping port on the Red Sea, to Chinese state-owned enterprises. Should this occur, the balance of power in the Horn of Africaastride major arteries of maritime trade between Europe, the Middle East, and South Asiawould shift in favor of China. And, our U.S. military personnel at Camp Lemonnier, could face even further challenges in their efforts to protect the American people. Russia, for its part, is also seeking to increase its influence in the region through corrupt economic dealings. Across the continent, Russia advances its political and economic relationships with little regard for the rule of law or accountable and transparent governance. It continues to sell arms and energy in exchange for votes at the United Nationsvotes that keep strongmen in power, undermine peace and security, and run counter to the best interests of the African people. Russia also continues to extract natural resources from the region for its own benefit. In short, the predatory practices pursued by China and Russia stunt economic growth in Africa; threaten the financial independence of African nations; inhibit opportunities for U.S. investment; interfere with U.S. military operations; and pose a significant threat to U.S. national security interests. Equally concerning at this time, the lack of economic progress in the region has accompanied the proliferation of Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent conflict, across Africa. Countering these serious threats is the second priority under our new Africa strategy. In recent years, ISIS, al-Qaida, and other terrorists operating in Africa have increased the lethality of their attacks, expanded into new areas, and repeatedly targeted U.S. citizens and interests. In Mali, JNIM, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Musliminwhich describes itself as an al-Qaida affiliateis increasing in strength and has killed and wounded scores of peacekeepers, partner forces, and innocent civilians, in addition to kidnapping Westerners and threatening U.S. allies. In Libya, the local ISIS-affiliate has found fertile ground to recruit new terrorists and plot attacks against the United States. In South Sudan, an ongoing civil war has ravaged a young nation, displaced millions, and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The continuing threat from terrorism and other violent conflicts across the region puts American lives at risk, and drains vital American resources. Between 2014 and 2018, the United States provided approximately $3.76 billion dollars in humanitarian aid to South Sudan and refugees in neighboring countries. This number represents only a small amount of the total aid that the United States devotes to Africa. In fact, in Fiscal Year 2017, the Department of State and USAID provided approximately $8.7 billion dollars in development, security, and food assistance to Africa. In Fiscal Year 2016, we provided approximately $8.3 billion dollars. Between 1995 and 2006, U.S. aid to Africa was roughly equal to the amount of assistance provided by all other donors combined. Unfortunately, billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have not achieved the desired effects. They have not stopped the scourge of terrorism, radicalism, and violence. They have not prevented other powers, such as China and Russia, from taking advantage of African states to increase their own power and influence. And, they have not led to stable and transparent governance, economic viability, and increasing development across the region. From now on, the United States will not tolerate this longstanding pattern of aid without effect, assistance without accountability, and relief without reform. Instead, we are pursuing a new path, one that, we hope, finally gets results. Americans are a generous people, but we insist that our money is put to good use. Our third priority, therefore, is ensuring that all U.S. assistance dollars sent to Africa are used efficiently and effectively to advance peace, stability, independence, and prosperity in the region. Here are some of the specific, bold actions we will take under our new strategy to address the three priority areas I have just highlighted. To expand our economic relationships in the region, we are developing a new initiative called "Prosper Africa," which will support U.S. investment across the continent, grow Africa's middle class, and improve the overall business climate in the region. In addition, we will encourage African leaders to choose high-quality, transparent, inclusive, and sustainable foreign investment projects, including those from the United States. We will leverage our expanded and modernized development tools to support access to financing and provide strong alternatives to external state-directed initiatives. America's vision for the region is one of independence, self-reliance, and growthnot dependency, domination, and debt. We want African nations to succeed, flourish, and remain independent in fact and not just in theory. In the coming years and months, we also intend to pursue modern, comprehensive trade agreements on the continent that ensure fair and reciprocal exchange between the United States and the nations of Africa. We will begin these negotiations on a bilateral basis, and focus on creating mutually beneficial partnerships. Our new economic initiatives in Africa will help support American jobs and expand market access for U.S. exports, while promoting sustainable growth in African countries. We will focus our economic efforts on African governments that act with us as strategic partners, and, which are striving toward improved governance and transparent business practices. As our partner nations develop economically, they will be better prepared to address a range of security threats, including terrorism and militant violence. Under our new strategy, we will also take several additional steps to help our African friends fight terrorism and strengthen the rule of law. We will assist key African governments in building the capacity of partner forces and security institutions to provide effective and sustainable security and law enforcement services to their citizens. Our goal is for the nations of the region to take ownership over peace and security in their own neighborhood. The G5 Sahel Joint Force, comprised of Mauritania, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mali, which the United States supports, is a great example of the enormous potential for African joint security cooperation. The G5 Sahel Joint Force is seeking to build regional capability to combat terrorism, transnational organized crime, and human trafficking in the Sahel. As this force gains capacity, G5 countries must remain in the driver's seatthis initiative cannot be outsourced to the U.N. for funding and other support. We want to see more cooperative regional security organizations like these emerge around the world. As part of our new Africa strategy, the United States will also reevaluate its support for U.N. peacekeeping missions. We will only back effective and efficient operations, that we will seek to streamline, reconfigure, or terminate missions that are unable to meet their own mandate or facilitate lasting peace. Our objective is to resolve conflicts, not freeze them in perpetuity. And, we will not provide legitimacy to missions that give large payouts to countries sending poorly-equipped soldiers who provide insufficient protection to vulnerable populations on the ground. The sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers of the very populations that they were sent to protect has been, and remains, completely unacceptable. Continued malfeasance without consequences damages the integrity of the entire U.N. peacekeeping system. If we are truly committed to protecting innocent life in conflict zones, then we must insist on accountable, robust, and effective peacekeeping operations. In April, the United States did just that regarding the decades-old U.N. peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara. We demanded a six month, rather than annual, renewal period for the mission, and we insisted on a stronger, more effective mandate tied to substantive political progress. Because of our actions, the parties to the conflict and key neighboring countries agreed to meet for the first time since 2012. Last week, the U.N. Envoy hosted these talks in Geneva and the participants agreed to hold additional talks in early next year. Moving forward, we will also ensure that bilateral U.S. security assistance targets nations that act as responsible regional stakeholders, and nations where state failure or weakness would pose a direct threat to the United States and our citizens. We want to use American dollars in the most efficient way to protect the interests of the American people. Accordingly, we will make certain that ALL aid to the regionwhether for security, humanitarian, or development needsadvances these U.S. interests. Countries that receive U.S. assistance must invest in health and education, encourage accountable and transparent governance, support fiscal transparency, and promote the rule of law. The administration will not allow hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund corrupt autocrats, who use the money to fill their coffers at the expense of their people, or commit gross human rights abuses. For example, the United States is now reviewing its assistance to South Sudan to ensure that our aid does not prolong the conflict or facilitate predatory behavior. We will not provide loans or more American resources to a South Sudanese government led by the same morally bankrupt leaders, who perpetuate the horrific violence and immense human suffering in South Sudan. The administration is also developing a new foreign assistance strategy to improve the effectiveness of American foreign aid worldwide. American foreign assistance was originally designed to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and most recently to fight terrorism after 9/11. Today, we need to make adjustments to address the pressing challenge of great power competition, and to correct past mistakes in structuring our funding. In developing our strategy, we are revisiting the foundational principles of the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan furthered American interests, bypassed the United Nations, and targeted key sectors of foreign economies rather than dissipating aid across hundreds of programs. Our new foreign assistance strategy will ensure that all U.S. foreign aid, in every corner of the globe, advances U.S. interests. Our goal is to move recipient states toward self-reliance, and prevent long-term dependency. Structural reforms will likely be critical, including practicing fiscal responsibility, promoting fair and reciprocal trade, deregulating economies, and supporting the private sector. We should emphasize bilateral mechanisms to maintain maximum American control over every American dollar spent. Less needy recipients should graduate from foreign assistance, and assistance should decline to countries and organizations making poor policy choices. In addition, we should target resources toward areas where we have the most impact to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars. Countries that repeatedly vote against the United States in international forums, or take action counter to U.S. interests, should not receive generous American foreign aid. The United States will respect the independence of other nations in providing humanitarian, security, and development assistancewe are not among those powers that pursue dollars for dependency. However, we draw the line at funding causes that harm our interests and our citizens. Around the world, the United States seeks partners who are self-reliant, independent, and strongnations that respect the interests of their people, the rights of their neighbors, and the principle of fairness and reciprocity in all agreements. Under our new Africa Strategy, we will expand economic ties on the basis of mutual respect. We will help African nations take control of their own economic destinies and their own security needs. And, we will ensure that all U.S. foreign assistance in the region gets results for the American people. I am honored to have had the opportunity to highlight the details of our plans here at Heritage today, and I look forward to taking your questions. Thank you very much. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Afghanistan finds saffron as antidote to opium production Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 05:54PM The Afghan government has increased saffron production by 22 percent this year as part of a plan to create an alternative source of income for farmers dependent on opium poppy cultivation. It has provided 6,600 workers with special training in the cultivation, processing, and packaging of saffron in the hope that it could replace the bright red flowers of opium poppy, which partially fuel conflicts in the region. "Saffron production in Afghanistan has witnessed an unprecedented growth this year, and has reached 13 tonnes," said Akbar Rustami, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock. "Saffron was cultivated in 15,610 acres of land in 33 provinces, producing 12,955 kg of saffron, which is nearly 13 metric tons," Rustami added on Tuesday. According to the spokesman, Herat, Faryab, Kandahar, Balkh, Sar-e-Pul, and Farah provinces had the highest level of saffron production this year. "Saffron farmers received some $17 million in revenues by selling saffron crocin and picrocrocin in local markets," he said, adding that 90 percent of the saffron is exported. Saffron, a key seasoning, fragrance, dyes, and medicine in use for over three millennia, is one of the world's most expensive spices by weight. Known as the red gold, it sells for up to $1,500 per kilogram on Western markets. Sayed Hafizullah Saeedi, director of the Agricultural Ministry in Kandahar, says they are hopeful that saffron will swiftly replace opium poppies in the predominantly rural agricultural region. For more than a decade, Kabul and international donors have helped Afghan farmers switch to saffron to stop their dependence on cultivating opium poppies, which were considered the best cash crop in the impoverished Afghanistan. A UN survey recently revealed the overall area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan remains very large. According to the UN, the situation is expected to cause more instability and increase funding for terrorist groups while more high-quality, low-cost heroin reaches international markets. The record opium production in Afghanistan has raised concerns in Iran and Pakistan. The Pakistani capital on Wednesday hosted the 13th meeting of senior officials of the Triangular Initiative on drug control, a regional conference on countering opium cultivation. During the meeting, participants expressed concern about the growing production of opium in Afghanistan, attributing it to insecurity and instability in the country. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Iran's Anti-Narcotics Police Chief Brigadier General Mohammed Masoud Zahedian said the opium production in Afghanistan has surged by 45 percent since the US invasion of the country in 2001. Official news agency IRNA quoted him as saying that when the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 the volume of opium production in the country was 200 tonnes, but now it has increased to 9,000 tonnes. The official stressed that the US presence in Afghanistan has not only ruined peace in the country, but also increased terrorism and drug trafficking. "It is evident that under the US presence, terrorism and drug trafficking have reached an alarming level in Afghanistan, which pose a great threat to the regional states," he added. The Triangular Initiative was brokered in 2007 by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as complementary to peace-building efforts in the region. It is promoting information exchange and encouraging joint field operations among Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan against drug trafficking networks and serious operatives. Opium poppy cultivation, a favorite activity of the Taliban militants, used to be limited to certain parts of Afghanistan, but the surge in militancy and the government's loss of grip on security has allowed it to spread to other parts of the country, particularly the north. The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan 15 years ago to topple the Taliban regime but the militants have been regaining strength despite the continued presence of thousands of foreign forces. Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Strasbourg Christmas Market Shooting Suspect Killed, Interior Minister Confirms Sputnik News 23:12 13.12.2018(updated 01:13 14.12.2018) The suspect in Strasbourg Christmas market shooting was killed in a shootout Thursday evening with French police. Before the death was confirmed, reports emerged of gunshots ringing out and a police helicopter flying over the La Meinau district of Strasbourg, Reuters reported. There were three to four gunshots reported. Right after the incident, a police source reported that the suspected Strasbourg shooter Cherif Chekatt had been neutralised during the police operation. Later, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner confirmed that the man suspected of killing three people in Strasbourg on Tuesday had been killed by the law enforcement units. The minister explained that three police officers tried to detain a man who they believed to be Cherif Chekatt. He fired on them and the police officers responded with fire and killed him. "During the apprehension, [the suspect] scuffled with police The law enforcement officers have immediately responded and neutralized the aggressor. A have informed the president of the republic and the prime minister [about the developments]," Castaner told a press conference. Later, SITE group reported that a Daesh terrorist organisation's* outlet claimed that the Strasbourg shooter was a group's operative. The Strasbourg shooter was earlier identified as a 29-year-old local man known to security services. He killed two people and a third person was left brain-dead. After being confronted by soldiers, the suspect fled. Earlier, Castaner said hundreds of security personnel had been mobilized to search for the suspect. He also added that the suspect was first charged with a crime at the age of 13. *A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address French Police Kill Suspect in Deadly Shooting at Strasbourg Christmas Market By VOA News December 13, 2018 French police have shot dead the gunman suspected of killing three people late Tuesday at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, according to multiple media reports. More than 700 officers had been hunting Cherif Chekatt since the attack, which also injured 13 people. Hundreds of police cordoned off an area in the Neudorf district, a short drive from where the suspect exchanged gunfire with police. Authorities said the 29-year-old Chekatt was on a watch list of suspected extremists. The gunman's motive is unknown. Islamic State takes responsibility In a tweet Thursday, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. The gunman in "the attack in the city of Strasbourg ... is one of the soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition" against IS, the terror group's propaganda agency Amaq said in a message posted on Twitter. France raised its security threat level to "emergency attack," its highest level, adding tighter border controls and boosting security at other Christmas markets. Suspect deported to France? Germany's Interior Ministry spokeswoman Eleonore Petermann said the suspect was convicted in Germany in 2016 and reportedly was deported to France last year. Petermann said the German government has increased controls on its borders in response to the attack but did not raise the threat level in the country. Strasbourg is headquarters of the European Parliament. The building was put on temporary lockdown after the shooting. The market is set up around the Strasbourg cathedral and attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Authorities say they have long been on the alert for an attack on the market since a foiled terror plot in Strasbourg on New Year's Eve in 1999. France is no stranger to extremist attacks. Islamic State claimed responsibility for two nights of bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015, killing 130, months after a deadly shooting at a French satirical magazine, and hostage-taking in a kosher supermarket. A 2016 terrorist truck attack in Nice left 86 people dead. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Two-seat J-15 fighter jet boosts carrier capability: experts People's Daily Online (Global Times) 08:03, December 13, 2018 A modified two-seat variant of the J-15 fighter jet was spotted at a Chinese aircraft carrier training base in a recent TV program, suggesting the carrier-based warplane is already being tested and expected to greatly expand the carrier's combat capability with electronic warfare equipment that one pilot cannot manage. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy only operates the single-seat J-15 fighter jet on the Liaoning aircraft carrier at the moment, but military analysts predict the two-seat variant of the warplane would be able to join the ranks within two years. The new fighter jet, which resembles the J-15 but with a larger cockpit, was seen parked in a hangar at an unspecified Chinese carrier-based aircraft training base in a Sunday China Central Television (CCTV) program. CCTV's website, cctv.com, published a separate report on Tuesday titled "China's most mysterious carrier-based fighter jet quietly appears, greatly accelerating the pace of aircraft carrier's combat capability," saying the aircraft in the program is a modified two-seat version of the J-15. The variant might already be undergoing tests with the PLA Navy, the cctv.com report said. It is painted with military camouflage instead of the flight test color, which further supports the guess, military experts said. Modifying the single-seat J-15 into a two-seat version can greatly increase the combat capability of the fighter jet and the aircraft carrier, cctv.com reported. The new aircraft can also conduct electronic jamming missions, the report said. In April, photos of the variant equipped with wingtip electronic warfare pods surfaced online, but their authenticity could not be verified. A single pilot cannot manage to fly the jet and engage in complicated electronic battles at the same time, Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times on Wednesday. The extra seat can also be used to train new pilots, the cctv.com report said. Wei said that having an experienced pilot to teach a trainee in actual flight is very effective and will contribute to the talent program, noting that the control panels for both pilots are the same. However, having an extra pilot means the variant might need to reduce its payload or sacrifice mobility, Wei said. We noted that it is better to combine the strengths of the single-seat and two-seat versions to compensate for their weaknesses. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India, Russia Set Up Working Group for Military Co-operation Sputnik News 18:10 13.12.2018(updated 18:59 13.12.2018) During the 18th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) held in New Delhi on Thursday, the two countries agreed to set up an additional institutional working group. The group will be headed by chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman COSE from the Indian side and deputy chief of the Main Operational Directorate of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from the Russian side. Intensive discussions took place on joint manufacturing projects, including Kamov-226T helicopters, naval frigates, and projects related to land systems. "Much has been done to change the structure of the intergovernmental commission. In particular, it includes now a separate working group on military cooperation. Today we will sign a relevant agreement", Russia's defence minister was quoted as saying by a Facebook post of the Ministry of Defence of Russian Federation. The meeting was co-chaired by Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation General Sergei Shoigu. Defence sources told Sputnik that both countries had discussed at length a draft agreement on logistical support and a government-to-government agreement under which AK-103 assault rifles are to be produced at Indian facilities. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FM Zarif tells US to cease 'hypocritical absurdities' about Iran missiles Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 06:57PM Iran has lashed out at the US for its "hypocritical" remarks about Tehran, saying the one to blame for regional miseries is Washington and those who buy its lethal weapons. "US & allies should cease their hypocritical absurdities abt Iran's missiles & regional 'behavior'," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a Thursday tweet. "Facts speak for themselves. It's they who sell $100s of billions in arms to butcher Yemenis & it's they & their clientsNOT Iranwho're responsible for miseries from Saddam to ISIS [Daesh]," the Iranian foreign minister said. Zarif's comments came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed Wednesday that Iran's ballistic missile activity has been growing since the 2015 nuclear deal. Addressing the UN Security Council, he also urged stronger international restrictions to prevent the Islamic Republic's regional activities. "Our goodwill gestures have been futile correctives to the Iranian regime's reckless missile activity and all other destructive behaviors," he further said. Following his Thursday tweet, Iran's top diplomat tweeted two videos of his speeches at the Mediterranean Dialogues, which were held in Rome last month. In the videos, Zarif harshly criticizes the US for exporting billions of dollars worth of "beautiful weapons" to Saudi Arabia, which uses them to slaughter innocent people of Yemen. He also slams the US' remarks regarding Iran's missile program and regional behavior, saying Washington and its support for regional dictators in the past decades is to blame for the current situation. On Saturday, Zarif strongly criticized the US policy of pouring weapons into the Middle East far beyond its real defense needs, warning that it has turned the region into a "powder keg". "The Americans have turned the region into a powder keg. The amount of weaponry, which is sold on the part of the US, is unbelievable and quite a lot in excess of what the region needs," he said. Zarif cited a recent report noting that weapons supplied by the US and Britain had "fallen into" the hands of splinter groups in Yemen, "some with links to al-Qaeda and Daesh," asserting that the oversupply of the arms had not contributed to peace and security in the region in any manner. Washington, Zarif said, is trying to portray the realities of the region "upside down," resorting to "meaningless" accusations, and undermining Tehran's relations with Europe. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US House Designates Myanmar Campaign against Rohingya Minority 'Genocide' By VOA News December 13, 2018 The U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution by a vote of 394-1 Thursday, declaring Myanmar's military campaign against the country's Rohingya Muslim minority a genocide. A United Nations report released in August said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with "genocidal intent" and also definitively called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges for the first time. Myanmar's military has denied previous accusations it had committed genocide, maintaining its actions were part of an anti-terrorism campaign. The atrocities have prompted the U.N. and a number of political and human rights leaders to question the southeast Asian country's progress toward democracy. The Burma Task Force, a coalition of U.S. and Canadian Muslim organizations, applauded the genocide designation. "The House of Representatives has now officially adopted the position that the ongoing policies of mass violence and displacement against the Rohingya by the Myanmar government constitute genocide, bringing the U.S. closer to the emerging international consensus on the issue." The U.S. State Department usually makes such official designations but has not used the term genocide to describe the military's atrocities against the Rohingya. The House resolution also called on the Myanmar government to release Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were jailed one year ago. They were sentenced in September to seven years in prison for violating the country's colonial-era Secrets Act. Lawyers for the reporters said their clients were set up and have appealed their sentences and convictions. The Myanmar embassy in Washington did not immediately comment on the House vote. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address South Korea Rules Out Visit by North Korean Leader This Year By VOA News December 13, 2018 South Korea says a visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Seoul before the end of the year is unlikely. Kim promised to visit the South Korean capital "in the near future" when he hosted President Moon Jae-in for their third summit of this year. But a statement issued Thursday by the Blue House, South Korea's presidential residence, quoted a senior adviser to President Moon as saying a visit by Kim Jong Un would be "difficult." A visit by Kim would be the first by a North Korean leader to South Korea since the Korean Peninsula was divided after World War II. Analysts say North Korea is cautious about giving a fixed date for Kim's visit, because of security concerns in South Korea and the stalled negotiations with the United States over its nuclear weapons program. The Blue House statement says Kim Jong Un could still visit Seoul early next year. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Criticizes U.S., EU Calls To Block Nord Stream 2 Pipeline December 13, 2018 Russia has rejected renewed U.S. and European calls to block the Moscow-backed Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline project under the Baltic Sea. In a resolution adopted on December 12, the European Parliament called for the pipeline to bring Russian gas directly to Western Europe, bypassing the existing networks running through Ukraine, to be canceled. "It is a political project that poses a threat to European energy security," the resolution reads. The move came the day after the U.S. House of Representatives condemned the $11 billion project and urged President Donald Trump to "use all available means to support European energy security." On December 13, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Nord Stream 2 a "peaceful, advantageous, and promising" energy project and suggested that the European politicians opposed to it were "simply on the payroll of certain groups of lobbyists." Zakharova also reiterated that U.S. efforts to undermine the pipeline project to Germany were an example of "unfair competition" to derail what Moscow describes as a purely commercial project. Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-criticizes-u-s-eu-calls -to-block-nord-stream-2-pipeline/29654042.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU Leaders Prolong Economic Sanctions On Russia By RFE/RL December 13, 2018 BRUSSELS -- EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on December 13 said economic sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine will be prolonged for another six months with the official rollover expected next week. The sanctions, which mainly target the Russian banking and energy sectors, were first imposed in the summer of 2014 and have been extended every six months since then. "EU unanimously prolongs economic sanctions against Russia given zero progress in implementation of Minsk agreements," European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted from the summit, referring to peace accords brokered by Germany and France in the Belarusian capital to end conflict in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions came in response to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 over the past four-and-a-half-years. The measures were due to expire next month but lifting them depends on whether the EU considers that Russia is respecting the Minsk peace agreements. EU leaders also discussed an incident in the Sea of Azov last month in which Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy ships and 24 crewmen. They also adopted conclusions that do not condemn Moscow for the incident nor do they call for more sanctions, but state that "The EU stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support, including in favor of the affected areas of Ukraine." The conclusions also state that "there is no justification for the use of military force by Russia," adding that "the European Council requests the immediate release of all detained Ukrainian seamen as well as the return of the seized vessels and free passage of all ships through the Kerch Strait [between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea]." On December 10, the EU blacklisted nine individuals involved in the organization elections last month in the areas controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. In a meeting in Brussels, the EU's foreign ministers said the individuals were added to the bloc's sanctions list because of their "actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine." Kyiv and its international backers, including the EU and the United States, have denounced the November 11 polls in the areas held by the separatists in the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions as a sham. With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-leaders-prolong-economic -sanctions-on-russia/29654827.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gazprom, Partners Invested Over 6 Bln Euros in Nord Stream-2 - Wintershall CEO Sputnik News 17:55 13.12.2018(updated 21:54 13.12.2018) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - More than 6 billion euros ($6.8bln) has been invested in the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline, Wintershall CEO Mario Meren wrote in an article published on the Danish news portal Altinget. "To date, more than 6 billion euros has been invested," the head of Wintershall, which is one of Gazprom's European partners in the project, said in the article. He said the partners on Nord Stream-2 hoped for speedy issuance of permits for the gas pipeline construction by Denmark. According to Wintershall CEO Mario Meren, when implementing the project along with an alternative route, which passes northeast of Bornholm, the political factor should not affect Denmark's decision whether to allow the construction of such an important infrastructure for Europe. "The alternative route meets all technological and environmental parameters," he noted. Meren stated that this fact has already been confirmed by a study by the Danish consulting company Ramboll, as well as during the recent public hearings that the Danish Energy Agency has held on Bornholm. Nord Stream 2 is a joint venture of Russia's energy giant Gazprom and five European companies. It aims to deliver 55 billion cubic meters (1.9 trillion cubic feet) of Russian natural gas annually to the European Union via the Baltic Sea and Germany and is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2019. The pipeline project has been welcomed by some countries in Europe and opposed by a number of others, including Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia to Closely Monitor Washington's Compliance With INF Treaty - Russian MFA Sputnik News 17:34 13.12.2018(updated 18:18 13.12.2018) The statement comes shortly after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington would suspend its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 60 days unless Russia "returns to full and verifiable compliance". Moscow, for its part, has consistently denied any violations of the treaty. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on Thursday that Moscow vehemently denies the US' groundless allegations of INF treaty violations by Russia. "We strongly reject the unfounded accusations by the United States as unsubstantiated and untrue", Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. He further added that Moscow would closely monitor Washington's compliance with the treaty. "In particular, this refers to the further development of programmes to develop missile weapons already launched by the US, whose production, possession and flight tests would contradict the goals and objectives of the treaty or would be a direct violation of its relevant provisions". The United States' decision to suspend the implementation of obligations under the INF Treaty is legally void: there will be no legal consequences after the two months given by the Americans, Ryabkov said. "Taking into account the US intention to withdraw from the treaty, presented to us through bilateral channels at a high political level as final and not subject to revision, we, however, remain open for a substantive and constructive dialogue aimed at the preservation of the INF treaty". The diplomat added that Washington hadn't explained what the suspension of the treaty meant. "The question is what exactly the American side is implying by 'suspension'. The United States did not provide us with any clarification on this matter. At the same time, it is obvious to specialists that there is virtually nothing to 'suspend' in the implementation of the INF. The elimination of weapons that fell within the scope of the treaty was carried out many years ago, and all verification procedures were completed long ago". Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Moscow had never received documents from the US on the matter of alleged violations of the accord and reiterated that the accusations were baseless. The minister's comments come on the heels of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's announcement that the US would suspend its obligations under the treaty within 60 days if Russia didn't return to full compliance. The INF Treaty was inked in 1987 between the Soviet Union and the United States and obligated the parties to eliminate their ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles whose ranges were between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Tu-160 Strategic Bombers Take to the Skies Over the Caribbean Sputnik News 14:12 13.12.2018 Two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers, an An-124 military transport aircraft, and an Il-62 plane arrived in Venezuela on 10 December to conduct interoperability drills with the Venezuelan Air Force this week. The event caused a negative reaction from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who slammed the deployment of Russian bombers. The Russian Defence Ministry has published footage from a recent flight performed by Russian Tu-160 (NATO codename Blackjack) strategic bombers currently stationed in Venezuela over the waters of the Caribbean Sea. The video shows not only a view of the sea, but also the interior of the plane's cockpit. The Russian bombers flew for nearly 10 hours and around 8,000 kilometres during this flight. At certain parts of their flight they were also escorted by Venezuelan Air Force Su-30s and F-16s. Russia's Defence Ministry has stressed that the drill flight was conducted in strict accordance with international aviation laws. Tu-160s took-off from a Venezuelan airbase early in the morning, when it was still dark, to practice take-offs on unknown airfields in limited visibility conditions. Russian channel Zvezda TV has published a video of the process. The Tupolev Tu-160, also known in Russia as the White Swan for its huge white wings reaching a 55-metre span, is a supersonic strategic bomber developed in the early 1980s. The jet can reach Mach 2 speeds and fly up to 12,300 kilometres without refuelling. Tu-160 can also carry up to 40,000 kilogrammes of ordnance, such as 6 Raduga cruise missiles or 12 Kh-15 (NATO codename AS-16 Kickback) short-range nuclear missiles. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Law Enforcement Equipment With Advanced ShAK-12 Assault Rifles Underway Sputnik News 05:43 13.12.2018(updated 05:47 13.12.2018) MOSCOW (Sputnik) The equipment of the Russian law enforcement with the advanced ShAK-12 assault rifles, which US media call super guns, is underway, Yury Amelin, the representative of the Russian TsKIB SOO small arms design bureau which is part of the Rostec state defence contractor, told Sputnik. "The deliveries to the law enforcement are underway. ShAK is rather peculiar equipment, it is not designed for mass use even inside special ops units. We receive orders, we implement them under the state defence procurement program but [the assault rifles] were not intended to be manufactured in large volumes," Amelin said. On December 5, the US National Interest defence news magazine reported that the Russian special forces were getting ShAK-12 the advanced version of the Ash-12.7 heavy assault rifle calling it a super gun. ShAK-12 was for the first time displayed at the DefexpoIndia-2018 defence industry show. The assault rifle uses 12,755 mm rounds and is effective for close-quarters combat. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US senators say Saudi Arabia should remove MbS from power Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 06:46AM Several senior US senators in Congress have warned Saudi Arabia that Riyadh must change its leadership if it wants to maintain its close ties with Washington, saying Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has become "so toxic." In some of their strongest comments to date, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Bob Menendez signaled Wednesday they would like to see Saudi Arabia remove from power bin Salman, the country's de facto ruler. Sentiment voiced in both the Senate and House of Representatives this week signals a shift in congressional support for Saudi Arabia and bin Salman, also known as MbS. "To our friends in Saudi Arabia, you are never going to have a relationship with the United States Senate unless things change. And it's up to you to figure out what that change needs to be," Graham told reporters at a press conference in Congress. "From my point of view, the current construct is not working. There is a relationship between countries and individuals. The individual, the crown prince, is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed that I can't ever see myself doing business in the future with Saudi Arabia unless there is a change there," Graham said. "The relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working for America," he added. "It is more of a burden than an asset." The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution on Wednesday proposed by Menendez and Republican Senator Todd Young that would suspend weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and impose sanctions on people blocking humanitarian access in Yemen. Menendez, who was joined at the press conference on Capitol Hill by Graham, said the resolution will pass when it comes to a full vote in the Senate and that it is meant to hold Saudi leaders accountable for human rights abuses. "This sends a global message that just because you're an ally of the United States, you can't kill with impunity," Menendez said. The US Senate voted on Wednesday to advance another resolution to end US military support for the Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen, setting the stage for debate and a later vote in the upper chamber. The nearly unprecedented break the 11 Republicans made from US President Donald Trump was largely symbolic because the House of Representatives is not expected to take the matter up this year. Trump has threatened to veto the measure if it passes both chambers. The Saudi war against Yemen has killed over 15, 000 people in the impoverished nation and has been described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. During an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Trump said he hoped senators would not propose stopping arms sales to the Saudis. Trump also said he stood by Saudi Arabia's crown prince despite a CIA assessment that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2. Trump has come under fierce criticism from fellow Republicans in the Senate over the issue. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon: Turkish Unilateral Action in Northeast Syria Would Be 'Unacceptable' Sputnik News 03:38 13.12.2018 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A Turkish unilateral military operation in northeast Syria if launched would be unacceptable and Ankara should consult with the United States to address the security situation, Defense Department spokesperson Cmdr. Sean Robertson told Sputnik. Earlier, Ankara announced that the Turkish military would launch an operation against Kurdish forces. "Unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern," Robertson said on Wednesday when asked about Turkey's announcement. "We would find any such actions unacceptable coordination and consultation between the US and Turkey is the only approach to address issues of security concern in this area." The United States believes that the High Level Working Group on Syria with its Turkish partners is the only way to secure the northeastern border area in a sustainable manner, Robertson said. Uncoordinated military operations will undermine the shared US-Turkish interests in Syria, Robertson said. As a NATO ally and key partner in the Global Coalition against Daesh terrorist group*, both countries have solemn obligations to each other's security, he added. The United States remains committed to Turkey's border security, he said. US-Turkish relations have suffered a setback amid Ankara's concerns over US support for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Ankara has also repeatedly accused Washington of failing to fulfil its promises regarding the withdrawal of the YPG from Syria's Manbij. Ankara regards YPG as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey. *Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Four million Syrian children have only known war since birth: UNICEF 13 December 2018 - Half of Syria's children, that's four million, have grown up only knowing a life of violence, as the war-battered country enters its eighth year of conflict, the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday. "Every eight-year-old in Syria has been growing up amidst danger, destruction and death," the agency's Executive Director, Henrietta Fore, explained following a five-day visit to the country. "These children need to be able to return to school, receive their vaccinations, and feel safe and protected. We need to be able to help them." Four million children have been born in Syria since the conflict started, which has touched every single part of the country. In Douma, East Ghouta, just where a Government siege came to an end in April after five years of bombardment, displaced families are returning to the town where the threat of unexploded ordinance is still widespread. Since May 2018, 26 children have reportedly been killed or injured by explosive remnants of war in this one pocket of the country alone. In March, the UN declared 2017 the deadliest year for Syrian children, when a reported 910 died from the ongoing conflict. Verification of additional numbers continues, and this data may be "only the tip of the iceberg," the Syria Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism has said. Ms. Fore said that in Douma, people are raising their families "amidst the rubble, struggling for water, food and warmth in this winter weather." Schools are overcrowded and lacking in supplies, she added, and the situation is creating a defensive and mistrustful mindset among children there. "Since the conflict started, children and young people have become increasingly violent," one 15-year-old said, who frequents a centre where young girls and boys learn how to stand up against gender-based violence. "Bullying, harassment, beatings, early marriageall these forms of violence increased. Children and young people see violence around them everywhere and view it as normal," she said. Some 100 kilometers south of Ghouta, in Dera'a City, displacement levels are especially high, and limited access is blocking replenishment of limited resources. The city's two main water stations were previously contested areas, causing frequent water shortages and a dependency on water trucks. To remedy the situation, UNICEF has helped lay a 16-kilometer pipe to facilitate safe water transport for some 200,000 people. First-graders, aged 17 War damage has left at least 500 of the area's schools in need of repair, and children are missing out on their education. UNICEF said that first-grade students can vary in age from six to 17 years old, and close to a third of students are dropping out of school nationwide. Ms. Fore said establishing quality education to motivate children to go to school is needed, as this is "where the seeds of social cohesion are first planted." UNICEF has underscored that reaching children, wherever they are, and assisting with their immediate and future needs, remains a priority. With access improving, UNICEF is scaling up its health, nutrition, and child protection support services. This includes aid to schools, implementation of learning programmes to get students who have missed years of education up to speed, teacher training, and sewage and water pipeline repair. The children's agency calls for the protection of Syrian children at all times and has renewed its call for unconditional access to hard-to-reach areas. "Almost eight years since the conflict started, the needs are still great," Fore said. "But the millions of children born during this war and growing up amidst the violence are ready: they want to learn. They want to play. They want to heal." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Amid military reform, China unlikely to attack Taiwan soon: report ROC Central News Agency 2018/12/13 20:57:06 Taipei, Dec. 13 (CNA) China is unlikely to flex its muscles on a large scale in the Taiwan Strait any time soon as its military reform is still in progress, a local think tank said in a report Thursday. Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping (), China's ongoing military reform is aimed at purging corruption, eliminating abuse of power, and transforming its People's Liberation Army (PLA) from a homeland defense force into an outward-facing military, the newly founded Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) said in its report. "However, despite the rapid restructuring over the past year, the reset in the PLA's command system means a 'break-in' period is a requisite, implying that, in the short term, Beijing is unlikely to provoke a large-scale crisis in the Taiwan Strait," the institute said. The report came in the wake of reported comments by China Air Force Colonel Dai Xu, who said at a conference in Beijing on Dec. 8 that Beijing should send warships to confront United States Navy vessels in the contested South China Sea, and "be ready to take over Taiwan." The INDSR report on military and political developments in China was one of three it released Thursday, with the other two assessing the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region and defense technology trends. In its report on the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region, the INDSR said peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is a key factor. It noted that the U.S. has approved a number of political and military measures that support Taipei and counter Beijing. The U.S. has also continued to encourage Taipei to contribute to the Indo-Pacific strategy, which is expected to help balance the cross-strait situation that is currently tilted in favor of China militarily, the report said. Meanwhile, in its assessment of defense technology trends, the INDSR said technology will play an increasingly important role in the battlefields of the future, which is crucial to Taiwan as it is outmanned and outgunned by a much larger adversary on the other side of the strait. The report said Taiwan recognizes the benefits of localizing equipment production, with international cooperation, as evidenced by its indigenous defense program. However, it is imperative to establish stronger security for sensitive and pioneering technology by introducing laws, regulations and new management concepts, among other initiatives, the report said. Officially launched in May, the government-funded INDSR is a semi-official think tank responsible for studying and offering advice to the government on national security issues. Its chairman is Feng Shih-kuan (), who served as defense minister from May 2016 to Feb 2018. (By Joseph Yeh) Enditem/pc NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address European Parliament calls for resumption of cross-strait talks ROC Central News Agency 2018/12/13 10:23:03 Brussels, Dec. 12 (CNA) The European Parliament (EP) adopted a resolution Wednesday that includes a provision encouraging the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to resume their dialogue and reiterating the European Union's support for Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organizations. The resolution on the annual report on the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy was passed 401-173, with 73 abstentions, during an EP plenary session in Strasbourg, France. The provision on cross-strait relations emphasizes that the strengthening of regional security in the Indo-Pacific region is of critical importance to the interests of the EU and its member states. It calls for all parties concerned in the region to solve differences through peaceful means and to refrain from taking unilateral action to change the status quo, including in the East and South China Seas. Also, it encourages a quick resumption of bilateral talks between China and Taiwan and reiterates the EU's support for Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organizations, mechanisms and activities. The EP took a similar stance in a report on the state of EU-China relations adopted in September. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday expressed its appreciation to the EP for again demonstrating its friendship and support for Taiwan. Taiwan will continue to deepen its relations with the EU and other like-minded partners, and hopes that the international community will continue to give Taiwan more substantial support, the ministry said in a statement. (By Tang Pei-chun, Elaine Hou and Y.F. Low) Enditem/J NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Weakened UK PM in Brussels to seek EU help on Brexit deal Iran Press TV Thu Dec 13, 2018 04:38PM Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May has traveled to Brussels to attend a European Union summit as she desperately seeks privileges from the bloc that could enhance her chances of going through the British parliament with a controversial EU withdrawal agreement. May said on Thursday, however, that she did not expect to secure a quick breakthrough in Brexit talks with the EU. "I don't expect an immediate breakthrough, but what I do hope is that we can start work as quickly as possible on the assurances that are necessary," said May, adding that she would put to the European counterparts the huge concerns of British lawmakers about how Brexit will work. EU leaders reiterated their position that they will stand by the Brexit agreement they signed with May last month, saying there was no chance for legal changes to the deal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the EU was ready to give May assurances about the thorny issue of how the bloc will deal with the Irish border after Brexit. "We can of course talk about whether there are additional assurances but in this the 27 EU members are together and will make their interests clear," said Merkel. In a statement to the British parliament on Monday, May postponed a planned vote on her Brexit deal, saying she would try to assuage concerns about the so-called backstop clause in the agreement which her opponents believe would enable the EU to include the UK in its customs union indefinitely if the two sides fails to agree on a comprehensive trade mechanism two years after Brexit. Reports on Thursday showed that May had no intention of submitting the Brexit deal to the parliament before Christmas, meaning that the House of Commons would have only a couple of weeks before a January-21 deadline to give its final opinion on the agreement. Britain is expected to leave the EU on March 29, 2019. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yorumunuz onaylanmak uzere yoneticiye iletilmistir. Dikkat! Suc teskil edecek, yasads, tehditkar, rahatsz edici, hakaret ve kufur iceren, asaglayc, kucuk dusurucu, kaba, mustehcen, ahlaka aykr, kisilik haklarna zarar verici ya da benzeri niteliklerde iceriklerden dogan her turlu mali, hukuki, cezai, idari sorumluluk icerigi gonderen Uye/Uyelere aittir. Britain's May Will Step Down Before Next Election By VOA News December 13, 2018 British Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed she will step down before the next election, scheduled for 2022. Her comments come ahead of talks in Brussels where she is seeking concessions in the unpopular agreement to withdraw Britain from the European Union after she survived a no-confidence vote. May is meeting with EU leaders for the second time this week in order to try to save the Brexit deal after she halted a House of Commons vote that was widely expected to result in a rejection of the agreement. So far, European leaders have expressed a desire to help Britain in some way, but have also made it clear they do not intend to renegotiate the terms the two sides worked out over the course of months of discussions. EU leaders are meeting Thursday and Friday for a summit, and European Council President Donald Tusk said they will listen to May's assessment of the situation before holding talks without her to "discuss the matter and adopt relevant conclusions." "As time is running out, we will also discuss the state of preparations for a no-deal scenario," he said, citing the prospect the March divorce date arrives with no terms in place. Leadership challenge averted May's Conservative Party voted 200-117 Wednesday to keep her in power and prevent another leadership challenge for a year. In a closed meeting with Conservative lawmakers before the vote began, May said she would step down as Britain's leader before the anticipated 2022 election, a move that might have helped win over some lawmakers who were undecided going into the secret ballot. Ian Lavery, chair of the main opposition Labour Party, said in a statement that "May's weakness and failure has completely immobilized the government at this critical time for the country." Brexit looms It remains unclear if the vote will help her win the required support from Parliament for the Brexit deal. Britain is due to exit the EU on March 29, 2019, as a result of a 2016 referendum. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Secretary General and President Poroshenko discuss developments in and around the Sea of Azov NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 13 Dec. 2018 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met on Thursday (13 December 2018) to discuss developments in and around the Sea of Azov and the Alliance's strong support for Ukraine. Mr. Stoltenberg reaffirmed NATO's full support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty, noting that NATO has stepped up its presence in the Black Sea region over the past few years and will continue to assess its posture. The Secretary General stressed that NATO Allies remain concerned by the heightened tensions in and around the Sea of Azov. "There can be no justification for Russia's use of military force against Ukrainian ships and sailors," he said. He added that NATO condemns the building of the Kerch Straight bridge, which represents another violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Mr. Stoltenberg affirmed that NATO will continue to provide Ukraine with strong political and practical support, including around 40 million euros pledged by Allies for NATO-Ukraine Trust Funds. He also announced that NATO will deliver secure communications equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces by the end of the year. Mr. Stoltenberg commended President Poroshenko for his commitment to the democratic process, stressing that good governance and reform will bring Ukraine closer to joining the Alliance. The Secretary General encouraged Ukraine to continue implementing key reforms, including toward greater civilian control over the security and intelligence services, anti-corruption and minority rights. "Allies recognise Ukraine's aspirations to join the Alliance," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Pledges Support For Ukraine Over Sea Of Azov Incident December 13, 2018 NATO has pledged support for Ukraine's navy more than two weeks after Russia seized three of Kyiv's naval ships and arrested 24 sailors in the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov. The alliance has been "supporting Ukraine to improve its naval capabilities, logistics and cyberdefense," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Brussels on December 13. NATO will also deliver secure communications equipment to Ukraine's military by the end of this year, Stoltenberg said, according to an official transcript. On November 25, the Russian Coastguard opened fire and detained several Ukrainian vessels and 24 crew members in the Kerch Strait. Russia alleged that the vessels had illegally entered Russian territorial waters near the Crimea region, which Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine and most UN member states do not recognize the annexation. "Russia must immediately release the sailors and ships they seized and allow freedom of navigation including free access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov," Stoltenberg said. "This is part of Russia's pattern of destabilizing behavior," Stoltenberg added. "We strongly condemn Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea." Poroshenko welcomed NATO's support as his country seeks to join the alliance. He described the seized Ukrainian naval crews as "prisoners of war." Based on reporting by dpa and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-pledges-support- ukraine-azov-sea-incident/29654701.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Church Says Bartholomew To Grant Autocephaly To Kyiv On January 6 By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service December 13, 2018 The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople will hand over a Tomos -- a decree granting independence, or autocephaly -- to the future head of the local Orthodox Church in Ukraine on January 6, Archbishop Yevstratiy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate said on December 13. Senior figures from Orthodox Christian communities in Ukraine will meet on December 15 in a bid to form a new, unified, independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and elect a leader, known as a Primate. The December 15 "unity gathering" will be held at St. Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv and will be attended by Bartholomew. "The Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch should be handed over to the [future] Primate on January 6 [on Christmas Eve]," Ukrainian and Russian media quoted Yevstratiy as saying. Most Christian Orthodox believers will celebrate Christmas on January 7. Yevstratiy added that the Tomos will be granted in Istanbul -- the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch -- after a joint liturgy of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the head of the new Ukrainian church. The December 15 meeting could be a crucial step in years of efforts to create a church in Ukraine that is independent of Moscow and has the approval of Bartholomew, the "first among equals" in the global Eastern Orthodox faith. It is also expected to adopt a charter. Ukraine currently has three main Orthodox denominations: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which remained subordinate to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and two breakaway entities -- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, led by Filaret, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Makariy. Bartholomew announced the decision to recognize Ukraine's request for an autocephalous church in October. The announcement by Bartholomew, who is considered the leader of the 300-million-strong worldwide Orthodox community, came amid deepening tension over efforts by Ukrainian Orthodox churches to formally break away from Russia's orbit. It also prompted the Russian Orthodox Church to announce days later that it was ending its relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in protest. The developments have added to tensions between Kyiv and Moscow, already high since Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists. The Moscow Patriarchate has announced that its representatives will not attend the December 15 gathering. With reporting by gordon.ua, UNIAN, AP, and TASS Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/bartholomew -autocephaly-tomos-kyiv-january-6- church-spokesman/29654610.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO to Provide Secure Comms Equipment to Kiev Before 2019 Stoltenberg Sputnik News 18:06 13.12.2018 BRUSSELS (Sputnik) NATO is going to deliver secure communications equipment for the Ukrainian army before the end of this year, the alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated. "NATO provides Ukraine with strong political and strong practical support. This includes around 40 million euros pledged by allies for NATO-Ukraine trust funds. One such trust fund is helping Ukraine improve command, control and communications. And today I told president Poroshenko that we will deliver secure communications equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces by the end of this year," Stoltenberg said after the talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The secretary-general pointed out that NATO had stepped up its presence in the Black Sea because of alleged Russian aggression against Ukraine and would continue to assess its activities in the area. Stoltenberg noted that NATO recognized Ukraine's aspiration to join the alliance, praised significant progress of the Ukrainian reforms and called on Kiev to continue these efforts. "We want your country to succeed and we are committed to helping you to do so," the secretary general said. He also said that the further escalation of tensions in the Sea of Azov would not be in line with interests of any of the actors in the region. "Escalation would be in no one's interests now," Stoltenberg added. The secretary-general has commented on the situation in the Black Sea region that escalated on November 25, when three ships of the Ukrainian Navy Berdyansk, Nikopol, and Yany Kapu breached the Russian border, entered Russian territorial waters that were temporarily closed and began moving toward the Kerch Strait, which serves as the entrance into the Sea of Azov. The Ukrainian vessels and their crew were detained by Russia after failing to respond to a lawful demand to stop. In response to the incident, Poroshenko signed a decree declaring martial law in several Ukrainian regions located near the Russian border, and the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the incident was a provocation prepared in advance as a pretext to introduce martial law. Putin said the provocation could be linked to Poroshenko's low approval ratings ahead of the presidential campaign set to start in late December. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New Anti-Russia Sanctions to Complicate Talks on Kerch Strait Crisis - Berlin Sputnik News 16:04 13.12.2018(updated 16:07 13.12.2018) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The introduction of additional sanctions against Russia over the recent incident with Ukrainian ships in the Azov Sea will complicate talks on the de-escalation of the situation, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Thursday. "I proceed from the fact that EU sanctions against Russia will now be extended This is already a signal", Maas told the Deutschlandfunk radio station, commenting on the existing EU sanctions against Moscow. Speaking about the situation around the Azov Sea, the German minister said that all sides should contribute to de-escalating the situation. "Germany is doing so. Together with our French partners, we are holding talks with Russia and Ukraine", Maas noted. The minister recalled that Germany was in favour of the release of Ukrainian sailors and free passage through the Kerch Strait in the long-term perspective. "We talk about that. Negotiations are still beneficial, and I would not like to burden them with the decision to introduce new additional sanctions. Once we have to draw a line under them and look at the development of events", he added. On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in the parliament Germany would support the extension of sanctions against Russia at the EU summit. During the summit, slated for December 13-14, EU leaders plan to adopt a statement on the situation around the Azov Sea. On November 25, Ukraine's Berdyansk and Nikopol gunboats and the Yany Kapu tugboat illegally crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait, the entrance to the Sea of Azov. The Ukrainian vessels were arrested by Russia after failing to respond to a demand to stop. Following the incident, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree declaring martial law in several Ukrainian regions located near the Russian border and the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, which will be in place for 30 days. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the incident was a provocation prepared in advance as a pretext to introduce martial law in Ukraine ahead of the country's presidential election. The martial law would affect the campaign, set to start in late December, amid Poroshenko's low approval rating, Putin said. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) The Executive might decline future Congress hearing invitations should lawmakers continue to "disrespect" government officials, the presidential spokesperson said. In a media briefing Friday, Presidential Spokesperson Sal Panelo slammed Congress for supposedly disrespecting Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, after the House of Representatives approved a resolution seeking Diokno's ouster. The House of Representatives on Wednesday adopted a resolution-- penned by Minority Leader Danilo Suarez - urging President Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider Diokno's appointment. Malacanang threatened to skip lawmakers' next invitations - to make sure the incident won't happen again. "We will decline any invitation if we feel that that they will be repeating the same kind of treatment," Panelo said Friday. "We will go there - if invited-- but the moment there is any sign of disrespect is given a member of the cabinet, we will excuse ourselves and beg leave," he retracted. The Cabinet on Friday issued a statement on the said House resolution targeting Diokno. It noted that members of the Congress should "accord utmost respect, show sobriety, and show demands of ethical refinements" when inviting government officials as resource speakers. The Palace backed the statement, saying that all government workers-- regardless of branch-- should be treated with equal respect. "Every time members of Congress are invited by the President, they are accorded due respect. We of course demand the same respect when they invite members of the Cabinet and any workers of the government," the spokesman added. READ: Duterte still trusts Diokno amid budget 'insertions,' replacement calls Palace Panelo also criticized how House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. "mocked" Diokno during a House budget hearing on Tuesday. Budget insertions? The Budget Secretary this week has been on the receiving end of some 'insertion' allegations by some lawmakers. Rep. Suarez accused Diokno of inserting P2.8 billion worth of funds for Sorsogon province to aid his son-in-law Casiguran, Sorsogon Mayor Edwin Hamor. Diokno denied the allegation. Andaya, on the other hand, figured in a heated exchange with Diokno during the question hour at the House. The Majority Leader questioned the Budget Chief's supposed multi-billion peso allocations for infrastructure projects in the 2018 budget. But opposition solon Edcel Lagman on Thursday said Diokno could not have done the insertions by himself-- without the consent of Duterte and other officials. "I don't think Secretary Diokno will do this on his own. I think he has the permission, the consent and prior knowledge of the executive, particularly of the President," the Albay Representative said. However, Andaya refuses to take back his earlier allegation. In a statement Friday, he cited the President's claim that the latter was not involved in the budget "insertions." In a speech Thursday, Duterte said documents involving money do not reach his table or office. "I tell you now again and again, there is no document or documents involving money, public or private projects, and everything," the country's chief executive was quoted saying. "The President's statements speak volumes. Those who hide behind the mantle of the presidency, invoke his name for actions he knew nothing of, withhold information from him, should take the cue," Andaya said. Meanwhile, Panelo also expressed dismay regarding the delay of the 2019 budget passage. "Certainly, we are of course disappointed that it did not pass as expected. I hope so (it will not happen again) because a lot of services will be affected," he said in the briefing. PODCAST Newark Liberty International Airport or LaGuardia Airport? Which do you prefer? (Or is the answer none of the above. Give me JFK!) In this episode, we present the origin stories of New York Citys airports and airfields. The skies over New York have been graced with aircraft for almost 110 years. In fact the first flying machine was flown by no less than Wilbur Wright, the man who (with his brother Orville) invented the airplane. Yet by the time the U.S. government began regulating the skies making way for commercial aviation the city had failed to develop an adequate airport of its own. Meanwhile the thriving city of Newark, New Jersey, had just opened a glistening new airport, and in 1929 it was awarded the governments coveted airmail contract. This did not sit well with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who engineered a spectacular tarmac stunt in 1934, drawing attention to this deficiency. And then he began dreaming of a new airport in northern Queens, one poised to draw customers away from New Jersey. And thus began a decades-long tug-of-war for supremacy over New York City skies. LISTEN HERE: To download this episode and subscribe to our show for free, visit iTunes or other podcasting services or get it straight from our satellite site. You can also listen to the show on Overcast, Google Music and Stitcher streaming radio. _________________________________________________________ The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you . by you! We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. Were also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help! We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month. Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If youd like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor. And join us for the next episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, an exclusive podcast provided to our supporters on Patreon. We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. ________________________________________________________ CLARIFICATION: We forgot to mention that the original name of JFK Airport was actually New York International Airport, Anderson Field, almost everybody ended up calling it Idlewild Airport. CORRECTION: Near the end of this show, Greg says that 18 new gates have opened this month at LaGuardia Airport. Its actually 11 gates in a concourse that will eventually have 18. You must check out this extraordinary promotional video for American Airlines from 1933: Roosevelt Field 1927 Charles Lindbergh takes off on his historic flight to France National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution Floyd Bennett Field, September 1, 1934. The plan belongs to pilot Roscoe Turner, who landed at the field after flying from Burbank, CA to New York in 10 hours. Courtesy Airfields Freeman Newark Airport, in a dramatic postcard. American Airlines would eventually move its base of operations to LaGuardia. LaGuardia Airport in 1940, a few months after its opening. Museum of the City of New York LaGuardia, April 1, 1944: Visitors could stroll a wide promenade, watching airplane activity on the tarmac. Wurts Bros/ Museum of the City of New York Wurts Bros/Museum of the City of New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia gets a kiss from radio actress Arlene Blackburn, the first person to disembark from the first plane at LaGuardia Airport. Photo originally published by the Daily News, Dec. 2, 1939. New York Daily News The infamous incident at Newark Airport, as reported in November 25, 1934, issue of the New York Times: The beautiful, former Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Airport. The terminal is still in use (JetBlue Airlines calls it home), making it the oldest active terminal building for commercial use in America. Courtesy Airport Spotting FURTHER READING FROM THE BOWERY BOYS WEBSITE More information about The Hudson Fulton Celebration and the famous first flight of Wilbur Wright Glenn Curtiss and the first long-distance flight One of the more lucrative air contests, held by Gimbels Department Store The story of how Idlewild Airport became JFK International Airport Did they really think they could build landing strips in the middle of the city? YES THEY DID. FURTHER LISTENING This weeks show is basically a prequel for this one, the tale of one of the most impressive airports of the Jet Age: For a little history on Governors Islands early years in flight: We mention the site of Freedomland as being a possible location for an early airport. Mercedes-Benz Cars has entered into a power purchase agreement with Statkraft, Europes largest producer of renewable energy, enabling Mercedes-Benz Cars to source electricity directly from wind farms in Germany, whose subsidies from the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) expire after 2020. Because the agreement with Mercedes-Benz Cars will contribute to the economical operation of existing windmills, the power purchase agreement is a contribution to the German energy transition (German Energiewende). Norwegian energy provider Statkraft supplies the renewable energy from six community-owned wind farms. The power will be used to supply the Mercedes-Benz plant in Bremen as well as to the German battery production locations such as Kamenz and Stuttgart-Unterturkheim. At Mercedes-Benz Cars Operations, we are pursuing the strategy digital, flexible and green in our global production organization. This also includes that we will supply all our German plants with CO 2 -neutral energy by 2022. As the first industrial company in Germany, we are using electricity from six wind farms and thereby ensure their continued operation already today. In doing so, we are taking an important step in realising our CO 2 -neutral production operations and are underscoring our social responsibility. Markus Schafer, Member of the Divisional Board of Management Mercedes-Benz Cars, Production and Supply Chain Statkraft is an important player in energy trading. As the leading PPA provider (Power Purchase Agreement), the group brings together electricity producers and companies from trade and industry throughout Europe and develops new concepts that offer added value for both sides. In Germany, Statkraft is the market leader in managing renewable assets on behalf of third parties with a total portfolio of 10,000 MW. In the contract concluded between Mercedes and Statkraft, the power supplied by the wind farms is integrated into the existing supply contract by Enovos Energie Deutschland GmbH. Enovos primarily ensures the accounting, the grid use and the integration of the green power supply into the energy portfolio of the Mercedes-Benz plants. The six wind farms with 31 turbines are located within a radius of about 25 kilometers from Hanover, the capital of the German State of Lower Saxony, as well as in Bassum, 30 kilometers south of Bremen. The plants generate about 74 GWh a year and have an installed capacity of 46 MW. Commissioned between 1999 and 2001, their subsidies through the Renewable Energy Act will run out after 20 years. After the agreement comes into effect, the green power produced in the wind farm will be fed into the grid and simultaneously drawn from the grid by the Mercedes-Benz plants. The electricity production is staggered in accordance with the different ends of the EEG subsidy for the individual installations. The plan calls for 33.1 million kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2021. In the years 2022 to 2024, it is expected to have 74 million kWh and for 2025, the agreement provides for a delivery of 21.8 million kWh. This green power will be used for the production of the EQC electric car at the Mercedes-Benz Bremen plant. EEG subsidy ending starting in 2021. Thus far, the EEG guaranteed the wind farm operators a fixed subsidized rate for the electricity. From 1 January 2021, the EEG subsidy will run out for about 6,000 German wind power plants. In total, this corresponds to an installed capacity of 4.5 GW, enough to power about 2.1 million households. Starting in 2022, further plants will drop from the EEG remuneration each year. Based on todays data, this could affect about 1,600 wind power plants annually with a total installed capacity of about 2.5 gigawatts between 2022 and 2026. Carbon-neutral energy supply of the German Mercedes-Benz Cars plants. In Germany, Mercedes-Benz Cars has eight vehicle and powertrain plants (Bremen, Rastatt, Sindelfingen, Berlin, Hamburg, Kamenz, Kolleda, Stuttgart- Unterturkheim), which either purchase electricity or operate their own power plants. In the future, 100% of additional purchased electricity will come from verifiable renewable sources, such as wind- and hydropower. This corresponds to about three quarters of the required electricity in the German plants. Already existing high-efficiency gas CHP systems additionally generate local heat and power at the factories. The resulting CO 2 -emissions are compensated by qualified environmental projects. Ballard Power Systems has received a purchase order from Porterbrook Leasing Company Limited, a leading participant in the rail leasing market, for an FCveloCity-HD fuel cell module and related support to power a HydroFLEX train in the UK. Earlier this year, UK Rail Minister Jo Johnson MP challenged the rail industry to develop decarbonization plans, with the objective of removing diesel-only trains from the network by 2040. HydroFLEX is an innovative response to this challenge from Porterbrook and the University of Birminghams Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE). Porterbrook will provide a Class 319 electric train for conversion by BCRREs technical and research experts into a HydroFLEX hydrogen-powered train. The train will utilize Ballards power module and Ballard will also provide system controls development, mechanical integration of sub-systems and other components. The HydroFLEX will be the UKs first fully-sized hydrogen demonstrator train. It will showcase how hydrogen can be used to power a train that retains the ability to operate across existing electric routes, on either third rail or 25kV overhead power. Testing and demonstration runs are planned for the summer of 2019 at RailLive, which will take place at Long Marston in Warwickshire. We are pleased to work with Porterbrook and BCRRE on the HydroFLEX rail program. As evidenced by this activity in the UK, along with our work on fuel cell rail programs in Germany and China, momentum is rapidly building behind the development and deployment of Heavy Duty Motive fuel cell solutions for both inter-city trains as well as intra-city trams. Ballard is now actively working with a number of the worlds most important players in the rolling stock sector, including Porterbrook, to meet this growing requirement. Jesper Themsen, President and CEO of Ballard Power Systems Europe A/S Porterbrook also recently completed an engineering assessment that makes a positive case for the conversion of one of the UKs most reliable trains into a battery/electric bi-mode. The class 350 Electric Multiple Unit is Britains most reliable train, with Porterbrooks 350/2 version recording 100,420 Miles per Technical Incident (Moving Annual Average). With the addition of the latest battery technology, Porterbrook believes that the 350/2 BatteryFLEX would be able to match, or outperform, diesel trains on existing non-electrified routes, particularly in key corridors across the North of England. Continental announced the completion of a joint Cellular V2X trial in Japan together with Ericsson, Nissan, NTT DOCOMO, OKI and Qualcomm Technologies. The companies have successfully conducted Japans first C-V2X testing in the country using 5.8 GHz as the experimental radio frequency for direct communication. The use cases were designed to address various aspects of V2X communication, such as Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Pedestrians (V2P) direct communications, as well as Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) operations. With a combination of direct and network-based communications between vehicles, infrastructure, and vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, the test results showed that C-V2X can exploit the full potential of connected and intelligent mobility. In addition, the tests also indicated the technologys strengths for reliability and latency, which assists in enabling the communication of mission critical messages quickly and efficiently. Direct communication provides vehicle to vehicle (V2V), vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle to pedestrian (V2P) and other vulnerable road users connectivity even in the most remote areas where no mobile coverage is available. Under mobile coverage, C-V2X is designed to also enable a vehicle-to-network (V2N) communication link to deliver cloud-based exchanges of information over a longer range, including information on upcoming road conditions or traffic situations. In their field trials, the companies focused on sending messages directly via cellular V2X technology (PC5). The use cases were tested under varying conditions to evaluate the C-V2X basic communications performance. With test vehicles passing each other at speeds of up to 110 km/h (68 mph) and with a truck or even buildings blocking the communications both direct and network-based communications were tested. The companies observed a mean latency of 20 milliseconds for direct communication and a nearly error-free communication even at longer distances such as 1.2 kilometers with unobstructed line-of-sight condition as measured by the C-V2X test system. With these results, the companies demonstrated the performance capabilities of C-V2X. The direct communication technology used in the tests was based on the 3GPP Release 14 specifications. The companies also demonstrated a wide area V2N communication with end to end average communication latency of 50 milliseconds in NTT DOCOMOs commercial network in the connected mode state. The trials took place in multiple test tracks in Japan, where the performance of C-V2X was tested using five scenarios: Do Not Pass Warning, Electronic Emergency Brake Lights, Hazardous Location Warning, Intersection Movement Assist and Vulnerable Road User Warning. These were chosen, to ensure that basic aspects of the communication technology were considered. Thus, the tests did not only focus on V2V communication but also on V2I, V2P and V2N communication under different traffic situations and driving speeds. For the trial, Continental used the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X Reference Design, which features the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X chipset with integrated Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) capability to build connected car systems and to integrate the systems into Nissan test vehicles. Working with Qualcomm Technologies, Nissan made a test driving plan for C-V2X to be used during the trials at the proving grounds. Bringing in their expertise in roadside unit (RSU) infrastructure and applications, OKI demonstrated V2I as a viable technology for advanced traffic applications by integrating the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X chipset into their RSU. Ericsson, as one of the leading companies in the technology and service for telecommunication, assisted in testing the V2N use case scenario, combining direct communication and LTE-A network technologies. NTT DOCOMO provided a LTE-A network and V2N applications to demonstrate the benefits of the complementary use of network-based communications for a variety of advanced automotive informational use cases. Following the positive test results, Continental will continue to further develop and investigate the C-V2X technology, globally as well as in Japan to enable an early global deployment. C-V2X will most likely be implemented initially on the 4.5 G (or LTE Advanced Pro) and further on 5G mobile communication standards from 2022 onwards. C-V2X is a global solution for V2X communications designed to support improved automotive safety, automated driving and traffic efficiency, and is a V2X communication technology compliant with the global 3GPP specifications. C-V2X is composed with direct communication and network-based communication. C-V2X complements Advanced Driver Assistance Systems sensors, such as cameras, radar and Light Detection or LiDAR. C-V2X direct communication mode is firstly specified in 3GPP Release 14 and designed to offer vehicles low latency communications for V2V, V2I and V2P without the involvement of a cellular network, or cellular network subscription, by operating on a designated and harmonized 5.9 GHz ITS spectrum. Network-based communication offer wide area communications for V2N services. Currently, 3GPP is working on further enhancements of C-V2X in 5G. Among countries globally, Brazil is expected to contribute 1.9 million barrels per day (mbd) of the global offshore crude oil production between 2018 to 2025, followed by Norway with 1.1 mbd and Nigeria with 0.9 mbd, according to data and analytics company GlobalData. Globally, 387 planned and announced crude and natural gas projects are expected to start operations during the outlook period. Of these, 154 represent the number of planned projects with identified development plans and 233 represent the number of early-stage announced projects that are undergoing conceptual studies and that are expected to get approved for development. The companys report: Q4 2018 Production and Capital Expenditure Outlook for Key Planned and Announced Upstream Projects in Global Offshore Industry Petrobras Leads in Global Offshore Crude Oil Production finds that key offshore projects are expected to contribute about 8.6 mbd of crude production and around 51.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas production in 2025. Among countries globally, Brazil alone is expected to contribute roughly 22% of the global offshore crude oil production, or 1.9 mbd in 2025. The country also leads in terms of new-build capex with US$70.5 billion expected to be spent between 2018 and 2025. GlobalData identifies Norway as the second highest country globally with 1.1 mbd of crude production in 2025 or 13% of the global offshore crude and condensate production. The country is expected to spend around US$38.5 billion on the upcoming projects during the 20182025 period. Nigeria is the third highest country globally with 11% of global crude production or 0.9 mbd in 2025. In terms of capex spending, the country is the second highest with US$62.7 billion to be spent during the outlook period. Among the companies, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Equinor ASA, and China National Offshore Oil Corp globally lead with highest offshore crude and condensate production of 1.2 mbd, 0.6 mbd and 0.4 mbd in 2025, respectively. Hyundai has taken two out of the ten spots in the 2019 WardsAuto 10 Best Engine competition with the all-new 2019 NEXO FCEV fuel cell vehicle and 2019 Kona Electric CUV. (Earlier post.) This marks the tenth time Hyundai has earned a WardsAuto 10 Best Engine recognition since the awards annual inception in 1995. Kona Electric NEXO FCEV It is a true honor to have two of our all-new eco-friendly engine applications receive this prestigious award as it underscores Hyundais momentum toward having the industrys most diverse CUV powertrain lineup. The endless hours of research, evaluation and real-world analysis by our engineering community has effectively raised the bar for alternative fuel applications. We are very proud of what has been achieved in this highly competitive marketplace. We are committed to providing smart, alternative fuel solutions for car buyers, and look forward to continue growing our eco-vehicle portfolio. John Juriga, director, Powertrains, Hyundai America Technical Center, Hyundai Motor Group Hyundai Motor Company plans to introduce 18 models by 2025. NEXO leads Hyundai Motors plans in development of zero-emission vehicles. This new development plan also represents the next step for Hyundai Motor Group toward realizing a cleaner environment via advanced eco-friendly vehicles. The NEXO is Hyundais flagship vehicle and improves upon the Tucson FCEV. The NEXO Blue model has an estimated driving range of 380 miles, 115 more than its predecessor. The NEXO Limited trim has an estimated range of 354 miles. NEXO Blue models have estimated MPGe of 65 city, 58 highway and 61 combined, while NEXO Limited models have an estimated MPGe of 59 city, 54 highway, and 57 combined. The NEXO can be refueled in as little as five minutes, allowing a consumer lifestyle very similar to a comparable gasoline-powered SUV in terms of range and refueling speed. NEXO hydrogen storage uses three separate hydrogen tanks in the rear of the vehicle. These are configured to maximize overall interior volume, especially in the rear cargo area, increasing it by 5.8 cubic feet and allowing for a flatter load floor. With 161 peak horse-power (120 kW) and 291 lb.-ft. of torque, acceleration and power have also increased to improve NEXO overall performance. The 2019 Kona Electric offers 258 miles of range. The new electric CUV offers youthful design, sporty driving character, leading safety technology and advanced infotainment features in an affordable, compact footprint along with an abundant suite of standard safety equipment. Additionally, the Konas Electric battery is covered by Hyundais industry leading Lifetime Battery Warranty. The Kona Electric powertrain employs a high-efficiency 150 kW (201 horsepower) permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor supplied by a high-voltage 64 kWh lithium-ion battery. The motor develops 291 lb.ft. of torque distributed to the front wheels. The powertrain inverter has a power density of 25.4 kVA per liter. The battery system is liquid cooled and operates at 356 volts. Battery pack energy density is 141.3 Wh/kg (greater than Chevy Bolt), with a total battery system weight under 1,000 lbs. In addition, Kona Electric EPA estimated MPGe is 132 city, 108 highway, and 120 combined. This is the 25th year for WardsAuto 10 Best Engines, a competition created to recognize outstanding powertrain achievement, world-class technologies and those rare engines or electric propulsion systems that are so compelling that they help sell the vehicle. This year, 34 entries were competing for the recognition and were chosen from 2018 and 2019 model year vehicles. To be eligible, a new or significantly modified engine or propulsion system must be on sale in a production vehicle during the first quarter of 2019, with a base price capped at $64,000. Since the list began in 1995, Hyundai has been honored ten times: the Tau V-8 was in 2009 (4.6-liter), 2010 (4.6-liter) and 2011 (5.0-liter); the Gamma I-4 in 2012; the hydrogen fuel cell powertrain in 2015; the Nu (2.0-liter plug-in Hybrid) in 2016; the four-cylinder Turbocharged DOHC (1.4-liter); and the (3.3-liter) in 2018. The 2019 awards ceremony will take place at a banquet during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January. Orocobre Limited has signed three agreements with joint venture partner Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC). Members of the Orocobre Executive Management team have this week visited TTCs office in Tokyo to finalize and to sign a new Olaroz Shareholders Agreement; Sales and Marketing Agreement; and Orocobre Management Agreement (for management of the Olaroz Joint Venture). The new Olaroz Shareholders Agreement formalizes changes to the joint venture that will allow Orocobre to consolidate earnings from Olaroz in reported statutory accounts. Orocobre accounts will be consolidated from 1 January 2019. Orocobre and TTC agreed on a new joint marketing arrangement for production from both Stage 1 and 2 where the joint partners will work together to set the strategic direction of customer arrangements and commercial terms. As exclusive sales agent, TTC remains responsible for logistical and contractual arrangements with customers and execution of the agreed sales strategy. A new Management Agreement has been established for the ongoing management of the Olaroz Joint Venture by Orocobre. Under this new agreement, Orocobre will be paid a management fee of 1.5% of gross revenue reported by the Olaroz Joint Venture from 1 July 2019. Orocobre also announced that Advantage Lithium Corp. engaged engineering consultants GHD, Chile S.A. to commence early engineering geared towards the completion of a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) on its flagship Cauchari Project in Jujuy, Argentina. The DFS is expected to be completed by 1H CY19. Advantage Lithium hold 75% of the Cauchari JV. Orocobre owns 33.5% of Advantage Lithiums issued capital and 25% directly in the joint venture. The appointment of GHD follows encouraging Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) outcomes and continued positive results from the Phase III resource conversion program. The DFS will provide an appropriate engineering design to produce a Class 3 cost estimate consistent with American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) principles to build a standalone lithium plant producing 20 thousand tonnes per annum (ktpa) of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent. A report on this work will be prepared in accordance with NI43-101 standards of disclosure and is scheduled for completion in Q4 FY19. The commencement of early engineering marks another key milestone for the Cauchari Projects development following positive PEA results. The Phase III drilling program is nearing completion, culminating in 30-day pumping tests on main production targets in the NW Sector and the SE Sector deep sand units. These results will feed into an updated resource estimate which is targeted in Q3 FY19 and expected to bring Caucharis resources into the Measured and Indicated categories. Orocobre Limited is building an Argentinian-based industrial chemicals and minerals company through the construction and operation of its portfolio of lithium, potash and boron projects and facilities in the Puna region of northern Argentina. The company has built, in partnership with Toyota Tsusho Corporation and JEMSE, the first large-scale, greenfield brine-based lithium project in approximately 20 years at the Salar de Olaroz with planned production of 42,500 tonnes per annum of low-cost lithium carbonate. The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award $100 million to establish an Energy-Water Desalination Hub (Hub) to address water security issues in the United States. (DE-FOA-0001905) The Hub will focus on early-stage research and development (R&D) for energy-efficient and cost-competitive desalination technologies including manufacturing challenges, and for treating non-traditional water sources for multiple end-use applications. Technological achievements generated through the Hub will help us achieve several strategic goals established through the Water Security Grand Challenge announced earlier this year. By focusing R&D efforts on advancing transformational technologies that promote cost-effective desalination, we are working towards meeting the national and global need for secure, affordable water. US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry In March, Secretary Perry hosted a roundtable discussion at the White House to explore the use of prize competitions to drive technological innovation in critical water issues. DOE is working with interagency partners to develop prizes and associated R&D that will catalyze innovation at the nexus of energy and water. Energy and water systems are interconnected. Energy is required to extract, treat, and deliver water. On the other hand, water is used in multiple phases of energy production and electricity generation, from irrigating crops for biofuels to providing cooling water for thermoelectric power plants. Purifying water for these processes can be energy intensive and becomes more difficult as levels of saline increase. The Hub will focus on desalination R&D to provide low-cost alternatives that treat non-traditional water sources such as seawater, brackish water, and produced waters, for use in municipal and industrial water supplies, or to serve other water resource needs. Successful research can then reduce demand on stressed freshwater supplies. Globally, fresh water scarcity is a major humanitarian and economic challenge that impacts all sectors of society. The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energys Advanced Manufacturing Office will lead the Energy-Water Desalination Hub. DOE will fund one new five-year award, subject to appropriations. The Hub team will work to achieve the goals of four technical topic areas: (1) materials research and development; (2) new processes research and development; (3) modeling and simulation tools; and (4) integrated data and analysis. The IPO market has seen significant activity, largely due to an uptick in public offerings among private companies with a valuation of more than $1 billion. In fact, as of October 2018, Crunchbase data shows 23 unicorn IPOs globally, well outpacing full-year totals for 2016 and 2017. Related: Even If You Don't Plan to IPO, You Should Run Your Business Like a Public Company Unicorn status is hard to come by and not all pre-IPO companies need to achieve such high valuations. However, emerging growth companies do need to make critical decisions regarding how to effectively scale for growth. Investors look for exponential revenue growth along with a strong operational foundation to sustain the company through an IPO. This means that scale can be equally as important as growth. According to Fundable, "Scaling is about adding revenue at an exponential rate while only adding resources at an incremental rate." This positions a company to achieve higher profits without adding expenses. Growth adds size and revenue but also adds expenses like staff, technology or other resources required to meet growth demands. Growth is the building block to an IPO, whereas scale is the path forward. To balance both, consider the following: 1. Sales tax compliance A recent Supreme Court decision determined that states in the United States may impose sales taxes on transactions that exceed certain dollar or transaction count thresholds, regardless of where the company conducting the business is located. A physical presence in the state -- be it inventory, an employee or an office -- is no longer required. The upshot? Before this court ruling, many pre-IPO companies may not have owed tax for their online sales across state lines. Now they may in states that require it -- and many are likely to pass such legislation in the coming years -- even if operating at a loss. For companies with an internet presence, this means gearing up for increased tax compliance. Billing systems should be capable of tracking and recording the appropriate tax for each transaction. Financial processes will have to accommodate the collection and remittance of sales tax in potentially hundreds or thousands of state and local jurisdictions. In short, companies with plans to scale need to adjust their operational strategies in ways that may not have been necessary before. Related: 10 Questions to Ask Before Taking Your Company Public 2. Revenue recognition and leasing New accounting rules for revenue recognition and leases have been issued. The revised guidelines for revenue recognition, known as Accounting Standard Codification (ASC) 606 and International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 15, greatly enhance the requirements for disclosure. They also introduce new concepts, many of which involve significant judgment, such as estimating transaction price. In a similar vein, another new accounting standard, ASC 842, requires changes to how companies categorize and record leases on their balance sheet. Publicly traded companies, required to adopt these rules sooner, have discovered that implementation can take significant time and have an unexpectedly broad impact on their operations, valuation and profitability. ASC 606, for example, can change the timing of revenue recognition. Meanwhile, ASC 842 brings off-balance-sheet leases that were previously disclosed in a footnote (if at all) onto the books as liabilities. Pre-IPO companies can learn from the experiences of public companies and adopt these new accounting standards before they approach potential investors. That way, they can be accurate and transparent in sharing information related to revenue, including explaining any discrepancies that may arise between cash revenue and revenue as reported from a GAAP perspective. 3. Systems, processes and controls Publicly traded companies face high standards for financial disclosure and other regulatory reporting. Consistent with this, Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires the CEO and CFO to certify to the accuracy and fair presentation of their organization's quarterly and annual financial statements and that they have established and maintained adequate internal controls. Related: Go Public or Stay Private? What's The Right Move For You? This means pre-IPO companies may need more formal internal controls. Beyond that, it may also be worth rethinking existing processes around sales, ordering, fulfillment and logistics. Streamlined processes can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the company's financial reporting. An upside? By increasing the rigor of their internal systems at the outset -- rather than as an afterthought -- companies can reduce many time-consuming, error-prone manual processes that otherwise would burden the resources they need to scale. 4. Cybersecurity A cybersecurity breach can hurt the company in terms of reputation, customers and employee attention. It also can invite litigation and regulatory action. Post-IPO, a breach can also drive away investors. Recently, the potential cost of cyber attacks became clearer thanks to a pair of important new laws. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires companies operating in its jurisdiction to obtain unequivocal permission from specific people before using their personal information. Upon discovering a data breach, companies must notify customers within 72 hours. Fines can reach 4 percent of the previous year's global revenue. In contrast, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) does not require companies to secure people's permission to collect their personal information. But, it does give California consumers the right to know what personal information the company is collecting, why it is doing so and how it will be used. It also empowers them to block the sale of their information. And at $750 per consumer, the CCPA's penalties can be even greater than under the GDPR. Suppose a company's technology platform has just $30 million in annual sales, but 50,000 registered users. A security breach might cost the company $1.2 million under the GDPR. However, it could cost a devastating $37.5 million under the CCPA. Public or private, all companies expecting to scale must protect the personal information residing on their systems -- for their own sake as well as that of their customers. Related: IPO vs. Getting Acquired: What You Can Learn From Snap and Instagram's Divergent Exit Strategies 5. Governance and risk management When it comes to public offerings, things do not always go according to plan. Maybe the company would like to see more stability in the equity markets, or a higher valuation than current projections indicate. Maybe investors are simply urging more time to allow the company's business model to mature. Whatever the reasons, the outcome can be the same: a delayed IPO. Risks like these are what corporate governance aims to manage. Effective corporate governance anticipates the principal risks confronting the company and sets up contingency plans to address them. Corporate governance also seeks to strike the appropriate balance between risk and reward. It supports the rest of the organization in achieving this balance by overseeing management of the policies, procedures and controls that underlie the company's day-to-day operations. Although this level of corporate governance is more commonly found in publicly traded companies, it can make private companies stand out. For instance, a robust corporate governance structure may help accumulate information for reporting to the board and external stakeholders. It may also lend credibility to executives as they explain to investors how they have assessed the company's prospects. For companies scaling up for a public offering, preparation for twists and turns along the way is crucial. Today, scalability for pre-IPO businesses involves upfront investment in the appropriate plans, systems and processes. Building this foundation effectively can help take a business from entrepreneurial dream to post-IPO reality. Related: To Be IPO Ready, You Need to Prepare for These 5 Potential Pitfalls Uber Has Confidentially Filed to Go Public Say Ni Hao to China's Biggest Ever Unicorns Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Apple is facing a ban of its older iPhones in China ranging from iPhone 6s to iPhone X because it doesn't infringe with Qualcomm's patents. So in order to solve the issue, the Cupertino-based company will push a software update that will comply with the Chinese court ruling. Since the infringed patents are software-related - resizing photos and navigating apps on a touchscreen - it will be easy for Apple to solve the problem. The company officially stated that the patch should come early next week and will hopefully reinstate the sales and imports of older iPhones. However, the situation with the new 2018 iPhones is still unclear. We suppose a quick update to the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max should be enough as well. Source So far, three model numbers are linked to the future Galaxy S10 models - SM-G970, SM-G973 and SM-G975, which should correspond to the Galaxy S10 Lite, S10 and S10+. So the fourth one comes as something of a surprise. The new addition to the rumor mill is SM-G977 and the only variations of this model are the American SM-G977U and South Korean SM-G977N. The European SM-G977F is still nowhere to be seen, which suggests that this particular version is not far into the development process like the three main ones. There's a great chance that the newly surfaced model number belongs to the 5G variant that the company is working on, which in turn explains why there's still no European version. Compatibility between 5G networks is going to be an issue, which might be why the euro phone is lagging behind. That or Samsung doesn't believe local carriers will not expand 5G coverage fast enough. Source (in Dutch) On Monday the Fuzhou Intermediate Peoples Court in China banned the import and sale of select iPhones due to a lawsuit between Qualcomm and Apple. Cupertino had to pull out phones from iPhone 6s all the way to iPhone X but said the 2018 devices are not affected by this ruling. Apparently, the chipset company thinks otherwise and now filed for an injunction of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR in China as the next step in its legal battle with Apple. The action is another move in the legal battle between the tech giants that are still nowhere near reaching a deal about licensing fees and patent application. Interestingly enough, a US company banning another US company on the foreign ground will boost the domestic competitors even more. Apple warned that the ban would hurt Chinese manufacturers like Foxconn and noted that it had created 5 million jobs across the countrys supply chain. Apple representative was quoted to say that the company will be forced to settle with the Respondent, causing all mobile phone manufacturers to relapse into the previous unreasonable charging mode and pay high licensing fees. Source The OnePlus 6T McLaren edition debuted a new charging standard for OnePlus to succeed its 20W Dash charger. So with Chinese phone makers bringing more proprietary charging standards, we want to show how they compare with other standards on the market. There are several fast-charging standards across the smartphone industry which have their own pros and cons. In a nutshell, quick-charging is great and convenient for the customer, but proprietary charging standards means that you can only get such speeds with the original cable and adapter. OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition with Warp Charge 30 Weve compiled a couple of charts with several quick charging standards and pinned them against each other. Note that for this comparison, were only comparing how quickly the device charges in the first half-hour from a dead battery. This is the most crucial for judging how much endurance you can expect from a device if you have only 30 minutes to charge it between flights or before you need to head out the door. The raw data we are using is the percentage for a 30 minute charge from a dead battery, the batterys capacity, and just for fun, were going to incorporate our battery endurance scores for this comparison as well. The first chart is the raw charging percentage after charging for 30 minutes. Of course, the percentage depends on the overall capacity of the battery and how fast the power current can be restored to the battery pack. Right off the bat, the Oppo Find Xs Super VOOC charge is undefeated. It charged to an impressive 95% of battery in just half an hour. Meanwhile, the Google Pixel 2XL with its 18W USB-PD charger only reached 35% with the Samsung Galaxy Note9 not too far ahead with 37% using its Adaptive Fast Charger. Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition with Super VOOC This next chart estimates how much battery capacity is restored based on the percentage and capacity of the phone. The Find X is now really close to the Huawei Mate 20 Pro since Huawei has the biggest (4,200 mAh) battery of the bunch. Meanwhile, the Note9 and Pixel 2 XL are still last. Finally, the last chart takes into account the battery endurance score that we gave these phones when we reviewed them. Simply put, this is our battery endurance score of the amount of battery that the phone manages to charge in half an hour. The Mate 20 and Find X were right next to each other in the capacity chart, but the endurance chart reflects the difference in battery endurance scored between the two devices - still very impressive numbers from Huawei. Huawei Mate 20 Pro with Super Charge 40W The OnePlus 6T with Dash Charge and the vivo Nex S with Quick Charge 3.0 were neck-and-neck in the 30 minute charge tests where they scored 55% and 50%, respectively. This yielded about 2000 mAh capacity charge in each device with about the same endurance estimations right at 50h. vivo NEX S with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3 The Chinese brands are far ahead of other industry-standards like USB-C Power Delivery and Qualcomm Quick Charge in smartphones simply because the competition between Chinese brands is so fierce. We have to wonder when there will be an industry-wide fast-charging standard that will reach past the 20W-25W range. USB-C Power Delivery has perhaps the most potential to be an industry-wide standard (it does charge many laptops, after all) and it already is quite easy to find USB-C PD power banks and Apple uses the same standard on its laptops. Until then, will we see other phone makers develop their proprietary charging standards outside of China? Haiti - FLASH : Sewing pin found in bread in Petit-Goave On Thursday, December 13th, when the classes of the Hugo Chavez College of Petit-Goave came out, an unknown offered Cindia Jean (age 15) a 8th Year Fundamental student, two breads with pins inside. Accompanied by her parents, Cindia Jean told the microphone of Radio Preference "after the end of classes, a man came to me in the street and offered me two breads. Despite my refusal, he insisted a lot and he forced me to accept them. What I have done. When I opened the breads I saw two pins," face the shock of this discovery, the girl says it took her a few minutes to regain her senses. Unfortunately she claims to be unable to identify the man who gave her the breads. On the other hand, Cindia's parents who denounced a crime of which their daughter was almost a victim, sent a message of caution to other parents and students in particular, "Do not receive anything from anyone you do not know, especially more than one approaches the end of the year." See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26358-haiti-petit-goave-5-members-of-a-family-victims-of-a-poisoned-chadeque-juice.html HL/ HaitiLibre / Guyto Mathieu (Correspondant Petit-Goave) Haiti - Economy : Inauguration of the new municipal market of Ouanaminthe Luma Demetrius the Mayor of Ouanaminthe and Vincent Degert the Ambassador of the European Union, in the presence of other partners including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of the Interior and Local Authorities, proceeded this week at the inauguration of the city's new municipal market. Financed to the tune of 900,000 Euros by the European Union, this contract, whose technical assistance was entrusted to the UNDP, which contributed to the financing of 85,000 Euros, was carried out by the Merineco consortium under the supervision of the Office of the National Authorizing Officer. Recall that the rehabilitation, coupled with the reorganization of the market was launched in 2016. It allowed to pour a concrete slab of 13,700 m2, to rehabilitate the building of meat trade, to proceed with the repair of the roofs of the two covered buildings , set up new gates, repair fencing walls, clean the market and evacuation channels and set up an office for the market manager. More than 2,350 locations are now available for merchants in the area of which 1,800 are already filled. Through the adoption of internal regulations, management and operating rules have been put in place by the Ouanaminthe City Council in consultation with merchants to ensure proper operation and maintenance of the market. In his speech, Ambassador Degert said, "For the market to work sustainably, each actor must play his part. It's is thus that the merchants have to pay their taxes and comply with the market regulations. For its part, it is up to the town hall, with the resources collected, to provide the necessary services including cleaning, garbage collection and ensure safety [...] It is thanks to this mutual respect of the commitments that the market will work and become an example across the country. Know that other cities in the country look at you and that others will want to be inspired by this innovative management model." This project is part of a broader support provided by the European Union in the border area of Ouanaminthe. Recall that rural roads have been financed, for example, and the EU is also building the Dajabon-Ouanaminthe border binational market. The EU will also finance a new customs post and remain engaged with the town hall for a new program to be launched early next year. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Croix-des-Bouquets : Enhanced Security Williams Aristide, the Commissioner of the Government of Croix-des-Bouquets said this week that in collaboration with the head of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) of the municipality, a security plan was implemented for the holiday season but also to fight against gangs. Promise of 40 new Health Centers Ronald Decembre, the Minister of Economy and Finance says that state institutions working in the social will receive support from the Government through the budget 2018-2019. On the health front, he announced that 40 health centers will be built across the country in 2019. PNH : 6th Commissioners Promotion The National Police of Haiti (PNH) recruited on the basis of a contest, 69 police inspectors for its 6th Promotion of Commissioners. For nearly 7 months these inspectors aspiring Commissioners will undergo a very complete training. CODEVI : Inauguration of the micro service park Inauguration of the micro service park at the CODEVI industrial park in Ouanaminthe https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26304-haiti-economy-inauguration-of-the-micro-park-of-services-in-ouanaminthe.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-18386-icihaiti-economy-laying-the-foundation-stone-of-the-service-micro-park-of-ouanaminthe.html , which will host 60 shops that can serve up to 2,000 workers, who will benefit daily from a hot dish at a reduced price. https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26404-haiti-politic-government-accompanying-measures-to-assist-workers.html ONI has produced 600,000 CIN out of a million Jude Jacques Elibert, the Director General of the National Office of Identification (ONI) Jude Jacques Elibert confirms the printing of 600,000 National Identification Cards (CIN) on more than one million requests for renewal. Construction of the Carrefour Administrative Complex In Thor 10, in the commune of Carrefour, began the construction of the Administrative Complex of the commune of Carrefour with a surface of about 600 m2 which will house within 6 months months, the Court of Peace, the office of the Civil Registry and the crossroads branch of the National Office of Identification (ONI). HL/ HaitiLibre Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) It was a praise unlikely coming from the President. President Rodrigo Duterte, in a speech in Las Pinas City Thursday, expressed his approval of Pope Francis. "Itong pope ngayon, progressive 'to. Diyan ako, bilib ako. Saludo talaga ako dito," he said. [Translation: This pope, he's progressive. I'm for him, I believe him. I salute him.] Earlier reports said the pontiff has expressed concern over the "serious issue" of homosexuality among clergymen -- a concern he shares with Duterte. Duterte also slammed the "scandal brewing now" in the Vatican due to homosexuality. In the same speech, the President defended his previous statement ordering the killing of bishops. He claimed clergymen should not be surprised with his tirades if the priests use the Church to attack him. "Kung kayong mga pari, mga obispo, mga p***** i** kayo, if you can say that to me, wish me the --- to die in a mass, eh bakit ako hindi makasalita? 'Di kayo rin. Tutal, sino man maniwala na magpunta kayo ng langit? You're dreaming. Ay lahat tayo magkita-kita sa impiyerno," he said. [Translation: If you priests, bishops, **** *** all, if you can say that to me, wish me to die, why wouldn't I speak up? I'll speak against you as well. Besides, who will believe that you'll go to heaven? You're dreaming. We'll see each other in hell," he said.] Duterte was referring to Father Noel Gatchalian who celebrated mass for Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, whose amnesty he voided on August 31. The priest had said he was praying that Duterte should fall ill amid allegations of his failing health. READ: Duterte to priests: You should all die from venereal disease Ties between Duterte and the Catholic church have been strained amid the latter's scathing comments. The President has gone as far as calling God stupid, cursing at the Pope for causing traffic during his 2015 Manila visit, taking a swipe at the Bible's writers, and claiming that around 90 percent of priests are homosexuals. READ: Duterte: Kill 'useless' Catholic bishops criticizing gov't Last updated 12/14/2018 at 11:10am Monday 8 a.m. Center for Mental Health meeting in Great Falls 5 p.m. Grazing Committee meeting at the Courthouse Annex Tuesday 10:30 a.m. Weekly road meeting 2 p.m. RSID #21 5:30 p.m. Fair Board meeting in the Timmons room Wednesday 11 a.m. Meeting with Brian Williams from Northern Montana Hospital 2 p.m. Blood-borne pathogens policy Thursday 10 a.m. Weekly business meeting Time for public comments Manual claims Employment review Tax adjustments Contracts Resolutions County permit approval Subdivision/survey approval 3 p.m. Airport meeting at City Hall Friday Regular office hours. Two local businesses reported Wednesday to the Havre Police Department bomb threats made through suspicious emails, which the police later determined were not credible threats. The department is asking anyone who receives a similar email to not delete the message and to contact the police at 265-4361, Havre police said in a press release. The release said that Wednesday at 11:57 a.m. a caller from a local business reported that the business had received a suspicious email. Investigating officers found that the email indicated an explosive device was in the building and it requested money be transferred in Bitcoin. At 1:10 p.m. a second business reported receiving a similar threatening email. The police learned that this email threat has been occurring nationwide and determined that the threat is not credible. By Keith J. Doll Havre/Hill County Historic Preservation Commission In 1902, Ed Broadwater and Simon Pepin sold their mercantile stock of Broadwater-Pepin Co. to W. E. French of Harlem and rented their building on First Street to H. W. Gross, who owned a business east of the store. The Post Office relocated earlier to the Chestnut block, located on the northwest corner of Second Street and Third Avenue. Ed and Simon retired from the mercantile trade to give more time to their cattle business. In 1903 H.W. Gross sold half interest in his business to his brother-in-law John J. Lebert from Kalispell and the firm became known as Gross and Lebert. They sold hardware, furniture, tinware, farm machinery, wagons, buggies, coffins and caskets. Also in 1902 and 1903, with the new Great Northern shops in Havre, they needed lodging for the workers that were moving in. Prominent men and businesses like Joe Gussenhoven, A.J. Broadwater, L.K. Devlin, Simon Pepin, Pat Yeon, H.W. Stringfellow, Joe DeMars, Gus Decelle, and the Broadwater-Pepin Company built many cottages by the railroad and around town for the workers coming to Havre to work in the shops. Shortly after midnight on Thursday, Jan. 14, 1904, a fire was spotted in the back of the Gross and Leberts store. A southwest wind had melted all the snow and there was still a southwest wind blowing at that time. An alarm went off in the railway yard also a whistle at the Havre Electric Company, located on the northwest corner of Second Street and Fourth Avenue where the I.O.O.F. building is today. After the fire started there was a big explosion in the Gross and Leberts store, blowing the windows out and the roof off, meaning the fire had hit gunpowder. At no time, as fierce as the fire was, did they imagine saving any of the structures on the oldest block in town. The north side of the street was saved thanks to the Great Northern Railway, with only some cracked windows from the heat. A fire hose was attached to the Great Northern water system and full pressure was put on, giving the north side of the street such a soaking a fire couldnt start. When the fire first started any items they had time to save was stacked on the street. It wasnt long until the hobos and looters were going through the salvage and taking what they wanted. Fifteen arrests were made in both fires. The second fire and the fire that caused more damage than the first, broke out about noon that same day. A store clerk at Stringfellow Drug Store opened the trap door to go downstairs into the cellar and was greeted by heavy smoke. The Stringfellow Drug Store was located on the southeast corner of First Street and Third Avenue. With the burst of oxygen hitting the smoke it started a fire. They only had time to remove one display case and themselves before the fire burned down the frame building. It then burned east to the Skylesteads Store, Montana Supply Company, then to the Hotel Havre. The fire burned to the end of the block. Sparks were flying in the air like fireflies; one landed across the street and started M. Nordins Clothing Store on fire. A spark landed on the wooden sidewalk of F.A. Buttreys Fair Store, next to Nordens store, and soon that building was also in flames. To the east, all the buildings burned down including the Metropolitan Hotel on the far east side of the block. West from the Fair Store it went to the Buffalo Saloon on the corner. It then burned north to W.W. Thackerays bakery and residence on the corner. The fire went east burning dwellings and other buildings, making a clean sweep of that block. The block between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, Main and First Street of mostly dwellings burned next, all but the southeast corner. Ropes closed the streets and avenues so spectators couldnt go past and be in danger. The Montana Central in Great Falls sent Railway engine #151, a tank car with water, a flatcar with a large supply of chemicals, and a caboose. The Fire Chief and Chief of Police from Great Falls also came to help. The train left Great Falls at 2:40 p.m. and arrived in Havre at 5:55 p.m. making the trip in 3 hours and 15 minutes. Faster by 50 minutes than a scheduled passenger trip. This train had the right-of-way, three handcars got in the way, and they were smashed to splinters, but no one was hurt. The fire pretty much ran out of buildings for it to burn, so it was easy to contain. They were able to get control of it about 5:00 that evening. Undersheriff Blevens swore in several men as deputy sheriffs to help keep order and watch the salvage. Captains McDonald and Rice from Fort Assinniboine came up with 40 to 50 men to help guard the salvage overnight. The Great Northern sent some sleeping cars for the railroad workers and their families until they could find a suitable place to stay. Each car had its own porter to keep the car warm and help where they could. Rental space for business and sleeping places were at a premium. The new McIntire Opera House, built in late 1903 and next to P.J. and Margaret McIntyres residence, became a bunkhouse and a place for the First National Bank to move temporarily. The Opera House was located on the north side of Second Street between Third and Fourth avenues about where Wells Fargo parking lot is now. No one was killed in the fires. To this day, it is not known what or who caused the fire. Several theories have been made, even one arrest, but no proof or witnesses, just theories. To be continued in part II of Havre and the fire of 1904 Staff Sgt. Kyle Terry and Sgt. Austin Phillips Stand outside the National Guard office Tuesday, December 4, 2018 in Havre, Mont. The grounds have a main building but also other spaces for storage and training exercises. The Havre U.S. Army National Guard has served the community and the country for many generations. Prior to World War II the National Guard had a strong presence in this area with posts across the Hi-Line, but the Havre branch of the Army National Guard was established shortly after the war's end, Ray Reed of the Montana Military Museum said. The Havre Army National Guard had been located different posts within the community before the Armory was established on Second Street, he added. In the past 18 years the Havre Army National Guard has been deployed three different times, the last one in 2014, said Staff Sgt. Kyle Terry, the unit's readiness non-commissioned officer. He added that he transferred to the Havre branch in 2014. Though he could not give specifics about the deployments he confirmed that the National Guard was last deployed the same year he transferred to the armory. He said the Havre branch was previously a quartermaster supply company but has recently gotten orders as a composite supply company. Terry said the duties of a composite supply company are to train soldiers to produce and distribute purified water, and bulk petroleum products and to run warehouse operations. One of the platoon's missions is to pull up to a water source that is dirty, run it through their equipment to clean it, bottle it and have it available for soldiers consumption, Terry said. The process requires that they control how much they can produce, calculate how much they need and deem water safety through chemical tests. There are a variety of military occupational specialties within the 639th Company, he added, with a diverse team of people from across the state. Terry said the company has a fun and challenging roll. He added that the company's new military occupational specialty, or MOS, is more realistic to him because they are able to provide more training to their soldiers in scenarios that they are likely to see if deployed. Being a quartermaster supply company was difficult, he said, because it was difficult to find warehouses in which soldiers could train in a matter of real-world scenarios. "I look forward to being able to give these guys training that looks like what they are going to do when deployed," Terry said. That's always the goal of the National Guard, to either make the training more challenging or exactly like conditions would be when deployed, he added. The National Guard soldiers train in various locations, he said. Some of the training is home-station and some is at resource training grounds that the military has for prepared for them so they can do more specific tasks without infringing on the civilian population. They work to make their footprint as small possible while maintaining good training, he added. He said the Guard tries its best to make sure soldiers receive their training where they are posted. "We try to get them the training that they need at their home," Terry said. "So, at the end of the day, they can see their families or be at their home of record. That's not always possible, but we do the best we can at that." Terry added that the Guard is building its enrollment and they are always looking for more people to enlist. The main function of the Havre Guard Armory is that it is their home station, the headquarters for the 639th, he said. "This is where the magic happens," Terry said. There they coordinate the unit, and get training set up and conducted for any emergency response that would happen, he said. The building can be used by other agencies, he added, such as Federal Emergency Management Agency working in the building during the flooding last spring, he said. "It's a great asset to have on the Hi-Line as far as inter agency communication," Terry. But the primary function of the building is to house the soldiers for the training that is conducted at home station, he said. During training the space is utilized so the soldiers have access to the drill floor, motor pool, critical skills and tasks that help them complete larger tasks at their annual training, Terry said. The National Guard contract specifies that training occurs one weekend of every month and two weeks in the summer, he said. A day in a life of people in the National Guard depends on the soldier, what their job is and how well their leadership takes care of them, he said. He added that as far as training, they need to be proficient at their MOS. Terry said he has been with the National Guard since 2001. He was serving with Charlie Company out of Great Falls as a training NCO and tank commander before coming to Havre. He said he started as an infantry man in Belgrade and was going to college before he was deployed, then ended up in Great Falls. "My experience has been very diverse," he said. "I think that is something that I think that most guardsmen would experience. Having the opportunity to not only train in multiple other states but also deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan." He added that the Guard really broadened his career and helps people understand all the different cultures in the U.S. they are exposed to. Sgt. Austin Phillips said that he has been in the Guard since 2010, adding that he moved to Havre this year and is the local recruiter. He said before coming to Havre he lived in Washington State working as a recruiter. He added that the Guard looks for a couple of key things in recruits, like motivation and a desire to serve the country, and the Guard can always find something that it can provide to recruits, whether it's education benefits or an opportunity to experience something different or outside their current situation. The Guard offers many different benefits, he added. Terry said the other opportunity is service to the country. The Guard can offer a lot of things, and those are excellent, but what he's seen is that without that desire to serve the country it becomes very difficult to meet the challenges that the military has, he said. In his opinion, Terry added, people need to come in with a "service heart" to be able to meet the challenges that are the standard for the military. Phillips said what is admirable about his company is the work ethic he has seen. The soldiers want to do something, he said, they are hungry to learn and to apply the knowledge they have. Terry said he admires the ambition and the integrity of his company. The ability to transition from a demanding full-time career to traveling and showing up to a training period with the military is challenging, he said, including being able to recall the past six months and build on that training. That challenge is what he sees his soldiers meet every day every month, Terry said - they are really ambitious and work very hard. He said his job is to be the link between the months of training for his company. Certain positions are filled by soldiers who come to Havre from different parts of the state or the nation for the, he said. Other spots in the unit are filled by people who grew up in Havre or live in the area. The company does its best to foster a community-type organization but people might have opportunities in different parts of the state with a completely different company, he said. Where people get in the National Guard isn't necessarily where they're going to end up, he added. The Guard has a variety of specialties, such as combat arms, logistics, intel, computers, petroleum work and mechanics. He said some veterans from other branches occasionally come in to tell their stories. He said he welcomes them, adding that the Armory also has a family assistance center for veterans. Terry said that they do not have a lot of resources in the building for veterans, but they can always work with them on getting things figured out. Phillips said veterans with prior service occasionally enlist in the Guard. It is a little different for people who served in active duty in the past then come home and want to serve part time, he said. Terry added that someone who served in the National Guard in a different company can enlist in the Havre company if they are interested, had an honorable discharge and they meet the requirements. The requirements to enlist, Phillips said, are that a person has to be 18 years old or 17 with parents' permission and on track to graduate. The oldest a non-veteran can be is 34, and they have to go to training before they are 35. Phillips said the Havre company has a large age range in its soldiers. Terry said one of the greatest benefits to having a local armory is it is easier to pull troops together into one location and train them as a whole. Without the facility and space it would become very challenging, he said. He added that the facility has also created the ability for other agencies such as FEMA, the K-9 unite and the police force, to use as needed Havre Daily News/Ryan Berry Sgt. Austin Phillips smiles during a tour of the Army National Guard facility Tuesday, December 4, 2018 in Havre, Mont. Phillips, a member of the National Guard since 2010, moved to Havre on October 31. "I think it has a great benefit to the community," Terry said, among the many benefits to having guardsman in the community, he added. The Guard offers a lot of opportunities for people to enlist and still be able to enroll in college, Terry said. The biggest challenge is the balance between having a civilian career and serving the nation - which is a contractual obligation that National Guard soldiers have to fulfill, Terry said. It doesn't alway hit at the most convenient times but his company comes together and gets it done. He added that keeping themselves mentally prepared for their mission as guardsmen is difficult for soldiers, but the Guard tries to ease that challenge as much as possible at the local level through various programs offered. "Come in, talk to the recruiter or myself and see what the Guard has to offer," Terry said. "If there is an interest we definitely want to hear about it." Out our way, the best way to learn some things is to just be quiet. I recall Charlie and I riding fence one day when we came across a lone calf far from the rest of the herd. Usually the little tykes stay close to mama but this one was apparently a curious and adventurous type or just plain naughty. Whatever the reason, the herd had moved over the ridge to the reservoir and this guy had been left behind. He wasnt overly frightened or curious about these two riders coming up upon him in fact he pretty well ignored us. He just stood stock still, listening. After a bit, we all... Sunnyside Intermediate School administration reported to the Havre Police Department Thursday finding a threat written on the wall of the boys bathroom referencing a school shooting. Havre Public Schools Superintendent Andy Carlson said this morning that the school district resolved the situation. He added that at no time were students and staff in danger. Carlson declined to say if the district knew who wrote the threat, just saying that the issue had been resolved. Carlson said the school district tries to inform the community of these incidents as accurately and quickly as possible.... Stockings are designated for toops in the Montana Army National Guard's 495th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion Thursday, December 13, 2018 in Havre, Mont. Each troop in the battalion has a personalized stocking being sent their way. St. Jude Thaddeus School is tracking the work its students are doing to help others this Christmas season, both locally and overseas. In the foyer of the school, a paper thermometer is taped up to the wall, flanked by a mountain of non-perishable food and the red tracker shows 528 pounds. Just up the stairs in Carly Brunk's eighth-grade class, students began stuffing stockings with candy canes and games for troops in Afghanistan. Brunk said the stockings are a sort of follow-up to last month's candy drive, in which St. Jude's students brought in left-over Halloween candy which they sent... Gemmel added that the National HR Summit is important because it is a reminder of the significant impact HR can have on culture and performance of organisations. So, if Gemmell could give one piece of advice to HR professionals relating to her topic - what would it be? Be curious, commercial and compassionate. Another speaker at the National HR Summit will be Chris Lamb, Group Head of Talent & Organisational Development at Lendlease. Lamb will be speaking on the topic of Diversity and Inclusion in a Post #metoo World. Culprit is lone error in one gene, but researchers find many potential therapeutic targets Unlike the more common Alzheimers disease, frontotemporal dementia tends to afflict young people. It accounts for an estimated 20 percent of all cases of early-onset dementia. Patients with the illness typically begin to suffer memory loss by their early 60s, but it can affect some people as young as their 40s, and there are no effective treatments. In an effort to better understand the condition, an international team of researchers, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has found that a lone mutation in a single gene that causes an inherited form of frontotemporal dementia makes it harder for neurons in the brain to communicate with one another, leading to neurodegeneration. The new findings zero in on the MAPT gene. That gene makes a protein called tau, which also has been associated with cognitive decline in Alzheimers disease. Identifying the downstream effects of the mutation could help identify new treatment targets for frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimers disease and other tau-related illnesses, including Parkinsons disease. The study is published Dec. 13 in the journal Translational Psychiatry. We have demonstrated that we can capture changes in human cells cultured in a dish that also are appearing in the brains of individuals suffering with frontotemporal dementia, said Celeste M. Karch, assistant professor of psychiatry and one of the studys senior authors. Importantly, the approach we are using allows us to zero in on genes and pathways that are altered in cells and in patient brains that may be influenced by compounds already approved by the FDA. We want to evaluate whether any of these compounds could prevent memory loss, or even restore memory, in people with frontotemporal dementia by improving the function of these pathways that have been disrupted. Karch, with co-senior author Carlos Cruchaga, associate professor of psychiatry, and the other co-senior author, Oscar Harari, assistant professor of psychiatry, gathered skin samples from patients with frontotemporal dementia who were known to have a specific mutation in the MAPT gene. The researchers then converted the patients skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which have the ability to grow and develop into any cell type in the body. The researchers treated these stem cells with compounds that coaxed them to grow and develop into neurons, which also had the MAPT mutation. Then, using gene-editing technology called CRISPR, the researchers eliminated the mutation in some neurons but not others and observed what happened. We found differences in genes and pathways related to cellular communication, suggesting the mutation alters neurons ability to communicate, said Cruchaga. The initial mutation in MAPT is the key change that starts the disease, and it is a potential target for therapy, but there are other genes downstream from the MAPT gene that also are good targets that may be used to treat the disease. In neurons with the mutation, the researchers found alterations in 61 genes, including genes that make GABA receptors on brain neurons. GABA receptors are the major inhibitory receptors in the brain, and they are key to several types of communication between brain cells. The researchers identified similar disruptions in genes that make GABA receptors when they did experiments in animal models and analyzed brain tissue from patients who had died with frontotemporal dementia. They also looked at findings from a genomewide association study of more than 2,000 patients with frontotemporal dementia and more than 4,000 without the disorder. That analysis also pointed to GABA-related genes as potential targets. Using our stem cell-derived neurons, we have the opportunity, in human tissue, to target some of those GABA genes in advance of the neurodegeneration we see in the postmortem tissue we study, said Harari. So, at least in cell cultures, we can learn whether potential therapies prevent the damage caused by inherited forms of frontotemporal dementia. And by studying rare, inherited forms of brain diseases, the researchers believe they will learn a great deal about how to treat the more common forms of those disorders. Genetic forms of frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimers disease are caused by rare mutations, Cruchaga said. But they have much in common with the more typical cases of those diseases. If we understand these cases caused by inherited mutations, we also should better understand the common forms of these diseases. Jiang S, et al. Integrative system biology analyses of CRISPR-edited iPSC-derived neurons and human brains reveal deficiencies of presynaptic signaling in FTLD and PSP. Translational Psychiatry, published online Dec. 13, 2018. This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Grant numbers K01 AG046374, R01 AG056923, R01 AG044546, P01 AG003991, RF1 AG053303, R01 AG052501, U01 AG05241102, U01AG058922, P50 AGB05681, P01 AG03991and P01 AG026276, and the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimers Network, DIAN UF1AG032438. Additional funding from the Tau Consortium, the Alzheimer Association, the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Raul Carrea Institute for Neurological Research, the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, AMED, and the Korea Health Technology R&D project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute. Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare. Originally published by the School of Medicine Tale of Two Brave Women The Lightning will add chapters of the Tale of Two Brave Woman series after we publish in the print issue. * * * * * Several years ago my cousin and neighbor, Mack Gillespie, handed me a faded seven-page typescript. He said a relative had given it to him. Dated 1890, the short but amazing memoir was written by Mary Middleton Orr and titled, The Experiences of a Soldiers Wife in the Civil War. Born in 1843 to Kinson Middleton (1818-1885) and Narcissus Beck Middleton (1827-1907), Mary Middleton married Robert Franklin Orr IV. At the date of the memoir, Mary was mother of 17 children! Only nine had survived at the time. In 1864, Mary Orr, 24, and her mother, 37, decided to walk from Transylvania County to Knoxville, Tennessee, to join their Union soldier husbands. They would be traveling through dangerous Confederate held territory. Here begins the remarkable story in Marys own words. Jere Brittain, the Lightnings West of the French Broad columnist By MARY MIDDLETON ORR Memoir of the Civil War, 1890 Chapter 1 Robert F. Orr and I were married in January, 1862. In the fall of the same year he was taken to the Confederate army, and stayed there until, in the spring of 1863, he ran away and came home. He said he would not go back to the Confederate army, and stayed at home until in the fall, when they made up a company of about seventy-five or 100 men and went to the Yankees as we called them. I begged him not to go in the army any more; but he told me not to say a word to him, for he had been driven from his home and he intended to fight his way back, which he did. So I was left alone. My father also went with Robert F. to the Yankees; my mother was left too, with nine children and I with one child; that made twelve of us in all. My mother was poor and times were hard and she could not keep me. My father-in-law, who lived in Transylvania County, heard that I was alone and sent a wagon for me and moved me to his house. I went to my father-in-law in March, 1864, and stayed there until the middle of August, when, as my sister-in-law and I were out milking, we saw a crowd coming. We were frightened; it was something uncommon to see a crowd unless it was soldiers, for people were afraid to travel, times were getting so close. But when they came up, we saw it was my mother and the children. It was about sixteen miles to where they lived in Henderson County. My father had sent her word through the lines to come to him if she could get there, if she brought nothing except the children and what they had on their backs. So she had sold or given away all she had and was on her way to Knoxville, Tennessee, to the Yankees. Now when she told me where she had started I was amazed. I was almost speechless for a moment to think of my condition my husband gone to the Yankees and my mother started. It was near sundown when they came. I said, Mother, I am going with you, for we will all starve or be killed here. She said, Mary, I am not going to tell you to go or stay, for I dont know what will happen to us before we get through; though I would be glad of your company. Now you may guess I did not sleep much, for my thoughts ran fast. I just had until day to make up my mind. When morning came I had made up my mind to go. My father-in-law said, Mary you cant go; you will take that baby away and starve him to death. I said, Yes, I will go. My husband is there and my mother is going, and the Rebs will starve us to death, and what do I want to stay here for? Chapter 2 Several years ago my cousin and neighbor, Mack Gillespie, handed me a faded seven-page typescript. He said a relative had given it to him. Dated 1890, the short but amazing memoir was written by Mary Middleton Orr and titled, The Experiences of a Soldiers Wife in the Civil War. Born in 1843 to Kinson Middleton (1818-1885) and Narcissus Beck Middleton (1827-1907), Mary Middleton married Robert Franklin Orr IV. At the date of the memoir, Mary was mother of 17 children! Only nine had survived at the time. In 1864, Mary Orr, 24, and her mother, 37, decided to walk from Transylvania County to Knoxville, Tennessee, to join their Union soldier husbands. They would be traveling through dangerous Confederate held territory. Jere Brittain, the Lightnings West of the French Broad columnist By MARY MIDDLETON ORR Memoir of the Civil War, 1890 Chapter 2 Father-in-law left the house; he could not bear to see me start. Mother said, Now, Mary, if you go with us I will make a pilot out of you, for you have more tongue than I. So we started up the river through the rough country called Pinkbed Mountain, and traveled one day in that direction. But we made only about eight or nine miles, for we came to the river and had no way to cross except to wade. We all sat down on the bank and pulled off our shoes and waded, thinking that a rough job. We put on our shoes again and traveled about one mile when we came to the river again, pulled off and waded again, and so on until we crossed the river eight times, though we quit pulling off our shoes and went in shoes and all. We arrived at Luke Osteens just at dark. Next day it rained all day, and we had to stay another day and night. They told us there that we could not get through the mountains with all those children. That almost put us out of heart; but we started back the next morning and were told how to keep from wading the river and how to go to the left of Asheville to keep from being taken up by the Confederate soldiers. We came back in two miles of my father-in-laws about sundown and stayed at George Orrs that night. My father-in-law heard we were there and he was not satisfied. He came by sun-up next morning to see if I was in the notion to go back. He came in at the gate as I was at the pump washing my face. He said, Mary are you going back? No sir, I said. I didnt start to go back. I am going to Knoxville if I dont starve or get killed on the way. My little boy, just 19 months old, ran up to him, for he thought a heap of his grandfather. Well, Mary, said my father-in-law, I dont want any hardness; but if you will go, you shall not take this child, and he picked up the child as he said it. I cannot tell what I felt. If you have a child, think how you would feel if someone would step up and say, You shall not have it any longer unless you follow me. I begged and cried until George Orr, at whose house we spent the night, ran through the hall into the kitchen to keep me from hearing him. I went to the kitchen where he was and asked him to go to my father-in-law and take the child from him. He said no, he would have nothing to do with it. As I went back to the gate, his wife said to me, Mary, there are enough of you to take it from him. So I started and asked Mother to come and help me. Father-in-law ran down the road and I thought he was gone. I fell at the gate and begged and cried until the child got scared and began crying too. The old man could not stand that; he put the child down, and it ran back to me and put its little arms around my neck to make me quit crying. The old man said, I would not have put it down if I had not thought you would be fool enough to kill yourself. Chapter 3 George Orr told us to go right through Asheville instead of going around, and to get Col. Palmer to give us a pass to go to Knoxville. I thought that a big mouthful-to step up to a Rebel colonel and ask for a pass, but we had set our heads to go through if we could get there by the help of the Master Who keeps us all. We were two days getting to Asheville. The sun was an hour high when we got there and, before we had time to think where we were, we ran right up on the Rebel guards and they halted us. I was scared almost to death, but tried to hold up my head. I asked them where Col. Palmer was. They pointed to a flight of stairs on the left and said that his office was there. We all strolled up the steps and got to the door. There were four or five men around in the room writing. I asked where Col. Palmer was. They said he would be up in a minute. He came and we told our business, that we wanted a pass to go to Knoxville. Palmer said, What in the hell do you want to go there for? I told him we were going to get something to eat. He then asked where our men were, and I thought we were gone up. I had two brothers in the crowd, twelve and fourteen years old and large for their age. The Confederates had already taken the sixteen year old boys, and I was afraid my brothers would be taken. As I have said, my husband, Robert F. Orr, ran away from the Rebs in the spring. Soon after that, Folks Battalion was captured by the Yankees. So I told Palmer that Folks Battalion had been captured and that I had not heard from my man since. I made it appear that he was captured in that battalion. So they began to count us. The little children, tired out, were all huddled down on the floor. He counted us over twice and said, I reckon I will have to let you go; it will take a heap of corn to feed these little children. He turned round to one of his men and said, John, write a pass for Mrs. Middleton, three grown daughters, and eight children. Middleton was my mothers name. You may guess I felt free when I got that pass. I took it in my hand and felt like a bird out of a cage. By this time it was near sundown, and the next problem was where we were going to stay all night. When we came out on the street, someone told us there was a man by the name of Mathers that they thought we could stay with. He lived half a mile to the right of Asheville. So we marched double quick until we got there. Mother and the children stayed at the edge of the yard while I went up to the door and asked if we could stay all night. How many are there? Mrs. Mather said. Twelve, I said. Oh no; I cant keep so many. I turned to go, thinking that we were bound to stay out that night when she called to me and said, What is your name? I said, My name is Orr; my mothers name is Middleton. She jumped out at the door and said, Hold on. What Middleton? Its not Kinsons wife is it? I said, Yes. Mother stepped in the yard. Mrs. Mather threw her arms around mothers neck and said, Why, Sis, you know I will let you stay, if you have to lie on the floor. Chapter 4 Though they (the Mathers family, where the sojourners had stayed the night) were Rebs, I was never treated better in my life; and they did not charge us a cent. Mr. Mather also told us that Col. Palmer was bound to give us something to eat if we asked for it. So I sent my two brothers back to him and got a supply of such as he had corn meal, rice and salt. And he said if we would wait until noon we could have some beef. But we did not wait. We carried our corn down to Madison County and swapped it for flour. We tried to keep a little rations on hand all the time, so when we came to a place where they would not give us anything to eat but would let us stay in the house, we could cook our own rations. We were two days going from Asheville to Marshall. We stayed there one night at a Mrs. Baileys. There was a man in Marshall who took us for tramps; but although we were nothing but a crowd of women and children, we let him know better. After he found out we were not to be fooled with, he seemed to be very sorry for us and wanted to help us. But we were so angry with him we would not have any of his help. We traveled about eight miles next day. When night came we were five miles from where anyone lived. We knew we would have to lie out that night, and we had nothing to eat except a piece of bread about the size of my hand for each of us. There was a little house on the other side of the river. The river was on one side of the road, so we could not get to the house. We came to a patch of corn. I said, Mother, we never have stolen anything yet. But now here is a corn patch and we will have some roasting ears. I felt mean about it, for maybe the corn belonged to some very poor man. There was a house about two hundred yards from the corn patch, and no one lived in it. So we took our headquarters there that night, all wet from the rain that fell that day. Mother had a few matches in her pocket. We struck all of them but one, and no fire. At last I took our pass out of my pocket and got the paper it was wrapped in and the fire started with the last match. We all had a suit of clothes besides the ones we had on. We put them under our heads and lay on the floor and kept the fire all night. Next day we traveled until two or three oclock, when we came to someones house and got something to eat. We thought we were now among strangers. The woman asked who we were and where we were going. When I told her my mothers name, she said, Why Sis, is that you? We sure had a little meeting. She was one of my mothers schoolmates. Chapter 5 We had to show our pass at Big Ivy. It was the only time we were asked to show it. We got within one or two miles of the Paint Mountain, and it rained the hardest rain I think I ever saw fall. We came to a house after we had got awfully wet, and we thought we would go in till the rain stopped. We went in the hall, not seeing anyone. Directly there came a woman with a pail of water, and I told her we thought we would stop a minute out of the rain. She never made any reply, but began to wash the floor where our clothes dripped. We certainly got out of there. We got in the big road, and one of my sisters turned at the gate and just preached their funeral until we had to make her stop. We didnt know what kind of people they were. By this time the rain was over but the road was full of water. We got about one half mile away from that house when we looked back and saw four men on horses coming from the direction of that house as hard as they could. I said, We are gone up now. I knew it was the Rebs. I told my sister to hold her tongue now, for that was why those Rebs were coming after us. They halted us and asked us where we were going, and we told them. They said, Havent you mail, carrying through? We said, No. They said, We must search you, for we have heard lots of people say no and have found lots of mail with them. So they got off their horses and searched our bundles and the little boys pockets, and went back. We soon got to Paint Creek, and it was up. We were already wet, and we packed up the least children and waded up to our waist in water. We crossed Paint Mountain that evening and stayed that night with a man at the foot of the mountain. They were Rebs, but they treated us very well, though we could see that they did not like us. It was hot weather. We went to bed, our clothes all wet, got up the next morning, put on our wet clothes and started again. We traveled until about one oclock, when it came another rain as big as ever. This time we stopped before it began to rain. Oh what a rain! It washed away fences and everything as it went. We had to stay there all night. They were very poor people; they could not furnish us any beds to lie on or anything to eat except roasting ears. We gave them forty cents for one dozen roasting ears and slept on the floor. They gave us wood to keep a fire all night, and about midnight fire popped out on me and burned through my clothes. You may guess I woke and did not sleep much more. Next morning we started bright and early on our journey. The road was filled with logs and brush, so we had to travel slowly to get along. We almost got out of heart for five or six miles. Next we came to the mouth of Chucky River. We had to cross it in a canoe. I thought we were at the end of our journey, for I knew we would get drowned. Some of us had never been in a canoe, but we had to do something. So I began to holler over and over. Chapter 6 It was about half an hour before anyone came. At last an old Negro woman came and said she could not take all of us at once, so I took my child and three of the brothers and sisters and went over all right. I felt safe myself. But when I looked back to the other side my heart ached for fear some of us would be left in the water. The old Negro got about half way over the next time and ran against a snag of some sort that threw her in the river. But she bounced in and grabbed the pole and went to the other side all right and brought the rest across. We felt as if we had been let out of jail and went our way rejoicing. We traveled about two miles when we heard someone shout. We looked behind on the side of the hill in the woods and saw six men coming on horseback at full speed. They came up and spoke to us and asked where we were going. We said we were going to Knoxville. They said, Go on; we will soon be there too. And on they went. They turned off to the left after they passed us, so we thought we were free again. We stayed at a rich mans house that night, two miles from Morristown. He did not want us to stay, but we begged him. We told him we did not want to stay out, and we would do our own cooking if he would let us have the use of his cooking vessels, and we would sleep on the floor. So they said we could stay. They were Rebs and did not have much to say to us. Next morning we traveled a short distance when we saw four men coming toward us. I said, Mother, I believe thats Yankees. Sure enough, when they came up they asked us where we were from and we told them North Carolina. One of them said, I told you so. They asked where we were going and we told them and they all waved their hats and wished us good luck. We asked them if they were Yankees. They said they were, and we told them we were not afraid of them as we had been of the Rebs we saw the day before. They said we need not fear any more, for we were in Yankeedom. I cannot describe my feelings; I felt so relieved and safe. We aimed to take the train at Morristown. But when we got there, there had been a big battle at Knoxville. The Rebs had lost, and as they fled back up the railroad they tore up the crossties, piled them in heaps and set them afire. They were still burning when we got to Morristown. You may guess that was a sight for us, for we had never seen a railroad before-then to see it burning and knock us out of our ride. We walked the railroad to Flat Creek, within thirteen miles of Knoxville. The train ran to Flat Creek; that was as far as it could go. I forgot to state at the outset that my mother sold all that she had for Confederate money, except one cow that she sold for $15.00 in silver. She gave $3.00 of that for a ride to Knoxville from Flat Creek. Chapter 7 We stayed all night at Flat Creek. Next morning we were all anxious to see the train coming. We went out to the station, and the train came. We all got in as soon as it stopped, for they told us it would not stop long. The little boys, my brothers, were so taken off with the sight that they ran from one window to the other until the train whistled, and then such a scared set you never saw. They started for their seats and fell down as they went. I have talked of being out of heart on our way, but we never really got out of heart until then. My father had gone to the Yankees. But instead of going in the army as my husband did, he rented a farm in three miles of Knoxville and made a crop of corn, beans, molasses and such. We aimed to go to him. But there we were in Knoxville and knew not which road to go to find him. We went three miles on several roads. We asked everybody we met on the street, until I got ashamed to ask any more, if they knew anyone by the name of Middleton. At last, near night, one man told us to go to the provost marshal and he would tell us what to do. So we went and found him, or at least his headquarters. They told us there that we would have to prove our loyalty before we could get anything. We told him that there was no one here that we knew until we could find father. So he wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to us. He told us to go to the relief society, give it to them, and they would give us something to eat. He showed us where to go. We went. They read the paper and we told them we had just come and did not know where to go. They gave us some flour, rice, sugar, salt, coffee, and soda, and told us to go to the Bell house on Main Street, which had one hundred rooms in it, and we would find a vacant room and could occupy it. We went and found the room; the rest of the house was filled with what they called refugees. One woman met us at the door and found out what we wanted. She said, What the devil do you want to come here for? This is the nastiest place I ever saw in my life. They have whooping cough, measles, mumps, and everything thats nasty. We turned around and sat down on a bench by the well at the edge of the yard. It was nearly sundown. I could not bear to go on. Mother and I began to cry. Two soldiers stepped up. They seemed sorry for us and asked what was the matter. We told them we were not used to staying in such a hole as that. They told us it was so near night they could not do anything for us. But if we could stay there till morning they knew of a home about a half mile from there they could get for us. So we stayed. Chapter 8 Next morning these soldiers came and told us they had been and got us a room in that home and they went with us and loaned us two blankets to use a while. I felt like I was home with Yanks camped all around us and every store house full of food. We had left our little town, Hendersonville, empty, not a yard of cloth nor a pound of coffee in it. There was not much to eat in the country, nobody to make anything except women and children. I concluded at last to advertise for father, so I wrote a little piece and took it to the printing office. We stayed there five days. One day there came a man who said he heard we were from North Carolina and thought we might be some of his neighbors. But we were not. I told him my husbands name. He said he knew him. Said his tent was joining my husbands at Cumberland Gap. The man said his name was Henderson and he was discharged from the army on account of bad health. And he told me where I might write, so I wrote a letter that night. He also told me where I might find Father. One of my sisters and I started next morning to find him. We went through Knoxville and asked for a pass to get out of town. They told me it was against orders to give anyone a pass without proving their loyalty. I told them my condition and begged for a pass until they gave me one. We went two miles out on the Maryville Road and inquired for Middleton. Mrs. Dial, the woman of the house where we stopped, said to her grandson, Well aint that the mans name who stayed here last night? He said that it was and that he was looking for his family. My sister and I sprang to the door and said, Thats Father! Mrs. Dial grabbed us by the arm and said, Hold on. Is this some of his family? We said, Yes! But she would not let us go on, but made her grandson saddle the horse and go after him. While he was gone she fixed dinner for us, but we could not eat much for crying for joy that the lost was found. Father came back on the horse, and Will walking. When they got in hearing of us he called out. My sister and I knew his voice and we went to the gate. I looked back and Mrs. Dial was coming too, the tears running down her cheeks. She threw her hands up and shouted, Oh Mr. Middleton, I must rejoice with you for the lost is found! You seemed so badly out of heart last night that I was sorry for you. Now I am glad I can help you rejoice. We then went back to Knoxville, and you may guess we had a meeting when we got to Mother and the rest of the children. We had heard straight news from Robert F., and found Father. Though we had not a bed to sleep on nor a quilt to cover us except two blankets of our own and the two those soldiers had loaned us, we felt happy, not knowing how we were going to live thereafter. Chapter 9 Father rented a house near his crop within two miles of Knoxville, and I drew rations from Knoxville until the war closed. We were two weeks and four days on the road. We stayed two days at one place near Morristown and washed up our clothes. We all had two suits with us. There were two almost babies to carry and our bundles, which made our trip wearisome. My younger sisters were lively and would laugh at Mother and me for looking so sad on the way. I would get out of heart sometimes and almost wish I had not started. Then, the thought of living in the Confederacy and being in dread of my life, and they knowing my husband was with the Yankees or in the mountains (they did not know which) would make me go to the Lord in prayer. I asked Him to guard us through which I truly believe He did. Then I would travel on a day or two in good heart with the thought of getting where we would be protected. It was the fifth day of September, 1864, that we found Father. He then took us to Col. John Baxter who vouched for our loyalty, which set us all right. In the winter of 1864 my father moved twenty miles below Knoxville and we stayed there till the close of the war. In March, 1865, my husband came home sick and stayed until the first of August when he went to his command and was mustered out, I believe, on August 18. Then we were free to battle through life the best we could. All we had before we started to the war was gone, we knew not where. We had to commence anew with two children. But the war was over and our lives saved, and we would not complain. We stayed in Tennessee seven years and then thought it best to come back to old North Carolina where we had a little piece of land all in the woods. He has built a house and opened a little farm and is living on it yet. I am the mother of seventeen children, of whom eight are dead and nine are living. My health is down until I am not able to work much. So sitting about and studying about my life I just thought I would write out a sketch of my war life to let the younger generation a little of the poor southern womans trials and hardships. I can say we have tried to put our trust in the Lord, and He surely has been with us, or we could not have gone through what we have. We truly think we were aided by the Master, for everybody told us before we started that we could not get through without being killed or taken up and put in jail. But somehow I did not fear at all, for I was so determined to go that I never thought of being afraid. I just said, Where theres a will theres a way and the Lord will provide. I have never regretted my trip. Robert F. stayed in the Federal army two years. When he came home he was not the man he was before. But we have done a lot of hard work, whether able or not, for that was and is yet all the way we had to support our family. There is no one who knows the trials and hardships of the southern men and women except those who endured it. For the Union men who would not fight for the Confederacy had to leave their families and risk their lives to go through the woods to the other side. Robert F. said he never fired but one gun while he was in the Confederate army and that was at a squirrel on Sunday. I can say I have seen a sight of soldiershundreds and thousands but never saw a badly wounded or dead soldier. * * * * * Mary Middleton Orr died in 1924 at age 81. Robert Franklin Orr died in 1914 at age 79. They are buried side by side at Beulah Baptist Church cemetery in the Big Willow community. Her life was an example of true morals and a living faith in Christ, Marys marker says. A plain man true to his Country Church and family; loved by all, Roberts says. Next week: Will Confederate colonel in Asheville issue a pass to Knoxville? Next week: We are gone up now, Mary fears when four Rebel soldiers on horseback stop the family. A Dublin man has appeared in court accused of rape and abuse of a girl at his home and other locations in Ireland, Spain and Portugal. He is charged with 54 separate sexual offences against the alleged victim, a family member. Judge David McHugh granted him bail at Blanchardstown District Court and adjourned the case for the preparation of a book of evidence. The 59-year-old is acc- used of raping and sexually and indecently assaulting the alleged victim on dates in the 1990s and 2000s. Passport Gda Katie Flood said she arrested him at his home at 8.10am yesterday. The man made no reply to 52 of the charges. To one, he replied: "That is definitely not true, never happened." To another, he said: "Never, absolutely never." Judge McHugh remanded him on bail on condition he has no contact with the alleged victim, surrenders his passport and signs on at his local garda station. The Director of Public Prosecutions directed trial on indictment and was consenting to the accused going forward on a signed guilty plea if that arises, Gda Flood said. A Dublin man who died after a fight with his lover's boyfriend died from a single stab wound to the heart, a pathologist has told a murder trial. Deputy State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan told Keith Connorton's trial that Graham McKeever suffered three other stab wounds which could have contributed to his death, as well as about 40 scratches and bruises. Mr Connorton (40), of Deerpark Avenue, Tallaght, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr McKeever (32) at the accused's apartment on February 18, 2017. He is on trial at the Central Criminal Court. Blade Dr Mulligan said she attended the scene and found Mr McKeever in the living area, lying on his back with two obvious stab wounds to his chest. He was wearing only boxer shorts and socks, and his body and the area around him was heavily bloodstained. Expand Close Accused Keith Connorton / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Accused Keith Connorton On the floor about two metres from his body was a knife with a serrated blade. The fatal wound entered the front of the left side of Mr McKeever's chest between the second and third ribs and tracked to a depth of 11cm. It penetrated the two chambers of the right side of the heart, causing damage to the ventricular wall and bleeding around the heart and into the lungs. This wound, Dr Mulligan said, and the bleeding that resulted from it, was the cause of death. Expand Close Claire McGrath. Photo: Collins Courts / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Claire McGrath. Photo: Collins Courts A second wound to the chest went to a depth of 4cm but did not penetrate past the ribs. Another stab wound near the armpit and a fourth to the back did not penetrate the chest cavity. Although those wounds were not fatal, Dr Mulligan said they would have caused blood loss and may have contributed to Mr McKeever's death. The fatal wound, she said, was not survivable and, although death would not have been immediate, it would have been rapid, within minutes. She found bruises and scratches on Mr McKeever's head, neck, arms, legs and torso. Drug tests on his blood and urine revealed that he had taken benzodiazepines, methadone, alcohol and cocaine in the hours before his death. The fatal injury was consistent with the use of a tapering knife while two injuries on his back may have been caused by a serrated knife. Ten injuries were consistent with scratches from the tip of a knife. Earlier this week the woman in the "love triangle" that allegedly resulted in Mr McKeever being stabbed to death told the trial: "It is my fault. If I had never brought him to my house he would be still alive. I'm so sorry." Claire McGrath also said Mr McKeever "burst into" the room where she was arguing with Mr Connorton and said "she's mine now" before the fatal row broke out. She told prosecution counsel Brendan Grehan SC that she was still in a relationship with the accused. Homeless They moved into the apartment at Deerpark Avenue in November 2014 having previously spent time together in homeless accommodation. They have one son together. They had a "rocky patch" for about a year and while Mr Connorton still lived at the apartment they did not share a bed. She and Mr McKeever had been seeing each other romantically behind Mr Connorton's back for about six weeks before Mr McKeever's death, she said. The trial continues today. A warehouse worker slashed a shop assistant's hand with a broken bottle when she tried to protect a colleague during an attack, it has been alleged. Stephen O'Shaughnessy (29) is accused of assaulting the woman as she put her hand in front of the other shop worker's face to stop him being struck. Mr O'Shaughnessy was granted bail at Dublin District Court despite garda objections. Judge Dermot Simms remanded him in custody until he is able to take up bail. The accused, of Glasheen, Stamullen, Co Meath, is charged with assault causing harm to the woman, breach of the peace and possession of a weapon. He shouted profanities as the prosecuting garda gave evidence and remained outside the court for the remainder of the bail hearing. "Where's my co-accused? Why am I the only one sitting here?" he asked. Outlining the prosecution's case, the garda told the court it was alleged the defendant roared and shouted obscenities and got into a "physical dispute" with staff members at Spar on Dame Street on December 9. Lacerations It was alleged that in the course of this he caused two lacerations to the victim's hand with a broken bottle. It was claimed she placed her hand in front of her colleague as the accused allegedly tried to strike the man's face or neck. CCTV evidence showed the defendant in a dispute with two staff members in the shop, the garda said. The defendant was arrested on George's Street and a broken bottle was discovered in his pocket. According to gardai, he gave them a false name and address when he was arrested. The defendant was presumed innocent and willing to abide by bail conditions, said his barrister, Garrett Casey. Judge Simms granted bail in the defendant's own cash bond of 1,000, with an independent surety of 5,000 or 2,500 cash in lieu. Conditions are that he lives at his given address, signs on daily at his local garda station and stays away from Spar on Dame Street as well as out of the Dublin 2 and 4 areas. He is also to be contactable by phone and not come to garda attention. The judge adjourned the case and remanded the defendant in custody with consent to bail. A young woman who viciously attacked a former friend "over a relationship" with a boy has now claimed the victim made unfounded allegations in her statement. Charmaine Craig (19) kicked and punched the woman in a Dublin supermarket, leaving her with head injuries that doctors told her "would have been way worse" if she had suffered one more blow. It was further alleged in the victim impact statement that Craig continued to "torment" her after the attack, calling her a "slut" and threatening to "leave her in a bloodbath". Craig, of Shancastle Drive, Clondalkin, had admitted assault causing harm to Nichole Griffin at Supervalu, Neilstown Road, Clondalkin, on July 5, last year. Unfair However, when her case came before Blanchardstown District Court for sentencing, her solicitor John Shanley said it would be unfair for the disputed allegations in the victim's statement to be taken into account in sentencing. There were no charges relating to them and the defence had not seen the statement in advance, he said. Judge David McHugh said Craig could withdraw her guilty plea if she wished. "That is not what we are getting at," Mr Shanley said. The judge told him to contact the DPP and if "some legal issue arises, I will hear that prior to sentence". He adjourned the case to next month. Previously, the court heard that Ms Griffin (19) received kicks and punches to the head and body. The incident happened because of "a relationship that was over". In her statement, Ms Griffin said she was "viciously attacked for no reason at all" and "my whole life was turned upside down". John Lowe was found unconscious at this bungalow on the Coolfin Meadows estate in Portlaw A man has died in hospital after being bludgeoned over the head yesterday with what gardai believe was a hammer or heavy bar. The 53-year-old, named loc- ally as John Lowe, was found unconscious in a bungalow in Co Waterford. He died later in University Hospital Waterford. Gardai have launched a murder investigation. A post-mortem examination will be conducted today, but it is understood the injuries were caused by a heavy implement. Mr Lowe was unconscious when emergency services arrived at a property on the Coolfin Meadows estate in Portlaw, around 20km from Waterford city. Gardai and paramedics were called to the area shortly before 3pm following reports that a man had been injured following what was described as "a confrontation". A Waterford man in his 20s was arrested at the scene and taken to Tramore Garda Station where he was being questioned last night. Mr Lowe was rushed to hospital in a critical condition. Despite attempts to stabilise his condition, he was pronounced dead a short time later. The murder scene remained cordoned off pending a forensic examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau. Gardai began door-to-door enquiries to determine if anyone had heard or seen anything suspicious in the hours before the man's death. Locals expressed shock at the violent incident. The area has been described by residents as being extremely quiet. It is understood the arrested man was known to Mr Lowe, but they are not related. Terrible Local councillor John O'Leary told the Herald that it was "a very sad day" for the people of Co Waterford. "It's such a terrible and shocking thing to have happened," he said. "Portlaw is such a very quiet, respected area in Waterford. "It's very upsetting that a man from this community had to die in this way. "Although I didn't know him, my heart and prayers go to his family and loved ones." More resources are needed for hospital sexual assault units, according to the boss of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC). The call has come from DRCC chief executive Noeline Blackwell, who expects the centre to be in greater demand over the next few weeks. As Christmas approaches, people should ensure they have consent before engaging in sexual activity, she said. "At this time of the year, the centre is likely to be busy with people who have been harmed, really harmed, by somebody who has raped them," said Ms Blackwell. "To be clear, it will be very often someone they know. "The rapist will have coerced or manipulated their victim into having sex against their will. "Or they will have insisted that they have a right to have sex with them, even if their partner doesn't feel up to it, or will have sex with them when they're drunk at a house party or whatever." Ms Blackwell said hospitals that treated rape victims did not have enough resources. "I am hoping that the sexual assault treatment unit in the Rotunda will be open over the Christmas period," she said. She added that it had been hampered by insufficient staff at various times this year. "This is a real problem where crimes happen in Dublin, and the victims of those crimes need to attend those units, not only to ensure that the forensic evidence is not lost, but more importantly, to ensure that they get the medical care that they need," she said. Ms Blackwell said when the unit is not available, victims are faced with travelling to units outside the county, such as Mullingar, to get the treatment they require. Treatment "It's not their fault they're there. It's an excellent unit, but sometimes they just do not have the full staff complement that they need," she added. "In those cases, people have to be taken down to Mullingar or one of the other sexual assault treatment units across the country. "We know there are steps being taken [to rectify the situation], but it's all so slow." Ms Blackwell said that more people are being trained, and that they will "be a help". "But they won't be available until the summer of 2019. They're in the middle of their course right now," she said. Ms Blackwell made a number of points ahead of the festive period, but said it was not necessarily the DRCC's busiest time of the year. She said everyone must be sure that any sexual activity they are engaging in is consensual. She said it is important people look out for others and that people call out activity that is wrong. She advised that people be good to their friends when they are out and make sure they are not on their own. DRCC helplines will be available throughout the Christmas period. The numbers of people who have contacted the DRCC has risen, according to the organisation's annual report. Ms Blackwell described recent incidents of rape in Dublin as "extremely scary". The Rotunda sexual assault unit is open standard core hours and on an on-call basis. Strained family dynamics can be the "tipping point" that leads young parents into homelessness, a study has found. Focus Ireland released a report it commissioned into problems experienced by homeless couples aged between 18 and 24 with children, which showed their needs are not well understood. "Homelessness often occ-urred for families following what could be referred to as a 'tipping point' within their family home," the Young Families in the Homeless Crisis: Challenges and Solutions report said. The report, led by University College Cork (UCC) researcher Dr Sharon Lambert, continued: "The challenging nature of an overcrowded, multi-generational home could make for a chaotic family dynamic, wherein young children required continual childcare and where parents and grandparents were deprived of privacy." Eighteen families gave detailed interviews for the report, 15 of whom were in Dublin and three in Cork. Among its key recommendations was the establishment of a new "family mediation and support service" to prevent such families becoming homeless. The report called for the provision of sufficient key workers for all families to support them during homelessness. Young parents also reported how repeated unsuccessful eff-orts to secure a rented property often made them feel "judged and dejected". The report said there should be a comprehensive strategy to tackle family homelessness. Focus Ireland director of advocacy and research Mike Allen said: "These young parents for whom homelessness is the very first experience of living independently of their own parents have a good claim to be recognised as among the most vulnerable of the vulnerable." Meanwhile, Sinn Fein has claimed the true number of people experiencing homelessness is nearly 13,000. Accused Its housing spokesman, Eoin O Broin, accused the Government of underestimating the number of adults and children in emergency accommodation. "If you don't count the problem properly, then how can you put enough resources into tackling it?" he said. Official Department of Housing figures have hovered just under 10,000 in recent months. A request for comment has been made to the Department of Housing. Want to get on the good foot? Here are some tips NEW YORK (JTA)Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated the companys commitment to fighting hate and used a Hebrew phrase to do so. Cook invoked a phrase from Leviticus 19:16 in its original language on Monday at the Anti-Defamation Leagues Never Is Now summit on anti-Semitism and hate. Lo taamod al dam reeikha. Do not be indifferent to the bloodshed of your fellow man, Cook said after receiving the ADLs Courage Against Hate Award. Cook, who is not Jewish, said in his address that the biblical mandate moves Apple to speak out on behalf of the rights of targeted groups, including immigrants and the LGBTQ community. It moves us not to be bystanders as hate tries to make its headquarters in the digital world, he said. Cook has slammed President Donald Trumps zero-tolerance immigration policies as inhumane and spoken publicly about being proud to be gay. The Apple leader was speaking at the third annual Never Is Now summit, which addresses topics of anti-Semitism and hate in the world today. Some 1,300 people attended the one-day conference here, which featured presentations on anti-Semitism on campuses, immigration policies, diversity in the Jewish community and the forces driving modern anti-Semitism. In a morning panel, historian Deborah Lipstadt was asked if Jewish women should attend the Womens Marchsome of its leaders have been under fire for their associations with the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, or for failing to distance themselves from him despite his bigoted messages. No, said Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University. Farrakhan, she said, has likened Jews to termites. And what does one do with termites? she said. Exterminate them. When you stand with someone who calls me a termite, Im not marching with you. Cook referenced the shooting in Pittsburgh in October in which a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue. This year weve seen the stubborn and constant evils of anti-Semitism, violence and hate darken the streets of Pittsburgh and so many other places, he said. Yet at the same time we see more and more people opening their eyes and rising to their feet, and speaking out in defense of society where we are all bound together by the values we have in common. Cook cited policies of its online music store iTunes to not allow white supremacist-themed content or violent conspiracy theories as examples of its commitment to fighting hate. At Apple, were not afraid to say our values drive our curation decisions, and why should we be? he asked. Social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook, have come under fire for not doing enough to get rid of hateful content on their platforms. Cook in recent months has sought to distance Apple from the social media giants, saying Apple deals in hardware and does not depend on ad revenue from users. Anya Gelernt-Dunkle, (l) and sister Eva Gelernt decided to raise awareness of Gaucher disease upon discovering they have the ailment. By E.J. Kessler When Eva Gelernt was a child, she suffered from mysterious medical ailments: severe bone pain in her legs and knees. Unexplained bruising. Low blood platelet counts. Eva, now 24, visited doctor after doctor near her home in the Philadelphia suburb of Moorestown, New Jersey, but her problems were dismissed repeatedly as growing pains. By the time she reached high school, Eva was being tested by oncologists. "They thought I had cancer," she said. The tests, however, never showed any malignancy. It was only in 2014, when older sister Anya was engaged to be married, that Eva found an answer. Anya underwent genetic testing before her wedding in anticipation of having a family someday, and she tested positive for Gaucher disease. When her genetic counselor described the symptoms, it described her sister's problems. "I thought, 'that's Eva, not me,'" said Anya Gelernt-Dunkle, now 27. "And, sure enough, it was Eva." Gaucher disease (pronounced go-SHAY) is an inherited lipid storage disorder caused by genetic mutations common among Ashkenazi Jews. It's a recessive disease that parents pass on to their children when both carry a mutation. Anya and Eva suffer from the mildest form of Gaucher, Type 1, which comprises 95 percent of cases in Western countries. While Anya is asymptomatic, Eva suffers from the disease. Those afflicted with Gaucher don't have enough of the enzyme glucocerebrosidase, which breaks down a fatty chemical in the body. As a consequence, they may suffer damage to internal organs and bones. The more serious types of Gaucher, 2 and 3, cause cognitive problems, seizures and other disorders, and can lead to early death. Doctors found that Eva's spleen and liver were grossly enlarged and she had experienced some deterioration of her bone marrow. She is being treated with a new oral medication to mitigate her symptoms, Cedelga, and she works with a Gaucher specialist to monitor her condition with an annual MRI. After their discovery four years ago, the sisters decided to raise awareness of Gaucher, which often goes undiagnosed even though it can be identified by a simple blood test. The pair recently became part of a team of "ambassadors" of the National Gaucher Foundation to spread knowledge of the disease. "Far too many people have gone undiagnosed for far too long," said Eva, a poised young woman with an expressive face and a cloud of auburn hair. Raising awareness of Gaucher isn't important just for those who may suffer undiagnosed symptoms. It's also important to spur couples of childbearing age to undergo genetic testing, so if they are carriers of Gaucher or any other kind of genetic disease, they can plan appropriately. The National Gaucher Foundation recently released a short film designed to spread awareness about the importance of genetic testing. In the dramatic comedy "One of Those Dates," Gaucher disease is brought to the forefront of the conversation on a first date. For the past two years, the foundation has partnered with JScreen, a nonprofit that offers Jews subsidized genetic screening for more than 200 diseases through home-order screening kits. More than 1,580 people have been screened through the partnership, and 86 were identified as being carriers of Gaucher. Three had the disease itself. "That's pretty astounding when you think that this is a rare disease," said Amy Blum, chief operating officer of the National Gaucher Foundation. Despite its overall rarity, Gaucher is the most common genetic disease among Ashkenazi Jews, according to the foundation. One in 450 Ashkenazi Jews has the disease and as many as 1 in 10 may be carriers. By comparison, 1 in 24 carry the gene for cystic fibrosis and 1 in 27 the mutation for Tay-Sachs. Gaucher often is difficult to spot because its symptoms can mimic those of many diseases and doctors aren't necessarily trained to spot it. "Doctors are trained to think of the more common diseases like leukemia or lymphoma-that's what they test for," Blum said. "The average diagnostic journey from symptoms to accurate diagnosis could be five to eight years. That's five to eight years of people suffering." Before scientists developed therapies for Gaucher, those with the disease were very sick. Today, however, with proper expert physician care and treatment, it can be as manageable as diabetes. "They can lead very healthy lives," Blum said. "Knowledge can be power." Among the five FDA-approved treatments for the disease are enzyme replacement therapy, which requires periodic intravenous infusions, and the drug that Eva takes-a substrate reduction therapy that reduces the amount of lipid in her system. To educate health care providers and the public, the National Gaucher Foundation provides continuing medical education for practitioners and hosts an annual meeting that brings together experts and patients. The foundation also connects patients and parents to confidential health resources and seeks to ensure that patients have access to Gaucher specialists. In addition, there is financial help available for those who qualify. Over time, Eva has learned to live with Gaucher. A graduate of Barnard College in New York City, she works as the clinical research coordinator at the multiple sclerosis center at Columbia University Medical Center and is applying to graduate programs to become a nurse practitioner. Having to monitor her disease through annual MRIs makes her appreciate what MS patients go through, Eva said. "I can relate to them in some way and make them more comfortable," she said. Anya, who lives in Boston, doesn't feel symptoms other than the occasional bone twinge. But she keeps an eye on her health because Gaucher symptoms can appear at any time-in particular during pregnancy. Because her husband does not possess any gene mutations for Gaucher, their children won't have the disease, though they still can be carriers. The experience has made Anya a huge booster of genetic testing. "I told all my friends who got engaged: Do this now, so you don't have to worry about it if everything is fine," she said. "It's so easy." This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the National Gaucher Foundation (NGF), an independent nonprofit dedicated to serving U.S. patients with Gaucher disease and their families. Through financial support, educational programming, patient services and collaboration with medical professionals, NGF empowers Gaucher patients to live a better today. This story was produced by JTA's native content team. By Brian Blum (Israel21c via JNS)-Some 14 percent of American adults suffer from migraines or severe headaches. Among women aged 18 to 44, the number soars to 23 percent. Currently, no cure for migraines exists, and over-the-counter pain relief medicines do not always work. One of the most promising treatments is occipital nerve stimulation, where a small pulse generator is implanted at the base of the skull to send pain-relieving electrical impulses to the brain. What if the same effect could be achieved without surgery-and for a lower cost than the tens of thousands of dollars required for an occipital nerve implant? That hypothesis launched Shmuel Shany and Amit Dar on their journey to establishing Neurolief. Neurolief is developing a noninvasive neuro-modulation device that could be available for purchase in a general pharmacy for less than $500. The device looks a bit like Geordi's visor in Star Trek: The Next Generation, except it sits on top of the head. The Neurolief neuro-modulator stimulates six different nerve branches in the brain that regulate pain and mood. Each electrode in the device delivers a charge strong enough to penetrate the skull. "It needs to be done without causing pain to the patient and not causing damage to scalp tissue," Dar told ISRAEL21c. The device is rechargeable, can be adjusted to a variety of head sizes and connects to both a mobile phone app and the cloud, so that a particular patient's experience can be compared with others to deliver a precise electrical "dose." By "dose," Dar explains that the device can dial up and down the six electrodes individually, holding out the possibility to create a treatment plan personalized for each patient. Neuro-modulation prevents the secretion of chemicals in the brain that trigger pain. But it also modulates the "activation threshold" of the neural system, so that the next time a migraine trigger is present (whether that's stress, lack of sleep or even chocolate), the nerves will not react as severely as before. Neuro-modulation is mostly side-effect free. Small enough to carry, one study of the product conducted last year demonstrated an average 80 percent reduction in pain symptoms. That's double the rate for implanted devices and far more than a couple of Tylenol can achieve. "We compete mainly against the strongest painkillers," said Neurolief CEO Shany. "We are not targeting patients whose symptoms are alleviated with Advil, but those who require drugs frequently." The Neurolief device is meant to be used only during a migraine attack. Since it can fold up to the size of a sunglasses case, it's small enough to carry in a purse or backpack. Dar and Shany are not newcomers to the field of neuro-modulation. The two started and sold NESS-Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation Systems, a company that builds neuro-modulation products to help stroke survivors move paralyzed arms and legs. After NESS's new owners moved most of the company's operations to California, Dar and Shany were free to develop their own non-competing neuro-modulation device. NESS fetched a price of $75 million in 2007. Netanya-based Neurolief is still at the beginning of its journey and has so far raised $5 million since it was established in 2013. The financing was led by Terra Venture Partners. Neurolief has developed a novel pricing model. Instead of purchasing the device for a one-time fee, patients will buy it "pre-loaded" with a certain number of treatments (10 to start). "It's like buying a blister pack of medications," VP of business development and marketing Eran Schenker told ISRAEL21c. If the device works, a user can "turn on" more neuro-modulation doses remotely via the Internet. "It won't cost more than the pills you already get," noted Schenker. But don't head to the local pharmacy just yet. Neurolief's product will not be available until sometime next year. There are still a few trials to complete, including a study with 56 patients now underway. The company hopes to apply for a European Union CE mark by the end of 2018, with application to the FDA for approval in the U.S. to follow. Next target: Depression Next on Neurolief's list is depression. Dar reported "remarkable results" from a clinical trial at a mental hospital in Israel. Neurolief's anti-depression model could come as early as 2020. Neurolief started by targeting migraines because the clinical evidence from implanted devices has already demonstrated that neuro-modulation works. But the same neuro-modulation techniques can be used for other indications. There are other companies working on brain stimulation to treat depression, mostly using magnets. "But these are large machines that can only be used in a clinic," said Dar. "We wanted something that could be used at home, that allows for self-treatment." "At the end of the day," said Dar, "we will have a solution for multi-indications, although each needs its own regulatory approval and may need a different device." (JTA)On the phone last week, just before the revival of his play The Waverly Gallery opened on Broadway, Kenneth Lonergan sounded harried. There had been some set malfunctions earlier in the week, just as critics were getting ready to start their reviews. He acknowledged the play is hard to takeas much for him as for the viewer. Cathartic seems to imply that writing it made me feel better, Lonergan said. It didnt. Perhaps the critics takes could lift his spirits. The Waverly Gallery, which runs through Jan. 27 at the John Golden Theatre, has been quickly and widely hailed as a triumph. Elaine May, who stars as aging Jewish family matriarch Gladys Green, has made many headlines, for good reasonher tear-jerking performance, her first on a Broadway stage in over 50 years, could earn her a Tony Award. Lonergan, 56, is best known for his 2016 film Manchester by the Sea, a slow-burning drama that earned him an Academy Award for best original screenplay and a nomination for best director. But he had a long and successful career both in film and on the stage well before that. He has been involved in everything from sensitive indie films (he wrote and directed You Can Count on Me, which earned an Oscar nomination for best screenplay) to period pieces (he co-wrote Martin Scorseses Gangs of New York) to comedies (he co-wrote Analyze This, which starred Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal). Despite his varied and acclaimed output, nothing can really prepare the viewer for the power of his latest Broadway production. It is in fact a revival of a 2000 play that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prizebut likely flew under the radar for many since it was off-Broadway. In the play, Gladys lives alone in New York Citys Greenwich Village neighborhood, where she runs a small art gallery and is starting to show signs of Alzheimers disease. Her grandson, Daniel (played by Lucas Hedges, who broke out in Manchester by the Sea) lives next door, and Daniels mother and stepfather host her for a weekly dinner. As the Gladys they know slowly slips away, the Jewish family deals with a range of feelings, from frustration to compassion. Most of the play is autobiographical, lending the story extra emotional punch. In real life, Lonergan is Daniel. Ellen Fine (Joan Allen) is in fact Kenneths mom and her husband, Howard (David Cromer), is Lonergans stepfather. Lonergan, a Bronx native who was born to a Jewish mom and Irish dad, both physicians, had a secular Jewish upbringing. His parents divorced, and his mother remarried and moved to the Upper West Side. More religious people might call us ersatz Jews, he said. I was raised in an environment where most people I knew were Jewish. Some were bar mitzvahed, some were not. Some of my [step] siblings were bar mizvahed. I dont think its unusual. May, now 86, also is Jewish: She was born Elaine Berlin and performed with her fathers traveling Yiddish theater company as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1950s with her then-comedy partner, the late Mike Nicholswho was also Jewish, and would go on to direct films such as The Graduate and Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? May was last seen on the Broadway stage in 1961 as part of An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Lonergan was close to his grandmother, pretty much as in the play, he said, noting that they had dinner weekly and lived in the same building. That made the play difficult to write. During the writing process, his parents werent aware of what Lonergan was putting together. When I did show it, it was with some trepidation, he said. They said it was very difficult to go through it again, but they always came to the readings and saw it performed. After the gallery where his grandmother spent her days had to be closedher condition deteriorated to the point where she could no longer be left aloneLonergans mother and stepfather took her in instead of sending her to a facility. They took great care of her, Lonergan said. My mother was a very devoted daughter. It was tremendously difficult, but they could afford to get help. They werent garment workers; they could afford it. But not everyone who could afford it would do it. Im not sure I could have done that. If writing the play was hard, getting it produced in 2000 wasnt, even though Lonergan had only one major previous play under his belt. This Is Our Youth, which starred a then-unknown Mark Ruffalo, was well received off-Broadway in 1996. Id been around off-Broadway for a while, but once that play had done well, everyone wanted to produce what I did next, Lonergan said. Lonergan was mum on his future projects (there are many in the works), but the restaging of Waverly is clearly a very personal moment in the fast-paced career of one of Hollywoods most sought-after writers. [My grandmother] was very important to me. I was watching her fall apart. I remember her [healthier] from when I was young, he said. I wrote it not long after she died. It was a tremendously painful experience for her and the rest of us as well. It wasnt easy, but I thought it was something I needed to do. (JTA)-"The Kominsky Method" is the wisest and saddest new comedy on television. That might be its biggest problem. The protagonist of the eight-episode Netflix series that debuts Friday is Sandy Kominsky (played by Michael Douglas), a Jewish Tony Award-winning actor who landed with a thud in Hollywood. He no longer acts for a living but teaches the craft to students using the titular "method." Norman Newlander (Alan Arkin), whose wife, Eileen (Susan Sullivan), is dying from cancer, is Kominsky's longtime Jewish best friend and agent. Their friendship and the ways they navigate a hilarious and poignant battle against Father Time drive the show, which is moving and brave. Netflix has invested considerable effort in a series that likely will appeal to a limited demographic (Douglas, Arkin and show creator Chuck Lorre don't come cheap). The target audience is clearly of the older variety. At one point, Newlander says, "I wake up each morning and my first thought is, 'What part of me isn't working?'" At another, guest star Danny DeVito, playing a urologist, snaps on rubber gloves and turns to examine a bent-over Kominsky while saying "You complete me." Kominsky has been married three times and is finally happy about dating someone more his age. Will millennials give this show a shot? Will AARP members take a chance on a series that is so deeply rooted in their own often depressing reality? If they don't, they will miss out on an extraordinary dramatic comedy television experience. In a season where most of the new sitcoms are virtually unwatchable-"Murphy Brown" isn't quite what she used to be, and "Rel" is really bad-"The Kominsky Method" is uplifting in its intelligence. Lorre, the Dick Wolf of comedy, is best known for more traditional TV sitcoms such as "Two and a Half Men," "Dharma & Greg" and "The Big Bang Theory." But "The Kominsky Method" is different from his other shows-it's much more personal and mature. The show's two main characters are Jewish, also a first for the prolific Jewish writer and director. Lorre is known for including vanity cards, or short essays and observations, at the end of his shows. They flash for just an instant, and hardcore fans pause the show to read them. In 2011, he wrote No. 327 from Israel, where he said he felt strangely at home. "[F]or the first time in my life, I'm surrounded with DNA much like my own," he wrote. "Until I got here... I didn't realize how much my double helix yearned to be around similar strands." At one points he wonders, "Why did I spend a lifetime moving away from that group? How did Chaim become Chuck? How did Levine become Lorre?" Except for a synagogue and shiva sequence, there isn't much outwardly Jewish about "The Kominsky Method." But Lorre's particular strain of the double helix comes through more subtly in dialogue like Arkin's declaration: "We're civilized people. We keep our shame and suffering to ourselves, where it belongs." Douglas and Arkin's comic timing is perfect, but their chemistry shines in darker moments as well. The rest of the excellent cast includes Jewish actress Lisa Edelstein ("House") as Norman's drug-addicted daughter Phoebe; Sarah Baker as Sandy's level-headed daughter, Mindy; and Nancy Travis as Lisa, Sandy's love interest. Edelstein particularly takes full advantage of every opportunity to go over the top. In an early episode, Norman reminisces about Ron Howard's classic movie "Cocoon," which he recently viewed again. "A spaceship is taking old people into space. That's the happy ending for old people. I saw it 30 years ago," he says. "But it's a whole different perspective when you're in the demographic." KRIMPEN AAN DE IJSSEL, Netherlands (JTA)-For two years, the world's only seaworthy life-size replica of Noah's Ark has been wowing passengers traveling along Holland's Maas River. Built according to the specifications detailed in the Hebrew Bible, the 390-foot-long vessel towers to a height of 75 feet. It boasts enough wood to fell 12,000 trees. And its distinct form dominates the coastline of the small town hosting it deep in southern Holland's so-called Bible Belt. Dwarfing even some modern-day cruise ships, the ark instantly became an international tourist attraction when it was completed in 2012 after four years of construction. But the man who built it, the devout Christian businessman Johan Huibers, can't wait to take the mammoth to Israel-a country whose problems and successes, he said, are always on his mind. "My preferred destination for the ark is Israel," Huibers, 60, told JTA earlier this month on the forward deck, which features a life-size statue of a giraffe. His love for the Jewish state and people, he said, flows from the same impulse that compelled him to raise nearly $5 million to build the ark. "It may sound scary, but I believe everything written in this book, cover to cover," he said while pointing at a copy of a translation into Dutch of the Hebrew Bible. "This is a copy of God's ship. It only makes sense to take it to God's land." Huibers planned to take the ship to Israel soon after its completion, but wildfires in Israel torpedoed the journey. Now he no longer has the approximately $1.3 million necessary for getting there (the ark has no motor, so Huibers needs to rent tugboats to sail it). Huibers had plans to sail the ark to Brazil, but those fell through, too. "I love the land, I love the country, I love the people," he said of Israel. "They don't obey, they do what they want, they drive like mad, shove while waiting in line and don't listen to anyone. Just like me." But Huibers, who made a fortune building storage spaces, wants to be listened to. He built the ark, he said, "to show people that God exists." The ark, which Huibers said he built with just seven people over four years, proves that Noah's Ark could indeed be built by that biblical figure. "I wanted children to come here and feel the texture of the wood, see the nails and see that what is written in the book is true," he said. In the Bible, God warns Noah, a righteous man, of an approaching flood. He instructs Noah to build the ark with his family and collect pairs of animals so they may survive the deluge, which was meant to cleanse the Earth of the sins of humankind. By contrast, Huibers got the idea to build an ark from reading a story about it to his children after supper one evening in 1993. "I wondered whether someone, Disney perhaps, had already built a replica of the ark," he said. "And then I said out loud that if none had, I would." Huibers' daughter, Deborah, excitedly relayed the news to her mother, Huibers' wife, who is a police officer. But it drew little more than an incredulous chuckle from her. "She told the kids that after I finish building my ark, we can all go on vacation to the moon," he recalled. Thirteen years later, Huibers completed his first Noah's Ark replica, dubbed "Johan's Ark" by the Dutch media. It was only 230 feet long and 33 feet wide because those were the maximum measurements for any vessel seeking to negotiate Holland's extensive network of canals. "I wanted to spread God's word in the Netherlands," he said. But his ambitions grew "when everyone asked me: Why is it only half the size of the one in the Bible? So I sold the smaller one and built a life-size one, too." Huibers isn't the only one using the ark to prove the probability of the biblical story. In 2016, Ark Encounter, a creationist theme park featuring an ark built on a biblical scale, opened in Kentucky. But unlike Huibers' boat, the one in the landlocked state does not float. The Kentucky ark was built with more than three times the budget of the one in the Netherlands. Huibers said his crew was made up of amateur carpenters without real training, adding to the overall authenticity of the vessel. "We had a butcher, a hairdresser and a teacher working here," he said. "We're not professional boat makers. A lot of stuff here is a bit crooked." The big ark is made of a steel frame and American cedar and pinewood. Its cavernous interior is surrounded by side decks whose impressive size is magnified even further by their curvature. It is relatively dark inside. The ship features an open amphitheater in its center, connected to the raised deck by a series of stairs that many thousands of visitors, most of them children, have climbed. The ark is currently closed to visitors because of disagreements between Huibers and this municipality. Krimpen aan de Ijssel officials say they favor reopening it but require "certain adjustment," citing public safety concerns. Huibers said the ship is safe, insured and equipped with better fire extinguishing equipment than required by law. He also claims that the reluctance to allow the ark to open in Krimpen-a highly devout town-owes to how some "very strict individuals consider it a forbidden depiction of God's image." When it was open to the public, the ark had a small petting zoo, of which only an aviary with parakeets and other small birds remains. Huibers said he does not intend to place living animals in the ark for now, "only to show they could fit." The boat features stalls, larders and internal gutters for the disposal of refuse. In addition to wanting to give schoolchildren a tangible experience of Noah's Ark, Huibers had darker reasons for building the two wooden vessels he has made. "I believe we are living in the end of times," he said. "We're not conscious of it. People never are." Growing up in a low-lying country whose population has been fighting backwater for more than 1,000 years has given Huibers a better understanding than many of the risks of flooding. He was born five years after the North Sea flood of 1959, which killed more than 2,000 people in a society still crippled by the devastating effects of World War II. "The water is going to come. From the mountains, from the sea, through Germany. Just like in 1959," he said. "It sound's like doom and gloom. But I'm not afraid of it." The bow of Johan Huibers' Noah's Ark is seen in Krimpen aan de Ijssel, the Netherlands. The ark, though, isn't designed to save Huibers' life or family, he said. "Maybe it will, who knows, but my survival is not its purpose," Huibers said. "It's meant to educate, a reminder that our world is changing, will continue to change, as we see now because of global warming, rising sea levels, fires." As he prepares to take the ark to Israel, he is busy with another project involving water and the Holy Land. Huibers has designed a gravity-based system that he says would transport water from the coastal desalinization plants through the desert and into the shrinking Dead Sea. In case of a calamity, Huibers does keep a few boats for his family, he said, noting that one of them can hold 100 people. "Maybe we'll end up saving the neighborhood one day," he said. The head of the IDF's Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Yoel Strik, met with the @UNIFIL_ Commander, Gen. Stefano Del Col from Italy and toured the area of the cross-border attack tunnel that was exposed this week after it was dug from Lebanon into Israel. (JNS)-As the Israel Defense Forces ploughs ahead with an operation to expose and destroy a network of Hezbollah tunnels snaking their way into northern Israel from Lebanon, the military must also be prepared for the risk of a sudden escalation with the powerful Shi'ite terrorist organization, a former senior defense official told JNS. Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, who has served in the past as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's National Security Adviser, said that the operation underway to expose the tunnels-built to infiltrate Israel's northern border-is aimed at neutralizing a component of Hezbollah's ability to launch a surprise ground attack into Israel. This type of attack has not yet been seen in Hezbollah's combat against Israel, he said, and if Israel succeeds in getting rid of the tunnels, Hezbollah will be left without "an important component that gave it more confidence in a future war." The counter-tunnel operation is part of a wider Israeli policy of building up deterrence, which includes taking away capabilities from the enemy, said Amidror. "While it is difficult to know if this will work, it certainly has a better chance when the other side knows it lost some of its capabilities," he stated. Still, the situation is explosive, and the element of unpredictability remains, he warned. "Since this is a maneuver in which two sides are making decisions, it is impossible to know what the response of both will be-in other words, what Hezbollah will do further along the operation, and how will Israel respond afterwards. Therefore, the IDF must be prepared for a deterioration, to be prepared with lots of force." According to IDF Spokesman Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, the IDF is ready for just that kind of scenario. He said the military's "Northern Command is on elevated readiness, prepared for various contingencies," and cited an "enhanced troop presence." Israeli civilians, however, are under no special instructions, and have been told to remain in a routine state of affairs. Conricus noted that the tunnels have been under Israeli monitoring for about three years, and that Israel "chose to nip them in the bud now," after sufficient intelligence was gathered. Israel's counter-tunnel technology has proven itself on the Gaza border to the south, where it enabled the IDF to detect and destroy 17 tunnels in recent years, and has now come of age in the north as well. Hamas shared its tunnel-building expertise with Hezbollah, and although both terror organizations dug structures deep underground with communication cables, oxygen ventilation systems and electricity, the threat is not identical. Hezbollah had to dig into hard rock, unlike Gaza's soft sand stone, and employed a different support system for the tunnels. The tunnels were earmarked for Hezbollah's elite Rawan assault force, which the organization would have injected into Israel in a future war, for killing and kidnapping missions. Conricus described the tunnel as the latest sign of the "adverse effect of Iranian entrenchment in the region. Hezbollah is strengthening its military capabilities while violating U.N. resolutions... this is funded by Iranian money and assisted with Iranian knowledge." Professor Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the IDC in Herzliya, said the tunnels are part of a wider Hezbollah war doctrine developed over the past decade. The doctrine "is based on two parallel efforts: projectile fire at Israel from Lebanon and possibly from Syria on a scale not seen in the past [including the launching of accurate missiles and large warheads], and a ground attack against the IDF in Lebanese territory and inside Israeli territory." Within this doctrine, Hezbollah's special forces, combined with Iraqi Shi'ite militias, were supposed to infiltrate Israel, traveling through the tunnels along various routes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, from the Mediterranean Sea to Mount Dov, Ganor explained. "These infiltrations are designed to seize civilian communities, forcing the IDF to dedicate military resources to solving large hostage crises, to disrupt the IDF's call-up of forces' system, and its movement of forces into Lebanon, by taking control of territory that enables control in the Galilee, and blocking central traffic arteries," said Ganor. Israel's "Operation Northern Shield" is designed to deal a mortal blow to a central Hezbollah effort that the organization has invested major time and resources in, he added. 'The axis of evil of Iran-Syria-Turkey-Hezbollah' Asked whether Israel's decision to neutralize the tunnels without escalating the situation into war was the correct one, Ganor said it was the right course of action in the short term. However, he cautioned, due to Hezbollah's massive arsenal of rockets and missiles-estimated at between 150,000 to 200,000-and the damage they will cause to Israel if and when Hezbollah opens fire at Israel, "it seems that Israel cannot allow itself for Hezbollah to initiate and begin a war, and it is incumbent on Israel to preempt and destroy at least a discernable part of the organization's long-range projectiles." From this perspective, Ganor cautioned, Israel may have missed a justified opportunity to strike Hezbollah's military systems. This opportunity presented itself with the discovery of Hezbollah's violation of Israeli sovereignty, and in light of the threats to wage war on Israel and conquer parts of the Galilee by an organization that serves as an Iranian outpost. The Iranians and Hezbollah, for their part, seem to be trying to understand the significance of the Israeli counter-tunnel operation, and to "assess the damage that has been caused to them," said Ganor. "They will examine how many of the tunnels from those they prepared have been identified by Israel, in the hope that some will remain operational. The possibility that they will try to disrupt the Israeli operation by boobytrapping the tunnel must be taken into account, although it seems that at this stage, neither Hezbollah nor the Iranians have an interest in deteriorating the situation to an all-out war with Israel," assessed Ganor. Ultimately, Iran has been able to take advantage of a mutual deterrence in place between Israel and Hezbollah. It has used this situation to continue to arm its Lebanese proxy, building military assets on Israel's borders from within Lebanon and Syria. "The military victory of the axis of evil of Iran-Syria-Turkey-Hezbollah, under Russian protection, provides a tailwind for these Iranian trends," said Ganor It is reasonable to assume, he explained, that "a gun that appears in the first act will be fired at the end of the play. The unprecedented threat that is being built against Israel does not perhaps endanger its existence, but it could cause large-scale strategic damage to the state, the civilian homefront, infrastructure and critical facilities. As a result, Israel cannot accept the existence and growth of this threat." A psychological boost to Israeli civilians in the north Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the ICT, agreed, noting that the greatest strategic threat is "the huge ground-to-ground missile arsenal in Hezbollah's possession, and the present attempt by Iran to increase the number of long-range precise missiles, which could destroy Israeli military targets and infrastructure in the first attack." The massive Hamas rocket fire in last months' round of fighting was a reminder of such a threat, he added. Karmon described the exposure of the tunnels as a "very important intelligence and operational success, as it neutralizes the publicized Hezbollah plan to attack Galilee towns and villages." It also provides a psychological boost to Israeli civilians living near the northern border, who have been concerned by Hezbollah tunnel-digging for years. Northern residents near the border with Lebanon have for years reported hearing sounds that they suspected came from Hezbollah digging operations. However, the IDF investigated those reports, and did not find that they led to tunnel activities. But Karmon noted that the larger threat remains Hezbollah's firepower. "In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel destroyed the much smaller arsenal of long-range missiles in the first 34 hours of the war, due to exceptional intelligence," said Karmon. "It seems me this cannot be done in the present situation in Lebanon, where the government is dominated by Hezbollah and its army is almost subservient, without a massive ground war-possibly a preventive war." The month of December is always busy with the celebration of Chanukah and preparations for the coming secular new year. The residents of Brookdale Island Lake and friends inaugurated the holiday season by viewing Hava Nagillah, The Movie, on Sunday afternoon right before the lighting of the first candle of Chanukah. The Movie takes the viewer on a journey from the Ukraine to the United States in search of the origins of the internationally famous time. The movie was well received and many participants stated that they learned much and totally enjoyed hearing Hava Nagillah sung by Harry Belafonte, Danny Kate, as well as hearing Connie Francis recall how popular her recordings of this song were. (JNS)-U.S. President Donald Trump nominated State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert on Friday as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replacing Nikki Haley, who is stepping down at the end of the year. Bloomberg News first reported this development on Thursday night. Nauert, a former Fox News personality, was considered the frontrunner after former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell withdrew from consideration. Also touted were U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchinson, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft, former U.S. Senate candidate John James of Michigan and U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell. Regarding Nauert's replacement as the U.S. State Department's top spokesperson, a department spokesperson told JNS, "We have no personnel announcements." Nauert is expected to face a tough Senate confirmation due to her lack of foreign-policy experience even though she served as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the fourth-highest ranking position in the State Department. For the pro-Israel community, Nauert will replace Haley, who received strong praise for her support of the Jewish state at the United Nations, which has long been accused of anti-Israel bias. In one of her final acts as ambassador, Haley criticized the international body for failing to pass a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning Hamas by a required two-thirds majority. As Foggy Bottom's top spokesperson, Nauert helped further the administration's pro-Israel platform. She denounced the last month's rocket attacks into Israel from Hamas in Gaza. "We condemn in the strongest terms the rocket, missile and mortar attacks that are taking place from Gaza into Israel," she said. "We call for the sustained halt of those attacks. We stand with Israel as Israel defends itself against these attacks. It is simply unacceptable to target civilians." At the time, Nauert told JNS that the barrage makes the Trump's highly anticipated proposed peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians "more urgent." "When you see [rocket attacks], that's the case for peace right there," she said. Nauert has also emphasized Israel's right to defend itself, as exemplified in August when Hamas launched rockets from Gaza into Israel. "It's a very concerning situation that has taken place in Gaza," she said. "We condemn the launching of missile attacks into Israel and call for an end to the destructive violence." Moreover, she suggested last week that the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly by Saudi Arabia, will not affect U.S. efforts to have the kingdom, which is allegedly behind the murder, be part of forging a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. "Ms. Nauert has stood by the State of Israel in her previous positions, and I have no doubt that the cooperation between our two countries will continue to strengthen as ambassador to the U.N.," said Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon. "In the past two years, we have worked closely with Ambassador Nikki Haley to change the hostile spirit in the U.N., which has led to unprecedented achievements. Ambassador Haley will always be a true friend of the State of Israel." 'A good choice' Pro-Israel groups welcomed the announcement. "We welcome the appointment of Heather Nauert to the U.N. post," B'nai B'rith International CEO Daniel Mariaschin told JNS. "We hope she will continue in the path of Ambassador Nikki Haley as a strong supporter of Israel, calling out the bias against it within the U.N. system and pointing to Iran as a major source of global instability." "The Jewish Policy Center welcomes the appointment of Heather Nauert as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, believing it will continue the strong pro-American and pro-Israel policies pursued by the Trump administration under Ambassador Nikki Haley," Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Jewish Policy Center, said to JNS. "Nauert, in her role in the State Department, has been an articulate and passionate spokesperson for democracy, liberty, freedom and self-defense," added Bryen. "America's allies and adversaries-and everyone in between-will know exactly where the United States stands." "Following on the heels of Nikki Haley, Heather Nauert has some very big shoes to fill," Sarah Stern, president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, told JNS. "Although some criticize the fact that she lacks a hefty diplomatic resume, the same was said of Ambassador Nikki Haley before she assumed the post." "What we need are some fresh, young people who are willing to think outside of the box," she added. "I am also delighted that Ms. Nauert had added the D-Day reference about our relationship with Germany, indicating that our relationship with other nations in the world will not be based on a sugar-coated, revisionist history, but will be based on reality, and as Ronald Reagan used to say, 'peace through strength,' and not through appeasement." Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called the pick "a good choice." "I think she knows very well the policies of the White House and of Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo," he told JNS. "I think Nikki Haley is a hard act to follow, but Heather is a good choice to attempt that." "I don't think there are any policy disagreements between [Haley and Nauert] or with Secretary Pompeo," he added. "And I think her close relationship with Secretary Pompeo will be an asset because it is important that there be continuity both in terms of U.S. policy and messaging." In terms of legacy, May said that "Nikki Haley proved herself to be an extraordinary ambassador to the U.N. in the very top ranks along with John Bolton, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Arthur Goldberg, who I think were our best U.N. ambassadors. So it's a hard act to follow, but I think Heather will be disciplined, I think she will be knowledgeable, and I think she'll be articulate." With this announcement the day after Thursday's U.N. failure to condemn Hamas, exemplifying what May called "the fecklessness" of the world body, the FDD head said that "there's plenty of work leftover post-Nikki Haley that Heather has to look at. I hope she will look at reform, and reform is not going to come about simply by urging." He continued: "The U.S. is going to have to cut off funds or threaten to cut off U.S. funds to the U.N. in general and to various agencies. The U.N. is not at this point an organization that promotes freedom or that fights terrorism or does very much that is useful in the world. My guess is that Heather is quite well-aware of that reality and will do the best she can to make that an organization that is more effective and is a voice against terrorism and for freedom." (JNS)Ohio State Universitys student government overwhelmingly rejected a resolution on Wednesday night, calling on the school to separate itself from firms that do business with Israel. The BDS measure, defeated in a vote of 30-7 with three abstentions, called for OSU to divest from, and boycott G4S, Caterpillar Inc., Sabra Dipping Company and Hewlett-Packard, all of which benefit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, in addition to severing academic ties with the Jewish state. The Undergraduate Student Governments president and vice president announced opposition to the measure before it was voted on. We believe the implications of this resolution would negatively impact students on our campus and their opportunities for scholarships, research, and field experiences, wrote USG president Shamina Merchant and USG vice president Shawn Semmler. It stands against the core principle of academic freedom, and we are concerned about the exclusionary language used to address our educators on campus. This is not the first time that a BDS resolution was introduced on a college campus, only to be later defeated. However, a boycott resolution was passed earlier this year. Organizations such as Protect OSU and StandWithUs applauded the outcome. Time and time again, we have seen how the hateful BDS movement has divided our campus and obstructed dialogue and cooperation, Protect OSU, which fights BDS sentiment there, posted on Facebook. We are proud of students who stood up to this campaign of hate and defeated a bigoted resolution full of misleading claims, said StandWithUS CEO Roz Rothstein. BDS only serves to fuel the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and deepen divisions between students on campus. It is disturbing that the International Socialist Organization, an off-campus group, was heavily involved in this campaign, said Ron Krudo, executive director of campus affairs for StandWithUs. The ISO has promoted unconditional support for Hamas and denied that anti-Semitism is a problem in the British Labour Party. Its encouraging that the student government rejected their hateful agenda. Gary Sukienik, who attended OSU as an undergraduate and is now a student at the universitys dental school, also cheered the result. Im very glad that the anti-Semitic and hateful BDS resolution failed, he told JNS. But it didnt fail at NYU The student government at New York University passed a BDS resolution, calling on the university to separate its interests from firms such as Lockheed Martin, General Electric and Caterpillar Inc., which do business with Israel. The final tally, which was conducted by a secret ballot, was 35 votes in favor, 14 against and 14 abstentions. The BDS measure was backed by 51 campus groups and 34 faculty members. The passing of BDS at NYU represents a sad shift in anti-Israel sentiment across U.S. college campuses, Eli Lenner, freshmen class president of the Stern School of Business, told JNS. BDS is a movement founded by [someone] who doesnt believe in the right for the existence of a Jewish state. Jewish students at NYU lack proper representation, and because of their lack of a voice, radical movements that are innately anti-Semitic are able to gain traction. Students are being misguided by a movement that operates under the guise of helping oppressed Palestinians, when its real goal is to undermine the rights of the State of Israel to exist, he added. Pro-Israel campus groups slammed the resolution and one-sided and discriminatory. It is deeply disappointing that SGA passed a resolution that is so one-sided and discriminatory, said Ron Krudo, executive director of campus affairs at StandWithUs. Im proud of the students who worked so hard to stand up for themselves in the face of a fundamentally undemocratic student government process. The university had been subject to criticism after a discriminatory joint statement issued in April by 53 NYU student groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, which declared that the student organizations would boycott two pro-Israel student groups on campus: Realize Israel and TorchPAC. TorchPAC expressed pessimism even before the final result. We have known since before the introduction of this resolution that unfortunately, this process is unfair, and systematically silenced our community and our voices, which enabled the passage of this resolution, posted the group on Facebook. At the meeting, falsehoods went unchecked, rules of order were not followed and only seven members of our community were able to speak for approximately two minutes each. We will continue to show support for pro-Israel students on this campus and be a strong voice against hate. Our community is strong and united. This resolution will not change that. Realize Israel echoed TorchPACs sentiment and posted on Facebook, As we light the candles of the fifth night of Hanukkah, we remember that there will always be a glimmer of hope and light will always overcome darkness. HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA)Vice President Mike Pence said the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel has no place in the U.S. market, and cited Airbnbs delisting of West Bank Jewish settlements as an example of the movement. In the wake of Airbnbs decision to ban Jewish homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank, we made it clear, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is wrong and it has no place in the free enterprise of the United States of America, Pence said at the annual conference of the Israeli American Council, taking place this year in southern Florida. Pence did not explain what specifically the Trump administration had done to make it clear BDS was unwelcome in the United States. As Indiana governor from 2013-2017 Pence was among the first to sign a law banning state cooperation with businesses that boycott Israel. There are similar bills under consideration federally; Pence may have been signaling administration support for the legislation. Airbnb still lists dwellings within Israels 1967 borders. Pence, long a pro-Israel leader dating back to his days in Congress, got multiple standing ovations during the conference and repeatedly saidto applausethat Donald Trump most pro-Israel president ever. Its a great pleasure to serve with a man who has made the alliance between America and Israel stronger than ever before, President Trump, he said. Pence noted Trumps Israel-related actions, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and pulling out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Listing instances in which Trump had made good on his vow to combat anti-Semitism, Pence listed the U.S. withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council, which disproportionately targets Israel, the Airbnb incidentalthough he did not say what Trump had done regarding BDSand moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Jewish groups have called on the administration to restore funding for a Homeland Security effort to track right-wing extremists that Trump has all but shut down and to name someone to the congressionally mandated role of a monitor of anti-Semitism overseas. Pence did not address these issues. At the end of his speech, Pence turned to the massacre last month at a Pittsburgh synagogue complex, when an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 worshippers. I believe there may have been no better example of the presidents love for the Jewish people than the way the president responded in the wake of the terrible attack of the tree of life synagogue, Pence said. Trump visited the site of the killing three days after the attack but did not speak. A number of local Jews protested Trump and local politicians had asked him not to come. The gunman, while reviling Trump as beholden to Jews, had embraced a claim advanced without evidence by Trump that Central American migrants planned to invade the United States. The gunman blamed Jews for the invasion. This anti-Semitic attack was an assault not just on the Jewish community, Pence said. It was an assault on all of us in America. (JNS)Donna Shalala, 77, is no stranger to politics or the relationship between the United States and Israel. She served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, where she traveled to Israel and helped researchers there obtain grants from the National Institutes of Health, in addition to assisting with other initiatives inside the Jewish state. She then went into the private sector: serving as University of Miami president for 14 years and president of the Clinton Foundation for two years. Shalala, endorsed by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, defeated Maria Elvira Salazar n the midterm elections to replace the retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, known to be staunchly pro-Israel, and became the second-oldest freshman representative ever. JNS talked with Shalala by phone. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Q: What is your overall stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship? I know you were briefly detained at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2010 on your way back to the United States. A: I issued a statement saying that Israel had a right to protect the security of its people. I didnt have any problem with that. My Jewish friends had a bigger problem than I did. They thought it was absurd. The prime minister got up in the Knesset and said, We got to take a look at our security because Donna Shalala is one of our friends. So it wasnt a big issue as far as Im concerned. Ive been a friend of Israel for a long time. Ive been working with the universities within the health-care system for a long time. I first went to Israel to be on Mayor Teddy Kolleks Jerusalem Committee to help plan the city of Jerusalem when I was a young urbanist, a young academic, teaching at Columbia [University]. And I have honorary degrees from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the University of Haifa and from Ben-Gurion University [of the Negev]. Q: What experiences did you have with Israel when you were HHS Secretary? A: I actually worked with Israeli health officials to guarantee the Weizmann Institute [of Science] scientists the opportunity to apply for NIH grants among other things. I worked with women leaders in Israel on health-care issues. I went in and out of Israel four times when I was secretary. Q: Did the scientists get the NIH grants? A: Absolutely. And to this day, they can apply for NIH grants. Q: Do you see any commonalities between the health-care system in the United States and in Israel? A: Weve trained a lot of Israeli doctors over the years. Theyve done fellowships here in the U.S., and American physicians have long gone to Israel and worked with their Israeli counterparts. Most recently, the University of Miami has helped develop the cancer centers in Israel. Our faculty worked closely with their counterparts in Israel, particularly on cancer interests. Q: And do you see any other similarities between the two nations other than in the health arenas? A: Certainly in technology. There are lots of relationships in terms of technology. Now those are things I worked on directly myself. Q: How many times have you been to Israel? A: Oh, I dont know. 20? 30? A lot. Q: What is your stance on the Iran nuclear deal and overall threat from that regime? Youve been in Iran and said it was an extraordinary experience, and that it has a very sophisticated culture. A: I lived and volunteered in Iran in the 1960s. First of all, I think its a terrorist state. But I do support the Iran deal. I think what it does is it delays the development of a nuclear power by Iran. I did support it and I continue to support it. But it doesnt mean that Im not shy about recognizing that Iran is a terrorist country and it supports terrorists around the world. Q: Were you opposed to the Trump administration withdrawing from the deal and reimposing sanctions? A: Yes, I was. Q: Whats your stance on BDS? I know as University of Miami president you said in 2010 that there will never be a boycott of Israel. A: Im absolutely opposed to a boycott of any kind both in terms of disinvestment, as well as in the attacks on Israeli academics by the British Union. I was one of the first college presidents in the country to denounce that. Q: Whats your stance on American taxpayer funding toward the Palestinian Authority? A: It depends on what it is. Im in favor of humanitarian funding. Im not in favor of helping people be terrorists. Ive always been in favor of humanitarian funding. Not just there, but in general around the world. Q: What is your reaction to fellow incoming Democrats Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, whove made anti-Israel statements? A: Look, thats their position. Its not my position. Thats their position, and I disagree with it. I dont agree with anyone that makes anti-Semitic remarks. And my position on Israel is very firm and very clear. And there are going to be members of Congress with different positions. Thats their position, not mine. Q: Do you have any specific plans in Congress regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship, particularly when it comes to introducing relevant legislation)? A: I intend to work with a coalition of members of Congress, many of whom represent South Florida, like [Democrat Reps.] Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, to make sure we continue to make sure that Israel survives and thrives. Q: Are you aware of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act? A: Yes. Q: Whats your stance on it? A: I have not looked at specific bills, but Ill be talking to my colleagues about a list of things I intend to support. Anything that has to do with anti-Semitism you can be sure Ill be front and center. Q: Anything else our readers should know about you? A: They should know theres an Arab American with longstanding support of Israel whos just been elected in South Florida. (JNS)-Donna Shalala, 77, is no stranger to politics or the relationship between the United States and Israel. She served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, where she traveled to Israel and helped researchers there obtain grants from the National Institutes of Health, in addition to assisting with other initiatives inside the Jewish state. She then went into the private sector: serving as University of Miami president for 14 years and president of the Clinton Foundation for two years. Shalala, endorsed by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, defeated Maria Elvira Salazar n the midterm elections to replace the retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, known to be staunchly pro-Israel, and became the second-oldest freshman representative ever. JNS talked with Shalala by phone. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Q: What is your overall stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship? I know you were briefly detained at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2010 on your way back to the United States. A: I issued a statement saying that Israel had a right to protect the security of its people. I didn't have any problem with that. My Jewish friends had a bigger problem than I did. They thought it was absurd. The prime minister got up in the Knesset and said, "We got to take a look at our security because Donna Shalala is one of our friends. So it wasn't a big issue as far as I'm concerned. I've been a friend of Israel for a long time. I've been working with the universities within the health-care system for a long time. I first went to Israel to be on Mayor Teddy Kollek's Jerusalem Committee to help plan the city of Jerusalem when I was a young urbanist, a young academic, teaching at Columbia [University]. And I have honorary degrees from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the University of Haifa and from Ben-Gurion University [of the Negev]. Q: What experiences did you have with Israel when you were HHS Secretary? A: I actually worked with Israeli health officials to guarantee the Weizmann Institute [of Science] scientists the opportunity to apply for NIH grants among other things. I worked with women leaders in Israel on health-care issues. I went in and out of Israel four times when I was secretary. Q: Did the scientists get the NIH grants? A: Absolutely. And to this day, they can apply for NIH grants. Q: Do you see any commonalities between the health-care system in the United States and in Israel? A: We've trained a lot of Israeli doctors over the years. They've done fellowships here in the U.S., and American physicians have long gone to Israel and worked with their Israeli counterparts. Most recently, the University of Miami has helped develop the cancer centers in Israel. Our faculty worked closely with their counterparts in Israel, particularly on cancer interests. Q: And do you see any other similarities between the two nations other than in the health arenas? A: Certainly in technology. There are lots of relationships in terms of technology. Now those are things I worked on directly myself. Q: How many times have you been to Israel? A: Oh, I don't know. 20? 30? A lot. Q: What is your stance on the Iran nuclear deal and overall threat from that regime? You've been in Iran and said it was "an extraordinary experience," and that it has a "very sophisticated culture." A: I lived and volunteered in Iran in the 1960s. First of all, I think it's a terrorist state. But I do support the Iran deal. I think what it does is it delays the development of a nuclear power by Iran. I did support it and I continue to support it. But it doesn't mean that I'm not shy about recognizing that Iran is a terrorist country and it supports terrorists around the world. Q: Were you opposed to the Trump administration withdrawing from the deal and reimposing sanctions? A: Yes, I was. Q: What's your stance on BDS? I know as University of Miami president you said in 2010 that "there will never be a boycott of Israel." A: I'm absolutely opposed to a boycott of any kind both in terms of disinvestment, as well as in the attacks on Israeli academics by the British Union. I was one of the first college presidents in the country to denounce that. Q: What's your stance on American taxpayer funding toward the Palestinian Authority? A: It depends on what it is. I'm in favor of humanitarian funding. I'm not in favor of helping people be terrorists. I've always been in favor of humanitarian funding. Not just there, but in general around the world. Q: What is your reaction to fellow incoming Democrats Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, who've made anti-Israel statements? A: Look, that's their position. It's not my position. That's their position, and I disagree with it. I don't agree with anyone that makes anti-Semitic remarks. And my position on Israel is very firm and very clear. And there are going to be members of Congress with different positions. That's their position, not mine. Q: Do you have any specific plans in Congress regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship, particularly when it comes to introducing relevant legislation)? A: I intend to work with a coalition of members of Congress, many of whom represent South Florida, like [Democrat Reps.] Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, to make sure we continue to make sure that Israel survives and thrives. Q: Are you aware of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act? A: Yes. Q: What's your stance on it? A: I have not looked at specific bills, but I'll be talking to my colleagues about a list of things I intend to support. Anything that has to do with anti-Semitism you can be sure I'll be front and center. Q: Anything else our readers should know about you? A: They should know there's an Arab American with longstanding support of Israel who's just been elected in South Florida. (JNS)-The United Nations rejected a resolution on Thursday that required a two-thirds majority to pass condemning the terrorist group Hamas for launching rockets from Gaza into Israel in addition to its infrastructure such as building tunnels to infiltrate and attack the Jewish state. The final vote was 87 in favor, 57 against, 33 abstentions. Although the vote was expected to pass through a simple majority, Kuwait proposed a motion to require a two-thirds majority to pass the resolution, dimming its chances for success. The motion was adopted with 75 votes in favor, 72 against, 26 abstentions. "The very fact that there is a vote against Hamas in the General Assembly is an achievement for Israel. We succeeded in creating discussion and enlisting support from around the world against this murderous terror organization," said Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon. "This has never before happened at the U.N., and now there has is an historic opportunity to condemn it publicly and decisively." By securing support from all of the European Union's 28 member states, the resolution's fate was all but sealed. Danon told reporters on Tuesday that "we will get a majority, no matter what." In remarks just before what is one of her final acts as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told her fellow members that the resolution could mark "a historic day" or just "another day." Additionally, Haley rhetorically asked: "Is the hatred that strong? Is the hatred against Israel that strong that you will defend a terrorist organization that does more harm to the Palestinian people? Isn't it time to let it go?" This development came on the heels of six anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the world body last Friday. Dear Editor: I appreciate the pain that Deborah Meitin experienced when she read, without prior warning about the authors background, the brilliant, informed, political analysis of Caroline Glick in the Heritage. Ms. Glick is not a follower of the Democrats ill-conceived narratives. I would point out, however, that the Heritage always presents articles on both sides of the major issues, often on the same page. Some of the news diligently reported in the Heritage is difficult to digest. There were the descriptions of all the Jewish Democrats running for Congress most of whom are closely affiliated with J-Street. Later we are advised that 75 percent of Jewish voters sided with the Democrats. How did the pollsters define the Jewishness of those who were interviewed? They did not ask atypical deplorables like my wife and me (who have six college degrees between us). My only advice to my fellow Jewish-Americans is to return to the liberal art of doing their own thinking. Let the progressive rabbis sermonize within their religious expertise. David G. Danziger Winter Park (JNS)Mixing food, especially ice-cream, with politics can be problematic. But Ben & Jerrysthe iconic Vermont creamery founded by two Jewish guys from Long Island, N.Y.became a huge success doing just that by convincing customers that their companys support for progressive causes justified eating a fattening, if not tasty, dessert. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield hit the jackpot by building a business that billed itself as having a social conscience, identifying itself with the effort to save the rainforest and naming flavors after pop-culture figures like lead guitar player of the Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia. Eating Ben & Jerrys was a popular form of virtue signaling even before the term was invented. This was so tied to their identity as a brand that even after Cohen and Greenfield sold their company to Unilever, the new owners believed that they had to continue the tradition of coming up with new flavors tied to liberal politics (think Americone Dream or The Tonight Dough, favorites of comedians Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon, respectively). But the latest Ben & Jerry contribution to the national palette isnt so much a feel-good cause as it is a reflection of our polarized politics. Their new flavorPeCAN Resist!is intended to entice consumers because a portion of the sales will go to support groups opposing U.S. President Donald Trump. According to the company, the point of the project is aiding four left-wing groups: the Womens March, Color of Change, Honor the Earth and Neta, which are creating a more just and equitable nation for us all, and who are fighting President Trumps repressive agenda. But the inclusion of the Womens March opens the company up to charges of rank hypocrisy. When you become a funder of a group like the Womens March, whose leaders have openly embraced and defended one of the countrys most notorious hate-mongers and anti-Semites, its clear that your claim to be working for a more equitable society is bunk. That ought to be obvious in the wake of the Oct. 27 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, perhaps the worst act of anti-Semitic violence in the history of the United States. The Womens March rose to prominence because it was the group that organized the biggest anti-Trump rallies over the last two years, including the massive protest against his inauguration in January 2017. The group thrived because it was able to channel the anger of those who wished to resist Trump while also tapping into the spirit of the #MeToo movement. The distinctive pink hats its supporters wear that are supposed to depict female genitalia became a ubiquitous symbol of the resistance. But Womens Marchs hard-core leftism isnt so much the issue as is the cozy relationship it has with prejudice against Jews. Two of its leaders are open supporters of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and of notorious anti-Zionists. Womens March co-president Tamika Mallory attended a Saviors Day address in Chicago given by Farrakhan and was among those cheering him as he spouted his usual litany of anti-Semitic smears, in which he blamed Jews, whom he accused of controlling Hollywood and the media, for harming women. Afterwards, a smiling Mallory posed for a picture with the hate-monger. Just as bad is the fact that another key leader of the Womens March is Linda Sarsour, the Palestinian-American activist who is a prominent supporter of the BDS movement targeting Israel. Sarsour has made it clear that Zionists, even those who are fellow liberal Trump-haters, arent welcome at the groups marches. She is also a big fan of Farrakhan, but neither that nor her hate for Israel and those who support it havent prevented her from becoming a darling of the political left and its media cheering section. When confronted about their support for Farrakhan, the Womens March refused to back down or to get rid of Mallory or Sarsour. To the contrary, they remain the faces of a group that is not only lauded for their anti-Trump activism, but now also has the support of Ben & Jerrysthe moral equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for the left. When asked about Mallory and Sarsour, the ice-cream company was agnostic about their support for anti-Semitism. Were comfortable with the idea that the people and the causes we partner with may have a point of view different from our own on some issues, a spokeswoman for Ben & Jerrys was quoted as saying. They can be controversial, just as we can. Linda may not agree with everything weve done. But the work that she has done to promote womens rights, as co-chair of the Womens March, is undeniably important and we are proud to join her in that effort. Not satisfied with that, Ben & Jerrys also released a statement from Sarsour, saying, We recommit ourselves to dismantling anti-Semitism and all forms of racism. Sarsour spoke out against the slaughter last weekend at a Pittsburgh synagogue and is trying to position herself as a friend of the Jews, as long as they arent Israelis or supporters of the Jewish state. But can one really dismantle anti-Semitism by supporting a Jew-hater like Farrakhan, and by championing a cause that advocates for denying to the Jews that which no one thinks to deny to any other people on the planet? Sarsour has been a hypocrite about anti-Semitism, and now the same can be said for Ben & Jerrys. Some progressive Jews have already spoken out about disassociating from the Womens March while Mallory and Sarsour remain at its head. But the message from Ben & Jerrys is that its OK to hate Jews as long as you are resisting Trump. If liberal Jews, even those blaming Trump for Pittsburgh and act as if anti-Semitism is limited to the right, blithely accept this outrageous proposition, then they have lost their moral compass. After Pittsburgh, zero tolerance for Jew-hatred must be a given. The only thing people of conscience, whether liberal or conservative, should do is to resist Ben & Jerrys new bitter taste. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNSJewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin. (CAMERA via JNS)The Washington Post is finally covering the systematic violations of human rights by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. In an Oct. 23 dispatch, Post reporters Ruth Eglash and Sufian Taha noted the extreme lengths to which the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip go to curb dissenting voices. The newspaper highlighted a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that was released on Oct. 23 about Palestinian leaderships persecution of journalists and activists. The Posts decision to note the repressive tactics of Palestinian officials should be commended; as CAMERA detailed in a June 29, 2018 op-ed, many Western media outlets fail to cover such abuses (The Media Is Not Pro-Palestinian, Just Anti-Israel, The Daily Caller). The newspaper pointed out that HRWs report listed more than 80 cases of torture and arbitrary arrests, some for nothing more than writing a critical article or Facebook post. Both Hamas and the P.A. downplayed the report as consisting largely of isolated cases, The Post said. However, this is false. The P.A. and Hamas routinely commit human-rights violations. CAMERA documented several instances in an Oct. 7, 2017 Times of Israel op-ed titled The Growing Autocracy of the Palestinian Authority. For example, in September 2017, the P.A. arrested Mohamed Jabir, a former member of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Jabir was imprisoned for posting Facebook pictures of him visiting with a member of Israels Knesset. Later that month, a former Hamas member turned peace advocate, Mosab Hassan Yousef, accused the P.A. itself of being the greatest enemy of the Palestinian people, in a Sept. 27, 2017 speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council. But as CAMERA noted at the time, many major U.S. media outlets, including The Post, failed to report both Yousefs speech and Jabirs arrest, just as they failed to report P.A. Prime Minister Rami Hamdallahs March 16, 2016 admission that torture happens in P.A.-run prisons. Indeed, CAMERA has highlighted several incidents of the P.A. and Hamas threatening and imprisoning Palestinians for expressing political opinions (see, for example, Hamas Cracks Down on Palestinian Journalists, Jan. 13, 2016). In 2016, the Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian group that seeks to promote inherent values of justice, equality and human rights, reported a surge in complaints about torture in P.A. and Hamas prisons. Indeed, in December 2015, the Palestinian Center for Developments and Media Freedoms accused P.A. security forces of using violent means against journalists. ICHRs director general, Dr. Ammar Dwaik, noted that a high percentage of the 782 complaints regarding torture involved journalists, some of who were summoned for interrogation or briefly detained for posting controversial comments on social media, especially Facebook. The Post ignored this as well and, in the fall of 2017, declined to publish a CAMERA op-ed highlighting such abuses. Readers should welcome The Posts sudden, if belated, attention to the draconian measures employed by Palestinian leaders against their own people. However, it raises the question: Why now and not earlier? The Post noted that HRWs report comes as the issues of press freedom in the Middle East and the treatment of dissidents have been highlighted following the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018. But as an explanation, this doesnt suffice; other organizations have been highlighting P.A. and Hamas abuses for years. The answer, seemingly, is that the newspaper and other media outlets, including The New York Times, covered the abuses solely because Human Rights Watch, which itself has a history of overlooking such crimes, belatedly decided to detail them in a report. As noted above, numerous other organizationsmany of them Palestinianhave been detailing allegations of mistreatment by the P.A. and Hamas. But this failed to spur the level of media attention that has occurred after HRWs report. As CAMERA has pointed out, HRW has a long history of anti-Israel bias. HRW has even used the criticism that it receives from pro-Israel pressure groups to get funds from wealthy Saudi donors (Minority Report, New Republic, April 27, 2010). HRWs own founder, Robert Bernstein, repudiated the group in a Oct. 19, 2009 New York Times op-ed that noted the nonprofit organization was guilty of helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state. For its part, The Washington Post has frequently relied on HRW as a sourceoften uncritically quoting the organization on Israel, despite its documented bias against the Jewish state. Further, The Posts recent attempt to report on Palestinian human rights abuses was incomplete. The paper failed to detail Hamass use of human shields, a double war crime and terror tactic that HRW has often obfuscated on. Additionally, The Post has yet to cover the P.A.s escalation of actions those who sell land and property to Jews, as documented in an Oct. 24, 2018 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) report. JCPA analyst Yoni Ben Menachem noted that as part of this campaign, a Palestinian realtor with dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship was abducted to Ramallah were he is held in an interrogation cell. P.A. forces imprisoned the realtor, whom, according to Arab-language media reports, is named Isam Jalal Akel, several days before The Posts report (For Palestinians, Selling Land to Jews is Punishable by Death, Algemeiner, Oct. 22, 2018). Under P.A. law, it is illegal to sell or rent property to Jews. Perhaps if The Post and other media outlets didnt rely so heavily on anti-Israel organizations and had a greater diversity of sources, they couldve reported the story of Palestinian human-rights abuses at an earlier date. Tragically, Palestinian leaders repressing their own people is nothing new. It is, however, newsworthy. Sean Durns is a senior research analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Facebook/Sarah Papenheim(ROTTERDAM, Netherlands) -- Donee Odegard knew what happened the minute two sheriffs showed up at her door. She'd been through it before. The authorities asked her a few questions about her daughter, Sarah Papenheim, before delivering the news: Her daughter had been stabbed to death while studying abroad in the Netherlands. "He was sad to inform me that my beautiful daughter had passed. I kind of knew it was coming when you have done this before," said Odegard, whose son had committed suicide at 21 three years ago, in an interview with ABC News' Good Morning America. "When he started answering me questions, there is no way sheriffs come to your door unless you committed a crime," she continued. "You kind of know what they are going to say." Papenheim, a Minnesotan native, died Wednesday afternoon after she was attacked at her apartment in Rotterdam, according to Rotterdam police and Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP-TV. The suspect, a 23-year-old Dutch man, lived in the same building as Papenheim, and the two were believed to be acquaintances, Rotterdam police said. The suspect was arrested about an hour after officers found her body, police said. He was located at a train station about 60 miles from Rotterdam. Odegard said the man, whose name has not been released, was a cello player and her daughter was a talented jazz drummer. Both were studying music. "They loved talking about music," Odegard said. "There was times he would have highs and lows." "Nothing concerned me until the last time I talked to her when she told me this story," Odegard added. "She said, 'Mommy he did this. He is acting strange.'" Odegard said she told her daughter to "not be around him," but as relayed by her mother, Papenheim said, "Mom, he is my friend. I am his only friend. He would get angry, but I can always talk him down and change his mind." No motive has been established, police said. Papenheim attended Erasmus University in the Netherlands, Rotterdam police said. "The university is shocked by this terrible incident and is taking care of upset students and employees and will act towards relatives according to our protocols," a university spokeswoman said in a statement. "We encourage our students and staff not to let each other alone in this difficult time and to get in touch with student-advisors and psychologists if they want to." She was living in the Netherlands after meeting someone playing a game online who lived in the country, her mother said. She traveled to the country to meet him, and after they began dating she decided to move to the country for school. Her mother praised her boyfriend, Nico, for the support he's provided, both emotionally and as a native Dutch speaker. "He has been a rock for her," Odegard said. "He was there when my son committed suicide; he has been there for her so much. I dont know what would have happened for both of us if he wasnt there. He helped us so much." Papenheim was a talented drummer and a fixture in the music scene in Minnesota. Her mother said she was returning home for Christmas and had already booked a performance. Now, her friends will be performing to raise money for her burial. A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed Papenheim's death and said the department extends its "deepest condolences to her family and friends." "We are providing all appropriate consular services," the spokesperson said. Odegard said she is getting finances in order to bring her daughter back from the Netherlands, she said. "I know that everyone says that their daughter or son is the sunshine in everybodys life, but my daughter lights up the world," she said. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 14) Authorities arrested the son of Bureau of Corrections chief Nicanor Faeldon in a drug raid in Naga City on Friday morning. Faeldon's son, Nicanor Jr., and four others were arrested for possession of illegal drugs after police recovered seven pieces of heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet containing suspected shabu. All those arrested were inside the house when the police served a search warrant for illegal drugs against a certain Russel Lanuzo Bermudo. Senior Police Officer 3 Tobias Bongon of the Naga City police said they are processing the papers to subject the suspects to a drug test. If the test comes out positive, they will file a case of drug use, but if it's negative, no case will be filed against Faeldon Jr. The police added Faeldon Jr. may still face a case for visiting the drug den, which is a bailable case. The older Faeldon was "clueless" about his son's arrest, saying he only found out through news reports. Faeldon, who himself was involved in controversies on multibillion-peso illegal drug shipments, said he will not use his government position. He said he will instead distance himself from the case so that there will be an independent investigation. "I will not lift a finger to influence their (Naga police) ongoing investigation and arrest special operating procedure. Let the axe fall where it may," he said through his spokesperson. Faeldon, seemingly taking a cue on the hardline stance of President Rodrigo Duterte against drug addicts, said he will not condone his son's behavior if proven guilty. "If the police investigation that my son, Nicanor Jr is indeed, a drug pusher and therefore a menace to society, then there will be no need to prosecute or jail him. I will personally obliterate him from the face of the earth," he said in a statement. READ: Faeldon: I will kill my son if proven guilty of drug charges Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said Faeldon offered to resign if his son is found to be involved in illegal drugs. He added the chief offered to go on leave while the arrest is on investigation. "As to the BuCor Chief's offer to go on leave, the Department will have to study the matter, taking into consideration a number of facts, among which are: the Chief has just been recently appointed, and the independence and integrity of the investigation on the matter is not likely to be affected by his stay in the BuCor," Perete said. Malacanang vowed it will not cover up the crime of arrested Faeldon. "We assure that there will be no whitewash on the ongoing investigation in adherence with the Administration's firm resolve to curb illegal drugs in the country," Presidential Spokesperson Sal Panelo said in a statement. The older Faeldon stepped down from the Bureau of Customs in 2017 after P6.4 billion worth of shabu managed to slip past Customs. Amid the controversy, Duterte appointed him to the Office of Civil Defense, then transferred him to the Bureau of Corrections when Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa vacated the post to run for the Senate. Between 2008 and 2015, there was not a single Khalistani terrorism-related fatality in Punjab. Each year thereafter has seen multiple fatalities. At the same time, Pakistani mischief in Jammu and Kashmir has been consistently escalating since 2013. Indias overtures, including personal initiatives by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, such as the self invitation to the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs birthday in December 2016, have been obvious and abject failures. Each of the terrorist incidents in Punjab over the past years, including two major Islamist terrorist attacks (Gurdaspur and Pathankot), link back to Pakistan. The decision on the Kartarpur Corridor was announced just days after the terrorist attack on the Nirankari Bhawan at Amritsar, in which three persons were killed. State agencies identified Harmeet Singh, aka Phd, as the mastermind. Harmeet Singh is known to be sheltered by the Inter Services Intelligence in Pakistan. He is only one of the many Khalistani terrorists who finds safe haven in Pakistan more than two and a half decades after the comprehensive defeat of terrorism in the Punjab. Prominent among those who continue to be hosted by the ISI, and periodically prodded into launching or attempting to launch terrorist attacks in Punjab, are Wadhawa Singh of the Babbar Khalsa International, Ranjeet Singh Neeta and Paramjit Singh Panjwar of the Khalistan Commando Force and Gajinder Singh of the Dal Khalsa. Moreover, the ISIs support to Khalistani extremists in the Sikh diaspora across the world was very visible in the mobilisation for the London Declaration in support of the Khalistani Referendum 2020 campaign at Trafalgar Square on August 12, 2018. Though the Trafalgar Square demonstration was a damp squib, the reality is that Pakistan continues to liberally fund, facilitate and support Khalistani groups across the world. Crucially, barely four days after the Nirankari Bhawan attack, even as continuous terrorist activity and relentless breaches of the ceasefire along the Line of Control in J&K persisted, there was no evidence whatsoever that Pakistans intentions or strategy with regard to the use of terrorism as an instrument of strategic extension in the neighbourhood had altered. In particular, it is well known that Pakistan has long exploited the major Sikh shrines in its territory including Kartarpur Sahib and Guru Nanaks birthplace, Nankana Sahib for attempts to radicalise pilgrims. Indeed, in April 2018, when a jatha (group) of 1,800 pilgrims visited Pakistan, accompanying Indian officials and diplomats were forcibly separated from the group in explicit violation of bilateral protocols. India subsequently lodged a strong diplomatic protest, alleging that the pilgrimage had been used to raise the issue of Khalistan, and that the pilgrims were exposed to inflammatory statements and materials at various shrines they visited. What, then, was the motivation or compulsion despite Modis repeated declamations that there could be no dialogue with Pakistan till Islamabad ended its support to terrorism in India for the abrupt agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor? Indeed, what could have provoked the comparisons with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the even more absurd claim that the corridor will become a symbol of love and peace between both countries? Simply put, there are no rational grounds, no dramatic shift in the security situation or the support of Pakistans state agencies to terrorist formations targeting India, no conducive atmosphere, which could justify the abrupt fast forwarding of the long pending Kartarpur Corridor project. On the Indian side, the only visible compulsion is the proximity of the general elections in 2019, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Partys electoral interests its bid to woo the conservative Sikh voter in the state. In all other aspects, Modis and the BJPs postures and statements have remained consistently hostile to Pakistan and to any reopening of the peace process. Subsequent statements by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sushma Swaraj have reiterated that a dialogue cannot start only with the Kartarpur corridor. On the Pakistan side, this initiative represents an opportunity for further mischief, a continuation of its project to keep the Khalistani movement alive and use Sikh shrines and pilgrimages as opportunities for radicalisation and recruitment. The ruling dispensation at South Block has displayed, in the decision on the Kartarpur Corridor and, indeed, in its broad approach to terrorism and its Pakistan policy, a disconnect with reality and neglect of facts. The regime has repeatedly sacrificed the national interest to a short term, partisan electoral calculus, and there is not a single reason to believe that this is not the case with regard to the decision on the Kartarpur Corridor. Ajai Sahni is the executive director of Institute for Conflict Management & South Asia Terrorism Portal The views expressed are personal As with the legendary bird, the Congress has risen from the ashes of 2014 to once again begin its role as the grand old party that led India to freedom and ruled it for many decades thereafter. Having witnessed or been involved in all the elections since 1952, I have five quick takeaways from the recent assembly election results. First, it has shown that the formidable Modi-Shah electoral machine is not invincible as many had thought, but, in fact, can be defeated not only through a gathbandhan (alliance) but even in a one-on-one contest with the Congress. This explodes that myth that the present dispensation is necessarily poised for a return in 2019. Second, the elections have highlighted the fact that Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a full-fledged national leader in his own right, despite all attempts by the powers that be to humiliate and denigrate him, including what, in my view, was unpardonable, by mocking his claim to be a Shiv Bhakt and pouring scorn on his visit to Kailash and Mansarovar after the still unexplained near-fatal aeroplane episode that he encountered while campaigning in Karnataka. He campaigned relentlessly in all the sates, especially in the three Hindi-speaking ones, and his frontal attacks seem to have had their effect. I may add that it is unfortunate that unbecoming language was used on both sides. Dragging the prime ministers parents into the debate, in particular, was in very bad taste. Rahul will have to see that Congress enthusiasts do not overstep the bounds of decency, regardless of the language used by the other side. The third takeaway is the critical importance of having strong and active state-level leaders. For example, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia in Madhya Pradesh, and Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, represent two generations of active and committed Congress leaders. Over the past several years, instead of building up state leaders, the Congress seems to have followed a policy of sidelining them and striving to keep all the power in the centre. In a huge, diverse and pluralistic country like India, this strategy is self-defeating. Under the young and dynamic leadership of Rahul Gandhi, we should now see a significant change in policy and a sustained effort to build state-level leaders all over the country. Fourth, although the Congress has done extremely well in all the three Hindi-speaking states that went to polls, in the two big ones Uttar Pradesh and Bihar it is still bereft of effective state-level leaders. Alliances, of course, are essential, but the Congress has to start seriously rebuilding its cadres in these huge states which together send 120 members to the Lok Sabha. Finally, we have to pay homage to the collective wisdom of the Indian people. Over these decades, I have seen how our remarkable democracy and Constitution have given us a self-regulatory mechanism whereby any substantial movement against democracy is ultimately corrected. The Emergency elections of 1977 and the next one of 1980 showed this in a most dramatic matter. In the present instance also, when there was a growing feeling that our polity was shifting too much in one direction and beginning to threaten the pluralistic and inclusive nature of Indian society, the self-regulating mechanism has again come into play and is likely to continue to do so until the balance is restored. All in all, therefore, three cheers to Indian democracy and well-deserved kudos to Rahul Gandhi and his team. Karan Singh is scholar, philosopher and politicianThe views expressed are personal After Tuesdays electoral setbacks, it is time for introspection in the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). Party president Amit Shah went into a huddle with senior leaders on Thursday to discuss the reasons behind the defeats the party faced in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh annd Rajasthan, and to lift the morale ahead of the 2019 general elections, according to senior leaders familiar with the matter. In the morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the BJP MPs at the weekly parliamentary party meeting in the Parliament complex. The BJP is also expected to hold a meeting of its national council in the Capital in the second week of January, when 2,000 party leaders from across the country will assemble to discuss the national elections. The meetings were decided before the results of the assembly elections came in, said a BJP office-bearer who asked not to be named. But, he added, the outcome of the assembly elections in the five states particularly the three in the Hindi heartland that were under the BJPs rule will feature in the discussions as the party prepares for Modis re-election bid. Read more| Rajasthan Election Results 2018: BJP fails to overcome jinx, anti-incumbency The BJP functionaries said that the partys national office bearers, state unit presidents, in-charges of the different states and some others invitees attended the meeting called by Shah in New Delhi to take stock of the preparedness for the Lok Sabha polls expected in April-May. A second office-bearer said the results have exposed the limitation of BJPs organisation in states where it is in power. We ruled Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for the last 15 years, but addressing farm distress, creating more jobs, and dealing with a more aggressive Congress are big challenges confronting the party, he said. Sidharth Mishra, president of the Center for Reforms, Development and Justice said The Tuesday results have shown that success, or defeat, of any party in an election does not depend on how a party is organisationally prepared. There are other critical issues that the BJP needs to address. Such a meeting can be an occasion for Amit Shah to do some honest introspection. Or else such an exercise will be futile, he said. The Congress dismissed the BJPs plan of action. It is not a case of organisational failure but a policy failure...governance is not just governing but like a good doctor, you need to feel the pulse of the people. You cannot substitute it with propaganda, said Congress leader Tom Vadakkan. Read more| BJP pays price for agrarian distress, employment crisis Bhupesh Baghel has been Chhattisgarh Congress president for the last five years and has taken former chief minister Raman Singhs Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government head-on. Baghel belongs to the Kurmi community, which makes up around 14% of the states electorate. Baghel was entrusted with the task of reviving the Congress fortunes in the state after the party suffered a third consecutive defeat in Assembly polls in 2013. At that time, infighting within the party was at its peak; a group led by former chief minister Ajit Jogi had issues with several rival leaders. The elevation of Baghel as the partys state president did not go down well with Jogi. In 2015-16, after the surfacing of an audio tape that purportedly revealed that a bypoll held for the Antagarh assembly seat in 2014 had been fixed, Jogi was expelled from the Congress. After the formation of the state in 2000, Baghel had served as revenue minister in the Jogi government (2000-2003). Baghel, an aggressive leader, gave Congress a new face. He was the only person who fought against the policies and the influence of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) in the state. I believe logically he should be given a chance for the CM post, said a senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity. Also Read: Assembly elections results 2018: Rahul the star; PM Modi, Shah relegated to sidelines, says Shiv Sena Baghel was MLA from the Patan Seat in 1993 and then in 1998 and 2003. In the 2008 assembly election, he was defeated by the BJPs Vijay Baghel. In 2009, he contested the Lok Sabha election from Raipur but lost to BJPs Ramesh Bais. In 2013, he again fought the assembly election from Patan and was elected. Karan Johar has revealed that Anil Kapoor was initially offered to play real-life daughter Sonam Kapoors dad in the 2011 film Players, but rejected the proposal by asking directors Abbas-Mustan, Do you think I look like Sonams father? Karan was speaking at journalist Anupama Chopras annual roundtable adda on her website, Film Companion. The panel of producers was discussing the brave choices some actors are making in the industry. Siddharth Roy Kapur singled out Aamir Khans performance in Dangal and Ayushmann Khurranas selfless choice to star in a supporting role in Badhaai Ho. Actors dont want to play parents, the producers said. Which is when Karan interjected with the funniest story about this that hed heard. When AK was offered Players, he told Abbas-Mustan You think I look like Sonams father?. The role was eventually played by the late Vinod Khanna. Sonams sister, producer Rhea Kapoor, chimed in with her own story about her father. What about Dil Dhadakne Do? It took him a year to say yes. She said that she has never seen Anil work out so hard for a role. His thing was, If Im playing a father, Im playing the best father in the world. Anils performance in director Zoya Akhtars film was received with critical acclaim. If my father is at an event with me, Rhea continued, he just walks ahead of me. Her father, she said, is a different breed. Hes not normal. Anil will star in Karans upcoming period political drama, Takht, for which he is being made to gain weight, which hasnt gone down too well with the actor, Karan said. He told me Karan wants to destroy my career, Rhea said. Follow @htshowbiz for more More than a year ago, he vanished into the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, along with dozens of Saudi princes and businessmen. Before long, rumors swirled: Was the billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi even alive? Now, at last, comes the answer. Al Amoudi, is still alive and will stand trial at some point for corruption and bribery, according to a Saudi official, who asked not to be identified. Whats remarkable about his situation is that despite his prolonged detainment, a result of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans crackdown on graft in the Kingdom, the bulk of Al Amoudis global business empire has boomed. Sales at his Sweden-based oil refiner Preem AB have surged more than 30 percent and his Stockholm office properties have risen in value. Since being seized by security forces in Riyadh last year, his net worth has climbed by about 6 percent to $8.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the worlds 500 richest people. The situation highlights the contradictions and absurdities of being a wealthy Saudi under the de facto reign of the crown prince, whose embargo of Qatar, war in Yemen and alleged role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi have shocked the world but prompted little apparent change in his agenda. A Saudi official who asked not to be identified confirmed Thursday that the billionaire is in custody, though no trial date has been set. Al Amoudi has been in touch with relatives and is reported to be in good health, according to his spokesman, Tim Pendry. He disputed that Al Amoudi has been officially charged with any wrongdoing and declined further comment. Al Amoudi, whose fortune can be traced to a Saudi government contract during the reign of King Fahd, has accumulated $7.6 billion of assets outside the Kingdom and owns businesses employing thousands of people in Europe and Africa. But as the past years events prove, his earliest benefactor -- the Saudi royal family -- still holds sway. Saudi Crackdown The Ethiopian-born businessman is one of several high-profile individuals still detained in the corruption crackdown. Among those believed to still be held include Prince Turki bin Abdullah, son of the late King Abdullah. Most of the other businessmen and princes have been released after agreeing to hand over more than $100 billion in cash and assets. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who chalked up his detention to a misunderstanding, is once again making deals and borrowing huge sums. Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, the former head of the National Guard who forked over $1 billion in bail, was seen meeting with King Salman. The veneer of normalcy betrays an anxiety quietly gripping wealthy Saudis who are increasingly looking to move money abroad or even leave. Liquid assets were shifted out quite quickly after the purge, said Marcus Chenevix, an analyst at investment research firm TS Lombard in London. The crackdown targeted wealthy members of the business elite from Jeddah in particular, a group -- Al Amoudi included -- who prospered in part through ties to King Abdullah and King Fahd. King Salman was a former governor of Riyadh and things were tense from the moment he came in, Chenevix said. Rosy Assessments In Sweden, where Al Amoudis Preem is the countrys biggest fuel company, business is proceeding as normal, with a few adjustments. Last month, Preem announced it had replaced Al Amoudi as chairman with a former global head of corporate finance at Morgan Stanley, Jason Milazzo. The companys statement acknowledged it had no further confirmed information regarding its missing sole shareholder. Both Fitch and S&P Global, which rate Preems debt, have given rosy assessments of its credit health. Yes, the sole shareholder of the $5 billion company has been missing for months, but the operations havent been affected, the analysts wrote. Al Amoudi was not really involved in the day-to-day management of the business, Fitch analyst Vladislav Nikolov said. Al Amoudis brother Hassan has been granted power of attorney, according to a June 30 presentation from Preems parent company, Corral Petroleum. The brother, who owns a furniture factory in Jeddah, isnt otherwise involved in the business, spokesman Pendry said. Preem Stake Preem, whose bright signs adorn hundreds of gas stations throughout Sweden, is responsible for almost a third of the Nordic regions refining capacity. Al Amoudis 100 percent stake is worth $5.1 billion. He also owns an $835 million oil explorer, a home builder, commercial real estate and various industrial businesses, making him one of Swedens largest private investors. While Al Amoudi delegated day-to-day management to other executives, his deep pockets were helpful in the harshly cyclical energy industry. A 2016 bond prospectus by Corral Petroleum highlighted Al Amoudis ranking on global wealth lists and continued commitment to the company in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder loans and contributions. National Issue None of the billionaires business associates has publicly sought answers from Saudi Arabia on Al Amoudis predicament. The only outspoken advocate for Al Amoudis release has come from Ethiopia, where the billionaire is the largest single private investor. His assets there, which include land holdings, gold mines, coffee plantations, a fuel company and hotels, are conservatively valued at $1.2 billion. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told state media in May he was confident Al Amoudis release was imminent after he made a personal appeal to the crown prince. In August, Ahmed told reporters hed gotten word from Saudi officials that the industrialists release was being postponed for some proceedings and vowed to keep up the pressure. Sheikh Al Amoudis detention is a national issue, Ahmed said. Delhi Police on Thursday said they had arrested two persons last week who allegedly went on a snatching spree on a motorcycle and robbed people of 11 mobile phones in five hours. They allegedly covered nearly 70km during the crime spree. The case reportedly blew the lid off a complex operation that involved meticulous planning, protocol on trading stolen goods and contingency plans if the snatchers were caught. The suspects, who police identified as 19-year-old Arman and 18-year-old Mahtab, were on a motorcycle they had allegedly taken on rent from a gang that catered only to snatchers. They paid a rent of Rs 5,000 for six hours, said Rajiv Ranjan, additional commissioner of police (crime branch). Police said that the duo targeted only high-end mobile phones and suspected that it was because their buyer had specific demands. On the day of their crime spree, the duo snatched four Samsung phones, three each of Vivo and MI and one of Oppo. Those were all high-end models, said Ranjan. The spree began around noon on December 7. They allegedly snatched four mobile phones in outer Delhis Narela, three in Burari, and one each in Swaroop Nagar, Gokalpuri, Tilak Nagar and Bhalswa Dairy. They would just keep riding their motorcycle across the city and target anyone who was carrying an expensive phone, said an investigator. Meanwhile, a crime branch team that was already on the lookout for such snatchers, allegedly received specific tip-off about the duo. The two snatchers rode into our trap near north Delhis Mori Gate around 5.30 pm when they were returning home. We recovered all the stolen mobile phones from them, said the officer. Police said that Arman was found to be involved in 12 snatching cases reported in the last one year. Mahtab recently turned 18. He was involved in snatching incidents even as a juvenile, said the investigator. Their questioning blew the lid off an alleged racket, the buyers of such goods and suppliers of the motorcycles. The gang has been providing motorcycles to dozens of snatchers in outer Delhi neighbourhoods. They charged anywhere between Rs 5,000 and Rs 8,000 for six hours per vehicle, said Rajesh Deo, deputy commissioner of police (crime branch). The buyers would remain in touch with the motorcycle lenders. They would buy the phones only after confirming with the motorcycle lender that the rented vehicle was returned. If a motorcycle wasnt returned, the buyer would assume that the snatcher was caught, said the officer. In case a rented motorcycle was not returned within the stipulated time, it also served as an alert to other snatchers who would immediately went into hiding. While the crime branch team learnt of the modus operandi, they are yet to arrest the buyers and the motorcycle lenders. The Delhi government on Wednesday cleared several proposals, including installing CCTV cameras in Tihar, Rohini and Mandoli jails, a move aimed at achieving maximum coverage in internal areas of the prison complex. As many as 5,629 CCTV cameras with high security will be installed on the three prison complexes at a cost of Rs 119.69 crore, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia told reporters. The cost will include supply, installation, testing and commissioning of the CCTV surveillance system, including comprehensive maintenance. Road projects The expenditure finance committee (EFC), chaired by Sisodia, also approved proposals to redevelop five road stretches. The five road stretches that will be redeveloped include Shivdaspuri Marg and Patel Marg, Wazirpur Depot crossing to Rithala metro station, Mayapuri to Moti Bagh junction, Vikas Marg to Chungi Karkari crossing and Narwana Road Mother Dairy to Puch Mahal Newas. These projects are aimed at giving an aesthetic look and to provide maximum basic facilities to road users, Sisodia said. The plan includes dismantling of the existing footpath, construction of a concrete drain, construction of a cycle track, ramp, parking and other road engineering improvements. The committee also approved a proposal to construct two bridges on the Najafgarh drain. These bridges, a government spokespersons said, will provide hassle-free and easy access to areas in Najafgarh such as Badusarai, Shikarpur, Gummanhera, Daurala, Dhansa, Jhuljhuli with Radhopur, Nanakheri and other villages of Haryana. The existing bridges are single-lane. Special session The Delhi government will convene a two-day special session of the Delhi Assembly on December 20 and 21, Sisodia said. Delhi cabinet has recommended convening of a two-day sitting of the Legislative Assembly on December 20 and 21 for taking up official government business, he said Officials said the session will discuss issues, including financial proposals and amendment related to the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Last month, the government convened a special session of the assembly to discuss the chilli powder attack on chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and alleged deletion of names of voters from electoral rolls. Long working hours mean most millennials hardly have time or ability to cook. Hence, they depend on online food ordering platforms. And a recent video of a Zomato delivery boy, eating and putting back food meant for the customer, has gone viral on Twitter. In the two-minute clip, the delivery boy is seen eating the food, resealing the package and replacing it in his bag. In an official response, a Zomato spokesperson reiterated their commitment to eliminate any possibility of tampering with food. The spokesperson said Zomato will soon introduce tamper-proof tapes, and other precautionary measures to ensure we safeguard against any chances of tampering of food. Zomato has a zero tolerance policy for tampering of food. This incident only makes our commitment to fleet training, scheduling and process even stronger. We stand behind our extensive fleet who do the right thing across many hours of the day. The video, the authenticity of which has not yet been verified, has drawn flak from Twitter users with several people making memes and debating the services of such food delivery portals. And this is not the first time a video like this has surfaced on Twitter, a similar video of an Uber Eats delivery boy taking a bite from a customers order in Australia was earlier viral. We got in touch with restaurateurs, online delivery and boxed catering portals, customers and of course delivery boys, for their views. While all agreed such things are rare, delivery personnel were apprehensive a single incident would give all of them a bad name. Harsh conditions, but few cheats: Delivery boys We delivery boys work day and night. We dont get any breaks, not even for meals. All the time we are driving from one place to another, non-stop. So I can understand the temptation for this delivery boy to indulge in such an act. Ideally, delivery boys should be given lunch breaks or at least restaurants or delivery portals should provide us a meal service, says a delivery boy, who wished to stay anonymous. There is no official lunch break. Delivery boys are supposed to take out time to eat right in the middle of work. And thats the problem. Imagine you are about to eat your lunch and suddenly you get a delivery request? There is always a shortage of time in this job. However, most delivery guys are well trained and well behaved, I think this is a one-off case, says Muhammad Shahid. This is a classic case of one bad apple affecting the entire bunch. All of us should not be blamed for his mistake. The outrage on social media makes it even worse. Its got nothing to do with food delivery companies or restaurants, but everything to do with the individual. Blame the person. Anyone can do this, says Sachin Verma, another delivery boy. Its an extremely demanding and a thankless job, but which job isnt? However, what this person has done is inexcusable. It only makes jobs of people like me tougher. At times, the delivery guys eat leftover food; and this is only in rare situations when the company they work for dont provide them meals. People like this should be fired and such incidents are very rare. Most of the delivery personnel are not like this, says Mithilesh Yadav. Tamper-proof Packaging essential: Restaurateurs Restaurants have to ensure they are extremely careful. Food should be packed and sealed in such a manner that once the seal is opened, it cant be fixed or tampered with. Its inevitable the restaurants reputation is also affected in such a situation. Restaurants and delivery portals are interdependent and so far, the relationship has been good. This is a one-off case, I think, says Umang Tewari. This is an individual mistake, not that of the restaurant or the delivery portal. And it should be seen as such. As for packaging concerns, I agree that maybe we can change a bit, introduce locking containers I guess. Moreover, no system is perfect. Give the delivery guy a break as they virtually work 24x7. Unnecessary outrage on social media doesnt help, says Inderjeet Singh Banga. Require more checks: Online caterers Before hiring delivery guys, we do a background check and driving test. After 15 days of being hired, the boys undergo hygiene training. They are also taught how to communicate and deal with customers. However, the most important aspect of a delivery boys job is teaching him how to handle boxes while delivering orders. The motivation to pilfer for delivery boys with online food portals like Zomato and Swiggy is more given that they hardly get time to eat through the day. They get paid as per the orders they deliver. On the other hand, delivery boys directly employed by restaurants are provided food as part of their job, says Gaurav Mehta. Delivery is a huge market, there is manpower shortage while competition is high. Therefore every competitor hires delivery boys in bulk without adequate screening or training. The boys need to be trained. And there has to be a rating system as well. We call the customer and get feedback once our person has delivered the food. Also, you need to understand delivery boys are under a lot of pressure. There are also instances, where packaging from the restaurant itself is shoddy. Finally Ill say there are loopholes at every end the restaurant, delivery service provider and delivery boys which have to be addressed, says Varun Khera. An isolated incident In my opinion, delivery guys are overworked. They work round-the-clock. Maybe this guy was hungry and just wanted to grab a bite. Delivery guys dont do the packaging, they just deliver the food. Restaurants need to take some responsibility when it comes to packaging as this affects their brand too. If this becomes a trend then its obvious that people will lose faith in delivery boys. And this will be a big loss to the whole online food delivery ecosystem. I admit this incident got me thinking. Maybe, from now on, Ill pick up my food rather than ordering online, says Srishti Doonga, HR professional. This is an isolated incident, it doesnt affect me much. But Ill just be a bit more careful with the orders I receive. Why did the delivery guy do this? These people work round the clock, they hardly get any time to eat. The other possibility could be that they must have done this out of spite for the company/owner or rude customers who repeated orders and feel entitled; like asking the delivery guy to pick extra stuff such as a cold drink or cigarettes. I dont think one incident will make customers, especially bachelors and millennials like me, lose trust in food delivery services. However, this is a shocker for the older generation. The take-away from this is to blame the individual, not the company, says Abhimanyu Harlalka, consultant. The political crisis in Sri Lanka has seen many twists and turns since President Maithripala Sirisena removed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in October. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to demand the reinstatement of Mr Wickremesinghe, but Mr Rajapakse has clung to the position despite not having the numbers in the Parliament. Mr Rajapakse and his allies, who do not have a majority in the House, have been boycotting the Parliament and Mr Sirisena has pledged he will not give the post of premier back to Mr Wickremesinghe. On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr Sirisenas decision to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections was unconstitutional, paving the way for his potential impeachment. Mr Sirisena had earlier said he would accept the Supreme Courts verdict, and some believe this could be the only logical way out of the quagmire that Sri Lanka currently finds itself in. There are others who think fresh elections are the only viable solution in a country that occupies a strategic position in Indias immediate neighbourhood. Domestically, there are also fears of government activities coming to a standstill from January 1 if the budget for the next fiscal year is not cleared. The political divisions have come at a time when Sri Lanka has been trying to shake off the effects of a deadly civil war that lasted more than a quarter of a century and build a more inclusive system that takes care of the interests of all sections of society, including the minority Tamils, who have a considerable impact on domestic politics in Tamil Nadu. India was among the issues that led to differences between Mr Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe, with the president reportedly opposing the former premiers plans to award the eastern container terminal project at Colombo Port to New Delhi. The rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils affected by the civil war also remains a priority for India. During the political crisis in the Maldives earlier this year, India learnt the value of the waiting game as opposed to any direct intervention, and it worked with other world powers to mount pressure on the authoritarian regime of former president Abdulla Yameen. It appears to have adopted a similar approach in the case of Sri Lanka, but the wait for the crisis to play out to some sort of conclusion could be a long one. In a hyper-connected global order, extremist ideologies have no borders. This fact has found an echo in Canadas latest, albeit late, acknowledgement of Khalistan extremism as a terror threat on its soil. The Canadian government has listed it as a matter of concern in the 2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada, tabled by the countrys public safety minister, Ralph Goodale. The report, while hyphenating Khalistani extremism with Sunni and Shia threats, lays down the broad outlines of the countrys national strategy for countering radicalisation. From Indias standpoint, the Canadian recognition is a positive augury. It validates New Delhis frequently flagged concerns about the Justin Trudeau governments soft-pedalling on the pro-Khalistan lobby that spews venom against India and supports a violent insurrection for a separate Sikh state in India. Earlier this year, Indias former high commissioner in Canada, Vishnu Prakash, underscored the countrys exasperation, saying, unfortunately, Canada is the only country in the world which is providing a platform, or is seen to be providing a platform, to the Khalistani elements. Khalistani extremism in Canada dates back to the post-1984 Operation Bluestar period. In 1985, Canada-based Sikh extremist outfit, Babbar Khalsa, plotted and executed the mid-air bombing of an Air India flight, the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of aviation until the 9/11 horror. The Sikh expatriates support for the Khalistanis has since ebbed with only a tiny section still espousing the cause. One of the major factors was a clampdown by successive Canadian governments. Worryingly for India, however, there has been a marked resurgence of Khalistani radicalism in Canada since 2013 when the Liberal Party came to power. This new threat has been fuelled and funded by gurdwaras patronised by Canadian politicians keen to win over the support of the Sikh diaspora , an increasingly influential vote bank in Canada. Last year, many gurdwaras, controlled by pro-Khalistan elements, banned the entry of Indian diplomats. This has put a strain on Indo-Canada ties as was evident from a diplomatic cold shoulder to Trudeau during his official trip to India last year. Punjab chief minister, Amarinder Singh, had shared with him a list of 10 Canada-based people accused of promoting terror activities in the border state. Terming Khalistani extremism as a terror threat is a signal that Canada has finally woken up to Indias sensitivities. It appears to be part of the Trudeau dispensations course correction to put bilateral ties back on track. Last date to apply for SBI specialist cadre officer (SCO) on contractual basis has been extended to December 15. Earlier, the last date for online application was December 6, 2019. The advertisement of 38 vacancy for specialist cadre officer on contractual basis was issued by State Bank of India on November 22. Candidates can apply for any of the 14 posts given in the recruitment advertisement of State Bank of India. Interested candidates can apply for the post online by visiting the careers section of State Bank of India official website www.sbi.co.in Candidates can register themselves online through the link available on SBI website bank.sbi/careers or www.sbi.co.in /careers and pay the application fee using Internet Banking/ Debit Card/ Credit Card etc. They should also scan and upload their latest photograph and signature. Download the filled form and payment receipt and take a print out for future reference. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has notified recruitment of assistant commandants (executive) in Central Industrial Securtiy Force (CISF) from the departmental candidates. Candidates can apply before December 31 on the official website of UPSC. The tentative number of vacancy is 10, as notified by UPSC. After applying online for the UPSC departmental competitive exam, candidates have to submit a hard copy of the submitted application forms with the required certifications done by appropriate authority. The form can be sent to the CISF office address given on its website. UPSC Selection Process: Candidates will be selected on the basis of their performance in Written Examination, Physical and Medical Standard Tests or Personality/Interview. UPSC Exam Date: The exam will be conducted on March 5, 2019 The Online Applications can be filled up to 31st December, 2018 till 6:00 P.M. after which link will be disabled. The last date for receiving printed copy (hard copy) of online application form along with enclosures/certificates is 8th January, 2019, by CISF authority for further verification and forwarding the same to the Commission. Click here for the official notification issued by UPSC Click here to apply online. Rescue workers are trying to reach 13 miners trapped underground in a coal mine in Meghalayas East Jaintia Hills district since the previous day but have not been successful due to heavy flooding. The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) is being aided by personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) but according to sources, the task is proving to be onerous as entering and navigating the labyrinth of subterranean caves made by rat-hole mining is difficult. Rat-hole mines are common in Meghalaya as they are dug by villagers but are very dangerous as the coal is pulled out from narrow, horizontal seams. East Jaintia Hills deputy commissioner FM Dopth told HT that rescue efforts are still underway. You must appreciate that rat hole mining often has many channels and tunnels deep inside, so finding the miners so fast is a very challenging task, the official told HT over the phone. The mine is still filled with water and we are pumping it out but where its coming from can only be ascertained after the water level recedes. We have also pressed scuba divers into service. In a statement, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has expressed anguish at the unfortunate accident. We are very concerned about the individuals and their lives.. and were all praying for them, he said. Incidentally, the chief minister had denied that any illegal coal mining took place in the state after the November 8 attack on activists Agnes Kharshiing and Amita Sangma of the Civil Society Womens Organisation (CSWO). The assault on the women had taken place in Sohshrieh village in the same district when they visited the area to document illegal coal mining. Their attackers are believed to be members of a local coal mafia. Nidamon Chullet, a senior National Peoples Party (NPP) leader of the area was named as the mastermind behind the attack by Sangma, one of the victims, in her formal deposition before the magistrate in November. Chullet is the East-West Jaintia Hills NPP working president. He had joined the party in December last year in the presence of NPP president and Meghalaya chief minister Conrad K Sangma, home minister James Sangma, PWD minister Comingone Ymbon and a host of party leaders. He is the headman of Mynkrem village and also the Jaintia Hills Truck Owners Association president. Following yesterdays incident, the chief ministers stand on illegal coal mining changed. We were aware that illegal activities were going on and this again is not right at all, he said. I think appropriate action will be taken at the appropriate time against people involved in illegal mining. This is not something acceptable to us. Police have released the names of the 13 miners, 3 of whom belong to Lumthari village in the area, 6 to West Garo Hills and the remaining 4 to neighnbouring Assam. They are Chal Dkhar of Lumthari, East Jaintia Hills (EJH), Iong Dkhar of Lumthari, EJH, Nilam Dkhar of Lumthari, EJH, Omor Ali of Magurmari, West Garo Hills (WGH), Mezamur Islam of Phesiakandi, Rajabala, WGH, Mominul Islam of Rajabala, WGH, Shirapat Ali of Magurmari, WGH, Mozid Sk of Magurmari, WGH, Raziul Islam of Magurmari, Phulbari, WGH, Amir Hussain of Apdaguri, Sirang, Assam, Munirul Islam of Bogidar, Sirang, Assam, Saiar Islam of Khoyarsala, Sirang, Assam and Md. Samsul Haque of Kurihamari, Nalbari, Assam. At least 44 policemen were killed in a series of militant attacks in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir in 2018, which marked the highest number of casualties in the state since 2006. The rebels even abducted and then released family members of the policemen in south Kashmir after the arrest of their relatives. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs data, till date this year, as many as 87 security personnel, including 44 state police personnel, 32 army jawans, seven CRPF men and one CISF, BSF and SSB jawan, were killed in the state. Data also showed 230 militants died in encounters with security personnel. Our operations this year were result oriented, and in frustration militants killed unarmed policemen by targeting them while they were in their homes, they wanted to bring policemen under pressure. Some of them were martyred during the operations, said Muneer Ahmad Khan, additional director general of police (law and order). Last year, 32 policemen were killed and in 2016 the causality figure was 18. In the years 2015 and 2014, 11 and 16 policemen were killed in various militant attacks in different parts of Kashmir. After a spurt in militant attacks, officials had warned policemen to take precautions while on leave or visiting their native places especially in the areas of south Kashmir, where militant presence is high. Muneer Khan also said that most of the policemen were killed when they were off duty or they were targeted at vulnerable places. Earlier in August, four policemen, who were members of an escort party of deputy superintendent of police, were killed in Bongam in Shopian when militants fired on them from an orchard. The militants also took away their service rifles. In September, three policemen, including two special officers, were killed few hours after abduction from Kaparan village. Majority of the killings of policemen took place in south Kashmirs four districts, especially in Shopian which is considered as the hotbed of militancy with youths actively joining militant ranks in the past two year. After a series of meetings with stakeholders and other leaders throughout the day on Thursday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi will choose the partys chief minister for Rajasthan on Friday. The race for the top job is between the partys veteran leader Ashok Gehlot and young face Sachin Pilot. The decision on Chhattisgarh is also expected on Friday. State leaders TS Singhdeo , Bhupesh Baghel and Charan Das Mahant will be Delhi for meetings with Gandhi today. The party picked nine-time MP and former Union minister Kamal Nath, 72, to head the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday. Gandhi said on Thursday the party would soon decide on the chief minister of Rajasthan. Consultations with MLAs and party workers are on, you will see a chief minister soon, said the Congress president, according to ANI, shortly before he headed into meetings with the front-runners for the chief ministers job in Rajasthan. Gandhi met party leaders, CM aspirants and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi throughout the day on Thursday. Gandhis sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was also seen going inside her brothers residence as consultations over the CM picks in the three states were underway. He met Gehlot, 67, and Pilot, 41, first in the morning and then again in late-night meetings. For live updates, click here As party leaders discussed the options in Delhi, supporters got restless in Rajasthan blocking roads and staging protests. They gathered outside the party office and the residences of the two state leaders holding placards, cutouts and shouting slogans. In a late night message, Gehlot and Pilot appealed for calm and urged supporters to maintain discipline. The Congress went into elections without a chief ministerial candidate but fielded both, experienced two-time chief minister Gehlot and Pilot, who said he had revived the party after its 2013 rout when the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJPs) Vasundhara Raje swept the polls. This is not the first time a party has delayed announcing the names for the top job in a state. The BJP took nine days after the results of the Maharashtra elections were announced in October 2014 to pick Devendra Fadnavis as its chief minister. And in March 2017, it took the BJP eight days after the Uttar Pradesh election results to name Yogi Adityanath for the job. The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) heaved a sigh of relief after the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a bunch of petitions seeking a court-monitored probe of the Rafale jet fighter deal, and party president Amit Shah called the ruling a victory of truth and a slap on the face of those alleging corruption in the purchase. Shah said the apex court had been confronted with three issues in dealing the case the procedure followed in the purchase, the pricing of the aircraft and selection of offset partners and it had not faulted the government on any of these. The court noted that all procedures had been followed, the deal finalised by the government gave the country a financial advantage and it found no commercial favouritism, Shah said at a press conference. Truth has triumphed... Biggest attempt to mislead country since Independence... Its a slap on the face of politics of falsehood, said Shah. The court also said the government had no role in choosing the offset partners for Dassualt Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale jets, he said. The Congress has been levelling allegations about this and the order is a slap on the face of those who have levelled these charges, he asserted. The Congress has alleged that the deal for 36 Rafale aircraft, which replaced a previous one for 126 warplanes negotiated by the United Progressive Alliance, benefited businessman Anil Ambanis Reliance Group, one of the offset partners. Ambani, who has denied any wrongdoing, on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court judgment. Shah also hit out at the Congress for its claim that the apex courts judgement is a vindication of its stand that the court cannot adjudicate on the matter, saying the opposition party lives in an imaginary world where the truth has no place. Propriety can be decided only on the basis of facts and figures, he said. Shah noted that even the Supreme Court had spoken about the need for India to buy modern aircraft. You (Congress government) harmed Indias security interests, he said, adding that even neighbouring countries had equipped their air force with fourth generation warplanes. Home minister Rajnath Singh also noted in the Lok Sabha that the Supreme Court observed the deal offered a financial advantage to the nation, contrary to Congress claims that the planes were overpriced compared to the price the UPA government had negotiated . The BJP also fielded finance minister Arun Jaitley and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman to counter the Congresss charges of wrongdoing in the Rs 59,000-crore contract. Jaitley unequivocally rejected the Congress demand to set up a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the deal. He questioned why the UPA government had stopped, if not abandoned, the deal in 2012, why was national security compromised with and why were the needs of the IAF compromised with. Two days after it was dealt a setback in assembly elections in five states, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Thursday said it will organise a slew of rallies and other programmes aimed at mobilising public support for Prime Minister Narendra Modis re-election bid in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. BJP general secretary Bhupendra Yadav said the party will organise national executive meetings of its seven frontal organisations, and public rallies between December 15 and February 22. These are aimed to further partys ideology and achievements in different sections of the society ahead of the 2019 national elections, Yadav told reporters. The decision came at a meeting that BJP president Amit Shah had with the national office bearers of the party, state presidents and other senior leaders. This meeting was called to discuss organisational matters and schedule for future programmes, Yadav said. The BJP lost power to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It won one seat each in Telangana and Mizoram. Shah told BJP leaders that a meeting of the partys national council will be organised in New Delhi on January 11 and 12, and elected representatives of the party and other senior leaders from the states will attend it. The meeting will also approve a decision taken in the BJPs executive meeting to extend Shahs term as party president till the Lok Sabha election. Shahs term is due to expire in January. The party will organize a workshop for members of its youth wing in New Delhi on December 15 and 16 to train them on how to reach out to young and new voters, seeking support for Narendra Modi in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. Mumbai north-central MP Poonam Mahajan leads the partys youth wing and is overseeing a number of programmes targeted at winning support of the young,including first-time voters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a rally of the BJP womens wing in Ahmedabad on December 22. The rally will follow a two-day meeting of the national council meeting of the womens morcha, Leaders from district level will attend this conclave, Yadav said. The farmers front of the party will meet in Uttar Pradesh on February 21 and 22; and Modi will be speaker at the event. The exact venue of the event has not been finalised yet, Yadav said. Party president Amit Shah, union minister Nitin Gadkari and other senior leaders will participate in the conclave of the BJPs scheduled caste morcha in Nagpur on January 19-20. It will be followed by a public meeting of SC workers in Nagpur. Bhubaneswar will host the BJPs scheduled tribe morcha leaders on February 2-3, at which home minister Rajnath Singh would be a key speaker. The BJPs minorities morcha will hold its executive meeting in New Delhi on January 31 and February 1. Outgoing MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das will be key speakers besides Shah at the BJPs rally for other backward classes (OBC) workers in Patna on February 16. A BJP leader who attended the meeting said Amit Shah made a one line reference to the Tuesday results in his opening remarks and said the party has to keep the rujhan (trend) of three states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) in mind and stick to the time-table of the organisational programme decided to achieve victory in 2019. Another leader quoted Shah as saying that Congress may have won but BJP hasnt lost. All of you must now focus on 2019, he quoted Shah as telling leaders. A parliamentary panel headed by Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has expressed serious concern over Hindustan Aeronautics Ltds failure to provide the required number of Tejas aircraft to the Air Force, adversely affecting its combat potential and posing a security threat. The Public Accounts Committee report on Design Development, Manufacture and Induction of Light Combat Aircraft, tabled in Lok Sabha on Friday, said there were huge delays in the development and induction of the supersonic fighter jet. This resulted in two LCA squadrons not materialising and the IAF having to upgrade several aircraft, including the MiG-BIS, MiG-29, Mirage-2000 and Jaguar aircraft at a cost of Rs 20,037 crore, the report said. Tejas is an indigenously developed single-engine light combat aircraft. The programme to design, develop and manufacture the LCA was sanctioned by the government in 1983. The phasing out of MiG-21s had to be revised and the IAF is operating with 35 squadrons as against 42 squadrons sanctioned. The MiG-21 and MiG-27 squadrons would be retired over the next 10 years, the committee, headed by Kharge, observed. The panel comprised 22 members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, including from Trinamool Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal, Biju Janata Dal, Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party. The committee is disappointed to note that the failure of HAL/ADA (Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Ministry of Defence to provide the required number of aircraft has adversely affected the combat potential of the IAF resulting in security threat to the country, the panel said. The report comes at a time the Congress has been sharpening its attack on the government for French company Dassault Aviation overlooking the state-run HAL while choosing an offset partner for making Rafale fighter jets. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had interacted with HAL employees in Bengaluru in October when he accused the Modi government of destroying the strategic asset HAL and told them that Rafale is your right. The panel observed that the development of the LCA was aimed to arrest the falling number of fighter aircraft due to the ageing and obsolete MiG-21 and MiG-27 fleet to maintain the minimum squadron strength of the IAF. However, the project was plagued with various technical issues resulting in timelines being extended due to which the government had issued Request for Information under the framework of the Defence Procedure 2016 to global vendors for procurement of other combat aircraft such as the American F-16, Globemaster C17, Russian Sukhoi Su-30 and Su-35, European Typhoon, Swedish Gripen-E, French Rafale etc, it added. The HAL, ADA and its work stations are miserably failing in its R&D to have much-needed technology in the aviation sector, the panel observed. The committee notes with serious concern that due lack of R&D in the aviation sector, the country has to shell out of thousands of crores of rupees for procurement of both combat as well as civil aircraft from foreign countries. It is needless to mention that in times of war, it would be difficult for the nation to procure combat aircraft from unfriendly countries, the report said. As of July 2018, the IAF has only got nine out of its requirement of 200 fighters and 20 trainer aircraft envisaged in the Air Staff Requirements, the panel added. The ADA/HAL have also not been able to provide IAF with even a single production standard trainer aircraft till date. Further, since HAL could not augment its capacity in line with the demand of the IAF, the IAF will have to depend on imported aircraft for a longer time, given its dwindling squadron strength, the panel said. Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court order on the multi-billion dollar Rafale jet deal, saying it established the falsity of politically motivated allegations against his firm. In its ruling on a batch of petitions seeking a probe into the deal, the top court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of the 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France. (Read Live updates here) Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had entered into an agreement with Ambanis Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) for fulfilling offset obligations. I welcome the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally, Ambani said in a statement. (Click here to read what Supreme Court judges said in their order on Rafale) The Congress has been alleging that the government had put pressure on Dassault Aviation to select RDL as its offset partner. The government, RDL and Dassault Aviation rejected the charges. We remain committed to Indias national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France, said Ambani. The French firm also clarified that RDL was among many several other companies it has chosen for implementing offset obligations of the deal. Accusing Rahul Gandhi of making disgraceful remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked whether he and the Congress party were above the Supreme Court. Today Rahul Gandhi has crossed all limits of propriety, decency and probity by almost condemning the honourable Supreme Court of India. It is a new low in the polity of the country, Prasad said, soon after Rahul made a sharp attack on the Modi government over the Supreme Court order on Rafale deal. SC judgement (on Rafale deal) exposed lies of Rahul Gandhi. We expected him to accept the judgment. Now Rahul Gandhi is condoning SC as well. Are he and Congress above SC? Prasad asked. Rahul, hitting back at BJPs attack, had asked questioned the Supreme Courts statement that the CAG report on Rafale deal had been presented in Parliament, and had reiterated his corruption allegations against Modi and businessman Anil Ambani. Prasad clarified that the Supreme Court has noted that the government has no role in choosing offset partner. In response to Rahuls remarks that chowkidaar chor hai (watchman is thief, referring to Modi), Ravi Shankar Prasad asked whether such language suited the Congress president. In a sharp attack at the Congress leader, Prasad said other nations want to know what sort of weapons India possess and Rahul Gandhis comments were being appreciated by Pakistan and China, who have strengthened their Air Force and want to know our strength. Prasad also questioned what was stopping Congress from finalising the Rafale deal between 2006 and 2011, when Dassault had issued the minimum tender. In Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot is known to outmanoeuvre his detractors in such a way that they dont even get the slightest hint about it. The man born into a family of professional magicians is credited with playing political magic to emerge as the tallest Congress leader in the state in the last 15 years. So, people who know how he operates had little doubt that he will become the next chief minister even though they were blindsided by the suspense that played out after the results were announced on December 11. When the 67-year-old became the chief minister for the first time in 1998, there was the mighty Maderna and Mirdha families, the two tall Jat dynasties in the Marwar region from where Gehlot comes from. But in the last 15 years, the Mirdhas have become almost a political non-entity; the Maderna family is besieged by Mahipal Madernas sex scandal for which the man is behind bars for seven years. Although privately Gehlot has claimed that he had no role in the political future of Jat leadership in the state, the farming community considers him their biggest adversary. The animosity is rooted in the social hierarchy. That a leader from the mali (gardener) community could not only stand alongside them but eventually grew taller in politics hasnt gone down well with the influential Jats, says former journalist and a teacher of mass communication Narayan Bareth. Also Read | After Kamal Nath as Madhya Pradesh CM; decision on Rajasthan expected today But political manoeuvres arent the only quality of the man who has been active in politics for the last 38 years. He is adept at diffusing crises through talks. During the Gujjar agitation, when Kirori Singh Bainsla came to the chief ministers office for talks, Gehlot gave him a picture of Martin Luther King Jr and told him, Kisi bhi kimat par shanti rehni chahiye (There should be peace at any cost). Gehlot has been a Gandhian since college. In Jodhpur, we were regular to Gandhi Shakti Pratisthan to read Gandhi literature. He always keeps photos of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr in his office and even installed a Gandhi bust in the Secretariat when he became the CM for the first time in 1998, says Prakash Bhandari, who was with Gehlot in a Jodhpur college in the early 1970s. Every year, Gehlots office sends out a Gandhi diary to friends, bureaucrats, and journalists as the New Years gift. He is against any form of intoxication and is a votary of liquor prohibition since the days he, as a member of social organisation Tarun Shanti Sena, would picket outside liquor shops in Jodhpur. Gehlot could not implement prohibition when he was the chief minister twice but in his previous tenure (2008-2013), he ordered the closure of liquor shops at 8 pm even though it cost the government a fair amount of excise revenue. This was an order that even Vasundhara Raje could not reverse when she occupied the CMs office the following term. Gehlot went with his father, Laxman Singh Gehlot, to assist him in the magic shows in Jodhpur. He wanted to be a doctor but ended up in politics, says Bhandari. Both of us wanted to be doctors. We sat for the pre-medical test (PMT) in 1970, the year the test was introduced, and failed. We gave up our medical dreams with that, he adds. But during college, Gehlot would often visit hospitals and write letters to the families of patients about their recovery, remembers another college friend who didnt want to be named. Gehlot was handpicked by former prime minister Indira Gandhi for active politics when she saw him work in a refugee camp in 1971. She made him the first state president of National Students Union of India (NSUI), Congress students wing, in 1974. Gehlot unsuccessfully fought the students union election and even lost his first assembly election in 1977 by 4,329 votes. The next day, he was out in the market to thank the people who had voted for him. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980. Two years later, when he was going to take the oath as a deputy minister in Indira Gandhis cabinet, the security at the Rashtrapati Bhawan stopped him because he came in an auto-rickshaw. Gehlot was allowed to go only when he showed his Lok Sabha identity card. He has been MP in 1984, 1991, 1996 and 1998. He was elected to the Rajasthan assembly in a by-election after he was made the chief minister in 1998. Gehlot has been the president of the state Congress unit from 1985 to 1989, and from 1994 to 1999. As PCC chief, he brought several ordinary people, from cobblers, carpenters and tailoring communities, into politics. I remember when I got press releases from such people, I used to laugh. Who made them leaders, I would think. But now I realise, Gehlot was creating a political capital that is his treasure now, Bareth adds. Talking about his simplicity and principled life, Bareth remembers Gehlots daughter, Sonias wedding in Jaipur. When he went to see off the grooms family at Jaipur railway station, he ensured everyone from his family had platform tickets. He was a chief minister. Respect for rules is a rare value in politicians, says the former journalist. Even at the wedding, there were very few guests, unlike the luxurious weddings of political families these days, he adds. Old Congress leaders remember Gehlot removing his surname as a protest of the caste system. There was a time when he changed his name to Ashok Bhai as a protest of the caste hierarchy but soon gave it up when people began saying it was a cheap trick to become the chief minister, says a leader on conditions of anonymity. Gehlot helps everyone and doesnt talk about it. He values relations and can walk up to a friend even in a crowd breaking his security cordon, says Padam Mehta, founder of Jodhpur-based Jalte Deep newspaper. Gehlot is remembered for the drought relief in his first tenure between 1998 to 2003 that later formed the basis of the nationwide National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. He is also credited for bringing a right to information law before it became a national law. The second tenure (2008-2013) is remembered for the free medicine and diagnostic tests schemes but critics say they were largely seen as the last-minute effort to lift his governments sagging image. He, however, is discredited for his handling of the bureaucracy. He isnt a hard taskmaster and doesnt instil fear in the officers as Raje does, says a former bureaucrat. His other weakness is his middling oratory skill. He has been a sky man since college days. But I have seen him transform after he came into politics. Despite his handicap of oratory, he has established himself as a tallest Congress leader in the state, says Bhandari. In a funny aside to the Supreme Court verdict ruling out a probe into the Rafale deal, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said the order could not have come at a better time for the BJP. In a reference to the BJPs recent electoral setback where the party lost three states, Abdullah felt this verdict would take the poll heat off the ruling party. Tweeting to his three million followers, complete with a smiley, Abdullah said, The BJP really has the devils luck (relax Im not calling you devils, its only an idiom). This couldnt have come at a better time after the electoral set back. The BJP really has the devils luck (relax Im not calling you devils, its only an idiom ) This #RafaelVerdict couldnt have come at a better time after the electoral set back. Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) December 14, 2018 Almost on cue, Amit Shah, when asked about the poll reverses said, I dont want to divert attention from the Rafale order. We will talk about assembly elections some other day. On a serious note, Abdullah wondered whether the Supreme Court was the right place to fight the Rafale battle , Have to ask whether the SC was the right place to fight this battle? Some fights are best fought in the political arena. He wondered how Rafale deal would remain an election issue after this verdict. Have to ask whether the SC was the right place to fight this battle? Some fights are best fought in the political arena. #RafaelDeal #RafaelVerdict Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) December 14, 2018 In the recently-held assembly elections, the Congress wrested three states from the BJPwinning Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and emerging as the single largest party in Madhya Pradesh. Omar, who is very prolific on twitter, had recently engaged in a twitter spat with BJP leader Ram Madhav over the dissolution of the state assembly ordered by Governor Satyapal Malik. BJP general secretary Madhav had alleged that Abdullah and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti were taking instructions from Pakistan. Prove your point or apologise, Abdullah had bristled back. Madhav later tried to lighten the mood by asking Abdullah to take it easy but the former chief minister was in no mood to be humoured and had demanded an apology. Either prove this or be man enough to apologise. Dont practice shoot & scoot politics, he had tweeted. Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman shakes hands with her Russian counterpart General Sergei Shoigu, in New Delhi, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2018. A PIB Photo via PTI. NEW DELHI (PTI): Defence ministers of India and Russia held intensive talks Thursday on deepening defence ties and joint manufacturing projects, including the Kamov-226 helicopters, naval frigates and projects related to land systems, the Defence Ministry said. In a meeting of the 18th India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) held here, the two sides also agreed to take forward inter-governmental arrangements for facilitating joint manufacturing of spares for Russian origin equipment in India under the 'Make in India' initiative. The meeting was co-chaired by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Russian counterpart General Sergei Shoigu. In the framework of the bilateral Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership, the IRIGC-MTC meeting discussed a wide range of issues relating to defence equipment, industry and technological engagement between India and Russia as well as after-sales support, upgradation of military equipment of Russian origin, it said. Shoigu's visit to India assumes significance as a deal was signed between India and Russia to buy Russian S-400 air defence missile system. The two countries have also signed a deal to build two frigates in Goa for the Indian Navy. Russia's state-owned arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, has also emerged as the lowest bidder for India's USD 3 billion tenders to source short-range air defence missile systems. India had gone ahead with the S-400 deal with Russia notwithstanding US sanctions on military transactions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). "The ministers expressed satisfaction at the dynamism and progress in bilateral defence cooperation. Intensive discussions were held on joint manufacturing projects, including the Kamov-226 helicopters, naval frigates and projects related to land systems," a statement by the ministry said. With an aim to strengthen military-to-military engagement and rationalising the functioning of the commission, a revised Inter-Governmental Agreement on restructuring the existing IRIGC-MTC to the IRIGC on Military and Military Technical Cooperation was also signed by the two ministers. An additional institutional Working Group headed by Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of General Staff of Armed Forces of Russian Federation would also be set up under the expanded commission. The ministers expressed satisfaction over the progress in structured engagement between their armed forces, including joint exercises, resumption of training exchanges and other interactions in the framework of the bilateral road map on defence cooperation signed in June 2017. The Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) poll losses in neighbouring states of Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh spells out an opportunity for the Congress in Vidarbha, the eastern region of Maharashtra. One of the states most backward regions and the ground zero of the agrarian crisis, Vidarbha shares its borders, cultural and geographical affinity with these two states. It also witnesses a largely bipolar fight between the BJP and the Congress and the winds of change in electoral arena in the three Hindi heartland states could have an impact in this region in the upcoming polls. The big fight in this region comprising 10 Lok Sabha seats and 61 Assembly seats could thus turn to be deciding factor in Maharashtra as it goes to polls next year. Political observers and experts feel that the Congress could dent BJPs bastion in Vidarbha, but only if it puts its game face on. In 2014 polls, the region was swept by the BJP. The saffron alliance picked all 10 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP, after a split with the Sena for the Assembly polls, won-two thirds of the Assembly seats here. The BJP swept this region in 2014 largely on the Modi factor as well as then eulogised Gujarat pattern of development. It was also a reaction of farmers against the old regime. In the past four years, that euphoria has died, especially in rural areas. Farmers are angry over BJPs failure to keep its promises. The drought this year will only add to BJPs difficulties, said Vijay Jawandhia, agriculture expert. There is a strong sentiment against the ruling government, but the Congress will have to work hard if it wants to harness this unrest. They [Congress] are still not seen as entirely credible, he said. Congress leaders, however, believe these poll results are a turning point. There is a visible sentiment against the ruling government, largely in rural areas, owing to the deepening agrarian crisis. The Congress victory in the three states has reenergised and activated the organisation. It has also made Rahul Gandhi a competent contender to the PM post in the minds of commoners, said Virendra Jagtap, two-time Congress MLA from Amravati district. The party leadership has started to identify candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, but the going may not be easy given the moribund senior party leadership here. Last polls, more than half-a-dozen big leaders and former ministers lost their seats, including former state party president Manikrao Thakre, former Union ministers Mukul Wasnik, Vilas Muttemwar, former state ministers Nitin Raut, Shivajirao Moghe and Vasant Purke. Other leaders who had shifted camps included Datta Meghe (who has since returned to the Congress), Ranjit Deshmukh and his son Ashish (who also switched back to the Congress recently) and Sanjay Deotale (who contested from BJP but lost). The Congress has several heavyweights in Vidarbha, but their on-ground presence has been virtually nil in the past four years. Activating the organisation within five months, starting with identifying potential candidates to compete with BJPs electoral machinery, is tough, said a senior NCP leader. The names of Muttemwar, Sagar Meghe, Thakre as probable candidates are doing the rounds, but there are doubts whether they would prove to be formidable candidates, he said. According to the seat-sharing agreement in the Lok Sabha, the Congress contests six seats and NCP four seats here. As opposed to this, the BJP will put its best foot forward in Vidarbha, given the partys top brass, including chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari hail from the region. Fadnavis told HT there would be no impact on the poll prospects in Vidarbha, even though the region shares borders with the other two districts. Despite this, BJP legislators admit there is a negative sentiment among farmers, given the hardship faced by them in the partys four-year tenure (three years of drought) which could go against them. Do engagements with politicians on Facebook reflect on-ground sentiment? If we go by the results of the five states that went to polls in November and December, the answer is: not so much. At least, there is no strict correlation between leaders who grab attention on social media and those who get to rule the state. A Hindustan Times analysis of Facebook data shows that Rajasthan was the only state where the leaders of the party that won also captured the most engagement on the social media platform. The story was the opposite in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. In the other two, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, Facebook activity was low. This does not mean that Facebook, used monthly by around 270 million Indians in the age group of 18-65, wont be an important medium for the 2019 general elections. The analysis shows that Facebook engagement is not a good predictor of victory. Note that Facebook usage in the five states that went to the polls is below the national average; 36% of Indians of voting age use the platform monthly, according to data from the Facebook ads platform. Usage in Rajasthan is around 34%; 28% in Chhattisgarh and 25% in MP. In contrast, Delhi has 63% monthly active users, Haryana has 51%. Analysis Analysis of Facebook interactions during the campaign is based on month-long data (12 November to 12 December) accessed from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned social media analytics tool, which created public dashboards (like this one for Madhya Pradesh) to monitor the activity of political party pages and regional leaders of all five states. A caveat: the analysis excludes accounts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP and Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Common Trends Two trends were common across all states. First, content posted from politician accounts gets more traction than official pages of political parties. According to CrowdTangle data, the cumulative interactions with accounts of political leaders is roughly two times more than the official party pages. Second, BJP leaders, especially the three outgoing CMs of Raj, MP and Chattisgarh, have a much larger following (likes) on their Facebook pages. How political activity on Facebook varies with states Political activity on Facebook was highest in Rajasthan followed by Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. There were around 7 million interactionsincluding likes, comments and postswith content posted by Rajasthan political leaders, compared to around 2.7 million in Telangana and 1.5 million in MP. In Chattishgarh, the engagement was relatively lower and it was insignificant in Mizoram. So much so that Zoramthanga, the chief minister-elect of Mizoram, whose party Mizo National Front (MNF) decisively won the election, does not even have an official Facebook page. Here is what happened in the three states. Rajasthan: Congress won the stateand the Facebook war Congress got 99 of the total 200 seats in Rajasthan. BJP got 73. Had Facebook been a predictor, the Congress should have won more decisively in the state polls. Between them, Congress state president Sachin Pilot and senior leader Ashok Gehlot got 60% of the total engagement with state politicians accounts selected by CrowdTangle. Hanuman Beniwal, who launched a new party called Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLTP) before these elections, stood third, bagging 25% of the interactions. His party won three seats. Vasundhara Raje, the outgoing BJP chief minister, got little traction: just 14% share of the total interactions with political accounts. Rajes low figures are more telling as she has the highest number of page likes among all Rajasthan politiciansover nine million, four times more than Sachin Pilot. To be sure, Congress leaders were also more active: While Raje had only 280 posts in the last month, both Pilot and Gehlot posted more than 400 times. The BJP Rajasthan page, however, did better than the Congress, capturing 54% of the engagement from party pages. Madhya Pradesh: BJP aggressively won the social media battle Shivraj Singh Chouhan ran an active social media campaignacross platforms. Chouhan was one of the most active politicians on ShareChat, a regional language social media platform with over 50 million monthly active users; he came close to Modi in the Twitterverse in terms of mentions by other BJP leaders, according to a recent analysis of Twitter data published in Mint. Shivrajs Twitter presence as a topic of online conversation (within the BJP) came closest to Modi among all state-level leaders. Moreover, of the 50 most retweeted messages from MP politicians in the core phase of the campaign since September 2018, only four came from non-BJP sources, the Mint analysis led by Joyojeet Pal, a professor at the University of Michigan, revealed. Chouhan clearly dominates in the ability to get wide attention to the right tweet, the authors wrote. The same is reflected in Facebook data: Chouhan alone captured 51% of the interactions coming from accounts of MP leaders. Add two more senior BJP leaders Rakesh Singh and Kailash Vijayvargiya and the figure goes to 81%: total dominance by the BJP on Facebook. Compare that with four Congress leaders (Ajay Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Hemant Katare and Digvijaya Singh) who feature in the top 10: together, they got just 18% of the interactions. Congress won a close fight in the state, winning 114 of the total 230 seats. BJP got 109. Had Facebook popularity reflected the ground reality, Chouhan would have easily ruled the state for the fourth time. Telangana: Where Facebook action was completely off the mark In Telangana, the Facebook sphere was in contrast with reality. With 88 of the 119 seats, incumbent chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, or KCR as he is better known, received a decisive mandate: his party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) won a landslide. But not on Facebook: KCR and his son KT Rama Rao together got just 20% of the total interactions with all politician accounts in the state. Who dominated? Asaduddin Owaisi, the president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which won just seven seats, got 34% of the total interactions. He was followed by Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu, with 20% of the interactions. His party won just two seats. A fewer number of women will join the newly elected assemblies of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, as poll results indicate a dip in female representation since 2013. This is because of a poor distribution of tickets by the main parties, as well as a false notion that women make weaker candidates. For a country that ranks 149th among 205 nations in terms of womens representation in its national assembly, this does not augur well. Women make up for less than 8% of the legislators across all state assemblies. In comparison to the 2013 state elections, the November-December state polls do not show an improvement. Across five states, 685 women contested (not inclusive of kinnar, or transwomen candidates), although only a third 219 did so from main parties. At the end, only 63 won or roughly 9% of the 678 newly elected legislators. Two states that have been, in recent times, above the national average Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (14% and 13% in the previous assemblies, respectively) saw a decrease of womens representation in the assembly. There is small progress in Chhattisgarh. Women were almost absent from the contest in Telangana, with only 38 tickets distributed to women among the main parties. Political representation of women Parties are to blame In Rajasthan, 179 women contested the 2018 polls, 71 on a main party ticket (Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party or Aam Aadmi Party). Twenty-three were elected, nearly all from Congress or BJP. Over time, the share of women among the candidates has increased marginally from 2% of the tickets in 1990 to 8% in 2018. The progression in the number of women MLAs does not depend solely on their presence as candidates, but also on the number of tickets given by major parties. Starting in 2008, the BJP and the Congress started distributing slightly more tickets to women, which led to a rise of womens representation in 2008 and 2013. In 2018, the BJP distributed 23 tickets to women three fewer than it did in 2013, while the Congress, with 25 tickets, gave one more than it did in the previous election. In Madhya Pradesh, the 2018 election marked a departure from a long-term upward trend in womens representation. There are 10 fewer women in the assembly compared to five years ago (30 in the previous assembly). This time around, 10 women won on a BJP ticket, 9 on a Congress ticket. One of the two BSP MLAs is Rambai Govind Singh, in Pathariya. Carole Sparys work on womens representation in national politics in India (Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament) reveals that in the face of competition, parties are reluctant to distribute many tickets to women deemed to be weak or weaker candidates. Sensing a tough election ahead, the BJP cut the number of tickets given to women candidates, from 22 in 2013 to 10 in 2018, in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress fared no better, giving nine tickets to women against the six it gave five years earlier. The combination of poor distribution and poor performance of the BJP explains the dip in womens representation. Slow progress The data for Chhattisgarh seem to indicate a gradual increase in both, women candidature and representation. Given the small size of the assembly (90 seats), we are really talking about more women fielded and elected in each election. Generally speaking, one should be cautious handling representation statistics when the numbers are so small. Consequently, womens representation in Chhattisgarh is actually quite stable. Despite a substantial increase in the number of women candidates, voters in Mizoram still tend to reject women contestants, as is the case in most of the Northeast. Barely a handful of women candidates (6) made it to the three assemblies that went to the polls in the region in 2017. In Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, not only do parties discriminate against women candidates, but voters also contribute to the marginalization of women by giving them lower vote shares. Setback to the cause Overall, the situation is not bright. If political parties reaction to increased competitiveness is to reduce the already small space left for women politicians, this does not augur well for the 2019 national elections. Parties are guided by false notions that women make weaker candidates; an analysis of their relative vote share and strike rate indicate that it is not the case and even often quite the contrary. The marginalisation of women in elected assemblies comes as a contradiction to the greater involvement of women in elections as voters, or as part of the Panchayat. The improvement of womens representation does not depend solely on parties. Like in the neighbouring state of Haryana, the better representation of women has to do in part with the prominence of dynastic politics, which draws a number of women into politics. But their candidature and participation in Panchayats and municipalities puts paid to the notion that political backing alone will help. Gilles Verniers is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data, Ashoka University Touted as the biggest proposed reform in the roads sector, the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill, 2017 which is pending parliamentary approval in the Rajya Sabha is likely to be approved in the Upper House, senior government officials believe, adding, clauses opposed in the bill will not be amended. The bill seeks to amend the 30-year-old Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, and aims to address issues on third party insurance, regulation of cab aggregators, road safety, opening the public transport sector for private players and regulate permits. It also proposes a National Transportation Policy for ushering guidelines on transportation of goods and passengers. The controversial amendment bill, drafted in 2016, was approved by the Lok Sabha in April 2017, followed by nationwide strikes by public transport organisations. The Upper House is expected to take up this bill for debate and pass it in the ongoing winter session. It was already introduced in Rajya Sabha in the monsoon session. It has to go for final approval now; just consideration and passing is left now. We feel it may be passed. We are not in a mood to negotiate on the clauses which have been opposed as we feel their concerns can be addressed through rules and the minister has already assured them. Overall, there are no major issues, its mainly a political ploy to try and stop the passage of the bill, said a road transport ministry official, requesting anonymity. One of the key aspects of the proposed bill is to drastically improve road safety in the country, the bill proposes a National Road Safety Board. It also proposes increasing penalties for several offences, protection of Good Samaritans and a unified license system. The bill also allows the central government to order for a recall of motor vehicles if a defect in them seems to cause damage to the environment or to the driver and other road users. There are 91 clauses in the bill and only a couple of clauses are left in which states require little bit of more clarification while the rest have been agreed upon by all. Therefore, at least 95% of the bill has been accepted. Only clauses, where issues remain, are where interstate issues come up. In Section 66 which involves interstate permits and a national scheme on transportation states have issues regarding certain wordings. They fear that the Centre will take over and negate their powers, which is not the case. We are absolutely clear that not an iota of state governments power will be taken by the Centre. West Bengal and some southern states have opposed to this earlier, and hopefully, we will resolve in this session, said another senior official at the road transport ministry. Opposing parties feel the bill could potentially lead to privatisation of public transport. After getting passed in Lok Sabha, it was sent to the select committee in Rajya Sabha and the committee did not make any change, ignoring the opinion of the select committee members. The provisions in the bill taken together will destroy state-run public transport. It will lead to their closure. The way they have centralised powers in the bill, the state departments will barely have any say. Practically, this will lead to a complete privatisation of state-owned transport system. Therefore, this should be completely scrapped, said Tapan Sen, general secretary, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), who had called the nationwide strike against the bill after its passage in Lok Sabha. The introduction of a cab aggregator system for the private sector will eliminate small operators and crease a monopoly for big corporates in the sector, Sen added. We have already filed our objections with the bill to the select committee in Rajya Sabha. If the bill is passed, the government would pave way for huge corruption through higher penalties proposed in the bill, said Sanjay Samrat, president, Delhi Taxi Tourist Transport Association. The Gujarat government has decided to install replicas of the Statue of Unity in the premises of several schools and colleges on December 15 to mark the death anniversary of Sardar Patel. In a directive issued on December 12, state additional chief secretary (Home) AM Tiwari asked district collectors and municipal commissioners to ensure the replicas are installed in the premises of educational institutions on December 15. These replicas were given to various schools and colleges by the state government after the completion of its Ekta Yatra in October. The Ekta Yatra was organised in two phases across 10,000 villages of Gujarat ahead of the unveiling of the 182-metre tall statue in Narmada districts Kevadiya by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 31. Tiwaris circular asked collectors and commissioners to make necessary arrangements to organise a small local level programme during the installation ceremony and invite MLAs, Members of Parliament and local body representatives. The circular stated that those replicas which were damaged extensively during the Ekta Yatra processions should be installed after being repaired, while the ones with minor damages be set right immediately for installation on December 15. It said there was no need to build a pedestal for the installation, as the statues can be set up in a large hall or any other protected area. As part of the Ekta Yatra, some 60 specially designed Ekta Raths (chariots of unity), carrying life-size replicas of the original Statue of Unity, toured different parts of the state to make people aware of Sardar Patels contribution in uniting the country. The Himachal Pradesh assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution to declare cow as the rashtra mata or mother of the nation. Kasumpti legislator Anirudh Singh, who moved the resolution, sought a discussion in the assembly for the formation of a policy to declare cow as mother of the nation. In his budget speech, chief minister Jai Ram Thakur announced to levy 1% cess on the sale of every bottle of liquor to generate revenue for maintenance of cow shelters. Besides, 15% of temple offerings would also be used to maintain cowsheds. In his reply, animal husbandry minister Virender Kanwar said the matter was under the preview of the Centre. The state government has already brought a bill on conservation and welfare of cows. A Gauseva Aayog will be set up which will regulate institutions established for the welfare of cows, he said. After two days and several rounds of discussions, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday signalled an end to the standoff between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot for the Rajasthan chief ministers post. The united colours of Rajasthan, Gandhi tweeted, along with a photograph with Gehlot and Pilot. An official announcement about Gandhis choice for Rajasthan chief minister will be made later in the evening but Gehlot, by most accounts, is expected to get the prized assignment. News agency ANI said Ashok Gehlot would be named as the Rajasthans top post. The Congress president had summoned the two leaders to his Tughlaq Lane house in the national capital earlier in the day, his third meeting with the Rajasthan Congress leaders in two days. The Congress central observer for Rajasthan KC Venugopal and in-charge of party affairs in the state Avinash Pande were also present at Gandhis residence during the discussions. Congress leaders had twice yesterday indicated that Gehlot, the 67-year-old war horse, had emerged as the front-runner in the race to the chief ministers chair. Twice on Thursday, Gandhi called Ashok Gehlot, 67, back from the airport; his last meeting with the veteran ran well past midnight. He had met Pilot, 41, just before that. There have been reports that Sachin Pilot, 41, who was tasked to revive the Congress in Rajasthan after Vasundhara Rajes stunning victory in 2013 state elections, was unhappy at the choice. The BJP had then netted 163 seats against the Congresss 21. This time, the Congress raised its tally to 99 of the 199 seats that went to polls. This morning, news agency PTI said, Jitendra Singh, a former Union minister and Rajasthan leader, met Pilot, 41, earlier in the day and then went to Gandhi. Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala denied there were any differences within its Rajasthan unit. There is no dispute or difference within the Congress units on chief ministers post in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Surjewala told reporters. Be it Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh, a due process of discussions is on among the leaders so that we can form a good government. Madhya Pradesh has been decided and chief ministers issue will be decided for Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in a day or two also, he said. Gandhi picked nine-time MP and former Union minister Kamal Nath to head the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday over former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia after similar talks in both a recognition of his contribution to the campaign as well as a signal to corporate India. The decision on Chhattisgarh is also expected on Friday and there are three leaders in the race: Bhupesh Baghel, TS Singhdeo, and Tamradhwaj Sahu. Congress leaders feel once the newly-elected legislators in the state have authorised Gandhi to take a decision on the chief minister, the contenders should not challenge the high command and accept the decision. It is up to the Congress president to take a final call and the decision is being awaited, Venugopal told PTI. The Congress president heard everyone and after wide consultations, he will take the final decision which will be acceptable to all, Pande said according to the news agency. There was some discomfort within the Congress after party workers blocked roads against Gehlot. Congress leaders said this was the first time such incidents have been reported in Rajasthan and that the party has taken the matter seriously. The incidents of violence were reported in Jaipur, Dausa and other parts of the state on Thursday. They gathered outside the party office and the residences of the two state leaders holding placards, cutouts and shouting slogans. In a late night message, Gehlot and Pilot appealed for calm and urged supporters to maintain discipline. The Congress went into elections without a chief ministerial candidate but fielded both, experienced Gehlot and the energetic Pilot, who revived the party after its 2013 rout when Ashok Gehlot lost the state to Bharatiya Janata Partys Vasundhara Raje. New Delhi and Moscow will sign a logistic supply agreement soon that will allow their military forces to share each others facilities. As Indias footprint in the region increases, logistic supply agreements will allow warships and aircraft to refuel and refurbish, improving the endurance of the Navy and Air Force. India has similar agreements with the United States and Singapore. The decision to sign the logistic agreement was taken on Thursday at the 18th India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) held in New Delhi where defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman met her counterpart General Sergei Shoigu of the Russian Federation. The meeting of the defence ministers followed a meeting between national security advisor( NS A)Aji tD oval and his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev, a key advisor to President Vladimir Putin. Patrushev, was in India recently. The two NSAs discussed the strategic dimension of India-Russia relations, including leasing of an another Akula Class nuclear-powered attack submarine by, an official in the security establishment who is not authorised to speak to the media said. India previously leased the INS Chakra from Russia for 10 years. The lease comes to an end this year. On Thursdays meeting between the defence ministers, another senior official said India and Russia had asked officials on either side to work out the framework and the details of the (logistics supply) agreement. Former admiral Shekar Sinha, who led the Western Naval Fleet, described the logistic supply agreement as a huge positive. Apart from the obvious advantages that both forces will have from an agreement, it is also a sign of India balancing its relations with US and Russia, he said. India and Russia also discussed joint manufacturing of the AK-103 Assault Rifles. India and Russia will jointly produce the rifles, which will replace the indigenously made INSAS rifles now used by the military, the second officer said. In another major development, both sides exchanged a draft agreement on manufacturing spares in India. A majority of Indias weapons platforms in the three services Army, Navy and Air Force are of Russian origin. Lack of spares has become a major cause of concern for the Indian military. Since Prime Minister Modi announced his ambitious Make in India programme in 2014, India has been pushing Russia to tie up with Indian industry to manufacture spares in India. In a related development, India also asked Russia to increase the Indian components in the Kamov-226T helicopter. India has agreed to buy 200 Kamov 226T helicopters to replace the ageing Cheetah and Chetak helicopters. A joint venture between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited the Bengaluru-based defence public sector - unit and Russian Helicopters has already been put in place. Both sides agreed to increase military to military cooperation including war games. Of late, military exercises between the Indian military and NATO countries have increased, and India will look to balance its relations with Russia, its oldest and trusted ally, and the West. The government on Thursday gave extension in tenure to two intelligence chiefs Rajiv Jain, director of domestic intelligence agency the Intelligence Bureau, and Anil Kumar Dhasmana, head of external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) for six months. Jain was to retire on December 30 while Dhasmana was to set to retire a day earlier on December 29. Both the chiefs get a fixed tenure of two years. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the extension in service of Shri Rajiv Jain, Director, Intelligence Bureau, for a period of 6 months beyond the present tenure, said a government statement. The statement added that the extension has been given in relaxation of Rule 16(1A) of All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rule, 1958 and FR 56. Similarly, the statement said Dhasmana too will continue to work for six more months beyond his present tenure up to December 29. The statement also said that Anil Srivastava, a 1985-batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer and advisor in the NITI Aayog, has been re-designated as principal advisor in the Aayog. Rahul speaking on technical aspects of SC order, we are speaking on substance: RS Prasad Rahul Gandhi is speaking on the technical aspects of the SC judgment, we are speaking on substance. If someone raises allegations for political purposes, then nothing can be done: RS Prasad Other nations want to know what sort of weapons India possess: RS Prasad The SC ruling makes it clear that merely on allegations, there can be no inquiry. Rahul Gandhis comments on Rafale deal are being appreciated by Pakistan as well. Because China and Pakistan have strengthened their Air Force, and they want to know about our strength as well. We follow news media of Pakistan too. Other nations want to know what sort of weapons India possess: RS Prasad What was stopping Congress from finalising Rafale deal: RS Prasad Rahul Gandhi asks us several questions. Today, we want to ask him one question. Between 2006 and 2011, when there was minimum tender in Dassault, why didnt you finalise the deal? What was stopping you: RS Prasad SC has noted govt has no role in choosing offset partner: RS Prasad SC has noted govt has no role in choosing offset partner. Indian Air Force needs these aircraft: RS Prasad Is Rahul Gandhi above Supreme Court: Ravi Shankar Prasad Rahul Gandhi has crossed all limits of propriety and decency by condemning Supreme Court. Are he and Congress above Supreme Court: Ravi Shankar Prasad. Mallikarjun Kharge said CAG has not given any report on Rafale: Rahul Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has said that the CAG has not given any report on Rafale. He said it has not come to public domain or Parliament as it has not come to PAC. This is strange: Rahul Gandhi When India faces job crunch, why ask France to make aircraft: Rahul When India faces job crunch, why did you (government) ask France to make all aircraft, asks Rahul Gandhi. Why fighter jets worth Rs 526 crore were bought at higher price: Rahul Why were fighter jets worth Rs 526 crore bought at a much higher price, asks Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi questions Rafale deal Why was Anil Ambani made offset partner in the Rafale deal, but not Bengaluru-based HAL: Rahul Gandhi Jaitleys jibe at Sena for demanding JPC probe Shiv Sena will say a lot of things: Jaitley on Senas demand for JPC probe in Rafale deal Unfair to question honest deals: Jaitley If honest deals are questioned, civil servants and armed forces will think twice before undertaking such a process in future: Jaitley Truth has only one version: Jaitley All figures by the government are correct and all figures by Rahul Gandhi are false and I have justified it... The truth has only one version and falsehood has many. That is why Rahul Gandhi quoted several figures: Jaitley Petitioners have got an answer from SC: Jaitley They (Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha) have got an answer from the Supreme Court. Their petitions have been rejected: Jaitley People incapable of understanding issues in depth rely on slogans: Jaitley People incapable of understanding issues in depth rely on slogans. Many people involved in offset contracts since years: Jaitley on Oppns allegations of crony capitalism Reviews of this kind cant be done by a partisan body: Jaitley Reviews of this kind can only be done by judiciary, not by a partisan body: Jaitley on demand for JPC probe Deaf will never receive an answer: Jaitley on demand for JPC probe The deaf will never receive an answer, they will never hear it: Jaitley on Oppositions demand for JPC probe We had to buy 36 aircraft due to time lost: Sitharaman UPA wanted to buy 18 aircraft and manufacture the rest. We bought 36 aircraft due to time lost: Sitharaman Presidents of largest democracies have been impeached for lying publicly: Jaitley Presidents of largest democracies have been impeached for lying publicly: Jaitley Rafale protected both security and commercial interests of India: Jaitley Rafale protected both security and commercial interests of India. Final price significantly lower. Security interest because it increases combat ability of India, commercial interest because the final price was significantly lower both for aircraft and weaponised aircraft than what was negotiated in 2007 and 2012: Jaitley Those who had conflict of interest also became commentators: Jaitley Whatever allegations were made were outright lies. There were 74 meetings on deciding the deal. Those who had conflict of interest also became commentators: Jaitley Jaitley terms Congress allegations fiction writing Air Force needed the aircraft. Was this fiction writing (by Congress) on national security: Arun Jaitley Have to be prepared when other nations have powerful weapons: Sitharaman Nirmala Sitharaman quotes court judgment, says there is no scope for complicity when other nations have acquired powerful weapons. Due process followed in Rafale deal: Sitharaman Due process followed in Rafale deal, court has observed there was no case of commercial favouritism, says Nirmala Sitharaman Why did they not go to the Supreme Court over Rafale If Congress had all the proof then why did they not go to the Supreme Court with it? Their B team was already there. Even an issue of propriety is also made out of facts. I just have a request that go to every house and tell everyone about Rafale, but go with the Supreme Court judgement. Whenever Congress is in power, there is a string of scams Whenever Congress is in power, there is a string of scams, ghotalas and jumlas, the BJP chief said. They are running away from discussion, we are ready to discuss issue JPC is formed only when there is a discussion in the House. We are ready to discuss this issue in Parliament. Why are they running away from discussion? No matter how much time they need, we will request the Speaker to have a discussion on this, Amit Shah said. Rahul Gandhi put the security of country in danger Attacking the Congress president, the BJP chief said that by trying to stop the procedure to buy the aircraft, Rahul Gandhi has put the security of country in danger. Congress kept repeating false allegations for years, must apologise The BJP chief also said that no matter how much mud one splashes on the Sun, it does not lose its light. For such a long time, Congress kept repeating false allegations against our government. SC has brought the truth out, says Shah All the deals during Congress time, there were middlemen involved. All the deals in Modis time between government to government. We have not said anything yet. Today, the SC has brought the truth out, the BJP chief said. Who is Rahuls source of information? asks Amit Shah I want to ask Rahul Gandhi, who gives him these information. Who is his source of information? The people of the country want to know, said Amit Shah. Amit Shah attacks Congress over Rafale BJP president Amit Shah on Friday launched an attack on Congress, which has been attacked by the Congress for months over the Rafale fighter jet deal, saying truth has won after Supreme Courts verdict. Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot to take oath on Dec 17 We would like to thank the public and our workers. Oath ceremony of chief minister and deputy chief minister will take place on December 17 and then the cabinet will be inducted: Ashok Gehlot Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot meet Kalyan Singh Rajasthan CM designate Ashok Gehlot and deputy CM designate Sachin Pilot meet Governor Kalyan Singh at the Governors House in Jaipur. Rajasthan: CM designate Ashok Gehlot and Deputy CM designate Sachin Pilot meet Governor Kalyan Singh at the Governor's House in Jaipur. pic.twitter.com/VnDaPUamS7 ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Congress delegation to meet Rajasthan governor at 7 pm Congress delegation to meet Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh in Jaipur at 7 pm, reports ANI. Thankful for being given the opportunity to serve again: Ashok Gehlot Very thankful to Rahul Gandhi and other leaders who have given me the opportunity to serve again, says Ashok Gehlot. Sachin Pilot and I will give good governance in Rajasthan: Gehlot Ashok Gehlot to be Rajasthans CM Ashok Gehlot to be Rajasthans next chief minister, Sachin Pilot his deputy Congress press conference begins Announcement of Rajasthan CM likely to be soon. Sachin Pilot likely to be deputy CM of Rajasthan Sachin Pilot to be deputy chief minister of Rajasthan, reports ANI. He will also continue to be Rajasthan Congress chief. Want Congress deliver priorities it has set for Chhattisgarh: TS Singh Deo Congress leader TS Singh Deo says, I want that Congress deliver the priorities it has set for Chhattisgarh as soon as possible. Rahul Gandhi ji had assured that loans will be waived off within 10 days of the formation of the government, reports news agency ANI. TS Singh Deo, Congress: I want that Congress deliver the priorities it has set for Chhattisgarh as soon as possible. Rahul Gandhi ji had assured that loans will be waived off within 10 days of the formation of the govt. #Chhattisgarh pic.twitter.com/arhiQdyHIZ ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Rahul tweets photo with Gehlot, Pilot, calls it United colours of Rajasthan Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweets a photo with party leaders Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot ahead of announcement on Rajasthan chief ministers name. The united colours of Rajasthan! pic.twitter.com/D1mjKaaBsa Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 14, 2018 Announcement on Rajasthan CM at 4:30 pm today: Congress general secretary Avinash Pandey Congress general secretary Avinash Pandey says name of Rajasthan chief minister announcement will take place at 4.30 pm today at AICC in Delhi. We will abide by high commands decision: Bhupesh Baghel Chhattisgarh Congress president Bhupesh Baghel says, We have given the authority to the High Command to decide the name (of the CM), whatever they decide, well go by it, reports news agency ANI. Bhupesh Baghel, Chhattisgarh Congress President: We have given the authority to the High Command to decide the name (of the CM), whatever they decide, we'll go by it. pic.twitter.com/JaM9MFZu2H ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Jyotiraditya Scindia congratulates people of Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia tweets a video, where he congratulates the people of Madhya Pradesh and the party workers and leaders. He says the party has to fight many challenges. Hope to fulfil peoples expectations: Kamal Nath Madhya Pradesh chief minister designate Kamal Nath says, I would like to thank public and I hope that we will live up to the expectations that public has from us and the Congress Party. Our priorities will be agriculture sector and generating employment for the youth, reports news agency ANI. Kamal Nath, Madhya Pradesh CM designate: I would like to thank public and I hope that we will live up to the expectations that public has from us and the Congress party. Our priorities will be agriculture sector & generating employment for the youth. pic.twitter.com/Ik8w5h26Kj ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Shivraj Singh Chouhan congratulates Madhya Pradesh CM designate Kamal Nath Outgoing Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan says, I would like congratulate Kamal Nath Ji and convey my best wishes to him. I hope he will fulfill all the promises he has made and continue with the schemes we had implemented, reports news agency ANI. Shivraj Singh Chouhan: I would like congratulate Kamal Nath Ji and convey my best wishes to him. I hope he will fulfill all the promises he has made and continue with the schemes we had implemented. #MadhyaPradesh pic.twitter.com/3prwIHOz8I ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Ashok Gehlots supporters chant slogans Supporters of former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot dance and chant Ashok Gehlot zindabad, outside his residence in Jaipur. Congress leader Jitendra Singh met Sachin Pilot earlier in the day Sources said former Union minister and party leader from Rajasthan Jitendra Singh met Sachin Pilot earlier in the day and then met Congress president Rahul Gandhi, reports PTI. Gehlot, Pilot were called by Rahul for an amicable settlement According to sources, both Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot were called by Congress president Rahul Gandhi for an amicable settlement to the issue amid a clear fight between the old and the young guard in the party, reports PTI. No dispute within party on who will be Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh CM: Randeep Surjewala Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala says, No dispute or differences within party on who will be chief minister in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh; due process of discussion is on, reports PTI. Gehlot and Pilot reach Congress president Rahul Gandhis residence Both Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot reach Congress president Rahul Gandhis residence. Sachin Pilot arrives at Rahul Gandhis residence Congress leader Sanchin Pilot arrives to meet party president Rahul Gandhi at his residence in New Delhi. Sachin Pilot arrives at Rahul Gandhis residence. ( HT Photo ) Kamal Nath to take oath as Madhya Pradesh CM on December 17 in Bhopal Congress Kamal Nath will take oath as Madhya Pradesh chief minister on December 17 in Bhopal. Congress leaders want infighting to end soon The Congress leaders feel the infighting in Rajasthan should end soon and called an amicable solution in the manner Jyotiraditya Scindia gracefully accepted the Congresss decision in Madhya Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi will take final decision which will be acceptable to all: Avinash Pandey AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pandey told PTI, Congress president heard everyone and after wide consultations he will take the final decision which will be acceptable to all. Decision is not being delayed, BJP is spreading lies: Ashok Gehlot Congress leader Ashok Gehlot says, Decision is not being delayed, BJP is spreading lies. BJP took 7 days in Uttar Pradesh and nine days in Maharashtra to choose a chief minister.The process takes time,observers go to sates for discussion.Whenever such decision is taken it takes time, reports news agency ANI. Ashok Gehlot, Congress on #Rajasthan CM: Decision is not being delayed, BJP is spreading lies. BJP took 7 days in UP & 9 days in Maharashtra to choose a CM.The process takes time,observers go to sates for discussion.Whenever such decision is taken it takes time. pic.twitter.com/4zYrrc7upt ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Congress leadership want Gehlot, Pilot to be present together at CLP meet The Congress leadership want Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot to be present together at the CLP meet. Sources said the Congress top brass was upset with the manner in which party workers resorted to arson and violence in the state in a bid to exert pressure on the party to name Pilot, reports PTI. Ashok Gehlot has emerged as front runner for the top post After several rounds of discussions that lasted till Thursday midnight, Congress veteran Ashok Gehlot has emerged as a front runner for the top post, while Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot is being placated in attempts to broker peace between the two, reports PTI. Decision of Rajasthans next CM likely to be taken before noon The decision of Rajasthans next chief minister is likely to be taken before noon and will be made public at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in state capital Jaipur, sources said, reports PTI. Rahul to hold fresh round of discussions with Gehlot, Pilot Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to hold a fresh round of discussions Friday with Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the two chief ministerial aspirants in Rajasthan, before taking a final call for the top post, reports PTI. Not first time a party has delayed announcing names of CMs of a state This is not the first time a party has delayed announcing the names for the top job in a state. The BJP took nine days after the results of the Maharashtra elections were announced in October 2014 to pick Devendra Fadnavis as its chief minister. And in March 2017, it took the BJP eight days after the Uttar Pradesh election results to name Yogi Adityanath for the job. Rahul Gandhi seeks views of party workers through internal messaging system Congress president Rahul Gandhi had sought views of party workers through an internal messaging system with a pre-recorded message asking them to send their views directly to him through the application. Scuffles took place in Chhattisgarh In Chhattisgarh, some scuffles took place yesterday outside the residence of state party chief Bhupesh Baghel, T S Singh Deo, OBC leader Tamradhwaj Sahu and party veteran Charan Das Mahant, reports PTI. You will see a chief minister soon: Rahul Gandhi On Thursday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi told reporters at Parliament House: Yes, you will see a chief minister soon. We are checking, taking inputs from different people in the party. We are taking inputs from MLAs and workers. We are getting a comprehensive answer to what the Congress party and others feel. Gehlot, Pilot supporters blocked roads, staged protests As Congress leaders discussed the options in Delhi yesterday, supporters got restless in Rajasthan blocking roads and staging protests. They gathered outside the party office and the residences of Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot holding placards, cutouts and shouting slogans. TS Singh Deo, Bhupesh Baghel and Charan Das Mahant to meet Rahul Gandhi Chhattisgarh Lok Sabha MP TS Singh Deo, Patan MLA Bhupesh Baghel and party veteran Charan Das Mahant will reach Delhi in an hour to meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Race in Chhattisgarh is among Bhupesh Baghel, TS Singh Deo and Tamradhwaj Sahu The race in Chhattisgarh is primarily among state unit chief and Patan MLA Bhupesh Baghel, party veteran TS Singh Deo, who was the leader of opposition in the former assembly, and the partys lone Lok Sabha MP from the state, Tamradhwaj Sahu. Rajasthan CM name will be announced today: Venugopal Senior Congress leader and Rajasthan observer KC Venugopal told ANI that there would be a final decision on who would assume the office of chief minister in Rajasthan today morning. The intense tussle lies between veteran leader and two time CM of the state Ashok Gehlot, and youth gun Sachin Pilot, who is credited for ressuructing the Congress in Rajasthan after 2013. Senior Congress leader and Rajasthan observer KC Venugopal said that there would be a final decision on who would assume the office of chief minister in Rajasthan on Friday morning Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/KRgX89srth pic.twitter.com/bgMVVFRGMt ANI Digital (@ani_digital) December 13, 2018 Sea of supporters to welcome Gehlot Even as mystery over the name of Rajasthans next chief minister continues, scores of people gathered at Jaipur airport to give Congress leader Ashok Gehlot a warm welcome when he returns from Delhi. The time to see him is coming near. Anytime soon he will come out of the exit gate. We are happy that he will become the chief minister since now we will not have to worry about casteism. A person, who is well connected to the earth, is going to become the chief minister, said Mahesh Saini, a supporter waiting outside the airport. Supporters of Sachin Pilot block road in Karauli Congress leader Sachin Pilots supporters say it was unfair to deny him the chief ministers chair after he delivered on his mandate. On Thursday, the supporters blocked roads in Bharatpur and Karauli in protest. Rajasthan: Supporters of Sachin Pilot block road in Karauli. pic.twitter.com/AlcUQntL0C ANI (@ANI) December 13, 2018 Elected MLAs pass resolution to pick CMs On Wednesday, the elected legislators of all three states passed resolutions asking Congress president Rahul Gandhi to pick their chief ministers. Nothing to worry, just wait: Ashok Gehlot I appeal to workers to maintain calm, they have worked very hard, whatever decisions will be taken will be binding on all. Rahul ji is talking to and consulting all leaders. The decision will be taken soon, there is nothing to worry. Just wait, Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said, reports news agency ANI. Senior Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot has asked his supporters to maintain calm. ( Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO ) I have full faith in partys leadership: Sachin Pilot Sachin Pilot tweeted, I appeal to all party workers to keep calm and maintain discipline. I have full faith in the partys leadership. We will welcome whatever decision is taken by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. Rajasthan Congress president Sachin PIlot at a press conference, in Jaipur, Rajasthan. ( HT Photo ) Rahul Gandhi has been closeted at meetings Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has been closeted at meetings for a larger part of the day on Thursday to decide on chief ministers for Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where the Congress dislodged the ruling BJP governments. Chhattisgarh CMs name likely to be announced today The name of the next Chhattisgarh chief minister is likely to be announced today. Pilot, Gehlot ask their supporters to be calm Congress leaders Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot have asked their supporters to be calm as the party decides on who will be the next chief minister of Rajasthan following its win in assembly elections two days ago. Whatever responsibility leadership will give, we will follow: Bhupesh Baghel Chhattisgarh Congress president Bhupesh Baghel says, After the elections results, the observer came here and had a meeting with all MLAs. It was mutually decided that the final decision will be taken by Congress high command. Whatever responsibility leadership will give, we will follow, reports news agency ANI. Bhupesh Baghel, Chhattisgarh Congress President: After the elections results, the observer came here&had a meeting with all MLAs. It was mutually decided that the final decision will be taken by Congress high command. Whatever responsibility leadership will give, we will follow. pic.twitter.com/mURXTYzYks ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Rajasthan CMs name likely to be announced today Rajasthan chief ministers name is likely to be announced today. Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday asked if businessman Vijay Mallya, who repaid his loans for 40 years, could be called a willful defaulter. Gadkari said that long back the Maharashtra government had given a loan to Vijay Mallya through the state PSU Sicom, and he used to repay the interest for 40 years. But after entering aviation, Mallya started facing problems and could not repay loans. If a person who was repaying the debt for 40 years, and due to some issues he is not able to meet his debt obligations later, can you declare him a willful defaulter? Gadkari asked. If Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallya have committed fraud then send them to jail, but if we label everyone who is in financial trouble as fraudsters, then the economy will not progress, he warned. Indirectly blaming the bankers for the NPA mess, Gadkari said our banking system is such that it does not support sick companies. When someone is serious then we put him/her in an ICU, but our banking system first puts a sick company in the ICU and then ensures that it dies, he quipped. On RBI, Gadkari asserted that the central bank continues to be by and large an independent body but it should also support the economic vision of the government of the day. Even if we accept RBIs autonomy, it is the responsibility of the central bank to support the vision of the government. We havent destroyed it (RBI as an institution) in any way, he told an economic summit organised by the Times group in Mumbai. Asserting that RBI is part and parcel of the government, he asked, if the finance minister gives an economic vision for the country then isnt it binding on the RBI to support that vision? Everywhere there are ups and downs and we have not destroyed any institutions. Weve not politically interfered in it (in the functioning of RBI), he said and underlined the need to ensure that we have to develop a transparent and corruption-free system that can fast track decision-making process and a system in which key government decisions should be binding on every institution. If RBI wants to be fully autonomous, then hold it responsible for the ills of the economy and not the finance ministry, he said. On one hand you are holding us responsible (for what goes wrong in the economy) and then if we make decisions then you are saying we are putting the autonomy of RBI in danger, the minister, who for long has been critical of the RBI, said. Gadkari, who handles many key infra ministries, wondered if government is held responsible for the economic situation, then how can RBI work autonomously. The Supreme Court can be an autonomous body. RBI is also an autonomous body, but does that mean that RBI will be taking 100 percent policy decisions on its own? he asked. Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday asked if businessman Vijay Mallya, who repaid his loans for 40 years, could be called a willful defaulter. Gadkari said that long back the Maharashtra government had given a loan to Vijay Mallya through the state PSU Sicom, and he used to repay the interest for 40 years. But after entering aviation, Mallya started facing problems and could not repay loans. If a person who was repaying the debt for 40 years, and due to some issues he is not able to meet his debt obligations later, can you declare him a willful defaulter? Gadkari asked. If Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallya have committed fraud then send them to jail, but if we label everyone who is in financial trouble as fraudsters, then the economy will not progress, he warned. Indirectly blaming the bankers for the NPA mess, Gadkari said our banking system is such that it does not support sick companies. When someone is serious then we put him/her in an ICU, but our banking system first puts a sick company in the ICU and then ensures that it dies, he quipped. On RBI, Gadkari asserted that the central bank continues to be by and large an independent body but it should also support the economic vision of the government of the day. Even if we accept RBIs autonomy, it is the responsibility of the central bank to support the vision of the government. We havent destroyed it (RBI as an institution) in any way, he told an economic summit organised by the Times group. Asserting that RBI is part and parcel of the government, he asked, if the finance minister gives an economic vision for the country then isnt it binding on the RBI to support that vision? Everywhere there are ups and downs and we have not destroyed any institutions. Weve not politically interfered in it (in the functioning of RBI), he said and underlined the need to ensure that we have to develop a transparent and corruption-free system that can fast track decision-making process and a system in which key government decisions should be binding on every institution. If RBI wants to be fully autonomous, then hold it responsible for the ills of the economy and not the finance ministry, he said. On one hand you are holding us responsible (for what goes wrong in the economy) and then if we make decisions then you are saying we are putting the autonomy of RBI in danger, the minister, who for long has been critical of the RBI, said. Gadkari, who handles many key infra ministries, wondered if government is held responsible for the economic situation, then how can RBI work autonomously. The Supreme Court can be an autonomous body. RBI is also an autonomous body, but does that mean that RBI will be taking 100 percent policy decisions on its own? he asked. In a shocking incident, 11-year-old Mohammed Alam, a resident of Nayagaon village, was killed and his body thrown into river Ganga for just Rs 250 and a silver coin. Alam had gone missing since December 9. The police arrested accused 22-year-old Chandan in this connection. Police said that the incident came to the light when Alams mother informed the family that he was last seen with Chandan, a resident of Lohanipur. The family immediately informed the police and requested to take Chandan into custody. Police took Chandan into the custody from his house in Lohanipur and interrogated him. On being interrogated, he told the police that he allegedly killed Alam and threw his body into the river Ganga at Gandhi Ghat. Town deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Suresh Prasad said that Chandan killed Alam for a silver coin and Rs 250. He confessed to his involvement in the murder case. He told the police that Alam was strangulated to death and then his body was thrown into the river Ganga. His legs and hands were also tied by the accused, he added. The DSP said that Chandan used to take out silver coins thrown in river Ganga by the people on the occasion of Chhath. A few days ago, a coin and Rs 250 were stolen from Chandan. He suspected that Alam had stolen them, he added. He said that Chandan lured Alam and went near river Ganga. Chandan demanded his stolen silver coin and Rs 250 but Alam said he did not steal his belongings. When he did not get the silver coin and the money, he tied Alams legs and hands and strangulated him to death. Later, he threw the body into the river, he added. The DSP said that on the basis of the statement of the accused, the police recovered Alams body. Earlier, his father Mohammad Salim had lodged a missing case with Pirbahore police station on December 9, he added. The Nepal government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations, a move that could affect Indian tourists visiting the Himalayan nation where Indian currency is widely used. Indian currency is extensively used by Nepalese people and businesses for their savings and transactions. The government has asked the people to refrain from keeping or carrying Indian bank notes higher than Rs 100 denomination as it has not legalised them, Nepals minister for information and communications Gokul Prasad Baskota said. The government has decided not to use, carry and keep the Indian bills of 200, 500 and 2000 denominations. The government will soon issue a formal notice in this matter, he said. The decision will adversely affect Nepalese labourers working in India as well as Indian tourists visiting Nepal. India is Nepals largest trade partner and supplies the majority of its consumer goods. The Indian government introduced new banknotes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations after the demonetisation of old notes worth Rs 500 and 1,000 in 2016. However, the move hit countries such as Nepal and Bhutan where Indian currency is widely used. Nepal Premier KP Sharma Oli said earlier this year that demonetisation hurt the Nepalese people and added that he would raise the matter with Indian leaders. People have been using the new Indian currency in Nepal for nearly two years now. Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Friday said his party, BJP, was forced to call a shutdown in Kerala in light of an unfortunate incident and appealed to workers not to resort to any extreme steps in the face of provocations. Without mentioning the immolation incident that claimed the life of 49-year-old Venugopalan Nair, a Lord Ayyappa devotee, in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, Modi said such incidents were unfortunate and workers should take lead to convince such people. The PMs remarks came at a time when the party was observing a shutdown in the state protesting the self-immolation. Interacting with party workers of five parliamentary constituencies of Kerala, he asked them to convince people who are easily prevailed over provocations and lead them to right direction. Lives are priceless. We should face issues and problems logically and try to sort them out. Extreme steps wont do any good to anyone. It is the duty of workers to convince such people and lead them to right path, he said. He asked party functionaries to work hard ensure peoples voices were heard. After the poll debacle in five states the PM is interacting with party workers for the first time. He criticised both ruling Left Front and Congress and asked BJP party functionaries to help take the central government plans to common man. In Kerala there are two models of government Communist and Congress models. Both are models of inefficiency and corruption, he said while talking about the stagnant bipolar politics of the state. He also criticised the recurring political violence in Kerala. Workers from Kerala really inspire me. They stand strongly with the people even if it means withstanding the brutality of violence. Our workers have done great sacrifices for believing in the ideology what they feel is right, he said, adding committed workers were the biggest asset of the party. The Congress on Friday said the Supreme Court verdict, ruling out a court-monitored probe into the Rafale deal, was not a setback. It has vindicated our stand that corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal cannot be decided by the court, the party said. The verdict of the Supreme Court is a validation of what the Congress party stated months ago that the Supreme Court is not the forum to decide such sensitive defence contracts, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said. He added that the alleged corruption in the defence contract can only be brought out by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) after examining the files and notings in the contract. If they have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal, he said. The Congress leader also alleged that the government gave a one-sided half-baked information to the Supreme Court which has not been scrutinised by anyone. Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma also demanded a JPC into the issue, saying, Supreme Court has not commented on many important aspects. We continue to demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC). Soon after the top court order, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unleashed an attack on the Congress saying the order exposed the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains and that Gandhi should apologise. As the tussle between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Rafale jet fighter deal persists, opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha have identified three key issues on which to corner the ruling dispensation in the ongoing winter session of Parliament, political leaders said on Thursday. While the agrarian crisis tops the list for opposition leaders in the upper house, a perceived breakdown of constitutional bodies and the Centres failure to create jobs are the other key issues. The other Opposition parties have also agreed to support the Congress in its confrontation with the BJP over the Rafale issue. There is a broad agreement between different Opposition parties on the subjects that we should take up during the session, said the Trinamool Congress floor leader in the Rajya Sabha, Derek OBrien. Close on the heels of the BJPs defeat in three heartland states, its rivals have realized that the farm issue can be the most important political weapon to take on the government. Many analysts have concluded that farm distress has contributed a large extent to the BJPs defeat in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The Opposition groups now want to up the ante on the issue inside Parliament, said a Congress leader. But their plans to confront the government may have to wait as disruptions in the House led to an adjournment for the second day of the Rajya Sabha. The house on Thursday couldnt transact any business following another round of protests by Tamil Nadu parties inside the well over the Cauvery river waters issue. Soon after the House paid its respects to the nine persons who laid down their lives 17 years ago when terrorists attacked Parliament House and the listed papers were presented, members belonging to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) trooped into the centre of the house shouting slogans. Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu warned that he would be forced to adjourn proceedings for the day if members did not return to their seats and allow the house to function. I would like to urge members to at least allow the house today... nine persons had laid down their lives to protect Parliament. Wrong message will go (out), he said. At a meeting between different party leaders on Thursday, the opposition demanded at least two debates on issues of their choice every week. A section of the opposition also alleged that the BJP, to stall any debate on the Rafale deal, is tolerant with the protests by Tamil Nadu parties. The BJP refuted the allegation as baseless, and added that its ministers were in talks with the Tamil Nadu parties to convince them to allow the house to function. We are ready for debates and JPC in parliament on Rafale: Shah I am ready for debate in parliament on Rafale deal. JPC can be constituted only when the issue is raised in the parliament debate. Rahul Gandhi should answer on what was his source of info about Rafale Rahul Gandhi should answer the country on what was his source of information about Rafale on the basis of which he blamed the deal and its transparency. Why didnt Congress go for a government to government deal. BJP believe in transparent deals and we chose government to government deal and avoided all scopes of middlemen. Amit Shah welcomes the judgement BJP President Amit Shah says, We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the countrys oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra CM says, Supreme Court judgements on Rafale deal has exposed the lies of Congress party andits President Rahul Gandhi. This judgement has vindicated our stand. Now Rahul Gandhi should apologize for defaming our country globally. Defence minister meets PM Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meets PM Narendra Modi #RafaleVerdict Main issue is pricing which SC did not comment: Mallikarjun Kharge Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress: Our demand was for Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) and it still stands,main issue is pricing which SC said it did not want to comment as it is not in its jurisdiction.Home Minister is speaking on an incomplete judgement given on a PIL #RafaleDeal SC exposes Congress campaign of misinformation: Amit Shah Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on Rafale deal exposes campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi says BJP chief Amit Shah. Zero hour can be suspended, discussion on Rafale can be taken up: Jaitley Arun Jaitley said zero hour can be suspended and a discussion on Rafale can be taken up immediately. But the protest from both sides continued and the house was adjourned for the day. Congress MPs were raising slogans and trooped into the well of the house. BJP MP were carrying placards asking Rahul Gandhi to apologies. AIDMK and DMK MPswere also in the well of the house. Ravi Shankar Prasad: Country needed effective fighter plane I am very happy over the SC decision. The country needed effective fighter planes to re-enforce the strength of their force. The entire deal was fair, honest and transparent. All the campaign against Rafale must end now because the countrys strategic interest is more important. Article 136, 32 not the forum to decide the issue Randeep Surjewala: Article 136&32 are not the forum to decide the issue, the pricing, the process, the sovereign guarantee&the corruption in the Rafale contract.Only forum and only media is a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which can probe the entire corruption in Rafale Deal. Half baked information given to SC: Surjewala Supreme Court is not a forum for debate on Rafale, says Surjewala Randeep Surjewala: We challenge PM Modi for a JPC probe We challenge PM for JPC probe into Rafale deal to unveil every layer of corruption, says Surjewala Lok Sabha adjourned Lok Sabha adjourned till December 17 after uproar over Rafale verdict by Supreme Court Congress thoughtHum to doobe hain sanam tum ko bhi le doobenge: Rajnath Home minister Rajnath Singh in Lok Sabha: Congress President tried to mislead public for political benefit, and maligned Indian image globally, he should apologize to the house and to the people of the country. He thought Hum to doobe hain sanam tum ko bhi le doobenge We continue to demand joint parliamentary committee: Anand Sharma Anand Sharma, Congress: Supreme Court has not commented on many important aspects. We continue to demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC) on the Rafale deal. JPC has the right to summon all documents Anil Ambani welcomes SC judgement Welcome judgment of Honble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing PILs filed on Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing complete falsity of wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally, Anil Ambani No reason to celebrate: Anand Sharma Anand Sharma, Congress: There is no reason for PM and BJP Govt to celebrate Supreme Court order which in itself is contradictory. Honourable SC has said it wont be proper for it to go into details SC judgement is wrong: Prashant Bhushan Prashant Bhushan: In our opinion the Supreme Court judgement is totally wrong, the campaign will certainly not drop and we will decide if we will file a review petition Perception of individuals cant be basis of roving inquiry: CJI We cant sit in judgment on the wisdom of purchase of the aircrafts - scrutiny had to be made keeping in mind national security. Our country cant be under prepared . Perception of individuals cant be a basis of roving inquiry Court dismisses PIL No reason for intervention into the purchase of aircrafts and no reason for a roving inquiry. The bench dismisses the PIL. This was not a criminal petition for clean-chit to be given: Congress tweets To the media & the BJP, please read the court judgement before spreading misinformation. This was not a criminal petition for a clean-chit to be given To the media & the BJP, please read the court judgement before spreading misinformation. This was not a criminal petition for a "clean-chit" to be given #JPCforRafaleScamhttps://t.co/BF7tt228Un Congress (@INCIndia) December 14, 2018 CJI on offset partner CJI says not appropriate to step into the arena which it does not know - mere press interview cant be the basis of judicial intervention. Court says no to probe on pricing Not correct for the court to sit as appellate authority in the aircraft purchase.We have examined prices of basis aircraft as per RPF and IGA. CJI on decision making - studied matter carefully We are satisfied that there is no reason to doubt. The process is followed - need of aircraft is not in doubt . We cant sit in judgment over the purchase of 36 aircraft against 126. Prime Minister Narendra Modis hectic travel schedule and his governments advertising blitz over the past four-and-a-half years have cost Indian taxpayers about 65.9 billion rupees ($920 million). The prime ministers 84 trips around the world cost roughly $280 million, while the government spent $640 million on promoting Modis flagship projects and achievements, according to new government data. The money spent on each trip, combined with the cost of maintenance on Air India One and setting up a secure hotline, was provided in a response to a lawmakers question in Parliament by VK Singh, the countrys junior foreign minister. The money on advertisements -- some of which bear PM Modis image -- was also made in Parliament by Rajyavardhan Rathore, the junior minister for information and broadcasting. Government spokesman Sitanshu Kar did not respond to three calls to his mobile phone on Friday, while a spokesman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, GVL. Narasimha Rao, did not respond to a call and text for comment. Foreign Trips Since taking office, Modi has maintained a punishing pace of world travel, meeting some global leaders such as US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe multiple times in a bid to boost Indias influence in global affairs and secure its strategic interests. Some of his trips, including an informal summit with President Xi Jinping in the Chinese city of Wuhan, are credited as diplomatic successes. His meeting with Chinas leader after a tense stand-off in the Himalayas was seen as ushering in a detente between the worlds two most-populous countries. Also read: Around the world with PM Modi: Track his trips and how much they cost Others generated some controversy. His trip to Japan in 2016 -- which came immediately after Modi eliminated 86 per cent of Indias currency, sending millions into bank queues to exchange cash -- led to accusations by the opposition that he was traveling the world while ordinary Indians were struggling. In China, he signed a memorandum of understanding to open a yoga college in Yunnan province, and pledged to cooperate with Turkmenistan on both yoga and traditional Indian medicine, according to government statements. In Oman, a memorandum of understanding was signed pledging cooperation in the field of health. In Portugal, Modis diplomats promised to cooperate in the exploration and uses of outer space for peaceful purposes, an agreement India also struck with Vietnam and Oman. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) To understand the significance and rationale of Congress president Rahul Gandhi picking veteran Kamal Nath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and likely to go with senior leader Ashok Gehlot as CM of Rajasthan, we must go back almost a decade. Gandhi entered Indian politics in 2004, when he first contested the Lok Sabha elections from Amethi in Uttar Pradeshformer Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhis constituency. But, he came into his own in the party and in government policymaking after the 2009 elections, where success in states such as Uttar Pradesh was credited to him. Murmurs began then in Delhis power corridors of the tension between the Congress old guard and young turks. The seniors were mostly the ones who had started their political careers under Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi, and then stayed loyal to Sonia Gandhi, as she revived the party. Sonia, who was the Congress president at the time, worked closely with them and depended on them for advice. The younger leaders who entered Parliament in 2004 or 2009 were mostly of Rahul Gandhis age group, and shared interests with him, worked on political projects and recognised that as they grew in the party, he would be their leader. The tensions were palpable in the final years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in particular, when the younger cohort increasingly felt that the seniors had made a mess of governance and weakened the party. The seniors felt that the younger generation still lacked experience of statecraft. Bridging two worlds It was in this climate that Rahul Gandhi eventually took control of the party as vice-president in 2013 and then eventually as president in 2017. The old guard was sceptical and feared it would be sidelined. But one of the things that Gandhi promised he would do was combine experience and youth. He would capitalise on the talent and energy of both at a time when his party was at its lowest. And he would be a bridge. Gandhi did this. He effected a generational transformation in some major states. Think of Sachin Pilot going to Rajasthan right after the 2014 Lok Sabha debacle. A range of other low-profile, grassroots leaders were made party secretaries in charge of states. Gandhi also decided to empower younger leaders and hand them crucial party departments. Ajay Maken and then Randeep Surjewala led communications, Deepender Hooda and then Divya Spandana had social media, Krishna Allavaru was given Youth Congress, Ruchi Gupta got the National Students Union of India. Praveen Chakravarty was brought in and given a new department of data analytics. Rajeev Gowda, slightly older than the rest but still counted among the newer entrants, took charge of research. Gandhi gave them a platform to showcase their skills. But Gandhi also ensured that the seniors had space. They were the general secretaries in charge of key states for instance, Ghulam Nabi Azad for Uttar Pradesh or Ashok Gehlot for Gujarat. In Gujarat in particular, he recognised the skills that leaders such as Gehlot brought in terms of their understanding of social movements, caste politics and their extensive networks. They were the troubleshooters and bridges with older political leaders outside the party. Azad and Gehlot being sent to stitch an alliance with Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out was a prominent example. They were also given the most challenging responsibilities Ahmed Patel being appointed treasurer when party finances were dire, was a case in point. Gandhi also balanced parliamentary responsibilities (Mallikarjun Kharge was the Congress leader in Lok Sabha, but Jyotiraditya Scindia was the chief whip and most important floor manager). He turned to the seniors for economic counsel. Dr Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram are still important voices in finance and economy in the younger Gandhis Congress. Some like Anand Sharma were given foreign policy, as Karan Singh slowly retreated from active public life. A key test of this balancing act for Gandhi was in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Pilot had worked hard, spent time on the ground for four years, was popular with the youth, believed the ongoing Congress revival was primarily due to his efforts, and wanted to act as autonomously as possible. Gehlot, as a former two-term CM, saw himself as the natural leader of the party in the state despite a loss in 2013. He retained active interest in state politics, had loyal followers and connections in each constituency and had higher recall value. Both wanted to be CMs. In MP, the problem was more complicated as there had been intense factionalism for over a decade. Kamal Nath, who had largely been in national politics, despite being an MP, wanted to return. He was resourceful. The organisation needed him. And former CM Digvijaya Singh backed him. But Jyotiraditya Scindia was the most popular face of the party. He was strong not only in the Gwalior-Chambal region, but had a pan-state connect with the young in particular. He was an indispensable campaigner. Both had ambitions of leading the state. Gandhi told all of them that the party only had one priority defeating the BJP. And he divided responsibilities with the brief to win the election. Pilot, Gehlot, Nath and Scindia recognised that the party was confronting its deepest crisis in modern times. Gandhi was right. They had to win first. Behind the final tilt So why was it that the rewards seem to be going to the older lot after a careful balancing act? Congress circles offer the following explanation in Rajasthan. The party has a fragile majority. It needs to work with allies and independents. There is a Lok Sabha election to be won with 25 seats up for grabs. If he is picked, Gehlot can hit the ground running and get a grip on the administration quickly given past familiarity with the ways of the Rajasthan bureaucracy. Yes, Pilot worked hard; appointing Pilot would have sent a message that the party was ready to empower the young. But Pilot, in his early 40s, can wait for many opportunities that will emerge. The time seems right to let the old warhorse, Gehlot, consolidate the partys achievement for that overarching objective of defeating the BJP in 2019. In MP, Nath well-connected in business circles was seen as having provided resources to a weak and cash-strapped organization. The party had been out of power here for 15 years. At 72, and somewhat frail, this is also one of Naths last opportunities in what has been a successful political career. The appointment is both a recognition of his contribution to the campaign as well as a signal to corporate India. Yes, Scindia is more popular; appointing Scindia could well create a hawa among the youth in particular; Scindia has delivered a phenomenal win in his bastion of Gwalior-Chambal. But Gandhi seems to have calculated that Scindia, one of his closest political associates and the man who sits next to him in the Lok Sabha, can be used more effectively for the 2019 elections and rewarded at an opportune time. Hed be a part of Gandhis team for decades. The appointment of Nath and likely selection of Gehlot reveals a ruthlessly pragmatic streak in Gandhi. But this tilt is only temporary. The story in the Congress remains one of generational change. The story of the future is the story of Pilot and Scindia and the wider cohort of younger leaders in their 40s, working under Rahul Gandhi, leading their states, ministries, and the party in different forms over the next few decades. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a clutch of petitions demanding a court-monitored investigation of the Rafale jet fighter deal, saying it saw no reason to doubt the process followed in the ?59,000 crore purchase, effectively vindicating the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments stand that there is nothing wrong in the deal and that due process was followed. The court refused to go into the issue of the deals pricing. In the political realm, as the NDA demanded an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been relentless in insisting that there has been wrongdoing in the deal, the opposition party refused to accept the governments claim of vindication and mounted pressure for a probe by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC). Protests and slogan-chanting by both the ruling party and opposition members forced an early adjournment of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha even as finance minister Arun Jaitley demanded that the Congress party immediately start a discussion on the Rafale deal in the Upper House. The Supreme Court ruling came as a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the heels of reverses suffered by it in the latest round of state elections, in which it lost control of the key heartland states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Although the Congress repeatedly referred to Rafale in its campaign, political analysts arent sure it played a part in elections which were largely decided by rural distress and anti-incumbency. The bench said it saw no evidence of commercial favouritism in the deal, was satisfied that due process had been followed, and the need for procuring the aircraft was not in doubt . On the pricing of the aircraft, which is at the heart of the controversy, it observed that it wasnt the job of the court to compare pricing details. It is not correct for the court to sit as an appellate authority in the aircraft purchase, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, and justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph unanimously ruled. They dismissed four petitions demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe . Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this Court, especially in such matters, said the bench, which had on November 14 reserved its judgment in the case. We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the Court, it ruled. Our country cannot afford to be unprepared/underprepared in a situation where our adversaries are stated to have acquired not only 4th Generation, but even 5th Generation Aircraft, of which, we have none. The bench left it to the parties to bear their own legal costs. The Narendra Modi government immediately launched a counteroffensive against the Opposition. Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal, BJP president Amit Shah said. He called the ruling a slap on the face of falsehood. At a press conference, Shah said the controversy raised by Gandhi has had impact on the morale of the security forces. Home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday demanded in the Lok Sabha that Gandhi apologise on the floor of the house for misleading the country on the Rafale jet deal for political benefit. Parliamentary affairs Minister Narendra Tomar echoed the demand. The Congress, which wasnt a petitioner, challenged the government to agree to a JPC probe. The verdict of the Supreme Court is a validation of what the Congress party stated months ago, that the Supreme Court is not the forum to decide such sensitive defence contracts, party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told journalists. If they have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal, he said. The NDA governments decision to enter a $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault Aviation was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The deal has become controversial with the opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is R1,670 crore for each, three times the R526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. It has also claimed the previous deal included a technology transfer agreement with HAL. The NDA has not disclosed details of the price, citing a confidentiality agreement with France and the strategic reason of not its hand to Indias enemies. The UPA deal, struck in 2012, was not a viable one, former defence minister Manohar Parrikar has previously said, implying that it would have never been closed and that, therefore, any comparison is moot. Indeed, the UPA was not able to close the deal till 2014, largely over discussions related to pricing of items not included in the initial bid. The NDA has said that the current deal also includes customised weaponry. The deal has also become controversial on account of the fact that one of the offset deals signed by Dassault is with the Reliance Group of Anil Ambani. The Congress claims the earlier deal was scrapped and a new one signed just to provide Ambani this opportunity for an offset deal. Both the government and Reliance have repeatedly denied this. The petitions challenging the deal were filed by activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh and advocates ML Sharma and Vineet Dhanda earlier this year. They had questioned the deal over a perceived lack of transparency on the pricing of the jets, the offsets deal that seemed to favour Reliance Group and alleged flouting of due process in closing the deal. They said the deal wasnt a government-to-government deal at all because France refused to offer India a sovereign guarantee and instead gave it a letter of comfort. On Friday, the judges said they had examined the price of the basic aircraft. Broadly, the processes have been followed. The need for the aircrafts is not in doubt. The quality of the aircraft is not in question. We cannot sit in judgment over the wisdom of deciding to go in for purchase of 36 aircraft in place of 126. Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani welcomed the apex court verdict. I welcome the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. We remain committed to Indias national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France, Ambani said. Dassault Aviation, too, welcomed the courts judgement . In a statement it said it has taken note of the Supreme Court conclusions establishing the absence of any irregularities in the decision making process to purchase 36 Rafale, pricing of Rafale jets and selection of Indian offset partners including Anil Ambani owned Reliance Defence by Dassault Aviation. The deal is absolutely clean in accordance with Indian laws and regulations, as I have stated before Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation said in the statement. All campaigns against the Rafale deal must end after the Supreme Courts judgement, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. ...I would only urge one thing, that all campaigns against Rafale must end now because the countrys strategic interest is more important, Prasad said on the sidelines of an event organised by the industry body Confederation of Indian Industry. That failed to silence government critics. The issue is still live in the peoples court and the Congress will continue to raise it in Parliament, senior party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday. Petitioner Prashant Bhushan said he hadnt yet decided whether to file a review petition against the Supreme Court. (With agency inputs) The Supreme Court on Friday declined to order a CBI probe into the purchase of 36 French-made Rafale jets, holding that it was satisfied that there is no reason to doubt the purchase process or the need for the fighter jets. The court said perceptions of individuals cannot be a basis for a roving inquiry. We are satisfied that there is no reason to doubt the process is followed and the need of aircraft is not in doubt, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising justice SK Kaul and KM Joseph said. It is not correct for the court to sit as appellate authority in the aircraft purchase, the bench observed. The verdict comes as shot in the arm for the NDA government that has come been sharply criticised by the opposition, which accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi of single-handedly pushing through the deal to buy overpriced jets without following procedures. The government has also been attacked for buying only 36 aircrafts when the Indian Air Force needed a lot more. Read full statement here The judges said they have examined the price of basic aircrafts according to the request for proposals and inter governmental agreements. We cant sit in judgment on the wisdom of purchase of the aircrafts... scrutiny had to be made keeping in mind national security. Our country cant be under-prepared, the top court said, rejecting a bunch of petitions challenging the deal. The petitions challenging the deal were filed by activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh and advocates ML Sharma and Vineet Dhanda earlier this year. The petitions challenging the deal were filed by activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh and advocates ML Sharma and Vineet Dhanda earlier this year. They had questioned the deal over the lack of transparency over the pricing of the jets; an offsets deal that seemed to favour a private firm; flouting of due process in closing the deal; and that the deal isnt a government-to-government deal at all as it has been pitched because France refused to offer India a sovereign guarantee and instead gave it a letter of comfort. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has denied most of these charges. The government said it cannot disclose pricing details publicly on account of a secrecy clause in its agreement with France and to ensure Indias enemies do not get to know details of the India-specific enhancements and weaponry of the Rafale. It had submitted details of the price in a sealed envelope to the Supreme Court, though, and the court said it would not get into the pricing issue. The government has also explained the process followed in an affidavit filed to the court, which has also been shared with the petitioners. The NDA governments decision to enter the $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy the warplanes made by Dassault was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). It has become controversial, with the opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is Rs 1,670 crore for each, three times the Rs 526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. The opposition has also questioned the deal over the fact that one of the offset deals signed by Dassault is with a joint venture it has with Reliance Group of Anil Ambani. The Congress claims the earlier deal was scrapped and a new one signed just to provide Ambani with this opportunity for an offset deal. Both the government and Reliance Group have repeatedly denied this. Closing all judicial avenues challenging the appointment of Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as the special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Supreme Court Friday dismissed a curative petition filed by an NGO. A combination of top four judges of the court, Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan Lokur, Justice AK Sikri and Justice AM Sapre held, We have gone through the curative petition and the connected papers. In our opinion, no case is made out. Hence, the curative petition is dismissed. NGO Common Cause had last year filed a petition challenging appointment of Asthana as CBI special director, claiming that the appointment was illegal, malafide and in violation of institutional integrity. The petition alleged that while Asthana was police commissioner in Surat in 2011, he regularly accepted money favours from Gujarat-based Sterling Biotech and Sandesara Group of companies. But the top court dismissed the challenge to Asthanas appointment. An SC bench said Asthanas appointment cannot be struck on the basis of unverified diary entries against him. Hours after the Supreme Court rejected ordering a probe into the Rafale deal, and said it was satisfied that due process has been followed in it, Congress president Rahul Gandhi highlighted parts of the apex courts order, especially the reference that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has given its report on the deal to Parliaments Public Accounts Committee (PAC), to continue his attack on PM Narendra Modi. CAG hasnt submitted anything to PAC, and the factual error in the courts order provided Gandhi with fresh ammunition. In paragraph 25 of the judgment, the bench stated: The material placed before us shows that the Government has not disclosed pricing details, other than the basic price of the aircraft, even to Parliament, on the ground that sensitivity of pricing details could affect national security, apart from breaching the agreement between the two countries. The SC judgment was delivered on Friday by a three-judge bench of the top court headed by chief justice Ranjan Gogoi. The pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (hereinafter referred to asCAG), and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts (Committee), the judgment added. The court seems to have erred on this point. While CAG Rajiv Mehrishi was not available for comments, an official of the audit body familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that it has not given any report to the Parliament on the Rafale deal although the government has shared price details with it. Speaking at a press conference along with PAC chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and others, Gandhi said, How does the Supreme Court judgment have this line that Rafale pricing has been examined by the PAC? Now, we have to ask the government, where is this CAG report? He added, Maybe it is happening in some other Parliament, may be in France. Or, Modi-ji might have set up a PAC in the Prime Ministers Office, before reiterating his slogan, Chowkidar chor hai. Kharge emphasised that the deputy CAG deposed before his panel on Friday but the audit watchdog has not given any report on Rafale. We dont know how this happened. But this is strange, added Kharge. Biju Janata Dal lawmaker and PAC member Bhartruhari Mahtab confirmed this: There has not been any communication in any manner, be it oral or written, between the PAC and the CAG on Rafale. The rules are clear that only after the CAG report is placed before Parliament, the PAC takes up the matter for review. To be sure, the orders reference to the report doesnt seem to impinge on the thrust of the order -- which is that due process was followed in the deal, that the court does not have the power to go into the pricing issue, and that the choice of the offset partner is not the governments but the aircraft makers. When asked about the non-existent CAG report, Finance minister Arun Jaitley said: I think whatever are the contents of the verdict in terms of the procedural details of the narration which have been given that is not a subject matter of our comment. If there is something that is required to be done in that regard, I think the lawyers will examine it and do the needful. Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan, who was one of the petitioners in the case, said some of the facts mentioned in the order are neither on record nor factually correct. Bhushan said in a statement that the CAG report has not been submitted to PAC and no portion of the CAG report has been placed before Parliament or placed in the public domain. Obviously this factually incorrect statement must be based on some communication [not on record and unknown to us] made by the government to the court, he alleged. Bhushan pointed out that the court also mentioned its judgment that the chief of the Indian Air Force had communicated his reservation regarding the disclosure of the pricing details which would adversely affect national security. This alleged fact was also not on record and it is not understood as to where and how the court got this, said Bhushan. The judgment mentioned that the bench during hearing in the case interacted with the senior Air Force officials who answered Court queries in respect of different aspects, including that of the acquisition process and pricing. Bhushan termed this too as factually incorrect. The only question asked of the Air Force officials by the court and the only questions they answered was about whether the Rafale aircraft belonged to the 3rd, 4th and 5th generation and when the last acquisition took place. They were neither questioned, nor did they say anything on the acquisition process or on pricing. At least this did not happen during court proceedings, said Bhushan. The petitioners had also alleged that the Rafale maker Dassault gave an offset contract to Anil Ambanis group company at the cost of public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the court, in its order seems to get confused between Reliance Industries, promoted by Mukesh Ambani, with which Rafale maker Dassault was discussing a partnership in 2012 and Reliance Defence, promoted by Anil Ambani, with which Dassault entered into a partnership in 2015. The two run separate conglomerates. Lawyer Bhushan pointed out: The Reliance Company with which Dassault was once discussing, was a completely different company of Mukesh Ambani and had nothing to do with the new company of Anil Ambani incorporated at the time of the 2015 deal. After Rahul Gandhis press conference, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters the Congress chiefs statement were unfortunate and a new low in countrys politics. Does he consider himself above the Supreme Court? [The] SC verdict has exposed the lies of Rahul Gandhi. We had expected that he will accept the judgment with humility, Prasad said, adding that Gandhis statement shows his frustration. In the Supreme Court of India civil/criminal original jurisdiction writ petition [criminal] no.225 of 2018 Manohar Lal Sharma . Petitioner(s) versus Narendra Damodardas Modi & ors. respondents(s) with w.p.(c) no.1205/2018 w.p. (crl) no.297/2018 w.p. (crl) no.298/2018 judgment Ranjan Gogoi, CJI. 1. The issues arising in this group of writ petitions, filed as public interest litigations, relate to procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets for the Indian airforce. The procurement in question, which has been sought to be challenged, has its origins 2 in the post-Kargil experience that saw a renewed attempt to advance the strategic needs of the armed forces of the country. 2. As far back as in the month of June of the year 2001, an in - principle approval was granted for procurement of 126 fighter- jets to augment the strength of the Indian airforce. Simultaneously, a more transparent defence procurement procedure (DPP) was formulated for the first time in the year 2002. A robust offset clause was included in the DPP in the year 2005 so as to promote indigenisation and to that effect services qualitative requirements (SQRS) were prepared in June 2006. On 29th June 2007 the defence acquisition council (DAC) granted the acceptance of necessity for the procurement of 126 medium multi role combat aircrafts (for short MMRCA) including 18 direct fly-away aircrafts (equivalent to a single squadron) to be procured from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with the remaining 108 aircrafts to be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (for short HAL) under licence, to be delivered over a period of 11 years from the date of signing. The bidding process commenced in August 2007. Six (06) vendors submitted proposals in April, 3 2008. The proposals were followed by technical and field evaluations; a Staff Evaluation Report and a Technical Oversight Committee Report. All these were completed in the year 2011. The commercial bids were opened in November, 2011 and M/s Dassault Aviation (hereinafter referred to as Dassault) was placed as the LI sometime in January 2012. Negotiations commenced thereafter and continued but without any final result. In the meantime, there was a change of political dispensation at the centre sometime in the middle of the year 2014. 3. According to the official respondents negotiation continued. A process of withdrawal of the Request for Proposal in relation to the 126 MMRCA was initiated in March 2015. On 10th April, 2015 an IndoFrench joint statement, for acquisition of 36 Rafale Jets in flyaway condition through an InterGovernmental Agreement (hereinafter referred to as IGA), was issued and the same was duly approved by the DAC. The Request for Proposal for the 126 MMRCA was finally withdrawn in June 2015. Negotiations were carried out and the process was completed after InterMinisterial Consultations with the approval 4 of the Cabinet Committee on Security (for short CCS). The contract along with Aircraft Package Supply Protocol; Weapons Package Supply Protocol; Technical Arrangements and Offset contracts was signed in respect of 36 Rafale Jets on 23rd September, 2016. The aircrafts were scheduled to be delivered in phased manner commencing from October 2019. 4. Things remained quiet until sometime in the month of September, 2018 when certain newspapers reported a statement claimed to have been made by the former President of France, Francois Hollande, to the effect that the French Government were left with no choice in the matter of selection of Indian Offset Partners and the Reliance Group was the name suggested by the Government of India. This seems to have triggered of the writ petitions under consideration. The first writ petition i.e. Writ Petition (Criminal) No.225 of 2018 has been filed by one Shri Manohar Lal Sharma, a practicing lawyer of this Court. What is sought for in the said writ petition is registration of an FIR under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and a Court Monitored Investigation. The further relief of quashing the Inter 5 Governmental Agreement of 2016 for purchase of 36 Rafale Jets has also been prayed for. Writ Petition (Civil) No.1205 of 2018 has been filed by one Shri Vineet Dhanda claiming to be a public spirited Indian. The petitioner states that he was inspired to file the writ petition being agitated over the matter on the basis of the newspaper articles/reports. The third writ petition bearing Writ Petition (Criminal) No.297 of 2018 has been filed by one Shri Sanjay Singh, a Member of Parliament alleging illegality and nontransparency in the procurement process. The said writ petition seeks investigation into the reasons for cancellation of earlier deal and seeks a scrutiny of the Court into the alteration of pricing and, above all, how a novice company i.e. Reliance Defence came to replace the HAL as the Offset partner. Cancellation of InterGovernmental Agreement and registration of an FIR has also been prayed for. The fourth and the last writ petition bearing Writ Petition (Criminal) No.298 of 2018 has been filed by Shri 6 Yashwant Sinha, Shri Arun Shourie and Shri Prashant Bhushan claiming to be public spirited Indians. They are aggrieved by nonregistration of FIR by the CBI pursuant to a complaint made by them on 4th October, 2018 which complaint, according to the petitioners, disclose a prima facie evidence of commission of a cognizable offence under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The prayer, inter alia, made is for direction for registration of an FIR and investigation of the same and submitting periodic status reports to the Court. 5. Adequate Military strength and capability to discourage and withstand external aggression and to protect the sovereignty and integrity of India, undoubtedly, is a matter of utmost concern for the Nation. The empowerment of defence forces with adequate technology and material support is, therefore, a matter of vital importance. 6. Keeping in view the above, it would be appropriate, at the outset, to set out the parameters of judicial scrutiny of governmental decisions relating to defence procurement and to indicate whether such parameters are more constricted than what the jurisprudence of judicial scrutiny of award of tenders 7 and contracts, that has emerged till date, would legitimately permit. 7. Parameters of judicial review of administrative decisions with regard to award of tenders and contracts has really developed from the increased participation of the State in commercial and economic activity. In Jagdish Mandal vs. State of Orissa and Ors.1 this Court, conscious of the limitations in commercial transactions, confined its scrutiny to the decision making process and on the parameters of unreasonableness and mala fides. In fact, the Court held that it was not to exercise the power of judicial review even if a procedural error is committed to the prejudice of the tenderer since private interests cannot be protected while exercising such judicial review. The award of contract, being essentially a commercial transaction, has to be determined on the basis of considerations that are relevant to such commercial decisions, and this implies that terms subject to which tenders are invited are not open to judicial scrutiny unless it is found that the same have been tailormade to benefit any particular tenderer or a 1 (2007) 14 SCC 517 8 class of tenderers. 8. Various Judicial pronouncements commencing from Tata Cellular vs. Union of India3 , all emphasise the aspect that scrutiny should be limited to the Wednesbury Principle of Reasonableness and absence of mala fides or favouritism. 9. We also cannot lose sight of the tender in issue. The tender is not for construction of roads, bridges, etc. It is a defence tender for procurement of aircrafts. The parameter of scrutiny would give far more leeway to the Government, keeping in mind the nature of the procurement itself. This aspect was even emphasized in Siemens Public Communication Networks Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. Vs. Union of India & Ors.4 . The triple ground on which such judicial scrutiny is permissible has been consistently held to be illegality, irrationality and procedural impropriety. 2 (2014) 3 SCC 760 3 (1994) 6 SCC 651 4 (2008) 16 SCC 215 9 10. In Reliance Airport Developers (P) Ltd. vs. Airports Authority of India & Ors.5 the policy of privatization of strategic national assets qua two airports came under scrutiny. A reference was made in the said case to the commentary by Grahame Aldous and John Alder in their book Applications for Judicial Review, Law and Practice: There is a general presumption against ousting the jurisdiction of the courts, so that statutory provisions which purport to exclude judicial review are construed restrictively. There are, however, certain areas of governmental activity, national security being the paradigm, which the courts regard themselves as incompetent to investigate, beyond an initial decision as to whether the Governments claim is bona fide. In this kind of nonjusticiable area judicial review is not entirely excluded, but very limited. It has also been said that powers conferred by the royal prerogative are inherently unreviewable but since the speeches of the House of Lords in Council of Civil Service Unions Vs. Minister for the Civil Service [1985 AC 374: (1984) 3 WLR 1174 (HL): (1984) 3 All ER 935] this is doubtful. Lords Diplock, Scaman and Roskili (sic.)6 appeared to agree that there is no general distinction between powers, based upon whether their source is statutory or prerogative but that judicial review can be limited by the subjectmatter of a particular power, in that case national security. Many prerogative powers are in fact concerned with sensitive, nonjusticiable areas, for example, 5 (2006) 10 SCC 1 6 To be read as Roskill 10 foreign affairs, but some are reviewable in principle, including where national security is not involved. Another nonjusticiable power is the Attorney Generals prerogative to decide whether to institute legal proceedings on behalf of the public interest. [emphasis supplied] 11. It is our considered opinion/view that the extent of permissible judicial review in matters of contracts, procurement, etc. would vary with the subject matter of the contract and there cannot be any uniform standard or depth of judicial review which could be understood as an across the board principle to apply to all cases of award of work or procurement of goods/material. The scrutiny of the challenges before us, therefore, will have to be made keeping in mind the confines of national security, the subject of the procurement being crucial to the nations sovereignty. 12. Adopting such an approach, on 10th October, 2018 when the first two writ petitions were initially listed before the Court, the Court had specifically observed in its order that it is proceeding in the matter by requiring the Government of India to apprise the Court of the details of the steps taken in the decisionmaking process notwithstanding the fact that the averments in 11 the writ petitions were inadequate and deficient. The Court had also indicated that it was so proceeding in the matter in order to satisfy itself of the correctness of the decisionmaking process. It was also made clear that the issue of pricing or matters relating to technical suitability of the equipment would not be gone into by the Court. The requisite information was required to be placed before the Court by the Government of India in sealed cover. Before the next date of hearing fixed i.e. 31st October, 2018, the other two writ petitions came to be filed. 13. On 31st October, 2018, the Court in its order had recorded that in none of the writ petitions the suitability of the fighter jets and its utility to the Indian Airforce had been called into question. Rather what was doubted by the petitioners is the bona fides of the decisionmaking process and the price/cost of the equipment at which it was proposed to be acquired. 14. Pursuant to the order dated 10th October 2018, a note in sealed cover delineating the steps in the decisionmaking process was submitted to the Court and by order dated 31st October 2018 this Court had directed that such of the information which has been laid before the Court, which can 12 legitimately be brought into the public domain, be also made available to the petitioners or their counsels. Details with regard to the induction of the Indian Offset Partner (IOP), if any, was also required to be disclosed. The Court also directed that the details with regard to pricing; the advantages thereof, if any, should also be submitted to the Court in a sealed cover. 15. It is in the backdrop of the above facts and the somewhat constricted power of judicial review that, we have held, would be available in the present matter that we now proceed to scrutinise the controversy raised in the writ petitions which raise three broad areas of concern, namely, (i) the decisionmaking process; (ii) difference in pricing; and (iii) the choice of IOP. Decision Making Process. 16. The details of the steps in the decisionmaking process leading to the award of the 36 Rafale fighter aircrafts order have been set out in response to the order dated 10th October, 2018. The Government states that the DPP 2002 has been succeeded by periodical reviews in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2016. The preamble to DPP has been referred to capture its essence, which emphasises that Defence acquisition is not a standard open market commercial form of procurement and has certain unique features such as supplier constraints, technological complexity, foreign suppliers, high cost, foreign exchange implications and geopolitical ramifications. As a result, decision making pertaining to defence procurement remains unique and complex. It also states that Defence procurement involves long gestation periods and delay in procurement will impact the preparedness of our forces. The needs of the armed forces being a nonnegotiable and an uncompromising aspect, flexibility in the procurement process is required, which has also been provisioned for. It is DPP 2013 which is stated to have been followed in the procurement in question. It is no doubt true that paragraph 77 of the DPP 2013 reads as follows: . This procedure would be in supersession of Defence Procurement Procedure 2011 and will come into effect from 01 June 2013. There are, however, cases which would be under various stages of processing in accordance with provision of earlier versions of DPP at the 14 time of commencement of DPP2013. The processing of these cases done so far under the earlier procedure will be deemed to be valid. Only those cases in which RFP is issued after 01 June, 2013, will be processed as per DPP2013. In other words when it is stated that only those cases in which RFP is issued after 1st June 2013 will be processed as per DPP 2013, in this case where the RFP was issued much prior to 1st April 2013 and it was withdrawn, as already noted, in June 2015, a question may arise as to how it could be claimed that DPP 2013 was followed. We, however, also notice clause 75 of DPP 2013 which reads as follows: 75. Any deviation from the prescribed procedure will be put up to DAC through DPB for approval. 7. Also, we notice that the official respondents have sought support from paragraph 71 of the DPP 2013. Para 71 of DPP 2013, in respect of the IGA has been referred to, which postulates possibilities of procurement from friendly foreign countries, necessitated due to geostrategic advantages that are likely to accrue to the country. Such procurement would not classically follow the Standard Procurement Procedure or the 15 Standard Contract Document, but would be based on mutually agreed provisions by the Governments of both the countries based on an IGA, after clearance from the Competent Financial Authority (hereinafter referred to as CFA). Of the total procurement of about Rs.7.45 lakh crores since 2002 under DPP, different kinds of IGAs, including Foreign Military Sales and Standard Clauses of Contract account for nearly 40%. With the object of promoting indigenization, a robust offset clause is said to have been included since 2005. As per the Defence Offset Guidelines of 2013, the vendor/Original Equipment Manufacturer (hereinafter referred to as OEM) is free to select its IOPs for implementing the offset obligation. 18. As far as the endeavour to procure 126 fighter aircrafts is concerned, it has been stated that the contract negotiations could not be concluded, inter alia, on account of unresolved issues between the OEM and HAL. These have been set out as under: i) ManHours that would be required to produce the aircraft in India: HAL required 2.7 times higher ManHours compared to the French side for the manufacture of Rafale aircraft in India. 16 ii) Dassault Aviation as the seller was required to undertake necessary contractual obligation for 126 aircraft (18 direct flyaway and 108 aircraft manufactured in India) as per RFP requirements. Issues related to contractual obligation and responsibility for 108 aircraft manufactured in India could not be resolved. 19. The aforesaid issues are stated to have been unresolved for more than three years. Such delay is said to have impacted the cost of acquisition, as the offer was with inbuilt escalation and was influenced by EuroRupee exchange rate variations. The stalemate resulted in the process of RFP withdrawal being initiated in March 2015. In this interregnum period, adversaries of the country, qua defence issues, inducted modern aircrafts and upgraded their older versions. This included induction of even 5th Generation Stealth Fighter Aircrafts of almost 20 squadrons, effectively reducing the combat potential of our defence forces. In such a situation, governmenttogovernment negotiations resulted in conclusion of the IGA for the supply of 36 Rafale Aircrafts, as part of a separate process. The requisite steps are stated to have been followed, as per DPP 2013. An INT7 was constituted to negotiate the terms and 7 Indian Negotiating Team 17 conditions, which commenced in May 2015 and continued till April 2016. In this period of time, a total of 74 meetings were held, including 48 internal INT meetings and 26 external INT meetings with the French side. It is the case of the official respondents that the INT completed its negotiations and arrived at better terms relating to price, delivery and maintenance, as compared to the MMRCA offer of Dassault. This was further processed for interministerial consultations and the approval of the CCS was also obtained, finally, resulting in signing of the agreement. This was in conformity with the process, as per para 72 of DPP 2013. 20. The petitioners, on the other hand, seek to question the very fulfilment of the prerequisites for entering into an IGA. The Government of France, giving only a Letter of Comfort and not a Sovereign Guarantee has been questioned. 21. It is a say of the petitioners that para 71 envisages three eventualities, where the question of entering into an IGA would arise, which have not arisen in the present case: 18 (a) Proven technology and capabilities belonging to a friendly foreign country is identified by our Armed Forces while participating in joint international exercises; (b) Large value weapon system/platform in service in a friendly foreign country is available for transfer or sale normally at a much lesser cost; or (c) Requirement of procuring a specific stateoftheart equipment/platform where the Government of the OEMs country might have imposed restriction on its sale and thus the equipment cannot be evaluated on No Cost No Commitment basis. 22. We have studied the material carefully. We have also had the benefit of interacting with senior Air Force Officers who answered Court queries in respect of different aspects, including that of the acquisition process and pricing. We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the Court. We have been informed that joint exercises have taken 19 place, and that there is a financial advantage to our nation. It cannot be lost sight of, that these are contracts of defence procurement which should be subject to a different degree and depth of judicial review. Broadly, the processes have been followed. The need for the aircrafts is not in doubt. The quality of the aircraft is not in question. It is also a fact that the long negotiations for procurement of 126 MMRCAs have not produced any result, and merely conjecturing that the initial RFP could have resulted in a contract is of no use. The hard fact is that not only was the contract not coming forth but the negotiations had come practically to an end, resulting in a recall of the RFP. We cannot sit in judgment over the wisdom of deciding to go in for purchase of 36 aircrafts in place of 126. We cannot possibly compel the Government to go in for purchase of 126 aircraft. This is despite the fact that even before the withdrawal of RFP, an announcement came to be made in April 2015 about the decision to go in only for 36 aircrafts. Our country cannot afford to be unprepared/underprepared in a situation where our adversaries are stated to have acquired not only 4th Generation, but even 5th Generation Aircrafts, of which, we have none. It will not be 20 correct for the Court to sit as an appellate authority to scrutinize each aspect of the process of acquisition. 23. We may also note that the process was concluded for 36 Rafale fighter jet aircrafts on 23rd September, 2016. Nothing was called into question, then. It is only taking advantage of the statement by the exPresident of France, Francois Hollande that these set of petitions have been filed, not only qua the aspect which formed the statement, that is, the issue of IOPs but also with respect to the entire decisionmaking process and pricing. We do not consider it necessary to dwell further into this issue or to seek clause by clause compliances. 24. The challenge to the pricing of the aircrafts, by the petitioners, is sought to be made on the ground that there are huge escalations in costs, as per the material in public domain, as found in magazines and newspapers. We did initially express our disinclination to even go into the issue of pricing. However, by a subsequent order, to satisfy the conscience of the Court, it was directed that details regarding the costs of the aircrafts should also be placed in sealed covers before the Court. 21 25. The material placed before us shows that the Government has not disclosed pricing details, other than the basic price of the aircraft, even to the Parliament, on the ground that sensitivity of pricing details could affect national security, apart from breaching the agreement between the two countries. The pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (hereinafter referred to as CAG), and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (hereafter referred to as PAC). Only a redacted portion of the report was placed before the Parliament, and is in public domain. The Chief of the Air Staff is stated to have communicated his reservation regarding the disclosure of the pricing details, including regarding the weaponry which could adversely affect national security. The pricing details are stated to be covered by Article 10 of the IGA between the Government of India and the Government of France, on purchase of Rafale Aircrafts, which provides that protection of classified information and material exchanged under the IGA would be governed by the provisions of the Security Agreement signed between both the Governments on 25th January, 2008. Despite this reluctance, the 22 material has still been placed before the Court to satisfy its conscience. 26. We have examined closely the price details and comparison of the prices of the basic aircraft along with escalation costs as under the original RFP as well as under the IGA. We have also gone through the explanatory note on the costing, item wise. Suffice it to say that as per the price details, the official respondents claim there is a commercial advantage in the purchase of 36 Rafale aircrafts. The official respondents have claimed that there are certain better terms in IGA qua the maintenance and weapon package. It is certainly not the job of this Court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present. We say no more as the material has to be kept in a confidential domain. Offsets 27. The issue of IOP is what has triggered this litigation. The offset contract is stated to have been governed by the Defence Offset Guidelines of DPP 2013. Two of the said contracts 23 were signed with Dassault and M/s MBDA Missile Systems Limited on 23rd September, 2016, the same day on which the IGA was signed between the Government of India and the Government of France. These are the French industrial suppliers of the Aircraft package and Weapon Package respectively. There are stated to be no offset obligations in the first three years, but the offset obligations are to commence from October 2019 onwards. 28. The complaint of the petitioners is that the offset guidelines contemplate that the vendor will disclose details about the Indian Offset partner however, in order to help the business group in India in question, an amendment was carried out in paragraph 8 of the Offset Guidelines that too with retrospective effect. By virtue of the said amendment it is contended that cloak of secrecy is cast about the Offset partner and the vendor is enabled to give the details at a much later point of time. It is contended, however, that other provisions of the Offset Guidelines remain unamended, and, therefore, Government cannot pretend ignorance about the Indian Offset partner as has been done in the affidavit filed. It is complained that favouring 24 the Indian business group has resulted in offence being committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act. 29. As per clause 8 of DPP 2013, dealing with the processing of offset proposals, it has been stated in clause 8.2 as under: 8. Processing of Offset Proposals 8.2 The TOEC8 will scrutinize the technical offset proposals (excluding proposals for Technology Acquisition by DRDO as per para 8.3) to ensure conformity with the offset guidelines. For this purpose, the vendor may be advised to undertake changes to bring his offset proposals in conformity with the offset guidelines. The TOEC will be expected to submit its report within 48 weeks of its constitution. 30. It has been categorically stated that the vendor/OEM is yet to submit a formal proposal, in the prescribed manner, indicating the details of IOPs and products for offset discharge. A press release in the form of a Clarification on Offset Policy, posted on 22nd September, 2018 has also been placed before us. Inter alia, it states that the Government reiterates that it has no role to play in the selection of the IOP. As per the Defence Offset 8 Technical Offset Evaluation Committee 25 Guidelines, the OEM is free to select any Indian company as its IOP. A joint venture is stated to have come into being between Reliance Defence and Dassault in February 2017, which is stated to be a purely commercial arrangement between the two private companies. Media reports of February 2012 are stated to suggest that Dassault, within two weeks of being declared the lowest bidder for procurement of 126 aircrafts by the previous Government, had entered into a pact for partnership with Reliance Industries (Another business group) in the Defence sector. Dassault has also issued a press release stating that it has signed partnership agreements with several companies and is negotiating with over hundred other companies. As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide details of the IOPs, either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which would be due from 2020 onwards. The aforesaid press release is in conformity with the clause dealing with IOPs which reads as under: 4. Indian Offset Partner 4.3 The OEM/vendor/TierI subvendor will be free to select the Indian offset partner for implementing the offset obligation provided the IOP has not been barred from doing business by the Ministry of Defence. 31. Despite the aforesaid illustration, the petitioners kept on emphasising that the French Government has no say in the matter, as per media reports. It is also stated that there was no reason for Dassault to have engaged the services of Reliance Aerostructure Ltd., through a joint venture, when the company itself had come into being only on 24th April, 2015. The allegation, thus, is that the Indian Government gave a benefit to Reliance Aerostructure Ltd., by compelling Dassault to enter into a contract with them, and that too at the cost of the public enterprise, HAL. 32. It is no doubt true that the company, Reliance Aerostructure Ltd., has come into being in the recent past, but the press release suggests that there was possibly an arrangement between the parent Reliance company and Dassault starting from the year 2012. As to what transpired between the two corporates would be a matter best left to them, being matters of their commercial interests, as perceived by them. There has been a categorical denial, from every side, of the interview given by the former French President seeking to suggest that it is the Indian Government which had given no option to the French 27 Government in the matter. On the basis of materials available before us, this appears contrary to the clause in DPP 2013 dealing with IOPs which has been extracted above. Thus, the commercial arrangement, in our view, itself does not assign any role to the Indian Government, at this stage, with respect to the engagement of the IOP. Such matter is seemingly left to the commercial decision of Dassault. That is the reason why it has been stated that the role of the Indian Government would start only when the vendor/OEM submits a formal proposal, in the prescribed manner, indicating details of IOPs and products for offset discharge. As far as the role of HAL, insofar as the procurement of 36 aircrafts is concerned, there is no specific role envisaged. In fact, the suggestion of the Government seems to be that there were some contractual problems and Dassault was circumspect about HAL carrying out the contractual obligation, which is also stated to be responsible for the nonconclusion of the earlier contract. 33. Once again, it is neither appropriate nor within the experience of this Court to step into this arena of what is technically feasible or not. The point remains that DPP 2013 28 envisages that the vendor/OEM will choose its own IOPs. In this process, the role of the Government is not envisaged and, thus, mere press interviews or suggestions cannot form the basis for judicial review by this Court, especially when there is categorical denial of the statements made in the Press, by both the sides. We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government, as the option to choose the IOP does not rest with the Indian Government. Conclusion: 34. In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this Court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircrafts by the Indian Government. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this Court, especially in such matters. We, thus, dismiss all the writ petitions, leaving it to the parties to bear their own costs. We, however, make it clear that our views as above are primarily from the standpoint of the exercise of the jurisdiction under 29 Article 32 of the Constitution of India which has been invoked in the present group of cases. Click here to read full coverage on Rafale The NDA government and the BJP, which has been attacked by the Congress for months over the Rafale fighter jet deal, on Friday launched a sharp counter-attack after the Supreme Court verdict and demanded the Congress president Rahul Gandhi apologise to the government and the country. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the country, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Tomar demanded in parliament soon after the Supreme Court dismissed petitions that had sought a probe. BJP president Amit Shah also tweeted his attack . Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal, he said. The NDA governments decision to enter into the $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy the warplanes made by Dassault had become controversial, with the Congress claiming that India is buying the jets for Rs 1,670 crore each, three times Rs 526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. Over the last several months, Rahul Gandhi had built a narrative around the deal that sought to dent the NDA government credibility and launch stinging attacks at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Satyamev Jayate. Once again, Rahul Gandhis blatant lies stand exposed. Supreme Court has dismissed any probe into the Rafale Deal. The entire nation has been lied to for political mileage, said Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal. Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the government had been clear from day one that the allegations over Rafale were baseless and to gain political mileage. Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani also reacted to the verdict. I welcome the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. We remain committed to Indias national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France, he said. India, Myanmar and Thailand should expedite negotiations on a motor vehicles pact and legal infrastructure before the scheduled completion of a trilateral highway so that there are no impediments to the route being opened for business, Thai ambassador Chutintorn Gongsakdi has said. The nearly 1,400-km trilateral highway is aimed at giving a massive boost to trade in Southeast Asia and is an integral part of Indias Act East policy. The projects completion now hinges on the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) developing a 121-km two-lane highway between Yagyi and Kalewa in Myanmar, with the external affairs ministry providing Rs 1,117 crore for this section. The segment in Myanmar is expected to be finished in May 2019 and the overall project is scheduled to be completed by 2021. But even before the completion, Gongsakdi suggested the three countries should address a host of issues such as the motor vehicles agreement, domestic ownership caps on transportation firms, routes, customs, immigration and quarantine in their negotiations. Those are some issues that require sitting down and discussing. They are not unsolvable, they can be solved but it requires sitting down and ironing out properly, Gongsakdi said in a recent interview. Noting that global transportation and logistics majors have a presence in India, he said: We are concerned in negotiating the motor vehicles agreement that if we dontset a limit that companies which participate in this agreement have to be 51% Indian, then these multi-national logistics companies could wipe out our small logistics companies. The three sides also have to work out routes that will be open to transport firms and issues such as whether trucks from Myanmar and Thailand will be allowed to come up to New Delhi. Those things are the nitty gritty though most of the media attention is on the completion. The legal infrastructure is also important and we can work on this now. We dont have to wait until the road is completed, Gongsakdi said. A senior official of the road transport and highways ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the external affairs ministry is playing a key role in negotiating the protocol on the movement of goods and passengers. The project is running well on time and the NHAI hopes to complete it before 2021, the official said. The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which is funding the project, has made a draft note in coordination with the three countries. It may take time to decide the protocol as three countries are involved. The transport ministry has a role in interacting and resolving transport-related issues. We plan to do it along the lines of the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) corridor, the official said. Diplomatic issues related to visas and security will be handled by external affairs ministry and the home ministry. Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari October met his Maynmar counterpart Thant Sin Maung in New Delhi in October to discuss work on the Kalewa-Yagyi stretch of the highway and a bilateral motor vehicles agreement. Land acquisition and felling of trees are currently the biggest challenges for the segment in Myanmar. We are working on finding solutions, Gadkari said earlier this year. Till December, 11,716 trees had been cut out of the total of 38,316 trees to be felled. Compensation for land is pending in some stretches but is expected to be done within two to three weeks, officials said. Gongsakdi said the trilateral highway would have a huge impact on Indias northeastern states, which have many linkages with Myanmar and Thailand. The northeast has human and natural resources and the economics will pick up when the trilateral highway is done and theres more to and fro (movement). The border trade will be massive, he said. Three persons a Trinamool Congress leader, the driver of a vehicle belonging to a local ruling party MLA Biswanath Das and a youth were killed on Thursday evening near Kolkata when unidentified criminals hurled bombs and opened gunfire on the car. The MLA had a narrow escape as he was not in the car at the time of the incident. The incident took place at a petrol pump in Joynagar, about 54 km to the south of Kolkata. The deceased were identified as Saifuddin Khan, who is a local ruing party leader, Babu, the driver of the car and Selim Khan, a youth who happened to be at the spot, said MLA Das. Police officers refused to comment, but said that CCTV footage at the petrol pump may be useful in the investigation.The death of Saifuddin took the number of people killed in political clashes in the state since the end of the festive season of Duraga Puja (October 19) to eight. A political blame game erupted after the attack. Yatra to stick to old route: Dilip Ghosh A team of three BJP leaders met three top officials of the Mamata Banerjee government on Thursday evening and told them that their proposed rath yatra will stick to the original route through each of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, the saffron partys state unit chief Dilip Ghosh said. The meeting took place at the headquarters of Kolkata Police and lasted about 30 minutes.The programme is formally styled as the Ganatantra Bachao Yatra (rally to save democracy) and is expected to be the saffron camps most spectacular and prolonged campaign in the state so far. We told the government that once they approve, we will take only a couple of days to brief them of the new dates and speakers list. Let them give us the dates, we will schedule our star speakers events within 48 hours from receiving their communication. The yatra will follow the same route submitted to the government and court, Ghosh said. The ruling BJP has rolled out its big guns for rapid-fire attacks on the Congress and its chief Rahul Gandhi after the Supreme Courts dismissed petitions that sought a CBI probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets by the government. Hours after BJP chief Amit Shah demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi for his campaign against the government over the Rafale deal, the BJP-led government fielded Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to deliver a stinging takedown of the Congress. Jaitley also unequivocally also rejected the Congress demand to set up a joint parliamentary committee of lawmakers to investigate the deal. The deaf will never hear an answer, he said. Jaitley, who had earlier held the defence portfolio, said the JPC, which comprises lawmakers, was not the right forum to look into the deal; a judicial body such as the Supreme Court was. Investigations and review of this kind can never be done by a body capable of partisan divisions, he said, recalling that a JPC constituted to look into allegations of corruption in the Bofors case too had split on partisan lines. Read | No roving inquiry over perceptions: Supreme Court rejects Rafale probe demand In its response to Fridays court verdict, the Congress had underlined that it had always believed that the Supreme Court was not equipped to inquire into such charges since it would involve an elaborate examination of related files. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/supreme-court-verdict-on-rafale-deal-full-judgement/story-FcR8Pl6AuHAQggwtSrKjnN.html If they have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said. Read | Supreme Court not right forum to decide on Rafale probe, Congress demands JPC examination Just as Amit Shah had done a few hours earlier, Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman also kept their attacks sharply focused on Congress president Rahul Gandhi who has led the opposition campaign accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of corruption. Jaitley said there was a fundamental difference between truth and falsehood that he said, was being spread by the Congress president. Read | Rahul must apologise: SC verdict powers BJP counter-attack over Rafale Truth holds together, Falsehood falls apart. Falsehood also has a short life. In this case, it was a few months. Falsehood lowers the credibility of its creator. The Rafale issue had each of these features, the finance minister said. The disruptors have lost. They have lost on all counts. They have lost on the count that the need for this aircraft was acute and necessary. The Indian Air Force needed it and therefore, somebody has to answer a question that after shortlisting this purchase... why was it virtually stopped, if not abandoned in 2012. Why was national security, needs of the air force, compromised with, Jaitley said. Nirmala Sitharaman also responded to the oft-repeated criticism on the governments decision to buy 36 fighter jets in a fly-away condition when the air force needed 126. Sitharaman said this decision was taken in consultation with the air force to be able to reduce the time taken to add two squadrons. Read | Supreme Court verdict on Rafale deal: Full judgement Employee wellbeing is being compromised by SME owners lack of understanding, but a new report explains how this can be rectified. Research from healthcare provider Bupa in 2015 found that just 46% of SME owners said that employee health and wellbeing will be a key consideration as they grow their business, 43% will never consider providing health and wellbeing benefits, 28% think that their companies are too small to take health and wellbeing seriously, with 32% thinking that it was more the domain of larger companies. The main reasons cited for this situation were the difficulties of defining wellbeing, selecting the best tools for assessing wellbeing programmes and measuring the cost-effectiveness of these interventions. Employees also said that inadequate people skills of many line managers and low priority given by them to employee wellbeing are also important factors. Responding to these challenges, the British Safety Council, which helps workplaces improve their health and safety standards, has published a report which is a comprehensive review of the existing literature and market intelligence. Not just free fruit: wellbeing at work defines wellbeing in the workplace and suggests a set of metrics for effectively measuring wellbeing programmes and policies. The report is a call to action for employers in Britain to place the wellbeing needs of their workers at the top of the executive agenda. It includes the following proposals: 1. Employees must be given the opportunity to participate in the creation and development of initiatives designed to improve their own health and wellbeing. 2. Line managers must be appropriately trained in mental health awareness and the relevant support mechanisms, so that they have the confidence to communicate with employees in a caring and sensitive manner. 3. Organisations should evaluate the impact and efficacy of their health and wellbeing interventions on a regular basis, to ensure that they adapt and respond to the changing needs of their workers. 4. Workers wellbeing is linked to job quality, which is expressed through a healthy working environment, fair wages, strong relationships with managers and colleagues, job design, a degree of responsibility and authority, workload, working hours, and career development prospects. Lawrence Waterman, Chairman of the British Safety Council, said: The Wellbeing at Work report represents the British Safety Councils contribution to establishing rigorous, evidence-based workplace interventions which enhance the wellbeing of everyone involved. It calls for commitment, clear thinking and effective action, not only to make our workplaces healthy and safe, but also to make a tangible impact on improving the lives of all workers. Expressing displeasure that proceedings in both Houses were washed out even on a day when the nation was commemorating jawans who sacrificed lives repulsing a terrorist attack on the Parliament, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday suggested that political parties should come up with a code of conduct. Naidu, also the Rajya Sabha chairman, emphasized that the ruling and the opposition sides must always talk to each other so that there can be more instances of consensus and the tendency towards disruption is negated. The vice president was speaking at an event organised by Marathi daily Lokmat, held by Lokmat media group headed by former MP Vijay Darda, Naidu also handed out the Lokmat Parliamentary Awards 2018. While talking to members about the disruptions by them, sometimes the answer is that the direction came from above...it is time that political parties should evolve a code of conduct for their members, Naidu said. Other prominent parliamentarians including Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Union minister of human resource development Prakash Javadekar, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad also expressed their concern on disruptions. Joshi and Pawar were conferred the Life Time Achievement Award while Rajya Sabha leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, Lok Sabha member Nishikant Dubey were chosen as Best Parliamentarians. Rajya Sabha MP and DMK leader Kanimozhi and Lok Sabha MP Rama Devi were chosen as Best Women Parliamentarian while Hema Malini and Chhaya Verma were conferred with the Best Debut Woman Parliamentarian award. Naidu stressed that media needed to play a constructive role by highlighting disruptions. Pawar mentioned that in his 52 years as a lawmaker he may have supported a protest or so but never ventured in the Well of the House Climate experts and activists on Friday described the Paris rulebook draft prepared by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the climate negotiations at Katowice in Poland as extremely weak on climate finance and loss and damage, describing it as unambitious. The test of the Paris rulebook, the guideline on how the 2015 Paris Agreement will be operationalised, doesnt make any distinction between loans and grants which was one of the main concerns of developing countries including India and of Brazil, South Africa and China (BASIC). UNFCCC released a 144-page Presidency Textual Proposal of the rulebook late on Thursday night, after two weeks of intense negotiations and arguments over different aspects of the deal between developed, developing nations and the least developed nations at COP 24 - a meet described by experts as a make-or-break moment for the planet. But discussions on several issues in the draft rulebook were unresolved even after they were opened again in various meetings on Friday. Some officials said meetings may prolong till Saturday if there is no consensus. A finance ministry paper released last week on the sidelines of COP 24 said there are serious concerns with climate finance values being reported by the developed countries which they claim to have transferred to developing countries. The discussion paper, titled 3 Essential Ss of Climate Finance - Scope, Scale and Speed: A Reflection also said the value of loans was being over-reported. Experts said the draft also doesnt substantiate much on insurance and guarantees. There is no mention of loss and damage, which refers to severe climate impacts being faced in some parts of the world that countries cannot adapt to. On the brighter side, however, the draft said it appreciates and is grateful to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and climate scientists for presenting the latest science in their 1.5 degree global warming report. US and oil and gas rich nations Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait have declined to welcome this report in the draft text. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and least developed countries called an emergency press briefing in response to the draft text on Friday. Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said AOSIS, least developed and developing countries have come together for an emergency coalition. The IPCC special report on 1.5 degrees says if we allow temperatures to shoot past 1.5 degrees every single nation at these talks will be at risk. We are at past 3 degrees with the talks at the moment. For some of us on the frontline of climate change we face extinction, he said. There were protests by climate activists at the COP24 venue on Friday afternoon over the weak draft. Rich countries have a moral and a legal responsibility to support developing countries to make their economies greener and tackle impacts of climate change. Finance is the foundation on which you build climate action. Without finance, the Paris Agreement will collapse. A rulebook that doesnt reflect climate induced loss and damage and a way forward on climate finance will be unacceptable, said Harijeet Singh, global lead on climate change for Action Aid International. The draft text appears to be very weak on finance and on loss and damage... The COP decision is also ambiguous on the IPCC 1.5 degree report and how countries would increase their mitigation ambition to keep global warming well below 2 degrees. So over all its a very disappointing text, said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). But AK Mehta, additional secretary, environment ministry, said substantial progress had been made. We are not very far from reaching an agreement. Its very substantial progress. There are some differences which will be sorted out. We dont expect more than one revision in text now. The discussion on loss and damage is not going to end here, he said. He is the senior-most member of the Lok Sabha who has represented his pocket borough of Chhindwara nine times, having spent most of his political life in Delhi as a Union minister and a senior national leader of the Congress party. On Thursday, Kamal Nath returned to his home state of Madhya Pradesh as chief minister after helping his party score a photo finish victory over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) , ending 15 years in the wilderness. Nath was made Madhya Pradesh Congress chief this April with the task of ensuring the return of the party to power in Bhopal, barely seven months before assembly elections were scheduled. He took charge of the state unit at the time the party was riddled with factionalism and the morale of the party workers was down following an impressive win by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Tripura. He, with other senior leaders such as campaign committee chairperson Jyotiraditya Scindia, took it upon himself to rejuvenate the cadre. The 72-year-old politician from southern Madhya Pradesh burst onto the political scene in 1980 when he won from Chhindwara. The Congress denied him a Lok Sabha ticket in 1996 when his name cropped up in a Hawala scam, a charge he vehemently denied. His wife Alka Nath contested and won. When his name was cleared, a year later, his wife paved the way for him to contest. But he lost, only to come back in the next polls in 1998. Born in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 1946, Nath made Chhindwara his bastion but that always didnt help the Congress in the Mahakoshal area, where his Lok Sabha constituency falls. In fact, in the past three assembly elections where the BJP won, the saffron party always did better than the Congress in the region. It is only in this election that the Congress bounced back, winning 28 seats in the region, compared to the BJPs 18. During the campaign, outgoing chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan repeatedly attacked Nath and called him an outsider, a reference to the Congress politician having spent the better part of his political life in national politics. The BJP also accused him of being involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots but Nath rebutted the allegations, saying he had never been charged by any court. A commerce graduate from Kolkata, Nath started his political life in the Youth Congress, where he was spotted by former prime minister Indira Gandhis son Sanjay Gandhi. He gradually grew close to members of the Gandhi family. He was inducted as junior minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government and was made in-charge of the environment ministry in 1991. When the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came to power in 2004, Nath was named the Union commerce minister. When the Congress-led coalition won a second term in 2009, he was made the roads and highways minister but was shifted to urban development after perceived differences with then Planning Commission vice-chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Naths nomination [as state Congress chief] helped the party to put to an end to factionalism, said the political commentator Girija Shankar. He has had vast administrative experience and is known as a troubleshooter. ends The Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas has welcomed Karan Singhs suggestion but demanded that Ram Mandir issue be resolved first. Mahant Kanahiya Das, head of the Ayodhya Sant Samaj, has welcomed the Congress leaders suggestion. No one will oppose statue of Janaki Mata (Goddess Sita). It is a good suggestion. But we want the Ram Mandir issue to be resolved at the earliest, said Mahant Kanahiya Das, who is also the successor of Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, head of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas. Mahant Kamal Nayan Das has also welcomed the suggestion but has also demanded that the Ram temple issue must be resolved at the earliest. It may be pointed out that the state government has also proposed a statue of Lord Ram and Nishadraj at Shringarpur, a tourist destination around 45 km from Allahabad. These will not be simple statues. Both the statues will embrace each other. Shringarpur will be another holy place after Ayodhya that will have a statue of lord Ram. Shringarpur is associated with Nishadraj, king of the Fishermen community. In ancient India, it was also capital of the kingdom of Nishadraj. The Yogi government has allocated a budget of 34 crore for the project to develop Shringarpur as the next tourist destination that has a mythological connect. In Ramayan, Shringarpur has a specific mention. It was from this place that lord Ram, Sita and his brother Lakshman crossed the river Ganga. Nishadraj had helped them cross the river. After crossing the river, lord Ram had embraced Nishadraj. The car in which diamond merchant Rajeshwar Udani was allegedly killed was examined on Thursday by officials from the Directorate of Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL) for evidences. The car has been analysed and the team has taken samples vital for the probe, said a senior police officer. On November 28, Udani left his office at Vikhroli. On his way, he asked his driver to stop at the Vikhroli outpost on the eastern express highway and entered another car that was parked 70 metres away. On December 4, Udanis body was found in the bushes in a hilly area near the Dehrang dam, Panvel. A case of murder was registered. The police have so far arrested seven accused Ghatkopar-based political party worker Sachin Pawar, suspended Mumbai police constable Dinesh Pawar, 29, the driver of the car Pranit Bhoir, 20, Mahesh Prabhakar Bhoir, 31, Siddhesh Shankar Patil, 23, Shahista Khan, 41, and her relative Nikhat Mohammed Umar Khan, 20in the case. They have been charged with conspiracy for kidnapping, murder and destruction of evidence. As per the police investigation, apart from Sachin and Shahista, all others were present in the car with Udani. Sachin had allegedly asked Shahista to arrange for Nikhat to act as a honeytrap for Udani. The probe also points to the fact that Sachin owed a substantial amount to Udani, which the latter had been demanding. Police claimed that Sachin was also upset as Udani had behaved badly with his friend, a TV actor. We are working on the evidences to corroborate the reasons behind the crime, said an officer. Sachin, who is the former private assistant of a Ghatkopar-based politician is the prime accused in the case along with Dinesh. Two days before his name came up in the case, Dinesh was arrested for allegedly raping a woman. The police are relying on call data records, Udanis stolen jewellery found in the possession of the accused and statements of several persons who came in contact with the accused before and after the murder, for the probe. The construction of 10-feet walls along vulnerable and environmentally crucial mangrove forests across the city can now begin after the state mangrove cell received its final clearance. While the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) issued clearances earlier this year, the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) issued its clearance, eliminating the last hurdle before construction. We cleared the proposal as the Bombay high court (HC) recommended the need for a wall around mangrove areas. Protecting these trees is of utmost importance for a city like Mumbai where flooding concerns have been there since 2005, said Johny Joseph, chairman, SEIAA. The state mangrove cell said they received the details in a letter earlier this week based on the decision made during the SEIAA meeting last month with a few directions. Clearances have been issued based on the fact that high-tide water ingress should not be blocked at any cost. We have suggested construction of culverts or under walkways, said Joseph. The walls have been planned on the landward side across six locations Sai Dham Nagar in Charkop; near Lagoon Road in Malwani-Malad; along the Eastern Express Highway in Kannamwar Nagar, Vikhroli; Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Nagar, Colaba; Bhakti Park in Wadala and Shivneri Nagar Mandala, Mankhurd. HT had first reported last April that Mumbais mangroves will be fenced off by the wall, spread across 60km if not continuous and with CCTV cameras for round-the-clock vigilance. With all approvals in place, the tendering process will be initiated now. We will be issuing a tender in the next two weeks, and by mid-January, construction is likely to commence, said Vikas Jagtap, divisional forest officer, state mangrove cell. There will be two types of walls a conventional compound wall in areas where the threat to mangroves is less while vulnerable areas will have precast concrete (casting concrete in a reusable mold at one spot and transported to the construction site). The precast wall will have slabs placed one above the other, with ducts at the bottom to allow high-tide ingress, said Jagtap. N Vasudevan, additional principal chief conservator of forest, state mangrove cell said, We are confident the construction of this wall in highly vulnerable areas will secure mangroves from future encroachments. We will keep a strict vigil post construction through frequent patrolling and CCTV surveillance. On September 17, the HC bench of justices Abhay Oka and Riyaz Chagla directed the state to construct a compound wall on the landward side of 50m from the mangrove areas, and police and private guards to monitor it. The order helped us tremendously as we do not need to approach the court hereafter for approvals. The cost of constructing the wall is 16K a metre, and 8 crore will be spent to construct it across six locations and another 5 crore has been set aside for other areas, said Makarand Ghodke, assistant conservator of forest, state mangrove cell. The petitioner said the mangrove cell needed to remove all dry grass between the forests and the buffer area where the wall needed to be constructed. The requirement of this wall is essential for the city. However, what we are witnessing in Navi Mumbai where fires are being purposely lit should not happen during construction, said Debi Goenka, executive trustee, Conservation Action Trust. . Political analysts say the Congress, whose victory in the Rajasthan assembly election got restricted to 99 seats out of 199, could have won more constituencies had it not been for poor ticket distribution and infighting. The partys ally Rashtriya Lok Dal won one seat. Election to Ramgarh constituency was adjourned on November 29 due to the death of BSP candidate Laxman Singh. The large number of rebels shows that the ticket distribution was not fair and that has cost the Congress, analyst Narayen Bareth said, asserting that the process of candidate selection was questionable. Experts believe the Congress paid a heavy price for the infighting between its two camps, led by party general secretary Ashok Gehlot and its state president Sachin Pilot both of whom were contenders for the chief ministers post. Both the leaders had a major say in ticket distribution. Both camps had strong differences of opinion owing to which the ticket distribution was a lengthy affair with numerous rounds of meetings of leaders from the state and the party high command to resolve differences. Click here for complete coverage of Rajasthan Assembly Election & Results 2018 and post-poll analysis An analysis of the results from the performance of the party in the divisions controlled by Gehlot and Pilot appears to show why the party could not get the majority it was claiming. Gehlot had a say in tickets in Jodhpur division which comprises Jodhpur, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Pali, Sirohi, Jalore districts. The division has 33 assembly constituencies of which the Congress won 16 and the BJP 14. One seat went to the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party and two were bagged by independents. In Gehlots district, Jodhpur, the Congress won 7 of 10 seats. In the 2013 elections, the BJP had won 9 of the 10 seats here. Read | After Madhya Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi likely to announce Rajasthans CM Congress swept the districts of Barmer and Jaisalmer. It won six of seven seats in Barmer and both the seats on Jaisalmer. However in these districts, the influence of former BJP leader Manvendra Singh who joined the Congress ahead of the elections cannot be discounted. Another factor was the Rajput anger against the BJP. But in Jalore, Sirohi and Pali districts Congress fared poorly this time too. BJP performed strongly and bagged five of six seats in Pali district wile one went to a independent In Jalore, BJP won four seats and Congress managed only one. In Sirohi, BJP won 2 of 3 seats while a Congress rebel won one seat. Ajmer division where Pilot had a say in ticket distribution has 29 seats and comprises Ajmer, Tonk, Bhilwara and Nagaur districts. In Nagaur, Congress snatched 6 seats from BJP despite RLTP Leader Hanuman Beniwals influence in the Jat dominated region. BJP and RLTP got two seats each. In Tonk, Congress won 3 of 4 seats. Pilot himself won from Tonk. But in Bhilwara and Ajmer, Pilot could not deliver the expected results for Congress. In Bhilwara, Congress managed to win only two seats while BJP got 5. In Ajmer, from where Pilot was the MP earlier, the Congress got only 2 seats and BJP got five. One went to an independent. Congress had won the Lok Sabha by-poll in Ajmer in February. However, Congress spokesperson denied there had been gaps in ticket distribution. It was done taking into account everyones feedback. There was no infighting. He conceded though that the Congress rebels had hurt the party. Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot became a Member of Parliament at 26; and at 41, will become the states youngest deputy chief minister. In 2004, Pilot was elected MP from Dausa, represented by his father, Rajesh Pilot, in several Lok Sabha elections. After Rajesh Pilots death in a road accident near Jaipur in 2000, his wife, Rama Pilot, won from Dausa in the bypoll. In 2004 general elections, Sachin Pilot was nominated to contest from Dausa. Rajasthan had a deputy chief minister twice in the past. Harishankar Babhda became Rajasthans first deputy chief minister in October 1994 when he was 66. Towards the end of Ashok Gehlots first tenure as chief minister in 2003, two leaders took oath as deputy chief ministers: Kamla Beniwal, 76, and Banwari Lal Bairwa, 70. Bairwa, like Pilot, was an MLA from Tonk. But on both occasions, the deputy CMs were introduced in the middle or towards the end of the governments tenure. BJP appointed Bhabhda as the deputy CM as a balance to Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in October 1994. The Congress appointed Kamla Beniwal and Banwari Lal Bairwa as deputy CMs in January 2003 following the partys debacle in the assembly bypolls. The appointments were seen as caste course correction before the 2003 assembly elections. Sachin Pilot will be the first leader to take oath as deputy CM along with the chief minister. For full coverage on Rajasthan assembly elections, click here Sachin Pilot has taken the surname of his father, who was a pilot in the Indian Air Force, and began his political career in 2002 with the Congress. Two years later, the 26-year-old contested from Dausa, the constituency Rajesh Pilot represented in 1984, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections, and became the youngest MP. In 2009, when Dausa was reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST), Pilot shifted to Ajmer and defeated BJPs Kiran Maheshwari by 76,000 votes. He was made the minister of corporate affairs in Manmohan Singh-led second Union Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, and was one of the youngest ministers in the cabinet. For his love for the armed forces, Pilot joined Territorial Army as lieutenant. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from St Stephens College, Delhi University, and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (US). His mother, Rama Pilot, was an MLA from Hindoli in 1998. In 2003, she contested against Vasundhara Raje in Jhalrapatan (Jhalawar) and lost by more than 27,000 votes. After the Congress was reduced to its worst tally of 21 in the 2013 assembly elections, Pilot was made partys state unit president. Though he lost his third Lok Sabha election in 2014 to BJPs Sanwar Lal Jat by 171,983 votes, he steered the party to massive victories in the following assembly and Lok Sabha bypolls, winning 20 out of 22 assembly segments. The Congress also recaptured Ajmer Lok Sabha constituency in February 2018 when Raghu Sharma defeated Jats son, Ramswaroop Lamba. Pilot, 41, fought his first assembly election in 2018 from Tonk where the party broke the 46-year-old record of fielding a Muslim candidate. He defeated BJPs Yunus Khan, who was a late entry into the fray after his party changed its earlier nominee, by 54,179 votes. Khan was BJPs lone Muslim candidate. He was the public works department and transport minister in the Vasundhara Raje government and considered de-facto number 2 in Rajasthans corridors of power. The party rewarded Pilot for taking its numbers from 21 to 99 in five years. For three days after the results of 2018 assembly elections were announced, Gujjars in several places in Rajasthan have been demanding that Pilot be made the chief minister, but the party leadership has favoured experience over young dynamism. For full coverage on assembly elections, click here The BJP has won only 21 of the 59 seats reserved for SC/ST candidates in Rajasthan against 50 it had bagged in the previous assembly elections, as per election commission data. The Bharatiya Janata Party won just 12 seats reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates this time, as against 32 in 2013 polls. Also, it won only nine seats reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates against 18 in last polls. The party failed to win a single SC/ST seat in Alwar, Bharatpur, Dausa, Dholpur, Karauli, Swai Madhopur and Tonk districts this time. These districts saw violent protests during the nationwide April 2 Bharat Bandh called by Dalit outfits in protest against the Supreme Court order on the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Political observers have blamed the BJPs loss on the SC/ST seats on the Bharat Bandh and the anti-incumbency factor against the party. For full coverage on Rajasthan assembly elections, click here Dalit groups had blocked rail and road traffic and vandalised property, including a train, in several parts of the state and a few days later, upper caste communities had observed a shutdown across the state. Riding on the resentment, the Congress has won most of these seats in the eastern districts of Rajasthan that are dominated by SC/ST communities. BJP dissident Hanuman Beniwals Rashtriya Lok Tantrik Party (RLTP) also emerged winner on two SC seats and one is bagged by an independent candidate. On the ST seats, two independents and two candidates of Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) have won this time. In the 2013 elections, the Congress could not win a single SC seat in the state, 32 were won by the BJP and one each by the National Peoples Party (NPP) and National Unionist Zamindara Party (NUZP). Similarly, the Congress had won just four ST seats against 18 by the BJP in the previous polls, while two seats were won by the NPP and one by an independent candidate. For full coverage on assembly elections, click here A new system of separate entrance, wash basins, utensils for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras mess hall has kicked up a controversy, with a section of students describing it as a new form segregation and modern untouchability. The new system, which came into force at the Himalaya mess since Thursday night has enraged students, who have launched a campaign against it. Posters have appeared in the mess demarcating the entrance and wash basins for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students. Even tables are separate. Those having non-vegetarian food cannot share the table with those having vegetarian food, though both are served in the same mess, said Sashi Bhushan, a student and co-coordinator of the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC), a student body in the premier institute. According to hostel staff, the new system was put in place following instructions from the Hostel Monitoring Committee. This being a vacation season, only two mess halls are running, it was pointed out. The group posted photographs of the mess hall, with separate entrances and food counters for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students, and plastered with signs reading hand wash, vegetarian students, entry/exit non-vegetarian students. Upper caste households in India would usually have two entrances one for the upper castes and the other one in the back for the impure lower castes. A mess in IIT Madras is now having the same system. This mess has two separate entrances for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Not just that separate wash basins and separate utensils as well, APSCs Facebook post read. Earlier, following a demand for a separate vegetarian mess, a poll among students was planned. But, it had to be abandoned due to strong opposition from within the student community. What has started as a demand for pure vegetarian mess has become full-fledged untouchability. IIT Madras is trying to become a world-class institute, but the culture inside is still regressive in many respects, said APSCs Facebook post. According to an IIT professor, who does not wish to be named, accommodating extreme demands of culinary practices is not in tune with a modern institute. Students demanding pure vegetarian mess have no qualms in attending international seminars and workshops where they dine together with those relishing non-veg dishes. Encouraging such demands will not help bring the students together. Mess is not only a place for dining. It is also a place where students talk, share and mingle, he said. A section of students have also sent a mail to the students dean, complaining about this new practice. We have lodged a complaint to the dean through an e-mail. We will await his response before deciding on the future course of action, said IIT Madras student Sashi Bhushan. Everybody falls in love with Italy. For many, this happens in the canals of Venice or seeing the magnificence of Rome or experiencing the colourful retreats of Cinque Terra. It could also be over a pasta in Milan, a rainy day in Pisa or the beaches in Amalfi. My Italian love story continued on a road trip through the relatively unventured region of southern Italy Puglia (pronounced Poo-li-ya). And its a love that will endure the test of time. Situated at the foot of Italy, this is a great region for those who are open to stepping out of popular Italian destinations like Rome or Venice. In a country where driving can be a bit challenging, Puglia made up for a good road trip. I took complete advantage of having a car and hit the cacti-filled countryside. My main agenda was to drive around little towns, the beautiful countryside and the coastline sampling the best of this undiscovered region and this took me straight to Ostuni. Ostuni Derived from Greek, Ostuni means new town. The derivation is not surprising since the town was rebuilt by the Greeks after it was destroyed during the Punic Wars (wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264BC to 146BC). I decided to keep this town as the base for my holiday since it is ideally located for short drives to other lovely parts of Puglia and its beautiful beaches. Known as the White City, this town was built without any plans. I had a blissful morning taking pictures of the webbed maze of cute alleyways, charming stairways, distinct flower pots and a million other photographic spots. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Ostuni and not a film set. Colourful scooters, vintage cars, green windows and cute elderly Italian men driving their three-wheelers to sell vegetables made me fall in love with this town. The locals have taken so much effort to embellish their homes. You will notice a likeable display of cacti against the white backdrop of the walls in everyones homes. What? No tourist office? Thats how I initially reacted on not having found any place to get directions. However, this made me get out there and interact with the locals. I have to admit I had so much fun doing that. The locals are really friendly and if they like you, you might even end up playing a pack of cards with them on the streets. Or getting a few kisses too. Locorotondo Another highlight of the Puglia region is Locorotondo. Out of all the towns I visited, this one had the most luxurious touch to it. Everything looked elegant the streets, houses, facades and archways. It had an alluring mix of narrow twisting alleys, dazzling off-white houses and exquisite ornate basilicas. To me, it was a fancier version of Ostuni and still, endearing. A little fun fact I picked from the locals was that the town centre was circular and hence the name Loco, which means place, and Rotondo, which means round. The best plan here is to have no plan at all. Just keep walking and get lost. When tired, you can take a break and reward yourself with some chilled beer or glasses of local wine with plates of bruschetta and burrata cheese. Alberobello My third destination was Alberobello, a name that could well be a tongue twister. Like Ostuni, this town is gorgeous. However, the similarities end there. It is also known as Puglias Trulli town (a UNESCO heritage site since 1996). Trullis are white huts with conical roofs made of limestone slabs. They are iconic and have existed since the 16th century. I found the construction to be very unique, which came about due to the abundance of limestone in this region. You will be surprised to know that the dry walls are built without any mortar. I kept wondering how these unique buildings came to be in Puglia, until I found out it had all to do with tax and money. In the 1600s, the local rulers within the feudal system wanted to avoid paying taxes to the King. So, they built their houses without any mortar. In the event of an inspection, these structures could be taken down easily and the tax bill would remain low. On reaching Alberobello, I headed for the Trulli Zone. About 1,000 Trullis on a slight uphill, I found no other type of building style here. Today, most of the Trullis are home to souvenir shops and restaurants. To experience the Trulli life you could even rent one to stay overnight. As I was only on a one-day trip, I picked a Trulli with a rooftop cafe and soaked in the view of the 1,000 Trullis. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Maria Butina pleaded guilty to acting as an undeclared Russian agent in the U.S. and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. The 30-year-old gun enthusiast operated as a Kremlin agent as she befriended National Rifle Association leaders and influential conservatives, she admitted Thursday in federal court in Washington. Butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics, prosecutor Erik Kenerson said at the hearing, reading from the governments statement of facts. Butina sought to use those unofficial lines of communication for the benefit of the Russian Federation. Asked by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan if she agreed with the governments characterization of the conspiracy, Butina said yes. Cooperation Deal Butina, who remains jailed, faces a maximum of five years in prison, but she wont be sentenced immediately. Her cooperation could lead to a reduced punishment. The judge scheduled a status hearing for Feb. 12. The NRA and the Kremlin didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier Thursday that any decision Butina took to help free her from detention in the U.S. would be supported by Russia. Butina was arrested in July. While in the U.S. starting in 2015, she was working to advance Russias interests, reporting regularly to a senior Russian official, according to her guilty plea. The charges were filed by the Justice Departments national security unit and U.S. prosecutors in Washington, rather than by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian influence in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As part of the plea agreement, Butina may provide information about Paul Erickson, her onetime boyfriend. Erickson matches the description of a man referred to as U.S. Person 1 in Butinas charging documents. The person connected her with influential Republicans and wrote in a message that he had been involved in securing a VERY private line of communication between the Kremlin and key officials of the NRA, prosecutors said. Good American Erickson has visited Butina in jail several times this year, according to her attorney, Robert Driscoll. Bill Hurd, Ericksons lawyer, said his client is a good American who has never done anything to hurt our country and never would. Hurd was in the courtroom for the proceedings. He declined to comment afterward. Butinas admission added to the drumbeat of developments in investigations related to the 2016 presidential election, and there were several signs this week that prosecutors were receiving information from several people close to President Donald Trump. Trumps longtime fixer was sentenced to three years in prison and said hed assist prosecutors, and the presidents former national security adviser acknowledged hed sat for 19 interviews with prosecutors and provided thousands of pages of documents. A tabloid publisher with ties to Trump is cooperating, too, after admitting to federal investigators in New York that its CEO talked to people on Trumps nascent campaign about buying and burying damaging stories that could damage the candidate. Russia says its spy agencies had no knowledge of Butina or her activities. When I heard something was going on around her, for a start I asked the heads of our secret services, Who is she? Nobody knows anything about her, President Vladimir Putin said in a televised appearance in Moscow on Tuesday, the day after Butina said in a filing she wanted to change her plea. Student Visa Butina traveled to the U.S. in 2015 and entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2016 to study at American University in Washington. She reported to Alexander Torshin, the former deputy chairman of Russias central bank, court documents show. Torshin accompanied Butina to a variety of conservative political events. In 2015 and 2016, the pair attended at least one NRA conference and a National Prayer Breakfast, the filings say. At one conference, they met with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Butina also attended Walkers announcement that he was running for president. At a town-hall-style event in Las Vegas in 2015, Butina asked candidate Trump whether he would improve the U.S. relationship with Russia. Trump said he would. Butina, whod started an NRA-like group in Russia called the Right to Bear Arms, was already a fixture in the American gun-rights community. NRA members traveled to Russia in 2013 to attend an event she organized. Among the attendees were Torshin and David Keene, then president of the NRA. Driscoll, Butinas lawyer, has said his client was a legitimate university student. The Butina matter has echoes of an earlier espionage case. In 2010, Anna Chapman and nine other sleeper agents working secretly in the U.S. on behalf of Russia pleaded guilty and were sent back to Moscow as part of a prisoner exchange. Butinas plea agreement says she is likely to be deported, but that probably wouldnt happen before prosecutors are finished debriefing her. Another consequence of her guilty plea is that shes not allowed to own a gun. Ruchi Ghanshyam, who took over recently as Indias high commissioner to the United Kingdom, said on Thursday that she has very large boots to fill given that she is only the second woman appointed to the post since Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Ghanshyam was speaking at a media interaction event in Londons Nehru Hall of India House. She succeeds YK Sinha who retired on October 31. She was secretary (west) in the ministry of external affairs before taking up the post in London. The only other Indian woman high commissioner in the UK so far has been Pandit, who was in the post from 1954 to 1961. She was Indias third envoy after VK Krishna Menon and BG Kher, who steered India-UK relations soon after independence. I have very large boots to fill. I am sure there was no intention not to appoint more women high commissioners, it just happened the way it did. India and the UK have a close relationship at many levels, Ghanshyam, an IFS officer of the 1982 batch, said. Pandit had the longest tenure in the post for seven years; LM Singhvi was in office for six years (1991-1997) and Krishna Menon for five (1947-1952). Four had tenures of less than a year, including the current ambassador to the US, Navtej Sarna (10 months). The 27th high commissioner of India since independence, Ghanshyam was part of the official delegation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to London in April for the Commonwealth heads of government summit. She will be in the post when the UK is due to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019. Besides dealing with domestic political issues that resonate in the UK such as Khalistan, Jammu and Kashmir and caste a potential India-UK free trade agreement will be on her agenda, formal talks for which can begin only after Brexit. The US Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end US military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemens civil war. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the worlds most dire human crisis, with the country on the brink of famine. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the presidents ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trumps fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate backed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggis murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who was a columnist for the Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The Senate vote, which was unanimous, puts pressure on House leaders to allow a vote on the Khashoggi resolution this month, before Congress adjourns for the year. Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear, said Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the resolution. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government and the prince, despite a CIA assessment it was likely he ordered Khashoggis killing. He promised to veto the war powers resolution. Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to take any action to disrupt the strategic U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close U.S. ally Israel. Administration officials also see Saudi support as a linchpin for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan yet to be unveiled by the Trump administration. And they have argued that ending U.S. support could complicate Yemen peace talks. SHARED STRATEGIC INTERESTS Asked to comment on the Khashoggi resolution, a White House spokesperson noted sanctions imposed on 17 Saudis over the killing and said, Our shared strategic interests with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remain, and we continue to view as achievable the twin imperatives of protecting America and holding accountable those responsible for the killing. But backers of the resolutions, including some Republicans, promised to press ahead. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators promised to push in the new Congress legislation for humanitarian sanctions and a ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Whats next is to do everything possible to demand that the House of Representatives do what the members of the House want done, an opportunity to vote on this, Senator Bernie Sanders told Reuters. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he would bring the resolution up again after the new Congress convenes in January, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives. The measure could pass the Senate again, given the bipartisan support it received on Thursday, even though Trumps Republicans will have a larger majority in the upper chamber next year. I think were going to win in the Senate and I think we are going to do what the American people want, that is to end our participation in this horrific and destructive war, Sanders said. There was no immediate word from House leadership on whether they would allow a vote on either resolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who briefed House members on Thursday, urged senators during a briefing last month to keep supporting the Saudi-led coalition. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said her members supported congressional action. There certainly is an appetite in our caucus for that, Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House Speaker, told reporters. Yemens warring parties agreed on Thursday to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. An Indian-American woman lawyer on Thursday was appointed to a top post in a US organisation, which advocates religious freedom. Anurima Bhargava, a civil rights lawyer, has been appointed as a Commissioner to the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the US Congress to monitor, analyse and report on threats to religious freedom abroad. Born and raised in Chicago, Bhargava is currently the founder and president of the Anthem of Us, which describes itself as a strategic advisory firm that works with educational institutions and corporations to promote dignity and justice for all. She has an extensive experience in various roles advocating for members of under-represented communities, including at the US Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). The USCIRF is currently headed by Tibetan-American Tenzin Dorjee. Dorjee commended House Leader Nancy Pelosi for appointing Bhargava as a USCIRF Commissioner. With an impressive background and a demonstrated commitment to advocating for members of minority communities in the United States and abroad, Anurima Bhargava brings an important new perspective that will enhance the work of the Commission, especially on democratic India, with whom the United States has a long and proud relationship, he said. In addition to her work at the Department of Justice and the LDF, Bhargava served as a fellow at the Open Society Foundations and at the Harvard University. Before attending law school, Bhargava worked in India assisting women elected to local government. She has been a member of the Truman National Security Project and the Council on Foreign Relations. Ireland on Thursday passed a Bill to legalise abortion following a referendum in the country in May on the controversial issue sparked by the death of Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 when she was refused abortion due to prevailing laws. The referendum was resoundingly won by the Yes campaign on the question whether the deeply conservative Catholic country should legalise abortion. A large number of women would travel to the United Kingdom, where laws are less stringent. Halappanavar, a dentist who became an icon of the Yes campaign during the referendum, died of sepsis in Galway after being denied abortion during protracted miscarriage. Her smiling image on posters was one of the prominent ones in the Yes campaign, with the words, Savita Matters, Women Matter. The ensuing law was widely called Savita law after her. Reports from Dublin said the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill will now be given to President Michael D Higgins to be signed into law. Indian-origin Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had supported the Yes campaign during the referendum. The bill allows for abortion services to be provided on demand up to the 12th week of a pregnancy, in the case of a fatal foetal abnormality or where the physical or mental health of the mother is in danger. Sri Lankas Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned on Saturday, news agency PTI reported on Saturday citing media reports. His son, Namal Rajapaksa, had yesterday said he will quit to ensure stability of the nation, after the Supreme Court ordered that he should not exercise the powers of the office he has claimed since October 26. The apex courts latest ruling came a day after it unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was illegal, in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. Namal Rajapakse said they will join a coalition with President Maithripala Sirisena who triggered the political crisis on October 26 by sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replacing him with former foe Rajapakse. The latest decision of Rajapakse to back down came as the Supreme Court ruled that he and his purported cabinet should not exercise the powers of the office they claim until he could prove his legitimacy. The court ruling also meant that the country was effectively without a government and heading for a shut down in the absence of parliament voting for a budget for 2019. In another blow to Sirisena, the highest court ruled on Thursday that his sacking of parliament on November 9 was illegal and cancelled a snap election he had called for January 5. Rajapakse failed to prove his majority in parliament and was twice defeated in no-confidence motions on November 14 and 16, but refused to step down. Wickremesinghe also refused to step down since October 26 maintaining that his sacking was illegal. That issue is currently being canvassed before courts. Political sources said Sirisena was likely to invite Wickremesinghe to form a new government over the weekend and end the power vacuum. (With Agencies inputs) Federal investigators are looking into money raised and spent by President Donald Trumps 2017 inaugural committee and a political body set up to support his campaign from the outside, and whether foreigners had contributed to them. The inaugural committee had raised a record $107 million and the outside body, Rebuilding American Now a political action committee (super-PAC) allowed under US election laws to raise unlimited amounts of money to shore up a campaign from the outside and without coordinating with it $23 million. Investigations into their receipts and expenses add to a growing list of probes into Trumps campaign that have dogged and overshadowed his presidency from allegations of collusion with Russian meddling in 2016 to paying off women who claimed to have had extramarital affairs with him. Asked about the inauguration committee funding, a white House spokesman told reporters the president had nothing to do with it. Investigators have asked witnesses, according to multiple news reports, if contributions to the inaugural committee and the PAC came from foreigners, primarily from west Asian nations such as Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, using Americans as straw donors fronting for them, essentially to buy political influence. Foreign nationals are not allowed to contribute to candidates or parties. Fundraising for both the inaugural committee and the PAC efforts were spearheaded by Tom Barrack, a real estate businessman and long-time friend of President Trump. His spokesman has denied the fund received any foreign donations. Tom has never talked with any foreign individual or entity for the purposes of raising money for or obtaining donations related to either the campaign, the inauguration or any such political activity, Owen Blicksilver, the spokesman, said to The New York Times. The focus on the inauguration committee was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which said investigators were looking at its expenses and whether they were misspent. This probe took from a tape recording seized by federal prosecutors from the homes and offices of Michael Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for Trump, who has been sentenced to three years in jail for, among other things, in connection with pay-offs to two women who had claimed to have had affairs with Trump. The UN Security Council on Thursday approved a one-year extension of humanitarian aid deliveries across war-scarred Syria. The move came despite reluctance from Russia, which called to amend the period to six months. The United States along with the majority of the Council members, however, approved the one-year extension, citing Syrias dire need for humanitarian supplies. More than 4.3 million people need aid in areas not controlled by the government, according to the United Nations. That figure includes more than three million people who can only be reached via cross-border operations. During negotiations, Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said relief supplies were being seized by armed groups, subject to extortion at checkpoints and had generated millions in monthly revenue for the rebels. The authorization allows humanitarian organizations to cross borders after simply notifying the government. The US believes there is no credible alternative to such deliveries, and has accused the regime of distributing aid unequally at the expense of communities considered less loyal to Damascus during the eight-year conflict. The first resolution on cross-border aid was adopted unanimously in 2014. Aid operations in Syria, the UNs largest relief effort, have continued despite little progress by UN diplomats to end the war. Syrias war has so far killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions. Criminal Background Check Who does HomeAdvisor background check? The owner or principal of each business in HomeAdvisor's network (with the exception of Corporate Accounts) must pass a background check. Unfortunately, we cannot perform a background check on every employee of a businessthe background checks are performed only on the owner or principal. As always, we recommend that you conduct your own research on the businesses you hire, including making inquiries directly with the businesses regarding their employee background check policies. What does the background check cover? We use a third-party vendor to conduct a criminal records search in the state in which the business owner or principal works. Our third-party vendor uses a national criminal database ("NCD") to screen service professionals. Businesses will not be admitted to the network if their owners or principals have the following felonies in their available criminal records*: Arson Assault/domestic violence/battery Child abuse Intimidation/terrorist threats Kidnapping/abduction Lewd and lascivious behavior Manslaughter/murder/homicide/vehicular homicide Rape/incest Robbery/carjacking Sex offenses Other felonies not listed above that occurred in the past seven years Contracting without a license in the past seven years Our background check does not exclude service professionals unless the crime at issue is a felony. *The comprehensiveness of the NCD varies by state. Please be aware that the reporting in the NCD is particularly limited in the following states: AL, CO, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, LA, ME, MA, MI, MS, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, SD, UT, VA, VT, and WY. After initial admission to the HomeAdvisor network, businesses are re-screened biennially. How is COVID-19 impacting the HomeAdvisor background check program? Due to the coronavirus pandemic, several government agencies and courts across the country have temporarily closed their offices. While HomeAdvisor will continue its background check program to the extent possible, these closures could prevent some background checks from being performed. Please be advised that, during this period, if we could not perform a background check, HomeAdvisor will allow the business into the network and match the business to consumers. As affected government agencies and courts begin to re-open, we will resume our program in those jurisdictions. As always, we encourage consumers to perform their own research, to the extent possible, before hiring any business. W ith Christmas fast approaching, even those with the best intentions may find themselves running out of time. If you're looking for some last-minute gift inspiration, that looks like you've put in more thought than you've actually had time for, look no further. A timeless gift, Waterford crystal balloon glasses are ideal for any gin connoisseur. Designed with advice from tasting experts, the balloon shape enhances the aromas of your favourite, festive aperitif . One for the coffee obsessive on your gift list this year, Smeg's new drip filter machine comes in the brand's instantly recognisable pastel colourways. Off the wall luxe gift ideas: Laura Spring's wall hangings cost 135 each, order by December 19 Laura Spring's printed wall hangings make a stylish, vibrant addition to any room and are a perfect one-off gift for interiors fans. Order by December 19 for a pre-Christmas delivery. These fabulous Layla velvet cushion patterns are based on artwork from the Liberty London archive. Order online by December 20th for pre-Christmas delivery or make a trip of it and collect from the Regent Street store, open until 5pm on Christmas Eve. See our pick of luxury gift ideas in our gallery above. FOR LONDON'S ETHICAL, LAST-MINUTE SHOPPERS Just because you've left your shopping to the last minute, doesn't mean you can't still shop for stylish, sustainable gifts. Ethical lifestyle website BICBIM has teamed up with some of the UKs coolest conscious brands to host a Christmas pop-up shop at Old Street station from Monday 17 December until Saturday 22 December. Open from 7am until 8pm each day, with late-night shopping until 10pm on Friday 21, the pop-up will have a mix of contemporary ethical fashion brands, beauty products, pet accessories, festive candles and gifts for coffee and chocolate lovers. All items are available to pre-order online and can be picked up at the Old Street station pop-up shop. (CNN) A high-speed train crashed Thursday in the Turkish capital of Ankara, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens more, according to the city's governor. At a press conference at the site of the crash, the governor, Vasip Sahin, said 46 people had been hurt in the crash, which took place at around 6.30 a.m. local time. "Our hope is the number of dead does not increase, but our units are working," Sahin said. "Once their work is complete, we will be able to share more information." The train collided head-on with a maintenance vehicle in Ankara's Marsandiz station, causing part of a bridge to collapse onto two carriages, state news agency Anadolu said. Two of those injured were in a critical condition, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca told the agency, adding no more wounded were at the crash site as of Thursday afternoon. Video from the scene earlier Thursday showed rescuers combing through piles of warped metal while injured people were evacuated from the wreckage. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said three people had been detained in connection with the crash, and a criminal investigation launched. "Those who are responsible will be brought forward," Erdogan said, "and whatever is necessary will be done." According to Anadolu, 206 passengers were on the train at the time of the crash. Three of the dead were train conductors, while the other six were passengers. CNN Turk said the crash took place four minutes after the train left the station. One witness told CNN he was on his way home from work when he saw the crash. "There were many injured people waiting to be rescued," Yasin Duvar said, adding he had helped a number of victims escape from the mangled train. The train was en route between Ankara and Konya when it crashed, Anadolu said. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara expressed its "deepest condolences" to the victims of the crash. "We share the great sorrow and wish quick recovery to the many injured," the embassy's official Twitter account said. This story was first published on CNN.com, "High-speed train crashes in Turkey, killing 9." | BY Lynchy | JWT Amsterdam & JWT India have joined forces with photographer Jimmy Nelson to fight for the preservation of cultural heritage. The new campaign portrays the worlds last indigenous cultures in all their glory. Via the campaign, Nelson is sending a warning that the world is at risk of losing its global cultural heritage by squandering the cultural identities of the last indigenous peoples. The photographer launches a bid to preserve cultural diversity by issuing the caution: Blink. And Theyre Gone. A warning that if we dont engage with indigenous cultures now, they will be gone forever. This is illustrated by a campaign conceptualised and created in a joint effort between J. Walter Thompsons India and Amsterdam agencies. The campaign kicks off with a short film titled Blink. And Theyre Gone made using over 1500+ photographs taken by Jimmy Nelson during his journeys into the far corners of the world, showing the never-seen-before images of 36 of the last indigenous communities of this earth. The images were selected from over one hundred thousand images, covering every picture of indigenous people that Nelson has taken over the last 30 years. The film took 90 days to edit, and features startling images of the Huli Wigmen from Papua New Guinea, the Kazakhs of Mongolia, the Sadhus of India, the Wodaabe from Chad and countless others. The film was directed by J Walter Thompson Indias Chief Creative Officer, Senthil Kumar, working closely with J. Walter Thompsons Global Creative Lead, Bas Korsten, who is based in Amsterdam. The film is the first start of a wider campaign in 2019, which will see Jimmy Nelson work with J. Water Thompson to raise awareness of indigenous cultures and to foster pride and respect for their irreplaceable traditions. Nelson said: Planet Earth is at risk of losing the cultural identities of the many of the worlds most unique indigenous people. This is a global issue and a result of many escalating factors, including industrialization, globalization and cultural saturation led by the increasing predominance of the internet. Together this sees a homogenization and westernization of the originally diverse cultures of this world. Nelson has made it his lifes work to attain understanding and respect for the worlds indigenous cultures through his photography. He presents these cultures in an aspirational and stylized way which has previously caused some controversy amongst anthropologists and purists. However, Nelson believes that the beautification of indigenous cultures is an important message for greater humanity and one that is needed now more than ever. Today, in a bid to help safeguard a part of what Nelson sees as the very essence of all of our humanity, he is taking a stand by issuing a worldwide caution. If we let the cultural identity of the indigenous people disappear now, it will be lost forever. Its literally a case of BLINK and theyre gone. And if this happens, we will lose one of the most valuable assets we have our rich human cultural diversity and heritage. The depth and wealth of our humanity will shrink. This must not happen. Our collective cultural identity is too valuable to be destroyed by homogenization. We must unify and fight to support indigenous cultures and take personal pride in the myriad of their cultural traditions that are still to be found on the planet today. said Nelson (pictured left). I was especially excited to visit the Drokpa in Kashmir. Because of the partition in 1947 there has been political social thermal. The Drokpa had been sort of hidden essentially in a bubble. I had the extreme privilege to be invited and taken there because of my experiences and connections made with the military thirty years prior to that. The Drokpa live in this one very small valley, right at the border of Pakistan, high in the Himalayas. They are still connected to these extraordinarily beautiful traditions and ornaments. In a way it reflects how many years prior to this, how that region must have been far richer, in its diverse and colourful culture and how relatively little there is today. As for the Rabari in Gujarat in Rajasthan, their numbers are far more prolific and far more engrained into the deeper soul of the more contemporary day Indian culture. The colours the jewellery, the way especially the women decorate their bodies is like nothing else in the world. Senthil Kumar, Director of the film & Chief Creative Officer, J Walter Thompson India said: It was a huge honour to collaborate with legendary photographer Jimmy Nelson and direct this all important film. It was life-changing to travel far and wide across the indigenous earth, through each one of Jimmys stunning photographs. The ambition is to share the cultural evolution of these remote and ancient indigenous cultures in a mind blowing form, which will move every viewer to share the experience with the world. Bas Korsten, Global Creative Lead JWT & Creative Partner J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam: When Jimmy contacted me over a year ago I was instantly drawn to his work and his ambition. Jimmy wanted to start a global discussion on the preservation of cultural identity. A discussion like the one we instigated with The Next Rembrandt project two years ago. Im really happy that Senthil and I can contribute to this unique project with a mix of creativity and technology. In parallel to this global call, Nelson has produced a 525-page photography book, titled Homage to Humanity, which is a deep dive into the stories and traditions of indigenous people. The book combines innovative technology, VR and 360 films with Nelsons photography to create an immersive experience and deeper understanding of indigenous cultures, including a free-to-download app which allows the viewer to scan every image to reveal behind the scenes film content and intimate stories of the people who have been photographed. JWT and Nelsons mission is to use technology the very thing that is threatening the cultural diversity of the world for good, to promote understanding and deeper insights across different cultures. In 2019 this concept will be taken further with the launch of a disruptive technology that will further mobilize the fight to preserve global cultural heritage. CREDITS Client: Jimmy Nelson Photographer: Jimmy Nelson PR Manager: Marit de Hoog Project Manager: Coco Box Agency: JWT India & J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam Director: Senthil Kumar (CCO, JWT India) Creative Team : Bas Korsten & Senthil Kumar PR Director: Jessica Hartley Production House: Small Fry Productions Editors: Priyank Premkumar, Dev Nayak and Keven Menezes Music Director: Dhruv Ghanekar Vocal Percussion: Taufiq Qureshi Sound Engineer: Joseph George Appointment 14 December 2018 Terranea Resort announces the hire of hospitality industry veteran Sezin Kutlu as Senior Director of Revenue Strategy. Kutlu brings a wealth of knowledge in the fields of revenue strategy, reservations and operations from her six-year tenure at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, as Director of Revenue Management. Under her leadership, the hotel increased market position, maintaining growth each year; Kutlu also received the 2011 Global Leadership Recognition Award, Revenue Management Achievement for the Europe/Middle East markets during her time with the company. Prior to joining Ritz Carlton, Kutlu held Director of Revenue Management and Reservations Manager positions at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia and was the Reservations Assistant Manager at the Four Seasons in Chicago. Since moving to Southern California in 2017, Kutlu has lent her expertise in revenue management to both the Langham Huntington Hotel and Montage Laguna Beach. Hailing from Turkey, Kutlu holds a BA from the College of Tourism Administration and Hotel Management at Akdeniz University in Antalya, Turkey; and completed the Revenue Management Certification Program at Cornell University in New York. Press Release 14 December 2018 The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 2-8 December 2018, according to data from STR. In comparison with the week of 3-9 December 2017, the industry recorded the following: Occupancy: -0.8% to 60.4% Average daily rate (ADR): +1.3% to US$126.45 Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +0.5% to US$76.38 Among the Top 25 Markets, San Diego, California, registered the largest jump in RevPAR (+33.6% to US$122.71), due primarily to the only double-digit increase in ADR (+23.7% to US$161.86). The market saw the second-largest rise in occupancy (+8.0% to 75.8%). Boston, Massachusetts, experienced the largest increase in occupancy (+8.6% to 75.5%) and the only other double-digit increase in RevPAR (+15.1% to US$130.62). Anaheim/Santa Ana, California, posted the second-highest lift in ADR (+8.1% to US$160.18). Overall, 12 of the Top 25 Markets reported growth in RevPAR for the week. Atlanta, Georgia, registered the steepest decline in RevPAR (-23.0% to US$72.49), due primarily to the only double-digit drop in ADR (-15.2% to US$107.42). Houston, Texas, saw the largest decrease in occupancy (-13.4% to 63.6%), which resulted in the second-largest drop in RevPAR (-14.3% to US$69.34). St. Louis, Missouri-Illinois, experienced the only other double-digit decline in occupancy (-10.5% to 53.0%) and the third-largest decrease in RevPAR (-11.5% to US$53.16). Press Release 14 December 2018 The Canadian hotel industry recorded positive year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 2-8 December 2018, according to data from STR. Advertisements In comparison with the week of 3-9 December 2017, the industry reported the following: Occupancy: +3.0% to 61.2% Average daily rate (ADR): +3.3% to CAD145.89 Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +6.4% to CAD89.24 Among the provinces and territories, Quebec reported the largest increase in RevPAR (+22.4% to CAD114.22), driven by the only double-digit lift in ADR (+10.3% to CAD161.68) and the second-highest rise in occupancy (+11.0% to 70.6%). Manitoba experienced the largest increase in occupancy (+11.7% to 72.9%) and the only other double-digit jump in RevPAR (+17.3% to CAD92.45). Six of the 11 reporting provinces and territories saw RevPAR growth. The Northwest Territories posted the second-largest increase in ADR (+8.5% to CAD167.26), but saw the steepest decline in occupancy (-19.6% to 63.9%). Newfoundland and Labrador posted the largest decreases in ADR (-9.7% to CAD119.26) and RevPAR (-24.7% to CAD53.93). Prince Edward Island experienced the second-largest drop in occupancy (-19.2% to 36.8%), which resulted in the second-steepest decline in RevPAR (-19.8% to CAD39.98). STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com. Opinion Article 14 December 2018 Just maybe the most exciting 2019 trend for travel marketers may be the growing belief that today's travelers want - really want - to come back again to a destination they have visited. Call today's travel trend the Deeper Dive because that is exactly what a lot of travelers - in all generations - want. They are tired of superficiality, of always pursuing the new (yet another shiny object) and instead they want to go deep in a city or region or country or, sometimes, simply a neighborhood that holds appeal for them. Advertisements I've known this was happening - personally have practiced it - for some time now but was still delighted to see a piece in Travel Market Report by Steve Gillick entitled "Boundless Selling: Seven Reasons to Return to the Same Destination." The Gillick article is about his love for Japan - he's been 18 times in 14 years. Personally I've been to France more times than I can count, ditto India, also Africa, and I'd like to be able to say that about Bali, Berlin, and Greece. There just are places that draw us back for encore visits and, as travel marketers, we need to cease the quest for what's new and instead focus on what's cool, what's enriching, what's compelling, and what don't ordinary tourists see and do but aficionados will want to know about. New often just is tiresome in its superficiality. What's old frequently in fact has passed the test of time and it thrills now, just as it did in 1919. Maybe earlier. Of course with this reality in mind, pursuing a strategy of upping the number of repeat visitors entails a two track marketing-PR campaign where one track seeks to attract first-time visitors (most of whom will want to explore the "greatest hits" that are the staples of guidebooks and most travel articles). On your first visit to Paris you must go to the Louvre, Notre Dame, walk along the Seine, see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, and probably eat at a few of the places called out in Hemingway's "Moveable Feast." On your second visit - well, you've done all those first visit to-dos (note: the Louvre is worth revisiting on every trip, just as the Prado is in Madrid and the Met in NYC). What now? That's where the individual traveler's distinct, personal tastes kick in and so we can also say that this new phase of travel truly ups the ante for personalization of experiences. It is easy to talk about them - who in travel isn't right now? - but it is much harder to truly deliver those unique, captivating moments that this traveler craves. This is the second track of hotel marketing that PR now need also to pursue: finding ways to present - with excitement and flourishes - the history and traditions that make a destination, a country, a hotel or resort special. The way to win repeat guests is to be able to double down on delivering personalized experiences that will work for this guest. And potential guests need to know that this is on offer. Not easy to deliver this personalization for each guest. But it can be done. For marketers and PR the challenge is getting out a stream of information that highlights the many distinctive features of the destination. More is better. This also means tapping into influencers, academics, travel writers, whoever can help tell the story of the riches that can be mined by curious repeat visitors. Remember the famous Samuel Johnson quotation: "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." The same can be said of Paris. Rome. Delhi. Bali. New York City. The list goes on and, yes, all warrant repeat visits. A quick six-day visit to Bali is akin to reading a condensed book version of Moby Dick. You might get the plot but what have you missed? A lot. But for many travelers that short intro trip whets the appetite for a banquet of delights in a longer return visit - and possibly many more such visits. They may not know exactly what to do however. That's where our jobs start. Remember this: it doesn't have to be new to sell. In fact it just may be a lot easier to sell a repeat visit to a traveler who spent a too quick day or three in a prime destination. They got a sample, now they want the full treatment. They will come if we tell them what we have. The job is ours to do. e-forecasting.com's reported today that Americans confidence on the economy rose again in December. e-forecasting.com's reported today that Americans confidence on the economy rose again in December. According to the highlights published today in the December issue of the US Consumer Confidence Digest, the trend measure of the consumer confidence, which smoothens out high frequency noise, increased 0.1% in December from November, more important Americans confidence now, in December, is 1.3% higher than in December of 2017, said Evangelos Otto Simos, professor at the University of New Hampshire and editor of the Digest. Looking at consumers' buying intentions for big-ticket items and services six months ahead, the early bird of consumer predictive analytics foresees that Americans plans for travel and vacation are now 7.8% higher than in December of last year; Evangelos Simos added. To put that in perspective, Americans intentions to buy electronics over the next six months are now 5.1% below their buying intentions in December of 2017, Evangelos pointed out. About e-forecasting.com e-forecasting.com, a USA private, international research and business intelligence consulting firm, provides its clients sophisticated, scientifically-modeled and disruptive predictive analytics for what's next. To be added in the media list for full press release and/or for further information, contact: media-list@e-forecasting.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Occupancy is expected to rise from last year's 59% to 70% Excerpt from Mexico News Daily Occupancy is expected to rise from last year's 59% to 70% The hotel sector is expecting average occupancy of 70% during the Christmas vacation season, which would be the highest level in the past decade. The forecast comes from the Mexican Association of Hotels and Motels (AMHM) whose president, Rafael Garcia, said that occupancy in the winter period last year was just 59%, with the September 2017 earthquakes and United States travel alerts both contributing to the low rate. But this year is expected to be different. Hotels in destinations such as Cancun, coastal Nayarit, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo and Acapulco are predicting even higher occupancy rates 85% and 90% in the holiday season, while for New Year's they expect to be full. "Occupation will increase from December 20 when school holidays start and continue until January 6, but the best [period] is the end of the year when a 100% occupancy rate is expected at the beach. Already, there are very few spaces left," Garcia said. Hotel occupancy in Mexico's three largest cities Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey over the same period is forecast to be slightly lower than the national average at 65%. Santiago Mayoral, corporate finance vice-president at City Express Hotels, told the newspaper El Financiero that fewer business trips are made during the winter break. Although foreign visitor arrivals remain strong, eight of every 10 visitors to Mexican destinations during the upcoming holidays will be domestic tourists, according to the AMHM. Click here to read complete article at Mexico News Daily. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource The Group Human Resources Department at Deutsche Hospitality will be under new leadership with effect from 1 April 2019. Ulrich Bensel will take over the position of Vice President Group Human Resources from Roberto Rojas, who is leaving the company after seven years. The Group Human Resources Department at Deutsche Hospitality will be under new leadership with effect from 1 April 2019. Ulrich Bensel will take over the position of Vice President Group Human Resources from Roberto Rojas, who is leaving the company after seven years. 44-year old Mr. Bensel is a fully qualified lawyer who was born in Mainz. He possesses extensive management experience at a senior corporate level. Previous roles included eight years as Group Head of Personnel at Sudwestdeutsche Medien Holding, one of Germany's foremost media conglomerates. Mr. Bensel's most recent post was as Head of Human Resources at HUGO BOSS AG, where he directed the company's global departments from his base at headquarters. Matthias Heck, Deutsche Hospitality's CFO & Labour Director, expressed his delight at the new appointment. "Ulrich Bensel is a proven HR expert with a wealth of national and international know-how. He has recently been concentrating in particular on the areas of change, digital transformation, sustainable talent management and operational HR standards. These are all main focuses which also play a material role in the implementation of our corporate objectives." Mr. Bensel's remit will include taking overall charge of all human resources matters at Steigenberger Hotels AG and its subsidiaries and continuing to extend the HR Development and Administration Departments. He will also press ahead with aligning HR strategy and structures in the light of the company's international expansion. Mr. Bensel succeeds Roberto Rojas, who has held the position since 1 September 2011 and is leaving at his own request. "Roberto Rojas set out a number of important directions of travel in respect of the professionalisation and internationalisation of Group HR," went on Matthias Heck. "He has made a crucial contribution towards paving the way for the sustainable further development of our company and of our pioneering corporate culture. On behalf of the company, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Rojas for his commitment and service. We wish him every success in his future professional career." Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource The Taj branded hotel will be located at Vibhuti Khand, New Gomti Nagar Centre, with close proximity to key corporate parks, institutions and recreational facilities. The Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) announced one more Taj branded hotel in Lucknow, a city with rich history and an exciting future. The hotel will be in partnership with Luxus Hospitality. With this addition, IHCL will have three hotels across two of its brands in the city. Puneet Chhatwal, managing director and chief executive officer, IHCL, said, "We are delighted to partner with Luxus Hospitality. This signing is aligned to Aspiration 2022 with its focus on aggressive domestic growth. The company is very optimistic about Lucknow as it is an important centre of governance, business, culture and tourism." Amit Singh, director, Luxus Hospitality, and Puneet Chhatwal, MD and CEO, Indian Hotels Company The Taj branded hotel will be located at Vibhuti Khand, New Gomti Nagar Centre, with close proximity to key corporate parks, institutions and recreational facilities. The hotel will comprise 185 spacious guest rooms, an all-day diner, a specialty restaurant, a bar, a wellness area and banqueting facilities. The greenfield project is slated to open in 2022. Amit Singh, director, Luxus Hospitality, said, "We are proud to partner with the Indian Hotels Company for its iconic Taj brand and bring their famed hospitality to Lucknow." Lucknow is the capital of Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest states in India. IHCL has two existing hotels in the city Taj Mahal Lucknow and Ginger Gomti Nagar. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource We just figured out the plot behind Jordan Peele's anticipated film Us and now we've gotten word that the official trailer will arrive on Christmas day. The film's leads are Black Panther's Winston Duke and Lupita N'yong'o who play a couple that head out on a family getaway that goes badly when some shocking uninvited visitors make an appearance. The film is set at the family's beach house where friends are also invited to join along on the city outing. Other stars in the movie are Elisabeth Moss, Anna Diop, and Kara Hayward. Aside from the trailer that arrives in days, Jordan has also dropped off the official poster for the film. The photo simply shows a man in a red suit holding a golden pair of scissors. We're not too sure what to predict from the poster, but considering Jordan's past projects we can only expect another smash hit from the writer/director. Us isn't the only film Jordan's working on. He previously talked about his plans to recreate Candyman as a "spiritual sequel." "The original was a landmark film for black representation in the horror genre," Jordan said. "Alongside Night of the Living Dead, Candyman was a major inspiration for me as a filmmaker and to have a bold new talent like Nia at the helm of this project is truly exciting. We are honored to bring the next chapter in the Candyman canon to life and eager to provide new audiences with an entry point to Clive Barkers legend." In case you've stepped away from the internet for most of Thursday (December 14) and missed the madness, Kanye West took to Twitter to launch an hours-long rant at Drake. Yes, 'Ye glued his fingers to his phone for HOURS as he attacked Drizzy for a number of reasons. West was unimpressed with Drake's repeated subliminal shots, calling out the rapper's bars on French Montana's "No Stylist." After digitally harassing Drizzy, Kanye tweeted that Drake finally called him. That's when we all thought things would end...it didn't. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images Kanye hopped back on Twitter to reveal that Drake threatened him on the phone call. He then continued to rant long into the night about religion, loyalty, being Drake's idol, Travis Scott, and a number of other topics he felt were connected to Drizzy's apparent disrespect. Hours into the rant, Kim Kardashian decided to hop on Twitter to defend her man and her family. "@drake Never threaten my husband or our family. He paved the way for there to be a Drake," tweeted Kim. "My husband is the most brilliant person, the most genius person that I know," she continued. "He has broken so many boundaries, everything from music, stage design, fashion and culture and will continue to change the world." Check out her tweets, and a select few of Kanye's 50+ tweets, below. https://twitter.com/_/status/1073482288350978048 https://twitter.com/_/status/1073482415421575168 https://twitter.com/_/status/1073449810513022977 https://twitter.com/_/status/1073435673573683204 https://twitter.com/_/status/1073434854694576128 https://twitter.com/_/status/1073411636210425856 https://twitter.com/_/status/1073411010168528896 Kodak Black just released his sophomore album last night called Dying to Live which features 16 tracks and guest appearances from Juice WRLD, Travis Scott, and Lil Pump. While fans are busy digesting the new body of work, theres one track already making some noise, and thats track #9, Malcolm X, where he addresses gun violence, racism, and the late XXXTentacion, among other things. In fact, Kodak appears to compare human rights activist Malcolm X to XXXTentacion, both of which who were fatally shot by some haters. Kodak references XXXs senseless death, rapping about his location of his death at the bike shop and not carrying a gun on him. X was tryna buy a bike and he got gunned down X was tryna change his life, but he got burned down X wasn't ridin' with no pipe so he got gunned down Listen, do as I say, don't do as I do Nine out of ten, it ain't gon' end up lookin' good for you Kodak recently spoke about the death of his friend XXX, saying he didnt believe his death at first. He said he was in his prison dorm when he first heard someone say, "He ain't dead, before learning that the news was sadly true. Kodak and XXXTentacion have previously worked together on "Roll in Peace," which appeared on Kodak's 2017 effort Project Baby 2. Listen to the song "Malcolm X" and the rest of Dying To Live right now on HNHH. We've posted a few of GQ's On The Rocks series where rappers and collectives alike show off their blinding jewelry and watches and share just how many thousands they've spent. No other guest on the show has been like Lil Durk who admitted to losing a good chunk of his collection, totaling a $72K loss, at least. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq6Aj15FciG His first loss was a diamond choker his sister misplaced, the second was a ring that was left in an uber and the others was his first Rolex that seemingly disappeared and a diamond fang. "Ay Uber driver if you found my ring imma fuck you up, nah, that's a tip," Durk joked.Other jewelry box show offs are his OTF chain, 300 ring, $85,000 Cuban link ring and $95,000 Rolex. In other Durk news, the "Downfall" rapper paid a visit to The Breakfast Club not too long ago and talked about industry mates who he considers real ones. "Future always been 1000 with me, French, Meek, Baby, Gunna. I got my crowd," he said, adding how his "big brother" French Montana has always been there for him. "He showed me the ropes, how to move, and stop being wild. He's like a mentor." To be clear, there will never be a day where the hip-hop community doesn't welcome a new album from Method Man. The most personable member of the Wu-Tang Clan has always been a lyrical monster, so fans are glad to ingest another LP of rap excellence at any moment. The New York veteran came through this week with Meth Lab 2: The Lithium. Sticking to his 90's roots, where albums ran for 20 plus tracks, Method Man delivers a project that runs for 22 tracks. Meth Lab 2: The Lithium walks the line between nostalgic 90's vibes and new-age instrumentals and deliveries. Adapting is an important part of staying relevant, and Method Man accomplishes that without losing himself or abandoning his New York origins. The album features guest appearances from Raekwon, Snoop Dogg, Redman, Noreaga, Sheek Louch, Cappadonna, Masta Killah, Hanz On, Streetlife, Joe Young, Hue Hef, Pretty Blanco, and more. Stream Meth Lab 2: The Lithium on Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal now. https://twitter.com/_/status/1073361149872230401 Kevin Hart's decision to opt out of hosting the Oscars was met with polarizing reception. The comedian decided to step back from his hosting duties instead of apologizing for old homophobic tweets that resurfaced. Some people felt that Hart did the right thing while others condemned him for not apologizing to the LGBTQ+ community. Obie Trice recently defended the Philly native during a concert in Toronto while spewing homophobic and transphobic slurs. The video surfaced online before being taken down. He took to Instagram to apologize to his fans for his comments. Scott Gries/Getty Images Obie Trice claims that he didn't say anything during his Toronto show to purposely offend anyone, but he did. In a video captioned "One Love," the rapper took to Instagram to issue an apology for his comments. "First of all, I want to apologize to anyone I offended out there. I understand the different perspectives and, you know, not wanting to be call any slurs," he said before he attempted to defend himself. "But I'm a hip-hop artist and everything can't be taken so seriously. I didn't say anything last night -- the other night -- to purposely offend anybody. I have no bias towards the LGBTQ+ community. The gay people I know we bullshit like that with it, that's how we talk." During his show in Toronto, Canada, the rapper said, "The state's trying to bully you into respecting this gay shit. The state's trying to bully you into respecting this gay shit." He continued, "But we supposed to respect gay and they took my man Kevin Hart. [He] had to duck down [and] get off the Oscars because of this. All he wanted to do was the mothafuckin' Oscars." YouTuber ChristianAdamG was the most hated man by the Kardashian family when he staged photos of himself looking like Travis Scott making moves on another woman. The prank was seemingly too soon since Khloe Kardashian's beau Tristan Thompson was caught cheating, leading a lot of people to really believe the photo was real. "I hate that I am bringing attention to this but this is absolutely disgusting that you would find this funny to mess with Travis & Kylie who just started a family together," Kim tweeted. "This is really damaging to relationships, families and is just so wrong!" ChristianAdamG has followed up with a video explaining in full just why and how he did the prank and that he's not sorry and would do it again if he could. "If you ask me the question 'do I regret it' the answer to that is no," he said. "[...] I'll be honest with y'all I'm not sorry towards those Kardashians at all, not even a little bit. I'm more sorry, if anything, for Travis Scott because in reality, the only person who knew the truth was me and Travis." ChristianAdamG is, however, apologetic to the little baby Stormi for causing any stress to her little self. The Bahama's based YouTuber explained towards the end of the video that his little prank has opened some doors for him. He did state that he wants to be cast in Black Panther 2 but only time will tell what these 'opportunities' really are. Overall, ChristianAdamG said he has given Travis a "free pass" for cheating because if any real photos do happen to surface, people will think they're just fake. Virgil Abloh's ongoing Off-White x Nike sneaker collection will continue later this month with two colorways of the Off-White x Nike Air Force 1 Low. After that, it looks like fans can look forward to a third offering off the Off-White AF1, which was recently unveiled by the man himself. https://www.instagram.com/p/BrUmjy9BpBr According to sneaker source @PY_Rates, the University Blue/University Red/Metallic Silver colorway is slated to release next June in celebration of Virgils exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. It is believed the kicks will be available in both men's and GS sizing. https://twitter.com/_/status/1073262031816540161 Off-White and Nike will close out the year on December 19 with the release two AF1 Lows coming in black and volt. In addition to men's sizes, the two limited edition sneakers will also be available in Little Kids, Toddler, and Baby sizes. Click here for more details about those two colorways. YGTUT's been making some serious noise over the past year. The rapper first got on our radar earlier this year when he linked up with Isaiah Rashad for his song, "Trill Dreams." With a new album set to drop later tonight, he unleashes a new single titled, "Get It." YGTUT returns with a new single off of his forthcoming album I.O.U. The album is his first album since 2015's Preacher's Man. YGTUT aims to make a hustler's anthem on "Get It," dropping off a catchy single that's all about getting to the money by any means necessary. "I wanted this song to be an anthem for us, my homies, my fans, and how we need to get this money to sustain our families, lives and business," he said to The Fader. "Its been 3 years since my last full album, Preachers Son and we didnt know how to handle the response. But now we are ready, rebounding with I.O.U., more videos and more content while staying true to who I ama whole sex symbol for 2019." Peep his new song below and watch out for I.O.U dropping tonight. Quotable Lyrics We had to fight, that was a must No coward in my blood I'll be alright, you know I'm tough Lil bitch you know I'm TUT Oil and gas companies like to brag about developing and employing cleaner forms of energy, but advertising campaigns are a lot easier than business transformation. Exxon Mobil television commercials tout algae-based fuels, and the company recently announced a contract to purchase renewable energy. The doers at Chevron come across as tree-huggers. And BP may no longer stand for Beyond Petroleum, but it promises: Were reducing emissions, improving our products and creating new low-carbon businesses. Move past the marketing, though, and the business models explain the extraordinary challenge. Major oil and gas companies are only tiptoeing into green energy because it doesnt generate the greenbacks that black gold does. On HoustonChronicle.com: Big oil companies are rolling up shale plays, just in time The oil and gas industry generates remarkably high returns. Anyone with access to enough startup capital to lease the land, find the oil, drill the well and deliver it to market can expect big profits until the well runs dry. Clean energy is different, according to Wood Mackenzie, an energy data analysis and consulting firm. Oil exploration typically generates an 8 percent to15 percent internal rate of return, a measure of the premium a business idea pays over lower-risk investments. North American onshore oil production averages a 33 percent IRR, according to Wood Mackenzie. By comparison, a wind project in a developed country generates only 7 percent IRR, while solar earns 5 percent. Projects in emerging markets can generate higher IRRs, but only about 9 percent. Most large-scale renewable energy projects developed to date have been backed by contracts with a large proportion of fixed revenue, Wood Mackenzie reports. Investments with fixed-price contracts are low risk, but offer low returns. By comparison, everything about an oil and gas well is risky, from finding a deposit to operating the rig safely. Wind and sunlight are easy to find and measure, the equipment is not particularly dangerous, and for now, the 20-year cash flow is predictable. But the steady phase-out of federal tax credits for wind and solar energy will remove a source of guaranteed revenue and may reduce the market for long-term contracts. If that happens, renewable energy projects will be exposed to the verities of electricity markets. Higher risk will bring higher rates of return, potentially expanding opportunities for oil and gas companies. Renewable energy projects are also small and cheap when compared to the enormous drilling campaigns launched for oil and gas. Corporations with huge balance sheets look for huge projects that generate huge cash flow. Scale is important. As an example, Wood Mackenzie cites Equinors new Johan Castberg offshore field in Norway. The company will spend $5.9 billion and expects cash flows to total $33 billion over 20 years. To match that scale of investment and cash flow, an offshore wind project would need a 20-gigawatt capacity, which is enough power for 14 million homes. Currently, the worlds largest wind farm, in China, is only 7.9 gigawatts, and there are not enough transmission lines to fully utilize the project. Renewable energy projects also typically cost less than $500 million, which makes them small potatoes to companies that consider $1 billion an opening ante. Yet an oil and gas companys ability to self-finance projects 10 times bigger than those currently on offer opens up opportunities, Wood Mackenzie analysts said. This is especially true for solar projects, which mimic oil and gas fields in requiring significant upfront investments, vast stretches of land and massive construction projects. On HoustonChronicle.com: Oil companies must put their politics where their marketing materials are Oil and gas companies also have a competitive advantage from working in developing countries, where the need is greatest and the potential IRR the highest. For example, solar projects in the Sahara paired with new transmission lines and battery storage could power all of Europe, with the right engineering. Wealthy countries, however, do not offer the same IRR because demand growth has flattened as populations stabilize and residents adopt more efficient technologies. The one exception, though, would be widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Then demand for power would grow quickly and shrink demand for oil. This fuel-switching scenario is why oil and gas companies need to figure out these business plans. Shell is betting on natural gas fueling the generators that will charge electric cars. But renewable energy could be the smarter bet, especially as energy storage technology improves. Activists complain that oil and gas companies are changing too slowly, and their criticism is legitimate from an environmentalists point of view. But from a business perspective, moving into clean energy means lower earnings, something shareholders rarely tolerate well. Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy. chris.tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinson The historic first shipment of liquefied natural gas from Texas is headed to a new market for U.S. producers in Europe. An LNG tanker named Maria Energy left Cheniere Energy's Port of Corpus Christi facility on Tuesday and is headed for Greece, the U.S. Embassy in Athens confirmed. The shipment is headed to the Revithousa LNG terminal about 25 miles west of Athens, Greece's state-owned National Natural Gas System Operator said in a statement. Known as DEFSA, the Greek gas grid operator reported that the spot cargo shipment is expected to arrive at the Revithousa LNG terminal on Dec. 29. "Natural gas is required to play a transitional role in securing Greece's energy security," DEFSA officials said in a statement. Historic Moment: Texas now an exporter of LNG The shipment marks the first U.S. shipment of LNG to Greece. It also marks the first shipment for Cheniere to the southeastern European nation. Since it first began export operations in Feb. 2016, Cheniere has shipped more than 475 cargoes of LNG to 29 nations across the globe. Greece marks the 30th nation for the Houston-based company. Cheniere's shipment from the Port of Corpus Christi is the first LNG export shipment from the Lone Star State. Corpus Christi LNG's long-term contract customers include utility company customers in Spain, Portugal, France, Australia and Indonesia but the facility can also sell spot shipments to other customers around the world. "This first cargo of LNG from Texas is yet another key inflection point in the nation's historic emergence as the largest energy producer in the world," Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge said in a statement. "Cheniere is a great partner for the Port of Corpus Christi and we are committed to helping them optimize their significant capital investment by ensuring all the necessary supporting infrastructure is in place and ready when their additional trains come online." Moving Forward: NextDecade lands state permit for Rio Grande LNG project Glover Gill found himself immersed in a productive writing spell during which the composer found inspiration in a number of odd places: a dream about an old house, a phrase uttered by a foul-mouthed family member and a doomed duckling. You know how a writing spree goes, he says about the process of composing the 14 songs on his new album, A Ponzi Scheme. They dont always come, so youre going to take advantage of them when they do. These songs controlled me, instead of vice versa. Gill originally was writing for 81/2 Souvenirs, his recently reunited Austin-based gypsy swing band. But the music arrived so fast and in such great volume that Glover ended up with two piles of sheet music. Both stacks got taller, and the second stack just became A Ponzi Scheme, he says. It grew from there organically. And while the title might imply some political connotations, Gill says its actually just a reference to a labyrinthine quality to the record, where he took little melodic themes and applied them across multiple varied compositions. I saw it as this way of cheating the listener, he says. If you sat down with the manuscript, youd see melodic contours or rhythmic contours on different pages. Hes not the first composer to cannibalize his own work. Gill also sees such repurposing as essential. I call it a style, he says, laughing. He mentions Olivier Giraud, the guitarist in 81/2 Souvenirs, who berated himself for playing a guitar solo recently that was identical to one from 20 years earlier. He was kicking himself, and I told him, Dont. Thats just a style. Style is in no short supply on A Ponzi Scheme. Gills compositions are like elusive sylvan creatures, darting in intriguing directions toward the darkness, only to resurface later. The music is light on its feet, but also quite complicated in its construction. The Tosca String Quartet with whom Glover has worked for decades as part of his Tosca Tango Orchestra plays, as well as the vocal ensemble Panoramic Voices. A cast of more than 20 ultimately brought the album to life, including producer Charlie Sexton. That group of players ranges from Houston, where Gill first started playing music, to Austin, where hes worked regularly since 1979. These days he splits his time between a home in Smithville and Houston, where hes about to play his final Tango Monday show at the Continental Club, a tradition that dates back 16 years. The breadth of players speaks to the winding path Gill has charted in a lifetime of making music. He once did quite a bit of juggling, at least from a musical perspective. He studied composition before dropping out of St. Johns, and dedicating himself more fully to punk rock with One Hand Clapping and D-Day in Austin as the 70s gave way to the 80s. By the mid-90s, though, he was consumed with the music that accompanied the tango, the Argentine dance. That music would become a defining sound in his music going forward. Hes performed with Luciano Pavarotti, and scored a Richard Linklater film. Hes worked with Alejandro Escovedo and scores of other legendary Texas types, including Sexton, whom Gill credits with taking the albums 14 pieces and making a narrative sense to them. Theres an algorithm for how many permutations you can have with 14 songs, Gill says. And I think Charlie tried most of them. He sat and physically listened to them. Hes so talented and thorough, and hes a workaholic. Gill would drive from Smithville, where he now lives, to Austin for recording sessions. Id get there at 9 in the morning, but Id have gotten a text from Charlie at 3 in the morning saying, Were just wrapping up here. If Id tried to produce this one, we wouldnt be talking right now. Cecil the Hunchback is a fine example of the way some of the pieces unfold. The tune tangos along a certain vibe for most of its three minutes, taking a sprightly little detour near the end. Glover Gill final Tango Monday When: Dance lesson begins at 7 p.m., music at 8 p.m. Monday Where: Continental Club, 3700 Main Details: free; 713-529-9899, continentalclub.com See More Collapse The actual Cecil was a duckling born on Gills property with wry tail, a curvature of the spine that, in this case, proved fatal. The piece moves through a somber space before striking an almost celebratory tone, a celebration of a hunchbacked duck who only lived a few weeks. The album opens with A Screw You, which is a phrase Gill has been using dating way back to his rock n roll days. He picked it up from his mothers half sister, who has the vocabulary of a highly educated sailor. She just talked that way, shed say, If you do so-and-so, youd be a-screwed. That was when I was a teenager, and Ive been using it ever since. The phrase has been tattooed on his arm for more than 20 years. The song had been kicking around nearly as long. It was written for 81/2 Souvenirs, but I could never quite get it off the ground, he says. So I rearranged it for this record. And Dreamhouse: Cantus Firmus also stands out, due in part to the haunting way Jon Dee Graham growls through the song like a man negotiating with ghosts. True to the title, the song sprung from a dream: It was a recurring dream I had, Gill says. Im sure youve had one, where youre in a house and it feels familiar but its not. It was the house of my godparents in Corpus from childhood, but it wasnt really that house. The dream kept haunting Gill until he finally wrote it down. It evolved further once Graham began singing it. He and that song consumed each other, he says. It sent shivers down my spine. I still cant listen to it without shivering. Amid all the brilliant performances by Gills deep cast of players, one can easily lose sight of Gills absence on piano; Kevin Lovejoy handles the instrument. Gill has for decades made his name around Houston and Austin as a pianist, keyboardist and accordionist as well as a composer. But composition has taken on a greater percentage of his creative time recently. Monday night will be his final performance after a lengthy weekly residency at the Continental Club. The Glover Gill Tango Mondays were a gift to the city: An evening that began with tango dance classes preceding a night of tango music played by Gill, whose depth of knowledge and affinity for the music runs deep. He says friends and colleagues have known about his plans to retire from performing for a while now. Joint pain in his fingers and elbows has made regular performance a struggle. Ill miss playing with people, he says, mentioning specifically Tomas Escalante, who has been singing at the Tango Monday shows for several years and sings on A Ponzi Scheme. Hes so good at it. Thats the hardest part of letting the Monday shows go. But Gill says moving away from the keys wont keep him away from music. Im looking forward to what happens next, he says. I can still wield a pencil and paper. Theres still a lot to do. andrew.dansby@chron.com Driving along the 3-mile road into the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, my wife, Kathy, and I spotted a raptor on the crossbar of a power pole about 75 yards away. Peregrine falcon! I alerted. Lets drive slowly and ease up about 20 yards from the bird so you can get a photo before it takes off. No other raptor has the distinct profile of a peregrine falcon. Its sleek, taut body held smartly upright when perched as though a soldier standing at attention; its long, pointed wings held closely against the body; its white, lightly spotted breast offset by a steel-toned blue-gray back; and its black hood with a dark bar down each side of the face like chin straps on a helmet all announce its identity as the worlds fastest-flying bird. During an aerial assault on a pigeon or duck, a peregrine will fold back its wings to form the shape of a rocket and dive toward the prey at speeds reaching 240 mph. Thats faster than a cheetah racing 70 mph or a Formula One race car speeding at 233 mph. We stopped the car to photograph the bird. But it took off before we could blink an eye and flew in a wide arc over an adjacent field, only to land on a power pole far behind us. The flight was quick because even at cruising speeds a peregrine can fly 60 mph. Peregrine falcons They live on every continent except Antarctica. Peregrines often migrate between breeding grounds in the Arctic to wintering grounds in southern South America. Those arriving in the Houston area for the winter are the tundra subspecies from the Arctic, and some may occupy Houston skyscrapers to prey on pigeons. A few representing another subspecies breed infrequently in Big Bend. Populations were decimated between 1950 and 1970 because of the deleterious effect of DDT on eggshells, causing reproductive failure. DDT was banned in 1973, and peregrine populations made a remarkable recovery, assisted by The Peregrine Fund's captive breeding program. See More Collapse The birds body is built for high speeds. A large, keel-shaped breastbone allows the attachment of more flight muscles than in other falcons, which in turn gives the bird high-powered wingbeats at four times per second for accelerated flight. A specialized respiratory system keeps the bird breathing effortlessly at high speeds, and a heart beating up to 900 times a minute keeps blood flowing into its muscles to limit fatigue. Eye structure enables binocular vision for determining varying distances to prey even a mile away while simultaneously allowing close-up vision. It would be like us watching a high-flying flock of geese and reading a newspaper at the same time. A sleek body propelled in flight by curved, swept-back wings furnishes the peregrine with aerodynamic perfection in lift, speed and maneuverability. The bird is natures masterpiece of a fighter jet. We eased the car once again near the perched peregrine. Would it fly off? Not yet. Kathy took pictures. The bird then leaned forward to fly, but Kathy snapped a profile of the mighty falcons quick takeoff. Gary Clark is the author of Book of Texas Birds, with photography by Kathy Adams Clark (Texas A&M University Press). Email him at Texasbirder@comcast.net. Chasity Sereals green crisscross leather mini-dress is so intricately crafted, youd think she was formally trained as a fashion designer. Not the case for the 29-year-old Houston native. At first glance, her garment looks as delicate as silk, but Sereal spent more than 100 hours manipulating the weighty leather into something unexpectedly feminine. She dyed the skin from its original peach color to a rich emerald green, cut it into strips, carefully wove it into a crisscross, pie-crustlike pattern. Then she carved out leather flowers, hand-dyed each purple and sponged on lighter paint to create an ombre effect. The dress is Sereals most challenging work yet and she credits an unlikely place with teaching her much of what she knows about designing clothes: YouTube. Like many millennials searching for how-to information, Sereal watched videos, from How a Dior Dress is Made to How to Make a Couture Dress, to learn technique. She also followed the YouTube videos of designers, such as Elie Saab, Dior and Chanel. She even learned hand embroidery by watching the videos of Mischka Aoki, the high-end childrens designer who has created standout looks for Blue Ivy, daughter of Beyonce and Jay-Z. Aokis childrens gowns often start at $7,000. I dont think I would be where I am without YouTube, said Sereal, who looks like she could be a model if she werent a designer. I feel like it would have taken much longer to reach this point. I probably would have figured it out, but it would have taken me way longer. Im a visual learner, and once I see it done, I pick it up fast. Many designers are educated through fashion-design programs or apprenticeships with established designers, or both. Oscar de la Renta, for example, was a talented illustrator when he landed an apprenticeship with Spains most renowned couturier, Cristobal Balenciaga. Donna Karan was born into a fashion family. Her dad was a custom tailor, her mother a model, and Karan attended the Parsons School of Design in New York and interned with Anne Klein. Even Houston designer Chloe Dao, who won Project Runway Season 2, earned a pattern-making degree from New Yorks Fashion Institute of Technology. But social-media sites such as YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram are changing how designers work. Many turn to social media for inspiration and even education, said Andrea Bonner, a professor in the fashion program at Houston Community College. You can learn anything these days, from makeup tutorials to fashion design and construction on YouTube, Bonner said. As an educator, Im still an advocate for hands-on formal training. Im not saying that you cannot make it as a successful designer if you dont have hands-on training. Many have done so, and I say if you have the drive and talent, go for it. Sereals motther, Aretha Sereal, wanted her daughter to attend college to become a doctor and even bought her a stethoscope as a girl. Chasity, however, was more interested in sketching, a hobby she picked up from her father, Ronald Sereal, a hair stylist who died from a heart attack when Chasity was just 12. Chasity was a daddys girl, and his death really effected her, Aretha said. She threw herself into sketching. I knew she had some talent, and I bought her a sewing machine, then I bought her a mannequin. She used glue a lot at first, then she started stitching up things and kept getting better. When she started sketching her classmates prom dresses and homecoming dresses, I knew she was serious. Chasitys desire to explore her fashion talent stalled when she became pregnant at age 19 after graduating from Humble High School. (Her daughter, Kirstyn, is now 9. She also has a 4-year-old daughter, Kendall, with longtime beau Tirrell Jenkins. ) I was very disappointed and hurt, her mother said. Life is hard enough when youre young, but I didnt want to make her a prisoner of being a mom, and shes a great mom. I think having a child motivated her to step up her game and get focused. Even so, her mother advised Chasity to have a plan B, just in case the fashion thing didnt work out. Chasity didnt even know how to sew. (She would learn from YouTube, of course.) I dont want a plan B, so plan A will have to work, Chasity said at the time. Chasity attended Lone Star Community College-Kingwood for two years, then quit. She wanted to enroll in the fashion program at the Art Institute of Houston but could not afford the tuition. Her only option was to teach herself. To pay the bills, she worked in retail and at day-care centers, but she never kept a job more than a year. Initially, Chasity was inspired by the cartoonish costumes worn by Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry. Shed spray-paint fabric and superglue tulle and mirrors to a bodice. She even made a leotard out of bubblegum and marshmallows. She would practice what she saw on YouTube until she got the flow of it. She learned how to drape fabric, add bra cups and ultimately created over-the-top gowns for proms and weddings that people would actually want to buy. Chasity started posting her designs on social media with hashtags, which drew the attention of Houston teens in search of dresses for prom. Thats when girls started doing screen shots of my designs and sending them to their friends, she said. When the seniors would go to prom, then the juniors would be looking at their dresses and wanting to know who made them. Thats how it took off. In 2015, Chasity presented her formalwear at New York Fashion Week and again in 2017, but she learned that for many emerging designers, a New York fashion show doesnt always translate into sales. I had this idea that when I went to New York Fashion Week that my designs would take off and all of these people would be buying and wearing my stuff, but thats not the reality, she said. The reality is you pay money ($1,500-$5,000) to just be part of a show. Because you are an emerging designer, youre not going draw the celebrities and big names to your show. So have a fashion show to say that you showed in New York, and youre out a lot of money. It was a hard lesson learned for me. Im all about hard lessons because I learn from them. By 2016, she had a Facebook and Instagram following and more than 32 prom clients who wanted something original that they wouldnt see their peers wearing. Today, Chasitys growing clientele includes brides such as Krissy Myles, of Dallas, who hired Chasity to create her wedding gown after seeing her designs on Facebook. I spoke with several designers, but Chasity outshined them all, Myles said. I wanted a blinging dress with feathers at the bottom and a sexy back with jewels cascading down. She loved my vision and said she had the perfect fabric. Her dresses have a fairy-tale, princess quality featuring a mix of lace, chiffon with dramatic trains and other accents. Her designs start at $1,000 for a prom dress to $3,000 for a wedding gown, depending on fabric selections. (The green leather mini-dress embellished with purple ombre flowers would be too hard to let go, she said. ) For their first meeting, Myles drove from Dallas to meet Chasity at High Fashion fabric store on Elgin. They had four more meetings, including fittings, at Chasitys studio in Houston, and the gown was ready three weeks early. Chasity even attended Myles wedding in Dallas armed with her sewing kit for any last-minute alterations. I felt beautiful and happy, but everyone wanted a photo of the dress. I honestly dont think they cared about me, they just wanted a photo of the dress, Myles said, laughing. Chasity continues to rely on YouTube, having recently mastered the intricate embroidery technique called tambour beading, in which a small hook needle is used to attach beads to fabric. She watched videos a dozens times before getting it right. I cant let something defeat me, Chasity said. I think thats why I keep trying until I get it. At her studio, she plays the Dior and I video, another YouTube find. The documentary about the Christian Dior fashion house helps her to imagine shes working as a couturier in Paris. She dives into her work with intensity, taking breaks to see her daughter, Kirstyn, off to school and care for the younger child, who is still at home. Chasity, who is African American, recently presented her first ready-to-wear collection at Runway Houston in September. She called the collection Freedom and used an assortment of African ankara prints to create looks inspired by black history. The finale dress was a dramatic black gown made with lace, floral appliques and tulle. It was designed with the Queen Mother character (played by Angela Bassett) from the film Black Panther in mind. I want all women to feel like a queen, she said. joy.sewing@chron.com Twenty years ago I began my career as a professor at Rice University. I hired a company called AV/Tech to install video cameras in my behavioral lab, and Ben Waserman, the owner, showed up to install them. Ben and I struck up a conversation that would turn into a long friendship. One thing that drew us together was our desire to understand discrimination. This was the topic I did (and continue to do) my research on as a professor of psychology and management, and Ben, as I would learn, was a Holocaust survivor. Before moving to the U.S. and serving in the Air Force during the Korean War, he was born in Berlin, and he spent two years in a German concentration camp as a teenager. He lost several family members for no other reason than they were Jewish. Ben was the first person I had met who had survived the Holocaust. His positive outlook and easy sense of humor were stunning to me. He didn't always like to talk about his experiences, but he had a change of heart when Holocaust deniers started to emerge. I invited him to speak at Rice about what he had seen and what had happened to him. It was chilling, eye-opening. We all became aware of how special Ben is and how intensely horrible a culture of hatred can become. No one is born with hate. It is a learned process, and it is easily taught, but we know it has a deep connection with fear. We hate someone because we are afraid they will harm us or our loved ones. We hate someone because they perform deeds that offend our beliefs. But Ben's experience shows us that hate must be actively resisted and that our leaders must lead by example. This is a conversation I had with Ben earlier this year. Q: What was it like to live as a Jew in Berlin while Hitler ruled Germany? A: When I was very young, I did not know what was going on, but I knew that we were not liked. German kids wouldn't play with me, and we were never invited to Germans' homes. Hitler was running a very successful propaganda machine. He had all books burned by authors who did not agree with his philosophy. He took over all radio stations so Germans could only listen to his type of news propaganda. He even confiscated all art that he considered vulgar. Textbooks taught that Jews were inferior and that Germany and Germans were superior. There were posters everywhere telling Germans not to buy from Jewish businesses and that showed Jews to look like cheats with big noses. We could not go to public parks, and we could not own pets. Germans were warned not to work for Jewish businesses, and intermarriage was against the law. Jews could not go to universities, could not work for the government nor practice law. The first real act of terror I saw was in 1938, when German thugs with the protection of the police and the SS broke into Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues and schools. What they didn't steal they destroyed and set on fire. The event was called Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. Many Jews who resisted were either killed or sent to Dachau concentration camp. My father lost his business, and we lost our home. Q: Why didn't the Jews get out of Germany and move to another country? A: That is a good question. In those days, it was difficult to get the necessary papers to leave, but most of all, most countries had very strict immigration quotas and sponsorship requirements to enter. My parents tried for years to come to the U.S., but were refused because my father did not meet the necessary entrance requirements Q: Did you ever experience any personal violence before you went to the camp? A: There were many. I remember three in particular. In one, a German officer hit my father in the face in front of us so hard that my father fell to the ground, just because he didn't give the Nazi salute when the flag went by during a parade. On another occasion, a German man beat the hell out of me on the street all the while calling me "a dirty Jew." But the most memorable was when a German guard hit my mother and pushed her to the ground when she was eight months pregnant, just because she wanted to see my father after he was arrested and taken to a holding center. I was just 10 at the time, but I really wanted to kill him and all the Germans. Q: What happened after that? A: My father was released, but was rearrested a few months later and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was murdered. My uncle was shot in Gross Rosen, and my aunt and cousin perished in the Auschwitz gas chambers. My mother and I knew we would be next, so we packed a few things, removed our Jewish star, which we had to wear, and together with my baby brother moved to another part of town. Berlin was being bombed by the Allied air forces almost every night, and we figured with all this chaos they would forget about us. But the Gestapo found us after about a year and sent us to Theresienstadt concentration camp. It was a former Czech garrison built for about 8,000 soldiers. When we arrived, there were 58,000 prisoners, all in a space built for 8,000. There was no indoor plumbing, no medical facilities, no heat or air-conditioning. The camp was primarily a transport point to the extermination camps. Hitler called our camp a model camp and even invited the Red Cross to visit. We were there two years, and it was pretty miserable. However, we made some good friends, which was a blessing. One of them worked in the camp bakery, and he got me a job there that literally saved my life, because I was so undernourished then. He and his brother and one other formed a friendship that lasted until two of them passed away a few years ago. One is still in touch with me every holiday and birthday. After two years there, we were liberated by the Russian army, and after a brief quarantine, sent to a displaced persons camp in the American zone. We were there a year while I received some schooling and prepared for entry to America. We arrived in New York in 1946, then moved to Philadelphia, where my mother and I found jobs and I and my brother enrolled in school. We were not exactly welcomed, because we were immigrants and considered "greeners," a nickname for people who don't know anything. We were fast learners. I graduated high school and joined the Air Force. Everyone warned me that I would experience anti-Semitism there. So I never advertised that I was Jewish, but I didn't hide it, either. I went to synagogue on all the high holidays and sometimes on Saturdays, but I had very little trouble. I learned all I could and was very good at my job and that earned me a lot of respect and quick promotions. I spent two tours overseas, one in Korea during the war in 1952. I flew 75 combat missions and was lucky never to be hurt. When I returned, I was stationed in Savannah, Georgia. This was late 1952, before the Civil Rights Acts went into effect. I was appalled at the discriminatory activities toward the black population. The separate water fountains and bathrooms and the restaurants that were off-limits to blacks and all the open hostilities reminded me of Hitler's Germany. I was later transferred to Louisiana, which wasn't much better. I took all the flying time I could get to get away, and in 1954 took my discharge to go to college. I went to New York and from there I applied to numerous universities. They all turned me down because I did not have enough high school credit. The exception was the University of Houston. They told me that if I passed the entrance exam, I was in. I did. Houston had a lot of discrimination, too. I still remember the signs in restaurants: "We don't serve Negroes or Mexicans." Well, I didn't eat there either, especially since I had a Latina girlfriend who later became my wife. After college, I worked as an audio engineer for a few years and then went into business for myself. Having served in the military I knew how to run a tight ship. I never cared where a person came from as long as he did quality work, respected everyone and made a good appearance. Bettmann / CORBIS / Bettmann Archive / Getty Images One of the first people I hired was a fellow who had just come from Australia and had a strong Australian accent. I never knew that he originally had come from Germany. His father was a German officer killed during the war. He was born a year before the war ended and he talked about a Jewish couple who after the war helped him and his mother. He had no objections to working for me, and I felt the same. Even though we never became close friends, I respected him, and he respected me. He worked for me for about 25 years and was one of the best technicians I had. I made it a point never to discriminate, and I made it a rule that I would not tolerate any discriminatory remarks or action in my company. I had one fellow who constantly let everyone know he did not like Mexicans, and I warned him repeatedly. One day he told me I ran the company like a concentration camp, and that did it. I fired him on the spot. On another occasion I hired a fellow from Africa. He worked under my senior technician, who told me that the employee mentioned that he didn't like Jews. My senior tech asked him why, and his answer was nobody likes Jews. He had never known a Jew and didn't know I was Jewish. My senior tech told him to keep his personal opinions to himself. One day, a gentleman and lady came into my showroom. He was obviously Middle Eastern, and she was his interpreter. The VCR had just come out, and he wanted to purchase a large number of units and movies to take home. I noticed that he kept looking at my business card and then at me, and I knew what was next. He said something to the interpreter, and she asked if I was Jewish, then she said they were sorry, but he didn't want to do business with me. Well, I told her to tell him that I did not want to do business with him, either. Q: How can we prevent discriminatory behavior in the American workplace? A: It has to do with company policy. First, we establish what kind of company we want to be. Do we really want to give everyone equal opportunity, do we want to give everyone respect, do we want tolerance and cooperation, do we want a good appearance and whatever other quality we as a business need to succeed? Then management has to lead by example and show that they practice what they preach. If you want respect, you give respect. Never go back on your word and give praise when it is deserved. Only reprimand in private and solve the problem if one exists. It is like raising children. You lead by example. A country is the same as a corporation. The character of its leaders is reflected in the population. If the government preaches hate, there will be hate, and Germany was a perfect example. Q: With all you have been through, how do you maintain such an upbeat attitude? A: I have my dark moments when I feel sorry for myself. But then I look at my life and my beautiful children and grandchildren, a comfortable home, a nice car, good friends, 63-year marriage to the same beautiful woman, a comfortable retirement from a successful business, many years of good health, and I say, How lucky and blessed can one get? And I am thankful. Mikki Hebl is the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Chair of Psychology in the Department of Psychological Sciences and Professor of Management in the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. Want to write for Gray Matters? Email Allyn West. Get the Gray Matters newsletter. More records for both wet and dry weather are being set around the globe, often with disastrous consequences for the people facing such extremes, according to a study published Wednesday that offered new evidence of climate changes effects in the here and now. Extreme rainfall, and the extreme lack of it, affects untold numbers of people, taxing economies, disrupting food production, creating unrest and prompting migrations. So, factors that push regions of the world to exceptional levels of flooding and drought can shape the fate of nations. Climate change will likely continue to alter the occurrence of record-breaking wet and dry months in the future, the study predicts, with severe consequences for agricultural production and food security. Heavy rainfall events, with severe flooding, are occurring more often in the central and Eastern United States, Northern Europe and northern Asia. The number of months with record-high rainfall increased in the central and Eastern United States by more than 25 percent between 1980 and 2013. HYPER HURRICANES: Warm waters fueled Hurricane Michael's sudden strengthening, and that fits a recent pattern In those regions, intense rainfall from hurricanes can be ruinously costly. Munich Re, the reinsurance giant, said that the 2018 hurricane season caused $51 billion in losses in the United States, well over the long-term annual average of $34 billion. In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria contributed to a total of $306 billion in damage from extreme weather events in the United States. Parts of Africa, on the other hand, are experiencing more months with a pronounced lack of rain. The number of record-setting dry months increased by nearly 50 percent in sub-Saharan Africa during the study period. The Washington Post Jascha Lehmann, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and lead author of the study, compared extreme weather events to a high roll of a die. On average, one out of six times you get a six, he said. But by injecting huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, humankind has loaded the dice. In many regions, we throw sixes much more often with severe impacts for society and the environment. While much climate research relies on complex models to make projections, this new work interprets already-observed monthly rainfall data from 50,000 weather stations around the world. Thats not to say models are not good, Lehmann said in an interview, but his observational data fits what we expect from physics and what models also show. Climate models have long predicted that because of the greenhouse gases human activity has pumped into the atmosphere and the warming that results, the worlds wet regions are likely to grow wetter. Warmer air causes greater evaporation from oceans and waterways, and warmer air can hold more moisture. There is also evidence that changes in atmospheric circulation in summer have caused some weather systems to stall. The combination of such factors can lead to torrential rains like those that inundated the Houston area during Hurricane Harvey last year, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, during the floods of 2016. Regions that tend to be dry, by contrast, are expected to grow even more parched as higher temperatures dry the soil and air. Climate change drives both wet and dry extremes, Lehmann said. To conduct the study, which appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Lehmanns team searched the databases of an authoritative repository of rainfall measurement, the Global Precipitation Climatology Center in Germany. Given natural weather variability, some extreme weather events were to be expected, so the researchers tried to determine how many events would have occurred without the influence of global warming. The researchers determined that one-third of the record-dry months recorded in the African regions under study would not have occurred without the influence of climate change. The findings dovetail with another report Monday that detailed the connections between climate change and recent extreme weather events. That report, which was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, presented 17 peer-reviewed analyses of weather events around the world. The researchers evaluated heat waves, droughts, flooding and other phenomena and determined, for example, that marine heat waves off the coast of Australia in 2017 and 2018 would have been virtually impossible without climate change. The report said that climate change made last years drought in the northern Great Plains of the United States and a pounding six-day monsoon in northeast Bangladesh far more likely. Out of 146 research findings in the series of papers, only about 30 percent did not find a substantial link between an extreme event and climate change. Stephanie C. Herring, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and an author of the report, said that, over the years, the attribution work has helped to establish the present-day effects of climate change. Were taking out that factor of climate change might impact us someday, she said. Climate change is impacting us now. The message of the studies is painfully clear, said Heidi Cullen, a climate scientist with Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Burning fossil fuels is making our weather worse right now, with greater likelihood of deadly heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods, she said. And the more we burn coal, oil and gas, the worse it will get. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez is scheduled to visit Houston on Friday, where he will tour parts of the city with Mayor Sylvester Turner and assess whether to hold the partys national convention here in 2020. Perez and a group of aides touched down Thursday in the Bayou City and were set to spend Friday taking in the Toyota Center and George R. Brown Convention Center, Houstons proposed Democratic National Convention sites, among other parts of the city. Perezs trip to Houston is his last of the three finalist cities, following visits to Miami and Milwaukee this month. The committee is likely to decide on a city in the first quarter of 2019, Perez said, well before the convention takes place July 13-16, 2020. Though Perez remained tight-lipped about which location may have the edge, the political calculus appeared to shift in Houstons favor last month when Texas Democrats arguably put the state in play for the 2020 election. Though Republicans once again swept statewide offices, Democrats grew their ranks in both chambers of the Texas Legislature and lost a handful of statewide races by single digits including Democrat Beto ORourkes defeat by fewer than three percentage points against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. President Donald Trump won Texas by nine points in 2016. Perez played down how much political calculations would factor into the DNCs decision, though he said the point comes up often. I understand that argument and I am confident I will hear it from all three cities, and I appreciate it. I don't minimize that, Perez said. But what's going to help us win every state, first and foremost, is going to be making sure we are organizing in every zip code in that state. More important than the electoral map, Perez said, are the citys facilities, transportation, hotels and stakeholders who can raise the private money needed to fund the convention. Turner, while actively courting the DNC, has made the case that Houston checks each of those boxes. In June, soon after cities submitted their bids, Turner visited the committees headquarters in Washington, D.C., then hosted roughly 20 DNC staffers sent to Houston in August to make detailed inquiries about the citys viability. Since June, Perez who passed along his cellphone number to each finalist citys mayor has talked fairly regularly with Turner, he said. The chairman does not seem to have especially close ties to Houston, though he recalled working often with former Mayor Annise Parker while serving as President Barack Obamas labor secretary. Houston was not the only Texas city linked this year to a possible national political convention. In May, San Antonio officials decided against making a play for the Republican National Convention, hesitating in particular over the cost of putting on the event. Some estimates said private interests would need to come up with more than $60 million, on top of $6 million in public funds, to pay for the convention. That does not appear to be a concern in Houston, where Turner has assembled a committee of deep-pocketed business executives and philanthropists, including billionaire Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, Astros owner Jim Crane and several others. I can personally guarantee the DNC and its constituents will experience a level of hospitality from our Toyota Center staff and city personnel that will be unmatched anywhere in the United States, Fertitta said in a June statement as the city announced its bid. As Perez considers the viability of each city, numerous Democrats are said to be preparing or exploring presidential runs, including ORourke and former San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, who announced Tuesday he has launched an exploratory committee. In a several-hundred-page pitch to the DNC, Houston officials pointed to the citys history of hosting major events, including the 2017 Super Bowl, and its large hotel capacity near the proposed convention site. The city also touted its two international airports and highly diverse population, something Perez said the party wants to showcase, wherever it holds its convention. Miami and Milwaukee remain strong contenders, Perez said, having put forth incredibly impressive proposals along with Houston. Officials from Miami-Dade County and the cities of Miami and Miami Beach are making a coordinated push for the convention, and Perez told the Miami Herald he considered the area viable for its diversity, experience hosting large events and a renovated convention center. All three cities bring a lot to the table, Perez said. They're different. It's apples, oranges and bananas, and I like apples, oranges and bananas. Perez said he has told city officials that they are all serious contenders, and that the DNC would not waste your time if we weren't serious. In August, Politico reported that Houston had nudged ahead in the early running due to the citys hotel capacity, with Milwaukee making a strong case with its political importance. Though Wisconsin helped Trump win the presidency, last month Democrat Tony Evers defeated Republican Gov. Scott Walker, and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin recorded a 10-percentage point win over her Republican challenger. Texas Democrats, like Turner, have pushed for the convention, seeking to ride momentum from last months midterm elections and shift the national partys focus here years earlier than expected. It would mean a lot to the party and a lot to Texas, and really sort of cement it as the future of the Democratic Party, said Crystal Perkins, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. In a statement, the Harris County Democratic Party contended that if the Democratic presidential ticket is to win Texas 38 electoral votes in 2020, Harris County will be ground zero in that fight. Voters elected Democrats to every county-wide office in November. There's no better place to illustrate the excitement and diversity of the Democratic party than having the 2020 Democratic National Convention in the most diverse city in the nation, the party said in a statement. Turner, who has said he wants to bid on hosting the 2024 Republican National Convention, as well, has made a point of noting that former president George H. W. Bush supported the 2020 convention bid. Bush, who died Nov. 30 at 94, accepted the Republican Party presidential nomination at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston. Our facilities & hotels are world class, but it's really our people the spirit of our fellow Houstonians that makes the difference, Bush wrote in a letter to Turner. No one works harder, no one is friendlier or more welcoming. jasper.scherer@chron.com twitter.com/jaspscherer Lawyers for Rice University professor Michael Deem are denying his involvement in the controversial research that is said to have produced the worlds first genetically edited babies. The Associated Press, which broke the story Nov. 26, reported that Deem worked with Chinas He Jiankui on the project and quoted him about the parental consent given and how the editing of the embryos aims to work like a vaccine to prevent the acquisition of the AIDS virus once the babies are older. Michael does not do human research and he did not do human research on this project, says the statement issued Thursday by Houston lawyers David Gerger and Matt Hennessy. The statement notes that Deem was Hes Ph.D. adviser a decade ago in a field He received his Rice doctorate in biophysics in 2010 that did not involve human research. It added that they have stayed in touch since then and that Michael even commented on Jiankuis papers. The experiment, conducted in China, triggered global outrage because of concerns the DNA changes would be passed to future generations and could cause harm. It is unpublished and unverified, though He has said a manuscript is being prepared for publication and most experts appear to think the work was carried out. Rice is currently investigating Deems involvement in the work, of which it says it had no knowledge. In a statement at the time, the university said the research raises troubling scientific, legal and ethical questions. Regardless of where it was conducted, this work as described in press reports, violates scientific conduct guidelines and is inconsistent with ethical norms of the scientific community and Rice University, according to the statement released Nov. 26. A Rice spokesman declined to comment on the lawyers statement Thursday. He said Rice will not make any further comment while its investigation is ongoing. Deem is listed on the Rice website as the John W. Cox Professor of Biochemical and Genetic Engineering and Professor, Physics and Astronomy. He is also listed as the founding director of the Program in Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology. Deem has not responded to a Houston Chronicle email and phone call. APs director of media relations told the Chronicle Thursday night the news agency stands by its story. In the original AP story, He Jiankui said he altered embryos of seven couples getting fertility treatment, which resulted in the delivery of twins in early November. He said the goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to bestow a new trait the ability to resist future infection with HIV/AIDS, the AP story said. According to the story, Deem said he was present in China when potential participants gave their consent and that he absolutely thinks they were able to understand the risks. Deem called one experts questioning of whether the claim could be a hoax ridiculous. Of course the work occurred, AP quoted Deem as saying. I met the parents. I was there for the informed consent of the parents. Asked to square the seeming discrepancy, Hennessy said the statement is all Deems lawyers want to say for now. AP also quoted Deem saying he worked with He on vaccine research at Rice and considers the gene editing employed in the project similar to a vaccine. That might be a laymans way of describing it, Deem said. Deem holds what he called a small stake in Hes two companies and is on the scientific advisory boards of both, AP reported. Genomic editing is one of sciences most cutting-edge technologies, thanks to recent advances. A new tool makes it possible to operate on DNA to supply a needed gene or disable one thats a cause of problems. The tool has been used only recently to treat deadly diseases in adults, when the changes are confined to that person. The editing of sperm, eggs or embryos is not allowed in the United States, except for lab research, because those changes can be inherited. The Rice spokesman suggested the universitys investigation likely will take considerable time. A flow chart of the research misconduct investigation process on Rices website says the research integrity officer has up to 60 days to conduct an inquiry and prepare a report, which would then be submitted to the provost, who has 30 days to determine whether a case proceeds to an investigation. If it does, a specially appointed panel will conduct the investigation and prepare a report, which the employee in question would have 30 days to comment upon. The panels final report, incorporating the comments, would be given to the provost, who will determine whether administrative or disciplinary action is appropriate, Rices guidelines state. todd.ackerman@chron.com twitter.com/chronmed A section of a buried, centuries-old wall footing, once part of a protective perimeter surrounding Mission Concepcion, was hit by heavy equipment last week during construction of a controversial apartment complex next to the historic mission. One person close to the project, which will incorporate part of a 1920s seminary campus into the new complex, said the damage to the fragile, 1700s footing of the missions north wall was substantial. But city officials said only an upper layer of the walls foundation was revealed and was not structurally compromised. A portion of Mission Concepcions original wall was exposed, through grading, during construction for the project at St. Johns Seminary last week, Ximena Copa-Wiggins, public relations manager with the citys Office of Historic Preservation, said in a statement. As part of this project, an archaeologist (contracted by developer) was required to be on-site, monitoring work, and was present at the time of the incident. All the work in the area has stopped until a mitigation plan is submitted to and approved by the state, since they are working under the Antiquities Code. It is important to note that the full length of the limestone footing remains intact, she added. The Texas Historical Commission, which issues permits under the code, referred questions about the incident to the city. The Archdiocese of San Antonio, which owns the 12.5-acre seminary site next to the mission, has a long-term lease with local builder 210 Development Group for the 228-unit complex. The development has been hailed as a way to save and reuse at least five of the 14 buildings of the seminary, which operated from 1920 to 1970 but has since fallen into disrepair. Two of the preserved structures will be restored by the archdiocese. Three others will be part of the apartment complex. But the project has been opposed by residents who do not want apartments by the mission, which includes the nations oldest unrestored stone church, dedicated in 1755. 210 Development also took criticism when seeking a variance last year on height limits related to viewshed restrictions for the mission. According to articles published last year, the apartment complexs nine buildings, standing up to three stories tall with sloped roofs, will exceed height restrictions by up to 11 feet. The variances were approved by the citys Historic and Design Review Commission and Board of Adjustment. The height limits are part of the Mission Protection Overlay, a buffer zone created by the city in 2014 to control growth around San Antonios Spanish colonial missions. In 2015, the missions, including the state-owned Alamo, or Mission San Antonio de Valero, were inscribed as the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas. Father David Garcia said last weeks incident was related to construction of a road or driveway that will have to be realigned or built with a structural feature to protect the wall footing. He did not know details of how it occurred, or how large an area was affected. Primarily, what I understand is that they were working on this road or driveway when they hit the wall and they stopped work right away, he said. If they continue to do it at that spot, theyre going to have to do something to protect that wall. Garcia said he believes very little damage, if that, occurred to the underground wall footing and that it was purely an accident. He said the archdiocese wants to ensure that archaeological and historical assets are preserved. Its a very sensitive site, Garcia said. We want to do everything we can to respect it. Calls to 210 Development and NRP Contractors, the construction firm on the site, were not returned. Aside from being one of San Antonios most heavily visited missions today, Concepcion also was the focal point of the Battle of Concepcion on Oct. 28, 1835, that marked the beginning of hostilities in San Antonio during the Texas Revolution, setting the stage for the siege and battle of the Alamo in 1836. Brady Alexander, a leader of the Alliance for San Antonio Missions community group who has voiced concerns about the apartments, said he did not understand why the subterranean wall footing was exposed, since maps document locations of the missions original walls. If this were the Alamo, I dont think this would happen, he said. Alexander said the incident underscores the need to limit excavation at the site, to avoid digging up fragile mission architectural features or even human remains associated with burials of Native American or Spanish mission inhabitants. He also worries that the apartments and other construction around the missions will someday be viewed as misguided, similar to development downtown in the late 1800s and early 1900s around the Alamo church one of only two buildings of the Mission de Valero that remain standing. An Alamo master plan now seeks to reclaim a part of the historic footprint of that mission and battle site, by closing streets to traffic, relocating amusement businesses that lease space in Alamo Plaza and creating an outdoor interpretive area in the plaza. I hope they dont repeat the same mistake in the future that theyre now trying to undo at the Alamo, Alexander added. Scott Huddleston 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. | shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA Theres a scene in the musical Annie where Daddy Warbucks, after reading from a script handed to him for a radio show sponsored by Iodent toothpaste, storms out of the studio screaming, Did I just do a commercial? Indeed, he did. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer may have felt the same way Tuesday after being waylaid by lights and cameras in President Donald Trumps impromptu White House studio as he put them on the spot before a television audience to negotiate a deal to build his wall on the Mexican border. Trump said he will reject a spending plan designed to avoid a government shutdown if Congress doesnt include $5 billion for the wall in its 2019 appropriations. Just to be clear, thats the U.S. Congress not Mexicos, for anybody confused by fond memories of Trumps campaign promise to have Mexico foot the bill. Unprepared for the confrontation, the top Democrats in the House and Senate did exactly what Trump expected them to do: provide the context for him to stand up for America and declare, Ill tell you what: I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck. It was another reality show moment in a presidency filled with similar episodes. It might not have played well with all audiences, but it was just what the presidents fans wanted to see: their man shouting down the Democrats and the Democrats, caught off guard, trying not to appear to be giving in. I dont think we should have a debate in front of the press on this, begged Pelosi. Relishing the moment, Trump goaded the House minority leader. Nancys in a situation where its not easy for her to talk right now, he said, clearly alluding to Pelosis counting votes to regain her post as speaker of the House. Enough of the theatrics! With a government shutdown hanging in the balance, its time to, as Trump likes to put it, make a deal. Both sides agree they want border security. Both agree that upgrading some existing fencing and perhaps adding more in other areas should occur. Theyre not even that far apart on how much to spend on upgrades: Trump wants $5 billion next year; the Democrats are offering $1.3 billion. The biggest obstacle to reducing that gap is politics, but its not the only one. Trumps campaign promise was to build a 1,000-mile wall that experts say could cost $25 billion. For you locals, thats about the cost of two Ike Dikes. No one knows the true cost because the president has never been specific about the walls dimensions and location. Democrats say the wall will cost $70 billion. Taxpayers need to know exactly what they are being asked to pay for if any deal is to be made. If Trump is determined to get the wall, Democrats should use that advantage to address the fate of the Dreamers. The nearly 700,000 children brought to this country illegally by their parents deserve an opportunity to live productive lives in the only country many of them have ever known. Pelosi says the wall money and the dreamers are two different subjects, but the Democrats shouldnt throw away this opportunity. Even as he ordered an end to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Trump urged Congress to pass a new law to protect the Dreamers. He can prove he still feels that way by agreeing to make DACAs revival part of his offer to fund additional border security measures. The millions of other mothers, fathers and children who have lived without papers in the United States for years need a path to legal residency, too, and Trump needs to stop making outrageous claims to justify his insistence that some type of gigantic barrier on the southern border is necessary. His claim that a border wall would prevent illegal drugs from pouring into this country is disingenuous. Trumps own Department of Homeland Security says most illegal drugs are entering the country at established border checkpoints. Similarly, Trumps claim that immigrants will bring infectious diseases into the United States has been debunked by medical researchers. Congress and the president need to push past brinkmanship politics and fund government to avoid a shutdown. If they can clear that hurdle and begin the new year with a commitment to work together they may find success in other areas. Immigration reform beyond border security measures isnt an unreasonable goal. The bipartisan Gang of Eight bill proposed in 2013 addressed the plight of the 11 million undocumented residents of this country. Reviewing that legislation would be a good place to start a new discussion, but that cant happen without leadership more focused on results than hosting a reality show. Shortly after the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was signed Nov. 30, President Trump threatened to formally terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Such action, the timing of which is uncertain but could be almost immediate, would give members of Congress on both sides of the aisle a stark choice: Promptly approve USMCA or face North American trade subject only to World Trade Organization tariffs without governing rules on customs, investment and other obligations set out in NAFTA and in more modern form in USMCA. Congress should act responsibly and quickly approve USMCA, and the president should defer formal termination of NAFTA. While some members of Congress have criticized USMCA for the weakness of its labor and environmental provisions (Democrats) and for lack of robust protections for foreign investors and burdensome rules of origin for automobiles (Republicans), few have suggested that the region would be better off without either the USMCA or NAFTA. The danger of losing duty-free trade benefits that exist under both treaties is particularly great for Texas, where total goods and services trade with Mexico reached $187 billion in 2017 more than for any other state. Should the president move forward with denunciation of NAFTA, he would be playing hardball with Congress and the business community. But the ploy would be beneficial to the United States and to Texas if it convinces Congress to approve USMCA promptly. Hopefully, the Texas congressional delegation will lead the approval efforts. Under the Trade Promotion Authority granted to the president, several legally required procedural steps must be completed before the administration can ask Congress for USMCA approval. These include transmission of the final signed text and draft implementing legislation to Congress and the completion of a study of the probable economic effects of USMCA on the United States by the U.S. International Trade Commission. These steps are subject to various timetables but are not likely to be completed until mid-March. Once the agreement is sent to Congress, it has 90 session days to either approve or reject it; no changes may be made. Typically, a president does not send a trade agreement to Congress unless he is reasonably sure he has the necessary majority in both the House and Senate. Under NAFTA, any party may withdraw six months after it provides a written notice. Should the president give formal notice of U.S. intent to withdraw, termination would probably not be automatic. Rather, the president would need to take further action, presumably by notice to Canada and Mexico, to make it effective. Thus, at any time after six months, the president could choose what he believed to be the most opportune moment to put maximum pressure on Congress and withdraw. Alternatively, the president could wait to trigger the six-month notice period until the administration is prepared to send USMCA to Congress. But what would happen if Congress calls Trumps bluff and refuses to pass the USMCA? It is unclear whether a president has authority under the Constitution to terminate NAFTA without congressional assent, and whether the action would also result in the immediate increase in tariffs on inter-North American Trade from zero under NAFTA to WTO tariff levels. With WTO tariffs on the average between 3.5 and 4.5 percent for the United States and Canada and around 7 percent for Mexico. Rates on certain specific goods are much higher. For example, Mexicos non-preferential WTO tariffs on imports of corn and pork are 20 percent, compared to 0 percent under NAFTA and USMCA. An increase in tariffs would have an immediate and deleterious effect on regional trade and regional supply chains, both in Texas and elsewhere. Should action by the president to withdraw from NAFTA be finalized, it could trigger a severe adverse congressional reaction, litigation and even a constitutional crisis Under the best of circumstances such action would create massive uncertainty among enterprises trading within North America and seriously jeopardize investment and employment. The crisis would also be welcomed by Americas economic adversaries worldwide, particularly China. Luckily, Trump possesses a powerful but high-risk tool to encourage Congress to promptly approve the USMCA. He could always credibly threaten to terminate NAFTA by giving formal notice, yet refrain from pulling the trigger on actual withdrawal and maintain control over the precise timing of any final action. This would help ensure that his crowning achievement in the trade field will not die in Congress or be delayed indefinitely. Whether or not one approves of the brinkmanship this approach represents, it may be the best way to push through a much-needed modernization of NAFTA. Gantz is the Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy. Friday, December 14, 2018 at 12:04PM Embed from Getty Images Apple has plans to further expand its operations in Austin, Texaswith it comes plans to invest US$1 billion to build a new campus in North Austin. The 133-acre campus will accommodate an initial addition of 5,000 employees but with the capacity to accommodate up to 15,000making Apple the largest private employer in Austin. Apple will be creating new jobs in the area with functions ranging from engineering, R&D, operations, sales, customer support, to finance. At 6,200 people, Austin is already considered to have the largest population of Apple employees outside of Cupertino. The company added 6,000 jobs in the US this year and now employs 90,000 people across America. Apple is on track to meet its goal of creating 20,000 jobs in the US by 2023. Apple plans to grow its employee base in regions across the US over the next three years, expanding to over 1,000 employees in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City each, and adding hundreds of new jobs in Pittsburgh, New York, Boulder, Boston, and Portland, Oregon. The company also plans to invest US$10 billion in US data centers over the next five years. The data centers in North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada are currently being expanded. The civil rights community breathed a sigh of relief last month when President Donald Trump finally parted ways with Jeff Sessions, his long-suffering attorney general. Even among Republican, Sessions was infamous for his commitment to outdated, draconian policies, from pursuing a new war on marijuana to doubling down on private prisons. And with so many conservatives now supporting criminal justice reform, almost anyone would be an improvement. Except, perhaps, William Barr. Trumps nominee to succeed Sessions, Barr appears to share most of Sessions most extreme views, having defended the former attorney generals legacy and opposed any efforts to build a fairer justice system. That places him well outside the mainstream consensus on crime and incarceration and the Senate should question him vigorously on it. Republicans claim to support bipartisan criminal justice reform. Now is the time to prove it. Even with recent declines, the United States remains the worlds leading incarcerator, holding 5 percent of the worlds population but nearly 25 percent of the worlds prisoners. The overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats are now working to change that by rethinking who we incarcerate and why, while also preserving public safety. Just this month, even President Trump joined in by publicly endorsing the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at providing reentry services and cutting federal drug sentences. According to co-sponsor U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, 75 Senators including 17 Republicans are ready to vote for it. Very few policymakers oppose this bipartisan movement to end mass incarceration. Until recently, Jeff Sessions was one of them. As attorney general, Sessions went out of his way to make drug sentences more punitive, rolled back efforts to rein in unconstitutional policing, and schemed to prosecute people for selling marijuana even in states where its legal. Sessions also broke with Trump to oppose the First Step Act, arguing, incorrectly, that any attempt to back off excessively punitive drug sentences would jeopardize public safety. With Sessions gone, the bill and further efforts to reform the nations criminal justice system might find support in the Department of Justice. . But the more you look at Barrs record, the more he looks like a direct ideological successor to Sessions. Just a month ago, Barr took to The Washington Post with other Republican attorneys general to praise Sessions record at the Justice Department, specifically commending him for combatting the Ferguson Effect a myth that blames Black Lives Matter for crime and for pursuing longer sentences for even minor drug offenders. Barr and his colleagues even credited Sessions for halting an increase in crime, an implausible claim that no serious researcher could make with a straight face. And in 2015, Barr signed a letter opposing the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, the First Step Acts predecessor, which also had overwhelming Republican support. A minority of Republican senators led by Tom Cotton opposed the bill. Even within his own party, Barr is an extremist. Barr who served as George H.W. Bushs attorney general from 1991 to 1993 was also an early and vocal defender of mass incarceration, another fact that ought to give the Senate pause. In 1992, he enthusiastically circulated a research brief called The Case for More Incarceration, which argued that we are incarcerating too few criminals, and the public is suffering as a result. When federal courts stopped states from throwing more people into overcrowded prisons, Barr intervened to help them continue. If this destroyed lives in the process, Barr wrote, too bad. Its simply a myth, he said, that there are sympathetic people in prison. While its true that many (or even most) politicians supported mass incarceration policies in the 1990s, almost all of them from Bill Clinton, to Joe Biden and Newt Gingrich have reversed course. Some, like Gingrich, are even leading efforts to reduce imprisonment. But Barrs recent statements suggest he remains stuck in the past. In sum, if Trump was looking for an attorney general to continue Sessions legacy (without any of the baggage from that messy recusal business), he could hardly do better than William Barr. What remains to be seen is what the Senate will do about it. Superficially, this shouldnt be a hard choice. With most of the Republican caucus supporting criminal justice reform, and most Democrats likely to oppose Barr on principle, there are more than enough votes to sink Barrs nomination and force a consensus choice one who will work with Republicans and Democrats to build a fairer, more effective justice system. Grawert is senior counsel and John L. Neu justice counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced President Trumps former attorney Michael Cohen to three years in prison for financial crimes and lying to Congress, as the disgraced former fixer apologized but said he felt it was his duty to cover up the dirty deeds of his former boss. . . . The downfall of the hard-charging, high-profile lawyer has potential consequences far beyond Cohen, as authorities have alleged Trump directed him in violating campaign finance laws. Facing his day of reckoning, Cohen laid plenty of the blame at the presidents feet, and his lawyer said he would continue to cooperate with the ongoing special counsel investigation of the presidents campaign. Cohens fall should impart several lessons on the media, as well as the president and his associates. First, contrary to Trumps characterizations of crimes for which special counsel Robert Mueller has obtained guilty pleas or convictions, Cohens offenses are not peanut stuff. He could have been sentenced to more than five years in prison. In handing down the sentence, the judge made clear that a significant term of imprisonment is fully justified in this highly publicized case to send a message. And if time in prison did not get the attention of Cohens former colleagues, the $2 million fine might. (The judge also ordered Cohen, a multimillionaire who owns pricey real estate and a taxi medallion business, to pay nearly $2 million in financial penalties.) Second, the severity of Cohens sentence underscores that the crimes we are talking about crimes, which if committed by Trump certainly fall within any reasonable definition of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel during the Obama administration, explains: According to the sentencing memo, [Trump] orchestrated the illegal actions and directed and coordinated them with Cohen. His alleged personal involvement, and the elaborate steps taken to conceal the information, reflect the importance that he and his campaign seem to have attached to keeping the [Stormy] Daniels and [Karen] McDougal accounts off the public record and out of the public debate. Bauer continues: It may well have played a role in securing Trumps election, and some portion of it continued for the presidents first year in office. But it must also be considered alongside the ongoing effort during the Trump administration to publicly conceal the scheme, in which Trump participated as president. If Trump continued lying about his knowledge of hush money, the conspiracy to defraud the voters continued into his presidency and enlisted aides (e.g., Hope Hicks, Sarah Sanders) to spread lies on his behalf. Third, Wednesdays events should leave no doubt that Mueller is vacuuming up mounds of evidence from multiple sources. Cohen will continue to assist prosecutors and has already, according to an attorney from Muellers team, provided credible and reliable information about core Russia-related issues under investigation. That is likely collusion. Cohen isnt the only one ratting out Trump: Separately, New York prosecutors announced Wednesday that they had struck a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, the company that produces the National Enquirer tabloid, for its role in squelching stories of women who said they had relationships with Trump. AMI paid $150,000 to one of the women before the 2016 election. As part of the agreement, AMI admitted it made the payment principally in concert with Trumps campaign to suppress the womens story to prevent it from influencing the election, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, The Post reported. We only know a slice of a slice of the information that Mueller has obtained. To rely upon Cohen and to support a reduced punishment, Mueller must have been able to corroborate Cohens accounts with other evidence. If there are multiple sources of evidence proving the trickiest part of the possible charge against Trump his intent to deceive the public in order to get elected the president is in a world of trouble. Fourth, Cohen isnt done. Noting Cohens zealous criticism of his famous former client, The Posts Aaron Blake observes, Cohen suggested he covered up dirty deeds almost routinely, which makes you wonder what else he might have told special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs team about such deeds. Cohen, we know from Muellers filings, has information about Trumps play for a Trump Tower in Moscow (and, hence, the presidents nonstop lies about his lack of deals with a foe of the United States). But between Cohen and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who snagged immunity in exchange for cooperation, Mueller has a window into the Trump business operations, something Trump has feared all along. (Investigation of such matters, Trump has tried to assert, would be a red line for investigators; if so, Mueller has erased it.) If Trump and/or those working at his direction committed financial, tax or other business-related crimes, his secrets will no longer be secrets. Meanwhile, Letitia James, New Yorks state attorney general, told NBC News: We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well. (Trump, of course, cannot pardon himself if he committed state crimes. In sum, after Wednesdays developments, we are much further along in establishing that Trump was involved in an illegal scheme; the scheme was a serious crime and the crime is just the sort of thing the framers had in mind when they included the power of impeachment. Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News Now that much of the national conversation about politics has moved to the 2020 race for the White House, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro is inching toward entering the race. He plans to make an announcement in January after forming an exploratory committee this week. It turns out some of the biggest names in show business were contributing to Rep. Beto O'Rourke in his bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz this year. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Page Content Montreal and Mombasa, 14 December 2018 A first of its kind pilot project in Africa consisting of a ground-mounted 500kW solar power generation facility and mobile airport gate electric equipment was launched this week at Moi International Airport in Mombasa, Kenya. By providing pre-conditioned air and compatible electricity that runs on solar energy to aircraft during ground operations, this new solar-at-gate project will eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft parked at the gate, which currently use their auxiliary power unit (APU) powered by jet fuel or airport ground power units (GPU) fuelled by diesel to run on-board systems before departing for their next flight. The solar facility will generate 820,000 kWh per year and will avoid emitting at least 1,300 tonnes of CO every year, while the airport gate equipment will serve more than 2,500 flights per year, demonstrating a concrete solution to reduce aviation carbon emissions. It is not only a transformative development in the aviation sector of Kenya and of the continent but it is also an inspiring model of how such change can best be accomplished, said Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). I hope that this Solar-at-Gate project will serve as an inspiration and that we will see its replication in many other States in support of a low emissions air transport. The inauguration ceremony was attended by more than 150 representatives from ICAO Member States, including officials from the Kenyan Civil Aviation Authorities, airport authorities, and relevant stakeholders, ICAO Council Members and representatives of international organizations. This pilot project is part of a 6.5 million initiative, entitled Capacity Building for CO2 Mitigation from International Aviation, implemented by ICAO and funded by the European Union, which targets 14 States - 12 from the African region and two from the Caribbean region to address carbon emissions in the aviation sector. I would like to acknowledge the financial, technical and strategic support of ICAO and the European Union noted Capt. Gilbert Kibe, Director General of Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA). Through this initiative, we were able to develop Kenyas Action Plan to Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Aviation and identify the use of solar energy at airports as a measure to contribute to global efforts to minimize aviations carbon footprint. Mr. Jonny Andersen, Managing Director of Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) expressed his excitement to be the premier Airports Authority in the region to have the Solar PV system installed. The expected savings on electricity, as well as reduction in carbon emissions, will contribute towards the efficient operations of Moi International Airport. Resources for Editors About ICAO A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency, capacity and environmental protection, amongst many other priorities. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 192 Member States. Environmental Protection, a strategic objective for ICAO Contacts Anthony Philbin Chief, Communications aphilbin@icao.int +1 514-954-8220 +1 438-402-8886 (mobile) Twitter: @ICAO William Raillant-Clark Communications Officer wraillantclark@icao.int +1 514-954-6705 +1 514-409-0705 (mobile) Twitter: @wraillantclark LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raillantclark/ Page Content Montreal and Doha, 14 December 2018 ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu opened the Fifth ICAO Global Aviation Training and TRAINAIR PLUS Symposium in Doha, Qatar, earlier this week, stressing to its participants the key value of Aviation Training Intelligence, and how the growth and potential of the global aviation network can only be realized if the sector has sufficient numbers of the highly skilled professionals to fill its ranks. Commercial aviation globally has doubled in flight and passenger volumes once every fifteen years since this data began being analyzed in the mid-1970s, and air traffic continues to grow robustly in all regions today, the ICAO Secretary General underscored, adding that current forecasts indicate that by 2034 airlines will carry almost double the passengers and freight they currently do, supporting close to 100 million direct and indirect jobs in the process, and some USD$5.7 trillion in economic activity. Dr. Liu stressed to her Symposium audience that even as air transport will need more and more skilled professionals to manage forecast growth without subsequent negative impacts on air transport safety, security and efficiency, as well the economic growth of developing nations, the sector is also being considerably challenged by current attrition factors. Attrition dynamics pose risks not only to our sectors airlines and airports in terms of the pilots, maintenance personnel, controllers, and other qualified staff they need on hand, but also to Governments with respect to their safety and security oversight responsibilities under the Chicago Convention, she remarked. The Doha Symposium focused around the theme of Aviation Training Intelligence, and on how in todays world of information abundance, data collected through various sources needs to be structured and managed in a coherent and functional way to develop and implement effective training. It also explored new means of measuring training effectiveness, and Dr. Liu commented that when developing new training programmes, new behaviours, improved skills, and increased productivity should be expected as common sense outcomes. It is therefore critical to be able to effectively measure training impacts based on data collection types, analyses, and results which generate sound decision-making intelligence, she said. Another important factor stressed by the ICAO Secretary General in terms of current human resources development, management, and planning priorities was the rapid increase in the deployment of new technologies across every major industry sector. With the introduction of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and unmanned aircraft systems, to name just a few areas of intensive innovation today, we are also seeing some tremendous competition globally for qualified technical personnel, she noted. This poses still further challenges for aviation in terms of attracting and retaining the personnel we now need. Highlighting regional variations posing challenges to sector-wide potential and harmonization, Dr. Liu also stressed the need for increased coordination among States on required training needs and course offerings, whether globally, regionally or locally. This reinforces why we must pursue effective regional associations of aviation training organizations, and I would urge those regional representatives from Africa, Europe, North America and the Caribbean with us today to continue in their efforts toward increased standardization of course curricula, harmonization of instructor training, recognition of certificates, and the sharing of their limited resources. She drew attention to the important role of the ICAO TRAINAIR PLUS Programme in this regard, which is composed of more than 100 Members, including 12 training organizations in the Middle East Region, as well as to the fact that it is welcoming an increasing amount of universities into its network today. During a Membership Ceremony, the Secretary General recognized nine organizations which have recently attained TRAINAIR PLUS Programme milestones, including training centres and Universities from Algeria, China, Oman, Singapore and the United States of America. Airports Council International, the global trade association of the worlds airports, was also officially recognized as a TRAINAIR PLUS Corporate Partner, paving the way for further joint course development and delivery activities. Additionally, a special ceremony was held to award and highlight the accomplishments of six training organizations and the contribution of the late Mr. Pedro Miguel Ravelo of Cuba, for his course validation achievements. During her visit to Qatar, Dr. Liu met with HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior for Qatar, Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani as well as the Minister of Transport and Communications, HE Jassim Saif Ahmed Al-Sulaiti. The leaders reviewed areas of co-operation between Qatar and the ICAO, and discussed a number of topics on the agenda of the symposium. The meeting with Minister Al-Sulaiti was also attended by Chairman of Qatars Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), HE Mr. Abdulla bin Nasser Turki Al Subaey. Resources for Editors About ICAO A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency, capacity and environmental protection, amongst many other priorities. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 192 Member States. ICAOs Global Aviation Training Office The ICAO TRAINAIR PLUS Programme ICAO and the Economic Development of Air Transport ICAOs Next Generation Aviation Professionals (NGAP) programme ICAO's No Country Left Behind initiative Contacts Anthony Philbin Chief, Communications aphilbin@icao.int +1 514-954-8220 +1 438-402-8886 (mobile) Twitter: @ICAO William Raillant-Clark Communications Officer wraillantclark@icao.int +1 514-954-6705 +1 514-409-0705 (mobile) Twitter: @wraillantclark LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raillantclark/ iciHaiti - Health : $20M from Canada to fight cholera As part of the fight to eradicate cholera in Haiti, was held the second annual meeting of the Steering Committee of the Project "Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene" (WASH) with the participation of the National Direction of the Drinking Water and Sanitation (DINEPA), the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of National Education, the Head of Canadian Cooperation, the UNICEF Representative and implementing partners, to discuss project progress, challenges and prospects for 2019. Note that this project, which aims to improve the health of children and mothers in the Artibonite and Center, is funded by Canada to the tune of $20 million and implemented by UNICEF. It should be recalled that the National Plan for the Elimination of Cholera provides for the eradication of the disease in 2022. To achieve this objective, the Haitian authorities concerned solicit the support of the technical and financial partners. IH/ iciHaiti Photojournalist Barsha Shah was arrested and detained for three hours for taking pictures of a protest outside the Presidents Office at the Shital Niwas in Kathmandu, Nepal on December 13. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliates the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) and the Nepal Press Union (NPU) in strongly criticising the arrest and detention of Barsha Shah and demands the respect to journalists rights from Nepali authorities. Police arrested Shah, associated with Deshsanchar.com, as she was taking pictures of the protesters who had reached the Presidents residence to hand over a crowdfunded toy car as a symbolic protest to the governments decision to purchase expensive luxurious bullet-proof car. Police arrested Shah although she introduced herself as a photojournalist and showed her press card. Although Nepal Police maintained that she was arrested in a prohibited zone, Deputy Superintendent of Police Phadindra Prasai apologized to her for the police misbehaviour while releasing her after three hours. Ramesh Bista, the FNJ General Secretary, said: Its an act against press freedom to arrest a journalist exercising her professional rights. The FNJ condemns the police action and urges the authorities not to repeat such act and to respect the constitutional rights of the press. Ajaya Babu Shiwakoti, the NPU General Secretary, said: The arrest of journalist Shah is a result of governments attempt to restrict the freedom of expression and press freedom. The NPU believes that her arrest is an attack on democracy and press freedom and urges the government to respect the independent of the media and stand for the freedom of expression. The Photojournalist Club - Nepal, an FNJ associate and the umbrella organisation of photojournalists, condemned the arrest of Shah terming it as an attack on press freedom and democracy. The IFJ said: "The IFJ condemns the arrest and detention of photojournalist Barsha Shah in Kathmandu, Nepal. Its highly concerning that Nepal government arrested a journalist for merely taking photos of a peaceful protest. Its an act against the press freedom and shows the authorities attempt to narrow down the rights of the journalists and the citizens. The IFJ demands that Nepal government respect the journalists rights and allow them to freely conduct their duties to inform the public. Human Rights Abuses and Censorship in North Korea Report Washington, DC - Today, in commemoration of International Human Rights Day and as part of our continued efforts to promote accountability for North Korean officials, we are releasing our report, which identifies three individuals and three groups as responsible for serious human rights abuses or censorship. In conjunction with the report, the Department of the Treasury has added three North Korean persons to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list. We believe that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is an essential foundation of stable, secure, and prosperous societies. Standing up for such rights and freedoms is a foreign policy priority that represents the best traditions of the United States. Human rights abuses in North Korea remain among the worst in the world and include extrajudicial killings, forced labor, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention, rape, forced abortions, and other sexual violence. This report focuses primarily on the regimes efforts to suppress independent media and freedom of expression. Independent media cannot operate legally in North Korea. All media is strictly censored by government authorities who conduct pre-publication screenings to ensure there is no deviation from the official line. Authorities take steps to jam foreign radio broadcasts, and interagency task forces conduct warrantless searches for foreign media. Individuals accused of viewing foreign films are reportedly subject to imprisonment or even execution. The report represents a continuation of U.S. government efforts to name those responsible for or associated with the worst aspects of the North Korean governments repression. Both the State Department report and actions by the Treasury Department are consistent with the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, signed by the President into law on February 18, 2016. If you're like most leaders, you want your company to grow faster and to have fun doing it. What might surprise you is that the youngest professor ever to win full tenure at Harvard Business School says you can achieve these twin aims simultaneously. The professor in question is Francesca Gino, the Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Her book Rebel Talent is among 2018's best business books. Gino's basic premise is that rebels -- people who consciously don't follow the rules, or have great difficulty doing so -- are good for business. As she explains in her book, rebels reject the idea that there are limits on what they can achieve. And they act in peculiar ways to reach their aims -- they "break, transform, and create." By their very definition, rebels represent a threat to a leader who has a command-and-control mentality. Such leaders issue commands to their workers and reward the people who carry out those commands the most effectively. If you are such a leader, it seems to me that you'll have trouble hiring rebels and letting them do their thing. Companies that encourage rebel talent -- who share five traits: novelty, curiosity, perspective, diversity, and authenticity -- achieve better outcomes. For instance, Gino cites studies that tie novelty to engagement at work. A case in point is Pal's Sudden Service, a burger chain in Tennessee and Virginia known for fast service and low turnover, where employees are continually challenged to do new tasks. Here are three principles leaders should follow to get the benefits of rebel talent: 1. Encourage constructive dissent and open conversations. It has long puzzled me why leaders hire talented people and try to squelch their creativity. Leaders do this in overt and subtle ways. In the extreme, they fire or sideline people who disagree with their decisions. More subtly, they encourage people to come up with creative solutions and then ignore their ideas. If you want the benefits of rebel talent, you have to commit to leading an organization that is looking to win -- by offering up the industry's best solutions to customer problems. Once you agree to that, you should also recognize an important corollary: You don't need to be the only one coming up with new ideas. 2. Go back to the fundamentals. How can you lead your rebel talent to develop such new ideas? For starters, you should push your people to know more than anyone else. Ask them to investigate customers' most annoying unsolved problems, what technologies are emerging to solve them, and how upstarts are tackling these challenges. Then, encourage them to come up with new ideas. Ask probing questions when they present their solutions. Open up the discussion to everyone in your organization to develop the best solutions. In my decades of consulting experience, I've found that winning answers come from getting a detailed understanding of three basic questions: What factors -- like price, quality, ease of use -- do customers use to choose which company's product to buy? How well do customers perceive that your company's rivals perform on each of these factors? What capabilities -- such as product development, manufacturing, and service -- does your company need to outperform its competitors? To tap the problem-solving talent of your rebels, encourage them to rethink everything to answer those fundamental questions in unique ways. 3. Design workplaces that enable collaboration. People working together can develop better solutions than any individual. A leader can encourage such collaboration within her team. But some of the best teamwork comes from people meeting and discussing solutions through random interactions in the workplace. This brings to mind the origin of the word trivia -- which comes from the Latin for "three roads." The idea is that people from different places heading to different destinations would meet where three roads intersected and share gossip. For the average person, three and a half hours can be a long time to sit anywhere. So when Google CEO Sundar Pichai had to spend that much time answering questions in Congress, I couldn't have blamed him for getting a bit impatient. He didn't, though, even when a Congresswoman basically insinuated that Google might manipulate some search results for political reasons. It wasn't exactly the most professional style of questioning, I might add, and you can see what I mean in this video. There was a bit of bait dangling there--and Pichai managed not to take it. Instead, he answered with respect, both to the senator and to the forum they were in. An Emotionally Intelligent Teachable Moment While he could have replied in any way he wanted (some would say a silly question deserves a silly answer), he instead leveraged the situation into a teachable moment. He briefly--and again, respectfully--educated Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California about the basics of search algorithms, rather than respond in kind to the perceived condescension. And if respectfully educating someone who's baiting you isn't enough to ask, he also handled the moment in a manner I would refer to as dutiful. He didn't gloss, skim, or employ excessive jargon, instead speaking plainly and methodically, in a way that seemed to indicate that he genuinely wanted his points to be understood--an act of public service, if you will. Heck, even I was humbled by the explanation. Naturally, it bears mentioning that all of this occurred in an extraordinarily high-stakes arena. Which leads me to ask, How can I be more like Pichai?--that level of emotional intelligence is certainly an admirable trait. One way is practice, practice, practice. The next time you want to binge-watch something, consider watching some more Pichai footage and study him. Watch his demeanor with heightened awareness and consider where you can incorporate admirable traits into your day-to-day. You can also imagine that the CEO of one of the world's largest corporations has spent his share of time answering questions in front of important audiences. He's a parent (which can teach patience) and comes from humble beginnings (which can keep you grounded). And, at Google, he's known (and popular) for being even-tempered and considerate. But whether it's some combination of the above or simple genetic predisposition that kept Pichai calm in the storm's midst, his stoic leadership style bodes well for Google (and Google's employees). When Unesco announced that the reggae music of Jamaica had been added to its list of cultural products considered worthy of recognition, it was a reflection on the fact that reggae, which grew from its roots in the backstreets and dance halls of Jamaica, is more than just popular music, but an important social and political phenomenon. Jamaicas application to the committee mentioned a number of artists from Bob Marley and Peter Tosh to Chronixx and the Zinc Fence Band. Some observers may be wondering whether such musicians are a good enough reason to include reggae on this prestigious list. What those readers dont fully understand is that reggae is far more significant than its musicians. Not only is social commentary an integral part of the music, the application argued, but reggae has also made a significant contribution to international discourse concerning issues of injustice, resistance, love, and humanity. Reggae has provided a voice for maligned groups, the unemployed and at risk groups and provided a vehicle for social commentary and expression where no other outlet existed or was afforded. It has also provided a means of praising and communicating with God. Not only are these big claims, but they are all true. Deep roots Culturally, politically, religiously and musically, reggae has done much heavy lifting. Born in the back streets of Kingston in the 1950s, it is proudly Jamaican. Raised in difficult circumstances, it has matured into a friendly and generous music that travels well and warmly embraces the other cultures and music it meets. Hybridisation is part of reggaes genetic makeup. Its DNA can be traced back to West Africa and out into the world of popular music. It came into being through mento (a form of Jamaican folk music), ska and rock steady, absorbing influences from the Caribbean (especially calypso), rhythm and blues, rock, and jazz. However, not only has reggae embraced other musical styles and ideas, but in so doing, it has influenced them and given birth to new sub-genres. Particularly significant in this respect has been the innovative recording techniques developed by Jamaican producers such as King Tubby, Lee Scratch Perry, and Bunny Lee. What became known as dub reggae has inspired generations of artists and producers around the world and is still an important influence in popular music. Politics of resistance As well as its musical contribution, reggae hasnt forgotten its roots. Not only does it comment on current political events and social problems, but it also provides a multi-layered introduction to the history, religion and culture of what music historian Paul Gilroy called the Black Atlantic. While some reggae cannot, of course, be considered religious or political lovers rock for example, focuses on romantic relationships much of it is. A key moment in Jamaican political history (as well as the story of reggae) happened on 22 April 1978 at the One Love Concert hosted by Bob Marley at the National Stadium in Kingston. Marley famously called bitter political rivals Michael Manley and Edward Seaga to the stage and persuaded them to join hands. Few other people could have done this. Although the concert did not bring an end to the turmoil in Jamaica, it did showcase the significance of reggae as a political and cultural force. Rastafari It is of particular significance that reggae is inextricably related to the religion of Rastafari, which emerged as a direct response to oppression within Jamaican colonial society. Often articulating the ideas of Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey, who is understood by Rastafarians to be a prophet, Rasta musicians such as Marley and Burning Spear developed roots reggae as a vehicle for their religio-political messages. Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae Show all 11 1 /11 Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477943.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477951.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477948.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477950.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477947.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477949.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477941.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477945.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477942.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477946.bin Kim Gottlieb-Walker Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 477944.bin Even if some musicians are not committed Rastafarians, they typically identify with the movements ideas and culture. In particular, many wear dreadlocks, consider smoking the herb (cannabis) to be a sacrament, and reference the religio-political dualism of Zion and Babylon (the social systems of the righteous and the unrighteous). There is a hope often articulated within reggae of a better world following Armageddon and the fall of Babylon. Babylon your throne gone down, declared Marley in his 1973 song Rasta Man Chant. These biblical ideas are also creatively applied to a range of political issues, from local injustices to climate change and the nuclear arms race. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Sometimes reggae itself is understood to be a form of direct action, in that musicians are understood to chant down Babylon. As Ziggy Marley put it: Babylon [is] a devil system who cause so much problems on the face of the Earth And by chanting down I mean by putting positive messages out there. That is the way well fight a negative with a positive. Examples of this include Yabby Yous Chant Down Babylon Kingdom and of course, Marleys own Chant Down Babylon. This type of thinking is rooted in Jamaican history. Following violent confrontations with the police during the 1940s and 1950s, Rasta elders particularly Mortimer Planno appealed to Jamaican academics to study Rastafari in order to increase popular understanding and tolerance. And in 1960, three scholars (MG Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford) published their Report on the Rastafarian Movement in Kingston, Jamaica. For Rastas, the destruction of Babylon came to be interpreted less in terms of a violent overthrow of oppressive social structures and more in terms of a conversion to new ways of thinking, central to which was the strategic primacy assumed by the arts. Reggae emerged as part of this process. From the outset, therefore, it was understood by many to be far more than simply pop music. It was rebel music, a powerful political tool for the peaceful resistance of oppression. Reggae international The potency of reggae as an educational and inspirational force became conspicuous shortly after its arrival in Britain. In 1976 it was central to the founding of the Rock Against Racism campaign and by the late 1970s, reggae, dub, ska, and the terminology of Rastafari were informing punk culture as part of an emerging dread culture of resistance. For example, in 1979, the same year that witnessed the Southall race riots, during which a teacher, Blair Peach, was killed, the British punk band The Ruts released their dub reggae influenced single Jah War, on which they sang, the air was thick with the smell of oppression. The Ruts subsequently achieved chart success with Babylons Burning. While some may have been bemused by the reference, for their fans for whom punk and reggae were first cousins at the very least the message was obvious: Babylon was the principally white political establishment, which oppressed ethnic minorities and the unemployed poor of the inner cities, and which would eventually be dismantled. At the same time, Jamaicans who had moved to Britain in their childhood, such as Linton Kwesi Johnson, used a creative blend of poetry and reggae to comment on the injustices they faced: Inglan is a bitch, deres no escapin it. One of Johnsons poems commented specifically on the murder of Peach, Reggae Fi Peach. Since then, reggae music has continued to speak truth to power from challenging domestic abuse to protesting against apartheid in South Africa. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events For these political, religious and cultural reasons as much as for the music itself Unesco was right to finally give reggae the recognition it deserves. Christopher Partridge is a professor of religious studies at Lancaster University. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com) The failure of climate talks to produce meaningful results is threatening the very survival of small island nations, according to the head of the Maldives delegation at the COP24 summit. Former president Mohamed Nasheed asked what the point of holding these annual UN events was if they did not produce any solutions. The slow pace at which negotiations have progressed over the past two weeks stands in stark contrast to the urgency of warnings by the international scientific community. Small island nations like the Maldives could be left uninhabitable as sea levels rise, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in October this threat will become considerably worse once warming rises over 1.5C. Mr Nasheed said the inhabitants of his Indian Ocean nation want to live in our own homelands, we want to live with our communities, with our culture, with our people. Recommended Anger as US tells summit fossil fuels can help fight global warming We dont think that this is asking for much We are just only saying: please do not kill us, he said. Talks faced an obstacle over the weekend when the major oil producers Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and the US objected to a motion to welcome the IPCCs findings, which would mean tougher targets for fossil fuel cuts. Critics condemned these rogue nations for pushing against the prevailing scientific viewpoint at such an urgent moment, when consensus is vital. Glacier collapse shows climate impact Show all 20 1 /20 Glacier collapse shows climate impact Glacier collapse shows climate impact An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Meltwater pools on top of the Helheim glacier near Tasiilaq Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Safety officer Brian Rougeux works with student Febin Magar to assemble a radar dome while working in a science camp on the side of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Airplane Mechanic, David Fuller, left, works with a local worker to move a Nasa Gulfstream III during a pre-flight inspection before a flight to support the Oceans Melting Greenland research mission Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Meltwater pools on top of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Earth Science Flight Programs Director at Nasa, Eric Ianson, looks out at the Greenland ice sheet Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Glacial ice is seen from the window during the Nasa flight Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Oceanographer David Holland's science camp on the side of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact A large crevasse forms near the calving front of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Safety officer Brian Rougeux uses a drill to install antennas for scientific instruments that will be left on top of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Tabular icebergs float in the Sermilik Fjord after a large calving event at the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Radar Engineer, Ron Muellerschoen, monitors data collection inside a NASA Gulfstream III flying above Greenland to measure loss to the country's ice sheet Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact GPS tracking equipment is left on top of the Helheim glacier REUTERS Glacier collapse shows climate impact Sunshine lights up the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact A glacial terminus above the east coast of Greenland REUTERS Glacier collapse shows climate impact Student Febin Magar watches as leftover wood burns in a research camp Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Tabular icebergs float in the Sermilik Fjord after a large calving event Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Oceanographer David Holland repairs a broken GPS module at his research camp Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq Reuters Mr Nasheed said: There is a view among many of us that this is failing. As the costs of dealing with more extreme storms and flooding rise, president of Pacific island nation Vanuatu Ralph Regenvanu told attendees at COP24 his country was prepared to sue fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damage. Following delays, a draft text of a final agreement for the meeting emerged late on Thursday night after nearly two weeks of talks. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Negotiators have now gathered to discuss the draft in talks that are expected to overrun beyond the expected finish day of Friday and well into the weekend. Questions still hover over troublesome nations like the US and Saudi Arabia, as well as the involvement of big emerging economies like China and India. Some key issues such as financing climate mitigation still remain unresolved, and campaigners are concerned the final agreement could be watered down in an effort to reach a conclusion in time. Critical climate talks have been extended by two days after big polluters including the US and Saudi Arabia pushed back against key scientific findings. Tensions are running high in the Polish city of Katowice following two weeks of fraught discussions at the UN COP24 summit between countries with very different climate agendas. UN chief Antonio Guterres warned failing to reach a satisfactory conclusion would be suicidal, a point echoed by small island states fearing for their existence as rising sea levels render their homes uninhabitable. A group of these vulnerable states has pledged to further delay proceedings by rebelling against extinction, and blocking agreements until their demands for tougher action are met. Experts cautiously welcomed a draft agreement that was finally released on Thursday night, but countries must now resolve outstanding issues, including pledges to ramp up emissions cuts. Initially a conclusion was planned for Friday, but talks are now expected to run long into the night and spill over into the weekend. Some see the talks dragging on until Sunday. Donald Trumps shadow looms large over the conference, as his pledge to remove the US from the Paris climate agreement appears to have driven the US to align with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia. Concerns were raised the moment this coalition of oil producers questioned the importance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes scientific findings. They are going to the letter of what Trump said when he announced the intention to withdraw, Camilla Born from climate change think tank E3G told The Independent. 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 The groups intransigence has meant US delegates held back from making stronger pledges to cut fossil fuels and emissions a crucial step to limiting warming to 1.5C as the IPCC report recommends Mohamed Adow, Christian Aids international climate lead, criticised US representatives attempting to water down an agreement they will not even be part of for much longer. Their reckless intention to withdraw from the Paris agreement was bad enough, but yet they continue to hang around like a bad smell, blocking progressive action from other countries, he said. Recommended Experts condemn US and Saudi Arabia for blocking key climate report Ms Born said the US team seemed to be keeping the nation closely enough aligned that a future administration might participate, but their caution was giving power to other disruptive participants. That has certainly emboldened the likes of Saudi, who are one of the bad guys when it comes to doing more on climate change, she said. As it stands, the draft text references the 1.5C target and the need to step up efforts, but avoids outright welcoming the scientific findings in a possible concession to these polluters. Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace Internationals executive director, warned against such concessions at such a late stages in the talks. Compromise texts are paid for in human lives lost and the poor and vulnerable are demanding so much more, she said. With the US unwilling to take the lead, a group of nations including the EU has formed a high ambition coalition pledging to further cut emissions and help poorer countries achieve their own climate targets. Meanwhile the major emerging economies of China and India have remained relatively quiet throughout, and may yet make their presence felt in the final stages. Head of climate change at WWF, Gareth Redmond-King, said there was a divide between nations that feel threatened by climate change and those that feel a bit more threatened by climate action. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Bringing these competing forces together requires a strong presidency, and Mr Redmond-King said there had been concerns the coal-loving Polish leadership had struggled in this task. He said the ultimate goal is to achieve an agreement that commits to ratcheting up climate commitments by 2020, when countries must release their official targets for cutting emissions. Other key issues need resolving too, including how countries transparently report their emissions, and whether nations should be paid to fix damage caused by climate change. The number one reason we are still here is because its really complicated its technically really complicated and politically really complicated, said Ms Born. A Swedish teenager who has been playing truant to protest climate change has released a video calling for others around the world to join her on strike. Greta Thunbergs climate protests, where she has sat outside Swedish parliament every Friday since September, have captured the worlds attention. She has also emerged as an unlikely star at the COP24 summit. We are at week two of the negotiations here, and as of now there are no signs of commitments to climate action, she said. Whoever you are, wherever you are, we need you now. This Friday, 14 December, I am calling for an international climate strike. Please strike with us. Stand outside your parliament or local government office even for just a short while to let them know we demand climate action. Recommended Experts condemn US and Saudi Arabia for blocking key climate report Pupils in Germany and Poland took up the call to action, which was also welcomed by attendees at the summit who fear a satisfactory agreement will not be met. Shortly after releasing her call, Greta spoke at the events plenary session, telling negotiators; You are not mature enough to tell it like it is, to thunderous applause. Facebook has been recruiting heavily for its secretive blockchain project, suggesting the social network is moving forward with plans to launch its own cryptocurrency. The hiring spree comes a few months after one of the biggest management reshuffles in Facebooks history, which saw former PayPal president David Marcus appointed the lead of an exploratory blockchain group. Mr Marcus, who was previously vice president of Facebook Messenger, gave few details about his new role at the time, but said he would report directly to the companys CTO Mike Schroepfer. He said in a blog post that the group would explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch. With around 2.2 billion monthly active users on its social network, together with billions of users across WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook has the platform reach to introduce the worlds first mass market cryptocurrency. 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 Around 40 people now work under Mr Marcus as a result of the recent recruitment drive, including several former PayPal executives, according to a report by Cheddar. Job listings state Facebooks ultimate goal with its blockchain group is to help bring billions of people with access to things they dont have now. Such things could include equitable financial services, new ways to save, or new ways to share information, the listing states. Facebook is yet to provide any further details about the project, following several requests from The Independent. Like many other companies Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology, a Facebook spokesperson said. This new small team is exploring many different applications. We dont have anything further to share. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has previously expressed interest in cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology that bitcoin popularized. (AFP/Getty Images) In January, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote a Facebook post in which he discusses the potential of decentralised currencies and other technologies. One of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralisation vs decentralisation. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies. Many people now believe technology only centralises power rather than decentralises it, Mr Zuckerberg wrote. There are important counter-trends to this like encryption and cryptocurrency that take power from centralised systems and put it back into peoples hands. Since publishing the post, Facebook has been embroiled in a series of scandals surrounding how it handles its users data, which has reportedly led to problems with recruiting for the new project. The decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies mean people working within the industry are typically wary of large, centralised corporations like Facebook. A bill to legalise abortion services in Ireland has passed all stages in the Seanad (Irish Senate). On Thursday, The Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill 2018 was passed by 27 votes to five following a nine hour debate. It will now be given to President Michael D Higgins to be signed into law. The legislation follows the vote to repeal the Eight Amendment which banned abortion in a referendum in May by 66.4 per cent. The change in law will now allow for abortion services to be provided up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, where there is a risk of fatal foetal abnormality and the risk to life or health of the pregnant woman, compared to 24 weeks under abortion laws in the UK. During the debate, Health Minister Simon Harris rejected all 63 amendments submitted. When the Bill was passed, Harris said: This is a genuinely historic moment. It paves the way for the implementation of the service for termination of pregnancy in January 2019. He also thanked his colleagues for their co-operation to see the bill through and campaigners who fought for 35 years to change a nation, to change hearts and minds. "But today, I think mostly of the thousands of women who were forced to make the journey to access care that should have been available in their own country," he added. He also tweeted his support for the bill, saying it will end lonely journeys, end the stigma and support womens choices in Ireland. Senator Catherine Noone, who chaired the Oireachtas Eighth Amendment Committee, said she was very proud to have been involved in such monumental change, reports the Journal. She added that laws in Ireland are now more caring to women. The Irish Examiner reports Deirdre Duffy, the Campaign Manager for abortion rights campaign group Together for Yes described the vote as a truly momentous day for women in Ireland. She continued: For the first time ever since the establishment of the state, women who become pregnant in Ireland are now safe and protected by compassionate legislation. The harm and suffering the Eighth has caused for women is now only a memory and as a nation we will ensure that women are never treated this way again in Ireland. More than 170,000 Irish women have been forced to travel abroad for abortions since 1980. Over 3,000 women travelled to the England and Wales for abortions last year, while many others bought abortion pills online, according to the UK Department of Health. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Last week, the legislation legalising abortion in Ireland was passed by the Dail (the lower house of Ireland's parliament) by 90 votes to 15 and was passed onto its next stage in the Seanad. A ride-hailing app which advised UK women to have prudence in offering or accepting a ride has been criticised by politicians for appearing to suggest the onus is on women to protect their own safety. Birkenhead MP Frank Field, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, has now called for a change in the way UK councils license apps, after two local authorities which approved the service admitted they failed to check its terms and conditions (T&Cs), reports Sky News. Indian taxi app Ola, which launched in the UK in August, published the warning to women on its UK website. It also suggested female passengers share the ride details with family, friends, and relatives. When informed of the warning, the Uber rival immediately amended its terms and conditions, explaining the incident had occurred as a result of a technical error. Recommended South Korean taxi driver sets himself on fire to protest carpool app A spokesperson from Ola told The Independent the warning was accidentally taken from a different set of terms and conditions related to a car-pool service that was previously offered only in India. They said the warning to women is not currently in any of their UK or global T&Cs. The incident has cast doubt on the way UK councils approve ride-hailing apps for public use. Ola currently has council-approved services available in Bath, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and South Wales. However, Cardiff City Council and Bristol Council told Sky News that despite approving the app via its licensing process, they did not read its T&Cs. Terms and conditions that are entered into as part of signing up for the app are not part of the application process, a spokesperson for Cardiff City Council, which approved Ola a five-year license in May, told the publication. However, they said the council is happy with how the company satisfies the fitness and propriety test needed to work in the area. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Bristol City Council which awarded Ola a similar licence in September said that while it is responsible for licensing the company, it is not accountable for approving a related app. Neither council will be taking action against Ola following the "accident". Field reportedly questioned how conditions which all but acknowledge that women are likely to be in danger if they use this platform were approved by council licensing processes. He also called for "a swift response from the government" to address reforms to the ways in which local authorities approve such apps. James Farrar, chair of the United Private Hire Drivers branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, shared Fields concern. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events "As these operators seek to avoid public liability and employment rights obligations both drivers and passengers are unfairly exposed to risk, he told Sky News. End Violence Against Women Coalition co-director Rachel Krys spoke to The Independent about the need to put an end to victim-blaming in relation to womens safety. She said that putting the burden of violence on women rather than assailants excuses predatory behaviour. It gives them a get out clause. "Women are constantly doing safety work. If you ask any woman, shell say she thinks about it all the time. Its not stopping rape and sexual violence." Krys added that companies need to take responsibility for the safety of their clients and employees. Theres a reason we have safety and work place regulations, work place and safety. Its because theyre important. (Getty Images (Getty Images) Sharon Marks, chair of trustees at sexual violence and abuse charity Survivors Network added: Asking women to modify their behaviour - for example only using certain apps or services, avoiding walking home at night, dressing in a certain way - does not make women any safer. What it does is perpetuate rape myths, discourage victims from reporting these kinds of crime, and increasing their own self-blame. The incident comes two months after north London police were accused of victim blaming for telling women not to wear headphones following a spate of sexual assaults near a London tube station. Ola launched in India in 2011 and has since expanded to Australia and the UK. The app says it prides itself on its safety features, which includes an SOS alert and live ride-tracking option. An Ola spokesperson told The Independent: "We are committed to providing safe and affordable travel for UK passengers and we have a zero-tolerance policy regarding any inappropriate or offensive behaviour for any of our customers and/or drivers." A no-deal Brexit would leave the UK near bankrupt, according to Sir Richard Branson. Im absolutely certain that quite a few businesses will close if theres a hard Brexit, the Virgin boss told the BBC on Friday. Its now very, very clear that Britain would be near bankrupt if we push ahead with something like a hard Brexit. I think Theresa May needs to be 100 per cent honest with the public ... If British business suffers, British people will suffer, and its really important that people realise that. The Bank of England produced a worst case scenario for a no-deal Brexit last month which showed the UK suffering its most extreme recession since the Second World War and with house prices falling by a third. A no-deal Brexit would force the imposition of a huge array of checks on all UK goods and product exports to the EU, which would likely cause severe transport blockages in both directions. This would be disastrous for UK manufacturers and retailers with just-in-time supply chains. It could also threaten the supply of food and medicines to the UK. There would also be no fall-back international agreement for aviation, meaning planes would be unable to fly from the UK to the EU and vice versa. Policymakers must be in no doubt of how serious the consequences of no deal would be for the UK economy and jobs in every region and nation, says the CBI lobby group. Many MPs, from all parties, have said that they would act to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Yet, under the Article 50 process, the UK is scheduled to leave the EU with without a deal on 29 March 2019 if the withdrawal agreement creating a 21-month transition period is not approved. Some Brexiteers have been calling on the government to start planning for what they call a managed no-deal Brexit, by trying to conclude small deals with the EU covering aviation and medicines in order to limit the disruption of leaving without an agreement. They stormed heaven, taking over Paris until the government acted. Karl Marxs depiction of the violent episode of the Paris Commune in 1871 offers an indication of how often the City of Lights has been bathed in blood. Four weekends ago, protesters in yellow vests flooded the boulevards of Paris, ostensibly to protest against a green tax increase on petrol and diesel of four and seven cents per litre respectively. Demonstrations soon turned violent, with at least three killed and hundreds wounded around the country. The Arc de Triomphe was desecrated by graffiti. Each weekend since, the protesters have been back, returning in large numbers to the streets of the main cities. The authorities have become increasingly better prepared to limit the damage, with extra security personnel employed to maintain the peace. Still, the violence has gone on. When she first registered to vote in 1942, Rosanell Eaton rode a mule-drawn wagon to the county courthouse in North Carolina where she was greeted by three white men. What do you want, little girl? one of them asked Eaton, who was 21 years old. Upon hearing what business had brought her to the courthouse, one of the men instructed her to recite the preamble to the US constitution. The challenge was a form of the literacy tests cynically used during Americas Jim Crow era to prevent African Americans from voting. To the officials surprise, Eaton flawlessly recited the text, with its promises of forming a more perfect union, establishing justice and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. You did a mighty good job, one of the men told Eaton, according to an account published in 2016 in The Atlantic. Well, I reckon I have to have you to sign these papers. That test was only the first of the injustices Eaton would endure. It was also one of her first triumphs at the ballot box as a little-known but unyielding advocate of voting rights. Eaton address a rally in front of the North Carolina general assembly in 2016 (YouTube) Eaton, who has died aged 97, came to prominence as late as 2016, as a lead plaintiff in a North Carolina lawsuit that defeated draconian voter ID legislation at the supreme court. Many civil-rights activists had described it as a modern-day effort to disenfranchise blacks and other minority voters with discriminatory practices at the polls. Amid her legal struggle, she was celebrated by President Barack Obama as an unsung American hero. Eaton, a former teacher who by her count had helped register 4,000 people to vote, witnessed crosses burned in her yard during her years as an activist. She joined the North Carolina lawsuit in 2013 in protest against a state law that, among other provisions, required prospective voters to present photo identification, barred them from registering the same day that they intended to vote, and shortened the early voting period. The measure came on the heels of a supreme court decision substantially weakening the Voting Rights Acts of 1965. North Carolina governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, remarked that common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed required photo identification and said that voting regulations should be no less stringent. Opponents of the measure responded that evidence of voter fraud was scant at best. They described the legislation as one of the most restrictive voting measures in the country and argued that it would have the effect of obstructing African Americans from voting. For Eaton, the law created a bureaucratic tangle that she said forced her to make 10 trips to America's equivalent of the DVLA and drive more than 200 miles to various government offices to sort out a discrepancy on her drivers licence. Her driving licence used her married name, while her voter registration card used her maiden and married names. She also found that her social security card had an incorrect birth year. It was maybe harder for me to get to vote after the law than it was all the way back then, Eaton told The Atlantic. After an initial legal defeat for the lawsuit, a federal appeals court struck down the law in 2016, recalling the inextricable link between race and politics in North Carolina and condemning the law for targeting African Americans with almost surgical precision. Explaining its decision, the court noted that, after requesting data on forms of identification used by voters in the state, legislators had disallowed those types used most frequently by blacks. A 4:4 ruling by the supreme court the same year allowed the decision to stand. In 2017, after the seating of Justice Neil Gorsuch, the high court declined to hear another appeal. Its a cruel irony that the words that set our democracy in motion were used as part of the so-called literacy test designed to deny Rosanell and so many other African-Americans the right to vote, Obama, the first African American US president, wrote in a letter to the New York Times in 2015, responding to a magazine article that mentioned Eaton as it chronicled efforts to subvert the Voting Rights Act. Yet more than 70 years ago, as she defiantly delivered the Preamble to our Constitution, Rosanell also reaffirmed its fundamental truth, he continued. What makes our country great is not that we are perfect, but that with time, courage and effort, we can become more perfect. What makes America special is our capacity to change. Rosanell Johnson, a granddaughter of slaves and the youngest of seven children, was born on a farm outside Louisburg. After her father died when she was two, Eatons mother became a sharecropper. In the early years of her life, Eaton farmed for a living. She later did packing work at a plant before taking university classes to become an educator. She worked a phonics teacher and a librarian assistant before retiring at 70. She then became a substitute teacher and tutored children at her home into her eighties, according to her daughter. Her husband, Golden Eaton, died in 1963. Their son James Eaton died in infancy. Their daughter Annie Montague died in 2000, and their son Jesse Eaton died in 2004. Besides her daughter Armenta, Eaton is survived by four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Eaton, who had also volunteered for years as a polling clerk, was once asked why she devoted so much time to registering others to vote and ensuring that she, too, could cast her ballot. I think, she said, it is because my foreparents or forefathers didnt have the opportunity. Rosanell Eaton, civil rights activist, born 14 April 1921, died 8 December 2018 Washington Post A neo-Nazi trained his daughter to perform a Hitler salute and filmed it to boast to his friends, a court has heard. Darren Fletcher is one of six people being sentenced for being members of the terrorist group National Action, which was banned for its glorification of violence and racist, antisemitic and homophobic ideology in 2016. Birmingham Crown Court was played footage of Fletchers daughter, who was a toddler at the time, raising her right arm above her head. Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson QC said: What Fletcher had succeeded in doing, we say, was getting his daughter to give a Nazi salute. Mr Jameson told the judge that the incident could lengthen Fletchers jail sentence and could provide some suggestion Fletcher may have been trying to influence his child, or children. Fletcher, who chose not to attend court for Fridays hearing, sent the footage to co-defendant Claudia Patatas with a message reading: Finally got her to do it. Patatas and her partner Adam Thomas, who were convicted of National Action membership in the same case, gave their own baby the middle name Adolf in admiration of Hitler and had decorated their home with swastika cushions and a Ku Klux Klan flag. The month after filming his daughter, Fletcher sent a message to a chat group for senior National Action members in which he likened the stepmother and the witch in childrens book Hansel and Gretel to Jews. His message read: My absolutely favourite part, though, is when the vile Jewish feminist witch gets shoved into the oven. Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas posed for pictures with their son alongside Nazi paraphernalia (PA) I always yell sieg heil, and the big smirk that comes across my daughters face at that point, always melts my heart. Fletcher then known as Christopher Philips was previously convicted of stirring up racial hatred after hanging a life-size golliwog doll on stage at an extreme right-wing music event in 2013. He was jailed for 12 months for the stunt in Wales and handed a criminal anti-social behaviour order forbidding him from socialising with close friend Thomas. Fletcher, of Wolverhampton, was jailed for a further eight months after breaching the order in May 2015, and has admitted a total of five violations. Judge Melbourne Inman QC is to continue considering his sentence on Monday alongside Thomas, Patatas and fellow neo-Nazis Daniel Bogunovic, Joel Wilmore and Nathan Pryke. All face up to 10 years in jail for membership of a proscribed group. Photographs recovered from electronic devices showed Thomas cradling his newborn son while wearing the hooded white robes of a Ku Klux Klansman. In conversation with another National Action member, Patatas said all Jews must be put to death, while Thomas had once told his partner he found that all non-whites are intolerable. Former Amazon security guard Thomas and Patatas, a wedding photographer originally from Portugal, who also wanted to bring back concentration camps, were found guilty after a seven-week trial. Thomas, a twice-failed Army applicant who told the court he once considered converting to Judaism, was also convicted on a majority verdict of having a terrorist manual that contained instructions on making viable bombs. Bogunovic, from Leicester, was described in court on Friday as a committed National Action leader, propagandist and strategist. Home Affairs Committee question Google over failure to remove National Action content He was also found guilty of inciting racial hatred by spreading National Action stickers at Birminghams Aston University complex in July 2016. Wilmore, from Stockport, was a cyber security worker described as the midlands National Action cells banker. He also pleaded guilty to possessing bombmaking instructions. Van driver Nathan Pryke, a 26-year-old from Cambridgeshire, was the groups security enforcer. Mr Jameson said all six defendants had remained members of National Action after it was banned and taken part in the organisations chat groups, which were staging posts for comments of virulent racism, particularly from Thomas, Patatas and Fletcher. Leaders Pryke, Wilmore and Bogunovic were more circumspect in their views but on occasion the true depth of their racial hatred leeched out, he added. In a previous hearing, he said the group followed a belief system born out of fanatical and tribal belief in white supremacy. It is a terror that regards anyone who falls outside a cult of violent white racial supremacy as sub-human, he added. National Action members have been linked to a series of terror plots and one of its supporters tried to behead an Asian man in 2015. Bogunovic was connected to another regional National Action cell whose members were convicted earlier this year. They included a British Army soldier who was trying to recruit troops for a race war and had stockpiled weapons. Detective Chief Superintendent Matt Ward, head of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, said the group had spent years planning for a race war. These individuals were not simply racist fantasists; we now know they were a dangerous, well-structured organisation, he added. Their aim was to spread neo-Nazi ideology by provoking a race war in the UK and they had spent years acquiring the skills to carry this out. They had researched how to make explosives. They had gathered weapons. They had a clear structure to radicalise others. Unchecked they would have inspired violence and spread hatred and fear. The sentencing hearing will continue on Monday. Additional reporting by PA Supermarkets are facing calls to reveal the levels of antibiotics in their imported pork after superbugs were found in the meat on sale abroad from firms that may also supply UK stores. Pork on supermarket shelves in Brazil, Spain and Thailand was found to contain superbugs resistant to some of the antibiotics critical in human medicine. Britain imports nearly two-thirds (60 per cent) of its pork products about 700,000 tonnes a year and investigators believe it is likely that antibiotic-resistant superbugs will have infected some of the meat sold in the UK. British supermarkets say they have already cut antibiotics in their supplies to avoid unnecessary use and that the risk to humans is low. But it is feared Brexit will further increase the chances of pork carrying superbugs coming into the UK, as imports of lower-welfare meat may rise and British farmers lower their standards to compete on cost. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that antibiotic resistance is a serious threat to human health that risks making everyday surgery and infections life-threatening. The widespread use of the drugs in farm animals has been a large factor in the rise of antimicrobial resistance. Superbugs in the food chain can cause pneumonia, fever, skin and urinary tract infections and, in extreme cases, death. The OECD says three-quarters of the worlds antibiotics are used in factory farming, with most used for pigs. Experts from charity World Animal Protection tested pork sold in Australia, Brazil, Spain and Thailand, and found in three of the countries it was infected. This shockingly highlights how overuse of antibiotics is a Band Aid solution to prevent cramped and stressed animals from getting sick World Animal Protection Spains large pig meat exports industry is booming, thanks to a rise in demand from China, which has led to a massive increase in factory-farmed pigs, where welfare is often given a low priority. Antibiotics are routinely used to fend off infections in animals kept crammed together in factory farms, propping up cruel systems and contributing to the superbug crisis, say critics. The charity is calling on UK supermarkets to be more transparent about antibiotics in their supply chains following the test results. Only Asda, the Co-op, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer reveal the amounts of antibiotics used in their meat products, and WAP wants the other stores to follow suit. Pigs in an overcrowded shed in the EU (World Animal Protection) The results shockingly highlight how the overuse of antibiotics in factory farming has become a Band Aid solution to prevent cramped and stressed animals from getting sick, while also contributing to the superbug crisis, a spokesman said. British supermarkets need to ensure high animal-welfare standards regardless of where pigs are raised, and should regularly publish data on antibiotic use in their supply chains to show they are meeting targets to reduce antibiotic use. He said progress had been made on reducing antibiotics in UK farming but the test results provided a snapshot of practices in different parts of the world. Conditions in factory farms worldwide that require regular dosing of antibiotics include piglets being taken from their mothers when very young; pigs tails being cut and teeth clipped; male piglets being castrated and squalid sheds with floors coated in animal waste. Jacqueline Mills, of WAP, said: There is a better way. Higher-welfare systems allow for responsible antibiotic use, as has been proven in Sweden. We need to see an end to close confinement and barren environments, so pigs can live in social groups in comfortable environments with opportunities to express natural behaviour. Supermarkets should be setting the bar far higher to ensure the animals in their supply chains are less stressed, and antibiotics are used responsibly in farming. Helen Browning, Soil Association chief executive, said: High levels of antibiotic use in pig farming is symptomatic of intensive farming systems that not only result in animal suffering but also pose huge threats to human health by contributing to antibiotic resistance. Sainsburys said it no longer used critically important antibiotics as a first-choice treatment in the pig and poultry industries, adding: There are challenges to collecting robust and representative datasets for all species due to the different structures and challenges faced by each sector. We are continually working with our suppliers to improve the quality and quantity of data available. Sourcing of non-UK products always meets legal requirements British Retail Consortium A spokesman for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said: Sourcing of non-UK products always meets legal requirements with many choosing to meet additional standards of best practice. The UK and EU risk assessments on the transmission of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria through food conclude that the risk to human health remains low. Retailers are working closely with their farmers and suppliers to ensure antibiotics are used responsibly in their supply chain, which means an appropriate balance between animal welfare and only using medicines when they are necessary as part of good husbandry. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Lidl UK said its animal-welfare policy banned routine usage of antibiotics and its suppliers were required to monitor usage through adherence to the Red Tractor schemes antibiotic use standards. A spokesman said: We are committed to meeting sector targets and fully support the disclosure of antibiotic usage. However, we believe it is important to support suppliers through the development of a centralised, industry-wide approach. We work closely with RUMA (Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance) and industry groups, including the NFU, BRC, National Pig Association and Compassion in World Farming. Aldi referred to the BRC statement, and Tesco and Morrisons did not respond to requests to comment. The UK will experience winter solstice on 21 December and be plunged into darkness, with just seven hours and 49 minutes of daylight to relieve the gloom. The astronomical phenomenon that gives us the shortest day - the subject of the latest Google Doodle - occurs between 19 and 22 December every year as the northern hemisphere is tilted on the earths axis at its furthest remove from the sun during our planets 365-day progression around the solar system. With the celestial bodys rays cast on the distant Tropic of Capricorn while the North Pole lies cloaked in shadow, the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere find themselves doomed to several months of long dark nights and low temperatures. The southern hemispheres equivalent event takes place in mid-June, at which point we are enjoying our summer solstice, the longest day, at the height of British summertime. Historically, the solstice (derived from a Latin word meaning stalled sun) has been used to mark midwinter, the official start of winter, after which point the nights gradually begin to grow shorter as we approach the spring equinox on 20 March. The best Google Doodles Show all 50 1 /50 The best Google Doodles The best Google Doodles Mister Rogers Google Doodle celebrating children's TV presenter Mister Rogers Google The best Google Doodles Lucy Wills Google Doodle celebrating haematologist Lucy Wills Google The best Google Doodles Falafel Google Doodle celebrating falafel Google The best Google Doodles St George's Day Google Doodle celebrating St George's Day Google The best Google Doodles James Wong Howe Google Doodle celebrating Hollywood golden age cinematographer James Wong Howe Google The best Google Doodles Seiichi Miyake Google Doodle celebrating Seiichi Miyake, developer of tactile paving Google The best Google Doodles Walter Cronkite Google celebrates US broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite's 100th birthday The best Google Doodles Lantern Festival 2016 Google celebrates the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a doodle of the Lantern Festival Google The best Google Doodles Google Doodle celebrating 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celebrating St. David's Day Google The best Google Doodles Steve Biko Today's Google Doodle features anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko Google The best Google Doodles The history of tea in Britain Google celebrates the 385th anniversary of tea in the UK The best Google Doodles Nettie Stevens Google celebrates geneticist Nettie Stevens 155th birthday The best Google Doodles William Morris Google celebrates English polymath William Morris' 182 birthday with a doodle showcasing his most famous designs Google The best Google Doodles Professor Scoville Google marks Professor Scovilles 151st birthday The best Google Doodles Sophie Taeuber-Arp Google marks artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp's 127th birthday Druids still gather at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain to mark the occasion to this day, pagan revellers meeting at dawn to observe the morning sun rising over the ancient circles Heel Stone. Although the day symbolises the death of the old year, this is by no means a solemn occasion, with druids celebrating the renewal of life and rejoicing in a moment of seasonal rebirth. In Germany and Scandinavia, a 12-day solstice (Yule) is observed from mid-December, to which the rest of Europe and North America owes many of its Christmas customs, from the tree and front door wreath to the chocolate log. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Like the Celtic druids in the UK, these traditions emphasise the natural world and its vital capacity for self-renewal. Interestingly, the Western winter solstice is also observed in Iran, where families gather on Yalda night to eat nuts, pomegranates and watermelons and read poetry together in honour of the longest night. (CNN) When a South African traditional healer wandered into a police station last year and told officers he was "tired of eating human flesh," the police struggled to believe his morbid claim. That changed when Nino Mbatha, who was also carrying a bag containing a human leg and hand, took the officers to a house in the town of Estcourt, in KwaZulu-Natal province, where more body parts were found. The case, which has horrified South Africans and been dubbed locally the "cannibal case," came to a close on Wednesday when Mbatha, 33, and Lungisani Magubane, 32, were given life sentences for murder, AFP reports. A third man was acquitted. All three men denied the charges, according to local media. Traditional medicine Pietermaritzburg High Court judge Peter Olsen sentenced both men to life in prison for the killing of Zanele Hlatshwayo last year, saying they were guilty of "the most heinous crime," according to local media. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Natasha Ramkissoon-Kara told CNN that Mbatha denied saying he ate human flesh shortly after his arrest and prosecutors opted to try the case as murder instead. Mutilating a corpse and being in possession of human tissue are criminal offenses, but there is no direct law against cannibalism in South Africa. According to the indictment seen by CNN, Magubane approached Mbatha for muti -- a South African term for traditional medicine -- to help him attain good fortune. Mbatha suggested they get a woman or child for this purpose as the "ancestors insisted that blood needed to be spilled." Stuff of nightmares Prosecutors said Hlatshwayo, who was 25, was killed by Mbatha with the assistance of Magubane. She was dismembered and some of her body parts were used to make traditional medicine, prosecutors said. "What happened in this case is truly awful. It was the stuff of nightmares. How one would react in such circumstances is unpredictable. One may well want to unburden oneself of guilt, but later have second thoughts," the judge said according to Witness news. This story was first published on CNN.com, "South African 'cannibal case' men get life sentences Close Jean-Claude Juncker addresses public spat with Theresa May: 'we were not dancing' Theresa May has insisted her Brexit deal is not dead in a press conference in Brussels after a bruising EU summit, with leaders scrapping written commitments to help pass her deal through the Commons. Unless further concessions are made, it means the embattled prime minister will return to Westminster with limited assurances that are unlikely to placate her rebellious MPs. But David Lidington, the cabinet office minister, defended Ms Mays handling of the talks, telling the BBC: Anybody who has heard Theresa May, anybody who has heard her around the cabinet table, knows there is a very clear plan. Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load The Democratic Unionist Party has told Theresa May not to roll over to the EU, heaping further pressure on the prime minister after her Brussels failure. Arlene Foster the leader of the party propping up the Tories in power blamed Ms May personally for the setback, saying: This is a difficulty of the prime ministers own making. She said: The prime minister has promised to get legally binding changes. The reaction by the EU is unsurprising. They are doing what they always do. The key question is whether the prime minister will stand up to them or whether she will roll over as has happened previously. The comments came after Ms Mays Brexit strategy was dealt a devastating blow after late-night talks at an EU summit in the Belgian capital ended in acrimony. EU leaders scrapped proposed written commitments, designed to help her pass her deal through parliament, in frustration at the prime ministers inability to set out clearly what she wanted. The 27 heads of state and government opted to delete lines from their council conclusions, which would have said the EU stands ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided. Worryingly for Ms May, Ms Fosters outburst follows the prime ministers pledge in a crisis meeting with Tory MPs to rebuild battered relations with the Northern Irish party. Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal Show all 11 1 /11 Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Independent Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Daily Mirror Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Times Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Daily Express Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Financial Times Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Daily Telegraph Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The i Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Guardian Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Scotsman Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Daily Mail Newspapers react to Theresa May pulling the vote on her Brexit deal The Metro The DUP is under pressure to vote with Labour in a vote of no confidence in the government, although it has said it will only do so if the deal is passed which looks increasingly unlikely. In her statement, Ms Foster added: This is a difficulty of the prime ministers own making. A deal was signed off which the prime minister should have known would not gain the support of Parliament. If the prime minister had listened to our warnings and stood by her public commitments, we would not be in this situation. Labours Keir Starmer said the overnight events in Brussels proved the prime minister was obviously not going to get the changes which were the reason for shelving the meaningful vote. She needs to put that vote back to parliament next week and let us vote on it, he told Sky News. Its unacceptable for this vote to be put off until January. We know the answer as to whether there are going to be any changes and it is no. Leo Varadkar, Irish premier, emphasised that the EU was united on the need for the Irish border border backstop in the withdrawal agreement. In Brussels for the second day of the European Council meeting, the Taoiseach said he was very satisfied with the summit conclusions on Brexit which made clear the withdrawal agreement was not up for renegotiation. Mr Varadkar said he still believed a no deal was an unlikely scenario despite the EU ramping up preparations for such an eventuality. Theresa Mays Brexit plan was dealt another major blow at a meeting with EU leaders on Thursday night in a disastrous turn of events that resulted in them scrapping written commitments to help her pass her deal through parliament. After arriving in Brussels with promises to help the prime minister, European leaders were left amazed when she turned up without any developed requests or ideas. The 27 heads of state and government subsequently decided to delete lines from their council conclusions saying the EU stands ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided and that the backstop does not represent a desirable outcome for the union. The key paragraphs appeared in leaked earlier drafts on the conclusions and their absence leaves a barebones statement that does the bare minimum to help the prime minister. The limited assurances provided in the statement are extremely unlikely to placate Ms Mays MPs, who have said they want major changes to the agreement. Accounts of the meeting suggest the prime ministers speech, in which she called for help to get the agreement over the line, was repeatedly interrupted by Angela Merkel asking her what she actually wanted from them. Senior UK government officials admitted that the prime minister did not bring any documented proposals with her to the meeting. The approach puzzled EU diplomats, who for days before the conference had said they needed to see what proposals Ms May had come up with before they could respond to her request for aid. Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said at a midnight press conference after the discussion: I do find it uncomfortable that theres an impression perhaps in the UK that it is for the EU to propose solutions. It is for the UK leaving the EU and I would have thought that it was rather more for the British government. In the margins of the summit the meeting is already being called Salzburg 2.0 a reference to a previous summit in September where the prime ministers dinner speech also ended up accidentally hardening the EU position. The statement issued by leaders warns that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation, but clarifying that the controversial backstop will apply temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement and that the EU will use its best endeavours to get it replaced quickly so that the backstop would only be in place for as long as strictly necessary. They assured the UK it was EUs firm determination to work speedily to replace it with a trade agreement. The statement will be of little help to the prime minister, who is struggling to get her deal through parliament after a bruising confidence vote on Wednesday where over 100 of her own MPs said she should quit. The prime minister had told EU leaders: There is a majority in my parliament who want to leave with a deal, so with the right assurances this deal can be passed. Indeed it is the only deal capable of getting through my parliament. She called on them to give her something that would change the dynamic in Westminster, adding: We have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escape. Until we do, the deal our deal is at risk. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk at a midnight press conference following the meeting (AP) Ms May is said to have asked for a legally binding 2021 deadline to end the backstop, but it was pointed out by leaders that this would contradict the fundamental principles of the agreement. When asked if the UK could propose a way around this, the prime minister was said to have no answer. Arriving at the meeting the prime minister had downplayed hopes of an immediate breakthrough. But the performance on Thursday evening appears to have derailed the possibility of any further help down the road in the new year, which the EU seemed receptive to before the session got underway. Such plans could have taken the form of protocols or side-declarations to the treaty. Earlier in the day German chancellor Angela Merkel had said: I do not see that this withdrawal agreement can be changed. We can discuss whether there should be additional assurances, but here the 27 member states will act very much in common and make their interests very clear. "Brexit betrayal" march in London Show all 43 1 /43 "Brexit betrayal" march in London "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds an anti-BBC sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator holds a sign in the picket line Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester carrying a noose at the "Brexit betrayal" march. The man carrying it told a reporter: "That's what the traitor May deserves." AP "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro-brexit supporters hold a sign opposed to Nigel Farage Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters carry a defaced British flag on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Tommy Robinson addresses a rally after taking part in a Brexit 'betrayal' march in central London PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London Police officers attempts to keep rival protesters from clashing at the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London Victoria Jones/PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds an anti-Theresa May sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator and his dog Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator at the protest Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro-brexit demonstrators endorse UKIP Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A Brexit 'betrayal' march protester wearing a Make Britain Great Again hat in London on 9 December 2018 Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The "Brexit Betrayal" march passes through Central London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Tommy Robinson tells protesters to join Ukip via their mobile phones on stage next to leader Gerard Batten (right) at the Brexit 'betrayal' march Gareth Fuller/PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester speaks thorugh a megaphone on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator walks in the picket line Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit anti-May sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester carries a Union Jack on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator wrapped in the Union Jack Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit anti-May sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro brexit demonstrators move through Central London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator marches with sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator holds a rude sign in the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The march passes down Victoria Street near Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A festive protester marches near Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds a mock noose as the march passes down Victoria Street towards Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester wrapped in the Union Jack marches down Victoria Street towards Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester makes some noise on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester dressed as a dinosaur holds a sign rallying against "Davocracy" - in reference to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds a pro-brexit sign on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The march approaches parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester distributes pro-brexit lapel badges Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A demonstrator wears an anti-EU poster and holds an anti-BBC sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A smoke bomb is deployed in Parliament Square as the march comes across the counter-demonstration Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A flag bearing the Arms of Plantagenet flies in theprot Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters on the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters on the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who is currently chairing the European Council, struck a more conciliatory tone, telling reporters: We are ready to accommodate Theresa May. Its not about pushing through maximum positions but to find a provision that is the best possible for both sides. Juha Sipila, the Finnish prime minister, told reporters that it would be a little bit difficult to give the PM legally binding assurances but that leaders wanted to try and help anyway. In one positive for the prime minister Mr Juncker, the commission president, said he wanted talks on the future relationship to begin as soon as the House of Commons had approved the agreement as a sign that the EU was serious about replacing the backstop. But the token gesture alone is unlikely to persuade Brexiteers. EU leaders will wait until the new year before unveiling their plan to save Theresa Mays Brexit deal amid fears that the political turmoil in the UK would jeopardise any announcement long before the deal is voted on. The bloc plans to hold back its best cards until January, sending the prime minister back to Westminster on Friday with warm words and a written commitment to help her in her renewed attempt to get the plan through parliament. The prime minister on Thursday night insisted to her counterparts that she would have the numbers in the Commons to pass the deal if they would only give her something to help it over the line. But arriving at the meeting, she played down the possibility of an immediate breakthrough, while senior UK government officials admitted that she had not brought any documented proposals for the other leaders to consider. Speaking in the margins of the meeting, an EU official said there would be a little bit of candy this time, and then once we see how that goes a little more candy in January. But it is far from clear that even an eventual final offer from the EU will be enough to win over Tory MPs, after 117 of them voted no confidence in her leadership. The prime minister appears to have already jettisoned Brexiteer calls for a built-in time limit or expiration to the controversial backstop despite having reportedly pledged to her MPs ahead of the confidence vote that she would only sign up to it if it was made temporary on a legally-binding basis. It is understood that the prime minister did not mention time limits or an expiration date in a bilateral meeting with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar when the policy was discussed. Ms May told the closed-door meeting of leaders on Thursday night: There is a majority in my parliament who want to leave with a deal, so with the right assurances this deal can be passed. Indeed it is the only deal capable of getting through my parliament. She called on leaders to give her something that would change the dynamic in Westminster, adding: We have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escape. Until we do, the deal our deal is at risk. But the EU has already clearly ruled out changes to the withdrawal agreement that contains the backstop, which keeps the UK tied to the EU customs area with concessions likely to take the form of political declarations that countries will do their best to find a replacement for it, or non-legally binding protocols tacked onto the treaty. Arriving at the summit, Mr Varadkar warned that if the backstop has an expiry date, if there is a unilateral exit clause, then it is not a backstop. 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" German chancellor Angela Merkel had said: I do not see that this Withdrawal Agreement can be changed. We can discuss whether there should be additional assurances, but here the 27 member states will act very much in common and make their interests very clear. Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who is currently chairing the European Council, struck a more conciliatory tone, telling reporters: We are ready to accommodate Theresa May. Its not about pushing through maximum positions but to find a provision that is the best possible for both sides. Juha Sipila, the Finnish prime minister, told reporters that it would be a little bit difficult to give the PM legally binding assurances but that leaders wanted to try and help anyway. Tony Blair has predicted there could soon be a majority in parliament for a Final Say referendum, after European leaders snubbed Theresa Mays efforts to save her Brexit deal. In a humiliating blow to the prime minister, the EU27 issued a statement saying the withdrawal agreement was not open for renegotiation, and scrapped written commitments to help her pass her deal through parliament. Ms May went to Brussels on Thursday seeking fresh concessions amid concerns from Brexiteers over the controversial Irish backstop plan. Recommended EU scraps plan to help May pass Brexit deal after disastrous meeting Her appeal came after she survived a no-confidence vote, triggered by restive Tory backbenchers angered by her decision to pull a crunch vote on her Brexit deal. Former prime minister Mr Blair, who has backed The Independents Final Say campaign, said there will be a majority in parliament in the end for a referendum, as Ms Mays deal is looking increasingly unlikely to command support. He said it was completely predictable that attempts to change her backstop plan would fail, as the Irish premier Leo Varadkar would not concede on the issue, and other EU leaders would not desert him. Obviously, if you come to a choice between a referendum and a no deal, its clear that whatever the British people voted for in June 2016, they didnt vote for crashing out of the EU without a deal, Mr Blair told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Its perfectly possible for her to become the facilitator and say there are various options [Norway-style, Canada, no deal]. If we cannot have a parliamentary majority for any of those options then it becomes logical to say to the British people parliament is gridlocked, parliament cant decide and therefore we have got to take it back to the British people to decide. Mr Blair made the comments ahead of a speech in London, where he urged European leaders to prepare for the likelihood of Brexit being delayed beyond March 2019. The former Labour leader said: We are now entering a new phase of Brexit. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Government has lost the initiative. Parliament has taken it. We know the options for Brexit. Parliament will have to decide on one of them. If parliament cant then it should decide to go back to the people. Now should be the time of preparation parliament to make sure it can canvas the options in sensible manner, one by one, to reach agreement on an option or a referendum; Europe to ensure that if Britain is ready to think again, Europe is ready also to think again. All that is necessary is for leadership: in parliament if not in government, and in Europe where despite all the myriad of challenges European leaders have, they should understand that changing Brexit would be the greatest boost to Europes economy and politics and that therefore, they need to focus on the part they can play and play it. Theresa May has insisted her Brexit deal is not dead despite a bruising summit in Brussels in which EU leaders made no significant concessions to help her pass the agreement. Speaking on Friday after the meeting the prime minister accepted that her MPs will require further assurances to pass the controversial plan after the EU ripped up a commitment to help. EU leaders last night only released a bare-bones statement of reassurances, and deleted pledges from earlier drafts which had said the bloc stands ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided. But the prime minister insisted that as formal conclusions, these commitments have legal status and therefore should be welcomed. She told reporters that after a round of diplomacy this morning it was clear to her that further clarification and discussion following the [European] Councils conclusions is in fact possible. Recommended EU scraps plan to help May pass Brexit deal after disastrous meeting The prime minister insisted there would be further discussions in the coming days, but speaking after Ms May, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said he had no mandate to organise any further negotiations. Ahead of the meeting some EU officials had suggested a more substantial package to help the prime minister might be held back until the new year but it is not clear whether this plan is still on the cards. But even such a step appears unlikely to assuage Tory Eurosceptics, who want a legally binding mechanism for the UK to leave the treatys Northern Ireland backstop. The bloc has ruled this out, said it would effectively render the backstop ineffective, and that it will not reopen the withdrawal agreement. That backstop policy ties the UK to the EUs customs area and ramps up checks on goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to prevent a hard border with the Republic of Ireland. As I have always said, the guaranteed way of avoiding the backstop is to have the future partnership in place by the time the implementation period is over. The EU is very firmly committed to this course, Ms May said. There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the UK parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal. Mr Tusk and his European Commission counterpart Jean-Claude Juncker sought to downplay accusations that the prime minister had been treated poorly by the EU. We have treated Prime Minister May with the greatest respect, all of us, and we really appreciate the effort by the prime minister to ratify our common agreement, Mr Tusk said. My impression is that in fact we have treated Prime Minister May with a much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs, for sure. Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker had an icy conversation on Friday morning (Philip Sime / Twitter) Mr Juncker dismissed silent footage of an argument between him and Ms May on Friday morning. The prime minister appeared to confront him after taking offence over his use of the term nebulous to describe the debate in the UK. But he said the two leaders had worked it out, and that in the course of the morning after having checked what I said yesterday night she was kissing me. Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who is chairing the European Council, added: Not all rumours in the media really go in line with how the meeting was. The problem is just that we had two different positions. Accounts of last nights meeting suggest the prime ministers speech, in which she called for help to get the agreement over the line, was repeatedly interrupted by Angela Merkel asking her what she actually wanted from the EU leaders. Senior UK government officials admitted that the prime minister did not bring any documented proposals with her to the meeting. The approach puzzled EU diplomats, who for days before the conference had said they needed to see what proposals Ms May had come up with before they could respond to her request for aid. Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said at a midnight press conference after the discussion: I do find it uncomfortable that theres an impression perhaps in the UK that it is for the EU to propose solutions. It is for the UK leaving the EU and I would have thought that it was rather more for the British government. In the margins of the summit the meeting is already being called Salzburg 2.0 a reference to a previous summit in September where the prime ministers dinner speech also ended up accidentally hardening the EU position. Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An abandoned shop is seen in Mullan, Co Monaghan. The building was home to four families who left during the Troubles. The town was largely abandoned after the hard border was put in place during the conflict. Mullan has seen some regeneration in recent years, but faces an uncertain future with Brexit on the horizon Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A defaced Welcome to Northern Ireland sign stands on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Mervyn Johnson owns a garage in the border town of Pettigo, which straddles the counties of Donegal and Fermanagh. Ive been here since 1956, it was a bit of a problem for a few years. My premises has been blown up about six or seven times, we just kept building and starting again, Johnson said laughing. We just got used to it [the hard border] really but now that its gone, we wouldn't like it back again Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Farmer Gordon Crocketts Coshquin farm straddles both Derry/Londonderry in the North and Donegal in the Republic. At the minute there is no real problem, you can cross the border as free as you want. We could cross it six or eight times a day, said Crockett. If there was any sort of obstruction it would slow down our work every day Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures John Murphy flies the European flag outside his home near the border village of Forkhill, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Potter Brenda McGinn stands outside her Mullan, Co Monaghan, studio the former Jas Boylan shoe factory which was the main employer in the area until it shut down due to the Troubles. When I came back, this would have been somewhere you would have driven through and have been quite sad. It was a decrepit looking village, said McGinn, whose Busy Bee Ceramics is one of a handful of enterprises restoring life to the community. Now this is a revitalised, old hidden village Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Union Flag colours painted on kerbstones and bus-stops along the border village of Newbuildings, Co Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Grass reflected in Lattone Lough, which is split by the border between Cavan and Fermanagh, seen from near Ballinacor, Northern Ireland Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Donegalman David McClintock sits in the Border Cafe in the village of Muff, which straddles Donegal and Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An old Irish phone box stands alongside a bus stop in the border town of Glaslough, Co Monaghan Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Billboards are viewed from inside a disused customs hut in Carrickcarnon, Co Down, on the border with Co Louth in the Republic Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Seamus McQuaid takes packages that locals on the Irish side of the border have delivered to his business, McQuaid Auto-Parts, to save money on postal fees, near the Co Fermanagh village of Newtownbutler. I live in the south but the business is in the North, said McQaid. "I wholesale into the Republic of Ireland so if theres duty, Ill have to set up a company 200 yards up the road to sell to my customers. Ill have to bring the same product in through Dublin instead of Belfast Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A disused Great Northern Railway line and station that was for customs and excise on the border town of Glenfarne, Co Leitrim Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Alice Mullen, from Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland, does her shopping at a former customs post on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh. Id be very worried if it was a hard border, I remember when people were divided. I would be very afraid of the threat to the peace process, it was a dreadful time to live through. Even to go to mass on a Sunday, youd have to go through checkpoints. It is terribly stressful, said Mullen. All those barricades and boundaries were pulled down. I see it as a huge big exercise of trust and I do believe everyone breathed a sigh of relief Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A bus stop and red post box stand in the border town of Jonesborough, Co Armagh Reuters The statement issued by leaders warns that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation, but clarifies that the controversial backstop will apply temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement and that the EU will use its best endeavours to get it replaced quickly so that the backstop would only be in place for as long as strictly necessary. They assured the UK it was the EUs firm determination to work speedily to replace it with a trade agreement. The statement will be of little help to the prime minister, who is struggling to get her deal through parliament after a bruising confidence vote on Wednesday where more than 100 of her own MPs said she should quit. In one positive for the prime minister, Mr Juncker said he wanted talks on the future relationship to begin as soon as the House of Commons had approved the agreement. But the token gesture alone is unlikely to persuade Brexiteers. A seven-year-old girl who crossed the United Statess southern border died after being taken into the custody of the Border Patrol. The unnamed child started having seizures just eight hours after she was arrested by border agents in New Mexico last Thursday, after entering the country with her father at an illegal crossing. She later died from dehydration, septic shock and fever. In a statement, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said emergency medics who responded to the seizures decided to fly her to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. She had a temperature of 41 degrees and had not eaten or drunk anything for several days, the agency said. When she arrived at Providence Childrens Hospital in El Paso she went into cardiac arrest and, although doctors revived her, she died the next day. Our sincerest condolences go out to the family of the child, CBP spokesman Andrew Meehan told The Washington Post. Border Patrol agents took every possible step to save the childs life under the most trying of circumstances. As fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we empathise with the loss of any child. The girl, who was from the central American nation of Guatemala, was travelling with her father when she crossed the US-Mexico border in a group of 163 people. After entering the US, the group approached border agents and handed themselves in to request asylum. CBP said the seven-year-olds bereaved father is still in El Paso and is waiting to meet with officials from the Guatemalan consulate. Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Show all 23 1 /23 Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants climb the US border fence in Tijuana AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants cross the dried up Tijuana river AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Mexico police emerge from a cloud of tear gas Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Mexico police work to keep migrants from getting over the border with the US AP Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border US border patrol agents stand guard as migrant seek to cross the border at Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Adults help a child over the US border fence AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants near the US border in Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants climb the US border fence in Tijuana AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants clash with riot police as they near the US border in Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A migrant is detained by US border patrol officers after illegally crossing the border Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants cross the dried up Tijuana river Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Tear gas is deployed at the border Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants make their way to the US border fence Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A migrant man wears a homemade gas mask Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants stand on the banks of the Tijuana river opposite the US border fence Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants cross the Tijuana river Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants gather at the border crossing in Tijuana AP Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Tear gas is fired by border police to deter migrants EPA Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A migrant covers his face as tear gas surrounds him Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrant families seek to cross the US border at Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Mexico police try to stop migrants from crossing Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants force their way through the border fence at Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Reuters The agency said it was investigating the circumstances of the death to check if any mistakes in procedure had been made. It has also ordered an autopsy on the girl. Huge numbers of migrants and refugees from central America have been trying to cross into the US in recent months, in some places overwhelming the border agencys ability to cope. When the Border Patrol detains migrants they are processed at nearby facilities but normally are quickly moved to Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) custody after a few days. The Border Patrol is regularly apprehending large groups of migrants, often more than 100 people including young children, even though their holding cells were mostly designed to take a few single adults. Even transporting migrant families is proving a challenge, as there are not enough vans with baby seats to take people to be processed away from the border. Cynthia Pompa, advocacy manager for the ACLU Border Rights Center, said migrant deaths increased last year even as the number of border crossings has dropped overall. Ivanka on US border: 'It makes me angry that we haven't been able to come together as a nation and change our laws' This tragedy represents the worst possible outcome when people, including children, are held in inhumane conditions. Lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths. Migrants and activists have long accused the Border Patrol of detaining families in woefully inappropriate conditions. In Tucson, Arizona, an ongoing lawsuit claims holding cells are filthy, extremely cold and lack basic necessities such as blankets. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events A judge overseeing that lawsuit has ordered the agency to provide blankets and mats to sleep on and to turn over surveillance footage from inside the cells. The seven-year-old is at least the second child to die after contact with US immigration authorities this year. In May, a toddler called Mariee Juarez also from Guatemala died after being released from an ICE detention facility in Texas. Her parents have now filed a $60m wrongful death lawsuit against ICE. Medical records show Mariee was not unwell when apprehended with her mother after illegally crossing the border to flee an abusive home in Guatemala. Flavio Bolsonaro, son of Brazils president-elect Jair Bolsonaro, has declared that he has done nothing wrong as questions mount over suspicious payments involving his aide. The unusual transactions, totalling 1.2 million reais (245,000), pose a problem for Mr Bolsonaros father, who was elected after promising to stamp out corruption in Brazil. Suspicion about the payments first arose when Brazils government published a report last week which highlighted numerous transactions involving members of the countrys legislature. The document was produced by Brazils Financial Activities Control Council and does not name Flavio Bolsonaro, a state representative. It does, however, name Fabricio Jose Carlos de Queiroz, Mr Bolsonaros driver. Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Show all 8 1 /8 Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency A man holds an inflatable figure of jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as supporters of far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro celebrate in front of the National Congress in Brasilia, after the former army captain won Brazil's presidential election AFP/Getty Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Supporters of the left-wing presidential candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Fernando Haddad, react in Rio AFP/Getty Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Police officers patrol the streets during a gathering of supporters of the left-wing presidential candidate for the Workers Party AFP/Getty Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Fernando Haddad, presidential candidate of Brazil's leftist Workers Party (PT), is kissed by his wife Ana Estela Haddad Reuters Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency EPA Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency AFP/Getty Images Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency AFP/Getty Images Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency REUTERS The aide is alleged to have deposited the money in various amounts between January 2016 and January 2017. Mr Bolsonaro denied any wrongdoing in a post on his Twitter account. Jair Bolsonaro, who will take office as Brazils president on 1 January 2019, avoided media interviews as speculation over the payments mounted, according to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. He broke his silence on Wednesday during a Facebook livestream, when he admitted that he had a problem ahead due to the transactions. The politician also denied that he and his son were targets of an investigation. During his campaign the far-right politician capitalised on public dissatisfaction with Brazils elites, who are often perceived as corrupt. He promised to eradicate widespread corruption and also threatened to imprison his political opponents, give the police carte blanche to kill and do away with human rights. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events If something is wrong, either with me, with my son, or with his aide, we should pay for it, he said on Facebook. We cant let anyone off the hook. I am open to anyone who wants to ask a question on this subject. Mr Bolsonaro won Brazils presidential election in October 2018. Additional reporting by agencies Michael Cohen has come out swinging at Donald Trump, saying "of course" the president was aware of hush money payments to silence women during the 2016 election that landed his former lawyer with a three-year jail sentence. Speaking publicly for the first time since that sentencing, Cohen sought to up the legal stakes Mr Trump faces amid Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and another into spending for the president's inauguration in 2016. Mr Trump's legal peril is the core issue at the heart of an argument currently taking place among legal analysts and campaign finance experts, in part over Cohen's campaign finance violations relating to the payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged to have had affairs with the president. While Mr Trump has denied the affairs, he has been implicated in criminal conduct by Cohen and a sentencing memo from New York prosecutors. That memo said "Cohen acted in coordination with and at the direction" of the president over the payments. I knew what I was doing was wrong, Cohen said in an interview with ABC News released Friday. I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty. At one point Cohen was asked if Mr Trump's denial that he had ordered his former lawyer to make the payments was true. I dont think there is anybody that believes that, Cohen responded. First of all, nothing at the Trump Organisation was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump". While Justice Department guidelines state a sitting president cannot be indicted, former officials have noted there are technically no laws on the books stopping investigators from charging Mr Trump over the hush money payments, among other potential legal troubles facing the president. In fact, the president could face criminal charges regardless of his political status, according to Daniel Goldman, a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York and a fellow with the nonpartisan public policy institute, Brennan Centre for Justice. As a former prosecutor I would feel comfortable charging the president with felony campaign finance fraud based on what we know now, so long as Michael Cohen could be used as a witness and if the president could actually be indicted, Mr Goldman told The Independent. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Weve had some kindling and now we have real smoke but were not yet at a bonfire, though that certainly seems to be the direction were heading, he continued. I think the presidents most concrete legal jeopardy that we know of in the public is the campaign finance fraud crimes that Michael Cohen plead guilty to. Cohens emotional sentencing hearing capped off a dramatic trial for the presidents former fixer and ex-deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, who said Wednesday he felt it was his duty to cover up Mr Trumps dirty deeds. I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today, he said, adding, it was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. On Thursday, Mr Trump also dismissed the significance of the campaign finance allegations, which he said were civil violations at best. But he added that if there were any legal issues, he had expected Cohen, to know that, and accused his former lawyer of trying to embarrass him. On Friday, White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley backed that up by rebuking the latest developments, describing Cohen a self-admitted liar and blaming the press for giving credence to a convicted criminal. Still, the latest revelations indicate the evidence could be mounting against Mr Trump, with new reports suggesting he attended a 2015 meeting with Cohen and David Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc, in which the hush money payments were discussed. Trump has offered three different defences and lied for several months, flatly denying having any knowledge about the $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, said Corey Goldstone, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Centre. There can be serious charges against Trump for conspiring with Cohen to make unreported individual contributions. In summary, he could become a target of a very serious criminal campaign finance violation, though part of what the prosecutors would need to determine is if Trump was aware of what the law was. Meanwhile, Mr Goldman who worked for a decade at the offices that are now prosecuting Cohen, before leaving in 2017 laid out a number of ways in which the president could face criminal charges. First perhaps the most surreal option is Justice Department officials reversing guidelines in order to indict the president. I think there are many strong legal arguments for why a sitting president can be indicted, including issues with statutes to limitations and fading memories, but also basic fundamental principles that no one should be able to defraud the voting public to attain office and then be protected by that office, Mr Goldman said. But right now the policy at the DOJ is a sitting president cannot be indicted and unless that is reversed then there wont be an indictment by either the special counsels office or the southern district. An acting attorney general could defy department guidelines and the office of legal counsels position, unilaterally deciding to charge a sitting president, though the former prosecutor noted that would be a very unlikely event. The second option is that prosecutors wait until Mr Trump possibly loses the White House in 2020 to file charges against him, announcing an indictment before the five-year statute of limitations pertaining to his possible financial violations. There is a statute of limitations for five years, as long as there is an act taken in furtherance of the crime, then there would still be time to charge him after he left office, Mr Goldman continued. If Mr Trump secures another term as president, his tenure in the Oval Office would outlast the statute of limitations for crimes he could possible have violated. But lawyers could effectively argue those statutes dont apply to a president who broke the law and evaded prosecution by remaining in the White House, Mr Goldman argued. Theres an open question about whether the statute of limitations apply in this case, he said. If none of that worked out, the former prosecutor said the southern district and federal prosecutors would have to find a way to deliver their findings on the president to Congress, and if he was found to have broken the law, impeachment would have to be considered. Of course, once the president is impeached, criminal charges can then follow suit, he added. As new investigations emerge, including a federal probe into the 2016 inaugural committees spending, public advocacy groups say Mr Trump could be directly implicated in previously unknown crimes that shape the next two years of his presidency as well as the fate of his legal woes. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Public Citizen, an organisation which has fought for transparency surrounding the presidents inaugural fundraising and demanded documents on the committees spending from the Internal Revenue Service, said Mr Trump faces a perfect storm of implications. It was a huge week with the shutdown tantrum, the inaugural investigation, Michael Cohen it certainly feels like the president should be incredibly concerned, said Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs at Public Citizen. The inauguration issue is something weve been paying attention to for a long time, since it was sort of a secret cloaked event. If foreign donors gave money to the inaugural committee that could bring another emoluments clause issue for Trump. Everything that happened this week was a series of bombshells that could lead to Trump finding himself in the cross hairs, she added. At least 10 people in southern India have died of suspected food poisoning after they ate contaminated food at an opening ceremony at a new Hindu temple. Dozens of people were taken to hospital following the event in the Chamarajnagar district of Karnataka state on Friday, police said. Local media reported anywhere between 10 and 12 people had died, with some reporting a 15-year-old girl was among the victims. Samples were collected for chemical analysis of food that was served to devotees following the ceremony. Police said worshipers had fallen ill several hours after they had consumed the prasad, a food offering in Hinduism and Sikhism normally eaten following rituals. They vomited, complained of severe stomach pain and were taken to nearby hospitals. Police detained two members of the temples management for questioning, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. HD Kumaraswamy, chief minister of Karnataka state, visited worshippers who had been taken ill in hospital on Friday. He said in a statement on Twitter 500,000 rupees (5,500) would be paid to the families of each of the deceased as compensation. [The chief minister] has announced that the government will bear the medical expenses of all those affected in the food poisoning incident, the statement said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events He also ordered the director general of police to investigate further and report the matter immediately. In 2013, 22 children died in a school in Indias eastern state of Bihar after eating food that had become tainted with a pesticide after being stored in a cooking oil container. Additional reporting by AP A French TV channel has apologised for playing the Bob Marley hit I Shot the Sheriff during its coverage of the news police had killed Strasbourg Christmas market attack suspect Cherif Chekkat - as a fourth victim of the shooting died in hospital. Rolling news channel BFM TV used the song as it aired a special programme reporting Chekkat had been fatally shot by officers after an exchange in the citys Neudorf neighbourhood late on Thursday. The 29-year-old had been at large since Tuesday evening, when he is thought to have opened fire at a popular market, killing four people and seriously injuring several others. During BFM TVs broadcast, the channel screened footage from the area where counter terror police had killed Chekkat, before the reggae classic began playing. The channel blamed the incident on human error and apologised on Friday. The technical team in charge of sound recognises it was behind this serious incident and says human error was to blame, BFM said in a statement. Some viewers had taken to social media during the programme to suggest they were unimpressed with the unfortunate song choice. BFM just broadcast I shot the sheriff live on air. Theyve lost it! one commentator remarked. Another tweeted: Im not sure Bob Marleys I Shot the Sheriff is the best choice of music by BFM tonight. Other users mocked the channels decision using the hashtag #ChoisisUneMusiqueCommeBFM, or choose music like BFM, offering humorous suggestions for songs that could be played during coverage of various other stories. Chekatt was shot dead by police following a two-day manhunt (AP) Paris prosecutors announced on Friday a fourth victim of the attack had died in hospital following several days in a critical condition. Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte named the man as Antonio Megallizzi, a 29-year-old Italian journalist who had been hospitalised in a grave condition in the first hours after the attack. Deep sorrow for the death of Antonio Megalizzi, a young man with great passion for journalism, or radio, for investigations and for European institutions, Mr Conte tweeted. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Authorities have so far named only one other victim Anupong Suebsamarn, a 45-year-old tourist who had been visiting France from Thailand. Strasbourg mayor Roland Ries also said another of those who died is a local man thought to be in his 60s. Investigators are now trying to establish whether Chekkat acted alone or had help from accomplices while he was on the run, and have taken seven people into custody, including four of the suspected gunmans immediate family. Additional reporting by Reuters Turkeys president accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salmans closest associates of being behind the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in an attempt to keep the pressure on the de facto ruler of the oil-rich kingdom. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, coming closer than he ever has to accusing the crown prince of the killing, cited audio capturing the final moments of Khashoggis life as he was strangled by a Saudi hit team dispatched from Riyadh to confront him in his own nations official diplomatic outpost in Istanbul. We have learned this from the audio recordings: of those who arrive, those closest to the crown prince played the most active role, Mr Erdogan said on Friday, according to the official Anatolia news agency. The perpetrators are clear to me. After denying being behind the killing for weeks, Saudi Arabia insisted a rogue team of operatives were responsible for the murder and identified a number of its citizens as being responsible, but the kingdom has so far resisted calls to extradite them to Turkey or submit to an international investigation. Mr Erdogans statement suggests he has been emboldened to renew pressure on Saudi Arabia following the US Senate on Thursday unanimously accusing Prince Mohammad of being behind Khashoggis murder. The senators declaration took place after a historic bipartisan vote called for an end to American support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Recommended Senate passes resolution saying crown prince responsible for Khashoggi Saudi and Saudi-owned pan-Arabic media largely ignored the Senate votes, which represented an unprecedented blow to the reputation of the kingdom. But Saudi media celebrated a UN-brokered peace deal over the battle for the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, which was penned on Thursday in Sweden. Turkeys president has been reluctant to bluntly accuse Prince Mohammad of the killing, to avoid a confrontation with the regional power and to maintain Arabian Peninsula investment into the Turkish economy. He cited the statement of Nikki Haley, outgoing US envoy to the United Nations, this week holding the the Saudi government and its leadership as responsible for the murder. She openly named people, Mr Erdogan said. This shows something. Now, the whole incident is fully resurfacing. He added: Its clear where this business will end up. A Palestinian teenager was killed yesterday and an Israeli soldier critically wounded in clashes that erupted across the occupied West Bank. The violence came as Israeli security forces ratcheted up a manhunt for a Palestinian gunman who shot dead two soldiers the day before. Plumes of black smoke rose up at a checkpoint near to the key city of Ramallah yesterday as dozens of Palestinian protesters burned tires and threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, who fired back with tear gas and bullets. The Israeli army then sped into downtown Bireh, near Ramallah, a rare action in daylight, after conducting a night of raids and mass arrests. The Palestinian health ministry reported that Mahmoud Nakhla, 17, was fatally shot in the stomach with live ammunition during the fighting. The Israeli army had earlier reported that an Israeli soldier was wounded by a Palestinian who struck him with a rock. Violence spiralled across other parts of the West Bank as tensions reached breaking point. On Thursday night, Jewish settlers beat up a Palestinian bus driver, Nidal Sake. In the West Bank cities of Nablus and Hebron yesterday, forces of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority violently broke up a demonstration by supporters of the rival Hamas movement, the militant group that runs Gaza. Yesterdays unrest was sparked by a week of attacks by Palestinians near Israeli settlements deemed illegal under international law. On Thursday, a gunman opened fire at a West Bank bus stop, killing two soldiers near to the Ofra settlement before speeding away in a vehicle. Earlier in the week, another Palestinian gunman carried out a similar drive-by shooting in the same area, wounding seven people, including a pregnant Israeli woman whose baby later died after being delivered prematurely. It followed an October shooting at a settlement industrial park that killed an Israeli man and a woman, both civilians. Israel has responded with unusual incursions into the centres of West Bank cities, sealing off major entry points to Ramallah, setting up extra checkpoints, shooting Palestinian suspects and raiding homes arresting at least 40 people. Yesterdays events capped off a bloody week during which eight people were killed, including a Palestinian protester, two Israeli soldiers, an Israeli newborn, a 60-year-old Palestinian businessman, and three Palestinian assailants, two of them members of the Islamic militant Hamas group. At rallies near Ramallah yesterday, protesters told The Independent they would continue to protest until Israel stopped their raids. Adam, 22, who was recovering from a barrage of tear gas, said: This week Israelis have repeatedly come into central Ramallah, in broad daylight, they were metres away from [our presidents] headquarters. They closed the city off like it belonged to them. We cant accept this. We dont think the way forward is the shootings. That is why we are here to protest. You tell me, how else can we raise our voice? The violence has also sparked fierce tensions between Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fateh, after Hamas said that its fighters were behind at least two attacks. Hamas operates grassroots cells in the West Bank as it is not permitted to properly operate there by Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. President Abbass office issued a statement on Thursday denouncing the violence and the attacks but blaming Israels policy of repeated raids into cities. A Hamas official, meanwhile, said some 100 members of the group in the West Bank, including lawmakers and other senior figures, had been arrested, including 70 on Friday. Trump backs two-state solution for Israeli-Palestinian conflict The latest shootings prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send reinforcements to the Palestinian territory, to order the detentions of Hamas activists and to call for the demolition of the homes of assailants within 48 hours. The Israeli army defended its actions. Our guiding principle is that whoever attacks us and whoever tries to attack us will pay with his life, Mr Netanyahu said Thursday. Yesterday, thousands of people in Israel attended the funerals of the two slain soldiers, Sergeant Yosef Cohen and Sergeant Yovel Mor Yosef, who were members of the Kfir Brigades Netzah Yehuda infantry battalion, a unit for ultra-Orthodox soldiers. There were fears a third soldier might die after he was hit in the head with a rock on Friday, the military added. The army said it appeared the soldier was also stabbed. It said Israeli forces were searching for the suspect. Israel has occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem since capturing land during the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians claim the territories for their hoped-for state, with parts of Jerusalem as their capital. We now know that UK citizens will have to pay to enter the EU when the new Etias visa-waiver system launches assuming of course that Brexit happens. But there remain many more questions about the impact Brexit will have on British travellers. The European Commission confirmed today that after the UK leaves the EU it will be considered a third country, and as such Brits will have to cough up 7 to enter the bloc from 1 January 2021, when the online Etias system comes into play. Well join the likes of the US and Canada, along with 59 other countries currently eligible for visa-free travel in the Schengen area. Once obtained, the Etias is valid for three years or until your passport expires. British travellers will have to pay 7 to visit the EU after Brexit, the European Commission has confirmed. From 2021, UK citizens will have to pay the fee every three years to pre-register for an electronic visa waiver, a system similar to the Esta scheme used by the US. The pre-authorisation fee will be waived for travellers under 18 and those over 70, which means it will apply to an estimated 40 million Britons. The proposed Etias (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) will see citizens of 61 countries outside the Schengen area required to pre-register for visa-free travel Predictions British tourists would have to pay to visit the EU after Brexit were previously dismissed as scaremongering by Leave campaigners. Yet draft regulation for the new travel scheme makes clear the UK would be considered a third country and subject to the same rules as other countries. The European Travel Information and Authorisation System will apply to United Kingdom nationals once union law on free movement of union citizens ceases to apply to them, as to other visa-free third country nationals, it reads. Natasha Bertaud, coordinating spokesperson for Jean-Claude Juncker, confirmed that the Etias would apply to British tourists after Brexit, but that it was way cheaper than an Esta. Despite government hopes that the UK could negotiate an exemption from the fee, a European Commission spokesperson told Sky News: Once Etias enters into operation, all visa-exempt non-EU nationals who plan to travel to the Schengen area will have to apply via Etias. Research from Abta, the body representing travel agents, shows that more than 33bn is spent each year by British travellers in Europe. In 2017, there were 72.8 million visits overseas by UK residents, an increase of 3 per cent from 2016, according to the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics. Of the 10 most visited countries by Britons, nine are in Europe. It first happened at a house party. Are you Thai? No, ok. Malaysian? Indonesian? Another time, someone asked me at a sushi restaurant why I was horrible at using chopsticks. We dont use chopsticks, we use cutlery or some like to use their hands, I had to explain. Or, Your English is so good. Where did you learn it? they ask. Its my mother tongue, actually. Its also one of our official languages, I respond for the nth time. After five years of living in England, Ive realised that despite there being over 200,000 Filipinos residing in the United Kingdom, little is known about our culture or history. Its like were invisible, right? The question lingered in my mind long after the breakfast I had with Stacy Danika Alcantara-Garcia, the new Vice Consul and Public and Cultural Diplomacy Officer at the Philippine Embassy in London. She had just moved to the capital a few months prior and was telling me about her first impressions as a new transplant. She talks about making her rounds through local museums and galleries and her subsequent disappointment upon finding out that there was hardly anything on display about the Philippines. Her experiences reflected many of my own. I remember walking into an independent bookstore with an extensive travel section. When I got to the Southeast Asian shelf, there was not a single book on the Philippines. Even little Bhutan (with a population of just over 800,000 compared to over 104m in the Philippines) had a few guide books to its name. I turned to my fiance and said, There are so many of us here working in and helping society and its as if no one cares about us! Alcantara-Garcia notes that the blame can initially be put on the distance between the two nations and the fact that Britain only occupied the Philippines for two years in the 1700s. Unlike many of its Southeast Asian neighbours that were colonised by the British, the Philippines was ruled by Spain for over 300 years, became an American colony for around 50 years, and was under Japanese occupation during World War II. However, there has been a sharp increase in the number of Filipinos living in the UK in recent years, especially due to the popularity of Filipinos in the healthcare industry (Filipinos are the second most common foreign workers in the NHS, beaten only by the Indians). But still, the average Briton I speak to admits that they dont know much about the little group of islands that many of us still call home. From the ambitious women who came in the 60s to serve the likes of John F Kennedy at The Savoy to the new batch of university students who arrive with fresh ideas and open minds, every nook and cranny of the nation is filled with Filipino citizens aching to tell their stories. Most Britons assume all Filipinos in the UK are nurses (as Prince Philip once noted), and whilst a large number are, we have since broken into the technology, natural sciences, business and arts sectors (I work in fintech and financial services). Unbeknownst to many, Filipinos even make up the majority of Scotlands foreign fishing fleet. Youre welcome for the fish and chips! As is the case for many other ethnic cultures, food has been one of the most successful vehicles for bringing the Philippines into the limelight over the past couple of years. The UK Filipino Food Movement is made up of a group of chefs and restaurateurs who are sharing the stories of their homeland, one plate at a time. Omar Shah, owner of restaurants Bintang, Ramo Ramen, Guanabana, and the newly-opened Mamasons in Soho, is one of the movements most recognisable faces. Shah was born and raised in London to immigrant parents and describes growing up as a Filipino in London feeling like he belonged to two different worlds, desperate to fit in. Shah has used his passion for cooking to showcase the eclectic flavours of Filipino cuisine and bring it to the masses. Photos of the bright purple ube sandwiches from his ice cream parlour Mamasons have been shared countless times on Instagram. Shah uses the popularity of his restaurants to engage with customers and answer their questions; especially when it comes to travel tips. He talks about the role that social media has played in the increased interest that the British have in travelling to the Philippines. Whilst growing up, the country was noticeably absent from his friends gap year plans through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Now, travel influencers and their photos of the global social media capitals cascading waterfalls and white sand beaches have drawn crowds towards this untouched destination with 14 per cent year-on-year growth. In my e-mail correspondence with Shah, he is quick to note that the rise in interest in the country and culture is not temporary: This is definitely not a mere trend or a passing phase. I have a lot of faith and confidence in our generation and the generations to follow to build upon what were doing, in the same way that were building upon what our parents have done before us. This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I moved to this country on a one-way ticket without a flat or a job, because I knew that despite the lack of security, Id find the challenges and adventure that I had been searching for back home. I came to London hoping the city would teach me how to be more independent and ambitious in a cutthroat environment, but didnt realise that Id one day be passing on some learnings of my own. The friends Ive made here tell me that before meeting me, the Philippines was barely a blip on their radars. It was always the afterthought, that unfamiliar place far, far away that they didnt know much about. They listen in awe as I tell them about the turquoise waters, the incredibly fresh mango shakes, and they can hardly believe it when I mention the hundreds of thousands of us who walk amongst them on a daily basis. We mend your wounds, catch your fish, code your websites, and put food on your plate. Were beside you as you wait for your bus and were sitting in front of you on the tube. There is often a desire to look outwards and far away when it comes to our search for the exotic, the different, and the unknown. We must remember to make an effort to take notice, keep our eyes open, and see those who are otherwise invisible. 100 years ago today, on 14 December 1918, Ireland voted in a general election which marked a crossroads in the nations history. The last election at which all of Ireland was part of the UK, it would also prove to be the last one held across the entire island. Coming just weeks after the end of the First World War, it was the first time people had been given a change to vote since 1910, and for the first time, the franchise was extended to all men over 21 and some women. At a time when Europe was experiencing fundamental change, with borders being redrawn around the world, Ireland seized an historic chance. Though this was technically a Westminster election, the vote became a proxy referendum on Irish independence. Sinn Fein, then a relatively new party led by Eamon de Valera, stood on a platform of abstaining from Westminster, promising instead to set up an Irish parliament. They won a landslide victory, taking 73 of the countrys 105 seats. Ireland had delivered a resounding cry for independence. While their mandate covered most of the island, unionist candidates triumphed in the north. They demanded to remain within the UK, and threatened armed resistance to any rule from Dublin. Irelands democratic choice was ignored by London, and instead Sinn Fein set up an alternative parliament in Dublin, the first Dail Eireann. A brutal war ensued, which ended when Britain offered Ireland independence - but only for 26 of 32 counties. To placate unionists, a border was drawn, and Northern Ireland was created. 100 years on, it is fascinating to contrast current events with 1918, and note some remarkable parallels. In 1918, Britain sought to deny Irelands quest for independence, and when it was granted, they oversaw an unjust partition which went on to cause decades of conflict. Now in 2018, as Britain seeks independence from the EU, it is once again attempting to play fast and loose with the island of Ireland, having learned nothing from hindsight, and caring little for consequence. The difference today is that the tables have turned. In Brexit, Ireland now has the upper hand, and the anger this has sparked in many British Conservatives betrays an outdated, imperialist mindset. Priti Patel suggested food shortages in Ireland should be used as leverage in negotiations, and speaking to BBCs Newsnight this week, one Tory grandee said, We simply cannot allow the Irish to treat us like this...The Irish really should know their place. In fact, the Irish do know their place, and it is at the heart of Europe. Now a strong, modern democracy, strengthened by EU membership, Ireland is ably standing up to Britain. But this is not the empire striking back in petty revenge, Ireland is merely protecting its own interests. Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An abandoned shop is seen in Mullan, Co Monaghan. The building was home to four families who left during the Troubles. The town was largely abandoned after the hard border was put in place during the conflict. Mullan has seen some regeneration in recent years, but faces an uncertain future with Brexit on the horizon Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A defaced Welcome to Northern Ireland sign stands on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Mervyn Johnson owns a garage in the border town of Pettigo, which straddles the counties of Donegal and Fermanagh. Ive been here since 1956, it was a bit of a problem for a few years. My premises has been blown up about six or seven times, we just kept building and starting again, Johnson said laughing. We just got used to it [the hard border] really but now that its gone, we wouldn't like it back again Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Farmer Gordon Crocketts Coshquin farm straddles both Derry/Londonderry in the North and Donegal in the Republic. At the minute there is no real problem, you can cross the border as free as you want. We could cross it six or eight times a day, said Crockett. If there was any sort of obstruction it would slow down our work every day Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures John Murphy flies the European flag outside his home near the border village of Forkhill, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Potter Brenda McGinn stands outside her Mullan, Co Monaghan, studio the former Jas Boylan shoe factory which was the main employer in the area until it shut down due to the Troubles. When I came back, this would have been somewhere you would have driven through and have been quite sad. It was a decrepit looking village, said McGinn, whose Busy Bee Ceramics is one of a handful of enterprises restoring life to the community. Now this is a revitalised, old hidden village Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Union Flag colours painted on kerbstones and bus-stops along the border village of Newbuildings, Co Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Grass reflected in Lattone Lough, which is split by the border between Cavan and Fermanagh, seen from near Ballinacor, Northern Ireland Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Donegalman David McClintock sits in the Border Cafe in the village of Muff, which straddles Donegal and Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An old Irish phone box stands alongside a bus stop in the border town of Glaslough, Co Monaghan Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Billboards are viewed from inside a disused customs hut in Carrickcarnon, Co Down, on the border with Co Louth in the Republic Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Seamus McQuaid takes packages that locals on the Irish side of the border have delivered to his business, McQuaid Auto-Parts, to save money on postal fees, near the Co Fermanagh village of Newtownbutler. I live in the south but the business is in the North, said McQaid. "I wholesale into the Republic of Ireland so if theres duty, Ill have to set up a company 200 yards up the road to sell to my customers. Ill have to bring the same product in through Dublin instead of Belfast Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A disused Great Northern Railway line and station that was for customs and excise on the border town of Glenfarne, Co Leitrim Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Alice Mullen, from Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland, does her shopping at a former customs post on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh. Id be very worried if it was a hard border, I remember when people were divided. I would be very afraid of the threat to the peace process, it was a dreadful time to live through. Even to go to mass on a Sunday, youd have to go through checkpoints. It is terribly stressful, said Mullen. All those barricades and boundaries were pulled down. I see it as a huge big exercise of trust and I do believe everyone breathed a sigh of relief Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A bus stop and red post box stand in the border town of Jonesborough, Co Armagh Reuters The economic and political harmonisation which came from the softening of the border in Ireland has directly correlated with the success of our peace process. A hard border would threaten this, and move us in the wrong direction. This is why the backstop is an essential part of any deal negotiated between the UK and the EU. If this frustrates Brexiteers, they have only themselves and their Conservative ancestors to blame. By drawing a border across Ireland a century ago, Britain made a grave error, and ignoring it during the EU debate was a foolish mistake, for now it is thwarting their plans. As we leave the EU, the hard Brexiteers (and Labour for that matter) must accept that Northern Ireland needs to be treated differently from the rest of the UK, in line with Theresa Mays deal. After all, when Ulster said no to Irish independence in 1918, it was afforded special status. Why can the same not be so, now that Northern Ireland has overwhelming said no to Brexit? The elephant in the room is of course Irish unity. It may have been a long time coming, but it is now fast becoming a reality. It is clear that the people of Ireland, north and south, see their future in Europe, and by dragging Northern Ireland out against its will, causing economic damage in the process, Conservatives and the DUP have begun the destruction of their precious union. Ironically, while Irish republicans have carried the baton along most of the road to reunification, it seems Britain may just carry it across the final stretch of the relay themselves. The election of 1918 sparked a period which led to Irelands unjust division. Now, in 2018, we are on the cusp of a period which could see the island brought back together. And with its short-sighted, careless behaviour, we can thank Britain for both. The number of people killed fighting in the war in Yemen jumped to 3,068 in November, the first time it has exceeded the 3,000 mark in a single month since the start of the four-year conflict. This is about the same number as were being killed in Iraq at the height of the slaughter there in 2006. The difference is that the Iraqis were not starving to death as is happening in Yemen. Aid organisations have long warned of mass starvation as 14 million hungry people are on the verge of famine, according to the United Nations. In a ruined economy, many Yemenis do not have the money to buy the little food that is available. But at the last moment, just as millions of Yemenis were being engulfed by the crisis, a final calamity may have been averted. On Thursday negotiators from the Saudi and UAE-backed forces and the Houthi rebel movement, meeting under UN auspices in Sweden, unexpectedly agreed a ceasefire in the port city of Hodeidah through which flows 70 per cent of Yemens food and fuel supplies. The Saudi-backed coalition forces and the Houthis have agreed to pull back their fighters from the city, which the coalition has targeted since June. It is the intensified fighting in and around Hodeidah that produced the spike in civilian and military fatalities. The surprise breakthrough at the negotiations, which are meant to pave the way for full peace talks, has encouraging elements. Some 15,000 prisoners are to be exchanged and a humanitarian corridor is to be opened to the city of Taiz, which has long been a focus for the fighting. Recommended Ceasefire agreed for Yemeni city of Hodeidah Truce agreements after long periods of fighting are always shaky, as opposing fighters, locked in combat for years and regarding each other with the deepest suspicion, begin to disengage their forces. But, for once in Yemen, there are reasons for optimism, which have little to do with the warring parties themselves and everything to do with political changes in Washington and in the relations between the US and Saudi Arabia. On the same day as the Hodeidah ceasefire was being announced in Sweden, the US Senate was unanimously approving a resolution holding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman architect of the war in March 2015 accountable for the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul two months ago. Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the resolution, said: I absolutely believe [Mohammad bin Salman] directed I believe he monitored it. And I believe he is responsible for it. Earlier in the month, after a closed-door briefing from the CIA director Gina Haspel, Corker said: If the crown prince had gone in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes. This is rough stuff and came in the wake of a 56 to 41 vote in the Senate for a resolution ending US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The Senate is also demanding the release of political prisoners held for supporting peaceful reforms such as rights for women. President Trump and the White House are still standing by Saudi Arabia, but they are paying an increasingly heavy price for this protection. Republican senators as well as Democrats are leading the attack on the crown prince and the Saudi role in Yemen. This assault is going to get worse for the Saudis when the newly elected Democratic majority takes over the House next year and steps up the pressure on the administration over its close alliance with Saudi Arabia. Trump may find that at the end of the day he is more vulnerable over his Saudi connection than his links to Russia. Even if Trump does go on protecting the crown prince and Saudi Arabia, he will look for something substantive in return. This is likely to include an end to the Yemeni war, which the US once supported primarily as a favour to the Saudis. It is a clear sign that the balance of power between Washington and Riyadh has changed radically in favour of the former. A less obvious reason why the war in Yemen may come to an end is that neither side is in a position to defeat the other side. Many in Saudi Arabia and among its allies may have believed earlier this year that capturing Hodeidah would be a decisive blow against the Houthis, but this was always a misconception. The Houthis are expert and experienced guerrillas who would certainly fight on against the less capable Saudi-backed government forces. They may well see impending famine as strengthening them diplomatically because it will provoke greater international criticism of the Saudi intervention. The war has always been seen as a personal project of the crown prince, which, as defence minister, he launched in March 2015 in expectation of a quick victory under the revealing code name Operation Decisive Storm. But instead of victory there was a military stalemate, though this did the Saudis little political damage until recently. They claimed with some success that their war was a counteroffensive against Iran and western leaders, and media commonly referred to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. But Iranian support for the Houthis was always limited, reportedly consisting of free oil product delivered outside the country to the Houthis who then sold it for cash. It is a mistake to think that Iran or any other power in the Middle East necessarily needs to deliver arms and ammunition in crates. Much of the Middle East is a black market arms bazaar, and this has always been particularly true of Yemen. Anybody with money to pay for weapons will never lack an arms dealer willing to supply them. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events After the Saudis failed to win the war quickly in 2015, they largely lost interest in it though they could not afford to bring it to an end without some sign of success. The human cost did not concern them as they were receiving military and diplomatic cover from the US, UK and France. The international media shamefully paid little attention to the war until the Khashoggi affair: a measure of this lack of interest was the lazy way in which news outlets cited the number of Yemenis who had died violently in the conflict at just 10,000, quoting a two-year-old UN figure which was, in any case, an underestimate. It was only after the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled) meticulously counted the number of those killed since January 2016 that it emerged the true figure for fatalities was 60,223. Acled estimates that, when it has counted the number of dead in the first year of the war, the overall figure will rise to between 75,000 and 80,000, not including those who have died from famine or disease. Bizarrely, it was not the killing of these tens of thousands but the murder of one man, Jamal Khashoggi, which may help bring to a close one of the most unnecessary wars in history. Mary McAleese spoke at the Politics Needs Women event in Dublin. P/A Former Irish president Mary McAleese has called for women to step up and take their political responsibilities seriously. The former president, who is now a professor of children, law and religion at the University of Glasgow, described life for women in politics as structurally, incredibly difficult. At an event to mark the centenary of Irish women winning the right to vote, Professor McAleese, who served as president of Ireland for two terms from 1997 to 2011, talked about her struggle to get into the world of politics. Entitled Politics Needs Women, the conference in Dublin featured a number of current female politicians who spoke about the difficulties they have in public life. Prof McAleese said she faced obstacles that were deeply embedded. She said: Politics is a really tough life, I think its structurally incredibly difficult. Its as difficult in many ways as it was for the suffragettes in our time. What I would be encouraging women to do is not to let all the impediments, all the difficulties get in the way of doing it if they have the passion for it. So many women have wonderful things to say about politics and the idea of galvanising those voices of women and encouraging them to take their political responsibility seriously for the opportunities that politics offers. I am partly saying (to women) to step up to the plateMary McAleese Trained as a barrister and journalist, Prof McAleese is formerly a professor of criminal law at Trinity College in Dublin and pro-vice chancellor at Queens University in Belfast. She has also completed a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, with the thesis to be converted into two books on childrens rights. She is the first president of Ireland to have come from Northern Ireland. I am partly saying (to women) to step up to the plate, she added. I think one of the things we need to do in identifying people who have a particular talent for politics is to encourage them and saying to them you wont be on your own. There are successes and those successes are measured in the way in which you are able to shape the world around you to the values and the views you think are about the advancement of the human condition. Asked if she had any regrets, she said: Absolutely none. The Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan said the event was to remember the women and men who campaigned for the right for women to vote. Their votes gave a democratic journey to our independence, he said. Change is not inevitable, it involves struggle and commitment of many. He said that Ireland has been lucky with its female politicians who, he said, has helped shape policy at moments of growth, at moments of crisis. He added that women have been the steady hand during times of difficulty and turmoil. Female senators, councillors and TDs speak to the range of issues forcing women out of politics or preventing them from entering in the first place. Watch live at https://t.co/bRzVdamb5O #politicsneedswomen #votail100 pic.twitter.com/6Gdu5aoTCn Department of Justice (@DeptJusticeIRL) December 14, 2018 However, he said that despite the achievements over the last 100 years, men still constitute almost four out of every five public representatives. Ireland very much remains an unfinished democracy, he added. While women continue to be so underrepresented in politics, the Government has taken action to change the situation. Getting more women into politics will require further support and commitment from political parties, power networks, from communities and families. The rights we take for granted today were viewed by some as inconceivable prior in 1918. Events took place to commemorate the centenary of the 1918 general election (Michelle Devane/PA) President Michael D Higgins has said it is appropriate and timely that Ireland reflects and celebrates the centenary of the 1918 general election. Mr Higgins described the election, which gave women the right to vote for the first time, as of fundamental importance in the countrys history. The president made the comments 100 years to the day since the election, which also gave women the right to stand in elections for the first time. The results led to the first Dail parliament being established in January 1919 and Irish independence. Mr Higgins said the election represented all the political tendencies of the day and had a particular importance for the suffragette movement. It is appropriate and timely that we reflect on and celebrate this milestone in Irish history.Michael D Higgins Women over the age of 30 and all men over the age of 21 were given the vote. Previously all women and most working class men had been excluded from voting. Mr Higgins said the results of the election represented the greatest single shift in parliamentary representation and also foreshadowed divisions that would deepen on the island. The poignancy of the 1918 election was the failure to respect its mandate which would result in the War of Independence and the tragic Civil War, he said. He concluded: It is appropriate and timely that we reflect on and celebrate this milestone in Irish history, and the rare alliances that made its promise visible and celebrate those who seized and placed their hopes in democracy. A number of events to commemorate the centenary took place in Dublin on Friday. At Leinster House, the seat of Irish parliament, Sinn Fein recreated an iconic photo from the election to mark the occasion. A horse and replica carriage emblazoned with election posters was brought to the gates of the building. An iconic image of the 1918 general election was recreated by @sinnfeinireland outside the gates of #LeinsterHouse today to mark the 100th anniversary of the election which gave women the right to vote for the first time #Votail100 pic.twitter.com/YfommdShW8 Michelle Devane (@michelledevane) December 14, 2018 Culture Minister Josepha Madigan is marking the anniversary by opening a pop-up museum at Dublin Castle entitled Women in Politics and Public Life, from 1918 to 2018, which explores 100 years of womens participation in politics and public life. Earlier this year, the Votail 100 programme was established by parliament to mark the centenary. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Theresa May at the meeting in Brussels. PHOTO: REUTERS/YVES HERMAN The Border backstop "is not on the table" as part of renewed efforts to get Brexit over the line, the Taoiseach has insisted. Speaking at yet another EU leaders' summit, Mr Varadkar said the backstop would protect Irish interests in the immediate crux - and in any future talks on a big-picture EU-UK trade deal after Brexit. Mr Varadkar, who had earlier met British Prime Minister Theresa May, said efforts to get the London parliament to ratify a deal would centre on "explanations, assurances and clarifications". For the moment, the assurances are political but the Taoiseach notably did not rule out some kind of legal device. Mr Varadkar's meeting with Mrs May was supposed to happen in Dublin on Wednesday but had to be postponed amid high political drama in London. Though Mrs May beat a no-confidence motion tabled by her Conservative Party colleagues, the draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement remains as far away as ever from the necessary approval of her MPs. The Taoiseach insisted all EU leaders were totally agreed that the EU-UK deal cannot be re-opened in efforts to overcome British lawmakers' hostility. But every effort would be made by the EU to help the UK MPs understand and hopefully support the draft deal. "I can tell you the backstop is not on the table. It needs to be there for a number of reasons," the Taoiseach said on his way into the EU summit meeting. "It needs to be there to give us the assurance that there will be no hard Border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, thus protecting the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement," he continued. "It needs to be there for European reasons as well, giving Europe the assurance that the open Border will not become the backdoor to the single market," the Taoiseach added. The 27 EU leaders listened to the latest thinking by Mrs May on the issue after the events at Westminster. Afterwards, the leaders met without Mrs May to consider their response, and the next moves. EU leaders were keen to show goodwill to Mrs May but equally adamant there can be no re-opening of talks on the deal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more diplomatic than French President Emmanuel Macron, who outright dismissed the question of further discussions. Ms Merkel said they must speak with Mrs May and decide how to help. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said it was difficult to know what the EU should give Mrs May to help the deal clear parliament. "Not all the arguments of Brexit supporters are rational," he said. Mrs May told reporters that there would be no early Brexit breakthrough. Any new efforts to re-run a vote in Westminster are not now expected until January as the clock counts down towards the March 29 Brexit deadline. "I recognise the strength of concern in the House of Commons and that is what I will be putting to colleagues today," Mrs May said on her way into the summit. "I don't expect an immediate breakthrough, but what I do hope is that we can start work as quickly as possible on the assurances that are necessary," she added. Draft texts circulating at the Brussels conference centre suggested that what was on offer will not help the embattled Mrs May. The text stresses that a new EU-UK trade deal is preferred over triggering the Irish backstop. Efforts would be made to do a deal swiftly, even if the emergency Border fix has to kick in for a time. Such words will not impress in Westminster. European Union leaders gave Prime Minister Theresa May assurances on Thursday that they would seek to agree a new deal with Britain by 2021 so that the contentious "backstop" is never triggered. "It is not open for renegotiation," the 27 national leaders said in a joint statement of the Brexit deal they agreed with May in late November. The British leader has since returned to Brussels to ask for assurances she says she needs to get it passed by her divided parliament. The bloc said it wanted to "establish as close as possible a partnership with the United Kingdom in the future" and would aim to have it in place by the end of 2020 "so that the backstop will not need to be triggered." Expand Close British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at a European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at a European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir If the backstop were triggered, the EU said it would apply "temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement" that would ensure no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland. The bloc promised to undertake its "best endeavours" to ensure the backstop, a fall-back guarantee to avoid a hard border, would only be applied "for as long as strictly necessary." British Prime Minister Theresa May has said preparations for a no deal Brexit are being stepped up after a night of bruising discussions with EU leaders in Brussels. Speaking at a press conference today, Mrs May said EU leaders were very clear that the Brexit deal on the table is the only deal possible and confirmed the UK parliament will vote before January 21. However, she said it was still possible to get further clarification from the European Union on the Brexit deal to help her win parliamentary approval for it. "My discussions with colleagues today have shown that further clarification and discussion, following the Council's conclusions is, in fact, possible," she told reporters in Brussels. Addressing the backstop, Mrs May said the EU does not want the backstop to be triggered, only temporary. She said the Brexit talks were going to get tough towards the very end of the negotiations as she battled to win assurances from the European Union to persuade lawmakers to back her deal. Expand Close Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Theresa May at the meeting in Brussels. PHOTO: REUTERS/YVES HERMAN / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Theresa May at the meeting in Brussels. PHOTO: REUTERS/YVES HERMAN "Negotiations like this are always tough, there are always difficult times and as you get close to the very end, then that can get even more difficult because you're absolutely sorting out the last details of something," May said. She added that the current deal is in the best interests of the EU and the UK and said it would be better to leave with a deal. Mrs May also addressed an animated conversation she had with President Jean-Claude Juncker earlier in the day. May had earlier been filmed on an official video remonstrating with Juncker at an EU summit in Brussels where she appeared to be accusing him of labelling her nebulous, a term he used on Thursday to describe the debate around Brexit. "I had a robust discussion with Jean-Claude Juncker," she told reporters. "I think that's the sort of discussion you're able to have when you have developed a working relationship and you work well together. "And what came out of that was his clarity that he had been talking, when he used that particular phrase, ... about a general level of debate." EU leaders have warned Theresa May she cannot expect a "legally binding" commitment that the UK will not be tied to the bloc indefinitely through the Northern Ireland backstop. The British Prime Minister went to Brussels to appeal to the leaders of the 27 to give her the assurances that would enable her to get her Brexit deal through Parliament. But while they promised to do their utmost to ensure the backstop - intended to ensure there is no return to a hard border between the North and the Republic - was never needed, they insisted they could not re-open the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said: "We don't want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation, that is crystal clear. "We can add clarifications but no real changes. There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty." It is a significant blow to Mrs May who had sought legal assurances that the backstop will be temporary. EU leaders also deleted a reference in draft text to being "ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided". And the Taoiseach insisted the Border backstop "is not on the table" as part of renewed efforts to get Brexit over the line. Leo Varadkar said the backstop would protect Irish interests in the immediate crux - and in any future talks on a big-picture EU-UK trade deal after Brexit. Mr Varadkar, who had earlier met Mrs May, said efforts to get the London parliament to ratify a deal would centre on "explanations, assurances and clarifications". For the moment, the assurances are political but the Taoiseach notably did not rule out some kind of legal device. Mr Varadkar's meeting with Mrs May was supposed to happen in Dublin on Wednesday but had to be postponed amid high political drama in London. Though Mrs May beat a no-confidence motion tabled by her Conservative Party colleagues, the draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement remains as far away as ever from the necessary approval of her MPs. The Taoiseach insisted all EU leaders were totally agreed that the EU-UK deal cannot be re-opened in efforts to overcome British lawmakers' hostility. But every effort would be made by the EU to help the UK MPs understand and hopefully support the draft deal. "I can tell you the backstop is not on the table. It needs to be there for a number of reasons," the Taoiseach said. "It needs to be there to give us the assurance that there will be no hard Border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, thus protecting the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement," he continued. "It needs to be there for European reasons as well, giving Europe the assurance that the open Border will not become the backdoor to the single market," the Taoiseach added. Mr Juncker also criticised the UK's lack of clarity over the future relationship it is seeking with the EU once it has left. "Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want," he said. "So we would like within a few weeks our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications." The rebuff came after Mrs May - who survived a bruising vote of confidence by Tory Mps - told EU leaders that she could get a Commons majority for the controversial deal, despite heavy criticism from all sides of the House. However, in a meeting with the leaders of the remaining 27, she said she had to be able to convince MPs the UK would not find itself tied to the EU indefinitely through the "backstop". "There is a majority in my Parliament who want to leave with a deal so with the right assurances this deal can be passed," she said in prepared remarks released by No 10. "Indeed it is the only deal capable of getting through my Parliament." She made clear a failure by EU leaders to offer concessions risked the collapse of the whole agreement with the UK leaving in March in a disorderly, no-deal Brexit. "We have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escape. Until we do, the deal - our deal - is at risk," she said. "It is in none of our interests to run the risk of accidental no-deal with all the disruption that would bring, or to allow this to drag on any further." After listening to her appeal, European Council president Donald Tusk said EU leaders had reaffirmed that the backstop was intended as an "insurance policy" to prevent the return of the hard border. He said that they had expressed a "firm determination" to work "speedily" to ensure there was an agreement on the future relationship in place by the end of the transition period in December 2020 so the backstop was not needed. He said that if the backstop was ever activated it would apply temporarily "unless and until it is superseded by an agreement" that ensures a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is avoided. However such assurances are likely to cut little ice with critics of the agreement who have been demanding a "break clause" to ensure the UK cannot be held in the backstop indefinitely. British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss Brexit, at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman Theresa May remonstrated with Jean-Claude Juncker at a Brussels summit on Friday and the EU chief executive had to placate the prime minister for having publicly called Britain's Brexit demands "nebulous" the night before. Under huge pressure at home as British media described her largely unsuccessful plea for favour from EU leaders as a humiliation, May appeared anxious to make a point to Juncker before a new session in the morning. What they said was not audible but official video of their exchange as other leaders took their seats showed May repeating herself while the former Luxembourg premier held her by the arm, shook his head and raised with his palm in an apparent effort to calm her down before the Dutch prime arrived to interrupt them. According to lipreaders, May confronted Juncker about the comments delivered to journalists in the early hours of the morning. "What did you call me? You called me nebulous," May is understood to have said. Juncker is believed to have replied, saying; "I wasn't calling you nebulous, I was calling the British position nebulous." The previous evening, Juncker told a news conference that British calls for EU help on Brexit were "nebulous" and "vague". Diplomats said other leaders made similar complaints directly to the beleaguered British leader during the talks. May said she had had a "robust discussion" with Juncker -- "the sort of discussion you're able to have when you have developed a working relationship and you work well together". The European Commission president had assured her, she said, that what he was describing as nebulous was the "general level of debate" in Britain on Brexit, not her own pitch to leaders. EU diplomats said May had on Thursday evening appealed for some legally binding amendments to the Brexit deal which she had agreed last month but seems unable to get through parliament. But the other 27 leaders had stood firm on a refusal to do anything that might water down the so-called "backstop" designed to avoid a disruptive "hard border" for Northern Ireland. They issued a statement stressing that they hope it would not be used, or if it were for only a very short time. But that has failed to satisfy critics of May's plan, who say it opens the risk of Britain being bound into EU customs and other regulations indefinitely, unless the two sides can agree on another way to keep their borders almost totally open. State controlled AIB has named Dr Colin Hunt - a one time economic advisor to Brian Cowen - as its next chief executive. The proposed appointment is subject to consultation with the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and approval by the Central Bank, but each is expected to be a formality. Dr Hunt is a well known economist - he had a high media profile in the early to mid 2000s when he was chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers. He was later a special advisor to Brian Cowen until mid 2007, when the former Taoiseach was Minister for Finance, and before that hed been a special advisor to former Transport Minister Martin Cullen from 2004. Dr Hunt is an experienced banker, he has been managing director of wholesale and institutional banking and a member of the senior executive team at AIB since May 2016, after joining from Australian finance house Macquaries Irish operations. At AIB, Colin Hunt emerged from four internal candidates following Octobers announcement by outgoing CEO Bernard Byrne of his plan to leave the bank. Given he already hold such as senior role his appointment is not expected to require the lengthy regulatory approvals involved in the appointments of external candidates as CEOs at Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank. With the bulk of AIB still in State hands, the appointment of Dr Hunt as CEO and as a director of the bank, must be also get the go ahead from the Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe. Ironically, back in 2007 the minister was a Fine Gael Senator and he raised the issue of whether Dr Hunt was facing a potential conflict of interest by leaving his role as advisor to Brian Cowen to join Australian bank Macquarie. Paschal Donohoe said Mr Hunts knowledge of government strategy might give his new employer an advantage. However, the appointment had been cleared by the Outside Appointments Board (OAB), which vets people moving to the private sector and had found no issue. AIB used executive search agency Korn Ferry to help with its succession process following the surprise announcement in November that Bernard Byrne would leave the bank to take up a job with Davy Stockbrokers. The AIB job is subject to the cap on bankers pay brought in after the crash - the bank can pay a maximum of 500,000 a year. Korn Ferry is separately helping to prepare a report for Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe on the pay cap that is due in the new year, and a report by Bloomberg suggests it will advocate a looser regime. AIBs own chairman Richard Pym has been a vocal advocate of loosening the pay cap - blaming it for the loss of senior executives to rivals. At AIB the four internal candidates are understood to be chief operating officer Tomas OMidheach; Robert Mulhall, head of retail and commercial banking; and Jim OKeefe, head of AIBs financial solutions group, as well as Mr Hunt. AIB kicked off the search for a new CEO after Bernard Byrnes surprise announcement last month that hes leaving the bank for stockbrokers Davy. With the pay cap review not expected until the New Year, and little political pressure on the Minister to change to a more liberal regime - its unlikely the pay deal will change before Colin Hunt takes up his new job. However, the Bloomberg news agency yesterday reported that Korn Ferry will recommend easing constraints on Irish bankers compensation which mostly apply at bailed-out banks. That might involve cutting the tax on bank bonuses. Since the crash an 89pc tax has been levied on any bonus of 20,000 or more. The report is still being drafted and will be reviewed by officials before being submitted to the finance minister, the Department of Finance said. There are exceptions to the pay cap including Bank of Irelands CEO Francesca McDonagh, who earns a basic salary of about 950,000. Construction of a cubicle shed for cows is a major project requiring significant design and financial planning before construction begins. Cubicle shed plus slurry storage could cost between 1,200 and 1,500 per cow place, which is approximately 200,000 for 150 cow places, according to Teagasc Advisor Pat Clarke. He says farmers should consider a few points when building a new cubicle house. The number of cubicles should facilitate the number of cows to be housed, to avoid bullying of heifers or weaker animals. He also says that plans should also accommodate for potential to expand in future. To do this, simply avoid blocking the end of the shed by another building, he says. Cubicles Farmers should also consider the number of rows of cubicles wanted, take into account ease of access for scraping cubicles or even gathering them for milking when housed, he says. Location The location of the feeding passage and feed space per cow needs to be of priority when building new housing sheds, according to Pat. He says that for head space there is two recommendations; (a) Silage fed ad-lib - 300mm/cow (b) Meal feeding - 600mm/cow Water Supply The water supply to the housing is also critical and should be deemed adequate before building, he says. Access Furthermore, access from shed to paddocks and milking parlour and the flow of the cows from the cubicles to the collecting year, into the parlour and back out to pasture or into housing should be considered when remodelling. Dimensions He also says that the dimensions are critical for optimum cow comfort and that the following guideline should be adhered to. A judge has ordered a farmer to appear before the High Court next week over his refusal to comply with an order to vacate 50 acres of land he owns. Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds said she was "satisfied beyond reasonable doubt" Tom Morrin is in breach of orders made against him by the High Court in July 2017. Those orders direct him to surrender vacant possession and to remove all machinery and livestock from 50 acres at Caragh, Naas Co Kildare, over which a receiver was appointed. He has also failed to comply with an order to cease interfering with agents of the receiver, Tom Kavanagh of Deloitte Ireland. The judge also dismissed applications by Mr Morrin, of Poplar Square, Naas, Co Kildare, to have the receiver's case thrown out, on the grounds it was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process. The Judge further dismissed Mr Morrin's bid for an order preventing Mr Kavanagh's and his agents from trespassing on his property. Mr Kavanagh was appointed as receiver over the lands in 2013 by Bank of Scotland Ireland arising out of a mortgage agreement alleged entered into between it an Mr Morrin in 2006. The loan was subsequently acquired by Pentire DAC. The receiver has brought proceedings against Mr Morrin seeking orders including that the farmer be attached and brought before the court for his alleged ongoing contempt of the 2017 orders. Stephen Byrne Bl, for Mr Kavanagh, said the defendant had flouted the order. He remains in occupation of the property and continues to farm the lands. Through his lawyers Mr Morrin, who has appealed the July orders, opposed the application and disputed the receiver's claims. Ms Justice Reynolds said Mr Morrin did not dispute that he remains in occupation of the land, in breach of the order. She directed an order for Morrin's attachment, which requires him to come before the court to answer his ongoing contempt, be directed to the Commissioner of An Garda Siochana. The case will return before her next week. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, has announced that payments have commenced under the Beef Data and Genomics Programme. Now in its fourth year, the Minister said the scheme will bring about reductions in Irelands greenhouse gas emissions while also introducing genetic technology into the national herd thus improving farm profitability. "These payments, worth 38m, have commenced issuing to 21,000 farmers who have verified their compliance with the 2018 requirements, he said. The Minister added the payments under BDGP II will also commence in the coming days. "In recent months my Department has been issuing payments to farmers across a range of schemes including BPS, ANC, Knowledge Transfer, GLAS, and the new Sheep Welfare Scheme. I am very aware of the importance of these schemes for the farming community, and they provide a significant financial boost for both individual farmers and the wider rural economy. BDGP payments will continue to issue on an ongoing basis as more famers verify their compliance with the 2018 scheme requirements. The Minister urged participating farmers to return all surveys and genotyping samples and/or complete the carbon navigator update as soon as possible to facilitate payment. Shares in Irish bottle and can maker Ardagh Group, chaired by well-known businessman Paul Coulson, plunged to a new all-time low in yesterday's trading. The company's earnings have been hit by rising input costs in its North American bottle business and European can business. The plunge cut the value of Mr Coulson's 33pc stake in the business, held via a 'holdco' that owns 92pc of the listed Ardagh's shares, to $887m (780m). Speaking last month at a conference in New York, Mr Coulson said the American bottle business was coming under pressure from cheap Chinese imports, but that US President Donald Trump's tariffs had a beneficial impact. "We've seen business come back from people who've moved over to using Chinese imports... those tariffs I think are having an effect, a beneficial effect," Mr Coulson said. He also said labour costs were too high in the company's US glass plants, with the firm mulling a move towards more automation. "Labour costs are very high, it's very expensive to employ people, but it's much less expensive than in Europe to get rid of people. And so therefore the payback on automation is very, very high in the US." Only 8pc of the listed Ardagh's shares are in circulation because the other 92pc are owned by the holdco. Mr Coulson plans to get more shares into free circulation, as part of a scheme that would involve refinancing some of the holdco's $2bn debt. But that may be more difficult if the holdco's stake in Ardagh is worth less. IRISH firm Fastway Couriers will look to sell itself to an international player as the growth of e-commerce boosts package delivery businesses. Fastway, which operates a franchise model here, plans to invest 10m in its infrastructure here over the next five to seven years, according to strategy director Danny Hughes. The company has been backed by private equity fund MML Growth Capital Partners, which helped fund a management buyout in 2016. Being a private-equity company means MML is likely to look to sell up its stake in the business in the coming years, as it seeks to make a return on its money. "We don't have a script for the next transaction or when or how it may take place. But any business that's operating with the sort of increased year-on-year revenue and profit growth we're seeing is obviously ripe for an opportunity to come along in the next three to five years," Mr Hughes told the Irish Independent. To continue the strong growth seen in recent years Fastway is looking at building relationships with international players in order to boost its sales volumes. "There's only probably 10 genuinely global operators, so becoming part of one of them is the more likely route of where you see Fastway over the next five or 10 years," Mr Hughes said, adding that a global or UK-based operator without an Irish arm may look to expand here by buying Fastway. The industry is seeing lots of consolidation as companies look to cope with increased package volumes. Fastway is also considering ways to grow by diversifying into areas that are similar to its current business. Waste collection and laundry are two potential areas given that they involve picking up something in one place and delivering it to another. Mr Hughes said Fastway would also look to expand by encouraging Irish retailers to sell more goods online. In addition, it's targeting businesses that require footfall (which may be declining due to the rise of online) by offering them the chance to become delivery hubs. "If you require footfall as part of your business well we can give you footfall because you can receive parcels on behalf of a customer and they come in... we pay the shop a handling fee," Mr Hughes said. The rise of Black Friday and Cyber Monday has presented a challenge to the business in that it can have to deal with 400pc or 500pc more packages compared with the previous Friday and Monday, Mr Hughes said. "Managing the quality of the service in line with the growth is a challenge," he added. Developer Michael O'Flynn, his brother John, and the O'Flynn Group, have received an apology in the High Court from Nama over the unlawful dissemination of their personal and business information. The O'Flynns are also to receive a substantial contribution for the costs of having had to bring a case against Nama over the matter. The O'Flynns and their firm sued over the leaking of the information by former Nama official Enda Farrell. Mr Farrell was given a two-year suspended jail sentence in May 2016 for unlawfully disseminating confidential Nama information. Mr Farrell has also apologised to the O'Flynns. While Nama confirmed to the O'Flynns in July 2016 that their information been leaked by Mr Farrell, the agency refused to provide documentation to them after, saying it [Nama] was seeking guidance from gardai. The O'Flynns sued claiming the leaks had a material impact on the prices achieved by both them and Nama in the disposal of the assets from 2010 and 2013 and on a significant loan sale in 2014. The case was against Nama, its company, National Asset Loan Management, and Mr Farrell. The case came before Mr Justice Robert Haughton yesterday when Michael Cush SC, for the O'Flynn side, said he was pleased to say it had been resolved on confidential terms and statements would be read to the court on behalf of the defendants. In the statement read by Paul Coughlan SC, for the Nama defendants, it said they wanted to "unreservedly apologise to the O'Flynns that they were compelled to take these High Court proceedings before the information requested was provided to them. In recognition of the foregoing, Nama has agreed to pay a substantial contribution towards the legal costs incurred by the O'Flynns related to these proceedings". The statement added that "it is Nama's position that Mr Farrell had acted on his own, unlawfully and without authorisation and Nama does not bear any legal liability for the said dissemination. Notwithstanding this, Nama wishes to express its sincere regret to the O'Flynns that this should have happened". The statement also said when it became aware of the dissemination of the information, it investigated immediately and reported it to gardai. Nama acknowledged the O'Flynns made "repeated requests" for the information but the agency did not provide it until they took High Court proceedings and Nama "deeply regrets" and apologises for that, it said. Nama acquired the O'Flynn loans from February 2010 onwards and acknowledged the "full co-operation of the O'Flynns since that time and during the major restructuring of their loans and subsequent sale to Carbon Finance Ltd in May 2014". In an apology read by Robert Dore, solicitor for Mr Farrell, he stated that in the past he "knowingly circulated" Nama information and materials of a confidential and commercially sensitive nature in relation to the O'Flynns and their group of companies. "I accept the said dissemination was unlawful", he said. He apologised "earnestly and unreservedly" for this and "for all the consequences of my actions". On the basis of that, Mr Justice Haughton struck out the case. Supervalu has been highlighted as the most convenient supermarket in Ireland, according to a location services IT provider. Recent research from Gamma insights group has found that this store is the closest for almost one third (32pc) of the population here. Its findings are based on an analysis of where people in each county live relative to the road network and the locations of supermarkets. Unsurprisingly, Dublin residents are best covered with almost everyone in the county - 98pc - within a five minute drive from a store. Leitrim, meanwhile, fares the worst as less than one third can get to a local store within the same timeframe. Gamma CEO Feargal ONeill said that, along with value for money, store location in grocery shopping is the most important factor in determining its success. "For supermarkets, the shopper will travel further but will most likely go to one of their four or five closest supermarkets, with choice being determined by the trade-off between the pain of travel and the rewards of store attractiveness such as value, quality, environment and parking," he said. "Convenience is of utmost importance for retailers because customers are time-poor. They want easy access, fast transactions and simple delivery options. As well as meeting these demands, supermarkets in Ireland need to stay ahead of the competition. This means choosing the right location to engage the target market based on factors like travel time, parking facilities, collection points and delivery zones." Lidl ranks second in Ireland for location convenience, as the study showed that it is the closest for 17pc of the population. Joint third place is taken by Aldi, Dunnes Stores and Tesco, who are all closest for 10pc of consumers respectively. However, on a county breakdown, Lidl is actually the most convenient in Kildare and Louth, and Dunnes Stores is closest for Offaly residents. Gamma found that supermarket coverage within Ireland is generally good with 71pc of the population within five minutes of their nearest supermarket. Hundreds of homeowners have been left without insurance cover if their homes develop structural defects following the failure of a Danish insurer. Alpha Insurance filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. It had 12,000 customers here. Last week, 50,000 drivers had to get alternative insurance cover when another Danish insurer, Qudos, went into liquidation. Now it has emerged that the failure of Danish-regulated Alpha has left 1,600 homeowners here unable to get alternative insurance. The homeowners were covered for structural defects insurance, which was bought for them by the developers of their homes. Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath said the homeowners were left in the lurch and were vulnerable if their homes developed defects. "This specific issue surrounds latent defect or structural warranty insurance, which is typically taken out by the developer and protects the homeowner if major structural issues with the property emerge," he said. Mr McGrath said the 1,600 homeowners were unable to get alternative cover. "It is my understanding that homeowners are unable to take out replacement insurance themselves," he added. He said this threatens to leave affected homeowners completely exposed if serious structural issues with their house emerge. The lack of such cover can restrict homeowners in selling their house. He called on the Central Bank to clarify the matter. It is understood insurers are reluctant to take over a structural defects policy once a house has been constructed. Homeowners affected who had structural insurance with Alpha Insurance were advised to contact the developer who built their house and to ensure that alternative cover has been arranged. Mr McGrath added: "This is yet another example of a breakdown in regulation in the European insurance market. Only last week another Danish regulated insurance company, Qudos, went into liquidation and we are still coming to terms with the failures of Enterprise and Setanta." He said major reform is needed at a European level to protect customers and claimants when insurance companies fail. In a Dail reply to the Fianna Fail TD, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said owners of properties unable to get new cover should contact the developer of their property. Should there be a claim on a policy, there may be assistance available from the Danish Insurance Guarantee Fund in the first instance. If such an application were unsuccessful, there may then be recourse to the Irish Insurance Compensation Fund, the Finance Minister said. The Central Bank said Alpha Insurance has published country specific information for policyholders, including Ireland, on its website at Alphagroup.dk/ireland. It said that while full compensation from the bankruptcy estate is unlikely, partial refunds may be available. The website gives information on how to claim premium refunds and other claims. The Danish Guarantee Fund may also cover premium refunds for some private insurances depending on the specifics of each case, the Central Bank said. The Insurance Compensation Fund in this country could be forced to pay the outstanding claims of the policyholders here from the collapsed Danish insurer, Qudos. The fund is already being used to fund claims related to the multi-billion euro black hole in Quinn Insurance and claims related to Setanta Insurance. And the bankruptcy of another Danish insurer that did business here, Alpha, may see the compensation fund called on to pay any claims related to that firm. It had been hoped that the 1,400 Qudos claims here awaiting settlement would be covered by the Danish Insurance Guarantee Scheme. Now it has emerged that a change in the law in Denmark last May could mean the Danish scheme will not be liable to meet Irish claims. This will be the case if Qudos is declared bankrupt after January 1 next. Qudos was authorised and regulated in Denmark, but was able to trade here under European Union freedom of services rules, selling through Wexford-based agent Patrona. It had 50,000 customers here. In a Dail reply to Fianna Fail's Michael McGrath, the Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe admitted there was now a doubt the Danish compensation scheme would cover the cost of the Qudos claims. Mr Donohoe said his officials had been in contact with the Danish Finance Ministry, which indicated that if Qudos is ultimately placed into bankruptcy, and this happens after 1 January 1 next year, then the Danish scheme will not be liable. He said that in such an instance, claimants may instead be eligible for cover from the Irish Insurance Compensation Fund (ICF). It is not yet clear what the final bill could be to the fund, but industry sources said it would run into tens of millions of euro. Mr McGrath commented: Apart from the serious uncertainty the collapse of Qudos has caused to policyholders and claimants, there is now the distinct possibility that we will be left with a hefty bill to the tune of tens of millions of euro because of a failure of regulation in Denmark. Last month the High Court approved payments of more than 20m from the Insurance Compensation Fund to meet a shortfall in awards related to collapsed Malta-based insurer Setanta. It went into liquidation in 2014. The estimated cost of around 1,750 claims arising from the collapse of Setanta Insurance in 2014 is thought to be around 95m. The Insurance Compensation Fund is paid for by a 2pc levy on general insurance policies, such as home and motor cover. A new 2pc levy will apply on all motor insurance policies from the start of this month. It will affect all motor insurance, personal, fleet and commercial and will be used to fund a new motor insurers insolvency compensation fund to cover future collapses of insurers. The new levy is being imposed on insurers, and it is not clear if it will be passed on directly to policyholders. Getting a signal in some parts of Ireland can be a challenge. Stock picture Ireland has Europe's worst mobile data speeds, according to the world's biggest industry survey. The Speedtest.net research, which ranks 124 countries, shows that Ireland has the slowest mobile service of any EU country. The survey is based on feedback from tens of thousands of phones across the country. It ranks Ireland 64th out of 124 industrialised nations, slightly behind Myanmar and Ecuador and just ahead of Honduras and Tunisia. It comes after a promised map to identify mobile blackspots across the country was deferred until next year by the telecoms regulator, with the Government shifting responsibility for fixing the issue onto local government agencies and future State-backed task forces. Irish telecoms licences do not require operators to cover a majority of the country, instead stipulating only that a majority of the population - based in cities and major towns - get a signal. This leaves large areas of the country with low-quality, low-speed mobile coverage. The Speedtest survey confirms that this has left Ireland with mobile data speeds half that of poorer EU countries such as Bulgaria or Lithuania and less than a third of the average signal quality found in countries such as Norway and Iceland. The problem is compounded by an admission from the telecoms regulator that it does not know where many of the country's blackspots are. This is due to limited testing ability across Ireland, which require significant manual resources. Instead, it is preparing an estimated blackspot map based on a data-collaboration exercise with mobile operators. This was due to be published in 2018 but will not now appear until 2019, according to a spokesman for the regulator. Responding to the survey, one telecoms executive said Ireland may appear to have slower performance than other countries due to a lower- density population compared to other countries. However, three of the top five performing countries in the Speedtest are Norway, Australia and Canada, with significantly lower population densities than Ireland. A spokeswoman for Three said the availability of more mobile spectrum would help Ireland to improve its comparative position. Last month, the country's third largest mobile operator, Eir, laid out plans to reach 99pc geographical coverage in Ireland within the next two years at a cost of 150m. Earlier this year, the Government promised to deal with mobile blackspots. However, its recently published report on the issue called on local authorities to consider action on the matter. The Government focus group called for the setting up of further task forces to examine the problem. Facebook is potentially facing huge fines from Irelands data protection commissioner, who has announced a fresh investigation into the social media giant. The move comes after Facebook admitted another privacy error, possibly affecting 7m people. The bug may have allowed up to 1,500 apps get access to private photos held by users on the social site. Facebook is already facing an official probe from the Irish data watchdog for a previous privacy leak in September, which the company said may have affected 30m people. Under tough new EU GDPR rules, a company can be fined up to 4pc of its annual turnover. In Facebooks case, this could amount to around 1.5bn. The Irish data authority now has at least two serious investigations underway into Facebook, with 14 more also being undertaken against other tech multinationals. Because so many big tech companies choose Ireland as their European or global headquarters, the Irish data authority is responsible for investigating when there is a problem. The Irish DPC has received a number of breach notifications from Facebook since the introduction of the GDPR on May 25, 2018, said a spokesman for the Irish watchdog. With reference to these data breaches, including the breach in question, we have this week commenced a statutory inquiry examining Facebooks compliance with the relevant provisions of the GDPR. In a blog-post today, Facebook revealed more about the data leak and the people possibly affected. Our internal team discovered a photo API bug that may have affected people who used Facebook Login and granted permission to third-party apps to access their photos, wrote Facebook executive Tomer Bar. We have fixed the issue but, because of this bug, some third-party apps may have had access to a broader set of photos than usual for 12 days between September 13 to September 25, 2018. When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline. In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories. The bug also impacted photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post. For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn't finish posting it - maybe because they've lost reception or walked into a meeting - we store a copy of that photo so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post. Currently, we believe this may have affected up to 6.8 million users and up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers. The only apps affected by this bug were ones that Facebook approved to access the photos API and that individuals had authorized to access their photos. We're sorry this happened. Early next week we will be rolling out tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug. We will be working with those developers to delete the photos from impacted users. We will also notify the people potentially impacted by this bug via an alert on Facebook. We are also recommending people log into any apps with which they have shared their Facebook photos to check which photos they have access to. Police armored personnel carriers are parked in front of the Arc de Triomphe, Saturday. Prized Paris monuments and normally bustling shopping meccas locked down and tens of thousands of police took position around France. Photo: AP French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday he would never put Europe ahead of the demands of the French people, days after he caved in to a anti-tax revolt by announcing costly measures set to increase the French budget deficit. "No country can move forward if it doesn't listen to the legitimate anger of its people, an anger which is expressed everywhere in Europe," President Macron told reporters ahead of an European Union summit in Brussels. "I will never carry out the European project, in which I believe, against aspirations I consider as legitimate. I think they can be reconciled and that's what we're trying to do," he added. The tax breaks and other measures he is offering to appease the so-called yellow vest' protesters are likely to push France's budget deficit above the European Commission threshold of 3pc of GDP. Earlier in the week President Macron announced wage increases for the poorest workers and a tax cut for most pensioners on Monday in an effort to quell a near month-long public revolt. But the measures will leave a 10bn hole in the Treasury's finances, and deals a blow to Mr Macron's reformist credentials. "We are preparing a fiscal boost for workers by accelerating tax cuts so that work pays," Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told parliament. "That inevitably has consequences on the deficit." Mr Philippe did not give details on the impact of the concessions on public finances or possible spending cuts, saying only that the government aimed to keep spending from increasing. "Under all likelihood, the 2019 public deficit will print above the 3pc benchmark," Societe Generale economist Michel Martinez wrote in a research note. Any failure to respect the EU deficit ceiling could shatter France's fiscal credibility with its European partners after Paris flouted it for a decade before Mr Macron took office. And any sign of leniency from Brussels could complicate the European Commission's tense discussions with Italy about keeping its deficit down. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said Paris should be subject to the same treatment as Rome and now risked EU censure over its budget concessions. "If the deficit/GDP rules are valid for Italy, then I expect them to be valid for Macron," Mr Di Maio said. Moreover, the yellow-vest protests are slowing economic growth. Two opinion polls on Tuesday showed roughly one in two French people think they should now end their protests. The European Commission is to make a final assessment of France's 2019 budget in the second quarter of next year when it releases new economic forecasts, a spokesman said. Reuters Carlos Ghosn was sent to Nissan by its partner Renault SA of France in 1999 (Eugene Hoshiko/AP) How big should executive pay packets be? How widespread is lax corporate governance in Japan? And what's the future of the alliance between Nissan and France's Renault? These are the broader issues brought into focus by the indictment of ousted Nissan Motor Co Ltd chairman Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn was arrested on Nov. 19 charged with understating his compensation by about half of the 10 billion yen ($88 million) he was awarded over five years from 2010. He was re-arrested on Dec. 10 on similar suspicions for another three years. Nissan was indicted for filing false financial statements. Ghosn, who has been detained since his arrest, has denied the allegations, public broadcaster NHK has reported. Nissan said it will correct past financial reports. TOO MUCH, NOT ENOUGH? Sky-high executive pay is a touchy topic in Japan, where conspicuous consumption is frowned upon and wealth gaps are contentious. Ghosn's undisclosed compensation charge is also politically sensitive in France, where President Emmanuel Macron has been battling anti-government protests. Japanese CEOs on average are paid just 11 percent of their U.S. counterparts, showed a report by Nicholas Smith, Japan strategist at CLSA. "In many cases, investors probably ought to worry more that executives are being paid too little and so are being underincentivised." Ghosn's reported pay in the latest financial year of $16.9 million dollars from Nissan, Renault SA and alliance member Mitsubishi Motors Corp made him among the most well-paid executives at global auto companies. Since 2010, Japanese firms have been required to disclose details of executive remuneration including stock options and bonuses when the total exceeds 100 million yen. Read More Three years ago, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe introduced a corporate governance code setting rules on disclosure, shareholders' rights and independent directors as part of his "Abenomics" economic policies. But the code is not legally binding. At Nissan, the Ghosn affair has exposed big gaps in governance, experts agreed. "It's a textbook case of poor governance," said Nicholas Benes, director of the Board Director Training Institute of Japan. Nissan's board has created a special committee to improve governance, which will likely recommend an increase in external board members and creation of a committee to oversee compensation. The lack of such a committee gave Ghosn huge scope to decide his own remuneration. The role of outside directors has also come into focus since they are supposed to provide oversight. More Japanese firms now have more external directors than in the past, but experts question how much clout they have. Nissan has three - a female race car driver, a former trade and industry bureaucrat and a retired Renault executive - but is likely to increase that number. The governance problem is probably not limited to Nissan. Japanese firms are not required to have a compensation committee and only 26 percent of listed firms do, although the practice is more common among bigger companies, CLSA's Smith said. Abe is keen to keep the Ghosn affair from giving his governance reforms a black eye. "As economic globalisation makes rapid progress, Japan will continue to step up efforts to make corporate governance effective," he told reporters his week. ALLIANCE WOES The crisis also reflects underlying strains in the two-decades-old partnership between Renault and Nissan and threatens to shake the alliance further. Some media and analysts have posited that other senior Nissan figures used investigations into Ghosn's alleged financial misdeeds to oust the automaker's one-time saviour as a way to prevent any attempt by Renault to strengthen control of the more profitable Nissan. Ghosn remains chairman and CEO of Renault but the French government is seeking candidates to replace him. Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa has denied the "coup d'etat" theory but Nissan has clearly been dissatisfied with the unequal alliance. Renault owns 43.4 percent of Nissan, which in turn holds a 15 percent stake in its parent company but without voting rights. Shares at Johnson & Johnson fell 10pc following the release of a disputed Reuters report which stated that the company knew for decades that its talcum baby powder supply contained asbestos. Reuters said it had examined much of the thousands of pages of company memos, internal reports and other confidential documents J&J were compelled to share with lawyers. The documents, which include deposition and trial testimony, allegedly show that from at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the companys raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos. Reuters said that the evidence shows that J&J executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it while failing to disclose it to regulators or the public. Reuters said that J&J turned down repeated requests for an interview for more than two months. The company referred all inquiries to its outside litigation counsel, Peter Bicks. In emailed responses, Bicks rejected Reuters findings as "false and misleading." "The scientific consensus is that the talc used in talc-based body powders does not cause cancer, regardless of what is in that talc," Bicks wrote. "This is true even if - and it does not - Johnson & Johnson's cosmetic talc had ever contained minute, undetectable amounts of asbestos." He dismissed tests cited in this article as "outlier" results. J&J has faced a wave of lawsuits alleging its talc baby powder products contain asbestos and caused ovarian and other cancers. In July, a Missouri jury ordered J&J to pay $4.9bn in a case involving 22 women and their families. A judge affirmed the verdict in August and J&J vowed to appeal it. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has taken up a new role overseeing an independence referendum in Bougainville. The island is an autonomous region within Papua New Guinea which suffered nearly 20,000 casualties during a decade of bloody conflict between 1989 and 1997. Residents will go to the polls next June as part of the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA), which was signed by the Papua New Guinea government and representatives of Bougainville 2001. This provided the legal basis for the establishment of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) in 2005 and a gradual transfer of powers from the national government. It also included provisions for weapons disposal. Since 2001, the agreement has enabled political dialogue between the Papua New Guinea government and the ABG and paved the way for the referendum planned for June 2019. Mr Ahern has been asked to act as chair of the referendum commission, which will ensure that a fair voting process is put in place. He visited Papua New Guinea and Bougainville in October, when he met with senior officials and international partners including the EU, UK, US France Australia and New Zealand. A man who threatened to slit a garda's throat and smash her face is to be sentenced next year at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Father-of-two Corrie Grimes (22) initially denied making a threat to kill or cause serious harm to the garda at Ferrymans Crossing, North Dock, Dublin 1 on February 28, 2017 and told gardai the allegation was a load of bo**ox. However he later pleaded guilty and wrote a letter of apology to the garda, the court heard. Garda Ciaran Harford told Dean Kelly BL, prosecuting, that he was on duty in a marked patrol car on Sheriff Street in Dublin with a female colleague on the day when they got a radio call for help from another garda. They arrived at Ferrymans Crossing to see their garda colleague putting a young man they knew as Jordan Grimes, a cousin of the accused, into a patrol car. Their grandmother, Anne Grimes, was present. The court heard that Corrie Grimes came up to the patrol car, red-faced and extremely angry, with his fists clenched, shouting aggressively to the female garda in the car. I'm going to kill you, I'll slit your f**king throat. I'll smash your face in, I'll get you one day, Grimes shouted, using the garda's first name. His grandmother was pushing Grimes back and saying, stop threatening her, you'll get arrested. Five hours later, Grimes, of Royal Canal Court, Cabra, presented himself at Store Street Garda Station but denied making any threats. I got a call to say my little cousin was getting kilt (sic) by the guards and I just seen a load of guards outside my house and my gran screaming, he said. I just saw the state my nanny was in and I got annoyed, it's all natural, he said. Grimes admitted he had been red in the face and that he had called the gardai scumbags, but accused the female garda of talking s**te. He denied using her first name and said he only knew her as Barbie, which he said was the garda's nickname locally. I just snapped because of the state of me granny, she's 66 and she was out in the street in her pyjamas and her glasses off, I didn't threaten anyone, that's bo**ox, Grimes said at first. Grimes has 11 previous convictions of which nine are for drugs offences. In a victim impact statement read out in court on behalf of the female garda, she said she had been a garda for 11 years but that was the first time she had met with an incident where she did not know what to do. There was no doubt in my mind that I would have been assaulted or seriously hurt if I'd got out of the car or got any closer (to Grimes), the garda said. She added that she had feared for her own safety and that of her garda colleague and that since the offence had become more cautious and always locked the doors of the patrol car when she was in it. The garda said she found the incident offensive and quite humiliatingas there had been a large number of local residents watching, and she felt undermined in the course of her duties. She said Grimes had never apologised, nor would she believe that any apology from him was genuine. Garda Harford told Judge Melanie Greally that there had been no contact between Grimes and the garda since and agreed that there had been no real substance to the threat. Kenneth Kerins BL, defending, said his client had pleaded guilty and fully accepted that what he said to the garda was despicable and unacceptable. The court heard Grimes is in recovery from drug addiction and in full employment. Letters were handed into court from Grimes' addiction counsellor, his employer, his partner and the mother of his two-year-old child. Mr Kerins said Grimes had started a residential drug treatment course but had not completed it over an incident where himself and some other residents had stolen biscuits. Judge Melanie Greally said Grimes had a highly dysfunctional relationship with the authorities and that his behaviour was nothing short of disgraceful. She accepted that he appeared to be making efforts at rehabilitation and ordered a probation report to determine whether his efforts are genuine. Grimes is due to be sentenced on March 12, next. Former Ulster players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding were acquitted of all charges. An application made on behalf of rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding to recover legal costs incurred during their lengthy rape case was dismissed in court today. Judge Patricia Smyth - who presided over the trial at Belfast Crown Court earlier this year - was asked to consider defence applications on behalf of both men, requesting their legal costs be reimbursed by the Public Prosecution Services. Both Mr Jackson and Mr Olding were unanimously acquitted by a jury in March of raping a student in Mr Jackson's south Belfast home in June 2016. Neither men were in court for today's ruling, but present in the public gallery were Mr Jackson's parents. While Mr Jackson funded his own legal costs throughout the 10-week trial, Mr Olding financed his own defence up until February 19, when an application for Legal Aid was made and granted. In the aftermath of the trial, the IRFU terminated the pair's contracts with both the Irish team, and Ulster Rugby. Both men subsequently secured deals with teams in France. Barristers for the pair each launched applications to recoup their client's legal fees from the PPS's purse. Amongst the submissions made, their barristers argued that both men had suffered huge financial loss and damage to their reputations as a result of the trial, and both had to move away to pursue their careers. During today's ruling at Belfast Crown Court, Judge Smyth pointed out there were no guideline cases in either the UK or Ireland to compare this application to. The trial judge also said she had taken into account the 'special facts and circumstances' of the case. Judge Smyth said: "This was a complex police investigation and the prosecution was warranted, albeit the jury did not consider that the charges had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. "The evidence bore the characteristics of a Rubik cube, capable of bearing myriad conclusions, depending on the jury's view of the evidence. But those were conclusions for the jury to reach, and not the prosecution. "Having considered all of the relevant factors, I am satisfied that there is no basis for exercising my discretion in the applicants' favour. The applications are therefore dismissed." It emerged during today's ruling that as part of the application made on behalf of Mr Jackson, the court was provided with information from both Paddy and his father Peter setting out what they paid in legal costs. The court heard Mr Jackson paid his mortgage off and had savings but had to draw on his mortgage and borrow money from his father's retirement money to fund his defence. In her ruling, Judge Smyth said Mr Jackson's father "was not required to contribute his retirement monies". The Judge also revealed: "Mr Jackson has declined the opportunity to provide evidence regarding his current financial situation, including the extent to which he has repaid the debt to his father." A massive Garda investigation been launched after the force received credible intelligence that criminals were plotting to have two officers shot. The alleged targets are officers investigating a major criminal feud in Drogheda, Co Louth. The threats were made in a phone call to a prison, where a number of the feuding gangsters are located having been charged over related incidents. The suspects at the centre of the threats are members of the same gang which was involved in the failed murder attempt on Owen Maguire in July, which inflamed the feud. They were also involved in a petrol bomb attack on a house at 12.15am yesterday. "All gardai in Drogheda have been strongly advised to be extra-vigilant in relation to this credible threat from one of the feuding gangs," a senior source said last night. As gardai scrambled to deal with the death threats, an innocent mother and her four children were lucky to escape with their lives after a petrol bomb was thrown into their house in Drogheda in the early hours of yesterday. The family fled their home in terror as the bomb set fire to the living room, filling the house with smoke. Gardai believe the house, in Laurence's Park, was targeted in the feud between rival drug factions in the town which has escalated in recent months after the shooting of Maguire . It's understood the family were not involved in the feud, but may have been targeted because one member of the family is friends with a man aligned to the Maguire faction. Gardai sealed off the terrace house for a forensic examination by the technical bureau. Several houses have been firebombed in the town in recent weeks as the feud spirals out of control. Tensions are now so high Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan visited Drogheda and met with senior gardai and officers who regularly patrol the streets trying to keep a lid on the violence. He was also brought to the Moneymore estate where he saw first hand the damage caused by the fighting factions. The feud was discussed in the Dail by Fianna Fail TD Declan Breathnach who said: "This morning the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, is visiting the garda station in Drogheda. "He is meeting Chief Superintendent Christy Mangan to discuss the excellent work being done by gardai in their efforts to deal with a powder keg situation that is ongoing in Drogheda, a drug-related feud. "Since July, gardai in Drogheda have been dealing with shootings, kidnappings, intimidation, petrol bombings and incendiary devices while today the lives of two named gardai were threatened. "The situation is getting out of control, despite the best efforts of An Garda Siochana. "When will An Garda Siochana be in a position to deal with these types of pressure cooker situations which, as I have said previously, are happening to a lesser degree in towns and villages all across this country?" Tanaiste Simon Coveney answered: "The examples which the deputy has provided are why the Minister of Justice and Equality is speaking to senior gardai to ensure they have the resources and powers they need to be able to act." Gardai have appealed for information after a man armed with a handgun held up a cash in transit van in north Dublin Gardai in Mountjoy are investigating following the incident this afternoon on Slaney Road in Glasnevin. A Garda spokesperson said: "At approximately 2.20pm a cash in transit van was making a collection from a business premises. "A white Ford Transit Connect van pulled up to the business premises and one man got out of the van, while the other man remained in the van. "The culprit approached the security guard with what is believed to be a handgun and took the cash box from him. No persons were injured." Gardai said the white van fled the scene and turned right onto Slaney Road and then up onto Lagan Road. Both men abandoned the van on and it was located burnt out at Lagan Road. The Garda spokesperson added: "Gardai are appealing for witnesses, in particular, any person who may have seen anything unusual between 1.30pm and 3pm in the vicinity of Slaney Road/Lagan Road or Glasnevin Industrial Estate. "We would also like to speak with any drivers who may have been driving in the vicinity of the general Glasnevin Industrial area and have dash cam footage, to check it." Witnesses or anyone with information, are asked to contact Mountjoy Garda Station 01-6668600, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station. Sligo-Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlin said gardai are investigating after his constituency office was defaced A Government TD's office has been vandalised with anti-abortion slogans including 'Fine Gael baby killers'. Sligo-Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlin has said gardai are investigating after his constituency office was defaced last night. It comes as legislation allowing abortion services in Ireland passed all stages of the Oireachtas. The words 'Baby killers', 'Herod's killers' and 'skumbags' were scrawled on the walls. So disappointed to see this morning that my busy constituency office in #Sligo has been vandalised and defaced overnight. We live in a proud democracy and despite ones opinion on any referendum, this behaviour can never condoned. Gardai on site investigating criminal damage. pic.twitter.com/Y9DMfVnT90 Tony McLoughlin TD (@TonyMcLTD) December 14, 2018 The Herod refererence is apparently to the biblical king who ordered the massacre of male infants at the time of the birth of Jesus. Mr McLoughlin said on Twitter: "So disappointed to see this morning that my busy constituency office in Sligo has been vandalised and defaced overnight. Expand Close Sligo-Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlin. Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sligo-Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlin. Photo: Tom Burke "We live in a proud democracy and despite one's opinion on any referendum, this behaviour can never [be] condoned." He said gardai were investigating criminal damage. In 1918 the vote was finally granted to women in Britain and Ireland. The Representation of the People Act was passed into law on February 6, 1918. While not enfranchising all women on the same terms as men, it nevertheless gave the parliamentary vote to all women over 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property of a yearly value of not less than 5, or university graduates. Going beyond women's role in the war effort The granting of the limited suffrage to women was seen by contemporary observers as an expression of gratitude for women's role in the war effort. There was a shift in popular opinion towards women's suffrage in Ireland during the war. Initially the suffrage societies continued to face suspicion and hostility. This gradually altered as the more conciliatory approach of the majority of suffragists and their voluntary work for the war effort gained publicity. The decline in the power of the Irish Parliamentary Party after the Easter Rising benefited the suffragist cause. Describing the party leader as their "arch enemy", the 'Irish Citizen', Ireland's suffrage newspaper, dismissed the party in April 1917 as "no longer a force to be seriously reckoned with". Mary Hayden, the UCD historian, asserted at a meeting of the Irishwomen's Suffrage Federation in January 1917 that suffrage prospects had improved in the last year owing to the war and that she anticipated "victory" within the year. The 'Northern Whig' claimed in 1917 that the war had caused "the great majority" of the nation to realise that the extension of the vote to women was not only inevitable but desirable. Many Irish suffragists were, however, frustrated by the fact that the Bill was widely seen as a reward for women's work for the war effort rather than an acknowledgement of the validity of the suffrage cause. Interviewed in the Irish Independent as the Bill was passed by parliament in 1917, Mary Hayden and Helen Chenevix, both prominent Irish suffragists, were careful to emphasise the long history of the suffrage movement in Ireland. Ms Chenevix emphasised that the "work suffragists had always been doing was quite as important as the new war work so that the proposals should be passed on its own merits not because of the new feeling brought about by the war services of women". Votes for men over 21 and some women over 30 The age qualification was also responsible for the muted response to the Bill. The 'Irish Citizen', Ireland's suffrage newspaper, promised to actively oppose the "offensive sex barrier" for women under 30 years of age while the Irish Women's Franchise League made clear its dissatisfaction with the Bill as passed. Many of the women most actively involved in the war effort remained disenfranchised, thus revealing the lie behind the concept of suffrage as a reward for war work. The different age qualifications were intended to ensure men would still form the majority of the electorate despite the loss of so many men in the war. Women's votes courted by nationalists and unionists Nevertheless, the granting of even limited female franchise gave new confidence and recognition to the nationalist and unionist women's organisations. The "role of women in the Irish Nation" was given priority in Cumann na mBan's manifesto for 1918 while the previous year the rights of women had been relegated to third place behind raising money for arms and gaining Irish recognition at the Peace Conference. Cumann na mBan mobilised to support Sinn Fein in the 1918 election. It put significant effort into directing women to vote for Sinn Fein and in ensuring that women likely to vote Sinn Fein had the opportunity to cast their votes. The Representation of the People Act also had a significant effect on the Ulster Women's Unionist Council. Although many prominent individuals in the unionist cause were opposed to women's suffrage, they recognised that the enfranchisement of women could be used to their advantage. Women were now accepted as members of the Ulster Unionist Council on the same footing as men, rather than being isolated in specifically women's auxiliary organisations. The UWUC strove to bring as many of the enfranchised women as possible into its organisation and sought to instruct women to vote for unionist candidates. The 'Irish Citizen', which was editorially openly nationalist by 1918, was very critical of this manipulation of women's suffrage and denounced the unionist's methods in the strongest terms: "We surely did not work and suffer and go to prison and endure all the horror of forcible feeding in order to be taken by the hand in this high and mighty fashion and told in commanding tones how to vote and for whom to vote!" Only two women stood for election The December 1918 election was the first opportunity for Irish women to exercise their right to vote in a general election. There were two female candidates in the 1918 election, both representing Sinn Fein. These were Winifred Carney, the trade unionist and Cumann na mBan member who stood for the Victoria constituency in Belfast and Constance Markievicz in Dublin. Ms Carney received 539 votes and was defeated. She had been nominated in a predominately unionist constituency which was never likely to elect a republican, regardless of their gender. Ms Markievicz had more success: she was elected in the St Patrick's constituency in Dublin. She was in prison in England at the time of the election in England for her role in the Easter Rising. Kathleen Clarke, a fellow republican prisoner, described in her memoir the joyful response of Ms Markievicz to the news of her election: "Madame got so excited she went yelling and dancing all over the place". Markievicz elected first female MP to Westminster Ms Markievicz was not only the first female Member of Parliament for Ireland - she was the first female MP in Westminster for the UK. Following the established Sinn Fein abstentionist policy, she declined to take her seat in Westminster but became minister for labour in the first Dail in 1919. Her election encouraged female republican aspirations. In 1922, women in Ireland received the vote on equal terms with men, with the Free State Constitution granting suffrage to all men and women aged over 21. Dr Fionnuala Walsh is lecturer at the School of History, UCD The seeds of Alzheimer's disease can be transmitted through medical procedures, scientists have found, leading experts to call for the monitoring of blood transfusions from the elderly and those with a family history of dementia. In 2015, researchers at University College London discovered that people who developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) following treatments with human growth hormone also showed signs of Alzheimer's in their brains after death. The scientists tracked down vials of the same hormone and found that it did indeed contain misfolded amyloid-beta proteins, capable of setting off the deadly chain reaction that can lead to dementia. When they injected the hormone into the brains of mice, the animals began to develop the same signs of neurodegenerative disease. Author Prof John Collinge, of the UCL Institute of Prion Diseases, said: "We have now provided experimental evidence to support our hypothesis that amyloid beta pathology can be transmitted to people from contaminated materials. "We cannot yet confirm whether medical or surgical procedures have ever caused Alzheimer's disease itself in people, or how common it might be to acquire amyloid pathology in this way. "It will be important to review risks of transmission of amyloid pathology by other medical procedures still done today, including instruments used in brain surgery, drawing on other research and what we already know about accidental CJD transmission." However, Alzheimer's charities sought to reassure people that it was highly unlikely the disease would be passed on during a medical procedure. Dr David Reynolds, chief scientific officer at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "Although the findings might sound concerning, strict guidelines surrounding the sterilisation and use of surgical equipment have been introduced since the discovery of prion protein contamination and CJD." The cost of the new national children's hospital has risen by almost a third, the Irish Independent has learned. The building on the campus in St James's Hospital was supposed to cost in the region of 1bn. But the price of the facility has risen to more than 1.3bn. The hospital was already the most expensive paediatric facility in the world. The Department of Health is understood to have been told of the 300m increase in spending on the project by the board of the new hospital. Health Minister Simon Harris will brief ministers on the rising costs at next week's Cabinet meeting and explain the reasons behind the overrun. The opening has already been delayed again and it will not be ready until late 2022. It was due to be ready in mid-2021 after years of being beset by setbacks. The hospital will amalgamate three existing children's hospitals. Building started last year on the campus in St James's Hospital with costs having already increased during delays in choosing a site. Two satellite centres in Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals will open first. The hospital was originally promised for late 2016. The rush to have the new abortion service in place by January is "unacceptable and unsafe," a GP organisation has warned. Dr Maitiu O Tuathail, president of the National Association of General Practitioners, said GPs will not be "threatened or intimidated" by Health Minister Simon Harris into providing the service when they do not feel they are ready. "Proper preparation, both clinical and medical council guidelines and clear support services are essential, before such services come into effect," he said. His comments came as the HSE reported that it is receiving a "steady return of application forms from GPs and the number is increasing on a daily basis". It is yet unclear what number of GPs, and their geographic spread, will be available if the service is triggered on January 1. Some maternity hospitals have also indicated they will not be fully prepared although the National Maternity Hospital said it will provide terminations to women seeking the procedure after a fatal foetal abnormality diagnosis. Once the legislation allowing for the extension of abortion, including unrestricted terminations up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, is in place the HSE is planning a publicity campaign. It will highlight the 24/7 phone line which women who want to access an abortion can ring to find out their nearest provider. However, Dr O Tuathail said many GPs are still reluctant to participate until they are satisfied supports such as same-day access to ultrasound is available. Work on clinical guidelines - to be given to doctors and hospitals, the step-by-step advice on abortion and the prevention of complications - are still being finalised. "The minister must allow the time required to ensure that all services are ready, to provide the safe and compassionate service that the women of Ireland have long waited for," he said. The minister said the full range of services will not be available in all areas from January 1 and it will evolve. He said he was heartened to hear the HSE say that a number of GPs are signing up to provide the service from January 1. A spokeswoman for the GP training body, the Irish College of General Practitioners, said it is working with the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on the final clinical guidelines on abortion which are close to completion. She said it is expected that these guidelines will be available to all doctors within days. Gardai at the house in Portlaw. Photo: Patrick Browne Gardai have launched a murder probe after a 53-year-old man was beaten to death in Waterford. The man, named locally as John Lowe, was discovered unconscious in Co Waterford, but later died. The victim, who had injuries consistent with a serious assault, is from the Portlaw area. A full post-mortem examination will be conducted today but it is understood the man sustained severe head injuries consistent with having been beaten with an implement such as a hammer or heavy bar. Gardai and paramedics were called to the property at the Coolfin Meadows estate in Portlaw, some 20km from Waterford city, area shortly before 3pm after it was reported a man had been injured following a confrontation. He was rushed to University Hospital Waterford (UHW) but was pronounced dead a short time later. A man in his 20s was later arrested at the scene. He was taken to Tramore garda station where he is being questioned under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. The young man is from the Waterford area. He can be held for an initial period of 24 hours. The scene remains cordoned off pending a full forensic examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau. It's understood that the arrested man was known to the deceased, though they are not related. A friend of the deceased described him as a "kind-hearted" man. "John was the nicest fella you would ever meet in your life. He's from the area, but had been working as a labourer in the UK," he told the Irish Independent. "He had no children and never married, all he had was his dog and some family members." Cllr John O'Leary said it's "a very sad day" for Waterford. An engineer from Co Carlow has told how he nearly choked after scooping 20,000 on a scratch card during his lunch break. Richard Lawlor (26) was tucking into a roll when he discovered he had won the huge prize after buying a 5 Money Multiplier with his food. Richard, who works at Edwards Engineering in Tullow, picked up his cheque today at Lotto HQ in Dublin. He added: "We just cant believe it. I got onto the boss straight away and he told me to take the rest of the day off to get to Dublin and claim my prize. "Every now and again Id get a scratch card with my lunch but you never expect that theres going to be 20,000 on a ticket Itll certainly make the Christmas more enjoyable, he said. The winning 5 Money Multiplier 20 X was sold at Hicksons SuperValu in Tullow. Meanwhile, a Connemara man also won a cool 20,000 on a National Lottery Scratch Card gifted to him by his mother. The delighted winner is promising his mum an extra special Christmas gift after winning the top prize of on the 2 Diamond deluxe Doubler. The thrilled Galway man told today how his mother gave him a present of the scratch card this week to thank him. She bought the card in Tomas Breathnach Teo Eurospar in Carraroe. Days on from their heroic win against Kilmacud Crokes the men of Mullinalaghta continued their celebrations at Dublin hotspot Copper Face Jacks. In a David and Goliath battle for the ages, St Columbas from the small rural town of Mullinalaghta in Co Longford proved victorious against the Dublin kingpins, claiming the title of Leinster champions. On Thursday, the team travelled to Dublin for a pre-recorded interview with RTEs 'Late Late Show' programme where they confirmed they would be spending the night celebrating at Coppers. Asked by Ryan Tubridy if they would be heading to the famous nightclub, Jayson Matthews replied absolutely to a roar from the audience. Read More Coppers has become the go-to for many Dublin teams including the County Senior GAA team who often dance the night away on Harcourt St. after final victories. The Longford team is the latest to join that roll of honour as they became the first club from Longford to claim the Leinster club title. Before signing off on the 'Late Late Show' which aired last night, the team gave a rendition of their own allez chant. A recording of the same song went viral across social media earlier this week. The Longford underdogs made history on Sunday producing one of the best sport stories of 2018. They returned home to the sound of applause from the hundreds of local residents who turned out to greet them. Jolly brolly: Santa battles the elements to see all the children at Murrisk community centre near Westport, Co Mayo. Photo: Paul Mealey High winds have caused disruptions to electricity wires and motorists are advised to be aware of wind-blown debris as Storm Deirdre hits the country. More than 4,000 homes are currently without power in the Glengariff area of Cork with ESB technicians currently working to repair the fault. Emergency services - and ESB teams - are on standby to assist as two further Met Eireann weather alerts come into effect this afternoon. Met Eireann issued a nationwide Status Orange wind warning as parts of the country are set to be battered by gusts of up to 130km/h. The nation woke up to widespread rain this morning, but it has become heavier, particularly in south and south west counties, with spot flooding already reported in the southern region. AA Roadwatch has warned motorists to take extra care on the roads as spot flooding has been reported in Waterford, Kilkenny and Cork. There is the potential for "severe and hazardous" conditions with western and southern counties set to feel the force of the wind from the late afternoon. However, stormy conditions with "disruptive and damaging" gusts will track north and eastwards during the evening and early night. ..... for a few hours later this afternoon in parts of Munster and Connacht and these severe winds will transfer to northern and eastern counties during the evening and early tonight. Afternoon temperatures of 7 to 12 degrees Celsius pic.twitter.com/lQHCAhTqeU Met Eireann (@MetEireann) December 15, 2018 The Status Orange is in place from 3pm until midnight tonight. Met Eireann warns: "A developing depression (Storm Deirdre) will track northeast over Ireland during Saturday afternoon and evening and will bring wet and windy weather to all areas. "West or northwest winds will reach mean speeds of 65km/h with gusts of 100km/h generally, with disruptive and damaging gusts to 130km/h likely for a few hours in western and southern counties in the late afternoon and transferring eastwards during the evening." Meanwhile, a status yellow warning has already come into effect for seven counties including Dublin, Louth, Wexford, Wicklow, Meath, Donegal, Cork and Waterford. These gusts are expected to reach highs of 65km/h and this warning is valid until 6pm this afternoon, when the orange warning for the entire island will be in place. A Status Orange wind warning has been issued. Storm Deirdre Valid for: Ireland Valid from: 15:00 to 23:00 Saturday 15th December. Mean winds 65 km/h with gusts of 100 to 130 km/h For full details please see https://t.co/ozrQHtoOkt pic.twitter.com/Kk46m2o76B Met Eireann (@MetEireann) December 14, 2018 A Status Yellow rainfall warning is also in place as forecasters warn that heavy rain will see accumulations of up to 50mm in some places. Mountainous areas could also see even more rainfall. Motorists are being urged to take care on the roads and avoid driving during periods of heavy rain if possible. "The rain will be in all areas, it's hard to specify at this point but it will be widespread heavy rain," meteorologist Harm Luijkx told Independent.ie. "The wind will be strong mostly in the east at the beginning of the day but heavy winds will be widespread by the evening." With severe weather forecast for this weekend, retailers are expecting a drop of up to 20pc in high street shopping on one of the biggest traditional consumer days of the year. Richard Guiney, CEO of Dublin Town, a retail group encouraging trade in the capital, said he expects a 20pc drop in footfall across the city due to the poor weather. "It's not great timing to have a downpour of rain and strong wind on the second to last Saturday before Christmas," Mr Guiney said. "This is one of the biggest shopping days of the year for Christmas. We will see footfall down by around 20pc due to the weather. "Normally, we would see up to around 600,000 to 650,000 shoppers in the city on this day, so it's definitely a shame we expect the weather will impact this." David Fitzsimons, group chief executive of Retail Excellence, said he expected high streets across the country to see a similar picture if the weather is bad on Saturday. "But shopping centres which have indoor sections and shopping malls won't be impacted too much," Mr Fitzsimons said. "I still think money will hit the tills later on, perhaps on Sunday and throughout the next two weeks." The tens of thousands of Leinster rugby fans expected to attend the Champions Cup clash against Bath in the Aviva are being advised to check Met Eireann's website for weather updates. Meteorologist Liz Walsh said: "At the moment, there's marked uncertainty regarding the forecast for Saturday. "But the signals are for heavy rain accompanied by strong winds. Unfortunately we don't have the details yet to pin it down where the heaviest rain and strongest winds will occur, so we need people to keep checking the website and listening out for forecasts. "But we expect there will be multiple hazards, though we do not expect snow. Northern England has a snow forecast but we have warmer air here in Ireland right now.". Tanaiste Simon Coveney was accused of offering a "pathetic" response to questions raised about the Government's communication of contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit. Fianna Fail deputy leader Dara Calleary claimed answers to his Dail queries were "Andrex Puppy" responses, describing them as "soft and fluffy". Mr Coveney said he was surprised at the remarks and hit back, telling Mr Calleary it "shows you don't know what you're talking about". Fianna Fail has been putting pressure on the Government to publish details of the contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit. Mr Calleary accused the Government of delaying the publication of its no-deal planning and asked when they would be released so citizens could buy into them. He also asked whether the Government was concerned delays in releasing the plans would undermine their effectiveness. Mr Coveney insisted that there had been "a huge amount of work in preparation for all contingencies". He pointed to sectoral seminars being held by the European Commission, including some on aviation, consumer protection, Irish-specific issues, matters relating to tariffs, and industrial goods including pharmaceuticals. He said future seminars would cover policing, fisheries and the environment. The Tanaiste said he wanted to reassure the public that this was part of the process of preparations that the Government and the Commission were undertaking, alongside domestic plans that were in place. Mr Calleary heavily criticised Mr Coveney's answer and asked when the Government would "wake up" and start engaging with the public on contingency planning. He argued that sectoral seminars "will not bring it home to people the impact on their lives". Mr Coveney said the Government had provided details of domestic preparations and insisted Fianna Fail had been briefed in detail on this. He said the European Commission had published 70 papers on behalf of all member states in areas of EU competence linked to Brexit, saying: "That's how this works." Mr Coveney added: "We have explained what we are doing in respect of ports, airports and other sectors." He said he had personally spoken to many people at the Government's 'Getting Ireland Brexit Ready - Brexpro' road-show. He'd attended events in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Letterkenny, Monaghan and Dublin and added that he didn't see too many Fianna Fail people there. Mr Coveney said that the Government would be publishing a document on Brexit contingency planning next week. He said details of the planning would be brought to a stakeholders meeting that includes Opposition parties on Thursday and offered to brief them beforehand if they want. Two county councillors have been found to have contravened standards of integrity and conduct in an investigation by the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo). The findings were made against two Mayo county councillors, independent Frank Durcan and Fine Gael representative Cyril Burke. The investigation involved allegations first revealed by the 'Sunday Independent' three years ago. The case centred on conversations between the two politicians which led to Cllr Durcan withdrawing freedom of information requests relating to the appointment of a senior council official in the expectation of receiving favourable zoning for land he owned and wished to develop. The councillors had denied any wrongdoing. In total, the commission found against Cllr Durcan in respect of two out of three alleged contraventions. Sipo found against Cllr Burke in respect of two out of five alleged contraventions. A Fine Gael spokesman said the party would consider the findings before deciding what action to take. Both councillors expressed disappointment that findings had been made against them. The Sipo reports have been referred to Mayo County Council, which said yesterday it would consider them. Alleged contraventions by the council's chief executive, Peter Hynes, were also investigated by Sipo but no findings were made against him. The commission found there was no direct evidence that Mr Hynes was involved in any agreement in relation to the withdrawal of the freedom of information requests. In a statement, the council said Mr Hynes had been "totally vindicated". The case, heard behind closed doors in October 2017 and February 2018, related to a 6.5-acre site owned by Cllr Durcan at Aghalusky in Castlebar and centred on meetings, conversations and text exchanges between Cllr Durcan and Cllr Burke in 2014. In 2010, a pre-planning inquiry was submitted to the council for a nursing home and 20 residential units. However, the council found this was premature due to the zoning objectives for the area, lack of public services and traffic safety concerns. In August 2014, Cllr Durcan sent two freedom of information requests relating to the appointment of a senior council official. He withdrew the requests the following month, stating he no longer needed the information. Agreement That October he sent the same requests to the council again and the information was provided four weeks later. Sipo said it was satisfied that as a result of a meeting between the two councillors in September 2014 there was an agreement between them that the freedom of information requests would be withdrawn in the expectation of favourable planning for the Aghalusky site. It found both Cllr Burke and Cllr Durcan contravened Section 168 of the Local Government Act by failing to maintain proper standards of integrity, conduct and concern for the public interest. The Sinn Fein members elected in the December 1918 election at the first Dail Eireann meeting, called by Sinn Fein on January 21, 1919. Shown are (from l to r): 1st row: L. Ginell, Michael Collins (leader of the Irish Republican Army), Cathal Brugha, Arthur Griffiths (founder of Sinn Fein), Eamon de Valera (president of the Irish Republic), Count E. MacNeill, William Cosgrave and E. Blythe; 2nd row: P. Maloney, Terence McSwiney (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Richard Mulcahy, J. O'Doherty, J. O'Mahony, J. Dolan, J. McGuinness, P. O'Keefe, Michael Staines, McGrath, Dr. B. Cussack, L. de Roiste, W. Colivet and the Reverend Father Michael O'Flanagan (vice-president of Sinn Fein); 3rd row: P. War, A. McCabe, D. Fitzgerald, J. Sweeney, Dr. Hayes, C. Collins, P. O'Maillie, J. O'Mara, B. O'Higgins, J. Burke and Kevin O'Higgins; 4th row: J. McDonagh and J. McEntee; 5th row: P. B 1919 Ireland The general election called by the British Government immediately after the WWI armistice was the first opportunity for Irish nationalists to vote since 1910. The intervening years had seen not only the World War but the Easter Rising, executions and mass internments that saw the rise of the more radical republican Sinn Fein competing with the Irish Parliamentary Party for the nationalist vote in Ireland. The 1918 General Election was a landmark in British and Irish electoral history. For the first time women - though not all women - were given the vote and men aged 21 and over, regardless of ownership 0f property, were enfranchised. The December 1918 election, coming so soon after the end of WWI generated unexpected changes in politics and complexities in society. One of the least well-known facts about WWI is that Germany possessed universal male suffrage on the eve of the war whereas the United Kingdom did not. One of the primary aims of the 1918 Representation of the People Act was to enfranchise 5.2 million new male voters as well as the nearly 8.5 million women who got the vote. Overall, the number of voters increased four-fold to over 21 million people, more than 1.9m (9pc) of whom were living in Ireland. Youth was a major factor in the 1918 General Election. Not only were younger, less well-off men getting the vote for the first time, but a lot more men, and women for the first time, had come of age since the previous election. There had been two general elections in 1910; both incidentally producing almost identical results. Thanks to the 1911 Parliament Act, the next general election was due to take place by the end of 1915 but due to the war this was postponed. So, in 1918, there had not been a general election for a full eight years. However, wartime delays were not the only reason voting was a novelty in many Irish constituencies in 1918. The simple fact was that, across large tracts of the country, the machine politics of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the lack of concerted opposition meant many seats were "safe" seats and electoral contests were rare after the healing of the Parnell split in 1900. With the strong exception of Ulster - where Nationalist versus Unionist contests were frequent - and South Munster where independent nationalists loyal to William O'Brien ran against the Irish party, there was a belt of constituencies stretching across Leinster and Connaught in which elections had been the exception rather than the rule since the turn of the century. In fully 34 out of 100 Irish constituencies, there had not been an election between the turn of the century and the 1916 Rising. There had been 10 by-elections in Ireland between the Rising and the 1918 General Election and these tell their own story. Contrary to the narrative that these by-elections spelled the annihilation of the Irish Parliamentary Party, they won in five out of 10 of the contests. Conversely, the fact Sinn Fein were able to win first-past-the-post elections under the old restricted manhood franchise in the other five by-elections puts into question the theory that the new franchise and youth were the decisive factors for Sinn Fein in the 1918 election. So, the reality was Sinn Fein had already harnessed the legacy of the Easter Rising and was leveraging this new republicanism into votes before the new electorate got its say at the polls. Skipping forward to the main event, the 1918 General Election, one of the starkest facts is that almost a quarter (25) of all seats in Ireland were won by Sinn Fein uncontested. It is impossible to infer how voters in these constituencies might have voted if they had been given an opportunity. The first-past-the-post system played to Sinn Fein's advantage. In those constituencies where there was a contest, the IPP won 23pc of the votes but only six out of 103 seats. John Dillon, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party since John Redmond's death in March, focused his efforts on contests he felt his party stood a chance of winning. Dillon himself hadn't had to contest his own seat in Mayo East since 1892. His contender in 1918 was a 36-year-old who canvassed in his Volunteer uniform - Eamon de Valera. Another unusual facet of the 1918 election was that, unlike today, well-known candidates sometimes ran in multiple constituencies. For Sinn Fein, many of their activists were relatively unknown outside Irish Volunteer or IRB circles. The party relied on a few more celebrity candidates in contests where a strong and well-known local activist couldn't be found. De Valera was the epitome of this. He ran in four different constituencies. In East Clare he ran unopposed on foot of his 1917 by-election victory. In South Down, his name still appeared on the ballot despite an electoral pact between the IPP and Sinn Fein in parts of Ulster. This had been brokered by Bishop McHugh of Derry to avoid Unionists gaining key swing seats where the nationalist vote might be split between Home Rulers and Sinn Feiners. The third seat contested by de Valera was also in Ulster, this time a safer Nationalist seat with no fear of Unionist interloping. In West Belfast (reconstituted as Belfast Falls), de Valera faced down Joseph Devlin, the leading Home Ruler in Ulster. Devlin ran two different grassroots Home Rule organisations, the United Irish League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. On home turf and with his ward bosses firmly behind him, Devlin trounced de Valera 8,488 to 3,245 votes. However, back in Mayo East, de Valera was facing down his rival party's leader. Dillon ran his constituency from Ballaghaderreen (then in Mayo) where his aunt, the former president of the Ladies Land League, Anne Deane, oversaw much of the constituency affairs for Dillon up to her death in 1905. In spite of his longstanding representation for the constituency and his leadership of the IPP, Dillon lost and de Valera took two-thirds of the votes. This was a signal victory for Sinn Fein. Nationally, they won 73 seats and the Irish party won six. Only one of those six was outside of Ulster. In Redmond's old Waterford City constituency, his war-veteran son held the seat he had won following his father's death. In charting the transformation of Irish politics in 1918, several historians have argued the reason younger voters plumped for Sinn Fein in the ballot boxes is that they did not possess the memory of struggle which the older generation had endured through the years of land hunger, land war, and dashed hopes for Home Rule. In the generational politics of today, it is interesting to consider the transformative effect younger voters will have on elections and referenda in the future as a generations come of age who cannot remember a life before the Good Friday Agreement. Dr Conor Mulvagh, UCD School of History Veteran Republican Sean Garland had been accused by the US of being part of a massive counterfeiting operation VETERAN left-wing Irish republican Sean Garland has died aged 84. A former president of the Workers Party in Ireland, he had also been an active IRA member in the 1950s and later the Official IRA. The Workers Party said he had been "an inspiration to all of his comrades". Known as a man of iron ideology, even the fall of the Berlin wall did not deflect him from his commitment to communism. In the 1950s he joined the IRA, and infiltrated the British Army to procure arms, successfully seizing guns from a barracks. In his own words, he was "actively involved in organising and participating in a number of major operations from 1955-56". The most famous of these was when he led an IRA squad that attacked a police station in Co Fermanagh where two IRA men, Sean South and Fergal OHanlon, were shot dead. Garland was seriously wounded. When the IRA split into traditional and Marxist factions in the late 1960s, he opposed the "narrow nationalism" of the Provisionals and pursued a left-wing political path as one of the leaders of the Official IRA. That group announced a ceasefire in 1972, but for years remained intermittently involved in violence. In particular, it was embroiled in a series of often lethal feuds with the mainstream IRA and other republican splinter groups. Born in Dublin in 1934, Garland was arrested in Northern Ireland in 2005 on the foot of an extradition warrant from US authorities. They wanted to question him about the laundering of high quality counterfeit $100 bill produced in North Korea. It was alleged he had transported the superdollars from North Korean embassies abroad for distribution in Ireland. Garland was arrested while attending the Workers Party ard fheis in Belfast. He denied the charges but jumped bail, fleeing to the Republic. In 2011, a Dublin court refused to extradite him to the US. Overcrowded homes with several generations under one roof can force young families into homelessness. Strained family dynamics can be the "tipping point", Focus Ireland said as it launched a new study on problems of young homeless families aged between 18 and 24. The 'Young Families in the Homeless Crisis: Challenges and Solutions' report said: "The challenging nature of an overcrowded, multi-generational home could make for a chaotic family dynamic, wherein children required continual childcare and where parents and grandparents were deprived of privacy". A total of 18 families in Dublin and Cork gave detailed interviews for the report. Among its key recommendations was the establishment of a "family mediation and support service" to prevent such families becoming homeless. The report called for the provision of sufficient key workers for all families to support them during homelessness. The report, which was led by University College Cork (UCC) researcher Dr Sharon Lambert, urged that there should be a comprehensive strategy to tackle family homelessness. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein has claimed that the true number of people experiencing homelessness is almost 13,000. Its housing spokesman Eoin O Broin accused the Government of underestimating the number of adults and children in emergency accommodation. He said: "If you don't count the problem properly, then how can you put enough resources into tackling it?" Official Department of Housing figures have hovered just under 10,000 in recent months. But Sinn Fein's analysis puts the homeless number at 12,805. Their figures include victims of domestic violence in transitional accommodation, successful asylum seekers who are still living in direct provision centres, rough sleepers, and people living in hostels without Government funding. They also include around 1,600 people who were recategorised and taken out of the Department's figures. A spokesman for housing minister Eoghan Murphy responded to Sinn Fein's figures. He said the Housing Department numbers relate to people in emergency accommodation "funded and overseen by local authorities only". He added: "Earlier in the year it was discovered that a number of local authorities had incorrectly categorised some individuals as being in emergency accommodation when they were not." He said direct provision centres and domestic violence refuges fall under the remit of different State agencies. Separately, Threshold has called for Limerick and Waterford to become designated rent pressure zones. Simon Harris, Minister for Health, joined me for a special pre-Christmas interview to discuss the health problems of the nation as well as talking about his own need for balance and healthy living to cope with the demands of being a government minister. I was fascinated to find out how, at such a young age, he got involved in politics and then was appointed to one of the most challenging ministerial roles in the Department of Health in 2016. As he and his wife expect their first baby in early January 2019, Simon Harris will be trying to juggle a young family, work and keeping fit and healthy, and its a balancing act that he knows is a tough one for families all over Ireland. We also spoke about how the pictures of Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, and Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, out jogging in the Phoenix Park, is the new image to portray for Ireland, of being active and being conscious of healthy living. The growing obesity problem is of course one of his biggest concerns, with 60% of adults and one in four children in Ireland either overweight or obese and he wants communities in every county to ask what they can do. People can accuse me of nanny-ism if they want, but what are we going to do as a society to actually to put in place policies to stop us becoming one of the fattest nations in the world? he says. It should be a cause of concern to every single one of us...Winning the prize for the worlds fattest nation is not where we need to be. 2019 promises to be a busy year for the Minister, between fatherhood and focusing on new policies such as a new hospital food plan, enacting the Public Health Alcohol Bill and continue putting an emphasis on people protecting their own health. Why should we be afraid of giving citizens as much information as possible in relation to their own health and well-being to make their own decisions? he asks and I couldnt agree more. Healthy living starts with every one of us making choices and small changes which make a big difference to our lives. Keep sending your questions in to me via email realhealth@independent.ie or contact Karl on Twitter and Instagram @karlhenryPT. The Real Health podcast with Karl Henry in association with Laya Healthcare. Listen to the show on the SoundCloud player or subscribe and rate via the following links: iPhone users can subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts. Android users can subscribe and listen on Google Podcasts. Or listen on SoundCloud And were on Spotify One of the most alarming aspects of US President Donald Trump's unfitness for the job is the danger he poses to national security. The 'Washington Post' reports: "It is not clear whether he does not comprehend what he is told, does not remember it, does not want to understand or chooses to deliberately mislead. Whatever the cause, the effect is dangerous and deeply harmful. "Among [the issues involved] are North Korea's willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, Iran's nuclear and regional ambitions, the existence and implications of global climate change, and the role of the Saudi crown prince in the killing of a dissident journalist." In short, on the most volatile and far-reaching international challenges Trump is operating in an a-factual world, making decisions based on ignorance, impulsiveness and/or disguised self-interest. Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI official, tells me: "The president is engaging in wilful ignorance and placing our nation's security in peril." He continues: "Claiming North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat or the Saudi crown prince is not accountable for a murder may bolster Trump's false narrative, but in the end, it erodes our standing in the world, gives licence to our enemies and diminishes our intelligence professionals." Former FBI special agent Clint Watts agrees: "Whether it's Russia, Saudi Arabia, China or North Korea, he's being outplayed in fights he picks because he doesn't do his homework. "President Trump lives in a world of his own choosing that is devoid of reality. He has the best intelligence community in the world and it's not helping inform any of our policies." He adds: "It's also demoralising for those risking their lives at times to get threat intelligence." What can be done? "Those dedicated experts must continue to speak truth and attempt to influence those who can influence the president," says Figliuzzi. Former acting CIA director John McLaughlin endorses that view. "In times like these, the best thing for intelligence officers to do is to just keep doing their jobs - striving to be models of objectivity and truth-telling at a time when such qualities are so elusive elsewhere." At the very least, they should refuse to do what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis did in carrying up to Capitol Hill the president's blatantly false statements about evidence of Mohammed bin Salman's culpability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. They sacrificed their own credibility and ultimately could not persuade lawmakers to disregard what they heard and what common sense dictated about the crown prince's role in the murder. I suppose at some point, officials (past and present) may be compelled to step forward publicly to warn the country if the problem worsens. If Trump turns his fantasies into orders, imperilling our security and safety of our civilian and military personnel, we get into 25th Amendment territory. What, for example, would have occurred if Trump's hysterical focus on the caravan resulted in not just a useless border operation but an invasion of or military attack on an ally? At that point, we'd be in the midst of a true constitutional crisis. There is a developing - and dangerous - gap between the hard reality of the US intelligence community and the "fever-dream fantasy" guiding Trump's imagination, according to Malcolm Nance, a former intelligence officer. He further observes "intelligence analysis and reporting won't stop, because our intelligence professionals will always protect the nation first. But ignored warnings and alarms of our real enemies' intentions will cause [the US] to run hard aground." In putting the US in this predicament, Republicans and Trump's enablers in the White House and cabinet bear a great deal of responsibility. The Faustian bargain they made - support and defend an unfit president to get tax cuts or judges or whatever - was a moral calamity. Next year marks 190 years since the historic passing of the 'Roman Catholic Relief Act' by the British House of Commons. The legislation brought an end to a lot of the cruel restrictions that had been placed on Catholics by the penal laws. Daniel O'Connell - the liberator - had been a tireless campaigner for the rights of the vast majority of Irish citizens who were relegated to second-class citizenry by virtue of their baptism in to the Catholic Church. Emancipation marked not only relief for hard-pressed Catholics, but a new beginning for the hierarchy. Soon, a massive building programme was rolled out and churches and chapels of ease started to appear at every crossroads to meet the needs of the faithful. The same was true of Catholic schools and giants of the hierarchy such as Archbishop John MacHale - referred to as the "lion of the west" - saw Catholic education as a vehicle to build a homogeneous and self-confident Catholic community after generations of persecution. Priests and the hierarchy became all powerful and a once downtrodden Church expanded its infrastructure widely. The symbiosis between nationalism and Catholicism was secured. The charismatic Mother Mary Aikenhead and her 'Religious Sisters of Charity' founded St Vincent's Hospital in 1834 and it has served patients in the capital and farther afield ever since. St Vincent's and the sisters are in the news at the moment with controversy raging over the ownership of the site of the proposed National Maternity Hospital. While the sisters announced last year that they intended to relinquish ownership of the hospitals and the land where the new NMH will be built, they have remained tight-lipped about how they will manage restrictions from doing this contained in Church law. The sisters will require Vatican approval before divesting from the hospitals. The reason? Well, it's simple, from the point of view of Canon Law the sisters hold the hospital in trust on behalf of Catholics rather than own it per se. Assets such as churches and religious-run hospitals and institutions are established for, and are supposed to fulfil functions in keeping with the needs and aspirations of the Catholic community. Places like St Vincent's and the Mater Hospital were built on the pennies and half-pennies of the indigent Catholics who survived the Famine and contributed to collection plates at a time when they had precious little. And yet, nowhere in the discussion is the voice of ordinary Catholics for whom these institutions are supposed to be held in trust. Instead, religious congregations often appear to act as if the property of which they are stewards is their own, to do with as they will. The same often happens when a religious order decides that it no longer has enough members to run a particular school. Even when laypeople come forward and offer to continue to run the school, many religious would rather close the building if they can no longer control it rather than let it continue the purpose for which it was established by competent laypeople. For all the talk of reform in the Catholic Church, there remains a huge chasm between Catholic in the pew and those in leadership positions within the organisation. Cardinal Newman, the convert from Anglicanism who went on to found University College Dublin, diagnosed the issue 160 years ago. When one of his clerical colleagues observed that laypeople should "pray up, pay up and shut up" the soon-to-be-canonised Newman responded that the Church would look rather foolish without laypeople. Foolish indeed, but the input of laypeople is still largely absent from decision- making within the Church - particularly when one gets down to the brass tacks of money. The story of two US nuns who admitted embezzling some $500,000 (440,000) this week to go on gambling sprees in Las Vegas has circled the globe. It's hard to resist the 'Father Ted' quips and the story is as amusing as it is cringeworthy for Catholics. But, like the controversy around St Vincent's, it points to the deeper problem that Catholics have very little say in how their hard-earned funds are spent or disposed of by those in leadership. At least in the political sphere there is an election cycle and politicians judged to be wasteful can suffer the wrath of the ballot box. Initial reports from the US suggested that the archdiocese did not want to press charges against the casino nuns. One wonders whether the same medicine of mercy might be applied to lay employees who made off with Church funds. Those close to Pope Francis say the Pontiff will soon announce a raft of reforms aimed at making the Church less top-heavy. Good. Chief amongst these reforms should be transparency and accountability around finances. The Catholic Church is a voluntary organisation that is entirely dependent on the donations of members. People have donated in good faith for generations because they have seen the tangible fruits of what the Church has been able to do in terms of education, social welfare and solace. This will continue, but people want to know and want to see that their generosity is being properly stewarded. Like in the case of St Vincent's Hospital, they will also want to know that what was built on the shoulders of their ancestors will not be relinquished lightly. Pray, pay and obey was never a credible way to run the Church. Nowadays, it's not only untenable, it's wrong. A man who told police officers that he was "tired" of eating human flesh has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a woman in South Africa for her body parts. Nino Mbatha, a traditional healer, was charged last year for the murder of Zanele Hlatshwayo. The Pietermaritzburg high court found Mbatha and a second man, Lungisani Magubane, guilty of the murder, which was described by Judge Peter Olsen as "the most heinous crime". Mbatha walked into a police station in Estcourt, a town in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province, last year. He announced that he needed police assistance because he was "tired" of eating body parts, according to 'The Witness' newspaper. Two police officers listening to the healer's story did not believe him as he appeared unstable, the judge said. But Mbatha then produced a human hand and leg from his bag. A team of investigators later travelled to the 33-year-old's house, where they found more body parts. "Photos of the room depicted a disgusting mess," the judge said. The case has caused uproar in Estcourt and angry residents gathered outside the court during earlier hearings to protest the crime. Mbatha was acquitted on a charge of being in possession of Hlatshwayo's body parts, which the judge said duplicated the murder charge. He was also acquitted for "dealing" in body parts by offering them for sale, due to insufficient evidence. Terror operation: French special police secure an area during a police operation where the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt (inset), was shot and killed last night. Photo: REUTERS The suspect in Tuesday's attack in Strasbourg has been killed by French police, authorities have confirmed. French interior minister Christophe Castaner said Cherif Chekatt was shot dead during a police raid in Neudorf, the same suburb where he was last seen on the evening he killed three people and wounded 12 others. Mr Castaner said a special ground unit of three police officers saw a man fitting the suspect's description walking down the road at 9pm. "They called to him and at that moment, he turned to face the officers and opened fire," he said. "So they immediately riposted and neutralised the assailant." "My thoughts are with the victims, the wounded, and their loved ones. They are also with the security forces who deployed. I am proud of you." Roland Ries, the mayor of Strasbourg, said the "neutralisation" was "good news" and would help the city return to "normal life" Expand Close A French policeman stands guard over a body during a police operation where the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was shot and killed last night. AP Photo / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A French policeman stands guard over a body during a police operation where the suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was shot and killed last night. AP Photo Strasbourg's Christmas market will be open to the public once again tomorrow after being shut since the attack. Isil's propaganda agency claimed the slain gunman was one of its "soldiers". More than 700 security forces had been trying to trace Chekatt since the bloodshed on Tuesday, when he is suspected of shooting and stabbing shoppers at the market. The fugitive gunman had an Osama bin Laden poster in his prison cell a decade ago and said he shot victims at point-blank range to "avenge brothers in Syria" and to kill "infidels", it was reported. The police raid followed the declaration of French authorities that they would take Chekatt dead or alive and brought to an end a massive manhunt in Strasbourg and the surrounding region, as well as across the border with Germany. Yesterday, dozens of French police including members of the elite RAID force cordoned off an area of southern Strasbourg where the gunman was last seen. Police blocked several streets in the Neudorf district, a short drive from the city centre, where Chekatt had exchanged fire on Tuesday night after getting out of a taxi. A wanted poster of the 29-year old local - who had 27 previous convictions for theft and armed robbery and served sentences in French, German and Swiss jail - had been circulated on Wednesday The poster of Chekatt, who was wounded in the exchange of fire with security forces, included the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." At least five of the victims of his killing spree remain in a serious condition. The third fatality, Afghan national Kamal Naghchband, died from a gunshot to the head he sustained while holding his young son in his arms. The 45-year-old, who fled the Taliban for 15 years before obtaining asylum, had been in a coma since the shooting. Witnesses told investigators the suspect shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater) as he opened fire on the Christmas market, frequented by two million people every year. The photo shows a bearded man of North African descent with a blemish on his forehead due to frequent prayer. French authorities said Chekatt was placed on a terror watch list in 2015 and had been monitored closely in recent months. However, according to 'Le Monde', he had slapped a picture of late al-Qa'ida chief Osama bin Laden on his prison wall as early as 2008, when he was 19. "His radicalisation dates from before his time in prison," a source told the paper. Two years later, in 2010, he actively sought to proselytise other inmates and threatened them if they were not assiduous enough, it said. According to 'Le Parisien', he told a taxi driver he forced to drive him out of Strasbourg's city centre on Tuesday at gunpoint that he had killed his victims at point blank range in the head to avenge "brothers in Syria" and to punish "infidels". The driver only escaped with his life because he had signs that he was a practicing Muslim in the car. A yellow vest is seen in a display of a shop at downtown in Cairo, Egypt, December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany A yellow vest is seen in a display of a shop at downtown in Cairo, Egypt, December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany A man wearing a yellow vest and holding a French flag stands on a bridge near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe A protester wearing a yellow vest stands inside a makeshift shelter at a roundabout near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe A slogan reading "Don't Give Up" is seen on a yellow vest worn by protester at a roundabout in Somain, France, December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol A protester wears a yellow vest at a CGT labour union demonstration to protest against the French government's reforms in Paris, France, December 14, 2018. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes A protester wearing a yellow vest makes a fire near a makeshift shelter at a roundabout near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe Armoured vehicles and thousands of officers are to be deployed again in Paris on Saturday and Sunday as police anticipate a fifth straight weekend of violent protests. Police chief Michel Delpuech told RTL radio that security services intend to deploy the same numbers and strength as last weekend, with about 8,000 officers and 14 armoured vehicles again in the city. Expand Close A protester wears a yellow vest at a CGT labour union demonstration to protest against the French government's reforms in Paris, France, December 14, 2018. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A protester wears a yellow vest at a CGT labour union demonstration to protest against the French government's reforms in Paris, France, December 14, 2018. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes Mr Delpuech said the biggest difference will be the deployment of more groups of patrol officers to catch vandals, who last weekend roamed streets around the Champs Elysees, causing damage and looting. Police arrested more than 1,000 people in Paris last weekend and 135 people were injured, including 17 police officers Expand Close A yellow vest is seen in a display of a shop at downtown in Cairo, Egypt, December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A yellow vest is seen in a display of a shop at downtown in Cairo, Egypt, December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany A sixth "yellow vest" protester was killed this week, hit by a truck at a protest roadblock. Despite calls from authorities urging protesters - who wear the fluorescent safety vests that France requires drivers to keep in their cars - to stop the protests, the movement rocking the country has showed no signs of abating. Expand Close A man wearing a yellow vest and holding a French flag stands on a bridge near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A man wearing a yellow vest and holding a French flag stands on a bridge near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe "Last week, we pretty much handled the yellow vests but we also witnessed scenes of breakage and looting by criminals," Mr Delpuech said. "Our goal will be to better control this aspect." In an effort to defuse the tensions sweeping the country, president Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged he is partially responsible for the anger behind the anti-government protests. Expand Close A protester wearing a yellow vest stands inside a makeshift shelter at a roundabout near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A protester wearing a yellow vest stands inside a makeshift shelter at a roundabout near the Nantes Atlantique Airport as the "yellow vests" movement continues, in Bouguenais, France, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe He has announced a series of measures aimed at improving French workers' spending power but has refused to reinstate a wealth tax. Many protesters have expressed disappointment at the measures and some trade unions are now calling for rolling strikes across the country. "The best action is to go on strike," said Philippe Martinez, head of leftist trade union CGT. "There are inequalities in this country and we need to make big company bosses pay." A fourth person has died after Tuesdays attack on a Christmas market in Strasbourg, prosecutors said. The Paris prosecutors office did not reveal the identity of the fourth person who died but said the victim was among those injured in the shooting and was previously described as in critical condition. It came as investigators try to establish whether the main suspect was helped by accomplices while on the run. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz, who handles terror cases throughout France, told a news conference that seven people are in police custody, including four members of Cherif Chekatts family. The 29-year-old was shot dead on Thursday during a police operation in the Neudorf neighbourhood of the city. We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support, Mr Heitz said. After a two-day manhunt, Mr Heitz said, on Thursday evening three officers patrolling in Neudorf spotted a man corresponding to the suspects description. Expand Close Cherif Chekatt (French Police/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Cherif Chekatt (French Police/AP) He noticed their vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to enter a building. When police officers identified themselves, Chekatt turned around and opened fire. A projectile hit the vehicle above the left rear door, two police officers responded, shooting several times, and killed him, Mr Heitz said. Investigators found a gun, a knife and ammunition on Chekatts body. Expand Close Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz (Jean Francois Badias/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz (Jean Francois Badias/AP) The immediate aftermath of the shootout was caught on camera from across the street, with video footage showing armed officers at the scene and a body slumped in a doorway. More officers arrive at the scene soon after, followed by crime scene investigators. The Paris prosecutors office formally identified the man as Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. He had been on a watch list of potential extremists. Expand Close Investigators on the scene after Cherif Chekatt was shot by police (Jean-Francois Badias/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Investigators on the scene after Cherif Chekatt was shot by police (Jean-Francois Badias/AP) Witnesses said the gunman shouted God is great! in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market on Tuesday. Security forces wounded the man but he escaped in a taxi which dropped him off in Neudorf. More than 700 officers searched for Chekatt, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. Chekatt was known to police, but as a common criminal, not a terrorist. He had his first conviction at 13, and had 26 more by the time he died at 29. He served jail time in France, Germany and Switzerland. Meanwhile, the Christmas market in Strasbourg reopened amid tight security after being closed during the manhunt for Chekatt. Expand Close Christophe Castaner at the Christmas market (Christophe Ena/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Christophe Castaner at the Christmas market (Christophe Ena/AP) Interior minister Christophe Castaner attended the reopening and had a stroll in the market to meet shopkeepers. Access to the market has been reduced while extra police and military troops have been deployed as well as private security guards. Mr Castaner said authorities decided to reopen the market for the honour of Strasbourg, for the honour of France. Israel has arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank, and a Palestinian was killed in clashes with troops, as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a crackdown after a pair of deadly shootings blamed on Hamas militants. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Mahmoud Nakhla, 18, was shot in the abdomen and died at a medical centre in Ramallah as Israeli soldiers clashed with dozens of Palestinians throwing rocks. Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank as the army intensified a crackdown a day after Palestinian assailants killed two soldiers in an attack on a bus stop. Expand Close Palestinian protesters in the West Bank (Majdi Mohammed/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Palestinian protesters in the West Bank (Majdi Mohammed/AP) In a fresh wave of violence, an Israeli soldier was severely wounded by a Palestinian assailant who attacked him with a rock, while Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian demonstrators outside Ramallah, the military said. Elsewhere in the West Bank, Jewish settlers beat up a Palestinian bus driver, the mans family said, while Palestinian Authority forces violently broke up a demonstration by supporters of the rival Hamas movement. The unrest came a day after a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a West Bank bus stop, killing two soldiers before speeding away in a vehicle. Expand Close Israeli soldiers at the scene of the bus stop attack (Mahmoud Illean/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Israeli soldiers at the scene of the bus stop attack (Mahmoud Illean/AP) Israel responded by setting up checkpoints, closing roads and beefing up security in a broad manhunt for the assailant. Earlier in the week, another Palestinian gunman carried out a similar drive-by shooting outside a nearby settlement, wounding seven people, including a pregnant woman whose baby later died after being delivered prematurely. A Hamas official said 100 members of the group, including legislators and other senior figures, were arrested this week, including 70 arrested overnight and throughout the day on Friday. The Israeli military confirmed the overnight arrests. As Israel was burying the soldiers killed in Thursdays shooting, another soldier was severely wounded near a West Bank settlement after a Palestinian struck him on the head with a rock, knocking him unconscious, the military said. The army said it appeared the soldier was also stabbed, and Israeli forces were searching for the suspect. Expand Close A Palestinian protester faces Israeli troops near Ramallah (Mahmoud Illean/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A Palestinian protester faces Israeli troops near Ramallah (Mahmoud Illean/AP) Elsewhere in the West Bank, a group of Israelis beat up a Palestinian bus driver, Nidal Sake, near a West Bank settlement late on Thursday, Israeli police said. Thaer Sake, the bus drivers brother, said a group of Jewish teenagers blocked the bus with their car and forced themselves on board, striking the driver several times before fleeing. He said his brother remained in hospital with severe bruises and a broken eye socket. Police said they were investigating and trying to find the perpetrators. On Friday afternoon, street clashes erupted between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces outside Ramallah, with protesters slinging rocks and Israeli soldiers responding with tear gas and stun grenades to break up the crowd. The Palestinian Healthy Ministry said two protesters were wounded by bullets, one critically. The tensions also spilled over into internal Palestinian fighting in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, where 50 activists waving Hamas flags in celebration of the militant groups 31st anniversary confronted Palestinian Authority forces and blocked traffic following noon prayers. An Associated Press cameraman saw Palestinian police harshly beat Hamas activists with clubs, injuring five and arresting 15. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass Fatah movement and Hamas are fierce rivals. Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Mr Abbass forces in 2007 after winning legislative elections the previous year, and attempts to reconcile have repeatedly failed. Fridays unrest capped a deadly week that claimed seven lives, including the Israeli baby, a 60-year-old Palestinian businessman and three Palestinian assailants, two of them members of Hamas. The latest shootings prompted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to boost troop levels in the West Bank, order detentions of Hamas activists and call for the demolition of the homes of assailants within 48 hours. Amid the manhunt, Israeli forces encircled Ramallah, the Palestinians usually quiet centre of government and commerce. To prevent what it called copycat attacks, the army set up checkpoints, searched cars and blocked roads in an unusual show of force that reflected the severity with which Israel views the shootings. Our guiding principle is that whoever attacks us and whoever tries to attack us will pay with his life, Mr Netanyahu said on Thursday. Mr Abbas, meanwhile, accused Israel of creating a climate of violence by conducting frequent military raids in Palestinian cities. He also accused Israel of incitement against him. London Stock Exchange Group has appointed Experians Don Robert as chairman from May (Philip Toscano/PA) London Stock Exchange Group has appointed Experians Don Robert as chairman, a year after a bitter public dispute within the companys boardroom. Mr Robert will join the group as a non-executive director at the start of January and will succeed Donald Brydon as chairman at the end of the annual general meeting on May 1. He is currently chairman of credit data giant Experian, as well as information services businesses Achilles Group and Validis Holdings. Don brings a strong track record in the global financial services sector and a deep understanding of technology, data and analyticsPaul Heiden Paul Heiden, senior independent director and chair of the nomination committee for the chairman search, said: Don brings a strong track record in the global financial services sector and a deep understanding of technology, data and analytics that will greatly benefit our business as we continue to adapt to regulatory and technological change. His appointment will see two Americans running one of the most important firms in the City. David Schwimmer, a 49-year-old Goldman Sachs veteran, became chief executive in August, following the controversial departure of former boss Xavier Rolet. Expand Close New LSE chairman Don Robert, photographed in London, 2018. (Daniel Lewis) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp New LSE chairman Don Robert, photographed in London, 2018. (Daniel Lewis) Mr Rolet left the company in November 2017 after a dispute between Mr Brydon and activist investor TCI Fund Management. TCI said at the time that Mr Rolet should stay beyond his planned departure date at the end of 2018 and called for Mr Brydon to quit. Mr Brydon survived despite the attempted ousting, although he said he would not seek re-election in 2019. Following his appointment as chairman of the LSE, Mr Robert will step down from his role as a non-executive director at the Court of the Bank of England on May 1. Mr Robert joined the Court, which sets the Banks strategy and budget as well as appointments, in 2014. Bank of England governor Mark Carney said Mr Roberts expertise and experience have ensured he has been a real asset to the Bank, adding that he has made a particular impact in technology. Mr Robert previously held non-executive roles at contract caterer Compass Group and software firm First Advantage and was chief executive of Experian before he become the groups chairman. He also held executive roles at financial services firm First American, credit reporting agency Credco and US Bank. As a non-executive director of LSE, Mr Robert will earn 75,000 a year and when he succeeds Mr Brydon as chairman, his fee will be 525,000 a year. Yemen's foreign minister Khaled al-Yamani (L) and rebel negotiator Mohammed Abdelsalam (R) shake hands under the eyes of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres (C), during peace talks taking place at Johannesberg Castle in Rimbo, north of Stockholm, Sweden. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Warring sides in Yemen have agreed to a ceasefire in the flashpoint port city of Hodeidah and will withdraw all troops "within days", marking a key breakthrough in the first peace talks in two years. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres announced the agreement at the end of landmark talks in Sweden yesterday, calling it "an important step" and "real progress toward future talks to end the conflict". Yemen's foreign minister and a leader in the rival Houthi rebel group then shook hands in a highly symbolic gesture that has raised hopes for progress on ending the nearly four-year war. Bringing a halt to fighting in Hodeidah had been a key aim going into the UN-sponsored talks, which began a week ago in the Swedish town of Rimbos. Around 80pc of Yemen's food supplies come through the city's port. Humanitarian groups had warned continued fighting there would cause a famine in which as many as 13 million could starve to death. Mr Guterres said the UN would play a "leading role" in supervising the Red Sea port, which is currently controlled by the rebels. He said all sides would withdraw from the area "within days". "In the harbour the UN will assume a very important monitoring role and in the city the order will be maintained by the local forces," he said. A "mutual understanding" on Yemen's third city of Taiz, the scene of some of the most intense battles in the conflict, would also be part of the deal. There, humanitarian corridors will be open to the city, which had been intermittently under crippling Houthi siege during the conflict. Mr Guterres also announced a new round of talks would take place at the end of January. Turkey will launch a new operation in Syria within days against a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers a terrorist group, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday. "We will start an operation to free the east of the Euphrates from the separatist terrorist organisation in the next few days," Mr Erdogan said during a speech in Ankara, referring to territory held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Turkey says the YPG is a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. US forces have worked closely with the YPG under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance against Isil. "The target is never American soldiers but terrorist organisation members," Mr Erdogan said. There are US forces with the SDF east of the Euphrates as well as in the flashpoint city of Manbij, west of the river. Washington's relationship with the YPG, seen as a key ally, is one of the main sources of tension between Turkey and the US. Ankara has repeatedly lambasted Washington for providing military support to the Kurdish militia. Mr Erdogan has previously threatened to attack YPG areas. In a bid to avoid any clash, the Nato allies agreed a "roadmap" for Manbij. His comments came a day after the Pentagon announced the setting up of observation posts on the north-east Syria border region to prevent fights between the Turkish army and the YPG. Fatal accident: Smashed carriages after the crash near Ankara. Photo: IHA via AP Nine people were killed and nearly 50 injured after a high-speed train crashed into a locomotive in the Turkish capital Ankara yesterday. Transport Minister Cahit Turhan said three of those killed were operators of the train. One of the victims died in hospital, he added. Mr Turhan added 47 people were injured and were in hospital for treatment. The fast train had been on its way from Ankara's main station to the central province of Konya and, according to 'Hurriyet' newpaper, there were 206 passengers on board. "This morning there was an accident after the 6.30 high-speed train to Konya hit a locomotive tasked with checking rails on the same route," Ankara governor Vasip Sahin said. Mr Turhan said the accident took place six minutes after the train left Ankara as it entered the Marsandiz station. The governor said search and rescue efforts continued as "technical investigations" were under way to find out exactly what caused the crash. He said information about the cause of the crash would be shared with the public when it was known. Images published by Turkish media showed some wagons had derailed and debris from the train scattered on the rail track, which was covered in snow. Expand Close Signal problems: Engineers union tweeted: The accident is murder. Photo: REUTERS/Tumay Berkin / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Signal problems: Engineers union tweeted: The accident is murder. Photo: REUTERS/Tumay Berkin One wagon had been smashed after hitting the footbridge, which also collapsed. It was also reported that Ankara's public prosecutor had launched an investigation. In a tweet (in Turkish), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects quoted its chairman Yunus Yener as saying that "signalling problems" had been flagged on the line "for some time". It added: "The accident is murder!" The Ankara to Konya high-speed route was launched in 2011 and was followed in 2014 with a high-speed link between Ankara and Istanbul. The accident comes after another rail disaster in July this year when 24 people were killed and hundreds more injured after a train derailed in Tekirdag province, north-west Turkey, due to ground erosion following heavy rains. Turkey's rail network has been hit by several fatal accidents in recent years. In March 2014, a commuter train smashed into a minibus on a railway track in the southern Turkish province of Mersin, which left 10 dead. In January 2008, nine people were killed when a train derailed in the Kutahya region south of Istanbul because of faulty tracks. Turkey's worst rail disaster in recent history was in July 2004 when 41 people were killed and 80 injured after a high-speed train derailed in the north-western province of Sakarya. A migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, run away from tear gas in front of the border wall between the U.S and Mexico in Tijuana, Mexico November 25, 2018. Reuters photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo U.S. Army soldiers install a barbed wire fence along Anzalduas International Bridge near the U.S.- Mexico border in McAllen, Texas, November 5, 2018. REUTERS/Delcia Lopez/File Photo A seven-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock hours after she was taken into US Border Patrol custody, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The girl and her father had been detained by immigration authorities on December 6 in New Mexico as part of a group of 163 people who approached US agents to turn themselves in, the Post reported. Early on December 7, the girl started having seizures, and emergency responders measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, the Post said. She was taken to a hospital, where she died, according to the Post. US Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Fumes: Migrants run from tear gas fired by US border patrol near the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Photo; Reuters/Hannah McKay A migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, run away from tear gas in front of the border wall between the U.S and Mexico in Tijuana, Mexico November 25, 2018. Reuters photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo A Honduran migrant girl pushes through fencing after squeezing through a gap in the US border wall with her mother (Rebecca Blackwell/AP) A migrant buys a doughnut from a street vendor (Rebecca Blackwell/AP) Three-year-old Honduran migrant Charlot Andrea is carried along the Mexico-US border (Rebecca Blackwell/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fumes: Migrants run from tear gas fired by US border patrol near the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Photo; Reuters/Hannah McKay A spokeswoman at Providence Hospital in El Paso, Texas, where the Post reported the child was taken, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The names of the girl and her father were not released. The agency, which typically provides food and water to migrants in its custody, is investigating the incident to ensure whether appropriate policies were followed, the Post said. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection, will appear in front of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee next week, Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the panel, said on Twitter. "We will be demanding immediate answers to this tragedy," Nadler said. US President Donald Trump has made toughening immigration policies a central tenet of his presidency and has vowed to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico. This summer, his administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, which resulted in separating children arriving at the border with their parents, caused a national outcry. The policy was mostly reversed. Virgin Galactic handout photo of the view from the cockpit during the successful test flight of SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity. Photo: Virgin Galactic/PA Wire Virgin Galactic has successfully sent its test pilots into space, marking a major milestone in the race for commercial space travel and sparking emotional scenes among those back down on Earth. Richard Branson, watching with his son Sam, admitted he shed more than a few tears as the space craft flew to 51.4 miles (82.7km). The flight marks the first time man has reached space from US soil since the end of Nasa's space shuttle programme in 2011. "This was the milestone that we've been aiming at for 14 years," Mr Branson said. "It was the culmination of a lot of work." Shortly after 7am, the VSS unity climbed 43,000ft aboard the mothership. Then the Unity was released, accelerating rapidly and then turning to shoot almost vertically into the sky for 60 seconds, travelling at 2.9 times the speed of sound to reach maximum height. Virgin Galactic is yet to set a date for its first commercial passengers, but it is expected to be next year. The team plans three more test flights from the California site, before moving to New Mexico to base themselves at the spaceport, where passengers will eventually depart. More than 700 people have signed up so far, paying $250,000 (220,000) for the privilege - among them Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber. Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, exits the United States Courthouse after sentencing at the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's wife Laura Shusterman and children, Samantha and Jake, leave after his sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's wife Laura Shusterman and children, Samantha and Jake, leave after his sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, exits the United States Courthouse after sentencing at the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer, arrives for his sentencing at United States Court house in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon Donald Trump's former personal lawyer says he bought the silence of two women because Mr Trump was "very concerned" about how their stories of alleged affairs with him would affect his election chances. In an interview with ABC News, Michael Cohen said he "gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty". Cohen was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty to several charges, including campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. Expand Close U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's wife Laura Shusterman and children, Samantha and Jake, leave after his sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's wife Laura Shusterman and children, Samantha and Jake, leave after his sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Prosecutors have said the president directed him to arrange the payments to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the run-up to the 2016 campaign. Cohen says he is angry with himself for the deals. Expand Close U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's wife Laura Shusterman and children, Samantha and Jake, leave after his sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen's wife Laura Shusterman and children, Samantha and Jake, leave after his sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Mr Trump has denied directing Cohen to break the law. Mr Trump's former "fixer" said: "I am done with the lying. I am done being loyal to President Trump. Expand Close Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, exits the United States Courthouse after sentencing at the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, exits the United States Courthouse after sentencing at the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid "I will not be the villain of this story." Asked whether the president knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen said: "Of course," but he did not provide any specific evidence or detail in the interview. The president has asserted in a barrage of tweets over the last few weeks that Cohen is a "liar" who cut a deal to get a reduced prison sentence. But Cohen said Mr Trump "directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters". He added: "He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth. And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, don't believe what he is saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds." In a separate case, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his work on a possible Trump real estate project in Moscow and said he did so to be consistent with the president's "political messaging". The charges in that case were brought by special counsel Robert Mueller's office and Mr Mueller's prosecutors have said Cohen has provided key information in their investigation. Cohen has said he is continuing to co-operate with investigators. US President Donald Trump said he never directed his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to break the law, saying that as a lawyer he is supposed to know what's legal and what's not. "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel', and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made," Mr Trump wrote yesterday on Twitter. "That is why they get paid." Cohen was given a three-year prison sentence on Wednesday after pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws by arranging hush payments to women who alleged affairs with Trump, as well as lying to Congress and banks. Mr Trump in subsequent tweets yesterday said he "did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, even if they apply" and that the charges against Cohen "were not criminal". He further said of Cohen: "Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did - including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook." Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said on Wednesday that he was willing to reveal publicly what he knows about Mr Trump once special counsel Robert Mueller's probe is finished. The special counsel's team interviewed Cohen for about 70 hours, but little is known about what he shared. Expand Close Story time: Melania Trump receives applause from Tearrianna Cooke-Starkey during the traditional first ladys visit to the Childrens National Hospital in Washington. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Story time: Melania Trump receives applause from Tearrianna Cooke-Starkey during the traditional first ladys visit to the Childrens National Hospital in Washington. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Cohen has admitted to lying to Congress and Mueller's investigators about the timing of a proposed Trump tower in Moscow and Mr Trump's involvement in the project. Mr Davis said that false testimony was shared with the White House before Cohen submitted it to Congress and it is possible Mr Trump was aware at the time that Cohen would make false statements. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York in August, saying that "Individual-1" (widely identified as Mr Trump) schemed to silence two women about affairs with the Republican candidate before the 2016 election. Cohen acknowledged that such payments amounted to illegal campaign donations - and said he arranged for them at Mr Trump's behest. It was also revealed in court filings on Wednesday related to Cohen that at least one unidentified aide to Mr Trump's presidential campaign joined the attorney in an August 2015 meeting with the publisher of the 'National Enquirer' to discuss suppressing negative news stories during the election. The sentencing leaves Mr Trump in a much weakened position. It means he is now bereft of two of his most powerful protectors - his long-time lawyer Cohen and the company that owns the 'National Enquirer' tabloid, bringing a perilous investigation into his campaign one step closer to the Oval Office. Both Cohen and American Media Inc (AMI) now admit to making hush money payments to a porn star and a 'Playboy' Playmate for the purposes of helping his 2016 White House bid, which is a clear campaign finance violation. The women alleged affairs with Mr Trump, and federal prosecutors say the payments were made at Mr Trump's direction. The admissions by Cohen and AMI conflict with Mr Trump's own evolving explanations. Since the spring, Mr Trump has gone from denying knowledge of any payments to saying they would have been private transactions that weren't illegal. Though prosecutors have implicated Mr Trump in a crime, they haven't directly accused him of one, and it's not clear that they could bring charges against a sitting president even if they want to, because of Justice Department protocol. Nonetheless, Mr Trump's changing explanations have clouded the public understanding of what occurred and are running head-on into facts agreed to by prosecutors, AMI and Cohen. "You now have a second defendant or group of defendants saying that these payments were made for the primary purpose of influencing the election, and that it was done in co-ordination with Trump and his campaign," said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California. A Russian woman has admitted to acting as an agent for the Kremlin to get close to the Republican party in an effort to influence US policies. Maria Butina (30) pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy in a court in Washington yesterday, admitting to working under the direction of a top Russian official to infiltrate the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful gun rights group closely aligned with senior Republican politicians. She is the first Russian citizen to be convicted of working to shape US policy in the run-up to and through the 2016 election campaign, agreeing to co-operate with prosecutors for less prison time. Appearing before Judge Tanya Chutkan, she admitted to conspiring to work with Alexander Torshin, a former deputy governor of Russia's central bank, and two US citizens as a Russian agent from 2015 until her 2018 arrest. Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, was arrested in July and has been held in jail without bail ever since. She initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against her but in the last week it was revealed she had reversed course and agreed to co-operate with prosecutors. Expand Close Maria Butina: She met with the US presidents son, Donald Trump Jnr. Photo: REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Maria Butina: She met with the US presidents son, Donald Trump Jnr. Photo: REUTERS Her aim was to make contacts with officials at the NRA, conservative figures and 2016 presidential candidates in order to set up unofficial back channels with high-ranking American politicians. Butina is known to have met with the president's son, Donald Trump Jnr, during one of the NRA's conventions as well as reportedly hosting a party in Washington attended by Trump campaign aides in November 2016. To carry out her plan, Butina requested $125,000 (110,000) from a Russian billionaire to attend conferences and set up "separate meetings with interested parties". Her lawyer estimated that under sentencing guidelines for similar crimes Butina could face up to six months in prison. Because of Butina's ongoing co-operation, the judge did not set a sentencing date but scheduled a hearing for February 12. Cherif Chekatt, the suspect in the shooting in Strasbourg, who has been killed (French Police/AP) The man authorities believe killed three people during a rampage near a Christmas market in Strasbourg has died in a shootout with police at the end of a two-day manhunt, French authorities said. The Paris prosecutors office, which handles terror cases in France, formally identified the man killed in the eastern French city as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, speaking earlier from Strasbourg, said police had spotted a man matching the suspects description in the citys Neudorf neighbourhood. The moment they tried to arrest him, he turned around and opened fired. They replied, killing the man, Mr Castaner said. Face au pire, vous avez donne le meilleur. Merci.#Strasbourg pic.twitter.com/nzgBBZR4Fx Christophe Castaner (@CCastaner) December 13, 2018 Chekatt was suspected of killing three people and wounding 13 near Strasbourgs Christmas market on Tuesday night. Mr Castaner said earlier on Thursday that three of the injured had been released from hospital and three others were still fighting for their lives. Our engagement against terrorism is total, French president Emmanuel Macron, who was in Brussels for a European Union summit, said in a tweet thanking security forces. Five people have been arrested in connection with the investigation, including Chekatts parents and two of his brothers. The Paris prosecutors office said the fifth, who was arrested on Thursday, was a member of Chekatts entourage but not a family member. Expand Close French police officers stand guard in Strasbourg, eastern France (Christophe Ena/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp French police officers stand guard in Strasbourg, eastern France (Christophe Ena/AP) Witnesses said the gunman shouted God is great! in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market on Tuesday. Security forces wounded the man but he managed to escape in a taxi, which dropped him off in Neudorf. More than 700 officers searched for Chekatt, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. Authorities said Chekatt had 27 criminal convictions, the first one from when he was 13. A local police official said the man who shot at police on Thursday night had been armed with a pistol and a knife. Expand Close A sign reading I am Strasbourg as people pay respects to the victims (Christophe Ena/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A sign reading I am Strasbourg as people pay respects to the victims (Christophe Ena/AP) Strasbourg mayor Roland Ries said police had acted on a tip from a woman. A local resident who witnessed the shootout said he heard shots and rushed to the window to see what was happening. He closed the shutters when he spotted the cornered suspect across the street. I was very afraid for my children, I told them to go away, and I went to the side, Cem Akcakaya told The Associated Press. After it was over, he said he saw the man motionless on his back on the pavement, his left arm askew. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online, said the Islamic State groups Amaq news agency was claiming the gunman as a soldier of the group, although IS claims of responsibility have often been considered opportunistic. Security forces, including the elite Raid squad, spent hours searching in the Neudorf neighbourhood where Chekatt had grown up based on supposition only he might have been hiding in a building nearby, a French police official said. France has raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level since the attack and deployed 1,800 additional soldiers across the country to help patrol streets and secure crowded events. Expand Close The suspect was killed in a shootout with police in Strasbourg (Christophe Ena/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The suspect was killed in a shootout with police in Strasbourg (Christophe Ena/AP) Residents of Strasbourgs Neudorf neighbourhood expressed relief after Chekatt was killed. Everybodys quite happy that the killer has been finally shot. I think now, the city and life can keep going on in Strasbourg, resident Pierre Plasse said. One of the three who died in Tuesdays attack was a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry. Earlier, hundreds of people gathered in Strasbourgs 500-year-old cathedral to mourn and seek comfort. Evil does not prevail, Archbishop Luc Ravel said. And the message of Christmas has not been contradicted but rather confirmed by Tuesdays dramatic night: Evil and good are both there, but in the end the good will have last word. British solo sailor Susie Goodall is received by her mother after arriving on the cargo ship MV Tian Fu in Punta Arenas, Chile (Joel Estay/AP) Sailor Susie Goodall is back on dry land after being rescued by a cargo ship in the southern Pacific Ocean where her boat capsized during a solo round-the-world race. The Briton arrived at the Chilean southern city of Punta Arenas, where she was met by her mother and brother. The family smiled and hugged before they joined her in an ambulance for a medical checkup in the port city, which is located about 1,200 miles from Santiago. Expand Close Solo sailor Susie Goodall disembarks (Joel Estay/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Solo sailor Susie Goodall disembarks (Joel Estay/AP) Ms Goodall declined to speak to journalists. The 29-year-old was the youngest entrant and the only woman in the Golden Globe competition that began July 1 in Les Sables-dOlonne, France. A violent storm ripped off her mast and flung her yacht end over end on December 5. Race officials were in regular radio contact with Ms Goodall, who was 2,000 miles west of Cape Horn near the southern tip of South America when the storm occurred. She was rescued two days later by the Tian Fu, a cargo vessel from China. Gifts from Scott and Payne families complete fundraising for MSUs American Indian Hall By MSU News Service BOZEMAN Gifts from two prominent Montana families have completed the fundraising for a $20 million American Indian Hall on the campus of Montana State University. Jim and Chris Scott of Billings and the Terry and Patt Payne Family of Missoula each gave $1 million respectively to finish off the campaign, which started 13 years ago but received new life in October when the Kendeda Fund gave $12 million and the Associated Students of MSU pledged another $2 million. Sixteen donors have also committed $1.1 million to the American Indian Hall since October. The generosity of the Scotts and the Paynes will be felt by generations of students and will help build a stronger Montana for all of us, said MSU President Waded Cruzado. The American Indian Hall was first proposed in 2005 under the administration of MSU President Geoff Gamble, but securing funds for the project over the years proved challenging. Now, the university plans to break ground during the last week of March and have the building open by 2021. Our American Indian students and their families deserve a place of their own in which they can feel pride, said Jim Scott. This beautiful building will be that place, as well as a place where non-native students will feel comfortable and can learn from and about their American Indian peers. Many native students return to their communities to work after graduating, and so the benefits of this hall will travel home with them. President Waded Cruzado addresses the crowd at Indigenous Peoples Day at Montana State University on October 8, 2018. Photo by Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez / MSU The Scott family founded First Interstate Bank 50 years ago in Sheridan, Wyoming, and Jim Scott is currently chairman of its board. First Interstate Bank offers banking services in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. Terry Payne is chairman of the board of PayneWest Insurance, Inc., of Missoula. The firm is the largest independent, employee-owned insurance agency in the western United States. Payne was the lead donor behind the University of Montanas Payne Family Native American Center, which opened in 2010. Our family is pleased to be able to help the American Indian Hall come to fruition. We were excited and gratified to see the remarkable donation from the Kendeda Fund and proud to join it, the Scott family and others in following President Cruzados leadership in bringing this project into reality for the benefit of American Indians and all students as well as the entire campus, community and state, Payne said. December 31 is the conclusion of MSUs first comprehensive fundraising campaign, which kicked off in 2015 with a goal of raising $300 million, including funding for the American Indian Hall. Full funding of the hall was the last major piece of the campaign. As a university, we promised in 2005 to build an American Indian Hall. Our students and our American Indian communities were very patient these past 13 years. Now that promise has been kept and a dream fulfilled. For all of us at MSU, our hearts are moved by the donors who helped make this a reality, Cruzado said. To date, more than 60 individuals and organizations have donated to the project. Chontay Mitchell, center, a music technology student at Montana State University, leads a drum song to begin the festivities of Indigenous People's Day, Monday, October 8, 2018, on the MSU campus mall in Bozeman, Montana, prior to an announcement of the building of the Native American Hall with the help of a $12 million pledge from the Kendeda Fund combined with contributions from donors. MSU Photo by Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez My first reaction to this news is gratitude as we realize that this long-held dream will now move to reality, said Walter Fleming , head of the Department of Native American Studies in the College of Letters and Science . Fleming has been at MSU for more than 40 years as first a graduate student and then a professor and administrator. He said for much of that time, a center for American Indian students has been a dream. I also have hope. For, as much good as we have been able to do for our students, with this new building we will be able to do so much more for them. The American Indian Hall allows us to better assist students, not just in the several years to come, but also for those who will be attending MSU 40 or 50 years from now. The building is sorely needed. MSUs American Indian Student Center is currently located in a heavily used 1,100-square-foot room in the basement of Wilson Hall , the same place since its been since Wilson Hall opened in 1974, when there were fewer than 25 students who identified as American Indian. This fall, 776 American Indian students are enrolled at MSU. The new facility will house the offices of the MSU Department of Native American Studies, which are currently in Wilson Hall. The building will hold numerous classrooms for use by all students, as well as an auditorium for lectures. Also planned are rooms for tutoring, counseling and advising. The American Indian Hall will also include culturally relevant elements, including a room that can be used for ceremonies and as a dance studio. While focused on the needs of MSUs growing American Indian community, which includes students from all 12 of Montanas tribes as well as 41 additional tribal nations from 15 states, the building will also be a place welcoming to all students and a bridge between cultures. The buildings structure will be based on a feather design created by MSU architecture graduate Dennis Sun Rhodes in 2005. That is when Sun Rhodes, an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe from Ethete, Wyoming, and his friend, well-known artist Jim Dolan, first proposed their vision for a freestanding MSU American Indian student building to Gamble. MSU dedicated the land next to Hannon Hall for the building shortly after and a Dolan tepee sculpture has stood on the spot as a reminder of that promise as the university worked to find funds for the project. Cruzado said Sun Rhodes and his Great Horse Group of St. Paul, Minnesota, will serve as a consultant on the project, working with ThinkOne architects of Bozeman and TSP architects in Rapid City, South Dakota. MSU News Service shares stories about Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, and the accomplishments of its students, faculty, alumni and staff. Follow on Facebook and Twitter Join the Conversation Related Stories After a five-day wedding at Lake Como, Italy, Ranveer and Deepika returned to India for their second round of celebrations. They hosted three wedding receptions in India where guess who enjoyed the most? DeepVeer themselves! They danced like no one's watching and made sure their celebrations are all about happiness and joy! That's not all- They flew down to Udaipur for Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal's pre-wedding festivities, where they made heads turn again with their love and dance! Well, this is just the beginning of a new phase in their lives and they are making the most of it by striking a great balance between work and personal life. Agencies Nothing much has changed for either of the two and their marriage looks easy-breezy as they juggle between partying, chilling, having fun and enjoying their lives as a married couple. 1. Ranveer is busy promoting his upcoming film Simmba, where he is mostly seen chilling, dancing, having a great time and going gaga over his marriage and gushing over Wifey Deepika Padukone. Screengrab Twitter During a recent Conclave in Mumbai, Singh went on to talking about wife Deepika and how 'perfect' a person she is. 2. Marriage celebrations continue for DeepVeer but she's fulfilling work commitments like a pro, that she is already is. Deepika too is back to the normal grind. She shot for an episode of Filmfare's show and is busy attending events. Agencies Agencies Does your child like fiddling around with your smartphone or tablet or your laptop? While it may be hard to prevent them from doing so, giving into their demands may not be in the best interest of their brain. The brain scan of children who used smartphones, tablets, video games, laptops and any other digital device extensively looked different from those who used it less, according to a report by 60-minutes via a study funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH). TPI The study revealed that 9 and 10-year-old kids who spent more than seven hours a day on such digital devices revealed a premature thinning of their brains cortex; the outermost layer that processes sensory information. "We don't know if it's being caused by the screen time. We don't know yet if it's a bad thing," said Gaya Dowling, an NIH doctor working on the project, explaining the preliminary findings in an interview with the CBS news program 60 Minutes, as reported by AFP. "What we can say is that this is what the brains look like kids who spend a lot of time on screens. And it's not just one pattern," Dowling said. Helvetix The study also revealed that kids who spent more than two hours a day also ended up with worse scores on language and reasoning tests. "In many ways, the concern that investigators, like I have, is, that we're sort of in the midst of a natural kind of uncontrolled experiment on the next generation of children," Dimitri Christakis, a lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' most recent guidelines on screen time, told 60 Minutes. code3000.ru/Representational Image Unsurprisingly, the academy recommends parents to "avoid digital media useexcept video chattingin children younger than 18 to 24 months," as reported by AFP. Right in the middle of a busy day, my best friend texted me. She asked me to check out her exs Facebook profile as soon as I could. I did, and found that he was in a new relationship and had just added photos with his new girlfriend. She said she felt bad for the girl because of the horrible person he was. Their relationship had ended about a year ago when he moved cities. There was no big fight or scandalous cheating event, but my best friend had not taken it well. She too had moved on and found herself someone who was more caring towards her. But that didnt stop her from hating her ex. That got me thinking about how most of us end up hating our past partners and give a negative tinge to a relationship that had once meant so much. unsplash But this is extremely problematic because it stops us from going back to a time we once cherished. We also tend to avoid thinking about where we went wrong and what we learnt from the relationship. Each relationship is an opportunity to evolve personally and yet, we avoid this very evolution by treating our failed relationships with hate instead of an analysis of it. The end of every relationship is complicated. Theres so many feelings involved, and we find it hard to make sense of them all. That is understandable. However, we all have a tendency to hate our ex partners after the end of the relationship. unsplash Once you move past all that hate, you will realize that the relationship may not have lasted but it has left you with some important life lessons. It has helped you understand your own emotional needs better and demand the same from your future partner. And when the relationship ends of a bitter note, it teaches you what you dont want from a relationship and that, again, is a great insight into yourself. In fact, a relationship that hasnt worked out actually gives you the opportunity to analyse your own self, giving way to your growth as a human being. Doctor Jane Greer, a renowned therapist, has been quoted as saying, "The end of a relationship is anything but a failure. Its really a gain: You gain the time and opportunity to figure out what wasnt working. You get to look at yourself and what you expect in another person so that hopefully, in the next relationship, you can have a commitment that will go the distance." unsplash But we cant let go. We stalk them, we block them and when we bump into them by pure coincidence, it is the most awkward experience. So, we go out of our way to avoid them. When the squad gets together and starts talking about your relationship, you cant help but say the meanest things. It is understandable, at one level. No one wants to be at the losing end of something. Thinking or talking about your ex obviously brings out all the pain you felt when it ended. But more than that, it reminds you that you tried really hard but failed at keeping your relationship strong. Your ex is a constant reminder of what could have been if you had just worked it out. While each relationship ends for different reasons, and some are definitely more hurtful than others, it is extremely important to let the hatred go. Thinking negatively about an aspect of your life only takes a toll on your mind. And for something that got over long ago, why lose sleep, right? Instead, treat your past relationships as lessons that helped you become a better person. Moreover, treat them as a lesson that taught you what you want and what you dont want from a partner. The end may have hurt you but treat your hurt as a stepping stone to ending up with a person who is everything youve ever wanted and a little more. In a tragic incident, at least 13 people who were trapped in a flooded illegal coal mine in Meghalaya are feared dead. The incident was reported on Thursday morning from East Jaintia hills district. According to police, all the men were labourers, who were engaged in the rat-hole coal mine near Lytein river. PTI They got trapped inside around three days ago due to the overflowing of water in the Lytein river, PTI reported. Water is being pumped out and efforts are on to identify the people behind the illegal mining. The mine was operating illegally after the National Green Tribunal banned unscientific and unsafe rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya in 2014. AFP reported that, earlier this month, anti mining activist Agnes Kharshiing was attacked by alleged coal miners in the the same district. REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE This is not the first time that labourers engaged in illegal mining of coal have been trapped in a mine. At least 15 miners were trapped in an illegal rat-hole coal mine near the Nangalbibra area in South Garo Hills in 2012. The bodies were never recovered. The Kerala police confirmed that ten people from the southern state had joined the Islamic state in Afghanistan, Times Now reported on Thursday. The families that had left for Syria and Afghanistan where the IS has a strong hold belong to the states Kannur district. Later, it was also found out that two people from the district were former members of the Popular Front of India (PFI). TOI reported that K Sajjad and Anwar Poothappara left the state on November 19 saying that they were going to Mysuru. Another man by the name of T.P Nisam from Kuruva in Kannur has been reported missing and is also believed to have joined the militant organisation. Photo: AFP The police informed that the group left for Iran via UAE. Reportedly, Anwar had established ties with PFI eight years ago after he went to the gulf. Sajjad was expelled from the organisation three years ago due to financial irregularity. The members are believed to have prior links with IS, as Anwar's wife Afseela, is the sister-in-law of Muhammad Shameer T K, who was killed along with two of his sons Salman and Safwan after having joined the IS. Shameer was also the PFI division leader from Pappinisseri, a town in Kerala. TOI reported that as per the charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency in this case, Shameer was responsible for instigating including PFI workers Abdul Razak, Mithilaj, Rashid, Abdul Manaf, Muhammad Shajil and Abdul Khayoom, to join the terrorist outfit. Photo: AFP It is also believed that people are using the connections Shameer had in the area to influence people. The ten people who have left are expected to have left for Afghanistan since ISs stronghold in Syria have been destroyed in the war. The Washington Post reported last year that an estimated 100 Indians have left to fight for the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, according to Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. Popular Front of India is an extremist and militant Islamic fundamentalist organisation which originated in Kerala. It is a rare sight in India that youngsters are equally dedicated to business and politics at the same time. India has seen several young politicians who run their businesses as well, but most of them are from well established political families. Wajib Ali is different. He completed his studies in India, went abroad for higher studies, got a permanent residency to set up his business and returned to do politics in his backyard. Yes, the newly elected BSP MLA from Nagar constituency in Rajasthan has a simple story to tell. 36 year old Wajib Ali came back to India in 2013, joined politics. He lost the election back then, but, just five years later he defeated his BJP rival Anita Singh by 26,786 votes. Ali was born and brought up in Nagar. He completed his education in Rajasthan and left for Australia in 2005 to pursue his higher studies. After completing his education, he joined the family business there and currently runs eight colleges and a school in Australia. Photo: Facebook/ Wajib Ali who contested from Nagar constituency in Rajasthan on December 07 While speaking to Indiatimes Ali informed that when he came back to India to meet his parents six years ago; he was struck by the miserable condition of his village. He thought what had he done for his community? He had a good education, was running a lucrative business in Australia but back home his village was still awaiting basic development. I wanted to make a difference in peoples lives, especially in my area. My area is the most backward area of Rajasthan and in fact even in whole of India if you would see, the most backward area was Mewat in Haryana. Nagar constituency is home to many Meos. Therefore, I started thinking about how can I give back to my community. On being asked what prompted him to leave his comfortable life to contest elections in Nagar, Ali said, You should have the ability to make a difference. That is one of the reasons why I went to the elections. Now, I have got a good voice, I can go to any house and represent the issues which people of my area are facing. Education and health, the newly elected MLA believes are the two main areas that need immediate attention. I would love to focus on education because education is the only thing that has given me so much of success in my life. I would like to improve the quality of government education system in my state. A lot of people ask me why dont you run your own school or college here but thats probably not the solution because I cant serve the numbers then. Private education is not a solution, I believe I should work hard on improving the quality of government education so that everyone can benefit. Health is another area that needs to be tended to. There are a lot of issues in my mind but education and health are two fields I want to focus on in the beginning. The highlight for Ali in this elections is the fact that he was voted to power by people from all castes. In Rajasthan, nowadays, caste politics is very strong however, people from all castes voted for me because they think that this person is sacrificing his comfort to do something for the people. He feels that he can contribute to Rajasthan in ways more than one. Since his brother is also an elected councillor in Australia, Ali had the opportunity to follow Australian politics closely. Australian politics is all about pure public service. he said. "I will try to bring business here through international collaborations." Ali, who is also a member of the International Rural council wants to help the farmers back home. Australia has now opened new visas for farmers so I will see if i can do something for them. Meanwhile, Indian National Congress emerged victorious in Rajasthan and are yet to announce their Chief Minister. Two promising candidates in line are Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot. The Supreme Court has dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the Rafale Fighter Jet deal stating that it did not find anything wrong in selection of Indian offset partners by Dassault. Read More. Here's More Top News For The Day: 1) Nitin Gadkari Defends Fugitive 'Vijay Mallyaji', Says It Is Unfair To Call Him A Fraud Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari has put the Modi government in an embarrassing situation after he appears to have defended fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallya, who is wanted in India for a number of cases including loan default. Read More. 2) Meet Wajib Ali, A Successful Young Educationist In Australia And Newly Elected MLA In Rajasthan 36 year old Wajib Ali came back to India in 2013, joined politics.He came back to India to meet his parents six years ago; he was struck by the miserable condition of his village. He thought what had he done for his community? Read More. 3) It's Official, Himachal Assembly Passes Resolution To Call Cow India's 'Rashtra Mata' Does India need a 'Mother of the Nation?' the Himachal Pradesh assembly definitely thinks so. So, after solving all the other problems in the state the lawmakers from Himachal Pradesh, cutting across party lines came together to pass a resolution in this regard. Read More. 4) Three Accused In Dabholkar And Gauri Lankesh Murder Get Bail After CBI Fails To File Chargesheet Amol Kale, Rakesh Bangera and Amit Degwekar, three men who are accused in the murders of Rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and Journalist Gauri Lankesh were granted bail in the first case by a court in Pune. Read More. 5) At Least 13 Miners Feared Dead After Flooding In Illegal Coal Mine In Meghalaya In a tragic incident, at least 13 people who were trapped in a flooded illegal coal mine in Meghalaya are feared dead. The incident was reported on Thursday morning from East Jaintia hills district. Read More. Kurdish-led forces seized the Islamic State's main hub of Hajin Friday, a milestone in a massive and costly US-backed operation to eradicate the jihadists from eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by IS, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "After a week of heavy fighting and air strikes, the SDF were able to kick IS out of Hajin," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said. AFP The operation was completed at dawn, he said, a day after SDF forces fanned out across the large village in the Euphrates valley. On Thursday, the last IS fighters were confined to a network of tunnels and the edges of Hajin, which lies in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border with Iraq. The area held by IS is sometimes referred to as the "Hajin pocket", the last rump of a once-sprawling "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014 over swathes of Syria and Iraq. IS fighters pulled back to positions east of Hajin Friday and to Sousa and Al-Shaafa, the two other main villages in their shrinking Euphrates valley enclave. As recently as Thursday, the group posted pictures of fighting in Hajin on its social media accounts. Reuters According to Abdel Rahman, a total of 17,000 fighters from the Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance are involved in the operation to flush IS out of its last bastion. The operation was launched on September 10 and has taken a heavy toll, according to figures collected by the Observatory, which has a vast network of sources on the ground. At least 900 jihadists and 500 SDF fighters were killed in the fighting, the monitoring group said. According to Abdel Rahman, more than 320 civilians were also killed, many of them in air strikes by the US-led coalition. US President Donald Trump this week predicted the jihadist group would be fully defeated within a month. "We've done a very, very major job on ISIS," he said on Tuesday, using another acronym for IS. "There are very few of them left in that area of the world. And within another 30 days, there won't be any of them left," he vowed. Western and other officials have repeatedly announced deadlines for a final victory over IS but the group is proving resilient. The push to retake Hajin was delayed by Turkish threats on the Kurdish heartland further north and deadly counter-attacks by die-hard jihadists making a bloody last stand. AP "ISIS anticipated its battlefield defeat and the loss of the caliphate and prepared accordingly," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington. Besides what is left of the pocket near Hajin in the Euphrates valley, IS has a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert, a front which is managed by Russian-backed government forces. What is left of the jihadist group also has sleeper cells across Iraq and Syria that regularly carry out attacks. The loss of Hajin came hours after IS's propaganda agency Amaq claimed responsibility for a Christmas market shooting in the French city of Strasbourg. The Amaq statement was posted just after the shooter Cherif Chekatt was gunned down by police but bore the hallmarks of an opportunistic claim by the embattled jihadist group. On Thursday, BMW unveiled its latest research project that could possibly propel the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) multifold. In collaboration with Porsche and Siemens, the German car maker has come up with a technology that claims to charge an electric car in as less than 3 minutes. That is practically the same time taken to refuel petrol/diesel car. Which means that the one big plus that the conventional vehicles had over EVs will be taken care of. As of now, this is one major factor stopping many prospective buyers from opting for electric cars. After all, nobody wants to wait for 20 minutes for about 50 percent battery capacity. That, however, is the charging time taken by Tesla Superchargers, considered to be the fastest charging option at present, with up to 145 kW of power. The new charging technology by BMW ups this to 450 kW, meaning a full charge in 15 minutes and enough for a 100 kilometre drive in 3 minutes as per the research. BMW The Possible Effect The EV industry has been looking to bring down the charging time for EVs since long now. If the widespread implementation of 45kW superchargers becomes viable, the problem of buying and running an EV in a populated space (like India) can be solved easily. The visible (and ideal) future scenario would be the replacement of fossil fuel pumps with such charging stations and of course, of IC engine cars with EVs. That looks to be a distant dream though, considering there are many roadblocks which BMW and the associated companies will have to face before making this a viable solution. Roadblocks Battery life - Also, it is common knowledge that batteries are prone to wearing out if the charging (or discharging) process is accelerated. So as the superchargers will rapidly charge the batteries, their frequent use is bound to reduce the life of the battery. Energy requirement - Charging stations, on an average, take a considerable amount of energy from the grid. As can be guessed in the case of superchargers, this requirement is only going to go up. Providing this much of energy off the grid would be next to impossible unless corresponding infrastructure for energy generation is also built. Bengaluru has become synonymous with polluted lakes, lakes spilling over with frothy chemicals and some randomly catching fire. Over the years, water pollution has come to haunt the country's most popular cosmopolitans and the future looks very bleak. Reuters/Bellandur lake overflowing with toxic foam In a bid to raise awareness on the damage that water pollution can, one South Indian actress took the bold step to take a dip in the polluted waters for a photoshoot. Twitter Actress Rashmika Mandanna's shoot directed by Sanmathi D. Prasad was held at Bellandur lake in Bengaluru. Mandanna later tweeted that she wasn't aware about the pollution before she visited the lake for the shoot. ALSO READ:Toxic Foam From Bellandur Lake Reaches Kolar; Activists Threaten To Send Sewage Water To MLAs This was a photoshoot regarding awareness for the water pollution by this wonderful team Creative Director : @sanmathidprasad Photography : @zeroin.in Styling : @vogue_pill Make up : @monicaprakash (1/2 ) pic.twitter.com/B0P5uiKmGc Rashmika Mandanna (@iamRashmika) 13 December 2018 According to Economic Times, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has been in talks with a German firm that has promised to revive the lake within a year. The company named AG Dauters proposed to set up waste-to-energy units and a zero-cost solution for the lakes sewage. ALSO READ: Toxic Foam From Bellandur Lake Reaches Kolar; Activists Threaten To Send Sewage Water To MLAs In cities like Gurugram, cases of abduction have almost turned into an everyday affair and just the thought of it is scary. According to a recent study, cases of abduction or kidnapping have increased by 42% in the city since last year. And abductions range from personal disputes to the ones for ransom. Source More recently, a class 10 student was at her friends place in Shivaji Nagar, Gurugram, to complete some homework and was abducted on her way back home. Luckily, her father spotted two men in a car who pulled his daughter in and he immediately chased them down on his bike. He managed to catch up with the car and rescued his daughter, the chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee, Shakuntala Dhull told the HT. An FIR was registered under section 8 (sexual assault) of the POCSO Act at the Shivaji Nagar police station. ALSO READ: Woman Foils Abduction Bid In South Delhi, Gets Stalker Arrested In a separate incident, earlier this year, Rajneesh Kumar, 35, from Bihar was waiting near Iffco Chowk when he was offered a lift to his house. A few minutes after he accepted the offer, the man in co-drivers seat pulled out a gun and asked Kumar to make a call to his residence for a ransom of Rs 50,000, reports HT. Prime Minister Narendra Modis hectic travel schedule and his trips over the past fours years have cost the Indian taxpayers a whopping Rs 2010 crores! According to an ET report, Modi has made 84 trips around the world since 2014 and it's nothing short of dizzying. The report states that the globe-trotting prime ministers trips around the world cost roughly $280 million, while the government spent $640 million on promoting Modis flagship projects and achievements. The information was provided by Gen. V. K. Singh, the Minister of State for External Affairs in response to a question raised by a lawmaker in the Parliament. Since taking office, PM Modi has met global leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe multiple times in a bid to boost India's influence in global affairs and secure its strategic interests. Reuters His trips, including an informal summit with President Xi Jinping in the Chinese city of Wuhan, are credited as diplomatic successes. His meeting with China's leader after a tense stand-off in the Himalayas was seen as ushering in a detente between the world's two most-populous countries. His trip to Japan in 2016 -- which came immediately after demonetisation led to accusations by the opposition that he was travelling the world while ordinary Indians were struggling. Reuters Earlier this year, during a visit to Rwanda, Modi gifted 200 dairy cows to support President Paul Kagames initiative to reduce poverty, while in China he signed a memorandum of understanding to open a yoga college in Yunnan province. In July, PTI had reported that as per government data, a total of Rs 1088.42 crore was spent on maintenance of the PM's aircraft and Rs 387.26 crore on chartered flights during the period between June 15, 2014 and June 10, 2018. The total expenditure on hotline facilities was Rs 9.12 crore, not including foreign visits in 2017-18 and 2018-19. INPUTS FROM PTI AND ECONOMIC TIMES Google CEO Sundar Pichai gently chided Congressman Steve King, when the 69-year-old lawmaker asked Pichai about the unwanted notification on his granddaughters iPhone. King made his complaint during Pichai's appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, where the lawmakers asked the Google CEO about the privacy issues and data collection. He also accused the Google of being biased against Donald Trump as every time someone types idiot on Google, Donald Trumps face flashes on the screen. Twitter But one complaint that was not accepted by the CEO was the pop-up complaint that King made, he said, "I have a seven-year-old granddaughter, who picked up her phone before the election and she was playing a little game - the kind of game a kid would play - and upon there pops a picture of her grandfather." After @SteveKingIA raises inscrutable concerns about iPhones, Google CEO Sunday Pichai patiently informs him, "Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company." pic.twitter.com/TiNZ1t3VRo Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 11, 2018 To which Pichai gently replied, "Congressman, the iPhone is made by a different company, there may have been an application which was being used that had a notification." It was Pichais first testimony before the Congress and there was less talk about the regulations and more about Google's actions in the wake of the 2016 election after it was revealed Russian nationals used online platforms to influence the election. Farhan Akhtar said the 2014 massacre in Peshawar in Pakistan, when the Taliban stormed into an army school and shot over 200 children, inspired him to pen down Why Couldnt It Be Me. (photo provided) Indian American model Padma Lakshmi, seen here with Indian American comedian/actor Aziz Ansari at the 2011 New Yorker Festival party hosted by David Remnick Oct. 1, 2011 in New York City, wants Ansari to be a guest judge on Top Chef, which she hosts. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for The New Yorker) The Hindu American Foundation has launched a campaign, I Am Hindu American, which encourages Hindu Indian Americans to upload a photo of themselves and share how Hinduism inspires them in their everyday lives. (hafsite.org photo) Indian American businesswoman Anuja Rajendra, who has been charged with making false campaign statements during her race for a Michigan state Senate seat, is being represented by the ACLU, which maintains that campaign statements even false ones are protected by the First Amendment. (India-West file photo) Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot (first right) and Sachin Pilot (first left) ahead of a press conference in Jaipur Dec. 11. Both have staked a claim for the chief minister post of Rajasthan, with Gehlot emerging as the apparent pick. (IANS photo) What do mineral exploration companies Chalice Gold Mines, King River Copper, Technology Metals Australia, Vanadium Corp, Australian Vanadium, Six Sigma Metals, Tando Resources, TNG Ltd as well as lithium-miner Neometals all have in common? All of these companies are searching for vanadium, a now sought-after mineral used in vanadium redox batteries (VRBs). According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), vanadium is traditionally used in steel alloy production and is predominantly mined in China, but also in South Africa, Russia and Brazil. As a consequence of the US import dependence, the USGS named vanadium on its final list of critical minerals, announced on May 18. The VRB sector is expanding thanks to its wide range of energy applications. Their large storage capacity and high cycle performance and durability make these batteries particularly suitable for grid and large scale industrial and residential uses. Another mineral that all of these companies have in common is titanium. This is because geologically speaking, vanadium and titanium commonly occur together in anorthositic, mafic to ultramafic rocks and are often referred to as vanadiferous titanomagnetite (VTM) deposits. Recent market announcements, explored below, revealed that investors, explorers and miners are actively seeking to become the next vanadium producers, and therefore, also the next titanium producers. These companies are flying under the radar in terms of titanium, due to their battery-industry focus. Of these companies, the most advanced projects are held by Australia Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed companies Neometals Ltd and TNG Ltd. On May 8, Neometals, an established lithium producer, reported that its Western Australia-located titanium-vanadium Barrambie direct shipping ore (DSO) project was the subject of bulk-sampling and test work. The companys titanium feedstock has been confirmed to be suitable for high-purity (>99%) titanium dioxide production, and can be precipitated selectively from a leach solution at recoveries greater than 90%. Barrambie's Eastern Band made a total mineral resource for Barrambie is estimated to be 280.1 million tonnes at 9.18% titanium dioxide and 0.44% vanadium pentoxide. Elsewhere, TNGs Australian Northern Territory Mount Peake Vanadium-Titanium Iron Project was awarded federal environmental approval on May 15 of this year. The project, which contains 160 million tonnes of 5.31% titanium dioxide and 0.28% vanadium pentoxide as part of its resource (as of 2013), will now need a mine management plan in order to proceed to a stage where offtake, funding and construction may proceed. A long list of early to mid-stage explorers also exist, and while they are a long way from production, present another potential source of titanium in the long term. ASX-listed explorer Tando Resources commenced exploration on May 21 on its South African high-grade vanadium project, after acquiring it from Vanadium Resources Ltd on March 22. The companys preliminary estimates on a concentrate indicate grades of 2% vanadium pentoxide and 13% titanium dioxide. Likewise, ASX-listed explorer Chalice Gold Mines announced on May 23 that it had applied for a number of vanadium focused exploration licenses in Queensland and Western Australia. The company notes that the areas are "highly prospective" for nickel, copper platinum group elements and titanium. Another Australia-based ASX-listed explorer, Six Sigma Metals, has recently agreed to acquire "highly prospective" vanadium-titanium and lithium assets located in Zimbabwe from Mirrorplex Ltd. The announcement, made on May 17, said that the acquisition was part of a strategy to "capitalize on the rising interest in the sector due to recent global [battery] technology advances". This company has likened its geology to that of ASX-listed Australian Vanadiums Western Australian Gabanintha deposit, as well as ASX-listed King River Coppers Western Australian Speerwah deposit. Of these, King River Copper has conducted advanced metallurgical test work which has resulted in high purity titanium dioxide and vanadium pentoxide products. Australian Vanadium has also carried out test work on their project, resulting in the production of a combined concentrate yielding around 15% titanium dioxide. In late February, ASX-listed Technology Metals Australia reported that it had recovered up to 97.8% vanadium in magnetic concentrates during metallurgical test work. While initial results focused on vanadium, early success may pave the way to future titanium production at this deposit, which contains 9.7% titanium dioxide. Despite these companies focused on vanadium production, the potential volume of titanium dioxide that could be supplied into pigment markets is substantial. Industrial Minerals reported prices for titanium dioxide pigment, high quality, bulk volume, cfr Asia, on May 24 at $2,800-3,100 per tonne, unchanged from the previous week. The price had been assessed at $2,720-3,100 per tonne a year earlier. Titanium dioxide prices have been rising since early 2017 due to increased demand driven by the global economic recovery and the reduction in output due to environmental inspections in China, Industrial Minerals reported earlier in May. While this may be the case, it remains to be seen as to whether vanadium-driven titanium dioxide production can provide any pricing relief. Reports that the Chinese government is considering reducing a tariff on car imports have improved the chances that its burgeoning trade war with the United States will dissipate before new tariffs on industrial minerals come into place early in March 2019. Since late September 2018, the US government has enforced a 10% tariff on several industrial mineral products, including pigments such as titanium dioxide, refractory finished products, lithium and ceramic minerals including kaolin. These tariffs were initially planned to rise to 25% in January 2019. But trade relations between the US and China thawed at a post-G20 summit held in Buenos Aires where US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for the first time since the country's initial imposition of steel tariffs nine months ago. After the summit in Argentina, which ended on December 1, Trump announced that he had agreed with Xi to delay new the scheduled increase. The tariff increase to 25% from 10% was delayed for 90 days. The US said China will consequently start to buy a "very substantial" volume of agricultural and industrial products. But after a 90-day period "if the parties are unable to reach an agreement, the 10% tariffs will be raised to 25%," the White House warned. The news on December 10 that China would ease off on on its tariffs on car imports from the US marks a cooling in the trade war, which has been waged since March 2018 when Trump announced tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports into the US. China fired back in June, imposing aggressive duties on imports of US agricultural good, prompting the US to respond with tariffs on technological goods worth around $50 billion per year, including lithium primary cells. The dispute was accelerated further in July when the US proposed a 10% tariff on a list of industrial mineral and chemical imports worth some $200 billion. It later increased this proposal to 25% when relations cooled further. The proposed tariffs prompted widespread objections by US importers and consumers of industrial minerals. When the tariffs were introduced in September, buyers were relieved that they were initially imposed at 10%. Several minerals have also been left of the list - these include the refractory minerals graphite, magnesia, alumina and silicon carbide, on which the US steel industry is dependent. The tariffs also did not affect antimony and rare earths, materials of which China is the only major producer. And the US oil and gas industry was relieved to see barite, a crucial mineral, left off the list. US importers and consumers of pigments, talcs and finished refractory products will now hope that the talks with China progress further before the new March deadline. Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced the formation of a joint venture with Hitachi, Ltd., Panasonic Corporation and Pasona Inc., strategically enhancing its presence in Japan. Executing on its strategy to help clients navigate their digital journey, the entity formed by complementary, iconic companies coming together, will accelerate business process transformation leveraging digital procurement platforms for the local and global needs of Japanese corporations. Infosys will acquire 81% of the shareholding in Hitachi Procurement Service Co., Ltd., Hitachis fully owned subsidiary that currently handles indirect materials purchasing functions for the Hitachi Group. Hitachi, Panasonic and Pasona will be minority shareholders of the entity. Infosys will bring its global expertise in procurement processes, consulting, analytics and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to the venture. Combined with Hitachi and Panasonics knowledge of their procurement functions and local teams, and Pasonas human capital and BPM networks in Japan, the entity will provide differentiated, end-to-end, efficient and high value procurement capabilities to corporations. Ravi Kumar, President, Infosys, said, This joint venture will help Japanese corporations transform their procurement processes using next-generation digital platforms, as we bring together the combined power of deep procurement expertise, technology, global expertise and local skills. We are very excited to partner with the Hitachi group, Panasonic Corporation and Pasona, established conglomerates in this market. Deepak Padaki, Executive Vice President & Head, Corporate Strategy, Infosys, added that, Japan is a strategic market for Infosys. This transaction is a significant demonstration of our commitment to building a local presence in the region in order to partner with our Japanese clients and accelerate their digital journey. Masashi Murayama, Chief Procurement Officer, Hitachi said, We are delighted to build this new partnership, combining strengths and unlocking potential of Infosys, Panasonic, and Pasona. The procurement functions role is critical to Hitachi success, and this partnership will strengthen Hitachi Procurements global competitiveness with new operating models, and high quality delivery at speed enabled by digital technologies. 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 www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next. About Hitachi Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer societys challenges. The companys consolidated revenues for fiscal 2016 (ended March 31, 2017) totaled 9,162.2 billion yen ($81.8 billion). The Hitachi Group is a global leader in the Social Innovation Business, and it has approximately 304,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation, Hitachi is providing solutions to customers in a broad range of sectors, including Power / Energy, Industry / Distribution / Water, Urban Development, and Finance / Government & Public / Healthcare. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com. Safe Harbor Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements concerning our future business opportunities and growth prospects. Such forward-looking statements 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, 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 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. Hong Kong is one of the top financial hubs in Asia and the world and is a venue to vibrant capital markets and investment banking activities, both from mainland China and overseas. In the insurance sector, securitisation of risks, such as natural disaster risks, has also been developing fast, Chan said. On one hand, insurance-linked securitisation can be seen as an alternative to reinsurance, thereby enriching the risk management tools available in the market. By securitising insured risks, reinsurers can transfer the risks to capital markets, so as to expand their capacity. In parallel, insurance-linked securities (ILS) provide institutional investors with an investment alternative that is not related to economic cycles, helping them to diversify the risks of their investment portfolio. Chan said that the Hong Kong Government is targeting introducing the legislative amendments into the Legislative Council in the 2019-20 legislative session. He added that Hong Kong will greatly benefit from increased ILS activity, especially with mainland Chinese insurers seeking alternative tools to manage risks in agricultural, natural disaster, or infrastructure insurance. Weve had this digital platform reviewed by a panel of brokers, the MFAA and several key players, MacLeod told Insurance Business. Its going to give a truly measurable reporting system at the broker level the platform will have the logo of each individual broker, their aggregator and their governing body, and their clients will be able to see how many hours theyve put in, and how much theyre contributing back into charity in dollar terms, and how much community advancement theyve done. The platform then takes it to the next level, where those aggregators can quantify how many of their member brokers are participating in the scheme, she explained. It will show in total dollar terms the amount that all their combined brokers have given back to the community. Then the governing body can calculate how many of their registered brokers are participating, and finally it can be taken to a government level where it can say as an industry, this is how much the financial services sector has given back to society in time, in dollar terms, in community advancement. You can participate in this programme no matter where you are. Its a very transparent platform, its on the websites at every level, and it provides a reliable running total. MacLeod says the platform has the potential to properly showcase the positive impact the financial services sector has on the wider community, especially in light of much negative press over the last year. The platform and the School Entrepreneurs Programme has been discussed with FINANZ CEO Katrina Shanks and Squirrel director John Bolton, and is potentially looking at a launch in New Zealand within the next year. What can active shooter insurance policies cover? Physical damage coverage Insureds can get indemnity for physical loss or damage to insured property caused by an active shooter / workplace violence incident. This might include expenses incurred during structural security upgrades along with building closure, relocation or teardown. Legal liability / litigation Insureds are legally obligated to pay for certain damages and claim expenses that arise from an active shooter / workplace violence incident. Organizations today are being held to a higher standard of accountability than in the past when it comes the duty of care they have towards customers and employees and the public safety measures theyre obliged to uphold. Those who fall short of this duty of care are at risk of being sued. Crisis management Insurance carriers will indemnify the insured for specialist crisis response and consultant fees resulting solely and directly from an active shooter or threat event. This might include helping insureds deal with public relations, reassuring families and employees and reinforcing the company branding. Business interruption coverage Insureds can get indemnity for physical loss, damage or destruction of an insured property, or denials of access to an insured location resulting in business income losses. Medical expenses, funeral expenses, and death benefit Policies enable insureds to help the victims of an active assailant / active shooter event by providing a supportive response to the trauma. This might also include psychiatric counseling for the victim traumatized by the event. Loss of attraction An active shooter event can stigmatize a neighborhood, business district or a brand. Active shooter insurance can sometimes help with brand rehabilitation and can fill in some revenue gaps, even if the incident didnt happen at the insureds own business. Are there any common exclusions in active shooter policies? Insurance brokers should look out for the following exposures: Terrorism exclusions Casualties threshold limit Employee exclusions Vehicle exclusion Mental anguish exclusion Why should insureds buy a standalone active shooter insurance policy on top of their commercial general liability insurance policy? Many standard insurance policies have gray areas when it comes to an active shooter or workplace violence-related incidents, particularly when it comes to compensating victims, according to Paul Marshall, Active Shooter/Workplace Violence Insurance Program Director at McGowan Program Administrators (McGowan). He said: The duty to defend clause in commercial general liability policies means victims have to sue an organization and win a lawsuit, even if the organization has good intentions and wants victims to be taken care of. Who should buy active shooter insurance coverage? Random acts of violence are not limited to one state, one industry sector or one cause. Fatalities occur across various industries and geographies with a variety of weapons. Marshall told Insurance Business that active shooter insurance is evolving to become necessary for every one of an agents commercial accounts. McGowan Companies Active Shooter/Workplace Violence Insurance Program has been around since 2016, but the program has gained real traction in the past few years, with events like the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in April 2018 forcing insureds to open their eyes to the exposures. Education and healthcare have been our largest spikes in business, but unfortunately it seems to follow the headline news, so after the church shooting in Texas, we got a tremendous amount of small churches buying insurance, Marshall explained. School systems would be probably the largest, but just about every industry is calling us, from fast-food restaurants to night clubs to small eateries and restaurant chains. What is the duty of care? In the US, several sources of law obligate an employer to a duty of care for the safety, health, and security of employees, in particular, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act of 1970. The duty of care requires protection against workplace violence hazards and employers can be held liable for negligence if employees receive reasonably foreseeable injuries. In recent years, the US public has been demanding more out of the duty of care principal, regardless of liability. Commercial organizations have reacted to this by asking for more victim coverages under their policies. Advice for brokers? I would advise brokers selling this type of coverage to be good students of policy wording because there are some really dreadful exclusions out there, Marshall added. Some policies have exclusions for domestic violence, which is horrible because thats the root cause of about 30% of workplace violence incidents that occur. Sometimes policies require a specific number of deaths or victims before theyre triggered. You dont want to be telling a school system theyre not covered because only two kids were killed. Active shooter/workplace violence is a very new exposure and its ever-changing. At this point in time, everyone feels like a potential victim. The consumer knows about the risk because of mass media coverage. Now its our job and the insurance agents job to represent the community and let them know we can provide coverage and support for these types of risks. Listen to experts analyze the fast-evolving US Healthcare industry The PURE team first realized that members were becoming victims of this type of criminal activity back in 2015, and has since seen instances of fraud occur at an increasing rate. We started hearing from our members that they were concerned about cyber risk, [but] we didnt really understand what was happening to them, said PURE Insurance COO Martin Hartley. We set up a helpline with Rubica, a firm that has a focus on cybersecurity and serves high net worth people, and we drew up a whitepaper to help people understand the risks they faced in the cyber world, and what they could do about it steps that they could take to strengthen passwords, use multifactor authentication, how they could strengthen their home networks simple things to raise awareness of self-management. Read more: Cyber is a great big challenge for todays insurance brokers PURE discovered that all manner of criminal activity falling under the broad guise of cyber was impacting its members, but the most common occurrence was fraudulent theft of funds. These individuals would have somebody who was an authorized bank user, maybe a personal assistant or some other individual who could write checks on their behalf or wire money on their behalf, and a hacker would get into the email system of our client and impersonate them to make a wire transfer request, explained Hartley. The assistant would send a request to the bank, the bank would make the payment, and then only later would it become obvious to the member that the personal assistant had wired it. Because that assistant would be an authorized bank user, banks would say that they werent liable for the fraudulent transfer, leaving the member out $100,000 or more, said Hartley. To address the losses, the insurer launched PURE Starling, which is fraud and cyber fraud coverage aimed at high net worth families. Features include reimbursement for financial losses related to fraud committed online or offline, coverage for cyber extortion, and coverage for system attacks, if a professional has to come in, for example, and reinstall damaged software or remove malicious code. Since rolling out the product in October 2017, PURE has seen members awareness of their exposure to cyber incidents grow and just in time, as some experts are seeing a sharp uptick in cyber crime in 2018. We have a take-up rate of 47% and just under half of our new members joining us will buy the Starling coverage as part of their insurance package, said Hartley. To us, that signals a high interest in the category. For a totally new product in the space to have a take-up rate of close to 50% is remarkable. Natural gas companies in Massachusetts are compromising safety by increasingly turning to outside contractors for pipeline work while cutting back on staff that would oversee these projects, state lawmakers said Tuesday at a hearing following Septembers natural gas explosions in the Merrimack Valley. There are fewer full-time employees in many of your operations than was the case five to ten years ago at a time when youre undertaking accelerated construction activity, state Sen. Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat, said to utility company executives testifying at Tuesdays State House hearing. I really dont understand how you can square fewer employees overseeing more (subcontractors) and still solemnly claim to be concerned about safety, said Barrett, who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy that held the hearing. Executives from five local utility companies pushed back, saying their staffing levels have either remained stagnant or increased in recent years. Federal investigators have said that Columbia Gas, the utility company responsible for the Sept. 13 disaster, did not have staff on site as contractors conducted routine pipeline replacement work in Lawrence that triggered the explosions. The National Transportation Safety Board says the company also did not have a professional engineer review the project plan before work started, a requirement that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker is now proposing to make state law. State lawmakers Tuesday also turned a critical eye to state oversight agencies, questioning the independence of the consulting company Bakers administration has hired to evaluate natural gas safety statewide. Dynamic Risk Assessment Systems was picked to review the safety and integrity of the states aged natural gas system in the wake of the September disaster. But on its website, the firm, which has offices in Canada and Texas, touts that its clients operate more than 40 percent of the energy pipelines in the nation. Im not immediately calling into question the integrity of their work, but they seem to be part and parcel of the industry, Barrett said. They seem to be part of the status quo. Matthew Beaton, Bakers Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said Dynamic Risk was selected because it had the required technical expertise and didnt have any existing relationships or contracts with local utilities. State lawmakers also took issue with the number of inspectors the state Department of Public Utilities has on staff, as well as the relatively low salaries that make it hard to retain the workers. A federal oversight agency found Massachusetts had only two public utility inspectors available to do field inspections during a recent review. The public utilities agency has averaged about ten inspectors in recent years and is currently ramping up to 14, Beaton said Tuesday. He added that no amount of additional inspectors would have averted the September disaster, a statement that Barrett pushed back at. That defies logic, he retorted. Tuesdays testimony frequently veered to the events surrounding Sept. 13, but the hearing was ostensibly focused on broader natural gas system issues. A U.S. Senate committee last month specifically examined the disaster and its aftermath, and state lawmakers are planning to hold a similar inquiry later. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Legislation Massachusetts China accused some of the richest nations in the world of backsliding on pledges to clean up pollution and provide $100 billion a year in climate-related aid by 2020. The comments at a United Nations conference on global warming in Poland spearheaded a push by a group of the 49 Least Developed Countries for clarity on when those promises will be fulfilled. It indicated deepening tensions as the talks that are due to conclude in the industrial city of Katowice on Friday. Some delegations we are seeing backsliding, Xie Zhenhua, Chinas lead envoy to the talks in Katowice, said at a briefing on Thursday afternoon. There are still quite a number of developed countries who did not start providing financial and technological support that they had pledged in the Paris Agreement three years ago. We cannot accept any backsliding. The remarks emphasized the divide on environmental issues between China and the U.S., which had worked together to seal the landmark deal in Paris in 2015. Since then, President Donald Trump vowed to pull out of the deal and worked to boost use of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel. Envoys from almost 200 nations have been working on the rules to implement the Paris deal and have run into friction on a number of issues that are always contentious in the talks: Industrial nations remain about $30 billion short of their pledge to ramp-up climate-related aid to $100 billion a year by 2020. Developing nations are resisting measures that would ensure transparency in the way greenhouse gas emissions cuts are measured, reported and verified. They want different rules to apply to rich and poor nations, reflecting their varying capabilities. Debate over a new UN Sustainable Development Mechanism was holding up the promise of expanding the worlds network of cap-and-trade markets covering carbon emissions. Nations most vulnerable to climate change want more provisions for compensating them for loss and damage related to more violent weather expected along with rising temperatures. Issues like that derailed the meeting in Copenhagen in 2009. After that, then-President Barack Obama worked closely with Chinese leaders on a voluntary approach toward cutting emissions, which culminated with the Paris deal. Now that Trump has set a different tone, the old friction points at the talks have become more prominent. The big difference is that before you had this diplomatic machinery that had been working on the underpinnings for two years, and you had an understanding between the U.S. and China, said Alden Meyer, who has been attending the talks for more than two decades for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based advocacy group. And now, we dont have the U.S. and China working at that same deep level. The LDC group and China were joined by the 40-nation Alliance of Small Island States in calling for a strengthening global response to climate change including a measure that scale up finance. Business leaders attending the talks expressed concern the Katowice Rulebook, which is supposed to emerge from these talks, will be too vague to serve as a guide for how they should cut their own emissions. We do need the rulebook because that will reduce the risk that we have and increase the number of regions where we can invest in, said Carlos Salle, an official following the talks for Iberdrola SA, Spains largest utility. Miner View Poland, which as host of the meeting has a heavy hand in crafting the outcome, held the talks in a region known for its coal mines to emphasize the importance of that fuel to the global economy. Miners attending the talks objected to the overall drift of the UN effort, which would quickly limit the fuel they produce. What is being forced on us is the idea that unless we get rid of coal yesterday, the planet will cease to exist tomorrow its not true, Jaroslaw Grzesik, deputy head of the mining arm of Polands Solidarnosc union, said at the talks on Thursday. For his part, Xie from China said hes disappointed in the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. He rejected the notion that the dispute will hold up the talks saying developing countries have been very flexible and constructive at the meeting. We will get a rulebook because there are countries who are not ready to leave without it, said David Levai, head of climate governance at IDDRI, a French research group advising on sustainability. The question is how strong this rulebook will be. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics USA China Pollution AnaCap Financial Partners, a private equity firm, has agreed to sell French insurance broker AssurOne Group to Societe Centrale Prevoir SA, an asset management firm based in Paris. AOG specialises in online distribution and management of personal insurance products. AnaCap acquired AOG from Seventure Partners, Bpifrance and the company founders in June 2014.AnaCap said AOG has experienced 82% revenue growth since the acquisition. Initially focused on the direct sale of insurance products, the company developed a wholesale activity through a network of brokers and a white-labelling activity with corporate partners. Following its start as a mono-supplier, AOG has now established relationships with many major carriers including AXA, AIG, Generali, Europ Assistance, Metlife, La Mondiale and Allianz. Topics Agencies France Records show a former western Indiana police officer who appealed his firing has accepted $50,000 to settle a 2015 federal lawsuit alleging racial discrimination. The Tribune-Star reports Jonathan Stevens signed an agreement in January 2017 to resolve the complaint hed filed. He had alleged that West Terre Haute town council members improperly blocked his hiring as a full-time police officer. Stevens, who is black, said they didnt want his kind working for the town. The settlement amount was disclosed to the newspaper by West Terre Haute after the newspaper filed a public records request. Stevens was subsequently hired, but the 42-year-old was fired from his job in November after he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with an off-duty 2017 domestic battery case. His appeal of his firing is pending. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Indiana Insurance agents and brokers who market themselves as experts in cannabis or cyber could wind up regretting that positioning. Because both are relatively new exposures subject to changing regulations and coverages, producers marketing themselves as experts could face scrutiny, lawsuits and possible errors and omissions claims, according to speakers at the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS). Any time we see someone advertise expertise, were going to see a claim, said Kiera Goral, assistant vice president of Specialty Claims at QBE. Patrick Carley III, a New York-based partner with the law firm of Traub, Lieberman, Straus & Shrewsberry, is seeing a number of E&O claims resulting from producers not understanding cyber, but still purporting to be an expert. It behooves agents and brokers to be very cautious about exactly what they are representing their expertise to be, especially when it comes to cyber, said Carley. Given that there are many plug-and-play cyber products on the market, agents may miss coverage gaps, advised Javier Gonzalez, partner and executive vice president of Sales for N.J.-based Axis Insurance Services. Thats why its vital for agents to educate clients, he said. After a loss, a client may question why a particular coverage wasnt offered. Gonzalez suggested that agents and brokers who use checklists when reviewing a clients insurance portfolio include cyber on those lists. In addition, because the cyber product is constantly evolving, auto-renewing without a review is a bad idea. I think on the claims side, its pretty clear when theres a large loss, its typically going to be as a result of the agent or broker dabbling in a product they didnt have any previous experience in, said Gonzalez. Its especially important to review coverage when a policyholder is changing carriers, said Michell Girardin Freimuth, vice president and insurance agents E&O practice leader for Allied World. She suggested having clients sign off on changes, especially if they are losing coverage. Agents can mitigate this risk by educating younger employees on communication and what to include or not include on social media sites. QBEs Goral has seen depositions where printouts of social media posts were brought in to support expert questioning. She also suggested completing peer reviews and identifying for long-standing clients where there is likely to be a coverage gap before a claim arises. Carley added that employee social media accounts should be monitored, and employees should be reminded to memorialize oral conversations with clients. Agency websites should be reviewed regularly, as well. Their representations track back to you, said Carley. With respect to agents and brokers own cyber exposure, Gonzalez is seeing more social engineering claims arising from email requests not being verified. The same scenario was seen with title agents a few years ago, he said. Multiple policies may be at play in these losses including cyber and E&O if involves policyholder premiums, panelists said. Problems with Pot Cannabis coverage is also fraught with issues. Allied Worlds Girardin Freimuth said the first question she gets as an underwriter is whether its covered under E&O. Her answer: maybe. It depends on applicable state and federal laws. Goral said its a difficult question to answer, given the criminal acts exclusion that may preclude coverage since marijuana remains classified by the federal government as a prohibited substance. Another dilemma is whether to segregate premiums obtained from insuring cannabis-related exposures, said Carley. The theory is that other premiums would be safe in case there is a seizure of funds by the federal government. One strategy hes seen: an agency created a new entity just to address cannabis risk. According to Gonzalez, carriers and brokers must decide whether they are going to be in that space given the risks. M&A Issues E&O claims are also expected to rise as mergers and acquisitions continue at a healthy pace, according to Girardin Freimuth, who pointed out the importance of reviewing problematic areas such as ensuring insurance policies address prior acts and whether professional services of the acquired agency are covered under the buying agencys current policy. Addressing prior acts is the number one issue, said Goral. Topics Cyber Agencies Claims Cannabis Professional Liability For workers injured at work, the amount of compensation they receive depends on which edition of the medical guidelines on evaluating impairments is used. The American Medical Association (AMA) Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment is used in workers compensation systems, federal systems, automobile accidents and personal injury cases to rate impairment. However, a comparison of a group of injured workers assessed using the two most recent editions of the AMA guides revealed that usage of the sixth edition (2007) resulted in significantly lower impairment ratings than the fifth (2000) edition, according to research from McMaster University in Ontario and the Netherlands. The findings were published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The difference in impairment rating is likely due to the fact that when these guides first came out, they were focused on pain and range of motion, and they have increasingly moved to more direct measures of function, said Jason Busse, first author and an associate professor of anesthesia at McMaster. For example, in an earlier guide they may have measured whether a person could lift their arm above their head without discomfort, but now they look at whether the person could put a box on a shelf. The study also found workers compensation boards across North America are inconsistent in which AMA Guides edition they use. Researchers used data from a consecutive sample of 249 injured workers referred for an independent evaluation at the Orthopedisch Expertise Centrum Amsterdam between 2011 and 2012. The results showed the median whole person impairment rating was seven per cent for 131 claimants assessed with the fifth edition of the AMA guides, and four per cent for 118 claimants assessed with the sixth edition. Because all assessors in the Netherlands switched from the fifth to the sixth edition at the same time, we were able to study two large cohorts of patients with similar injuries and explore the impact on impairment ratings, said Busse, who is also a researcher with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care. The other major finding of the study was considerable inconsistency of AMA Guides editions used by workers compensation boards across North America. There was a tremendous variability in the edition that North American compensation boards are using, Busse said. The most recent version, which was the sixth, was published in 2007. Yet, for example, we have the largest compensation board in Canada, which is in Ontario, using the third revised version which came out in 1991. Busse said he recommends consistency across compensation boards. Workers compensation boards should standardize impairment rating systems so that everyone is gauged on the same scale, he said. If we believe that more recent editions of the AMA guides do a better job of quantifying impairment, why is it that so many boards are using earlier versions? The research was conducted by McMaster in partnership with Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. No external funding was received for the research. Source: Comparative Analysis of Impairment Ratings From the 5th to 6th Editions of the AMA Guides Related from National Council on Compensation Insurance: Impact on Impairment Ratings From Switching to the American Medical Associations Sixth Edition of the Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment Topics Workers' Compensation Talent A judge has rejected a deputys claim that he had no duty to confront the gunman during the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Refusing to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the parent of a victim, Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning found after a hearing Wednesday that ex-deputy Scot Peterson did have a duty to protect those inside the school where 17 people died and 17 were wounded on Feb. 14. Video and other evidence shows Peterson, the only armed officer at the school, remained outside while shots rang out. The negligence lawsuit was filed by Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed. He said it made no sense for Petersons attorneys to argue that a sworn law enforcement officer with a badge and a gun had no requirement to go inside. Then what is he doing there? Pollack said after the ruling. He had a duty. Im not going to let this go. My daughter, her death is not going to be in vain. Peterson attorney Michael Piper said he understands that people might be offended or outraged at his clients defense, but he argued that as a matter of law, the deputy had no duty to confront the shooter. Peterson did not attend the hearing. There is no legal duty that can be found, Piper said. At its very worst, Scot Peterson is accused of being a coward. That does not equate to bad faith. Meanwhile, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which is investigating the shooting, heavily criticized the Broward school district Wednesday for not having a universal policy for calling a Code Red the term for immediately locking down classrooms because an active shooter is on campus and little training for staff and students. Commission members meeting in Tallahassee said that contributed to no one calling a Code Red until more than three minutes after the first shots were fired. By that time, 15 people were fatally shot inside the three-story freshman building and the last two victims were in the shooters sights. Nikolas Cruz, 20, a former student with mental health issues, has been charged with the shooting. I am extremely dismayed that the people around this table and behind the scenes are taking this much more seriously than Broward County, said commissioner Melissa Larkin-Skinner, the Florida chief executive officer for a mental health treatment group. It makes me physically ill. I am sitting here and getting more and more pissed off by the minute. Broward school officials did not return a call and email Wednesday seeking comment. The commission also hammered then-security monitor Andrew Medina, who told investigators he saw Cruz entering the campus carrying a rifle bag and recognized him as the same student whom staff had previously identified as a potential school shooter. But instead of confronting Cruz or calling a Code Red, Medina radioed a security monitor inside the freshman building, investigators have said. He then drove his cart to get Peterson at the schools administration offices. Medina told investigators shortly after the shooting that he was wary of calling a Code Red without more certainty about what was going on. Commissioner and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called Medinas failure to stop Cruz reprehensible, but also criticized the district for laying the brunt of school security on low-paid employees who have little training. Medina was fired in June after it was revealed he had sexually harassed two female students last year, including Pollacks daughter. The 15-member commission, which met Wednesday and Thursday, will present a report to Gov. Rick Scott, incoming Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature by Jan. 1. The commission includes law enforcement, education and mental health professionals, a legislator and the fathers of two slain students. The pane recommended Wednesday that teachers who volunteer and undergo extensive background checks and training be allowed to carry concealed guns on campus to stop future shootings. In a 13-1 to vote, the panel recommend the Legislature allow the arming of teachers, saying its not enough to have one or two police officers or armed guards on campus. Florida law adopted after the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead allows districts to arm non-teaching staff members such as principals, librarians and custodians 13 of the 67 districts do, mostly in rural parts of the state. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commissions chairman, pushed the measure at the Tallahassee meeting. He said most deaths in school shootings happen within the first few minutes, before officers on and off campus can respond. He said suspect Nikolas Cruz stopped to reload his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle five times, all of which would have been opportunities for an armed teacher to shoot him. We have to give people a fighting chance, we have to give them an opportunity to protect themselves, Gualtieri said. He said there arent enough officers or money to hire one for every school, but even then officers need backup. One good guy with a gun on campus is not enough. The state teachers union and PTA have previously expressed opposition, saying teachers are hired to educate, not be police officers. Commissioner Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died in the massacre, cast the lone vote against the motion. He said the state should focus on hiring more police officers for campuses and allowing non-teaching staff to carry guns. We do need more good guys with a gun on campus nobody understands that and wishes we had more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas than myself, Schachter said. But arming teachers creates a host of problems. The father and wife of other victims, who are not on the commission, also spoke against arming teachers. Some of the other recommendations tentatively approved Wednesday include requiring that all Florida public schools have single points of entry, that open gates be staffed, that all classroom doors remain locked and that every district have active shooter policies and staff training. The panel also recommended that teachers should have intercoms in their classrooms and that districts allow law enforcement agencies have access to school video feeds. It rejected a recommendation that schools be allowed to use facial recognition systems to grant campus access, saying many parents would object. Cruz has pleaded not guilty, but his lawyers have said he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Legislation Florida Law Enforcement Training Development December 14, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Energy storage manufacturer opens up global distribution channels as long-standing partner Mercedes Benz Energy endorses product. This spring, Eguana Technologies Inc. (EGT:TSX.V; EGTYF:OTCQB), a small-cap Canadian firm that designs and manufactures grid interactive energy storage solutions based on its proprietary power control technology, received an product endorsement from long-standing partner Mercedes Benz Energy, which has since exited residential energy storage markets to focus on its core automotive battery segment. The company has turned this into a significant advantage. Mercedes had extensively tested Eguana's technology prior to the endorsement and, upon exiting the marketplace, Eguana recruited and hired their top sales and marketing talent. The net affect was an immediate jump in sales, as well as getting the company positioned as one of three approved equipment providers in the lucrative, subsidized South Australia market. With respect to Mercedes exiting the marketplace, Eguana CEO Justin Holland told Streetwise Reports, "the company received a public endorsement of our technology along with further credibility in the form of a full scale engineering report, access to Mercedes' distribution channel, and the recruitment and hiring of its sales team in Europe." Eguana also hired Mercedes Benz Energy's director of business development for North America, Livio Filice, and within the first 100 days, Holland told Streetwise Reports, "the team brought in over $5 million in new and recurring orders. The Mercedes sales team was familiar with and has confidence in our product, so we were able to attract a very dynamic and proven team." Prior to Mercedes Benz, Filice set up the distribution network in the United States for Sonnen, which is currently the global leader in residential stationary storage. Eguana's system has advantages over others, Filice told Streetwise Reports. "First, the company has a very strong history in power electronics, which is the most complicated part of an energy storage system. The capabilities of our power control systems have been proven with many different battery technologies." "Second, one of the macroeconomic trends is that electric vehicle demand has accelerated, which has created supply constraints in the stationary storage sector. Larger battery manufacturers are struggling to meet the outstanding demand. Eguana, however, has a long-standing partnership with battery giant LG Chem, which has a strong supply chain, so we have not faced supply constraints," said Filice. "Additionally, our system, which can be installed either indoors or outdoors, is modular in design, and storage capacity can easily be expanded by adding additional batteries, which makes us unique in the industry. With other products, an entire new system needs to be added to increase capacity. This all comes at a very competitive price point." Eguana's reach goes well beyond North America. Eguana has hired Mercedes Benz Energy's sales team for Europe, "who have the contacts and the distribution channels; we expect them to bring in European sales early in Q1 2019," Holland stated. And in Australia, Eguana, through partnering with national distributors AC Solar Warehouse and Baywa r.e., is positioned to take advantage of South Australia's Home Battery Scheme (HBS), which, according to the South Australia state government, aims to outfit 40,000 households with Virtual Power Plan (VPP) ready integrated battery systems by providing access to a $100 million in state government subsidies to pay installations. Eguana is one of three companies whose equipment is approved for the HBS. "Strategically we are on track to become the dominant supplier of energy storage in South Australia," stated Brent Harris, Eguana's chief technology officer. "Our SA order book has crossed the $1.5 million mark in less than two weeks and as we establish our System Provider partner network in the market we recognize they require capable distribution partners to support their growth." "The South Australian government's Home Battery Scheme is accelerating residential energy storage growth in the world's highest penetration rooftop solar PV market. Coupled with the government grant, consumers that purchase registered systems will also have access to CECF's A$100 million for additional financing. Eguana's Evolve residential energy storage system is ideally suited for the market with its VPP capable AC coupled format supporting backup operation with solar charging ensuring that both new and retrofit customers can get the maximum value out of their energy storage purchase," Eguana noted. All this activity is fueling revenue growth. In FY/2016, which ended September 30, Eguana reported revenues of CA$700,000; followed by revenues of CA$800,000 in 2017. Eguana has not yet released FY/2018 revenues, but it has announced more than CA$3 million in orders during the period. "In Q1/2019, the quarter we currently are in, our order book is approaching CA$7 million," Holland told Streetwise Reports. Eguana has caught the attention of Mackie Research, and is covered by analyst Nikhil Thadani. Discussing Eguana's inclusion in the South Australia program, Thadani wrote on November 19, in a report titled "Australian Program Inclusion Should Supercharge Revenue Growth by Adding Exposure to Largest Demand Market," that Eguana "has been approved for both the South Australia 'Home Battery Scheme' and CEFC home battery financing providing direct access to A$100 million in subsidies and low interest loans for residential battery storage." The "Australia news bodes well for additional order intake, following what appears to be an existing step up in orders in H2 C2018. We expect EGT's positive South Australian program inclusion could lead to additional order intake of ~$5 million in early C2019, i.e., double EGT's existing order book," Thadani stated. "We believe as quarterly revenue starts to approach and consistently exceed ~$23 million, the stock could rapidly rerate. We're optimistic on starting to see order-revenue conversion in Q2 (Mar) F2019. 9M F2018 (Jun) revenue has been ~$4 million vs. the previous revenue high water mark of ~$6 annually in F2015 (Sept), we believe the company is approaching the revenue inflection point," Thadani concluded. Mackie Research has a CA$0.70 target on Eguana; shares are currently trading around CA$0.18. Technical analyst Clive Maund analyzed Eguana Technologies and wrote on December 10, "Eguana Technologies is now extraordinarily cheap considering the huge strides it is making. . .Eguana looks like a strong buy here. . .There is now considered to be a yawning gap between the company's low stock price and its rapidly improving fortunes that should be closed by the stock advancing." Eguana has approximately 222 million shares issued and outstanding and about 245 million fully diluted. About 55% of the shares are closely held. Disclosure: 1) Patrice Fusillo compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise reports as an employee. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: Eguana Technologies. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. As of the date of this article, an affiliate of Streetwise Reports has a consulting relationship with Eguana Technologies. Please click here for more information. An affiliate of Streetwise Reports is conducting a digital media marketing campaign for this article on behalf of Eguana Technologies. Please click here for more information. 3) Comments and opinions expressed are those of the specific experts and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Eguana Technologies, a company mentioned in this article. Disclosures from Mackie Research, Eguana Technologies Inc., Management Update, November 19, 2018 RELEVANT DISCLOSURES APPLICABLE TO COMPANIES UNDER COVERAGE Relevant disclosures required under Rule 3400 applicable to companies under coverage discussed in this research report are available on our web site at www.mackieresearch.com. ANALYST CERTIFICATION Each analyst of Mackie Research Capital Corporation whose name appears in this report hereby certifies that (i) the recommendations and opinions expressed in this research report accurately reflect the analyst's personal views and (ii) no part of the research analyst's compensation was or will be directly or indirectly related to the specific conclusions or recommendations expressed in this research report. Clive Maund disclosures I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: None. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. My company has a financial relationship with the following companies mentioned in this article: None. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp December 14, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Technical analyst Clive Maund analyzes a rapidly expanding company with medical clinics in British Columbia that is using advanced technology and AI. Premier Health Group Inc. (PHGI:CSE; PHGRF:OTCQB; 6PH:FSE) is related to Reliq Health Technologies Inc. (RHT:TSX.V; RQHTF:OTCQB) that we recently looked at, because Premier announced that it has selected Reliq Health Technologies as its exclusive technology partner. Reliq will be providing Premier's subsidiary, HealthVue, primary care clinics with a HealthVue-branded telemedicine, remote monitoring and AI solution for its clinical staff and more than 100,000 active patients. Premier Health Group announced this month that as a part of its expansion plans it will be entering the Pharmacy market "via acquisition and/or launching a new Canada based pharmacy in H1-2019." With Premier's acquisition of HealthVue Medical Clinics in August, this could be the next phase of growth for the company. The company said that it expects to provide additional updates on acquisitions in Q4-18 and Q1-19 so this could be one of the near term events to consider when looking at this stock. NEWSFLASH: the company on Monday announced a binding LOI (Letter Of Intent) to acquire an operating pharmacy in Canada. The chart for Premier Health looks strong and it appears to be impervious to the vicissitudes of the broad market, for as we can see on its latest chart, it was unmoved by last weeks steep drop in the stock market indices. Premier has started trading on the U.S. OTC market under the code PHGRF where it trades in good volumes, but due to the lack of history on this market, it is more practical for us to look at the chart for the Canadian traded stock, although it may certainly be bought on the U.S. market. Premier is clearly in a bull market and it has risen well in recent months, breaking clear above a now rising 180-day moving average. The reason for using a 180-day moving average instead of our customary 200-day is due to the 180-day having now turned higher, whereas the 200-day hasn't but soon will, because the high early values used in its construction, which occurred before the steep drop back in the Spring on tiny volume, will soon drop outbecause they already have on the 180-day, this is why the 180-day average has already turned up. The pattern that has developed following the sharp rise late in September looks like a bull Pennant or Triangle, with the stock moving sideways within this formation for about nine weeks now, which is considered to be a consolidation pattern that will lead to renewed advance rather than some sort of top area. The reasons that it is considered to be a consolidation pattern are the increasingly bullishly aligned moving averages, and the positive volume pattern and volume indicators, particularly the On-balance Volume line, which is forging ahead to new highs. With the 50-day moving average having completely caught up with the price, and the earlier overbought condition having neutralized, Premier is considered to be ready to commence a new upleg, and is rated an immediate buy here. There are 61 million shares in issue and, as mentioned above, the stock trades in healthy volumes on the U.S. OTC market. Chart courtesy of stockwatch.com Premier Health has been trading on the U.S. OTC market for only about seven weeks to date, and for completeness the chart for the U.S. traded stock is shown below. As we can see there is insufficient history for this chart to be of any technical use, which is why we looked at the chart for the Canadian traded stock. Premier Health Group website. Premier Health Group Inc, PHGI on CSX, PHGRF on OTC, closed at C$0.82, $0.588 on 7th December 18. Disclosure: 1) Clive Maund: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: None. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. My company has a financial relationship with the following companies mentioned in this article: None. CliveMaund.com disclosures below. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. As of the date of this article, an affiliate of Streetwise Reports has a consulting relationship with Premier Health Inc. Please click here for more information. 3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy. 4) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Premier Health Inc., a company mentioned in this article. Charts provided by the author. CliveMaund.com Disclosure: The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund's opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund's opinions on the market and stocks can only be construed as a solicitation to buy and sell securities when they are subject to the prior approval and endorsement of a Registered Securities Advisor operating in accordance with the appropriate regulations in your area of jurisdiction. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp December 14, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) An iA Securities note reviewed the latest news about drill results and financings for this firm's Canadian project. In a Dec. 6 research note, analyst George Topping reported that Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (BGM:TSX.V) announced "more high-grade hits" at its Cariboo project's Cow Mountain, however, recent financings have been dilutive to the share price. As such, iA Securities lowered its target price on the Buy-rated company to CA$1.05 per share from CA$1.40. Barkerville is currently trading at around CA$0.34 a share. Topping reviewed results from the 63,000-meter (63,000m) drill program at Cow Mountain. Infill drill holes returned averages of 14.1 grams per ton (14.1 g/t) gold over 1.3m beginning 180m deep. "Today's results bring the overall raw average at Cow Mountain to date to 11 g/t Au over 1.4m at a depth of 218m before dilution ( about 6.57 g/t post mining dilution)," Topping indicated. As for specific assays, one hole, CM-18-124, demonstrated 10.5 g/t gold over 7.8m starting at 209m down. This was down dip of a prior hole, CM-18-034, that showed 9.3 g/t gold over 2.7m. A second highlight hole, CM-18-128, intersected 24.1 g/t gold over 6.5m beginning at a 94m depth. Topping explained the results also exhibit continuity of high-grade mineralization at Cow Mountain in the quartz veins and extensions down dip and down plunge, with vein corridors remaining open. "Continued infill drilling and a higher cut-off grade (4 g/t) should push the resource to a profitable roughly 7 g/t," Topping noted. The analyst pointed out that despite the positive drill results, Barkerville's stock has been negatively impacted by the cumulative, dilutive effect of two recent financings. The newest of those transactions, which took place in November, was a CA$25 million capital raise. Earlier, in September, Osisko Gold Royalties (OR:TSX; OR:NYSE) acquired another 1.75% net smelter royalty (NSR) on Cariboo for CA$20 million, taking its total NSR to 4%. Barkerville, however, remains focused on advancing the project, now working on updating its mineral resource. That is expected to be ready in Q1/19, followed by a feasibility study in Q2/19. Both reports "should be positive," wrote Topping. Disclosure: 1) Doresa Banning compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise reports as an independent contractor. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Streetwise Reports does not accept stock in exchange for its services. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Comments and opinions expressed are those of the specific experts and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Osisko Gold Royalties, a company mentioned in this article. Disclosures from iA Securities, Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd., Research Update, December 6, 2018 Conflicts of Interest: The research analyst and or associates who prepared this report are compensated based upon (among other factors) the overall profitability of iA Securities, which may include the profitability of investment banking and related services. 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This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp Here's your lunchtime bulletin. GET INFORMED ... IRELAND: Arlene Foster has warned the British Prime Minister not to roll over in the face of EU intransigence. IRELAND: The High Court has granted the extradition of a 79-year-old man to the United States, where the FBI claims he has been "producing child pornography for decades". IRELAND: Met Eireann has issued two Status Yellow warnings for the entire country and says there is potential 'severe weather' on the way with heavy rain and wind. IRELAND: Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna says the cost of redeveloping Pairc Ui Chaoimh has escalated to an eye-watering total of 110 million, almost 25m higher than the 86 million total estimated following the completion of works last year. WORLD: Donald Trumps former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, says he bought the silence of two women because Mr Trump was very concerned about how their stories of alleged affairs with him would affect his election chances. BUSINESS: Hugh Torpey recounts boxer Bernard Dunnes advice on performance to a recent IMI Advante-edge event in Cork. SPORT: Ronan O'Gara on why New Zealand wont rush decision on Hansen successor. SPORT: Michael Moynihan looks at five takeaways from today's Irish Examiner revelations on the ongoing financial difficulties at Pairc Ui Chaoimh. ... SOME DISTRACTION FEATURE: Fed up with the forced gaiety, comedian Tara Flynn gives our traditional Christmas songs a thoroughly modern roasting. SHOWBIZ: Michael Buble has weighed in on the controversy around the lyrics of 'Baby It's Cold Outside', which he has covered. FEATURE: Little Ireland: Emigrants snap up quirky magnets created by Irish grandmother While there is no doubting that agrifood exporters, tourism, and other sectors are heavily reliant on Irish-UK trade routes, there are signs that many pockets of the Irish economy could emerge stronger in the years after Brexit. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity, Albert Einstein once famously said, and although Brexit has become every bit as random and unpredictable as anything youll find in quantum physics, its looking like there are some areas where Ireland could benefit. The financial sector has long been touted as a prime candidate for post-Brexit expansion as London-based companies begin shopping around for a new EU base of operations. Ireland is seen as a gateway to both the EU and the US, and our educated, English-speaking workforce within the single market has significant appeal. Also, given the geographical and cultural proximity to Britain, companies can expect relatively little difficulty in convincing key UK workers to re-locate. Some key players in the industry have already stated their intentions. A recent PwC survey of European asset managers named Ireland as the preferred jurisdiction to relocate UK functions to, in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The EY Brexit Tracker places Dublin as the most popular post-Brexit location, with 21 financial services organisations already confirming plans to move some or all of their operations from the UK to Dublin. In terms of sectors from which these companies originate, 60% are from the financial sector, over one quarter are legal firms and the remainder a mixture of insurance, fintech and service providers creating around 1,500 new jobs, according to Goodbody analysis. The same study also identified a further 17 firms again, mostly financial who have also stated their intention to increase their Irish presence after Brexit, creating at least 1,000 new positions. Irelands Central Bank governor Philip Lane had confirmed as much at the European Financial Forum earlier this year. Many types of entities including banks; insurance companies; asset management firms; and payments and electronic money institutions have made applications to the Central Bank of Ireland, he said. The potential activities range from: broker dealers; trading venues; electronic money institutions; commercial insurance; and retail insurance. Philip Lane We could already be witnessing the beginning of this trend. The number of financial services jobs becoming available has now risen for three consecutive months, with recruitment activity noticeably higher than last year, Morgan McKinleys Global FDI Director Trayc Keevans confirmed recently. She also highlighted strong demand among employers for HR professionals: These are handling strategic organisational requirements and programmes arising from growth and change, including the response by industry in Ireland to Brexit. As the rate of net inward migration to Ireland from the UK continues to rise, those invested in the residential property rental market could also be set to benefit. Demand could be especially high in urban areas, particularly Dublin, where most of these new finance sector jobs would tend to be based. Other areas with a well-developed broadband infrastructure could also benefit however, as modern companies look to attract staff with remote-working opportunities producing positive ripple effects for local economies. One such area could be Skibbereen in West Cork, which has seen a pilot venture between the ESB and Vodafone bring 1-gigabit internet speeds to the area. SKibbereen Local estate agent and auctioneer Charles McCarthy has already sensed something in the air, saying: Since talk of a no-deal Brexit has intensified, enquiries have picked up from UK residents looking to leave and stay in the EU. Commercial property developers seem to have sensed an opportunity. Despite the obvious need for residential property, commercial building was the strongest performer in Ulster Banks last construction purchasing managers index (PMI), reaching 53.9 in October. A cumulative 450,000 square metres of office space is currently under construction and due to come on stream between now and 2021, with planning permission granted for 400,000 square metres, accommodating around 39,000 employees. Whatever importing headaches Brexit may present, the outlook for the Irish construction industry remains bright. There could even be a nostalgic return to the days of duty-free shopping. TDs and MEPs are already being lobbied to allow the re-introduction of tax-free shopping outlets in Irish airports, which could produce extra 45.4m in annual travel retail sales, supporting another 450 jobs, a study commissioned by the Irish Duty-Free Alliance (IDFA) states. Looking at the Irish economy as a whole, it appears that, so far at least, the prospect of Brexit seems to be having little effect on the most vital resource for SMEs access to credit. The impact of Brexit on the Irish banks remains benign at present, with no material impact reported on funding/liquidity or credit quality, a September report from the Irish Central Banks Brexit Task Force reassuringly states. A recent economic forecast by EY is particularly optimistic. Last Junes Economic Eye report went as far to predict 236,700 net additional jobs across the island of Ireland before 2022. In a recent survey of Irish CEOs, when asked what impact Brexit would have on their business over the next three years, less than a third reported that they thought they would have lower profits, with 84% planning to expand over the next 12 months. Neil Gibson, Chief Economist at EY, said that assuming a relatively smooth Brexit, which clearly remains a risk, Ireland is projected to remain one of the fastest-growing developed nations in the world. Yet while all this optimism is encouraging, its vital that companies prepare themselves for whats ahead. Intertrade Irelands Quarterly Business Monitors finding that just 5% of firms in the Republic and just 3% in the North have a Brexit strategy in place is a concern. Exporters, in particular, will face challenges, but the necessity to diversify into new markets, though painful initially, could produce benefits in the long term. There are supports in place. The Government has been hosting a series of Getting Ireland Brexit Ready roadshows around the country, providing not only much-needed information and guidance but also for networking and collaboration opportunities. Many Irish businesses are also in a position to benefit from a range of Government grants aimed at easing the transition. Brexit loan scheme The Government has made a 300m Brexit Loan Scheme available, with over 220 businesses already been approved for loans of a minimum 25,000. The Enterprise Ireland Be Prepared Grant which offers up to 5,000 in support is also available to small businesses who complete a Brexit Scorecard as part of their application. The scorecard itself is a starting point in its Prepare for Brexit campaign and can help identify areas of potential risk and opportunity arising from the new economic climate. Enterprise Ireland has a wide range of supports to help you Plan, Innovate, Compete & Diversify in response to the risks and opportunities that #Brexit presents. Click the link to find out more: https://t.co/PtTEd4Ek6Z @BrexitReadyIRL pic.twitter.com/uQKRR0ld8T Enterprise Ireland (@Entirl) December 12, 2018 Theres even a Brexit Advisory service available. Market Discovery Fund targeting market diversification and an Agile Innovation Fund to support product service and process innovations are also available. Technical Assistance for Micro Exporters Grants of up to 2,500 are available from the Local Enterprise Office to part-fund the costs of investigating and researching export markets. InterTradeIreland is also offering support up to 2,250 towards professional advice in relation to Brexit as part of its Start to Plan Vouchers scheme. Given all these financial supports, it seems that no matter what the next few months have in store, we can at least be assured that one industry is guaranteed to thrive Brexit consultancy! Cyber Ireland will start 2019 participating in a series of events to promote its role as the umbrella body for perhaps the fastest-growing industry cluster. Backed by IDA Ireland and hosted by Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), the newly launched organisation will fly the flag globally for third level colleges and the wealth of already thriving Irish-based companies operating in cybersecurity and related fields. The sector currently employs more than 6,000 people, with graduates typically starting on 35/40k salaries. Globally, the sector will be valued at 250bn within five years, rapidly evolving to tackle the 600bn which high tech crime is costing companies around the world. With its strongest hubs in Dublin, Cork and Galway, Ireland is already home to the global companies like Intel Security, Trend Micro, Sentire, IBM, Dell/EMC, VMWare, Malwarebytes, Alienvault, QualComm and countless others. Meanwhile, thriving homegrown companies include Integrity360, Trustev, Smarttech and Ward Solutions. Cyber Irelands role is to represent the interests of the existing cluster. It will sharpen the focus on future skills needs, link third level research and industry partners, develop IoT collaborations and effectively act as a brand ambassador for the sector. Cyber Ireland is a national body, said Dr Eoin Byrne, senior researcher in CIT and manager of the new cluster initiative. There are strong clusters in Dublin, Cork and Galway, but they all realise theyre competing with the likes of The Hague, London and Paris, China, India and Eastern Europe rather than with one another. There are real benefits to building this out as a national organisation. We know that DIT has a strength in wireless, UCC and UL in hardware, UCD has a cybercrime and forensics group, NUIG has data analytics. "What Cyber Ireland is about is connecting all the strengths of industry, academia and the Government. There is a lot going on in the Irish cyber security ecosystem, and it represents a great opportunity for the country. "The No1 reason these companies are thriving here is that of the access to talent, the graduates from our third level colleges and the quality of innovation and research here. "Were just bringing all these elements together under one brand. IDA Ireland has also clearly seen the sectors growth potential. Ireland has no tradition of supporting cluster organisations at a national level. Cyber Ireland is the first of its kind. In global terms, there is effectively 0% unemployment in this sector. Irelands colleges have been quick to develop cyber security-related courses. It will be interesting to watch how early in 2019 all of the various strands gather under the Cyber Ireland brand. Cyber Ireland will have a strong presence at the Beyond IoT digital tech conference in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork, on January 21, led by the Nimbus Centre, CIT. In February, Cyber Ireland will host a series of workshops in Dublin, Cork and Galway, promoting the benefits of members to companies. Cluster Ireland will introduce Irish companies to guest speaker Klaus Bolving of CenSec, the main Danish cluster organisation for companies with an interest in high tech industries. Mr Bolving will discuss the sectors evolution in Denmark as well as internationally. The notion of an Irish national cyber security cluster was put forward at a cyber security cluster forum event held in CIT in 2017, attended by leading Irish cyber security firms. The Department of Computer Science at CIT and IDA Ireland have been instrumental in the launch of Cyber Ireland. The IDA has been very supportive, said Dr Eoin Byrne. They see that this sector represents a great opportunity for Ireland. For Cyber Ireland to be successful, it needs to be industry-driven, supported by third level education and Government. "Without the co-operation of these three pillars, the cluster cannot reach its full potential. Dr Byrne said industry must be at the core of the cluster, which needs to be championed by passionate and dedicated leaders. Academia is also critical in addressing the skills and training needs of industry. The group will develop a programme that is in line with international best practice in cluster development based on key learnings from successful cluster initiatives elsewhere in Europe. Martin Shanahan, CEO of IDA Ireland, said: Ireland has become a significant base of international technology and cyber security companies thanks to a growing, well-educated and flexible workforce with a rapidly increasing graduate output. "The cyber security industry in Ireland is growing at an unprecedented rate and we believe Ireland is uniquely placed to benefit from increased global investment to position itself as a world class cyber security cluster. Time was, many decades ago, when emigrants willing to move permanently Down Under to Australia and New Zealand would have had their passage practically paid from government coffers. Known as the Ten Pound Poms, those hardy souls back in the 1940s and 50s availed of the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme only having to pay 10 in processing fees to migrate on chartered ships and aircraft. How the world has changed. Recently, Irish company FRS Recruitment offered free flights to Irish people in Australia willing to move back to fill thousands of job vacancies. At organised roadshows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, FRS Recruitment highlighted that Ireland currently has 12,000 IT job vacancies, more than 2,500 jobs in MedTech firms, 2,300 jobs in the agri-food sector, 150 vacancies for doctors, 100 other healthcare sector jobs, and 120 professional posts in construction, plus large numbers of financial sector vacancies. In 2008, about 10,000 people left Ireland for Australia. The same numbers travelled in later years, peaking at 18,000 in 2012. This year, the number of people returning has overtaken those emigrating for the first time in nine years. While the free flights offer extends to all sectors, the company is targeting personnel who wish to work in the construction, IT, healthcare, medical device/pharmaceutical and financial sectors. As the country is moving closer to full employment, it is becoming more difficult to find suitably qualified personnel, said Colin Donnery, FRS Recruitment general manager. Companies in Ireland are increasingly looking further afield to find people to fill important roles. For these companies, it is about finding the right candidate that meets their needs. During the recession, many qualified, educated people left Ireland to seek out opportunities that simply were no longer available at home. Australia was a particularly popular location, given the thriving jobs marketplace Down Under at that time. "Many of these ex-pats have since gone on to develop strong careers in Australia, growing their experience and maintaining impressive CVs. "We are aware of a lot of ex-pats who harbour hopes of returning home. "The point of the Ireland is Hiring roadshow is to help these people understand just how significant the opportunities are back in Ireland at the moment, Mr Donnery added. By providing people with job details, giving them the key salary and logistical information, while also providing the incentive of free flights, the company hopes to encourage more people to seriously consider applying for roles back in Ireland. There are plenty of Irish people working in these sectors in Australia who would be of great interest to employers back in this country. "We know just how badly their skill-sets are needed in this market and how these great positions could provide a fantastic opportunity for returning home, he said. Australia Road Show gave great insight into why more Irish people are starting to return home. For most, it was missing their family or friends, for others it was the increase in opportunities in Ireland and the demand for talented individuals. As many people left over ten years ago, they had no idea what to expect in Ireland and were surprised at the increase in opportunities outside of Dublin. "After speaking with many talented Irish people who went on to develop excellent careers in Australia, it became apparent that Australia has given them the extra edge that employers are now looking for. Leona is happy to be back on home soil Leona Whiting works as a talent acquisition manager with FRS Recruitment. She lived in Perth, Australia, until she made the move back home to Ireland in October 2018. Why did you decide to move home to Ireland? The pull of family after 10 years away became too strong to ignore, missing out on the small things all of a sudden mattered. When you find yourself listening to Talk To Joe on your iphone you know its time to make the move. What do you enjoy most about Ireland? The people, I was home a day and I felt like I had never left. You cant get that feeling anywhere else in the world. What do you wish you knew before you moved home? I wish that I had spent more time planning the proper stuff, not what I could buy in duty free, more like having all my paperwork in a row. It didnt help just having 12 months of health and car insurance history; I needed to show six years plus. Most people in Australia, like in Ireland, shop around for the cheapest insurance quote each year, and its not even a thought to remember all the companies you have been with. This 100% caused me grief when I landed home. What would you tell anyone moving to Ireland? For me, I was worried about work. When I left the economy was very different and this was still the perception in Australia. I was surprised to see how many career opportunities I had when I returned. My best advice would be dont listen to any second hand information. What good advice did you got before moving over? There is loads of advice out there from relocation companies in terms of physical shipping of personal belongings etc. but not so much advice in terms of what you need to do, for example, with revenue, banking, tax implications, cost of living, housing etc. These are all things I wish I had researched more in order to prepare for how I could financially support myself in a different country after being away for so long. How long did it take you to get a job? I arrived on Wednesday and I was offered a job the Friday. When I had been home just three weeks I already knew I had made the right decision. What did you miss most about Ireland? My family, my friends and of course the tea the tea helps with the cold frosty mornings. Five top tips for returning to Ireland For all those thinking of returning to Ireland, FRS Recruitment has compiled five tips to help with a smoother transition. 1. Research the current jobs market in Ireland. Contact a recruiter who will provide you with a realistic overview of the employment market in your desired industry and location. The recruiter may also be able to line up some interviews for you before you arrive home. Having employment secured or in progress will help everything else fall into place quickly and give you great confidence in the decision to return. 2. Get your personal details in order both home and away Make sure that your Irish bank account is still valid, if not, it is best to start this process early. There are several providers who can provide low-cost international money transfers which will save a significant sum on bank fees. 3. Open an online account with Revenue This will allow you to generate your tax information in advance reducing your chances of possible extended emergency tax. 4. Do your homework on shipping Arrange for a representative from a shipping company to provide you with shipping options. You may find that its not as expensive as you thought to send home your household items, plus it may save you a considerable amount on the other side. 5. Be fully prepared for the insurance shock Organise copies of your car, medical insurance and driving history from your relevant providers in Australia. A no claims history from Australia will be accepted by some insurers once you can show continued history. This could save you money and hours of frustration and late night phone calls. In what is set to be a significant turnaround for the fortunes of engineering graduates whose profession was battered by the 2008 recession the coming year will see more than 6,000 jobs created in the sector according to the latest survey by Engineers Ireland. The findings indicated that a whopping 89% of the engineering employers surveyed believed their financial position would improve in 2019, despite the ongoing Brexit challenges and a recent decline in consumer sentiment across a number of sectors. Observed the organisations Director General, Caroline Spillane: Weve talked to companies who employ a lot of engineers, and we asked them about their views on what lies ahead for 2019. "What were hearing is that more and more companies are intending to employ more engineers over 2019. "In 2018, these companies would have been positive but now theyre even more positive about their intentions to employ engineers in 2019. We estimate that more than 6,000 new jobs for the engineering sector next year, she said, adding that a whole range of engineering organisations and companies across consulting engineering, construction, manufacturing and other key industries had prospered in 2018, and were even more confident about their prospects for 2019. The biggest barrier to growth was once again perceived to be a shortage of engineers with the right skills and most companies expect this situation to worsen in the coming year: We strongly urge more young people, particularly young women, to consider a career in engineering and the fantastic and expanding opportunities that exist in the sector, Ms Spillane said. We would say to young people thinking about their CAO choices, to consider engineering because theres a very buoyant market for engineers now and we dont see any reason for that to change in the short to medium term. Employers are telling us about the skills they need, and these are the skills that engineering degrees instil in young people problem-solving, a creative mindset, an ability to be a good team player and have good, effective professional communications skills. "Employers were also talking about the future skill-set that would be required for young people entering engineering courses at third level", she said, adding "however that engineering students were already developing many of these skills because they were already part of their courses data analytics, robotics and design for example." However, she warned, the number of students moving into third-level engineering and technology sectors needed to increase significantly to meet employers future needs for graduates. Demand for rigorously trained and innovative engineers is now buoyant their skills are fundamental to the countrys economic growth and development. Ireland needs a steady supply of engineers, with the necessary skill set, to boost local economies, create new jobs, facilitate sustainable development and meet the ambitions outlined in Project Ireland 2040. And, although engineering is a broad profession, many colleges had now introduced a general first year so that young people could get an understanding of the various disciplines involved in engineering, from civil and structural engineering to biomedical engineering: Companies are looking for engineers right across the board, said Ms Spillane. Caroline Spillane For example in the area of civil and building engineers there is a very significant shortfall of civil and building engineers in the construction sector and people going into these courses are very sought after. There is demand right across the board in the life sciences sector, for example, companies are looking for mechanical, manufacturing, chemical and electrical engineers, and in IT there is a demand for electrical and electronic engineering graduates. Because of the type of training engineers receive, she said, their skills were very adaptable to growth sectors like IT and the Life Sciences where technology was changing fast. Engineers are acquiring skills through their courses that are more future-proofed than other courses might be, because of their exposure to cutting-edge technology, data analytics, robotics, augmented reality and machine learning which are all things that will be part of our daily lives. There was still a lower level of uptake of this profession by female students, Ms Spillane said, adding that it was crucial to encourage girls to think about engineering as a career. There have been many very positive developments in the uptake of STEM subjects by girls at Junior Cert and Leaving Cert, and we are seeing girls interested in some engineering courses such as biomedical and chemical engineering. According to Engineers Ireland, girls made up the majority of students taking higher-level science and mathematics in the Junior Cert in 2017. The organisation said similarly encouraging trends had been noted in the Leaving Certificate, so the challenge now for the entire profession and for engineering education nationally, from primary to third level, was to build on this to convert girls burgeoning interest in STEM subjects into more female engineers. Put simply, Ms Spillane observed, an engineer was a problem solver and a designer who had good skills around communication and teamwork these were all skills girls had to the same level as boys, she added. Women remained an untapped resource in the engineering sector, according to Engineers Ireland. Just 16% of engineering graduates are women, with the overall ratio currently just one woman to eight men in the engineering profession. Yet, the organisation points out, most of societys biggest challenges will require interdisciplinary solutions and the combined mind-power of women and men working together. There is a need for a much larger and more diverse workforce and it has never been more important to inspire and encourage more young people, especially women, to study engineering at third level and to choose a career in engineering, said Engineers Ireland in a recent statement. A survey of Engineers Ireland members found that 86% of engineers believe that parents, teachers and career guidance counsellors could do more to break down the societal barriers to girls studying engineering-related subjects. The Engineers Ireland study suggests that around 6,014 engineering jobs will be created in 2019. Its finding showed that 59% of organisations expected to hire experienced Civil and Building Engineers next year, 39% would be looking for Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineers and 35% for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (35%). Engineering organisations are also now taking measures to address the skills challenges they face, the survey found, with 66% investing in upskilling or reskilling current employees, and 64% collaborating with education institutions. However, the study showed, comparatively few have been participating in outreach awareness programmes (7%) or specifically targeting female talent (23%). Ms Spillane urged second-level students who considering engineering as one of their CAO choices, to link in with the Engineers Ireland STEPS youth-focused education outreach programme which will be supported by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) over 2019-2021 as part of TIIs corporate commitment to encourage young people to consider a career in engineering. The STEPS programme, which is also funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the Department of Education and Skills, is the only national full-time STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) outreach programme with a focus on engineering. STEPS aims to encourage and educate future generations of engineers by supporting industry and community leaders to engage with primary and second-level school pupils through a number of hands-on workshops and programmes. Help engineer the Ireland of tomorrow and start planning your Engineers Week activity today! The nationwide campaign is running from March 2 - 8. Find out more information: https://t.co/7jHQoOYOz9 #EngWeek19 pic.twitter.com/4QOS3q4TMM Engineers Ireland (@EngineerIreland) December 10, 2018 These include the nationwide Engineers Week, which runs from March 2nd to 8th next last year more than 850 scheduled events took place with more than 75,000 participants, as part of Engineers Week. Other initiatives include Engineering Your Future (immersive experience for transition year students) and the Young Engineers Award. In partnership with the Irish Girl Guides, the STEPS team has also developed Engineering Badges for Girl Guides and Brownies. Sometimes it is the spontaneous decisions that can change the course of a life. When arriving into University College Cork with the plan to register for an Arts degree, Owen Curtin found that he had no patience to wait in the long queue for his chosen course, and instead decided to opt for a nearby line that was much shorter. The result was a Commerce degree, rather than his original inclination to pursue acting. It was a random act, but one that worked out quite well and I eventually came away with a BComm. Blessed with good numeracy skills, Owen grew up in Cork citys Prosperity Square. His mother an incredible woman with a phenomenal brain enrolled him in extra curricular activities like elocution and drama classes. That led, in turn, to him taking the title role in Oliver! at Dublins Gaiety Theatre, and a period of his life deeply involved in local politics. In an era when the word entrepreneur was as rare as it was a respected calling, the man who would later drive the fortunes of a profitable pan-European company got his first break in a summer job as a porter at the South Infirmary Hospital. I was working nights, 84 hours a week, doing everything from answering the plug-in switchboard to filling the coal boilers in every ward three times a night, assisting with the ambulance arrivals, alerting appropriate medical staff, plus the constant opening and closing of doors and gates throughout the night. Learning how to deal with people in extremely traumatic moments, it was the ultimate experience for life, he adds. If you were asked to do something, anything, you did it, that was the way it was then. And for that I earned 220 a week, major money back in those days. Utilising his numeracy skills in college poker schools, the emerging entrepreneur was compounding hospital earnings into larger gambling winnings between lectures and night work. Eventually graduating from porter to stores assistant, he unexpectedly found himself appointed manager of that post when his boss died suddenly a transition that brought him directly into the area of hospital supplies which many years later would turn out to be the acorn of inspiration from which grew HC21, the largest privately-owned sales and marketing specialist in Ireland and the UK. People often talk about spotting or taking the big opportunity, but in my experience, it is, more often than not, about not taking the big opportunity. If you keep waiting for big opportunities, youll be waiting. You take whatever the small opportunities that come along and work at them that is my advice to those starting out or on the early path. Luck and good fortune will sometimes play a part but its generally the harder you work the luckier you get scenario that succeeds. One of four boys born into humble beginnings in Corks Prosperity Square, Owen Curtin is unlikely to allow himself ever forget the educational lifelines hard won for him by his father, who worked in a bacon factory and a mother who had several jobs. Education gives you choices, and in todays world it is very much about having a Masters to best progress a career. Irish Masters graduates who travel to the UK and other countries find they are immediately well up the ladder through that accreditation alone. Classical education was always deemed to be better because it gave you bandwidth in your thinking. If I was giving career advice to students, I would say you do a general degree, then focus on your Masters and become an expert in that smaller space as the best launching pad into the future, he adds. This is a phenomenal time for people to be graduating, because the world really is a village today. The employment opportunities are myriad for people who want to give of themselves and be passionate about the jobs they are going for. That said, graduates need to guard against expectation and to be realistic in their ambitions. HC21 employs more than 450 staff in Ireland, Britain, Germany, and Austria, with a turnover of 150 million. Staff numbers are expected to grow to 600 over the next 24 months, with turnover on a similar upward graph to 250m by the end of 2020. This is a company built on the strengths of its people. The mission is to utilise the best bits of every single person, and give them work with responsibility. This allows for development of skills, which always benefits the customer. The mission of every manager is to allow people to grow and evolve within their roles, and in their growth, they will create further growth. Everybody deserves an opportunity to be as good as they can be, he says. Thats our culture, I live it. The recent takeover of Aquilant, a medical distribution business owned by the quoted UDG Healthcare, has doubled the size of HC21s business, and ensured that the company is well placed to deal with any future challenges from Brexit. Aquilant, which is mainly focused on the UK, had revenues of 84m to the end of September 2017, with a 5.6m operating profit. With the prospect of further expansion across the EU, HC21s operations in Germany and Austria are a work in progress, followed by likely expansion elsewhere in Europe. There is a huge consolidation opportunity in European healthcare, and a company wanting to distribute in the EU has to do deals with about 19 distributors. We have plans for expansion, both organic and by acquisition. While the recent acquisition gives HC21 a reasonable hedge against impending economic turbulence, he sees Brexit as a huge issue for business, irrespective of whether it is hard or soft. European and UK markets are an integral part of our business. It looks likely if there is indeed a Brexit there will be some restrictions. It is hard to see anything other than customs queues between the UK and Europe and this would be of huge consequence to the Republic. Ireland has been named the "best destination" in Europe by a prestigious travel magazine, for the fifth year in a row. It received the top destination in Europe honour at the Travel Weekly, Readers Choice Awards in New York. It beat France, Greece, Italy, Spain and England to the title. Travel Weekly is the leading weekly newspaper for American travel agents and travel professionals and thousands of its readers voted in the various categories earlier this year. Accepting the award in New York, Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Irelands Head of North America, said: We are delighted that Ireland has been singled out for the fifth year in a row for this prestigious award. "Travellers nowadays have tremendous choice, which makes it more important than ever for us to ensure the island of Ireland stands out from other destinations so this award is really good news, coming at the end of another record-breaking year for Irish tourism from the US and as we prepare to kick off another extensive promotional drive in 2019, in this all-important market. 2018 will be the sixth record year in a row for visitor numbers to the island of Ireland from North America. By the end of this year, Ireland will have welcomed about 2.06 million American and Canadian visitors generating revenue of 1.85bn. Ms Metcalfe said: I would like to take this opportunity to thank our travel trade partners across the United States who continue to play a very important role in helping us to continue to grow visitor numbers to Ireland. I would also like to acknowledge the hugely important contribution of our tourism partners from the island of Ireland, who joined us on the ground in the US this year, helping to spread the word about why Ireland is such a great choice for a vacation. We look forward to building on this years success together, in 2019 and beyond. Over 80 nursing home residents - including five centenarians - have contributed to a Christmas book of Irish life past and present. The book called 'A story I have lived so long to make' is a compilation of writings by nursing home residents across the country and has been compiled by Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI). Among the contributors to the book are Mary Glynn and Aggie Walsh who are new entrants to the centenarian club, having both turned 100 in 2018. They have become great friends since moving to Blake Manor Nursing Home in Galway. Both had advice for the younger generation after living through two world wars and the Great Depression. Always use your manners. Try to be obliging to others and peaceful, was Mary's advice. Launch of A story I have lived so long to make, a beautiful collection of writings from nursing home residents all around Ireland. @jimdalytd @NursingHomesIre pic.twitter.com/rJFewyS600 Q4PR (@q4) October 3, 2018 Aggie advised the generation coming after her to live by: "The saying 'forgive and forget' is great; there's no use holding onto issues. If someone doesn't like you, let it be." Aine Ui Mhathuna is an incredible 102 years-of-age and a resident of Marymount Care Centre in Westmanstown in Dublin. In the book, she advises people to be positively involved within their local community and to recognise there are always people in a worse position than you. She continues to live positively, enjoying outings to places such as the National Concert Hall and Croke Park. "My philosophy of life, if you can call it that, is to enjoy everything in moderation. Keep busy in the community and with your family and always remember that there is always someone much worse off than you. "For me, the Irish Countrywomens Association was a great way of being positively involved in the community and to meet various people," she wrote. Lily Keenan, who lives in Ballard Lodge in Laois is one of the younger contributors to the book at 86 years of age. She said that despite living through some of the world's most historic moments, it is the simple memories that give her most pleasure. "My fond memories are of more simple events and joys in life. I remember coming home from ballroom dancing with a group of my friends, laughing and singing all through the night. I remember meeting the love of my life, John, and the days he would ask me to go out with him. "I remember the day I finally said yes. I remember the births of all ten of our beautiful children and watching them grow into wonderful adults. I remember looking after my countless grandchildren and spoiling them rotten. These are the memories I cherish and hold close to my heart," she wrote Margaret Peg Riordan is a resident of St Josephs Nursing Home in Killorglin in Kerry and is the oldest contributor to the book, having turned 104 this year. Tadhg Daly, CEO of NHI, said the book will touch the lives of many and has real societal value as a project. What we have brought together is a truly wonderful collection of writings that encompass positive reflections from some of the oldest people living in our communities. These writers reflect upon life present and life past, including stories encompassing humour, happiness, faith, friendship and love. The residents have also put to paper sage advice and offer unique reflections on life. "Im sure that people reading the book will laugh and be touched by sentiment within the writings. We see this book as having tremendous societal value and wish to share it with people who will have an interest in stories of today and yesteryear. It can make for a very special, touching Christmas offering for a loved one," he said. Mr Daly said nursing homes are committed to enabling the residents entrusted in their care to pursue their hobbies and interests in addition to participating in meaningful and engaging activities. "The arts of writing and story-telling have been integral to many older people during their lives. This extraordinary project was developed as an opportunity for nursing home residents to embrace story-telling and put pen to paper. For many, its a first for them to see a writing of theirs published in print," he said. NHI is making the book available at no charge, though people should not delay in ordering a copy as supply is limited. A new single is being released today asking Ireland to make the homeless their number one priority this Christmas. 'Take Back the City' is available on download to raise funds for the charity Inner City Helping Homeless. The Justice Minister favours completely removing the divorce waiting time from the Constitution. Charlie Flanagan, plans to hold a referendum on divorce on the same day as the local and European elections next year. Minister Josepha Madigan had previously bought forward a Bill that would cut the waiting time for a divorce from four years to two and this option, along with the possibility of removing the waiting time entirely, are now being mulled over by the Government. Speaking at an event to mark the 1918 election, which gave women a vote for the first time, Mr Flanagan said: "There are currently two options, one of which is to move in entirety reference to timeframe within the Constitution although keeping safeguards and the second would be to reduce the time frame in the Constitution." He said he was now in consultation about this and intends to go to Government with proposals early in the new year. However, he will be pushing to hold this referendum in conjunction with the local and European elections in May. Mr Flanagan said to meet this deadline "we would have to act pretty smartly in the new year" but he added that this is something that he intends on doing. My personal preference would be to remove reference to a timeframe within the Constitution entirely. "I am conscious that we need political preferences and that is why I am in listening mode. "I am listening to the views of people in other parties. I am listening to my own party and will make a decision within a number of weeks," he said. However, Mr Flanagan provided less clarity on a referendum to remove the reference to a woman's place in the home from the Constitution, which was due to be held on the same day as the presidential election in October. He said he expects to bring proposals "charting the direction of travel" of this referendum early next year. Fianna Fails finance spokesperson Michael McGrath says that priority has to be given to ensuring that Irish claimants are paid by Danish insurer Qudos which went into liquidation recently. He said questions have to be asked about why did the law change in Denmark which effectively means that Irish consumers and policy holders will be left with the bill. Cork County Council is to seek a meeting with Minister Eoghan Murphy amid fears that rural areas could be overrun with new homes after Bord Pleanala asked developers to increase densities. Councillors have expressed fears that their Local Area Plans (LAPs) for the future development of towns and villages will be undermined by the new directives adopted by Bord Pleanala. Applications for 100 houses-plus are now no longer being handled by the local authority, but are instead decided by Bord Pleanala under Strategic Housing. Councillors representing the area along the Cork-Midleton rail corridor are particularly concerned about this. They are worried that villages like Glounthaune will be swamped by developers and the rail corridor will turn into an area full of apartment complexes. Cllr Anthony Barry, who lives in Carrigtwohill, won widespread support from colleagues when he tabled a motion requesting that the council seek a meeting between a delegation of elected members and council officials and Minister Murphy and planning officials from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. He said that while there is an urgent need to build more housing, it has to be done in a proper manner which won't submerge rural areas. Cllr Barry said the new Department/Bord Pleanala guidelines on housing densities "far exceed" what councillors passed in their Local Area Plans. "Our job is to build sustainable communities. I have an issue with the level of densities the department is pushing for. It is opening up just apartment living," Cllr Barry said. He added that this might be acceptable in Dublin and Cork City, but "is not sustainable when it drifts further out of cities." Cllr Seamus McGrath said he shares many of Cllr Barry's views. Cllr Seamus McGrath "I'm in favour of increased densities and heights (of buildings) in larger urban centres, but it needs to work from the core out. The major pitfall is that the densities will be created on the periphery and I share his (Cllr Barry's) concern," Cllr McGrath said. Cllr Barry pointed out that there are hundreds of homes planned for Glounthaune, but there are no amenities coming with them. Earlier this week Bord Pleanala decided to refuse BAM permission to build 277 homes in Carrigtwohill. It rejected the plan because of the substandard form of the proposed development. It also expressed concern about the relatively low density of the housing on sustainable and efficiency grounds given its close proximity to the railway station in Carrigtwohill. He who has the bridge holds the bridge. That is the advice of council officials following an increasing number of road rage incidents on an old stone bridge on the Ring of Kerry. Caragh Bridge over the River Caragh on the N70 Killorglin to Glenbeigh road, is passable by one car only at a time. Motorists judge for themselves when the bridge is clear and when to proceed. However, local Fianna Fail councillor Michael Cahill said people are not waiting and are not giving way and are rushing the bridge, even when cars are on it. It is not working. I have heard of numerous incidents and I myself have seen people get out of their cars, he said. He said that while the bridge, on a busy national secondary road, should be two-way, it is not possible to widen it as it is a very old bridge. Cars are squaring up, bang-smack in the middle of the bridge, he said, and people have got out of their cars shouting at each other and many tourists are confused about who has the right of way. Mr Cahill believes there is not enough signage indicating that the road narrows down to just one lane. The matter is now one of health and safety and signage and other road markings are needed, he said. Because it is a national secondary road, Transport Infrastructure Ireland is in charge of allocating funds. However, it is up to Kerry County Council to apply for those funds. In a written reply, engineers have told Mr Cahill there is a comprehensive signage scheme currently providing information to road users that this bridge on the N70 National Secondary Route narrows to a single lane. The final signs at either end of the bridge indicate that motorists must yield to traffic on the bridge, the council has told him. Placing further signs will not improve the flow of traffic at this bridge. However, Mr Cahill says he disagrees with the reply and something will have to be done as the number of incidents is increasing. Meanwhile, the council said it will continue to lobby for funding for resurfacing sections of the Ring of Kerry route in south Kerry. The entrance to Caherdaniel village is in a very bad state, a meeting of the South and West Municipal District was told. British prime minister Theresa May has failed to win any meaningful concessions to salvage her Brexit deal after another day of frantic talks left her future again hanging in doubt. Ms Mays plea for support fell on deaf ears at the EU summit despite hours of talks last night, as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and EU leaders warned that any solid, legally binding changes cannot be allowed as they will alter the already existing deal. In a tense day of behind-closed-doors Brussels meetings, Ms May appeared to give up altering the backstop by failing to raise the issue, and instead focused on winning new legal commitments on any future trade agreements and limits to the existing Brexit deal. The Irish Examiner understands that during one-to-one meetings with Mr Varadkar and EU president Donald Tusk yesterday morning, and in an hour-long presentation to EU leaders at a working dinner last night, Ms May: Did not specifically raise the backstop or ask for a time limit on how long it will last, despite Brexiteer demands Instead asked for a future relationship agreement start date which would limit how long the backstop would be needed Pushed for new legal add-ons to the already signed Brexit deal to help win over vital Westminster support Requested a non-binding political declaration from the EU now to clarify contentious parts of the existing deal However, despite Mr Varadkar and EU leaders saying they are willing to provide a non-binding political declaration clarifying the existing deal, they rejected all legal commitments demands as they cannot allow anything that could damage the existing agreement. A high-level source confirmed Ms May made no request for a time limit on the backstop, and instead sought help in getting the deal through Westminster via extra legal protocols and outlining the future trade talks to calm British fears of being trapped. However, while welcoming the lack of focus on the backstop, Irish and EU officials rejected the plea for extra legal arrangements added to the deal, beside the deal or anything like that. Instead, the only olive branch provided was the option of a non-binding political declaration clarifying what has already been agreed - a compromise which is unlikely to go far enough to appease mutinous Conservative MPs and hard-line Brexiteers. And with British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last night calling on Westminster to take back control unless there are immediate changes to Ms Mays botched deal, the situation has thrown her future and that of the Brexit deal itself into fresh doubt. Speaking to reporters after meeting Ms May, Mr Varadkar confirmed in the clearest terms that the backstop is not on the negotiating table and said the deal we have is the only deal on the table. Asked about the possibility of any concessions, he said: When it comes to the assurances the prime minister is seeking, the EU is very keen to offer her explanations, assurances, clarifications, anything that may assist MPs to understand the agreement and hopefully support it, he said. But the backstop is not on the table. I dont think we could agree to anything that would change the treaty, change the content. Mr Varadkar said some of Ms Mays proposals made sense, noting the need to give the UK government a greater assurance about how the withdrawal agreement will be negotiated. Today marks 100 years since the first election in which women in Ireland got to vote. The 1918 election saw women over the age of 30 extended the right for the first time, as well as men over the age of 21 who did not own property. Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has said all threats against members of An Garda Siochana are utterly unacceptable and has appealed to the public to help tackle a lethal gang feud in Co Louth. Senior Garda sources have confirmed that they are investigating information that a threat has been made to kill two named gardai who are investigating the ongoing feud between criminal gangs in Drogheda. Mr Flanagan visited Drogheda Garda Station yesterday morning to meet members of the force and warned that any threats against any member of An Garda Siochana are utterly unacceptable. I am very keen to ensure that every resource is available to An Garda Siochana in order to bring those responsible to justice, he said. The Minister met with senior gardai before going on to meet with residents in the Moneymore housing estate - where some of the criminal activity related to the feud has taken place. In the Dail, Louth TD Declan Breathnach raised the drug-related feud which has led to shootings, kidnappings, intimidation, petrol bombings, incendiary devices and the latest Garda death threats. The situation is getting out of control, despite the best efforts of An Garda Siochana, he said. Responding, Tanaiste Simon Coveney said An Garda Siochana has shown itself to have the capacity to deal with dangerous feuding criminals and that every resource would be provided to solve the issue in Co Louth. It has done that in Limerick successfully, and it will also be able to do it in Drogheda. The Government will work closely with it to ensure it obtains any resources or increased powers it needs to be able to do that job, said Mr Coveney. It is understood that a phone call was made on Wednesday night threatening to shoot two named gardai who are involved in investigating the gang feud. Speaking outside Drogheda Garda station, Mr Flanagan said he was visiting at the invitation of Louth Fine Gael deputy Fergus ODowd and acknowledged the particular challenge that gardai in the area now face. He said it was his duty to make sure that legislation allows gardai carry out their job and to bring people before the courts and put them out of business. Every effort will be made to ensure that a very small but lethal group of people here in Drogheda who are unprepared to accept the law, that every effort will be made to bring them to justice and put them out of business. Mr Flanagan added: I would appeal to the community here in Drogheda... to assist the Gardai in their ongoing inquiries to ensure that any and every [piece of] information is forthcoming and that every effort is made to ensure that those who are unwilling to abide by the law are brought to justice and brought before the courts at the earliest opportunity. A toxic dump which resembled a "lunar landscape" twelve months ago has now been transformed into a public park which will officially open to the public in May of next year. The 22-acre toxic dump at Haulbowline Island in Co Cork was formerly the site for Irish Ispat/Irish Steel. Its revamp involved one of the biggest environmental works in the history of the State. The year-long works required the manpower of up to sixty people at its peak. The area had been used for waste disposal for decades with slag and steel metal from the steelworks deposited on the site from the 1960s to 2001. From the period in the 1960s to the closure of the steel plant an estimated 650,000 cubic metres of steel waste was dumped on Haulbowline Island. The 60 million remediation project involved installing tens of thousands of rock armour around the island and the placing of hundreds and thousands of tonnes of topsoil on to the site. It was also contoured and landscaped. New playing pitches have been installed in addition to walkways and cycleways. Seating areas are in situ and the transformation has involved the planting of two hundred trees, woodland mix planting, native mix planting and wildflower areas. Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creed has described as "absolutely extraordinary" the developments at the site. Haulbowline Island before the renovation. Speaking at the site of the former Irish Steel/Irish Ispat site in Haulbowline Island in Co Cork today Minister Creed said the seismic change in the site was "very impressive. I was here twelve months ago and it was like a lunar landscape. We actually had to put special gowns on because of the contamination that was being dealt with locally. I must say what has been done here really looks fantastic - it is very impressive. The benefits of these works will resonate with the near neighbours and surrounding areas of Haulbowline Island for generations to come." Mr Creed paid tribute to the principal contractor PJ Hegarty & Sons Ltd, the officials in his Department involved and the Cork County Council project team, for delivering such impressive results. Minister Michael Creed visits Haulbowline Island to mark the substantial completion of the island. Haulbowline Island Recreational Park will open in May 2019 pic.twitter.com/O8JrvX6Jtl Cork County Council (@Corkcoco) December 14, 2018 County Lord Mayor Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy said the overall project started onsite seven years ago and involved "painstaking work." "It was a really terrible ecological and environmental blight on the harbour. On the 4th of May of next year it will be completely finished and open to the public. "It is great to be able to look over at Spike Island here and it is fantastic to have this amenity. The site is going the full 360 and becoming an amenity when it was such a blight. "Haulbowline Island is hugely important from both a local and national perspective. We have come a long way with this and ultimately, the Council want to see this site fulfil its potential to become a fantastic park for the people of Cork which will also offer another jewel in the crown for Cork tourism. The Chief Executive of Cork County Council Tim Lucey said the remediation of the former East Tip involved a tremendous amount of work and many years of waiting. But the result is clear to see. In the future, Haulbowline Island Recreational Park will be an enormous benefit to local communities and will join the ever increasing number of amenities within Cork Harbour. Steelmaking ended at the plant in 2001 and the steel mill was dismantled. In January 2016, Tanaiste Simon Coveney promised an "all island approach" to the clean up of contaminated waste left by Irish Steel. The EU had threatened legal action against Ireland under the waste directive. The steelworks onsite operated between 1939 and 2001 and left behind hazardous waste particularly in an area extending eastwards from the naval The Government approved a proposal to enable the clean-up of the East Tip on Haulbowline Island in 2011. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine was appointed to lead the project on behalf of Government and commissioned Cork County Council to act as agents for the supervision and execution of the remediation works. Over the course of the intervening period the Council and the Department have overseen a series of works, starting out with upgrades to the bridge and road infrastructure to facilitate construction traffic, and the extensive works on the former East Tip site itself commenced in October 2017. The remediation of the East Tip has involved 47,000 tonnes of rock armour material brought onto the site to protect the shoreline and a further 180,000 tonnes of subsoil and 37,000 tonnes of topsoil brought onto the site to bring the history of exposed waste on the site to a close. The new park is on the East side of Haulbowline whilst the western section is occupied by the Naval Service. Almost 400 people were employed at Irish Steel/Irish Ispat until it closed in 2001. Famed campaigner Erin Brokovich was among those who called for the site to be cleaned over the years owing to the potential presence of chromium VI there -- the same chemical which had caused the contamination of drinking water in the campaign she hit the headlines for several years ago. The former president of the Workers' Party Sean Garland has died at the age of 84. Mr Garland died at his home in Navan, Co Meath after a long illness. He is survived by his wife Mary, daughter Caoimhe, and two grandchildren. Mr Garland was a member of the IRA during the 1950s, '60s and '70s, and was a key figure in the Official IRA ceasefire in 1972. He was arrested in 2005 in Northern Ireland on foot of a US extradition warrant, and was arrested again in 2009 after he fled to Dublin. In January 2012, the High Court found that the US had no jurisdiction to extradite him. The Workers Party paid tribute to Mr Garland, describing him as "a life-long comrade, a member of the Partys Central Executive Committee and one of the people who most influenced and shaped the Workers Party over many decades". Party president Michael Donnelly said that he was a unique and charismatic individual whose contribution to Irish political life cannot be overestimated. Sean never took the easy option or the path of least resistance. He always based his decisions, and his actions, on what he adjudged to be in the best interests of working class people and the revolutionary socialist project. "Comrade Sean Garland devoted his life to the struggle to build a socialist future. His legacy and his influence will endure in the class politics which he espoused and in the generations of working people at home and abroad that he has influenced and inspired. "We extend our deepest sympathy to his family at this time. We have all lost a fearless revolutionary standard bearer, a colossus of socialist politics, a comrade and friend," Mr Donnelly said. Gardai are appealing for witnesses to a cash in transit van robbery that occurred this afternoon. At approximately 2.20pm a cash in transit van was making a collection from a business premises on Slaney Road. A white Ford Transit Connect van pulled up to the business premises and one man got out of the van, while the other man remained in the van. The culprit approached the security guard with what is believed to be a handgun and took the cash box from him. No persons were injured. The white Ford Transit Connect van left the scene, turned right onto Slaney Road and up onto Lagan Road. Both men abandoned the van on and it was located burnt out at Lagan Road. Gardai are appealing for witnesses, in particular, any person who may have seen anything unusual between 1.30pm and 3pm in the vicinity of Slaney Road/Lagan Road or Glasnevin Industrial Estate. They would also like to speak with any drivers who may have been driving in the vicinity of the general Glasnevin Industrial area and have dash cam footage. Witnesses or anyone with information, are asked to contact Mountjoy Garda Station 01-6668600, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station. 1,000 people were cleared from outpatient waiting lists last month, but there are still over half a million people without appointments. GPs have criticised the methods used to reduce the number of people waiting. The National Association of GPs thinks the HSE should be calling people to check if they still need to be seen rather than writing to them, in case they have moved or become homeless. Chairman Dr Andrew Jordan says the Health Minister has ignored their concerns. "The Minister, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to feel that it is worth his while to engage with people on the ground. "We had a scheduled meeting with the Minister on September 12 which, for no explainable reason, he cancelled. "That was to discuss a number of different things but obviously this would have been one of the things on the agenda from our point of view." An 83-year-old Oscar-winning movie about a former IRA man desperate to escape his bleak Dublin life has been inducted into the National Film Registry in the United States. The Informer, adapted from a novel by Irish writer Liam OFlaherty, won four Oscars for director John Ford, actor Victor McLaglen, and Max Steiners score at the eighth Academy Awards in 1936. The movie was added to the US film registry run by the Library of Congress in Washington alongside Brokeback Mountain, Jurassic Park, and My Fair Lady. Selection to the registry ensures the films will be preserved for all time because of their cultural, historic, and aesthetic importance to the nations film heritage. Along with Mutiny on the Bounty, The Informer, which was set in Dublin in 1922, was a major contender in the 1936 Oscars, with nominations in six categories. However, acclaimed screenwriter Dudley Nichols caused a stir when he became the first nominee to decline his Oscar for The Informer for his adaptation of OFlahertys book about the Irish War of Independence. Nichols snubbed the award as an act of solidarity with the Writers Guild, which was striking at the time. He was elected president of the writers guild a few years later. Since Dudleys historic stance, a plethora of actors and directors have gone on to boycott at the prestigious award ceremony including Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Elizabeth Taylor, Woody Allen, and Will Smith. Since 1989, 25 films have been inducted to the registry. This years films span 107 years, from 1898 to 2005 bringing the number of films in the registry to 750. The Library of Congress, which is the largest library in the world, serves as the research arm of the US Congress. Another iconic Irish film, The Quiet Man, was inducted to the registry three years ago. The Library of Congress reveals it was budgeted at $1.75m and was one of most expensive pictures ever made by the studio (in Technicolor) and the first filmed outside the US. The essay in the library added: The film is not only Fords Irish-American vision, but also a revealing expression of his Catholicism. It describes the west of Ireland movie nominated for seven Oscars as a truly a transcendent film. The Informer is the 11th film directed by John Ford to be named to the registry, the most of any other director. A poster for John Fords 1935 drama The Informer starring Victor McLaglen and Heather Angel. (Photo by Movie Poster Image Art/Getty Images A place on the list always made up of 25 films guarantees the film will be preserved under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act. The criteria for selection are that the movies are culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. The National Film registry turns 30 this year and for those three decades, we have been recognising, celebrating and preserving this distinctive medium, said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. These cinematic treasures must be protected because they document our history, culture, hopes and dreams. The titles are chosen from public suggestions sent to the Library of Congress website and in consultation with the National Film Preservation Board. Brokeback Mountain has the distinction of becoming the newest film on the registry. I didnt intend to make a statement with Brokeback Mountain, said director Ang Lee. I simply wanted to tell a purely Western love story between two cowboys. To my great surprise, the film ended up striking a deep chord with audiences. I hope that this film, a small movie with wide open spaces, continues to express something both fresh and fundamental about my adopted country. Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons has weighed into the campaign against a plastics factory in Skibbereen, calling the plan a hopeless misjudgement and vowing to fight it. His message was brought by filmmaker David Puttnam to a packed meeting in Skibbereen of people against the proposed development, which was granted planning permission earlier this month by An Bord Pleanala (ABP). At the meeting, one of the original appellants, Brendan McCarthy, confirmed that a judicial review would be lodged in the New Year, with an accompanying fundraising campaign. The meeting was held under the banner of the Save Our Skibbereen group, whose website now features a donate function. Its understood the group aim to raise an initial 15,000. Both An Bord Pleanala and the IDA have defended the decision by the board to grant planning permission, despite ABPs own inspector saying he would not grant permission. At last nights meeting, Mr Puttnam said the proposed factory could not be described as light industry and said that, aside from the concerns of local people, the plan was also an advertisers nightmare, given the funding that had gone into creating the successful Wild Atlantic Way brand. He also brought a personal message from Irons, another local resident, who said he was sorry he could not attend as he is currently filming in the US. All of us who live and spend time in West Cork know how extraordinarily privileged we are, it said. Ive already spoken about the hopeless misjudgement of inflicting the development of a plastics factory on the people of West Cork most particularly on our children and grandchildren. Ill continue to do all I can to fight what can only become a blight on the face of one of the last few truly sustainable places on earth. Efforts by the Irish Examiner to gain comment this week from RTP, the American parent company behind the proposed facility, have so far been unsuccessful. Update 4:57pm: Rachel ODonoghue has been found safe and well. Original story (11:27am): Gardai appeal for help in finding woman, 23, missing from Limerick Gardai are appealing to the public for assistance in tracing the whereabouts of 23-year-old Rachel ODonoghue from Hyde Road, Prospect, Limerick. Rachel was last seen at home at 11.55pm on Tuesday, December 11. She is described as 5' 5'' tall, with black hair and green eyes. Anyone with information is asked to contact Roxboro Road Garda Station on 061 214340 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111. A proposed new law would put Fingal County Council in charge of monitoring noise levels at Dublin Airport. If passed, the Aircraft Noise Regulation Bill would give the local authority the power to make sure limits are met. The Transport Minister says it's important for connectivity, business and tourism. Minister Shane Ross said: The new regulator will be responsible for applying EU law to airport noise management. It will have enforcement powers to ensure that the DAA (Dublin Airport Authority) complies with noise management requirements. There will be extensive public consultation and an appeals process. Considering the importance of Dublin airport to our connectivity, business and tourism, particularly in the context of Brexit, I would hope there will be cross-party support for this vital Bill. The family of a murder victim have failed to get a High Court order halting an inquest into his death until they received certain information. Liam Murray (42), a mechanic, was shot dead in his home at Rockbrook Cottage, Cruagh Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin, on St Patrick's day 2009. A garda file was sent to the DPP, who decided there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with the killing. An inquest into his death was due to take resume in September 2015 when his sisters Fiona, Mairead, Siobhan and Patricia Murray, asked the High Court to stop it from going ahead because they were unhappy with the Coroner's decision not furnish them with a copy of the garda investigation file. Ms Justice Mary Faherty refused their application saying she had not found any basis for doing so. She said the garda investigation established that Mr Murray left a pub on the evening of March 17, 2009, and his last known contact was with a friend about an hour and a half later. Some people living near Mr Murray's home heard possible gunshots that night and he was found dead there three days later. Some 1,900 lines of inquiry were followed up by gardai and almost 700 statements taken. Two people were arrested and the DPP later directed no criminal prosecutions be brought against them. Gardai say the investigation is still open. Gardai provided a file to the Coroner who prepared draft depositions for the conduct of the inquest. The family's solicitor requested a copy of the garda file. The Coroner furnished the depositions and post-mortem report and promised additional draft depositions from the gardai would be provided in due course. The family complained they had not been furnished with a number of garda depositions including one relating to a statement made by someone who was understood to be a suspect and who had allegedly made a threat against Mr Murray. They were unhappy with the amount of material furnished and believed it was insufficient to proceed with the inquest when it was scheduled for January 2014. Following adjournments, the Coroner declined to release the papers the family sought. The family got leave from the High Court in September 2015 to challenge the Coroner's decision. The Garda Commissioner was also a defendant. It was argued on behalf of the family that, among other things, the narrative account of the circumstances leading to the death were seriously misleading and they feared such an narrative would be produced at the inquest. They said there exists within the community innuendo and rumour about the death and the purpose of an inquest was to allay such rumours. The information they sought was crucial to the integrity of the inquest and they were not seeking privileged information, it was argued. The Coroner and the Commissioner opposed the application. Ms Justice Faherty found what the family sought in its proceedings lay outside the provisions of the 1962 Coroners Act. This was so irrespective of whether they called in aid their constitutional rights or cite European Convention on Human Rights standards. The reliefs they sought were therefore denied, she said. Sorting out Cork people for years... Howre oo goin on? Herself is after falling with a pack of permanently offended snowflakes inside in Bantry and didnt she come the other night with a big announcement. Breaking the habit of a lifetime, I will not be allowed to sing Last Christmas by Wham at the Credit Union Dinner Dance, as it is offensive to organ donors. (The snowflakes dont like the way your one got a heart, and then gave it away, the very next day.) What else could I sing? Dan Paddy Andy, Durrus. I checked with my niece, shes 23 and angry. I said is there any song thats safe to sing at Christmas time? She said no. I said what about, Do They Know Its Christmas? She said absolutely not. I said who does not offend? She said, the Norries. I said you mean, tonight thank God its them instead of you. She said exactly. Now listen up Paddy. Ive just come from a meeting of the people who run Britain, which also happened to be a class reunion for my year in Eton. Quelle surprise, you might say, if you spoke French, which you dont, because youre a pack of filthy spud-munchers. (Less of the anger, I thought you Irish were supposed to have a sense of humour.) Im writing to you now in the spirit of friendship, with an offer that Id like to pass on to your chap Coveney drop this bloody backstop and well give you half of Wales. (Theyll be no trouble, the Welsh tend not to notice things.) Deal? Barron Harry DShit, Surrey, Hampshire and rather a lot of Scotland. Please help, were desperate. Ye sure are. My nephew became a political analyst because he was never going to get a girlfriend anyway. I said, is there anything less reliable than a promise from the British government? He said not really, unless you count Boris Johnsons marriage vows. #Gotcha Tears of rage in Chez Monica. Ive been 24/7 preparing for Tamsins Christmas play at school (fee-paying), shouting at the au pair to make her a costume and trying to make sure everything about me screams millionaire living in Lindville on the day. Honestly, theres blood on the streets of Ballintemple with people trying to get a make-up appointment in Brown Thomas. But theres still no need for my best friend to block-book my hairdresser that morning, so Ill end up looking like someone whos only from Ballinlough. Can you think of a suitable revenge up to and including putting out a rumour she has relations who summer in Garryvoe? Monica, Lindville, Id hate for my daughter to see me crying. I didnt know you were still capable of producing tears. #Botox. I told my Posh Cousin about your friend, and said , thats unbelievable, where did she get her neck? She said, Harley Street for 25 grand, you cant get a seat on Cork-Heathrow in the run up to Christmas. I said, what have Blackrock people got against flying to Luton? She said everything. Achtung Munster Monkeys, what is the actual story with getting the leg-over in Cork at Christmas time. Weve had an outlandishly good year at our financial services outfit here in Dublin, getting loans for skangers that theyre never going to pay back. (Its the second Celtic Tiger, we call it Boom-Boom in the office because the joke is totally on poor people, all over again.) Anyway the man I call boss (and Dad) has given our team 40 grand to blow for Christmas, so were heading to Cork because you bogbrickers are so cheap. What kind of thing impresses Cork birds? Gordon, Ballsbridge, Im here for one night only Thankfully. There is no such thing as a Cork bird. The only thing a Blackrock and Ballyphehane woman have in common is theyd both hate to live in Ovens. (Its a refugee camp for people from Tralee.) The one thing that might impress a Cork woman is you not being septic even though youre from Dublin 4. #Doubtful Cmere, whats the story with smelling like a langer? The old doll has called a halt to the old sexual favour of my choosing Christmas present this year, because we got married this August, and you know the way that do be the end of all the filthy stuff. So, she wants to bring me into Brown Thomas (!) this weekend to pick out grooming products, which will she will then give me on Christmas morning, instead of a card saying I do promise to do anything you want once. (Make sure to hide this from your Mam.) So, what do be the style now for men in terms of smell Dowcha Donie, Blackpool, will people be looking at me in Brown Thomas? From a distance. #Binoculars. My neighbour became a social media influencer when his wife left him and he ended up with loads of space in the house for free moisturiser samples. I said, what are you recommending to your followers this Christmas? He said, keeping a closer eye on your wifes private messages. (Hes taking the breakup very badly.) Esther McCarthy surfs the channels for the best Christmas TV picks for you and your family. ITS showtime and the TV and streaming giants are battling for our eyes and hearts on what is the most wonderful movie time of the year. Christmas brings us the opportunity to snuggle up with the kids and watch a story unfold on screen. Its an easy and economical way to keep the small people entertained over the festive holidays, digest the turkey and create happy movie memories together. We trawled through the TV schedules to suggest some of this years best offerings and a couple of family classics. Under 5s The BFG: Steven Spielberg puts his own take on the Roald Dahl classic in this 2016 epic from Disney. It tells the story of a curious little girl and a kindly giant known as BFG as they set on a challenge to capture a group of man-eating giants. Features some mildly scary scenes. RTE Date TBC Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip: Irish TV premiere of this colourful live-action movie about a group of chipmunks who head on a trip to track down their human friend. Virgin Media Two, Christmas Day, 6pm. Zootopia: Disneys terrific Oscar winner offers a thoughtful message about inclusion, all the while entertaining kids of all ages with colourful sight gags and breezy, richly detailed animation. Set in a modern, animal-populated metropolis, it tells the story of Judy Hopps, a bunny who finds joining a police force full of bigger and tougher animals isnt easy. RTE Date TBC Sing: Sweet animated family film about a group of animals who enter a singing competition. Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Matthew McConaughey lend their voices. On Netflix from December 22. The Jungle Book: No Christmas is complete without a family classic, and this charming animated tale from 1967 has stood the test of time. On discovering an orphaned boy alone on a boat, Bagheera the panther brings him deeper into the jungle to be raised by wolves but dangers lie ahead. New Years Day, BBC 1, 3.45pm Under 12s The Christmas Chronicles: Kurt Russell plays Santa Claus in this festive family comedy. It tells the story of siblings Kate and Teddy, who hatch a plan to catch Santa on camera, only to get caught up in a yuletide journey most kids could only dream of. On demand. The Good Dinosaur: Pixars 2015 animated feature is pretty as a picture and a real charmer. It asks: what if that asteroid that hit earth and made dinosaurs extinct had missed? One of those dinosaurs, Arlo, forms a close bond with a little human friend. BBC 1 Christmas Day 1.30pm. Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle: Andy Serkis directs Netflix originals Read More: It tells the story of Mowgli, a baby boy lost in the jungle after his parents are killed by a tiger. The starry voice cast includes Benedict Cumberbatch and Christian Bale. Netflix The Wizard of Oz: One of the greatest family movies ever made remains as moving and potent an experience as when it was first made in 1939. Watching it with small people for the first time is a special experience as they get swept up in the tale of Dorothy (Judy Garland), a girl whisked out of her everyday existence into a land of emerald forests, yellow brick roads, lions and scarecrows and a wicked watch. Virgin Media One, Christmas Day, 4.05pm. Edge of Tomorrow: Child-friendly science fiction unfolds in this excellent fantasy thriller starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. Its set in the near future, where an alien race is attacking earth and a soldier finds himself thrown into a time loop, forcing him to live out the same battle over and over. Virgin Media One, New Years Day, 10pm. Inside Out: Pixars terrific animated film is powerfully moving, funny and beautifully rendered. Rileys an adolescent uprooted from her everyday life and struggling with her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. They all come alive as characters inside her mind in this thoughtful and inventive movie. BBC One, New Years Day, 5pm. Teens Bird Box: Sandra Bullock heads the cast in Netflixs dystopian thriller. It centres on a mysterious force which is decimating the worlds population, taking the lives of all who set eyes on it. A mother must flee with her two children to possible safety - but to do so they must make a dangerous and lengthy journey blindfolded. On demand. A Date for Mad Mary: Excellent Irish drama which packs a solid emotional punch. Seana Kerslake plays the title character, a misfit recently released from prison for assault, looking for a plus one to attend the wedding of her dearest friend. December 23, Virgin Media One, 9pm. Dumplin: Jennifer Aniston and Danielle Macdonald co-star in this comedy about a plus-sized teenager who signs up for the beauty pageant her mother once won in small town Texas. She does so as a protest on beauty ideals, sparking a debate among the other contestants. Netflix The Greatest Showman: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron and Michelle Williams head the cast in this big, flamboyant musical thats perfect for a festive family gathering. Inspired by the life and times of entertainer PT Barnum, the movie celebrates the birth of show business and tells the story of how he and his entertainers became a global sensation. Sky premiere on demand. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Director JJ Abrams Star Wars movie is epic in scale and scope - and thats before the glorious sight of Kerrys Skellig Michael appears onscreen. The space opera introduces Daisy Ridleys warrior Rey and John Boyegas Finn as they aim to battle back against a malevolent force. Our own Domhnall Gleeson pops up as the nasty General Hux. RTE Date TBC Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino will never get bored of stories linking him to other clubs because it means he is doing something right. Fresh speculation about Pochettinos future has emerged this week in the wake of Spurs qualification to the knockout stage of the Champions League, with reports suggesting the club are braced for summer interest from Manchester United and Real Madrid. The Argentinian signed a five-year contract in May and has constantly spoken about how happy he is in north London, so much prefers the column inches to be filled up with stories about his future rather than stories about him getting sacked. This type of news I think does not upset or bore people, he said. I prefer that newspapers talk about things like this than talk about, Tottenham is going to sack me, or people are tired of me, or we are in a difficult situation. Of course, if I choose one situation I choose this one. I am not bored of it, of course. Pochettino is getting linked with some of the top jobs because of the work he has done at Spurs, leading them into the last 16 of the Champions League and mounting a title challenge, despite all of the problems they have faced this season. Not many people are looking past Manchester City or Liverpool to finish in top spot and that is just how Pochettino likes it. We are there, we are in a good position of course, he added. It is normal that the perception is different. I am happy with the perception today when the perception from the media is only Manchester City and Liverpool and not us. I am not happy with the perception when they are not assessing us in the right way. After investment and many things when you assess the different clubs, normally it is Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, United, Arsenal will be involved in the race for the title. But not Tottenham. But we are there because we compete in a very good way, our performances are fantastic, but the perception is different. Spurs will find out their Champions League fate on Monday when the draw could pair them with Porto, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Paris St Germain, Juventus or Bayern Munich. They will play their first leg at home at some point in February and Pochettino is desperate for his side to be in their new home by then. It will be tight as on Wednesday the club announced they will play their Premier League game with Manchester United on January 13 at Wembley. I hope and I wish to play our first leg in the new stadium, he said. But I dont believe it is going to be decisive to play in one or another stadium. The most important is our performance on the pitch. Spurs return to Premier League action against Burnley tomorrow and have several injury doubts. Defenders Kieran Trippier, Serge Aurier, Juan Foyth and Davinson Sanchez will all be assessed. The current executive director of the Central Okanagan Hospice Association says new measures have been put in place after the woman who held her position for six years allegedly stole more than $100,000 from the charity, before doing the same in Nanaimo. Susan Steen has been charged with stealing $109,000 from COHA from July 2012 to April 2016 before she was hired by the Nanaimo Community Hospice Society in December 2016. That organization began noticing irregularities and fired her in June of 2017. She has since pleaded guilty to stealing $6,000 from the Vancouver Island organization. Natasha Girard, who took over the executive director position at COHA in September 2016, says they now conduct a full audit of their finances every year. Prior to 2016, the organization held annual review audits of their financial records, which were less exhaustive. I think what's really important is COHA is the victim here, Girard said. This has happened to an organization that does very, very impactful work. COHA has provided free services and programs to people who are dying or grieving in the community since 1981. The theft at the Nanaimo organization and alleged theft in Kelowna were discovered around the same time. Paul Sibley, the current executive director of the Nanaimo Community Hospice Society, said Steen had been making cash withdrawals with the organization's credit card at a casino. It was clear in retrospect looking at it that it's someone who has a problem. If you're using your company credit card in a casino for personal use, no organization would ever authorize that obviously, Sibley said, adding Steen would have known the stolen funds would eventually be discovered. If you have someone in your midst who's highly committed to stealing, they're going to steal. The issue is, do you have the controls in place where you can catch it and mitigate the loss. Matt August, a director of COHA, said a gambling addiction is no excuse for stealing from a charitable organization. It doesn't make it OK because you have an addiction to something, August said. August joined COHA's board of directors after watching the organization take care of his dying uncle and his grieving family in 2015. The volunteers were able to make the worst part of life manageable, August said, quoting his cousin. I'm on the board because of it. I'm on the board because of what they do in the city. COHA fundraises 92 per cent of its annual budget. We rely heavily on our community and our donors. We do need their help and we ask for our community's continued trust, Girard said. Steen will be sentenced for the Nanaimo theft next week. The Kelowna charges were laid in November 2018, and on Tuesday, Steen and her co-accused, former COHA office manager Melanie Gray, told the court they have yet to secure lawyers. Will Waterford City and County Council really initiate enforcement proceedings against a wind farm in breach of planning laws? asks Special Correspondent Michael Clifford. The ruling by An Bord Pleanala that a wind farm in Co Waterford may have to be dismantled throws up a number of issues about the future of wind farm development. Yesterday, the Irish Examiner reported on the ruling that Barnafaddock Wind Farm in West Waterford is a development that does not have planning permission. This arose when it was discovered that the diameter of the rotor blades on the wind turbines was 103m, and not the 90m for which planning permission was granted The local authority, Waterford City and County Council (WCCC), has told this paper that it will immediately commence enforcement action, inferring that the 11-turbine farm will have to be dismantled. The matter only came to a head through the persistence of local residents who were disturbed at the level of noise pollution. Complicating the whole issue was the emergence of correspondence that showed the local authority had given the nod for the longer blades without referring the matter to the planning process. So now, it would seem, WCCC, which told the developer to shoot ahead with the longer blades, is demanding that the farm be dismantled because the blades are too long. WCCC is talking tough, but whether Barnafaddock is dismantled remains to be seen. A case with eerie similarities arose in West Cork more than a decade ago and it might give an indication of how things will develop in west Waterford. It also suggests the disturbing possibility of a pattern in local authorities in cases like this. The other feature from the West Cork case was that it involved an expensive legal odyssey, the bill for which was footed by public money. Kilvinane is a wind farm located a few miles from Dunmanway. Planning permission was received in 2002 for a four-turbine operation, although only three were actually built. The problem was that the blade lengths on two of the turbines were 90m, which was 27m more than allowed for in the planning permission. The turbines themselves were also located 20m away from their designation location. This was a significant deviation for a number of residents in the 28 homes which are in the vicinity of Kilvinane. As with Barnafaddock, the deviations from planning permission were only discovered through investigations by a resident, a retired engineer, Bill Bailey. As with Barnadafaddock, the developer of Kilvinane Wind Farm (KWF) had received assurance from the local authority that the alterations could be made without reference to the planning process. This assurance was provided in a document dated October 3, 2006. The planner who signed the document subsequently retired and did consultancy work for KWF on the whole issue of planning for the wind farm. A later Court of Appeal ruling found this unsettling, along with the fact that the letter from the council dated October 3, 2006 which contains the assurances is date stamped April 18, 2011. By April 2011, the legal odyssey was under way. As with Barnafaddock, the matter of the extended blades came before An Bord Pleanala. Similar to this weeks case, the board ruled in 2011 that the longer blades in Kilvinane did not have planning permission. Despite that ruling, the wind farm continued in business. Cork County Council did not initiate enforcement proceedings. This week Waterford City and County Council told the Irish Examiner it would be initiating enforcement proceedings immediately in relation to Barnafaddock. It remains to be seen the extent of the resolve of WCCC in that regard, or whether a suitable accommodation can be reached with the developer. Back in West Cork, the battle by local residents went all the way to the High Court when Mr Bailey brought an action demanding that the wind farm without planning permission be dismantled. In 2014, the High Court threw out his case. He appealed and two years later the Court of Appeal ruled in his favour. By then, however, KWF had applied for substitute consent, which is form or retention planning permission. That was granted in March 2017. The following month, a local couple, Clare and Patrick OBrien, went to the High Court seeking to quash the substitute consent order. In December last year, the High Court dismissed their case. Fifteen years after it was initially awarded planning permission, and 11 years after the council gave KWF the nod to install longer blades, everything was regularised. The longer blades, which generate more energy and income and arguably noise, are deemed to be acceptable It would appear to be the case that the longer blades are not acceptable when applying for planning permission. But in some cases, it may be the case that if you go ahead and build them, the planning permission will retrospectively come. In all likelihood, the owner in Barnafaddock currently investment group Blackrock will apply for a retrospective order to leave well enough alone now that the thing is built. How that will be handled by both WCCC and the planning board will be interesting. The similarities between the two cases throws up concerns about both regulation and enforcement. Both involve a local authority adopting an attitude to developers that is neither transparent nor fair to those who would perceive their interests to be in conflict with those of the developer. If wind energy is to be regarded as a vital source of renewable energy then confidence in the whole system is vital. Currently, that confidence is sadly lacking in many rural areas and with good reason. Without rules, a referendum is little more than an invitation to a collective roar of anger and is open to abuse by politicians, says Ngaire Woods. Now that British prime minister Theresa May, facing certain defeat, has postponed the parliaments vote on the deal she concluded with the European Union last month on the United Kingdoms departure from the bloc, the case for a peoples vote a second Brexit referendum is gaining ground. But is a referendum really the right mechanism for settling political issues that the peoples elected representatives cannot or will not? Referenda give people a voice. That is their appeal in an era when people are angry and dissatisfied with the political establishment. But without rules, a referendum is little more than an invitation to a collective roar of anger. This must be distinguished from a national policy decision. The latter takes a careful weighing of everyones interests. That is not, and cannot be, the job of every citizen. On some issues, what is good for one person might be very bad for others, and what is bad for others might end up being even worse for the individual. Most people do not have the time, interest, knowledge, access, or desire to gain a strong understanding of such considerations on issue after issue. Yet that is exactly what is needed to make decisions on behalf of an entire community. This is the raison detre of representative democracy. Voters entrust politicians with becoming informed making full use of public servants, information, and analysis and weighing alternatives with a long-term, big-picture perspective Politicians must then take their conclusions to a forum (parliament) that is designed to represent different interests through competing political parties, constituencies, and representatives. They are held accountable for their choices by voters, other elected officials (in the form of parliamentary scrutiny), and independent media. The danger is that politicians can use a referendum to avoid responsibility for difficult decisions. Even before taking power, Mexicos newly inaugurated president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was using informal referenda on issues such as the cancellation of Mexico Citys new airport (which is already 30% built) and support for his 10 main social and infrastructure programmes. So how can countries ensure that putting public policy to a direct vote does not undermine the quality of decision-making in a representative democracy? Of course, governments could simply not hold referenda. That is the case in Belgium, Malaysia, and Indonesia (where plebiscites were used during the intensification of authoritarian rule in 1985-1999). But if countries still want the option of referenda, they should impose formal rules that help to ensure that politicians cannot use them to dodge difficult decisions. For starters, countries should limit when they can be called (say, only with regard to constitutional amendments), establish a minimum threshold for turnout, and require a supermajority. In Australia, for example, referenda can be used only under certain circumstances and can pass only with majority support in a majority of states (in addition to an overall majority). Such limits should be applied in the UK, with referenda requiring not just an overall majority, but also separate majorities in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Another way to avoid the pitfalls of referenda is to make them non-binding. Finland and Norway permit referenda only on this basis, while Australian politicians have the option of calling non-binding plebiscites. This serves another essential feature of an effective referendum: ensuring that politicians take ownership of the policy response. In Switzerland, for example, a referendum might be used to get a sense of the publics preference, but politicians must take responsibility for crafting the policy that best serves the national interest. That was the case in a February 2014 referendum, in which a majority of Swiss voters and cantons expressed their preference for limiting immigration through quotas. But simply introducing such quotas would have violated the terms of Switzerlands participation in the EUs single market. So, in 2016, the government offered its own solution, enacting a law permitting employers to give priority to Swiss job-seekers (without limiting the free movement of EU workers to Switzerland). When holding a referendum, politicians must also take responsibility for the context in which people decide. They must ensure that the question it asks is well crafted and that there is time to deliberate and good-quality information. In Switzerland, a long-standing tradition of lengthy local deliberation and consultation creates a slow-moving but highly deliberative form of decision-making. Spring a referendum on people without such preparation and you get an instant reaction. In ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, citizens voted on the first day of debate to put to death the entire male population of Mytilene as punishment for their revolt against Athenian imperial control. By the next day, citizens had cooled off, and they voted for leniency. Kenyan Election Ballot Boxes In the UK, terms like Brexit, no deal, and remain have become heavily loaded, with campaigners for each priming voters to support their view. One way to help counter that priming, supported by past surveys, could be to direct voters, first, to consider what they actually know about the topic, including what they understand by the key terms. Politicians who argue for a choice among three options should be aware of the compromise effect, whereby people tend to choose the middle option, rather than considering each carefully. The UK has held only three country-wide referenda in its history: one on European Economic Community membership in 1975; another on the alternative vote system in 2011; and the Brexit vote in 2016. But it now may be set to hold another highly consequential vote. As referenda become more frequent, countries need to specify rules to ensure that politicians do not abuse them. This means making referenda non-binding, at least in most cases. It means providing the time, information, and opportunity for genuine deliberation across the electorate. And it should never let politicians (or their advisers) off the hook. They were elected to enact policies that will advance the national interest. They must be held to account for that. Ngaire Woods is Founding Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. project-syndicate.org Latest: A man suspected of being the gunman who killed three people near a Christmas market in Strasbourg died in a shootout with police on Thursday following a two-day manhunt. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the dead man's identity has not been confirmed yet. But Mr Castaner said the "individual corresponds to the description of the person sought since Tuesday night", 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt. A top police official also said "everything indicates" the man was Chekatt. Hooded police officers block the access in the Meinau district in Strasbourg, eastern France. AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias Mr Castaner said the suspect opened fire on police when officials tried to arrest him. "The moment they tried to arrest him, he turned around and opened fired. They replied," Mr Castaner said. A local police official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the man who shot at police was armed with a pistol and a knife. The shooting occurred in the Neudorf neighbourhood of Strasbourg, where police searched intensively earlier Thursday for Chekatt. Chekatt is accused of killing three people and wounding 13 on Tuesday night. Mr Castaner said earlier Thursday that three of the injured had been released from hospital and three others were fighting for their lives. More than 700 officers were deployed to find Chekatt, who had a long criminal record and had been flagged for extremism, government spokesman, Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. Asked about the instructions they received, Mr Griveaux said the focus was catching Chekatt "as soon as possible", dead or alive, and to "put an end to the manhunt". Security forces, including the elite Raid squad, spent two hours searching in Neudorf on Thursday based on "supposition only" that Chekatt could have been hiding in a building nearby two days after the attack, a French police official said. Chekatt grew up in Neudorf. Chekatt allegedly shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market Tuesday evening. Authorities said he was wounded during an exchange of fire with security forces and a taxi driver dropped him off in Neudorf after he escaped. Prosecutors opened a terror investigation. So far, five people have been arrested and remanded in custody in connection with the investigation, including Chekatt's parents and two of his brothers. The Paris prosecutor's office said the fifth, who was arrested Thursday at an undisclosed location, was a member of Chekatt's "entourage" but not a family member. Police distributed a photo of Chekatt, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." France has raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level since the attack and deployed 1,800 additional soldiers across the country to help patrol streets and secure crowded events. French authorities said Chekatt, born in Strasbourg, appeared on a watch list of people flagged for extremist views. They said he had 27 criminal convictions, receiving the first at the age of 13. The people who died in the attack included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry. Five of the wounded were in serious condition, the prefecture of the Strasbourg region said. French President Emmanuel Macron was in Brussels on Thursday for a European Union summit. EU leaders held a minute of silence for the latest victims of a mass shooting in France. Hundreds of people gathered in Strasbourg's 500-year-old cathedral Thursday evening to mourn and seek comfort. "Evil does not prevail," Archbishop Luc Ravel said. "And the message of Christmas has not been contradicted but rather confirmed by Tuesday's dramatic night: Evil and good are both there, but in the end the good will have last word." Strasbourg's usually busy streets were eerily empty on Thursday morning, with a heavy police and military presence. Some lit candles and brought flowers to a makeshift memorial at the site of the attack. "You can feel a very heavy atmosphere due all these events," said resident Lucille Romance. "People are in a state of shock and are avoiding getting out of their house." The Islamic State's Amaq news agency claimed the gunman was a "soldier" of the group. Update 8:44pm: A suspect has been killed in a Strasbourg shootout with French police searching for the alleged gunman who killed three people near a Christmas market on Tuesday. The shooting occurred in the Neudorf neighbourhood, where police conducted a search earlier for Cherif Chekatt, a 29-year-old born in Strasbourg who police had named as the suspect. A man opened fire on police on Thursday night, and police responded, killing him, sources said. Reuters news agency reports the suspected gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg on Tuesday has been killed according to two police sources Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) December 13, 2018 A local police official said the man who opened fire was armed with a pistol and a knife. Update 3.55pm: Dozens of officers have sealed off part of southern Strasbourg as they look for a suspected terrorist accused of shooting dead three people. It is understood the neighbourhood is the last place 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt was seen. One French police official said security forces, including the elite Raid squad, were taking action based on a "supposition only" that Chekkat could be hiding in a nearby building. Asked about instructions given to police forces searching for Chekatt, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said the focus was on catching the suspect "as soon as possible," no matter whether he was dead or alive, and "put an end to the manhunt". The number of people killed in a shooting attack on Strasbourg's Christmas market has risen to three. More than 700 police officers are still searching for the suspect. Earlier: Strasbourg Christmas market gunman 'wanted dead or alive' French security forces have said they are trying to catch the gunman suspected of attacking a Christmas market dead or alive. The attack in Strasbourg left three people dead and wounded 13 others, including five who are in a serious condition. More than 700 officers are involved in the manhunt for 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, who had been flagged for extremism, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said. Prosecutors have opened a terror investigation into Tuesday's attack. Police have distributed a photo of Chekatt, who was wounded in an exchange of fire with security forces, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." The government raised the terror alert level nationwide and deployed 1,800 additional soldiers across France to help patrol streets and secure crowded events. Mr Griveaux also called on the "yellow vest" protesters not to take to the streets, as some members of the movement have planned a fifth round of demonstrations on Saturday across France to demand tax relief. Strasbourg was in mourning, with candles lit and flowers left at the site of the attack. The Christmas market was closed at least again on Thursday. On Wednesday evening, people prayed and sang in the nearby Protestant Church Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune. Pastor Philippe Eber said this is a moment "to think of those who died in this city because of violence. We also are thinking about all of those who weep for them, the families". Strasbourg resident Tassia Konstantinidis said "it's important to have a period of mourning and to remember the victims". The dead included Thai tourist Anupong Suebsamarn, who was 45. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said one Italian was among the wounded, in critical condition. The Europhonica radio consortium said Antonio Megalizzi, 28, was in Strasbourg to follow the session of the European Parliament when he was shot. French authorities said that the suspect, born in Strasbourg, had run-ins with police from the age of 10 and his first conviction was at 13. Chekatt had been convicted 27 times, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany, for crimes including armed robbery. He had been flagged for extremism and was on a watch list. - PA News Army Captain Accused of Killing Man over Missing ID Card Goes on Trial Captain Aung Ko Min, center, walks in front of the court building in Moulmein, Mon State on Dec. 10, 2018. / Mon News Agency The wife of a man allegedly killed by a Myanmar Army officer seven months ago came face to face with the suspect for the first time in a court in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, on Dec. 10. Tin Soe Myint was allegedly killed by Captain Aung Ko Min of Light Infantry Battalion 587 based in Ye Township. The victims wife, 36-year-old mother of three Khin Swe Tit, said she wanted to fight for justice for her husband, but could not afford to hire her own lawyer. She had been told she would be provided a government-appointed lawyer but had yet to meet the person, she said. Khin Swe Tit told The Irrawaddy on Friday she had tried hard to bring the case to a civilian court, even writing letters to the Union president and the Myanmar Human Rights Commission. She said she initially wanted to summon village authorities allegedly involved in the crime, but they are serving as defense witnesses. They [some village authorities] were involved in helping the captain kill my husband. I am worried about how I can win this case, as they act as witnesses for him, Khin Swe Tit said. She runs a small shop selling gasoline in Thanbyuzayat town, Mon State, to support her two childrens education. She earns 4,000 to 6,000 kyats a day. Her youngest is 4 years old, and she is not sure if she can afford to send the child to school, she said. She said her family lives mostly in Kalegauk Island, Ye Township, but sometimes in Thanbyuzayat Township. Residents of the island are sometimes asked to show ID cards to Myanmar Army personnel, according to the woman. On May 16, her husband was stopped by Army personnel and asked for his ID card, but he had left it at their home in Thanbyuzayat. So, according to Khin Swe Tit, Captain Aung Ko Min arrested and later tortured and killed him. At the time of his arrest, Tin Soe Myint was accompanied by his father-in-law, Nai Chan Aye. He is serving as a witness on behalf of Khin Swe Tit. When Capt. Aung Ko Min took the victim to the Army base, he ordered Nai Chan Aye to go home. Nai Chan Aye told Moulmein-based Mon News Agency that he eventually returned to the Army base where he planned to present a letter from the village head to prove the victim was indeed a resident. However, the victim was already dead, and his body had numerous bullet wounds, including on his legs. By this time, the captain himself had been detained by two senior Army officers and handcuffed to a piece of furniture, said Nai Chan Aye. Khin Swe Tit said her husband did not know the captain, and had never had any personal problems with him. The captain killed her husband over a missing ID card, she said. The next court hearing will be on Dec. 18 in Moulmein. The court will hear from the defense first. I want to see justice for my husband. [The suspect] is charged with murder. I want him to go to prison, she said. Burma US House Labels Crimes Committed Against Rohingya Genocide Rohingya refugees make their way to a refugee camp after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Palong Khali, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on November, 2017. / Reuters YANGONThe US House of Representatives declared crimes committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority as genocide on Wednesday, in a resolution which received an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 394 to one. This comes just months after the US State Department in September released a report documenting widespread acts of violence against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State in western Myanmar which stopped short of labeling the atrocities as genocide. With this resolution, the House will take the important step of naming the atrocities committed against the Rohingya people in Burma what they are: genocide, said Chairman Ed Royce to the House earlier this week. More than 700,000 Rohingya people fled Rakhine to neighboring Bangladesh last year amid clearance operations by government security forces following Arakan Rohingya Salvation Armys (ARSAs) serial attacks on police outposts. The Myanmar government has denounced ARSA as a terrorist organization. Those who made it to refugee camps in Coxs Bazaar, Bangladesh accused the security forces of rape, arbitrary killings and arson. Ed Royce told the Voice of America about the importance of this resolution and the need to hold Burmese military and security leaders accountable for their atrocities. We want to send the message with one voice to those who are involved in this that you will be held accountable. And we want to put things in motion so that the international community understands the gravity of it, he said. A UN fact-finding mission in August said Myanmars military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with genocidal intent and the military chief and five generals should be prosecuted for orchestrating the gravest crimes under law. International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, also called for the referral of the generals to the International Criminal Court. The Myanmar military has denied all accusations, saying their troops followed the rules of engagement. The Myanmar government has set up an independent commission led by international experts to investigate whether human rights abuses were committed as accused. The commission on Wednesday made a public request for evidence of atrocities to be submitted to them. Correction: A previous version of this article was mistakenly titled to suggest the US government had labeled the crimes genocide. In fact, only the US House of Representatives has labeled them as such. The US State Department has yet to use the term to refer to the alleged crimes. News Number of Journalists Jailed For Doing Job Near Record High: Report Journalists and activists gather in downtown Yangon on Wednesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the arrest of two local Reuters journalists. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy NEW YORK A near-record number of journalists around the world are behind bars for their work, including two Reuters reporters whose imprisonment in Myanmar has drawn international criticism, according to a report released on Thursday. There were 251 journalists jailed for doing their jobs as of Dec. 1, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in an annual study. For the third consecutive year, more than half are in Turkey, China and Egypt, where authorities have accused reporters of anti-governmental activities. It looks like a trend now, the reports author, Elana Beiser, said in an interview. It looks like the new normal. The number of journalists imprisoned on charges of false news rose to 28, up from 21 last year and nine in 2016, according to the CPJ, a U.S.-based nonprofit that promotes press freedom. The report criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for frequently characterizing negative media coverage as fake news, a phrase that is also used by leaders against their critics in countries like the Philippines and Turkey. The study was published the same week that Time magazine named several journalists as its annual Person of the Year. That group included Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned one year ago on Wednesday, and Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul two months ago. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty in September of violating Myanmars Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison. They had been investigating the massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys amid an army crackdown that has driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into Bangladesh. Lawyers for the two Reuters reporters have lodged an appeal against their conviction and sentence. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said the jailing of the reporters had nothing to do with freedom of expression. In comments made the week after their conviction, she said they were sentenced for handling official secrets and were not jailed because they were journalists. Turkey remains the worlds worst offender against press freedom, the CPJ said, with at least 68 journalists imprisoned for anti-state charges. At least 25 journalists are in prison in Egypt. Turkey has previously said its crackdown is justified because of an attempted coup to overthrow the government in 2016. Egypt has said its actions to limit dissent are directed at militants trying to undermine the state, which saw a popular uprising in 2011 topple the countys longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. Asked about journalists being jailed, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said: Legal measures are not taken because of these suspects or criminals professions. This is unrelated. The overall number of jailed journalists is down 8 percent from last years record high of 272, the CPJ said. The total does not take into account journalists who have disappeared or are being held by non-state actors. The CPJ said there are dozens of reporters missing or kidnapped in the Middle East and North Africa, including several held by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Photo: CannaCalendar As the first Christmas with legal cannabis rolls around, the company that brought us the Cannabis Advent Calendar is back. CannaCalendar says last year's offering was such a hit they're back with more models this holiday season. The website claims "after the success of our 2017 Christmas Cannabis Advent Calendar, were back, and better than ever with the new 420 Bud Party Variety Pack." The Vancouver company is selling cannabis for Christmas. Prices vary, but if you have a weed lover in your life, the calendar can bring them 25 days of different cannabis strains. The company is not licensed in B.C. At the other end of the spectrum, B.C.'s Catholic Bishops say they're OK with medical marijuana use, but they do not support the use of recreational pot. In a letter posted online in late November, the six bishops from B.C. and one from Whitehorse state: The mere fact that an activity is made legal by the government does not automatically mean that it is morally acceptable. When there is no genuine medical need for using a drug and it is used merely to cause inebriation, it is sinful behaviour, the bishops state. The letter indicates that, much like alcohol, people under the influence might choose to do things they wouldnt while sober. News U.S. House Calls on Myanmar to Release Reuters Journalists Human rights activists gather in downtown Yangon on Wednesday to call for the release of two local Reuters journalists. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives called nearly unanimously on Thursday for the government of Myanmar to release Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned one year ago in a landmark free speech case. House members voted by 394 to 1 for a resolution calling for the release of Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, who were found guilty in September of violating Myanmars Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison. The case has raised questions among a number of political leaders in the United States and Europe, human rights advocates and the United Nations about Myanmars progress towards democracy. The measure is non-binding, but intended as a strong message to the government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, as well as to President Donald Trumps administration that members of the U.S. Congress want the two men released. The resolution also calls the Myanmar militarys campaign against the countrys Rohingya Muslim minority a genocide. In a report issued on Aug. 27, U.N. investigators said Myanmars military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with genocidal intent and for the first time explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign. The U.S. Department of State, which would make an official determination, has not made that official designation using the term genocide. The Myanmar Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the House of Representatives vote. The military in Myanmar, where Buddhism is the main religion, has denied past accusations that it had committed genocide against the Rohingya and says its actions were part of a fight against terrorism. The one no vote came from Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona. Asked to comment on Biggs vote, Daniel Stefanski, a spokesman for the congressman, did not directly address the question but said the Myanmar militarys continuing oppression of the Rohingya is inhumane and called on the Trump administration to use maximum diplomatic pressure to end the genocide and demand the release of the two journalists. The reporters, who pleaded not guilty, said they were handed papers by police shortly before they were detained, and a police witness testified that they had been set up. They had been investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys as part of a military response to insurgent attacks. Lawyers for the two Reuters reporters have lodged an appeal against their conviction and sentence. An appeal hearing is scheduled for Dec. 24. Among other things, the House resolution also condemns attacks against civilians by the Burmese military and calls on Trump to impose additional sanctions on senior members of the Burmese military and security forces it says are responsible for human rights abuses. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. December 13, 2018 The J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation announced a gift of $2 million to the Idaho State University College of Technology capital campaign that will be used for the renovation of the ISU William M. and Karin A. Eames Advanced Technical Education and Innovations Complex. The announcement was made Thursday, Dec. 13, at the Eames Complex by Roger Quarles, executive director of the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation. We applaud the ISU College of Technology leadership and commitment to providing certificates, credentials, and degrees that lead to meaningful employment opportunities for its graduates, Quarles said. The foundation believes that ISUs and College of Technologys commitment to expanding these types of educational opportunities will pay big dividends to our state. He said their foundation is impressed by the College of Technologys Successful Transitions and Retention Track (START) program. Quarles also went on to say that ISUs business advisory support, job placement success and its approach to delivering a relevant post-secondary experience that leads to livable wage jobs is commendable. On behalf of Idaho State University and students whose lives will be improved by this investment, I extend a sincere and emphatic thank you to the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, President Kevin Satterlee said. We are very excited by the foundations decision to invest in the future of our students and for their faith and confidence in ISU. We believe in investing in the strengths of an institution, and this gift does exactly that. ISUs College of Technology is truly serving this state and this region by educating students in fields of high demand and helping to ensure they are employed upon graduation. With the generous support of the foundation, we will be able to take these efforts to new heights. In February 2017, ISU announced plans approved by the State Board of Education to relocate a number of College of Technology programs into the 150,000-square-foot Eames Complex to meet a growing enrollment. The University plans to make it the premier center for technical education in Idaho and to continue its role as a state-of-the-art research facility. The complex, located in the ISU Business and Research Park, is named after William M. and Karin A. Eames, longtime College of Technology and ISU supporters, and $2.5-million donors to this facility. With this move, programs that are currently located on various parts of the ISU campus will now be in one location. Research opportunities continue at the Eames Complex housing state-of-the-art ISU Office of Research facilities, including the Center for Archaeology, Materials and Applied Spectroscopy. The total cost of fully renovating the facility and moving programs is estimated to be about $22 million. Renovations began in June 2017 and are ongoing. There's never been a time in our history quite like this one, said Scott Rasmussen, dean of the College of Technology. We are embarking on a new era in the College of Technology. This gift from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation will be a monumental step forward. As we make our move into the William M. and Karin A. Eames Advanced Technical Education and Innovations Complex, it is a time for great optimism and the opportunity to make a difference in our students' lives right now. College of Technology programs that will initially be moved to the complex include automotive collision repair and refinishing, computerized machining technology, automotive technology, diesel/on-site power generation technology, computer-aided design drafting technology, and welding. The START program referred to by Quarles is a free program with a recognized track record for helping students achieve their academic goals. START provides academic support, counseling and mentoring as students manage barriers while they pursue sustainable career and life goals. START was initially made possible through support from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation Continuous Enrollment Initiative, and it has been sustained through funding by ISU. We just had a short visit to Victoria and to Europe, where politicians are promising a real rosy outlook for the future. By 2030-40 we will not import any diesel or gasoline vehicles, we will be all electric. I assume these politicians can just pull magic right out of the wires and transformers so electric vehicles can suck out of the system? In our area, if half the cars were now electric, our service could send enough electricity to our neighbours to give them 70-80 amps of power to plug in each vehicle. This is the reality, not a new dream. Politicians cannot promise such wide new changes without doing their homework. Where are the funds to upgrade our power grid to be ready for all the electric vehicles? Then, our politicians want to give new purchasers of electric vehicles incentives tax dollars from from me to help them purchase a new vehicle. Will the system be able to cope with demand surges when mom and dad come home from work and plug their vehicles at the same time? Politicians should allow the public and the market to make these changes, especially if electric vehicles become more popular and affordable and are able to drive from Vancouver to Kelowna on one charge in winter time. Let politicians worry more about BC Hydro and ICBC and provincial long-term debts. Jorgen Hansen, Kelowna Apple has announced that it will expand its operations in Austin, Texas, with a new campus to be built in North Austin at an estimated cost of US$1 billion. A statement from the company said it also planned to set up new sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City, and expand in other cities such as Pittsburgh, New York, and Boulder, Colorado over the next three years. Apple plans to invest US$10 billion in data centres within the US over the next five years, with the three in North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona being expanded and a new centre to be built in Waukee, Iowa. The company said it had added 6000 staff to its US operations this year and now employed 90,000 across the country. In January, Apple said it would create 20,000 jobs in the US by 2023. Apple is proud to bring new investment, jobs and opportunity to cities across the US and to significantly deepen our quarter-century partnership with the city and people of Austin, said Apple chief executive Tim Cook. Apples data centre in Reno, Nevada, is one of several US data centers being expanded over the next five years. Courtesy Apple Talent, creativity and tomorrows breakthrough ideas arent limited by region or zip code, and, with this new expansion, were redoubling our commitment to cultivating the high-tech sector and workforce nationwide. The new Austin campus will be spread across 133 acres and initially have 5000 engineering, R&D, operations, finance, sales and customer support employees, with the capacity to grow to 15,000. This is expected to make it the biggest private employer in Austin. The existing centre in Austin has 6200 workers and is the biggest number employed at any Apple office outside the Cupertino headquarters. Researchers at the security firm McAfee claim to have found a new threat to companies dealing in the nuclear, defence, energy and financial sectors, which they have named Operation Sharpshooter. It works only on Windows. The company said the campaign used an in-memory implant to download and retrieve a second-stage implant to continue the exploitation process. The latter implant has been given the name Rising Sun and uses source code from a backdoor named Trojan Duuzer used by the Lazarus Group in 2015. But McAfee said the presence of this source code did not mean that the new campaign also originated from the Lazarus Group, and refused to make any attribution. The company said in October and November the Rising Sun implant had appeared in 87 companies across the globe, mostly in the US, based on its own telemetry. Most of the targeted firms used English as their main language or else had a regional office where this was the case. The initial infection came through Microsoft Word documents which contained Korean language metadata, indicating that they had been created using a Korean version of the software. The documents were seeking personnel for positions at unknown companies and contained a malicious macro that used embedded shellcode to inject a download into the memory of the application. A map showing the industries targeted in different countries. A larger version is here. The second-stage implant, Rising Sun, was then downloaded from a website in Singapore and it, in turn, pulled down a binary to the startup folder on the infected Windows machine. After this, the implant and the decoy documents both executed their payloads. Another document sent by the same author was a PDF containing questions about smartphone use and posing as some kind of survey from a big data analytics company. The Rising Sun implant was a fully functional modular backdoor that would carry out reconnaissance and send the following information to a command and control server: Network card information Computer name User name IP address information Native system information OS product name from registry: SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Windows NT\CurrentVersion | ProductName The implant carried out data encryption and exfiltration using the following steps: Once the data has been gathered from the endpoint, the implant encrypts it using the RC4 stream encryption algorithm. After the data has been encrypted, the implant performed another layer of obfuscation of the data by Base64-encoding the RC4 encrypted data. The data was then sent to the C&C server. "Operation Sharpshooters similarities to Lazarus Group malware are striking, but that does not ensure attribution," McAfee said. "Was this attack just a first-stage reconnaissance operation, or will there be more? We will continue to monitor this campaign and will report further when we or others in the security industry receive more information. "The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team encourages our peers to share their insights and attribution of who is responsible for Operation Sharpshooter." Graphic: courtesy McAfee Australias national science agency CSIRO has been selected to provide maintenance and operational support for the European Space Agencys deep space tracking station at New Norcia in Western Australia. This is the first time that an Australian organisation has been selected to manage day-to-day operations at the ground station which is located 130 kilometres north-east of Perth. The European Space Agency control centre in Darmstadt, Germany will continue to remotely control its spacecraft and satellites via the station, with a 35-metre antenna at the tracking station, DSA-1, providing support to ESAs missions exploring the solar system. The antenna tracks the locations of the spacecraft and satellites and sends commands to control spacecraft, and reliably receives data collected hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth. The missions include BepiColombo, which was launched in October 2018 and will explore Mercury the closest planet to the Sun where it will endure temperatures in excess of 350C, and Mars Express, which is currently orbiting the Red Planet collecting information about its geology, atmosphere, surface environment, history of water and potential for life. ESAs ExoMars trace gas orbiter and Gaia mission are also supported. The WA station provides tracking support to scientific and interplanetary missions operated by other international space agencies like NASA and Japans JAXA under resource-sharing agreements and also provides critical tracking services for Ariane, Soyuz and Vega launchers lifting off from Europes Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. The CSIRO contract is due to start on 1 June 2019 and a three-month handover from the current contractor will start on 1 March 2019. Federal Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said the agreement was another important milestone in the growing Australian space sector. Since 1979, Australia and ESA have had treaties in place to enable European Space Agency ground stations on Australian soil to track spacecraft and interplanetary missions and Australia has unique view of the southern hemisphere sky that provides us with a natural advantage for viewing the Universe, she said. The facility at New Norcia has been in operation since 2003 and now, for the first time, an Australian organisation will provide critical maintenance and operational support at the station. Through its management of NASAs Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, as well as Australias leading radio astronomy facilities, CSIRO has rich experience operating large, complex infrastructure for spacecraft tracking and astronomy research. This follows the announcement earlier this week that Adelaide will be the location of the Australian Space Agency, and is a further demonstration that momentum is building for the local space industry. The space industry plays an essential role in the lives of all Australians, from providing us with weather forecasts and telecommunications, to inspiring the next generation of students." CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall welcomed the new relationship with ESA. This will see us further support humanitys exploration of our vast solar system and help to build up more data and knowledge to inform our understanding of the Universe, Dr Marshall said. It builds on our 75 year history of space science and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to growing Australias space industry, inspiring the next generation of scientists and driving innovation through global partnerships. Understanding the universe and using what we learn to inform our science, create new technologies and fuel jobs and industries of the future is critical for Australia and the world. New Norcia is one of three deep space tracking stations in ESAs global Estrack network, with the other two located in Cebreros, Spain and in Malargue, Argentina. Together, the three stations provide global coverage for continuous monitoring of spacecraft. CSIRO Digital, National Facilities and Collections executive director Dr Dave Williams said ESAs deep space tracking stations played a similar role to those that make up NASAs spacecraft tracking network. CSIRO operates the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex for NASA, one of three stations that make up the NASA Deep Space Network, Dr Williams said. CSIROs operational support of ESAs New Norcia facility will complement our existing role with NASA and builds on our decades worth of experience operating large, complex spacecraft tracking and radio astronomy infrastructure. In addition to operating New Norcia for ESA and CDSCC for NASA, we also manage Australias leading radio telescopes and are playing a key part in preparing to host the international Square Kilometre Array in Western Australia. The Commonwealth Bank appears to have thrown in the towel as far as keeping Apple Pay out goes, and has said the payment option will be made available to its own customers and those of Bankwest. In a statement issued on Friday, the bank said this move constituted part of its "commitment to becoming a better, simpler bank and providing the best digital banking experience for our customers". The CBA, along with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac, attempted to cut a deal with Apple over Apple Pay, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last year denied them the right to negotiate collectively. Subsequently, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank quietly adopted Apple Pay. ANZ was not part of this cartel, and has been offering Apple Pay No mention was made of the tussle in Friday's statement. Angus Sullivan, group executive of Retail Banking Services at CBA, said: We recently wrote to our customers asking them what the bank could do differently and we received lots of excellent suggestions. One of the things we heard repeatedly from our customers is that they want Apple Pay and were delighted to be making it available in January 2019. We are committed to making changes that benefit our customers and simplify our business. We will continue to look for more opportunities to innovate and listen, to ensure our customers get the best experience when they bank with us. Responding to customer demand for Apple Pay underscores our commitment to becoming a better, simpler bank. Launching Apple Pay, alongside our No.1 rated CommBank app, will ensure our customers have the very best mobile banking experience." A survey conducted by analyst group Telsyte in February indicated the CBA customers were likely to switch banks if their existing bank did not provide their choice of payment mechanism. When CBA was asked at the time about the reaction from customers, a spokesman told iTWire: "When customers consider who they want to bank with, they take into account a number of factors. A bank's digital banking and payments offering is an important factor. "Our award-winning CommBank app is the number one free banking app in Australia, with 4.8 million CommBank app users able to take advantage of its tools including Spend Tracker and PayID." Jennifer Bailey, Apples vice-president of Internet Services, said on Friday: Apple Pay is the No.1 mobile contactless payment service worldwide and we are thrilled Commonwealth Bank customers will soon be able to benefit from a convenient and secure way to pay using the Apple devices they love or within their favourite apps or on the Web. It remains to be seen what Westpac and NAB will do with regards to Apple Pay. All four of the big banks offer Samsung Pay and NAB last month signed an agreement with Alipay to make the service available in 2019. After having succeeded in getting the import and sale of older iPhone models banned in China, processor maker Qualcomm is now trying to get Beijing to extend that ban to the latest iPhone XS and XR models. The Financial Times reported that Qualcomm was making the push in a bid to try and get Apple to settle the legal battle between the two firms. On 10 December, the Fuzhou Intermediate Peoples Court granted two injunctions, stopping the import and sale of iPhone models ranging from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone X, in response to patent violation claims by Qualcomm. The two patents in question are for functionality that allows users to reformat photos and manage applications on a touchscreen when using phone apps. Jiang Hongyi, a lawyer acting for Qualcomm, told the FT that the same patents would be used to file a suit to try and stop import and sale of the new iPhone models. Additional suits were pending in courts in Beijing, Qingdao and Guangzhou, Jiang said. In a statement issued after the 10 December court injunctions, Apple said: "Qualcomms effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world. All iPhone models remain available for our customers in China. Qualcomm is asserting three patents they had never raised before, including one which has already been invalidated. We will pursue all our legal options through the courts. The two companies have been entangled in legal brawls for some time now. If you were kicking the tires on Kubernetes and other cloud/container services, you found may have found nirvana at this weeks KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2018 where all manner of new operational software and support from VMware, Arista and others were on display. To access the growing popularity of cloud, Kubernetes and containers, the Cloud Foundry Foundation released the results of a new survey that found among other things that 45 percent of companies are doing at least some cloud-native app development, and 40 percent are doing some re-architecting/refactoring of their legacy apps. In August 2016, 51 percent of respondents were deploying between 0 and 100 containers, and only 37 percent were deploying over 100; today, the numbers have practically flipped, with 47 percent deploying more than 100 containers and only 42 percent deploying less than 100, the foundation study stated. IT decision makers describe their application development environments as much more cloud-based than in our last wave of research in March of 2018. As of September, over 50 percent of IT decision makers report developing 60 percent or more of their applications in the cloudan increase of 13 points. Gartner recently said that cloud software will grow at more than 22 percent in 2019 compared to 6 percent growth for all other forms of software. Gartner also wrote about Kubernetes in particular: As Kubernetes becomes the de facto standard in container orchestration, application development teams at enterprises are beginning to demand production Kubernetes environments. There are various deployment models of Kubernetes, from do-it-yourself open source to commercially supported software solutions and cloud services each with significant implications on costs, risks and skills required. With all of that as a backdrop, a number of vendors at KubeCon looked to enhance Kubernetes with a variety of key new services and support. For example, VMware revised its NSX networking platform to include support for microservice management and security by using open platform Istio software. Istio software helps set up and manage a network of microservices or service mesh. Called VMware NSX Service Mesh, the system, which is in beta for now, will secure, monitor, manage and load balance communications between microservices running on-premises or off, VMware said. VMware said that with the rise of cloud-native architectures built on distributed microservices, developers are encountering challenges with visibility, management and control of these new applications. The microservices that these apps are comprised of are developed on cloud-native platforms like Kubernetes or Cloud Foundry, using a variety of programming languages, and often across multiple cloud environments. NSX Service Mesh builds on the foundation of Istio, addressing problems were finding in cloud-native environments. For one, NSX Service Mesh will simplify the onboarding of Kubernetes clusters and federate across multiple clouds and Kubernetes clusters. This will enable the service mesh to plug into the broader NSX portfolio and platform, creating a unified and intelligent set of policies, network services and visibility tools, VMware wrote in a blog describing the service. NSX Service Mesh will also extend the discovery of services a capability found in other service meshes to include the data that they access, as well as the users initiating the microservice transactions. It will enable service and API visibility and remediation to help ensure consistent application service level objective policies and support progressive rollouts, VMware stated. Looking to address networking and security challenges in Kubernetes environments, Arista teamed with Red Hat and Tigera to demonstrate an integrated service that will be available in 2019. Specifically, the integrated service will make use of Aristas containerized Extensible Operating System (cEOS) and CloudVision software in combination with Red Hats OpenShift Container Platform and Tigeras Secure Enterprise Edition software to offer customers Kubernetes container networking, network segmentation and security support. Introduced in 2017, cEOS is containerized version of the companys network operating system that can run on Aristas own merchant-silicon-based platforms, bare metal switches and industry standard virtual machines or containers. Red Hats OpenShift Container Platform handles cloud-native and traditional applications on a single platform. Tigeras Secure Enterprise Edition brings a zero-trust security model to Kubernetes containers. Among its features is the ability to monitor data-flow logs for security-policy violations as well as other anomalies. It can be configured to automatically quarantine anomalous workloads and send an alert for further inspection. The system addresses some of the key pain points in setting up a Kubernetes environment that is networking multiple containers and services on- and off-premises, as well as securing and managing the workloads in that environment, said Fred Hsu, Technical Marketing Engineer at Arista. Arista said cEOS with support for Tigera Secure Enterprise Edition is available now for selected technology preview customers, with a planned general availability in 2019. A few of the many other key happenings at Kubecon: Google talked about container security improvements. Maya Kaczorowski, Product Manager, Security & Privacy wrote an informative blog on Kubernetes security issues here and said: "Earlier this year at KubeCon in Copenhagen, the message from the community was resoundingly clear: 'this year, its about security.' If Kubernetes was to move into the enterprise, there were real security challenges that needed to be addressed. Six months later, at this weeks KubeCon in Seattle, were happy to report that the community has largely answered that call. In general, Kubernetes has made huge security strides this year, and giant strides on Google Cloud." Oracle introduced the Oracle Cloud Native Framework which promises to help developers build applications and services for on premises, hybrid and public cloud deployments. The Oracle Cloud Native Framework is composed of the recently announced Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment and a rich set of new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure cloud native services including Oracle Functions, its open, serverless package available as a managed cloud service based on the open source Fn Project, wrote Bob Quillin, Oracle vice president of Oracle developer relations. Microsoft said its Azure Monitor for containers is now generally available. Azure Monitor for containers monitors the health and performance of Kubernetes clusters or individual nodes hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Trello users will get native IFTTT-style automation capabilities from the companys acquisition of Butler, a Power-Up add-on designed to free users from repetitive tasks. Butler was created in 2016 as a third-party integration known as a Power-Up for Trello. It lets users set up simple rules to automate various Trello processes such as automatically moving a Trello card from To-Do to Doing on a specified date, or assigning a card to team members as soon as it is placed in a Doing list. No coding is required: actions are created using a simple language interface, meaning that any user can write rules, said Trello. For tech-savvy workers, this can be a great way to customize workflows and streamline routine tasks, said Jon Arnold, principal analyst at J Arnold & Associates. Angela Ashenden, principal analyst at CCS Insight, said Butler gives users tools to augment and customize Trello to suit their own way of working. This enables them to embed the tool more deeply into workflows. It also speaks to the growing adoption of Trello, helping people cope with the tedious but necessary management tasks that escalate as they use Trello for more and more activities, she said. Trello Butler, a Power-Up for Trello, is designed to enable task automation. Businesses could use Butler to create reusable automation templates that can be shared and customized across the business, said Ashenden; it could also help from a central IT management perspective. Butler will be integrated into Trello in the coming months, Trello founder Michael Pryor said in a blog post earlier this week, and will offered to all users. New Butler sign-ups have been halted until the new Power-Up is available. Once launched, Business and Enterprise tier subscribers can expect more advanced capabilities and higher usage thresholds. Trello did not provide financial details of the acquisition. The deal highlights wider moves to incorporate automation into collaboration tools, said Ashenden. Automation of personal workflows is a trend that we're seeing escalate rapidly in the enterprise collaboration space, with a recognition that collaboration technology needs to better fit into our way of working, rather than the other way around, she said. Ashenden added that, just like Slacks recent acquisition of Missions, Trellos Butler purchase highlights the importance of giving users more control to create their own workflows without requiring technical skills or having to engage IT. This is critical, Ashenden said, because creating automation rules needs to be something that users can embrace with little training. Trello launched in 2011 and was acquired by Australian software vendor Atlassian for $425 million last year. It has 35 million registered users. The application recently underwent a revamp, which Pryor referred to as its biggest release to date. Changes included an overhauled notifications system and new home view that acts as a hub and central newsfeed users. Photo: Contributed Give money, or give a turkey and help the Central Okanagan Community Food Bank. Students at Kelowna's Willowstone Academy will be accepting donations Friday morning to help fill Christmas food hampers Cash donations will purchase more turkeys, with a goal of 200 gobblers to help put Christmas dinner on the table for the less fortunate. The kids will be fundraising from 7 to 10 a.m. at the school on Lakeshore Road. Central to the rigorous academic learning that is happening at our school, is the inner work that our students are doing to discover who they are as an individual, and who they are in community with others, says Willowstone community developer Heather Sandager. Hosting an event like our first annual Turkey Drive in partnership with the Central Okanagan Community Food Bank offers our students a rewarding, hands-on experience of giving back to the community in a way that creates a positive impact. Photo: The Canadian Press A Canada goose walks on the front lawn of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from a severely ill woman who wants to accelerate a lawsuit that argues the right to assisted dying is unfairly limited by federal government law. Julia Lamb and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association are spearheading a challenge of the law that allows assisted dying only for individuals whose natural death is "reasonably foreseeable.'' The plaintiffs asked a lower court to prevent Canada from relitigating facts already decided in the Supreme Court's landmark 2015 case that overturned a ban on assisted dying. They argued that granting the request would mean a quicker trial for their lawsuit and potentially bring relief sooner to suffering Canadians. The B.C. Supreme Court ruled the government should be given a second chance to argue the findings of fact. The B.C. Court of Appeal declined to overturn the decision. The country's top court on Thursday declined to hear an appeal. As is customary, no reasons were give for its decision not to hear the case. "With great respect to the Supreme Court, we are disappointed," said Josh Paterson, executive director of the civil liberties group, which also led the original court challenge. "What the federal government is trying to do in this assisted-dying case is essentially have a redo of a lot of the evidence and the factual findings that went against them in the original assisted dying challenge that we successfully brought." The B.C. Supreme Court trial is expected to take place next November. Paterson added his group will still be able to make the argument at trial that the government is improperly relitigating facts. "The problem is that once we get to trial, we've spent the money, and the time, and the effort to reprove everything we proved the last time," he said. "Ultimately it just means that people who are trapped in suffering by the new law will be in that condition for longer." The Department of Justice said in a statement that the government believes the existing legislation achieves a balanced regime for those trying to access the process, while it protects people who are vulnerable and respects the conscience rights of health-care providers. The federal government has asserted that new arguments are required because the latest case involves different plaintiffs, a different legal regime and a different set of issues compared with 2015. The 2015 Supreme Court ruling directed that medical assistance in dying should be available to consenting, competent adults with "grievous and irremediable'' medical conditions that are causing enduring suffering that they find intolerable. The civil liberties association filed its latest lawsuit within days of the federal law being enacted in June 2016. The group contends that the law violates the charter by excluding individuals who could live for years with medical conditions that cause intolerable suffering Lamb, in her late 20s, has spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative disease she worries will lead to years of unbearable suffering by robbing her of the use of her hands and forcing her to use a ventilator to breathe and a feeding tube to eat. She was not available for comment on Thursday. Paterson said she's is looking forward to the case being concluded. Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of Dying With Dignity Canada, said her organization was disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case. Photo: Mike Biden The annual Toys for Tots to Teens event garnered plenty of donations, easily surpassing the student organizers' goals. On Dec. 6, the Penticton community came together at Penticton Secondary School to donate toys and money toward the goal of making sure every child and youth in the community has something to unwrap this holiday season. "Last week on our event day, we collected 1,227 toys for our tots and teens. With the donation money we received (which will be used to buy more gifts), and the presents that were dropped off at Canadian Tire over the weekend, we are incredibly happy to say that we have reached, if not exceeded our goal of 1,500 gifts," said Katie Foreman and Matthew MacDonald, student organizers. The two said they are thrilled and inspired by the results of the event. They have been diligently sorting through the toys and donations for the past week. "We sincerely thank you for filling the stockings and the hearts of those less fortunate families in our community," Foreman and MacDonald said. "Have a wonderful Christmas!" Photo: The Canadian Press U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols Sunland Park along the U.S.-Mexico border next to Ciudad Juarez. A 7-year-old girl who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her father last week died after being taken into the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol, federal immigration authorities confirmed Thursday. The Washington Post reports the girl died of dehydration and shock more than eight hours after she was arrested by agents near Lordsburg, New Mexico. The girl was from Guatemala and was travelling with a group of 163 people who approached agents to turn themselves in on Dec. 6. It's unknown what happened to the girl during the eight hours before she started having seizures and was flown to an El Paso hospital. In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said the girl had not eaten or consumed water in several days. The agency did not provide The Associated Press with the statement it gave to the Post, despite repeated requests. Processing 163 immigrants in one night could have posed challenges for the agency, whose detention facilities are meant to be temporary and don't usually fit that many people. When a Border Patrol agent arrests someone, that person gets processed at a facility but usually spends no more than 72 hours in custody before they are either transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or, if they're Mexican, quickly deported home. The girl's death raises questions about whether border agents knew she was ill and whether she was fed anything or given anything to drink during the eight-plus hours she was in custody. Immigrants, attorneys and activists have long raised issues with the conditions of Border Patrol holding cells. In Tucson, an ongoing lawsuit claims holding cells are filthy, extremely cold and lacking basic necessities such as blankets. A judge overseeing that lawsuit has ordered the agency's Tucson Sector, which patrols much of the Arizona-Mexico border, to provide blankets and mats to sleep on and to continually turn over surveillance footage from inside the cells. The Border Patrol has seen an increasing trend of large groups of immigrants, many with young children, walking up to agents and turning themselves in. Most are Central American and say they are fleeing violence. They turn themselves in instead of trying to circumvent authorities, many with plans to apply for asylum. Photo: The Canadian Press Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led fighters captured the last town held by the Islamic State group on Friday, after days of intense battles in the militants' single remaining enclave in eastern Syria, activists said. The fall of Hajin is a blow to the extremists. The town was their main stronghold in the last pocket of land they control in eastern Syria, near the Iraqi border. IS still holds some villages nearby. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been fighting to take Hajin and the surrounding villages in Deir el-Zour province for over three months. In the past weeks, the offensive intensified with the arrival of reinforcements from northern Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the SDF took Hajin early in the morning, after fierce fighting under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition. It said some IS fighters withdrew to the villages and that fighting is still going in the fields outside Hajin as SDF fighters chase the extremists. Europe-based activist Omar Abu Layla of the DeirEzzor 24 monitoring group confirmed that the town was taken, adding that some IS fighters are still holed up in small pockets on the edge of Hajin. Aby Layla said that in IS ranks, disagreements over hierarchy and posts between Iraqi and Syrian fighters helped "speed up the collapse" of IS defences in Hajin. Nuri Mehmud, spokesman of the Syrian Kurdish militia known as People's Protection Units or YPG the main component of SDF said "intense fighting" is still ongoing in small parts of Hajin. The area was home to some 15,000 people, including 2,000 IS gunmen who fought back with counteroffensives and suicide attacks. Over the past days, hundreds of civilians were able to flee the enclave toward areas controlled by the SDF east of the Euphrates River and government-controlled regions on the river's west bank. The Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the SDF, denounced Turkey's threat of a military operation against YPG and called on Syrians of all ethnic and religious groups to unite ahead of a possible Turkish attack. Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intensified his criticism of U.S. support for the Syrian Kurdish fighters, saying Friday that Turkey would clear the key northern town of Manbij. Over the summer, the two NATO allies had struck a "road map" for Manbij to remove YPG, which Turkey considers a terror organization linked to an insurgency within its own borders. Erdogan argued the United States has not kept its promises to push YPG east of the Euphrates River. Summerville, SC (29483) Today Mostly clear. Low near 30F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low near 30F. Winds light and variable. TORONTO, Dec. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hudbay Minerals Inc. ("Hudbay" or the company) (TSX, NYSE:HBM) today announced that Waterton Global Resource Management, Inc., on behalf of certain funds managed by it (collectively, "Waterton") has withdrawn its special meeting requisition for the purpose of considering an advisory resolution. Accordingly, the company will cancel the shareholder meeting it had previously set for February 28, 2019. As the company noted in its November 13, 2018 press release, the Board welcomes constructive engagement with all shareholders. The Chair of the Board and another independent director met with Waterton on November 1, 2018. Following this meeting, Waterton provided a list of demands to the Board that were entirely disproportionate to its ownership interest and would give Waterton unique rights and powers held by no other shareholder. Among the items of significant concern was Watertons request to gain access to confidential company information through the appointment of a Waterton employee who would be entitled to attend all Hudbay Board and committee meetings and receive access to all materials provided to the Board as well as communications between management and the Board. Waterton, a relatively recent shareholder, is a mining private equity firm that competes with Hudbay for mining assets and may not have interests aligned with other shareholders. In an attempt to find common ground while protecting the interests of all shareholders, the Chair of the Board, on behalf of the Board, sent Waterton two letters referencing their prior discussion regarding the Boards ongoing refreshment initiatives. Waterton was repeatedly invited in good faith to share the names and biographies of individuals it thought could potentially add value to the Board, so that the Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee could assess their qualifications, as it would with any other potential director candidate. Waterton has now responded by announcing its intent to nominate a majority slate of directors. While Hudbay remains open to continued dialogue, it is disappointed with Watertons personal attacks on certain of the companys leadership, its selective use of performance metrics and its revisionist history regarding its confrontational approach to date. Hudbays robust investor outreach program continues and the company appreciates the time shareholders have taken to provide their views. The Board and management remain committed to Hudbays disciplined approach to driving long-term and sustainable value creation, in the best interests of the company and all of its shareholders. Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, forward-looking information) within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes information that relates to, among other things, statements with respect to Hudbays strategy and strategic priorities and the Boards intentions to meet and engage with Waterton and other shareholders. Forward-looking information is not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events. Forward-looking information is based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates and analyses that, while considered reasonable by us at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. The risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information may include, but are not limited to, risks generally associated with the mining industry, such as economic factors (including future commodity prices, currency fluctuations, energy prices and general cost escalation), as well as the risks discussed under the heading Risk Factors in Hudbays most recent Annual Information Form. Should one or more risk, uncertainty, contingency or other factor materialize or should any factor or assumption prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Hudbay does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. About Hudbay Hudbay (TSX, NYSE: HBM) is an integrated mining company producing copper concentrate (containing copper, gold and silver), molybdenum concentrate and zinc metal. With assets in North and South America, the company is focused on the discovery, production and marketing of base and precious metals. Through its subsidiaries, Hudbay owns three polymetallic mines, four ore concentrators and a zinc production facility in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan (Canada) and Cusco (Peru), and a copper project in Arizona (United States). The company is governed by the Canada Business Corporations Act and its shares are listed under the symbol "HBM" on the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Bolsa de Valores de Lima. Further information about Hudbay can be found on www.hudbay.com. For further information, please contact: Candace Brule Director, Investor Relations (416) 814-4387 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. For media inquiries, please contact: Scott Brubacher Director, Corporate Communications (416) 814-4373 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Photo: The Canadian Press Investigators looking into an attack that killed three people in Strasbourg were trying to establish whether the main suspect had help while on the run, as the French city tried to return to the small joys of the festive season with the reopening of its Christmas market on Friday. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz, who handles terror cases throughout France, told a news conference that seven people are in police custody, including four family members of Cherif Chekatt and two who were detained on Thursday night. The 29-year-old was shot dead Thursday during a police operation in the Neudorf neighbourhood of the city. "We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support," Heitz said. Chekatt was suspected of killing three people near Strasbourg's Christmas market on Tuesday night. Heitz said that, in addition, "a fourth victim is brain dead. Among the 12 other wounded, there is one person in a life-threatening condition and four who remain hospitalized." It was the latest in a series of deadly attacks that have claimed more than 200 lives in France since 2015. On Friday the Christmas market reopened for the first time since the attack, amid tight security. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner attended the reopening and had a stroll to meet with shopkeepers. Access to the market has been reduced while extra police officers and military have been deployed to the site, in addition to private security guards. "This Christmas market is part of our history. It's part of our common events and belongs to all the French people," Castaner said. "And this morning, we wanted to show, as we walked down the lanes, that we always know how to get our head up again." Heitz gave more details about the police operation that led to Chekatt's death on Thursday evening after a two-day manhunt. He said the suspect was localized after police received two crucial tipoffs from Neudorf residents. Three officers patrolling in Neudorf ultimately spotted a man corresponding to the suspect's description. He noticed their vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to enter a building. When police officers identified themselves, Chekatt turned around and opened fire. "A projectile hit the vehicle above the left rear door, two police officers responded, shooting several times, and killed him," Heitz said. Investigators found a gun, a knife and ammunition on Chekatt's body. Chekatt has a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists. He had his first conviction at 13, and had 26 more by the time he died at age 29. He served jail time in France, Germany and Switzerland. The head of Ivory Coasts main opposition party, Henri Konan Bedie, has announced that ousted president Laurent Gbagbo would back a party alliance to fight the next presential election. I informed him, he gave me his approval, recently, to contact the FPI Gbagbos Ivorian Popular Front about forming a joint platform to take on President Alassane Ouattara and his supporters at the 2020 polls, Bedie told France 24 in an interview broadcast late Thursday. The former head of state from 1993 until 1999 is leader of the Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI), which was allied with Ouattaras Rally of Republicans (RDR) until August. There are contacts between the PDCI and the FPI at a preliminary stage, confirmed an FPI spokesman, Franck Anderson Kouassi. The talks are going to go on. Kouassi declined to discuss an alliance in the West African country. A top world producer of cocoa, coffee and timber, Ivory Coast is recovering from civil war marked by territorial and ethnic divisions under Gbagbos rule in 2000-2010. After a presidential poll he claimed to have won, Gbagbo was forced in March 2011 to quit by troops backing Ouattara. He was later delivered to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be tried on charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and rape by his loyalists. Its seven years now that Laurent Gbagbo has been in prison. Whatever the crimes he committed, thats enough to do justice, Bedie told France 24. I strongly hope that he will be freed and come home to Ivory Coast. Gbagbos lawyers on Thursday asked the ICC for the release on bail of their elderly and fragile client, who is 73. They argued there was no flight risk, but seven years on, an elderly person held in detention ages faster. Bedie also appealed to the speaker of the National Assembly, Guillaume Soro, who headed rebel forces during the war, and then joined the government under Gbagbo. Soro is a member of the RDR, but is rumoured to have fallen out with Ouattara and possibly harbour his own presidential ambitions. Nigerias military on Friday suspended UNICEF from operating in the countrys ravaged northeast over claims it was training spies who are supporting Boko Haram jihadists. The military said that the United Nations childrens agency had on December 12 and 13 held workshops in the northeast city of Maiduguri training people for clandestine activities that are sabotaging counterterrorism efforts. Boko Harams Islamist insurgency has killed more than 27,000 people since it began in 2009 and triggered a humanitarian crisis in the wider Lake Chad region, where the jihadists have stepped up attacks in recent months. There is credible information that some of them are indulging in unwholesome practices that could further jeopardise the fight against terrorism and insurgency, as they train and deploy spies who support the insurgents and their sympathisers, said the press release signed by Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu. Consequently, the Theatre Command Operation LAFIYA DOLE is suspending the operations of UNICEF in the North East theatre until further notice, said Nwachukwu. A UNICEF spokesperson said that the organisation was working to verify the information. Its self explanatory, when you read it you will understand everything, said army public relations director Brigadier General Sani Usman to AFP about the suspension statement. Boko Harams bloody uprising in northeastern Nigeria has spread to neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, leaving 1.8 million people homeless and millions dependent on aid for survival. Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 pledging to end the violence, is under increasing pressure to act following the recent surge in attacks as he gears up to seek re-election in a February ballot. He has come under attack for previously claiming the Islamists were technically defeated. The Nigerian military has hit out at media reporting casualty figures of the attacks and even threatened legal action against organisations for publishing unofficial death tolls. It has also dismissed reports from international human rights organisations that it has committed human rights violations and war crimes during its fight against Boko Haram. Five students receive the Eisenhower Transportation Graduate Fellowships Friday, Dec. 14, 2018 MANHATTAN Five Kansas State University students from the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering and the College of Architecture, Planning, and Design are among those across the U.S. to be honored with 2018-2019 Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Graduate Fellowships from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Elliot Schrag, master's student in civil engineering, Buhler; Rachel Foss, master's student in regional and community planning, Highlands Ranch, Colorado; Andrew Young, master's student in regional and community planning, Eden Prairie, Minnesota; Rial Carver, master's student in regional and community planning, Richmond, Virginia; and Jack Cunningham, doctoral student in civil engineering, Roanoke, Virginia, will each receive $5,000 in support of their graduate studies. The fellowships, awarded annually to 150-200 exceptional students around the country, recognize those pursuing degrees in transportation-related disciplines. The program advances the transportation workforce by attracting the brightest minds to the field through education, research and workforce development. The Center for Transportation Workforce Development, a part of the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, manages activities that integrate transportation into college and university programs, with the aim to increase the number of postsecondary students interested in pursuing transportation-related careers as well as helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry. Cunningham is working with Eric Fitzsimmons, assistant professor of civil engineering, on research focused on wrong-way driving crashes and countermeasures on Kansas highways. Schrag is working with Christopher Jones, associate professor of civil engineering, on improving the durability of concrete transportation infrastructure through application of self-healing materials. "Our students are highly deserving of this fellowship," Fitzsimmons said. "Their research will make a significant impact on saving lives on the highway and preserving our nation's infrastructure." Young is examining impacts of state marijuana legislation on road safety and Ross is exploring graphical presentation of metropolitan transportation plans. Both are currently interning in their field as they complete their master's degrees Young at TranSystems, a transportation consulting firm headquartered in Kansas City, and Ross at the Flint Hills Metropolitan Planning Organization, the regional planning agency for Manhattan and its environs. Both are in their second year of support from the Eisenhower program. "It is a privilege to work with students such as Rachel and Andrew who have already demonstrated their strong commitment to transportation as a profession," said Greg Newmark, their advising assistant professor of landscape architecture and regional and community planning. "Their work is already shaping the future." Carver, in collaboration with Hyung Jin Kim, associate professor in landscape architecture and regional and community planning, is working on the transportation angle of shaping new perspectives on the traditional neighborhood unit concept in North America by understanding access to health and community services. She is also as a recipient of the 2018 Clarence Stein Institute's research grant and has worked for Kansas State University's Center for Engagement and Community Development. "Rial is not only a talented student, but has also been on the path to becoming a successful researcher in planning," Kim said. "This fellowship will help her connect with other fellows nationally who share a similar focus." "The colleges of Engineering, and Architecture, Planning and Design have built a strong connection and focus on transportation," Newmark said. "In particular, the cross-collaboration between the landscape architecture, and regional and community planning department, and the transportation center in the civil engineering department, has been recognized with these five prestigious fellowships." Photo: Josh Winquist Trying to cram your shopping into the final 10 days before Christmas? Downtown Vernon business owners are making it a little easier. More than 15 downtown Vernon shops will open their doors late on Fridays leading up until Christmas. "Locals are being encouraged to shop for gifts locally instead of going online or travelling to other areas," stated Dudley Coulter of the Downtown Vernon Association. "When you shop local, youre not only supporting entrepreneurs who live, play and work here, in Greater Vernon, but youre helping to maintain our unique community character." Among the businesses open late until 8:00 p.m. is 2017 Retailer of the Year (Canadian Gift Association), The Room Collection. "We and so many other businesses try our best to offer a festive shopping experience," says Alison Ludditt. "We love seeing people on Fridays before or after a dinner or drink downtown when theres a more relaxed vibe in the air." For Olive Us Oil & Vinegar Tasting Room the Shop Late Till 8 promotion is about the spirit of Greater Vernon. "By shopping locally people can show their support of local families who own and operate their own businesses creating direct impact on the spirit of our town," explains Co-owner, Ray Morin. Morin also noted that Olive Us will also be celebrating their 5th anniversary on Friday, December 14 and the public is invited to attend. You can find a list of participating stores here: Photo: Contributed The targeted theft of electronics at a Best Buy in Kelowna Wednesday is linked to the theft of electronics at a London Drugs in Vernon. Vernon RCMP say officers are working with the Kelowna detachment to track down a group of thieves performing grab and dash style thefts worth thousands of dollars in electronics. On Tuesday, just before 10 p.m, a group of four men entered the London Drugs in Vernon, at 4400 32nd St. The men were concealing their identity as they made their way to the electronics section. Police say the men grabbed what is believed to be two laptop computers that were on display and fled the store. "Police have since learned the report received by London Drugs, is similar to thefts that occurred in the Kelowna area at a local shopping mall, Orchard Park on December 12th, 2018," stated Const. Kelly Brett. "Vernon North Okanagan RCMP are currently investigating this incident and will continue to liaise with Kelowna RCMP in gathering evidence and identifying the subjects, as they are believed to be related at this time." The four male suspects, in the Vernon incident, were described to police as being non-white males, each seen wearing dark clothing, hoodies, and hats with one male wearing a mask covering his face. No one was injured as a result of the theft, and Vernon RCMP are asking witnesses to call 250-545-7171, referencing file #2018-29246. You can also remain anonymous by calling CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477, or leaving a tip online at www.nokscrimestoppers.com. You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers. If you provide information that leads to an arrest, you could be eligible for a cash reward. BEND, Ore. (AP) Authorities have accused a former Jefferson County deputy of raping a woman while she was unconscious and posting videos online of the assault. The Bulletin reports Washington County sheriff's detectives arrested 28-year-old Jorge Ulises Serrano last week on suspicion of one count of first-degree rape and three counts of first-degree sodomy. Authorities say the video was recorded in 2015 when Serrano worked as a guard with Arcadia Security and Patrol in the Portland area. The Washington County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police launched investigations after the woman reported the rape and videos in October. Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins says Serrano was fired last month after admitting to falsifying his job application and lying in his interview. Serrano is being held in the Washington County jail on $250,000 bond. PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) A new report concludes that Oregon's system of public defenders for indigent people is so flawed it can't guarantee clients are getting the defense they're owed. Oregon Public Broadcasting says the report was completed by the Sixth Amendment Center, a nonprofit group studies how legal systems across the country are complying with the constitutional requirement. The Oregon Legislature paid for the report, which cost $193,000. Report authors studied nine counties in depth, ranging from Harney to Multnomah. The report found the state lacked oversight of attorneys with whom it contracts to provide public defense services. And the way it pays attorneys encourages them to deal with cases as quickly as possible. The draft report will be presented to lawmakers and other state officials in Salem on Friday. CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) An Oregon State University student with ties to white nationalists in the Pacific Northwest has been sentenced to 40 days in jail for putting offensive stickers on the cars of members of a racial justice group. News outlets report 28-year-old Andrew Oswalt was sentenced Wednesday for the felony hate crime of intimidation and misdemeanor criminal mischief. He also got three months of probation. Oswalt's attorney Nicholas Oritz told the media after he was convicted last month that he would appeal. Corvallis police say Oswalt and an accomplice placed bumper stickers with a racist slur about African Americans on cars at a food co-op in June 2017. The incident came to light while Oswalt served as a student government representative. Students in February voted to recall Oswalt from that post. Its easier to get a gun than a psychiatrist in America 33K Shares Share America in 2018: 307 mass shootings in 311 days. Recently, a veteran with presumed PTSD shot up Borderline Bar & Grill. His Facebook declaration: I hope people call me insane (laughing emojis).. 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.. or keep you in my thoughts every time and wonder why these keep happening Shall we do what the shooter seems to be asking for help those with insanity or just hope and pray? Or fall into our usual anti/pro-gun divide? Lets analyze the irony identified by the gunman before the devastating slaughter of 13 Americans. Lets dive into the uncharted territory of human psychology the mind of a straight shooter before a calamity. His prophetic post may reveal the answer weve been seeking. Because We the People are responding exactly as he predicted. Vilifying the shooter as insane. Offering victims our hopes and prayers. Is this the best we can do? They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Yet, we keep going round and round the same post-carnage questions: Where did he get the gun? Did he acquire it legally? What was his motive? Rather than interrogate the shooter postmortem, lets do a psychological autopsy on the living analyze our response for clues as to why the killings continue. Ive got a unique vantage point on mental health care in America. I was once a suicidal physician. Now I run a physician suicide hotline. Ive spoken to thousands of suicidal physicians and investigated more than 1,100 doctor suicides (some homicide-suicides). Doctors have the highest suicide rate of any professions. Even higher than veterans. If doctors cant get proper mental health care, will patients fare any better? Unlikely. Heres why. America has 393,300,000 guns and only 28,000 psychiatrists (thats 14,046 civilian-owned guns per U.S. psychiatrist up from 7447 guns per U.S. psychiatrist in 2012). That means weve doubled the number of guns per psychiatrist in just six years. Increasing firearms while decreasing mental health access is not a winning strategy. Why do we have so many guns and so few psychiatrists? We have a constitutional right to bear arms. We have no constitutional right to health care. America is a world leader in mental illness. Most Americans will develop at least one mental illness. More than half begin during childhood. Yet, more than half of our psychiatrists are on the verge of retirement. Meanwhile, America remains the most heavily armed nation in the world with 120 guns per 100 U.S. citizens thats more than one gun per person. Nearly half of all Americans have at least one gun at home. The human brain controls the gun. People will find a way to end their pain. A civilized society offers civilized solutions. A violent society offers violent solutions. In America, its easier to find a gun than a psychiatrist. Ammunition costs less than medication. No prescription necessary. So whos insane? The shooter? Or us? (Im not inherently against guns. Im against untreated mental illness. And Im against untreated mental illness and guns, pipe bombs, machetes or anything else that can damage life on Earth.) Pamela Wible pioneered the community-designed ideal medical clinic and blogs at Ideal Medical Care. She is the author of Physician Suicide Letters Answered and Pet Goats and Pap Smears. Watch her TEDx talk, How to Get Naked with Your Doctor. She hosts the physician retreat, Live Your Dream, to help her colleagues heal from grief and reclaim their lives and careers. Image credit: Shutterstock.com UPDATE: There were five traffic citations for distracted driving during Thursday's crackdown in the Coburg Road and Oakway area, Eugene police said. Overall, police said there were 20 uniform traffic citations and 17 warnings for miscellaneous offenses. _____________________ EUGENE, Ore. -- Police are cracking down on distracted drivers in Eugene. They were out on one of the busiest roads in town on Thursday looking for people on their phones. KEZI 9 News spoke with Sgt. Shawn Marsh with the Eugene Police Department. Marsh and other traffic officers were out in force on Coburg Road and the Oakway area. Marsh said with the busy holiday season, its a good time to remind drivers about Oregons law that prohibits drivers from using or even holding any electronic devices. If somebody's talking on their phone or texting, more than likely they'll get a citation for it, just because of the danger factor involved in it, Marsh said. He said the punishment for getting caught can start with a $300 ticket, and on your third citation you could face potential jail time, but even worse is knowing you hurt someone because you couldnt put down your phone. "There's thousands of serious physical injuries and fatalities every year with people on their cell phones, Marsh said. It's actually the number one cause of serious physical injuries and fatalities currently in the United States. PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A 92-year-old man who survived Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust was struck and killed by a car while crossing a street near his home in Oregon. Alter Wiener died Tuesday in Hillsboro and was pronounced dead at a hospital, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported . Wiener endured three years in concentration camps and later in life wrote an autobiography titled, "From a Name to a Number: A Holocaust Survivor's Autobiography." He spoke to thousands of Oregonians about his experiences, making nearly 1,000 appearances at schools, libraries, churches, conferences and charitable events. Wiener appeared before Oregon lawmakers in September to press for mandatory statewide curriculum standards that would require teachers to educate students about the Holocaust and genocide. "There can be no better tribute to Alter Wiener and all survivors of the Holocaust but for this mandate to come to fruition in the next legislative session," the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education said in a statement. "May the memory of Alter Wiener be a blessing for his family and for those of us who were privileged to know him." U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, remembered Wiener as "a true Oregonian and total mensch who transformed his Holocaust survival into a lesson that taught all of us about the need to fight prejudice always and everywhere." Wiener was born in 1926 in Chrzanow, Poland, a small town near the German border. Germans invaded his hometown in 1939, and Wiener, his stepmother and his brothers fled, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. EUGENE, Ore. -- A Eugene veteran is wasting away, and he's only 29 years old. Nine year's later, he's still waiting on Veterans Affairs to help save his life. Brandon Donovan has dropped around 50 pounds since 2009. He has a rare condition that makes it extremely painful to eat. "How the pain is, is like swallowing cement and it's hardening in your stomach," Donovan said. The pain started during his deployment in Iraq, Donovan said. Since then, it's been appointment after appointment and procedure after procedure with no answers. Donovan and his wife, Jennifer, started digging through his VA medical notes and found the first suspicion of a rare condition in 2014; it's called MALS, or celiac artery compression syndrome. Four years later, MALS suspicion came up again. This past October, a physician with Oregon Health & Science University recommended MALS treatment. "Find out all these years later that he's been suffering when it could've been looked into back then, like, my mouth dropped when I saw that," Jennifer Donovan said. "I was livid." MALS is often misdiagnosed, according to the National Institutes of Health. Researchers report that about 10 to 24 percent of the general population have MALS. Those researchers also say only a few of these patients suffer abdominal pain. That October an OHSU letter referred Donovan to a specialist in Connecticut, a physician outside the VA. On Nov. 29, he got a letter showing the VA denied that treatment request, and Donovan said it's not the first denial. KEZI 9 News first reached out to the Roseburg VA on Dec. 5. A week later, we received an email resonse from interim director David Whitmer. "We have determined that a referral to a specialist outside of the VA can be authorized; we are currently making arrangements to do so," Whitmer wrote. This comes after Senator Ron Wyden's office got involved. The senator's office wouldn't schedule an on-camera interview with us but said Brandon Donovan's case has led them to look deeper into the VA and how Donovan has waited nine years for a diagnosis and surgery. Stay with KEZI 9 News for the latest in Donovan's case. In the meantime, to learn more about his story, click here. The Donovan family has also set up a fundraiser if you would like to help. You can do so by clicking here. Local Trocaire worker, Lauren Lennon from Kilkenny is appealing to the people of her home county to support the development agencys Christmas campaign. This year, Trocaires appeal focuses on families at risk of starvation and violence in war-torn countries across the world. The plea comes as 14 million people in Yemen are facing starvation and the prospect of the worst famine the world has seen in 100 years. A humanitarian crisis that is completely man-made and the result of conflict, the closure of trade routes and the destruction of the local economy, says Trocaire. In South Sudan, a brutal five year civil war has seen hundreds of thousands of people killed and more than 4.5 million people forced to flee their homes for survival. Trocaire is working with local organisations in both of these countries, as well as others around the world, to bring aid and medical care to people trapped in the middle of conflict and to help those who have fled war to build a new life. Lauren Lennon from Trocaire said: I would like to say a huge thank you to the people of Co Kilkenny for their continued support - the impact we can make because of your donations cannot be underestimated. However, there is much more to be done. This Christmas, as we look forward to spending time with our loved ones, we would ask people to also think about the families across the world who are facing fear and war. Millions of people in countries such as South Sudan have had to flee for their lives, leaving everything they own behind. To support Trocaires work, you can donate at www.trocaire.org or by calling 1850408408. Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Kevin Boxer Moran launched ALONEs services in Carlow and Kilkenny in the Parade Tower last week. The launch, which is as a result of a merger with local organisation Kilkenny-Carlow Contact, will allow ALONE to expand their services to the people of Carlow and Kilkenny. The launch of ALONEs Carlow and Kilkenny services is an important step to recognising and tackling the issues facing older people in our area, said Minister Moran. Loneliness and social isolation in particular can have a major impact on a persons life and wellbeing, but with the help of ALONE, more individuals can reach out and receive the help they need. I would encourage any older person who is feeling lonely or is looking for support to get in touch with ALONE. Speakers at the launch included Minister Moran, Cathaoirleach of Kilkenny County Council Eamon Aylward, HSE Manager of Services for Older People in CHO Area 5 Stephanie Lynch and ALONE CEO Sean Moynihan. We are delighted to be expanding our services to older people in Carlow and Kilkenny with the help of our fantastic staff here, Eleanor Doyle and Mary Colclough, said Mr Moynihan. ALONEs work with the HSE has previously been described as a fine example of reimagining service provision by Minister Paschal Donohue. We look forward to seeing this develop in Carlow and Kilkenny, building on the great work and community spirit already in place locally. ALONE hopes to bring greater sustainability and resources to the existing services for older people across both counties in line with our national strategy for supporting older people to age at home. Mr Moynihan also said Ireland was facing an ageing demographic, and ALONE and other agencies are providing essential Supports. According to the 2016 Census, there are over 5,000 people over 65 in Carlow and Kilkenny, he said. We need to ensure that there is consistency of services across both urban and rural areas. Many more older people will be experiencing issues such as loneliness or homelessness in the coming years and we hope that expanding our ground-level supports will help to make a positive impact on the lives in Carlow and Kilkenny. Founded in Dublin in 1977, ALONE is now a merger of five organisations offering support to older people to age at home. It helps those facing loneliness, social isolation, poverty, housing difficulties, homelessness and health difficulties, by providing Befriending, Support Coordination, Housing with Support, and BConnect assistive technology. ALONEs recently released 2017 Annual Report cited a sizable growth in the demand for its services, echoing Irelands rapidly changing demographic and the continued difficulties faced by older people across the country. Support services for older people including befriending visits, housing supports and events can be accessed by contacting ALONEs Carlow office on 059-913 6340 or the Kilkenny office on 056-777 2151. For those who have concerns about their own wellbeing, or the wellbeing of an older person in the community, ALONE can be contacted on 01- 679 1032. Druids, witches, lovers of history, archaeology and Irelands mythological past will all converge on Knockroe Passage Tomb on Friday for the winter solstice, which was and is for some, the most important pre-Christian celebration of the year. Nestled between the hills of the Lingaun Valley on the Kilkenny-Tipperary border, lies Knockroes An Caiseal, a Megalithic Passage Tomb, the only Passage Tomb which records both the morning and evening winter solstice events. The morning solstice occurs at 8.40am while the evening Solstice occurs at 3.40pm. The Caiseal Conservation Committee, Suir Valley Environmental Group and Lingaun Valley Tourism will be on hand to oversee parking facilities and provide refreshments to visitors, with a guest speaker scheduled to attend. Returning visitors to Knockroe will notice the new signage at the site and the improvements to the access lane. Nevertheless for those attending the solstice events at Knockroe, remember it is a rural setting and wellies or good boots would be advised, also plan on arriving early as there is a short walk in to the site. The Knockroe site which is older than Newgrange, Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Egypt has the greatest number of decorated stones outside the Boyne Valley. Built more than 5,000 years ago by the first farmers, Knockroe is part of a large collection of interconnected megalithic sites, including Bawnfree, the Kilmacoliver Stone Circle, and the cairn on Slievenamon. Getting there To get there you drive to Callan from Kilkenny city and take the road to Carrick-on-Suir. At the Slate Quarries and opposite Delaneys pub, you turn right and at the top of the hill with the Slate Quarries on your right, you turn right at the top the hill (not left as I did) and go on a couple of hundred yards before turning right again down a farm yard. It's signposted! The US military is seeking a $331 million reimbursement from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after discovering it failed to properly charge the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen for aerial refueling services due to an "accounting error," the Pentagon said Thursday. While the US decided last month that it would no longer refuel Saudi aircraft conducting strike missions over Yemen, the Pentagon still expects to be compensated for the outstanding costs accrued between March 2015 and November of this year. Armed forces Continents and regions Defense departments Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government departments and authorities Government organizations - US International relations and national security Jack Reed Middle East Middle East and North Africa Military National security North America Political Figures - US Politics Saudi Arabia The Americas United States US Congress US Department of Defense US federal departments and agencies US Senate Yemen United Arab Emirates Specifically, the US is working to recoup approximately $36.8 million for fuel and $294.3 million for flight hours, according to Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, who noted that partners have been individually notified about how much they owe. "US Central Command reviewed its records and found errors in accounting where we failed to charge the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) adequately for fuel and refueling services. USCENTCOM calculated the correct charges, and Department of Defense is in the process of seeking reimbursement," she said in a statement to CNN. It was a mistake that was first reported last week by The Atlantic and uncovered during a probe by Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who said Thursday he is encouraged that the Pentagon is now taking steps to recover the funds for US taxpayers. "This is good news for US taxpayers and underscores the need for strong oversight of the Department of Defense. The American people should not be forced to bear these costs and I am encouraged DOD is taking steps to get full reimbursement," Reed said in a statement. But while Reed commended the Pentagon for correcting its accounting mistake, he also made clear that the larger issue remains the ongoing conflict in Yemen between the coalition and Houthi rebels that has "resulted in the largest humanitarian disaster facing the world in recent memory." "The Trump Administration and international community must capitalize on the progress that has been made during the Yemen peace talks in Sweden," Reed said in a statement. "It must be made clear to both the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis that there is no military solution to this conflict and the time has come to reach a sustainable negotiated settlement." "It is time for this war to stop," he added. In a statement Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commended the progress made during the Yemen talks in Sweden, calling the announcement of a ceasefire in the besieged rebel port city of Hodeidah, a "pivotal first step." "All parties have an opportunity to build upon this momentum and improve the lives of all Yemenis. Moving forward, all must continue to engage, de-escalate tensions, and cease ongoing hostilities. This is the best way to give these and future consultations a chance to succeed," he said. But as talks continue, the Senate made clear on Thursday that it wants to end US involvement in the conflict. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a resolution by a 56-41 vote that would require the US to end its military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a move aimed both at ending that war and expressing anger at the Trump administration's handling of relations with Saudi Arabia. While the US no longer refuels coalition aircraft, the US military does provide the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence focused on helping to defend against Houthi cross border missile and drone attacks. US personnel in Saudi Arabia also advise the coalition on processes and procedures and the law of armed conflict, efforts the Pentagon says are aimed at helping to prevent civilian casualties. The vote on the Yemen resolution reflected the frustration senators from parties both have with the vast human suffering from the war and President Donald Trump's embrace of the crown prince despite widely accepted evidence from US intelligence agencies that he ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, utilized the War Powers Act to attempt to force an end to US involvement in the war, even as GOP leaders argued it wasn't necessary because the US was not directly involved in combat and had stopped refueling war planes from Saudi Arabia and other counties in its coalition. Despite the broad support in the Senate, the GOP-led House is not expected to take a vote on it, meaning the legislation will die at the end of the year when the current congressional session ends. DES MOINES, Iowa The sentence of a North Iowa burglar is upheld by the states Supreme Court. Montez Javon Lamont Guise, 27 of Mason City, was arrested in January 2017 after law enforcement said he forced his way into a Mason City home on New Years Eve and physically prevented two people inside from leaving. Montez eventually pleaded guilty to 2nd degree burglary and a false imprisonment charge was dismissed. In March 2017, the District Court judge ignored a plea deal that called for Guise to receive a suspended sentence and instead gave him up to 10 years in prison. As part of the sentencing, an Iowa Revised Risk assessment was done of Guise and recommended he be supervised at an intensive level. Guise argued the judge should not have used that evaluation at his sentencing. The Iowa Court of Appeals agreed the risk assessment should not have been used and vacated Guises sentence. The Iowa Supreme Court reversed that decision Friday, stating the judge was allowed to consider the assessment because Guise did not object to it at his sentencing, and reinstated his 10 year prison sentence. ROCHESTER, Minn. A man accused of fighting with his girlfriends parents is pleading not guilty. Richard Morrison, 21 of Rochester, is charged with one count of gross misdemeanor domestic assault. Police say he had to be physically restrained before being taken to the hospital after an incident on September 23. Morrison reportedly threw a patio table at a 47-year-old woman, breaking her nose, and was then taken to the ground by a 48-year-old man. No trial date has been set. DES MOINES, Iowa The Iowa Supreme Court has reversed an Appeals Court ruling on the sentence of a North Iowa sex offender. Sean David Gordon, 27 of Charles City, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2017 for 3rd degree sexual abuse. Authorities say he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in June 2016 when Gordon was 24. Gordon appealed his sentence, arguing the District Court judge improperly considered a sex offender evaluation which stated Gordon was at a high risk to reoffend and a Chickasaw County drug arrest that happened between his conviction and sentencing. The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled there is no legislative authorization for judges to use sex offender risk assessments during sentencing and ordered Gordon be resentenced. The State of Iowa then appealed that ruling. The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that Gordon had the opportunity to challenge the use of the sex offender risk assessment at his sentencing but failed to do so, making it reasonable for the judge to rely on it when making a decision. The Supreme Court also ruled that since Gordon admitted to the Chickasaw County drug crime as part of his sentencing, the judge was free to consider it. Therefore, Gordons 10 year prison term is affirmed. FOREST CITY, Iowa A Winnebago County man is pleading not guilty to dealing marijuana. Braylin Martez Blocton, 22 of Forest City, is charged with possession with intent to deliver marijuana and failure to use a drug tax stamp. He was charged on November 7 after law enforcement searched his apartment on S 4th Street. Court documents state that 42 grams of pot, a scale, and a large amount of cash was found in a large safe. Blocton has waived his right to speedy trial and his is now scheduled to start on February 27. SHEFFIELD, Iowa - It's a trend seen across the nation: fewer people are choosing to live in rural communities. According to the latest U.S. Census information from August 2017, about 19% of people in the U.S. lived in rural areas. However, 'Empower Rural Iowa', a recent initiative established by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, is aiming to change that through three key recommendations: investing, growing and connecting. "You hear so many great things happening in rural communities and sometimes when you see that, it can be replicated in other areas." Justin Wagner is the Superintendent of schools in the western Iowa town of Harlan. He's also a member of the Growing Iowa Task Force, which is a committee that's part of the Governor's initiative that's focusing on identifying ways to encourage leadership development and strategic development. (There are two other committees within the initiative: the Investing in Rural Iowa Task Force, which focuses on improving access to quality housing, and the Connecting Rural Iowa Task Force, which is focusing on financing connectivity, such as expansion of broadband internet access, as well as an executive committee.) He came to the meeting at Sukup Manufacturing in Sheffield, where leaders ranging from businesses and organizations to state representatives gathered to discuss and vote on recommendations. He appreciates what is being discussed, and notes three takeaways that are key to him. "Love the broadband. Love the connectivity conversation, because broadband is sometimes different than connectivity, and that's an important piece. Sometimes we lose some of those granular pieces when we're talking big picture. Health care...you talk about health care in smaller communities. And then how do you lure some of those folks that have been born and raised in rural communities that want to come back?" Governor Reynolds formed the initiative in July 2018, with Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg and Sandy Ehrig of the Iowa Rural Development Council as co-chairs. "I've said that for Iowa to be truly successful, we have to see growth in every single corner of the state, and that's what this group is tasked with." And believes that there is plenty of potential to turn these ideas into reality. "We've seen really positive things happening, but there's still a lot to do. The three things that we really focused on I think are foundational for us to continue to grow. But as I indicated in my remarks, this is just the beginning. We're just getting started." Gov. Reynolds says that she will present the recommendations from the visit in her Condition of the State address and during the upcoming legislative session. ESTHERVILLE, Iowa (AP) Eight northwest Iowa families are fighting a company they blame for not doing enough to address the smell of dead, rotting hogs from a nearby rendering plant. The Des Moines Register reports that an attorney for the Estherville families filed a motion this week pushing for Emmet County leaders to take stronger action against Central Bi-Products, a Minnesota-based company. The families say the county isn't doing enough to ensure the problem gets fixed after three years of "extremely noxious, highly objectionable odors." The families' attorney filed a motion to intervene in an Emmet County petition that seeks $4,750 from Farmers Union Industries, the parent of Central Bi-Products, for violating its conditional-use permit. The plant's owner has said it's making improvements that should reduce the odor. ROCHESTER, Minn. A man accused of dealing drugs out of a home where children lives is pleading guilty. Samuel Alejandro Martinez-Muniz, 36 of Rochester, pleaded guilty to 2nd degree controlled substance crime. He was arrested in July after Rochester police said they found about 50 grams of powder cocaine in a home with two children under the age of 10. Martinez-Muniz has been sentenced to 25 years of supervised probation. MASON CITY, Iowa - A Mason City man is facing a felony domestic abuse charge after allegedly leaving marks after choking a woman. Brian Smith, 35, is accused of domestic abuse assault-impeding air/blood flow after an alleged incident in the 1400 block of N. President Ave. on Thursday afternoon. The incident stemmed from an argument, court documents state, and the victim suffered red marks in the pattern of fingers around her neck and throat. The victim said she was hit several times in the head and face and had some minor discoloration and bruising. The woman was also allegedly struck in her rib cage and abdomen. DES MOINES, Iowa A Mason City thief loses in the Iowa Supreme Court. Mitch Buesing, 29 of Mason City, was convicted of 1st and 2nd degree theft and sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison. Authorities say he stole over $10,000 worth of items from a womans Mason City home in September 2016 and then a search of his home in March 2017 turned up a multitude of stolen items. Buesing appealed his sentence, arguing it was inappropriate because it relied upon an Iowa Revised Risk assessment that determined Buesing was at a high risk to reoffend. The Iowa Supreme Court rejected that argument on Friday because he did not raise such an objection at his sentencing hearing and affirmed his 10 year sentence. STRASBOURG, France (AP) The man authorities say killed three people near a Christmas market in Strasbourg died Tuesday in a shootout with police at the end of two-day manhunt, French authorities said. Paris prosecutor's office, which handles terror cases in France, formally identified the man killed in the eastern French city as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists. The news came a couple of hours after Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said a man believed to be Chekatt had been gunned down during a police operation in the city's Neudorf neighborhood. Castaner said the suspect opened fire on police Thursday night when officials tried to arrest him. "The moment they tried to arrest him, he turned around and opened fired. They replied," Castaner said. A local police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the man who shot at police was armed with a pistol and a knife. Strasbourg mayor Roland Ries said police acted on a top from a woman. Local police officer Emmanuel Georg told BFM TV station that three police officers patrolling the neighborhood tried to intercept a suspect corresponding to Chekatt's description as he was about to enter a building. "He opened fired, they responded and managed to shoot him down," Georg said. A witness to the shootout said he heard shots and rushed to the window to see what was happening. He closed the shutters when he spotted the cornered suspect across the street. "I was very afraid for my children, I told them to go away, and I went to the side," Cem Akcakaya told The Associated Press. After it was over, he said he saw the man motionless on his back on the pavement, his left arm askew. Chekatt is accused of killing three people and wounding 13 on Tuesday night. Castaner said earlier Thursday that three of the injured had been released from hospital and three others were fighting for their lives. More than 700 officers were deployed to find Chekatt, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. French authorities said Chekatt had 27 criminal convictions, receiving the first at age 13. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online, said the Islamic State group's Amaq news agency was claiming the gunman as a "soldier" of the group, although IS claims of responsibility have often been considered opportunistic in the past. Security forces, including the elite Raid squad, spent hours searching in the Neudorf neighborhood on Thursday based on "supposition only" that Chekatt could have been hiding in a building nearby two days after the attack, a French police official said. Chekatt grew up in Neudorf. Chekatt allegedly shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market Tuesday evening. Authorities said he was wounded during an exchange of fire with security forces and a taxi driver dropped him off in Neudorf after he escaped. So far, five people have been arrested and remanded in custody in connection with the investigation, including Chekatt's parents and two of his brothers. The Paris prosecutor's office said the fifth, who was arrested Thursday at an undisclosed location, was a member of Chekatt's "entourage" but not a family member. France has raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level since the attack and deployed 1,800 additional soldiers across the country to help patrol streets and secure crowded events. Residents of Strasbourg's Neudorf neighborhood expressed relief. "Everybody's quite happy that the killer has been finally shot. I think now, the city and life can keep going on in Strasbourg," resident Pierre Plasse said. The people who died in the attack included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry. Five of the wounded were in serious condition, the prefecture of the Strasbourg region said. French President Emmanuel Macron was in Brussels on Thursday for a European Union summit. EU leaders held a minute of silence for the latest victims of a mass shooting in France. Hundreds of people gathered in Strasbourg's 500-year-old cathedral Thursday evening to mourn and seek comfort. "Evil does not prevail," Archbishop Luc Ravel said. "And the message of Christmas has not been contradicted but rather confirmed by Tuesday's dramatic night: Evil and good are both there, but in the end the good will have last word." Strasbourg's usually busy streets were eerily empty Thursday morning, with a heavy police and military presence. Some lit candles and brought flowers to a makeshift memorial at the site of the attack. "You can feel a very heavy atmosphere due all these events," said resident Lucille Romance. "People are in a state of shock and are avoiding getting out of their house." CHARLES CITY, Iowa - Imagine for a moment the plight of a shut-in unable to leave home for food and prepare meals at home. For one North Iowa community, a savior has come forward to rescue the local Meals on Wheels program. In September, the Floyd County Medical Center announced it would be pulling out of its Meals on Wheels commitment because of the program's costs having a negative impact on the hospital's Medicare reimbursement. This week, Apple Valley Assisted Living announced that they will take over and start preparing meals beginning January 7th. Kathryn Hovey counts on the program and remembers getting the bad news. "I thought 'oh no, what am I gonna do now?' I just surmised that somebody would come up with a plan and somebody else would do it. And I guess the wishes were granted." She appreciates not only the nutritious meals, but also the sense of companionship. "I usually ask who they are and we get to know each other and visit a bit. And I'm very happy with the people that come, some of them I've known for years." According to the Floyd County Medical Center, Meals on Wheels cost the hospital over $245,000 last year, and delivered 10,593 meals. The program is locally paid for by individuals and donations, as well as through the managed care companies United Healthcare and AmeriGroup, but receives no government funding. NORTHWOOD, Iowa An attempted murder trial that was to have started this week is rescheduled for February. Trapp Leroy Trotter, 32 of Northwood, is now set to stand trial on February 19, 2019, in Bremer County. Hes facing charges of attempted murder, 1st degree burglary, and 4th degree criminal mischief for a June 2 attack on Andrew Nodtvedt. The trial was moved out of Worth County due to pre-trial publicity and was set to begin Tuesday, but has been pushed back into 2019. ROCHESTER, Minn.- In 2016, Governor Mark Dayton and Lt. Governor Tina Smith announced the Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program which gave over 3,000 4-year-olds access to early education. But, in about a month Governor Mark Dayton will step down and Governor Elect Tim Walz will be taking his place. In response to keeping the bill by Governor mark Dayton which has helped thousands of children receive early education, the Governor Elect tells KIMT, As I talked about during the campaign, early childhood education will be a priority of mine as governor. I hope to build on the incredible legacy of Governor Mark Dayton, and ensure every family has the opportunity to send their child to preschool, no matter where they live. On Thursday evening, parents gathered at the Rochester Public Library eager to learn about all their early education options as several schools from the area set up their tables in the auditorium of the library. Preschool, though, is expensive and some families just can't afford it. One day care provider hopes state funding for preschool will continue under Minnesota's new governor. "We are advocates for every child having access to a quality program and we already program with scholarship agencies that are funded by the state and accept children who get state funding for preschool so if more children could get funding to go into programs like that it would be wonderful for our program and wonderful for the children of Minnesota to get quality education." ROCHESTER, Minn. - Authorities are trying to track down a man in his late 30s or early 40s who allegedly pulled out his penis in front of a 16-year-old girl on a Rochester city bus. Authorities said the girl dropped something on the bus floor and noticed the man exposing himself. The girl got off the bus and walked into Canadian Honker and the man continued walking along 2nd St. Restaurant staff helped the girl get ahold of her mother who then picked her up. The suspect is described as a white male with longer dark hair wearing an orangish-brown thick coat. Rochester Police are working with public transit to obtain surveillance video from the bus. ROCHESTER, Minn. A woman who police say got into an accident with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit is pleading not guilty. Arek Chuor, 31 of Rochester, is charged with two counts of 2nd degree DWI, driving after revocation, and speeding. She was arrested after Rochester police responded to a multi-vehicle accident on September 21 at 12th Street and Marion road. Officers say Chuor appeared extremely intoxicated and tests showed her to have a blood alcohol level of .32. Police say there were also empty beer containers in her backseat and two small bottles of Fireball in Chuors purse. Her trial is scheduled to being on April 15, 2019. WASHINGTON (AP) Congress approved an overhaul Thursday of its process for handling sexual harassment claims, capping a tumultuous year that saw more than a half-dozen lawmakers resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The bill passed both chambers and holds lawmakers, including those who leave office, financially liable for settlements resulting from harassment and retaliation. There is no cap on the amount a lawmaker would be liable for. It also eliminates mandatory counseling and mediation for victims, as well as the "cooling off" period that they are now required to observe before filing a lawsuit or requesting an administrative hearing. The legislation now heads to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. Efforts to overhaul the Congressional Accountability Act, which hasn't been significantly updated since its passage in 1995, began a year ago, when Capitol Hill found itself squarely at the center of the #MeToo movement. Allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct brought down several powerful, longtime lawmakers. "Today, the Congress made historic progress to uphold human dignity and protect the inalienable right to live free from harassment or abuse," said Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. "This bill protects everyone in our legislative community from workplace abuse and helps foster a climate of respect and dignity in our institution." The bill allows staffers access to a confidential adviser who is an attorney and able to offer technical assistance, advice and guidance, but not legal representation. The House earlier this year passed a separate resolution giving their own staffers access to House counsel, an extra protection not included in the final bill. It also requires public reporting of settlements, including identifying lawmakers who are personally liable, and extends protections to interns, fellows and other staff. "My message is quite clear: Time's up," said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who over the past year has become a poster child for the #MeToo movement on Capitol Hill after sharing her own story of being harassed by a high-level aide when she was a young staffer. "Time is finally up for members of Congress who think they can sexually harass and get away with it. They will no longer be able to slink away with no one knowing that they have harassed. There will be transparency, and members will be held accountable." The legislation specifies that in the case of a court award or a settlement, lawmakers who don't reimburse the payment amount in a lump sum could have their wages, or possibly their Social Security checks, garnished. "Time's up for everyone who thought victims could somehow be ignored," Speier said. "They will not be ignored anymore." The final bill doesn't include some House measures, including making lawmakers liable for discrimination settlements and requiring an independent investigation into harassment complaints at the beginning of the process. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., a former labor and employment attorney and member of the Committee on House Administration, said the bill doesn't include a "a real investigation and I don't think anybody can pretend that." Byrne and Speier plan to introduce a measure next year mandating a thorough independent investigation and requiring House lawmakers to pay back settlements stemming from discrimination. Speier said the Senate would not agree to make their own lawmakers liable for discrimination complaints, but the chamber has said it would bring the bill to a vote when it's introduced. It will pertain only to House lawmakers, not senators. The bill passed Thursday will not apply to past lawmakers. On Thursday the nonprofit organization The Purple Campaign and Congress Too, a group of 1,500 former staffers who sent letters to lawmakers imploring them to strengthen anti-harassment protections on Capitol Hill, called the bill "a powerful message to these survivors that their stories were heard." "Down every hallway and behind every door in Congress are good and dedicated people often young people who work long hours for little pay in hopes of improving the world around them" the groups said. "They deserve to serve their country in an institution that serves and protects them, and we're hopeful these reforms will do just that." HANCOCK COUNTY, Iowa - A gas station employee is accused of stealing from her employer on several occasions. BreAnna Hedegard, 25, is facing charges of felony lottery fraud-forgery and fourth-degree theft in connection to some incidents at Caseys General Store. According to court documents filed this week by the Britt Police Department, she was seen on multiple occasions taking money from the register and the managers office. She is also accused of taking a lottery ticket printed in error and scanning the ticket before taking the prize money. Authorities said the actions were captured on video surveillance and that Hedegard denied the accusations. Its the year-end tax-savings rush, which means theres a lot of advice floating around about how businesses can best take advantage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law last December. It famously cut the corporate tax rate to a mere 21%, along with some other goodies that got business owners excited. But as a CPA and tax attorney, this is a frustrating time for me. Why? Because new law or not, so much end-of-year tax planning advice seems conservative and reactionary. Business owners panic as the year closes and, in their haste, end up scrambling for quick savings instead of planning for long-term fixes. That means settling for low-hanging fruit, and I hate to see businesses making decisions just to get a write-off. The best tax decisions are made because they are good for the business, period. They require more planning and analysis, but also offer much more significant savings. These are hard decisions that cant be made against an end-of-year deadline. For example, a lot of accountants are excited about the new, full, higher limit of first-year write-off depreciation on the purchase of new equipment, rather than the previous limits and normal deduction that happened over five to seven years. Its a decent saving, and tax planners will probably tell business owners to go out and buy a new truck to take advantage. But was it really needed? Another newcomer is the pass-through deduction of up to 20% for qualified business income under Internal Revenue Service Code Section 199A. What this pass-through means for taxpayers is still being worked out. But its new and looks potentially helpful to those seeking last-minute savings, so theres a rush to qualify. As attractive as these new features might seem, the law didnt change everything. In fact, these newer benefits pale in comparison to what was previously available. The older provisions that survived unscathed could ultimately reduce your tax burden by multiples of what the more recent savings might offer, provided you plan for them. Here are a few ideas that, if done right, are good for both your taxes and your business. Create your own insurance company If you have risks inside of your business that arent insured, you can create a private insurance company to cover them. The paperwork isnt your concern thats up to your adviser and whoever they hire to set up the company and buy into a larger pool of reinsurance. The only cost to you is an independent assessment of that risk and utilization of a valid risk-sharing model. In return, you can write off the insurance premiums as a business expense. For instance, if you run a business where the primary owners reputation is the essence of the enterprise, you can insure against the risk of that reputation being damaged in a criminal or civil proceeding or in another way thats even harder to anticipate. That's a huge risk to the business that isnt accounted for. In one move, you can both insure that risk and reduce your taxable income. If it sounds exotic, just remember that some lasting businesses Geico for starters began their lives as private insurance companies, otherwise known as captives. Separate your companys functions Every company has different parts, like marketing and strategic planning. There are times when those parts are a significant portion of the business and generate income. If so, those functions can then be broken out into separate companies that can yield different tax advantages. Say you have an in-house marketing department that throws off cash. Create a new company with a fiscal year that ends nine months later and suddenly youve found a way to extend your use of working capital while also reducing your primary companys tax burden. Think hard about what sort of entity makes the most sense Choice of entity is more important than it's ever been, both because of changes in the law and the corresponding changes in what benefits can be offered by each type of entity. Once you break out the different parts of your business into businesses themselves, then you get to choose what kind of entity theyll become. Maybe that means an S Corp, for the tax-free fringe benefits it offers to your employees. (Though not to you, the company owner.) Or maybe its a C Corp, which gives you more flexibility in choosing your fiscal year end to better reflect your business cycle and control the timing and recognition of your income. Whatever your choice, dont neglect the fact that you have a choice. I cant tell you how to structure your business. But there are ways to allow for long-term planning and good tax strategy, too. Even though accountants have some new tax cuts to sell to their clients, business owners need to understand they're still likely paying more than they need to in large part because of a failure to plan. Wheaton Precious Metals says it has settled a tax dispute with the Canada Revenue Agency related to transfer-pricing rules for the 2005-2010 period for income generated by its wholly owned foreign subsidies. Foreign income on earnings generated by Wheaton International will not be subject to tax in Canada, the company says. However, a service fee charged by Wheaton for the services provided to Wheaton International will be adjusted to include capital-raising costs associated with Wheaton for the purpose of funding streaming transactions entered into by Wheaton International and to increase the mark-up applied to Wheatons cost of providing services to Wheaton International. The additional service fee will result in increased Wheaton income subject to Canadian taxes, the company says. The transfer-pricing principles will apply to years after 2010, including the 2011 to 2015 tax years that are currently under audit, the company says. The terms of the settlement are an excellent outcome for Wheaton and its shareholders, says Randy Smallwood, Wheatons president and chief executive officer. Credit Suisse issued a report calling the settlement an early Christmas gift for Wheaton. We expect the stock to react positively to the news given the tax dispute was an overhang and was expected to be resolved during the September 2019 trial, Credit Suisse says. By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com Coeur Mining Names New CFO Coeur Mining, Inc. (NYSE: CDE) reports that Thomas S. Whelan has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective Jan. He succeeds Peter C. Mitchell, who is retiring. Whelan was CFO of Arizona Mining and has a background in accounting, capital markets, risk management, financial planning, tax, management and strategy, along with knowledge of the metals and mining industry, Coeur says. Tom brings over 25 years of financial, operational and strategic experience that make him the ideal choice for the role, says Mitchell J. Krebs, president and chief executive officer. Coeur also announces that Terry F.D. Smith has been named senior vice president of operations after having previously been vice president of North American operations. He has been instrumental to our efforts to optimize and reposition our asset portfolio since joining Coeur in 2013 and is deserving of this expanded role, Krebs says. By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com Alamos: Two Employees Missing After Mine Accident In Mexico Alamos Gold Inc. (TSX, NYSE: AGI) reports that two employees and missing and presumed dead after an accident Thursday at the Mulatos Mine in Mexico. The incident involved an unexpected pit slope movement in the El Salto area of the open, pit where pre-stripping activities were being conducted, the company says. Alamos is investigating the accident and has notified the authorities, the company says. We are profoundly saddened by this accident. The safety of our employees is our highest priority and the loss of these two individuals is a shock to us all, says John A. McCluskey, president and chief executive officer. Editor's Note:Kitco News has officially launched Outlook 2019 - Rush To Safety the definitive reference for precious metals investors for the new year. We chose this year's theme as financial markets face growing uncertainty. With volatility on the rise, how do you protect yourself? Click here daily to see updated content. (Kitco News) - Our fan favorite "Invest Like the Experts is back and this time with a twist! Instead of asking our Experts to invest a specific amount in 2019, we decided to ask them what percentage investors should look to put into the market next year. We have lined up some of the best-known names in the industry to find out just how much and more importantly, how they would invest their money in the new year. 2018 has proven to be an interesting year for precious metals, with gold currently trading lower from its highs earlier in the year. However, George Gero of RBC Wealth Management says it may be too early to give up on the metal. Could gold be preparing for a new-year rally? Find out what the experts have to say! PART I: Hold Even More Cash In 2019 - RBC's Gero PART II: Investors Brace Yourselves, It's Time To Hold Cash - Doug Casey PART III: Invest The Warren Buffett Way In 2019 Says This Expert PART IV: Stay Away From U.S. Markets, This Sector Will Boom In 2019 - Peter Schiff PART V: Jim Rickards Says Cut Your Losses and Invest Here in 2019 George Gero Expert: George Gero Claim to Fame: Managing Director at RBC Wealth Management, CME-COMEX Division Board Member If an average homeowner has disposable income, what percentage do you think they should invest in 2019? First of all, "expect to keep 15% [up from 10%] in cash equivalents due to market conditions, he told Kitco News. Where should someone invest in 2019? Which sectors are likely to boom in 2019? Gero said that the sectors he thinks will perform well include: precious metals and gold, utilities, banks, large cap and dividend growth stocks. What are the first steps anyone should take before making any investment? To Gero, sound investments can be found with well-known, high-grade companies that are well rated. What is the biggest red flag for you when it comes to considering a new investment? "A red flag would be junk rated, less than investment grade and recently downgraded companies, he warned. Looking back, what was the best investment you made in 2018? "Exchange stocks like CME, ICE, CBOE, among others as volatility added fees, he explained. What was one missed opportunity for you in 2018? For Gero, the tech giants were among the missed opportunities of the year including, "Amazon, Walmart and some FANG stocks. What was the biggest market surprise for you in 2018? BREXIT. While Brexit is still in talks, the focus has now shifted to how the U.K will actually break away from the European Union. According to Gero, the biggest surprise of 2018, "comes from fallout on Brexit as British investors realize the extent of economic dislocations. Finally, what is the best investment advice you ever received? "Dont try to time the markets; buy and hold quality for the long term like Warren Buffet, he said. He added that it is always sound for an investor to, "keep 10% in precious metals. PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Jon Kyl, who was appointed to replace the late John McCain, will step down from office on Dec. 31, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said in a statement on Friday. Kyl was only expected to serve as a short-term placeholder to occupy the seat until after the November 2018 election. Arizona needed someone who could hit the ground running from day one and represent our state with experience and confidence and thats exactly what Senator Kyl has done, Ducey said in a statement. Kyl, who served 18 years in the Senate before retiring in 2013, was appointed to the seat in August after McCains death from brain cancer. At the time, he indicated he had no interest in running for another term. Kyl was working at the Washington law firm Covington & Burling, where he was a lobbyist for corporate clients including Northrop Grumman, JW Aluminum and Qualcomm. Ducey is expected to replace Kyl with a Republican - meaning the replacement will not affect the balance of power in the Senate - who will hold the seat until a special election can be held in 2020. The governor could fill the seat with a Republican who has a better chance of winning election to the seat in 2020. Or he could opt for another placeholder who would not seek the seat during the special election. Likely to be atop a short list of potential candidates is Martha McSally, who ran unsuccessfully this year for the other Senate seat from Arizona. McSally, a Republican and former member of the U.S. House, was defeated by Democrat Krysten Sinema in November. Ducey did not provide a timeline for naming a replacement. (Adds statements from Paulson and Detour) By Susan Taylor and John Benny Dec 13 (Reuters) - Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulsons success in ousting the bulk of Detour Gold Corps board could serve as a template for an expected increase in shareholder activism in the gold sector, institutional investors said on Thursday. The Canadian mining companys shareholders voted for five board nominees backed by Paulson & Co at a special meeting on Thursday, and Detours interim chief executive officer and the chairman were not re-elected to the nine-member board. Paulsons campaign could have implications across the sector, where activism is historically low, returns have been disappointing, compensation is above-average and insider ownership is below-average, Desjardins Group analysts wrote in a note. You want to look at situations like this and use them as a template, said David Neuhauser, founder of U.S. hedge fund Livermore Partners who sees growing activism as highly probable. Livermore, which backed Paulsons slate, has about 10 percent of its investments in gold and could double that in the next year, Neuhauser said. It has under $100 million of assets under management. The hedge fund is also a member of the Shareholders Gold Council, formed by Paulson this year for institutional investors looking to work with management to improve returns. Paulson, which has a 5.7 percent stake in Detour, had pushed for a complete change of the board and the resignation of interim CEO Michael Kenyon, saying that under his leadership the company had unsuccessfully tried to boost short-term performance and run up accounts payable to exaggerate cash flows. Kenyon stepped down on Thursday. Newly-elected Chairman James Gowans said he looked forward to working with the board to recruit a new CEO. Detour shareholders voted to keep the size of the board at nine, while Paulson was backing an eight member board consisting of its candidates. The often caustic proxy fight between Detour and Paulson, which began in June, may encourage companies and boards to pro-actively make changes, said Doug Groh, co-manager of Tocqueville Gold Fund. Other companies in the space have to take note, because they could become a target, Groh said. Coast Capital Management partner James Ratesh it would take time for increased activism to play out. Rateshs New York fund, which voted for a dramatic change at Detour, studied the sector for three years before picking investments. Today, gold represents over 25 percent of its portfolio. You have to put a lot of effort and resources to be an effective activist in the space. Weve done that, Ratesh said. (Reporting by Shanti S Nair and John Benny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Anil DSilva) Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Snow showers this evening. Becoming partly cloudy later. Some rain may mix in early. Low 33F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 70%.. Tonight Snow showers this evening. Becoming partly cloudy later. Some rain may mix in early. Low 33F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 70%. Angola, IN (46703) Today Cloudy with snow showers mainly during the evening. Low 29F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 100%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.. Tonight Cloudy with snow showers mainly during the evening. Low 29F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 100%. Snow accumulations less than one inch. Auburn, IN (46706) Today Snow this evening will give way to some clearing late. Some rain may mix in early. Low 33F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 90%.. Tonight Snow this evening will give way to some clearing late. Some rain may mix in early. Low 33F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 90%. In this article, you will find an explanation of the disadvantages of military rule in Nigeria. Long years of military rule have affected the executive, legislature and judiciary systems of Nigeria. The values and norms imbibe manifests in the practice of the current democracy. Learn more what the effects of the military rule on the democratic values of the Nigerian environment are. Photo from: topsimages.com Source: Depositphotos What is a military rule? It is a form of government in which the military as an organization holds the supreme power. The terms military rule or military regime which are synonymous refer to one of the types of authoritarian regime. The importance of military force is difficult to dispute. The army is assigned to defend the territorial integrity of the country. When the army is used to control over the affairs of state, the military rule enters into force. In countries with military rule, violence is often used by the government, however, the military rule may also involve attempts to achieve a consent between the government and national communities. Sometimes, military leaders usually simulate the rule of law trying to implement their own rules. Military rule features a high level of relative autonomy thanks to the means of coercion. Military rules are known to foster militarism and the glorification of war. Many military leaders prefer to continue war by all the possible means. READ ALSO: Nigerian leaders from 1960 till date Photo: thenationonlineng.net Source: Depositphotos Military rule in Nigeria Like many other African countries, Nigerias postcolonial history is quite checkered. Nigerias strive for democracy was ruined by military rule. After gaining independence in 1960, in Nigeria, there were 8 military leaders who led the country into a deep corruption. The overthrow of federalism not only suspended Nigerias progress but it has also started 50 years of traumatic experience. Military rule in Nigeria was overthrown in 1999 when General Obasanjo won a free and fair election. He had captured 61 percent of the vote after 29 of Nigeria's 36 states. Photo from: buzznigeria.com Source: Depositphotos What are the disadvantages of military rule in Nigeria? It is interesting that the present day president of Nigeria, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari is a retired military officer who had also served as military head of state. Nigerians are still feeling the strong negative effects of the military rule. Country growth has been sacrificed on the altar of false federalism. The prolonged military rule in Nigeria has caused a lot of negative effects. Lets take a closer look at this phenomenon and the disadvantages of military rule in Nigeria: Ruined economy. During the military rule, from 1966 until 1999, Nigerias economy was ruined, Nigerian civil service which was the best in Africa was destroyed. During the military rule, from 1966 until 1999, Nigerias economy was ruined, Nigerian civil service which was the best in Africa was destroyed. Suffering education and culture. An educational system that competed with the world's most effective schools was killed not to mention Nigerian culture which suffered during the entire period of military rule. An educational system that competed with the world's most effective schools was killed not to mention Nigerian culture which suffered during the entire period of military rule. Corruption. When the military becomes a supreme power of a country, such things as corruption, looting, injustice take place in social life. The institutionalised corruption has become an enemy number 1 of Nigerian people. Corruption ruled everywhere, in most of the government institutions. When the military becomes a supreme power of a country, such things as corruption, looting, injustice take place in social life. The institutionalised corruption has become an enemy number 1 of Nigerian people. Corruption ruled everywhere, in most of the government institutions. Limited freedoms and rights. The military rule implies that everything has two sides, bad and good. In the military rule, everyone loses all the kinds of freedoms, namely, freedom to be alive, freedom of speech, association, belief, self-expression, press and other. The civilians have no place or authority to run to in trouble as officers have an unlimited power and are allowed even to kill a person without any reason. The military rule implies that everything has two sides, bad and good. In the military rule, everyone loses all the kinds of freedoms, namely, freedom to be alive, freedom of speech, association, belief, self-expression, press and other. The civilians have no place or authority to run to in trouble as officers have an unlimited power and are allowed even to kill a person without any reason. Unruly country's system of government. The biggest disadvantage of the military rule appears when a country's system of government becomes unruly. One of the advantages of the military rule may be setting discipline and order back into place. It is able to restore order and structure, but the most important disadvantage is that no one has the authority to check the work of people in charge. Military leaders become powerful very quickly using just force which leads to more corrupt policy. The biggest disadvantage of the military rule appears when a country's system of government becomes unruly. One of the advantages of the military rule may be setting discipline and order back into place. It is able to restore order and structure, but the most important disadvantage is that no one has the authority to check the work of people in charge. Military leaders become powerful very quickly using just force which leads to more corrupt policy. Praising of war. The main problem with the military rule is that the military leaders can start to view a military regime may become the only purpose in life. They can praise war to such extent that if they could start a war, they would initiate military conflict. READ ALSO: Effect of nationalism in Nigeria Photo from: thescoopng.com Source: Depositphotos Fortunately, the military rulers seemed to understand that military rule had a lot of negative effects because of their unprofessionalism. Military rule in Nigeria has significantly hindered the efforts to implement democracy as it ruined all the opportunities to establish and gradually institutionalize democratic principles through the conscious efforts of the elites and political leaders. Military rule caused a shift in the political, social and cultural life of Nigerians, but it had a lot of disadvantages to the Nigerian environment. READ ALSO: Advantages of democracy over military rule in Nigeria Source: Legit Nigeria - A traditional ruler has called for support for troops of the Nigerian Army - The Olowu of Owu Kuta said accusing troops of war crimes was mischievous and disheartening - He urged Nigerians irrespective of political affiliation or convictions to come together and resist the cheap blackmail against our Army A highly respected traditional ruler in Yorubaland, the Olowu of Owu Kuta, Oba Hammed Adekunle Makama Oyelude, has called for total support for the Nigerian Army on the war against terrorism. The Olowu was reacting to a report in the media which indicted the Nigerian Army for war crimes in countering Boko Haram and other threats to the country. The monarch said the report, which accused the troops of war crimes was mischievous and disheartening, considering the sacrifices the soldiers have made in restoring peace back to the nation. READ ALSO: We said it - PDP says it is vindicated as court confirms Kashamus sack Oba Oyelude, while addressing a press conference on Thursday, December 13, at his ancestral palace, urged Nigerians irrespective of political affiliation or convictions to come together and resist the cheap blackmail against our Army. He said: We were thrown into mourning some weeks ago, when our soldiers were killed by insurgents. This resulted in low morale among troops and one must acknowledge all efforts put in place by the present administration and previous ones in motivating the Army to do its job. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda I believe the only way to go is for Nigerians in rare show of patriotism to reject this assertion and keep supporting the ongoing efforts of the present government through the Army and other security agencies in protecting the integrity and sanctity of our sovereignty." Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, gave an account of military losses in recent weeks to Boko Haram terrorists. A statement signed by Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka, on behalf of Buratai and issued on Wednesday, November 28, made this known. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet Buratai had also disclosed that 39 soldiers were killed and 43 others wounded in multiple attacks coordinated by Boko Haram insurgents on various military locations in the past few weeks. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Survivors of Boko Haram - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng President Muhammadu Buhari, in the evening of Thursday, December 13, appointed Suleiman Hassan, the minister of state for power, works and housing, as the replacement for Ibrahim Jibril, who has been selected a new emir in Nasarawa. With the minor cabinet reshuffle, Hassan is the new minister of environment. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Premium Times reports that the spokesperson of the president, Garba Shehu, announced the appointment in a short statement. According to Shehu, Buhari announced the new appointment at the end of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday, December 12. Legit.ng earlier reported that Nigerias minister of state for environment, Usman Jibrin, on Thursday, December 6, emerged as the 13th emir of Nasarawa town. Jibrin took over the ministry after the resignation of Amina Mohammed, who is currently serving at the United Nations. Meanwhile, Ibrahim Jubril resigned his seat after he was declared Emir of Nasarawa, on Friday, December 7, following his selection by the Nasarawa Emirate Council and the approval by Nasarawa state governor. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news updates A valedictory session was held in honour of Jubril as he turned up dressed in his turban for the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better. Top 3 Nigerian Political Divorces: Breakups That Affect Everyone | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Barrister Benjamin Onwuka has been arraigned before the Federal High Court, Owerri division - Onwuka, leader of the Biafra Zionists Federation (BZF), has been in the custody of Department of State Services (DSS) for the past five months - The deputy leader of the BZF has demanded that the federal government order the immediate release of Onwuka The leader of the Biafra Zionists Federation (BZF), Barrister Benjamin Onwuka, has been arraigned before the Federal High Court, Owerri division. Onwuka who has been in the custody of DSS for the past five months, was remanded in prison custody. It could be re-called that Onwuka, who was arrested in August after an encounter with security operatives, has been incommunicado ever since. However, the deputy leader of the group, Mazi Ambrose Ugwu, told journalists in Enugu on Thursday, December 13, that Onwuka has been docked at the Federal High Court, Owerri by the DSS. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda His words: I can confirm to you that our leader has finally been arraigned in court by the DSS. After keeping him away from us and other members of the public for over three months, they arraigned him at the Federal High Court, Owerri. The trial judge remanded him in prison on the premise that he may jump bail. While describing the latest development as unacceptable, he called on the federal government to order for the immediate release of their leader. Our demand has not changed. The Biafra leader, Barrister Benjamin Onwuka has not done anything to warrant his being incarcerated. This is not but oppression and suppression of our rights to freedom as guaranteed under the Nigeria Constitution and other international treaties. He should be immediately release unconditionally because they have done more damage to his rights already by keeping him incommunicado for over three months. The DSS has no right to have kept him for such long a time without charging him to court. Now, that he has been arraigned, the claim of his jumping bail should not even arise at all. We call on Muhammadu Buharis government to free our leader immediately without any condition attached, Ugwu said. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, the Abia state police command recently announced the arrest of nine suspected members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and Biafra Independent Movement (BIM). The Abia commissioner of police, Chris Ezike disclosed this during at a press conference, revealing that the items recovered from the suspects included two motorcycles, Biafran identify cards, one Biafran magazine, one Biafran National Anthem booklet and a Biafran flag. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have updated to serve you better. Osinbajo delivers a speech on the Biafra war -on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu, says he is glad the Senate refused to confirm him as the substantive chairman of the anti-graft agency - He said perhaps he wouldnt have been able to perform as much as he had done so far, if he had indeed been confirmed - Magu disclosed that even without the confirmation, the EFCC had been able to secure over 700 convictions Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has stated that he is glad that the Senate refused to confirm him as the substantive chairman of the anti-graft agency. Magu made the comment before the Lagos high court at Ikeja, as he testified in a libel suit he filed against The Sun newspaper, Punch reports. READ ALSO: Ohanaeze, Afenifere declare support for move to return to parliamentary govt Legit.ng gathers that Magu stated that perhaps he wouldnt have been able to perform as much as he had done so far, if he had indeed been confirmed by the upper legislative chamber. The publishers of the national daily had been sued by the anti graft boss, for a series of publications which he described as libelous and injurious to his character. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Under cross examination by the counsel for the respondent, Charles Enwelunta, Magu stated: I have been rejected by the Senate twice and it does not worry me that Im not confirmed; Im not bothered. Its good that they did not confirm me, I may not be able to work very well as we have been able to get over 700 convictions. The EFCC boss is seeking N5 billion damages and an apology from The Sun newspapers, in addition to a retraction of the alleged libelous publications. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Legit.ng previously reported that Ibrahim Magu said he had only one house in Abuja, as against the two houses the Department of State Security (DSS) claimed his wife has in the Maitama area of the Nigerian capital. Magu was responding to the allegations made against him in a national newspaper made against him in a publication published in March 2017, titled: Magu Under Fresh Probe, which claimed two houses located in a high brow area in Maitama, Abuja were traced to his wife. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! EFCC Walk Against Corruption - on Legit TV: Source: Legit.ng - A member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof Etannibi Alemika, says corrupt leaders are making plans to keep other Nigerians in slavery - He said if steps are not taken, the children of other Nigerians will inherit their parents poverty - Alemika, however, stressed that corruption can be defeated; pointing out that it is the beneficiaries of corruption that say otherwise Professor Etannibi Alemika, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), has stated that corrupt leaders are preparing their children to take over their positions, with a view to continue enslaving other Nigerians. He made the comment on Thursday, December 13, while speaking at a stakeholders meeting against corruption organised by PACAC and the National Orientation Agency, which took place in Kaduna, Daily Trust reports. READ ALSO: 2019 presidency: SDP gets new running mate for Duke Legit.ng gathers that he further lamented that instead of reacting and defending the country, majority of Nigerians that were victims of corruption, were also nursing ambitions to become rich through corrupt means, in the nearest future. He said: The truth of the matter however is that the corrupt leaders are preparing their children to take over their positions to continue to enslave other Nigerians. And if steps are not taken, God forbid, the children of other Nigerians will inherit their parents poverty. That is why we must do something fast, as President Muhammadu Buhari says, if we dont kill corruption, corruption will kill our country." READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Alemika said corrupt people have divided Nigerians along religious and ethnic lines. He added that the ordinary people are the victims of corruption, and they are the ones who can gather and say enough is enough. Government alone cannot do it; Buhari can try, he can only give us leadership, but we must get to a level where we dont accord corrupt people respect in our society. Corruption can be defeated. It is the beneficiaries of corruption that tell you it cannot be defeated. There is no human problem that cannot be defeated, except you dont have the will to do it, he added. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari said leaders who undermine the economy by denying workers their benefits while stuffing personal accounts with public funds will not escape the current anti-corruption dragnet. The president stated this when he received the All Progressives Congress (APC) delegation from Benue state, led by Senator George Akume, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Buhari is the general overseer of corruption - on Legit TV: Source: Legit - President Buhari has not spent a penny on the country's four refineries since the inception of his administration in 2015 - This was disclosed on Thursday, December 13, by the minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu - According to the minister, the target of the current administration is to bring in private sector investors to finance the repairs of the refineries The minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has said President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has not spent a penny on the country's four refineries since the inception of the administration in 2015. Kachikwu, who made the statement in Abuja on Thursday, December 13, said not spending a dime on the four refineries was an achievement not many have paid attention to, Daily Trust reports. Legit.ng gathers that Kachikwu made the assertion during a presentation of three years key achievements of the ministry and award to its staff. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said: What is important is that for the first time, the president had been able to say that he would repair the refineries without government money. Nobody had been able to give attention to that. No government one penny had been spent on any refinery. This is because every Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) that we have done in the past has always come up with stories. Wrong contracting models, wrong delivery, wrong work, and we dont want to go that way." According to Kachikwu, the target of the current administration is to bring in private sector investors to finance the repairs of the refineries. The minister added: NNPC have struggled to find the financiers, now financiers have finally been found but to agree on terms have been difficult. I am hoping that by the end of this year and first quarter next year we would have completed the commercial aspect of this financial undertaking which is in the excess of over $2 billion. Report has it that more than N264 billion was spent on turn around maintenance of the refineries by previous administrations but the plants have failed to deliver. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that kachikwu on Thursday, October 4, revealed that it would be saddening if the nations refineries were not functional by the end of 2019. According to him, the present administration is committed to ensuring that the importation of petroleum products is curtailed. Kachikwu stated this in Ibigwe-Ohaji in Ohaji\Egbema council area of Imo during the ground-breaking for construction of the 5,000 BPD modular refinery by Walter Smith petro-chemical limited. The report said the project was being partnered by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Price of petrol crashes in Nigeria | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The federal government has dragged Royal Dutch Shell and Eni to a commercial court in London on one of Nigerias biggest oil industrys corruption scandals - The two oil majors are embroiled in a long-running corruption case revolving around the purchase of Oil Prospecting Licence 245 - The government also included Nigeria-based Malabu Oil & Gas in the lawsuit, and a company called Energy Venture Partners Ltd The federal government said it has filed a 1.1 billion dollar lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell and Eni in a commercial court in London in relation to a 2011 oilfield deal in Nigeria. News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the two oil majors are embroiled in a long-running corruption case revolving around the purchase of Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL)245. OPL 245, which is one of the biggest sources of untapped oil reserves on the African continent with reserves estimated at nine billion barrels, is also at the heart of an ongoing corruption trial in Milan, Italy, in which former and current Shell and Eni officials are on the bench. READ ALSO: Im glad Senate refused to confirm me - Magu Milan prosecutors alleged bribes totalling around $1.1bn were paid to win the licence to explore the field which, because of disputes, had never entered into production. The new London case also related to payments made by the companies to get the OPL 245 oilfield licence in 2011, Reuters reported on Thursday, December 13. According to the reports, It is alleged that purchase monies purportedly paid to the Federal Republic of Nigeria were in fact immediately paid through a company controlled by Dan Etete, formerly the Nigerian minister of petroleum, and used for, among other things, bribes and kickbacks, Nigeria said on Thursday. Accordingly, it is alleged that Shell and Eni engaged in bribery and unlawful conspiracy to harm the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that they dishonestly assisted corrupt Nigerian government officials. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: A letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The Nigerian government also included Nigeria-based Malabu Oil & Gas in the lawsuit, and a company called Energy Venture Partners Ltd., according to Bloomberg. Malabu was allegedly controlled by Etete, who took possession of the $1.1bn payment and used it for bribes and kickbacks, according to the lawsuit. Antonio Secci, a lawyer for Etete, was quoted as saying that the London suit surprises because the Nigerian government is already seeking damages in Milan. This situation cannot be represented again in London because it is repetitive, he said. Shell said The 2011 settlement of long-standing legal disputes related to OPL 245 was a fully legal transaction with Eni and the federal government of Nigeria, represented by the most senior officials of the relevant ministries. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Eni was quoted as saying in an emailed statement that it rejected any allegation of impropriety or irregularity in connection with this transaction. He said: Eni signed a commercial agreement in 2011 for a new licence for OPL 245 with the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the consideration for the licence was paid directly to the Nigerian government. Nigeria has already filed a London case against a US bank, JPMorgan, for its role in transferring over $800m of government funds to Etete, who has been convicted of money laundering. In another separate trial, a Milan court in September found a middleman guilty of corruption after prosecutors alleged he had received a mandate from Etete, who had denied any wrongdoing, to find a buyer for OPL 245, collecting $114m for his services. Last month, a global anti-corruption and accountability watchdog group, Global Witness, calculated that the OPL 245 deal deprived Nigeria of double its annual education and healthcare budget. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that an Italian judge in a first ruling on Thursday, September 20, sentenced two defendants to a four-year jail term over their involvement in one of Nigerias biggest oil industrys corruption scandals. According to Reuters, Nigerian Emeka Obi and Italian Gianluca Di Nardo were found guilty of international graft but their lawyers declined to comment. The long-running case revolves around the 2011 purchase by Italian oil company, Eni, and Anglo-Dutch peer, Royal Dutch Shell, of OPL 245 offshore oil block (popularly known as Malabu oil scandal) for about $1.3 billion. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng Journalism at its best! Top 5 the Richest People of Nigeria: The Luxury of Corruption on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, December 14, held a closed-door meeting with the countrys 36 state governors in Aso Rock, the seat of power in Abuja. It was learnt that the meeting began at about 12:40pm and held inside the council chamber at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Premium Times reports that the president and the governors are expected to discuss a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Some of the governors in attendance at the meeting with Buhari on minimum wage Credit: Femi Adesina Source: UGC Legit.ng earlier reported that the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) recently resolved to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari again over the issue of new minimum wage. The forum took the decision at its last meeting for 2018, presided by the chairman of the forum and governor of Zamafara state, Abdulaziz Yari, on Thursday night, December 13, in Abuja. Governor Yari, however, declined speaking with journalists after the meeting. Buhari with the governor of Osun state at the meeting. Credit: Femi Adesina Source: UGC An earlier report also said Nigerian governors held another meeting in Abuja on Thursday night, December 13, in continuation of their deliberation on the amount to be agreed upon as new minimum wage. The Tribune reports that the Thursday meeting was presided over by Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state, who chairs the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF). The newspaper states that many state governors did not show up for the meeting. President Buhari with the governor of Ebonyi state, Dave Umahi, at the meeting on minimum wage Credit: Femi Adesina Source: UGC Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said the national minimum wage will determine the voting pattern by Nigerian workers in the 2019 general elections. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news updates Its general secretary, Peter Ozo-Eson, spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, December 5, in Abuja. Ozo-Eson said that this was due to the delay by President Muhammadu Buhari to transmit an Executive Bill on the agreed N30,000 national minimum wage to the National Assembly to kick-start its implementation. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better. Is President Buhari Really Doing Badly As Nigeria's Leader? - Nigeria Street Gist | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The minister of information, Lai Mohammed, accuses critics of the APC of spreading fake news because they do not have achievements to debate on - Mohammed blames the opposition for the rumour that claims President Muhammadu Buhari has been cloned and it is now one Jibril from Sudan - The minister alleges that the opposition has hired consultants from various parts of the world for the purpose of churning out fake news The minister of information, Lai Mohammed, has accused the opposition of being disappointed that President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to die after recovering from his illness. Mohammed made the allegations on Thursday, December 13, when speaking during a visit to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, The Cable reports. He accused critics of the All Progressives Congress (APC) of spreading fake news because they do not have achievements to debate on. READ ALSO: Just in: President Buhari in closed-door meeting with Nigerian governors The minister blamed the opposition for the rumour that claimed President Muhammadu Buhari has been cloned and it is now one Jibril from Sudan. Fake news has been on the rise because the opposition cannot debate on our governments whether at state or federal level on any issue. We challenge the opposition on the achievements it made either in agriculture, security, in the economy or fighting corruption, Mohammed said. Rather they have found out that the most potent weapon is fake news. They claim that the president that we are seeing today has been cloned and it is one Jibril from Sudan. Why are doing this? They are disappointed that the president refused to die after his illness. Just some days ago they reported me as saying that Mr President does not know the way to his office because he has lost his memory and nobody ever bothered to ask when did I say this, where did I say this. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: A letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda We have it on good authority that the opposition consultants from various parts of the world and whose only duty is to churn out fake news. Meanwhile, two new reports have raised concerns over the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, as they disclosed that fake news is being spread on WhatsApp. According to cnet.com, quoting a report from The Poynter Institute, photoshopped images and false claims about politicians have been circulating on the Facebook-owned messaging service in Nigeria. Legit.ng gathers that the report stated that many of these false claims exploit ethnic friction as they are in local languages. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Buhari Health: Will Buhari Reveal his Medical Conditions? | Legit TV Source: Legit - Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf of the FCT high court rules that the zoning and rotation formula as contained in the SDPs constitution stipulates that both the chairman of the party and the flag bearer should not come from the same zone - Yusuf orders SDP to forward Jerry Ganas name to INEC as the partys flag bearer for the 2019 presidential election The judge also orders Donald Duke to stop parading himself as the partys candidate for the coming presidential poll A high court sitting in federal capital territory (FCT ) in Maitama on Friday, December 14, declared a former minister of information, Prof Jerry Gana, the winner of the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) conducted on October 6. The party had declared a former governor of Cross River, Donald Duke, the winner of the election and its flag bearer for the 2019 general elections. The party said that Duke polled 812 votes while Gana had 611. However, Gana went to court seeking that it would declare him the winner in line with the zoning and rotation formula of the partys constitution. In his judgement, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf held that the regulations contained in the partys constitution were binding on every member and must be obeyed, The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. READ ALSO: Just in: President Buhari in closed-door meeting with Nigerian governors He held that the zoning and rotation formula as contained in the partys constitution stipulated that both the chairman of the party and the flag bearer should not come from the same zone. In this instance, the partys Chairman, Chief Olu Falae, is from the South and Duke is from the South too; the law is clear; there is nothing to write in-between. The law has crystallised that political parties should abide by the regulations which they have made by themselves. The claimant laid sufficient evidence to have the judgment in his favour; it is a clear violation of the partys constitution; the court cannot wave right over illegality, he held. The judge, therefore, declared Gana the winner of SDP presidential primary election conducted on October 6. He also declared Dukes 812 votes null and void, and ordered SDP to forward Ganas name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the partys flag bearer for the 2019 presidential election. In addition, he ordered that Duke should stop parading himself as the partys flag bearer for the elections. Gana had joined SDP, its national chairman, Chief Olu Falae; national secretary, Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam; chairman, SDP presidential screening panel/ deputy national chairman, south, Prof Tunde Adeniran; Duke and INEC as defendants in the suit. Gana sought a declaration that Duke was not eligible to stand as a candidate in the partys presidential primaries held on October 6, in Abuja. He also sought a declaration of the court that he ought to have been declared the winner of the SDP presidential primary election, having polled the highest valid votes in the said election. The former minister wanted an order of the court declaring him the validly elected flag bearer of the party for the 2019 general elections. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Gana also sought a perpetual injunction restraining Duke from parading himself as the SDP presidential candidate for the elections, among other reliefs. He had argued that under Article 15(3) of the SDP constitution, the office of the national chairman of the party and the presidential candidacy shall rotate between the northern and southern parts of the country. Meanwhile, the presidential candidate for Peoples Trust Party (PTP), Gbenga Olawepo Hashim, has pledged to effect a new minimum wage of N50,000 for workers if elected into office. The presidential aspirant disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. He promised to grow the Nigerias economy from $510bn (its highest in 2013) to 4tn dollars in 10 years, if he becomes president. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Nigeria Latest News: Buhari vs Atiku - 2019 Elections | Legit TV Source: Legit Nigeria - The Nigerian Army has buried 19 soldiers who died in the Metele attack last month - The fallen heroes were laid to rest at the Military Cemetery, Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri - The burial ceremony was attended by senior military officers, government officials, representatives of the Shehu of Borno and family members of the deceased The Nigerian Army on Friday, December 14, buried 19 soldiers among those who lost their lives in an attack by Boko Haram insurgents at Metele, Guzamala Local Government Area, Borno. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that 23 soldiers were killed and 31 others wounded when the insurgents attacked 157 Task Force Battalion, Metele, on Nov. 18. The fallen heroes, who were laid to rest at the Military Cemetery, Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri, were Lt. Col. IA Sakaba and 18 soldiers. A mother holding his son as officers of the Nigerian Army killed in Metele are buried Credit: Military Life Ng Source: UGC Muslim and Christian Chaplains officiated at the burial. READ ALSO: Nigerian Army suspends UNICEF activities in north-east The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, described the incident as tragic, noting that the soldiers sacrificed their lives in defence of the nations territorial integrity. Represented by Maj.-Gen. Lamidi Adeosun, Chief, Army Training and Operations, Buratai announced that the deceased soldiers would be buried when their relatives arrived in Maiduguri. Some of the remains of the officers killed in Metele being conveyed for burial Credit: Military Life Ng Source: UGC He said that the army lost some troops and equipment due to upsurge of insurgents activities in recent months. He, however, said that the setback would not deter the troops from their commitment to defeat the insurgents. Buratai reiterated the determination of the Nigerian Army to end insurgency; protect lives and property as well as restore peace to the north east. Final resting place for the officers killed by Boko Haram in Metele Credit: Military Life Ng Source: UGC He said that military authorities would take care of the families of the deceased in line with its welfare scheme, and prayed for the repose of their souls. President Muhammad Buhari administrations is committed to the improvement of soldiers welfare and provision of equipment to ensure successful campaign against the Boko Haram insurgents. The military will collaborate with sister security organizations in the counter-insurgency operation, he said, and called on the troops to be disciplined and not relent in routing remnants of the insurgents. According to him, the military authorities will deploy additional personnel and equipment to the theatre of operation, to facilitate successful implementation of the counter insurgency campaign. Buratai also called on the people to shun fake news and support the military to enable it win the war against the Boko Haram terrorists. The deputy governor of Borno, Alhaji Mamman Durkwa, said the state government appreciated the sacrifices of the military to the restoration of peace in the state. Some bereaved families at the burial sites of the officers killed in Metele Credit: Military Life Ng Source: UGC Durkwa announced that the government would support the families of the fallen heroes to improve their wellbeing. He called on military authorities to support the bereaved families and prayed for the repose of the souls of the fallen heroes. The ceremony was attended by senior military officers, government officials, representatives of the Shehu of Borno and family members of the deceased. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet In a previous report by Legit.ng, some soldiers of the Nigerian Army 157 Task Force Battalion who were killed during a Boko Haram attack in Metele, Borno state will be buried on Friday, December 14. A widow of one of the officers killed said, the funeral organised by the Nigerian Army would take place in Maiduguri. Sources said the Nigerian Army planned a private burial for the fallen heroes to prevent the public from knowing the exact number of soldiers killed in the attack. The widow who spoke on condition of anonymity said she was invited for her husbands burial alongside other widows. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better. Survivors of Boko Haram on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - Ahead of general elections in 2019, the United States has warned against violence in Nigeria - The U.S said there may be potential attacks on the legitimacy of INEC and the electoral process for political gain, intimidation and partisanship by security forces - It also listed some ares of concern which include voter suppression, the use of armed gangs for voter intimidation The U.S. has warned against violence during the February 2019 general elections in Nigeria, saying it will remain intensely focused on the elections in the coming months. U.S. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, Jr., stated this in his testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organisations. The title of the hearing was Nigeria at a Crossroad: The Upcoming Elections, which transcript was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York by the U.S. Department of State, on Friday. READ ALSO: Our economy is in bad shape - Buhari tells governors Nagy shared many of the areas of concern that the legislators had voiced assuring that the U.S. was monitoring and messaging both publicly and privately to mitigate a few key areas of risk that could jeopardise a free and fair process. Some of the concerns included potential attacks on the legitimacy of INEC and the electoral process for political gain, intimidation and partisanship by security forces. Others were heightened insecurity, terrorist attacks on elections institutions, or violence toward voters, observers, or electoral officials and an inability of large numbers of internally displaced persons or persons with disabilities to vote. Voter suppression, the use of armed gangs for voter intimidation, and other drivers of electoral violence, including a lack of official condemnation of hate speech and disinformation; and wide-spread vote buying that challenges the integrity of the electoral process, were also raised. On Nov. 18, the start of official campaigning, our Mission in Abuja released a statement with 25 like-minded missions to express our desire to see free, fair, transparent, and peaceful elections, specifically naming many of these concerns. I can assure you we will be watching closely for instigators of violence or those attempting to undermine the democratic process. Many of you have expressed particular concern about violence around these elections. I can tell you from my impressions during my travels and my previous service in Nigeria that I fear there will be some violence around these elections, as has been the case with previous elections. I do not anticipate large-scale nation-wide conflict, but rather localised violence. We are already seeing increased tensions and polarization as the election approaches. We assess that politicians are turning to narratives of identity politics in an attempt to improve their popularity, with potentially serious consequences for national unity. However, Nigerias political system and society have weathered such tensions before. Nagy underscored that the U.S. government took the risk of any loss of human life extremely seriously, adding, preventing electoral violence was one of the U.S. three main objectives for its diplomacy and programmes. He said: When I was in Nigeria, I asked officials from both major parties to sign pledges that their candidates would conduct peaceful campaigns, and both major candidates have now signed a peace pledge. In assessing potential hot spots for violence, we look at places that are historically volatile around elections such as Rivers and Borno states. We look at states that are currently tense, especially if state-level politics are contentious like those in Benue, Plateau, as well as those in high-stakes locations with large populations such as Kano. Nagy said the U.S. regularly engaged with civil society organisations working in those hotspots and support their peace building efforts. According to him, the U.S. Agency for International Development programmes and the countrys public diplomacy campaigns also support peace campaigns across Nigeria, such as #VoteNotFight. The U.S. envoy said through the Young African Leaders Initiative Network Nigeria campaign, Nigerians have made over 10,000 pledges to boost voter participation, reject violence, and vote with integrity. As I said in a speech in Nigeria, only the Nigerian people can determine lasting solutions and a path forward toward peace and stability. 2019 will be a significant year for Nigerian democracy it has been 20 years since the country returned to democratic rule and this elections youngest voters have never known a Nigeria without democracy. The upcoming elections provide Nigerians an opportunity to shape their country and solidify its place as a democratic leader in Africa, Nagy concluded. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the federal government had many times denounced hate speech and at a time wanted to declare it act against the state to act as deterrent. Also early in the week, the major political actors committed to a violence-free polls by signing a peace accord in Abuja as was done in the 2015 general elections which the then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of PDP lost to Muhammadu Buhari of APC. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that YIAGA Africa's Watching The Vote (WTV) Working Group on Friday, December 7, launched the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) Mission ahead of the 2019 general elections. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet The initiative is a parallel tabular mission which is jointly held by YIAGA Africa and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), to monitor elections through deployment of technology in the 774 local government areas in the country. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We keep evolving to serve our readers better. We are honestly tired of Buhari and Atiku | Legit TV Source: Legit Authorities in Bucks County were investigating a report of a man slamming two juveniles' heads together over an altercation with the mans son, Pennsylvania State Police said Thursday. The juveniles told police Nov. 9 the incident had occurred about 4:15 p.m. that day in the 900 block of Easton Road in Riegelsville, police said in a news release. It was reported by two juveniles that the actor slammed their heads together, pushed both of them to the ground, kneed one in the private area and cursed and screamed at the juveniles, state police at Dublin say in the release. This was reportedly revenge due to the two juveniles being in an altercation with the actors son the day prior. Police asked any witnesses to the incident to call Trooper Soltau at 215-249-9191. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Johnny Bobbitt, the Philadelphia man who was homeless when he became the face of a viral GoFundMe campaign aimed at getting him back on his feet, will be getting out of a county jail while he awaits trial in the case. Bobbitt appeared for his detention hearing Friday in Burlington County Superior Court, where his attorneys and Assistant Prosecutor Saurabh Singal told Judge Mark Tarantino of their agreement to release him. Conditions of his release include electronic monitoring and a requirement to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings three times per week, Tarantino said. Bobbitt can continue to live at his apartment in Philadelphias Fishtown neighborhood but must provide a copy of the lease to Pre-Trial Services in Burlington County, the judge added. Bobbitt must also have no contact with the two suspects he allegedly conspired with, Mark DAmico and Kate McClure, or any of the victims, Tarantino said. You may not know who they are, but dont go reaching out to them, he said. The agreement comes after Bobbitt applied for drug court last week, attorney John Keesler told reporters after the hearing. That application is still pending. But if Bobbitt were to be accepted and complete the program, his charges would be resolved. Most importantly, sir, is you need to maintain your sobriety, the judge said. Only good things can come from that. He wished Bobbitt well before the hearing concluded. Bobbitt did not speak at the hearing except for the answers yes sir and no, your honor. Keesler did not know what time Bobbitt would be released Friday, but said he would have to be processed out of the jail first. Im happy hes out....Hes happy to be out, Keesler said. Bobbitt was implicated along with DAmico and McClure, a former couple who lived in Florence at the time, and who prosecutors say used the money for themselves, instead of aiding Bobbitt, who they portrayed as a homeless vet who gave McClure his last $20 one night last fall. The three were charged last month with theft by deception and conspiracy. Accused $400 GoFundMe scam participant Johnny Bobbitt, far right, appears with attorneys in Burlington County Court Friday December 14, 2018. (David Swanson, pool photo / The Philadelphia Inquirer)DAVID SWANSON / The Philadelphia Inquirer / POOL Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips A Lehigh County jury has convicted a man of first-degree murder after he killed a man with a shotgun following an argument. Prosecutors said the killing resulted from road rage, according to the Morning Call of Allentown. Curtis Nathan Thomas, 37, was convicted Friday of first-degree murder and fleeing police, according to a Lehigh County District Attorneys office spokeswoman. Thomas' address is not listed in court papers. Thomas will be sentenced Jan. 22, the spokeswoman said. First-degree murder, or premeditated murder, carries an automatic life sentence in Pennsylvania. Thomas will never have the opportunity for parole, according to Pennsylvania law. Witnesses told police they saw Thomas arguing with victim Charles Hughes III of Allentown shortly before the killing on Nov. 1, 2017, on South Ninth Street near West Wyoming Street in Allentown. Hughes was standing outside a gray Acura sedan when Thomas told him, I got something for you, according to court records. Thomas drove away but police found him in the area of North Sixth and West Walnut streets, records say. Police said he had 58 bags of cocaine, 15 bags of crystal meth and a shotgun with a discharged shell in the chamber. The district attorneys spokeswoman said hell stand trial on drug charges Jan. 28. He was previously convicted in a nonjury trial for possessing the shotgun despite a prior felony conviction, she said. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. A federal judge in New Jersey ruled a natural gas pipeline company can go ahead with taking property and compensating landowners as part of an estimated $1.1 billion project. U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti said Friday that PennEast Pipeline Co. LLC can begin taking immediate possession of properties in New Jersey along the roughly 120-mile proposed pipeline from northeastern Pennsylvania through Northampton County and across the Delaware River into Hunterdon and Mercer counties in New Jersey. The 50-page ruling says PennEast offered $3,000 for access to parts of land where the pipeline would travel. The ruling is a blow to towns, landowners, the state and environmental groups, who sought to stop PennEast's use of eminent domain. New Jersey landowners would be paid under the ruling. PennEast's board of managers chairman, Tony Cox, said Friday that as a result of ongoing talks with stakeholders like landowners and state officials, planners aligned nearly half of the New Jersey route with overhead power lines to reduce the pipeline's impact. The PennEast Pipeline Company is pleased with todays ruling allowing the project to take another step forward in delivering low-cost, reliable energy that strengthens New Jerseys economy and creates thousands of jobs, Cox said in a statement on the ruling. Once in operation, PennEast will provide the low-cost energy for ratepayers to ultimately support future investments in higher cost wind and solar. "Our immediate next steps are to perform routine land, environmental and other ground-level surveys. These surveys will update and confirm data for certain federal and state permitting guidelines. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office on Friday responded to a request for comment from NJ Advance Media by saying: "The decision is under review. We have no other comment at this time." Homeowners opposed to the pipeline issued a statement saying they are infuriated by the ruling and remain committed to stopping the project. Although disappointed, we are even more steadfast in our resolve to stop this project by proving that this it is not needed, has little positive impact on employment, is unconstitutional and is very harmful to our homes, communities and our environment, stated Vincent DiBianca, a Delaware Township homeowner and owner of a small farm and business on the pipelines proposed path. The New Jersey Sierra Club said it also remained committed to blocking the pipeline designed to carry natural gas from hydraulic fracturing wells in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region for domestic regional use. PennEast moves forward and we will fight back and stop this," the clubs director, Jeff Tittel, said in a statement. Weve been fighting PennEast for over four years and they thought it would be long built by now. We want to thank the landowners who denied them access and those who took them to court to fight it. The New Jersey Conservation Foundation also blasted Fridays ruling. PennEast is trying to trample on our rights by taking land from private homeowners, and lands set aside with taxpayer dollars for our children and grandchildren," Tom Gilbert, campaign director for the foundation, said in a statement. This will only strengthen the publics opposition and resolve to ensure that this self-serving project is rejected and they never get the chance to destroy New Jerseys environment. PennEast won a similar ruling last week on eminent domain in Pennsylvania. That ruling only allows the consortium of energy companies to survey the land it needs. Pennsylvania eminent domain law requires a separate process for the condemnation of land and compensation of landowners, PennEast says. Permits for the project are pending in both states after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted conditional approval earlier this year, deeming the project to be in the public need and benefit. The company has said it plans to move forward with construction in mid-2019, expected to take about seven months before the pipeline goes online. NJ Advance Media reporter Michael Sol Warren and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Irish business is urging people to shop local and help support local jobs in the run-up to Christmas. With 11 days until Christmas, ISME, the Irish SME Association is appealing to Irish consumers to stay local. ISME especially wants people to avoid unnecessary journeys as Met Eireann has announced a Status Yellow wind warning for this weekend. The Association is also issuing come advice on Christmas Parties, and has launched a survey to evaluate its shop local campaign. Commenting on the importance of shopping local, ISME CEO Neil McDonnell said: Undoubtedly, this weekends weather will impact shopping numbers on what is one of the busiest shopping weekends of the calendar year. The Association appeals to Irish consumers to continue to support local producers, manufacturers, and retailers by shopping and dining local. "Every 10 spent locally on Irish products generates more than 40 of benefit to the local community in employment terms. The retail sector employs more people than any other sector in the Irish economy, he says. Regarding advice for Christmas Parties, ISME HR Advisor Mark OConnor said: We are all aware that Christmas Parties are great opportunities for teams to unwind at the end of a long year, but they are also events where harmless banter can turn into offensive behaviour. It is important that individuals conduct themselves in a manner they will not regret the next day. "At all times, the dignity and respect of work colleagues must be respected. Employers must be clear with employees that, even though parties take place outside office hours, everyone, including managers, is expected to behave in a manner that is consistent with company values, he said. ISME Shop Local Survey ISME is running a survey on its recent shop local campaign, which you can complete by clicking here Their regional campaign has highlighted a number of issues for small retailers. Speaking on the recent Shop Local Campaign, ISME Marketing Executive Ciara Whooley said: There is an increased demand for Irish gifts and craft products in the run up to Christmas. But online shopping is still seen as a cheaper, more convenient way of Christmas shopping for many consumers. Although this is not always the case, Irish retailers need to accommodate changing consumer habits and get online to claim their piece of the Christmas cake. "Towns and villages which host Christmas events such as Santa Grottos, Christmas Markets or simply Christmas Shopping Nights, demonstrate an increased awareness of the importance of shopping local. With only two weekends to Christmas and bad weather ahead, ISME is encouraging Irish consumers to rally behind their local communities and Shop Local for those last few presents on the Christmas list. Met Eireann has warned of severe damaging winds and relentless in its weather latest forecast. In her bulletin, after the 9pm RTE news forecaster, Siobhan Ryan put the country on notice of a very bad weekend of weather which is set to make the biggest impact on Saturday. "We're looking at some severe weather on the way. We've got two high-end yellow warnings in play for 30 to 50 mm of rainfall as of midnight (Friday). "There will be a lot of surface water with localised flooding on a very widespread and very windy conditions particularly for the south and east first thing tomorrow but then later in the day as those winds veer around to a west north-west direction we are looking at some severe gusts maybe even teetering into the Orange," she said. MORE BELOW PICTURE The meteorologist said the weather is caused by vast areas of low pressures in the Atlantic. She said the heaviest of rain would fall right through Saturday into the evening with 'really severe winds' moving in through the evening bringing damaging gusts. Charts shown by the forecaster described the rain as 'relentless'. She said the weather would improve on Sunday looking brighter and drier. MORE BELOW PICTURE WARNINGS ISSUED Status Yellow - Rainfall warning for Ireland Heavy rain during Saturday will lead to accumulations of 30 to 50mm with some mountainous areas exceeding these limits. Issued: Friday 14 December 2018 10:00 Updated: Friday 14 December 2018 10:00 Valid from Saturday 15 December 2018 00:01 to Saturday 15 December 2018 23:59 Status Yellow - Wind warning for Ireland South to southeast winds will increase to reach 55 to 60 km/h during Saturday morning, strongest in the east. Later Saturday afternoon or evening winds veer west to northwest and further increase to reach 55 to 65 km/h with severe gusts of 90 to 110 km/h, possibly exceeding these limits for a time. Issued: Friday 14 December 2018 10:00 Updated: Friday 14 December 2018 10:00 Valid from Saturday 15 December 2018 00:01 to Saturday 15 December 2018 23:59 MARINE WARNINGS Status Orange - Gale Warning Southeasterly winds will increase to gale force 8 or strong gale 9 tonight on coastal waters from Rossan Point to Howth Head to Hook Head and on the Irish Sea, extending to all coastal waters on Saturday morning. West to northwest winds will increase to gale 8 or strong gale 9 during Saturday afternoon/evening on coastal waters from Hook Head to Loop Head to Erris Head, increasing to storm force 10, possibly violent storm 11 from Hook Head to Valentia. Issued: Friday 14 December 2018 17:00 MET EIREANN FORECAST BELOW TOMORROW - SATURDAY 15TH DECEMBER Wet and windy on Saturday with the risk of severe and potentially damaging gusts during the evening. The rain will be heavy and persistent at times with localised surface flooding possible. Maximum afternoon temperatures will range 7 to 11 degrees generally. Strong to gale force southeasterly winds will veer west to northwest during the course of the afternoon and evening. NATIONAL OUTLOOK The rain will clear tomorrow night and it will become mostly dry by morning. Temperatures will fall to near freezing as skies clear and strong westerly winds will gradually ease and back southerly. Sunday will be a mostly dry day with just a few showers at the coasts. Temperatures will range between 5 and 7 degrees in the afternoon in mainly light southerly breezes. It'll be cold on Sunday night once again as temperatures fall to between zero and plus 3 degrees. After a dry start on Monday, increasing southerly winds will be accompanied by another spell of heavy rain. The winds will ease later in the day as the rain clears to showers from the west. Temperatures will range between 9 and 11 degrees during the day, falling to between 4 and 6 degrees on Monday night. The rain will linger in the east for a time on Tuesday before the clearer weather in the west extends through. Winds will be light to moderate south or southwesterly. The further outlook for the midweek period is for continued unsettled conditions with showers mostly affecting western coastal areas. Winds mainly moderate south to southwesterly in direction. People in Laois are being asked to give their opinion on proposed nuclear power plant on the west coast of the UK. Laois is among the Irish counties which is being invited to view the planning application for a new nuclear electricity generating station in Wales. The Minister for Housing and Planning Eoghan Murphy has sent a copy of information received from the Transboundary State to any planning authority likely to be affected by the proposed development. It is available for inspection and purchase at county hall in Portlaoise. The consultation period runs from November 22 to Friday January 25 2019. Wylfa Newydd Nuclear Power Plant will be in Anglesey on the north west coast of Wales. The station would have two nuclear reactors outputting approximately 3.1 gigawatts. It would include permanent works in the sea. Construction of the plant could start as soon as 2020, to cost an estimated 20bn. The site is beside another nuclear power plant that is being decommissioned. The company behind the project is Horizon Nuclear Power. See details on their website here. Submissions may be made to transboundarysub@laoiscoco.ie Below: the proposed nuclear power plant. Fianna Fail has selected Cllr Rob Power and Noel Heavey to run in the local elections in the new Newbridge District. Read also: Newbridge crib repaired and Baby Jesus replaced after vandals caused hundreds of euros worth of damage Last night Fianna Fail members gathered in the Keadeen Hotel to choose their candidates for next Mays local elections. Sitting councillor for Newbridge and Mayor of Kildare, Sean Power did not contest the convention, having previously announced that he would stand down at the end of this term. His son, Robert, will now take up the mantle in the Newbridge area, half of which has been moved from the Naas district where he has been a councillor since 2014. The new district takes in Caragh, Ladytown, Kilcullen, Brannockstown and Twomilehouse formerly of the Naas local electoral area. It also includes Clongorey, Athgarvan and of course the town of Newbridge itself. Newbridge's Cllr Murty Aspell and Antoinette Buckley from Kilcullen also contested the selection convention. Dep Fiona O'Loughlin said; "It is always a positive sight to see four candidates contesting for two places for the local elections in May 2019. Local politics is vital for local communities and its important to keep people engaged in politics. I want to congratulate Cllr Rob Power and Noel Heavey on their selection last night by the grassroots members of Fianna Fail in the Newbridge MD area. Commiserations to Antoinette Buckley and sitting councillor for the Newbridge area, Murty Aspell who were not successful on the night. There is every chance that there will be further additions to the ticket early into 2019 given the increase in councillors for the Newbridge MD area. Both Power and Heavey now go forward to be ratified as Fianna Fail candidates and are expected to be joined by a third candidate likely to be either Cllr Aspell or Buckley from Kilcullen. Heavey is known for his commitment to community activities. Currently serving on the committee of June Fest Newbridge, he has been chairperson for the past five years. He also served for eleven years on the Executive of Newbridge RFC, spearheading the development of its facility in Rosetown. From this connection emerged the twinning of Newbridge with Argentre-Du-Plessiss, a small town in Brittany of which Heavey was chairperson 2012-2017. Having taught for 15 years in St. Farnans Post Primary School, Prosperous, he took early retirement to go into the mushroom business. As Managing Director of Miltonfield Ltd, he developed this to become a major supplier of mushroom products to the Irish multiple retail trade. Married to Bernadette, he is a native and resident of Clongorey where they raised their family of five, Nollaig, Liam, Sorcha, Aileen and Eamon. Cllr Rob Power, Cllr Murty Aspell, Dep Fiona O'Loughlin, Dep James Lawless, Antoinette Buckley and Noel Heavey at last night's convention A judge has ordered a farmer to appear before the High Court next week over his refusal to comply with a Court order to vacate 50 acres of land he owns. In a judgement, Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds said she was "satisfied beyond reasonable doubt" Tom Morrin is in breach of orders made against him by the High Court in July 2017. Those orders direct him to remove all machinery and livestock from 50 acres of land at Caragh, Naas, Co Kildare, owned by Mr Morrin, and surrender vacant possession to a receiver appointed over the property. He has also failed to comply with an order to cease interfering with agents of the receiver Mr Tom Kavanagh of Deloitte Ireland from carrying out their duties in respect of the property. The judge in her decision also dismissed applications by Mr Morrin of Poplar Square, Naas, to have the receiver's case thrown out, on the grounds it was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process. The Judge further dismissed Mr Morrin's bid for an order preventing Mr Kavanagh and his agents from trespassing on his property. Mr Kavanagh was appointed as receiver over the lands in 2013 by Bank of Scotland Ireland arising out of a mortgage agreement allegedly entered into between it and Mr Morrin in 2006. The loan was subsequently acquired by a financial fund Pentire DAC. The receiver has brought proceedings against Mr Morrin seeking orders including that the farmer be attached and brought before the court for his alleged ongoing contempt of the 2017 orders. Mr Kavanagh, represented by Stephen Byrne Bl, claims the defendant had flouted the order, on which no stay has been placed. Mr Morrin remains in occupation of the property and continues to farm the lands, it was claimed. It was also claimed that on a number of occasions security firm personnel engaged by the receiver had experienced difficulties. On certain days cattle were seen on the lands, and agents the receiver had employed were told to leave the property by a person purporting to be an employee of the defendants. It was also claimed that in correspondence Mr Morrin had sent the receiver in January a draft statement of claim disputing the injunction order made in 2017 and indicating that he intends to sue the Irish Government, the Irish judiciary, the Central Bank and the Gardai in the European Court of Human Rights for breaches of his rights. Through his lawyers, Mr Morrin, who has appealed the July orders, opposed the application and disputed the receiver's claims. Giving the court's decision Ms Justice Reynolds noted that Mr Morrin did not dispute that he remains in occupation of the land, in breach of the order. The Judge directed that an order for Morrin's attachment, which requires him to come before the court to answer his ongoing contempt, be directed to the Commissioner of An Garda Siochana. He was not present when the judgement was given. The case will return before the High Court next week. A TEENAGE boy has appeared in court charged with robbing an off-duty garda at a laneway in Limerick city centre earlier this week. The 16-year-old, who was arrested on Thursday, appeared before a special sitting of the childrens court this Friday lunchtime after he was charged in relation to an incident at Augustinian Lane, off Roches Street at around 2.30am on Wednesday. He is accused of robbing an iPhone 6, cigarettes and some loose change from the victim who is aged in his 40s. Opposing bail, Detective Garda Donnacha Coakley said it will alleged the defendant attacked the garda from behind and knocked him to the ground before repeatedly kicking him. He said CCTV has been obtained as part of the investigation and that it will be alleged the youth dragged the victim further into the lane before going through his pockets. Judge Marian OLeary was told the off-duty garda sustained serious facial injuries, including a broken nose, and was initially treated at University Hospital Limerick and subsequently attended the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin. Detective Garda Coakley said it will be alleged that having initially left the area, the youth returned to Augustinian Lane and kicked the victim again with such force that he hurt his foot. The level of violence is at the higher end of the scale, he said expressing fears the defendant would continue to target vulnerable party-goers over the festive season if released. He said gardai believe the defendant went to his home following the attack and changed his clothes before returning to the city centre where he remained for a number of hours. Solicitor Con Barry said his client had cooperated with gardai following his arrest and that he should be given an opportunity by the court and granted bail. He will turn up (in court), he will obey any conditions, he said. Refusing bail, Judge OLeary said she was concerned at the undisputed evidence that the defendant was out and unsupervised in the city centre at 2.30am. The 16-year-old was remanded in custody to Oberstown childrens detention centre in Dublin. A file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. THE NEIGHBOURS of the late Rose Hanrahan still live in fear, one year after the widowed pensioner was brutally murdered in her home in Limerick. This Friday, the Thomondgate community will hold a second prayer vigil outside Roses New Road home, to mark the first year anniversary of her death. The killer remains at large as no individual has been arrested in connection with her murder. Gardai say investigations are ongoing and family are being kept up to date on the probes status. The Thomondgate area continues to form part of proactive policing patrols and will be regularly patrolled over the Christmas period. Fear stalks the streets She was caught in that little spiral of evil that she didnt deserve. This neighbours comment sums up the brutal end of widowed pensioner Rose Hanrahan, whose murder has left an indelible mark on a row of Thomondgate residents who continue to live in fear. As of this Friday, it has been a continuous year of anxiety for the New Road community, who rise every morning, only to be met with the sight of peeling magnolia walls, weathered by the eerie emptiness of a home where an innocent woman was found dead on December 15, 2017. And this Friday evening, for a second time, the community will return to Roses familiar maroon door to remember the tragic 78-year-old. But the prayer service will be a numbing reminder that a cold-blooded killer remains at large, and a blunt reminder that, at sundown, the doors will remain locked and the lights will stay on. The elderly remain shook. One woman in her late 80s, who takes a break from scrubbing her footpath, says she is even unsettled by the sound of a cat walking on her roof. I couldnt sleep for weeks. I leave on a light all night. It would terrify you because you are helpless, she says. I ask her if she lives alone, to which she softly replies: I do. And she did, too. One neighbour says that an elderly woman is so intimidated that she has five bolts and four different locks on her door. And its not just the elderly; young women are hysterical at the thought of people entering their homes at night. Nearly every Friday, one father explains, revellers and anti-social youths either host parties on the street outside his home or use New Road as a rat run to go elsewhere. He says his daughter, who used to deliver groceries to Roses home, panics when she hears noise at night. My daughter, she hears this noise, and she is frightened in case they come in. They walk past and they bang at your window, banging at your door, he says, adding he and his neighbours are disappointed with the level of policing in the area since Roses death. For the days ahead [of her death], you had things going on. The police were around here. It was great. The road was so quiet. You cant see a police car. You never see a police car now. Another resident, who like most neighbours are not comfortable giving their names to the press, says the garda presence is light. She was our dearest friend and neighbour. She was a constant, you know what I mean? the neighbour says, gazing at that maroon door where gardai stood sentry for a week. She never varied. She was Rose, that was that. Even if she died of natural causes, it would have been a shock. But to die the way she did and we are living here? She was being attacked. His immediate reaction was to protect the family, to hold the fort. I lock the door. Dont let anyone in after dark. Put your shoulder to the door when you open it. We are very vulnerable here. One New Road mother curtly admits her knee-jerk reaction was: It doesnt surprise me. Not one bit, continues the woman, who has been living in the area for more than a decade. I have had four or five cars damaged. Youd ring for gardai on a Friday or Saturday night. We dont have any patrols in the area. We fought for front railings because they are urinating up against the outside there. Theyre kicking the door, theyre hammering on the door. The word on the street is that new CCTV cameras were meant to be installed in the vicinity. However, Limerick City and County Council has told this reporter that it has no plans to install CCTV footage in the area. A spokesperson said that it is open to discussing issues of concern with residents and tenants to best improve communities in Limerick. The council works closely with An Garda Siochana and local communities to make sure they are safe and dont experience anti-social behaviour, he states this Wednesday. The woman continues that she and her daughter havent felt safe since Roses murder. Her teenage daughter, she says, is petrified. They [people] might give the door a kick. They might give the car a kick. Then if I go to open the door, she is hysterical. She goes: Mam, please dont open the door, please dont open the door. There is no excuse for what happened to that woman, and for no one getting caught for it. There is no excuse. After more than 2,000 interviews and thousands of hours of CCTV footage reviewed, gardai are at a delicate stage of this high-profile murder investigation. To date, no arrest has yet been made in connection with Rose Hanrahans killing. A garda spokesperson says that gardai continue to investigate the murder of Rose Hanrahan that occurred at her home on New Road, Thomandgate, Limerick on 15th December, 2017. All avenues of enquiry are being followed and the family of Ms Hanrahan are being kept up to date on the status of the investigation. This concerned mother comments on the progress of Regeneration areas such as Moyross whichalongside St Marys Park, Ballinacurra-Weston and Southillhas benefited from Government investment of more than 320m since 2007. But despite being a short walk from Watch House Cross and right across from St Marys Park via the river, New Road is on the fringe of designated Regeneration areas. And so she feels New Road and the wider Thomondgate area have been left out. And just months after Roses murder, Kileely man Patrick Pa OConnor, 24, was stabbed to death in Fitzgeralds Bar on Sexton Street North in July. Three weeks later, there was another serious, non-fatal stabbing in a nearby pub. On this note, the concerned mother tells me: When I took this house, I said: Oh my God, lovely, Im going to Thomondgate. Do you think if they offered me somewhere else that I wouldnt grab it with both hands and run out of here? I would. I would just close the front door and go. This woman and many other New Road residents first found out about Roses death when they got a knock on the door from neighbour Pat Murphy. He says the memory of that dreadful morning is still fresh. I was just talking about it yesterday [Tuesday]. The fact that there has been no closure on it, nobody has been caught. We are only going by what we read on the paper, he says. For a long time, we tried to get things done on the New Road, to make it a better road because of the fact that it is such a busy thoroughfare, from Clare side and into town. The residents have become a bit fed up and disjointed and they just want to get on with their own lives. And unfortunately with the way things happened, there was a coming together and then it kind of dies off again, he explains. He says the fear his neighbours felt on the week Rose was murdered has remained in the community. Fianna Fail TD Willie ODea, who knew Rose Hanrahan personally, says that people remain frightened and isolated and is calling for more garda resources in the area. There is still an issue there. You see, we dont have enough policing in the town. Were down a huge amount since the height of the gang wars. The number of sergeants and inspectors is down as well. This reporter contacted the gardai, relaying the concerns of the New Road residents. A spokesperson issued a response this Wednesday afternoon, stating: The Thomandgate area continues to form part of proactive policing patrols and will be regularly patrolled over the Christmas period. In conjunction with other agencies, the elder initiative is active in the area for vulnerable persons. Our community gardai are always available to meet members of the public who wish to discuss any matters of public safety. Chief Superintendent Gerard Roche told the Limerick Leader that there will be extra patrols across the city because that is what we do at this time of year, to make sure that people are safe. Rose Hanrahan was laid to rest at Ballycannon Cemetery in Meelick, following a Funeral Mass at St Munchins Church on December 23, 2017. Anyone with information in relation to the murder of Rose Hanrahan is asked to contact Mayorstone garda station on 061 456980 or Henry Street garda station at 061 212400 or any garda station, or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111. BLUSTERY winds and rain accompanied the switching on of the Christmas lights in Newcastle West at the weekend. But the bad weather failed to deter the optimistic and the stout-hearted who were determined to raise a cheer for December 8, the day that so many still regard as the real beginning of Christmas. It was, by any measure, one of the fastest switching on ceremonies in the history of Christmas. But also one of the cheeriest. The young carollers from the Desmond School of Music sang out from under their hoods; others took shelter under market stalls and Santa and Mrs Claus made a quick dash across from their Grotto in the Castle. After a rapid count-down, the red balloons went up, the lights went on and a collective sigh of satisfaction escaped as the town was magicked into something very special. Christmas was now, definitively, on in Newcastle West. And it comes with continued visits by Santa Claus to the grotto and two hours extra free parking every afternoon, as the local business association has reminded everyone. Shop local, is the message and this year it is more important than ever. Meanwhile, Glin is gearing up to welcome visitors to their very special Christmas in Glin festivities this Sunday, the third of a trio of events designed to attract locals and visitors alike to the village. Preserving and promoting the tradition of the Wren is a key element behind the Christmas in Glin event, explained Cllr John Sheahan, speaking as a member of Glin Development Association which is behind the event. The tradition of Wrenboys is very strong in West Limerick and the idea of the festival is to show people, who may no longer have visits from groups of Wrenboys and to show the younger generations, what the tradition of the Wren is all about, he said. Other areas, he pointed out, have their Strawboys or their Biddies but West Limerick has preserved its strong link with the Wrenboys. This is our second year and we thank Sheila Deegan and the Limerick Arts Office and the Creative Ireland programme for providing funding again, Cllr Sheahan continued. The fun will kick off at 2pm when, weather permitting, there will be special Christmas stalls in place in the Square, providing all kinds of goodies from mulled wine to mince pies, from craft goods to giftware. Then at 3pm, the first of five Wrenboy groups will take to the stage. Groups from Athea, Glin, Ballyhahill, Lixnaw and Ardagh are all committed to taking part and to competing for the overall prize. This is not a confined competition but it is unique to West Limerick, Cllr Sheahan said. There will also be a singing competition, with a selected nominee from each group, later in the day. Other Christmas festivities include the Live Crib and Christmas Market in Broadford, starting just after 10am and the Live Crib in Adare which runs all day THE world famous creative agency tasked with delivering an ambitious new brand for Limerick have said they hope it will be able to articulate very clearly what Limerick stands for and how Limerick wants to position itself on the global stage. In a lengthy interview with the Limerick Leader, Mary Harris, managing partner at M&C Saatchi, outlined her belief that it wouldnt be right to have something shiny or airbrushed, because that wouldnt be true. The leading London-based agency has a 20 year track record of place brand development and strategy, having worked with New Zealand, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, the USA, The Kingdom of Bahrain and others to develop their brands. M&C Saatchi were appointed to create a new brand for Limerick that will reflect its resurgence as a thriving economic and visitor destination by the Council in August, following a tender process. It was hailed as a major statement of intent regarding the city and countys ambition to win more indigenous and international investment and attract more people to live, work and visit here. After a series of visits to Limerick and dozens of meetings with stakeholders, business leaders, key institutions and organisations and surveys conducted with many more people, Ms Harris say the creative team are feeling good about where we are. Every time you scratch the surface, there is another incredible story emerging about Limerick and that is something that has been so valuable to us, she explained. Because obviously with brand design, you are trying to dig down and get to the DNA of a place. Brand design has to come from what is really, really true about a place - otherwise it wont stick and there is no point. You cant make something up, you cant have something that isnt true to that place, she added. Top global brand company M&C Saatchi connects with Limerick School of Art & Design on Brand Limerick from Limerick City and County Council on Vimeo. Mary and her creative team of David Glass and Alex Lemecha-Sim, have immersed themselves in Limerick and embraced all aspects of the city and countys history - both positive and negative. Right from the very beginning, we just felt there was something special and interesting about Limerick. That there was a sense of untapped potential, she explained. This real sense of resilience and this feeling that Limerick always comes back bigger and brighter. That tough resilience and that grit is matched with a quite humble, not in your face, not braggy, kind of real warmth and friendliness and connectedness. And we feel that we have been plugged into this network. It wouldnt be right to have something shiny or airbrushed or plaster over all of the roughness, the urbanness of Limerick, because that wouldnt be true. And I know it wouldnt be right to have something arrogant and chest-beaty - that is not Limerick. Those are wonderful parts of what Limerick is and why it slightly reminds me of Detroit in a way, in that actually brands and business came to Detroit because they wanted something that was a little bit edgy and had some character. Limerick is its own unique self with its own unique opportunity. Laura Ryan, head of marketing and communications with the council, explained: We need a strong umbrella brand for Limerick that is world class and one that reflects the scale of our ambition. Limerick has really become the urban success story of the last five years and now has a great new story to tell. The fact that M&C Saatchi, one of the worlds leading agencies wanted to work with Limerick says a lot about where Limerick has arrived at. The team have already taken and distilled that information they have soaked up and are now writing up a plan for the roll-out of the brand, which is expected in mid-2019. They have started to show some of their work to various groups, and have received positive feedback. They recently worked with students at LSAD to get some creative input, and Ms Harris said it was fantastic and inspiring, working with the students in a workshop as part of their brand design process and consultation. She explains that the creative agencys philosophy is all about brutal simplicity, all around the idea that it is easier to complicate than to simplify. But it is the simple ideas that go into your mind faster and stay there longer. M&C Saatchis bid for the tender to create the brand identity was the most economically advantageous the Council received and it is clear that there is a great passion behind the project for the world famous agency, who Mary Harris says have fallen in love with Limerick. She cautions, however, that there must be support for what is created. The launch is going to be such an important moment for us to get right - how we communicate that, how we unveil that positioning to the world, she explained. It has to be true; I dont Limerick has had something that really brings everything together to really define what it stands for and where it should be going. We want to do something that helps Limerick fulfil the potential that we can genuinely see. It takes commitment, and you can have whatever brand you like, but if you dont commit to it, and if people and business and organisations dont get behind it, it will die. But if you do get behind it, it will succeed. I think it comes down to everybody thinking, now is the time to be confident, now is the time to really recognise that we have something special and we must support that and we are excited about it and ought to get behind it. And for us it is so exciting, because it shows that these people who know Limerick so well, really believe that there is something special here and really believe that it should be acting like, and becoming, a leader on a global stage. A JUDGE has requested an explanation for the delay in progressing the case of a Limerick man who is accused of murdering another man at a pub in the city earlier this year. Mark Crawford, aged 41, of Distillery View, Thomondgate is accused of fatally stabbing Patrick OConnor during an incident in July. The 24-year-old was attacked while socialising at his local pub, Fitzgeralds Bar, on Sexton Street North shortly before midnight on July 7, last. He died from his injuries at University Hospital Limerick a short time later sparking a full scale murder investigation. Mr Crawford appeared in court a number of days later and in October, the Director of Public Prosecutions formally directed that he should be prosecuted on indictment before the Central Criminal Court. The case has been adjourned a number of times since and during a procedural hearing last week, Sergeant Donal Cronin told Limerick District Court that while substantial progress has been made in relation to the book of evidence it is not yet complete. The case cannot be sent forward for trial until the book of evidence is completed and a copy served on the accused man. When asked, Sgt Cronin said he was instructed that the book of evidence is not far off but that it is unlikely to be completed before Christmas. I dont believe I will have the book on the next date, he said adding there are certain matters which are yet to be resolved. Some matters are outstanding that require attention, they are holding the book up, he said requesting a two week adjournment of the case. The sergeant did not elaborate further and no specific details of the matters were relayed to the court. While barrister Anne Marie Dunne did not oppose the application (for an adjournment), she did query the delay in progressing the case. There has been a considerable delay, she said noting that directions were received from the DPP were received more than two months ago. Judge Marian OLeary said she too had concerns and that she would require more information on the next occasion. I will require an explanation on the next day she told Sgt Cronin. Mr Crawford was remanded in continuing custody pending his next court appearance on Tuesday next December 18. DOZENS of smart CCTV cameras which have been installed in fourteen towns and villages across Limerick will not use facial recognition technology, it has been confirmed. Briefing members of the Limerick Joint Policing Committee, Dr Mihai Bilauca, head of digital strategy at Limerick City and County Council, said the use of facial recognition technology is not allowed under garda regulations. There is no facial recognition involved in this project. It is banned, he said. Dr Bilauca said each of the 44 high-tech cameras which have been installed are currently being tested and that live monitoring will begin in early 2019. The local authority says an audit of Community CCTV schemes across the country is currently being carried out by the Data Protection Commissioner and that further consultations will take place within the 14 communities before the cameras go live. Details of the locations of each of the cameras and their capabilities will also be published on a dedicated website early in the new year. Once the system goes live, footage from all of the cameras will be monitored at a new state-of-the art facility at Moyross Community Enterprise Centre. To comply with GDPR, the local authority will act as the data controller and a protocol has been agreed with An Garda Siochana to enable officers to obtain CCTV footage when necessary. Dr Bilauca said a small number of the new cameras have been equipped with ANPR technology which will allow them to record details of car registration numbers. However, the cameras will not be connected to any other database and will not flag the presence of certain cars or track them. The cameras will not trigger any alerts, it doesnt track people (or cars), he said explaining the system will allow for the search and retrieval of information if the details of a specific number plate are inputted. In response to a question from Mayor James Collins, Dr Bilauca said it could be some time before the scheme is extended to areas of the city such as Dooradoyle, Caherdavin, Garryowen and Castletroy. While there is significant demand for cameras in such areas, a strategy needs to be a agreed and funding secured to install the cameras and operate the system for at least five years. THE PEOPLE of Hospital in County Limerick are numb following a tragic accident in the village on Wednesday evening. The man who was involved in a collision with a van has been named locally as Patryk Kacprowicz. It is understood he remains in a critical condition in hospital. He is a Polish national who lives in the town with his wife and two young children. Cllr Ger Mitchell said he is very well-liked in the locality. The community is very saddened by this tragic accident. I would like to express my sincere sympathies, on behalf of the community, to his family and his relatives in Poland, said Cllr Mitchell He is living in the village. Quite a lot of of people in Hospital know him - he has children going to the school. He is very well-liked. I think he is working in a local factory. The community is numb. He praised those who came to the aid of Mr Kacprowicz following the accident on Wednesday evening. People working in local businesses came to his aid. The defibrillator was got from the GAA Club and that was used. They performed CPR and waited with him for the gardai and ambulances to arrive, said Cllr Mitchell. Gardai are appealing for witnesses, or anyone with any information or anyone who may have been on the Main Street in Hospital between 5.25pm and 5.50pm on Wednesday, December 12 to contact them at Bruff Garda Station on 061-382940. WE ARE fast approaching the end of what has been a very difficult year in farming. Its never easy but what with floods, snow, storms, drought and a fodder shortage, all we were missing was a plague of locusts. Back in August, Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed visited Cappamore Show and along with a number of speakers discussed the fodder crisis. It was an admirable show of solidarity with farmers of the area and he was made feel very welcome by the wonderful show committee. Minister Creed called to Mulcair Veterinary where we discussed the future of veterinary practice in rural Ireland. Thankfully the weather has abated since then and a lot of reasonable quality fodder was collected in September/October. However, on some of our larger, more intensively stocked farms, fodder could be tight. At a recent dairy night at Mulcair Veterinary, Professor Finbar Mulligan, of UCD, outlined the importance of farmers quantifying how much fodder they have. This they can do by using a fodder planner which they can easily access from the Teagasc website or from any Teagasc office. If you realise you have insufficient fodder it is best to plan accordingly, sooner rather than later. Professor Mulligan outlines various fillers that can be used such as soya hull, palm kernel, beet pulp etc to make the silage last as long as possible. Professor Mulligan stressed the importance of testing the silage as it can be very variable. If you know the energy protein, and mineral levels provided in the silage, then you can balance accordingly. Ask your vet or Teagasc advisor if you need any help with this. One would hope that if the winter is prolonged that farmers with surplus fodder will not be too hard on their colleagues that are short on fodder. Sustainability is the new buzz word in farming and at the same dairy night we spoke about selective dry cow therapy. We need to reduce the amount of antibiotics used on dairy farms to remain sustainable. Dry cow antibiotics tubes account for 40% of all antibiotics used on dairy farms. By using teat sealant only on selected cows we can drastically reduce this. You need good records to do this. Selecting cows with a consistently low somatic cell count and using a teat sealant only on these cows is the way forward. Care must be taken in both selecting these cows and applying the teat sealant. Again seek advice from your vet. We also spoke about the importance of reducing overall antibiotics usage on farms. We suggested blood testing weanlings to establish what viruses are prevalent on the farm and initiating a vaccination programme specifically for that farm. This would automatically reduce the level of pneumonia on the farm and as a result the amount of antibiotic used. All these decisions are based on accurate testing, and information received. We also spoke about the importance of testing faecal samples for worms and fluke levels. Again we should base our dosing regime on these results rather than ad hoc basis as we have been dosing previously. This has led to an increase in resistance to anthelmintics globally. Dosing for incorrect weights and poor application techniques has exacerbated the problem. So, test the samples and seek advice regarding the most suitable dosing programme. Farming seems to be constantly getting poor press these days. I think its time that the excellent, natural produce coming from our farms gets the credit it deserves. Our farmers are working to the highest international standards and this should be recognised. Reducing antibiotic usage and making farming more sustainable by doing so, will only enhance that reputation. It's now beyond official: Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, pose a danger to public health and welfare, according to an exhaustive review that looked at 275 scientific studies published over the past nine years. Researchers did the report to investigate whether the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2009 Endangerment Finding, which found that greenhouse gases pose a risk to human health, still held up. The new study showed that there is now even more evidence that greenhouse gases are harming human health and welfare. The investigation also found an additional four areas, not listed in the original report, in which greenhouse gases threaten people. "There's absolutely no scientific basis for questioning the Endangerment Finding," review lead researcher Philip Duffy, president and executive director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, told Live Science. "The case for endangerment is stronger than ever." [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change] What is the Endangerment Finding? The original Endangerment Finding was a long time in the making. It began when Massachusetts and other states sued the EPA during President George W. Bush's administration, asking the agency to regulate greenhouse gases. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that not only does the EPA have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, but it also can't refuse to do so if these pollutants are found to endanger people. "The Supreme Court said 'if you determine that greenhouse gases are dangerous, then you have to regulate them,'" Duffy said. "But, of course, the Supreme Court wasn't itself going to say whether greenhouse gases are dangerous. That's a scientific process not a legal one. So, the EPA undertook the scientific assessment of the dangerousness or not-dangerousness of greenhouse gases." In December 2009, the EPA released that report, which found that greenhouse gases do endanger human health and welfare by causing climate change. The administration of President Barack Obama used this finding to implement new regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan and stronger vehicle mileage standards for cars and light trucks, Duffy said. But now, people in and out of President Donald Trump's administration have discussed overturning or revisiting the endangerment finding, Duffy said. In response to these statements, Duffy and his colleagues decided to look at scientific studies published since the endangerment finding came out, to see whether the science strengthened or weakened the case for endangerment. What the science shows The new review grouped the findings into different categories: public health, air quality, agriculture, forests, water resources, sea level rise, infrastructure and wildlife. The four new categories include ocean acidification, national security, economic well-being and violence. Here are more in-depth looks at several of them. Overview of public health People in more than 200 U.S. cities have an increased risk of premature death because of future warming, the researchers found. Extreme heat is linked with sleep loss, kidney stones, low birth weight, violence and suicide. Exposure to ozone and other air pollutants, including smoke from forest fires, can be bad for human health. Extreme weather events intensified by climate change can lead to physical trauma, disease outbreaks, interruption of health care delivery and mental health problems. Rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are also increasing the length of pollen season, which affects people with allergies. Certain crops are expected to produce fewer nutrients. Population displacement and armed conflict can also amplify risks to human health. [Photos Show Horrifying Scenes from California Wildfires] Water resources With less snowpack in the mountains, the West and Southwest may experience more droughts. Reduced snowpack can lead to reduced river flow, which can threaten rare and endangered species, such as salmon and wolverines. Climate change is also expected to erode water quality in the United States because of nutrient loading (such as from fertilizer or animal waste), especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Sea level rise High sea levels will increase the risk to coastal communities, economies and infrastructure, largely because of flooding, erosion and extreme events. These effects can lead to displacement through "climate gentrification," in which people living at higher elevations have higher-priced properties. The movement of goods among major port cities will likely be affected, too, causing economic disruptions. Sea level rise may also disrupt the U.S. military, as well as disaster and humanitarian relief efforts. National security The United States' existing security will likely need to change as the planet warms. For example, in the Arctic, reduced sea ice will clear the way for more Chinese trade routes and Russian oil and gas extraction, possibly causing tensions between these countries and the U.S., the researchers wrote. Economic well-being An increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) over 75 years is expected to permanently reduce U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by about 3 percent. The U.S. GDP is expected to be about 4 percent greater if warming is limited to 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C) than if it's 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) above pre-industrial levels. Economies in poorer countries are expected to have an economic burden from climate change that is about five times larger than that of wealthier counties, the researchers found. Violence and instability Rising temperatures and increased rainfall can amplify violence and instability. In the U.S., higher temperatures are associated with higher rates of domestic violence, rape, assault and murder. Warmer periods may also elevate the risk of self-harm, including suicide, emerging evidence suggests. Takeaway message These findings "highlight this contrast between the science and the policies," Duffy said. "The scientific evidence is going in one direction, and the policies are going in exactly the opposite direction." But this report shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, said Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York, who wasn't involved with the review. "If you've been paying attention, the Endangerment Finding in 2009 was very well-reasoned, and it's only gotten stronger since that time," Smerdon told Live Science. "It's basically a tsunami of evidence in support of the fact. People have very clearly connected the changing climate, which we're causing, to the downstream impacts." The review also drives home that climate change will affect everybody, not just people in distant lands. "Reports like this all point out that every one of us will be impacted by climate change in different ways, and it's going to be in all of our backyards," Smerdon said. "It's not something that's going to be far away." The review was published online yesterday (Dec. 13) in the journal Science. Originally published on Live Science. The bloodthirsty Vlad the Impaler may have been imprisoned in this Transylvanian castle. WASHINGTON A historic Transylvanian castle that may have once imprisoned Vlad the Impaler likely inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula still stands today. But what lies beneath it? Because of centuries of rebuilding and additions, archaeologists weren't sure where the castle's original foundation lay. [24 Amazing Archaeological Discoveries] However, new research using radar scans of the ground beneath the structure is revealing what's going on below the building's imposing facade. The findings were presented on Wednesday (Dec. 12) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Castelul Corvinilor also known as Corvin Castle, Hunedoara Castle or Hunyadi Castle began as a fortress built in central Transylvania (now Romania). The structure's oldest stone fortifications date to the 14th century, and its transformation from fortress into a castle was well underway by the 15th century, according to lead researcher Isabel Morris, a doctoral candidate with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University in New Jersey. In the 15th century, the bloodthirsty despot Vlad III, prince of Wallachia, aka Vlad the Impaler, was purportedly imprisoned in Castle Corvin by Hungarian Gov. John Hunyadi (Ioan de Hunedoara), who oversaw the castle's first expansion, according to the Romanian tourism website Rolandia. Two more expansions to the castle, in the 17th and 19th centuries, followed Hunyadi's efforts. Consequently, the building is a hodgepodge of construction from different periods, Morris said. It has also been the subject of numerous excavations; however, maps of the site are inconsistent, and much of the archaeological record is missing, presenting challenges to scientists exploring the castle today, Morris explained. For this reason, she and her colleagues chose ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to conduct their surveys. Researchers used radar scans to peer beneath the medieval castle. Here, the "smooth" section on the right shows the bedrock, while the "busy" layers on the left are not bedrock. (Image credit: Isabel Morris) "In order to do a good job with our reconstruction, we need to know where all these pieces are," she told Live Science. The scans helped the researchers identify an administrative complex built during the 17th century, Morris said. The radar also revealed places where parts of the castle were held up by bedrock and supported by built-up, human-made structures. "That's important moving forward for conserving this exciting historic site," Morris said. Already-reconstructed rooms in the castle's depths include a torture chamber with a model of an unfortunate victim bound and hung from the ceiling but it is unknown if the grim chamber ever housed the infamous Vlad the Impaler. Originally published on Live Science. If head frills were a fashion statement, a newly identified 73-million-year-old triceratops relative was certainly at the top of its game. The newfound dinosaur named Crittendenceratops krzyzanowskii sported a fancy frill on the top of its head, a new study finds. In fact, it's the youngest-known dinosaur of its clade (the nasutoceratopsins), as well as the first of its clade on record to sport an elaborate frill, the researchers said. "This clade has simple frills." said study co-lead researcher Sebastian Dalman, who was at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science at the time of the research. "Crittendenceratops is the first member of this clade with [an] ornamented frill." [Tiny & Old: Images of 'Triceratops' Ancestors] The late Stan Krzyzanowski, a research associate at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, discovered two of the late Cretaceous creatures in the 1990s in a mountain range near Tucson, Arizona. Krzyzanowski and his colleagues briefly described the dinosaur in a 2003 study, but it wasn't until recently that another look at the fossils revealed they represented an unidentified species. Dinosaurs in the nasutoceratopsins clade have less ornate frills, making C. krzyzanowskii the first member of this group to have a frill with complex ornamentation. (Image credit: Dalman, S.G. et al. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 2018) It was the beast's unique frill that revealed it was a newfound species, Dalman told Live Science in an email. The researchers named the dinosaur's species name after Krzyzanowski, to honor this discovery. The genus name (Crittendenceratops) is derived from the Fort Crittenden Formation, where the fossils were found. The suffix "ceratops" means "horned-face" in Greek. Although C. krzyzanowskii is a relative of Triceratops, it was much smaller about 11 feet (3.3 meters) long, or less than half the size of its famous cousin. Moreover, while Triceratops lived at the end of the dinosaur era, from about 67 million to 65 million years ago, C. krzyzanowskii lived about 6 million years before that. Part of the newfound horned dinosaur's fossilized frill. (Image credit: Dalman, S.G. et al. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 2018) Back then C. krzyzanowskii lived by the banks of a great lake in a forest of conifer and palm trees, said study co-lead researcher Spencer Lucas, a curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. The fancy-frilled beast shared this area with mud turtles, alligators, duck-billed dinosaurs and even vicious tyrannosaurs. Although Arizona is fairly arid now, it was a warm and wet subtropical place during the late Cretaceous. So the area offered a bountiful buffet for the 1,500-lb. (680 kilograms) C. krzyzanowskii, which likely chowed down on the region's shrubs and conifers, Lucas said. The study was published online in October in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin. Originally published on Live Science. Yellow Dog Productions/Getty Image A man allegedly stole body armor and an unmarked vehicle from a San Francisco FBI storage facility in October before going on a three-day jaunt through the city that included trips to Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, according to federal court documents unsealed this week. Federal prosecutors accused Angelo Valdez, 30, of taking U.S. property and damaging it over three days in the city. Valdez allegedly entered the parking lot of an FBI storage facility in Potrero Hill around 5:49 p.m. on Oct. 22. He then got into a crisis negotiation vehicle and smashed a TV in the interior before making off with body armor, according to court documents. The face of Latin America's cartels is changing as more women are rising up in leadership and taking on roles in drug trafficking and assassination. Known as "Las Flakas" (Skinny Girls), young women are taking up lives of crime, becoming effective agents for the cartels' causes. Since the chance of being assassinated is great, the title of "La Flaka" has been passed from one female to another. HOW IT WORKS: This is how drug cartels get American guns into Mexico The Daily Beast named the first "La Flaca" as Veronica Mireya Moreno Carreon, who worked for Los Zetas and was arrested in 2011. The second was Nancy Manriquez Quintanar, who was also arrested in 2011. The most recent to make headlines was Joselyn Alejandra Nino, who was found dismembered and stuffed in an ice chest along the US-Mexico border in April of 2015. The Gulf Cartel assassin's chopped up body was found along with another dismembered woman and a decapitated man in the back of a truck. She made headlines after a photo of her toting an assault rifle with a smile went viral months before her murder. Facebook screenshots Nino's death has been credited to La Gladys of the Zetas Cartel, who remains "at large terrorizing the communities of northern Mexico," Fox News reported. TEXAS CARTEL TIES: Lubbock woman goes to prison for ties to Sinaloa Cartel "They are ideal killers; young, beautiful and reckless," Andrew Chesnut, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Fox News. "By keeping a low profile they avoid suspicion where men doing the same job would quickly find themselves in trouble." Chesnut continued to explain that the young female assassins work their way up to become killers - beginning as low-level lookout workers or prostitutes. Some others are recruited in prison or were born into cartel families. "There's an inextricable link between sex and death in the culture of these female killers," Chesnut told Fox News. "In seeking to be the most desired by the narco men, they seek also to be the most brutal among their group of peers. It's gone as far as having them worship the image of Saint Death in their own likenesses, dressed in lingerie." Last year, another female killer known as "La Peque" (the little one) claimed to have had intercourse with beheaded corpses and bathed in and drank their blood. The 29-year -old member of the Sinaloa Cartel is currently in prison in Baja California Sur. DRUG MIGRATION: DEA maps show where drug cartels hold sway in Texas, U.S. Melisa Margarita Calderon Ojeda, known as "La China", is another former assassin who is currently locked up in a Baja California Sur prison for homicide. She and her ex-partner, Eduardo Martin Alvarado "El Kumi," were ordered to kill another rival assassin, but they accidentally killed his father instead, according to reports. Though not an official assassin, Ann Marie Hernandez, known as "La Muneca," was another leading female cartel member who was arrested in 2015 for drug smuggling and bribery charges. She and her ex-husband Daniel Ledezma smuggled thousands of kilograms of cocaine through an El Paso border crossing where he worked. To see these and other female assassins who have made a name for themselves for their ruthlessness, click through the gallery above. And continue clicking to see the other inside photos that have been leaked through the years of the world of cartel men and women. The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change By Ellen Ruppel Shell Currency. 416 pp. $30 --- Americans have a few reasons for joy, right? The economy is strong and unemployment is low. Yet as the 2016 presidential election - and daily headlines since - reminds us, large swaths of the country are marinating in misery. High-wage, union-protected jobs have gone the way of the buffalo, replaced by low-wage jobs in health care and the service industry. Lifetime employment and the middle-class life that went with it have given way to short-term contract work and freelance gigs with no paid leave, health-care benefits or pensions. Uncertainty and turmoil reign, the offspring of that unholy trinity: globalization, digitalization and automation. This is the terrain that Ellen Ruppel Shell, a professor of journalism at Boston University and a correspondent for the Atlantic, stalks in "The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change." It is a sweeping, snappily written survey that looks unsparingly at what the author calls "our national jobs disorder" - which she characterizes as a constellation of ills that include low wages, stagnant incomes and sick corporate cultures. The book also takes a critical look at America's worship of entrepreneurship and high-tech heroes and questions the value of worker retraining and higher education. There is a lot that's wrong, and Shell expends a lot of energy looking into it. She is a lively, engaging writer, with a gift for translating economic abstractions into plain English. The grim picture Shell paints is familiar in its outlines, but arresting examples add color. In laying out her indictment of the economic status quo, Shell pursues some provocative lines of argument, although her appetite for statistics at times can turn manic. The idea of higher education for everyone is not, she argues, the panacea so many people think it is. In many cases, she points out, it does little or nothing to increase earnings and can actually have a negative effect. The bottom 25 percent of college graduates, she notes, earn no more than high school graduates, and students who have dropped out of college earn even less. In any case, American education, as Shell describes it, is something of a con game that's oriented too much toward the needs of employers. Her bete noire is the notorious skills gap - too many skilled manufacturing positions chasing too few skilled laborers. This, she maintains, is a hoax. Citing a recent survey of manufacturers conducted by Paul Osterman of MIT and Andrew Weaver of the University of Illinois, she writes, "The problem was not that workers lacked skills but rather that employers could not find enough workers with even the most basic skills willing to take their low-paid jobs." All hope is not lost. In the second half of the book Shell makes an impassioned plea for what she calls "sustainable and worthy work" outside "the vagaries of a fickle global marketplace." In the tradition of Thomas Carlyle and William Morris, she throws down a challenge: "to sort out and fiercely protect those elements of work that are essential not only to our economy and our democracy but to our very humanity." Traveling the world in seven-league boots, Shell talks to pioneers who are trying to redefine the meaning of work and transform the relationship of businesses to their employees and to the communities around them. She meets, among others, a Finnish sausagemaker, a motorcycle designer in Brooklyn and a self-employed broommaker in Kentucky. All have one trait in common, a determination to "get work right." To use the old revolutionary slogan, what is to be done? Shell turns for inspiration to business models like the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry in Cleveland, whose workers own shares in the company and have a voice in how it is run, and the Snellman sausage company in Finland, where workers are encouraged to "invest in themselves" by spending more time with their families or taking company-sponsored language courses. Shell loves small workshops, quirky craftsmen and big public-policy ideas, like a guaranteed income, or cutting the workweek to 21 hours to create a labor shortage that would boost wages. She is, in full flight, utopian. It is hard to see her Kentucky broommaker, however happy he may be in his work, as much more than a human interest story, and the 21-hour week would seem to lie on the far horizon - that distant point where pigs fly. Shell has written a spirited "dare to dream" book with a tantalizing promise, that "work as it can and should be is well within our reach." Despite her detours into Neverland, she is persuasive enough to make it seem that it might even be true. --- Grimes is a former book critic for the New York Times. The Deep Learning Revolution By Terrence J. Sejnowski MIT. 352 pp. $29.95 --- Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology By Adrienne Mayor Princeton. 304 pp. $29.95 --- The largest artificial-intelligence conference, Neural Information Processing Systems (with the regrettable acronym NIPS, changed last month to NeurIPS), has become a hot ticket. This year, it sold out in less than 12 minutes. At last year's event, Intel threw a packed party with the rapper Flo Rida. Meanwhile, Burning Man - the desert festival begun in 1986, a year before NeurIPS - sold out in under half an hour this year. The theme: "I, Robot." Reacting to the theme's announcement, the AI researcher Miles Brundage tweeted,"NIPS is the new Burning Man; Burning Man is the new NIPS." AI was once a fringe academic pursuit that reached public consciousness mostly through sci-fi movies like "2001" and "The Terminator." Now it nets researchers seven-figure salaries and converses with our kids through appliances and phones. Ethical dilemmas like those in the movies - How much autonomy should machines have? Whose priorities should they serve? - have become urgent topics with near-term consequences. And now that AI is replacing jobs and creating art, it is forcing us to confront an age-old question with new intensity: What makes humans so special? Artificial intelligence has many definitions, but broadly it refers to software that perceives the world or makes decisions. It uses algorithms, or step-by-step instructions (a recipe is an algorithm). Within AI is an area called machine learning, in which algorithms are not hand-coded but trained. Give the computer lots of labeled photos, and it figures out how to label new ones. And within machine learning is deep learning, which uses algorithms loosely modeled on the brain. So-called neural networks pass data among many connected nodes, each performing a bit of computation, like the brain's neurons. It's deep learning that's behind self-driving cars, speech recognition, and superhuman players of Go and poker. It's deep learning that's made NeurIPS the new Burning Man. One of its pioneers traces its history in a new book, "The Deep Learning Revolution." Terrence J. Sejnowski started as a physicist in the 1970s before finding that his mathematical tools could be used to study information processing in the brain - and to create new forms of information processing in computers. (He's now a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and since 1993 has been the president of NeurIPS.) Neural networks have always had devotees, but they were not always popular. Despite initial promise, they couldn't do much until the rise of large, multi-layered networks - deep learning - in the past few years. We finally have the powerful computers, software refinements and giant data sets to train and operate them. One is struck by how badly even experts misjudge the progress of this (and other) technology. A key ancestor of deep learning was a one-neuron algorithm developed in the 1950s called a perceptron. A 1958 article in the New York Times read, "The Navy revealed the embryo of an electronic computer today that it expects will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence." Presumably it meant within a generation. The project soon hit snags. While it appeared to spot tanks in photos, it was relying on sky brightness. In 1969 researchers Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert published a book arguing that complex tasks would require multiple layers of perceptrons but that such networks might not be trainable. They were wrong about training, but their pessimism helped cause a "winter" in the research field that lasted until the 1980s. Deep learning's limitations, or lack thereof, are still debated. Sejnowski's book is part history lesson, part textbook and part memoir, with varying levels of accessibility. Those with an existing interest in the topic will be charmed and enlightened. Some anecdotes have a you-had-to-be-there quality; others are more repeatable. At a 2006 banquet, Sejnowski publicly pressed Minsky on whether people were right to demonize him for waylaying neural nets. Finally Minsky shouted, "Yes, I am the devil!" At a resort after the first NeurIPS, a neuroscientist was discussing the sea slug Aplysia. Sejnowski recalls, "The gentleman next to me in the hot tub from the Department of Defense was probably wondering what Aplysia had to do with national security." Sejnowski has been a steadfast cheerleader for deep learning. In his first chapter he notes its existing and near-term applications: autonomous driving, language translation, cancer diagnosis, stock trading, legal discovery, personalized tutoring. But he remains grounded. Later he touches on some of its current risks: Neural nets are often too complex to explain their decisions in relatable terms, they can perpetuate social discrimination if trained on biased data, and they can be used for autonomous weapons that might become trigger-happy. Granted, humans are also opaque, unfair and ornery. Still, much separates AI from people. All existing AI is "narrow," good at one thing. With deep learning and other methods, experts aspire to create artificial general intelligence (AGI), which has common sense. An old saying remains true: State-of-the-art AI will make the perfect chess move - while the room is on fire. Sejnowski has hope for our ability to reverse-engineer the brain. "Nature may be cleverer than we are individually," he writes, "but I see no reason why we, as a species, cannot someday solve the puzzle of intelligence." The dream of building minds is an old one. How old? You may be surprised to learn that the ancient Greeks had myths about robots. In "Gods and Robots," Stanford science historian Adrienne Mayor describes how, more than 2,500 years before the modern computer, people told tales of autonomous machines that could labor, entertain, kill and seduce. Among them was Talos, a bronze automaton forged by Hephaestus, god of metalworking, to guard the island of Crete. This machine, the size of the Statue of Liberty, patrolled the shore hurling boulders at invaders. (In 1948, the name Talos was given to a partly autonomous missile.) Hephaestus's human descendant Daedalus was said to craft animated statues of animals so lifelike they needed to be tied up. Pandora, another of Hephaestus's creations, was an android sent to curse humanity. She entices Epimetheus ("afterthought") to let her into his home, where she lifts the lid on her woeful jar. ("Box" is a mistranslation.) While Pandora was a one-trick pony - narrow AI - "The Iliad" describes Hephaestus's golden serving girls as having "sense and reason ... [and] all the learning of the immortals." AGI, and then some. Eastern traditions also featured robots. Indian legend has mechanical soldiers defending the remains of the Buddha. And an ancient Chinese tale has a robotic man dance and flirt with royal concubines, angering King Mu before its creator reveals its artificial nature. That people could even picture such technical feats thousands of years ago may seem a stretch, but they had catapults, voting machines and other automated mechanisms from which to extrapolate. We don't have anything near time travel, and we can still enjoy "The Terminator." In "Gods and Robots," Mayor carefully examines secondary and source material - writings and artwork - to discern the ancients' views on minds both supernatural and soulless. She takes an academic tone (her book and Sejnowski's are from university presses) but draws occasional parallels to modern sci-fi movies such as "Blade Runner" and "Ex Machina," arguing that our concerns about artificial life haven't changed much. "The age-old stories," she writes, "raise questions of free will, slavery, the origins of evil, man's limits, and what it means to be human." Can we control our creations? Can our creators control us? Are we robots - in Plato's words "ingenious puppet[s] of the gods"? We'd better pay attention to those stories, old and new, Mayor says. "The ancient Greeks understood that the quintessential attribute of humankind is always to be tempted to reach 'beyond human,' " she writes, "and to neglect to envision consequences."Prometheus ("forethought") warned Epimetheus about Pandora's jar. Mayor wonders if Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, who have warned that AI could kill us all, are "the Promethean Titans of our era." She calls the stories in her book "good to think with." And not just for us. Mayor foresees a day when AIs will read our fictions and come to understand us through them. Who knows, maybe they'll even develop their own stories and culture and rituals. They'll form a festival with a flaming effigy of the being that brought them into this world. They'll call it, you guessed it, Burning Man. --- Hutson is a freelance science writer in New York and the author of "The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking." "Mary Poppins Returns" works hard to evoke the undeniable charms of the original 1964 film: It replicates many of them, in slavish fashion. Remember that famous animated set piece from the first film in which live-action characters jump into a two-dimensional sidewalk chalk drawing? Here, they leap into a painting on a ceramic bowl. And how about that "Step in Time" number from the original, featuring dancing chimney sweeps? In the sequel, it's a phalanx of London lamplighters performing parkour tricks on bicycles. Half a century ago, Ed Wynn, as Mary's eccentric uncle Albert, floated up to the ceiling as if filled with helium while singing "I Love to Laugh." Now it's Meryl Streep's turn, as Mary's eccentric cousin Topsy, trilling "Turning Turtle" as she gives a tour of her upside-down repair shop. I mean, homage is one thing, but this reeks less of nostalgia than sweat. There is so little tolerance for spontaneity, in a film that feels calibrated to the millimeter to be magical, that reactions like delight and surprise - when they occur at all - feel manufactured. Set some 20 years after the action of "Mary Poppins," "Mary Poppins Returns" centers on the now-grown Banks children: Michael (Ben Whishaw), a widower with three children (Pixie Davies, Joel Dawson and Nathanael Saleh), and his unmarried sister, Jane (Emily Mortimer). Jane, like her suffragist mother before her, is an activist for progressive causes (in this case, SPRUCE, or the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Underpaid Citizens of England). Her soft heart for the working stiff - coupled with her status as a singleton - makes her a perfect candidate for the love of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Jack, a lamplighter who we're told was once an apprentice of Dick Van Dyke's character, Bert, from the 1964 film. (Sadly, although Miranda is a deft and effortless dancer, with a genial singing voice, there is little, if any, chemistry between him and Jane. And while affable enough, the creator and star of "Hamilton" has little screen presence. Don't even get me started on his cockney accent, a vocal misfire that makes Van Dyke's mangled vowels sound good.) Michael, a scatterbrained artist, is distraught because he misses his late wife. In fact, his grief has prevented him from keeping up with the mortgage payments on the house, which has fallen into foreclosure as the film opens, under the predations of a heartless banker played by Colin Firth. Strangely, Michael's heavy mood of gloom and doom pervades this family tale, like the "misty morning showers" that Miranda sings about, euphemistically, in the movie's pleasant if underwhelming opening number, "(Underneath the) Lovely London Sky." The songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are serviceable, if less memorable, than the original songbook by the Sherman brothers, Robert and Richard, who wrote such unforgettable earworms as "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Let's Go Fly a Kite." Into this musical miasma of fog and funk floats the title character (the excellent Emily Blunt, pitch-perfect as the punctilious-to-the-point-of-snarky Poppins) to set things right. Two hours later, after exhausting digressions, surreal side trips and interminable interludes that make the first film, at nearly 2 1/2 hours, somehow feel shorter than this one, Mary's mission is accomplished. (Have I mentioned that this is a Disney film? A happy ending - including a surprise cameo that is as close to enchanting as the movie ever gets - is never really in doubt.) Surely there are some who will approach the naked mechanics of "Mary Poppins Returns" more generously than others. Fond memories of the first film, and a childlike acceptance of the movie's almost desperate need to be liked, can go a long way toward sweetening what left a bad taste in my mouth: its shameless sense of imitation and the all but joyless drumbeat of duty. Where's the spoonful of sugar, you may wonder, to help this medicine go down? --- One and one-half stars. Rated PG. Contains mildly mature thematic elements and brief action. 130 minutes. Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time. KLRN tonight will broadcast the film shot during k.d. langs September concert at the Majestic Theatre. The vocalist performed at the Majestic as part of a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of her landmark album Ingenue. On ExpressNews.com: k.d. lang talks Ingenue and the Majestic In an interview with the Express-News in advance of the concert, she said that when she was approached about recording one of the stops on the tour, she thought of the Majestic right away. She had performed in the theater before and had a special feeling for it. PBS Landmarks series came to see the show in Seattle and loved it and said, We would like to film the show, she recalled. And I was over the moon about that and am over the moon about it. And they said, Where do you want to film it? Ive always, always had a thing for the Maejstic Theatre in San Antonio since Ingenue. And so I said, San Antonio, the Majestic Theatre. Related: Jeanne Jakle: The 10 best TV shows of 2018 I remember the lights on the ceiling from when I performed there. And I remember the size of it was perfect its intimate, it sounded good, and Texans are just a certain way when it comes to live music, and I totally appreciate that. The Landmarks Live in Concert program begins at 8 p.m. It includes lang and her band playing the songs from Ingenue in order, followed by a few other songs, including Leonard Cohens Hallelujah. The special also includes an interview with lang. The program will be available on DVD and Blu-ray. as well. Those go on sale Tuesday. dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN Deborah Martin is an arts writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN When Arts San Antonio presented Yo-Yo Ma with the Silkroad Ensemble in 2011, they heard from a lot of concert-goers who had wanted to hear more from the celebrated cellist on his own. That wish will be granted in April. Arts San Antonio is presenting Ma in a solo concert of six Bach suites at 8 p.m. April 12 at Trinity Universitys Laurie Auditorium. We wanted it to be a full meal for folks, said John Toohey, president and executive director of Arts San Antonio. Tickets, which range from $49 to $175, are available now to season subscribers; they go on sale to the general public on Wednesday through Ticketmaster and at artssa.org. The performance is part of The Bach Project, a series of concerts paired with community presentations that Ma launched in August. Over the next two years, he will give 36 performances of the Bach pieces around the world. San Antonio is the only Texas city scheduled. The concert will be simulcast in the quadrangle of Texas A&M International University in Laredo. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Symphony names new director Each of the performances in The Bach Project are paired with a day of action devoted to cultural engagement and exploring the impact of the arts on communities. For Mas San Antonio visit, the day of action will take place in Laredo. Arts San Antonio representatives will drive him to the border city on April 13 and spend the day with him there. Beyond that, details are still being worked out. Its different from city to city, said Toohey. Its not a fixed thing. In Denver, there were a series of performances and discussions exploring how culture could help protect the citys most vulnerable residents. In Leipzig, Germany, Ma took part in a roundtable discussion of the role of culture in diverse societies and in a free public performance. In Oakland, he took part in a block party, led a master class for area schools and ensembles and took part in a public conversation about arts in schools. For more information, visit https://www.artssa.org/ or call 210-226-2891. dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN Deborah Martin is an arts writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN NEW YORK - You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a shrewder choice for the role of Atticus Finch than Jeff Daniels. Daniels has played American vile ("Terms of Endearment") and American vacuous ("Dumb and Dumber"), but he may be best at American virtue. Not the one-dimensional superhero variety, however; the wholesome qualities he projects are those of a person capable not only of action, but also of reflection. His gift for evoking tolerance is wrapped in charisma. This attribute comes in extremely handy for all concerned in playwright Aaron Sorkin's lucid, lump-in-the-throat new stage adaptation of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," which had its official opening Thursday at Broadway's Shubert Theatre. Preserving it as a good vs. evil story of Southern white injustice in the era of Jim Crow, Sorkin has added other virtues - in particular, more forceful personalities for the two major black characters: Calpurnia, Atticus's housekeeper, played with winning irascibility by LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Tom Robinson, the falsely accused defendant, in the haunting embodiment here of Gbenga Akinnagbe. It's useful to have an actor of a certain gold-plated integrity like Daniels when you take on a piece as deeply embedded in the American consciousness as "To Kill a Mockingbird." The novel is still taught virtually everywhere, even though its sensibility is paternalistic by contemporary standards: It puts on a pedestal - and the movie version, even more so - a white knight who selflessly fights for the oppressed. Lee's narrative also tends to treat the submissive black people of Maycomb County, Alabama, as all-too-grateful beneficiaries, if that's the right word, of Atticus's generous spirit. And there's something that may now feel too comfortably tailor-made for middle-class consumption, in the demonization of the story's destitute, uneducated white accusers. They cruelly doom an innocent black man and exist on the extreme fringe of a white society run through with racism. To build a play in 2018 on these notions requires a writer like Sorkin who can toggle between the radically different mind-set of 1934, when the story takes place; 1960, when the novel was published; and today. And if a decision is made that Atticus is the evening's touchstone, then having an actor who effortlessly conveys a bedrock fair-mindedness, who entreats us to a belief in our own better natures, is essential. Sorkin reinforces the necessity of a towering Atticus by shifting the perspective away from his daughter, Scout, whose narration defines the voice of the novel and the 1962 movie version. On Broadway, Sorkin has Scout, in the person of adult actress Celia Keenan-Bolger, share the storytelling duties with her older brother, Jem (Will Pullen), and their best friend, Dill (Gideon Glick). For the way in which the device underlines how much of the play revolves around Atticus, Sorkin might as well have changed the bird in the title to "Finch." This proves to be a good thing for a big, conventional Broadway play with across-the-board appeal and the potential - rare these days, for a nonmusical - to run for years. Director Bartlett Sher has assembled a terrific cast, with juicy turns for such actors as Dakin Matthews (as the courtroom wise man, Judge Taylor); Frederick Weller (portraying Bob Ewell, the lowdown varmint-father of the accuser); and Jackson, a Tony nominee shoo-in for her careful externalizing of Calpurnia's bristling dignity. Deserving of special praise is Erin Wilhelmi, for her turn as the pitiful Mayella, who accuses Tom of rape but is really the victim of her father's abuse. Keenan-Bolger, Pullen and Glick prove impressive, too, under Sher's meticulous guidance, as they subtly gearshift from childlike to grown-up and back again. And so rather than Scout's rite of passage, the play is Atticus', as he is wrenched from his faith in the goodness of humankind toward a more sober assessment of the limits of human decency. Sorkin cannot help but make his own politics manifest at times, through Atticus and others. The sense of the insidiousness of racism in the South, and the hypocrisy that the play suggests still lingers, is encapsulated by comments like those of supposed town drunk Link Deas (Neal Huff), who observes that "when horror comes to supper, it comes dressed exactly like a Christian." Tom's trial, which becomes the focus of the second half of Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is a thread of the stage production from start to finish. Miriam Buether's set, encased in the decaying walls of a courthouse, efficiently accommodates the "wagons" that roll on and off, transporting the porch and dining room of Atticus' house. Courtroom tables and benches are whisked on and off, too, though the jury box always remains vacant: Are the absent jurors the ones for whom the audience sits in judgment? Or are we meant to think of ourselves as filling those empty seats? "To Kill a Mockingbird" leaves no question about who the angels are in Maycomb County and who are not, although Atticus even has it in his empathy-drenched heart to offer up a word or two of compassion for a horror like Bob Ewell. The thing is, when these words are uttered by Jeff Daniels, you're inclined to a conviction that kindness in the world is still possible. --- "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Aaron Sorkin. Directed by Bartlett Sher. Costumes, Ann Roth; lighting, Jennifer Tipton; music, Adam Guettel. About 2 hours 40 minutes. $39-$450. At the Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St., New York. telecharge.com. A law enforcement operation in eastern Webb County yielded five arrests and 115 pounds or marijuana, according to the Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Martin Cuellar said the seizure occurred after deputies pulled over two 2005 Kia Sorento vehicles at about 1 p.m. Thursday in Las Lomas area, located about 18 miles east of Laredo along U.S. 59. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Canadian counterpart said Friday that politics should not be a factor in the extradition of a Chinese technology executive arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, on a U.S. warrant in connection with her company's alleged attempt to evade sanctions on Iran. Pompeo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters after talks at the State Department that they agreed due process must dictate proceedings in the case of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer at Huawei Technologies. The daughter of Huawei's founder, Meng was arrested Dec. 1 during a Vancouver layover. She is out on bail pending a hearing on her extradition to New York to face fraud charges related to Iran sanctions. "It is very important for Canada that extradition agreements are not used for political purposes," Freeland said in French, according to an English translation of her answers at a news conference. "Canada does not do it that way. And I believe it is obvious that democratic countries such as the United States do the same." Freeland's remarks appeared to be a reference to President Trump, who said in an interview Tuesday that he might intervene in the legal case if it would advance his effort to secure a trade deal with China. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made - which is a very important thing - what's good for national security, I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump said in an interview with Reuters. At an Atlantic Council forum Friday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, spoke approvingly of Meng's arrest. "By all accounts it appears she was facilitating sanctions violations against Iran," he said. "I want to see her extradited. I want to see her face the full force of U.S. law for violating those sanctions." Asked about Trump's remarks, Cotton added: "I would not, though, offer to send her back to China or decline to press charges in return for trade agreements. I don't think that would be a wise course of action. It would send the wrong signal to [Chinese President] Xi Jinping. It would send the wrong signal to our allies. And we can get good trade agreements without doing that." Meng's arrest has triggered a diplomatic row that has quickly escalated. China detained two Canadians this week in what is believed to be retaliation. Pompeo called for China to release Michael Kovrig, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, and Michael Spavor, who runs cultural exchanges with North Korea. China's Foreign Ministry has confirmed the two were detained Monday on "suspicion of engaging in activities that endanger national security." "The unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens is unacceptable," Pompeo said. "They ought to be returned." Freeland and Pompeo rejected the notion that the two Canadians are being used as bargaining chips in a trade dispute between the United States and China. "I don't see it that way," Pompeo said. "We will continue to engage in legal processes until we get a just outcome." Freeland said Chinese officials have not drawn a connection between the detentions and Meng's extradition hearing. "From Canada's perspective, these kinds of issues ought never to be confused with one another," she said. "In the detention of Miss Meng, Canada was acting scrupulously with its treaty commitments and in line with the rule of law." Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan also joined the meeting, which largely resonated with paeans to friendship and shared values. The tone was in striking contrast with the testy exchanges between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who bristled at Trump's suggestion that national security necessitated tariffs on Canadian steel. Mattis noted that his mother's family immigrated to the United States from Canada, and he listed battlefields where U.S. and Canadian troops fought side by side. "Canada and the United States are united in security because we are united in democracy, and democracies stick together for common defense," he said. - - - The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report. STRASBOURG, France - After a two-day manhunt that extended from eastern France into Germany, French police announced Thursday night that the hunt had ended and they had caught the attacker. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner reported that police in Strasbourg had "neutralized" a person matching the description of the suspect in Tuesday's attack on a Christmas market. Castaner not did confirm that the person apprehended was Cherif Chekatt, 29, suspected of killing three people and wounding 13 others at the Christmas market, France's largest. But an official in the Paris prosecutor's office, which oversees terrorist investigations in France, told French newspaper Le Monde that it was Chekatt and that he had been killed. Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries tweeted that "we learned that the terrorist who took our city died during the attempted arrest in that took place tonight in the district of Neudorf." That's the same neighborhood where Chekatt was said to have been dropped off Tuesday night by a taxi he commandeered to flee the city center. The Islamic State's Amaq News Agency claimed the Strasbourg attacker as a "soldier" who had "carried out the operation in response to a call to target citizens of the international coalition." The group regularly claims affiliation with individuals who may have been inspired by Islamic State messaging but who carried out attacks on their own initiative and had no established ties to the terrorist group. More than 700 officers had been engaged in the manhunt for the suspect, a French citizen and resident of the Strasbourg area with a long criminal record. Heightened security checks at the border between France and Germany resulted in long lines Thursday for those traveling between the two countries. In a political climate defined by social unrest - and an ongoing protest over the economic policies of President Emmanuel Macron - the Strasbourg attack came as a shock, a reminder of the terrorist violence France has faced in recent years and a threat that has hardly vanished, even as attacks have decreased in frequency. "The terrorist threat is still at the core of our nation's life," Macron said in comments reported by government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux. During the day Thursday, an uneasy quiet shrouded this Franco-German city known for its holiday bustle and seasonal cheer. For some here, what happened Tuesday night was almost inevitable. It was only a matter of time, they said, before Strasbourg experienced the kind of violence that had erupted elsewhere in France since 2015 - large-scale attacks in Paris and Nice, and smaller-scale ones in towns such as Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where a self-proclaimed Islamic State sympathizer slit the throat of a village priest in July 2016. "I was speaking just the other day with a shopkeeper," said Elisabeth Kneib, 55, who moved to Strasbourg two years ago. She was standing at a makeshift memorial on the Rue des Orfevres, one of the sites of the attack. "We were saying that, in a way, we were almost waiting for something." The same Christmas market was the target of at least two foiled attacks, by al-Qaida-linked operatives in 2000 and Islamic State affiliates in 2016. The surrounding region, Alsace, is home to a high number of those on the "Fichier S" list, a government database of individuals who ostensibly pose a threat to national security. Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz confirmed that Chekatt was on that list. He also noted that the suspect had 27 criminal convictions in France, Germany and Switzerland. In total, there are about 25,000 names on Fichier S. The names are reviewed and updated annually, and individuals are not informed that they are on the list. Although any number of political activities can land a person on the Fichier S, in recent years it has come to be understood as a dossier of potential terrorists. A senior German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said Chekatt had "apparently self-radicalized in 2011 during prison time in France." The official did not know why Chekatt had been in prison at the time. Chekatt also had been in German custody in 2016 in the city of Konstanz and in Freiburg prison until February 2017, both times because of theft, the official said. Chekatt was subsequently extradited to France. French authorities have long vowed to overhaul prisons as part of efforts to combat extremism among inmates. A significant number of those behind recent attacks are thought to have been radicalized in French prisons. "No one has a magic formula for 'deradicalization,' as if you might uninstall dangerous software," French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in February. "But in France and elsewhere, there are good approaches to prevention and disengagement." The government has urged the creation of segregated spaces in prisons for "radicalized" inmates. A further problem, security analysts said, is that little can be done to stop individuals from carrying out small-scale, low-budget attacks such as the Strasbourg shooting. In March, a lone gunman, a 25-year French national of Moroccan descent, killed four people, including a police officer, in a supermarket hostage standoff in southwestern France. "There's a feeling of inevitability," said Francois Heisbourg, a former presidential adviser on national security and president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Interior Ministry official Laurent Nunez said police went to Chekatt's Strasbourg home on the morning of the attack to arrest him in an attempted-murder case. He was not there. A search yielded a grenade, a rifle, ammunition and knives. Hours later, Chekatt allegedly opened fire on the Christmas market. The market was scheduled to reopen Friday. --- The Washington Post's Souad Mekhennet in Washington contributed to this report. WASHINGTON - Amid President Donald Trump's push for tighter immigration policies, the United States deported more than 256,000 illegal immigrants in 2018 - the highest number since the Obama administration, new data shows. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Ronald Vitello announced Friday that in the past fiscal year, which ended in September, ICE has detained "a record number" of illegal immigrants and that the number of those deported has risen about 13 percent since 2017. The data, which comes from a new agency report, shows that 145,262 of those who were deported were convicted criminals and that 22,796 had criminal charges pending against them. In addition, some 5,872 were reported as known or suspected gang members and 42 were believed to be terrorists, according to the report. The number of families and unaccompanied children who were deported also increased. ICE said that 2,711 who were traveling in families and 5,571 unaccompanied children were removed from U.S. soil. "We've continued to achieve gains in all meaningful enforcement measurements," Vitello said, despite significant underfunding. The strain on resources is a consequence of current border crisis, he said. "With the continued surge and without congressional action to fund the agency at adequate levels, ICE may be forced to make difficult choices that could hamper our ability to fulfill our public safety or national security mission," he added, noting that the agency does not want to release detainees due to budgetary constraints because it would create a public safety risk. Since taking office, Trump has maintained a harsh stance on illegal immigration and in favor of border security. On Thursday he vowed to do "whatever it takes to get border security," in large part by building a wall. The president's promise to assuage the ongoing "crisis" at the U.S.-Mexico border has also included a series of executive orders in recent months, including calling for separation and detention of families entering at the border and limiting those eligible to apply for asylum. Mary Bauer, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said it is "appalling and morally unconscionable that this is the place where we find ourselves" - deporting people "without a sense of priorities." "It used to be that there was a sense that they were looking for people who had committed serious crimes," she said in a phone interview with The Washington Post. In fact, U.S. deportation numbers were higher during the Obama administration, reaching 409,849 in 2012, according to ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations reports. Data shows that in 2015 and 2016, however, the number of those deported dropped to 235,413 and 240,255, respectively. Under the Trump administration, Bauer said that there has been a sense that U.S. immigration officials are "looking for everyone," which has "created a society of fear and terror" in immigrant communities. "We know the kinds of criminal violations that send people into the deportation machine," she said. "People are there in large number because of minor traffic violations." According to the 2018 report, ICE also arrested more than 158,000 immigrants, most of whom were convicted criminals. ICE data shows that the largest number of criminal convictions - more than 54,000 - were DUIs, followed by "dangerous drugs," other traffic offenses and immigration violations. A prison inmate at Patuxent Institution in Jessup, Maryland, shoved a female correctional officer into a closet and attempted to sexually assault her early Friday morning, according to state prison officials. The guard was escorting inmates assigned to kitchen duty when the alleged incident occurred. Union leaders have repeatedly criticized Gov. Larry Hogan, R, for staffing shortages at the state's prisons. On Friday, the president of the correctional officers' union said those shortages made the attack possible, and accused the governor of allowing prison conditions to reach a point where officers' lives are in danger. "We've been addressing this and trying to get the Hogan administration to address the staffing issues for the last four years," said Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Council 3. "Now the chickens have come home to roost." Gerry Shields, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said staffing was not a problem on Friday morning. "We had full staffing on that day," Shields said. Moran said the female officer, who was working an overnight shift, was covering "two tiers" of the prison, which together could hold as many as 130 inmates. "The midnight shift should be a minimum of one guard on each tier," he said. Moran called the alleged assault "gut-wrenching, disgusting and predictable," given the continued staffing issues. Earlier this year, during the annual J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake, a group of women who said their loved ones work at Eastern Correctional Institution approached Hogan to ask about a staffing shortage at the prison. They got into a heated exchange, and one woman lashed out: "If anything happens to our loved ones, it's on you." The Hogan administration has taken numerous steps to try to address staffing shortages at the state prisons, including partnering with local law enforcement agencies to recruit and offering $5,000 hiring bonuses and $3,000 retention bonuses. The state corrections department recently graduated a new correctional officer class. The agency said in a statement that the officer, who identified her alleged attacker, was taken to a local hospital, where she was examined and treated. The incident is under investigation, and the department may prosecute. "The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services works tirelessly to keep employees safe," the statement reads. "We will thoroughly review details gathered during this investigation to make sure all policies and procedures were followed." Kosovo lawmakers adopted a set of laws to upgrade its lightly armed troops into a formidable force, which neighboring Serbia sees as an obstacle to normalizing ties between the two Balkan nations. The vote bypassed objections of ethnic Serb representatives, who previously blocked attempts to change Kosovo's constitution, which doesn't envision a regular army in the landlocked state of 1.8 million people. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but both need to resolve disputes to qualify for European Union membership. WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday delivered back-to-back rebukes of President Donald Trump's embrace of Saudi Arabia, first voting to end U.S. participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen and then unanimously approving a measure blaming the kingdom's crown prince for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Together, the actions represent an unambiguous rejection of Trump's continued defense of Saudi leaders in the face of a CIA assessment that concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman most probably ordered and monitored Khashoggi's killing Oct. 2 inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The moves suggest a bipartisan majority of senators will pursue broader punitive measures when Congress regroups next year - including sanctions and a halt to weapons transfers - despite the administration's objections. "What we showed in this vote today is that Republicans and Democrats are ready to get back in the business of working with a president - and sometimes against a president - to set the foreign policy of this nation," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a longtime advocate for checking Saudi Arabia's regional expansion. "The United States has said, through the Senate, that our support for the Saudi coalition is no longer open-ended." The unanimous vote to hold Mohammed responsible for Khashoggi's killing reflects the extent to which senators in both parties have grown tired of Trump's continued defense of Mohammed's denials. It also puts significant pressure on leaders in the House - where the president's Saudi policy is far more divisive - to allow for a similar vote to condemn the crown prince before the end of the year. Earlier this week, House leaders maneuvered to block rank-and-file members from forcing a vote on any Yemen-related resolutions, an attempt to stop the Senate's effort to curtail U.S. involvement in the Saudis' military campaign by invoking the War Powers Resolution. Senators voted 56 to 41 on Thursday to support the Yemen resolution, put forward by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, after seven Republicans joined all Senate Democrats to back the measure. That figure strongly suggests a majority of the Republican-led Senate will challenge Trump on his Saudi policy next year, alongside a Democratic-led House, whose incoming leaders also have promised to be proactive about demanding changes to the status quo. "The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working for America," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally who, nonetheless, is a driving force behind several efforts to punish Saudi Arabia. He often refers to Mohammed as a "wrecking ball." Graham did not vote for the Yemen resolution Thursday, citing concerns about using the War Powers Resolution as a vehicle to call out Saudi Arabia, but he said resolutely this week that his past defense of the kingdom had come to an end. "I think you're wrong about what's going on up here," Graham said late Wednesday in comments directed toward Trump. "I'm never going to let this go until things change in Saudi Arabia." The Senate votes came as the two sides in the Yemen conflict agreed to a cease-fire in Hodeida, a port city that is key to the supply of humanitarian aid, and a prisoner swap that is expected to free thousands. While previous cease-fire agreements in the four-year civil war have crumbled, Thursday's agreement - following a week of peace talks in Sweden - has been heralded as an important sign of progress. It has been months since the United Nations declared Yemen to be the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the situation has only worsened since, as a proxy battle deepens between U.S.-backed Arab nations and Iran, which supports the rebel Houthi government claiming authority in the country. International pressure has been building on the warring sides to take steps to end the conflict, and some senators said Thursday that the momentum surrounding their Yemen resolution played no small role in bringing about the cease-fire. "The concessions that were made by the Saudi side in the negotiations this morning would not have happened if it wasn't for the pressure the United States Senate put on those negotiations," Murphy said. But in the House, Yemen's peace talks have been an excuse for some lawmakers to seek a pause, to see how things play out before committing to a course of action. The Senate vote came just hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis provided a closed briefing to House members. Republicans and Democrats emerged from the meeting urging very different responses to Saudi Arabia and its crown prince over the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi national who was a Washington Post contributing columnist. "They have to be held responsible," Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said after the briefing, referring to Mohammed and Saudi King Salman, though he did not back a specific means of holding them responsible. Meanwhile, there remain Republicans in the House who defend the crown prince. And even those who criticize him over Khashoggi's death said that while he should be rebuked, the punishment should stop there. "We recognize killing journalists is absolutely evil and despicable, but to completely realign our interests in the Middle East as a result of this, when for instance the Russians kill journalists . . . Turkey imprisons journalists?" said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. "It's not a sinless world out there." That stands in sharp contrast to the Senate, where several Republicans have been encouraging a broad response to Saudi Arabia over not just Khashoggi's killing and the Yemen war, but also the kingdom's blockade in Qatar, its detainment last year of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and a slate of human rights abuses they say have compromised the U.S.-Saudi alliance. The House will not take up any such measures this year - not even the Senate-passed Yemen resolution. But leaders will still be under considerable pressure to allow members to vote on the measure condemning Mohammed for Khashoggi's killing before the end of the year. Trump has refused to condemn Mohammed for the killing. Pompeo has echoed Trump's stance in public interviews and behind closed doors as well, lawmakers said. "All we heard today was more disgraceful ducking and dodging by the secretary," Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said following Thursday's meeting. House leaders met with CIA Director Gina Haspel on Wednesday to hear the details of Khashoggi's slaying. They emerged offering few details about the briefing - or about what steps House Democrats would take, once they assume the majority in January, to pursue more punitive measures against Saudi Arabia, beyond holding hearings. --- The Washington Post's Kareem Fahim in Riyadh and Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report. --- Video Embed Code Video: The Senate voted unanimously on Dec. 13 to condemn Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as responsible for killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (U.S. Senate) Embed: New York's plan to expand enrollment of black and Hispanic students in the city's elite public high schools is facing a legal challenge from Asian-American parents as a bitter racial dispute moves to the courts. Asian-American civil rights groups and parents sued city officials Thursday, alleging that New York's plan amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against Asian students, who occupy more than half of seats at eight schools that rely on testing for admissions. The new plan, promoted by Mayor Bill de Blasio, is to take effect for the 2019-2020 school year. The suit asks the court to put it on hold while the case is considered. The dispute has New Yorkers considering whether their system gives an unfair advantage to one minority group over another, and whether better integrating the city's best schools is more important than maintaining uniform admission standards, determined by one high-stakes test. Now, the question moves to the courts, which have set a high bar for schools seeking to achieve greater racial diversity. The city's plan would significantly expand its Discovery Program, which admits some students who did not get into elite schools through testing. But it is limited to the most socioeconomically distressed middle schools. The suit alleges that schools with large Asian-American populations were purposefully excluded from this formula. Today, the Discovery Plan admits about 6 percent of students attending the elite high schools. If fully implemented, 20 percent of seats at each school would be set aside for students from designated low-income schools by fall 2020. The suit, filed in federal district court in New York, argues that the Discovery Program was designed to help low-income students from across the city and that the city's move to restrict the program to certain middle schools represents an unlawful effort to manipulate the racial balance. Will Mantell, a spokesman for the school system, said the changes would nearly double representation of black and Hispanic students at the elite schools, to 16 percent. Today, black and Hispanic students make up 68 percent of the city's high school population overall and 9 percent of students offered seats at specialized high schools. At the same time, 62 percent of seats in elite high schools are occupied by Asian-American students. "Our reforms will expand opportunity and raise the bar at our specialized high schools," Mantell said. "Our schools are academically stronger when they reflect the diversity of our city." The plan, announced in June, triggered waves of angry protests from the Asian-American community, with parents arguing that their numbers should not be limited if their children are the most qualified. The lawsuit's plaintiffs include Yi Fang Chen of Brooklyn, the mother of two boys. She alleges that the new system will put her sons at a disadvantage if they choose to apply to these schools one day. "I truly believe in merit. I think there should be equal opportunity for all," she said in an interview. "Diversity is a great thing, but do not lower the standards." Chen immigrated to the United States with her parents as a teenager and earned a doctorate at Stanford University. Chen said she joined the suit after talking with other parents about their frustrations. "We tried protesting, and that was not helpful," she said. Other plaintiffs include the Parent Teacher Organization at I.S. 187, also known as Christa McAuliffe School, a predominantly Asian-American school that sends a high proportion of its students to specialized high schools. Of 274 eighth-graders who graduated from the school in 2018, 205 attend specialized high schools, more than from any other middle school in the city, the suit says. Most students at the school come from low-income families, the suit says, but the student body was not considered poor enough to qualify for the expanded Discovery Program. De Blasio's diversification plan eventually calls for a bigger change in how admission to elite high schools is determined. The plan would phase out use of the test and grant admission to top students at every middle school in the city. That change would require approval from the state Legislature. WASHINGTON - For months, President Donald Trump's spokesmen, his lawyer and his lawyer's lawyer denied that Trump knew about payments during his 2016 campaign to buy the silence of women who alleged sexual encounters with him. The president himself claimed the same. But after mounting evidence and fresh courthouse revelations of wrongdoing this week exposed those denials as lies, Trump is shifting his tune. The president no longer disputes that he instructed his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to make the payments to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. Instead, Trump sought to evade that question Thursday by saying he never told Cohen to break the law - making a narrow assertion that was itself an admission that his and his team's earlier denials were false. "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law," Trump wrote in Twitter statements that were at times hard to comprehend. "He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid." In these and other statements Thursday, Trump tried to place blame entirely on his lawyer for felonies that his advisers and allies are increasingly concerned could imperil the president. The statements come as Trump feels besieged by multiplying investigations in New York and Washington and uncertain about what may be around the corner, according to several of his associates. The evolving strategy on the hush-money allegations is textbook Trump: Tell one version of events until it falls apart, then tell a new version, and so on - until the danger passes. "What's happened so far is not good, and it could get worse," said a former senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly. In reference to the Cohen case, this person added: "Are they crimes? Yes. Is that a bad look if the president is directly tied to it and could under normal circumstances be criminally prosecuted? Yes. And no, that's not a good thing." Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for what U.S. District Judge William Pauley III called a "veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct" - crimes that included tax violations and lying to a bank as well as those related to the hush-money payments. Cohen told Pauley that his weakness was "a blind loyalty to Donald Trump" and a failure to refuse the then-candidate's demands. "Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass," Cohen said in court. The developments have shaken people in Trump's orbit. White House staffers say they feel uneasy and nervous about what might come next, while Trump is publicly revealing a sense of betrayal that his longtime lawyer implicated him in crimes. Trump is worried about the intensifying state of not only the hush-money investigation by the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, but also of the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Mueller III, according to people with knowledge of the president's private discussions. The Wall Street Journal also reported Thursday that federal prosecutors in Manhattan have opened another investigative front by probing whether Trump's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations. "He's never been in a position where he can't shuck and jive and work his way out of things," said one Republican who works closely with the White House. "Well, it's all coming home to roost." Trump resisted commenting Wednesday on Cohen's prison sentence, ignoring questions shouted by reporters about whether his former fixer had worked to cover up Trump's "dirty deeds." But on Thursday morning, before arriving at work in the Oval Office, Trump weighed in on Twitter for the first time. He claimed that he did "nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws." Then he asserted that Cohen "probably was not guilty" of even civil violations related to the payments to McDougal and Daniels - a view at odds with the view of many lawyers. Lastly, Trump argued that Cohen agreed to charges "in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did - including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook." Trump largely echoed those tweets in a television interview recorded later Thursday. Sitting down with Fox News Channel anchor Harris Faulkner in the West Wing of the White House, Trump said of his interactions with Cohen, "I never directed him to do anything wrong. "Whatever he did, he did on his own," Trump continued. "He's a lawyer. A lawyer who represents a client is supposed to do the right thing. That's why you pay them a lot of money, et cetera, et cetera." Trump also sought to minimize his relationship with Cohen, saying Cohen did "more public relations than law," was generally responsible for "low-level work" and was merely "OK on television." In retrospect, the president told Faulkner, hiring Cohen was a mistake. The latest developments have exposed the depth of Trump's efforts to deceive the public about the illegal hush-money payments, and some of his friends and advisers said privately that they fear those efforts could imperil the president. While there is a consensus view inside the White House that a sitting president will not be indicted, the former senior administration official described a deep uncertainty about other ways that Trump could be held liable. And there is growing anxiety among Trump's allies, including in Congress, that he could be vulnerable to the various investigations and, eventually, Democratic-led impeachment proceedings. Joyce White Vance, who was a U.S. attorney in the Obama administration, explained that Trump may be accustomed to a business environment in which people posture and deceive for competitive advantage. She contrasted that atmosphere with the legal world, in which prosecutors must operate at a high ethical standard, because if they lie or cheat, they endanger their ability to continue practicing law. Vance said the federal prosecutors who implicated Trump in the illegal payments are likely to have relied on more evidence than just Cohen's testimony. She noted that other witnesses have been cooperating with the investigation - including, for instance, Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's former longtime chief financial officer. "Trump should be concerned," Vance said. "It's not just the government saying it. It's not just a single witness saying it. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who are known for their rigor in making these assessments, have decided there's evidence from a number of reliable sources and that they can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt." Trump's credibility has been damaged by his and his team's ever-evolving statements about the hush-money payments. Shortly before the 2016 election, when the Wall Street Journal first reported that the National Enquirer had agreed to pay $150,000 to McDougal as part of a "catch and kill" operation to silence her claims about having had an affair with Trump, the presidential candidate's spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, "We have no knowledge of any of this." In January 2018, Cohen told the Journal that its reporting about a $130,000 payment to Daniels were "outlandish allegations" and part of a "false narrative" about Trump. Then in March, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and her principal deputy, Raj Shah, both stated publicly that the president denied knowledge of any payments and denied all of the allegations. David Schwartz, an attorney for Cohen, also denied that Trump knew about the payment. On April 5, Trump flatly denied to reporters aboard Air Force One that he knew about the payment to Daniels. Asked why Cohen would therefore make the payment to the porn star, Trump said, "You'll have to ask Michael Cohen." Each of those statements has since been proved false. Trump's story also kept changing. In a television interview in May, the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said Trump had repaid Cohen for the money he gave to Daniels. The next day, Sanders was pressed by reporters on why she had previously denied that Trump had any knowledge of the payment. She said she had "given the best information I had at the time." --- Video Embed Code Video: The Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler explains why he's labeling President Trump's claims about Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels "a lie."(Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) Embed code: Video: Congressional Republicans are still standing by President Trump after his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to prison for felonies committed while working for Trump.(JM Rieger/The Washington Post) Embed code: Andrew Black was a blond-haired and wide-grinning 23-year-old from Vermont. He loved hiking the Green Mountain Trails, the NHL's Montreal Canadiens and brewing his own beer. He had been stirring together ingredients for his own brews since before he was old enough to legally drink. On Dec. 6, Black walked into a gun shop at 11:02 a.m. Twenty-eight minutes later, he left with a firearm. Somewhere between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m., Black fatally shot himself, according to the Burlington Free Press. Among the funeral arrangements and other painful tasks for his mother and father, Alyssa and Rob Black, was choosing the details about their son to share with the world in his obituary. They wrote about his adventurous spirit, his beloved dog Biggie, and his dream job at a local microbrewery. Then, toward the end, they included some lines that stretched past the borders of their particular tragedy. Responding to Vermont not having a waiting period for gun sales, his parents wrote: "In honor of Andrew R. Black, we ask that you work for legislation that imposes a reasonable waiting period between firearm purchase and possession to provide a cooling off period to guard against impulsive acts of violence." Obituaries were once just a few thoughtful lines in local newsprint, the final small gesture of remembrance for neighbors, friends and family. Now that they have migrated online, and thanks to the warp-speed tempo of viral sharing, obits have a reach far beyond local newspaper circulation. And for some families - and even the deceased themselves - they have become a way to rearrange private grief into a message of social significance. Television stations and newspapers across Vermont and New England have run stories on Black's obituary, as well as national outlets like ABC News and NBC News. Issues like drugs, gun control, bullying and body image have all been addressed in recent years in the fine print of obituaries that went viral. The human toll adds a potent jolt to the message. That wasn't the Blacks' plan, but it was the effect. Vermont legislators have fielded calls from constituents about the obituary and its call for a gun purchase waiting period since its publication, NBC 5 has reported. "None of this was our intention," Alyssa Black told the Free Press. "We were just trying to reach people like us." Some of the obituaries that have gone viral in recent years have a wry or bitter edge. But many offer a space for both personal catharsis and public call to action. Obituaries have played a particularly integral role in the opioid crisis, which has cut down so many otherwise healthy young people. They have become places where those left behind can chart the cost and spotlight the depths of the crisis. In April 2015, a 24-year-old from Manchester, New Hampshire, named Molly Alice Parks was found dead on a restroom floor with a needle in her arm. Her grieving family did not hide from the facts. "She fought her addiction to heroin for at least five years and had experienced a near fatal overdose before," her April 2015 obituary read. "Molly's family truly loved her and tried to be as supportive as possible as she struggled with the heroin epidemic that has been so destructive to individuals and families in her age bracket." Her father, Tom Parks, told The Washington Post at the time that the honesty was important to convey. "I see a lot of obituaries from families that are losing 20-somethings, 30-somethings, and 40-somethings, and they're all saying they died suddenly," he said. "But that's not the truth, and we know that because we just went through it." A similar candor and gravity appeared in the obituary for Madelyn Ellen Linsenmeir, a 30-year-old from Burlington, Vermont, who succumbed to her addiction in October. "It is impossible to capture a person in an obituary, and especially someone whose adult life was largely defined by drug addiction," it read. "To some, Maddie was just a junkie - when they saw her addiction they stopped seeing her." Obituaries have tackled other issues in their short word counts. Sadie Riggs was 15 when she hung herself in Bedford, Pennsylvania, in June 2017. Her family used her obituary to specifically highlight the bullying that they say drove the young woman to her death. "For a young lady so excited about going to the High School things sure went terribly wrong for her," the obituary bluntly said. "For the bullies involved, please know you were effective in making her feel worthless. That is all between you and God now, but please know that it is not to (sic) late to change your ways." Before Ellen Bennett passed away after a bout of fast-acting cancer in May 2018, the 64-year-old resident of Victoria, British Columbia. asked her friends to include a message about "the fat shaming she endured from the medical profession" in her obituary. "Over the past few years of feeling unwell she sought out medical intervention and no one offered any support or suggestions beyond weight loss," it said. "Ellen's dying wish was that women of size make her death matter by advocating strongly for their health and not accepting that fat is the only relevant health issue." It's possible that Andrew Black would still have taken his life if Vermont had a mandatory waiting period. His parents, however, who say they are gun owners themselves, argue that had their son not been able to walk out of a gun store armed, he would have had time to move out of the depression. "It was way too easy for this 23-year-old kid to go down and buy a gun. If nothing but 24 hours to just cool down and realize that it wasn't the answer," his father told NBC 5. Police in northern Virginia said Friday that they won't press charges against a priest who was accused of behaving inappropriately toward one minor and multiple adults. The status of the allegations against the Rev. Ronald Escalante, who has served parishes in the region for a quarter-century, wasn't immediately clear. Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, said a special victims' department probe "concluded there are no criminal charges," but the Arlington diocese did not return calls and issued only a brief statement saying it would conduct its own investigation. Earlier this week, the diocese - which oversees Catholics in northern Virginia - said Escalante denies wrongdoing. It wasn't possible Friday to immediately reach the priest from St. Francis de Sales in Purcelville. Escalante has worked in parishes across the Arlington diocese, starting when he was a deacon at St. Leo the Great in Fairfax in 1994. He was ordained a priest in 1995 and served at churches including St. Lawrence and Good Shepherd in Alexandria, St. Matthew in Spotsylvania, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Fredericksburg, and St. Luke in McLean. He also acted as a chaplain for at least three years at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg. He is head pastor of St. Francis de Sales and has been since 2012 Diocesan spokeswoman Angela Pellerano told the Post last week that the alleged behavior was reported to the church on Nov. 21. She characterized it as "a boundary violation," not "abuse." She did not describe the allegations further last week. On Dec. 7, Escalante was placed on leave, she said, while the sheriff's office investigated. She told the Post at the time that the diocese had opened an internal investigation which led to him being placed on leave. On Friday the diocese released a very brief statement, saying with the decision not to press criminal charges, "the diocese will conduct an investigation of matters that pertain to its Code of Conduct for Clergy and report its findings in a timely way." She did not respond to questions about whether Escalante remained on leave. Requests for comment to the parish were not returned Friday. When you were young, you may have been content playing with dolls or action figures and bouncy balls, but with today's technological advances, it's natural that children want more high-tech toys and gadgets. Parents must learn how to balance giving kids the technology they want with keeping them safe. Kids' smartwatches are an excellent gateway into wearable and portable tech, allowing children to have access to technology while keeping parents in control. The hard part is selecting the best kids' smartwatch. With such a wide range of models on the market all offering different features it's tricky to figure out what you want your child's smartwatch to do. The following guide can help you get a handle on the various features and uses so you can pick out the right smartwatch for your little one. Considerations when choosing kids' smartwatches Durability It's natural for kids to run, jump, climb, and occasionally fall down. That's why any kids' smartwatch you choose must be durable enough to deal with the rigors of living on a child's wrist. Older children tend to be a little more cautious with their possessions, but a smartwatch belonging to a three- or four-year-old is likely to be knocked around frequently. Design There's no point buying a smartwatch that your child would be embarrassed to wear or that simply isn't to his or her taste. Kids' smartwatches are available in a wide range of colors, patterns, and designs, so you're bound to find one your child likes. Age group Check the manufacturer's recommended age range for any smartwatch you're considering. You can find smartwatches suitable for kids from as young as three all the way up to the early teens, at which point young people generally prefer adult smartwatches. Some watches are too complicated for young children to use, and some are too simple for older kids to enjoy. Kids smartwatch features Games Many kids' smartwatches feature a range of games. These are often educational, but not always. Some even offer multiplayer games so kids can play with their friends. Fitness tracking People who learn healthy habits at an early age are more likely to carry them through into adulthood, and there's no denying that exercise is beneficial for kids. Some kids' smartwatches have a fitness tracking component, so your child can keep track of steps and any other physical activity. Any kids' smartwatch with fitness tracking is usually linked to a parents or caregiver's smartphone, so an adult can monitor activity levels. GPS tracking While this is somewhat controversial, many smartwatches for kids are fitted with a GPS tracker so you can check on your childs location at any time. Although it's important to trust children when you allow them to go out alone or with friends, GPS tracking can be a godsend for keeping an eye on younger children in case they wander off or in an emergency situation. Camera You can find kids' smartwatches that include a camera for taking selfies with friends or recording short videos. Some have fun filters or allow kids to add text or stickers to photos. Kids smartwatch prices: The majority of kids' smartwatches fall in the $30 to $50 bracket. While you can find cheaper options, they tend to be of poor quality, so it's worth spending an extra $10 to purchase a better model. Most kids' smartwatches cost $70 to $90, with a few high-end models costing a little more. FAQ Q. Can I monitor how my child uses the smartwatch? A. Some, but not all, kids' smartwatches link to an app that allows parents to keep an eye on how their children use the device. Q. How long will the battery last on my kid's smartwatch? A. The majority of kids' smartwatches have a battery that runs about three to five days. However, we've found models that claim to last for up to a year on a single charge. Q. Can my child make or receive calls on a smartwatch? A. A few smartwatches allow kids to make and receive calls or simply receive calls. That said, these smartwatches can only make calls to or receive calls from two to four pre-registered numbers for increased safety. Kids' smartwatches we recommend Best of the best: VTech Kidizoom Smartwatch DX Our take: Designed for ages four to nine, this smartwatch has much to offer for younger kids. Highly durable. What we like: Camera can take photos and videos, plus has fun photo effects. Offers 11 touchscreen games and activities. What we dislike: Camera has poor resolution. Best bang for your buck: Garmin vivofit jr. Our take: More than just a fitness tracker, this links to an app that lets parents assign chores and rewards. Includes some kids' activities. What we like: Exceptional battery life of up to a year. Waterproof, so kids can wear it while swimming. What we dislike: Doesn't offer much in the way of fun games or activities. Choice 3: LeapFrog LeapBand Activity Tracker Our take: Activity tracker for ages four to seven. Also features a virtual pet, which helps keep little ones engaged. What we like: 50 fun activity challenges to encourage movement. Completing challenges unlocks new pets and pet accessories. What we dislike: Too basic for older kids. Lauren Corona is a writer for BestReviews. BestReviews is a product review company with a singular mission: to help simplify your purchasing decisions and save you time and money. BestReviews never accepts free products from manufacturers and purchases every product it reviews with its own funds. BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. BestReviews and its newspaper partners may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Trinity Baptist Church: 1831 Virginia St. The Mass Choir will perform An Hour of Praise at 7 p.m. Friday. Guest performers will be The United Male Chorus, The Sounds of Peace, Israelite Jazz and the New Mt. Moriah Choir. The public is invited. Christmas caroling by the Joshua Troop youth ministry will be at 9 a.m. Dec. 22. Christmas sunrise services will be at 7 a.m. Dec. 25. The public is invited. Information: 219-883-2720. Topolobampo is approaching its 25th birthday (toward the end of the year) looking very much like a restaurant gearing up for 25 more. It's not just that the cooking is at the highest level that I've ever seen, although that's certainly the case. Chef de cuisine Andres Padilla, who has been running Topolobampo's kitchen for three years, routinely turns out one memorable plate after another, triumphs of technique and scholarship that stimulate the mind as much as they do the palate. Advertisement But there's a vibrancy to the dining room as well; the space is colorful and soothing at once, the music restrained yet infectious, and I could look at the art on the wall all day long. The all-smiles, quietly assured front-room staff gives diners the confidence to immerse themselves in the experience. Order a margarita, which will be hand-shaken and poured before your eyes, and you can feel yourself letting go. In Rick we trust. Rick, of course, refers to chef/owner Rick Bayless, who has won just about every culinary recognition that matters. He and his wife, Deann, opened Frontera Grill in 1987 and changed Chicago's dining scene forever. Two years later, with Frontera still playing to overflow crowds, they followed up with Topolobampo a smaller, more upscale room that, unlike Frontera, accepted small-party reservations. Advertisement People naturally view Topolobampo as Frontera Grill's younger, albeit more sophisticated, little sister. But in a different world, Frontera might have been the younger sibling. "That was the place we wanted to create (in 1987)," Bayless says of Topolobampo. "But we realized that starting at that level, with no track record, would have been really hard unfathomable, really. So we started with Frontera as a midlevel restaurant but really it was above that, considering what Mexican restaurants were like then." A quarter-century later, Frontera Grill remains very much above the midlevel, the standard by which Mexican restaurants are measured. And Topolobampo well, Topolobampo continues to strive, and to amaze. Ten weeks ago, I wrote about Topolobampo's mind-blowing "1491" menu, in which every dish consisted solely of pre-Columbian ingredients (which meant no limes, cilantro, wheat and a host of other items). That remarkable effort has been replaced with a "Mexico City 1671" menu that re-creates the "collision cuisine" of indigenous Mexican ingredients and Spanish cooking style. And every eight weeks or so, Bayless will unveil a new seven-course, themed menu. The regular menu, if one can even call it that, consists of eight flavor-profile categories (six savory, two sweet) among which are scattered 24 medium-plate dishes. Select any three for $55, five for $90 or seven for $120. Me, I like the unofficial six-course option, wherein the meal starts with one of the menu's three a la carte, shareable appetizers. People don't always think of Frontera/Topolo as a destination for oysters, but the oysters here are absolutely pristine, and the sauces a "minoneta" of tomatillo and habanero, and chipotle-garlic salsa are wonderful. And the Trio, Trio, Trio a sampling of classic ceviche, shrimp-calamari ceviche with sour-orange and habanero, and sushi-grade tuna cocktail with avocado, tomatillo, mango and lime is pure communal joy. (The third appetizer, the grand seafood platter, is a combination of the previous options.) After that, your choices can be as adventurous as you are. You can choose very conservatively and still be delighted, beginning with the soul-nurturing sopa Azteca (rich with pasilla, chicken, avocado and cheese), moving on to carne asada (made with 28-day aged prime rib-eye and a 29-ingredient mole negro, this is carne asada as you've never had it before) and ending with pastry chef Jennifer Jones' cajeta (goat-milk caramel) crepes with plantains, bittersweet chocolate and caramelized plantain ice cream. But the joy of dining at Topolobampo is reveling in the dishes that no other restaurant attempts. More intriguing treats are available in the form of raw scallops in a lime-habanero broth (the habanero's fiery character judiciously muted), topped with red wakame seaweed, slivers of salt-cured cactus petals and tiny lime bits; and rock-hen breast rolled around pork picadillo and smothered in a tomato sauce alive with toasted sweet spices (clove, cinnamon, star anise). A gorgeous quail tartlet practically overflows with pieces of smoked quail, grilled artichoke and roasted chayote, tied together with a bechamel-based sauce flavored with poblano and epazote. Advertisement Among the robust dishes, you can't go wrong with lamb. On one visit, the menu featured roasted leg in a tangy-sweet ancho-tamarind-honey sauce, with some bone-marrow-infused parsnip puree. Currently, the feature is porchetta-style lamb in pumpkin mole, a beautiful pink roulade dressed with leaves of red-vein sorrel. The must-try dish is the pork in clemole sauce, and not just because, as part of the 1671 menu, it will be available only for another month or so. The complex plate includes roasted pork shoulder and slices of pata negra Iberico ham, along with pieces of charred turnip and savory bread pudding. Pulling the elements together is the clemole, a luxurious, bread-thickened sauce made with red chilies, pine nuts, hazelnuts and pecans. It's really a magical dish. And while Jones' desserts are all superb (I'm still jonesing, forgive the pun, for the chocolate cake from the 1491 menu), I have to make special mention of the pretty, free-form rice-flour cake, layered with sweet plantains, brandied caramel, plantain pudding and a terrific surprise element crunchy, coriander-flavored crumbles. Topolobampo has a stellar wine list, as well as course-by-course wine pairings selected by sommelier Jill Gubesch; her matches are so pinpoint-perfect (the oloroso sherry she paired with the smoked-quail tartaleta was particularly enjoyable) I'd advise diners to take that route. Lunch, available Tuesday through Friday, features a lighter, a la carte menu, though some stalwarts from the dinner menu (ceviche trio, carne asada and halibut in three-chili mole de olla) are available. The "Topolo in 60," three courses for $25, is designed for business lunchers on limited time. When people ask what makes Chicago's dining scene so special, Topolobampo is one of the restaurants I point to. No other city has a restaurant quite like it. Sometimes I forget how good this place is; today is not one of those times. Advertisement Topolobampo 445 N. Clark St. 312-661-1434 rickbayless.com Tribune rating: 4 stars Open: Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Tuesday-Friday Advertisement Prices: Three-, five- and seven-course dinners, $55, $90 and $120 Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M, V Reservations: Strongly recommended Noise: Conversation-friendly Other: Wheelchair accessible; valet parking Ratings key: Four Stars: Outstanding Three Stars: Excellent Two Stars: Very good One Star: Good No stars: Unsatisfactory Advertisement The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune. Watch Phil Vettel's reviews weekends on WGN-Ch. 9's "News at Nine" and on CLTV. pvettel@tribune.com Twitter @philvettel A sheriff's sergeant shot while attempting to serve an arrest warrant Tuesday was released from a Houston hospital on Friday. Sgt. James R. Smejkal, a 28-year veteran assigned to the criminal warrants division, was shot alongside Texas Attorney General's Office agents Capt. Wes Hensley and Sgt. Mark Rychen as they tried to arrest Daniel Trevino at a northeast Houston home. The three were working alongside other law enforcement officers around 12:50 p.m. Tuesday in the 5000 block of Hartwick Road. Trevino had been wanted for more than a week after violating a protective order from his girlfriend, officials said. He was previously accused of hitting her legs with a handgun. At the home, Trevino met the officers with gunfire, striking Smejkal and two attorney general agents. Smejkal and the two agents were rushed to Ben Taub Hospital with a police escort. None of their injuries were life threatening, authorities said. After the shooting, a five-hour standoff ensued with Trevino until 6:15 p.m., when police found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside the home. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The teenager who allegedly opened fire into a moving car, hitting a 7-year-old in the process, turned himself into authorities Thursday. Omarion Philip Bailey, 19, is now in the Harris County Jail on felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, deadly conduct and discharging a firearm at a moving vehicle charges, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. CPS Energy crews are responding to power outages affecting thousands of customers throughout the city as 40-mph winds move through San Antonio. As of 5:41 p.m., CPS is reporting 76 outages affecting 9,142 customers, according to its website. The outages appear to be occurring mostly on the North and Northeast sides, with a few large pockets of outages occurring around Fair Oaks Ranch. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox CPS spokesman John Moreno said the wind is causing debris to hit the power lines. Anything that starts the trees swaying will cause problems with the lines, he said. National Weather Service meteorologist Aaron Treadway said the highest wind gusts of up to 45 mph have been recorded around Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Similar speeds were recorded at the San Antonio International and Stinson Municipal airports. Winds gusts of 30 to 35 mph are expected to continue into Thursday night, after which temperatures are forecast to drop to 40 degrees. With the wind, its going to feel closer to 30 degrees, Treadway said. Moreno said crews are working to restore power in areas with downed lines. OUTLOOK: Likely El Nino winter could mean more snow for San Antonio this year He asks customers to be patient with work crews as the wind may continue to cause problems. If for some reason winds sustain at over 30 miles per hour, our crews cant use the bucket truck with a hydraulic lift, Moreno said. They have to climb polls manually, so thats going to take a little long to get any kinds of repairs done. People who encounter downed power lines are warned to treat them as live wires and stay away from them. Downed lines should be reported immediately to CPS at 210-353-4357 or by calling 911. Jacob Beltran is a reporter covering San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA Ever since Gregory Peck, the Tom Hanks of his moment, starred in the film version of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1962, the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch has been a symbol of American decency. Not unlike Jimmy Stewarts George Bailey, hes been an emblem of how ignorance can only be banished through empathy. If you wanted to dismantle the systemic racism of the American South, argued the avuncular Atticus with every fiber of his genial being, you should do so by doing your job, having patience, sticking to the facts, working doggedly within the system and, above all, by being willing to walk a step or two in each individuals shoes. Police are searching for the driver responsible for a fatal hit-and-run crash along the East Freeway in Houston. Details of the Fatal Houston Accident According to ABC 13, the crash occurred around 4 am Sunday in the 12400 block of East Freeway. Police say a truck crashed into a womans vehicle that was parked on the shoulder of the freeway. The impact caused the parked vehicle to rollover. Witnesses say the driver of the truck fled the scene on foot. Police are now searching for him. The accident remains under investigation. Texas Auto Accident Statistics The following information was provided by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT): 3,773 people were killed in Texas traffic accidents in 2016, marking a 5.45% increase from the 3,578 deaths reported in 2015. 638 of the deaths reported in 2016 were attributed to head-on collision. Alcohol was determined to be a factor in 987 traffic deaths, accounting for roughly 26% of all Texas traffic fatalities. was determined to be a factor in 987 traffic deaths, accounting for roughly 26% of all Texas traffic fatalities. An additional 264,076 people were injured in auto accidents in Texas in 2016. Based on reportable data for 2016, TxDOT estimates: One person was killed in a traffic accident every 2 hours and 20 minutes. One person was injured every 1 minute and 59 seconds. A reportable crash occurred every 57 seconds. Contact an Experienced Houston Car Accident Attorney If you or a loved one have been injured in a car accident, contact Thomas J. Henry. Our experienced Houston car accident lawyers have experience handling a multitude of injury accidents, no matter how severe the crash or injury. You may be entitled to compensation for your damages if another driver acted negligently. Our firm has the experienced lawyers and financial resources that you need to achieve the real results you deserve. Our firm has offices in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, serving clients across Texas and nationwide. Call us today for a free case review attorneys are available 24/7, nights and weekends. If you cannot make it to our office, we can visit you at your home, in the hospital, or at work. Editors Note: This content is made possible by Thomas J. Henry Personal Injury Law. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com. Toyota is recalling roughly 70,000 Toyota and Lexus vehicles to replace faulty Takata brand air bag inflators that can explode upon deployment, sending shrapnel into vehicle cabins and at drivers and passengers. About the Toyota Exploding Air Bag Recall ABC 11 reports that the recall covers the following vehicles: 2003-2005 Toyota Corolla 2002-2005 Toyota Sequoia 2003-2005 Toyota Tundra 2002-2005 Lexus SC The air bags use ammonium nitrate to trigger small explosion that inflates air bags in the event of a collision. However, the ammonium nitrate mixture can deteriorate and burn too fast, causing the metal inflators to blow apart. The vehicles were previously recalled for the same reason, but the replace air bags equipped in the vehicles still used ammonium nitrate is a propellant. Toyota is now looking to replace the airbags with safer air bags made by another company. Exploding Takata Air Bags Linked to 23 Deaths The Takata recalls deal with some 125 million vehicles worldwide that are equipped with faulty airbags that can explode on deployment, unleashing metal shrapnel into vehicle cabins. At least 42 million of the affected vehicles were sold in the United States. So far, 23 deaths and hundreds of injuries have been linked to the faulty airbag inflators, most of which have occurred in the U.S. The defect led Takata to file for bankruptcy protection in June, allowing it to sell its non-airbag inflator business to Key Safety Systems, a unit of Chinas Ningo Joyson Electric Corp. As of July, less than half of affected vehicles had been repaired. In February, Ford issued a stop driving warning to 35,000 Ford ranger and Mazda B-Series owners. Contact an Experienced Airbag Recall Attorney If you or a loved one have been injured by a defective and dangerous Takata airbag, call Thomas J. Henry today. Our attorneys are available 24/7, nights and weekends to evaluate your claim and provide you with a free legal consultation. Our firm has offices in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, serving clients across Texas and nationwide. Editors Note: This content is made possible by Thomas J. Henry Personal Injury Law. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com. Although sharing personal stories about sexual assault is not new, forums like Facebook and Twitter have made the practice easier and more wide-reaching. Rape survivor advocates say that in the year-plus since the modern-day #MeToo movement began, theyve seen even more victims who often want to avoid reporting assaults to police out of fear or mistrust of the system use social media to share their stories. In doing so, survivors often want to warn others about their alleged attackers, or find vindication and healing after courts have failed them. Parkpnp, a company which describes itself as the Airbnb of parking has won the Sustainability Award at the Innovation of the Year Awards 2018. The company, which is based in Dublin, was co-founded by Garett Flower from Colehill in Longford. The Awards, which are now in their ninth year, were presented at a ceremony attended by over 220 people at The Concert Hall, RDS, in Dublin recently. Over 270 companies registered for the Awards this year. All five category award winners receive a 10,000 Irish Times media package. Parkpnp users can rent out car parking spaces by the hour, day, week or month, and cash in on hitherto underutilised assets. The company launched in 2015, and has now expanded into the Belgian and Dutch markets, while it is looking to conduct its first trial in the US shortly. CEO Garret Flower said the win was a validation of everything the company had achieved to date while also filling it with confidence for where it is going as a business. Michael McAleer, Innovation Editor, at The Irish Times said the Awards underlined once again the importance of fostering a culture of innovation. Its incredible to witness first-hand how companies all over the island are harnessing technology to provide better services and products for their customers. Many of these companies will no doubt go on to become industry leaders. Heartiest congratulations to our award winners, our finalists and indeed all who entered the Awards this year. The Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Pat Breen TD said companies that embrace innovation are more likely to grow, sustain growth and gain competitive advantage. My Department recognises the role of innovation in enterprise development and is committed to providing supports that encourage its widespread application. I would like to thank the Irish Times for providing this marvellous showcase that celebrates the very best of Irish achievement in innovation. We look forward to following the future success not just of our winners, but of all the nominees and the pioneering companies that entered the Awards. Company Background The idea for Parkpnp came about as a result of Flowers first experience driving in Dublin and his difficulty in finding parking. The idea became a reality when Flower met co-founder Daniel Paul, who has been building apps since he was 16. Having gained backing from a number of investors including Enterprise Ireland, the company launched in 2015, and has now expanded into the Belgian and Dutch markets. Parking space owners can use the phone app or the website. They can rent it out hourly or for months if they wish. Users can open the app and pre-book parking before they leave home if they wish. We are talking to pubs, restaurants, hotels and local authorities around Ireland at the moment. Parkpnp was up against Eirgrid also from Dublin and Wicklow based O Cualann Cohousing Alliance. The aim of the Innovation Awards is to showcase and reward excellence in innovation across a range of products and services. The Irish Times Innovation Awards 2018 is supported by the newspaper in partnership with Science Foundation Ireland, KPMG, Enterprise Ireland and UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. For more information go to: http://www.irishtimes.com/ innovationawards Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: December 14 2018 CPP is a community-based resource and referral office that provides social services in English and Spanish to the general community. Mineola, NY - December 14, 2018 - Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced the grand opening of the Community Partnership Program in Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced the grand opening of the Community Partnership Program in Hempstead today. The Community Partnership Program (CPP) is a community-based resource and referral office that provides social services in English and Spanish to the general community with a focus on the re-entry population and other justice-involved individuals. CPPs goal is to provide community support to reduce recidivism and build a safer community. We know that when we address the issues that bring people into the criminal justice system whether it is addiction, poverty, mental health or other challenges and provide people with the assistance they need, they are less likely to re-offend, DA Singas said. We have assembled a talented staff with credentials in healthcare, social services, education and leadership to help justice-involved individuals out of the system and into successful lives. The program, located at 9 Centre Street in Hempstead, links community members to necessary resources, including: Medical insurance and health care Mental health and substance treatment Home healthcare coordination, if eligible Job readiness programs Educational and vocational training Social service benefits, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Clothing Closet Food pantry CPP staff also facilitates a group called Response Restructuring, a 15-week gang intervention and prevention meeting for parolees and probationers; and weekly meetings at Hempstead Middle and High Schools focusing on gang prevention and consequential thinking. The program, funded in part through asset forfeiture money provided by the NCDA, offers support meetings that are open to community members who are justice-involved, have been affected by gang/gun violence, or have family or loved ones who have been affected. CPP, in conjunction with the NCDAs Office of Alternative Prosecution and Resources (PHOENIX), monitors clients who have accepted alternative sentencing and is a member of the Nassau County Re-entry Task Force, which provides services to recently released community members. According to newly released data from the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services, Nassau County has experienced a nearly 25% reduction in major crimes from 2013 to 2017. Tech & Science, Local News, Business & Finance, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: December 14 2018 2025 Energy Efficiency Targets Will Reduce Energy Consumption by Equivalent of 1.8 Million Homes Annually and Create as Many as 50,000 New Jobs. New York, NY - December 14, 2018 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the New York State Public Service Commission approved two initiatives to dramatically increase New York's energy efficiency and energy storage targets to combat climate change. The new energy efficiency target for investor-owned utilities will more than double utility energy efficiency progress by 2025, reducing the state's energy consumption by the equivalent of fueling and powering 1.8 million homes. The energy storage initiative sets New York on a trajectory to achieve 1,500 megawatts of storage by 2025, enough electricity to power 1.2 million homes, and up to 3,000 megawatts by 2030. First announced as part of the Governor's 2018 State of the State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the New York State Public Service Commission approved two initiatives to dramatically increase New York's energy efficiency and energy storage targets to combat climate change. The new energy efficiency target for investor-owned utilities will more than double utility energy efficiency progress by 2025, reducing the state's energy consumption by the equivalent of fueling and powering 1.8 million homes. The energy storage initiative sets New York on a trajectory to achieve 1,500 megawatts of storage by 2025, enough electricity to power 1.2 million homes, and up to 3,000 megawatts by 2030. First announced as part of the Governor's 2018 State of the State clean energy agenda , these energy efficiency and energy storage targets are vital to meeting New York's clean energy goals. "As the federal government continues to ignore the real and imminent dangers of climate change, New York is aggressively pursuing clean energy alternatives to protect our environment and conserve resources," Governor Cuomo said. "These unprecedented energy efficiency and energy storage targets will set a standard for the rest of the nation to follow, while supporting and creating jobs in these cutting-edge renewable industries." "We're investing in projects and programs to advance our aggressive energy goals across the state," said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. "While the federal government has turned its back on energy initiatives to reduce consumption and greenhouse gases, New York is leading the nation to ensure a cleaner and greener environment for future generations and combat climate change." Energy Efficiency In his 2018 State of the State address, Governor Cuomo directed the Department of Public Service (DPS) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to develop an ambitious new energy efficiency target by Earth Day. In celebration of Earth Day, DPS and NYSERDA staff issued the New Efficiency: New York report to establish New York's ambitious 2025 energy efficiency target of 185 trillion British thermal units (TBtu) of cumulative annual site energy consumption by 2025 - equivalent to fueling and powering 1.8 million New York homes annually. New Efficiency: New York also identified a comprehensive set of actions to meet that target, with emphasis on increased energy savings through innovative utility efficiency programs, the first steps of which were approved by the Commission today. The Commission order adopts 31 TBtu of additional site energy reduction by the state's utilities, above existing utility efficiency goals and toward the achievement of the 2025 target. This goal is inclusive of a subsidiary annual three percent reduction in electricity sales by 2025 and 5 TBtu of savings from the installation of heat pumps, which will help further reduce emissions from the heating and cooling of buildings in a cost effective way. The initiatives resulting from today's order will deliver direct benefits to New York consumers through new building retrofits, upgrades to heating and cooling equipment, and innovative technologies like heat pumps. The Commission has required a minimum of 20 percent of any additional levels of public investment in energy efficiency to be dedicated to the low- and moderate-income sector, helping to ensure that all New Yorkers have equal access to clean, affordable energy. The associated reduction of carbon pollution resulting from this nation-leading initiative will bring an additional $1.8 billion in societal and environmental benefits and will continue to grow employment opportunities in the energy efficiency field. Energy efficiency firms employed over 117,000 people in New York in 2017, and employers expect jobs to grow by nearly 6 percent by the end of 2018. If this rate continues through 2025, approximately 50,000 new jobs will be created. NYSERDA plans to provide training to at least 20,000 potential employees in the energy efficiency industry. Energy efficiency is a vital and fundamental component of New York's Reforming the Energy Vision strategy to build a clean, resilient and affordable energy system to combat climate change and meet New York's ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. Energy Storage In June, Governor Cuomo announced the State's plan to jumpstart the development of energy storage in New York, calling for the deployment of 1,500 megawatts of energy storage by 2025, or enough electricity for 1.2 million average sized homes, while avoiding more than one million tons of carbon pollution. To achieve the Governor's goal, the Commission today adopted a comprehensive strategy to address barriers that have been impeding energy storage technologies from competing in the energy marketplace. These actions are intended to accelerate the market learning curve, drive down costs, and speed the deployment of the highest-value energy storage projects for maximum benefit to New Yorkers and the electric grid. In addition to the 2025 goal, a secondary energy storage deployment goal of 3,000 megawatts for 2030 is being adopted, which was called for pursuant to legislation signed into law last year by Governor Cuomo. When implemented, the strategy adopted by the Commission today will establish a critical foundation for the emergence of this clean-tech industry across the state and support New York's goal to create 30,000 jobs in this industry. To further stimulate energy storage deployment across the state and spur private sector investment, earlier this week, New York Power Authority (NYPA) announced it will invest $250 million over the next five years to accelerate the flexibility of the electric grid to give New Yorkers greater access to renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power. This multi-pronged, collaborative effort by NYPA will harness the abilities of third-party providers to address key market and financial barriers, and accelerate implementation of 150 megawatts of grid flexibility projects and decrease market risk. Both Commission actions today are the result of extensive public outreach, numerous public hearings, regional forums, active stakeholder engagement, and public comment review. The Commission order also: Authorizes a $310 million market acceleration bridge incentive to be administered by NYSERDA, in addition to $40 million announced in November for pairing storage with PV projects, and directs NYSERDA to file a market acceleration bridge incentive implementation plan; and Directs the State's six major electric utilities to hold competitive procurements for 350 megawatts of bulk-sited energy storage systems. As more renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar, are brought online, energy storage will enhance efficiency of the electric grid to better integrate these variable resources. Importantly, energy storage will also enable these resources to meet periods of peak demand. Achieving the 2025 energy storage target will produce $2 billion in gross lifetime benefits to New Yorkers by reducing the reliance on costly, dirty and inefficient energy infrastructure, while also helping to scale up the clean energy industry. According to a recent report by the American Jobs Project, New York is home to nearly 100 energy storage companies with expertise in hardware manufacturing, advanced materials, software development, and project management, and ranks fifth in the nation for energy storage patents due to the depth of research across its universities, national lab, and businesses. Richard Kauffman, New York State Chairman of Energy and Finance, said, "Under Governor Cuomo, New York is taking the lead in fighting climate change and growing the clean energy economy. Today's energy efficiency and energy storage actions continues our nation-leading progress to maximize and deploy these important clean energy resources and reduce the need for new infrastructure by integrating solar, wind and energy storage to enable a more reliable and resilient electric grid, ensuring power is delivered when and where it's needed." Public Service Commission Chair John B. Rhodes said, "Energy efficiency is one of our most important clean energy resources and one of the smartest investments we can make. Energy storage is the key to unlocking renewables and reducing bottlenecks and costs on the grid. Today's orders ramp up New York's commitment and achievement, delivering bill savings for all New Yorkers while driving down carbon emissions." Alicia Barton, President and CEO, NYSERDA, said, "Under Governor Cuomo, New York is not waiting to address the challenge of global climate changeinstead we are taking bold and immediate action today. Today's decisions by the PSC solidify the role of energy efficiency and of energy storage each as an important foundation of the state's transition to a clean energy-powered future, and will allow those resources to deliver on their potentialincluding a more reliable system than the one we have today, billions of dollars in cost savings for consumers and the creation of thousands of new, good clean energy jobs for New Yorkers." Gil C. Quiniones, President and CEO of the New York Power Authority, said, "Increasing energy efficiency and accelerating energy storage deployment will significantly help in New York State's transition to a clean energy economy. In support of Governor Cuomo's energy storage target, the New York Power Authority's new flexibility initiative will help spur the development of the storage and demand flexibility market in New York by working in collaboration with the public and private sector to demonstrate the most effective business models to ensure projects are compensated for the value they provide the electricity grid." Assemblymember Amy Paulin said, "Increasing our energy efficiency and energy storage targets is an important step toward meeting our clean energy goals. Not only do these projects help the environment, they also create jobs and opportunities for New Yorkers in the ever-growing green energy sector. I commend Governor Cuomo for setting these unprecedented standards for the rest of the nation to follow." Sean Gallagher, Vice President of State Affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association, said, "The storage plans laid out in today's PSC Order will allow the solar industry to better serve its customers and help bring energy storage to scale in New York. Battery storage helps diversify and strengthen the grid, saving customers money on their electric bills. This is a clear step in the right direction to achieving the state's clean energy goals." Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of the Energy Storage Association, said, "New York State is leading the way by setting this bold target for energy storage. The target was developed through a robust and open stakeholder process, and was supported by strong economic modeling. The state's actions will generate an important, long-term signal to the storage industry to invest and hire in New York, and can serve as a model for the rest of the nation." Dr. William Acker, Executive Director of NY-BEST, said, "NY-BEST applauds the Public Service Commission for its action today to establish an Energy Storage Roadmap for New York, codifying Governor Cuomo's 1,500 MW energy storage target by 2025 and establishing a nation-leading 3 GW by 2030 energy storage deployment goal. The Roadmap's new market bridge incentive program will jumpstart energy storage deployments in the state and we look forward to working with the Commission and NYSERDA on this program, as well as the Roadmap's other ground-breaking initiatives, to unleash the benefits of energy storage for New York's electric grid, economy and the environment." Andy Frank, Founder & President of Sealed, a New York-based energy and financial technology company, said, "Sealed applauds the New York Public Service Commission for taking the next step in reaching Governor Cuomo's ambitious energy efficiency goals. It is especially encouraging that the PSC continues to understand that reaching these goals enables both flexibility and innovative partnerships with private market actors like Sealed that provide homeowners with performance-based financing solutions. Reaching our state energy efficiency goals will require state, utility, and private investment working in concert, and this Order supports that vision." Jackson Morris, Eastern Director for Climate & Clean Energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "New York took a massive leap forward today, bolstering its status as a national leader on energy efficiency. Coupled with a nation-leading energy storage target for 2030, and with an eye toward pairing that storage with solar, Governor Cuomo has yet again demonstrated an unwavering commitment to growing the clean energy economy, delivering critical climate solutions, and creating a stronger New York for generations to come." Bill Nowak, Executive Director of NY-GEO, said, "NY-GEO applauds Governor Cuomo's Comprehensive Energy Efficiency Initiative for recognizing the important role geothermal heat pumps will play in achieving New York's ambitious goals. We commend the PSC for meshing greenhouse gas reductions and energy efficiency seamlessly in its actions today. The heat pump carve out sets an important precedent that our industry looks forward to fulfilling." David Hepinstall, Executive Director of the Association for Energy Affordability, said, "I'm very pleased the Public Service Commission has acted decisively on Governor Cuomo's call for increased energy efficiency in New York State. Today's Order provides the much needed near term direction for the utilities and creates a process for specific program developments to serve low income communities, which are vitally necessary to ensure energy efficiency for all New Yorkers." Anne Reynolds, Executive Director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, said, "New York's clean energy industry welcomes today's actions by the Commission as important steps forward for energy storage and energy efficiency policy. Both are critical as New York continues its transition to a cleaner, more renewable, and more efficient electricity system. Governor Cuomo's clean energy goals are nation-leading and ambitious, and these types of implementation details are key to reaching those goals." Adam Procell, President of Lime Energy, said, "Well-structured targets and funding mechanisms that foster aggressive energy efficiency action among utilities bolsters New York's economic growth, accelerates greenhouse gas reductions and are a great deal for the people of New York State. Lime Energy is grateful to Commissioner Rhodes, and the DPS and NYSERDA teams for the hard work - and extensive stakeholder engagement - that made today's Order possible. We look forward to continuing to work with the State and the utilities to advance New York as a national leader in energy efficiency." Reforming the Energy Vision The study found that travelers making trips between a half-mile and 2 miles would get the most benefit from e-scooters, since the trips would be generally faster than those on Divvy bike-share over this distance, due to the time required to walk to and from bike share stations. The cost of using an e-scooter, without tax, would be around $1.10 per trip plus $1.33 per mile, making them cost-effective on short trips, the study said. Nature & Weather, Local News, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: December 14 2018 The Heritage Area program was created by state legislation in 1982. Long Island, NY - December 14, 2018 - State Assemblyman Fred Thiele and State Senator Ken LaValle today announced that Governor Cuomo has signed their legislation designating the Peconic Bay Region as a New York State Heritage Area, which includes the towns of Riverhead, Shelter Island, State Assemblyman Fred Thiele and State Senator Ken LaValle today announced that Governor Cuomo has signed their legislation designating the Peconic Bay Region as a New York State Heritage Area, which includes the towns of East Hampton Southampton , and Southold . Formerly known as the Urban Cultural Park System, the Heritage Area program was created by state legislation in 1982 and delegated to the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, in order to preserve and develop places that have special significance to New York State. The program was renamed in 1994 to encompass larger regional areas. The Heritage Area Program exists as a cooperative effort between state and local governments, as well as nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and grass roots involvement in each participating community. The stated purpose of the program is to designate places where unique qualities of geography, history and culture create a distinctive identity that becomes the focus of the four heritage goals: Preservation of significant resources; Education that interprets lessons from the past; Recreation and leisure activities; and Economic Revitalization for sustainable communities. The program boasts that from the Great Lakes to the eastern tip of Long Island, the Heritage Areas encompass some of the state's most significant natural, historic, and cultural resources, as well as the people and programs that keep them vital. Currently, there are nineteen other designated New York State Heritage Areas that include: Albany, Buffalo, RiverSpark, Kingston, Harbor Park, Lake Erie Concord Grape Belt, Long Island North Shore, Michigan Street, Niagara Falls, Ossining, High Falls, Sackets Harbor, Saratoga Springs, Schenectady, Seneca Falls, Susquehanna, Syracuse, Western Erie Canal, and Whitehall. Each Heritage Area represents one or more significant themes of New York States history such as Labor & Industry, Immigration & Migration, Defense, Natural Environment, and Reform Movements, which both highlight and enhance the unique attributes of each local community. According to the Program, this allows the community itself to be the park, dedicated to the preservation of its unique cultural heritage through programs such as ethnic festivals, waterfront walks, lively theater, provocative exhibits, and neighborhood walking tours. Heritage Areas provide numerous benefits to local communities. Education and outreach programs are often created within schools and for the public. These programs have included classes, historical exhibits, celebrations and festivals, all of which have been shown to result in a significant boost in tourism, which stimulates the local economy and contributes greatly to economic development goals. This could prove to be an asset in offering additional year-round appeal for a largely seasonal tourism industry. Further, as the Heritage Area program consists of a state and local partnership, this allows access to substantial state funding and grant opportunities to promote the preservation, restoration, and enhancement of the resources that make each Heritage Area so unique and essential. Grants are awarded to local projects through the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation and through the Environmental Protection Fund. This year, there was $19.5 million available to municipalities and not-for-profits for projects that contribute to the acquisition, planning, development, and improvement of parks, historic properties and Heritage Areas. The Peconic Bay Region has a rich cultural history with countless unique attributes that certainly meet the preservation goals set forth by the Heritage Area Program. Our museums, landmarks, beautiful beaches, bays, open spaces, farm fields, distinctive dining options, wineries and booming downtowns attract thousands of visitors and seasonal residents each year, stated Assemblyman Fred Thiele, I am greatly looking forward to the further enrichment of our community that this designation will provide through new partnerships, united preservation efforts, and economic development initiatives. Senator Ken LaValle said, The Peconic Bay Region is among the most beautiful areas in New York State. The area has great cultural, historic and natural resources. This new designation as the Peconic Bay Heritage Area will ensure that we honor and preserve the regions history, spur compatible economic growth and improve planning for the future. Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: December 14 2018 Jerod Plowden, 31, shot a victim to death during a Freeport drug deal, Singas said. Nassau DA Singas announced that Jerod Plowden of Queens, 31, was sentenced to 17 years to life for murder and robbery. Mineola, NY - December 14, 2018 - Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a Queens man was sentenced today to 17 years to life for the fatal shooting and robbery of a man in Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a Queens man was sentenced today to 17 years to life for the fatal shooting and robbery of a man in Freeport in 2011. Jerod Plowden, 31, was convicted on October 19 by a jury in front of Judge Patricia Harrington of: Murder in the Second Degree (an A-I felony) Two counts of Robbery in the First degree (a B violent felony) Robbery in the Second Degree (a C violent felony) Moez Hassans death was nothing short of an execution, DA Singas said. Jerod Plowden heartlessly shot this young man several times at point-blank-range, taking the life of a son, brother and uncle from his devoted and loving family. We hope todays sentence brings them some comfort. DA Singas said that on April 12, 2011, at approximately 1:35 p.m., Plowden and another man, Nolan Gaugler, met with the victim, Moez Hassan, outside of an abandoned house on Steven Street in Freeport under the pretense of buying Xanax pills from him. Before the transaction could take place, however, Plowden and Gaugler robbed the victim of 75 Xanax pills and approximately $30 at gunpoint. Hassan, 23, of Queens, was then shot five times, once in the head, chest, and left arm, and twice in the abdomen. The Nassau County Police Departments ShotSpotter system picked up the sound of the gunshots and automatically alerted police to the area. Gaugler ran away and was caught within minutes by police several blocks from the scene of the murder, still in possession of the stolen drugs and cash. Plowden, who fled through the backyard, was arrested 16 days later in Suffolk County after the vehicle in which he was a passenger was pulled over in a routine traffic stop. Gaugler, of Mineola, pleaded guilty to Robbery in the First Degree in exchange for a promised prison sentence of 16 years. "As you are aware, there have previously been several other investigations such as this. In every instance we cooperated fully. And in every instance nothing has been found," Burke said in a statement at the time. "So once again, we will be cooperating fully, and I am completely confident that at the end of the day nothing will be found amiss in this instance either." At a Glance Experts Rating Pros Lightweight Stylish design 10 hours of runtime between charges Cons Thin earbud wires prone to microphonics Poor passive noise cancellation Water resistance claimed, but no IPX rating provided High frequency audio can sound a bit shrill Best Prices Today Retailer Price Delivery $149.94 View In North America, Sennheiser is best known for its professional-grade monitor headphones, microphones, and the sort of speakerphone hardware that youll find in an upscale office environment. While its consumer audio products are wildly popular in Europe and Asia, theyve yet to make much of an impact in North Americas saturated audio market. For this to happen, Sennheiser needs a reasonably priced hit to break the ice. Unfortunately, Sennheisers CX 7.00BT In-Ear Wireless earbuds arent that breakthrough product. While reasonably priced and technologically sound, a number of frustrating flaws will have you looking elsewhere for your next set of Bluetooth earphones. Note: This review is part of our roundup of wireless and true wireless earbuds. Go there for details on competing products and our testing methods. Design While many Bluetooth earphones are connected to one another by a wire containing the headsets in-line controls, battery, and Bluetooth radios, Sennheisers CX 7.00BT earphones instead sport a plastic neckband. In most cases, neckbands make earphones less compact than a set of Bluetooth earbuds that can simply be rolled up and stuffed in ones hip pocket. But the neckband design boasts a number of advantages. For starters, when you pop your earbuds out, theres no need to pocket themtheyll dangle from the neckband until the next time you want to use them. For that matter, the plastic neckband here is large enough to contain the battery, Micro-USB port, controls, microphone, and other bits and pieces required for Bluetooth headphones, which allows for smaller and lighter earbuds than youll find with competing devices that need to hang this equipment elsewhere or hide it behind the earphone caps. This is certainly the case with these earbuds: Theres not much to them besides the drivers, the silicone tips, and the wire that attaches each earbud to the headsets neckband. The neckband itself is flexible but sturdy, and its wide enough that someone with a thick neck wont find it uncomfortable to wear. More slender individuals may, however, discover that the neckband feels huge when they wear it. As such, Id suggest trying on these earphones before investing in them. The CB 7.00BTs neckband controls are easy to find, once you get used to them. The CX 7.00BTs multi-function button, volume/track controls, and Micro-USB charging port are all contained in a node on the left-hand side of the earbud. At first, I struggled to find the controls, which Sennheiser placed on the inside of the neckband. After a couple of days of using them, however, I found I could easily locate the buttons to pause my music, select a new track, or accept a phone call. The CX 7.00BT earphones come packing Bluetooth 4.1. This is moot for anyone using iOS or macOS as their audio source, but for everyone else, Sennheisers offering of Qualcomms aptX audio technology will be greatly appreciated. These earbuds are also capable of connecting up to two devices simultaneously, such as an iPhone and a MacBook. I experienced few connectivity issues while wearing the earphones at home, but I encountered frequent connectivity problems while walking down a city street in moderate traffic. If you plan on wearing these as you walk to work or head out on a jog, chances are that youll suffer a similar fate. While were on the topic of being out and about, Id like to address the CX 7.00BTs IPX rating: They dont have one. There is no mention anywhere of these things being water resistant. Given that theyre designed to hang around your neck and outside of your clothing, this feels like an inexcusable oversight. Even Aukeys surprisingly decent $28 Latitude EP-B40 earphones can weather a splash or two. For this price, consumers deserve better. Sennheiser claims that the CX 7.00BTs offer 10 hours of runtime before theyll need to be recharged. Over a weeks worth of use, I found this estimate to be accurate. When the time comes to top these earphones off, their battery can be juiced up in 1.5 hours with an included Micro-USB cable. Sound The CX 7.00BTs audio issues start with the silicone ear caps they ship with. Sennheiser includes a number of different sizes with the earphones, making it possible to find a comfortable fit that allows for hours of listening. Unfortunately, the ear caps provide no passive noise cancellation to speak of. At all but the highest volumes, I was able to hear the noise around me while I listened to music. This would be fine for a set of earbuds you plan on using at the gym. However, as the CX 7.00BTs are not sweat resistant, I have to chock up their lack of PNC as an oversight on Sennheisers part. The noise interrupting my listening with these earphones didnt end with noise coming from my environment: I was frustrated to find that microphonics abound with the CX 7.00BT. As I walked with them on, I could hear each of the earphone cables banging against my neck, counting every step. When I turned my head, I could hear a rustle as the plastic of the neckband rubbed against my skin. The CX 7.00BTs earcaps provide poor passive noise cancelation As for the audio itself? At times, it can shine. While listening to The Mighty Stefs Death Threats, the CX 7.00BTs drivers proved capable of some very nice separation and outstanding mid-range frequency reproduction. That said, I found that higher frequency sound was often shrill enough that I felt the urge to turn my listening volume down. Most disappointing, however, was the bass. At times, such as while listening to Cairo Keller by Bohern & Der Club of Gore, the normally low booming hum of Robin Rodenbergs bass guitar sounded a little bit reedy and, at higher volumes, a little distorted. Its worth noting that Sennheiser allows users to tweak the sound of the CX 7.00BTs with their free CapTune app, available for download from the iOS App Store. The app walks users through changing the earphones equalizer settings, which does improve their sound a bit. Unfortunately, you can only use these settings through the CapTunes app. If you prefer to listen to music using, say, Ecoute or Apple Music, youll be doing so with the CX 7.00BTs default EQ settings. This feels like a tremendous misstep on Sennheisers part. The bottom line Frequent connectivity issues, a lack of waterproofing, and less than stellar sound make Sennheisers CX 7.00BT in-ear wireless earbuds difficult to recommend. There are other more capable earphones availablemany of which weve reviewedthat would be a wiser investment. A former Spanish army general will be standing for the far-right Vox party in the local elections next May in Palma. General Fulgencio Coll was in charge of Spanish troops in Iraq during the second Gulf War and has also held senior positions within NATO. "The extremists are not in Vox, they are in those who support terrorists and separatists and those who support a neo-communist government which has failed so miserably in Venezuela," he said during his presentation yesterday. For Vox, having a former Spanish general standing for them as a candidate is quite a coup, especially as Coll was born in Palma and his grandfather was mayor of the city. Vox broke into the Spanish political arena in the Andalusian elections earlier this month winning twelve seats in the regional parliament. Their far- right policies and hardline rhetoric on Catalonia and Gibraltar have won them some support but it is unclear what impact they will have across the country in the local elections next May. "We are the ones who will bring about change, progress and the reconquest," Francisco Serrano, Voxs candidate in Andalusia, told a loud crowd gathered in Seville, many of whom waved Spanish flags and chanted "Espana! Espana!." Spanish politics is split at the moment thanks to the advance of smaller parties both on the right and left. So far Vox has only marginal support but if its support continues to grow it will soon have the alarm bells ringing in political circles. Three former employees of Casa Isla, a now-shuttered youth detention center, were sentenced to time in the South Bay House of Correction for abusing the teenagers under their care. A fourth former employee failed to appear in court and removed his GPS monitoring device, causing a warrant to be issued for his arrest. On Wednesday, jurors returned verdicts convicting former employees Jalise Andrade, 37, of Brockton; Silvio Depina, 40, of Brockton; Hermano Joseph, 27, of Taunton and Ainsley Laroche, 44, of Roxbury. They were found guilty of a total 19 crimes. This includes charges of indecent assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, intimidation of a witness, and/or threats to commit a crime against four victims. Joseph did not appear for his sentencing and has removed his GPS monitor, Judge Jeffrey Locke said in court Friday before the arrest warrant was issued. Locke said that sentencing was challenging for this case, where he was faced with men who had limited criminal records. These defendants are individuals of good character, were positive members of the community at large unlikely would have committed the crimes for which they were convicted but for the unique setting for which they occurred, Locke said at sentencing. He continued: ...the conduct as it was presented is an egregious breach of trust and abuse of authority as the victims were under complete control of defendants. Depina was convicted of indecent assault and battery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among other charges. He was sentenced to two and a half years in the house of corrections with two years to serve. He was placed on probation starting Friday for a period of five years. He must register as a sex offender. Andrade, who was convicted of holding a drumstick over a teenagers throat during an assault, was sentenced to 18 months in the house of corrections with six months to serve. Laroche was sentenced to 18 months in the house of corrections with a probation of five years beginning Friday. All of the men are to have no contact with any witnesses, or former detainees of the Casa Isla program. They are not to work with children under 21 again. The three defendants were ordered to surrender on January 2. Though the trial was sparsely attended, family of the defendants packed the courtroom on Friday. Many broke down in tears as Locke read the sentences. The jury heard eight days of testimony from boys who said they were abused at the facility and by former employees at Casa Isla. They deliberated for three days before returning the verdicts on Wednesday. MassLive is not naming the victims involved in the criminal case, as they were juveniles at the time of the alleged abuse. One young man, A.B., was 16 at the time of the abuse in 2014. He testified that Joseph sexually assaulted him, touching his genitals and his backside. Prosecutors said that staff at Casa Isla beat residents in a ritualized assault called "orange chicken." During these attacks, residents' pants and underwear were pulled down, and the child was beaten with an orange DYS-issued sandal. The staff members are facing charges for "orange chicken" assaults against two juveniles. Some are charged with threatening inmates with beatings if they revealed what happened to them. 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. The facility was run by Volunteers of America through a contract with the state. Before the trial, Joseph's bail was briefly revoked after he was arrested for allegedly carrying a loaded firearm without a license and carrying ammunition without a required identification card. Officers stopped Joseph for driving a car with an expired temporary license plate, which they then discovered was unlicensed and unregistered. Joseph became nervous when he was stopped and started backing up, nearly striking the police cruiser. When officers searched the car, they found a loaded revolver. They also found oxycodone pills in his pocket, police said. Six men were originally being tried together related to the assaults. Emmanuel Fedna, 33, of Everett was found not guilty of two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon last Friday, after Locke ruled that prosecutors did not prove their case against him beyond a reasonable doubt. A mistrial was declared for Raymond Pizarro, 27, of Hyde Park, and his case was separated from his co-defendants after his attorney became unavailable when the attorneys mother passed away. He will be tried separately. A.B. was the only victim to submit an impact statement, which Assistant District Attorney Sarah Stancato McEvoy read aloud in court. The experience I went through at Casa contributed to the negative road I went down after, he wrote, according to McEvoy. 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. The facility was run by Volunteers of America through a contract with the state. Shira Schoenberg of The Republican contributed to this report. A Massachusetts State Police trooper has been suspended after he allegedly got into a fight in Dorchester earlier this month. Matthew Hickey, 30, is suspended with pay pending the outcome of an assault and battery investigation by Boston police, Massachusetts State Police spokesman David Procopio said. Hickey allegedly got into a fight outside Dorset Hall in Dorchester earlier this month. We have no tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged in the complaint. We have opened an internal affairs investigation and will closely monitor the judicial proceedings, Procopio said in a statement. The state police will hold a hearing to address his duty status, Procopio said. The investigation by Boston police is ongoing. Newbury College in Brookline will become the latest small private college to fold in Massachusetts, citing economic troubles that have afflicted small liberal arts colleges across the United States. It is with a heavy heart that I announce our intention to commence the closing of Newbury College, this institution we love so dearly. Newburys top priority is to ensure that our students, our faculty, and our staff remain at the forefront of all we do in the coming weeks and months, Newbury College President Joseph L. Chillo wrote Friday in a letter posted on the colleges website. The college expects to close after the 2019 spring semester, Chillo wrote. Newbury College, which has operated for 57 years, had 627 students enrolled at the beginning of the 2018 fall semester. It currently offers degree programs across a range of academic and professional disciplines, including business management, culinary arts, criminal justice and cybersecurity. The school was placed on probation by accreditors in August over concerns about its financial stability, the Boston Globe reported at the time. Newbury is not alone in being a small private Massachusetts college pressured into closure by an increasingly difficult educational marketplace. Newton-based Mount Ida College announced in April that it was closing and selling its campus to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The abrupt closure led to a chaotic transitional period for students, sparking heavy criticism of the deal, allegations of non-transparency, a lawsuit and an investigation by the Office of Attorney General Maura Healey. And the Globe has reported that expenses are outpacing revenue at more than half of New Englands 75 smallest private colleges. In his message to the campus community, Chillo appears dedicated to avoiding the anger and regulatory entanglements that surrounded the Mount Ida closure, assuring students that their future remains a priority for the school. We are still exploring potential partnerships that would allow us to remain open, but the Board of Trustees and I have concluded that it is in the best interests of our students, prospective students, faculty and staff to notify them immediately, so they can make the best decisions for their future, Chillo wrote. Accordingly, we are providing this notice, before we are legally required to do so, because it is the right thing to do. Our people, the dignity of our mission, and the legacy of the institution are our most important concerns of today. Newbury College is working with the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education and other colleges and universities to sign agreements allowing students to continue their studies elsewhere, Chillo wrote. Students will be given the option to pursue comparable programs at other schools and will receive transfer information and access to admissions events, the letter said. Chillo cited weighty financial challenges as the reason for the closure, writing that changing costs and demographics made continuing the schools operations untenable. Gov. Charlie Baker said Newbury College has been pretty active in discussing its challenges with the Department of Higher Education. They are trying in good faith to make this announcement early enough that existing and prospective students have options and possibilities with respect to the decisions they make, Baker said. The governor called the closure an awful and terrible thing, but said the college announced its closure early enough to give students and staff time to prepare. Baker said the Department of Higher Education will work with Newbury College officials to make sure students and staff have options at other institutions. They made a good faith effort under a tough situation to find a path forward that provides people with options, Baker said. The Republicans Shira Schoenberg contributed reporting SPRINGFIELD - The former owner of an Agawam laboratory testing company accused of using false information in a scheme to obtain a $9.5 million bank loan package pertaining to a business venture he had in Saudi Arabia was charged in federal court Thursday. Hanibal Tayeh, 58, was charged with two counts of bank fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, four counts of money laundering, and one count of making a false bankruptcy declaration. Tayeh was originally charged and arrested in July 2018 and released on personal recognizance, Thursday's indictment supersedes the five-month-old charges. Tayeh is accused of using fake documents, misrepresentations and corporate entities to obtain a $9.1 million loan package followed by a $400,000 extension of credit from Bank Rhode Island. Many of the fraudulent information was connected to a business venture Tayeh was pursuing in Saudi Arabia, said Christina DiLorio-Sterling, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling. He is also accused of financially defrauding three individuals using fake documents and misrepresentations about construction projects in Saudi Arabia, she said. Tayeh is also accused of making a false statement during a bankruptcy proceeding when he allegedly denied knowledge of a fake letter of credit he created, she said. Tayeh holds a doctorate degree in environmental engineering and was president of Spectrum Analytical, which specializes in testing specializes in testing a wide variety of materials ranging from sediments and groundwater to animal tissue and hazardous waste. Bank Rhode Island took control of Spectrum Analytical in March after discovering the allegedly fraudulent documents. Spectrum field for federal bankruptcy protection in April. If convicted of all charges, Tayeh faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million, she said. Lelling; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Kristina OConnell, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Services Criminal Investigation in Boston worked on the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex J. Grant of Lellings Springfield Branch Office is prosecuting the case. CHICOPEE Demolition begins Wednesday at the beloved Hu Ke Lau restaurant and Polynesian nightclub, 705 Memorial Drive, now that Associated Building Wreckers of Springfield has finished all the preliminary work, removed the utilities and obtained the proper permits. Restaurateur Andy Yee said Friday hed just been notified of the final schedule for the Hu Ke Lau, which once hosted comedians including Joan Rivers, Chris Rock and Rosie ODonnell. Known for its scorpion bowls, the Hu Ke Lau got its name from a Hawaiian word for a jolly fishing party. Yee said hes been told the demolition process should take about three weeks. It will be bittersweet to see her come down, Yee said of the restaurant that launched his familys Bean Restaurant Group. Its the closing of one chapter and the opening of another. On with the story. The 30,000-square -foot building predates the Hu Ke Lau. Yees late father, Jung Tai Johnny Yee, first opened its doors on April 6, 1965. The Yee family expanded it a decade later. Andy Yee said Friday he recalled throwing pennies two rolls of them for good luck into the concrete as it poured into the footings for that expansion. I told Andy Mirkin of Associated Building Wreckers that Im going to be there looking for my dollar, Yee said. While the Hu Ke Lau has sentimental value for Yee, his brothers and sisters and their mother, Linda Yee, it was too big and too out of date to keep operating it as a restaurant. The parking lot alone needed $100,000 worth of repairs. The building, its a relic, Yee said. I think we are the last property on Memorial Drive that hadnt undergone a major renovation. He said hes talking with a number of interested parties about the Hu Ke Lau site and its possibles for redevelopment. But no decisions have been made. The new development may have a restaurant, but it may not, he said. The Yees Bean Restaurant Group includes Johnnys Tavern in Amherst; Johnnys Bar & Grill, Johnnys Taproom and Iya Sushi and Noodle Kitchen, all in South Hadley; the Route 9 Diner in Hadley and The Boathouse at Brunelles Marina in South Hadley . Yee is managing partner along with Peter Picknelly and father and son Michael K. Vann and Kevin B. Vann at The Student Prince Cafe & The Fort Dining Room in Springfield. The Fort nearly closed for good before Picknelly and Yee launched a major floor-to-ceiling renovation in 2013 and 2014. The Yees, Picknelly and the Vanns recently bought McLaddens Irish restaurants in Northampton and in Simsbury and West Hartford, Connecticut, and started the Union Kitchen Restaurant in West Hartford. Wayfair, the Boston company that brought all the tricks of digital marketing and online ordering to the furniture business, will bring 300 customer-service jobs to Pittsfield in 2019. We are beyond excited that Wayfair has chosen Pittsfield for this expansion, Mayor Linda Tyer said Thursday afternoon. Three hundred jobs in our city is a remarkable accomplishment. Jobs at the new facility will average $40,000 a yer in pay with benefits in addition to that. Wayfair is considering a number of locations for its new sales and service call center, Tyer said. But she was unable to reveal the specific location. She said the company has not gotten a local tax incentive, but might ask for one in the future. The state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development announced incentives Thursday for the Wayfair and five other corporate expansions around Massachusetts, including another one Berkshire County in North Adams. Taken together, they are expected to create 3,703 net new jobs, retain 4,313 jobs and leverage more than $82 million in private investment throughout the Bay State. Wayfair, founded in 2002 by Niraj Shah, who grew up in Pittsfield, and Stephen Conine, reported $4.72 billion in 2017 revenue. Wayfair considered several states for the center, according to a news release from the state. Under the deal announced Thursday, Wayfair will open in Pittsfield and expand its footprint in Boston. Wayfair will hire 3,300 new employees in Massachusetts, retain the 3,809 employees it has now and make a private investment of $33.9 million. The state approved $31.3 million in investment tax credits that Wayfair can claim on its state income taxes. Tyer said Pittsfield and the 1Berkshire economic development agency have been talking with Wayfair since March. The other projects are: TOG Manufacturing Co., Inc. / Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., North Adams TOG Manufacturing Co. makes precision specialty metal components and was acquired by Stanley Black & Decker in 2018. TOG is consolidating current operations in North Adams with operations currently located in South Carolina. An additional 20,000-square-foot expansion is under consideration for the existing 24,900-square-foot facility in North Adams, according to the states news release. According to TOGs website, its customers include the Pentagon and the power generation, off-shore drilling and turbine manufacturing industries. TOG plans to hire 28 new employees, retain 29 employees, and make a private investment of $5,485,000. North Adams has approved a five-year Tax Financing Agreement with a value of approximately $297,646. The state approved investment tax credits in the amount of $285,000. Connecticut -based Stanley Black & Decker also owns the Lenox American Saw plant in East Longmeadow where it makes saw blades for the commercial and industrial markets. Aetna Inc. / Aetna Resources LLC, Wellesley Aetna , headquartered in Hartford, is locating its Innovation Hub and Consumer Health & Services (CH&S) Division in Wellesley, with a 80,000-square-foot expansion. The company plans to retain 65 full-time jobs, create 250 new jobs and make an investment of $15.8 million. The state approved investment tax credits in the amount of $1.25 million. Millstone Medical Outsourcing LLC, Fall River Millstone Medical Outsourcing,provides the medical device industry with post-manufacturing services including: validation and engineering services, advanced mechanical inspection, ultrasonic cleaning and passivation, clean room packaging, non-sterile packaging and comprehensive warehousing. It plans to to build a 60,000-square-foot inspection facility on land adjacent to its existing location, according to the news release. Millstone plans to create 100 new jobs, retain 271 existing jobs and make a private investment of $10,720,000. The City of Fall River has approved a 12-year Tax Financing Agreement with a value of approximately $1.945 million. The state approved investment tax credits of $750,000. Crootof & Sawyer Ventures, LLC, Northbridge Crootof & Sawyer was formed in 2016 to purchase, renovate and manage a property known as 18 & 28 Granite Street, the former Whitinsville Medical Center of Milford Regional Hospital. Crootof & Sawyer owns an existing business, Pawsteps, and plan to relocate to this new location and expand the business by offering doggie day care, pet boarding, and grooming. The company plans to hire 25 new employees, retain 13 employees, and make a private investment of $2.3 million. The Town of Northbridge approved a five-year special tax assessment valued at approximately $65,780. United Lens Corporation, Southbridge United Lens is a vertically-integrated, custom manufacturer of optical thin film coatings, ground and polished flat optics, and precision machined and molded optical blanks, according to the news release . United plans to expand its manufacturing floor, improve electric consumption efficiency, and upgrade several lines on their current manufacturing space. It plans to retain 126 full-time employees and make an investment of $14.1 million. Southbridge approved a 15-year tax financing agreement with a value of approximately $382,651. UPS bought $18.3 million worth of real estate in the Worcester County towns of Grafton and Shrewsbury last month, taking another step toward construction of its planned $200 million, 800,000-square-foot regional distribution center near the MBTA station and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. The land purchases totaling 226 acres of now undeveloped land were recorded at the Worcester County Registry of Deeds in November. Town officials in Grafton and Shrewsbury couldnt be reached by phone Friday. But in October, the Grafton Board of Selectmen heard a pitch from UPS and its local attorney, according to a story in The Grafton News. UPS is looking to hire 350 additional workers in town there is already a smaller distribution center there and is looking for a 15-year tax abatement that would commence in 2021 when the distribution center is expected to open. UPS would get a 100 percent abatement on the taxable value of the new building in the first year, and then that discount would shrink incrementally over the life of the agreement. The deal was not finalized. UPS spokespeople in Atlanta acknowledged progress Friday, but said that no final decision has been made. UPS continually evaluates where and how to best expand our facilities to meet growing customer demand, UPS' Kim Krebs said in an email. The Shrewsbury and Grafton, MA area is one of the locations UPS is considering to further optimize our ground network across the Northeast. The property acquisition is one of many initial steps in the feasibility and planning process for the proposed project. One of the sellers of the property is Worcester Business Development Corp., the nonprofit developer of the Centech business park adjacent to the UPS site. According to its website, the Worcester Business Development Corp. acquired the land from the state in 1994. Over the past 19 years, it worked with Grafton and Shrewsbury as well as Tufts on infrastructure and permitting work allowing for 675,000 square feet of development. The site is four miles from Massachusetts Turnpike Exit 11 at Millbury and a mile south of Route 20, according to Worcester Business Development Corp. His attorneys claim Provo police officers paid two witnesses rent and instructed them to lie about the financial help. That information could have changed the cases outcome, they contend. They are seeking for a lower court to review the evidence at a new hearing. Younger children in states with a Sept. 1 cut-off date for kindergarten are "significantly more likely" to receive a diagnosis as well as treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder than their peers born in September. This is among the findings of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Nov. 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that found higher rates of diagnosis and treatment for the neurodevelopmental disorder among children born in August than among children born in September in such states. Authors of the study - all based in Massachusetts - note that in such states children with birthdays near the cutoff date can differ in age by almost a year in the same classroom, with younger children exhibiting behavior teachers and parents may be the first to observe as "anomalous relative to peers." They also note that older studies based on surveys have suggested younger children within a same grade group are more likely to receive a diagnosis of ADHD. The authors say that such a diagnosis could possibly mean "inattentive behavior that is developmentally determined may be attributed to ADHD rather than to younger age." In discussing their study's findings based on an analysis of insurance-based data, they note, "The age of the child relative to peers may be useful to physicians in assessing whether behaviors reported by teachers and parents are indeed indicative of ADHD." The current study extracted information from a large insurance data base involving 100 commercial payers and self-insured corporations to compare the rate of ADHD diagnosis among children born in August with that of those born in September in states with and without the requirement that children be 5 by Sept. 1 for kindergarten enrollment. The study population included 407,846 children in all states born from 2007 through 2009 and followed for a diagnosis through December 2015. According to the study, the rate of claims-based ADHD diagnosis among children in states with a Sept. 1 cutoff was 85.1 per 10,000 children among those born in August and 63.6 per 10,000 children among those born in September. This is reported as an absolute difference of 21.5 per 10,000 children and a 34 percent higher rate among children born in August than among children born in September The rate of ADHD treatment was 52.9 per 10,000 children among those born in August, according to the study, and 40.4 per 10,000 children among those born in September, an absolute difference of 12.5 per 10,000 children. Authors of the report said analysis of data from states with no September cut-off date for kindergarten entry did not show the differences in diagnoses rates reflected in the data for states with a cut-off date. The study's analysis showed the rate of ADHD diagnosis among boys who were born in August was higher by 32.5 per 10,000 children than the rate among boys born in September. The rate among girls born in August was higher by 10.7 per 10,000 children than among girls born in September, a difference not considered significant. In discussing the limitations of their study, the authors, whose institutions include Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and the National Bureau of Economic Research, caution, "We are able to conclude only that a child's age relative to peers has an association with diagnosis and treatment rates of ADHD, not whether this association is harmful or helpful." SOUTHWICK - The Westfield River Brewing Co. was brimming with holiday cheer in its recently renovated barn on Sunday. The first Holiday Market was held on the second and third floors of the barn where 20 vendors shared their talents and crafts. And, of course, beer and wine were served in the taproom. "The barn is such a customizable space. It really works for every type of event," said brewing company owner Sergio Bonavita. He and his partners renovated the space this year to host more events, including the Holiday Market. Since the renovations, weddings, bridal and baby showers, family and office parties and more have taken place in the barn that was previously home to Chuck's Steak House. Bonavita carefully restored the barn to be a more open, modern space while maintaining the rustic integrity of the former working barn. During the Holiday Market, nearly 1,000 visitors shopped, sampled and explored the barn. The vendors were nestled among the rafters as well as in the open event spaces. Vendors and crafters offered unique items, most handmade locally. "We hand selected the vendors based on quality of product, popularity and professionalism," Bonavita said. "All were local to western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut." Kelsey Barlow and Sandra Downie, of Fiore Flower Studio in Fairfield and Windsor, Connecticut, brought a large selection of succulents and handmade skincare soaps to the market. The entrepreneurs started their business, which includes Connecticut's only flower truck, because they shared a love of fresh blooms. "Kelsey came from an analytical background and I had a creative business background," said Downie . They host pop-up flower truck events around Connecticut and Western Massachusetts where people can make their own bouquets ranging from $25 to $45. Downie said they partner with businesses to bring the truck to corporate functions and are becoming a popular attraction at parties. For Tori Weltlich, of Russell, the Holiday Market was a great place to sell her coffee cozies. A nurse by day, Weltlich said she saw other fabric cozies and knew she could put her own spin on them. She makes cozies for coffee cups and pint glasses and is creating one for cans. Lori M. LeBlanc brought some kick to the event with her Wickedly Wild gourmet sauces, including her signature Wickedly Wild BBQ sauce, which is a spicy bourbon sauce she created. "I started making sauces as a fundraiser for cub scouts and people started calling me to make more," said LeBlanc, whose products are gluten-free and made with locally produced ingredients. Bonavita said the next event in the barn is a New Year's Eve party. "We will have live music featuring Acoustic Marsh Pit, food, beer, wine, a champagne toast - all the fun stuff which makes a New Years' party great," he said. "After that we will begin planning our 2019 schedule. We know we have Hot Mess coming back for spring and fall fests, and we will also be planning both Mother's and Father's Day events." The Holiday Market included a toy drive to benefit the Corey Garwacki Foundation and Baystate Children's Hospital. "We were able to donate a large number of toys, thanks to our great customers," said Bonavita. "We just feel so fortunate to be part of such a great community." A former owner and four former employees of the New England Compounding Center were convicted by a federal jury on Thursday for their roles in a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened nearly 800 people and killed more than 100 of them. There have now been 11 employees or executives of the drug compounding company convicted of ignoring safety precautions and forging documents to allow contaminated drugs to be manufactured and shipped. These defendants were professionals who acted recklessly to the extreme detriment of public health, said U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling in a statement. Over the course of years, the defendants callously disregarded patient health by cutting corners and prioritizing profits over safety. The individuals convicted in the latest trial are: Gene Svirskiy, 37, of Ashland, a former NECC clean room pharmacist who supervised NECCs production of high-risk heart medications, was convicted of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, 10 counts of mail fraud and two counts of introduction of adulterated drugs into interstate commerce with intent to defraud or mislead. Christopher Leary, 34, of Shrewsbury, an NECC clean room pharmacist, was convicted of three counts of mail fraud, one count of introduction of adulterated drugs into interstate commerce with intent to defraud or mislead and two counts of introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. Sharon Carter, 54, of Hopkinton, NECCs former director of operations, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Alla Stepanets, 38, of Framingham, one of NECCs verification pharmacists, was convicted of six counts of introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. Greg Conigliaro, 53, of Southborough, a former owner of NECC, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States. All five will be sentenced in March. Svirskiy and Leary are facing up to 20 years in prison; Carter and Conigliaro up to five years in prison; and Stepanets up to a year in prison. Joseph Evanosky, 46, of Westford, a former clean room pharmacist, was acquitted. At the trial, prosecutors proved that the pharmacists failed to sterilize and test drugs and sent drugs out before test results came back. They used expired ingredients and mislabeled drugs. They ignored mold and bacteria found in their clean rooms. They routinely shipped drugs in bulk without valid prescriptions but told regulators that they were providing patient-specific drugs. They approved shipments of drugs for patients named Wonder Woman, Fat Albert, Bud Weiser, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, among others. In June 2017, NECC owner and head pharmacist Barry Cadden was sentenced to nine years in prison. In January, Glenn Chin, NECCs former supervisory pharmacist, was sentenced to eight years in prison. Two additional verification pharmacists are schedule to stand trial in March. Watertown actress Eliza Dushku was paid $9.5 million to quiet reports of sexual harassment she allegedly received from Bull star Michael Weatherly while filming episodes of the CBS series last year, according to The New York Times. Dushku, best known for her work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tru Calling, was signed to a three-episode arc on Bull, and there were plans to make her a full-time cast member. However, after Dushku reported sexually charged comments made by Weatherly, she was written off the show. After mediation with the network, CBS paid Dushku a confidential settlement worth $9.5 million, the newspaper reported. The allegations in Ms. Dushkus claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done, a statement from CBS obtained by The New York Times read. The settlement of these claims reflects the projected amount that Ms. Dushku would have received for the balance of her contract as a series regular, and was determined in a mutually agreed upon mediation process at the time. Dushku declined comment to The New York Times, but in a statement emailed to the newspaper, Weatherly apologized for his behavior. During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script, Weatherly stated. When Eliza told me that she wasnt comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized. After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza. The payment was discovered as a result of an investigation by the law firms of Covington & Burling and Debevoise & Plimpton to examine sexual misconduct allegations made against ousted CBS president Les Moonves, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Friday that he has taken himself out of the running to serve as President Donald Trumps new chief of staff. Christie, in a statement shared with the New York Times, offered that while he was honored to be considered for the role, he could not take up such a position. Ive told the president that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment. As a result, I have asked not to be considered for this post, he said, according to a statement. And again deleting clarifying earlier post, right statement this time - Christie was not offered the job, took himself out of running. pic.twitter.com/hIRUyIcHwh Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 14, 2018 Christies announcement came one day after he reportedly met with Trump at the White House residence about possibly replacing current Chief of Staff John Kelly, who is expected to leave the administration in early January. According to Bloomberg News, Trump had yet to make a final decision about his new chief of staff before Christie withdrew himself from consideration. The White House confirmed Friday that Trump has about five names in the hopper as potential chief of staff candidates. Officials said they expect the president to announce his pick soon. A White House spokesman ignored reporters' questions about whether Christie -- who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary -- was among those in the running for the job, according to White House pool reports. Other rumored contenders for the chief of staff role include former Trump campaign adviser David Bossie, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, new outlets have reported. The president was scheduled to have lunch Friday Bossie, according to Bloomberg. Nick Ayers, chief of staff to Vice President Pence, meanwhile, reportedly turned down an offer to serve as Trumps new chief of staff earlier this week. This is a breaking news story and will be updated. SPRINGFIELD - A Massachusetts National Guard commander and city resident has been promoted to brigadier general by a vote of the U.S. Senate. Brig. Gen. John J. Driscoll, Land Component Commander of the Massachusetts National Guard, will be honored in a promotion ceremony at 4 p.m., Saturday at Springfield Technical Community College, said Lt. Col. Lisa Ahaesy, National Guard spokeswoman. Driscoll, who began his career in 1989 when he was commissioned through the Reserve Officer Training Corp, serves as the chief adviser and principal assistant to the Massachusetts National Guard Adjutant General. He is responsible for directing, supervising, training, coordinating the staff and assisting The Adjutant General in the deployment and coordination of programs, policies, and plans affecting over 8,000 members of the Massachusetts National Guard, she said. He holds a bachelor's degree mechanical engineering from Northeastern University, a master's degree in military studies from the American Military University and a masters in strategic studies from the United States Army War College, she said. From Aug. 1990 to March 1991, Driscoll served as a second lieutenant assigned as a Company Fire Support Officer for Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division, in Southwest Asia. His awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, and MNational Defense Service Medal. He was 2015-2016 City of Springfield Veteran of the year and 2016 National Security Fellow, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Driscolls most recent assignment was Chief of Operations, Joint Operations Center, Current Operations Division, CCJ3 Operations Directorate, US Central Command, McDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida. SPRINGFIELD - The toys may change every year to reflect whats popular with children any given Christmas, but for nearly 100 years the mission of Toy for Joy has remained the same. Toy for Joy, a collaborative effort by the Salvation Army, The Republican and MassLive provides toys and books to children in need in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties. Its community partners include the Reading Success by 4th Grade Initiative of the Irene E. And George A. Davis Foundation and Pride Stores. The partnership with the Reading Success by 4th Grade initiative is marking its second year, helping ensure there is a book for every child. For the third year in a row, Pride Stores is rallying customers at its locations in Western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut to help contribute to Toy for Joy. Customers can go into any Pride in the area and purchase a $1, $5 or $10 donation card for Toy for Joy. This marks the 50th anniversary of the Salvation Armys partnership with newspaper. The Salvation Army stepped in to handle the Toy for Joy program, after being passed the baton by the United Way in 1968, according to a history written by the latest associate publisher Richard C. Garvey. We would be lost without the Salvation Armys involvement, says Cynthia G. Simison, assistant to the publisher and managing editor of The Republican. Since I first began working on the Toy for Joy effort several decades ago, Ive been most thankful for the hope of the commanders of the Springfield Citadel who organize the registration and distribution network. As an agency, they know well the challenges faced by families across the region. Now in its 96th year, the campaigns goal is to raise $150,000. Todays list of donations totaling $1,750 brings the total raised thus far to $34,860 leaving $115,140 to be raised by Christmas eve. Toy for Joy dates back to the early 20th century, a time when municipalities still had departments that helped address providing assistance to the most needy in the community. Back then, the holiday gifts would be as simple as candy, cookies and warm mittens and hats. Initially, according to Garveys recounting of the campaigns history, the Springfield Rotary Club stepped in to handle the annual Christmas program for children that involved an event at Symphony Hall for as many as 4,000 kids. Then, when the newspaper, the Springfield Union, joined the effort, the publishing of donors names began and members of the business community stepped forward to donate to the cause. Danielle LaTaille, social services director for the Salvation Army in Springfield, said the program is a crucial service provided to many families who would struggle to purchase even one gift for their child at Christmas. Each year we hear how important this program is in making Christmas miracles happen. We have had the opportunity to witness child recipients become adults who give back through donations, volunteer time and more, she said. She said the toy drive has a long, proud history in the city and the entire region. Over the years and as our clients become older we are flooded with stories about how Toy for Joy made their Christmas dreams come true in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, she said. A toy offered through this program is so much more than just a toy, its a moment in time for a child that they never forget. Over the years donations have dwindled and for the first time this year a limit was set to how many families the Salvation Army can serve this Christmas. A waiting list of families was established so that if the fundraising is fruitful, more families will be assisted. Still, everyone involved in the Toy for Joy campaign believes in its mission and hopes donors will too. The Toy for Joy history really chronicles the community involvement in helping families in need each holiday season in Greater Springfield, Simison said. For nearly a century, its survived good times and bad. Heres hoping this Christmas will bring renewed success to the campaign. To make a contribution to the Toy for Joy fund, write: Toy for Joy, 1860 Main St., Springfield, MA 01101. Contributions may also be dropped off with the coupon which accompanies this story to The Republican, 1860 Main St., Springfield, weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. through noon on Dec. 21. Online donations can be made here. Todays contributions | Amount In memory of Ken, Margaret and Beth Wallace from Peggy 15 In memory of our parents from Tom and Nancy 100 In memory of Pepere Tetreault 25 In memory of all our deceased loved ones from Lynne and Alan 25 For happiness and good health of our wonderful family, JMC and AGC 10 Missing you Marcia, love JMC 5 Thank you St. Jude for favors granted, JMC 5 For our beloved parents, JMC and AGC 5 In remembrance of my father and grandparents 20 From the Woodtkes 25 In memory of Suki Beucke, the Christmas puppy 25 In loving memory of Helen and Ray Provost 100 In memory of friends and family, love Maryjo and Tom 50 In loving memory of my husband Frank, love Shirley 25 Missing our grandparents, Russell and Catherine Trombly, love Chris, Matt, Justin and Lindsey 50 Sadly missed by her husband and children and family 25 In thanks for my 6 grandchildren 50 God bless all children everywhere, love Da and Miss Coco 20 From Patti, Maggie and Alice with love 50 Anonymous 100 In loving memory of Ken and Marian Ralph 50 Given in memory of Kevin Patrick Fitzgerald who passed away 11/30/18 25 Thank you St. Jude for prayers answered, LR 10 God bless us everyone 30 In memory of Mom, Dad, Sonny and Jeffrey 50 My brother Billy Leary 25 Jane 150 In memory of Arthur L Daniels Sr, Dennis Daniels and Timothy Daniels 30 In loving memory of Richard and Mary Bourque and Maureen 25 In loving memory of Joseph and Mary Frydryk and Karl and Jennie Dygon from Carl and Patty 50 In memory of Joey Pike from Aunty Dee and Uncle Wade 25 Theresa 25 In loving memory of Edward A Pratt 100 In loving memory of Dr. and Mrs. Francis M. Austin 50 Jennie 30 Jennie 30 In honor of the grandkids, Yazzie 100 John 100 In memory of Dennis, Mom, Dad and Lee, love Jackie 25 In honor of St. Jude 25 In loving memory of Papa, Grandma Rose and Poppy, love Maria and Anthony 25 In memory of Tanner Simpkiss from brother Hunter and family 25 A savior has been born who is Massiah and Lord 35 Merry Christmas to all, love Paul and Debbie 25 RECEIVED $1,750 TOTAL TO DATE $34,860 STILL NEEDED $115,140 SPRINGFIELD -- Two Holyoke men and a Chicopee man on Thursday pleaded guilty to possession of heroin and cocaine with intent to distribute. The two Holyoke brothers will be going to state prison, the Chicopee man to the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow. But after impassioned pleas from their lawyers and much questioning from Hampden Superior Court Judge Mark D. Mason, they won't have to start their sentences until after Christmas and the Holyoke men's mother's birthday. The men, who were out of bail while their cases were pending, were fitted with GPS monitoring devices Thursday. Mason said they all must be under house arrest. After their lawyers said they wanted to celebrate Christmas together, Mason said he would remove the house arrest requirement for Christmas day only but the men cannot go out of Holyoke that day. Emiliano Santiago, 33, of Holyoke, his brother Daniel Santiago, 31, also of Holyoke, and Charles Pedroza, 51, of Chicopee, were arrested in August 2016 after law enforcement agencies investigated drug sales in and around the Holyoke Mini Mart on High Street. At the time, police said the three men were involved with operating and managing the store at 657 High St. Authorities seized 5,600 bags of heroin, 41 bags of cocaine, and $19,000 in cash. Raids were conducted at Holyoke Mini Mart, 663 High St.; 116 Sergeant St., Holyoke; and 17 Beston St. in Chicopee. Emiliano Santiago was sentenced to three years in state prison, Daniel Santiago got three and one half to four years in state prison and Pedroza got two and one half years in the Ludlow jail. The three pleaded guilty from the 2016 bust to possession of heroin with intent to distribute and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, charges reduced from the ones for which they were indicted. In a separate case, the brothers Santiago pleaded guilty to distribution of heroin after being arrested Nov. 2, 2016, in Holyoke after setting up a sale with a confidential informant. The sentences they received in this case will run concurrently with the sentences from the Mini Mart case. Assistant District Attorney Matthew W. Green said one reason the charges on the Nov. 2, 2016, case were the subject of a plea bargain was because it allowed law enforcement to keep the identity of the informant secret. Mason adopted the agreed-upon recommendation from prosecution and defense for all three men. Lawyers Vincent A. Bongiorni for Emilio Santiago, Nikolas Andreopoulos for Daniel Santiago and Arthur J. O'Donald III for Pedroza all said the plea negotiations included their willingness to drop a motion to suppress evidence based on the entry into the location where the drugs were found in the August 2016 case. Mason said he does not usually stay -- or postpone -- the start of a sentence unless the prosecution agrees to it. Green said he had just heard of the request for the stay Thursday morning and was taking no position on the request. Mason told Green he had to take a position -- either opposing it or assenting to it. Green said he would assent to the stay, and that's when Mason approved it. The men have to report to court to begin their sentences Jan. 10, after the Jan. 9 birthday of their mother. When Mason questioned why Pedroza needed to be free until Jan. 10, the three defendants said they were all family. Each has posted bail in their cases. Their lawyers said they have repeatedly appeared for court appearances over the long amount of time the cases have been in court. Emiliano Santiago has posted bail of over $30,000; Daniel Santiago posted $15,000 and Pedroza posted $7,500. The men agreed to forfeiture of money found by police in the arrests. For the Holyoke Mini Mart case, the men each forfeited different amounts, adding up to about $19,000. Involved in the Aug. 20, 2016, raid on the three addresses were the Holyoke Police Narcotics Unit, the FBI's Western Massachusetts Gang Task Force and Massachusetts State Police Detectives with Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni's office. Green said the drugs were found in the 116 Sergeant St. apartment, which had no furniture or clothing but had documents in the name of all three defendants in a box. AMHERST -- In this age of the #MeToo movement, the news is not good: over two-thirds of those who reported sexual harassment at work faced retaliation, according research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Employment Equity. And 64 percent of those who reported sexual harassment said they lost their jobs, UMass researchers Carly McCann, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and M.V. Lee Badgett found. The researches looked at the results of 46,210 Title VII sexual harassment discrimination charges filed between 2012 and 2016 with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the report. They found that about five million employees are sexually harassed at work every year, but that 99.8 percent don't file formal charges. "Most employer responses tend to be harsh both via retaliation and firing employees who complain," the report says. "The very low proportion of employees who file sexual harassment complaints is very likely to be related to employers' typically punitive responses." The data didn't indicate whether retaliation came after internal reports, or after reports were made to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or Fair Employment Practices Agencies. "However, what is clear is that complaining about sexual harassment is quite dangerous, inciting employer retaliation and firing in most instances," the report says. The #MeToo movement prompted the researchers to look at that data, said sociology professor Tomaskovic-Devey. They spent the last six months examining the available numbers. Tomaskovic-Devey said there were a number of surprises, including the number of "brave and motivated people" who filed charges. He was also surprised "by how poor the results were." Only 23 percent of those people who had their cases processed by the courts were awarded compensation. The average settlement was $24,700 with a median amount of $10,000. That would not compensate for the loss of a job, he said. The employment commission, he said, was upset with the findings, because the agency doesn't want to discourage people from filing complaints. He understands the numbers could be discouraging but "from my point of view, the primary responsibility (falls to) managers in the workplace. The legal route is a risky route with low payout." In the report, researchers wrote, "Our conclusion from these results is that sexual harassment, and perhaps discrimination of all types, should be addressed proactively and affirmatively as managerial responsibilities, rather than leaving it to the targets of discrimination to pursue legal remedies as individuals." The report concludes that while the legal process "appears to lead to suboptimal results, the current social movements around sexual harassment certainly can play a role in empowering targets, changing managerial responses, and even preventing future workplace sexual harassment." He said they will be looking at the complaints filed since 2016 and he said he knows there has been an increase in California and across the country. The report, as well as the interactive graphic embedded below, is available on the Center for Equity's Website. PALMER - A 62-year-old man suspected of stabbing another man to death at a River Road address Thursday night has been identified as town resident Robert Nompleggi. The Hampden District Attorney released the suspect's name early Friday afternoon. Police were summoned by a 911 caller to 321 River Road in the Thorndike section shortly after 8 p.m. The victim was pronounced dead at Wing Memorial Hospital. Nompleggi has been charged with murder, intimidation of a witness and violating a restraining order. He is slated to be arraigned Friday afternoon in District Court. Investigators have not yet released the victim's name. This is a developing story. Additional information will be posted as soon as it is available Usmanis indictment was made public when he appeared in U.S. District Court on Friday afternoon, a day after his arrest, according to Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office. He was ordered held pending a detention hearing next week. New Bedford commercial fisheries landed 111 million pounds of seafood valued at $389 million in 2017, making the Massachusetts port number one, from an economic perspective, for the 18th year running. While ports in Alaska, Oregon, Virginia, and Louisiana handled more volume, New Bedford topped all others in terms of value, due in large part to the lucrative scallop trade. Massachusetts landed 32.4 million pounds of scallops last year, with an average ex-vessel price of $9.84 per pound. The U.S. fisheries statistics are released on an annual basis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, which estimated that New England fisheries accounted for 97,000 jobs and $8.7 billion in sales during 2016. The report comes as Massachusetts works to build an offshore wind industry, with staging expected at New Bedford's commercial marine terminal. The state has set up a working group to facilitate communication between the two industries. New Bedford has around 44 fish wholesale companies, 75 seafood processors, and some 200 shore side industries, the federal agency reports. PALMER - The Planning Board on Monday unanimously approved a special permit and the site plan for a proposed recreational marijuana sales business that hopes to open next year on a 1.4-acre site at 1235 Thorndike St. on Route 32 near Mt. Dumplin Road. Colorado-based Altitude Organic Corporation told the board there would be 27 parking spaces for customers, with store hours daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The business is currently negotiating a host community agreement with the town through which it would agree to provide a set amount of money to the town in exchange for permission to operate. Once the parties have agreed on the terms of that contract, the company will apply to the state Cannabis Control Commission for permission to open. Altitude Organic president Aaron Bluse said in an interview following the Dec. 10 meeting that a community outreach meeting will be scheduled sometime next month. "We would like to hire from the local community," he said. "We want to give residents the first opportunity (to be hired)." Bluse said the company hopes to open in the "second or third quarter" of 2019. U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, slammed the Trump administration Friday over its handling of the latest round of open enrollment in federal health insurance plans, accusing GOP officials of working to sabotage Affordable Care Act sign-ups. With many Americans facing a Saturday deadline to enroll in plans offered through the federal marketplace, Markey joined Massachusetts health insurance officials and advocates in highlighting coverage options available through the controversial health care law, known as Obamacare. The senator further condemned President Donald Trump for scaling back federal resources to promote and assist with enrollment, as well as Republican-led efforts to roll back ACA protections and coverage requirements. Markey argued that the administrations actions to defund, divert and dissolve the key routes to health care coverage, have kept Americans from enrolling in quality insurance plans and led to the recent decline in federal health care sign-ups. Only a little more than 4 million Americans have enrolled in health insurance through the federal exchange -- about 600,000 fewer sign-ups from this time last year, he said at a Boston news conference. Thats a 10 percent reduction, and thats because the Trump administrations relentless sabotage of the Affordable Care Act is keeping Americans from enrolling in quality, affordable, health care coverage. The senator noted that while federal enrollment is down, sign-ups for plans offered through Massachusetts' health insurance marketplace -- which has a Jan. 23 open enrollment deadline -- are on the rise with 259,000 people having already selected coverage options that will begin on Jan. 1. New enrollment in the states exchange, meanwhile, is up 25 percent over the same period of 2018, he added. Markey lauded state officials for investing in efforts to promote Massachusetts' Health Connector marketplace and assist consumers with sign-ups -- steps which he argued help protect the state from the consequences of the Trump administrations sabotage. The senator, however, argued that the state must continue to build on these efforts so it can serve as an example and role model for the rest of the country. The higher we establish the standard, the harder it is for the Trump administration to say that these goals cannot be met," he said. "We have to be the standard. Massachusetts has to be not just the Bay State, but the brain state -- we figured it out. We know how to do this and even with that were not happy. We want even higher standards. Louis Gutierrez, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector who joined Markey for the news conference, noted that while Trump ended the federal tax penalty for those who do not have health insurance coverage, Massachusetts' coverage mandate remains in place. He stressed that Massachusetts residents have until Jan. 23 to sign up for coverage or make changes to their Health Connector plan. Those looking to have their health insurance take effect on Jan. 1, meanwhile, must sign up or make changes by Dec. 23. Markey was not the only member of Massachusetts' congressional delegation to speak out against the White Houses handling of ACA open enrollment. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, urged supporters Thursday to spread the word that Americans in many states have until just Saturday to sign up for health insurance under Obamacare. Trump is doing everything he can to make sure fewer people enroll including cutting the programs advertising budget by 90 percent so people dont know how and when to sign up. ... The deadline to sign up or change health care plans for many people is this Saturday, and we cant count on Donald Trump to extend that deadline," she said in an email to supporters. Please do what you can to let people know how powerfully important it is to get covered. Congressman Seth Moulton, D-Salem, meanwhile, took to Twitter this week to promote the ACA open enrollment deadline. Are you prepared for a safe and healthy 2019? The sign-up deadline for insurance through the ACA is December 15th. Sign up or find out more: https://t.co/RZJ4Cxrxjb Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) December 12, 2018 The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported this week that more than 4.1 million sign-ups had occurred through HealthCare.gov -- the federal exchange -- as of Dec. 8. By contrast, nearly 4.7 million had reportedly taken place during the same period of 2017, according to CMS data. SPRINGFIELD A 28-year-old Hampden man has been indicted by a Hampden Superior Court grand jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter for a July 5 overdose death in Tolland. The indictment of Ryan Doyle lists Alex LaFleur as the victim. James Leydon, spokesman for Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni confirmed the indictment accuses Doyle of supplying drugs that caused LaFleurs overdose. Doyle was also indicted for distribution of heroin and distribution of fentanyl July 4 in Monson. Other indictments charge distribution of heroin and distribution of fentanyl July 5 in Hampden. Fentanyl has been a major factor in increases of drug overdoses nationwide. Often people using heroin dont know it has been combined with fentanyl. No arraignment date has been set yet for Doyle. Former mobster Ralph DeMasi has been found not guilty by a Worcester Superior Court jury of the 1991 murder of armored truck guard Edward P. Morlock Sr. DeMasi, 82, of Salisbury, was charged two years ago with murder and armed robbery in the May 18, 1991, shooting death of Morlock at the former Shaws supermarket on Lincoln Street in Worcester. Authorities say DeMasi was among five men who held up the armored truck outside a Worcester supermarket. Three of the other suspects have since died. On Friday afternoon, a 12-member Worcester Superior Court jury returned its verdict, finding DeMasi not guilty of murder. DeMasis lawyers patted him on the back and shook his hand after the verdict was read. The 82-year-old was told he was discharged and free to leave. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that Judge Janet Kenton-Walker previously allowed a defense motion for a required finding of not guilty on the armed robbery charge based on the statute of limitations. Morlocks wife, Jeannette Morlock, was not in court Friday. Morlock was killed 27 years ago when authorities said a crew of men orchestrated an armored truck robbery. The plan: rob the truck as it stopped at the Shaws supermarket on Lincoln Street in Worcester. But during the robbery, prosecutors say DeMasi shot Morlock before taking the cash. Years passed, and finally in December 2016, authorities in Worcester announced DeMasi was arrested and was being charged with the killing. During his weeklong trial, DeMasis alleged getaway driver testified against him under a grant of immunity, according to the Telegram. Ronald Martel told the court that he drove a stolen white Cadillac during the robbery, saying DeMasi later told him that he had shot Morlock in the Shaws foyer. Defense lawyer Michael S. Hussey called Martel a convicted criminal and liar, saying his client was not present during the Worcester robbery, according to the Telegram. Galloway said he was in a dark place and ashamed of his addiction, which led to homelessness and selling drugs to survive. He cried over losing as many as 13 friends to drug overdoses. He spoke of being allowed recently to leave jail to attend the funeral of one such friend. He noted the stark reality of drug addiction, describing how he was dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit as he stood over his friends casket. This 13th annual Posada in the Loop was hosted by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago's Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity, and it was accompanied by pleas for immigration reform, as it has been every year prior. Organizers said this year drew a larger crowd than in the past. The lawsuit contains new claims about the circumstances of Jenkins death. It says the hotel had other walk-in freezers that were kept locked and inaccessible to the public. The one in which Jenkins was found was not only unsecured but had a sticker affixed that was completely faded and failed to instruct how to release the lock system of the door, the lawsuit contends. Namely Blue Biotechnology Market Report has Been Published by Market Research Future Which Covers All the Geographical Locations with Demand, Trend Analysis with near about Forecasted results and Also Covers the Market Expectations. Market Synopsis: Blue biotechnology deals with the application of biotechnology to marine or aquatic sources at a molecular level to extract active new ingredients for development of new drugs and other purposes. Market Research Future (MRFR) has published a report asserting that the Global Blue Biotechnology Market is anticipated to expand at a strong CAGR of 10.2% during the forecast period of 2017-2023. Get PDF Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/713 Competitive Analysis: The major players of the Global Blue Biotechnology Market that are profiled in the report by MRFR are Aker BioMarine (Norway), Marinova (Australia), New England Biolabs (the U.S), PML Applications Ltd. (the U.K), Sea Run Holdings, Inc.(the U.S), PICES (Canada), Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (the U.S), Shell Marine Products (the U.S), GeoMarine Biotechnologies (India), GlycoMar (Scotland), Cellgen Biologicals Pvt Ltd. (India), Nurture Aqua Technology Pvt. Ltd. (India), Samudra Biopharma Pvt.Ltd (India) and Sanosil Biotech (India). Market Latest Update: The rapidly increasing research and development expenditure by the players for innovative product launch in medical, cosmetics, food and other industries is triggering competition in the global blue biotechnology market. The nascent stage of blue biotechnology has created huge opportunities for the product manufacturers and research institutes to explore higher verticals in the global blue biotechnology market. In June 2018, Hilton Lifestyle, LLC, a skincare manufacturer in the U.S., has announced the launch of its first full skincare line under the Paris Hilton brand called ProD.N.A. These skin care products are manufactured with the use of enzymes sourced from marine microalgae. Market Driver and Restraints: Oceans and Seas consist of large biodiversity and the development in the field of biotechnology has made it possible to utilize the marine and aquatic sources for obtaining various products that are useful for mankind. The availability of large market for blue biotech products in the various sectors is majorly driving the Global Blue Biotechnology Market. The increasing demand for blue biotech products in the pharmaceutical industry for production of various medicines and drugs is fueling the expansion of the global blue biotechnology market. The flexibility, adaptivity and constant development of blue biotechnology are widening its application range in various industries. The vital application of blue biotech products in cosmetics, food and feed industries is impacting positively on the expansion of the global blue biotechnology market. The increasing consumer demand for biologics over the conventional synthetic products is one of the major factors driving the growth of the global blue biotechnology market. The rapid development in the field of biotechnology owing to the increasing research and development expenditure is resulting in the significant expansion of the global blue biotechnology market. However, the strict regulatory framework for conservation of marine ecosystem is likely to act as a restraint on the expansion of the global blue biotechnology market. Market Segmentation: The global blue biotechnology market has been segmented on the basis of product, application and end-users. Based on products, the blue biotechnology market is segmented into enzymes, pharma products, bulk chemicals, biopolymers and other products. Based on application, the blue biotechnology market is segmented into bio-engineering, genomics, vaccine development, drug discovery and others. Based on end-users, the blue biotechnology market is segmented into hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, research institutes, laboratories, and others. Browse Full Reports @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/blue-biotechnology-market-713 Regional Analysis: The global blue biotechnology market has been segmented into five major regions such as North America, South America, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and Africa. The North America region is dominating the global blue biotechnology market owing to the rapid development in the field of biotechnology and large number of players focusing on development of blue biotechnology in this region. The Europe region is the second largest market in the global blue biotechnology market due to the increasing consumer demand for biotech products in this region. The Asia Pacific region accounts for the steady growth in global blue biotechnology market as the blue biotechnology is still at a nascent stage in this region. Lack of awareness and less technological penetration in the underdeveloped area is resulting in the slow growth of blue biotechnology market in the Middle East and Africa region. Table of Content 1 Report Prologue 2 Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations 2.3 Market Structure 2.4. Market Segmentation 3 Research Methodology 3.1 Research Process 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation 3.5 Forecast Model 4 Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.2 Restraints 4.3 Opportunities 4.4 Threats 4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators Continued Price: $4450(Single User) Buy now @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=713 Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Key Players for Global Digital Pathology Market Some of the key players in this market are: microDimensions GmbH, Mikroscan Technologies, Inc., Q2 Solutions, Omnyx, LLC, GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Huron Digital Pathology Inc, ViewsIQ Inc., 3DHISTECH Ltd, Apollo Enterprise Imaging Corp., Xifin, Inc., Definiens and others. Digital Pathology Market Sketch The digital pathology market has been observing continued growth on account of the prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer. Rising incidences of cancer require timely diagnosis and treatment, and digital pathology has the potential to improve accuracy and timeliness of cancer diagnosis and hence is extensively used which induces demand for digital pathology. Advancements in digital pathology technology such as digital imaging, robotic light microscopy, and multiple fiber optic communications are expected to up the level of efficiency of diagnosis and uplift the growth of the market. Additionally, the lack of skilled pathologists who can handle the growing complexities of diagnostics has surged the demand for digital pathology. Get Exclusive Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1955 Digital pathology finds its application in various fields such as education, tissue-based research and drug development which further drives the growth of the market. The rise in a number of clinical and pre-clinical trials have propelled the growth of the market. Digital pathology is setting new standards of practice in clinical trials with the introduction of new technologies such as virtual microscopy, and digital imaging which helps improve the outcomes of clinical trials. Increasing adoption of advanced technologies to improve workflow and facilitate faster diagnostics is augmenting the market growth. Additionally, government initiative and support in various economies to strengthen the healthcare infrastructure in the form of funds and subsidies foster the growth of the market. Other market drivers include a rise in automation and improvements in healthcare infrastructure across the globe. However, the market growth might be hindered by lack of standardization in digital pathology and substantial initial cost of setup Global Digital Pathology Market Competitive Analysis The global digital pathology market is fragmented and highly competitive with the presence of a multitude of well-established and small players. Owing to the lucrative growth opportunities offered by the market, there has been an influx of new players which further intensifies the competition. The notable players of the global digital pathology market include microDimensions GmbH, Q2 Solutions, LLC, Philips Healthcare, ViewsIQ Inc., Apollo Enterprise Imaging Corp., Definiens, Mikroscan Technologies, Inc., Omnyx, GE Healthcare, Huron Digital Pathology Inc, 3DHISTECH Ltd, Xifin, Inc., and others. Global Digital Pathology Industry Updates In July 2018, Enzyvant, a biopharmaceutical company, announced a partnership with Visikol, a contract research organization dealing with digital pathology and drug discovery. The partnership aims to develop a novel digital pathology approach to enable the development of a medicine for the treatment of DiGeorge Anomaly. In July 2018, Royal Philips, a leading health technology company and Oxford University Hospitals joined forces to create a digital pathology network which will enable better diagnosis of diseases. Oxford University Hospitals have planned to install the Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Global Digital Pathology Market Segmentation The global digital pathology market has been segmented based on types, products, application, and end-user. By types, the market has been segmented into human pathology and animal pathology. By products, the market has been segmented into scanners, storage server systems, software and others. By application, the market has been segmented into mHealth, telemedicine, disease diagnosis, drug discovery and others. By end users, the market has been segmented into pharmaceutical companies, hospital/clinics, reference laboratories, research institutes and others. Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/digital-pathology-market-1955 Global Digital Pathology Market Regional Analysis The key markets of the global digital pathology market include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East & Africa. The global digital pathology market is dominated by North America owing to the prevalence of chronic diseases and technologically advanced healthcare sector in the region. Europe is the second largest market for digital pathology due to the presence of a robust healthcare sector and increased expenditure on healthcare facilities. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market on account of improvements in the healthcare sector, rising healthcare expenditure, and growing awareness. The Middle East & Africa market is projected to exhibit steady growth over the forecast period. Some Brief Table of Contents of Report Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope Of The Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.2 Restrains 4.3 Opportunities 4.4 Challenges 4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators 4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis 5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis 5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers TOC Continued Do You Have Specific Requirement? Ask To Our Experts @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1955 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Urgent Care Apps Market Competitive Landscape Some of the prominent players operating in the global urgent care apps market include Forward Health, Pivot Design Group, Johnson & Johnson, Twiage, Siilo, Alayacare, PatientSafe Solutions, Vocera Communications, Hospify, Argusoft, Voalte, Pulsara, Imprivata, Allm, and TigerConnect. Urgent Care Apps Market Segmental Analysis The Global Urgent Care Apps Market has been segmented based on type and clinical area. By type, the urgent care apps market has been segmented into emergency care triage apps, in-hospital communication & collaboration apps, and post-hospital apps. The post-hospital apps segment has been further segmented into medication management apps, care provider communication & collaboration apps, and rehabilitation apps. Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6677 By clinical area, the global urgent care apps market has been segmented into trauma, stroke, cardiac conditions, and others. The trauma segment is the largest segment on account of rising incidences of road accidents which necessitates trauma care and increasing awareness to address trauma by healthcare organizations. The cardiac conditions segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment owing to the gradual realization of the benefits of urgent care apps in the management of critical cardiac conditions. Urgent Care Apps Market Business Insights Urgent Care Apps are advantageous in managing medical conditions which need immediate attention. They act as an additional pathway for medical conditions which require prompt action but are non-life-threatening concerns. They offer an effective and low-cost option for the management of health conditions such as pregnancy, stroke, cardiac diseases, trauma, and others. Multiple use cases presented by urgent care apps are boosting the growth of the market. Also, these apps have been proven beneficial in post-hospital or post-operative care among patients. The ubiquity of smartphones coupled with the growing penetration of 3G and 4G networks, especially in the emerging economies are contemplated to be reflecting positively on the growth of the global urgent care apps market. The digital revolution in healthcare is speeding up the adoption of urgent care apps and consequently fostering market growth. Raising awareness regarding the availability of medication management apps in combination with the factors mentioned above add fuel to the growth of the global urgent care apps market. However, the market might be met by some challenges including the bulk of miscategorized apps in the App Store & Google Play and poor internet connectivity issues in underdeveloped regions which restrict the growth of the market. Research Methodology MRFR conducts a thorough analysis of the market, presenting a comprehensive research. MRFRs research methodologies adhere to rigorous industry-specific standards which ensures complete understanding of the market. Sound data is gathered through a combination of primary and secondary research methods which provide objectivity and accuracy of research information. The preliminary values of the accumulated data are evaluated using a multiple-layer validation procedure to present well-researched judgment about the market. For estimation of the market size, both the top-down and bottom-up approaches are leveraged. Urgent Care Apps Market Detailed Regional Analysis The Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa are the key markets for urgent care apps. Browse Complete 100 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/urgent-care-apps-market-6677 North America is a significant market for urgent care apps, led by North America. Deep penetration of smartphones and 3G and 4G networks along with escalating healthcare cost and constant need to address the same are augmenting the market in North America. Moreover, the region tends to quickly adapt to emerging technologies which further supports the growth of the urgent care apps market. Other driving factors include raising awareness and increasing focus on personalized healthcare. Europes market growth can be exclusively attributed to increasing initiatives by the government towards the promotion of such apps and towering need to curtail healthcare costs. Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and the UK are the major markets in Europe. Asia Pacific market for urgent care apps is anticipated to have an expeditious growth in the coming years. Growing penetration of smartphones in the emerging economies of Asia Pacific coupled with raising awareness about healthcare management apps can be accredited for the growth of the urgent care apps market in Asia Pacific. Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. To Know More Enquire @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/6677 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Key Players for Global Hearing Screening and Diagnostic Devices Market Owing to the presence of the huge player in the market, some players are involve in the launching of the new products. Whereas, some major player are focusing on the acquisition and collaboration for the development of the market. The key players profiled in hearing screening and diagnostic devices are Abbott (U.S.), Siemens Healthcare GmbH (Germany), Audiology Systems (U.S.), Phillips Plastics Corporation (The Netherland), OTODYNAMICS LTD (U.S.), GE Healthcare (U.K), Intelligent Hearing Systems (U.S.), Natus Medical Incorporated (U.S.), Otometrics (U.S.), Starkey Laboratories Inc. (U.S.), Vivosonic, Inc. (U.S.), Welch Allyn (U.S.) and others. Get Sample PDF Illustration @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1570 Hearing Screening and Diagnostic Devices Market Scenario The global market for hearing screening and diagnostic devices is expected to show promising growth by the end of the forecasted period with a CAGR of 8.5%. Hearing screening and diagnostic devices are the instruments used in the treatment of deafness. Hearing loss can arise from hereditary as well as non-hereditary factors or due to certain complications during childbirth. The market for hearing screening and diagnostic devices is expanding worldwide due to driving factors such as increasing geriatric population, the rise in the patient pool due to increasing levels of noise pollution along with ear infections, birth complications, and genetic disorders. Furthermore, continuous technological advancements in medical devices and government fundings in clinical research has fueled the growth of the market. However, the high cost of the implant devices may hamper the market growth. Lack of awareness about the disease, unavailability of proper healthcare infrastructure, and unaffordability in middle-income countries are the major challenges to the market. Introduction of the cochlear implants and its high adoption rate will triumph the market growth during the forecast period. Unsatisfactory performance of some devices such as unidirectionality and discomfort associated with the utility are major challenges for the market. Latest Industry Updates Being a competitive market, a number of different manufacturer are focusing on the product launch, and acquisition for the market development. Some of the latest development in the market are- Oct 2017, Sohum Innovation Labs, a MedTech company provides an affordable neonatal screening system for hearing impairment will soon launch a device for screening hearing impairment in newborns. June 2014, Natus Medical, a leading provider of medical devices, software & services for newborn care, neurology, sleep, hearing and balance markets introduced the Echo-Screen III hearing screener, which is an advanced handheld hearing screening device. Introduction of this product will help the company to strengthen their product portfolio to sustain its position in the market. Segments for Global Hearing Screening and Diagnostic Devices Market Global hearing screening and diagnostic devices market has been segmented on the basis of product, indications, and test. On the basis of the test, the market is segmented into a test for middle ear, pure-tone test, and speech reception threshold test (SRT), most comfortable listening level test (MCL), uncomfortable loudness level test (UCL), speech discrimination test, bone conduction test, and others. Test for the middle ear is further segmented into tympanometry tests, acoustic reflex measures, and static acoustic impedance. Pure-tone test is further segmented into visual reinforcement audiometry, and conditioned play audiometry. On the basis of the type of product, the market is segmented into screening devices, audiometric examination devices, and others. Screening devices are further segmented into OAE/ABR testing devices, screening audiometers, immittance screeners, and others. Audiometric examination devices are further segmented into diagnostic audiometer, screening audiometer. On the basis of indication, the market is segmented into a conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss, combination hearing loss and others. On account of the end- user, the market is segmented into hospitals and clinics, personal use, and ambulatory care settings. Get Prime Discount on Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/1570 Regional Analysis for Global Hearing Screening and Diagnostic Devices Market Regionally, the global hearing screening and diagnostic devices market is segmented into: America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. America commands the major share of the market owing to the presence of leading companies, huge geriatric population and well developed technology. Additionally, high per capita income and increasing demand for the better devices will fuelled the market growth. Europe holds the second position in the global hearing screening and diagnostic devices market owing to availability of the funds and strong government support. Asia-Pacific is fastest growing market region for this market due to presence of huge patient pool, and rapidly developing economies. Whereas, the Middle East and Africa accounts for the least and slowest growing market due to the limited technological development and poor economic conditions. The Middle East is the major contributor for the market in the Middle East and Africa due to the presence of well-developed economies and huge healthcare spending. Some Brief Table of Contents of Report Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope Of The Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.2 Restrains 4.3 Opportunities 4.4 Challenges 4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators 4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis 5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis 5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers TOC Continued Do You Have Specific Requirement? Ask To Our Experts@ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1570 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 The report provides an extensive competitive analysis and profiles of the key market players, such as Domtar Corporation, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Cardinal Health., Berry Global Inc., First Quality Enterprises, Inc., Asahi Kasei Corporation, Ahlstrom-Munksjo, UniCharm Corporation, Georgia-Pacific LLC and Freudenberg. The other players in the value chain (not included in the report) include Other key players (not profiled in the report include Advanced Fabrics, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Cypress Medical Products LLC, Dynarex Corporation, Halyard Health, Inc., Kraton Performance Polymers Inc., Molnlycke Health Care AB, Precision Fabrics Group, Inc., and Avintiv Inc. According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, Medical Nonwoven Disposables Market by Product: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2025, the market was valued at $ 7,910 million in 2017, and is projected to reach $14,134 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 7.4% from 2018 to 2025. The surgical product segment accounted for more than half of the total market share in 2017. Medical nonwoven products are extensively used for providing appropriate protection owing to their ability to create barriers either from the structure of the nonwoven itself or from an additional active coating for personal protective apparel. In addition, medical nonwoven disposable are usually used in the amalgamated form and are sterile, antibacterial, liquid repellent, and liquid absorbent. The medical nonwoven disposables are commonly used in surgical processes, serving as a barrier to microorganisms and prevent cross contamination. Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/477 In addition, developments in nonwovens production technology, rise in focus toward preventing hospital acquired infections (HAIs), high-quality fabrics for safety purposes provided by non-woven material drive the market growth. Moreover, significant increase in geriatric population, government regulation toward health and hygiene, and rise in health awareness further boost the market growth. However, concerns regarding the disposable of nonwoven products and the increase in popularity of less-invasive surgeries are anticipated to hamper the market growth. On the contrary, technological innovations in nanotechnology and its increased use in medical nonwoven disposables production along with the growth in demand for single use of non-woven products is predicted to create lucrative opportunities in the near future. The surgical product segment generated the highest revenue in 2017, and is expected to maintain this dominance throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to the increased use of surgical products in hospitals, clinics, and other medical services to inhibit contaminations and avoid infection transmissions. However, the incontinence segment is expected to register the highest growth rate during the forecast period, owing to rise in demand for disposables incontinence products such as disposable underwear, panty shield, cotton pad, and others. Key Findings of the Medical Nonwoven Disposables Market: The incontinence product segment is expected to register the highest growth rate from 2018 to 2025. The surgical product segment accounted for maximum revenue in 2017, and is anticipated to maintain this trend throughout the forecast period. The disposable diaper segment dominated the incontinence products market in 2017 and is expected to maintain this trend during the forecast period. The surgical drape segment dominated the surgical nonwoven products in 2017 and is anticipated to remain the same during the forecast period. North America dominated the global medical nonwoven market, accounting for maximum share in 2017, and is expected to retain the same trend during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region in the medical nonwoven disposable products in 2017 and is anticipated to show tremendous growth during the forecast period. North America was the leading revenue contributor to the global market in 2017, owing to presence of high demand for incontinence products along with a well-established healthcare infrastructure and technological advancements in patient care. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness the highest growth rate throughout the forecast period, due to increase in baby boomer population, upsurge in disposable income, and rise in patient awareness toward incontinence products. About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of Market Research Reports and Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: Shriram Dighe 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Toll Free: +1-800-792-5285 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1855550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com An Orthopedic Device are placed within the bodys skeleton and muscle systems to correct existing problems or to provide stability. Technological advancements and product development are the best strategy that yields the greatest market benefit. Changing technology, increasing prevalence of osteoporosis, increasing funding for R&D and market growth in emerging economies are major driving forces for global orthopedic devices market. Orthopedic Devices Market is growing steadily and expected to continue its growth near future. The Market for Orthopedic Devices was US$ 43,802.1 million in 2016 and expected to reach US$ 58,814.6 million by 2023. The Global Orthopedic Devices Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% during the forecast period. Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3323 Global Orthopedic Devices Market Dominant Key Players Some of the key players in this market are: DePuy Synthes Companies (US) Globus Medical, Inc. (US) Medtronic (Republic of Ireland) NuVasive, Inc. (US) Smith & Nephew plc. (UK) Stryker Corporation (US) Zimmer Inc. (US) Global Orthopedic Devices Market Industry Developments A leading musculoskeletal solutions company, Globus Medical Inc., has announced the launch CREO Fenestrated Screw System that is used for treating patients suffering from advanced stage tumors of the thoracolumbar spine. Medtronic Plc. has declared that the US Food and Drug Administration has offered 510k clearance of Kyphon HV-R Bone Cement for fixation of fractures of sacral vertebral body with the help of sacroplasty or vertebroplasty. Global Orthopedic Devices Market Regional Analysis Taking the Global scenario of Orthopedic Devices Market into consideration, North America was holding the highest market share of around 39.6 % in the year 2016. With the presence of major market players and advanced technologies, the market in this region is growing steadily. Europe has been considered as the second largest market and is expected to reach USD 19,467.6 Mn by the end of 2023. Asia Pacific (APAC) is expected to witness the fastest growth with CAGR of 6.2 % during the assessment period. Availability of government regulations and presence of untapped markets are sure to attract attention of global players. Moreover, Middle East and Africa can exhibit a dull growth over the forecast period due to slow implementation of latest technologies. Considering the global scenario of the market, North America was holding largest market share of 39.6% in global orthopedic devices market in 2016. Europe is second largest market and expected to reach USD 19,467.6 million by 2023. APAC is expected to grow at fastest CAGR of 6.2% during 2017-2023. On the other hand. Middle East and Africa (ME&A) Orthopedic devices market was growing lower than global average and expected to grow at steady pace. Browse Complete 110 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 40+ Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/orthopedic-devices-market-3323 Global Orthopedic Devices Market Segments Globally, the orthopedic devices market has been segmented on the basis of type, application, region and end users. On the basis of type, the market can be segmented into spinal devices, consumables and disposables, trauma fixation, joint replacement, bone repair, and others. On the basis of application, the market can be segregated into trauma and extremities, foot, knee, spine, hip, spine, ankle, and others, where knee and hip applications hold the largest market share. It has been witnessed that high rate of knee and hip replacement surgeries combined with the innovations in their treatment is contributing towards the market growth of orthopedic devices. Based on end users, the market for orthopedic devices can be bifurcated into hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and medical research centers, where hospitals hold the maximum market share. Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. To Know More Enquire @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/3323 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Allied Market Research published a report, titled,The report offers a detailed analysis of the industry dynamics, top player positioning, market size & forecasts, key market segments, and competitive landscape. According to the report, the global topical pain relief market garnered $7.48 billion in 2017, and is expected to reach $13.28 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 7.4% from 2018 to 2025. Increase in geriatric population and rise in prevalence of arthritis drive the growth of the market. Moreover, high demand for topical pain relievers among athletes and lesser side effects as compared to conventional oral medicines supplement the market growth. However, side effects such as skin irritation restrain the growth of the market. On the other hand, proliferation of online pharmacy and untapped potential in emerging nations offer new opportunities to the industry. Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/4663 Non-opioids to be lucrative through 2025 Non-opioids segment accounted for nearly three-fourths share of the total market in 2017 and is expected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. Moreover, this segment would register the highest CAGR of 7.6% from 2018 to 2025, as non-opioids exhibit fewer side effects as compared to opioids. The opioids segment is projected to grow at a steady rate during the forecast period. Over-the-counter pain relief segment to lead in terms of revenue & growth rate by 2025 Over-the-counter pain relief segment contributed more than half of the total market share in 2017 and is expected to continue its lead in terms of revenue by 2025. In addition, this segment would grow at the highest CAGR of 8.0% from 2018 to 2025, owing to lower cost and ease of availability as compared to counter pain relief products. Moreover, the prescription pain relief segment is expected to grow at a steady rate during the forecast period. Topical pain relief cream segment to retain lions share through 2025 Topical pain relief cream segment contributed nearly two-fifths share of the total revenue in 2017, and it is expected to retain its leadership position by 2025. This is attributed to its ability to offer long-lasting comfort and fast pain relief alongside reducing side effects and skin irritation. However, patch would register the highest CAGR of 9.0% from 2018 to 2025, owing to its ability to provide controlled absorption and uniform plasma drug concentrations to provide instant relief. The research also analyzes gel, spray, and others segments. E-commerce segment to register the highest growth rate by 2025 E-commerce is projected to be the fastest growing segment, registering a CAGR of 10.0% from 2018 to 2025 due to significant increase in digital literacy among the global population. However, pharmacies and drug stores segment accounted for the major market share in 2017, contributing nearly four-fifths share of the global market revenue. This segment is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. In addition, the retail & grocery stores segment would register a steady growth rate during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific to grow the fastest through 2025 Rise in prevalence of chronic diseases including cancer, arthritis, and diabetes among others coupled with increase in investments by various multinational companies would enable the Asia-Pacific region to grow at the fastest CAGR of 8.6% from 2018 to 2025. However, North America held the major share in 2017, accounting for more than one-third share due to increase in geriatric population, rise in per capita income, shift in focus of manufacturers toward topical pain relief products, and growth in awareness among population. Leading market players The leading market players analyzed in the report include Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Novartis AG, Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc., Pfizer Inc., Topical BioMedics, Inc., Sanofi S.A., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., AdvaCare Pharma, and Nestle S.A. These players have implemented different strategies including partnerships, expansions, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, collaborations, and others to gain a strong position in the industry. About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of Market Research Reports and Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com by Richard Whitman , Columnist, December 13, 2018 WPP has appointed Publicis Groupe veteran Laurent Ezekiel to be chief marketing and growth officer, a new role at the holding company. Most recently, Ezekiel was a co-president at Digitas North America, a role he shared with Jodi Robinson. Digitas confirmed today that Robinson will serve as sole president going forward. In a memo to staff WPP CEO Mark Read noted that Ezekiel would report directly to him and will split his time between New York and London. His priority will be to support WPPs growth strategy, working alongside Chief Client Officer Lindsay Pattison, Read wrote. Read added that the appointment was an important new role for WPP as we continue to reshape our company around the needs of our clients. Ezekiel spent 16 years at Digitas. Earlier, he spent time at Grey London and Saatchi & Saatchi. At Digitas, Robinson will now oversee data and analysis, media, strategy and technology operations. Heads of the New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta and Detroit offices all report to her. She will continue to report to global brand president Michael Kahn. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, December 14, 2018 Tech companies and the ad industry are urging Congress to pass a national privacy law that would override laws in individual states, including the relatively strong new law in California. But advocacy groups warned Congress this week against passing a federal law that would trump state initiatives. Federal privacy legislation that preempts stronger state laws would only benefit technology companies at the expense of the public, 16 groups including the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Electronic Privacy Information Center write in a letter sent to lawmakers Thursday. The letter comes as Congress is gearing up to consider new online privacy legislation. Tech companies and ad industry groups have called for a single national privacy regime. advertisement advertisement "A uniform federal privacy standard could provide clarity, market certainty, and add fuel to future innovation, while preserving the value and benefit that online advertising brings to the internet ecosystem," David Grimaldi, executive vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, wrote to the Senate Commerce Committee in September. But the advocacy organizations argue that states are better positioned than the federal government to respond to new technological privacy hazards. Given the rapid pace of changes in technology, Congress should continue to give states the freedom to quickly address and adapt to future threats that may impact privacy and consumer protection, the groups write. They add that other federal privacy laws -- including the Video Privacy Protection Act, which protects the privacy of people who rent video programs -- don't override tougher state laws. Earlier this year, California and Vermont passed new privacy laws that were met with criticism by the ad industry. California's new law, which takes effect in 2020, will allow consumers to learn what personal information about them is held by businesses, and to opt out of the sale of that information. The Vermont measure requires data brokers to notify people about security breaches, and to disclose whether they allow consumers to opt out of having their information collected, stored or sold. by Alex Weprin , December 14, 2018 Dynamic, virtual advertising is continuing to push its way into television and video programming. One of the latest entrants is Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, which partnered with ad tech firm Mirriad to bring virtual advertising to its popular telenovelas. Mirriads technology allows for things that appear in shows, like billboards, posters, or websites, to be replaced dynamically to promote a product or brand. It can also do more advanced changes, like replacing a car in the background with one from another manufacturer or model. "It came about through the lens of how do we restructure our breaks to make them shorter, more innovative, have less clutter and also allow brands to expose themselves to audiences in a way that is meaningful, authentic and simple to execute, Luis De La Parra, Univision senior vice president, partner solutions, tells Digital News Daily. advertisement advertisement The way it works is fairly simple. Completed shows are fed into Mirriads system, which identifies scenes with branding opportunities. It then tells the network that there are, say, 300 seconds available in an episode for a brand to be placed. The network can then try and sell some or all of that space, then use the tech to place the ads. Univision chose Mirriad because of its existing work in Europe and Latin America, where the programming is similar. De La Parra says the response has been strong, particularly in the movie category, where billboards promoting new films can be placed in scenes. He cites tech, automotive and CPG as other categories that make sense for the format. If you are in the scatter market and want to buy something very particular or special, this is the right environment. It could be very efficient for certain brands, De La Parra says. The insertions also help the network monetize programming it has acquired from other countries. Local productions may feature local brands, but the virtual ad tech allows for U.S. brands to be overplayed on top of the existing ads. A lot of our productions are in Mexico, so putting U.S. brands into our novels brings it home, De La Parra says. For now, Univision is using the tech on its telenovelas, which present new episodes every day, though De La Parra says they will soon be bringing it to UniMas, a Univision channel that emphasizes reality programming. For people who experience this symptom, there are some home remedies to try. These include taking ibuprofen, wearing sanitary towels, and learning to anticipate the bleeding. This symptom usually improves the longer people use the medication. Clinical trials show that 55 percent of those using Depo-Provera no longer have any bleeding after 12 months. Irregular bleeding is normal on Depo-Provera. Around 57 percent of people who have this shot experience irregular bleeding or spotting 12 months after doing so, and 32 percent of people do at 24 months. Depo-Provera is a form of birth control taken via shot. Breakthrough bleeding, spotting, and changes to menstrual flow are some of the most common side effects during the first year of use. However, there are some home remedies that can help. Share on Pinterest Having sanitary towels or tampons on hand can help make irregular bleeding more manageable. Abnormal bleeding is a common side effect of Depo-Provera, especially within the first year of starting the therapy. Bleeding irregularities that typically occur may include: breakthrough bleeding spotting between periods prolonged periods lighter or heavier periods than normal lack of period, usually after 1 year Remedies that may help include the following: 1. Taking ibuprofen Ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can help reduce the inflammation and pain that may come with abnormal uterine bleeding. A 2013 review from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews notes that taking a type of NSAID called mefenamic acid may help decrease the duration of bleeding in people undergoing Depo-Provera therapy. Everyone responds to medications differently, so it is important to discuss dosage to relieve Depo-Provera-related bleeding and discomfort with a doctor. 2. Accepting that it is a normal symptom One of the easiest ways to cope with Depo-Provera-related bleeding is to recognize that it is a normal symptom. However, it is not normal to have very painful or heavy bleeding. People should see a doctor for evaluation in these cases. While abnormal bleeding can be irritating and alarming, keep in mind that some irregular bleeding or spotting during the early months of Depo-Provera therapy typically means that the body is adjusting to the medication. Knowing, and accepting, that some light irregular bleeding may happen can help most people manage this frustrating side effect. 3. Wearing pads, protective underwear, or tampons Irregular bleeding can ruin clothing. An unexpected heavy period is an experience that most people find unpleasant. Being able to anticipate an abnormal flow when starting Depo-Provera therapy may help a person plan to wear pads, protective underwear, or tampons during the adjustment months. This can help save money and frustration. It can also be beneficial to carry around an extra pad or tampon, or even a pair of underwear, for the first year or so after starting Depo-Provera therapy. 4. Stopping Depo-Provera therapy Share on Pinterest People experiencing severe side effects on Depo-Provera should discuss different birth control options with a doctor. If irregular bleeding becomes too much to deal with or threatens someones health by putting them at risk for anemia, stopping Depo-Provera therapy may be the best choice. After injecting the medication, it takes at least 3 months to wear off. For this reason, it is not possible to simply stop taking Depo-Provera. However, as soon as the 3-month mark passes, Depo-Provera quickly becomes ineffective. So, if side effects are severe, it may be best to simply stop the therapy and wait for the medicine to leave the system. It is relatively easy to stop Depo-Provera therapy without medical approval. However, it is still important to talk with a doctor about the consequences of stopping, such as becoming pregnant. It is also vital to discuss the side effects with a doctor, especially regarding how long to anticipate symptoms for, before quitting the therapy. The side effects are usually minor and temporary. 5. Undergoing estrogen therapy If appropriate, a doctor may recommend estrogen therapy for those with irregular bleeding during Depo-Provera therapy. Many of the studies exploring the use of estrogen therapy for this purpose focus on the use of transdermal estradiol patch specifically. This includes a clinical trial from 2011 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology . A doctor may suggest other types of hormone therapy. Other studies recommend oral contraceptives. Estrogen therapy may not be safe for everyone. A person should always talk with a doctor about the side effects, and the side effects of Depo-Provera, before deciding how to treat irregular bleeding. 3D printers can be used to custom print arthritis adaptive aids according to the patient's needs at a much lesser cost, according to a recent study at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Michigan Tech to test the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of 3D printed products in comparison to existing arthritis aids. In general, arthritis patients on an average spend 10-12 percent of their income on medical treatment. Commercially available adaptive aids to help with cutting, holding spoons or brushes or pull zippers are very expensive . 3D printers can be used to print daily adaptive aids that help severely disabled arthritis patients perform routine daily tasks such as opening doors or holding a spoon or toothbrush. By using additive low-cost 3D printers to print simple household items nearly 90 percent savings can be obtained. Read More.. 3D Printed Adaptive Aids Can Benefit Arthritis Patients Why Use 3D Printed Arthritis Aids? Cost effective - For example, a commercially available pop can opener for $5.99 can be 3D printed for 45 cents, pill splitter for $23.75 can be printed for $1.27 and a phone holder costing $49.99 can be printed for 79 cents. Can be designed to fit the needs of the patient - While printing the shape and size of the arthritis aids can be altered to suit the requirements of the patient Makes the patient self-reliant and not dependent on others for routine tasks "This is the difference between needing to go to someone to get your nails cut and being able to do your own, which, yes, there are cost savings, but it's also personal pride and being able to take care of yourself," Pearce said. "And if your only problem is that the standard nail clipper is too tiny, we can fix that." Possible Drawbacks and Ways to Overcome Them Initial cost of 3D printer is high - 3D printers are costly and the price may be a barrier for many to invest in one. However, a person affected with arthritis may need several arthritis aids such as toothbrush holder, phone holder, light switch flipper etc and the costs may keep increasing. For the study, the team in fact used 3D printers costing $500 or less Insurance and Medicare pays for the aids - For some patients' insurance policy such as Medicare may cover the costs partially. However, the study team feel it may not help much in the long - term Lack of technical and computer knowledge in the elderly - Many elderly may not know how to operate a 3D printer to print their product. The team suggest that 3D printed arthritis aids can still be accessible to the average person by installing these devices in public places such as clinics, physiotherapy centers, hospitals, or even libraries or the marketplace where technical persons will be able to help patients design and custom print their arthritis aids in a cost-effective manner for a nominal fee. In fact, 3D printing can be taken up as a profitable business by enterprising individuals. Conclusion 3D printing of arthritis aids is just one of the several applications of 3D printing in medicine and will no doubt benefit thousands of patients worldwide and improve their quality of life. Economic Potential for Distributed Manufacturing of Adaptive Aids for Arthritis Patients in the U.S. - (https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics3040089) Source: Medindia Pearce said.- 3D printers are costly and the price may be a barrier for many to invest in one. However, a person affected with arthritis may need several arthritis aids such as toothbrush holder, phone holder, light switch flipper etc and the costs may keep increasing.- For some patients' insurance policy such as Medicare may cover the costs partially.in the elderly - Many elderly may not know how to operate a 3D printer to print their product.3D printing of arthritis aids is just one of the several applications of 3D printing in medicine and will no doubt benefit thousands of patients worldwide and improve their quality of life.Source: Medindia Advertisement The findings of the study, co-authored by Joshua Pearce, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Michigan Tech, student research assistant Nicole Gallup and orthopedic surgeon Jennifer Bow, who is a visiting scholar at Michigan Tech appear in the journalIn the study, Prof Pearceand analyzed how useful and cost effective they were in comparison to commercially available aids. The findings of the study were as follows:Thus, the findings of the study suggest thatfor routine tasks. You don't have to be a collector to recognize the unmistakable click of a Zippo lighter. The unique sound is not just soothing to many but is also a click that nearly 4 out of 5 adults will instantly recognize anywhere across the world. These aren't just tall claims but are facts that are supported on relevant grounds. Established way back in 1932, the Zippo windproof lighter easily found its way into the popular culture references and won many hearts with its unique design and unwavering durability. Yup, the biggest keyword that defines this as a collector's prized possession is the fact that despite the improvements to the flint wheel and evolving designs over the years, Zippo remains true to its famous lifetime guarantee "It works, or we fix it free." Coming back to the click of the century, the Zippo click sound has recently been trademark joining the ranks of other unique sounds that you'll instantly connect with. So what really makes the click so unique? The crisp click of a Zippo lighter opening and closing is a trigger to numerous emotional responses. Approximately 70% of people stated that the sound instils positive emotional benefits. Sound is having an impact more than ever on people's moods evident in the global phenomenon of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) content. This is characterised by a static-like, tingling sensation that occurs due to a relaxing response to stimuli. ASMR triggers can range from whispering voices to the heightened audio of everyday sounds- with each trigger affecting the listener on a very individual level. This image of the inner workings of the Zippo lighter breaks down its anatomy revealing the small things that make the big difference. Made up of 9 essential raw materials, this collector's item clicks each of the products into motion resulting in the crisp click sound and the subsequent flame. Filling and Lighting the Zippo The Zippo windproof lighter is filled by removing the inside unit from the lighter case (9). Turn the inside unit over and lift the felt pad (8) to reveal the packing material in the fuel chamber (3). Hint: Use an unfolded paper clip or similar tool if the pad is hard to lift. With the felt pad out of the way, the fuel chamber is ready to be filled with lighter fuel, slowly saturating the wick (6) and the packing material (7) inside the fuel container. Once reassembled, the lighter is ready to use. A simple downward flick of the flint wheel (1) strikes it against the flint held in place by the flint spring (5), creating hot sparks that ignite the lighter fuel coating the wick (6). When opening the lighter, the distinctive Zippo click is created by the cam (2). The wick continues to draw lighter fuel from the packing material (7) in the fuel tank, and sends a continuous flow of fuel up the wick to keep the flame lit. This unwavering fuel flow, along with the perforated chimney design, helps the flame stay alight even in wind an integral feature of the Zippo lighter's design since it first debuted in 1932. Finally, when the lighter lid is closed, the flame is immediately extinguished as it becomes deprived of the oxygen it needs to burn. If you are an aspiring collector of this nearly-a-century old masterpiece, make sure that you check the markings and manufacture date (this marking began in 1958) at the bottom to decode the lighter's age. If you looked around you right now, no matter where you are, there is a possibility that every third person you set your eyes on could be sporting spectacles. Yeah, some of those are prescribed glasses, others are mere fashion accessories, while some are wearing them merely to save their eyes from the 8-hour-long scare that awaits them day after day at work. Eyewear has been a raging fashion trend for the past couple of seasons as it is, but over the years, the aam aadmi has also been experimenting with his eyewear designs. This growing rage and a potential for a lucrative business in the optical industry was spotted by an electrical engineer working with Microsoft, of all people. MensXP A need to build something of his own and a passion to be at the top in whatever he did, this is the story of Peyush Bansal who gave India its leading online eyewear portal - which has since changed how Indians take care of their eyes. An electrical engineer in IT, Control and Automation by degree, from McGill University in Canada, Peyush found himself in a happy position after completing his engineering degree when he landed a fancy job with Microsoft in the US after many failures and retakes. However, within a year of being there, and regardless of the great time he was having at the firm, Peyush decided to follow his heart's calling. He came back to India to pursue his MBA from IIM Bangalore. It was around this time that he launched his company Valyoo Technologies with SearchMyCampus as his first business. MensXP SearchMyCampus was an online classifieds website specifically meant for students and covered everything from accommodation to books, part-time jobs, carpool facilities, internships, besides a lot more. It became a huge hit and motivated Peyush to explore the e-com space further. That's how he launched Flyrr.com which focused on the eyewear industry in the US. It was the success of this venture that finally pushed Peyush to redirect his attention towards the need to solve bigger, more pertinent issues that affected people on a personal level. That's when the alarming figures of the optical industry in India caught his attention. Peyush found out that around 600-700 million Indians needed spectacles, out of which only 170 million used any. With this data to fall back on and a desire to alleviate the consumer problems in sight, Peyush finally launched Lenskart in 2010. MensXP Peyush went on to establish one of India's most successful online eyewear portal with an enviable product range that includes spectacles, sunglasses, contact lenses and even at-home eye check-ups for those who can't but wish to enjoy the best quality services and affordable prices.Peyush aims to conquer 50 per cent of the Indian market where half of India forms its consumer base. Move to 2018, and today they sell over 300,000 spectacles a month, with a 1000 crore annual turnover. MensXP People, young and old know the name of his company and the valuable services they provide. Apart from quality goods, Lenskart today stands synonymous to great customer support, and this aspect about the company has its customers hooked. Hear it from the man himself, as he talks to MensXP about his riveting journey from being an engineer to being the mastermind behind India's favourite online eyewear portal, and how it feels to be a global name in the industry. Peyush Bansal has been nominated in the category of 'Disruptive Icon of Newhood' in Times Prime presents MensXP 'Icons of Newhood', to be held on 4th May 2019, at The Lalit, New Delhi. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Terens Quick, following the meeting at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia with the Cypriot Presidential Commissioner, Fotis Fotiou, and Isaac Herzog, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, made the following statements: It was an extraordinarily successful meeting. New momentum and depth were introduced into our strategy on the issues of our trilateral cooperation, and indeed a week before the trilateral Summit Meeting in Israel, where in the final communique of our leaders, Mr. Tsipras, Mr. Anastasiades, and Mr. Netanyahu shall also include diaspora issues. It was decided for a joint youth tour to be held from Greece, Cyprus, Israel in the summer of 2019, in the three countries, and a trilateral meeting of Diaspora Leaders at the end of February in Israel. In addition, we are adding one more synergy in Canada this coming June, where all three countries have significant Diaspora Organisations. With the cooperation of Mr. Herzog, we are looking forward to becoming part of a new, very dynamic synergy between the three countries where, on a more general level, Greece, Cyprus and Israel are working very decisively to become pillars of stability in the region he said, and referred, as an example, to the sectors of energy and the environment. We hope, with the assistance of our nationals abroad, to be able to contribute to the general cooperation between our three countries. Finally, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs revealed that he has proposed to his two counterparts to cooperate, with the assistance of young nationals studying abroad in the IT field , on tackling fake news, the dark side of the internet as he described it, saying: We could, in the context of a two-day workshop in Greece, with University support from the Department of Information Technology, focus on the specific topic of Fake News, seeking filters to filter out this toxic element from our daily lives. We can deal also with the other plague, that of hackers, as well as with every type of pornography which leads to so many consequences, even death: suicide, murder etc. Mr. Quick added. Some of the Chicago areas wealthiest companies and businesses donated to Trumps inauguration, including the Boeing Co., The Jennifer Pritzker Revocable Trust in Evanston Jennifer Pritzker is a cousin of the governor-elect car- and floor-mat seller Weather Tech, hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein of Lake Forest. Take a walk down memory lane here. There was also Shad Khan, the Jacksonville Jaguars owner who made his fortune in Illinois through his Urbana-based car parts business Flex-N-Gate and wrote a $1 million check only to say later that hed soured on Trumps White House. It appears that you are currently using Ad Blocking software. Please consider turning it off to support us. The ACLU blamed "lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP" for the girl's death. "The fact that it took a week for this to come to light shows the need for transparency for CBP. We call for a rigorous investigation into how this tragedy happened and serious reforms to prevent future deaths," Cynthia Pompa, advocacy manager for the ACLU Border Rights Center, said in a statement. The prosecution marks the latest twist in the fall of a soldier who at one point was highly decorated. It also comes amid a string of other cases in which Special Operations veterans are accused of carrying out serious crimes, including a Navy SEAL who has been charged with murder in the alleged execution of an unarmed Islamic State militant in Iraq and two SEALs and two Marine Raiders who have been charged in the murder of a Special Forces soldier in Mali. The bills also allow lawmakers to intervene in lawsuits, ensuring Republicans will be able to defend their policies and laws in court if Kaul refuses to do it. Kaul also would need approval from the Legislature's budget-writing committee before he can reach any settlements, further increasing the power of that GOP-controlled panel. UPPER THUMB -- So far, Tuscola County's Sheriff's Department is the only one in the Thumb dealing with cutback on mental health services. Tuscola Behavioral Health Services notified Tuscola County Sheriff Glen Skrent that the agency is limiting service and is unable to accept new psychiatric referrals at this time. "Unfortunately, we currently do not have psychiatric capacity to take on additional cases under our current letter of agreement," stated Sharon Beals, Tuscola Behavioral Health Services CEO, in a letter to Skrent. Currently, Tuscola Behavioral Health Services is serving 24 Tuscola inmates. Service will still be continued to them. So far, it is business as usual in Huron County. "I became aware of Tuscola's predicament Tuesday while reading about it on a Michigan Sheriffs' Association information network. This morning (Wednesday), it just so happened that we had a monthly Huron County Law Enforcement meeting here at the jail, which included representatives of Huron Behavior Health being in attendance," said Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson. "I inquired with them about the situation in Tuscola, hoping this wasn't on the horizon for us, or something that could be the start of a trend across the state with the mental health departments. I was advised by them that they knew nothing of it, nor did they think it'd be a problem (here)." According to Hanson, there is no issue with Huron's inmates receiving medical and mental health services. In Tuscola, Beals told Skrent that once some of the existing cases close and there is an increase in availability in their psychiatrist's schedule, Tuscola Behavioral Health Services will once again be able to accept new referrals. Because of limited capacity, the agency's focus must be on serving individuals that they are mandated to serve under the Medicaid Managed Speciality Supports and Services Community Agreement with Mid-State Health Network and grant agreement with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, she explained. "The agency is at its limit. It cannot take on any more (inmates) with psychiatric issues," said county Controller Mike Hoagland, noting the sheriff is scrambling to find another agency to provide that service. "It is going to be a costly venture to find an alternative, but we have to start looking." Skrent and Jail Administrator Lieutenant Brian Harris are looking at options, but their time is limited to research other alternatives. A Northern California woman opened her Oroville home to a 93-year-old World War II veteran who doesn't know if his home in Paradise is still standing after the deadly Camp Fire swept through. Tracy Grant, 43, met Lee Brundige while she was handing out hamburgers to evacuees at the Forebay Aquatic Center, which is about 20 miles south of Paradise. More for you How you can help people and pets affected by the Camp Fire She says she convinced a reluctant Brundige to accompany her home after sheriff's deputies told people to clear out of the parking lot because of the smoke and worsening air quality. "When I first met him, I knew he was special," says Grant, who owns a vintage store in Oroville. "He was the only person in this parking lot who was by himself with no one else with him. I made it my mission to keep my eye on him. When the rangers came, I went up to him and said, 'You're coming with me.'" ALSO: Paradise lost: Before-and-after photos show a town devoured by a raging wildfire Brundige hadn't changed his clothes in two days and Grant gave him a spare bathrobe to change into while she did the wash. She called her boyfriend to let him know they were housing an evacuee. "I just want to warn you, there's a man in your recliner wearing your robe," she said. "And he's the cutest little 93-year-old you've met." Fox stopped to buy new clothes for Brundige on his way home from his job in Sacramento. The two immediately connected as Fox is a history buff who has always been fascinated by World War II history; both of his late grandfathers served in the war. "They hit it off when Lee said he was the littlest guy in his unit so they made him be the tail gunner over the South Pacific," Grant says. Brundige has also found a companion in the couple's small dog, Axle, and likes to sit in the recliner with him. MORE: Man finds flag flying over his house burned in Camp Fire: 'When I saw it, I thought there's hope' Brundige lived alone in a home he built with his late wife, and his neighborhood has yet to show up on any of the fire damage maps. "We know some of his neighbors have lost homes, so we think it's probably gone," Grant says. Brundige has a very small family. His son is in his 70s living in Southern California and knows his father is OK. Grant and Fox say Brundige is welcome to stay with them for the unforeseeable future. "I thought if that were my grandpa, where would I want him to be," says Grant, whose grandfathers have both passed. "He's so sweet. He has the bluest eyes. The sweetest smile. I see my grandfather in him. We told him this could be his forever home but that is totally up to him." The Associated Press contributed to this report. WASHINGTON The Senate on Thursday approved a resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to cut-off U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia in Yemens bloody civil war, a rebuke to President Donald Trump and his defense of the Saudi monarchy. The momentum is on one side, and its only growing, Murphy said in a statement after the resolution won a 56-41 bipartisan vote. Congress has woken up to the reality that the Saudi-led Coalition is using U.S. military support to kill thousands of civilians, bomb hospitals, block humanitarian aid and arm radical militias. The leaders of the oil-rich kingdom remain important partners, Murphy said, but they need to realize that our partnership is not a blank check for them to fund extremists and murder civilians. Saudi Arabia earned worldwide condemnation for the role of its day-to-day leader, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in allegedly ordering the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October. Once viewed as an indispensable ally, Saudi Arabia also has fallen in the eyes of lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill even as Trump contradicted the CIAs finding that the prince, known by the acronym MBS, almost certainly had Saudi agents execute Khashoggi and dismember his body. Just after the vote, the Senate also passed by voice vote a non-binding resolution stating that MBS ordered the killing. Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been a vocal critic of the Saudi campaign in Yemen since it started in 2015. The proxy war pits Saudi Arabia on the side of Yemens government, against Houthi rebels supported by the Trump administrations chief enemy in the region, Iran. The devastation and resulting security vacuum in the region has allowed terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda to flourish in the region, Murphy has argued. He appeared late last month at a news conference in Hartford with Yemeni residents of Connecticut to press the case for passage of the main resolution. The resolution sets in motion the War Powers Act, giving Trump 30 days in which to halt all U.S. help for Saudi Arabian aircraft over Yemen or get Congressional approval. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also supported the resolution and expressed approval over the result. Given the role of the Saudi government in perpetrating the 9/11 attacks, the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-inflicted humanitarian crisis, this reevaluation of the United States relationship with Saudi Arabia is long overdue, Blumenthal said. The resolution must now pass the Republican-controlled House, where its future is uncertain. But it may fare better when Democrats take over the House in January. dan@hearstdc.com 3 1 of 3 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3 CLINTON This year, Harper Lees classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird was voted #1 in PBS Great American Read. In January, patrons are invited to a screening of the film on the big screen at Henry Carter Hull Library. A widowed, morally upright lawyer defends a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama. Meanwhile, his two young children become involved in a mystery involving the town pariah, according to a press release from the library. The disagreement is unlikely to affect Flynn's chances for probation, but it's attracted the attention of President Donald Trump, who said this week that Flynn did not lie despite having fired him nearly two years ago for just that reason. The matter may also become a point of debate at next Tuesday's hearing, especially since the judge, Emmet Sullivan, has asked prosecutors to produce documents related to Flynn's interview. A West Texas ranch that's roughly the size Abilene is on the market. The Lely Ranch, advertised as the largest ranch currently for sale in Texas, sits in Presidio County and spans about 70,000 acres. The price is still being determined as the broker gauges interest and determines the value of the ranch's natural resources, according to Dallas-based international broker Icon Global's Owner Bernard Uechtritz. "This property hasn't been on the market ever since it was bought by this foreign investor in the 1960s, and that alone makes it a very unique piece of property," Uechtritz said. "Then there's the size. There's very few pieces of large, western-style frontier lands out there in the size." FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox A third appeal to the property is its location, adjacent to the Big Bend State Park, bordering the Cibolo Creek Ranch and only about 45 miles from Marfa. The property is also contiguous with the Presidio Lely International Airport, an old weather service airport that's just 100 feet from the edge of the Lely Ranch, Uechtritz said. The land itself contains a modest foreman's home but is otherwise "wide open spaces," Uechtritz said. It contains eight named creeks, 11 solar wells for wildlife and cattle, a mountainous terrain with a 4,286-foot Cerro Tren Peak, arroyos, underground water and several species of wild animals. "It's highly speculative mineral country. This ranch has never been developed or really explored properly for minerals or underground water. There really hasn't been anything going on in this ranch since the '60s, or even before that," Uechtritz said. "No one's occupied it. No one's lived here. It hasn't been a recreational or a hunting or a cattle ranch. It's just been a big ranch that's been sitting there through decades and decades and decades." RELATED: West Texas ghost town for sale for $1.75 million Icon Global is still preparing an electronic data room of information on the property, according to Uechtritz. Because of the ranch's size and significance, he put it on the market last week, but the data room and showings won't be available until about March, he said. His properties typically only take between nine and 15 months to sell, he said, which means the ranch could have a new owner come 2020. "Truly the last frontier and a chance to buy your own Big Bend," a press release from Icon Global said. "Cowboys and Indians lived and worked here. Come explore the last frontier." 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 The Marines added a new tradition to the old for the first Thanksgiving in the U.S. for the Afghan refugees who escaped... AUSTIN, Texas About 750 active-duty service members deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and Arizona returned to their home bases Wednesday, U.S. Northern Command announced on social media. In a string of tweets Thursday, Northern Command released updates about the ongoing mission of troops supporting U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents that began Oct. 31 and will end Jan. 31. "In addition, about 220 replacement troops arrived in Arizona yesterday. The [Defense Department] units remaining on the border, as well as those on alert, are able to meet CBP requirements approved in the signed (Department of Homeland Security)-DoD support agreements," one tweet reads. Officials have not identified where the replacement troops came from, or which units returned home. At the height of the deployment, about 5,900 service members from the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines were situated along the border. The original intention was to "harden" and protect the border as a caravan of Central American migrants traveled through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States. Now, about 4,200 personnel remain along the southwest border with about 1,700 in Texas, 1,000 in Arizona, and 1,500 in California. The caravan has trickled into Tijuana, Mexico, near California, but in smaller numbers than anticipated. The military will continue providing engineering and military police force protection at designated ports-of-entry in California and Arizona, officials posted. The command did not say whether this means all troops will leave Texas. The military also will maintain the capability to provide emergency medical support to Border Patrol personnel and migrants, as required. "DoD will continue to mature composition of our force to meet CBP requirements," one tweet reads. A main aspect of the deployment was to install coiled razor wire, known as concertina wire, near ports-of-entry and along the border. Officials posted military engineers have place about 70 miles of wire obstacles and movable barriers at 22 ports in the three states. More than 480 miles of single-strand wire forms 70 miles worth of obstacles. Meanwhile, military police units have conducted more than 10,000 hours of unit training and combined rehearsals with Border Patrol in all three states. Military rotary wing aviators have flown more than 740 hours. Speaking to the Austin American-Statesman, Army Maj. Derek Wamsley described the border deployment as a "practice deployment." "We were able to achieve a training goal, and had (the caravan) come here, we would have achieved other goals," Wamsley said to the newspaper. The commander of a special Marine Corps task force said Friday that conditions on the ground are improving for the return a U.S. diplomatic mission to Libya, six years after a devastating attack on the American consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead. Col. Adam Chalkley, commander of Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response Africa -- the unit created as a result of the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans -- said he spent much of his time on a recent six-month deployment helping to ensure there would be no repeat of that tragedy. "There were indications that ... recent improvements in the landscape and the operating environment of Libya were suggestive that a reintroduction a diplomatic mission was on the near horizon," Chalkley said during a presentation at the Virginia-based Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "State Department was putting a lot of effort into building that out and doing key leader engagements that would enable [this] from a national interest perspective, so that really dominated what we were doing, he said. Chalkley's top operational priority was "we couldn't have another Benghazi," he said. "We cannot have another event like that ... a flashpoint that is going to result in the loss of U.S. diplomatic blue chips or loss of life." The crisis-response task force deployed in March and spent seven months operating out of Moron Air Base in Spain and Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy. "I had three KC-130s, six MV-22s and a reinforced infantry company," Chalkley said, describing his force of approximately 850 Marines and sailors. The reinforced infantry company had five platoons, three of which were dedicated to an alert cycle set to deploy within six hours of notification. The task force worked directly for U.S. Marine Forces Europe and Africa but spent a lot of time working at the State Department and Special Operations Command Forward - North and West Africa. "In many ways, our tie with SOF and our tie with Department of State efforts to reintroduce a diplomatic mission into Libya really dominated the entirety of our time, Chalkley said. The unit's primary mission was to provide limited crisis and contingency response, conduct operations to safeguard U.S. citizens, facilities and interests in theater, he said. Chalkley's unit also did several survey and assessment missions for U.S. Africa Command. "Those were essentially phase-zero looks at various embassy sites, particularly the high-threat, high-risk posts to ensure we validated the ... emergency action plans," Chalkley said. It's no secret, he added, that following the attack in Benghazi, the State Department and other entities across the national security enterprise "took a very hard look at each of those facilities, obviously validating emergency action plans and using new embassy compounds and other things to bolster regional security. "There is obviously a large desire to return to a U.S. diplomatic presence," Chalkley said, explaining that conditions looked favorable for a time and then declined. "But there is still engagement; there are still things happening on a diplomatic front and building diplomatic ties." Since Benghazi, several initiatives have occurred across the joint force that have resulted in a change in the security landscape, Chalkley said. "There are enough things in place across the enterprise to ensure that we have the appropriate response," Chalkley said. "It's not just our team going in and being the sole responders. Special operations forces and other elements arrayed across the continent ... they are able to do the things they do because they know that we are there to backstop them. "We are there to facilitate and ensure that they are able to do their very discreet, very important missions in a manner that, again, helps serve as a deterrent, helps uncover potential threats [and] puts pressure on those organizations that serve as threats." It's because of these new efforts that Chalkley returned from deployment feeling comfortable that the U.S. is capable of handling a Benghazi-style attack on a future U.S. diplomatic mission. "I am confident that we are not going to have another [threat] that would go unnoticed," he said. "Now that said, the reason those things aren't happening is because people know that we are there and ready to come in. There is an absolute recognition that operations and forces postured on the periphery, able to respond is a great deterrent for people behaving badly." -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. "We're in a very polarized period where the other side is not only wrong, but illegal," said Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California at Irvine's law school and author of the Election Law Blog. But Hasen said many of those who allege that Trump broke the law are really raising larger objections to his disruptive manner and disregard for facts and traditions. Many active-duty troops will see slightly more Basic Allowance for Housing in 2019 as rates are set to climb an average of 2.55 percent nationwide, according to the new rates released Friday by the Defense Department. The new 2019 rates can be found on Military.com's Pay Calculator. Individual rates are based on rank, marriage status and cost of housing per location and they vary dramatically nationwide. Rates are based on an annual DoD survey of local housing costs for each zip code. Thanks to what the DoD calls "rate protection," troops already living in an area where the rate is set to decrease will continue to receive the old, higher rate in the new year. Only troops new to the area with a lower rate, or who change ranks or dependent status, will receive the lower 2019 rate. Related: How BAH Is Calculated BAH Rates Set Below Actual Cost Thanks to cost-cutting measures, BAH rates for 2019 are set at 5 percent below the actual cost of housing, the final step in a five-year rate reduction ordered by Congress. Since 2015, rates have dropped 1 percent lower each year. The rate also is no longer calculated to cover the cost of renter's insurance, a change that also took place in 2015. That means for 2019, the nearly one million troops who receive BAH will absorb between $66 and $149 of their housing costs monthly, DoD officials said in a release. Housing payments for those using the post-9/11 GI Bill also are tied to the annual BAH rate. However, while the new housing rates kick in for active-duty troops each January, GI Bill users must wait until August to see their allowance adjusted. BAH Winners and Losers The largest BAH increase for 2019 goes to the area around Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, where rates will rise an average of 16 percent, officials said. For an E-4 with dependents, that means an increase of $87 a month from $900 to $987. Residents near bases struck by hurricanes last year also will likely also see a bump as housing shortages drive up home prices. Near Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, for example, rates will go up an average of 12 percent, while those near Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, will see a 11 percent average increase. Sixty-three housing areas, or 23 percent, will experience a decrease, officials said, although not every pay grade in those areas will be impacted. Among the areas facing the largest rate decreases are the area near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where newly stationed troops will receive a 7 percent average decrease, and Huntsville, Alabama, where BAH will decrease about 6 percent. Keep Up With Military Pay Updates Military pay benefits are constantly changing. Make sure you're up-to-date with everything you've earned. Join Military.com for free to receive updates on all of your military benefits, delivered directly to your inbox. -- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said Friday he is ready to work with Congress to get back money for a new icebreaker that was stripped from the services proposed budget allocation to pay for the border wall. "I'm going to stick by my guns and say I'm guardedly optimistic" that the $750 million for the icebreaker, which was removed from the Coast Guards budget proposal by the House, could be restored, Schultz said at a Navy League breakfast. The Senate has included funding for the long-planned icebreaker, which is needed to boost U.S. presence in the Arctic, but the House version of the Department of Homeland Security proposal would use the $750 million as part of a $5 billion package sought by President Donald Trump for the border wall that the president said is vital to national security. House Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for the border security initiatives, and the impasse between Democrats and the White House threatens to cause a partial government shutdown on Dec. 21, since Congress has not been able to pass spending bills for the departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, Justice, Security, Interior, State, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs were not likely to be affected, as they have already been funded. "The Senate has done their mark, the House has done their mark" on the Homeland budget, Schultz said, but "this is the conference stages. This is the way things play out in Washington." He said he expected the budget debate and the shutdown "will probably get more energized before they're done, but we've told our story to our overseers" on the Coast Guard's urgent need for the icebreaker. "I think they understand it, and now it's the will of the people and the will of the Congress to make the ultimate choices here," Schultz said. In a statement last week, the White House expressed a desire to fund both the wall and an icebreaker. The administration "strongly supports the inclusion of $5 billion for border wall construction and associated technology in the Homeland Security appropriations bill recently introduced in the House," noted a statement released by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. It also stated that the administration also supported funding "for a Coast Guard polar icebreaker" in the Homeland bill. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, a California Democrat who is expected to become chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee next month, told The Hill newspaper that "diverting $5 billion out of Homeland Security for that wall" was a disservice to the Coast Guard. She said the Coast Guard "has been begging" for an icebreaker to patrol the Arctic. "We have one that's 40 years old. They have to go on Ebay to get parts, and there are times when there is literally no U.S. presence in that area." In his remarks at the Navy League, Schultz focused on the urgent need to replace the nations only heavy icebreaker, the 42-year-old Polar Star, as well as the medium icebreaker Healy. "That ship is tired," Schultz said of the Polar Star, which recently left its port near Seattle for a deployment to Antarctica to clear the way for resupply of the U.S. scientific base at McMurdo Sound. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz pledged to protect whistleblowers at a meeting Thursday with Connecticut lawmakers on allegations of race and gender bias at the Coast Guard Academy in New London. "No one in the Coast Guard should ever face bullying, harassment or retaliation for reporting wrongdoing," Schultz said in a statement after the meeting with Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats, and Democratic Rep. Joe Courtney. The meeting was called to address a recent report from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General that found a black female lieutenant commander on the Academy faculty had been retaliated against for charging superiors with race and gender discrimination. "I think there's increasing, not decreasing, concern about what has been happening at the academy," Murphy told the Associated Press following the meeting. Schultz said he "welcomed the opportunity" to meet with the lawmakers and pledged that the service will protect whistleblowers." The IG report said that "a preponderance of the evidence" showed that the female lieutenant commander received a poor evaluation report after making statements that her superiors had discriminated against her. The report said the officer would have received higher marks had she not made the complaints, and it recommended that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has authority over the Coast Guard, look into the matter and correct the evaluation. In addition, the IG report made reference to the separate case of a complaint of bullying filed last January by another Coast Guard Academy faculty member against a department head. The department head, whose name was redacted, was removed from his post in April "due to a loss of confidence relating to the substantiated bullying allegation," the IG report stated. Schultz told Military.com last week that the report has his full attention. I will get very familiar with it. We're going to dive into that." "We're going to see some actions, what actions we can take, some recommendations. I'm absolutely committed to an environment where all employees feel valued," Schultz said. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com The U.S. will seek reimbursement for $331 million from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for the refueling and flight hours that the U.S. Air Force has provided during the last three years in the Yemen conflict. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, disclosed the request Thursday following a months-long inquiry into how the Defense Department is accounting for fuel and flight hours spent supporting the Saudi-coalition air strikes in Yemen. Last week, U.S. Central Command, the overseeing body for Middle East operations, found errors in its auditing, according a report in The Atlantic. "In November, the Pentagon acknowledged that, in response to your letter, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) reviewed its records and found errors in accounting,'" Reed said in a statement. But "today, after a careful review, the Pentagon announced it will seek full reimbursement of $331 million from Saudi Arabia and UAE for fuel, refueling services and flight hours," Reed said. That amounts to $36.8 million for the flight hours, and $294.3 million for fuel, Pentagon spokeswoman Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich told Defense News. Related content: Last 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. But even before the announcement to halt refueling was made on Nov. 10, CENTCOM had started working with Air Forces Central Command and U.S. Transportation Command "to reduce its dynamic requirement for tankers" in the Horn of Africa, Army Maj. Josh Jacques, a CENTCOM spokesman, said. Jacques told Military.com the coalition would lose "roughly one to two tankers" worth of U.S. fuel per day given the freeze. "This is good news for U.S. taxpayers and underscores the need for strong oversight of the Department of Defense," Reed said. "The American people should not be forced to bear these costs and I am encouraged DOD is taking steps to get full reimbursement." The news of the reimbursement comes as the Senate passed a resolution Thursday calling for an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led military campaign. The vote also included a measure condemning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The Trump administration has faced continued pushback for its continued support of Saudi Arabia in arms sales and intelligence in light of Khashoggi's death. The journalist is believed to have been killed by Saudi operatives at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October. Lawmakers for the last three years have tried a variety of ways to oppose the war -- what many officials around the world have declared a humanitarian crisis. "While the accounting error is being corrected, the larger issue remains that the Trump Administration and international community must capitalize on the progress that has been made during the Yemen peace talks in Sweden," Reed said. "The conflict in Yemen has negatively impacted the strategic security interests of the Saudis, Emiratis, and the United States. It has emboldened Iran and relieved pressure on al Qaeda and ISIS," he added. "Most importantly, the conflict has resulted in the largest humanitarian disaster facing the world in recent memory. It is time for this war to stop." -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. STUTTGART, Germany -- Scores of soldiers deployed to Europe could be on the hook after purchasing airline tickets home for the holidays, only to learn that their leave was never fully approved. The 4th Combat Aviation Brigade out of Fort Carson, Colo., is nearing the end of a nine-month deployment in support of the U.S. military's effort to reinforce NATO's eastern flank. In November, troops were told by their brigade commander that holiday leave was approved, allowing for soldiers to return home, according to U.S. Army WTF Moments -- a site where troops often vent about military snafus. The problem: whatever informal approval 4th CAB commander Col. Scott Gallaway thought he'd received hadn't been cleared up the U.S. Army Europe chain of command, the website reported. Policy states that deployed units are not authorized ordinary leave and an exception must be granted, according to USAREUR. "Due to mission requirements, an exception was not supportable," USAREUR spokeswoman Beth Clemons said. "Unfortunately, many soldiers purchased tickets before the leave approval process was complete." The Army has assigned refund coordinators to each of the brigade's battalions to help soldiers try to get their money back, Clemons said. About 250 soldiers bought tickets home, Clemons said. "The command is doing everything in its power to rectify the situation and ensure no Soldier has to pay out of pocket for incurred expenses due to unapproved leave," Clemons said in an email. The confusion has been a source for unit strain. Soldiers " are facing financial hardship due to inability to obtain refunds, pay high cancellation fees, and deal with the emotional toll being placed on these young families," stated the message posted to Army WTF Moments. But on U.S. Army WTF Moments' Facebook page, there wasn't an outpouring of sympathy among all commenters. "So, the rotational force to bulk up NATO forces against Russian forces actually thought they would get Christmas leave from Europe, even after current hostilities in the Kerch Strait? Lol get real," wrote one poster. Another unsympathetic commentator weighed in: "if you've been in the army longer than a day you know never buy tickets for leave without insurance on the flights, this (expletive) happens all the time," the Facebook poster wrote. However, there was some concern about the toll on the children back home. "It's not all about the financial hardship it's about making kids happy and being a United family for the Holidays and a wish come true," wrote another Facebook poster. "That has been destroyed." A bill working its way through Congress is packed with provisions for veterans, active-duty members and military dependents. Among those is a measure that would block schools from penalizing student veterans for Department of Veteran Affairs delays. Other items include burial and memorial benefits, expansions of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and changes to VA's debt collection practices. Before becoming law, however, the bill must pass in the Senate and be signed by President Donald Trump. Education Benefits After the public relations fiasco caused by VA's late GI Bill payments this fall, Congress set out to ensure that it protects veterans from repercussions against them due to VA's negligence. The new legislation would: Make schools ineligible for GI Bill tuition payments if they placed penalties or burdens on students as a result of the VA failing to pay GI Bill payments on time. Block schools from kicking veterans out of classes if their GI Bill payments are late. Require the VA to tell veterans exactly how much their monthly housing allowance rather than require more guessing. Burial and Memorial Benefits Under the legislation: Spouses and children would be eligible for government provided headstones if they are buried in a VA cemetery. Spouses and children of veterans buried in tribal cemeteries would get all the same benefits as the veteran. More details on burial and memorial benefits. Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act (SCRA) The bill would move SCRA rules into the 21st century, with changes to legal and debt collection rights held by veterans and their spouses. Included in the bill is: The ability for a surviving spouse to terminate a lease under the SCRA if their partner dies on active duty. The right of a military member who is mobilized or gets PCS orders to terminate their video programming and internet bills without any late charges. Previously only telephone bills were covered. Give a military spouse the right to claim the same state of legal residence as their partner for state taxes. Previously, the spouse could only claim the state they were living in or go through the hassle of setting up residence in the military member's state of legal residence. The ability for the spouse to maintain their state of legal residence for voting even if they live out of state while accompanying the military member. Some states require you to actually live in the state for a certain amount of time in an election year to be able to vote. More details on SCRA benefit Transition Aimed at giving veterans easier access to state and local programs, the bill would require VA to publish on their website a list of all non-federal transition programs. Check out our list of state benefits for veterans. VA Debt Collection Under the bill, VA would have to re-format all debt-related letters into "plain language" with a clear explanation, according to the proposed legislation. It also would allow VA to communicate with veterans via both mail and electronic means. Homeless Veteran Reintegration Homeless veterans programs would expand to veterans transitioning from incarceration to civilian life, and to those getting assistance under the Native American Housing Assistance Program. Expansion of VA Dental Program The bill also would give VA one year to report to Congress on the costs, enrollment estimates and feasibility of expanding the dental program. Stay On Top Of Your Benefits Military benefits are always changing -- keep up with everything from pay to health care by signing up for a free Military.com membership, which will send all the latest benefits straight to your inbox. This article by Katherine Voyles originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues. Writing about what some called King Philip's War, Jill Lepore reminds us of the tight-knit relationship between war and telling the story of war, "War is a contest of injuries and interpretations." Tom Hanks, an American particularly well-suited to talk Hollywood, story-telling, and narratives about war, recently shared his thoughts. Speaking at the Washington Hilton for the inaugural D.C. event of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation Hanks said, "I don't know that Hollywood could create an authentic story about Iraq or Afghanistan, where people are on their fourth or fifth or sixth tour of duty, that could not be told much, much better by a documentary or caring news media. We argue about this all the time, what's going to be the venue for the story that needs to be told. And many, many times it's not a Hollywood movie." When a Hollywood insider with Hanks's pull says that Hollywood isn't the place to tell the story that's worth noticing and unpacking. Spending time with Hanks's comments reveals a lot about the powers and drawbacks of Hollywood stories and the powers and drawbacks of narrative today that may help us pinpoint how to tell the stories of Iraq and Afghanistan to a wide audience. Hanks wants at least two things for the story he envisions: authenticity and time. He suggests that a long timeframe is necessary to tell the story of the country's long wars especially because multiple deployments are defining features. Hollywood likes tidy endings and it like sequels, neither of which coordinates with Hanks's vision. From Maximilian Uriarte's The White Donkey to Phil Klay's Redeployment to writing by C.J. Chivers and Elliot Ackerman and beyond there is no shortage of excellent source material for Hollywood to mine, but by and large it hasn't. Hollywood movies drive to a sure ending but those sure endings do not easily map on to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hanks offers documentaries and news coverage as possible venues. From the point of view of accuracy, it's evident why these fit. Outside of these venues, however, we're in a time that has rediscovered and revamped long stories. High quality, binge-worthy streaming serials, and podcasts are just two of the places where narratives are given the time and space to open up. In 2014 Serial used its twelve episodes to take its listeners back to 1998 to carefully unfold the story of the murder of Hae Min Lee and its aftermath: the trial and incarceration of Adnan Syed. Americans devoured the series; we also live in a 280-character world, but strong story-telling still catches us and keeps our attention. The breathing room created by the extended length of small screen serials or podcasts offer a number of crucial advantages to "the story that needs to be told" including the ability to move from place to place and the capacity to zero in on a small group of people and how they interact with one another. These capacities aren't separate from accuracy. They ensure accuracy: these stories need a long timeframe and room to move around. The geographic scope is crucial; the power to move between stateside locations, from stateside to overseas and between overseas locations is crucial. The new small-screen version of The Little Drummer Girl doesn't set itself in the US, but in showing how terrorism came to Europe in the late '70s the show moves between Greece, London, Nottingham, Israel, Germany, Palestinian refugee camps, and those are only some of its locations, it dramatizes the kind of mobility necessary for telling the story Hanks describes. Hanks calls for the realistic portrayal of people, "I don't think there's anymore stereotypical character than the twisted veteran who is never going to be the same." There are more stereotypical characters than "the twisted veteran," but the overall point that stereotyping veterans is far too easy definitely holds. Detective shows like The Wire kickstarted this, are a mainstay of streaming serials; they dramatize the relationships between people inside deeply hierarchical organizations, which suggests that a story about Afghanistan or Iraq could draw lessons from them in showing the dynamics between people interacting within organizational constraints. Hollywood may not be the right venue, but narratives about Iraq and Afghanistan could certainly find a home in "a documentary or caring news media," but may find more benefit in drawing on existing strengths in long form story-telling. Katherine Voyles lives, teaches, reads and writes in Seattle. More articles from Task & Purpose: A New WWII Animated Series Will Follow One Army Unit From The Invasion Of Italy To The Liberation Of Dachau Spec Ops: The Line Is The Most Brutal War Game Ever Made 5 New Military History Books Worth Reading The tank was introduced in World War I when Britain unveiled the then-secret weapon against German forces and were able to run these rolling fortresses right over German barbed wire and trenches, firing cannons and machine guns into German fortifications. Now, armored columns are a commander's fist, punching holes in enemy lines and then rushing through them to annihilate enemy formations. Here are 10 tanks that shaped armored warfare, either by completely destroying their enemies or by introducing new design features that gave them the edge in combat: 10. British Centurion A Dutch Army Centurion Tank provides security while conducting a scouting exercise in Hohenfels, Germany, January 26, 2015. (U.S. Army Spc. Tyler Kingsbury) Originally designed to give British tankers and edge against German Panthers and Tigers, the Centurion arrived months after the end of World War II and ended up being the greatest Cold War tank instead. It had plate armor while cast armor was still the norm, and its 105mm gun was beefy for the time. The British never used it in combat, but it earned lasting acclaim fighting for India and Israel. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel sent its customized Centurions to secure the Golan Heights, slaughtering Syrian tanks. Centurions converted into armored personnel carriers and engineering vehicles are still in Israeli service, 70 years after the tank's debut. 9. Panzer Mark II A German Panzer Mk. II sits in a tank museum. Tankers didn't want to get caught in this small beast, but it split the job of gunner and commander, giving a tactical advantage and setting the standard for all tanks that came after. (Paul Hermans, CC BY-SA 4.0) The Panzer Mark II was, to say the least, not a "Tanker's tank." It was a stopgap design to hold the line in the 1930s until the Panzer Mk. III and IV were ready. It was a light tank with limited range, an only 20mm gun, and thin armor. But it made this list because it did perform well on the battlefield and changed future tank design for one reason: It had a dedicated gunner and a dedicated tank commander. Many tank designs, especially smaller ones with smaller crews, combined these two roles, forcing the commander to ignore the larger battlefield for crucial moments while firing. The Mark II broke from that tradition and essentially all modern tank designs have a commander and dedicated gunner. 8. British Whippet Tank The British Whippet was a medium tank that could drive into gaps in German lines. Whippets were British medium tanks in World War I that had decent armor and speed and were designed to exploit gaps in German lines created by heavier tanks. It had either three of four machine guns but no cannon, meaning that today it would've been known as an armored vehicle. But the Whippet was one of the fastest tanks of World War I with a blistering speed of 8 mph. One upgraded Whippet could hit a much more respectable 30 mph thanks to a V-12 Rolls Royce Eagle engine. This allowed them to fly through German gaps and break up enemy formations attempting to regroup. 7. Panzer Mk. IV The Panzer Mk. IV was a heavy hitter early in the war and got upgrades throughout, keeping it pertinent and threatening against Shermans and T-34s, but Germany still needed the Panthers and Tigers to tackle heavy tanks. (AlfvanBeem, CCO) The Panzer Mk. IV served for all of World War II, starting as a heavy hitter fighting next to Panzer IIIs and eventually giving way to the more powerful and better armed Panther. The base Panzer IV was adequate in the early months of the war, but required upgrades to armor and its main gun as Allied armor got stronger. By 1945, this resulted in a Panzer IV with a longer 75mm gun, widened tracks, and thicker armor than most medium tanks. It even had armored skirts to protect against infantry anti-armored weapons. This allowed it to tackle the Allies most numerous tankssuch as the Sherman and the T-34with relative ease. But larger tanks were able to shred it, hence Germany's growing reliance on the late-arriving Panther as those made it to the front. 6. Char B1 A French Char B1 tank sits in a museum. The tanks were massively overpowered compared to their enemies in the open of World War II, but they didn't receive many upgrades since, you know, France lost the war. (The shadock, CC BY-SA 3.0) France's tanks saw limited fighting in World War II since, you know, France fell so early in the war. But a couple of French tanks made a real impact, including the Char B1 with its sloped armor, two large guns, and decent speed. Its smaller, 47mm gun could kill many tanks while its 75mm could slaughter nearly anything available in 1939. In one battle, a single French Char B1 rolled right into a German ambush in a French town, used the 47mm gun to kill the trail tank, the 75mm gun to kill the lead tank, and then started dismantling all the tanks trapped in the middle. It shrugged off 140 German rounds during the fight and killed an entire German Panzer company. But, you know, France still fell, so that part sucked. 5. British Mk. I The British Mark I tank created tank warfare, eclipsing the armored cars that had been used previously. (British Government) Look, to be honest, we're including this little fellow because, for a while, it was the only deployed tank in the world. The British Mk. I was the first tank, dreamed into existence by British Royal Navy engineers under the "Landship" concept that would see America's new tractors developed into weapons of war. The Mk. 1 and its French and British descendants allowed the Allies to break the Central Power's lines and begin winning the bloody stalemate that World War I had descended into. But these tanks were far from perfect, requiring eight crew members to fight, and four to just get the massive engine started. But they carried up to two cannons and four machine guns and slowly, very slowly, 4 mph slowly, overwhelmed German forces nearly anywhere they fought. 4. Tiger Tank The German Tiger Tank was a legend of World War II. It was a logistical nightmare to keep the things fueled and running, but if you were caught in an armored battle in the war, this is the one you wanted to be in (but, preferably, without being a Nazi). (German federal archives) Ah, the legendary Tiger, the tank so powerful that it immediately became the focus of any battle in which it fought. Its thick armor could shrug off 75mm rounds from most guns at 50 yards. But its 88mm gun could open most Allied tanks like a can opener. The tank was terrifying for enemy crews, but did suffer from horrible logistics issues as it required lots of maintenance and guzzled fuel. But in defensive warfare, the fuel problem was less of an issue, and single crews could destroy a dozen or more oncoming Allied machines and crews. One Tiger destroyed 18 Russian tanks on the Eastern Front, and one commander in Normandy lost six Tiger tanks while killing 25 British tanks and another 28 vehicles. 3. M4 Sherman The M4 Sherman Tank was a commander's dream tank, with good speed, easy repairs, and lots of them reaching the battlefield everyday. But it did struggle against heavier German armor. (U.S. Army) The M4 Sherman was one of the most widely deployed weapons of the war, serving with British, Canadian, Free French, Russian, and U.S. forces. The plucky little tank was designed for speed and ease of maintenance, taking limited armor and using a low-velocity 75mm gun to cut down on weight. It, unfortunately, got a reputation after the war for being a death trap, but that wasn't the reputation during the fighting. Russian crews often preferred the Sherman to the T-34, and they had good reason. The tank was easy to maintain and spare parts were almost always available, leading to an 80 percent rate of damaged Shermans returning to combat. In fights, the Sherman was able to kill Mk. IIs and Mk. IVs, but could only attack Tigers in desperation and Panthers in strength. It was a "commander's tank," great strategically but few tankers wanted to face a heavy tank in one. 2. T-34 A T-34 tank sits with open hatches during a battle re-enactment. It was the most produced tank of World War II and could kill any tank in the world at the time of its debut. Meanwhile, Germans had to press anti-aircraft guns into service to try and kill it. (Cezary Piwowarski, CC BY-SA 4.0) The T-34 was technically a medium tank, but its sloped armor was fairly thick and could deflect rounds like a heavy, and its powerful engine could propel it to 35 mph while its 76mm high-velocity gun could kill any other tank in the world at the time. Its combat debut came when Germany invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa. The Germans were forced to call on any weapon they thought could pierce the armor, deploying anti-aircraft guns and infantrymen carrying shaped charges to try and take the T-34 down. It was a leading factor in the Russian victory at the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, and it eventually became the most-produced tank of the war. 1. M1 Abrams Tank U.S. Marine Corps M1A1 Abrams tank participates in a simulated security patrol in Storas, Norway, October 25, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Williams Quinteros) The legendary M1 Abrams main battle tank is a gas-guzzling, sabot-throwing, and armor decimating beast. Its turbine engines produce massive amounts of power that allow it to hurtle across the battlefield at over 40 mph despite its 68-ton weight. And while it started life with a 105-mm gun, it was quickly upgraded to a 120mm smoothbore capable of firing a lot of different rounds including its deadly depleted-uranium sabot rounds. During Desert Storm, Abrams tanks faced off against Soviet-made T-72s and were overwhelmingly powerful. At the Battle of 73 Easting, future-National Security Advisor Capt. H.R. McMaster took a single armored cavalry company against an Iraqi division and cut a "five-kilometer wide swath of destruction" while suffering zero losses. It's still in service with the U.S. and other forces, but America has started eyeing either a new light or main battle tank. MORE POSTS FROM WE ARE THE MIGHTY: 7 helpful habits that veterans instantly toss out after leaving Why veterans tapping a drink on the bar is a sign of respect 4 ways nicknames in the military are nothing like in pop culture We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. WATM is made in Hollywood by veterans. It's military life presented like never before. Check it out at We Are the Mighty. A last-ditch legislative effort to substantially change Michigans voter-approved recreational marijuana law didnt have the required support to pass, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof acknowledged Thursday. Thursday was the deadline for the Senate to take up its own legislation under a rule mandating five days' time between a bills passage in one chamber before the other chamber can consider it. The legislature is slated to adjourn for the year next week. When the Senate adjourned Thursday evening, Meekhofs proposal to ban Michigan residents from growing marijuana at home and lower the 10-percent excise tax on recreational marijuana sales to three percent hadnt come up. The bill would have needed a supermajority, or 29 of 38 Senate votes, to pass, and the votes werent there for major changes to the proposal 56 percent of voters supported on Nov. 6. Im very disappointed, Meekhof told reporters after Senate session. I knew it would be a heavy lift...I think what were going to be allowing to happen is going to make our society less safe. Meekhof said his intent was to regulate marijuana in a safer manner, but supporters of the ballot proposal that legalized recreational marijuana in Michigan were unconvinced. After Meekhof introduced the legislation in late November, a spokesperson for the coalition behind Proposal 1 said his effort was disrespectful to the political process. Meekhofs bill, Senate Bill 1243, would have eliminated the ability for individuals to grow marijuana at home and removed the option of a micro-growers license. Proposal 1 allows for individuals to grow up to 12 plants at home, and up to 150 plants with a micro-growers license. Under Proposal 1, Michigan has one of the lowest tax rates on adult-use marijuana in the country. Meekhofs proposed bill would have given Michigan the lowest tax rate in the country, and would have directed revenue from recreational marijuana to municipalities, counties and state police. Michigan roads and schools would not have benefited from tax revenue under Meekhofs plan. Michigans recreational marijuana law went into effect Dec. 6. A pair of bills that would modify regulations for pet shops and prevent local governments from banning them outright passed the Senate this week over protests from Democrats and animal rights groups. House Bill 5916 would add additional requirements for pet shop operators, including preventing them from buying or selling dogs without a health certificate, a microchip and paperwork about its history. The legislation also requires pet shops that purchase pets from large-scale breeders to use only breeders licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Its companion bill, House Bill 5917, would prevent local governments from banning pet shops that otherwise meet state requirements. According to the group Best Friends Animal Society, four communities in Michigan currently have bans on retail pet sales: Eastpointe, Memphis, New Baltimore and Fraser. Both bills, sponsored by Rep. Hank Vaupel, R-Fowlerville, passed the Senate 23-14 Thursday evening, with Republican Sens. Rick Jones, Patrick Colbeck and Tory Rocca joining Senate Democrats in voting no. The bills passed the House in late November. Animal rights groups around the state have been critical of the legislation, arguing the U.S. Department of Agricultures standards are lax when it comes to enforcement of large-scale breeding facilities and that the legislation would prevent local governments from taking significant action to prevent puppy mill dogs from getting to stores. The bills would place Michigan squarely on the wrong side of the puppy mill issue, and would not reflect the morals and values of the pet-loving population of Michigan, the Humane Society of West Michigan stated on its website. In testimony on the legislation earlier this year, the group Attorneys for Animals said its difficult to track a breeding facilitys history of violations since animal welfare records were removed from the U.S. Department of Agricultures website, and stated the bills would void existing - and effective - local laws regulating the animals pet shops can sell, replacing them with a grossly inadequate and largely unenforceable state-wide regulatory scheme. Vaupel said his legislation would continue to let local governments enforce zoning regulations and health standards on local pet shops, but would prevent government officials from banning retail pet sales outright if the pet shops are in compliance with state law. He said the new regulations would help ensure puppies sold at pet shops are in good health and coming from legitimate sources. This does not take the right to inspect or follow up on complaints away from a local unit of government, he said. This pretty well eliminates, as much as possible, the selling of puppies that arent healthy." The bills need a signature from Gov. Rick Snyder to become law. GRAYLING, MI PFAS contamination in a northern Michigan community continues to threaten drinking water supplies, two years after two forms of the toxic chemicals were discovered on military installations and spreading off-base. Residents in 420 homes in and near Grayling now are using water filters to reduce consumption of the per- and polyfluorinated chemicals, which are linked to cancer, kidney and thyroid disease and other health concerns. That number doubled since early 2018. Both state and U.S. Department of Defense officials told community members at a meeting this week that data-gathering continues, with more understanding of how much PFAS is affecting water supplies and how its traveling in groundwater expected in 2019. We should have a really good handle next spring or summer on the direction we need to go, said Randy Rothe, district supervisor for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. The chemical contamination originated at two military sites in Grayling: The Grayling Army Airfield, a public-military airport owned by the U.S. Army about one mile northeast of the I-75 intersection for the northern Michigan city and in the commercial and residential hub. Camp Grayling, a training facility for the Michigan National Guard about 4.5 miles southwest of the airfield on the shore of Lake Margrethe. The U.S. Army is directing PFAS action at Camp Grayling, while the MDEQ is concurrently gathering test data and making plans for the area of the airfield and Lake Margrethe surface water and surrounding neighborhood. The community is one of dozens in the state where DEQ officials are finding PFAS. Michigan is testing all municipal water supplies, school water supplies and other areas such as landfills and wastewater discharges where the chemicals can exist in amounts high enough to create a public health threat. Testing for the PFAS is yielding data on 24 related compounds. Two of them - perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctyl sulfonate (PFOS) combine in the federal lifetime health advisory for PFAS consumption at 70 parts per trillion (PPT). In Michigan, officials also set cleanup standards for PFOS of 12-ppt for surface water like lakes and rivers, and 70-ppt for groundwater. Across the state, at least 1.5 million Michigan residents are drinking water with some PFAS, according to data provided by the DEQ. The Grayling sites now are moving into an investigation and remediation project, said Scott Dean, spokesperson for the MDEQ. The state learned about the Grayling contamination in May 2017, seven months after the first test confirmed the presence of PFOA and PFOS near the airfield. By the time the Michigan Department of Veterans and Military Affairs notified the DEQ about the groundwater contamination, successive testing was showing higher levels of both chemicals in the sampling wells along the perimeter of the base. So far, officials said this week, PFAS testing of 677 homes in Grayling around the airfield shows: 232 homes have water with some PFOS and PFOA. 17 homes have combined readings above 70-ppt of PFOS and PFOA. 445 homes show no detection of PFOS and PFOA. A total of 340 homes around the airfield now use water filters, up from 175 in early 2018. When looking at total PFAS, only 252 are non-detect, while 68 are above 70-ppt. Of those, 7 are above 1,000-ppt. Many of the highest readings are clustered along West North Down River Road, between the Au Sable and Old US 27. Others are south and west of the airfield. Testing of 447 drinking wells area around Lake Margrethe shows: 63 homes have water with some PFOS and PFOA. 2 homes have combined readings above 70-ppt of PFOS and PFOA. 384 homes show no detection of PFOS and PFOA. Another 80 homes near Lake Margrethe use water filters, up from 35 in early 2018. A look at total PFAS shows 10 homes are above 70-ppt, while 140 homes have some PFAS. Many of the highest readings are clustered at the south end of the lake along Borchers Way, while some moderate levels were at the northwest end of the lake. More than 100 area residents attended the meeting at Kirtland Community College, just off I-75 about 50 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge. Several asked questions about ongoing well-testing and water safety. Among them were Heather and Jason Bennett, who have been buying bottled water for more than a year. Their well testing below 70-ppt for PFOS and PFOA, but they have neighbors with higher levels. Were just trying to figure out where this is coming from, Heather Bennett said. And trying to keep everyone healthy. Testing in 2018 also focused on foam from Lake Margrethe, drone views of where groundwater meets surface water, and deer and fish from the area. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issued a do not eat for the lake foam in June, mirroring public messaging as PFAS testing reaches the piles of sticky, white foam found on shores of communities like Oscoda, Ann Arbor and the Grand Rapids area. Foam testing in Lake Margrethe ranged from 1,580- to 41,328-ppt of total PFAS, with the highest PFOS reaching 30,400-ppt. The Huron Rivers foam advisory was issued following a total PFAS reading of 58,868-ppt; total PFAS reached 296,584-ppt in the foam of the Rogue River, north of Grand Rapids. Deer testing for 20 animals from Grayling found no PFAS in muscle tissue, said Chris Bush of the MDHHS. However, signs of the chemicals in four deer livers are telling a story. Some deer are found to be exposed, Bush said, but it appears that most do not have exposures. Fish advisories already exist for walleye and bass due to mercury, according to the MDEQ. Now both bluegill and sunfish are under PFOS advisories, with no more than 8 servings per month recommended. As the state works to further delineate how far a PFAS plume reaches, one goal of the military is to find a more permanent solution for residents using bottled water and filters. Anybody at 70-ppt and above is our target audience right now, said Col. Ed Hallenbeck, Camp Grayling commander. Options that may be considered may be new wells for the residents, may be connecting to city water and may be connecting to township water. Military testing includes 32 wells at Camp Grayling on quarterly sampling. Some wells at the airfield were set up as the installation tracks a longer-term contamination issue from PCE, or Perchloroethylene, a dry-cleaning solvent. MDEQ testing includes 73 permanent monitoring wells in 20 locations, Rothe said, with several set up this fall. So far, five show readings above 70-ppt. We will be developing plume maps, cross-sections and 3D renderings of the plume, Rothe said. He continued: Well be able to start making some predictions, long-term. Meanwhile, the military will formalize its relationship with the community by establishing a Restoration Advisory Board for PFAS cleanup at Camp Grayling. Similar boards already are in place in Oscoda, which continues to see PFAS spread from the closed Wurtsmith Air Force Base, and in the Upper Peninsula community of Gwinn, home to the former K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base. It also plans a pilot program at Camp Grayling to test a liquid carbon filtering system for groundwater, which will convert the aquifer into what officials called a purification system. The information roll-out during the meeting satisfied Bennett, even as she waits for more answers. They seem to be actively attacking the problem, she said. See details here on the Grayling PFAS findings. See details here on the Lake Margrethe PFAS findings. LANSING, MI -- Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday signed two bills that would substantially alter citizen-initiated legislation raising the minimum wage and providing employees with paid sick time. Both initiatives were led by groups of citizens who sought to put the measures on the ballot. The minimum wage proposal brought tipped employees into the regular minimum wage rules and raised minimum wage to $12 by 2022. The paid sick time proposal put different requirements in place for large and small businesses, but let workers earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Instead of letting those proposals go to the ballot, the legislature adopted them with the intent to change them later on. Under Senate Bill 1171, sponsored by Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, R-Lowell, the new minimum wage requirement leaves tipped workers separate and raises the general minimum wage to $12.05 by 2030, a far longer time horizon than was originally proposed. Tipped workers will be at 38 percent of the regular minimum wage, and make a minimum of $4.58 per hour by 2030. Under Senate Bill 1175, sponsored by Sen. Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, the new paid sick leave requirement leaves the employees of many small businesses behind, as lawmakers changed it to apply only to businesses with 50 or more employees. Workers will earn one hour of sick time for every 35 hours worked, instead of 30 hours under the original proposal, and could accrue 40 hours of paid sick leave. Under the original proposal, workers could have earned 72 hours per year of paid sick time if they worked at larger businesses or 40 hours per year if they worked at small businesses with under 10 employees. Snyder made the bills Public Act 368 and Public Act 369 of 2018 with his signature. I look at legislation presented to me through a policy lens is it the right policy for the state of Michigan and Michiganders as a whole? Thats what I did with these bills and have now signed them into law, Snyder said in a press release. I looked at what the potential impacts and benefits of the changes would be and decided that signing these bills was the appropriate action. Business groups supported the changes, and said during legislative committee action the framers of the original petitions hadnt sought input from the business community. Snyder said the paid sick leave bill would benefit most workers. The leave bill offers the majority of workers in the state paid medical leave up to a week off work with pay. We are now one of only eleven states that provide such a benefit," he said in a press release. According to data from the U.S. Census bureau, 40 percent of Michigan workers with private employers worked for an employer of fewer than 50 employees in 2016. Those workers would not be covered by the new paid sick leave law. The changes to the proposals angered supporters, who protested against them in the legislature. Danielle Atkinson, co-chair of Mi Time to Care, the group that gathered signatures for the paid sick time measure, said the changes cut out hundreds of thousands of Michigan workers. The group is looking at other means to implement their proposal. We are committed to putting this measure into place as quickly as possible. We will be looking at the option of legal action and will start collecting signatures to place this before voters in the 2020 election. Starting Jan. 1, we will have a governor and attorney general who care more about people than political action committee checks, and we are confident by the end of 2020, all Michigan workers will be able to stay home when sick without worrying about losing a paycheck or being fired, Atkinson said. Other groups also opposed the changes. For the people of Michigan, the gutting of earned paid sick time and the minimum wage is personal to them and their families," said DeWayne Wells, executive director of the Economic Justice Alliance of Michigan, in a statement. "People were very clear in November that they want Michigan to grow in a way that benefits them, not just the special interests. In pulling this bait and switch during lame duck, politicians in Lansing did the exact opposite and it wont be forgotten. ANN ARBOR, MI The Washtenaw County Democratic Party is calling on Prosecutor Brian Mackie to drop criminal charges over a recent Michigan Senate candidates campaign literature. Rajendra, an Ann Arbor businesswoman, competed in a four-way Democratic primary race this year for the Michigan Senate seat representing the Ann Arbor area. Rajendra came in third place and is now facing potential jail time over her campaign literature. The charges against Anuja Rajendra are an insult to anyone calling themselves a Democrat, particularly in Washtenaw County, WCDP Chair Chris Savage said in a statement. They are particularly galling considering that she came in third place in the August primary. It is time for Prosecutor Mackie to drop these charges which have no merit. The Washtenaw County Prosecutors Office alleges Rajendra falsely represented herself as the incumbent senator in two postcards mailed to voters, a violation of state election law. Mackies office is not commenting on the case at this time. Mackie is a Democrat who was elected to his first four-year term as county prosecutor in 1992. To continue this prosecution and to threaten a woman who is now a private citizen with jail time well after the election has concluded is prosecutorial overreach that benefits nobody, Savage said. Former state Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, won the Senate seat, defeating County Commissioner Michelle Deatrick by a narrow margin. Two of Deatricks supporters including Patrick Boeheim, a former Washtenaw County Democratic Party officer filed the complaints that led to Ann Arbor police investigating Rajendras campaign literature. According to the WCDP, Boeheim has not been active in the party since he left the executive board in 2016. Rajendra was arraigned on criminal charges Tuesday, Nov. 13 in Ann Arbors 15th District Court. A hearing in the case is set for January and the American Civil Liberties Union is defending Rajendra, calling the charges unconstitutional and arguing she never intended to mislead voters. The Virginia-based Institute for Free Speech also is urging dismissal of the case. During her campaign, Rajendra billed herself as a political newcomer who wanted to bring a fresh voice for progressive values to Lansing, and she urged voters to "vote a new way. But on two occasions, the prosecutors office alleges, her campaign literature indicated she was already in office. One of her campaign mailers stated, "As a mom of four and as your State Senator, I want my kids and all kids in Michigan to have the same opportunity for quality education and success." Another stated, "As your State Senator, I'm steadfast in my commitment to ...." She then listed her support for increasing K-12 school funding and other education matters. Those two statements are listed in court records as the reasons Rajendra is now facing two counts of false incumbency designation, each a misdemeanor violation of state election law punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or $500 in fines. Both Deatrick and Irwin have expressed disapproval of the charges against Rajendra, saying they hope theyre dropped. Savage said that makes the actions being taken against Rajendra even more indefensible. It is time for this unfortunate and unnecessary situation to come to an end, once and for all, he said. We join the ACLU and the Institute for Free Speech in imploring Prosecutor Mackie to end his prosecution of Ms. Rajendra today and put this matter to rest. ANN ARBOR, MI Ann Arbor officials are taking note of recent survey results that show black residents havent viewed their interactions with city police as favorably as white residents. City Administrator Howard Lazarus called attention to the findings during the City Councils budget retreat this week. About 24 percent of respondents indicated they had interactions with the Ann Arbor Police Department within the past year, and most offered positive ratings in terms of how they were treated. But there are significant variances when the data is disaggregated by race, especially among the African American members of our community, Lazarus told council members. Based on their most recent interactions with AAPD, 89 percent of white residents offered positive ratings (good or excellent), in terms of feeling treated in a respectful and professional manner, while only 45 percent of black residents did. On the question of fairness, 86 percent of white residents offered positive ratings, and again, only 45 percent of black residents did. In terms of resolution of their concerns, 74 percent of white residents offered positive ratings, while only 37 percent of black residents did. For overall impression of the AAPD staff member with whom they interacted, 84 percent of white residents offered positive ratings, while only 45 percent of black residents did. Police Chief Robert Pfannes said the findings are discouraging, but he suspects some of it is a reflection of the national narrative on the police. He said hes encouraged by other findings from the survey that show 84 percent of residents give an overall positive rating of police services in Ann Arbor, including 84 percent of black residents. City officials are expecting a new police oversight commission, a citizen-led body soon to be appointed by the City Council, will be up and running in early 2019 and will help improve police-community relations, including tackling issues related to race. Many of us spent this past summer engaged in discussions with the police advisory task force, which led to the creation of the independent community police oversight commission, which we will hopefully start over the next quarter, Lazarus said. And that will give a voice and a forum for people to interact with the police department, to improve the way that they engage, and to address policies and procedures that, even though they may be unintentional, do have disparate racial impacts, so there is a response to that that council has adopted. Pfannes said the AAPD is actively working to improve its relationships with members of the community and has initiated several projects with that in mind over the past year. We have re-established our officer beat program, broadened our presence on social media, and have been working to improve our relationship with the younger members of the community through partnerships with the Neutral Zone and public schools, he said. AAPD also listened and actively engaged with the citizen-led task force that helped create the citys new police oversight commission to understand residents concerns, Pfannes said. He said the AAPD is looking forward to working with the commission on additional ways to build trust within the community. More than 700 people took the citys National Citizen Survey, including 37 people (5 percent) who indicated they are black. Census data shows 7 percent of Ann Arbors population is black, while another 4.2 percent of residents are two or more races. About 95 percent of survey respondents rated Ann Arbor as a good or excellent place to live, including 94 percent of black residents. In terms of overall quality of life in Ann Arbor, 94 percent of black residents and 93 percent of white residents rated it good or excellent. ANN ARBOR, MI - A former University of Michigan pediatric doctor who was fired and stripped of his medical license amid child sex and pornography allegations was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorneys office. Mark Hoeltzel, 47, of Ann Arbor, pleaded guilty on Sept. 13, 2018 before U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow to online enticement of a minor. Hoeltzel admitted that in 2017 he created a fake Facebook account under the name Ryan Gardner to contact minor girls while pretending to be a teenage boy, court records show. He engaged in romantic and often sexual conversations with a 14-year-old girl in Colorado using the Gardner persona on Facebook Messenger, writing in one conversation just never thought an eighth grader could be so sexy, court records show. Using the persona, he asked for and obtained explicit photos of the girl before sending her explicit photos of himself, records show. He was originally facing seven felonies, charged with one count each of receiving child pornography, possession of child pornography, enticement of a minor, production of child pornography and three counts of transfer of obscene materials to a minor. The six other charges were dismissed as part of his plea agreement, records show. The sentencing handed down in this case reflects the serious nature of the crimes committed, which are particularly troubling given the defendants role in the community as a physician," Special Agent in Charge Steve Francis, Department of Homeland Security Investigation Special Agent Steve Francis said in a news release. Mr. Hoeltzel abandoned his oath to do no harm and instead sought opportunities to harm and exploit innocent children. This case shows that HSI is committed to investigating child predators regardless of the positions they hold in society. The original charges stem from a federal investigation into alleged inappropriate conduct with patients while he worked at UMs Pediatric Rheumatology Clinic in Ann Arbor, as well as a doctor at a camp for children with arthritis. Michigan Medicine took steps to protect its patients by removing Hoeltzel from patient care duties the day it was alerted of the investigation, UM Executive Vice President of Medical Affairs Marschall Runge previously said. Hoeltzel lost his medical license and his job as the state investigated claims he was intimate with the patient while at work. In December 2017, police executed a search warrant on Hoeltzel's Ann Arbor home and seized several items, including a flash drive that was later found to contain more than 100 images of child pornography. Federal prosecutors said Hoeltzel was investigated by UM police in Ann Arbor in 2006 after the mother of an 11-year-old girl reported him upon reading inappropriate and flirtatious Yahoo messages shared between the girl and doctor spanning back to 2004. Hoeltzel at that time was asked to take a boundaries class, but he didnt lose his medical license, job or face criminal charges. ANN ARBOR, MI During a commencement address this past spring, Penny W. Stamps told graduating students of the school named in her honor that imagination has no limits, and that they should always pursue their dreams. Even if youre the assistants assistant, if you do great work, remember, the cream always rises to the top, and the growth potential can be there, she said. If youre good at what youre doing, you will be noticed." Stamps, an arts advocate, philanthropist, design professional and University of Michigan alumna, died at her home Thursday, Dec. 13, following a battle with leukemia. She was 74. Stamps and her husband E. Roe Stamps created the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation, contributing significantly to UM over the years, beginning in 1999 with funding for the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series. The popular series has brought names like Oliver Stone, Ken Burns, Michael Moore, Chelsea Manning, Nick Cave and Russian feminist punk-rock band Pussy Riot to the university. The family foundation later granted the UM School of Art & Designs largest philanthropic gift of $32.5 million in 2012, leading the Board of Regents to rename the school in Stamps honor. It is the only school at UM named after a woman. Stamps delivered the schools commencement address in spring 2018, earning an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the 2018 spring ceremony. She also was the 2005 recipient of the David B. Hermelin Award for Volunteer Leadership from UM. UM President Mark Schlissel recognized Stamps generosity and kindness in a message to the campus community, recalling her unwavering support of our students and her vision for championing art and designs power. We are deeply saddened by the passing of Penny W. Stamps, a great friend of the University of Michigan and a cherished member of the Michigan Family, Schlissel said. I will always remember Pennys warmth and kindness, along with her devotion to helping the University of Michigan and the world become a better place. Stamps, who grew up in Chicago and lived in Miami, earned a bachelors degree in design and a teaching certificate at UM in 1966. She worked at Herman Miller and Kaplan & Fox Inc. before heading her own residential design firm in the Boston area for 18 years. As an alumna, Stamps co-chaired the Michigan Difference National Campaign Leadership Committee and was a deputy chair of the Victors for Michigan fundraising campaign. In 2006, the Stamps Foundation launched its signature merit scholarship program. The program has awarded scholarships and fellowships to more than 1,600 students at more than 40 colleges and universities, according to UM. Her philanthropic contributions also funded the Stamps Auditorium on UMs North Campus and the Stamps Student Commons at the Stephen M. Ross Academic Center. Stamps offered graduates a number of life lessons during her commencement speech, urging students to choose their partners wisely and devote time to family and friends. At the end of your life, you wont regret not getting that project done or not having traveled to some exotic place, she said. But you will regret not spending enough time with a parent, sibling or child. Stamps is survived by her husband of 47 years, E. Roe Stamps; her mother, Carmella A. Witt; her son, Will Stamps (India); and her daughter, Ann Stamps Ridgeway (Dustin). She also is survived by her grandchildren, Hunter and Gwyneth. A funeral mass will take place Tuesday in Coconut Grove, Florida. In lieu of flowers, her family suggests a gift in her honor to the Stamps School. FLINT, MI -- Former Mayor Dayne Walling says he became increasingly concerned that the citys ex-director of public works wasnt qualified to deal with water problems that had already begun to snowball in early 2015. Walling made the comment in brief testimony Wednesday, Dec. 12, during the preliminary examinations for four current and former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees in Genesee District Court. Asked if he had concerns about the qualifications of Howard Croft, the Department of Public Works director in Flint during the water emergency, Walling told Judge Jennifer Manley that he did and said he told former emergency manager Darnell Earley and former City Administrator Natasha Henderson about those worries. I remember one specific occasion in early 2015 -- this was after the release of the (total trihalomethane) related violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act -- (thinking) that the city needed greater water treatment expertise and experience," Walling said. It was obvious to me that this was the greatest public works challenge the city was facing (and) that was not something Howard Croft had prior experience in. Croft is one of 15 current and former city and state government officials charged with crimes related to the water crisis. His preliminary examination on charges of involuntary manslaughter, false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses had been scheduled to resume next week but has been adjourned until Feb. 25 before District Judge Nathaniel Perry. Although Croft and Walling served in city government together, the DPW director was hired by former emergency manager Mike Brown in December 2011 and was given responsibility for oversight of parks and recreation, street maintenance, water and sewer, garbage collection, planning, fleet management, and economic development. Because of the states emergency manager law, Walling had no authority to replace Croft or to hire additional help, but he had not previously singled him out as unqualified. Croft resigned in November 2015 following Wallings election loss to current Mayor Karen Weaver. MLive-The Flint Journal could not immediately reach an attorney for the former DPW director for comment on Wallings remarks. Croft routinely defended the quality and safety of city water even as testing showed its quality was diminishing due to problems including low residual chlorine and elevated levels of lead and bacteria. CLAYTON TWP, MI Charlotte Brown has been a member of the Genesee County law enforcement community for more than 30 years. A 12-year veteran with the Genesee County Sheriffs Office whose spent the past 15 years with the Clayton Township Police Department, Brown has seen all types of scenarios. But she admitted the Dec. 13 swearing-in ceremony had her a bit uneasy. This is real, she laughed, while getting prepared at the townships police station during the day. Ive been the interim (chief) since February 1 when you look at it. I dont know why I have the jitters, but I do. After serving as an interim chief multiple times for the department, the township board selected Brown to the position on a full-time basis in September. Family, friends, residents and law enforcement officials including Genesee Township police Chief John Mullaly and Bishop Airport police Chief Chris Miller gathered Thursday evening in the township hall to share words of support for Brown. I was so surprised. When she first told me, I was screaming and yelling and crying. I couldnt believe it, said Charlotte Browns daughter Kemisha. It means everything to see her achieve this today. I love her, and I am so proud of her. Browns career journey in law enforcement began when she was a teenager. Brown took part in a police explorer program, interned at the county sheriffs office, and was a security officer at the University of Michigan-Flint while taking classes after graduating from Flint Powers Catholic High School. I like helping people and I like making a difference in peoples lives and thats what drew me to becoming a police (officer), she said. The rewards are when one of those people, Brown said, comes back and shes able to build a rapport with them, offer support and help, and learns you made a difference in their life. Ruth Morris, Browns aunt, called her the right person for the job. Shes loyal and so loved by her family and this community, Brown said. God chose the right woman. Charlotte has made her family so proud. The job also has its challenges, Brown said, especially when faced with a life-or-death situation and you cant help a person or youre doing CPR and they dont make it. Those are the things that weigh heaviest on your mind, she commented. Brown tries to alleviate some of the work-related stress with a one-hour workout every morning. The good relationship between township officials and department also helps, as well as the aid she gets from her staff. The employees here are awesome. I have probably the best secretary/clerk. You cant ask for anyone better than Becky (Berriman). Shes great. She sees when Im struggling with something. Shes right here to make sure my day goes great. Having been part of the department through different chiefs, boards, and employees, Clayton Township police Sgt. Troy Belanger said, One constant thats been here through my entire career is Charlotte Brown. Shes sort of evolved herself, whether knowing it or not, into the glue that holds this place together, he commented before the standing-room only crowd. Shes kind of woven herself into the fabric of the community. I think everyone that lives here knows her. Everyone that lives here likes her, and if theres a very few that maybe dont like her, they definitely do respect her and thats very important, said Belanger. She has always handled things in a very ethical and professional way but also a earthy way that everyone can understand. I think shes a very important part of the communityOn behalf of all your employees we thank you, we love, you, and were glad that you are here. Brown noted the relationship law enforcement has with residents has changed over the years, with a deterioration in the respect between residents and police. When I first started in this career, people really respected the police, said Brown. People dont really have the respect for us like they used to. Officers in the township department are encouraged to go out and get to know residents, shake their hands, and let them know were here if they need us, she added. Brown feels she has earned her own respect as a woman in a male-dominated field. She is the first female and African-American chief in the departments history. It does give me a sense of pride, but my main goal is to protect Clayton Township, be the face of Clayton Township, said Brown. I never really thought about going this far, but Ive always known if you put your mind to anything, you can do it. You can succeed at it. MLive-The Flint Journal multimedia specialist Jake May contributed to this report. LANSING, MI -- Gov. Rick Snyders administration is giving the public three business days to weigh in on 99-year agreements to run oil and gas through a tunnel-encased pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac. The two draft agreements, as well as an easement for the utility tunnel beneath the Straits, were announced late Thursday afternoon, Dec. 13. The public can review and comment on the items through Tuesday, Dec. 18. The newly formed entity tasked to oversee and operate the tunnel, the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority, meets for the first time the following day, Dec. 19, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Little Bear Arena, 275 Marquette St. in St. Ignace. Read: Third agreement between state and Enbridge Energy; Proposed agreement between tunnel authority and Enbridge; and Tunnel easement (all as drafted) Liz Kirkwood, director of For Love of Water (FLOW), said three business days is a drastically short window for public review and comment. Any responsible state government would absolutely want to encourage a robust public comment period, and three days surely does not satisfy it, Kirkwood said. The purpose of a public comment period is to provide ample time for public discourse, and this attempt to provide three days is an ill-conceived attempt to pretend to satisfy those requirements and engage in a process that is beneficial for the public. Ari Adler, a Snyder spokesperson, said the short window for comment on the documents, totaling roughly 57 pages, reflects the short window for getting the agreements finalized. The statute requires the corridor authority to take action before the end of the year, so time is short," Adler said in an email. Having a review is not a statutorily mandated process but we wanted to still be transparent. Also, we have been taking public input on the draft outline of terms for the tunnel agreement since the public meeting of the Mackinac Bridge Authority on Dec. 7 where the agreement was presented. Created Wednesday, the three-member Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority is bound to accept a tunnel agreement with Enbridge Energy by the end of Snyders term, should certain conditions be met. Snyder has until Dec. 21 to get a tunnel agreement before the authority if it is to approve the agreement by years end. Should the agreement be presented to the authority after that deadline, the authority is required to accept it within 45 days. Snyder wants the tunnel plans finalized and secured before successor and Line 5 critic, Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer, takes over Jan. 1. The governors office also announced Thursday that one of the tunnel authority members, labor leader and Democrat Geno Alessandrini, resigned a day after his appointment. Alessandrini said in a statement he resigned due to family and business constraints." Snyder promptly replaced him with James "J.R." Richardson, a Republican, power company executive and vice chair of Michigan's Natural Resources Commission. The draft agreements call for Enbridge, the Canadian company which owns the controversial Line 5 oil and gas pipeline, to pay for the design, construction, operations, maintenance and eventual decommissioning of the tunnel. Cost estimates for the project are roughly $350 to $500 million. The tunnel, expected to be drilled into bedrock about 100 feet beneath the Straits lake bottom, would house a replacement for Line 5 and other utilities. The project is estimated to take seven to 10 years. Only after would Line 5, which sits on the Straits of Mackinac lake floor, be decommissioned. Critics worry the 65-year-old pipeline could spill during that time. After tunnel completion, the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority would assume ownership but not liability, state officials previously said. Under the draft provisions, Enbridge is allowed to utilize the tunnel for not more than 99 years from the date that they begin transporting oil and gas through their replacement tunnel pipeline. Comments on the drafts can be emailed to DNR-StraitsTunnelComment@michigan.gov, or left by phone at 833-367-6713. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Plans to construct a 50-unit apartment building for low-income residents in Grand Rapids Belknap Lookout neighborhood was approved Thursday by the Grand Rapids Planning Commission. But the project developer says he cant move forward until the Michigan State Housing Development Authority provides a low-income housing tax credit needed to fund the project. Crossing fingers, well find out by the end of the year, said Brad Rosely, a principal with Third Coast Development. If it doesnt win the award, then well have to go to the next submittal, which will be in April. The apartment building, expected to cost between $5 million and $6 million, is the outgrowth of an agreement between the city of Grand Rapids, Grand Valley State University and residents in the Belknap neighborhood. Its designed to replace low-income housing that was demolished when the university built a new 84,000-square-foot health-science building, Raleigh Finkelstein Hall. The building opened in May. Fifteen of the apartment buildings units will be rented at the market-rate, and 35 will be earmarked for residents who earn less than the area median income. Heres the breakdown of those 35 units: Ten units will be reserved for residents who earn up to 30 percent of the median area income. That comes out to $14,700 for an individual and $16,800 for a couple. Eight units will be for residents who earn up to 40 percent of the median area income $19,600 for an individual and $22,400 for a couple. Seventeen units will be targeted for those who earn up to 60 percent of the area median income $29,400 for an individual and $33,600 for a couple. The building is planned for a 0.85-acre property on the south side of Trowbridge Street, between Lafayette and Prospect avenues. Grand Valley is leasing the property to Three CPK, a joint venture of Third Coast Development and PK Housing. Rosely said his goal is to start construction in the summer, assuming the project receives the low-income housing tax credits. You cant just get rid of affordable housing and not replace it with something, he said, when asked about the importance of the project for the neighborhood. Grand Valley demolished 30 homes in the neighborhood, Rosely said in a development application submitted to the city. One of our values is to maintain a diverse community," said Elianna Bootzin, executive director of Neighbors of Belknap Lookout. "Bringing this affordable housing back to the neighborhood really helps keep that possible. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Michigan State University is pushing forward with plans to construct two more buildings on its Grand Rapids Research Center site, the university announced Friday. MSUs Board of Trustees authorized university administrators to enter into a public-private partnership with Health Innovation Partners to develop the projects at 400 Monroe Ave. NW, the roughly 4-acre site where the research center is located. The partnership agreement lays the groundwork for the developer to pursue the construction of a parking garage and a new building along Michigan Street, where space would be leased to MSU and other tenants who support the universitys health care research. The university says the project might also include a third building, along Monroe Avenue, that would complement the research, education and innovation mission of the university. Construction is expected to start in late 2019, with an estimated completion date in late 2021. MSU continues to expand its footprint and partnerships in downtown Grand Rapids, which supports our research, education efforts and health care expansion, MSU Interim President John Engler said in a statement. We look forward to working with more partners and stakeholders in expanding the mission of our great university into West Michigan. Health Innovation Partners is a joint venture between MB Real Estate, Walsh Construction, Walsh Investors, and Rockford Construction and Development. MSU opened the Grand Rapids Research Center in September 2017. The $88 million building, located along Grand Rapids' Medical Mile, supports scientists who are researching cures and treatments for diseases such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers and cancer. We are very pleased about the Board of Trustees authorization of the P3 to help MSU build a framework from which we can impact and improve health, Norman Beauchamp Jr., dean of the MSU College of Human Medicine, said in a statement. We are actively seeking health care and industry partners who share our vision to transform health through research and innovation. MARSHALL TOWNSHIP, MI -- A man is hospitalized with a stab wound to his chest and a woman is in jail after an altercation in Calhoun County. Michigan State Police Marshall Post deputies are investigating a stabbing that happened about 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 13 at 12551 15 1/2 Mile Rd. in Marshall Township, according to a press release from MSP. An unidentified 23-year-old man was taken to Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo in critical condition from a stab wound to his chest, the release said. A woman, 27, was found in the house hiding in a bedroom closet and was arrested on a charge of assault with intent to murder. Police believe the woman used a folding knife to stab the man, whose friends took him to Oaklawn Hospital. He was transferred to Borgess because of the severity of his injuries. While at the house, police resuscitated a 25-year-old man who was overdosing on drugs and stopped breathing, the release said. The woman is expected to be arraigned in court Saturday, Dec. 15. She was also held in jail on two warrants not directly tied to this case, the release said. Police are also seeking charges on the man for domestic assault against the woman, the release said. JACKSON, MI Police are searching for two masked men who broke into a Jackson doctors office and plundered its pharmacy early Tuesday morning. Officers were called to an alarm that had been tripped sometime about 6 a.m., Dec. 11, at the office in the 200 block of N. West Avenue, Jackson Director of Police and Fire Service Elmer Hitt said. Police found the door to the office had been forced open by two unknown suspects who were gone prior to police arriving, Hitt said. Security video showed the men entering the office and raiding its pharmacy, grabbing a variety of drugs off the shelves and dumping them into a bag. Its unclear how many drugs or what exact drugs were taken, Hitt said. The incident remains under investigation. Anyone with information should contact Det. Robert Noppe at 517-768-8762. The map below shows the long-term average occurrence of a white Christmas. In this case a white Christmas is defined as one inch of snow on the ground. The chance of a white Christmas ranges from 37 percent in far southeast Lower Michigan to 98 percent over part of the western U.P. This map shows how often there has been a white Christmas across the U.S. A closer look at Michigan shows some exact numbers. Grosse Pointe Farms has the lowest historical chance of a white Christmas in Michigan at 36 percent. Detroit Metro has a 37 percent chance of a white Christmas. This means the Detroit area has a white Christmas once every three years on average. Historical chance of a white Christmas As we move north, the chance of a white Christmas increases. As we move west into the Lake Michigan snowbelts and the Upper Peninsula snowbelts, the chance of a white Christmas skyrockets. Saginaw historically has a 48 percent chance of a white Christmas. Grand Rapids has a 55 percent chance of one inch on the ground on Christmas. Traverse City has a 73 percent chance of a white Christmas, when looking at Christmases over time. Charlevoix is covered with Christmas snow 79 percent of the time. If you want to just about assure yourself of a white Christmas, go to Marquette, Hancock or Ironwood. Marquette has a 96 percent chance of a white Christmas, Hancock a 95 percent chance and Ironwood a 98 percent chance. Of course what really matters for southern Lower is the weather just the few days before Christmas and on Christmas Day. This year the weather looks pretty mild right up to Christmas Eve Day, when cooler air might start to move in. My thought right now is a white Christmas is going to be tough to come by. It would be fascinating to find out how many Illinois legislators not only read this editorial but also care enough about Illinois to buck the system. Many of our state's lawmakers have been around for a long time, feeding off Illinois' trough while Illinois continues to be run into the ground. They appear to be oblivious about the fiscal condition of Illinois but in reality are well aware of the problems. Sadly, they have enough power to continue to benefit their interests and maintain the status quo. Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker has been cagey about his proposals. Soon he will have to show his hand. His main obstacle will of course be House Speaker Michael Madigan. It will be intriguing to see how this relationship plays out. There is not enough analysis data for Botswana Diamonds. 4.1 Community Rank Outperform Votes Botswana Diamonds has received 231 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Botswana Diamonds has received 140 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Botswana Diamonds has received 62.26% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Botswana Diamonds and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe BOD will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe BOD will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next One of Italy's newest airlines Air Italy has become the only commercial carrier to have a direct non-stop flight between Mumbai and Milan with the touch down of its inaugural flight on December 14. The private airline with 49 percent control by middle eastern heavyweight Qatar Airways will have three flights a week from Mumbai in addition to three direct flights a week from Delhi that started last week. A senior official from Air Italy said it is starting operations with the Airbus A330-200 aircraft and will look at Boeing 737 Max planes at later stages if there is need to expand operations in India. The airline is offering 24 fully reclining flatbed seats in Business Class and 228 seats in Economy Class. Air Italy's Mumbai service offers connections to New York and Miami as well as domestically across Italy. Air Italy has 15 aircraft currently and hopes to take the figure to 50 by 2022. The airline signed an interline agreement with Tata Group-promoted Vistara. It has a 'single digit' market share in Italy but a 40 percent share in Milan. Rossen Dimitrov, Chief Operating Officer, Air Italy said, "Italy is the second most visited country in Europe by Indian travellers. Italy is home to around 200,000 Indians and about 112,000 Italians travel to India every year. Both countries have emerged as a top wedding destination. Moreover, the bilateral trade between the countries is 7.5 billion euros. This makes for a perfect business case for us to launch flights between India and Italy." Dimitrov said the market size of flyers between India and Italy is around 360,000 a year and growing rapidly. India's flag carrier Air India is the leader of this segment with direct flights between Rome and New Delhi. The US has objected to the significant stake held by Qatar Airways in Air Italy which the airline risks of getting a penal action with regards to connecting US cities. Air Italy connects New York and Miami from Milan Malpensa. "We have to be cautious as we are entering at a turbulent time. We have to see how we can expand further. We are not here to get and get out. We see a long-term business case in India," added Dimitrov. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Denmark's Carlsberg and India's United Breweries have filed pleas with Indian authorities, seeking leniency in a probe into alleged collusion to fix beer prices, five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been investigating the two companies, as well as the world's largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). Last year, as previously reported by Reuters, AB InBev told the regulator it had discovered an industry cartel that discussed and agreed on beer prices before submitting them to Indian states, which regulate pricing. The company's confidential disclosure under the CCI's whistleblower-protection scheme led to dawn raids by the regulator in October at offices of all three of the brewers. In recent weeks, both Carlsberg and United Breweries filed pleas under the CCI's so-called leniency programme, submitting evidence and agreeing to cooperate, the sources said, adding that such cooperation could lead to a smaller fine if wrongdoing is discovered. A Carlsberg spokesman in India said it was "cooperating fully with the CCI" and had done so from the beginning of the probe. United Breweries, part-owned by Heineken, did not respond to requests for comment. Following the Reuters story on the October raids, it told the Indian stock exchanges it was reviewing its legal risks and the potential implications. Heineken declined to comment. An AB InBev spokesman in India said they take antitrust compliance "very seriously", but declined to comment further. LIKE A GAME OF "POKER" The three brewers account for 90 percent of beer consumption in the $7 billion Indian market, where rising social acceptance towards drinking and a growing pub culture are helping the industry to grow. They collectively face an estimated fine of up to $279 million if found to have operated as a cartel. Individual executives can also be fined, though AB InBev could escape all of its share of the fines as it reported the issue. The CCI's leniency programme grants relief through lower penalties to subsequent applicants only if they add value to evidence already held by the regulator from its own investigation and from the initial applicant, in this case AB InBev. But the filings remain confidential and companies do not know of others' submissions. "It's like playing blind, like in poker," said one of the sources. The CCI did not respond to questions from Reuters. Gautam Shahi, a New Delhi-based antitrust lawyer, said subsequent leniency applications were typically filed to reduce potential penalties. "It's a promise of cooperation in return for a lenient treatment," said Shahi, who is not involved in the case. During the October raids, the CCI found e-mails that showed executives regularly discussed beer prices, potentially violating Indian anti-trust laws, a government source said at the time. One of the sources told Reuters the CCI was still collecting evidence and reviewing the various leniency petitions but the investigation would be likely to continue for a year. United Breweries is known for its Kingfisher brand while AB InBev's beer brands include Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois. Carlsberg sells beer under its own-name brand among others and also owns Tuborg. The antitrust investigation is set to cast a shadow on the beer industry in India, which is already facing stringent compliance and state-level regulation, making it tougher for brewers to expand. Sanjay Sanghvi and Raghav Kumar Bajaj GSK Consumer Healthcare India is in process of merging with Hindustan Unilever Ltd in the biggest deal in Indias consumer packaged goods space. The proposed all-stock deal values GSK India at around Rs 31,700 crore. Each shareholder of GSK India is likely to get 4.39 shares of HUL for each share of GSK India held by them. Given the size of the deal, the Indian income-tax authorities have already begun dissecting the deal structure and its mechanics to identify or assess any tax obligations of the proposed merger. In this structure, while the merger may be tax neutral subject to fulfilment of prescribed conditions under the Income Tax Act, 1961, the shareholders of GSK India who will receive shares of HUL after the merger, may be exposed to 10 percent long-term capital gains tax liability if they were to sell these shares. Thus, this tax outgo will have to be taken into account at the time of subsequent monetisation by GSK Indias shareholders. This is, effectively, how mergers are taxed -- exemption at the merger stage, and taxation when shareholders subsequently sell the shares they receive. Apart from this, the deal also entails offshore transfer of the Horlicks brand from GSK Indias foreign shareholder GSK Plc to HULs foreign shareholder Unilever Plc. The tax treatment of the transfer of a brand between two foreign companies is contentious and would primarily depend on the situs (location) of the brand and related aspects. According to section 9 of Indian Income Tax Act, 1961, all income accruing or arising, directly or indirectly, through the transfer of a capital asset (brands, trademarks etc) situated in India are deemed to accrue or arise (earned) in India for tax purposes. There is a judgment (Delhi High Court judgment in the case of Fosters brand) to support that if the owner of a brand is not located in India, its situs (location) should be regarded as outside India and hence, its transfer should not be taxable in India. However, since most of the valuation for Horlicks is derived from India, Indian tax authorities may take a position that a substantial value of the brand is primarily derived from India and therefore, the gains earned on this transfer should be taxable in India. Much would depend on precise facts of the case. Nonetheless, the royalty payable by HUL for the usage of the brand would be taxable in India and also entail withholding tax obligations for HUL. However, given that part of the deal value will lead to the creation of goodwill in HULs books; HUL may get to mitigate its tax outgo in the subsequent years by amortising such goodwill on a year-on-year basis. Having said so, allowability of depreciation (which is a tax-deductible expense) is often looked at differently by taxpayers and the tax authorities. While there are judgments to support HULs claim for such depreciation, there are high chances that the tax authorities may dispute such claim by HUL. If HUL is successful in its depreciation claim, this would be an added advantage for it. Indias M&A sector has been picking up swiftly this year, allowing shareholders to unlock value, with big billion dollar deals like Flipkart-Walmart and now HUL-GSK. Companies and shareholders are looking for more and more operational synergies and strategic acquisitions, and are willing to pay the big ticket prices. One hopes that the income-tax aspects in these deals are carefully examined and evaluated by the parties involved, as any exposure on the income-tax front can certainly impact the dynamics of the deal. Indian tax authorities have already begun to scrutinise the HUL- GSK India deal with their lens and only time will tell whether it is a smooth sail on that front. (Sanghvi is Tax Partner and Bajaj is Principal Associate at Khaitan & Co. Views are personal.) (Image: Reuters) The Delhi High Court, on December 14, quashed the Central governments decision to prohibit the sale, distribution, manufacturing and import of Oxytocin by private companies in India. The court also was critical about the government vesting the state-run Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals (KAPL) the monopoly to manufacture and sell Oxytocin, as it was fraught with adverse consequences. The division bench consisting of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and AK Chawla observed that the notification to ban Oxytocin is both "unreasonable and arbitrary" and stated that the decision seemed to be based on no scientific basis or study. Moneycontrol saw a copy of the order. "The Union of India did not adequately weigh in the danger to the users of Oxytocin, nor consider the deleterious effect to the public generally and women particularly, of possible restricted supply if its manufacture is confined to one unit," the court said. The court held that the Central government failed to balance the interests of pregnant women, the right of the private companies to carry on their business and the misuse of the drug in the field of veterinary science. Oxytocin is a life-saving hormonal drug which is administered to induce labour pain, control bleeding after childbirth, or help new mothers lactate. The drug has been a potent weapon in reducing the maternal mortality rate in India. However, it was found that Oxytocin was widely misused by a section of farmers and dairy industry to enhance milk production of livestock, causing suffering and mortality to the cattle. To control the misuse, the goverment in April banned the manufacturing and sale of oxytocin formulation, and allowed only KAPL to supply the drug. Even the import of Oxytocin by private companies was also restricted from September 1, 2018. The ban sparked outrage as doctors and health activists raised concern over shortages of the life-saving drug. A clutch of petitions were filed by private Oxytocin manufacturers such as BGP Products Operations, Neon Laboratories, and NGO All India Drug Action Network. The petitioners had claimed that the decision to prohibit the sale, manufacture, distribution, as well as import of Oxytocin, was arbitrary and unreasonable. The crucial central board meeting of the Reserve Bank, the first under the new governor Shaktikanta Das, Friday agreed to discuss the governance framework of the central bank further. The meeting, which lasted for nearly four hours, also reviewed the current economic situation, both global and domestic challenges, matters relating to liquidity and credit delivery, and issues related to currency management and financial literacy. "The board deliberated on the governance framework of the RBI and it was decided that the matter needs further examination," RBI said in a terse statement after the meeting. This is the first board meeting chaired by Das, who took over as the 25th governor Wednesday after the surprise resignation of Urjit Patel Monday. The 18-member board also discussed the draft report on the trends and progress of banking (2017-18), the RBI said. In the previous meeting held on November 19, which lasted over 10 hours, the board had decided to constitute a committee of experts to fix an appropriate level of economic capital framework (ECF) for the central bank which would decide how much contingency reserves it should hold any given time and the membership and terms of reference of which will be jointly determined by government and RBI. Nothing has officially progressed on the matter as government and RBI are not yet on same page on the name of the chairman of the six-member panel. The issue of transfer of RBI's excess reserves, which stood at Rs 9.43 trillion as of June 2018, to government has been one of the contentious issues between the government and the central bank for a long time and also one of the key reasons for the sudden exit of Patel. At the last meet, the RBI board had also decided to refer the issue of relaxing the PCA framework-- under which are 11 of the 21 state-run banks--to the board of financial supervision of the central bank. It can be noted that some of the new government nominees to the RBI board have been demanding that the central bank should be run by the board and not just by the management. Apart from some key North Block mandarins, the votaries of this view include the Sangh ideologue S Gurumurthy who was appointed to the board only in August and ex-chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian. They say RBI should also be run by the board. Thursday evening, coal minister Piyush Goyal also turned his guns at RBI over this issue and alleged that the RBI management--the governor and the four deputies-- arbitrarily decided on the PCA framework, keeping the board in the dark. If the board votes for a board-driven RBI, then that will be the biggest blow to the operational independence of the central bank, say many central bank watchers. Making its intent clearer towards pushing hybrid cars in India, the government may soon push for a lower goods and services tax (GST) cess of 25 percent on strong hybrid cars, taking effective tax rate to 35 percent, sources have told Moneycontrol. The road transport ministry has proposed for a GST rate of 35 percent on strong hybrid cars, down from 43 percent, a source in the know said. According to the minutes of the meeting, the government envisions to develop a positive environment for EVs for which a multi-pronged approach will be adopted, including pushing down the tax rate. The GST rate on EVs have already been reduced to 12 percent as against the GST rates ranging from 28 percent to 45 percent in the case of internal combustion (IC) vehicles. Strong hybrid cars are also capable of reducing the CO 2 emissions ... They can be extended some GST benefits of say, 25 percent, as compared to ICE vehicles, the note from the meeting said. Thus, the government intends to cut cess on hybrid cars and levy one-fourth cess of the GST. Effectively, a customer will have to pay 35 percent of the base price as tax. Also read: Electric vehicles: Government raises incentives under FAME-II to Rs 5,500 crore At present, hybrid cars are taxed at 43 percent (including cess) as compared to electric cars that are taxed at 12 percent. Incumbent ICE vehicles also put under the 43 percent tax bracket. The tax was seen as a big deterrent in the field of hybrid cars, which were being taxed at 30.3 percent before GST was being implemented. When the GST regime kicked-in from July 1, a uniform rate of GST was prescribed at 43 percent for specified sedans and SUVs. This was relatively lower than the effective rate range from 46.6 percent to 55.3 percent during the previous tax system . After it was noted that the overall tax incidence had come down after the implementation of GST, the council, in September 2017, decided to hike cess on mid-sized cars by 2 percent, taking the effective GST rate to 45 percent. Similarly, cess on large cars was hiked by 5 percent, taking the total GST incidence to 48 percent while that of SUVs by 7 percent to 50 percent. It must be noted that only strong hybrid cars will be taxed at lower GST rate whereas mild hybrids will continue to attract higher rate. There are three categories of battery based vehicles namely hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and battery electric vehicle (BEV). While BEVs are operated only by battery, PHEV and HEV use combination of battery and ICE. The road ministry has proposed to reduce tax on PHEVs, the source said. The decision, which was taken at a meeting called by National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog to decide the roadmap for future mobility in the country, was attended by officials from ministries of road transport, petroleum and natural gas, non-renewable energy, power, department of commerce, department of revenue and department of science and technology. Also read: Centre to soon subsidise hybrid cars: Report The Committee of Secretaries opined electric vehicles are expensive and beyond the purchase preference of potential users which requires bringing down the prices. A smooth progression towards electric mobility is the right way for the future A collaborative approach can help to accelerate e-mobility in India in a sustainable manner, the committee observed. Another source aware of the matter said that while there was no discussion as to when the proposal could be sent to the GST council, officials from the finance ministry were positive about the proposal. India has seen a major shift towards electric vehicles over the last few years. Policy corridors have been abuzz with the idea and have been formulating various policies to push electric mobility in the country. Last year, union minister for road transport and highways, Nitin Gadkari said that his department would bulldoze all the ICE vehicle manufacturers if they fail to convert to electric cars. He had said that by 2030 India would have all-electric fleet on its roads. Later on, however, it was decided that Centre would try to convert 30 to 40 percent of its vehicular count to electric in little over a decade. The latest calculations, however, show that with all the steps being taken by the government at present, India would achieve penetration of mere 5 percent over the next five years. While policy decisions were being taken to promote electric cars in India, the government underscored its intent to have a gradual shift towards alternate mobility, during MOVE global transportation summit, by moving from ICE to hybrid to electric. During the summit, Gadkari asked auto-majors to to shift to electricity or alternate fuels like ethanol, methanol, bio-diesel or hybrid. Recently, it was reported that the government was also planning to earmark Rs 13 crore subsidy for the manufacturing of hybrid cars. Sources said that a meeting was held on August 23 which decided to incentivise potential buyers of 10,000 hybrid cars fitted with lithium-ion batteries of 0.5-2 kilowatt hour (kWh). Also read: Exclusive | First phase of FAME to get six month extension; revised phase-II to kick in from FY20 At the latest meeting, held on December 13, the committee decided to adopt a three-pronged approach comprising driving demand for EVs, increasing supply volumes and creating a positive ecosystem for EVs. The committee has decided to divide work among various ministries While NITI Aayog will be responsible for laying down definitive policy for EVs and time-framework for transmission, Road transport ministry along with state transport department will be responsible for creating favourable ecosystem, stimulating EV market and nudging aggregators to induct EVs on incremental basis, sources said. Previously, Centre had earlier earmarked Rs 5,500 crore as subsidy for manufacturing of electric vehicles under the second phase of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (hybrid and) Electric cars (FAME) scheme. This comprised Rs 4,500 crore to subsidise the manufacturing of EVs and Rs 1,000 crore for setting up of charging stations. This was, however, put on hold after PMO asked various ministries to look at ways to make cheaper batteries available. Batteries used in EVs are imported and make up for 40 percent of the cost component. For now, FAME-I has been extended till March 2019. According to Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), 56,000 units of electric vehicles wee sold last year. the number is expected to double this fiscal to touch about over one lakh units. The reasons for low adoption include significant affordability gap and low level of consumers acceptance, low level of electric vehicle manufacturing activities (i.e. lack of supply), lack of comparable products (especially in the two-wheelers category) and non-existent public charging infrastructure. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More IDBI Bank is awaiting a green signal from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to recover Rs 1,600 crore of Binani Cement's dues from UltraTech Cement, according to a report by Mint. On November 19, the board of directors of UltraTech approved a proposal to incorporate debt-ridden Binani Cement as its wholly-owned subsidiary. UltraTech also promised to pay all of Binani's dues. The bank cannot receive money from UltraTech Cement or remit it to its Dubai branch without RBI's permission. A delay in the central bank's approval may be because of the way the loan was disbursed -- through IDBI Bank's Dubai branch to a Binani group company in Belgium, the news daily reported. RBI has reportedly been sending questions to IDBI Bank on the same. The loan was originally given to 3B-The Fibreglass Co, a Binani group firm in Belgium. Binani Industries, the holding company of the Binani Group, had acquired 3B-The Fibreglass Co in February 2012. The loan was, however, guaranteed by Binani Cement, which is why IDBI Bank was allowed to recover its loan through the insolvency process, sources told the paper. "We need RBI permission to remit the money to the Dubai branch where the loan was given in euros," a source was quoted as saying. RBI's approval may depend on whether the central bank is satisfied with IDBI Bank's reply, the source said. Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report. Senior IDBI Bank officials are planning to meet RBI Deputy Governor BP Kanungo to clarify its position on the transfer of funds. "This money would substantially aid our recovery efforts," another source told the paper. Cash-strapped IDBI Bank has non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 60,875 crore, which is 32 percent of total loans. The bank's total capital adequacy ratio has slipped below the regulatory requirement (9 percent) to 6.22 percent as on September 30, 2018. The bank, which is under the RBIs prompt corrective action (PCA) framework, is hoping that fresh capital from LIC will hasten the process of cleaning up its books. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) in June had permitted LIC to increase its stake in IDBI Bank from 8 percent to 51 percent. In August, the Cabinet had approved an acquisition of controlling stake in the bank by LIC as a promoter through preferential allotment/open offer of shares, and relinquishment of management control by the government in the bank. NIIT | Nippon Life India Trustee through various schemes of Nippon India Mutual Fund raised stake in company to 7.38 percent from 6.55 percent earlier. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More NIIT shares gained more than 4 percent on Friday after the board approved the allotment of shares to two amalgamated companies. The board approved the allotment of 2,53,66,521 equity shares to the shareholder of PIPL Management Consultancy and Investment Private Limited, and 2,59,15,838 shares to Global Consultancy and Investment Private Limited. Hence. further 5,12,82,359 equity shares held by the amalgamating companies in the share capital of the company got cancelled pursuant to the scheme, NIIT said. There is no change in equity shareholding (promoter/ public) of the company, post allotment/ cancellation of equity shares, it added. The amalgamation of both companies into NIIT Limited was sanctioned by National Company Law Tribunal on November 12, 2018. At 11:40 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 90.70, up Rs 1.85, or 2.08 percent on the BSE. The next Avengers movie is coming next spring, and well finally get to figure out whether everyones dead or not. No big surprises, if youre all caught up on your Marvel movies the biggest shock to Captain America and the crew is that Ant-Man isnt dead, but that isnt a huge surprise if you stuck around after the credits of Ant-Man and the Wasp. How he got there is still a mystery, though and could have big implications for Endgame. Endgame is scheduled to hit theaters April 19, 2019. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Oil and Natural Gas Corporation shares rallied 5 percent ahead of board meeting to consider share buyback proposal next week. "....the board meeting is scheduled on December 20 to consider the proposal for buyback of the fully paid-up equity shares of the company," the country's largest oil & gas exploration company said. Hence, trading window will remain closed for the designated persons from December 17 to, 24, 2018, it added. The Government of India held 67.48 percent shareholding in ONGC as of September 2018. It is the second company from PSU oil & gas space to announce buyback of shares after IOC. On December 13, state-run fuel retailer Indian Oil Corporation said it would buy back 29.76 crore shares (representing 3.06 percent of total paid-up equity) for about Rs 4,435 crore and spend another Rs 6,556 crore on paying an interim dividend to shareholders. The government held a 54.06 percent stake in IOC. The government is targeting a minimum Rs 5,000 crore through share buyback offers of state-owned firms like Coal India, BHEL and Oil India. Besides IOC, at least half a dozen other central PSUs have disclosed share buyback programmes. Prominent among these include NHPC, BHEL, NALCO, NLC, Cochin Shipyard and KIOCL that could fetch the government a little over Rs 3,000 crore. The government is expected to participate in each of the share buyback programme of these PSUs. Of the Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target, the government has so far raised just over Rs 15,000 crore through minority stake sale in PSUs. At 14:18 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 149.75, up Rs 6.50, or 4.54 percent on the BSE. (With inputs from PTI). December 14, 2018 / 03:33 PM IST Market at close: Benchmark indices ended positive but remained flat throughout the day with Nifty close just above 10,800 mark. At the end, Sensex was up 33.29 points at 35962.93, while Nifty was up 14 points at 10805.50. About 1249 shares have advanced, 1287 shares declined, and 145 shares are unchanged. Bharti Airtel, Yes Bank, ONGC, NTPC and Asian Paints are the top gainers on the Sensex, while losers are HDFC, Wipro, L&T, Adani Ports and Bajaj Auto. Among sectors, except pharma and metal all other sectoral indices ended in green, while midcap and smallcap stocks ended flat. Market The Nifty50 which opened on a slightly somber note tracking muted trend seen in other Asian markets managed to recoup losses and reclaimed its crucial resistance level of 10,800 on Friday. The index formed a bullish candle which closely resembles a Hanging Man or an Inside Bar kind of pattern on daily charts. A Hanging Man is a single candlestick pattern and is considered a reversal pattern. It signals a market high and is classified as a Hanging Man only if it is preceded by an uptrend and is seen after a high. Inside Bar is a two-candlestick pattern in which the inside bar or the most recent candle is smaller and is within the high and low range of the prior bar which is also known as the mother bar. The Nifty50 which opened at 10,784 rose to an intraday high of 10,815. Bears pushed the index to an intraday low of 10,752 before pushing the index above 10,800. The Nifty50 closed 13 points higher at 10,805. On a weekly basis, the S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.8 percent while the Nifty50 witnessed a rise of 1.05 percent. Broader market outperformed as the BSE Midcap index rose 3.2 percent while the S&P BSE Small-cap index closed 2.8 percent higher. Most experts feel that for bulls to regain control, Nifty50 has to close above 10,838-10,930 levels. However, a breach of 200-DMA placed around 10,750 could fuel the selling pressure with an initial downside target of 10,560. The Nifty50 registered indecisive formation, after moving in an extremely narrow range of 63 points, which resembles a Hanging kind of formation Man hinting a pause in the ongoing short-term uptrend whereas a strong bullish candle is witnessed on weekly charts, Mazhar Mohammad, Chief Strategist Technical Research & Trading Advisory, Chartviewindia.in told Moneycontrol. However, weakness can be expected to emerge in the index on a breakdown below its 200-Day moving average (10,756) which appears to be acting as support for last two sessions as Nifty bounced back after testing the said average. On the upsides momentum shall pick up only on a close above 10838 levels, he said. Mohammad further added that in that scenario the rally can initially get extended up to 10941 levels, and on the downsides decisive breach of 10750 levels shall accentuate selling pressure with an initial target of 10560 levels. At this juncture as the market looks ripe for a breakout in either of the direction traders are advised to maintain a neutral stance and initiate bets in the direction of a breakout. On the options front, maximum Put OI is placed at 10000 followed by 10200 strikes while maximum Call OI is seen at 11000 followed by 10900 strike. Put writing is seen at 10800 followed by 10700 strikes while Call writing is seen at 11000 strikes. Option band signifies a trading range in between 10650 to 10929 zones. The Nifty traded in an extremely narrow range and ultimately formed an Inside bar on the daily chart. For the last couple of sessions, the index seems to be forming a distribution near the 78.6% retracement of the previous fall, Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Senior Technical Analyst, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas told Moneycontrol. The daily chart shows that the index respected the trendline hurdles for the second consecutive day. The overall structure suggests that the bears are warming up before the next downward leg starts, he said. Chavan further added that from a trading perspective, one can initiate a fresh short position with a reversal above the recent high of 10,941. A key target area on the downside will be at 10400-10333 with an intermediate support zone at 10700-10680. Market Analyst Kotak Bank, known as one of the finest private banks in India, has knocked the doors of the courts against its own regulator, the Reserve Bank of India. We examine the complications and implications essentially the answer to the question: What is this Kotaks Natak? Kotak Bank which was built by Uday Kotak was asked by RBI to pare down its promoter stake way back in 2012. THis is normal, as part of RBI norms, to broadbase the shareholding and to restrict individuals from holding large stakes in it. While the bank has been following the stipulated timeline since then and accordingly bringing down its promoter stake holding, but recently it was dinged by RBI for not following the proper method of dilution. Lets take a look. Why Does Promoter Stake Need To Be Diluted? RBI has been very particular in promoter holding for private banks. RBI has been of the view that private banks need to have diversified set of shareholders rather than having one or a few individuals with voting rights. This in turn will make private banks more institutionalised and will improve the compliance and governance of the banks. (Or so they think) Banks take public deposits. This has a systemic impact too, as a banking decision can hurt not just the banks shareholders but also the banking system. In line with that ideology, RBI has required promoters of private banks to cut down their shareholding to 15 percent of the capital within about 12-15 years of their approval. When the initial guideline was issued to Kotak Bank, maximum promoter holding was set at 10 percent. In the later panel meeting in 2014, it was decided that 15 percent would be an optimal mark. Other private banks like HDFC and Axis have institutional promoters, whereas ICICI bank has no promoter holding. The Rules and the Capital Structure According to the RBI deadline, Kotak had to reduce promoter shareholding from 30 percent in June-17 to 20 percent by end of Dec-18. While there are various ways of diluting the stake, Kotak went for a road less travelled and got on the wrong side of the path (according to RBI). The RBI rule said Kotak had to reduce his stake as a percentage of Paid up capital. Paid up capital can consist of equity shares, or preference shares. Both are equity but preference shares can be non-voting, non-convertible instruments. Meaning, you get a dividend, but you dont get anything else. Kotak bank has had, till recently, only 190 cr. equity shares of Rs. 5 face value a paid up capital of Rs. 952 cr. Of this, Uday Kotak and the promoters collectively own about 30 percent. Recently, Kotak Bank issued Non Convertible Perpetual Non Cumulative Preference Shares worth Rs. 500 Cr at RS 5 a piece. That will effectively increase the paid up capital to Rs. 1,452 cr, with 952 cr. as equity capital and 500 cr. as preference capital. Thus according to Kotak Bank will bring down promoter holding from 30 percent to 19.7 percent. But this is a loophole, really. The Loophole of Perpetual Non Convertible Preference Shares? Non Convertible perpetual shares just get some dividends, but have no voting rights and cant be converted to shares. Kotak has around 200 cr. outstanding equity shares and promoter is holding 60 cr. shares. Now 100 cr. more PNCP shares are issued at a face value of Rs 5 and a fixed dividend of 8.1 percent. From the net profit after tax, company needs to set aside 8.1 percent of Rs 500 Cr as dividend for PNCP share holders, or around 40 cr. per year. The rest can be given to to general shareholder. As the shares are non cumulative, it means if in one year, the firm faces losses then that years dividends is not carried over. So: -Now effectively the stake of promoter is 60 cr. shares out of (200 cr. equity + 100 cr. preference shares) = 60/300 = 20 percent. -Money raised by issuing new shares at face value is at Rs 500 Crore. This sits on the balance sheet. -The new investors will not be having any voting rights and therefore no dilution for existing shareholders (or promoters, really). While this sounds good for everyone, whats RBIs problem? Obviously, the above situation still means Kotak has 30 percent control over the company, in some way. This is not really dilution, which is what RBI argues. In fact, it has plugged this loophole for banks like Bandhan bank, where RBI rules say dilution is a percentage of paid-up equity capital. For Kotak, the rule was paid-up capital. This mechanism is just about using the loophole instead. RBI has said NO WAY. But theyve not been transparent about why, and therefore, Kotak has gone to court because the deadline of December 31, 2018 is just a few weeks away. What did Kotak Bank Do Earlier For Stake Dilution? Kotak has tried various measures to bring down the promoter holding to RBI prescribed limit. From selling promoter shares to acquiring a new bank. Below is the timeline of events and how Kotak has managed to dilute its stake form 45 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2017. The prominent among them was the buyout of ING Vysya in 2014. Kotak Bank bought Ing Vysya for Rs 15,000 Crs at a 16 percent premium. This in turn brought the promoter stake of Kotak down from 40 percent to 34 percent. The target was to bring down holding to below 30 percent by December 2016. Among other measures was a promoter stake sell out, which it did to GIC and issuing new shares. With all these combined measures, promoters were able to bring the stake down from 45 percent to 30 percent in a span of five years. What Else Can Kotak Do? To Issue New Shares. For Kotak to bring down his stake to 20 percent without selling his shares, the company had to issue 50 percent more share than its outstanding shares. At the current price of Rs. 1200 per share, theyd have to issue 100 cr. more equity shares. This requires over 120,000 cr. that kind of money has never been raised in a single tranche, and also, if you did that you would destroy the profitability of Kotak as a percentage of capital (they cant use that much capital) Put another way, this is about 20 percent of all banking capital put together. To Buy Out Another Bank. This idea seems a feasible one, but the only problem is that the other another bank is of half of Kotaks market cap for acquisition. This method was tried earlier once, when Kotak acquired ING Vysya. The other options in the market are Axis and ICICI Bank, with a market cap close enough to consider. Its unlikely that these banks will want to get acquired, and even then, imagine the time and process involved theres no way to do this even within a couple years. Stake Sale By Promoter. Stake Sale by promoter is the most apt option a 10 percent stake sale by Kotak means a value of roughly Rs 23,000 Cr, which will go to Uday Kotak. Now, 23,000 Crs can be found, perhaps. However, Uday Kotak will then have to do something with that money and should shareholders want him to think of creating other businesses? Already, the situation in Yes bank is murky because the promoter family has their own private lending businesses. Would we want this kind of thing to go further with Kotak? Impact of Court Verdict? We dont know how the court process will turn out. Going against your regulator is not considered good form, but things at the regulator have changed as well, with a new governor in place. Initially, there is likely to be a stay on RBIs order on Kotak, until matters are heard. If it goes to a verdict, and in favour of Kotak Bank, then the respect RBI commended as a regulatory body gets diluted. It might be that the regulatory body will be dragged to court more often, for the decisions it takes against the banks. Apart from that, the other banks which are also been given notices for promoter stake dilution (Bandhan Bank, DCB) will want less stringent action. In case the court gives verdict in favour of RBI, then things will get more difficult for Kotak going forward. Our View: Loophole used, but the rules need to be fixed If RBIs view is to curtail voting rights, it can do that regardless of shareholding. Anyhow, promoter voting rights are capped at 26 percent, and RBI can easily reduce that further. (They, in fact, raised it from 15 percent a few years ago) If voting rights are anyhow capped, then why should Kotak dilute stake? The answer, people tell us, is that you have to follow rules. Then yes, hes following rules, because the rule talked about paid-up capital, which has been diluted. Lets not argue about the spirit of the rule. The spirit is already being satisfied by limiting Uday Kotaks voting rights. And it makes no sense that HDFC Bank has 25 percent promoter shareholding and RBI is okay with them. So if you really want spirit of rules, lets apply them to everyone consistently. In all, the new RBI governor needs to take a lenient view and create a less restrictive process for dilution of stake in banks. Keeping stakes below 50 percent and voting rights capped at 20 percent should solve their objective. But Kotaks step of issuing shares without first checking with RBI, and then going to court, is a little reckless as well. Business will go on as usual until theres an amicable resolution and in this case, it seems like RBI will not want to appear as if they are bending to Kotak, so: -Theyll probably insist on the 20 percent but give Kotak some more time -They might constitute a committee to get a better structure for such dilution. In India, more time is spent fighting on silly issues than on doing things better. Perhaps, in that light, the Kotak bank situation is par for the course. The article has been reproduced with permission from Capitalmind. You can read the original article here Yes Bank live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Yes Bank shares gained 3 percent in morning on Friday after a media report suggested that Brahm Dutt could be a part-time Non-executive chairman of the lender. Currently Brahm Dutt is serving as Independent Director of the bank since July 24, 2013. Sources told CNBC-TV18 that Dutt is likely to be the part-time Non-executive Chairman of the private sector lender. In a statement to the exchanges on Thursday, Yes Bank said that their Nomination & Remuneration Committee (N&RC) and board have finalised the recommendation for Non-Executive Part-Time chairman position. The candidate's name will be sent to the Reserve Bank of India. In November, Independent Directors R Chandrashekhar and Vasant Gujarathi, and Non-Executive Chairman Ashok Chawla, resigned from the private lender's board of directors. The board on December 3 approved the appointment of TS Vijayan as an Additional Director (Independent) with immediate effect, and his appointment as Independent Director for a period of five years. The bank said that with Vijayan and another additional independent director Uttam Prakash Agarwal on the board, the number of members on the board stands at eight. Yes Bank said it will decide on the successor of founder Rana Kapoor at its board meeting on January 9. After the meeting, the bank will send the name of the candidate to the Reserve Bank of India. Rana Kapoor's tenure will end on January 31, 2019. The bank, in a statement, said that they are 'on track' to complete the process on time. Human resource consulting firm Korn Ferry is assisting the bank in the selection of the new chief executive officer. Citi said if RBI approves internal candidate as CEO, it will be business as usual, but if external candidate approved then it could be a tricky situation. The research house feels the stock may remain range-bound despite low valuations. At 09:39 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 178.00, up Rs 3.30, or 1.89 percent on the BSE. : The above report is compiled from information available on public platforms. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. Mark D Martin The Indian airline industry is in distress. Carriers are struggling with high fuel costs, falling yields and mounting losses amidst hyper competition. One key reason for this mess is the lack of professionalism in the way most airlines are run. Despite being part of the world's third largest aviation market by revenue, traffic and network, there continues to remain stark, glaring differences in how Indian airlines are run when compared to their rivals abroad. In the United States and Europe, CEOs and boards of air carriers are held more accountable by shareholders, staff, the government and the travelling public. In India, there is an air of laxity. A couple of examples will make this clear. One, despite knowing about the closure of Dubai Airport a year before, no Indian carrier took steps to lobby or put up a case with the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority requesting for change or realignment of landing slots as every other airline that flew into Dubai did. Eventually, nearly all of India's airlines were forced to fly over to Dubai World Central Airport that's outside the city. Second, when oil prices were rising and the rupee was falling, no Indian airline took hedged positions on the fuel or took other preemptive action to ensure that their profits aren't harmed much. Third, the industry as a whole is quite ineffective in lobbying the government. There was hardly any protest when the government chose to impose a 5 percent import duty on jet fuel. These missed opportunities to increase revenues and reduce costs have come back to bite, particularly in Jet Airways' case. The airline is shopping for strategic partners and equity infusions. But its past history shows that mergers and acquisitions, or even joint ventures, arent the best options for survival in the aviation business because the acquirer ends up taking on a bigger burden. We have seen this happen in Jets purchase of Air Sahara and Kingfisher's acquisition of Air Deccan. Even the decision to bring Etihad on board as a partner hasn't benefited Jet all that much. Indeed, the Etihad deal is the worst thing that could have happened to Jet. The strategy of most Middle East carriers is to drive traffic and revenue into their respective hubs and redistribute that traffic thereon. So, what seemed as a simple working capital infusion by Etihad killed Jet Airways' network. It retained mostly flights to South East Asia. A lot of flights, and this, earnings, were diverted to Abu Dhabi (Etihad's hub) through revenue share, code share and partnership agreements. Where does that leave Jet? It has a reported total debt of $1.5 billion, bleeding Rs 15 crore a day. The answer to Jets troubles is clearly improved earnings and higher deployment of seats in the market. It has a robust brand and a formidable network with a fully integrated MRO in the heart of Mumbai, interline contracts and partnership agreements that most are envious of, besides established global sales, marketing and distribution offices with travel partners. Jet has also streamlined its workforce, oil prices have dropped and the peak travel season is on. If Jet is able to take full advantage of these developments and also get some help with working capital or an extended payment cycle with its vendors, that could boost profits. But that is easier said than done. Another option for Jet is to completely realign its operating model, demerge its airline services as separate companies (including JetLite), separate its MRO business and push for an austerity drive including a comprehensive pay-cut for employees in exchange for stock options. Thats exactly what United Airlines did in 1996 and lived to tell the tale. The tough part here is for the management to get the support of employees and shareholders for realigning the operating model that would help make it more lean, fragmented and functional. Weve already started to see bits of what's coming with the airline withdrawing from offering meal services. The point here is that airline restructuring is not new. There are several instances of comprehensive airline restructuring, realignment of products and services and demerging of core revenue verticals within United Airlines, U.S Airways, Delta, Southwest Airlines and Air New Zealand. They are still flying. Maybe it's time we saw that change in our own backyard. Eleven out of 21 listed banks in the country are under Prompt and Corrective Action (PCA) framework of RBI. Large quantum of bad loans, weak capital levels and low return on assets have been the key culprits behind their inclusion in this club. While RBI has been maintaining for long that PCA framework is needed to nurture weak banks to health and prevent systemic risks, of late government has been critical of RBIs approach. PCA thus has turned out to be a contentious issue between the two and now after the change of guard at RBI, it is all set to take a relook at the PCA norms. Is the time ripe to relax these norms in order to permit greater flow of credit or is it too early? The short answer is it may be premature to open the tap unless the weak banks have access to significant amount of capital. What is PCA? In a nutshell, the trigger for coming under PCA is based on performance with respect to capital position, bad assets, profitability and leverage. Source: RBI There are two type of restrictions, mandatory and discretionary. Restrictions on dividend, branch expansion, Directors compensation, are mandatory while discretionary restrictions could include curbs on lending and deposit. So far eleven banks namely Allahabad Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Central Bank, Corporation Bank, Dena Bank, IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, UCO Bank and United Bank of India are under PCA. Government has found an investor for IDBI Bank and a merger of Dena with Bank of Baroda and Vijaya is on the cards. The fate of the rest is still unclear. Do they pass the CAR test? If we look at their capital position, even after the latest round of recapitalisation, it remains close to the threshold for PCA trigger. While RBI has pushed the deadline for reaching Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) of 11.5% (9% CAR plus 2.5% Capital Conservation Buffer (CCB)) to March 2020, looking at the profitability parameters of PCA banks, it doesnt appear that these entities are in a position to comply unless significantly capitalised. Source: Companies It is pertinent to note that only two out of these eleven complies with the current requirement of CAR with CCB of 10.875%. How bad is the bad asset picture? With gross non-performing assets of close to Rs 3.5 lakh crore, they contribute close to 1/3rd of systems gross non-performing assets while their share in total advances is only 16%. Clearly, the underwriting expertise of these banks need an overhaul before going to the market in a meaningful manner. Source: Companies None of the eleven banks are out of the PCA threshold (which is net NPA below 6%). While RBIs February 12 Circular expedited the bad asset recognition process and to some extent the bad asset formation phase is peaking out, given the aggregate provision cover (the amount of provision held against bad assets) of 53% and tardy pace of resolution, caution is warranted. Profitability not yet in sight The profitability picture is dismal too. From FY16 onwards, these banks as a group have reported a net loss every single year. While in FY16 and FY17, two out of eleven had reported profits, weighed down by bad asset recognition, in FY18 none of them reported profits. The aggregate loss in FY18 was in excess of Rs 49,000 crore and they reported a loss of Rs 9872 crore and Rs 10197 crore respectively in Q1 and Q2 of FY19. Going by the criteria of RoA (return on assets), seven out of eleven banks had negative RoA for three consecutive years and two had negative RoA for two consecutive years. Can they recoup lost market share without denting asset quality? With waning system wide NPA (non performing asset) formation, in all likelihood the earnings picture would incrementally look better. But the moot question that needs to be answered is can these banks capture lost market share in the competitive market place? Lest, a relaxation at this stage will only prompt them to take exposure to lower quality credit thereby exacerbating the problem. Such lending would warrant more capital (because of higher risk weight) and could lead to resurfacing of the bad asset problem in future. In the period between FY15 to FY18, the eleven PCA banks as a group has not shown any growth in deposits and individually only four have grown deposits in low single digit. The picture is even more dismal in advances, where some of the well capitalised private banks have been aggressively garnering market share. The group has shown de-growth in advances to the tune of 5% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) with not a single entity showing growth. This isnt quite a bad news for the system because if they had grown their books over this period, the size of the problem could have been even bigger warranting larger dose of capital infusion. Does the system warrant incremental/directed lending by PCA banks? Finally, does the system warrant incremental lending by weaker entities when the incremental credit to deposit ratio is running above 100% and credit growth is running ahead of nominal GDP? Lending, at the end of the day, should be a commercial decision and is a sole prerogative of the individual entities, it is better left that way in the broader interest of the system. IRB Infrastructure Developers | In 2020 so far, the share price has moved up 76 percent to Rs 131.20. It's trailing twelve months (TTM) P/E was 6.40 multiple while 5-year average P/E was 8.30 multiple. Realty firm Shriram Properties on Friday said it has appointed five independent directors to its board, including retired home secretary Anil Goswami. The new independent directors who have joined the board are T S Vijayan (former chairman of LIC as well as IRDA), Anita Kapur (former chairperson of CBDT), K G Krishnamurthy (MD, HDFC Property Ventures), Professor R Vaidyanathan (retired professor of finance, IIM-B) and Anil Goswami (retired home secretary), the company said in a statement. The board also elected M Murali as the chairman and managing director of the company. The new board comprise nine members, including two investor nominees and five independent directors. Murali said the new board would add value to the company's endeavours, as it embarks on the next phase of growth. "We will leverage their experience to further strengthen our governance and managing systems." Shriram Properties is part of the Shriram Group, which is a prominent business group with four decades of operating history and a well-recognised brand in India. Sonia Dhawan's lawyer has filed a fresh petition in Surajpur district court for her bail. In the appeal, he has stressed upon the instance of Rohit Chomwal, one of the four accused managing to get a stay on his arrest from the Allahabad High Court. Chomwal had allegedly made extortion calls to Paytm's founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and his brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma. It was only after his tip that Dhawan, her husband Rupak Jain and an admin resource of Paytm, Devender Kumar were arrested for allegedly being a part of the extortion bid. Giving a reference of a 1994 case of Joginder Kumar Versus state of Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabad High Court on November 12 directed that Chomwal, shall not be arrested, till credible evidence was collected by the investigation officer during investigation. "It is an important aspect. We have included it in the fresh bail appeal," Satish Kumar, Dhawan's lawyer told Moneycontrol. He had withdrawn her bail application following the chargesheet filed by the Noida Police on December 11. The bail hearing will take place on January 2, 2019. Noida Police chargesheeted Dhawan, Jain, Dvender Kumar and Chomwal in this case earlier this month. The four were charged under Act - 381, 384, 386, 420, 120B and 66 in the first information report (FIR). These include -- theft by clerk or servant of property, extortion, criminal conspiracy, sending offensive messages through communication service. The charges levied in the chargesheet are the same that were mentioned in the FIR. Basis the chargesheet, the court will have the first trial on December 17. Also Read: Paytm data theft case: Stay order on Chomwal's arrest may make it easier for Sonia Dhawan, husband to get bail Jain whose bail appeal was rejected by the district court has now filed the bail petition in the Allahabad High Court. The hearing for the same is likely to happen in the first week of January. At the core of each indictment is a common theme: That much of todays violence is being driven not by sophisticated drug trafficking enterprises but by gang factions trying to boost their groups reputation, creating a seemingly endless cycle of shootings and retaliation. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Share price of Premier Explosives surged 15 percent intraday Friday after company bagged an order worth USD 41,000. The company received an order from an Israel company for design, development, fabrication and assembly of Rocket Motors. The amount of order is USD 41,000 and is to be executed in six months. This is a trial order having potential for regular commercial supplies in due course of time. The share touched its 52-week high Rs 536.25 and 52-week low Rs 160.00 on 08 January, 2018 and 11 October, 2018, respectively. Currently, it is trading 50.18 percent below its 52-week high and 66.97 percent above its 52-week low. At 09:37 hrs Premier Explosives was quoting at Rs 267.15, up Rs 30.35, or 12.82 percent on the BSE. President Donald Trump with China's President Xi Jinping during their bilateral meeting. (AP/PTI) President Donald Trump on December 14 said a major US-China trade deal could emerge in the near future, saying that China's position has been weakened by the economic impact of the tariffs war. "China wants to make a big and very comprehensive deal. It could happen, and rather soon!" he tweeted. Trump said that China's decision to back off from new tariffs on cars and auto parts reflected the pain inflicted by the United States in its trade war. "China just announced that their economy is growing much slower than anticipated because of our Trade War with them. They have just suspended US Tariff Hikes. US is doing very well," Trump said. Earlier on December 14, China halted extra punitive duties that had been imposed this summer. They now fall from 40 percent to 15 percent -- the same rate imposed on all foreign-made vehicles. New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addresses a press conference on Cabinet meeting, in New Delhi, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. (PTI Photo/Vijay Verma) (PTI11_22_2018_000037B) Finance Minster Arun Jaitley on Friday dubbed allegations on the Rafale jet deal as "fiction writing" that compromised national security, after the Supreme Court dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets. In an apparent attack on Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who has been alleging corruption in the purchase of the fighter jets, Jaitley said "disrupters" have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country. Falsehood is bound to fall apart and it has, Jaitley said, adding that if honest deals are questioned, then civil servants and armed forces will think twice before undertaking such a process in future. Buoyed by the verdict, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who addressed a press conference along with Jaitley said the matter of Rafale deal has been put to rest through the apex court's order. Jaitley said every figure cited by Gandhi in his allegations has been false. He said the government would again press for a debate on the issue in Parliament. He claimed that there has been a tradition in democracies across the world of leaders quitting their positions when their lies are caught. "Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Allegations on Rafale was fiction writing that was compromising national security," Jaitley said. To a question about the Congress demand of Joint parliamentary Probe (JPC) into the deal, he said only judicial body can carry out such an investigation as there has been experience in the past of JPCs working on partisan lines. The SC verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope of any doubt on the deal, he said. In relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. Donald Trump President Donald Trump calls India a "true friend", a top American diplomat has said as she highlighted the steps taken by the US over the last two years to strengthen its ties with India for the benefit of a broader Indo Pacific region. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice Wells' remarks came at a farewell reception hosted by the State Department in honour of the outgoing Indian Ambassador to the US, Navtej Singh Sarna. "President Trump calls India a true friends and Secretary (of State Mike) Pompeo has characterise the US-India bilateral relationship as one deeply bound by our shared values," she said. Top officials of the State Department and the White House were present at the farewell reception for Sarna held at the historic Blair House, which is the official guest house of the US President. It is quite rare that the Blair House is used for a State Department farewell reception for an outgoing diplomat. The US tenure of Sarna, who is retiring from Indian foreign service after an illustrious career of 38 years, has been extraordinary, Wells told the select audience. Sarna took charge as India's ambassador to the US on November 5, 2016. "Over the last two years, we have been able to host Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi here in Washington for a successful summit with President Trump," Wells said. During Sarna's tenure, the two countries have inaugurated a new 2 +2 Dialogue to elevate their cooperation on security and strategic priorities for the benefit of their people and for the benefit of a broader Indo Pacific region where the leadership of the two nations matters so much. "Under your leadership in our countries have negotiated and finalised a landmark communications compatibility and security agreement, which makes our military cooperation more profound and advanced. We have also taken significant steps to build on India's status as a US major defense partner, including elevating India to strategic trade authorization, tier one status, Wells said. "In your engagements with Americans across the country and also with the more than three million Indian Americans and this incredibly vibrant business leaders, the students, the technologist, the artist, you really helped bring our people in other countries together," she said as she praised Sarna. Sarn said that the successful visit of Prime Minister Modi in June 2017 was the high point of his term here in Washington DC. "The fact that the outcomes were so strong from the visit, the personal chemistry between Prime Minister Modi and President trump was so, so evident and the joint statement that we came out with really set the chart for the months to follow," the Indian Ambassador said. Listing some of the major highlights of his posting in US, Sarna said "today we can look back on and say that, well, yes, we are truly strategic global partners". "We have found a huge amount of understanding for our political space, for our strategic autonomy, for the needs of our economy, for our role, for our taking into account our art history and our regional position vis a vis several other countries," he said. "I think this entire process of building the bilateral relationship has been to work with each other to find while each country fulfils its national objectives the US as well as India at the same time, we find ways and means of growing together," he said. Jet Airways owes banks nearly Rs 8,000 crore. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has ordered a forensic audit of Jet Airways' books, which has been grappling with financial woes for many months, for the period between April 2014 and March 2018, according to sources in the bank. The State Bank, which is the lead banker to the airlines' over Rs 8,000 crore loans, has mandated EY to conduct the forensic audit of its books, which has already began the process, the sources added. The airline has been struggling to keep afloat following three consecutive quarterly losses of over Rs 1,000 crore each. The bank's action comes at a time when the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline is in talks with potential investors to raising funds to tide over the liquidity crisis. "...it was decided to conduct a forensic audit of the accounts of Jet Airways for the period April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2018," SBI sources said. When contacted, an SBI spokesperson declined comments saying, "it's the policy of the bank not to comment on individual accounts." Emails sent for confirmation from the airline and EY also did not elicit immediate responses. The audit was ordered following a complaint of alleged financial irregularities in Jet Airways accounts by a whistle blower, the sources said. "The forensic audit has been mandated to E&Y LLP and the firm has already started the process," the sources said. In August, government had ordered an inspection of books and papers of the airline. The outcome of the probe, however, is awaited. Besides, there were also reports about alleged siphoning of funds to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore by the promoter Goyal. With three back-to-back quarterly losses and a net debt of Rs 8,052 crore as of September 2018, the airline is working on ways to raise funds and reduce costs. The cash crunch has been so bad that it has paying salaries in tranches for months now. Last month, chief executive officer Vinay Dube had said the airline was in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing. The Mumbai-based airline in which Ethihad Airways also owns 24 percent, is negotiating a deal with the Gulf carrier to offload another 25 percent holding, to mop up funds. Last month, there were talks that the Tatas were interested in buying out the Goyals from the airline and merge it its airline Vistara. But a board meeting of Tata Sons in mid-November had said the group was only at preliminary. December 15, 2018 / 03:48 PM IST Rajasthan had gone for polling in a single phase election on December 7. A political party needs to win at least 100 seats to secure a simple majority in the Legislative Assembly. Term of the current Assembly ends on January 20, 2019. For more than 20 years, chief ministers of Rajasthan have been seeing the revolving door. None of the chief ministers in this period of time has managed Rafale jet The Supreme Court on December 14 dismissed all petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal. The apex court further said that the government broadly followed all necessary processes while signing the deal with France. It added that there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said there has been a necessity of fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without fighter jets. The Supreme Court's verdict comes in response to a number of petitions filed by Advocate ML Sharma, Vineet Dhanda and AAP leader Sanjay Singh, among others, for a court-monitored probe into the deal. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force's 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. With inputs from PTI... Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot After several rounds of discussions on selecting the chief minister of Rajasthan, top contenders for the post, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, reached the residence of party chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday for a final settlement on the issue. According to sources, both Gehlot and Pilot were called by the Congress president for an amicable settlement to the issue amid a clear fight between the old and the young guard in the party. Sources said former Union minister and party leader from Rajasthan Jitendra Singh met Pilot earlier in the day and then met Gandhi. Party's central observer for Rajasthan K C Venugopal and AICC general secretary in-charge of party affairs in the state Avinash Pande were also present at Gandhi's residence during the discussions. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was present during the resolution of the issue in Madhya Pradesh between Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, was present at Gandhi's residence Friday, though she left ahead of a meeting with Gehlot and Pilot. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, when asked about the differences within the Rajasthan unit, denied it and said a due process of consultation was on. "There is no dispute or difference within the Congress units on chief minister's post in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh," he told reporters here. "Be it Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh, a due process of discussions is on among the leaders so that we can form a good government. Madhya Pradesh has been decided and chief minister's issue will be decided for Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in a day or two also," he said. Sources said the issue would be resolved Friday itself and the announcement would be made at the Congress Legislature Party meeting. CNN-News 18 In an interview to CNN-News 18, Kamal Nath, the new Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, tells how this role is going to be the biggest challenge he will face in his four-decade-long political career. Edited excerpts: Q. Only yesterday you said that this is a milestone in your political career. You are a seasoned politician, a 9-time MP and a former Union Commerce minister. So, why do you see this as a milestone in your political career? This is my first experience in the state and that is why it is a milestone. I consider this to be perhaps my biggest challenge till date. Being a minister in the Centre is very different from being CM in the state. In the state, you encompass everything. There is such a wide spectrum of experience and knowledge that is required Q. So the next five years, how are you looking at the Congress party's prospects in Madhya Pradesh? The first challenge is the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The people of the state have seen the writing on the wall. Every section of the society is in distress. There are challenges with the finances of the state. The state is bankrupt and we have to find out how we can tighten our belt and cost-cutting measures we need to undertake. The whole economy of the state has to be looked at differently. Around 70% of the people are indirectly or directly connected with agriculture. They may not be farmers, but the shopkeeper's fortune in the village depends on the purchasing power of the farmer. The tractor driver is also dependent on agriculture. So, across the state, we've got to put the economy in a proper perspective. We are not an industrial state. Our effort will be to look at the economy in a completely different way. Q. Talking specifically about the promises you made on farm loan waivers, have you set a timeline? I clearly remember Rahul Gandhi telling that if if people of Madhya Pradesh vote for Congress, then they would implememt their farm loan waiver policy in 10 days. So when is that 10th day going to come for Kamal Nath? The tenth day is the tenth day. Our manifesto says that within 10 days and there is a reason and a logic behind this. A farmer is born in debt. He dies in debt and he is such an important component of our economy that unless we put him on a better anvil, the agricultural sector will never improve. So, the farm loan waiver is very important. If the banks can waive off, can take a haircut, can waive off 50% of the loans to business houses, why can't it be done for farmers? Q. But people say it is bad economics because the state of Madhya Pradesh may not be in a position to go ahead with this scheme. Did you make a tall promise which will be difficult to implement? It is not bad economics. All those who say bad economics don't know economics and do not know the state. They also do not understand this country. It is very easy to sit in drawing rooms and make these comments. If you are waiving off loans for the business community, that is good economics and when you waive off 50 per cent of farmer loans, it is bad economics? I don't understand this. I would want to ask the banks that you do this for industry, for business and this is all transparent. It is all on the internet how much the banks have waived off loans for industry and business houses. They have taken a haircut of 40-50% in cases. This was not a part of our manifesto. It became a part of our manifesto later. I had gone to a district and in the rallies I saw how badly the cows were being treated. When I started my speech, I said that I saw this happening and I was very disturbed by it. So, it has nothing to do with manifesto. I had announced this three months before our manifesto was released. So, it is a part of our manifesto and I think with the deep respect that we have for cows, it is important to have a gaushala in every panchayat. What is religious about it? It is our sentiment, it is our belief. There is nothing wrong in it. The BJP will say it is Hindutva but are they the authority of the Hindu religion? Have they taken up distribution of Hindu religion? We are as religious as them. Q. Talking specifically about what you're saying right now. I had done your interview before the election. Then you had said that the BJP doesn't have the distributorship of the Hindu religion. Do you think this is the way forward for the Congress party and re-define their understanding of Hindusim? We're not redefining anything. I have my own religious beliefs. Four days ago, I went to Kedarnath. I have built the biggest Hanuman temple in Madhya Pradesh but I never publicised it. We don't use religion as a political base. That's what the BJP does and that is the difference. Now, whenever we visit the temples, unfortunately, the media shows it as if we're doing something strange. I go to Kedarnath, Vaishno Devi, Tirupati on a regular basis. But, today if I start doing it, the media will say I am endorsing Hindutva. Q. Will you be carrying forward the work done by Shivraj Singh Chouhan or will you be undoing it? I will have to see. Whatever is working, whatever is good for the people, I have to check. It is just not about having a scheme. It is seeing the delivery system. If the system leads to such leakage of funds, I don't want such a scheme. Q. What about the Vyapam scam? I have already announced that we will set up a People's Commission to investigate into all the scandals and all the corruption of the previous BJP government. It is not about seeking political vendetta. Q. Are you ready to give credit to your predecessor that he managed to bring out Madhya Pradesh from the 'BIMARU' state category? Madhya Pradesh is number one in farmer suicides, unemployment and rape cases. Is this not BIMARU? So just saying that we have come out of that category is akin to fooling people. Q. How do you think the narrative of rural distress played out, especially keeping in mind Mandsaur? A constituency has its own characteristics. We may have got your caste equations wrong or put up a a wrong candidate. There is nothing to do with people. What happened in other places? The rural distress came to the fore. We were competing with the organisational strength of the BJP and their money power. Q. How will it be possible for you to translate the kind of numbers that you managed in this election in 2019? It is very clear that when we talk about Modi;s popularity, people have started to understand it. We must understand that people in this country are simple and poor but are not fools. They do not want to be tugged. The moment they feel tugged, they will vote against you and this is what the people are feeling after the 2014 elections verdict. Q. Are you satisfied with the final tally in Chhattisgarh? I am not satisfied with the 114 seats we have got. We have lost in particular areas where we did not expect to lose. We couldn't match the BJP's organisational skills and money power. But we will overcome our shortcomings. Q. Are you satisfied with the strategy of not going for a pre-poll alliance with the BSP? An alliance is there to defeat an opponent. But, what did we see this time? We saw that BSP's vote share has come down. So, when we talk about alliances, we have to look at it from a point of view that it is going to be a win-win situation for both. Q. You had a formidable opponent in Shivraj and the entire machinery of RSS that was working against you. How did you manage this number? The BJP had a slogan, Ab ki baar, 200 par. They had this slogan in Gujarat, Ab ki baar, 250 paar and they couldn't even reach 100. All these slogans mean nothing. Of course, the BJP's organisational machinery is very strong and we have to continue building it up. I built whatever I could in the 6-7 months I got. Now, we have to strengthen it. How did you manage to achieve that feat? It was an enormous task rebuilding the organisation at the village, block and district levels. We successfully did it to a point but more improvement needs to be done. Then, we went to various other social organisations, reached out to government employees and social organisations so that they could understand the message of the Congress. All I would tell them is the picture is in front of you. See the truth and go and vote for the truth. Q. I remember very distinctly that you were of the opinion that a number of your party MLAs were not being given certificates despite having won the elections. How will you manage a very, very hostile administration in many ways? Many administrative changes will have to be made and I am going to make them. I am going to ensure it is based on efficiency, honesty and keeping our institutional arrangements intact. You cannot destroy India's institutional strength. India is a complex country and the complexities are so profound that perhaps no other country has. These complexities have to be sustained by institutional strengths. Our constitutional institutions and even the non-constitutional institutions we have is got to be held together by that. That is what I want to put together because we've completely broken down. You are seeing in the central government, the RBI is divided, CBI is divided and society is being divided. This is now what India is all about and this is not which can be sustained in 10 days. After you won the state, it took 48 hours for the Congress leadership to finally announce your name. What was the hiccup? There were consultations, there were no big hiccups. We had the results which came a day before yesterday morning. The results came on the 11th night between 9 pm to midnight and from midnight to 5 pm. Some results were announced at 3 am on the 12th and today is only the 14th. The Congress decided this on 13th evening. How long did the BJP take in Maharashtra? They took about 8 days. How long did they take in Himachal Pardesh? How long did they take in UP? In fact, we have done it faster than what has happened in 5-10 years. Q. What will be Jyotiraditya Scindia's role in your govt? Everybody is a participant in the functioning and formation of the government. We all have to work together and we have worked together in the last 7-8 months and we will work together in the future because everybody has a role to play. Q. In Rajasthan, things were not looking normal. We have seen supporters of Sachin Pilot burn tyres and block roads. Is this the correct way of choosing your leader? Sometimes, emotions run stray but this is temporary. We don't have any of these kinds of things in Madhya Pradesh. Yesterday, it was Mr. Scindia who proposed my name as the leader of the legislative party. So, we don't have these issues in M.P. We are together and we will remain together. Before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, is there going to be some pre-poll alliance with BSP & SP ? The BJP is in power because of the fragmentation of votes and we must remember that the BJP in 2014 polled 31% of the votes. That means almost 70% of the people of this country voted against the BJP and the BJP announced to the world that we have a national mandate. Perhaps, it is the only political party in the world which got 31% of the vote and said we have a national mandate. We have to stop this fragmentation. We will have to build alliances and that is what I am looking forward to doing. Leaders from different states are working, coordinating with the other for this purpose. Before you went for this poll, BJP had built this narrative of strong leaders like Shivraj, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje against a collective leadership of Congress. Do you think that narrative of strong vs collective leadership stands defeated and the Opposition does not have the burden of selecting PM Modi's replacement in 2019? We did not have a CM's face in Madhya Pradesh. You had these leaders, who you call big and strong. What happened to them in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan? In the end, we must recognise that the people of this country are looking for delivery. They are looking for promises to be kept. Take demonetisation for example. It was a disaster. They have misconceived GST. It has caused so much distress to people. We have more farmer suicides in India than the whole of Africa. So, this is the state of affairs in this country. Q. In Madhya Pradesh saw a close-finish. Do you think BJP gained momentum after PM Modi's rallies in the state? I don't think Mr. Modi made any difference. He came to my own district and I had the privilege of having Mr. Modi in my district. I also had the privilege of having Mr. Amit Shah, Mr. Fadnavis and Mr. Gadkari in my district. They failed to win one seat in my district and lost by huge margins. Are you saying that the Modi magic or the Modi factor had no role to play in these elections and it was only the Congress leadership taking on Shivraj Singh Chouhan? People trusted Mr. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party. BJP failed to succeed despite their machinery, publicity and planning They got hammered in Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan and lost in Madhya Pradesh. They've come down from 160 odd seats to 108. What does that demonstrate? It says that Mr. Modi is no longer a vote getting factor. It says that the local leadership is no longer getting votes. Q. The popular vote is still with Shivraj. You had a greater conversion. So do you see this as a major loss for him as the BJP seems to believe that there was not a clean wave for the Congress party like in Chhattisgarh? We had little time and I think playing around these numbers does not illustrate anything. They got a 0.1% lead over us. But what is it? If you would have taken out two districts from this, we would have overtaken them. For instance: You can take out Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan's voting percentage and you take out some other voting percentage. Thye've got less votes than us. So, these holistic figures that are presented in terms of average, in terms of total votes are misleading. We should look at it, district by district, constituency by constituency. When you look at it, constituency by constituency, you will get a very different picture that how the BJP's vote share has gone down. But if I were to ask you, what is the one big challenge for Kamal Nath when he takes oath on 17th? It will be putting the state's finances in order. Our system of governance also needs to change. We have a system for the last 70 years that has not changed. We have to ensure our delivery system improves. But most important is that we're bankrupt. The BJP government has left the state bankrupt. We've got to get into cost-cutting mode and see how will we raise new resources without hurting the people. We have to do a lot of out-of-the box thinking. From Indira Gandhi to Sanjay Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi & Rahul Gandhi, it's been several generation of Gandhis that Kamal Nath has worked with. Who have you been comfortable working with? Can you rate these leaders on the basis of your own equation with them? Each one has a different style and each one was in a different period. It was in a different age, period, world and in a different India. Sanjay Gandhi was in a different age of India. Mrs. Indira Gandhi was in a different era and had her own style. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi was launching India into the 21st century. That was a different period. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi came in when we had Mr. Vajpayee as the PM. She made him sit at home. Now, Mr. Rahul Gandhi will make Modi sit at home. Q. Will you return to Delhi after your stint as CM in Madhya Pradesh? I have spent enough time in Delhi. I was first a minister in 1991. Now, I want to serve my own state. Pinarayi Vijayan The Madras High Court on December 14 dismissed a petition by Hindu Makkal Katchi seeking a direction to police to allow black flag demonstrations against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during his visit to the city on December 16. Vijayan is scheduled to participate in a function to unveil the statue of late DMK chief M Karunanidhi at the party headquarters here in which UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will also take part. When the petition by Arjun Sampath, leader of Hindu Makkal Katchi, a fringe outfit, came up before Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, the government counsel submitted that the demonstration is against the Supreme Court order which allowed women of all age groups to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala and would create law and order problems. Hence, permission for the demonstration was rejected by the city police commissioner, the counsel said. An application was filed before the commissioner by the HMK seeking permission to show black flags to Vijayan at the airport and Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters here to protest the Kerala government's decision to implement the top court's verdict on the Sabarimala issue. The HMK approached the court after Sampath's application to stage black flag protests against the Kerala chief minister was rejected by the police commissioner. Underwood said the issue that brought her to run for Congress was that somebody shouldnt come in and take our health care away. But she said people should be active whatever the issue is for you. Kamlendra Kanwar Madhya Pradeshs chief minister-in-waiting Kamal Nath who will be succeeding Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJPs) Shivraj Singh Chouhan who served three eventful terms as chief minister will begin his innings with a controversial past that could haunt him and the Congress in time to come. Nath doubtlessly has a wealth of experience having been elected a Member of Parliament nine times since his entry into politics in 1980; but he is tainted by his alleged role in the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in the wake of Indira Gandhis assassination. On the eve of his selection when it seemed certain that Nath had stolen a march over the other strong contender Jyotiraditya Scindia, through informal consultations of party observers with newly-elected legislators, pressure was brought to bear on Congress President Rahul Gandhi to think hard whether Naths selection would dent the partys image and therefore its prospects in Punjab and Delhi where Sikhs are in substantial numbers. In characteristic style, the BJP chipped in, calling upon Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to quit if Nath is foisted by Rahul as CM. Bravado and posturing apart, there is little cheer for the beleaguered BJP though there is hope of future dividends if Naths style of governance falters. With elections to Lok Sabha less than six months away, it is indeed quite conceivable that Sikhs across the country, especially in Punjab and Delhi, could be angered by his selection. However, Rahul did not want to look as though he was dilly-dallying and stuck to his guns. In any event, it would be uncharacteristic for Congressmen to be seen defying his diktat in the open. It was not as though in the intervening 34 years since the riots the police had pressed any charges against Nath, but the veteran Congressman was stumped because of the fact that he had spent two crucial hours outside Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in New Delhi at a time when two Sikhs were lynched by a mob outside the gurudwara baying for blood for the killing of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh security guards. Sure enough, Nath acknowledged that he was on the scene; further it was inferred that as a party MP, he was leading the murderous mob. Time and again there were demands for Nath being brought within the ambit of investigation and while the Congress weathered those, the taint had stuck. Even as memories were fading, a book by senior journalist Manoj Mitta and prominent lawyer HS Phoolka, released in 2007, added fuel to the Nath controversy when it pointed out that then police commissioner Subhash Tandon and additional commissioner Gautam Kaul corroborated the presence of Nath at the scene. In June 2016, Nath was compelled to resign as party in-charge for Punjab after his appointment to the key post provoked controversy. The Shiromani Akali Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party called for his ouster. There can be little doubt that Naths detractors and the BJP in particular would raise their pitch against Naths appointment to a crescendo in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. However, while the Delhi electorate is groping on whether to jettison Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab seems to be firmly in Singhs grip as of now. There is another dimension to Naths communal fulminations. It has to do with his address to a group of Muslims in his Chhindwara constituency where he pleaded with them to vote en bloc for the Congress if they wanted the party to win the assembly elections. Evidently, that would not have gone down well with many, but the anti-establishment mood catapulted the party to power. How Kamal Naths indiscretions would be viewed in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections by the majority community could prove tricky for him and the Congress. A lot would, of course, depend on how he governs and how much he honours the promises that the party made, especially those to farmers and the urban youth. Kamlendra Kanwar is a senior journalist. Views are personal. Amit Shah_BJP Buoyed by the Supreme Court dismissing all petitions asking for a probe into the Rafale deal, BJP president Amit Shah Friday said the order is a slap on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's politics of lies and asked him to apologise to the country and its soldiers for putting national security at risk. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, the court said on Friday. It is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing, it stated. Shah asserted that the apex court order "exposes" the campaign of misinformation of the Congress chief. Stating that his party was ready for discussion on this issue, Shah challenged the Congress to debate the issue in Parliament. "I welcome SC order on Rafale. The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk," Shah said at a press conference at the party office here. He also hit out at Gandhi for taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying the "chowkidar" is a thief. "All thieves had gathered to call the 'chowkidar' a thief, but the country never believed it," Shah told reporters. For the sake of his own credibility, Gandhi should reveal the source of information on which he based his false allegations on the Rafale deal, Shah said. He added that the Supreme Court has also made it clear that there is nothing wrong with the offset partner. Earlier in the day, Shah addressed the issue in series of tweets, saying the court didn't find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. "On the contrary, the SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals," he said. "Truth always triumphs! Court's judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains," he added on Twitter. The apex court's order raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India, he asserted. The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) is yet to submit its investigation report to the government on diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi with regard to multi-crore Punjab National Bank scam, Parliament was informed on Friday. A multi-agency probe is already underway into the fraud, which was mainly perpetrated by way of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs). The ministry has ordered investigation into the affairs of of 114 entities directly or indirectly associated with jewellers Nirav Modi, Ami Modi and Mehul Choksi in February 2018 and assigned the same to SFIO with most of the entities having their registered offices in Mumbai, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs P P Chaudhary said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. "SFIO has not yet submitted the investigation report to the central government," he added. Modi and Choksi are the alleged kingpins behind the Rs 13,000 crore fraud at Punjab National Bank. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's clean chit to the Narendra Modi government in procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. "Satyamev Jayate (truth alone triumphs)," tweeted Parrikar who was Defence Minister when the Indian and French governments signed an agreement to purchase the planes from Dassault. Earlier Friday, the court also dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar deal. On the issue of offset partner, the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, said there was no substantial evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity. The top court said there has been a necessity for fighter aircraft and the country cannot remain without jets. Allowed | Health services (Image: Moneycontrol) India's second-largest emergency medical services provider Ziqitza Healthcare is planning to raise around $40 million from private equity investors. The company said it is in talks with investors from India and abroad, and is looking to close the deal by April 2019. Ziqitza runs 108 emergency ambulances, 102 ambulances to transport pregnant women and mobile medical units (MMU) in seven states under public private partnership model. The company also operates pay-for-use private ambulance service under dial 1298, in addition to providing outsourced ambulance fleets to hospitals and corporates. Currently Ziqitza operates across 16 states in India and recently launched a private ambulance service in UAE. The company, which started operations in 2005 raised two rounds of funding so far. In 2007 it raised Rs 7 crore from US-based Acumen Fund and further $3 million in 2010 from Acumen, IDFC and True North. The company plans to use the proceeds of proposed fund raise for setting up 108, 102 and MMU operations in more states, grow pay-for-use and ambulance outsourcing services; and expand operations in Gulf region. Ziqitza operates around 3,200 ambulances and employs about 9100 people. It owns more than a one-third of the ambulances, the rest were given by the government or taken on lease from third parties. The company is also allowing private owners to operate their ambulances using its platform on lines of cab hailing services Ola and Uber. "We are growing at 30-40 percent per year," said Manish Sacheti, Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of Ziqitza. "There will be lot of working capital requirement to fund the growth," Sacheti added. Sacheti expects Ziqitza to end FY19 with Rs 450 crore revenues and for FY20 he says the company is targeting Rs 700 crore. The growth will be primarily driven by company winning new PPP contracts from state governments. Many of them including UP, Karnataka, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, among others will be coming up with tenders to select vendors to operate emergency medical services in their respective states. Ziqitza competes with Hyderabad-based GVK-EMRI and Pune-based BVG in tenders. GVK-EMRI is by far the biggest emergency medical services company in India. EU leaders agreed on December 13 to step up preparations for Britain crashing out of the bloc next March without a deal, with the European Commission to publish a plan next week. At a summit in Brussels, the leaders of the 27 EU member states called for work on "contingency preparedness" -- Brussels jargon for no-deal planning -- to be intensified. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he would publish no-deal planning details on December 19, urging Britain to clarify what it wants from the EU. "Because we are in a debate that is sometimes nebulous and imprecise, I would like some clarifications," Juncker said after summit talks. "As we don't know what the collective reactions will be -- of the 27 or of the UK -- the commission will publish on December 19 all the information that is generally useful for the preparation of no deal". British Prime Minister Theresa May had come to Brussels hoping for concessions that would help her sell her Brexit deal to sceptical MPs back home. But the summit statement on Brexit gave her meagre pickings, insisting bluntly that the withdrawal agreement struck last month after lengthy negotiations "is not open for renegotiation". The final five-point statement issued after talks among the EU 27 that followed a question-and-answer session with May offered the British PM considerably less than earlier drafts. Gone are a reassurance that the so-called Irish backstop -- a Brexiteer bugbear -- will be in place for only a short period and a pledge to "examine whether any further assurance can be provided" to help May get the deal through parliament. Mahinda Rajapaksa Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has said he will choose a new Prime Minister and Cabinet by Monday, but vowed never to reappoint Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose ouster sparked an unprecedented political crisis in the country. His remarks came after Sri Lanka's Supreme Court December 13 unanimously ruled that the dissolution of Parliament by Sirisena was "illegal". After the verdict, a special meeting of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) was held at the Presidential Secretariat last night chaired by Sirisena. Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed as the prime minister by Sirisena after sacking Wickremesinghe, also attended the meeting, Colombo Page reported. The president at the meeting said that he would accept the verdict of the Supreme Court on the dissolution of parliament, but he will never rule again with Wickremesinghe. Sirisena said that he decided to dissolve Parliament to prevent destruction of the country by the Wickremesinghe-led United National Party (UNP), the report said. The President has said that he is committed to strengthen the anti-UNP camp and asked the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs not to propose forming a government with the UNP again. President Sirisena has said that he will make a decision on appointing a Prime Minister after receiving the Supreme Court ruling on the appeal filed by Rajapaksa against the Court of Appeal's interim injunction order preventing him and 49 ministers of the purported government from functioning. Sirisena's decision on October 26 to sack Wickremesinghe and install former Rajapaksa in his place sparked a constitutional crisis in the country. Later, he also dissolved the 225-member Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. Sirisena, 67, sacked the Parliament when it appeared that Rajapaksa would not be able to muster the support of 113 MPs to gain a simple majority. Wickremesinghe on the other hand commands a majority in the House. On Wednesday, Wickremesinghe proved his majority in Parliament, with 117 out of 225 lawmakers in Parliament voting to pass a confidence motion in his leadership. Rajapaksa has so far failed to prove his majority in Parliament. As many as 13 petitions were filed in the Supreme Court against Sirisena's November 9 order sacking the Parliament, almost 20 months before its term was to end. Wickremesinghe has held his ground without leaving his official residence, saying his dismissal was illegal. He said the 19th amendment to the Constitution had made Sirisena powerless to remove a sitting prime minister. Prior to the crisis, Wickremesinghe had the backing of 106 parliamentarians while Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine had the backing of 95 lawmakers. Oman will be cutting oil output by 2 percent from January for an initial period of six months, according to a letter sent to customers of Omani oil by the country's oil and gas ministry, which was seen by Reuters. The output reduction is in implementation of a agreement by The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC crude exporters to reduce global supply, the letter said. Oman is not a member of OPEC. OPEC and its Russia-led allies agreed last week to slash oil production by more than the market had expected despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to reduce the price of crude. The US Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end US military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis. In a historic move, Senators voted 56-41 to end US military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's civil war. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the world's most dire human crisis, with the country on the brink of famine. It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw US forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the president's ability to commit US forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval. Seven of Trump's fellow Republicans joined Senate Democrats to back the measure. Immediately after the Yemen vote, the Senate backed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi's murder and insisting that Saudi Arabia hold accountable anyone responsible for his death. Khashoggi, a US resident who was a columnist for the Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The Senate vote, which was unanimous, puts pressure on House leaders to allow a vote on the Khashoggi resolution this month, before Congress adjourns for the year. "Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear," said Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the resolution. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government and the prince, despite a CIA assessment it was likely he ordered Khashoggi's killing. He promised to veto the war powers resolution. Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to take any action to disrupt the strategic US relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close US ally Israel. Administration officials also see Saudi support as a linchpin for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan yet to be unveiled by the Trump administration. And they have argued that ending US support could complicate Yemen peace talks. 'SHARED STRATEGIC INTERESTS' Asked to comment on the Khashoggi resolution, a White House spokesperson noted sanctions imposed on 17 Saudis over the killing and said, "Our shared strategic interests with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remain, and we continue to view as achievable the twin imperatives of protecting America and holding accountable those responsible for the killing." But backers of the resolutions, including some Republicans, promised to press ahead. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators promised to push in the new Congress legislation for humanitarian sanctions and a ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. "What's next is to do everything possible to demand that the House of Representatives do what the members of the House want done, an opportunity to vote on this," Senator Bernie Sanders told Reuters. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he would bring the resolution up again after the new Congress convenes in January, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives. The measure could pass the Senate again, given the bipartisan support it received on Thursday, even though Trump's Republicans will have a larger majority in the upper chamber next year. "I think we're going to win in the Senate and I think we are going to do what the American people want, that is to end our participation in this horrific and destructive war," Sanders said. There was no immediate word from House leadership on whether they would allow a vote on either resolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who briefed House members on Thursday, urged senators during a briefing last month to keep supporting the Saudi-led coalition. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said her members supported congressional action. "There certainly is an appetite in our caucus for that," Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House Speaker, told reporters. Yemen's warring parties agreed on Thursday to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. TPG Telecom Limiteds [ASX:TPM] share price has taken a significant hit at the beginning of trading this morning, plummeting 14.60% to $6.61 per share. The fall in price comes on the back of concerns raised by the ACCC regarding the merger of Vodafone Australia and TPG Telecom into a single $15 billion telecommunications giant. TPG is an Australian-based multimedia and telecommunications company providing consumer, wholesale and corporate telecommunications services. The business offers voice, internet and data solutions to a range of customers from consumers to SMEs, as well as corporate and government sectors. Merger set to cost consumers The ACCC, in a statement released this morning, has expressed concerns about the proposed merger between TPG and Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited [ASX:HTA], and its potential impact on Australias mobile and broadband markets. Vodafone owns and operates its own mobile services in Australia and has begun supplying fixed line broadband services on the NBN. TPG is currently building its own $600 million mobile network in the country. The ACCC is concerned the merger could cause the company to price aggressively in an effort to rival other suppliers. Our preliminary view is that TPG is currently on track to become the fourth mobile network operator in Australia, and as such its likely to be an aggressive competitor, ACCC Chair Rod Sims said. We therefore have preliminary concerns that removing TPG as a new independent competitor with its own network, in what is a concentrated market for mobile services, would be likely to result in a substantial lessening of competition. If TPG remains separate from Vodafone, it appears likely to need to continue to adopt an aggressive pricing strategy, offering cheap mobile plans with large data allowances. In this just released report, Matt Hibbard shows you his top five dividend picks for 2019. Click here to claim your copy today. Basic economics teaches us that in many markets where the number of providers are reduced, this will likely lead to higher prices and less innovation. An Australian market with only three major players as opposed to four will likely see an increase in mobile plan and broadband prices. Despite its relatively small market share, the ACCC announced it would also examine the impact of removing Vodafone as a competitor in the fixed broadband market. Although Vodafone is currently a relatively minor player in fixed broadband, we consider it may become an increasingly effective competitor because of its high level of brand recognition and existing retail mobile customer base, Mr Sims said. The ACCC is scheduled to make its final decision by 28 March next year after hearing responses to its preliminary concerns. Whats next for the merger? Vodafone Australia CEO Inaki Berroeta said the decision was not unexpected, with the business still confident the transaction would go ahead in the first half of 2019. Contradicting the ACCC, Mr Berroeta said: Customers will be the big winners of a proposed merger Increased investment requires increased scale, and the proposed merger will enable the merged entity to take competition in the market to the next level. Chief operating officer for TPG, Craig Levy, also shared Mr Berrotas sentiment, stating the ACCCs concerns were not a surprise as the companies had expected the deal to be a lengthy process due to the complexity of bringing the companies together. TPG and Vodafone have been working closely together in the months following the merger announcement, securing the licenses for a radio wave spectrum allowing the telcos to launch ultra-fast 5G networks. In a statement released this morning, TPG said it remains confident that the necessary regulatory approvals and other conditions can be completed to enable completion of the merger in the first half of 2019. Regards, Ryan Clarkson-Ledward, For Money Morning PS: If youre looking for some great income stocks then look no further, Matt Hibbard shows you his top five dividend picks for 2019. Click here to claim your copy today. The suspect is described as a white male, about 50. He weighs between 180 and 200 pounds and is about 6 feet tall, according to the FBI. He was wearing a black knit hat, a black leather jacket and prescription glasses with dark frames. He was carrying a small dark blue and tan suitcase that had wheels. Know when to fight and when not to fightKnow how to deceive the enemyKnow your strengths and weaknesses. These ancient Chinese words are more than 2500 years old. Theyre right out of Sun Tzus book The Art of War. Over 13 chapters, Sun Tzu pens everything he knows about war and how to win in battle. Deception is one of the most important strategies in war, he writes. Attack when you seem unable. Attack him where he is unprepared. Appear where you are not expected. I dont think Trump is up late at night reading Sun Tzus play book. But hes fairing pretty well at trade warfare. Consider the arrest of a Huawei executive and the founders daughter. Was this something China was expecting? Probably not. Does it give Trump an extra bargaining chip? Absolutely. In fact, it almost looks as if China is ready to throw in the towel. Almost How Aussie investors could potentially win big when China takes on Silicon Valley Download your free report now. An increase in US purchases wont solve the trade war One of the beefs Trump has with China is their lack of US purchases. American businesses buy tonnes of cheap manufactured goods from China. The least they could do is return the favour. One of those favours is to buy US soybeans. China is the worlds largest buyer of soybeans. They crush them up to feed livestock and for cooking oils. And by buying US soybeans, it keeps a tiny population of US farmers in business. As a side note, the US government also gives these farmers subsidies on top of that. This is taxpayers money going towards a dying industry because a group of farmers are too stubborn to do anything else. Whatever happened to the free market? Whatever happened to letting competition and the free enterprise weed out the uncompetitive? No, instead we just take a whole bunch of money and give it to segment of the population, turning them into a loyal voter base. Anyway Chinese businesses could buy soybeans from other nations, Brazil for example. And when the government put a tax on US soybeans thats exactly what Chinese businesses did. They bought a whole lot more soybeans from Brazil because they were cheaper. But according to Reuters, US soybeans are back on the menu China on Wednesday made its first major purchases of U.S. soybeans since President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping struck a trade war truce earlier this month, providing some relief to U.S. farmers who have struggled to find buyers for their record-large harvest. Trump told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday the Chinese were already buying a tremendous amount of U.S. soybeans and would also soon cut tariffs on U.S. autos. The purchase of over 1.5 million tonnes of beans is the most concrete evidence yet that China is making good on pledges the U.S. government said Xi made when the two leaders met on Dec. 1 and agreed to a 90-day detente to negotiate a trade deal. Chinese officials are even advising against tech researchers from making trips to the US. Its possible these high-tech individuals have sensitive information. Information China doesnt want the US to know about. Alternatively it might also reduce the risk of tech theft accusations. Maybe China just wants their people back. From the Financial Times: President Trump said trade talks were moving alongand he would consider intervening in the Huawei chief financial officer case if it meant helping to secure a trade deal. But a couple of soybean purchases and a few missed flights probably isnt going to put an end to all this. And by this I dont mean the trade war. Im talking about the rivalry between the US and China. How long will this rivalry last? I would love to tell you when this trade war ends. But the truth is I have no idea. What I am certain of, and I think this is even more important, are the differences between the US and China. The US is more capitalist than China. And China likes to plan their society. For some silly reason, neither wants the other to be number one. Whether that relates to technology or economic supremacy. There can only be one top dog. And both are vying for that spot. It might not be all that hard to get over this whole trade situation. 2019 could be the year the US and China come to an agreement. Stocks will rise. But the rivalry will remain. As long as theres nothing else for markets to fret about, expect politics to dominate stocks prices in the short-term. The dance continues, Harje Ronngard, Editor, Money Morning PS: In this free report, economy expert reveals four ways you could cash in on the global infrastructure boom. Download now. "This is one way we can give back to themto help ensure they are able to age in place close to family and friends," he said. Minister of Alberta Seniors and Housing Lori Sigurdson agreed, saying that the Autumn Glen Lodge will help seniors still connect with their families for support as they age. "By investing in the Autumn Glen Lodge were fighting for the needs of seniors and their families from Innisfail and neighbouring communities," she said, adding that the project will create construction jobs which will help the local economy. The lodge is expected to be ready for occupancy by late 2020. The Autumn Glen Lodge is part of Canada's National Housing Strategy (NHS), which plans to build 100,000 new housing units, help 530,000 families out of housing need, and renovate more than 300,000 housing units. The $40 billion plan involves federal, provincial, and territorial governments and aims to reduce chronic homelessness in Canada by 50%. Wrote Franklin: "Who is Investor Voice? I have learned that Clarence Godinho, a FSCO licensed mortgage agent, M13000269 with Solid Ground Mortgage Solutions Inc. link to its website below, is the Investor Voice or one of the Investor Voice parties. Why is he, or other parties involved with him, providing information that is claimed to be of benefit to Fortress investors? Are they concerned about their liability to the investors that they sold Fortress mortgages to and are trying to delay their investors from suing them, as commented upon by Ron Butler in previous posts?" "When you look at the website you will learn that Arif Khan, the Municipal Councillor for Ward 8 in Barrie, is the principal broker for Solid Ground Mortgage Solutions Inc. and Hal Yesovitch is an agent with that brokerage. Both of them sold Fortress mortgages. Hal Yesovitch was with FDS Broker Services Inc., that just recently filed for bankruptcy. Other agents with this brokerage listed on its website are: Klaudia Nabialek, Chris Partridge, Kissondra Niemeyer, Robyn Latchman, Michael Del Bel and Jeffrey Goodman. Did any of these agents sell you Fortress mortgages? Arif Khan previously had a brokerage called Strategic Capital Network Inc. Arif Khan was a Barrie Councillor when Fortress mortgages on Barrie projects were being sold to investors. Did he have a conflict of interest?" The original story concerned the plights of two investors in Fortress Real Developments projects whose identities MortgageBrokerNews.ca agreed to withhold. One of them is nearing retirement, and with a wife and three children, he wonders what will become of his familys future. The other investor is an Ontario Provincial Police officer. Both investors maintain that the risks of investing in the Fortress Real projects werent communicated by the agents who sold them the investments, one of whom is Jenny Hong of Mortgage Alliance Lending Superstore whose husband is a Toronto Police Service officer and recruited other officers into investing. Yukon may be cold, but its real estate market is heating up. Last quarter saw the territory hit record-high home sales, with no signs of slowing down. "The short version is, we're no longer Canada's best kept secret. People know about the Yukon it's appealing, and people are moving here," Marc Perreault, president of the Yukon Real Estate Association, told CBC News. According to CBC News, the total number of residential and commercial sales in Yukon hit $118.5 million in the third quarter of 2018 up 28.5% from the same period last year. This case makes clear that those who compromise sensitive FDIC information will be held accountable for their actions, said Jay N. Lerner, FDIC inspector general. We are committed to investigating such breaches of public trust, and to protecting the integrity of confidential data maintained by the agency. The FDICs Office of Complex Financial Institutions was created after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act to oversee and conduct, if necessary, an orderly bankruptcy of the worlds largest banks and financial institutions. The institutions overseen by the office are required to file resolution plans, also known as living wills, with the FDIC. The plans contain confidential information about the banks, including assets, business operations, and potential weaknesses that would pose a risk in a financial crisis. In August of 2015, Aytes used her office computer to apply for jobs with financial institutions that had filed living wills with the FDIC. On Aug. 27, 2015, one day after being contacted about a possible position at one of those banks she logged onto a secure FDIC database and printed living-will information for that bank. Aytes quit the FDIC on Sept. 16, 2015. Investigation revealed that on her last day of work, she copied numerous files from the FDIC network to external USB drives, including living wills for banks where she had applied for employment. Aytes faces up to 20 years in prison. Oil jumped as Saudi Arabia prepared to slash shipments to U.S. refiners in an effort to prevent a price-killing buildup of American stockpiles. Futures rose 2.8 percent in New York on Thursday. The Saudi state-controlled oil company has warned U.S. refiners to brace for a steep drop in cargoes next month, according to people briefed on its plans. Prices also were supported by a report of a large drop in stockpiles at the U.S. storage hub in Oklahoma, as well as an International Energy Agency warning that global supplies may be more fragile than previously thought. "We should see a continued drawdown in crude supplies in the coming weeks and better demand," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. "That would suggest we could be close to a floor in the market." CANCELLED: Mexico cancels bidding on two oil and gas auctions American refiners have been told to expect much lower shipments from Saudi Arabia in January compared with recent months after last week's OPEC agreement to cut production, according to the people. That followed a report from the IEA that combined output losses from Iran and Venezuela could reach 900,000 barrels a day during the second quarter of next year, more than doubling the 800,000 barrels OPEC plans to remove from world markets. Crude remains in a bear market after reaching a four-year high in early October. Record American output -- expected to boom to more than 12 million barrels a day in 2019 -- is threatening to overwhelm demand. The U.S. has also given some nations temporary exemptions from sanctions on Iran to prevent a market shock. WTI Gains West Texas Intermediate for January delivery gained $1.43 to $52.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume traded was 27 percent above the 100-day average. SUPPLY: Crude inventories fall; U.S. loses net petroleum exporter status Brent for February settlement climbed $1.30 to $61.45 on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a $8.62 premium to WTI for the same month. U.S. crude inventories fell by 1.21 million barrels last week, Energy Information Administration data showed Wednesday, a fraction of the 10.2-million withdrawal cited in an industry report a day earlier. That sparked a late-day selloff for crude that persisted until the Genscape and IEA reports. "The excess volatility is being driven by the massive uncertainty about what's going to happen next," said Scott Bauer, chief executive officer of Prosper Trading Academy in Chicago. "It's a great market for day-traders, not so great if you're trying to put on a long bet." --With assistance from James Thornhill, Sharon Cho, Mike Jeffers and Grant Smith. 2018 Bloomberg L.P. Amid the intensifying debate over climate change, the role of fossil fuels and what form energy sources should take, some energy companies are showing they can be part of the solution. Our Nation's Energy Future (ONE Future) has 16 members: natural gas produces, transmission and distribution companies, many active in the Permian Basin. The coalition has issued a report saying it far exceeded its goal of 1 percent methane intensity across the natural gas value chain and did so ahead of its 2025 deadline. In its recently released initial report of methane intensity numbers, the coalition registered a 2017 methane intensity number of 0.552 percent. OIL REPORT: Researchers study Permian for answers on injection-induced earthquakes "We were surprised we were that good," Richard Hyde, ONE Future executive director, said in a phone interview from his Houston office. He said the number was determined using uniform Environmental Protection Agency-approved reporting protocols that were independently reviewed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and Innovative Environmental Solutions. Hyde attributed the success to allowing member companies the flexibility to deploy their capital where it would be most effective -- whether upgrading and replacing pipeline infrastructure or actively seeking and repairing system leaks. "The key principal is we're performance-based," Hyde said. "Companies can pick and choose the technology that works on their systems. They get results more quickly and get results that are better." Currently, ONE Future membership accounts for approximately 10 percent of total natural gas production, 32 percent of natural gas transmission miles and 9 percent of natural gas distribution and spans the value chain, from the wellhead to the burner tip. Hyde said the coalition doesn't have specific limits on how many companies can become members, or how high a percentage of production, transmission and distribution are represented in ONE Future. But as the coalition grows, it will gain critical mass and that will help create momentum for others to join as they see that the performance-based approach successfully drives down methane intensity numbers, he said. OIL REPORT: Goodnight Midstream settles into new Permian regional office ONE Future was formed in 2014 when eight natural gas companies came together with the goal of implementing a performance-based approach to the management and mitigation of methane emissions. Hyde said the initial goal of 1 percent was based on studies from the Environmental Defense Fund, which utilized 2012 data from the EPA, the most recent available at the time. He said the first year was focused on putting a program in place, and then it doubled in size over the next two years. "We want everything we do to be science-based. A well-known peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled, 'Greater focus needed on methane leakage from natural gas infrastructure' suggested that in order for natural gas usage to provide immediate greenhouse gas reduction benefits -- as compared to any other fossil fuel in any other application -- the industry would have to achieve a leak/loss rate of 1 percent or less. While ONE Future members do not unequivocally accept every conclusion of that paper, we believe it is sufficiently robust to serve as a guidepost for our targets," he said. Asked if the coalition might set even lower thresholds or even a zero emissions threshold, Hyde said, "Eliminating all emissions would be both technically unfeasible and economically untenable. However, ONE Future believes that targeted investment in abatement technologies today can yield both significant improvements in environmental performance and supply-chain efficiency, which is just good business. We believe that the industry can cost-effectively achieve an average emissions intensity rate of 1 percent, and ONE Future companies have already achieved a rate of 0.552 percent. We will continue to work to lower our emissions and encourage other companies in the natural gas industry to join our coalition to ensure that natural gas remains the fuel of choice." ONE Future's information and reports are shared with environmental groups and the coalition has not received any pushback yet, he said. He said the group publicizes its numbers and may be the only group that reports actual results. "The key thing we believe in is, transparency is vital. We have our data independently looked at by NETL to make sure we're on the right track," he said. "We have to be a credible organization. If people don't believe our numbers, we've missed a golden opportunity to move the ball." Another key belief is that natural gas is the foundation fuel for a low-carbon economy, and Hyde said research is being done in ways to break down methane into hydrogen for use as a power source. "We think natural gas will be around a long time," he said. "We have to work on methane emissions to be competitive. We have to reduce them as low as we can. We want to go lower. "There's a long way to go but we think we're trending in the right direction." Mella McEwen is the Oil Editor and covers the latest business and energy news. You can read more from her here. |mmcewen@mrt.com| It was Midlands turn to post the largest drop when it comes to the average price of gas in the state of Texas. The 9-cent decline this week was the largest of the 27 larger metropolitan areas AAA Texas surveys. It was triple the state average and 2 cents ahead of the next largest decline -- 7 cents in Beaumont-Port Arthur. Odessa, which posted the largest drop last week, wasnt far behind its Petroplex neighbor, recording a 6-cent decline, according to the organization. It was more good news for Midland drivers, who two months ago were paying more than $3 a gallon for gas. In the past seven weeks, the average price of regular unleaded in the city has dropped 42 cents. Thats more than the 37 cents that the average price has fallen in Odessa during the same time. Drivers in Midland and Odessa are still paying the states highest average price for gas -- $2.63 and $2.59, respectively. The next closest price is $2.11 in Bryan-College Station. The average price across the state is $2.07, and the lowest average price in Texas, according to AAA Texas, is $1.92 in Amarillo. Midland and Odessa are well behind other cities in the region as the following prices were reported: $1.96 in Lubbock, $2.02 in San Angelo and $2.10 in El Paso and Abilene. When it comes to the decline over the past seven weeks, there is still room for improvement in Midland -- down 42 cents -- and Odessa -- down 43 cents. During that same period, the average price across the state fell 49 cents. Across the region the following price decreases have been reported: San Angelo, 47 cents; Amarillo, 54 cents; Lubbock, 60 cents; Abilene, 61 cents; and El Paso, 61 cents. Distributors have told the Reporter-Telegram there are many complexities in the fuel business that impact pricing. They pointed to the high cost of transportation from Gulf Coast refineries and Midlands distance from pipelines. There are also issues with the high cost of living, at least in Midland and Odessa, where rents are climbing at rates incomparable around the nation. Theres also the supply-and-demand factor. There is a great demand in Midland and Odessa relative to the amount of supply. The cheapest price in Lubbock, Amarillo, San Angelo and Abilene dropped by 4 to 7 cents this week. There was no change in the cheapest price of gas in Midland, and the cheapest price actually rose week-over-week in Odessa. An analysis of the cheapest price of gas in Midland over the past six months to a year shows Sams Club on State Highway 191 and Tradewinds, Murphy USA on Midland Drive and Briarwood Avenue and both H-E-B locations create the floor when it comes to the price of gas. If that trend holds true, should the price floor drop, and therefore the average drop even more, (coming closer to other cities in the region and state), it will be those locations leading the way. AAA Texas reports that the last time the national average was cheaper on the week, month and year was during July 2017. However, the organization also stated this week that pump prices this low may not last into 2019. It noted that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced that the cartel and non-OPEC members, including Russia, will reduce production for the first six months of the year. Gas prices are 5 to 7 cents cheaper on the week and as much as 17 cents less year-over-year across the south and southeast regions of the U.S., according to AAA Texas. Gas price report Cheapest gas: $2.47 (Sams Club, Tradewinds/SH 191) Cheapest gas (non-membership club): $2.53 (H-E-B, Midkiff/Wadley; Texaco, Midkiff/Wadley; H-E-B, Andrews Highway/Loop 250) Cheapest prices in West Texas: Lubbock $1.81, Amarillo $1.82, El Paso $1.89, San Angelo $1.87, Abilene $1.98, Odessa $2.45, Midland $2.47 Mid-Odessa Texas Thursday $2.595 $2.035 Last week $2.673 $2.110 Last month $2.906 $2.410 Last year $2.481 $2.210 Source: TexasGasPrices.com The driver accused of causing a deadly head-on crash Wednesday along the Grand Parkway is also accused in a more sadistic crime in 2017, according to court records. Charles Glaze, 54, was westbound on the Grand Parkway near FM 2920 around 2:30 p.m. when he allegedly crossed the grassy median, slammed into a car and went airborne before crashing into several other vehicles, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. The crash left two people dead, a car split in half and a 50-yard debris field in what authorities described as one of the most horrific crashes in decades. DEADLY DAY: Five dead in crashes throughout Harris County on Wednesday HCSO identified one of the dead victims as Michael Brown. Investigators are still working to positively identify the woman who also died in the wreck. Glaze, along with several others, was rushed to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He told detectives that he did not know what happened right before the crash, but that he does have a history of seizures. Officials told Chron.com that Glaze was wearing an ankle monitor when he was pulled from the wreck a reminder of charges currently lodged against him in Montgomery County. He's accused of attacking a grieving mother inside a Magnolia cemetery in June 2017. ORIGINAL STORY: Glaze allegedly terrorized grieving mother in Magnolia cemetery The attack reportedly happened inside the Klein Memorial Park Cemetery in the 32500 block of Texas 249. A woman told investigators that she had been attacked as she was visiting a loved one late that day. The man, later identified as Glaze, allegedly used a stun gun on her, and pointed a gun at her head before she was bound and gagged with zip ties and a men's necktie, according to court documents. She was eventually able to escape after the suspect became too tired from her fighting, detectives said. She ran to nearby Magnolia Volunteer Fire Department Station 184 on Decker Prairie Road and got help. Days later, Klein Memorial Cemetery employees told deputies investigating the attack that they noted a vehicle that day similar to one involved in another incident earlier that year on Mother's Day. A second would-be victim reported that she felt uneasy during a conversation with the man, as she too was visiting a late loved one at Klein Memorial Park on FM 2090 in downtown Tomball. In both incidents, the suspect showed the same MO: he would start up a conversation and proceed to get more aggressive. The earlier victim was able to shy away from the conversation before it became too dire, instead snatching a photo of the suspect's red four-door Ford F-150 as he drove away. In Wednesday's crash, Glaze was driving red four-door Ford F-150. It is unclear if they are the same vehicle. Glaze posted a $250,000 bond days after his June 2017 arrest, and has been on the streets ever since. Authorities said no charges or citations have been filed against Glaze for the crash. He's facing up to life in prison on a first-degree felony aggravated kidnapping charge, if convicted. He's set for trial in April 2019, although it is unclear if that date will be pushed back in light of Wednesday's crash. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The following Tier 1 and Tier 2 gangs have a presence in Midland County, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety Gang Threat Assessment.y Gangs with the highest scores are deemed the most significant and are classified as Tier 1, with other significant gangs classified as Tier 2 and Tier 3. Listed in the report are descriptions of the Tier 1 and 2 gangs. Tier 1: Tango Blast and Tango Cliques Tango Blast and its associated cliques are located in most metropolitan areas and many rural counties across Texas. Tango Blast first established as a self-protection group against traditionally structured prison gangs, such as the Texas Mexican Mafia and Texas Syndicate. The Tangos continue growing at a fast rate, and maintain the highest membership numbers among all Texas-based gangs. With their lack of organizational structure and no strict commitment rules, Tangos unique hybrid gang status allows for widespread recruitment and increasingly dangerous appeal to younger generations. In their rapid criminal evolution, the Tangos established a robust resume of violence and illicit activities, while building business relationships with various Mexican cartels. Tier 1: Texas Mexican Mafia The Texas Mexican Mafia (TMM) formed within the Texas prison system in 1984 as a means for inmates to protect themselves from the Texas Syndicate. Though TMM members continue to uphold commitment to the gang, unceasing law enforcement targeting efforts have affected membership growth and structure. The new generation of TMM is causing internal strife, dismantling the organization from within, and increasing the level of separation between older and younger members. Despite these struggles, the TMM will likely continue to be organizationally effective, changing their structure to best fit their available resources and engage in criminal activity, and remain a significant threat to the Texas. Tier 1: Mara Salvatrucha Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) has attracted national attention over the past year, highlighting the violent nature of the gang and leading to increased scrutiny of the gang by law enforcement. MS-13 leadership may be attempting to capitalize on this attention and allegedly has made efforts to extend their control of cliques and programs in the United States. MS-13 members historically used Texas as a transitional area or as a location to hide from criminal charges in other states or countries. Recent intelligence, however, suggests MS-13 now uses Houston as a hub of criminal activity. This trend is likely the cause of increased membership in Texas, though actual gang presence is fluid due to the transient nature of gang members and gang activities. MS-13 continues to refine and change techniques in evading law enforcement detection by changing their long-standing rules regarding clothing and tattoos. Given the gangs propensity for violence, relationship with cartels, increased control over numerous cliques, rising numbers and juvenile recruiting practices, MS-13 remains a Tier 1 threat. Tier 1: Barrio Azteca Barrio Azteca continues to be a significant threat to Texas because of its propensity for violence, level of criminal activity, relationships with cartels and other gangs, control of the Valle de Juarez in Mexico and the drug corridor in El Paso, their involvement in sex trafficking, and a high level of transnational criminal activity. While in recent years there have been ebbs and flows in the amount of reporting on Barrio Azteca, and though their hub of activity remains in Juarez and El Paso, the level at which they are operating earns them a high threat ranking for Texas as a whole. This is partly because members reach extends far outside the city limits of El Paso, as they distribute high amounts of drugs from their operations further into Texas and throughout the United States. It is likely that Barrio Azteca will continue to ensure its dominance in West Texas and across the border, directly affecting the citizens of Texas. Tier 2: Bloods The Bloods are a violent street gang that originated in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, with ties to People-Nation-affiliated gangs. Bloods gang presence in Texas has been documented since the 1980s. Multiple cities in Texas have instituted gang injunctions against the Bloods and their rivals, the Crips. The Bloods overall presence, the level of their criminal activity, and the violence perpetrated by their members qualify them as a serious threat in Texas. The Bloods continue to be a loosely organized, extremely violent street gang that is involved in a wide variety of crimes, ranging from petty theft to murder. Much like their traditional rival, the Crips, the Bloods street gang presence is mainly in the major urban areas, but its members regularly form small groups that travel throughout the state and beyond to conduct criminal activity, such as robberies and burglaries. Tier 2: Aryan Brotherhood of Texas The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) places its racist ideology secondary to its everyday criminal activities. Although law enforcement continues to disrupt ABT operations and leadership structure around the state, the gang remains a significant threat because of its continued involvement in violent crimes, drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, frequent property crimes and the strength of their organizational structure inside of correctional facilities. Multiple incidents of involvement with Mexican cartels occurred during 2017, in which ABT acted as a courier. In 2017, threats to law enforcement from ABT increased in multiple states and one member engaged in sex trafficking. Recent law enforcement actions resulting in ABT members receiving federal sentences possibly facilitated the creation of a wider (though not necessarily larger) ABT network. Reports show ABTs interactions with gangs typically not active in Texas and an increase of communications and incidents involving ABT members and associates located outside of Texas. Tier 2: Texas Syndicate The Texas Syndicate prison gang formed in the California penal system in the 1960s and eventually moved into TDCJ prisons and onto the streets of Texas. Recent law enforcement targeting created setbacks for the Texas Syndicate, in particular to the gangs structure, as the lack of material benefit, power and security in the free world affected the gangs governance abilities. Despite the setbacks, the gangs level of violence and continued relationship with Mexican cartels makes the Texas Syndicate a resilient criminal threat to Texas. Tier 2: Surenos The Surenos is an umbrella organization of gangs paying homage to the California Mexican Mafia. Gang members unaffiliated with California Mexican Mafia also use Surenos, which means south, to symbolize that they are from Southern California. Surenos remain a threat to the state of Texas because of its relationship with cartels, propensity for violence, level of criminal activity, involvement in human smuggling and recruitment of minors. The trend of Surenos members moving from California to the El Paso area likely will continue, as well as their attempt to take over the El Paso area from Barrio Azteca. Tier 2: Crips The Crips criminal street gang remains loosely organized, with multiple cliques throughout the state. During this reporting period, Crips members participated in a wide variety of crimes, including homicides, assaults, robberies, burglaries, fraud and sex trafficking offenses. Members committed violent crimes against citizens and fellow offenders during the commission of other crimes, such as robberies, burglaries, sex trafficking and drug deals. Members committed violent crimes against law enforcement while attempting to evade arrest. Internal conflict sometimes resulted in intra-gang violence. The Crips pose the greatest threat to the larger metropolitan areas of Texas, but its members sometimes form smaller groups that travel outside of their usual operational areas to commit crimes throughout the state and as far away as Arizona. Tier 2: Gangster Disciples The Gangster Disciples is a nationally recognized, historically black criminal street gang that was founded in Chicago and has spread throughout the United States, including Texas. It is highly organized, violent, and active in the major metropolitan areas of Texas and in the communities surrounding the major military installations in Texas. Its members are involved in a wide variety of criminal activities, including homicides, assaults, thefts, robberies, burglaries, sex trafficking, fraud and illegal drug sales. Although its numbers in Texas are significantly fewer than those of the Bloods and Crips, the Gangster Disciples level of organization, level of criminal activity, proximity to military communities and reported relationship with Mexican cartels raise concerns. Tier 2: Aryan Circle The Aryan Circles white supremacy ideologies come secondary to illicit business and profiting from criminal activities. Although the Aryan Circle is not a threat to the border areas of Texas, the gang presents a public safety threat to the state because of its involvement in violent crimes, drug distribution and firearms trafficking. Aryan Circle members commits many of their violent crimes against their own members or rivals because of rules dictated by gang culture, their constitution and leadership. Aryan Circle continues to derive its prevalence, effectiveness and strength to withstand law enforcement operations from its paramilitary structure. Tier 2: Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Members of the Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMG) continue to participate in illegal activities. The Bandidos OMG is currently involved in a violent feud with the newly formed Kinfolk Motorcycle Gang (MG). Formed in the 1960s, the Bandidos OMG conducts its illegal activities as covertly as possible and generally tries to avoid high-profile activities. However, members are not covert about making their presence known, frequently wearing their gang colors, insignia and riding in large groups. They seek to turn public sentiment in their favor by organizing frequent charity runs. A 32-year-old Odessa man died Thursday morning in a one-vehicle wreck on Farm-to-Market Road 1787, according to a press release from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Jeron Everett Newby was driving a Cub Cadet truck westbound on FM 1787, about 26 miles southwest of Midland. He was driving at a speed that was unsafe for the wet road conditions and he lost control of the truck, DPS said. The truck left the roadway and rolled, according to the release. Some of the biggest, oldest ranches in Texas are up for grabs, each for a hefty price. Icon Global, described by its owner as the leading big ranch broker in the country, lists nearly 20 Texas ranches that are for sale ranging from just a few hundred acres to more than 70,000. Prices range from less than $4 million to as much as $250 million, with several asking anyone interested to call for a price. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The closest of the massive ranches is in Boerne. With an asking price of nearly $50 million, the Northrup Pipe Creek Ranch spans about 5,000 acres in the Hill Country. Its been under the same familys ownership for more than 80 years and is rich with history, according to its Icon Global listing. The Lely Ranch, the largest on the market in Texas, sits in Presidio County near Big Bend State Park in western Texas. More than 70,000 acres, the ranch is roughly the same size as the city of Abilene, which has a population of more than 120,000 people. But the Lely Ranch hasnt been inhabited in years by anything other than wild animals. Its price has not yet been determined. RELATED: West Texas ghost town for sale for $1.75 million About $3.7 million could buy you the 9G Ranch in Grayson County, which includes nearly 500 acres and a 36-acre trophy bass lake, according to its listing. The property also has a large metal building with a finished first floor and an unfinished second floor. Icon Global properties typically take between nine and 15 months to sell, according to owner Bernard Uechtritz. The Dallas-based broker also sells ranches in other parts of the country and the world. Click through the slideshow to see some of Texas' largest ranches that are for sale. 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 From the Extraordinary to the Ordinary: a Story about KFC in China By Li Peichun When a couple of my old university classmates came to Beijing last week, we planned to do the same thing we usually did when we reunite: Find a restaurant that's decent, maybe even a bit fancy, where we could catch up to chew the fat. So we laughed when one of us suggested going to KFC, because we knew she didn't mean just any outlet. Qianmen, which means "Frontal Tower", is like the Champs-Elysees in Paris. It lies south of Tiananmen Square and is packed with cultural and commercial establishments. After parking nearby on a chilly December evening, we went for a walk to find the store we visited together 30 years ago. The store here looks similar to all the other KFCs, except its door is flanked by three-meter high wooden boards bearing the words "NOVEMBER 12, 1987. THE FIRST CHINA STORE" in English and Chinese, alongside the iconic image of Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of the international franchise. Was this really the grand destination we came to all those years ago? We all had our doubts, including me, and I've lived in Beijing the whole time since it opened. But a server behind the counter assured us that the store hadn't moved. We realized that it wasn't so easy to recognize because many new buildings have cropped up around it, and the store's second and third floors have become a Pizza Hut and a hotel. But once we finally ordered our meals our classmate Liang is a fitness fanatic and it took him a while before he finally settled on the chicken breast and we settled into a booth, it didn't take long for us to start our journey down memory lane. It was headline news in China when this first China-U.S. joint venture store opened. The U.S. ambassador and high-ranking Beijing officials were invited to cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony. A performance of the Yangko, a traditional group dance used to celebrate a harvest, added to the festive atmosphere. So many customers were keen to enter the store, the police had to help keep the waiting queues in order. People lined up for up to two hours for their chance to experience the novelty of American fast food. KFC was far from affordable for most people in China back then. One piece of chicken cost two and half yuan, which made it a luxury when the average government worker was paid around 100 yuan a month. But people flocked there because it was an accessible symbol of the Western lifestyle, which had a great appeal for people eager to learn something about the modern and advanced West. For many years to come, it was fashionable to dine at the restaurants of overseas fast food chains. Some Beijingers even got married on the third floor of that store in Qianmen, because it was a decent venue that could earn them a lot of face. It was only a few months after the Qianmen store opened that my English teacher, who was in Beijing from the United States, invited all 18 students in our class to go and experience "American culture." We burst into a round of applause at the news. I'd never seriously considered going there by myself: it would have cost me four days of my food budget! As we sat there eating our chicken in that same place thirty years later, we had vivid memories of that first visit in our mind. We remembered the long queue, and lining up for more than an hour to get in. Yin, my classmate from Guangzhou who is now a PR executive for a Chinese automobile company, liked the fried chicken so much she used her bread roll to scoop up all the tiny crunchy scraps of batter at the bottom of the box. I ate everything on offer: chicken, mashed potato, the bread, even the coleslaw, which was a bit too sweet for my tastes, but I finished it anyway because I thought it was too good to waste. Our classmate Guan, who is now a professor at a university in Chicago, remembered when her father visited Beijing on business and offered to take her out to dinner. Guan didn't hesitate when suggesting KFC. At that store in Qianmen, her father ordered a meal for her, but nothing for himself, making excuses that he had eaten already. Guan shared the smile her father had as he watched her devour the meal. "But I think he hadn't eaten anything that day," said Guan guiltily. We'd been talking for so long it took us a while to realize that it was almost 11 p.m. I looked around the quiet store. Two teenagers at another table shared a set of earphones to listen to something on a cell phone. Above them was a poster announcing that in the year 2010, KFC had 3,000 outlets in China. Now, the chain has more than 5,300 stores in more than a thousand cities and towns. Despite its success in opening new stores, over the years the chain has lost its shine as an upmarket destination. Now, it's much like many of the other restaurants in the neighborhood that offer cheap fast food, a quiet place outside their family's apartment where students can sit and study, and a place where passersby pop in to use the bathroom. Thirty years ago, the Qianmen store was a special place, a hive of activity and noise. Now, it feels removed from the hustle and bustle of the commercial area that surrounds it. A simple KFC meal used to cost an average worker four days' pay, but now it's a mere one-seventh of his daily wage. As people in China became wealthier, their taste buds were no longer satisfied by the simple pleasure of fried chicken. An increasingly long list of food choices is available that represents the cuisines of different countries along with different ethnic or geographical regions from across China itself. A short walk along the main street in Qianmen will take you past Italian, German, Spanish, Mexican, and Japanese restaurants, not to mention the outlets offering Chinese specialties like hotpot and Peking roast duck. And because food takes up only a small portion of their expenditure, especially among urban dwellers, people in China have a broader range of ways to spend their money, such as buying a house or a car, going on holiday at home or abroad, or sending their children overseas to study. This is to say nothing of the daily pleasures that we often take for granted now that were extraordinary luxuries a few decades ago, like going to the gym, getting a massage, or going to the cinema to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster. The fried chicken might taste the same, but our choices and tastes have changed. Note: Li Peichun is a senior editor of the English Service, China Radio International, China Media Group. Captions: 1.The author (left) together with her classmates Guan, Yin and Liang at the KFC store in Qianmen, Beijing, December 8, 2018. 2."November 12, 1987. The First China Store" is printed on a wooden board on the wall of the KFC store in Qianmen, Beijing, December 8, 2018. Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants By H.W. Brands Doubleday. 413 pp. $30 --- In 2003, H.W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a piece for the Atlantic Monthly headlined "Founders Chic," about Americans' misguided reverence for the nation's first politicians. Decrying a tendency to give the founders greater credit than they deserve, Brands explained that the revolutionary generation, including the founders themselves, understood that while their experiment in self-government was built on reasonably solid ground, much was makeshift. The most glaring shortcomings were the curse of slavery and the uncertainty over who reigned supreme, the nation or the states. Both issues would, in time, threaten the union. In "Heirs of the Founders," Brands follows the "great triumvirate" of antebellum politics - Henry Clay from Kentucky, John Calhoun from South Carolina and Daniel Webster from Massachusetts - in their 40-year struggle, sometimes as allies, more often as adversaries, to settle the vexing problems of slavery and sovereignty. The three men had much in common, even as their political opinions diverged. They were all born during the revolution and died just before the Civil War. They were lawyers with soaring ambitions and talent to match. They represented their states in the House of Representatives and in the Senate at a time when its members were still chosen by state legislatures rather than elected by the people. All three served as secretary of state (Webster under three presidents), and Calhoun also did duty as war secretary. They each aspired to the presidency; none succeeded, though not for lack of trying. Calhoun was vice president under two different presidents. And all three politicians had a way with words. It is their words, as much as their actions, that take pride of place in the book, as Brands vividly re-creates the delivery of their speeches (complete with cheers, shouts and pregnant silences) and quotes extensively from their essays and letters. The trio applied their considerable intellects and political skills, not only to their own careers but to the major political and constitutional dilemmas of the day, starting with the War of 1812 and ending with the Compromise of 1850, which kept the nation from disunion. In a fast-paced narrative with snappy short chapters, Brands, the author of 30 books on American history, recounts the three men's thinking and scheming as they rode the ups and downs of antebellum politics: wars and treaties; protectionism and free trade; free states and slave states; nullification and annexation; abolitionism and fugitive slaves; Texas, California and Oregon, and empire. Every issue raised questions about the extent of federal power and the fate of slavery. Each of the three statesmen came up with his own answers forged both from principle and from expediency. Westerner Henry Clay, plain-looking, tall and thin, started out a believer in small government but quickly became a supporter of federal power if it helped preserve the union. Clay claimed to dislike slavery, but the deals he engineered to bridge the gap between North and South ended up supporting the institution, notably the Compromise of 1850, which upheld slavery and committed non-slaveholding states to hunting and returning fugitive slaves. A slave owner himself, Clay advocated gradual emancipation and colonization (strongly opposed by African-Americans). In his will he freed the children of his female slaves once they reached their mid-20s and ordered them to move to Liberia. Described by a British visitor to Washington as looking "as if he had never been born and never could be extinguished," Southerner John Calhoun transformed from a nationalist who strongly supported the War of 1812 to an ardent sectionalist and a leader of the pro-slavery movement. A slave owner, he was an outspoken white supremacist, famous for his moral defense of slavery as "a positive good" that civilized the enslaved and improved their enslavers. In defense of the institution he clung to a iron line on states' rights and the right of secession, which increasingly isolated him politically, even to some extent inside the South. Handsome New Englander Daniel Webster was a brilliant constitutional lawyer and smooth orator who could speak for hours with nary a glance at his notes. When not busy legislating, he argued before the Supreme Court on the need for expanding federal authority, winning several landmark cases. Yet he lacked "true aim," Brands writes. Aristocratic and conservative, he lived beyond his means, and, because he was always in debt, he was somewhat for sale. A fierce nationalist, he supported Clay's Compromise of 1850, a stance that cost him dearly in New England. In 1957, a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy named Clay, Calhoun and Webster among five outstanding former senators out of a group of close to 1,000 men (and a handful of women). Sixty years later, these men have lost much of their luster, especially Calhoun. Lake Calhoun in Minnesota recently received a new name, as did Calhoun College at Yale University and Calhoun Lofts at the University of Houston. Elsewhere, the question of what to do with highways and buildings named after the deeply racist Calhoun is being debated. "Heirs of the Founders" suggests that the American political system was fashioned by two generations of great white men, discounting the influence and roles of ordinary Americans such as farmers, artisans, soldiers, women, slaves, free people of color and Native Americans in shaping the nation. Despite Brands' unease with the genre, then, one might wonder whether this engaging political biography inadvertently expands Founders Chic. --- Kars teaches history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Her next book, "Slaves Remastered," is the story of a massive slave rebellion in Dutch Guiana. CARROLLTON An emailed threat of an explosive device planted in Thomas H. Boyd Memorial Hospital in Carrollton Thursday after was determined to be a hoax. At around 1 p.m., the Greene County Sheriffs Department and the Carrollton Police Department were alerted by the administration at the hospital that a member of their staff had received an email from an unknown source stating that an explosive device had been hidden in the hospital building, according to a sheriffs department press release. CARROLLTON A Greene County hospital was among those targeted Thursday in a wave of bomb threats emailed to hundreds of schools, businesses and government buildings across the U.S. Carrollton police and the Greene County Sheriffs Department were notified about 1 p.m. Thursday by administrators at Thomas H. Boyd Memorial Hospital that a member of the staff had received an email claiming an explosive device had been hidden in the hospital. NPP will not shy away from ... The Plainview City Council sided with the Hale County Commissioners Tuesday night in voting to move forward with plans to approve change orders regarding the construction of the Plainview Hale County Business Park. With a unanimous vote of 6-0, the Council agreed to shell out more funding to cover the additional costs of the business park. John Hamilton, with Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, spoke in depth with the Council about the project during a work session Tuesday prior to the regular meeting. The project has experienced several delays, he told the Council in a presentation similar to the one he made to the Hale County Commissioners late last week. There have been delays with utility lines, weather delays and the most expensive delay the discovery of a higher-than-anticipated plasticity in the soil. The soil issue can be remedied by digging out at least six inches of topsoil, he said. But it'll add to the cost of the project. "There will never be another time as cheap to fix it as there is now," Hamilton said. The soil was tested prior to the beginning of the project, Hamilton explained. But tests simply didn't catch it. City Manager Jeffrey Snyder said this time there's a different lab doing the samples. To fix it, the cost jumps up to almost $2.4 million payments from both the city and the county, he said. "It's still coming in pretty favorable," Snyder said. As a result, the design of the project will have to be extended, he said. During the meeting, the council unanimously approved both change orders with a 6-0 vote for both the cost and the agreement to delay the date of completion. Teresa King, though present for the meeting and work session, was not present for the votes on each change order. Oliver Aldape, district 7, was not present. It was the first City Council meeting for Evan Weiss who took the oath of office for the District 6 position. His term expires in May 2020. Following a unanimous ratification of the runoff election for the District 6 position in November, Weiss was joined by his wife as he was sworn in and took his seat with the Council. His first vote was joining the rest of the Council in unanimous approval of meeting minutes from Nov. 8 and Nov. 13, excusing the absence of Aldape, authorizing the sale of trust properties at 1209 Portland Street and 16th Street and N. Date Street, and approving resolutions related to the authorization of signatories and designating officers for the Texas Community Development Block Grant Program. Melinda Brown, Main Street manager, presented a final project plan and financing plan to create a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) for Historic Downtown Plainview. This was the first reading and there were no public comments. The council unanimously approved it and approved the adoption of TIRZ bylaws for Downtown Plainview a few minutes later after Brown said a TIRZ committee had already approved them in previous committee meetings. Designating the area as a TIRZ will allow Downtown Plainview to draw money generated from taxes to help finance its own improvements. Tim Crosswhite, director of public works for Plainview, asked the council to consider an interlocal agreement between the city and the South Plains Association of Governments (SPAG) to provide administrative services for the Texas Community Development Block Program (CDBG) from the Texas Department of Agriculture. "The grant is available for streets, water and sewer funding," Crosswhite said. "To achieve high points in the application process, location and rate increase are essential for funding." The city received the CDBG grant for $267,500 with a match of $55,000 from the city, he said. The grant was received in October. Councilmembers on Tuesday unanimously approved the interlocal agreement and authorized the mayor to sign a contract between the city and KSA Engineering Services related to the CDBG grant. Following a lengthy discussion on the outdoor aquatics center, the Council moved on to approve the purchase of a hangar from Rocket Aviation. Snyder said a Rocket Aviation hangar is on property that belongs to the city and county. The Council voted unanimously to split the cost of 10,556.50 with the county to purchase the hangar. King was not present for the vote. NEW YORK In the popular imagination, Mexican drug cartels like Mafia families or major corporations are sometimes thought of as stable entities that have lasted for decades. While bosses may come and go, many believe the basic structure of cartels, and the names associated with them, remain unchanged. But a month of testimony at the trial of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican kingpin known as El Chapo, has suggested the cartels are less like the Gambinos or General Electric and more like something out of Game of Thrones. Cartel leaders have not only shifted frequently over the years, but the groups themselves have also changed shape in an almost constant series of alliances and breakups. According to the several witnesses at the trial, Guzman started in the trafficking trade in the late 1980s while working under the wing of a more senior crime lord, Juan Jose Esparragoza, who ran what was known as the Guadalajara drug cartel. At the time, Guzman was surrounded by a modest entourage of family and friends: his brother, Arturo, known as El Pollo (Spanish for the chicken); his cousins, the three Beltran-Leyva brothers; and his first employee, a pilot named Miguel Angel Martinez. RELATED: Bribes and beheadings: Shocking revelations from the 'El Chapo' Guzman trial Almost from the start of his career, Guzman had trouble with the Tijuana drug cartel, which controlled most smuggling operations at the Mexican border with San Diego. Eventually, a war broke out with the Tijuana traffickers when Guzman, disobeying protocol, got caught moving cocaine through their turf without permission. In 1991, witnesses have said, that war resulted in one of the first major shake-ups in the world of the cartels. After studying the conflict, a powerful trafficker named Ismael Zambada Garcia broke away from the Tijuana group and allied himself with Guzman. Known as El Mayo, Zambada brought along another drug-world veteran: Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who at the time was running the Juarez drug cartel. Guzman and Carrillo Fuentes had not, at that point, worked together much, but they knew each other from cartel parties, witnesses have said. But Carrillo Fuentes was closer to Zambada. (The two once spent $50 million, jointly buying a jumbo jet in which they smuggled drugs.) He also had his own inner circle of associates. Among them was his brother, Vincente Carrillo Fuentes, who oversaw his team of assassins, witnesses have said. By 1992, this alliance of three Guzman, Zambada and Carrillo Fuentes formed the core of what became the Sinaloa drug cartel. While each man had his own crew and separate business interests, they often pooled resources. Sometimes, witnesses said, they used the same pilots or invested together in ton-size cocaine deals. We were one group, Zambadas brother, Jesus Zambada Garcia, testified at the beginning of the trial. For the next five years, the cartels structure was more or less the same. But in 1997, Amado Carrillo Fuentes unexpectedly died while having plastic surgery. Not long after, one of his top deputies, Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte, shot himself in the head while being chased by police. Gonzalez didnt die, but his injuries left him with amnesia. He was forced to retire, witnesses have said. To fill the vacuum, Vincente Carrillo Fuentes was promoted to run his brothers business and soon found himself in a power struggle with Guzman, a witness said this week. According to the witness, Tirso Martinez Sanchez, Guzman sought to control a lucrative train route that moved cocaine across the border to Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The train route regularly earned the cartels leaders hundreds of millions of dollars. But Guzman wanted to cut Carrillo Fuentes out of the profits, Martinez said. Complicating matters, Carrillo Fuentes other brother, Rodolfo, soon struck up a partnership with a rival cartel, the Zetas, which mostly operated along the Gulf of Mexico. Initially, witnesses have said, the Zetas and the Sinaloa traffickers worked well together. But their relationship soured in 2002, when a high-ranking Sinaloan gunman killed the brother of a top Zetas leader and then sought refuge with Guzmans allies, the Beltran-Leyva brothers. Though the Zetas wanted the assassin, prosecutors said, the Beltran-Leyva brothers refused to hand him over. Another war eventually broke out, pitting Guzman and the Beltran-Leyvas against the Zetas and the Carrillo Fuentes brothers. Amid the war, witnesses have said, Guzman dispatched assassins to execute Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes. Indeed, in 2004, Carrillo Fuentes and his wife were gunned down as they exited a movie theater in Culiacan. That same year, the cartels structure changed again as Vincente Carrillo Fuentes quit the group, leaving Guzman and his last initial partner, Ismael Zambada, in charge. At the time, prosecutors said, the Beltran-Leyva brothers also rose in the ranks though that did not last long. By 2007, in fact, Guzman was warring with the Beltran-Leyva brothers, according to Jesus Zambada Garcia. Though the origins of the war remain somewhat obscure, Zambada said it erupted partly over the brothers role in the seizure of an enormous shipment of cocaine that was coming out of Panama. Guzmans fight with the Beltran-Leyva brothers was extremely violent, Zambada said, leading to the deaths of hundreds of people. It was also extremely complicated. The Beltran-Leyvas, for example, struck up an alliance of convenience with the Zetas. That was awkward given that their onetime enemy, Vincente Carrillo Fuentes, was still closely connected to the group. But such were the ways of the cartels, which regularly split apart, took new shapes, then split apart again before re-forming. It was enough to drive one witness, a Colombian lawyer named German Rosero, crazy. By his own account, Rosero had worked with Guzman and his Sinaloan partners for nearly a decade, but decided to cut ties with them when the struggle with the Beltran-Leyva brothers started heating up. From his perspective, the constant wars and changes seemed both tiresome and dangerous. I frankly didnt want to work anymore, he told jurors last month. I didnt want to be in the middle of their wars. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Cold weather couldn't stop the Elks from serving hot meals last Saturday as the 1175 organization held their annual Holiday Event for local seniors. "We are so happy to do this," said Jana Canon, Treasurer for the Plainview B.P.O Elks organization. On Dec. 8, the club opened their doors and offered a free brisket lunch to seniors, cooked by in-house restaurant, Scott's Steakhouse. Outside, club members braved the snow and slick roads to deliver the lunch to Meals on Wheels recipients who were home. "We delivered more than 142 meals," said Canon. "It's so rewarding to be able to this. We wanted to honor our senior citizens and let them know they are not forgotten." Canon said the Senior Holiday Event is mostly funded by the Elks National Foundation Grant. It is also supplemented by donations from local Elk members. "We are so grateful for the generosity of our Elks organization and our local members," added Canon. "Also this year, we had more than enough volunteers to help pack and deliver." Around the community, United Supermarket on Fifth Street donated items like paper sacks and other goods while the steakhouse gave a significant discount. Canon said this is the sixth year the Elks have organized the Holiday Senior Event. "These seniors are so appreciative," said Canon. Back at the Elks, seniors packed the restaurant as they posed with Santa, ate and were entertained with Christmas songs sung by Gary Stennett. Apple said it would invest $1 billion to expand its operations in Austin by constructing a new employee campus in the area, large enough to house 15,000 additional employees. Further facilities will also be established in Culver City, Seattle and San Diego, and existing sites in Pittsburgh and Boulder will be expanded over the next three years. In a statement on its website Thursday, the company said it was also considering other U.S. regions for growth. "With this new expansion, we're redoubling our commitment to cultivating the high-tech sector and workforce nationwide," Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in the statement. Apple shares rose less than 1 percent to $170.29 Thursday morning in New York. The company said the second Austin building would cater to a wide range of business disciplines, including R&D, sales, customer support, and engineering. Austin is already the largest home for Apple employees after the iPhone-maker's Cupertino headquarters, with about 6,200 people working at the existing site about a mile from the location of the new facility. The investment will follow announcements from other major tech companies, which have been laying out their U.S. expansion plans. E-commerce giant Amazon Inc. recently revealed plans to build a major new campus in New York, while Google has opened new offices in sites including Boulder, Colorado. Among President Donald Trump's "America First" policies were promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from Asia, and businesses have been increasing efforts to hire locally to avoid conflict. Apple has long used China as its production base for everything from the signature iPhone to iPads and Macs. In his early years running Apple, Cook responded to questions about increasing manufacturing in the U.S. by saying the skill sets in China are more conducive to producing the company's products. However, in recent months, Cook has modified that view, saying in an interview this year that "it's not true that the iPhone is not made in the United States." Some components, like the smartphone's glass cover, are manufactured in the U.S. and shipped for assembly in China. In December 2013, Cook said on Twitter that the then-flagship Mac Pro desktop computer would be manufactured in Austin, rather than China. The showpiece amenity in the Balmoral neighborhood is a two-acre "Crystal Clear Lagoon" -- the first of its kind in Texas. But a group of residents who live in the northeast Harris County community are angry that they won't be the only ones with access to it. Law enforcement officials are looking for three men who robbed a bank in Brazoria last Friday morning. The men entered First National Bank of Brazoria around 9 a.m. on Dec. 7 and held employees at gunpoint in a back room of the building while collecting money, according to a press release from the Houston FBI. They fled by foot with an unknown amount of money. The Bellaire Police Department has selected a police captain with 24 years of service as its new assistant police chief. Pearland Police Department Captain Onesimo Lopez Jr., who goes by Mo, was chosen through a national search that included more than 50 candidates. After spending his entire police career in Pearland, Lopez said he has watched that city grow from about 32,000 residents in 1994 to about 120,000 today. He is looking forward to serving in Bellaire because it feels to him more like a small town that also has the benefits of being nestled in a large city. What was appealing about Bellaire was every time Id go to a Bellaire, whether it was to go watch a Little League game or just to hang out at some of the restaurants or shops in Bellaire, it had a very small-town feel, Lopez said. And everybody was just so kind and welcoming, and it really reminded me a lot of Pearland when I first started. BPD started the selection process in April, and Police Chief Byron Holloway said Lopez stood out from the rest. He said Lopezs cross operational experience in areas including patrol operation, media relations, training and administrative function will bring a lot to the department. Lopez has a bachelors in criminal justice administration and also graduated from the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas Leadership Command College at Sam Houston State University. A certified Master Peace Officer by the state of Texas, he is currently working on a masters degree in public administration as well. His work record shows a constant on ongoing desire for professional development, Holloway said. Captain Lopez speaks Spanish, and having a bilingual assistant chief or chief is a notable asset for a police organization in the Houston area. Lopez is married and has four children. While he currently lives in Pearland, he said he hopes to move to Houston at some point to be closer to his work in Bellaire. Lopez said he is excited about the opportunity and anxious to begin. When he starts on Jan. 1, 2019, he plans to make learning his first priority. Im coming from an agency where Ive known everybody Ive got lots of friends in Pearland. Ive had 24 years to make friendships and to build relationships, he said. And Im moving to Bellaire, where I dont know anyone really, so the first thing I want to do is learn. I need to learn the people. I need to learn the culture, but just as important, I need to show them who I am, so theres going to be learning both ways. A reception to welcome Lopez to the department is slated for Monday, Jan. 28, just before the city council meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the new Bellaire city hall at 7808 S. Rice. tracy.maness@hcnonline.com Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said that he's asked Donald Trump not to consider him as White House chief of staff. "I have told the president that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment," Christie said in a statement. "As a result, I have asked him to no longer keep me in any of his considerations for this post." Christie had been Trump's leading candidate as the president considers a successor to John Kelly, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, he would become the latest person to turn down one of the most powerful jobs in Washington. Trump met with Christie in the White House residence on Thursday after a holiday reception. The president announced Kelly's departure last weekend without arranging a replacement, leading to a chaotic and hasty job search after his top choice, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Nick Ayers, turned down the post. The president hadn't made a final decision before Christie withdrew. He's scheduled to have lunch on Friday with another candidate for the job, his former deputy campaign manager David Bossie. Other people Trump is considering for the job include Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker and Blackstone Group executive Wayne Berman, people familiar with the matter have said. Christie shares Trump's reputation for a pugnacious approach to politics. He's also a former U.S. attorney who would have provided the West Wing a leader experienced with the intricacies of a federal prosecution as Trump faces multiple investigations into his campaign for president. But the New Jersey governor's relationship with one key West Wing official remains fraught. Christie famously prosecuted Charles Kushner -- the father of Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner -- while serving as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. The elder Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. Kushner had made clear to other White House aides that he would support Christie being appointed to the job and that he appreciated the former governor's work on overhauling federal prison sentencing rules, a top priority for the president and his son-in-law. Trump announced Kelly's departure from the White House on Saturday and had intended to install Nick Ayers, the 36-year-old former political consultant helming the vice president's staff, as the next chief. But Ayers said he'd only be willing to do the job on an interim basis after promising his family he would return to Georgia, while the president wanted a top lieutenant who would serve for the remainder of his first term. Trump has sought to dispel the notion that Ayers spurned him, insisting he's been approached by a dozen potential candidates who wanted the job. But a number of possible choices -- Steven Mnuchin, Trump's Treasury Secretary, and Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget -- indicated they would prefer to stay in their current positions. Rep. Mark Meadows, the North Carolina congressman who leads the conservative House Freedom Caucus, initially expressed interest in the job, but Trump told him he'd prefer Meadows remain in Congress. NEW YORK For more than a month, Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, has sat in a Brooklyn courtroom, mostly stone-faced, sometimes smiling, but never saying a word. Thursday, however, jurors at his drug conspiracy trial finally heard him engaging in the business that led to his indictment. Prosecutors played an intercepted phone call of the kingpin striking a deal with Colombian guerrillas to move 6 tons of cocaine from Ecuador to Mexico. While it was not the first time Guzmans voice had been heard at the trial this week the government played clips of his infamous video interview with Rolling Stone it was the first time jurors heard him practicing his trade. In the secretly recorded conversation, Guzman was negotiating with a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, about the cocaine shipment most of which he asked to buy on credit. In the recording, Guzman haggled over pricing and insisted on dispatching a technician to inspect the products quality before sending the guerrillas their initial payment of $50,000. Though it remains unclear who recorded the call and how, it appears to have emerged from a long investigation by U.S. officials into Jorge Cifuentes Villa, leader of a Colombian trafficking clan, who said he started working with Guzman a few years before his former Colombian connection was arrested. Appearing at the trial as a witness for the government, Cifuentes in three days of testimony has described not only the various cocaine deals he hatched with the defendant in Ecuador, but also his own remarkable life of crime, which began when he was 4 and started helping his father move illegal cigarettes and whiskey through the port in Medellin, Colombia. On Tuesday, his first day on the stand, Cifuentes recalled how he met Guzman in 2003 at a mescal-soaked party at the kingpins hideout in the Sierra Madre mountains; it was a celebration of the second anniversary of his first escape from prison. Getting to the party required a harrowing landing on a steeply inclined covert airstrip. Once he was safely on the ground and after he had said a few prayers Cifuentes resolved, he told jurors, to buy Guzman a helicopter so he could fly in a more civilized way. That same year, he started sending Guzman shipments of cocaine in carbon-fiber airplanes that were specially designed to frustrate radar. In 2007, after his brother a former pilot for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed, Cifuentes fled to Ecuador, where he began arranging drug deals with the FARC for Guzman and protecting their investment by bribing a local military officer. The officer was not the only person Cifuentes has acknowledged paying off. He testified that he routinely bribed the Ecuadorean navy (for information about U.S. naval ships) and the Colombian police (whenever it was needed). Early in his career, he told the jurors, he once paid off Colombian officials to expunge his prison record. By his own admission, Cifuentes was also a prodigious liar and cheater. As a teenager, he said, he lied about his age on his first drivers license, and later, in Key Biscayne, Florida, he lied about his name while buying a $4 million mansion. He once bought a fake diploma, he confessed, to impress my colleagues at work, adding that he meant his drug trafficking work. When the helicopter he gave to Guzman crashed, he said he pushed it off a cliff in an insurance scam. But Cifuentes grandest fraud involved creating a foundation to preserve some 17 million acres of jungle in the Amazon on behalf of what he called the regions indigenous people. Under questioning by prosecutors, he grudgingly acknowledged that he did not have completely noble motives in the venture. In reality, he said, the foundation was mostly a way to funnel up to $1.5 billion in environmental contracts to companies he owned. The Cifuentes family has, for decades, been famous in Colombia for working in the cocaine trade. Aside from the oldest brother the pilot who was killed before he could be arrested Cifuentes younger brother, Alexander, and two of his sisters, Dolly and Lucia, were convicted of drug trafficking charges. Even his mother, Carlina, was involved. Before prosecutors played Guzmans call with the guerrillas, they let the jurors hear recorded conversations in which Cifuentes and his mother could be heard discussing drug deals. And yet on cross-examination Thursday afternoon, Cifuentes claimed he and his relatives were normal people who had conflicts like any other family. Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzmans lawyers, was skeptical. Conflicts like any other family? he repeated. Like the time your brother Alex ordered the murder of your nephew? Cifuentes will be back in court Monday to finish cross-examination. This article originally appeared in The New York Times NEW YORK Thick smoke from a still-young fire, which had billowed above an entire city block early Thursday in Sunnyside, Queens, suddenly, and ominously, was sucked back inside. It was a telltale sign to firefighters of what was about to happen, and what they could not avoid. A firefighter hastily put on his helmet, a half-second before the flash. The smoke then exploded into a fireball that catapulted across the street and simultaneously enveloped seven firefighters in a black curtain of dread. Except, when the smoke cleared, they were all still standing. Alive. We have a bit of a miracle here, Fire Department Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said. And videos of the explosion to prove it were shared on social media. Footage of the smoke explosion, more commonly known as a backdraft, stunned New Yorkers on Thursday morning with its dramatic power and its even more shocking result: only 12 minor injuries, seven firefighters and five civilians. Later in the morning, the Fire Department said it has been contained. The combustion happened when oxygen met extreme heat contained in a common loft space beneath the roof connecting the businesses on the block, which firefighters call a cockloft. The explosion that followed the backdraft made the fire, in firefighting parlance, run. On the sidewalk, the members of the Fire Department were likely shielded by their bunker pants, hoods and helmets, Nigro said. Officials were notified of the fire at 2:14 a.m. More than 200 firefighters responded, and 44 units raced to the scene. The fire occurred between 45th and 46th streets on Queens Boulevard and originated in a diner known as New York Style Eats, officials said. The cause, Nigro said, was still under investigation. The block had stood since 1931, its immigrant-owned small businesses emblematic of the changing ethnic diversity of Queens. To the left of New York Style Eats was Zen Yai Noodle & Coffee, which called itself Sunnysides first Vietnamese restaurant and was known for its pho and banh mi. Tony Tang, the owner of the UPS store next to that, was named Sunnysider of the Year in January 2018, by the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce. Sidetracks Bar & Restaurant was the unofficial anchor of the block since it opened in 1988, named by an Irish immigrant, Andrew Breslin, because it was across the street from the No. 7 subway tracks. Sidetracks often hosted community events and political fundraisers. Holidays like Easter and Mothers Day had lines out the door and four seatings, Breslin said in an interview. He sold the business in 2012, and it continued to be a popular spot for first dates and bachelor parties. One of the current owners, Bernard G. Reilly, said through a thick Irish accent: Im in shock right now. Humberto Sanchez, 26, said he was awakened by the smell of smoke from a block away. Fearing his building was on fire he ran outside to Queens Boulevard, and then walked closer to the scene out of curiosity. Thats when he saw the roof of Sidetracks collapse, instantly sending out an blast of horizontal smoke and debris. There was this big, black explosion coming at me, he said at the scene later Thursday. People were shouting, Oh my god, the street got filled up with smoke, I thought something blew up. It was pretty scary, Im not gonna lie. Lena Lam, 59, manager of the UPS store that burned, was trembling while standing on the sidewalk Thursday morning, from either cold or shock or both. Azure Chunton, 15, worked a shift for his uncle, the owner of Zen Yai, on Wednesday night. He said there had been complaints that employees from New York Style Eats had dumped vats of cooking grease into the back alley. Yesterday it was like this oil and garbage everywhere, he said Romantic Depot, a franchise of an erotica store catering to couples, opened at the end of October on the corner in a former Radio Shack. Neighbors were not pleased. Jairo Ruiz, 59, said he had peeked in the store with his wife about two weeks ago and had an immediate impression. I said, This is a hugely flammable place, he said. Because a lot of stuff is synthetic, the cheapest plastic, you can tell when stuff is made very cheaply. He added: It was like a perfect storm. Behind it, on the 45th Street side, was Better Line Hardware. A man who identified himself as the owner said he feared he had lost his long-standing connection to the community. I know everybody here, said the man, who did not wish to give his name. The sentiment is you know everybody for 30 years, you see them as babies to grown-ups to be married. State Sen. Michael Gianaris, D-Sunnyside, said he would help the businesses rebuild. Sunnyside is a thriving community of small businesses and we cherish that, especially in an era where the big, giant operations are coming, Gianaris said. That stretch of Sunnyside was a great success story for small businesses, and losing some of our most important ones, at least temporarily, is a body blow. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Police say a speeding vehicle, a dip in the road, and a tree made for a deadly combination Friday in northeast Houston. The driver was southbound on Majestic Drive near Cavalcade Street when he hit a dip in the road, began to swerve and eventually began to flip, witnesses told Houston police officers. Taylor Swift appears to be taking an aggressive step in finding her stalkers. At a May 18 concert at the Rose Bowl, a facial recognition camera was embedded inside a kiosk displaying snippets of the pop star's rehearsal, according to a report in Rolling Stone. The camera reportedly took photos of anyone who stopped to look at the display. The camera then sent the photos to a "command post" in Nashville, Tennessee, where they were matched against images of hundreds of the pop star's known stalkers, according to the report. It's unclear who has the photos of the concertgoers or how long the photos might remain on file. A representative for Swift didn't immediately respond to a request for comment regarding whether fans were informed of the use of the facial recognition camera. The report comes as facial recognition technology continues to cause privacy concerns. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union said the Secret Service planned to deploy facial recognition technology in and around the White House. Staff would participate in the pilot program, but images of people outside the White House would also be captured. The proposed program raised concerns because it was unclear how the Secret Service would determine who was a "subject of interest," according to the ACLU. Amazon also came under scrutiny when the ACLU revealed in May that the company was selling its facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies. In July, the ACLU found that Amazon's technology had mistakenly matched 28 Congressmen with known criminals. In October, the civil rights organization pressed the Department of Homeland Security to disclose its use of facial recognition technology, following reports that Amazon met with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials this summer. CNET's Holiday Gift Guide: The place to find the best tech gifts for 2018. Netpicks: What's on your favorite video streaming sites around the web. The Department of Public Safety has released its 2018 Texas Gang Threat Assessment, and all 14 of the states highest-threat gangs have a presence in Bexar County, the report showed. More than 100,000 gang members are in Texas at any given time, according to the assessment, and they continue to pose a significant threat to public safety. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox In previous years, many gangs operated under a "blood in, blood out" rule, which required members to remain committed for life, the report said. Now, younger gang members are opting for looser structures and less commitment, hoping to reap more profits without first asking permission from gang leaders. Gang members' social media use, to communicate, boast and recruit, has also grown in recent years. They post videos to brag about their achievements and use encrypted messaging applications to thwart law enforcement, the report said. Based on 11 factors including level of criminal activity, relationship with cartels and statewide organizational effectiveness, the department ranked Texas' gangs from most threatening to least. RELATED: 16 key takeaways from the DEA on the threat drugs and gangs pose to Texans Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) is considered one of the most violent gangs in the country. Though the department ranked it Tier 1, the highest category of threat in Texas, it is not the single-most threatening, according to the department. That title belongs to Tango Blast and associated cliques, which boast as many as 25,000 members in Texas. The gang has a presence in nearly every county in the state, and was one of the gangs with the highest number of homicide and sexual assault arrests in the Central Texas region, which includes San Antonio. Click through the slideshow to see which gangs have presences in the greater San Antonio area. 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 A grand jury on Thursday declined to indict a man accused of shooting an off-duty police officer during a gun battle in May in the parking lot of a Northwest Side strip club. Demontae Walker, a 25-year-old who used to work as a barber near the University of Texas at San Antonio, was facing two charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison. Due to the grand jury's decision, his case will not go to trial and the charges against him will be dismissed. RELATED: Father left with questions after son accused of shooting off-duty police officer in San Antonio "It's very hard for a prosecutor to take the position of someone other than a police officer," said Walker's Houston-based defense attorney Charles Adams. "I have a lot of admiration for the Bexar County District Attorney's Office. It really was very admirable, their dedication to the truth and justice." The off-duty police officer in the case, Dezi Rios, was recently issued a 15-day suspension without pay for his role in the shooting on May 29 in the parking lot of All Stars Gentlemen's Club in the 9400 block of Interstate 10 West. Investigators discovered Rios had been drinking and engaged in a road rage dispute with Walker prior to the shooting, according to disciplinary records. Police have previously accused Walker of confronting Rios in the parking lot and then shooting him, prompting Rios to return fire. Adams disputed that narrative. His client claims Rios confronted him, and when Walker saw Rios was armed, he shot him once in the leg and called 911 to report the incident. While he was on the phone with the dispatcher, Rios opened fire on him, Adams said. The shootout left both Rios and Walker with multiple gunshot wounds. Rios made a full recovery, but Walker is now a paraplegic. "There's a lot of emotional and physical damage," Adams said. "He can't support himself. He's a full paraplegic now. "Honestly, I only took this case because I was moved by it. I didn't make any money on this." FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Walker's cousin's wife, Destiny Rhodes, whom Walker was driving to work at All Stars Gentleman's Club when the shootout took place, was also grazed by a bullet in the shooting. Police charged Walker with shooting Rhodes, resulting in the two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, both of which are now dropped. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns A student at Southside High School was arrested Thursday after ditching a firearm in a storm drain, school officials said. According to a statement from Henry Yzaguirre, the school's principal, the weapon was brought to school by the student and was quickly recovered after the student tossed it in the drain. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Once the firearm was recovered, campus police conducted an investigation and determined there was no immediate threat to anyone at the school. "Southside ISD strives to provide a safe and secure learning environment for its students, staff, and community," Yzaguirre said in a written statement. "We encourage all stakeholders to be vigilant of any potential threats to our schools." The principal said the district has been implementing "stringent" security measures to keep students and faculty safe, and that they will monitor their current practices to try to improve campus safety. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns Consider storing valuables in a bank safe deposit box or a home safe that is anchored to the floor. Keep the exterior of the home well-lit and have someone take care of your yard or snow removal. Consider disabling your garage electric opener or install a padlock on the overhead latch. Ask a trusted friend or neighbor to watch the house, collect mail or park in the driveway. MDC-Alliance faces a potential split, with party leader Mr Nelson Chamisa set to preside over two high-level meetings today in a drive to have his deputy, Mr Elias Mudzuri, expelled. At least 220 party districts are said to have resolved to have Mr Mudzuri fired ahead of next years party congress for harbouring presidential ambitions. This comes in the wake of reports that MDC-Alliances deputy treasurer and Kuwadzana East Member of Parliament Mr Chalton Hwende had allegedly threatened to shoot party secretary-general Mr Douglas Mwonzora. Mr Hwende, a Chamisa ally, was reportedly miffed by Mr Mwonzoras declaration that Mr Chamisa could be challenged at the partys congress next year. Mr Hwende could not be reached on his mobile phone for comment last night. Mr Mwonzora said he could not recall such an incident. Party sources said Mr Hwende openly threatened to shoot Mr Mwonzora for derailing Mr Chamisa. Mr Chamisa has been accused in the past of using the notorious militia, the Vanguard, to silence his opponents. Another allegation against Mr Mudzuri is that he attended a function at State House without Mr Chamisas consent. He survived expulsion last week after he failed to attend a standing committee meeting for unexplained reasons. It is end of the road for (Mr) Mudzuri, a source said. The president (Mr Chamisa) is going for broke and the process of eliminating his rivals has begun in earnest. (Mr) Mudzuri is the first target and (Mr) Mwonzora is likely to follow. Remember (Mr) Hwende threatened to kill (Mr) Mwonzora and it is becoming clear that the Chamisa camp is worried about the inroads that (Mr) Mwonzora has been making in the race for the partys top job. Another source said Mr Mudzuri was being used as a warning to Mr Chamisas potential rivals. This is not so much about (Mr) Mudzuri but (Mr) Mwonzora and those who are secretly canvassing for support at next years congress, said the source. You should know that (Mr) Chamisa has never really considered (Mr) Mudzuri as a threat but (Mr) Mwonzora. So what we are seeing is (Mr) Chamisa firing warning shots at the likes of (Mr) Mwonzora. Todays meetings, one for the national executive and the other for the national council, will be held at the partys Harvest House headquarters. The fissures in the opposition are in sharp contrast to the ruling Zanu-PF which is holding its 17th Annual Peoples Conference at Mzingwane High School in Esigodini, Matabeleland South, with a heightened unity of purpose. President Mnangagwa has said the ruling partys conference will focus on the countrys new investment trajectory towards attainment of his vision to turn Zimbabwe into an upper middle income economy by 2030. Party organs have, like they used to do during former President Mugabes era, already endorsed President Mnangagwa as the partys candidate for the 2023 polls to ensure leadership stability and policy consistency. In the opposition camp, Mr Mwonzora and allies have indicated they want congress held in February next year but Mr Chamisa and his camp insist that it should take place later in October. Sources in the opposition said Mr Mudzuris fate in the party was sealed when he recently accompanied Parliaments presiding officers to State House where they met President Mnangagwa. This was against a standing party directive not to recognise Mnangagwa. Mr Mudzuri, as leader of opposition party in the Senate, accompanied Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda and Senate President Mabel Chinomona when they went to formally introduce themselves soon after their election. The issue of (Mr) Mudzuri is definitely coming up for discussion in our meeting tomorrow (today). We have a national executive and a national council meeting. Decisive action has to be taken. At least 220 districts have resolved that he be fired. They expressed a vote of no confidence in him. What is likely going to happen is that he will either be fired on the basis of a no confidence vote or we will constitute a disciplinary tribunal, said the source. Either way you look at it, (Mr) Mudzuri is gone. In fact, he expelled himself by defying the party directive. Another source said Mr Mudzuri could be stripped of the vice-presidency. We are exploring various options. One is to expel him. Another one would be to weaken him by demoting him to an ordinary card-carrying member, said the source. Mr Mudzuri declined to comment yesterday saying he was in a meeting. Party spokesperson Mr Jacob Mafume confirmed that there would be a national executive and national council meeting today but sought to play down the Mudzuri issue. Yes, there will be national executive and national council meetings tomorrow (today). (They) will focus on the deteriorating economy. Those issues you are asking me about, there are processes that are provided for by the constitution. We are a big organisation and there will always be sentiments against leaders but at the end of the day as a party we follow what the constitution provides, said Mr Mafume. Herald Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Government yesterday warned Zimbabweans not to abuse the freedom they have by attacking other people on social media and peddling lies bent on causing mayhem and anarchy. There are growing calls for laws that make it a requirement for people to be vetted before being allowed to use social media. Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Cain Mathema said most people had developed a disease of attacking other people on social media. That is why in Britain and the United States they are crafting laws to control the use of social media. Those attacking others through social media must not be allowed to do so willy-nilly. That is unhealthy. They must stop doing that. It is freedom that most people are abusing. Dont use social media to attack other people that is totally unacceptable and its horrible. It is a disease that is developing among our people and I think our courts should do more to protect us as citizens, Minister Mathema said. A legal expert who spoke on condition of anonymity said responsible authorities should be aware of a legal vacuum that is there when it comes to social media. This is the largest publishing space but it has remained a lawless space where slander, incitement to violence and hate speech go unpunished, he said. He said social media in Zimbabwe was mostly dominated by Diasporans and the law must allow for the prosecution of people based on the comments they have made, even if they are outside the country. Freedom of expression does not mean a free for all where rogue elements, often hiding under the banner of activism, are free to infringe on the rights of others. The United Kingdom Communications Act 2003 defines illegal communication as using public electronic communications network in order to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety and carries a prison term for offenders. There is no way an academic Brilliant Mhlanga, resident in the United Kingdom, could call a British politician fat but no brains, as he recently did to MDC-T spokesman Linda Masarira, and get away with it. He would be prosecuted. To say Linda Masarira @lilomatic is as round and shapeless as a worm, and naturally not gifted with looks and an empty head is nowhere close to gender-based violence. At best its close to violating animal rights, the legal expert said. A screenshot of comments by UK-based activist Davison Sedze went viral just after the July 30 elections in which he urged opposition supporters to fight with sticks, stones and our bare hands to force ZEC to announce the opposition MDC-Alliance candidate Nelson Chamisa as the winner of the presidential election. Herald Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News I just want my panties back! This comedy series by an American pay television channel, MTV was at play when a woman from Fort Rixon, Matabeleland South caused a rumpus in court when she alleged that her former husband refused to surrender her designer panties she left at his house when he sent her packing. Responding to remarks by her ex-husband Thembinkosi Siziba who was suing her for disturbing his peace by taking him to traditional courts over her missing underwear, Ntokozo Ndlovu said when he brought her belongings to her place; one of her panties was missing. Sibanda said when she asked her former husband who stays in Old Lobengula about the whereabouts of her finest underwear, he started harassing her. Ndlovu said this while responding to her ex-husbands remarks at the civil court where he was seeking a restraining order against her. This was after Siziba claimed Ndlovu was disturbing his peace by unnecessarily taking him to traditional courts over her missing underwear. Ntokozo Ndlovu is my ex-wife and I am applying for a protection order against her. She is always harassing me by saying she wants her panties back. She is continually saying this but I am not aware where her panties are. She is also accusing me of taking her childs navel string. As a result of those accusations she is frequently taking me to the traditional courts being presided over by our village head or chief. I want the court to bar her from taking me to those courts unnecessarily over her missing underwear and childs navel string which I dont know how they disappeared, complained Siziba. In response, Ndlovu insisted that her former hubby was in possession of her missing underwear and childs navel string. She also claimed Siziba was stopping her from taking her beast which she left when they separated. I am sure that he is the one who knows where those things (panties and childs navel string) are as he always threatened me with unspecified action whenever I confronted him over that, said Ndlovu. Sizibas prayers were answered when the magistrate ordered Ndlovu not to drag her former husband to the traditional courts over her missing underwear and childs navel string and not to communicate with him in any way. The magistrate also ordered Siziba to allow his ex-wife to collect her beast. BMetro Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Zimbabwes major wheat supplier has threatened to cut supplies due to non-payment, the Daily News can report. The cash-strapped government is reportedly failing to pay Holbund Limited, one of the few remaining companies that is still supplying wheat to the landlocked nation. In a letter seen by the Daily News, representatives of Holbund Limited said although wheat supplies have already docked, they cannot be transported to Zimbabwe because of non-payment. To supply the 30 000 metric tonnes of wheat to the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ), Holbund requires an upfront payment of $12 million, an amount they say has not been complied with. We have not received any payment to date, hence if we dont have any payment by close of business Tuesday, we apologise that we will not be able to reserve wheat and we will be forced to offload the quantity assigned to Zimbabwe in Mombasa port as we need time to make new documents for Kenya, hence we have a cut-off time, read part of the letter addressed to GMAZ chairperson Tafadzwa Musarara seen by the Daily News. Zimbabwe is expecting 30 000 metric tonnes of wheat. Holbund is the only supplier left which still accepts to be paid well after loading the grain. Sources said if the consignment which docked at Beira is not paid for, the implication is that it takes 90 days to source and receive another consignment. Musarara said: We have talked to the RBZ governor John Mangudya who has promised to pay and what we can say at the moment is that everything is under control. National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe president Ngoni Mazango said bread supply cannot be guaranteed this Christmas as RBZ has not supplied bakers with foreign currency to pay off legacy debt from other suppliers of raw materials such as enzymes and glute. Bakers are not getting enough flour so I cannot guarantee that we will have enough bread for Christmas. We are not getting enough foreign currency and the legacy debt has not yet been paid so the suppliers have also cut off supplies until it is paid, he said. Zimbabwe consumes 1,8 million loaves of bread per day. The country needs 400 000 tonnes of wheat per year and is producing less than half of its annual requirement. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News President Emmerson Mnangagwa has expressed his shock over the judgement issued on Thursday by a High Court judgement declaring the contract between Wicknell Chivayos Intratrek Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Power Company valid. There is a person who was given a contract to come and erect a solar plant here in Matabeleland South. The person came and erected some shacks and left. I was shocked to read in the papers that the same person has won a court case. I dont understand how our courts work to permit the granting of an order of $25 million in favour of a person who received $5 million advance payment and did nothing. The High Court declared the contract signed between the parties for the Gwanda solar project valid. ZPC was ordered to engage Intratrek and discuss progress on the Gwanda solar project in the next 60 days or alternatively pay $25 million damages to Intratrek. Chivayo had been hauled before a magistrate to answer charges of fraud on the way he handled the 100 megawatt (MW) Gwanda Solar Project contracted by ZPC. The States case was that Chivayo received $5 million advance payment for the project from ZPC without a bank guarantee, but ZPC stated on court record that they were not a complainant in the matter. Chivayo and Intratrek then turned the heat on ZPC and told the court that the power utility was in fact, in breach of contract by wantonly causing delays and impediments to the implementation of the solar project. But in an opposing affidavit to Intratreks High Court application, ZPC denied causing Chivayos arrest, technically meaning there was no complainant in the Gwanda Solar Project case. In his judgment, Justice Tawanda Chitapi said ZPC had acted unlawfully and in bad faith, possibly under external influence from parties who were not part of the contract. Bulawayo24 Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News I had hoped to give readers a respite from Brexit, but we are in an overly dynamic phase. Ill endeavor to stick to the salient points: May and her pleas for relief got an even rougher smack-down at the EU Council meeting than even pessimists expected. Yours truly thought the forecast in Politico that we quoted yesterday, that the EU Council had draft language saying that they intended to start having EU members ratify the deal, was already plenty dire for May. May managed the difficult feat of making her perilous situation worse. From the Financial Times: Theresa Mays attempt to rescue her Brexit deal ran into serious trouble in Brussels last night during an hour-long presentation, Mrs May succeeded in alienating many fellow leaders after making a series of ambitious proposals to appease her domestic critics, including a one-year time limit on the Irish backstop. After Mrs May left the room, many leaders were despondent. During more than two hours of talks over dinner, EU leaders agreed to scrap plans for a formal process to provide reassurances to Britain until Mrs May decided what she wants Michel Barnier, EU chief Brexit negotiator, claimed that Mrs May was not seeking reassurances but was reviving old ideas rejected during Brexit negotiations. One EU diplomat briefed on the talks said Mrs May was unprofessional. Another EU diplomat claimed that there was even a suggestion that it might have been better if Mrs May had been ejected from Downing Street in this weeks abortive coup by Tory Eurosceptics. But her presentation, which also included a suggestion that the non-binding political declaration on future UK/EU relations should be given a legal footing as an annexe to the legal withdrawal treaty, went down badly. It was Salzburg all over again, said another EU diplomat, referring to the acrimonious summit in September In a sign of the concern among the EU27, draft summit conclusions were rewritten to remove the observations that the backstop did not represent a desirable outcome for the EU and would be in place only for a short period Another paragraph, saying the union stood ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided on the backstop, was cut entirely. One diplomat said that despite general goodwill towards Mrs May, she didnt get anything, basically. Donald Tusks short statement contains the formula that Politico wrote about yesterday (see at around 1:30), that the EU intends to proceed with ratification of the agreement. As vlade pointed out by e-mail: What I can see from here, the comments from politicians/media for the EU consumptions are along the lines what the hell? We dont understand what youre asking for, and some things youre asking for are already covered. Read the bloody thing and come back with specific items not that were going to change anything really. Czech Republic, the most eurosceptic of the EU27, has (with exception of some fringe loonies) lost all patience with the UK not just politicians, but the normal people (who were originally quite supportive). For a lot of people in the central Europe the whole long-built picture of the UK as rational, pragmatic etc. etc. country literally crumbled in the last couple of years The EU anticipates theyll have to hold a summit in January. Brexit unicorns are very much alive. Silly me! I was naive enough to think that the combination of May proving her deal would not be approved by her scuppering the vote on it, in combination with the EU not blinking at that and reaffirming that they were not going to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement might lead to some sobering up. From the Telegraph: Seven Remain ministers are now urging the Prime Minister to hold a series of non-binding indicative votes on the different Brexit options including Norway, Canada and no-deal. Those pushing for the approach are Amber Rudd, David Lidington, David Gauke, Karen Bradley, Greg Clark, David Mundell and Damian Hinds. They believe it will test the will of the House for different options. One Cabinet source said that it will show there is no consensus around any of the options, bolstering the case for a second referendum. She is not going to get the numbers, one Cabinet source said. More and more options are being taken off the table. We are getting closer to a second referendum. This is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Ultras intend to force a no deal Brexit. As we said, all the Ultras need to do is obstruct to bring about a crash out. Not that their end is a surprise, but now we are learning a bit more about the intended means. From the Telegraph: The Tories erupted in civil war on Thursday as Chancellor Philip Hammond was branded a complete moron for referring to Eurosceptic colleagues as extremists and Brexiteer MPs vowed to block the passage of the Governments withdrawal agreement into law. Within hours of Theresa May winning a vote of no confidence, Conservative in-fighting spilled out into the open, with Mr Hammond referred to as a t and an unnamed minister reported to have bragged: Id like to punch the ERG in the face, a reference to the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs which led Wednesdays attempted coup. Hardcore Tory leavers are now threatening to disrupt Mrs Mays Brexit legislation if she does not return from Brussels with her promised legal and binding changes to the withdrawal agreement. They may also go on strike over non-binding legislation. An ERG source said: Even if she wins a meaningful vote, a bill still needs to get through parliament and there will be many opportunities for rebels to disrupt it to ensure we get to March 29 without a deal. Another senior Brexiteer added: We need to polish up the language around no deal and turn it into something that sounds attractive rather than frightening. No deal isnt a cliff edge its a get out of jail free card. Labour is not making a good show of itself. Labour looks to be all tactics, no strategy, fixated on trying to wrest power from the Tories but no conviction about what it would do if it were to catch the car. From the Guardian: Jeremy Corbyn will seek to increase pressure on Theresa May in parliament next week in a bid to prevent the Tories running down the clock on Brexit Mays spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday that there will be no meaningful vote before Christmas, while the prime minister negotiates with her EU counterparts The Labour leader has held meetings with the shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, who has been pressing for the party to table a motion of no confidence in the government before parliament rises for a Christmas break next Thursday. That option has not been ruled out depending on the reaction of Conservative backbenchers and the DUP when May reports back to MPs from the European council meeting on Monday. But the party is also studying alternative, less drastic options, including tabling an urgent question on the governments no-deal preparations; and demanding a three-hour emergency debate to allow parliament to set out its expectations for the latest negotiations over the backstop. It could also demand a full parliamentary debate of regulations readying the financial services sector for a no-deal Brexit, which are currently due to be considered in a committee. Essentially we can throw the parliamentary kitchen sink at them, said another senior Labour source, with all the trimmings. Some shadow ministers are more sceptical about calling a no-confidence vote early, fearing it would only unite the Conservatives behind May. One told the Guardian: Weve got to wait until January now. But Corbyn is keen to keep up attacks on the government, amid pressure from grassroots activists to fight Brexit and there is nothing to stop the party tabling subsequent motions if it loses. Conservative MPs have been warned by the chief whip, Julian Smith, not to absent themselves from parliament next week, because the government must be alive to opposition tactics in the run-up to the recess. The meaningful vote is now set for January 14 and the opposition is sure to attempt to depose May shortly thereafter if they have the votes. But they need some Tories to defect if they are to prevail, and its hard to see that as any more likely then than it was in December. And the final concern: just as May (and the rest of the UK political leadership) has misjudged what the EU might give them, so too is she likely to misjudge timing, confirmed by the failure to even consider that the EU wont give the UK the runway it needs to complete a second referendum. Has anyone worried their pretty head over how much lead time the EU would need to extend the Brexit deadline? It appears not, and that would be par for the course for this sad affair. Observation of tool use in striped skunks: how community science and social media help document rare natural phenomena Ecospjere. Note that community science is an obvious use case for a Jobs Guarantee, with data to drive a Green New Deal. As Winters Warm, Blood-Sucking Ticks Drain Moose Dry Scientific American Blankfeins Final Days at Goldman Clouded by 1MDB Scandal Bloomberg Wall Street banks turn skittish on leveraged loans FT Politicizing the Portfolio Governing NASA Finds Asian Glaciers Slowed by Ice Loss California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory Court Tosses Permit for Atlantic Coast Pipeline to Cross Appalachian Trail NBC (MR). Good. Leave it in the ground. Northern member states unite on euro-zone reform The Economist. The group, dubbed the New Hanseatic League, abhors fiscal transfers. Cant Afford to Tell the Truth LRB. On the BBC. Brexit Yellow Vest protesters erect a GUILLOTINE in Paris bearing French Presidents political party name amid revolt that has forced Macron to address the furious nation Monday evening Daily Mail. Obey tradition! The anger of the gilets jaunes Le Monde Diplomatique. The Global Economics of European Populism: Growth Regimes and Party System Change in Europe Mark Blyth and Jonathan Hopkin, Government and Opposition The French Protests Do Not Fit a Tidy Narrative Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Understanding the Yellow Vests Movement Through Basic Color Theory Counterpunch For Emmanuel Macron, How Did Things Get So Bad, So Fast? The Nation The Yellow Jackets Versus the European Empire The American Conservative Macron Should Take a Page From Obama to Deal With Protests Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg (CO). Macron (and Bershidsky) should look into the Domestic Security Alliance Council, which is how Obama dealt with Occupy. Big Brother Is Watching You Watch Syraqistan Warring Sides in Yemen Agree to Truce in Key Port City NYT China? Trump Transition They dont care: Facebook factchecking in disarray as journalists push to cut ties Guardian. Film at 11. Health Care We read Democrats 8 plans for universal health care. Heres how they work. Vox. Let the bait-and-switch begin! And for those who remember the 2009 health care battle, Jacob Hackers forthcoming proposal for Medicare Part E [scratches head] Wait, I know! More complexity! will induce hysterical (or hollow) laughter. Cant these people find honest work? Democrats in Disarray The People, No Thomas Frank, The Baffler Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S. McClatchy. Not new for anybody who followed the Religious Right during the Bush the Youngers administration. Class Warfare Transmissible Alzheimers theory gains traction Nature. That the transmissibility of the amyloid-beta could be preserved after so many decades underlines the need for caution, says [Mathias Jucker at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research]. The sticky amyloid clings tightly to materials used in surgical instruments, resisting standard decontamination methods. Yikes. Antidote du jour (via): A hawk stealing a honeycomb. Bonus antidote (BB): BB writes: This massive hornets nest, suspended from a cable wire on the side of the road, was swarming with activity in early September! Its the biggest one Ive ever seen around here in upstate NY! See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives The Wall Street Journal published an articleon December 12, 2018 that should warn us of coming disaster: Banks Get Kinder, Gentler Treatment Under Trump. The last time a regulatory head lamented that regulators were not kinder and gentler promptly ushered in the Enron-era fraud epidemic. President Bush made Harvey Pitt his Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair in August 2001 and, in one of his early major addresses, he spoke on October 22, 2001to a group of accounting leaders. Pitt, as a private counsel, represented all the top tier audit firms, and they had successfully pushed Bush to appoint him to run the SEC. The second sentence of Pitts speech bemoaned the fact that the SEC had not been a kinder and gentler place for accountants. He concluded his first paragraph with the statement that the SEC and the auditors needed to work in partnership. He soon reiterated that point: We view the accounting profession as our partner and amped it up by calling accountants the SECs critical partner. Pitt expanded on that point: I am committed to the principle that government is and must be a service industry. That, of course, would not be controversial if he meant a service agency (not industry) for the public. Pitt, however, meant that the SEC should be a service industry for the auditors and corporations. Pitt then turned to pronouncing the SEC to be the guilty party in the partnership. He claimed that the SEC had terrorized accountants. He then stated that he had ordered the SEC to end this fictional terror campaign. [A]ccountants became afraid to talk to the SEC, and the SEC appeared to be unwilling to listen to the profession. Those days are ended. This prompted Pitt to ratchet even higher his partnership language. I speak for the entire Commission when I say that we want to have a continuing dialogue, and partnership, with the accounting profession, Recall that Pitt spoke on October 22, 2001. Here are the relevant excerpts from the NY Times Enron timeline: Oct. 16 Enron announces $638 million in third-quarter losses and a $1.2 billion reduction in shareholder equity stemming from writeoffs related to failed broadband and water trading ventures as well as unwinding of so-called Raptors, or fragile entities backed by falling Enron stock created to hedge inflated asset values and keep hundreds of millions of dollars in debt off the energy companys books. Oct. 19 Securities and Exchange Commission launches inquiry into Enron finances. Oct. 22 Enron acknowledges SEC inquiry into a possible conflict of interest related to the companys dealings with Fastows partnerships. Oct. 23 Lay professes confidence in Fastow to analysts. Oct. 24 Fastow ousted. The key fact is that even as Enron was obviously spiraling toward imminent collapse (it filed for bankruptcy on December 2) and the SEC knew it Pitt offered no warning in his speech. The auditors and the corporate CEOs and CFOs were not the SECs partners. Thousands of CEOs and CFOs were filing false financial statements with clean opinions from the then Big 5 auditors. Pitt was blind to the accounting control fraud epidemic that was raging at the time he spoke to the accountants. Thousands of his putative auditor partners were getting rich by blessing fraudulent financial statements and harming the investors that the SEC is actually supposed to serve. Tom Frank aptly characterized the Bush appointees that completed the destruction of effective financial regulation as The Wrecking Crew. It is important, however, to understand that Bush largely adopted and intensified Clintons war against effective regulation. Clinton and Bush led the unremitting bipartisan assault on regulation for 16 years. That produced the criminogenic environment that produced the three largest financial fraud epidemics in history that hyper-inflated the real estate bubble and drove the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). President Trump has renewed the Clinton/Bush war on regulation and he has appointed banking regulatory leaders that have consciously modeled their assault on regulation on Bush and Clintons Wrecking Crews. Bill Clintons euphemism for his war on effective regulation was Reinventing Government. Clinton appointed VP Al Gore to lead the assault. (Clinton and Gore are New Democrat leaders the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party.) Gore decided he needed to choose an anti-regulator to conduct the day-to-day leadership. We know from Bob Stones memoir the sole substantive advice he gave Gore in their first meeting that caused Gore to appoint him as that leader. Do not waste one second going after waste, fraud, and abuse. Elite insider fraud is, historically, the leading cause of bank losses and failures, so Stones advice was sure to lead to devastating financial crises. It is telling that it was the fact that Stone gave obviously idiotic advice to Gore that led him to select Stone as the field commander of Clinton and Gores war on effective regulation. Stone convinced the Clinton-Gore administration to embrace the defining element of crony capitalism as its signature mantra for its war on effective regulation. Stone and his troops ordered us to refer to the banks, not the American people, as our customers. Peters foreword to Stones book admits the action, but is clueless about the impact. Bob Stones insistence on using the word customer was mocked by somebut made an enormous difference over the course of time. In general, he changed the vocabulary of public service from procedure first to service first. That is a lie. We did not mock the demand that we treat the banks rather than the American people as our customer we openly protested the outrageous order that we embrace and encourage crony capitalism. Crony capitalisms core principle which is unprincipled is that the government should treat elite CEOs as their customers or partners. A number of us publicly expressed our rage at the corrupt order to treat CEOs as our customers. The corrupt order caused me to leave the government. Our purpose as regulators is to serve the people of the United States not bank CEOs. It was disgusting and dishonest for Peters to claim that our objection to crony capitalism represented our (fictional) disdain for serving the public. Many S&L regulators risked their careers by taking on elite S&L frauds and their powerful political fixers. Many of us paid a heavy personal price because we acted to protect the public from these elite frauds. Our efforts prevented the S&L debacle from causing a GFC precisely because we recognized the critical need to spend most of our time preventing and prosecuting the elite frauds that Stone wanted us to ignore.. Trumps wrecking crew is devoted to recreating Clinton and Bushs disastrous crony capitalism war on regulation that produced the GFC. In a June 8, 2018 article, the Wall Street Journal mocked Trumps appointment of Joseph Otting as Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The illustration that introduces the article bears the motto: IN BANKS WE TRUST. Otting, channeling his inner Pitt, declared his employees guilty of systematic misconduct and embraced crony capitalism through Pitts favorite phrase partnership. I think it is more of a partnership with the banks as opposed to a dictatorial perspective under the prior administration. Otting, while he was in the industry, compared the OCC under President Obama to a fictional interstellar terrorist. Obama appointed federal banking regulators that were pale imitation of Ed Gray, Joe Selby, and Mike Patriarca the leaders of the S&L reregulation. The idea that Obamas banking regulators were akin to terrorists is farcical. The WSJsDecember 12, 2018 article reported that Otting had also used Bob Stones favorite term to embrace crony capitalism. Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting has also changed the tone from the top at his agency, calling banks his customers. There are many terrible role models Trump could copy as his model of how to destroy banking regulation and produce the next GFC, but Otting descended into unintentional self-parody when he channeled word-for-word the most incompetent and dishonest members of Clinton and Bushs wrecking crews. The same article reported a trade associations statement that demonstrates the type of outrageous reaction that crony capitalism inevitably breeds within industry. Banks are suffering from examiner criticisms that do not deal with any violation of law, said Greg Baer, CEO of the Bank Policy Institute. The article presented no response to this statement so I will explain why it is absurd. First, banks do not suffer from examiner criticism. Banks gain from examiner criticism. Effective regulators (and whistleblowers) are the only people who routinely speak truth to power. Auditors, credit rating agencies, and attorneys routinely bless the worst CEO abuses that harm banks while enriching the CEO. The bank CEO cannot fire the examiner, so the examiners expert advice is the only truly independent advice the banks board of directors receives. That makes the examiners criticisms invaluable to the bank. CEOs hate our advice because we are the only control (other than the episodic whistleblower) that is willing and competent to criticize the CEO. Second, we do our job as examiners best when we make criticism of bank actions that are not a violation of law. When a bank commits a violation of law relevant to the regulators, it is nearly always a felony. The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or unsafe and unsound practice that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. While violations of law (felonies) are obviously of importance to us in almost all cases, our greatest expertise is in identifying and stopping unsafe and unsound practices because such practices, like fraud, are leading causes of bank losses and failures. Third, repeated unsafe and unsound practices are a leading indicator of likely elite insider bank fraud and other violations of law. The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank conduct and the WSJ reporters failure to point out the absurdity of that complaint demonstrate that the banking industrys goal remains the destruction of effective banking regulation. Trumps wrecking crew is using the Clinton and Bush playbook to restore fully crony capitalism. He has greatly accelerated the onset of the next GFC. Yves here. Queens is one of the few remaining areas of New York City with comparatively affordable housing and good access to Manhattan. When Twitter put a headquarters in an old working-class area of San Francisco, which had had cheap rents by the standards of that city, Twitter executives and senior employees rented crash pads nearby, with the result that someone I know who lived nearby saw her rent go up by 30%. By Julia Conley, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams After being kept in the dark about New Yorks $3 billion deal with Amazon, allowing the trillion-dollar corporation to build its new headquarterscomplete with helicopter landing pad for CEO Jeff Bezosin the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, concerned New York City Council members and scores of angry New Yorkers on Wednesday angrily confronted company representatives over the plan. At the first City Council meeting on Amazons so-called HQ2, about 150 protesters joined the mostly-Democratic lawmakers in slamming the closed-door process through which the city and state finalized the deal and the effect the corporations arrival will likely have on affordable housing and community development in Queens and the entire city, as New York pours much-needed funds into the new one million square foot campus. Youre worth a trillion dollars, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said bluntly to Amazon officials Brian Huseman and Holly Sullivan. Why do you need our $3 billion when we have crumbling subways, crumbling public housing, people without health care, public schools that are overcrowded? Amazon has said its arrival in New York will create 25,000 jobs for residentsa claim one protester derided as smoke and mirrors during the hearingand has promised to fund a new school that would serve just 600 of the citys school children. Its all smoke and mirrors, says one protester who shouts from about 20 feet from the Amazon executives. These guys are lying criminals and theyre trying to take over everything. J. David Goodman (@jdavidgoodman) December 12, 2018 Huseman, Amazons vice president for public policy, noted that 5,000 New York workers are already employed by the company at a fulfillment center on Staten Islandbut as the hearing was underway those same employees were publicizing their effort to unionize, citing long hours, insufficient breaks, and safety concerns on the job. Nice shot across the bow as Amazon employees at new NYC (Staten Island) warehouse vie for a union. Union says any retaliation should cost the company its Long Island City project Workers cite concerns over pressure, hours, safety, breakshttps://t.co/NlTkzkLffo Kai Olson-Sawyer (@kolsaw) December 13, 2018 The HQ2 deal was brokered by state and city officials including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, and the Economic Development Corporation, headed by James Patchett. The officials bypassed public land use reviews which would have required the input of the City Council, including member Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents Long Island Citys 68,000 residents. James, you disrespected this body with how you handled this process, Van Bramer told Patchett. I think its fundamentally unethical with what you have done. You should be ashamed of yourself. The councilman also called on Amazon, whose CEO is the richest person on the planet, to simply build the headquarters with its own money and redirect the funds to public housing developments in the neighborhood. Amazon is a trillion dollar company. Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. They do not need a $500 million cash grant from taxpayers to build #HQ2 in #LIC. That money should be redirected to the four public housing developments in Western Queens, today. pic.twitter.com/1SSoAuUIWA Jimmy Van Bramer (@JimmyVanBramer) December 12, 2018 Outside City Hall, State Assemblyman Ron T. Kim led protesters in a rally, calling the hearing a first step in holding Amazon accountable to the people of New York. Our current state, all of the hatred, all of the divisiveness that we are feeling right now on the groundthose are symptoms of a deeper problem. Of an economy that has been failing us for 40, 50 years, Kim said. When the economy is failing we give trillions of dollars to big banks, when the economy is booming were giving billions of dollars to mega-corporationsTheres an opportunity right now to undo this. Unrig the system. This is the first stepgetting clarity, transparency, and focusing on the process. As rumors swirled last month about HQ2, just before Amazon announced that it would build one campus in New York and one in Arlington, Virginia, Kim joined former attorney general candidate Zephyr Teachout in warning against welcoming the company to New York, referencing the skyrocketing home prices and community erosion thats resulted from Amazons presence in Seattle. If Amazon indeed locates a substantial part of its business in New York, serfdom is the style of partnership the city should expect, Kim and Teachout wrote in a New York Times op-ed. Despite the familiar promises, Amazon is not a good partner. Not for the cities it occupies, not for the merchants who depend on it, not for the workers it employs. The company does not seek partnership; it seeks control. Seattles experience shows that becoming dependent on Amazon did not lead to broader wealth; it has pushed up home prices and led to increased homelessness. Amazon also threw its political weight around in the city, spending millions in a brutal campaign to resist corporate taxes in Seattle. It would be a special insult in New York City to sell out to a company so closely identified with squashing small merchants, stifling workers rights, and undermining the publishing and ideas industry, they added. Today, the Institutions in Kosovo have announced the adoption of the three laws initiating the process of transition of the Kosovo Security Force. I regret that this decision was made despite the concerns expressed by NATO. While the transition of the Kosovo Security Force is in principle a matter for Kosovo to decide, we have made clear that this move is ill-timed. NATO supports the development of the Kosovo Security Force under its current mandate. With the change of mandate, the North Atlantic Council will now have to re-examine the level of NATOs engagement with the Kosovo Security Force. NATO remains committed through KFOR to a safe and secure environment in Kosovo and to stability in the wider Western Balkans. All sides must ensure that todays decision will not further increase tensions in the region. All responsible political actors in the region need to focus on progress with reforms, and on dialogue. I reiterate my call on both Pristina and Belgrade to remain calm and refrain from any statements or actions which may lead to escalation. NATO continues to support the EU-sponsored dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina as the only lasting political solution for the region. Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller visited Tirana on Friday (14 December 2018), thanking Prime Minister Edi Rama for Albania's valuable contributions to NATO. In a press point with Defence Minister Olta Xhacka, Ms. Gottemoeller praised Albania's contributions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, as well as in NATO's multinational battlegroup in Latvia. She stressed that NATO is committed to Albania's security, including with plans for a fifty-million Euro investment at Kucove Air Base. While in Tirana, Ms. Gottemoeller also met with Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati and other senior officials. (Natural News) Because theres almost nothing left that doesnt offend snowflake Leftists these days, new rules are being implemented at the University of London that require all comedians who perform on campus to sign behavioral agreements promising not to offend or upset anyone. According to reports, it was a student club at the University of London that first came up with the idea as a necessary condition for comedians to perform on campus. Uncovered emails show that five local comedians who were asked by UNICEF on Campus to perform at the University of London were all asked to sign a behavioral agreement, which contains provisions designating the performance space as a safe space. Attached is a short behavioural agreement form that we will ask for you to sign on the day to avoid problems, wrote Fisayo Eniolorunda, the clubs event organizer, in an email to the five comedians. This comedy night aims to provide a safe space for everyone to share and listen to Comedy. This contract has been written to ensure an environment where joy, love, and acceptance are reciprocated by all. No tolerance policy prohibits all comedy A no tolerance policy effectively prohibits all comedy, so why not just replace the event with something less offensive like sitting in an empty room and staring at the wall? Interestingly enough, one of the five comedians to receive the notice was Russian-born free speech advocate Konstantin Kisin, who was invited by UNICEF on Campus to perform as part of the comedy event. Kisin spoke to PJ Media about the bizarre situation, revealing that he couldnt believe it at first, that the school would make such ridiculous requests. But then I remembered the Nimesh Patel story from last week and Jerry Seinfeld saying he doesnt play college and it started to make sense, Kisin explained. Heres what the rest of the email that Kisin and the other four comedians received, by the way: By signing this contract, you are agreeing to our no tolerance policy with regards to racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism. All topics must be presented in a way that is respectful and kind. It does not mean that those topics can not be discussed. But, it must be done in a respectful and non-abusive way. In other words, all five of the comedians are being told that theyre not allowed to be funny, which begs the question: Why hold a comedy event at all? Why not instead do something that even the most lunatic social justice warrior (SJW) in America could never deduce as offensive, such as sitting in an empty room and staring at the wall assuming the wall isnt painted white, of course. The whole thing is beyond ridiculous, especially since Kisin is notorious for mocking social justice, academia, and censorship as part of his TRIGGERnometry podcast. Kisin has had as guests on his program Helen Pluckrose, who as we earlier reported was one of the folks behind the series of intentionally fake science studies that were published in supposedly reputable science journals. While Kisin says he supports the cause of UNICEF, hes declined to participate and sign his life away in order to satisfy the demands of snowflake lunatics at the University of London who would be sure to somehow find him in breach of the safe space contract, were he to agree to perform. Comedy isnt about being kind and respectful and the only people who get to decide what comedians talk about on stage are comedians, Kisin told PJ Media. Hopefully the others followed his lead. For more insane news like this about whats taking place at college campuses around the world, be sure to check out CampusInsanity.com. Sources for this article include: PJMedia.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) I have a lot of friends in law enforcement, and one thing they all tell me is that very few people know their rights when it comes to saying No to cops. By feigning casual conversation, police are able to violate your rights and turn you into a felon, often for crimes you never committed. This is precisely what the FBI did to Michael Flynn when they sent a couple of FBI agents to his office, pretending to be engaging in a friendly conversation and White House tour. In reality, the FBI agents were interrogating Flynn, writing up a 302 document and using his words to prosecute him for lying to the government. (Yes, thats exactly what they did. The corruption of the FBI is mind-boggling.) Most people dont know their rights when it comes to interactions with law enforcement. Often an innocent-sounding question being posed to you is actually an attempt to achieve a binding verbal contract of consent that you would not normally grant if you knew the full extent of that contract. For example, if police officers show up at your front door and ask, Can we come in and talk with you? Most people will answer yes in a simple attempt to be polite. What they dont realize is that they have just consented to a warrantless search of their entire home. Whatever the police find in your home may now be entered into a court of law as evidence because you consented to the search. The correct answer to any law enforcement officer standing on your front porch is, Do you have a warrant? If they dont have a warrant, you are fully within your rights to say, I have no interest in talking to you. Furthermore, you should be saying this through a closed door, not an open door. There is no law that requires you to open the door for anyone, not even the police. (Hint: You dont even have to tell them youre home.) One of the most common lies that police use to gain access to your home is to claim they smell marijuana. Its harder for them to claim that fabrication if you dont even open the front door. Note: If police illegally search your home, anything they find will be thrown out by the courts. Such evidence is inadmissible, but youll still need to pay a lawyer to represent you, which is another way that corrupt government wages economic warfare against the innocent. How to avoid being framed by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol When international travelers arrive at U.S. ports via air or sea, they are subjected to scrutiny by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). When you pick up your luggage at an international terminal of an airport, a CBP officer can demand to search your luggage. When that happens, they play a series of word games with travelers to get you to consent to owning everything they find in your luggage. Theyll ask you, for example, Did you pack this bag yourself? If you say yes, theyll add something like, So everything in this bag is yours? Most people will blindly say, Yes. Sadly, thats a trap. Theyve just admitted to owning anything and everything a CBP agent might find in your bag, even if you bag was tampered with by airport personnel, who are routinely engaged in drug trafficking, by the way. The correct answer to this question is, of course, With all due respect, officers, I have not been in possession of this luggage for the last 10 hours. It has been handled by any number of baggage handlers, some of whom have a history of criminal theft and smuggling operations. Furthermore, this luggage has likely been opened by ATF officials, who also have a history of illegal activities involving luggage tampering. Accordingly, I did not have control over this luggage and claim no absolute ownership over objects inside the luggage which I did not put there myself. They will likely come back with, Then we will need to seize this luggage and search it. And they will, by the way. Your response to that should be something along the lines of, Have fun with my underwear. If they find anything in your luggage that is illegal, do not speak to them (see below) without an attorney present. Most importantly, never consent to owning anything they find that is illegal. This information, by the way, isnt meant to protect criminals or smugglers. The best way to avoid being arrested is to obey the law in the first place. My intention here is to help innocent people avoid being wrongfully accused, arrested and prosecuted. And yes, that happens all the time. If you dont believe me, research the history of the FBI hair analysis lab which ran total quack science forensics for decades, pretending that microscopic hair analysis is like a fingerprint that can confirm the identity of one individual out of millions. Hair analysis is forensic quackery. There is no science behind it at all. Yet the FBI used it for decades to throw people in prison, and many of those people have since been proven innocent thanks to DNA testing. How to avoid inadvertently consenting to an unconstitutional police search of your vehicle When people are pulled over by the police, they tend to want to be polite and cooperative. Thats a good rule of thumb, since most cops arent bad people, and theyll treat you with greater dignity if you treat them with dignity first. But all cops know how to trick people into consenting to vehicle searches that otherwise would be impossible to achieve. One of the ways they accomplish this is to straight out ask you, Is it okay if I have a look in your vehicle? Most people will simply say yes, thereby consenting to a detailed vehicle search, including the use of drug-sniffing dogs and, if desired by police, the complete disassembly of your vehicle to look for hidden compartments. By the way, as a side note, most criminal thugs arent very smart, and they try to hide drugs under seats or inside door panel ash trays, which is exactly where police will look first. Most druggies arent geniuses, and they arent sophisticated smugglers, either. The correct answer to any law enforcement officer who wants to search your vehicle is, With all due respect, officer, I do not consent to warrantless searches. If youd like to search this vehicle, please provide a search warrant. You could even add additional flair to your reply and say, I have been advised by my attorney to not consent to warrantless searches, which tells the officer that youre going to fight him every step of the way, without actually having to say that to his face. By the way, you are not even required to roll down your window to engage in this conversation with police. Just as there is no law requiring you to open your front door to police, theres also no law that Im aware of which would require you to roll down your vehicle window. Laws may differ for sobriety checkpoints or local jurisdictions, so be sure to know your local law before deploying any of this information. If the cop says, I can have a warrant here in 45 minutes, then your correct response is, Thats your call, officer. I do not consent to warrantless searches. You might even add, Whats your name and badge number, please? Learn more about your rights in a traffic stop at the non-profit Flex Your Rights FAQ page. Dont talk to anyone without an attorney present If theres one thing weve all learned from watching the astonishing corruption of the FBI and its political war against Trump associates, its that you should never talk to the FBI, under any circumstances. The same rule applies to talking to the police. By the way, when I say dont talk to the FBI, that implies even when youre innocent. No, dont even talk to them in that case, either, because they are dishonest and corrupt, and they may be trying to frame you for a process crime (i.e. lying to the government). You can be charged with a felony crime for merely misstating anything to the FBI. If you tell the FBI that you saw five bad guys but then later you change your story to six bad guys, you can be charged with a felony crime for lying. (Yes, seriously. No joke.) Any detail of your statement can become a felony crime if that detail later changes even the slightest bit. If you first tell them something happened at 4:15, then later you remember it was actually 4:45, you are now a felon who can be prosecuted for lying to the government. You might even be charged with interfering in police business or aiding and abetting some other criminal who got away. If you really want to talk to the police or the FBI, demand to have your attorney present. Until your attorney is present, the only word coming out of your mouth should be, Lawyer. The police are not your friend. If they are pretending to be friendly, its just an act to get you to talk. There is no such thing as Officer Friendly. The police are there to see if they can nab you on some felony crime, period. Even if they tell you they need your help in solving a crime, you have no legal obligation whatsoever to talk to them. Solving crimes is their job, not yours. If police really wanted to serve the greater good of society, they would stop prosecuting innocent people. Until that day comes, dont cooperate with anyone who represents law enforcement (and I say this as a friend of law enforcement who served as an executive board member of a police foundation, by the way). Police will use all sorts of social influence tactics to try to get you to talk without your attorney present. Theyll say things like, You arent a suspect, we just want to clear up some questions. In truth, anyone can be a suspect, and anything you say to the police can be used against you in a court of law. Did you ever consider the possibility that the actual criminal who carried out the crime might be the cousin of the cop interrogating you whos trying to frame you so that his cousin isnt prosecuted? You cannot know the intentions of the police, and never assume their intentions are honest. By the way, did you know that the courts have ruled police can lie to you with impunity, but if you are caught lying to them, thats a felony? Police can arrest you and your business partner for example, separate you into two isolated rooms, then lie to you and claim your business partner is already spilling the goods, and that youd better talk fast because only one of you is going to get immunity. The entire scenario is pure theater, of course, kind of like every CNN broadcast. Also, dont make the mistake of thinking that your innocence will be so convincing to the police (or the FBI) that they will realize you arent a bad person. Cops and FBI agents are only looking to advance their own careers, and thats achieved by indicting people on felony charges, regardless of whether those people are innocent or guilty. Get this through your head: Your innocence has no impact on law enforcement. They dont care if youre innocent. The prisons of America are full of innocent people mixed in with the guilty ones. The cops dont care which group you belong to as long as they can get an indictment and a career boost. Robert Mueller, for example, made an entire career out of imprisoning innocent people and pressuring witnesses to lie. Its a racket. But if you dont know your rights, youll fall right into their trap. Even if you are completely innocent, do not talk to the FBI or the police without an attorney present. Youd be better off to simply not talk to them at all. Just invoke the Fifth Amendment and repeat, I have the right to remain silent. Remember: Cops think everybody is guilty. Thats how they see the world. Trust me, I know cops. Cops believe that everybody lies all the time, that everybody has something to hide, and that everyone is guilty. The reason they believe this is because those are the examples of people they interact with the criminal element. Thus, they rarely see anyone who isnt guilty of something. Plus, cops know that many of the cops are dirty, too, so they really dont have any faith in humanity at all. They know that cops break the rules all the time. Cops plant evidence. Cops fake reasonable suspicion to get warrants to enter private homes. Cops lie to suspects. Cops use fake field drug test kits that show positives for almost everything. Cops target people with nice cars so they can confiscate the vehicles asset forfeiture for their own departments. All cops know this, which is why cops dont trust people not even other cops. If a cop, a detective, or an FBI agent is talking to you, they are already wondering if youre guilty of something. If you talk to them, you are granting them permission to ruin your life so that they can advance their careers. Most cops dont want to waste time with people who know their rights I know a lot of active duty and former cops. Most of them are good people. Theyre also smart enough to know that wasting their time with someone who knows their rights is a silly idea, especially when there are so many other citizens to target who dont know their rights and wont put up any resistance to tyranny. The key here is to be respectful, firm and informed. Dont piss off the officer and make it personal, or they will suddenly find the time to make your life difficult. Dont use foul language. Dont dare the officer to find a crime. Just be polite and informed. Communicate the fact that you know your rights and you wont be intimidated or coerced into surrendering those rights. If you hold to this principle, most cops will send you on your way and move on to their next target. In summary, most cops arent bad people, but they are operating in a system of tyranny that trains them to trick you into consenting to the violation of your own rights. If you go along with their trickery, youre a fool. Stop being a fool and start asserting your rights politely but firmly. It may just keep you out of prison and prevent you from being charged with a crime you never committed. Read more coverage at PoliceState.news. (Natural News) Growing old is not fun at all. Among other things, your muscles get thinner, making you much weaker and increasing your vulnerability to serious physical injuries. A Chinese study suggested that you could preserve much of that muscle strength by taking up tai chi forms. The Chinese martial art has been easily adapted into a wellness exercise. Its low-to-moderate levels of physical exertion make it a good option for sustainable exercise, especially for older people. It is considered to be very appropriate for controlling sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is defined by lighter skeletal muscles, more fat in normal muscles, weaker muscles, and a diminished level of physical function. People with the syndrome find it difficult to move around the house and are more likely to fall and get fractured bones. They also have a higher chance of developing osteoporosis and serious physical disabilities. The older a person gets, the more likely he or she will develop sarcopenia. Conversely, the syndrome can be prevented through sustainable exercise. The longer the strength boost lasts, the better the exercise. However, the exercise form also cannot be too intense, lest it strain the person and cause injury. So the low-impact forms of tai chi make it perfect for sarcopenia management. (Related: Tai Chi found to significantly improve knee movement and flexibility in osteoarthritis patients.) Comparing the muscle strength of tai chi practitioners with non-practitioners Researchers from the Peoples Liberation Army General Hospital (PLAGH) had three goals for their study. First, they wanted to find out the effect of tai chi on specific muscles that contributed to the flexing, extending, and dorsiflex motions of important joints. Second, they wished to determine the effects of the exercise on people from different age groups. Finally, they planned to figure out any links between the duration of tai chi exercise and the muscle strength of the practitioner. They gathered 410 local teachers to take part in their study. The participants came from four different communities and their ages ranged from 60 to 89 years old. Half of the teachers regularly practiced tai chi. They have been performing the exercise anywhere from three to 30 years. The other participants did not partake of tai chi, although they did walk for an average of two hours. Both the tai chi and non-tai chi practitioners were divided into three age groups: 60-69 years, 70-79 years, and 80-89 years. They were all evaluated for the maximum isometric strength of hamstring, iliopsoas, quadriceps femoris, and tibialis anterior muscles on both sides of their body. The results were compared to find out the difference of muscle strength between tai chi practitioners and non-practitioners. The researchers also quantified the relationship between the length of time in months that a participant has been practicing yoga and the muscle strength of that persons lower limbs. The longer you practice tai chi, the stronger your muscles stay The PLAGH researchers found that tai chi improved the performance of the four muscles responsible for joint flexion, extension, and dorsiflex motions. The hamstring, iliopsoas, quadriceps femoris, and tibialis anterior muscles of the practitioners outperformed their counterparts in the non-tai chi group. Furthermore, tai chi practitioners from all three age groups did not display any difference in muscle strength. And the longer the participant followed tai chi, the stronger their muscles proved to be during evaluation. Based on their findings, the study reaffirmed that tai chi can stop the loss of muscle strength caused by aging. In addition, taking up the wellness exercise allowed practitioners to maintain their muscle strength over much longer periods of time. Pick up more tips and tricks about exercise at MensFitnessFocus.com. Sources include: Science.news OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com Archives-PMR-org. Link.Springer.com (Natural News) Keeping the brain healthy throughout the aging process is a top concern these days. With rates of Alzheimers disease and dementia on the rise, it is no small wonder that researchers are looking for novel ways to combat brain aging and support cognitive function across the life span. New research has shown that cannabis may just be the answer weve been looking for, with scientists discovering that the plant has incredible restorative benefits for the brain. Estimates suggest that some 14 million Americans will be living with some form of dementia by the year 2050. For 2018, dementia and Alzheimers are expected to have cost the country $227 billion. Within the next thirty years, experts posit that the cost of dementia will reach up to $1.1 trillion. As pharmaceutical treatments continuously fail to provide relief, it is no surprise that scientists are now turning to natural, plant medicines like cannabis and turmeric. Cannabis reverses brain aging Scientists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Bonn teamed up to examine the potential brain benefits of cannabis in mice. This amazing study is years in the making, with the researchers having built a strong body of evidence on the brain benefits of THC. To conduct their study, researchers administered a small amount of THC, derived from cannabis, to mice aged two, twelve and 18 months old for the course of one month. Some mice were given a placebo. As sources explain, mice have very short life spans and show substantial cognitive deficiencies at just 12 months of age. Afterwards, the mice were subjected to a battery of tests to gauge their learning capacity and memory. Incredibly, the team found that older mice treated with cannabis displayed cognitive function that was as good as the youngest control subjects. As reported by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Mice that were only given a placebo displayed natural age-dependent learning and memory losses. In contrast, the cognitive functions of the animals treated with cannabis were just as good as the two-month-old control animals. The treatment completely reversed the loss of performance in the old animals, reported Prof. Andreas Zimmer from the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry at the University of Bonn and member of the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation. In past studies, the team found that brain aging is accelerated when THC receptors are absent, prompting them to investigate further. In the brain, THC acts very similarly to the cannabinoids naturally produced by the body. With increasing age, the quantity of the cannabinoids naturally formed in the brain reduces. When the activity of the cannabinoid system declines, we find rapid aging in the brain, Prof. Zimmer commented. Treating the mice with THC yielded incredibly impressive epigenetic changes in their brains, and the number of links between neurons dramatically increased, as well. It looked as though the THC treatment turned back the molecular clock, Zimmer commented. Science backs cannabis There is a growing body of scientific evidence to support an array of health benefits and medicinal uses for the cannabis plant and the research is piling up quick. THC is just one of many beneficial compounds found in the plant; though it is often thought of as nothing more than the plants psychoactive component, as the research above shows, THC has its own medicinal value. CBD, or cannabidiol, is another compound found in cannabis that has recently been under the spotlight. CBD has been shown to have an array of uses, including relief from chronic pain and childhood seizure disorders. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not one specific compound that makes the cannabis plant medicinal, but rather, all of them. Earlier this year, a 52-year-old woman shocked mainstream medical professionals by curing her terminal cancer with nothing but cannabis oil. You can learn more about the benefits of plant medicine at CBDs.news. Sources for this article include: Huji.ac.il ALZ.org (Natural News) Supreme Court watchers will tell you that even though many people wait with bated breath until June of each year when the high court unveils its decisions involving controversial cases, some of the most important work done by justices during their annual sessions happens quietly. In fact, a case with very far-reaching implications involving federal agencies cleared the high court just this week that could spell the end of the governments vast regulatory powers. As reported by The Truth About Guns, that could include impacting major firearms regulations issued or implemented by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The website noted that the Supreme Court granted writ of certiorari in a case, Kisor v. Wilkie, involving a challenge to a previous legal precedent established in Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., both of which direct courts to defer to an agencys reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous rule, the SCOTUS Blog noted. Granting of a writ does not necessarily mean that the high court disagrees with a lower courts decision. What it does mean is that at least four of the justices believe that the circumstances of a case are worth a review by the high court. The Truth About Guns (TTAG) noted further: Under what is known as Auer deference, named for a Supreme Court case, Auer v. Robbins, courts must defer to the agencys interpretation of that agencys own regulations unless such interpretation is plainly erroneous. Under a related doctrine, known as Chevron deference, where a statute implicitly gives an agency the power to promulgate regulations, the courts are not to substitute their interpretation of a statute for a reasonable one that has been made by the bureaucrats. Regulations have the rule of law even if its not what Congress intended Few Americans are aware of how the regulatory process works, but its important to understand it in order to understand the relevance of the high courts granting of cert in the Kisor v. Wilkie case. Most of the time when Congress crafts a bill that eventually becomes law, the Legislative Branch leaves it up to the various federal agencies to write their own rules as to how the law will be carried out. The law itself is essentially a guideline providing the appropriate federal agency with broad policy objectives Congress seeks to achieve. For instance, the National Firearms Act of 1934 imposed a tax on the manufacture and sale of machine guns, suppressors, SBS/SBRs, etc., and required them to be registered with the federal government, TTAG reported. But the law did not actually specify how that was to be done. It wasnt clear how Congress intended for Americans to specifically comply with the laws new requirements. (Related: Concealed carry permits in DC go BOOM as unconstitutional good reason mandate is removed.) As such, the Legislative Branch left it up to federal bureaucrats to devise rules regarding the implementation of the law. And in many ways this process is appropriate, given that it is unreasonable to expect every piece of legislation to detail how proposed new laws are to be carried out, especially when todays legislation is complex and references hundreds or thousands of existing rules, regulations, and laws upon passage. But on the other hand, many of the regulatory measures implemented by federal agencies are themselves cumbersome, nonsensical, impractical, and expensive. And yet, they have the rule of law: You cant simply ignore a federal regulation even if you dont think that the rule is a faithful execution of congressional intent. That said, federal regulations also give lawmakers cover. They can argue, and have argued, that they didnt intend for their law to be carried out in the manner the federal agency prescribed, so they arent to blame for any negative impacts or consequences. And yet, they are ultimately responsible because they passed the legislation in the first place without adequate instruction to the corresponding federal agency as to how the new law should be carried out. What happens when someone disagrees with a regulation or the agencys interpretation of it, and argues that the regulation/interpretation is inconsistent with the law passed by Congressor maybe isnt even authorized by the law in the first place TTAG asked? The fourth branch of government? You might think that federal courts are charged with deciding such issues, and thats true to an extent. But things can and do get tricky at this point. Thats where the principle of Auer deference comes in; federal courts must usually defer to a government agencys interpretation of its own rule. But recently, there has been an effort from some to revisit the principles of Auer deference and Chevron as well as additional aspects of the administrative law state with the objective of overturning many of them as blatantly unconstitutional. And this is where gun rights come into play or, rather, the lack of them. If those pushing to reverse Auer and Chevron are successful, the present administrative state which constitutional expert and talk show giant Mark Levin has called the fourth branch of government would be ripe for dismantling. Justice Clarence Thomas has made some noise about this, but few others on the high court have. That may all change now that the Supremes have granted cert in a case specifically challenging the constitutionality of Auer deference. Stay informed about constitutional liberties and freedoms at Freedom.news. Sources include: TheTruthAboutGuns.com NewsTarget.com One person was injured Thursday night in a house fire in the 8400 block of West Front Street in Hanover Township near Orfordville. The call came in just after 8 p.m. Thursday evening. Dispatchers are sending units from a number of area departments to assist Orfordville Fire Department personnel. Firefighters on the scene tell NBC15 News that the person who was injured lived in the home. The extend of their injuries is unknown. Investigators were called to the scene to help determine the cause of the fire. No word on the extent of the damage from the fire. What to Know Baby Jane Doe was found July 27 near Interstate 15 in Corona. A 22-year-old woman and 17-year-old boy were arrested. A funeral was held by the community and law enforcement for Baby Jane Doe. A 22-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy were arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of "Baby Jane Doe," an infant discovered dead on the side of a Southern California highway in July. The newborn girl known as "Baby Jane Doe" was found July 27 in the area of Cajalco Road and Interstate 15 in Corona. She was wrapped in a T-shirt with a stripe and flower pattern inside a cardboard box. The cause of death is undetermined, the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroners Department said. Shawna Andritch, 22-year-old resident of Corona, and a 17-year-old boy, also from Corona, were interviewed in connection with the infant's death Dec. 7. They were arrested on suspicion of murder, Corona police said. A funeral was held Dec. 6 for "Baby Jane Doe," as Corona police officers and firefighters along with community members buried the infant at Sunnyslope Cemetery. After the funeral, detectives said they received a tip about the case. That tip led them to Andritch and the unidentified teen. Statements made during an interview led to their arrests, police said. Authorities reminded the community during the funeral that parents can safely surrender infants within 72 hours of birth, no questions asked, at police stations, fire stations and hospitals. A divided U.S. appeals court Thursday blocked rules by the Trump administration that allowed more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. The ruling, however, may be short lived because the administration has adopted new rules on contraceptive coverage that are set to take effect next month and will likely prompt renewed legal challenges. Thursday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concerned changes to birth control coverage requirements under President Barack Obama's health care law that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued in October 2017. States were likely to succeed on their claim that those changes were made without required notice and public comment, the appeals court panel said in a 2-1 decision. The majority upheld a preliminary injunction against the rules issued by U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam last year. It, however, limited the scope of the injunction, applying it only to the five states in the lawsuit and not the entire country. Another federal judge also blocked the rules, and her nationwide injunction remains in place. An email to the Justice Department seeking comment was not immediately returned. Obama's health care law required most companies to cover birth control at no additional cost, though it included exemptions for religious organizations. The new policy allowed more categories of employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing free contraception to women by claiming religious objections. It also allowed any company that is not publicly traded to deny coverage on moral grounds. The Department of Justice said in court documents that the rules were about protecting a small group of "sincere religious and moral objectors" from having to violate their beliefs. The changes were favored by social conservatives who are staunch supporters of President Donald Trump. California filed a lawsuit to block the changes that was joined by Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia. The states argued that the changes could result in millions of women losing free birth control services, forcing them to seek contraceptive care through state-run programs or programs that the states had to reimburse. The states show with "reasonable probability" that the new rules will lead women to lose employer-sponsored contraceptive coverage, "which will then result in economic harm to the states," 9th Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace, a nominee of Republican President Richard Nixon, wrote for the majority. In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Andrew Kleinfeld said the economic harm to the states was "self-inflicted" because they chose to provide contraceptive coverage to women. The states, therefore, did not have the authority to bring the lawsuit, Kleinfeld, a nominee of Republican President George H.W. Bush, said. The case became more complicated after the Trump administration last month issued new birth control coverage rules that are set to supersede those at issue in the lawsuit before the 9th Circuit. Under the new rules, large companies whose stock is sold to investors won't be able to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage. Wallace said the new rules did not make the case before the 9th Circuit moot because they are not set to take effect until January. Forty-four immigrants, including an Afghan translator who assisted a Medal of Honor recipient during a battle in Afghanistan's Shok Valley a decade ago, became citizens of the United States through the naturalization process Friday morning in Hayward. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services held the naturalizaion ceremy at Hayward City Hall where Mayor Barbara Halliday was in attendance. East Bay resident Bahroz Mohmand was among people from 19 different nations who took the oath of allegiance to become an American citizen. Mohmand, born in Afghanistan, served as a combat interpretator along side Retired Staff Sgt. Ron Shurer II who received a Medal of Honor from President Donald Trump in October for his and his unit's actions during a 2008 battle. "I spent most of my youth age working with the army, and now I have two kids and I have another one on the way. This means a lot to me because I want to make a better future for my kids," Mohmand told NBC Bay Area. He said he spent most of his youth working with the army. "Whatever I had during my childhood, I don't want my kids to go through that," Mohmand continued. His wife was also among those who became a naturalized citizen. Members of the Mount Eden High School Choir, who has performed at Carnegie Hall, sang the national anthem and "America the Beautiful" at the ceremony. Health officials on Thursday issued an update to their previous warnings about romaine lettuce, urging consumers to find out where their lettuce originated. In a statement Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises consumers to "not eat and retailers and restaurants not serve or sell any romaine lettuce harvested from certain counties in the Central Coastal growing regions of northern and central California." "If you do not know where the romaine is from, do not eat it," the statement says. Officials focused especially on three California counties Monterey, San Benito and Santa Barbara and warned the public not to "buy, serve, sell, or eat romaine lettuce" from those regions. Some romaine lettuce products are now labeled with a harvest location by region. Consumers, restaurants, and retailers should check bags or boxes of romaine lettuce for a label indicating where the lettuce was harvested. Read the full warning from the CDC here. One lied about his knowledge of Russian-hacked emails, another about a Russian real estate deal, a third about dialogue over sanctions with a Russian ambassador. A pattern of deception by advisers to President Donald Trump, aimed at covering up Russia-related contacts during the 2016 campaign and transition period, has unraveled bit by bit in criminal cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. The lies to the FBI and to Congress, including by Trump's former fixer and his national security adviser, have raised new questions about Trump's connections to Russia, revealed key details about the special counsel's findings and painted a portrait of aides eager to protect the president and the administration by concealing communications they presumably recognized as problematic. The false statements cut to the heart of Mueller's mission to untangle ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and to establish whether they colluded to sway the election. They concern some of the central questions of the investigation, including why the incoming Trump administration discouraged Russia from retaliating over sanctions imposed for election hacking; who knew what when about illegally obtained Democratic emails; and how plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow came together and fell apart. "I think you can draw a conclusion that these false statements generally relate to an effort to protect the president of the United States in connection with his dealings with Russia," said Washington lawyer Daniel Petalas, a former Justice Department prosecutor. "That's what makes them material to the investigation that Mueller is pursuing, which is a necessary element of a false statement claim that it has to be material." The most recent example came Thursday, when Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about negotiations he had on Trump's behalf for a real estate deal in Moscow. Though he told lawmakers the talks were done by January 2016, he admitted they actually lasted as late as June after Trump had secured the Republican nomination and after Russians had penetrated Democratic email accounts for communications later released through WikiLeaks. He also said he had briefed Trump about the project's progress and members of his family. Cohen said he lied out of loyalty to Trump, who insisted throughout the campaign that he had no business dealings in Russia, and to be consistent with his political messaging. Though the Cohen plea didn't directly connect to Trump's campaign, other cases have. George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about April 2016 conversations with a Maltese professor who told him Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails." Papadopoulos told the FBI he wasn't part of the campaign when he encountered the professor, Joseph Mifsud, even though he had joined weeks earlier. His lawyers said Papadopoulos, now serving a 14-day prison sentence, "lied to save his professional aspirations and preserve a perhaps misguided loyalty to his master." Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is being sentenced later this month after admitting lying to the FBI by saying he didn't discuss sanctions against Russia during the transition with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. at the time. That deception was flagged for the White House in January 2017 by Obama administration holdover Sally Yates, who as acting attorney general told White House counsel Don McGahn that officials were misleading the public by falsely declaring Flynn hadn't discussed sanctions. Flynn's guilty plea was especially significant in that it made clear other transition officials were aware of his Kislyak conversations and discussed with him what he would say. And while Flynn was fired in February 2017, his importance to Trump became evident when ex-FBI Director James Comey said Trump had encouraged him during a private meeting that same month to end an investigation into Flynn. More lies followed as prosecutors this week accused former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of lying even after his guilty plea, though they have not said about what. And a draft plea agreement against another Trump supporter, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, accused him of misrepresenting a conversation with Trump confidant Roger Stone about WikiLeaks, which published thousands of stolen emails ahead of the election to harm the Clinton campaign. A false statement charge can be a powerful cudgel for prosecutors, especially in investigations like this one where witnesses are recalcitrant and openly defiant. In the Mueller investigation, perhaps emboldened by Trump's antagonist stance, witnesses have increasingly lashed out against the government's authority. Trump and Stone have publicly attacked Mueller's investigation, while Corsi rejected a plea offer and accused prosecutors of trying to bully him into saying what they want to hear. "You've got a system where you're trying to take evidence from people, get their testimony under penalty of prosecution if you lie," said Duke University law professor Sam Buell. "And that's what you do when you have uncooperative people (who are) trying to conceal something that you're trying to get to the bottom of." More false statement charges could be coming. Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the panel has made referrals to prosecutors and cited Cohen as an example. "It's a loud message to everybody that is interviewed by our committee, regardless of where that prosecution comes from, if you lie to us, we're going to go after you," Burr said. Though Trump regularly complains about Mueller's style, there's nothing unusual about prosecutors pursuing false statement charges to send a message and using their lies for cases against higher-level targets. "This is what happened to the mob, this is what happened to the drug cartels," Buell said. Not to mention, he noted, past Washington investigations like Watergate. A former University of New Hampshire researcher has pleaded guilty to misusing a credit card for federal research grant expenses to charge nearly $7,000 worth of merchandise online. Prosecutors say 46-year-old Jichun Zhang submitted fictitious receipts for the expenses. The university made payments on the card and obtained reimbursement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which provided the grant. Zhang was a research associate professor for UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. Zhang will be sentenced on March 27, 2019. Earlier this month, another researcher had pleaded guilty to a similar offense, for charging over $82,000 worth of items to a credit card. Community after community across the country dealt with apparent email bomb threats Thursday, which disrupted lives and tied up police. Connecticut State Police tell us the hunt is on for whoever was behind what appears to be a big hoax. Cybersecurity expert Quinnipiac University professor Frederick Scholl discussed what it will take to track down those responsible. What I think is happening, assuming its not two guys in a garage, you know, pranksters or something like that, said Scholl. There are large networks of robots out there that are computer controlled. Theyre owned by hacker groups and they can be used to send out thousands or millions of emails a day, he said. That could be what was behind Thursdays wave of apparent email bomb threats in our state and across the country. In Bloomfield, a company received an apparently ominous email claiming someone had hidden the bomb in the building and demanding a ransom of 20.000 $ in Bitcoin. In at least a dozen communities around the state, similar threats targeted businesses, schools and other community organizations. While authorities took each seriously even prompting some evacuations state police say none were credible. There could be two motives. One is actually getting money through Bitcoin and some people have done that through ransomware attacks in the past. Another would be to disrupt, to cause fear, said Scholl. Scholl tells us investigators could quickly track down an unsophisticated cybercriminal. But it could take months, even years, to catch a more complex operation. I think were going to see more of these things. Individuals have to be more careful about clicking on emails and everything they do, said Scholl. A law enforcement source tells NBC News it appears the threats went out robo-style, with seemingly no reason for who was targeted. Police remind people to report anything suspicious. A 22-year-old Colchester man has died after a crash in Lebanon Thursday night. Police said Michael Richard Anselmo, 22, of Colchester, was going south on Clubhouse Road when he went off the road at a curve, hit a rock wall and flipped the vehicle over. He was trapped and was taken to Windham Hospital after emergency crews freed him. State police said Anselmo was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. Friday. Police are investigating and ask anyone with information to call state police at 860-465-5400. Police say a Connecticut city councilman has been arrested during an immigration protest at a local courthouse. Police say a Meriden city councilman was arrested during an immigration protest at a courthouse Thursday night. Meriden City Councilman Miguel Castro was arrested and charged with two counts of assault on public safety personnel and first-degree rioting. Police said Castro was participating in a protest at Meriden Superior Court organized by Unidad Latina en Accion in support of a man arrested by immigration officials. Authorities said Castro assaulted two judicial marshals while they were dispersing a crowd in the parking lot. It's unclear if other people involved with the protest were arrested. Castro has been released on $5,000 bond. He's scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 27. Castro said Friday he will release a statement later in the day about "how the system handled the whole situation." The holiday season just got a little more cheerful for residents in the capital city thanks to some surprise donations from a Hartford church. Members of Mount Olive Church Ministries delivered some goodwill to the citys North End Thursday evening, to people who had no idea they were coming. Were going to knock on their doors and just say happy holidays, explained Pastor Dion Watkins. They call it Groceries on God. Members of the church on Battles Street take to the streets and deliver food with all the makings of a warm meal to unsuspecting residents, all for free. No strings attached. They dont have to be members of our congregation. They dont have to be our denomination or anything. It doesnt matter, Watkins said. For North End residents receiving the surprise love donations, it was a welcome gift. This is the fourth holiday season the church has taken on the project, asking members to bring donations to Sunday services ahead of delivery day. Being that we know the neighborhood and we know the needs of the neighborhood, we should be able to be able to be a resource for them and they should be able to come to us for their needs, said church member Shanda Montford. The churchs mission is to minister to their members and the community outside their walls, sharing the spirit of giving with their neighbors. Be grateful for what we have in our lives but we have to remember those who are less fortunate than us. Just keep giving, Watkins said. Church officials estimate they made about 200 surprise deliveries, and the pastor said he hopes other faith communities will take on similar projects and spread this kind of needed love. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. A timeline offered by officials at an Oct. 3 media conference stated that a nurse did not respond to that call, but one showed up as part of regular rounds at about 9:15 a.m., and Robinson was in the same condition. It wasn't until lunch was being brought in shortly after 11 a.m. that Robinson was found unresponsive on the floor of his cell, according to officials. A man survived for hours trapped in his upside-down car after it plunged into a frigid Northern California river, officials said. California Highway Patrol officials in Yreka said 28-year-old Michael Finn breathed from a pocket of air inside his vehicle until he was rescued five hours after his car skidded off State Route 96 into the Klamath River in Siskiyou County. The office says that a Siskiyou County Sheriff's dive team and a tow truck pulled the car from the water. "I'm still in disbelief that he was still alive," dive team commander Sgt. Robert Giannini told NBC affiliate KOBI. Authorities say Finn was transported by ambulance to a hospital to be treated for exposure. Dallas police are asking for the public's help in identifying a victim who was found dead in a creek last week, police said. A sketch of the man was released to the public. Police received a call about 8:45 a.m. on Dec. 4 regarding a body floating in a creek near the 2900 block of Irving Boulevard. Anyone who knows the man's identity is asked to call Homicide Detective Abel Lopez at 214-671-3676 or by email abel.lopez@dpd.ci.dallas.tx.us. Case number is 260067-2018. A 78-year-old prisoner who says he killed about 90 people over nearly four decades as he moved around the country pleaded guilty to murder Thursday in the 1994 strangulation of a Texas woman. Samuel Little entered his plea in the West Texas city of Odessa, where the body of Denise Christie Brothers was discovered in a vacant lot about a month after she disappeared. He received another life prison term, Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland said in a statement. "Due to the efforts of law enforcement agencies from around the country, dozens of victims' families now have answers," Bland said. "Although this is a conviction in Ector County, Texas, I hope it will serve as justice for all those atrocious murders committed across this nation in this unprecedented era of terror and mayhem caused by Samuel Little." Little was convicted in 2014 of killing three Los Angeles-area women in separate attacks in the late 1980s and was serving life sentences when authorities say he confessed this year to killing dozens more people in 20 states since 1970. Those confessions, which often included a level of detail and recall that authorities say was uncanny, spurred investigators from Florida to California to review old murder cases. An FBI spokesman said thus far, investigators have concluded that Little was the killer in 36 cases, including the killing of Brothers and the three in the Los Angeles-area that landed him in prison. But Bland said in his statement more than 40 cases have been confirmed. He later explained that he received that number from Texas Rangers, an elite investigative agency that has relayed details of Little's confessions to law officers in other states. Little explained the killings in a series of conversations with Ranger James Holland. Most recently, police in Tennessee linked Little to the death of Martha Cunningham, a Knoxville woman whose body was found in a wooded area by a road in 1975. Even though Cunningham was bruised and nude from the waist down when her body was found, detectives attributed her death to natural causes, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. With at least three-dozen confirmed deaths, Little is already among the most prolific known serial killers in American history. Gary Ridgway, the so-called Green River killer who is serving life in prison, pleaded guilty to killing 49 women and girls, making him the deadliest serial killer in terms of confirmed kills, though he has said he likely killed more than 71 people. Ted Bundy confessed to 30 homicides from about 1974 to 1978 and John Wayne Gacy killed at least 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. Both of them were executed. Little, who is in poor health and relies on a wheelchair, offered his confessions as a bargaining chip to be moved from the Los Angeles County prison where he was being held, the FBI said last month. But Bland said Thursday that Little will return to California to serve his life term. Little, who also went by the name Samuel McDowell, targeted vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs, authorities have said. Once a competitive boxer, he usually stunned or knocked out his victims with powerful punches before he strangled them while masturbating. "With no stab marks or bullet wounds, many of these deaths were not classified as homicides but attributed to drug overdoses, accidents, or natural causes," the FBI said. What to Know Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie says he's asked President Trump not to consider him for White House chief of staff Christie was a top contender for the role, sources told NBC News Christie was once chairman of Trump's transition team and was speculated to be a candidate for attorney general as well Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he does not want to be White House chief of staff, just hours after multiple reports said he was President Donald Trump's leading choice for the job. "It's an honor to have the President consider me as he looks to choose a new White House Chief of Staff," Christie said in a statement obtained by NBC News, first provided to The New York Times. "However, I have told the President that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment. As a result, I have asked him to no longer keep me in any of his considerations for this post." Christie met with Trump Thursday night about the White House chief of staff job and was considered a "top contender" for the role, sources told NBC News earlier Friday. Christie's candidacy was being boosted both publicly and privately by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a source told NBC. Axios and Bloomberg also reported Friday that Christie was a top contender, and a Washington Post reporter tweeted that the paper was about to report the same thing when his statement landed. Christie, one of the most unpopular governors in recent American history, was nonetheless an outspoken supporter of the president's, and for a time led his transition team. At one point he was also considered to be in the running for attorney general. But analysts questioned whether Christie could actually fit in the administration given his history with the president's son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner. In 2005, as U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Christie put Kushner's father in prison on tax and other charges. Days away from being sentenced in the Russia probe, former national security adviser Michael Flynn is not exactly hiding his face in shame. People close to him tell The Associated Press that as the possibility of prison looms, Flynn is relaxed and hopeful, eager to get through Tuesday's sentencing and move forward. He'll be the first official in President Donald Trump's administration to be sentenced in the case. Flynn has been having fun with his old high school gang, going out on the town to see an Elton John concert and watch the New England Patriots and Boston Celtics play, friends tell the AP. Random people approach him in public with hugs, handshakes and requests for photos. His supporters plan to rally outside the courthouse the day of his sentencing, and a lucrative consulting gig could await him. The retired three-star general pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States during Trump's White House transition. In a filing this week, his lawyers highlighted Flynn's long and distinguished military service and extensive cooperation with prosecutors in asking that he be sentenced to probation and community service, rather than prison. The special counsel investigating whether Trump's 2016 Republican presidential campaign coordinated with Russia has said Flynn was so helpful that he was entitled to avoid time behind bars, even though sentencing guidelines recommend up to six months in prison. Despite the extensive cooperation, Flynn has not drawn any of the vitriol that Trump has hurled at those who have turned on him most notably his former fixer Michael Cohen. The president on Thursday called Flynn a "great person." Flynn has given 19 interviews to prosecutors, five of those before he pleaded guilty, according to his filing. His lawyers said he turned over thousands of documents, and the special counsel's office has said that he has also aided a criminal investigation they haven't yet revealed. While Flynn's lawyers acknowledged he had made a "serious error in judgment" and "shown true contrition," he has an extended group of supporters who believe he's an American hero being unjustly prosecuted because of his association with Trump. Tuesday's filing added fuel to that idea. His lawyers detailed his FBI interview, including that agents did not warn him in advance that it was a crime to lie to the FBI, and suggested Flynn was discouraged from bringing a lawyer into the meeting. Members of Flynn's family and friends tweeted this week that he had been entrapped, set up or ambushed by the FBI. His son, Michael Flynn Jr., complained of a double standard with Democrat Hillary Clinton because she had lawyers in her FBI interview. Trump on Thursday tweeted that the special counsel gave Flynn "a great deal because they were embarrassed by the way he was treated." "They want to scare everybody into making up stories that are not true by catching them in the smallest of misstatements. Sad!" Trump wrote. In the time since he left the White House just weeks after Trump's inauguration, Flynn has moved back to Middletown, Rhode Island, where he and his wife, Lori, grew up and where they have a deep social network. Thomas A. Heaney Jr., a retired Army colonel who has been friends with Flynn since they were 9 years old, said they have been out more than a dozen times in Rhode Island and elsewhere when Flynn has been recognized by people on the street. "Every single circumstance I've been witness to, people are in support of him, and they voice that opinion to him when they see him. And they are upset about the way he's been treated. That's the general theme each and every time," Heaney told the AP. Flynn has remained mostly out of the public eye since his guilty plea, with occasional public appearances in front of friendly audiences. The closest he's gotten to commenting on his case was in a campaign appearance for an ultimately unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate in California earlier this year, telling the crowd he wasn't there "to complain about who has done me wrong or how unfair I've been treated or how unfair the entire process has been." Several supporters who came together in a private group chat on Twitter plan to rally outside the federal courthouse when he is sentenced, according to organizer Pasquale Scopelliti. Flynn wrote a foreword to Scopelliti's self-published book, "America First: The MAGA Manifesto," earlier this year. He said Flynn was not involved in the rally. Scopelliti said they hope to counteract Flynn detractors who they expect will be shouting "Lock him up!" a reference to Flynn's anti-Clinton "Lock her up!" chant during the 2016 Republican National Convention. "He is our hero, absolutely," Scopelliti said. The "hero" label puzzles U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and former federal prosecutor, who said Flynn committed a serious crime of lying to the FBI about a national security matter while in the White House and serving as national security adviser. He said Flynn may be benefiting from Trump's labeling of the special counsel investigation as a "witch hunt" and "hoax." "I think that's part of a political campaign designed to discredit the special counsel, but some people do believe it," Whitehouse said. As for what's next for Flynn, those close to him said he has a number of options, including consulting or writing a book. Over the summer, a firm headed by lobbyists who recently represented the government of Qatar announced Flynn was coming to work there. Flynn's attorneys quickly said he hadn't joined Stonington Global. As of Thursday, its website still listed Flynn as joining it as director of global strategy. The company didn't respond to requests for comment. "His Rolodex has got to be amazing," longtime friend Rocky Kempenaar said. "I just know he's not done. I don't know what he's got up his sleeve. He loves our country, he just wants to give and give and give." Among Flynn's fans is former Trump national security aide Sebastian Gorka, who worked with Flynn in the White House. He floated another idea on Twitter and Fox News this week: that Trump should bring on Flynn as his new chief of staff. A Honduran woman and her son with Down Syndrome were granted entry into the United States after making a claim for political asylum at the border. Maria Luisa Caceres and her son Javi joined the migrant caravan with the dream of a better life removed from violence in their home country of Honduras. Maria says that her journey through Mexico was very difficult because Javi fainted repeatedly. "During the road my child fainted many times, but thank God the ambulance helped me and they took him to the hospitals," said Maria, who despite all the difficulties, never gave up and encouraged Javi to keep walking. Maria remembers she was discriminated against several times because of Javis disability and because he didnt have a father. "When my son was born, the one who was my partner renounced us and I was left alone with Javi 2 days old," Maria told Telemundo 20. Maria had to assume the responsibilities of both mother and father with Javi and her three other children. She says its Javi's innocent kisses that inspire her to get up every day and fight for the welfare of her entire family. "He gives me strength with the hugs he gives me, my child is very affectionate," said Maria. She also feels very grateful to the family that gave her shelter in her home in City Heights, where she shares a room with Javi. There she says she feels like part of a family. "I do not want to return for everything I've gone through, but I start thinking about my other children, my mother who is sick and my brothers who stayed in Honduras and I feel very sad," Maria said while Javi dried the tears from her eyes. Both were turned over to the authorities at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and three days later, they were released from the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Maria was given a GPS device that they put on her right ankle. Maria's case was special, given that she was given priority by her son's condition. Despite the sadness that seizes her, she says that she will continue to fight to help her entire family in Honduras and other children who, like Javi, have been rejected and even abandoned by their parents. If you would like to give a donation to this and other migrant families you can do so through the Minority Humanitarian Foundation. What to Know Saturday, Dec. 15 75+ donation classes at 40 California studios Check your local studio's schedule for "California Wildfire Relief Donation Class" A busy Saturday, spent this-and-that-ing? You're going to get a lot of your errands done, most probably, from stopping by the grocery store, to running by the shoe repair, to returning to the grocery store, for that one thing you forgot, to making an exercise class at a neighborhood studio. If this last must-do is always high on your Saturday roster, consider putting Pure Barre on your list, on Dec. 15. For dozens of workout studios in the "boutique fitness" company, studios that can be found in several California cities, will hold donation classes, all to raise money for wildfire relief. The donation-based classes will pop up in Brentwood, Pasadena, Newport Beach, Rancho Cucamonga, Westlake Village, and several other spots. And adding to the give-back vibe? Look for "a discounted relief-specific retail capsule," too. What's up at the Santa Monica studio, for instance? Find more info here. All of the donations raised from the 75+ classes due to roll out on Dec. 15, as well as the relief-designated merchandise, will go to Red Cross CA Wildfire Relief. How to begin? Look for "CA Wildfire Relief Donation Class" on a specific location's schedule at your nearest Pure Barre, and how the donation will work (in Beverly Hills, "...your account will be charged $20 and 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the Red Cross CA Wildfire Relief fund.") Then attend that class, on Dec. 15, contributing to a larger effort to help bring relief during this time. A Dallas real estate agent died Saturday in El Paso after allegedly suffering severe brain damage from complications she experienced during anesthesia ahead of cosmetic surgeries at a clinic in Juarez, Mexico, according to the woman's family. Laura Avila, 36, died Saturday according to a Facebook post published by her sister, Angie Avila. [[501189731,C]] Angie Avila said her sister went in for several planned procedures, including a nose job, at the Rino Clinic in Juarez on Oct. 30. Before surgery began, she suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of the anesthesia. "They told her fiance that she would be ready to be picked up at 4 p.m., Angie Avila told Telemundo 48. "He arrived at about 3:30 p.m. and they told him they had not been able to start the surgery because the anesthesia had not worked out yet." Angie Avila said Laura was placed in a medically induced coma "to prevent further brain damage" and taken to a local hospital. After six days in an intensive care unit at a Mexico hospital, Avilas family transferred her across the border to El Paso where she remains on life support with a grim long-term prognosis. A Dallas real estate agent has passed away in El Paso after allegedly suffering severe brain damage from complications she experienced during anesthesia ahead of cosmetic surgeries at a clinic in Juarez, Mexico, according to the woman's family. [The doctors] said that she is not going to be able to eat by herself, or talk, or walk or even taste food, said Enrique Cruz, Laura Avilas fiance. She might be able to hear what were saying, maybe blink. But as far as being any kind of normal they dont see her doing that. Her sister said medical staff at hospital in Juarez where Laura Avila was transferred to told the family they believed the anesthesia was administered incorrectly. Angie Avila told Telemundo 48 doctors said the clinic had injected anesthesia in her spine and instead of it flowing down her body, it went into her brain which caused severe swelling. "We are hoping people cannot focus on this being a woman getting cosmetic surgery, but rather gross negligence, and the fact that we were very close to possibly losing a person very dear to us," Angie Avila sad. "So, we ask for kindness and awareness." Angie Avila said her sister had traveled across the border for the procedure because of the discounted cost. She also said Laura doesn't have health insurance and her family started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover Avilas rising medical expenses. Avilas sister and finance told NBC 5 several Dallas-area hospitals, including UT Southwestern Medical Center, Parkland Memorial Hospital and Baylor Scott & White, have declined to admit Avila as a patient due to her prognosis and because of lack of insurance. A Dallas real estate agent is in hospice care in El Paso nearly three weeks after traveling to Juarez, Mexico, to undergo multiple cosmetic surgeries that went horribly wrong. In the wake of Avilas failed procedure, authorities in Mexico raided the clinic and have temporarily shut it down. No charges have been filed. Avilas sister told Telemundo 48 the family has hired an attorney in Mexico to assist them in getting Lauras medical records. Angie Avila said they fear the clinic would alter the information on her records. She also accused the clinic of negligence, noting that her sister was left unattended in the operating room for several hours after going into cardiac arrest "Besides the anesthetist, there were four doctors who did nothing for eight to 10 hours," Angie Avila said. "They left her in a room. I do not know if she woke up, I do not know what time she went into cardiac arrest." NBC 5 spoke with Avila's fiance Enrique Cruz on Sunday. Cruz said the two had been together for about five years, and lived together in Dallas. "I want people to remember her dancing, singing, and her funny, outgoing personality," Cruz said. He was with her in Mexico at the time she was getting the procedure, as well as when she died. "I was actually there when she took her last breath. I was the one who told her family that I think it's time," Cruz said. Cruz said he hoped sharing Avila's story will raise awareness and close places like this down. "We don't want this to go in vain. If we can save another life that's exactly what our goal is," he said. He said they are pursuing a lawsuit against the clinic in Mexico. "From what we have seen, all of the threats have had the same wording and demands, so I think they are all coming from the same source, Belmonte said. What to Know Peter Peraza was the first officer in three decades to be charged with an on-duty shooting in Florida. Floridas highest court has decided in favor of a Broward Sheriffs Office deputy who claimed use of the states controversial Stand Your Ground law in the 2013 shooting death of an Oakland Park man. In a unanimous ruling issued Thursday, the state Supreme Court said Deputy Peter Peraza was within his rights under the law when he opened fire on Jermaine McBean inside of an apartment complex. Pereza told investigators he thought the 33-year-old McBean was holding a real rifle, which was actually an air rifle, when the shooting occurred. Hearings in the case took place in August and Thursdays ruling opened the door for any officer in the state to use the law. Peraza was the first officer in three decades to be charged with an on-duty shooting in Florida. He won the case in a lower court, saw it overturned by an appeals court before the Fourth District Court of Appeals reinstated the first decision. "That sets a precedent definitely for the state of Florida of when 'stand your ground' can be used," Jermaine's brother Andrew McBean said in August. "If you open the door to 'stand your ground,' every little shooting can easily be called 'stand your ground.'" "He had no right - because he was in uniform - to use the 'stand your ground' law," Jermaine's mother, Jennifer Young, told NBC 6. Peraza told detectives he was concerned with what he saw because it was daytime when children and families were walking around the community at the time. Prosecutors argue law enforcement officers should use a special law for them and not the "stand your ground" immunity for everyone else, while attorney Eric Schwartzreich used "stand your ground" to get the charges against Peraza dismissed twice. The Broward State Attorney's Office issued a statement detailing their opposition to both the decision and the Stand Your Ground law. "A grand jury heard the evidence, found that it was not a justified shooting, and chose to indict Deputy Peraza on a manslaughter charge," the statement read in part. "Stand Your Ground is a bad law and it doesnt allow a trial jury to hear the evidence and make a decision." A Florida woman was arrested after she was caught on camera throwing a chunk of concrete at a police officer, officials said. Cape Coral Police said 37-year-old Jessica C. Blick called 911 to request an ambulance, but when officers arrived she was found walking on a sidewalk with the concrete in one hand and her phone in another. An officer tried to speak with Blick and told her several times to drop the rock but she ignored him, then drew back the concrete and told the officer she was going to kill him, officials said. The officer tried using his Taser on Blick but missed, as Blick threw the concrete at another officer, hitting him in the shoulder, officials said. That officer was able to subdue Blick and take her into custody. The entire encounter was captured on a police body camera. Blick was later charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with violence. She was booked into jail and attorney information wasn't available. What to Know A security guard at the Airbnb where Stefaniak had been staying, Bismark Espinosa Martinez, has been arrested in connection with the case. Family members of a Miami woman whose body was found when she didnt return from a vacation in Costa Rica now say they believe more people were involved in her death. On a Facebook page that was created during the search for 36-year-old Carla Stefaniak, who had failed to return from a trip for her birthday, family members say sources close to the investigation have told them forensic results have investigators believing more people were involved. In fact, the doubt extends to that there may be up 3 or 4 possible people involved, the family wrote in a message Thursday night. We have been saying this since day 1. This was organized by more than one person as soon as Carla booked the place. A security guard at the Airbnb where Stefaniak had been staying, Bismark Espinosa Martinez, has been arrested in connection with the case. Sister station Telemundo 51 reached out to officials in Costa Rica, who said information on the case is "confidential." Stefaniak was traveling with her sister-in-law when she was last heard from by her family on Nov. 27; she was scheduled to fly home the next day. While her sister-in-law flew home early, Stefaniak stayed but told friends it was pretty sketchy at the resort. A partially buried body was found in the woods near that resort close to a week later, which was identified by Stefaniaks father. An autopsy revealed that Stefaniak suffered a blunt force wound to the head and cuts on the neck and arms. Family members brought Stefaniaks ashes back to Tampa, where she lived after moving to America in 2000 from her native Venezuela for 12 years before moving to South Florida. What to Know An ex-Connecticut cemetery caretaker has been arrested for allegedly desecrating dozens of graves Officials said gravestones and human remains were moved to make way for the newly dead; bones were found in the woods Relatives estimate that more than 100 graves were either disinterred or had new remains buried above them A fuller picture of a cemetery in ghastly disarray emerged Thursday as the longtime caretaker of a graveyard in Connecticut's largest city was arrested and officials described in new detail shocking discoveries that included human bones and casket pieces scattered about. About 130 graves were disturbed at the 57-acre cemetery and included those of Civil War veterans, Bridgeport authorities said. Gravestones and remains had been removed to make way for the newly dead, while some new graves were stacked on top of old ones, separated by a layer of dirt. "What we found right away was a lot of disturbed dirt, garbage, headstones that were overturned and ... bone fragments that were later confirmed to be human remains, and pieces of old caskets that date back over 100 years," police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said at a news conference. "We were finding gravesites from some soldiers that were close to 100 years, in some cases over 100 years old, mixed in with new burial plots from 2011 on," he said. At one point during hearings he held in recent months, Probate Judge Paul Ganim said Thursday, "There were literally bags of bones that were picked up by witnesses that were brought in." Relatives, in the absence of government oversight of the cemetery, have meanwhile taken upon themselves the monumental tasks of trying to establish whether everyone is buried where they should be, decide what to do with newer remains buried atop older ones, identify the unearthed bones and fragments, and restore order to the burial ground located just north of downtown. "It's absolutely just unbelievable that people did this, and they've been doing this for a while," said retired lawyer Cheryl Jansen, whose great-grandparents and other relatives are buried at Park Cemetery. "You never think you have to worry about your dead relatives ... but I guess these days you do." People with relatives buried at Park Cemetery had complained about conditions over the years to police and other local officials, Jansen said. Ultimately, it was her legal filings over the past year that led police to search the cemetery in September and arrest former caretaker Dale LaPrade on Thursday. She turned herself in to Bridgeport police and was charged with felony interference with a cemetery a crime State's Attorney John Smriga said he had never seen prosecuted before. LaPrade was released on a promise to appear in court Dec. 18. "No comment as ordered," LaPrade wrote in a text message to The Associated Press after being arrested. She did not elaborate. A civil court judge in Bridgeport last week had ordered LaPrade to stay away from the cemetery. LaPrade appeared in court last week in a wheelchair and told Judge Barbara Bellis, "I've stayed away. I've been trying to get out of the cemetery for 10 years. I've been ill," The Connecticut Post reported. Relatives of those buried at Park Cemetery praised the arrest. "Justice has been done," said Jean Mattox, of West Haven. "You can't just run a cemetery without doing the right thing. That's where you lay your loved ones to rest in peace. That place is a mess out there. Hopefully she knows what she has done." Mattox said her mother's gravestone had been moved a short distance away and placed above another person's remains. Her son discovered the problem a few months ago, when things looked out of place and he compared the scene to a photo taken when the grave was in the correct spot. In Connecticut, the state public health department must approve new cemeteries, but no state agency is specifically charged with cemetery oversight. Park Cemetery was established in 1878, and an association board oversaw its operation and maintenance for decades. Jansen had noticed a gradual decline since the 1990s, with junk and tree limbs piling up. She wondered where the money families had paid for perpetual upkeep was going, and went to the local probate court seeking access to the financial records. Jansen, whose relatives' graves were not disturbed, said it appears that the board hasn't existed since the early 1980s and that oversight was eventually left to LaPrade and her husband, Daniel. Ganim, the probate judge, earlier this year asked police to investigate. When they searched the property, they found financial records in disarray and unopened mail from 20 years ago. What happened to the perpetual upkeep funds remains unclear. It also isn't clear why Daniel LaPrade wasn't arrested. Meanwhile, Jansen and others have formed a new board with the goal of restoring the cemetery and the trust of the families. The work will be painstaking, she said; the LaPrades kept poor burial records since the 1980s that need to be "deciphered." Bill Ackley, who has several generations of relatives buried at Park Cemetery, said it will likely take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix damaged gravestones and restore the property. Relatives are not certain where the money will come from, he said, but they hope for grants and donations. What to Know Dozens of steel bolts that are used to help hold together the new Mario Cuomo Bridge broke apart during construction, the I-Team has learned Cover-up allegations surrounding dozens of broken bolts have raised questions as to just how many may need to be inspected or even replaced Some engineers stressed there is no immediate safety issue Dozens of steel bolts that are used to help hold together the new Mario M. Cuomo Bridge broke apart during construction, and there are allegations some leading workers tried to cover up the potential problem, the News 4 I-Team has learned. The New York state attorney general has been investigating the broken bolt issue and the surrounding corruption allegations. Some engineers stressed there is no immediate safety issue, but they said cover-up allegations surrounding dozens of broken bolts have raised questions as to just how many of the 1 million bolts used on the bridge might need to be inspected or even replaced over time. Thomas Eagar, a leading engineering expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told News 4, "When I hear about false certification of documents it causes me great concern. Not that there is a real technical problem. There is a corruption problem." News 4 has obtained reports about approximately 60 bolt failures and alleged cover-up attempts. The whistleblower is a former safety inspector who turned over recordings that could highlight some of the alleged wrongdoing. In one transcript obtained by News 4, an ironworker foreman is on tape discussing some of the bolt failures saying, "Its a major defect that does not normally occur." When that foreman is asked why breaking bolts were not immediately reported to the State Thruway Authority, the foreman allegedly said, "That would shut down the whole job." An engineer in charge is also heard on audio. When asked on Feb. 25, 2016 why he was not reporting the breaking bolts issue, the transcript of the tape reads, "They are instantly going to think it is a manufacturing defect From there it gets blown way out of proportion." The whistleblower alleges that throughout construction, evidence of broken bolts was discarded and documents were falsified. A spokeswoman for State Attorney General Barbara Underwood confirmed her office is investigating. State Thruway officials say they first became aware of a few bolts breaking in 2016 and began initial testing and monitoring at that time. Officials at the the Thruway said after they learned of the corruption allegations in 2017, they did repeated testing of bolts to make sure there was no manufacturing defect or other widespread problem. "Well over a year ago, the Thruway Authority hired independent experts to check the safety of the bolts on the new bridge," said spokeswoman Jennifer Givner. "After a thorough review, and before the first span of the new bridge opened to traffic, the independent experts concluded that the actual bolts and the bridge are safe. Public safety is our highest priority and the bridge is completely safe for the traveling public." But the whistleblower has filed a lawsuit and enlisted experts who say an issue known as hydrogen embrittlement, or H.E., could be causing some bolts to break. H.E. is where hydrogen contaminates steel, causing the bolt to become brittle and break. The concern is if widespread H.E. or bolt cracking exists, many bolts will have to be replaced at an expense that could total tens of millions of dollars. A hydrogen embrittlement problem existed in construction of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Testing and repairs ultimately totaled more than $50 million. A report by engineering firm Alta Vista said the more likely cause of the past broken bolt issue is pre-existing cracks in manufacturing in a small percentage of the bridges one million bolts. But an expert that Alta Vista relied on did not rule out the possibility that defects in the bolts could lead them to fail over time due to hydrogen. But Eagar said, "To be fair, the data that we have so far shows there is no hydrogen embrittlement, but we havent completed taking all the data yet. I am not going to take a position (when the data is not in) But I can tell you I see no public safety issue in the near term even if it is the worst possible situation (of H.E.) that we run into." The Thruway Authority said additional tests on bolts have been ongoing. Eagar said a broad sample should be taken and tested to make sure there is no widespread problem with bolts on the bridge. A spokeswoman for the bridge builder Tappan Zee Constructors said it is cooperating with the Thruway Authority and State Attorney Generals office. "To date, all bolt testing performed by multiple parties indicates there is not an issue with the bolts," the spokeswoman said. "Despite TZCs continuous request that it be provided with any updated information concerning the quality of the A490 bolts, TZC has not been provided with, nor is it aware of any information that is contrary to these bolt testing results. TZC has demonstrated a constant willingness to address any additional issues and will continue to do so." What to Know An off-duty firefighter who was found lying on the shoulder of a New York City highway with head trauma has died Faizal Coto, 33, was found lying next to a vehicle on the shoulder of the Belt Parkway early Sunday morning Coto was taken to Coney Island Hospital with head trauma, where he was pronounced dead; a Latin Kings member has been arrested in his death The FDNY firefighter allegedly killed by a road rage suspect was laid to rest at his funeral on Thursday. The line of FDNY uniforms stretched more than four blocks long at the funeral for 33-year-old Faizal Coto at Leone Funeral Home in Brooklyn Thursday morning. His family stoically accepted a remembrance, his heartbroken mother tenderly receiving the helmet her son will never wear again. "I was at the hospital when she came, and broke the news to her," said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro. "She just didn't want to believe. I can't imagine the pain she was in that night." Coto was found dead, lying on the shoulder of Belt Parkway, near Bay 8th Street and Shore Parkway in Bath Beach, with head trauma early Sunday. Police said he was the victim of road rage. Two vehicles had collided as they merged onto the parkway, police said. When officers got to the scene, they Coto lying next to a 2008 Ford Mustang parked on the right shoulder of the highway. The other vehicle had left. Police believe Coto got out of his car to talk to another driver after the fender bender, then that driver struck him in the head with an unknown object. The suspect, 29-year-old Joseph Desmond, is a Latin Kings member who served time in prison for a hate-crime assault, the NYPD said. He was arrested at a New Jersey motel on Monday. Coto had been with the FDNY for three years, the department said. He was assigned to a Coney Island engine company. Coto's best friend and two brothers eulogized him as a loving individual with a big heart. Nigro described Coto as a nice young man who was senselessly murdered. "Our hearts go out to everyone, his mom, his dad, his two brothers and everyone in the Coto family," he said. "May God give them comfort." Gov. Cuomo took a personal midnight tour of the L train tunnel Thursday ahead of the big repair project looming for 2019. The 15-month L train shutdown -- which some have dubbed the L-pocalypse -- is set to begin in four months, affecting 225,000 people who use the subway line to commute between Manhattan and Brooklyn. During his 90-minute visit to the Canarsie Tunnel, which connects the Lower East Side to Williamsburg, Cuomo met with engineering experts and toured the areas damaged during Hurricane Sandy. Seven million gallons of saltwater inundated the tube during Sandy, and the damage was never fixed. He ultimately concluded that the project cannot be changed, and the tunnel must indeed be shut down for the planned 15 months. "The tunnel is supposed to close in four months and I just want to be doubly sure that everything that can be done has been done, and when people come up to me on the street and say, did you check and make sure that everything can be done? I can look them in the eye and say yes," Cuomo said during a radio interview on 1010 WINS Friday. "We assembled literally the best people on the globe, the Dean of Cornell Engineering School, the Dean of Columbia Engineering School, they put together great teams," he continued. "They're a totally fresh set of eyes, they're looking at the plans, they're looking at the tunnel. And whatever they say, fine. If they say this is the best we can do, 15 months is the shortest period of time, I think that will give New Yorkers confidence." On Thursday, transit advocates and local officials seemed puzzled by Cuomo's last-minute tour, given that plans for the shutdown have been in the works for years. "He's trying to step in and be a savior. It's not clear why he's doing this," said transit watchdog Ben Kabak. "He's telling different stories. If he can say, 'We'll do this in a shorter period of time,' he'll come out as the guy who made this project better." "Every bit of visual is important," said Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. "I don't know what he's gonna find. We will see." Cuomo has made himself highly visible at New York's biggest infrastructure projects. Last month, he toured the Hudson River Tunnel to call President Trumps' attention to the need for funding on the long-awaited Gateway Tunnel Project. And he's put his own personal imprint and family name on the bridge formerly known as Tappan Zee. With only months to go before the shutdown, subway riders were hoping the governor leaves with an understanding of what's at stake for them. "I live in the East Village, the L train is really all we've got over here," said one commuter named Laura. "He should see this as a huge commuter rail, and it's also a huge rail for people trying to go out to Brooklyn." "There should be a lot more transparency than there is already," said James Hearney of the East Village. What to Know An employee of New York City has been arrested, accused of operating a drug lab out of his girlfriend's house on Long Island Sources said the man had been growing marijuana and making ecstasy out of the Mastic house Neighbors say they've noticed suspicious activity in the past few years; the man is facing federal charges A New York City employee has been arrested, accused of operating an ecstasy and marijuana growhouse out of his girlfriend's home on Long Island, law enforcement sources said. Sources said the home on Roda Drive in Mastic is one of the most sophisticated drug labs investigators have ever worked on. Wires and false walls have been found inside, and haz-mat teams remained throughout the day Friday working to identify all the chemicals they found. Some neighbors were not surprised. Some said they've even called 911 on suspicious activity there. "Cars parked, cars pulling up, cars pulling away fast," said Ken Garcia. "It's unusual in this quiet little neighborhood... It's been going on for a long time, a year, two years." Homeland Security Investigations agents said they found chemicals used to make the drugs inside the home, and arrested one man. No one else was in danger. "As far as they have determined, everything is safe," said HSI Deputy Special Agent Jason Molina. "That's why we haven't evacuated anyone. Everybody is remaining in their houses." The HSI investigation had been going on for weeks, and it came to a head Thursday night when investigators showed up at the Mastic home. "I came home and then my road was blocked," said neighbor Karen Armour. "Usually it's a quiet little street and when they told me it's a crime scene last night, I'm like, on our street? It's only a few houses so it's shocking. I've been here 46 years, and this is shocking." The quantity of narcotics found inside the home wasn't clear, but sources said it was included enough ecstasy and marijuana to make it a federal case. The suspect hasn't been named but he's said to be an electrician who works for the city of New York. Luxury fashion company Prada has pulled a set of monkey trinkets from its lower Manhattan store amid outcry that the items depict blackface. In a statement Friday, Prada said that the images have been removed from the windows of its flagship in Soho and that it "abhors racist imagery." But it added that the items -- which are part of the brand's Pradamalia line and depict a monkey with a black face and bright red lips -- are "certainly not blackface." "Prada Group never had the intention of offending anyone and we abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery," the company concluded in its statement. "In this interest we will withdraw the characters in question from display and circulation." Backlash to the items grew quickly after Chinyere Ezie, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, posted to Facebook that the items bore a resemblance to blackface imagery used in Jim Crow-era minstrel shows and illustrations. "I dont make a lot of public posts, but right now Im shaking with anger," she wrote. She was in such disbelief that she sent the photos to family and friends to verify what she was seeing. "I messaged my mother of all people, 'Hey, is this blackface?'" she said. "Everyone who saw those images was as shocked as I was." Ezrie added that when she confronted store workers, they told her "a black employee had previously complained about blackface at Prada, but he didn't work there anymore." Since Ezie's post Thursday, thousands of people have tweeted using the hashtag #BoycottPrada. Groups have also begun picketing outside the store. "That's unacceptable," said Brittany Cooper, a passerby in the area. "That's blatantly obvious that's blackface." "Prada is trash for this," said Althalie Paynting. "They know better. We all know better. I'm a white person; we know better." Ezie also was unmoved by Prada's explanation and apology. "That sounds no more realistic than people who say Confederate flags are about southern heritage," she said. "We have an obligation to be educated about historical legacies of racism." New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams, also a candidate for public advocate, has also called on the store to donate proceeds to anti-bigotry groups. "The question is who the hell approved this," he said. "They have to apologize. They need to come out and say we fucked up." Top Tri-State News Photos The resolution also states that purchases of property by the forest preserve in key areas that are well-suited for development such as around Interstate 94 and Route173, Route 173 and Route 41, and I-94 and Russell Road will prevent the extension of sewer and other infrastructure to these areas, permanently crippling any development opportunities. Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith won a divisive Mississippi runoff Tuesday, surviving a video-recorded remark decried as racist and defeating a former federal official who hoped to become the state's first African-American senator since Reconstruction. The runoff was rocked by the video, in which Hyde-Smith said of a supporter, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." A separate video showed her talking about "liberal folks" and making it "just a little more difficult" for them to vote. The comments by Hyde-Smith, who is white, made Mississippi's history of racist lynchings a theme of the runoff and spurred many black voters to return to the polls Tuesday. In the aftermath of the video, Republicans worried they could face a repeat of last year's special election in Alabama, in which a flawed Republican candidate handed Democrats a reliable GOP Senate seat in the Deep South. The GOP pumped resources into Mississippi, and President Donald Trump made a strong effort on behalf of Hyde-Smith, holding last-minute rallies in Mississippi on Monday. Speaking to supporters after her win, Hyde-Smith vowed to fight for everyone in the state when she goes to Washington. "I want everybody to know, no matter who you voted for today, I'm going to always represent every Mississippian. I will work very hard and do my very best to make Mississippi very proud," she said. Her supporters said the furor over her comments was overblown. They also stuck by her as a photo was circulated of her wearing a replica Confederate military hat during a 2014 visit to Beauvoir, the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. "So many things are taken out of context," said Elizabeth Gallinghouse, 84, from Diamondhead, Mississippi. "The fact that she toured Jefferson Davis's house. You or I could have done the same thing. They said, 'Put this cap on. Hold this gun.' It was a fun time. She wasn't trying to send any messages." The contest caps a campaign season that exposed persistent racial divisions in America and the willingness of some political candidates to exploit them to win elections. With Hyde-Smith's victory, Republicans control 53 of the Senate's 100 seats. The GOP lost control of the House, where Democrats will assume the majority in January. In the final weeks of the runoff, Hyde-Smith's campaign said the remark about making voting difficult was a joke. She said the "public hanging" comment was "an exaggerated expression of regard" for a fellow cattle rancher. During a televised debate nine days after the video was publicized, she apologized to "anyone that was offended by my comments," but also said the remark was used as a "weapon" against her. Democratic opponent Mike Espy, 64, a former U.S. agriculture secretary, replied: "I don't know what's in your heart, but I know what came out of your mouth." Addressing his supporters Tuesday night, Espy said: "While this is not the result we were hoping for, I am proud of the historic campaign we ran and grateful for the support we received across Mississippi. We built the largest grassroots organization our state has seen in a generation." The "public hanging" comment also resonated with his supporters. "That really offended me," said Charles Connley, 60, a black voter from Picayune. Some corporate donors, including Walmart, requested refunds on their campaign contributions to Hyde-Smith after the videos surfaced. Hyde-Smith was in her second term as Mississippi agriculture commissioner when Republican Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her to temporarily succeed GOP Sen. Thad Cochran. The longtime lawmaker retired in April amid health concerns. The win makes Hyde-Smith, 59, the first woman elected to Congress from Mississippi. Hyde-Smith and Espy emerged from a field of four candidates Nov. 6 to advance to Tuesday's runoff. Her win allows her to complete the final two years of Cochran's six-year term. Shortly after the win Tuesday, Trump tweeted: "Congratulations to Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith on your big WIN in the Great State of Mississippi. We are all very proud of you!" Associated Press writers Jeff Amy and Janet McConnaughey contributed to this report. "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski apologized on Friday for using what she called "crass and offensive" language to describe Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, NBC News reported. "Please allow me to say this face-to-face," she said live at the top of the 6 a.m. ET show. "The term is crass and offensive and I apologize to everybody, especially the LGBTQ community and to my colleagues." She went on to add: "I just wanted to say on camera, looking people straight in the eye: I am really, really sorry." "Are the pathetic deflections that we just heard, when [Pompeo] appeared on 'Fox & Friends,' is that a patriot speaking, or a wannabe dictators butt boy?" Brzezinski asked in a Wednesday segment, criticizing a recent appearance Pompeo made on Fox News. "Dead serious, Im asking. Are these the words of a patriot? Brzezinski made the offensive remark during a segment about the alleged culpability of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Police are looking for a gunman after a 24-year-old mother was found shot to death next to her 5-day-old daughter inside her East Germantown home. Police responded to reports of a shooting at a home on the 63000 block of Woodstock Street around 4 a.m. Friday, Philadelphia Police Department Chief Inspector Scott Small said. When they went inside, they found the mother dead on the floor of a bedroom, her 5-day-old child laying in a crib next to her lifeless body. Police say the woman was shot once in the head, and they found signs of a struggle, including overturned furniture. Investigators found no signs of forced entry into the home. The mother and child lived in the house with the baby's father, a 24-year-old man, Small said. The child, who was not injured, was being cared for by police in the 35th District as authorities worked to locate immediate relatives. The Department of Human Services was also notified. That father is considered a person of interest, and police are actively looking for him. A masked gunman shot four men inside a barbershop in Philadelphia Thursday night, killing one of them. The suspect walked inside a barbershop on the 4500 block of North Broad Street at 7:06 p.m. and fired at least 22 shots. A 28-year-old man was shot several times in the chest, a 42-year-old man was shot once in the leg and once in the chest, a 46-year-old man was shot once in the right arm and once in the chest and a 45-year-old man was grazed on his left shoulder. All four victims were taken to area hospitals. The 28-year-old man died of his injuries, police said. The 42-year-old man is in critical condition. The other two victims are stable. No arrests have been made and police have not released information on any suspects. It was one of two reported shootings in Philadelphia Thursday night. A 25-year-old man was shot in the head inside the Magic Wok Chinese restaurant on the 6900 block of Torresdale Avenue at 7 p.m. The victim was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital and is in critical condition. No arrests have been made and a weapon has not been recovered. French police have killed the man who they believed attacked Strasbourg's Christmas market but investigators kept digging Friday for possible accomplices in a city known for a high concentration of potential extremists. A fourth victim of Tuesday night's attack on the biggest Christmas market in France died Friday. The dead included a Thai tourist and a 29-year-old Italian journalist. A dozen other people were wounded. The market reopened Friday in a bid to reclaim a festive spirit after being closed for two days after the attack. French President Emmanuel Macron paid a visit, arriving after a European summit in Brussels to offer his condolences to the wounded and victims' families and to salute security forces. He spoke with the three police officers who less than 24 hours earlier shot and killed Cherif Chekatt, the attack suspect. For three days, Macron has faced back-to-back national emergencies, dealing with the Christmas market attack and in the midst of a month of grassroots protests over the cost of living that have grown increasingly violent and have devastated parts of the French capital. The government has implored the French not to take to the streets Saturday, evoking the Strasbourg tragedy and the security situation that has strapped soldiers and police. Chekatt, the 29-year-old Strasbourg native, was killed Thursday night in a confrontation with three police officers in his childhood neighborhood after a massive manhunt. The depth of his radicalization and connections remained unclear, but his path seemed to reflect an increasingly common hybrid European extremist who moves from delinquency to sowing terror. The Islamic State group's Amaq news agency claimed Chekatt was a "soldier" of the group but Interior Minister Christophe Castaner rejected the claim as "totally opportunistic." Investigators are now trying to identify "eventual accomplices or co-authors who could have helped or encouraged him in preparing his move into action," prosecutor Remy Heitz, in charge of terrorism cases in France, told reporters at a news conference Friday. He said seven people were in custody, including four of Chekatt's family members and three in his "close entourage" two of them detained Thursday night. "We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support," Heitz said. The Strasbourg shooting was the latest in a series of deadly attacks that have claimed more than 200 lives in France since 2015. Like other attack sites, the Christmas market was heavy with symbolism. "This Christmas market is part of our history. It's part of our common events and belongs to all the French people," Castaner said during a walk-through at its reopening. "And this morning, we wanted to show, as we walked down the lanes, that we always know how to get our head up again." Macron suggested while in Brussels that authorities were working to clarify why Chekatt was not stopped beforehand. He had been on a French intelligence watch list for radicalism and was convicted 27 times for criminal offenses the first time at age 13 mainly in France but also in Germany and Switzerland. French police tried and failed Tuesday morning to arrest him in a case of attempted homicide. Macron told reporters Friday in Brussels that France should look at "the consequences" of any police failures and work on "what could be improved." Extremism is not a new phenomenon in Strasbourg, where more than 200 people are on watch lists for potential radicalization or already radicalized, a Strasbourg police official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and that figure could not be officially confirmed. Strasbourg's Christmas market has been a previous target. Ten suspected Islamic militants were convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2004 for their role in a foiled plot to blow up the market on New Year's Eve 2000. Six youths from Strasbourg have been arrested after returning home from Middle East battle zones, part of a group of 14 reported to have left to join the jihad. As early as 2012, Strasbourg had harbored Islamic militant cells planning action elsewhere in France. Heitz, the anti-terrorism prosecutor, provided more details about the police operation that led to Chekatt's death Thursday evening. He said two crucial tips came in from residents in Strasbourg's Neudorf neighborhood. Three officers patrolling in Neudorf then spotted a man corresponding to the suspect's description. Noticing their marked police car, the suspect tried unsuccessfully to enter a building. When police officers identified themselves, Chekatt turned abruptly and opened fire on them. Samuel Petrequin and Angela Charlton contributed. Canadian authorities said Wednesday that they have arrested the chief financial officer of China's Huawei Technologies for possible extradition to the United States. China demanded her immediate release, and a former Canadian envoy to China warned the case might lead to retaliation by the Chinese against American and Canadian executives. Justice Department spokesman Ian McLeod said Meng Wanzhou was detained in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday. The arrest took place on the same day Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the trade war after the close of the G-20 summit in Argentina. They agreed to a 90-day truce in an escalating trade war that is threatening world economic growth and has set global investors on edge. Meng is a prominent member of Chinese society as deputy chairman of the board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei. McLeod said a publication ban had been imposed in the case and he could not provide further details. The ban was sought by Meng, who has a bail hearing Friday, he said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese tech giant Huawei violated sanctions on Iran. Huawei issued a statement saying Meng was changing flights in Canada when she was detained "on behalf of the United States of America" to face "unspecified charges" in New York. "The company has been provided very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng," the statement said. Huawei said it complies with all laws and rules where it operates, including export controls and sanctions of the United Nations, the U.S. and European Union. The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa said her human rights were violated and demanded she be freed. "The Chinese side firmly opposes and strongly protests over such kind of actions which seriously harmed the human rights of the victim," the statement said. A U.S. Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. In April, China appealed to Washington to avoid damaging business confidence following the Wall Street Journal report that U.S. authorities were investigating whether Huawei violated sanctions on Iran amid spiraling technology tensions. A foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said then that China hoped the U.S. would refrain from taking actions that could further undermine investor confidence in the U.S. business environment and harm its domestic economy. That same month Washington barred Huawei rival ZTE Corp. from exporting U.S. technology in a separate case over exports to Iran and North Korea Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods in response to complaints that Beijing improperly pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. That is widely seen as part of a broader effort by Washington to respond to intensifying competition with Chinese technology industries that Trump says benefit from improper subsidies and market barriers. The escalating trade war is threatening world economic growth and has set global investors on edge. David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said U.S. and Canadian business executives could face reprisals in China. "That's something we should be watching out for. It's a possibility. China's plays rough," Mulroney said. "It's a prominent member of their society and it's a company that really embodies China's quest for global recognition as a technology power." Mulroney said Canada should be prepared for "sustained fury" from the Chinese and said it will be portrayed in China as Canada kowtowing to Trump. He also said the Iran allegations are very damaging to Huawei and said China will push back hard. Wenran Jiang, a senior fellow at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia, said the Chinese will read the arrest on the same day as the Trump meeting with the Chinese leader as a planned conspiracy to do damage "She was in transit though Vancouver. That means the intelligence agencies in Canada and the U.S. were tracking her and planning to arrest her for some time," he said. He foresees a crisis in relations between the three countries if she is extradited and said any talk of free trade agreement between Canada and China would be over. U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services and Banking committees, said Huawei is an agent of China's communist party and applauded Canada for the arrest. "Americans are grateful that our Canadian partners have arrested the Chief Financial Officer of a giant Chinese telecom company for breaking U.S. sanctions against Iran," he said. The San Diego County District Attorney's Office ruled officers acted reasonably under the circumstances in eight officer-involved shootings and four in-custody deaths. Twelve letters were released Friday to local law enforcement agencies informing them of the results of the DA Offices review. "Our job is to deliver equal justice that is fair under the law for everyone," said District Attorney Summer Stephan, adding that the release of any video in these cases must be respectful to the families of those who have died or have been injured as well as to the officers involved. In all of the incidents, the officers bear no criminal liability for their actions, Stephan said. The DA will provide video and other details regarding the following investigations: Kristopher Birtcher - October 14, 2017 A stun gun was deployed and maximum restraints used after Kristopher Birtcher was resisting San Diego County sheriff's deputies' attempts to detain him. The incident took place near the Hobby Lobby on Grand Avenue in San Marcos. Deputies believed he was under the influence of drugs and gave him Naloxone to treat what they believed was a drug overdose. Birtcher's condition worsened on the way to a hospital where he was pronounced dead in the emergency room. An autopsy determined the cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest while restrained and acute methamphetamine intoxication, Stephan said. Here is the full report. James Lacy - August 7, 2017 James H. Lacey was shot and killed in Banker's Hill after he reportedly threatened to shoot two deputies who were trying to evict him from his 2nd Avenue apartment. The 47-year-old was shot by two San Diego County sheriff's deputies. Read the report released Friday by the DA's office here. Oscar Leal - February 28, 2018 Oscar Leal, 37, was arrested by SDSO deputies for being under the influence of a controlled substance after he called 911 several times and was being taken to the Vista Detention Facility when he began to behave oddly, the San Diego County Medical Examiners Office said. At the jail, Leal became unresponsive. Read the full report on the incident here. Alexander Ochoa - September 22, 2017 Oceanside police encountered Alexander Ochoa, 26, who they say was armed with a knife on Marron Road near College Boulevard, in the parking lot of the Kohl's Department store. Bean bags and K-9 officers were deployed before Ochoa pulled out a handgun, officers said. Officers opened fire, killing Ochoa. Read the results of the prosecutors' investigation here. Osbaldo Ramirez - March 17, 2018 Osbaldo Ramirez Jimenez, 50, died at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido from gunshot wounds suffered in the encounter with police in the parking lot of the Valley View Casino & Hotel. Escondido police were the first officers to encounter Ramirez as they responding to a family disturbance on Timber Glen. Ramirez fled the neighborhood in a car and refused to yield for law enforcement officers. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department (SDSO) and San Pasqual Tribal Police were called to help. At least one law enforcement officer fired, fatally injuring Ramirez. Here is the full report from the DA Office's review. Paul Silva - February 22, 2018 Paul Silva, 39, was schizophrenic but was not on his prescribed medication when his mother called San Diego police to have him taken to a medical facility for treatment, the family said. Stephan said the mother called police because her son was banging on her windows demanding entry. Silva's mother told officers her son was under the influence of methamphetamine, Stephan said. Silva was arrested on suspicion of being in possession of a controlled substance, the district attorney said. He was taken to the Central Jail downtown and handed over to San Diego County sheriff's deputies. "During the time deputies were evaluating Silva for release they noticed he was behaving erratically, harming himself by running into the walls and throwing himself onto the floor," Stephan said. Silva refused deputies' requests to exit his cell, she added. After a tactical team arrived, a team of deputies entered the cell and restrained Silva to remove him from the cell. "Silva went into cardiac arrest and became unresponsive," Stephan said. Silva was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed with anoxic brain injury, or an injury that occurs when the brain is deprived of oxygen. He was removed from life support weeks after his arrest. The family's attorney said a stun gun was used on Silva while he was in custody. Here is the report released by the San Diego County District Attorney's Office. Jose Trujillo - July 25, 2018 San Diego County sheriff's deputies opened fire on Jose Trujillo after a pursuit that reached speeds over 100 miles per hour. The pursuit began in Vista at about 8:45 p.m. when Trujillo refused to yield to deputies. During the pursuit, officials say Trujillo called 911 and informed the dispatcher that he had a loaded 9mm handgun and wanted to commit "suicide by cop." When the vehicle reached the Los Penasquitos Lagoon, Trujillo got out of the vehicle. Two deputies opened fire and shot Trujillo in the upper torso. Read the full report released by the DA's office here. The video was released by the San Diego County District Attorneys Office as they announced their review determined the San Diego County sheriffs deputies who opened fire in this incident acted reasonably. Robert Westbrook - September 8, 2017 Robert Westbrook, 31, was shot by a deputy after he allegedly refused to follow commands, pulling out a replica handgun in the confrontation. State Route 125 was closed for hours as a result of the incident. San Diego County sheriff's deputies were initially called to check on the welfare of a man who was threatening to harm himself. Westbrook was found inside a parked car on the freeway. Deputies say Westbrook stepped out of the car with a handgun. That's when the deputy opened fire, striking and injuring him. Read the DA's investigation results for this case here. Guillermo Corrales - April 16, 2018 Guillermo Corrales died while in custody after a family member called 911 to report Corrales may be under the influence of drugs and was injuring himself. San Diego police officers found Corrales being held down by his nephew because he had been thrashing about and hitting his head on the floor. Officers handcuffed him and called for paramedics to enter the bedroom. Soon after, paramedics determined Corrales' heart had stopped and asked officers to remove the handcuffs so they could continue CPR. He was rushed to a nearby hospital. The medical examiner determined the cause of death was the effects of methamphetamine. Corrales also had fentanyl "on board," Stephan said. Jason Santana - November 29, 2017 Jason Santana was in a stolen car in a closed city park. Officers awakened Santana and his companion and interviewed them. Santana was told to keep his hands in view, Stephan said. "Suddenly Mr. Santana reached forward, started the car's engine and tried to close the car's driver's door while simultaneously putting the car in reverse," Stephan said. The driver's door struck the officer and knocked him over, she said. "The officer fired his pistol once as he moved out of the way of the vehicle because he feared he was going to get run over," the district attorney said. Santana was struck in the arm and drove off. He was eventually taken into custody and has been sentenced to three years in custody. Read the results of the DA's Office review here. The video released by the San Diego County District Attorneys Office on Dec. 14, 2018 was shown as the DA discussed how the actions of law enforcement officers were reasonable in this shooting. Other cases reviewed involved Paul Rivera and Javier Gomez. Not all video from all the reviews was screened due to time constraints. Cherie Cancio Franqui, 31, voted early in the Florida midterm elections. In the 2016 primary elections she had gotten to the polls 30 minutes before they closed so she wanted to make sure she had enough time this year. Like many of her other Cuban-American friends she supported Andrew Gillum for governor and thought, if the millennial turnout was high, he could win. "I think as millennials we are leaning more center-left," Cancio Franqui told NBC. "We are focused on climate change, minimum wage, equality, social issues. So we are more aligned with mainstream millennials than the rest of the community. Cuba is not at the front of our minds, we want to have more open dialogue with the island." Although younger Cuban Americans are starting to lean toward the Democratic Party, the number of votes have still not been high enough for Democratic candidates to win. Cancio Franqui, a first generation American of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent, is co-founder of the CubaOne Foundation, which offers young Cuban-Americans the chance to build relationships with the island. Many older Cuban-Americans aren't in favor of maintaining such links, she said, but added that she was not speaking on behalf of the foundation. "The voting patterns of young Cuban Americans are largely consistent with those of their non-Cuban peers because they are culturally similar to millennial Americans who live in large urban areas and vote Democrat," said Giancarlo Sopo, a 35-year-old U.S-born communications strategist who is also of Cuban heritage. Cuban voters make up roughly 6 percent of the total Florida vote, he said. According to an analysis Sopo performed of election results in heavily Cuban neighborhoods, he estimated that in 2016, the Cuban vote broke 57 percent for Trump and 40 percent for Clinton. Two years later, it went 66 for Ron DeSantis and 33 for Andrew Gillum, that is 2 to 1. To illustrate the importance of the Cuban vote, Sopo created a model simulating what would have happened if the numbers had broken down in the same way this year as in the 2016 elections. "Had DeSantis mirrored President Trump's performance and beaten Andrew Gillum by a 17-point margin, we'd likely be looking at a Governor-elect Gillum now," he said. The Pew Research Center reported that in 2014, 56 percent of Cubans aged 18 to 49 in the country leaned toward the Democratic Party, while only 39 percent of those 50 years and older supported Democrats. In contrast, Cubans 50 years and older leaned toward the Republican party by 44 percent, with 23 percent support for Republicans among those 18 to 49. However, the share of Cubans who are Republican has reduced over time. In 2002, 68 percent of Cubans 50 and older identified as Republican. if("undefined"==typeof window.datawrapper)window.datawrapper={};window.datawrapper["SHSiu"]={},window.datawrapper["SHSiu"].embedDeltas={"100":394,"200":302,"300":273,"400":244,"500":244,"700":244,"800":244,"900":244,"1000":244},window.datawrapper["SHSiu"].iframe=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-SHSiu"),window.datawrapper["SHSiu"].iframe.style.height=window.datawrapper["SHSiu"].embedDeltas[Math.min(1e3,Math.max(100*Math.floor(window.datawrapper["SHSiu"].iframe.offsetWidth/100),100))]+"px",window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if("undefined"!=typeof a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var b in a.data["datawrapper-height"])if("SHSiu"==b)window.datawrapper["SHSiu"].iframe.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][b]+"px"}); Sopo argues that the rightward shift this year is the result of electoral demographics. "What seems to be happening is that the Cuban American Democrat voting bloc largely consists of younger voters who are also among the least likely to vote in midterm elections," Sopo said. The pre-Election Day data show that 18- to 29-year-olds represent 6 percent of the ballots cast in early voting despite being 17 percent of the electorate. Sopo said fewer Cuban-Americans participate in midterm elections and the Cubans who do vote tend to be older, resulting in the Cuban vote performing more Republican. One factor that may have led to smaller turnout among young Cuban voters was that Republicans very effectively labeled Gillum as a socialist, Sopo said. Among the younger Cuban-Americans that voted was Ivan Flores, a 30-year-old journalism student who flew home to Miami the weekend before the elections. After over a year living in New York, he had kept his registration in Florida because he knew his vote would make a difference there. I wasnt motivated by either candidate to vote for them, but I was happy to vote for an amendment on voter re-enfranchisement, an end to greyhound racing and a ban on offshore drilling, he said. Flores has different political inclinations than his Cuban family, which has a history of voting Republican. The Democratic Party was seen by many as the party of traitors, said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. Older Cubans have held a grudge against Democrats for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion that aimed to topple then dictator Fidel Castro, he said. "There is a disparity between the people who came in the 60s and 70s and the younger people who are open to be in contact with the island, he added. The FIU 2016 Cuban poll shows that 43 percent of Cubans ages 18 to 39 supported Hillary Clinton, while among the 76 and older age group she only had 22 percent. Despite this apparent shift among young voters, there are still Cuban Americans who more closely identify with Republicans. The Democrats are going more and more to the left and this could disrupt the economy, said Armando Ibarra, president of the Miami-Dade Young Republicans. Ibarras mother came to Miami in the mid 1960s while his father could not escape until 1979 because he was in a concentration camp, an event that deeply scarred his family. Republicans on the other hand are taking action against the dictatorship in Venezuela, and they look after our interest," he said. Ibarra said that perhaps younger Cubans are not as Republican as their parents, but noted Republican candidates still win. "This sort of narrative has been going on for the past years," he says, "but Cuban Americans keep voting for Republican candidates. Cuban-American areas in Florida are strong supporters of Republican candidates and this cannot only be old Cubans. I think the only measure that matters is the elections." An Arizona judge has stripped a prominent Washington-area immigration and reproductive rights organizer of her green card and ordered her deportation. The Washington Post reports the immigration judge on Tuesday also denied 33-year-old Alejandra Pablos' petitions for asylum, saying the Mexican-born legal permanent resident wouldn't qualify because reproductive rights activists aren't deemed a group in need of protection. Pablos was arrested in March when she traveled to Phoenix to check in with immigration officials on a pending deportation case stemming from a felony conviction for driving under the influence. Pablos' supporters believe her activism made her a target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which the agency denies. A petition asking Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to pardon the 2010 DUI arrest has amassed more than 16,000 signatures this week. A bill that would see a Virginia post office named in honor of a University of Virginia alumnus killed in action in Iraq is heading to President Donald Trump's desk. The Daily Progress reported Thursday the bill renaming a Charlottesville post office after Army Capt. Humayun Khan passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and now only needs Trump's signature to take effect. U.S. Rep. Tom Garrett proposed the bill more than a year ago. The Virginia Republican leaves office next month, and plans to hold an official ceremony for the post office. Khan was 27 when he died in Iraq in 2004. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. His father, Pakistan-born Khizr Khan, became well known for his criticism of Trump during the 2016 Democratic National Convention. "Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery?" he asked. "Go look at the graves of brave Americans who died defending United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. "You have sacrificed nothing and no one," Khizr Khan said to Trump. Trump disputed that. He said on ABC's "This Week" that he had given up a lot for his businesses. "I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures," he said, while also suggesting Ghazala Khan might not have been allowed to speak while she was on stage at the DNC. A day after a mother pushing a baby in a stroller was seriously hurt in a crash in Arlington, Virginia, the driver has been charged. John Washington of Silver Spring, Maryland, was charged with reckless driving and failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, Arlington police said Friday morning. The woman had to have a leg amputated after she was hit by the truck Thursday morning, News4 has learned. Before impact, she managed to push her baby girl's stroller out of harm's way. The crash occurred at Fort Myer Drive and Lee Highway, just south of the Key Bridge. Officers were dispatched to the scene about 9:25 a.m. Thursday. Witnesses told News4 that women in the area scooped the baby out of the stroller as medics examined the woman. "Miraculously, the baby seemed to be fine," Niamh Bennett said. She and a coworker heard a commotion and rushed to help. "My colleague and myself, we decided to do whatever we could. We ran and got towels from our gym. Our first thought was, try to stop the bleeding," Bennett said. Bennett said she was impressed by how many people hurried to help. "It just shows there really is good in people," she said. A red-and-black stroller remained on the scene later Thursday, with a woman's purse hooked onto the handle. A pair of boots lay in the street. The woman was taken to a hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said. The truck driver, a 63-year-old man, remained on the scene. A 5-month-old baby was killed in Lansdowne, Virginia, in August 2016 after a driver hit his mother and his stroller as they used a crosswalk. The driver who killed Tristan Schulz was sentenced to a year in jail. Two years earlier, a 39-year-old woman was hit by a dump truck and killed in Arlington as she reached into her parked minivan for one of her children. The driver who hit Jennifer Lawson near Nottingham Elementary School was fined $100 and ordered to spend six days in jail. A package thief in Fort Washington, Maryland, got away with a huge 4K TV but not without a serious struggle with the unwieldy box caught on surveillance video. It was ridiculous, said Marsedah Diggs, who ordered the TV from Walmart. Everyone else who saw the video was laughing at the time. I wasnt laughing. Prince George's County police released video showing a silver car waiting in the driveway of Diggs' Fort Washington home. The surveillance video doesn't initially show what caught the thief's eye, but he's seen making a beeline to his target. The blurry video then appears to show a clearly labeled Sharp TV with a 65" 4K Screen. The packaging doesn't do anything to obscure the contents. The thief was forced to fully extend his arms to lift the huge box. Almost to the getaway vehicle, the thief tripped and tumbled right onto the TV, which landed on the ground. Like a true cat burglar, the thief landed on all fours slamming the box with both hands and at least one knee. It's unclear if the TV a model that costs at least $700 on Sharp's website survived the fall. He's an idiot, Diggs said. He's an idiot. That's all I can say, and I hope he broke that TV into a thousand pieces by the time he got it to his destination. The thief didn't take the time to check. With pants falling to the ground, he picks up the box again and starts shoving it into the back seat of the getaway car. It won't fit, and he pops the trunk, but it's way too large for the trunk and falls to the ground again. After an extensive struggle on Gable Lane, where two cars pass the crime scene, the thief gets the TV halfway into the back seat. TV protruding, door open and trunk flapping in the wind, the thief hops into the passenger seat and the car speeds off, likely driven by an accomplice. As the car drives down Gable Lane, the trunk shuts itself, and the TV somehow hangs on. When Diggs didn't receive the TV, she tracked it and learned it had been delivered by FedEx days earlier. I called Walmart. They were the first people I called, she said. And that's when I found out about there policy, Oh well, we dont require a signature. She did get a free replacement TV from Walmart. I got my TV, but this guys still out there, and who knows who else he's doing this to, she said. Ill be happier if he gets caught. The theft occurred one week after Thanksgiving. Prince George's County police say they have seen an uptick in package thefts as Christmas approaches. They recommend shipping valuables to work or working with the carrier to select a pickup at the store or elsewhere. What to Know After more than 30 years, Rolling Thunder will end its annual ride to DC The group says the cost to hold the event has gone up. Last year the bill was $200,000 Rolling Thunder says it's open to continuing the tradition if they can find a way to offset costs Rolling Thunder, the annual ride that brings thousands of bikers to the National Mall to honor military members who were missing in action or prisoners of war, is preparing for its final run. Next year's event on May 26, 2019, will be the last ride, Pete Zaleski, the vice president of Rolling Thunder, Inc., confirmed, citing costs and ongoing communication issues with the Pentagon Police Department. Thousands of bikers rode through D.C. Sunday for the annual Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom. News4's Derrick Ward reports. Zaleski says the cost of putting on the annual event has increased over the years, with last year's event reaching about $200,000. The money covers various needs, including security, port-a-potties and cleanup. The group relied on donations and product sales made through registration fees to pay for the demonstration ride, Zaleski said. "If we could get relieved of some of those costs, we would certainly try to keep it going," Zaleski said. Over 100 bikers gathered at the National Cathedral for the fourth annual Blessing of the Bikes, a Memorial Day weekend tradition that honors soldiers who didn't make it home. Since 1988, thousands of bikers and spectators have converged in Washington to honor military veterans and members of the military missing in action. During their ride, the bikers spend time at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and the World War II Memorial. After next year's ride, Zaleski says the group will task each of its 90 chapters to organize their own state or regional demonstration rides. He hopes the smaller rides will "make a statement" and remind others why they're doing it. PHOTOS: Rolling Thunder Remembers the Lost, Honors the Fallen "It's a demonstration ride, not a parade," Zaleski said. "We've kind of lost the reason why we're there." Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, released a statement that read in part: "The department supports the peaceful, lawful exercise of American citizens' First Amendment rights, and remains focused on ensuring the safety and security of the demonstrators and the Pentagon Reservation. The department is prepared to support the 2019 Rolling Thunder ride, as we have for the last 31 years." The human heart accidentally left onboard a Dallas-bound Southwest flight was delivered undamaged to a Seattle tissue processor and was not intended to be used by a waiting patient in need of a transplant, according to reports. The Seattle Times reported that Flight 3606 had arrived in Seattle from Sacramento, California. Someone forgot to unload the heart before the plane left for Dallas, and the captain announced over Idaho they were turning back. Confusion about the heart's intended use arose after Southwest initially said the "life-critical cargo shipment" was meant for a hospital. No Seattle-area hospitals said they were involved and organ-procurement organizations in Washington and California said they never use commercial flights for heart transplants. Instead, the heart was sent to a tissue processor to recover its valves for use in future procedures. Deanna Santa of Sierra Donor Services in Sacramento said the organ-procurement organization sent the heart through a courier, who picked it up in Sacramento for shipment to Seattle. The delay did not impair the heart's usefulness because it was received 12 hours before a 48-hour window for processing after a donor's death, Santa told the Seattle Times. The timeline for a heart used in a transplant would have been much lower. Still, the donor's family was contacted about the delay, Santa said. The flight took off again for Dallas after a five-hour delay. Vermont State Police investigated a scary close call in Colchester, when a piece of flying construction material smashed through a cars rear window and nearly impaled a one-year-old child inside. This happened on Interstate 89 North Wednesday evening. State police said a pickup truck from a construction firm had to slam on its brakes to avoid a crash. When it did so, a piece of rebar dislodged from a container on the truck and flew forward, like a spear. Police said that metal smashed through the window of a Subaru in front of the pickup truck, and ended up inside a childs car safety seat. Miraculously, the rebar missed the one-year-old strapped into the seat in the Subaru, driven by Brenton Elliott of Milford, Connecticut. While there were no apparent injuries, the child was taken to the hospital as a precaution. It did leave that trough in a rapid manner, fast enough to go ahead and actually penetrate through the vehicle, through a headrest and stop at a child's seat, roughly about three inches from the childs head, Lt. Bob Lucas of Vermont State Police said of the flying piece of rebar. The construction firm, S.D. Ireland, said it is very happy no one was injured. The company told necn affiliate NBC 5 News that the rebar was stored using industry standards, and that the pickups driver, Christopher Larose of Swanton, was operating the pickup truck alertly and in a safe manner. Still, the company is pledging to re-evaluate and re-design its rebar containers. S.D. Ireland was issued a civil ticket, state police said. What to Know Calling hours for fallen firefighter Christopher Roy will be from 4 to 8 p.m. at St. John's Catholic Church in Worcester. Roy died after he responded to a 5-alarm structure fire on Sunday. He will be buried on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Notre Dame Cemetery, following funeral services at St. John's church. The grieving Worcester, Massachusetts community is saying goodbye to a fallen hero with calling hours on Friday and a funeral on Saturday. Calling hours were held Friday for Worcester Fire Department firefighter 36-year-old Christopher Roy, who died after responding to a 5-alarm apartment fire in the city on Sunday. The Shrewsbury resident was among five firefighters who were trapped on the second floor of the building before they escaped through a ladder. "Between today and tomorrow, we're going to have an appropriate send-off for Chris to show the way the fire service comes together to take care of one of its brothers," Worcester Fire Department Deputy Chief Martin Dyer said Friday. "Only the fire service understands what it is that we do every day, and we really appreciate the community coming out for us to remember Chris and to honor his service and sacrifice." The wake for fallen Worcester firefighter Christopher Roy brought out family members, fellow friends and members of other fire departments across the state. Roy's death is the eighth fatality the department has experienced in the past two decades. In 1999, a fire killed six firefighters. In 2011, another firefighter was killed while battling a blaze. "Obviously we've been there before with the tragedies in 1999 and 2011," Worcester Fire Chief Michael Lavoie said. "It doesn't get any easier. This is a devastating loss and it's taken its toll." IMAGES: First Responders Pay Respect to Fallen Worcester Firefighter in Procession A procession started at 1 p.m. as the casket traveled to St. John's church. A firefighter walk-by of the church to salute Roy took place around 3 p.m. Roy will be laid to rest at Notre Dame Cemetery on Saturday, following funeral services that will also be held at St. Johns church at 10 a.m. There will be a procession before the funeral, and another afterward that will stop at three Worcester fire stations, including Webster Square, where Roy was assigned. His firefighter gear will be on display during that stop. Roy was commemorated in two processions on Monday. He leaves behind his 9-year-old daughter, Ava, and other family members. Worcester Firefighters IAFF Local 1009 has established a memorial fund in the name of Ava Roy. Those who wish to contribute can make a check payable to the AVA ROY FUND and send it to: Worcester Fire Department Credit Union 34 Glennie St. Worcester, MA 01605 An Andover, Massachusetts native was seriously injured in a plane crash off the Hawaii coast on Wednesday. Matt Pothier, a 47-year-old Hawaii Air National Guard civilian contractor, is in serious condition after his plane crashed off the coast of Honolulu during a military exercise, authorities said. He ejected safely from the Hawker Hunter jet he was piloting, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam said in a statement. He was initially rescued by a private sailboat and then transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard. "Stuff happens," the 1989 Andover High grad told the Salem News. "There were a lot of boats in the water, so I pointed for a safe area and got out of the airplane." Honolulu Emergency Services spokesman Dustin Malama said Pothier appeared to have traumatic injuries and was taken to a hospital. He was scheduled to undergo surgery for a spinal injury on Thursday. "All my extremities are moving around and I'm doing OK," he told the Salem News. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said a Hawker Hunter jet went down in the ocean around 2:25 p.m. after taking off from Honolulu's airport. Pothier was rescued about 3 miles south of Oahu near Honolulu's Sand Island, the U.S. Coast Guard said. He had been participating in a military exercise called Sentry Aloha, which was temporarily suspended after the crash. The exercise was scheduled to resume Thursday morning. The Hawaii Air National Guard was hosting the exercise, which involved about 800 personnel and 30 aircraft from nine states. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, the military said. Departing flights from the Honolulu airport were held as a precaution for about 20 minutes, said Tim Sakahara, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. The Hawker Hunter is a British jet developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, said the website of defense contractor BAE Systems. Initially, a single-seat version was used as a maneuverable fighter aircraft. It was later used as both a fighter and bomber and for reconnaissance missions. What to Know Noah Beaulieu, 24, was arrested Wednesday and fired from the Laconia Police Department. Police recruit Beaulieu allegedly threatened to shoot up the 177th Police Academy graduation ceremony scheduled for Friday. Beaulieus defense attorney Mark Sisti says his client has no history of mental health issues and calls the charges outrageous. A police recruit in New Hampshire is in trouble with the law after allegedly making mass shooting threats. Noah Beaulieu was arrested Wednesday and charged with criminal threatening after he allegedly threatened to shoot up the 177th Police Academy graduation ceremony scheduled for Friday. Its extremely disheartening and certainly a very big disappointment, said Laconia Police Chief Matt Canfield. Canfield hired the 24-year-old back in May. He went through an extensive background check, Canfield said Thursday. There were no red flags. Two days before Beaulieu graduated from the NH Police Academy, he was arrested and fired from the Laconia Police Department. He was stripped of his authority including his badge and gun, Canfield said. Thats because Beaulieus fellow recruits say he was making violent threats. They allegedly started weeks ago when he mentioned a suicide pact to be carried out during Fridays graduation. Then on Monday, Beaulieu allegedly told recruits that the amount of ammo he would bring in would be so powerful that bulletproof vests wouldnt protect anyone. He reportedly added that they didnt have to worry about their families getting hurt because he would be focused on killing all law enforcement on graduation day. Chief Canfield was there Wednesday night when State Police arrested him. At that time, he claimed that he was joking around and that the remarks were not of serious nature, Canfield said. Beaulieus defense attorney Mark Sisti says his client has no history of mental health issues. My client never intended in any way shape or form to terrorize anybody period, he told NBC10 Boston Thursday afternoon. He says the charges are outrageous. He wants to be released and he wants to confront his accusers as quickly as possible, Sisti said. He wants to go on with his life. This is a man who has no record whatsoever, not even a speeding ticket. Beaulieu is a veteran, but Canfield says he never saw combat. Hell undergo a mental health evaluation Thursday night and will be held until a bail hearing Friday morning. Canfield says before he was hired, Beaulieu passed his background checks and psych exam with flying colors and that theres nothing his department couldve done differently. Unfortunately, we cant predict whats in someones mind and what they are thinking, Canfield said. Police are investigating after a man's body was found in a wooded area behind his Auburn, Massachusetts home Friday afternoon. Police said the man's body was discovered behind a home on Arboretum Drive at about 12:30 p.m. The man's name has not been released. Authorities said an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. Police said there is no reason for area residents to be alarmed. No other information was available. Three Norfolk churches share in 430k grant boost Three Norfolk churches share in 430k grant boost Three historic Norfolk churches are among 77 across the UK to share in a 430,000 Christmas grants payout from the National Churches Trust. St Mary, East Walton receives 20,000, St Martin, South Raynham receives 10,000 and All Saints, Marsham receives 10,000. Broadcaster and journalist Huw Edwards, Vice President of The National Churches Trust, said: The UK's historic churches and chapels are a vital part of our national heritage. But to survive, many need to carry out urgent repairs and install modern facilities. The cost of this work is far beyond what most congregations can pay for themselves and the latest grants from the National Churches Trust will help ensure that 77 churches and chapels are safe for future generations to enjoy. In 2018 the National Churches Trust awarded grants of 1.2 million to help 202 projects at churches and chapels around the UK. Demand for funding continues to grow, with 583 grant applications received in 2018, up from 473 grant applications in 2017, a 23% increase. St Mary, East Walton A 20,000 repair grant will help fund a project to urgently fix broken tiles, leaky windows and loose stonework, returning a 14th century Grade I historic building to sound condition. The church is the only public building in East Walton and is used for village gatherings and parish meetings. The work will not only make it dry, but warm, too, by fixing a faulty flue attached to the coal burning stove that heats the church. Rev Jane Holmes, from St Marys, said: We are so very grateful to the National Churches Trust for its support. East Walton is a small village with less than 100 residents so it is a major challenge to raise the substantial funds required to repair our medieval church building. The work that can now progress will ensure its simple beauty and rich history can continue to be enjoyed for generations to come. St Martin, South Raynham A 10,000 repair grant will help fund urgent repairs to the roof, stonework and guttering of Grade II* listed 14th century St Martins. There is no community hall for miles around and the project will allow the church to become a focal point for the area. Rector Rev Edward Bundock, said: The PCC is extremely pleased and grateful to have been awarded this generous grant which will enable us to do all the work necessary to bring our parish church into excellent working order as a place of prayer and as a focus for visitors. The church is a benefit to all parishioners and visitors and we look forward to the time when we can re-open the church and celebrate as a church and as a community. All Saints, Marsham Such was the case this week during the lunch hour at the Chipotle Mexican Grill on Chicago Avenue in downtown Naperville, where he belted out a rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Its his favorite, along with It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. BRIDGEPORT Emily Todd turned to the internet, perhaps in the hopes of finding the man of her dreams, and instead found a nightmare. About two weeks ago, she met Brandon Roberts on a dating app, Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said. He declined to name the dating site. The 25-year-old Bethel woman was found on the shore of Bridgeport Harbor on Sunday with a bullet hole in the back of her head. Police arrested the 26-year-old Roberts at his fathers home in a Cleveland suburb early Friday. Todds family said they were told Roberts confessed to killing her. Roberts was charged with murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and carrying a pistol without a permit. He is awaiting extradition from Ohio to Bridgeport. Police said after dating Roberts just a few days, Todd decided to break off their relationship. We know she drove her car to meet up with Roberts, but we are still not sure why she decided to meet up with him after breaking up with him, and how she ended up where she was found, Fitzgerald said. Police said that after killing Todd, Roberts stole her car, cellphone and debit card, which he used to empty her bank account. There is no greater human than my beautiful girl, Jennifer Lawlor, Todds mother, said in a text message Friday. She declined to speak more about her daughters death or Roberts arrest. During the investigation, detectives searched areas in Bridgeport and Stratford, tracking down leads and evidence. Her mother mentioned that Todd was dating a person named Brandon, but wasnt certain of his last name, according to the report of Police Detective Martin Heanue. She described Brandon as a black male, thin, approximately 25 years old, and homeless from Bridgeport. She stated Brandon was originally from Ohio and that Todd just started dating him within the last few weeks. But things went south quickly. On Nov. 30, Todd called Bridgeport police to report that her boyfriend, Roberts, had threatened to shoot himself. She told 911 dispatchers that Roberts was driving a blue Chevrolet Impala with Ohio license plates and owned a gun. She gave police Roberts cellphone number. Police said officers made phone contact with Roberts while he was driving, and a pursuit ensued. They said officers ended the chase because of Roberts reckless driving. On Dec. 8, police said, Todd changed her phone number to avoid further contact with Roberts. The next morning, witnesses saw the body of a woman lying face down in the sand along the shore on Seaview Avenue. Police said Todd was fully dressed and appeared to be wearing a long, blond wig. She had been shot in the back of the head and a single, spent bullet shell casing was found near her feet. Two sets of footprints were found near the body. Police said one set belonged to Todd. Police said her mother later told detectives her daughters debit card had been used twice on Dec. 8. The first time was just after 11 p.m. at the ATM at Peoples United Bank on White Plains Road in Trumbull; $400 was withdrawn from Todds account. The second time the card was used was about 40 minutes later, at Omar Market on East Main Street in Bridgeport, where there was a withdrawal of $52 from the ATM there. Surveillance video at the bank showed Roberts in the drive-thru, operating a white Kia sedan. No one else was in the car, police said. The following day, Todds 2018 white Kia was found in the parking lot of the Quality Inn & Suites on South Avenue in Stratford. Detectives said Roberts had been staying in the hotel since Thanksgiving with a relative. Police said Roberts uncle told detectives that he and his son had been living in the hotel for a few months. They said Roberts had traveled from his fathers home in Ohio and visited them at the hotel for Thanksgiving. But Roberts had left on Dec. 8 without saying goodbye, police said the uncle told them. When Roberts uncle later called Roberts to tell him police were looking for him, his uncle told detectives Roberts responded, Im sorry, Unc. Police Chief Armando Perez praised the Detective Bureau. Under Capt. Brian Fitzgerald and Lt. Chris LaMaine, they conducted a very, very thorough investigation, Perez said. We went above and beyond. Todd, a 2011 graduate of Bethel High School and 2016 graduate of Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., was reported missing by her family on Sunday after she failed to show up for work at Saint John Paul II Center in Danbury, a senior center where she was a therapeutic recreation assistant. Vicki Todd, who is married to Emilys father, Stephen Todd, said in a brief phone interview Friday morning that police told the family that Roberts gave a full confession, according to the Press Herald website. Stephen Todd did not immediately return a call from Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday. Anthony Reyes said he was friends with Emily Todd in high school, and that she would always comfort anyone who seemed upset. Emily was always a bright light in any dark room, Reyes said in a Facebook message on Friday. Even on Earth, she was an angel and the most down-to-Earth friend. Emilys spirit will always live in us. Funeral services for Emily Todd are set for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Bethel United Methodist Church. NEW MILFORD The towns three fire chiefs are asking for restoration of the $25,000 cut from the budget so they can keep up with vehicle replacement. Members of Town Council asked if now was the appropriate time to restore the money and suggested the chiefs return with their request for the next budget. The issue was postponed until the next council meeting when officials will have a better idea of where to find the money this cycle. Councilman Michael Nahom said adding the funding sets a bad precedent and they should not adjust the budget. Every department would love to have another $20,000 in their budget right now, and thats where I have the problem, he said. I dont disagree with any of the needs, but it seems like a discussion we should be having in February. The chiefs said the decision needs to be made before their January meeting because it will affect the capital replacement plan for the apparatus and they will have to revise it if the amount changes. Water Witch Hose Company Chief James Ferlow said without the $25,000, the departments will hit a deficit in two years. That deficit doesnt hit for 10 or 11 years if the money is reinstated. That is a concern we have, he said. We will have to completely revamp our budget system because we will potentially be in the red significantly sooner, even though its only $25,000. We keep a very tight budget. The fire apparatus capital account was formed after a fire in 1979 to ensure the departments were equipped to handle any fire. It was established in 1983 with an annual contribution of $150,000 from the town until a few years ago when that amount increased to $250,000 to better reflect the rising costs of fire vehicles. The money in the account is distributed among the three departments based on a long-term replacement and maintenance plan the departments officers create. These purchases are supplemented by grants and donations. This past budget cycle, $50,000 was initially proposed to be cut from that account, but $25,000 was restored in and approved by voters. This brought this years total contribution to $225,000. Gaylordsvilles Tanker 44 is the next vehicle expected to be replaced and is scheduled for the next fiscal year. Other vehicles include a rescue vehicle, Water Witchs brush truck, Northvilles tanker and engines at all three departments. The engines last 25 years and the tankers and rescue trucks generally last 30 years, while brush trucks can be in service a few years longer than that. Were trying to get more life out of our tankers because we buy good tankers and therefore we can get 25 to 30 years out of them, Northville Chief Alan Harris said. It may look like the vehicles are being replaced before these benchmarks, but Gaylordsville Chief Dave Williamson said it takes about two years for the vehicles to be built so theyre actually being retired at those ages. The older something gets, the more chance there is something will break, he said. The chiefs said all of the vehicles are inspected and maintained regularly but its important to replace the vehicles with newer, safer models. New Milfords trucks are sold to southern states where they cant afford new vehicles and other countries. Councilman Tom Esposito said he knows the fire departments are doing a great job with old equipment and said they need safe equipment for the departments and public. My only question and my only reservation now is where the money comes from in the middle of a budget cycle, Esposito said. Its not doubting your expertise or what you do. The Washington Volunteer Fire Department will hold its 11th annual Slices with Santa fundraiser Dec. 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Washington Depot firehouse on Bee Brook Road. Tickets for the all-you-can-eat pizza dinner are $10 for adults and $5 for children. Research published in The Lancet on 5 December revealed that harmful and unfounded myths about migration and health have become accepted and that these are used to justify policies of exclusion. "The UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health: the health of a world on the move" refutes groundless narratives about migrants, including: The myth that "migrants are disease-carriers that pose a risk to resident populations" The myth that "migrants are a burden on health services" The myth that "migrants have too many children" The myth that "high-income countries are being over-whelmed by migrants" The myth that "migrants damage economies". The protection of public health and cost-savings are often cited as reasons to deny migrants entry, restrict access to healthcare, or detain people unlawfully. Yet, as the report lays out (with new international data and analysis), the available evidence does not support the most common myths about migration and health. Furthermore, these myths ignore the important contribution of migration to global economies. Scroll down to read a fact sheet entitled. "Myths about migration and health not supported by the available evidence". The Commission strongly advocates that migration urgently be treated as a core determinant of health and well-being and that it be addressed as a global health priority of the 21st century. Migration and global health are both defining issues of our time, according to the Commission. How the world addresses human mobility will determine public health and social cohesion for decades to come. The Commission is the result of a two-year project led by 20 experts from 13 countries - including South Africa - and represents the most comprehensive review of the available evidence to date. The report, including its recommendations to improve the public health response to migration, was launched on 8 December at the UN Intergovernmental Conference to adopt the Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, in Marrakech. MIGRATION AND HEALTH IN AFRICA Wits University Professor Steve Tollman, director and co-founder of the MRC/Wits Agincourt Unit, serves as a commissioner. He is one of just two African country commissioners along with Dr Nyovani Madise, Director of Research and Development Policy and Head of the Malawi Office of the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP). "The report is a systematic assessment of evidence and understanding about migration, based on already published work," says Tollman, who co-authored a paper in the report, "Global patterns of mortality in international migrants: a systematic review and meta-analysis". The South African launch of the UCL-Lancet report is scheduled for March 2019. "In the South African context, we have a massive gap in understanding internal migration. There are profound data gaps in an area where opinion, perception, and political advantage tend to take precedence," says Tollman. "Through the Lancet process, we seek to bring data and evidence to bear, to both counter prevailing myths and highlight the need to strengthen our understanding - which, in the South African and regional arena, relates directly to internal, often labour, migrants." The critical question is how labour migrants access good public healthcare wherever they are. This is consistent with South Africa's move towards the National Health Insurance and the promotion of public health. "Clearly, we want to take care of our citizens but clearly, we want to take care of others who cared for us pre-1990s. Resources are finite but the answer is simply not to reject those who are not 'us'. Universal health coverage does not mean, 'but not if you're not one of us'," says Tollman. FACT SHEET: MYTHS ABOUT MIGRANTS AND HEALTH NOT SUPPORTED BY THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE Are high-income countries being overwhelmed by migrants? Discussions about migration often focus on rising numbers of people crossing international borders and overwhelming high-income countries, but changes in migration are more complex. Although international migration receives the most political and public attention, most movement globally is internal migration. A quarter of all migrants (an estimated 258 million people) are international migrants. In the past four decades, the percentage of the world's population that is considered an international migrant has changed very little - from 2.9% in 1990 to 3.4% in 2017 globally. Most international migrants are labour migrants (approximately 65%) - and a much smaller proportion are refugees and asylum seekers. While high-income countries have seen a greater rise in the percentage of international migrants (from 7.6% in 1990 to 13.4% in 2017), they are more likely to be students who pay for their education or labour migrants who are net contributors to the economy. Refugees make up a larger proportion of the total population in low-income countries compared to high-income countries (0.7% vs 0.2%). Are migrants damaging economies? An overwhelming consensus of evidence exists on the positive economic benefits of migration, which is insufficiently acknowledged. In advanced economies, each 1% increase in migrants in the adult population increases the gross domestic product per person by up to 2%. Additionally, migration contributes to global wealth distribution. Migrants sent an estimated US$613 billion to their families at origin in 2017. Approximately three quarters of these remittances are to low- and middle-income countries - an amount three times larger than official development assistance. Are migrants a burden on health services? Migrants constitute a substantial proportion of the health care workforce in many high-income countries. Rather than being a burden, migrants are more likely to bolster services by providing medical care, teaching children, caring for older people, and supporting understaffed services. In the UK, 37% of doctors received their medical qualification in another country. A new, comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis concludes that international migrants in high-income countries have lower rates of mortality compared to general populations across the majority of disease categories. This study used mortality estimates on more than 15.2 million migrants from 92 countries and found that international migrants had lower rates of deaths for cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, neoplasms, nervous and respiratory diseases, mental and behavioural disorders and injuries than people in the general population in the receiving country. There was no evidence of a difference for blood, genitourinary, or musculoskeletal disorders. The only two exceptions were for infections such as viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, and HIV, and external causes, such as assault, where migrants had increased rates of mortality. However, as the report also highlights, several studies (e.g., on tuberculosis) have shown that the risk of transmission of infections is elevated only within migrant communities, and is negligible in host populations. The findings are most likely to apply to international migrants in high income countries who are studying, working, or have joined family members in these countries. Vulnerable groups, such as refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants, may have different health needs, but, as the authors note, rather than form policies based on exceptions, evidence about the health benefits of migration should be at the forefront of decisions. Are migrants disease carriers that pose risks to resident populations? The stereotype of migrants as disease carriers is perhaps one of the most prevalent, and the most harmful. However, there is no systematic association between migration and importation of infectious diseases, and the evidence shows that the risk of transmission from migrating populations to host populations is generally low. Studies on tuberculosis suggest that the risk of transmission is elevated within migrant households and communities, but not in host populations. Migrants may come from regions with higher disease burden, especially if they come from regions of conflict, with weak public health systems. However, illness and infection can also be acquired or during transit - for example, air travel can facilitate the rapid spread of infection. Indeed, mainly international travel, tourism, and the movement of livestock, rather than migration drove recent examples of spread of resistant pathogens. Strong public health systems are needed to prevent outbreaks of disease, whether associated with migration or not. Do migrants have higher fertility rates than among host populations? Populist rhetoric often claims that migrants have many more children than host populations. The Commission collates data from several long-term studies that suggest the birth rates among migrants are barely at the level of population replacement (2.1 births per woman) and often falling. A study of six European countries found that fertility rates among migrant women were, in general, lower than host populations. Studies in India and Ethiopia, for example, have shown that internal migrants are more likely to use contraception than host populations. Ensuring access to services is key to ensuring the sexual and reproductive healthcare of migrant women and girls. UNFOUNDED MYTHS ARE HARMFUL TO INDIVIDUALS AND SOCIETY Unfounded myths about migration have wide-ranging impacts on how migrants are treated within society. Despite evidence that migrants have positive health benefit to societies, many men and women who migrate are subjected to laws, restrictions, and discrimination that put them at risk of ill health. Protection of the public is often invoked as a reason for the denial of entry, detention or deportation, but too often, these policies leave migrants facing worse health situations. The Commission calls for governments to improve migrants' access to services, strengthen migrants' right to health and tackle the wider determinants of migrant health, including taking a zero-tolerance approach to racism and discrimination. Restricting entry based on health status is increasingly common. In Australia, permanent residency application can be rejected because the applicant has a health condition - the five most common reasons were intellectual or functional impairment, HIV, cancer and renal disease. Thirty-five countries have imposed some form of travel ban on people with HIV. Too often, policies are not based on the overall contribution of migrants to host societies, but only in terms of costs to the state. Restrictions on entry or deportation for diseases with low risk of casual transmission are impermissible on both public health and human rights grounds. Linking health status to migration enforcement also reinforces distrust in the health profession, and Iimits migrants' ability to access health care on a non-discriminatory basis. The fear of deportation can mean migrants will not seek health care or assistance when needed, hindering individual and public health. In practice, health-related enforcement regimes can pressure health workers to act as immigration control agents. The Commission points to a growing trend of states limiting access to health care for migrants, despite commitments to provide "health for all." States are increasingly treating unauthorised border crossings as a criminal offence, leading to detention, at times indefinitely. Indefinite offshore detention of migrants on Nauru Island was introduced as an immigration policy in Australia in 2013, and the USA recently announced a zero-tolerance policy, resulting in migrants arrested or jailed and children separated from their parents. Detention poses clear violations of international law, and findings from a systematic review of 38 studies shows that detention is associated with negative health outcomes, especially mental health. If you experience an injury at work, the amount of compensation you receive depends on which impairment rating system is used, according to research from McMaster University and the Netherlands. The American Medical Association (AMA) Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment is used in workers' compensation systems, federal systems, automobile accidents and personal injury cases to rate impairment. However, a comparison of a group of injured workers assessed using the two most recent editions of the AMA guides revealed that usage of the sixth edition resulted in significantly lower impairment ratings than the fifth edition. The findings were published today in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "Our study shows your impairment rating will depend on the version of the AMA guides that you are assessed with," said Jason Busse, first author and an associate professor of anesthesia at McMaster. "The difference in impairment rating is likely due to the fact that when these guides first came out, they were focused on pain and range of motion, and they have increasingly moved to more direct measures of function. "For example, in an earlier guide they may have measured whether a person could lift their arm above their head without discomfort, but now they look at whether the person could put a box on a shelf." Researchers used data from a consecutive sample of 249 injured workers referred for an independent evaluation at the Orthopedisch Expertise Centrum Amsterdam between 2011 and 2012. The results showed the median whole person impairment rating was seven per cent for 131 claimants assessed with the fifth edition of the AMA guides, and four per cent for 118 claimants assessed with the sixth edition. "Because all assessors in the Netherlands switched from the fifth to the sixth edition at the same time, we were able to study two large cohorts of patients with similar injuries and explore the impact on impairment ratings," said Busse, who is also a researcher with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care. The other major finding of the study was considerable inconsistency of AMA Guides editions used by workers' compensation boards across North America. "There was a tremendous variability in the edition that North American compensation boards are using," Busse said. "The most recent version, which was the sixth, was published in 2007. Yet, for example, we have the largest compensation board in Canada, which is in Ontario, using the third revised version which came out in 1991." Busse said he recommends consistency across compensation boards. "Workers' compensation boards should standardize impairment rating systems so that everyone is gauged on the same scale," he said. "If we believe that more recent editions of the AMA guides do a better job of quantifying impairment, why is it that so many Boards are using earlier versions?" Source: https://www.mcmaster.ca/ insights from industry Dr. Peggy Taylor Scientist & General Manager BioLegend An interview with Dr. Peggy Taylor (Sc.D.) at SfN 2018, discussing the biggest neurological research questions of today and how BioLegend is helping to develop new biomarkers for neurological disease. Why is it important to study neurological diseases? There are so many fundamental biological questions that remain unanswered about the functioning of the brain in health and disease states. Thats why we're developing tools to try to enable people to interrogate pathways and processes to better understand how the brain works. Sebastian Kaulitzki | Shutterstock The impact of diseases on the brain is very vast, from neurodegenerative diseases to psychiatric conditions. It impinges on a wide swathe of society, and the burden on society by these diseases is quite high. I think that neurological diseases are at the level of cancer in terms of the impact that they can have on people's lives. What are the biggest neurological research questions being asked today? There are a lot of questions being asked right now, but I think that understanding the biology of synapses, how the brain is wired during development, and how those connections are maintained throughout life are some of the biggest questions. Misfolded proteins are the hallmarks of neurodegenerative disease, and we still don't really understand why they form, how that happens, and why people are differently able to clear them. That goes right to the next thing, which is the genetics. There's a lot of GWAS data out there and scientists trying to understand how that impacts certain cellular processes. Scientists are searching for commonalities, and if point mutations in disparate proteins impinge on the same processes. Neuroimmunology is another area that has emerged in the past few years. The link between aging, pro-inflammatory markers, and neurological disease is one particular area of interest. Researchers want to understand how inflammation impacts the ability of cells to maintain homeostasis and whether there are any protective mechanisms that can be exploited for new treatments. Over the last five to eight years, the research community has really started to understand that microglia and astrocytes the resident immune cells of the brain play a far greater role in neurological disease than previously thought, so there is a lot of biology to be understood here. People are also beginning to understand that the brain is not immune privileged, as they thought it had been for so many years, and so the role of infiltrating peripheral cells is a hot topic at the moment. Neuroinflammation Product Brochure Video Play How are biomarkers used in disease diagnosis, and why are new biomarkers needed for neurological diseases? The traditional definition of a diagnostic biomarker is where you can say, "If you have a reading of X number, that means you have this disease or you don't," but this is only a small sliver of how biomarkers can be used. Biomarkers can be used to stratify patients in clinical trials using their molecular profile and determine the intervention that is most suitable to them. There are so many different pathways that can result in a similar phenotype, especially in the field of neuroscience, so it's important to understand the underlying cause of the disease and then identify the best course of action. Progression markers are also very important, not only for monitoring the patient's health but also to understand if a therapy is working. The reason we need new biomarkers is that there's a lot of crosstalk between neurodegenerative diseases. Traditional biomarkers may be able to distinguish healthy controls from somebody with a neurodegenerative disease, but getting into the specifics of who has which disease is an important part where we need new and better biomarkers. Imaging biomarkers have seen a rise in the last few years, and certainly being able to image amyloid and tau has greatly impacted the Alzheimer's disease field. The Parkinson's field is moving in that direction as well, where certain imaging technologies will be very impactful. Explode | Shutterstock How is BioLegend involved in Parkinsons disease research? As a leader in the life sciences industry, BioLegend is committed to the development of novel tools to enable researchers at the very basic level. A lot of neuroscience research relies on tissue staining, cell-based assays, western blots, and flow cytometry, and so it's our goal to develop innovative and high-quality antibodies that can address those applications across the board in the areas weve mentioned, such as protein misfolding and autophagy. We have a long-standing relationship with the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), and as part of this, we supported the Parkinson Progression Markers Initiative through our Human -Synuclein ELISA Kit. We've also done some analysis for the BioFIND Study and the S4 Study. We're also working with key opinion leaders in the academic sector to develop new tools for some of the high priority targets that the MJFF has identified that we think will advance research for the PD community. What is the Covance antibody portfolio and why are custom antibodies invaluable for research? The Covance Antibody portfolio was acquired by BioLegend in 2014. Covance had built up an antibody products portfolio that was targeting areas of cell biology and neuroscience. This started with antibodies from Berkeley Antibody Company, Signet Laboratories, and Sternberger Monoclonals. Since the acquisition, BioLegend has been making investments to expand the portfolio and try to push the field forward with innovative and high-quality products. From the standpoint of custom antibodies, our approach is that we try to anticipate the needs of the research community. Try It For Yourself: 50% off Neuroscience Antibody Samples at BioLegend. We have a team of scientists who are reading papers, coming out to meetings, watching big developments that are happening, and trying to project what will be needed. There are always cases where people are going to have a very specific target that they would like to engage using custom antibodies, and we love collaborating with labs to help make that happen. Where can readers find more information? Visit the BioLegend website to find out more. About Dr. Peggy Taylor Dr. Taylor leads the Boston based business operations of BioLegend, Inc. Prior to joining BioLegend in 2014, Peggy was the Director of the Antibody Products business at Covance, where she had worked since 2004 leading the efforts of a development team producing and developing antibodies and immunoassays that are sold as research reagents. She has extensive experience in the development and commercialization of research reagents. Since 2008, Peggy has been working with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons research to optimize and validate a total alpha-synuclein ELISA. As part of this, her laboratory has performed sample analysis in support of several programs designed to identify improved Parkinsons disease biomarkers for diagnosis and disease progression (PPMI, BioFind, and S4). Peggy earned a Doctor of Science degree in cell biology from Harvard University and is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Researchers at the University of Melbourne have made an important discovery that explains why some babies are born with disorders of sex development. Kateryna Kon | Shutterstock The study suggests that a critical regulatory gene carried on the Y chromosome increases or decreases the activity of particular gene that determine whether a baby will be male or female. First author Brittany Croft says the critical gene is called SRY. It induces another gene called SOX9 to trigger the development of testes and high concentrations of SOX9 are required for normal male development. "However, if there is some disruption to SOX9 activity and only low levels are present, a testis will not develop resulting in a baby with a disorder of sex development." Lead author, Professor Andrew Sinclair, says that junk DNA or dark matter forms 90% of human DNA. Rather than carrying genes, this contains regulatory segments of DNA called enhancers that increase or decrease gene activity. If these enhancers that control testis genes are disrupted it may lead to a baby being born with a disorder of sex development." The purpose of the current study was to investigate how enhancers regulate SOX9 and whether their disruption would cause abnormal sex development. Sinclair says the team found three enhancers that ensure SOX9 is activated to a high level in an XY embryo, leading to normal testis and male development. "Importantly, we identified XX patients who would normally have ovaries and be female but carried extra copies of these enhancers, (high levels of SOX9) and instead developed testes. In addition, we found XY patients who had lost these SOX9 enhancers, (low levels of SOX9) and developed ovaries instead of testes." Croft says this sex reversal is caused by gain or loss of the critical enhancers that regulate SOX9, which shows how vital they are for normal male development. Amid public health concerns about the risks of opioid overuse, a recent study in The American Journal of Accountable Care (AJAC) shows increased economic burden on patients and payers when opioid therapy for noncancer pain continues beyond the initial prescription. Using data from commercial insurance claims of working-aged adults, new research published in the December issue of The American Journal of Accountable Care (AJAC) found that chronic opioid therapy (COT) for noncancer pain is associated with increased healthcare spending as well as hospital stays. The insights from the study, "Increased Healthcare Utilization and Expenditures Associated With Chronic Opioid Therapy," can be used by payers to intervene after opioids are prescribed but before patients transition to long-term use. Patients who transitioned to COT, which is defined as daily or near-daily use of opioids for at least 90 days, had total healthcare expenditures that were $4607 higher than those of patients who did not continue long-term opioid use. Total expenditures, without prescription drugs, were defined as the sum of emergency department, inpatient, physician, and other spending. Inpatient spending alone among the COT group was $2453 higher than that of patients who did not transition to COT. The samplederived from a random sample of commercial enrollees that was released under licensing from the IQVIA Real-World Data Adjudicated Claims databasecomprised 3776 adults aged 28 to 63 years in the COT group and 16,425 adults in the non-COT group. With approximately 126 million Americans experiencing some type of pain in the past 3 months, payers, government agencies, and medical associations are trying to encourage nonopioid therapies for chronic noncancer pain. In 2017, opioid-related deaths surged past 72,000, with the increase driven by synthetic opioids. "Any intervention focused on curbing transition to COT has the potential to prevent inpatient use and can lead to cost savings for the payer(s)," the study noted, adding that reducing inpatient utilization benefits patients via improved quality of life and lower out-of-pocket costs. The authors, two of whom received funding from the National Institutes of Health, did not include in their study information on types of pain, response to pain treatment, socioeconomic status, and other factors. "We hope that these findings can help lay the foundation, including financial justification, for prevention programs related to identifying and curbing inappropriate chronic opioid use," said lead author Douglas Thornton, PharmD, PhD, of the College of Pharmacy at University of Houston. New Delhi: Despite the Supreme Court verdict giving the Centre a clean chit on procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday continued his attack on the government alleging that there was massive corruption in the contract and wondered why the CAG report "cited by the Supreme Court" on it had not yet been shared with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. Gandhi, once again, reiterated the Congress' demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the fighter jet deal and claimed that if it was conducted, names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and businessman Anil Ambani will come to the fore. Both the government and Anil Ambani's Reliance Group have rejected Gandhi's allegations of any wrongdoing. At a press conference in the evening, after settling the debate as to who will be Rajasthan CM, Gandhi said the Supreme Court in its verdict cited that a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the Rafale deal was submitted to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) but asserted that no such report was given to the House panel headed by Congress' leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge. Kharge, who was also present at the briefing, said PAC has not received any such report. "Where has that report gone? Is it with some other PAC that PM Modi has set up," he asked in a dig at the government. He also accused the Modi government of destroying "all institutions" and asserted that corruption to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore has taken place in the Rafale deal under its watch. In a relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process". (From r to l) Opposition Leader MP Ishmael Kalsakau, PM Charlot Salwai, and Acting Speaker of Parliament MP Edwin Macreveth waiting to greet Head of State President Obed Moses Tallis Get inside the fascinating story of your favorite desserts in the comic Yummy Grab a spoon and dig into Yummy: A History of Desserts GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more Sorry! This content is not available in your region New Delhi: The 'Raman Raj' has finally ended in Chhattisgarh after 15 long years. The Congress, which was out of power in the state since 2003, has made a stunning comeback in these elections and completely decimated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of Raman Singh. The Congress has won 68 seats in the 90-member strong Chhattisgarh Assembly, while the BJP was reduced to 15 seats only. The Ajit Jogi-BSP alliance has won the remaining 7 seats in the Assembly. The Congress has received the support of 61,44,192 voters in these elections which is about 43 per cent of the total votes polled, on the other hand, the BJP has got the backing of 47,07,141 voters in the elections i.e. 33 per cent of the total votes polled in the state. The Ajit Jogi-led Janata Congress Chhattisgarh has received 10,86,581 votes in the state which is close to 7.6 per cent of the total votes. Jogi's alliance partner, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has also impressed the experts with its performance in the state. It has garnered 5,52,313 votes with 3.9 per cent vote share. In the 2013 Assembly elections, the BJP had received 53,65,272 votes with a share of 41.04 per cent and the Congress had received 52,67,698 votes with a share of 40.29 per cent of votes. A careful analysis of the results of recently held Assembly Elections in Chhattisgarh by the News Nation team gives a serious reason to the BJP and party chief Amit Shah to introspect. According to our analysis, the BJP is likely to lose 10 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh if these results are replicated in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019. It will be a complete role reversal of the parties in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2019 based on these results. The Congress is likely to get 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state, while the BJP will get a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections 2019. The BJP had won 10 seats out of 11 in the three consecutive Lok Sabha elections i.e. in 2004 (lost only Mahasamund), 2009 (lost only Korba) and 2014 (lost only Durg). According to our study, the BJP is going to win only Bilaspur Lok Sabha seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2019. The BJP is able to win 4 Assembly seats in Bilaspur this time and the Congress has won 2. The BJP has received 77,000 votes more than the Congress party in Bilaspur. The Congress, however, is likely to win Sarguja, Raigarh, Janjgir-Champa, Korba, Durg, Raipur, Mahasamund, Bastar, Kanker and Rajnandgaon constituencies in the Lok Sabha elections 2019. Rajnandgaon has been a BJP bastion and it has won it six times. Dr Raman Singh had won the seat in 1999 and now the seat has been represented by his son Abhishek Singh in the Lok Sabha. The Congress is ahead of the BJP by more than 1,50,000 votes this time. The BJP is all set to lose the Raipur seat also in 2019 based on these results. BJP's Ramesh Bais has been winning this seat consecutively six times since 1996. He first became the member from this seat in 1989. Bais had defeated Congress stalwarts Shyama Charan Shukla, Bhupesh Baghel and Satya Narayan Sharma in 2004, 2009 and 2014 respectively. The Congress has also got more votes than the BJP in Bastar, Kanker and Mahasamund. It is ahead of the BJP by over 1,00,000 votes in Bastar, over 2,35,000 votes in Kanker and over 1,60,000 votes in Mahasamund. In Korba and Janjgir-Champa, the Congress is ahead of the BJP by over 55,000 and 94,000 votes respectively. The Congress has a huge lead of over 2,25,000 in Sarguja. The Congress also received more votes than the BJP in Raigarh (over 1,95,000 votes) and Durg (over 1,80,000 votes). It needs to be noted that the BJP was ahead in 72 Assembly seats during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. New Delhi: Actor Alok Nath, who is accused of rape by a woman writer-producer Vinta Nanda, has filed anticipatory bail application on Friday in a Mumbai court. The plea for pre-arrest bail was filed before Additional Sessions Judge S S Oza on Thursday. The court on Friday adjourned the matter to December 20, after the complainants lawyer sought time to file an intervention plea opposing bail for Nath. A rape case was registered against Nath by the Mumbai Police on November 21 based on a complaint filed by the writer-producer who accused him, in a social media post, of raping her 19 years ago. However, Nath refuted the allegations and filed a civil suit against the complainant, seeking Re 1 as damages for defaming him. Though she did not name Nath in the post, the complainant referred to him as the actor who is known as the most Sanskari person. Also Read | Koffee With Karan 6: Ajay Devgn may win an Audi for THIS answer Later, the Cine and TV Artists Association (CINTAA) also expelled the veteran actor from the association. The statement reads, In view of the various allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Mr Alok Nath, after due diligence and consideration, the Executive Committee of CINTAA has decided to expel him from the Association. The #MeToo movement started as a hashtag on Twitter in the year 2017 after popular Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment and assault by over 70 women. And now after 11 good years, India too is caught up in the stormy winds of the #MeToo movement and Tanushree Dutta recently reignited the movement with her allegations against the famous face of Bollywood Nana Patekar of sexually harassing her on the sets of Horn Ok Pleassss where the actress was supposed to be a part of an item number. Also Read | 2.0 box-office collection week 2: Rajinikanth-Akshay Kumar starrer crosses Rs 700 crore mark Alok Nath is popularly known for playing characters endorsing moral values or sanskar in Bollywood films such as Maine Pyaar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Koun!, Hum Saath Saath Hain and Vivah. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday came out with all guns blazing against the Congress after the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking a probe into the controversial Rafale deal, with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying all the figures by the government are correct and the figures by Congress president Rahul Gandhi are false. Jaitley also rejected the Congresss demand for a JPC probe into the Rafale deal. The Congress claimed the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that the issue of "corruption" in the Rafale fighter jet agreement cannot be decided by it and challenged the Centre to constitute a JPC to probe the deal. Reviews of this kind can only be done by judiciary, not by a partisan body, Jaitley said on the demand for a JPC probe. Earlier on Friday, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, Holding a press conference along with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Jaitley said: The truth has only one version and falsehood has many. That is why Mr Rahul Gandhi quoted several figures. The Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Security interest because it increases combat ability of India, commercial interest because the final price was significantly lower both for aircraft and weaponised aircraft than what was negotiated in 2007 and 2012, said Arun Jaitley. Jaitley added: Falsehood has a very short life. In this case, it was a few months. Falsehood lowers the credibility of its creator. Sitharaman said the UPA wanted to buy 18 aircraft and manufacture the rest. We bought 36 aircraft due to time lost. Earlier, BJP president Amit Shah described the order as a "victory of truth" and demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi. The Supreme Court's decision is slap on the face of those who had alleged corruption, Shah said at a press conference. Shah also challenged the Opposition for a debate on the Rs 58,000 crore deal in Parliament and said the BJP will agree to as much time as it wants for a discussion after it reiterated its demand for a JPC probe into the matter. Accusing Gandhi of misleading people and endangering national security by raising questions on the Rafale deal at every meeting, Shah asked him to disclose the source of information on which he had based his claims. According to the BJP chief, never before in independent India had such an attempt was made to mislead people on the basis of "blatant lies". Gandhi, he added, had started the "politics of lies" for his momentary political gains. Gandhi has repeatedly accused the government of playing a role in ensuring that Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence gets an offset contract, a charge denied by the businessman, the government and the French firm. The BJP president, however, declined to comment on the reasons behind his party's defeat, saying he would do so later and wanted the focus to be on his comments on the Supreme Court judgement on the Rafale deal. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot has been appointed as the new Chief Minister of Rajasthan, while his junior party colleague Sachin Pilot has been made the Deputy Chief Minister, announced Congress observer to the state KC Venugopal on Friday, adding that the latter will continue to work as Rajasthan Congress Chief. KC Venugopal, All India Congress Committee observer for Rajasthan: Congress President Rahul Gandhi has decided to appoint Ashok Gehlot Ji as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot will be the Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan pic.twitter.com/TAJ7levt8F ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Addressing the press conference, Gehlot, 67, thanked Gandhi for giving him the opportunity to serve the people of the state for a third time and promised that he and Pilot will give "good governance". "I would like to thank Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other legislators for taking this decision to make Ashok Gehlot Ji the Chief Minister of Rajasthan," said Pilot, 41, at the press conference. "Mera aur Ashok Gehlot ji ka jaadu puri tarah chal gaya hai (Gehlot and I worked our magic in the state)," Pilot said. The Congress went from 21 seats against the BJP's 163 in 2013 to getting 99 seats (plus one of the Rashtriya Lok Dal) in the assembly elections the votes for which were counted on Tuesday. Pilot said the party's manifesto will be implemented immediately. He put up stiff resistance and had staked his own claim for the top post, it is learnt. Referring to Gehlot's 'kaun banega crorepati' quip to a question on who will be CM at a press conference last month, Pilot jokingly said, "Who would have known that instead of one there will be two 'crorepatis'." Venugopal said details of the oath taking ceremony would be decided after meeting Governor Kalyan Singh in Jaipur on Friday evening. Both Gehlot and Pilot would be present at the meeting. "They will arrive in Jaipur from New Delhi and will go to the Raj Bhawan to hand over the list of MLAs," sources in Jaipur added. Earlier in the day, Congress president Rahul Gandhi signalled an end to the standoff between Gehlot and Pilot for the Rajasthan chief ministers post after two days of discussions. Gandhi met the two leaders separately thrice since Thursday and is learnt to have decided the chief ministerial face in the state. But there was no immediate clarity on who would be the chief minister and it is likely to be announced by this evening. Read More | BJP all set to lose these many Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh There have been hectic discussions between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the selection of chief ministers for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The united colours of Rajasthan, Gandhi tweeted, along with a photograph with Gehlot and Pilot. The united colours of Rajasthan! pic.twitter.com/D1mjKaaBsa Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 14, 2018 Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were also present during the meeting on Friday. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi is expected to take the final call on the chief ministerial faces in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan on Friday. In Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot are the chief ministerial aspirants. As in the case of Madhya Pradesh, a young-versus-experienced debate has complicated the race in Rajasthan. Independents have stacked their support against Ashok Gehlot, while majority party leaders have backed Sachin Pilot. After hours of deliberation, Kamal Nath was chosen for the top post in Madhya Pradesh late on Thursday night. Appealing workers to maintain peace, Pilot tweeted, I have full faith in the leadership, we will welcome whatever Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi decide. Gehlot also played down reports of infighting among Rajasthan Congress leaders for the post of chief minister and appealed to party workers to maintain peace, saying the decision of the leadership on it will be acceptable to all. Read More | Rahul Gandhi picks Kamal Nath as the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh "I appeal to workers to maintain peace. Today, the party needs its workers. The Congress president has already credited the workers for their hard work in ensuring the party's victory in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh," Gehlot said. On the other hand, Chhattisgarh chief minister aspirants state Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel and CLP leader TS Singh Deo have been summoned for a meeting in Delhi on Friday. Also Read | After Assembly poll results, BJP leaders in Maharashtra to switch loyalty to Congress, NCP Here are the LIVE updates: 01.42 pm: Kamal Nath invites Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav for the swearing-in ceremony on December 17. 01.40 pm: I would like to thank public and I hope that we will live up to the expectations that public has from us and the Congress party. Our priorities will be agriculture sector & generating employment for the youth, says Madhya Pradesh CM designate Kamal Nath. 01.30 pm: I would like congratulate Kamal Nath Ji and convey my best wishes to him. I hope he will fulfill all the promises he has made and continue with the schemes we had implemented, says Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Shivraj Singh Chouhan: I would like congratulate Kamal Nath Ji and convey my best wishes to him. I hope he will fulfill all the promises he has made and continue with the schemes we had implemented. #MadhyaPradesh pic.twitter.com/3prwIHOz8I ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 11.55 am: Decision is not being delayed, BJP is spreading lies. BJP took 7 days in UP and 9 days in Maharashtra to choose a CM. The process takes time, observers go to sates for discussion. Whenever such a decision is taken it takes time, says Ashok Gehlot. 11.35 am: Kamal Nath meets Anandiben Patel, stakes claim to form the government in Madhya Pradesh. 11.10 am: Priyanka Gandhi present at Rahul Gandhi's residence. 09.25 am: Kamal Nath will take oath as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister on December 17 at Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal. Kamal Nath will take oath as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister on December 17 at Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal (file pic) pic.twitter.com/YHZKb0xcQB ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 08.16 am: After the elections results, the observer came here&had a meeting with all MLAs. It was mutually decided that the final decision will be taken by Congress high command. Whatever responsibility leadership will give, we will follow, says Bhupesh Baghel, Chhattisgarh Congress president. Bhupesh Baghel, Chhattisgarh Congress President: After the elections results, the observer came here&had a meeting with all MLAs. It was mutually decided that the final decision will be taken by Congress high command. Whatever responsibility leadership will give, we will follow. pic.twitter.com/mURXTYzYks ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 08.00 am: Newly elected chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath, will meet Governor Anandibai Patel later at 10.30 am and will decide the on the date of the oath-taking ceremony. 07.30 am: Senior Congress leader and Rajasthan observer KC Venugopal said that there would be a final decision on who would assume the office of chief minister in Rajasthan today. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: With two bank strike scheduled in the coming week, there is a possibility that banks across the country will remain shut for as long as five days. Reports indicate that a bank union has called for an all-India bank strike on December 26 and a bank officers' union, too has separately called for another strike on December 21. This means with Christmas holidays round the corner, no bank-related work can be scheduled after December 20 till December 26 except December 24. The All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) said that the strike call on December 21 has been called against the Indian Banks' Associations move to leave officers in scale IV and above out of the bipartite wage settlement ambit. If these bank strikes happen, December 21 being Friday will hamper banking services, mainly offline banking, therefore on December 22 (fourth Saturday), December 23 (Sunday), December 25 (Christmas a prescribed bank holiday), there will be no work in banks. The strikes on December 21 and 26 would disturb services drastically in these days, barring December 24 (Monday). Also Read | Rs 100 coin with ex-PM Vajpayee's impression to launch soon The AIBOC, which announced the December 21 strike on the issue of wage revision in the 11th bipartite settlement, is demanding a salary revision according to the charter of demands, five-days week banking, a full mandate for officers up to Scale VII, stopping sales of third-party products and the scrapping of NPS. Read More | Petrol, diesel prices see marginal change, check Dec 14 rates here Earlier the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) had given a call for bank strike on December 26 to protest the governments decision to merge Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. With regard to the December 26 strike, CH Venkatachalam, the general secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association, had told news agency PTI that the strike was against the central governments move and the concerned banks that have agreed to the proposed merger. All unions under the Union Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) will participate in this strike call, Ashwani Rana, the vice-president of the National Organization of Bank Workers (NOBW) had said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The demolition drive of the Muzaffarpur shelter home where inmates were allegedly sexually abused began on Thursday, according to officials. Five-member team headed by executive engineer Suresh Kumar Sinha carried out the drive. The shelter home was run by 'Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti' which is an NGO run by convicted Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the sex scandal. Bihar: Process to destroy Muzaffarpur shelter home begins under Magistrate's supervision. Over 30 girls living in it were sexually abused according to an audit report by Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Main accused Brajesh Thakur is in jail in connection with the incident. pic.twitter.com/hIo8qaeTCr ANI (@ANI) December 13, 2018 ALSO READ | Assembly Poll 2018 | Rahul to pick Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh CMs today Orders for razing the building were issued by the municipal authorities last month after it was found that the structure was raised in violation of the approved plan, officials said. Municipal Commissioner Sanjay Dubey has set up the panel to look after the demolition job. The building was vacated on Tuesday and shelter home was closed. It may take a few days to demolish the building completely as is located in a narrow alley, sources said. The scandal at the shelter home came to light earlier this year in a social audit by the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which said that over 30 girls living there were sexually abused. After the shelter home scandal came to light, Thakur and others were booked on May 30. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is currently probing the case. So far, 17 people have been arrested in connection to the same. Bihar Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma had resigned following the Muzaffarpur case, when it came to light that her husband, Chandrashekhar Verma, had spoken to Thakur several times between January and June. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday sought an apology from the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi for levying allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Rafale fighter jet deal. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal. The verdict was delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph. It was pronounced on a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into deal. BJP president Amit Shah said that the Supreme Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains. The court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. #SCNailsRaGaLies Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 14, 2018 ALSO READ | Rafale Deal: Not the job of the court to compare price details, says Supreme Court dismissing all petitions Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said, The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations levelled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage. "Congress President tried to mislead public for political benefit, and maligned Indian image globally, he should apologize to the house and to the people of the country," he said. HM Rajnath Singh in Lok Sabha: Congress President tried to mislead public for political benefit, and maligned Indian image globally, he should apologize to the house and to the people of the country. He thought 'Hum to doobe hain sanam tum ko bhi le doobenge' #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/R35swDE9GR ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 Welcoming the judgement, BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said, Every deal is not Bofors deal. It is the culture and tradition of Congress and its top leadership to mint money from such deals on the cost of country's national security. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress should apologise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making false allegations against him and questioning his credibility, he added. ALSO READ | Rafale Deal: 'Not a setback,' says Congress, to press for JPC probe Union Minister Smriti Irani, said that the Supreme court verdict exposes false narrative of opposition. aaaa aaaaaa aa aaaa aa aaaaaa aaaaa In the dismissal of Rafale petitions SC not only upholds GOI stand but also exposes false narrative of Opposition. Rahul Gandhi & Co.s relentless campaign to malign the PM & mislead the Nation just got delivered a death knell. #SCNailsRaGaLies Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) December 14, 2018 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Giving a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday said that nobody questioned the procurement of the Rafale jets when the deal was finalised in September 2016, adding that questions were raised only after former French president Francois Hollande came out with a statement. The top court said that it can't be the basis of a judicial review in the deal. The top court bench,A comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph said, "We are satisfied that there is no reason to doubt the process is followed and the need of aircraft is not in doubt.a aWe canat sit in judgment over the purchase of 36 aircraft against 126 fighter jets,a the court said.A The court had reserved its verdict after a hearing on November 14, indicating it would not go into the contentious issue of pricing in the deal. Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that the matter was crystal clear from the beginning and that they have been saying that the allegations leveled by the Congress were baseless and was only to gain political mileage. Home Minister Rajnath Singh on SC dismisses petition seeking Court probe inA #RafaleA deal: The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations leveled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage.A pic.twitter.com/G1Nfsv64j6 a ANI (@ANI)A December 14, 2018 Here are the LIVE updates: 01.28 pm:A Despite constant allegations by Rahul Gandhi, people of this country never doubted the integrity of BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says Amit Shah. 01.26 pm: I am not Rahul Gandhi that I will make baseless allegations, Amit Shah. 01.25 pm: We are ready for a debate on Rafale in Parliament, says the BJP president. 01.24 pm:A If Congress had all the proof then why did they not go to the Supreme Court with it? Their B team was already there. JPC is formed only when there is a discussion in the house(Parliament), I challenge Congress for a discussion on it, says Amit Shah. 01.20 pm:A All thieves gathered to call 'chowkidar' a thief, but theA countryA never believed it: Amit Shah in response to Rahul Gandhi.A 01.18 pm: It was a government to government deal. Why was Rafale deal not finalised during 10 years of UPA rule, was commission not finalised: Amit Shah questions Rahul Gandhi. 01.17 pm: You have harmed the country's defence interests and you should disclose your source of information, says Shah to Rahul Gandhi. 01.16 pm: Want to ask Rahul Gandhi who was his source of information, says Shah. 01.15 pm:A The Supreme Court judgment exposes Congress president Rahul Gandhi's politics of lies: BJP chief Amit Shah.A 01.15 pm: Rahul Gandhi should apologiseA for misleading the people of the country as well as our soldiers, says AmitA Shah. BJP President Amit Shah: Rahul Gandhi ji should apologize to the nation for misleading people. Want to ask Rahul ji what was the source of information on basis of which he made such big allegations? #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/v2kSjXAait a ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 01.12 pm:A I welcome the Supreme Court order on Rafale, truth has won; attempt was made to mislead people using lies: Amit Shah. 01.10 pm:A We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the country's oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies, says BJP president Amit Shah. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In a big relief to the Central government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal. The verdict was delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph. The Chief Justice of India said that there is no doubt in the process of acquisition of the fighter jets and saw no reason to intervene. It also said that it is not for the Supreme Court to compare the price. "We are satisfied that there is no reason to doubt the process is followed and the need of aircraft is not in doubt, the top court ruled. We cant sit in judgment over the purchase of 36 aircraft against 126 fighter jets, the court said. The court had reserved its verdict after a hearing on November 14, indicating it would not go into the contentious issue of pricing in the deal. Have no doubts over the process of procurement in #RafaleDeal: CJI Follow LIVE updates: https://t.co/JkWlOOWk8B pic.twitter.com/LRULVuT4pS News Nation (@NewsNationTV) December 14, 2018 Read More | Why Rafale deal cant become a scam Giving a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court bench said that nobody questioned the procurement of the Rafale jets when the deal was finalised in September 2016, adding that questions were raised only after former French president Francois Hollande came out with a statement. The top court said that it can't be the basis of a judicial review in the deal. Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that the matter was crystal clear from the beginning and that they have been saying that the allegations leveled by the Congress were baseless and was only to gain political mileage. Home Minister Rajnath Singh on SC dismisses petition seeking Court probe in #Rafale deal: The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations leveled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage. pic.twitter.com/G1Nfsv64j6 ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 CJI Ranjan Gogoi says 'we can't compel government to purchase 126 aircrafts and its not proper for the court to examine each aspect of this case. It isn't a job of court to compare pricing details.' #RafaleDeal https://t.co/DWHMCpqIRa ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018 The Supreme Court has clearly stated that it is outside their jurisdiction to probe into the #RafaleDeal. We continue our demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the #RafaleScam. Sign this petition to demand transparency: https://t.co/NnqEJCCgOX Congress (@INCIndia) December 14, 2018 "In our opinion the Supreme Court judgement is totally wrong, the campaign will certainly not drop and we will decide if we will file a review petition," Prashant Bhushan said. Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the judgment on the Rafale deal is not a setback for the party. Advocate ML Sharma was the first petitioner in the case. Later, another lawyer Vineet Dhanda had moved the top court with the plea for a court-monitored probe into the deal. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh had also filed a petition against the fighter jet deal. After the three petitions were filed, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan had moved the Supreme Court with a plea for a direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The Centre had defended the deal for the 36 Rafale fighter jets and opposed public disclosure of the pricing details. 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 deal is estimated to be about Rs 58,000 crore (about $8 billion). Supreme Court said what it thinks was right but the political parties demand a JPC probe into #RafaleDeal: ANI quoting TMC MP Saugata Roy Follow LIVE updates: https://t.co/JkWlOOWk8B pic.twitter.com/2u3ZXAtRaQ News Nation (@NewsNationTV) December 14, 2018 The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. The BJP said that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and the party should apologise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Supreme Court has given a clean chit on the deal. While reserving the verdict on November 14, the top court had said that the pricing details of the Rafale jets could only be discussed after it decides on whether to make it public. The observation by a Supreme Court bench had come after the government refused to publicly divulge pricing details of the deal, saying it would give an advantage to Indias enemies. Also Read | No scandal in Rafale deal, says French ambassador to India While hearing a bunch of pleas alleging criminality in Rafale deal and seeking court-monitored probe into it, the top court had asked wide-ranging questions from the government on issues including lack of sovereign guarantee from the French government, selection of Indian offset partner by the Dassault Aviation and need of entering into Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with France. The court had taken note of submissions and counter-arguments on the pricing of the fighter jets with the petitioners alleging that the government has been giving bogus arguments and hiding behind the secrecy clause. Vehemently defending non-disclosure of price publicly, Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for Centre had said that the cost of a bare Rafale jet as per 2016 exchange rate was Rs 670 crore and the disclosure of price of a fully loaded aircraft would give an advantage to the adversaries. Bhushan had claimed that the Union Law Ministry had red-flagged two issues the absence of sovereign guarantee by France and the international arbitration clause in IGA as per which the arbitration seat would be at Geneva -- but the government went ahead with the deal. Venugopal had admitted that there was no sovereign guarantee but said that France has given a letter of comfort which would be good enough as a governmental guarantee. Read More | Rahul Gandhi says 'Demonetisation like Rafale was a crime against India and a huge scam' The court during the hearing on the bunch of pleas had also interacted senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officers and enquired about the requirements of the force. The IAF officers had emphasised in the apex court the need for induction of four plus or fifth generation fighter aircraft like Rafale, which have niche stealth technology and enhanced electronic warfare capabilities. New Delhi: The Supreme Court said on Friday it cannot seek clause-by-clause compliances of Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP) in the Rafale fighter jet deal and opined that the processes have been "broadly" followed. It also expressed satisfaction with the government's decision-making process which led to the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying that there was "no occasion to really doubt" it. The top court, while junking the PILs challenging the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal, examined the three "broad areas of concern" -- the decision-making process, difference in pricing and the choice of Indian Offset Partner by Dassault Aviation. Rafale deal | Heres what the Supreme Court said: A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said though it had no occasion to really doubt the process, even if there were minor deviations then they would not lead to annulment of the deal. We have studied the material carefully. We have also had the benefit of interacting with senior Air Force Officers who answered court queries in respect of different aspects, including that of the acquisition process and pricing, the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, said. "We have been informed that joint exercises have taken place, and that there is a financial advantage to our nation. It cannot be lost sight of, that these are contracts of defence procurement which should be subject to a different degree and depth of judicial review," the court said. Dismissing the key allegation that the government changed the deal and decided to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets instead of 126, the top court said: "The need for the aircrafts is not in doubt. The quality of the aircraft is not in question. It is also a fact that the long negotiations for procurement of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) have not produced any result, and merely conjecturing that the initial RFP could have resulted in a contract is of no use. "The hard fact is that not only was the contract not coming forth but the negotiations had come practically to an end, resulting in a recall of the RFP. We cannot sit in judgment over the wisdom of deciding to go in for purchase of 36 aircrafts in place of 126." The top court said that it cannot "possibly" compel the government to go in for purchase of 126 aircrafts. "Our country cannot afford to be unprepared/under-prepared in a situation where our adversaries are stated to have acquired not only 4th Generation, but even 5th Generation Aircrafts, of which, we have none. It will not be correct for the court to sit as an appellate authority to scrutinize each aspect of the process of acquisition," it said. The bench also took note of the reasons, including unresolved issues between Dassault Aviation and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, which had led to annulment of earlier deal for procurement of 126 Rafale jets. "Man-Hours that would be required to produce the aircraft in India: HAL required 2.7 times higher Man-Hours compared to the French side for the manufacture of Rafale aircraft in India," it noted, adding "issues related to contractual obligation and responsibility for 108 aircraft manufactured in India could not be resolved." Indian Negotiating Team (INT) held as many as 74 meetings, including 48 internal and 26 external INT meetings with the French side, it said. "It is the case of the official respondents that the INT completed its negotiations and arrived at better terms relating to price, delivery and maintenance, as compared to the MMRCA offer of Dassault. This was further processed for inter-ministerial consultations and the approval of the CCS was also obtained, finally, resulting in signing of the agreement. This was in conformity with the process, as per...DPP 2013," it said. "Man?Hours that would be required to produce the aircraft in India: HAL required 2.7 times higher Man?Hours compared to the French side for the manufacture of Rafale aircraft in India," it noted, adding "issues related to contractual obligation and responsibility for 108 aircraft manufactured in India could not be resolved." For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: At least three people were shot on Thursday evening when unidentified persons opened fireA on Trinamool Congress MLA Biswanath Dasas vehicle in West Bengal. Driver Selim Khan alias Babu and an associate of TMC MLA Saifuddin Khan were killed in the attack. Unidentified persons fired bullets at the Jaynagar petrol pump in South 24 ParganasA on the SUV for around five minutes before fleeing the spot, according to reports. West Bengal: Three persons, including a local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Safruddin Khan, shot dead by unidentified men at Jaynagar petrol pump in South 24 Parganas, yesterday. pic.twitter.com/dDiJbcNy2K a ANI (@ANI) December 13, 2018 "Three persons died on spot including my driver Babu Molla and associate Safiuddin Khan. It was clearly a planned attack and I was the target. I had a narrow escape because I suddenly changed my mind and got down at the party office. I have already spoken to my party leaders and the police. It is too early to say who is behind the attack,a the Indian Express quoted Biswanath Das as saying.A For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A Buddhist monk meditating in a forest in Maharashtra died of a leopard attack on Wednesday according to reports. This tragic incident happened in the Tadoba forest, which is a protected tiger reserve, officials say. The monk, now identified as Rahul Walke, had been meditating under a tree when he was attacked. According to sources, Walke had been attached to a Buddhist temple which is inside the forest but had stayed away too far for his spiritual search. Forest officials said the monk had been warned before his venture into the feline zone. "I would like to tell everyone not to go inside the forest," GP Narawane, a forest official told BBC Marathi. Also Read | France bans children under 15 from using smartphones in school However, now there are plans to capture the leopard. "We have set up two cages and a camera trap, and we will try to tranquilise the animal," Narawane said. A fellow monk, who found the body, told BBC Marathi that he had seen the animal attack when he had rushed back to regroup help but found . Walke dead on returning. He said that he had gone to give the meditating monk food and water on Wednesday morning. State government officials said they will reimburse Walke's family Rs 1.2 million (approximately 12 lakh). The Tadoba reserve is a protected area that is home to about 88 tigers. And other animals such as leopards, sloth bears, hyenas and honey badgers. For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Kenneth Morrison, 68, of Whiting, was found guilty of interstate transportation of stolen goods. In late 2014 and early 2015, Morrison dismantled Hammonds Monon Bridge and sold the metal in Burnham, Ill., for $18,000. He is expected to be sentenced March 21. He faces a fine and no more than 10 years imprisonment, according to federal sentencing guidelines. New Delhi: Signalling an end to the nearly two-month power tussle in Sri Lanka, disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will resign on Saturday, his son said Friday, soon after the Supreme Court refused to stay a court order that restrained the embattled former strongman from acting as the premier until it fully heard the case next month. Rajapaksa, 73, was appointed as the prime minister on October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena in a controversial move after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, which plunged the island nation into a constitutional crisis. "To ensure stability of the nation, Former President @PresRajapaksa has decided to resign from the Premiership tomorrow after an address to the nation," Rajapaksa's son Namal tweeted. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) with former president, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and others will "now work to form a broader political coalition with President Sirisena", Namal Rajapaksa, a lawmaker, added. Wickremesinghe's camp was hopeful that Sirisena would now reinstate him over the weekend after Rajapaksa resigns, effectively ending the political stalemate that plagued the nation for the past seven weeks. There was no immediate reaction from President Sirisena, the architect of the current crisis. Parliamentarian Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said Rajapaksa, who ruled Sri Lanka for nearly a decade, decided to step down in the best interest of the country. He claimed Rajapaksa can hold office without resigning but that will only further drag the political turmoil in the country. So the former president decided to step down after the court ruling given on Friday and on Thursday. His Cabinet will also stand dissolved, Abeywardena was quoted as saying by the Colombo Gazette. The apex court's latest ruling came a day after it unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was "illegal", in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. The Supreme Court decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand. The appeal filed by Rajapaksa will be taken up for hearing on January 16, 17 and 18. The apex court asked all parties to provide written submissions within three weeks. The Appeal Court on December 3 issued notice and an interim order against Rajapaksa and his Government, preventing them from acting as Prime Minister, Cabinet and Deputy Ministers. The order was issued in a case filed by 122 lawmakers against Rajapaksa and his new government. Rajapaksa and the members of the purported government filed the appeal against the Court of Appeal's interim injunction that restrained them from functioning in their respective posts. The United National Front (UNF) said the order means Rajapaksa cannot be Prime Minister and so the former Cabinet must be reinstated. UNF Parliamentarian Ajith Perera said the President must now appoint Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. Parliamentarians of Wickremesinghe's UNP, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Tamil National Alliance on November 23 filed the petition in the Court of Appeal challenging Rajapaksa on continuing to hold the office of Prime Minister after a no-confidence motion was passed in Parliament against him. Sirisena, after sacking Wickremesinghe, dissolved Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. However, the Supreme Court overturned his decision and halted the preparations for snap polls. Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa both claim to be the prime ministers with the former claiming that his dismissal is invalid because he still holds a majority in the 225-member Parliament. Prior to the crisis, Wickramasinghe's UNP had the backing of 106 parliamentarians while Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine had 95 seats. Rajapaksa has, so far, failed to prove his majority in Parliament. The President has said that due to sharp personal differences with Wickremesinghe, he would not reappoint him as the Prime Minister. However, Wickremesinghe's UNP claims that Sirisena will be left with no choice as he would be the man who will command the confidence in the House. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. NORWALK With a new whiskey distillery planned in Kentucky, the head of Diageo North America suggested this week the company is scouting additional acquisitions of trendy labels to boost its prospects next year and beyond. In a Wednesday conference call with investment analysts, Diageos president of North American operations Deirdre Mahlan described the company as holding an enviable position in her words today despite under-perfoming the overall market in its 2018 fiscal year, with scale twice the size of its next biggest competitor in the region. Diageo is based in London and has its main regional office in Norwalk, with brands including Crown Royal, Johnnie Walker and Bulleit whiskeys; Guinness beer; Captain Morgan rum; Smirnoff and Ciroc vodka; Don Julio and Casamigos tequila; and Baileys liqueur. Diageo unveiled this week plans to build a third major whiskey distillery in Kentucky, at an expected cost of $130 million. In August, Diageo opened a tourist brewery in Relay, Md., with more than 100,000 people visiting in the first three months of operation. While this is an attractive and profitable market, it is also one that has been evolving rapidly in terms of how consumers socialize and celebrate, Mahlan said Wednesday, as quoted in a transcript of the conference call posted online by Diageo. Our strategy in the U.S. ... focuses on driving recruitment of consumers into our portfolio by winning with the right brands, in the right occasions and at the right price. Mahlan cited Casamigos as an example of Diageo latching onto fast-growth brands in exciting categories where we believe we are underweight as she worded it Wednesday. Diageo acquired Casamigos last year in a deal that could hit $1 billion if sales targets are reached, with the tequila brand created by actor George Clooney and two others. The Casamigos brand was built primarily ... around the concept of being made by friends for friends, as reflected in the name, Mahlan said. Since the acquisition we have continued to execute this (and its) highly rated amongst bartenders and consumers. ... We now have two jewels in this high-growth category. Mahlan said the companys Diageo Beer division has made gains in the past year, both on sales of Guinness as well as malt beverages and other bottled drinks like Smirnoff Spiked Seltzer, whose competitors include Norwalk-based SpikedSeltzer acquired two years ago by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Heading into 2019 and beyond, Mahlan suggested Diageo has an eye on tapping its own reserves in 2019 and beyond to add new labels through acquisitions. What we do is look at what the consumer trends are and then make decisions about whether or not we believe our current brand portfolio is best positioned to capture them whether well innovate and grow organically ... or whether we think theres an opportunity to acquire brands in the market to best capture that growth, Mahlan said. A significant and material number of new brands ... have been launched, which is exciting for the industry and for the category, and thats something that well continue to evaluate opportunities on where we might be able to acquire additional brands in the future. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman I was sitting in my garage all bummed out (thinking what) am I going to do now, he said. He said his wife handed him an address for the workshop and told him to go there. That was September 2017. WeWork has opened a startup incubator called WeWork Labs. WeWork Labs will open in Portland, Ore. next month. The program offers support for startups such as mentoring, education and talent development. The startups also get access to WeWorks global network. Google has submitted the plans for its huge development in Mountain View, Calif. The internet giant is providing a range of housing options in an affluent area where the cost of houses and apartments is extremely high. Google has plans to build new homes on its own land, of which 20 percent will qualify as affordable housing. Its not insurance, but its increasingly becoming an option for families struggling to pay their monthly insurance premiums with traditional insurance plans. Christian health sharing ministries have been around for more than two decades, but their popularity has increased over the past several years as health insurance costs rise. Monthly payments for health sharing plans can be significantly cheaper than traditional health insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act, but its not insurance so costs for things like preventative care and prescriptions are costs that arent shared with other members of the group. Anthony Hopp, vice president for external relations for Samaritan Ministries International said his organization offers two membership levels and monthly costs for a single person are as low as $100 per month and the most a family of any size would pay is $495 per month. Theres no such thing as a deductible because its not insurance, but $300 is the most a person would pay per medical incident before sharing the medical costs with the rest of the members. Theres also the option to pay $1,500 per incident to lower the monthly per month cost. The 250,000 Samaritan Ministry members are sharing $28 million per month, Hopp said. There are about 219 households or 629 people in Connecticut who participate in sharing health costs through Samaritan Ministries International. However, there are more than 100 other health sharing ministries. Cathy Politi, a Connecticut resident, participates in Christian Healthcare Ministries, another sharing ministry. She said she discovered health sharing four years ago when she was unable to afford a plan on Connecticuts health insurance exchange, Access Health CT. It was not hard for me to adjust to the idea that preventative would not be covered, Politi said. But she likes negotiating and seeing the costs for the medical services shes provided. She said her experience with paying for medical services with her providers has been positive and cost effective. Hopp said they provide members tools and help them negotiate the cost of services with their providers if necessary. And theres no such thing as doctor networks. Those with coverage through the ministry are able to see any provider who is licensed. We stay out of treatment decisions, Hopp said. However, because they are a Christian organization they will not share costs for birth control and abortion services and theres also a $250,000 cap on maternity care. Samaritan Ministries International like all sharing ministries doesnt cover preventative services or prescription drugs. It has a prescription drug discount card, but members are responsible for negotiating and paying for preventative medical services on their own. Hopp said a member recently went to the doctor for a checkup and had a list of three or four things he wanted to ask the doctor about. The doctor stopped the member and told him he would need to schedule another visit because all those things are coded differently for insurance purposes. The member reminded the doctor that he was not paying through insurance and the doctor told him well then we can talk about anything. According to the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, there are 104 sharing ministries that cover nearly 1 million people across the country as of 2017. Three years ago that number was 160,000. The industry association said 97 of the 104 ministries are Mennonite/Old German Baptist Churches, which have closed memberships. And health sharing is more popular in certain states. Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Kansas and Kentucky have the largest number of participants in health sharing programs. There are 22,399 individuals with health sharing plans in the northeast and New England. Samaritan Ministries International takes members from all Christian denominations, but they must sign a statement of faith that says they will attend church three out of every four Sundays. And while those with pre-existing or chronic conditions are welcome to join a health sharing plan, it may not be as beneficial or cost effective. Samaritan Ministries says on its website that medical conditions that exist prior to membership are generally not shareable. That means it might not be a good option for people with things such as diabetes or other chronic conditions. However, if a members pre-existing condition appears cured and 12 months have passed since the last treatment (including medication) and symptoms, the condition is no longer considered pre-existing and new medical bills may be shared, the website states. Also prescription costs are only shareable for up to a 120 day supply. Prescriptions for chronic, ongoing conditions are not shareable past this limit, but members have access to a discount prescription card to help keep out-of-pocket costs low, the website states. Telemedicine is another low-cost option the ministry offers its members, Hopp said. Say your child has an ear infection and you need a prescription. He said they can pay $25 to be seen by a doctor through Skype and then get a prescription. The other difference between insurance and health sharing plans is that there is no enrollment period. Anyone can sign up for a health sharing plan at any time. Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans for 2019 ends at midnight Saturday. As of Friday, Access Health officials reported hat 102,412 residents had completed the enrollment process or renewed their 2018 plans. Thats down from the final count of 114,000 at the end of the 2018 enrollment period. WASHINGTON - In a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump, the U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Chris Murphy that would withdraw American military assistance for Saudi Arabias war in Yemen. With this vote, Saudi Arabia just lost the support of Congress for their disastrous war in Yemen. A bipartisan majority spoke with one voice that the status quo is over and we will no longer accept the war crimes being committed in our name, Murphy said. The 56-to-41 vote on the resolution, which was also sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, was a rare move by the Congress to limit presidential war powers. It also sent a message of disapproval for a war that has killed thousands of civilians, many women and children, and engulfed Yemen in famine. Seven Republicans joined all Democrats in voting for the resolution. The Senate also approved, by voice vote on Thursday, a non-binding resolution to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the Saudi throne, personally responsible for the October killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul. The non-binding measure also calls on Saudi Arabia to moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy. While Murphys Yemen resolution has been blocked from consideration in the GOP -controlled U.S. House, Senate support for it and for the nonbinding resolution condemning bin Salman show lawmakers frustration at the Trump administrations response to Khashoggis murder. Two years ago, when @RandPaul and I introduced a bill to cut arms sales to Saudi Arabia, only 27 senators voted with us, Murphy tweeted. Today, 56 voted to end U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen. Thank you to everyone that called and urged the Senate to vote on this resolution. Trump has maintained steadfast support for Saudi Arabia and bin Salman even though the CIA has concluded the crown price directed Khashoggis assassination. Thursdays Senate votes also set the stage for broader debates about U.S.-Saudi policy when the new Congress convenes in January. Murphy plans to reintroduce his resolution. A bipartisan group of senators are also weighing other sanctions, including a ban on the sale of certain U.S. weapons to Saudi Arabia. The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working for America, Sen. Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., said at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Im never going to let this go until things change in Saudi Arabia. Christenson served on board of the Griffith Public Schools for 15 years and as a lifelong member of First United Methodist Church of Griffith. He was also a 25-year volunteer firefighter with Griffith Fire Department, a member of the Griffith and Highland Rotary Clubs, an initial member of the Northwest Indiana Special Education Cooperative Board of Directors, and a member of VFW Post 9982 and the American Legion Post 66, his obituary said. A new plan for supplying food to New York military installations would block Syracuse-based Byrne Dairy and other local dairy producers from selling to the federal government, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer. Schumer, D-NY, visited Byrne Dairy's Ultra Dairy plant in East Syracuse on Friday to announce his opposition to the proposal by the Defense Commissary Agency, or DeCA, which supplies groceries on military posts worldwide. The agency's plan to switch its distribution system to centralized warehouses would prevent Byrne Dairy and other local suppliers from serving New York military bases, Schumer said. Byrne Dairy has been supplying milk and other dairy products directly to Fort Drum near Watertown, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and other military commissaries for the past 17 years. The federal government encouraged the use of local suppliers to deliver farm-fresh milk to soldiers. But the new proposal would require dairies bidding on federal contracts to ship larger, bulk quantities of milk to central warehouses in Maryland and Virginia. From there, the dairy products would be distributed to military posts in New York. Schumer said the proposal would set up an inefficient distribution model that could affect the quality of milk sent to military personnel. He said the change would also take an economic toll on smaller, local dairy producers like Byrne Dairy, who would likely lose contracts to larger, national suppliers. "Today, I'm sounding the alarm on this proposal and telling DeCA to stick with the current model when it comes to stocking the shelves at military commissaries with milk," Schumer said. "It's more cost-effective, efficient and it supports our local economy and our family dairy farmers." He added, "The last thing our dairy farmers and producers need is to lose another market for milk." Byrne Dairy supplies about 250,000 gallons of milk to military installations in the state each year. The dairy has four manufacturing plants in Central New York that employ about 1,500 people. The company buys milk from 268 dairy farms. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 Google is negligent by not having the software coded mechanisms to prevent or rapidly repair vandalization of search results. People can use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and other means to adjust search results. There are ways that people can manipulate search. This is a matter of concentrating resources and effort beyond to make a competition for ranking unfair to get the desired result. An example of this in a different real-world situation would be a Hollywood studio spending millions of dollars to win the campaign for an Academy Award (aka Oscar). It costs about $10 million for a campaign to win Best Picture. There are technical solutions for more manipulation resistant search. Google does release updates like the Panda update (the project name of last major search update) which invalidates old SEO methods. The Oscar example is one where it is an ongoing marketing effort to come out on top in high-value competition. There is an economic and marketing battle to be the winner. At the smaller scale, there are less costly gaming of less important lists. Search engine results are a lot of mini-competitions. Competitions over terms. The Google business model is predicated on providing consumers with the right valuation of those listings which are generated in an automated way. Manual adjusted search is worse than automated search as a business and as a service. This was shown when Yahoo lost to Google. Most people did not want to use Yahoo. Google is technically capable of adding in automated parameters to rank how toxic an article on a webpage is. They are technically capable of using AI and programming to determine where something is on a political spectrum. They can use AI to recognize images and whether images have highly charged logos. IBM has the Debater AI program which form automated arguments both for and against any topic. Other companies that are far smaller than Google or IBM have automation to manage content with varying degrees of bias and toxicity. Let us imagine that Google adds in a few more switches and parameters for this kind of management. This will likely mean more lawsuits for Google. Every company and famous person would demand to micromanage their brand via the search results where they come up. There are lawsuits and many complaints now but enabling full control or a lot of outside control without massive care would be a bigger problem. This would also end up with search results that serve the special interests of millions of companies. It would be search results sold to the highest bidder or the one with the most lawyers. The overall pay for search results would be less useful to people and the users would go to a different search system. Google would not make more money from too much-paid or adjusted search since the money gained would be offset by lawsuit losses and would require far more staff and other expenses. They already have the separately paid advertising results. This means the search result controls need to remain crude and broader. They need to be at the level of compliance with broad universal laws. All search companies have to be at the same national standards. Even though Google is the biggest and most dominant everywhere except China. There are TV channels and other media who have voluntarily chosen very open bias as part of their business model. They are far smaller than Google. Google does not want to go from dominant to half or less. Facebook has newsfeeds tailored for individuals. Twitter provides you only the tweet sources that you follow. Google does provide customization of results based upon your profile if you login. Those do not address the overall brand concerns. Companies and politicians do not care what they each will see in results. They care about what others are seeing. NEW HAVEN The chief investment officer of Peoples United Bank said Thursday the New Haven area will play a critical role in determining which direction Connecticuts economy will go in 2019. Greenwich is not going to be the engine, Fairfield County is not going to be the engine, John Traynor told more than 100 area business leaders attending the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerces Regional Economic Outlook Breakfast at the New Haven Lawn Club. The future of Connecticut is going to be driven by the New Haven engine. The regions so-called eds and meds economy which is centered around colleges and universities in the area as well as health care companies is a good example of knowledge-based economy that other states have capitalized upon to achieve economic revivals, according to Traynor. The only place that we can replicate the Massachusetts miracle (in Connecticut) is right here, he said of the New Haven area. Connecticut is raising really smart people and its attracting a lot more smart people to come here. And a lot of them are coming to the New Haven area. The Connecticut economy as a whole has lagged behind neighboring states, according to Traynor. The states economy still has not recovered all of the jobs that were lost during the 2008 recession. By comparison, the Massachusetts and New York State economies have recovered four times as many jobs as Connecticut has. Were struggling, Traynor said of Connecticuts economy as a whole. Wages are not growing. If the nations economic recovery continues through the end of June 2019, it will become the longest one on record, he said. One reason why it has continued on for so long is that it is different than previous economic recoveries, Traynor said. This has been a half-speed recovery, he said. Traynor said he expects slower economic growth in 2019 compared to this year. One troubling trend for Connecticuts economy is the expected population decline among 25- to 34-year-olds, he said. Just about every town in Connecticut is going to lose population through 2040, Traynor said. Boosting Connecticuts technology economy and creating more high-paying jobs could help alter that trend, he said. Among those listening to Traynors remarks was Jonathan Wharton, a Southern Connecticut State University political science professor. Wharton said he doesnt believe an increase in technology-based jobs in Connecticut will keep the 25-to-34 age group from leaving the state. I think people that age are more interested in living in a city, he said. Connecticuts cost of living is also a deterrent, Wharton said. Jay Cei, chief operating officer for Ulbrich Stainless Steels & Special Metals, said he is bullish on the potential for the economic future of the New Haven area and Connecticut as a whole. Connecticut can become the new Massachusetts, it has a lot of opportunity, Cei said. New Haven County has an innovation hub, a highly educated workforce, good school systems, ample access to private capital and a competitive state corporate income tax. Ulbrich has been in business in New Haven County for 94 years, he said, and transformed itself into a a global advanced manufacturing technology company. A recent spurt of apartment development in New Haven and surrounding communities is an indicator the area is becoming an attractive place for young people to live, he said. Cei said Connecticut suffers from an unfair negative perception, both by residents and those living outside the state. We need to develop a fresh state of mind, he said. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com HAMDEN Ready for some locally grown jazz with an international footprint and some of the best chops youll find anywhere in the world? The Tony Purrone Trio will play the remarkably intimate Best Video Performance Space on Dec. 19. Best Video is at 1842 Whitney Ave. The show starts at 8 p.m. and the cover is only $10, with tickets available at the door. That may just be the best 10 bucks you spend this holiday season. Purrone is an internationally known jazz guitarist who has run with all the big dogs of the jazz world, but he grew up in Connecticut and spends much of his time here. He will present an evening of high-energy original jazz and some rearrangements of jazz standards, accompanied by Preston Murphy on upright bass and Ray Marchica on drums. Purrones love affair with the guitar began with his first lesson at age nine. He was accepted by the University of Bridgeport Jazz Ensemble at a very young age and four years later, while still a student, he performed with the Don Elliott Quintet and the Gerry Mulligan Sextet. After transferring to New York University, he graduated with a BS in music. In 1978, he came to the attention of Jimmy Heath in Connecticut and was invited to join the Heath Brothers Band, going on to record five albums on CBS and Island-Antilles in between touring the world. He performed for 21 years with Heath, toured the world and has shared the stage with everyone from the late Dizzy Gillespie to Freddie Hubbard, Paquito DRivera, Pepper Adams, Grover Washington, Lenny White, Billy Eckstine, Randy Brecker, Donald Byrd, Lionel Hampton and Frank Foster & The Count Basie Band. The aforementioned Heath, one of the most revered saxophone players in the jazz world, may be a bit biased given how many years Purrone spent performing with him. But he left little doubt as to the esteem he holds for Purrone when he called him, one of the worlds greatest guitarists. Of course, you could skip your opportunity to see Purrone from six feet away with just a few dozen others at Best Video and pull out your credit card and take the train into New York sometime to pay four or six times as much to see him play at the Blue Note. But seriously, why would you want to do that when you can see him on a Wednesday night at Best Video? Also at Best Video, there will be a Holiday Rave-Up with Dust Hat and Bronson Rock on Dec. 21. Showtime is 8 p.m. and the cover is a sliding scale $5-10 (pay what you can in that range.) All of this happens because we recognize that once upon a time the City of Gary was the economic engine not just in Northwest Indiana but in all of Indiana, Freeman-Wilson said. We know that we have the infrastructure we know we have the assets, we know that we have the location and we know that we have the people to make that even more so in the future. NAUGATUCK A Pennsylvania man allegedly pulled out a knife during a confrontation at a local hotel on Thursday, police said Friday. Mark James Triplet, of West Donegal Street in Mount Joy, PA., was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, second-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace. Shortly after 10 p.m., Naugatuck police officers responded to the Comfort Inn, 716 New Haven Road, for a call about a disturbance. Triplet confronted the victim in a hallway of the hotel, a summary of his arrest said. The accused yelled at the victim for making too much noise and waking him up, police said. The accused was displaying a knife at the time of the confrontation. Triplet was given a Friday court date. He was held on a $25,000 bond. Contributed Photo / Connecticut State Police / Contributed Photo MERIDEN A Meriden man was charged Friday after police responded to an assault on two judicial marshals during a protest at the court, according to Connecticut State Police. Angel Castro, 49, of Bradley Avenue, was charged with assault on a public safety officer and first-degree rioting. He was released on a $5,000 non-surety bond, a state police report indicated. WEST HAVEN On the sixth anniversary Friday of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy visited clients of FISH of Greater New Haven and assisted with grocery deliveries as part of his act of kindness to honor the lives lost in 2012. Murphy also urged others to do acts of kindness in their community in honor of the Sandy Hook victims. NEW HAVEN On the parapet, two workers from the Stamford Wrecking Co. could be seen Thursday dismantling the decorative feature from the top of the Brewery Square Gatehouse, brick by brick. It was part of preparation for the demolition of the 2.5-story structure that was connected to the Quinnipiac Brewery in the early 20th century, but had been allowed to deteriorate in recent years. Much of the rest of the sprawling brewery was converted to 102 apartments in the late 1980s by Simeon Bruner, who also put in 27 condominiums where the bottling works had been located across the street. Known for his ability to repurpose historic sites, Bruner in 1996 was responsible for the master plan for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass., in a huge structure that once was a textile facility. The Gatehouse, however, at the intersection of Ferry and River streets in New Haven, didnt get the same love as the main factory complex, the second such precedent-setting conversion undertaken by Bruner in Connecticut at the time. City Building Official James Turcio said much of the roof on the Gatehouse apparently had collapsed five years ago. He said if he and the fire marshals office had been notified then, there would have been a greater chance that the structure could have been shored up and repurposed. The fate of the building, which is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is located in the local Quinnipiac River Historic District, was sealed when an engineering report ordered by Turcio detailed the seriousness of the deterioration and he ordered the emergency demolition. It has started a conversation within the preservation community of what it can do to keep tabs on these structures and hold owners responsible for maintenance, rather than demolition by neglect. The assessors records put construction of the brewery in 1882, but Turcio said his records date it to 1906 with the Gatehouse part of a warehouse building in 1924. The New Haven Historic District Commission heard testimony from a representative of the Brewery Square Gatehouse Limited Partnership in August. The commission requested more details on the partnerships request for a certificate of appropriateness to demolish the structure. After failing to submit a sufficiently detailed response, it voted to deny the certificate. The Building Department file on the Gatehouse was stuffed with images taken by a drone belonging to the New Haven Fire Department. Multiple photos of the interior were shot through the open roof, and show floors that have collapsed into the basement. Engineer David Carlson, in a report to Turcio, said the building framing has been severely deteriorated by a very long period of moisture entry. He recommended that access not be allowed through the main west and south buildings. In our judgment they are unsafe and potentially instable in a high wind event, Carlson wrote. Turcio said he cannot let anyone into the structure because it is too dangerous. The collapse of additional trusses resulting in rotation of the triangular roof truss could push the brick walls out, Carlson wrote. The engineer said this could result in the wall collapsing either into the street or the courtyard. It is unlikely the interior framing is salvageable. Aicha Woods, assistant director of comprehensive planning at the City Plan Department, said the deterioration of the Gatehouse shows an unfortunate pattern, one in which owners set up a building for the wrecking ball by not maintaining it. Too often these historic structures only get on the publics radar when a developer seeks approval to raze it. While the commission has considerable power, a ruling involving public safety by the Building Official trumps the commissions purview. Woods, who is City Plans liaison to the commission, said they are looking to see what lessons they can take from the fate of this building. It is very frustrating. I would like to better understand the options early on, Woods said. Elizabeth Holt, director of preservation services at the New Haven Preservation Trust, said the city should have stronger blight laws and those already on the books need to be strictly enforced. Holt said the developers found an unfortunate loophole to get what they wanted. She questioned the engineering report obtained by the city and an earlier one submitted by the owners. Holt said there are engineers who could recommend how the structure could be saved and approach these situations with an open mind. She said the preservationists plan to meet with Mayor Toni Harp on the issue. More than 1,500 people had signed a petition on Change.org asking that the demolition be halted so that prudent and feasible alternatives can be explored and presented to the building owner and to the City of New Haven. From the outside, the building looks fine with its windows painted on plywood in 2014 so as to make it look occupied and keep vandals away. The Stamford Wrecking Co. supervisor on the scene, who would not give his name, said looks can be deceiving. Structurally the building is unsafe. What do you do when someone is walking their baby and the wall falls down? he asked. The company will start taking more of it down Friday. The supervisor said traffic going north on the Ferry Street Bridge will be redirected to River Street to keep the street adjacent to the Gatehouse clear of vehicles. Robert Greenberg, a local New Haven history buff, said the current preservation forces are too passive and lack the energy needed to advocate for these structures. It is extremely frustrating. There is nothing that cant be fixed, Greenberg said of the building. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577 Im very honest with the groups when I meet them, we are not doing very well, he said. How are we going to turn that around? What can I do to help that? WASHINGTON Connecticut Gov.-elect Ned Lamont declined an invitation tendered to all the nations new governors to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday to discuss how the federal government could help their states. Thirteen governors-elect, both Democrats and Republicans, attended the roundtable, including Democrat J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Republican Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Democrat Tony Evers of Wisconsin. EDITORS NOTE: New Jersey has never been closer to legalizing adult-use cannabis. If you are Interested in the marijuana business industry, NJ Cannabis Insider is a premium intelligence briefing that features exclusive weekly content geared toward entrepreneurs, lawyers and realtors. View a sample issue. New Jerseys mayors want to have their say on any legalization of marijuana. They are an emerging constituency and the clout they wield may sway lawmakers when the final vote is taken in Trenton. Representatives from the New Jersey League of Municipalities, the New Jersey Urban Mayors Association and the New Jersey Conference of Mayors have been making the rounds since two committees approved the legislation, (S2703) on Nov. 26, meeting with state lawmakers and the Murphy administration, League President and Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr said Mayors also are directly dialing their Assembly and Senate representatives to share thoughts about the law, she said. One of their chief concerns is the 2 percent excise tax. The mayors want 5 percent. Based on research and talking with local officials in states with legal weed, 2 percent wont cover the anticipated demand on services from the board of health, code enforcement, law enforcement and education, Mahr said. We know that implementation will fall heavily on local municipalities, and, when citizens have concerns, they are going to call town hall, Mahr said. Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said hes keeping an open mind, but hes dubious about giving 5 percent. Higher taxes may keep people buying from a drug dealer, he said. Sweeney has repeatedly said he wont support a state tax higher than 12 percent for the same reason. He said he could accept another 2 percent for municipalities which host weed businesses, but five seems steep. The legislation will include money to train police officers to become drug recognition experts, he added. I did not say no, but Ive said show me how and why, Sweeney said. All these numbers are a guess. Mahr said she sees Sweeneys point and is grateful mayors are getting a seat at the negotiating table. Industry insiders say they welcome the mayors input because they may help convince a state lawmaker on the fence to vote yes. Mahr also want to hear more about the companion legislation on expunging marijuana-related arrests. A stated objective of the bill is to address the inequities and the failures of the War on Drugs, Mahr said. Yet the expungement provision only addresses convictions for a small subset of actions that are now proposed to be legalized. My goal is regardless of whether a town is going to opt out or choose to participate is to make sure the bill passed reflects the needs and concerns of local government, and benefits those towns that want to participate Mahr said. It is municipalities that will ultimately lead the way as this new industry gets off the ground, Mahr said. The negotiations will continue into 2019. Legislative leaders left a meeting Thursday afternoon without reaching an accord with Gov. Phil Murphy on the tax rate and other key details. The article first appeared in NJ Cannabis Insider. Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Your Honor, I own what I did and there is nobody but to blame but myself, LaFlower wrote in letter filed Thursday in court records. I am so remorseful for the damage I have done to the FOP, my family, my department, the Porter County community and law enforcement in general. One by one, employees filtered into a makeshift holiday party at the Bayada Pediatrics office at the Voorhees Town Center Mall. Just about all them wore sizable smiles on their faces. They knew their holiday gift was coming early. The 140 field nurses who work out of this office were there to pick up their part of a $20 million gift their retiring company founder was giving to them. The checks ranged from $50 for employees who just started with the company to $5,984.49 for those who have been with Bayada Home Health Care the longest. It was a lot more than I expected, said Donald William, a home healthcare nurse who has worked for the company for six years. A thank you would do. But a thank you with a check is even better. William said he travels often and planned to put the money toward his next cruise to the Caribbean. Many of the checks in the late afternoon were given out by company CEO David Baiada, whose father founded the company 45 years ago. Its about providing a personal gift of gratitude from my father, Mark, and our family to recognize all the contribution as we prepare to convert to nonprofit on January 1, Baiada said. Mark Baiada surprised employees last month by announcing the gifts at a company luncheon. The company has 32,000 employees in 22 states, but was founded in Philadelphia and has corporate offices in South Jersey. Judy Augustin-Baji started working as a field nurse for Bayada in 1990. Even though she knew the gift was coming she was choked up when David Baiada handed her a check Thursday. Ive been here 28 years and I do it because I love it, she said. They appreciate us. Its a good feeling. Mark Baiada, 70, recently announced his retirement. Company officials said the $20 million is from his personal funds as a gift of gratitude. The companys transition to a nonprofit business is scheduled to start on Jan. 1. Its believed to be the first transition of its kind in the healthcare industry, the company said. Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bduhart. Find NJ.com on Facebook. A federal jury has convicted a former Middletown fire chief of running a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors, including some of his own family, friends and fellow first-responders, out of more than $10 million. Vincent P. Falci, 59, worked as an investment manager in Middletown and was accused of stealing funds to fuel his lifestyle, while concealing losses and faking investment returns as part of an operation that ran for several years. Following a two-week trial, the jury in Newark convicted him Thursday on three counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud. Falci controlled several investment funds under the names Saber Funds and Vicor Tax Receivables LLP. Many of his earliest victims were family, friends and associates, including police officers, firefighters and the retirement funds for first responders, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of New Jersey. He told his early investors that the Saber Funds were invested in low-risk, high-return tax liens, but he actually diverted their money to himself, his family and other companies he controlled, prosecutors said. Some of the funds were used for riskier ventures, including day trading. Falci concealed losses from investors, so they kept trusting him with additional money until the fund grew to more than 200 investors, investigators said. In all, he raised more than $10 million from these victims. In early 2012, he launched Victor Funds, which targeted wealthier investors, including financial industry professionals. He ultimately raised $20 million from them. In order to support his own lifestyle and repay investors the gains he had promised, Falci stole more than $10 million from the Vicor Fund between 2012 and 2016, prosecutors alleged. Falci was accused of reporting phony investment gains via monthly statements and other faked documentation. This isnt the first judgement against the former investor. The New Jersey Bureau of Securities sued Falci, his wife and their son in 2014, accusing them of bilking investors out of millions. The following year, they were ordered to repay $6.7 million. Vincent Falci was also ordered to pay an $800,000 civil fine and was permanently barred from working in the securities industry in New Jersey. In its lawsuit, the bureau said the Falcis misled 182 Saber Fund investors and spent millions on items including seven houses for Vincent Falci and his family. When the feds charged Vincent Falci in 2016, they alleged that he began raiding the Vicor Fund in order to pay off that $6.7 million he owed the Saber Fund investors. The jury deliberated for 90 minutes Thursday before convicting him on all four federal counts for which he was indicted. Each charge carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, while the securities fraud charge could also include up $5 million in fines. Each wire fraud charge carries a maximum fine of $250,000. Sentencing is scheduled for March 21. BAYONNE When city officials were picking names for new streets on the former Military Ocean Terminal, they had plenty of famous Peninsula City residents to use as inspiration. There could be a Chuck Wepner Way, a Barney Frank Boulevard, or perhaps a George R.R. Martin Alley. Instead, the city is moving to name one of the streets after the executive of a private company with ties to city hall. Mayor Jimmy Davis plans on naming a street on the former MOT after Andrew Raichle, a prominent engineering firm executive who has donated at least $5,500 to Davis and his council slate since 2016. Raichles company, Matrix New World Engineering, has also received several lucrative contracts from the city. Carl Brashear, the first African-American to attend and graduate U.S. Navy Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne in 1954, is also set to have a street named in his honor when the City Council votes on the plan on Dec. 19. A spokesman for the city said the honor is well deserved for Raichle, who has played an outstanding role in the redevelopment of the former military complex. He is the most knowledgeable person about the engineering issues at the former base, said Bayonne spokesman Joe Ryan. A developer mentioned Andys hard work on the former base over many years. That was the source of the idea for the proposed street-naming. If adopted, the street name would remind future generations of Andys role. Raichle, who serves as vice president and eastern region manager of Matrix, did not return requests for comment. Matrix, a national engineering firm with offices in Florham Park and Eatontown, has had a long relationship with the Peninsula City. It has been receiving lucrative contracts for engineering and remediation work since at least January 2014. In May 2015, it was awarded a contract for an amount not to exceed $225,000 for general engineering services. And in March 2016, the company received a professional special engineering services contract for the 2016 for an amount not to exceed $300,000. Matrix also developed the map and schedule of street names being proposed for the area of the MOT, according to the council caucus agenda. Ryan added that most of the proposed street names are connected to the military history of the property. Nonetheless, some residents are displeased with the decision. Michel Embrich, a Navy veteran and head of the Bayonne Center for Progress, said he finds it "appalling that the city chose to name the street after a political associate and not WWI Medal of Honor recipient William Shemin, who has no namesakes in Bayonne. There are so many other worthy Bayonne Veterans as well, he added. The Military Ocean Terminal played a vital role in allied victories during WWII. In developing it, we should always remember the sacrifice those made home and abroad. The MOT, a former Army base that was given to the city in 1999, has sat largely vacant for the better part of two decades. Only recently has there been enough development on the site to warrant the assignations of street names. Kushner Companies cannot sue Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop over its stalled Journal Square tower project, the mayor argues in a new legal filing, because Fulop was acting in his constituents' best interests when he nixed a tax break for the project. Kushner Companies and partner KABR Group are suing Fulop, the city and the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, alleging that Fulops anti-Trump animus has hurt their One Journal Square project. Kushner Companies is run by the family of Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, who stepped down as CEO of the firm in 2017. Attorneys for the mayor, hoping to get the developers lawsuit thrown out, argue in a Dec. 12 court document that Kushner Companies and KABR Group have no case against Fulop. The developers allege Fulop nixed the 30-year tax abatement and a request for city-issued bonds so that he could appease and curry favor with the overwhelmingly anti-Trump constituents of Jersey City, a claim Fulops lawyers reject. "A financial decision made for the mayor's own 'personal political gain to curry favor' with his voters is simply a nefarious-sounding way of saying he was making a financial decision his constituents would support," the document says. "How does that abuse the public trust?" Fulop killed the developers' request for city subsidies as he was campaigning for a second term. He is a Democrat. The lawyers also argue that Fulop is entitled to qualified immunity for actions he takes as mayor and that those actions did not violate the developers' constitutional rights as alleged. The mayor is being represented by Whipple Azzarello. Lawyers for the city and for the JCRA filed separate motions in favor of dismissing the developers lawsuit, filed in federal court in June. One Journal Square is planned for a vacant lot adjacent to the Journal Square PATH hub. Fulop cheered the project back in 2014, but his enthusiasm cooled after Trump began his ultimately successful campaign for the presidency. The developers have noted that another member of the Kushner family, Jonathan Kushner, received 30-year abatements for his three-tower Journal Squared project. Fulop and Jonathan Kushner are childhood friends. Earlier this year, the JCRA issued a notice to Kushner Companies and KABR Group saying they are in default of their redeveloper agreement with the city agency because construction on the project did not start by January 2017. This was after Fulop publicly rejected the developers multiple requests for 30-year tax breaks and millions in city-issued bonds. There is no hearing scheduled yet for the parties to argue their motions before a judge. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. A Jersey City man faces decades in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to killing his wife and their 4-year-old son in their Jersey City home in 2015. Jose Ronald Santos-Alvarez, 29, admitted to the murder of his son, Christopher Potoczniak, and the aggravated manslaughter of his wife, Monika Potoczniak, inside the familys Lincoln Street home on Oct. 7, 2015. When sentenced in March, Santos-Alvarez will face a maximum prison sentence of 60 years and will have to serve 51 years 85 percent of that prison term. Through a Spanish interpreter and his attorney, Santos-Alvarez admitted that he strangled Monika Potoczniak before picking up their son from school on Franklin Avenue, brought him home, where he suffocated the boy with a pillow. Santos-Alvarez was not initially charged after Potoczniak and their son were found unconscious inside the home. But their deaths were deemed to be suspicious after air-quality tests in the home came back negative for carbon monoxide. Two days later, the state Regional Medical Examiners Office determined Potoczniak had been strangled and Christopher was suffocated. An arrest warrant was issued the next day for Santos-Alvarez, who was eventually tracked to Hackensack, where he was shot by police after lunging at an officer with a knife, authorities said at the time. Family members of the victims were not present for the hour-long plea hearing Thursday, during which Santos-Alvarez showed no emotion. He said he is currently on medication for his hallucination and the voices (he hears in his) head. He appeared to be sincerely remorseful and makes no excuses, Santos-Alvarezs attorney, Michael Robbins, told The Jersey Journal. He apologizes to the Potoczniak family. Santos-Alvarez, an undocumented immigrant, is expected to be removed from the country when he completes his sentence. Robbins said the defendant came to the United States from El Salvador when he was approximately 14 years old and hasnt had prior criminal convictions. Hudson County Superior Court Judge John Young has set the sentencing date for March 7. JERSEY CITY A Hudson County Superior Court judge dealt a blow to critics of Jersey Citys new business tax on Friday when he denied their request for a temporary injunction that would have kept the city from implementing the tax starting in January. Judge Peter Bariso dismissed the plaintiffs claims that they would be irreparably harmed if the tax went into effect so soon. Bariso said if there had been an emergency at hand, the plaintiffs would have filed their suit after the state approved the creation of the payroll tax in June, and not waited until Jersey Citys council adopted it in November. The decision represents an initial victory for Jersey City, which says it needs new tax revenue to help offset major cuts to state school funding starting in July. Revenue from the tax which represents 1 percent on a businesss payroll is earmarked entirely for the school district. Real estate developer Mack-Cali is leading the charge against the tax, filing a lawsuit with others on Tuesday alleging the tax is unconstitutional. Among other arguments, the plaintiffs allege the tax will cause businesses to flee Jersey City. Bariso said today that is not a good enough argument to force a temporary halt to the tax. At this stage those consequences are merely speculative, Bariso said. The tax will go into effect on Jan. 1 but the city will not collect it for the first time until April. Bariso also denied the plaintiffs motion to delay the deadline for payroll tax critics to start a petition drive that if successful would force a referendum on the measure. City officials say that deadline was Monday Dec. 10. Were happy with the result today and thankful the courts are protecting Jersey City children," Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said in a statement. The two sides will meet in court again in the new year. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. Members of the New York Giants, veterans and others will honor the memory of our fallen veterans on Saturday during a Wreaths Across America event at the historic Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery in Jersey City. The event gets underway at 10:30 at the Newark Avenue cemetery that include graves of soldiers as far back as the Revolutionary War. On national Wreaths Across America Day, wreath-laying ceremonies are held at Arlington National Cemetery and more than 1,400 additional locations in all 50 states, at sea and abroad, according the organizations website. Joining the Giants players in the wreath-laying will be cemetery volunteers, students from St Josephs Academy in Bogota, cadets from the Jersey City squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, veterans from Jersey City Elks Lodge 211, Operation Rebound and he Fr. Mychal Judge Order of Ancient Hibernians, . This is the cemeterys ninth year participating in Wreaths Across America Day. The cemetery is located at 435 Newark Ave. The man charged with causing the fatal crash that killed a college student and injured several others was released from jail Thursday and will await his trial on house arrest. David Lamar V, 22, of West Windsor, had a blood alcohol content over three times the legal limit when he drove head-on into a car full of students from The College of New Jersey Dec. 2, according to authorities. The designated driver in that vehicle, Michael Sot, 20, of Clark, died from his injuries. It took Mercer County Superior Court Judge Anthony Massi two days to make the decision to put Lamar on house arrest, after he heard arguments Tuesday about whether he should be held in jail pending trial. Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Stacey Geurds argued that he could be a flight risk because he left the hospital after he was being treated for his injuries, and authorities had to track him down. She also said he was danger to society because he could drink and drive again. Lamars attorney, Robin Lord, told Massi that Lamar had strong ties to the area and never attempted to flee, he simply went home. She convinced the judge to order house arrest, with electronic monitoring and home breath tests to make sure he isnt drinking. He will also surrender his drivers license, according to the prosecutors office. At Tuesdays hearing, Geurds said video footage shows Lamar was drinking for nearly three hours at Landmark Americana Tap & Grill, a bar on TCNJs campus, before the crash. He drank numerous beers and a drink called a fishbowl, she said, and stumbled outside right before leaving the bar. His blood alcohol content was .239 and the legal limit to drive is .08. Lamar was trying to pass other vehicles on Pennington Road when his vehicle hit the car full of TCNJ students, authorities said. They were returning home from a Phi Kappa Psi party and Sot, a math major, was one of the fraternitys designated drivers that night. Hes charged with seven counts of assault by auto, one count of vehicular manslaughter, one count of driving while under the influence and several motor vehicle charges. - Staff writer Paige Gross contributed to this report. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Five people were arrested and hundreds of thousands of dollars in guns and drugs were seized Wednesday during a takedown of a Newark drug distribution network. Thirteen firearms, including two AR-15 rifles, 10 handguns, and one tactical shotgun, as well as 111,500 envelopes of heroin that police said had a street value of more than $330,000 were among the items seized during a raid led by the New Jersey State Police, according to a release from the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office. The state police along with the Newark Police and United States Marshals Service executed multiple search warrants throughout Newark and arrested five people. Dajhon Coleman, 36, Hashawn Landrum, 39, and Quameer Elamin, 26, all of Newark, were charged with various drug and weapons offenses, officials said Lamon Thomas, 46, of Newark and Keena Bryant, 28, of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania were charged with possession and intent to distribute drugs, the release stated. All five were taken to Essex County Jail pending a detention hearing. Every day, our state and local law enforcement officers are working to keep New Jerseys residents safe from harm, Attorney General Grewal said in the release. Todays arrests are a great example of the close partnership weve forged between the New Jersey State Police and local law enforcement such as the Newark Police Department, and it shows our commitment to protecting residents from illegal firearms and dangerous drugs. Police also seized nearly $85,000 in cocaine, crack cocaine, marijuana and other suspected drugs along with $151,000 in cash and three cars; a 2015 BMW sedan, 2007 Acura RL, and a 2012 Cadillac CTS, authorities said. Newark Public Safety Director Anthony F. Ambrose said he was grateful for the Newark Polices partnership with the other arresting agencies in helping rid the city of the guns and drugs. The seizure of two assault rifles, a tactical shotgun and 10 handguns, along with over 110,000 decks of heroin and more than 1,000 grams of cocaine, means that our streets are safer as a result of these arrests, Ambrose said. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. < Two Newark women died Wednesday in a Pennsylvania crash after an SUV collided with a dump truck on an exit ramp. The driver of the Nissan Pathfinder, Regena McCray-Palmer, 50, and Connie Motley-Wright, 59, who was sitting in the back seat, were pronounced dead at the scene near the Route 30 business ramp on Route 202 South in East Whiteland, the Pennsylvania State Police said in a release. Three other passengers of the Nissan were injured in the crash, but police did not release their names Thursday night. Two sustained critical injuries and another sustained moderate injuries, according to the release. Police did not have an update on their condition Thursday. The driver of the dump truck was not injured. The dump truck and SUV were both driving south and exited the highway just before 10 a.m. when they crashed, police said. Photos from the scene show that the bed of the dump truck tipped over and crushed the Pathfinder . The Pennsylvania State Police said the cause of the crash was still unclear and that was still under investigation. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Stidham said one of his first acts as mayor, if he's elected, will be to restore confidence in city government. Along with the mayor's legal troubles, the city has been beset by bickering between the almost all Democratic city council and the mayor. A police officer who was accused of hindering an investigation into a friend suspected of murder will quit as part of a deal to avoid trial, a report says. Eric Prosniewski, 48, will step down from the Jackson Police Department to avoid prosecution, the Asbury Park Press reported. Prosniewski, when off duty, allegedly interfered when investigators were looking at Daniele RomeoDiSantillo, the heir to a pizza empire who is now serving 30 years in prison plotting the murder of his business partner. RomeoDiSantillo was found guilty of hiring another man to kill Peyman Sanandaji, whom he owed $140,000. A trial for the man allegedly hired for the killing, Hector Calderon, ended in a hung jury last year. Authorities never specified what they thought Prosniewski did. His attorney, S. Karl Mohel, told the Press that his client should never have been charged in the case. Mohel did not respond to requests for comment from NJ Advance Media. Jackson police officer Eric Prosniewski will quit his job to avoid prosecution. (Ocean County Prosecutor's Office) Court records show that Prosniewski was admitted to pre-trial intervention in September of this year. He was suspended without pay from his job in May 2015 after his arrest. The Ocean County Prosecutors Office also did not respond to multiple inquiries about the case. Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips First of two parts Time magazines Person of the Year selection can be counted on annually to spur conversation and reflection. This year, it hit home in newsrooms around the world. It should hit home in every living room, too, as the magazine latched onto a global concern that, if not addressed, could change our societies for the worse: erosions of freedom of the press. Grouping together four courageous journalists and a newspaper as The Guardians, the magazine put a spotlight on The War on Truth and called out governments around the world that seek to suppress information that unmasks their abuses of power. And it called out social media algorithms that have evolved in a way that favors sharing hate speech, propaganda and mis- or disinformation over news by legitimate organizations. The stories are chilling: Washington Post columnist and Saudi regime critic Jamal Khashoggi, brutally murdered when he went to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey for paperwork he needed to marry. Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, critical of the Duterte government, who was arrested on tax evasion charges that are widely believed to be trumped-up retaliation for her reporting. Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, imprisoned for nearly a year and counting after investigating the massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. And, right here in our country, the mass murder of five employees of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, by a gunman who harbored a grudge over the papers coverage of a court case. These journalists stories are just a few among many disturbing attacks on the press this year, the magazine notes, worrying about what the future will hold. This ought to be a time when democracy leaps forward, an informed citizenry being essential to self-government, it writes. Instead, its in retreat. Three decades after the Cold War defeat of a blunt and crude autocracy, a more clever brand takes nourishment from the murk that surrounds us. The old-school despot embraced censorship. The modern despot, finding that more difficult, foments mistrust of credible fact, thrives on the confusion loosed by social media and fashions the illusion of legitimacy from supplicants. With President Trumps wanton lies and irresponsible tweets and sound bites likening the press to the enemy of the people, journalists at all levels feel the ripple effects. We know that our journalists are dedicated to the truth and cringe when verbal attacks are lobbed at our counterparts. We take seriously the fact that our community depends on us to keep tabs on local government. We mourn those who have been killed around the world doing the job we love. Like the editors at Time, we worry about things getting worse before they get better. We hark back to our founders first editorial, in the May 2, 1867, Evening Journal, describing our mission then and to this day: In its opinion and criticisms it will be independent, liberal and decided, and in their utterance, frank and fearless, neither dreading the displeasure nor fawning for the favor of anybody. TOMORROW: Fighting for transparency in government Americans are told over and over that Iran is the menace in the Mideast, that its Islamic rulers are bloodthirsty terrorists spreading mayhem as they force a sectarian showdown between Shiites and Sunnis across the region. All of which is equally true of our close ally, Saudi Arabia, under its young ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He is a murderer and a tyrant, and his war in neighboring Yemen is killing innocent people on a scale that could soon rival or exceed the body count in Syria. President Trump has made it clear he doesn't give a damn. As long as Saudi Arabia delivers the oil and buys our weapons, our president is willing to sell this country's soul. But the U.S. Senate last week finally drew a line, unanimously endorsing a resolution acknowledging that MBS personally ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was killed in the Saudi embassy in Turkey on Oct. 2. That was the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies, who found evidence that MBS communicated with the team of 15 killers as they strangled and dismembered Khashoggi in the most brazen and brutal murder of our time. The Senate also voted overwhelmingly to end United States support for MBS's war in Yemen, which relies on American weaponry, targeting assistance, and intelligence. The vote was 56-41, a rare and bipartisan rebuke of Trump. If there is any consolation to be drawn from Khashoggi's murder, it is the attention it drew to the disaster in Yemen, where Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are fighting a proxy war as part of their sectarian showdown. It's a bloody stalemate, and the brutality is on both sides. But the Saudi bombing campaign of Yemen is the worst of it, and it directly implicates America. The bombing has killed thousands of civilians at weddings, funerals, and on school buses, according to the United Nations. It has left the Yemeni economy in ruins, its ports unable to absorb needed international aid. Save the Children estimates that 85,000 children have died during the three years of fighting, and the forecast is for death on a scale that is almost unimaginable. According to the United Nations' World Food Programme, 12 million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation, with children most vulnerable of all. Relief workers say they are bracing for the worst global famine of their lifetimes. The Senate's action will change nothing on its own, given opposition from Trump and Republican leaders in the House. But with Democrats taking control of the House soon, that could change. And in any case, the defiance of our amoral president is long overdue. More: Tom Moran columns Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. Gov. Phil Murphy and leaders of the state Legislature emerged from a nearly two-hour meeting Thursday with all sides encouraged that a compromise is imminent on a bill to increase New Jerseys minimum wage to $15 an hour. But a vote likely wont happen this year. Differing opinions between the freshman Democratic governor and the Democrat-controlled Legislature has pushed the issue to the edge of 2018 without enough days in the year to pass a bill. Murphy and the states top lawmakers state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex have put a $15 minimum wage at the top of their list of priorities. The governor has repeatedly called on legislators in recent weeks to send him a measure before the end of the year. Sweeney said Thursday hes optimistic about minimum wage legislation, though a vote wont come before 2019. While the state Senate and Assembly have a voting session in Trenton scheduled for Monday, thatll be the last one of the year. Its hard nailing people down," Sweeney told NJ Advance Media. "People go away for the holidays and everything else. Sweeney described Thursdays meeting with Murphy and Coughlin as great. The trio met behind closed doors in the governors office in Trenton for nearly two hours. It was the first sit-down between Murphy and the lawmakers since October a long stretch exacerbated by the sometimes shaky relationship between the men. Coughlin expressed similar optimism, saying they made significant progress" in the meeting. But like Sweeney, Coughlin thinks the soonest a vote on a compromise minimum wage bill once a deal is worked out with Murphy would come is in January, two sources familiar with the speakers thinking told NJ Advance Media. Both sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak publicly about private discussions. Coughlin introduced a $15 minimum wage bill earlier this month. Sweeney quickly praised the measure and a vote was scheduled for earlier this week before it was postponed. The governor, meanwhile, said he didnt like the length of the phase-in period or how the proposal would take a decade to gradually increase the rate for seasonal workers, teenagers and some farmers. Other workers who would be the first to reach the $15 minimum wage wouldnt hit that mark until 2024, according to the bill. A compromise is close, all people involved agree. We made significant progress today," Murphy spokesman Mahen Gunarantna said in a statement. "The governor is optimistic we can get a $15 minimum wage passed in the very near future. NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. WASHINGTON Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.'s two-year effort to obtain President Donald Trumps income tax returns got a boost Thursday when House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she expected the new majority to go after them. There is popular demand for the Congress to request the presidents tax returns, Pelosi, D-Calif., said at her weekly Capitol Hill press conference. She said the Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee see a path in that direction. Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to make his returns public, and efforts by Pascrell, D-9th Dist., to get the Ways and Means Committee to obtain them repeatedly were blocked by the panels Republican majority. With the next speaker of the House dedicated to the pursuit of transparency, I am confident we will have the will and the tools to finally expose Trumps financial history to sunlight, Pascrell said. "We will not rest on the committee until Donald Trumps personal and business records are given total scrutiny. We must see how far the crimes go. Pascrell has said the tax returns could let the American public learn about any investments that would pose conflicts of interest for the president, such as possible financial ties to Russia. In addition, the public could find out how the Republican tax bill personally benefitted Trump. Under a 1924 federal law enacted after the Teapot Dome scandal, the Ways and Means chairman has the power to request an individuals tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service. Pelosi said she expected the president to oppose the Democratic efforts. Its a little more challenging than you might think, Pelosi said. Im sure that the White House will resist so the question is where do we go from here. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. New Jersey is now the first state to outlaw wild and exotic animals in traveling acts such as circuses and fairs after Gov. Phil Murphy signed Noseys Law" on Friday. The legislation, named after a 36-year-old African elephant used in traveling circuses across the country that animal rights groups say was abused and neglected by its owner, had broad bi-partisan support in the Legislature. The ban will apply to carnivals, circuses, fairs, parades, petting zoos and similar live events, according to the bill. New Jersey is the first state to protect wild animals from the abuses inherent in traveling shows, Brian Hackett, the New Jersey State Director for the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement. Other states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Hawaii and New York, are considering similar bans, according to one of the bills sponsors. There were no loud roars of disapproval when the bill came up in both chambers of the Democrat-controlled New Jersey Legislature last month. It cleared the state Senate by a 36-0 vote and the state Assembly 71-3 with three abstentions. The bill also got big support in the Legislature last year, but Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, pocket-vetoed it before he left office in January. I am proud to sign Noseys Law and ensure that New Jersey will not allow wild and exotic animals to be exploited and cruelly treated within our state, Murphy, a Democrat, said in a statement. This law would not have been possible without the years of hard work and advocacy by Sen. Ray Lesniak, whose legacy on issues of animal rights is second to none," he said. "These animals belong in their natural habitats or in wildlife sanctuaries, not in performances where their safety and the safety of others is at risk. Lesniak, D-Union, is a former state senator who, before leaving office, challenged Murphy in the Democratic primary for governor. The state defines exotic animals as any species of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, mollusk, or crustacean that is not indigenous to New Jersey as determined by the Fish and Game Council. NJ Advance Media staff writer Susan K. Livio contributed to this report. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman tried to make his intentions clear during the MLB Winter Meetings: free-agent slugger Bryce Harper is not high on his wish list, and might not be on the list at all. Harpers agent, Scott Boras, hopes to convince the Yankees to reconsider. With that in mind, MLB.coms Will Leitch ranked the top contenders to sign Harper wth his destination power rankings. No. 3 is the Yankees: They say theyre mostly out of the bidding -- but then again, Brian Cashman will tell you that his Death Star is fully operational. If they want Harper, theyll go get him. There is space for him, both in the lineup -- in left field, spelling Aaron Judge in right, at designated hitter, perhaps even someday at first base -- and in the payroll. And the Yankees were Harpers favorite team as a kid and the one he has said he always wanted to play for. I will believe the Yankees are truly out of the chase for Harper when I see him in another uniform, and perhaps not quite even then. Here is Leitchs complete list: 1. Philadelphia Phillies 2. Los Angeles Dodgers 3. New York Yankees 4. Chicago White Sox 5. Washington Nationals 6. Chicago Cubs 7. St. Louis Cardinals 8. The Field Harper and Manny Machado are expected to break the bank and cash in during free agency, with both sluggers looking at signing contracts which could reach or exceed $300 million. The guide, said Commissioner Laura Blaney, D-South, has been in the works for the past few weeks. The November general election was rife with problems in the county, including late-opening polls, absentee ballots that were not delivered to precincts to be counted, and a three-day wait for results based on the count of almost 19,000 absentee ballots. We just moved here over the summer and there was no place by us to cut down a tree (in Illinois) and there was one by us (in Valparaiso), and I thought, Lets do it, William Glass said. Freeman-Wilson said the planned overpass there would be a huge opportunity to continue our development of an industrial corridor that we believe provides continued growth and jobs for the citizens of Gary. When Zachary called again a few minutes later, his sister picked up their mothers phone to hear that he was driving to their Valparaiso home to do his laundry. This was nothing new for Zachary, who often returned to the home where he was raised. Sometimes just to vent to his mother. Asus has announced the resignation of the companys long-term CEO, Jerry Shen. However, the executive plans to maintain a relationship with the Taiwanese manufacturer in his new position as chief of a start-up called iFast. In a change of marketing strategy, Asus intends to shift its focus on to gamers and power users in regard to future mobile product releases. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker The CEO of Asus, Jerry Shen, is to resign from his position. From January 1, 2019, the Taiwanese company will have two executives taking up the CEO position: S.Y. Hsu and Samson Hu will share the reins as co-CEOs. Shen is planning on taking over a company called iFast, which works with artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things technology. The start-up is partly funded (30%) by Asus, so Shen will maintain a connection with the company he oversaw for over a decade. Asus has made it clear that mobile product focus will be shifting towards gamers and power users. The company has already demonstrated that intention with recent releases such as the impressive ROG Phone and the Snapdragon 845-powered ZenFone 5Z. The smartphone market is fiercely competitive and currently dominated by Samsung, Huawei, Apple, and Xiaomi, so its a sensible business tactic for Asus to try to find a niche to focus on and become renowned for. Its very likely there will be successors to the intriguing ROG phone, which even comes with an external AeroActive Cooler to help cement its position as a gaming enthusiasts smartphone of choice. But even in this specialist market, Asus will still have to face stiff competition, with Xiaomis decent Black Shark handset and the remarkable Razer Phone 2 offering themselves as the current main rivals. Both researchers said that the findings should not influence womens decisions about if or when to have children. But they said the information, combined with other factors like family history, reproductive history and genetic tests, could help women and their doctors assess their individual risks and decide if and when to begin screening tests like mammography. For instance, Dr. Armstrong said, a woman who had no children before 25 and gave birth in her late 30s might decide to start screening earlier. Health authorities differ in recommendations about when mammography should begin and how often it should be done. The studies were observational, meaning they were not controlled experiments, but were based on following patients histories and looking for patterns and associations. Such studies cannot prove cause and effect, but in this case they are the only source of information because women cannot be picked at random and assigned to groups that either do or dont have babies. Paradoxical as it may seem that childbirth could both raise and lower the risk of breast cancer, researchers say that appears to be the case. The pattern has turned up in study after study. The reason is not known, but there are possible explanations. The risk might increase after birth, Dr. Nichols said, because there is rapid cellular proliferation in the breast, and any time where tissue or cells are rapidly growing, there is a small potential for errors to be made when a cell is copying or dividing, or if there is an error in the cell, theres an opportunity for it to be copied and reproduced many times. As for the protective effect of childbirth, she said that when breast tissue goes through the complete development process involved in producing milk, it becomes less susceptible to developing cancer later in life. The following reports compile all significant security incidents confirmed by New York Times reporters throughout Afghanistan. It is necessarily incomplete as many local officials refuse to confirm casualty information. The toll here does not generally include claims of insurgents killed by the government, because of the difficulty of verifying such claims. Similarly, the reports do not include attacks on the government claimed by the Taliban. Both sides routinely inflate casualties of their opponents. Afghan security force casualties greatly increased in the past week, with 152 dead, despite the cold weather at a time when the fighting normally slows down. Instead of focusing on taking over government positions and looting bases, the insurgents appear to be focusing on maximizing casualties in hit-and-run attacks. There was also an unusual increase in Taliban attacks in the west of the country, especially in Herat Province, where five attacks were carried out in the week. Previously, attacks at all were rare there. Farah Province continued to be another focus of Taliban offensives. There appeared to be relatively few government counterattacks. [Read the Afghan War Casualty Report from previous weeks.] Dec. 13 Kandahar Province: one police officer killed A district police chief in Kandahar City was killed by a mine that had been attached to his vehicle. Though it remains unclear who recorded the call and how, it appears to have emerged from a long investigation by American officials into Jorge Cifuentes Villa, the leader of a Colombian trafficking clan, who said he started working with Mr. Guzman a few years before his former Colombian connection was arrested. Appearing at the trial as a witness for the government, Mr. Cifuentes in three days of testimony has described not only the various cocaine deals he hatched with the defendant in Ecuador, but also his own remarkable life of crime, which began when he was 4 and started helping his father move illegal cigarettes and whiskey through the port in Medellin. On Tuesday, his first day on the stand, Mr. Cifuentes recalled how he met Mr. Guzman in 2003 at a mescal-soaked party at the kingpins hide-out in the Sierra Madre mountains; it was a celebration of the second anniversary of his first escape from prison. Getting to the party required a harrowing landing on a steeply inclined covert airstrip. Once he was safely on the ground and after he had said a few prayers Mr. Cifuentes resolved, he told jurors, to buy Mr. Guzman a helicopter so he could fly in a more civilized way. That same year, he started sending Mr. Guzman shipments of cocaine in carbon-fiber airplanes that were specially designed to frustrate radar. In 2007, after his brother a former pilot for the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed, Mr. Cifuentes fled to Ecuador, where he began arranging drug deals with the FARC for Mr. Guzman and protecting their investment by bribing a local military officer. The officer was not the only person Mr. Cifuentes has acknowledged paying off. He testified that he routinely bribed the Ecuadorean Navy (for information about American naval ships) and the Colombian police (whenever it was needed). Early in his career, he told the jurors, he once paid off Colombian officials to expunge his prison record. The defendants named in a series of indictments unsealed this week face charges including sex trafficking of a minor and conspiracy, which carry maximum sentences of up to life in prison. The indictments do not name the residential center in Westchester County, referring to it only as Facility-1, but it is Hawthorne, an official at the center and two other people briefed on the matter said. Some of the defendants are in their 20s; the two oldest are 59, prosecutors said. None of the defendants were staff members of Hawthorne. The charges were announced by the United States attorneys office in Manhattan, the F.B.I. and the Police Department. Some details of the alleged scheme were contained in the unsealed court papers. One defendant, Hubert Dupigny, 34, recruited a 16-year-old girl from Hawthorne who worked for him as a prostitute until he was arrested in December 2016, prosecutors wrote. At that point, the girl went to work for his brother, Hensley Dupigny, 29, who posted advertisements for her on Backpage.com and collected most of her earnings, the prosecutors said. A prosecutor said at a court hearing in August for Hensley Dupigny that the alleged conspiracy was particularly egregious because the defendants sought out minors in the social services system, often children with behavioral or emotional problems who had become wards of the state. One of the assorted jobs Michael Paul Smith had on his way to unexpected fame was as a mail carrier. Everything you do, you will learn from it, he said, and you will use it later on in life. The delivery rounds he made proved useful when, years later, he became founder, chief architect and mayor of Elgin Park, surely the most visited fake town in the United States. The town, frozen in a mid-20th-century haze, exists only in the carefully staged photographs that Mr. Smith made with a cheap camera, vintage model miniature cars, tiny hand-built sets and a keen sense of perspective. In 2010, the Flickr site where he displayed those pictures went viral, and within four years 74 million virtual visitors had spent time in Elgin Park. His letter-delivering experience, he said, helped make his imaginary town as close to real as something nonexistent can be. When I was mailman, he said in Elgin Park, a brief 2015 documentary by Danny Yourd, it made me aware of how streets are laid out, how towns grow. My photographs read well because there is a logic to it. Sondra Locke, an actress who received an Oscar nomination for her first film and starred in a series of movies with Clint Eastwood, with whom she had a turbulent relationship, died on Nov. 3 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 74. Her death, which was not widely reported at the time, was caused by cardiac arrest related to brain and bone cancer, The Associated Press reported on Thursday, citing a death certificate. Ms. Lockes Academy Award nomination, for best supporting actress, was for her performance in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, a 1968 drama, with Alan Arkin, based on a novel by Carson McCullers. She went on to star in several movies with Mr. Eastwood in the 1970s and 80s, including their first film together, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Sudden Impact, part of the Dirty Harry thriller series. Ms. Locke and Mr. Eastwoods romance began on the set of their first film, and they lived together for more than a decade. After the couple separated, Ms. Locke sued Mr. Eastwood twice, turning their breakup into a high-profile court battle in the 1990s. If the British were to follow the German press, theyd find a suggestion in the tabloid Bild that the unofficial motto of British politics has become: If its real then I dont want to know. But the hard-core Conservative Brexiteers who decided to try to overthrow Prime Minister Theresa May on the eve of a European Union summit, or the Labourites who revel in mocking her, most likely dont read Bild or any other Continental newspapers. In the rowdy badinage of Parliament, leaving the European Union often seems a purely domestic issue in which nostalgia for empire, political ambition and British pride largely exclude any thought of European Union interests or other realities. Rare is the politician who would suggest that modern Britain should welcome inclusion and a leadership role in a Europe with which it shares so much common history and values. Far more common are declarations along the lines of the song from the old Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers: I dont know what they have to say / It makes no difference anyway / Whatever it is, Im against it! In one of those traditions in which Britain abounds, a party challenge to Mrs. May had to be initiated by 48 letters from Conservative members of Parliament. Not surprisingly, most came from strong backers of leaving the European Union, who for reasons not entirely clear concluded that the prime ministers failure to bring the withdrawal agreement she had negotiated with the bloc to a vote in Parliament earlier this week made this an opportune time to unseat her as party leader, and in that way, as prime minister. They failed, 200 to 117, but the bitter divisions in the Conservative Party left clear that any version of her agreement stood little chance of ever passing Parliament. One of the more widely cited of the 48 letters was from Owen Paterson, a former secretary of state for Northern Ireland and an ardent Brexiteer. Part of it read: It was a mistake to treat Brexit miserably as a problem to be solved rather than an exciting opportunity to be grasped. The U.K. is the worlds fifth largest economy. We are a key NATO member, a permanent U.N. Security Council member, a Commonwealth realm, a nuclear power. We are the source of the English language, the common law and occupy the ideal time zone for global trade. Yet from the outset we have approached these negotiations as a feeble and unworthy supplicant. After Tuesdays testy exchange between Donald Trump and Democratic leaders, it seems quite possible that the tweeter in chief will shut down the government in an attempt to get funding for a wall on the Mexican border. Whats remarkable about this prospect is that the wall is an utterly stupid idea. Even if youre bitterly opposed to immigration, legal or otherwise, spending tens of billions of dollars on an ostentatious physical barrier is neither a necessary nor an effective way to stop immigrants from coming. So whats it about? Nancy Pelosi, almost sure to be the next speaker of the House, reportedly told colleagues that for Trump, the wall is a manhood thing. That sounds right. But that got me thinking. What other policies are driven by Trumps insecurity? Whats driving this administrations policy in general? The answer to these questions, Id argue, is that there are actually three major motives behind Trumpist policy, which we can label Manhood, McConnell and Moola. By McConnell I mean the standard G.O.P. agenda, which basically serves the interests of big donors, both wealthy individuals and corporations. This agenda consists, above all, of tax cuts for the donor class, with cuts in social programs to make up for some of the lost revenue. It also includes deregulation, especially for polluters but also for financial institutions and dubious players like for-profit colleges. Riccardo Giacconi, an astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize for pioneering the study of the universe through the X-rays emitted by the most violent actors in the cosmos, including black holes, exploding stars and galumphing clouds of galaxies, died on Sunday in the La Jolla section of San Diego. He was 87. The National Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member, announced his death. Dr. Giacconi was one of the great captains of Big Science, leaving lasting imprints on major astronomical institutions like the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which runs the Hubble Space Telescope, and the European Southern Observatory in Germany, where he oversaw the building of the largest telescope on Earth. He helped set the pattern for how large scientific projects are run today. If you need to do something big, Riccardo was up to the task, Robert Kirshner, an astronomer at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto, Calif., said by email. Ticking off the observatories Dr. Giacconi directed, Dr. Kirshner called them the great tools of discovery in the 20th (and 21st) century. Dr. Giacconi was awarded a half share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002. (The other half was shared by the astrophysicists Raymond Davis Jr., an American, and Masatoshi Koshiba, of Japan.) The search for talent outside Silicon Valley and Seattle has also been prompted by issues in the companies hometowns, which have not built enough housing to keep up with their growing work forces. San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Seattle are the four most expensive major cities in the country based on home values, according to data from Zillow. The median home in San Francisco is valued at almost $1.4 million and more than $733,000 in Seattle. Questions also abound over the quality and funding of the areas public school systems. Every day as a C.E.O., you have employees coming to you saying, I dont make enough to buy a house for my family, and you already feel like you are paying through the nose, said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the real estate site based in Seattle. Almost everyone is looking at other affordable places where you can open an office. Some economists said the Trump administrations tougher immigration policies could also restrict the tech giants from importing skilled workers from abroad to their West Coast headquarters. The Trump administration has increased the red tape in applying for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers and has denied petitions more often. Over a five-day window this April, employers submitted petitions for more than 190,000 specialized work visas, but only 85,000 can be granted annually. That has helped push some tech companies into building major outposts in Canada, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver. Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economics professor, said that even if H-1B workers were to come through in abundance, it would still make sense to put them in cheaper cities, like Austin. He said, $100,000 goes a lot further in Austin than in Silicon Valley. Yet even as the tech companies move beyond the West Coast, their choices to converge on cities or towns that are already highly educated, wealthy and well employed do not spread the wealth. More than 44 percent of all digital-service jobs in the United States were located in just 10 metro areas last year, including Seattle, San Francisco and San Jose, as well as New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Boston, according to research by Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2015 to 2017, only nine metro areas increased their share of the nations tech work force, including the West Coast tech hubs, as well as Austin and Denver. The tech industry concentrates in very few markets, said Amy Liu, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Our biggest concern is how do we make sure more cities, particularly midsized cities in the middle of the country, can be players in the tech economy? A classic children's play by David Wood - "The See-saw Tree" - will meet young audiences in China on December 22nd. Director Adam Stafford is now in Beijing joining the Chinese cast at rehearsal. "The speech rhythms in Chinese are very different from the English ones. You know, we may have a word, which has one or two syllables and you may have four syllables. Well, in an exchange of conversation and dialogue, this changes the feel, the level of dialogue at aims of the children. I mean, for me, I worked a lot in children's theatre. I think it has to be quite fast-moving. I think there needs to be a lot of action; there needs to be a little bit of comedy children love to laugh. So there are many techniques that I use in my production that hopefully will keep the attention of the children." The See-saw Tree looks at an important environmental issue in an entertaining but thought-provoking way. It debuted in the U.K. in 1986. It starts with a public meeting at a village hall to discuss if a 300-year-old oak tree should be cut down. But Mr. Bunn, an environmental activist, protests and shows the devastating effect such plans will have on the inhabitants of the tree. Eight actors with the China National Theatre for Children will each play a dual role as both a human character and an animal inhabitant. He had to do something. In a novel, we accept the worldview of the narrator, however limited or objectionable. Scout, who is barely 6 at the start of the story, can use words in print that would make her instantly unsympathetic onstage. We also accept that a first-person portrait of a white childs moral awakening to racism will primarily focus on how it affects the white people around her. But onstage, a work about racial injustice in which its principal black characters have no agency would be intolerable, so Mr. Sorkin makes a series of adjustments. With Scouts point of view subordinated, we see Atticus through our own eyes instead of hers, making him the firm center of the story. This gives Mr. Sorkin room to expand the roles of the two main black characters Atticus deals with: his client Tom (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and his housekeeper, Calpurnia. In Toms case, the expansion is subtle, largely a matter of giving him the dignity of voicing his own predicament. I was guilty as soon as I was accused, he says adapting a line that was Scouts in the book. Calpurnia (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) gets a bigger remake. Bossy toward the children but deferential toward white adults in Lees account, she serves in the play as Atticuss foil and needling conscience. Mocking his argument that Maycomb needs more time to overcome racism, she says, How much time would Maycomb like? Their tart but loving squabbles remind Scout of hers with Jem: They behave, she realizes, like brother and sister. Thats a startling and somewhat sentimentalized notion, but Ms. Jackson and Mr. Daniels, inerrant in their dryness, pull it off. Mr. Danielss unfussy mastery is useful throughout, especially in toning down some of Mr. Sorkins showier attempts to punch up the story. Only by underplaying Atticuss West Wing-style summation in court We have to heal this wound or we will never stop bleeding! does Mr. Daniels avoid the appearance of speaking to television cameras from the future. But Mr. Sorkin wants a total hero and gets one. When Bob Ewell, the father of the woman supposedly raped, shows up on the Finches porch to make threats, Atticus does some kind of flip-and-fold maneuver on him, leaving him groaning in pain. We accept this not only because its satisfying but because Mr. Sorkins Ewell (Frederick Weller at his most feral) is not merely a violent drunk and a racist but a foaming-at-the-mouth monstrosity. For good measure, hes now an anti-Semite, too, which on Broadway feels like pandering. The case before the court stemmed from the 2013 killing of a mentally ill computer engineer who was walking down a street in Oakland Park, north of Fort Lauderdale. The man, Jermaine McBean, 33, had an air rifle slung across his shoulders. As he walked into the apartment complex where he lived, screaming to himself, witnesses called the police. Three Broward County sheriffs deputies responded and called for Mr. McBean to drop his weapon. But Mr. McBean, who the investigation showed was listening to music with earbuds, apparently did not hear them. Peter A. Peraza, the deputy charged in the case, claimed that Mr. McBean had turned and pointed the weapon at the officers, in the vicinity of children in a swimming pool, so he fired three shots, killing him. Witnesses said Mr. McBean never pointed the weapon, and the two other officers did not fire their weapons. Two years later, after a New York Times examination of the case, Mr. Peraza was indicted, becoming the first law enforcement officer to be charged in an on-duty killing in Florida in decades. In court, Mr. Peraza asked for Stand Your Ground protection. He won, but the state appealed. The Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld the ruling, but because the decision conflicted with a prior appellate ruling, the case went to the Florida Supreme Court. In that earlier case, in 2012, the Second District Court of Appeal had rejected an officers attempt to use the law to avoid trial for stomping on a 63-year-old man. The officer, Juan Caamano, a former police officer in Haines City, south of Orlando, instead went to trial, but was acquitted. WASHINGTON Senator James M. Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, came under fire on Thursday for purchasing tens of thousands of dollars of stock in a leading defense contractor just a week after he successfully lobbied the Trump administration to increase military spending. A spokeswoman for Mr. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said he canceled the transaction, which was performed by a third-party adviser who manages his investment portfolio, after he was made aware of it by The Daily Beast. Citing his role as committee chairman, a position he assumed in September, Mr. Inhofe asked the financial adviser to no longer purchase defense or aerospace holdings, said the spokeswoman, Leacy Burke. I am not consulted or involved in any stock transactions, Mr. Inhofe, 84, said in a statement printed on cards that he distributed to reporters on Thursday. When this came to my attention, I took immediate action to reverse the trade. According to a Senate financial disclosure report, Mr. Inhofe bought $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock on Tuesday in Raytheon, a major Massachusetts-based defense contractor that has won billions of dollars in missile contracts from the Pentagon. WASHINGTON The Trump administration rolled out a new strategy for Africa on Thursday, but it was really all about China. John R. Bolton, President Trumps national security adviser, said the United States would lavish money and greater attention on the African continent, casting it as a crucial battleground in the global economic contest between the United States and China. But Mr. Bolton conceded that the United States had limited resources to compete with the tens of billions of dollars China is pouring into Africa. He also threatened to withdraw American aid for some United Nations peacekeeping missions, which he labeled ineffective, as well as for certain African countries like South Sudan that he said were corrupt or ungrateful. Mr. Boltons speech, at the Heritage Foundation, was his latest effort to flesh out what Mr. Trumps America First foreign policy means for particular regions. In Africa, he said, the greatest threat came not from poverty or Islamist extremism but from an expansionist China, as well as Russia. Tom has never talked with any foreign individual or entity for the purposes of raising money for or obtaining donations related to either the campaign, the inauguration or any such political activity, said Owen Blicksilver, a spokesman for Mr. Barrack. The inaugural committee focus was reported earlier on Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. The super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, was formed in the summer of 2016 when Mr. Trumps presidential campaign was short of cash and out of favor with many major Republican donors. While Mr. Trump insisted that he could finance his own campaign, he refused to dig too deeply into his own pockets. According to several of the people familiar with the investigation, Paul Manafort, who then headed the campaign, suggested that Mr. Barrack step into the void by creating and raising funds for the political action committee, which could collect unlimited amounts of money as long as it avoided coordinating closely with the candidate. In an interview with investigators a year ago, Mr. Barrack said that Mr. Manafort seemed to view the political committee as an arm of the campaign, despite laws meant to prevent such coordination, according to a person familiar with the interview. Federal election law requires a cooling-off period of at least 120 days before campaign staff members join a political committee backing the same candidate, but Mr. Manafort dispatched two friends from the campaign, Laurance Gay and Ken McKay, to run the operation. A press officer said at the time that the committee violated no rules because the campaign never paid the two men. Neither man returned repeated phone calls seeking comment. HONG KONG Artificial intelligence bots. 3-D printed human organs. Genomic sequencing. These might seem to be natural topics of interest in a country determined to be the worlds leader in science and technology. But in China, where censors are known to take a heavy hand, several artworks that look closely at these breakthroughs have been deemed taboo by local cultural officials. The works, which raise questions about the social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, were abruptly pulled last weekend from the coming Guangzhou Triennial on the orders of cultural authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. The artists, from Europe, Australia and the United States, were not given an official reason why their works were rejected for the show, which opens on Dec. 21 at the Guangdong Museum of Art. The pieces did not touch on the Tiananmen democracy crackdown of 1989, independence for Taiwan or Tibet or the private wealth of Chinese Communist Party leaders topics that are widely known to be off-limits for public discussion in China. As a result, some of the shows curators and the affected artists have been left guessing as to why the works were banned. Their conclusion? The works were perhaps too timely, too relevant and therefore too discomforting for Chinese officials. OXFORD, England Its an unlikely way for a hip-hop video to begin. At first, the camera shows us a picture-postcard view of Oxford, the famous English university city, from above: spires, towers, trees and lawns, golden in the morning sun. But then the camera wheels round and a beat begins to pulse. A young man in a yellow hoodie edges toward the camera, spitting out lyrics about poverty, homelessness, police brutality and drug abuse. A stones throw from the city center lies another life, he raps. Outsiders might be surprised that Oxfords streets generally filled with tourist buses and gown-wearing academics could ever be classified as mean. But an exhibition that recently opened at the Modern Art Oxford gallery argues otherwise. Entitled Fantastic Cities, and devoted to the work of the maverick filmmaker Penny Woolcock, it aims to show Oxford, and the rest of England, in a less flattering light than the cliches usually on offer. Observe the divisions that lie beneath the surface of a city like this, it suggests, and you get some insight into why the United Kingdom is one of the most economically unequal countries in Europe. Ms. Woolcock, 68, has devoted career life to finding poetry in unexpected places. She first came to attention with her 1997 TV movie Macbeth on the Estate, an audacious transposition of the Scottish play to a tough high-rise housing project in Birmingham, England. (Among other tweaks to Shakespeares script, it featured a character called Crackheads Sidekick.) Her subsequent films include a three-part, warts-and-all dramatization of life in another housing project, this time in the northern city of Leeds, made in collaboration with some of its working-class residents. They are simultaneously sacred texts and works of art, three illuminated Byzantine-era manuscripts that are more than 1,000 years old and that for decades have been part of a heralded collection at Princeton University. The college received the items as a gift in 1942 from a trustee and alumnus who had bought them from a German auction house nearly 20 years earlier. But in a lawsuit filed Thursday, the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church said the manuscripts were stolen and demanded their return, asserting that they had been taken during World War I from a monastery in Kormista, a village in northern Greece. Last year was a big one for the Omer Quartet. The group took second prize in the Trondheim Competition in Norway and first prize in the auditions held by Young Concert Artists, which presented the Omer in its New York debut at Merkin Concert Hall this week. These four musicians, who came together at the Cleveland Institute of Music, certainly rose to the occasion. They opened with a poised, mature and ebullient account of Haydns String Quartet in C (Op. 20, No. 2); gave a glowing, vividly dramatic performance of Debussys String Quartet in G minor; and brought out the punchy energy of Chris Rogersons String Quartet No. 1, written in 2009, when its composer was just 20. To end, the intrepid players (Mason Yu and Erica Tursi, violins; Jinsun Hong, viola; Alex Cox, cello) tore through the contrapuntal tangles of Beethovens Grosse Fuge, a fearless rendering of this astonishing piece. You can see them on this 2017 video giving an arresting performance of Bartoks Third String Quartet, my favorite of that composers six quartets. ANTHONY TOMMASINI Accounts of foreign enthusiasm reached the United States two months before Dvoraks arrival. A.J. Goodrich, then the leading American music theorist, commented that Schoenefelds music had attracted instant attention, for here was a motive not already developed by Brahms, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Grieg or Tschaikovski. When Dvorak finally arrived, the idea of mixing black vernacular idioms with conventional classical idioms had fascinated musicians across Europe and the United States for nearly two years. That he would be asked to weigh in on the subject was all but inevitable. He immersed himself in this burning topic soon after arriving. He listened to one of his black conservatory students, Harry Burleigh, sing spirituals and studied the Louisville music teacher Mildred Hills scholarship on black folk songs. Maurice Arnold, another black student, showed Dvorak his attempt at writing an orchestral piece using black idioms. And the manuscript for Schoenefelds new Rural Symphony sat on Dvoraks desk awaiting judgment in a conservatory-sponsored contest. (It eventually won.) By May 1893, Dvorak had seen and heard enough. When I first came here last year, he explained in a statement to the press, I was impressed with this idea and it has developed into a settled conviction. Although Dvorak hadnt originated the concept, his endorsement of incorporating these melodies and idioms into classical music spurred a vigorous, racism-laced debate. Detractors questioned the Americanness of the melodies, claiming that they were African or actually derived from white sources heard on plantations. The New York composer William Mollenhauer snipped that an American would be ashamed to derive his inspiration from such trash. For the first time, prominent black intellectuals also addressed the topic. Harry Smith, the editor of The Cleveland Gazette, remarked that Dvoraks prescription seems to be a bitter pill indeed for many prejudiced musicians (white) to swallow. Dvorak, he added, was on the right track, for the simple reason that about all the truly American music we have is furnished in these very same Negro melodies. Over the past two decades, Minning a town in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region has transformed from a piece of uninhabited land to a nationwide example in the battle against poverty. Road of Hope, a feature-length film reflecting locals' struggles to get alleviate poverty, opened across Chinese mainland theaters on Dec 6. Directed by Dong Ling and written by Hu Hanwen and Dong Danrui, the film stars actor Ji Ta and actress Cao Xinyue. Centering on a group of local villagers, the film depicts how they move from southern Ningxia's isolated, poverty-stricken mountains to Minning to strive for a new life. During a recent interview with domestic media, director Dong recalled that she toured to the town earlier this year to interview the locals. She says Xihaigu an area covering more than seven poverty-stricken towns in southern Ningxia was one of the poorest areas in China. Thanks to a program whereby Fujian province has offered assistance to Ningxia since 1996, Xihaigu has relocated 1.3 million people from Xihaigu to Minning and their annual income is now more than 20 times that what they earned before the relocation. "To shoot the film has also expanded my knowledge of the battle against poverty. I hope more audiences will see the effort and achievement of the people in Minning through this film," says Dong. The film is also one of the nine productions highlighted by the China Film Administration, the country's top regulator of the sector, to mark the 40th anniversary of the launch of reform and opening-up policy. There was a time when even we as Canadians would be nervous about that, going ha-ha, almost apologetic in advance. And now its like, I dare you to not love this and by the way, its all-Canadian. Twenty years ago American producers were like: Oh, man, Ive seen these guys. I dont want to have to hire here in Vancouver. But now I think people are amazed by the scope. Ive read that you and your wife were so wary of a Trump presidency that you considered moving to Canada full-time. And yet you didnt. Are you less nervous now? No, I dont feel less nervous. Im a very hopeful person. I believe in a one-term president, but I dont know. We are dual citizens. Weve been living in this country for a long time, and weve contributed a lot, and so what happens in 2020 matters. But we can still at the same time say were proud Canadians. Has our political environment fostered a nostalgic yearning? Something about the election just said, Where are smart clowns? Where do we get some relief? Because you can binge The Handmaids Tale, but it aint funny. I think what brought people back to Will & Grace was, Once a week I get my ice cream. Will & Grace certainly has its political moments. But Max Mutchnick, one of its creators, said that the show is never going to motivated by whats on the cover of The Times. How, then, do you keep things current? The news changes so much that trying to do jokes about that seems almost futile now. However, we just did a #MeToo episode for Grace, which turned out to be an incredibly moving thing, and Im doing one in which Im trying to give my blood to someone that needs my type, and when he hears Im gay he doesnt want it. So its looking at the fact that for all the changes in the world and all the Will and Graces, it doesnt matter. The stigma still exists. And Will has a couple of great scenes about how this fight is tiring. How long do we have to educate people? How long do we have to stand up for ourselves before we dont have to convince somebody to bake our freakin cake? Catch Roma, which our critics are calling one of this years best movies, and watch the queens return to strut their stuff in RuPauls Drag Race All Stars. Whats Streaming ROMA (2018) on Netflix. Alfonso Cuarons autobiographical film, which made this years list of best movies by the chief film critics of The New York Times (and topped Manohla Dargiss list), starts streaming on Netflix in the midst of its theater run. Set in the 1970s and shot entirely in black and white, the film takes place in the Mexico City neighborhood for which it is named, where it follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a maid who works for, and lives with, a middle-class family. Its members, including four children and a dog, completely rely on Cleo, making her the centerpiece and stronghold of their ever-evolving world. The film, which isnt propelled by a single story, moves forward with the characters and their changing lives. In his review for The Times, A. O. Scott praised Cuaron for his use of both intimacy and monumentality to express the depths of ordinary life. CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA: A MIDWINTERS TALE on Netflix. This holiday special, which follows Season 1 of the Sabrina reboot, sprinkles witchcraft and chilly effects into a season usually devoted to cheer. This coven might not celebrate Christmas, but its the winter solstice, and the Church of Night still has some celebrating to do. The witches are singing pagan carols around the fire and, in true holiday spirit, Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) conducts a seance and opens her home to real spirits. The venue, the Tai Kwun Center for Heritage and Arts, ultimately reversed course after a public outcry. But by the time Mr. Ma touched down here, his trip had became a sort of live demonstration of the struggle for free expression in China, as well as a test of whether his safety in this former British colony was guaranteed. (A few Hong Kong booksellers who sold banned political books disappeared in 2015 and later turned up in custody on the Chinese mainland.) Flora Drew, Mr. Mas partner and longtime translator, wrote in an email that when she dropped him off for his flight to Hong Kong, she worried that she might not see him again. I could tell he was thinking the same, although neither of us said anything, she said. Many people urged him not to make the trip, saying the festival was not especially important. But he said it was precisely because it wasnt that important that he felt it was important for him to go, Ms. Drew said. He was determined to carry on as usual, and not to let the censors win. In Hong Kong, Mr. Ma told reporters that while he did not think literature on its own could resist a political force, he saw the reinstatement of his invitation as a victory against self-censorship and a celebration of fictions healing powers. Only in literature can we fully express the injustices of society, the extremes of human nature and our hopes for a beautiful future, he said. In an interview the next day, Mr. Ma pointed out an irony. When he lived in Hong Kong in the years before its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, local writers would tell him that mainland politics had no place in local prose, which they felt should be gentler and more tender. But that was years before the recent erosion of freedoms in the territory, whose one country, two systems arrangement was supposed to give it a high degree of autonomy until at least 2047. Now, as with Tibetan culture, the autonomy of Hong Kong literature and language is vanishing, he said, speaking over espressos and jazz music in a dark-paneled hotel lounge. It may take 10 to 20 years, but the process has started. In early poems like Surprised by Evening, Driving Toward the Lac Qui Parle River, The Shadow Goes Away, The Grief of Men, one sees the translucency with which he traces the patterns of spiritual renewal. It is what his imitators fail to do, those who cant match his almost supernatural control over the total effect of an image as representative of thought and depth of emotion: The evening has come through the nets of the stars, Through the tissues of the grass, Walking quietly over the asylums of the waters. This language illustrates whats known as the Deep Image in American poetry, where light and darkness are always idealized and memory is absolutely spontaneous, a perfected visual analogue to the cry of the psyche, where our skin shall see far off, as it does underwater. Image No wonder audiences were stunned by his anti-Vietnam War book, Light Around the Body, which won the National Book Award in 1968, a year that saw the deaths of nearly 17,000 Americans and an estimated 180,000 Vietnamese. The best poems in that book are triumphs of reserve, where his drive to preserve the essences of human reality under assault leaves no doubt of the strength of his conviction about a nation gone berserk, beset by discrimination, poverty, mass marches, riots and war: Lets count the bodies over / If we could only make the bodies smaller / We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight. Because American democracy is again under threat, coming apart with chaos and bloodshed, I urge you to read what Bly said the night he won the award. Addressing gross and savage crimes by the government, he said institutions would have to preserve the nation, and risk committing acts of disobedience. Donating his prize check to the draft-resistance movement, Bly urged young men not to destroy their spiritual lives by participating in this war. You cannot read Blys poetry without appreciating his belief that cultural integration might redeem us all. Nowhere is that more apparent than in his translations of several centuries of European, Middle Eastern and South American poets, especially Pablo Neruda, whom Bly considered the greatest poet of the 20th century. You wont find any translations in Collected Poems, a shame since in those translations there is something more than just an echo of his focus on the nature of a capacious imagination: Night after night goes by in the old mans head. We try to ask new questions. But whatever The old poets failed to say will never be said. In hindsight, the trajectory is pretty direct from Deep Imagism to political poetry to Iron John with its attacks against corporate visions of masculinity to his recent apologues of the unconscious. But the popular success and controversy of Iron John resulted in Bly being kicked out of the insular American poetry community for the crime of being too influential in the broader public. For decades few literary magazines have reviewed his new books. How can one read Collected Poems, then, from its first wintry still lifes, whose lyricism is as clean as snow falling onto bare trees, through the grapplings with injustice, to the mannered ghazals of the last decades, without seeing that Blys career is one of the few great models of integrating the citizen with the mystic, whose body of work makes the argument that being a poet does not excuse you from joining in the national debate? IF THEY COME FOR US Poems By Fatimah Asghar 106 pp. One World. Paper, $16. Image Asghar lost her parents young; with family roots in Pakistan and in divided Kashmir, she grew up in the United States, a queer Muslim teenager and an orphan in the confusing, unfair months and years after 9/11. From that experience she has made a book that deserves broad attention. If They Come for Us encompasses clear, compact free verse, ghazals (a kind of couplet with South Asian roots), a crown of sonnets and poems that imitate Mad Libs, glossaries, floor plans and crosswords, all set against the kinds of frustration and injustice, existential and political, that Asghar has seen or known. All the worlds earth is my mommas grave, she declares. Theres a border on my back. Bits of Urdu (ghareeb, khaala, khalu), along with facts of South Asian history, signal Asghars multiple belongings and her bicultural strivings, both to stand out and to belong: hand-sewn kupre each Eid, velvet scrunchies to match, boy-girl / feet pounding the ground. Some pages seem designed to inspire teenagers (by no means a weakness); others, like Asghars wonderfully mordant Microaggression Bingo, suggest the inventions of Terrance Hayes. A standout sequence links the oil and blood of the wars in Iraq to family ties (blood), to menstruation and bad skin, as international conflict and American prejudice inform what would otherwise just come off as teenage angst: All the people I could be are dangerous. / The blood clotting, oil in my veins. EACH TREE COULD HOLD A NOOSE OR A HOUSE By Nina Puro 127 pp. New Issues. Paper, $16. Image The personal is political for Puro, too: The anguish and drama in this capacious first volume arise both without and within. Its a tumultuous, unguarded collection of free verse in many contours, modes and sizes, some nearly baroque in their deep-delving obscurity, some plainly confessional, devoted to troubles shared by many women and girls: If I had gone to prom or college instead of hospitals, if Id had family or mentors, would I have become a queer poet? Eating disorders and exurban isolation add to the pain in the voices that Puro shapes, in which love is a transactional convolution. Breath is cheap. These poems tend to end up dramatic, breathtaking, alive with an almost self-immolating energy inseparable from youth, hordes of kids riding bareback / off cliffs with satin ribbons in their hair & the horses manes. Puro also demonstrates a sense of invention through long titles: How to Arrest Time by Crushing Rust to Powder; elegy with five-finger discount on smallpox blanket. Some poems organize themselves around extended sentences and new metaphors for heartbreak or outrage, exploring the rough country located halfway between Dylan Thomas and Tori Amos. Others exhaust themselves in page-long lists or pinch themselves into tiny lines. For all of the books attention to the hot, colorful self, Puro (now a social worker in Brooklyn) understands the social and structural elements rigid gender roles, geographic isolation, economic wrongs that brought these troubled figures to this pass: The dead girls miss us, but not much. They miss neon afghans. They do not miss the police. Investors were confronted on Friday with more evidence that the trade war between the United States and China is weighing on economic growth, and stocks fell to their deepest decline of the week. The S&P 500-stock index fell 1.9 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index dropped 2.3 percent, and the Dow Jones industrial average was down 2 percent. All three of these indexes are more than 10 percent below their recent peaks. Such declines are typically described as corrections, a designation that describes a market thats seriously slumping but not yet in bear-market territory of losses of more than 20 percent. Weak data on industrial output and retail sales in China kicked off the global market downturn Friday. The numbers further inflamed worries among investors that the trade war between the United States and China is beginning to slow global economic growth. China, the worlds second-largest economy, had reported a slowdown in trade and economic growth in recent weeks. But the numbers on retail sales and industrial output suggested that the slowdown deepened in November. That is where HSBC came in. Since at least 2009, Huawei had been a client of the bank. In 2013, a report by Reuters revealed that Huawei, through a subsidiary called Skycom, had been secretly doing business in Iran a country subject to stringent international sanctions. HSBC asked Huawei if the Reuters report was true. It was a big concern for the bank, because the previous year federal prosecutors had accused it of willfully failing to stop money laundering by customers, including in countries like Iran. To settle that investigation, HSBC had paid a $1.9 billion fine, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to have a court-supervised monitor installed inside the bank. While American companies are legally restricted from doing business with people and institutions in countries under United States sanctions, nothing stops Huawei from doing so. But if an international bank like HSBC moves money through the United States on its way to or from Iran, that potentially violates American law which is what HSBC executives were apparently worried about with Huawei and Skycom. Huawei sent Ms. Meng a daughter of Huaweis founder, Ren Zhengfei to try to assuage HSBCs concerns. In August 2013, she gave a PowerPoint presentation to HSBC officials in which she denied that Huawei was connected to Skycom. She also said Huawei had complied with American sanctions and would not use HSBC for any transactions in Iran, according to Canadian court filings. While Ms. Mengs presentation was in Chinese, Huawei later sent an English version to the bank. HSBC has been working with Huawei for a long time and has a deep understanding of Huaweis history of growth around the world, the presentation said. We have been and will continue to be transparent. The presentation was kept on file at HSBC. Several of the banks risk-assessment committees relied on it to justify continuing to do business with Huawei. By 2014, the bank had unwittingly cleared more than $100 million in transactions with Skycom in Iran, according to federal prosecutors. WELLINGTON, New Zealand The New Zealand government admonished Google on Friday for disclosing the identity of a man charged with killing a female British backpacker, highlighting the tension that arises when local courts order the suppression of information that can be easily found online. Google executives from the United States and Britain are set to travel to New Zealand to meet with Andrew Little, the justice minister, on Tuesday. Mr. Little is demanding that the company change its algorithms to ensure that material published outside New Zealand that violates local court suppression orders is not visible in the country. The dispute was prompted by the first court appearance, on Monday, of a 26-year-old man accused of killing Grace Millane, the backpacker, who was visiting Auckland. She vanished the day before her 22nd birthday after a night out with the man; her body was found a week later on the citys western edge. While Ms. Millane was missing, her family appealed to the public for information about what might have happened to her. The case captured more attention around the world than any other killing in New Zealand in recent years and it provoked a conversation about violence against women. Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter. World leaders struck an agreement three years ago in Paris to avert the worst effects of climate change, accepting not only that greenhouse gases were dangerously heating the planet, but also that every single country needed to do its part to curtail emissions. Now, emissions are rising in the United States and China, the worlds two largest economies. Other countries are backsliding on their commitments. The world as a whole is not meeting its targets under the Paris pact. As diplomats meet in Katowice, Poland, this week to bring the deal into effect, the worlds 7.6 billion people face mounting risks from more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and wildfires. The Paris Agreement, it seems, is only as good as the willingness of national leaders to keep their word. We have the ways, Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said this week in Katowice. What we need is the political will to move forward. Before reading the article: What do you know about the recent wildfires in California? (You can read an overview here.) Were you or anyone you know affected by the fires? Watch this two-minute video: We Lost Everything: Surveying the Camp Fires Destruction. What do you imagine are the challenges that people of Paradise, Calif., face after their homes and community have been destroyed? What specific challenges might teenagers of Paradise face? Now, read the article, Their Plans Derailed by a Wildfire, Seniors at Paradise High School Wonder Whats Next, and answer the following questions: 1. The Paradise High School building is cordoned off in an evacuation zone. Where is the school temporarily housed? How do conditions in the temporary school make learning difficult for Paradise students? 2. The article details many challenges students face in trying to complete their senior year. What are three typical senior-year activities that have been disrupted by the fire? In 1978, China launched economic reforms that subsequently touched different aspects of citizens' lives, including music. A year earlier, the national college entrance exam resumedafter the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) had endedand the Beijing-based Central Conservatory of Music, which also reopened then, set up four student-enrollment offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, attracting over 170,000 applicants. But only 105 students could be admitted to the school in 1977. The six teachers of the conservatory then, including Li Chunguang and Yang Jun, wrote a letter to the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, asking for permission to increase the intake of students. Two days later, Deng replied, saying he had agreed to their request. The number was raised to 213. "The teachers wrote the letter because they saw many talented youngsters at the audition and hoped that the young people would get the opportunity to study in the school," said music conductor and president of the Central Conservatory of Music, Yu Feng, during a forum at the school on Dec 10, marking the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening-up. "It helped define an era of China's music scene." Two concerts were held at the National Center for the Performing Arts on Dec 10 and 11, with performances by the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Chen Lin, a student of Yu. They showcased China's achievements in classical music over the past 40 years. The repertories featured pieces by graduates of the conservatory, who are world-renowned musicians today, including Extase for oboe and orchestra by Chen Qigang, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by Tan Dun and Horizon, Op 20, for soprano, baritone and orchestra by Ye Xiaogang. The renowned Chinese composers, Ye, Tan and Chen, who enrolled at the conservatory to study music composition in 1978, gave speeches at the forum, recalling their school days and sharing their understanding of the changes in the country's music scene both as witnesses and creators. "Western classical music started taking root in China less than 100 years ago and has achieved a lot, especially since the reform and opening-up started," says Ye, 63, who was born in a musicians' family in Shanghai and started learning the piano at age 4. Now, he is the chairman of the Chinese Musicians' Association and a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music. He initiated the Beijing Modern Music Festival 16 years ago. Ye came to Beijing when he was 23 years old and began his studies at the conservatory. He worked in a factory in Shanghai for six years before that. "We benefitted from the reform and opening-up, and the resumption of the national college entrance exam. Now, Chinese musicians perform internationally. Looking back, the year 1978 laid the base for China's rise on the global stage," says Ye, adding that the originality and creativity of Chinese composers has been among the important changes in the classical music scene in China in the past four decades. "The merger of Western classical music and Chinese culture has made the works of Chinese composers unique," Ye adds. New York-based composer Tan, 61, who was born in Hunan province and joined a local Peking Opera troupe before he went to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, says his favorite place as a student at the conservatory 40 years ago was the library there. "I read books and scores in the library after classes. So did my classmates. We wanted to learn, to practice and to test our musical ideas. Now, I want to know what the young students read." Tan's works cover various genres, including orchestra, opera and film scores. One of his most famous works is composing the Oscar-winning soundtrack of Ang Lee's 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Tan recalls that his years at the school introduced him to a wide range of international classical and contemporary music, which laid the foundation for his future experiments that transcended style and cultural boundaries in composition. "Now my elder son is interested in movies while my younger son, who is 12 years old, loves music. He reminds me of my younger days and I am grateful for the life-changing experience 40 years ago," Tan says. If audiences outside the Middle East have never heard of the Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, her latest feature might change that. That poignant drama, Capernaum, follows a boy who runs away and winds up roaming the slums of Beirut shouldering a distressing responsibility. At its premiere at Cannes in May, the film received a 15-minute standing ovation and went on to win the Jury Prize, one of many honors on the festival circuit. This month it secured a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign-language film, paving the way for a potential Oscar nomination in the same category. And the critic A.O. Scott of The Times named it one of the 10 best movies of the year, writing that Labaki refuses to lose sight of the exuberance, grit and humor that people hold onto even in moments of the greatest desperation. [Read our critics top 10 films of the year.] Much like Labakis past movies, Caramel and Where Do We Go Now?, Capernaum features a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors, and tackles societal ills. But it stands out as a cautionary tale. And critics have been in awe of its young stars: Zain al Rafeea, a 12-year-old Syrian refugee, and Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, an impressive baby girl cast as a boy. New Yorkers tend to discover Brighton Beach by accident. They set off for Coney Island, but through train mishaps or sheer excitement at the first sight of the sea, they get off at the wrong stop and are confronted with its grumpy next-door neighbor instead. If they do make it to Coney Island, they might stroll down the shore, until the sea turns to vodka and the newspapers turn Cyrillic. Regardless of how they get there, they seem to peregrinate in a fog, for which they can hardly be blamed: In Brighton Beach, questions are deeply frowned upon, then ignored. But no ones coming to Brighton Beach for clarity. A dose of local exoticism is the best they can hope for. And after wandering up and down the boardwalk, marveling at the decked-out seniors the ladies in fur coats with radioactively purple hair and men in track suits playing backgammon as if their lives depended on it, which they quite possibly did in the Siberian prisons after devouring the warm piroshki (flying saucers of fried dough), tanning alongside the master tanners whove got it down to a science, and braving the dour ladies in paper hats who dole out the delicacies the land has on offer, the visitors will sigh contentedly, as after a battle won, and say that theyre going back to Brooklyn. A slip of the tongue, perhaps, but it means something. And what it means is that Brighton Beach is a universe unto itself, with its own time, its own language, its own customs, for which it makes no apologies. If you dont get it, its your loss. [What you need to know to start your day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Representative Chris Collins was narrowly re-elected to a fourth term, overcoming his indictment on insider trading charges and a prolonged vote count that left him with more than a 2,500-vote cushion. Mr. Collins, a Republican from Western New York, defeated Nate McMurray, the Democratic town supervisor of Grand Island, N.Y., The Associated Press declared on Friday. Mr. McMurray had initially conceded the race on Election Day, but reconsidered the next morning, saying the race was too close to call. The race represented a startling turnaround for Mr. Collins, who had withdrawn from the contest in the 27th District after his indictment in August. The existence of the investigation and the problematic bolts was first reported by WNBC-TV. NBC reported that some of the allegations emerged through a whistle-blower complaint filed by a former safety inspector; the complaint included a conversation with an ironworker foreman about the broken bolts. A partial transcript of that conversation was included in a PowerPoint presentation made by a law firm for the whistle-blower, which was obtained by The New York Times. Thats a spot that doesnt break, the foreman says of the part of the bolt that broke, according to the transcript, the foreman describes the fracture as a major defect that does not normally occur and, if discovered, would probably shut the whole job down. Contractors faced a deadline in 2018, and for each day it exceeded the deadline, it would owe money to the state in the neighborhood of $100,000 a day. The presentation suggests that the bolts failed because of so-called hydrogen embrittlement the same problem that plagued the San Francisco Bay Bridge in California, and which had to be repaired at great expense. State officials in New York began testing the bolts there are as many as one million used in the bridge as early as February 2016, before it was aware of the investigation, a state official said. An outside engineering firm, Alta Vista, completed a study in late 2017; the report, obtained by The Times, concluded there was compelling evidence that hydrogen embrittlement is not a cause of the observed bolt failures. With an eye toward neighborliness, New Jersey plans to ban the use of marijuana in large multifamily homes, high-density apartment buildings and public housing. So to make it more accessible, the bill proposes allowing marijuana dispensaries to set up sections of their business, separate from the retail area, where customers could take what they bought and enjoy it. We think that this should be treated equivalently to alcohol in many respects and allowing for safe and regulated public consumption is just one aspect of that, said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the National Cannabis Industry Association. The bill also would allow casinos in Atlantic City, and other hotels in the state to designate up to 20 percent of their space and rooms for guests to use marijuana. Who started it: The first state to propose consumption areas was Alaska, which is still debating the idea even though it has legalized marijuana. For now, Nevada is the only state that permits cannabis lounges statewide. Some counties and cities in California and Colorado have also begun allowing similar operations. Promoting micro-businesses What this means: A way to encourage mom-and-pop shops. The fine print: Cannabis is a multibillion dollar industry in the United States and several large corporations are eagerly anticipating the opening of the New Jersey retail market, especially because it is so close to New York City and Philadelphia. But to promote small businesses, the bill mandates that 25 percent of licenses be given to shops that have no more than 10 workers in a space smaller than 2,500 square feet and that process less than 1,000 pounds of cannabis every month. To the Editor: Re Trump Has Allies on Fossil Fuels (front page, Dec. 11): President Trumps climate adviser, Wells Griffith, clarified something important on Monday during climate talks in Poland. Its not that he and his ilk dont get the dangers of heating up the planet to the breaking point. They just dont care. We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice their economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability, Mr . Griffith said. Whatever they want, they see as fair game. And therein lies the danger of this greedy and reckless administration. Amy Knitzer Montclair, N.J. To the Editor: Re Scientists Warn of a Rapid Unraveling of the Arctic (news article, Dec. 12): How many more carefully researched reports will need to be released before we finally act in a substantive way to protect our only home, planet Earth? Politicians may choose to ignore these findings, as most Republicans will, but nature wont stop changing just because these dire warnings are dismissed. Although I do all I can to reduce my carbon footprint, this is not nearly enough to protect my family and community from the effects of climate change. We need the help of courageous political leaders to address climate change before its too late. Laws need to be enacted now to reduce our energy use and protect us from the ravages of rising seas, increased temperatures and more intense storms. And what he required of America was what he required of Cohen. We had to bury values that should never be buried. In our case that meant condoning Trumps racism; indulging his corrosive conspiracy theories and self-preserving lies; permitting his demonization of institutions and people and whole countries; interpreting cruelty as candor and provocation as strength. Too many of us assented. In front of the judge on Wednesday, Cohen said, I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands. He wondered aloud what had happened to his own inner voice, which, he said, should have warned me. One of his comments to Stephanopoulos perhaps explains that. There was a lot of fun going on at the Trump Organization, he said. Sleek skyscrapers. Ornate casinos. Private jets. The Miss Universe pageant. How it glittered, distracted and lulled, so that a henchman could forget the terms and price of it. Cohen said that in retrospect it was its own kind of incarceration, because it removed him from more important things: his family, his conscience, the respect that he owed his country. Maybe his words are simply strategic a bid for sympathy, lenience and redemption and maybe he has swapped one set of self-aggrandizing delusions for another. He told Stephanopoulos that by accepting blame for his wrongdoing and cooperating with prosecutors, he hoped that he would be remembered in history as helping to bring this country back together. Well need a lot more than Cohens penitence for that. For every leader there are at least 10 followers ready to trade the burden and bedlam of independent thought for a playbook that tells them exactly what to do. Some of them find it in religion, others in business, still others in politics. And con men like Trump can spot them a mile away. Trump looked at Cohen and correctly saw someone who wasnt going to be in the fast lane unless hitched to him, and he sensed that Cohen knew it. Trump looked at America and correctly saw an anxious, uncertain populace that was ripe for facile answers, scapegoats and a narrative of unjust victimization. So he pounced. And here we are, in an even more uncertain place, with a sentence yet to be handed down. In The Atlantic in early August, Peter Beinart, discussing Cohen, noted, Its not just the presidents longtime lawyer whos stuck cleaning up his messes anymore. The Yellow Vest protests that have convulsed France for the past few weeks, leaving chic Parisian neighborhoods smoldering, are making environmentalists nervous. The protests began in reaction to President Emmanuel Macrons announcement that a planned increase in taxes on gasoline, part of an ongoing ambitious effort to combat global warming, would take effect in January. Though the tax was favored by Parisians, who have access to efficient public transportation, it was seen as a provocation by struggling residents of the countrys rural and suburban areas. (The taxes are rising on everything, a rural retiree told a reporter from this newspaper. They put taxes on top of taxes.) Caught off guard by the intensity and popularity of the protests, Mr. Macron backed down on the tax hike, but not before the Yellow Vest movement morphed into a leaderless, anti-establishment revolt that now threatens his government. As with working-class support for the faltering coal industry in the United States, the question arises: Is environmentalism a boutique issue, a cause only the well-off can afford to worry about? Some social science suggests the answer is yes. In a landmark 1995 paper, the sociologist Ronald Inglehart observed an intriguing pattern in public support for the environmental movement. According to a public opinion survey he conducted in 43 nations, the countries where large percentages of the population supported strong environmental policies shared two characteristics: They were dealing with major environmental challenges (air and water pollution and species conservation were among the top priorities at the time) and they were affluent. Ever since the 2016 election, its been common for some people to refer to whatever year were in as a synonym for dystopian weirdness. (Last year, for example, CNNs Jake Tapper tweeted Peak 2017 about a headline saying, US ambassador denies own comments, then denies denial.) The world has felt continuously off-kilter, like a TV drama whose writers developed a sudden fondness for psilocybin. Last month astronomers at Harvard wrote that a strange oblong space object may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization, and it barely made a ripple in the news. There was simply too much else going on. Amid this ceaseless barrage, things many of us have taken for granted have been called into question, including the endurance of liberal democracy, the political salience of truth and the assumption that it would be a big scandal if a president were caught directing illegal payoffs to a pornographic film actress. Often it feels like in American politics, none of the old rules still apply. But in 2018, they did. (At least some of them.) Alien probes aside, this was a year in which things started to make sense again. The Democratic landslide in the midterms proved that the laws of political gravity havent been suspended; Trumps incompetence, venality and boorishness had electoral consequences. Further, it was a year of justice and accountability for at least some of those who foisted this administration on the country. An awful menagerie of lowlifes was swept into power by Trumps victory two years ago. In 2018, at least some of them started to fall back out again. [Listen to The Argument podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.] This past summer, Microsoft also donated $1,000 to Roger Roth, the Republican president of the Wisconsin Senate. Last week, Roth ordered the senate galleries be cleared of protesters before senators voted on bills that would strip power from the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general. Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor, still needs to sign the bills for them to become law. This week, a Microsoft spokes woman who asked not to be named said the following to my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick: As a company working to encourage technology innovation in Wisconsin, were concerned that this effort will undermine the states ability to attract investment. We believe the states future will be better served if Governor Walker vetoes these measures. J.P. Morgan Chase would not defend or criticize the power grab. It issued a statement to us saying that it donated a roughly equal amount of money to Republicans and Democrats in Wisconsin during the recent election cycle. The company has no further comment on its donations. Humana officials declined to discuss the substance of the situation: We have not directly or indirectly engaged in the current issues advanced by legislative leadership following the recent election, the company said. Dr Pepper Snapple did not respond to requests for comment. Walgreens was the focus of my column this week. It made three donations to Wisconsin Republicans this year, evidently as a thank-you for protecting a property-tax loophole that saves Walgreens a lot of money. Brian Faith, a Walgreens vice president, told me that the companys government-relations team called the offices of both Walker and the top two leaders in the Wisconsin Legislature. In those phones calls, company officials formally voiced Walgreens opposition to the measures aimed at restricting the powers of the incoming administration. The company also filed a public notice expressing opposition to a bill that would limit the incoming governors power on parts of health care policy. Faith told me: I know you think we should also request our contributions back, as we did with Senator Hyde-Smith [the Mississippi senator who made a joke referring to lynching]. I would suggest theres a difference between disagreeing with a political/policy action or position versus a situation where highly charged words and phrases were used publicly by a candidate with racial connotations that offended key stakeholders and are at odds with our companys values. China commended the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO) for its important role in safeguarding the rights and interests of WTO members and maintaining international trade order, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Commerce said Thursday. Spokesperson Gao Feng made the remarks after the European Union (EU) had agreed to grant more low-tariff quotas to Chinese poultry meat, including the quotas for 5,000 tonnes of chicken meat and 6,600 tonnes of duck meat. The new tariff quotas were expected to be implemented in the first quarter of 2019. China filed a complaint to the WTO against the EU over high poultry tariffs in April 2015, putting forth a consultation request and formally starting WTO dispute settlement procedures. In April 2017, the WTO ruled that EU's poultry tariff quota management had violated its rules. To implement the ruling, China and the EU had conducted several rounds of negotiations on granting Chinese poultry meat more low-tariff quotas and signed an agreement on Nov. 30 in Geneva. "China welcomed the agreement and appreciated the cooperative attitudes of the EU in negotiations," said Gao. He said the case was a significant step actively taken by China to safeguard the interests of domestic industries through the WTO dispute settlement mechanism as well as a successful example for China and other WTO members to tackle trade disputes under the WTO framework. At a time when protectionism is on the rise and damaging the multilateral trading system, both sides have set up a typical example in using consultations to solve trade disputes, achieve win-win results and maintain the authority of the rule-based multilateral trading system, said Yang Guohua, a professor with the Law School at Tsinghua University. Pu Lingchen, a lawyer and partner of Zhong Lun Law Firm, said China's method and attitude in tackling the poultry tariff dispute reflected the country's resolute support of the WTO rules and dispute settlement mechanism. It is estimated that the new quota will increase Chinese poultry products subject to low tariffs to more than 10,000 tonnes from current around 100 tonnes. To meet the export requirements of the EU, China's poultry industry has invested a total of 2.8 billion yuan (about 407 million U.S. dollars) to renovate farms and upgrade processing equipment. Nearly 50,000 Chinese work in the poultry meat production industry. Yu Lu, vice president of the China Chamber of Commerce of Foodstuffs and Native Produce, said the agreement would create a fairer trade environment for Chinese firms specialized in poultry exports, boost China's poultry export and enrich the poultry meat supply of the EU at more favorable prices. Wolves are thought of as red-meat eaters, but a team of biologists in northern Minnesota, near Voyageurs National Park, has documented a pack that often enjoys a meal of fish. It is a rare glimpse of wolves catching and eating freshwater fish, although they have been observed eating spawning salmon along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. The discovery was just published in the journal Mammalian Biology. Wolves in Yellowstone have been known to chow down on trout, but its unclear whether they actually caught the fish or if the catch was already dead. It is exceedingly rare, but they do it, said Douglas Smith, the parks wolf biologist. Wolves were collared by the Voyageurs Wolf Project for research into pack territory and prey, primarily beaver but also deer fawns and moose calves. If wolves spent more than 20 minutes without moving, researchers went to the site to see if they were eating and if so, what it was. Apple said it would update the software of iPhones in China to try to resolve a legal dispute that threatens to stop the company from selling older iPhones in the country. Apple and its longtime chip supplier, Qualcomm, have been fighting in court over Apples use of Qualcomms technology. On Nov. 30, a Chinese court ruled Apple must immediately stop selling seven older iPhone models in China because it infringed on two Qualcomm patents. But Apple has not stopped selling those iPhones there. The company has argued the phones are not subject to the ruling because they are running new software that was not discussed at trial. On Friday, Apple said in a statement that it would update its iPhones in China early next week to address any possible concern about our compliance with the order. Apple said its update would change the iPhones software so it did not infringe on Qualcomm patents, which relate to switching between apps and changing the size and appearance of photographs. PARIS Last Saturday, Thomas Miralles donned a yellow vest in his hometown in southern France and headed out to protest President Emmanuel Macron and high taxes. Afterward, he and other demonstrators around the country returned home, just as they had done every weekend for the past month. But though they were no longer gathered together in town squares and on the streets, Mr. Miralles and many fellow protesters were far from dispersed. Away from the television cameras and police lines, they kept coordinating their actions online mostly on Facebook. While attention has been directed at the dramatic Saturday protests across France, much of the action occurs on the social network the rest of the week. Between Sunday and Friday, people like Mr. Miralles broadcast Facebook Live sessions, share sensational videos of police aggression, host polls to crowdsource what issues to talk about during coming TV interviews, and plot their next moves. Both fuel each other, said Mr. Miralles, 27, a real-estate agent in Perpignan who moderates a Facebook group for protesters that has amassed more than 305,000 members. Without Facebook there wouldnt be such a movement, but the online activity is fueled by the energy in the streets. Each week, technology reporters and columnists from The New York Times review the weeks news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Hello, dear readers. Im Daisuke Wakabayashi, a reporter covering Google in our San Francisco bureau. This past week, however, I spent my time in the nations capital covering the congressional hearing for Sundar Pichai, Googles chief executive. He faced questions about the companys data-collection practices, about accusations of bias against conservatives in search results and about Googles possible plans to provide a censored search engine for China. It was the first congressional hearing I had attended, and the spectacle was eye-opening. It underscored, to me, how Silicon Valley and Washington exist in their bubbles without really understanding each other. Lawmakers seemed like out-of-touch old people with little grasp of how technology works and where the real risks lie. Mr. Pichai came across as evasive and unwilling to acknowledge the legitimate concerns about Googles business practices. At holiday parties and informal discussions in Washington, the conversation often turned to big tech and privacy. There seemed to be a growing wariness among lawmakers, regulators and aides about data collection and the unrelenting push by companies to gather more information about us. Viscontis opulent films do not exactly cry out for translation to the stage; Ingmar Bergman, whose existential cinema relies heavily on lengthy monologues, seems a far likelier candidate for adaptation. The Swedish masters centennial year, which is now drawing to a close, has seen a slew of plays based on his vast screen output, both in his native Sweden and throughout Europe. Bergman, who died in 2007, was also a prolific director for the theater, and many of his films show a debt to Chekhov, Strindberg and Ibsen. Given this, it seems counterintuitive and audacious that his daughter Anna Bergman has chosen to adapt for the stage one of his most experimental and purely cinematic works, Persona (1966). A coproduction of the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Malmo City Theater in Sweden (which Bergman himself ran between 1953 and 1960), Ms. Bergmans Persona uses a dazzling set, an onstage deluge, ample video and good old-fashioned monologues to breathe fresh life into this intense, enigmatic study of psychological disintegration and transference. Karin Lithman and Corinna Harfouch slip into the characters memorably portrayed by Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson in the film: an actress who mysteriously stops speaking in the middle of a performance and the nurse who takes care of her at a cottage on a secluded island. Ms. Harfouch, who does virtually all the talking, renders Nurse Almas changing, often conflicted emotions compelling and believable. Ms. Lithman is no less impressive in her silent role, as she reacts to her caregiver with, progressively, indifference, hostility and affection. (Midway through the run, the actresses will switch roles.) A mirrored band shell (sets: Joe Schramm) is a clever and versatile setting: The warped reflections echo the surreal, off-kilter aspects of the film. But one of the productions few missteps is Sebastian Pirchers video. While the live close-ups of the actresses (camera: Robert Hanisch) add another level of intimacy, an elaborately nightmarish dream sequence threatens to overwhelm the actors stellar work by giving a visual representation of the psychological breakdown that has already been beautifully suggested through word and gesture. When you move to a new city, its tough to make friends. You can search online communities for meet-ups, strike up fumbling conversations in coffee shops or bother friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends, until they extend invitations. Or you can rent a small theater for four or five months and cajole a bunch of famous and almost-famous actors to hang out onstage with you. Youll even provide snacks. That is the singular strategy adopted by the Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour. In Nassim, produced by Barrow Street Theatricals, a different actor bounds onstage every night to open an envelope stashed inside a bankers box. The actor doesnt know what the envelope contains, but Ill give it away: Its the first page of the script, which will eventually unite Mr. Soleimanpour and the actor (some early volunteers include Michael Urie, Michael Shannon, Tracy Letts and Cush Jumbo) in an affectionate double act. Mr. Soleimanpour, who begins his role offstage, is the silent partner. On the night I attended, the Broadway actress Linda Emond (Cabaret, Death of a Salesman), agreeable and plucky, opened that box. She read the script out loud its pages are projected onto a large screen so that the audience can follow along and obeyed its stage directions. When prompted, she told some stories. She learned some Farsi. She shared her favorite curse word, slutty. (Does Ms. Emond understand how curse words work?) Occasionally, she ate a cherry tomato. Mr. Soleimanpours theatrical style first came to New York a couple of years ago with White Rabbit Red Rabbit, a play that shares this cold-read conceit. An allegory about authoritarianism, it eventually asks the invited actor to drink from a possibly poisoned goblet. Lets lean on that possibly: Even if you suspend your disbelief from some very sturdy rigging, the likelihood that Mr. Soleimanpour will actually kill off a cluster of Tony nominees seems slim, which gives the play a deceitful, self-congratulatory vibe. Rates $155 and up The Basics For a 92-year-old hotel, the Hotel Figueroa is very on trend, as marketers like to say. It was built by the Y.W.C.A. as an exclusively female hostelry a spot where single women, including aspiring actresses, could stay without fear of the Harvey Weinsteins of the world. The Figueroa supposedly even gave the United States its first female hotel manager: Maude Bouldin, a motorcyle-riding tour de force. Facing mounting debt a few years after opening, the 14-story property had to abandon its single-sex focus. Then the long decline of downtown Los Angeles took a toll. By 2014, when new owners began a $60 million luxury revamp, the hotel had a Morocco-by-way-of-Sweden theme (dont ask) and was catering to discount German tour groups. The renovation, which was completed earlier this year, leans into the Figueroas feminist history, with artwork from local female artists on the walls and common spaces designed to host women-centric salons. Location The Fig, as locals know it, sits across the street from L.A. Live, a teeming complex where the masses feed at chain restaurants before heading to the adjacent Staples Center and Microsoft Theater. The Grammy Museum is also located there. Downtown stretches in the opposite direction, offering the gentrified foodie temple Grand Central Market and the restored Theater at Ace Hotel, which hosts indie bands and screens art films. The cavernous Flower Market to the south is eye-popping and only charges $1 admission on Saturdays. Parking around the Figueroa is plentiful; we skipped the hotels overnight option ($49.50 with tax) and paid a flat $22 at a lot a few feet away. PITTSBURGH It was a list Charles L. Bailey Jr. had wanted to see for years: the names of the priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Mr. Bailey, 67, a longtime local advocate for survivors of abuse by priests, had heard excuses for why such a list was impossible to release. The last bishop said naming accused priests would be a violation of the Ten Commandments. The current bishop said he would not disclose the names, citing the request of unnamed victims. But then on Dec. 3, Mr. Bailey got a call from a local reporter. It was up, on the diocesan website. Fifty-seven priests. None were still in ministry and most were deceased, including, there on Page 4, the priest who had repeatedly raped Mr. Bailey when he was not yet a teenager. As the Catholic Church faces a wave of federal and state attorney general investigations into its handling of sex abuse, bishops around the country have struggled with how to react. Some have locked down defensively. Others are waiting on guidance from the Vatican, which instructed American bishops last month to wait on taking any collective action until the new year. It was a typical, single-family house with a landscaped yard and Christmas decorations in a quiet neighborhood in eastern Pennsylvania. But this week investigators, acting on a tip, uncovered a secret in the basement a drug operation worth an estimated $8 million a week. On Wednesday, prosecutors announced that 11 people were charged with felony drug offenses in the bust, which was believed to be one of the largest in the county. This is a regular, middle-class, 9-to-5 neighborhood, Matthew D. Weintraub, the Bucks County district attorney, said in an interview on Friday. This is the place you would think of as Middle America. When Mr. Weintraub announced the drug bust on Wednesday during a news conference, local television stations showed footage of the house at 669 Cheryl Drive in Warminster Township and its broken window and door. Acting on an anonymous tip received in July, F.B.I., county and state law enforcement agents carried out the raid on Tuesday night. Mr. Christie has been a friend of Mr. Trumps for nearly two decades, and was one of his most prominent early supporters after it became clear that Mr. Trump was the leading contender for the Republican nomination in 2016. But after Mr. Trumps election, he was dismissed as head of his transition team, and he did not end up with a job in the administration. People close to him said the only one he had been interested in was attorney general. Still, Mr. Christie has remained close to the president and was considered one of the top prospects for replacing Mr. Kelly, who is scheduled to leave the White House in a few weeks. Mr. Christie, according to several White House officials, had some of the key characteristics of what Mr. Trump wants in a chief of staff. Paramount among them is personal chemistry with the president, who has made clear that he wants someone he personally likes for his third chief of staff. Mr. Trumps first choice to replace Mr. Kelly, Nick Ayers, a Georgia political operative who is now Vice President Mike Pences chief of staff, turned down an offer from the president over the weekend and plans to leave the administration. Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who said publicly that he was interested in the job, was ruled out by the White House on Tuesday. For Mr. Christie, who has two children in high school, the job would have been a personal sacrifice. Mr. Christie has a memoir coming out next year, which is expected to touch on his tenure as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. During that time, he prosecuted Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trumps son-in-law, a task that has since complicated his relationship with the Trump family. China-Europe freight trains made 5,611 trips in the first 11 months of 2018, surging 72 percent compared with the same period last year, according to a meeting held in southwest China's Sichuan Province. In 2017, more than 3,000 trips were made via the China-Europe freight trains between cities on the two continents. The number is expected to reach 6,000 in 2018, according to the meeting held by the Transport Coordinating Committee of China Railway Corporation's China-Europe project. As of November, the trains connect 56 Chinese cities with 49 European cities in 15 European countries. The number of trips from Europe to China has increased and accounted for 71 percent of the trips to Europe, according to the committee. In late August, the trains marked their 10,000th trip since beginning operations in March 2011. The China-Europe freight rail services have pushed forward China's opening-up and boosted economic and trade cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road, the China Railway Corporation said in a statement. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond. Over the past five years, China's trade in goods with countries along the Belt and Road exceeded 5.5 trillion U.S. dollars. Chinese direct investment in the non-financial sectors of these countries reached 80 billion dollars during the same period. BALTIMORE Senator Elizabeth Warren, in a commencement speech Friday at historically black Morgan State University, mixed her trademark language denouncing economic inequality with more explicit indictments of racial discrimination, giving what could be a preview of a possible appeal to black voters should she run for president. The system is rigged, Ms. Warren said, but its particularly pitted against minority communities and politicians must recognize those unique challenges and address them. Under the rules of commencement speakers I am required to say, Work hard. And you should, Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, said. But Im here with a bolder message: Its time to change the rules. Let me say that again for those in the back. Change. The. Rules. Im not a person of color. And I havent lived your life or experienced anything like the subtle prejudice, or more overt harm, that you may have experienced just because of the color of your skin. Rules matter, and our government not just individuals within the government, but the government itself has systematically discriminated against black people in this country. What Was Said Kellyanne Conway: Christopher, in April of 2018, Donald J. Trump, the president, and everybody else were told about the payments. Chris Cuomo, CNN anchor: He knew about it from its inception. He came up with the plan. Ms. Conway: No, no, no, hold on. Youre saying incontrovertible based on the testimony of people who are trying to get a better deal and a lighter sentence for themselves. Be fair here. Dont call incontrovertible because you imbue credibility on individuals Mr. Cuomo: I have a tape of him discussing what to do with Michael Cohen. in an interview with CNN on Thursday False. Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trumps former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty in August to breaking campaign finance laws when he arranged payments to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep them from talking about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump. Ms. Conway is a counselor to Mr. Trump. Her suggestion that the president did not know about these payments until this year is not credible, given the audio recording, news reports and statements from Mr. Trumps current lawyer. American Media Inc., the parent company of The National Enquirer, has admitted that it purchased the story of one of the women, Karen McDougal, to suppress it, prosecutors said this week. The tape that Mr. Cuomo referred to is a recording between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump in which they discussed the payment to Ms. McDougal, a former Playboy model. The recording was made in September 2016, according to CNN, and was publicly released this summer. Ronald D. Vitiello, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the arrests and deportations have increased public safety, and made communities safer. He also said the numbers show the need for Congress to provide enough resources to keep up with a surge in migrants arriving at the Southwest border, and prodded lawmakers to increase the number of beds needed for detention. Over all, the number of migrants apprehended at the border is far behind the peak of 1.6 million in 2000. He said the construction of a border wall, as Mr. Trump has demanded, would give us less work to do. It would reduce the workload across the board, said Mr. Vitiello, a former Border Patrol agent. Most of the arrests of immigrants included charges of driving under the influence, drug violations and breaking immigration laws, the data show. Over the last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement also has increased the number of detainers it issues, asking state and local law enforcement agencies to hold undocumented immigrants until they can be retrieved, within 48 hours as required. The agency said it issued 177,147 detainers in the 2018 fiscal year an increase of 24 percent from the previous year. The increase came even as several cities and states have passed laws to prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Agency officials said the refusal to honor detainers has led to dangerous criminals being released. In his first week in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold billions of federal dollars from cities and counties that ignored I.C.E. requests. The order is being fought in the courts. WASHINGTON The special counsels office rejected on Friday a suggestion from Michael T. Flynn, President Trumps former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying last year to F.B.I. agents investigating Russias election interference and ties to Trump associates. Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Mr. Flynn to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the news media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications during the presidential transition with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time. Neither his lawyers nor Mr. Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, have explained why he lied to the F.B.I., a felony that he pleaded guilty to a year ago. But in a memo this week seeking leniency, his lawyers revealed details from the interview that stoked an unfounded theory that Mr. Flynns demeanor during questioning indicated that he did not understand that he was being formally investigated. They also blamed the F.B.I. for not informing Mr. Flynn ahead of time that lying to agents is illegal an argument that prosecutors repudiated. A sitting national security adviser, former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant general and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents, prosecutors for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, wrote in court papers. He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Mr. Mulvaney was hardly the kind of peacemaker needed to smooth relations between the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill. What he did at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was destroy an agency and undermine its mission, Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview. He seems to be a Trump surrogate with a clear agenda, and my fear is he will exacerbate divisions at a time when they need to be bridged. Last year, Mr. Trump asked him to oversee the consumer bureau, an agency the president was bent on diminishing. That led to a messy public spat and court hearing as the Trump administration wrested control over the financial watchdog from an Obama-era holdover. Mr. Mulvaney quickly went to work on the presidents mission. He seemed to relish his role at the agency, where he tried to vastly curtail its activities, including virtually freezing new investigations and changing its well-known name in an attempt to unbrand it. When he first took over, he promised to split his time between the budget office and the consumer bureau, which is within walking distance of the White House. But as the months dragged on, he spent less time at the bureau and toward the end of his tenure there employees reported seeing him no more than once or twice a week. Mr. Mulvaney was one of the few prospects for the chief of staff job who was seen as openly campaigning for it over most of the year. At one point, he told the president he was right for it because he was the only person in the administration leading a department that was not mired in scandal, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Mulvaney was not resigning from his job at the budget office, but would spend all of his time as chief of staff. He will turn over running the department to Russ Vought, the offices deputy director, at a somewhat precarious time. The budget deficit widened to $305 billion in October and November, compared with $202 billion from the same period last year, the Treasury Department reported on Thursday. A reporter asked if the administration would take any responsibility for the death. Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country? Mr. Gidley responded. No. Internal investigators at the Department of Homeland Security are looking into whether Border Patrol agents followed proper procedures while Jakelin was in their custody, officials said. An autopsy is expected, but the results may take several weeks, they said. The Washington Post first reported her death on Thursday. Officials at Customs and Border Protection, which is part of homeland security and which oversees the Border Patrol, told reporters on Friday that the group of migrants were initially held at a remote Border Patrol base. There, officials said, they were checked for health problems, given water and had access to bathrooms. Officials said Jakelins father signed a form saying she did not have any health problems. The document was in English, but officials said Border Patrol agents spoke with the father in Spanish and explained the form to him. But around 5 a.m. on Dec. 7, while the migrants where being bused to a Border Patrol station in Lordsburg, N.M. about three hours from where the group was initially apprehended the father reported that his daughter was sick and had started vomiting. Good Friday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ In a stinging bipartisan rebuke of President Trumps defense of Saudi Arabia after its role in the killing of a dissident journalist, the Senate voted to withdraw United States military support for the kingdoms war in Yemen. For nearly four years, American taxpayers have been footing the bill for a chunk of the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen. Now the Pentagon is correcting this accounting error, and has sent Saudi Arabia and its main partner, the United Arab Emirates, a $331 million bill for those overdue charges. Federal prosecutors are looking into whether individuals from Qatar and other Middle Eastern nations illegally funneled donations to Mr. Trumps inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence, according to people familiar with the inquiry. WASHINGTON Michael D. Cohen said in an interview broadcast Friday that he knew arranging payments during the 2016 campaign to quiet two women who claimed to have had affairs with President Trump was wrong. And, he said, Mr. Trump knew it was wrong at the time, too. Of course, Mr. Cohen, the presidents former personal lawyer, said when asked by the ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos whether the president was fully aware of what he was doing when Mr. Cohen made the payments. Mr. Cohen was speaking publicly for the first time since he was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to helping to arrange payments to the two women, a violation of campaign finance law, and to lying to Congress about the duration of deliberations about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. [Trump improvises new defense in hush money payments.] I am angry at myself because I knew what I was doing was wrong, Mr. Cohen said, his eyes swollen and purple, but he said he had come to terms with the value of telling the truth. FOX CROSSING, Wis. Gov. Scott Walker made a national name for himself in the Republican Party by cutting the power of public sector unions eight years ago, only weeks after he swept into office in Wisconsin. On Friday, he signed legislation to cut the power of the Democrat who defeated him, a final act of a tumultuous tenure that moved Wisconsin firmly to the right. The response from Democrats was swift and furious. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Mr. Walker in a hard-fought election last month, said the departing governor chose to ignore and override the will of the people. Liberal groups, including one led by Eric H. Holder Jr., a former United States attorney general, pledged to sue. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin sent her Democratic supporters an email calling the move a craven partisan attack on democracy and soliciting donations to her Vote Em Out Fund. The tactic by Mr. Walker and his allies came as part of an increasingly fractious struggle over power in the states, following a model set in North Carolina, where Republicans in 2016 tried to restrict the power of the governor after a Democrat was elected. Similar scenarios were playing out elsewhere. In New Jersey, Democrats were seeking to make Republicans a permanent minority by, in essence, writing gerrymandering into the State Constitution. In Michigan, Republicans this week were contemplating limits on incoming Democrats, and the outgoing governor, Rick Snyder, on Friday signed bills scaling back a minimum-wage increase and a paid-sick-leave measure that had been slated for statewide votes until Republicans intervened. Outside, a statue of his father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, a former rebel fighter turned authoritarian leader, rises in front of the sprawling complex, an index finger pointing at the sky as if he were about to sound a warning. Just a few days earlier, at least three people were killed in clashes with the police on the sidelines of an opposition rally, and a fire broke out in a building in the capital, where voting materials are kept. Around 8,000 of the 10,000 machines expected to be used for the city were destroyed, officials said, adding that the voting would go ahead anyway. Earlier, Mr. Kabila had appeared suddenly in front of reporters, having kept them waiting for hours in a stifling hallway in the presidential palace. He sported a white-tinged beard and was a plumper, older, slightly more tired version of the broad-shouldered, clean-shaven man whose portrait hangs virtually everywhere here, from hotels to supermarkets. (Do I have to lose a little weight? he asked, patting his stomach.) Over the summer, Mr. Kabila stunned the nation by naming as his favored successor Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister whose name resonates little beyond political circles in this country two-thirds the size of Western Europe. Mr. Shadary, considered to be a hard-liner, was said to have been chosen because he is malleable and has weak ties to the army and security services, two forces deeply loyal to Mr. Kabila. Mr. Shadary, who was targeted by a fresh round of sanctions by the European Union last week for brutally repressing protesters last year, is one of 21 candidates seeking the presidency and a whopping 30,000 candidates scrambling for presidential, legislative and provincial seats throughout the nation. According to a recent poll conducted by the Congo Research Group at New York University, Mr. Shadary trails the two leading opposition candidates. But he is expected to win, nevertheless. The opposition has been severely weakened and divided by the defection of two prominent candidates who broke ranks to form their own ticket. China and the United States are advancing their trade talks with close communication on details, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday. "The Chinese side welcomes the U.S. team to visit China for consultation and is open to visiting the U.S. for communication," MOC spokesperson Gao Feng told a news conference. Gao said the two countries had reached consensus on specific issues including agricultural products, energy and automobiles. "Soybean has always been an important kind of agricultural import from the U.S. given the huge demand in China." Gao said more details of the trade talks would be released. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, who currently heads the China-U.S. trade talks, spoke with U.S. officials on Tuesday, and the two sides exchanged views on implementing the consensus reached by the heads of state of the two countries and on the timetable and roadmap to push forward the trade talks. Ms. Fardin has provided a prominent face for the #MeToo movement in Argentina, said Alison Brysk, a professor at the University of California and an expert in human rights in the country. But a broader womens rights movement has been active in Argentina for years, inciting public debate on topics like reproductive rights and violence against women. They have the public presence and the respectability to fill that space that the average woman cant, Ms. Brysk said of the actresses speaking out. But its coming a little bit in reverse order in Latin America. The grass-roots organizing has been around for awhile, and the sort of Me Too movement is just arriving. The actresses who backed Ms. Fardin a collective of women who joined together to lobby for the legalization of abortion, around 100 of whom were at the news conference on Tuesday are conscious of this dynamic. We want this case to be the tip of the spear, said Jazmin Stuart, one of the actresses who helped Ms. Fardin publicize her accusation. Women are speaking out in front of the cameras and in the courts. On Thursday night, Maria Del Cerro, a contestant in Bailando por un Sueno (Dancing for a Dream), a dance competition show that is part of the television program Showmatch, said she had been abused when she was 11. And in a move that shows how Ms. Fardins accusation could reverberate politically, Claudia Guebel, a former aide to Senator Juan Carlos Marino, of La Pampa Province, filed a judicial complaint against him, claiming he had sexually assaulted her earlier this year. In an interview with local radio station Continental, Ms. Guebel said she had been inspired to come forward by Ms. Fardin. Violence against women has long been an issue in Argentina, and the reckoning that appears to be emerging from Ms. Fardin's accusation comes after years in which womens rights have been on the public agenda first evident in mass protests against femicides and later in demonstrations demanding the legalization of abortion. HONG KONG It began with a quarrel over cigarettes. Weighed down by loans and the burden of single parenting, a 34-year-old woman often took home leftover food and unopened packs of cigarettes from the banquets she occasionally attended in a nearby village in central China. But one night earlier this month, she discovered that her 12-year-old son had stolen and smoked four packs, and she exploded with rage and beat him, according to local media reports. The next morning, the woman identified only by her surname, Chen (her full name was not released by the authorities) was found dead in her bedroom, stabbed to death by her son, the police said. When the boy, who has been identified only by his surname, was asked by relatives if he regretted his actions, he said that he did, but that he didnt think it was a big deal. I didnt kill anyone else. I killed my mom, he was quoted as saying. Back in School In the eyes of many Chinese, the boy was a heartless criminal who deserved to be punished. But in China, where the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14, he could not be held legally responsible. The boy was released by the authorities in the town of Yuanjiang, in Hunan Province, with no conditions. BEIJING A Chinese photographer acclaimed for his stark pictures of poverty and pollution was arrested by the police while visiting Xinjiang, his wife said on Friday, in an update on a disappearance that has drawn additional attention to the far western region where hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been detained. The photographer, Lu Guang, went missing in early November while visiting Xinjiang to meet with local photographers who had invited him, his wife, Xu Xiaoli, said by telephone from New York where the couple live. But until recently, she and Mr. Lus family had no official confirmation that he had been arrested. Image The photographer Lu Guang has been detained by the Chinese police after visiting the Xinjiang region of China, his wife said. Credit... Reuters Earlier this week, though, the police called Mr. Lus family in China and said that he had been arrested in Kashgar, Ms. Xu said. Kashgar is an ancient city in southern Xinjiang that has been at the forefront of a government crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. Ms. Xu first announced the news on Twitter. NEW DELHI Sri Lankas political crisis appeared to edge toward a resolution Friday when one of the two men claiming to be the countrys rightful prime minister agreed to step down. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa planned to relinquish his claim to be prime minister in an address to the nation on Saturday, according to officials in his party. The current president, Maithripala Sirisena, appointed him as prime minister in late October, but the pair failed to clinch the majority in Parliament needed to secure their power. Mr. Sirisena then dissolved Parliament in November. On Thursday, Sri Lankas Supreme Court ruled that the dissolution of Parliament had been unconstitutional, striking the final blow to Mr. Sirisenas and Mr. Rajapaksas plans to take over the government. The legally recognized prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is expected to be sworn in again as premier on Sunday, members of his and Mr. Sirisenas inner circles said Friday night. SEOUL, South Korea Only two of the more than 480 Yemeni asylum seekers who arrived on a South Korean island this year after fleeing the catastrophic war in their home country have been granted refugee status, officials said on Friday. The Yemenis arrived in Jeju, a tourist island off the southern coast of South Korea, in the first five months of this year, capitalizing on the islands no-visa entry policy. As the sudden influx of asylum seekers spawned anti-migrant sentiment across South Korea, the central government changed its policy in June to require visas for citizens of Yemen. On Friday, the Justice Ministry said that the government had completed screening applicants seeking for refugees status, granting the privilege to only two of them. Both were Yemeni journalists who faced the risk of persecution if they returned home, the ministry said. The government did not reveal their identities. The government has allowed 412 Yemenis to remain in South Korea on temporary humanitarian visas on the condition that they leave once the situation in Yemen has stabilized. SYDNEY, Australia There is a criminal case unfolding in Australia that shall not be named. The defendant is a figure with a global reputation, someone of great influence in the country and the world. The charges are serious and of significant public interest. But publishing news about this case is illegal. Judges in Australia and some other countries, including Britain, often issue gag orders that temporarily restrict the publication of information related to a criminal proceeding on the grounds that it might sway jurors or potential jurors. Sometimes, judges even require the existence of these orders to be kept secret. In this case, something unusual is happening the sweep of the restrictions is so all-encompassing that the conflict between the publics right to know and the defendants right to a fair trial is rippling across the internet and the world, touching news outlets and institutions in distant countries. If youre not in Australia, you may have already read recent coverage of the case. If you are in Australia or depend on online news from international organizations like The New York Times, The Associated Press or Reuters, you probably know nothing about it. Never underestimate a coyote. Over the last century, these intelligent, highly adaptive omnivores have managed to flourish across the United States and in each Canadian province. But their expansion into urban areas has presented a dilemma: How can humans and coyotes coexist peacefully? Montreal is the latest city to grapple with coyotes that have attacked pets and people. This week it introduced a new hazing policy modeled after the one used in Denver. It aims to teach coyotes to fear humans again, while also training residents how to adapt their own behavior and discourage coyotes from approaching. Since July 2017, there have been 1,000 coyote sightings in Montreal and 19 people have been bitten, including three children this summer, Emilie Thuillier, the mayor of Montreals Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough, said in an interview on Wednesday. In each of the 19 cases, the wounds were minor, but still alarming to the citys residents. In July, a petition accused city officials of doing little to fix the problem, CBC reported. BEIJING Two Canadians detained in an apparent act of prosecutorial retaliation. A prominent pastor, an internationally renowned Chinese photographer and Chinas top international police officer all held by the authorities. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang locked up in camps for mass indoctrination. These and the detentions of many others including billionaires, lawyers, even the American children of a Chinese fugitive suggest that the ruling Communist Party no longer cares much about the risk to its international stature posed by harsh actions against its opponents. Already there are signs that this hard-line approach might be costing China support overseas, alienating even the moderate voices in the United States and elsewhere who have for decades argued that engaging the Chinese leadership is vastly preferable to confronting it. It undermines the work of those who have tried to be neutral, said Kerry Brown, a professor at Kings College, London, and author of a 2016 biography of Chinas leader, C.E.O., China: The Rise of Xi Jinping. PRISTINA, Kosovo Kosovos Parliament overwhelmingly approved legislation on Friday to form an army, prompting criticism from NATO and European Union officials and angering neighboring Serbia, which said it was prepared to use its own army to protect ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. All 107 lawmakers present in Kosovos 120-seat Parliament, which is dominated by ethnic Albanian parties, voted to back the governments plan to transform the 3,000-strong, lightly armed Kosovo Security Force into an army that would grow to 5,000 active troops and 3,000 reservists in the next decade. Kosovo Serb lawmakers did not attend the session. Aleksandar Vucic, Serbias president, said in the town of Trstenik in central Serbia on the eve of the vote, Not a single act in the international law gives them the right to form an army. Everything that Pristina does and evidently it does it all with support of the U.S. and Britain is against the law, Mr. Vucic added. For Mrs. May, the summit was another ordeal after one of the most tumultuous five days in recent British politics. On Monday she abruptly postponed a Parliament vote on the Brexit deal, calculating that it would be defeated resoundingly. On Wednesday she survived a confidence motion among her own Conservative Party lawmakers, but more than one third of them voted to oust her, and she prevailed partly by promising that she would step aside before the next general election. Now she faces twin, seemingly insurmountable obstacles: continuing to negotiate with Brussels for something she can call a new concession, while trying to allay British lawmakers fears of being tied forever to the European Union under a backstop agreement on the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, which is part of the European Union. And she has to reschedule a vote in Parliament that she is widely expected to lose. Her conundrum won little sympathy from the blocs leaders during the two-day summit meeting. When it comes to the future relationship, our British friends need to say what they want, rather than asking us what we want, Mr. Juncker said. And so we would like within a few weeks for our U.K. friends to set out their expectations for us, because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications. An offended Mrs. May appeared to confront Mr. Juncker Friday morning in a testy exchange and, though video of the encounter did not provide audio, broadcasters confirmed the altercation with the help of lip readers. Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) wheat futures surged on Thursday for the second consecutive session amid improving export demand, while newly reported soybean sales to China failed to boost the oil seed prices. Egypt's state grain importer GASC recently secured 180,000 metric tons of Romanian and Russian wheat for early February arrival. GASC paid an average price of 242 dollars per metric ton, compared to 237 dollars for a tender last week. Egypt, the world's largest wheat buyer, also purchased 120,000 metric tons from U.S. suppliers last week. The rising prices and demand for U.S. wheat boosted the grain futures. The USDA confirmed the new order from China as the two countries agreed to push forward trade talks. However, the export sales for delivery to China failed to further drive up CBOT soybeans due to profit-taking following gains in the past two days. Private exporters reported on Thursday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) export sales of 1,130,000 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2018/2019 marketing year. "It's been a classic buy the rumor/sell the fact trade in Chicago," AgResource, a Chicago-based agricultural research firm wrote in a commentary. At the end of the session, CBOT January 2019 soybeans were down 13 cents, or 1.41 percent to settle at 9.07 dollars per bushel. March wheat was up 9.5 cents, or 1.8 percent to settle at 5.36 dollars. March corn was down 1 cent, or 0.26 percent to close at 3.8425 dollars per bushel. A fourth victim of the attack on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, was named on Friday, the morning after the French police shot dead the man accused of the rampage in the heart of the historic city. The suspect, Cherif Chekatt, 29, was killed in the Neudorf neighborhood of Strasbourg after firing on the police on Thursday night, ending a two-day manhunt that involved more than 700 members of the security forces. Officials named the fourth person to die of wounds sustained in the shooting as the journalist Antonio Megalizzi, an Italian national. Italys Foreign Ministry said Mr. Megalizzi was in Strasbourg to follow the plenary session of the European Parliament for the Europhonica radio network. The other three people killed included a Thai tourist, an Afghan who had emigrated to France and a Frenchman who had recently retired. Several other people were wounded. BERLIN Germans will now be able to choose diverse as an option for gender on birth certificates and other legal records, after the countrys Parliament passed a measure introducing the third category on Friday, in a milestone for people who do not identify as either male or female. The change came more than a year after Germanys highest court ruled that binary gender designations were discriminatory and in violation of guarantees of personal freedom. The court ordered legislators to change the law to include a third category or do away with gender classification altogether. Under the new law, adults must produce a doctors statement or other medical certification confirming their gender fluidity in order to change their existing designation to the new option. That condition met with criticism from groups representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Germans. They argued against relying on medical certification to establish gender, saying physical indicators are not the sole determinant. Turkey, which has been fighting the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K., in Turkey for three decades, has accused the United States of bolstering the group by arming and training its Syrian affiliate, the Y.P.G., which forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The United States considers the P.K.K. a terrorist group, but says the Y.P.G. is the force in Syria most capable of fighting the Islamic State. American Special Operations forces are working with the Syrian Democratic Forces to combat remnants of the Islamic State in eastern Syria. Even as Turkey was threatening military action, the Syrian Democratic Forces announced that its fighters had taken control of Hajin, the last town in Syria held by the Islamic State. Mostapha Bali, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, said that the group would resist any Turkish intervention, which he said would force it to halt the fight in Hajin. We will retaliate if attacked, he said, adding, We wont give up to the Turkish. We hope the Turks will stop their threats, but if they decide to commit foolishness and continue their offensive, the battle in Hajin will definitely stop. 1 of 11 Prime Minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote in Britains Parliament this week, although the future of her plan for Brexit remained in serious doubt. What is the current deadline for Britain to withdraw from the European Union? News Analysis The Hard Truths of Trying to Save the Rural Economy Can rural America be saved? There are 60 million people, almost one in five Americans, living on farms, in hamlets and in small towns across the landscape. For the last quarter century the story of these places has been one of relentless economic decline. County averages by population Small metros Medium metros Large metros Urban 50,000 - 250,000 250,000 - 1,000,000 1,000,000+ Rural areas adjacent to an MSA* Rural areas not adjacent to an MSA* Rural area Rural 10,000 - 50,000 Population change, 2010-17 Median income Median age 10% $60k 45 YRS. 5 50k 40 0 40k -5 30k 35 MORE PEOPLE FEWER PEOPLE MORE PEOPLE FEWER PEOPLE MORE PEOPLE FEWER PEOPLE Source: Brookings analysis of Census and Bureau of Economic Analysis data. *Metropolitan statistical area County averages by population Urban Rural Small metros Rural area 50,000 - 250,000 10,000 - 50,000 Rural areas adjacent to an MSA* Medium Metros 250,000 - 1,000,000 Large metros Rural areas not adjacent to an MSA* 1,000,000+ Median income $60k 50k 40k 30k MORE PEOPLE FEWER PEOPLE Population change, 2010-17 10% 5 0 -5 MORE PEOPLE FEWER PEOPLE Median age 45 YRS. 40 35 MORE PEOPLE FEWER PEOPLE Source: Brookings analysis of Census and Bureau of Economic Analysis data. *Metropolitan statistical area This is, of course, not news to the people who live in rural and small-town America, who have been fighting for years to reverse this decline. But now, the nations political class is finally noticing. The election of Donald Trump, powered in no small degree by rural voters, has brought the troubles of small-town America to national attention, with an urgent question: What can be done to revive it? Birds fill the sky in Tiptonville, Tenn. Lake County peaked in population in 1950, and now is home to about 7,500 people. It has a 42% poverty rate. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times Rural America is getting old. The median age is 43, seven years older than city dwellers. Its productivity, defined as output per worker, is lower than urban Americas. Its families have lower incomes. And its share of the population is shrinking: the United States has grown by 75 million people since 1990, but this has mostly occurred in cities and suburbs. Rural areas have lost some 3 million people. Since the 1990s, problems such as crime and opioid abuse, once associated with urban areas, are increasingly rural phenomena. Rural communities once captured a greater share of the nations prosperity. Jobs and wages in small town America played catch-up with big cities until the mid 1980s. During the economic recovery of 1992 to 1996, 135,000 new businesses were started in small counties, a third of the nations total. Employment in small counties shot up by 2.5 million, or 16 percent, twice the pace experienced in counties with million-plus populations. These days, economic growth bypasses rural economies. In the first four years of the recovery after the 2008 recession, counties with fewer than 100,000 people lost 17,500 businesses, according to the Economic Innovation Group. By contrast, counties with more than 1 million residents added, altogether, 99,000 firms. By 2017, the largest metropolitan areas had almost 10 percent more jobs than they did at the start of the financial crisis. Rural areas still had fewer. The Economic Innovation Group measures distress as a combination of data ranging from joblessness and poverty to abandoned homes and educational attainment. Since the 1990s, there has been an intensifying ruralization of distress, said John Lettieri, the groups president. Ive lived most of my life in big cities. I dont pretend to understand what its like to live in a small town or on a family farm, or how it feels when all the jobs in a community seem to be fading away. I do spend a lot of time thinking about how the economic changes of the last several decades have undercut many American workers. One thing seems clear to me: nobody not experts or policymakers or people in these communities seems to know quite how to pick rural America up. States, municipalities and the federal government have spent billions to draw jobs and prosperity to stagnant rural areas. But they havent yet figured out how to hitch this vast swath of the country to the tech-heavy economy that is flourishing in Americas cities. There are 1,888 counties in America in which more than half the population is rural, according to the Census Bureau, and they stretch from coast to coast. New York County, N.Y. 73,475 people per square mile Population density by county San Francisco County, Calif. Urban counties Rural counties 18,871 people per square mile Lexington City, Va. 2,843 people per square mile Source: Brookings analysis of Census Bureau data Population density by county Urban counties Rural counties New York County, N.Y. 73,475 people per square mile San Francisco County, Calif. 18,871 people per square mile Lexington City, Va. 2,843 people per square mile Source: Brookings analysis of Census Bureau data Population density by county Urban counties Rural counties New York County, N.Y. 73,475 people per square mile San Francisco County, Calif. 18,871 people per square mile Lexington City, Va. 2,843 people per square mile Source: Brookings analysis of Census Bureau data In Comanche County, a land of cattle, farming, oil and gas on the plains of southwestern Kansas, 1,790 people live in a sparsely settled area of nearly 800 square miles. In Perry County home to some 26,500 people in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky so far no other industry has replaced once-mighty coal. Essex County in New Yorks Adirondacks is three-quarters rural, by the census definition. So is Calaveras County in California. After World War II, small town prosperity relied on its contribution to the industrial economy. The census considers Price County, Wis., to be 100 percent rural. Still, over a third of the jobs there are in manufacturing, from building industrial machines to assembling trucks. Auto parts manufacturers in West Point, Ga., draw workers from all over Troup County. Overall, manufacturing employs about one in eight workers in the countrys 704 entirely rural counties. Thats more than agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining combined and second only to education, health care and social assistance, which includes teachers, doctors, nurses and social service counselors. Most of those jobs are government funded. But factory jobs can no longer keep small-town America afloat. Even after a robust eight-year growth spell, there are fewer than 13 million workers in manufacturing across the entire economy. Robots and workers in China put together most of the manufactured goods that Americans buy, and the high-tech industries powering the economy today dont have much need for the cheap labor that rural communities contributed to Americas industrial past. They mostly need highly educated workers. They find those most easily in big cities, not in small towns. A flag on a memorial in Tiptonville, Tenn. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times Consider Lake County, in Tennessee. Some 7,500 people live there, about 500 fewer than in 2000. Lake County is betting on a new industrial park on Cates Landing on the Mississippi River. But it will be tough to reverse years of declining employment. Between 2013 and 2017, the county averaged fewer than 250 manufacturing jobs, according to the Census Bureaus American Community Survey. Thats half as many as it had in 2000. What to do? Since the presidential election in 2016, when small town voters enthusiastically endorsed the populist campaign of President Trump, policymakers and academics have thrown themselves at understanding the economic backdrop to their frustrations. They have come up with no shortage of proposals for how to turn rural America around, from offering a tax credit for employers that hire workers in distressed communities to designing investment funds to draw venture capital into rural areas. In a report published in November, Mark Muro, William Galston and Clara Hendrickson of the Brookings Institution laid out a portfolio of ideas to rescue the substantial swath of the country that they identify as left behind. They identify critical shortages bedeviling declining communities: workers with digital skills, broadband connections, capital. And they have plans to address them: I.T. training and education initiatives, regulatory changes to boost lending to small businesses, incentives to invest in broadband. Wisely, they suggest that any federal government effort must choose its targets carefully. Better to focus on middle-sized places that are near big tech hubs and have some critical infrastructure, rather than scatter assistance all over the landscape. Share of digital and technology jobs by county Urban counties Rural counties 1 million+ people <50K people not adjacent to metro area King County, Wash. 15% Fairfax County, Va. 27% Osceola County, Mich. 10% Source: Brookings analysis of Emsi data Share of digital and technology jobs by county Urban counties Rural counties 1 million+ people <50K people not adjacent to metro area Osceola County, Mich. 10% Fairfax County, Va. 27% King County, Wash. 15% Source: Brookings analysis of Emsi data Share of digital and technology jobs by county Urban counties Rural counties 1 million+ people <50K people not adjacent to metro area Osceola County, Mich. 10% Fairfax County, Va. 27% King County, Wash. 15% Source: Brookings analysis of Emsi data Sound as these ideas may be, however, even the authors concede that they may not be up to the task. I dont know if these ideas are going to work, Mr. Galston acknowledged when I pressed him on the issue. But it is worth making the effort. This is the inescapable reality of agglomeration, one of the most powerful forces shaping the American economy over the last three decades. Innovative companies choose to locate where other successful, innovative companies are. Thats where they can find lots of highly skilled workers. The more densely packed these pools of talent are, the more workers can learn from each other and the more productive they become. This dynamic feeds on itself, drawing more high-tech firms and highly skilled workers to where they already are. We have a spatial reorganization of the economy, said Mr. Muro. We have an archipelago of superstars in an ocean of low-productivity sectors. In hindsight, no amount of tax incentives would have convinced Amazon to expand in a medium-sized city such as Columbus, Ohio, rather than Northern Virginia and Queens,which sit in some of the largest pools of talent in the country. If even medium-sized cities find it difficult to compete, what are the odds that, say, a small town like Amory, Miss., where 14 percent of adults have a bachelors degree and a quarter of its 2,500 workers work in small-scale manufacturing, have a chance to attract well-paid tech jobs? Consider a recent Brookings Institution study by Benjamin Austin, Edward Glaeser and Lawrence Summers. They focus on the alarming rate of joblessness in what they call the Eastern Heartland, the region roughly between the Mississippi River and the states on the Atlantic coast, where rural communities are doing particularly poorly. After examining a range of potential policy interventions, they conclude that a targeted employment subsidy, such as the earned-income tax credit, is probably the most powerful tool available to revive employment. But they, too, are not sure it will work. Our call for a wage subsidy is us saying, We cant figure this out, and we hope the private sector will, Mr. Glaeser told me. There are, to be sure, some rural communities with productivity as high as some big cities. But they rely on heavily mechanized and automated industries that support few jobs: oil extraction or large-scale agriculture, in which tractors talk to satellites and no drivers are involved. The livestock business on the vast pastures of Sioux County, Neb., for example, supports an economy worth $306,000 per worker, according to data from Mr. Muro and Jacob Whiton of Brookings. But only 1,200 people live there. Jory Geiser leans against his truck on his ranch in Sioux County, Neb. Mr. Geiser owns around 600 cattle. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times In the Southeast Fairbanks area of Alaska, it is all about oil and gas. Output per worker is $203,000. But its population doesnt quite reach 7,000. Excluding these places, the United States is still left with 50 to 55 million people living in rural communities that no longer have much to offer them economically. What if nothing really works? Is there really no option but to do nothing and, as some have suggested, return depopulated parts of rural America to the bison? Instead of so-called place-based policies to revitalize small towns, why not help their residents take advantage of opportunities where the opportunities are? Geographic mobility hit a historical low in 2017, when only 11 percent of Americans picked up shop and moved half the rate of 1951. One of the key reasons is that housing in the prosperous cities that offer the most opportunities has become too expensive. A home is decorated for Christmas in Harrison, Nebraska. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times The most helpful policy for people in small towns could be to relax zoning rules in dense cities like New York and San Francisco, so that more affordable housing could be built to receive newcomers from rural Wisconsin or Kentucky, and they wouldnt need the income of an investment banker or a computer scientist to afford to live there. Policymakers might not want to push too hard against agglomeration. It adds to American prosperity. As Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley, points out, a successful strategy to draw innovative firms away from mega-clusters to small-town America would reduce overall innovation. If you put a tech company in a place like rural Indiana, it will be vastly less productive than if you put it in a tech cluster, Mr. Moretti said. The effect is quite large. Still, there are compelling reasons to try to help rural economies rebound. Even if moving people might prove more efficient on paper than restoring places, many people especially older people and the family members who care for them may choose to remain in rural areas. Whats more, the costs of rural poverty are looming over American society. Think of the opioid addiction taking over rural America, of the spike in crime, of the wasted human resources in places where only a third of adults hold a job. And if todays polarized politics are noxious, what might they look like in a country perpetually divided between diverse, prosperous liberal cities and a largely white rural America in decline? As Mr. Galston warned: Think through the political consequences of saying to a substantial portion of Americans, which is even more substantial in political terms, We think youre toast. The distress of 50 million Americans should concern everyone. Powerful economic forces are arrayed against rural America and, so far, efforts to turn it around have failed. Not every small town can be a tech hub, nor should it be. But that cant be the only answer. After the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February, Congress did not act. But state legislatures did, passing 69 gun control measures this year more than any other year since the Newtown, Conn., massacre in 2012, and more than three times the number passed in 2017. State gun laws enacted 70 After the Parkland massacre in Feb. 2018 60 After the Newtown massacre in Dec. 2012 50 Gun restrictions tightened 40 30 20 10 Gun restrictions loosened 0 13 15 16 17 18 State gun laws enacted 70 After the Parkland massacre in Feb. 2018 60 After the Newtown massacre in Dec. 2012 50 Gun restrictions tightened 40 30 20 10 Gun restrictions loosened 0 13 15 16 17 18 Note: Totals for 2015-18 are from the Giffords Law Centers annual reports. The New York Times calculated the 2013 totals by identifying every gun bill passed that year and tallying the ones that fit into the categories Giffords tracks. A comparable 2014 total is not available. According to an end-of-year report by the national advocacy group Giffords, provided to The New York Times before its publication this week, more than half of the states passed at least one gun control measure in 2018. The report also found a decrease in measures enacted to expand access to firearms a major change from the year after the Newtown shooting, when a surge in gun control laws was matched by a surge in gun rights expansions. This year, legislators rejected about 90 percent of state-level bills backed by the National Rifle Association, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group created by Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire and former New York City mayor. Data provided by the N.R.A. shows a similar overall trend this year, with gun control measures passed overtaking pro-gun measures for the first time in at least six years, though to a lesser extent than the Giffords data shows. The N.R.A. also said that nearly 200 gun control measures were rejected this year, but did not provide a list of specific legislation backing up their claims. Michael Bloomberg-funded gun control groups have invested unprecedented resources in their state lobbying and public relations efforts shifting the gun control battleground to the state level, the N.R.A. said in a statement. (Mr. Bloomberg provides about a third of the budget of Everytown for Gun Safety, and does not fund the Giffords group.) The N.R.A. added that it continues to win legislative battles in state legislatures across America like the important self-defense legislation that was passed out of the Ohio legislature last week. People lit candles in February in Parkland, Fla., at a memorial outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 had died. Gerald Herbert/Associated Press Seventeen students and staff members were killed in the Parkland attack, but it was certainly not the nations first mass shooting. It is, however, the first one that appears to have been a legislative turning point a tectonic shift, in the words of Allison Anderman, who compiled the report as managing attorney at the Giffords Law Center. A lot of policies that we had been working on as a movement for years were pushed across the finish line because of Parkland, Ms. Anderman said. In large part, the shift this year is a product of a less visible turning point after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, in which 20 children and six adults were killed. In response to that massacre, activists founded the organizations that would become Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety, which gradually built the infrastructure that the current movement has taken advantage of. The laws were passed in both Republican- and Democrat-controlled state legislatures. Gun laws passed in 2018 by states with legislatures controlled by: DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS 44 20 Tightened restrictions Tightened 9 Loosened restrictions NONPARTISAN (Nebraska) SPLIT 2 3 Tightened Tightened Gun laws passed in 2018 by states with legislatures controlled by: DEMOCRATS SPLIT NONPARTISAN (Nebraska) REPUBLICANS 20 44 Tightened restrictions Tightened 9 Loosened restrictions 3 2 Tightened Tightened Gun laws enacted in 2018 by states with legislatures controlled by: DEMOCRATS SPLIT NONPARTISAN (Nebraska) REPUBLICANS 20 44 Tightened restrictions Tightened 9 Loosened restrictions 3 2 Tightened Tightened In the past, state laws were broken down roughly as you would expect, with stricter gun regulations in states controlled by Democrats and more permissive laws in states controlled by Republicans. That divide is still apparent, but the exceptions are increasing. Democratic state legislatures passed more than twice as many gun restrictions as Republican legislatures this year, and Republican legislatures were the only ones to pass laws loosening restrictions. Still, Republican chambers passed 18 gun control laws, and Nebraska whose Legislature is conservative even though it is formally nonpartisan passed another two. Republican governors also signed restrictions passed by Democratic legislatures in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont. Florida, New Jersey and Vermont have passed the most laws. Gun laws enacted in 2018 by state legislatures 69 tightened restrictions 9 loosened restrictions Wash. Ore. Idaho S.D. Wyo. Iowa Neb. Utah Calif. Kan. Okla. La. Hawaii Vt. Wis. N.Y. Mass. R.I. Conn. Pa. Ohio N.J. Ill. W.Va. Del. Va. Md. Tenn. Ga. Fla. Gun laws enacted in 2018 by state legislatures 9 loosened restrictions 69 tightened restrictions Wash. Vt. Ore. Wis. Idaho N.Y. Mass. S.D. Wyo. R.I. Iowa Conn. Pa. Neb. Ohio N.J. Ill. Utah Calif. W.Va. Del. Va. Kan. Md. Tenn. Okla. Ga. La. Fla. Hawaii Gun laws enacted in 2018 by state legislatures 9 loosened restrictions 69 tightened restrictions Wash. Vt. Ore. Wis. Idaho N.Y. Mass. S.D. Wyo. R.I. Iowa Conn. Pa. Neb. Ohio N.J. Utah Ill. Calif. W.Va. Del. Va. Kan. Md. Okla. Tenn. Ga. La. Fla. Hawaii Gun laws enacted in 2018 by state legislatures 9 loosened restrictions 69 tightened restrictions Wash. Vt. Ore. Wis. Idaho S.D. N.Y. Mass. Wyo. R.I. Iowa Conn. Pa. Neb. Ohio N.J. Ill. Utah Calif. W.Va. Del. Va. Kan. Md. Okla. Tenn. Ga. La. Fla. Hawaii Gun laws enacted in 2018 by state legislatures 9 loosened restrictions 69 tightened restrictions Wash. Vt. Ore. Wis. Idaho S.D. N.Y. Mass. Wyo. R.I. Iowa Conn. Neb. Pa. Ohio N.J. Ill. Utah Calif. W.Va. Del. Va. Kan. Md. Okla. Tenn. Ga. La. Fla. Hawaii More than half of the gun restrictions passed this year came in a post-Parkland flood in March and April, including omnibus bills in Florida and Vermont. In many places, legislators said outright that the Parkland attack had motivated them to act. Nowhere was this clearer than in Florida, where the shooting took place. Legislators there named their omnibus bill the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, after the school where the shooting took place. By the time the Parkland shooting happened, Moms Demand Action, the grass-roots arm of Everytown, had a chapter in every state and local groups in hundreds of communities. Nationally, the groups volunteer numbers tripled in the months after the shooting, and those volunteers organized en masse in favor of gun restrictions and against permitless carry bills in Alabama, Oklahoma, Virginia and other states. All of the permitless carry bills were defeated. There was this structure we had built that could take in all of that anger and heartbreak and make it into action and put it into passing laws, Taylor Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Everytown, said in September. A Moms Demand Actions rally outside the Minnesota House chamber, about a week after Parkland in February. Jim Mone/Associated Press Another factor was strategic. Many people who wanted stricter gun laws despaired when Congress didnt pass any after Sandy Hook. But it was precisely that inaction in Congress that prompted advocates to start focusing on state legislatures instead. And in some states, a third front has opened up: ballot measures. In last months election, voters in Washington State approved an initiative that, among other things, expanded background checks, raised the minimum age to buy semiautomatic rifles, established a waiting period and mandated safe storage of guns. Laws addressing domestic abuse, bump stocks and background checks were popular. State laws enacted in 2018 that tightened gun restrictions 11 9 9 Domestic abuser restrictions Bump stock restrictions Urban gun violence prevention 8 6 6 Red-flag laws Background checks Ownership restrictions 6 3 2 2 Concealed carry restrictions Age requirements Magazine capacity restrictions Mental health restrictions 2 2 2 1 Waiting periods Trafficking laws Untraceable gun restrictions Dealer regulations State laws enacted in 2018 that loosened gun restrictions 2 2 2 1 Stand your ground Guns in schools Guns in places of worship Guns in private businesses 1 1 Concealed carry Subjects gun control laws to stricter scrutiny State laws enacted in 2018 that tightened gun restrictions 11 9 9 8 Domestic abuser restrictions Bump stock restrictions Urban gun violence prevention Red flag laws 6 6 6 3 Background checks Ownership restrictions Concealed-carry restrictions Age requirements 2 2 2 2 1 2 Mental health restrictions Waiting periods Trafficking laws Untraceable gun restrictions Dealer regulations Magazine capacity restrictions State laws enacted in 2018 that loosened gun restrictions 2 2 2 1 1 1 Stand your ground Guns in schools Guns in places of worship Guns in private businesses Concealed carry Subjects gun control laws to stricter scrutiny State laws enacted in 2018 that tightened gun restrictions 11 9 9 8 6 6 Domestic abuser restrictions Bump stock restrictions Urban gun violence prevention Red flag laws Background checks Ownership restrictions 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 Concealed-carry restrictions Age requirements Magazine capacity restrictions Mental health restrictions Waiting periods Trafficking laws Untraceable gun restrictions Dealer regulations State laws enacted in 2018 that loosened gun restrictions 2 2 2 1 1 1 Stand your ground Guns in schools Guns in places of worship Guns in private businesses Concealed carry Subjects gun control laws to stricter scrutiny State laws enacted in 2018 that tightened gun restrictions 11 9 9 8 6 6 Domestic abuser restrictions Bump stock restrictions Urban gun violence prevention Red flag laws Background checks Ownership restrictions 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 Concealed-carry restrictions Age requirements Magazine capacity restrictions Mental health restrictions Waiting periods Trafficking laws Untraceable gun restrictions Dealer regulations State laws enacted in 2018 that loosened gun restrictions 2 2 2 1 1 1 Stand your ground Guns in schools Guns in places of worship Guns in private businesses Concealed carry Subjects gun control laws to stricter scrutiny State laws enacted in 2018 that tightened gun restrictions 11 9 9 8 6 6 Domestic abuser restrictions Bump stock restrictions Urban gun violence prevention Red flag laws Background checks Ownership restrictions 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 Concealed-carry restrictions Age requirements Magazine capacity restrictions Mental health restrictions Waiting periods Trafficking laws Untraceable gun restrictions Dealer regulations State laws enacted in 2018 that loosened gun restrictions 2 2 2 1 1 1 Stand your ground Guns in schools Guns in places of worship Guns in private businesses Concealed carry Subjects gun control laws to stricter scrutiny Many of the restrictions passed this year are popular across the aisle. Polls show that public support for universal background checks is almost unanimous. Extreme risk protection laws, commonly known as red flag laws, are also very popular; they allow judges to order the confiscation of guns from people who family members or law enforcement believe pose an imminent threat. Such a law might have been able to prevent the Parkland massacre, whose perpetrator had been reported to the F.B.I. multiple times. Bans on bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire almost as rapidly as machine guns, have enough bipartisan backing that the Trump administration plans to enact one at the national level. Other measures like banning certain types of guns, restricting concealed carry and capping magazine sizes are more divisive, though many of them still have majority support in polls. Most states have their legislative sessions in the first half of the year, and activists on both sides are gearing up for the next round. Robin Lloyd, government affairs director at Giffords, said two areas of focus next year would be extreme risk protection laws and laws banning 3D-printed and other untraceable firearms. China will soon deliver a world-class ship to a Swedish company, taking another step closer to China's aspiration to becoming a supplier of high-end vessels. State-owned China State Shipbuilding Corp said the ship, Visborg, is the world's first dual-fuel cruiseferry-a luxury passenger ship that can also handle freight and vehicles. The company said the Visborg will be delivered to its buyer, Rederi AB Gotland, Sweden's oldest passenger line, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, before year's end. A second cruiseferry of the same type is under construction for the same company, it noted. The $145-million ship will be the most expensive civilian vessel ever built by Guangzhou Shipyard International, the statement said. The cruiseferry features fast speed, ecofriendliness and a high level of automation and safety. It takes only one operator to control the entire ship if needed, the shipbuilder said. There are presidential suites, executive suites and restaurants-as well as children's amusement facilities-on the ship, which will offer passengers a comfortable journey, it added. The Visborg is 200 meters long, 25.2 m wide, and displaces 18,100 metric tons. It has a cruise speed of 52.7 kilometers per hour and is able to carry 1,730 passengers, along with up to 600 cars. It runs mainly on liquefied natural gas and uses diesel as secondary power. Rederi AB Gotland is proud of the Visborg as it is one of the world's most sophisticated roll-on/roll-off passenger ships with dual-fuel propulsion, Ann-Marie Astrom, chairwoman of the company, said at the ship's naming ceremony in Guangzhou on Saturday. She added that the cruiseferry provides further confirmation of the high quality and innovative capacity of the Chinese shipbuilding industry. Although China is an experienced builder of naval ships, the nation is a newcomer to cruise ships because of the sophisticated technologies and complex manufacturing techniques required to build them. The country's shipbuilders have been striving to develop large cruise ships, and their efforts have borne fruit. CSSC recently launched a major program for the domestic construction of the country's first large cruise ships. American chip giant Qualcomm is again attempting to persuade the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban imports of iPhone into the country on the grounds that they infringe patents. But according to a report by Bloomberg on Wednesday, the commission said it would take a closer look at a recommendation made by a judge in September that an import ban would hurt America's competitive edge in the development of the next generation of mobile technology, known as 5G. The statement indicates that the ITC is trying to find a compromise that doesn't weaken the leading role of American companies in the development of 5G technology, said the Shanghai-based news agency The Paper. In September, Qualcomm took Apple to court in California, accusing the company of stealing Qualcomm chip technology and leaking it to Qualcomm's biggest rival Intel. A judgement from the trade commission said that the iPhone only infringed patents related to battery energy conservation, and ruled that it would not ban iPhone imports. The trade commission said it would announce the ruling on this new case in February 2019. The conflict between Qualcomm and Apple on intellectual property rights has lasted for more than a year. The two sides have made appeals in several markets, including China. Earlier this week, Qualcomm announced that the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court had granted its request for two preliminary injunctions against four subsidiaries of Apple, which would force an end to sales of several iPhone models in China. Apple has requested a review of the ban. At just 12-years-old, Leonardo Nicanor Quinteros is still in secondary school, but he already runs his own free private school to help other children, and even some adults, with their studies. Leonardo loves to study, but he also wants to transfer his passion for education to his peers. After seeing some of his colleagues struggling to keep up at school, and other children spending too much time playing on the streets and completely neglecting their studies, he decided to do something about it. Last year, he told his grandmother, Ramona, that he wanted to operate his own school and asked her to help him build it next to her house, in the Argentinian town of Las Piedritas, near San Juan. She obliged, and todays Nicos free private school caters to nearly 40 young students. The 12-year-old acts both as teacher and principal and is proud that his initiative has already made a big difference for many of the children attending there. Nicos school is not much to look at. Its made mostly of adobe and is pretty small compared to most regular schools, but with the help of neighbors and organizations impressed with Nicos work, its getting better every day. The school has work benches for all the students, lockers, a small library, blackboard and even a bell used to sound recess. They even managed to improvise a sound system that plays Argentinas national anthem at the start of classes, just like in regular schools. But whats most impressive about Leonardo Nicanor Quinteros school is the quality of the education and his dedication to helping others. He lives 20 minutes away from his grandmothers home, but every day, rain or snow, he gets on his bicycle after coming home from school and pedals to his own school to teach classes on different subjects, like math and grammar. Sometimes, when his students cannot attend the school at the regular time, he runs the classes at night, to make sure they dont get behind on their studies. He does not miss school, he is amazing. I can not believe what he does, Nicos grandmother, Ramona, said. Even though most of Nicos 36 students are younger than him, some even in kindergarten, there are a few adults attending classes at the free private school as well. The 12-year-old teacher/principal does his best to help students improve at subjects they struggle with, and many admit that attending his school has paid off big time. It helped me to pass the grade, now Im in third grade, one of Nicos students told Clarin. Leonardo Nicanor Quinteros story has captivated the whole of Argentina and his altruism and ambition have already inspired millions. Enhanced water company Vitaminwater recently launched a contest challenging entrants to give up their smartphones and tablets for a whole year. Thats a tough thing to do in this day and age, but the Coca Cola-owned company is ready to make it worth your while by putting up a $100,000 prize. Vitaminwaters #nophoneforayear challenge requires entrants to go a full 365 days without using a smartphone. That means giving up their own phone and tablet as well as agreeing not to use anyone elses handhelds either. The selected person will have to sign a contract committing to no smartphone usage for the duration of the contest, and if they are found to have adhered to the strict rule for the duration of the contract, they will be rewarded with $100,000. Sounds easy enough, but first you have to convince the company that youre the right person for the job. Photo: Vitaminwater To enter this unusual contest, you first have to a photo to Twitter or Instagram telling Vitamin Water why you need a break from your smartphone, and use the hashtags #nophoneforayear and #contest. Submitted entries will be judged based on creativity, brand relevance, humor and quality. You have until January 8 to enter the contest, and the company will announce the selected participant on January 22. Its worth pointing out that the selected person will not be required to go completely phone-free. In fact, Vitaminwater will provide them with a 1996 era mobile phone complete with a monthly plan for voice communication only. Vitaminwater has confirmed that the contest is not some cruel prank, and brand manager Natalia Suarez told CNBC that it was simply an ingenious way to challenge people to do something interesting with their time. We dont think theres anything more boring than mindlessly scrolling through your phone, and this is an opportunity to take that stance against routine and give someone $100,000 to do something uniquely awesome with their time, Suarez said. Youre probably wondering how Vitaminwater plans on checking if the selected person actually respected their end of the deal. The complete list of rules has not yet been released, but the company did mention that the chosen participant will have to take a lie detector test before being awarded the $100,000 prize. Some people couldnt go a single day without checking their smartphones, and a year is a really long time, so Vitaminwater is also offering a consolation prize of $10,000 if the person selected for their contest goes at least 6 months without using a smartphone. Oh, and if youre looking at your handheld wondering if it qualifies as a smartphone, Vitaminwater provides a simple way to check: if texting is a pleasant experience or you can get on the internet, its probably a smartphone. Fox News reports that president Trump has canceled the White House holiday party for the media. The president and first lady threw the party last year, though they opted to forego the picture-taking opportunities that have become a popular part of the celebration. The cancellation comes as the relationship between the White House and the media continues to unravel. The president has twice refused to attend the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, and the temporary revoking of CNN reporter Jim Acostas White House press credentials increased the level of animosity between Trump and the media. Fox News also noted that despite the axing of the media holiday party, other holiday-season events are going on as scheduled, with guest lists including selected media people generally favorable to Trump, including a few Fox News hosts. Jared Kushner received the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honor the Mexican government gives to foreigners, at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires last month. The award, which saluted Kushners significant contributions in achieving the renegotiation of the new (trade) agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada, was presented shortly after the agreement was signed, and the day before Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took over the reins as Mexicos president. Outgoing president Enrique Pena Nieto faced strong criticism for inviting Trump to Mexico during the 2016 presidential campaign. Not surprisingly, there was also criticism of his decision to honor Kushner. The recognition of Kushner has succeeded in doing something we all thought impossible THE UNION OF THIS COUNTRY against the contempt shown by this decision, Javier Risco, a radio announcer, said on Twitter. Jim Hightower ran afoul of distribution firm Creators Syndicate with his Nov. 27 column Free the free press from Wall Street plunderers. According to the Austin Chronicle, Creators editor Maxine Mulvey told a Hightower staffer that Creators could not run the column and risk retaliation from Gatehouse Media and Digital First Media, both mentioned in the column. Between them, the two companies own around 1,500 newspapers, many of which publish material from Creators. In his piece, Hightower excoriates them as part of the new breed of fast-buck hucksters whove scooped up hundreds of Americas newspapers from the bargain bins of media sell-offs. Creators managing editor Simone Slykhous told the Chronicle that our decision not to run the column under the Creators Syndicate name is not personal. We would do the same thing for any of our writers and artists. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 251 journalists from around the globe were in jail because of their work as of Dec. 1. The bulk (70 percent) of the imprisoned journalists face anti-state charges such as belonging to or abetting terrorist groups. Turkey, China and Egypt are the worlds top media gulags, accounting for more than half of those in prison, according to the report released Dec. 12. CPJ found that the number of media people jailed on charges of false news rose sharply from nine two years ago to 28 this year. Let's give it up for Donald Trump! The organization said: The increase comes amid heightened global rhetoric about fake news, of which US president Donald Trump is the leading voice. CPJ took note of a fresh wave of repression in Saudi Arabia that led to a crackdown on press freedom. Sixteen journalists, including four females who wrote about women's rights in the Kingdom, including the lifting of the ban on driving, were behind bars on Dec. 1. Saudi Arabia has faced US Congressional criticism in the aftermath of the torture, murder and dismemberment of dissident and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Anti-press Trump though, gave the Saudis a free ride over the Khashoggi atrocity. Rather than condemn Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom US intelligence agencies said ordered the Khashoggi murder, Trump shamefully passed. Maybe he did, maybe he didnt," wimped out Trump on Nov. 27. Shamefully, he put the false promise of billions of dollars in defense contracts from the Saudis ahead of this countrys moral standing in the world. The tweeter-in-chiefs unwillingness to criticize Crown Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabias defacto ruler, sends a powerful signal to authoritarians and despots throughout the world: the media are fair game. Trump today cancelled the annual White House Christmas party for the media. Its just as well. Attending a party hosted by a guy who routinely denigrates the press as the enemy of the people, would have been the height of hypocrisy. Let's wish journalists throughout the world a happy and safe New Year. SPARK Strategic Ideas of Charlotte is now working with commercial real-estate firm Flagship Healthcare Properties. SPARK will assist the company with brand development as well as developing a strategic planning process to help Flagship position themselves as a leading healthcare commercial real estate firm. The agency will begin working with Flagship by conducting a competitive research study and in-depth interviews with clients and employees. Flagship, which has a significant presence in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic United States, offers such services as property management, leasing and brokerage, investment and capital solutions, consulting and development. Motion is now working with Gold Eagle, a producer of chemicals and solutions made to protect, preserve and enhance the performance of consumer and durable goods. The Chicago-based Motion will be providing public relations and digital support for four of Gold Eagles brands. The agency also represents World of Whirlpool and Trulucks Restaurant Group. Earlier this year, Motion provided public relations and digital support for Exelon Corporations inaugural HeForShe STEM Innovation Leadership Academies. Tom Barrack Crisis and financial PR pro-Owen Blicksilver represents billionaire real estate developer Tom Barrack, as federal prosecutors probe whether foreign entities contributed to Donald Trump's inaugural committee and a pro-Trump political action committee. Barrack, a dear friend of the president, headed both committees. The New York Times reported today that investigators are examining whether high-rollers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates used straw donors to funnel money to the committees to buy influence over US policy. American law prohibits foreign donations to federal campaigns, PACs and inaugural committees. Barrack raised money for both committees but Blicksilver said his client never talked to any foreign person or entity for the purpose of generating money or making donations to the inauguration and PAC. The Trump inaugural committee raised $107M, twice as much as President Obama's fund for his first inauguration, while the Rebuilding America Now PAC compiled a $23M war chest. Grand Rapids-based Lambert, which recently changed its name from Lambert, Edwards Assocs. & Co., acquired Owen Blicksilver PR in April to spearhead its move into the New York financial PR arena. The firm signed Blicksilver to a multi-year contract to serve as president of the unit that is known for its private equity, M&A, real estate, crisis, bankruptcy, litigation support and B2B marketing savvy. Luby's casual dining chain is using Sloane & Co. as it fends off a proxy fight by hedge fund Bandera Partners. Jeff Gramm, partner of Bandera, rapped Luby's business strategy as one that is "simply not working." He claims since the Houston-based company has refused his request for substantive discussions to shake up Luby's board, he has "no choice" but to run his own slate of directors. Bandera nominees include Gramm's dad, Phil. The elder Gramm was a Texas Senator and UBS investment unit vice chairman. Luby's, which reported declining sales and profits, owns 142 restaurants including 82 Luby's Cafeterias, 58 Fuddruckers and a Cheeseburger in Paradise. Sloane's managing director Dan Zacchei and senior VP Joe Germani rep Luby's MDC Partners owns Sloane. China's Ministry of Education said that 248,000 after-school institutions, 90 percent of the 273,000 institutions that were found to have problems, had completed rectifications as of Wednesday. A total of 400,000 after-school training institutions have been examined amid a national campaign targeting extracurricular programs that put students under too much pressure, Lyu Yugang, an elementary education official from the ministry, said at a press conference held Thursday in Beijing. The campaign started in February and will last for one and a half years. The ministry will further examine and rectify the institutions for potential safety loopholes, unlicensed operations and teaching too advanced or difficult courses, said Lyu. A report conducted by the Chinese Society of Education shows that China had about 180 million school-aged students in 2016, and more than 137 million students were taking part in extracurricular classes or off-campus training, with the market exceeding 800 billion yuan (116.3 billion U.S. dollars). A piercing air-raid siren echoed across Nanjing on Thursday morning as people stood still in the Jiangsu province capital to pay silent tribute to the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. In February 2014, China's top legislature, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, designated Dec 13 as National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims. The commemoration, which marked 81 years since the massacre, was held at the Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. More than 8,000 people attended the ceremony in the main hall. During the event, soldiers placed flowers beside the victims' memorial, doves were released to signify peace and students recited the Declaration of Peace, a poem that calls on the Chinese people not to forget history and cherish peace. Wang Chen, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said that the country mourns and remembers the victims killed by the Japanese invaders, and commemorates the heroes that sacrificed themselves during the war as well as foreign friends who lost their lives fighting together with the Chinese people. "The Chinese people will remember history and cherish peace," he said. "The Chinese people will unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development." On Dec 13, 1937, Japanese invaders occupied Nanjing and killed some 300,000 Chinese people in six weeks. Lin Boyao rang the "Peace Bell" at the ceremony together with other people from different walks of life. Lin and 13 other overseas Chinese living in Japan donated 500,000 yuan ($72,600) to help cast the bell in 2003. "The sound of the bell reminds Chinese people of the tragedy, which happened 81 years ago," said the 79-year-old man. "Memorial activities will also be held in Japan this month to mourn the victims. Few Nanjing Massacre survivors are still alive," said Lin. "They cannot go to Japan to attend the memorial activities this year due to their health. I hope that they can maintain good health and pass the history on to the next generation," he added. Li Zhenming, son of a Nanjing Massacre survivor, lost his father Li Gaoshan in February. The elder Li, born in 1925, was captured twice when Japan occupied the then capital of China, but he somehow managed to survive both detentions. "My father often said that we cannot forget what happened, and that we want peace, not war," he said. "The massacre brought us nightmares, but it also makes us hold a firmer stance of peace." Wu Xianbin, curator of the Nanjing Folk Anti-Japanese War Museum, said that the ceremony will remind people of the peace obtained through blood and tears, and contribute to future world peace. "The museum has held exhibitions of the Nanjing Massacre in Japanese cities to let more people there know about the massacre. Sometimes we met right-wingers who protested against us, but more Japanese people gave us support and help," Wu said. Liu Min, a student at Nanjing Agricultural University, said that all her classmates stood up in class and paid silent tribute for one minute as soon as they heard the air-raid siren. "Every Chinese should remember the tragedy that our country suffered," she said. "I really hope that different countries can communicate more frequently and maintain friendship and peace." Anil Ambani welcomes Rafale verdict, says 'will remain committed to India's national security' India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Dec 14: Anil Ambani, Dassault Aviation's offset partner in the deal, has released a statement welcoming the Supreme Court verdict. "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France." Thumbs up for Rafale deal, no irregularities, no commercial favouritism found Earlier in the day, in a major relief for the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court dismissed all petitions seeking court-monitored probe in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal and said there won't be any probe into the pricing or the decision-making process. The SC bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, said that the need of aircraft and quality of aircraft were not in doubt and detailed scrutiny is not required. "We don't find substantial matter to interfere with issue of procurement, pricing and offset partner in Rafale jet deal," the SC said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 12:07 [IST] Ayyappa devotee burnt self to death due to depression, not over Sabarimala issue: Kerala Police India oi-PTI Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 14: The Kerala Police said late on Thursday night that a 55-year-old Ayyappa Devotee, who died after setting himself afire near the venue of the BJP's protest here, had committed suicide due to personal reasons and do not have any relation to the ongoing agitation over Sabarimala issue. Calling a state-wide strike on Friday over the death, the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the man immolated himself protesting the "adamant" stand of the state government, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, over the issue of continuing prohibitory orders and restrictions at the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. "The deceased, in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate, said he resorted to the act due to depression and ran frantic towards the protest venue after setting himself afire," the police said in a release. Kerala: BJP calls for bandh after 'Ayyappa devotee' immolates self Police said the man, who used to work as a plumbing and electrician assistant, does not have any political connections. "This matter is not connected with any ongoing protest over Sabarimala," the police said. Meanwhile, Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran on Thursday night lashed out at the BJP's call for strike and said the saffron party was trying to provoke the police. "Tomorrow's strike is the result of desperation faced by the BJP due to failure of its plan to create 'balidanis' (martyrs) by provoking the police at Sabarimala and other places." Venugopalan Nair, a resident of Muttada, suffered 90-per-cent burns and succumbed at the Government Medical College Hospital in the evening, police said. Nair poured kerosene and set himself on fire near the venue of the BJP protest in front of the state secretariat early in the day. Nair tried to run towards the makeshift tent where BJP leader C K Padmanabhan is on an indefinite fast demanding lifting of prohibitory orders in force in and around Sabarimala hill shrine, police said. Party activists and police personnel doused the fire using drinking water and rushed him to the hospital where he died without responding to treatment. The party has been protesting against the state government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the temple and also demanding lifting of the ban orders and restrictions. The BJP announced a dawn-to-dusk strike across the state on Friday as a mark of respect to Nair. A BJP release claimed that Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue. The state government has said it was constitutionally bound to implement the September 28 Supreme Court. The BJP is opposing any move to allow women in the 10-50 age group to trek the holy hill for 'darshan' at the Ayyappa temple. When the temple was opened for monthly and special pujas in October and November, there were massive protests by devotees, following which severe restrictions, including prohibitory orders, were imposed by the state government. However, so far, no women in the previously-banned age group had been able to enter the temple. Since the two-month long pilgrimage season began on November 16, this is the second statewide strike called by the BJP on the SaBJPbarimala issue. Earlier, it had observed a strike to protest the detention of K P Sasikala, president of the Hindu Aikya Vedi. Meanwhile, officials said examinations scheduled to be held by various universities on Friday have been postponed. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 9:14 [IST] Bengaluru's MG Road metro develops faulty structure; BMRCL seeks 10 days to fix India oi-Madhuri Adnal Bengaluru, Dec 14: After reports of structural fault in one of the pillars between the MG Road and Trinity Circle Metro Stretch, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has sought for about 10 days for the entire work to be completed. A team of engineers are working overnight to resolve the issue. Due to the damage in one of the viaducts, trains have been slowing down to the minimum possible speed near the metro stations. Due to noticing of honey comb formation in concrete, restoration works is in progress at Trinity station.Speed restrictions are imposed at this location. Trains may run between 10 to 15 mins and there may be delays in operation. Commuters are requested to cooperate with us. BMRCL (@cpronammametro) December 12, 2018 However, at pillar no 155 near the Trinity station, it was evident that the problem was not just about honeycombs. Now, Bengalureans can travel in metro on Sundays from 7 am Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) Managing Director Ajay Seth said that the corporation may require at least five to six days to complete the repair. Deccan Herald quoted Ajay Seth, Managing Director of BMRCL, as saying, "The repair work can be completed in just two days. But, the preparation itself requires about 5 to 6 days. Our engineers are already busy installing the steel platform supported by stilts to carry out the repairs. Further, technical experts will decide on the future course of action." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 16:33 [IST] BJP to accommodate upper castes in organisation and many other places to placate them India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Dec 14: Besides many reasons being counted for the defeat of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recently concluded Assembly elections, an amendment in the SC/ST Act is also being considered as one of the important reasons. The decision of the central government has caused anger among upper caste community across the country and even the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders protested it. Now, the BJP will run a campaign not only to win over Dalits and OBCs but also upper caste. BJP strategist in Uttar Pradesh is trying to placate upper cast in Uttar Pradesh where it had won 73 seats along with its allies. One of the MLAs of the BJP in Balia Surendra Singh Said clearly that by making upper cast angry in the state, the party cannot come to power and a similar statement was made by former Union MSME minister and senior BJP leader Kalraj Mishra. This is just not the voice of the upper caste but OBCs also did not like this decision. But state BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said, "The BJP wants 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas'. And when we talk about everyone, there is no point of leaving anyone." BJP quickly gets into election mode once again; blueprint ready for all morcha of the party Since there is at least two months time for the declaration of 2019 Lok Sabha elections, they will not only be accommodated in the organisation but also in the government as well. They will be accommodated in corporations, boards and local bodies where there are huge vacancies. The government failed to fill up vacancies at these places except a few. The BJP has got 42.3 per cent votes in 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh and around 40 per cent votes in Assembly elections in 2017. The BJP has been able to get such a huge mandate because upper castes were strongly behind the BJP and Modi proved to be trump card among the OBCs. Command of the state BJP was with Keshav Prashad Maurya during the Assembly elections helping the BJP a lot. Among Dalits, non-Jatav like Dhobi, Khatik, Pasi, Valmiki, Dhanuk and Kori were with the BJP helping it a lot. First-time voters between the age of 18 and 22 proved to handy for the BJP. Bitten by the SC/ST bug, how BJP's performance plummeted in the reserved seats For the success of 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, demonetisation and surgical strike played a decisive role and Modi wave was like 2014. The BJP has also brought some strongmen of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party to its fold. The same methodology could be adopted once again. The Ram Temple could be a big decision if the government takes. A Chinese man who was suffering severe burns due to an oil barrel explosion during his work in Indonesia was transferred to a hospital in Guangzhou with a chartered plane and then a helicopter on Wednesday. The operation marks the first seamless international patient transfer by air involving a hospital in Guangdong province, facilitating intensive care for the patient in critical condition in the air. The man, in his 30s, was welding when the barrel with residue oil exploded on the island of Djailolo in Indonesia on Dec 2, Guangzhou Daily reported. About 85 percent of his body surface was burned, most to a severe degree, said Li Xiaojian, director of the burn and plastic surgery department of Guangzhou Red Cross Hospital, where the man is being treated. He was transferred to a third local hospital in Indonesia in 48 hours. A week after the accident, the man suffered from infection, choking, high fever and failure to breathe. The transfer was arranged by International SOS, Guangdong branch of Kingwing General Aviation Co, and the hospitals in Indonesia and Guangzhou, with close support from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. The chartered plane departed Indonesia at 9:30 am and arrived at the airport in Guangzhou at 2:30 pm. The patient was then transferred onto a helicopter, which arrived at the landing pad of Guangzhou Red Cross Hospital at 3:35 pm. Since not every hospital has a burn center, the rescue network and transfer capacity become very important, Li said. Li's hospital earlier this month became one of the five hospitals in Guangdong province designated by the National Health Commission as the first group of pilot hospitals in airborne medical rescue. China's 5th generation fighter J-20 Chengdu: Where does it stand compared to Rafale? India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Dec 14: Almost all the leading countries in the world are working on developing fifth-generation jet fighters which require high-end research and technological capabilities. There is no precise definition as such about the characteristics that a fifth-generation fighter should have, but it is agreed by and large that it must include stealth technology, supersonic cruising speed, and highly integrated avionics as part of the criteria. China's new J-20 is one of the world's most advanced fighter jets and the country's answer to the American F-22 Raptor. The Chinese warplane was developed by the Chengdu Aerospace corporation, which began testing them in 2011 before the first planes entered service in March 2017. J-20 is considered by many as a full fifth-generation fighter. Rafale vs J-20 Chengdu: With India having purchased 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault, it is worth looking at the features of J-20 and Rafale fighter. The Chengdu J-20 is a single-seat, twinjet, all-weather, stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft developed by China's Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The J-20 is designed as an air superiority fighter with precision strike capability; it descends from the J-XX program of the 1990s. The Dassault Rafale is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide range of weapons, the Rafale is intended to perform air supremacy, interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship strike and nuclear deterrence missions. The Rafale is referred to as an "omnirole" aircraft by Dassault. [IAF's depleting fleet: The choices India has] The Chengdu J-20 is 20.3-20.5 metres long, has a height of 4.45 metres and its wingspan is 12.88-13.50 metres. The maximum take-off weight is 34,000-37,000 kg. The fighter's range is about 1,200 kilometres which can be increased up to 2,700 kilometres with external fuel tanks. Rafale is 15.27 meters long and has a height of 5.34 m. Its wingspan is 10.80 meters. Dassault Rafale is fitted with a RBE2-AA radar system which is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system derived from the Rafale's RBE2 radar. The radar is reported to deliver a greater detection range of 200 km, improved reliability and reduced maintenance demands over the preceding radar. Active electronic scanning makes it possible to switch radar modes quickly, thereby enabling operational functions to run simultaneously. Rafale incorporates a sleek design and stealthy intakes to reduce RCS. Dassault claims to have built the airframe with over 70% of it been composites. [FGFA project: Russia to offer 'second stage' engine for Su-57 fighter] The J-20 has a long and wide fuselage and larger surface area is likely to reflect the radar signals at greater intensity. The J-20's frontal and side stealth capacities are believed to be excellent. But it is thought to be more vulnerable to radar from the rear compared with the F-22. Stealthy aircraft, to remain stealthy, must hide weapons and fuel in internal bays within their fuselages. The J-20 has three such bays, two for smaller air-to-air missiles and a single large belly bay for larger air-to-air, anti-ship, and air-to-ground missiles. India's fifth-generation fighter program: India is developing a twin-engine fifth-generation supermaneuverable stealth multirole fighter, called the HAL Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). It is being developed and designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency and will be produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. DRDO defines AMCA as a "fifth-generation-plus platform". Unofficial design work on the AMCA began in 2008, while official work started in 2011 and finished in 2014. The first flight is scheduled to occur in 2023-2024. [Can India make Fifth Generation fighters? All depends on Kaveri engine's development] It is a multirole combat aircraft designed for the air superiority, ground attack, bombing, intercepting, strike and other types of roles. It combines supercruise, stealth, advanced AESA radar, supermaneuverability, and advanced avionics to overcome and suppress previous generation fighter aircraft along with many ground and maritime defences. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 5:00 [IST] Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir to Sidhu: Send your son or daughter to border, then call Imran Khan 'big brother' Complaint against Navjot Singh Sidhu for violating Wildlife Protection Act India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Chandigarh, Dec 13: A wildlife activist has filed a complaint against Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who gifted a stuffed Black Partridge to CM Amarinder Singh, for violating Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Sandeep Jain, Volunteer, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, has filed a complaint with Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, New Delhi, demanding probe on how the Black Partridge was brought from Pakistan. The ISI-SJF meet at Nankana Sahib: Why India should be worried Sandeep Jain, said, "I got to know through newspapers that Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu brought a stuffed Black Partridge from Pakistan and gifted it to Punjab CM. This is a violation of Wildlife Protection Act 1972." "I have registered a complaint with Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, New Delhi demanding a probe on how the Black Partridge was brought from Pakistan and kept in Punjab for so long. It's illegal to keep an animal or a bird or their body parts without any permission, " Jain said. According to The Tribune, on Sidhu gifting him a stuffed partridge and other gifts that the minister had brought from Pakistan, Capt Amarinder is learnt to have said he would seek permission from the Wildlife Department if a stuffed partridge could be kept. Amarinder said he wanted Rahul Gandhi to be the Prime Minister. Dilli Gupshup: Some BJP leaders feel new party headquarters unlucky and reason for all defeats India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Dec 14: Bharatiya Janata Party's new headquarters once again defeats the party at least this is what a section of party leaders feel. It is not only the opposition but neglected BJP leaders are enjoying the defeat of the party while rank and files of the party wants empathy from the party leaders and some help also to keep going. The PM dream of a Delhi-based leader continues and defeat in assembly elections gave him some new hope. Grapevine is abuzz in the Delhi power corridor... Some BJP leaders feel new party headquarters unlucky and reason for all defeats Success has many father while failure is an orphan. The defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in all the states that have recently undergone elections has once again been attributed to the new headquarters of the BJP at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. A big section of party leaders believe that ever since the party has shifted to this office, the bad days of the party started. The BJP has just fallen short of majority in Karnataka, it lost most of the Lok Sabha by-elections, the party has lost in Madhya Pradesh marginally and Rajasthan could have been still better, had there not been sabotage. All this is happening because of the new office of the BJP. People quip the BJP, better avoid falling short of majority in Lok Sabha just to shift operations from 11 Ashok Road. Neglected BJP leaders too enjoyed party's defeat in three states After elections of three state Assemblies were declared and the Bharatiya Janata Party faced with humiliating defeat, a very senior BJP leader while attending the winter session of Parliament not only waved leaders from the opposition benches but had also reached out to them to have chat. Opposition leaders not only gave him due respect but he enjoyed their company too. One of the leaders of the party tried to tell him by indicating not to do so but the senior leader remained unfazed. But when he did not pay heed to his signs the young leader turned his face towards other side to cover up his embarrassment as media was looking at him. [Assembly elections: BJP loses vote share, but not all to Congress] Micro management of elections OK, but what about workers' concerns Of late the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become known for its micro-management of elections and the party has been successful in its efforts except in Bihar and Delhi where it had to face defeat. But now party leaders have started saying after the defeat in three states of Hindi heartland that the party must come out with his Panna Pramukh scheme. It must focus and must try to understand the issues faced by its workers. The enthusiasm of the party worker is waning and if the party really wants to do it must change its attitude. Workers must not be considered as heards and are remembered for party's work. Their woes and issues must also be heard sympathetically. Dream of the Delhi-based politician to replace Modi still alive A Delhi-based leader who has long been longing to replace Prime Minister Narendra Modi and considers himself nothing less than the PM. His party's most of the candidates has met the same fate as they had during the last Lok Sabha elections when most of the candidates' deposit was forfeited. Similar has been the situation in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan but the dream of the leader of becoming PM still continues and he too is part of Mahagathbandhan. But people around his say that his ambition is oozing high and he is looking an opportunity in the defeat of the BJP in three state. So it is not only Rahul but he too has the PM dream. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 20:29 [IST] Does only Congress high command decide on CM candidate? Well, not really India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Dec 14: The elections to the five state assemblies are over. Deliberations on who would be the Chief Minsters of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan went on late into the night. At the end of it, the decision to appoint Kamal Nath as the MP CM was taken. The names for Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are likely to be finalised today. Questions are being raised over the selection process and why the final call is being taken by the party president, Rahul Gandhi. The delay in naming a CM is also being questioned, although it has just been a little over two days since the election results have been declared. Kamal Nath to take oath as Madhya Pradesh chief minister on Dec 17 Such issues normally crop up when a party does not name its CM face ahead of the elections. The Congress had not named any person as the CM face ahead of the elections and when the poll is one such a situation is bound to rise due to the number of contenders for the top post. The BJP too faced a similar situation in Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The party went into the elections, without naming anyone as the CM face and before the final choice was made there was a considerable amount of delay and not to mention the bickering from within owing to the number of contenders for the post. In the appointment of the CM or leader of the party, the norm is usually that the legislators elect the person they want. However more often than not, this is a process that takes place only after the party high command steps in and then asks the legislators to vote for the candidate. It is only when an election is fought with a CM face does this process take precendee without the high command having to step in. In Maharashtra, the front runner for the post was Devendra Fadnavis. While it was thought to be a done deal, there was some amount of confusion that cropped up with the name of Nitin Gadkari cropping up. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the BJP did not get a clear majority in Maharashtra as a result of which the views of the Shiv Sena had to be taken. The Shiv Sena felt that a more seasoned person like Gadkari would be best suited for the job. Gadkari at first while ruling out returning to state politics however added that he would abide by any decision that the party leadership takes. Finally the central BJP sent in Rajnath Singh and J P Nadda to sort out the issue, following which the legislators were told to elect Fadnavis as the leader. Bitten by the SC/ST bug, how BJP's performance plummeted in the reserved seats The BJP did face some hiccups before it could appoint M L Khattar as the CM of Haryana. The field was open and there were many frontrunners. The party leadership had to bear in mind that there was a consolidation of non-Jat voters in the state, which meant that the party could not have appointed a Jat CM. In the race to the top post were Kishan Pal Gujjar; Rao Inderjit Singh, the scion of the Rewari dynasty and a prominent Yadav leader; Ram Bilas Sharma, the State BJP president and the party's Brahmin face in Haryana; and finally Khattar, an organisational strongman. During his appointment the media had cited his proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However the party made it clear that it was Khattar who built the party in Haryana. The central leadership took into account various aspects before making Khattar the CM. Gujjar and Singh were already junior ministers in the union government. Moreover Singh had just joined the BJP from the Congress. The selection of Yogi Adityanath was also marred with confusion. The BJP had scored a mammoth win in Uttar Pradesh and the question was who would rule this prestigious kingmaker state. During the process of choosing a CM, several names such as Keshav Prasad Maurya, Rajnath Singh were doing the rounds. It was even said that Yogi was a surprise pick. How Indira ka haath Kamal Nath pipped Scindia to post of MP CM However media reports later went on to say that Yogi was the choice of both Modi and Amit Shah. Further it was stated that Shah had asked Singh months before the UP campaign on whether he would be interested in becoming the CM. But Singh is said to have refused the job and said that the party should fight the election without a CM face. It was also said that there were surveys conducted and Yogi was a point ahead. But among the BJP supporters, the two leaders were tied. Finally after much deliberation and almost a week later, Yogi was as the CM of Uttar Pradesh. INC means I Need Commission: BJP hits out at Congress after Rafale report 'Falsehood has a very short life,' Arun Jaitley slams Congress India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Dec 14: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley welcoming Supreme Court verdict on Rafale jet deal said falsehood has a very short life and in this case, it was a few months. In a press conference, Arun Jaitley, said, "Rafale Deal protected both security and commercial interest of India. Security interest because it increases combat ability of India, commercial interest because the final price was significantly lower both for aircraft and weaponised aircraft than what was negotiated in 2007 and 2012." "The entire imaginary thought process, fiction writing that one man has decided and there was no price negotiations. Was this a fiction writing type compromising with national security?," said Jaitley. Here is what Supreme Court said on Rafale deal: 12 points He further said that all the figures by the government are correct and all the figures by Mr Rahul Gandhi are false. "The truth has only one version and falsehood has many. That is why Mr Rahul Gandhi quoted several figures, " said Jaitley. Speaking on JPC probe as demanded by opposition parties, he said, "At times when they come together, people get divided as per their party line. Investigations & reviews of this kind can't be done when allegations are there by a body capable of partisan divisions, it has to be done by a judicial body.: How Pakistan has made Nankana Sahib a playground for Khalistan terrorists India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Dec 14: At Nankana Sahib, there has been enhanced activity since the past month, which has worried Indian Intelligence agencies. While there were three meetings between Sikh extremists who have been voicing for a Khalistan nation and the ISI, one of the most crucial meets was held in May this year. The fact that the ISI has taken it upon itself to revive Sikh militancy was evident in the meeting between Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief, Hafiz Saeed and a group of Pakistani Sikhs in Nankana Sahib. Khalistan terror: How India got Canada to acknowledge the real threat During the meeting, Saeed, whose outfit has sheltered and trained Khalistani terrorists said, " "Sikhs are a brave nation but atrocities are being committed against it in India". Saeed further said the Pakistani government also does not raise a voice because it wants India's friendship. "Pakistan is ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of seeking friendship with India," he said. The ISI with the help of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba had decided to revive Sikh militancy in 2001. First, it sheltered all those who had fled India. Then camps were set up where they were sheltered and trained. The Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Babbar Khalsa International had set up a common office outside Nankana Sahib, a small town in sub-divisional headquarter of Shekhupura in west Punjab in Pakistan. During the various meetings, the ISI would try to link the Sikhs and Muslims. They would say that both had a common enemy and that was India. Both Sikhs and Kashmiris must fight to liberate from India, the ISI had also said. Khalistan terror is real and even Canada has finally recognised it In 2001, a group of Sikhs had visited Pakistan. It was at that time that the ISI created the Sikh Muslim Itehad Federation to carry forward the anti-India plan. Through this forum, several recruitments were made and training imparted. The ISI also went on to form the Pakistan Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee. This panel was headed by Lieutenant General Javed of the ISI. The primary role of this committee was to invite Sikh youth from Punjab and then rope them in for their operations. Operation Express and Referendum 2020: While Referendum 2020 is one part of the problem, the entire exercise that is being stage managed by the ISI is known as Operation Express. The ISI has tasked some of the top officials in Pakistan to oversee this operation. During the course of the investigations conducted, a name called Choudhary Saab had cropped up and it is believed that he is in charge of Operation Express. The police say that the man in question is Lt Colonel Shahid Mehmood from the 25th Battalion of Baloch Regiment. He is the overall in charge of ensuring the success of the operation. He coordinates with the SJF and has been tasked with the big Referendum 2020 global event slated for June 6, 2020. Operation Express would also involve fanning of anti-India sentiments. The ISI-SJF meet at Nankana Sahib: Why India should be worried The ISI along with the SJF have planned a major operation for next year when lakhs of pilgrims will visit Pakistan for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. OneIndia had reported on November 17 that an SJF sponsored pilgrimage to Pakistan will be used by the ISI to churn out Khalistan sentiments. Reports state that the SJF is planning to fund the visit of nearly a lakh Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan to celebrate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, which falls next year. The worry for the agencies is that the ISI would try and propagate among the pilgrims the need for a pro-Khalistan movement. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 15:43 [IST] 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 Forces gunned down 148 terrorists in J&K this year J&K downgraded to UT from state, like a CM demoting to MLA: Ghulam Nabi Azad J&K: Explosives recovered, one individual arrested India oi-Vikas SV Srinagar, Dec 14: The Jammu and Kashmir police have reportedly recovered huge quantities of explosive substance from a resident of Panjran Pulwama. Some incriminating materials have also been seized. The cops and the security forces nabbed this individual, Mayour Ahmad Khan, based on credible inputs, said ANI report. It is now being probed if the individual is linked to terror-related activities in the region. The individual was arrested and a case under relevant sections of law has been registered. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 18:28 [IST] Hyderpora encounter: Bodies of two civilians exhumed, to be handed over to families J&K: Governor Satya Pal Malik clears proposal to upgrade 5 hospitals India pti-PTI Jammu, Dec 14: The Jammu and Kashmir administration has decided to enhance the health care facilities in five hospitals by upgrading them to 'District Hospital' category, an official said. The State Admgginistrative Council (SAC), headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik, has given approval to the creation of 158 posts, under various categories, in order to upgrade the 5 health care centres, he said. [All the more better if Imran Khan is proxy of Pakistan Army: Mehbooba Mufti] These facilities will enhance to the 'Sub District Hospitals' to 'District Hospital' category, he added. With the up-gradation the health care centres at Samba, Reasi, Bandipora, Ganderbal and Shopian are likely to get a boost. PTI Killing of another RSS worker shows how deep rooted Islamic radicalisation is in Kerala Kerala: BJP calls for bandh after Ayyappa devotee immolates self India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 14: The Kerala unit of the BJP called for a dawn-to-dusk strike in the state on Friday after a man, who attempted self-immolation near the party's Sabarimala protest venue in Thiruvananthapuram, died at the Medical College Hospital. Stray incidents of violence were reported during the dawn-to-dusk hartal. KSRTC buses parked outside Palakkad depot have been vandalised. Pilgrimage to Sabarimala and essential services have been exempted from the bandh. Service of public transport was interrupted and only private vehicles were seen on the roads. Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran lashed out at the BJP's call for strike and said the party was trying to provoke the police. According to reports, all examinations from classes 1 to 10 in schools have been deferred to December 21 and examinations conducted by Kerala University and Kerala Technological University postponed too in view of the hartal. Calling a state-wide strike on Friday over the death, the BJP claimed that the man immolated himself protesting the "adamant" stand of the state government, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, over the issue of continuing prohibitory orders and restrictions at the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. BJP's CK Padmanabhan: He (Venugopalan Nair) is an Ayyappa devotee. He visited Ayyappa temple many times. Because of this negative attitude of Pinarayi government towards this agitation and Ayappa devotees, lakhs of Ayappa devotees are hurt "The deceased, in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate, said he resorted to the act due to depression and ran frantic towards the protest venue after setting himself afire," the police said in a release. (With PTI inputs) Khalistan terror: How India got Canada to acknowledge the real threat India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Dec 14: The listing of Khalistan extremism as a real threat by Canada is an important move. The decision comes in the wake of India raising concerns about the threat from Khalistan terror groups. In the 2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada, it is stated, some individuals in Canada continue to support Sikh (Khalistani) extremist ideologies and movements. This political movement aims to create an independent homeland for Sikhs called Khalistan, in India. Violent activities in support of an independent Sikh homeland have fallen since their height during the 1982-1993 period when individuals and groups conducted numerous terrorist attacks. The 1985 Air India bombing by Khalistani terrorists, which killed 331 people, remains the deadliest terrorist plot ever launched in Canada. While attacks around the world in support of this movement have declined, support for the extreme ideologies of such groups remains. For example, in Canada, two key Sikh organizations, Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation, have been identified as being associated with terrorism and remain listed terrorist entities under the Criminal Code." Khalistan terror is real and even Canada has finally recognised it Important move: The move is an important one and India has often spoken about this threat, which is looming larger. The Canadian Prime Minster, Justin Trudeau had repeatedly failed to take into account the sensitivities regarding the issue. India has over the years shared ample information with various nations including Canada about the increasing threat from Khalistan militants. India has said that while it was Pakistan which was nurturing these persons, funding was sourced from various countries including, the United Kingdom, Italy and the United Kingdom. These nations have allowed various events such as the Referendum 2020 to be organised on its soil. The Indian intelligence agencies have said that such events were aimed at whipping up sentiments and also aimed at laying the groundwork for the revival of the movement. Warning bells: Over the past couple of months there have been several warnings issued by the Intelligence Bureau about the rise of the Khalistan movement. While the Punjab police have been kept on their toes for sometime now, there have been developments relating to the Khalistan movement in other parts of the country as well. The ISI-SJF meet at Nankana Sahib: Why India should be worried Meanwhile the Indian intelligence is keeping a close watch on the activities of the ISI and the Sikhs for Justice, a pro Khalistan group. Four meetings in November were held between the ISI and SJF. The meeting was aimed at whipping up passions and also push for the establishment of Khalistan. Reports state that the SJF is planning to fund the visit of nearly a lakh Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan to celebrate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, which falls next year. The worry for the agencies is that the ISI would try and propagate among the pilgrims the need for a pro Khalistan movement. The ISI would also look to evoke sentiments, the agencies believe. A 20-year-old woman from Tianzhu county in Guizhou province has become an internet celebrity after failing the college entrance examination in June last year. Yuan Guihua, with few qualities commonly believed necessary for success, started a channel connecting her remote Leizhai village to the outside world via the internet. She posted items about daily life on Kuaishou, a popular Chinese app for streaming and short videos, and got more than 3 million fans. Born into an impoverished family, Yuan has an older sister who suffered from polio and an older brother in poor health. The rural family had long been struggling to make ends meet. "She didn't want to become a burden to us, so she chose to come home instead of taking the exam again," her mother said. Yuan started watching Kuaishou short videos in 2015. She never thought that one day she could be watched and loved by so many fans across China on the platform. "Last Father's Day, I went to feed the cattle and look after them in the hills with my father as usual. Then I made a short video of less than 20 seconds to express my gratitude to him," she recalled. It was her first experience with Kuaishou. A few docile cattle, a muddy mountain road and an elderly father and a loving message attracted half a million hits in a few days. That video brought Yuan more than 1,000 fans and she started sharing interesting stories from village life, such as the crop harvest, mountain road construction and raft making. What was an especially pleasant surprise is that Yuan's series of short videos and webcasts brought opportunities to improve her family income and even that of fellow villagers. "Sometimes I help my mother with cooking while I'm livestreaming. My fans were curious about some dishes like bacon, sausage and pickled tofu," she said. She tried to deliver some local delicacies to fans. They said the delicious foods were natural and pollution-free, and quite different from the dishes commonly found in the city. Her income now surpasses 20,000 yuan ($2,900) a month through livestreaming and specialty sales, which is abundant for a family of nine, according to her mother. As the number of fans grew, more local specialties were delivered outside the village. She is exploring ways for left-behind residents to improve their incomes. Shi Dengshi, 55, raised his grandchildren at home and relied on his son, who works as a migrant laborer, for living expenses. "I never knew that ordinary agricultural products held such economic value," he said. "Now I earn 1,500 yuan a month from that." Yuan tried to help more impoverished villagers by planting xuetengguo, a specialty fruit in Tianzhu county. But the lack of a cold-chain logistics system made it difficult to deliver. In September, Yuan was selected as one of 20 internet celebrities to attend the Happy Rural Entrepreneurs Program launched by Kuaishou at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The program provided courses in rural entrepreneurship and business management. Zhang Fan, the program's trainer, said Kuaishou will continue to support for Yuan's entrepreneurship. "We will provide various resources for commercial management and brand promotion to help Yuan and other residents become better off," Zhang said. Meghalaya: 13 trapped in a flooded illegal mine, rescue ops underway India oi-Vikas SV Shillong, Dec 14: Thirteen people who were working in an illegal mine in East Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya got trapped after flooding. The mine is located at Ksan near Lytein River, said reports. The incident was reported to the district authorities on Thursday morning and the rescue efforts are on. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said the incident was unfortunate, adding that the rescue efforts are underway in full swing to save the life of the trapped miners. "The incident where 13 miners have been trapped in some mines in East Jaintia Hills is really unfortunate. We are very concerned about the individuals and their lives. NDRF, district administration and the police are doing all they can to save the lives of these miners," news agency ANI quoted Sangma as saying. "We are aware that illegal activities were going on and action will be taken at appropriate time. What is more right now is to save lives of these individuals so continuous efforts have been going on and I have been in touch with Deputy Commissioner and SP on a continuous basis," he added. [5 Major and dramatic rescue operations that took place around the world] This is not the first time that labourers engaged in illegal mining of coal have been trapped in a mine, a police officer said. At least 15 miners were trapped in an illegal rat-hole coal mine near the Nangalbibra area in South Garo Hills in 2012. The bodies were never recovered, officials said. OneIndia News with PTI inputs For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 22:36 [IST] New governor Shaktikanta Das to chair his first RBI board meeting today India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Dec 14: New Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das will chair his first bank board meeting on Friday. The directors of the board are likely to push for many decisions of the central bank when they meet. The meeting will review the progress with respect of some of the decisions taken in the last meet on November 19. Among other things, the crucial board meeting is expected to take a stock of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), which is under stress due to demonetisation and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Will uphold autonomy, values: New RBI chief Shaktikanta Das This schedule meeting comes in the backdrop of surprise resignation by Urjit Patel earlier this week citing personal reasons. However, the tussle between the Finance Ministry and RBI was attributed as reason for the sudden exit of Patel, who would have completed his 3-year term in September 2019. Shaktikanta Das, who will be heading the board meeting on his third day as the RBI governor, had vowed to maintain the core values and autonomy of the central bank, while also maintaining that the government is more than just a stakeholder. In the last RBI board meeting, efforts were made to reach a middle ground on contentious issues between the government and the RBI. The board decided to constitute an expert committee to examine the Economic Capital Framework of the RBI. Who is Shaktikanta Das, the new RBI Governor The government wanted Rs 3.6 lakh crore from the RBI's reserves but the central bank under Urjit Patel reportedly refused. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 9:02 [IST] Step by step instructions on how to lock and unlock your Aadhaar biometrics online No denial of Covid vaccine, treatment, essential services for want of Aadhaar: UIDAI Now, Aadhaar-Voter ID linking to be made mandatory to ensure accuracy on electoral rolls India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Dec 14: The Election Commission of India is preparing to pitch for the mandatory, legally backed, linking of voter IDs with the Aadhaar number. The commission will propose amendments to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, that will require citizens to link their Electoral Photo ID Card (EPIC) with the 12-digit Aadhaar, while ensuring privacy protection. The idea of proxy voting will also need Aadhaar backing for voter verification. The government has already passed an amendment in the Lok Sabha to allow NRIs to participate in elections via proxies. While the legislation will need Rajya Sabha approval to become law, Aadhaar linkage is considered the necessary element of such a plan. Can't stop salary for not linking bank account to Aadhaar, Centre told The project of linking Aadhaar number with voter id was taken up in 2015. However, it got suspended due to privacy-related concerns and the ongoing case on Adhaar regarding the same. In 2017, the Commission had reportedly filed an application in the Supreme Court to continue with Aadhaar linking keeping larger public interest in mind. Earlier this year, the EC had reportedly reiterated its plea that the linking of Aadhaar and voter will be voluntary. UIDAI extends deadline to implement Aadhaar virtual ID system to Jan-end This development comes in a few months after union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had told the media that personally, he is not in favour of linking Aadhaar with EPIC cards as the government "was not willing to face the accusation of spying on the people". For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 15:18 [IST] Priyanka Gandhi wants a youth CM in any of the state where Congress emerge victorious India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Dec 14: Pledges taken by the senior Congress leaders and youth leaders of the party on instructions of Congress president Rahul Gandhi have been broken on the question of selection chief ministers where the party emerged victorious. Cracks appeared between the youth and senior Congress leaders on the issue that a youth leader should be made chief minister either in Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan. Does only Congress high command decide on CM candidate? Well, not really It became all the more difficult for Rahul Gandhi to take a call on this in these states when Priyanka Gandhi advocated for a young face to be made chief minister in any of these states. However a call has already been taken on Madhya Pradesh where Kamal Nath's name has been announced for the post. This is the reason that despite almost finalised names of chief ministers in these states, they are being discussed once again and name of Ashok Gehlot is still undecided. Meeting continued at the residence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi and to make coordination between the senior leaders and youth leaders easy, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had to step in. Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi had meetings with Kamal Nath, Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia and discussed several formulas. Third 'son' of Indira Gandhi, 9-time MP Kamal Nath is the new CM of Madhya Pradesh This was also considered that Pilot and Scindia are young so they should be made deputy chief ministers. Another formula came about that since Lok Sabha elections are close so Pilot who is already a state president and Scindia should also be made state party president to get more seats for the party in Lok Sabha elections. Pilot and Scindia have been offered posts like general secretaries also. Observer for Madhya Pradesh A K Antony and general secretary in-charge Deepak Babaria and observer K C Venugopal and general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pandey spoke to Rahul Gandhi on the issue. It is said that Congress MLAs wanted to see Kamal Nath and Gehlot as the CM of MP and Rajasthan respectively. Rahul Gandhi managed to placate Scindia by telling that future is bright for him but he is finding difficult to convince Pilot. When Pilot was called in then it was thought that he would be informed about Gehlot being made the CM. But that did not happen. When Pilot came out of Rahul Gandhi's residence, he appeared disappointed. When late in the night he and Gehlot were called, then it was realized that it is still not decided who will be crowned. The matter may take some more time. Mission Punjab: Kejriwal to begin 2-day visit to state from today, will make big announcements in Moga A win for AAP in Punjab would cost it Rs 12,000 crore a year: Here is why Highly radicalised terrorist arrested in Punjab and not surprisingly link goes back to the UK Punjab: Amarinder Singh expresses concern over falling potato prices India pti-PTI Chandigarh, Dec 14: In a bid to stabilise falling prices, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday said the state government has asked the Centre for permission to export potato crop to Russia, USA, Iran and Sri Lanka. The chief minister further conveyed the state government's complete solidarity with the distressed potato growers. In response to a call attention notice raised by SAD MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala, Amarinder, who holds the agriculture portfolio, said the state government had sought the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Ministry of Commerce and Industries to allow Punjab to export crops to ensure price stabilisation. Earlier, Wadala had said the issue had given way to "resentment among potato growers as they were not getting fair prices for their crops". The chief minister said the Centre had been asked for permission to allow the export of potatoes and sugarcane to Russia, UAE, Iran and Sri Lanka as both crops were hit by massive price fluctuations. "Once the Centre gives clearance for export, the farmers would be immensely benefitted with lucrative returns and assured marketability," the chief minister said. He said all possible steps would be initiated to enhance the demand of potatoes with increased consumption in mid-day meals, jails and other government departments. PTI Rafale issue may politically boomerang on the Congress after SC ruling India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Dec 14: Corruption allegation on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rafale jet deal has more political implications than a legal one. Congress president Rahul Gandhi made direct attacks on the Prime Minister by calling him 'chor' has made the entire ruling dispensation not only furious but defensive as well. But what will happen now after the SC decision that has ruled no irregularities in the deal? People of the country have started taking the Congress president a bit serious the way he was conducting himself all this while which is reflecting in the recently concluded Assembly elections results especially in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. 'Truth has won, Rahul Gandhi should apologise,' says Amit Shah But with the Supreme Court ruling, people will now find it hard to believe allegations made by the Congress in general and Rahul Gandhi in particular on any issue. This must be recalled that not just the Supreme Court of India has come out in the rescue of the Modi government but a British court too has ruled extradition of Indian business Vijay Mallya to India. The government has already succeeded in bringing AgustaWestland middleman Christian Michel to India which is giving the government a credibility for its commitment against corruption. He was brought to India from Dubai. Even after Michel was brought to India, Rahul Gandhi was repeating the same Rafale and Reliance getting benefited through offset. The SC denied it too by saying that Dassault Aviation has done it in its own limits. Actually, political analysts have been saying all this while the Congress has been taking the same route taken by the BJP during 2014 Lok Sabha elections and making unsubstantiated allegations which had the potency of boomerang on them. There is also one thing that the Congress may find difficult to deal with is very sharp and sarcastic comments that the PM will now make on Rahul and the Congress. The BJP leadership will rattle not only the Congress but the entire opposition which had questioned the PM's honesty and accused him of supporting crony capitalism. Political analysts say that if one closely observes, the PM has not yet come into his elements. He is busier in the working of the government and when he will be fully involved in the electioneering, he will be difficult to handle Rahul Gandhi. Here is what Supreme Court said on Rafale deal: 12 points They say that the BJP can be pushed back on the issue of communalism but the Congress taking up corruption charges against the BJP will be difficult for it to defend. The Congress had ruled the country for the maximum time and there is something or the other on which doubts can be raised. Actually, the entire BJP was defenceless with the allegations made by the Congress. Right from the defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman to Union finance minister Arun Jaitley tried to defend but they failed to do much. This has given the BJP a respite. But for the Congress that had planned to keep this issue alive till the Lok Sabha elections and opposition political parties not allowing Parliament to function, they will have to devise a new strategy on the issue. They get benefited from the issue in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan for sure. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 14:08 [IST] INC means I Need Commission: BJP hits out at Congress after Rafale report Rafale jet deal: Timeline, changes by UPA and Modi government India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Dec 14: The Supreme Court on Friday dismisses all the petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal. The SC Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, said that the need for aircraft and quality of aircraft not in doubt and detailed scrutiny is not required. Who are the petitioners? Advocate M L Sharma was the first petitioner in the case. Later, another lawyer Vineet Dhanda had moved the apex court with the plea for court-monitored probe into the deal. AAP leader Sanjay Singh has also filed a petition against the fighter jet deal. After the three petitions were filed, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and activist advocate Prashant Bhushan had moved the apex court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. Thumbs up for Rafale deal, SC says no irregularities found What was the deal finalised by Modi government? During his visit to France, PM Narendra Modi on April 10 announced India will purchase 36 Rafale jets in a government-to-government agreement. After the announcement, questions were raised by the Opposition on how the PM finalised the deal without the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security. A joint statement issued on April 10, 2015, after talks between Modi and then French President Francois Hollande, said they agreed to conclude an Inter-Governmental Agreement for the supply of 36 Rafale jets on terms that would be better than conveyed by Dassault Aviation as part of a separate process underway. What was the UPA deal? India began the process to buy a fleet of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) in 2007 after the Defence Ministry, headed then by Congress leader A K Antony, cleared the proposal from the Indian Air Force. The contenders for the mega deal were Lockheed Martin's F-16s, Eurofighter Typhoon, Russia's MiG-35, Sweden's Gripen, Boeing's F/A-18s and Dassault Aviation's Rafale. After a long-drawn process, bids were opened in December 2012 and Dassault Aviation emerged as L-1 (lowest bidder). In the original proposal, 18 planes were to be manufactured in France and 108 in India in collaboration with the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. There were lengthy negotiations between the then UPA government and Dassault on prices and transfer of technology. The final negotiations continued till early 2014 but the deal could not go through. Details of the negotiated price per Rafale were not officially announced, but it was suggested by the then UPA government that the size of the deal would be USD 10.2 billion. The Congress claimed per aircraft rate including avionics and weapons was zeroed in at Rs 5.26 billion (As per Euro exchange rates prevailing then). The Final deal? India and France signed Euro 7.87-billion (Rs 590 billion approximately) deal on September 23, 2016, for 36 Rafale jets. The delivery of the aircraft will start from September 2019. The deal was finalised on the basis of the procurement procedure followed under the UPA government. The allegations? The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 16.70 billion as against Rs 5.26 billion finalised by the UPA government. The party has also demanded answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal. The Congress has also sought to know price details of the aircraft and how the rate per aircraft has gone up from Rs 5.26 billion to Rs 16.7 billion. The government has refused to share the details, citing a secrecy clause of a 2008 pact between India and France. Congress' A K Antony, who was defence minister in 2008 when India and France inked an inter-governmental agreement on defence procurement, said the government's claim that the secrecy clause was forcing it to not reveal price details of the deal was "totally wrong". The Congress has also alleged the government was benefitting the Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the Rs 590 billion deal. On October 3, 2016, RDL and Dassault Aviation announced a joint venture (JV) in the aerospace sector and a year later, foundation stone of a manufacturing facility was laid in Mihan, Nagpur. (With PTI inputs) Congress says SC was not right forum to probe Rafale Deal Congress Party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the verdict is in fact a validation of what the Congress stated a month ago - that SC is not a forum to discuss the modalities of Rafale deal. "The only forum is a JPC which should probe the corruption in the Rafale deal. What the government presented in SC is a one-sided story. Most facts presented are not available in the public domain," he said, adding that the Congress will continue to demand JPC in Parliament. "If PM Modi thinks that there is nothing to hide then on behalf of Congress I dare BJP to bring in JPC. There is a reason why the Congress never approached the SC on the Rafale matter. Surjewala: We set up a JPC for Bofors, why not for Rafale?" he asked. Every deal is not Bofors deal, says BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain Welcoming the judgement, BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said,"Every deal is not Bofors deal." "It is the culture and tradition of Congress and its top leadership to mint money from such deals on the cost of country's national security," he said. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress should apologise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making false allegations against him and questioning his credibility, he added. Here is what Supreme Court said on Rafale deal: 12 points Congress to press for JPC into Rafale deal Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma says the party will insist on a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into Rafale Deal. Questioning the SC order, he says that the bench has not gone into all details. Home minister Rajnath Singh has already made it clear that it would not allow a JPC probe into the deal. "The SC said that it is not proper for it to go into details. The cost was inflated and the tech was not transferred to India. The court did not look into these aspects," he said. 'The matter was crystal clear', says Rajnath Singh Home Minister Rajnath Singh says,''The matter was crystal clear from the beginning and we have been saying that the allegations leveled by Congress were baseless and to gain political mileage.'' Supreme Court says what it thinks was right: TMC leader Saugata Roy TMC leader Saugata Roy says,''Supreme Court said what it thinks was right but the political parties demand a JPC probe into. Can't see how Rafale remains election issue after SC verdict: Omar Abdullah National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Friday said he did not see the Rafale deal remaining an election issue in view of the verdict given by the Supreme court. "Can't see how #RafaleDeal remains an election issue after this," Omar wrote on Twitter after the top court verdict. Supreme Court has not given an opinion on pricing, says Mallikarjun Kharge Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said,''Our demand was for Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) and it still stands,main issue is pricing which SC said it did not want to comment as it is not in its jurisdiction. Home Minister is speaking on an incomplete judgement given on a PIL Rafale Deal.'' Amit Shah says 'Today it's proven that Chowkidaar is not a chor' BJP president Amit Shah has said that the Supreme Court order on Rafale deal has exposed the Congress."President Rahul Gandhi took to lies for immediate political gains. This was one of the biggest attempts of misleading the nation," he added. "The truth has prevailed in the Supreme Court and the verdict has left Rahul Gandhi silenced. He must apologize as he put the national security in jeopardy," said Shah. Dispelling all allegations, Shah said that the government was not involved in any sense in selecting offset partners. "On what basis did Rahul Gandhi level all these allegations? The people of the country want to know who was his source of information," Amit Shah said. The UPA government was never engaged in government to government deals, Shah further alleged. "Today it has been proven that Chowkidaar is not a chor," Shah said. Rajasthan: BJPs tally in SC/ST seats nose dives India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Jaipur, Dec 14: The BJP's tally in those seats reserved for SC/STs in Rajasthan has taken a nose dive. The party managed to win just 20 out of the 59 seats reserved for SC/STs. Out of the 34 seats that were reserved for the SC candidates in the state, the BJP won 11 of them. In 2013, the party had won 32 of the 34. Even in the ST segment the tally of the BJP came down to half from 2013. In 2013, the party had won 18 out of the 25 ST seats, while this year the party could manage just 9. 25 candidate lost election by less than 2000 votes in 3 states It could be said that this was on expected lines as the state had witnessed violence following the Supreme Court's verdict on the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. In Alwar district where a Dalit man had been killed allegedly in police firing on April 2, the BJP lost 8 of the 10 seats. The BJP also lost all five seats in Sikar district, where several people had been booked following the April 2 violence. In 2013, the party had won all the five seats here. In Barmer and Jaisalmer districts, where there was violence on April 2, the BJP managed to win just one out of the nine seats. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 8:24 [IST] 'Truth has won, Rahul Gandhi should apologise,' says Amit Shah India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Dec 14: Mounting attack on Congress party and Rahul Gandhi, BJP President Amit Shah demanded an apology from the Congress President for putting national security at risk. In a press conference held after the Supreme Court Verdict, " We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, the truth has won. People were being misled by unfortunately the country's oldest party. Its a slap on politics of lies." "Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk, " said Shah. Also, the BJP chief demanded the source of information on basis of which Rahul Gandhi made such big allegations. Amit Shah cautioned that Rahul Gandhi should be careful before levelling allegations. Here is what Supreme Court said on Rafale deal: 12 points He asked, "If Congress had all the proof then why did they not go to the Supreme Court with it? Their B team was already there." About opposition's demand for JPC probe into the deal, Shah said, "JPC is formed only when there is a discussion in the house (Parliament), I challenge Congress for a discussion on it." He went on to say that the Supreme Court has also made it clear that there is nothing wrong with the offset partner, "Congress levelled false allegations and this verdict is a slap on their faces, " he added. The Supreme Court of India has found no irregularities in the government's decision-making process to procure the 36 Rafale jets from Dassault under the Indo-French intergovernmental agreement. Thumbs up for Rafale deal, no irregularities, no commercial favouritism found The court also observed that it is not its job to go into pricing when the need and quality of aircraft are not in doubt. Further, the court also said it did not find anything wrong in the selection of the Indian offset partners by Dassault. All the pleas have been dismissed. The court also said that no further review is required, while also adding that no probe is required into the pricing aspect or decision-making process for the purchase of the aircraft. The European Union (EU) and China will try to work together on more science and technology programs due to the success of previous cooperation programs, said Jean-Eric Paquet, director-general of the European Commission DG Research and Innovation, whilst visiting Beijing on Thursday. Jean-Eric Paquet, director-general of the European Commission DG for Research and Innovation, speaks at a press conference in Beijing on Dec. 13, 2018. [Photo/China.org.cn] The director-general was in China on a two-day trip to discuss further China-EU cooperation in research and innovation with top Chinese research institutions. He said that China and the EU have been working closely together in areas such as health, energy, food, natural resources, space, earth observation, brain research and climate change; and will try to explore new areas of collaboration. He said that we need more future research that allows our societies to continue to develop and grow, whilst making them more inclusive and respectful of planetary value, adding that such research can not just be carried out at the national level, but would also require joint international efforts. During a press conference on Dec. 13, Paquet presented the upcoming EU Horizon Europe program, which includes a proposed EUR 100 billion for cooperation with China and other international partners. The program, running over 2021-2027, will coincide with Chinas next Five-Year Plan creating ample opportunity to drive sustainable development and job creation as well as laying the groundwork for research and innovation in future areas of joint interest. At the event, Paquet also opened the 5th EURAXESS Science Slam held at Zhongguancun in Beijing, often referred to as Chinas Silicon Valley. The Science Slam is a science communication competition where young researchers from all over China engage with the general public for an opportunity to visit a European research institution. The competition is an initiative launched by the European Commission to support the mobility of researchers and functions as a networking tool for European researchers active in China, and for Chinese and international researchers wishing to collaborate in Europe. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the China-EU Science and Technology agreement in 1998, as well as the 10th anniversary of the signing of the R&D-PUNE (Research & Development -- Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy) agreement in 2008. Over the years, technology and innovation cooperation between the EU and China has developed rapidly. Last year, both sides launched another package of joint initiatives, with over EUR 100 million in funding from each side. Two Army jawans rape deaf and mute woman for 4 years India oi-Madhuri Adnal Pune, Dec 14: In yet another horrifying event, two Army jawan who were posted in Delhi were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly raping a speech and hearing impaired woman for over four years at a military hospital located in Khadki town, Pune. The woman, in her 30s, works as a Grade IV employee at the hospital. The woman had approached an Indore-based NGO that worked with speech and hearing impaired people in July this year. The NGO took her statement through a sign-language expert, who escorted the victim and submitted a complaint to the commandant of the military hospital. Take this... man accused of raping teenage girl in Kerala found marching demanding justice for her! The woman says in the FIR that she started working at the hospital in July 2014. She was first molested by one of the jawans during her night shift in the bathroom of a family ward. She reported the incident to her immediate superior, a nursing assistant, through a text message. However, the assistant, also a jawan, joined hands with the accused and demanded sexual favours from her. They, in turn, were joined by two more jawans, who mercilessly raped the victim for over four years, says the complaint. The jawans were later arrested under sections 376 (rape) and 354 (molestation) of the IPC based on a complaint by the victim. The jawans identified as Ravindra Singh and Mangilal Ahirwar, were taken into custody and were produced before a court in Pune. Ahirwar was released on bail while Singh was remanded in police custody till Friday. The sub-inspector also said that the other two jawans booked in the case had secured interim anticipatory bail from Bombay High court till December 18. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, December 14, 2018, 14:16 [IST] Thumbs up for Rafale deal, no irregularities, no commercial favouritism found India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Dec 14: The Supreme Court of India has found no irregularities in the government's decision making process to procure the 36 Rafale jets from Dassault under the Indo-French intergovernmental agreement. The court also observed that it is not its job to go into pricing when the need and quality of aircraft is not in doubt. Further the court also said it did not find anything wrong in the selection of the Indian offset partners by Dassault. All the pleas have been dismissed. The court also said that no further review is required, while also adding that no probe is required into the pricing aspect or decision making process for the purchase of the aircraft. Rafale jet deal: Timeline, changes by UPA and Modi government The court added that it did not find any instances of commercial favouritism. There is no occasion to doubt the decision making process in procurement of the aircraft. Minor variations in clauses should not amount to the setting aside of the contract, the Bench also said. The Bench also observed that a country cannot be underprepared. It is not right for a court to sit as an appellant authority and scrutinise all aspects. The perception of individuals cannot be the basis of roving inquiry in sensitive issues such as defence procurements. The Bench also said that it cannot compel a government to purchase 126 aircraft and it is not proper for the court to examine each aspect of this case. It is not the job of the court to compare pricing details, the Bench also said. The court said that the personal perception of the people on the deal matters little. However the judiciary has constrained jurisdiction in examining defence deals of this nature especially when adversaries have inducted 4th and 5th generation fighters compared to none by India. On the offset partner the Bench said that it is up to the vendor and not the central government to decide on the same. It is not for the court to step into what is appropriate. Mere press interviews cannot be the basis of the same. There is no commercial favouritism and hence there is no need to intervene. It is our considered view that in matters of contract there cannot be any uniform view of judicial review. Scrutiny will have to be made keeping national security in mind. Our country cannot be allowed to be underprepared. It will not be correct for this court to sit and decide on the correctness. It was only after the statement made by former president of France, Fancois Hollande that the petitions were filed, the Bench also said. The verdict was delivered by a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph. Deal is clean says French Ambassador to India on Rafale A petition was filed in which information was sought about the contract given to Reliance by Dassault. The petitioners alleged discrepancies in the fighter jet deal with France. Further a stay on the deal was also sought. The petitioner claimed in his plea that the inter-government agreement to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets must be quashed as it was an "outcome of corruption" and not ratified by Parliament under Article 253 (Parliament has power to make any law for implementing any inter-government agreement) of the Constitution. 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. Sri Lanka won't be allowed to be used for 'any activity' against India: President Rajapaksa Sri Lankan human trafficking case: Victims were lured with promise of jobs in Canada Sirisenas decision to dissolve Parliament was illegal: Sri Lankan SC International oi-Vikas SV Colombo, Dec 13: The Sri Lankan Supreme Court on Thursday came down heavily on President Maithripala Sirisena's decision to dissolve Parliament last month and called the move 'illegal', said reports. Sri Lanka is going through a major political crisis since October 26 when President Sirisena, in a controversial move, removed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and installed ex-strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place. A seven-member apex court bench said that the President cannot dissolve Parliament until it completes a four-and-a-half year term, the Colombo Gazette reported. Ongoing Lankan crisis as one between foreign and indigenous thinking: Sirisena The ruling comes as a double blow to Sirisena a day after Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe proved his majority in Parliament. Sirisena, after sacking Wickremesinghe, dissolved Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. As many as 13 petitions have been filed against Sirisena's November 9 order sacking the 225-member Parliament, almost 20 months before its term was to end. The Supreme Court on November 13 had issued an interim order ruling Sirisena's gazette notification as temporarily illegal and halted the preparations for snap polls. A 3-member Supreme Court bench is examining the petitions against and for the move. On December 7, they reserved the judgement for this week. If the ruling goes against Sirisena it would put the president in a difficult situation given his public statement that he would not restore the pre-October 26 position by reappointing Wickremesinghe. Sri Lanka Supreme Court overturns president's order to sack parliament Sirisena sacked Parliament when it appeared that Rajapaksa would not be able to muster the support of 113 MPs. Wickremesinghe on the other hand commands a majority. Analysts said the Supreme Court ruling would be the first step in the resolution of the ongoing political crisis, the likes of which has never been witnessed in the island nation's history. Sirisena has said he will accept the Supreme Court's ruling on the petitions filed against his gazette notification dissolving Parliament. Sirisena ran the national unity government with Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) since 2015. The partnership ended on October 26 when Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe, triggering the political standoff. Since ousting Wickremesinghe, Sirisena has highlighted the "shortcomings" of the ex-premier in a bid to justify his sacking and dissuade his reinstatement. Both Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa claim to be the rightful prime minister. Wickremesinghe says his dismissal is invalid because he still commands a majority in Parliament. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has officially conveyed that the House does not recognise Rajapaksa as the legal prime minister until he proves his majority. The United National Front (UNF) coalition led by Wickeremesinghe has moved three no-trust motions against Rajapaksa. The motions came to be adopted after the speaker summoned Parliament, in a direct confrontation with Sirisena. Rajapaksa has, so far, failed to prove his majority in Parliament, however he has refused to step down. Wickeremesinghe has the backing of 106 parliamentarians, while the Rajapaksa-Sirisena combine has the support of 95. OneIndia News with PTI inputs For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, December 13, 2018, 18:16 [IST] Delhi: Three held for killing 22-yr-old in Vivek Vihar New Delhi pti-PTI New Delhi, Dec 14: Three men have been arrested and one juvenile apprehended for allegedly killing a 22-year-old man whose body was found on the Vivek Vihar railway track nearly three months ago, police said on Friday. The accused have been identified as Pardeep (20), Akash (24), Deepu Kumar (22), they added. The minor was not named. On September 16, the police received information that a man was found dead on the Vivek Vihar railway track. The deceased, Samad, 19, was a resident of Meerut, officials said. "During investigation, we learned that on the day of Samad's death his mobile phone had been snatched at Vivek Vihar Railway Station," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Railway) Dinesh Kumar Gupta said. The spot of the crime has no CCTV coverage. The police questioned locals, including criminals, during which one Deepu was apprehended, he said. Deepu confessed to the crime and mentioned the role of three others, police said. They allegedly snatched the mobile phone from Samad at Vivek Vihar Railway Station during the day, the DCP added. In the evening when the accused were drinking near Vivek Vihar railway track, the deceased came there and enquired about his phone, the officer said. [Gurgaon: Sex racket busted; 8 women among 12 arrested] A heated argument broke out between them, following which the accused stabbed Samad on his thigh, neck and face. They robbed him and placed his body on the railway track to make it look like an accident, the DCP said. Later, his two associates Pradeep and Deepak were arrested and their juvenile friend was apprehended, Gupta added. PTI The phase-1 project of the Beijing Daxing International Airport Expressway, known as the new airport expressway, has been completed, and will be inspected for project acceptance in the first half of next year, according to the transportation authorities of Beijing. In the second phase, the new airport expressway will be extended northward to connect to South Fourth Ring Road. By then, the new airport north line expressway will be extended westward to link to a branch of the Beijing-Xiongan Expressway. When these road projects are completed, Beijing residents will find it much easier to go to Xiongan. The expressway project is an important part of the integrated trunk road network around the new airport, consisting of five vertical and two horizontal expressways. The expressway starts at about 450 meters east of the Tuanhe Bridge on South Fifth Ring Road, and ends at the north boundary of the new airport. With a total length of about 27 kilometers, the expressway is a two-way eight-lane road, with a design speed of 100-120 kilometers per hour. The 27-kilometer road mainly consists of bridges, with bridge surface taking up about 87 percent of the total. When completed, the expressway is expected to shorten the drive from South Fifth Ring Road to the new airport to just over 20 minutes. According to the project manager, the first-phase roadwork of the new airport expressway has been completed, and the follow-up mechanical and electrical work in road pavement, lighting, monitoring, communication systems, and ancillary projects of environmental protection, greening and supporting facilities are in full swing, so that the project acceptance check can be conducted as scheduled in the first half of 2019. Meanwhile, preparations for the second-phase project of the new airport expressway, stretching from South Fifth Ring Road to South Fourth Ring Road, are also well underway. This section is 8.5 kilometers long, extending from South Fifth Ring Road to the Gongyidong Bridge. It is a two-way six-lane fast track, with a design speed of 80 kilometers per hour. As the first horizontal road of the road network around the New Airport Expressway, the northern extension is about 25 kilometers in length, with a design speed of 120 kilometers per hour. It is a two-way eight-lane expressway, with a surface width of 41 meters. It has 22 main bridges, four interchanges, two toll stations, two management zones, and two service zones. The new airport north line expressway will be built in three sections: the middle section, the east section, and the west section. The middle section, from the Beijing-Kaifeng Expressway to the Beijing-Taipei Expressway totaling 14 kilometers in length, is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. The east section starts from the Beijing-Taipei Expressway and ends at Langfang on the border of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province, with a designed length of 2.87 kilometers. The west section starts at the Beijing-Tianjin Expressway and ends at Zhuozhou on the border of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province, with a designed length of about 8.3 kilometers. According to the plan, there will be four expressways around Beijings new airport, including the new airport expressway, the Beijing-Kaifeng Expressway, the Beijing-Taipei Expressway, and the New Airport North Line Expressway. Furthermore, three railways are under construction: the new airport express, the Beijing-Xiongan Railway, and the Langfang-Zhuozhou Intercity Railway. Among them, the new airport expressway and the new airport express railway provide direct access to downtown Beijing, connecting multiple points of the metro network. At present, the traffic link between the new airport and the railway stations has taken shape. The Beijingxi Railway Station is 50 kilometers from the new airport, and the drive is shortened to 50 minutes. The distance between the Beijingnan Railway Station and the new airport is about 40 kilometers, and the drive only takes about 40 minutes. In the future, it will be more convenient for travelers to transfer between airports and train stations. In addition, the Beijing Capital International Airport is 80 kilometers from the new airport, and it is only a 70-minute drive. CIIE: China opening wider to the world The China International Import Expo showcases the country's determination in further opening up and gives impetus to the world in free trade and globalization. Flash China's top legislator Li Zhanshu met with Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno Thursday in Beijing. Li, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said China stands ready to work with Ecuador to implement the consensus reached by the two countries' leaders, expand and deepen bilateral ties, and always remain each other's partner. The Chinese NPC hopes to keep in close touch with Ecuador's National Assembly, learn from each other and enhance mutual understanding, Li said. Moreno expressed Ecuador's appreciation for China's development path and achievements. He said what China had achieved not only benefitted its own people but also contributed to the common development of humanity. Ecuador hopes the two countries become good partners of mutual benefit and cooperation, and support exchanges between the two countries' legislative bodies, Moreno said. You are here: World Flash China and Japan will hold their 10th round of high-level consultations on maritime affairs from Dec. 17 to 18 in Wuzhen of east China's Zhejiang Province, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday. Officials from authorities of foreign affairs, defense, maritime law enforcement and maritime management of both countries will attend the talks, Lu Kang told a routine press briefing. China expects to fully exchange views with Japan on maritime issues of common concern to strengthen mutual understanding and trust, Lu said. The China-Japan high-level consultations on maritime affairs were established in 2012. The previous round of consultations was held in Sendai, Japan in April this year. Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Market Demand Trend | Sanofi-pasteur, Novartis, GSK, Abbott, Pfizer, CSL, Hualan Bio, Changchun Bio, Alephbio, Sinovac, CS Vaccine, Tianyuan Bio, Tiantan Bio, Siobp. Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/27783 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/27783 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/flu-vaccine-market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/27783 www.upmarketresearch.com Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) 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.Get Free Exclusive PDF Sample Copy of This Report:The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) 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.UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) 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. The report for Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) market analysis & forecast 2018-2023 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) 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 key manufacturers in the Flu Vaccine include Sanofi-pasteur Novartis GSK Abbott Pfizer CSL Hualan Bio Changchun Bio Alephbio Sinovac CS Vaccine Tianyuan Bio Tiantan Bio SiobpMarket Size Split by Type Whole Virus Vaccines Split Virus Vaccines Subunit Or Surface Antigen Vaccines Live Attenuated (Cold-Adapted) Virus VaccinesMarket Size Split by Application For Children (6 months to 3 years old) For Adult and Children over 3 yearsMarket size split by Region North America United States Canada Mexico Asia-Pacific China India Japan South KoreaThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Overview of Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Chapter 2 Global Market Status and Forecast by Regions Chapter 3 Global Market Status and Forecast by Types Chapter 4 Global Market Status and Forecast by Downstream Industry Chapter 5 Market Driving Factor Analysis of Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Chapter 6 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Market Competition Status by Major Manufacturers Chapter 7 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Major Manufacturers Introduction and Market Data Chapter 8 Upstream and Downstream Market Analysis of Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Chapter 9 Cost and Gross Margin Analysis of Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Chapter 10 Marketing Status Analysis of Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) Chapter 11 Report Conclusion Chapter 12 Research Methodology and ReferenceKey Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) 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 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) market analysis and forecast 2018-2023.Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.Grab Special Discount :You can also ask for region wise market research report, as below: Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-Global Market Status & Trend Report 2013-2023 Top 20 Countries Data Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-North America Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-South America Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-Europe Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-EMEA Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-Asia Pacific Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-China Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-India Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine)-United States Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Flu Vaccine (Influenza Vaccine) are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500, East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States. Growing Manufacturing ERP Market Outlook and SWOT Analysis of Vendors - SAP, IQMS, Ramco Systems, NetSuite, Epicor Software, Oracle Manufacturing ERP Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-toc/upcoming/1864 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1864 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/manufacturing-erp-market https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/electronic-manufacturing-services-ems-market www.gminsights.com North America manufacturing ERP market is expected to dominate in terms of revenue generation due to the increasing adoption of cloud solutions and high focus on the accumulation of customer data to aid in the decision-making process. The manufacturing ERP market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to have a high growth owing to the increasing number of entrants into automotive, pharmaceutical, garment, and consumer electronics manufacturing markets.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @The growth of manufacturing activities and the broad scale of operations that an organization operating in the manufacturing sector is required to maintain has led to the technological development by players in the manufacturing ERP market. An ideal system can aid the company in decision making, eliminate risk, reduce wastage, and lead to overall growth. Awareness about these benefits is a major factor promoting the manufacturing ERP market.Vendors operating in the global manufacturing ERP market include SAP SE, IQMS, Ramco Systems, NetSuite, Inc., Epicor Software Corporation, and Oracle.Penetration of big data analytics is expected to generate an organizational demand for the manufacturing ERP market. The shift toward a customer-centric business has led to rising applications of big data analytics, which can aid in supply planning, output forecasting, and manufacturing process defect tracking and ERP software can allow organizations to gain higher flexibility and increase the visibility of critical data. This software can also let companies exchange data across business lines when users create it, allowing different parties to take advantage of that information.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @Growing adoption of IoT and automation in the manufacturing sector can create new avenues for the growth of the manufacturing ERP market. Data obtained from IoT devices is unstructured and extensive. To accommodate the penetration of IoT technology, players operating in the manufacturing ERP market are developing their software to cater to client demands.Segmentation of the manufacturing ERP market by secondary vertical includes metallurgy, automotive, consumer electronics, electrical devices, energy, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food and beverage, retail and garment, and others. The automotive segment is anticipated to dominate the manufacturing ERP market during the forecast period owing to the increase in customer demands, stringent compliance requirements, and evolving industry standards. Manufacturing ERP software also allows the integration of various value chain activities, inventory management, and tracking of vehicles in terms of recall and reimbursements.Browse Complete Report Summary:The food and beverage industry is anticipated to exhibit rapid growth of the manufacturing ERP market owing to a number of food safety regulations and compliances imposed on these products. Intense competition from organizations operating in this industry is causing companies to need specialized processes for seasonal demand monitoring, order management, customer trend, and relationship management.Manufacturing ERP market segmentation based on deployment model is bifurcated into the cloud and on-premise software. Cloud systems offered on a subscription basis to enterprises increase the on-going operating expenditures as opposed to on-premise software that require high initial investments. These are highly lucrative solutions to SMBs with limited financial resources and contribute massively toward the high growth of the manufacturing ERP market segment. Cloud software also reduces the perpetual need to upgrade the software to meet the changes occurring in an organization or the industry. On-premise segment holds the largest share in the manufacturing ERP market and is largely utilized by large companies as it allows organizations to have a complete control over the implementation process and offers higher customization.Browse Related Report: -Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) Market Size By Product (Electronic Manufacturing, Engineering Services, Test & Development Implementation, Logistics Services, Others), By Application (Computer, Consumer Electronics, Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Automotive, Others) Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa), Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 2024About 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: Global Synthetic Paper Market Nan Ya Plastics Corporation (Taiwan), Yupo Corporation (Japan), Arjobex SAS (France), American Profol Inc. (U.S.), Hop Industries Corporation (U.S.), PPG Industries, Inc. https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/sample/2952 https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/product/global-synthetic-paper-market-outlook-2018-2023 https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/discount/2952 http://www.kdmarketinsights.com A fresh research report presented by KD Market Insights provides a detailed analysis of Global Synthetic Paper Market research report will include all the major trends and technologies that play an important role in market growth in the predicted span of 6 years. It also presents the overview of industry players, advantages, challenges the business is going through. The research provides a complete understanding of the Global Synthetic Paper Market terms of revenue.Report start from the market overview section which demonstrates the market drivers, restraints and opportunities that influence the current and future status of the market. It also includes key trends, implementation restraints, end-user product issues and many more. These factors are responsible for changing the market scenario. The deep analysis of each segment in the report is provided in order to provide a thorough understanding of the overall scenario in the Synthetic Paper Market. The report covers the competitors strategies that help them to capture the market.Request for Sample @Global Market for synthetic paper to 2023 offers detailed coverage of synthetic paper industry and presents main market trends. The market research gives historical and forecast market size, demand and production forecasts, end-use demand details, price trends, and company shares of the leading synthetic paper producers to provide exhaustive coverage of the synthetic paper.Report contents includeAnalysis of the synthetic paper market including revenues, future growth, market outlookHistorical data and forecastRegional analysis including growth estimatesAnalyzes the end user markets including growth estimates.Profiles on synthetic paper including products, sales/revenues, and market positionMarket structure, market drivers and restraints.Key regionsNorth AmericaEuropeAsia PacificMiddle East and AfricaSouth AmericaKey Vendors.Nan Ya Plastics Corporation (Taiwan),Yupo Corporation (Japan),Arjobex SAS (France),American Profol Inc. (U.S.),Hop Industries Corporation (U.S.),PPG Industries, Inc. (U.S.),Relyco Sales, Inc. (U.S.),Transilwrap Company, Inc. (U.S.),Seiko Epson Corporation (Japan),MDV Papier-und Kunststoffveredelung GmbH (Germany),Browse Full Report With TOC @Table of Contents:Part 1. SummaryPart 2. Report Methodology2.1 Methodology2.2 Data Source2.3 DisclaimerPart 3. Market Overview3.1 General Information3.2 Product Type3.3 Application3.4 Synthetic Paper Status & ProspectPart 4. Competitive Landscape4.1 Global Synthetic Paper Sales & Share by Company (2013-2018)4.2 Global Synthetic Paper Revenue & Share by Company (2013-2018)4.3 Pricing Trends4.4 Competitive TrendsPart 5. Segmentation by Type5.1 Global Synthetic Paper Sales Volume by Type (2013-2018)5.2 Global Synthetic Paper Revenue by Type (2013-2018)5.3 Global Synthetic Paper Price by Type (2013-2018)Part 6. Segmentation by Application6.1 Global Synthetic Paper Sales Volume by Application (2013-2018)6.2 Global Synthetic Paper Revenue by Application (2013-2018)6.3 Global Synthetic Paper Price by Application (2013-2018)Part 7. Regional Perspectives7.1 Overview7.2 North America7.2.1 by Application7.2.2 by Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, etc.)7.3 Europe7.3.1 by Application7.3.2 by Country (Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc.)7.4 Asia-Pacific7.4.1 by Application7.4.2 by Country (China, Japan, Korea, India, etc.)7.5 Middle East & Africa7.5.1 by Application7.5.2 by Country (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Nigeria, Iran, South Africa, etc.)7.6 South America7.6.1 by Application7.6.2 by Country (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, etc.)Part 8. Company Profiles8.1 Company Profile8.2 Product Offered8.3 Business Performance (2013-2018)Part 9. Market Forecast9.1 Global Synthetic Paper Market Size Forecast (2018-2023)9.1.1 Global Synthetic Paper Sales Forecast (2018-2023)9.1.2 Global Synthetic Paper Revenue Forecast (2018-2023)9.2 Forecast by Region9.2.1 North America9.2.2 Europe9.2.3 Asia-Pacific9.2.4 Middle East & Africa9.2.5 South America9.3 Forecast by Type9.4 Forecast by ApplicationContinue@.....Check For Discount @About KD Market Insights:KD Market Insights has come with the idea of helping business by intelligent decision making and thorough understanding of the industry. We offer a comprehensive database of syndicated research, customized reports as well as consulting services to help a business grow in their respective domain. At KD Market Insights, we offer our client a deep market research reports accompanied by business consulting services that can help them to reach on top of the corporate world. Our customized reports are built by keeping all factors of the industry in mind.Contact us150th State street, 3rd FloorAlbany, New YorkUnited states (12207)Telephone: +1-518-300-1215Email: - sales@kdmarketinsights.comWebsite: - Prescribed Health Apps Market 2023 Top Key Players are iHealth Lab, Inc.BioTelemetry Inc.,AirStrip Technologies, Apple, Inc. Sanofi, LifeWatch AG, etc. Prescribed Health Apps Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/758 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/758 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/request-toc/758 Namely Prescribed Health Apps Market Report has Been Published by Market Research Future Which Covers All the Geographical Locations with Demand, Trend Analysis with near about Forecasted results and Also Covers the Market Expectations.Prescribed Health Apps Market Key Players:iHealth Lab, Inc.BioTelemetry Inc.,AirStrip Technologies, Apple, Inc. Sanofi, LifeWatch AG, etc.Get Premium Sample copy @About Prescribed Health apps:Health apps are new mobile applications that assist patients to manage their medical condition on real time basis by feed the information back to the professionals. The application acts as a central data collection point connected to a third-party electronic device that can directly monitor individuals physical and medical healthThe human functions like blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, calories burned, cholesterol, and other fitness and health data are displayed on a dashboard of the app. The health app allows the user to create a medical ID that contains all the emergency and important medical information.Prescribed Health apps Applications:The prescribed health apps assist in managing specific issue such as recovering from surgery and managing cancer related pain. These health applications allow monitoring patients daily routine by the professionals for critical health issues. All the medical records of a patient can be stored in a single device. Health apps gives ordinary people access to reliable healthcare information and have provide consumers with empowerment in healthcare.On a PatientView survey it has been found that 70% of patient groups believe that health apps to be useful in supporting patients in maintaining their own health.Key Market Driver:The Health app is one of the most growing industries in the app market. The need for health apps is increasing as it allows patients to manage their physical and medical condition from the place they are. The patients need not go the hospitals to manage it. As the mobile is a portable device and new applications and technologies are been introduced in medical field raise the market for Health apps. Due to which the growth is faster than another categories of apps. The increasing use of mobile devices in medical field also helps in growth of the market.According to studies in past five years the total growth of overall mobile apps was 38.1% whereas medical apps growth was 49.1%. The health app market is expected to grow annually at the rate of about 47.6% CAGR.Get Discount @Prescribed Health apps Regional Market Information:North AmericaGlobally, North America region is leading market for Health apps. North America dominates the domain of healthcare information technology i.e. eHealth or digital health. The technology growth in electronic health to smartphones apps in medical field has increased the market opportunity for personal healthcare apps. Furthermore the time taken to development and upgrade the applications have more reasons to ensure that the designed phase to optimized.EuropeEurope region is also showing high growth in Health apps. European countries like Germany and UK are countries that are more into Health apps. Europe has played an important role in development of healthcare apps. The European commission has launched a public consultation on mobile health on Green paper, where users using health apps can comment on the barriers and issues related to the use of health apps. These are the few factors that help in increasing the growth of health apps in Europe.Table of Contents1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction2.1 Introduction2.2 Scope of Study2.3 Research Objective2.4 Assumptions & Limitations2.4.1 Assumptions2.4.2 Limitations3 Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research4 Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints5 Market Factor Analysis5.1 Porters Five Forces Model5.1.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers5.1.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers5.1.3 Threat of New Entrants5.1.4 Threat of Substitutes5.1.5 Intensity of Rivalry5.2 Supply Chain AnalysisContinuedRequest for Full Toc @About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Cloud-based VDI Market Business Growth Statistics and Key Players Insights: VMware, Amazon Web Services Inc., Rackspace Inc., Cisco Systems, Dell Inc Cloud-based VDI Market https://www.crystalmarketresearch.com/report-sample/IC111684 https://www.crystalmarketresearch.com/send-an-enquiry/IC111684 https://www.crystalmarketresearch.com/check-discount/IC111684 The Report on Cloud-based VDI Market is the latest addition to the huge database of Crystal Market Research.com. This research study is segmented on the basis of applications, technology, geography, and types.Competitive AnalysisThe major players in the market are profiled in detail in view of qualities, for example, company portfolio, business strategies, financial overview, recent developments, and market share of the overall industry.TOP MOST PLAYERS:VMwareAmazon Web Services Inc.Rackspace Inc.Cisco SystemsDell Inc.HP Development Company L.P.NComputing Co. LTDIBM CorporationCitrix Systems Inc.Microsoft CorporationGet your Sample Report Copy @Industry OutlookThe virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the virtualization innovation which has the DOS on the server that is centralized in the data center. The VDI is the minor departure from the computing model of client-server, now and then alluded to as the computing based on server. The term was begat by VMware. The advantages of utilizing VDI are; more security for data, problem troubleshooting is easier, numbers of options are available for the desktop upgrades that are expensive, same image use is possible, utilization of single OS lessens the cost and some other advantages. Therefore, the Cloud-based VDI Market is anticipated to expand and has tremendous scope during the forecast period. The global Cloud-based VDI Market anticipated to flourish in the future by growing at a significantly higher CAGR.Drivers & RestrainsThe driving factors of the market are; rising demand from the sectors like fuel production & healthcare for virtual reality & augmented reality, rising demand, adoption & utilization of smartphone across the globe, rising investment in various economies in developing the IT infrastructure, and other applications. The restraining factors of the market are; less awareness about the solutions, low number of skilled professional available for installation of the software, etc.Market ClassificationCloud-based VDI Market, By Deployment ModelHybridPublicPrivateCloud-based VDI Market, By User TypeLarge EnterpriseSmall & Medium Enterprise (SMEs)Cloud-based VDI Market, By End UserEducationBFSITelecom & ITGovernmentHealthcareOther End UsersCloud-based VDI Market, By RegionNorth America (United States, Canada and 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 MEA)Regional InsightsThe Asia Pacific region is leading the global Cloud-based VDI Market due to rising expenditure by the government on building smart cities, growing emphasis on strengthening the economy, increasing investment on the digitization by various economies, etc.To Get info on this Report, Do Enquiry Here @Drivers & RestrainsThe driving factors of the market are; rising demand from the sectors like fuel production & healthcare for virtual reality & augmented reality, rising demand, adoption & utilization of smartphone across the globe, rising investment in various economies in developing the IT infrastructure, and other applications. The restraining factors of the market are; less awareness about the solutions, low number of skilled professional available for installation of the software, etc.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. Drivers3.2.2. Restraints3.2.3. Opportunities3.3. SWOT AnalysisCONTINUED FOR TOCFEATURES OF THE REPORT:1. The analysis of Cloud-based VDI market, their Growth, Demand, position, size and share from different regions are mentioned in detailed.2. The key players in the market and their share in the global market are discussed.3. The new strategic plan and suggestions that will help old as well as new market players to maintain the competitiveness are also discussed.4. The Cloud-based VDI market report provides some important points related to growth factors, challenges, opportunities, end-user analysis and achievement and so on.ContinuedGet The Best Discounts Offer of This Report @About Crystal Market Research:-Crystal Market Research helps various companies irrespective of big or small in growth financing, strategy to enter the market, market research, mergers and acquisitions, strategic consulting and capital investment. Our expertise and knowledge in materials, products and manufacturing industries have assisted our client base to make the appropriate equation for measurable lucrative results. Crystal Market Researchs regional and global market intelligence coverage comprises of industry segments such as chemicals and materials, pharmaceutical, food and beverages, technology and media, and consumer goods, amongst many others.Contact Us:Judy304 South Jones Blvd, Suite 1896,Las Vegas NV 89107,United StatesToll Free: +1-888-213-4282Email: sales@crystalmarketresearch.com Wind Turbine Pitch Systems Market Future Analysis to 2023: Vestas, Siemens, Siemens Gamesa, Parker Hannifin, Bosch Rexroth, ENERCON, Moog Inc., ATech, DHI and Renergy Corp Research for Markets https://www.researchformarkets.com/sample/global-wind-turbine-pitch-systems-market-162907 https://www.researchformarkets.com/reports/global-wind-turbine-pitch-systems-market-162907 https://www.researchformarkets.com/inquiry/global-wind-turbine-pitch-systems-market-162907 According to this study, The Wind Turbine Pitch Systems Market report provides an in-depth overview of product specification, technology, product type and production analysis considering major factors such as Revenue, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin. The global wind turbine pitch systems market report also contains the drivers and restrains for the global market are derived from SWOT analysis, and also shows what all the recent developments.The worldwide market for Wind Turbine Pitch Systems is expected to grow at a CAGR of roughly 1.6% over the next five years, will reach 1680 million US$ in 2023, from 1530 million US$ in 2017, according to a new RFM (Research For Markets) study.A safe and reliable pitch system is critical for the wind turbines performance and power production.Some Of the Key Players in Wind Turbine Pitch Systems Market Are: Vestas Siemens Siemens Gamesa Parker Hannifin Bosch Rexroth ENERCON Moog Inc. ATech DHI Renergy Corp SSB Mita-Teknik A/S DEIF Wind Power Technology AVN CoronaRequest Sample Copy of the Report @Wind turbine pitch control system can change incidence of rotor blades in a wind power generation system based on real-time wind speed for the purpose of adjusting output power, achieving higher utilization efficiency of wind power and providing protection for rotor blades. When wind speed is not higher than the rated speed, the blade incidence stay near the angle 0 (highest power point), which is similar to that of a generator with constant pitch, generating an output power that changes along with wind speed.This report focuses on the Wind Turbine Pitch Systems in global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.In the coming years there is a comparative steadily demand for Wind Turbine Pitch Systems in the regions of North America, Europe and China and other regions. If conservative forecast, there is one decline from 2021 for wind energy is one kind of new energy, there are some uncertainty during the processing and the industry depends more on climate, wind must be adequate.Segmentation by product type: Hydraulic Pitch System Electrical Pitch SystemSegmentation by application: Offshore OnshoreIn the past few years from 2012-2016, the global production and consumption has a little fluctuation. The global Wind Turbine Pitch Systems market size in terms of production is projected to grow to 42001 Sets while revenue 1654.69 M USD by 2022. At the same time, EU and China is remarkable in the global Wind Turbine Pitch Systems industry because of their market share.Request for Report Brochure for Latest Industry Insights @Major Table of Contents:Part 1 Industry OverviewPart 2 Upstream & ProductionPart 3 Product SegmentPart 4 Application / End-User SegmentPart 5 Regional MarketPart 6 Market SubdivisionPart 7 Market ForecastPart 9 Company CompetitionPart 10 Research ConclusionInquiry Before Buying@Features mentioned in the report Changing market dynamics of the industry To get a comprehensive overview of the Wind Turbine Pitch Systems market. Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value In-depth market segmentation Competitive landscapeNote: Any special requirements about this report, please let us know and we can provide custom report.About Research for Markets:Research for Markets indulges in detailed and diligent research on different markets, trends and emerging opportunities in the successive direction to cater to your business needs. We have established the pillars of our flourishing institute on the grounds of Credibility and Reliability. RFM delve into the markets across Asia Pacific, North America, South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.Contact:Mr. A NaiduResearch for MarketsTel: +44 8000-4182-37 (UK)Email: alan.naidu@researchformarkets.com Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Market Industry Analysis, Application, Leading Players (Nanning Baling, Zhejiang Yinlun, Qingdao Toyo, Tokyo Radiator, Denso), Future Trends, and Forecast Period During (2018-2025) https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1945471 https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-automotive-heat-exchangers-market-insights-forecast-to-2025-report.html A newly compiled business intelligent report, titled Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Market Insights, Forecast to 2025 has been publicized to the vast archive of Market Research Hub (MRH) online repository. The study revolves around the analysis of (Automotive Heat Exchangers) market, covering key industry developments and market opportunity map during the mentioned forecast period. This report further conveys quantitative & qualitative analysis on the concerned market, providing a 360 view on current and future market prospects. As the report proceeds, information regarding the prominent trends as well as opportunities in the key geographical segments have also been explained, thus enabling companies to be able to make region-specific strategies for gaining competitive lead.Request for sample copy of this report@This report presents the worldwide Automotive Heat Exchangers market size (value, production and consumption), splits the breakdown (data status 2013-2018 and forecast to 2025), by manufacturers, region, type and application.This study also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.The Automotive Heat Exchangers market was valued at Million US$ in 2017 and is projected to reach Million US$ by 2025, at a CAGR of during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Automotive Heat Exchangers.The following manufacturers are covered in this report:DensoMahleHanon SystemCalsonic KanseiValeoAlcoilDanaPranav VikasSeniorTata AutoCompKoyoradTokyo RadiatorG&MT.RADModineSandenKB AutoTechNanning BalingZhejiang YinlunQingdao ToyoWuxi GuanyunJiangsu JiaheLURUNFawerSouth AirWeifang HenganPanincoShandong TongchuangChaolihi TechHuaerdaAutomotive Heat Exchangers Breakdown Data by TypeAluminum TypeCopper TypeOtherAutomotive Heat Exchangers Breakdown Data by ApplicationCommercial VehiclesPassenger VehiclesAutomotive Heat Exchangers Production by RegionUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanOther RegionsOther RegionsAutomotive Heat Exchangers Consumption by RegionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaMalaysiaPhilippinesThailandVietnamEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalyRussiaRest of EuropeCentral & South AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaGCC CountriesTurkeyEgyptSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaBrowse Full Report with TOC@@Table of Contents1 Study Coverage1.1 Automotive Heat Exchangers Product1.2 Key Market Segments in This Study1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 Aluminum Type1.4.3 Copper Type1.4.4 Other1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 Commercial Vehicles1.5.3 Passenger Vehicles1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Market Size2.1.1 Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Revenue 2013-20252.1.2 Global Automotive Heat Exchangers Production 2013-20252.2 Automotive Heat Exchangers Growth Rate (CAGR) 2018-20252.3 Analysis of Competitive Landscape2.3.1 Manufacturers Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)2.3.2 Key Automotive Heat Exchangers Manufacturers2.3.2.1 Automotive Heat Exchangers Manufacturing Base Distribution, Headquarters2.3.2.2 Manufacturers Automotive Heat Exchangers Product Offered2.3.2.3 Date of Manufacturers Enter into Automotive Heat Exchangers Market2.4 Key Trends for Automotive Heat Exchangers Markets & Products3 Market Size by Manufacturers3.1 Automotive Heat Exchangers Production by Manufacturers3.1.1 Automotive Heat Exchangers Production by Manufacturers3.1.2 Automotive Heat Exchangers Production Market Share by Manufacturers3.2 Automotive Heat Exchangers Revenue by Manufacturers3.2.1 Automotive Heat Exchangers Revenue by Manufacturers (2013-2018)3.2.2 Automotive Heat Exchangers Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)3.3 Automotive Heat Exchangers Price by Manufacturers3.4 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans.......to be continueAbout Market Research HubMarket Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports of different sector like machinery market research and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of industry reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.com Global GDPR Compliance Software Market Insights, Industry Player (SAP, SAS Institute, Oracle), Key County Analysis (North America, United States, Europe, China, Japan, India), Segmentation, Analysis and Forecast till 2018-2025 Market Research Hub https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1945236 https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-gdpr-compliance-software-market-size-status-and-forecast-2018-2025-report.html Market Research Hub (MRH) has actively included a new research study titled Global GDPR Compliance Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 2018-2025 to its wide online repository. The concerned market is discoursed based on a variety of market influential factors such as drivers, opportunities and restraints. This study tends to inform the readers about the current as well as future market scenarios extending up to the period until forecast period limit; 2025. In addition, a deep analysis of the competitive landscape, including prime market players is also enclosed in this report.Get Sample Copy of This Report @GDPR compliance software offers a comprehensive, intuitive and scalable platform to identify, measure and mitigate the risks associated with securing personal information.In 2017, the global GDPR Compliance Software market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2018-2025.This report focuses on the global GDPR Compliance Software status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the GDPR Compliance Software development in United States, Europe and China.The key players covered in this studySAPSAS InstituteOracleOnetrustIBMInformaticaNymityProofpointSymantecActianceSnow SoftwareTalendSwascanAWSMicro FocusMimecastProtegrityCapgeminiHitachi Systems SecurityMicrosoftAbsolute SoftwareMetricstreamMarket segment by Type, the product can be split intoCloud-basedOn PremiseMarket segment by Application, split intoSmall and Medium-Sized EnterprisesLarge EnterprisesMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaBROWSE Full Report NOW @Table of Contents1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.4.1 Global GDPR Compliance Software Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2013-2025)1.4.2 Cloud-based1.4.3 On Premise1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global GDPR Compliance Software Market Share by Application (2013-2025)1.5.2 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises1.5.3 Large Enterprises1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Global Growth Trends2.1 GDPR Compliance Software Market Size2.2 GDPR Compliance Software Growth Trends by Regions2.2.1 GDPR Compliance Software Market Size by Regions (2013-2025)2.2.2 GDPR Compliance Software Market Share by Regions (2013-2018)2.3 Industry Trends2.3.1 Market Top Trends2.3.2 Market Drivers2.3.3 Market Opportunities3 Market Share by Key Players3.1 GDPR Compliance Software Market Size by Manufacturers3.1.1 Global GDPR Compliance Software Revenue by Manufacturers (2013-2018)3.1.2 Global GDPR Compliance Software Revenue Market Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)3.1.3 Global GDPR Compliance Software Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)3.2 GDPR Compliance Software Key Players Head office and Area Served3.3 Key Players GDPR Compliance Software Product/Solution/Service3.4 Date of Enter into GDPR Compliance Software Market3.5 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion PlansMore Information@@@About Market Research HubMarket Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports of different sector like software market research and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of industry reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.com Digital Publishing Market Growth, Opportunities and Development 2023 Key Players Wolters Kluwer, RELX, Thomson Reuters, John Wiley & Sons, Lexware, Springer Science+Business Media, Bloomberg L.P https://www.qurateresearch.com/report/sample/ICT/QBI-CMR-ICT-54722 https://www.qurateresearch.com/report/enquiry/ICT/QBI-CMR-ICT-54722 https://www.qurateresearch.com/report/discount/ICT/QBI-CMR-ICT-54722 https://www.qurateresearch.com/ A report added to the rich database of Qurate Business Intelligence, titled Global Digital Publishing Market Size, Status and Forecast 2023, provides a 360-degree overview of the worldwide market. Approximations associated with the market values over the forecast period are based on empirical research and data collected through both primary and secondary sources. The authentic processes followed to exhibit various aspects of the market makes the data reliable in context to particular time period and industry.Get Free Sample Copy of This Report@Prominent players profiled in the report are: Wolters Kluwer, RELX, Thomson Reuters, John Wiley & Sons, Lexware, Springer Science+Business Media, Bloomberg L.P and Societe des Editions Francis Lefebvre.This report is highly informative document with inclusion of comprehensive market data associated with the significant elements and subdivision of the Global Digital Publishing Market that may impact the growth scenarios of the industry. The report may commendably help trades and decision makers to address the challenges and to gain benefits from highly competitive Global Digital Publishing Market.Global Digital Publishing Market is research report of comprehensive nature which entails information in relation with major regional markets, current scenarios. This includes key regional areas such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, etc. and the foremost countries such as United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China.For Enquiry OR Any Query? Ask to our Expert@The Global Digital Publishing Market report attempts to build familiarity of the market through sharing basic information associated with the aspects such as definitions, classifications, applications and market overview, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, raw materials and more. Furthermore, it strives to analyze the crucial regional markets, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate. It also discusses forecast for the same. The report concludes with new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.In addition, this report identifies pin-point analysis of competitive dashboard and helps readers to develop competitive edge over others. It delivers a noteworthy data and insights associated with factors driving or preventing the growth of the market. It brings a nine-year forecast evaluated on the basis of how the market is expected to perform.Get 50% Discount on this Report@This statistical surveying report presents comprehensive assessment of the global market for Digital Publishing, discussing several market verticals such as the production capacity, product pricing, the dynamics of demand and supply, sales volume, revenue, growth rate and more.Table of Content:Global Global Digital Publishing Market Research Report 2018-2023Chapter 1: Industry OverviewChapter 2: Digital Publishing International and China Market AnalysisChapter 3: Environment Analysis of Digital PublishingChapter 4: Analysis of Revenue by ClassificationsChapter 5: Analysis of Revenue by Regions and ApplicationsChapter 6: Analysis of Digital Publishing Revenue Market Status.Chapter 7: Analysis of Digital Publishing Industry Key ManufacturersChapter 8: Sales Price and Gross Margin AnalysisChapter 9: Marketing Trader or Distributor Analysis of Digital Publishing MarketChapter 10: Development Trend of Digital Publishing Industry 2018-2023Chapter 11: Industry Chain Suppliers of Digital Publishing with Contact InformationChapter 12: New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis of Digital PublishingChapter 13: Conclusion of the Global Digital Publishing Market Research ReportAbout 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 Online Booking Tool Global Market 2018: Key Players SAP SE, Expedia Group, Inc., Sabre Corporation and Amadeus IT Group SA https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3570539-global-online-booking-tool-market-industry-analysis-outlook-2018-2022 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3570539-global-online-booking-tool-market-industry-analysis-outlook-2018-2022 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=3570539 https://www.wiseguyreports.com Online Booking Tool IndustryDescriptionWiseguyreports.Com Adds Online Booking Tool -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities and Analysis Of Top Key Player Forecast To 2023 To Its Research DatabaseThe global tourism industry is surging at a rapid pace with rising demand for online booking tools by the corporates. Online Booking Tool is a type of reservation system used by the corporates to book or compare the complete tourism package service, which can be adjusted depending upon the business requirements. This tool gives precise estimates related to the price of the entire tour and aids the firm to recognize new investment funds openings along with the performance benchmarks against the comparative organizations.The global market is expected to witness lucrative growth due the growing digital travel market, escalating sovereign investors, accelerating economic growth and improvisation in the payment process. The market is trending with the rising virtual European hotel reservations, intensifying preference for cloud computing software, escalating business travel spending and emergence of innovative technologies. However, there are some growth hindering factors in the industry such as stringent regulations and data infrastructure security concern.Regionally, Asia Pacific held the leading position in the market as a result of the growing popularity of virtual tools and the growing business travel trips by the corporates in the key revenue contributing areas including Australia, China, Japan and India.Request for Sample Report @The report Global Online Booking Tool Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2018-2022) by Koncept Analytics provides an extensive research and detailed analysis of the present market along with future outlook. Key players i.e. SAP SE (SAP Concur), Expedia Group, Inc., Sabre Corporation (GetThere) and Amadeus IT Group SA are being profiled along with their respective financials and growth strategies.Table of Content1. Market Overview1.1 Introduction1.2 Services Provided1.3 Market Mechanism1.4 Key Benefits2. Global Online Booking Tool Market2.1 Global Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast2.2 Global Online Booking Tool Market Value by Region2.3 Global Online Booking Tool Market Volume Forecast2.4 Global Online Booking Tool Market Volume by Region3. Regional Online Booking Tool Market3.1 Asia-Pacific3.1.1 Asia-Pacific Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.1.2 Asia-Pacific Online Booking Tool Market Value by Countries3.1.3 Australia Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.1.4 China Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.1.5 Asia Pacific Online Booking Tool Market Volume Forecast3.2 Western Europe3.2.1 Western Europe Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.2.2 Western Europe Online Booking Tool Market Value by Countries3.2.3 The U.K. Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.2.4 Western Europe Online Booking Tool Market Volume Forecast3.3 North America3.3.1 North America Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.3.2 North America Online Booking Tool Market Value by Countries3.3.3 The U.S. Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.3.4 Canada Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast3.3.5 North America Online Booking Tool Market Volume ForecastLeave a Query @4. Market Dynamics4.1 Growth Drivers4.1.1 Growing Digital Travel Market4.1.2 Escalating Sovereign Investors4.1.3 Accelerating Economic Growth4.1.4 Improvisation in the Payment Process4.2 Key Trends and Developments4.2.1 Rising Virtual European Hotel Reservations4.2.2 Intensifying Preference for Cloud Computing Software4.2.3 Escalating Business Travel Spending4.2.4 Emergence of Innovative Technologies4.3 Challenges4.3.1 Stringent Regulations4.3.2 Data Infrastructure Security Concern5. Competitive Landscape5.1 Global Online Booking Tool Market5.1.1 Key Players - Revenue Comparison5.1.2 Key Players Market Cap Comparison5.1.3 Key Players Features Comparison5.2 The U.S. Online Booking Tool Market5.2.1 Key Players U.S. Market Share Comparison6. Company Profiles6.1 SAP SE (SAP Concur)6.1.1 Business Overview6.1.2 Financial Overview6.1.3 Business Strategies6.2 Expedia Group, Inc.6.2.1 Business Overview6.2.2 Financial Overview6.2.3 Business Strategies6.3 Sabre Corporation (GetThere)6.3.1 Business Overview6.3.2 Financial Overview6.3.3 Business Strategies6.4 Amadeus IT Group SA6.4.1 Business Overview6.4.2 Financial Overview6.4.3 Business StrategiesList of FiguresOnline Booking Tool Market MechanismGlobal Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast (2017-2022)Global Online Booking Tool Market Value by Region (2017)Global Online Booking Tool Market Volume Forecast (2017-2022)Global Online Booking Tool Market Volume by Region (2017)Asia-Pacific Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast (2017-2022)Asia-Pacific Online Booking Tool Market Value by Countries (2017)Australia Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast (2017-2022)China Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast (2017-2022)Asia Pacific Online Booking Tool Market Volume Forecast (2017-2022)Western Europe Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast (2017-2022)Western Europe Online Booking Tool Market Value by Countries (2017)The U.K. Online Booking Tool Market Value Forecast (2017-2022)Buy Now @Continued...Contact Us: Sales@Wiseguyreports.Com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (Us) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (Uk)About Us: Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres: Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltd Pune 411028 Maharashtra, Global Ph: +91 841 198 5042 Infusion Pharmacy Management Market Outlook to 2023 BioScrip,BD,Cigna,Option Care,CVS Health,McKesson,Mediware,OptumRx,Healix,CareCentrix,MedicoRx Research Reports Inc. https://www.researchreportsinc.com/sample-request?id=175912 https://www.researchreportsinc.com/check-discount?id=175912 https://researchreportsinc.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=175912&&attribute_pa_choose-license=single-user&&quantity=1 Infusion therapy is prescribed to patient only when patient condition is severe or oral medication are less effective. Infusion Pharmacy includes infusion of antibiotic, antifungal, antiviral, pain management and nutritional drug through needle or catheter. Diseases such as cancer, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorder and pain related disorders are generally treated with infusion medication system. Infusion pharmacy can also be administered in home by providing doorstep services. Home infusion pharmacy management is more costly than hospital infusion pharmacy management because it requires more skilled nursing facilities. The classification of Infusion Pharmacy Management includes Antibiotics, Antimicrobial, Pain Management, Enteral Nutrition and others, and the proportion of others in 2017 is about 37%, and the market size of pain management grows fast. Infusion Pharmacy Management is widely used in Hospital & Clinic, Ambulatory Surgical Centers and Home Care. The most proportion of Infusion Pharmacy Management is used for home care, and the proportion is 49% in 2017.For Short Sample click on:Top players: BioScrip,BD,Cigna,Option Care,CVS Health,McKesson,Mediware,OptumRx,Healix,CareCentrix,MedicoRx,Ivenix,ARJ Infusion Services,Brightree,Accredo Health Group,MHA,ContinuumRxSegmentation by product type:AntibioticsAntimicrobialEnteral NutritionOthersSegmentation by application:Hospital & ClinicAmbulatory Surgical CentersHome CareGet 20% Discount:Some Points From Table of Content:1 Industry Overview of Infusion Pharmacy Management2 Industrial Chain Analysis3 Global Infusion Pharmacy Management Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis4 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Infusion Pharmacy Management5 Global Infusion Pharmacy Management Overall Market Overview6 Infusion Pharmacy Management Regional Market Analysis7 Global 2018-2023 Infusion Pharmacy Management Market Analysis (by Type)8 Global 2018-2023 Infusion Pharmacy Management Market Analysis (by Application)ContinuedMarket Trend Analysis Introduction Drivers Restraints Opportunities Threats Industry Chain Analysis Upstream/Suppliers Analysis Infusion Pharmacy Management Analysis Technology Analysis Cost Analysis Market Channel Analysis Downstream Buyers/End UsersPlace Direct Purchase order For Complete report:Goal of the Study:Focuses on the key global Infusion Pharmacy Management players, to define, describe and analyze the value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years.To analyze the Infusion Pharmacy Management with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).About us:Research Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwide.Contact Us:DavidSales Manager,US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424UK: +4403308087757Email: sales@researchreportsinc.com Industrial And Commercial LED Lighting Market - Current Trends, Competitive Landscape & Technological Breakthroughs Analysis https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2013 https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=2013 LED lighting delivers high efficiency, high level of brightness, long lifespan and high reliability. LED lights are manufactured using semiconductor components and emit less radiated heat as compared to other products such as incandescent and fluorescent. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), LEDs emit very less heat compared to incandescent bulbs (90%) and CFLs (80%). LED lights are used across various end users applications such as industrial, commercial, architectural and outdoor.Get Brochure For More Industry Insights@The global industrial and commercial LED lighting market is growing rapidly mainly due to high efficiency of LED lights, government regulations to ban incandescent lamps and attractive payback of LED lighting. Moreover, LED lighting is environmental free lighting, as it does not emit harmful gases that result in hazardous disorders in human beings. For example, fluorescent lights emit harmful gases that are carcinogenic and may cause cancer, while incandescent lamps emit large amounts of CO2. However, LEDs overcome these disadvantages with improved reliability and high degree of illumination.Incandescent lamps use more energy than LED lamps; hence, several governments have introduced measures to ban their use. Governments have set minimum efficiency standards and introduced measures to ban the use of incandescent lamps. For example, in the U.S., federal law scheduled the phasing out of incandescent bulbs by 2013 and replacing them with energy efficient LED bulbs. Phasing out of incandescent bulbs began in January 2013 started with 100 watt bulbs followed by 75 watt bulbs in 2014. Moreover, 40-watt and 60-watt incandescent bulbs are expected to join the list soon. In Japan, all incandescent lamps have been banned since 2012. In China, 100-watt and 75-watt incandescent lamps have been banned since 2012 and 2013 respectively. In Brazil, 100-watt and 60-watt+ incandescent lamps were banned since 2012 and 2013 respectively. Moreover, non-commercial growth drivers in the market include actions taken to support LED lighting systems at the legislative level, development of regulations and standards that fuels the growth of LED lighting systems and different programmes for implementing energy-efficient lighting systems at the level of an individual organization levels. In Japan, after the Ministry of Economy took the decision to ban the use of incandescent lamps in 2012, some manufacturers announced that they would stop production of incandescent lamps and to improve the production of LED lights. Hence, penetration of LED lighting increased to 30% in 2012 from 16% in 2010. Europe banned import as well as manufacturing of all incandescent lamps from September 2012. The U.S. has banned incandescent lamps since 2012; South Korea banned the use of incandescent lamps in 2013.According to a conservative study conducted by the DOE (Department of Energy) LEDs have the potential to reduce yearly consumption by 190 terawatt hours in the U.S. Additionally, LEDs can further reduce greenhouse gases by at least 10% over the period of five to ten years. LED lighting lowers overall cost of lighting as it offers about 50,000 hours of illumination with a fraction of energy used by traditional incandescent bulbs. It extends time between bulb replacements. LED lighting is preferred as near zero maintenance lighting system. Suppliers of LED lighting offer more than 150 different lamp and bulb styles to meet the needs of businesses and consumers.Lighting presents huge opportunity to reduce energy consumption. The global lighting market is currently under-penetrated by LEDs. Low penetration is attributed to the nascent stage of LED technology and dominance of other technologies in lighting. Incandescent bulbs accounted for 58% of the lighting market in 2012, followed by fluorescent lamps with 25%. LED lighting is expected to increase its market share when LED products truly compete with incumbent products on performance and price. LED penetration in the market is less than 10% due to higher penetration of fluorescent and compact fluorescent lights. High cost of LED lights as compared to fluorescent lights and higher penetration of fluorescent lamps as compared to LED lights are some of the factors restraining the growth for LED lighting market. However, government regulations to ban incandescent lamps is expected to minimize the impact of this restraint as LEDs are expected to capture the market shares of incandescent lamps in next few years.Get Customize Report@The report includes segmentation of Industrial and Commercial LED Lighting market by end user and geography. Further, it provides current and forecast market size by revenue for the aforementioned categories. Cross sectional analysis for end user and geography segments is a part of the scope. Factors influencing and inhibiting the growth of the market have been analyzed. Porters five forces analysis offers insights on market competition.About Us:-We are leaders in analytics, research, and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional, and local market intelligence.Contact Us:-Transpareny Market ResearchU.S. OFFICE:State Tower, 90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207, United StatesPhone: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Managed Print Services Market| Key players: Xerox Corporation, HP Development Company, L.P., Ricoh Company, Ltd. https://bit.ly/2zV7HAb https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_BuyingNew.asp?id=620&utm_source=OpenPR https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=620&utm_source=OpenPR The report "Managed Print Services Market by Deployment Mode (On Premise, Cloud based, and Hybrid), Channel Type (Printer/Copier Manufacturers, System Integrators/Resellers, and ISVs), Application, Organization Size, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023", The managed print services market was valued at USD 28.40 Billion in 2016 and is expected to reach USD 50.78 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 8.51% between 2016 and 2023.Browse 61 Market Data Tables and 60 Figures spread through 165 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Managed Print Services Market - Global Forecast to 2023"Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.Market DynamicsDrivers Reduced cost of operation and flexibility to match custom requirements Persistent rise in the complexity of technological solutions Continuous upsurge in dependency on heterogeneous networks of applications and infrastructure Steep increase in the adoption of big data solutions Initiatives from organisations to reduce paper wastage Competent technical support by managed print service providersRestraints Doubt in efficiency and effectiveness of managed print services Long-term recurring expenditureOpportunities Optimizing the use of analytics and cloud computing New business propositions Greater networking opportunitiesINQUIRY BEFORE BUYING @Cloud-based deployment to hold a major share of the managed print services market during the forecast periodCloud-based deployment is expected to hold the largest share of this market between 2017 and 2023. The deployment modes include on-premise, cloud-based, and hybrid deployment. Cloud-based deployment has the largest share of the overall market owing to its extensive benefits in managed print services (MPS). MPS is replacing the traditional IT model to manage increasing requirements, and businesses are looking toward MPS for cost efficiency and effective benefits. Cloud-based deployment holds the maximum market share as it offers businesses to remotely access their documents and data on the cloud.The large enterprises are expected to hold the largest share of managed print services marketLarge enterprises are expected to hold the largest share of the managed print services market between 2017 and 2023. Large enterprises mainly focus on managing their operations and processes rather than being diverted by any threat, attack, malware, or spams, and any other such vulnerabilities. Due to this reason, the demand for MPS is more in such organizations and is increasing day by day.BFSI applications of MPS held the largest share of the managed print services market in 2016MPS has been growing in industry applications such as BFSI, government, and healthcare. BFSI applications held the largest market share of the MPS market worldwide. BFSI involves heavy dependency on paperwork for record-keeping. The MPS market is expected to get more market share because of security requirements for sensitive data in the BFSI industry. These applications use MPS to optimize the efficiency of resources and operational practices in use.North America held the largest share of the managed print services market in 2016North America held the largest share of managed print services market in 2016. The North American market has many rising startups and favorable compliance and government regulations. The enterprises in this region have a rapid growth rate and a heavy demand for managed print services. Because of favorable government regulations, European companies are also investing in the North American market.Some of the major players in the managed print services market are Xerox Corporation (US), HP Development Company, L.P. (US), Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Japan), and Lexmark International, Inc. (US).Get Free 10% Customization @MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions.Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.MarketsandMarketss flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledgestore" 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: 1-888-600-6441sales@marketsandmarkets.com Asia Pacific Controlled Release Fertilizer Market Analysis and Growth during the Forecast Period 2018-2024 | Key Players include GreenFeed VN, ICL Specialty Fertilizers, Yara International and Nufarm Ltd Asia Pacific Controlled Release Fertilizers Market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1108/sample https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1108/apac-controlled-release-fertilizer-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1108/inquiry-before-buying https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1115/methyl-ethyl-ketone-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1114/fluorotelomers-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/ The report Asia Pacific Controlled Release Fertilizers Market Size, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Development Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 2024 by Graphical Research.Controlled release fertilizers are granulated fertilizers which have the capability to release the nutrients into the soil gradually. As these fertilizers are non-soluble in water, their nutrients will release very slowly into the soil, and provide effective nutritional support to the plants.Request for a sample of this research report @Rapid population growth in some countries of Asia Pacific will rise food requirements, which will exponentially raise the arable land requirements, which in turn will drive the Asia Pacific controlled release fertilizer market over the forecast period.As many countries in this region are based on agriculture, the demand for controlled release fertilizers will be significantly high in nations such as India, Japan, and China etc. Moreover, rising shortages of food-based crops is creating an additional demand for good-quality fertilizers, thereby attributing to the growing demand of controlled release fertilizers in this region.Polymer sulfur coated urea fertilizers will hold the dominating share of Asia Pacific controlled release fertilizer market, owing to essentiality for crops in this region. Polymer coated urea fertilizers had a share of over 23% in 2017 and will grow significantly in the entire forecast period.Cereals & grains crop segment will consume major share of Asia Pacific controlled release fertilizer market volume throughout the projected period. Many countries in this region such as India, Japan, China, etc. are majorly dependent on cereals & grains crops. The demand will further have attributed, owing to the rising food requirements in this region.Browse key industry insights from this 2018 report Asia Pacific Controlled Release Fertilizer Market in detail along with the table of contents @Rising arable land requirements, coupled with rising awareness regarding sustainable farming techniques to increase the food production would significantly drive the China controlled release fertilizer market throughout the forecast period. The regional market in Japan had a significant market share in 2017, and this will grow on a notable CAGR over the coming years.Some of the key companies in Asia Pacific controlled release fertilizer market include AgroBridge, HIF Tech Sdn Bhd, Greenfeed Agro Sdn Bhd, and Nufarm Ltd, among others.Segments Covered in this Report:Asia Pacific controlled release fertilizer market, by product Polymer sulfur coated urea/sulfur coated urea Polymer coated urea Polymer coated NPK fertilizer OthersAsia Pacific controlled release fertilizer market, by crop Cereals & grains Oilseeds & pulses Fruits & vegetables OthersThe above information is provided on a country basis for the following: China India Japan Australia Indonesia Malaysia Bangladesh South Korea Thailand Sri LankaMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Related Reports:1. Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) Market Size By Application (Paints & Coatings, Adhesives, Printing Inks), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Landscape & Forecast, 2018 20242. Fluorotelomers Market Size By Product (Fluorotelomer Iodide, Fluorotelomer Acrylate, Fluorotelomer Alcohols), By Application (Textiles, Stain resistant, Food packaging, Firefighting foams), Regional Outlook and Industry 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: Bacteriostatic Antibiotics Market Expansion to be Persistent During 2018 2026 Allergan, Pfizer, Mylan NV Bacteriostatic Antibiotics https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/2307 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-customization/2307 Antibiotics are naturally occurring or artificially produced substances, which are widely used in the treatment of bacterial diseases. Antibiotics works by killing bacteria (bactericidal effect) or by inhibiting their growth (bacteriostatic effect). Although bacteriostatic antibiotics prevent bacterial growth and reproduction, it does not necessarily kill them.Download PDF Brochure of This Business Research Report :Bacteriostatic Antibiotics Market DriversGlobal bacteriostatic antibiotics market is expected to witness a significant growth over the forecast period, owing to recent approval and launch of novel bacteriostatic antibiotics products in the market. For instance, in September 2018, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to development, manufacturing, and commercialization of novel antibiotics for treat life-threatening multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections received European Commission (EC) marketing authorization for its novel bacteriostatic antibiotic namely XERAVA (eravacycline) injection, which is indicated for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) in adults in the European Union. XERAVA (Eravacycline) is a fluorocycline antibacterial within the tetracycline class of antibacterial drugs, it is bacteriostatic against gram-positive bacteria (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis). Furthermore, high prevalence of bacterial and infectious disease is expected to propel demand for bacteriostatic antibiotics, in turn driving global bacteriostatic antibiotics market growth.Bacteriostatic Antibiotics Market Taxonomy:The global bacteriostatic antibiotics market is segmented on the basis of indication, age group, dosage form, distribution channel, and regionBy Type-TetracyclineDoxycyclineChloramphenicolErythromycinFusidic acidSulfonamidesTrimethoprimMacrolidesLincosamidesOthersBy Age GroupPediatricAdultsBy Dosage Form-TabletCapsuleInjectablesBy Distribution Channel-Hospitals PharmaciesRetail PharmaciesOnline pharmaciesBacteriostatic Antibiotics Market Key PlayersKey players operating in global Bacteriostatic Antibiotics Market include Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Allergan Plc., Pfizer Inc., Mylan N.V., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Hikma Pharmaceuticals Plc., Akorn Inc., and Others.Request For Customization Of This Business Research Report :Bacteriostatic Antibiotics Market Regional AnalysisNorth America bacteriostatic antibiotics market is expected to hold a dominant position in the global Bacteriostatic Antibiotics Market and account for largest market share over the forecast period, owing to presence of key players and approval and launch of novel bacteriostatic antibiotics drugs by them in the region.For instance, in August 2018, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Massachusetts, U.S-based biopharmaceutical company, received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its novel bacteriostatic antibiotics namely XERAVA (eravacycline) for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI)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: +12067016702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) Market Insights to 2024 | Global Key Player: Asda, AT&T, Etisalat, MTN, O2, Orange, SK Telecom, Sprint, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Three., U.S. Cellular, Verizon, Vodafone Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) Market https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/mobile-virtual-network-operator-mvno-market-report https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/160 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/160 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/mobile-value-added-services-mvas-market www.gminsights.com Growing number of customers opting for cost-effective services is driving the MVNO market. Companies that offer voice & SMS services, limited data, and inexpensive devices are increasing. These companies are targeting and successfully attracting the price-conscious customers using traditional marketing channels such as physical stores and limited budgets. This allows the companies to generate profits, encouraging the new players to enter the industry.View Complete Summary :Rising trend of M2M connectivity and IoT is expected to drive the MVNO market with a number of IoT devices in use projected to reach about 20.5 billion by 2020. These devices require connectivity to leverage their full potential, creating opportunities for the players in the industry. High degree of agility and high innovation capabilities of these players make them an attractive option in the IoT connectivity space. Due to this, the players have a tremendous growth potential, particularly in the connected cars and smart cities applications. Companies such as PodM2M, a player in the industry catering to the mission-critical connectivity solutions, are collaborating with industries and institutes to provide customized services. PodM2M provides IoT connectivity to the Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO) to connect 20,000 weather monitoring stations across the African sub-continent.MVNO Market, By Business Model1. Full MVNO2. Light MVNO3. Service Provider MVNO4. Branded ResellerRequest for Sample Copy of This Report @The light MVNO market is anticipated to witness growth at over 12.5% due to the increasing adoption and consumer focus on low-cost services. The business model requires low investment, allowing a large number of players with low budgets to enter the industry. Also, the players with this business model can focus on niche customer segments that are difficult for an MNO to address. Increasing demand for customized offerings will provide growth opportunities to the light MVNO market.The Germany MVNO market has witnessed a significant growth with revenue of around USD 11.0 billion and over 48 million subscribers in 2017. As a part of the consolidation wave in Europe in 2014, the industry witnessed the consolidation of E-Plus and O2, resulting in the price competition. To regulate the competition, the regulators imposed the access of about 30% joint network capabilities to the MVNOs in the country, thus increasing the penetration of these services. Furthermore, the consolidation of 1&1 Telecommunications SE and Drillisch will provide viable growth opportunities to the providers.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @The China MVNO market is expected to grow at CAGR of 16% from 2018 to 2024 with over 59 million subscribers due to the imposition of favorable regulations. In 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Information of China issued 37 MVNO licenses to increase the competition in the mobile sector. In 2018, the government announced the issue of formal licenses to private firms that resell mobile services as virtual networks. The industry in China is characterized by low ARPU and high focus on low-end prepaid users.Some of the key players in the MVNO market include Asda, AT&T, Etisalat, MTN, O2 (Telefonica UK), Orange, SK Telecom, Sprint,T-Mobile, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Three.,U.S. Cellular, Verizon, Vodafone.Industry News: -The MVNO market is characterized by intense competition among the players due to the highly fragmented nature of the industry. Frequent partnerships and collaborations among the companies are witnessed across regions to develop innovative solutions. In Australia, Network Communications and Optus have collaborated to form Charity Mobile, an MVNO that creates a social impact by donating five percent of their bill to charitable organizations. In the UK, Vodafone and O2 have established Green Mobile that allows customers to donate five percent of their bill amount to green charities such as World Land Trust.Browse Complete Report Summary:Browse key industry insights spread across 200 pages with 99 market data tables & 10 figures & charts from the report, MVAS Market Size By Solution, By Application, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 2024 in detail along with the table of contents: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: On-site Preventive Care Market Analysis By 2027 | Premise Health, OnSite Care, Inc., PrevMED, RepuCare, Healthcare Solutions Centers, LLC, McCormack & Kale Motiva Health & Chiropractic https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5518 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-5518 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/on-site-preventive-care-market https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ Future Market Insights has published a new report titled On-site Preventive Care Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2027). The report states that the standards set in the workplace for the safety of workers and the need to adhere to workplace norms have triggered the demand for on-site preventive care. Moreover, the increasing incidences of workplace illness has also made it an obligation for employers to follow employee safety codes and adopt on-site preventive care. As a result, the global on-site preventive care market is expected to witness a CAGR of 7.1% from 2017 to 2027. The market was worth around US$ 16,135 Mn in 2017 and is likely to touch a valuation of US$ 32,063 Mn approximately by the end of 2027.To know key findings Request Sample Report @:On-site clinics enable employees to receive the required essential care at the time of emergency without having to leave the workplace. The clinicians in these clinics also aid employees in searching for a primary care physician who they can consult with on a regular basis. As a Future Market Insights analyst quotes, Changes in lifestyle among the working class have incessantly impelled employers to establish certain behavioural standards within the workplace. This is one of the core factors responsible for the growing adoption of on-site preventive care in several organisations across the globe.Burgeoning Penetration of Workplace Wellness Programmes to Bode Well for the MarketIn the recent past, workplace wellness programmes have earned the merit of being one of the most adopted healthcare services in the world. It has been further expected that its adoption will increase in the coming years owing to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. This act is expected to promote an increase in the employee-based coverage of workplace wellness and also promote these programmes through several provisions. Moreover, the growing incidences of chronic diseases among the working population have also become a matter of concern and this has compelled employers across the globe to adopt as well as promote workplace wellness programmes.Request for Report customization @:Furthermore, employers who have adopted on-site preventive care services have reported enhanced performance ranging from heightened morale and cost savings to productivity. The death of time, access, and cost along with misunderstanding of the benefits of prescribed wellness programmes result in the underutilisation of primary care services. As a result, employees flood emergency rooms, missing out on critical preventive care measures and also leave chronic conditions go unmanaged. In this regard, on-site clinics provide employees with the necessary support without having to leave their work and plus the clinicians also work together with the patients in a cohesive environment to address their various health related issues.North America and Western Europe to Compete Neck and NeckIn 2017, North America held a share of 37.0% in the global on-site preventive care market closely trailed by Western Europe. The dominance of North America can be attributed to the several policies implemented by the U.S. government pertaining to employee safety and the adoption of certain employee codes of safety. The U.S. is also an extremely mature market owing to the high adoption of workplace wellness programmes.Get access to full summary @:Companies to Innovate Services in the Global MarketIn order to stay ahead of the competition, several companies operating in the global market are focussing on innovating their existing services and integrating new services. Some of the leading companies in the market are Premise Health, OnSite Care, Inc., PrevMED, RepuCare, Healthcare Solutions Centers, LLC, McCormack & Kale Motiva Health & Chiropractic, Inc., Marino Wellness, Kinema Fitness, and TotalWellness.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: Varicella Zoster Infection Treatment Market Opportunity By 2027 | Pfizer Inc., Mylan N.V., Abbott Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., and Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd. https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6466 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-6466 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/varicella-zoster-infection-treatment-market https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ Future Market Insights (FMI) has published a new report on the varicella zoster infection treatment market titled Varicella Zoster Infection Treatment Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012 2016 and Opportunity Assessment 2017 2027. Varicella zoster infection comprises two main types namely varicella chickenpox and herpes zoster. Varicella is a highly contagious infection with an incubation period of 1021 days, most commonly 1416 days, after which characteristic rashes appear.To know key findings Request Sample Report @:Acute varicella may be complicated by secondary bacterial skin infections, cerebellitis, encephalitis, haemorrhagic complications, and viral and bacterial pneumonia. The climate is a core factor that seems to have an impact on the epidemiology of varicella. In most of the temperate climatic regions, 90% of the people are infected before adolescence. In tropical climates, VZV infection occurs later in life and adults are more susceptible to it than children.On the other hand, herpes zoster or shingles is a sporadic disease that is caused by the reactivation of latent VZV in the sensory nerve ganglia. It is usually self-limiting and is categorised by severe pain with dermatomal distribution and at times followed by post-herpetic neuralgia that can be chronic and debilitating among the geriatric population. Though herpes zoster can occur at any age, most of the cases are reported after the age of 50 along with increasing risks of complications. In order to cater to the needs of the patients and provide a potential treatment for this infection, companies are entering into strategic partnerships in order to make use of the technology of the other leading companies and are also focussing on research and development.Request for Report customization @:For instance, in December 2016, Slayback and Sandoz signed an agreement with Novartis AG for the sale and marketing rights of Slayback Generic Zovirax Ointment (Acyclovir Ointment). Per the agreement Novartis obtained the sales and marketing rights, which increased their position in the market. Other leading companies operating in the market are Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Pfizer Inc., Mylan N.V., Abbott Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., and Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd., among others.According to the report, the global varicella zoster infection treatment market is expected to register a 4.2% CAGR from 2017 to 2027. In 2016, the market was worth US$ 1,257.1 Mn and is expected to reach a valuation of US$ 1,969.1 Mn by the end of 2027.Risk of Varicella in Pregnancy and the Need to Adhere to the Guidelines of Chickenpox Treatment to Bode Well for the MarketPrimary infection with varicella zoster in pregnancy may cause maternal mortality or serious morbidity issues. A particular guideline issued in 2015 assesses the evidence regarding maternal and foetal risks of varicella zoster virus infection in pregnancy. The U.K. Advisory Group and Swiss and Canadian national guidelines prescribe procedures for the use of antiviral drugs in pregnancy. The U.K. Advisory Group provides guidelines for chickenpox as well.These guidelines recommend oral acyclovir, which should be prescribed for pregnant women within 24 hours once they present the onset of the rash and if they have 20+0 weeks of gestation or beyond. Guidelines are unanimous nevertheless, in recommending that intravenous acyclovir be administered in cases of severe maternal infection. This factor along with the fact that the rate of exposure and transmission is extremely high in this infection and is a threat for pregnant women and kids, is expected to boost the growth of the varicella zoster infection treatment market.Get access to full summary @:Natural Products to Challenge Market GrowthSeveral people opt for other treatment options for herpes zoster and varicella. These alternative treatment options are expected to hamper the growth of the antiviral drugs market for varicella zoster infection treatment. Homeopathy, supplements, and other natural herbal medicines are used to treat herpes zoster and varicella.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: Fortified Dairy Products Market to Record Highest CAGR in APEJ through 2026 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/fortified-dairy-products-market https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6371 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-6371 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com A new Future Market Insights report envisages the global fortified dairy products market to record an impressive CAGR during the forecast period, 2017 to 2026. According to the report, worldwide sales of fortified dairy products are poised to bring in revenues more than US$ 150,000 Mn by 2026-end. According to WHO, many school children are being afflicted with the deficiency of vitamin A. Therefore, vitamin A-fortified dairy products hold immense potential in curtailing this deficiency.View complete report:With soaring utilization of fortified dairy products, the fortifying agent manufacturers have been concentrating on identification of novel micronutrients in accordance with the development of new, innovative solutions for manufacturers of end-products. A major challenge that prevails for manufacturers of fortified dairy products is the provision of required calcium content comprising products while retaining the products taste and appealing properties. Companies actively contributing to growth of global fortified dairy products market, as profiled by FMIs report, include Fonterra Group Cooperative Limited, BASF SE, Nestle S.A., General Mills, Inc., Bright Dairy & Food Co., Ltd., Danone, China Modern Dairy Holdings Ltd., GCMMF Ltd., Arla Foods UK Plc, and Dean Foods Company.Need to Replenish Lost Nutrients drives Penetration of Fortification into Dairy ProductsThe dairy industry is one of the most promising among various applications in the food and beverage sector. Although dairy products are deemed as excellent source of essential nutrients, many processing methods that include ultra-heat treatment, pasteurization, spray drying, and heating result into loss of certain imperative nutrients. Replenishing lost nutrients has therefore become imperative, and fortification has emerged as a highly effective method for retaining lost nutrients in dairy products. Moreover, dairy products that are fortified with vitamin D enable improvement in the absorption rate of calcium along with maintaining blood calcium level.Request for sample report:Health-conscious consumers have commenced consumption of yogurts, eyeing them as healthier alternatives to the dairy products including ice creams and milkshakes, which are rich in calories. Accelerated penetration of fortification technology into yogurts has further propelled sale of functional food products. Several countries around the world are better understanding importance of fortification and accepting practice of fortifying dairy products, thereby boosting sales of these products. On the other hand, relatively higher price of fortified dairy products compared to their non-fortified counterparts will curb their adoption among developing and low-income countries to a certain extent.APEJ to Dominate Global Fortified Dairy Products MarketThe global market for fortified dairy products will continue to be dominated by Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), with sales poised to reach nearly US$ 50,000 Mn in revenues by 2026-end. Revenues from the market in APEJ are slated to exhibit the highest CAGR through 2026, followed by North America. Europe will prevail as the second most lucrative market for fortified dairy products. The market in North America will rise at a relatively higher CAGR than that in Europe through 2026.Milk powder and formula is expected to remain the leading revenue contributing product in the market, trailed by milk and flavored milk. Flavored milk is expected to persist as the fast-selling product in the market through 2026. Sales of dairy-based yogurt and milk in the global fortified dairy products market are expected to record a parallel rise through 2026.Request Report TOC @Modern Trade to Remain Leading Sales Channel for Fortified Dairy ProductsIn terms of revenues, modern trade is expected to remain the leading sales channel for fortified dairy products, with an estimated market share of over 30% during the forecast period. Revenues from fortified dairy products sales in convenience stores and departmental stores will also remain significant, collectively poised to close in approximately similar to those obtained from sales in modern trade.Although vitamins will remain dominant among micronutrients used for fortifying dairy products in terms of revenues, sales of minerals are expected to register the fastest growth in the market through 2026.Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.CONTACT:Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: Esophageal Dysphagia Market Major Players: Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., Biostagel, Torax Medical, NinePoint Medical, Elekta AB, Eisai Co Ltd, Cipla Ltd., AstraZeneca Plc, Kent Precision Foods Group, etc Market Research Future https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6464 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/esophageal-dysphagia-market-6464 Esophageal Dysphagia Market - Highlights:The esophageal dysphagia market is expected to witness tremendous growth owing to the rising prevalence of oral cancer. Other key factors such as the change to sedentary lifestyle, increase in smoking and increasing of fungal infection are contributing towards the growth of the market. However, factors such as the high cost of surgical procedures, the allergic reaction of medication and the side effects associated with treatments are expected to restrict the market growth during the forecast period.Segmentation:The Global Esophageal Dysphagia Market is segmented on the basis of diagnosis, treatment, products, and end-user. The esophageal dysphagia market, by diagnosis, is categorized into X-ray, Dynamic swallowing study, Endoscopy, Manometry and Imaging scans. Imaging scans is sub-segmented into MRI scan, CT scan. On the basis of treatment, the market is segmented into esophageal dilation, surgery, medications, lifestyle changes. Surgery is sub-segmented into stent placement, and laparoscopic heller myotomy. On the basis of products, the market is segmented into feeding tube, nutritional solutions and drugs. Feeding tube is sub-segmented into the nasogastric tube, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. Nutritional solutions are sub-segmented into thickeners, beverages, and purees. On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into hospitals and clinics, ambulatory surgical centers, diagnostic centers, research centers, and others.Request for Sample Report atCompetitive Dashboard:Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp.BiostagelTorax MedicalNinePoint MedicalElekta ABEisai Co LtdCipla Ltd.Cook Medical Incorporated and others.Regional Analysis:The Americas is the largest in the market owing to the increasing prevalence of cardiac diseases, trauma to the neck, head, or spine and growing healthcare expenditure. Other risk factors for esophageal dysphagia are human papillomavirus, Plummer-Vinson syndrome and irradiation of the esophagus. According to the Genital HPV Infection, (GHI) Fact Sheet 2017, 79 million American adults were infected with human papillomavirus. Such a high incidence of (HPV) drives the market growth in this region.Europe (UK, Belgium, France, and Netherlands) is expected to be the second largest esophageal dysphagia market during the forecast period. The increasing occurrence of cancer drives the market in this region. According to Cancer Research UK in 2015, there were 359,960 new cases of cancer. Thus, the growing cases of cancer facilitate the market growth.Asia-Pacific was projected to be the fastest growing region for the global esophageal dysphagia market in 2017. The market is expected to witness growth owing to the rising prevalence of alcohol ingestion and smoking in this region. According, to the World Health Organization in 2015, 47.6% and 33.7% of people smoked tobacco in China and Japan, respectively. This is expected to provide favorable backgrounds for the market to grow.The Middle East and Africa accounts for the least share due to low per capita income and lack of availability of well-trained healthcare professionals. However, the rising oncology and palliative care services both at the hospital level and in the community are expected to influence the market in a positive way.Some Points from Esophageal Dysphagia Market Research Report Forecast to 2023:Chapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size EstimationChapter 4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentChapter 5. Market Factor AnalysisTOC CONTINUEDBrowse Complete 90 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 30+ 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 Gout Market Pivotal Players: Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., Savient Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca plc, Merck& Co., Inc.Ardelyx, Astellas Pharma, and Novartis AG., etc Gout Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5909 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/gout-market-5909 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/5909 Gout Market OverviewThe global gout market is expected to grow a healthy growth due to various factors such as increasing obesity rates, increasing aging mass, rising population indulging in smoking, and low fiber diet along with the increasing healthcare expenditure.Global gout market is expected to register a healthy CAGR of 8.4% during the forecast. Gout is a common form of inflammatory arthritis. Gout is caused due to higher levels of uric acid in the blood. Major risk factors that are likely to cause gout are certain health factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and certain medications that can cause high levels of uric acid. Additionally, factors such as diet containing red meat, obesity, and high consumption of alcohol can cause gout.Top Players:Some of the key players in the gout market are Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., Savient Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca plc, Merck& Co. Inc., Inc.Ardelyx, Inc., Astellas Pharma Inc., and Novartis AG.Request Sample copy atGout Market - Segmentation:The global gout market is segmented on the basis of treatment, type, end-user, and diagnosis.On the basis of type, the market is segmented into tophaceous gout and pseudogout.On the basis of treatment, the market is segmented into medications and self-care. The medication segment is further sub-segmented into Allopurinol, Febuxostat, Probenecid, Indomethacin, Diclofenac, and Ibuprofen.On the basis of diagnosis, the market is segmented into X-ray, CT scan, blood test, MRI, ultrasound, urine test, and others.On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into hospital specialty centers and homecare.Gout Market - Regional Analysis:The Americas dominates the global gout market owing to the increasingly obese population and increasing rate of cigarette smokers. Additionally, increasing obesity rates along with the increasing healthcare expenditure are likely to enhance the growth of gout in the North American region. For instance, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2015, 1 in 8 American adults had high cholesterol levels. Additionally, around USD 3.2 trillion was spent on healthcare expenditure in the U.S.Europe accounts for the second largest market due to increasing aging mass and increasing obesity rates. Additionally, increasing government initiatives and increasing healthcare spending along with the rising demand for technologically advanced treatments are driving the growth of the gout market in Europe. For instance, Eurostat estimated that over 19.2% of the population in Europe was aged 65 and above. This increasing older population is likely to drive the growth of the gout market.Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for gout whose growth is attributed to the rising population which in turn increases the overall patient population, rising population indulging in smoking, and low fiber diet. Additionally, the increasing healthcare expenditure and demand for new treatment options along with the rise in the standard of living are likely to drive the growth of the market. India and China are the major contributors to the market growth due to the rapid development of healthcare infrastructure in these regions and increasing demand for diagnostic services.On the other hand, the Middle East and Africa is expected to witness a slow growth due to limited access to healthcare services and affordability issues among individuals. In the Middle East, the growth of the market is driven by the increasing availability of new and advanced diagnostic and treatment methods for various chronic diseases.Browse Complete 100 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 68 Respective Tables and Figures atSome Points from TOC of Gout Market Research Report Forecast to 2023:1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations3 Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation4 Market DynamicsLIST OF TABLES:Table 1 Gout Industry Synopsis, 20172023Table 2 Global Gout Market Estimates & Forecast, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 3 Global Gout Market, By Region, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 5 Global Gout Market, By Treatment, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 6 Global Gout Market, By Diagnosis, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 7 Global Gout Market, By End-User, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 8 North America Gout Market, By Treatment, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 9 North America Gout Market, By Diagnosis, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 10 North America Gout Market, By End-User, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 11 U.S. Gout Market, By Treatment, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 12 U.S. Gout Market, By Diagnosis, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 13 U.S. Gout Market, By End-User, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 14 Canada Gout Market, By Treatment, 20172023, (USD Million)Table 15 Canada Gout Market, By Diagnosis, 20172023, (USD Million)LOT CONTINUED.Check Discount 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 Digital Pregnancy Test Kit Market: Rapid Expansion of the Digital Industry Highly Contributes towards Market Growth https://bit.ly/2LfIs0a https://bit.ly/2QPwQpY This report gives an in-depth research about the overall state of Financial Planning Software Market and projects an overview of its growth market. It also gives the crucial elements of the market and across major global regions in detail. An exclusive Financial Planning Software Market research report created through broad primary research (inputs from industry experts, companies, and stakeholders) and secondary research, the report aims to present the analysis of Global Financial Planning Software Market By Type, By Application, By Region - North America, Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa.The report also explains the key market drivers, trends, restraints and opportunities to give a precise data which is required and expected. It also analyses how such aspects affect the market existence globally helping make a wider and better choice of market establishment. The Financial Planning Software Markets growth and developments are studied and a detailed overview is been given.Get Sample Copy of this Report @A pregnancy test attempts to determine whether or not a woman is pregnant. Indicative markers are found in blood and urine, and pregnancy tests require sampling one of these substances.Among other applications, drug stores dominated the U.S. digital pregnancy test kit market in terms of revenue in 2017, and the trend is projected to grow throughout the forecast period.Leading Financial Planning Software Market PlayersSwiss Precision DiagnosticsChurch & DwightGregorySugentechMarket Segment by Type, coversBranded Test KitsPrivate Label Test KitMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoPharmaciesDrug StoresMaternity ClinicsOnline SalesHypermarket and SupermarketThe report analyzes the key elements such as demand, growth rate, cost, capacity utilization, import, margin, and production of the global market players. A number of factors are considered to analyze the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market. The Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market report demonstrates details of different sections and sub-sections of the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market on the basis of topographical regions. The report provides a detailed analysis of the key elements such as developments, trends, projections, drivers, and market growth of the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market. It also offers details of the factors directly impacting on the growth of the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market. It covers the fundamental ideas related to the growth and management of the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market.Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market research report highlights most of the data gathered in the form of tables, pictures, and graphs. This presentation helps the user to understand the details of the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market in an easy way. The Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market report research study emphasizes the top contributors to the Global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market. It also offers ideas to the market players assisting them to make strategic moves and develop and expand their businesses successfully.Inquire for Discount@There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Digital Pregnancy Test Kit market.Chapter 1, to describe Digital Pregnancy Test Kit Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Digital Pregnancy Test Kit, with sales, revenue, and price of Digital Pregnancy Test Kit, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Digital Pregnancy Test Kit, for each region, from 2013 to 2018;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2013 to 2018;Chapter 12, Digital Pregnancy Test Kit market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2018 to 2023;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Digital Pregnancy Test Kit sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceReasons to Buy Current and future of Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market outlook in the developed and emerging markets Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies The segment that is expected to dominate the Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market Regions that are expected to witness the fastest growth during the forecast period Identify the latest developments, Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market shares, and strategies employed by the major market players Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in the global Point of Care Diagnostic Devices Market Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging marketsAbout Us:Reports Intellect is your one-stop solution for everything related to market research and market intelligence. We understand the importance of market intelligence and its need in today's competitive world.Our professional team works hard to fetch the most authentic research reports backed with impeccable data figures which guarantee outstanding results every time for you.So whether it is the latest report from the researchers or a custom requirement, our team is here to help you in the best possible way.Contact Us:sales@reportsintellect.comPH - + 1-888-259-6883US Address:225 Peachtree Street NE,Suite 400,Atlanta, GA 30303 Bifunctional Chelate Market Status, Key Players, Future Forecast and Growth Opportunity to 2025 https://www.marketreportsworld.com/enquiry/request-sample/12192118 https://www.marketreportsworld.com/enquiry/pre-order-enquiry/12192118 https://www.marketreportsworld.com/purchase/12192118 Bifunctional Chelate is a type of bonding of ions and molecules to metal ions. It involves the formation or presence of two or more separate coordinate bonds between a polydentate (multiple bonded) ligand and a single central atom. These ligands are called chelants, chelators, chelating agents, or sequestering agents. They are usually organic compounds.Chelation is useful in applications such as providing nutritional supplements, in chelation therapy to remove toxic metals from the body, as contrast agents in MRI scanning, in manufacturing using homogeneous catalysts, in chemical water treatment to assist in the removal of metals, and in fertilizers.This report researches the worldwide Bifunctional Chelate market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (China, Japan) and other regions.This study categorizes the global Bifunctional Chelate breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distrib The chelate effect is the enhanced affinity of chelating ligands for a metal ion compared to the affinity of a collection of similar nonchelating (monodentate) ligands for the same metal.Request Sample Copy of Bifunctional Chelate Market Report:The thermodynamic principles underpinning the chelate effect are illustrated by the contrasting affinities of copper(II) for ethylenediamine (en) vs. methylamine.Cu2+ + en [Cu(en)]2+Cu2+ + 2 MeNH2 [Cu(MeNH2)2]2+In (1) the ethylenediamine forms a chelate complex with the copper ion. Chelation results in the formation of a five-membered CuC2N2 ring. In (2) the bidentate ligand is replaced by two monodentate methylamine ligands of approximately the same donor power, indicating that the CuN bonds are approximately the same in the two reactions.The thermodynamic approach to describing the chelate effect considers the equilibrium constant for the reaction: the larger the equilibrium constant, the higher the concentration of the complex.[Cu(en)] = 11[Cu][en][Cu(MeNH2)2] = 12[Cu][MeNH2]2Electrical charges have been omitted for simplicity of notation. The square brackets indicate concentration, and the subscripts to the stability constants, , indicate the stoichiometry of the complex. When the analytical concentration of methylamine is twice that of ethylenediamine and the concentration of copper is the same in both reactions, the concentration [Cu(en)] is much higher than the concentration [Cu(MeNH2)2] because 11 12.An equilibrium constant, K, is related to the standard Gibbs free energy, {displaystyle Delta G^{ominus }} Delta G^{ominus } by{displaystyle Delta G^{ominus }=-RTln K=Delta H^{ominus }-TDelta S^{ominus }} {displaystyle Delta G^{ominus }=-RTln K=Delta H^{ominus }-TDelta S^{ominus }}where R is the gas constant and T is the temperature in kelvins. {displaystyle Delta H^{ominus }} {displaystyle Delta H^{ominus }} is the standard enthalpy change of the reaction and {displaystyle Delta S^{ominus }} {displaystyle Delta S^{ominus }} is the standard entropy change.Since the enthalpy should be approximately the same for the two reactions, the difference between the two stability constants is due to the effects of entropy. In equation (1) there are two particles on the left and one on the right, whereas in equation (2) there are three particles on the left and one on the right. This difference means that less entropy of disorder is lost when the chelate complex is formed with bidentate ligand than when the complex with monodentate ligands is formed. This is one of the factors contributing to the entropy difference. Other factors include solvation changes and ring formation. Some experimental data to illustrate the effect are shown in the following table.utors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.Global Bifunctional Chelate market size will increase to Million US$ by 2025, from Million US$ in 2017, at a CAGR of during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Bifunctional Chelate.For More Enquiry Please Ask Our Experts At:This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Bifunctional Chelate capacity, production, value, price and market share of Bifunctional Chelate in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report:BioPALAMERICAN ELEMENTSBV CyclotronBifunctional Chelate Breakdown Data by TypeInorganic ChelateOrganic ChelateBifunctional Chelate Breakdown Data by ApplicationChemical IndustryLaboratoryOthersBifunctional Chelate Production Breakdown Data by RegionUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanOther RegionsBifunctional Chelate Consumption Breakdown Data by RegionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaMalaysiaPhilippinesThailandVietnamEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalyRussiaRest of EuropeCentral & South AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaGCC CountriesTurkeyEgyptSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaThe study objectives are:To analyze and research the global Bifunctional Chelate capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;To focus on the key Bifunctional Chelate manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Applications:Nutritional supplementsIn the 1960s, scientists developed the concept of chelating a metal ion prior to feeding the element to the animal. They believed that this would create a neutral compound, protecting the mineral from being complexed with insoluble salts within the stomach, which would render the metal unavailable for absorption. Amino acids, being effective metal binders, were chosen as the prospective ligands, and research was conducted on the metalamino acid combinations. The research supported that the metalamino acid chelates were able to enhance mineral absorption.During this period, synthetic chelates such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) were being developed. These applied the same concept of chelation and did create chelated compounds; but these synthetics were too stable and not nutritionally viable. If the mineral was taken from the EDTA ligand, the ligand could not be used by the body and would be expelled. During the expulsion process the EDTA ligand randomly chelated and stripped another mineral from the body.According to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), a metalamino acid chelate is defined as the product resulting from the reaction of metal ions from a soluble metal salt with amino acids, with a mole ratio in the range of 13 (preferably 2) moles of amino acids for one mole of metal.[citation needed] The average weight of the hydrolyzed amino acids must be approximately 150 and the resulting molecular weight of the chelate must not exceed 800 Da.[citation needed]Since the early development of these compounds, much more research has been conducted, and has been applied to human nutrition products in a similar manner to the animal nutrition experiments that pioneered the technology. Ferrous bis-glycinate is an example of one of these compounds that has been developed for human nutrition.Dental and oral applicationFirst-generation dentin adhesives were first designed and produced in the 1950s. These systems were based on a co-monomer chelate with calcium on the surface of the tooth and generated very weak water resistance chemical bonding (23 MPa).[16]Heavy-metal detoxificationMain article: Chelation therapyChelation therapy is used as antidotes for poisoning by mercury, arsenic, and lead. Chelating agents convert these metal ions into a chemically and biochemically inert form that can be excreted. Chelation using calcium disodium EDTA has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for serious cases of lead poisoning. It is not approved for treating "heavy metal toxicity".Although beneficial in cases of serious lead poisoning, use of disodium EDTA (edetate disodium) instead of calcium disodium EDTA has resulted in fatalities due to hypocalcemia.[18] Disodium EDTA is not approved by the FDA for any use,[17] and all FDA-approved chelation therapy products require a prescription.[19]PharmaceuticalsChelate complexes of gadolinium are often used as contrast agents in MRI scans, although iron particle and manganese chelate complexes have also been explored. Bifunctional chelate complexes of zirconium, gallium, fluorine, copper, yttrium, bromine, or iodine are often used for conjugation to monoclonal antibodies for use in antibody-based PET imaging. These chelate complexes often employ the usage of hexadentate ligands such as desferrioxamine B (DFO), according to Meijs et al., and the gadolinium complexes often employ the usage of octadentate ligands such as DTPA, according to Desreux et al. Auranofin, a chelate complex of gold, is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and penicillamine, which forms chelate complexes of copper, is used in the treatment of Wilson's disease and cystinuria, as well as refractory rheumatoid arthritis.Other medical applicationsChelation in the intestinal tract is a cause of numerous interactions between drugs and metal ions (also known as "minerals" in nutrition). As examples, antibiotic drugs of the tetracycline and quinolone families are chelators of Fe2+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ ions.EDTA, which binds to calcium, is used to alleviate the hypercalcimia that often results from band keratopathy. The calcium may then be removed from the cornea, allowing for some increase in clarity of vision for the patient.In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Bifunctional Chelate:History Year: 2013-2017Base Year: 2017Estimated Year: 2018Forecast Year 2018 to 2025Place a Purchase Order For Bifunctional Chelate Market At:ABOUT Us:Market is changing rapidly with the ongoing expansion of the industry. Advancement in the technology has provided todays businesses with multifaceted advantages resulting in daily economic shifts. Thus, it is very important for a company to comprehend the patterns of the market movements in order to strategize better. An efficient strategy offers the companies with a head start in planning and an edge over the competitors. Market Reports World is the credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs.Contact Us:Mr.Ajay MorePhone : +1 408 520 9750Email : sales@marketreportsworld.comMarket is changing rapidly with the ongoing expansion of the industry. Advancement in the technology has provided todays businesses with multifaceted advantages resulting in daily economic shifts. Thus, it is very important for a company to comprehend the patterns of the market movements in order to strategize better. An efficient strategy offers the companies with a head start in planning and an edge over the competitors. Market Reports World is the credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs.Market Reports World3rd Floor, Silver Spring, Sahyadri farms,Opp Prabhavee Tech Park,Baner - Mhalunge Road, Baner, Pune 411045. Diesel Generator Global Market SWOT Analysis and Opportunities To 2023 | Key Players : Caterpillar, Cummins Power Systems, Generac, Kohler, Atlas Copco, Broadcrown Diesel Generator Industry https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3462194-global-diesel-generator-market-2018-by-manufacturers-regions https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3462194-global-diesel-generator-market-2018-by-manufacturers-regions https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=3462194 WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On Diesel Generator Global Market SWOT Analysis and Opportunities To 2023 | Key Players : Caterpillar, Cummins Power Systems, Generac, Kohler, Atlas Copco, Broadcrown.Description:-Generators convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The source of mechanical energy varies from an internal combustion engine or a hand crank to a compressed air and reciprocating steam engine.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Diesel Generator in global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Digital technology is widely being used in generators that perform as a backup power source for large-scale jobs. However, analog controls still find application in smaller generators. The transition from analog to digital control technology has provided end-users with better and reliable monitoring of the fuel and coolant levels. Apart from this, the digital control systems allow monitoring of battery life, engine oil, and temperature.Increased need for diesel generators in data centers is one of the drivers in the market. Data centers are integral to a network, acting as the pillar for all kinds of network operations. Data centers preserve a centralized hub of information, which belong to individual businesses and firms. The primary objective of data centers is to provide reliable data in an uninterrupted fashion. This requires solutions to save their operations during major power outages or system breakdowns.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comThe worldwide market for Diesel Generator is expected to grow at a CAGR of roughly xx% over the next five years, will reach xx million US$ in 2023, from xx million US$ in 2017, according to a new GIR (Global Info Research) study.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversCaterpillarCummins Power SystemsGeneracKohlerAPR EnergyAtlas CopcoBroadcrownDresser-RandFG WilsonGE EnergyGuangdong WestinpowerHimoinsaKirloskar Oil EnginesMitsubishi Heavy IndustriesMQ PowerMTU Onsite EnergyPerkinsWacker NeusonWartsilaWuxi Kipor PowerYanmarMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversAir-Cooled Diesel GeneratorsWater-Cooled Diesel GeneratorsMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoResidentialCommercialIndustrialThere are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Diesel Generator market.Chapter 1, to describe Diesel Generator Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Diesel Generator, with sales, revenue, and price of Diesel Generator, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Diesel Generator, for each region, from 2013 to 2018;ContinuedEnquiry About Report @Table Of Contents Major Key Points1 Market Overview1.1 Diesel Generator Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Air-Cooled Diesel Generators1.2.2 Water-Cooled Diesel Generators1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Residential1.3.2 Commercial1.3.3 Industrial1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 United States Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Caterpillar2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Product A2.1.2.2 Product B2.1.3 Caterpillar Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2 Cummins Power Systems2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Product A2.2.2.2 Product B2.2.3 Cummins Power Systems Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3 Generac2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Product A2.3.2.2 Product B2.3.3 Generac Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4 Kohler2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Product A2.4.2.2 Product B2.4.3 Kohler Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5 APR Energy2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Product A2.5.2.2 Product B2.5.3 APR Energy Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6 Atlas Copco2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Product A2.6.2.2 Product B2.6.3 Atlas Copco Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7 Broadcrown2.7.1 Business Overview2.7.2 Diesel Generator Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Product A2.7.2.2 Product B2.7.3 Broadcrown Diesel Generator Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)ContinuedBuy 1-user PDF @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028. Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing: Market 2018 Global Analysis By Top Key Players ImmuneXperts SA, Celentyx, Gen script Biotech, Aquila Biomedical, Crown Bioscience, Promega Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing https://www.globalinforeports.com/request-sample/1070915 https://www.globalinforeports.com/check-discount/1070915 https://www.globalinforeports.com/checkout/1070915 An exclusive Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing market research report created through broad primary research (inputs from industry experts, companies, and stakeholders) and secondary research, the report aims to present the analysis of Global Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market By Type, By Application, By Region - North America, Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The report intends to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyses the emerging trends along with major drivers, challenges and opportunities in the global Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing market. Additionally, the report also highlights market entry strategies for various companies across the globe.Global Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market which estimates that the global market size of Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing is said to flourish with a considerable Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in the predicted forecast period, and this is accredited to the escalating need for this product/service worldwide backed by new inventions and technological advancements in the market.GET Access PDF SAMPLE COPY of This Report NOW @Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market Players: ImmuneXperts SA Celentyx Ltd. Gen script Biotech Corporation Aquila Biomedical Crown Bioscience Inc. Horizon Discovery Group plc Explicit Immuno-Oncology BPS Biosciences Inc. HD Biosciences Co. Ltd. Promega CorporationBy Service Type Lead Screening and Characterization Target Identification and Validation Cell Bases AssaysBy Drug Type Immunomodulators Monoclonal Antibodies Oncolytic Viral Therapies and Cancer Vaccines OthersBy Cancer Type Breast Cancer Lung Cancer Melanoma Colorectal Cancer Pancreatic Cancer Head and Neck Cancer Prostate Cancer Ovarian CancerMajor regions are as follows: North America Europe Asia-Pacific South America Middle East and AfricaGET Exclusive DISCOUNT @This market report orbits the Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market, predominantly in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America and Middle East and Africa. This report fragments the market based on many regions, market manufacturers and the segments in which the market is split into.Also, key Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing market players influencing the market are profiled in the study along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. 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.Reason to Buy- Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.- The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing market, thereby allowing players to develop effective long term strategies.- Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.- Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.- Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to products, segmentation and industry verticals.Access Full Report @The report is worth a buy because:This report on Cancer Immunotherapy Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market assists in analyzing the condition and situation of the market in primary regions of the world. Apart from rendering an overview of product manufacturing processes, the research report also renders impeded strategy of the industry, latest technological developments, cost structures, product specifications, etc. Future predictions based on the development of this industry are also covered. The report also reviews micro and macro factors vital for the new entrants along with the current market players.About Us:Global Info Reports is a pioneer in off-the-rack market research. We study markets across the globe to assist our clients to analyze competitive activity and perceive further than market disruptions, and eventually grow intellectual business strategies. We offer vast portfolio of research reports with respect to geographical coverage, topics, and profiled companies. Global Info Reports has an experienced and skilled team which is dedicated to top-notch analysis and research. Our research team comprehends the demands of its clients and therefore keeps updating the reports as the market requirement changes. Our in-house professionals are highly motivated towards their work and meet the clients demands and deadlines irrespective of any time zone, thereby impeccably delivering projects.Contact Us:Call: +1-888-248-7621Email: sales@globalinforeports.com539 West Commerce, Suite #499, Dallas TX 75208, United States Car Rental Market 2018 Global Analysis By Key Players Avis Budget, Carzonrent, Enterprise Holding, Europcar, Hertz, Sixt Car Rental Market https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3462234-global-car-rental-market-2018-by-manufacturers-countries https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3462234-global-car-rental-market-2018-by-manufacturers-countries https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=3462234 WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On Car Rental Market 2018 Global Analysis By Key Players Avis Budget, Carzonrent, Enterprise Holding, Europcar, Hertz, Sixt.Description:-Car or vehicle rental service is relatively developed in the industrialized economies. A car rental, hire car, or car hire company provides vehicles on rent for short periods of time, generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks. Car rental providers have a number of local branches and offices near airports, bus stops, railway station, and busy city areas. The key vendors that provide vehicle rental services mainly focus on customer's requirements, growth, innovation, and offers that attract customers and efficiency.Scope of the Report:This report studies the Car Rental market status and outlook of Global and major regions, from angles of players, countries, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top players in global market, and splits the Car Rental market by product type and applications/end industries.The impact of information technology in the industry has driven the transformation of the car rental services. The growing trend of using the Internet for customizing travel trips and online reservations & bookings is anticipated to propel the use of technology in the industry. The implementation of technology in these services makes the whole process safe, quick, reliable, and easy for consumers. In addition to this, the hassle-free process of online reservations and bookings increases convenience for both, the operators and customers.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comOne of the main challenges for car rental companies is to provide superior customer service, especially when it comes to customer complaints. The dissatisfaction comes from different situations. From a lack of information on additional payments and excess amount, to waiting for hours in line to get the car they already booked .North America dominated the car rental market in 2015 and occupied around 39% of the total market revenue. Much of this regions growth comes from the rise in accessibility and affordability of insurance and the growing popularity of car-sharing services. The increasing number of global tourists visiting Canada has also contributed to the rapid growth of the market. Factors such as an increase in business activities and growing awareness about carpool will drive revenues in this region during the forecast period.The global Car Rental market is valued at xx million USD in 2017 and is expected to reach xx million USD by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2017 and 2023.The Asia-Pacific will occupy for more market share in following years, especially in China, also fast growing India and Southeast Asia regions.North America, especially The United States, will still play an important role which cannot be ignored. Any changes from United States might affect the development trend of Car Rental.Europe also play important roles in global market, with market size of xx million USD in 2017 and will be xx million USD in 2023, with a CAGR of xx%.Market Segment by Companies, this report coversAvis BudgetCarzonrentEnterprise HoldingEuropcarHertzSixtMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversLuxury CarsExecutive CarsEconomy CarsSUVsMUVsMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoLocal UsageAirport TransportOutstationEnquiry About Report @Table Of Contents Major Key Points1 Car Rental Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Car Rental1.2 Classification of Car Rental by Types1.2.1 Global Car Rental Revenue Comparison by Types (2017-2023)1.2.2 Global Car Rental Revenue Market Share by Types in 20171.2.3 Luxury Cars1.2.4 Executive Cars1.2.5 Economy Cars1.2.6 SUVs1.2.7 MUVs1.3 Global Car Rental Market by Application1.3.1 Global Car Rental Market Size and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2013-2023)1.3.2 Local Usage1.3.3 Airport Transport1.3.4 Outstation1.4 Global Car Rental Market by Regions1.4.1 Global Car Rental Market Size (Million USD) Comparison by Regions (2013-2023)1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Car Rental Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Car Rental Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) Car Rental Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.4 South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia) Car Rental Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.5 Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) Car Rental Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.5 Global Market Size of Car Rental (2013-2023)2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Avis Budget2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Car Rental Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Product A2.1.2.2 Product B2.1.3 Avis Budget Car Rental Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2 Carzonrent2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.2 Car Rental Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Product A2.2.2.2 Product B2.2.3 Carzonrent Car Rental Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3 Enterprise Holding2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.2 Car Rental Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Product A2.3.2.2 Product B2.3.3 Enterprise Holding Car Rental Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4 Europcar2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.2 Car Rental Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Product A2.4.2.2 Product B2.4.3 Europcar Car Rental Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5 Hertz2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.2 Car Rental Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Product A2.5.2.2 Product B2.5.3 Hertz Car Rental Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6 Sixt2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.2 Car Rental Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Product A2.6.2.2 Product B2.6.3 Sixt Car Rental Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)3 Global Car Rental Market Competition, by Players3.1 Global Car Rental Revenue and Share by Players (2013-2018)3.2 Market Concentration Rate3.2.1 Top 5 Car Rental Players Market Share3.2.2 Top 10 Car Rental Players Market Share3.3 Market Competition TrendContinuedBuy 1-user PDF @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028. 5G Technology Market Is Set for Financial Gains in the Forecast Period Of 2017 to 2023 5G Technology Market https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-toc-and-sample/2070 https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/2070 https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com 5G Technology Market evolutionNokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Ericsson have made few advancements in 5G technology by investing large capital on R&D activities. Partnership and acquisitions are the key developmental strategies adopted by the players in the market. For instance, in November 2016, Qualcomm and Samsung partnered to work on this technology. Similarly, Ericsson and Zain Group collaborated in December 2016 to perform R&D on this technology. The 5G technology is anticipated to have high adoption rates in the U.S., UK, China, and India, due to the presence of key technology players, increase in R&D activities, and development of the ICT infrastructure.5G technology is the fifth-generation wireless technology, which is in its developmental stage, and is expected to be commercialized in the coming two to three years. The technologys operational speed is expected to be several times faster than the existing wireless technologies (1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G) and significantly penetrate the 2G and 3G wireless markets. High speed, faster download speed, low cost, and expansion in the Internet of Things (IOT) market drive the 5G technology market. This technology is expected to be utilized extensively in driverless cars, smart logistics, virtual reality, and augmented reality-based applications.Get PDF brochure @:Potential Benefits for Stakeholders This report provides an in-depth analysis of the 5G technology market and offers current and future trends to identify lucrative investment pockets. It identifies key drivers, opportunities, and restraints that shape the market, with a detailed impact analysis. Porters Five Forces analysis highlights the potency of buyers and suppliers to offer a competitive advantage to stakeholders to make profitable business decisions, thereby strengthening their networks. Current and future trends are outlined to determine the overall market potential and highlight the profitable trends to gain a stronger market foothold.The market is segmented on the basis of technology type, services, application, and geography. The technology type segment is divided into Wi-Fi, HSPA, RAT, and GSM, and WIMAX. The market by services is segmented into extreme mobile broadband, Massive MTC, and ultra-reliable MTC. The market by application comprises driverless car, smart factory, smart logistics, smart agriculture, virtual reality & augmented reality, and others. Geographically, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.Key players profiled in this report are Ericsson, Deutsche Telekom AG, Nokia Siemens Networks, Telecom Italia, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Orange S.A., Alcatel-Lucent S.A., Qualcomm Inc., Telstra, and T-Mobile.5G Technology Market Key SegmentationBy Technology Type Wi-Fi High-Speed Package Access (HSPA) Radio Access Technologies (RAT) Global System for Mobile (GSM) Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WIMAX)By Service Extreme Mobile Broadband Massive Machine-Type Communications (MTC) Ultra-Reliable Machine-Type Communications (MTC)For More Inquiry Visit @:By Application Driverless Car Smart Factory Smart Logistics Smart Agriculture Virtual Reality & Augmented RealityAllied Market Research, a market research and advisory company of Allied Analytics LLP, provides business insights and market research reports to large as well as small & medium enterprises. The company assists its clients to strategize business policies and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.Allied Market Research provides one stop solution from the beginning of data collection to investment advice. The analysts at Allied Market Research dig out factors that help clients to understand the significance and impact of market dynamics. The company amplies clients insight on the factors, such as strategies, future estimations, growth or fall forecasting, opportunity analysis, and consumer surveys among others. As follows, the company offers consistent business intelligent support to aid the clients to turn into prominent business firm.Contact:David Correa5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free (USA/Canada):+1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1?855?550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb: Spinal Traction Market Future Scope to 2023 | by Top Leaders as Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, pfizer plc., Baxter, Mylan N.V., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Hitachi Medical Corporation, etc Spinal Traction Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1902 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/spinal-traction-market-1902 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1902 This research report titled Global Spinal Traction Market Insights, forecast to 2023 has been added to the wide online database managed by Market Research Future. The study discusses the prime market growth factors along with future projections expected to impact the Global Spinal Traction Market during the period between 2018 and 2023.Key Players for Global Spinal Traction MarketSome of the key players profiled in the report are Fujifilm Holdings, GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Shimadzu Corporation, Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, pfizer plc., Baxter, Mylan N.V., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Hitachi Medical Corporation, and others.Spinal Traction Market - OverviewMarket Research Future published a research report on Global Spinal Traction Market and Predicted that global spinal traction market is expected to reach USD 6.0 billion by 2023 at a CAGR of ~ 7.7 % during the forecast period 2017-2023. Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 50 market data tables and figures spread over 100 pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content (TOC) & market synopsis on Global Spinal Traction Market Research Report Forecast till 2023.Get Exclusive Sample Copy of Report @The market drivers for the spinal traction devices market are growing geriatric population, rising cases of spinal cord diseases and trauma, rising number of spinal surgery, increasing awareness and screening, and developing healthcare. On the other hand, lack of experimental clinical data in support of traction devices in medical treatment, high cost of devices, demand for minimally invasive procedures, risks of surgery such as pain, risk of infection and damage to the spine, may hamper the marker growth over the review period.Innovation remains the best strategy for the global spinal traction devices. Thus, many companies are focusing on developing new devices offering better diagnostics and treatment of various spine conditions. Wireless sensor technology is the latest wave with advanced products have been connected to external devices for further analysis of the problem and the healing progress. However, cost of the product projected to be a crucial factor in the developing regions such as Asia Pacific and Africa.Increasing geriatric population, rising cases of spinal cord diseases and trauma, rising number of spinal surgery, growing screening, rising awareness, and growing income are the major drivers of this market. On the other hand, lack of clinical evidence, high cost of the devices coupled with low healthcare expenditure in developing regions may restrain the market growth during the given period.Regional Analysis for Global Spinal Traction MarketThe Americas accounts for a significant market share owing to high expenditure on the health care. Additionally, the fastest uptake of new diagnostics and drugs in the U.S. drives the mesenteric ischemia market. Furthermore, concentration of the major healthcare companies and large hospitals in the developed countries of this region coupled with large insurance penetration are adding fuel to the market growth. The U.S. expend high amount on its healthcare in 2015, which accounted for 16% of total GDP which, in turn, likely to drive the mesenteric ischemia market.Europe is the second largest market in the world due to high income and strong healthcare penetration. The European market growth is led by countries such as Germany and France. The UK is expected to be the fastest growing market over the assessment period. However the southern European nations have witnessed a greater incidence of infective mesenteric ischemia due to associated environmental conditional. Owing to strong pharmaceutical industry, Germany dominates the European market.Asia Pacific region is expected to grow rapidly; China and India are likely to lead this market due to the fast growing healthcare sector and large unmet needs over the forecast period. South East Asian countries such as China, India, and Malaysia are projected to contribute highly to the market growth. Furthermore, growing penetration of healthcare insurance in the Asia Pacific region is expected to drive the future mesenteric ischemia market in the region.Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are estimated to drive the Middle East & African market. Other Middle East nations to watch out for are Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and Iran. The African region is expected to witness a moderate growth owing to poor economic and political conditions, and poor healthcare development. However, the poor countries and developing regions have the greatest unmet needs, which needs to be tapped.Browse Complete Report @Some Brief Table of Contents of ReportChapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size EstimationChapter 4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restrains4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentChapter 5. Market Factor Analysis5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of SuppliersTOC ContinuedDo You Have Specific Requirement? Ask To Our Experts@About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureHadapsar, Pune 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Postpartum Depression Drug Market 2018 With Major Key Players Sage Therapeutics, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Cipla Limited, Intas Pharmaceuticals, Mylan Postpartum Depression https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-discount/2258 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/2258 Postpartum depression (PPD), also known as postnatal depression, is a type of mood disorder that results post pregnancy. Signs of depression include, insomnia, fatigue and sadness, loss of appetite, mood swings, anxiety, and anger. Hormonal changes such as elevated prolactin levels, depleted oxytocin and thyroid hormone levels can be a cause of PPD in females.Postpartum Depression Drug Market DriversIncreasing 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.Get Discount On This 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 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.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.Contact Us:Mr.ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.com Clinical Trial Management System Market 2023 Ongoing Trend with Major Industry Giants - PAREXEL International Corporation, Wipro Limited, GCP-Service International Ltd. & Co. KG, Oracle, Bioclinica, Covance Inc. https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2054 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/clinical-trial-management-system-market-2054 The Industry report for Global Clinical Trial Management System market by Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain a deeper insight of the industry performance.Global Clinical Trial Management System Market - OverviewClinical trial management system are those which maintain and record the information and data which is used to track the clinical trials. Information extracted during clinical trials are vast and highly complex and they are need to be routinely processed through multiple regression, simulation and other models.To maintain the information scientists and industry players are working towards the development of management and maintenance of this data.The market for clinical trial management system is booming due to increasing demand for the management of the clinical trial data collected at the time of clinical research and track the milestones for the further studies for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to make advanced and improved products for the patients.Some of the key functions of clinical trial management system includes cataloging the history of the clinical trials associated with the organizations and individuals, site management, subject tracking among others.GET SAMPLE REPORT DETAILS @Global Clinical Trial Management System Market - Competitive AnalysisClinical trial management system provide data to intelligence business system which acts as digital dashboard for clinical trial managers.The increasing number of healthcare service providers and new advances such as cloud based clinical trial information delivery systems has accelerated the adoption rate of clinical trial management system.Furthermore, increasing chronic diseases has boosted in the clinical research of drugs and devices for providing new and improved products that has derived the market for clinical trial management system.Among the type; standard clinical trial management system, CTMS accelerator, customized CTMS and others are compositing the growth of the market. It is projected to grow at a steady pace from the period of 2013 to 2022.Global Clinical Trial Management System Market - Regional AnalysisThe global clinical trial management system market has been evaluated as a growing market and it is expected that the market will touch high growth figures in future.Factors such the growing prevalence of chronic diseases and increasing advancement in clinical trial management will drive the growth of global the clinical trial management system market.Depending on geographic region, clinical trial management system market is segmented into four key regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa.Globally, North America is the largest market for clinical trial management system as they deploy the most advanced healthcare technologies and increasing demand for the reliable and cost effective products.Europe is the second-largest market for clinical trial management system. Asia Pacific region is expected to be fastest growing region in clinical trial management system market due to increasing healthcare expenditure.Although, these countries markets are expected to be mature, the industry is likely to find stagnant growth for this market after few years. Increasing determination to provide best-in-class healthcare services with improvement in products and services will enhance the growth of this market.On the other hand, Asia Pacific region will be with China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Australia and others its forefront will lead the market further to next 7 years and will continue with this trend through the forecast period.Global Clinical Trial Management System Market - SegmentationOn the basis of type of clinical trial management system they are segmented into standard clinical trial management system, CTMS accelerator and customized clinical trial management system.Standard clinical trial management system are Out-of-the-box system without organization-specific customizations while clinical trial management system accelerator are pre-configured version of a standard clinical trial management system that includes requested configurations and enhanced functionality for clinical trials data management.They can satisfy many of the organizations key requirements without additional development and the customized clinical trial management system are those which includes standard or accelerator system that is tailored to organization specific configurations.These are commonly used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract research organizations and medical device companies among others.Further, clinical trial management system exceeds organizational boundaries, improves interoperability, and addresses evolving regulatory standards of the company. It enables the oversight of related clinical trials according to the therapeutic areas based on a specific clinical trials activities and track the progress of the particular trial at specific level.OBTAIN COMPLETE 85 PAGES PREMIUM RESEARCH REPORT DETAILS ENABLED WITH RESPECTIVE 40+ TABLES AND FIGURES @Major Points form TOC for Clinical Trial Management System Market Research Report Forecast to 2023Chapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market IntroductionChapter 3. Research MethodologyChapter 4. Market DynamicsChapter 5. Market Factor AnalysisChapter 6. Global Clinical Trial Management System Market, By TypeChapter 7. Global Clinical Trial Management System Market, By TreatmentChapter 8 Global Clinical Trial Management System Market, By End UserChapter 9. Global Clinical Trial Management System 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 ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India Rapid Unit Sales of Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market to Push Incremental Revenues in the Global Market by 2028 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7831 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-7831 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7831 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market: An Overview : Self-adhesive tear tapes are single-sided adhesive tapes which are applied on the outer packaging to facilitate unpacking of the package. Self-adhesive tear tapes can be used on paper, films, and paperboard or corrugated board by being attached to their inner surfaces. Non-durable fast moving consumer goods such as cigarettes, non-alcoholic beverages, groceries or toiletries use these kinds of tear tapes. Self-adhesive tear tapes are also instrumental in sealing courier envelopes and shipping boxes as they ensure easy unpacking. The use of self-adhesive tear tapes has aided in reducing the use of conventional tools such as knives and scissors for opening packages. Manufacturers offer self-adhesive tear tapes in a variety of colors, prints and sizes to cater to various applications. Among the different plastic materials polypropylene is the most attractive material for the manufacturing of self-adhesive tear tapes owing to its high tensile strength and low elongation.Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market: Dynamics : The increasing use of consumer convenient packaging has fueled the demand for self-adhesive tear tapes in FMCG as well as food & beverages industry. The tobacco industry is a major end-user for self-adhesive tear tapes and is projected to grow at a CAGR of about 2.5% over the forecast period. This is anticipated to account for a hiked demand for self-adhesive tear tapes. Moreover, beverages, grocery and e-commerce packaging is expected to remain a key contributor in the self-adhesive tear tapes market. The increasing traction of self-adhesive tear tapes in the global adhesive tapes market can be attributed to the protection they provide from product tampering.Manufacturers are focusing on incorporating security features in the self-adhesive tear tapes by using various technologies such as holography, using multiple materials, colors and prints so that the tape stands out and becomes difficult to replicate. Anti-counterfeiting self-adhesive tear tapes are used mostly on cigarette boxes. However, the stringent regulations from various governing bodies against the usage of plastics might hamper the self-adhesive tear tapes market.Request for Table of Contents @Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market: Segmentation : Globally the self-adhesive tear tapes market has been segmented on the basis of material type, thickness, and end uses- On the basis of MaterialType, the global self-adhesive tear tapes market has been segmented as follows- Polypropylene (PP), Bi-axially oriented polypropylene (BOPP), Mono- axially oriented polypropylene (MOPP), Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polystyrene (PS); On the basis of Thickness, the global self-adhesive tear tapes market has been segmented as follows- Up to 20 micron, 20 - 40 micron, 40 60 micron, More than 60 micron;On the basis of End Uses, the global self-adhesive tear tapes market has been segmented as follows- Food & Beverages, Manufacturing, Retail & E-commerce, FMCG, Shipping & Logistics, Personal Care & Cosmetics, Chemical;Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market: Regional Outlook : Geographically, the global self-adhesive tear tapes market has been divided into seven key regions as- Western Europe, North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excl. Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific region is dominating the global demand for self-adhesive tear tapes; this can be attributed to the steady demand for tobacco products as well as thriving demand for FMCG products. This trend is expected to continue owing to the rise in consumer spending in developing nations such as China, India, and ASEAN countries. Ease of opening that the self-adhesive tear tapes offer have increased their applications in consumer goods packaging such as multi-packs of cigarettes, biscuits, chewing gums and magnetic media.Request to Report Methodology @Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market: Key players : Examples of some of the key players operating in the global self-adhesive tear tapes market are Tann Germany GmbH, DS Smith Plc, Polinas Plastik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., Septa GmbH, Anhui Eastern Communication Packing Material Co., Ltd, Big Beard Co. Ltd., Nowofol Kunststoffprodukte GmbH & Co KG and Femick Industries. Many local and unorganized players are expected to contribute to the global self-adhesive tear tapes market during the forecast period.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 of the global self-adhesive tear tapes market. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors along with self-adhesive tear tapes market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various factors on self-adhesive tear tapes market segments and geographies.Report Highlights: A detailed overview of parent market, Changing self-adhesive tear tapes market dynamics in the industry, In-depth self-adhesive tear tapes market segmentation, Historical, current, and projected self-adhesive tear tapes market size regarding volume and value, Recent industry trends and developments in self-adhesive tear tapes market, Competitive landscape of the self-adhesive tear tapes market, Strategies for key players and products offered, Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth, A neutral perspective on self-adhesive tear tapes market performance, Must-have information for self-adhesive tear tapes market players to sustain and enhance their market footprint;Get more information on Self-Adhesive Tear Tapes Market @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: Machine Glazed Paper Market to Reflect Steady Growth Rate by 2028 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7900 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-7900 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7900 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ Machine Glazed Paper Market: Overview : Machine glazed paper is a type of uncoated paper, its one side has shiny appearance while the other side is slightly rough. Shining and smoothness on the one side offer excellent printability. Unlike kraft paper, machine glazed paper has a high tensile strength which makes machine glazed paper an optimum choice for various applications ranging from chewing wrappers to soap wrappers to butter wraps. Machine glazed paper represents low variation in grammage across the paper, and it offers excellent machinability. The properties of machine glazed paper can be enhanced by the process of calendaring the paper or by the chemical refining the pulp. The machine glazed paper is useful for printing, coating, packaging converters, laminating and envelope manufacturing, etc. The demand for machine glazed paper market is expected to be positive during the forecast period.Machine Glazed Paper Market: Dynamics : Machine glazed paper is made of unbleached virgin fibers, which make them suitable for food applications. The machine glazed paper can be combined with other substrates including aluminum foil and polyester films by laminating process, used for various applications including wrappers for soap, confectionary, and other products. These factors are expected to drive the growth of the global machine glazed paper market during the forecast period. Machine glazed paper finds useful applications in industries such as aeronautics, metallurgy, and car making, among others. The printability, excellent machinability and flexibility of machine glazed paper ensure its adaptability to the wide range of applications across various end-use sectors.The machine glazed paper is available in a weight range of 30 gsm to 120 gsm. The structure of machine glazed paper is such that it offers a better barrier towards air or moisture. The versatile nature of machine glazed paper makes it suitable to use in various end-use sectors. The machine glazed paper is used as acid-free paper for packaging of apparels, jewelry, and also used as anti-rust paper for packaging of machine parts to prevent them from corrosion. These factors are projected to propel the growth of the global machine glazed paper market during the forecast period.Request for Table of Contents @Machine Glazed Paper Market: Segmentation : Globally, the machine glazed paper market has been segmented on the basis of grade, weight, application, end use and region. On the basis of grade, the global machine glazed paper market is segmented as: Bleached, Unbleached; On the basis of weight, the global machine glazed paper market is segmented as: Less than 30 gsm, 30 gsm to 50 gsm, 50 gsm to 100 gsm, 100 gsm & above; On the basis of application, the global machine glazed paper market is segmented as: Wrapping, Printing, Coating & Lamination, Others; On the basis of end use, the global machine glazed paper market is segmented as: Food, Bakery & Confectionary, Automotive, Textile & Apparels, Aeronautics, Metallurgical, Others; On the basis of region, the global machine glazed paper market is segmented as North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East & Africa, Japan;APEJ, dominated especially by countries such as India, China, and South Korea, among others, is supposed to dominate the global machine glazed paper market during forecast period. It is attributed to the presence of various end-use industries including machinery, automobiles and textile in the region. The region is followed by Western Europe, where numerous global players of food, textiles and other sectors are present.The region has many food service providers, which is expected to fuel the demand for machine glazed paper, especially in the countries including the U.K., France, and Germany. North America is supposed to witness average growth in the global machine glazed paper market during the next decade. The U.S. is expected to dominate the regional market owing to presence of top manufacturers and producers with outstanding facilities. Latin America and Eastern Europe regions are supposed to foresee above-average growth in the global machine glazed paper market during the forecast period.Request to Report Methodology @Machine Glazed Paper Market: Key Players : Examples of some of the leading players operating in the global machine glazed paper market are BPM Inc., Smurfit Kappa, Mondi Group, SPE Flexibles, SCG Packaging, Shawano Paper Mill, Charta Global, Papelera Guipuzcoana de Zicunaga (Iberpapel Group), Twin Rivers Paper Company, Gascogne Papier;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, macroeconomic 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.Key Developments: In February, 2017, Verso Corporation has developed the NK Series, a family of lightweight, machine glazed papers manufactured using unbleached virgin fiber. In June, 2017, Charta Global had announced the addition of Enza Kraft to its production line specialty kraft papers. This is certified, virgin pulp-based, machine glazed paper.Report Highlights: A detailed overview of parent market, Changing market dynamics in the industry, In-depth market segmentation, Historical, current, and projected size of machine glazed paper market regarding volume and value, Recent industry trends and developments, Competitive landscape, Strategies for key players and products offered, Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth, A neutral perspective on market performance, Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprint;Get more information on Machine Glazed Paper Market @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: Vehicle Tracking Market Regional Vendors - TomTom, Calamp, Cartrack, Fleetmatics, NexTraq, Teletrac Navman, Telogis Vehicle Tracking Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/193 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/193 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/vehicle-tracking-market North America vehicle tracking market is anticipated to capture the highest volume share over the next eight years. Presence of key automobile manufacturers along with technology providers across the region will primarily contribute to the revenue generation. Various regulatory authorities such as Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) are mandating the installation of these devices in vehicles, further supporting the regional dominance. Asia Pacific will also account for a significant share in the global market owing to the substantial automobile production coupled with stringent regulations, especially in developing countries.Get Sample Copy of This Report @Fleet management will grow substantially from 2017 to 2024. This can be attributed to provision of the benefits such as customer satisfaction, fuel monitoring and speed detection, real-time monitoring, and maximizing vehicle utilization. Vehicle tracking market from cargo logistics will grow owing to advancements in mobile technology. These advanced devices allow continuous two-way communication with the fleet. Cost effectiveness as compared to the other counterparts will further escalate the revenue generation till 2024.Vehicle Tracking Market, By Technology Active vehicle tracking Passive vehicle trackingVehicle Tracking Market, By Application Private cars Cargo logistics Construction vehicles Two-wheeler tracking Fleet managementVehicle tracking market from wired devices is estimated to cross 92% volume share by 2024. Substantial revenue generation can be attributed to their high deployment in vehicles and provision of the advantages. Regular technological advancements such as enhanced satellite view and mobile tracking are pushing the customers to increasingly adopt these devices. Wireless product segment is anticipated to grow significantly owing to their easy portability and compact size.Vehicle tracking market from active devices will exhibit highest volume share over the next eight years owing to provision of benefits such as automatic reassignment, accuracy in delivery time information, and versatility in networks. Passive technology is likely to grow till 2024 owing to its quick and easy installation.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @Heavy commercial vehicles are anticipated to witness growth at over 12% from 2017 to 2024 owing to rising demand for transportation of passengers & goods along with increasing construction activities. Vehicle tracking market from light commercial vehicles will account for a significant share over the forecast timeframe owing to rising transportation of light weight goods. Increasing domestic and international courier services will further propel the industry growth.Increasing vehicle security concerns, especially in corporate sector will primarily drive the industry growth over the forecast timeframe. Rising need to monitor the vehicle movement for goods and passenger security will further escalate the revenue generation. Integration of information technology and telecommunications has introduced next generation advanced solutions in various sectors, offering enhanced rapid deliveries with precision, inducing immense potential to the market size from 2017 to 2024.Provision of several benefits such as cost reduction, driver & vehicle safety, enhanced customer service, time management, and better life cycle management will further drive the industry growth over the forecast timeframe. Moreover, rising demand of luxury and premium vehicles, especially in developed countries across the globe will propel the revenue generation. However, invasion of privacy is a key factor negatively impacting the industry growth. Excessive costs associated with their installation in the vehicles may also pose a challenge before the vehicle tracking market participants.Browse Report Summery @Fleetistics, Calamp, Maestro Wireless Solutions Ltd, Navotar, Garmin, and Mio are among the prominent participants in the vehicle tracking industry. The competitors are focusing on increasing the product penetration across the globe. They are increasingly partnering with online distributors such as Amazon, eBay, TrackMe, GPS-Track, etc. to enhance their visibility. This has led to the high growth of these online channels.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.com Global Automotive Decorative Exterior Trim Market By Regional Manufacturers Magna International, Dura Automotive Systems, Takata, SRG Global, CIE Automotive, IAC Group, Toyota Boshoku America, 3M Automotive Decorative Exterior Trim Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2298 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2298 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automotive-decorative-exterior-trim-market Automotive Decorative Exterior Trim Market for LCVs is expected to exhibit over 3.5% CAGR from 2017 to 2024. This can be credited to high product usage, especially in doors and windows. Shifting preference of manufacturers towards plastic usage in production of these trims for LCVs will further strengthen the product penetration. A variety of plastics such as polypropylene, PVC, ASA-AES, urethanes, and polyesters are used in the manufacturing process to reduce the overall vehicle weight, which in turn drives product demand.Get Sample Copy of This Report @Automotive decorative exterior trim market size from PCVs will generate the demand of over 430 kilo tons over the forecast timeframe. This can be attributed to increasing passenger vehicle production across the globe. Enhancement of visual appeal due to installation of decorative exterior trims is the major factor attracting the customers, further propelling the demand till 2024.Industry Growth drivers:1. Increasing automotive e-commerce influencing consumer buying2. Presence of major premium car manufacturers and technical expertise of component suppliers3. Increasing vehicle sales4. Rapidly growing automotive aftermarket5. Recovering economies supporting automotive industry6. Demand for high-end vehiclesAsia Pacific automotive decorative exterior trim market size will account for over USD 11 billion over the coming years. Substantial automobile production, especially in the emerging nations including China and India will significantly contribute to the revenue generation. Increasing disposable income along with rising demand for improved vehicle aesthetics across the region will further support the regions dominance. Europe will exhibit over 3% CAGR till 2024 owing to high demand of premium luxury cars in the developed countries coupled with presence of well established players across the region.Around lamp decorative exterior trim market size is expected to reach USD 9 billion by 2024. High usage of the product around lamps to improve the aesthetics and to offer superior fit to the auto part will primarily drive the industry growth. Increasing preference for vehicle customization is another factor supporting the industry dominance till 2024.Windows will exhibit over 4% CAGR from 2017 to 2024 owing to availability of exterior trims in various shapes. Benefits offered such as easy installation, superior fit, and smooth functioning will further propel the industry growth.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @OEMs are expected to account for over 70% of the revenue share in the automotive decorative exterior trim market over the forecast timeframe. This can be attributed to adoption of collaborative processes and innovative techniques for product designing & production. Collaborations with vehicle repairing centers will further drive the industry growth.Automotive Decorative Exterior Trim Market by Application Daylight opening Around lamp Door upper trim Windows OthersAutomotive decorative exterior trims market share is expected to cross 500 kilo tons till 2024. Substantial automobile production across the globe coupled with shifting preference of consumers towards improving the aesthetics of vehicles will primarily drive the industry growth over the forecast timeframe. Proliferating demand of premium vehicles such as BMW, and Mercedes has led to increased production which in turn positively impacting the industry growth.Latest innovations and shifting consumer preference demonstrate the increasing demand of plastic in exterior auto components owing to its cost effectiveness than metals. Light weight plastic components improve efficiency and offer environmental benefits while maintaining overall safety. Ongoing R&D activities on design and material is expected to reduce the cost considerably, encouraging the vehicle owners to opt for the product, fostering the industry growth over the coming years.Browse Report Summery @CIE Automotive, Takata, MVC, Dura Automotive Systems, Altuglass International, and SRG Global are among the prominent industry participants. They focus on regular innovations in manufacturing processes, materials, and design, intensifying the industry rivalry. Business expansion is among the key strategies implemented by the manufacturers to enhance visibility among customers.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.com Global Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market Revenue, Growth Rate, Customer Needs, Trend, Manufacturers, and Forecast to 2023- Su-Kam Solar, Kinara Power Systems, Solkar Solar Industry, Reylon Solar, Suntech Power Holding Co. Ltd. Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market https://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=188314 https://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=188314 https://www.researchnreports.com/enquiry_before_buying.php?id=188314 www.researchnreports.com One of the reasons for the increased demand for solar power in petrol pumps is the growing demand for energy sources such as oil and gas. Solar power generation in petrol pumps is highly corrosive and has a high intensity to intensity ratio, which is mainly used in the energy sector.The Global Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market research report provides an analytical study of market growth influencing factors, prominent industry contenders and regions. This comprehensive Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market research report includes a brief study on these trends, size, share that can help the businesses operating in the industry to understand the market and strategize for their business expansion accordingly. The research report analyses the market size, industry share, growth, key segments, CAGR, Application and key drivers.For Sample Copy of this Report@:Some of the Key Players of this Market: Su-Kam Solar, Kinara Power Systems, Solkar Solar Industry, Reylon Solar, Suntech Power Holding Co. Ltd., Sun Power Corporation, First Solar Inc., Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd., Canadian Solar Inc., Solar World Ag.The key opportunistic regions in the market and the top trends impacting the development of the global Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market have been presented through this report. The recent growth and development patterns of this market have also been encapsulated in this study. The report also covers the key players and throws light on the strategies being adopted by them for better penetration into the market .The global Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market is gaining pace and industry have started understanding the benefits of analytics in the present day highly dynamic environment. The market has witnessed several important developments over the past few years, with mounting volumes of data and the shift from traditional analysis platforms to self-service analytics being some of the most prominent ones.To Avail the Discount on this Report@:It provides market forecasts for the coming years. It contains an analysis of late amplifications in innovation, Porter's five force model analysis and advanced profiles of hand-picked industry competitors. The report additionally articulates a survey of minor and full-scale factors charging for the new candidates in the market and the ones as of now in the market along with a systematic value chain exploration.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Solar Power in Petrol Pump in these regions, from 2013 to 2023 (forecast), covering1. North America2. Europe3. China4. Japan5. Southeast Asia6. IndiaOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Solar Power in Petrol Pump for each application, including1. Off-grid2. On-gridTable of ContentsSolar Power in Petrol Pump Market Research ReportChapter 1 Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3 Global Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4 Global Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5 Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7 Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8 Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersAfter studying key companies, the report focuses on the startups contributing towards the growth of the market. Possible mergers and acquisitions among the startups and key organizations are identified by the reports authors in the study. Most companies in the Solar Power in Petrol Pump Market are currently engaged in adopting new technologies, strategies, product developments, expansions, and long-term contracts to maintain their dominance in the global market.If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.To know more about Report Visit @:About usResearch N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat Global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently, we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Contact:Sunny DenisResearch N Reports10916, Gold Point Dr,Houston, TX, Pin 77064,+1-8886316977,sales@researchnreports.com Higher traction in transformer monitoring systems to steer the global market revenue growth by more than 2.6x during 2017-2027 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2378 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-2378 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Recent market study on transformer monitoring systems has uncovered global aspects influencing the growth of the market in a new publication titled Transformer Monitoring System Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2027), skilfully crafted by Future Market Insights. The research report unveils in-depth analysis on numerous factors along with key participants involved in transformer monitoring systems. Key trends, drivers, developments and innovations and restraints have been included in this research report that impact the growth of the global market for transformer monitoring systems. An all-inclusive angle of the global transformer monitoring system market has been assessed with a weighted market segmentation that covers every aspect of the market. Along with historical data representations and current scenario of the global market, future market insights have been deduced for a period of 10 years starting from 2017 till 2027.Global Transformer Monitoring System Market: Forecast AnalysisThe global market for transformer monitoring system market is anticipated to register significant growth during the forecast period, 2017-2027. Research says that the global transformer monitoring system market is projected to grow at a stellar CAGR of 10.4% during the period of assessment to reach a value of more than US$ 3 Bn by the end of the assessment year from a valuation of US$ 1346.3 Mn in 2017.Request Sample Report@Global Transformer Monitoring System Market: Segmental SnapshotThe global transformer monitoring system market is segmented by product, by installation type, by application, by end use and by region.By product type, the market is segmented by hardware and software. Hardware is further categorized by direct winding transformer monitors and intelligent transformer monitors. Of these, the digital winding transformer monitors segment is leading in terms of high market value and is expected to grow at a high value CAGR of 10.4% throughout the period of assessment. The software segment is expected to register a CAGR of 10.3% during 2017-2027 and is estimated at US$ 277.6 Mn in 2017By installation type, retrofit segment is expected to reflect high market valuation by the end of the period of assessment. However, the new installation segment is poised to grow at a comparatively faster pace to register a CAGR of 11.0% throughout the period of assessmentBy application, the bushing monitoring segment is dominating the market and is expected to provide huge opportunities to players in the coming years. It is projected to rise at a CAGR of 12.1%By end use, power transformers segment shows high market attractiveness during the period of forecast. The distribution transformers segment, on the contrary, is expected to grow at a higher pace in the years to follow to register a CAGR of 10.7%By region, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is expected to show high potential for the growth of transformer monitoring systems. The transformer monitoring system market in APEJ is expected to lead the global market in terms of value and is estimated to showcase a high valuation of about US$ 1.2 Bn by 2027 endGlobal Transformer Monitoring System Market: Factors Impacting Revenue GrowthAgeing power infrastructure, increasing need for monitoring large and complex power networks, rising demand for retrofit installations, increasing renewable energy penetration to accelerate demand for transformer monitoring systems, rising focus on grid reliability, emerging green power transformers, rising electricity consumption, expanding wind and solar energy sectors, rising investment in power systems network, investment in smart grid infrastructure by utilities and reforms to strengthen electricity infrastructure have propelled the growth of the global transformer monitoring system market. However, factors such as high installation costs of transformer monitoring systems, unpredictable regulations and policies and capital supply constraints have challenged the growth of the global market for transformer monitoring systems.Request to View TOC @Global Transformer Monitoring System Market: Competition AnalysisThe research report on global transformer monitoring system market includes a detailed market assessment that includes competition tracking along with key developments undertaken by the competitor, SWOT analysis, company overview, strategies undertaken, mergers and acquisitions, product portfolios etc. Major Companies such as ABB Group, Siemens AG, General Electric, Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc., Eaton Corporation, Hitachi Ltd., Qualitrol Company LLC, Koncar-Electrical Engineering Institute Inc., Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen GmbH (MR), CETT Co., Ltd., Groupe Cahors, Camlin Power, MTE Meter Test Equipment AG and Advanced Power Technologies LLC have been assessed during the course of the research.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: Mirrorless Lenses Market 2018: Key Players Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Fujifilm, Sigma, Canon, Fujinon, Leica, Samyang etc. Mirrorless Lenses Market https://www.inforgrowth.com/samplerequest/r/407330/global-mirrorless-lenses-market-insights-forec https://www.inforgrowth.com/customizationrequest/r/407330/global-mirrorless-lenses-market-insights-forec https://www.inforgrowth.com/r/407330/global-mirrorless-lenses-market-insights-forec Market Overview of Mirrorless Lenses Industry:The Mirrorless Lenses market is described in terms analysis of the revenue along with suppliers of production to the industry and their chain structure, the production cost, other costs continued during manufacturing and its overall cost structure. The procedural data on the global market is given in terms of the commercial production dates and dimensions of the key manufacturers. The competitive landscape of Mirrorless Lenses market gives a brief about the vendors operating in different regions. Various attributes are considered while curating the report, such as investors, share market, and budget of the industriesFollowing Companies are profiled in this Report:Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Fujifilm, Sigma, Canon, Fujinon, Leica, Samyang, Pentax and moreAsk for Sample PDF Brochure:Market Analysis:The report firstly introduced the Mirrorless Lenses Market basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysisScope of the Report:Mirrorless Lenses Market Report by Material, Application, and Geography Global Forecast to 2025 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Central & South America)Market segment by TypeWide and Super-Wide Angle Lenses, Prime Lenses, 50mm Normal Lenses, Standard Zoom Lenses, Telephoto Lenses, OthersMarket segment by ApplicationProfessionals, Beginners, OtherOur 100+ internal and partnered Analysts, 100+ cumulative years of Market Research experience can be leveraged for our Custom-research services by clicking hereThe Mirrorless Lenses Market report is to provide an in-depth view and strategic analysis of the parent industry. The report examines each segment as well as their respective sub-segments present in the market in an all-inclusive manner. The Mirrorless Lenses Market report provides a deep insight into the industry parameters by evaluating the growth of the Mirrorless Lenses Market, share, volume, projected industry trends, and the different variations in prices for the foretasted year. It also consists of the methodical description of the various factors detailed in the market, such as the market growth, industry revenue, growth rate, share, technological advancements, production, and different strategies required for the growth of the market.The data accumulated in this report have been verified and validated by the industry professionals. The Mirrorless Lenses Market report is the key to all the questions arising about the contemporary market developments and the scope of competition and the opportunities. The major objective of this research study is to help the user understand the industry in terms of its market definition, segmentation, potential, trends, growth factors, threats, and the challenges that the market is facing.View Report having 46 Pages with TOC, Tables and Figures along with Top Companies ProfilesAbout 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:Contact Person: NikitaEmail: sales@inforgrowth.comUS: +1-909-329-2808UK: +44 (203) 743 1890Address: 6400 Village Pkwy suite # 104, Dublin, CA 94568, USA OBD Aftermarket to grow at 17% CAGR to 2024| Key players are Xirgo Technologies, Azuga, Bosch, CalAmp, Continental, Danlaw, Inc., GEOTAB, Innova, Intel Corporation, Metromile, Mojio, Vector Informatik, Verizon Communications https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2839 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2839 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/on-board-diagnostics-obd-aftermarket https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/by-2024-atm-market-to-reach-25-billion-2018-09-19 https://www.gminsights.com http://solutionrocket.com Companies operating in the On-board Diagnostics Aftermarket focus on offering new products along with strategic acquisitions to leverage their mutual technological capabilities and create innovative offerings. For instance, in April 2018, Quartix launched a new installation option; plug, and track. The new tracking device can be easily installed into the OBD port and it eases the installation and flexibility when moving the tracking function from one vehicle to another without disconnecting the hardwiring. In April 2017, SiriusXM acquired Automatic, the maker of the Automatic Pro and Automatic Lite connected car OBD II ports accessories for USD 10 million. The acquisition enabled the company to expand and improve its connected vehicles services.Request for a sample of this research report @OBD Aftermarket size is set to exceed USD 1.5 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. The increasing emphasis on developing connected vehicle solutions and the growing adoption of IoT technology in the automobile sector are driving the growth of the OBD aftermarket. The increase in vehicle production, particularly LCVs and HCVs, has generated the demand for more stringent emission control standards. The government agencies around the world have implemented stringent emission control regulations to combat the increasing impact of air pollution on the environment. The increasing complexities in vehicles have generated the need to have more robust remote diagnostics solutions. Remote diagnostics technology is also gaining more popularity as it provides the vehicle owners and technicians with the real-time information about the vehicles status and helps in the effective monitoring of vehicle components remotely.Company profiled in this report based on Business overview, Financial data, Product landscape, Strategic outlook & SWOT analysis: Autel Intelligent Technology Corp.,Ltd. Automatic Labs AVL Ditest Azuga Bosch Diagnostics CalAmp Continental AG Danlaw, Inc. ERM Electronic Systems LTD Geotab Inc. Innova Intel Corporation Magneti Marelli S.p.A. Metromile Mojio TomTom International BV. Vector Informatik Verizon Communications Xirgo Technologies, Inc.The passenger vehicles segment held a dominant share of over 40% in 2017 in the global OBD aftermarket. The increased production of passenger vehicles, particularly in the U.S. and China, is majorly contributing to the adoption of OBD telematics solutions in the segment. According to the American Auto Council, the U.S. auto production is expected to exceed 12 million vehicles per year through 2019 and reach 13 million by 2020. As it has been made mandatory by government institutions in various countries to have OBD compatibility for passenger vehicles, the segment is projected to grow consistently during the forecast timeline.The hardware segment held a majority share of over 40% in the OBD aftermarket in 2017 due to the large-scale adoption of traditional OBD scanners such as scan tools and code readers to access the vehicles OBD port. These scanners act as an interface to provide users with the vehicles engine-related parameters. However, with the emergence of OBD dongles, additional information, such as driver behavior analytics and remote diagnostics, can be effectively extracted from vehicles.The OBD apps segment is expected to exhibit the fastest growth by 2024 at a CAGR of over 25%. The increasing penetration of smartphones and the adoption of advanced telematics technologies have triggered the demand for mobile-based apps. As the OBD apps reduce the dependency on any hardware to gather information and make it possible for the user to convert the smartphone or tablet into a portable OBD scanner for gathering diagnostic information, the demand for apps is likely to grow during the forecast timeline. These apps handle all the information collected from the OBD systems and ease the task of monitoring the vehicle parameters in the real-time, allowing the continuous monitoring of the vehicles status.The fleet management segment dominated the OBD aftermarket in 2017 with a market share of over 45% and is expected to maintain the dominance throughout the forecast period. The use of OBD in the fleet management software offers effective management of fleet operations and provides access to the real-time data regarding the vehicles location. It also monitors the driving patterns and helps in early diagnosis and mitigation of any malfunction in the vehicle components. With the significant growth in the electric vehicle technology, the demand for OBD telematics systems for managing and controlling the vehicle components is expected to increase significantly. The fleet management software in electric vehicles helps in increasing the fleet efficiency and reducing the operational costs.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @North America held a major share of the OBD aftermarket in 2017. The proliferation of OBD dongle-based solutions is estimated to grow at a faster pace in the region between 2018 and 2024. The automobile sector in this region continues to record a steady growth due to the high penetration of advanced technologies in the transportation systems and the increased momentum of autonomous vehicles. The presence of some major global automobile players and the increasing investments by foreign auto suppliers in their manufacturing facilities are driving the regions automobile market growth.For instance, in January 2018, Ford planned to invest USD 11 billion in electric vehicles to have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its model lineup by 2020. Similarly, in April 2016, Nissan made strategic investments in its U.S. operations to meet the growing need of the U.S. consumers. The company has invested around USD 10.8 billion in its U.S. operations since 1981.Browse Full Report @Some of the key players operating in the OBD aftermarket are Continental, Automatic Labs (SiriusXM), Magneti Marelli, Tom Tom, Geotab, Danlaw, CalAmp, Verizone, Mojio, Intel, Metromile, ERM Telematics, Azuga, Xirgo Technologies, AVL Ditest, Vector Informatik, Bosch Diagnostics, and Autel.Browse Related Report:ATM Market Size By Solution (Deployment [Onsite, Offsite, Worksite, Mobile], Managed Services), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 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: Music Box Market Size 2018 by Top Key Players and Application with Trend and Growth by: Reuge/Romance (Swiss), Sankyo, Rhymes, Yen Sheng Music Box https://www.reporthive.com/enquiry.php?id=1601361&req_type=smpl https://www.reporthive.com/enquiry.php?id=1601361&req_type=purch http://www.reporthive.com A music box or musical box is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or lamellae) of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons a musique (French for 'chimes of music'). Some of the more complex boxes also contain a tiny drum and/or bells in addition to the metal comb.Global Music Box Market 2018 Industry Research Report provide the details about Industry Overview and analysis about Cost Structure, Sales Revenue, Sales Volume, Gross Margin and Sale Price, Major Manufacturers, Industry Chain Structure, New Project SWOT Analysis with Development Trends and Forecasts 2023.Download sample copy of this report:In addition, this report discusses the key drivers influencing market growth, opportunities, the challenges and the risks faced by key manufacturers and the market as a whole. It also analyzes key emerging trends and their impact on present and future development.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers: Reuge/Romance (Swiss) Sankyo Rhymes Yen ShengKey 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?Segmentation by product type: 18 Note Mechanical Movement 2030 Note Mechanical Movement 4572 Note Mechanical Movement 100160 Note Mechanical MovementSegmentation by application: For Company Order Made For School Souvenir For Consumer Shop Musical Instrument OtherMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Research objectives:To study and analyze the global Music Box consumption (value & volume) by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2013 to 2017, and forecast to 2023.To understand the structure of Music Box market by identifying its various subsegments.Focuses on the key global Music Box manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years.To analyze the Music Box with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).To project the consumption of Music Box submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).Buy complete with full TOC:TABLE OF CONTENTS:1 Scope of the Report1.1 Market Introduction1.2 Research Objectives1.3 Years Considered1.4 Market Research Methodology1.5 Economic Indicators1.6 Currency Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 World Market Overview2.1.1 Global Music Box Consumption 2013-20232.1.2 Music Box Consumption CAGR by Region2.2 Music Box Segment by Type2.2.1 18 Note Mechanical Movement2.2.2 2030 Note Mechanical Movement2.2.3 4572 Note Mechanical Movement2.2.4 100160 Note Mechanical Movement2.3 Music Box Consumption by Type2.3.1 Global Music Box Consumption Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.2 Global Music Box Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.3 Global Music Box Sale Price by Type (2013-2018)2.4 Music Box Segment by Application2.4.1 For Company Order Made2.4.2 For School Souvenir2.4.3 For Consumer Shop Musical Instrument2.4.4 Other2.5 Music Box Consumption by Application2.5.1 Global Music Box Consumption Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.2 Global Music Box Value and Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.3 Global Music Box Sale Price by Application (2013-2018)3 Global Music Box by Players3.1 Global Music Box Sales Market Share by Players3.1.1 Global Music Box Sales by Players (2016-2018)3.1.2 Global Music Box Sales Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.2 Global Music Box Revenue Market Share by Players3.2.1 Global Music Box Revenue by Players (2016-2018)3.2.2 Global Music Box Revenue Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.3 Global Music Box Sale Price by Players3.4 Global Music Box Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Types by Players3.4.1 Global Music Box Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales Area by Players3.4.2 Players Music Box Products Offered3.5 Market Concentration Rate Analysis3.5.1 Competition Landscape Analysis3.5.2 Concentration Ratio (CR3, CR5 and CR10) (2016-2018)3.6 New Products and Potential Entrants3.7 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionTOC continued!About Report Hive Research:Report Hive Research delivers strategic market research reports, statistical survey, industry analysis & forecast data on products & services, markets and companies. Our clientele ranges mix of global Business Leaders, Government Organizations, SMEs, Individual & Start-ups, Management Consulting Firms, and Universities etc. Our library of 600,000+ market reports covers industries like Chemical, Healthcare, IT, Telecom, Semiconductor, etc. in the USA, Europe Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific. We help in business decision-making on aspects such as market entry strategies, market sizing, market share analysis, sales & revenue, technology trends, competitive analysis, product portfolio & application analysis etc.500, North Michigan Avenue,Suite 6014Chicago, IL - 60611United StatesContact UsMike RossMarketing Managersales@reporthive.comPhone Number: +1-312 604 708 Global Blockchain In Insurance Market 2013-2023 Entry and Investment Feasibility, Including The Product Price, Profit, Capacity Blockchain In Insurance https://www.researchreportsinc.com/sample-request?id=28054 https://www.researchreportsinc.com/check-discount?id=28054 https://researchreportsinc.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=28054&&attribute_pa_choose-license=single-user&&quantity=1 Blockchain In Insurance Report by Material, Application, and Geography Global Forecast to 2022 is a professional and in-depth research report on the worlds 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).Download Sample Report Of Blockchain In Insurance Market @Furthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year 2013, 2016Base year 2017Forecast period 2018 to 2023The report firstly introduced the Blockchain In Insurance basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the worlds 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.The report includes six parts, dealing with: 1.) Basic Information; 2.) Asia Blockchain In Insurance Market; 3.) North American Blockchain In Insurance Market; 4.) European Blockchain In Insurance Market; 5.) Market Entry and Investment Feasibility; 6.) Report Conclusion.Grab Guaranteed Discount:By Category: Blockchain In Insurance Video Content Blockchain In Insurance Digital Text Content Blockchain In Insurance Digital Games Content Blockchain In Insurance Digital Audio ContentBy Device: Blockchain In Insurance Mobile Content Blockchain In Insurance Non-Mobile ContentBy Regions: Blockchain In Insurance North America U.S. Canada Blockchain In Insurance Europe UK Germany Blockchain In Insurance Asia Pacific China India Japan Blockchain In Insurance Latin America Brazil MexicoWe Also Can Offer Customized Report To Fulfill Special Requirements Of Our Clients.Purchase this Premium Report (Flat 20% off Apply Coupon Code DISC20):-Table of Contents2018-2023 Global Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Market Report1 Scope of the Report1.1 Market Introduction1.2 Research Objectives1.3 Years Considered1.4 Market Research Methodology1.5 Economic Indicators1.6 Currency Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 World Market Overview2.1.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Consumption 2013-20232.1.2 Blockchain In Insurance Consumption CAGR by Region2.2 Blockchain In Insurance Segment by Type2.2.1 Electrical Polisher2.2.2 Pneumatic Polisher2.3 Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Type2.3.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.2 Global Blockchain In Insurance Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.3 Global Blockchain In Insurance Sale Price by Type (2013-2018)2.4 Blockchain In Insurance Segment by Application2.4.1 Automotive Repair Shop2.4.2 Automotive Care Shop2.4.3 Others2.5 Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Application2.5.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.2 Global Blockchain In Insurance Value and Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.3 Global Blockchain In Insurance Sale Price by Application (2013-2018)3 Global Blockchain In Insurance by Players3.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Sales Market Share by Players3.1.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Sales by Players (2016-2018)3.1.2 Global Blockchain In Insurance Sales Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.2 Global Blockchain In Insurance Revenue Market Share by Players3.2.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Revenue by Players (2016-2018)3.2.2 Global Blockchain In Insurance Revenue Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.3 Global Blockchain In Insurance Sale Price by Players3.4 Global Blockchain In Insurance Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Types by Players3.4.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales Area by Players3.4.2 Players Blockchain In Insurance Products Offered3.5 Market Concentration Rate Analysis3.5.1 Competition Landscape Analysis3.5.2 Concentration Ratio (CR3, CR5 and CR10) (2016-2018)3.6 New Products and Potential Entrants3.7 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion4 Blockchain In Insurance by Regions4.1 Blockchain In Insurance by Regions4.1.1 Global Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Regions4.1.2 Global Blockchain In Insurance Value by Regions4.2 Americas Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Growth4.3 APAC Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Growth4.4 Europe Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Growth4.5 Middle East & Africa Blockchain In Insurance Consumption Growth5 Americas5.1 Americas Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Countries5.1.1 Americas Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)5.1.2 Americas Blockchain In Insurance Value by Countries (2013-2018)5.2 Americas Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Type5.3 Americas Blockchain In Insurance Consumption by Application5.4 United States5.5 Canada5.6 Mexico5.7 Key Economic Indicators of Few Americas CountriesAbout Us:Research Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwideWith our expertise and research offerings, we ensure we deliver on all your requirements, whether youre looking for industry analysis or market trends or anything else, first time and every time!Email us sales@researchreportsinc.comCall: US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424, UK : +4403308087757 Three teenage boys are accused in the killing of an 18-year-old lured to a Vancouver-area strip mall on Monday to be robbed of his marijuana, authorities say. Oriley J. Huynh and Tristan A. Cienguegos, both 15, are accused of first-degree murder and Terrance J. Busby, 17, of second-degree murder in the death of Gage A. Kiser. Court documents allege Cienguegos agreed to buy marijuana from Kiser on Snapchat, and the pair settled on meeting near Northeast Highway 99 and 63rd Street in Hazel Dell. But Cienguegos never intended to pay. Busby drove Cienguegos and Huynh to the meetup. As Cienguegos ran away with the marijuana, Huynh fired five shots at Kiser, hitting him four times, according to the court filings. Kiser had gone to the meetup with his brother and two other teens. Kiser died at the scene. The Oregonian/OregonLive typically identifies juveniles accused of serious crimes, such as murder. Busby appeared Wednesday in Clark County Superior Court charged as an adult. Huynh and Cienguegos appeared Thursday in the countys juvenile court. Kisers brother told Clark County detectives that his sibling often arranged to sell marijuana via Snapchat, according to a probable cause affidavit. He said that after Kiser tried to stop Cienguegos and Huynh from running away with the marijuana, Huynh shot Kiser with a handgun. Kiser's brother said Huynh and Cienguegos got into a black car that then sped out of the strip mall parking lot, the affidavit said. The other teens with Kiser and another witness gave investigators similar accounts of what happened. One of the teens said he recognized the driver as Terrance, the affidavit said. Detectives later determined Busby was likely the person mentioned and learned that two black Mercedes cars were registered to his family. Officers saw Busby park one of the cars near his home, then get into another car driven by a relative, according to the court papers. A detective followed Busby and the relative to an apartment after they left. Busby was arrested later on Monday. Investigators learned the license plates on the car Busby was driving during the shooting had been switched at some point. Busby had been seen on Snapchat two days before the shooting with a black revolver believed to have been used to kill Kiser, the affidavit said. A review of Kisers Snapchat activity through his phone helped investigators identify Cienguegos. Kisers brother and the two other teens who witnessed the shooting also identified Cienguegos as the prospective buyer when detectives showed them a photo of him, the affidavit said. Rumors that Huynh was the shooter helped link him to the shooting, court papers said. Investigators also believed he matched descriptions witnesses gave of the shooter. Cienguegos and Huynh were arrested Wednesday. Huynh admitted to police that he shot Kiser after seeing him reach toward the center console in his Jeep, the affidavit said. He said he fired until the gun was out of bullets. Huynh told investigators that although he never saw Kiser with a gun, he shot Kiser to protect himself, the affidavit said. He confirmed the plan all along was to rob Kiser. -- Everton Bailey Jr. ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey TriMet, operator of the nations 11th largest bus fleet, will hire a private contractor to shuttle employees between sites in Southeast Portland. The transit agencys board approved a plan Wednesday to hire SP+, a Chicago-based transportation company, to run a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week shuttle, from a park and ride lot to the Powell Operations Facility a little less than two miles away. The shuttle will operate every 15 minutes, the same as the 14 frequent service lines TriMet operates in the metro area. Hiring a private shuttle is necessary, TriMet argued this week, for a variety of reasons. Although many employees take transit to work, the 453 at the 9800 S.E. Powell Blvd. facility will no longer be able use the parking lot as a three-year $100 million construction project ramps up. The construction project is a key part of the agencys service expansion, funded by a payroll tax increase and the 2017 statewide transportation package. Going the private route costs $65 per hour for labor and operations, TriMet said, significantly less than it would take to do the shuttle in-house, spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt said in an email. The TriMet board approved a one-year contract with the shuttle company this week, with possible extensions through five years. The contract is not supposed to exceed $2.8 million over a five-year period. Doing the plan in-house, according to TriMets rough estimates, would cost $1.7 million annually or $8.5 million over five years. Altstadt said the cost wasnt the primary driver. The decision was based on the lack of manpower and the lack of vehicles," she said. She added that TriMet came to the decision not by choice, but by necessity. But the decision not to work with its own Amalgamated Transit Union Division 757 workforce has enraged the union, which has called for TriMet to suspend the absurd shuttle before it even begins. TriMet plans to begin shuttle service Sunday. It is the height of absurdity that Oregons largest transit agency would contract out an employee shuttle, ATU executives wrote to the board and TriMet General Manager Doug Kelsey on Thursday, redistributing public tax dollars to an Illinois-based corporation, when you already employ over 1,300 professional bus operators who are eminently qualified to provide shuttle services for their fellow employees. The union represents nearly 3,000 bus drivers, light rail operators, mechanics and others across the transit agency. Altstadt said executives did talk to the ATU and looked at operator staffing and scheduling to see if it could create its own shuttle. It just didnt pencil out, she said. TriMet has 352 bus drivers based at the Powell facility. The union is also frustrated with the timing of the vote, which it says occurred on the same day of company holiday parties across the system. Board chairman Bruce Warner was not at the meeting, nor were Directors Kathy Wai and Lori Bauman. TriMet simply didnt want us to rock the boat, the union leaders wrote, and so scheduled this vote on a day when we were unavailable. This is deeply disturbing. Altstadt said while the agencys holiday parties did occur on the same day, those staff events stretch until 5 p.m. This provided the ATU executives ample opportunity to participate in both the Board meeting and the holiday meal, she said, adding that Kelsey and other executives attended staff events later in the day. She said TriMet had also sent the union a copy of the plan Sept. 27. The union said it has consistently told TriMet its members dont want to get to work on buses driven by non-union, third-party drivers. The board members who were at the meeting approved the resolution unanimously. TriMet said it would re-evaluate the shuttle every three months, which runs in concert with the quarterly schedules for bus drivers. If it becomes possible to sustain the shuttle bus services in-house, Altstadt said in an email, we have the option to make that change. -- Andrew Theen atheen@oregonian.com 503-294-4026 @andrewtheen A 67-year-old man who was linked to the 22-year-old rape of a young woman in downtown Portland using DNA evidence from a sexual assault kit that had been shelved for two decades was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison. Jihad Eldeen Moore, wearing blue jail scrubs that hung on his thin frame, was pushed into the courtroom in a wheelchair with his left wrist handcuffed to the chair. On June 14, 1996, he attacked a 24-year-old woman after luring her to Waterfront Park and assaulting her beneath a bridge. Moore, then 44, choked the woman until she lost consciousness, according to court testimony. She struggled to get away, but he held her down. The woman immediately reported the attack to Portland police and was taken that night to OHSU Hospital for a sexual assault forensic exam. A detective interviewed the woman at the hospital. Her sexual assault kit was placed into the Police Bureaus property evidence warehouse, where it sat for 20 years. Jihad Moore, 67 The prosecution of Moore marks the fifth defendant convicted in Multnomah County after testing of the kits that sat untouched by Portland police until public pressure mounted to have the evidence analyzed. A sixth case is pending. The woman, now 47, came to court from out of state to address Moore after testifying during his three-day trial in late October. Standing beside prosecutor Tara Gardner, the woman told Moore, "I wish you were man enough'' to confess and apologize. "You broke me down and made me question my faith in people and the world,'' she said. But she decided that day she wouldnt let her anger destroy her life. "I would not let you break me ... I would not let you ruin me and you know what, you didnt,'' she said. "I chose not to let you have any more power over my life and my future. In the end, I have the power. I win.'' The sexual assault kit in this case was sent to the Sorenson Lab in Utah in June 2016 and a match was reported in November 2017 between a male DNA profile obtained from the evidence swabs and Moores DNA in a national database. Moore was arrested in February. During trial, his defense lawyer Michael Rees argued that the sex was consensual and questioned the chain of custody of the sexual assault kit since it was obtained two decades ago. Gardner, the deputy district attorney, countered at trial: This was not consensual. This was a fight. This was a struggle." Photos taken the night of the assault revealed significant bruising around the womans neck and abrasions on her lower back. The trial, before Multnomah County Circuit Judge Thomas M. Ryan, ended with Moore convicted of three charges: two counts of first-degree rape and one count of first-degree sodomy. The prosecutor urged a 19-year sentence. Moores lawyer asked for eight years and four months. Rees said Moore has suffered to overcome the trauma of his mothers murder when he was a child. Rees also urged the court to consider the time that transpired since the attack, Moores age and poor health. Moore spoke briefly, saying he hurt his family through his abuse of alcohol and cocaine. The judge told the woman he was sorry for the pain she endured and hoped she can heal. "The fact that these crimes occurred over 22 years ago in no way diminishes their violence and the great damage they caused,'' Ryan said. Portland police, along with Multnomah, Marion and Lane counties, applied in 2015 for millions of dollars in grant funding to submit thousands of unanalyzed kits to a private lab in Utah. Multnomahs share of about 2,610 kits made up nearly half of the states 5,600 backlog of old kits. State police Capt. Alex Gardner reported earlier this year that the state had cleared the backlog of untested kits. Portland police obtained a three-year, $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, and the three counties were awarded a $1.9 million grant in 2016 from the Manhattan District Attorneys Office for the kit testing and analysis. Earlier this week, Portlands supervisory Detective Molly Daul, who leads the bureaus Sex Crimes Unit, addressed the City Council, reporting the bureau had received an additional $1.5 million federal grant to sustain police investigations into DNA matches recorded from the testing of old sexual assaults kits through 2019. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Dante Emanuel Hall, one of the men who Patrick Kimmons wounded in a downtown parking lot on Sept. 30 before Kimmons was fatally shot by police, has been charged as a felon in possession of a firearm. Hall, also known as Manny, had placed a Walther 9mm handgun on the wheel of a car's tire in the downtown parking lot before he was shot, according to investigators. Hall, who suffered a wound to the left leg that fractured his femur, was arraigned in federal court after his release from the hospital. He entered a not guilty plea to the one-count federal indictment on Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in Portland. Its the third time hes been charged with being a felon with a gun. Hall has prior felony convictions for unlawful use of a weapon in 2013, for felon in possession of a firearm in 2013, for riot in 2008 and felon in possession of a firearm in 2007, according to court records. A federal magistrate judge ordered him to remain in custody, finding theres a risk he would flee if released and that hes a danger to the community. A two-day trial has been tentatively set for Jan. 8. Hall, 31, is being held at Multnomah Countys Inverness Jail. Hall was a friend of Kimmons. According to a police investigation, a sergeant and an officer were in the parking lot at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harvey Milk Street around 3 a.m. on Sept. 30 and heard a fight occurring at the Third Avenue end of the lot. When they walked closer to find out what was going on, they saw a group of men fighting in a big scrum. They saw one man suddenly step away from the group, his right arm extended toward the others and they heard gunshots, according to grand jury transcripts and police reports. The gunmen, later identified as Kimmons, had fired five shots from a .38-caliber Taurus revolver, striking Hall and another man, Marcell Branch, police said. Moments earlier, Branch had punched Kimmons in the face for no apparent reason, according to police interviews and video surveillance images. Its not clear why Kimmons fired at both men. Kimmons then ran toward the officers holding a gun and was shot and killed, according to police and video surveillance. A Multnomah County grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by Sgt. Gary Britt and Officer Jeffery Livingston. Hall was dropped off in a black Camaro at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, and refused to cooperate with the police investigation, according to grand jury transcripts and police reports. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Seattle police are investigating whether a man accused of fatally shooting two strangers in downtown Portland in late November is responsible for a similar execution-style shooting hours earlier in Seattle. The woman in that attack survived. Seattle detectives came to Portland to try to interview James Javontae Barquet shortly after Portland police booked the 26-year-old into the Multnomah County Detention Center on the morning of Nov. 20, according to Portland police. Barquet, a convicted felon from Washington, is accused of killing 70-year-old Carol Horner of Portland on the night of Nov. 19 and 51-year-old Brian Hansen of Vancouver early Nov. 20 with single shots to the head using a .45-caliber pistol. The Portland killings occurred four hours apart and less than a mile from each other. In between, investigators say Barquet walked into a gas station with a gun and walked out with cigarettes. James Barquet, 26, is charged in connection with two Portland homicides on Nov. 19 and Nov. 20, 2018. Seattle police are investigating if he's tied to a shooting about 2 a.m. on Nov. 19 in North Seattle. Horner was shot in the forehead around 9:05 p.m. and found on the sidewalk along Southwest First Avenue near Harvey Milk Street under the Morrison Bridge, police and prosecutors said. Hansen was shot near his left ear around 12:30 a.m. and found on the south sidewalk of the Burnside Bridge, according to a probable cause affidavit. Seattle detectives are investigating whether Barquet involved in a shooting about 2 a.m. Nov. 19 in their city. A man shot a 19-year-old woman in the head at a bus stop near Aurora and North 100th Street in the Licton Springs neighborhood during an argument, according to Seattle police. Witnesses saw him pull out a gun and fire it. The gunman fled to a nearby motel. Seattle police went to the motel but couldnt positively identify the suspect. Seattle police didnt apply for a search warrant at the motel that morning. Seattle police released video surveillance images of the suspect leaving the motel with a woman and driving off in a maroon-colored car at 6:36 a.m. on Nov. 19. Its still an active, ongoing investigation, said Seattle Sgt. Sean Whitcomb. Were still looking for witnesses. A Seattle community member posted on a community group Facebook page called Safe Seattle that Seattle police failed to get a search warrant that may have led to Barquets arrest early Nov. 19. Seattle police contend they didnt have sufficient evidence for a warrant. No charges have been issued against Barquet in connection with the Seattle shooting. In Portland, Barquet has pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of first-degree robbery and being a felon in possession of a gun. Police here identified Barquet through surveillance video on the Burnside Bridge. They stopped him at Southwest Third and Pine Street about 3:30 a.m Nov. 20 as he was pulling a small suitcase on wheels. During a pat-down, police recovered a .45-caliber pistol from his waistband, according to a probable cause affidavit. It was loaded with silver .45-caiber rounds stamped SIG and 45 AUTO that matched single casings recovered at each of the two Portland homicide scenes, the affidavit said. At the time, Barquet was on supervision in Washington after his release from state prison on July 11. He had served seven months for possession of a controlled substance. - Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian http://twitter.com/maxoregonian A legislative committee that spent the summer and fall combing the state for ways to improve Oregon schools learned Thursday evening how much it would cost to enact all their best ideas: more than $3.5 billion. That staggering sum was not completely unexpected. No one expected Oregon would go for the entire wish list. Doug Wilson, the legislative analyst in charge of making the estimates, urged lawmakers who were tempted to add up all his cost estimates to please put the calculator down. He noted that the assumptions underlying the estimates make them imprecise and urged lawmakers to weigh the potential value of the various suggestions independently. Committee members now must work to whittle the suggestions while some of its members and others in power try to put together a package of tax increases to pay for the plan. Their aim will be to craft a proposal that would raise enough money to cover a substantial amount of school improvement yet also be able to draw enough yes votes at the Capitol and among voters statewide to become law. The most expensive items on the bipartisan committees list of desired school improvements are largely the same ones Gov. Kate Brown stressed in her re-election campaign: Add 10 days to the school year (estimated to cost $516 million over two years), lower class sizes in the first four grades ($164 million), and improve recruitment, training and support for teachers ($61 million to more than $500 million). Other big-ticket items: Give every elementary school at least a part-time teacher for art, music, PE, library and English language development, plus a counselor ($250 million), come closer to covering the true costs of special education ($230 million), require before- or after-school tutoring for struggling students ($276 million) and give schools one counselor for every 250 students ($238 million). The estimates were generated by Wilson and Tim Walker, analysts in the Legislative Fiscal Office, Oregon Department of Education Assistant Superintendent Brian Reeder and other specialists. Wilson noted that the estimates do not account for facility demands, such as a need to build new classrooms to house additional, smaller classes or renovations needed to create career-tech teaching spaces. He also said he was unable to price certain suggestions, such as changing the timing of contracts with school employee unions. Lawmakers said they'll prioritize proposals with the most potential to improve student outcomes. But committee co-vice chair, Republican Greg Smith of Heppner, likened the list to an educational version of the Sears Catalogue sent to homes across America in late fall during the 1900s to get kids and adults alike drooling over all the items theyd like to get for Christmas. Making plans to buy almost everything on the list of possible school improvements like a kid dreaming of Santas largesse would be very premature, he cautioned. Some of the committees proposals are relatively low cost, the estimators said. A proposal meant to help school districts detect chronic absences as early as possible and intervene to remove barriers would cost $4.5 million, they said. More ethnically or linguistically diverse teacher candidates could be recruited and trained for just $1 million, they said. Putting student test scores into teachers hands more quickly so they could use the feedback to adjust instruction should be essentially free, they said. Lawmakers expressed support for expanding access to high quality early childhood programs so more Oregon 5-year-olds can start school strong.Betsy Hammond / The Oregonian Individual lawmakers on the committee expressed strong support for early childhood education, additional counselors and extra supports for high-need groups who have been ill served by Oregon schools, including Native American students and those learning English as a second language. Committee members visited schools and communities all over the state in the run-up to creating their wish list, and several said that caused them to advocate for better equipping schools to diagnose and treat students mental health. We heard it at every stop, committee member Rep. Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, said Thursday evening. We need to do something on mental health. -- Betsy Hammond betsyhammond@oregonian.com @chalkup Federal agents found dozens of finches hidden in hair rollers inside a duffel bag at John F. Kennedy International Airport. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said agents stopped a passenger traveling from Guyana to New York on Saturday, carrying 70 finches hidden inside small, plastic rollers. The agency said in a statement that the birds have been "detained under quarantine." The passenger was barred from entering the United States but was able to withdraw his application for entry so that he may reapply to visit in the future, authorities said. Although there are penalties, including fines, for smuggling birds into the country, authorities said there were no further penalties in this case. Anthony Bucci, a spokesman for the agency in New York, told The Washington Post that over the past 12 to 18 months, agents in New York have seized nearly 200 finches. In most instances, he said, the birds are sedated and hidden inside hair rollers or, sometimes, toilet paper tubes, to attempt to sneak them past agents. Troy Miller, director of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's New York Field Office, said in the statement that the agency's agriculture specialists "are the first line of defense to prevent the introduction of animal diseases that have the potential to cause significant damage to the Nation's agricultural economy." Bucci said finches are used primarily for gambling purposes - people may bet on which bird will chirp the loudest or how many times it will chirp in a minute. Its unclear how much finches are worth in other countries, but the small birds range in price from $18 to $25 on Petsmart.com. The birds collected at JFK have been turned over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Veterinary Services office, which could not immediately be reached for comment about the incident. In the United States, it is legal to travel with pet birds as long as passengers adhere to proper protocol. It is also legal to import birds for commercial use, but the importer must have a permit, and the birds must be quarantined at a USDA Animal Import Center, according to information from the USDAs Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. A former Multnomah County sheriffs deputy on Friday entered a fifth-floor courtroom where hed once escorted countless criminal offenders, but this time he was the defendant. Dwight David Richey originally was accused of sexually abusing an acquaintance by having intercourse with her without her consent, but instead pleaded no contest to felony coercion for the off-duty encounter and was convicted. Richey, 49 and a longtime deputy assigned to the Multnomah County Courthouse, was sentenced to three years of probation as part of a plea agreement. The investigation of Richey in the case revealed that he also had sexual intercourse or sexual contact with several women at the courthouse behind locked doors, including in a jury room. But investigators determined the sexual activity was consensual, and Richey wasnt charged in those encounters. His victim stood in court and told Richey that he needs to understand how wrong he was on the night of May 11, 2017, when the woman said she pushed him away, ran upstairs in an attempt to flee and cried as he sexually assaulted her at a friends home. Announcing Im leaving while Im sobbing, the woman said, it actually means no. It doesnt mean Convince me' ... or force yourself in my body. The woman said Richey treated her body like a piece of trash. Based on the womans report to police, the Washington County Sheriffs Office launched an extensive investigation. Although Richey was charged with attacking the woman in Multnomah County, Washington County investigators took on the case to avoid any conflicts of interest. Sheriffs Detective Robert Rookhuyzen said his office cast a wide net by interviewing co-workers, judicial assistants, clerks and even a judge who worked with Richey at the courthouse. While Richey didnt face prosecution for having sex on the job, Rookhuyzen said the situation raised concerns about professionalism and safety at the courthouse. He wears a radio and a badge and a gun, and if theres an emergency to respond to, he has his pants down, Rookhuyzen said. Dwight Richey (left) listens to his victim speak about the trauma he's caused in her life during a hearing on Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. Next to him is defense attorney Russ Barnett. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric Bergstrom is in the background. Richey was charged only in the encounter at the private home. He was originally accused of nine counts of second-degree sexual abuse, third-degree sexual abuse and harassment. In pleading no contest to felony coercion, Richey admitted enough evidence existed to convict him of compelling the woman to engage in conduct from which she had a legal right to abstain. Coercion is not a sex crime. Prosecutor Shannon Sullivan said the woman had gone to the home of her ex-boyfriend to house-sit. The woman and her ex-boyfriend had remained friends after their break-up. Richey was close friends with the womans ex-boyfriend, and when he showed up at the home and found her there, he asked to watch a movie and started making advances toward her, said Sullivan, who works for the Oregon Department of Justice. Sullivan explained why her office agreed to a plea deal and not to bring the case to trial. Theres no doubt that (the victim) did not want this to happen to her, Sullivan said. But as Ive explained to her: When we go to trial, I have to prove that Mr. Richey knew that. Sullivan said the victim didnt initially report what happened to her, but ultimately did weeks later after talking to a friend, who urged her to call police. She thought rape or sexual abuse had to be a very violent act, Sullivan said. In a statement that the victim read aloud, she said she had trusted Richey because of his friendship with her ex-boyfriend and because he was a deputy. But what he did to her that night completely changed me. Oftentimes, I dont recognize myself, my thoughts or my actions. The woman said she has been diagnosed with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She has had anxiety attacks. I basically didnt sleep the first year, and when I did I (had) nightmares, she said. Rape nightmares. Falling to my death nightmares. Dwight coming into my house and murdering someone and forcing me to clean up the blood nightmares. Dwight trapping me in cars nightmares. Former Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Richey. After the woman was done speaking, Richey stood up and turned to the woman. He said her name and Im sorry. In addition to three years of probation, Richey must complete 240 hours of community service and continue with counseling sessions hes been attending. He also must surrender his law-enforcement certification. -- Aimee Green agreen@oregonian.com o_aimee The Oregon Supreme Court decided Thursday to suspend the law license of retired Clackamas County Circuit Judge Steven Maurer for 30 days, finding that after he left the bench and went into private practice, he wrongly represented a divorced man in a child custody case. Maurer had presided over the couples divorce case while working as judge in 2007 and 2008. In 2013, after 25 years as a judge, Maurer retired and began working as a lawyer again in Lake Oswego. In 2015, the ex-wife went to court based on her allegation that her ex-husband was continuing to subject their daughter to a cat even though the girl was allergic. The ex-wife asked a judge to order that her ex-husband must allow his home to be inspected for the presence of a cat before visits from the daughter. The ex-husband hired Maurer to represent him. Maurer told the ex-wife that he was a retired judge, but he didnt remind her that hed presided over her divorce case. He also he didnt get her signed consent to proceed as her ex-husbands lawyer, according to a Supreme Court summary. Failing to do so would be a professional conduct violation -- if the divorce proceedings were considered similar and related to the more recent dispute. Maurer contended they were different, but the Supreme Court found that the two were connected. Maurer didnt respond to a phone message Thursday left with his office. Maurer has been a lawyer in Oregon for 43 years. In deciding the length of his suspension, the Supreme Court noted that he had no prior disciplinary record. The high court also said Maurer had no dishonest or selfish motive and he is of good character and has a good reputation in the community. Maurers 30-day suspension will begin in two months. -- Aimee Green agreen@oregonian.com o_aimee A federal jury in Portland this week convicted a 78-year-old man of fraud and money laundering for his role in an Oregon-based gold mining scam that investigators said bilked $3.2 million from 140 investors. Harry Dean Proudfoot III formed a Tigard-based company to attract investors and promised to use their money to mine two gravel pits in Ohio, according to court records and information disclosed at his trial. In return, Proudfoot and his adult children told investors they would get a big payoff: up to 10 percent of gross revenues once the gold-mining operation started up, according to the government. But Proudfoot and his children used the money for living expenses, cars and travel and to pay credit card bills and medical costs, federal officials said. The jury on Wednesday found Proudfoot guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. He created 3 Eagles Research and Development in 2008 and sought investors through 2012, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office in Portland. He didnt tell people that he had received cease-and-desist orders from Alaska and Oregon for selling unregistered securities in the past and that his son and co-defendant, Matthew Proudfoot, had filed for bankruptcy in 2010, federal officials said. Mr. Proudfoot and his children built a house of cards with their false promises, said Darrell Waldon, special agent in charge of Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. The agency investigated the case with the FBI. Harry Proudfoot faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release on each wire fraud count. He faces 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release on each money laundering count. Sentencing is set in April before U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon in Portland. Matthew Proudfoot pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering last year. He will be sentenced next month. -- The Oregonian/OregonLive Ryan Joseph Beisley, who was wounded by Portland police at the Starbucks at Hollywood Fred Meyer last week, limped into a federal courtroom Thursday, his left arm in a sling beneath his blue jail scrub shirt. Beisley, through his lawyer, entered a not guilty plea to a one-count indictment, charging him with escape. The 34-year-old man was allowed out of the Northwest Regional Re-entry Center, a federal halfway house, at 10:18 a.m. on Dec. 1 but was supposed to return by 2 p.m. that day, according to Eric Wahlstrom, a supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal. Beisley was released for an approved family visit. But when Beisley failed to return, the U.S. Marshals Service was alerted about 3 p.m. on Dec. 1 . He was supposed to be completing a sentence for three bank robberies and two attempted bank heists that occurred between Nov. 16 and Nov. 26, 2013, according to federal authorities. He had been transferred from federal prison to the federal re-entry center on Nov. 8 and had been scheduled to remain at the center until May, having earned credit for good time served, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. On Jan. 20, 2015, Beisley was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to three bank robberies and two attempted bank robberies that occurred between Nov. 16 and Nov. 26, 2013. He also was ordered to pay more than $10,000 in restitution. At the time he was sentenced, a federal judge recommended that he serve his time at the prison in Sheridan to allow contact with family members for support and that he participate in a residential drug and alcohol treatment program and a prison rehabilitation program. Ryan J. Beisley, 34, was taken to a hospital for treatment Friday night, Dec. 7, 2018, and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on a federal fugitive warrant the next night. Deputy U.S. Marshals were actively looking for Beisley with a federal fugitive warrant when he showed up last Friday night at a Starbucks attached to the Hollywood Fred Meyer. Police and witnesses said Beisley went behind the counter of the Starbucks and yelled at employees, who hid in the back room. Portland police said Ryan Joseph Beisley held this fake firearm when officers shot and wounded him Friday night at the Starbucks at the Hollywood Fred Meyer. When officers arrived, the suspect showed a gun, police said. Officers fired at Beisley inside the Starbucks and outside, police said. He struggled with officers even after he was shot but was ultimately taken into custody and transported to the hospital, according to police. Detectives found a fake black handgun near where Beisley was lying before he was taken away by ambulance to a hospital. Police suspect he had pointed it at officers, according to a preliminary police investigation. Beisley is now in custody at the Multnomah County Detention Center on the federal hold. He also may face additional misdemeanor charges stemming from the Starbucks encounter in state court. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian The Metro Council approved four expansions to the regions urban growth boundary Thursday, opening 2,200 acres just outside four cities for development. The regional government accepted proposals from Beaverton, Hillsboro, King City and Wilsonville that together are expected to account for 6,100 new houses and 3,100 apartments. Its the first expansion of the urban growth area since 2014. Its also the largest since 2002, when 17,000 acres were added. That expansion included swaths of North Bethany, now a site of intense development, and Damascus, where residents have resisted urbanization. This years urban growth decision is the first in which cities were required to submit concept plans for developing their prospective expansion areas. Thats an effort to avoid a situation like Damascus, where, without infrastructure or a city government, theres little hope of the suburban development once imagined. Metro estimates that over the next 30 years, more than 500,000 residents and 279,000 households will be added to the seven-county region Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties in Oregon and Clark and Skamania counties in Washington. That includes other urban and rural areas beyond Metros boundary, which is limited to parts of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. But the 9,000 residences projected in the expansion proposals are too few to have more than a modest effect on the affordability of homes for sale, and they arent expected to have much effect at all on rental prices, the agency said. Overall, Metros forecast calls for the vast majority of new homes to be built within the existing urban growth area, either on vacant land or through redevelopment. Metro is next expected to weigh an urban growth boundary expansion in 2024. -- Elliot Njus enjus@oregonian.com; 503-294-5034; @enjus NEWTOWN, Conn. Students at Sandy Hook Elementary School were sent home Friday -- the sixth anniversary of the massacre at the school -- after police say the school received a threat. Students had been dismissed by late morning, officials said, but police were confident they were not in danger and the threat may have been a hoax. We are confident that everyone is going to be safe, but we always have to investigate every threat, said police Lt. Aaron Bahamonde. He added: Out of an abundance of caution officers are checking the area and making sure the kids are safe as they are being dismissed. The threat comes on the sixth anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty first grade students and six educators were killed that day by a lone gunman. Newtown Action Alliance, a grass roots gun violence organization founded after the deadly shootings, said in a Tweet about the threat: Please stand with our community as we attempt to survive another tragic anniversary. Responding to the tweet, U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., said: My heart is breaking. It is unclear whether this threat was connected to hundreds of bomb threats received at schools and businesses across the country this week. At least a half dozen of those threats were made in Connecticut. Bahamonde would not say how the threat was received. Its under investigation, he said. After the December 2014 tragedy, students were moved to a temporary school in nearby Monroe. The original Sandy Hook Elementary School was razed 2013, months after the massacre. Students now attend classes in a new building opened in the fall of 2016 on the same site as the Sandy Hook shooting. -- The Associated Press By Noah Feldman Bloomberg Opinion President Donald Trump's three-tweet sequence on Michael Cohen Thursday morning was different from the usual presidential stream of consciousness. Compact and carefully reasoned, the tweets sound an awful lot like they were written with a lawyer standing at the writer's shoulder. Taken together, the tweets signal that Trump and his team are genuinely concerned about the possibility of his being indicted after leaving office - totally separate from any danger of impeachment. That's significant. The tweets lay out a three-part defense strategy aimed at fending off a future possible prosecution of the ex-president for campaign finance violations, which Cohen has said he performed at Trump's direction. The tweets' timing tells you that they are responding not only to Cohen's guilty plea but also to the news that the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., has acknowledged paying off Playboy model Karen McDougal with the intention to suppress her story of an affair with Trump and help Trump get elected in 2016. Like the payoff to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who also said she had a sexual relationship Trump, this payoff violated campaign finance law because it was structured to hide the payoff in order to get Trump elected. What makes the Enquirer admission particularly dangerous for Trump is that it amounts to independent confirmation of Cohen's account. Essentially, it means Trump can't defend himself by claiming that Cohen is lying about the payoffs - or their purpose. The legal strategy in the tweets confirms that Trump isn't going to say that Cohen lied. Indeed, the three defenses are all highly technical. They aren't the kinds of defenses aimed at convincing Republican senators not to impeach. They're the arguments that defense attorneys propose to prosecutors. The ideas in the tweets are almost certainly being aimed at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and they show that Trump is ready to fight this out in court. The three defenses can be summarized this way: - Trump didn't direct Cohen to commit the violations, because Cohen was Trump's lawyer and devised the payoff structure on his behalf. - The payoffs weren't campaign related - and if they were, the violations were mild enough to be civil violations, not criminal acts. - Cohen's criminal guilty plea to the campaign violations shouldn't indicate that the acts were really criminal. Because Cohen was going to prison anyway, he threw in the campaign violation plea as a favor to prosecutors. Each deserves a closer look - because each represents a hurdle for prosecutors who might want to indict and convict Trump when he leaves office. Defense 1 is the cleverest. Cohen has testified that he structured the payoffs at Trump's "direction." The Southern District prosecutors have said that they accept this formulation. Ordinarily, the person who directs a crime can be charged with that crime - and ultimately will be, if prosecutors have the capacity to do so. Legally, the one who directs the criminal offense is criminally liable. Morally, prosecutors like to go as high up the chain of command as they can, on the theory that the top person is the most culpable for a course of criminal conduct. Trump's tweet insists that "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law." The idea is that Cohen "was a lawyer" and was "supposed to know the law." Trump is saying he may have told Cohen to pay off Daniels and McDougal, but he didn't tell him to do it illegally. This is clever because it probably would have been legal for Trump to pay the women directly. If Cohen came up with the structure where he and the Enquirer put out the money first, Trump is saying, then the criminal part was at Cohen's initiative, not Trump's. To defeat this defense, a prosecutor would want to show a judge and jury that Trump knew how Cohen was structuring the payments, and that he either knew it was illegal or at least knew it was aimed at covering up the payoffs. That may be doable, but it adds work for a future prosecution. And Trump will be able to tell the court and the world that he was misled by his own lawyer - a pretty good public defense. Defense 2 is more subtle. Trump says the payoffs weren't "campaign finance" and thus weren't illegal. Presumably he means to say that he made the payoffs because he wanted to avoid embarrassment, not because he wanted to get elected. The timing makes this doubtful. But it's worth noting that a prosecutor would have to prove that the payoffs were really connected to getting Trump into office. The say-so of Cohen and the Enquirer might not be enough. If the acts were campaign-finance related, Trump also says that they were civil, not criminal. That's a judgment call based on severity. Trump here is mostly trying to convince the prosecutors that they shouldn't treat the acts as crimes but as civil violations - pay a fine and you're done. That brings us to Defense 3: The claim that Cohen didn't "really" plead guilty to a criminal violation, even though he did. From the prosecutors' point of view, this is a bit absurd. Cohen did plead guilty to campaign-finance crimes alongside tax evasion and lying to Congress. The real issue here is that once a subordinate has pleaded guilty to a crime, it's normal for the prosecutors to indict the principal on criminal charges - not treat the principal's act as a civil violation. Trump's aim here is to say that because Cohen was going to jail anyway, it cost him little to plead guilty to the campaign-finance violations. That's true. It's also legally irrelevant. But it might have political weight. It puts the Department of Justice on notice that Trump will say a criminal prosecution of him would be unjustified - despite Cohen's guilty plea. Prosecutors will now have to consider these defenses as they decide whether to prepare indictment documents on Trump to be put in the drawer, for possible use in 2021 or 2025. -- Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Harvard University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. His books include The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President. Law enforcement across Oregon and southwest Washington are among agencies nationwide responding to emailed bomb threats Thursday demanding cash and Bitcoin. The Clackamas County Sheriffs Office, Washington County Sheriffs Office, Portland Police Bureau, Eugene Police Department, Junction City Police Department and Vancouver Police Department are some of the local agencies that have publicly announced finding no devices at businesses and other areas that were threatened. It appears the threats are meant to cause disruption and/or obtain money, the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office said on Twitter. The threats appear to be a SCAM and are NOT CREDIBLE. We will continue to respond and assess each threat. Police ask anyone or any businesses that has received these threats to call 911. Similar threats that have been reported at schools, hospitals and other places around the country also appear to be hoaxes, authorities said. The apparent source of these threats has not yet been identified. The FBI said its aware of the nationwide bomb threats and have been in touch with local agencies about them. As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activities which could represent a threat to public safety, the FBI said in a statement. The threats come after a Florida man was arrested in October in connection with mailing homemade bombs in packages to critics of President Donald Trump. -- Everton Bailey Jr. ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey Hemp now has something marijuana doesnt: federal approval. A provision of the $867 billion farm bill Congress approved this week removes hemp from the list of federally controlled substances and treats the low-THC version of the cannabis plant like any other agricultural crop. If President Donald Trump signs the legislation as expected, its projected to rev up already-explosive growth in an industry that has a footprint in 23 states. The curious only have to look to Oregon to see the potential. Hemp production was effectively legalized here in 2015 as part of a pilot project authorized by that years farm bill. Since then, the number of licensed growers has climbed from 13 to 584, and hemp acreage has swelled from essentially zero to more than 11,000 acres, said Sunny Summers, the resident cannabis expert at the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The states hemp farmers are excited about their prospects, said Courtney Moran, a Portland lawyer who has long lobbied for legalization. Weve been living under prohibition for 81 years, she said. Because it was early to the hemp market, Oregon has consistently been one of the top hemp-producing states in the country. In 2017, only Colorado produced more. Theyre two to three years ahead of the rest of the market, said Beau Whitney, a market analyst with New Frontier Data, a cannabis market research firm. New Frontier projects federal legalization will supercharge that growth rate. The U.S. hemp market is projected to triple, to $2.5 billion, by 2022, the firm predicts. More than half of those sales are tied to growing demand for cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive compound that many see as a way to better health. People are smoking it, not because they get high, but because they get healed, said Bruce Perlowin, chief executive officer of Hemp Inc., a large processor and grower in Medford. Legalization will end the underground characteristics of the business. Hemp farmers will be able to buy crop insurance, apply for loans and grants and write off their business expenses on their taxes like any other farmer. Mainstream banks will make financing available. Credit card processors will get involved and mass retailers like Target and Wal-Mart will sell CBD products. Some old-line Oregon farm families are making the switch. Coleman Agriculture in Gervais, which has been around for decades, has formed a new company, SweetSoil, to pursue the hemp business. They replaced 17 acres of grass seed land with hemp last year and will plant 100 acres of hemp in 2019. The farm bill really opens things up, said SweetSoils David Henze. The pricing seems to be holding even with the big increase in production. Federal legalization means those who sell dried flower or CBD-infused products made from hemp can now ship across state lines without fear of prosecution as long as they are careful not to run afoul of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Many did so before, but always looked over their shoulder because the law was unclear. Michelle and Scott Fields, who run an organic hemp farm outside Grants Pass, include a detailed letter to law enforcement in each package they ship that explains the dried flowers inside may look a lot like pot, but actually cant get anyone high. Probably the best part of this is that everybody can take a sigh of relief and not worry about that gray area anymore, said Michelle Fields, who worked in real estate until three years ago, when she and her husband started Fields of Hemp LLC. Hemp generally refers to cannabis plants that have little if any THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana that gets people high. Hemp has been used to make clothing, paper and a host of other products, but the market showing impressive growth is health and wellness. Hemp extracts specifically CBD -- can be processed into powder, oil or cream and incorporated into products like anti-anxiety compounds, stress relievers and analgesics for chronic pain. Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley helped push through the legalization. They worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, to ensure the bipartisan Hemp Farming Act of 2018 was included in the final version of the farm bill. The Hemp Farming Act clearly defines hemp as an agricultural commodity and removes it from the list of controlled substances. It also gives states the opportunity to become the primary regulators of hemp production and normalizes the crop. Oregon legalized cannabis three years ago. The market has since bifurcated into two major parts: recreational and medical marijuana that contains THC, and hemp, that is rich in CBD but has negligible levels of THC. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission regulates the recreational market, which includes more than 1,100 growers, 22 labs, 207 processors and 605 retailers. The Oregon Department of Agriculture registers the hemp sector, where rapid growth is partly attributed to falling prices and too much competition in the recreational market, Summers said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Jeff Manning | jmanning@oregonian.com | 503-294-7606 Democrats in the Oregon Legislature are gearing up to raise billions of dollars in taxes next year to boost school spending and cover ballooning public pension costs. During interim hearings in Salem this week, lawmakers pulled back the curtain on some of the ideas they might consider. The House Revenue committee introduced more than 50 proposals on Wednesday and the Senate Finance and Revenue committee introduced more than 30 tax bills on Friday. Its too early to know whether any of the proposals will move in 2019, and there are sure to be other tax plans introduced throughout the session. The Legislature also has yet to attach price tags or revenue estimates to the bills since they were just introduced this week. A new business tax favored by Democrats, public employee unions and some businesses as a way to raise money for education is still being worked out behind-the-scenes. It would likely be a gross receipts tax calculated on a companys sales, or a business activity tax that can be calculated in a variety of ways. Sandra McDonough, CEO of the states largest business association, Oregon Business & Industry, said it was too early for her to comment about the proposals introduced this week. Its a lot of proposals on the table, McDonough said. What we have been talking to the legislative leadership about is that we want to be a source of information for how the different tax concepts actually impact employers and their ability to maintain and grow jobs. Jody Wiser, founder of the watchdog group Tax Fairness Oregon, said her organization is pushing for a variety of changes in 2019, including changes to commercial and industrial property taxes that would result in a net increase in revenue for the state. Wiser said Oregons property tax system results in dramatically different bills for similar properties. The variations are very deep, said Wiser, whose organization tends to support liberal tax policies. For example, she said, Tax Fairness Oregon compared two similar gas stations in Portland and found one pays roughly $7,000 a year in property taxes while the other is on the hook for $18,000. Thats not fair, said Wiser, who would like both businesses to pay the higher amount. Not all the ideas entail raising taxes. One proposal in the Senate would increase the earned income tax credit available to low-income workers and double the standard deduction. In the Friday hearing, senators signaled their interest in fixing inequities in Oregons convoluted property tax system, with one important caveat: the proposal should be revenue neutral, said Sen. Mark Hass, a Democrat from Beaverton and chair of the Senate Finance and Revenue committee. That means some taxpayers would face bigger bills and others would pay less, but governments would not get any more money. Hass said property tax changes would likely need to be referred to voters. I think we should try to take a swing at it in 2019, Hass said. This is just to try to correct a huge and growing inequity in our state, particularly in Multnomah County. Property tax reform came up during a presentation on the state of Oregons property tax system by Jaime McGovern, an economist in the Legislative Revenue Office. McGovern laid out how Multnomah County has the most unequal property taxes in the state, with some property owners paying taxes on just a small fraction of what their properties are worth while others are taxed on close to the full value, thanks to an initiative passed by voters in the 1990s. Property tax inequities do exist elsewhere in the state and McGovern cited the example of the Fairmont neighborhood in Salem, home to the governors mansion known as Mahonia Hall. Many of those homes are taxed on nearly their full real market value, yet two are getting taxed on less than 20 percent of their value, according to McGovern's research. Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas and vice chair of the committee, pointed out that any lawmakers who attempt to fix the situation could face political blowback. The biggest inequities and therefore the most potential to upset voters benefitting from the status quo are in Democratic areas of the state, Boquist said. Heres a sampling of tax proposals under consideration in 2019: HIGHER CORPORATE TAXES Lawmakers are looking at a variety of proposals to raise Oregons corporate income taxes. Some bills target the states corporate minimum tax, for example, by adding more minimum tax brackets or changing the top tier from a set dollar amount to a percentage of a companys sales. Another would increase the corporate income tax rates. END THE KICKER A proposal set to be introduced by the Senate Finance and Revenue committee on Friday would ask voters to end Oregons unique personal income tax rebate known as the kicker and instead send the money to a rainy day fund to pay for education during economic downturns. Its an idea that is gaining support, including from the states major businesses. The rebate is triggered when tax revenues for a two-year budget cycle come in more than 2 percent above economists' forecast from the start of the cycle. Since its enshrined in the state Constitution, lawmakers would have to ask voters to make the change. GIGABIT TAX REPEAL Lawmakers will try again to repeal a tax break for internet providers. The Legislature unanimously approved it in 2015 in hopes of luring Google Fiber, but after Google abandoned its Portland plans Comcast moved to claim the tax savings for itself. A repeal almost passed during the short session earlier this year but died at the last minute in a Senate committee amid intense lobbying from Comcast. As part of a subsequent settlement in an unrelated matter, Comcast agreed not to claim the gigabit tax savings. So the repeals chances may be better this time out. TAX BUSINESS PROPERTY AT REAL MARKET VALUE Lawmakers could put an initiative on the ballot to eliminate tax relief for most businesses that voters had approved for all Oregon property owners in 1997 through Measure 50. The proposal would tax commercial and industrial properties at their real market value. Measure 50 reduced taxable property values and limited increases to 3 percent each year, effectively divorcing property taxes from property values. Approval would mean a significant tax increase for many businesses and a windfall for local governments. That windfall could be blunted, however, by tax caps that would remain in place under 1990s Measure 5, which limited property taxes to $15 per $1,000 of real market value. TAX MILLION-DOLLAR HOMES AT REAL MARKET VALUE Another proposal would ask voters to do the same for homes sold for $1 million or more. The proposal wouldnt affect a homeowners tax bill until they sold the property for $1 million or more, at which point the new owner would be taxed for the propertys real market value. It would affect homes sold starting Jan. 1, 2021. LIMIT TAX RELIEF FOR EVERYBODY UNDER MEASURE 50 Another proposal would ask voters to limit tax relief for all properties under Measure 50, including residences. It would set a floor for assessed values at 75 percent of a propertys real market value. It also would exempt from taxation the first $25,000 or the first 25 percent of real market value, whichever is lower. That would mean bigger property tax bills for most property owners in the Portland metro area, and in other areas where property values have risen quickly. Hillary Borrud hborrud@oregonian.com 503-294-4034; @hborrud Mike Rogoway mrogoway@oregonian.com 503-294-7699; @rogoway Elliot Njus enjus@oregonian.com; 503-294-5034; @enjus BY BETHANY BARNES and GORDON R. FRIEDMAN Portland's police chief says her department's inability to provide victims a copy of their police report in less than six weeks is a "huge issue" that the agency must change. "We don't want to re-victimize anyone again by making them wait for a long time and charging them for it," Chief Danielle Outlaw told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Thursday. The interview followed up on the news outlet's recent investigation that found people face high fees and long waits to get their own police reports from Outlaw's department largely because the function has been relegated to a skeleton crew. Read "On Hold: Crime victims, public wait 6 weeks or more for Portland police reports" HERE. "We have to make sure our staffing meets demands," Outlaw said Thursday. She said she doesn't know how many additional employees that will require, but it's possible the workforce in records may need to double. Outlaw's remarks signal the strongest stance Police Bureau top brass have taken to date on the issue. Her comments come days after Mayor Ted Wheeler and a majority of commissioners, in direct response to The Oregonian's reporting, said Portlanders deserve better service and Wheeler announced victims would soon no longer be charged $30 or more for a copy of their reports. The Oregonian/OregonLive investigation found people struggled to get information about events that upended their lives because of delays that went on for weeks, months and in some cases more than a year. Fees and delays also stymie people trying to solve some of the city's most pressing issues, including pedestrian deaths. The average wait for a police report in 2017 was 133 days, and that slow service comes with an upfront cost of at least $30. Meanwhile, Portland's metropolitan neighbor to the north, Seattle, produces simple police reports in under a week for $1. Wheeler's announcement last week appeared to happen on the fly in response to the realization that a reporter planned to ask him about the October investigation. "When I heard you were going to ask me about that, I was a little surprised we didn't already have a plan in place to execute on that," Wheeler said at a scheduled interview that occurred minutes after his announcement. Wheeler's staff denied that the change was spur-of-the-moment and insisted the announcement had been in the works for a while. Outlaw backed up that assertion Thursday and threw her support behind the change. "It didn't come as a surprise," she said. "I was very aware and it's the right thing to do." That's a major departure in thinking for police bureau leadership. In October, Assistant Chief Chris Davis, who oversees the records division, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that victims who can afford to pay should do so because the bureau needs the money to operate. Also, while Davis said the backlog is a problem, he was hesitant to say the records division deserved more resources. Sgt. Chris Burley told The Oregonian/OregonLive the goal is now to complete 95 percent of public records requests within 15 days by the end of 2019. Wheeler's announcement that crime victims won't be required to pay for their own police reports starting Jan. 1 came at a time when his office was under fire for its effectiveness and commitment to transparency, particularly as it relates to police matters. Willamette Week had just published a story about his office's failed attempt to get reporters to sign non-disclosure agreements, so the city could direct their coverage in exchange for access to police operations. It's unclear how long efforts to fix the records backlog have been in the works. The Police Bureau and mayor's office haven't offered specifics. But officials didn't include the matter in their November request for mid-year budget increases. Wheeler's office has also ignored an offer for free outside help from public records experts. A University of Florida-based think tank that specializes in public records twice reached out to the mayor's office to offer technical assistance, but was ignored. Frank LoMonte, director of The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, said he had hoped center experts could come to Portland to provide free diagnostics to help the bureau look for efficiencies and hunt for ways to help Portland become a model agency for police records. The mayor's office did not so much as acknowledge the offer, even though the cash-strapped Police Bureau is trying to find ways to make the records division function better. Outlaw in her interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive said in her experience police departments often struggle with records backlogs and she'd be interested to know more about anywhere that's found good solutions. The Oregonian/OregonLive asked mayor's office spokeswoman Eileen Park why the city didn't respond to an offer of free help on an issue that officials keep saying boils down to a lack of resources. Park offered this statement, "We appreciate Frank LoMonte for reaching out to us to offer his help. We have been planning internally and speaking with local journalists about improving public records disclosure citywide and understand that the police records division has its own unique challenges. When the time is right we'll engage with experts and leaders in this field and seek their input." Bethany Barnes, bbarnes@oregonian.com Gordon R. Friedman, gfriedman@oregonian.com The John Alden Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution held its Christmas meeting recently at the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library. The guest speaker was Fred Honerkamp, who has been a resident Santa at the Midland Santa House for the past 18 years. He is also an instructor for the Santa School. Santa Fred began with a brief history of Santa Claus, which began in the 4th century with the Bishop of Myra, called St. Nicholas. The bishop shared his wealth by tossing coins at homes. Some found their way into stockings which is how the use of Christmas stockings began. In 1822, Dr. Clement Moore wrote "Twas the Night Before Christmas," 1862 found Harper's Weekly publishing a cartoon drawing of Santa by Thomas Nest and in 1931 the Coca Cola company used Santa for advertising, which is now the popular version. The Santa School was founded by C.W. Howard, who was a Macy's Santa. At that time, stores all hired their own Santas, but some were very bad. Howard pointed out that a "bad" Santa reflected on the products and reputation of these stores. He offered to train Santas. The first school was in Albion, N.Y., with only about six students. Howard died in 1966 turning the school over to Nate Doan of Bay City. He in turn passed it on to Tom Valent in 1989. It moved to Midland in 1990. The Santa School now has 360 students who come from around the world. The John Alden members were amazed to learn what it takes to be Santa. It starts with learning about the North Pole where it is 22 degrees below zero and the electricity is powered by believers. The students go on to learn many topics from Santa lore, all about reindeer, how to make toys and how to look and act like Santa. On a serious note, they also learn how to deal with special needs children. Honerkamp gave examples of a child asking for his mother to be cured of cancer. He gently tells them he cannot do that, but he writes down the mother's name and tells the child he and Mrs. Claus will pray for her. Another example is an autistic child. Private appointments are made for special needs. This allows Santa to turn down the music and distractions so the child will be comfortable. The Santas learn about legal issues. They also research current toys, what is popular and the prices. This helps them to not make promises the parents can't keep. The Midland Santa House goes back many years. In the 1930s, Mrs. H.H. Dow would decorate trees and bushes. In the 1950s, Gilbert Curry and Bob Wilson would set up a fold-up Santa House, but this wasn't adequate. The construction of the Santa House began in 1987 with the support of local foundations and companies. The glockenspiel and shutters were added in 1997 by the Dow Chemical Co. as part of its 100th anniversary. The house was expanded in 2013 to include a slanted roof for better take-offs by Santa's sleigh, as well as much needed bathrooms and storage space. The Polar Express arrived in 2014. Today the Midland Santa House receives 30,000 visitors in December. Santa is kept very busy. Following the presentation, members enjoyed a Christmas treat buffet filled with cookies and ended the day with a business meeting. The next meeting of the John Alden Chapter, NSDAR will be at 10 a.m. Jan. 5 at the library Community Room. The guest speaker will be Christina DeClerck-Szilagyi, an adjunct instructor from Delta College, who will present "The Lives of Women in the American Revolution." A business meeting will follow. For information, contact Karen at 989-387-0434 or at jaldenpr5@gmail.com. A bus-tracking app created by Ashwin Saxena of H.H. Dow High School has won a national competition in the 4th Congressional District. More than 220 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives held a Congressional App Challenge. The event aims to engage students in computer science. It spans 47 states and territories. During the last four months, more than 5,000 students coded original apps as part of the districtwide competitions hosted by their members of Congress. The office of Rep. John R. Moolenaar announced Saxena's accomplishment. Saxena created the TrackBus app to help students know exactly when to leave their home, and inform students of a bus's precise location. The app uses GPS and the Internet to track the location of a bus driver for students. Over 5,200 students participated in the regional competitions. They submitted more than 1,700 original student-created apps, a 96 percent growth in the number of apps from last year's App Challenge. The rest of the winners will be listed online at CongressionalAppChallenge.us over the next month. The event also can be followed on Facebook and Twitter. The Congressional App Challenge will invite winners from across the country to showcase their apps to the members of Congress and members of the tech community at #HouseOfCode, a reception in Washington, DC, next spring. Their work is eligible to be featured for one year on the permanent display in the U.S. Capitol Building and on the House.gov website. Each winning student will also be awarded $250 in AWS credits, donated by Amazon Web Services' AWS Educate program. Saginaw Valley State University will welcome Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, to deliver the keynote address during the 10th annual Great Lakes Bay Regional Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. Jarrett will deliver her address at 7 p.m. Jan. 23 in the Malcolm Field Theatre for Performing Arts. The event is free and open to the public. Jarrett served as assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement from 2009-2017. She first entered the White House with a diverse and unique background, having served in the private and public sector. Jarrett received her bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1978 and her law degree from the University of Michigan in 1981. She then went on to serve as the chief executive officer of The Habitat Co. in Chicago, chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, commissioner of Planning and Development, and deputy chief of staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Throughout her time at the White House, Jarrett worked to assemble elected officials, business and community leaders, and diverse groups of advocates behind efforts to strengthen and improve the lives of the Americans. She helped President Obama develop a broad coalition of partners to execute a vigorous agenda that campaigned to end sexual assault and to empower working families and promote early childhood education. She currently serves as a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. Jarrett joins a list of keynote speakers featured during the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Celebration at SVSU. Most recently, Karen Carter, the chief inclusion officer for The Dow Chemical Co., spoke in 2018. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was the 2017 keynote speaker. In addition to Jarrett's keynote address, the program will include the presentation of regional scholarship awards by the Bay Area, Midland Area and Saginaw community foundations to high school seniors who have embodied Martin Luther King's ideals. Officials also will announce the winners of the Drum Major Award at the event, which recognizes people whose community involvement in the Great Lakes Bay Region serves to advance King's vision. The event is sponsored in part by the Bay Area, Midland Area and Saginaw community foundations; Dow; Garber Automotive; Nexteer Automotive; UAW Region 1-D; local chapters of the NAACP; Delta College; SVSU and many others. A full list of sponsors is available online at www.svsu.edu/mlk. While admission is free, tickets are required. Tickets are available online at www.svsu.edu/mlk/tickets. Midland County Sheriff Scott Stephenson pleaded guilty to impaired driving during a Thursday arraignment, and has been sentenced to one year of probation. Stephenson appeared in Kalkaska County District Court for arraignment on a drunken driving offense that took place on Nov. 16 in that county. In addition to probation, Stephenson will have to pay the court $600 in costs and fines, submit to breath and urine tests and undergo an alcohol education course. A Reese man accused of killing his great-aunt in June has a 13-day trial set for March 2019. Joel Brandon Wallace, 33, will be in court at 8:30 a.m. March 6 through March 22. He has a motion hearing set just prior to the trial at 9 a.m. Jan. 30. He is being held without bond in the Midland County Jail. As of July 9, he has entered in a not guilty plea. He faces five counts, including homicide-murder first degree premeditated, homicide-felony murder, unlawful imprisonment, forgery and uttering and publishing. Should he be convicted of all counts, he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole. Wallaces attorney, Dan Duke, could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Victoria Jean Kilbourne, 74, of Midland was first reported missing on June 6 by her neighbor and landlord according to an affidavit acquired by the Midland Daily News. Kilbourne had left her car, cat and purse within her residence on Bay City Road, which was deemed suspicious. Her cell phone, drivers license, check book and all credit/debit cards she owned were missing from the scene. She was also reported to have not shown up for work at Mirror Image Salon in Midland which was considered very suspicious to those who knew Kilbourne, calling her "very dependable" and saying her missing work without calling in was "completely out of character," according to the affidavit. The landlord reported not seeing Kilbournes car at her residence at around 10:30 a.m. June 25, but later noticed Wallaces truck parked in the driveway around 12:10 p.m. the same day. He was gone by 12:30 p.m., the landlord noted, but Kilbournes car was now in her driveway despite the landlord having never seen her. According to Kilbournes landlord, per the affidavit, Kilbourne had been loaning Wallace money but had expressed wanting to stop as Wallace was not paying her back. Later, with the help of Kilbournes nephew, it was discovered there was a voicemail on Kilbournes home telephone from Huntington Banks Fraud Investigation Department asking about the legitimacy of a $2,000 check. The nephew, Wallaces father, later contacted his son to confirm that he had routinely received money from Kilbourne and had recently deposited a check from her on June 25. The affidavit goes on to detail that Wallace was brought into the Midland Law Enforcement Center on June 27 to speak with officers regarding his contact with Kilbourne. Wallace said he had called his great-aunt on her landline with his cell phone at 9:30 p.m. June 25 and had in-person contact with her at 10 p.m. to pick up a check from her. He also indicated that the same day he picked up the check from Kilbourne, Wallace had gone to Onaway to check trail cameras he had located there. The same day he was questioned by police, Wallaces cell phone was seized and it was determined the last time he had contact with Kilbourne was around 5 p.m. on June 25. He also stated that a hold had been placed on the $2,000 check he said was given to him by Kilbourne but did not know why the money did not deposit. When contacted by the police, Huntington Bank officials said their fraud department place the check on hold because the signature on the check did not match the signature card in Kilbournes file. The check number was also out of sequence. Through a search warrant obtained to search Wallaces vehicle, the Michigan State Police were able to process the vehicle on June 28 and, according to the affidavit, found evidence of blood and a roll of black tape. During the investigation, Wallace also told police he had placed a trail camera on Kilbournes front entry as a surveillance system roughly a year ago which was now missing. By June 29, police had obtained a warrant to search Wallaces home in Reese. While going through the home, neighbors told police they had seen Wallace and his father moving guns out of the home the day before the search. When police questioned Wallaces father about this, he admitted to the action, and said the two had done it because they thought it would look bad based on the investigation into Victoria Kilbourne, according to the affidavit. The guns were moved to Wallaces fathers home. Police were able to recover them with Wallaces fathers help. When police spoke with Wallace about why he moved the guns, Wallace said he believed if he moved the guns they would cause less problems and he would not be questioned about them, also according to the affidavit. A final search warrant for Wallaces hunting property, located near Onaway, was obtained on June 30. Kilbournes body was later found there in a shallow grave. Her legs, wrists and mouth were bound with black tape, which the affidavit lists as being identical to the tape found in Wallaces truck. Wallace was jailed in early July. An autopsy done in July found Kilbournes cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and possible suffocation. A new supply chain report published today claims that Apple is in talks to shift production of older iPhone models such as the iPhone 6 to a key Taiwanese supplier in a bid to avoid the loss of billions in revenue in China as a result of a long-running global patent row with Qualcomm. Earlier this week a Chinese Court ordered an injunction on iPhones in China. The shift in production is Apple's work around should their Appeal before the court fails to stop the Court's injunction. One of the sources with direct knowledge of the situation said Apple had held initial discussions with Pegatron about whether the Taiwan-based company could take on more iPhone production to make up for the impact of the ban. No decision has yet been taken, however. Apple has also said it could implement software updates "to address any possible concern about our compliance with the order," according to a report by Reuters (which is a must read). The Reuters report also claims that it could cost Apple US$87 million to get the ban lifted. However it was unclear whether this would be accepted by the Chinese court. Qualcomm on Thursday stepped up its assault by seeking a court order to extend the ban to Apple's iPhone Xs and Xr models. It is believed that Pegatron will still be exempt due to its licensing arrangements. The preliminary ruling states that Qualcomm had argued "the judgment and ruling of this case are not applicable to the cellular products manufactured by Pegatron Corporation with the commission of Apple Inc." Taking into account a consumer shift to newer models, it is estimated that the order barring production of older iPhone models by Foxconn and Wistron could hit Apple's sales by some $5 billion in 2018 or 3% of total iPhone revenue. This could be halved to about $2.5 billion if Pegatron is exempted, two sources said. And if Apple later decides to ask Pegatron to step up production, the impact would be even less, the sources added. Qualcomm signed separate contracts with the three iPhone assemblers, agreeing to different royalty fee terms. Under previous practice, the iPhone assemblers paid the chipmaker on behalf of Apple, which later paid the three suppliers. "Each iPhone assembler's negotiation with Qualcomm is slightly different," a source with direct knowledge of the matter told the Nikkei Asian Review. "Pegatron's patent coverage to Qualcomm is more than Foxconn and Wistron. That's why it is exempted in this case." Qualcomm confirmed to the Nikkei Asian Review on Thursday night that iPhones manufactured by Pegatron were excluded from the injunction. "Pegatron has a license to both patents" that the Chinese court had ruled Apple had infringed, Qualcomm said. Apple moving into action with a backup plan to shift production to Pegatron makes a lot more sense than the hyped up Bloomberg article published yesterday titled "Apple Says China iPhone Ban Would Force Settlement With Qualcomm." Bloomberg selectively chose to reveal only that which would support a wild byline and without seeing the full document, the article's slant has to be put into question. At the top of the month Apple's legal team led by attorney William Isaacson told Judge Gonzalo Curiel that a settlement wasnt in the cards, adding that "The parties are going to need a trial. There have been unfortunate articles lately that the parties are close to a settlement, and that is not true. There havent been talks in months." Apple has stated earlier this week that "Qualcomm's effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world. All iPhone models remain available for our customers in China." This isn't a position of throwing in the towel as the Bloomberg title intimates. Qualcomm has suffered many negative rulings in their battle with Apple to date. Below are just a few examples: 01: A Huge win: Munich Court Throws out Qualcomm Patent Infringement Lawsuit against Apple 02: An ITC Judge Painfully Points Out that one of Qualcomm's Witnesses who was paid Millions for his Testimony against Apple isn't Credible 03: Another Setback for Qualcomm as a Preliminary Ruling Forces Qualcomm to license Modem technology to Intel 04: California Judge Koh Rejects Qualcomm's latest argument to Dismiss the FTC case against them The evidence thus far demonstrates that Apple will fight this battle with Qualcomm in the U.S. and Germany and will not be deterred until this is concluded legally and not in cheap shot injunctions. On Wednesday it was reported that Apple has an ongoing project to make their own iDevice modems and a published job posting confirms that position. Qualcomm is under some deranged delusion that they'll be able to have Apple happily come back to them at some point in time once they see the light. I dont think Qualcomm realizes that Apple's disdain for them will ensure that they'll use any modem and even make their own before giving Qualcomm another nickle in over priced licensing fees which are regarded as monopolistic by government institutions around the globe. In the end Bloomberg's byline of "Apple Says China iPhone Ban Would Force Settlement With Qualcomm" sounds more like the position that Qualcomm has taken from the beginning. In late November Patently Apple posted a report titled " Qualcomm's ongoing claims to be on the Doorstep of Resolving their Legal Battle with Apple remains a PR Ploy." This position was supported by Apple's lead attorney who rebuked Qualcomm's PR statements in court days later as we noted earlier in this report. With Qualcomm's CEO pushing his propaganda in interviews with CNBC, Bloomberg TV and others, Apple's CEO Tim Cook should be out their countering every major interview that CEO Steve Mollenkopf gives. While court rulings are what matters in the end, Apple should still engage in a war-like PR campaign of their own to counter Qualcomm's propaganda. If I am asked to define my personal tastes in religion I must say that they lie between Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, with a certain leaning toward Vedanta and Catholicism, or rather the Orthodox Church of Eastern Europe. Alan Watts I believe that some sort of perennialism or universalism is the undercurrent of modern Western spirituality. That is a very large percentage of people within our culture assume that all religions are different paths up the same mountain. I dig into this from time to time, often digging into some earlier thoughts on the subject and giving them a bit of a polish and hopefully putting them into a more useful order. Today I do that again The Wikipedia article on the perennial philosophy describes this view having roots that rise in the Renaissance as a kind of Neo-Platonism and its focus on a One from which all existence emanates. The philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola sought harmonies between Classical Greek thought, Islam, and Jewish mysticism. The term perennial philosophy was coined near the beginning of the sixteenth century by Agostino Steuco. In modernity this sense of a perennialist current has been advocated in the Twentieth century by Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Jean-Louis Michon, Marco Pallis, Huston Smith, Hossein Nasr, Jean Borella, and Julius Evola. Also tied in closely with this view of a perennial wisdom underlying the worlds religions are the Traditionalists, which includes some of those just named, but as a school is principally identified with Rene Guenon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon. Traditionalism adds in its own specific wrinkles regarding what exactly is the perennial teaching. According to Wikipedia, the more popular interpretation (of this impulse) argues for universalism, the idea that all religions, underneath seeming differences point to the same Truth. In the early 19th century the Transcendentalists propagated the idea of a metaphysical Truth and universalism, which inspired the Unitarians, who proselytized among Indian elites. (Not to mention an interesting feedback loop between mid Nineteenth Century Zen Buddhism and Unitarianism.)Towards the end of the 19th century, the Theosophical Society further popularized universalism, not only in the western world, but also in western colonies. (And) in the 20th century universalism was further popularized in the English-speaking world through neo-Vedanta Here I would also add in a footnote on the feedback loop between Neo-vedanta, or, I really prefer Vedanta and Universalism. Here the circle closes with Aldous Huxley who loops in Traditionalism and Universalism in his book The Perennial Philosophy, which was inspired by neo-Vedanta and the Traditionalist School. I respect the perennialists, and at the same time am wary of them, and particularly how some strands of fascism, or perhaps more properly Neo-fascism have woven into the Traditionalist variants. And on balance its the universalists who have been more influential to me. It is probably not insignificant Ive spent much of my working life as a Unitarian Universalist minister. And, of course, for me, theres also Buddhism. And its unique insights. Especially I think as addressed by some contemporary Buddhists. Here I find myself turning to David McMahans The Making of Buddhist Modernism: That we live in a radically interconnected world has become a truism. Indeed, this age of internationalism and the internet might well be called the age of inter: there is nothing that is not interconnected, interdependent, interwoven, interlaced, interactive, or interfacing with something else to make it what it is. Thus, any religious tradition that can claim interdependence as a central doctrine lays claim to timely cultural resonance and considerable cultural cachet. It is not surprising then that this term has been emerging with greater and greater frequency in contemporary Buddhist literature and acquiring increasing consonance with other modern discourses of interdependence. Sometimes used to translate the term pratitya-samutpada (more precisely translated dependent origination or dependent co-arising), this terms semantic field has now extended to represent what many today see as the fundamental outlook of Buddhisma doctrinal sine qua non with broad-ranging implications on personal, social, and global scales. It is not only a philosophical description of the world but also an idea with powerful ethical and political implications: if we are all part of a vast, interdependent network of being, what we do can have profound effects on others as our actions reverberate throughout it. As articulated in contemporary Buddhist literature, the concept of interdependence combines empirical description, world-affirming wonder, and an ethical imperative. The empirical description represents the world as a vast, interconnected web of internally related beingsthat is, whose identity is not a priori independent of the systems they are a part of but is inseparable from those systems. Description of this web sometimes melds indistinguishably with descriptions of other interrelated processes like communication networks or biological systems. The contemporary Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has coined the term interbeing to capture the idea of the interdependence of all things, presenting it in an accessible and playful style Now, to be clear this understanding of interdependence may not be part of the earliest strata of Buddhist teachings, or, at least it is not fully developed in that earliest strata. But, it comes, and it is fully integrated into Buddhist teachings today and has been for a long time. That said, a deep understanding of interdependence is the genuine heart of perennialism, a healthful universalism. And it is a bit more complicated than all paths up a single mountain. So, in practice I have a complicated relationship with perennialism. On the one hand I think it points in the right direction broadly when it suggests there are truths that each religion touch. This insight is a big reason I would eventually find myself a Unitarian Universalist. On the other hand it doesnt take terribly deep reading into the worlds religious traditions for me to see that there is not a single mountain and that all religions are following their separate paths up to the same summit. Lots of different mountains. And. Some are more useful than others. Which is probably why Zen Buddhism and its disciplines remains the core of my actual interior life. For it to work for me I believe perennialism needs a modifier. And I suggest that modifier is naturalistic. What I think Zen and any other spirituality that recognizes our interrelatedness can be best understood as a form of naturalistic perennialism. At this point in my life the issue is this. I believe there are currents of religion that are rooted in our biology, and as something natural, also something that people can find within all religions. And I hope it would therefore be obvious also available without any religion at all. We are able to perceive our connections, not just intellectually, but intuitively, physically. Awakening, salvation, all those different words that point to some great healing of some terrible rift are about our totally human, absolutely natural ability to see into our interrelatedness. This body knowing manifests in a number of possible ways. One inclines us toward ethics what I see as an innate sense of the fair, a sense that things should be harmonious, what is good for the goose is good for the gander kind of proto-morality confusingly coupled with a deeply held desire to get one up, and with that an inclination to cheat. I believe pretty much all religious ethics arise out of these two things existing in tension. But, what I would not like to be lost in this discussion around interrelatedness, interdependence, interbeing is the mystical aspect of this insight. By mystical I mean quite narrowly an apprehension of a root to all our individual consciousnesses. For most of the worlds religions this root is seen as God, and as profoundly personal. But Buddhism shows this does not have to be experienced that way. And, for me and my naturalistic turn, it is a pointing to our biology. We seem to have within the structures of our brains an ability to see at the same time that we are different and distinct and acting in our own interests, that there is a common place, we exist within an intimacy so profound it is fair to call it one. Thats the universal message. We are called by the universe itself, and by our biology to know our radical interrelatedness, our interdependence, our interbeing. This is the ancient call of our hearts. And we all engage it personally, brining our own story, our own variations on the universal wounds, and the individual shape of our intuitions. And in this time and place we can and do some picking and choosing. Always dangerous. A certain shallowness accompanies the spiritual but not religious impulse, where picking and choosing too often means embracing what feels good rather than what feels true. But, done with caution and with respect things emerge. Putting it together in his life, Alan Watts tells us If I am asked to define my personal tastes in religion I must say that they lie between Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, with a certain leaning toward Vedanta and Catholicism, or rather the Orthodox Church of Eastern Europe. I find profound resonances with his view. For me it would be Zen Buddhism, with sympathies going to Daoism and Western (writ large) Christian mystical traditions, particularly aspects of Eastern Orthodoxy, but mostly Anglicanism, all washed through a profoundly rationalist and naturalist sensibility. But, it is all in service to an ancient sense, longing, glimpse shared across culture and time. It is our breaking open and from that place finding a way to live and in time to die. This is the secret of our healing in this broken world. This is a perennialism that makes sense to me. As I see it, this is our true universalism. Just this. Back in June, Blue Mountain Vineyards closed its location at the Reading Terminal Market in center city Philly after 15 years. The market, sales manager Rob Jacobus said, decided to switch things around in a way that didnt match the Lehigh Valley winerys business model. The winery is based in New Tripoli. But Blue Mountain wasnt ready to fall back on just its Rittenhouse Square Farm Market location, where it continues to sell its product every Saturday, from April into December. When things started to go down at Reading Terminal Market, Joe [Greff, the co-owner] and I talked and we definitely wanted to stay in Philadelphia, Jacobus said. We definitely wanted to have a presence in Philadelphia. I live in the suburban Philadelphia market and the whole Philadelphia and suburban market is kind of an untapped potential for us. . . . A lot of people in the Lehigh Valley know us, but theres still a lot of people in Philadelphia who dont know who we are, that weve been around for 32 years. With its new location at 36 S. 7th St., at the edge of the Old City section of the city, Blue Mountain Vineyards will get another opportunity to expand its market. The grand opening of the new tasting room today will make it the only one in the city for a Pennsylvania winery. Its certainly not the only presence in the city for a Pennsylvania producer. Other wineries such as Karamoor, Galen Glen, Pinnacle Ridge, Va La and Allegro have had or continue to have their wines served at various restaurants and wine bars around Philly, and certainly that network is more extensive in the surrounding suburbs. The Blue Mountain tasting room opened in October and the staff, many who used to work at the Reading Terminal location, has used the past seven weeks to assimilate. Open seven days a week, the hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Guests can drop in both to taste (a $5/person fee) and purchase wine, and are encouraged to bring in food with them if they plan to visit and relax. Groupons are a big part of the business, and can be purchased ahead of time or bought there for pairings with gourmet popcorn, cheeses or chocolate. Indeed, Lores Chocolates is located next door, offering the potential for a pairings partner. Behind the tasting room is an events room that can hold upwards of 25 people. On Thursday night it was home for a holiday party, and Jacobus sees it as a place to welcome both community groups and area businesses that are holding events. The winery will provide light hors doeuvres and offer a few discounts in addition to a wine basket raffle for anyone who purchases something today. It has a wide mix of product, from premium dry white (from Chardonnay to Riesling) and red wines (Merlot to Cabernet Sauvignon to Petit Sirah) offerings much sweeter, along with blush and sparkling wines. The Blue Mountain Vineyards tasting room in Philadelphia is located at 36 S. 7th St. This isnt the first time Blue Mountain has had a store in the city, Jacobus said. Its history goes as far back as a shop on South Street before it moved to Reading Terminal Market. Now, its off on starting another chapter, in its own home not far from Independence Hall. Its definitely a lot quieter than Reading Terminal Market, Jacobus said. It was nice in there, but sometimes people want a quiet place to sit and drink some wine. At times, it could get a little chaotic in there. Follow Paul Vigna on Twitter @pierrecarafe UPDATE: Christie has told Trump he doesnt want chief of staff job Former Gov. Chris Christie had a face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump on Thursday as Trump narrows his search for the next White House chief of staff, according to multiple reports. No offer was made, according to a report by CNN. Trump confidants told Axios, which first reported the meeting, that it was to discuss the role and that Christie a longtime Trump friend and fellow Republican is considered a top contender to replace outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly. Hes tough; hes an attorney; hes politically-savvy, and one of Trumps early supporters," a source close to the president told Axios. Christies name surfaced for the position in multiple news outlets earlier this week, including The New York Times and CNN. It was the second time in as many weeks that Christies name was on Trumps shortlist for a top administration job. Last month, Christie was floated as a possible replacement for former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump, however, nominated William Barr, who served as U.S. attorney general under then-President George H.W. Bushs administration. Christie did not respond Thursday night to a request for comment about the meeting. The former New Jersey governor was considered top contender for multiple high-level jobs in Trumps administration. But Christie has only publicly expressed interest in two positions: attorney general and vice president. Christie meets Trump but no job offer made, sources say - CNNPolitics https://t.co/iIws86OZ2e Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 14, 2018 Christie never entertained whether he would accept the job as running Trumps White House at least publicly. Since he left office, Christie has worked as a private lawyer and a political analyst for ABC News. He also travels the country for paid speaking gigs and has a book scheduled to be released next month. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. WASHINGTON - A D.C. judge on Thursday ordered a Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting three parishioners to remain in jail until trial and said it was troubling that church leaders did not take action when complaints against the defendant were raised several years ago, possibly allowing additional instances of alleged abuse. Prosecutors said leaders at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Northwest Washington were initially notified in mid-June 2015 of allegations that Urbano Vazquez, an assistant pastor, may have sexually assaulted a teenage girl who was a member of the parish. Alleged assaults involving two other victims occurred between June 2016 and December 2017. In a hearing before D.C. Superior Court Judge Juliet McKenna, Vazquez's attorney argued that his client should be allowed to return to the secluded parish outside of Pittsburgh where he had been staying, saying he would be watched by priests there as he awaited trial. But McKenna rejected the proposal as she questioned the church's supervision. "He was in a position of trust and authority," the judge said of Vazquez. "I am troubled by the number of alleged victims over a number of years of alleged sexual abuse of young girls. And to release him now back in the supervision of colleagues who had been informed of such alleged behavior is troubling to me." Vazquez, 46, was first arrested in November and accused of assaulting a parishioner in 2015, when she was a teen. He was freed pending trial. But he was arrested for the second time Tuesday and was charged with assaults against two other parishioners. Vazquez, wearing an orange D.C. jail jumpsuit, stood next to his attorney in court Thursday as prosecutors outlined the new charges against him. Authorities allege that over the course of a year, he several times kissed a girl on her lips, inappropriately touched her over her clothing and once tried to remove her stockings. The girl was 9 years old when the incidents began, authorities said. He is charged with second-degree child sexual assault in that case. Prosecutors alleged that the priest also twice fondled a woman during a confession. He faces a misdemeanor sexual abuse charge in that case. "Father Urbano hopes to respond to these allegations in a responsible manner as we investigate and seek to understand the bases of these allegations," Robert Bonsib, Vazquez's attorney, said in a statement Tuesday. At Thursday's hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Williams argued that Vazquez should remain in jail considering the number of victims now linked to the priest. While Vazquez faces charges involving three potential victims, authorities said three other people also made allegations against him. Williams said his office was unable to file charges against Vazquez in those cases because they occurred more than three years ago, which is outside the District's statute of limitations for misdemeanor sexual assaults. Bonsib, in an effort to have his client freed pending trial, had asked a priest from the Pittsburgh church to outline in court Thursday how Vazquez was not allowed to leave the secluded parish on his own. The accusations were "of grave concern for our ordinance," the Rev. Frank Yacobi said. "We are taking this extremely serious ourselves. It is in the wind in Rome, and they are monitoring this case." Williams said Vazquez became assistant pastor at the Sacred Heart parish in 2014. The prosecutor said that in 2015, the mother of a 13-year-old girl who was allegedly abused by Vazquez reported the encounter to church officials. Williams said Vazquez remained in his position and continued to assault victims for at least two more years. "The entire time he worked there, this defendant used his opportunistic behavior to exploit his victims when they were most vulnerable," Williams said. "The audacity and the conduct of this defendant are stunning. He should have been walking on eggshells. But instead he was empowered." After Vazquez's initial arrest, the main priest at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, the Rev. Moises Villalta, was removed, and the coordinator for child protection, Sonia Marlene Aquino, was placed on leave for not following "appropriate protocols related to reporting claims," the Archdiocese of Washington said in a letter to its priests at the time. In a Tuesday letter to parishioners, the archdiocese reiterated its decision to take action regarding Villalta and Aquino. It said the archdiocese was "fully cooperating" in the investigation and encouraged anyone with information to contact D.C. police. Vazquezs next court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 16. (c) 2018, The Washington Post Keith L. Alexander HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) Documents from the investigation into the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut are shedding light on the gunmans anger, scorn for other people, and deep social isolation in the years leading up to the shooting. The documents that a court ordered Connecticut State Police to release include several writings by Adam Lanza, who gunned down 20 children and six educators on Dec. 14, 2012. He fatally shot his mother before driving to the school and ultimately killed himself. Lanza wrote in what appears to be an online communication with a fellow gamer: "I incessantly have nothing other than scorn for humanity," the Hartford Courant reported . "I have been desperate to feel anything positive for someone for my entire life," he wrote. The criminal investigation ended a year after the massacre without determining a motive. Thousands of pages of documents were released at the time, but in a lawsuit brought by the Courant, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in October that personal belongings of the shooter that had been withheld, including journals, also had to be made public because they were not exempt from open record laws. A report by the Connecticut child advocate said Lanza's severe and deteriorating mental health problems, his preoccupation with violence and access to his mother's weapons "proved a recipe for mass murder." From the 10th grade, Lanza's mother kept him at home, where he was surrounded by an arsenal of firearms and spent long hours playing violent video games. His medical and school records included references to diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. The newly released documents were seized by authorities during a search of Lanza's home. They include writings that had been described or summarized by previous investigative reports such as the "Big Book Of Granny," a book describing violence against children that he wrote with another boy in the fifth grade, and a spreadsheet listing mass killings dating back to 1786. On one handwritten list titled "Problems," Lanza details a range of grievances including lights that are too bright and his hair touching his brother's towel. "I am unable to distinguish between my problems because I have too many," Lanza wrote. In other writings, he rages against "fat people" doctors who touched him during physical examinations as a child and writes about pedophilia as a form of love. In the document where he described his scorn for other people, he also indicated a desire for some form of companionship. Most of my social contact was through those players, he wrote to the other gamer. All of them are typical detestable human beings, and it bred an aura of innumerable negative emotions for me. You were a respite from that. Harrisburg and Steelton-Highspire were among several central Pennsylvania school districts that have some schools identified as being in need of improvement, a designation that will mean extra support from the state. Those districts along with dozens of others from elsewhere in the state made the inaugural list of schools given that designation under Pennsylvanias plan for complying with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Under the federal law, the state was required to develop a plan to designate schools in need of extra help to turnaround their overall performance or the performance of a subgroup of students. Based on input from thousands of educators, parents, and others, it chose to look at multiple measures over a consecutive two-year period to weed out those schools for whom a single year of subpar performance in any of those indicators was an anomaly, said Matt Stem, deputy secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. The states redesigned school improvement and accountability system breaks down the designated schools in two categories. The first Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools identifies the lowest performing 5 percent of individual schools in the state, based on several measures, that receive federal Title I funds. It also applies to any high school, regardless of whether it receives federal funds, that graduates 67 percent or less of its senior class. Statewide, 97 schools are considered Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools, including Harrisburg School Districts Rowland Academy, Downey School and High School as well as Steelton-Highspire School Districts high school. Harrisburg School District spokeswoman Kirsten Keys said the administration is sorting out what that means to the district. Steelton-Highspire Superintendent Travis Waters said in a letter to parents, This designation will mean additional resources for our school and provide an opportunity for our school to partner with stakeholders to identify our school communitys most pressing needs, select strategies to support those needs, and work together to implement the selected strategies. The state also developed a second category of schools in need of improvement, the Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (A-TSI) schools. Those are ones with subgroups of 20 or more students who performed at levels lower than the CSI schools or had a graduation rate of 67 percent or less. Subgroups are identified by race, economically disadvantaged, limited English proficiency, and disabilities. Statewide, 192 schools have subgroups that had subpar performance. They include some schools that have are strong performers overall but have subgroups of students being underserved, such as Shippensburg Area School Districts James Burd Elementary School, Mechanicsburg Area School Districts high school, or Northern Lebanon School Districts high school. At James Burd Elementary, its students with disabilities performed under state standards in language arts and mathematics combined over two years, 2016-17 and 2017-18. This subgroups attendance also fell below what the state considers acceptable. We are reviewing the indicators the state has provided respecting this designation. The school has notified staff and will also notify parents, said district Superintendent Jerry Wilson. Districts with schools designed as A-TSI must develop an improvement plan, and the school is eligible to receive technical assistance from the state. This provides an opportunity to evaluate our instructional programs and work to improve the educational outcomes for our students, Wilson said. Mechanicsburg and Northern Lebanon district officials didnt immediately respond to questions about the past two years of performance by its students with disabilities subgroup that led to it being targeted as in need of extra help. Seeing schools receptive to being designated for additional support is one of the things most gratifying to us in this process, Stem said. Its gratifying to hear from superintendents and their teams how they embrace this designation as an opportunity to ensure they are serving every group of students well. Schools on the CSI list will be eligible for not only technical assistance from regional teams of experts through their local intermediate unit but a share of the $40 million in federal funding the state is receiving to aid the school turnaround process. Schools that are designated as a CSI or A-TSI school will have four years to show improvement but department officials are unclear about what happens if they fail to do so. Stem said A-TSI schools could roll into the CSI category if they dont improve. A Pennsylvania State Trooper wounded by Eric Frein underwent surgery to have his right leg amputated below the knee. Trooper Alex Douglass underwent surgery on Thursday, WNEP-TV reports. Retired Army Staff Sergeant Earl Granville from Lackawanna County, who lost part of his leg in Afghanistan a decade ago, paid Douglass a visit after the operation. #Repost @earlgranville with @get_repost Big shout out to my buddy PA State Trooper Alex Douglass who took an... Posted by Allied Services on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 Douglass was shot by Frein in September of 2014 in a sniper attack at the state police barracks in Pike County. State Police Cpl. Bryon Dickson died in the ambush. Frein then led authorities on a 48-day manhunt before being arrested. He was sentenced to death in 2017. SHAMOKIN -- The for violating its morality clause has formally asked the bishop of the Harrisburg Diocese to reinstate her. Naiad Reich, who was fired Dec. 7 from our Lady of Lourdes Regional School in Coal Twp. just outside Shamokin, submitted her letter Wednesday, according to Tony Varano, a school board member who is supporting her. The letter to Bishop Ronald W. Gainer asks that her termination be vacated and she be reinstated as an English teacher in the eighth, 10th and 11th grades, he said. Reich is not accepting requests for interviews at this time, he said. Varano revealed his attorney also had written Gainer threatening legal action if Reich is not reinstated immediately. The spokesperson for the diocese, Rachel Bryson, did not respond when asked for the procedure for handling appeals. Reich was fired after informing the school she was 12 weeks pregnant and had no immediate plans to marry the father, with whom she is living. Varano, an alumnus of the school who lives in Berwyn, maintains that if the morality clause was followed to the letter, other teachers would be fired. "It was totally unfair she was singled out," he said. He has received positive feedback to his efforts for Reich from other members of the school board except the three priests and two sisters, he said. "There is absolutely no reason for this," the business owner said about the termination. She is not Catholic, he pointed out. Bryson has refused to discuss the firing, saying the diocese does not comment on personnel matters. Varano claims he initially was told Reich was fired for being pregnant but not married but later because she was co-habitating. Lynn Hackenberg cut right to the chase: A new fast-food joint, sitting smack-dab in the middle of one the busiest intersections in Camp Hill, is a nightmare-in-waiting. We dont need another fast-food restaurant, Hackenberg said Thursday during a packed community meeting on the Chick-fil-A restaurant proposed for the southeast corner of 32nd and Chestnut Streets (For references sake, thats right across the street from Starbucks and Arbys, down the street from a Panera, and across the street from that Giant gas station.). She has a point. If youve ever been stuck, with cars stacked a dozen or two deep, anywhere along Trindle Road or 32nd Street at evening rush hour, or in the morning, or, for that matter, at any hour of a day that ends in Y, you know exactly what shes talking about. Its a mess. As a native northeasterner (and, as a matter of full disclosure, a recent borough transplant) with a deep disdain for blocking the box, Ive raged at the motorists who blithely race into those intersections, their tail ends heedlessly blocking access for their fellow drivers, while the traffic lights strobe from green to yellow to red. Hackenberg and about 100 of her neighbors filled Prosser Hall at the Camp Hill borough building to give developers from Wormleysburg-based Consolidated Properties and chicken-chain officials a piece of their collective minds. As its currently envisioned, the all-brick building would hold about 108 waffle fry-seeking diners. It would boast a 68-spot parking lot, as well as a double-lane drive-thru, which is just magical to consider if youve ever been stuck in the snarl of traffic at the Chick-fil-A in Silver Spring Township. A major omission - how patrons would manage to get in and out of that lot. One proposed solution calls for using the alleys that stretch south to Bramar Road and another that stretches east to 31st Street. Residents went incandescent with rage over that one, shouting down Consolidateds land-use attorney Charlie Courtney. More traffic is not going to help. Kids ride their bikes there. Youre going to ruin all that. I dont think this is good for Camp Hill at all," Hackenberg told Courtney and his cohorts. Six properties, including two businesses, sit on the proposed 1.4-acre site, which was rezoned commercial in 2013. The buildings are to be demolished to make way for the restaurant. Residents complained they werent made aware of the rezoning and felt side-swiped by their elected leaders. As an added bonus, the Chick-fil-A isnt the only restaurant project in the works in Camp Hill. As my colleague Sue Gleiter recently wrote, borough officials have also signed off on plans for a Mission BBQ, Jersey Mikes Subs and CoreLife Eatery to open in a shopping center at the former Veterans' Affairs clinic at 25 N. 32nd St. Everything you think you know about Camp Hill - or at least all those stereotypes that rush to mind when its name comes up - was on display Thursday night. You had long-term residents, like Wayne Yost, whos been around borough politics since 1961 and seen business come and go along that busy stretch of highway. Another man, who spoke, but declined to give me his name, said he hoped to retire in Camp Hill and didnt want to see his postcard-cute town turn into another faceless, sprawl-y suburb. There were newcomers like Josh and Anna Levitsky who bought their dream home in the borough, their heads filled with thoughts of their kids walking to school and playing safely in the alleys. Theres a guy like Dan Doubet, a veteran progressive activist, who has, pardon the pun, a bit of a beef with the chains conservative politics. I dont know why a family-centric restaurant is jeopardizing the lives of my children, resident Jennifer Hoover said.. I have a neighbor whose son was almost hit by a car. I didnt move [here] to have this happen." Hoover added that shed been flabbergasted by the relatively short notice of the 6 p.m. session and found out because some thoughtful neighbor had taped a message to her front door. Doubet nailed the why of it: Chick-fil-A plays it family-friendly for the cameras. But, like any corporation, its looking to extract as much wealth as possible" from its properties. And thats reflected by the site selection. Theyre all busy people, with busy lives, who glanced up, realized that a corporate behemoth was going to plant a chain restaurant in their collective backyard, and jumped into the breach, hoping they could stop it. But can they? From the look and sound of it, the developers and the fast-food chain appear to have their planning Ts crossed and the zoning Is dotted. Well find out for sure when borough officials get their first crack at it on Tuesday. Some are already bracing for what seems like an inevitable approval. Im resigned to the fact that theres going to be a Chick-Fil-A, resident Beth Kozicki. How can we make it work so we can live there? Ive been sick to my stomach when theres deliveries in the middle of the night? Its going to be waking us up. How are you going to protect us? The meeting was a good reminder that theres no level of government that touches peoples lives quite so directly as their local one. And residents were doing their bit. They were out in force, making their voices heard and fighting against something they dont want in their town. As cynical as you can get about politics, its tough to complain about that. The state Office of Open Records has delivered an important ruling regarding Pennsylvanias nursing homes and the publics right to know. Acting on a petition from PennLive, the Office of Open Records has ruled that the state Department of Health is required to turn over nursing home lease agreements. Several months ago, PennLive asked the health department for the leases as part of its special investigation into the quality of nursing homes. (Read the full report: Still Failing the Frail). Nursing homes typically submit the leases to the health department. But the health department refused PennLives request for the leases, arguing that the records contain confidential information. PennLive appealed to the Office of Open Records. The office determined that the lease agreements are public records under the states Right-To-Know law and should be turned over to PennLive. The health department and nursing homes can still appeal to Commonwealth Court, so it remains in question when PennLive will get the lease agreements. But the Office of Open Records made a strong statement in defense of the publics right to know information about Pennsylvanias government and the nursing homes caring for 90,000 people. Its critically important that theres access and accountability when Pennsylvanias most vulnerable population is at issue, said Melissa Melewsky, an attorney for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. The ruling also carries broader implications beyond nursing homes. With its ruling, the Office of Open Records sent a message that companies cant label all their documents as proprietary simply to keep records out of public view, Melewsky said. Had the office ruled differently, it could have encouraged more companies to try to deny public access to records they file to state government. The open records office recognized that public agencies cant allow private businesses seeking licensure to simply declare things confidential with a rubber stamp, Melewsky said. PennLive/The Patriot-News has been trying to obtain nursing home lease agreements because they could shed light on factors affecting the quality of care in the homes. Golden Living, an Arkansas-based company that is a giant in the elder care industry, essentially operates as a landlord, leasing nursing home properties to other operators, PennLives investigation found. The company once operated 36 homes in Pennsylvania. In 2015, the state Attorney Generals office sued Golden Living, accusing the company of poor care and chronic understaffing. The company sold the nursing home licenses to other operators but the company still owns the properties and real estate. Most of the homes formerly run by Golden Living havent improved, PennLives special report found. Most homes have as many or more citations than they did under Golden Livings management. Critics have said that similar lease agreements in other parts of the country contain strict language affecting the day-to-day operations at the homes, including budgeting and staffing. Advocates told PennLive such records should be in the public domain to shed light on those agreements. Companies have the right to protect trade secrets to ensure the health of their businesses. State government agencies have the responsibility to ensure public access to vital records, especially when they concern the health of Pennsylvania residents. Consumers should know who is calling the shots at facilities caring for their loved ones in their final years. The health department shouldnt be making it harder for the public to gain access to information about these homes. Its time for the Wolf administration to provide the records of its nursing homes. We all know what needs to be done to crush the curve At 62, Penny still has young children at home, but its not her children. I have my grandkids, she said. For the last three years, shes kept the three boys, ages 8, 9 and 11, and one girl, age 6,... Top Pair Podcast 323: Vegas Charity Poker Recap with Gene Hull December 13, 2018 Robbie Strazynski In episode 323 of the Top Pair Home Game Poker Podcast, Bruce Briggs and Robbie Strazynski welcome Gene Hull back to the show. He proudly represented the podcast at the recent CSOP Knights of the Poker Table charity event. While he didn't claim the top prize, he had a great time and fun experiences, which he happily shares with us. Plus, answering a mailbag question on how to find home games, recaps of Robbie and Bruces latest home game poker sessions, and another fun Gutterball story to end the show. Top Pair thanks their sponsors, J Design Cards and the Poker Notes Live mobile app for their support. Be sure to check em out! Show Time Stamps 00:26 Synopsis 1:1419:56 How Ya Runnin? Robbie: Finally broke a multi-session cold snap and is back to his winning ways at the home game felt. Also, close to the finish line of his Running Well 1,000km charity poker challenge for Save a Childs Heart. Bruce: Breakeven Bruce bubbles the annual charity home game but recoups the buy-in (and more!) in bounties. 20:28 Gene Hull joins the co-hosts for an interview to recap and share his experiences playing out in the CSOP Knights of the Poker Table" charity poker event in Las Vegas, at the Planet Hollywood poker room. 24:50 Got to sit with the World Poker Tours Matt Savage, to meet reigning WSOP Main Event champion John Cynn, and the nights emcee, Daniel Negreanu. 26:30 Genes strategy for playing in a bingo tournament, with fast blind structures, unlimited rebuys, and add-ons. He made it about two-thirds the way through the tournament. 29:40 Top prize was a WSOP Main Event seat, plus there were other prizes like $1,000 for the chip leader after level 8 as well as $1,000 for the player who had the most rebuys. Both of those prizes went to the same player, Randall Emmett, who bought in 26 times! 35:28 Final words from Gene, our Las Vegas ambassador, encouraging listeners to attend the Las Vegas Weekly Poker Discussion Group. 37:2856:52 Door Card (Tips and Tricks for Getting New Players into Your Home Game) 38:00 Listener M., from New York, wants some advice on how to recruit more players for the home game. 40:10 Bruce shares the story of how he first got started playing in home games in 2006. In a nutshell one thing led to another, and eventually that has led Bruce to play in over 1,000 home poker games in the last 12 years. Bar poker leagues and online MeetUp platforms really work well! 47:03 Robbie shares the story of how he first got started playing home games, and how he first met most of the people he still plays home games with through charity poker tournaments he used to run from 2003-2006. 51:30 Nothing better than networking and word of mouth to find home games as well as find new people to play in your existing home games. 58:20 What the @#$ Did Gutterball Say?! Jay Leno makes a home poker game appearance sort of You can subscribe to PokerNews Top Pair Home Game Poker podcast on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here. Follow the show on Facebook and be sure to join in the conversation on Twitter at #PNTopPair. Follow hosts Bruce Briggs @toppair and Robbie Strazynski @cardplayerlife, also available via email: [email protected] The World Poker Tour Kicks Off the New Year with WPT Russia December 14, 2018 Matthew Pitt The luxurious Sochi Casino is getting ready to host the WPT Russia festival that runs from Jan. 18-27 where a cool 184,500,000 is guaranteed to be won (~$2,795,196) across seven scheduled events. Sochi Casino is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and restaurants and is in a beautiful mountainous region of Russia that is fitting to such a prestigious poker festival. WPT Russia Schedule Highlights After a handful of online Day 1s, hosted at partypoker, WPT Russia kicks off in style with the WPT Opener featuring seven starting flights that cost 33,000 to enter. A total of 30 million (~$454,500) is guaranteed to be won in the WPT Opener. The highlight of the WPT Russia festival has to be the WPT Russia Main Event with its huge 90 million guarantee (~1.4 million). Players can play in two online Day 1s held at partypoker, or battle across three live Day 1s at Sochi Casino. Other key events include a 618,000 buy-in High Roller event and the 30 million guaranteed WPT DeepStacks. 2019 WPT Russia Schedule Date Time Tournament Buy-in Clock (Mins) Chips Sun 13 Jan 8:00 p.m. Main Event Online Day 1A: 90M GTD 198,000 24 30,000 8:00 p.m. WPT Opener Online Day 1A: 30M GTD 33,000 12 30,000 Mon 14 Jan 8:00 p.m. WPT Opener Online Day 1B: 30M GTD 33,000 12 30,000 Tue 15 Jan 8:00 p.m. WPT Opener Online Day 1C: 30M GTD 33,000 12 30,000 Fri 18 Jan 12:00 p.m. WPT Opener Day 1A: 30M GTD 33,000 30 30,000 5:00 p.m. WPT Opener Day 1B: 30M GTD 33,000 30 30,000 Sat 19 Jan 12:00 p.m. WPT Opener Day 1C: 30M GTD 33,000 30 30,000 5:00 p.m. WPT Opener Day 1D: 30M GTD 33,000 30 30,000 Sun 20 Jan 12:00 p.m. WPT Opener Day 1E: 30M GTD 33,000 30 30,000 2:00 p.m. Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 10 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 5:00 p.m. WPT Opener Day 1F: 30M GTD 33,000 30 30,000 8:00 p.m. Main Event Online Day 1B: 90M GTD 198,000 24 30,000 Mon 21 Jan 10:00 a.m. WPT Opener Day 1G: 30M GTD 6-Max Turbo 33,000 15 30,000 2:00 p.m. Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 15 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 2:30 p.m. WPT Opener Day 2 40 3:00 p.m. Main Event Day 1A: 90M GTD 198,000 60 30,000 6:00 p.m. Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 15 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 Tue 22 Jan 12:00 p.m. Main Event Day 1B: 90M GTD 198,000 60 30,000 12:00 p.m. WPT Opener Final 40 2:00 p.m. Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 20 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 6:00 p.m. Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 20 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 Wed 23 Jan 12:00 p.m. Main Event Day 1C: 90M GTD 198,000 60 30,000 2:00 p.m. Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 10 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 6:00 p.m, Main Event 1 in 10 Satellite: 10 seats GTD 19,800 20 20,000 Thu 24 Jan 12:00 p.m. Main Event Day 2 60 12:00 p.m. WPT DeepStacks Day 1A: 30M GTD 99,000 40 30,000 5:00 p.m. WPT DeepStacks Day 1B: 30M GTD 99,000 40 30,000 6:00 p.m. High Roller 1 in 10 Satellite: 5 seats GTD 66,000 20 20,000 Fri 25 Jan 12:00 p.m. Main Event Day 3 60 12:00 p.m. WPT DeepStacks Day 1C: 30M GTD 99,000 40 30,000 1:00 p.m. High Roller 1 in 10 Satellite: 5 seats GTD 66,000 20 20,000 2:00 p.m. High Roller Day 1: 18M GTD 618,000 60 30,000 5:00 p.m. WPT DeepStacks Day 1D: 30M GTD 99,000 40 30,000 Sat 26 Jan 10:00 a.m. WPT DeepStacks Day 1E: 30M GTD 6-Max Turbo 99,000 15 30,000 12:00 p.m. Main Event Day 4 60 2:00 p.m. High Roller Day 2: 18M GTD 618,000 60 30,000 2:00 p.m. WPT DeepStacks Day 2: 30M GTD 60 3:00 p.m. WPT Ladies Event 13,200 25 30,000 Sun 27 Jan 12:00 p.m. Main Event Final Day 90 1:00 p.m. Pot Limit Omaha: 3M GTD 66,000 30 30,000 2:00 p.m. High Roller Final Day 60 2:00 p.m. WPT DeepStacks Final Day 60 3:00 p.m. 6 Max Turbo 33,000 20 30,000 PP LIVE Dollars Promotions Thanks to the partnership between partypoker LIVE and the World Poker Tour, there are a couple of value-packed promotions for you to enjoy. The first gives you the chance to win $1,000 worth of PP LIVE Dollars by correctly guessing the number of entrants in the WPT Russia Main Event. Submit your guess here and if it is correct, $1,000 worth of PP LIVE Dollars are yours. Promotion number two also revolves around PP LIVE Dollars. If you are one of the first 100 players to use PP LIVE Dollars to buy into the WPT Russia Main Event, partypoker will put $300 into your account towards your expenses! The current exchange rate means youd need to spend $2,982 worth of PP LIVE Dollars to take part in this promotion, but youll receive $300 back for what is essentially 10 percent cashback! Download partypoker Today If you want to get involved in the online Day 1s for the WPT Russia events, youll need a partypoker account. Download partypoker via PokerNews, enter the bonus code PNCOM when making your first deposit and youll receive four $5.50 satellite tickets. Thomas Boivin has won the PokerStars European Poker Tour 25,000 Single Day High Roller for 375,520, topping a field of 46 players in the Czech capital. Boivin had finished sixth in the 10,300 High Roller a week ago for 25,800 and today saw off a whole host of familiar names and defeated experienced High Roller player Steve O'Dwyer heads-up to seal the biggest cash of his career so far. Runner-up O'Dwyer has another final table in a Single-Day High Roller at EPT Prague, after 3rd and 5th place finishes in 2016. He will no doubt be back in two days for the second 25,000 Single Day High Roller of the festival. Here are the results from the final table: Position Name County Payout in EUR Payout in USD 1 Thomas Boivin Belgium 375,520 $426,389 2 Steve O'Dwyer United States 259,550 $294,709 3 Orpen Kisacikoglu Turkey 165,670 $188,100 4 Michael Addamo Australia 127,010 $144,206 5 Pavel Plesuv Moldova 99,400 $112,858 6 Stefan Huber Switzerland 77,310 $87,777 The Final Three Players "I'm only just starting to play higher stakes live," Boivin told PokerNews. "The reason I've started is obviously that I wanted to continue playing higher more regularly; it's not like I was hoping to bink the first one! But I'm definitely going to be playing higher now! "There was a really interesting dynamic at the final table. The players were all competent, and I'm definitely still learning a lot by observing and talking. It was a really high level so that was really interesting. "I've been studying a lot recently, and obviously you don't win a tournament just because you study, but I felt really confident in my game and it just feels great to win a tournament, especially such a tough one." Boivin also had a message for everyone heading to the Bahamas in January. "Spoiler alert but I'm going to win the biggest $25k in history!" Thomas Boivin Recap of the Day's Action For once a High Roller event got underway on time, with 50,000 Super High Roller champion Matthias Eibinger in the field, and by the end of the first level the number of total players had grown to 15, including online tournament crusher Niklas "lena900" Astedt. The first player eliminated was Michael Addamo, but he immediately re-entered. Others who also fired a second bullet included EPT Barcelona 10,300 High Roller winner Michael Soyza. The eliminations k,ept coming, and by the second break just 22 of a field of 46 remained, with Belgian Thomas Boivin top of the counts. The payouts were confirmed not long after registration closed, with six places paid and the winner taking home 375,520. By the time the tournament was down to two tables, the usual big names were all still in, but the likes of Davidi Kitai, Matthias Eibinger, Joao Vieira, Preben Stokkan, Daniel Dvoress and Timothy Adams would all bust before the tournament reached the final table. It was Pavel Plesuv who lead the final nine players when the tables combined, with Orpen Kisacikoglu just behind him and Sylvain Loosli bringing up the rear. The early stages were cautious, the only notable pot being when Ryan Riess used all nine of his time extension cards in a single hand, before the players broke for dinner. Bubble Boy Ryan Riess When they returned Loosli and Charlie Carrel were sent to the rail by Plesuv and Addamo respectively, bringing the tournament to the money bubble. That bubble burst when Addamos seven-eight cracked the ace-six of Ryan Riess, after the Australian flopped an eight. There was no help for the former world champion and he was eliminated. The remaining six players were all guaranteed 77,310. At this stage it was Addamo in the lead, and he extended that with the elimination of Stefan Huber in sixth place. Both players held an ace blind on blind, but Addamos was better and Huber was eliminated. However, Addamos aggressive style got him in trouble, as ODwyer score a huge double through the Australian. Addamo jammed over an ODwyer open with king-ten suited. ODwyer called with ace-king, and turned a straight to double up to around two million in chips. Michael Addamo Despite this setback, it was Addamo who sent the next player to the rail. Pavel Plesuv shoved with pocket deuces on a paired board, but Addamo was waiting with a better two pair and held to send Plesuv home in fifth for just shy of 100,000. Thomas Boivin would double through Addamo to close in on O'Dwyer. Then, Kisacikoglu himself doubled through Addamo to leave him with less than a big blind behind. O'Dwyer's shove to try and get rid of the Australian was called by Boivin who would double up again to move into the chip lead and eliminate Addamo. The remaining three players settled into some semblance of a rhythm, with no one wanting to make a fatal mistake that would blow their chances of victory at such a crucial stage of the tournament. However that changed, when O'Dwyer got it wrong, calling in a river spot against Boivin where he himself said that he was "supposed to fold." He was supposed to, as Boivin had turned the nut straight, and suddenly a gap opened amongst the trio. Steve O'Dwyer As O'Dwyers stack dwindled it appeared that he would be the next player to face an all-in. However, on a king-high board, it was Kisacikoglu who called the shove from Boivin for the Turk's tournament life. Both players had flopped top pair, but Kisacikoglu was out-kicked, and was eliminated after receiving no help on the runout. Boivin started heads-up with an overwhelming chip lead, and O'Dwyer did manage to score two small double ups when play got underway. But a third one was not forthcoming, and Boivin finished him off barely twelve hours after the tournament first started. Stay tuned to PokerNews.com for continued live coverage from the European Poker Tour festival here at the Hilton Prague! By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) A rash of bomb threats were sent via email on Thursday to dozens of businesses, public offices and schools across the United States and Canada demanding payment in cryptocurrency, but none of the threats immediately appeared credible, law enforcement officials said. The sheriffs office in Lincoln County, Missouri, which encompasses the city of St. Louis, said it traced one emailed bomb threat received by a school to an internet protocol, or IP, address in Moscow. But a law enforcement official speaking on background to Reuters said that such findings were inconclusive and that federal investigators doubted that Russians or the Russian government were involved. The official cautioned that such an IP address does not prove it came from Russia because the sender could have electronically laid a false trail to cover up its true origin. The security scare began shortly before 2 p.m. EST as police departments in major U.S. cities coast to coast began reporting on Twitter that numerous local businesses had received the menacing emails awkwardly worded threats to set off a bomb unless a bitcoin payment of $20,000 were received. Three hours into the security scare, no actual explosives had been found, authorities said. But the threats prompted brief evacuations of a Toronto subway station and a newspaper office in Raleigh, North Carolina. Some public schools and businesses also were evacuated as a precaution. Lincoln County, Missouri, sheriffs spokesman Lieutenant Andy Binder said authorities bused the students from a middle school receiving one of the threats to another campus as a precaution, but the school was later determined to be safe and classes will resume there on Friday. Among other cities where bomb threats were reported by authorities were Washington, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Denver, Ottawa, and Calgary, Alberta. Police at the University of Wisconsin in Madison tweeted an image taken of one email threat found to be circulating that said in part: Good day. There is an explosive device (lead azide) in the building where your company is conducted. It is assembled according to my guide. It is compact and it is covered up very carefully. It can not damage the structure of the building, but in case of its explosion you will get many wounded people. The FBI is looking into the threats but the authenticity of the latest batch was not immediately confirmed, a law enforcement official told Reuters. We are aware of threats being made in cities across the country, Rukelt Dalberis, an FBI spokesman in Los Angeles, told Reuters separately. We remain in touch with our law enforcement partners. We encourage the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities that could represent a threat. A similar wave of emailed hoax bomb threats in December 2015 prompted officials in Los Angeles to close the citys public school system, which national law enforcement officials later criticized as an overreaction. Two weeks previously, a married couple inspired by Islamic State had killed 14 people at a California county office building in a shooting rampage. A teenager with dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship was arrested in Israel in March 2017 for making bomb threats to more than 100 Jewish organizations and Jewish community centers (JCCs) in dozens of U.S. states over several months. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington, Dan Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Makini Brice in Washington, Gina Cherelus and Gabriella Borter in New York and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool) 5.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Conservative columnist George Will said on Thursday that he would absolutely vote for the Democratic nominee in 2020 if primary voters nominate a candidate with broad appeal. In an interview with MSNBCs Chris Matthews, the stalwart right-winger said that Democrats can easily take back the White House with the right nominee and that he would be willing to support Trumps opponent. Its never happened before, Will said of the potential of him supporting a Democrat for the presidency. Video: George Will says Democrats shouldnt have a hard time defeating Trump in 2020. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/hVGezMClCI PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 14, 2018 Will says Trump should fear Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown George Wills comments about potentially supporting a Democratic nominee in 2020 come after he penned a column in The Washington Post highlighting Ohios newly re-elected Sen. Sherrod Brown. Will said the Ohio Democrat can help put the Buckeye State back into the blue column which would effectively deny Trump a second term. The fact that [Brown] is a political lifer elected Ohios secretary of state in 1982 at 29, he then served seven terms in Congress seems less like a defect than a credential now that the nation is two years into its experiment with treating the presidency as an entry-level public office, the conservative columnist wrote. Will added: Were Brown not a white male, he might be the likely Democratic nominee because, to minds unclouded by the Democratic activists superstitions of identity politics, he might look like the optimum challenger to Trump. The conservative writer joins a growing list of high-profile Republicans who are disgusted with the Trump presidency. In other words, it isnt just Democrats and independent voters who are ready to throw Trump out of the White House. Some Republicans are, too. That gives Democrats a huge opportunity to score a decisive victory over Donald Trump in 2020. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. 6.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard For nearly 40 minutes on CNN, Kellyanne Conway reeled, spun, deflected, and flat out lied, but what she couldnt do was save Donald Trump. The lowlight of the interview for Conway, and there were many to choose from, had to be when she claimed that people shouldnt believe the testimony of a couple of people who are under indictment over Trump. Conway clearly had orders not to use the word indictment, so she quickly backpedaled and tried to say statement, but the genie was out of the bottle. Video: The White House is delusional Conways tactic was to talk over CNNs Chris Cuomo and fill the airwaves with an eruption of lies and gibberish that made no sense. If Kellyanne Conway is a reflection of the current state of mind of Trump and the people in his administration, then they are delusional. Conway didnt mount a defense with the exceptions of hurling insults at Cuomo and trying to claim that crimes arent really crimes. She seemed to take special pleasure in the fact that the sitting president couldnt be indicted for his crimes, which suggests that Trump is a criminal, but is using the presidency as a sanctuary from prosecution. Trump is going down Kellyanne Conway had nearly 40 minutes on national television, and she could not come up with anything that was close to a coherent defense of Trump. The conclusion was clear. Trump and his defenders have nothing. They are trying to throw distractions at the American people in a bid to cling on to power. There is no defense for the crimes of Donald Trump. Kellyanne Conway tried, and she struck out on every front. There is no saving this president. He is going down, and he is taking everyone in his administration with him. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 1.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Chris Christie pulled his name from consideration to be Trumps chief of staff because he has a book coming out in January. Christie released a statement dropping out of the race to be next person fired by Trump, Its an honor to have the President consider me as he looks to choose a new White House chief-of-staff. However, Ive told the President that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment. As a result, I have asked him to no longer keep me in any of his considerations for this post. A potential reason for Christie bailing is that he has a book coming out next month, and working for Trump would complicate his book deal: Christie's lucrative memoir, which is expected to settle some scores, will come out in January. It's finished. Being chief of staff would have complicated that Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) December 14, 2018 Nobody wants to work for Trump It is a recurring theme of the Trump administration. Ho one of any serious merit wants to work for this president. Some take the jobs out of loyalty to the country, but few people are dying to work for a president whose administration is landlocked by scandal as looking more doomed by the day, while Trump wont listen to any advice that is offered and keeps digging the holes deeper. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump probably would have never let Chris Christie be chief of staff anyway, so Christie bailing on them was probably a good choice. The message here is that when the guy behind Bridgegate turns down the job, Donald Trump is totally toxic. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 1.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, is continuing his attacks on President Donald Trump, which apparently has caused some marital friction. In addition to trashing dubious legal claims by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani on Twitter Friday, Conway also lambasted the president in a Washington Post editorial that he co-wrote with former U.S Solicitor General Neal Katyal and former Republican FEC Chairman Trevor Potter. The three distinguished legal experts heavily criticized the president for claiming that he did not commit a felony when he authorized his former attorney Michael Cohen to pay hush money to two former mistresses during the 2016 presidential election. First and foremost they pointed out that Trump shamelessly lied about his own actions during his campaign for the presidency. For quite some time, he flatly denied knowledge about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, they wrote in the opinion piece. But now he seems to be acknowledging that he knew (since his personal company reimbursed Cohen for the payment, he ought to). They then completely destroy the latest dangerous argument from Trump and his allies that committing a campaign finance felony really isnt that big of a deal. In particular, they rebuked retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for saying he doesnt care if Trump committed a felony. Of course, every criminal defendant seeks to minimize his crimes, they wrote. But such defendants dont have a cheering squad composed of United States senators. Also on Friday, Conway posted a tweet where he altered the presidential oath incorporating Rudy Giulianis claim in his tweet. I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, except where nobody gets killed or robbed Conway tweeted. I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, except where nobody gets killed or robbed. https://t.co/H5W6gDGTIq George Conway (@gtconway3d) December 14, 2018 All of this shows that Trumps and his supporters denials are not working, either with prosecutors or with American voters. Their words and actions are those of desperate people grasping at straws, but with no way out. Donald Trump knows he is doomed, yet, as expected he is continuing to use the same old tactics of lying and denial that got him into trouble in the first place 5.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Michael Cohen has given Robert Mueller the evidence that he needs to allow Congress or the voters expose and end Trumps presidency. Transcript via ABCs Good Morning America: Stephanopoulos: So why should we believe you now? Cohen: Because the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them is credible and helpful. There is a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth. Stephanopoulos: So youre done with the lying? Cohen: I am done with the lying. I am done being loyal to President Trump, and my first loyalty belongs to my wife, my daughter, my son and this country. Video: Michael Cohen has given Robert Mueller the evidence that he needs to allow Congress or the voters expose and end Trumps presidency. https://t.co/QWsszePo6C pic.twitter.com/gDt5NgonqZ PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 14, 2018 The Evidence That Cohen Gave Mueller Is What Scares Trump The Most Trump and the White House are trying to muddy the waters by attacking the credibility and character of anyone who is associated with the investigation. Trump has attacked witnesses, defendants, the special counsel investigation, and Robert Mueller personally. Trump and the White House cant dispute the evidence, so they are trying to smear every element of the investigation. Kellyanne Conway had no defense for Trump during a 40-minute fiasco of an interview on CNN. All she could do was insult and smear host Chris Cuomo for asking questions about Cohen and the payments. Michael Cohen kept everything. Prosecutors have all of his cell phones, documents, recorded conversations. Cohen has given it all to Mueller, which means that unlike Trump, Michael Cohen has proof to back up his statements. Now, Robert Mueller has the evidence, and what Donald Trump is really attacking is the evidence itself. Robert Mueller probably has enough evidence to bring down Trump. Mueller cant arrest Trump, or indict him, but he can turn it all over to Congress and the American people. Voters are the jury, and in 2020, they will be able to weigh the evidence and use the ballot box to end Donald Trump. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 489 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen dropped some new bombshells on Friday when he told ABC News that Donald Trump knew that it was wrong when he paid hush money to two former mistresses during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also said that Trump knew about Donald Trump, Jr. and other top campaign officials meeting with a Russian attorney promising dirt on Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower in June of 2016. During the interview, Cohen didnt deny or try to hide his actions, admitting that he knowingly committed crimes to help Trump get elected two years ago. I knew what I was doing was wrong, Cohen said. I stood up before the world and I accepted the responsibility for my actions. ABCs George Stephanopoulos then asked Cohen if President Trump himself definitely knew it was wrong to authorize the payments. Of course, Cohen replied, and then added that Trump was extremely concerned about how the possible disclosure of his past extramarital affairs would impact his presidential hopes. They met to discuss payoffs shortly after the release of the highly-publicized Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women by grabbing their genitals. Cohen said he was very sad to see Trump still refuse to admit any wrongdoing, but he was not surprised. Instead of him taking responsibility for his actions, what does he do? He attacks my family, Cohen said. The 52-year-old Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to 36 months in prison for a variety of charges related to his work for the president, and he told ABC that Trump was lying when he said he never directed his attorney to break the law. I dont think there is anybody that believes that, Cohen told Stephanopoulos. First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters. With respect to Trumps denials that he knew about the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower, which is part of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation, Cohen said the president could not be trusted about anything. He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth, Cohen said. And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, dont believe what he is saying. The man doesnt tell the truth, and it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds. Cohen has agreed to cooperate with investigators in several areas, but he refused to discuss with ABC what he had already told them and said he no longer had any reason to lie. I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty, Cohen concluded. 4.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Many people believe that the Russia probe is nearing its completion, but now The Daily Beast is reporting that Bob Muellers investigation might be moving to a whole new area of the world. According to The Beast: Special Counsel Robert Muellers office is preparing to reveal to the public a different side of his investigation. In court filings that are set to drop in early 2019, prosecutors will begin to unveil Middle Eastern countries attempts to influence American politics. Robert Muellers initial instructions were to conduct an investigation confined to: any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. But the directions that Rod Rosenstein provided for the special counsel also notes that his authority includes any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. 600.4(a). This is the law defining the jurisdiction of special counsels, which also includes instructions on how the special counsel can seek additional jurisdiction if the office that it is necessary in order to fully investigate and resolve the matters assigned, or to investigate new matters that come to light in the course of his or her investigation. Mueller has requested an expansion of jurisdiction at least once. This was disclosed as part of the special counsels response to efforts by Paul Manafort to have charges against him dismissed on the ground that Mueller had exceeded his jurisdiction. The response authorized Mueller to follow up on matters related to Manaforts money laundering and his actions in Ukraine. So Muellers probe is not limited to just Russias influence in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump and his family, especially Jared Kushner, have had strong financial ties to autocratic regimes in the Middle East for decades. They have borrowed money from them and had joint business dealings with them, and these continued even after Trump assumed the presidency. If the details of these relationships come out, Mueller provide an explanation for why Trump has looked the other way whenever Saudi Arabia and his other Middle East partners commit some horrendous deed. Donald Trump thinks that looking into his business dealings is crossing a red line, but those comments have generally been ignored by Mueller and federal prosecutors. It is widely known that they are looking at the financial records of the Trump Organization, for example. And in doing this it is likely that Mueller found money ties between Trump and Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. One member of Muellers team is Zainab Ahmad, a specialist in counterterrorism whose work has been focused on the Middle East and Africa. Ahmad signed off on the sentencing document for Michael Flynn last week, indicating some of Flynns misdeeds and some of the evidence he provided prosecutors involved Middle Eastern countries as well as Russia. The Daily Beast said that Flynn was involved in conversations with representatives and influential individuals from other foreign governments, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. It looks like Trump and Kushner are both compromised when it comes to setting foreign policy in the Middle East. Whether its with respect to American policies concerning Yemen, Qatar or Jamal Khashoggis murder, the decisions being made do not reflect whats best for the United States. Rather, foreign policy decisions are being made on the basis of what is best for Donald Trump and his partners business interests. If Muellers investigation is now going beyond just Russia, it means that it will probably continue for quite a while. Even if the probe is ongoing, of course, Mueller can continue to issue more indictments, and arrest people for their various crimes. And when Mueller is finally finished, it is extremely likely that some of those indictments will deal with Donald Trumps and Jared Kushners Middle East business dealings. 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Republicans in Congress are expecting a partial government shutdown, just in time for Christmas, but they would probably rather have a lump of coal. President Trumps harmful comments at a White House meeting with congressional Democrats on Tuesday about how he would accept blame for a shutdown have made the partial shutdown scenario much more likely. And GOP members of Congress are not happy about it. The shutdown may happen because of the presidents demands for $5 billion in wall funding. But this amount will not be approved by House Republicans, let alone Democrats in the House and Senate. Two days later, Republicans on Capitol Hill still do not have a plan for keeping the government open. They also know that they are going to be blamed for a partial shutdown if it should occur. There is no discernable plan, none thats been disclosed, Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas said when asked how Trump and GOP leaders would be able to avoid the shutdown. Apparently Republican lawmakers are waiting for Trump to tell them what kind of funding bill hes willing to sign into law. Everybody is looking to him for a signal about what the president wants to do and so far its not clear, Cornyn said. Of course there is fierce Democratic opposition to spending any money on a southern border wall. The House held its last vote of the week yesterday and will not be back in session until Wednesday. This will give them just two days before they come up against the deadline for funding several government agencies to keep them open. GOP said they believe they could get the votes for the legislation, ut the fact that they have not brought a bill to the floor indicates that they do not have the votes they need. If Republicans could pass a bill on their own it would give them leverage in their fight with Democrats. Trump at the Tuesday meeting with Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi boasted that he could have a bill passed by the House easily. Then do it, Pelosi said, calling the presidents bluff. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), said it was not in the House GOPs best interest to send a funding bill to the Senate if it wouldnt pass there. He told reporters: Ok, so its December after the election. We shouldnt be here for show, we should be here to get our work done and get out of here. We have to look at where we are in this process and what is the additive piece here: Is it the stay and wait or is it to take action? So those two things matter for a call like this. Retiring Speaker Paul Ryan has kept out of public view on the funding and Wall controversies. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), arent on the same page, either, adding to turmoil within their caucus. Scalise said on Thursday that the House would advance a bill with Trumps requested $5 billion for the border wall. But McCarthy was not aware of Scalises plan. When asked about it, McCarthy told a reporter, I didnt hear him say that. Interesting. Even though Trump and other Republicans will try to blame Democrats for a partial government shutdown, the American public knows the truth: Republicans are not capable of governing the country in a positive way. All they know how to do is attack the government and make it even more dysfunctional. But that is not what the people of the United States want from their leaders, and this is why in January Democrats will be in charge of the House, and they will work to actually get things done and solve the real problems that the country is facing. 5.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is claiming that Trump had nothing to do and wasnt involved with his inauguration committee that is under criminal investigation. Sanders told Fox News, This didnt have anything to do with the president. The president was focused on the transition, and building out a new government, and preparing to take office. The role he had in the inauguration was to raise his hand and take the oath. Video: Sarah Sanders claims that Trump had nothing to do with his own inauguration. pic.twitter.com/wiIiueAioL PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 14, 2018 It is interesting that Trump suddenly has nothing to do with everything that turns criminal. Trump was more than involved. His own family was the executive committee for the transition In his book, The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis wrote, Christie viewed Kushner as one of those people who thinks that, because he is rich, he must also be smart. Still, he had a certain cunning about him. And Christie soon found himself reporting everything he did to prepare for a Trump administration to an executive committee. The committee consisted of Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Manafort, Steve Mnuchin and Jeff Sessions. There is also the part where Trump was very concerned about the money that the transition team was spending, he first time Trump paid attention to any of this was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trumps very own transition team had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find Christie seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, yelling: Youre stealing my money! Youre stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this? Trump was very worried about the money, and his own family was heavily involved. It is impossible to believe that Trump knew nothing. If he knew nothing, Donald Trump should be tossed out of the White House on his ear today for such poor management. Trump is also a notorious micromanager, so it is impossible to believe that Trump was an innocent victim. The walls are crumbling. The White Houses lies are implausible, and this president is slowly sinking under the weight of his own corruption. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 40.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Moments after Scott Walker signed a series of bills that weakened the power of the incoming Democratic Wisconsin governor and attorney general he was sued for a potentially illegal act. Daniel Strauss of Politico reported: One Wisconsin Now, with the backing of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, is suing Walker over the new laws. Eric Holder: "This is a shameful attack on our democracy by politicians who will do anything to hold onto power." Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4) December 14, 2018 Reuters reported on the illegal Republican bid to keep power: The Wisconsin legislation, which passed on Dec. 5 largely along party lines, will prevent Governor-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul from carrying out a campaign promise to withdraw the state from a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. It will also limit Evers ability to pass administrative rules and block him from killing a provision that would impose a work requirement on Medicaid recipients. In addition, the legislation will allow lawmakers to sidestep the attorney generals office in litigation involving the state. Governor-elect Tony Evers blasted Walker for trying to override the will of the people: Full statement from @Tony4WI on unprecedented attack by @scottwalker, Vos and the GOP. pic.twitter.com/FwD2e3dgu1 One Wisconsin Now (@onewisconsinnow) December 14, 2018 Democrats have a good case to make against Walker and the Republican Party. What Walker masterminded was a weakening of the executive branch of the state government in order to shift power to the gerrymandered legislative branch that Republicans still control. It is an obvious attempt to invalidate an election. A majority of the voters in Wisconsin supported the Democratic candidate. Tony Evers should be allowed to carry out his duties with the same powers that Walker had. There is no legal justification for what Walker and the state legislature did, and it is important that Democrats stand up for democracy and not allow Trumps authoritarian party to seize power after losing an election. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 813 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. confirmed Donald Trumps worst fears on Thursday when he said Were going take an MRI to his finances. Swalwell works with Rep. Adam Schiff on the House Intelligence Committee and is also on the House Judiciary Committee, soon to be chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler. Both Schiff and Nadler have promised that when Democrats take over their committee will open in-depth investigations into the president and his finances, including global money laundering operations and payments he received from foreign countries. Nadler has said his committee will have to consider impeaching the president. Trump reportedly has grown very nervous about the possibility of impeachment, and members of the incoming Democratic House majority say he has every reason to be. He knows that the walls are closing in on him, and he has no strong allies in Congress or even within his own White House. According to NBC News recent development have prompted great concerns about the presidents future: Trumps fear about the possibility has escalated as the consequences of federal investigations involving his associates and Democratic control of the House sink in, the sources said, and his allies believe maintaining the support of establishment Republicans he bucked to win election is now critical to saving his presidency. Trump has denied he is concerned and said that its hard to impeach somebody who hasnt done anything wrong and whos created the greatest economy in the history of our country. He also added, when asked if he was concerned that he would be impeached, Im not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened. Yet recent disclosures from Michael Cohen and from American Media Inc. the company which owns the National Enquirer have rattled the president. Both Cohen and AMI have cut deals with federal prosecutors and are providing evidence against Trump. These developments will lead to House Democrats investigating Trump in many different areas, even though Trump said he wouldnt cooperate with them on legislation if they investigated him. But that approach will not fly with the Democrats who will soon control the House. Were going to do both, and he doesnt get to set the terms, Swalwell told Salon, and then added: The American people set the terms, and they overwhelmingly sent a large majority to Congress. Leadership is working in a divided government trying to help the people who are counting on you and responding to lawful subpoenas that are sent over. Were not going to be threatened or committed into not doing our job. The people who gave us the majority wouldnt want us to do that anyway. Were going to conduct the oversight role that we are responsible for, especially where Republicans gave Donald Trump presidential immunity for two years. This guy has had two years of just free passes where he has not been reined in, and so, youre essentially its like essentially being responsible for a child for two years whos had no rules and no accountability. Its going to be a wake-up call for the President. Well investigate where the Republicans didnt, and that means filling in the gaps with the Russian investigation, that means seeing his taxes to see if his financial interests are driving foreign and domestic policy. That means looking at how people are cashing in on access that he gives them how hes cashing in on access that he gives people to the White House. Were going take an MRI to his finances, Swalwell added. When asked about the three-year prison sentence that Michael Cohen received from federal prosecutors on Wednesday, Swalwell said: I think it was an appropriate sentence, but also should be a warning shot to other people in Donald Trumps orbit, that if you lie to try and protect the President theres going to be a price to be paid. The best thing you can do is to just come clean with investigators and not try and protect somebody completely unworthy of being protected. Food editor and chief critic Eating all of the chicken livers just as fast as I can. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. River Landing Village is a proposed 22-acre development on Daniel Island at the end of River Landing Drive and Pier View Street. It will be built in phases to meet market demand and include condominiums, townhouses and commercial space for retail and restaurants along the waterfront. The two numbered piers shown will be added, with the middle pier added in the first phase of development. The top pier is already in place. The "G" is for garden condos, the "M" is for manor house condos, the "T" is for townhomes and the "R" is for retail. The corresponding number is for the different project elements. Provided/East West Partners Kalyn Oyer is a Charleston native who covers arts & entertainment and food & bev for The Post and Courier. She's a music festival & concert photographer and used to write about music for the Charleston City Paper, among other publications. The federal government's failure to study risks of oil spills in the powerful Gulf Stream is "stunning" and "beyond foolish" given the stakes and currents force, drilling opponents said this week. Packing more power than all of the worlds freshwater rivers combined, the Gulf Stream flows about 55 miles off the South Carolina coast. Yet federal regulators havent done computer simulations of how oil spills would interact with this mighty river in the sea, The Post and Courier reported earlier this year in its investigative project "Into the Gulf Stream." Critics said this omission is particularly glaring in the wake of the Trump administration's recent approval of seismic testing off the East Coast, a major step toward drilling. Failing to conduct basic (oil spill) modeling is beyond foolish, said Diane Hoskins, campaign manager for Oceana, an ocean conservation group. "President Trump's offshore drilling proposals defy logic. We already know that when they drill, they spill." Fifty miles wide and hundreds of feet deep, the Gulf Stream whisks so much water past our coast that it lowers our sea level by about 3 feet. Its one of defining features in the area petroleum interests want to explore. But the federal Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) hasn't done simulations for potential spills in the Gulf Stream and elsewhere on the East Coast. The Post and Courier filled this risk analysis gap earlier this summer by doing its own spill simulations. Using a computer program built by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the newspaper generated more than 1,000 spill scenarios. These scenarios showed that the Gulf Stream is like a high-velocity pump. Some simulations showed that within just 24 hours, a spill off Charleston would travel more than 90 miles. Other simulations showed that in just two weeks, slicks off Georgia could shoot toward the Outer Banks and then move into deeper waters off Virginia and pivot toward Europe. The current's force would pose immense if not impossible challenges for cleanup crews. The newspaper's work is stunning and creates a stark visual for people trying to imagine a new reality of drilling off their coast, said Alexandra Adams, legislative director for nature programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Two years ago, the group commissioned its own study to model potential spills in the Arctic, another area with swift currents that oil interests want to tap. The study found spills could quickly spread 700 miles, oiling the Alaskan, Canadian and Russian coasts. "Oil exploration is a deeply dangerous and risky business, and the unwillingness to acknowledge this is distressing," Adams said. Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling, a longtime drilling opponent, added that BOEM has a huge obligation to study where spills might migrate. Keyserling noted that oil spills pose risks on and offshore even inland. Seasonal high tides and rising sea levels have put saltwater a quarter mile into our neighborhoods, he added. What happens if that saltwater gets contaminated. Then, not only do we have flooding, we have contaminated water that has the potential of reaching our homes. U.S. Rep.-elect Joe Cunningham, who won South Carolina's 1st Congressional District seat last month, said computer simulations from BOEM might be helpful, "but I think people are pretty aware of how disastrous an oil spill would be. We've seen what happened in the Gulf with Deepwater Horizon and what happened in Alaska. We don't want it here." While many coastal lawmakers have come out against drilling, some in the Midlands and Upstate have been supportive. Three Republican lawmakers from Greenville and Spartanburg filed a resolution earlier this year touting the "massive economic benefits" of oil and gas exploration. And U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican, also has been supportive of oil exploration in the past. Earlier this month, the Trump administration approved permits for seismic tests with air guns that blast acoustic waves that allow scientists to map the seafloor and identify potential oil and gas deposits. The next step is exploratory drilling. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico resulted from an exploratory drill. Grant for a bike and pedestrian bridge over Ashley River is shot down again. What next? Charleston, SC (29403) Today Mainly clear skies. Low near 35F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Mainly clear skies. Low near 35F. Winds light and variable. This May 19, 2014, file photo shows the master bedroom in the Abu Dhabi Suite at the St. Regis in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Investigators believe hackers working on behalf of Chinas main intelligence agency are responsible for a massive data breach involving the theft of personal information from as many as 500 million guests of the Marriott hotel chain, a U.S. official said Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File) Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication. Its located in rural Preston. Large windows open to a view of acres of prairie. It has wood and stone detailing straight out of a home decor catalogue. The 2550-square-foot home has seven rooms on the main floor (including an open-plan kitchen/dining/living room and office, a breakfast nook, two bathrooms, and a master bedroom), and five on the lower (including a rec room, third bathroom, mechanical room, storage room with freezer and larder, and a guest room). And, unseen to the naked eye, the house is rated a net zero on the HERS index (thats the Home Energy Rating System). The HERS index measures the energy-efficiency of an existing home and tries to estimate how much homeowners will have to spend on utility bills. A lower-energy home doesnt use as much power, so its bills are lower. A net zero rating means that the home produces as much energy through renewable resources, such as solar panels, as it consumes. When Barb and Joel designed their dream home, they wanted it to break even on energy. And after installing solar panels to create energy in the summer and a custom appliance system to use as little as possible in the winter, they did it. Both of the Mielkes are chemical engineers. Joel, who worked at an oil refinery for 35 years, created the energy design. A home designer stepped in to tweak the floorplan. "Energy balances are second nature for me," Joel says. "Ive always been thrifty in the case of resources. I dont like to waste things." {{tncms-inline alignment="right" content="

The Minnesota Renewable Energy Society (MRES) promotes and advocates for the adoption of renewable energies in Minnesota through education and the demonstration of practical applications (and the Mielke home was recently showcased during the MRES Sustainable Home Tour). For tips on retrofitting your home, check mnrenewables.org for info.

" id="8bf6c9ef-6873-4b13-ae70-8339a3f8c9d4" style-type="bio" title="Can I do this, too?" type="relcontent" width="half"}} Heres how they did it. 1. They created a "thermal envelope."The Mielkes house is insulated for maximum heat retention, with layers of polystyrene foam below and around concrete, spray foam and fiberglass (and more of the polystyrene foam) to protect the walls, and even more spray foam and fiberglass in the ceiling. Airflow is also controlled, and very few rooms in the house vent directly to the outdoors. Instead, hot air routes down and out through floor trusses. 2. Tripled up on window protection.The house has triple-pane windows (compared to a normal double-pane), to trap extra heat. The extra cost was minimal, Joel says, and the couple "wanted to push it as far as we could." 3. Used the windows for more than the view.The Mielkes south-facing windows are 200 sq. feet and were specially shaded and treated to let the sun in during the winter (during the summer, they should be shaded) for passive solar gain. "By the end of September, were just starting to get sun into the house," Joel says. Thats an extra little bit of heat that they dont have to generate or buy. In an attempt to keep fossil fuel use to a minimum, the Mielkes also use a hefty Norwegian wood-burning stove to heat the house. They burn dead wood from the area around their house, and only harvest roughly 10 percent of the trees that fall on their land. 4. Relied on import/export.The Mielkes are on the grid. Their house and solar panel (its bigger than a car and sits next to the long drive up to the house) dont have batteries to store the energy created. So when the sun is shining, Barb says, the Mielkes export energy to the local power company, which buys their electricity. When its cloudy, they import energy to power their home. Last year, the couple generated more than twice as much electricity as they used. "Weve exported enough energy to offset driving our vehicles," Joel says. Also, they didnt pay any energy bills last year. "They gave us money back, actually," Barb says. 5. Prioritized the environment.Quite often, when people hear about the Mielkes house, they assume that the couple wanted to avoid energy bills. But the larger issue at hand is environmental stewardship, Joel and Barb say. 6. Extended to the outdoors.The Mielkes house is built on 130 acres of prairie, much of which has been restored over the past few years. The ground had been previously tilled for farming, and the natural flora and fauna were destroyed. The Mielkes have tried to bring it back by harvesting seeds from native grasses and buying packets of the plants that would have grown in the area decades ago. Much of the work now, Barb says, is just trying to keep invasive, non-native species out of their giant yard. The Minnesota Renewable Energy Society (MRES) promotes and advocates for the adoption of renewable energies in Minnesota through education and the demonstration of practical applications (and the Mielke home was recently showcased during the MRES Sustainable Home Tour). For tips on retrofitting your home, check mnrenewables.org for info. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific has awarded a $25 million contract to Jacobs Government Services for work to be performed primarily in the Mariana Islands. The Fort Worth, Texas, company has been hired to conduct design, engineering and other related services for NAVFAC Pacific. Of the total work, 54 percent will be done on Tinian and 25 percent of the work will be performed on Guam. The remaining work will be performed in Hawaii and Diego Garcia. $55M total contract award Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. This is a firm-fixed-price modification to a previously awarded contract that increases the total contract award to $55 million. Funding will be awarded as individual task orders are issued. The work is expected to be completed by August 2022. The Work Zone Are you now a member of a dysfunctional work team? Most of us should be nodding our head, as mild dysfunction is virtually universal. Read more WEST CHESTER On Thursday, Chester County officials handed out 492 free doses of naxolone to area residents as part of a state effort to curb the opioid crisis. There was a steady stream of people who stopped by the Chester County Government Services Center on Westtown Road, one of two places giving out the drug in the county, the second was at the Chester County Public Safety Training Campus on Modena Road in South Coatesville. A friend mentioned it was available and I thought Its better to be prepared, said Tom Clark of West Chester, who was one of many who stopped in at the Government Services Center on Westtown Road. I work on campus (WCU) and I encourage everyone to get some. Laura Jane Parker of West Chester, came with a friend to pick up her free naxolone. Asked what motivated her she said, my son died of an overdose, his name was Bexley Gabryelski and he died at age 26. Its a big problem and its very frightening. I dont want to be standing around as person dies, said Maria Huggins of Glen Mills. Something so simple to do but people dont know about it. By 6 p.m officials had given out over 250 packets of the spray at the Government Services Center. Naloxone, also known by the brand names Narcan or Evzio, is a medication that reverses opioid (prescription painkillers, fentanyl and heroin) overdoses and gives the person a chance at recovery. When given during an opioid overdose, naloxone blocks the effects of opioids on the brain and restores breathing within minutes. Last year Chester County lost 144 lives to accidental drug overdose, a majority of which involved opioids, said Vince Brown, Director of the Chester County Department of Drug and Alcohol Services. We are working together, and must continue to work together to provide comprehensive solutions to the opioid epidemic, and access to naloxone is a key part of that. The medication saves lives Before residents received the medicine they watched a 91 second video from Dr. Rachel Levine, Health Secretary of Pennsylvania explaining how to administer the nasal spray. I want to show you today how to save a life using naxolone, Dr. Levine states in the video. After administrating naxolone make sure to dial 911 right away, to get the patient proper medical attention. Peel the package open, place the tip of the nozzle in the persons nostril and press the plunger firmly to release the dose into the patients nose were the simple instructions. Dr. Levine also stated naxolone can be obtained without prescriptions at any local pharmacy, however there is a charge for it there. In addition to the naxolone, county officials also handed out information on how to respond to an overdose emergency, tips on dealing with loved ones suffering from drug and alcohol addiction, and for those looking for outpatient providers. One pamphlet pointed out what an overdose looks like; the person will not wake or respond, breathing is very slow, is irregular or stopped, pupils are very small and a persons fingertips and lips are turning blue or purple. The life-saving medication naloxone is essential for all of us to have on hand, particularly if you have a loved one suffering from opioid-use disorder, Gov. Tom Wolf said. We want to ensure that through this opportunity for free naloxone, we can save more lives and get more Pennsylvanians into treatment. Keeping naloxone in your home, work or even in your car can make the difference between someone getting into treatment or dying from this disease. The program was so successful that by 3 p.m. 4,500 doses were handed out throughout the state, some locations even running out, including all locations in neighboring Montgomery County. Deaths in Pennsylvania attributed to opioids, heroin, and synthetic fentanyl have been increasing year-over-year. The Chester County overdose prevention task force offers help from opioids at https://stopodchesco.org/ Kevin Tustin contributed to this story. A friend asked me to recommend a book about Whittaker Chambers as a Christmas gift for her smartly conservative daughter a few years ago. Chambers stands at the center of an incredible drama and several fantastic books that I know of about him. There is still much to be learned from him and his case. I want to revisit and expand the list this year with a little help from the eminent historian Harvey Klehr: 1. Witness is Chamberss autobiography. It has remained in print continuously since it was published in 1952. The linked paperback edition with new forewords by William F. Buckley, Jr. and Robert Novak derives from the fiftieth anniversary of the books publication. Several conservatives including a friend or two of mine have mentioned the impact this book had on them. The book figures prominently, for example, in Andrew Fergusons 2011 Weekly Standard cover story on David Mamet. 2. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein. As a liberal historian who was given access to the files of Hisss lawyers, Weinstein sought to write the definitive account of the case. He did all that and more in this meticulous work of reconstruction originally published in 1978 and now kept in print by the Hoover Institution Press in an updated edition published in 2013. Weinstein takes the reader inside the Communist espionage ring that infiltrated the Roosevelt administration. In the introduction to the updated 1997 edition of the book, Weinstein writes: With the new evidence blended into the old, most of the troubling questions about the Hiss-Chambers case can be answered. I thought he had done that when the book was originally published in 1978, when George Will hailed the publication of the book as a historic event. I couldnt put it down. 3. Whittaker Chambers: A Biography by Sam Tanenhaus. Theodore Draper wrote of this book in the New York Review of Books: Tanenhaus had the ingenious idea of filling out what Chambers wrote by going to the memoirs, letters, papers, FBI interrogations, and testimony of all the others in the story. As a result, he rounds out Chamberss account from different angles, drawing on the accounts of many people who knew Chambers. 4. The Anti-Communist Manifestos by John V. Fleming. The author is a retired English professor who spent his career at Princeton teaching Chaucer. Pursuing his bookbinding avocation in retirement, he came upon a book that sent him on a voyage of discovery to the other three books that he takes up here along with the one he was about to pulp. Witness is the fourth; Professor Fleming writes that by any just canon of literary history [it] should claim its place within the great tradition of American autobiography. Professor Flemings aptly named blog is Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche, derived from Chaucers description of the Oxford philosophy student in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Gladly lerne, gladly teche is the spirit that suffuses Flemings in my opinion, great book. 5. Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America by Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Alexander Vassiliev. Harvey Klehr is the preeminent historian of American Communism. He has explored the Hiss case in several of his books. I wrote Professor Klehr to ask him which of his books he would recommend to readers interested in the case. Professor Klehr writes: The best, I think, is Spies. Its based on the the most complete and latest information from KGB archives. We titled the chapter on Hiss Case Closed, since we quote from KGB documents that use his real name and identify him as a Soviet agent. Professor Klehr adds: I was at a conference marking the 100th anniversary of the CPUSA founding at Williams College last month and a paper written by Bruce Craig was read (he was not present). Craig has been writing a bio of Hiss for many years. He started believing Hiss had been framed; he now accepts that he did work for the GRU. The panels have been posted on YouTube. There are some head scratchers, but a number are quite good including John Hayness keynote and, immodestly, my defense of the point I have been arguing for far too many years that the CPUSA was a creature of the USSR and efforts to explain its failures and anti-Communism by reference to American repression or hostility to civil rights, labor, etc., miss the mark. It was hated because it was the tool of a hostile and anti-democratic foreign nation. You can also see how much Maurice Isserman has acceded to our viewpoint. In an interview at the 92nd Street Y this past Sunday, Nicole Wallace asked former FBI Director James Comey how two FBI agents ended up meeting with National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in the Situation Room during the first week of the Trump administration the meeting that resulted in Flynns plea to one count of false statements in the case that is pending before Judge Emmet Sullivan. Comey responded (my transcription): I sent them [laughter]. Something I probably wouldnt have done, or maybe gotten away with, in a more organized investigation, [correcting himself] a more organized administration.[In previous administrations,] if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official you would work through the White House counsel. There would be discussions and approvals and who would be there and I thought its early enough, lets just send a couple guys over [laughter]. Wallaces entire interview with Comey is posted here. I have also embedded it below. The portion of the interview quoted above begins at about 12:40. It is apparent from his comments and the contrast he draws with the Bush and Obama administrations that Comey knew he was exploiting (wrongly, in my view) an administration that was in its first days. He all but says as much. Wall Street Journal editorial board member Kim Strassel refers to Comeys comment in her column Checking Robert Mueller (accessible here via Outline). I find Comeys comments to be shocking rather than humorous. Strassel certainly does not find them amusing. They raise obvious follow-up questions that should be put to Comey under oath some time soon. I hope that Judge Sullivan takes note of Comeys comments when the parties produce the documents he has demanded prior to Flynns scheduled sentencing next week. I have cued the video below to begin with the exchange from which I draw the quote above. Yesterday, I argued that Dan Balz of the Washington Post missed the point in an article bemoaning the fact that traditional politics, of the kind practiced in Western democracies for decades after World War II, is on shaky ground nearly everywhere. The point Balz missed, as he complained about instability and popular unrest, is that the politics practiced by Western democracies are under attack mainly because these politics havent been democratic enough. I noted that leaders of Western democracies have imposed key policies that voters plainly do not support. As examples, I cited immigration policy and criminal justice policy. Racial preferences is another. But John Fonte calls attention to another even more fundamental example one that Balz missed and that I noted only in passing the assault on national sovereignty. Fonte made this point at Texas National Security Review Roundtable on The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy in a paper called The Trump Doctrine: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy. That paper, and those of the other participants, can be found here. National sovereignty is a precondition for democracy. Without it, the people dont have a say in public policy or, indeed, in who will govern them. These decisions are exported to international bodies. National sovereignty has come under attack throughout the West, including here. As Fonte says: Within the democratic world itself exists a deep division over where ultimate authority that is to say, sovereignty resides. Is it with sovereign democratic nation-states, or is it with evolving transnational and supranational institutions and rules of global governance (e.g., new concepts of customary international law) that nation-states have either delegated authority to or permitted to expand. To put it bluntly, the democratic family is in an argument over the single most important question in politics: Who should rule? While conservatives embrace Americas democratic sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution as the highest political authority for Americans others, including allies such as Germany and many other nation-states in the European Union, as well as a considerable number of American progressives, tout the transnational institutions of global governance and the evolving concepts of international law as the final arbiters of legitimate authority above the sovereignty of any nation-state, including democracies like the United States and Germany. Some of the instability and populist unrest Balz decries is a reaction well-justified, in my view to the assault on sovereignty. In the U.S., where the erosion of sovereignty is (so far) less pronounced than in Europe, the blatant disregard by our indigenous political class of the electorates will on key issues is, I think, the primary source of unrest. But attempts by the political class to export decision-making authority on key issues is a factor, and one that helps explain the victory of Donald Trump. And its a growing factor. Fonte writes: This global ideological conflict over core values between what one might call sovereigntists and post-sovereigntists or, as the president puts it, between patriotism and globalism. . .will continue well into the future and no doubt intensify in the decades to come. It will intensify because globalism (what I have labeled transnational progressivism) is not a chimera, an apparition, or the moniker for a conspiracy theory. On the contrary, transnational progressivism is a real actor in world politics, complete with a workable ideology, a strongly situated material-social base among global elites, and, in some areas, the backing of nation states. Transnational progressives dominate major international and transnational institutions, including the leadership of the United Nations, the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, international non-governmental organizations (e.g., Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc.), the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, CEOs of global corporations, major universities throughout the West, and even organizations such as the American Bar Association, which actively promotes global legal rules that transcend U.S. sovereignty.69 Most significantly, globalist ideology is predominate in many European nation-states including Germany and Emmanuel Macrons France. Once we take transnational progressivism into account, we see that Balz has it backwards when he complains that traditional politics, of the kind practiced in Western democracies for decades after World War II, is on shaky ground. . . The traditional politics of Western democracies did not include transnational progressivism. It was more than 40 years until this approach began to dominate in Europe and another 20 or so until it became highly influential here. Thus, it can easily be argued that the problem Balz describes stems from the fact that Western elites not the public became disillusioned with traditional politics of the kind practiced in Western democracies after World War II. Or maybe they never liked such politics and were simply lying in wait. Todays data point in favor of a negative answer is this absurd article in Vox, a web site for low-information millennials: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should run for president and dare the Supreme Court to stop her, argues @mattyglesias. https://t.co/sis9kkuzGH Vox (@voxdotcom) December 12, 2018 Why should a superstar like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez have to wait until she is 35? Heck, she hasnt even taken office yet and is already the darling of her party! Because of her notable accomplishments, presumably. Ben Shapiro responded appropriately: In response, Trump should declare himself president for life and dare the Supreme Court to stop him https://t.co/rXZPIr9FuB Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 13, 2018 Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, via Twitter, rejected the suggestion that she should get herself elected president in defiance of the Constitution and dare the Supreme Court to stop her. That is to her credit, I guess, in todays crazed environment. This is a small thing, obviously. I dont suppose any serious person pays attention to Vox. But we are, in fact, living in dangerous times. Liberals do not see themselves as bound by any constraints of law or, even more fundamentally, of good faith. Barack Obama, for example, didnt declare himself president for life or run for president in violation of the Constitution. But he did direct the issuance of work permits to illegal immigrants in blatant violation of federal law, and dared the federal courts to stop him. Is that very different from what Vox urged a not-yet-freshman Congresswoman to do? If you disagree with a liberal, your First Amendment rights are revoked. If Democrats think they can demagogue crime, they are happy to make your Second Amendment rights disappear. And if you run against a Democrat, your Fourth Amendment rights wont prevent unmasking and obtaining of surveillance warrants through misleading, or outright false, applications. So why should we be surprised that a Democratic Party outlet like Vox would think there is nothing extraordinary about simply ignoring the Constitution? Manhattan Contrarian asks: When Will It Be OK To Laugh At The Climate Campaigners? A great opportunity to demonstrate your earnestness and fervor as a climate campaigner has been the latest UN climate confab, known as COP 24, taking place in Katowice, Poland this week and last. 22,000 bureaucrats and functionaries have gathered to tell the world that it must promptly do away with the evil fossil fuels and transition to clean energy. Over and over, the alarm was sounded. From Think Progress on December 10: The conference comes only two months after the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an ominous report projecting that the world only has around 12 years before crossing a dangerous global warming threshold. I seem to recall having heard this before. How many tipping points are there? And then, into the middle of what should have been universal acclaim for immediate UN-directed action, there dropped a U.S.-sponsored panel with the title U.S. Innovative Technologies Spur Economic Dynamism. The lead speaker was a guy named Wells Griffith, advisor to President Trump at the Department of Energy. Other panelists included speakers representing natural gas, fracking, and nuclear energy proponents. Griffith was quoted as saying We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice economic prosperity or energy security. Such incredible chutzpah! What is the proper response? Anger and protests, of course. Oh, and also laughter. I mean, this was completely outside the bounds of polite conversation. What kind of dolts could be saying such preposterous things? From the Independent: Mr. Griffith spoke for about ten minutes before the audience started laughing, mocking, and yelling at him. Eventually, they started chanting keep it in the ground and shame on you. It is worth taking a moment to savor this coup by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, out here in the real world, are we allowed to notice that absolutely no one is remotely taking seriously the idea that carbon emissions from fossil fuels are really going to be significantly reduced? The Contrarian goes on to detail the inexorable risefor better or worseof global CO2 emissions. The real purpose of the anti-global warming movement is to enrich green energy political cronies and anti-global warming activists, and to generate votes for green politicians. It certainly isnt intended to do anything about global warming. For example: Then we have France and its approximately 17 cents per gallon new gasoline tax. Even if you assume that that tax was not the sole cause of the recent riots, you cant help noticing that in the very best of circumstances that tax would have had a completely minimal effect on world emissions. A 17 cents per gallon tax, on top of gasoline already priced at about $6, would perhaps reduce gasoline consumption by 3-4% (very optimistic), all to be accomplished by making it too expensive for the rural lower middle class to drive. And gasoline consumption is only a fraction of Frances emissions, so at best Frances emissions would be decreased by 1%. And Frances emissions are less than 1% of world emissions. So maybe this tax would decrease world emissions by 0.01% if youre lucky. And how about the worlds massive investments in wind and solar energy. No matter how many wind and solar energy facilities you build, you will be lucky to decrease world CO2 emissions by 10-15%. Why? First, this only addresses the electricity sector, which is only about 40% of emissions the rest being things like transportation, shipping and industry. Second, the wind and solar only work part time (30% at best) and you need full fossil fuel backup to run the rest of the time. At best you save 30% of 40%, which is 12% and that assumes that you actually get the 30% from the wind and solar, and that you have no efficiency losses on the fossil fuel plants running in back-up mode. To get higher than the 10-15% emissions savings from wind and solar, you need things that havent been invented yet, that nobody is actually working on or seriously considering, and that look to cost wildly too much to ever be realistic. Things like trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of batteries (see my post from last week here), or maybe the ability to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere (which will take a huge amount of new energy from where?). Wind and solar have nothing to do with climate control, and everything to do with billions of dollars being made by political cronies like Tom Steyer. The COP 24 joke has one more punch line: there is, actually, one country that has significantly reduced its CO2 emissions in recent years: the U.S. Not due to uneconomic wind and solar investments, but on account of fracking. Which the COP 24 participants, whose loyalties and financial interests lie elsewhere, booed. Sen. Tom Cotton has offered three amendments to First Step the leniency for federal felons legislation that President Trump supports. Sen. Cottons amendments would: (1) Make nine additions to the bills ineligible prisoners list for violent felons and sex offenders who are eligible for time credits. This includes sex offenders convicted of coercing a child into sexual activity under 18 U.S.C. 2422; felons who assault law enforcement officers under 18 U.S.C. 111(a); and bank robbers who use violence under 18 U.S.C. 2113(d). This amendment will prevent felons who commit these crimes from transferring out of prison into prerelease custody or supervised release any earlier than under current law. It would thus limit the scope of the First Step jailbreak. (2) Add a requirement that victims be notified before an offender is transferred out of prison into prerelease custody or supervised release. I dont understand why anyone would oppose this requirement. Yet, Sens. Lee and Durbin have not included it in First Step. Their compassion seems to run only one way to criminals, not victim. (3) Improve the tracking and data collection of the bill by publishing the rearrest rates of offenders who commit crimes while in prerelease custody or supervised release. This will help determine whether the bills so-called evidence-based recidivism reduction programs, many of which are a joke, have the positive impact supporters say they will. If First Step supporters actually believe in the efficacy of their evidence-based recidivism reduction programs they should have no qualms about supporting improved tracking and data collection. Sen. Cottons office has asked the White House for a Statement of Administration Policy on his three amendments. The Senator wants to know whether the administration supports, opposes, or is neutral towards them. The request from Cottons office highlights his first amendment to First Step: In particular, we are interested in whether the White House supports, opposes, or is neutral towards Amendment I which excludes the following offenders (and others) from earning time credits that can be used to transfer into supervised release or prerelease custody for up to one-third of the offenders sentence. Coercing a child to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity 18 U.S.C. 2422(b) Carjacking with intent to cause death or serious bodily harm 18 U.S.C. 2119(1) Assaulting a law enforcement officer 18 U.S.C. 111(a) Because these specific statutes are missing from the ineligible prisoners list in the filed version of the First Step Act, without our amendment these offenders will be eligible for prerelease custody and supervised release. (Emphases added) Well try to keep you posted on how the White House responds. In the meantime, readers might want to encourage contacts they may have at the White House to support Cottons amendments. The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General conducted an investigation of the gap in text messages during the period December 15, 2016, through May 17, 2017, from the cell phones assigned to famous FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The Office of Inspector General Cyber Investigations Office was asked to attempt recovery of these missing text messages for the period in issue. The Inspector General has just issued a report summarizing his investigation and stating his conclusion. Even though it is short, the report is so dry as to be sleep inducing. I take it that the OIG finds no wrongdoing. To adapt a formulation from Cool Hand Luke, what we have here is failure to preserve communication. Perhaps relevant policies need to be adjusted. Nearly 20,000 text messages have been recovered, but none from the tenure of Strzok and Page with the Special Counsel. Reading the report, I felt that translation was required. I have no confidence that I understand what is being said in the dry bureaucratic prose or what is said between the lines. Dont the circumstances rate at least an arched eyebrow or other expression of incredulity? My reaction is youve got to be kidding me. As Ace of Spades aptly puts it, Nothing to see here. Gregg Res FOX News report Justice Dept IG blames FBI-wide software failure for missing Strzok-Page messages offers this: In a comprehensive report issued Thursday, the Department of Justices internal watchdog blamed a technical glitch for a swath of missing text messages between anti-Trump ex-FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and revealed that government phones issued by Special Counsel Robert Muellers office to Strzok and Page had been wiped completely clean after Strzok was fired from the Russia probe. The DOJs Inspector General (IG) said that, with help from the Department of Defense, it was able to uncover thousands of missing text messages written by Strzok and Page and sent using their FBI-issued Samsung phones from December 15, 2016 through May 17, 2017, as well as hundreds of other text messages outside the gap time period that had not been produced by the FBI due to technical problems with its text message collection tool. But when the IG went looking for the iPhones separately issued to Strzok and Page by the Mueller team, investigators were told that [Strzoks] iPhone had been reset to factory settings and was reconfigured for the new user to whom the device was issued. The records officer at the special counsel told the IG that as part of the offices records retention procedure, the officer reviewed Strzoks DOJ issued iPhone after he returned it to the [special counsels office] and determined it contained no substantive text messages on September 6, 2017 weeks after he was fired from Muellers team for anti-Trump bias and sending anti-Trump text messages. The officer wrote a note in an official log after reviewing Strzoks phone: No substantive texts, notes or reminders. But the officer told the IG that she did not recall whether there were any text messages on Strzoks phone, although she made an identical log entry for an iPhone she reviewed from another employee on the same day that she specifically recalled having no text messages. Re has more, but you get the gist. See also Chuck Rosss Daily Caller article, DOJ WATCHDOG WAS UNABLE TO RECOVER PETER STRZOKS TEXT MESSAGES DURING MUELLER TENURE and Jordan Schactels Conservative Review article Obstruction? Mueller probe wiped Strzok phone before giving it to investigators. I have embedded the text of the report below via Scribd. OIGFBIReport by Scott Johnson on Scribd Sen. Mike Lee used to be something of a conservative hero. More recently, hes become heavy into working with Democrats. Not just any Democrats, but some of the most liberal, most stridently partisan Senate Dems. He and Sen. Dick Durbin combined to sponsor the jailbreak legislation that may well be on the verge of passing the Senate. A few years ago Lee and Durbin collaborated on a jailbreak bill that was even broader. If Lee and Durbin had had their way, reduced sentences for drug felons would have applied retroactively, leading to the release of thousands more hard core criminals than under the somewhat less ambitious leniency legislation now pending. Fortunately, that bill failed. Durbin is a leftist, to be sure. But at least hes not a hard socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. That would be Sen. Bernie Sanders, with whom Lee collaborated on legislation that would end U.S. participation in the Saudi-led war against Iranian elements in Yemen. This legislation passed the Senate today by a vote of 56 to 41. Lee and just six other Republicans joined with every Senate Democrat to reject President Trumps policy of combating Iran in Yemen. The measure was prompted by justifiable outrage over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. That outrage was also expressed in a unanimous vote to blame the Saudi Crown Prince for the murder. Passing the condemnation measure was the right thing to do. But changing policy in Yemen as a response to Khashoggis murder is ridiculous. Either the war in Yemen makes sense as a means of responding to Irans efforts to dominate the Middle East or it doesnt. If it does, then the Senate does the country a disservice by ending support for the Saudi war effort. As President Trump recognizes, U.S. foreign policy should be based on our geopolitical interests, not disgust over the murder of one guy. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham voted against the Mike Lee-Bennie Sanders legislation. He didnt do so for geopolitical reasons, but rather because of concern over invoking the War Powers Resolution. Thats another good argument. Graham, though, insisted that the U.S. should change its policy towards Saudi Arabia. In a comment directed at President Trump, to whom he has been cozying up, Graham stated: I think youre wrong about whats going on up here. He added, Im never going to let this go until things change in Saudi Arabia. I doubt things are going to change meaningfully in Saudi Arabia, and its silly of Graham to hold his breath until they do. Certainly, the U.S. Senate cant force the Saudis to change, and even the presidents ability meaningfully to do so is probably quite limited. Thanks to American soft-headedness, manifested again today in the passage of the Mike Lee-Bernie Sanders legislation, Russia has rapidly been gaining influence in the Middle East. As part of its diplomatic offensive, the Saudis have sidled up to Putin. This reality is a major driver of Trumps decision not to go hard on Saudi Arabia. Ironically, our supposedly soft-on-Russia president wants to deprive Putin of an opening that his critics the same ones who push the false Russia influence on Trump narrative are determined to create. Thanks to Mike Lee, Mr. Bipartisan, that opening widened today. Even more importantly, so did Irans opportunities in Yemen. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Adoption of Xanthates Market to Soar Across Top Countries in the Globe" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:31 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 544 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 Persistence Market Research in its latest report projects that the global xanthates market will grow at a CAGR of 6.1% over the forecast period (2017-2025). Owing to Xanthates excellent mineral ore processing capabilities, its global sales have witnessed a significant rise in recent years. Mining complexity and declining ore quality have led to a major increase in demand for specialty chemicals to process ores. Towards the end of 2025, around 371,826 tons of xanthates is expected to be sold globally.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4363 The mining industry is rattled by low productivity, attributing to depleting reserves across the globe. Hence, the industry is bound to exploit reserves that lie deeper in the earth and require intensive refining. The aforementioned intricacies in mining are increasingly necessitating the use of mining flotation chemicals for extraction of the desired mineral.Factors as such is primarily boosting the growth of the global xanthates market. The report titled Xanthates Market: Global Industry Trend Analysis 2012-2016 and Forecast 2017-2025 anticipates that global xanthates market will reach a valuation of US$ 624.6 Mn by the end of the forecast period. The mining industry has always been among the major growth engines of an economy, which is why governments in various countries are consistently trying to tap all their national mineral resource. This, in turn, is orchestrating the growing sales of the specialty chemicals such as the xanthates.China Largest Producer of Xanthates in the WorldChina currently dominates the global xanthates market, both in terms of supply and demand. In 2016, the country accounted for nearly 68% share of the overall xanthates consumption in Asia Pacific (APAC). At the same time, investors are targeting countries such as Vietnam, India and Australia for further exploration of new mines, which is also supporting the growth of the regions market. However, regions such as Latin America and MEA are expected to create significant growth opportunities owing to the increasing investments in the mining sector in these regions. In addition, the xanthates market in Latin America is set to register the fastest growth rate during the assessment period. Countries like Peru, Chile, Mexico and Columbia are expected to create significant opportunities for market players in the region.Highlights of the Report IncludeThe demand for potassium amyl xanthate will continue to gain traction throughout the forecast period. Potassium amyl is the preferred xanthates type, especially in the mining industry as it offers a stronger reagent than sodium-based xanthates. In terms of value, potassium amyl xanthates segment is projected to expand at a strong CAGR over 2025.Based on application, the mining sector will continue to account for a major value share of the market in 2017 and beyond. Meanwhile, application of xanthate in the agrochemical sector is expected to increase steadily in the near future.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4363 Competitive LandscapeSenmin International (Pty) Ltd, QiXia TongDa Flotation Reagent Co., Ltd., Yantai Humon Chemical Auxiliary Co.Ltd , CTCMining, SNF FloMin Inc., Orica Limited., Tieling Flotation Reagent Co.Ltd , Coogee Chemicals, Vanderbilt Chemicals, LLC Company B are some of the leading market players profiled in the PMR report. A number of these companies are focusing on expanding operations in regions having extensive mining activities, as they exhibit potential business opportunities. Automotive Air Filters Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 08:53:53 Press Information Persistence market research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY yogesh sengar Team Lead 6465687751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 524 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NYTeam Lead6465687751 Air filters are essential component of an automotive which serves basically two purposes based on its type. There are two types of automotive air filters namely intake air filters and cabin air filters. Where the former acts as a barrier against foreign particles such as dust to enter engines combustion chamber, the latter restricts the entry of dust in the cabin of the vehicle through the vent of HVAC system. Non-performance of intake air filters may lead to inefficiency of engine and increase in its emission levels. Therefore, it becomes necessary for the vehicle user to clean it at regular intervals and replace it with new once it completes its lifetime.Automotive air filters have both OEM as well as replacement markets wherein the latter dominates the global sales. The automotive air filter market is driven by increasing demand for automobiles, strict emission norms and changing lifestyles. The increasing number of vehicles with air-conditioned cabins is boosting the market for cabin air filters. The increasing health consciousness of people wherein they require resistance from dust, pollution, harmful exhaust gases and other contaminants while driving is attracting the car users for the cars with cabin air filter. According to The World Health Organization (WHO), the urban outdoor air pollution causes about 1.3 million deaths every year worldwide. Apart from the developed countries, the developing countries are also becoming conscious about their safety from outdoor pollution which is a positive sign for the growth of cabin air filters market in the long term.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3478 Based on vehicle type, automotive air filter market can be segmented under passenger cars, light commercial vehicles and heavy commercial vehicles. However, there exist certain restraints for automotive air filters market including large interval of their replacement in the developing countries and increasing market for duplicate automotive air filters.Growing per capita income in other Asian countries such as India is propelling the demand for passenger cars. On the other hand, the increasing industrialization and commerce in Asian countries are boosting the market for commercial vehicles which is driving the automotive air filters market in the region. Commercial vehicles in the developing countries need more care and maintenance as the quality of parts used in them is low as compared to the commercial vehicles manufactured in the developed countries. Moreover, due to less developed infrastructure the chances of entry of dust and dirt in the combustion compartment are high. Due to these factors, the replacement market in the developing markets including Asia Pacific is high as compared the developed countries. However, cabin air filters finds very less usage in commercial vehicles as the requirement for cabin convenience is very less in their case.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3478 Among the regions, Asia Pacific dominated the global sales of automotive air filters followed by North America. China surpassed U.S. in 2010 to become the country with largest automotive population. Some of the key companies operating in automotive air filter market include AC Delco Inc., Affinia Group, Denso Corporation, Hengst GmbH and Company KG, Cummins Inc, Toyota Boshoku Corporation and Hollingsworth & Vose Company Inc. PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 13:36:19 Press Information Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, Telephone - +1-646-568-7751 USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Yogesh Senger Manager 6465687751 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/ # 416 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager6465687751 Beauty drink market is expected to exhibit remarkable growth due to the rise in early aging. Other factors that promotes the beauty drinks market are increasing air pollution and busy lifestyle of the customers which leads to early ageing. Air pollutants includes polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) that ultimately results in accelerated ageing. Consumers seek healthy options which eventually supports the beauty drinks market across the globe.Global beauty drinks market is expected to exhibit remarkable growth. Major factors that are expected to propel the demand for beauty drinks market globally are rising number of health conscious consumers across various countries coupled with increasing disposable income of consumers. Moreover, other factor that is expected to support the market growth of the beauty drinks across the globe is the easy availability of beauty drinks through online sales. Various other factors that are expected to fuel the overall market of beauty drinks market are increasing air pollution which eventually leads to early ageing and promotes the demand for beauty drinks market.A sample of this report is available upon request https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/9950 Global Beauty Drinks market is segmented by: demographic, ingredient, type and regionBeauty Drinks by Demographic ConsumptionTeenagerYounger WomenMature womenBeauty Drinks by IngredientProtein or collagenVitaminsMineralsFruit ExtractsBeauty Drinks by TypeNatural DrinksChemical/artificial DrinksBeauty Drinks By RegionAsia PacificEuropeNorth AmericaLatin AmericaThe Middle East & AfricaThe global beauty drinks market is anticipated to witness remarkable growth during the forecast period. Globally among all regions, Europe is expected to contribute maximum market share followed by North America. Demand for beauty drinks is maximum in Europe due to the more awareness among consumers in comparison to other regions through educational marketing campaigns. However Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market during the forecast period. In Asia Pacific, Japan is expected to contribute maximum revenue due to the high consumer willingness to attain healthy skin.Key players that operates in the global beauty drinks market are SIPA spa, THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, Sappe Public Company Limited, Big Quark LLC, DyDo DRIN CO, INC. and Nestle S.A. Various companies operating in the global beauty drinks markets are continuously launching new types of beauty drinks used for different target customer and applications. For instance, Big Quark LLC launched beauty drink named BeautySleep that includes sleep and beauty inducing ingredients.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/9950 Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Bromine Market Sales Revenue to Significantly Increase in the Next Few Years " report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:15 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 324 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 Global demand for bromine market will reach 483 kilo metric tons (KMT) in 2016, up from 470 KMT in 2015. Demand will be impeded by growing regulation and legislation, especially in the European Union (EU), where the use of certain brominated flame retardants is banned or restricted.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4274 Flame retardants will continue to remain the largest application segment, accounting for 203 KMT volume in 2016, a y-o-y increase of 2.8% over 2015. Use of bromine in oil and gas drilling will continue its upward momentum in 2016, growing at 4.3% in terms of volume the fastest among all the application segments.The chemicals industry will remain the largest consumer of bromine, accounting for 292 KMT volume in 2016, representing market value worth 1,284 Mn. Use of bromine in the oil and gas sector will also continue to witness steady growth, as clear brine fluids gain traction for drilling purposes. Demand will be offset by sluggish adoption in the electronics industry, as use of brominated flame retardants continues to face stricter regulations. Demand for bromine from electronics sector will witness a growth rate of 2.1% in 2016 over 2015.Asia Pacific will remain the largest market for bromine, representing annual revenues worth US$ 1,087 Mn in 2016, up from 895 Mn in 2015. This is primarily due to expansion of end-use industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, and electronic in APAC. Latin America will continue to offer growth opportunities to manufacturers, with global demand witnessing a 2.0% volume growth in 2016 over 2015. Demand will face constraints in the mature markets of North America and Western Europe in 2016 as well.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4274 Israel Chemicals Limited, Chemtura Corporation, Albemarle Corporation, Gulf Resources Inc., Tosoh Corporation, Tetra Technologies Inc., Tata Chemicals Limited and Hindustan Salts Limited are the key players in the market. Top players are continuously focusing on expanding their product offerings, especially in flame retardants segments. Collaborations and joint ventures are key business strategies to develop green brominated flame retardants. PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 12:32:51 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, Telephone - +1-646-568-7751 USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Yogesh Sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 559 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comTeam Lead+1-646-568-7751 The global casein and caseinate market is teeming with companies both large and small that predominantly operate in global and local markets respectively. Of them, few large companies hold prominence in the market due to high revenue generation from sales of dairy products for their nutritional value.Top players in this market such as Fonterra are focused on developing new products to serve niche growth areas. These players are also vying to expand into emerging markets by means of selling new nutrition products. Some other key names in the global casein and caseinate market are Arla, Danone, Friesland Campina, Nestle, Lactalis, Westland Milk Products, and Saputo. The global casein and caseinate market was valued at US$ 2,459.2 Mn in 2017. The market is anticipated to be worth US$ 3,564.4 Mn by the end of 2025 expanding at a CAGR of 4.8% therein.The global casein and caseinate market is segmented depending upon type, application, and geography. In terms of type, the casein market is classified into edible and industrial casein. Of the two, industrial casein enjoys a higher market share due to numerous industrial applications of caseins. The caseinate market based on type has been classified into sodium caseinate, calcium caseinate, and potassium caseinate. Of them, sodium caseinate is likely to represent the leading market share over the 2017-2025 forecast timeframe.Favorable Physical Properties of Casein to Make Industrial Segment AttractiveDepending upon application, the casein and caseinate market is segregated into food and beverages, industrial, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and others. Food and beverages, among them, currently holds the leading share in the overall market. Going ahead, the segment is anticipated to hold supremacy over other application segments in the casein and caseinate market. On the other hand, industrial application segment is anticipated to emerge attractive in several parts of the world over the forecast period. The physical properties of caseinate such as ability to bind with pigments account for its wide application in water-based paints. Also, the emulsifying properties of caseinates make them suitable to be used as stabilizers and emulsifiers in oil and latex paints.Growth of Indian Dairy Industry to Boost Growth of Asia Pacific except Japan Regional MarketGeography-wise, the global casein and caseinate market is classified into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Rest of Europe, Japan, and Asia Pacific except Japan. Of them, North America is currently the leading regional market for casein and caseinate mainly because of rising demand for nutritional food composed of vital nutrients such as protein. The growth of the industrial sector in the U.S. is also contributing to the growth of this regional market. In absolute value, North America casein and caseinate market is predicted to contribute a revenue of US$ 1,231.6 Mn by the end of 2025.Asia Pacific except Japan is predicted to display significant growth in the casein and caseinate market in the upcoming years. The growth of the Indian dairy industry in terms of both production and consumption is contributing to the Asia Pacific except Japan casein and caseinate market.In a nutshell, growing demand for protein rich foods and easy availability of dairy products globally is propelling the casein and caseinate market. Adoption of advanced technologies in the dairy industry that is aiding efficient and economical extraction of milk components is also driving the uptake of casein and caseinates.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/5873 Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Demand for Bismuth Market from Key End-use Sectors to Surge in the Near Future" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:41 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 309 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 Global demand for bismuth is expected to grow at a Y-o-Y growth rate of 4.9% by 2016 end. China is a major consumer, producer, and exporter of bismuth and is anticipated to maintain its dominance in the global market in the near future. The country is estimated to account for 27.0% share of overall bismuth sales by the end of 2016. The increasing use of bismuth oxide in growing manufacturing industries is anticipated to drive consumption in the region. The rapid growth of the automobile end-use industry is expected to drive further market growth.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4398 Increasing environmental regulations regarding lead usage in various end-use industries would drive demand for bismuth and bismuth derived compounds. Stringent regulations and initiatives by leading manufacturers in end-use industries to phase out lead production is expected to spur bismuth market growth. Major paints & coatings manufacturers such as BASF SE and PPG Inc. are actively offering bismuth-based products replacing their lead based portfolio, in order to provide environmentally-friendly product offerings.The bismuth market in APAC is anticipated to witness higher growth rates due to increasing manufacturing activities in China and India. Demand in Europe is also anticipated to be above average due to stringent lead restricting directives in the region, while demand in North America, Latin America, and MEA is expected to be moderate. Declining lead production due to regulations and declining consumption of lead-acid batteries is anticipated to be a major restricting factor for the global market. The increasing use of bismuth alternatives in pharmaceuticals and alloys is also a major obstacle to market growth.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4398 Hunan Jinwang Bismuth Industry Co. Ltd., Hunan Bismuth Co. Ltd., and Nui Phao Mining Company Limited are some of the top producers of bismuth, with a cumulative annual production capacity of 11,000 metric tons. Persistence Market Research has announced the addition of the Superhard Material Market to Register Steady Expansion During 2015 to 2021" report to their offering. Superhard Material Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 11:47:58 Press Information Persistence Market Research CONTACT: Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com yogesh sengar team lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 493 Words CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353 The various products of superhard material include cemented carbides, tool steels, ceramics and diamond. Cement carbide is generally used in industrial applications for machining tough materials such as carbon steel or stainless steel. The superhard material market is segmented in the following three categories: monocrystalline superhard, composite superhard materials and super-hard materials and tools. Monocrystalline superhard materials include diamond and cubic boron nitride.Composite superhard materials include clad sheet for oil and gas, clad sheet for cutting tools, clad sheet and wire drawing die blanks used for coal and mining. Super-hard materials and tools include polycrystalline diamond drawing dies, diamond saw blades, diamond drill bits, diamond discs and diamond cutting tools.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3646 Due to their incomparable hardness, superhard materials can scratch and shape any object, hence it used in a wide range of industrial operations related to turning, cutting, drilling, boring and grinding. Superhard materials are used in many industries including aerospace, alternative energy, automotive, chemical processing, infrastructure and construction, die & mold, electronic, general machining, mining, oil & gas, paper & pulp, power generation, railroads and shipbuilding. Application of superhard material in these industries includes abrasive, coating, cutting tool, general medical, precision part, refractory parts, sensors, semiconductor fabrication, subsystem components and wear parts polishing.In 2013, affected by the insufficient demand from downstream petroleum, construction and metal cutting machine tool and due to the sluggish economy, superhard material and products industrys growth was slowed down and many companies were facing high operating costs due to this reason. In view of this, SF Diamond Co., Ltd, BOSUN Tools Co., Ltd, Henan Huanghe Whirlwind Co., Ltd, and some other companies adopted number of measures to expand their existing production capacity and extend their industrial chain to enhance their operational capabilities.Asia-Pacific is the largest market for superhard material. China contributes the largest share of superhard material market in Asia-Pacific region generating about 90% of global output and become the top producer of manmade diamond. The superhard material market in China reached about USD 2 billion in 2013, accounting about 21.8% of global market share in superhard material. Market of superhard material in North America and Europe region is driven by improving economy, intensifying manufacturing activity and the ensuing rise in demand for machine tools that used for various industrial operations.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3646 Major companies operating in global superhard material market are Zhongnan Diamond Co.,Ltd , Zhengzhou Sino Crystal Diamond Co., Ltd, Henan Huanghe, SF Diamond Bosun Tools, KingDream Public, Advanced Technology & Materials Co., Ltd, Zhengzhou New Asia Superhard Material Composite Co., Ltd., Henan Yalong Diamond Tools Co., Ltd, Shenzhen Haimingrun Industrial Co., Ltd., Zhengzhou Research Institute for Abrasives & Grinding, Monte Bianco Diamond Applications Co., Ltd., King strong Material Engineering Ltd, CR Gems Diamond Co., Ltd, Anhui Hongjing New Material Co., Ltd, Funik Ultra hard Material Co., Ltd, Henan Yalong Superhard Materials Co.,Ltd , Zhengzhou Realy Superabrasives Co.,Ltd and BOSUN Tools Co., Ltd. Fungicides Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 08:38:23 Press Information Persistence market research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY yogesh sengar Team Lead 6465687751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 541 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NYTeam Lead6465687751 Fungicides is a type of pesticide used to kill the fungi or fungi spores. Fungicides finds major use in the agricultural sector for crop protection. It is used to prevent the damage to crops caused by the attack of fungicides. It gives higher yield with better quality of the crops. It is also used to kill the fungal infections in animals. The use of fungicides differ according to the type of crop. Different types of fungicides available are translaminar, systemic and contact fungicides. The active ingredients include chlorothalonil, mancozeb, prochloraz, propicanazole, prochloraz, propicanazole and many more. One of the most common active ingredient in the fungicides is sulfur. Some fungicides are dangerous to human health and so the major laws governing the use of fungicides in different countries is expected to hamper the growth of global fungicides market in the near future. However, the global fungicides market is expected to witness a moderate single digit growth in the forecast period.The most significant demand driver for the global fungicides market is the increasing demand for fungicides in the crop protection sector for ensuring higher crop yields. The growing population is also expected to be the major driving factor for the global fungicides market. The increasing concerns pertaining to the disease control is anticipated to drive the global fungicides market. The shrinking arable land and the growing demand for food is projected to increase the demand for fungicides, thereby driving the global fungicides market.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3387 The growing technological advancements in the seeds is expected to restrain the global fungicides market in the upcoming years. The use of genetically modified crops is projected to restrain the growth of global fungicides market in the near future.The development of new organic fungicides is expected to create new opportunities in terms of revenue for the major players in the global fungicides market.The global fungicides market can be segmented on the basis of product type and crop typeOn the basis of type, the global fungicides market is segmented as:BenzimidazolesTriazolesDithiocarbamatesChloronitrilesPhenylamidesStrobilurinsOthersOn the basis of crop types, the global fungicides market is segmented as:FruitsVegetablesCereals and grainsOilseedsOthersThe global fungicides market is segmented into five key regions on the basis of geography as North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Asia pacific holds the largest market share in the global fungicides market, owing to the large agricultural business in this region. India and China is expected to be the maximum market share holding countries in the global fungicides market. Use of fungicides in the European countries is also expected to increase in the near future due to the stringent regulatory authorities in this region. The consumption of fungicides is also anticipated to escalate in the European countries in the upcoming years. The consumption of fungicides in Middle East and Africa is projected to demonstrate a stagnant growth in the forecast period.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3387 Some of the key players identified in the global fungicides market are, BASF SE, Bayer AG, Syngenta AG, The Dow Chemical Company, E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Company, Cheminova A/S, Nufarm Ltd, Chemtura Corporation MRRSE PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 15:12:16 Press Information mrrse State Tower 90, State Street Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207(United State) United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559(Toll-Free) Email: sales@mrrse.com alok manager +1-518-730-0559 email http://www.mrrse.com # 753 Words State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY 12207(United State)United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559(Toll-Free)Email: sales@mrrse.commanager+1-518-730-0559 In order to study the various trends and patterns prevailing in the concerned market, Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has included a new report titled Hair Removal Market to its wide online database. This research assessment offers a clear insight about the influential factors that are expected to transform the global market in the near future.You can get free access to samples Report from here for more Professional and Technical insights: https://www.mrrse.com/sample/3815 The hair removal market is gaining significant momentum across the world, thanks to the increasing interest of people across the world into personal grooming. The rising beauty consciousness among consumers, globally, has fueled the demand for a number of hair removal products, such as hair removal creams, shaving razors, epilators, and wax and wax strips, reflecting positively on this market. In addition to this, the increasing popularity of the at-home hair removal techniques is projected to boost the market for hair removal solutions across the world, remarkably, in the near future.This research study offers a decisive overview of the worldwide market for hair removal by analyzing this market thoroughly on the basis of its past performance and current status. The future market potential has also been evaluated in details to provide the readers with future projections and forecasts. The overview section also includes a qualitative assessment of the overall market, emphasizing the influencing factors and various market dynamics, such as the driving forces, challenges, market trends, opportunities, and limitations, coupled with the assessment of potential customers. In addition to this, an analysis of the markets attractiveness, coupled with the key strategies adopted by the leading players, have been examined thoroughly in this report to explain the intensity of the competition within the market.Read Complete Research Study with List of Tables and Key Figures: https://www.mrrse.com/hair-removal-market This research report consists of an exhaustive executive summary and a market snapshot that provide all the important information about various segments and sub-segments studied within the scope of this research. This section also offers significant information and data regarding the global hair removal market with respect to the leading segments based on the key products available in this market, their end users, and the markets geographical distribution. The performance of these market segments has been assessed at length on the basis of their utility, efficiency, and sales. Based on the product, the market has been bifurcated into laser based devices, energy based devices, and intense pulse light (IPL) devices. Based on the end user, the market has been classified into beauty clinics and dermatology clinics.In terms of the region, the market has been segmented into six regions: North America (Canada and the U.S.), Latin America (Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil), the Middle East and Africa (Israel, South Africa, Turkey, and GCC countries), Asia Pacific excluding Japan (India, South Korea, China, Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore), Europe (the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Nordic countries), and Japan. The market revenue for all the segments have been provided here in terms of US$ Mn for the period from 2017 to 2022, together with the cumulative average growth rate (CAGR %) between 2017 and 2022.In conclusion, the market study offers a thorough review of the key players in the global hair removal market on the basis of a number of attributes, such as the overview of the enterprise, with respect to an assessment of its financial status, brand recognition, and the business. The product portfolio, recent developments, and business strategies have also been discussed in this research report. The leading players profiled in this research study are Solta Medical Inc., Cynosure Inc., Lynton Lasers Ltd., Fotona d.d., Strata Skin Sciences Inc., Syneron Medical Ltd., Alma Lasers Ltd., Venus Concept Canada Corp., Lumenis Ltd., Lutronic Corp., Sciton Inc., and Cutera Inc.Send an Enquiry to Our Researcher for More Info : https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/3815 About Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting. Kidney Fibrosis Treatment Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 12:05:54 Press Information Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/ # 566 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comTeam Lead800-961-0353 Fibrosis refers to a phenomenon of development of excessive connective tissue as a result of some injury or some disease. It results in formation of a layer around an organ in a repetitive manner which results in improper working of that organ. It often leads to scarring. Fibrosis occurs in various organs and is named according to its location. For instance, fibrosis in lungs is known as pulmonary fibrosis, whereas, fibrosis in liver is known as cirrhosis. Kidney fibrosis may be caused due to disease in kidney. It may be any stage from chronic kidney disease (CKD) to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). In this condition, kidneys stop working and gradually require transplantation. Various medications that are available in the market for treatment of kidney fibrosis are Renin inhibitors, Vasopeptidase inhibitors, Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and Pirfenidones. Increasing prevalence of kidney diseases and no other alternative treatment available is driving the market for kidney fibrosis treatment.Request Sample Report@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3102 North America, followed by the Europe, dominates the global market for kidney fibrosis due to large number of aging population and better healthcare facilities available in the region. In addition, there is high prevalence of kidney diseases in the region. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a public health institute in 2014, in the U.S., it is estimated that more than 20 million people are suffering from chronic kidney disease. Asia is expected to show high growth rate in the next few years in global kidney fibrosis treatment market. China and India are expected to be the fastest kidney fibrosis market in Asia region. Some of the key driving forces for kidney fibrosis market in emerging countries are increasing R&D investment, large pool of patients, rising government funding and growing level of awareness.Diseases such as obesity accelerate the incidence of kidney fibrosis. In addition, habits such smoking also adds to increment in incidence of kidney fibrosis. Increasing patient pool, rising awareness about treatment of kidney diseases and government funding are some of the key factors driving the kidney fibrosis market. In addition, introduction of safer and effective therapeutics for the treatment of kidney fibrosis is driving the market. However, high cost involved and no success for all the cases is restraining the kidney fibrosis market.Request Report TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/3102 Introduction of the concept of personalized medicines, mono-therapeutic approaches or combination of therapies are expected to offer good opportunities for kidney fibrosis market. In addition, introduction statins for, which are related to lowering of lipid content, thus expected to be an efficient treatment for kidney scarring. Growing demographics and economies in the developing countries such as India and China in Asia and other countries in South East Asia, Latin America and Middle East are expected to offer high growth in kidney fibrosis treatment market. One of the major trends that have been observed in kidney fibrosis treatment market includes various pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies involved in R&D of some novel medications for the treatment of kidney fibrosis. Some of the key companies dealing in kidney fibrosis treatment market are F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Pfizer, Inc, La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company, Merck & Co., InterMune, Inc. and Galectin Therapeutics, Inc. Other companies dealing the kidney fibrosis treatment market which have significant presence are Genzyme Corporation, ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. and BioLineRx, Ltd. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Global Sodium Sulfide Market to Exhibit Increased Demand in the Coming Years" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:27 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 398 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 In its report titled, Sodium Sulfide Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016 - 2024, Persistence Market Research (PMR) estimates that the global consumption of sodium sulfide is projected to grow at a sluggish CAGR of 2.9% to reach 1,157 KT by 2024. Asia Pacific (APAC) will remain the largest market; however, demand will remain stifled on account of growing concerns about environmental damage. While leather processing will account for the bulk of demand, regular grade sodium sulfide will completely outsell high-purity variant. Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4357 Application Sodium Sulfide for Ferrous & Non-Ferrous Metal Production to Propel its Market GrowthSodium sulfide is widely utilized in dehairing process for leather production owing to its relatively higher effectiveness, efficiency and efficaciousness than other alternatives. The market is expected to grow on account of sodium sulfide applications in ore processing. Sodium sulfide manufacturers are likely to witness steady demand from ferrous and non-ferrous production companies, especially those in the ore floatation process. However, in spite of steady demand from end-use industries, market growth will remain sluggish over the forecast period owing to the hazardous effects of sodium sulfide. The broader industry-wide scrutiny by regulatory authorities will negatively impact demand for sodium sulfide, with cleaner, less harmful chemicals gaining traction. Key Findings in the Report IncludeRegular grade sodium sulfide will continue to remain sought-after among manufacturers. This product type segment accounted for 95% revenue share of the market in 2016. The status-quo is projected to remain unchanged during the forecast period.Leather processing remains the largest end-user of sodium sulfide. This segment will grow at a higher CAGR than the overall market, reaching () Mn by 2024. Demand will also remain steady in the pulp and paper industry. In addition to Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe will remain the other leading markets for sodium sulfide. Manufacturers in these markets will continue to use sodium sulfide for leather production. Latin America and Middle East & Africa (MEA) are expected to reflect 3.1% and 2.4% CAGRs respectively in term of volume during the forecast period. Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4357 Key players partaking in the global sodium sulfide market include Solvay SA, Inner Mongolia Lichuan Chemical Co. Ltd., Changsha Vahenry Chemical Co. Ltd., Tessenderlo Group, Xintai Wanhe Chemical Co. Ltd., and China Nafine Group International Co. Ltd. These players are focusing on development of application specific tailored solutions and product innovations. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Global Spandex Market to Register a Robust Growth Rate During the Forecast Period" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:29 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 528 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research titled, Global Market Study on Spandex Market: High demand for stretchable fabrics in clothing sector to drive growth, the global spandex market has been estimated to reach US$ 4,834.8 Mn in 2015, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.3% over 2015-2021, to reach US$ 8,704.6 Mn by 2021.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4358 According to the U.S Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Spandex is a manufactured fiber in which the fiber-forming substance is a long-chain synthetic polymer comprising at least 85% of segmented polyurethane. This fiber, also called elastane, is a synthetic long-chain polyurethane-polyurea copolymer composed of rigid diisocyanate segments and flexible macro-glycol segments arranged in a specific order. The fiber is characterized by exceptional stretch and recovery properties, with the elongation at break of around 400% to 600%. These characteristics entail its wide-scale use in a diverse set of applications in textile & clothing and healthcare industries. Some prominent areas of application for spandex fibers include sportswear, casual clothing, home furnishings, and undergarments. Medical and healthcare-related applications of spandex fibers include diapers, compression stockings & hoses, and bandages.In the recent past, there has been a steady increase in demand for spandex-based stretchable clothing & apparel in developing regions. Steadily rising population, coupled with increasing disposable income, in these regions is expected to drive the growth of the global spandex market over the forecast period. Besides, increasing demand from healthcare-related applications is another major factor driving the growth of the global spandex market during the forecast period. On the contrary, relatively slower economic growth in some major clothing & apparel-importing countries is expected to act as a deterrent to the growth of the global spandex market over the forecast period. Revenue from the global spandex market is expected to increase from US$ 4,834.8 Mn in 2015 to US$ 8,704.6 Mn by 2021, expanding at a CAGR of 10.3% over the forecast period.In terms of market value, Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the global spandex market during the forecast period, whereas the Middle East & Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America are expected to account for a relatively smaller share in the global spandex market value during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is expected to register a CAGR of 11.0% in terms of market value over the forecast period.On the basis of application, the medical segment is slated to expand at a relatively faster CAGR during the forecast period. Growth in this segment is primarily driven by increasing demand for medial textiles & apparel and rising demand for diapers from certain regions. In terms of market value, a medical segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.8% over the forecast period. In terms of overall market value, clothing segment is expected to dominate the global spandex market throughout the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4358 Hyosung Corporation, INVISTA, Asahi Kasei Corporation, and Zhejiang Huafon Spandex Co. Ltd are leading players in the global Spandex market. Other players in the market include Yantai Tayho Advanced Materials Co., Ltd, TK Chemical Corp., Taekwang Industrial Co. Ltd., Jiangsu Shaungliang Spandex Co., Ltd, Xiamen Lilong Spandex Co., Ltd, and Indorama Industries Limited. Persistence Market Research has announced the addition of the X Fertilizers Potash Etf Market to Register Steady Expansion During 2015 to 2021" report to their offering. PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 11:20:44 Press Information Persistence Market Research CONTACT: Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com yogesh sengar team lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 555 Words CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353 Plant diseases are the cause of crop and plant damage which is caused by plant pathogenic (disease causing organism). Fungi are the most common pathogenic organism that damages the productivity of crop or plant. Other pathogenic organism causing damage to the crop and plants are viruses, nematodes and bacteria. Within the agricultural sector, manufacturers of fertilizers are the most important channel in the food supply chain. Quality fertilizers are responsible for the growth and productivity of the crop to manage the rising demand for food in the growing population scenario. Farmers require these nutrients to increase crop yields, and fertilizer companies have become the primary producers of commodities that are critical for global food supply growth. Some of the major fertilizer ingredients include nitrogen, phosphate and potash which are helpful in improving the productivity of the crop.X Fertilizers/Potash ETF is a system that keeps a track on the actual performance of the largest and most liquid listed companies in the field of fertilizer manufacturing. Also, provide proper information to the manufacturers of fertilizers about the potential market and the requirements of the farmer to increase the crop yield, so as to stand ahead of the increasing food demand in the global market. Additionally, X Fertilizers/Potash ETF provides accurate information about the emerging market for fertilizers and in which part the manufacturing companies should invest.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3539 Asia Pacific is the largest consumer of fertilizers (owing to increasing agricultural sector in the countries such as India and China). China is the largest consumer of fertile globally accounting for more than one fifth of global fertilizers consumption. North America and Europe follows Asia Pacific market in the consumption of fertilizers. Asia Pacific being the largest consumer of fertilizers is also the largest market for X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system. It is followed by North America and Europe. Asia Pacific region is expected to maintain its dominance in the forecasted period. North America and Europe are expected to witness average growth in the coming future. Latin America region is expected to witness highest growth in the forecasted period owing to increasing domestic demand of fertilizers by the farmers.With increasing population, demand for food items is increasing. To cater the increasing demand, better agriculture facilities is required, increasing the importance of fertilizers in the agriculture sector. Increasing demand for fertilizers is expected to increase the global demand for X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system. Additionally, farmers are getting aware about the significant economic impact of fertilizers on yield and quality of the crop. This is further expected to increase the demand for X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system to provide proper information to the manufacturers of the fertilizers about the actual demand and in terms of quantity and quality. However, strict government regulation on use of certain fertilizers may hamper the fungicides market.Owing to increasing demand of fertilizers the manufacturing companies are implementing more of X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system, providing ample growth opportunity for the global X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system market. Some of the major companies operating in the global X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system are Solactive AG, Syngenta AG, Bayer AG, The Dow Chemical Company, Nufarm Limited, and E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Company.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3539 Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Growing End-use Adoption to Fuel Sales of Dicamba Market During the Forecast Period" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:06:03 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 602 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 The global dicamba market features the prominence of a handful of companies that hold majority market shares. Increasing production, focus on expanding presence in the global crop protection market, and launch of advanced dicamba formulations are the focus of top companies in the global dicamba market. In addition, enhancing the product portfolio and investments for new production facilities are some of the growth strategies that leading companies in the market have resorted to.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4552 Key names in the global dicamba market include BASF SE, E.l.du Pont de Nemours & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Nufarm Limited, Gharda Chemicals Limited, Monsanto Company, Syngenta AG, and Albaugh LLC. The global dicamba market stood at a valuation of US$ 337.8 Mn in 2017. Expanding at a CAGR of 7.9% for the forecast period between 2017 and 2021, the market is predicted to be worth US$ 457.3 Mn by the end of 2021.Agriculture to Continue to Remain an Attractive Application Area for DicambaThe global dicamba market is segmented on the basis of application and geography. In terms of application, the dicamba market is segregated into agriculture, lawn & turf, and others. Of these, agriculture is the leading application segment mainly because of increasing adoption of herbicides such as dicamba to control the growth of weeds in agricultural farms. Damages caused by weeds account for heavy loss of agriculture production. In the years ahead too, the agriculture application segment is likely to maintain its dominance due to increasing adoption of dicamba to control the growth of weeds in agricultural land. In terms of growth rate, the lawn & turf segment is anticipated to be attractive over the forecast period.Growing Agricultural Exports from Latin America to Bode Well for the Global Dicamba MarketGeographically, the global dicamba market is classified into five key regions namely North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa. Europe has been the leading regional market for dicamba in the recent past. In 2015, the region held the leading share of 28.8% in the overall market. The Europe dicamba market is likely to be a significant regional market over the forecast period. The growth of this region is mainly because of steady demand for dicamba from EU5 countries that account for a major chunk of dicamba in the region. The region was closely followed by North America and Asia Pacific.North America is anticipated to register the leading growth rate in the upcoming years. The region is expected to emerge as the most lucrative market for dicamba in the near future. In North America, glyphosate is extensively used as an herbicide. However, emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds has necessitated farmers to adopt alternative herbicides such as dicamba. In addition, glyphosate has also been identified with carcinogenic characteristics by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This is translating into growth for the North America dicamba market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4552 Latin America is predicted to register the second highest growth rate in terms of value and volume over the forecast period. In the recent past, the region witnessed steady growth of the herbicide market. Growing exports of agricultural produce from countries such as Brazil and Argentina have made it imperative for farmers to use crop protection herbicides to keep weeds at bay. The Middle East and Africa on the other hand is predicted to display a relatively slower growth rate over the forecast period.It can be summarized that the growing adoption of dicamba to control weeds growth that leads to loss of agricultural produce is predominantly driving the global dicamba market. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Hydraulic Cylinder Market Sales Revenue to Significantly Increase in the Next Few Years " report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:06:19 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 596 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Hydraulic Cylinders Market: Global Industry Analysis 2013-2017 and Forecast 2018-2026, the global market for hydraulic cylinders is estimated to reach a value of US$ 11,410.4 Mn by 2018 end. With a CAGR of 4.3% from 2018 to 2026, the market is expected to reach a value of US$ 16,019.9 Mn by 2026.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4713 A hydraulic cylinder is an actuation device that converts hydrostatic energy into mechanical energy and produces a unidirectional force. Hydraulic cylinders differ from hydraulic motors, as hydraulic cylinders perform linear or transitory motion and hydraulic motors perform rotational motion. According to its function, hydraulic cylinders are divided as single acting cylinders, double acting and multi stage/ tandem cylinders.Global Hydraulic Cylinders Market: DynamicsThe market for hydraulic cylinders is primarily driven by growing infrastructural developments coupled with construction activities across the globe. Many countries across the globe still do not have basic infrastructure facilities such as roads for transportations, information and communication, and electric power, attributing to which the governments in these countries are making investments to improve infrastructure. This increasing scope of development in the global infrastructure industry is encouraging various businesses to come up with solutions to enhance systems with advanced equipment and machinery to improve infrastructure in developing countries. Apart from infrastructure, the increasing global population is surging construction activities in many countries across the world. Growth in the global construction sector and infrastructural development is expected to create a need for modern equipment and machinery in the coming years. Increasing use of hydraulic cylinders in engineering equipment used in construction and infrastructural developments is expected to trigger the growth of the global hydraulic cylinders market in the future.Global Hydraulic Cylinders Market: Segmental InsightsThe North America region is anticipated to dominate the market in terms of volume and value, which can be mainly attributed to the presence of a majority of manufacturers in the region, who are focusing on product innovation. The region is pegged to grow with an impressive CAGR between 2018 and 2026. Moreover, the North American hydraulic cylinder market is expected to emerge as the most lucrative market in the world during the forecast period. Additionally, rapid industrialization and construction activities across countries of Asia Pacific, mainly India and China are expected to create healthy demand for hydraulic cylinders from the region.On the basis of product type, the welded hydraulic cylinder segment is slated to dominate the global hydraulic cylinders market throughout the forecast period. Attributing to the increasing adoption of welded cylinders in the production of construction and mining equipment, this segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment in terms of product type in the global hydraulic cylinders market during the forecast period. In terms of market value, the welded hydraulic cylinder segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.5% between 2018 and 2026.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4713 Global Hydraulic Cylinders Market: Key ParticipantsSome of the market participants involved in the production of hydraulic cylinders include Bosch Rexroth AG, Eaton Corporation Plc, Parker Hannifin Corporation, Actuant Corporation, Caterpillar Inc., Jiangsu Hengli Hydraulic Co., Ltd., HYDAC, Wipro Enterprises Limited, SMC Corporation, Weber-Hydraulik GmbH, Pacoma GmbH, Texas Hydraulics, Jarp Industries, Liebherr Group, and Best Metal Products. Players in the global hydraulic cylinders market are inclined towards self-integrated operations; they are either hydraulic cylinder manufacturers or hydraulic cylinder as well as hydraulic equipment manufacturers. Such self-integrated operations are creating raw material security and hence, players are focusing on expanding their market shares using these capabilities. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Increasing Consumer Awareness to Fuel Adoption of White Spirit Market" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:55 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 803 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 White Spirits Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Forecast (2017-2025), a new report published by Persistence Market Research, tracks the performance of the global white spirits market for a projected period of eight years, i.e. between 2017 and 2025. According to this report, in terms of value, the global white spirits market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.2% during the assessed period. This market is estimated to be valued at US$ 5,832.3 Mn by 2017 end and reach US$ 8,103.2 Mn by the end of 2025. The steady growth is anticipated in terms of demand from various applications, such as paints thinner and cleaning & degreasing solvents which is expected to drive the growth of the white spirits market during forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4544 Global White Spirits Market: Key RegulationsNeed: In the recent past, regulatory bodies have begun implementing regulations mandating the reduction of VOC emissions due to rising environmental concerns and deteriorating air quality across the globeRegulations: Directive 2004/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on the limitation of emissions of VOCs due to the use of organic solvents in certain paints and varnishes and vehicle refinishing products and amending Directive 1999/13/EC Paints based on white spirits, intended to be used by the general public, are restricted in Denmark for indoor use on ceilings and walls. In 2007, the Scientific Committee on Occupational Exposure Limits proposed the following value as recommended occupational limit value for white spirits: 20 ppm (116 mg/m) as 8 h average level, 50 ppm (290 mg/m) as 15 min short-term exposure limit level. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set the legal limit (permissible exposure limit) for white spirits exposure in the workplace as 500 ppm (2,900 mg/m3) over an 8-hour workday. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has set a recommended exposure limit of 350 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday and 1,800 mg/m3 over 15 minutes.Description: The VOC directive that aims to reduce ozone formation potential of VOCs in connection with photochemical reactions in ambient air, defines 12 sub-categories for coating products applied to buildings and five subcategories for vehicle refinishing products for which limits are set with regard to VOC content. The maximum permissible VOC content range is 30840 g/l, depending on the product.Effect on the White Spirits Market: Owing to regulations related to VOC emissions, there is increasing demand for low aromatic white spirits globally, which hinders demand for conventional white spirits. Major manufacturers are shifting focus towards marketing of white spirits with low aromatic content so as to comply with regulations.Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by ApplicationOn the basis of application, this market is segmented into paint thinner, cleaning solvent, degreasing solvent, fuel, disinfectant and others. In terms of application, the paint thinner segment is expected to witness healthy growth owing to increase in demand from industrial and architectural/decorative coatings during the forecast period. Building & Construction segment is expected to register nearly 1.3X growth between 2017 and 2025. The Paint Thinner segment is anticipated to witness sound growth. It is expected to grow with a CAGR of 4.9% over the forecast period.Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by Grade TypeGrade type segment consists of low flash grade, regular flash grade and high flash grade. Regular flash grade segment is projected to expand at a relatively higher CAGR over the forecast period. The regular flash grade segment is estimated to account for a 60.9% revenue share in the global white spirits market in 2025, followed by high flash grade and low flash grade segments respectively.Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by Product TypeProduct type segment includes type 1, type 2 and type 3 segments. In terms of value, the type 1 segment has been estimated to account for a 46.1% share by 2025 end. This is projected to grow 1.4X during the forecast period to be valued at US$ 3,778.4 Mn in 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 4.3%Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by RegionAPAC is the key market that accounts for a major share in the global white spirits market. The market in APAC is expected to register high CAGR over the forecast period and provide significant opportunities in the global white spirits market owing to the growing paints & coatings, automotive, packaging and building & construction industry in this region as well as shifting of manufacturing industries to China, India and ASEAN Countries. APAC is estimated to account for around 41.4% share in terms of value in the global white spirits market in 2017.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4544 Global White Spirits Market: Key PlayersExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total S.A., Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd., Neste Oyj, Haltermann Carless Deutschland GmbH, DHC Solvent Chemie GmbH, GSB Chemical Co. Pty. Ltd., and Al Sanea Chemical Products are some of the key companies operating in the global white spirits market. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Industrial Explosives Market Share to Witness Steady Rise in the Coming Decade" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:05:20 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 631 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 Rising urbanization has catapulted the use of coal-fired power generation. Quarrying activities from all corners of the world are also resuming at a steady pace. Technological advancements are facilitating the resurgence of global mining industry. Factors such as these and many more are instrumenting the growth in global demand for industrial explosives. A recent report published by Persistence Market Research estimates that in 2016, more than US$ 9 billion worth of industrial explosives were sold in the world. In the course of next eight years, the global market for industrial explosives is anticipated to grow steadily at 5.6% CAGR and reach US$ 14.58 billion value.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4319 In the report, titled Industrial Explosives Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024, Persistence Market Research predicts that more than 23 million metric tons of industrial explosives will be used up globally by the end of 2024. Key findings on the global industrial explosives market indicate that environment protection agencies and bodies will strongly coerce the production of industrial explosives. Manufacturers of industrial explosives will be compelled to bring forth advancements in their offerings, particularly towards reducing volumes of explosives used in large-scale explosions and lowering the environmental impact that follows.Surging Preference to Blasting AgentsWith respect to the type of industrial explosives, the report clearly indicates an outright preference to blasting agents. Industrial verticals, where use of explosives is an integral part of production activities, are favoring the use of blasting agents. As opposed to high explosives, more than 22 million metric tons of blasting agents are forecasted to be sold by 2024. In due course of the projected period, global demand for high explosives will see a negligible dip. Nearly 95% of global industrial explosive revenues will be accounted by sales of blasting agents across various industrial sectors.Construction Largest End-User of Industrial ExplosivesThe global building & construction industry needs blasting agents and explosives for creating subterranean pits, upon which edifices are erected. While mining remains to be one of the recognizable end-use of industrial explosives, revenues contributed by construction industries will be soaring at the highest CAGR of 6%. The report estimates that in 2016, more than US$ 1 billion of industrial explosives were consumed by construction activities. In terms of volume, metal mining and non-metal mining will collectively consume over 17 million metric tons of industrial explosive by the end of 2024. Stringent restriction for environmental laws, however, will inhibit the use of industrial explosives by quarrying industries.Higher Sales of Industrial Explosives in Asia-PacificIn 2017 and beyond, revenues emanating from sales of industrial explosives across Asia-Pacific countries will be accounting for more than 40% of global revenues. Australian companies Orica Limited and Dyno Nobel Pty Limited (Incitec Pivot Limited) are two of the largest producers of industrial explosives in the world. By accounting for nearly 40% share of global revenues, these two companies continue to funnel billions into Asia-Pacifics industrial explosives market. Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Company Limited, Ideal Industrial Explosives Ltd., and NOF Corporation are other key industrial explosive manufacturers based in this region.North Americas industrial explosives is likely to lose traction over the course of forecast period, and will be valued at US$ 3 billion by 2024-end. US-based Autsin Power Holdings Company continues to contribute to global market revenues by offering accessories for carrying out industrial explosions in quarrying and mining.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4319 Meanwhile, Latin Americas industrial explosives market will soar at the highest value CAGR of 6.5%. Chile-based Enaex SA is recognized as a prominent producer of industrial explosives, initiation systems, and blowing agents. Based in Peru, Exsa SA has gained global recognition for providing bulk emulsions, dynamites and cartridge emulsions to industries. Other key players in the global industrial explosives market include, Irish Industrial Explosives Limited, Eurenco, and MAXAMCORP HOLDINGS SL. PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 22:45:34 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 867 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 CALGARY, AB / ACCESSWIRE / December 14, 2018 / International Cannabrands Inc. (CSE: JUJU) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed the second tranche of its previously announced brokered private placement (the "Offering") pursuant to an engagement letter with Gravitas Securities Inc. and Canaccord Genuity Corp. (collectively, the "Agents").The Company sold 5,500,000 units (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.10 per share. Each Unit consisted of one (1) common share and one (1) warrant. Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional Common Share at a price of $0.15 per share for a period of 36 months. Together with the first tranche which closed December 7, 2018, the Company has raised gross proceeds of $1,302,000 to date pursuant to the Offering.The Agents will be paid a cash commission equal to 7% of the gross proceeds of the Offering and will also receive warrants to purchase such number of common shares as is equal to 7% of the Units sold under the Offering (the "Broker Warrants"). The Broker Warrants will be exercisable for a period of 36 months following closing of the Offering at an exercise price of $0.10 per share.All of the securities issued under the private placement are subject to a hold period expiring four months and one day from the date hereof.About International Cannabrands (ICI)The Company's business model is to generate revenue from cannabis cultivation, brands ranging from flower to edibles and from THC to CBD, oil extraction, ancillary products and apparel in the United States. ICI markets products with THC content where that practice has been legalized at the state level through either medicinal or full recreational use. ICI also markets products containing CBD in the US and internationally. ICI's strategy centers on acquiring micro brands, distribution and specific manufacturing/cultivation companies in the cannabis space. ICI has acquired the exclusive rights to Julian Marley's JuJu Royal brand. The Company believes as the legal cannabis market evolves, high-quality, unique products will increasingly capture market share and provide a valuable platform for growth.About JuJu RoyalJulian Marley conveys his message of legalization, freedom, and love through the JuJu Royal brand, a line of naturally produced medicinal herbs. Our vision is to realize the opportunity to become one of the largest brands in the Marijuana industry. The synergy between the Rastafarian culture, music, natural products and an "Irie" experience is a powerful foundation for our business. JuJu's strategy is to develop and grow a complete cannabis line based on an international appeal to a millennial lifestyle seeking a luxurious and premium experience. JuJu will capitalize on the unparalleled opportunity to position itself with unique, innovative, high quality brands that meet and exceed our customer's expectations. More information about the brand and various products can be obtained at www.jujuroyal.net International Cannabrands Contact:Steve GormleyChief Executive Officer1045 Lincoln Street, #106Denver, Colorado 80203Ph: (323) 828-4321 or steve.gormley@intlcannabrands.com Media Inquiries: media@ jujuroyal.net THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUE AN OFFER TO SELL SECURITIES OR A SOLICITATION FOR PURCHASERS TO BUY SECURITIES. THIS PRESS RELEASE IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS A PUBLIC OFFERING IN ANY PROVINCE IN CANADA UNLESS A PROSPECTUS RELATING THERETO HAS BEEN ACCEPTED FOR FILING BY A SECURITIES COMMISSION OR SIMILAR AUTHORITY IN SUCH PROVINCE.NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER HAS REVIEWED OR ACCEPT 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 of International Cannabrands Inc. in the United States, nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities offered have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any U.S. state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. Persons unless registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and applicable state securities laws or unless an exemption from such registration is available.Disclaimer concerning Forward-looking StatementsCertain statements included herein constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, regulatory approval of the Offering. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional risks and uncertainties regarding the Company are described in its publicly-available disclosure documents filed by the Company on SEDAR ( www.sedar.com) . The forward-looking statements contained in this news release represent the Company's expectations as of the date of this news release, or as of the date they are otherwise stated to be made, and subsequent events may cause these expectations to change. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend, and undertakes no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect, in particular, new information or future events.SOURCE: International Cannabrands Inc. PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 04:00:27 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 385 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Dan Seaman, VP at Ad Marketing Pros, has passed his Certified Social Leads Consultant Certification Exam and is now offering LinkedIn profile makeovers. He can help clients to get more leads through the largest b2b social network and build their web presence.SPEARFISH, SD / ACCESSWIRE / December 13, 2018 / Dan Seaman, VP at AdMarketingPros LLC, has passed his Certified Social Leads Consultant Certification Exam, and is now offering free LinkedIn profile makeovers. He can work with businesses in any niche to bring in more leads, engage with prospects, and ultimately make more sales.More information can be found at: https://linkedin.com/in/dan-seaman-admarketingpros Ad Marketing Pros helps financial advisors, insurance agents and brokers, attorneys, accountants and other professionals to get more qualified clients and customers. Using LinkedIn is a great way to improve lead generation, and Dan Seaman prides himself on providing high quality service for his clients.With a full LinkedIn profile makeover, business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs can open the door to a potential flood of new clients. Dan and his team can work with clients to optimize their LinkedIn content so that they stand the best chance of ensuring success online.Working with the team at Ad Marketing Pros, businesses can improve their rankings, create a targeted list of prospects, message them to invite them to connect and more. With a fully updated, engaging LinkedIn platform, clients can get daily leads and really take their business to the next level.LinkedIn is one of the biggest social networks online, and has a professional focus, which makes it a great place to get more leads. Once the client has their page updated, they can keep it continually up to date and brand themselves as a leader in their field.This will lead to more exposure for both them, their business, and their services or products. Using LinkedIn, they can generate connections, get verification for past work, and show off their accomplishments.Dan Seaman can show clients how to use LinkedIn in the most effective way to bring in more customers and get their phone ringing.Full details can be found on the URL above.Contact Info:Name: Dan SeamanEmail: Send EmailOrganization: AdMarketingPros LLCAddress: 810 N Main St #187, Spearfish, SD 57783, United StatesPhone: +1-678-478-4690Website: http://admarketingpros.com SOURCE: Dan Seaman PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 13:32:27 Press Information Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, Telephone - +1-646-568-7751 USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Yogesh Senger Manager 6465687751 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/ # 584 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager6465687751 The growing e-communication among the corporates and other social class people around the world has become a threat for written communication. Due to the increasing brand awareness and high disposable income of people (especially among young adults), the luxury pens market is witnessing a decent growth. Likewise, luxury pens key players which are having brands such as Lamy, Aurora, Mont Blanc, Grayson and Parker are trying to encash the opportunities in this growing luxury pens market. The major players are opting to make their luxury pens more royal by making it diamond studded and gold plated, to grab the maximum market share. One of the key trend in the market is that the manufacturers are strategically investing in product development by modifying the luxury pen nib with platinum and other expensive metals. In spite of the sluggish market and curtailed discretionary spending, the luxury pens market is growing at a good rate. Hence, the global luxury pens market has got a great potential in the forecast period. The global luxury pens market is anticipated to witness a moderate single digit growth in the upcoming years.The growing global luxury pens market can be attributed to the growing disposable income and brand awareness amongst people. Growing population coupled with the changing lifestyle of people in the developed countries is anticipated to drive the demand for global luxury pens market. Moreover, possessing a luxury pen has become a status symbol these days and hence, high class society people are opting for luxury pens. Likewise, the attractiveness of luxury pens again plays a great role for boosting its market.The luxury pens market is a niche market, and also there are not much retailers available in the market, which can hamper the luxury pens market. Likewise, the import duty of such luxury pens is high enough to impact its market. Due to its high range the inventory cost of the dealers increases, hence it requires more working capital management which can decline the luxury pens market. Moreover, there is an increase in e-communication among people which would further decline the luxury pens market.A sample of this report is available upon request https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/9887 Global Luxury Pens Market: SegmentationThe global luxury pens market can be segmented on the basis on product type, raw material and application.Global Luxury Pens Market by Product TypeBall Point PensConverter PensFountain PensRoller Ball PensFine Liner PensStylus PensMultifunctional PensBrush PensDie PensGlobal Luxury Pens Market By Material Used:-Precious gold metalsPrecious resinRubberStainless SteelSterling SilverPorcelain/ CeramicCarbonLacquerGlobal Luxury Pens Market by Application:-CalligraphyScreen WritingDocument MarkingGlobal Luxury Pens Market by Region:Asia PacificEuropeNorth AmericaLatin AmericaThe Middle East & AfricaAsia Pacific is the fastest growing region in the global luxury pens market. Countries such as India and China are the upcoming countries where demand for such luxury items are at peak because of the increase in disposable income of people. Even, North America is a flourishing luxury pens market due to the improving brand awareness of luxury pens amongst people.Global Luxury Pens Market: - Key PlayersSome of the key players identified in the global luxury pens market are Paradise Pen Company, Montblanc International GmbH, C. Josef Lamy GmbH, Grayson Tighe, Parker Pen Company, A.T.Cross Company, Sanford L.P.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/9887 Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Micronized Ptfe Market Growth to Surge Owing to Increasing Adoption by End-use Applications" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:06:22 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 589 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 Surging demand for micronized PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) from various industries such as medical, pharmaceutical, and automotive, is expected to drive growth of the global micronized PTFE market. A recent report by Persistence Market Research (PMR) estimated the global micronized PTFE market to register an impressive 6.1% CAGR during the forecast period 2017 to 2025. The market will reach revenues worth US$ 380.4 Mn in 2017, by 2025 this number is estimated to surpass US$ 600 Mn.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4855 Virgin-sourced PTFE will Remain Dominant in the Global Micronized PTFE MarketVirgin-sourced micronized PTFE is expected to remain dominant in the global market, in terms of volume. Sales of virgin-sourced micronized PTFE will reach nearly 50,000 MT by 2025-end. Demand for recycled-sourced micronized PTFE will remain sluggish in the market during the forecast period, owing to its limited usability, inferior quality, and environmental issues.Micronized PTFE will witness the highest demand for application in Ink, expanding at 7.3% CAGR through 2025, in terms of volume. In addition, coatings will be the second largest application for micronized PTFE by 2025-end. Sales of micronized PTFE in lubricant & grease application will exhibit the lowest CAGR through 2025.Pharmaceutical & Medical Industry will Continue to be the Largest End-User of Micronized PTFEPharmaceutical & medical industry will continue to be the largest end-user of micronized PTFE in the global market. In addition, sales of micronized PTFE in pharmaceutical & medical and electronics sector will witness parallel expansion at 6.9% CAGR. However, revenue from sales of micronized PTFE in electronics industry will remain comparative lower than pharmaceutical & medical industry.In terms of volume, Asia Pacific (APAC) will remain the largest market for micronized PTFE, with sales pegged to surpass 20,000 MT by 2025-end. Emerging economies in APAC are driving global demand for flexible packaging, thereby fostering demand for micronized PTFE. In addition, various construction projects are being undertaken in APAC, which in turn will fuel demand for micronized PTFE in this region.Western fluoropolymer producers are entering into partnership with APAC manufacturers who possess technological capabilities and produce high-purity fluorinated monomers. For example, Shanghai 3F New Materials has made a Joint Venture with DuPont in the recent past, for operation of fluorochemicals. These factors are further expected to drive growth of the global micronized PTFE market in APAC.Micronized PTFE Manufacturers in Europe are focusing on Integrating Cutting-edge Technologies & Generating Value AdditionEurope will remain the second largest market for micronized PTFE, with sales expanding at 5.8% CAGR through 2025. Growth of Europes major sectors including packaging & textile, construction, automotive, electronics, maritime, aerospace, energy generation, and healthcare are expected to affect numerous important micronized PTFE end-users significantly in this region. Manufacturers are compelled in differentiating their products, owing to rapid growth of technology in the region. The manufacturers are focusing on integrating cutting-edge technologies and generating value addition to micronized PTFE quality, on the back of recent application developments across various end-use industries. This will further drive the market growth in Europe.Production and operation facilities of micronized PTFE in Europe are subject to extensive environmental health and safety laws & regulations. This is expected to incur increased costs for manufacturers, for complying with new regulatory requirements. This is estimated to curb the market growth of micronized PTFE in Europe.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4855 Leading market players identified in PMRs report include 3M Company, Chemours Company, Daikin Industries, Ltd., Gujrat Fluorochemicals Ltd, Maflon S.p.a, Micro Powder, Inc, Shamrock Technologies, Solvay S.A., China Based Players, JiangXi Aidmer Seal & Packing Co., Ltd, Shanghai 3F New Materials Co., Ltd. Refinery Catalyst Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 08:40:32 Press Information Persistence market research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY yogesh sengar Team Lead 6465687751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 382 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NYTeam Lead6465687751 Refinery catalysts are used by petroleum refineries in the cracking process. Global refinery catalyst market is mainly driven by the increasing demand for cleaner petroleum products. Based on type, the refinery catalyst can be categorized into seven segments namely Hydroprocessing Catalysts, Fluid Catalytic Cracking Catalysts, Alkylation Catalysts, Hydrogen Manufacturing Catalysts, Hydrodesulphurization Catalysts, Isomerization Catalysts and Others.The key raw materials used in the manufacturing of refinery catalysts are metals, zeolites and chemical compounds. Hydroprocessing catalysts are used to create cleaner fuels and possess highest growth rate among refinery catalysts. Fluid catalytic cracking catalysts market is growing towards maturity and losing its market share which is gained by other segments of the market.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3414 Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East are witnessing high growth in the refinery catalyst market due to increasing use of petroleum products. The increasing demand for gasoline and ultra low sulfur diesel has been boosting the market for refinery catalysts. The increasing use of petroleum feedstocks in the industries such as ethylene, propylene and butadiene in North America are creating growth opportunities for the refinery catalysts market. The refinery catalyst manufacturers are increasingly producing more challenging feedstock compositions despite unstable fuel prices. Tightening environmental regulations and increasing demand for diesel are supporting the growth of Hydroprocessing catalysts.However, the European refiners have been reducing their production capacities due to weak economic condition in the region. According to International Energy Agency, oil consumption in China grew by 1.6% as compared to 2012, which was slowest since 1992, however it is expected to increase in the coming years.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3414 North America dominated the refinery catalysts market in 2013 followed by Asia Pacific. U.S. and China were the key markets in these regions. The refinery catalysts companies are investing heavily on their research and development as this industry is developing at a fast pace in terms of technology due to changing demands of the refineries. The key companies in the refinery catalysts market are Albemarle Corporation, Air Products and Chemicals, Arkema Group, BASF SE, Chevron, Clariant International Limited, Eka Chemicals AB, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Evonic Industries AG, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, INEOS Group Limited, Johnson Matthey PLC, UOP LLC, Zeolyst International Inc. and W.R. Grace & Company. PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 11:49:01 Press Information Persistence Market Research CONTACT: Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com yogesh sengar team lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 555 Words CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353 Refrigerated vehicles are used for transportation of vulnerable food, pharmaceutical and healthcare products. The increasing population and consumer spending on food products has surged their production globally. Among food products, dairy products and fresh fruits and vegetables require cold storage and transportation for their sustainability. The increasing global warming has been emerging as a matter of great concern for the food producers globally which is reducing the shelf life of these products in non-refrigerated conditions. Most of the pharmaceutical and healthcare products need protection from heat and light to maintain their chemical and biological formulation. All these concerns have been driving the refrigerated vehicles market globally and are expected to increase in terms of growth rate during 2014-2020.Refrigerated vehicles include a large types of vehicles used in several transportation requirements based on loading requirement. Some of their types include refrigerated vans, refrigerated trucks, refrigerated trailers, refrigerated railcars, refrigerated ships, refrigerated transport by air, refrigerated containers, atmosphere controlled containers, intermodal refrigerated containers, insulated containers, integral reefer containers and multimodal temperature containers. The increasing consumer awareness about fresh products is one of the important factors which have been escalating the demand for refrigerated vehicles globally.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3595 The developing and underdeveloped countries have an underdeveloped cold-supply chain infrastructure which leads to destruction of a large quantity of food products every year. This also increases warehousing charges of the food manufacturers and the distributors as they have to maintain local distribution points in the area of demand. The growing population and increasing per capita income in these countries is boosting the demand for food products which is further creating demands for the refrigerated vehicles in these countries. The dairy product consumption in Asia Pacific countries have also been increasing to a great extent in recent times. The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries have also been growing at a rapid pace in these developing countries which is creating demand for the refrigerated vehicles in this domain as well. The shortage of skilled labor and unstable fuel prices are the key hurdles for the refrigerated vehicles market. The companies operating in the refrigerated vehicles market are improving the fuel efficiency and noise reduction of these vehicles.There have been several technology development and introduction in the recent times by the refrigerated vehicle manufacturers. They include CorroGuard and ThermGuard by Great Dane, Strip door solution for refrigerated trucks by R.O.M, GRIPTM by RTE, LED based indicator by Carrier, economical cold plates by Johnson, reefer monitoring system by PAR, reefer-trak sentry solutions by Star-Trak, Secureseal system by OEM Group, new alternator by Robert Bosch and Fleetview by Terion.Among regions, North America dominated global sales of refrigerated vehicles market, followed by Europe. There are a large number of market players in the refrigerated vehicles market which are operating in a particular country or globally through their subsidiaries. The global refrigerated vehicles market is fragmented however; it is increasingly advancing towards consolidation with a number of companies engaged in merger and acquisition activities.The key market players include Great Dane Trailers, Ingersol Rand Company Limited, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited, Schmitz Cargobull, R.O.M., Thermo King, Carrier Transicold, Johnson, PAR, Star-Trak, GE, OEM Group, Robert Bosch, Terion, Northgate Plc and Fraikin Limited.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3595 PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 11:20:43 Press Information Persistence Market Research CONTACT: Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com yogesh sengar team lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 548 Words CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353 The release liner is a carrier web material made up of paper or plastic. Release liners are coated on one or both the sides with release agent (chemical used to prevent one material from bonding to surfaces of another material). These releasing agents provide a releasing effect when kept in contact with any kind of stick materials. Adhesive (substance when applied to the surfaces of any materials binds them together and resists separation) and mastic (kind of gum) are of the stick material used for releasing agents. Release liners are available in different colors in the market; it can be a printed or non-printed release liner. Commercial coating companies are engaged in the manufacturing of release agent, providing unique solutions to their clients, based on a wide variety of substrates used to manufacture releasing agents. Commonly used releasing agents for release liner are cross linkable silicone and other coating materials that have low surface energy.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3531 On the bases of materials used to manufacture release liner, global release liner market can be fragmented into paper release liner (super calandered kraft paper, clay coated kraft paper, machine finished kraft paper and machine glazed paper), plastic film release liner and others (poly coated kraft papers and poly coated BO-PET film). Release liner can be used as pressure-sensitive labels and pressure-sensitive tape. Release liners have major application in label stocks industry and packaging industry. Other major application of release liners are in the field of graphic arts, envelopes, medical, tapes and hygiene.North America has the largest market share for release liner products, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. The U.S. and China are the largest markets for release liner in the global market owing to increased food and pharmaceutical business in these countries. North America is expected to maintain its dominance in the forecasted period with Europe showing marginal growth. However, Asia Pacific region is expected to witness highest growth in the coming future owing to increasing domestic demand by the food and pharmaceutical industry in the developing countries such as India and China.Increasing demand from the end-user industry for better labeling is driving the global release liner market. Additionally, with increasing investment in the food and pharmaceutical industry, demand for better quality packaging is expected to increase, in turn demand for release liner is expected to increase. Also, with increasing population paired with rising international trade, demand for quality packaging and labeling is expected to increase, further increasing the demand for release liner products in the global market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/3531 Owing to increasing demand from the food and pharmaceutical companies paired with increasing demand from the other end-user industry for better packaging and labeling. The multinational players operating in the market are influenced to invest in the emerging markets of Asia-Pacific. Also, the regional players have increased their production to some extent to compete in the market. Global release liner market is dominated by multinational companies. However, there are some companies operating in the market, but at niche level. Some of the major companies operating in the global release liner market are Gascogne Laminates, 3M Company, Rayven Inc and Sil Tech Waterborne Coatings Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 08:52:43 Press Information Persistence market research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY yogesh sengar Team Lead 6465687751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 352 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NYTeam Lead6465687751 Waterborne coatings are green substrates using water as solvent to dissolve a resin, making them environment friendly and easy to apply. These coatings usually contain approximately 80% of water with minimum quantities of other solvents such as glycol ethers. As per the U.S. and European regulations of waterborne coatings to have a VOC content less than 3.5 gallons of water, these are considered eco-friendly in nature. Various types of coatings such as water-soluble paints, water-dispersible paints, latex paints and water-based alkyds are used for a variety of applications including automotive, industrial, architectural, wood, and packaging.Significant investments from certain large scale companies such as BASF SE, AkzoNobel, and Valspar among others to expand in quite a few countries of Asia Pacific and Latin America have been witnessed. Demand for green coatings in these regions have still been in the development and are anticipated to have a huge potential in the near future. Moreover, focus on R&D activities in the green coatings industry coupled with product innovation has also contributed to the growth of the market.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3460 Growing demand for non-hazardous, eco-friendly, low VOC green coatings from the end-user industry are expected to boost the demand for waterborne coating over the next few years. In addition, growth of the automotive and construction industry has also been the current growth factors for waterborne coatings. However, increasing use of other better performing green substrates such as powder coatings is expected to hamper the growth of the waterborne coatings market.North America was the largest consumer for waterborne coatings. However, future market growth is expected to be from Asia Pacific. Green coatings are expected todominate the market over the next few years due to the expansions by the major manufacturers in emerging economies such as China and India in the region.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3460 AkzoNobel, Asian Paints Limited, BASF SE, Hempel A/S, Jotun A/S, Masco Corporation, PPG Industries Inc., Rpm International Inc., The Valspar Corporation, and Tikkurila OYJ among others are some of the key players involved in the waterborne coatings industry. Persistence Market Research announced the addition of the Welding Equipment Market to Witness Heightened Revenue Growth in the Next Decade" report to their offering. Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2018-12-14 10:06:17 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Sengar Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 583 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 The manufacturing and fabrication industries are evolving constantly. This is resulting in the companies seeking out new technologies to stay ahead of competitors. Use of new materials in various industries is driving the need for welding automation. Companies are also moving towards acquiring new solutions to offer quality product and increase productivity. In response to this, welding equipment manufacturers are bringing in advanced technologies to help companies better serve their customers. Manufacturers are developing welding solutions that can serve both small scale and large scale companies. Modified short-circuit MIG is being integrated into welding machines, ensuring better control and to create high-quality and uniform welds.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4702 New materials such as high strength steels, advanced high strength steels, and increased use of stainless steel and aluminum in fabrications are creating the demand for new welding technology as per the material being used. Hence, a welding system for specific materials is also being developed by manufacturers in the global welding equipment market. Rising trend towards automation is also resulting in the development automated welding equipment for wide range of application. Information management system for welding is also gaining popularity. This system collects and provides information arc-on time, and performance based on voltage and amperage. This help companies to collect data on the performance of welding in real-time and track both quality and productivity.Persistence Market Research report on the global welding equipment market expects the market to witness strong growth during the forecast period 2017-2024. The global market for welding equipment is estimated to reach close to US$ 19,200 Million revenue.Arc Welding Technology to Lead the Global Welding Equipment MarketBased on the welding technology, arc welding technology is expected to see a significant growth in the market. By the end of 2024, arc welding technology is projected to surpass US$ 8,500 Million in terms of revenue. Meanwhile, resistance welding is also projected to witness impressive growth during 2017-2024.On the basis of a level of automation, compared to the manual welding equipment, automatic welding equipment is likely to register the highest growth during 2017-2024. Automatic welding equipment is expected to exceed US$ 13,000 Million revenue by 2024 end.Based on the application of welding equipment, automotive & transportation sector is expected to gain maximum traction in the global market for welding equipment. Towards 2024 end, the automotive & transportation sector is estimated to reach nearly US$ 3,800 Million revenue.Asia Pacific to Lead the Global Welding Equipment Market Between 2017 and 2024Asia Pacific is likely to dominate the global market for welding equipment during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is estimated to reach close to US$ 6,600 Million in terms of revenue. Increasing infrastructure and construction activities in the countries like India and China are driving the demand for welding equipment. Moreover, the automotive industry in Asia Pacific is also witnessing a substantial growth, thereby, fueling the demand for welding equipment. Growth in the steel industry owing to the increasing demand for steel in for product manufacturing in different industries is resulting in the growth of the welding equipment market in the region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4702 Key Players in the Global Welding Equipment MarketSome of the prominent players active in the global market for welding equipment are DAIHEN Corporation, Colfax Corporation, The Lincoln Electric Company, Fronius International GmbH, Obara Corporation, voestalpine AG, Arcon Welding Equipment, Panasonic Corporation, Sonics & Materials, Inc., Rofin-Sinar Technologies, Nelson Stud Welding (Doncasters Group, Ltd.), Amada Miyachi, Inc., and Illinois Tool Works, Inc. Former British Premier, Tony Blair, on Friday called on the countrys current Prime Minister, Theresa May, to hold a second referendum on Britains withdrawal from the European Union. My advice to her is theres no point literally in carrying on banging your head against this brick wall, Mr Blair said in a speech in London on Friday. Its sensible to take your head off the brick wall and think creatively. If you look at all of this mess, how can it be undemocratic to say to the British people: OK, in light of all of this, do you want to proceed or do you want to stay? he said. Ms Mays Brexit deal has met stiff resistance in parliament, with a vote scheduled for this week postponed for fear of a heavy defeat. On Thursday, the prime minister was at an EU summit in Brussels, where she sought legal and political assurances on the backstop provision for an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This would help her sell the Brexit deal, negotiated between Brussels and London, to domestic lawmakers. But the 27 other EU member states were clear that they wouldnt allow any renegotiation of terms. Time is running short to ensure a smooth British departure from the EU on March 29, 2019. Failure to finalise the withdrawal deal in time for Britains departure could lead to an unregulated Brexit, which would likely cause mayhem for citizens and businesses on both sides of the border. Similarly, French President, Emmanuel Macron, says it is time for the British parliament to clearly say whether they accept the agreement on Britains withdrawal from the EU. This agreement, I really think, is good for both sides, Mr Macron says after an EU summit in Brussels adding, and it is the only one possible. Today, it is very clearly the time for the British Parliament to take a clear position on the agreement that has been negotiated by May and her teams with the EU and its negotiator, and to clearly say if they accept and ratify this agreement, Mr Macron said. (dpa/NAN) Fresh procurement documents obtained by PREMIUM TIMES have revealed how the Border Communities Development Agency (BDCA) shortlisted unqualified companies for a slew of federal contracts across the country. Junaid Abdullahi, a son-in-law of President Muhammadu Buhari, is the executive secretary of the border agency. About 33 companies were prequalified for eight zonal intervention projects worth over N1.3 billion that were reviewed by this medium. The contracts were amongst nearly 400 self-enrichment projects of federal lawmakers advertised for execution by the BDCA between late July and early August. In shortlisting the firms, procurement officials at BDCA overlooked tax clearance certificate, one of the top two requirements which any interested firm must present to meet the basic requirement of contract award. In its invitation to tender published on July 29, the BDCA had said all firms must have a minimum annual turnover of N50 million in taxes over three years but officials prequalified at least 18 firms whose annual taxes were substantially below N50 million, according to tax documents obtained by this newspaper. Estivus Nigeria Limited, the last of the 33 companies reviewed, did not qualify for the contract because it obtained its tax clearance on August 16, 2018, three days after the bidding process closed on August 13, 2018. It remained unclear how the firm was smuggled into the list of companies whose bids were received as of deadline. A BDCA official claimed that may have been an error which would could still be corrected before the final companies are announced. VIOLATING THE LAW The procurement irregularities by the BCDA are a violation of federal contracting provisions, and were even acknowledged by the agencys executive secretary who told PREMIUM TIMES he had no scruples blurring procurement regulations to support small or upcoming firms who may otherwise have been unable to secure contracts on the accounts of insufficient personnel, finances or other regulatory constraints. But the Public Procurement Act (2007) does not permit federal agencies or their leaderships to manipulate laid down rules in favour of any segment of the society. Section 23 (1) of the law says, Where a procuring entity has made a decision with respect to the minimum qualification of suppliers, contractors or service providers by requesting interested persons to submit applications to prequalify, it shall set out precise criteria upon which it seeks to give consideration to the applications and in reaching a decision as to which supplier, contractor or service provider qualifies, shall apply only the criteria set out in the prequalification documents and no more. By listing companies that have no annual tax turnover of N50 million in 2015, 2016 and 2017, the BDCA is in violation of extant procurement law. The law did not enumerate the requirements an agency must list for contractors, but it strictly emphasised that once an agency set its requirements in a public tender process, it must play by that rule till the end of the process. No amendment or discretion could be exercised in the middle of the process. Nigerias public procurement processes have for years been dogged by abuses and violation of the enabling law. But coming under an administration that promised to bring sanity into public service, including procurement process, the shortlisting of unqualified firms by the BCDA could further dampen the hope of anti-corruption campaigners that President Muhammadu Buharis government would be different. The fight against corruption is more potent when it is effective at the prevention stage, anti-corruption activist, Lanre Suraj, told PREMIUM TIMES. The public procurement in Nigeria is reputed to be responsible for 70 percent of corruption that has taken several trillions of naira into the hand of fraudulent individuals. Junaid Abdullahi, executive secretary of the BDCA, told PREMIUM TIMES the agency used its discretion in giving special concessions to some firms in violation of the law. We cannot be demanding a tax clearance of N50 million per year from a company that is small and bidding for contracts of N2 million, N5 million, Mr Abdullahi said. As long as it is done across board and no one is excluded from benefiting from the relaxed rules. When reminded that the eight contracts scrutinised by PREMIUM TIMES ranged between N120 million and N250 million, Mr Abdullahi struggled to muddle up the matter, saying this newspaper was referring to a separate tender, a false claim he held on to despite repeated clarification by this reporter. Mr Abdullahi, son-in-law to President Buhari, was not the head of BDCA during the controversial prequalifications. He assumed office towards the end of October following his appointment by the president, but has carried on with the flawed process. Mr Suraj said those involved in prequalifying companies without due tax documents should be prosecuted for violating procurement regulations. If someone can breach what has been clearly and publicly listed as requirements in the invitation to tender, then the person should be arrested and prosecuted, Mr Suraj said. You cannot change the rules midway into a bidding process, it is a criminal offence to violate the Public Procurement Act in such a manner. The anti-corruption campaigner said federal lawmakers who nominated a large chunk of projects being executed by the BDCA are often responsible for nomination of contractors. TRYING THEIR LUCK A spokesperson for Ferab Hilltop Nigeria Limited, which has an annual average turnover of just N1.2 million, told PREMIUM TIMES the company knew it might not qualify for the project based on set out requirements, but tried its luck nonetheless. We bidded for so many things, even when you know that you do not have everything, but you could still try your luck, this is Nigeria, the Ferab representative told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone. He declined to give his name. He admitted that even abroad, there are thresholds and statutory requirements for awards of contracts. The National Council of Public Procurement is a key component of the Public Procurement Act, but successive administrations since it was enacted in 2007 have failed to set up the body. PREMIUM TIMES reported last December that Mr Buhari has also joined his predecessors in violating the law by refusing to inaugurate the body. Presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu responded to the report at the time, saying the council would soon be set up, but no such step has been taken so far. We need to set up the council in order to take away the responsiblity of awarding contracts from the president and his cabinet members, Mr Suraj said. The procurement fraud that is being perpetrated every day that the council is not set up is too much. Despite the flawed process, the award letters for the contracts would start going out from the BDCA at the end of December, Mr Abdullahi said. We have a lot to do and we do not have enough time. LIST OF PROJECTS 1. KEKE NAPEP FOR FARM TO MARKET TRANSPORTATION IN BURSARI/ GAIDAM/YUNISARI FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY, YOBE STATE NEW BCDA SGF 135,000,000. 2. PROVISION OF AGRICULTURAL INPUTS AND EQUIPMENTS IN CHIKUN/KAJURU FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY, KADUNA STATE NEW BCDA SGF N250,000,000 3. SUPPLY OF 500 MOTORCYCLES TO KANO SOUTH SENATORIAL DISTRICT, KANO STATE NEW BCDA SGF N140,000,000 4. SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION OF ICT MATERIALS FOR UNEMPLOYED WOMEN IN OYO CENTRAL SENATORIAL DISTRICT, OYO STATE BCDA SGF N150,000,000. 5. PURCHASE OF MOTORCYCLES AT GOMBE CENTRAL NEW BCDA SGF N120,000,000. 6. ENTREPRENEURSHIP & EMPOWERMENT TRAINING OF YOUTHS AND WOMEN IN OGBIA FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY, BAYELSA STATE NEW BCDA SGF N120,000,000. 7. SUPPLY, DISTRIBUTION AND TRAINING OF YOUTH IN ICT IN CHIKUN/KAJURU FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY, KADUNA STATE NEW BCDA SGF N250,000,000. 8. EMPOWERMENT AND TRAINING OF YOUTHS IN KANO MUNICIPAL, KANO STATE, IN SAFANA/DANMUSA/MATSARI LGAs, KATSINA STATE AND IN ODOTIN/IFELODUN/BONPE, OSUN STATE BCDA SGF N150,000,000. LIST OF UNQUALIFIED COMPANIES: 1. GLOBAL GREEN I.T. AND TELECOMS NIGERIA 2. E-CONCEPT TECHNOLOGIES LTD 3. STYLBRID NIGERIA LTD 4. BOLTEM & SONS GLOBAL SERVICES LIMITED 5. AD-BOTOG INTERNATIONAL LTD 6. CRAWLEY INTEGRATED SERVICES LIMITED 7. NORTH GATE GLOBAL CONCEPT LIMITED 8. SANMAN GLOBAL VENTURES LTD 9. METRIC INFO LTD 10. BEACHSTONE LTD 11. OMADAC ENGINEERING LIMITED 12. SUCCESS & RESOURCES INT MANAGEMENT LIMITED 13. AIDSWATCH CONSULTING LIMITED 14. MEQSTAR GLOBAL LTD 15. FERAB HILLTOP NIGERIA LIMITED 16. SYNCWISE INTEGRATED SERVICES LIMITED 17. NANIC INVESTMENTS AND SERVICES LIMITED 18. ESTIVUS NIGERIA LIMITED Details emerged Thursday that the Nigerian government has filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell and Eni in a commercial court in London over the controversial Malabu oil deal. Reuters reports Thursday that the new London case relates to payments made by the companies to get the OPL 245 oilfield licence in 2011. The deal is also subject of an ongoing corruption trial in Milan in which former and current Shell and Eni officials are on the bench. The controversial Malabu deal involves Africas most promising oil block and was struck in 2011 under former President Goodluck Jonathan. The arrangement saw the Nigerian government stand as a negotiator in the controversial sale of the oil block in offshore Nigerian waters. Two international oil and gas giants, Royal Dutch Shell and Italian Agip-Eni, paid out about $1.1 billion to Dan Etete, a former Nigerian petroleum minister who had previously been convicted of money laundering in France. The payout immediately became a subject of a cross-border investigation spanning over six countries. Several Nigerian government officials were believed to have received several million dollars in bribes for the enabling roles they played. Milan prosecutors allege bribes totalling around $1.1 billion were paid to win the licence to explore the field which, because of disputes, has never entered into production. Rather than revoke the deal, the Nigerian government is currently allowing the oil firms to process one of the fields in the block, called Zabazaba. Although the oil giants and their Nigerian collaborators are also being prosecuted in Nigeria, the government, through the petroleum minister, Ibe Kachikwu, has argued that is more interested in striking a financial deal with the oil majors. But the Nigerian government has filed a suit in London. It is alleged that purchase monies purportedly paid to the Federal Republic of Nigeria were in fact immediately paid through to a company controlled by Dan Etete, formerly the Nigerian minister of petroleum, and used for, amongst other things, bribes and kickbacks, the Nigerian government said on Thursday. Accordingly, it is alleged that Shell and Eni engaged in bribery and unlawful conspiracy to harm the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that they dishonestly assisted corrupt Nigerian government officials. Shell in its response said the 2011 settlement of long-standing legal disputes related to OPL 245 was a fully legal transaction with Eni and the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the most senior officials of the relevant ministries. On its part, Eni said in an emailed statement it rejected any allegation of impropriety or irregularity in connection with this transaction. Eni () signed a commercial agreement in 2011 for a new licence for OPL 245 with the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company and the consideration for the license was paid directly to the Nigerian government, it said. In November 2017, the Nigerian state quietly issued a civil claim in the High Court, arguing JP Morgan had been grossly negligent when it was banker to a previous government. The claim, sanctioned by Nigerias attorney-general and seen by a PREMIUM TIMES partner, Finance Uncovered, alleged JP Morgan did not act with the reasonable care and skill to be expected of a bank in compliance with the laws of England and Wales when it authorised enormous payments resulting from an oil deal in 2011. The controversial Malabu deal claimed its first convicts when a Nigerian man and his accomplice in Italy were sentenced to four years each for their roles in the controversial deal. Emeka Obi, a Nigerian consultant in England, and Gianluca Di Nardo, an Italian, stood as middlemen in connecting the parties and the transfer of the funds through international bank accounts. They were found guilty and sentenced four years each and had some assets confiscated in connection with the case. The pair had opted for a quick trial for their roles in the deal. The process in Italian law offers a possible reduction in any sentence. A new report by the anti-corruption group, Global Witness, said in November that Shell and Enis deal for Nigerias OPL 245 oil block reduced Nigerias expected revenue by nearly $6 billion. The group in its new report titled Take the Future said the projected lost revenue could fund Nigerias combined annual federal health and education budgets twice over. A number of Nigerian officials are suspected to have aided the controversial deal. Mr Etete could not be reached for comment but has previously denied wrongdoing. Mr Jonathan, under whose watch the deal was struck, is not undergoing any trial over the case. He has also denied wrongdoing. The father of the late teenager, Ochanya, has narrated how he discovered that his teenage daughter had been repeatedly raped by her guardian. Ochanya Ogbanje, 13, died of Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) in October, eight years after she was in 2010 taken to live with Andrew Ogbuja whose wife, Felicia Ogbuja, is an aunt to the deceased. Her death followed a series of rape allegedly perpetrated by Mr Ogbuja and his son, Victor. Narrating the sad events that resulted in his daughters death in an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Ochanyas father, Michael Ogbanje, said he only got the clear picture of his daughters type of infection, after he decided against the plan of Mrs Ogbuja, and brought his daughter to a caregiver who took her for medical tests for the umpteenth time. We started the treatment at a local government clinic. From there, we were referred to Saint Marys hospital. In February, Mr Ogbujas wife, Felicia Ogbuja, came to me and told me that my daughters case had gone beyond what will be treated at Saint Marys. I gave them money, N16,000 and fuelled their car which was used in taking my daughter to the hospital that day. They were admitted till April. The entire hospital bills were paid by me. Yet Mrs Ogbuja made sure to keep the test results from us. We have been the ones paying her school fees. We even buy things and take to her occasionally, Mr Ogbanje added. The victims mother, Rose, who went with their daughter to the hospital, added that she made several demands for the details of the problem, but her requests were never granted. Each time I ask, they will tell me that my daughter will be well. Even when they discharged her, my daughter could not walk. When I enquired to know why she could not walk since they said she was better, they told me she would soon walk again, the aged woman added, in pidgin English. But days ran into weeks and nothing changed. Mr Ogbanje said he later asked his wife to question the girl when they noticed that she was passing out faeces and urinating uncontrollably. It was during that interrogation by her mother that my daughter confessed that she was sexually abused by Mr Ogbuja and his son. Mr Ogbanjes immediate reaction was that of utter dismay and confusion, to the point of assuming his daughter was going mad. I was surprised when she told me who had raped her. I asked her, are you mad? but she insisted that she was telling the truth. I called her elder one and asked her to repeat what she had told me and she did so. Then the following day I took her, very early to Mr Ogbujah and asked that she narrates the story she had told us. Mr Ogbanje added that when Mr Ogbuja denied assaulting his daughter, the 13-year-old girl stated the places and the times when she was allegedly assaulted by the 51-year-old suspended lecturer and knight of the Catholic Church. But he insisted that only his son had an intimate meeting with my daughter. I then asked him what would happen next, given the state that my poor daughter was in and his wife told me that we should come back the following week so that they would go with us to the hospital and check to know if it is the incidence of rape that resulted in the problem my child is having. This happened on a Monday. But I thought to myself that I could not watch my daughter for another week without knowing how to help her. That was when I took Ochanya to the caregiver, Enuwa Soo, who went with my wife to run some tests at a hospital and all the results came out. That was the first time we knew what was really wrong with my daughter, Mr Ogbanje said. This was in June, he added. Mr Ogbanje further narrated that Mr Ogbuja later came with his wife, kneeling and begging them to avoid reporting the matter to relevant authorities. The first time he came, he was in the company of his wife and some men. They brought some kolanuts and knelt down, saying I should understand that the deed is already done. They offered to continue treating my daughter and refund the money I had spent on her treatment in exchange for my silence, but I refused, Mr Ogbanje said. Mrs Ogbuja was reportedly the first to discover the heinous crime perpetrated then, by her son, Victor. Rather than ensure it did not repeat itself, the Ogbujas family watched the menace continue till it caused the13-year-old her dear life, Mr Ogbanje said. The death of Ochanya has attracted widespread condemnation, with many demanding a thorough prosecution of Mr Ogbuja and his son, Victor. While Mr Ogbuja has been arrested and detained by the police, Victor is still at large months after the matter was reported to the police. The Benue State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, did not respond to calls and text messages when contacted about an update on the whereabouts of Victor by this newspaper on Thursday evening. The Catholic Church, in a statement issued in November by members of the Knight of Saint Molumba, suspended Mr Ogbuja from the order of Catholic Knights, pending the outcome of the matter. An FCT High Court in Maitama on Friday declared a former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana, the winner of the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) conducted on October 6. The party had declared a former governor of Cross River state, Donald Duke, the winner of the election and its flag bearer for the 2019 presidential election. The party said Mr Duke polled 812 votes while Mr Gana had 611. However, Mr Gana went to court seeking to be declared the winner in line with the zoning and rotation formula of the partys constitution. In his judgment, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf held that the regulations contained in the partys constitution were binding on every member and must be obeyed. He held that the zoning and rotation formula as contained in the partys constitution stipulated that both the chairman of the party and the flag bearer should not come from the same zone. In this instance, the partys Chairman, Chief Olu Falae, is from the South and Duke is from the South too; the law is clear; there is nothing to write in-between. The law has crystallised that political parties should abide by the regulations which they have made by themselves. The claimant laid sufficient evidence to have the judgment in his favour; it is a clear violation of the partys constitution; the court cannot wave right over illegality, he held. The judge, therefore, declared Mr Gana the winner of SDP presidential primary election conducted on October 6. He also declared Mr Dukes 812 votes null and void and ordered SDP to forward Mr Ganas name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the partys flag bearer for the 2019 presidential election. In addition, he ordered that Mr Duke should stop parading himself as the partys flag bearer for the election. Mr Gana had joined SDP, its National Chairman, Mr Falae; National Secretary, Shehu Gabam; Chairman, SDP Presidential Screening Panel/ Deputy National Chairman, South, Tunde Adeniran; Mr Duke and INEC as defendants in the suit. former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana Mr Gana sought a declaration that Mr Duke was not eligible to stand as a candidate in the partys presidential primaries held on October 6 in Abuja. He also sought a declaration of the court that he ought to have been declared the winner of the SDP presidential primary election, having polled the highest valid votes in the said election. The former minister wanted an order of the court declaring him the validly elected flag bearer of the party for the 2019 General Elections. Mr Gana also sought a perpetual injunction restraining Mr Duke from parading himself as the SDP presidential candidate for the elections, among other reliefs. He had argued that under Article 15(3) of the SDP Constitution, the office of the national chairman of the party and the presidential candidacy shall rotate between the northern and southern parts of the country. (NAN) The Nigerian army has announced that it is suspending the activities of UNICEF in the North-eastern Nigeria. The army made the announcement in a statement circulated by PRNigeria, a news agency with close ties to security agencies. The armys statement was signed by Onyema Nwachukwu, a colonel and deputy director public relations. This has become inevitable since the organisation has abdicated its primary duty of catering for the wellbeing of children and the vulnerable through humanitarian activities and now engaged in training selected persons for clandestine activities to continue sabotaging the counter terrorism and Counter insurgency efforts of troops through spurious and unconfirmed allegations bothering on alleged violations of human rights by the military, the army said. It is not clear if the military got the permission of President Muhammadu Buhari to make such decision as it does not have such powers. Details later See the full statement by the Nigerian army below. Nigerian Military Suspends UNICEF Activities in North East The Theatre Command Operation LAFIYA DOLE has observed with dismay that some of the activities of International humanitarian agencies and Non-governmental organisations operating in the North East have left so much to be desired. There is credible information that some of them are indulging in unwholesome practices that could further jeopardise the fight against terrorism and insurgency, as they train and deploy spies who support the insurgents and their sympathisers. It is baffling to note that some of these organisations have been playing the terrorists script with the aim to continue demoralising the troops who are doing so much to protect the lives of victims of Boko Haram Terrorism and safe guard them from wanton destruction of property and means the of livelihood. The Theatre Command considers the actions of these organisations as a direct assault and insult on the sensibilities of Nigerians, as they tend to benefit more from expanding the reign of terror on our people. Consequently, the Theatre Command Operation LAFIYA DOLE is suspending the operations of the United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in the North East theatre until further notice. This has become inevitable since the organisation has abdicated its primary duty of catering for the wellbeing of children and the vulnerable through humanitarian activities and now engaged in training selected persons for clandestine activities to continue sabotaging the counter terrorism and Counter insurgency efforts of troops through spurious and unconfirmed allegations bothering on alleged violations of human rights by the military. Information within the reach of this Command specifically indicates that the organisation commenced the said training on Wednesday 12 December 2018 at the Ministry of Finance Conference Hall, Musa Usman Secretariat, Maiduguri and ended on 13 Thursday December 2018. The Theatre command will not tolerate this kind of sabotage from any individual, group of persons or organisation. We call on all NGOs and members of humanitarian agencies to keep to their legitimate norms in the discharge of their acclaimed humanitarian duties. In another development, and in an effort to put the Commanders and Staff officers newly posted into Operation LAFIYA DOLE theatre in the correct frame of mind to conduct Counter terrorism and Counter insurgency operations in the North East, the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Major General Benson Akinroluyodeclared open an orientation and induction cadre for commanders and staff officers at the Maimalari Cantonment Officers Mess, Maiduguri. During the inauguration, the Theatre Commander reminded the newly posted in officers that their selection, posting and appointment into the Operational theatre was premised on the confidence reposed in them by the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai and therefore urged them to work hard to justify the confidence. He further noted that the cadre is the first of its kind in the Theatre and aims at equipping the officers with vital information which they will require in planning for effective command and administration in their respective appointments. While urging the officers to take the cadre course very seriously, the Theatre commander pointed out that the cadre course for the newly inducted officers is no doubt in tandem with the actualisation of the Chief of Army Staff vision to enhance professionalism in the Nigerian Army through training, seminars, management retreats and exercises. General Akinroluyo recalled the days when the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) received global accolade for combat efficiency outside the shores of Nigeria and urged the newly inducted officers to repeat those glorious battlefield successes in Nigeria. He expressed grief over the cases of negligence, lackadaisical and cowardly attitudes of some personnel during Boko Haram terrorists offensive actions in the North East , adding that these unprofessional and disgraceful habits have led to the death of gallant colleagues while weapons and equipment were carted away by the adversary. He admonished that these unwholesome attitudes must not be allowed to continue. The Theatre commander assured troops of Operation Lafiya Dole of the commitment of the leadership of the Nigerian Army in ensuring that their welfare is paramount at all times. He urged the newly inducted commanders to accord utmost attention to the welfare of their troops, describing it as an inevitable motivation for the troops in the North East theatre of operation. A J5 Peugeot has killed two three -year-old children after crashing into a mosque in Plateau state. The victims were participating in the Muslims Friday Jumaat prayers at the Yelwa- Shendam Central Mosque, in Shendam Local Government Area of the state. Witnesses said the incident occurred as the prayer was closing. Abdullahi Salihu, the chief Imam of the mosque, told PREMIUM TIMES on the telephone that two women were seriously injured. Yes, the incident had occurred, he said. Two minors have already died while two other women were critically injured and have been rushed to a hospital for treatment. I was inside Mosque when the incident occurred but later came out to see for myself what has happened. We also calmed angry youth who wanted to burn the car. The driver of the car is safe and nothing will happen to him, the chief Imam said. The cleric gave the names of the deceased as Khadija Dayyabu and Muhammad Kabiru. He added that the funeral prayer would be observed immediately according to Islamic rites. The car, which was fully loaded with firewood, reportedly suffered a brake failure which led to the accident. Police spokesperson, Tyopev Terna, did not immediately respond to the phone calls and text messages to his phone. Five candidates have been pegged down to slug it out at the vice-presidential debates of the 2019 general elections tonight at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja. The candidates were selected earlier this week by the presidential election debates group and a group of broadcast stations affiliated to the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON). Eddi Emesiri, the executive secretary of the Nigeria Election Debates Group, listed political parties that would participate as including: Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN); Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN); All Progressives Congress (APC); Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Young Progressives Party (YPP). Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would participate at tonights debate as the running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari, both seeking to retain their office for a second term. Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State and vice-presidential candidate of Atiku Abubakar would stand in for the PDP tonight. The VP candidates of ACPN, ANN and YPP are also expected to participate. Imoni Amarere, a broadcaster with African Independent Television (AIT), is moderating tonights debate, and has already taken his seat as of 6:40 p.m. The debate is expected to kick off at 7:00 p.m. The 2019 election is coming at a time of immense pressure on the Nigerian economy, with Nigeria recently rated as the country with the highest number of poor people in the world. Analysts expect the debates to be tilted towards this critical issue. The participants are likely to take questions from other key areas of national importance, which could range from health and education policy to national security and foreign affairs. The Boko Haram remains a critical issue, especially as fears have mounted in recent months over the insurgents successful assaults on military formations. The venue of the debate is the Transcorp Hilton Hotels, Refresh this page for new updates. Moderator Imoni Amarere says none of the candidates has seen the questions beforehand. The candidates are called in alphabetical order. Ganiyu Galadima of ACPN is the first to be called on stage. The candidate of the APC Yemi Osinbajo is called next. Khadija Abdullahi of the ANN is called as the third person. Peter Obi of the PDP is here and called. Then the candidate YPP Umar Getso. The National Anthem is now read and debate starts momentarily. While the candidates debate in the hall, supporters of a presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, are protesting outside the venue against the non-inclusion of Mr Sowore and his running mate in the debates. Sowore supporters protest outside the venue of vice presidential candidate debate, demand his inclusion Each candidate has three minutes to give opening remarks. Ganiyu Galadinma of ACPN thanks the organizers and gives a glimpse of the failings of the ruling APC. He promises better governance. Khadija Abdullahi of ANN introduces herself and gives her background as a country builder. Her profile is clearly rich with women programmes. Yemi Osinbajo of APC goes next. Mr Osinbajo, the serving vice president, goes straight to the achievements of his party and lists items projects such as railways and payments to poor Nigerians. Peter Obi of PDP reels out numbers. He focuses on job creation and assures his team will create jobs using the small and medium scale enterprises model as China did. From left: Peter Obi of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Yemi Osinbajo of All Progressives Congress (APC); and Khadija Abdullahi of Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), during the 2018 Vice Presidential Debate organise by Nigeria Election Debates Group in Abuja on Friday (14/12/18) 06666/14/12/2018/Hogan Bassey/BJO/NAN Umar Gesto of YPP says her party believes in a new Nigeria driven by the youth. She promises a new nation that will empower all Nigerians to achieve their dreams. In his opening statement, Mr Galadima said Nigeria cannot continue to be the same. There is a need for Nigerians to look at the candidates and their manifesto. Mr Galadima blames rising unemployment on poor policies of the Buhari administration. Mr Galadima slams the Buhari admin again for failing to properly address fuel crisis, saying the government spends over N2 billion on a subsidy it once described as nonexistence and fraud. Ms Abdullahi-Iya says she is a graduate of the University of Abuja and has been working at non-governmental organisations for several years. She demands a focus on the plight of children in the country. I am concerned about every one of the over 2.1 million children in the camps of internally displaced persons, she says. She closes her opening remarks by demanding that everyone deserves a better life. Mr Osinbajo says he is going straight to the current state of the Buhari administration. We expect the Lagos-Ibadan Railway to be ready soon. Kano-Maradi Railway is also under construction, as well as Lagos-Calabar Road. Mr Osinbajo says the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was abandoned for practically 16 years, and practically every day the government has been working to fix the crucial highway. The VP says the government has made giant strides in agriculture, especially in the production of rice. The micro-credit scheme under the larger social investments programmes of the Buhari administration has gone a long way to address poverty. Over 400,000 people have been lifted out of poverty. Mr Obi started by reeling statistics to attack the Buhari administration. He mentions worsening inequality, misery index, the terrorism index, poverty index, unemployment, health, education and all other key indexes he said have shown that Nigeria is getting worse. Mr Obi says SMEs are contributing to more than 60 percent to employment in China. He says Chinas policies have guaranteed the country over seven million jobs annually, while Nigeria continues to lose over four million jobs per year. The PDP candidate says Nigeria is in the current situation because of lack of jobs, and Atiku Abubakar is a man that could deliver on this and bring Nigeria out of the misery if elected. Ms Getso says in her opening remarks that she is interested in the plight of poor people, given her deep background in charitable activities. She promises a better Nigeria for citizens who are still trying to make ends meet. Mr Galadima takes a question on whether the vice-presidents office an extra tire to the office of the president. He says the vice-president is as key as the president, especially as the Constitution gives the vice-president powers to take serious decisions on the country. Mr Galadima acknowledges that the presidents office is higher than the vice-presidents but says they both ultimately work towards the same goal and of the same importance. Ms Abdullahi-Iya says she is prepared to lead if elected the first female vice-president in the nations history. From left: Peter Obi of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Yemi Osinbajo of All Progressives Congress (APC), during the 2018 Vice Presidential Debate organise by Nigeria Election Debates Group in Abuja on Friday (14/12/18) 06667/14/12/2018/Hogan Bassey/BJO/NAN She promises to ensure that the Nigerian economy is diversified and the countrys image as a mono-export economy would be done away with. She says her humanitarian background and motherhood would help shape her policy decisions to ensure that people who matter are not left behind. Mr Osinbajo takes a question on whether he finds the vice presidents office challenging. He says the Nigerian Constitution gives the vice presidents office specific roles like the chairman of the economic council and several departments and agencies. He says the notion that the vice-presidents office is a spare to the presidents is not true. He says there must a pronounced working relationship between the president and the vice president, and once the trust has been established, there is a lot that could be achieved. This, however, does not mean they do not argue on policy issues, but they are almost always resolved. Mr Obi takes a question on what he would do if there is a fallout between himself and Mr Abubakar should they be elected. He responds first by saying there would be no crisis to begin with. Mr Obi then moves on to discussing policy issues around the nations economy, saying there would be no time for rancour amongst the president and the vice president when there are roles for each person to play. He says the two individuals would ordinarily recognise that they are in office for the benefit of the country. Nearly an hour into the debate, it seems not all the candidates are able to respond accurately to the questions. It may be too soon to judge though. Mr Amarere has reviewed the timing rules downwards from three minutes to answer each question to two minutes to answer the question and one minute for interjection or contribution to another participants response. Ms Getso says she would focus on the economy and constitutional reforms first and power infrastructure second. Mr Obi says Nigerias total capital market is worth about $30 billion, compared to South Africa which has over $900 billion. Mr Obi takes another shot at the Buhari administration, saying it has stifled economic growth by failing to allow free market policies thrive. Mr Amarere says Nigeria has about $18 billion aggregate investment. Mr Osinbajo says the growth in China and South Africa is driven by strong infrastructure. He says the administration has focused on building infrastructure in order to address the challenges of a stunted growth. Mr Osinbajo disagrees with the notion that fighting corruption is not an economic policy, saying fighting corruption could help loosen a lot of funds that might otherwise have gone into corrupt hands. Mr Amarere has reviewed the timing rules downwards from three minutes to answer each question to two minutes to answer question and one minute for interjection or contribution to another participants response. Osinbajo explains that petrol subsidy removal cannot be done now but should be a long term project. Peter Obi argues for the immediate removal of petrol subsidy. Mr Galadima says there is a lot of inefficiencies in the subsidy regime, especially sharp practices by importers and even round-tripping. He says the petroleum sector would be deregulated because subsidy is not in the interest of the common man, and the foreign exchange policies would be made more transparent in order to encourage investors. Ms Abdullahi-Iya agrees, saying subsidy breeds corruption in Nigeria. She also says there is a need to ensure transparency in departments and agency, especially cutting-edge technologies that could help check corruption in public service. Mr Osinbajo also tailors his response towards the same narrative, concluding that deep corrupt practices could attend subsidy regime. But he argues that petrol prices could go as high as N220 per litre should Nigeria implement a total removal of subsidy. He cites an example of the United States, where the government subsidises agriculture. He says a minimum subsidy is useful now to develop the capacity of the people, but it has to be gradually phased out, rather than a one-off removal. Mr Obi says Nigeria is currently subsidising inefficiency, and petroleum sector is a packaged economy. Nigeria has 10 cars per 1,000 people. Mr Obi says prices of petroleum would come down if the right things are done. Ms Getso says Nigeria has been through brutal times over subsidy in the past when subsidy was removed. But when Mr Buhari actually removed subsidy and improved fuel prices but nothing changed, nothing was really done. Subsidy to a Nigerian is just a scam, Ms Getso declares. Mr Osinbajo says the question to be asked is how much Nigerians are willing to pay for a litre of petrol. The closest candidates tonight have come to a common ground is the question of petrol subsidy. Most candidates agree it is fraudulent and should be removed. APCs Osinbajo, whose administration currently pays subsidy, of course argues it should be removed but just not now! Ms Abdullahi-Iya says the Buhari administration should answer what it is doing with the current earnings from petrol after hiking prices from N87 per litre to N145 about a year after assuming office. Ms Getso says no country would grow if its import is higher than its export. She says her party would ensure massive manufacturing, especially by entering into a partnership with the private sector, in order to increase the countrys GDP. UMMA GETSO VP Candidate ,YPP Mr Obi takes a question on diversification. He says Nigeria should look at manufacturing as a major component of the economy. He says China has about 40 per cent of its GDP through manufacturing, because of how it is done with efficiency. Mr Obi says the small and medium scale businesses should be supported, especially those in the manufacturing sector. Mr Osinbajo says Nigerias SMEs have grown consistently since the administration came on board, with several policies specifically targeted at SMEs at several institutions currently underway. He says the government has installed power in marketplaces, like the famous Ariaria Market in Abia State, as well as Sabon-Gari Market in Kano. Ms Abdullahi-Iya says she would pursue a restructure of economies across state levels if elected vice president, which would make her the chairman of National Economic Council. She says she would expand the nations economy through the establishment of special economic zones across the country and reduce the time it takes to travel to export zones. Mr Galadima takes a question on taxes. He rails against multiple taxation, saying he felt strongly about the issue as a businessman. He proposes tax incentives for new businesses coming into the country and local ones. He says the presidential candidate Oby Ezekwesili is a very brilliant economist and would ensure the right things are done. Mr Osinbajo says tax thresholds are in place and they are being enforced to ensure that businesses have the best tax regimes possible. Ms Abdullahi-Oya counters Mr Osinbajo, saying her experience as a businessperson is different from the image the VP has painted. She says corruption in tax payments should be addressed. Mr Obi is asked about Nigerias advantage in African Continental Free Trade Agreement. Mr Obi says Nigeria has not signed the law, but should examine the treaty very well before signing up to it. He, however, says the country has a lot to gain from it as the biggest market. Mr Obi says it is likely going to be a win-win for Nigeria, but manufacturers are raising concerns which should be looked into. Mr Osinbajo says there is a process going on with the private sector to ensure that the agreement is properly scrutinised before it is signed. He says process is underway to bring every critical players on board, and all the serious concerns raised would be addressed as a duty of a responsible and accountable government. Ms Abdullahi-Iya also agrees that the agreement should be carefully dissected before Nigerias accents to it. We want to do business with other countries, but we need to know how much that agreement would affect our economy, she adds. All five candidates argue against immediate signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. They say theres a need for thorough review of the agreement. Mr Galadima of ACPN says he thanks God Nigeria did not sign the free trade agreement because it would have been disastrous for the local economy. He says some industrial sectors that were once bustling for Nigeria have now been taken over by other Western African countries. Ms Galadima says the Buhari administration should have consulted widely while the agreement was being drafted and not at the stage of signing. He says the amount it costs to clear goods from Apapa Port is more than the price to bring them in from Europe. Mr Osinbajo says there are so many other reasons why things are expensive and not just labour. Mr Osinbajo says the CBN is an independent institution and he may not be able to dictate or speak about its policies, but said Nigeria has benefited immensely from the enforcement of foreign exchange restrictions on about 41 items. Ms Abdullahi-Iya says the Nigerias petroleum sector should be reform, and refineries should be built. She also demands transparency in the petroleum sector. The YPP candidate says patriotic leadership is what is missing in Nigeria and what her party will provide. On foreign policy, all the candidates spoke about working with other nations while ensuring Nigerias interest is protected. They spoke on the partnership with other nations. Peter Obi spoke about an Africa first foreign policy while Osinbajo speaks on the review of the African free trade agreement as example of how Nigeria would ensure all international agreements are handled. Debate ends. Candidates take a group picture with the organisers. Governors of the 36 states who met with President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said the president told them that the Nigerian economy is in a bad shape. The chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting which lasted for about 30 minutes, said after telling him of their mission, the president thanked them and said the economy is in bad shape and that we have to come together, think and rethink on the way forward. The NGF met Thursday night over the lingering issue of a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers and agreed to meet with Mr Buhari to tell him their position on the matter. A tripartite committee comprising of government, labour and the private sector, headed by a former Head Of Service, Ama Pepple, has recommended the payment of N30,000 as minimum wage. The governors have consistently said that they will not be able to pay the proposed wage in their states unless massive retrenchment is carried out or the nations revenue-sharing formula is changed to favour the states and local governments. Although Mr Yari declined to comment on what they actually discussed with Mr Buhari regarding the minimum wage, he said the president talked to us in a manner that we have task ahead of us, we should tighten our belt and see how we can put the Nigerian economy in the right direction. He said the president again lamented how the past administrations under the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) allowed the nations infrastructure to decay despite huge petrol revenue. He wondered about what happened in the past; that for the 16 years of the now opposition party, the PDP in power and with oil at 2.1 million barrels per day at an average of $100, many infrastructure are in bad shape, he said. Although Mr Buhari has recently said that he will not complain against the PDP again, Mr Yari said the president told them that that will be his main campaign tool. He is going to open a vigorous campaign and these are key issues that he is going to raise with Nigerians so that they can weigh their choice, he said. The Zamfara governor also said Mr Buhari expressed optimism that all of them seeking re-election or those going to the National Assembly and himself will be victorious, adding, however, that it is not going to be easy, it will be harder than before. Mr Yari said they also thanked Mr Buhari for coming to the aid of states to enable them to pay arrears of workers salaries by paying them the Paris and London clubs refunds. As governors, we, therefore, appreciate what Mr President has done. Without the president, with our mindset and thinking, it will be very difficult for us to govern, thats the truth, he said. He also said that unlike in the past, Mr Buhari authorised the payments without reference to party differences. The presidency has spoken on the Nigerian armys announcement on Friday that it has suspended all the activities of UNICEF in the North-east. Garba Shehu, spokesperson to President Muhammadu Buhari, said the Nigerian Army and United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) will meet on Saturday over the issue. Mr Shehu disclosed this to PREMIUM TIMES, even as Amnesty International condemned the suspension. The Military Commander and his team have a meeting with UNICEF tomorrow, to resolve the issues of concern regarding some of the actions of UN agency. They will resolve their issues by tomorrow, Mr Shehu said in a text message in response to an inquiry over the issue by this newspaper. The spokesperson avoided commenting on whether President Buhari approved the armys announcement before it was made. The army in a statement by Onyema Nwachukwu, a colonel and deputy director public relations, had accused UNICEF of deploying spies to support insurgents in the North-east. The army did not present any evidence in its accusation of the international organisation and did not state if it had a presidential approval. The armys statement was on Friday condemned by an international human rights organisation, Amnesty International. In its reaction, Amnesty International in a statement signed by Osai Ojigho, its director in Nigeria, called on Nigerian authorities to reverse the suspension. Amnesty International strongly condemns attempts by the Nigerian army to demonize UNICEFs lifesaving work in the northeast of the country, where the Boko Haram conflict has created one of the deadliest humanitarian disasters in the world, Mr Ojigho said. We see the suspension of UNICEF as part of a wider drive to intimidate international humanitarian and human rights organizations who are working to save lives in this devastating conflict. The Nigerian army has accused UNICEF of aiding Boko Haram an absurd charge. The suspension of UNICEF will, in fact, deprive those whose lives have been devastated by the Boko Haram conflict from receiving much-needed humanitarian assistance. We call on the Nigerian authorities to reverse the suspension of UNICEF immediately. The Nigerian military should focus on protecting lives rather than smearing NGOs. A few hours after it announced a controversial suspension of UNICEF activities in the Boko Haram-ravaged North-east, the Nigerian Army has reversed itself. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the army on Friday afternoon announced the suspension, accusing the UN agency of acts that encourage Boko Haram terrorism. UNICEF is one of the several international organisations working to assist victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east. The army did not provide any evidence of its accusations and did not state if it had the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari to take such decision. A presidential aide also avoided speaking on Mr Buharis role in the saga, simply saying a meeting would be held between the army and UNICEF to resolve the controversy. In a statement signed by the Deputy Director Public Relations, Onyema Nwachukwu, late on Friday, the army said the meeting had been held. It was Mr Nwachukwu who also signed the statement announcing the suspension, which was condemned by prominent rights group, Amnesty International. In his second statement, the colonel said the army changed its decision after the intervention of concerned Nigerians. Sequel to intervention by well meaning and concerned Nigerians over the recent suspension of UNICEF, the army said. The Theatre Command Operation LAFIYA DOLE convened and held an emergency meeting with representatives of UNICEF this evening. According to the statement, the army urged UNICEF to ensure they share information with relevant authorities whenever induction or training of new staff is being conducted in the theatre. During the meeting, the Theatre Command admonished the representatives of the organization to desist from activities inimical to Nigerias national security and capable of undermining ongoing fight against terrorism and insurgency. The Command also urged UNICEF representatives to ensure they share information with relevant authorities whenever induction or training of new staff is being conducted in the theatre. The UNICEF logo is pictured on a building in Geneva. [Courtesy: voanewscom] Consequently, after extensive deliberations on the need to seek modalities to work harmoniously with the security agencies in the theatre of operation, the Theatre Command has henceforth lifted the three months suspension earlier imposed on UNICEF activities in North Eastern Nigeria. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that there will be no diaspora or out-of-country voting in the 2019 general elections. The commission said this in a statement by its national commissioner and chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye. This followed a conference on Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) voting held by the commission on Wednesday. At the conference, the commission had spelt out the procedure it would follow to accommodate internally displaced persons in the presidential election. On Thursday, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) in a statement by its spokespersons, Ikenga Uguchinyere, alleged that INEC wanted to open polling units in Chad and Niger Republic with a view to adding five million votes to the tally of President Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential election. The attention of the CUPP has been drawn to credible intelligence and reports in the media of the opening of voting centres by the INEC in Niger and Chad under the pretext that the centres are for IDPs to vote. It was more worrisome that the report quoted the Chairman of INEC as having made this declaration in a public forum, Mr Ugochinyere stated on Thursday. Following the report, the Intelligence Unit of the CUPP has since uncovered the massive mobilisation of Chadian, Nigerian and Sudanese citizens preparatory to their participating in the February 16th Presidential elections. We have also uncovered that the plot is targeted at generating nothing less than five million votes for President Buhari in the election. It has now become clearer to Nigerians and the entire world the reasons why President Buhari refused to assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill presented to him by the National Assembly which would have made the Card Reader the only means of accreditation of voters for the election. His only options now include allowing non-Nigerians to participate in an election to determine Nigerias President and without accreditation. We hereby urge the INEC Chairman to retrace his steps and stand with the Nigerian people in these trying times as our electoral laws till date prohibit diaspora voting as no elections for the purpose of electing any public office holder in Nigeria can be held outside the geographical boundaries of the country. If any electoral staff or materials have been deployed outside the country for the purpose of these illegal and unlawful voting points, they should be returned to the country without any further delay. Finally, we call on all Nigerians of goodwill to voice out now and condemn this act and caution the President that his disposition of do-or-die is heating up the polity and that he has the example of former President Goodluck Jonathan to guide him in his actions as the elections draw nearer. In an apparent effort to dispel such views, INEC in its statement by Mr Okoye said that only voters in Nigeria on election day will be eligible to participate in the elections. The Commission wishes to state unequivocally that there will be no Diaspora or Out-of-Country voting for any Nigerian, the commission stated. It said in accordance with extant provisions of the Nigerian Constitution 1979 (as amended), only duly registered IDPs within Nigeria will be allowed to vote. According to INEC, the Framework and Regulations for IDP Voting were presented and validated by stakeholders at a conference held In Abuja on Wednesday, November 12. In the INEC chairmans speech and all the deliberation at the conference, which was reported by PREMIUM TIMES, there was no reference to diaspora voting. The conference explained that IDPs currently residing in states where they registered can vote in all elections while those displaced from their states and are currently in states other than where they registered can only vote in the presidential election. INEC also said the validated framework is in consonance with the provisions of Section 26 (I) 0f the Electoral (Amendment Act 2015) which provides that in the event of an emergency affecting an election, the Commission shall as far as possible ensure that persons displaced as the result of the emergency are not disenfranchised. Ever since Nigerian blogger, Linda Ikeji, debuted her pregnancy bump, she has faced backlash for obvious reasons. For years, most fans of Linda, 38, knew their model as a self-styled celibacy advocate known for her stance against premarital sex. Linda would later clarify she was against casual not premarital sex. During her infamous beef with the Nigerian superstar, Wizkid, in April 2016, the latter accused her of sleeping with his music video directors and in response, Linda said, she was living a celibate life. And so when it became clear on May 20 that Linda was pregnant, it was a rude shock and then she became the butt of internet jokes. Critics also claimed she deceived gullible young ladies by preaching celibacy, while having a secret romantic affair that resulted in pregnancy outside of wedlock. The blogger, who eventually welcomed a son named Jayce in the U.S. in September, has since come under serious scrutiny over the paternity of the baby. She maintained a prolonged silence on the controversy. But in a shocking move on Friday morning, Linda finally released photos of her three-month-old son, confirmed that a socialite, Sholaye Jeremi, is his father and also apologised to fans for falling pregnant outside wedlock. I was led by my heart and my clock ticking and even though I have no regrets, Im sorry if I let any of you ladies down by the decision I made, Linda wrote on her blog. I hope you do better than I did, she advised her many fans. The ideal thing would be to find a man you love, who loves you back and gives you stability, get married, have kids and raise a family, not being a single mum or a baby mama. I was 37 years old at the time I conceived and if I want to be honest, my age played a role in me allowing myself to be pregnant out of wedlock. I dont want to be having kids in my 40s or struggling with fertility later in life. This wasnt the plan but like I said before, life happens. You just have to find a way to make the best of what life throws at you. And so for any young girl this means anything to, I am truly sorry. I am not sorry I had Jayce, Im just sorry I didnt go about it the right way. Reactions from Nigerians to the bloggers disclosures have been diverse. On social media, while some backed her, others questioned her decisions. Leo Da Silva of Big Brother Naija fame tweeted, The only morals from the Linda Ikeji story is simple: 1. Nobody is a fountain of knowledge. 2. Dont live your life based on what you read or see because those are other peoples realities. Focus on yours. 3. Its okay to have standards but life doesnt respect anyones standards. Is_salsu on Twitter wrote, My problem with Linda Ikeji is this Holier than thou attitude. From talking about celibacy to getting pregnant. From mocking a baby mama to becoming a baby mama. From saying she will never sleep with married man, to. maybe ending up as 2nd wife. She needs to chill. Linda Ikeji had sex before marriage, got pregnant outside wedlock, and is now thanking God for sending her a sperm donor in the person of her baby daddy. Nothing God will not see sha, Favour Onyeoziri tweeted. Tessy Mamas tweet read, Linda Ikeji didnt add the parts where shed visit Jeremi uninvited and get sent back home because she was literally stalking him. But she said hes been the one always begging. And the memes have been downright hilarious. A few of them are below: Trending: Linda Ikeji is pregnant Her Baby Daddy dumped her She is a baby Mama Drake threatens Kanye West Me: pic.twitter.com/Z5jNSIbvND Roviel (@ObongRoviel) December 14, 2018 You become what you criticise!!!! . Linda Ikeji Criticised baby mamas, she became one.. . Mourinho called Wenger specialist in failure, he is becoming one . Now I will stop criticising Buhari And start criticising Dangote pic.twitter.com/qk5ereq6K9 The Kingmaker (@SmithVinci) December 14, 2018 https://twitter.com/YarKafanchan/status/1073522306075541505 Linda Ikeji said she fell pregnant. It's like people are falling into pregnancy these days oo. Please let everyone be careful. The land is slippery pic.twitter.com/dXSN3hzRJQ Prince Jacob (@PrinceChi10) December 14, 2018 https://twitter.com/Jokunle/status/1073514318132596736 https://twitter.com/Dimo01785122/status/1073550098997624834 To promote and expand trade and investments between Nigeria and the rest of Africa, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) on Friday signed an agreement with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM). The deal followed the launching of a $1 billion Nigeria-Africa Trade and Investment Promotion Programme (NATIPP) between the two entities. The bank also signed another memorandum of understanding with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to jointly develop industrial parks and special economic zones valued at about $1.235 bn in Nigeria. The two investment deals were sealed during the Nigeria Day at the ongoing inaugural Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) in Cairo, Egypt. The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who led the Nigerian delegation to the trade fair, witnessed the agreement signing. President of Afreximbank, Benedict Oramah, signed the NATIPP agreement on behalf of the bank, while the Chief Executive Officer of NEPC, Segun Awolowo, and the Managing Director of the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Abubakar Bello, represented their organisations. Under the terms of the programme, Afreximbank will work with NEPC and NEXIM to identify, prepare and appraise trade transactions and projects. The bank will also explore co-financing and risk-sharing opportunities and share knowledge on intra-African trade matters, through technical cooperation, staff exchange, research and joint events. The Managing Director of the Intra-African Trade Initiative at Afreximbank, Kanayo Awani, signed the agreement on behalf of the bank, while Special Adviser to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Femi Edun, represented the Ministry. Both NATIPP and the MoUs with the ministry are being implemented pursuant to Afreximbanks strategy, IMPACT 2021: AFRICA TRANSFORMED, which prioritises intra-African trade, industrialisation and export manufacturing. The IATF, hosted by the Egyptian government, is organised by Afreximbank, in collaboration with the African Union. The fair, which opened last Tuesday, will last until next Tuesday, December 17, with about 70,000 visitors expected to attend. A statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by the banks spokesperson, Obi Emekekwe, said transactions worth about $25 billion are expected to be concluded at the IATF which has almost 1,100 registered exhibitors from 42 countries. Supporters of one of the presidential candidates excluded from the vice presidential debate holding this night in Abuja are currently protesting outside the venue of the event. The group, led by Jude Eya, are protesting over the exclusion of Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC). The Nigerian Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) selected five political parties to participate in the presidential debate, excluding over 70 others in the race. The presidential debate will hold on January 19, 2019 while the vice-presidential debate has commenced at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja. Among the prominent candidates excluded from the debate are Jerry Gana of the Social Democratic Party; Tope Fasua of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) and Mr Sowore. Solidarity Forever , Mr Sowores supporters kept singing outside the west door entrance of the conference in Transcorp Hilton where the debate is holding. Mr Iya who led the group said the exclusion of Mr Sowore was an infringement on his right as a candidate. We demand to know on what criteria our candidate Mr Sowore was excluded from this debate. In the online poll conducted, he came third in the most popular of all the candidates. We demand that he be allowed to join the debate, he said. Those participating in tonights debate are vice presidential candidates of Allied Congres Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Ganiyu Galadima; Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Kahdijah Abdullahi-Iya; All Progressives Congress (APC), Yemi Osinbajo; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi and Young Progressives Party (YPP) Umma Getso. Omoyele Sowore, born 16 February 1971, is a Nigerian human rights activist, pro-democracy campaigner, founder of online news agency Sahara Reporters. The federal government says the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), will soon access the World Banks $750 million loan and grant. The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, said this on Friday in Abuja. Mrs Ahmed said this while addressing the 7th Community of Practice (CoP), made up of State Commissioners of Planning and Budgeting, with the theme, Achieving Realism in State and Federal Budgets for Effective Service Delivery. Mrs Ahmed, who founded CoP in September 2016, as the then Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, was optimistic that states would continue with their fiscal responsibility plan which would serve as a platform to access the loan and grant from the World Bank. During the course of these meetings, we had the benefit of hosting the World Bank and several other opportunities including the Governors Forum. During the course of this exercise, the ministry of finance had to, on instruction from the President, provide bailouts to the states because at one point states were not able to pay salaries. Part of the conditions that was given for those bailouts was a fiscal responsibility plan which needed to be implemented for the states to continue to be qualified to access the funds that the Federal Government was giving. This plan was quite successful because as a result of that we saw improvements in the public financial management in a lot of states, Mrs Ahmed said in a statement by Paul Abechi, her Special Adviser on Media and Communications. The minister said some of the improvements in the states were evident in the increase in the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and the increase in the frequency of the preparation of financial statement which was not so before. This year, it was so good that the World Bank said this group had done well and therefore will give 750 million dollars in the form of concession loans and grant which will be available soon for the states to access. We hope that you will continue to implement your fiscal responsibility plan so that you will qualify for this facility and the grant, she said. She said the principles agreed to by the National Executive Council (NEC) were still as relevant as they were in 2016. She charged the CoP to make monitoring of the process of implementation of budget cardinal, because it would benefit and enhance what they were doing to improve the standard of living of the people in their states. Let me add that the need for monitoring is beneficial because it will enhance improvement, it will also help us to refocus ourselves and our principles to stay on those commitments that are made. But most importantly it will enhance public service delivery to the citizens, she further saod. The CoP meetings enhance the Commissioners capabilities in performing their functions, and serve as platforms for facilitating peer learning and information exchange, strengthening coordination, collaboration and networking. Issues discussed at the 7th CoP meeting include expanding the forum beyond the current membership to include the Minister of Finance and Commissioners of Finance from States for better coordination of planning, budget and public finances. (NAN) The Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party, (SDP), Donald Duke, says he will appeal the judgement, removing him as the partys presidential flag bearer. The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Friday declared Jerry Gana, a former Nigerian Minister of Information, as the presidential candidate of the SDP. Mr Duke had been declared as the presidential candidate of the party after the primary election held in October 2018 in which Mr Gana was also an aspirant. However, Mr Gana had instituted a case against the result in court, basing his case on the zoning and rotation formula of the party. Giving his ruling, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf said: In this instance, the partys Chairman, Chief Olu Falae, is from the South and Duke is from the South too; the law is clear; there is nothing to write in-between. The law has crystallised that political parties should abide by the regulations which they have made by themselves. The claimant laid sufficient evidence to have the judgment in his favour; it is a clear violation of the partys constitution; the court cannot wave right over illegality. Dukes votes were declared null and void and the judge declared that Gana was the winner of the election. The SDP was also ordered to forward Ganas name to the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) as its candidate for the 2019 general election. Mr Duke told journalists in Lagos that: While we await a copy of the judgement for a detailed review, it is imperative we reiterate our constitutionally backed belief. Every Nigerian who meets the legal requirement is entitled to contest for the office of the President. Any law that seeks to curtail or subvert that right under any guise is unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect. The delegates of our great party at its convention in October, overwhelmingly elected me as their presidential Flag-bearer Any attempt to subvert their wishes through the instrumentality of the courts will be challenged. As a Law abiding citizen, I urge my supporters and members to remain calm as we are confident that the decision of the Court will be upturned on appeal. We are optimistic that the Appellate Court will reach a decision that reinforces the essential tenets of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He said his optimism was in line with the wishes of members of the Social Democratic Party. (NAN) The police in Abuja have detained Deji Adeyanju again, his associates have told PREMIUM TIMES. A message from Ariyo-Dare Atoye, a long-time friend of Mr Adeyanju, said the political activist was arrested after 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. It was learnt that the police are demanding to establish the conclusion of a murder trial involving Mr Adeyanju in the mid and late 2000s. They are holding him at the Inspector-General of Police Monitoring Unit over a murder case from his university days, Mr Atoye said. Even though it is true that he was arrested and charged for murder when he was a student of Bayero University Kano, we are very sure that he was discharged and acquitted in the case, Mr Atoye said. Mr Adeyanju was at the unit, which was specially established to tackle specific serious crimes ranging from kidnapping to armed robbery, to retrieve the last of his three mobile telephone devices which the police seized from him when he was first arrested on November 28. As of 9:30 p.m., Mr Atoye said he had contacted lawyers on behalf of Mr Adeyanju. The police said he jumped bail in 2005 and are asking for him to provide the certified true copy of the case in order to establish that he was indeed discharged, Mr Atoye added. We find this extremely embarrassing for our country, but we would try and get the copies tomorrow. Mr Adeyanju spent four years in prison between 2005 and 2009 after he was arrested with three others on murder charges while a student of Bayero University. Festus Keyamo, a rights lawyer and current campaign spokesperson for President Muhammadu Buhari, defended Mr Adeyanju and the three others. One of the other three was Musa Daura, said to be a relative of Mamman Daura, President Muhammadu Buharis nephew. I represented Deji Adeyanju in the matter from 2005 until 2009, and I can tell you categorically that he was not only discharged but also acquitted, Mr Keyamo told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Thursday night. Mr Keyamo said he represented Mr Adeyanju on a pro-bono (free) basis at the time, buoyed largely by his longstanding interest in helping students from legal dilemma. Immediately I heard he was a student, I picked up the case and by the grace of God we won it and he was discharged and acquitted, Mr Keyamo emphasised. Festus Keyamo Mr Adeyanju had asked that Mr Keyamo be contacted to verify his statement that the senior lawyer represented him in the case, and PREMIUM TIMES placed a call for corroboration. I am giving you this information because you told me he had said you should call to verify, I otherwise would never have done it because it falls under the lawyer and client privilege, Mr Keyamo said. Bala Ciroma, the police commissioner in Abuja, told PREMIUM TIMES Thursday night he was not aware that Mr Adeyanju had been arrested again and was being held at his office. Adebayo Raphael, one of the activists in ConcernedNigerians, an advocacy group founded by Mr Adeyanju, said the plot was to hold his colleague in prison for a long time. What they are plotting to do is to take him to Kano and manipulate a judge there to have have him re-arraigned on murder charges, for which he probably would not be granted bail, Mr Raphael said. It is an anti-democratic and evil plot but one which we would ensure is defeated. Mr Keyamo told PREMIUM TIMES he coordinated the trial for Mr Adeyanju and three others until the matter was completely resolved in 2009, and the federal prosecutors did not file any appeal because they were satisfied by the judgment. Mr Adeyanju spent eight nights in prison after being arrested on November 28 while leading a protest against alleged bias by security chiefs in the build up to the general elections. The police said his campaign was defamatory, and seized the arrest to exhume a flurry of social media posts of Mr Adeyanjus that were deemed defamatory. Mr Adeyanju was immediately arraigned in the afternoon of November 28 at the Chief Magistrates Court in Karshi, Abuja. Although he was granted bail on the same day, he was unable to meet the conditions on the spot, and was taken to the federal prisons in Keffi, where he remained until December 6. Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai On December 3, he fulfilled the bail conditions on the police charges, and was released from prison. However, immediately after his release, the police, who had laid in wait near the prison for Mr Adeyanju to emerge, re-arrested him again, saying there was a fresh petition from Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai. Mr Buratais allegations against Mr Adeyanju were similar to those already filed by the police, but that did not stop them from arraigning him before another magistrates court in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, on December 4. He was initially remanded for two days on Mr Buratais charges, but secured a bail on December 6. He met the conditions on the stop and was allowed to go home for the first time in eight nights. Following his release on December 6, Mr Adeyanju went days without his mobile telephones. The police released two out of the three telephones seized from him after about four days, Mr Atoye said. He was there to pick up his last telephone today when they held him, Mr Atoye said. Mr Adeyanju, who has taken a hard-line stance again Mr Buharis government, became a full-time activist after his tenure as the director of social media for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party ended in 2017. He has led several protests against the government, including ones demanding justice for members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, and their detained leader, Ibrahim el-Zakzaky. He resumed his advocacy on Wednesday, leading activists from Abuja to Kaduna to demand release of Segun Onibiyo, a social critic who has been held in custody for weeks. Mr Onibiyo was released on bail when his matter was called for hearing Wednesday afternoon, and Mr Adeyanju returned to Abuja, where he has lived and worked for several years, shortly thereafter. The acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, on Thursday testified before an Ikeja Division of the Lagos State High Court in a defamation suit he filed against The Sun newspapers. In his evidence, Mr Magu denied ownership of two properties allegedly traced to his wife by the newspaper, insisting that they own just one property in Abuja. The EFCC boss told the judge, Doris Okwuobi, that The Daily Suns publication claiming that he was under a discreet investigation by the State Security Service (SSS) was false. Since I came to EFCC, nobody has investigated me. I am not under any probe, Mr Magu said. Last year, officials of the anti-graft agency invaded the headquarters of The Sun in Lagos claiming it was part of routine efforts to ascertain the state of assets of the publishing company which is subject of a subsisting interim forfeiture order obtained by the EFCC in 2007. But the newspaper dismissed the claims, maintaining that the invasion was a response to its investigation of properties allegedly linked to Mr Magus wife. Days after the invasion, Mr Magu filed a N100 million defamation suit against The Sun seeking, among others, a court order for the publication of apology, retraction and rebuttal of the libelous material by defendants on the front page of the Saturday Sun newspaper for seven consecutive editions of the newspaper and teo major newspapers for seven consecutive days. Denying ownership of the said properties in the publication dated March 25, 2017, Mr Magu said, I will not go and buy properties in Maitama. This is completely false. My wife is a civil servant. We only have one house sold to us in Karu, Abuja. It is completely untrue. I want to tell you the damage it has done to me. It was not caused to me alone, it has gone down my lineage, the entire family, it has done so much wrong. It has done so much damage. Mr Magu said a lot of negative reactions trailed The Suns publication. They went down to my hometown. That is the detail. I am just trying to correct the damage they have done. During cross-examination, the EFCC boss was asked if the newspaper publication was not an allegation against him but a report from another body. No investigation agency was mentioned to be investigating me, no, thats not true, they never said DSS is investigating my wife, he said. The defendant published about properties they did not give even the address. That indicates it is a hatchet work. On the refusal of the Senate to confirm him as the chairman of the EFCC, Mr Magu said, It is good they did not confirm me, I may not be able to do the work very well. The judge adjourned the proceedings till February 28, 2019. The Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) has resolved to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari again over the issue of new minimum wage. The forum took the decision at its last meeting for 2018, presided by the chairman of Forum and Governor of Zamafara State, Abdulaziz Yari, on Thursday night in Abuja. Mr Yari however declined speaking with journalists after the meeting. But the NGF Head, Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, told journalists at the end of the meeting that the governors resolved to meet the president on Friday. It was a very short meeting, of course the very last one for the year, the meeting welcomed the newest governor in its midst, the Osun state governor, Adegboyega Oyetola. The meeting resolved to meet the president on the issue of the minimum wage which hopefully will be resolved before the end of the year. The governors are also meeting the president tomorrow to thank him for the way he has handle the economy, Mr Barkindo said. The governors had offered to pay N22,500 while the federal government wants to pay N24,000 against the N30,000 being demanded by the organised labour. The forum at its last meeting set up a committee to meet with Mr Buhari to canvass its position, which it stated was not reflected in the report of the Tripartite Committee submitted to the president. Mr Oyetola earlier in an interview with journalist commended the meeting, saying it offered the governors opportunity to peer review each other and share experiences and best practices. Some of the governors at the meeting were Edo, Lagos, Osun, Kaduna, Kwara, Kano, Plateau, Kebbi and Gombe States. The governors of Bauchi, Benue, Adamawa, Rivers and Nasarawa were represented by their deputies. (NAN) The Olowu of Owu Kuta, a traditional ruler in Osun State, Hammed Oyelude, has urged Nigerians to discountenance the alleged indictment of the Nigerian Army by reports emanating from the Amnesty International and the International Criminal Court. The traditional ruler, who addressed a press conference on Thursday in his palace in Kuta, Osun State, said the Army deserved support by all and not condemnation, in its efforts to defeat the Boko Haram insurgents. He said the report, which accused the troops of war crimes was mischievous and disheartening, considering the sacrifices the soldiers had made in restoring peace back to the north east region of the country. Mr Oyelude implored Nigerians, irrespective of their political affiliation or convictions, to come together and resist the alleged blackmail against the Nigerian military. At this critical time in our nations history, I consider it mischievous and malicious, the timing of the release of the said report, and the usual double standard of the so called Amnesty International in demoralising our patriotic Army, the monarch said. We were thrown into mourning a few weeks ago, when our soldiers were slaughtered by insurgents in the northern part of the country. This resulted in low morale among troops and one must acknowledge all efforts put in place by the present administration and previous ones in motivating the military to do its job. I believe the only way to go is for Nigerians (to), in rare show of patriotism, reject this assertion and keep supporting the ongoing efforts of the present government through the Army and other security agencies in protecting the integrity and sanctity of our sovereignty. I therefore call on all patriotic Nigerians to rise up against the agent of Colonialism under the disguise of pseudo Human Right Organizations, because their usual numerous activities have always been injurious to our fighting force, the Nigerian Army is our national pride, Long Live the Nigerian Army. He said Amnesty Internationals damning report to the ICC, accusing the Nigeria Army of murder, pursuant to article 8(2)(c)(i); torture, cruelty, outrages upon personal dignity and intentionally directing attacks against civilians, had exposed how far away from reality the ICC is. Highlighting the double standards of the ICC in matters affecting third world countries, the monarch said it was curious that the court, which was quick and very proactive to highlight and prosecute crime against humanity in third world countries, lost its voice over the wrong invasion of Iraq in 2003 for search and deactivation of weapon of mass destruction, which is yet to be found. He said the invasion of Iraq left many Iraqis dead and Iraq plundered. The Amnesty international/ICC till date is yet to find its voice on the continuous occupation and provocation of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel, he said. The Amnesty international/ICC, till date, is yet to declare either the military or government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia guilty of War Crimes against humanity with its actions on Yemen, which, according to United Nations and other sources, has it that from March 2015 to December 2017, 8,67013,600 people have been killed in Yemen, including more than 5,200 civilians, as well as estimates of more than 50,000 dead, as a result of an ongoing famine, due to the war. I Call on all Patriotic Nigerians to rise against the agent of Colonialism under the disguise of Human Right organization, because their usual numerous activities have always been injurious to our fighting force, Nigeria Army is your national pride. A 2018 Report on the Preliminary Examination Activities of the ICC identified eight potential cases involving the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Nigeria. It stated that six of the cases were against Boko Haram while two were against the Nigerian security forces. But, the Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, has denied that the army was indicted by the ICC. The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to desist from using killings to campaign but to run an issue and people-based campaign. The party said this in a statement Thursday by Lanre Issa-Onilu, its National Publicity Secretary. According to the ruling party, everyone owes the victims of killings solemn conducts in their honour and in empathy with the bereaved families; not to play politics with unfortunate events. The APC said the PDP in its latest campaign was attempting to distort facts on the security record of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration. This kind of blatant falsehood has become the favourite pastime of the PDP, it said. The party said its statement was in reaction to a declaration by the PDPs National Chairman, Uche Secondus, in a recent television interview that under the APC administration, more Nigerians have been killed than during the Civil War that ended in 1970. The party said if it were to join the PDP in its mindless game of playing politics with the state of insecurity, then the number of casualties during the civil war will be pitched with what Nigerians witnessed under PDP. It, however, said unlike PDP, it will engage the electorate based on the projects and pro-people policies it has embarked on as a government for the benefit of the country, as it believes significant successes have been recorded in the last three and half years. The party named the Niger Delta violence which it said was prevalent under the PDP government, as one of the issues the APC has tackled, including the environmental cleanup of Ogoniland to restore the ecosystem of the area. The environment of the Ogoni area in Rivers State has over the years been destroyed by oil leaks leading to the destruction of surrounding waters and farmlands which led to a report after a scientific study recommending a total clean up of the environment. Although the report was released during the Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2011, the administration did little to carry out the cleanup. President Muhammadu Buhari, shortly after his assumption of office in 2015, launched the clean-up exercise. But not much was on the ground until last month when the former Minister of Environment, Ibrahim Jibril, said his ministry had reached the final stage of procurement processes that will lead to the award of contracts to 21 firms so the exercise can finally begin. The former governor of Kano state, Ibrahim Shekarau; former governor of Zamfara state, Ahmed Yerima, and a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Yayale Ahmed, are leading a delegation of politicians to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. The group is visiting Mr. Buhari under the name: National Network for Community and Youth Development. Me Shekarau was a political ally of Mr Buhari before they parted ways ahead of the 2011 presidential elections. The differences between the two leaders of the then ANPP saw Mr Buhari leaving to form the defunct CPC, while Mr Shekarau remained in the ANPP and ran against Mr Buhari in the 2011 election. They, however, met again in the All Progressives Congress after their former parties dissolved to form the new party. However, the Kano governor left the APC for the PDP owing to differences with his successor in Kano state, Rabiu Kwankwaso. However, when Mr Kwankwaso left the APC to return to the PDP, Mr Shekarau also left the PDP to return to the APC and be in the same party with Mr Buhari again. Fridays visit is the first time Mr Shekarau is publicly meeting Mr Buhari since his return to the governing party. Governors of Nigerias 36 states under the auspices of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), have again resolved to meet President Muhammadu Buhari over a new national minimum wage. This was revealed Thursday by the spokesperson of NGF, Abdulrazaque Barkindo, at the end of a meeting of the governors. It was a very short meeting, of course the very last one for the year, the meeting welcomed the newest governor in its midst, the Osun state governor, Adegboyega Oyetola. The meeting resolved to meet the president on the issue of the minimum wage which hopefully will be resolved before the end of the year. The governors are also meeting the president tomorrow (Friday) to thank him for the way he has handled the economy, he said. Already, we gathered that the 36 governors who are attending an extended meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) at the State House conference centre will meet with Mr Buhari at 12:45pm. The NGF chairman and governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, had after the groups last meeting before yesterdays sent a delegation to meet with Mr Buhari over the issue. Mr Yari was accompanied to the meeting by Governors Akinwumi Ambode (Lagos), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi), Simon Lalong (Plateau), Mohammed Abubakar (Bauchi), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), and Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna). Mr Yari had told reporters at the last emergency meeting of NGF that it was impossible for the states to implement the N30,000 minimum wage required by labour unions without downsizing the workforce all over the country. He said the only other alternative was for the federal government to accede to the review of the national revenue allocation formula. Mr Buhari had while receiving the report of a committee headed by former Head of Service, Ama Pepple, which recommended the payment of N30,000 as new minimum wage said he would subject it to all processes after which a bill would be sent to the National Assembly for passage into law. President Muhammadu Buhari is currently holding a closed meeting with the countrys 36 state governors. The meeting, which began at about 12:40 p.m., is holding inside the council chamber at the presidential villa, Abuja. The meeting is expected to discuss a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers. A presidential committee set up by the government under the leadership of a former Head of Service of the Federation, Ama Pepple, recommended that the new minimum wage should be increased from N18,000 to N30,000. However, governors said they would not be able to pay that amount, and warned they may have to cut jobs. The governors, who met under the aegis of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), met Thursday night and resolved to meet with Mr Buhari. The U.S. has described Nigerias 2019 general elections are a critical test for the country, the ECOWAS sub-region and the entire continent. U.S. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, Jr., stated this in his testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organisations. The title of the hearing is Nigeria at a Crossroad: The Upcoming Elections, according to the transcript made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York by the U.S. Department of State, on Friday. Mr Nagy said: The Department of State agrees with the view that Nigerias February 2019 national elections are a critical test. The conduct of the elections could have significant consequences for the democratic trajectory of Nigeria, West Africa, and the entire continent. The U.S. envoy said the conduct of the 2015 Nigerian elections, although by no means perfect, was a step forward for Nigerias democracy. That contest resulted in Nigerias first-ever democratic transfer of power to a non-incumbent party, thereby increasing capacity and improving conduct of Nigerian democratic institutions and election bodies, he said. In advance of the 2019 elections, the U.S. government continues to support the Nigerian goal of free, fair, transparent, and peaceful elections that reflect the will of the Nigerian people. Through diplomacy, robust public engagement including with Nigerias youth and civil society, and democracy and governance programmes, we are helping the country to strengthen its democratic institutions and processes. The U.S. does not support any single candidate. We support a democratic process that is free, fair, transparent, peaceful, and reflects the will of the Nigerian people, he said. According to him, the U.S. government has developed a comprehensive election strategy to plan and coordinate its efforts, anchored on three main objectives. This includes support a free and fair electoral process, including technical assistance to Nigerias election institutions, civil society, and political parties as well as U.S. government monitoring of the election around the country. The other is to prevent and mitigate electoral violence, including conflict monitoring, peace building programs, and peace messaging, is another strategy. Others are support to civic and political engagement, including support to Nigerian civil society election observation and parallel vote tabulation, social media campaigns to engage youth including through our Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), get out the vote campaigns, voter education, and Nigerian efforts to counter disinformation. To advance our strategy, we have sustained high-level diplomatic engagement from Washington as well as robust and regular engagement by our Ambassador, Consul-General, USAID Mission Director, and other officials based in Abuja and Lagos. Earlier this year, President Trump welcomed President Buhari to the White House and conveyed our expectations for a credible election. Two Secretaries of State, USAID Administrator Green, Deputy Secretary of State Sullivan, and many others have either traveled to Nigeria or met with senior Nigerian officials in the U.S. to underscore our commitment to free, fair, transparent, and peaceful Nigerian elections in the last 12 months. Nagy said he recently returned from Nigeria as part of his first trip to the African continent, and conveyed the U.S. expectations and concerns for the elections in person. He said he met with leadership from the two main political parties, INEC Chairman, and civil society organisations, delivering public messages on the elections in a speech, press engagements and private messages with key stakeholders. That is just a summary of our Washington-focused diplomatic engagement on these elections. Our Ambassador and the Mission in Nigeria are working to advance our goals every day, he added. The Nigerian Army on Friday buried 19 soldiers among those who lost their lives in an attack by Boko Haram insurgents at Metele, Guzamala Local Government Area, Borno. 23 soldiers were killed and 31 others wounded when the insurgents attacked 157 Task Force Battalion, Metele, on Nov. 18. The fallen heroes, who were laid to rest at the Military Cemetery, Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri, were I.A. Sakaba, a lieutenant colonel, and 18 soldiers. Muslim and Christian Chaplains officiated at the burial. The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, a lieutenant general, described the incident as tragic, noting that the soldiers sacrificed their lives in defence of the nations territorial integrity. Represented by Lamidi Adeosun, Chief of Army Training and Operations, Mr Buratai announced that the deceased soldiers would be buried when their relatives arrived in Maiduguri. He said the army lost some troops and equipment due to upsurge of insurgents activities in recent months. He, however, said the setback would not deter the troops from their commitment to defeat the insurgents. Mr Buratai reiterated the determination of the Nigerian Army to end insurgency; protect lives and property as well as restore peace to the North-East. He said military authorities would take care of the families of the deceased in line with its welfare scheme, and prayed for the repose of their souls. President Muhammad Buhari administrations is committed to the improvement of soldiers welfare and provision of equipment to ensure successful campaign against the Boko Haram insurgents. The military will collaborate with sister security organizations in the counter-insurgency operation, he said, and called on the troops to be disciplined and not relent in routing remnants of the insurgents. According to him, the military authorities will deploy additional personnel and equipment to the theatre of operation, to facilitate successful implementation of the counter insurgency campaign. Mr Buratai also called on the people to shun fake news and support the military to enable it win the war against the Boko Haram terrorists. The Deputy Governor of Borno, Mamman Durkwa, said the state government appreciated the sacrifices of the military to the restoration of peace in the state. Mr Durkwa announced that the government would support the families of the fallen heroes to improve their wellbeing. He called on military authorities to support the bereaved families and prayed for the repose of the souls of the fallen heroes. The ceremony was attended by senior military officers, government officials, representatives of the Shehu of Borno and family members of the deceased. (NAN) Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has advised state governors to stop the blame game and resist playing politics with issues of human capital development. Mr Osinbajo said now is the time to get the job done. He made the call on Friday at an extended meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja. The meeting focused on the Human Capital Development plan of the APC administration, which is hinged on three main thematic areas; health and nutrition, education and labour force participation. As a government, we are fully aware of the issues and we are committed to transforming them. There is no denying that debilitating levels of poverty existed in spite of huge earnings in the past. We are doing exactly what countries like India and Brazil did in similar situations,, for instance, kickstarting the Social Investment Programme (SIP). Since the meeting in March, we have made significant progress, adding more than two million people to the programme, feeding over nine million school children everyday et al. We must ensure that what we are investing in must produce tangible results. The federal government must together with states collaborate on issue of human capital development, it should not be a platform for blame games. Concerted collaboration is required now so we dont repeat the mistakes of the past. Constant communication with the people is equally important because the resources belong to them, he said. The vice president also spoke on the need to promote transparency, accountability and improve existing data. Mr Osinbajo also launched the Human Capital Development Programme; Healthy, Educated and Productive Nigerians for a Globally Competitive Nation vision by 2030. In his remarks, Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) chairman and Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, said the governors have been working hard to make Nigerias economy work in a more transparent manner. He said all the governors remain accountable to the people, adding we have tried to make sure that every cent is well spent. According to him, the concerns raised on the human capital development can only be addressed with the availability of funds. I can assure you that the governors are committed but we have to work harder in the area of revenue generation to address all these competing demands, he said. Mr Yari queried the fact that Value Added Tax (VAT) has remained stagnant at five percent for the past 25 years, insisting that a political decision has to be taken to increase it in the new year. The World Bank Nigeria Country Director, Rachid Benmessaoud, who also spoke on human capital development, said for the world to do well, Nigeria has to do well because the world relies on Nigerias human capital. He said the quality of education improves young persons opportunity to earn a living and help the economy, urging the government to work on improving human capital development. Also, the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), speaking through its President, Shehu Ladan, listed quality education, special agencies for skills, entrepreneurial support, vocational training, and improved infrastructure and improved health care sector as factors that will improve the countrys human capital development. The Country Director of UKs Department For International Development (DFID), Debbie Palmer, said Nigeria is ranked near the bottom of the World Banks Human Capital Index (152 out of 157 countries), describing it as a rude wake up call for everyone in the country and for everyone who cares about Nigeria. Nigeria will be the third largest nation in the world by 2050, we need well-nourished, healthy, educated and skilled people who can go out and get jobs. The projected population growth could be a big boost to Nigerias economic fortunes with more people of working age driving economic progress. But for this to happen, we urgently need increased investment in service delivery to avoid an undernourished, unhealthy and unemployed nation, she said. On his part said, the Country Director of the United States Agency For International Development, USAID, said the U.S government will continue to honour partnerships in the areas of education and health as well as with the private sector. Also, the managing director and CEO of Dangote Foundation, Zouera Youssoufou, commended the government for its commitment to see to improvement in human capital development. Those in attendance at the NEC extended meeting were governors of all the states of the federation or their representatives, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and development partners among others. Information reaching PREMIUM TIMES from credible sources in Borno state indicate that Nigerian soldiers have been engaged in a fierce battle with Boko Haram fighters in Gudumbali town. Gudumbali is the headquarters of Guzamala local government area where Metele, the village where soldiers were recently massacred, is located. The source, who relayed this information to PREMIUM TIMES under strict condition of anonymity, said the attack started at about 7 p.m. when Boko Haram fighters invaded the community. Gudumbali has been under the control of the Nigerian Armys 118 Task Force Battalion. The battle is still going as, as we speak and the air force from Maiduguri have gone to support the troops, the source said. We must recall that Gudumbalis last major attack was occurred on 8 September 2018. And it was the same town that over 200 soldiers were killed in 2016, said the source. In August this year, the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, unveiled a cenotaph in the community to commemorate the killing of nearly 200 soldiers. The source further revealed that the 118 Battalion Headquarters based in Arege was attacked for about four times within November. With the fall of Metele, the attack on Arege on 2 December forced the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Oyegoke to withdraw from Arege to Malam Fatori (the location of 119 Battalion), the source said. The military has not issued any statement to confirm or debunk this attack. Sumayya Abubakar, a pregnant woman who was kidnapped in Zamfara State, is yet to be released. Ms Abubakars father confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday night. He said her abductors called him several times, but he could not pick the calls. Mr Abubakar said the reason he rejected their calls was that he did not know what to tell them and also did not want to hear any unfavourable update. According to Ms Abubakars father, no government agency or group has said or done anything regarding the matter. The abductors, on Tuesday morning, in a telephone conversation with Ms Abubakars father, gave a 48-hour ultimatum to execute her if their demand of N20 million in ransom was not met. Perhaps, to show their resolve to carry out their threat, the kidnappers told Mr Yusuf they had killed 20-year-old Surajo Umar, a neighbour to Mr Yusuf, who is also in their custody. Ms Abubakar and Mr Umar were abducted in October alongside four others, (including the twins) in Zurmi, a village in Dauran town in Zamfara State. The four others have been released after payment of ransom by their relatives, PREMIUM TIMES learnt. PREMIUM TIMES reported how two of the victims, twin sisters, were released in November after payment of ransom to the kidnappers by the victims relatives. The abductors threatened to kill them after the girls family said they could not raise the N15 million ransom the criminals demanded, but reports said the kidnappers later reduced the amount. In an audio clip that went viral, one of the twins was heard pleading for help from both the government and the general public, saying some kidnapped victims, whose families could not pay the ransom to free them, were slaughtered in their presence. Reactions The national convener, Citizens Action To Take Back Nigeria, Ibrahim Garba, in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES, said politics has taken over the situation in the state. I think politics has taken over the situation in the state. My point is that, knowing what played out recently in the state, as regards the primary election, it was quite unfortunate that we know very well that the situation is very bad and yet the citizens are helpless. The few Nigerians expressing or showing concern on this issue, are also helpless. The minister of defence is from Zamfara State. We expect the minister of defence to really work hard and see the possibility of his people enjoying his area of assignment as one of the service chiefs, but unfortunately, that is not the case in Zamfara. It tells you that there is a lot of bad influence going on within the political cycle. They do not care. They have been taking advantage of the situation and that is very bad. On the side of the agencies, honestly speaking, it sends a wrong signal. Either the government knows why they are not talking or the government is out of ideas to tackle security in Zamfara and other states including the North-east. We are in a very terrible and sad moment. We, the members of civil society organizations, are calling on the rest of us to wake up and add their voices to this issue. We should understand that we cannot continue like this. Our silence is what is giving them the courage to continue with this manner of impunity, this manner of neglect. The constitution of Nigeria made it very clear that the primary responsibility of the government is to provide security and welfare to all citizens but what we are seeing today is the opposite. In my position as the convener of CATBAN, I am calling on all citizens to stand up and see what we can do. We need to save lives, especially lives of our young people who are poor victims of these circumstances in Zamfara. Sumayya should not be killed the same way Surajo was. No other citizen in captivity should be killed, Mr Garba added. Also, a human rights activist, Hamzat Lawal, in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, said citizens should not only hold the federal government accountable, but also the governors of the states, because of the security votes allocated to them monthly. It is sad and a shame that the government has failed us, particularly at the state level. State (governors) collect what we call security votes and I think now is the time for the citizens to rise and hold them accountable on what they do with the security votes. If we are in a sane society, the state would have been declared a state of emergency. This shows that women are not protected in our society. We do not know what might have happened to her, we do not know if they have abused her. This is a call for action on our government and security agencies. We cannot fold our hands. This lady is a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and by law, the government is meant to protect the life of her citizens. Communities in Zamfara have suffered from random attacks by bandits in the past year. These have caused hundreds of deaths as well as kidnap for ransom of several others. The Kano State Government has distributed instructional materials worth over N2 billion to primary and junior secondary schools in the 44 Local Government Areas of the state. The state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, disclosed this on Friday in Kano while flagging-off the distribution of the instructional materials at the headquarters of the state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). He explained that the instructional materials were purchased jointly by the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Kano State Government, Ministry for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and Development partners. Mr Ganduje was represented at the occasion by the Secretary to the State Government, Usman Alhaji. He urged the 44 local government education authorities (LGEAs) to ensure the best use of the items to facilitate delivery of quality learning outcomes in the public basic education schools. He warned that anybody caught diverting the materials would be punished as the state government would not fold its arms and allow anybody to sabotage its commitment toward promoting education in the state. I want to use this opportunity to warn that any infraction in the use of these items, will attract the stiffest sanctions, he said. The governor called on members of the community, civil society organisations, NGOs, PTAs, school based management committees and other stakeholders to support government in the provision of quality basic education. According to him, the call was necessary in view of the fact that the state government alone could not meet the resource-demands of education because it is a basic community responsibility. Earlier in his remarks, the commissioner of works, housing and transport overseeing the ministry of education, Aminu Aliyu, said the distribution of materials was part of the state government effort toward promoting the education sector. He urged beneficiaries to ensure judicious use of the items to enhance teaching and learning in public schools. NAN reports that among the items distributed include 321,064 copies of English text books, 321, 064 copies of mathematics text books and 321, 064 copies of basic science text books. Others were 1,000 sets of laboratory equipment for junior secondary schools, various charts and maps as well as 16, 000 cartons of white and colour chalk. (NAN) The Akwa Ibom state government has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state of hijacking the planned visit of the first lady, Aisha Buhari, to the state. Mrs Buhari is visiting the Akwa Ibom this Friday to flag off her pet project, Future assured, a nongovernmental organisation advocating the wellbeing of women, children, and adolescents in Nigeria. Ita Enang, an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, while briefing reporters on Thursday, said the flag-off ceremony will take place at the Nsima Ekere Campaign Ground in Uyo. He said about 10,000 youth in the state are expected to receive interest-free loans, grants, and various forms of training from the Future Assured, together with its partners, which include the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), and two senators from the state Godswill Akpabio and Nelson Effiong. The Akwa Ibom government said the APC was planning to hijack the protocols associated with Mrs Buharis visit in order to make political capital out of it. The government specifically accused Mr Akpabio, a former governor of the state, of wanting to use the visit to blackmail the state government. The struggle for the soul of Akwa Ibom State come 2019 is becoming dirtier, said a statement forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES, Friday, by the Commissioner for Information in the state Charles Udoh. The office of the First Lady had written to the State Government informing it of her visit to the state and the government is said to have made adequate arrangements befitting of her status and office. Suddenly, former governor, Senator Godswill Akpabio is alleged to have taken his personal vehicles to the DSS office in Uyo preparatory to the visit of the wife of the president. We have been rightly informed of this plan by Senator Goodwill Akpabio to deliberately blackmail the State Government by bungling the protocols of this visit, embarrass the State Government by creating a climate of odium and despair and thereafter rejoice over such failure, the statement said. We will resist that, it added. The statement said the presidents wife, irrespective of what she was coming to do in the state, ought to be a guest of the state government and that it was customary for the state government to make arrangement for such a visit. The statement said it was ironic for the State Security Services (SSS) to accept to use Mr Akpabios private vehicle to ferry the first lady. When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr Akpabios spokesperson, Anietie Ekong, he declined comment on the matter, saying it was a protocol matter between the presidential villa and the Akwa Ibom Government House. The SSS director in the state, Malam Waziri, told PREMIUM TIMES, Friday morning, the claim by the state government was not true. Mr Waziri said Mrs Buhari, while in Uyo, would be using two of her official vehicles brought in from Abuja. He said the first lady is to be accompanied by the wives of three state governors. The governors wives, he said, have also sent in their vehicles in advance. The SSS director said the Akwa Ibom government sent in vehicles too, which would be used in the first ladys entourage. You will be able to verify what I am telling you if you will be present at the airport when the first lady lands in the state, he said. But a source who works as an aide of Mr Akpabio and is privy to the issues surrounding the visit confided in PREMIUM TIMES that Mrs Buhari would indeed be riding in Mr Akpabios private car Mercedes S500 bulletproof when her flight touches down in Uyo. The aide, who did not want his name mentioned in the story because he did not have the permission to speak on the matter, said Mrs Buhari would visit the senators country home in Ukana, Essien Udim Local Government Area of the state, after the flag-off of the Future Assured project in Uyo. We have not hijacked the visit, Mr Enang told PREMIUM TIMES, Friday morning while reacting to the state governments allegation. We are only providing an enabling environment to receive the wife of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Mr Enang said the state government, having been duly informed, is obliged to receive Mrs Buhari and also be part of her programme in the state. APC has not done anything to prevent the governor, his wife, or the state government from receiving and hosting the first lady. Mr Enang said the flag-off ceremony is holding at Nsima Ekere Campaign Ground because the state government, according to him, refused to grant permission for the use of the Uyo Township Stadium. They told us the stadium was being renovated, he said. The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), has reacted to the nullification of its primary election for Anambra South Senatorial District by an Abuja high court. The party, in a statement on Thursday, described the ruling as bizarre and questionable. It also vowed to appeal the judgement at superior courts where it expressed confidence of getting the ruling upturned. A high court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Apo, Abuja had earlier in the day voided the October 3, 2018 primary election held by the party. The judge, Valentine Ashi, in a judgment on Thursday, held that the primary, which produced Nicholas Ukachukwu as the partys candidate, was not held in substantial compliance with relevant provisions of the law. Mr Ashi also nullified Mr Ukachukwus emergence as the partys candidate and the certificate of return issued to him. The judgment was on a suit marked: CV/3054 filed by Okey Chidolue, who claimed to have won the primary and sought to be pronounced the winner. Defendants in the suit were APGA, its national chairman, Victor Ike Oye, Anambra State chairman, Norbert Obi, Nicholas Ukachukwu and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Mr Ashi rejected the notices of preliminary objection filed by some of the defendants, who had queried the competence of the suit and the courts jurisdiction to hear it. The judge also held that the plaintiff failed to prove his case against the 5th defendant, INEC. The judge declined to make any order against INEC and also declined to declare the plaintiff the winner of the primary. Instead, the judge advised parties to approach INEC and work out ways of overcoming the challenge now created. The plaintiff had, among others, argued that the primary was marred with illegality and fraudulent conduct. He claimed, among others, that the delegates duly elected at ward congresses were not the delegates who voted in the primary held at the Ekwulobia Township Stadium on October 3 this year. But APGA in its reaction said the judgment should not be a source of anxiety or trepidation for anybody. The FCT High Court is only a court of first instance at the ground floor. Two courts are still upstairs, said the statement signed by APGAs Director of Publicity, Ifeanacho Oguejiofor. It is imperative to note that the FCT High Court did not declare the Plaintiff, Okey Chidolue as the winner of the Anambra South Senatorial District primary election of APGA. Rather, and in a most bizarre manner, the Court after nullifying the primary election directed parties to go to INEC and sort themselves out. Mr Oguejiofor noted that over the years, APGA has always obtained respite from the Court of Appeal against questionable judgments of the high courts adding that it wont be different in todays judgment. The party argued that not only did the court lack the jurisdiction to entertain the matter but also that its substantive judgment will not stand the test and scrutiny of an appeal. Consequently, Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu remains the partys duly nominated Senatorial Candidate for Anambra South Senatorial District. APGA is poised to win the election come February 16th. Party faithfuls are therefore advised to remain calm and unperturbed by social media propaganda and misleading statements arising from todays judgment, the statement highlighted. This Thursday, The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has announced that it will finally begin supporting Apple Pay starting in January 2019. The announcement is a sweet news for all Apple fans living in Australia as it is one of the "big four" banks in Australia. CommBank made the announcement in a tweet this evening, saying that Apple Pay will launch for its personal customers in January of 2019. Other details are unclear at this point, but this announcement has been a long time coming for CommBank customers. Apple Pay is coming for CommBank personal customers January 2019 pic.twitter.com/VHeZWKBoRp CommBank (@CommBank) December 14, 2018 Apple Pay adoption rate is rather slow in Australia due to disagreements between Apple and major banks over access to the NFC chip in iPhones. This announcement also means Apple will have little trouble in convincing the other major banks in the country to support Apple Pay. CommBank is one of the "big four" banks in Australia. The other three big banks are National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), and Westpac (WBC). Currently, in Australia, ANZ supports Apple Pay, while Westpac and NAB remain holdouts. This makes CommBank the second of the four major banks in Australia to support Apple's mobile payment platform. There has been much back and forth between Apple and Australia's banks, with the institutions at one point demanding direct access to iPhone's NFC chip to create their own authentication protocol. However, Apple has denied those requests. As part of the struggle, Australia's "big-three" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corp - sought to collectively negotiate for the installation of non-Apple Pay software on iPhone hardware, threatening a boycott. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission denied the request in a draft determination in 2016, then again in a final determination in 2017, prompting the banks to reconsider their position on the matter. Now the CommBank has given up and embraced Apple Pay, we can hope to hear a similar announcement from Westpac (WBC) and National Australia Bank (NAB) soon. For the full list of banks around the world that support Apple Pay, visit Apple's support page here. 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. AUBURN, Ala., Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the closest comets in modern times will pass by Earth this weekend but don't worry, there's no danger of it hitting us. It will come relatively close in scientific terms seven million miles away. For the average person, the comet will be visible with the naked eye and will provide a rare sky-watching event. For researchers, the proximity of the Comet 46P/Wirtanen to earth will offer a chance to collect data on comets and learn more about the building blocks of the solar system. Auburn University researcher and astrophysicist Dennis Bodewits will perhaps get the best view of all. He's been awarded time to simultaneously use three of NASA's telescopes during the comet event: the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. He will be researching what ices make up the comet and how chemical processes change the gas around it. "These observations are like a space mission in reverse because the comet flies by us," Bodewits said. Bodewits said this sky-watching event will provide important context to the Rosetta and Deep Impact missions. In the Deep Impact mission, NASA launched a space probe in 2005 to study the interior of a comet by releasing an impactor that collided with the comet's nucleus to emit material from below its surface. It continued its journey through the solar system to snap detailed pictures of a second comet, Hartley 2. Rosetta was a space probe built by the European Space Agency that followed comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko for more than two years around the Sun. "Because the comet comes very close to Earth, we can investigate the inner 200 kilometers around the nucleus, a region we cannot resolve for most comets. The comet appears to be a close twin to comet Hartley 2, the second target of the Deep Impact mission. Hartley 2 puzzled astronomers because it releases much more gas than was expected from its size. Comparing two will allow us to learn more about how comet activity works," Bodewits said. Bodewits explained the Rosetta mission taught scientists more about the makeup of a comet's nucleus and the origin of our solar system. "It unexpectedly found a lot of molecular oxygen gas and discovered that electron collisions can change the comet gas," he said. "These are both important because they inform us what ices made up the building blocks of our solar system, and how they were altered by light and radiation from the Sun." Because of the significance of this comet's proximity for learning more about the solar system, Bodewits is using as many resources as he can to study it. "We're going to be observing Comet 46P/Wirtanen with as many telescopes as we can get our hands on," he said. "The timing of this comet could not be better as our observations will allow us to apply all we learned from Rosetta to a completely different comet." Bodewits is also looking at another mission that could take NASA back to Rosetta's comet to learn even more. The proposed CAESAR mission (Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return) is a space mission that will go back to Churyumov-Gerasimenko to bring comet material back to Earth so it can be analyzed in laboratories around the world. HOW TO SEE THE COMET: Those who are interested in seeing the comet this weekend are likely to get a better view using a telescope or binoculars. Bodewits said the comet should be relatively easy to find for viewers who are in a dark spot. "Follow Orion's arm through his bow to the right and look for a fuzzy blob that is green compared to the stars around it," he said. "Orion is always easy to find by the bright stars that make up his belt." Within the continental United States, the comet will be visible most of the night starting from dusk until early morning. Because of a first quarter moon phase that evening adding brightness to the night sky, Bodewits said binoculars are the preferred method of viewing for people hoping to see the comet. Auburn University is a nationally ranked land grant institution recognized for its commitment to world-class scholarship, interdisciplinary research and an undergraduate education experience second to none. Auburn is home to more than 29,000 students, and its faculty and research partners collaborate to develop and deliver meaningful scholarship, science and technology-based advancements that meet pressing regional, national and global needs. Auburn's commitment to active student engagement, professional success and public/private partnership drives a growing reputation for outreach and extension that delivers broad economic, health and societal impact. Auburn's mission to educate, discover and collaborate drives its expanding impact on the world. SOURCE Auburn University Related Links http://www.auburn.edu NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Concierge Auctions is now accepting properties for its February Sale featuring a select collection of top-tier properties selling at a live auction in Boca Raton, Florida. Bidding will open digitally on February 15th via the Concierge Auctions online marketplace, conciergeauctions.com, which allows prospective buyers to participate in real-time globally. The sale will culminate at a live auction at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, a Waldorf Astoria Resort, on February 21st. The upcoming auction comes on the heels of the firm's recent sale of Playa Vista Isle in Hillsboro Beach, which, once closed, will represent the highest price ever for a U.S. home at auction and highest sale ever in Broward County. "We're pleased to present this fine collection of properties," stated Krystal Aeby, chief marketing officer of Concierge Auctions. "With our global platform, industry-leading database, and demonstrated record of success, we look forward to yet another successful sale in the Sunshine State." The February Collection will launch mid-January. Properties will be featured in a high-impact marketing campaign including print advertising in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, and The Real Deal; targeted outreach to Concierge Auctions' database of approximately 550,000 luxury buyer prospects and agents worldwide; and exposure via the firm's proven platform of marketing and sales efforts. All sellers will be chosen by January 11th. Properties in the sale will be available for preview prior to the auction and will close in Q1 2019. There are no upfront seller fees. As part of Concierge Auctions' Key for Key giving program in partnership with Giveback Homes, each property sold will result in a new home built for a family in need. To find out more about how your property or listing could be considered for the February Sale, or to receive details including the timeline and full exposure plan, call 917.779.0514 or visit florida-auction.com. Space is limited. Concierge Auctions offers a commission to the buyers' representing real estate agents. See Auction Terms and Conditions for full details. About Concierge Auctions Concierge Auctions is the largest luxury real estate marketplace in the world, powered by state-of-the-art technology. Since its inception in 2008, the firm has generated billions of dollars in sales, broken world records for the highest priced homes ever achieved at auction, and is active in 38 U.S. states/territories and 20 countries. Concierge curates the most prestigious properties globally, matches them with qualified buyers, and facilitates transparent, market-driven transactions in an expedited timeframe. The firm owns arguably the most comprehensive and intelligent database of high-net-worth real estate buyers and sellers in the world. It has been named one of America's fastest-growing companies by Inc. Magazine for the past five years, and has contributed over 100 homes to-date as part of its Key for Key giving program in partnership with Giveback Homes, which guarantees that for every property the company sells, a new home will be built for a family in need. For more information visit conciergeauctions.com. Contact: Kari Neering [email protected] Chanelle Kasik [email protected] 212-257-1500 SOURCE Concierge Auctions Related Links http://www.conciergeauctions.com SAO PAULO, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Embraer welcomes Brazil's filing today of its First Written Submission to the dispute settlement panel at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva. The Panel is examining more than USD 4 billion in subsidies that Bombardier received from the Governments of Canada and Quebec. In 2016 alone, these governments provided over USD 2.5 billion to the Canadian aircraft manufacturer. The Submission provides detailed legal and factual argument regarding why the 19 subsidies to Bombardier for its C-Series aircraft (now renamed as the Airbus A-220 aircraft) are inconsistent with Canada's WTO obligations. The Brazilian Government's understanding, shared by Embraer, is that the Canadian Government's subsidies to Bombardier violate these obligations. "We appreciate the Brazilian government's efforts in preparing this important submission to the WTO today," said Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva, Embraer's President & CEO. "Canada's subsidies have allowed Bombardier (and now Airbus) to offer its aircraft at artificially low prices. These subsidies, which have been fundamental in the development and survival of the C-Series program, are an unsustainable practice that distorts the entire global market, harming competitors at the expense of Canadian taxpayers. Embraer considers that this proceeding will help to restore a level playing field and ensure that competition in the commercial aircraft market is between companies, not governments." After multiple attempts to resolve the issue at the diplomatic level, the Brazilian Government initiated dispute settlement proceedings against Canada at the WTO. In December 2016, the Council of Ministers of the Brazilian Foreign Trade Chamber (CAMEX) authorized the opening of dispute settlement proceedings against Canada. In February 2017, Brazil formally requested consultations with the Canadian Government at the WTO, and because consultations were unable to resolve the dispute, the Panel was formally established in September 2017. More details about Brazil's First Written Submission are available in this link: http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/images/2018/Fact-Sheet-Embraer.pdf PRESS OFFICES: Corporate Communications [email protected] Cell: +55 12 98152 4845 Tel.: +55 11 3841 6085 North America Alyssa Ten Eyck [email protected] Cell: +1 954 383 0460 Tel.: +1 954 359 3847 Europe, Middle East and Africa Guy Douglas [email protected] Cell: +31 (0)657120121 Tell: +31 (0)202158109 China Mirage Zhong [email protected] Cell: +86 185 1378 5180 Tel.: +86 10 6598 9988 Asia Pacific Nilma Missir-Boissac [email protected] Cell: +65 9012 8428 Tel.: +65 6305 9955 SOURCE Embraer S.A. PARSIPPANY, N.J., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Long Island based direct lender Jet Direct Mortgage announces the addition of a new branch office in Parsippany to better serve the New Jersey community. The branch will be run by veteran mortgage professionals Sean Brennan and Dale Gallant. Dale Gallant and Sean Brennan bring their entire team of Sales Managers, Loan Officers and Operations staff to Jet Direct Mortgage. As National VPs of Sales, Gallant and Brennan are well known throughout the industry and have a strong national, as well as local following. Both have over 20 plus years of experience in all aspects of the mortgage industry and have managed mortgage companies of all sizes. Their industry knowledge is on par with the best and brightest in the business. To coincide with the arrival of Dale and Sean, Jet Direct has opened its new corporate hub in Parsippany New Jersey. This location will serve as an extension of our corporate office in New York, with the purpose to grow and expand our reach in New Jersey and beyond. National VP of Sales Sean Brennan explained, "We are thrilled to be a part of Jet Direct Mortgage's winning team! Over the past few years we have been seeing and hearing great things about them as an organization and since we've come on board, things have only exceeded our expectations. The amount of support from ownership, operations, and even marketing has been greater than anything I've experienced at any of the former lenders I've been associated with." "We're excited and proud to have Dale, Sean and their team join Jet Direct," said Chief Operating Officer Peter Pescatore. "They embody the core values that Jet Direct stands for and provide a much needed presence in the area. Our New Jersey customers and business partners deserve the very best in service, knowledge, and innovation and I'm confident that they will play a key role in making the home loan process simple for our customers and business partners As many in the mortgage industry are currently cutting back, Jet Direct Mortgage has sustained the market and continued to grow. We are very excited about the future of this location, as well as the continued growth at a national level." "My team and I are very excited to be a part of Jet Direct. This company's forward thinking, extremely knowledgeable staff, excellent pricing and cutting edge technology is what I strongly feel is needed in order to successfully navigate the future of this ever-changing industry. I have known Peter and Shachar personally for years and I am right at home here!" adds National VP of Sales Dale Gallant. About Jet Direct: Jet Direct is a full-service direct lender providing a wide range of loan products and services to the communities they serve. Jet Direct Mortgage's mission is to set the highest standard in the mortgage industry and is committed to quality customer service - putting the people they serve first. Jet Direct strives to be the homebuyer's first choice each and every time by going above and beyond pairing the buyer with the best loan program for them, guiding them every step of the way, and continuously working of their behalf to help them achieve the dream of home ownership. https://www.jetdirectmortgage.com/ CONTACT: Frank St. John, 631-574-1306 SOURCE Jet Direct Mortgage Related Links https://www.jetdirectmortgage.com (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798599/Slit_Robo_Nitrin.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798597/Glia_Netrin.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798598/Netrin_mutant_brain_IPC_OPC.jpg ) Boundaries between different regions of the brain are essential for the brain to function. Research to-date has shown that molecular machineries located at the cell membrane such as cell adhesion molecules are responsible for regulating the boundary formation. Specifically, Slit and Netrin are diffusible guidance molecules that regulate the attraction and/or repulsion of the cells. Cells that receive Slit or Netrin are repelled from its source. However, it is also known that some cells are attracted to the source of Netrin. Makoto Sato at Kanazawa University and colleagues report in iScience that these diffusible molecules are essential for the boundary formation in fly brains. The visual center of the adult fly brain can stem from two parts of the larval fly brain, the inner proliferation center (IPC) and the outer proliferation center (OPC). Glial cells separate the IPC neurons and OPC neurons (Fig. 1). Keeping the IPC and OPC separated ensures that they give rise to distinct brain regions. Netrin becomes effective when received by the two receptor molecules Fra and Unc5. To examine the effects of Netrin, the researchers used gene editing and inactivated it in the larva visual centers. These flies were found to have the IPC neurons penetrating the OPC, with disrupted distribution of the OPC neurons and glial cells (Fig. 3). The same effects were seen in Fra and Unc5 inactivated flies. Similarly, Slit becomes active when bound to its receptor, Robo. Inactivation of either Slit or Robo resulted in similar boundary defects. The researchers also found that Netrin expressed in the IPC and OPC neurons is received by Fra and Unc5 expressed in the glial cells situated between the IPC and OPC. In contrast, Slit expressed in the glial cells is received by Robo expressed in the IPC and OPC (Fig. 1). These unique findings are important because the guidance molecules are different from molecules that act at cells membranes. However, it is very difficult to imagine how these guidance molecules govern the boundary formation. So, Sato and his team formulated a mathematical model of the functions of Slit and Netrin and demonstrated that these guidance molecules can indeed regulate the formation of boundaries. The exchange of Slit and Netrin with their respective partners, between the neurons and glial cells were simulated. Slit produced by glial cell always repels neurons. However, given that Netrin possesses attractive and repulsive properties, then how does Netrin function? The key idea of their model is that Netrin produced by neurons attracts glial cells when its concentration is low. But it is switched to become repellent when its concentration is high. This model shows that the balance between attraction and repulsion between neurons and glial cells regulates the boundary formation in the different brain regions (Fig. 2). Thus, the report establishes a link between the diffusible guidance molecules and the boundary formation mechanism in multicellular organisms. "Since these signaling pathways are evolutionarily conserved from insects to mammals, their roles in establishing the tissue border may also be conserved across species", the team concludes. An elucidation of these novel pathways paves the way for preventing structural and thereby functional deformities in the brains of higher species, such as humans. Inhibition of cell mixing also aids in keeping toxic cells, such as cancer cells, from invading healthy ones. Background Drosophila: This genus of flies, known as small fruit flies, are commonly found hovering about fruit. Contrary to this pesky attribute, the fruit fly is exceptionally useful in medical science. They make a great model to study the function of different genes, as gene editing is easily achieved in them. Additionally, fruit flies used in the laboratory, share majority of their genes with animals and are thoroughly bred. The life-cycle of the fly includes four distinct stages: the egg, larva, pupae and the adult fly. Glial cells: Cells in the brain do not comprise neurons only. Glial cells are supportive cells found in the brain and adjacent tissues, with functions such as combatting infectious agents, clearing the brain of used up nutrients, providing them with new nutrients and oxygen, and lastly, a function most apposite here, holding neurons in place. Reference Takumi Suzuki, Chuyan Liu, Satoru Kato, Kohei Nishimura, Hiroki Takechi, Tetsuo Yasugi, Rie Takayama, Satoko Hakeda-Suzuki, Takashi Suzuki, and Makoto Sato. Netrin Signaling Defines the Regional Border in the Drosophila Visual Center. iScience, October 26th, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2018.09.021 About Kanazawa University As the leading comprehensive university on the Sea of Japan coast, Kanazawa University has contributed greatly to higher education and academic research in Japan since it was founded in 1949. The University has three colleges and 17 schools offering courses in subjects that include medicine, computer engineering, and humanities. The University is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan in Kanazawa - a city rich in history and culture. The city of Kanazawa has a highly respected intellectual profile since the time of the fiefdom (1598-1867). Kanazawa University is divided into two main campuses: Kakuma and Takaramachi for its approximately 10,200 students including 600 from overseas. Kanazawa University website: http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/ Further information Kanazawa University Kakuma, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-1192, JAPAN E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +81(76)264-5963 SOURCE Kanazawa University Buy the proper eye protection . Always wear eye protection that meets appropriate national standards when using nonpowder guns. . Always wear eye protection that meets appropriate national standards when using nonpowder guns. Get a target . Have children shoot BB and pellet guns at paper or gel targets with a backstop to trap BBs or pellets. . Have children shoot BB and pellet guns at paper or gel targets with a backstop to trap BBs or pellets. Educate children . Teach them proper safety precautions for handling and using non-powder guns. . Teach them proper safety precautions for handling and using non-powder guns. Be present . Ensure that there is always appropriate adult supervision. . Ensure that there is always appropriate adult supervision. Know what to do (and what not to) if an eye injury occurs. Seek immediate medical attention from an ophthalmologist. As you wait for medical help, make sure to never to touch, rub, apply pressure, or try to remove any object stuck in the eye. If an eye injury occurs, follow these important care and treatment guidelines. "Ophthalmologists see firsthand the devastating damage toy guns can inflict on the eyes; children are blinded," said Dianna Seldomridge, M.D., MBA, clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. "The good news is, most of these injuries are avoidable. Protective eyewear and adult supervision make non-powder gun activities much safer for children. If you can't resist the Ralphies in your life, buy protective eyewear." About the American Academy of Ophthalmology The American Academy of Ophthalmology is the world's largest association of eye physicians and surgeons. A global community of 32,000 medical doctors, we protect sight and empower lives by setting the standards for ophthalmic education and advocating for our patients and the public. We innovate to advance our profession and to ensure the delivery of the highest-quality eye care. Our EyeSmart program provides the public with the most trusted information about eye health. For more information, visit aao.org. SOURCE American Academy of Ophthalmology Related Links http://www.aao.org Held at the newly opened Hospitality Hall at University of Nevada, Las Vegas on December 12 th in front of a live audience, candidates were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants earlier this fall. Young chefs and their assistants were tasked with developing an original recipe based on the featured protein, lamb loin saddle, provided by Pure Bred Lamb with plates by Steelite , and given the platform to compete in front of some of the world's most renowned chefs and the founders of the Ment'or BKB Foundation, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Jerome Bocuse. The guest chef jury consisted of: Paul Bartolotta , Justin Cogley , Gerard Craft , Chris Hastings , Tim Hollingsworth , Michelle Karr-Ueoka , Gavin Kaysen, Mathew Peters , Francis Reynard , Rich Rosendale , Curtis Stone , and Philip Tessier. The Young Chef first place winner, Ian P. Cairns, is the first to compete in the Young Chef and Commis competition with a Culinary Science degree from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). He most recently worked at The French Laundry in Yountville, CA and Melisse in Los Angeles, CA. His assistant chef was Bryn Rene Timmis. The second place team was Jordan Sanchez of the Garrison at the Fairmont in Austin, TX and his assistant chef, Lauren Poag. The third place team was Jakub Czyszczon of Senia in O'ahu Hawaii and his assistant chef, Blaize Velasquez. The Young Commis first place winner, Amber Baden, is currently working at Bar Boulud in Boston, MA. Sean Koenig, who currently works at The French Laundry, won second place, and Christian Wieczorek won third place. Both Young Chef and Commis second and third place winners receive cash prizes. Young Yun, Ment'or BKB's Executive Director shares, "This year is particularly significant, as it marks the tenth anniversary of the Foundation. It is our mission to support young chefs across America through our programs, from helping train Team USA for the Bocuse d'Or to educating and promoting the next generation of great American Chefs. The Young Chef and Commis competitions showcase our efforts by bringing together mentors and mentees and is at the core of what we do. We are incredibly humbled by the hard work given by each of the participants, and are proud to have witnessed the unparalleled talent and dedication that each competitor put forth." Establishing a platform for young American chefs to succeed is at the heart of The Ment'or BKB's mission. Offering exposure to some of the world's most prestigious chefs, The Young Chef and Commis competitions recognize and promote talented young cooks in a competitive environment, ultimately preparing them to enter the next phase of their careers. Winners are given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to Lyon, France in January and support Team USA at the 2019 Bocuse d'Or Finale, where they will be defending their gold medal title. The Young Chef and Commis Competition is made possible by proud sponsors including: All-Clad, Barclays, Bridor, Grey Goose, Nordaq Fresh, Patron, Pure Bred Lamb, Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, Steelite and The Venetian Resort. For additional details, visit www.mentorbkb.org/youngchefs2018/ For more information about the Ment'or BKB Foundation, visit http://www.mentorbkb.org/ or follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. About Ment'or The Ment'or BKB Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to inspire excellence in young culinary professionals and preserve the traditions and quality of classic cuisine in America. Ment'or is led by a Board of Directors including Chefs Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Jerome Bocuse, as well as an esteemed Culinary Council of over 40 renowned chefs nationwide who act as mentors for young chefs, serve in an advisory capacity to the organization and participate in fundraising events. Educational grants are offered to young professionals through the Ment'or Grant Program for Continuing Education which has awarded more than $1.2 Million since 2014. Our Young Chef and Commis Competitions for young cooks provide further opportunity to advance their careers in the culinary world. Ment'or is also responsible for recruiting, training and financially supporting the promising young American chefs who compete on behalf of the United States in the prestigious Bocuse d'Or competition, held in Lyon France, every two years. For the first time in history, Team USA 2017 won the coveted Gold Medal at the Bocuse d'Or. Visit: www.mentorbkb.org SOURCE mentor BKB Foundation Related Links http://www.mentorbkb.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Delaware ranks 5th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Delaware is spending $6.3 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 48.4 percent of the $13 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Delaware, 6.2 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 13.6 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 1,400 Delaware lives and costs the state $532 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Delaware will collect $154.7 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.1 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.1 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $46.3 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Delaware more than 7 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Delaware has done a better job than most states in funding tobacco prevention programs, but is still providing less than half the CDC-recommended amount. Delaware has reduced its high school smoking rate from 32.2 percent in 1999 to 6.2 percent in 2017 an 81 percent drop. "Delaware has made great strides, but the state's leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "To win this fight, Delaware needs increase its investment in tobacco prevention programs and do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Iowa ranks 25th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Iowa is spending $4 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 13.4 percent of the $30.1 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Iowa, 9.9 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 9 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 5,100 Iowa lives and costs the state $1.3 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Iowa will collect $274.2 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1.5 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1.5 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $107.0 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Iowa more than 26 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. "Iowa is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but Iowa leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Iowa needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Mississippi ranks 21st nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Mississippi is spending $8.4 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 23.1 percent of the $36.5 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Mississippi, 9.4 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 10.3 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 5,400 Mississippi lives and costs the state over $1.2 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Mississippi will collect $248.4 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 3.4 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 3.4 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $127.3 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Mississippi more than 15 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for stronger tobacco prevention efforts in Mississippi. To reduce smoking and save lives, health advocates are pushing for a large increase in the state's low tobacco tax (at 68 cents per pack, Mississippi ranks 40th in the country and well below the $1.78 state average). "Mississippi is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but Mississippi leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. Mississippi should significantly increase the cigarette tax and do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Montana ranks 12th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Montana is spending $5 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 34 percent of the $14.6 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Montana, 12.1 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 22.5 percent use e-cigarettes, one of the highest rates in the nation. Tobacco use claims 1,600 Montana lives and costs the state $440 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Montana will collect $108.5 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $31.3 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Montana more than 6 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Montana has made progress in the fight against tobacco with steady funding for tobacco prevention and other effective policies, including a comprehensive smoke-free law. The state's high school smoking rate fell by 65 percent from 1999 to 2018 (from 35 percent to 12.1 percent). But Montana has cut funding for tobacco prevention programs in recent years, and the state missed an opportunity to strengthen its fight against tobacco this year when tobacco companies spent over $17.5 million to defeat a ballot initiative to raise the state cigarette tax by $2 per pack. "Montana has made strong progress, but the state's inadequate funding for tobacco prevention programs is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Montana leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Montana needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nebraska ranks 26th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Nebraska is spending $2.6 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 12.4 percent of the $20.8 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Nebraska, 7.4 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 9.4 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 2,500 Nebraska lives and costs the state $795 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Nebraska will collect $104 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 2.5 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 2.5 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $63 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Nebraska more than 24 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. "Nebraska is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Nebraska needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania ranks 28th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Pennsylvania is spending $15.5 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 11.1 percent of the $140 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Pennsylvania, 8.7 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 11.3 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 22,000 Pennsylvania lives and costs the state $6.3 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Pennsylvania will collect $1.7 billion in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $443.9 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Pennsylvania more than 28 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for strong tobacco prevention funding in Pennsylvania. Health advocates are also urging state leaders to pass a comprehensive smoke-free workplace law that includes restaurants, bars and casinos. "Pennsylvania is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Pennsylvania needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tennessee is tied for last nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Tennessee is spending no money this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, despite the $75.6 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Tennessee, 9.4 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 11.5 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 11,400 Tennessee lives and costs the state $2.7 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Tennessee will collect $422 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of that money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of that money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $292.1 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Tennessee . Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Tennessee's tobacco prevention efforts took a dramatic turn for the worse this year when the state eliminated its entire budget ($6.2 million last year) for tobacco prevention and cessation programs. "Tennessee is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by failing to provide any funding for tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Tennessee needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Vermont ranks 6th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Vermont is spending $3.8 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 45.2 percent of the $8.4 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Vermont, 9.3 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 12 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 1,000 Vermont lives and costs the state $348 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Vermont will collect $99.8 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 3.8 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 3.8 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $16.8 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Vermont more than 4 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Vermont has reduced the state's high school smoking rate by 72 percent since 1999 (from 33.4 percent to 9.3 percent) with strong measures including a high cigarette tax ($3.08 per pack), a comprehensive smoke-free law and effective tobacco prevention and cessation programs. But it is still providing less than half of the CDC-recommended funding for such programs. To keep making progress, health advocates are urging Vermont leaders to increase funding for tobacco prevention and pass a statewide law raising the tobacco sale age to 21. "We applaud the state legislature for increasing funding this year for tobacco prevention and cessation. Vermont has made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but state leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "To win this fight, Vermont needs to raise the tobacco age to 21 and keep doing its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Virginia ranks 27th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Virginia is spending $10.8 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 11.8 percent of the $91.6 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Virginia, 6.5 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 11.8 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 10,300 Virginia lives and costs the state $3.1 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Virginia will collect $304.4 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 3.5 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 3.5 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $383.1 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Virginia more than 35 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. To further reduce tobacco use, health advocates are urging Virginia leaders to significantly increase the state cigarette tax and invest more in tobacco prevention programs. At just 30 cents per pack, Virginia has the second lowest state cigarette tax (after Missouri) and falls well below the average state tax of $1.78 per pack. "Virginia is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Virginia needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org HARRISBURG, Pa., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of Stop Overdoses in PA: Get Help Now Week, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Evanchick, Acting Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP), and Maj. Gen. Tony Carrelli, Pennsylvania's adjutant general and head of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, today reinforced the Wolf Administration's collaborative approach toward disrupting the flow of illegal drugs into the commonwealth. The Pennsylvania State Police continues to work closely with its local and federal law enforcement partners, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and others to aggressively investigate and dismantle drug trafficking organizations operating in the Commonwealth. From January 1 through November 30, 2018, troopers seized nearly 52 kilograms of heroin and 37 kilograms of fentanyl. In its purest form, even a small amount of fentanyl can cause a severe or potentially deadly reaction, putting not only users but also anyone who encounters the drug at risk. "Members of the Pennsylvania State Police remain steadfast in their efforts to bring to justice the dangerous smugglers and dealers who target the commonwealth's most vulnerable populations," said Acting Commissioner Evanchick. "Together with our law enforcement partners, we are using all resources available to keep illegal drugs out of our communities." Major drug seizures have come after simple traffic stops as well as complex, long-term investigations, according to Evanchick. Last month, a patrol trooper recovered 16 kilograms of fentanyl and 79 grams of cocaine after a traffic stop in Northampton County. In August, an undercover operation in the City of Philadelphia yielded four kilograms of heroin and three kilograms of fentanyl. "The Pennsylvania Counterdrug Joint Task Force leverages unique National Guard capabilities that supports local and state law enforcement partners such as the Pennsylvania State Police, creates valuable community partnerships and provides free training through our Northeast Counterdrug Training Center in Lebanon County," said Carrelli. "Their mission directly supports Governor Wolf's fight against opioid abuse and heroin use, and they are truly dedicated to getting these deadly drugs out of circulation." From October 1, 2017 to September 1, 2018, the Pennsylvania Counterdrug Joint Task Force (CJTF) supported the transportation and destruction of 147 pounds of heroin with a street value of $7,046,400 and the Northeast Counterdrug Training Center (NCTC) offered educational programs to address the current drug crisis, providing 26 iterations of Opioid Awareness training for 1,100 students and 7 iterations of a Current Opioid Threat training to 226 students. A total of 6,480 Pennsylvania students received free training from NCTC. The CJTF also partnered with PSP and other law enforcement agencies to provide investigative support with an overall contribution to 85 opioid cases resulting in 786 lbs. of heroin seizures with a street value of $68,138. The CJTF is a federally funded program and all their programs and services are provided at no cost to the commonwealth. "Pennsylvania's Counterdrug Joint Task Force continues to expand and adapt operations to meet today's evolving threats, but the strong working relationships between our state and federal partners have been the true keys to our successes," Carrelli added. For more information on the Pennsylvania State Police, visit www.psp.pa.gov. For more information on the Counterdrug Joint Task Force visit www.counterdrug.org. MEDIA CONTACTS: Ryan Tarkowski, PSP: 717-783-5556 Joan Nissley, DMVA: 717-861-8720 SOURCE Pennsylvania State Police Department Related Links http://www.psp.pa.gov MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Absolute Air, LLC today announced plans to build a merchant Air Separation Plant (ASP) to serve its partners and customers in the upper Midwest area. The plant will be located on a contracted site in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. "We expect the facility to be on-stream in 2020," stated Ned Pontious, President of Absolute Air. The plant will produce oxygen, nitrogen, and argon for use in customer applications such as metal fabrication, blanketing, purging, combustion, chilling and freezing. Absolute Air, LLC is a partnership of five locally owned independent gas and welding supply distributors, as well as the Independent Welding Distributors Cooperative (IWDC). The partners view the investment as a proactive move to assure an ongoing and more economical supply of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon against the backdrop of the continuing consolidation of international industrial gas producers. The five distributors involved in the project are: Mississippi Welders Supply, Toll Company, Minneapolis Oxygen, A-OX Welding Supply, and Huber Supply. All are located in the upper Midwest area to be served by the plant, and together represent 30 business locations with over 50,000 customers in a 7-state region. The IWDC is a cooperative headquartered in Indianapolis, IN, with 140 member companies. It was formed in 1994 and leverages the strengths of its independent welding distributor members across North America. IWDC member companies collectively represent over $2.3B in sales, serving a wide range of industries. The common denominator is that these industries look to them for industrial, specialty, and medical gases as well as related equipment, welding hardgoods, and consumables. End-use customers served by IWDC members benefit from having the unparalleled expertise of a local member distributor who has access to national-scale purchasing and marketing programs. You can learn more about any of these entities at: Absolute Air: www.absolute-air.com IWDC: www.iwdc.coop Mississippi Welders Supply: www.mwsco.com A-Ox Welding Supply: www.aoxwelding.com Toll Company: www.tollgas.com Huber Supply Company: www.hubersupply.com Minneapolis Oxygen: www.mplso2.com SOURCE Absolute Air, LLC Related Links https://www.absolute-air.com PASADENA, Calif., and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), an urban office REIT uniquely focused on collaborative life science and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, today announced the opening of Alexandria LaunchLabs at the Alexandria Center at One Kendall Square. Located in the heart of East Cambridge's Kendall Square, known as the world's most innovative square mile, the dedicated 20,000 square foot seed- and early-stage incubator opens with more than 10 highly innovative seed- and early-stage member companies. Each company was diligently selected from a highly competitive and very strong applicant pool, the size of which confirms strong demand for the Alexandria LaunchLabs platform as well as its prime location at the Alexandria Center at One Kendall Square's iconic entry plaza. "Alexandria has a more than 20-year history of providing innovative infrastructure, venture capital and thought leadership to accelerate the growth of Cambridge's next generation of life science companies," said Joel S. Marcus, executive chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments. "Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a tremendous example of a groundbreaking company that has grown with Alexandria. In 2002, Alnylam was as a Series A funded company in our Science Hotel at 790 Memorial Drive, and it has since become a leading RNAi biopharmaceutical company and Cambridge icon, which is now the full-building tenant at our 300 Third Street property. We are very proud to enhance our unparalleled offerings in Cambridge with the opening of Alexandria LaunchLabs. Our unique, fully integrated Alexandria LaunchLabs platform and our Alexandria Seed Capital Platform will continue to fill the crucial role in aiding transformative seed- and early-stage companies in their efforts to develop novel, cost-effective therapies to ease human suffering." Alexandria LaunchLabs in Cambridge builds on the company's proven platform, which was created to satisfy seed- and early-stage life science companies' major unmet need for highly flexible and cost-effective turnkey office/laboratory space, as well as for access to strategic seed-stage risk capital through the Alexandria Seed Capital Platform. Designed to support seed- and early-stage companies focusing on fundamental translational research and gating validation studies, Alexandria LaunchLabs offers its member companies rapid activation on day one through its first-class support resources, valuable shared equipment and services, creative amenities and strategic programming. The highly qualified on-site Alexandria LaunchLabs management team provides its member companies with highly curated mentorship to enhance their development and growth trajectories. The team brings a track record and significant experience and expertise in entrepreneurship, venture capital, laboratory operations and early-stage life science company-building. "We are thrilled to provide flexibly designed and cost-effective space as well as significant human and strategic risk capital to positively impact our member companies' businesses and to ensure the continued success of Cambridge's innovation ecosystem," said Catherine Nuccio, senior associate of Science & Technology at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments. "We believe in the importance of catalyzing high-potential entrepreneurs, and with our proprietary platforms, we are able to offer the foundational support needed to sustain the long-term health and diversity of life science companies that are so critical to the DNA of Kendall Square." To celebrate the opening of its Cambridge site, Alexandria LaunchLabs will host a formal grand opening in the first quarter of 2019 and a forthcoming scientific pitch competition in which Alexandria will award a $100,000 Alexandria LaunchLabs Seed Capital Prize to the top presenting company. Alexandria is currently accepting applications from transformative life science companies for seed capital and/or office/laboratory space at Alexandria LaunchLabs. Interested companies may apply at https://apply.alexandrialaunchlabs.com/. To receive information on the pitch competition and other news, sign up for updates at www.alexandrialaunchlabs.com. About Alexandria LaunchLabs Alexandria LaunchLabs is the premier, full-service startup platform designed to dramatically accelerate the growth of early-stage life science companies. With its flagship site at the Alexandria Center for Life Science New York City and its Cambridge site at the Alexandria Center at One Kendall Square, Alexandria LaunchLabs provides move-in-ready office/laboratory space, first-class support resources, shared equipment and services, creative amenities and access to seed capital through the Alexandria Seed Capital Platformall of which are critical for driving the growth of seed- and early-stage companies across the country. The Alexandria LaunchLabs team is currently accepting applications for future members in New York City and Cambridge. For more information or to apply, please visit www.alexandrialaunchlabs.com. MEMBERSHIP INCLUDES: Highly flexible wet laboratory and office spaces, starting at $1,995 per month per month Full-service operations and management Strategic programming and mentorship Connectivity with Alexandria's robust life science network robust life science network Access to seed capital through the Alexandria Seed Capital Platform Shared laboratory equipment Comprehensive IT/AV package Open cafe, lounge and conferencing spaces Access to Alexandria Center campus amenities and services About Alexandria Venture Investments Alexandria Venture Investments, founded in 1996, is the strategic venture capital arm of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. Alexandria Venture Investments focuses on novel, breakthrough discoveries in biopharma, diagnostics, research tools, agtech and technology. Based on its experience in and in-depth understanding of the life science and technology industries, its long-term relationships with leading investors and its world-class scientific advisory network, Alexandria Venture Investments is uniquely positioned to fund seed-, early- and growth-stage companies. About Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), an S&P 500 company, is an urban office REIT uniquely focused on collaborative life science and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, with a total market capitalization of $19.1 billion and an asset base in North America of 32.2 million square feet (SF) as of September 30, 2018. The asset base in North America includes 21.6 million rentable square feet (RSF) of operating properties and 2.6 million RSF of development and redevelopment of new Class A properties currently undergoing construction and pre-construction activities with target delivery dates ranging from 2018 through 2019. Additionally, the asset base in North America includes 8.0 million SF of intermediate-term and future development projects. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland and Research Triangle Park. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science and technology campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science and technology companies through our venture capital arm. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns and greater long-term asset value. For additional information, please visit www.are.com. CONTACT: Sara Kabakoff, AVP Corporate Communications, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., (626) 7885578 SOURCE Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. Related Links http://www.are.com PLYMOUTH, Mich., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Alliance Franchise Brands LLC, a world leader in marketing, print and graphic communications, announced the acquisition of RSVP Publications by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Allegra Holdings LLC. RSVP Publications is a direct mail advertising company reaching over seven million homes in more than 70 U.S. metro markets. RSVP Publications logo RSVP Publications, based in Tampa, Fla., joins the Alliance Franchise Brands network of brands that include marketing and print providers Allegra Marketing Print Mail, Insty-Prints, KKP and American Speedy Printing, and sign and graphics providers Image360, Signs By Tomorrow and Signs Now. For over 30 years, RSVP Publications has delivered on their proven concept of "Direct Mail to the Upscale" through luxury card packages. RSVP franchise members target higher-end businesses with residential advertising opportunities. "We were delighted to find a business model that fits so well with our other brands," said Mike Marcantonio, CEO of Alliance Franchise Brands. "We think that there will be great synergies among our organizations." Family-owned and operated, RSVP Publications was founded by Dave Tropf in 1985. "This is the right time and path for taking our franchise forward," said Tropf. "Being part of the Alliance Franchise Brands network opens up new avenues of support and growth for our franchise members, making them even stronger advertising partners in their markets." About Alliance Franchise Brands LLC (Parent company of Allegra Holdings LLC) Alliance Franchise Brands LLC, a world leader in marketing and visual communications, has grown to become a holding company for nine franchise concepts, linking more than 650 locations in North America. Independently-owned and operated franchises provide national, regional and local businesses and organizations with a one-stop resource for technologically advanced and strategically sound solutions for their graphics communications needs under the Allegra Marketing Print Mail, American Speedy Printing, Image360, Insty-Prints, KKP, Signs By Tomorrow, Signs Now and Zippy Print brands. RSVP Publications is one of the largest direct mail advertising companies in the United States. Franchise locations deliver on the proven concept of "Direct Mail to the Upscale" through luxury card packages. To learn more, visit www.alliancefranchisebrands.com or call (800) 726-9050. Media Contact: Johnna Rettig [email protected] 800-726-9050 SOURCE Alliance Franchise Brands Related Links http://www.alliancefranchisebrands.com Kaur has a long history with the Jewish Home, where she began as a nursing assistant in 2005 and ultimately established her credentials as a licensed vocational nurse. After a number of years as a registered nurse at other healthcare facilities, she returned to the Jewish Home in 2015. "I am excited to help steer the direction of such a renowned institution, and I am thrilled to continue collaborating with so many outstanding colleagues," she said. "The Annenberg School of Nursing is a top training ground for men and women preparing to serve across areas of specialty, and I look forward to increasing opportunities for them to thrive." A Magna Cum Laude graduate of both West Coast University and University of Phoenix and a member of the prestigious Signa Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Kaur brings a track record of excellence and a global perspective to her new position. Her credentials also include a Bachelor of Arts-equivalent degree in mass communication from Punjab University in her native India. "The Annenberg School of Nursing depends upon extraordinary leaders to maintain its place at the forefront of nursing education," said Molly Forrest, CEO-President of the Jewish Home. "Amandeep has the experience, knowledge, and vision to uphold the school's high standard of performance and to ensure its graduates build the skills they need for enduring professional success." Located on the Jewish Home's Hirsch Family Campus in the San Fernando Valley, the Annenberg School of Nursing welcomes students from all backgrounds and working histories to master the discipline of nursing science. Harnessing the latest technology and interactive instruction, the school equips students with the tools necessary for rewarding careers in the field. Founded in 1912, the non-profit Los Angeles Jewish Home is among the largest providers of senior healthcare services in Los Angeles. Through its innovative Connections to Care program, each year thousands of seniors benefit from the Home's community-based and in-residence programs. Community-based programs include: A Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE); hospice; home health; palliative medicine; community clinics; short-term rehabilitation; and acute psychiatric care. Our Reseda campuses serve seniors with options for independent living, residential care, skilled nursing care, short-term rehabilitation, and Alzheimer's disease and dementia care. The Home's Gonda Healthy Aging Westside Campus in Playa Vista offers independent living and access to assisted living and memory care. SOURCE Los Angeles Jewish Home NORTHBOROUGH, Mass., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspen Aerogels, Inc. ("Aspen Aerogels") today announced the receipt of a European Technical Assessment (ETA-18/0011) for SLENTEX, the non-combustible, high performance aerogel insulation to be commercialized in partnership with BASF. This European Technical Assessment has been issued pursuant to the Construction Products Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 and will allow a CE mark to be affixed to SLENTEX products. "We are pleased to be authorized to affix the CE mark to SLENTEX on behalf of our partner BASF and to demonstrate the product's adherence to strict European standards. SLENTEX represents the cutting edge of non-combustible thermal insulation. The product's unique combination of a Euro Class A2 reaction to fire performance and a strong 19mW/mK thermal conductivity was a considerable technical challenge that Aspen Aerogels and BASF are proud to have achieved," said Gregg Landes, Vice President, Strategic Development at Aspen Aerogels. "We expect that SLENTEX will be of significant interest to architects, engineers and insurers impacted by, or at risk of, recent or expected regulatory changes requiring the use of non-combustible products in high-rise buildings. SLENTEX can help to ensure that a building's fire and thermal performance can be achieved without trade-offs to safety, space, comfort or design," Mr. Landes continued. "The issuance of the European Technical Assessment is an important milestone for Aspen Aerogels in the building materials industry and in our relationship with BASF. We look forward to continuing to partner with BASF to introduce additional high performance, non-combustible solutions for building and commercial applications," Mr. Landes concluded. About Aspen Aerogels, Inc. Aspen Aerogels is an aerogel technology company that designs, develops and manufactures innovative, high-performance aerogel insulation used primarily in the energy infrastructure and building materials markets where thermal energy efficiency is at a premium and Aspen's products offer unique value. Headquartered in Northborough, Mass., Aspen Aerogels manufactures its Cryogel, Pyrogel and Spaceloft products at its East Providence, R.I. facility. Note: SLENTEX is a registered trademark of BASF SE. SOURCE Aspen Aerogels, Inc. Related Links http://www.aerogel.com "Steve brings incredible expertise in technology, operations and finance, so I'm delighted to welcome him to the board," said Stacy Smith, chairman of the board of Autodesk. "I'm confident his presence will benefit Autodesk and its shareholders as we drive sustainable growth and returns." "Steve is an excellent addition to the Autodesk board," said Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk president and CEO. "He brings a wealth of experience in transforming companies and driving growth that will be invaluable as we continue our journey to become a SaaS driven Design and Make solutions provider." Prior to Western Digital, Milligan was president and chief executive officer of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST). During his tenure, Milligan led Hitachi GST through a financial and operational turnaround. Before joining Hitachi GST in 2007, Milligan was Western Digital's senior vice president and chief financial officer. He originally joined Western Digital in 2002 as vice president, Finance. Previously, he spent five years with Dell in senior finance roles after starting his career with Price Waterhouse. Milligan serves on the board of directors for Western Digital and Ross Stores, Inc. and holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from The Ohio State University. About Autodesk Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you've ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you've experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with our software. Autodesk gives you the power to make anything. Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. 2018 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. SOURCE Autodesk, Inc. Related Links http://www.autodesk.com LONDON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As the new year approaches and travellers look to get away, CheapFlightsFinder.com reveals a brand new look alongside a powerful new flight deals search engine. The new deals search engine located at the top of the homepage automatically detects your closest airport and begins showing you the best deals in the entire upcoming new year. Users can press "Next Deal" to rifle through hundreds of the best flight deals in seconds. Screenshot of new deals search engine Deals can be refined by changing the parameters such as departure airport or where you want to see deals to. Options include searching for deals to a particular continent such as 'Asia' or "Europe" or a particular country like "Spain" or "China." Users can also refine the date of the deals by selecting a particular 'Month' or leave the time as "Anywhere" to see the best possible dates to fly. The data is sourced from over 1200 different travel sites and when you click through to "View Deal" is then "Price Matched" across multiple search engines to make sure you have got the very best price possible. The deals are cross checked against the best search engines including KAYAK, Cheapflights, Momondo, Skyscanner, Google flights, Dohop, Jetcost and more, potentially saving up to 20% more off the initial deal price. Founder and CEO Shahab Siddiqui explained, "The secret to finding the very best deals is 2 fold - one is discovering the optimal days to fly and the second is checking multiple search engines on those dates - this new tool allows you to do both tasks effortlessly." Some of the amazing return flight deals the new tool has uncovered include: London to New York - 209 Manchester to Beijing - 330 Birmingham to Dubai - 235 Edinburgh to St. Petersburg - 125 New York to Barcelona - $276 Boston to Dublin - $274 Washington to Oslo - $311 Houston to Cancun - $174 Los Angeles to Stockholm - $380 San Francisco to London - $343 About CheapFlightsFinder Since 2008, CheapFlightsFinder has been focused on helping consumers save money on airfare. Recommended by Arthur Frommer, the Daily Mail, and the Times Online, the company has stayed on the cutting edge of low-cost airfare search and continues to introduce travel savings innovations. CheapFlightsFinder's unique Meta-Meta Flight Search allows consumers to quickly compare prices from top online aggregators including Skyscanner, momondo, Dohop, KAYAK, Google Flights and more. Contact: Shahab Siddiqui 07957191342 SOURCE CheapFlightsFinder.com TRENTON, N.J., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Opponents of the PennEast pipeline decried a decision today from Judge Brian Martinotti of the U.S. District Court in Trenton to grant the proposed pipeline full eminent domain rights to nearly 150 properties in New Jersey for a pipeline that might never get built. This is the first time state preserved lands have ever been condemned since the NJ Natural Lands Trust was established in 1969. "Today's ruling favored private interests over the public good by letting PennEast owned in part by New Jersey Resources and South Jersey Industries seize nearly 150 private and preserved lands for its ill-advised pipeline before the State of New Jersey has decided whether it will even be approved," said Tom Gilbert, campaign director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJ Conservation) . "We will continue the fight to protect our land, water and communities from this unneeded, damaging project." "PennEast is trying to trample on our rights by taking land from private homeowners, and lands set aside with taxpayer dollars for our children and grandchildren. This will only strengthen the public's opposition and resolve to ensure that this self-serving project is rejected and they never get the chance to destroy New Jersey's environment," continued Gilbert. "We are really disappointed that the court felt that its hands were tied, and had no choice but to allow PennEast to condemn these lands. We continue to believe that PennEast is not entitled to permanently seize lands at this stage, and are considering our legal options," said Jennifer Danis, senior staff attorney, Columbia University Environmental Law Clinic. "Allowing a private company to seize preserved lands that are held in the public trust as well as privately-owned land for a pipeline that may never be built tears at the faith and trust we have placed in our legal system. For these open spaces and farms that were preserved with taxpayer support for environmental and agricultural purposes to be condemned for a pipeline that has no water permit approvals is an egregious abuse of condemnation power," said Patricia Ruby, Executive Director, Hunterdon Land Trust. The ruling by Judge Martinotti came in response to condemnation complaints filed by PennEast to seize nearly 150 properties in New Jersey owned by private homeowners, the State of New Jersey, Mercer County, Hunterdon County, several municipalities, NJ Conservation, and Hunterdon Land Trust. The New Jersey Attorney General called on the court to reject PennEast's demand to condemn more than 20 parcels of state-owned open space and farmland that were preserved with taxpayer dollars. PennEast had asked the court to give the company title and immediate access to property the company contends is needed to build its proposed gas pipeline even though PennEast does not have authorization to build its project. NJ Conservation and Hunterdon Land Trust asked the court to stop PennEast from seizing preserved land the two nonprofit organizations own. PennEast includes member companies New Jersey Resources ($NJR), South Jersey Industries ($SJI), and UGI Corp ($UGI). The state argued that PennEast's request for the rights to build on the "preciously scarce" preserved lands the state owns and manages was overly broad, that the federal court lacks jurisdiction over the state, and that harm to the state's 60-year open space program would be "irreparable" if PennEast's request is granted. "We appreciate the efforts of the Attorney General's office to defend state lands that were set aside for the public, not pipeline developers," said Gilbert. PennEast was seeking to seize 149 of the 211 properties in the path of the proposed pipeline in New Jersey nearly 70 percent. Out of 149 properties that would be condemned, about 50 are preserved lands, more than 20 of which the state owns in whole or in part. PennEast's pipeline, if built, would damage 4,300 acres of permanently preserved open space and farmland, habitat for state threatened species, and over 30 pristine, protected streams. Download a copy of Judge Martinotti's decision : https://rethinkenergynj.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Martinotti_PennEast_Decision_12.14.18.pdf Click to tweet : Opponents of #PennEast pipeline vow to continue fight after court grants PennEast's request to seize private, preserved & state lands for an unapproved pipeline: http://ow.ly/lAKZ30mZqNr @conservenj @rethinkenergynj @eelc_org @HunterdonLandTr About New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJ Conservation) About Hunterdon Land Trust About Columbia University Environmental Law Clinic About Eastern Environmental Law Center (EELC) SOURCE New Jersey Conservation Foundation Rapid Expansion Continues with Company's 19th Dispensary in Florida LUTZ, Fla., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCBB: CURLF) ("Curaleaf" or the "Company"), a leading vertically integrated cannabis operator in the United States, announced the grand opening of Lutz's first medical marijuana dispensary today, bringing the number of dispensaries the company runs in the state to 19. Curaleaf currently operates 35 dispensaries across the United States. Lutz's first medical marijuana dispensary, located at 1408 Dale Mabry Highway, will offer patients, physicians and community members medical marijuana educational seminars and resources in its community meeting room every month. All patients have access to Curaleaf's line of superior medical marijuana products in a safe, accessible and comfortable environment that includes a private consultation room. "In our mission to provide Florida patients with access to medical marijuana, Curaleaf is honored to offer Lutz's growing community its first medical marijuana dispensary," said Curaleaf Florida President, Lindsay Jones. "This area will no longer be considered 'underserved.' Curaleaf is ready to serve the Lutz community and the surrounding communities of Land O' Lakes, Zephyrhills, Trinity and New Port Richey." The dispensary's operating hours are Monday through Friday, 10am 7pm; Saturday, 10am 5pm; and Sunday, noon 5pm. Throughout the year, discounts are offered to senior citizens, military veterans, pediatric patients and recipients of government financial assistance. The State of Florida's Office of Medical Marijuana Use Registry requires an order from a qualified Florida ordering physician and a State of Florida medical marijuana card to obtain medical marijuana products. All dispensary visitors must show a State of Florida medical marijuana card. Curaleaf also operates dispensaries in Daytona Beach, Deerfield Beach, Fort Myers, Fort Pierce, Jacksonville, Lake Worth, Lakeland, Miami, Ocala, Orlando, Palm Bay, Palm Harbor, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa. In addition to these dispensaries, Curaleaf offers all patients in Florida online ordering, in-store pick up and free statewide medical marijuana delivery service. Patients may call 877-303-0741 for more information. About Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. The Company is the parent of Curaleaf, Inc., a leading vertically integrated cannabis operator in the United States. Headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, Curaleaf, Inc. has a presence in 12 states. Curaleaf, Inc. operates 35 dispensaries, 12 cultivation sites and 10 processing sites with a focus on highly populated, limited license states, including Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Curaleaf, Inc. leverages its extensive research and development capabilities to distribute cannabis products in multiple formats with the highest standard for safety, effectiveness, consistent quality and customer care. Curaleaf is committed to being the industry's leading resource in education and advancement through research and advocacy. Curaleaf, Inc.'s Florida operations were the first in the cannabis industry to receive the Safe Quality Food certification under the Global Food Safety Initiative, setting a new standard of excellence. For more information please visit www.curaleaf.com. Media Contact: Lauren Garcia-Velez [email protected] 305.443.3500 Investor Contact: KCSA Strategic Communications Valter Pinto, Managing Director PH: (212) 896-1260 [email protected] SOURCE Curaleaf, Inc. Related Links https://www.curaleaf.com WELLESLEY, Mass., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Babson College's Board of Trustees have named Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA'92, PhD as the College's 14th president, effective July 1, 2019. He will succeed Dr. Kerry Healey, who announced that she would be stepping down at the end of this academic year. Babson is the top-ranked college in entrepreneurship education. Stephen Spinelli Jr. has spent his career at the intersection of academia, business, and philanthropy. Spinelli began his journey at Babson as an MBA student and later as a professor and administrator. He has spent his career at the intersection of academia, business, and philanthropy. During his 14 years at Babson, he served as the Alan Lewis Chair in Global Management, Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division, Director of The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, and Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship and Global Management. An accomplished entrepreneur, Spinelli co-founded Jiffy Lube International. In 2011, he was inducted into Babson's Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame . Spinelli will be the first Babson president who has led another university. He served for 10 years as president of Philadelphia University, and, after leading the successful merger of Philadelphia and Thomas Jefferson universities, he was named Chancellor of Jefferson University. As president, he established the unique Kanbar College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce: one of America's first transdisciplinary colleges. He championed the Master of Science in Sustainable Design, an award-winning, transdisciplinary, collaborative degree program that is among the most recognized Sustainable Design graduate degrees. "Steve is a lifelong entrepreneur who has a proven record of success in business and academia," said Babson Board of Trustees Chair Marla M. Capozzi MBA'96. "His experience and leadership abilities uniquely align with the College's needs today and our vision for the future. We are very excited to welcome him back to Babson, where his journey began, to lead the College and our community into our next century," she said. "Babson has played an important and special role in my life and I am really honored to be returning to the community," President-elect Spinelli said. "While higher education is facing many disruptions, together we can set a vision that will enable Babson to continue to lead and remain a beacon of innovation," he said. Spinelli earned his PhD in economics from The Management School, Imperial College, University of London, his MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (1992), and his BA in economics from McDaniel College. The Presidential Search Committees included faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, and governance members and was led by Bruce T. Herring '87, P'19, a Babson trustee and former executive of Fidelity Investments. "A crucial component of the process has been engaging with the Babson community on campus and around the world," Herring said. "This engagement allowed us to hear what the community needed in a leader and helped us attract a deep, diverse, and talented pool of candidates. With Steve's appointment, we believe that our search process has produced an exceptional outcome for Babson," he said. About Babson College Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds . The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value. SOURCE Babson College Related Links http://www.babson.edu Johnson is a pathbreaking physician-scientist and educator who is an expert in health care, public health, and health policy. With a remarkable track record of accomplishmentsincluding founding the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospitalshe has led in the field of women's health, taking an approach to biology that integrates insights from sociology, economics, and many other fields. Johnson was the Grayce A. Young Family Professor of Medicine in Women's Health at Harvard Medical School and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Johnson's research has had an impact on women across the country through its influence on health care and health policy reforms. As President of Wellesley College, Johnson has advanced women's higher education, championing cross-campus efforts to integrate the ideals of inclusive excellence into every aspect of academic and residential life. Under her leadership, the College is developing new opportunities across all fields by drawing on the synergies found at the intersection of science, the humanities, and social sciences. Johnson is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. "Throughout her career, Paula Johnson has been a passionate advocate for women and her collective approach to understanding women's issues has led the way on countless advancements. Her vision, research, and ability to lead at the intersection of education, health care, and public policy have earned her key roles locally and nationally. From her pioneering work in women's health and gender biology to being the first woman of color to lead Wellesley College, President Johnson is a role model for breaking barriers and creating new pathways for women," said Bob Rivers, Chair and CEO of Eastern Bank. "We are proud to honor her and her transformative contributions as Eastern caps off a year of advocating for the advancement of women in our communities." "At this moment, when women hold the greatest promise for leading change and progress in our country, businesses that embody the values of equity and social justice, such as Eastern Bank, play an important role," said Wellesley College President Paula Johnson. "Eastern understands its role as a profitable company to both invest in and advocate for good in our communities. I am both honored and humbled to be recognized by Eastern Bank, and proudly accept the Social Justice Award on behalf of all the excellent work that has already been achieved and is yet to be achieved for the advancement of women." The Social Justice Award, originally launched by Wainwright Bank (which was acquired by Eastern in 2010), is presented annually. Now in its 30th year, the celebration is attended by well over 1,000 business and nonprofit leaders to celebrate their impact addressing vital needs in our communities. During 2018, Eastern has provided more than $2 million in grants from the Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation to over 200 organizations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island working to eliminate barriers and advance women in local communities. Pictured at this year's Celebration of Social Justice are, left to right: Eastern Bank Vice Chair and President Quincy Miller, 2018 Social Justice Award Recipient Dr. Paula A. Johnson, Eastern Bank Lead Director Deborah Jackson, and Eastern Bank Chair and CEO Bob Rivers. [Photo credit: Marilyn Humphries] About Eastern Bank Founded in 1818 and celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2018, Boston-based Eastern Bank is America's oldest and largest mutual bank, with over $11 billion in assets and more than 120 locations serving communities in eastern Massachusetts, southern and coastal New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Eastern provides exceptional access to fairly priced banking, investment and insurance products and services for consumers and businesses of all sizes. Eastern Bank, which includes Eastern Wealth Management and Eastern Insurance, is known for its outspoken advocacy and community support that has exceeded more than $120 million in charitable giving since 1999. An inclusive company, Eastern employs 1,900+ deeply committed professionals who value relationships with their customers, colleagues, and communities. Eastern also partners with nonprofits, community and business leaders, and customers to strategically contribute to the communities it serves. These Partners for Good guide and connect Eastern to efforts that positively influence community challenges. Join us for good at www.easternbank.com and follow Eastern on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. SOURCE Eastern Bank Related Links http://www.easternbank.com SINGAPORE, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- China Yuchai International Limited (NYSE: CYD) ("China Yuchai" or the "Company") announced today that, further to the press release on August 28, 2018, regarding the signing of a joint venture contract by a subsidiary of Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Company Limited - Guangxi Yuchai Exhaust Technology Co., Ltd. ("YETC") and Eberspaecher Exhaust Technology International GmbH ("Eberspaecher"), the joint venture company, Eberspaecher Yuchai Exhaust Technology Co. Ltd. ("Eberspaecher Yuchai"), is now formally incorporated. Eberspaecher and YETC will respectively hold 51 percent and 49 percent shareholding interest of Eberspaecher Yuchai. The registered capital of Eberspaecher Yuchai is RMB 120 million, with YETC's share being contributed by internal funding. Eberspaecher Yuchai will develop, produce and market new exhaust emission control systems for trucks, buses, farming equipment and industrial machinery. Headquartered in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany, Eberspaecher is the world's leading exhaust technology provider with approximately 10,000 employees at 80 locations worldwide. As the most stringent emission standards for China are to be implemented in 2020, Eberspaecher Yuchai is strategically positioned for the trend of vehicle upgrades in both off-road and on-road markets as well as contribute to the future environmental balance in China. Weng Ming Hoh, President of China Yuchai, commented, "The Chinese government is determined to better the environment and reduce emissions in China. We take pride in our commitment to providing the best-in-class products to meet the fast-growing market demand for more stringent emission control systems." About China Yuchai International China Yuchai International Limited, through its subsidiary, Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Company Limited ("GYMCL"), engages in the manufacture, assembly, and sale of a wide variety of light-, medium- and heavy-duty engines for trucks, buses, passenger vehicles, construction equipment, marine and agriculture applications in China. GYMCL also produces diesel power generators. The engines produced by GYMCL range from diesel to natural gas and hybrid engines. Through its regional sales offices and authorized customer service centers, the Company distributes its engines directly to auto OEMs and retailers and provides maintenance and retrofitting services throughout China. Founded in 1951, GYMCL has established a reputable brand name, strong research and development team and significant market share in China with high-quality products and reliable after-sales support. In 2017, GYMCL sold 367,097 engines and is recognized as a leading manufacturer and distributor of engines in China. For more information, please visit http://www.cyilimited.com. Safe Harbor Statement This news release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "project", "targets", "optimistic", "confident that", "continue to", "predict", "intend", "aim", "will" or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements concerning the Company's operations, financial performance and condition are based on current expectations, beliefs and assumptions which are subject to change at any time. The Company cautions that these statements by their nature involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially depending on a variety of important factors such as government and stock exchange regulations, competition, political, economic and social conditions around the world and in China including those discussed in the Company's Form 20-Fs under the headings "Risk Factors", "Results of Operations" and "Business Overview" and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. All forward looking statements are applicable only as of the date it is made and the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to maintain or update the forward-looking information, whether of the nature contained in this release or otherwise, in the future. For more information, please contact: Kevin Theiss Tel: +1-212-521-4050 Email: [email protected] SOURCE China Yuchai International Limited Related Links http://www.cyilimited.com President Qiu Yong, on behalf of Tsinghua University, extended his most sincere congratulations to all the graduates from the pioneering class of GIX and thanked all those who have been a part of the journey, whose vision, commitment, and concerted efforts have made it a possibility. President Qiu remarked that GIX is an education endeavor co-founded by Tsinghua University, the University of Washington and Microsoft, with a shared vision and commitment in promoting innovation and cultivating innovative talents. President Qiu further noted that Seattle is a city of innovation, a city that witnessed and contributed to the friendship between China and the United States. GIX is a solid new step that demonstrates a brand new vision, and the successful practice of GIX shows that innovation requires cooperation, and cooperation is the foundation of innovation. "The space for innovation is as vast as the Pacific Ocean," President Qiu said. "And in the ocean of innovation, we must join hands and move forward side by side." President Cauce congratulated the graduating students on behalf of the University of Washington and praised their achievements. "Now, you stand poised to change the world, and we are deeply proud to be the launch pad for the impact you will make," President Cauce remarked. She commended the GIX student cohort for their outstanding work, courage in facing challenges, creativity in addressing issues and strong collaborative spirit. She further remarked that as the first graduate cohort, they have set the bar for the cohorts who will follow in their footsteps. "We could not have asked for better standard-bearers". Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, applauded GIX's first group of graduates for the milestone moments they have achieved as pioneers. GIX adopts a new collaborative teaching method, which emphasizes working with enterprises and other innovative institutions across the world to promote cooperation between different higher education institutions across different countries. This is "a pioneering step for the world of higher education". President Smith hoped the graduates would carry forward the spirit of GIX in order to inspire other students to make even greater contributions in the future. At the graduation ceremony, on behalf of the faculty of the two universities, Shi Yuanchun, Dean of GIX at Tsinghua University, praised the students for their dedication to explore and innovate. In just over two years of study, the students have assiduously completed the academic requirements of the two degree programs in a manner that she described as "sleepless in Seattle" after they successfully passed their Tsinghua University master's degree of science in engineering thesis defense just the day before their graduation ceremony. In particular, she outlined the many benefits of applying the TED (IT Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Design Thinking) interdisciplinary training model for skills training and technological innovation, and encouraged students to further promote GIX's innovative spirit in their future work endeavors. Jointly founded by Tsinghua University, the University of Washington and Microsoft Corporation, GIX was officially launched in Seattle on June 18, 2015. On September 23 of the same year, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a special trip to Seattle to visit the staff of the institute during a visit to the United States and presented a dawn redwood tree as a gift, wishing the success of GIX. On September 23, 2016, the cornerstone of GIX's first teaching and research building was officially laid in Seattle. The building was completed and put into use on September 14, 2017. GIX is Tsinghua University's first physical presence overseas and also the first of its kind established by Chinese universities in the United States, marking a major breakthrough in Tsinghua University's international cooperation. The GIX education model brings together outstanding students from all over the world with diverse backgrounds to create an interdisciplinary group, and uses emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, AR/VR (augmented reality / virtual reality), robotics, and blockchain technology to solve regional and global challenges. GIX students display creative thinking and a hardworking spirit toward their studies. They have achieved exceptional results in various competitions and also published various academic papers and obtained more than 10 international and Chinese patents for technological inventions. GIX has served as a bridge between China and the United States and between the East and the West. It not only promotes educational innovation in the field of technological innovation, but also acts as an incubator of talent for the development of science and technology. The program has also received strong support from 15 commercial institutions, from both China and the United States. With the great wealth of support, along with the guidance and strength of the three founding members of GIX: Tsinghua University, University of Washington and Microsoft, the institute looks to have a bright future ahead. SOURCE Tsinghua University DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dubai based international entrepreneur and philanthropist Ghassan Aboud was awarded for "Excellence in International Business" at the 2018 Enterprise Agility Awards Entrepreneur of the Year held at the Hilton Hotel, Habtoor City, Dubai on December 4, 2018. The annual event organized by BNC Publishing recognizes business leaders that have established themselves distinctly as industry innovators, made significant contributions to the regional business arena, and set the benchmark for enterprises operating across the region. Ghassan Aboud Group Ghassan Aboud is the Chairman and promoter of the UAE headquartered conglomerate, Ghassan Aboud Group, that is engaged in multiple businesses including automotive, hospitality, retail, catering, real estate, media, logistics, pastoral and others. In addition to its global hub in the UAE, the group also has a presence in Australia, Belgium, Jordan, and Turkey. Reacting to the award, Ghassan Aboud said, "It is a great privilege to be accorded this recognition. The award underlines our efforts to be associated with excellence across all our business operations globally. We are much encouraged to continue with our innovative approach to business while adhering to the highest standards in integrity and ethics." "Entrepreneur Middle East's 2018 Enterprise Agility Awards were a celebration of the region's most prolific innovators and entrepreneurs, and we're glad to have awarded Ghassan Aboud Group Chairman Ghassan Aboud with the Excellence in International Business award at this event," said Wissam Younane, CEO, BNC Publishing, the media house behind Entrepreneur Middle East. "Over the course of his 25-year-long entrepreneurial journey, Ghassan Aboud has managed to build a global diversified multi-billion enterprise that has operations in everything from real estate to media to hospitality, and that makes him not just the ideal recipient of this award, but also a role model for other entrepreneurs in the region to take inspiration from." Image at http://pressreleasenetwork.com/news/5252/Ghassan-Aboud-Honored-with-Award-for-Excellence-in-International-Business Contact: Navin Ashokan Marketing Manager - Ghassan Aboud Group Po Box 294377, Dubai United Arab Emirates Email : [email protected] Phone : +9714 881 4300 https://gagroup.net SOURCE Ghassan Aboud Group Related Links https://gagroup.net LONDON and NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Clayton, Dubilier & Rice announced that Gregory Lai has been named a Partner of the Firm. Since joining the Firm in 2007, Mr. Lai has been actively involved in sourcing and evaluating investments across Europe, as well as working with portfolio company management teams on post-acquisition value-building strategies. He has played a leadership role with several of the Firm's investments, including B&M Retail (2013), BUT (2016), Exova (2008), HD Supply (2007), Motor Fuel Group (2015), and Rexel (2005). In recent years, he has contributed to building CD&R's Consumer/Retail franchise, as well as broadening the Firm's coverage in France. Mr. Lai worked in the investment banking division of Citigroup prior to joining CD&R. He subsequently served as an investment professional at Mubadala Development Company before returning to CD&R in 2011. Mr. Lai is a graduate of the ESCP-EAP European School of Management in Paris. "Greg has been a critical member of CD&R's European team for more than a decade and has played important roles on some of our most successful investments," said David Novak, who leads CD&R's European business. "He has built trust-based relationships with corporate and family sellers, management teams, and advisers, which makes him an extremely strong representative of the Firm's core values, culture, and investment strategy." About Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Founded in 1978, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is a private investment firm with an investment strategy predicated on producing financial returns by building stronger, more profitable businesses. Since inception, CD&R has managed the investment of more than $27 billion in 83 companies with an aggregate transaction value of more than $125 billion. The Firm has offices in New York and London. For more information, visit www.cdr-inc.com . SOURCE Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Related Links http://www.cdr-inc.com SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Health Catalyst, Inc., a next-generation data, analytics, and decision-support company, has been named one of the "Best Companies to Work For" by Utah Business. Working with a third party that gathered anonymous feedback directly from employees, the regional publication honored Health Catalyst as one of the best large companies to work for in the state. Winners were selected based on a review of the company's benefits and compensation, growth opportunities, company culture and management, as well as employee survey responses. Health Catalyst is among just 12 companies to be recognized in its category, and one of the few to be named to the list four years in a row. Any large business in the state of Utah was eligible for the award. "We are honored to be recognized by Utah Business as one of the best employers in the state," said Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst. "Our mission is to be a catalyst for massive, sustained improvements in healthcare performance, and the health of patients. A central part of fulfilling that goal involves attracting and retaining talented team membersindividuals who share our mission, enthusiasm and commitment. We appreciate every team member for the great work they perform every day, in an effort to improve healthcare outcomes." In its findings, Utah Business noted that Health Catalyst employees expressed happiness with work-life balance and the company's supportive leadership. The magazine highlighted Health Catalyst's benefits including unlimited paid time off, paid parental leave, fully-covered health insurance, stock options, and fitness reimbursement. The Utah Business honor is the latest in a string of workplace awards for Health Catalyst. Other "best place to work" awards received by Health Catalyst in 2018 include: The 2018 Gallup Great Workplace Award. For the third year in a row, Health Catalyst is one of 39 global companies to receive the award, which was created to recognize organizations for their ability to create engaged workplace cultures that drive business outcomes. Inc. magazine's Top 50 Best Workplaces for 2017. For the second year in a row, Health Catalyst was named to the list of the nation's best private companies. magazine's Top 50 Best Workplaces for 2017. For the second year in a row, Health Catalyst was named to the list of the nation's best private companies. The Computerworld 2018 Best Places to Work in IT. For the second year in a row, Health Catalyst was recognized as one of 100 top organizations that challenge their IT staff while providing great benefits and compensation. Modern Healthcare's Best Places to Work in Healthcare. For the 6th time, Health Catalyst was recognized as one of the best healthcare employers in the country, based on an assessment conducted by the Best Companies Group. Utah Business announced the full list of winners in the December 2018 issue of the magazine. About Health Catalyst Health Catalyst, Inc. is a next-generation data, analytics, and decision-support company, committed to being a catalyst for massive, sustained improvements in healthcare outcomes. We are the leaders in a new era of advanced predictive analytics for population health and value-based care with a suite of machine learning-driven solutions, decades of outcomes improvement expertise, and an unparalleled ability to unleash and integrate data from across the healthcare ecosystem. Our Health Catalyst Data Operating System (DOS)a next-generation data warehouse and application development platform powered by data from more than 100 million patients, and encompassing over 1 trillion factshelps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Our technology and professional services can help you keep patients engaged and healthy in their homes, communities, and workplaces, and we can help you optimize care delivery to those patients when it becomes necessary. We are grateful to be recognized by Fortune, Gallup, Glassdoor, Modern Healthcare and a host of others as a Best Place to Work in technology and healthcare. Visit www.healthcatalyst.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. For more information contact: Todd Stein Amendola Communications 916.346.4213 [email protected] SOURCE Health Catalyst Related Links http://www.healthcatalyst.com ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon Solutions LLC, has signed an agreement to purchase New England-based, privately-held N. H. Bragg. Founded in 1854, N. H. Bragg has grown to become a recognized market leader throughout Maine, New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts. N. H. Bragg is headquartered in Bangor, Maine with branches in Scarborough, Maine, and Tewksbury, Massachusetts. With approximately 60 employees, N. H. Bragg provides industrial and safety supplies to over 4,000 customers across New England. They serve paper mills, machine shops, construction sites and shipyards from their three stocking locations. The transaction is scheduled to close on Jan. 1, 2019. "We are thrilled at the opportunity to acquire a company with such a rich history like ours. The longevity of our companies is due in part to creating a legacy of integrity, trust and excellence, exemplified in our company cultures that value our customers and our people. Both companies enjoy deep relationships with customers and suppliers and a commitment to value-added capabilities that address complex problems. We have a team of talented professionals committed to providing the best customer experience with every interaction," said Horizon Solutions President and CEO John Kerkhove. "Under Horizon Solutions ownership, N. H. Bragg will continue to operate under the N. H. Bragg name with the same employees, suppliers and customers. N. H. Bragg President Jon Eames will serve as vice president of the Industrial and Safety Supply Division across the Horizon Solutions footprint. We will leverage our companies' respective strengths to grow the business. It is with great pleasure that I welcome the employees of N. H. Bragg to the Horizon Solutions extended family." N. H. Bragg President Jon Eames said, "This union will help us grow while maintaining the excellent quality and service our customers expect, expand our solution offerings and market reach, offer employees more opportunities and build upon our mutual core values. I'm excited for the future of N. H. Bragg and how the companies can work together to achieve greatness." ABOUT HORIZON SOLUTIONS The Horizon Solutions history is rooted in its ability to nurture customer relations serving customers and communities in time-honored tradition since 1857. Today, Horizon Solutions helps improve our customers' efficiency, productivity and safety through expertise in electrical, automation, industrial, energy and safety products and services. We seek to understand our customers' needs and apply solutions that solve their most demanding challenges. Our customers include industrial end-users, electrical contractors, equipment manufacturers, and commercial, institutional and municipal facilities across New England and upstate New York. Additional information is available on https://hs-e.com/about-us/company-news/. ABOUT N. H. BRAGG Founded in 1854, N. H. Bragg began as a supplier to local blacksmiths. Through a commitment to quality and unrivaled service, N. H. Bragg has grown into a multimillion-dollar company that serves businesses large and small across northern New England. From paper mills and machine shops to construction sites and shipyards N. H. Bragg is there. Our customers come to us for our product expertise, application know-how, safety training, inventory-management solutions, tool repair services and so much more. In other words, N. H. Bragg helps businesses stay safe, productive and efficient. To learn more visit https://www.nhbragg.com/. SOURCE Horizon Solutions LLC Related Links https://hs-e.com CHICAGO, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hub International Limited (Hub), a leading global insurance brokerage, announced today that it has acquired the assets of Apex Insurance Benefits LLC (Apex Insurance). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Apex Insurance, located in Blackfoot, Idaho, is an employee benefits consulting firm focusing on Group Health, Employee Benefits, Individual Health, and Senior Health products. Owner of Apex Insurance, Troy Goodwin, will join Hub Mountain and report to Tara Tandrow, Executive Vice President of Hub's Employee Benefits Practice. About Hub's M&A Activities Hub International Limited is committed to growing organically and through acquisitions to expand its geographic footprint and strengthen industry and product expertise. For more information on the Hub M&A experience, visit WeAreHub.com. About Hub International Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Hub International Limited is a leading full-service global insurance broker providing property and casualty, life and health, employee benefits, investment and risk management products and services. With more than 11,000 employees in offices located throughout North America, Hub's vast network of specialists provides peace of mind on what matters most by protecting clients through unrelenting advocacy and tailored insurance solutions. For more information, please visit www.hubinternational.com. CONTACT: Media: Marni Gordon Phone: 312-279-4601 [email protected] M&A: Clark Wormer Phone: 312.279.4848 [email protected] SOURCE Hub International Limited Related Links http://www.hubinternational.com Over 200 ISM students partake in the competitive audition process. 40 inspiring ISM students have been selected by faculty judges for the coveted experience to perform for family, friends and the greater DC metro area at the renowned Terrace Theater. The young, talented students will demonstrate enriched musicianship and refined artistic skills, perfected through hard work and perseverance. "We are excited to provide this opportunity to our students," said Inja Stanic, President of the International School of Music. "I'm so impressed with how hard they are workingI'm hearing improvement every day. Preparing for this concert is motivating our students to do their best and is something our students will remember forever." The honors recital will open with a beautiful flute choir piece, followed by a collection of diverse and unique programming ranging from solos and collaborations in piano, violin, cello and voice. The concert will culminate with a showcase of ISM's chamber program, featuring a wealth of advanced musicianship from piano trios, string quartets, and a lively fiddle band extravaganza. The International School of Music, voted best for music instruction by Washington Families, offers one of the finest music programs to the greater DC community. Founded in 2004, ISM's mission is to create extraordinary musical experiences that enrich lives and empower youth to become more confident, creative and empathetic human beings. As an active member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the International School of Music offers music lessons in all instruments and voice to over 1,500 students of all ages, levels and abilities. With locations in Bethesda and Potomac, ISM is renowned for its world-class faculty of professional musicians who facilitate a unique combination of high quality music education and performance opportunities that shape and inspire young, well-versed musicians. For more information, please visit www.ismw.org. SOURCE International School of Music Related Links https://ismw.org DENVER, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- This morning, Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC) and Smashburger announced key senior management changes reflecting the anticipated synergies between the two entities predicated on JFC's newly acquired majority interest in Smashburger. Jose "Pepot" Minana has assumed the role of President of Smashburger. Mr. Minana will oversee the daily operations of the company, collaborate on strategic and brand direction, and lead the continuous efforts to integrate Smashburger into the JFC portfolio of companies/brands. Mr. Minana has held numerous senior management positions over his multi-decade tenure with JFC, most recently President of JFC North America. Tom Ryan, Smashburger Founder and CEO, will take on the additional title of Chief Product Development Advisor of JFC Global. In this new capacity, Mr. Ryan will focus on strengthening taste and quality aspects across key JFC brands as well as enhancing JFC brands' relevance across global markets. Mr. Ryan remains Smashburger CEO, focused on brand vision, strategy, product, and public relations. About Smashburger Smashburger is a leading fast casual, better burger restaurant known for its fresh, never frozen, beef burgers that are smashed on the grill to sear in the juices and seal in the flavor. In addition to burgers, Smashburger offers grilled or crispy chicken sandwiches, black bean burgers, fresh salads, signature side items such as haystack onions, Brussels sprouts and Smashfries, and hand-spun shakes made with Haagen-Dazs ice cream. On each market menu, Smashburger offers locally inspired items like the regional burger, as well as regional sides and local craft beer. Smashburger began in 2007 in Denver, Colorado. There are currently 342 corporate and franchise restaurants operating in 37 states and nine countries. To learn more, visit www.smashburger.com . About Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC) JFC operates the largest food service network in the Philippines. As of September 30, 2018, it was operating 3,003 restaurant outlets in the country: Jollibee brand - 1,110, Chowking - 551, Greenwich - 279, Red Ribbon - 446, Mang Inasal - 518, Burger King - 98 and PHO24 - 1. Abroad, it was operating 1,345 stores: Yonghe King (China) - 314, Hong Zhuang Yuan (China) 42, Dunkin' Donuts (China) 14, Jollibee 222 (Vietnam 107, Brunei 16, Hong Kong 8, Singapore 6, Macau 1, United States 37, Canada 4, Saudi Arabia 13, UAE 14, Qatar - 7, Kuwait 6, Bahrain 1, Oman 1, Italy 1), Red Ribbon in the US 32, Chowking 47 (US 15, UAE 21, Qatar 4, Oman 2, Kuwait 3, and Saudi Arabia 2), Highlands Coffee 291 (Vietnam 253, and Philippines 38), PHO24 33 (Vietnam 17, Indonesia 16), Hard Rock Cafe 8 (Vietnam 2, Hong Kong 3, and Macau 3) and Smashburger 342. The JFC Group's worldwide store network reached 4,348 stores. To learn more, visit www.jollibee.com.ph. SOURCE Smashburger Related Links http://www.smashburger.com SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The power, passion and energy of California Latino nonprofit leaders were out in full force in San Francisco this week when the Latino Community Foundation (LCF) held the first-of-its-kind Latino Nonprofit Accelerator to fund efforts to lift and inspire California's 15 million Latinos. The tech-inspired program is unparalleled in the nonprofit world, creating a huge source of much-needed resources for the organizations throughout California. Jose Cordon of ODAT delivers his winning Spoken Word pitch in the first-of-its-kind Latino Nonprofit Accelerator DEMO Day in San Francisco and was awarded $25,000. Nine Latino-led nonprofits presented their brightest ideas and received on-the-spot grant awards. Jose Cordon of ODAT of Contra Costa County is visibly moved after being announced as the Latino Community Foundation's $25,000 pitch competition grant winner at the Grand Theater in San Francisco Tuesday, Dec. 11. He presented in Spoken Word format at the Latino Nonprofit Accelerator DEMO Day, inspired by the tech industry's Incubator model for funding. LCF hosted the Accelerator's first DEMO Day at the Grand Theater on Tuesday to showcase the brightest, most visionary Latino nonprofit leaders and their ideas for the future. At the end of the evening, investors from the tech field, foundations, and donors awarded $65,000 on-the-spot grants to the nine groups who presented their vision and strategy for transforming the lives of Latino youth and families. "Grassroots Latino leaders left their hearts on that stage," said Masha Chernyak, vice president for programs and policy for LCF. "Tonight, we all saw that there is no shortage of vision, talent and passion in our community. All our nonprofits need is the loving support and access to funding." After nine powerful pitches delivered by the respective organizations' leaders and the LCF hosts, all attendees cast votes on the best, most compelling pitches of the night. In addition to each organization receiving the on-the-spot awards of $5,000, the big winners were: 1st Place: Jose Cordon from One Day at a Time who won a $25,000 general operating grant for ODAT, a group focused on empowering youth to lead positive lives in East Contra Costa and San Joaquin Counties; Jose Cordon was a program participant that is now a Community Engagement Lead and, who won a general operating grant for ODAT, a group focused on empowering youth to lead positive lives in and Counties; was a program participant that is now a Community Engagement Lead and, 2nd Place: Roberto Alfaro from HOMEY from the Mission in San Francisco , who won two round trip tickets to anywhere in the world from Southwest Airlines and a $1500 vacation stipend. Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, CEO of LCF, said there wasn't a dry eye in the house after ODAT director Cordon delivered his pitch in a "spoken word" style. "Our Latino nonprofit leaders have the love, creativity, passion and vision to transform communities and lead our state to a more equitable and just place where we can all thrive," Garcel said. "Leaders like Jose Cordon have turned their pain into purpose and are now changing the destiny of thousands of other young people who grew up in neighborhoods like Jose's." Cordon, clearly moved when he heard his name and organization announced as the winner, said, "It was an honor to represent ODAT at LCF's Demo Day and a privilege to share the stage with such amazing leaders. Winning the $25,000 was a great moment, because I was able to partly return the favor for an organization that invested so much in me." While the pitch night culminated LCF's first ever Accelerator cohort, LCF's leadership said its work with this model is just getting started. The Accelerator program will be expanded in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley and Central Valley in 2019, Garcel said. Tech Inspired Incubator Key to Nonprofit Funding Modeled after the tech industry's Incubator investment structure, the Latino Nonprofit Accelerator builds the leadership of the nonprofit organizations, secures resources to advance their mission and creates pathways for them to deepen their impact. Over the past year, LCF offered funding, mentorship, and training on marketing, fundraising, and communications skills. Support for this model came from Google.org, The San Francisco Foundation, Akonadi Foundation, and many others. So far, LCF has helped secure more than $1.3 million in funding to support the vision for social change carried out by these leaders and organizations. Latino-led nonprofits are on the frontlines of unleashing the cultural, economic and civic power of their respective communities, yet only 1.1 percent of philanthropic dollars are invested in these organizations. In a state where Latinos are nearly 40 percent of the population, LCF is committed to changing this reality. The organizations that participated in the pilot year of the Accelerator have already experienced breakthroughs through this work. Jacob Martinez, Founder of Digital Nest in Watsonville, has secured more than half a million dollars in new funding to help him scale a model that is creating a new generation of tech entrepreneurs along the Central Coast. These are the sons and daughters of farmworkers and who are now entering job opportunities that will change the destiny of their families for generations to come. "The love, support and mentorship we have received through the Latino Nonprofit Accelerator, has taken our work to another level and as a result we are changing the course of history for the families of our farmworker community," said Jacob. "As a company that values equity, inclusiveness and diversity, we feel it's important to shine a spotlight on the brilliant visionaries of the Latino community," said Adrian Schurr from Google.org. "We are proud to support the Latino Community Foundation, the only statewide foundation investing in grassroots Latino leadership, on this groundbreaking initiative that merges the power of tech with positive social impact." The organizations participating in DEMO Day include Chicana Latina Foundation, CURYJ, Digital Nest, Faith in the Valley, Fathers and Families of San Joaquin, HOMEY, ODAT, Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos, and SIREN. These leaders focus on a range of issues from tech access to youth organizing. At the core of their work, they share the distinction of being trusted leaders for the Latino community. About Latino Community Foundation: The Latino Community Foundation is on a mission to unleash the power of Latinos in California by investing in Latino-led organizations dedicated to the transformation of their communities. LCF has the largest network of Latino philanthropists in the country and has invested millions of dollars to improve the livelihood of Latino families. It is the only statewide foundation solely focused on investing in Latino youth and families in California. SOURCE Latino Community Foundation Related Links https://latinocf.org PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Janrain , the company that pioneered the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category, today announced it was recognized as "Overall Leader" in KuppingerCole's comprehensive Leadership Compass CIAM Platforms Report . KuppingerCole is the leading European research firm specializing in Information Security, Identity & Access Management (IAM) and Digital Transformation. Citing Janrain's focus on enterprise clients who care about security as much as marketing, KuppingerCole senior analyst John Tolbert wrote, "Janrain is mature and highly scalable and should be seriously considered by organizations that need HA, GDPR-compliant consent management and comprehensive marketing analytics features. Since 2017 the company has shifted much of its R&D to security, which will begin to dominate its roadmap and lead to further differentiation." In addition to beating out SAP/Gigya, Auth0, ForgeRock and other CIAM providers, Janrain is far ahead of traditional workforce-centric identity management providers such as Microsoft, IBM and Okta in fulfilling consumer-driven needs for brands. As part of naming Janrain the Overall CIAM Leader, KuppingerCole listed Janrain as a Leader for all matrices touting Overall Product Leadership, Overall Market Innovator, and Overall Market Leadership as well as for all correlated views charting Market/Product, Product/Innovation and Innovation/Market. Janrain also received high marks for security, functionality, integration, interoperability, usability, innovativeness, market position, financial strength and ecosystem. KuppingerCole additionally cited the following as special strengths Janrain brings to the CIAM market: Large enterprise client base : This speaks to Janrain's focus on large complex clients who demand global reach, scalability and mission-critical availability. Janrain is the only CIAM provider with the experience of more than 3,400 commercial deployments, 6,700 applications in over 65 countries, and a reach of more than 1.75 billion identities with 99.999% availability. : This speaks to Janrain's focus on large complex clients who demand global reach, scalability and mission-critical availability. Janrain is the only CIAM provider with the experience of more than 3,400 commercial deployments, 6,700 applications in over 65 countries, and a reach of more than 1.75 billion identities with 99.999% availability. Fine-grained consent management : This fulfills GDPR's privacy and security requirements comprehensively (with only a single solution required). : This fulfills GDPR's privacy and security requirements comprehensively (with only a single solution required). Excellent integration with social networks : Janrain invented social registration/login, originating at Yahoo in 1997. This strength provides broad access to deep user data for comprehensive marketing analysis. It also extends to services leveraging HCP, Telco, Bank, and Government IdPs for "bring your own ID" use-cases. : Janrain invented social registration/login, originating at Yahoo in 1997. This strength provides broad access to deep user data for comprehensive marketing analysis. It also extends to services leveraging HCP, Telco, Bank, and Government IdPs for "bring your own ID" use-cases. Internet of Things (IoT) integration via OAuth2 Device Flow : Janrain was the first to enter into the IoT space in 2011 with over 50 application use-cases today. Janrain is ready to assist organizations in the coming flood of IoT data, associated group and delegated authority complexity, and the dramatic increase in security, privacy and scalability needs. : Janrain was the first to enter into the IoT space in 2011 with over 50 application use-cases today. Janrain is ready to assist organizations in the coming flood of IoT data, associated group and delegated authority complexity, and the dramatic increase in security, privacy and scalability needs. Privacy Shield certification : This ensures data protection compliance with transatlantic commerce requirements. It is an example of a leading position in overall certifications and attestations. : This ensures data protection compliance with transatlantic commerce requirements. It is an example of a leading position in overall certifications and attestations. Top innovative features: This includes API access, authenticator selections, consent-per-purpose management, consumer account protection service integration, IoT device identity integration, microservices architecture and support for standards such as FIDO and Kantara's UMA. This includes API access, authenticator selections, consent-per-purpose management, consumer account protection service integration, IoT device identity integration, microservices architecture and support for standards such as FIDO and Kantara's UMA. Janrain uses both internal network and identity risk intelligence, leveraging its partners like Akamai for an advanced behavioral-based and continuous authentication service that is based on a large amount of data. AI and machine learning is only as good as the data it operates on. Janrain has been investing in the ability to stop registration fraud, login fraud, and known-good-identity account compromises. "We are thrilled to have KuppingerCole recognize our leadership as we continue to leapfrog our competitors," said Jim Kaskade, CEO at Janrain. "We created the category we operate in, and it's our goal to continue to reinvent it with our industry-first innovations. We will also begin to put pressure on our workforce peers as we expand to offer a universal identity cloud solution. By being ahead of our customers on emerging needs in security, compliance, and scalability, we plan to be the #1 provider across the entire identity and access management ecosystem." 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 reaches 1.75 billion digital identities, enabling digital transformation and consumer trust for the world's most recognized brands, including Pfizer, Samsung, Philips, McDonald's and Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon with additional hubs throughout the US, UK, Latin America, India and China. Twitter: @janrain . For more information and industry best practices downloads, visit www.janrain.com . Media Contact: Chris Blake MSR Communications Phone: 1-415-989-9000 E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Janrain Related Links http://www.janrain.com RICHMOND, BC, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - MDA, a Maxar Technologies company (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR), today announced it was awarded four contracts under the Defence Innovation Research Program (DIRP) with a combined total value of CA$3.8 million. The DIRP supports Canada's long-term commitment to respond to the scientific and technological needs of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces. The objective of this latest DIRP initiative is to help to define the technologies and capabilities for future follow-on RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) spacecraft and ground segment exploitation systems. MDA's projects include: Augmenting Canada's Maritime Surveillance Capability with Complementary EO/IR Information Products: MDA will advance how optical satellite data and hyperspectral imagery complements Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data in strategic maritime and coastal surveillance applications. Improving Canada's ability to identify and classify vessels and monitor port and other littoral vessel traffic activities by providing timely information to relevant agencies for threat assessment and action. MDA will advance how optical satellite data and hyperspectral imagery complements Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data in strategic maritime and coastal surveillance applications. Improving ability to identify and classify vessels and monitor port and other littoral vessel traffic activities by providing timely information to relevant agencies for threat assessment and action. Persistent Multi-Sensor Land Surveillance and Change Monitoring: MDA seeks to leverage the complementarity of Optical and SAR satellite image stacks to better identify and monitor changes over large areas of land. The expected benefits include more persistent and operational all-weather monitoring capabilities and very high change classification accuracy. To achieve these benefits the project will leverage new technologies such as Deep Learning and exploit the availability of large satellite image archives. The applications are far ranging and are expected to provide actionable intelligence to DND as well as to civil agencies. MDA seeks to leverage the complementarity of Optical and SAR satellite image stacks to better identify and monitor changes over large areas of land. The expected benefits include more persistent and operational all-weather monitoring capabilities and very high change classification accuracy. To achieve these benefits the project will leverage new technologies such as Deep Learning and exploit the availability of large satellite image archives. The applications are far ranging and are expected to provide actionable intelligence to DND as well as to civil agencies. SAR Big Data Analytics: Petabytes of information-rich RADARSAT data exists in archives. MDA seeks to understand and demonstrate how big data analytics, Deep Learning in particular, can be applied to large archives of SAR imagery to better extract meaningful geospatial information to support actionable decision-making. Petabytes of information-rich RADARSAT data exists in archives. MDA seeks to understand and demonstrate how big data analytics, Deep Learning in particular, can be applied to large archives of SAR imagery to better extract meaningful geospatial information to support actionable decision-making. Complementary EO/IR Payload to RCM: Working with Canadian industry partners, MDA explores the technical readiness and mission value of using Electro-Optical Infrared sensors to strengthen the value of the RADARSAT Constellation Mission follow-on for the surveillance of land, maritime and defence applications at a global scale. By combining, SAR and Electro-Optical Infrared sensors Canada is able to leverage the weather independent observation capabilities of SAR with finer feature discrimination of thermal, hyperspectral, or multispectral sensing for improved day and night global surveillance. "These awards are an exciting opportunity for MDA to explore new synergies of combining Synthetic Aperture Radar with innovative technologies such as optical sensors and Deep Learning," said Mike Greenley, group president of MDA. "The research programs have recently commenced and will continue over the next two years." About MDA MDA is an internationally recognized leader in space robotics, space sensors, satellite payloads, antennas and subsystems, surveillance and intelligence systems, defence and maritime systems, and geospatial radar imagery. MDA's extensive space expertise and heritage translates into mission-critical defence and commercial applications that include multi-platform command, control and surveillance systems, aeronautical information systems, land administration systems and terrestrial robotics. MDA is also a leading supplier of actionable mission-critical information and insights derived from multiple data sources. Founded in 1969, MDA is recognized as one of Canada's most successful technology ventures with locations in Richmond, Ottawa, Brampton, Montreal, Halifax and the United Kingdom. MDA is a Maxar Technologies company (TSX: MAXR;NYSE: MAXR). For more information, visit www.mdacorporation.com. About Maxar Technologies As a global leader of advanced space technology solutions, Maxar Technologies (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) 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. Maxar 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 release 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. Contact Wendy Keyzer | MDA Media Contact | 1-604-231-2743 | [email protected] Jason Gursky | Maxar Investor Relations | 1-303-684-2207 | [email protected] SOURCE Maxar Technologies Ltd. Related Links www.maxar.com LANSING, Mich., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Michigan Chamber of Commerce today issued the following statement after Governor Snyder signed much-needed legislation to improve Michigan's new mandatory paid sick leave and minimum wage laws. The Michigan Chamber and its members have been voicing concerns about both laws since they were adopted by the State Legislature in September. "We want to thank lawmakers for prioritizing and Governor Snyder for signing this important legislation," said Michigan Chamber President & CEO Rich Studley. "Without these changes, these laws as adopted would have had a negative impact on employee/employer relations and would have taken an economic wrecking ball to Michigan's overall competitiveness." "The Michigan Chamber delivered powerful advocacy on behalf of members by actively lobbying lawmakers to correct serious flaws in both the paid sick leave and minimum wage laws prior to their March 2019 effective date," noted Jim Holcomb, Executive Vice President & General Counsel for the Michigan Chamber. "We fought for and won commonsense solutions to practical problems on behalf of our members." "Since day one, the Michigan Chamber has been a fierce advocate for changes to both laws," said Wendy Block, Vice President of Business Advocacy for the Michigan Chamber. "In regard to paid sick leave, our goal was to find a balance between requiring that employees have access to paid sick leave and making the law reasonable, workable and in-line with what the 10 other states with mandatory paid sick leave laws require." "Without improvements to the new minimum wage law, Michigan would have had one of the highest minimum wage rates in the country, thereby making our state uncompetitive in the race for jobs and forcing many employers to make tough decisions, including cutting back staffing hours, increasing costs and reducing other investments in employees or their business," Block explained. "The legislation signed into law today is a great victory for the Chamber and our members and will help keep Michigan moving forward." A summary of legislative improvements to both laws are available on the Michigan Chamber's website: The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is a statewide business organization representing approximately 6,000 employers, trade associations and local chambers of commerce who employ over one million Michigan residents. The Michigan Chamber represents businesses of every size and type in all 83 counties of the state. The Michigan Chamber was established in 1959 to be an advocate for Michigan's job providers in the legislative, political and legal process. SOURCE Michigan Chamber of Commerce Related Links http://www.michamber.com WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- California ranks 2nd nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. California is spending $250.4 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is 72 percent of the $347.9 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In California, 5.4 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 17.3 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 40,000 California lives and costs the state over $13.2 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: California will collect $2.8 billion in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes and will spend 8.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes and will spend 8.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $618 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in California more than double what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Long a national leader in the fight against tobacco, California once again ranks as a top funder of tobacco prevention, thanks to the $2-per-pack tobacco tax passed overwhelmingly by voters in 2016 that also mandated increased funding for the state's tobacco prevention and cessation programs. California cities have also been leading the way in prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products that have contributed greatly to youth tobacco use. In June 2018, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to ban all flavored tobacco products including flavored e-cigarettes, flavored cigars and menthol cigarettes. Other cities and counties have since passed similar laws. "We applaud California and its cities for their strong leadership in working to reduce tobacco use," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, California needs to keep doing its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Colorado ranks 7th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Colorado is spending $23.6 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 44.6 percent of the $52.9 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Colorado, 7 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 26.2 percent use e-cigarettes, one of the highest rates in the nation. Tobacco use claims 5,100 Colorado lives and costs the state over $1.8 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Colorado will collect $286.3 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes and will spend 8.2 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes and will spend 8.2 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $140.3 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Colorado almost 6 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. While Colorado funds tobacco prevention better than most states, it is still spending less than half of what the CDC recommends. This is especially concerning because Colorado has one of the highest rates of youth e-cigarette use in the country. Departing Gov. John Hickenlooper took steps to address this issue by signing an executive order that recommended, among other things, raising the state's tobacco sale age to 21 and banning the sale of flavored tobacco products. The state Legislature and Governor-elect Jared Polis should adopt these recommendations. "While Colorado has made progress in reducing tobacco use, the state is facing a youth e-cigarette epidemic and must act to protect kids by investing in tobacco prevention programs, raising the tobacco age to 21 and banning the sale of flavored tobacco products that attract kids," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Colorado's leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Colorado needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- For the third straight year, Connecticut has budgeted zero state funds for programs that prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit and is tied for last nationwide in funding such programs, according to a report released today by leading public health organizations. Connecticut joins Tennessee and West Virginia as the only states that provide no state funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends Connecticut spend $32 million on tobacco prevention programs. The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Connecticut, 3.5 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 14.7 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 4,900 Connecticut lives and costs the state over $2 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Connecticut will collect $500.8 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of that money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of that money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $73 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Connecticut . Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Connecticut's high tobacco tax ($4.35) is helpful, but the state is hindering its own progress in reducing tobacco use further by refusing to fund its prevention programs. In addition to increasing funding for tobacco prevention, health advocates are urging Connecticut leaders to increase the state's tobacco age to 21; Hartford recently become the first Connecticut city to do so. "Connecticut is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Connecticut leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To help win this fight and make the next generation tobacco-free, Connecticut should invest in tobacco prevention programs and increase the tobacco age to 21." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Illinois ranks 35th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Illinois is spending $9.1 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 6.7 percent of the $136.7 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Illinois, 7.6 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 13.2 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 18,300 Illinois lives and costs the state $5.5 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Illinois will collect $1.1 billion in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $291.5 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Illinois more than 32 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for stronger tobacco prevention programs in Illinois. Health advocates are also urging the incoming Legislature and Governor-elect J.B. Pritzker to enact legislation raising the tobacco sale age to 21 in 2019. Outgoing Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed such a measure earlier this year. "Illinois is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Illinois leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To help win this fight, Illinois should raise the tobacco age to 21 and do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nevada ranks 39th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Nevada is spending $1 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 3.2 percent of the $30 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Nevada, 6.7 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 15.5 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 4,100 Nevada lives and costs the state over $1 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Nevada will collect $230.4 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.4 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.4 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $64.2 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Nevada more than 67 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. "Nevada is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Nevada needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- New Mexico ranks 19th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. New Mexico is spending $5.7 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 24.9 percent of the $22.8 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In New Mexico, 10.6 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 24.7 percent use e-cigarettes, one of the highest rates in the nation. Tobacco use claims 2,600 New Mexico lives and costs the state $844 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: New Mexico will collect $131.5 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.3 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.3 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $36.9 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in New Mexico over 6 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for New Mexico to step up its tobacco prevention efforts. In addition to investing in tobacco prevention programs, health advocates are calling on New Mexico leaders to significantly increase the tobacco tax, add e-cigarettes to the state's smoke-free law and raise the tobacco sale age to 21. "New Mexico is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by shortchanging tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but New Mexico leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, New Mexico needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- North Carolina ranks 42nd nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. North Carolina is spending $2.8 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 2.8 percent of the $99.3 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In North Carolina, 12.1 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 22.1 percent use e-cigarettes, one of the highest rates in the nation. Tobacco use claims 14,200 North Carolina lives and costs the state over $3.8 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: North Carolina will collect $450.4 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $392.6 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in North Carolina more than 140 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. "North Carolina is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, North Carolina needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- North Dakota ranks 3rd nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. North Dakota is spending $5.8 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is 59.5 percent of the $9.8 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In North Dakota, 12.6 percent of high school students smoke, while 20.6 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 1,000 North Dakota lives and costs the state $326 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: North Dakota will collect $53.6 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 10.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 10.9 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $38.2 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in North Dakota more than 6 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Although North Dakota ranks third in this report, it took a huge step backward in the fight against tobacco in 2017 by cutting funding for tobacco prevention nearly in half and eliminating its dedicated tobacco prevention and control agency, BreatheND. The state slightly increased funding for tobacco prevention programs this year (from $5.3 million to $5.8 million), but it remains well short of the CDC's recommendation. North Dakota reduced smoking among high school students from 22.4 percent in 2009 to 12.6 percent in 2017, but the recent cuts have put these gains at risk. To keep making progress, health advocates are urging North Dakota leaders to significantly increase the state cigarette tax (now 48th in the nation at just 44 cents per pack) and restore funding for tobacco prevention programs. "North Dakota has made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but state leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "To win this fight, North Dakota needs to keep doing its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ohio ranks 30th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Ohio is spending $13 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 9.8 percent of the $132 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Ohio, 15.1 percent of high school students still smoke cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 20,200 Ohio lives and costs the state $5.6 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Ohio will collect $1.3 billion in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $424.4 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Ohio more than 32 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for strong tobacco prevention efforts in Ohio, which has some of the highest high school (15.1 percent) and adult (21.1 percent) smoking rates in the country. Health advocates are urging Ohio leaders to significantly increase the tobacco tax and invest more in tobacco prevention programs. "Ohio is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by continuing to shortchange tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "We've made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Ohio needs to do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Oklahoma ranks 4th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Oklahoma is spending $21.3 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is 50.3 percent of the $42.3 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Oklahoma, 12.5 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 16.4 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 7,500 Oklahoma lives and costs the state $1.6 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Oklahoma will collect $525.6 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.1 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 4.1 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $172 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Oklahoma more than 8 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Oklahoma has made steady progress in the fight against tobacco, largely thanks to a state constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2000 that provides dedicated funding for tobacco prevention. Oklahoma's tobacco prevention program has helped reduce the state's high school smoking rate from 28.6 percent in 2005 to 12.5 percent in 2017. In addition, Oklahoma implemented a much-needed $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase earlier this year. "Oklahoma has made great strides in reducing smoking rates, but state leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "To win this fight, Oklahoma needs to continue investing in tobacco prevention and do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington, D.C., ranks 24th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. The District is spending $1.9 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 17.8 percent of the $10.7 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In the District, 12.5 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 10.9 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 800 D.C. lives and costs the District $391 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Washington, D.C. , will collect $72.9 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 2.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. , will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 2.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $7.1 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in the District more than triple what the District spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The D.C. Council made significant progress in the past year by enacting a $2 increase in the cigarette tax to $4.50 per pack the highest among all states. Some of the revenue is earmarked for the District's tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which have been drastically underfunded, and to implement the District's law raising the tobacco sale age to 21. "The District of Columbia has provided strong leadership by raising its tobacco tax, implementing the tobacco 21 law and increasing funding for tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "District leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, D.C. needs to keep doing its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington ranks 43rd nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Washington is spending $1.5 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 2.4 percent of the $63.6 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Washington, 6.3 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 12.7 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 8,300 Washington lives and costs the state over $2.8 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Washington will collect $552.6 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.3 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 0.3 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $92.8 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Washington more than 60 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. Washington has been a leader in fighting tobacco with a high cigarette tax ($3.025 per pack) and a strong, statewide smoke-free law. However, Washington in recent years has dramatically reduced funding for its once-robust tobacco prevention program despite evidence that the program, when well-funded, saved $5 in tobacco-related hospitalization costs for every $1 spent. In addition to restoring funding for tobacco prevention, health advocates are urging Washington leaders to increase the tobacco sale age to 21. "While Washington has made progress in reducing youth smoking, the state is putting kids' health at risk and burdening taxpayers with higher tobacco-related health care costs by shortchanging tobacco prevention programs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Washington leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Washington needs to keep doing its part to make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- For the second straight year, West Virginia has budgeted zero state funds for programs that prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit and is tied for last nationwide in funding such programs, according to a report released today by leading public health organizations. West Virginia joins Connecticut and Tennessee as the only states that provide no state funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends West Virginia spend $27.4 million on tobacco prevention programs. The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In West Virginia, 14.4 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 14.3 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 4,300 West Virginia lives and costs the state $1 billion in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: West Virginia will collect $238 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of that money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of that money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $126.6 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in West Virginia . Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. West Virginia is failing to fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs despite having the highest adult smoking rate in the nation (26 percent) and one of the highest youth smoking rates. To reduce tobacco use, health advocates are urging West Virginia leaders to restore funding for tobacco prevention and reject proposals that would undo local smoke-free regulations. "It is deeply irresponsible that West Virginia is failing to fund tobacco prevention programs given the state's very high smoking rates and the terrible toll tobacco takes on the state in disease, deaths and health care costs," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Despite progress in reducing smoking rates in our country, we cannot let our guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. West Virginia must step up its efforts to reduce tobacco use and make the next generation tobacco-free." Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Wyoming ranks 11th nationwide in funding programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by leading public health groups. Wyoming is spending $3 million this year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is just 35.8 percent of the $8.5 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death and to confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. In Wyoming, 15.7 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, while 29.6 percent use e-cigarettes, one of the highest rates in the nation. Tobacco use claims 800 Wyoming lives and costs the state $258 million in health care bills annually. Other key findings include: Wyoming will collect $40.2 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 7.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. will collect in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 7.6 percent of the money on tobacco prevention programs. Tobacco companies spend $23 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Wyoming more than 7 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year on marketing that's over $1 million every hour. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, which required the companies to pay more than $200 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs. The report spotlights the need for stronger tobacco prevention efforts in Wyoming. In the past three years, Wyoming has cut funding for tobacco prevention programs by 34 percent (from $4.6 million to $3 million). "Wyoming has made great strides in reducing youth smoking rates, but state leaders cannot let their guard down as tobacco is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death and e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation. To win this fight, Wyoming needs to invest more in tobacco prevention and do its part to make the next generation tobacco-free," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Nationwide, the U.S. has reduced smoking to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. Today's report highlights the need to address large disparities in who still smokes, with smoking rates highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. The report also highlights the youth e-cigarette epidemic. Driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, easy-to-hide e-cigarette that is sold in sweet flavors and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine, e-cigarette use among U.S. high school students skyrocketed by 78 percent this year to 20.8 percent. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users an alarming increase of 1.5 million in just one year. By funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the CDC's recommended levels, states can reduce tobacco use among all Americans. But most states are falling far short: The states will collect $27.3 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( $655 million ) on tobacco prevention programs. this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes but will spend only 2.4 percent of it ( ) on tobacco prevention programs. The $655 million that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states Alaska and California provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. that the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the the CDC recommends. Not a single state funds tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels, and only two states and provide even 70 percent of the recommended funding. States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs have seen remarkable progress. Florida , with one of the longest-running programs, has reduced its high school smoking rate to 3.6 percent, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state. The report and state-specific information can be found at tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Twenty years after reaching a landmark legal settlement with the tobacco companies, the states continue to spend only a small fraction of their billions in tobacco revenue on programs to prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit, according to a report released today by a coalition of public health organizations. The report challenges states to do more to fight tobacco use the nation's No. 1 cause of preventable disease and death to accelerate progress, address large disparities in who still smokes and confront the growing epidemic of youth e-cigarette use in America. This year (fiscal year 2019), the states will collect $27.3 billion in revenue from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 2.4 percent of it $655 million on prevention and cessation programs, the report finds. Not a single state currently funds tobacco prevention programs at the level recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and only two states Alaska and California provide more than 70 percent of the recommended funding. The report "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Later" was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark legal settlement between 46 states and the major tobacco companies, which along with earlier settlements with four individual states required the companies to pay more than $246 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs, restricted some forms of tobacco marketing and provided funding for a national public education campaign to prevent youth tobacco use. Along with separate policy actions, including higher tobacco taxes and comprehensive smoke-free laws, the settlement has helped drive down smoking rates to record lows 14 percent among adults and 7.6 percent among high school students in 2017. But tobacco use still kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year. The report calls for urgent action to address two major challenges in the nation's fight against tobacco: Despite overall progress, there are large disparities in who still smokes and who suffers from tobacco-related diseases in the United States . Smoking rates are highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and the South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. These differences are in part due to the tobacco industry's targeting of vulnerable populations through advertising, price discounting and other marketing strategies such as the use of flavored products, including menthol cigarettes. . Smoking rates are highest among people with lower income and less education, residents of the Midwest and the South, American Indians/Alaska Natives, LGBT Americans, those who are uninsured or on Medicaid, and those with mental illness. These differences are in part due to the tobacco industry's targeting of vulnerable populations through advertising, price discounting and other marketing strategies such as the use of flavored products, including menthol cigarettes. Youth e-cigarette use has skyrocketed to epidemic levels. New data released by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shows that, from 2017 to 2018, current e-cigarette use increased by 78 percent among high school students (to 20.8 percent) and by 48 percent among middle school students (to 4.9 percent). More than 3.6 million middle and high school students now use e-cigarettes an increase of 1.5 million students in just one year. This increase has been driven by the popularity of Juul, a sleek, high-tech e-cigarette that is small and easy to hide, comes in appealing flavors like mango and mint, and delivers a powerful dose of nicotine. "Because of our enormous progress, it is within our reach to win the fight against tobacco," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "But we cannot let our guard down not when smoking rates remain so high among certain populations and regions in our country and not when e-cigarettes threaten to addict another generation of kids. Policymakers at all levels must stand up to the tobacco industry and fully implement the proven strategies that can end this scourge once and for all." To accelerate progress, the report calls for full implementation of proven strategies to reduce tobacco use. In addition to well-funded tobacco prevention and cessation programs, these include significant tobacco tax increases, comprehensive smoke-free laws, hard-hitting mass media campaigns, barrier-free insurance coverage for tobacco cessation treatments and laws raising the legal sale age for tobacco products to 21. It calls on the FDA to take several critical actions: implement its proposals to prohibit menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars; strengthen its efforts to address the youth e-cigarette epidemic by stopping the sales of all flavored e-cigarettes that have not been subject to public health review by the FDA and prohibit online e-cigarette sales until stronger safeguards are in place to prevent sales to kids; implement its plan to limit nicotine in cigarettes to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels (and apply this limit to other combustible tobacco products); and require graphic warnings covering at least half of cigarette packs, as required by law and as a federal judge recently ordered the FDA to expedite. Until the FDA stops the sale of all flavored tobacco products, states and localities should continue their growing efforts to do so. Other key findings of this year's report include: The $655 million the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention amounts to less than 20 percent of the $3.3 billion recommended by the CDC. Find out how each state ranks. the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention amounts to less than 20 percent of the recommended by the CDC. Find out how each state ranks. Tobacco companies spend more than $14 to market tobacco products for every $1 the states spend to reduce tobacco use. According to the most recent data from the Federal Trade Commission (for 2016), the major cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies spend $9.5 billion a year over $1 million each hour on marketing. "We cannot allow the progress we've made in the fight against the tobacco industry and their deadly products to stall," said Christopher W. Hansen, President of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). "As state lawmakers prepare to convene in 2019, they must recommit to using the settlement funds from the historic lawsuit against Big Tobacco to fully fund cessation and prevention programs. They must also work to protect the public health of their residents by advancing policies that increase the price of tobacco products and implementing comprehensive smoke-free laws. Doing so will move us closer than ever to a tobacco-free future." "The fight against the tobacco industry's ceaseless targeting of youth and minority communities requires leadership at all levels of government, and state officials must do their part through robust investments in proven tobacco prevention and cessation programs," said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. "Sustained investments in tobacco prevention and cessation, combined with smoke-free workplace policies and tobacco tax increases, are necessary to break the cycle of addiction and save lives from tobacco use among all populations." "We know what it takes to prevent and reduce tobacco use proven tobacco control policies that save lives," said American Lung Association National President and CEO Harold P. Wimmer. "Despite the billions of dollars states continue to receive from the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, our state leaders are not funding these programs at levels recommended by the CDC. Fully funding tobacco control efforts is the smart choice for states, we know it works, and it saves both lives and health care costs." "True to form, the tobacco industry has adapted to the regulatory environment and found novel ways to sustain nicotine addiction amongst adults and, more shamefully, youth through new products like electronic cigarettes," said Cynthia Hallett, President and CEO of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "These adjudicated racketeers should be held accountable for misleading the public about the health effects of their products on the smoker and on nonsmokers. Local and statewide smoke-free laws that cover all workplaces at all times, including a prohibition on the use of e-cigarettes, protect the health of nonsmokers and can prevent another generation from being addicted to nicotine." "Our remarkable progress in bringing down youth smoking is an achievement we can take pride in, but we must not be complacent," said Robin Koval, CEO and President of Truth Initiative. "With more than 20 percent of all high school students now using e-cigarettes and these young people being four times more likely to become smokers, it's more important than ever that states use proven strategies higher taxes, flavor bans, smoke-free air laws and Tobacco 21 policies to prevent initiating a new generation into nicotine addiction." For more information, visit: http://www.tfk.org/statereport. SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Related Links http://www.tobaccofreekids.org RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- OSG Group Holdings, Inc. the indirect parent company of OSG Billing Services (with its related companies, "OSG"), a leading provider of omnichannel billing and payment solutions, customer engagement and critical customer communication management, today announced that it has acquired Communisis PLC ("Communisis"), a recognized leader in outsourced critical communications headquartered in London, England. The expansion into the European market is a landmark moment for OSG. Communisis will continue to be led by Chief Executive Officer, Andy Blundell. Both companies specialize in end-to-end, omnichannel critical customer communications and engagement solutions designed to shepherd clients and their customers across a dynamic and ever-transforming communications landscape. "This expansion to the UK and European markets is an exciting and pivotal next step for OSG," stated Scott W. Bernstein, OSG's Chairman and CEO. "OSG's leading digital solutions suite and Communisis' international reach will dovetail to strengthen each companies' position in the marketplace. The access to and sharing of new products, services and markets allows both companies to better serve their clients worldwide. We are energized by the opportunities enabled by this acquisition, and we look forward to working with the talented employees at Communisis and are pleased to welcome them to the OSG family." "We are delighted to be joining the OSG family," stated Blundell. "OSG's pioneering technology and extensive reach in the US markets will help us better serve our clients and accelerate their growth. Communisis has long-term client relationships with leading brands and an established delivery network in the UK and Europe, which extends OSG's reach into these territories. In combination, we will be in an unrivalled position to deliver international solutions for customer communications." About OSG For more than 25 years, OSG has been a leading outsourced provider of omnichannel billing and payment solutions, offering a full suite of integrated customer communications and engagement solutions that transform the way our clients reach their customers. From transactional documents to strategic marketing initiatives, OSG employs cutting-edge digital technology to expertly craft communications that enhance the customer experience. OSG's reputation for excellence is based upon award-winning communications solutions and long-term investment in clients' success. About Communisis Communisis is an integrated business services company which drives client value through the provision of increasingly digitally enabled solutions for regulated communication and marketing execution. Communisis has built its organization to deliver on this, with a unique combination of market and consumer insight, customer communications strategy, technology and transformational expertise. Contact: Shannon Seastead Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications OSG 201-871-1100, ext. 209 SOURCE OSG Group Holdings, Inc. Related Links http://www.osgbilling.com SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Automation Anywhere, the global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), today announced it was ranked a leader in the Ovum RPA Platforms Decision Matrix 2018-19, which evaluated ten automation vendors. Automation Anywhere achieved highest scores for both the "technical" and "execution and market impact" assessment dimensions. In the Ovum Decision Matrix report, Ovum notes that Automation Anywhere has particular strengths in customer engagement: "Automation Anywhere has a razor-sharp focus on market dynamics and evolving customer requirements. This is amplified with an urge to deliver greater value to its customers via dedicated CSMs." On product capabilities, Ovum states that "Automation Anywhere's RPA proposition is built on strong technical credentials across key pillars of RPA productization, as indicated by high scores across "development features and UX", "automation and execution capabilities"; "security, monitoring, and governance"; and "AI capabilities" criteria groups. With such a dedicated and aggressive execution of product and go-to-market (GTM) strategies, we expect that Automation Anywhere will continue to grow at above market average growth rates for the next two- to three- year period." "Over the last couple of years, RPA has emerged as one of the priorities on the business-IT agenda and we expect RPA platform adoption to continue to accelerate for automation of increasingly sophisticated processes and not just swivel-chair processes," said Saurabh Sharma, Principal Analyst at Ovum. "Automation Anywhere is well placed to exploit this growing market opportunity." "The Ovum Decision Matrix validates our acute focus on delivering unparalleled customer value to the world's most important organizations," said Mihir Shukla, CEO and Co-founder of Automation Anywhere. "As the only provider to offer easily scalable RPA, cognitive automation and embedded bot and business performance analytics, Automation Anywhere is helping companies drive unprecedented human productivity. Soon every office worker will be working side-by-side with a digital worker." Today, more than 1,400 organizations in over 90 countries use Automation Anywhere's intelligent Digital Workforce platform, making it the world's most deployed RPA solution. Interact with Automation Anywhere: Visit our website: www.automationanywhere.com Check out our monthly webinar series BotVisions: https://www.automationanywhere.com/company/webinars Follow us on Twitter: @AutomationAnywh Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/automation-anywhere About Automation Anywhere Automation Anywhere is the leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the platform on which more organizations build world-class Intelligent Digital Workforces. Automation Anywhere's enterprise-grade platform uses software bots that work side by side with people to do much of the repetitive work in many industries. It combines sophisticated RPA, cognitive and embedded analytic technologies. Over 1,400 organizations use this AI-enabled solution to manage and scale business processes faster, with near-zero error rates, while dramatically reducing operational costs. Automation Anywhere provides automation technology to leading financial services, insurance, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, telecom and logistics companies globally. For additional information, visit www.automationanywhere.com . About Ovum Ovum is a market-leading research, data, and consulting firm focused on helping digital service providers and their technology partners thrive in the connected digital economy. Through its 150 analysts and consultants worldwide, it offers expert analysis and strategic insight across the IT, telecoms, and media industries. Founded in 1985, Ovum has one of the most experienced analyst teams in the industry and is a respected source of guidance for business leaders, CIOs, vendors, service providers, and regulators looking for comprehensive, accurate, and insightful market data, research, and consulting. With 23 offices across six continents, Ovum offers a truly global perspective on technology, communications and media markets and provides clients with insight including workflow tools, forecasts, surveys, market assessments, technology audits, and opinion. Ovum is part of the Business Intelligence Division of Informa plc, a leading business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events group listed on the London Stock Exchange. Follow Ovum on Twitter and LinkedIn SOURCE Automation Anywhere Related Links http://www.automationanywhere.com DANBORO, Pa., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- PennEngineering, a global leader in the fastening industry, today announced its Danboro, Pennsylvania facility is operational following a fire that occurred at the plant on Dec. 12, 2018. PennEngineering's safety procedures and emergency response personnel were immediately deployed, and as a result, there were no injuries from the incident. The fire which began at 1:30 p.m. EST was contained at approximately 2:30 p.m. The Company is working closely with the local fire department and regulatory agencies to identify the cause of the fire. Company officials and staff are working to form the necessary plans to minimize the impact on its customers and employees. Leonard Kiely, President of PennEngineering, says, "We are very thankful our emergency procedures were effective, and there were no injuries. PennEngineering has a plan in place to rapidly leverage our global resources to maximize manufacturing and business continuity while we assess the impact to our Danboro operations." With PennEngineering's global resources and commercial continuity plan, the company expects minimal delays in demand fulfillment. About PennEngineering PennEngineering has a rich history as a global leader in the fastening industry since our founding in 1942. PEM, the company's leading brand has been recognized as the premier product in the thin sheet fastening industry for over 75 years. Today, our expanding portfolio of fastener designs and technologies continues to keep pace with the challenges presented by an ever-evolving marketplace. Our solutions and engineering expertise benefit from ongoing investment in research, new product development, and strategic locations around the world. PennEngineering is strongly supported by manufacturing and technical facilities in the United States, Europe, and Asia and a global network of authorized engineering representatives and distributors. All are well-equipped to deliver timely and reliable solutions wherever and whenever required. Additional information is available at www.pemnet.com Media Contact: Suzanne Lawton Global Vice President Strategic Marketing 267-218-1655 [email protected] Related Links PennEngineering SOURCE PennEngineering Related Links http://www.pemnet.com GILROY, Calif., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pinnacle Bank (OTCQB: PBNK), headquartered in Gilroy, California, announced today, that in order to better serve their clients, their website will migrate to pinnacle.bank on Monday, December 17, 2018. The .bank domain is an internet domain for the banking community. The .bank domain delivers a more secure, easily identifiable channel for trusted communications between Pinnacle Bank and their clients. Only verified members of the banking community may own .bank domains. The .bank will take the place of the traditional .com that the bank currently uses. With the transition to pinnacle.bank, Pinnacle Bank clients can be assured that when they visit the new website, or communicate with the Bank electronically, enhanced security and verification requirements are in place which will reduce the risk of cyber threats and enable Pinnacle Bank to build on their highly trusted secure environment. The .bank domain is exclusive to the banking industry and provides a level of security unmatched in traditional top level domains such as .com and .net. The strict controls in place mitigate cyber security risk and allow Pinnacle Bank to better protect their clients. "We are delighted to adopt .bank for our internet operations," stated Jeff Payne, President & CEO. "The increased value of pinnacle.bank enables us to build a high-trust environment for our clients and provide a more secure domain to better protect them from cybercrime attacks." About Pinnacle Bank Pinnacle Bank is a full-service business bank dedicated to providing quality depository and credit services in Santa Clara, San Benito and Monterey counties. The bank focuses on commercial banking services for businesses and nonprofit organizations, offering a variety of products and services that combine the best of personal touch with convenient technology-based delivery. Pinnacle Bank has locations in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Salinas. Beginning on Monday, visit them at www.pinnacle.bank for more information. Media Contact: Pinnacle Bank Jeffrey D. Payne, President & CEO 408-762-7146 SOURCE Pinnacle Bank Related Links http://www.pinnaclebankonline.com "Jamal has shown exceptional leadership at the Port," said Port Tampa Bay President/CEO Paul Anderson, who has known Sowell for more than 15 years. As an officer with the U.S. Marine Corps, a Pat Tillman Scholar, and a leader in our community, Jamal has developed a remarkable ability to engage the public and connect with people. I am deeply proud of him." Sowell has a reputation for getting things done. A sixth-generation Floridian, Sowell was the University of Florida (UF) Student Body President and member of the UF Board of Trustees. He was awarded UF Outstanding Male Leader, UF Hall of Fame, UF Outstanding Young Alumni Award and is currently on the UF Alumni Association Board of Directors. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps enlisting as a Private First Class in the Reserve, and went on to serve active duty as an officer, completing his time as a Captain. He is a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan. As the Chief of Staff for Port Tampa Bay, Sowell is responsible for coordinating the operations of the President/CEO's office as well as assisting the Port's executive team in the management of public affairs with Hillsborough County, The City of Tampa and the state of Florida. Additionally, he serves as a liaison to the Governor and state executive branch. Other responsibilities include preparation of the President/CEO's vision and plans while spearheading initiatives for port business leaders and stakeholders. Prior to joining Port Tampa Bay in 2017, Jamal was Special Assistant to the UF President and Assistant Corporate Secretary to the UF Board of Trustees. Sowell has a Masters of Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with coursework in 19th century American literature at Amherst College. He has a law degree and a graduate certificate in the rule of law and constitutional design from Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law where he was a Pat Tillman Scholar. He also interned for then U.S. Rep. Todd Young, The Israel Law Center, and served as an editor for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy Symposium. Indiana Governor Mike Pence appointed Sowell to a state board regulating health facility administrators. He is a member of the Pinellas County Economic Development Council, the Pinellas County Urban League and is a proud monthly donor to his parents' alma mater, Florida A&M University. About Port Tampa Bay - Port Tampa Bay is Florida's largest port, supporting nearly 85,000 jobs and generating over $17 billion in annual economic impact. In addition to being a top 10 U.S. cruise port, the port handles a wide array of bulk, break bulk, containers and roll-on/roll-off cargoes, and is a major shipbuilding and repair center. For more information, visit www.portTB.com . SOURCE Port Tampa Bay Related Links http://www.portTB.com NEW YORK, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Robotic drilling market is expected to grow US$ 946.6 million by 2025 from US$ 619.4 million in 2017. The demand for robotic drilling is largely influenced by the increase in global oil demands and surge in need for safer and high-quality drilling system. On the basis of component, hardware accounted for the largest share of the robotic drilling market in 2017 in terms of revenue. Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05653782 The oil & gas sector is characterized by a high amount of uncertainty owing to the fluctuating demands for oil & gas products worldwide, environmental impacts, and legislation laid down by several authorities on these operations.Hence, the oil drilling business is also sometimes referred to as a highly risky business in financial terms as well as for the human capital involved. Digital Transformation Initiative removed the bottlenecks associated with operational costs, human lives risks, and productivity concerns.The US is an early and major adopter of this service and is still in its growing phase with the implementation of several tools, and techniques pertaining to robotic drilling. The presence of some of the world's largest business firms coupled with huge competition in the region has driven the demands from the end-user industry for adoptions of robotic drilling services.Additionally, US is also considered to be the hub of innovations and therefore, the technological disruptions take place in this part of the world first before spreading to the other regions. Robotic drilling market is becoming prevalent across other developed and developing economies including Europe and MEA. Also, countries in APAC are experiencing a high growth in the industrial sector thus, propelling the growth of robotic drilling market. On the basis of application, onshore is the leading segment in global robotic drilling market.Several advantages of onshore drilling systems are, it enhances performance and safety, reduces downtime, provides higher reliability in a harsh environment, and also provisions comprehensive operating life of wells, coupled with lesser operating and maintenance costs. All these features of the onshore drilling systems are leading towards the growth of robotic drilling in the onshore application. The implementation of advanced technologies also boosts the onshore robotic drilling system market as several companies are inclined towards the development of novel technologies. The overall robotic drilling market size has been derived using both primary and secondary source.The research process begins with an exhaustive secondary research using internal and external sources to obtain qualitative and quantitative information related to the robotic drilling market. It also provides the overview and forecast for the global robotic drilling market based on all the segmentation provided with respect to five major reasons such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and South America.Also, primary interviews were conducted with industry participants and commentators in order to validate data and analysis. The participants who typically take part in such a process include industry expert such as VPs, business development managers, market intelligence managers, and national sales managers, and external consultant such as valuation experts, research analysts and key opinion leaders specializing in the robotic drilling industry. Reasons to Buy Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in the global robotic drilling market -Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies -The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the global robotic drilling market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long-term strategies -Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets -Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it -Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05653782 About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: [email protected] US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com HOUSTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Collabsight, a startup market research and management consulting firm based in Houston, Texas , finished its analysis of its 2018 holiday season prediction survey. The predictions are overwhelmingly optimistic - results indicate an over 70% chance of U.S. consumers spending as much or more this holiday season, and taking on the same or more debt to support this spending, as compared to 2017. Collabsight Founder, Christopher Mahoney (photo credit: Bekah Brown) In addition, the prediction survey results indicate a higher than 50% chance that average American wages will increase by March 2019 (as compared to September 2018), versus a 20% chance those wages will decrease. Counter-intuitively, heavy social media users displayed much more optimism about U.S. holiday spending levels, U.S. holiday-related consumer debt, and anticipated average U.S. wage increases. This remained stable across a variety of demographic attributes including political orientation. "We might be seeing the emergence of a new key demographic attribute - social media usage. This research suggests social media usage might fundamentally affect a person's beliefs and outlook independently of that person's other demographic attributes," said Christopher Mahoney, founder of Collabsight. "This will be something we will monitor moving forward, as this might impact businesses' marketing efforts." "Businesses, especially online businesses, would be smart to recognize that heavy social media users are fundamentally more optimistic this holiday season." A panel of 100 adult U.S. consumers was surveyed in September 2018 and asked to predict 2018 U.S. holiday spending and holiday-related debt, as compared to 2017. Consumers were also asked to predict the change in the average U.S. workers' wages in March 2019 as compared to September 2018. A prediction survey differs from a consumer survey in that people are asked for predictions, instead of being asked about their own beliefs. Research suggests prediction surveys are more accurate than traditional consumer surveys, even with fewer respondents. For a copy of the results and deeper analysis, please email your request to [email protected] from your work email address. Founded in 2018, Collabsight provides management consulting and market research services. Collabsight also operates a patent-pending prediction contest platform ; it is the only commercial platform in the U.S. that legally mimics certain key attributes of a prediction market. https://www.collabsight.com Media contact: Christopher Mahoney [email protected] 832-779-7848 SOURCE Collabsight.com Related Links https://www.collabsight.com COLUMBUS, Ga., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aflac, the leader in voluntary insurance sales at U.S. worksites, is listed as a top five company in Comparably's 2018 list of the 50 Best Company Cultures. Comparably is a California-based culture data website that rates companies' workplace cultures. According to Comparably, the companies on their annual Best Company Cultures list received the highest ratings by employees who provided anonymous feedback on a variety of workplace culture questions ranging from work environment and compensation to leadership. "Landing in the top five on this list reinforces our long-held belief that Aflac is indeed a great place to work, and we are pleased that our employees responded to this anonymous survey in such a positive way," Aflac Chairman and CEO Dan Amos said. "It has long been our company's belief that if you take care of the employees, they will take care of the business. Our employees, coupled with our products, which are second to none, are the engine that enables Aflac to continue dominating our industry." "Aflac's generous profit-sharing program, along with excellent health care, a matching 401(k), on-site child care and in-house medical services are just a few of the benefits that make us an attractive place to work," Aflac U.S. President Teresa L. White said. "And our innovative work environment, where people are challenged each and every day to stretch their personal and professional limits, provides rewards for employees who are eager to grow to meet the newest challenges in an ever-changing environment." In January 2018, Aflac announced that it would use a significant portion of the funds the company was able to save through the federal tax reform legislation to increase the employer contribution to every employee's 401(k) by a full percentage point. The company also provided a one-time $500 contribution to each worker's 401(k) and earmarked additional funding for innovation as well as several million dollars to the company's latest philanthropic effort in the area of childhood cancer: My Special Aflac DuckTM. My Special Aflac Duck, designed by Sproutel, is a social robot that uses medical play, lifelike movement, and emotions to engage and help comfort kids during their cancer care. Aflac and Sproutel conducted 18 months of child-centered research with children, parents and medical providers at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to create the duck, which Aflac is giving to every child newly diagnosed with cancer in the U.S., ages 3-13, free of charge. Aflac has a 23-year commitment to providing comfort to children and families facing childhood cancer. The company has contributed more than $128 million to this cause. "Giving back to employees and to the community is not only the right thing to do, but it is a vital investment in people, any good company's most valued resources," Aflac Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Fred Crawford said. "We want Aflac employees to feel secure, knowing that a bright future is in store for their families, so they can focus on helping make Aflac the best it can be. Moreover, My Special Aflac Duck has energized our teams in ways that we could not have imagined, and I truly believe it is a primary reason why Aflac employees responded to this survey in such a positive way." Aflac is the highest-scoring of only two insurance companies that appear on the 2018 list of the 50 Best Company Cultures in the large company category. A large company, according to Comparably, is one with 500 or more employees. "Winning Comparably's Best Company Culture award is an exceptional achievement, highlighting the absolute best places to work in the United States as rated by their own employees," said Comparably CEO Jason Nazar. "Aflac consistently receives high praise from its employees for its forward-thinking and supportive leadership, and for having a workplace that's collaborative, motivated, and fun." 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 contacts: Aflac Jon Sullivan, 706.763.4813 or [email protected] Aflac analyst and investor contact: David A. Young, 706.596.3264 or [email protected] SOURCE Aflac Related Links http://www.aflac.com LONDON, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- PEGylated Protein Therapeutics Market by Product Type (Colony Stimulating Factor, Interferon, Erythropoietin (EPO), Recombinant Factor VIII, Monoclonal Antibody, Enzyme, and Others) By Application (Cancer, Autoimmune Disease, Hepatitis, Multiple Sclerosis, Hemophilia, Gastrointestinal Disorder, and Others) By Sales Channel (Hospital Pharmacy, Online Provider, and Retail Pharmacy) - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018-2025 Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5563992 PEGylation refers to the process of amalgamation or attachment of polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer chains with macromolecules, such as drug molecule, therapeutic protein, or vesicles by covalent bonding. PEGylation offers several advantages, such as improved drug solubility, reduced dosage frequency, and increased drug stability, which boost its demand in the market. The global PEGylated protein therapeutics market was valued at $10,388 million in 2017, and is estimated to reach at $17,813 million by 2025, registering a CAGR of 6.9% from 2018 to 2025. The factors that propel the PEGylated protein therapeutics market growth include high prevalence of chronic diseases, such as cancer, kidney diseases, and rheumatoid arthritis. In addition, growth in the biologics sector with an increase in R&D expenditure of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies boosts the market. Furthermore, increase in government funding and grants for research activities enhance opportunities for the growth of the market. However, high price, and expected launch of generic drugs can hinder the growth. The global PEGylated protein therapeutics market is segmented based on product type, application, sales channel, and region. According to the product type, the market is classified into colony stimulating factor, interferon, erythropoietin, recombinant factor VIII, monoclonal antibody, enzyme, and others. Based on application, the market is categorized into cancer, autoimmune disease, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, hemophilia, gastrointestinal disorder, and others. According to the sales channel, it is segmented into hospital pharmacy, online provider, and retail pharmacy. Based on region, the market is studied across North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Australia, India, South Korea, and rest of Asia-Pacific), and LAMEA (Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and rest of LAMEA). Key players profiled in the report include Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Biogen, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Genentech, Inc.,), Horizon Pharma plc., Leadiant Biosciences S.p.A., Merck & Co., Inc. (Schering-Plough Corporation), Pfizer Inc., Shire plc (Baxalta), and UCB S.A. KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS The study provides an in-depth analysis of the market along with the current trends and future estimations to elucidate the imminent investment pockets. It offers a quantitative analysis from 2017 to 2025, which is expected to enable the stakeholders to capitalize on the prevailing market opportunities. A comprehensive analysis of all the geographical regions is provided to determine the existing opportunities. The profiles and growth strategies of the key players are thoroughly analyzed to understand the competitive outlook of the global market. KEY MARKET SEGMENTS By Product Type Colony Stimulating Factor Interferon Erythropoietin (EPO) Recombinant Factor VIII Monoclonal Antibody Enzyme Others By Application Type Cancer Autoimmune Disease Hepatitis Multiple Sclerosis Hemophilia Gastrointestinal Disorder Others By Sales Channel Hospital Pharmacy Online Provider Retail Pharmacy By Region North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany France UK Italy Spain Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific Japan China Australia India South Korea Rest of Asia-Pacific LAMEA Brazil Saudi Arabia South Africa Rest of LAMEA LIST OF KEY PLAYERS PROFILED IN THE REPORT Amgen Inc. AstraZeneca PLC Biogen, Inc. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Genentech, Inc.,), Horizon Pharma plc. Leadiant Biosciences S.p.A. Merck & Co., Inc. (Schering-Plough Corporation) Pfizer Inc. Shire plc (Baxalta) UCB S.A. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5563992 About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com CHICAGO, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- United Benefit Advisors (UBA), the nation's leading independent employee benefits advisory organization, is pleased to welcome Montridge Advisory Group Ltd. to our family of Partners. Technically-minded Montridge Advisory Group provides outstanding and accessible service to their clients. Based in Vancouver, B.C., Montridge listens carefully, using a comprehensive view of each company they work with to create a plan that takes everything from corporate culture to wellness into account. Montridge supports their clients' HR teams, helping them save time and money by acting as a single source of experience and knowledge. Their focused approach to service allows them to spend time learning about each and every client, tailoring benefits, and minimizing liabilities. When their clients are seen as companies of choicein part because of a thoughtful benefits strategyit helps attract and keep top talent in their respective industries. UBA President Peter Weber, M.S., CAE. says, "Montridge is an accomplished employee benefits firm providing their clients exemplary service. Their professionalism and unique viewpoint as a Canadian firm working with American clients is an important asset to UBA's shared knowledge and wisdom. We believe they will fit in beautifully with UBA's Partner service model and contribute generously to the UBA community." "Montridge Advisory Group is excited to join United Benefit Advisors. As a Canadian-based advisory firm that works with many US-based employers, we are a rarity to the UBA Partnership. We bring a unique perspective and skillset to UBA's Partner Firms and look forward to becoming a resource for those Partners and their clients with Canadian employees. We are also excited for our Canadian clients with US-based employees to benefit from the expansive resources and strategic partnerships that our UBA membership provides," said Kandrice (Kandy) Cantwell, Partner, Montridge Advisory Group. Montridge joins a network of employee benefits advisory firms that serves employers of all sizes across the United States, Canada, England and Ireland. As a combined group, UBA's annual employee benefit revenues rank it among the top ten employee benefit advisory organizations globally. About Montridge Advisory Group Ltd. Montridge Advisory Group not only provides next-level service to our clients, but we take an active role in protecting the environment and giving back to the local community. Dedication to learning about our clients' culture and goals allows Montridge to empower our clients to feel informed and confident in the decisions they're making. Montridge thoughtfully tailors each benefits strategy to the needs of the customer. For more information, visit www.montridge.com. About United Benefit Advisors United Benefit Advisors (UBA) is the nation's leading independent employee benefits advisory organization with more than 200 offices throughout the United States, Canada, England and Ireland. UBA empowers more than 2,000 Partners to both maintain their individuality and pool their expertise, insight, and market presence to provide best-in-class services and solutions. Employers, advisors and industry-related organizations interested in obtaining powerful results from the shared wisdom of our Partners should visit www.UBAbenefits.com. Media Contact Bill Olson SVP Operations 312.416.3673 [email protected] SOURCE United Benefit Advisors Related Links https://montridge.com Washington, Dec 14 : The US Senate voted on Thursday in favour of a bill asking the Donald Trump administration to end the military support it is providing to Saudi Arabia in the latter's war in Yemen, a move taken amid the controversy sparked by the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in early October at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul. The bill gives the White House 30 days to withdraw US troops from Yemen, except those that are tasked with fighting local factions of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, Efe reported. Despite having been approved by the Senate in a 56-41 vote, the bill will not have any immediate effect since the House of Representatives on Wednesday approved postponing its vote on the matter until January, when the new Congress will be seated and Democrats will regain control of the lower house. Then, both the Senate and House would be able to give the green light to the measure and send it to the Oval Office. The vote in the Senate, which is controlled by the Republicans and will remain so after January, is - however - a measure of how lawmakers view the relationship between Washington and Riyadh after Khashoggi's murder. Trump has called Saudi Arabia a great regional ally of the US and has opposed allowing Khashoggi's killing to change the bilateral relationship, and thus the Senate approval of the bill is considered to be a political rebuke of the president by lawmakers. In addition to withdrawing a portion of the US troops from Yemen, the Senate added a resolution designating Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the person "responsible" for ordering Khashoggi's October 2 murder by a hit team of security officers dispatched from Riyadh. The US-backed Arab coalition, which has admitted staging attacks in which dozens of civilians have died, began military operations in Yemen in March 2015, when the war there resurged, causing the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN. Seoul, Dec 14 : A South Korean fashion and cosmetics firm has stirred controversy with a facial mask featuring Kim Jong-un prompting many stores to pull the product of the shelves. The so-called "nuke masks" were created by 5149, a South Korean fashion and cosmetics company. It said it has sold more than 25,000 "unification moisture nuclear masks" since June, the BBC reported. Many South Korean stores, though, halted the sales amid a public backlash and concerns over the masks' legality. In South Korea it is illegal to speak favourably of the North Korean government, though the law is rarely enforced. Dozens of Koreans have posted pictures of themselves on social media with the masks, which cost 4,000 won, the BBC said. Propaganda-style slogans claim the masks contain mineral water from Mount Paektu, the sacred, active volcano, which is the birthplace of Dangun, founder of the first Korean kingdom more than 4,000 years ago, according to Korean mythology. "Personally, I don't like merchandise promoting a certain political agenda," Irene Kim, a South Korean skincare expert, told the South China Morning Post. "A few years ago, North Korea was the largest threat to our countryA Kim Jong-un was seen as a dictator and a tyrant who would stop at nothing to disrupt world peace, now he's become the face of a popular face mask," she added. The North Korean leader and his regime have been criticised by the UN for "systematic, widespread" human rights abuses. Both North and South Korea are still technically at war, but leaders from both countries attended talks this year over denuclearisation. In an interview with the New York Times, 5149 CEO Kwak Hyeon-ju said she wanted the masks to celebrate the "once in a lifetime" Korean summits held earlier this year. Kim has led North Korea since the death of its former dictator, his father Kim Jong-il, in 2011. The country's communist regime has been criticised by the UN and human rights groups for "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations". Beijing, Dec 14 : Japanese animation classic "My Neighbour Totoro" is finally being screened in Chinese cinemas, 30 years after it was first released. The film, by Studio Ghibli and famed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, follows the story of two sisters who encounter Totoro and other forest creatures. Despite the movie's cult following, it has never been publicly shown in China. Though many Chinese viewers have already caught it on DVDs or pirated downloads while growing up, the BBC reported. "For China, film will always take a back seat to politics," Stanley Rosen, director at the East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California told the BBC, explaining that whether a Japanese film makes it to China often depended on the state of the political relationship. "Right now that relationship has improved significantly and there is a lot of movement on Sino-Japanese co-productions, including in anime." Rosen said Miyazaki has been publicly critical of Japan's wartime aggressions and that has been viewed favourably in Chinese media. It is the first Studio Ghibli movie to ever be released in China, which has a strict quota on the number of foreign films, the BBC report said. Nostalgic fans in China took to social media to praise the film's long-awaited release. "I can't wait," gushed a fan on the popular Sina Weibo micro-blogging site. "I used to watch it on DVD and I'm starting to feel nostalgic." Other Weibo users shared their feelings upon seeing the Chinese release poster. The critically acclaimed animation is one of Japan's most beloved children's films. Helmed by legendary animator Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli has often been called Japan's answer to Walt Disney. While some viewers draw parallels with Alice in Wonderland, the 1988 film was said to have been inspired by Miyazaki's own experiences growing up. In the film, sisters Satsuki and Mei visit their ailing mother in hospital, echoing a young Miyazaki who watched his mother recover from a severe case of spinal tuberculosis. "My Neighbour Totoro" is also often celebrated for its "innocence" - there are no villains or fight scenes -- and its hand-drawn scenes of idyllic country fields -- places a strong emphasis on cultivating an appreciation for nature. San Francisco, Dec 14 : Facebook has dismissed a media report that claimed journalists working as factcheckers for the social media giant are frustrated and are ending partnerships as the company failed to use their expertise to combat misinformation. A report in The Guardian on Thursday said outside reporters have lost trust in Facebook, "which has repeatedly refused to release meaningful data about the impacts of their work". Reacting to the report, Meredith Carden, Head of News Integrity Partnerships at Facebook, said the Guardian story presents several inaccuracies. "Contrary to a claim in the story, we absolutely do not ask fact-checkers to prioritise debunking content about our advertisers," Carden said in statement. The report, she added, is based primarily on the account of a single fact-checker who has not been involved with the Facebook fact-checking program for six months. "We have been committed to fighting misinformation for years now and have strong relationships with our third-party fact-checking partners -- we now have 35 partners in 24 countries around the world," said Facebook. The report quoted Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a factchecking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years, as saying that the social network is using journalists for handling crisis PR. "They're not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck... They clearly don't care," said Binkowski, who now runs her own fact-checking site which does not partner with Facebook. According to Facebook, it values the ongoing partnerships and the work that these journalists do. The third-party fact checking programme was launched in 2016 after the US Presidential election. "We're planning to expand the programme to even more countries in 2019," said Carden. According to Facebook, three separate researches have found that the overall volume of false news on Facebook is decreasing since it put up third-party fact-checking programme and other anti-misinformation measures in place. However, The Guardian report said the company has ignored journalists' concerns. Some newsroom leaders said "they had grown increasingly resentful of Facebook, especially following revelations that the company had paid a consulting firm to go after opponents by publicising their association with billionaire Jewish philanthropist George Soros". A New York Times investigation in November suggested that the social network hired a Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm that "dug up dirt on its competitors" including Soros. Reacting to the report, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg denied they had any prior knowledge about this firm. "It was later revealed that Sheryl Sandberg had directed her staff to research Soros's financial interests after he publicly criticised the company," the Guardian report said. The report quoted another factchecker as saying that he was demoralised. "They are a terrible company and, on a personal level, I don't want to have anything to do with them," said the anonymous factchecker. Mumbai, Dec 14 : Newly wed Deepika Padukone, who got hitched last month to actor Ranveer Singh, has said that marriage itself is a beautiful celebration. The actress was interacting with the media at Nicklodean Kids Choice Awards 2018 on Thursday here. After their lavish wedding in Italy, Deepika and Ranveer hosted one wedding reception in Bengaluru and two in Mumbai. When asked whether celebrations have finally come to an end, she said: "I think marriage itself is the beautiful celebration and literal celebrations are done at least from our end. "But December anyway, I think is very festive time and as a newlywed, the celebration continues for a while." So, how things have changed post marriage, Deepika said: "I think that will be a long conversation but most importantly I am thankful for all the love. "It's been very magical and special. We are so happy that we got to share it with all of you (media and the audience)." Deepika married Ranveer in November at a private ceremony in Italy and on January 5, she will be celebrating her 33rd birthday. And were there some more big celebration -- as it will be her first birthday after her marriage, she said: "I don't know.. We haven't planned anything as of now. Right now, we are looking forward to his (Ranveer) film's release ('Simmba')." Deepika will be next seen playing role of an acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal in Meghna Gulzar's yet untitled film. New Delhi : Book: The Last Girl Author: Nadia Murad Publisher: Vergo Press/Hachette India Pages: 306 Price: Rs 499 She suffered at the hands of the Islamic State, was held captive as a sex slave, but went on to become a human rights campaigner and was awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege. In her memoir, "The Last Girl", Nadia Murad recalls the dreadful sequence of events that led to her captivity and reflects on the life she has been leading thereafter. It is a painful story, of a life shattered all of a sudden, that left Murad with little hope of freedom. But it inspired her to visualise a change in the world -- with the powerful weapon of her own story as the instrument of change. In August 2014, Islamic State militants laid siege on Murad's village, Kocho, in Iraq. The militants showed no mercy and first executed almost all the men and older women, which included Murad's mother and six brothers. All of them were buried in mass graves as younger women like Murad, who were spared, looked on hopelessly. The younger women were then kidnapped by the IS militants and were sold as sex slaves, where they were held captive, tortured and raped by several militants. She was barely 21 years old, but the militants knew no mercy. "The slave market opened at night. We could hear the commotion downstairs where militants were registering and organising, and when the first man entered the room, all the girls started screaming. It was like the scene of an explosion. We moaned as though wounded, doubling over and vomiting on the floor, but none of it stopped the militants," she recalls in the memoir, first published in the United Kingdom by Virgo Press, and now here by Hachette India. She adds that the militants paced around the room, staring at them, while they screamed and begged. "They gravitated toward the most beautiful girls first, asking, 'How old are you?' and examining their hair and mouths. 'They are virgins, right?' they asked a guard, who nodded and said, 'Of course!' like a shopkeeper taking pride in his product. Now the militants touched us anywhere they wanted, running their hands over our breasts and our legs, as if we were animals," Murad recounts. After she was sold to a jihadist in Mosul, an opportunity to escape arrived when she found the front door unlocked. Murad escaped to Kurdistan, posing as the wife of a Sunni man, Nasser, who literally risked his life and everything he had to take her to safety. But the relief did not last long as Murad and Nasser were detained by Kurdish officials and forced to testify about their escape. "I was quickly learning that my story, which I still thought of as a personal tragedy, could be someone else's political tool," she notes. In early 2015, Murad went as a refugee to Germany and later that year she began to campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking. She was invited to Switzerland to speak at a UN forum on minority issues. "It was the first time I would tell my story in front of a large audience. I wanted to talk about everything -- the children who died of dehydration fleeing ISIS, the families still stranded on the mountain, the thousands of women and children who remained in captivity, and what my brothers saw at the site of the massacre. "I was only one of hundreds of thousands of Yazidi victims. My community was scattered, living as refugees inside and outside of Iraq, and Kocho was still occupied by ISIS. There was so much the world needed to hear about what was happening to Yazidis," she writes. In the memoir, Murad maintains that her story, "told honestly and matter-of-factly", is the best weapon she has against terrorism. She emphasises that she plans on using it until the terrorists are put on trial, and reminds those in power that there is still so much that needs to be done. She urges the world leaders, particularly Muslim religious leaders, to stand up and protect the oppressed. Murad says in the book that she wishes to look into the eyes of the men who raped her and see them brought to justice. And she is vocal about her sufferings as well as what she wants the authorities to do because she, as the title of her memoir says, wants to be "The Last Girl" with a story like hers. (Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in) New Delhi, Dec 14 : Flick through the "anatomy" of sting operations conducted by an investigative journalist; learn how to think like former US President Barack Obama through mantras presented in a new book; discover the world through the eyes of Anantya Tantrist, who must deal with sorcerers to solve a mystery for the CBI; and finally, enter Sultanpur, which is in danger from a demoness released by a forbidden spell. IANS Bookshelf has these varied reads for this weekend. 1. Book: The Anatomy of a Sting: An Inside Look Into Undercover Operations; Author: Bhupen Patel; Publisher: Penguin; Price: Rs 299; Pages: 212 The book, charting undercover operations conducted by crime and investigative journalist Bhupen Patel, recounts in detail "some of his most dramatic and hard-hitting stings". The foreword by Aniruddha Bahal, editor-in-chief of Cobrapost, begins by invoking the the Watergate scandal, broken by Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and refers to book's chronicles as those of "grit, gore and crime from the world of crime". Patel is introduced as a journalist having "exposed all sorts of rackets" when he worked with leading media houses. As per the book, he is credited with cracking the modus operandi of the Mumbai train bombings in 2006, and receiving exclusive access to Ajmal Kasab's interrogation CD. "It takes us through the entire process of a sting and reveals the hard work it takes to not just uncover a story that requires further discreet investigation but also gather enough evidence to bring it to the notice of the public and the authorities concerned," the synopsis reads. 2. Book: How to Think Like Obama; Author: Daniel Smith; Publisher: Hachette; Price: Rs 299; Pages: 224 Written by Daniel Smith, who has previously authored similar books on the thought processes of Steve Jobs, Sigmund Freud, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates, among others, "How to Think Like Obama" gives a "unique insight into the mind of one of the world's great influencers" and the first African-American man to be the US President. Born to a black Kenyan father and white American mother, raised in Hawaii and, briefly, in Indonesia, Barack Obama would typically never have been tipped for a future President of the United States. With the price of change being gritty negotiation and compromise, Obama evolved the skills of a 21st century President which belied his relative inexperience to achieve the America that, as a young man, he had dreamed of. The offering "reveals the motivations, inspirations and philosophies behind a man who broke the mould to challenge the status quo" and carries his thoughts on leadership, innovation, overcoming obstacles and fighting inequality. Peppered with quotes by and about him, it claims to teach you to think like Barack Obama. 3. Book: The Rakta Queen; Author: Shweta Taneja; Publisher: HarperCollins; Price: Rs 399; Pages: 321 It is the third installment in the Anantya Tantrist Mystery series, centered on the character of Anantya Tantrist, who is "all that stands between Delhi and the forces of darkness", and is penned by bestselling author Shweta Taneja. The book's synopsis gives the following sneak peek: "A Kaula tantrik is brutally murdered by his chandaali slave. The same night, a group of university students lose their minds and perform an orchestrated orgy in front of the Vidhan Sabha metro station. To get to the truth, Anantya Tantrist, unofficial consultant with the Central Bureau of Investigation, must navigate her way past murderous sorcerers, deadly chandaalis, an underground betting scam run by jinns, and a renegade aghori teacher. Anantya must confront her past and rid it of its demons, before she meets a slow and painful death at the hands of her deadliest enemy yet." 4. Book: The Sultanpur Chronicles; Author: Achala Upendran; Publisher: Hachette; Price: Rs 450; Pages: 341 "The Sultanpur Chronicles" is a fictional account that revolves around the Sultanpuri Empire, a rich collection of kingdoms and states which has lived peacefully for over 300 years. It is home to a rich terrain, from the freezing mountains of Firozia to the high waves that break on Karizen's rocky cliffs, and from the cities and souks of Dastakar to the djinn-filled Western Desert. Formed after the end of the Human-Rakshas wars and ruled with an iron hand by the imperial family, it has reached the pinnacle of influence and prosperity. All of this, though, has come through the banishment of the powerful rakshasas. But when a forbidden spell releases a rakshasi in the empire's capital, the darkness that has been lurking below the surface comes to loom over it, threatening to plunge the empire into chaos and envelop everything in its murderous embrace. Los Angeles, Dec 14 : Actors Diego Luna and Scott McNairy will reprise their roles from "Narcos: Mexico" season 1 for the second chapter. Netflix on Friday announced that Luna and McNairy will star in the upcoming second season of "Narcos: Mexico", read a statement. Production recently began on season two in Mexico. Luna was recently honoured with a Critics' Choice Award nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in in the show. The series itself also garnered a WGA nomination in the episodic drama category. Originally intended as a fourth season of "Narcos", which focused on the rise of the cocaine business in Colombia under Pablo Escobar and his Medellin Cartel, "Narcos: Mexico" became a new series, shifting the focus to the beginnings of the Mexican drug trade and how it became what it is today. The first season tells the story of the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s as Felix Gallardo (Luna) takes the helm, unifying traffickers in order to build an empire. When DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Michael Pena) moves his wife and young son from California to Guadalajara to take on a new post, he quickly learns that his assignment will be more challenging than he ever could have imagined. "Narcos: Mexico" is produced by Gaumont Television for Netflix. Eric Newman will return as executive producer and showrunner. Los Angeles, Dec 14 : Actress and director Sondra Locke, who received a supporting actress Oscar nomination in her first movie role for "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", is dead. She died on November 3 at 74, but the news has emerged now. The Los Angeles County Public Health Department confirmed her death, reported variety.com. She died due to breast and bone cancer, according to Radar Online, which reported that she was laid to rest at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary. Locke had a contentious relationship of more than a decade with Clint Eastwood, who first cast her in "The Outlaw Josey Wales". In her early 20s, she won a nationwide talent search in 1967 for the part of teenager Mick Kelly in the movie adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter". Locke starred opposite Alan Arkin, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. She also received Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer. Locke then starred in "Cover Me Babe", "Willard", "A Reflection of Fear" and "The Second Coming of Suzanne" and took TV roles in "The F.B.I.", "Cannon", "Barnaby Jones", "Kung Fu", "A Feast of Blood" and "Gondola". She started working with Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales" in 1976, followed by "The Gauntlet", "Every Which Way But Loose", "Any Which Way You Can", "Bronco Billy" and "Sudden Impact", in which she murders the men who had raped her and her sister. As a director, she helmed 1986's "Ratboy", 1990's "Impulse", 1995's TV movie "Death in Small Doses" and the independent film "Do Me a Favor", starring Rosanna Arquette. She sued Eastwood for palimony in 1989 and for fraud in 1995 and brought a separate action against Warner Bros. for allegedly conspiring with Eastwood to sabotage her directorial career. She settled the three cases out of court, reported variety.com. Locke underwent a double mastectomy in 1990. Her autobiography "The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly - A Hollywood Journey," was published in 1997. Locke starred recently with Keith Carradine in Alan Rudolph's drama "Ray Meets Helen". She is survived by her husband Gordon Anderson. Washington, Dec 14 : NASA is set to work with American companies to design and develop new reusable systems, in a major step to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon. NASA is planning to test new human-class landers on the Moon beginning in 2024, with the goal of sending crew to the surface in 2028, the US space agency said in a statement on Thursday. Through upcoming multi-phased lunar exploration partnerships, NASA will ask American companies to study the best approach to landing astronauts on the Moon and start the development as quickly as possible with current and future anticipated technologies. "Building on our model in low-Earth orbit, we'll expand our partnerships with industry and other nations to explore the Moon and advance our missions to farther destinations such as Mars, with America leading the way," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "When we send astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the next decade, it will be in a sustainable fashion." To develop lunar robotic landers, NASA in November collaborated with nine commercial American companies namely Astrobotic, Deep Space Systems, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin, Mastern Space Systems, Moon Express, Draper and Orbit Beyond. These companies are eligible for competing for NASA's contracts valued at $2.6 billion, according to the US-based space agency. The agency plans to send humans to the Moon using a system of three separate elements that will provide transfer, landing, and safe return. Using the Gateway to land astronauts on the Moon allows the first building blocks for fully reusable lunar landers. Initially NASA expects two of the lander elements to be reusable and refuelled by cargo ships carrying fuel from Earth to the Gateway. The agency is also working on technologies to make rocket propellants using water ice and regolith from the Moon. Once the ability to harness resources from the Moon for propellant becomes viable, NASA plans to refuel these elements with the Moon's own resources. This process, known as in-situ resource utilization or ISRU, will make the third element also refuellable and reusable, it said. Washington, Dec 14 : A 34-year-old Indian man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sexually assaulting a sleeping woman on a US flight early this year. Prabhu Ramamoorthy, living in the US on a temporary work visa, was accused of abusing a 22-year-old woman seated by the window next to him while his wife was on his other side on a Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Detroit on January 3. He will be deported back to India after he serves his sentence, a federal court in Detroit said on Thursday as it sentenced him to nine years of imprisonment, Detroit Free Press reported. He will never be allowed back into the US. Prosecutors said Ramamoorthy "committed one of the most brazen airplane sexual assaults ever prosecuted in this district" when he knowingly took advantage of a sleeping, intoxicated woman who could not fight back. The prosecution had originally sought a 11-year jail term but US District Judge Terrence Berg concluded that nine years was sufficient for what he described as "an extremely serious offence". Ramamoorthy was held without bail after appearing in the federal court after prosecutors argued there was a risk he could abscond. According to court records, the 22-year-old victim had told investigators that she was sleeping in the seat next to Ramamoorthy on the flight when she was jolted awake and found the fellow passenger shoving his fingers inside her pants and "vigorously moving them". She said her shirt was also unbuttoned. Federal prosecutor Amanda Jawad said Ramamoorthy stopped after the victim opened her eyes and then the shaken woman immediately alerted flight attendants. She was then given a different seat and the man was arrested after the plane landed. When the accusations against Ramamoorthy surfaced, he had denied them. He told the police he could not have committed the crime because he was asleep. His wife had claimed that the woman had been sleeping on her husband's knees. According to officials, Ramamoorthy later altered his story and told an FBI agent that he might have unclasped the sleeping woman's bra "while playing with it". The court filing stated that Ramamoorthy also admitted that he "unzipped the woman's pants part-way and put his finger inside". He was convicted by a jury in August following a five-day trial. New Delhi, Dec 14 : Prashant Bhushan, lawyer-petitioner in the Rafale jet deal case, on Friday termed as "totally incorrect" the Supreme Court judgment junking the plea for a court-monitored probe into the purchase of the firghter aircraft. He said the ruling was against the interests of people and that they would continue their campaign on the issue. Reacting to the verdict, he said it was "unfortunate" that "such a wrong judgement" had come from the apex court even after the government conveyed to it that Dassault gave a contract to Anil Ambani's firm when the Defence Procurement Procedure and Defence Offset Guidelines clearly said that "no offset contract can be given without the approval of the Defence Minister". "In my opinion, the judgment is totally incorrect. We had sought an investigation. If anyone alleges that there is corruption in a deal and gives a proof, an investigation must happen," Bhushan told reporters outside the court. He said the country suffered a loss of Rs 20,000 crore after Prime Minister Narendra Modi struck the deal for Euro 8.2 billion as Indian Air Force experts had earlier fixed a benchmark price at Euro 5.2 billion. He said the court dismissed the petition saying its judicial review on the issue is limited. It is a limited clean chit to government and as such the campaign against the deal would continue. The decision on filing a review petition would be taken later, Bhushan said. New Delhi, Dec 14 : BJP ministers on Friday came down heavily on the Congress for carrying out a misleading campaign on the Rafale fighter jet deal, with Home Minister Rajnath Singh rejecting the opposition party's demand for a Joint Parliamentary Probe on the issue. Singh said the government was confident that the Supreme Court judgment on the issue would be in its favour as the deal was "fair." He also turned down the demand for "any committee" to probe the deal. Any debate on the deal must end now in the light of the judgement, he added. Calling the Rafale deal "fair", "honest" and "transparent", Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said "I would urge that all campaigns against the Rafale must end now. The country's strategic interest is more important." Union Human Resource Minister Prakash Javdekar said the judgment has exposed the lies of the Congress. "It is a good judgment. We appreciate it," he said. Sydney, Dec 14 : About half a tonne of drugs hidden in car bonnets were seized and two persons were arrested in a major drug bust in Australian capital Sydney, police said on Friday. Border authorities intercepted the crystalline methamphetamine drugs, also known as ice drugs, from car bonnets in November, Xinhua news agency quoted police as saying. Nearly 5,000 packages were seized, with the drugs estimated at a street value of more than 367 million Australian dollars ($265 million), said the police. Police arrested two men, aged 17 and 19. They face maximum life imprisonment sentences. New Delhi, Dec 14 : The Congress on Friday continued to press its demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal notwithstanding the Supreme Court judgement rejecting petitions seeking an investigation. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters that there was corruption in the deal. "There is a multi-layered corruption in the deal. We know that Supreme Court has no powers to look into the all aspects. So Congress never went to Supreme Court," Surjewala said. "I challenge Narendra Modi for a JPC probe. If you are not scared, why should there not be a JPC. The government will have to tell why price of aircraft -- the rate per aircraft -- has gone up from Rs 526 crore to Rs 1,670 crore," he said. Surjewala said "half-baked" information about the deal was given by the government to the Supreme Court. Bengaluru, Dec 14 : Global software major Infosys on Friday said it has formed a joint venture (JV) with Hitachi Ltd, Panasonic Corp and Pasona Inc to enhance its presence in Japan. "The company will acquire 81 per cent equity stake in Hitachi's subsidiary -- Hitachi Procurement Service Co Ltd, in which Panasonic and Pasona will be minority shareholders," said the city-based IT major in a statement here. In a regulatory filing on the BSE, the company said its Singapore-based Infosys Consulting Pte Ltd subsidiary entered into an agreement with the three to buy the majority stake (81 per cent) in all-cash deal for $24 million (Rs 175 crore) on or before April 1, 2019. "Hitachi will transfer two per cent each to Panasonic and Pasona and hold the remaining 15 per cent," said the filing. The Tokyo-based JV will help clients navigate their digital journey and accelerate business process transformation by leveraging digital procurement platforms. "The joint entity will accelerate business process transformation leveraging digital procurement platforms for the local and global needs of Japanese corporations," said the statement. The $11-billion IT behemoth will use its global expertise in procurement processes, consulting, analytics and digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to the venture. The JV will offer differentiated, end-to-end and high value procurement capabilities to corporations, with the expertise of Hitachi and Panasonic in procurement functions and Pasona's human capital and business process management (BPM) networks. "The JV will help Japanese firms transform procurement processes using digital platforms, with the combined power of our procurement expertise, technology and local skills," said Infosys President Ravi Kumar. As Japan is a strategic market for the outsourcing firm, company's vice-president Deepak Padaki said the investment in the JV demonstrated its commitment to having a strong local presence in the region to partner with its Japanese clients and hasten their digital journey. "We are building the new partnership, combining strengths and unlocking potential of Infosys, Panasonic, and Pasona," said Hitachi chief procurement officer Masashi Murayama in the statement. As procurement functions are critical, the partnership will also strengthen Hitachi's global competitiveness with new operating models and delivery at speed enabled by digital technologies. New Delhi, Dec 14 : Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court judgment in the Rafale deal, saying it has conclusively established "complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated" allegations levelled against Reliance Group and him personally. In a statement, he said the Reliance Group was committed to India's national security and to making its contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the government in defence, including the offset partnership agreement with valued partner Dassault Aviation. "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally. "We remain committed to India's national security and to making our humble contribution towards the Make in India and Skill India policies of the Government in the critical area of defence including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France," Ambani said. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed four petitions seeking court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters in ready-to-fly conditions, holding that the decision making process was not in doubt and it cannot go into the question of pricing and choice of offset Indian partner by the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault. Referring to their interaction with senior air force officers and the material placed before it, a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Krishan Kaul and Justice K.M. Joseph, said: "We are satisfied there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process." New Delhi : "Since I last addressed the COP in 2009, Ive been deposed in a coup, thrown into jail, and forced into exile. But almost 10 years since I was last at these climate negotiations, I must say, nothing much seems to have changed," said Mohammad Nasheed, former President of the Maldives, adding: "We are still using the same old, dinosaur language." He is now back again to for the negotiations at COP24 and started exploring more effective, urgent and enhanced ambitious targets. Nsheed's statements, in short, summed up where the climate change negotiations are going at COP24 - with just a day to go to conclude the talk. Nasheed was just short of repeating what Einstein famously said: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Even the usual optimism in such meetings had familiar and archaic language: "Window of opportunity to keep temperature rise below 1.5 C, as revealed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is closing fast. But we still have time and we can do it". That was the official tone of the conference. But unofficial tone was of talk, talk and more talk. A special report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did energise the negotiations by adding the edge to the demands of the developing countries for developed countries to move fast on their own commitment for reducing GHG emissions and fulfilling the promise of financial assistance to the developing countries. But Nasheed wondered if the developing countries should now change the narrative of their demands and instead push the developed countries to enhance their own investments in the clean renewable energy so that technology improves and the prices come down. That, as per Nasheed, would benefit the developing countries more than just asking for new and additional finances. But even there, the developed countries are unwilling to budge. The huge wolf in the herd of the sheep was Poland itself. A day after delivering the inaugural speech at COP24, Polish President Andrzej Duda made a surprise address to coal miners in the country's south, during their annual festival. He said that as long as he is in office, he "won't allow for anyone to murder Polish mining". Duda contended that under the garb of global warming, one cannot neglect the welfare of the coal miners and ignore their needs. Poland needs coal and it would continue mining it for the sustainable development of its people, was his narrative. That must have been a shock to EU delegation to which coal king Poland belongs. EU has often been very proactive in raising the ambitions for reducing the emissions in line with the IPCC 1.5C report. One of the Polish students in the conference stated that coal miners in reality can have a better quality life if they start working on the clean energy. Poland is quite skilled in making turbines for windmills and even exports them. But it does not invest in windmills in the country. "In reality, not only coal miners but even average citizen would lead a better life in Poland if we engage ourselves in clean and renewable energy," he stated. Many houses in the cities and in rural areas still burn dirty coal to heat the houses and pollute the air which, in turn, harms the lives of the present and future generations. But Duda has to please the Solidarity union of the coal miners, who are literally kept in dark about the clean energy. How can Nasheed's suggestion on enhanced investment by the developed countries in renewables would materialize in such a political scenario? In reality, the options before the present negotiations are limited. The fragmentation of the multilateralism is destabilising the negotiations. The oil kings -- the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait -- have formed another block of countries to complicate the negotiations. Even the facilitative role of United Nations Secretary General, who dashed back into the meeting after the inauguration on December 3, 2018 is unlikely to halt the fragmentation and destabilisation of the negotiations. The final days of the negotiations have also revealed that the basic tenets of environmental diplomacy are being conveniently (or deliberately) forgotten. As early as the 1992 Rio conference on Environment and Development, the single-most tenet of environmental diplomacy has been the principle of the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. This basis of negotiations of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements is in jeopardy at COP 24. The rule book to operationalise the Paris Climate Agreement depends much on this tenet. In words of Nasheed, carbon emissions keep "rising, and rising, and rising. And all we seem to be doing is talking and talking and talking". (Rajendra Shende, an IIT alumni, is Chairman, TERRE Policy Centre and a former UNEP Director. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at shende.rajendra@gmail.com) New Delhi, Dec 14 : BJP President Amit Shah on Friday demanded that Congress President Rahul Gandhi should apologize to the nation for his "brazen lies" accusing the government and the Prime Minister of corruption in the Rafale jet deal with France and said he should also disclose the source of information for his attacks. Addressing a press conference after the Supreme Court dismissed the petitions seeking a probe into the deal, he said truth had triumphed and Gandhi's "lies" had no legs to stand on. Quoting from the judgement, Shah said the court expressed satisfaction with the process followed in purchasing the aircraft and set aside the demands of the petitioners for a probe into the matter. He said the court agreed with the government's contention that the country was financially benefited in the deal. "The court observed that neighbouring countries' air forces were equipped with fourth and fifth generation aircraft. So there should not be any delay (in procuring the aircraft) in the interest of the country and it should not be stopped," he said. "The court also said that the government of India had no role in choosing the offset partner. It (judgement) is a slap on the face of Congress leaders," Shah said. Questioning Rahul Gandhi's sustained attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government, he said Gandhi had harmed the country's security interests and the morale of the forces by trying to stop the acquisition process. Asking who had "directed" Gandhi to launch the campaign against the Rafale deal, he asked the Congress leader to reveal the source of information. He also asked why Gandhi did not approach the Supreme Court if he had the evidence of corruption. "Why did you run away from the court? You should have gone there. Your B-Team went there. Who stopped Rahul Gandhi from going to Supreme Court and place evidence of corruption?" Shah also said the process for acquisition of fighter jets was initiated in 2001 and why did the UPA government not complete it during its tenure. "Whether commission (kickbacks) stopped it," he said, adding the Congress governments were experts in scams and it was laughable that they were raising doubts about Modi's integrity. The Modi government adopted a transparent process for the jet deal by going for a government-to-government deal. Replying to questions on Rahul Gandhi's description of Modi as 'chowkidaar chor hai' (watchman is a thief), he said only thieves were scared of a vigilant watchman. "People have not doubted Prime Minister Modi or his government" he said. Referring to the Congress demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the deal, Shah said first let the issue be discussed in Parliament. "Congress should come to Parliament and debate. Disruption is not a solution. The government is ready for any length of discussion. Even for constituting a JPC , there should be discussion. How will you decide it? Will the Congress President set up a committee? We do not do match-fixing," he asked. Asked about the contract given to a private company to manufacture Rafale aircraft in preference over state-run HAL, Shah said: "No Rafale aircraft will be manufactured in India -neither by the private company nor by HAL. All 36 jets will be manufactured in France." Asked whether Gandhi's campaign on Rafale during the elections had harmed the BJP, he said election defeats was a different issue. "We are not bothered about profit and loss. We are bothered about the harm it caused to the nation's security." Washington, Dec 14 : US President Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee is currently being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible financial abuses related to foreign donations raised for his inauguration, the media reported. According to a report in the New York Times on Thursday, prosecutors were examining whether foreigners illegally funnelled donations to Trump's inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over American policy. The inquiry focused on whether people from Middle Eastern nations -- including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds, the daily reported citing people familiar with the matter. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds. In a statement, Trump's inaugural committee said the celebration was "in full compliance with all applicable laws". "The (committee's) finances were fully audited internally and independently and are fully accounted," it said. Prosecutors from New York and from special counsel Robert Mueller's team were reportedly asking witnesses about whether people from Middle Eastern nations contributed money. Tom Barrack, a financier with close ties to Trump, raised money for both funds, according to the Times. But as per reports, he had not yet spoken with investigators since an interview he had with Mueller last year. The super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, was created in 2016 when Trump's campaign was cash-strapped and failing to garner funds from major Republican donors, the Times reported. According to several people familiar with the investigation, the President's then campaign manager Paul Manafort suggested that Barrack create and raise funds for the political action committee, which could collect unlimited amounts of money as long as it avoided coordinating closely with then candidate Trump. Manafort was convicted on eight federal fraud charges in August, pleaded guilty to two additional charges in September and agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 election. Prosecutors' investigation into Trump's inaugural committee was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. It said that the investigation "partly arises out of materials seized in the federal probe of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's business dealings". During a raid at Cohen's properties earlier, a recorded conversation between him and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to First Lady Melania Trump, was seized, according to the newspaper. It said that Wolkoff expressed concern in the conversation about how the inaugural committee was spending money. Rick Gates, Trump's former campaign aide who has been cooperating with Mueller's investigation, was asked by prosecutors about the committee's spending and its donors, the Journal reported. The committee had raised a record-setting $107 million and received much of its funding from wealthy donors who gave $1 million or more, the report said, adding that some of the fund's top donors, including billionaire Sheldon Adelson, AT&T Inc. (the parent company of CNN) and Boeing Co. were not currently under investigation. New Delhi, Dec 14 : "Crucial decisions always take time," Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said on Friday, commenting on why the name of Rajasthan Chief Minister had not been announced yet. Gehlot was speaking to the media before the start of a meeting at the residence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the presence of state Congress chief Sachin Pilot, the other main contender for the post. Rahul Gandhi's sister Priyanka Gandhi was present at the meeting. Gehlot said the BJP had no right to comment on the issue as that party took seven days to select their state head in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, in Maharashtra, they took nine days to choose a Chief Minister. In Rajasthan, he added, the BJP could not appoint a party president for more than 70 days. The name suggested by the BJP central leadership was rejected by then Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. "It is normal for such an issue to take time. We are also trying to send out a message that crucial decisions in our party are discussed jointly," he said. The Congress ousted the BJP from power in Rajasthan despite falling short of a clear majority in the Assembly by one vote. But it got the backing of the BSP and Independents. Agra, Dec 14 : A month after two shocking deaths and a series of attacks by monkey armies, this Taj city continues to remain in panic mode as government agencies indulge in passing the buck. Divisional Commissioner Anil Kumar and District Magistrate N.G. Ravi Kumar have had several rounds of meetings with the Forest and Wildlife Department officials but all have raised their hands in utter helplessness. An official said there was neither the expertise nor the funds to deal with the thousands of rampaging monkeys. "Also, even if we manage to capture some, where do we house them or free them? The provisions of the Wildlife Act leave no room for any drastic measures against the monkeys," the official told IANS on condition of anonymity. Officials of the Wildlife SOS, an NGO running sloth bear and elephant centres in Agra, have offered to help with sterilisations and build a secure shelter for the simians, but need funds from the state government which has declined for the moment to support any such programme. For the district authorities, the simian menace is right now a major concern as tourists visiting the historical monuments have been repeatedly attacked by the monkeys. "Even the SN Medical College and the Emergency Ward are not safe from monkeys. There is a perpetual shortage of vaccines at the district hospital," another official said, adding that the state government in Lucknow had been apprised of the ground realities in Agra. Tourism industry leaders have called for prompt measures to insulate the Taj Mahal from simian invasion. "Foreign tourists feel insecure and restrict their movements fearing attacks from stray animals. So many cases of bag snatching and monkey bites have been reported that a sense of fear grips the visitors when they arrive here," claimed Taj Ganj hotelier Sandeep Arora. Civic authorities seem helpless in tackling the menace. "We have written so many times to the municipal corporation, but there has been no action from their side," an ASI official said. The situation is worse in the holy towns of Mathura, Goverdhan and Vrindavan. According to the locals, there is a certain herd mentality among the monkeys. "Earlier, they would be satisfied with a biscuit or a piece of bread, but lately they have acquired a taste for juices. They are always lookng for packaged juices," said Rakesh, who, with his sister Janki, helps visitors to Kosi Ghat find their lost items -- for a consideration. Things like spectacles and purses are thrown away by the simians in the bushes from where the siblings retrieve them. In Kosi, there have been several protests. In Mathura and Vrindavan too, many of those who had been injured had complained against the monkeys, which seem to be outnumbering the visitors and pilgrims. "Due to religious beliefs, no one wants to harm the monkeys, though the vegetable sellers in the area keep catapults ready with stones which the monkeys fear the most," said Vrindavan resident Kunj Bihari. Every shrine has dozens and dozens of the primates who have only become more aggressive over the years. For the pilgrims -- especially women and children -- negotiating their way through the lanes was always a bit difficult with cows and stray dogs everywhere. Now the simian menace has made it more troubling. Nandan Das, another resident of Vrindavan, said that "monkeys can attack humans, but we cannot kill or shoot them". Many residents said they had complained to forest department officials in the area to no avail. An official from the department, who did not want to be named, said: "We have no funds for these activities (of catching the animals). Moreover, when you can't kill the monkeys, where would you keep them?" Residents of the area say the monkeys move around on the terraces of houses in large numbers, often uprooting flowers from their pots. Women and children are often attacked from them. From dawn, they start by jumping from one terrace to another with many of them moving towards the riverfront steps where pilgrims congregate. Their return in the evening is equally menacing. The solution, according to an animal rights activist lies in mass sterilisation, for which monkey hospitals have to be set up. Another measure could be declaring monkeys 'vermin' and excluding them from the protection granted by the Wildlife Act of 1972. "We have been closely monitoring the situation and have coordinated with various government departments to work out a pragmatic plan of action to deal with the situation. For a monkey shelter we need a huge chunk of land. The district authorities are now looking for the required space. Monkeys would be captured from urban areas and sheltered in the Bandar Shala, where they would be fed and looked after," Satyamev Jayate trustee Mukesh Jain told IANS. Religious beliefs come in the way of implementing any major decision to tackle the simian nuisance, "In another country they would have been just physically liquidated," said an angry activist. (Brij Khandelwal can be contacted at brij.k@ians.in) New Delhi, Dec 14 : In a sign that the leadership question in Rajasthan has been settled, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday posted his photograph with Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, both contenders for the Chief Minister's post, as party sources hinted that Gehlot could be the party's choice for the top post. The photograph of the smiling leaders had a caption "United Colours of Rajasthan!", without giving any hint as to who will be the Chief Minister. An official announcement is expected in the evening. Gandhi's tweet capped hectic consultations with Gehlot, who appears set to return as Chief Minister in Rajasthan, and state Congress chief Sachin Pilot, who put up his claim strongly. Gehlot, a two-time Chief Minister, and Pilot reached Gandhi's residence within minutes of each other on Friday. A decision is expected to be announced on Friday. Ahead of the meeting, Gehlot took a veiled dig at Pilot saying that the party unit had already left the decision on Gandhi and it was not the time to express individual choices. "We have given the duty to the High Command. Let it decide who is to be given what responsibility. If I say my choice is this, it is not time for that. The time is to strengthen the Congress, see how its graph goes up. "If Congress is strong, everyone will be empowered and we prove to be useful in meeting the objectives of the 2019 elections. This alone should be our thinking," Gehlot said. He said a resolution had been passed by newly elected MLAs in Rajasthan authorising the High Command to take a decision. "Whether it is Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh, once a resolution is passed, the decision of the Congress President should be acceptable to all. This is what our workres, MLAs and people expect," he said. He said winning elections in the three Hindi heartland states was a big achievement and that it all started with a strong performance of the Congress in Gujarat under Gandhi's leadership. "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and (BJP President) Amit Shah have lost their aura. They have not been able to recover due to which we won elections in the three states," he said. Gehlot had played an active role in formulating the party's campaign strategy in Gujarat. Both Pilot and Gehlot had separate meetings with Gandhi on Thursday. The meetings came hours after the leadership issue was settled in Madhya Pradesh, with Gandhi tweeting his picture with Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who were both chief ministerial aspirants. The picture -- akin to the one on Friday -- carried the line "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time - Leo Tolstoy." Party sources said Gandhi was keen to give a similar message for Rajasthan as well. Both in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress missed the majority mark by two seats and is now dependent on external legislative support. Pilot, who stayed put in Delhi on Thursday, appealed to party workers to maintain peace and that he would welcome any decision taken by the party. Pilot reportedly has put up a strong claim to the post on the ground that he had galvanised the party after the defeat in 2013, when he was appointed the state party chief. Rio De Janeiro, Dec 14 : Real Valladolid owner Ronaldo revealed that he is interested in securing a loan deal for teenage Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior. However the legendary Brazil striker admitted that he doesn't expect Valladolid's La Liga rivals and reigning European champions to accept his request, reports Xinhua news agency. "He (Vinicius) is a great talent and Madrid are lucky to have him," the 42-year-old former Real Madrid player told Desayunos Deportivos. "He is going to be a great player, without a doubt. I would love to have him at Valladolid. I made a request but it's unlikely that they will make such a good player available to us." Vinicius has made eight appearances across all competitions for Real Madrid since joining the club in July. The 18-year-old Brazilian made his first Champions League start in the team's 0-3 loss to CSKA Moscow at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday. Ronaldo bought a 51 percent stake in Real Valladolid in September. Washington, Dec 14 : The US Senate has passed a resolution blaming and condemning Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, ratcheting up pressure on President Donald Trump who has aligned himself with the Saudi kingdom in the aftermath of the ghastly killing. The Senate on Thursday delivered back-to-back rebukes of the Trump administration's handling of relations with Saudi Arabia, first voting to end the US participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen and then unanimously approving the measure blaming Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman for murdering Khashoggi who was critical of his policies. The measure on Khashoggi passed the Senate by voice vote. It will now go to the House, the Washington Post reported. The resolution, spearheaded by outgoing Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, was non-binding, but it puts the Senate on the record about the Crown Prince amid growing frustration on Capitol Hill over the US-Saudi relationship. "Unanimously, the US Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear. ... I'm glad the Senate is speaking with one voice unanimously toward this end," Corker said after the vote. Passage of the measure marked a significant break from Trump, who signalled this week he was standing by Saudi Arabia despite increasing backlash over the journalist's killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Khashoggi was living in Virginia and was a columnist for The Washington Post before his killing. The US intelligence community had reportedly determined that the Crown Prince ordered Khashoggi's killing, and senators emerged from a closed-door briefing last week with CIA Director Gina Haspel convinced of his involvement. Minutes before the vote condemning the Crown Prince, the Senate also approved a measure pulling the US support from the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, marking a dramatic U-turn from less than nine months ago when senators couldn't even get the resolution out of the Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the resolution on Yemen by a 56-41 vote. Jaipur, Dec 14 : Supporters of state Congress President Sachin Pilot on Friday took to the streets demanding that he be named as Rajasthan's next Chief Minister. Pilot supporters, particularly from the Gujjar community, blocked a road in Nathni Ka Bara in Alwar district. But the protest ended following the intervention of senior Gujjar leaders. The community members also staged a protest in Rajakheda near Dholpur. On Thursday, protests wwre staged in Dausa and Karauli. Speaking to IANS, a senior Gujjar leader, Himmat Singh, said the delay in announcing a Chief Minister was splitting the party -- into Gehlot and Pilot camps. He said the Gujjar community had seen Pilot working very hard to galvanize the Congress since it lost power five years ago and now Gujjars were upset that he was being denied his due. NSUI state President Abhimanyu Puniya also backed Pilot. He threatened district level protests if Pilot was not appointed as Chief Minister. Hanuman Beniwal, leader of the newly launched Rashtriya Loktantrik Party which won three seats in the Assembly, is also backing Pilot. He warned that if Gehlot was made the Chief Minister, Congress President Rahul Gandhi would never be able to become the Prime Minister. Beijing, Dec 14 : Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be on a four-day India visit from December 21 to attend the first people-to-people exchange agreed between Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at their icebreaking meet in Wuhan earlier this year. After witnessing chill in their ties over the military stand-off in Doklam last year, the two countries came closer later and pledged that bilateral ties would not be affected by a border dispute between them. "At the invitation of India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India from December 21 to December 24 and co-chair the first China-India people to people mechanism," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said. The forum is the outcome of Modi-Xi meet at Chinese city Wuhan in April this year. The two countries stepped up their engagements after the Wuhan summit. Wang is also likely to meet other leaders of the country given the current world situation, especially China's trade war with the US. This will be the last high profile visit by the Chinese leader this year. India and China have the world's 9th longest border which is largely disputed. The two went to war in 1962 and have had military skirmishes since then. Their latest and one of the most serious showdowns was last year at Doklam, a contested region between China and Bhutan close to India's arterial highway where the Chinese were building a road. Both sides are in talks to set up a military hotline to avert a Doklam-like crisis in the future. Dubai, Dec 14 : A 22-year-old Dubai-based Indian student and musician has been found dead in his apartment in Al Garhoud area, the police said. Himanshu Sharma, who was found dead on Wednesday, was a final year architecture student at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE)in Dubai. He was a guitarist in local band Metal Head and had played in bands like Slaves of Conspiracy and Nutmeg, the Khaleej Times reported on Thursday. In a statement to the daily, a MAHE spokesperson said: "The university has been informed by the police of the tragic death of Himanshu Sharma... It's a moment of shock for all of us at the university. We are awaiting further information on the same." Long-haired and sporting a beard, Sharma -- known as Shaggy to his friends -- was described by them as a hardcore rock artist with a kind heart. Speaking about his friend, fellow rock artist Gaurav Manna said that Sharma was well loved in Dubai by everyone, "not just those in the metal scene". Another friend, Vinod Verma, said: "He had great talent and immense potential both as a musician and architecture student. I am very saddened by this news." Police officials sent Sharma's body to the forensic medicine department and the report showed no irregularity in the guitarist's death, the report said. Washington, Dec 14 : A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who illegally crossed the US-Mexico border with her father died hours after being taken into custody, US Customs and Border Protection has said. The girl, who arrived in the US last week as part of a group of migrants, died of dehydration and shock, the Washington Post reported, citing the federal agency's officials on Thursday. The girl suffered seizures after being detained last weekend along with her father at Lordsburg, New Mexico, and was taken by helicopter to a children's hospital in El Paso, Texas. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for several days, according to authorities. In less than 24 hours after she was admitted, she suffered a cardiac arrest and later died, the Post reported. The White House didn't respond to requests for comment. "Border Patrol always takes care of individuals in their custody and does everything in their power to keep them safe," the Department of Homeland Security said late Thursday. "Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the best efforts of the medical team treating the child, we were unable to stop this tragedy from occurring," it was quoted as saying by Efe news. The Border Patrol reported arresting a record over 107,000 immigrants travelling as families during the last budget year, which ended in September. Migrants are generally given brief medical exams after their arrests. The agency said her father told authorities the girl was fine. The father remained in El Paso and was in contact with the Guatemalan consulate, the agency said. The area where the girl and her father were arrested is a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico where migrants can walk for hours or even days without being spotted. Every year hundreds of migrants die trying to cross the Mexican border. During the 2017 budget year, 294 people died. In the El Paso Sector, which includes New Mexico, eight deaths were reported. New Delhi, Dec 14 : Police said on Friday they arrested a "notorious criminal" on charges of killing a youth following a row over a trivial issue outside a departmental store here. Sidhant, who has been involved in over 30 criminal cases registered in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, was arrested on Thursday night from Dasna in Uttar Pradesh, Deputy Commissioner of Police Pankaj Singh said. Sidhant along with an accomplice had on Monday night fired at least five rounds at Yogesh following a fight in east Delhi's Mayur Vihar area. The argument began after Sidhant's car pulled up next to Yogesh and his two friends. Yogesh picked up an iron rod and smashed the side window of the car, Singh said. Yogesh had come to the departmental store after attending a birthday party, the police said. New Delhi, Dec 14 : Even as the Supreme Court dismissed four petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of Rafale jet fighters, the Congress on Friday persisted with its demand in Parliament for a JPC probe, leading to a heated argument between the treasury benches and the Opposition. The pandemonium over the issue forced the chairs in both houses of Parliament to adjourn the proceedings for the day. The government, however, agreed for a discussion on Rafale but kept mum on Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe. Armed with the Supreme Court judgement, the government launched a counter-offensive seeking an apology from Congress President Rahul Gandhi for "misleading" the nation on Rafale. As the proceedings began in the Lok Sabha, the Congress, TDP and AIADMK members rushed near Speaker's podium and started sloganeering. The Congress members were demanding constitution of a JPC to probe the defence deal with a French company, while the AIADMK members were protesting on the Cauvery water issue. The TDP members were demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. As the din continued, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. Scenes were, however, no different when the House reassembled. Amid the din, Mahajan tried to conduct the proceedings and the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2018 were introduced. Soon after the Bill was introduced, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh rose to his feet and countered the Opposition's allegation on the Rafale jet deal citing the apex court's decision. "For political gains, Rahul Gandhi tried to mislead the nation and tarnish the country's image globally," he said during Zero Hour. "As the Congress itself indulged in corruption, it tries to drag the BJP to counter the charges. With this thought process, they tried to demean the government and tarnish the nation's international image," he said. He also said there was no deficiency in the quality and purchasing process of the 36 Rafale jet fighters in a ready-to-fly condition. "Rahul Gandhi should come to the floor of the House and tender an apology to the nation," the Minister said amid loud slogans raised by the Congress and other opposition members. Amid protests, the Bharatiya Janata Party members were heard raising slogans like "Rahul Gandhi chor hai (Gandhi is the thief)" and "Rahul Gandhi maafi mango (He should apologise)". As soon as Rajnath Singh concluded his speech, Mahajan requested the agitating members to go back to their seats. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also rose to his feet asking Mahajan to allow him to speak but she did not allow. "If you want a discussion, you can discuss. First, go to your seats," Mahajan told the members. As the Congress and other opposition members continued their protests, she adjourned the House for the day. The government, which was defensive after the results of the Assembly election in five states, suddenly went aggressive against the Congress following the court's verdict. In the Rajya Sabha, the Congress and BJP members staged noisy protests over Rafale. Soon after the upper house met, the Congress members trooped near the chair seeking constitution of a JPC while the BJP members were on their feet asking Congress President Rahul Gandhi to apologise. "Rahul Gandhi maafi maango (apologise)," the ruling party MPs said in a chorus. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley then took charge and asked for a discussion on the Rafale deal. "I demand that Congress party should immediately start a discussion on Rafale," Jaitley said. But the Congress and other Opposition members did not relent. As the din continued, Rajya Sabha Chairman Harivansh adjourned the House for the day. Earlier, as soon as the House met for the day, some members belonging to the DMK and AIADMK trooped to the Chair's podium, holding placards. They have been protesting against a proposed dam across the Cauvery river. Amid the pandemonium, Deputy Chairman Harivansh adjourned the House for 20 minutes. Giving a clean chit to government, the Supreme Court on Friday held that the decision making process was not in doubt and it cannot go into the question of pricing and choice of offset Indian partner by the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 14 : A dawn-to-dusk shutdown called by the BJP to protest against the death of a man said to be a Sabarimala devotee derailed Kerala on Friday, sparking widespread anger over the disruption to normal life. The 50-year-old Venugopalan Nair set himself on fire at a BJP protest venue on Thursday and succumbed to his injuries in a hospital here. But in his dying declaration, he made no mention of the Sabarimala temple. Before being taken to the public crematorium, his body was brought to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) protest venue where party leaders paid their last respect. But the rationale for calling the shutdown came under fire from the ruling CPI-M, Congress, business groups as well as the man on the street. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the media in Delhi that the BJP national leadership should reign in the state unit for organising protests like this. "Frequent calls for shutdowns cause a lot of troubles to people... The cause of the death has also now come out," he said. The capital district was subjected to one shutdown called by the BJP on Tuesday to protest "police high-handedness" on their women cadres when they protested over the Sabarimala issue in front of the state Secretariat on Monday. State Congress President Mulapally Ramachandran asked the BJP to explain on why Friday's shutdown was called when it was clear that Nair committed suicide as he was fed up with life. "It's most unfortunate that the BJP is trying make political capital out of a suicide. Their emotions on Sabarimala issue are hollow and has no merit," he said. The state-run Kerala State Road Transport Corp (KSRTC) did not operate its services. In Palghat, some people stoned three buses parked at the KSRTC depot. Most shops and business establishments besides all educational institutions in the state were closed but private vehicles plied. Traders at the otherwise busy commercial market area in Kozhikode got together on Friday and decided that come what may they will not close down their shops in any shutdown in future. "We have decided to take legal steps so that we will get police protection in future when shutdowns are called," said a trader. A woman who arrived at the Kozhikode railway station on Friday morning with her from the state capital complained that she had gone to attend an interview and was now stuck till 6 p.m. as the bus to Wayanad would operate only after the shutdown ended. The shutdown also affected the release of superstar Mohanlal's magnum opus "Odiyan" that was slated to open at 412 theatres across the state. Only a few auto-rickshaws operated in Kochi, the state's commercial capital, but Kochi Metro operated normal services. In the state capital, police escorts were provided to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) buses and to vehicles carrying IT staff to the Technopark campus. Former state BJP chief C.K. Padmanabhan, who has been on an indefinite fast over the Sabarimala issue, justified the shutdown. State BJP President P. Sreedharan Pillai demanded a judicial probe into Nair's death "to know the truth". New Delhi, Dec 14 : As many as 24 MLAs in the newly elected Chhattisgarh legislative assembly have pending criminal cases, with 13 facing serious criminal charges, including murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping. This was revealed in a report prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms. The report states that out of the 90 MLAs analysed, 24 (27 per cent) MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves. One MLA has declared a case related to attempt to murder. According to the report, 19 (28 per cent) out of 68 MLAs from the Congress, 3 (20 per cent) out of 15 MLAs from the BJP and 2 (40 per cent) out of 5 MLAs from the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh(J) MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves in their election affidavits. The Congress has 12 MLAs and the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) has one MLA who have declared serious criminal cases against themselves in their election affidavits. The report also said 68 (76 per cent) of the newly elected MLAs are 'crorepatis' compared to 67 (74 per cent) in 2013. As many as 48 MLAs from the Congress, 14 from the BJP, 5 MLAs from the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) and one from the BSP have declared assets valued at more than Rs 1 crore. As per the report, the average of assets per MLA in the new Chhattisgarh Assembly is Rs 11.63 crore. In 2013, the average assets of 90 MLAs analysed was Rs 8.88 crore. The average assets per MLA for 68 Congress MLAs analysed is Rs 11.83 crore; 15 BJP MLAs have average assets of Rs 6.32 crore; 5 Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) MLAs have average assets worth Rs 28.68 crore; and two BSP MLAs have average assets worth Rs 2.04 crore. Congress MLA from Ambikapur, T.S. Baba, has declared the highest total assets of over Rs 500 crore. About 27 (30 per cent) MLAs have declared their educational qualification to be between 5th pass and 12th pass while 32 (69 per cent) MLAs have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above. One MLA has declared himself as just literate. As many as 16 (18 per cent) of the MLAs have declared their age to be between 25 and 40 years while 54 (60 per cent) MLAs have declared their age to be between 41 and 60 years. There are 20 (22 per cent) MLAs who have declared their age to be between 61 to 80 years. Out of the 90 MLAs, 13 (14 per cent) are women. In 2013, the number of women MLAs was 10 (11 per cent). The number of re-elected MLAs is 30. Bhopal, Dec 14 : As many as 94 MLAs have declared criminal cases while a whopping 187 of the 230 MLAs are multi-millionaires in the newly-elected Madhya Pradesh Assembly, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) revealed on Friday. The Congress, which won the Assembly polls, leads the list with 56 MLAs having criminal antecedents, followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 34 while the Bahujan Samaj Party has two such lawmakers. Of the 94 MLAs with criminal cases, 47 face serious charges with six of them facing charges of attempt to murder, three facing charges of crime against women and one for murder. On the financial front, 187 of the lawmakers are multi-millionaires with the BJP leading the pack with 109 such MLAs followed by the Congress with 90. BJP's Sanjay Satyendra Pathak from Vijayragahvgarh constituency in Katni district is the richest MLA with assets in excess of Rs 226 crore. Fellow party lawmaker Chetanya Kasyap from Ratlam City is next with properties in excess of Rs 204 crore. The average assets of the MLAs in the current Assembly is above Rs 10 crore which is just double that of the 2013 Assembly. As many as 86 of the MLAs were re-elected and their average assets in the last five years have grown by nearly Rs 7 crore -- a rise of 80 per cent. There are only 21 female members in the new Assembly. Bengaluru, Dec 14 : At least eight persons, including a girl and a woman, died of suspected food poisoning in Sulvadi village in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district, police said on Friday. The victims, including four men in mid 30s, died of suspected food poisoning after they consumed tomato rice offered as 'prasad' at a Hindu temple in the village, Chamarajanagar Superintendent of Police D.S. Meena told IANS from Hanur, 180 km from here. "Two others died while being treated at K.R. Hospital in Mysuru, where they were shifted to after falling ill due to consumption of 'prasad' from the same temple," state's Minor Irrigation Minister C.S. Puttaraju told reporters in Mysuru. Around 65 others, all devotees of Goddess Maramma, were admitted to three state-run hospitals at Hanur, Kollagal and Mysuru for treatment as they took ill after consuming the same food in the temple. "Six victims were declared dead by the doctors at the Hanur hospital after they did not respond to the treatment while others are being treated for food poisoning in the three hospitals," said Meena. A case has been registered against a private trust managing the temple, belonging to the Lingayat community. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who rushed to state-run K.R. Hospital in Mysuru, announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the kin of the deceased. "The state government will bear the costs of those undergoing treatment in the hospitals," a statement from the Chief Minister's Office said. Maramma is considered an incarnation of Hindu Goddess Durga, who is worshipped for blessings on Fridays before doing anything auspicious. Police are also verifying complaints about 50 crows also dying in the temple's vicinity after they too consumed the same food. Kolkata, Dec 14 : The West Bengal government on Friday ordered a probe by the state police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the killing of three persons, including a Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, by miscreants who made an armed attack on the car of local legislator in Joynagar of South 24 Parganas district, police said. MLA Biswanath Das escaped the Thursday night attack as he had got off the vehicle some time before the incident, which has created a flutter in the eastern state. "Three people died in the attack on the vehicle that the local MLA had used through the day," a police officer said. The motor bike-borne miscreants surrounded the vehicle as it halted at a petrol pump in Joynagar town -- about 55 km from the heart of Kolkata -- for refuelling and sprayed bullets besides hurling bombs indiscriminately. The driver of the vehicle, taken on hire from a car rental company, died in the attack. The two other victims were a Trinamool Congress local leader and an onlooker. Das claimed that he was the target of the attack. "I hire this car regularly. That day also I was supposed to get down close to the petrol pump to spend time at a tea stall, but I got off earlier at a local party office. I have no clue about the identity of the attackers, or why they carried out the attack. But I am convinced I was the target," said Das. While Das did not pin the blame on any opposition party, district Trinamool chief Subhasish Chakraborty alleged that the CPI-M and the SUCI (Communist) were behind the incident. CPI-M leader Sujon Chakraborty, however, alleged that the fatal shootout was the result of "bitter infighting" within the Trinamool. SUCI-C leader Tarun Naskar claimed there were three factions in the Trinamool always at each other's throat. "One of the factions carried out the shootout targeting another faction." On Friday, the state government asked the CID to take over the investigation. Katowice (Poland), Dec 14 : As the COP24 climate summit draws to a close late Friday, negotiators are still grappling to agree on a significant commitment to strengthen the climate pledges of all countries by 2020, negotiators said. "Very substantial progress has been made. There are some differences. We hope that will be sorted out," Indian delegation head A.K. Mehta told IANS. Expressing hope that the progress on the negotiations in on the right track, he said: "We are not far away from reaching an agreement. Negotiations are going on. It is not a question of happiness or unhappiness. It is a question of everybody working together." Loss and damage, he said, is very important. "It is actually important. Loss and damage are real. We will continue to work together on how to address this issue. "The Paris rulebook would be robust. The idea to mobilise enhanced financing has been captured to some extent in the current text and also there is an encouragement to fufill the $100 billion fund (Global Climate Fund)," he added. India-based independent public research and advocacy think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Friday said "it is clear now that the talks are progressing towards a weak outcome". Deputy Director General Chandra Bhushan of the CSE, one of the observers, told IANS that on the whole, the current draft text "is weak in terms of finance and raising ambition". "There is no mention of raising ambition in action and support post-2020 and integrating it with science. For pre-2020, the developed countries are merely encouraged to step up their pre-2020 ambition. Loss and damage is the weakest and clearly implies that developed countries have turned a blind eye to the most existential impacts of climate change on poor and vulnerable countries," he added. European Climate Foundation CEO Laurence Tubiana, who was France's Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for Paris Agreement, told reporters that the loss and damage still on table. "The reference to loss and damage has to made in the final text here. It is a reality because of the impacts we are witnessing today. I hope they will find a solution. It is important to have that reference." Reacting to the current COP24 text on increasing countries' climate commitments, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe Director Wendel Trio said: "We are deeply concerned as the text in its current form would not send a strong message to drastically increase emission cuts by 2020." "We need a much stronger commitment, if we are to adequately respond to the landmark IPCC report and avoid the worst consequences of the climate breakdown. Two days ago, the EU took a leadership role by committing to increase its own climate target by 2020. Now it can only win by convincing all other governments to do the same." The political phase of the UN Climate Change Conference or COP24 that began on December 12 with ministers and high-level country representatives from nearly 200 countries together with non-party stakeholders entered almost its last phase. Each country was sharing its plans for the transformation of economies in line with the 2015 Paris goals. The negotiations will culminate on late Friday, hopefully with an agreement on the Paris rulebook for transparent implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement -- the first global treaty to reduce emissions by all rich and poor nations. (Vishal Gulati is in Katowice at the invitation of Climate Trends to cover the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, known as COP24. He can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) New Delhi, Dec 14 : The public Sector banks (PSB) have no plans to shut down 50 per cent of their ATMs in the country, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla told the Lok Sabha on Friday. Concerns were raised after the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) last month said that nearly 50 per cent of the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) may be shut down by March 2019 due to unviability of operations. "As apprised by the public sector banks (PSBs), they do not have any plan to shut down nearly 50 per cent of ATMs by March 2019," Shukla said in a written reply to a question raised in the House. Replying to another question, he said that 2.21 lakh ATMs were deployed in the country as on September 30, as reported by the Scheduled Commercial Banks, Small Finance Banks, Payment Banks and White Label ATM Operators. Kolkata, Dec 14 : Expressing concern over rising online sexual exploitation of children in India, a panel of experts said here on Friday that to tackle the challenges, a revamped legal framework needs to be created for cyber crime investigation. "In our country, we have a very good Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act). But in cyber crime mainly due to the virtual and border-less nature often there is a compromise when the perpetrator is from another country", Ajey Mukund Ranade, IPS, IGP(I), CID, said at the first international conference on "Sexual Exploitation of Children in Digital Era". Ranade suggested a revamped legal framework that would take care of different legal connotations of laws in India and in a foreign land. Mentioning the increased challenges, Sebastian Edassery, Cyber Security Head of India, Deloitte said: "If we count the challenges of cyber forensics, a study says there are as many as 65 challenges. Some of them would be -- area to search has increased manifold, evidence are stored in cloud and in India the data logs are not maintained for more than 90 days." By the time a crime is reported, the online data is already overwritten if it crosses 90 days and if the content is stored in cloud, then it becomes difficult for investigating officers to seize anything, he said. "The service providers must store the data for at least two years. Also while investigating the dark web, one has to be very smart and make sure that the IP address does not reveal that you are a police," Edassery, a former CBI officer, said. International Justice Mission (IJM) Kolkata's Director of Operations Saji Philip mentioned the US-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children reported that over 24.46 lakh children were abused in 2017 in India. "We must include the concept of digital hygiene in our education as small children learn to use mobile phones and social media very early said Children must be taught about not to leaving a trace of privacy online, he said. The investigators need to be sensitised to deal with child abuse cases. "When dealing with a child, one cannot make them feel that something negative has happened. It creates a communication barrier," James Robert Collins, Canada Police, said. Eric Bradshaw, a judge of Kern County Superior Court of California mentioned that the jury members should also hear the victims patiently when they share their ordeal. New Delhi, Dec 15 : Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh on Friday said the Centre is misleading the Supreme Court over the Rafale jet fighters deal. "Para 25 of the Supreme Court's order stated that the cost of Rafale was revealed to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the report of the CAG was examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament," Singh told IANS. "This can't be true since if the CAG would have a report, it would come to the Parliament and from there it is given to the PAC. But this is not true. Why the Centre is misleading the Court?" he said. Earlier on Friday, Singh demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe and a detailed discussion on the deal inside the House. "A JPC should be formed for a detailed probe into the deal...how the per jet cost reached Rs 1,670 crore when the earlier cost was Rs 540 crore? And why they (the BJP) preferred a private firm over the government firm?" Singh told the media. The apex court on Friday dismissed four petitions seeking court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters in ready-to-fly condition holding that the decision-making process was not in doubt and it cannot go into the question of pricing and choice of offset Indian partner by the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault. Singh was one of the petitioners along with Prashant Bhushan, Arun Shourie, former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, and advocates M.L. Sharma and Vineet Dhanda. GUEST OBSERVATION Australias sprawling cities present many challenges to sustainability, but planning innovations can help achieve at least half of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Thirty years after the landmark Brundtland report, the debate on urban sustainability continues. Urban planners are still grappling with the challenges of making our cities sustainable. Urban sustainability is an evolving concept. Our edited volume provides planning solutions for eight of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Has the concept of urban sustainability made a difference in planning practice? Our answer is yes. Based on Campbells planners triangle, urban sustainability encompasses three dimensions: social sustainability environmental sustainability economic sustainability. Sustainability solutions involve trade-offs between these three dimensions. A planning innovation might solve a challenge in terms of social sustainability but be less efficient in regard to the two other dimensions. The Sustainable City paradigm has been a dominant school of thought since the 1990s. Yet it is still unclear how cities incorporate this paradigm in urban policies. Influential works on urban policies have emphasised the transfer of urban policies from one context to another known as mobile urbanism. Our book highlights evidence to the contrary. Planning innovations are generally shaped by local contextual factors and are not imported. Of the planning innovations presented in 12 case study chapters in our book, we present those most relevant to Australia later in this article. Key issues facing Australian cities Australian cities have urgent sustainability issues that require fresh policy initiatives. Transport use is too reliant on cars. As a result, fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions remain far too high. Large areas of land are given over to road space and parking. High car use goes hand in hand with low-density urban sprawl. This requires longer trips to everything, extra resources for longer pipes, wires and roads, more losses of agricultural land and natural vegetation, and more hard surfaces that increase water pollution run-off as well as heat in summer. And the design of low-density development produces even more unsustainability. Planning controls have forced developers to reduce the size of new housing lots, but house sizes have barely reduced in size. As a result, backyards are disappearing. Lost along with them are trees to cool the air and sequester carbon, and physical activity opportunities for children. Australias cities also have major social sustainability issues. Increasing numbers of professional and managerial households have priced poorer residents out of the best areas of the cities. The result has been heightened spatial polarisation. Lower-income households have been forced to live further out in suburbs with inadequate public transport and jobs. Solutions for creating places in the suburbs were presented in a recent summit organised by UQ Planning. Whats happening in cities overseas? The innovative ways that overseas cities have responded to similar sustainability challenges can provide pathways for Australian cities to follow. Helsinkis experience suggests one means of overcoming a sticking point in achieving higher-density development: getting around NIMBY opposition and achieving community agreement on where denser development could go. In Helsinki, the public participated in a public participation geographic information system exercise. This mapped their preferences for areas that should not be developed for apartments. Well-intended planning controls can hinder higher-density development, even in desirable locations. In Los Angeles historic core, old office buildings lay vacant after a new CBD office precinct outside the old core was developed. Residential use requirements for on-site parking and open space and for a building setback from the front property boundary hindered the conversion of the old buildings to residential use. By relaxing these requirements, the citys 1999 adaptive reuse ordinance was a key to regenerating the old core as a residential area. The challenge of reducing car use without large public outlays remains daunting, but Seville shows one way this can be achieved. There, a complete bicycle network of 180km 12% of the total road length in the city has been built since 2007. Separation from car traffic has been achieved through bollards and the like, or by parked cars where the bikeway is built on a footpath. Cycle trips now make up about 10% of total vehicle trips in Seville, six times the previous share. The driving forces for the network were the formation of a cyclists association, public demonstrations and the election of a left-ofcentre city government that gave political support. The demolition of motorways sounds like an extreme way of reducing car use, but the experience of Seoul shows it can have big economic and environmental benefits. The motorway built over a former stream in the central city was demolished in the early 2000s. The stream was restored to a natural state. This has reduced air pollution and the heat island impact of the former motorway, and created an ecological passage to the main river in Seoul. Recreational and cultural amenities along the restored stream have made it a desirable area and generated new economic activities. New bus services close to the stream have replaced car access. The strong powers and finances of the city government and a supportive mayor made the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project possible. Spatial polarisation in cities results from market forces dominating urban redevelopment. The experience of Vancouver illustrates how inclusionary planning can ameliorate these forces. City-sponsored local resident groups have been at the centre of making strategies to renew the citys low-income Downtown Eastside area. Instead of the high-tech-based development originally proposed, priority has been given to developing employment more suited to the low-income residents needs, including opportunities in the informal sector. City council-owned sites have been used for social innovation hubs, services to help residents find jobs, and a street market for a street vendors collective. As explained in our book, these planning innovations are mostly the product of local contextual factors. Therefore, planning innovations for Australian cities will require local involvement in shaping sustainability solutions. Incentives such as changes in regulatory frameworks and tax subsidies might also be needed to develop planning innovations. Sebastien Darchen, Senior Lecturer in Planning, The University of Queensland and Glen Searle, Honorary Associate Professor in Planning, University of Queensland and, University of Sydney This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Access Development The culture is more like an extended family than a workplace. Access Development announced today it has been recognized as one of the best companies to work for in Utah by Utah Business Magazine. The company, along with the other winning recipients, were honored on December 6 at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. We are delighted to be named one of the best companies to work for in Utah by the Utah Business Magazine for the second year in a row, says Access Developments director of human resources, Lisa Oyler. This recognition could not be possible without our employees and it validates our commitment to them and the value they bring to our company. This award is one of several that Access Development has received this year. Over the last two months, the company has been honored with awards from The Salt Lake Tribune, Society for Human Resource Management, and the American Psychological Association. The awards are all based in part or entirely on survey results from company employees. Criteria used to determine this years winning employers were their diversity and commitment to the local community, corporate culture, employee recognition and growth opportunities, and workplace benefits. Though all employee surveys were anonymous, Utah Business Magazine picked answers from those that stood out. Said one employee, Our company emphasizes the importance for a work-life balance and believes that employees are the most important part of the company. The cultureis more like an extended family than a workplace. To see more and hear from Access Development employees, visit https://www.utahbusiness.com/access-development/. About Access Development For over 30 years, Access Development has helped organizations with their customers and build revenue, engagement, and loyalty through custom incentives, employee perks, and discount programs. The companys private discount network of over 350,000 merchant locations is Americas largest, providing discounts of up to 50% on everyday items to millions of end users. Access also offers the nations largest mobile commerce platform, featuring over 200,000 merchants offering exclusive show your phone mobile coupons. For more information on Access, please visit http://www.accessdevelopment.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Performance Brokerage Services, Inc. announces the sale of Las Vegas Harley-Davidson. "Rarely do I have the privilege of representing such fine gentlemen and an iconic Harley-Davidson dealership group." - George C. Chaconas Performance Brokerage Services, a new car and Harley-Davidson dealership broker is pleased to announce the sale of Las Vegas Harley-Davidson and Red Rock Harley-Davidson in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Henderson Harley-Davidson in Henderson, Nevada from Don Andress and Tim Cashman to John Morotti. Also included in the sale is Zion Harley-Davidson, a Satellite Retail Location in Washington, Utah and five Alternate Retail Locations located around the Las Vegas area including hotels, casinos and the McCarran International Airport. The Harley-Davidson Motor Company first established a dealership in Southern Nevada in the 1940s. After multiple ownership changes, relocations and construction of new facilities, Mr. Don Andress acquired Las Vegas Harley-Davidson in 1995 from a long-time friend, Neil Nelson. In addition to being a life-long resident of Las Vegas, Don has been a life-long motorcycle enthusiast, having taken his first ride on his fathers Harley-Davidson Flathead motorcycle at only one-and-a-half-years-old. Tim Cashman, another Las Vegas native, joined Don in business in 1996 as part-owner. The Cashman family established the first automotive dealership in Nevada in 1910 and continued the legacy for three generations. In 1998, Don and Tim built the worlds largest Harley-Davidson dealership, totaling 79,000 square feet located on South Eastern Avenue. However, in 2014 they found a beautiful location on the famous Las Vegas Strip, where the dealership resides today. In 2000, Zion Harley-Davidson opened in Washington, Utah. It now operates out of a 20,000 square foot facility. Red Rock Harley-Davidson is known as the place to rock in a 104,000 sq. ft. facility. Following the sale of his dealership group, Don Andress commented, We hired George Chaconas of Performance Brokerage Services because of his persistence, experience and professionalism. He identified a very unique and special buyer in John Morotti that saw the huge opportunity. We negotiated a quick and fair deal and closed on the sale without any issues. We will support John Morotti going forward as he will continue our legacy. It was definitely a miracle and we are very happy and grateful. William H. Stoddard, Jr. from Albright, Stoddard, Warnick & Albright based in Las Vegas, Nevada represented the sellers as legal counsel in this transaction. John Morotti is also no stranger to the motorcycle business and the group of dealerships he acquired were a great strategic fit to compliment his existing portfolio. John is the owner of Mother Road Harley-Davidson and Route 66 Motorsports in Kingman, Arizona, Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona and Tobacco Road Harley-Davidson in Raleigh, North Carolina. John had been looking for another dealership to acquire to expand his footprint throughout the Southwest. John shares, I have known George Chaconas for several years as the go-to-guy to help facilitate the buying and selling of Harley-Davidson dealerships. I asked him to keep me in mind when he had an opportunity that fit my profile. George introduced me to Las Vegas Harley-Davidson and the affiliated dealerships, and within a very short time, we had a deal. Robert A. Bass from Bass Sox Mercer in Tallahassee, Florida represented the buyer as legal counsel in this transaction. The dealerships will all remain at their current locations at 5191 South Las Vegas Boulevard and 2260 South Rainbow Boulevard in Las Vegas, Nevada, 1010 West Warm Springs Road in Henderson, Nevada and 2345 North Coral Canyon Boulevard in Washington, Utah. George C. Chaconas, the exclusive agent for this transaction and the head of the National Harley-Davidson and Powersports Division for Performance Brokerage Services commented, I had built a relationship with Don Andress and Tim Cashman for over 8 years, often meeting with them when I would visit Las Vegas and at the Harley-Davidson dealer shows. It was an honor to finally earn their business and assist them with selling their dealerships. Rarely do I have the privilege of representing such fine gentlemen and an iconic Harley-Davidson dealership group. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be of service. I look forward to seeing John Morotti continue the legacy that Don and Tim have built through so many years. About Performance Brokerage Services Performance Brokerage Services, an auto dealership broker, specializes in professional intermediary services to buyers and sellers of automotive, commercial truck, Harley-Davidson and Powersports dealerships. The company offers a different approach to the automotive, commercial truck, Harley-Davidson and Powersports industries by providing complimentary dealership assessments, no upfront fees, no reimbursement of costs and is paid a success fee only. Performance Brokerage Services gets paid only after the client gets paid. With over 25 years of experience, the company utilizes an extensive network of industry related accountants, attorneys, hundreds of registered buyers and enjoys longstanding relationships with most of the auto manufacturers and the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. The intermediaries at Performance Brokerage Services have been involved in well over 600 transactions. Pledging loyal and unwavering representation, confidentiality is vigilantly protected during the selling process and after the transaction closes. With corporate offices in Irvine, California, six regional offices in Utah, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Alberta and Ontario, a dedicated Harley-Davidson and Powersports Division, and a dedicated Commercial Truck Division, Performance Brokerage Services provides its clients national exposure with local representation. For more information about the services offered by Performance Brokerage Services, visit https://performancebrokerageservices.com. Attorney Davis Popper I am honored to join such a select committee of young lawyers, where I can not only share my litigation experiences but also help support the growth of AIEG, which is a nationally recognized organization that I highly respect, says Davis Popper of Conley Griggs Partin, LLC. Attorney Davis Popper of Conley Griggs Partin, LLP in Atlanta has recently accepted an invitation from the Attorney Information Exchange Group (AIEG) to serve on their Young Lawyers Committee. This small, selective committee is part of a national plaintiffs product liability trial lawyer organization that serves attorneys across the nation. AIEG is a renowned litigation support group founded in Birmingham, Alabama that allows member attorneys to share information and ideas about similar cases among themselves. The organization serves as a respected resource for its over 600 member lawyers who litigate product defects, including those involving automotive products and consumer products. As a young lawyer himself, Davis Popper aims to bring a valued skill set, experience and knowledge to the AIEG committee. Popper serves Atlanta-area clients as an Associate Attorney of Conley Griggs Partin, LLP, where he has gained first-hand experience in complex civil litigation, including business litigation, product liability, class action/MDL as well as catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death disputes. In his legal practice, he displays an unwavering commitment to representing clients who have been injured, killed or harmed by the negligence or wrongdoing of others. As a new member of the AIEG Young Lawyers Committee, Popper will participate in seminars throughout the year and share his personal insight on how to help clients through specific personal injury and product liability cases. I am honored to join such a select committee of young lawyers, where I can not only share my litigation experiences for the benefit of other attorneys but also help support the growth of AIEG, which is a nationally recognized organization that I highly respect, says Davis Popper of Conley Griggs Partin, LLP. The vision of Conley Griggs Partin Attorneys of Law is to use the innovation, resources and aggressiveness of a 21st-century business while remaining firmly established in the "old-school" values of personal relationships hard work and integrity. They serve clients from two office locations in Atlanta and Moultrie Georgia. More About Davis Popper: Davis is an Associate Attorney at Conley Griggs Partin, LLP. He was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 2015 and is admitted to practice in all State and Superior Courts, the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Northern District of Georgia, the Middle District of Georgia and the Southern District of Georgia. Davis Popper grew up in Macon, Georgia and attended the University of Georgia for undergraduate and law school. While earning his B.A. in Philosophy, he spent his first summer of college working for the firm, Blasingame Burch Garrard and Ashley. During his time with BBGA, Davis experienced his first taste of complex civil litigation as the firm began investigating transvaginal mesh product liability cases. These cases eventually consolidated into MDLs against several medical device manufacturing companies. For more information about Attorney Davis Popper or the legal services offered at Conley Griggs Partin, LLP, please visit http://www.conleygriggs.com or call (404) 467-115. The recently revealed financial woes of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) could prevent alleged sexual abuse victims from receiving compensation. The recently revealed financial woes of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) could prevent alleged sexual abuse victims from receiving compensation. Hurley McKenna & Mertz represents 11 former Scouts, each with monthly trials set in Cook County beginning on January 11, 2019. (* Court case numbers below) Hurley McKenna & Mertz clients allege sexual abuse between the ages of 10 and 12 by their Scoutmaster, Thomas Hacker. Over the last six years, Hurley McKenna & Mertz clients have approached BSA and its insurers to discuss resolutions of their claims. The Chicago-based law firm of Hurley McKenna & Mertz, PC originally filed suit on behalf of 16 Boy Scouts in 2012, accusing the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and the Chicago Area Council of failing to protect scouts against a convicted serial pedophile, Thomas Hacker. Hacker died in prison in 2018 while serving a 100-year prison sentence in Illinois. The suit alleges that the Boy Scouts were aware of former Scoutmaster Thomas Hackers arrest in Indiana for sexual assault and battery of boys as early as February, 1970. The suit also alleges that, because of BSAs inadequate screening system, Hacker re-surfaced as a Scoutmaster in Illinois and continued molesting boys some as young as ten years old for nearly a decade. Hacker was convicted in 1989 of five counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault against three scouts, and was sentenced to two concurrent 50-year terms. Hacker was tried in Cook County in criminal case 1988 CR 6330. Read the original complaint Doe v. Boy Scouts of America and Chicago Area filed by Hurley McKenna & Mertz here [https://www.scribd.com/document/326247307/Doe-v-Boy-Scouts-of-America-and-Chicago-Area *JOHN DOE 7, Case No. 2018 L 215 JOHN DOE 8, Case No. 2018 L 214 JOHN DOE 9, Case No. 2018 L 228 JOHN DOE 11, Case No. 2018 L 226 JOHN DOE 12, Case No. 2018 L 229 JOHN DOE 13, Case No. 2018 L 208 JOHN DOE 14, Case No. 2018 L 210 JOHN DOE 15, Case No. 2018 L 232 JOHN DOE 16, Case No. 2018 L 205 JOHN DOE 17, Case No. 2018 L 209 JOHN DOE 18, Case No. 2018 L 230 About Hurley McKenna & Mertz, P.C. Hurley McKenna & Mertz, P.C. is a partnership of trial lawyers dedicated to fighting for the rights of ordinary people who have suffered serious personal injuries due to negligence. The firm takes pride in obtaining the best possible recoveries for clients, while advocating for changes in the law to protect the community. Visit hurley-law.com to learn more. National support for investments in Opportunity Zone projects is a critical element in restoring some of our countrys communities overlooked by traditional economic development activities which strengthens our overall economy, said Chris Loeffler, Caliber Founder and CEO. Development in underserved communities just received a boost from President Trump, and Arizona-based Caliber has a fund available for investors to take advantage of these new tax incentives. To draw additional funding and support into underserved communities, President Trump has signed an executive order directing more resources to be funneled into Opportunity Zones. Created as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts, Opportunity Zones offer accredited investors significant tax breaks through participation in qualified Opportunity Zone funds. Still a young program, Caliber The Wealth Development Company is one of the first organizations to offer Opportunity Zone investments with the July 2018 launch of the Caliber Tax Advantaged Opportunity Zone Fund, LP. We fully embrace the Presidents executive order and the creation of a White House Opportunity and Revitalization council, said Chris Loeffler, Caliber Founder and CEO. National support for investments in Opportunity Zone projects is a critical element in restoring some of our countrys communities overlooked by traditional economic development activities, which strengthens our overall economy. Through the Caliber Tax Advantaged Opportunity Zone Fund, LP, funding is invested directly into a diversified portfolio of assets in qualifying zones, allowing investors to take advantage of reductions in capital gains tax. Investors may see as much as a two times increase in an expected after tax rate of return on investment due to the benefits included in the program. Calibers Opportunity Zone projects are already working to revitalize underfunded neighborhoods in Arizona such as downtown Mesa, downtown Tempe and downtown Tucson. Projects that have already been announced include the addition of a top-tier branded hotel to the Tucson Convention Center, a townhome project in Tempe and significant investments in developing the core of downtown Mesa. Caliber provides individual accredited investors and registered investment advisors with well-structured alternatives to traditional investments. In addition to Opportunity Zones, the company builds wealth by forming and managing real estate private equity investments, either through individual assets or multi-asset funds. For details on investment options or to learn more about Caliber, visit CaliberCo.com. About Caliber Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Caliber - The Wealth Development Company is a full-service real estate investment company specializing in commercial, residential, multi-family, self-storage and hospitality properties. Since its inception in 2010, Caliber has acquired more than $350 million in real estate across the southwest with more than $275 million of assets under management. Calibers investment cycle is managed 100 percent in-house through its five business units: Investment, Construction & Development, Property Management, Brokerage and Hospitality. Operating under the principles of integrity, responsibility, discipline and transparency, Caliber provides its more than 400 accredited investors with well-managed, diverse, asset-based investment strategies. Learn more at Caliberco.com or follow Caliber on social @CaliberCo. Note To Investors This Press Release Is Provided Solely For Information Purposes And Does Not Constitute Legal Or Investment Advice. This Is Neither An Offer To Sell Nor A Solicitation Of An Offer To Buy Securities. While We Endeavor To Keep The Information Up To Date And Correct, We Make No Representations Or Warranties Of Any Kind, Express Or Implied, About The Completeness, Accuracy Or Reliability Of The Data And Summaries Contained In This Press Release Or The Suitability Of Any Separate Offering For Investors. There Are Risks Associated With Any Investment. In Making An Investment Decision, Investors Must Rely On Their Own Examination Of The Company They Wish To Invest In Including The Merits And Risk Involved. Any Forward Looking Statement Speaks Only As Of The Date On Which Such Statement Is Made, And We Undertake No Obligation To Update Any Forward Looking Statement To Reflect Events Or Circumstances After The Date On Which Such Statement Is Made. Please Contact Caliber Directly At 480-295-7600 For Further Information. Grand Junction drivers looking for luxury models from INFINITI, Lexus and Mazda can find extensive selection with local dealership Carville's Auto Mart Japanese automotive manufacturers are world-renowned for producing vehicles that can last consumers long periods of time, with durability, efficiency and innovation to boot. Those in search of these values with an added element of luxury are invited to browse through the used inventory at Carvilles Auto Mart, whose selection includes many vehicles that are at or near the top of their respective classes. Model brands currently available at Carvilles Auto Mart include Lexus(the luxury division of Toyota), INFINITI(paired with Nissan) and Mazda, a standalone brand notable for its highly efficient and advanced sedans and SUVs. More information on each model type is available on research pages located on the dealerships website. Interested shoppers should also be advised that they can get approved for credit financing on all used luxury models via a page on the Carvilles Auto Mart site. From there, drivers will be prompted to input information about themselves and their financial situations in order to determine eligibility for payment plans that fit their specific budgets. All information shared with Carvilles Auto Mart is securely encrypted. All members of the public who would like to test drive a Japanese luxury vehicle at Carvilles Auto Mart are encouraged to contact the dealership directly, either by phone at 970-241-5370 or online at carvillesautomart.com. The Carvilles Auto Mart team may also be reached in person at 2507 Highway 6 and 50 in Grand Junction, Colorado. On the heels of the wildly popular Cash for Clunkers humidor trade-in program, Daniel Marshall has announced an unprecedented program, Cash For Cigar Clunkers and will pay customers for their clunker cigars. With the previous program, customers around the country were thrilled to trade in their clunker humidors for an upgrade to a Daniel Marshall. In the same way Marshall helped customers get into their dream humidor, he has designed his latest program to allow customers to elevate from their disappointing cigars to a cigar they can trust, a Cigar Aficionado 92 point rated Daniel Marshall Cigar. Daniel Marshall is out to prove the attributes of the DM Cigar, the benefits of 1-year minimum box aging and is offering to pay customers for their partially smoked cigars. Every cigar enthusiast knows the feeling of being let down by a cigar where the expectation just did not measure up. Now disappointing cigars that did not draw or taste good can be redeemed for credit with Daniel Marshall. The Daniel Marshall Red Label has received international accolades and shares the shelves with the best cigars, at the worlds most legendary and esteemed cigar merchants from Los Angeles to London, Dubai to Asia and Beirut. Dignitaries and celebrities worldwide enjoy Daniel Marshall cigars. Reported by Rake Magazine, in 2012 President Clinton bought the DM 24kt Red Label Golden Cigar at The Sahakian Cigar Lounge at Londons Bulgari Hotel. Business Week wrote on August 1, 2005, The Governator loves his Daniel Marshalls so much he erected a smoking tent outside the California Capitol. Daniel Marshall Red Label Cigars made their debut in Cigar Aficionados September 1, 1997 issue. The balanced Nicaraguan Puro has an elegance, finesse and richness that define the DM Cigar. The Red is a cigar rich with chocolate and espresso, inspired by Marshalls Saturday Harley rides up the coast with friends where he desired a cigar to evoke his favorite mocha. The DM Red Label was designed with a rich and smooth profile. My wish is for cigar tasters everywhere to savor the difference, quality, and benefits of box aging in our cigar rolled in Nicaragua, originally co-created by not one but two cigar legends, Manuel Quesada and Nestor Plasencia, said Marshall. Our Cash for Clunker Humidor program exposed cigar fans to the upper echelon of cigar aging and preservation, now its our goal to provide the same top quality experience with our cigars. To participate in the program, customers can request a prepaid mailing label from Daniel Marshall and send in their banded, partially smoked clunker cigars. In exchange, Daniel Marshall will provide a $2 credit per cigar clunker to be used towards the purchase of Daniel Marshall cigars at designated retailers nationwide. For additional details regarding the program, please visit the Daniel Marshall website: https://danielmarshall.com/cash-for-cigar-clunker-discount-program/ About Daniel Marshall: Daniel Marshall, a 35-year veteran of the cigar industry is one of the leading names in the cigar world. He is Cigar Aficionados No.1 rated Humidor designer and creator of the coveted 24kt Golden Cigar. DM Humidors & cigars are enjoyed in the homes and offices of countless Hollywood celebrities, US presidents, dignitaries, titans of industry, fashion designers and the most discriminating cigar lovers worldwide. Marshall is also a cigar and humidor supplier of Englands Royal Family. Since 1982, Daniel Marshall has created and designed for the prestigious luxury gift houses Dunhill, Tiffany & Co., S.T. DuPont, Cartier, Hermes, Fred Joaillier, Harrods, Bally of Switzerland and Garrards of London. Daniel Marshalls humidors are historic, with a collection on display at the Smithsonian Museum. One of DMs highly collectible Governor Schwarzenegger Humidors broke sales records in 2016 at Leonardo DiCaprios Foundation Gala Fundraiser in St. Tropez. This extremely rare humidor topped the charts for highest amount paid for a modern day humidor with new world DM Cigars, raising 750,000 euros. In September 2017, a 1 of 1 humidor DM made for Prince Albert II of Monaco with Daniel Marshall Cigars was put on the block and raised 75,000 Euros to benefit our global oceans. Visit Daniel Marshalls site at http://www.danielmarshall.com. You can also find Daniel Marshall on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/danielmarshallhumidorsandcigars or follow Daniel Marshall on Twitter @DMCigarWorld or Instagram @DMCigars for real-time updates. For Daniel Marshall: Trang Trinh, 714-973-8660, info(at)danielmarshall.com There are a number of new ethical challenges facing the economics researcher but there are also a number of new tools that economists can adopt to face these challenges Scientific disciplines, agricultural and applied economics included, have ever evolving standards for ethical behavior in research. Institutional Review Boards (IRB) now provide oversight of research that involves human subjects, replicability is increasing important for publication, and media and policy impact is more valued than ever. In an AAEA session taking place at the Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meeting entitled Ethics in Agricultural and Applied Economics Research, four presentations will explore new ways to think about the ethics of the research process and researchs impact in the policy space. Organizer of the session, Jeffrey Michler from the University of Arizona says, We hope that people walk away from the session challenged to be more deliberate in undertaking ethical behavior in their own work. As we will point out in the session, there are a number of new ethical challenges facing the economics researcher but there are also a number of new tools that economists can adopt to face these challenges. We hope to raise awareness of the challenges while also providing participants with the appropriate tools. Presentations: Moving beyond the IRB: Towards a typology of research ethics Jeffrey D. Michler, University of Arizona; William A. Masters, Tufts University; and Anna Josephson, University of Arizona What do you mean by informed consent? Household survey ethics in development research Anna Josephson, University of Arizona and Melinda Smale, Michigan State University Ethics in Econometrics Travis J. Lybbert, University of California, Davis The Right to Food in the United States: The Role of SNAP Craig Gundersen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign This session will be taking place on Friday January 4, 2019 at 2:30 4:30 pm at the Hilton Atlanta. To attend this session please contact Allison Scheetz in the AAEA Business Office for your complimentary Media Registration. ABOUT AAEA: Established in 1910, the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) is the leading professional association for agricultural and applied economists, with 2,500 members in more than 60 countries. Members of the AAEA work in academic or government institutions as well as in industry and not-for-profit organizations, and engage in a variety of research, teaching, and outreach activities in the areas of agriculture, the environment, food, health, and international development. The AAEA publishes two journals, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, as well as the online magazine Choices. To learn more, visit http://www.aaea.org. Spiritual Ice Breakers: A Path to God after Spiritual Bondage: an inspiring book for the lost. Spiritual Ice Breakers: A Path to God after Spiritual Bondage is the creation of published author Gloria Murphy, an English mother of two who immigrated to Canada and was spiritually rescued from the curse running through her family for generations. Gloria writes, Ice breakers are sturdy ships built for breaking passageways through thick ice so other vessels can navigate safely without danger to their designated ports. Imagine now the same thing happening in the spiritual, breaking a passageway through to a person who has become lost in a church controlled by a leader or leaders or someone caught in the New Age. How about the occult? To these people, there seems to be no way out, just more bondages and lives shipwrecked. When you get serious with your relationship with God, know that He can help you on your journey, show you a safe passage through and bring you safely to port. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Gloria Murphys new book is a powerful guide for setting the captives free through Christ. Gloria offers an invaluable testimony from behind the scenes of the occult and the controlling spirits of darkness. The miraculous story of her rescue illustrates how others can find everlasting salvation from their spiritual bondages. View a synopsis of Spiritual Ice Breakers: A Path to God after Spiritual Bondage on YouTube. Consumers can purchaseSpiritual Ice Breakers: A Path to God after Spiritual Bondage at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Spiritual Ice Breakers: A Path to God after Spiritual Bondage, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. 10X Growth Conference is bringing together a lineup that wont be found anywhere else and is a tremendous value both in terms of access to these power players and the networking opportunities that will be available. Sheri Hamilton, COO of Cardone Training Technologies Inc. Grant Cardone is offering FREE HERO SEATS to the 10X Growth Conference for all active and inactive, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Gold Star Families, plus Police, First Responders, Nurses and Teachers to honor their sacrifice, service, strength, and dedication. I regret not serving and I really want to thank and honor those that I call the real heroes. I look forward to meeting you, saluting you and thanking you in person. Grant Cardone, CEO Cardone Enterprises 10X Growth Conference 3 will be held in Miami at Marlins Park February 1-3, 2019. This epic event will be the largest entrepreneurial conference ever with over 35,000 attendees. Guinness Book of World Records has been invited to witness and document the historic occasion. Spanning three days with world-class experts covering topics like sales, marketing, building an ideal life, branding and more, this meet up will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime event. Presenters include: Steve Harvey - #1 TV personality in the world Grant Cardone - Worlds #1 Sales Trainer & Real Estate Mogul Ryan Deiss. Leading authority on digital marketing with over 10 million marketers subscribed Sara Blakely. First billionaire businesswoman in the world and SPANX creator John Maxwell. The #1 leadership expert in the history of the world Elena Cardone. Philanthropist, Speaker, Author, and Empire Builder Russell Brunson. The #1 online sales expert and ClickFunnel creator Daymond John. Leading entrepreneurial expert and founder of FUBU Tai Lopez. Top Social Media Expert and advisor to over twenty multi-million dollar businesses Jesse Itzler. Master entrepreneur, Marquis Jet founder, and Atlantic Hawks owner Bethenny Frankel. Top lifestyle branding expert, Skinnygirl creator and TV celebrity 10X Growth Conference is bringing together a lineup that wont be found anywhere else and is a tremendous value both in terms of access to these power players and the networking opportunities that will be available. Sheri Hamilton, COO of Cardone Training Technologies Inc. For this historic event, Grant Cardone 10X Growth Conference 3 is proud to partner with Marlins Park. Tickets for the event range from $95 to $15,000. All details and booking information can be found at http://www.10XGrowthCon.com About Grant Cardone: Grant Cardone is a New York Times bestselling author, international social media influencer, the number one sales trainer in the world, and an internationally renowned speaker on leadership, real estate, investing, entrepreneurship, social media, and finance. He owns five companies with annual revenues exceeding $150 million. He is a regular guest on Fox News, Fox Business, CNBC, and MSNBC. He also is a contributing writer for Forbes, Success Magazine, Business Insider, Entrepreneur.com and the Huffington Post. Why does a Georgetown University professor write about the soul and international business? Because theyre closely interlinked! An analysis of a new world, terrorism, the future of trade, and the search for the soul are what you find in this book. In Search for the Soul of International Business, by Michael Czinkota hits the shelves just when needed most, given new environments, new approaches, new emotions and new commitments. I consider the soul the center of our aspirations and inspirations. Loss of soul typically connotes death. Maintaining a soul offers a reference point and stability. For ones progress in thinking I aim to supply both content and context. Author Bio: Professor Michael R. Czinkota teaches international marketing and business at the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University and the University of Kent in Canterbury. He served in the U.S. government as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce, as head of the U.S. Delegation to the OECD Industry Committee in Paris and as senior trade advisor for Export Controls. Over the past 30 years he is consistently listed in every international marketing and business ranking as a top 20 author. He is a distinguished fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science and of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He received the AMA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. The Universidad Ricardo Palma of Lima. Peru named its new International Marketing School after Czinkota. Book Info: Trade and globalization inundate us with constant information, new concepts, and endless data. Individuals are caught in the whirl-wind of a fast-paced world, often without the ability to stop and think, particularly when it comes to issues of the soul. With a foreword by Ambassador Dr. Laszlo Szabo ,a preface by the Rev. Horkan, and the humorous yet pensive illustrations by award-winning cartoonist David Clark, this book jumpstarts the readers ability for a comprehensive understanding of pressing international business and trade issues and their linkage to the soul. Contact Info: Book Ordering Link: https://bit.ly/2B2LAZS Authors Website: http://www.michaelczinkota.com, email: czinkotm@georgetown.edu Phone: 202-687-4204 Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/czinkotm Sheri E. Dean, Marketing Director, Business Expert Press and Momentum Press 919-612-6706 Get the inside scoop on the story behind this book by contacting Michael Czinkota at czinkotm@georgetown.edu Email czinkotm@georgetown.edu for media preview copies of the book Contact: Michael Czinkota Direct Phone Number: 202-687-4204 czinkotm@georgetown.edu Book Ordering Link: https://bit.ly/2B2LAZS Infinity clients using Conversation Analytics will be able to analyse the speech on every call they receive, and efficiently enable companies to act on these insights at scale. This will allow them to identify calls where payments were made, when specific words or scripts were used, and redact sensitive data before a call is stored. Due to the explosion of smartphones, the total number of calls that businesses are receiving is only going to go up, says Infinity CEO and founder Paul Walsh. Theres so much useful insight within these calls that companies risk losing. By harnessing it responsibly, you open up exciting opportunities for marketing teams and contact centres to make meaningful, measurable improvements. For years, Infinity has delivered pinpoint precision on the journey that led to a call. In more recent times, they have helped clients catalogue the outcomes of a call and how the relationship progressed. Now, Conversation Analytics unlocks the wealth of undiscovered insights that are contained within every single call. The Telegraph have been using Infinitys Conversation Analytics suite to identify when calls to their travel partners have resulted in a booking, enabling them to forecast revenue effectively and improve their customer journey. Infinitys Conversation Analytics suite is very flexible, the results are immediate, and we are learning things that we didnt know before. The exciting thing is that you start to solve one issue, and you uncover many more that you can solve too, and were just at the start of that evolution. Mark Woodcock | Commercial Director - Travel, The Telegraph Meanwhile, Flight Centre have been using the Conversation Analytics suite to help categorise the quality of calls they are receiving. This insight helps them know what aspects of their long-term website refresh are connecting with the audience they want to be reaching. Conversation Analytics have given us a spectacular view on what a high quality phone enquiry looks like. It makes it easy for our marketing and operations teams to isolate certain types of enquiry that we want to understand more about. James Boyle | Head of Digital Marketing, Flight Centre Paul Walsh, CEO, and Chris Sedlmayr, Product Director, are both available for interview. ENDS About Infinity Infinity are a call intelligence company founded in 2011, who have been growing aggressively since a 10m investment by Smedvig Capital in 2016. Their software and services analyse the conversations businesses have with their customers, enabling them to grow revenue whilst reducing marketing and operational costs. With five offices across the USA and UK, Infinity is trusted by enterprise brands all over the world including TripAdvisor, The Telegraph, Redrow Homes, Mazda, and hundreds more. JLongtin Law Denver Outreach Court aims to serve a specific population and reduce their interactions with the justice system...the Denver court goes to where defendants gather...at one of the citys largest, most centrally located shelters. The court is held every other Wednesday at the Denver Rescue Mission. Our work with Outreach Court helps JLongtin Law fulfill its mission of increasing access to legal counsel for everyone in Colorado, regardless of their situation or means, said owner and lead counsel Jennifer E. Longtin. The firms contract to staff Outreach Court is through the Denver Municipal Public Defenders Office, which works hard to defend Denverites in Denver Municipal Court. We have been doing Outreach Court since its inception as Homeless Court, and are proud to continue offering our assistance, added Longtin. The American Bar Association recently published an article on Denvers Outreach Court: Denver Outreach Court aims to serve a specific population and reduce their interactions with the justice system...the Denver court goes to where defendants gather...at one of the citys largest, most centrally located shelters. JLongtin Laws Mattson Smith was quoted as saying, I would love to see this model spread throughout Colorado. Homelessness is not something that just exists in the city. JLongtin Law supports any expansion of this very successful court, collaborating with many local and state partners through Jennifer Longtins work with the Mentally Ill Criminal Justice System Task Force at the Colorado Legislature. Outreach Court provides a wonderful opportunity for our attorneys to help the local, transient population in a easily accessible and largely stress-free environment, said Maxwell Boltinghouse, one of the JLongtin Law attorneys who staffs the court. JLongtin law has seen gains outside of the financial issues discussed in the ABA Publication; our attorneys see greater trust and communication between clients and the judicial and sheriff staff grow with every court date. JLongtin law looks forward to continuing this great work with the Denver Municipal Public Defender and the City of Denver for many years to come. About Jennifer E. Longtin, JLongtin Law Jennifer E. Longtin has tried cases ranging from simple traffic offenses and DUIs to murder and complex sex offenses. Jennifer is dedicated to serving the mentally ill who are involved in the criminal justice system; she litigates issues of competency, sanity, and uses a clients situation and history to find treatment alternatives to incarceration. Practice areas of the firm include Felony/Misdemeanor, Municipal Court, Mental Health Defense, Victim Representation, Juvenile Defense, DUI/ Traffic Violations, Sex Offenses, Appeals and Post-Conviction Remedies, Sentencing, Petition to Seal Records, Temporary and Permanent Restraining Orders and Sex Offender De-Registration. For more information, please call (303) 747-6898, or visit http://www.jlongtinlaw.com. The law office is located at 2401 S. Downing Street, Denver, CO 80210. For media inquiries, please call the NALA at 805.650.6121, ext. 361. Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, one of the countrys leading developers and investors in sustainable, affordable and mixed-income multi-family real estate, The NHP Foundation (NHPF), a national not-for-profit leader in providing quality affordable housing to Americas working poor, seniors and families, along with Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, have acquired Shore Hill Housing, a two-building, 558-unit HUD project-based Section 8 Housing complex located at 9000 Shore Road in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn for approximately $150 million from NYU Langone. The property consists of two interconnected 14-story towers totaling 414,127 square feet built in 1977 and set on 2.69 acres. The unit mix includes 325 studios and 233 one-bedrooms. The acquisition was financed by a $102 million Freddie Mac loan arranged through Prudential. The Rose Affordable Housing Preservation Fund IV, L.P. (Fund), along with joint venture non-profit partner, NHPF, and co-investor Nuveen, a TIAA Company, will invest $52 million of equity in the property. Shore Hill is a near perfect match for our Fund and our firms capabilities, said Nathan D. Taft, Partner and Managing Director of Acquisitions at Rose. We are making a long-term investment to preserve an important affordable housing property for seniors with a conventional debt and private equity execution, added Joshua Plattner, who led this acquisition for Rose. The venture will invest in capital improvements to increase energy efficiency, reduce the carbon footprint, and enhance the resident services at Shore Hill as part of Roses Communities of Opportunity programming. We are excited about the opportunity to drive capital into this Brooklyn neighborhood, preserving a significant number of affordable units and improving the living standards of the residents in these buildings, said Pamela West, Senior Director with Nuveens impact investing team. We look forward to continuing our efforts by investing in similar assets across the country for families and seniors. Rose Community Management, an affiliate of Jonathan Rose Companies, will take over management of the community. The partnership between the Fund and NHPF will allow for an increased capacity to provide services to residents of the property. Operation Pathways, NHPFs Resident Services affiliate will oversee the provision of services, which currently includes operation of a Community Center, onsite transportation services, and resident service coordination to connect residents to other local health, wellness, and support services. Partnering with Jonathan Rose Companies for the first time provides a tremendous opportunity for both of our organizations to showcase our strengths, said NHPF President & CEO Dick Burns. We look forward to working together with them on other successful co-ventures. About Jonathan Rose Companies Jonathan Rose Companies is one of the countrys leading developers and investors in sustainable, affordable, and mixed-income multifamily real estate, with nearly 15,000 units owned or managed. Founded in 1989, Jonathan Rose Companies is a mission-driven company focused on enhancing the health and wellness of our residents, through its Communities of Opportunities programming, while also working to make its properties greener and more energy efficient. With offices in New York, Connecticut, Colorado, California and New Mexico, Jonathan Rose Companies has developed or acquired more than $2.5 billion of real estate. For more information, visit http://www.rosecompanies.com. About The NHP Foundation Headquartered in New York City with offices in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, IL, The NHP Foundation (NHPF) was launched on January 30, 1989, as a publicly supported 501(c)(3) not-for-profit real estate corporation. NHPF is dedicated to preserving and creating sustainable, service-enriched multifamily housing that is both affordable to low and moderate income families and seniors, and beneficial to their communities. NHPF also provides a robust resident services program to nearly 18,000 community residents. Through partnerships with major financial institutions, the public sector, faith-based initiatives, and other not-for-profit organizations, NHPF has 49 properties, including more than 8,000 units, in 15 states and the District of Columbia. For more information, visit http://www.nhpfoundation.org. About Nuveen Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, offers a comprehensive range of outcome-focused investment solutions designed to secure the long-term financial goals of institutional and individual investors. Nuveen has $988 billion in assets under management as of 9/30/18 and operations in 16 countries. Its affiliates offer deep expertise across a comprehensive range of traditional and alternative investments through a wide array of vehicles and customized strategies. For more information, please visit http://www.nuveen.com. Contacts: Eric Gerard (for Jonathan Rose Cos.) Phone: (212) 741-2977 eric(at)greatink.com Marijane Funess (NHPF) Phone: (646) 336-4927 mfuness(at)nhpfoundation.org Car shoppers interested in a used Toyota model can find over 150 pre-owned selections available for test drive and purchase at Serra Toyota in Birmingham. While a new Toyota model can offer the latest in technology and amenities, car shoppers looking to keep their costs low may find just what they need in a used model. The used inventory on the Serra Toyota lot goes through a rigorous inspection to ensure quality and most offerings come with a free vehicle history report for added peace of mind. With over 150 used Toyota models in the dealerships current inventory, car shoppers should have no trouble finding something that fits their needs. The Toyota brand is well known for their vehicle dependability, making Toyota models an excellent option in the used market. Car shoppers interested in a practical and budget-friendly sedan for daily driving may be most interested in used Corolla, Camry, Prius, Avalon or Yaris models. These models offer great handling, an excellent mixture of fuel-economy ratings and a range of pricing and amenity packages. Car shoppers interested in a larger performance-based model may be interested in used Toyota crossover and truck models like the Highlander, 4Runner, RAV4, Tundra and Tacoma. Depending on the model, these crossovers and trucks were built to tackle large family hauling, towing and off-road terrain. For more information on the pre-owned Toyota models currently available at Serra Toyota, visit the dealerships website at http://www.serratoyota.com. Interested parties can also connect with a team member in person at 1300 Center Point Parkway, Birmingham, Alabama or by phone at 205-847-1841. This allows us to make more investments of larger dollar amounts while still being focused on a part of the market underserved by individual angel investors and larger venture capital firms. Cascade Angels Fund, a professionally managed, investor driven collaborative seed fund, today announced seven investments in 2018 totaling $1,100,000. Cascade Angels Fund brings individual and institutional investors together in a professionally managed, pooled investment fund. The companies represent a range of industries including software, consumer products and media. The current fund is the fifth Cascade Angels Fund, the first multi-year fund, and the largest to date at $3 million. Founded in 2014, Cascade Angels has made 24 investments totaling almost $4 million. Those companies employ over 200 people, 25% have a female CEO, and over 50% have a female or minority on the executive team. The latest fund includes an expanded fund management team with Robert Pease joining Julie Harrelson as Fund Manager of Cascade Angels Fund V LLC. Investments announced and completed in 2018 include: 1. Tali (http://www.telltali.com) - a Portland, OR software company focused on conversational time tracking. 2. Outdoor Project (http://www.outdoorproject.com) - a Portland, OR digital media company focused on outdoor recreation. 3. Rumpl (http://www.rumpl.com) - a Portland, OR consumer products company focused on technical and outdoor blankets. 4. StarveUps (http://www.starveups.com) - an Oregon-based peer-driven entrepreneurship accelerator with locations in Portland, Eugene, and Bend. 5. Stabilitas (http://www.stabilitas.io) - a Seattle, WA-based software company that provides real-time alerts for mission-critical security operations. 6. Slumberkins (http://www.slumberkins.com) - a Vancouver, WA-based consumer products company providing educational tools for childhood life skills and emotional development. 7. Talkoot (http://www.talkoot.com) - a Hood River, OR-based software company that provides content collaboration for direct to consumer brands. Fund V is 2.5 times larger than last years fund and over 7 times larger than our first fund in 2014, said Julie Harrelson, Fund Manager at Cascade Angels Fund. This allows us to make more investments of larger dollar amounts while still being focused on a part of the market underserved by individual angel investors and larger venture capital firms. Being based outside a major metropolitan area gives us a unique regional perspective as seed stage investors, said Robert Pease, Fund Manager at Cascade Angels Fund. Our portfolio includes companies in Bend, Eugene, Portland, and Seattle and we have great connections to each entrepreneurial community having lived and worked in these same cities over many years. About Cascade Angels Fund Founded in 2013, Cascade Angels is a professionally managed, investor driven collaborative venture fund that creates opportunities for investors and businesses with connections to Oregon to drive economic growth and fuel prosperity. The Funds investors include prominent business leaders, exited entrepreneurs and institutional investors who are committed to contributing to a sustainable economy and building Oregon's entrepreneurial ecosystem. For more information, visit http://www.CascadeAngels.com, Gust.com or http://www.twitter.com/CascadeFund. Participation in the Cascade Angel Fund is by referral and invitation only. Angel and venture investments involve a high degree of risk. Participation is limited to "accredited investors," as defined in Rule 501(a) of Regulation D promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, AND to investors who have such knowledge and experience in financial and business matters that they are capable of evaluating the merits and risks of prospective investments. Luxury car shoppers who choose to shop online will find that Autos of Dallas caters to their needs with low, upfront prices and free luxury car delivery in Texas. With many more luxury car shoppers doing their automotive research online, dealerships are tailoring services to meet the demand. Autos of Dallas, a pre-owned luxury car dealership located in Plano, provides online car shoppers with low, upfront prices and will deliver vehicles to Texas residents for free. Autos of Dallas caters to a wide range of consumers with more than 1,100 pre-owned luxury cars, trucks, crossovers and SUVs in stock that will feature many popular luxury brands. Luxury automotive brands that car shoppers will find represented in the dealerships inventory include, but are not limited to Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, Land Rover, Jaguar, Maserati, Audi, Cadillac, Chrysler, GMC, Lincoln, Porsche and Volvo. To help online car shoppers find a luxury vehicle that will fit their budget in a massive inventory, the dealership employs a tool called Precise Price that allows individuals to enter a down payment, term length and credit score to discover an affordable monthly payment. Individuals on a tighter budget can start with a monthly payment to find out how much to put down. After car shoppers find a car that fits their lifestyle and budget online at Autos of Dallas, they can have their dream car delivered to their home at no charge. Free luxury car delivery is limited to the state of Texas and allows drivers to skip the long drive to the dealership. In addition to free shipping in the Lone Star State, the dealership provides nationwide delivery at competitive prices. Luxury car shoppers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who are interested in learning more about the low prices and free luxury car delivery available at Autos of Dallas can visit the dealership online at http://www.autosofdallas.com. Individuals who prefer a more personal interaction can contact the dealership directly by calling 972-484-9200. Contact MES and let's show you how to avoid tariffs while building out a robust global supply chain for your industrial components! On September 23rd, President Trump initiated a third set of tariffs which increased prices on almost $150 Billion worth of products in a variety of industrial sectors. There was also some military action in the South China Sea which shows belligerent Chinese naval ships engaging in skirmishes with US vessels. These military actions as well as stubborn attitude by the leaders of both countries have made many executives uncomfortable with their existing supply chains. MES is continuing to receive numerous inquiries from its customers asking for solutions to: 1] Avoid tariffs and costs 2] Develop temporary solutions to reduce or nullify tariff costs 3] Develop a longer-term supply chain strategy to offset impact from China based supply chains MES offers sourcing solutions from three countries to help its customers diversify supply chains away from China. These are: A] India MES has had a sourcing office in India since October 2010. It buys products from about 23 factories spread in different parts of India. MES also boasts sourcing and quality engineers in several cities to support its supplier and quality management processes. Prime Minister Modi's "Made in India" initiative (since 2015) has improved investments in all major manufacturing technologies, products, and processes. These investments as well as increased exposure of suppliers to global customers operating in India has improved their competitiveness and productivity. For all of its commodities such as aluminum die castings, iron castings, steel forgings, steel castings, various rubber products and machined components, Indian suppliers are now as competitive or better than their Chinese counterparts. General improvements in VAT refunds, simpler national tax system (National GST -- General Sales Tax initiated in 2016), removal of various import duties on raw materials and removal of local octroi duties have led to simpler exporting processes shedding days to weeks of lead-times in exporting from India. MES's Bombay Metrics trading office, based in Coimbatore and Mumbai has audited and approved suppliers, which can ramp up the tooling, process development and robust, cost-competitive sourcing options and in the longer term, can provide a sustainable supply chain strategy. B] Vietnam MES has been buying from Vietnam suppliers since 2014. WE have audited and approved about 23 suppliers, mainly in die castings and extrusions. Most of the suppliers as wells. Metrics Vietnam staff is based around Ho-Chin-Minh. The Vietnam economy has been growing by 5-7% annually since 2010. McKinsey and other consulting companies expect Vietnam to be one of the major beneficiaries from Chinese tariffs. They are expected to grow significantly in electronics, automotive components, clothing and other commodities. MES has and will continue to only develop its supply base in South Vietnam near Ho Chi Minh City due to proximity of port, availability of enough industrial factories, availability of people for supply chain, quality and engineering. C] Mexico MES opened its warehouse in Monterrey in 2013. Since then, MES now has warehousing in Juarez, Tijuana and Monterrey to support its growing Mexico customer base. For years, MES preferred to focus on sourcing from India, China, Taiwan and Korea. Only since 2016 under pressure from several customers did MES develop sourcing and supply chain capabilities locally in Mexico. Most of the Mexico sourcing is dual sourced to support global supply chain, optimize cost, lead times and manage variable demand patters. MES has audited about 25 suppliers in technologies of assemblies, die castings, iron castings, extrusions and forgings. MES currently sources in several factories spread all over Mexico. Mexico lead times for tooling as well as tooling costs can be quite high. MES has been able to nullify them by leveraging its tooling build capability in China and Taiwan. After PPAP parts are done, tooling is shipped to Mexico to initiate production. This allows for tooling costs to be lower than in Mexico / US as well as achieve significant reduction in lead times. MES understands that China will continue to play a significant part in the global supply chain. MES itself has entrenched suppliers who are competitive with strong cost, quality and delivery and may never be replaced. However, customers concerned about tariffs and possible disruptions are looking for a viable solution. MES offers unbiased solutions from its established supply base in Vietnam, Mexico, and India to ensure best-in-class on-time Deliveries (OTD), inventory metrics as well as quality PPM ratings. Contact MES and let's show you how to avoid tariffs while building out a robust global supply chain for your industrial components! Mor Furnitureas a part of our ongoing commitment to the communities we serveis pleased to announce that we are now about to embark on the fulfillment of our Thanksgiving Day Mattress Donation Program. This Thursday, December 13 we will deliver free mattresses to the San Diego Rescue Mission. The Mor Furniture for Less Mattress Donation Program took place on Thanksgiving day. On that day, for every mattress purchased online, another was donated in kind to the San Diego Rescue Mission. The San Diego Rescue Mission specializes in the rehabilitation and renewal of locals currently in tragedy and trauma. Among other services, the mission provides meals, shelters women & children, provides critical care & collects about 3 million pounds of food per year. Mattresses provided via the Mor Furniture Mattress Donation Program will be going to Nueva Vida Haven, a nightly drop-in emergency shelter. This facility is open 365 days a year, and can sleep up to 60 clients nightly. Mor Furniture was pleased to partner with the San Diego Rescue Mission as we recognize and appreciate their values of integrity, compassion & excellence. This partnership expresses Mor Furnitures desire to give thanks to their and to contribute in a tangible way to their mission. Software Reviews Emotional Footprint awards are created entirely from expert-user feedback. Vendors are evaluated by IT leaders, business professionals, and end-users, examining relative performance across five areas: Service Experience, Conflict Resolution, Negotiation and Contract, Strategy and Innovation and Product Impact. This is the first iteration of the Emotional Footprint awards for the Endpoint Security category. Emotional Footprint Medals are earned by providing customers with a well-rounded software experience. This includes how customers are treated both before and after the contract is signed. Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection, Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection and Kaspersky Endpoint Security not only demonstrated fantastic technical aspects in their offerings but also delivered great support and customer experience. . About Emotional Footprint Awards and Software Reports Software Reviews Emotional Footprint Awards are awarded annually to recognize outstanding vendors in the technology marketplace as evaluated by their users. Top vendors in a software category are eligible to receive Emotional Footprint Medals, provided their scores meet the threshold for sufficiently high user satisfaction across five areas of evaluation: Service Experience, Conflict Resolution, Negotiation and Contract, Strategy and Innovation and Product Impact... Full vendor evaluations are available in our in-depth software evaluation reports. About Software Reviews and The Emotional Footprint Awards Software Reviews is a division of Info-Tech Research Group Inc., a world-class IT research and consulting firm established in 1997. Having worked in the vendor space for two decades, Software Reviews is a leading source of expertise and insight into the enterprise software landscape and client-vendor relationships. By collecting real data from IT and business professionals, Software Reviews methodology produces the most detailed and authentic insights into the experience of evaluating and purchasing enterprise software. Strong Feelings cohosts Katel LeDu and Sara Wachter-Boettcher Over the past year, our interviewees challenged me to think harder about issues like race, gender, disability, and body image. Its absolutely necessary that the voices we hear from reflect & amplify a wider range of identitiesespecially at this moment, when so many voices are still being ignored. Strong Feelings, a weekly podcast from independent publishing CEO Katel LeDu and tech consultant and author Sara Wachter-Boettcher, will premiere on Thursday, January 10. The show will premiere new episodes every Thursday featuring the two business partners and best friends discussing work, friendship, feminism, and interviews with a wide range of authors, activists, and creators of all types. Strong Feelings is a fourth-season reinvention of No, You Go, LeDu and Wachter-Boettchers previous podcast with co-host Jenn Lukas. Listen to a preview and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to your favorite pod. Strong Feelings started as No, You Go in January 2018 by LeDu, Wachter-Boettcher and Lukas, and was named an Apple Podcasts New & Noteworthy show in its first season. The show quickly grew in popularity with several episodes generating over 25k downloads, and attracting interview guests including Best Book of the Year (NPR, TIME, Washington Post, and more) All You Can Ever Know author Nicole Chung, sex-tech entrepreneur Cindy Gallop, National Book Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado, and Root 100 honoree Keah Brown. Now, Lukas has stepped aside, and LeDu and Wachter-Boettcher are ready to make trouble. "We were always devoted to making a feminist show, but the fall of 2018 really crystallized our vision," Wachter-Boettcher said. "We watched sexist tropes play out over and over on the national stagefrom the Kavanaugh hearings reminding us that abusive men still hold power, to the constant commentary on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's outfits showing how normal it still is to ignore women's accomplishments. What got us through all those rough weeks was each other. It's powerful to have a friend I can process my feelings withand still find space to be ambitious, positive, and joyful, too. Strong Feelings shares that intimacy and friendship with the world, because we think everyone deserves a space like that." Strong Feelings also aims to be a place where women can learn from people who aren't like themand that means the hosts are focused on learning and growing, too. "Over the past year, our interviewees challenged me to think harder about issues like race, gender, disability, and body image," said LeDu. "Those conversations have motivated me to further examine how I hold myself accountable as a feminist. And that's something we plan to really focus on with Strong Feelings, because its absolutely necessary that the voices we hear from reflect and amplify a wider range of identitiesespecially at this moment, when so many voices are still being ignored by traditional media." On the agenda for the premiere season of Strong Feelings are topics including: Unf*cking Your Work Life - Exploring the broken systems and biased norms women face at work, and how to change them. Trading #Selfcare For True Self-love - What all of us can do to really take care of our brains and bodies. Putting Faith in Friendships - LeDu and Wachter-Boettcher will talk about what theyve learned from their friend lives, and work lives, as well as the power of womens partnerships and creative collaborations. Facing Your Own B.S. - LeDu and Wachter-Boettcher will interview activists and organizers working on issues that white women often distance themselves from, like sex work, racial justice, and mass incarceration. Guests lined up for Strong Feelings premiere season include: Heather Havrilesky, New York magazines Ask Polly advice columnist and the author of What if This Were Enough? Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters. Parkers TEDx talk, How to quit your life (and reboot), has been viewed over a million times. Kate Warren, host of Insert Here, a sex podcast that covers everything from polyamory to pleasure after trauma to pegging. Cora Harrington, founder of The Lingerie Addict, a website devoted to lingerie for everybodyregardless of gender, race, size, and ageand the author of the new book In Intimate Detail: How to Choose, Wear, and Love Lingerie. For more on Strong Feelings visit strongfeelings.co, and listen to a preview of the premiere season and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to your favorite pod. Connect on social @strngfeelings on facebook, twitter and instagram. About Sara & Katel: Katel LeDu is the CEO of A Book Apart, the beloved indie publisher of brief books for people who design, write, and code. Before running the show at A Book Apart, she was National Geographics digital director of photography. Shes been in publishing since the early aughts, and shes sure seen a lot. Sara Wachter-Boettcher runs Rare Union, a product and content strategy consultancy, and is a keynote speaker on tech culture. Shes the author of Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech, and her writing has appeared in Washington Post, The Guardian, Slate, Wired, and McSweeneys. She has spoken at Google, LinkedIn, OpenTable, SXSW, UX Week, Confab, Adobe Max, and more than 100 other events across North America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Childrens National Health System has been verified as a Level 1 Childrens Surgery Center by the American College of Surgeons Childrens Surgery Verification Quality Improvement Program (ACS CSV). This distinction recognizes surgery centers whose quality improvement programs have measurably improved pediatric surgical quality, prevented complications, reduced costs and saved lives. We are extremely proud to achieve the prestigious Level 1 Surgery Verification, says Anthony Sandler, M.D., senior vice president and surgeon-in-chief of the Joseph E. Robert, Jr., Center for Surgical Care at Childrens National. The rigorous standards and focus on meeting the unique needs of each patient make this distinction particularly meaningful to us. The CSV program was developed to improve the safety and quality of childrens surgical care. Level 1 designation is given to hospitals who meet the standards for care outlined in Optimal Resources for Childrens Surgical Care 2015. These standards help to ensure children facing surgery receive care under a multidisciplinary program with quality improvement and safety processes, data collection and appropriate pediatric resources. Childrens National is one of just twelve childrens hospitals nationwide to have earned this verification. To become a verified center, Childrens National met the essential criteria for staffing, training, facility infrastructure and protocols for care, ensuring its ability to appropriately care for pediatric surgical patients. About Childrens National Health System Childrens National Health System, based in Washington, D.C., has served the nations children since 1870. Childrens National is one of the nations Top 5 pediatric hospitals and, for a second straight year, is ranked No. 1 in newborn care, as well as ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. It has been designated two times as a Magnet hospital, a designation given to hospitals that demonstrate the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty outpatient centers in the D.C. Metropolitan area, including the Maryland suburbs and Northern Virginia. Home to the Childrens Research Institute and the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, Childrens National is the seventh-highest NIH-funded pediatric institution in the nation. Childrens National is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels. For more information, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. About the American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational association of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical education and practice and to improve the quality of care for surgical patients. Its achievements have placed it at the forefront of American surgery and have made the College an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. Terry Berg, a passionate author from Northwest Indiana, has completed his new book The Hill: a defining narrative that shares a mans poignant circumstances that teach invaluable insights of compassion and resilience despite the toils in life. Author Berg bears a striking message of appreciating lifes little mysteries to pave a way for healing and reparation of the heart, mind, and soul: The Hill is one mans journey through a year in his life. Meet Marty Lincoln, a man of a certain age, entrepreneur, successful businessman/bar owner. He is a father, friend, and boss. An all-around nice guy. He would tell you that he is a gentleman and a gentle man. He would also confess to being a weak, flawed man. He is content running his bar. His life is filled up with his people, a lovely FWB (friend with benefits), and a car called The Beast. In a chance encounter he meets Emma, a flirtatious barista three decades (yes decades) his junior. Then, in a moment of tragedy, Emma becomes more, something Marty never suspected he would ever find in his life again. In that moment the contented life he had enjoyed changes and becomes a roller coaster of emotions. Come along as Marty tells us about a year in his life, a time filled with laughter and tears, a year of love and loss. A year in which Marty and Emma both strive to discover the meaning of The one, true love of my life. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Terry Bergs powerful tale shows how, despite the presence of frailty in the human nature, a person strives to rise from the ground and make things right. Readers who wish to experience this heartwarming work can purchase The Hill 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. The Sturge-Weber Foundation (SWF) announces the addition of Thuy L. Phung, MD, PhD as Director of Pathology Strategies (DPS). This appointment fulfills one of SWFs goals to advance research of Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS). The primary goal is to establish a tissue bank in which patient tissues are collected and stored for research. SWS patients have the authority to help steer the course of research by participating in this collective effort. Dr. Phung will be the lead in all pathology collection, storage and tissue requests for research. We are excited to have Dr. Phung accept this new position. This will fortify our efforts to ensure the SWF global team of diverse researchers will create lasting impact, stated Karen Ball, SWF Founder and CEO. SWF Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Jonathan Pevsner, Ph.D. stated, We are delights to welcome Dr. Phung to this new role in the Sturge-Weber Foundation. She brings passion, excellence and a broad range of expertise that will help us make progress toward solving Sturge-Weber syndrome. Dr. Thuy Phung is the Associate Professor, Associate Director of Global Pathology and Attending Dermatopathologist at the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Childrens Hospital, Houston, TX. She is also a Visiting Professor at Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Hue City, Vietnam and the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Dr. Phungs specialty training is in Molecular Genetic Pathology and Dermatopathology (skin pathology). She is the lead author of Pediatric Dermatopathology, a comprehensive textbook in the field. Dr. Phung pursues translational research in vascular anomalies in children, with a focus on identifying key molecular pathways that drive the development and growth of these lesions and developing new therapy targeting these pathways. In addition to her clinical and scientific work, she is passionate about global health. She is a co-founder of the award winning Vascular Anomalies Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which cares for thousands of underserved children with vascular anomalies, including those with Sturge-Weber syndrome. Dr. Phung has been spearheading a program in global pathology to enhance the standards of pathology practice in Vietnam and Southeast Asia by improving physician education and pathology laboratory practices. The Sturge-Weber Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which exists to drive groundbreaking research while fostering clinical collaboration to dramatically improve the quality of life for those impacted by SWS and related capillary vascular malformations. For information, please contact Susan Finnell, sfinnell@sturge-weber.org or visit their website at http://www.sturge-weber.org. Looking across the Pacific Ocean from the island of Guam, this Lone Sailor will also serve as a powerful reminder of our Navys heritage in this region. The Lone Sailor statue in the Territory of Guam will be dedicated at the Ricardo J. Bordallo Governor's Complex in a ceremony on Saturday, Dec.15. Guam, a strategically vital part of U.S. efforts to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific, has long been home and a port-of-call to many Sailors and Marines. The effort to put a Lone Sailor statue in Guam is the initiative of the Vietnamese-American community to demonstrate the special relationship between the United States Navy, Guam and the thousands of Vietnamese refugees who were evacuated from Saigon in the closing days of the Vietnam War during Operation Enduring Freedom. More than 111,000 of the 130,000 evacuated Vietnamese refugees were transported to Guam. The greater majority of these refugees resettled in the United States and became citizens, today with thriving businesses and families. This statue will serve as a reminder of the historic and lasting relationship those refugees, including generations of Vietnamese-Americans, have with members of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, who rescued thousands at sea, and built infrastructure in Guam. Looking across the Pacific Ocean from the island of Guam, this Lone Sailor will also serve as a powerful reminder of our Navys heritage in this region, said Rear Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, commander, Joint Region Marianas. It honors all women and men whove donned the cloth of our nation and put their lives on the line to protect freedom, democracy, and our very way of life right here in Guam, throughout the Marianas and western Pacific. The Ricardo J. Bordallo Governor's Complex is an ideal location for the statue as it is open to the public, remains well-kept by groundskeepers, has ample security, and oversees the water as a Lone Sailor should. The Lone Sailor signifies the men and women who have served, are serving, or will serve in the Navy. Hes called the Lone Sailor, yet he is hardly ever alone. He represents a Sailor who is about 25 years old, a senior second class petty officer who is fast becoming a seagoing veteran. He has done it all -- fired weapons in war, provided humanitarian assistance in far-away lands, been attacked by the enemy and defended our freedom. He has made liberty calls in great cities and tiny villages where he was a tourist, ambassador, adventurer, friend and missionary to those less fortunate. His shipmates remember him with pride and look up to him with respect. Efforts to raise funds for the construction of the plaza supporting the statue continue. As we strive to produce the most appropriate setting possible for the statue, all continuing support is greatly appreciated. For more information, please see navymemorial.org/lone-sailor-statue-guam or contact Brenda Osuch at BOsuch@NavyMemorial.org. Professor Freeman and a group of dual enrollment high school students in Cuba. Were determined to make the world a brighter place, Greenberg smiles. One student at a time. Stacie Freeman, a Tennessee university sociology professor and Catherine Greenberg, a Texas non-profit executive director, joined forces to create an innovative partnership designed to reimagine, even revolutionize, global citizenship education for U.S. high school students. In order to affect global change, education must evolve and expand to prepare all young people to create a brighter future, says Professor Freeman. We both understood what needed to be done to help solve for this deficit and we felt up to the challenge. Even in this new age of technology, where ideas, money, and goods can be transported around the globe in mere secondsthe term global citizen is still commonly misunderstood. According to Oxfam Education, a global citizen is aware of and understands the wider world and their place in it. They take an active role in their community, and work with others to make our planet more equal, fair, and sustainable. At Bright Light Volunteers (BLV), it is believed that global citizens and leaders are created through high quality, rigorous education coupled with sustainable, international service. Through an innovative partnership with Bethel University (BU), together, they provide a ground-breaking global service learning and citizenship program where high school students enroll in a Global Service Learning and Citizenship course, for college credit or a certificate of global citizenship, prior to volunteering abroad. This unique, multifaceted approach to global citizenship education results in the deep global competence required of tomorrows leaders. Greenberg reports that the BLV-BU partnership is working. Since inception, students who participate in Bright Light Volunteers Global Service Learning and Citizenship programs report: Improved understanding of local, national, and global challenges Improved understanding of the interconnectedness of the worlds countries and people Willingness to act effectively and responsibly on a local, national, and international level Increased appreciation and respect for diversity Improved critical thinking skills for problem solving, peacemaking, and social responsibility Increased empathy for others and the environment In addition to these findings, 100% of BLV high school participants graduate and attend college. This is especially encouraging in the rural, Title One schools where Freeman and Greenberg are creating opportunities. By all accounts, this dynamic duo really is reshaping the educational landscape and challenging the status quo when it comes to access to global education. Were determined to make the world a brighter place, Greenberg smiles. One student at a time. Bright Light Volunteers is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization, designed to empower program participants and community partners through education and service. Specifically, our programs adhere to global service-learning best practices, which combine community service with both experiential learning in the field and online coursework through our university partner. Our vision is to make the world a brighter place by creating a more peaceful, just, interconnected world where global challenges and opportunities are met by educated, compassionate, global citizens and leaders. Founded in 1842, Bethel University is a nonprofit institution that is regionally accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Bethel Universitys mission is to create opportunities for members of the learning community to develop in a Christian environment their highest intellectual, spiritual, and social potential. This includes synchronous and asynchronous modes of education. Asia Innovations Group Mrs. Globe is the international beauty pageant held annually, open to women aged over 25, or who are married, or are parents. It is the biggest and most prestigious pageant for married women in the World. The pageant is heavily involved with charity work, funds are raised for the charity Woman in Need in over 70 countries around the world which take part in the pageant. Tatyana Lavrinovic was crowned Mrs. Globe 2018 at the international contest on December 2 in Shenzhen, China. Uplive USA ambassador Tatiana Sidorova also competed at the event and was on the semifinalist round and won the title of "Mentor of the Year". She is originally from Chisinau, Moldova and now lives in Windermere, Florida. She is a Wife and Mother Of 2 beautiful children and is being sponsored by Uplive to compete with 64 other contestants for the Crown of Mrs.Globe 2018 in Shenzhen, China. Tatiana won the Crown of Mrs. Moldova Globe for 2018. Tatiana is a Model for numerous platforms, an Influencer and a Host and a Talent Manager for UpLive USA. Mrs. Globe pageant has been operating now for over twenty years with an emphasis on Empowering, encouraging and supporting women through Purpose! The president of Mrs. Globe, Tracy Kemble is a well acclaimed emotional wellness expert and uses the platform of Mrs.Globe for the lagest fundrasier of the entire W.I.N foundation. Raising money for domestic abuse recovery. Mrs Tatiana regularly streams on Uplive USA and has accumulated a lot of fans. "I really love Uplive because the team is so supportive. They go out of their ways to welcome me into the community," Mrs Tatiana said, "During my trip to China, I was so welcomed by Uplive Hong Kong team. They came to visit me in Shenzhen, sent me gifts, arranged photographer, videographer and even arranged media to interview me. Their support is just incredible." Uplive is the largest mobile live video platform in the world outside of China with 60Mn+ users and $200Mn+ revenue generated to date, and is AIG's flagship global brand. Launched in July 2016 and now operating in five key regions: Greater China, East and South East Asia, Pan India, Middle East and Africa, and the USA. Childrens books by prominent politicians affiliated with the Democratic party are nothing new. After all, in 2006, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) wrote My Senator and Me: A Dogs Eye View of Washington, D.C., a picture book illustrated by David Small (Scholastic). More recently, in 2017, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) wrote a picture book edition of her bestselling 1996 memoir, It Takes a Village, illustrated by Marla Frazee (S&S/Wiseman); that same year, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote the Bernie Sanders Guide to Revolution (Holt). Even a U.S. President has jumped on the publishing-books-for-children bandwagon: in 2010, Barack Obama wrote Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, illustrated by Loren Long (Knopf). This fall and into 2019, two sitting U.S. senatorsboth of whom are Democrats, and whose names have been bandied about as possible presidential contenders in 2020have written childrens books. While one senators book has already been released, the other senators first childrens book will drop after the holidays; her second childrens book will be released later on in 2019. Last month, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) wrote Bold & Brave, illustrated by Maira Kalman (Knopf), a picture book examining 10 suffragists who fought for womens right to vote (the 19th Amendment, giving women this right, was passed in 1920). According to a statement provided to PW by her publisher, Gillibrand was inspired to write the book because her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother all were bold and brave and taught her to stand up and fight for what she believes in and values. But who inspired them? Gillibrand asks in her authors statement, The long chain of women before them who spoke out for whats rightwomen who taught each generation that followed how to be bold and brave. The suffragists profiled in Bold & Brave are Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Jovita Idar, Alice Paul, Inez Milholland, Ida B. Wells, Lucy Burns, and Mary Church Terrell. Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) isnt publishing just one book in 2019: she is publishing three, beginning with a picture book memoir, Superheroes Are Everywhere, illustrated by Mechal Renee Roe (Philomel, Jan.). The book will be published concurrently with Senator Harriss memoir for adults, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (Penguin Press). Penguin Young Readers will release a middle grade adaptation of The Truths We Hold later in 2019. In Superheroes Are Everywhere, Harris emphasizes that anyone can be a hero to the people in their lives and can do their bit to make the world a better place. In both editions of The Truths We Hold, Harris shares stories of the family, friends, and public figures who have inspired her, from her childhood in Oakland, Calif., until the present day. In a release sent to the media by the publisher, Senator Harris stated that she wrote Superheroes Are Everywhere and the young readers edition of The Truths We Hold because I have such hope for the future of our country and the generation of children who will grow to inherit it. Im so happy to share my story with them in the hope that it will empower young people to become caring, thoughtful, passionate citizens who want to make a positive impact on the world. While Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)another Democrat whose name has also popped up in speculation about 2020 presidential candidatesdid not write a book, she wrote the foreword for Nevertheless, We Persisted, edited by In This Together Media (Knopf, Sept.). In this collection of 48 essays, prominent figures in various fieldsactors, activists, athletes, musicians, and writersrecount an incident in their youth when someone tried to hold them back because of their race, gender, or sexual identitybut, nevertheless, they, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, persisted. (The title comes from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells words following his silencing of Senator Warren on the Senate floor during the 2017 confirmation hearings for Attorney General Jeff Sessions.) In her foreword, Klobuchar discusses what its like to be a woman in the U.S. Senate, disclosing that while there have been 2,000 men in the Senate since our nations founding, only 50 women have served there to date. The women of the Senate have all beaten the odds, Klobuchar writes. Theyre all determined to get things done for the American people. And Id add that not one of them is afraid to take chances, andeven more importantlynone is afraid to fail. Because, Klobuchar insists, failure is a big part of persisting. After all, just as so many people who have stood up for what they believe have done, Klobuchar concludes, the only real way to make a difference is to keep working, keep fighting, and keep persisting. Not only are politicians writing childrens books, but books for children touting the virtues of responsible citizenship are also being released to take advantage of the highly politicized zeitgeist following the 2016 presidential election. In September, Roaring Book Press issued an updated edition of When You Grow Up to Vote by Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote the book in 1932, the year her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was elected to his first term as president. When You Grow Up to Vote is newly illustrated by Grace Lin, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan before she was born in upstate New York. According to Katherine Jacobs, senior editor at Roaring Brook, Eleanor Roosevelt published this book when people across the country felt disenfranchised and let down by their government. The book is her call to the next generation to participate in government, to be informed and engaged citizensa message that is remarkably relevant today. In addition, Eleanor Roosevelt herself was very devoted to the cause of both womens rights and civil rights; shes a figure we would do well to remember and listen to in our own age of wrestling with these same issues. Along the same lines as Roosevelt more than 85 years ago, Dave Eggers wrote What Can a Citizen Do?, which is illustrated by Shawn Harris (Chronicle). The picture book provides children with examples of all the things people can do in order to be good citizens. For some reason, in the fall of 2016, the idea of civic responsibility was on my mind. I cant recall what was happening in the country then, but there must have been something in the wind, Eggers told PW, when asked what had inspired him to take such a departure from his usual creative pursuits. My picture book is simple on its face, but I tried to sneak in a radical idea, which is that the world is larger than any one persons selfhoodthat we have a responsibility to the whole, he added. In recognition that Americans have become more and more polarized in recent years, next April Sourcebooks/Little Pickle Press will publish What Does It Mean to Be American?, written by Rana DiOrio and Elad Yoran, illustrated by Nina Mata, as part of its ongoing What Does It Mean to Be ? series. What Does It Mean to Be American? celebrates our common bonds as Americans, despite our various political views. In fact, Heather Moore, marketing director at Sourcebooks, pointed out: the two authors walk their talk. While DiOrio is liberal in her politics, Yoran, a longtime friend of hers who suggested 10 years ago that DiOrio should write such a book, is conservative in his leanings. While politics seem to divide our country into the two opposing teams of red and blue, one truth remains: we are all Americans, the co-authors declare. But what does that mean? [What Does It Mean to Be American?] provides a nonpartisan point of view perfect for any and all Americans who are proud of who they areand where they come from, regardless of their political views. After all, the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, founded upon the principle that all who live in this country should enjoy the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. The brand-new California childrens publisher Bushel & Peck Books has raised more than $35,000 from nearly 400 backers on Kickstarter this month, inching toward the start-ups goal of raising $75,000 to help produce its first season of childrens books. Originally, the campaign was scheduled to end on December 20, but the publisher decided this week to transition from a 30-day campaign window to a 60-day window on the crowdfunding platform. The Kickstarter campaign introduced the new publisher to the world, and the funds will jump-start its book production. The Kickstarter campaign has an altruistic goal at its corefor every book sold, the publisher will donate a book to a charity that provides books to kids in need. I love making books, but it bothers me that childrens books are too expensive for many people, said publisher and founder David Miles. He cited a 2001 study that discovered a now infamous disparity in literary access. In one low-income neighborhood, there was only one childrens book for every 300 kids. Bushel & Peck aims to send copies of its books to communities in need through groups including Book Aid International, The Book Foundation, Pajama Program, Books for Africa, Project Night Night, and Room to Read. In the first 48 hours after its November 20 Kickstarter launch, Bushel & Peck raised nearly $10,000 for its campaign and became Kickstarters top new publishing project. Backers from England, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Russia, and the United States have responded to the call, helping to fund the Fresno-based companys ambitions. The local City Council even reached out, hoping to enlist the publishers help in a book drive. Miles has worked on all sides of the publishing equation: as a graphic designer, author, illustrator, and creative director. Most recently, he served as the publishing director for Familius, becoming a 2018 PW Star Watch honoree for his work. Familius made PWs Fastest Growing Independent Publishers list for 2018, with its sales growing 104% in two years. Bushel & Peck will begin publishing with four hardcover childrens books, a set of collaborative works that involved around 20 authors and illustrators. These include 50 Real Heroes for Boys and Yes You Can! 1,000 Heroes for Girls Who Dream, two nonfiction titles meant to inspire kids and reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of 21st-century readers. The publishers other two titles are meant to create a more participatory experience for the reader. The Interactive Constitution will contain flaps, wheels, color-changing words, and other features, and Songs for Sweet Dreams will include its own music player so readers can listen to sound clips from J. Aaron Browns Grammy-nominated album, A Childs Gift of Lullabyes (1986). I love bringing ideas to life and really pushing what a book is, said Miles. Well be doing a lot of those kinds of projects in the future. The Kickstarter campaign has given the start-up publisher a chance to interact directly with readers, months before the projected August 2019 delivery date of the first books. This made a huge difference for 50 Real Heroes for Boys. The book was conceived as focusing solely on male heroes that defied the traditional male stereotypes, according to Miles. However, some visitors who discovered the publishers Kickstarter campaign observed that the concept was too narrow. The publishing team listened to these early visitors. We decided to overhaul the book, said Miles. So now its half men and half women. The male heroes show a broader spectrum of what a boy can grow up to be, but now there are lots of girls heroes too. For a pledge of $25 or more, Kickstarter backers can choose one of the four titles, and one copy of that same book will be donated to a child in need. For $90 or more, readers can get copies of all four books (along with four books donated). Beyond these packages, Kickstarter backers are offered a range of other opportunities. When patrons pledge $1,000 or more to the campaign, they can actually have an illustration of their favorite child included in one of the publishers first titles. For a pledge of $79 or more, aspiring writers or illustrators can get a 45-minute manuscript consultation with Miles. Bushel & Peck Books is a true family affair. Davids wife Stephanie leads the companys charitable-giving initiative, but also manages outreach. My wife has the grounded brains that keep our ideas rooted in reality, Miles said. And the couples eight-year-old son Tucker serves as first reader for all content. He loves watching the company grow, said Miles. We asked the authors of our top 10 books of 2018 to share their favorite titles published this year. Gina Apostol Apostols Insurrecto (Soho) is a novel of staggering imagination about two women who write dueling film scripts about the Philippine-American War while on a road trip to the town of Balangiga, the site of a violent conflict between occupying American forces and Filipinos in 1901. Apostol picks a debut novel that follows a Filipino family through three generations. Apostols Pick: America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo (Viking) Do not start America Is Not the Heart when youre in the middle of other things. I could not put it down. Its addictive. Im trying to figure out why. Its like this Dickensian text about Filipino garage parties and lesbian coming-of-age moments in hair salons in Milpitas, Calif., instead of about Cheapside of London or the prison melodramas of Victorian Westminster courts. The novel genre once revolutionized English literature by its laser focus on quotidian lower-middle-class life. And the exquisite close scrutiny and loving detail that Castillo casts on the minutiae of immigrant community life in Milpitas occur to me as such a revolution. She commands us to invest in this Filipino communitys bonds, because the most ordinary aspects of its lifeits pancit eating, garage-band stylings, home cookingaccording to Castillo, are obdurately America. The immigrant life in America Is Not the Heart is Americas powerful story. But also, for me, what distinguishes Castillos novel is its focus on love and communalityin my view, the heart of its ethical grace and its tonal power. Perhaps this strikes me because that is what I, too, most treasure about my Filipino life: the ways we survive because of the bonds that tie us, however messy those bonds are. This novels emotional tone is not primarily the angst of migration, the horror of family separation, or nostalgia for lost homelandsthough it possesses all of the above. Most startlingly, the novel rests on love, especially love among people whove created family bonds not necessarily by blood but by need, by desire, and by a personal sense of justice. There are two heroes in the novel, both women, both named GeronimaHero, the rebel-immigrant who falls in love at the hair salon, and Roni, the Filipino-American child, a fiercely individual portraitand both, in my view, are particular triumphs in this novel. Roni is pitch-perfect, sounded in an unsentimental, unconquered voice, confident of her centrality in her complex, American place. There is nothing abstract about America Is Not the Heartits most compelling narrative virtue. But in its ethical understanding of what true community is, the novel returns to us the ideals of this republic: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, bound in pancit dinners and heroic, ordinary, familial love. Lisa Halliday Hallidays debut novel, Asymmetry (Simon & Schuster), boldly and brilliantly juxtaposes the dreamworld of Alice, a young book editor who embarks on a relationship with an older, prize-winning novelist in Manhattan, alongside the harsh reality of Amar, an Iraqi-American economist detained at Heathrow on the way to visit his family in Iraq. Hallidays selection is an omnibus of George Orwells writing on democracy, propaganda, and more. Hallidays Pick: Orwell on Truth by George Orwell (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) We tend to regard historical perspective as useful, healthy, a balm for the heartache or anxiety of the present. Often perspective informs us that the present is not so different from the past, tempting us to conclude that if humanity survived earlier iterations of this mess, then we are likely to survive the current one, too. But of course, there are many possible scenarios between survival and nonsurvival, and arguably some are to be dreaded more than nonsurvival itself. History may repeat, but its not periodic in the same seemingly inexorable way that a planet orbits the sun. History repeats because we let it or because we want it to, or because we dont want it to but we dont know how to stop it. Perspective, then, becomes more important than a balm: it becomes imperative, the best means we have to predict consequences and avoid familiar mistakes. Ive been an Orwell acolyte ever since reading Down and Out in Paris and London, which contains a sublime line about the grand turmoil of supper at a Parisian hotel: I wish I could be Zola for a little while, to describe that dinner hour. What a revelation, this superefficient little sentence that manages to be homage, humility, and vivid incantation all at once. I didnt know it was possible to write like that, I thought when I read it the first timea confession echoed verbatim in Adam Hochschilds introduction to the new anthology Orwell on Truth. A distillation of passages from Orwells writing on imperialism, nationalism, socialism, fascism, journalism, surveillance, democracy, propaganda, and the power of the lie, this unnervingly relevant omnibus should be on every reading stack, every syllabus, every desk from Washington to Silicon Valley and beyond. It is an age of partisanship and not of detachment, an age in which it is especially difficult to see literary merit in a book whose conclusions you disagree with, Orwell said in a speech entitled Literature and Totalitarianism, broadcast by the BBC in 1941. And: The first thing that we ask of a writer is that he shant tell lies. There can be great beauty in truth-telling, in finding an aesthetic solution that is both honest and elegant, curious and explicit, discerning and deferential to all that is unknowable. Orwells language is a balm; the perspective he provides is worrying. That probably means we should heed it all the more. Kiese Laymon Heavy: An American Memoir (Scribner) is Laymons powerful examination of his experience of being black in America, including his lifelong struggles with weight and gambling, and his relationships with his grandmother and mother (to whom the book is addressed). For his pick, Laymon selects an anthology of essays about rape, assault, and harassment. Laymons Pick: Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, edited by Roxane Gay (Harper Perennial) Not That Bad was the rare anthology that came right on time. Not a little late, not a little too soon. Right on time. One could argue that a thorough, rigorous collection of essays exploring our survival of, and brutal dependence on, rape culture is always timely. And one might be right. But reading these authors courageously curated by Gay, I got the sense that the authors, more than being inspired by the current movement to confront sexual violence, have wanted and needed to craft these essays for years. Now, for better and worse, the nation finally seems ready to wholly invest in the various shapes, consequences, and whys of the sexual violence epidemic in this country and its normalcy. This book will last, and it will also establish many of the writers as artists we long for when the nation obsessively chooses sanctioning violence over sanctioning structural, communal, and interpersonal liberation. At least 10 times in the book, I shook my head, because I have neither the skill nor the will to artfully render experience and imagination the way these authors did. Gays brilliantly textured work in fiction, nonfiction, comics, film, TV, and Twitter will outlast all of our children and grandchildren, but her commitment to step to power while generously making paths for other hungry, incisive writers is what truly distinguishes her from the greatest writers and curators of our generation. Sarah Perry In Perrys stellar gothic novel Melmoth (Custom House), translator Helen Franklin lives in Prague and attempts to atone for a wrong she committed decades earlier. Helen reads about Melmoththe specter of a woman who denied the sight of the risen Christ and was cursed to wander the Earth, haunting culpable individuals throughout historyand soon finds herself being followed. Perrys selection is a reimagining of King Lear in contemporary India. Perrys Pick: We That Are Young by Preti Taneja (Knopf) I read several excellent new novels this year, but Preti Tanejas We That Are Young was perhaps the most vivid, ambitious, and memorable. It transplants Shakespeares King Lear to contemporary India, and so much of the fun lies in finding the cunning ways in which Taneja references the play (and yes: the squeamish should be alert for the scene in which eyes are put out). Taneja envisions Lear as Devraj, a powerful and capricious man at the head of the Corporation, an immense company that reaches from Indias moneyed classes to those still at the mercy of what remains of the caste system. When Devraj resigns on a whim, he divides the Corporations assets between his two elder daughters, while the youngesta recognizably pious iteration of Cordeliaruns away. There are a good many successful novels that have a kind of Orientalist feel for Indiamangoes and hotels and overcrowded trains, and so onbut ones that with minute care and attention evoke a realist depiction of contemporary Indian culture are harder to come by. One of the novels great joys is the particularity of its material details: mobile phones, designer brands, embroidered saris, cars, food, and architecture are so richly and precisely described the effect is like that of reading Dickens on London. And if the plot is appropriately melodramatic at times, there is psychological realism, too: each of the daughters is given her own perspective, and each is entirely convincing. That a debut novelist would attempt such a task is admirableto pull it off so magnificently is awe-inspiring, frankly. Bob Spitz Reagan: An American Journey (Penguin Press) is Spitzs captivating biography of Reagan from his Midwest youth to the Oval Office, complete with numerous interviews with a wide array of Reagan cohorts. Spitz selects a novel that relieved the brain drain of working on a presidential biography. Spitzs Pick: Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart (Random House) Working on a presidential biography requires endless years of poring through dense political tracts, memoirs, and miles of government files. To relieve the brain drain, I depend on the magic of novels to help transport me into lives and worlds far away from the reality of Washingtons intrigues. The gems turn me inside out and occasionally make me reevaluate my own place in the universe, which is how I felt after reading Shteyngarts Lake Success. Shteyngart is a tantalizing talent with imagination to burn. Few writers have the sureness of touch and the subtlety of style necessary to deliver a dark, wickedly funny story that, in lesser hands, might read like burlesque. Barry Cohen, the protagonistor is he the villain?is a soulless one-percenter on the lam from a federal subpoena, a failed marriage, and an autistic son whose demands elude Barrys idea of fatherhood. The upshot is an ill-conceived cross-country Greyhound bus trip, ostensibly to connect with real Americans, but the specter of disaster hangs over it like a guillotine blade. There is real pain in this bittersweet tale of unsurpassable wit and intelligence that deeds Shteyngart the literary terrain left by Philip Roth. Juan Gabriel Vasquez Vasquez is author, narrator, and protagonist of The Shape of the Ruins (Riverhead), an ingenious novel in which he is pulled into a web of potential conspiracy in Colombia by a radio host who claims to have proof of links between the assassinations of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan (in 1948) and General Rafael Uribe Uribe (in 1914). Vasquez selects a study of the impact of fear in the current political climate. Vasquezs Pick: The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis by Martha Nussbaum (Simon & Schuster) Nussbaum has spent much of her intellectual life exploring the role of emotions in our political discourse. Several times, before the publication of this book, I caught myself thinking how she would make sense of the present situation, where emotions have run amok. After all, that is what post-truth is: a narrative of our experience in which verifiable truths have been replaced by emotional falsifications. The Monarchy of Fear is the book that I was expecting her to write: a learned and urgent meditation on the one emotion that seems to be informing or contaminating public conversation in America as well as (much to our dismay) in the rest of the world. Nussbaum is very good at establishing the links between fear and tributary emotions such as anger and envy; but my favorite pages are the ones that discuss sexism and misogyny, their overlooked differences, their unholy alliance in Trumpland. In the book, fear is a monarchical emotion in that it is by nature antidemocratic: it corrodes democratic impulses such as equality and tolerance, it closes down curiosity about others, it feeds off and reinforces narcissism. I read The Monarchy of Fear with a sense of unreality, as the 45th presidenta racist, misogynistic narcissist, all traits discussed at length in the bookcarried out an unprecedented campaign of fear that seemed designed to confirm Nussbaums worst-case scenarios. In that sense, the book is not only prescient: it is a users manual for the present day. Carl Zimmer In She Has Her Mothers Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity (Dutton), Zimmer presents a comprehensive, magisterial examination of virtually all aspects of the study of heredity, including eugenics and the emerging science of epigenetics. Zimmers choice is about the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and genetics. Zimmers Pick: Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are by Kevin J. Mitchell (Princeton Univ.) We inherit a vast tangle of DNA from our parents. It contains about 20,000 protein-coding genes, along with millions of molecular on-off switches that control them. As we develop from fertilized eggs onward, our multiplying cells use those genes for, among other things, building our brains. These days, scientists are peering into this awesome unfolding and discovering all manner of mysteries. In the 1990s, it cost researchers about $3 billion to sequence a single human genome sequence. Now it costs about $1,000, and the cost is dropping fast. As scientists sequence the genomes of millions of people, they can also see how DNA behaves inside living cells. And they can observe those cells in action, whether theyre self-organizing into a brain or communicating signals to one another. Yet, despite all this new knowledge, genes, brains, and behavior remain the subjects of bitter cultural battles. Some people claim that genetic differences explain why some people succeed and others dont, while others claim that the very notion of intelligence is a social fiction with no biological meaning. Others claim that the new science of epigenetics means that genes dont matter a whit. At Google and elsewhere, a growing chorus invokes biology to explain away some of the disparities in technology and other fields between men and women. A lot of these bold assertions are wrong. In recent years, Mitchell, a neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin, has been setting the record straight, either on his blog, Wiring the Brain, or on his Twitter account, @wiringthebrain. Now, Mitchell has moved beyond those tight confines to write a book. Innate is the best guide to the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and genetics that Ive found in recent years. Genetic variants really do matter to how our brains work, Mitchell explains, but its not as if our brains are the reliable product of some simple blueprint encoded in our DNA. To a surprising extent, our brains turn out the way they do thanks simply to chance. If theres any question you have about how our brains make us who we are, chances are youll find an enlightening answer in Innate. His comment comes after reports suggested that the majority shareholders of the bank had taken this decision. But the Managing Director of the stock exchange, Kofi Yamoah emphasised that this is not true. In an interview with Accra-based Citi FM Mr Yamoah said: I have been privy to conversations on this subject matter and the impression I get from the shareholders is that this has never crossed their minds so I shouldnt take it from that angle. I have not heard the news but in conversations that I am privy to, the emphasis is that the company will continue to be listed, he added. The rumours that adb will be delisted comes after the shareholders of the bank had changed. This is because the former private shareholders; Belstar capital, EDC Investments, Starmount Limited as well as SIC Financial services limited, have all lost their stake to the Bank of Ghana and the Government of Ghana as major shareholders. adb is currently working to meet the Minimum Capital Requirement of GHC400 million. To raise the amount needed so their license is not withdrawn the bank will convert a subordinated debt of GHC150 million owed the Bank of Ghana into equity. Meanwhile, the bank is expected to hold an Annual General Meeting where it will seek approval of shareholders to raise 383 million in renounceable rights to issue. Mr. Yamoah said he hopes the exercise goes as expected despite the limited time to the recapitalisation deadline of December 31. I am working with the minister of finance to make sure that hopefully by 2020 we can put a smartphone in the hands of all citizens in this country, even in our rural communities. It should be possible to manufacture and assemble those devices locally. So Im using this medium to invite those who are interested in partnering with the government to come. Even though the one district one Factory facility, we can set up computer and devices assembly plants in this country, which will supply not just our country, but the entire sub-region as well. Thats an opportunity right there, she added. She was speaking after she donated computers to schools in the Ablekuma West constituency where she is the Member of Parliament (MP). She explained that this is part of the governments agenda to build a digital economy. This is a national exercise that we are rolling out around the country. Even our persons with disability, blind citizens are also being equipped with computers and special software to be able to use normal computers and not just braille computers. Under AFCFTA, Africa is seeking to build a single integrated market of over one billion people with a combined GDP of approximately $3.3 trillion, which is a key project of the African Union agenda 2063 49 countries have signed the agreement and eight countries, including Ghana, have consented to the agreement. The agreement will be implemented when the twenty-two (22) countries deposit their instruments of ratification. Mr Kyeremanten who spoke to reporters concerning the agreement said there had been general agreement within the framework of the AFCFTA and that there would be a general 90 per cent of tariff liberalisation, which has already been agreed. The minister said that 10 per cent of the goods and services that would not be liberalised in terms of tariffs had also been agreed and categorised into sensitive products and products that would be excluded. According to reports, after her true colours came to light, the woman identified as Ada Nwachukwu disclosed to the police that she had come all the way from Orlu in Imo state to hustle for Christmas. She further revealed to Police officers in Delta State who arrested her that she had already made N3,270 from the fake blindness as at the time of her arrest. READ ALSO: Sex scandals of the year The con woman was nabbed at Jakpa junction of the state. Apparently, she was using a little girl believed to be her daughter as her 'guide girl'. It is not clear whether her arrest was influenced by a tip-off. That was the reason why a Zimbabwean bride chose not to show up at the wedding venue where she was supposed to have been married to her groom who happens to be a pastor. H-Metro reported that Naume Mangwarira left Apostle Samuel Kaundaand his family at their supposed wedding venue in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. The said marriage was reportedly put off several times because of indecision on the part of Naume Mangwarira. However, her family, according to reports, had tried several times to impress on her to ignore all the inauspicious signals and get married to the man who she referred to as violent and abusive. ece-auto-gen Her family was in a tight corner because her bride price had been paid to them as far back as in August. Despite the pressure from family, Naume, the Midlands State University student and daughter to one of the church elders insisted that she would not undecidedly tie the knot with the founder of Glory House Ministries The bride who attends Full Gospel Church reportedly said that she has refused to give false vows before a marriage officer. Her reason was that the pastor was very abusive and violent that she decided to wait until she finds another loving husband than sacrificing to start a home on such an unholy foundation. She threatened to humiliate everyone if they insisted on forcing her to get to the wedding venue. It is now the talk of the town and circulating on social media, a source is quoted as having said. A video emerged online which showed him narrating to a police officer on a routine patrol shift that it was only when he attempted to snort the cocaine that he realised the plastic baggy his dealer had handed over to him contained flour. In the funny video, the addict approached the officer and said: "I am from La Porra, I came to get my drugs, boss. "And I want to file a report because theyve given me flour, boss." ece-auto-gen The man who appeared bent on recovering his true cocaine asked the police officer to help him out. "Help me out with that, boss, because one comes here to get his drugs and they give you flour," he claimed. Meanwhile, it is understandable why a civilian could have such an audacity to approach a police officer to report on a cocaine related matter involving him. According to Article 299 of the Peruvian Penal Code, it is legal in the South American country to possess up to two grams of cocaine or at least five grams of coca paste for personal use. Per the laws of that country, planting coca plants which is the material used for making cocaine is legal. Reports say a white woman filed a complaint with the police claiming that the said suspects had scammed her. The video shows a group of both uniformed and plain-clothed police officers together with the complainant and other white relatives besieging the home of the suspects. The officers are also seen vandalising the doors and making their way into the house. As they arrested some of the suspects, they could be seen slapping them as though they had already been convicted for the suspected crime. The activities of internet fraudsters is a disturbing trend globally which the Ghana police service has been making efforts to combat. However, the assault on the suspects have shifted the focus of Ghanaians from the crime for which they have been arrested. Commenting on the video on Instagram, some users attacked the police for kissing the ass of white a complainant by mistreating the suspects. Built by a Ghanaian international upstream oil and gas service company, Amaja Oil Fields, the mall sits on a staggering 11,000 square metres of land and currently employs 1,000 people in various units. The Takoradi mall is expected to increase commercial and economic activities in the Region, as well as provide jobs. READ MORE: Part of Kumasi City mall collapses Mrs Samira Bawumia, the Second Lady who graced the occasion, said the country's transformational agenda was a shared responsibility in which the private sector had a big role to play. She urged the private sector to invest in other areas such as health care, education and agriculture to push the growth agenda even faster. She stated that "The burden of prosperity we constantly seek as a people can no longer be carried by government alone; let us all join hands to create jobs and opportunities for our people." "The farmers, I am told, have undergone special training and also provided with seedlings to grow fruits and vegetables locally to be sold in the mall," Mrs Bawumia said. According to her, "I have no doubt that the Takoradi Mall is capable of injecting renewed energy in the manufacturing industry while creating local entrepreneurs and boosting spending in the region." She said the government is creating a conducive and enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. "I therefore urge private sector players to take advantage of governments policies and programmes to create more jobs and opportunities for our people," she noted. He was reportedly shot dead by unknown gunmen on Thursday afternoon at Dodowa in the Shai Osudoku District. ece-auto-gen READ ALSO: Drones not a priority if leaders still travel abroad for treatment Ken AgyapongDrones not a priority if leaders still travel abroad for treatment Ken Agyapong Nene Atsure Benta III was returning to from a meeting at the Dodowa House of Chiefs when the incident happened. Accra-based Citi FM reports that the murder of the Mankralo might be linked to some chieftaincy issues at Prampram. ece-auto-gen Hours before his death, some elders of the Prampram Mankralo stool, led by Mankralo Nii Nartey IV, held a press conference at Ashaiman where they leveled some allegations against the deceased. Nii Nartey IV, who claims to be the stool father to the Mankralo said the deceased for some time now had failed to perform the necessary rites and functions required of him as a Mankralo. He also accused Nene Atsure Benta III of constantly disrespecting him (Nii Nartey) as the stool father. ece-auto-gen Nene Atsure Benta for some time now has failed to perform his core duties as Mankralo and he has failed to respect the elders of the stool. So, as the stool father together with some priests and priestesses as well as some elders of the stool, we went to the family house to destool him on Wednesday afternoon, he told the media. READ ALSO: NACOB arrests Zimbabwean drug traffickerNACOB arrests Zimbabwean drug trafficker Few moments after we had performed the destoolment rites, Nene Atsure Benta led a team of well-built men believed to be land guards to my house and launched severe attack on me. They drew me on the floor from my house to the roadside. The land guards who were working on the orders of Nene Atsure Benta fired some warning shots and threated to kill me if I did not reverse the destoolment rites. For the fear of my life, I obliged and followed them to the family house to perform some rites, Nii Nartey IV added. According him, his administration, over the last twenty-three months, has strengthened the Ghanaian macroeconomy, and has brought back discipline in the management of the public finances of the country, even though the country was under the aegis of an IMF programme. "I believe the decisions we took initially have paid off. We saw, for the first year, a turnaround in the growth of the economy. A 3.6% growth (in 2016) ended up with an 8.5% growth (in 2017). We are projecting that, this year, we will be somewhere around 7.9% rate of growth, and the same projection is being made for next year as wel," the President said. He continued, "We brought the deficit down initially to 5.9% (in 2017), it will be 4.9% this year, and with the projection that, next year, it will be 4.5%. We want to get into a situation where, when we finish with the IMF programme this year, we will organize our public finances in such a way that we will never have to go back under an IMF programme." He made this known on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, when he addressed a joint Ghana Investment Promotion Centre/Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Summit, in Tokyo. With Parliament set to pass a fiscal rule, which will ensure that no government exceeds a deficit of 5% every year," the President explained that all of these are being done to "attract investment into our country, and this is the reason why we are very determined to renew the relations that we have with Japan." He told the gathering, made up of Chief Executive Officers of some of the most important organisations in Japan, that the Japanese model of development is the most appropriate model of development for Ghana, as it requires significant investment in education, the development of the countrys human resources and infrastructure, and the growth of the industrial and agricultural sectors. Agriculture, through the programme for 'Planting for Food and Jobs', President Akufo-Addo said is beginning to witness a significant revival, evident in the 8.4% growth rate recorded in the sector in 2017. "We are witnessing, for the first time, significant production of the staples in the country. Ghana has begun, again, to be an exporter of foodstuffs, which was inconceivable and unheard of two or three years ago. Agriculture also as a link for the industrialization of our country is extremely important," he added. Reiterating the importance of having a very clear programme for industrial development in Ghana, the President stated that raw material producing and exporting countries cannot fit the purposes of the 21st century. "It requires therefore that we take the measures that will reform and restructure the Ghanaian economy in such a way as to make industrial activity and the making of things a central part of our economy. So those are economic policies that we are putting in place and opening up the country for more and more investments," he added. One of the best performing democracies To the Japanese companies present, President Akufo-Addo urged them to bear in mind that Ghana is one of the most performing democracies on the African continent. "In the last 25 years, we have had strong stability in the State; we have had three changes of governments at the ballot box which has not shaken the foundations of the Ghanaian state, the last is what brought me to office in 2016; the multiparty democratic system has become well-entrenched in our country, and our people are comfortable with operating a system of rule of law and the principles of democratic accountability," he added. This, the President noted, "means that Japanese businesses in Ghana can have the security of operating in a climate of the rule of law, the rule of law worded on a system of separation of powers." Accra-based Starr FM reports that the group stormed the NHIA office on Wednesday and chased out the Manager, Emmanuel Martey. READ ALSO: Sahel Region of Africa call for action against child marriage The vigilante group, which is affiliated to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), went on to lock the offices. Reports suggest that they unlocked the office on Thursday after a closed-door meeting with the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the Area, Ebenezer Tetteh Kupoualor, but returned later to cause more havoc. It is believed that the attack was triggered by some YiIo Krobo Constituency Executives and Supporters of the NPP, who want the embattled NHIA manager replaced by an indigene. We have qualified persons here in Yilo Krobo who fought hard for the party to come to power so why should we bring someone from Upper Manya to head NHIA, one of the brains behind the invasion told Starr FM. We will not allow this to happen. They should establish NHIA office in Upper Manya for him, for us here he cannot work here. READ ALSO: Madina drivers protest against mounting of toll booths Meanwhile, the NHIA has suspended its operations for fear of the safety of its staff. The initiative will provide aid to African countries without discrimination and direct focus on priorities such as job creation, trade and countering terrorism. Here are the key highlights of the Trump administrations foreign policy statement: 1. The Prosper Africa initiative will support open markets for American businesses, grow Africas middle class, promote youth employment opportunities, and improve the business climate. 2. Supporting economic growth and development in Africa delivers mutual benefits to the United States and African partners. 3. The President will use the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to promote deeper trade ties and fair trade with sub-Saharan African states. 4. America will encourage African leaders to choose sustainable foreign investments that help states become self-reliant, unlike those offered by China that impose undue costs. ece-auto-gen 5. The United States will continue to help our African allies build security forces to counter these threats and strengthen the rule of law and support African ownership of responses to regional security threats. 6. The Administration will support effective United Nations peacekeeping operations while seeking to reconfigure or end operations that do not meet their goals or facilitate lasting peace. 7. The Trump Administration will review and realign United States foreign-assistance programs to ensure efforts are effective. 8. Foreign assistance from the United States will concentrate on states that promote democratic ideals, support fiscal transparency, and undertake economic reforms and out priorities that will advance sustainability and self-reliance in certain African states. Disrupt Africas African Tech Startups Funding Report 2017 revealed that African tech startups raised funding in excess of $195 million in 2017, with sector-specific research indicating that 45 fintech start-ups received almost a third of the funding. Fintech innovation in Africa goes beyond just having a bank account. Here, we look at some of the different areas this sector is addressing and whos doing what, in what has been a landmark year for tech & finance across Africa. PAYMENTS The payments ecosystem in Africa is evolving and were seeing a shift where African consumers are turning to make online transactions as opposed to the traditional cash. As a result, merchants are turning to digital payments service providers, and this has not gone unnoticed by investors, whove dug deep this year to ensure they are powering the players whove amassed sizeable client bases, such as Cellulant ($47.5m Series C), Flutterwave ($20m Series A), Ecobank Mobile App and Paystack ($8m Series A) to help them meet this growing demand from consumers. In South Africa, where credit card penetration is extremely high compared to the rest of the continent, POS payments provider, Yoco ($16m Series B), simplifies commerce for SMBs by providing access to affordable card readers. Additionally, there are new players who are distinguishing themselves from pre-existing payment providers; Tanzanias NALA with their offline functionalities and South Africas WhatsApp Chat Banking Clickatell, both of whom are 2018 winners of AppsAfrica Awards. ece-auto-gen CREDIT AS A SERVICE One solution that has taken the Fintech sector by storm across Africa is access to credit. Without a form of credit score or repayment history, banks and lenders lower their risk by holding assets as collateral in the case of default payments, cutting off potential low and middle-income borrowers. Over the past two years, a growing number of micro-lending platforms have emerged with the aim of determining the creditworthiness of consumers. By collecting data about phone owners, startups such as Stawika, JUMO ($52m), Paylater, Branch ($70 million Series B) and Mines ($13 million Series A) are serving those who lack access to bank accounts and assets by finding other tangible means of building a financial profile of customers. By doing so, credit as a service is offering a lifeline to potentially hundreds of thousands of people who may be in need of some money before payday. SAVINGS Savings across Africa have generally taken the more traditional route such as storing cash in a hidden place, or through an informal savings club, popularly known as Esusu. The rise of mobile has also seen a growing number of fintech players, who are bridging the gap between informal and formal savings. Some examples are Piggybank.ng who, just one year out of Googles Launchpad Accelerator closed on a $1.1m Seed round, and aim to promote a savings culture among Nigerian millennials by automating the process of saving and restricting withdrawals until a date set by the user. Another similar digital savings app is Kolopay, who allow users to save from multiple accounts and have integrated an e-commerce feature. As well as providing credit to lenders, JUMO also helps individuals and small businesses access savings. MOBILE MONEY INTEROPERABILITY The popularity of feature phones, as well as the affordability of smartphone devices, is driving the digitisation of cash and growing digital payment options in Africa. As mobile money grows, weve seen money transfer services such as MFS Africa ($4.5m Series B) and M-Pesa drive financial inclusion across the continent by connecting African mobile wallets to each other. Recently, two of Africas mobile operators and mobile money providers, Orange Group and MTN Group, joined forces to launch Mowali, a mobile wallet interoperability, which allows users to send money between mobile money accounts across any mobile money provider. As more companies make mobile money interoperability a reality, digital payments across Africa will become easier and more common. Whilst investors are looking for the next big thing to drive innovation in Africa, Fintech still remains at the forefront for investment. For now. As Fintech startups continue to underpin consumers daily transactions, not only have they attracted a high calibre of global investors (i.e. TPG Growth & Partech Ventures), but local investors and high net worth individuals are also participating and leading in investment funds (i.e. Leadpath Nigeria & CRE Venture Capital), debunking the belief that the local tech ecosystem is not financing African ventures. Linda Ikeji in her comprehensive post on the relationship with former lover, now baby daddy, Jeremi Sholaye explained how it all started and didn't end in the fairytale story she had envisaged. After reading Linda's post on her blog, here are seven things she said in summary of her relationship with Jeremi Sholaye. 1. Disappointing the young ladies who see her as a role model ece-auto-gen Linda Ikeji kicked off her article on a very emotional note stating that she wasn't happy that she ended up as a baby mama after all she had preached to young girls in secondary school. She went on to reveal that she even canceled her tour just because she wanted to set the records straight. "I've always been open about my life but I'm sharing details about my personal life mostly because of the girls who look up to me. The girls I have mentored, mentoring right now and plan to mentor in the future. Im very particular about our young girls and I have personally tried over the years to be an example in some way; tried to teach these girls how to fight for their dreams, how to live right and do right and then I go and have a child out of wedlock and that must be a little confusing to some of them and especially with so many untruthful stuff out there about me," she wrote. 2. How she met 'prince charming' ece-auto-gen According to Linda Ikeji, one question everyone had on their lips was how and when she met the father of her child. In her article, Linda gave a story which could be written as a script on a romantic Hollywood movie. "One of the things many people have asked me is how I met this man because we dont run in the same circle. Well, I met him 3 years ago at Wheatbaker Restaurant in Ikoyi in December 2015 shortly after I moved to my home in Banana Island, Ikoyi. It was a day after Christmas and I was having dinner with friends when he walked in. He saw me and the rest is history. He claimed at the time that he had never heard of me which was seriously a turn-on for me because up until then Id only been meeting men who behaved like fans. At the time we met, I was 35 and he was 37 and Id been single for nearly 4 years. I was definitely searching and I fell in love almost immediately and so we became an item," she wrote. 3. The love story ece-auto-gen After meeting Jeremi Sholaye in that very interesting and romantic manner, Linda and the young chap went on to have a very beautiful love story (At least that was she thought) From spending quality time together, this was one relationship that was heading to the altar. "It was a whirlwind romance. He was the funniest and most romantic guy Id met up until that point, so it was easy to fall in love and I truly believed the feeling was mutual. A few weeks after we met, it seemed like we were planning a future together. This man was already calling me Linda Ikeji Jeremi and making all these plans but then just like that, it was over between us." 4. The off and on again game ece-auto-gen Linda went on to explain that after a while Jeremi complained about his inability to keep up with her public life which he felt was not necessary for his kind of lifestyle. "I went from waking up every morning to love text messages from him to no more calls. I was just thanking God for finally sending me my own man when all of a sudden we were no longer talking to each other. Later he would tell me what scared him off. My public life. He claims hes a private businessman and didnt want the attention being with me would bring to him and I told him I understood and we went our separate ways. We tried to get back together in 2016 but it didn't work out so much so we separated again but stayed in touch (mostly him to be honest), stayed friends and that was how our back and forth started. "By mid-2017, we were both still single and we started seeing each other again quietly. There were times it was very intense and we talked about a future together, and there were times that I couldnt figure out what exactly I was doing with this guy. We were not suited for each other. Totally different lifestyles. And there was the problem of my fame. I walked away from this man a million times and he came after me a million and one times. No matter how much I pushed him away, he kept coming back and me, because I couldnt find anyone else, I kept going back. Lol. So I was basically going back to my ex because I couldnt find anyone else. *sigh*," she wrote. 5. Linda gets pregnant ece-auto-gen It didn't take long before Linda's off and on again relationship with Jeremi led to her getting pregnant. "Then I fell pregnant. It wasnt planned, it just happened; though we talked about having a child together just two months before I fell pregnant. He said something about putting a billionaire baby inside me and I remember jokingly telling him that Im also a billionaire so our child was going to be a billionaire on both side...and we laughed. But after I fell pregnant, things became extremely weird between us. If I tried to explain what happened, I wouldnt be able to because it was confusing to me. We went from talking about the pregnancy and being okay with it; he even suggested I go to Dubai for my pre-natals as he didnt trust doctors in Nigeria, to literally not talking to each other anymore," she wrote. 6. Jeremi Sholaye develops cold feet ece-auto-gen For Linda Ikeji, at some point, Jeremi Sholaye became withdrawn and probably started having cold feet as he changed totally towards her. "He later agreed to a traditional wedding which he didnt follow through and then he switched. He began to treat me with so much hate and aggression that I and my family had to cut him off completely. To be honest, if anybody had told me when we met three years ago, considering how deeply we cared for each other that I would fall pregnant two years later and he would completely turn his back on me for most part of my pregnancy, I never would have believed it but thats what happened. I had to draw strength from myself, my family and close friends. 7. Linda getting close to 40 so she was happy to be expecting a child ece-auto-gen One thing Linda Ikeji made clear was the happiness and joy she has because of her son, Jayce. She didn't deny the fact that she was getting close to 40 so being pregnant wasn't such a bad idea. "But still, I have absolutely no iota of regret meeting Sholaye. Gosh, have you seen Jayce? How can I regret that? God doesnt make mistakes. If you believe that youre always led by God like I believe then I have to believe that God led me to this man for whatever reasons best known to Him. I thought God sent him as my life partner but I guess He just used him as a vessel for my greatest blessing. In a long epistle, the media mogul revealed how she met Jeremi Sholaye back in 2015 at an exquisite restaurant and they both got along almost immediately because of the impression he gave her. She went on to write about how their once 'made in heaven' relationship took a nose-dive the moment she told Jeremi that she was pregnant. However, according to Linda, he later came around but it didn't take time before the relationship finally collapsed. ece-auto-gen "Two days before my 38th birthday on September 17th, I welcomed my first child, my son, Jayce. I look at him and I wonder why I waited so long to have a child. Ive never known love like this. I literally have tears in my eyes every time I look at him. I cant believe he came out of me. He is by far my greatest blessing and Im looking forward to navigating him through life! Now to the reason why you are reading this. I argued with myself for a long time whether to put this out or notand finally decided it was a story I wanted to share. I've always been open about my life but I'm sharing details about my personal life mostly because of the girls who look up to me. The girls I have mentored, mentoring right now and plan to mentor in the future. Im very particular about our young girls and I have personally tried over the years to be an example in some way; tried to teach these girls how to fight for their dreams, how to live right and do right and then I go and have a child out of wedlock and that must be a little confusing to some of them and especially with so many untruthful stuff out there about me. "The most hilarious is that I had a child for a married man. Lol. Heres my answer to that! The married man that I will sleep with has not yet been born. If hes been born, he will die, be buried, rise and die again before he will lay with me. I dont do married men. The father of my child is a single man and his name is Sholaye Jeremi. To be honest, at some point I thought he was my final bus stop but you know how life happens...lol. Unfortunately, he and I are a completely closed chapter. Sadly for our son Jayce, its the kind of chapter that cant ever be opened again. One of the things many people have asked me is how I met this man because we dont run in the same circle. Well, I met him 3 years ago at Wheatbaker Restaurant in Ikoyi in December 2015 shortly after I moved to my home in Banana Island, Ikoyi. It was a day after Christmas and I was having dinner with friends when he walked in. He saw me and the rest is history. He claimed at the time that he had never heard of me which was seriously a turn-on for me because up until then Id only been meeting men who behaved like fans. At the time we met, I was 35 and he was 37 and Id been single for nearly 4 years. I was definitely searching and I fell in love almost immediately and so we became an item. "At the time I met him he lived in a 3-bedroom flat at what used to be 5th roundabout in Lekki after Mobil. I used to drive for almost two hours in traffic from my house to go see him. Most of the time, I carried my laptop to his home to enable me to work and at the same time spend the whole day with him. It was a whirlwind romance. He was the funniest and most romantic guy Id met up until that point, so it was easy to fall in love and I truly believed the feeling was mutual. A few weeks after we met, it seemed like we were planning a future together. This man was already calling me Linda Ikeji Jeremi and making all these plans but then just like that, it was over between us. I went from waking up every morning to love text messages from him to no more calls. I was just thanking God for finally sending me my own man when all of a sudden we were no longer talking to each other. Later he would tell me what scared him off. My public life. He claims hes a private businessman and didnt want the attention being with me would bring to him and I told him I understood and we went our separate ways. We tried to get back together in 2016 but it didn't work out so much so we separated again but stayed in touch (mostly him to be honest), stayed friends and that was how our back and forth started. "By mid-2017, we were both still single and we started seeing each other again quietly. There were times it was very intense and we talked about a future together, and there were times that I couldnt figure out what exactly I was doing with this guy. We were not suited for each other. Totally different lifestyles. And there was the problem of my fame. I walked away from this man a million times and he came after me a million and one times. No matter how much I pushed him away, he kept coming back and me, because I couldnt find anyone else, I kept going back. Lol. So I was basically going back to my ex because I couldnt find anyone else. *sigh*. "Then I fell pregnant. It wasnt planned, it just happened; though we talked about having a child together just two months before I fell pregnant. He said something about putting a billionaire baby inside me and I remember jokingly telling him that Im also a billionaire so our child was going to be a billionaire on both side...and we laughed. But after I fell pregnant, things became extremely weird between us. If I tried to explain what happened, I wouldnt be able to because it was confusing to me. We went from talking about the pregnancy and being okay with it; he even suggested I go to Dubai for my pre-natals as he didnt trust doctors in Nigeria, to literally not talking to each other anymore. Around when I was about three months pregnant, he did come to see my parents and actually became very cool with my dad. They were literally exchanging Whatsapp messages every day. He later agreed to a traditional wedding which he didnt follow through and then he switched. He began to treat me with so much hate and aggression that I and my family had to cut him off completely. "To be honest if anybody had told me when we met three years ago, considering how deeply we cared for each other that I would fall pregnant two years later and he would completely turn his back on me for most part of my pregnancy, I never would have believed it but thats what happened. I had to draw strength from myself, my family and close friends. And Jayce...oh my son Jayce, he was my biggest strength. It was almost as if he knew his dad was acting up so he came through for his mum. He was gentle with me when I was carrying him. I had an extremely easy pregnancy. I pushed him out under 3 mins and was in the labour room for less than 30 minutes. And then my snapback was amazing. Three weeks later, it was almost as if Id never been pregnant. Jayce was my soldier when his dad turned his back. "But still, I have absolutely no iota of regret meeting Sholaye. Gosh, have you seen Jayce? How can I regret that? God doesnt make mistakes. If you believe that youre always led by God like I believe then I have to believe that God led me to this man for whatever reasons best known to Him. I thought God sent him as my life partner but I guess He just used him as a vessel for my greatest blessing. Now his part in my story is over. I know when to put my hands up and surrender. That God brought someone significant into your life doesnt mean they are supposed to follow you throughout your lifes journey. We should learn to know when peoples part in our story is over. Dont fight for closure, dont ask for explanations, dont chase answers, just let them go and know that if God meant for you to have them in your life, He would have given them to you. Sometimes people just come to serve a purpose in your life and are not meant to stay and theres no point holding on to them. This one is done and dusted. Its just Jayce and I now moving forward and I know life will be beautiful for us. "Being a single mum wasnt the dream I had for myself; Id prayed for the kind of happy home my parents built for us (theyve been together for 40 years). Nothing is more important to me than family. For years Id hammered on how much I was looking forward to getting married, having children and building my own family and I believed God was going to come through for me on that one, but I have come to understand that we have no control over what life throws at us no matter how much we plan, pray, or work. And we also have no control over the actions of other people towards us. One of the things I have learnt in my lifes journey is that your idea of how life should go might be different from the way life actually goes. Its called Life Happening. Sometimes it unfolds into something we never dreamed of but because we dont recognize the route we find ourselves on our journey through life, doesnt mean God wont get us to our destination. Remember, an uncertain chapter doesnt ruin the whole book. Life will happen whether we are ready or not. All we can do is keep our heads up and keep moving. "Family and close friends told me I owed no one any explanation about the circumstances that led to the birth of my son, but I knew without writing this, I could never stand in front of the young girls who look up to me and talk to them again. I could never go on my secondary school tour and speak with these girls again about living right and doing right. I would always feel like I have no moral right to do so. I went to 15 secondary schools in 2017 and talking to those young impressionable girls has been one of the highlights of my life. I cancelled this years tour because I was pregnant and I havent made any preparations for next years tour because I wanted to set things right first. "I have so many plans for young girls next year and in the coming years with the Selfmade finance and mentorship projects with international collaborations, so this was important for me to do, to explain myself to the young girls who look up to me and feel disappointed that I got pregnant and had a baby out of wedlock. For years, I have preached decency, morality, and uprightness and despite what happened to me, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. That should be the only way to live. Thats the only way I live. Dont ever compromise your values. With this, I was led by my heart and my clock ticking and even though I have no regrets, Im sorry if I let any of you ladies down by the decision I made, and I hope you learn from my experience. I hope you do better than I did. The ideal thing would be to find a man you love, who loves you back and gives you stability, get married, have kids and raise a family, not being a single mum or a baby mama. I was 37 years old at the time I conceived and if I want to be honest, my age played a role in me allowing myself to be pregnant out of wedlock. I dont want to be having kids in my 40s or struggling with fertility later in life. This wasnt the plan but like I said before, life happens. You just have to find a way to make the best of what life throws at you. And so for any young girl, this means anything to, I am truly sorry. I am not sorry I had Jayce, Im just sorry I didnt go about it the right way. "But you know, despite this crazy love experience, I still believe in love and I believe in happy endings and I cant wait to one day, God willing, have my fairytale ending. The father of my child is the only man Ive given a chance to in 6 years. Lol. I swear. Im not really a relationship kind of girl. Im more a career girl. I can go for years without a man. Im one of those women who dont need a man to validate their existence but biko, Ive done the single life enough in the pastlol going forward Im looking forward to giving someone else a chance and try this love thing again. I was raised in a happy 2-parents home and thats what I want for Jayce. So I hope I meet a great guy soon until then Im enjoying motherhood. It rocks! Life has never been more beautiful! "Id also like to address a few other issues. Number one is this celibacy issue. So many people have trolled me over it and Id like to correct the misunderstanding. I have never ever in my life said people shouldnt have sex before marriage. NEVER EVER have I said that. I have even argued with quite a few people that it is not feasible in this day and age. What I have always said and I maintain till today is; Do not ever sleep with men for money because any woman with a brain and determination can get her own money herself. And theres nothing sweeter than your own money. I am 38 years old and I recently bought a N100million+ car; what the heck do you need to be sleeping with a man for? For designer bags, first-class tickets and luxury holidays? GTFOH with sleeping with a man for rent money! You can give yourself all that and more if you apply yourself, fight for your dream and work your butt off. Men dont have the exclusive right to create wealth; women can also create wealth. Money is not male. Wealth is not male. Success is not male. We women just need to believe in ourselves more and get off our butts and stop relying on our looks and charm instead of our brain, mind, will, and our God-given talent/gift. We can be rich, we can be successful, we can break barriers, do what was formerly termed impossible, do what men can do, be CEOs of conglomerates and billionaires without ever having to lie on our backs. Please, ladies, we are powerful beyond measure and can do anything and be anything we want to be. The monument which was erected in 2016 by India's former President, Pranab Mukherjee, was removed following a protest by students and faculty who argued that Gandhi considered Africans "inferior'. A student at the university, Benjamin Mensah, described the decision as "a massive win for all Ghanaians because it was constantly reminding us of how inferior we are. Gandhi, who as a young man lived and worked in South Africa is best known for leading non-violent resistance to British colonial rule in India. Scholars over the years have highlighted evidence showing that the Indian independence leader held derogatory views towards black south Africans. Jibrin tendered his resignation letter to President Buhari on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, days after he was turbaned as the new Emir of Nasarawa. His exit left a vacuum in the Ministry of Environment as President Buhari failed to replace Amina Mohammed who resigned as the Minister of Environment in 2017 to take up the job of Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. ece-auto-gen Hassan was sworn in as the Minister of State for Power, Works and Housing in July 2018 even though many had expected that he would be a direct replacement for Mohammed. Like we should all shudder and cower at his feet when he speaks because he is serving in the Buhari administration as Minister for Power. There are problems without a doubt and we must deal with them. But let me remind you, all of the assets that the Ministry of Power used to control power have been sold by the last administration before I came. And so if you dont have power, it is not the governments problem. Let us be honest, Nigerias Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fasholasaid at the Nextier Power Dialogue which held on the night of Wednesday, December 12, 2018. ece-auto-gen I will cut Fashola some slack in this piece because hes not famed for flippancy. The minister was trying to say that following the privatization of the power sector in 2013, government shouldnt be blamed all the time for the darkness in the land. He was trying to say that the private investors who bought up the nations power assets during the Goodluck Jonathan era, should share in the blame as well. He was trying to say that due process wasn't followed in the privatization drive and that some of the power assets were sold to cronies who had no capacity to deliver stable electricity. Fashola was only saying that Nigerians signed up for this when they yearned for balkanization, unbundling and privatization of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). He was essentially saying that privatization comes with its drawbacks and that privatization done shoddily, does have its repercussions. The minister was saying privatization is far from the silver bullet a lot of folks hold it up to be. But Fashola let his rage get the better of him. So, instead of coming across as being on top of the power problem in Nigeria, Fashola ended up sounding defensive, arrogant and irritated. The federal government should be taking responsibility for the problems in the land. It is what leaders sign up for. Fashola made it sound like the government is washing its hands off a perennial challenge that affects millions of Nigerians--just because it can. I have heard Fashola use the same private investor argument before. It was the day he appeared as a guest on Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsuji's TheSheetTV. During the program, Fashola said his job at the moment is to fashion out policies to regulate the private sector players because there is little else government can do at the moment. ece-auto-gen In all of this, it is easy to miss the point that government still controls transmission of power and that private sector players were only allowed into the generation and distribution arm of things. But no matter, a government that always praises itself when there is a smidgen improvement in power supply to homes and businesses, shouldnt shirk responsibility when darkness subsumes the land. By partially abdicating responsibility, Fashola was only being clever by half. Government should create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. Which means that when the private sector doesnt thrive, some of the blame should go to the regulating authority. Listen to the private players in the power sector and you will hear them say government has not kept its own end of the bargain and that they are still struggling to keep head above water in a tough, asphyxiating operating environment. Magu, in his response to the allegations of the Sun Newspaper made against him in a publication published on March 25, 2017, titled: Magu Under Fresh Probe, which claimed two houses located at a high brow area in Maitama, Abuja were traced to his wife. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Magu had sued publishers of the Sun for series of publications which the EFCC Chairman said were libelous and had damaged his character both nationally and internationally. The anti graft Chairman dragged the publishers of the newspaper before an Ikeja High Court, claiming N5 billion in damages, and also demanding that the Sun Newspapers publish an apology and also retract the libellous publications. The publication is totally false; even if I have the money, I would not buy houses in Maitama, Magu said while being led in evidence by EFCC counsel, Wahab Shittu. They said the houses are located in the Darrubbe and Missouri area of Maitama and that they belong to my wife. My wife Fatima Yakaka Magu is a civil servant and cannot afford to buy houses in Maitama. I am an international man and the publication has damaged my reputation. The name Magu does not only end with me and the publication caused a whole lot of trauma for my lineage, Magu said. While being cross examined by counsel to the defendant, (Sun Newspapers), Charles Enwelunta, Magu said his wife is not a party in the suit he filed against the defendant. Are you sure you read the story very well? Enwelunta asked Magu. Yes I read it over an over again and they did not say DSS was investigating my wife, Magu said. Enwelunta: Which arm of the government is supposed to confirm your appointment? Magu: The Senate. Enwelunta :You boasted that so far you have been able to secure 200 convictions. Magu: Yes Enwelunta : How many times were you presented to the Senate for confirmation? Magu: Twice Enwelunta : Can you tell this court why you were rejected? Magu: They are in a better position to tell you why they rejected me. I have been there for three years and Nigerians are watching. Enwelunta : Do you know Inda Sule Moses, Lawal Mammah, Najeeb Iman and Adebayo Adeleke Rafiu? Magu: Yes, we all faced the Senate at the same time for confirmation. Enwelunta : Are you not worried that they were all cleared except you? Magu: It does not worry or bother me that l was rejected twice. If you are working they wont confirm you. Enwelunta : Do you think some forces are trying to remove you? Magu: Thats not important. Enwelunta : So the Senate did not find you confirmable? Magu : Yes In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari ran on a campaign to rid the nation of corruption, but one seems to pop up as frequently as flies at dumpsites. Three years into the president's tenure, corruption cases are still one dime a dozen and we've taken the pains to list the most interesting ones in no particular order. 1. The Gandollar wave Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has been the subject of one of the most blatant acts of corruption in Nigeria after videos emerged of him (or a man of his likeness *wink *wink) receiving bribes from a contractor. ece-auto-gen Six different video clips have gone viral on social media showing the governor accepting bundles of dollar notes from a yet-to-be-identified contractor as he stands accused of regularly receiving bribes from contractors handling projects in the state. The governor has maintained his innocence, claiming that the videos have been doctored by his political opponents to tarnish his reputation. When he was invited for questioning by the state's House of Assembly panel investigating bribery allegations against him, he sent the state's Commissioner for Information, Mohammed Garba, to deny the allegations and question the authenticity of the videos. While a court case has tried to stop the legislature from investigating the governor, Ganduje has also sued the publisher of Daily Nigerian, Ja'afar Ja'afar, the man who coordinated the sting operation. When asked for his opinion on the governor's travails, President Buhari noted that he's a responsible leader because he has completed projects abandoned by the previous government. Apparently someone needs to hand the president a study guide on how 2+2 is not equal to pounded yam. 2. Ayodele Fayose Former Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, is not a man for the little occasions; go big or go home. That's why he's The Rock. This is why when he finally ran to the end of his second term as governor, he didn't slink away into the shadows to catch a breath, he jumped into the arms of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). ece-auto-gen The same day his immunity ended as governor, Fayose gave himself up to the anti-graft agency on October 16, facing allegations of receiving N1.3 billion from the office of former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, through then-Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, in the run up to the Ekiti State governorship election in 2014. He made a show of turning himself in, wearing a shirt with "EFCC, I'm here" inscribed on it, and also carrying two packed bags as he earlier said he was prepared to be detained. He was later hit with an 11-count charge of conspiracy and money laundering. The Rock will no doubt be taking a lot of trips to courtrooms for the next few months. 3. Former governors Dariye and Nyame jailed ece-auto-gen Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja sentenced a former Taraba State governor, Jolly Nyame, to 14 years behind bars without an option of fine on May 30, 2018. Nyame was jailed two years for receiving gratification, five years for obtaining public funds without due consideration, seven years for criminal breach of trust, and 14 years for gratification. The jail terms were to run concurrently. Two weeks later, the same judge sentenced former Plateau State governor, Senator Joshua Dariye, to 14 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of criminal breach of trust and diverting N1.162 billion state ecological funds while he was governor between 1999 and 2007. ece-auto-gen Both rulings were hailed as watershed moments in the nation's fight against corruption, especially ones committed by public officials. However, Nyame's 14 year term was later cut down to 12 years by an Abuja division of the Court of Appeal. He was also ordered to pay a fine of N495 million. On the same day, the court also reduced Dariye's sentence to 10 years. 4. NEMA scandal In May 2018, a House of Representatives committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness threatened to issue an arrest warrant against the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Maihaja, after he failed to appear for questioning over the allegations of violation of public trust. ece-auto-gen In November, the lower chamber of the National Assembly indicted Maihaja and NEMA for mismanaging N5.8 billion earmarked for the North East Intervention Fund. The panel also determined the process of authorisation for the release of the fund for emergency food intervention in the North East from the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account to NEMA to have contravened Section 80(4) of the 1999 Constitution as amended. Vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, had authorised the fund while serving as Acting President in President Buhari's absence. The investigation uncovered the release of the N5.8 billion as well as N3.1 billion emergency food intervention in the northeast in 2017, the 6,779 metric tonnes of rice donated by the Chinese government to IDPs in the northeast and the payment of about N800 million demurrage on the donated rice that reportedly never made it to the affected IDPs. The investigation disclosed that the FG lost the sum of N33 billion due to Maihaja's mismanagement. The legislative chamber called for Maihaja's dismissal and prosecution for fraud, corruption and embezzlement of N33 billion Emergency Intervention Fund, as well as all the government officials involved in the approval, processing, release and diversion of the fund. Maihaja has denied all the allegations, and so has the vice president who noted in a public response that Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act makes provision for emergency procurement. He also said that the grains donated by China were delivered to the target states, a claim reiterated by Maihaja. 5. NLNG scandal To solve a biting fuel scarcity problem between late last year and early this year, the Federal Government was caught pants down illegally paying subsidy without proper authorisation. The state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was discovered in October to have illegally diverted N378 billion sourced from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) dividend funds to secretly fund subsidy payment on petroleum products. The fund in question was secretly diverted into payments on petrol supply and distribution when it should have been shared between the federal, state and local governments. ece-auto-gen The amount in question was spent on fuel subsidy without the required consultation with states or the mandatory appropriation by the National Assembly. The legislature described the payments as illegal and demanded a probe of the major actors in the scandal. The UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Amb. Jonathan Allen, stated this at the Security Council Briefing on the UN Office for Central Africa. Allen raised concern about the humanitarian and security situation in the wider Lake Chad Basin, which continued to deteriorate, in addition to the crisis in Cameroon. He said: The United Kingdom has played its part in providing humanitarian support, as well as significant support particularly to assist the Nigerian security forces in the fight against Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa (ISWA), but this matter needs the ongoing focus and support of the international community. The deteriorating security situation in northeast Nigeria is of particular concern, and one I note shared by the Secretary-General. ISWA has increased the frequency, range and sophistication of their attacks and has attacked forward operating military bases in North East Nigeria. The execution by ISWA of humanitarian workers such as Saifura Khorsa and Hauwa Liman, who were both abducted while providing antenatal care to communities in desperate need is a telling reminder of the brutality of ISWAs activities. On Cameroon, Allen said the United Kingdom recognised the many positive contributions the country was making to stability in the region. The UK envoy, added Cameroons continued commitment to the fight against Boko Haram and the sanctuary that Cameroon offers to refugees from Nigeria and the Central African Republic. However, we are concerned by the reality of the rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon. In particular, we are concerned about high levels of displacement and take very seriously Reena Ghelanis warning that this is now one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa and reports of human rights violations and abuses perpetrated by armed separatist groups and Government forces, including extra-judicial killings, other killings, abductions, restrictions of movement and access to health and education as described in the Secretary-Generals report. We must always be alert, colleagues, to the risk that the situation escalates, affecting the broader peace and stability of the Central African region, and we have already seen over 30,000 Cameroonians flee into Nigeria. If grievances are not addressed, tensions are likely to increase further, Allen warned. He said the UK welcomed Cameroonian President Paul Biyas recent pledge to address the situation but that words alone would not improve things, adding, the UK strongly urges the Government of Cameroon to take urgent action. The UKs envoy said his country also called on the armed groups involved to cease their attacks on civilians, allow full humanitarian access, and access to human rights monitors, and to engage with the Government on these issues. The UK, for its part, is committed to supporting Cameroon and I am pleased to announce today that the United Kingdom is contributing $3.1 million to the UNs response in the Anglophone regions thats equivalent to 20 per cent of this years flash appeal for the Anglophone crisis to address immediate humanitarian and medical needs. We strongly encourage other Member States to fund this as an important part of the conflict prevention effort. Preventing a crisis costs significantly less than resolving one, he said. Allen said the UK had raised its concerns quietly so far and directly with the Government and was committed to working with the Government of Cameroon in every way it could can to help resolve the situation. Moghalu also says he hopes the nation's president honours the debate invitation extended his way by the organisers. Buhari and the then opposition APC refused to participate in the March 2015 debate, citing an "avalanche of inflammatory statements, misinformation and blatant lies propagated by" some of the media organisations who put the debate together. The NEDG/BON vice presidential and presidential debates for the 2019 elections are slated for December 14 and January 19 respectively. 'Ready to take on Buhari' Moghalu says he is happy that his party, the YPP, made the debate cut. ece-auto-gen I want to thank BON and NEDG for the invitation to debate ideas and how to fix Nigeria on January 19, 2019. Hopefully, the President or any of the other selected candidates will not dodge this very important debate because that will be a huge shame and a disservice to our dear nation, Moghalu said in a press statement he sent to Pulse on Friday, December 14. Moghalu added that he considers it an honour that his running mate, Umma Getso, was also invited for the vice presidential debate scheduled for Friday, December 14. Getso and I are the best tag team for the job and Nigerians will find this out during the scheduled debates. The YPP is ready for this debate and I am ready to take on This is what I have always advocated. That candidates must earn every vote and a televised debate for the nation's number one job is one sure way to earn those votes. The YPP made the cut from a long list of 91 political parties and 73 presidential candidates. That alone tells you how much ground we have covered since I declared I was running and how much impact we have made nationwide. No other presidential candidate has worked as hard as I have all year to earn the votes and confidence of Nigerians. On February 16, all of the efforts that the YPP have put in, will be rewarded. The debate is just another step forward for us on our way to Aso Rock,Moghalu said. A keenly contested race A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Moghalu declared to run for the nation's number one office in February of 2018. He has promised to set up a trillion Naira venture capital fund to finance innovations as a way of reviving an economy on the downward spiral, if he gets the job in 2019. ece-auto-gen Some of the frontline candidates ahead of the presidential contest are President Buhari, Obiageli Ezekwesili, Fela Durotoye, Kingsley Moghalu, Omoyele Sowore and Atiku Abubakar. "Rollbacks are our biggest concern. The difficulty in accessing emergency contraception is one very concrete example. And then the attempt to ban abortion altogether," UN expert Melissa Upreti told reporters. Since coming to power in 2015, the governing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party has ended public funding for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and made the morning-after pill prescription-only. There have also been attempts to tighten the devoutly Catholic country's abortion laws, which are already among Europe's most restrictive. One such initiative was scrapped after tens of thousands of women dressed in black protested across the country in 2016. The UN delegation said in a statement that it is encouraged by the "increased activism of women at the grassroots level". The group noted that this year marks 100 years since Poland granted women the right to vote -- one of the first European countries to do so. Poland "historically has had an active and vibrant women's movement, but the rise of religious conservatism questions some of the gains women have fought for," the group said in the statement. In addition to rollbacks of reproductive rights, the group said it was also troubled by increasing attacks on gender equality efforts. "While the traditional roles of women in the family are being actively promoted through laws and policies, advocates for gender equality are increasingly being characterised as 'anti-family'," the group said. "We are also concerned with the rise of homophobic speech and other forms of hate speech" and "regret that same-sex partnerships are not legally recognised." The experts said there have been positive steps in certain areas, including efforts to improve child care services and social protection measures. Solai Patel Dam Tragedy On the night of 9th May 2018, the lives of Solai residents were completely changed after the killer Patel dam broke its banks. 48 Kenyans lost their lives that night in what was described as a conspiracy and not an act of nature. In a 1,800-page document with 27 recommendations, the Senate Ad-hoc Committee called for the owners of the dam and State agents to be held culpable for the deaths, suffering and emotional torture the people of Solai had to endure. Gikomba Fire Tragedy The magnitude of the suffering this year also got to traders at the Gikomba market who lost lives and their property worth millions. At least 15 people are feared dead and more than 60 injured after a night fire. Some of the victims burned while others choked after inhaling poisonous fumes as they battled to save and salvage their property. Londiani-Muhoroni Bus Accident Kenyans had to deal with numerous road crashes that claimed lives and injured many. At least 50 people lost their lives in a deadly crash along the Londiani-Muhoroni Highway. ece-auto-gen At 4am, October 10th, travellers in the bus, belonging to Western Cross Sacco, crashed in an area locals call Tunnel on the Londiani-Muhuroni road. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres mourned the death of 56 people and condoled with the affected families after the tragic bus crash at Fort Ternan, in Kericho. Lake Victoria Tragedy In 2018, Lake Victoria became the blessing that swallowed its own children. Tanzanian owned MV Nyerere overturned at the lake and killed 200 of the 300 people who were onboard. According to a story by CNN, Lake Victoria snuffs 5,000 lives a year, leaving various East African families in tatters. This was corroborated by a 2015 Ugandan research finding dubbed Integrated extreme weather event monitoring, forecasting and warning system. It also revealed that at least 5,000 people, mostly fishermen perish in the lake yearly. Kenya donated Sh5.5 million to Tanzania for the victims of the ferry disaster that claimed over 200 lives. Eight Rhinos Whose Death Was Mysterious Eight endangered black rhinos died after they were moved to a reserve to Tsavo East Rhino Sanctuary. The eight were part of a herd of 11 moved due to overcrowding in the Nairobi and Nakuru parks, which was hindering breeding. What was more bizarre was how the rhinos, under 24-hour surveillance by armed rangers, could all have died at once. Some people accused KWS of a cover-up whenever endangered animals died in the parks. The situation got murky when Tourism and Wildlife CS Najib Balala was asked to resign and ended up telling his critics to go to hell. The ghosts of the dead Rhinos came back to bite KWS managers who were sacked and the board dismantled for the blame game that ensued. School Bus That Killed 11 Students This was one of the worst tragedies the country had to bear. No parent deserves to bury their child, but on in of August, parents of the 11 pupils had to grapple with this tragedy. The pupils from St Gabriels Boarding Primary School were returning home from a five-day study tour in Mombasa when their school bus collided with a truck near Mwingi town at around 11pm. ece-auto-gen Parents who were waiting for their children barely two kilometres away trooped to the accident scene, where they were met with loud and horrific wails of the children who were at the bottom of a river. Published on: 14 December 2018 The Kingdom of Bahrain has become the first country to enact a law on electronic transferable records following legal advice from Professor Ian Walden and Dr Miriam Goldby from Queen Marys Centre for Commercial Law Studies. Real world impact Bahrains new law is based on a Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) adopted by the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in July 2017. It gives legal recognition to the use of electronically transferable records that are functionally equivalent to transferrable documents such as bills of exchange and warehouse receipts. The UNCITRAL is the core legal body of the UN and its mandate is to remove legal obstacles to international trade by progressively modernising and harmonising international trade law. The new law means that commercial documents issued digitally have a legal equivalence as if they were issued on paper. These documents allow the person who holds them to claim payment of a sum of money or delivery of certain goods. The previous legal challenge was reproducing in the electronic world the functions associated with possession of documents in a tangible form. The MLETR has solved this. Contributing to paperless trade Bahrains legislation means that, because of their electronic nature, transferrable records may contain dynamic information not available on paper which permits the automation of certain functions. For example if a shipment of goods arrives in a designated port, the payment can be made automatically since the required documentation is now legally recognised in electronic form. Since Bahrains new law facilitates electronic dataflow, it also provides the foundations for the implementation of a fully paperless trade environment. The MLETR is also compatible with other technologies, including distributed ledgers such as blockchain. Professor Ian Walden, Head of Queen Marys Centre for Commercial Law Studies said: Assisting Bahrain ensures that its legislative framework facilitates electronic commerce and reflects international best practice. It was an excellent opportunity for our research to have a real world impact. Professor Ian Walden and Dr Miriam Goldby also provided expert legal input into Bahrains comprehensive revision of its Electronic Transactions Act 2002, which was adopted by the country last month. The revised Act incorporates provisions of the UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (2005), but also reflects Bahrains desire to enhance its position as a regional hub for electronic commerce in the Gulf, which was given a boost earlier this year when Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced it was building a data centre and establishing its first AWS Region in the Middle East. Further information The National Party is calling Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern "dishonest" for not disclosing a text she received from a friend of Karel Sroubek. Ms Ardern has admitted she received a text message from activist Richie Hardcore, who counts himself a friend of Sroubek. But she insists it was an unsolicited text that she didn't respond to. She says she does not intend to release the text to the public. National leader Simon Bridges says the text illustrates hypocrisy, claiming that Ms Ardern has "created an impression" that she has has little to do with the controversial Sroubek residency case. "The picture being presented is not the reality," Mr Bridges told RadioLIVE. He suggests that the Prime Minister may have known Sroubek before he was arrested, and that influenced the original decision not to deport him back to Europe at the end of his sentence. "Why would [Richie Hardcore] send that? Is it because she knew Sroubek?" he said. "It seems to me, clearly, that a good friend here has become an inconvenience to her." The National Party has called for the Government to release the text, which Mr Bridges says will ultimately will clear her name if there's nothing to hide. The Czech citizen was initially granted residency by Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway - a decision that was later reversed after relentless pressure. The text was sent after media coverage of Immigration Minister Iain-Lees Galloway's original decision. Listen to the full interview with Simon Bridges above. The Long Lunch with Carly Flynn, 12pm - 3pm on RadioLIVE and streaming live to the rova app on Android and iPhone. RadioLIVE. AUSTRALIA: Construction of the 1 700 km Melbourne Brisbane Inland Rail freight corridor was officially launched on December 13 when Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack turned a ceremonial first sod in Parkes, NSW. Turkish people in Ankara attempting to stop a military coup against President Recep Tayyip ErdoA?an on July 16, 2016. AP Photo The past year may have felt politically tumultuous, between Saudi Arabias brazen killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, the resurgence of authoritarianism in Eastern Europe and Donald Trumps unorthodox approach to U.S. foreign policy. But in some ways 2018 was unusually stable. It is on track to be only the second year in a century without a coup detat. The last head of state overthrown was Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe in November 2017. There have been 463 coup attempts worldwide since 1950, 233 of which were successful. These undemocratic power transfers have sparked civil wars, triggered authoritarian crackdowns and stunted economic growth. Before 2018 the only other coup-free year in the past century was 2007. Declining risk of coups worldwide Coups and coup attempts have existed as long as governments have. Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 B.C. in a coup against the Roman Senate, only to face a counter-coup on the Ides of March. Napoleon Bonaparte took power through a military coup. Hugo Chavez led a failed coup years before winning election. During the late 20th century, there was a 99 percent chance that at least one coup would happen each year, according to CoupCast, which uses data on elections, economics, conflict, leadership and politics to predict which countries are most likely to see a coup attempt. Coup risk began to decline in 2000, reaching an all-time low of 88 percent in 2018. This welcome progress on political stability was not evenly distributed across the globe, our analysis of CoupCast data finds. Some regions saw their coup risk decline much more significantly. Latin America was a 20th-century epicenter of coup activity. Countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Honduras and Bolivia all saw numerous democratically elected leaders overthrown by the military. Occasionally, Latin American leaders who came to power in a military coup were themselves deposed in a military coup. Thats what happened to Argentine President Gen. Juan Peron in 1955. Perons second wife, Isabel, was also overthrown by the military. But of the 142 recorded coup attempts in Latin America since 1950, only five occurred since 2000. Honduran president Manuel Zelayas 2009 ouster by the army was the most recent. Coups used to be common in Asia, too. In Thailand and Pakistan, in particular, forced leadership change was a hallmark of their turbulent democracies after World War II. That is changing. Only six of Asias 62 recorded coup attempts occurred in the last 18 years. How Latin America and Asia stabilized Research on Argentina, Bolivia and other Latin American countries with a history of coup d'etats indicates that in highly authoritarian countries, these events can eventually have a democratizing effect. Its counterintuitive, but successful coup leaders often undertake a transition to democracy to boost their legitimacy and help economic growth. Failed coups can also drive authoritarian leaders toward reform, studies show. Asias move away from coups this century was similar to Latin Americas in some ways. South Koreas 1961 coup, for example, was followed by rapid economic growth and, decades later, a return to democracy. But greater interdependence between Asian nations and global superpowers in the post-Cold War period also contributed to broader regional stability. That, in turn, created economic growth that drives democratization and stabilizes nations. A cycle of instability in some African countries Political stability in Africa has improved since 2000, but it has not kept pace with Latin America and Asia. The region has had 35 coup attempts in the past 18 years an average of two per year. Africans are 10 percent more likely to live through a coup than people in other parts of the globe, CoupCast data shows. In our analysis, two factors drive Africas continued coup risk: the economy and a regional history of coups. While many African countries have seen substantial economic progress in recent decades particularly Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia growth remains uneven and overall poverty in the region has declined only marginally since 2000. Poor economic conditions can trigger popular unrest. Poverty and protests, like those seen recently in Uganda and Malawi, often combine to serve as a signal of support to would-be coup-plotters. Coups can also create a vicious cycle of political instability. Of the 12 African nations that have seen coup attempts since 2007, half including Guinea Bissau and Burkina Faso have had multiple coups. A long national history of military ousters makes nondemocratic transfers of power seem normal, leading to more coups. And while coups can sometimes help economic growth, in Africa the instability theyve caused has mostly hurt economies. Coup risk in 2019 Latin American countries escaped the coup treadmill after 30 years, despite dire economic and political conditions. Asia emerged from its vicious coup cycle in less time than that. Africa probably will, too. It is on the right path. CoupCast projects just a 55.5 percent chance of at least one coup attempt taking place in Africa in 2019, down from a forecast this year of a 69 percent chance of a coup attempt. And, of course, coup predictions are just that: political analysts best guesses. There were no coups in Africa, or anywhere else, in 2018. Next year, CoupCast shows an 81 percent chance of at least one coup attempt somewhere in the world. Clayton Besaw, Research affiliate, Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Got some scoop for our reporters or editors? Click on the link below to send us your information. Send your news The company is likely to sign a MoU with the Yogi Adityanath government for opening retail stores in the important towns of the state. Swedish home furnishing brand, Ikea is looking to invest nearly Rs 5,000 crore in the Uttar Pradesh market over the next few years to expand its footprint. The company is likely to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Yogi Adityanath government for opening retail stores in the important towns of the state. On September 24, 2015, Idea had signed a MoU with the UP government during the previous Akhilesh Yadav regime for launching three stores in Lucknow, Agra and Noida, however, things did not move forward. The company had then signed similar agreements with the state governments of Telangana, Maharashtra and Karnataka as well. Yesterday, UP chief secretary Anup Chandra Pandey directed officials to invite Ikea for giving a detailed presentation regarding its investment roadmap in UP. He mandated industrial development special secretary to coordinate with the multinational for speeding up the matter before the state governments second proposed groundbreaking ceremony in Lucknow for industrial projects totalling about Rs 50,000 crore. Ikea had launched its maiden India store at Hyderabad earlier this year and plans to launch stores across big cities going forward. Meanwhile, UP industrial development minister Satish Mahana told Business Standard that the government was taking steps to expedite all investment proposals, whether big or small ticket. He informed Ikea had urged the state to allow for higher ground coverage area with regards to its proposal investment. Since, it is a policy matter, the proposal would be placed before the state cabinet after discussions and taking suggestions. "A new policy is likely to be framed in this regard in the next 10-15 days, so that other similar industries also benefit from the incentive, he noted. On July 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in Lucknow laid foundation of projects worth Rs 60,000 crore in UP. Inaugurating the Summit, Modi had also exhorted UP and Maharashtra to compete for emerging as the countrys first trillion dollar economies. These projects were part of the Rs 4.68 trillion worth of MoUs signed with public and private sector companies during the UP Investors Summit here on 21-22 February, 2018. The second ground breaking was slated to be held in December, however, the event is now likely to be held next month due to delays pertaining to land acquisition and clearances. Recently, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had expressed displeasure over slow pace of follow-up for projects. In fact, earlier, the state had announced it would lay the foundation of projects worth Rs 1 trillion in December 2018. Modi would be invited for the next groundbreaking ceremony, which would provide a platform to the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government amplify its pro-industry and development agenda before the crucial 2019 Lok Sabha poll against the spectre of a joint opposition and anti-incumbency. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters 'It is time India withdraws the complaint from the UN and fully integrates the state of J&K into the Indian Union,' recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). IMAGE: The Statue of Unity, Kavadia, Gujarat. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters December 15 is the death anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's unifier. His contribution in integrating over 460 princely states into the Indian union was no less than the contribution of other similar personalities world over. Bismarck, the 'Iron Man' of Germany, similarly integrated the German speaking people as also Garibaldi of Italy. But in the Indian context, right till a few years ago, he was denied his rightful place in history. The tribute paid to him this year by erecting the world's tallest statue has corrected the historical injustice to some extent. True, statues are a powerful reminder and play its role in remembering great people, but even more importantly, a greater tribute would be to follow their footsteps. India is in its 71st year of Independence and yet one legacy of 1947 continues like a festering wound, Kashmir. Let it be clearly understood what stood between the Balkanisation of India into tiny states with British created Pakistan as the dominant one was the Iron Man of India. Sardar Patel matched the British in all their wily moves and outsmarted them. An ideological dreamer like Nehru, if given a free rein, we would have needed a passport to travel to Hyderabad! For the younger generation post 2000, it may come as a news that in 1947 it was not Kashmir that dominated the news headlines, but Hyderabad. It was Operation Vijay launched by the Indian Army under Patel's direction that prevented a mini Pakistan within India. There is enough historical evidence that Patel wanted only Jammu division and Ladakh to be part of India and he was in favour of the Muslim majority valley to go to Pakistan. But here, Nehru, a valley Kashmiri hiself, intervened and engineered the whole of J&K to come to India. Once J&K became part of India, Patel was clear that it was now India's responsibility and fell in line. But leaving the Kashmir issue to be dealt with by Nehru created a problem that we seem to be saddled with even after 71 years. Unlike all other princely states that merged with India, Kashmir was given a separate status (Article 370) and to compound the mistake, Nehru, on Mountbatten's prodding, took the issue to the UN. India's original complaint was about Pakistani aggression, but the clever British converted it into legality of accession itself thanks to ongoing Cold War power dynamics. Today, the Kashmir issue is still on the UN agenda. It is the only secessionist problem that is being dealt by the UN. Neither Northern Ireland, Tibet, the Mindanao island in the Philippines and other separatist movements like the Basque separatists of Spain have ever been on the UN agenda. It was one of the greatest blunder of independent India. This year marks the completion of 70 years of that complaint and the UN is nowhere near taking any action to vacate the Pakistani aggression and hence hold a plebiscite. It is time India withdraws the complaint from the UN and fully integrates the state of J&K into the Indian Union. Like all other former princely states, J&K should also be then reorganised on linguistic lines and trifurcated into three states. This is the only solution to the ongoing troubles in the valley. IMAGE: Left to right: Sarat Chandra Bose, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Asaf Ali, Jawaharlal Nehru and Syed Ali Zaheer outside the council room at the Viceroy's House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, September 2, 1946. Photograph: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The naysayers would raise objections saying that this amounts to giving up our claims on Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit and Hunza!. But does any one seriously believe that the UN can compel Pakistan to give up these areas. Especially now that these form a vital piece of the jigsaw of China's 'belt and road' project. I will be letting out no official secret by saying that India has no serious plans to retake PoK and is quite satisfied with the status quo. In any case with both India and Pakistan being nuclear powers, that would certainly lead to a catastrophe. By withdrawing the complaint from the UN India loses nothing. The major gain would be that there will be closure to the people of the valley, once and for all time. We owe it to the Sardar's memory that we finish the task of integrating India at least in the 70th year of the blunder. Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) -- a military historian specialising in counter-insurgency -- is a long-time Kashmir watcher. He is the author of Let the Jhelum Smile Again. 'The problem here is not that one community's deity has suddenly become another community's meal.' 'Hindus and Muslims have been peacefully coexisting with their cows for centuries now.' 'The problem here is that a section of Indians has been suddenly made to realise that it makes great political sense to degrade each one of the 170 million Muslims to a potential cow-killer, lynch a few of them to keep the heat on, polarise and win elections.' IMAGE: A protest against lynchings in the country. Shortly after a mob of gau rakshaks killed police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, IAS officer Dr Shah Faesal, currently on study leave at Harvard University, tweeted that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act should be implemented in the cow belt for giving security forces a free hand in dealing with gau rakshaks. "It was a sarcastic comment. AFSPA is a very brutal law and I wouldn't want it to be enforced anywhere. My point was to draw attention towards the urgency of dealing with the cow-vigilant terrorism," Dr Faesal, below, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih in an e-mail interview from Boston. Dr Faesal, the first Kashmiri to top the civil services examination in 2010, is the Edward S Mason Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. "Gau-raksha," he says, "is a part of the political project that seeks to use the electoral route for establishment of majoritarian fascism." Part I of the interview: The killing of a police inspector by a mob of gau-rakshaks did not involve a poor Muslim accused of cow smuggling but an officer of the law. What has emboldened cow vigilantes that they can kill a law enforcer in cold blood? It is not about who the gau-rakshaks can kill. It is about the larger message that these incidents are intended to send. The cow is just a symbol here. Cow protection is just an alibi. Let's remember that while the lynching is on, India continues to be one of the top-most beef exporters in the world. So, the biggest mistake would be to look at gau-raksha as some sort of a public movement to reorganise India's rural economy around a sacred animal. The problem here is not that one community's deity has suddenly become another community's meal. Hindus and Muslims have been peacefully coexisting with their cows for centuries now. The problem here is that a section of Indians has been suddenly made to realise that it makes great political sense to degrade each one of the 170 million Muslims to a potential cow-killer, lynch a few of them to keep the heat on, polarise and win elections. Gau-raksha is a part of the political project that seeks to use the electoral route for establishment of majoritarian fascism. Where are we headed if this climate of impunity continues? We must look at the scale. As I said above, the number of potential victims here is above 170 million. Now imagine a sense of disempowerment and injustice in a community as large as that. That too a community that is living in ghettos, but those ghettos being spread across the country. It is a simmering discontent. We won't see it immediately. I have not seen any massive mobilisation of Muslims against these lynchings anywhere in the country so far. Because the community is numb. It has not yet figured out how to respond to this challenge. Being electorally irrelevant, the community might respond in other ways. Not necessarily democratic ones. I dread to think of that scenario. Since the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri in September 2015, there have been rising incidents of cow related violence against Muslims, what do you see as the biggest reason that there is no end to this vigilantism? Dadri was a watershed because Mohammad Akhlaq was killed by the mob inside his house, after waking him up, and calling him out on the mere suspicion of having consumed beef. It brought to the fore the level to which cow vigilantes had been emboldened. But how did the system respond? The administration asked for testing of the left-over beef. An FIR for alleged cow slaughter was registered against the family. The bereaved family had to face hostilities from the local mobsters leading to their migration from the village. When the criminal justice system succumbed before vigilantes in Uttar Pradesh, we then had the attack on the Udhampur truck driver; the killing in Bhanukeri, Haryana; hanging of Mazlum Ansari and Imteyaz Khan in Latehar, Jharkhand; and the most brutal mob lynching of Pehlu Khan in Alwar, Rajasthan. Rather than outrage, we saw a Rajasthan minister praising the killers. We saw the president of the local cow protection gang compare the killers with the revolutionary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. Now if the power is with vigilantes, how can justice be with the victims? Also, if killing a Muslim is seen as a great nationalistic act, why should then this not encourage the depraved elements of a diseased society to seek some immediate glory? It does encourage. As an upholder of the law yourself, how and why has the police faulted in investigating cow-related crimes? Has the police and civil administration become increasingly servile to politicians rather than discharging its duty towards the citizen? The investigation machinery is highly susceptible to outside influence. I have seen the discretion which an SHO enjoys in filing or not filing an FIR, or deciding the sections of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) to be applied, or choosing to arrest or not. It is a sad reality that the civil and police service in this country is increasingly losing its decision-making autonomy. The Supreme Court directive on police reforms has remained unimplemented so far. I know it is not very inspiring to see towards our neighbouring country, where the supreme court intervened in the IG Islamabad's illegal transfer case and the minister who had exerted undue influence and interfered with the administration of justice had to resign. I think the Supreme Court of India will have to do something like that here also. The UP police seems to have shifted the focus from capturing the accused in the killing of the inspector to finding out the conspirators responsible for the cow slaughter -- isn't this demoralising for those who seek justice? Now that tells us where the priorities of the investigating agencies are. It is a morale-booster for the killers that look we are first inquiring into the circumstances of cow-slaughter and then the circumstances of manslaughter. Imagine the message we are sending to the family of the police officer and the larger victim community. Imagine the lurking sense of injustice that this is going to create, even if they get some sort of closure one day. You have said you support the implementation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in north India for giving the security forces a free hand in dealing with gau rakshaks. What makes you say that such a radical and controversial measure is needed? It was a sarcastic comment. AFSPA is a very brutal law and I wouldn't want it to be enforced anywhere. My point was to draw attention towards the urgency of dealing with the cow-vigilant terrorism. Even if we have a special law to deal with the lynching, it will again depend on the field enforcement machinery whether the new law can have impact. So as of now building pressure and generating wider public outrage against the very idea of cow-protection is the only way out. You also tweeted that some scholars at Harvard asked you about the Bulandshahr lynching, what was your response? How does mobocracy endanger Indian democracy and affect its international reputation? It is a matter of immense shame that everyone from India must feel embarrassed abroad for the criminal deeds of gau-rakshaks. India was being seen now as an economic miracle, a growing space power, an aspirational technology giant, contrary to the old reputation of being the country of squatters and snake-charmers. But this savagery in the name of cow protection is destroying India's image. International students want to talk about it and it is very hard for us here to have conversations over this. As a young civil servant what are some immediate measures that need to be taken to bolster institutions that directly deal with citizens? I feel cow vigilantism-related violence has given rise to an extraordinary situation in the country. It is threatening the security and integrity of India. If we must continue with the IPC, let there be judicial oversight of every such investigation. The reports of SITs (special investigation teams) that investigated past such murders should be made public. Civil society should follow up the progress of the trials and build pressure on the investigating agencies to ensure conviction. More people must speak up and counter the toxic narrative of polarisation. The vernacular press should rise up to the occasion and educate the masses about the need for communal harmony and freedom of choice. Paul Barton, a British musician, from Yorkshire, plays classical music to old, overworked and sometimes disabled elephants. All photographs: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters Near the Thailand-Myanmar border, British musician Paul Barton recently sat down to a piano surrounded by the jungle and began playing a classic Bach piece for an audience, you wont believe it, of elephants! Barton, a 57-year-old concert pianist from Yorkshire, left the music halls of Europe behind in the 1990s. He now only plays his classical numbers for rescued elephants at Elephants World, with the endless green of rural Kanchanaburi province in Thailand as a backdrop. Asked how this endeavour of playing music for old, overworked and sometimes disabled elephants began, Barton recounts that the whole episode started 22 years ago when he had moved to Thailand for three months to teach piano at a private school and there he met Khwan, a wildlife artist and animal lover who would become his wife, and they decided to stay. Recounting further, he said when he visited a sanctuary, he wanted to do more than just visit the animals. I wondered if these old, rescued elephants might like to listen to some calm, slow classical piano music, so I asked if I could bring my piano along and play to the elephants, he is quoted as saying. They allowed me to do that. Barton soon became a regular. He would sit down at the bench, drawing different reactions from the various elephant residents. In an interview to Coconuts World, Barton says, The first time I played piano at Elephants World, a blind elephant called Plara was closest to the piano by coincidence. He was having his breakfast of bana grass, but when he heard the music for the first time, he suddenly stopped eating with the grass protruding from his mouth and stayed motionless all through the music. Plara really liked slow classical music and each time I played piano or flute, he curled his trunk and held the tip trembling in his mouth until the music was over, he added. Barton says he knows there are inherent dangers being around such massive creatures, especially the large males. But these are the animals that seem to love the music the most. With the bull elephants I am always aware they could kill me at any moment, and the mahouts are aware of it too and I can tell they are nervous for me, he is quoted as saying. Up to now, its been these dangerous and potentially aggressive bull elephants that are always kept well away from people that have reacted the most to expressive, slow classical music. There is something about the music in the moment that makes them feel calm. The Supreme Courts verdict on the Rafale deal spurred a war of words between the BJP and the Congress. IMAGE: BJP president Amit Shah hit out at Rahul Gandhi for taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying the chowkidar is a thief. Photograph: Arun Sharma/PTI Photo Buoyed by the Supreme Court dismissing all petitions asking for a probe into the Rafale deal, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Friday said the order is a slap on Congress chief Rahul Gandhis politics of lies and asked him to apologise to the country and its soldiers for putting national security at risk. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, the court said on Friday. It is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing, it stated. Shah asserted that the apex court order exposes the campaign of misinformation of the Congress chief. Stating that his party was ready for discussion on this issue, Shah challenged the Congress to debate the issue in Parliament. I welcome SC order on Rafale. The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk, Shah said at a press conference at the party office here. He also hit out at Gandhi for taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying the chowkidar is a thief. All thieves had gathered to call the chowkidar a thief, but the country never believed it, Shah told reporters. For the sake of his own credibility, Gandhi should reveal the source of information on which he based his false allegations on the Rafale deal, Shah said. He added that the Supreme Court has also made it clear that there is nothing wrong with the offset partner. Earlier in the day, Shah addressed the issue in series of tweets, saying the court didnt find anything wrong with the process nor did it find any commercial favouritism in the deal. On the contrary, the SC held that govt had no role in selecting offset partners & found no merit in the demand for a probe based on mere perception of individuals, he said. Truth always triumphs! Courts judgment on the Rafale deal exposes the campaign of misinformation spearheaded by Congress President for political gains, he added on Twitter. The apex courts order raises obvious questions on the motive of those working to discredit the deal, which is important for India, he asserted. Earlier in the day, BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said, Every deal is not Bofors deal. It is the culture and tradition of Congress and its top leadership to mint money from such deals on the cost of countrys national security, he said. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress should apologise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making false allegations against him and questioning his credibility, he added. Congress challenges Modi govt for JPC probe The Congress on Friday said the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal cannot be decided by it and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the Congress had stated earlier that the Rafale issue cannot be decided by the Supreme Court, and the alleged corruption in the defence contract can only be brought out by a JPC after examining the files and notings in the contract. The verdict of the Supreme Court is a validation of what the Congress party stated months ago that the Supreme Court is not the forum to decide such sensitive defence contracts, he told reporters. Surjewala said the only forum that can probe the corruption in the Rafale contract after examining the pricing process and sovereign guarantee is the JPC. If they have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal, he said. We again challenge the prime minister for a JPC probe to unveil every layer of corruption in the deal, he said, alleging that corruption has been guided by the highest echelons of power. The Congress leader also alleged that the government gave a one-sided half-baked information to the Supreme Court which has not been scrutinised by anyone. Surjewala said the Congress has maintained from day-one that it wants a JPC probe and the government should agree to it if it has nothing to hide. Buoyed by the Supreme Court clean chit to the Rafale jet deal, the government on Friday launched a counter-offensive on the opposition in Parliament, seeking an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for misleading the nation. IMAGE: Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Rahul Gandhi's political campaign had maligned the country's image internationally. Photograph: PTI Photo The two Houses were adjourned for the day amid sparring between the treasury and the opposition benches on the issue. In the Lok Sabha, during the Question Hour, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar demanded an apology from the Congress and Rahul Gandhi following the top court verdict on the jet deal. Amid slogan shouting between the two sides, the House was adjourned for nearly 40 minutes during the Question Hour. When the House reassembled at noon, Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanded that Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for misleading the country on the Rafale deal issue. He said, Gandhis allegations have damaged the reputation of the country in the international fora. In the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was heard saying that the Opposition has been demanding a debate on the jet deal, therefore, the question hour should be suspended to take up the issue. Friday was the fourth day of the Winter session. While the two Houses were adjourned for the day on day one after obituary references to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and some sitting members, little business has been transacted for the past two days amid opposition protests. In the Lok Sabha, while the Congress raked up the Rafale issue, All India Amma Dravida Munnetra Kazagham members raised issues related to Cauvery river water. The Telugu Desam Party was demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. Members of these parties were in the Well holding placards and shouting slogans. While Trinamool Congress members were on their seats, some Left members were holding placards demanding JPC on Rafale issue. Even after the House was adjourned for the first time at 11.10 am, Bharatiya Janata Party members raised slogans such as gali-gali mein shor hai, Rahul Gandhi chor hai. Opposition parties led by the Congress have been attacking the Modi government over the deal, alleging that it was struck at an exorbitant price and benefited an Indian businessman at the cost of the government-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The charges have been denied by the government. Amid protests by Congress members in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Singh said, Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for misleading the country on the Rafale jet deal issue for political gains. The Supreme Court on Friday gave the Narendra Modi government a clean chit on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. Singh said the Congress itself was facing grave allegations of graft and their ministers have been sent to jail over corruption charges. They know that they have drowned, so they want to take us along (Woh chahate hain ke hum toh dube hain sanam, tumhe bhi le doobenge), the home minister said. Singh said the Supreme Court observed that the deal was a financial advantage to the nation. The Congress, however continued with their demand for a JPC to probe the issue. No sooner Rajya Sabha assembled for the Zero hour, members of the Samajwadi Party raised slogans relating to the recent violence in UPs Bulandshahar district while AIADMK members trooped into the well over the Cauvery river water issue. The uproar started as soon as the proceedings began following which Deputy Chairman Harivansh first adjourned the House till 1130 hours. However, as the protests intensified, he adjourned the Rajya Sabha till Monday after his repeated attempts to bring order in the House failed. Before adjourning the House for the day, Harivansh tried to run the Zero Hour proceedings smoothly and some of the members even read out mentions amid uproar. Unlike other days, there was ruckus in the House even when ministers were laying listed paper on the table of the House. The apex court said that it cant get into comparative pricing details. IMAGE: The apex court said there was a necessity for fighter aircraft such as the Rafale. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters In a major relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday said it was "satisfied" with the decision making process in concluding the Rafale fighter jet deal and rejected demands for a probe, sparking bitter exchanges between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. The verdict by the apex court that it found no reason to intervene on what it called the "sensitive issue" of purchase of 36 jets from France came as a political victory for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi just days after the defeat of the party in three Hindi-heartland states -- Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh -- in the assembly polls at the hands of the Congress. Modi had come in for a relentless attack from Congress president Rahul Gandhi who alleged corruption in procurement of the fighter jets for the Indian Air Force from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation, calling it a scam which allegedly benefitted industrialist Anil Ambani. Holding it did not find any substantial material on record to show there was "commercial favouritism" to any party by the Indian Government in choosing an offset partner, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a "fishing and roving enquiry" by the court and it cannot "sit in judgement" over the wisdom of the decision to go in for purchase of 36 aircraft in place of 126. "We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court," it ruled. Shortly after the verdict that comes ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was pronounced, BJP president Amit Shah launched a blistering attack on the Congress, saying it was a "victory of truth" and demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi. The court decision is a slap on the face of those who had alleged corruption, Shah told reporters. But the Congress claimed the Supreme Court has vindicated its stand that the issue of "corruption" in the Rs 36,000 crore Rafale contract cannot be decided by it and challenged the Centre to constitute a joint parliamentary committee to probe the deal. Rahul Gandhi stuck to his allegation there was massive corruption in the contract and wondered why the CAG report on the deal was not yet shared with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament even though it was cited by the apex court. At a news conference, Gandhi also reiterated the Congress' demand for a JPC probe and claimed if it was conducted the names of Narendra Modi and businessman Anil Ambani will crop up. Both the government and the Ambani's Reliance Group have been outrightly rejecting Gandhi's allegations of any wrongdoing. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley maintained only a judicial body can carry out such a probe as there has been an experience in the past of JPCs working on partisan lines. "The SC verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope for any doubt on the deal,"he asserted at a joint news conference with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Jaitley dubbed allegations on the Rafale deal as "fiction writing" that compromised national security, Sitharaman said the matter of Rafale deal has been put to rest through the court verdict. Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia insisted the verdict is not a "setback" for the Congress as the Rafale deal is still an issue in the people's court. Attorney General K K Venugopal welcomed the verdict terming it as an "excellent" and "very good" judgement, which in his opinion has given "clean chit" to the government by accepting all its arguments. The apex court gave its 29-page judgement on pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and a court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the jet deal, in which both India and France entered into an inter-governmental agreement in 2016 after Modi's summit talks with the then French President Francois Hollande in Paris the previous year. The three-judge bench dealt with "three broad areas of concern" raised in the petitions , identifying them as "the decision making process, pricing and the choice of Indian offset partners". "In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircrafts by the Indian Government," said the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph. Holding that the apex court has "constricted power of judicial review", it said "the scrutiny of the challenges before us...will have to be made keeping in mind the confines of national security, the subject of the procurement being crucial to the nation's sovereignty". Observing that the deal in question did not pertain to construction of roads or bridges, the court said the Indian Air Force needs advanced fighter jets as the country cannot afford to be "unprepared" or "under prepared" in a situation where adversaries have acquired fourth and fifth generation fighter aircraft, "of which, we have none". The court noted that the process for procurement of 36 Rafale jets was concluded on September 23, 2016 and no questions were raised at that time and the petitions were later filed after reported statement of Hollande with regard to selection of Indian offset partners after he demitted office. The bench said it was "certainly not the job of this court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present" and the material has to be kept in a confidential domain. On the offset partner, the bench noted this issue had "triggered" the litigation as petitioners had alleged that government gave a benefit to Reliance Aerostructure Ltd by compelling Dassault Aviation to enter into a contract with them at the cost of public enterprise, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. "We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government, as the option to choose the IOP (Indian offset partners) does not rest with the Indian Government," it said, adding it is neither appropriate nor within the experience of the court to step into this arena of what is technically feasible or not. It said "mere press interviews or suggestions" cannot form the basis for judicial review by the court, especially when there was categorical denial of the statements made in the press by both the sides. Anil Ambani, the Reliance Group Chairman, said the verdict established the "falsity" of politically motivated allegations against his firm. Former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan moved the court with a plea for a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. Before them advocates M L Sharma and Vineet Dhanda and AAP leader Sanjay Singh had also filed pleas. Accusing Rahul Gandhi of misleading people and endangering national security by raising questions on the Rafale deal at every meeting, Shah asked him to disclose the source of information on which he had based his allegations. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party had stated earlier that the Rafale issue cannot be decided by the Supreme Court. "If they have nothing to hide, I challenge Modi ji and his government to submit to a JPC probe which will question and go into the corruption in the defence deal," he said. In a veiled attack on Gandhi, Jaitley said "disrupters" have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country. The court verdict also echoed in Parliament where the government launched a counter-offensive on the opposition. Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanded that Rahul Gandhi apologise on the floor of the House for "misleading" the country on the Rafale deal. The United States Senate has approved a resolution to hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggis death at the Saudi consular premises in Istanbul on October 2. The Senate also passed a resolution to end US support for the Saudi war in Yemen. Chris Murphy, the US Senator from Connecticut who introduced the bill, called it a big deal and tweeted, Two years ago, when @RandPaul and I introduced a bill to cut arms sales to Saudi Arabia, only 27 Senators voted with us. He further stated, Today, 56 voted to end US support for the Saudi war in Yemen. Thank you to everyone that called and urged the Senate to vote on this resolution. Both the decisions come as a major setback to US President Donald Trump, who has shown support for Saudi Arabia in the past, especially in the wake of allegations against MBS with regard to Khashoggis death. Trump, time and again, refused to sever ties with the nation, calling it a key ally. Every single Senator across both parties just joined together to condemn the murder of journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi and hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible. President @realDonaldTrump can no longer ignore this egregious murder, Chuck Schumer, the US Senator from New York tweeted. (This interview was originally published December 9, 2012 on the now-retired blog. It is one installment in an incredible series of interviews we are republishing on for posterity and your enjoyment. These are more than just interviews in a way; they are more like '80s timelines or oral histories on their respective subject matters. Please keep in mind the original date because some content could be specific to the time of the interview, though the majority should be timeless and totally rad.) Jim Vallance Jim: When I was young, age 10 or 11, I was into comic books and sports. I wasn't the least bit interested in music. Then, in February 1964 I saw the Beatles on television. That was it! At that very moment, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I taught myself guitar and drums and I started writing songs, very simple and primitive at first. I had a cheap tape recorder and I loved experimenting. I'd move my drum kit from room to room in our house, trying different sounds. My parents put up with a lot! I used to read all the "small print" on the album sleeves to see who was behind the music. Names like George Martin, Eddie Kramer, Andrew Loog Oldham. Years later I became friends with Andrew. Lovely fellow. He's very kind and patient, answering my endless questions about his work with the Rolling Stones. Same with Eddie. I had dinner with him a few years ago, and I asked lots of questions about Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Jim: It's never the same twice. Sometimes you start with a title, sometimes it's a fragment of lyric or a bit of melody. Songs grow from the smallest ideas. As far as inspiration, I'm very "deadline driven". If there's a project, like a film or an album, I'm on it! Give me a project and a deadline. That's all the inspiration I need. Jim: I met Bryan in a music store in Vancouver, in January 1978. I was there with my friend Ali. She knew Bryan and she introduced us. Bryan was 18, living with his mom. Unemployed but definitely not unambitious! He had incredible energy and enthusiasm. We got together a week later and wrote a song the first day. And another song the next day, and another one the day after that. We "clicked" right from the start, and we didn't stop for eleven years. Jim: We were in my studio, playing our guitars, and we'd locked into a chord sequence that sounded interesting: a bar of D, half a bar of G and half a bar of C. We kept repeating that, over and over. Bryan was singing a "mumble", just nonsense syllables, which is what you do when you're fishing for ideas. At some point I stopped him and asked if he had just sang "cuts like a knife". He wasn't sure if he had, but we both agreed it was good. So Bryan started singing "it cuts like a knife", and I responded: "but it feels so right". And that was it, we had our chorus. The rest of the song grew from there. Jim: Early in a song's development, when you've maybe got a bit of lyric and a bit of melody, sometimes you'll think, "Hey, we might be onto something". And when you finish the song there's a sense of accomplishment, but a bit of insecurity too. It's just the two of you in the room, and you're not really sure. Then you play the song for a few other people. My wife [Rachel Paiement] was usually the first one to hear our songs. She'd be upstairs and we'd bring her down to the studio for a listen. And if she liked it, that was always a good sign. Then Keith Scott would come over and add a guitar solo to the demo, and eventually the other band members would hear the song, and then people at the record company, and you'd slowly get some feedback and gain some confidence. But never did we think, "Bingo, this'll sell a million". It's always a hesitant thing. You do your best work, then you hope everyone else likes it too! Jim: There was a bit of success with Cuts Like a Knife, so we had some confidence and momentum when we started writing for Reckless. We got together every day, seven days a week, twelve hours a day. We worked really hard on that album. We wanted every song to be a single. Jim: That was a request from our publisher. They needed a song for a film called 'A Night In Heaven' [1983 starring Christopher Atkins and Lesley Ann Warren]. They sent us a "rough cut" to watch, but the story-line didn't provide much inspiration for lyrics, so we pretty much grabbed the word "heaven" and ran with that. If I recall, it took a few days to write the song, and maybe another day or two to fine-tune the lyric and record the demo. I remember being quite pleased with our chorus, the way it starts on the 4-chord and climbs to the 5 and minor-6. I'm sure it's been done before, but not that I'm aware of. Jim: There were only two people in the room when "Summer of 69" was written: me and Bryan Adams. To be fair, it was nearly 30 years ago, so maybe that's why we have such different memories about writing it! But here's the thing... the song wasn't called "Summer of 69" in the beginning. It was called "Best Days Of My Life". The phrase "summer of 69" happened only once, in the first verse. It wasn't the focus of the song at all, just one line of lyric. I still have a recording of that first draft and, if you listen to the words, clearly it's about friends, it's about school, forming a band, hanging out at the drive-in, meeting girls. A week or two later we had second thoughts about the title. We decided "Summer Of '69" sounded better. So we forced that phrase into some of the gaps in the lyric. We literally "shoe-horned" it into the song. Other than that, the lyrics are the same as the first draft. We recorded a new demo and, right at the end, just before it fades, Bryan sang, "Me and my baby in a 69". It was a bit naughty and we had a laugh. I didn't think he'd use it on the final studio recording, but he did. If anyone noticed, they didn't mention it at the time. Not the fans, not the press. It was 10 or 15 years later when Bryan started introducing the song "in concert', suggesting the lyric was about more than the summer of 1969. The audience reaction was predictable: gasps and giggles and "oh-my-gosh, really?". It's one of the basic rules of "show business". If you get a reaction, don't change the script. So Bryan has introduced the song that way ever since. But really, that's not what the song's about. Jim: I love "All Along The Watchtower", the way Hendrix plays a guitar solo after every verse. I envisioned something similar for "It's Only Love", a way to feature Keith Scott's guitar, because he's such a great player. The song wasn't written as a duet, but when Bryan decided to sing with Tina, it's the one song we had that lent itself to that. Tina was opening for Lionel Richie, that's why she was in Vancouver. She came to Little Mountain studio for a few hours one day. She was great to work with ... energetic, pleasant and very professional. "What's Love Got To Do With It" hadn't gone to the top of the charts yet -- that was still a few weeks away -- so we were really lucky to have that moment with her. The calm before the storm. Two weeks later she was a superstar. Jim: Sonically, I think Bryan's records have stood the test of time. Bob Clearmountain deserves a lot of credit for that. He's a brilliant engineer. Jim: "Christmas Time" was written in May 1985. That's summer in Vancouver, so I'm not sure why we were thinking about Christmas! Most of the track was recorded in my home studio. The drums were added in New York in October when Bob Clearmountain mixed the record. It was pressed on green vinyl and mailed to Bryan's fans in December of that year. Jim: I actually wrote "Reggae Christmas" for Ringo Starr in 1979. He was in Vancouver recording with Harry Nilsson, and they were looking for a Christmas song. I ran home, wrote "Reggae Christmas", and delivered it to the studio the next morning. They said, "Wow, thanks!", and then they wrote their own song called "Ringo Reggae". Oh well. In 1984, Bryan and I added some extra bits to "Reggae Christmas" and he mailed it to his fan club members as a Christmas gift. The Beatles used to send Christmas singles to their fans. That might be where Bryan got the idea. Jim: After the success of 'Reckless' we wanted to try something different. U2, Peter Gabriel and Sting were writing socially conscious songs, and we felt we needed to be more relevant with our lyrics. So we wrote an album called 'Into the Fire', with songs about Native Americans and homeless people. I still get emails from people who love that album, but in 1987 it wasn't well received. Compared to 'Reckless', which had sold 12 million copies, 'Into The Fire' only did 1.5 million. So there was a lot of pressure to re-group and deliver a big album again. To be honest, we needed a break, a bit of "down time". But instead, Bryan and I went right back to writing. We pushed ourselves to the point of exhaustion. Even worse, we started getting on each other's nerves. This was ten years into our partnership, and I reckon we'd spent 15 or 20 thousand hours together, most of it in a small room with no windows. You don't need Dr. Phil to tell you how that's going to turn out. We were arguing over the smallest things. The fun was gone. One day I rang Bryan and said I was done. We hardly spoke for the next ten years, but I'm pleased to say we're the best of friends again. We're spending time together and writing songs. Like I said, we needed a break. We just hadn't planned on a ten-year break! Jim: In 1982, I wrote with Brian Allen and Sheron Alton from the band "Toronto". I don't want to say it was easy, because writing songs is never easy, but "What About Love" came together very quickly. I thought it was quite a good song, but unfortunately they decided to leave it off their album. So the demo sat on a shelf for a few years, and then their record company went bankrupt. ATV Publishing bought the catalog and Mike McCarty found "What About Love" on one of the tapes and sent it to Los Angeles. I didn't know about any of this until Don Grierson called from Capitol Records and said, "Congratulations, Heart just recorded your song". Jim: In the mid-80s, I was doing a lot of session work as a musician... records, radio commercials, that sort of thing. I was in the lobby of Little Mountain Sound one day when David Foster came out of the studio, looking panicked. Quincy Jones had just played him "We Are The World" over the phone. Then he'd asked David to record a Canadian song for Africa and deliver it in a week. I was the first person David saw when he got off the phone with Quincy. That's how I became involved! We got together the next day and recorded the basic track, just me and David. He had the melody and I had a start on the lyrics. Bryan and my wife helped us finish the song. There was a tight deadline, so it all happened very quickly. Bryan's manager, Bruce Allen, assembled the talent: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Geddy Lee, etc ... and even some unexpected guests like John Candy and Eugene Levy [for the recording on February 10, 1985]. Jim: I got a call from Deane Cameron at Capitol Records. He'd just signed a young band from Newmarket, north of Toronto. Some of the members were still in their teens! They had some good songs, but they needed singles. I'd been thinking about finding a band to produce, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to write AND produce. So that's how it happened. I met the band at a rehearsal space, and to be honest, I'm the one who was "on trial"... the band still hadn't decided if they wanted to work with me. So I put them through a "mock production" session. I was actually quite hard on them, making changes to their song arrangements, sitting behind the drum kit and showing the drummer what I wanted to hear, and doing the same on keyboards, bass and guitar. After that, I figured they'd either love me or hate me. It also helped that I'd just worked with Rod Stewart. Alan Frew is a big fan, so that bought me a few "points". Anyway, I got the job, and we wrote most of "Don't Forget Me" the first day. That song grew from a combination of influences, mostly "Tears For Fears" and "Simple Minds". "Someday" was partly inspired by Paul Young's track, "Every Time You Go Away", one of my favorite records at the time. Jim: I wrote "Rag Doll" with Steven [Tyler] and Joe [Perry] in March of 1987, on the day we met. Joe had the guitar riff, which was great, but it was a "one chord" thing, it didn't really go anywhere. So I added some bass notes under the riff, I think it was A-C-G, and that gave it some motion. The "middle eight" section followed, and by the end of the first day the song was nearly complete. After that, Steven and I worked on lyrics for a couple of days. At first the song was called "Rag Time", a title that John Kalodner [A&R executive at Geffen Records] hated, so he flew [songwriter] Holly Knight up from Los Angeles and she suggested changing the title to "Rag Doll". Jim: I'm a huge fan of the Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys. When I listen to music at home, that's what's on the stereo. I never listen to my own songs, unless they come on the car radio. Jim: I've had hundreds of songs recorded. Sometimes things turn out better than you expected, and other times it's a real disappointment. Joe Cocker did a great job on "When The Night Comes" [1989]. He stayed true to our demo, but then he took it to another level. I especially like the female backing vocals. Then I thought Ted Nugent butchered "Rag Doll" [1999 cover]. He missed the point of the song altogether. The track needs to "swing" and Ted just stomps through it, like a bull in a china shop. Jim: The '80s were a mixed bag, some of it good, some of it not. Lots of forgettable "hair bands"... in fact, I may have been responsible for some of that music! Same for the synth-pop stuff, like Thomas Dolby. When you hear it on the radio today, it sounds terribly "dated". U2 and the Police made brilliant records in the '80s. Same for Peter Gabriel. Very inspiring. Hall and Oates, Talking Heads, Prince, Van Halen. All good. ZZ Top made some fun records, and I still love Paul Simon's 'Graceland.' AC/DC, early Nirvana, The Clash, Level 42. It was quite a very fertile decade, actually. Jim: I worked with loads of artists all through the '90s. I wish I'd been a bit more discriminating, because I basically said "yes" to everything. Not because I was greedy, but there's a lot of insecurity in the music business. You worry that every job will be your last, so "no" isn't part of your vocabulary. I like the work I did with Aerosmith, and I had a lot of fun with Ozzy. But there are a few things where I should have said "no thanks". Jim: It's nice to be writing songs with Bryan again. There's a level of comfort and trust there, more than I have with anyone else. In terms of family... my son is 23. He's writing and producing and making a name for himself in New York and Berlin. He's very talented and very aware that it has to be fun first and business later. I admit I got that wrong on a few occasions, so if I have any regrets, that would be it. For hobbies, I enjoy researching my family's history. I've been doing it for 30 or 40 years, traveling all over England, Ireland and Scotland. I've traced a few family lines back to the 1400's. I think it's important to know where you come from. When and how did you get your own start in the music industry and later a career of writing songs for other artists to perform?Do you use a certain process every time when writing songs? Does the melody come first or the lyrics? Do you start with a song title or end with a song title? Where does inspiration come from?When and how did you meet Bryan Adams? How did you two end up forming a songwriting partnership?Over those next eleven years, the team of Jim Vallance and Byran Adams were quite productive releasing three platinum-selling albums featuring nine singles which reached the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100.Your first big hit (outside of Canada) was the title track to the 1983 album. Please take us back to when the song was written. What is the back story about how that song was conceived and written? What inspired it?was released in January of 1983 and generated three hit singles. The album was a big success in Canada, but it also enjoyed worldwide success including reaching Platinum in the U.S. The title track was the second single released from the album in May. It would peak at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 later that summer and spend 14 weeks on the chart. Here is the music video for "Cuts Like a Knife" by Bryan Adams...Did you have any feeling that those songs were going to be something special when you wrote them?Then the following year,was released which featured six Top 15 singles. What memories do you have of the creative process when you and Adams were putting together that album? They almost achieved that goal when six of the ten tracks on the album became Top 15 hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100. This impressive feat had only been accomplished previously on Michael Jackson's 1982album.was released in November of 1984 and ultimately sold over 12 million copies worldwide and has been certified 5x Platinum in the U.S. "Run to You" and "Somebody" were the first two singles released and reached #6 and #11 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the next two singles released in Spring of 1985 that really caused the album to skyrocket."Heaven" has always been a particular favorite of mine. What can you tell us about how this song came to be? What inspired it? How long did it take to write? Any other interesting details about this song?"Heaven" was released as the third single fromin April of 1985 and became Adams' first #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 when it held the top spot for two weeks in June. Since the filmand its soundtrack were relatively unsuccessful, the song had not received much previous exposure. It is reported that the ballad almost wasn't even included on the album because it was possibly considered too light. It is also reported that the song was influenced by Journey's "Faithfully" since Adams had been opening for them on tour in 1983 when it was written. Here is the music video for "Heaven" by Bryan Adams..."Summer of 69" has gone on to be the most recognized hit from Adams in the '80s. There are conflicting stories (even from Adams himself) on the meaning of the song. He has more recently come out and admitted that the 69 does symbolize making love. You co-wrote the song, what is your take on the song's meaning? What inspired it as far as you're concerned?"Summer of 69" was released as the fourth single fromin June of 1985. It is a fun, iconic anthem which surprisingly only peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August, but would spend 17 total weeks on the chart. When I think of Bryan Adams even now, this is the first song I think of. Here is the music video for "Summer of 69" by Bryan Adams...The fifth single released fromwas "One Night Love Affair" which reached #13 on the Hot 100 and was featured in the film. The sixth and final hit single from the album was "It's Only Love" which was a duet with Tina Turner that peaked at #15 on the Hot 100 in January of 1986.I also want to ask about "It's Only Love". Was this written specifically as a duet? At what point did Tina Turner come on board to sing with Adams? What can you tell us about Tina Turner and your experience working with her on this song?What are your feelings aboutand those hit songs now 28 years later?During this same time in 1985, Adams and Vallance co-wrote and released a very successful Christmas single.What can you tell us about Bryan's Christmas hit "Christmas Time"?I have always loved this song's melody and the sentiment it delivers. The chorus, in particular, is quite poignant:It can't be said much better than that. Though some might not agree with me, I consider this to be one of the best original Christmas songs to be released during the last few decades. And over 25 years later, it still deservingly gets lots of radio airplay during the holiday season. In 2001, Adams even performed "Christmas Time" at the Vatican for Pope John-Paul II. Alas, they never made a music video for it back then, but here is a more recent video created for "Christmas Time" by Bryan Adams...What can you tell us about the B-side to "Christmas Time", a song called "Reggae Christmas" that had been recorded the year prior?"Reggae Christmas" isn't remembered as often and doesn't get nearly the same radio airplay, but it does have a live music video which is pretty awesome! The video features some silliness from Pee-wee Herman in what turns out to be a dream sequence and was actually filmed at the original MTV studios in New York City in 1984. As an added bonus, it also includes original MTV VJs Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman and J.J. Jackson dancing, singing and having a good time. I wonder if anybody ever questioned a Canadian singing a song about Christmas in Jamaica. Here is that music video for "Reggae Christmas" by Bryan Adams... Adams followed up Reckless withwhich was released in March of 1987. Expectations were high coming off the last album's incredible success.sold over two million copies worldwide and generated the hit single "Heat of the Night", but was still considered disappointing. I think most artists would love to have that kind of "disappointment". A couple years later, in September of 1989, the partnership of Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams came to a (temporary) end.After such huge success together, what lead you to end your partnership with Bryan Adams in 1989? Was it an amicable split? Did you remain friends and/or are you still close friends today?Heart recorded and had a hit in 1985 with your song "What About Love" (originally written in 1982). What do you remember about when that song was originally written? How did it happen that Heart ended up recording it?Please tell us about your involvement in co-writing "Tears Are Not Enough", how you were recruited to help and your experience working with David Foster on that charity project. What do you remember about writing the song and how it went down?"Tears Are Not Enough" was the Canadian version of "We Are the World" which was the American version of "Do They Know It's Christmas". It was released in March of 1985 and has raised over $3 million for famine relief in Africa. The collected group was called Northern Lights and included artists such as Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell, Dan Hill, Neil Young, Geddy Lee, Paul Shaffer, Corey Hart and of course Bryan Adams among others. Here is the music video for "Tears Are Not Enough" by Northern Lights...How did you end up working with Glass Tiger as songwriter and producer? What can you tell us about Alan Frew and your experiences working with the band? What can you tell us about co-writing the hit songs "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" and "Someday"?Glass Tiger's 1986 debut albumincluded two hit singles both of which were co-written and produced by Jim Vallance. "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" even features backing vocals by Bryan Adams. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 1986 while "Someday" would later reach #7. You can find out a little more about these singles and see the videos in my interview with Alan Frew from Glass Tiger. Here is the music video for "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" by Glass Tiger...You are credited with co-writing "Rag Doll" by Aerosmith. What role did you play in creating that hit song? Any interesting details or stories about writing "Rag Doll" that you can share? What were your feelings regarding the final version of the song after you first heard it?Aerosmith released "Rag Doll" in 1988 as the final single fromwhich was their big comeback album following Run-DMC's "Walk This Way" cover. It reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100. Here is the video for "Rag Doll" by Aerosmith...Of all the songs you've written, is there one or two that are your personal favorites?Is it difficult as a songwriter to relinquish your song to another artist who will undoubtedly take artistic liberties and/or put their own spin on you work?What do you remember best about the decade of '80s music?Please tell us a little about where your music career has taken you since the '80s.What else is Jim Vallance up to nowadays? Musically and otherwise? Hobbies? Family? Any remaining ambitions or regrets?I am very honored and grateful that Jim was able to take some time to answer some questions so I could share them with you here. Among all of this great insight, it is especially cool to get confirmation on the long-debated "real" intended meaning of "Summer of 69".I want to take this occasion to again thank Jim Vallance for his incredible contributions to '80s pop culture writing all of those hit songs and, even more, for going back to the '80s with us here for a little while as well.Follow @OldSchool80s on Twitter for a daily dose of '80s nostalgia and read moreon RD80s. NEW FAIRFIELD Wanda Tirado was always the first to offer to help others, whether they be a friend who had back surgery or a homeless man in need of groceries. But after the Waterbury teachers death on Candlewood Lake this summer, her friends are rallying around her family. A Christmas dinner and dance-a-thon will be held in Oakville on Saturday to raise money for Tirados two daughters and start two scholarships in her honor. She's just a wonderful person, friend Kate D'autorio said. (Were) just trying to give back to her family because this is what she would do for one of us. The event combines Tirados love of Christmas and dancing. Christmas was her absolute favorite time, friend Kate D'autorio said. She was the type of person that had her Christmas tree up on Nov. 1. Her kids also took dance classes, while Tirado loved dancing at the annual auction for St. Mary Magdalen School in Oakville, where her daughter Amanda attended. She was always the first one on the dance floor, D'autorio said. Tirado was killed in June during a boat ride on Candlewood Lake. In a civil suit, her mother claims Tirado was thrown from a pontoon boat and struck by the propeller. The state Environmental Conservation Police are still investigating the accident. The boat driver, Watertown resident Gary Morrone, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree reckless operation, failure to help a collision victim and failure to report a deadly boat accident. A pre-trial had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, Morrones attorney said the case has been continued. We continue to await the results of the states investigation, attorney David Grudberg said. We urge everyone to keep an open mind until the investigation is complete, and until that time well have no further comment. In the civil suit against Morrone, the family has asked for $1.5 million from the driver. At the time of her death, my daughter was only 38 years old with two young children who depended on her for love and financial support, Josefina Rodriguez Robles, her mother, wrote in the affidavit. D'autorio said Tirados main focus was her daughters, Amanda, 14, and Daniella, 4. The single mother worked multiple jobs to provide for them and switched careers from a physical therapist to a teacher so her scheduled matched with her girls. She really liked to spend as much time (with her daughters) as humanly possible, rarely taking time for herself, Dautorio said. Dautorios daughter attended first through eighth grade at St. Mary Magdalen School with Amanda, while Daniella attends the Catholic Academy of Waterbury. Tirado taught at St. Marys School in Waterbury, but had been excited to start a new job at the Catholic Academy in the fall, Dautorio said. Proceeds from the event will go toward two $200 scholarships for a student at St. Mary Magdalen School and a student at Catholic Academy. The rest of the money will be split between education funds for the daughters. It was important to her for her children to get a good education, Dautorio said. As a single mom, she saved and scraped for her kids behalf. Amanda lives with Tirados parents, while Daniella lives with her father. The girls have different fathers. They are still very active in each others lives, which is awesome, D'autorio said. Tickets are $25. At least 100 tickets are still available and can be purchased at the door. The event is from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the St Mary Magdalen School in Oakville. Donations can also be mailed to Webster Bank, 712 Main St. Watertown CT 06795, with checks made payable to Martinez Chalker-Tirado Edu Fund. The event includes dinner, raffle prizes and a DJ. Unwrapped toys will be collected for Waterbury PAL and nonperishable food can be donated to St Vincent Depaul of Waterbury. Dautorio said Tirado would have liked the event to benefit others, citing the time she bought groceries for a homeless man she saw outside. She took pride in helping people who were less fortunate, Dautorio said. BARKHAMSTED The Metropolitan District Commission has governmental immunity and a lawsuit against it related to a 2011 drowning at Lake McDonough should therefore be dismissed, an appeals court ruled this week. The family of 23-year-old Andres Burgos who died July 9, 2011, after swimming out to First Island and back from an undesignated swimming area with a group of friends filed a wrongful death suit against the MDC in May 2013 claiming negligence and seeking to collect damages. The suit claimed the MDC had a duty to prevent visitors from swimming in undesignated areas, to conduct timely boat patrols, to initiate a timely search for Burgos, to call 911 in a timely fashion and to keep and maintain appropriate rescue equipment. More for you Hartford resident drowns in Barkhamsted lake (with video of... In December 2016, the MDC filed a motion for summary judgment claiming immunity. Vivian Perez, suing on behalf of the Burgos family, argued an exception to the immunity rule, saying Burgos was an identifiable person subject to imminent harm. The trial court granted the summary judgement in June 2017. Perez then appealed the ruling. On Tuesday, the appeals court affirmed the lower courts ruling 3-0. Burgos had gone to Lake McDonough to swim with a group of friends that July afternoon in 2011. The lake, mostly located in Barkhamsted and under jurisdiction of the MDC, offers three beaches available for the public to use during spring and summer months with boundaries clearly marked, court records say. Signs are also posted at each beach, in both English and Spanish, stating rules and regulations, including where swimming is permitted. MDC employees also conduct random boat patrols throughout the lake to find people swimming outside of designated areas, court records say. Instead of using a designated area, Burgos and his friends followed a trail through the woods to an area known as the Point. From here, they swam to a small island, about 250 feet from shore, officials said. During the return journey, Burgos began to struggle before slipping underwater, the court ruling reads. Upon realizing that Burgos had disappeared, mem-bers of the group swam to shore and ran back along the trail to West Beach to alert the defendants life-guards. Once informed of the incident, several life-guards ran to the Point, entered the water and began to search for Burgos. Lifeguards from the other nearby beaches, notified over the radio of a possible drowning incident, soon arrived by boat to assist with the ongoing rescue, officials said. The area where the group had been swimming was estimated to be deeper than 20 feet, and it took a deep-water dive almost an hour after Burgos had disappeared before lifeguards found his body, court records show. Burgos was taken to Hartford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:50 p.m. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxia and drowning. A fence was put up in the area after the drowning to prevent others from swimming there, according to the Connecticut Law Tribune. The Burgos family is not expected to appeal the case again to the Supreme Court, the Law Tribune reported. BARKHAMSTED - A Hartford resident drowned in Lake McDonough while swimming with friends late Saturday afternoon. Rescue workers pulled the body of 23-year-old Andres Burgos from the bottom of the lake at about 4:45 p.m. According to State police, Burgos was pulled from the lake Saturday afternoon. He was transported from the lake via New Hartford Ambulance to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. Burgos was then flown to Hartford Hospital by Life Star helicopter where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Dive teams from Bantam and Goshen were put on alert after the report of a possible drowning. Crews from the Metropolitan District Commission and New Hartford Fire Department used boats to assist in the rescue. Witnesses reported seeing and hearing several individuals yell for help on the west side of the lake. The lake has two swimming areas, and MDC Police Chief Henry Martin said the male was swimming in an unauthorized section of the lake. According to a written statement, police were informed by a life guard that a male was observed swimming to an island located "off the point" near the west beach of the lake. The police were told the male might have drowned by the lifeguard. "We patrol the lake, and our lifeguards keep good watch over the swimmers," Martin said Saturday. "But because the lake is so large, there are some areas that have to be designated as off limits." Jacob Galeazzi, 13, who was boating with his family saw the drowning and said his mother called for help immediately. "She had to call about three times," he said. "We heard that the lake was really deep there, maybe 40 feet, and the lifeguards were having trouble seeing." "The kid couldn't swim," Galeazzi's mother, Alicia said. "We heard everyone yelling. He was with a group of people and they were swimming where they shouldn't have been, and it took [emergency workers] so long to respond to the area." Galeazzi said his family was getting ready to leave after boating for most of the day when the accident happened. "We looked and saw him, and then looked again and only saw his head bobbing - then he went down." Click here to see a video from the scene. Martin said the lake has seen drowning before. "This isn't the first time, but our lifeguards did all they could," Martin said. "They were excellent." In addition to the two swimming areas, martin said the lake also rents boats. Boaters are supplied with life jackets before they are allowed onto the lake. It is unknown whether the man had a life jacket at the time, although witnesses reported him as not wearing one. Lake McDonough is located off Route 44 on Route 219 in the Pine Meadow section of New Hartford. Martin said the accident is under investigation. Check back as more details become available. Reach Mike Agogliati by e-mail at magogliati@registercitizen.com, on Twitter @mikeagogliati at or by phone at (860) 489-2321, ext. 324. Follow us online at registercitizen.com and on Twitter @RegisterCitizen. NEW HAVEN A Nigerian citizen was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison this week for his supervisory role in a business e-mail compromise scheme, which caused a company in Torrington to lose more than $500,000, according to a release. Adeyemi Odufuye, 32, also known as Micky, Micky Bricks, Yemi, GMB, Bawz, and Jefe, a citizen of Nigeria, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven, according to John H. Durham, U.S. attorney for Connecticut. According to court documents and statements made in court, Odufuye and others, including Olumuyiwa Yahtrip Adejumo, operated a business compromise scheme that targeted hundreds, if not thousands, of CEOs, CFOs, controllers and others at businesses, nonprofit organizations and schools in Connecticut and across the United States. As part of the scheme, Odufuye and others sent e-mails addressed to executives that were made to appear to be sent from the legitimate e-mail address of the CEO or other executive from the business. The emails were sent with the intent of having the recipients send or wire money to bank accounts used by members of the conspiracy, federal officials said. The investigation revealed that scheme participants controlled multiple e-mail and social media accounts used in the scheme and, in certain instances, sent e-mails and attachments containing malware to the intended recipients, according to the release. In late 2015, Odufuye and others sent or caused to be sent dozens of e-mails to the controller of a company in Torrington. In the e-mails, Odufuye posed as the real CEO of the victim company and instructed the controller to send multiple wire transfers exceeding a total of $1 million from the companys accounts to various individuals and purported entities. The company then sent five wire transfers totaling more than $500,000 to accounts in Virginia, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Hong Kong, court records show. The investigation revealed that Odufuye and others also targeted a company headquartered in Waterbury as part of this scheme. To date, the FBI has identified 36 wire confirmations in e-mail accounts utilized by Odufuye and others from September 2015 to May 2016, totaling more than $1.6 million. This figure does not include the more than $500,000 in wire transfers from the victim company in Connecticut. Judge Hall ordered Odufuye to pay restitution in the amount of $921,497.87 to 15 victims of the scheme. On Jan. 3, Odufuye pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. On Dec. 19, 2016, Odufuye was arrested in the United Kingdom where he was a student and was later extradited to the U.S. to face these charges. He has been detained since his arrest. Adejumo, also a citizen of Nigeria, was living in Toledo, Ohio, as a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. at the time of his arrest on Nov. 17, 2017. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and, on Aug. 17, was sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment. A third Nigerian citizen alleged to be involved in this scheme is awaiting trial. This matter is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Connecticut Cyber Task Force. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David T. Huang. U.S. Attorney Durham thanked the Department of Justices Office of International Affairs, the United Kingdoms National Crime Agency, and the United Kingdoms Metropolitan Police for their assistance in this case. More than 1,000 Cambodian workers from a footwear factory in the capital Phnom Penh staged a protest on Friday after they failed to reach an agreement with management over the amount of severance pay they will receive for refusing to relocate to a new facility, those involved in the matter said. Workers blocked a road during the protest because factory operators want to close down the facility and move to a new location on the outskirts of the city, they said. The employees strongly oppose the move because it would be more difficult for them to get to work from their homes and from their childrens schools. An employee who declined to be named told RFAs Khmer Service that workers have demanded U.S. $300 in severance pay, though factory management has decided to give them only U.S. $80 each. The factory is tricky, he said. They will only give us U.S. $80 and require that we submit our resignations, she said. But if the workers provide resignation letters, they will forfeit more of their benefits, she added. RFAs Khmer Service could not reach the factory management or the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training for comment on Friday. Cambodias labor law requires employers to pay severance to workers who refuse to move from their current factory location to a new one, said Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions. A labor regulation that went into effect in September requires employers to pay severance equal to five percent of a workers salary. Rong Chhun urged all parties to try to reach a deal. The factory must pay the workers, and the Ministry of Labor must help the workers, he said. The workers said they will protest again if their demand for higher severance is not met. About 600 factories comprise Cambodias heavily unionized garment and footwear sector on which the country depends for crucial exports to the European Union, United States, and other Western countries. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. A detained Cambodian union leader who was deported from Thailand and formally charged for his involvement in the production of a documentary about sex trafficking plans to request bail, his lawyer said Friday. Sam Titseyha told RFAs Khmer Service that he will file to win release on bail for Rath Rott Mony next week. Titseyha said because he was just assigned to the case, he does not have exact details, but maintained that Mony did not violate any laws and should not have been arrested. Authorities have claimed women who appeared in the documentary were paid and made up tragic stories of being sold into prostitution. Titseyha said all parties in the documentary, commissioned by broadcaster Russia Today (RT), agreed to be filmed, and Mony did not intend to damage the reputation of Cambodia. If the broadcast affects the countrys image, the Ministry of Information can ask YouTube to take the documentary offline, the lawyer said. This is not an incitement to discriminate, he said, referring to the exact charge handed down to his client by Phnom Penh Municipal Court Thursday. It is an educational documentary. Monys wife Long Kimheang said she met with her husband briefly at a detention center. She revealed that Monys head was shaved and that he felt threatened. My husband has changed. I was afraid and shocked, she said. But he assured her that he wasnt tortured, she said. She said during the meeting Mony told her that he did his part and now the government and the people must step in to help combat human trafficking. Cambodian authorities say Mony abetted the production of fake news after he helped the broadcaster film the documentary released in October called My Mother Sold Me, which tells the stories of impoverished families in Cambodia who hawked the virginity of their daughters, who were later forced into prostitution. Mony was detained in Bangkok on Dec. 7 while attempting to seek asylum at a visa office for the Netherlands by Thai police acting on a formal request by Cambodias government. He was deported back to Cambodia on Wednesday. Reported by RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by RFA's Khmer Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Freight companies in mainland China are openly offering tariff-dodging services to reduce the cost of rising tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by Washington as part of the Sino-U.S. trade war, RFA has learned. Many say they are able to do this by transhipping, repackaging and providing goods with Malaysian documents before they make their final journey to U.S. ports. A Hong Kong business owner with a factory in the Pearl River Delta area of southern China said the falsification of country-of-origin documentation crucial to deciding which, if any, tariffs must be paid is no easy matter. "The only way you can avoid tariffs is by unpacking an entire container of stuff made in China and changing its country of origin to a different country," said the business owner, who gave only a nickname Jess. "But that greatly increases the cost of producing them." "Also, they will ask you to show certificates of origin for some of the goods, which for a lot of plastic goods is already on the mold," he said. He said that U.S. authorities would likely take retaliatory action against any countries participating in such scams at such a politically sensitive time. "They could put their tariffs up, or they could tell the country concerned to pick a side [in the trade war]," he said. Shouldering additional costs But some mainland Chinese exporters seem willing to shoulder the additional costs in the face of the trade war. The manager of a mainland Chinese freight forwarding company who gave only his surname Chen said his customers could enjoy preferential tariffs by re-exporting their goods to disguise the country of origin, through what he claimed was a "legal" process. "We are exporting to other countries via Malaysia, because the ... tariffs there are pretty low," Chen told RFA. "It costs roughly U.S. $2,000 extra to re-export a single container, compared with exporting it normally." When the goods arrive in Malaysia, they are repackaged, Chen explained. "We put the goods in another container, and then they are exported as normal to the United States by Malaysia, with a full set of customs documentation to clear customs," he said. "We know some of the officials there, so they help us out by stamping the country of origin certificates," Chen said. Chen said his company is sending out around 300 containers a quarter since the trade war started. He said the risks are low, as long as there is no Chinese printed on any of the goods or packaging. "If there is no Chinese writing on it, there's nothing they can say about it," Chen said. "If the volume of goods is very high, we are also able to ask Malaysian factories to help out by saying that the goods were manufactured by them in Malaysia, should the U.S. customs officials ask to see documentation from the factory." Openly advertised services Many companies, like Chen's, openly advertise such services in Chinese on their company websites, according to a brief survey of such sites carried out by RFA on Friday. "Through entrepot trade via third countries ... [clients] can continue to export and maintain customers in the destination countries ... and avoid high tariffs," according to the website of the Shenzhen Shengbao International Freight Forwarding Company, Ltd. The Shenzhen Shengshi Yuntong International Freight Forwarding Company offers to ship goods from any port in China, including Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou by container vessel or air. The company will then "arrange the one-for-one exchange of containers in the bonded area ... and issue an original bill of lading and certificate of origin," the website says. And Shenzhen Top Profit freight forwarding firm offers to obtain certificates of origin for clients from Indonesia and Malaysia, legalized by embassies in the importing country, as well as production reports and factory certificates. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Hong Kong's trial of nine pro-democracy activists accused of "inciting" the 2014 Occupy Central movement has ended, with a verdict to be handed down in April. The District Court said on Friday it will announce its ruling on April 9, on whether the nine defendants, including movement initiators Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and the Rev. Chu Yiu-ming had caused a "public nuisance" by encouraging the protests. The nine defendants, who also include barrister and lawmaker Tanya Chan, former lawmaker Lee Wing-tat and democracy activists Eason Chung, Raphael Wong and Tommy Cheung, argued that a reasonable member of the public would be tolerant of the protests, owing to the importance of the movement for fully democratic elections that had been ruled out by Beijing. All nine pleaded "not guilty." But the prosecution argued that the worthiness of the protests was irrelevant to the case against the nine, and that the court should base its finding on the facts, including the extent of obstruction to the public from the use of major highways. The protests calling for universal suffrage grew out of a week-long student strike following an Aug. 31, 2014 ruling from China's National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee insisting on the vetting of electoral candidates if universal suffrage was to go ahead. The ruling was also rejected by pan-democratic lawmakers as "fake universal suffrage." In June 2014, an unofficial referendum saw 400,000 people vote in favor of universal suffrage and unrestricted nominations, in spite of a central government white paper spelling out that the city's autonomy was still subject to the will of Beijing, and didn't constitute full autonomy or decentralized power. Protesters broke through into the shuttered-off Civic Square outside government headquarters on Sept. 27, bringing thousands of protesters onto the streets of nearby Admiralty. Public anger soared when police used tear gas, batons and pepper spray against unarmed protesters on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of people onto the city's streets at its height, many of them calling for fully democratic elections. Hong Kong was promised the continuation of its existing freedoms of press, publication and association, as well as a separate and independent judiciary, under the terms of its 1997 return to Chinese rule, within the "one country, two systems" framework agreed between British and Chinese officials and enshrined in its miniconstitution, the Basic Law. But the city's freedom and autonomy are now being eroded in the wake of repeated interventions in the citys political life by Beijing, according to overseas governments and human rights organizations. 'Chilling effect' Occupy co-founder Benny Tai said there would be a strong and obvious "chilling effect" if the court convicted the nine defendants. "It is clear to everyone and the world that the people will be under pressure if we are convicted," he told reporters outside the court after the trial concluded on Thursday. "In the future, you may be charged with all kinds of crazy offenses and actually people would not talk about things that they worry about," Tai warned, in comments aired by government broadcaster RTHK. "The chilling effect is clear and I hope the judge will be able to see that." Each charge against the nine defendants carries a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment. Tai, who has been targeted by a smear campaign in the pro-Beijing press after he discussed the hypothetical notion of independence for Hong Kong at an academic forum, told the court earlier this week that he didn't fear going to jail. Earlier this month, former Occupy Central student leader and opposition activist Joshua Wong warned that political prosecutions against protesters "have become the new norm" in Hong Kong. At the start of the trial, British MPs condemned the use of criminal charges to intimidate and silence pro-democracy figures, noting that more than 100 pro-democracy protesters have been charged, and many jailed, on the basis of common law charges which curtail freedom of expression and have been criticized by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. 'Unlawful assembly' conviction This year's trial comes after Wong and fellow Occupy leaders Nathan Law and Alex Chow were found guilty of public order offenses in July 2017 for their role in the occupation of Civic Square at the start of the movement. Wong and Chow were convicted of "unlawful assembly" after they climbed into the fenced-off area outside government headquarters on the night of Sept. 26, 2014, at the start of a 79-day civil disobedience campaign for universal suffrage. They were jailed after a retrial at the request of the justice department, which said their non-custodial sentences were too lenient, but were later released on appeal. U.S. and U.K. officials have warned that growing political interference from Beijing is eroding the city's promised autonomy, known as the "one country, two systems" framework. The cross-border detentions of five Hong Kong booksellers, and the barring of six directly elected pro-democracy lawmakers after Beijing intervened to rule their oaths of allegiance invalid have also thrown up doubts about the city's judicial independence. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. A sign marks the entrance to Buthidaung township in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in an undated photo. Intensified fighting between an ethnic armed group and Myanmar forces in northern Rakhine state has driven more than 300 villagers in Buthidaung district to flee to safety, causing further upheaval in one of the areas affected by a violent crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, a local village head said Friday. The latest round of clashes between the Arakan Army and national military in the region forced 330 residents from Thabyu Chaung and Kyautse villages in Buthdaung's Ponnagyun township to seek safety in Thinpone Tan village on Thursday night, said village head Than Win. The group, which includes more than 90 children under the age of 12, joined more than 40 others from Phetwon Chaung village who also fled the hostilities, he said. The displaced villagers have been placed in temporary tents, and village authorities have informed Ponnagyun townships administrator that they need food and health care, he added. Earlier this week, more than 200 people from Buthidaung's Kan Pyin village fled to Setaung village when they heard blasts from heavy weapons, but they returned home on Thursday, sources said. Residents of Nwayone Taung, Uyin Thar, Chacharr Taung, Myoma Chaung, and Pyin Chaung villages cannot go to their farms because of the fighting, they said. Aung Thaung Shwe, a lawmaker from the Arakan National Party (ANP) who represents the Buthidaung constituency, told RFAs Myanmar Service that although fighting has subsided in these villages, government army soldiers recently came back to Uyin Thar village to check the area. Earlier this week, Buthidaung authorities extended a night-to-dawn curfew in the area by another two months on account of the fighting. The curfew has been in place since August 2017, when deadly attacks by a Muslim militant group on police outposts sparked a brutal military crackdown on Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine state. Border strongholds Clashes between the AA and Myanmar forces escalated between Nov. 26 and Dec. 6 in remote hilly areas of Buthidaung near Myanmars border with Bangladesh, and spilled over into adjacent Rathedaung township. Fighting on Dec. 3 began after AA troops ambushed a Myanmar Army column conducting area clearance operations" near the border, a report by the military-run news service Myawady said. AA spokesman Khine Thukha told RFA that the fighting began after the Myanmar Army intruded into an AA-controlled area of Buthidaung, where the Arakan troops maintain their border strongholds. Four AA soldiers were killed during that week of hostilities, while officers and other ranks from the Myanmar Army also lost their lives, Myawady said, but gave no further details. A statement issued on Dec. 7 by the Myanmar military said the AA engaged in the skirmishes to disrupt fencing work for the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project near Myanmars borders with India and Bangladesh, according to a report issued Dec. 11 by the Myanmar Times. Many Rakhine residents oppose the project a transportation corridor for shipping cargo from India's eastern ports to Sittwe seaport in Rakhine state and then on to northeast India via river and highway routes through Myanmar saying they are being excluded from its potential benefits. A step toward peace The AA is one of several armed ethnic organizations that have not signed the governments nationwide cease-fire agreement (NCA), which 10 other ethnic armies have inked. The Myanmar military has refused to allow the AA, along with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), to participate in formal peace negotiations until they agree to lay down their arms. The AA, MNDAA, and TNLA, which together comprise a group of rebel armies known as the Northern Alliance, said Wednesday that they would cooperate with the government to advance the peace process, despite not having signed the NCA, the Myanmar Times reported. The groups also called for an end to military activity in the areas they control as a trust-building measure to work towards peace, according to a statement they released after a meeting with government peace negotiators in Kunming, capital of southwestern Chinas Yunnan province. Reported by Min Thein Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Prominent Uyghur Muslim cleric Abdukerim Abduweli is believed to have died in detention in northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) after spending nearly 30 years in prison, according to his brother and a Uyghur exile group. Born in 1955 in the seat of Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefectures Kuchar (Kuche) county, Abduweli, who is also known as Kerem Qari, was arrested in November 1990 and sentenced the following year to 12 years in the XUAR capital Urumqis No. 3 Prison for propagating and instigating counter-revolutionary ideology related to religious activities. However, authorities extended the prison term of the cleric, whose case drew attention from the international community, on five different occasions each time his sentence was nearly completemost recently for five years in 2014, moving his release date to June of 2019. A recent report by Turkey-based Uyghur exile group East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association suggested that Abduweli may have died in prison. Calls by RFAs Uyghur Service to Urumqis No. 3 Prison and various police stations in Kuchar county seeking confirmation of Abduwelis death went unanswered in recent days. But Abduwelis Norway-based younger brother Muhemmet Emin recently told RFA that he heard from an ethnic Uyghur worker who was helping to renovate his home in Istanbul, Turkey, in June last year that the cleric may have died in jail. While talking with one of the workers, I asked him where he was from and he said [the seat of the XUARs Turpan (Tulufan) prefecture], so I mentioned that I am from Kuchar, Emin said. Then he asked, Do you know Kerem Qari from Kuchar? So my wife told him that I am his younger brother. He said, I have a close friend who served some time in prison that told me Kerem Qari died in jail. According to Emin, the worker said that he would return the next day with additional information, but he never did, and Emin said he didnt investigate any further. Emin told RFA he became aware in 2014 that Abduweli was ill and couldnt walk after contacting his younger brother Abdurahman, who had met with him during one of the handful of family visits he was allowed each year. He had become very thin and was unable to walk, Emin said. My younger brother told me that he was confined to a wheelchair when he saw him in prison, he said. Emin cut off contact with his family in the beginning of 2015 when he learned that his daughter was detained after speaking with him by telephone, and he never determined whether Abduwelis health had improved. He said he remains unsure of his daughters fate and believes that most of his more than 20 family members in Kuchar have since been taken into custody. I recently heard from sources that no one from my family remains freethey have all been locked up, he said. I also learned that my two younger brothers, Abdurahman and Ibrahim, have been sentenced to seven and 10 years in prison. I dont know what has happened to the rest of my family members, whether they are dead or alive. Abdukerim Abduweli in an undated photo. Credit: Family member Global concern Abduwelis case has been routinely raised by international human rights organizations, including London-based Amnesty International, and Western governments during rights dialogues with China, including by a delegation from the European Union in July of this year. According to the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, Abduweli held several hunger strikes to protest his prolonged incarceration, including for nine months in late 2011. The group said Abduweli had also been diagnosed with bone and joint cancer. Memet Tohti, chairman of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress exile groups Refugee Affairs Commission, told RFA that the multiple extensions of Abduwelis prison term showed that the verdict in his case was invalid. The Chinese authorities failed to honor their own decision and law, he said. [If the reports of his death are accurate] they denied him the right to see sunlight before his life ended. One could say this is a state crime against ones life. Tohti said that China regularly deceives the international community about cases such as Abduwelis and rarely acknowledges concerns raised about them by foreign delegations. The foreign relationship office branches based in Beijing, when receiving lists of missing people, doesnt even bother to respond anymore, he said. Reported by Jilil Kashgari for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Four jailed Vietnamese members of the online Brotherhood for Democracy advocacy group are suffering from failing health and enduring ill treatment in prison, according to the wife of one activist, who raised concerns about their situation during a meeting with U.S. Embassy officials on Friday. Nguyen Thi Lanh, the wife of Brotherhood for Democracy President Nguyen Trung Ton, told RFAs Vietnamese Service that she and other relatives met with representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi to detail routine abuse of the activists by prison authorities and ask for assistance in securing their release. We told them about members of the Brotherhood for Democracy who are now in prisonthat they are treated very badly, she said. [Former Brotherhood for Democracy president] Pham Van Troi has to work eight hours a day. They try to force my husband to write confessions every day, but he has refused, so they have placed him in solitary confinement to attempt to break him. Along with Nguyen Trung Ton and Pham Van Troi, family members also raised the cases of Truong Minh Duc, the deputy head of the Brotherhood for Democracy in Southern Vietnam, and Tran Thi Xuan, a Catholic activist and member of the group. Nguyen Thi Lanh said a representative from the U.S. Embassy pledged to pay more attention to Brotherhood for Democracy members and to raise concerns about their cases, as well as those of other political prisoners, with relevant authorities in Vietnam. Nguyen Trung Ton, Pham Van Troi, and Truong Minh Duc were arrested along with fellow Brotherhood for Democracy member Nguyen Bac Truyen on July 30, 2017 by Vietnamese security officers because of their ties to the group and subsequently charged under Article 79 of the Penal Code for carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people's administration. On April 5, Nguyen Trung Ton and Truong Minh Duc each received sentences of 12 years in jail and three years of house arrest, while Pham Van Troi received a seven-year sentence and one year of house arrest. Tran Thi Xuan was also arrested under Article 79 on Oct. 17, 2017, and sentenced on April 12 to nine years in prison by a court in Ha Tinh province. In October, Nguyen Thi Lanh said her husband is in failing health in prison and unable to walk owing to an untreated injury suffered in a beating by police two years ago. Tran Thi Xuan has suffered from multiple health problems, including kidney disease and asthma, and is believed to be suffering from fluid retention due to lack of treatment for her medical issues. Vietnams one-party communist governmentwhich controls all media, censors the internet, and restricts basic freedoms of expressionis currently detaining more than 200 political prisoners, Nguyen Kim Binh of Vietnam Human Rights Network said in a speech Sunday in California to mark the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. document that sets out fundamental human rights. That number was higher than the 130 provided recently by Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based advocacy and watchdog group. Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. YEREVAN The whereabouts of a Russian soldier arrested in Armenia over the killing of a local woman have been unknown for days. On December 13, Armenia's Judicial Department said that the soldier serving at Russia's 102nd military base in Armenia's northwestern city of Gyumri was arrested on the decision of the Shirak regional court a day earlier, but did not specify if the suspect was in Armenian custody or at the Russian military base. The Prosecutor-General's Office has declined to answer RFE/RL's questions about charges faced by the suspect. Armenian authorities said on December 11 that the soldier, whose identity has not been disclosed, was suspected of beating a 57-year-old local woman, Julieta Ghukasian, who died during her transfer to a hospital, on December 2. The Russian Embassy in Yerevan initially rejected media reports suggesting that the woman was beaten by Russian soldiers. Yerevan-based human rights defender Artur Sakunts told RFE/RL that the possible detention of the suspect at the Russian military base would contradict an Armenian-Russian agreement, according to which, Russian soldiers who committed crimes against Armenian nationals on Armenian territory must be handed to Armenian authorities for prosecution. Sakunts added that the situation looks similar to a 2015 incident, when a Russian soldier from the base in Gyumri, Moscow's main foothold in the South Caucasus region, murdered seven members of an Armenian family. Private Valery Permyakov was held at the Russian military base before and after a local court in August 2016 sentenced him to life in prison. Many Armenians expressed concern over a Russian cover-up of the massacre. Permyakov was later transferred to Russia to serve his sentence. The case sparked large protests in Armenia against the Russian military presence in the country. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople will hand over a Tomos -- a decree granting independence, or autocephaly -- to the future head of the local Orthodox Church in Ukraine on January 6, Archbishop Yevstratiy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate said on December 13. Senior figures from Orthodox Christian communities in Ukraine will meet on December 15 in a bid to form a new, unified, independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and elect a leader, known as a Primate. The December 15 "unity gathering" will be held at St. Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv and will be attended by Bartholomew. "The Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch should be handed over to the [future] Primate on January 6 [on Christmas Eve]," Ukrainian and Russian media quoted Yevstratiy as saying. Most Christian Orthodox believers will celebrate Christmas on January 7. Yevstratiy added that the Tomos will be granted in Istanbul -- the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch -- after a joint liturgy of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the head of the new Ukrainian church. The December 15 meeting could be a crucial step in years of efforts to create a church in Ukraine that is independent of Moscow and has the approval of Bartholomew, the "first among equals" in the global Eastern Orthodox faith. It is also expected to adopt a charter. Ukraine currently has three main Orthodox denominations: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which remained subordinate to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and two breakaway entities -- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, led by Filaret, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Makariy. Bartholomew announced the decision to recognize Ukraine's request for an autocephalous church in October. The announcement by Bartholomew, who is considered the leader of the 300-million-strong worldwide Orthodox community, came amid deepening tension over efforts by Ukrainian Orthodox churches to formally break away from Russias orbit. It also prompted the Russian Orthodox Church to announce days later that it was ending its relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in protest. The developments have added to tensions between Kyiv and Moscow, already high since Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists. The Moscow Patriarchate has announced that its representatives will not attend the December 15 gathering. With reporting by gordon.ua, UNIAN, AP, and TASS U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton says there will be no meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Moscow still holds the Ukrainian ships and sailors it seized near Crimea. "I dont see circumstances in the foreseeable future where such a meeting could take place until the ships and the crews are released," Bolton told reporters on December 13. Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy ships on November 25 and arrested 24 sailors in the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov. Moscow alleged that the vessels had illegally entered Russian territorial waters near the Crimea region, which Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine and most UN member states do not recognize the annexation. NATO has pledged support for Ukraine's navy, with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg saying on December 13 that "Russia must immediately release the sailors and ships they seized and allow freedom of navigation including free access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov." "This is part of Russia's pattern of destabilizing behavior," Stoltenberg added. "We strongly condemn Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea." Putin and Trump briefly discussed the matter on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina on December 1, the Kremlin said. On the eve of the summit, Trump announced he would not hold a formal one-on-one meeting with Putin, citing the Kerch Strait incident. Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa ULAN-UDE, Russia -- Two Russian traffic police officers in the Siberian region of Buryatia have been charged with violent behavior and abuse of power after CCTV videos showing them beating a car wash director were posted online. The Investigative Committee branch in the region said on December 14 that the two officers, whose names were not disclosed, refused to pay after their vehicle was cleaned at a car wash in Buryatia's capital, Ulan-Ude, on November 22. In a statement, it said they invited the director to get into their car and then threatened him and demanded he put the car wash under their "protection" in order to regularly extort money from him. The manager rejected the demand and told the officers that he had recorded their threats and offers on his mobile phone and would post the records online. The officers then chased the director, caught him, and tried to take the mobile phone from him by force, the statement said. The director escaped and ran into the office, but the traffic policemen forced their way in and beat him up while trying to take his mobile phone. They stopped beating him only after they realized that there were CCTV cameras in the office, the investigators said. One of the officers is under house arrest and another one has been ordered not to leave the city while investigations are under way. Buryatias Interior Ministry told RFE/RL that "if the two officers' guilt is proven in court," they will be fired and their direct supervisors will be officially reprimanded. Abuses by police, prison guards, and other law enforcement officers have long been rife in Russia. The issue was widely debated across Russia after a video showing at least 17 guards beating an inmate at a prison in Yaroslavl became public in July. On November 13, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), Valery Maksimenko, said that Russia needs more prisons to hold police officers and other law enforcement agents who have been convicted of crimes. A prominent Kremlin critic says Russia has been rapidly losing its standing on the world stage due to President Vladimir Putins aggressive policies. The main problem of the Kremlin is not connected to the ability or inability to control the processes inside the country, but the fact that the regime began to rapidly lose its international standing, said Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion turned opposition activist. "Sooner or later it had to happen, because this aggressive policy of the Kremlin, it had to convince the free world that it was pointless to negotiate with Putin," Kasparov told RFE/RLs Russian Service in an interview on December 14. Echoing allegations in the United States, Kasparov accused the Kremlin of meddling in other countries affairs, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kasparov said that Russia invested enormous resources to ensure Donald Trumps victory against Hillary Clinton. Russian propaganda portrayed Trumps election victory as Putins triumph, Kasparov said. However, the triumph in Moscow has been short-lived because, as it turned out, the president of the United States, with all his enormous political power, is limited in his ability to pursue the policy that Putin would have expected from him, Kasparov added. The allegations of Russian election meddling have dogged Trumps presidency and have given rise to an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into potential collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Trump denies the allegation, calling it a political witch hunt. Kasparov also said that another blow to Putin has been the European sanctions imposed in response to the annexation by Moscow of Ukraines Crimea region in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 over the past 4 1/2 years. On December 13, the European Union prolonged the sanctions for another six months. The sanctions, which mainly target the Russian banking and energy sectors, were first imposed in the summer of 2014 and have been extended every six months since then. However, Kasparov pointed out that Putins policy of trying to create division in the Western world is far from over. So far, this policy has been counterproductive, Kasparov said, adding that Putins tactical victories turn into strategic defeats. Kasparov said that in the future it would be Russia and the Russians who would have to pay the price for Putins policies in Ukraine and elsewhere, just as nations have always paid for the crimes of their dictators." Kasparov, 55, dominated professional chess from 1985 to 2000. He retired from chess in 2005 to start a political movement called The Other Russia in opposition to Putin. Kasparov eventually left Russia, saying in 2013 he would never return, and received Croatian citizenship in 2014. He spends much of his time in New York. He authored a book in 2015: Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin And The Enemies Of The Free World Must Be Stopped. Lawmakers in Kosovo have passed legislation to build a full-fledged army, a move that has inflamed tensions with its former wartime foe Serbia. The United States said the move was "only natural" for a "sovereign, independent country" and urged continued dialogue with Serbia. However, NATO called the decision "ill-timed" and said it went against the advice of the alliance. Russia, Serbia's traditional ally, condemned the move, saying it was a sign that the situation in the Balkans was deteriorating. The vote to convert Kosovos lightly armed emergency response force into a professional army passed on December 14 with a unanimous vote by 105 deputies in the 120-seat assembly. The session was boycotted by minority Serb lawmakers. "Kosovo's parliament has adopted the law on the Kosovo Security Force! Congratulations!" parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli said. The legislation will double the size of the Kosovo Security Force and gradually transform it into a professional army of 5,000 troops. The move has received support from all parties in the Western Balkan nation with an ethnic-Albanian majority except for lawmakers who represent the countrys 120,000-strong ethnic-Serb minority. Those lawmakers have boycotted parliament sessions on the matter. President Hashim Thaci said that the new army will be "multiethnic, professional, and serve all citizens, peace in Kosovo, the region and wherever in the world when asked." The United States has backed Kosovo's move, but it attempted to reassure those opposed to the action by insisting the process would take "many years. The U.S. ambassador to Pristina, Philip Kosnett, said that "it is only natural for Kosovo as a sovereign, independent country to have a self-defense capability." "The United States reaffirms its support for the gradual transition of the Kosovo Security Force to a force with a territorial defense mandate, as is Kosovos sovereign right. The vote in the assembly today is the first step in developing this capability," the U.S. Embassy in Pristina said in a statement issued shortly after the vote. The statement urged Kosovo to continue "close coordination with NATO allies and partners and to engage in outreach to minority communities." The statement also said "regional stability requires that Kosovo make genuine efforts to normalize relations with its neighbor Serbia, and we encourage both sides to take immediate steps to lower tensions and create conditions for rapid progress on dialogue." Serbia's prime minister said the formation of an army in Kosovo goes against efforts at stability in the Balkans. Ana Brnabic said on December 14 that "Serbia will try to continue on the path of peace and stability, the road of prosperity." "Today is not the day that contributes to cooperation and stability in the region," she added. Officials estimate it will take up to a decade for the current Kosovo Security Force to become a combat-ready army. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had stressed before the vote that Kosovo's plan was "ill-timed" and goes "against the advice of many NATO allies." Reacting to the December 14 vote, Stoltenberg said NATO will "reexamine" its role in Kosovo. "NATO supports the development of the Kosovo Security Force under its current mandate. With the change of mandate, the North Atlantic Council will now have to reexamine the level of NATO's engagement with the Kosovo Security Force," Stoltenberg said in a statement. "I regret that this decision was made despite the concerns expressed by NATO," Stoltenberg added. Meanwhile, the European Union's foreign policy chief has expressed regret over Kosovo's decision to form an army. A December 14 statement from Federica Mogherini's office said the EU was in agreement with NATO that the mandate of Kosovo's current security force "should only be changed through an inclusive and gradual process in accordance with the Kosovo Constitution." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also expressed concerns about the move, spokesman Farhan Haq said. "The secretary-general calls on all parties concerned to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that could raise tensions and cause a further setback in the European Union-facilitated dialogue for the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina," Haq said In a strongly worded statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry said, "It is evident that Kosovo is becoming an epicenter of instability, a source for conflict potential in the region." The ministry accused the West of downplaying the shifts in the balance of power in the Balkans. "The European Union has failed its mediatory role in dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina," it said. Belgrade and ethnic Serbs in Kosovo have vehemently opposed the creation of a Kosovar military, saying it would violate UN resolutions and be used against the country's Serb minority -- a claim denied by officials in Pristina. Nationalist Serbian newspapers have warned the move could set off a new conflict. The daily Informer stated that "War with Kosovo will start on December 15," the day after parliaments vote. Serbian officials have downplayed the possibility of war, but Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on December 13 that the "situation will be considerably worsened" if Kosovo goes ahead with the decision. "We are not going to beat the war drums, but we will not allow anyone to purge and humiliate the Kosovo Serbs," Vucic said. He also denounced the United States for its support of a Kosovo army and praised allies Russia and China for opposing the move. Vucic addressed the nation, saying Kosovo and its "sponsor" the United States want to "quash" the Serbs, but that he won't allow it. Serbia has been "brought to the edge" by Kosovo's decision, Vucic said, and now has no choice but to "defend" itself. Russia and China have supported Serbia in its rejection of Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. The United States and most of the West have recognized Kosovo's independence. Relations between Pristina and Belgrade have been tense since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Although more than 110 countries recognize Kosovo, Serbia does not. Serbia lost control over Kosovo in 1999 after NATO launched air strikes to stop the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces during a two-year counterinsurgency war. Nearly two decades after the end of the conflict, the landlocked territory of 1.8 million people is still guarded by NATO troops. The current Kosovar security force has 2,500 members trained by NATO and tasked with crisis response, civil protection, and ordinance disposal. Ahead of the vote, it held exercises in the south while NATO-led peacekeepers deployed a convoy of combat vehicles in the north of Kosovo. Many of Kosovo's Serbs called it a provocation, but the NATO mission said it was a routine exercise. With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, AFP, Reuters, and AP BISHKEK -- The Kyrgyz parliament has approved in first reading a bill that would eliminate immunity for ex-presidents, potentially opening the path for the prosecution of the countrys former leader Almazbek Atambaev. 100 lawmakers in the 120-seat chamber voted for the bill on December 13. Two voted against it. 18 lawmakers were not present. The parliamentary committee for legislation, state structures, and judicial issues, approved the bill in late November. The bill needs to be approved in two more readings by the lawmakers before President Sooronbai Jeenbekov can sign it into the law. The vote comes amid persistent tension between Jeenbekov and his predecessor Atambaev -- two politicians who used to be known as close allies. In October, Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court ruled that the immunity enjoyed by the country's former presidents is unconstitutional. In recent months, some politicians and lawmakers have called for the investigation of some of Atambaev's decisions while in office. Several of his close allies have been arrested on suspicion of corruption. Atambaev helped steer Jeenbekov, who had been his prime minister, into the presidency in an October 2017 election. But the two have exchanged public accusations of unprofessionalism in recent months. A Russian soldier has been arrested as a suspect in the beating death of a woman in northwestern Armenia. The incident has again has again caused outrage in the city of Gyumri after past killings by soldiers from a Russian military base there. A court in Romania has rejected a request by Turkey to extradite a Turkish journalist it accuses of links to a U.S.-based cleric whom Ankara blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016. The court ruled that "the conditions for an extradition have not been met" after the prosecutor said Turkey's request was based on "ideological or political reasons. Journalist Kamil Demirkaya, 58, has been working in Bucharest for two years, writing for the Romanian edition of Zaman, a newspaper banned by Turkey after the 2016 failed coup. The Turkish government has blamed U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen for the failed coup attempt during which 250 people were killed. Gulen has denied any involvement. Demirkaya was detained in Romania in early December after Turkey petitioned to extradite him "for being a member of a criminal, terrorist group." Demirkaya denies the allegations. He said he opposed the request because "justice doesn't function in Turkey." He has applied for political asylum in Romania. "Romania, an EU member, this way proves its respect for human rights, democracy, and freedom of expression," Zaman Romania said in a statement welcoming the courts ruling. Zaman's edition in Turkey was shut down by the government after the failed coup. Turkish authorities have detained tens of thousands of people, including civil servants and journalists, in a crackdown on alleged Gulen supporters that followed the coup. Human rights groups say that dozens of publications were shut down in the clampdown. Critics accuse the Turkish government of using the failed coup as a pretext to quash dissent. Based on reporting by AFP, AP and Balkan Insight A court in Russia has canceled the pretrial arrest of an opposition activist who finished his 4 1/2-year prison term on December 2 but was remanded in custody after he was charged with disrupting prison operations. The Arkhangelsk Regional Court in Russia's northwest ordered Sergei Mokhnatkin's release on December 14, his lawyer Andrei Krekov said. On November 29, a lower court in the region ordered that Mokhnatkin must remain in custody for two months due to the investigation into the new case against him, which he vehemently rejects as politically motivated. Mokhnatkin, 64, was sentenced in 2014 after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers during a December 2013 antigovernment protest in Moscow. While in prison, Mokhnatkin held several hunger strikes protesting conditions he faced in the penitentiary, including what he said were regular beatings by prison guards. In 2017, he was handed a further two-year sentence after being found guilty of insulting a guard and other charges. That sentence was to be served concurrently with his previous term. Mokhnatkin first came to prominence in 2009 when he was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of attacking a police officer during another opposition rally. He was pardoned by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in April 2012, one month before Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency. Based on reporting by OVD-Info and Mediazona The Russian Orthodox Church has called on international leaders to "protect" its followers in Ukraine in the face of what it called official pressure on Moscow-appointed clerics. In a statement issued on December 14, the Russian Orthodox Church said Patriarch Kirill has sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Thomas Greminger, the secretary-general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis, and other spiritual leaders, urging them to help protect believers and their faith in Ukraine. "The interference by the leaders of the secular Ukrainian state in church affairs has recently assumed the shape of undue pressure being exerted on the bishops and priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which can be defined as the start of all-out persecution," Patriarch Kirill was quoted as saying in the statement. The statement was issued a day before a meeting on December 15 of senior figures from Orthodox Christian communities in Ukraine in Kyiv in a bid to form a new, unified, independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and elect a leader, known as a Primate. The meeting could be a crucial step in years of efforts to create a church in Ukraine that is independent of Moscow. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate said on December 13 that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the "first among equals" in the global Eastern Orthodox faith, will hand over a "tomos" -- a decree granting autocephaly, or independence -- to the future head of the local Orthodox Church in Ukraine on January 6. Ukraine currently has three main Orthodox denominations: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which remained subordinate to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and two breakaway entities -- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Bartholomew announced the decision to recognize Ukraine's request for an autocephalous church in October. The announcement by Bartholomew, who is considered the leader of the 300-million-strong worldwide Orthodox community, came amid deepening tension over efforts by Ukrainian Orthodox churches to formally break away from Russias orbit. It also prompted the Russian Orthodox Church to announce days later that it was ending its relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in protest. The developments have added to tensions between Kyiv and Moscow, already high since Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists. The Moscow Patriarchate has announced that its representatives will not attend the December 15 gathering. With reporting by AP and Interfax The U.S. Senate has backed a resolution to end American military assistance for Saudi Arabias war in Yemen and separately pinned blame for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi directly on Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. The bipartisan resolutions on December 13 represented rebukes of President Donald Trumps policy of strong support for Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally in the Middle East. Senators voted 56-41 to recommend that the United States stop supporting the war in Yemen. It was the first time Congress has ever backed a move to withdraw U.S. forces from a foreign military engagement under the War Powers Act, a law passed during the Vietnam War. The act restricts a president's ability to send U.S. forces to potential hostilities without approval from Congress. Seven members of Trumps Republican Party voted for the resolution, which still would require several legislative steps before becoming binding law. A low-level conflict in Yemen escalated in 2015 when Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels seized control of much of the west of the country, including the capital, Sanaa. Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab states intervened militarily in an attempt to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi. They have received support from the United States, Britain, and France. However, with reports of deaths of nearly 10,000 people, many of them civilians, and with millions more facing the threat of starvation, sentiment in the West has been turning against involvement in the conflict. On December 13, Yemen's warring parties agreed to cease fighting for the Huthi-held port city of Hudaydah and withdraw their troops, an apparent breakthrough for UN-led peace efforts. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised the UN-brokered talks, saying that "peace is possible." Iran also hailed the "promising" moves toward peace, saying, "We welcome the agreements between the two sides overseen by the representative of the United Nations secretary-general and see the positive steps and the preliminary agreements for continued talks as promising." Immediately after the U.S. Senate passed the Yemen resolution, lawmakers voted unanimously to pass a resolution blaming the Saudi crown prince for Khashoggi's murder and insisting that Riyadh hold to account anyone responsible for his death. "Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear," said Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Trump and other administration officials have said there is no conclusive evidence that the crown prince was behind the killing of Khashoggi, who was murdered during what he thought was a routine visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said evidence strongly points to the involvement of the crown prince, who has denied having anything to do with the death of the U.S. resident and columnist for The Washington Post. With reporting by The New York Times, Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa At least six paramilitary troops were killed in southwestern Pakistan on December 14 when their convoy came under attack in a mountainous area near the border with Iran in the southwestern province of Balochistan, officials said. Balochistan has been the theater of several attacks on security personnel recently, but the number of large-scale incidents has decreased significantly since 2016. Six members of the Frontier Corps (FC) paramilitary force in charge of security in the region were killed in "heavy" firing along a mountainous stretch of road in the Kech district, the province's information minister, Zahoor Ahmed Buledi, said. "Six FC men embraced martyrdom while 14 others were wounded in the gun attack," Buledi said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamist militants linked to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Islamic State have been operating in the mineral-rich province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. An indigenous ethnic Baloch insurgency is under way against the central government. Last month, three men from the separatist Baloch Liberation Army stormed the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan's southern metropolis of Karachi, killing four people, including two police officers. China is investing in the area under a $54 billion project known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which aims at upgrading infrastructure, power, and transport links between its western Xinjiang region and Pakistan's Gwadar port. Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP Turkish prosecutors have ordered the arrest of over 200 military personnel for suspected links to a failed coup attempt in 2016, state media reported on December 14. The Istanbul public prosecutor ordered arrest warrants for 219 soldiers on active duty including four colonels and five lieutenant colonels, state news agency Anadolu said. The Turkish government has blamed U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen for the failed coup attempt during which 250 people were killed. Gulen has denied any involvement in the coup. Turkish authorities have detained over 50,000 people, including civil servants, journalists, and teachers in a crackdown on alleged Gulen supporters that followed the coup. Tens of thousands of others have been fired or suspended in the immense purge. Erdogans critics accuse him of using the failed coup as a pretext to quash dissent. Turkish authorities say the measures are necessary to combat national security threats. Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters The United States has denounced the "predatory" practices of Russia and China in Africa as it unveiled a refocus of its strategy that will include an end to "indiscriminate assistance across the entire continent." National-security adviser John Bolton said on December 13 that the new strategy would look to counter the efforts of Moscow and Beijing, which he accused of "deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage." Bolton said Russia is "seeking to increase its influence in the region through corrupt economic dealings." He accused Moscow of selling arms and energy in exchange for votes at the UN "that keep strongmen in power, undermine peace and security, and run counter to the best interests of the African people." China, he said, has used "bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands." Bolton said that under the new "Prosper Africa" strategy, the United States would choose its partners in Africa more carefully and "encourage African leaders to choose high-quality, transparent, inclusive, and sustainable foreign investment projects, including those from the United States." "The United States will no longer provide indiscriminate assistance across the entire continent," he said. "Countries that repeatedly vote against the United States in international forums, or take action counter to U.S. interests, should not receive generous American foreign aid," he added. On December 12, Assistant Secretary of State Tibor Nagy warned members of Congress of China's increasing economic, military, and political influence in Africa. In 2013, China launched its "Belt and Road" initiative, which looks to construct an infrastructure network connecting China by land and sea to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. In 2017, Beijing opened its first overseas military base in the small country of Djibouti, which already is host to the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa. With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters WASHINGTON -- The United States has condemned Tehran for the "unconscionable" death of a hunger-striking Iranian political activist who had been jailed for messages he wrote on social media. In a statement on December 13, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, who died on December 12, had been "arbitrarily detained" by Iranian authorities after his arrest four months ago. Nasiri had "no access to legal counsel, was held in inhumane conditions, and was charged with spurious national security offences such as 'insulting the Supreme Leader,'" the statement said. Nasiri's sister, Elaheh, told RFE/RL that the authorities had informed the family that the activist had died in a hospital in the city of Qom. She said her brother went on hunger strike to protest against the conditions of his imprisonment and to demand his transfer from a high-security unit of a prison in Qom to Tehrans Evin prison. Nasiri was initially arrested in September 2015 and sentenced to eight years in prison for "insulting" Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and "propaganda against the state," according to the U.S.-based advocacy group Iran Human Rights Monitor. The charges stemmed from posts he had made on his Facebook page. Nasiri was released early in March after serving 2 1/2 years in prison, but was arrested again in August, reportedly on similar charges. 'One Of Many' The State Department statement said he was "just one of many more unjustly detained prisoners held at the mercy of the Iranian regime's whims." "The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the Iranian regime for its unceasingly flagrant human rights violations," it said. "We demand that the regime stops subjecting Iranians who are peacefully voicing their opinions to brutal conditions and slow deaths and that it release all those unjustly imprisoned," it added. The statement referred to two other detainees, Farhad Meysami -- who it said was also on hunger strike -- and Nasrin Sotoudeh. Meysami, a medical doctor, was detained in July for supporting women protesting against the hijab law that forces them to cover their hair and body in public. He has been reportedly on a hunger strike since August to protest the charges he faces and also the lack of access to a lawyer of his choosing. He reportedly is being held in a medical clinic at Evin prison, where he is being force-fed intravenously. Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer, was arrested in June after she represented several of the women detained for removing their head scarves in public to protest against the country's Islamic dress code. The European Parliament on December 13 overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the Iranian government to "immediately and unconditionally" release Sotoudeh. Sotoudeh -- the co-winner of the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought -- has denied all charges against her. With reporting by RFE/RLs Radio Farda Uzbekistans Senate has approved a law that criminalizes begging in public places across the country. The December 13 vote by lawmakers in the upper house of the Uzbek parliament, or Oliy Majlis (Supreme Assembly), ratified legislation that was proposed by President Shavkat Mirziyoev in September. The new criminal law imposes fines for begging that range from the equivalent of about $25 to $75. Those unable to pay the fine face up to 15 days in jail for their first conviction. Repeat offenders face punishments of up to 240 hours of community service, up to two years of corrective labor, or up to one year in prison. The legislation also has provisions aimed at criminal groups that organize begging networks using children, the elderly, or disabled people to beg on the street. Those convicted of leading or coordinating organized begging face up to 360 hours of compulsory public work or a prison term from one to three years. Under the new law, begging is defined as actively asking for money, food, and other material assets in public places. It specifies that the begging ban applies to streets, all public transport, or other public places such as airports, train stations, parks, markets and shopping centers, stadiums, and cultural heritage sites. Beggars appeared in large numbers in Uzbekistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the number has declined since 2008 due to sustained economic growth. The Borgen Project, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization that fights extreme poverty around the world, says about 4 million of Uzbekistans 31 million residents now live below the poverty level. Thats down from about 10 million people living below the poverty line in 2001, the group says, noting that about 75 percent of those below the poverty level now live in rural areas. According to Uzbekistans Interior Ministry, more than 5,000 people in the capital, Tashkent, were identified as beggars during 2018 and sent to rehabilitation centers. More than 4,000 of them were women -- and more than 3,000 of those women were begging with children beside them. About 100 men with disabilities and 500 elderly people were identified as beggars in Tashkent during 2018. With reporting by RFE/RL's Uzbek Service Editor's Note: To receive Steve Gutterman's Week In Russia each week via e-mail, subscribe by clicking here. President Vladimir Putin paid tribute to two prominent Soviet dissidents who took different paths after 1991, unveiling a monument to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and attending a farewell ceremony for Lyudmila Alekseyeva following her death at the age of 91. But Putin's gestures were seen by critics as empty, and his words seemed to speak volumes about his attitude to human rights and his view of those who put human rights ahead of what he says are the interests of Russia. Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward. End Of An Era When she first met Putin, in 2002, Alekseyeva was struck by his willingness to listen to rights defenders dedicated to efforts to keep the state in line. Four years later, in the middle of his second term, she found that was no longer the case. "He was a different man, a caricature of himself," Alekeseyeva recalled in an interview with the Reuters news agency in August 2012, shortly after Putin had disappointed Russians hoping for change by returning to the Kremlin after stepping aside for a time to avoid violating constitutional term limits. "I took one look and wanted to leave the room." "Putin came to believe that everyone wants him to stay in power," Alekseyeva said at the time --- and that's where he remains today. Alekseyeva's five-plus decades campaigning for human rights began in the Soviet era and ended in the Putin era, which brought her back onto the streets at protests as the Kremlin sought to rein in opposition by restricting rights. She fought, in particular, for the freedom of assembly, which activists say the Kremlin routinely violates despite a constitutional guarantee. After their initial meetings during his first two terms, her ties to Putin continued to have their ups and downs. Alekseyeva quit the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights in June 2012, citing Kremlin interference shortly after Putin returned to the presidency, but rejoined the advisory body -- whose criticism and counsel is often ignored -- three years later. 'Just Words And Gestures' The two were in the same room one last time on December 11, three days after Alekseyeva's death, when Putin came to the Central House of Journalists in Moscow to pay his respects at her open casket and exchange a few words with her relatives and colleagues. At a meeting of the rights council later the same day, Putin lauded Alekseyeva as a "luminous, courageous, and strong person" who "stood up for justice." But opposition politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who said mourners waited behind metal barriers for 40 minutes so that Putin could stop by, dismissed the visit as "just words and gestures." "If he were sincere, the president would amnesty all political prisoners -- Sentsov and the others," Yavlinsky wrote on Facebook. "That would be a genuine tribute." A day after the ceremony for Alekseyeva, Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov was awarded the 2018 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought -- but his chair stood empty at the ceremony in Strasbourg because he's serving a 20-year prison term in far northern Russia. The annual prize is named after the late Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, whose apartment was the site of the 1976 announcement of the creation of the Moscow Helsinki Group -- the human rights organization that Alekseyeva helped found and headed from 1996 until her death. Sentsov was convicted of plotting terrorism, but the Crimean native and supporters say his trial was politically motivated Kremlin revenge for his position on Russia's takeover of the peninsula in 2014. This year, he went on hunger strike for 145 days, an ordeal endured to demand the release of dozens of Ukrainians he said were political prisoners in Russia. At the ceremony, Sentsov's cousin said that while not a single one was released during his protest action, he has "already won" by attracting attention to their plight. Russia drew additional attention by detaining 24 Ukrainian crewmen after ramming and firing on their naval vessels off Crimea in late November. They are jailed in Moscow and awaiting trial. We'll Never Have Paris Also jailed in Moscow is Lev Ponomaryov, a 77-year-old human rights activist and a fellow former Soviet dissident who is serving a 16-day term in detention -- in part for a Facebook post about a protest. Ponomaryov asked a court to let him out for a few hours to pay his respects to Alekseyeva, a close friend and colleague, but the request was rejected. Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, called that "a tragic injustice," adding a single word in Russian to his tweet: "Shame." Putin, asked about Ponomaryov at the rights council meeting in a gilded Kremlin hall, promised to ask Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika to look into the matter -- but said that he couldn't question a court decision and that calls for unsanctioned protests -- which is what the activist was accused of making -- were a serious matter. "We don't want to have events like in Paris, where they're tearing up cobblestones and setting everything in sight on fire," Putin said, hours after paying his respects for an activist who championed the constitutionally protected right to free assembly and was arrested at a demonstration in its defense in 2009. Not so fast, Kremlin critics said, pointing out that the right to demonstrate is exactly what Alekseyeva was fighting for, among other things. "Actually, I do want it to be like in Paris, I want it to be like in France," Yevgenia Albats, editor of media outlet The New Times, said on Ekho Moskvy radio. "I want people to have the right to go out into the street and stand up for their rights." Pyotr Verzilov was more sarcastic, tweeting: "We don't want like in Paris, we want like in Venezuela." And there was this warning from activist Sergei Udaltsov, who was imprisoned for 4 years for his role in anti-Kremlin protests in May 2012, the month Putin returned to the Kremlin for his third presidential term. "Putin and his circle, of course, do not want and fear such events [as the Paris unrest], but through their policies they are inevitably setting up these events," he wrote on Twitter. The "yellow vest" protests in France have been featured heavily on Russian state TV, with a similar message. So Putin's remarks -- at a meeting on human rights -- seemed to dovetail with the Kremlin-controlled media's message suggesting that those rights must be restricted in the name of stability. Clear Conscience Putin had used Alekseyeva to make a point in the past -- or to score points against her, critics said. When he came calling at her Moscow apartment on her 90th birthday, in 2017, he brought a provocative present: an engraving showing the Crimean city of Yevpatoria, where Alekseyeva was born in 1927. It was a not-so-subtle dig at Alekseyeva's public opposition to Russia's seizure of Crimea, which she said in September 2014 had "shamed my country." Alekseyeva could not speak at the farewell ceremony, of course, but she may have had the last word at the birthday meeting: She told Putin that she sometimes thought about him when she couldn't sleep, but added that this didn't happen very often. "Even though I am old, I sleep like a child," she said. "My conscience is clear." On the same day that Putin paid his last respects to Alekseyeva and held the rights council meeting, he unveiled a monument to another Soviet dissident -- Solzhenitsyn, who would have turned 100 on December 11 if he were still alive. Putin also seemed to tailor his remarks there to deliver a message, focusing mainly on the writer's love of Russia rather than what he is better known for: his stark accounts of the Soviet gulag prison-camp system, which helped expose the crimes of the Soviet state and contributed to its demise. Putin called Solzhenitsyn "a true, real patriot of Russia" who "stood up against any manifestations of Russophobia" -- a term the Kremlin uses to blame U.S. and European officials for the badly strained state of ties between Moscow and the West today. "Even in exile, Aleksandr Isayevich [Solzhenitsyn] never let anyone speak ill or dismissively of his homeland." Solzhenitsyn "clearly separated the authentic, realRussia from the particularities of the totalitarian system that brought suffering and severe ordeals upon millions of people," he said. Putin himself certainly does that. When it comes to Stalin's Terror and other dark chapters of the Soviet era, he seems to compartmentalize, trying to keep the taint of such events from bleeding over into the portrait of a great country that defeated Hitler, produced pioneering science and admirable art, and held its own for decades in the Cold War with the West: part of a proud Russian history. 'Excessive Demonization' Though he steered clear of commemorations this October, Putin has clearly condemned the crimes of the Soviet state several times in recent years. In 2017, he said that this "This horrific past must not be stricken from the national memory -- let alone justified in any way -- by any so-called higher good of the people." But critics say authorities have made significant efforts to rehabilitate Stalin's image since Putin came to power, and he has suggested that foes are using the Soviet dictator's crimes to undermine patriotism, weaken Russia, and besmirch its image. The "excessive demonization" of Stalin "is one means of attacking the Soviet Union and Russia," Putin said in 2017. He made a similar suggestion at the rights council meeting on December 11. Told of a poll showing that 47 percent of Russian do know about the repressions of the Stalin era, Putin said that was bad -- but suggested it was at least as bad or worse that many might not know about the prouder moments in the country's past. "Look, if you were to ask our young people...many of them would not be able to name the first cosmonaut," Putin said, referring to Yury Gagarin, the first man in space. "And it's absolutely clear that many of them would be sure it was some American astronaut. 100 percent." School committee chair Carolyn Mark responds to questions following a meeting earlier this week. Pictured next to her is Superintendent Victor Mercurio. Danish company runs sargasso pilot project in Quintana Roo Playa del Carmen, Q.R. A Danish company has begun a pilot program with the installation of a sea turtle sargasso barrier that they are hoping will control sargasso along Quintana Roo beaches. Danish company Desmi announced that they have successfully completed a week of testing their Desmi Sea Turtle sargasso project that they hope will prove successful in controlling sargasso along the coast of Quintana Roo. Company director Rolando Chavez Penaherrera says that the next step is to demonstrate its function as a pilot project, which will include the installation of 210 meters of their barrier. He explained that the principle function of the complete system consists of the diversion of sargasso through the use of floating barriers. The first sargasso mechanical remover unit was named Desmi Sea Turtle based on a weir skimmer unit with a special arrangement that allows the removal of the sargasso algae from the water free of sand. He says the macroalga can be displaced up to 200 meters from the beach by means of a pipeline buried under the sand, which eliminates the need of heavy equipment on the beach and with minimal visual impact. The system was manufactured in Denmark and imported to Cancun after a successful week of performance tests at a hotel in Quintana Roo. He says it is ready to be presented to the scientific community as well as environmental and tourism authorities. Alec Finn THE President of Ireland led the tributes to a Rotherham-born musician and folk star who has died aged 74. Michael D. Higgins described Alec Finn as enormously talented, saying he helped bring Irish music to the attention of a global audience. Mr Finn, the brother of writer Gervase Phinn, was known as a founder member of the folk group De Danann, who formed in 1975. He died at his home, 15th century Oranmore Castle in County Galway, on November 16. De Danann split in 2003 but had recently reformed. Mr Finn was born Alexander Phinn but took the Irish spelling of his surname upon moving across the Irish Sea. Mr Higgins added: From their early beginnings in An Spideal and Galway City, De Danann grew to become one of the most significant and best-loved representatives of Irish music at its best. Alec Finn was also a distinguished solo artist and session musician, playing on a variety of string instruments, but always bringing his famed sensitivity and skill to every performance. Known for playing the round-backed Greek bouzouki, Mr Finn played with many prominent Irish instrumentalists including Frankie Gavin, Mary Bergin and Noel Hill. Fellow musician Elise Kress called him an amazing musician and artist, adding: He was the quintessential creative; witty, talented and the greatest friend a person could ask for. As in his seminal Irish band DeDanann, he provided the backbone of support and artistry. A BURGLAR caught red-handed by police and an angry householder had his sentence cut by senior judges. Simon Paul Welsh (31), of Monkwood Road, Rawmarsh, was locked up for 30 months at Lincoln Crown Court in September after admitting burglary. Welsh was with a female accomplice when he broke into his victims home in Skegness the previous month. But he made the mistake of returning to the scene later on to look for more loot by which time police had been alerted by neighbours. They had escorted the householder back to her home, where they discovered Welsh still searching the property and stealing jewellery. An untidy search had been made in the bedroom, but it had not been ransacked, Mr Justice William Davis told Londons Appeal Court. He (Welsh) apologised to the occupier, who was angry about the burglary, which she made clear to him. Welsh, a heroin user, challenged his sentence, claiming it was far too harsh. His legal team said the impact on the victim was given too much weight by the judge who jailed him. We consider there is force in that argument, said Mr Justice Davis. The occupier arrived back home with the police she did not have the terrible upset of finding a burglar in her house while alone. The evidence is that she was angry at finding a burglar in the house, rather than being distressed. Welshs sentence was cut from 30 months to 20 months. The scene of the accident in 2013. A CONTRACTING firm has been fined 45,000 after a wagon driver died when his lorry overturned while he was tipping spoil onto a stockpile described as a high risk activity. Alan Clements (60), of Goodwin Road, Rockingham, was delivering earth to a housing site in Kilnhurst on September 17, 2013, when he was fatally injured. Sirius Remediation Ltd was capping the former tar works so houses could be built on top. Mr Clements reversed his lorry up a soil stockpile to dump the load, but the vehicle fell over sideways. He suffered broken ribs and abdominal bleeding, which caused brain damage and his death in hospital one week later. Sirius Remediation Ltd, of Langley Road, Durham, pleaded guilty at Sheffield Crown Court on November 23, to breaching Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The company was fined 45,000 and ordered to pay costs of 10,000. The court heard Sirius was managing works which involved raising the ground levels on site by reusing spoil from other sites, instead of sending it to landfill. Mr Clements reversed up the slope of the stockpile and raised his tipper, but the truck toppled over sideways. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), found there was nothing to demarcate the sides or top of the slope, such as beams or barriers at the edges of the spoil heap, to prevent plant or other vehicles getting close to high and possibly loose edges. There was failure to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for the safe formation of the stockpile. After the hearing, HSE inspector Medani Close said: Stockpiling should only take place under the control of a suitably qualified temporary works manager or co-ordinator as it can be a high risk activity if not properly managed. Where stockpiling is unavoidable, tipping should take place on a firm, level surface, preferably at the base. Plants such as a crawler dozer, tracked/loading shovel or excavator should be used to create and maintain the stockpile and its edges should be clearly demarcated with barriers. A four-day inquest with a jury was held into the grandfathers death in July 2015 and a narrative verdict was recorded. Speaking at the time, his daughter Marie Clements said she was hoping for a little bit more from the hearing. L-R: Chief Insp Paul Ferguson, Sgt Sharon Phin, Patricia Davies, Urgent and Emergency Care Centre team leader; Michael Moore, security team leader; Vicky Pearson, assistant security manager and Tony Bennett, security manager at Rotherham Hospital TWO emergency services have joined together over the festive period to help keep front-line workers and the public safe from abuse after an increase in violent incidents. South Yorkshire Police and The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre at Rotherham Hospital, will be increasing the number of security and police teams working at key dates over the holiday period. Thousands of NHS staff members are assaulted every year, and the emergency services teams said the levels of violence experienced in Rotherham have risen over recent months. Paul Ferguson, neighbourhoods chief inspector, said: "Throughout the year, our hospital and the police work closely together to reduce risks to the public and demands from in and around the hospital. "At Christmas time, the need to do so is particularly acute when the weather worsens and alcohol intake goes up. Together, we look forward to a safe and enjoyable festive period. With Christmas parties and nights out now in full swing, the number of assaults on emergency workers are said to increase. Louise Barnett, chief executive at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Nobody should have to face abuse of any kind when they are at work, especially when their job is to protect and care for people. "Everyone should be able to enjoy themselves at this time of year, so were urging people to drink responsibly and only use emergency services when you have to." Ms Barnett added that the partnership over Christmas and New Year reaffirmed the trust's commitment to keeping their workforce, patients and visitors safe. The partnership comes after the recent introduction of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act, which came into effect on November 13 and has doubled the maximum custodial sentence from six months to one year for anyone who assaults emergency workers. Captain Amarinder Singh arrives at the Punjab Vidhan Sabha SPOKESMAN NEWS SERVICE: CHANDIGARH, DECEMBER 14: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday appealed to all the political parties to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and harmony in the state, thereby foiling the nefarious designs of Pakistans ISI supported terrorism. Reiterating his Governments commitment to protecting Punjab from ISI-backed terror, the Chief Minister said that no one would be allowed to push the state back into the black days of terrorism. He was taking part in the deliberations on a resolution on the opening of Dera Baba Nanak-Kartarpur Sahib Corridor. The resolution was unanimously passed by voice vote. Captain Amarinder Singh said that the House records its appreciation for the efforts made by the Punjab Government and the Government of India to open the corridor and urged the GoI to ensure completion of all necessary works for its operationalisation well before the 550th birth anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji in November 2019, in keeping with the long pending demand of Punjabis, while ensuring that peace of Punjab is not disturbed in any manner. Advertisement Captain Amarinder Singh addressing the HouseCaptain Amarinder described the corridor as a Bridge of Peace between the people of India and Pakistan. The Chief Minister further said that it was really a momentous occasion for all, especially the Sikh community, which had been longing for the opening of the corridor in their daily prayers (Ardas) since partition. The Chief Minister said that he was subjected to a lot of criticism from different quarters, including SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal and president Sukhbir Singh Badal, for his unequivocal stand on Pakistan Armys persistent efforts to revive militancy in Punjab. Without mincing words, Captain Amarinder said, Do you really think that Pakistan Army is our sympathiser, when it is continuously killing our soldiers at the border with the ultimate aim of destabilising the border state. The Chief Minister called upon all the political parties to be wary of Pakistan Armys ulterior motive to revive terrorism in Punjab through ISI backed stooges, which was evident from the fact that several terrorist modules had been neutralised and from the arrest of numerous operatives, besides seizure of large hauls of ammunition and narcotics. Captain Amarinder Singh addressing the House Advertisement Captain Amarinder Singh said that his grandfather Maharaja Bhupinder Singh undertook kar sewa of Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara from 1920-1929 after it was badly ravaged by the floods in river Ravi. Likewise, his Grandfather also performed sewa of the historic Gurdwara Panja Sahib and Gurdwara Janam Asthan Sri Nankana Singh as a part of his familys rich legacy, devotion and reverence towards Guru Ghar. Carrying this tradition forward, the Chief Minister said he too was fortunate to be undertaking this pious project during his lifetime. He also reiterated his announcement, which he made during foundation stone laying ceremony at Dera Baba Nanak, that he would be part of the first Jatha to offer prayers at Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara, where Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji spent nearly 18 years of his life. During the discussions, Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, SAD MLAs Gurpartap Singh Wadala, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Bikram Singh Majithia, Harinderpal Singh Chandumajra, Congress MLAs Raj Kumar Verka, Harminder Singh Gill, AAP MLA Kanwar Sandhu, Kultar Singh Sandhwan and BJP MLA Som Parkash also supported the resolution. Slimy, hard-to-clean bacterial mats called biofilms cause problems ranging from medical infections to clogged drains and fouled industrial equipment. Now, researchers at Princeton have found a way to cleanly and completely peel off these notorious sludges. By looking at the films from a mechanical engineering perspective, as well as a biological one, the researchers showed that water penetrating the junction between biofilms and surfaces, coupled with gentle peeling, can result in immaculate removals. That outcome contrasts with traditionally ineffective methods of scraping or mechanically dislodging biofilms, which sometimes leave behind still-adhered patches that regrow and re-contaminate. The new removal method should help in thwarting harmful biofilms, as well as controlling the beneficial biofilms increasingly relied on for wastewater treatment, microbial fuel cells and other applications. "We have discovered an easy and effective way to remove nasty biofilms from a variety of surfaces," said Jing Yan, an associate research scholar working jointly in the Princeton labs of Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. The work, bridging molecular biology, materials science and mechanical engineering, took advantage of the collaborative research communities between molecular biology and engineering. Yan is the co-lead author of the paper describing the results, published Oct. 8 in Advanced Materials, along with Alexis Moreau, who was a visiting student in Stone's lab and is now back at the University of Montpellier in France. advertisement "By investigating and defining the material properties of bacterial biofilms, rather than their biological properties, we have invented a new method for detaching entire biofilms," said study coauthor Bassler. Other authors of the study are Ned Wingreen, the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences; Andrej Kosmrlj, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering; Sepideh Khodaparast, a former research scholar in Stone's lab now at Imperial College London; associate research scholar Sampriti Mukherjee; postdoctoral researchers Jie Feng, Sheng Mao and Antonio Perazzo; and graduate student Chenyi Fei. For their investigation, the Princeton researchers turned to the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which forms biofilms in seawater and fresh water and in the human intestine. Measurements revealed that the biofilms it produces exhibit mechanical behaviors very similar to hydrogels, which are materials extensively studied in Stone's lab. Well-characterized, manipulatable hydrogels have many applications, especially in biomedicine, including wound dressing, drug delivery and tissue engineering. Both biofilms and hydrogels are largely made of water (about 90 percent). They possess defined structural networks that make them soft, viscous and elastic. Their stretchiness has a limit, however. If disturbed too vigorously, biofilms and hydrogels will break into pieces. This fragility poses a challenge for biofilm removal. It also hinders the intentional transfer of beneficial films between surfaces, for instance in industrial settings, and when running experiments in the lab to better understand biofilms in the first place. To learn how to avoid such fragmentation, the Princeton team examined the attachment of the V. cholerae biofilms to a variety of surface types. The researchers saw that the edges of the biofilms were water repellant, while surfaces they adhered to were sometimes water-attractive. Based on this insight, the researchers sought to drive a wedge between the biofilm and attached surface by driving water into the space at which the materials meet. This technique, known as capillary peeling, successfully created a lengthening crack that culminated in full separation of the biofilm from the surface. The water-assisted peeling must go slowly to prevent biofilm tears -- akin to carefully removing a sticker -- but the results showed that the extra time was well worth it. "Our capillary peeling method worked astonishingly well," said Yan. advertisement One obstacle for deploying the method outside the lab is that many biofilms exist in already-aqueous environments, where capillary peeling would appear to be a non-starter. For those cases, Yan and colleagues have proposed two potential solutions to explore in future research. For biofilms initially grown underwater, the film and its adhered-to object could be removed from solution and dried out before removal attempts. Alternatively, introducing bubbles to the biofilm-substrate interface might deliver the same sort of capillary force. Overall, the new study illustrates the value of a multidisciplinary approach, bridging different fields to make key new insights. Biological systems must obey the laws of physics and in many cases also employ physics to achieve their ends, said Shmuel Rubinstein, an associate professor of applied physics at Harvard University who was not involved in the research. "The interdisciplinary team on this study that combines engineering, theory and biology is indeed perfect for the complex problem of biofilms." Princeton's Stone echoes Rubinstein's observation that the study's results and promise of real-world applications spring from a nexus of disciplines. "Led by Jing, the students and postdocs did amazing work in developing a detailed understanding of the link between the biological components and the macroscopic mechanical properties of biofilms," said Stone. "Our demonstration that biofilms can be peeled -- intact -- may prove useful in a multitude of ways going forward." The work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Science Foundation, and the Max Planck Society-Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Humans aren't the only species that have dinner parties. Scientists have observed many animals, including bats, eating in groups. However, little was known about whether bats actively help each other find food, a process known as social foraging. With the help of novel miniature sensors, an international group of biologists that included University of Maryland Biology Professor Gerald Wilkinson found that bat species foraged socially if their food sources were in unpredictable locations, such as insect swarms or fish schools. In contrast, bats with food sources at fixed locations foraged on their own and did not communicate with one another while foraging or eating. The results of the study were published in the November 19, 2018 issue of the journal Current Biology. "We were able to show that bats who can't predict where their food will be are the ones that cooperate with each other to forage," Wilkinson said. "And I don't think they are unique -- I think that if more studies are done, we will find that other bat species do similar things." The researchers selected five bat species from around the world for the study -- two species with unpredictable food sources and three with predictable food sources. They fit each bat with a small, lightweight sensor that operated for up to three nights. Because the sensor only weighed approximately 4 grams, it did not hinder the bat's movements. The sensor recorded GPS data to log each bat's flight path and audio in ultrasonic frequencies to document bat calls. The researchers recaptured each bat to download the data. In all, the researchers tracked 94 bats in this study. Edward Hurme, a UMD biological sciences graduate student in Wilkinson's laboratory and a co-lead author of the paper, tracked one of the bat species -- the Mexican fish-eating bat, which lives on a remote Mexican island. "We took a fishing boat to an uninhabited island where these bats live and camped there for a month at a time," Hurme said. "Field work can be challenging. One time, a hurricane came and all we could do was hide in the tent. Fortunately, we survived and so did our data." After collecting data on all five bat species, the researchers charted the bats' flight paths and analyzed the audio recordings. They listened for the distinctive, species-specific calls the bats make during normal flight and when trying to capture prey. The research team used this information to map where and when the bats found and ate food and whether other bats were nearby. advertisement The results showed that the three species of bats that eat predictable food sources, such as fruits, foraged on their own. When they found food, they also ate alone. This makes sense, according to Wilkinson, because they didn't need any help finding food. In fact, having other bats around could create harmful competition for food. In contrast, the two species of bats with unpredictable food sources often flew together with other members of their species. Moreover, when a tracked bat found prey, other individuals nearby also began to forage. The findings suggest that these bats forage cooperatively and socially within their own species. The researchers also found that socially foraging bats may eavesdrop on one another by staying close enough to hear each other's feeding calls. "We tested this hypothesis by playing recordings of white noise, normal calls and feeding calls for these bats to hear," Hurme said. "We found that bats who heard normal calls became more attracted to the speakers than those who heard white noise. And when we played feeding calls, bats dive-dombed the speakers." The next step for this research is to investigate what strategies bats use in social foraging. In particular, Hurme hopes to discover whether these bats pay attention to the identity of their fellow foragers. "We would like to know if socially foraging bats will follow any member of their own species or if they prefer specific individuals who are the most successful at finding food," Hurme said. "There is some evidence that bats can recognize each other by voice, so we are working on ways to identify individuals by their calls." The research paper, "Resource Ephemerality Drives Social Foraging in Bats," Katya Egert-Berg, Edward R. Hurme, Stefan Greif, Aya Goldstein, Lee Harten, Luis Gerardo Herrera M., Jose Juan Flores-Martinez, Andrea T. Valdes, Dave S. Johnston, Ofri Eitan, Ivo Borissov, Jeremy Ryan Shipley, Rodrigo A. Medellin, Gerald S. Wilkinson, Holger R. Goerlitz and Yossi Yovel, was published in the journal Current Biology on November 19, 2018. This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) (Award No. ERC-2015-StG -- 679186_GPS-Bat), the Office of Naval Research (Award No. N62909-16-1-2133), Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (National Council of Science and Technology) (Award No. 237774), the National Geographic Society (Award No. 9705-15), The Explorers Club Exploration Fund -- Mamont Scholars Program, the Animal Behavior Society, the Tower Foundation (Award No. 034-1500-0508), the German Research Foundation (Award No. GO2091/2-1) and the Minerva Foundation. The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations. A NASA-led, international study finds Asia's high mountain glaciers are flowing more slowly in response to widespread ice loss, affecting freshwater availability downstream in India, Pakistan and China. Researchers analyzed almost 2 million satellite images of the glaciers and found that 94 percent of the differences in flow rates could be explained by changes in ice thickness. For more than a decade, satellite data have documented that the glaciers were thinning as the melt rates on their top surfaces increased. However, "It has not been entirely clear how these glaciers are responding to this ice loss," said the lead author of the new study, Amaury Dehecq of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The rate at which they will disappear in the future depends on how they adjust to a warming climate." Asia's mountain glaciers flow from the cold heights of the world's tallest mountains down to warmer climate zones, where they melt much faster, feeding major rivers such as the Indus and Yangtze. Scientists need to understand what is regulating the glaciers' flow speeds to project how glacial meltwater will contribute to the region's water resources and to sea level rise. Observing the glaciers from ground level is difficult because of their huge geographic expanse and inaccessibility, so the researchers turned to satellite images. Dehecq and his colleagues developed algorithms to analyze almost 2 million pairs of U.S. Geological Survey/NASA Landsat satellite images from 1985 to 2017. The algorithms enabled automatic feature tracking to measure the distance that distinctive spots on the glaciers, such as crevasses or patches of dirt, traveled between an earlier and a later image. "We do this millions of times and average through the noise (errors and random disturbances) to see changes in velocity on the order of 1 meter (3 feet) a year," said study coauthor Alex Gardner of JPL. "What's surprising about this study is that the relationship between thinning and flow speed is so consistent," said coauthor Noel Gourmelen of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. In the few locations where glaciers have been stable or thickening rather than thinning, the study found that flow speeds also have been increasing slightly. The reason a glacier flows down a slope at all is because gravity pulls on its mass. The pull makes a glacier both slide on its base and deform, or "creep" -- a slow movement caused by ice crystals slipping past one another under the pressure of the glacier's weight. As the glacier thins and loses mass, both sliding and creeping become more difficult, and the glacier's flow slows as a result. However, other factors also affect a glacier's rate of flow, such as whether water is lubricating the glacier's base so that it can slide more easily. Scientists were unsure of the relative importance of these different factors. The new study shows that ice thickness far outweighs any other factor in regulating flow speed over the long term. The study published this week in Nature Geoscience is titled "Twenty-first Century Glacier Slowdown Driven by Mass Loss in High Mountain Asia." Coauthors are from JPL; the Universite Savoie Mont-Blanc in Annecy, France; the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; the Universite de Strasbourg in France; the Universite Grenoble Alpes in Grenoble, France; and the Universite de Toulouse in France. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight mission knew the spacecraft touched down within an 81-mile-long (130-kilometer-long) landing ellipse on Mars. Now, the team has pinpointed InSight's exact location using images from HiRISE, a powerful camera onboard another NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The InSight lander, its heat shield and parachute were spotted by HiRISE (which stands for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) in one set of images last week on Dec. 6, and again on Tuesday, Dec. 11. The lander, heat shield and parachute are within 1,000 feet (several hundred meters) of one another on Elysium Planitia, the flat lava plain selected as InSight's landing location. This isn't the first time HiRISE has photographed a Mars lander. InSight is based largely on 2008's Phoenix spacecraft, which the camera aboard MRO captured on the surface of Mars as well as descending on its parachute. While the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona also tried to take an image of InSight during landing, MRO was at a much less opportune angle and wasn't able to take a good picture. About InSight JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission. A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Switzerland, Imperial College and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB) supplied the wind sensors. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained a final judgment against the former Chairman and CEO of a company purportedly in the homeland security business. In October 2011, the SEC charged Gregory E. Webb, the Chairman and CEO of InfrAegis, Inc., and InfrAegis, with conducting a fraudulent, unregistered offering that raised over $20 million from at least 395 investors nationwide. According to the SEC's complaint, Webb and InfrAegis made false and misleading claims about the company's commercial success and the existence of contracts for the installation of InfrAegis' products. On February 28, 2014, a federal grand jury in Chicago returned an 11-count indictment against Webb for substantially similar conduct as alleged in the SEC's complaint. On July 11, 2016, a jury found Webb guilty on nine of the eleven counts and, on March 1, 2017, the court sentenced Webb to nine years' imprisonment and ordered Webb to pay $9 million in restitution. The final judgment in the SEC case, entered by consent on December 11, 2018 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, enjoins Webb from violating Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and orders Webb to pay disgorgement of $550,057 with prejudgment interest of $132,352, but deems payment of these amounts satisfied by a $9 million restitution order against Webb in the related criminal action. The SEC's litigation against InfrAegis continues. The SEC is seeking injunctions and disgorgement plus interest against InfrAegis. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Thomas H. Laws, the former CEO of Santa Fe Gold Corporation, for the misappropriation of investor funds. The SEC also obtained an asset freeze against Laws. The SEC's complaint, unsealed on December 6, 2018, alleges that, from at least August 2016 through February 2018, Santa Fe Gold, a public mining company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, transferred approximately $1.1 million in investor funds to Laws and THL Financial Services Corporation, an entity controlled by Laws, for various corporate purposes, including the purchase of a silver mine and mining equipment and for third party services. According to the complaint, Laws misappropriated the funds and attempted to hide his theft from the company and its independent auditor by fabricating documents, including vendor invoices, agreements, bank records, and communications. The SEC's complaint charges Laws with violating the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, the books and records provision of Section 13(b)(5) of the Exchange Act and Rules 13a-14, 13b2-1, and 13b2-2 thereunder, and aiding and abetting Santa Fe Gold's violations of Sections 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A), and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Exchange Act and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, and 13a-13 thereunder. The court granted the SEC's requests for an asset freeze, expedited discovery, the prohibition on the alteration or destruction of documents, and an accounting of investor funds and other assets. The SEC seeks disgorgement of the alleged ill-gotten gains, prejudgment interest, civil monetary penalties, an officer and director bar, and a penny stock bar. The SEC named THL as a relief defendant. The SEC's investigation was conducted by Michael J. Cates and supervised by Ian S. Karpel and Kurt L. Gottschall in the Denver Regional Office. The SEC's litigation is being led by Stephen C. McKenna. The newest building in Berkeleys downtown arts district strikes, fittingly enough, a jazzy chord. Vivid red and lime-green staircases jag outward from pleated metal walls that fold in and out like uptempo accordions. It is also a 720-space parking garage. Unexpected in more ways than one, Berkeleys Center Street Garage is the rare example of an unloved building type done in a way thats a visual treat. If it nudges a few cities or public agencies to demand higher standards from the next round of parking structures, all the better. In an ideal world, big garages would be extinct. Wed all bicycle or carpool from point A to point B. But as long as automobiles are inseparable from American life, certain destinations will require multi-floor containers for parked vehicles. Like hospitals or office parks or downtowns such as Berkeley, where a dozen cultural venues draw visitors who dont all live nearby and dont necessarily have access to BART. The newcomer replaces a 420-car garage that had occupied the site since 1958 and was as sadly functional as they come. It also had seismic issues which, after years of studies, prodded the city to replace it with a larger facility. Todd Trumbull This being Berkeley, the $40 million project includes solar panels above the roof level and fenced-off bioswales along each side to steer rainwater runoff into an underground cistern. Mayor Jessie Arreguin has gone so far on Twitter as to call it the greenest parking garage in California, a boast that brings scorn from people who see the phrase as an oxymoron. Philosophically, the skeptics have a point. But for sheer energetic punch, the newcomer is a welcome addition to the scene. The architect of record is IPD, a firm that specializes in the genre and has a track record that is decidedly mixed. Given the visibility of this location, with the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse next door and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre across the street, IPD added Berkeleys Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects to the team. Smart choice: The firm is inventive and deft, whether the project is a concrete fire station in the Berkeley hills or the conversion of a car repair garage into the refined but rustic Freight & Salvage. The initial design was straightforward, with the structural bones cloaked by a fairly simple metal scrim. But that looked dull, so we kept messing around, Donn Logan said. Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Many computer variations later, the result is dynamic. The scrims that face Addison and Central streets consist of sharply folded panels of perforated steel in more than 20 sizes. Each panel was numbered and then bolted into place by B.T. Mancini Co. of Milpitas to form horizontal bands that start tight and then flare out two over-scale waves, each surging in a different direction, every panel adding its own small syncopation. The show is accentuated when sunlight slices through, small dots against thick concrete. At night, LED lighting attached to the walls frame provides shifting backdrops that wash across the internal structure. The surface flair hides the all-important innards, at least from the citys point of view: eight levels of parking that can be entered from either street. Thats why one set of exposed stairs has red railings and the other one has green to help patrons navigate a layout thats almost a mirror image of itself. As elaborate as it might seem, the facades consumed just 10 percent of the overall construction budget, a ratio in keeping with garage cost formulas. (The caveat is the projects high budget, driven up by everything from Berkeleys requirements to the constraints of working in a mid-block site.) The payoff is worth the expense. To see why, visit other recent parking garages and try not to wince. One bleak example is 3 miles south on Horton Street in Emeryville, the 675-space Heritage Square parking garage. Except for brickwork along the bottom, the concrete bones are dotted with rectangular blotches of what seem to be corroded metal. A few trailing vines on the sides are a poor trade for the lush living wall promised in renderings. In a word, grim. 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 trick for successful parking garages is to accept them for what they are something that most people dont want to see and put the wrapping to its most effective use. With the right approach, things can click. When you try to make a garage look like something else, I dont think youre fooling anybody, said Raju Nandwana, who heads IPDs Oakland office. If you can get somebody excited, thats what architecture is all about. The balancing act was accomplished by Dreyfuss + Blackford, an architecture firm that worked with IPD to pull off the difficult feat of using tilted metal panels to not only mask the curve of a 1,200-car parking garage in Sacramento but also create an attractive entry building for the UC Davis satellite medical campus. Youre trying to obscure the garage. But at the same time, you dont want to take a contrived approach, said Jason Silva, a partner in Dreyfuss + Blackfords San Francisco office. He also stressed that how a garage functions is more important for owners and patrons than how it looks. The reality is that were aiming for a perception of safety and comfort, he said. The practical factors are on display in Berkeley as well. The colorful staircases that cantilever above the sidewalk are not only visible accents: they make for a more secure and sanitary experience than ones tucked into the building core. The 18 handicapped spaces are reached by wide paths along the edge of the second floor, below where the screen begins convenience thats a safe yet theatrical touch. Theres another bit of civility along Center Street: a storefront space devoted to bicycle parking and repairs, along with a cafe with serving windows that open to the sidewalk. Across from it are public benches in a landscaped nook, a so-far-successful touch that seems almost urbane. Not every parking garage will have the demands found in downtown Berkeley. The fewer added to cities, the better. But if were going to be stuck with new ones, pushing for them to be good neighbors should be a given from the start. John King is The San Francisco Chronicles urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron Ford GoBike is significantly boosting its fleet of electric bicycles in the Bay Area, allowing more people to zip up hills or zoom along city streets without panting or sweating. With the expansion that starts Friday, Ford GoBike will more than triple its number of ebikes in San Francisco from 250 to 850 while bringing battery-powered two-wheelers to the East Bay for the first time. Ebikes permit people to ride without solely relying on foot pedals, which makes it easier to travel the sloping terrain of San Francisco or the rambling flatlands of Oakland, regardless of ones physical ability. The shiny black bikes drew enthusiasm when Ford GoBike rolled out the first batch in San Francisco in April a newcomer to the citys bevy of alternative transportation devices. Since then, theyve become a popular last mile solution for short stretches from a BART station or a bus stop. They offer a convenient form of transport for people who have to wear office attire or lug heavy packages. Once you start pedaling, its as if the bike were lighter or your legs were suddenly more powerful, said Ryan Russo, director of Oaklands Department of Transportation. He and other officials welcome electric bikes as a carrot to get more people out of cars, and as a cheaper option than BART or buses. Were all about saving residents time and money and giving them access to jobs so they can stay in Oakland, Russo said. And weve got broken streets that people are frustrated about, so the fewer people driving heavy vehicles, the better. Likewise, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency chief Ed Reiskin praised ebikes for cutting down carbon by luring people out of automobiles. 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. Ford GoBike has a contract with the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission to provide traditional and electric bicycles at docks throughout the region. San Franciscos stock of rental GoBikes will reach nearly 2,000 once the new ebikes hit streets. The company recently added five docks in the Bayview, a neighborhood that lacks easy transit connections to the downtown core, along with several stations in the Panhandle area. GoBikes regional network will include 7,000 bicycles parked at 546 stations once its complete, making it the second-largest bikeshare system in North America. Lyft recently purchased Ford GoBike operator Motivate. Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan Jerrold Werthimer, one of the founders of the journalism department at San Francisco State University, died at home in San Francisco on Sunday. Werthimer, who had retired from active teaching in 1990, was 93. He was a veteran of Navy service in World War II, a newspaper reporter and editor, and a much-admired journalism teacher at San Francisco State. He was renowned for his easy-going style his students always called him Jerry and for his concern for liberal causes and for good writing. He made us think that journalism could be more than a lot of hard work, and of course he was right, said Ben Fong-Torres. who went on to work for Rolling Stone and The Chronicle. Jerry taught his students well, and I will always be in his debt. Besides his role in the classroom, Werthimer was for many years faculty adviser to the Golden Gater, the student newspaper, and was particularly proud that the publication was voted the top college paper in the country by the Society of Professional Journalists in 1983. We could never have jelled into a winning editorial team without our Hall of Fame manager, Jerry Werthimer, said Dan Haerle, who worked on the paper. He taught us, advised us, laughed with us, and dined with us. ... Jerry is a treasure, and I could never put a value on the things he taught me about journalism, life and myself. Jerrold Lee Werthimer was born in Chicago in 1925, served as a communications officer in the Navy, and went to work in Chicago as a reporter and editor in 1946. He graduated from Northwestern University and was a high school teacher in Colorado, but was fired from his job when he refused to sign a McCarthy-era loyalty oath. He went back to Northwestern and earned a doctorate in journalism. He taught at Washington State University before moving to San Francisco State, where in 1960 he co-founded the journalism department with Leo V. Young. Werthimer was the departments first full-time professor. Werthimer lived near the campus and always walked to his classes. In his 30 years of teaching, he took three sabbaticals one to Finland, one to China and one to roam the United States searching out mini-muckrakers as he called them, in community newspapers. 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. He is survived by Patricia Strauss Werthimer of San Francisco, his wife of 71 years; his children, Dan of Berkeley and Jenny Mena-Werth of Kearney, Neb.; and three grandchildren. His family said there would be no memorial service. Carl Nolte is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Thursday announced the appointment of Judson True as the citys first director of housing delivery, a position she created to help speed up housing development in the city. True will join Breeds staff the first week of January after spending 8 years working with Assemblyman David Chiu, most recently as his chief of staff. True previously worked as a legislative aide for Chiu when he was a San Francisco supervisor. True has also worked as a spokesman for the Municipal Transportation Agency. Judson True is a highly respected public servant with extensive experience in local and state government, Breed said in a statement. She had planned to fill the position by the end of the year when she announced its creation back in October. We are in the middle of a housing crisis that is a result of not creating enough housing for decades. We need to streamline our overly complicated approval and permitting system, and I know that Judson has both the expertise and the experience to ensure that we create the housing that San Franciscans so desperately need, she said. Breed has set a goal of creating at least 5,000 units of housing each year, largely by halving the time it takes to get projects completed after receiving approvals from the Planning Commission. Much of Trues work will center around steering proposed housing developments through San Franciscos notoriously cumbersome permitting process. Once projects receive the blessing of the Planning Commission, they have to thread through as many as eight city departments, which review development plans around things like fire safety, disability access and compliance with other building codes. Most departments have different schedules, workloads and processes, and they can sometimes offer conflicting interpretation of the same codes, which grinds projects to a halt for years and can jeopardize financing as developers work with the city to suss out a solution. Trues job will be to streamline permitting processes and break up logjams when they arise. 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. I think its about better communication and making sure that real processes are in place so that we dont solve problems anecdotally, True said. We need to do as much as we can right now, because we have projects that are approved and just waiting to become reality. The mayor has been incredibly clear about this, the desperate need for more housing. While working with Chiu, True helped pass a package of bills funding affordable housing projects and streamlining production at the state level. Hes also worked on legislation meant to spur housing creation on BART-owned parking lots and on the development of the Mission Rock neighborhood near AT&T Park. True, who said hed begin work the first week of January, is married to Breeds deputy chief of staff, Andrea Bruss. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa People who are at least 70 years old and donate to charity should consider making the donation from their individual retirement account to take advantage of a no-brainer tax break. This is especially true for people who dont itemize deductions, and there will be lots more of them this year because the federal standard deduction is roughly doubling while some itemized deductions have been capped or killed. People who take the standard deduction generally get no tax benefit from their charitable contributions. But if theyre older than 70 and donate directly from their IRA, the amount transferred wont be added to their income and taxed, like it would be if they took money out of a regular (not Roth) IRA themselves. Donating from an IRA gives them a tax benefit equal to and in almost all cases better than what they would have gotten had they taken the donation as an itemized deduction. This type of transfer, called a qualified charitable distribution or QCD, reduces your adjusted gross income. Lots of other tax benefits, credits and deductions are based on AGI, said financial expert Ed Slott, a CPA and author of several books on retirement. Reducing your AGI may reduce your Medicare premium surcharge, the amount of Social Security thats taxable, and it could increase your medical deduction. Itemized deductions reduce your taxable income, but not your adjusted gross income, so they dont have those same benefits. This type of donation, also called an IRA charitable rollover, counts toward the required minimum distribution that people older than 70 must take from their regular (not Roth) IRAs each year, as long as they make the donation by year end. But its not limited to your required distribution. In fact, each person older than 70 can donate a total of $100,000 per year to one or more charities this way. Robert Peterson, a retired Santa Clara University law professor, made donations to a half-dozen charities this way in 2018. Thats probably the way Im going to do my giving going forward because I cant think of any reason not to, he said. Most people are slightly annoyed about having to take a required distribution, because its taxable. When you make a qualified charitable distribution from your IRA, its almost like the government is giving you a matching gift. Joseph Kovar, a CPA with Sweeney Kovar in Danville, gives this simplified example. Suppose a husband and wife together have $50,000 in pension income and $24,000 in required minimum distributions. If they take the $24,000 themselves, their adjusted gross income (ignoring other items) is $74,000. If they donate $10,000 to charity and take the new standard deduction $26,600 for married couples if both are older than 65 their taxable income will be $47,400. Now suppose that instead of taking $24,000 themselves, they get $14,000 and have $10,000 sent directly from their IRA to charity. In this case their taxable income after the standard deduction will be only $37,400. If they are in the 12 percent tax bracket, this saves them $1,200. If you are older than 70 and itemize deductions, you can still make a donation from your IRA that will reduce your adjusted gross income. But you cant also take it as a charitable deduction; that would be double-dipping. For the reasons stated above, however, reducing your adjusted gross income almost always gives you more bang for the buck than an itemized deduction. To make a donation this way, ask the company that holds your IRA to write a check from it to a qualified charity of your choice. It can send the check to the charity or to you for forwarding to the charity. It cant be made out to you. Jay Wiedwald, a volunteer tax preparer with the free Tax-Aide program, likes to get a check so he can make a copy, in case the IRS wants proof of the donation. One problem at tax time is that Form 1099-R, which financial institutions use to report retirement plan distributions to clients and the IRS, does not indicate whether any part of an IRA distribution went to a charity. If you copy the amount in box 2a, the taxable amount, into your return or tax software, you wont get any benefit from the charitable donation; it will be treated as taxable. You (or your tax preparer) deduct your donation from the amount in box 2a and enter the difference into the box marked taxable amount. If you are using tax software, be sure to tell it that you took a qualified charitable distribution. On a paper return, write QCD next to line 4b of your 1040. A few caveats: If you make a donation this way, you cant get any gifts back from the charity, even a $10 tote bag, Slott said. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes You must be at least 70 when the donation is made. Make sure the charity is eligible to receive a qualified charitable distribution. Donor-advised funds are not. Also, you cannot do this from your 401(k). After you take your required minimum distribution from your 401(k) for this year, however, you can roll over the balance into an IRA and donate money from it next year. It doesnt make sense to do this from a Roth IRA, because distributions from a Roth IRA are generally tax-free. Some charities have been promoting this as a fundraising tool. Its one of the lesser-known opportunities, said Stephanie Green, chief development officer with the Womens Foundation of California. Catholic Charities of San Francisco has been advertising this strategy on its website, in emails, postcards at events and through personal outreach, said Chief Development Officer Pat Gallagher. We get a modest response to the outreach, she said, but the gifts we get through IRA distributions tend to be much larger than if they give from their personal accounts. Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender At 6:33 a.m. on Nov. 8, a Butte County dispatcher answered what was among the first emergency calls in what would become the deadliest wildfire in California history: A powerline transformer sparked and there is a fire, the Magalia caller reported. By just after 8 a.m., residents of Concow and Magalia were phoning in a panic some of them trapped and needing rescue and others frantically alerting authorities to parents and grandparents in harms way, according to Butte County dispatchers logs. Her grandfather is at the location fighting off the fire but can not get out, a dispatcher wrote of an 8:10 a.m. call regarding a man on Green Forest Lane in Concow. A minute later, a call came from a resident on Hoffman Road: Caller advised her house is on fire and she can not get out. Her mother is stuck and she can not move her. Call had disconnected. Dispatch tried to call back and it was a busy signal. Butte County officials on Thursday released the emergency call logs from the Camp Fires onset last month, offering a chilling glimpse into the moments when the inferno arrived at the communitys doorstep. The logs covering the areas surrounding the community of Paradise give the first public view of the hundreds of 911 calls that came in on that morning as the massive tragedy unfolded. Some calls from Paradise were included in the logs, but the city also had its own, separate dispatch center. The fires death toll stands at 86. The Butte County Sheriffs Office attempted to dispatch as many on-foot patrols as possible to help callers flee, but the reports soon became overwhelming, said Megan McMann, community relations coordinator, Butte County Sheriff's Office. It was pretty chaotic, said McMann, who witnessed the operations unfolding from the office in Oroville. It was scary, there were just so many things going through everyones minds. We were scared for the people, scared for the deputies. Throughout the day the Sheriffs Office rolled out various evacuation orders and warnings, issued on an opt-in system called CodeRed. But records reviewed by The Chronicle show the alerts results were mixed. Of the calls made to landlines and opt-in mobile numbers, only about 60 percent (15,000 of 25,000) were delivered, either live or to an answering machine. The rest were met with busy signals, operator intercepts or the call timed out. The county declined to issue an Amber Alert-style message, which would have reached all cell phones in the area, rather than just the numbers that had signed up. Hundreds of calls rolled in throughout the day, amid the countys numerous evacuation alerts. Some reported that they were trapped, and others were unable to reach a loved one in the fires path. A few included non-fire-related calls and calls from other parts of the county, and reports from deputies actively responding to incidents. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California In Magalia, an 11-year-old child had stayed home from school, and her parents couldnt get home to get her out. Nearby, there was a 95-year-old woman who didnt walk. A Magalia mans wife and children had no transportation and no way to get out. Someone on Honey Run Road in Chico was bedridden, had no way out, and needed an ambulance. Several were elderly, disabled or unreachable. At the end of each report, the dispatcher made a brief note of the calls outcome. Some offered brief signals of relief or even heroism. The 95-year-old woman who couldnt walk was gone upon arrival. And the quadriplegic person who was bedridden received outside assistance. The dispatcher did not give a disposition for the 11-year-old. No children have been identified as victims of the fire. For others, the note struck an ominous tone. Many ended with unable to locate. Unable to reach brother, read one regarding a man in Concow. Disposition: Destroyed by Fire. Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy A Pacific Gas and Electric Co. executive indicated Friday the utility may expand its policies around cutting power to prevent wildfires to include the kind of high-voltage transmission line that malfunctioned right before the Camp Fire started. When PG&E rolled out its intentional shutoff program this year, the utility did not include power lines that operate at 115,000 volts or higher. PG&E officials have said cutting power to such transmission lines could impact a much larger customer base possibly millions of people and create other issues for the grid, unlike when lower-voltage distribution lines are turned off. But Aaron Johnson, a PG&E vice president in the electric operations division, told a crowd in Santa Rosa that the utility is rethinking its approach. He made the comments at a meeting about power shutoffs hosted by the California Public Utilities Commission. We think, with the risks that were seeing, that it makes sense to be looking at a broader program across a broader geography, maybe bringing in some of the high-voltage transmission lines, Johnson said. That does mean that the number of customers impacted becomes higher. PG&E is also looking into expanding the scope of its power shutoff program in other ways. Currently, the utility only targets extreme fire-risk areas about 10 percent of the utilitys service area when cutting power, Johnson said. PG&E may in the future include areas at the lower elevated risk level as well, which would make nearly 40 percent of the geographic area served by the utility eligible, he said. The utility intentionally cut power in parts of several Northern California counties for the first time ever in October, when high winds and dry conditions greatly increased the risk of power equipment sparking wildfires. PG&E almost cut power again in November, including in Butte County, where the Camp Fire ignited on the same day the utility decided weather conditions did not warrant any shutoffs there. The cause of the Camp Fire is still under investigation. But PG&E has said a 115,000-volt transmission line which would not have been turned off under the current company policy malfunctioned near the spot where the fire reportedly began. The utility also recently detailed damage to the transmission tower, including a flash mark near a broken part of the tower. And it said one of its employees spotted flames by the tower right around the time state officials have said the blaze began. Authorities are also investigating a possible second origin point of the Camp Fire, which killed at least 86 people and destroyed nearly 14,000 homes, making it the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. PG&E has also told regulators about additional problems along a distribution line in the fire area, including a fallen power pole with bullet holes in it and another spot where poles fell and there were several snapped trees, with some on top of the downed wires. The utilities commission moved Thursday to start crafting new rules about how and when utilities such as PG&E cut power when weather conditions make fire risk high, a practice known technically as de-energization. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California Commission officials and utilities alike are trying to balance the need for polices that help prevent wildfires against unnecessarily disrupting peoples lives, particularly the most vulnerable residents. De-energization has very significant impacts on the communities that are affected, said Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen at Fridays meeting. People feel afraid, especially those who use medical equipment that rely on electricity By opening up this proceeding, were gonna try to have the best possible look at what we can and should do going forward. Santa Rosa is uniquely situated to provide input on both fronts. State officials have said PG&E equipment sparked 17 Northern California fires last year, including some in the North Bay, though the largest blaze that hit Sonoma County hardest, the Tubbs Fire, is still under investigation. Still, when PG&E rolled out its power shutoffs for the first time in October, it provoked a backlash among North Bay residents and community leaders who were frustrated about how the utility communicated. I support the idea of de-energization, Santa Rosa mayor Chris Coursey said Friday. (But) we need to make it better understood across the board. The Friday meeting in Santa Rosa will inform the commissions new rulemaking effort, as will another workshop planned for next month in Calabasas (Los Angeles County). J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com @thejdmorris Pacific Gas and Electric Co. asked regulators Thursday for permission to raise nearly $2 billion in new revenue from ratepayers over three years, starting in 2020, with more than half the proceeds going to cover wildfire prevention work. If it is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the proposal would increase an average residential customers bill by 6.4 percent, or $10.57 per month in 2020, PG&E said. The request was made as part of the routine process through which the utilities commission authorizes the amount of revenue PG&E is allowed to collect from customers over a three-year period. PG&Es next rate request covers 2020 through 2022. The proposal seeks $1.06 billion for the first year. It asks for an additional $454 million in 2021 and $486 million in 2022, a company spokeswoman said. Separately, PG&E is also seeking the commissions approval for a six-year rate increase in a different case involving the decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on the Central Coast. That proposal would increase the average residential customers monthly bill by 2 percent, or $1.98, PG&E said. If the first general rate increase is approved, PG&E said the new money will allow it to install 2,000 miles of stronger poles and covered power lines in areas where fire risk is high. Other plans include stepping up the utilitys efforts to maintain 120 million trees at risk of growing or falling on power lines, using SmartMeter technology to respond better when lines fall down, adding 1,300 weather stations in risky fire areas by 2022 and installing 600 high-definition cameras to detect fires. None of the new revenue would go toward any claims stemming from the devastating Camp Fire or the 2017 North Bay firestorm, PG&E said. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the Camp Fire and the Tubbs Fire, the most destructive blaze from last year, but PG&E equipment may be to blame in one or both cases. State officials have already said PG&E equipment sparked 17 fires in Northern California last year. The funds also will not go toward executive compensation at the utility or its parent company, PG&E Corp. which is no longer allowed because of legislation passed this year. The same legislation, SB901, may also result in even higher electricity prices for Northern Californians. It allows PG&E to issue bonds for wildfire-related costs that would be paid off by customers with the permission of regulators after the utility has passed a stress test determining the maximum amount it can pay without harming utility customers. State officials say the new law permits PG&E to issue such bonds only for the 2017 fires. But a key Southern California legislator is working on a new bill that would reportedly extend the same process to fires that broke out this year. Thursdays rate request comes at a difficult time for PG&E, which faces mounting legal and regulatory problems after two years of historically devastating wildfires. And California customers already pay some of the highest electricity prices in the nation. We recognize that any increase to a customers bill can be a significant impact, said PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo. This funding is really going to help PG&E make the enhancements that we need to make ... with regards to reliability and resilience and safety for the benefit of our customers. The threat that we are facing today with this ever-increasing risk of catastrophic wildfire and extreme weather is not going away. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California The general rate plan didnt sit well with Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, a frequent PG&E critic. He called the utilitys current three-year request stunning. This is huge. We think the commission should demand an accounting for all of the wildfire and safety money that PG&E has already received from ratepayers, and whats happened with that money, before they get a single dime, Toney said. Were at the point now where it seems like all the money in the world is not gonna be enough. The rate request before the state utilities commission pertains only to the distribution and generation of electricity and gas, Paulo said. It does not cover transmission towers such as the one located near the origin of the Camp Fire because those are regulated at the federal level, she said. The utility has a separate case before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking to raise $171 million in revenue, which would amount to about $1.50 per month more on the average residential customers bill, Paulo said in a follow-up email. PG&E filed the federal request in October. Paulo said it reflects the unique threat of extreme, climate driven wildfire, which she said must be factored in to the costs associated with providing safe and reliable electric transmission service in the companys service area. PG&E plans to conduct a series of public meetings across its service area next year to gather input about the rate proposal before going back to the utilities commission, which has the final say. J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris A protester who repeatedly confronted San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon outside of his home this year was ordered Thursday to stay at least 100 yards away from the citys top prosecutor, his wife, their home and their vehicles for the next three years. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charles Haines granted the petition for a restraining order against Victor Manuel Picazo after a three-hour hearing in civil court in which Gascon testified on the stand. Im very concerned for the safety of my family, for the emotional state of my family, and I wish that the behavior would stop, Gascon said. Picazo, 48, and others have long protested the district attorney on the steps of the Hall of Justice, calling for an end to police brutality, while demanding that charges be brought against the officers in several deadly police shootings. But the demonstrations escalated when they began protesting Gascon at his Monterey Heights home in May after the district attorney declined to file criminal charges against the officers in the controversial police killings of Mario Woods and Luis Gongora Pat. More for you SF police shootings: No charges for officers in Mario Woods, Luis Gongora Pat killings Picazo and several others gathered outside Gascons home on more than six occasions through September, chanting jail killer cops while holding signs and writing messages in chalk on Gascons home and sidewalk. The protests prompted several heated exchanges that were recorded on video. In one incident, a group was recorded standing around Gascons sport utility vehicle as he drove out of his garage with his wife. Picazo is seen on a video blocking the vehicle while shouting, Run me over! Run me over! Picazo later said that Gascon had bruised his knee and that he sought treatment at the hospital. Gascon denied hitting Picazo. In another incident, Gascon picked up a piece of watermelon on his stairs and flung it toward a group of demonstrators standing outside his home at night, prompting someone to shout F you before hurling watermelon back at the district attorney. Gascon also testified Thursday that one of Picazos associates made threatening comments, implying he hoped to see Gascons family die like those who have been gunned down by police. Attorney Holly Coulehan, who represented Gascon, said Picazo did nothing to distance himself from those threats. The protests, Gascon said, caused him and his family substantial emotional distress and he worried that some of this could go further. In addition to installing $5,000 worth of security cameras and fencing around his home, Gascon said he no longer felt safe leaving his wife at home for extended periods of time. Picazo insisted he harbored no personal animosity against the district attorney but instead blamed the system, which needs to be changed, especially when it comes to police brutality and excessive force in San Francisco. His attorney, John Lee, criticized the restraining order as a misguided effort to squash free speech. 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. While he granted the restraining order, Judge Haines acknowledged Picazos First Amendment rights to speech and assembly. But, he noted, There are such things as innocent third parties who can be injured. In addition to staying at least 100 yards from Gascon and his family in private settings, Picazo must also stay at least 10 yards from Gascon during public appearances. Picazo can still protest at the Hall of Justice, where Gascon works. The Hall of Justice is one place. Somebodys home is another place, Haines said. As Gascon slipped out of court, Picazos supporters shouted that he had blood on his hands. One man who identified himself as Picazos older brother, Rafael, pledged to continue protesting Gascon at his work and at his home. Silencing one doesnt silence us all, he said. Dominic Fracassa and Evan Sernoffsky are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com, esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DominicFracassa, @EvanSernoffsky The Zodiac case, 50 years later Tracing the decades-long fascination with our Jack the Ripper, responsible for a series of unsolved Bay Area slayings The Zodiac case, 50 years later Tracing the decades-long fascination with our Jack the Ripper, responsible for a series of unsolved Bay Area slayings He is our Jack the Ripper. Fifty years ago this week, a psychopath with a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol sneaked up on two high school students parked on a windswept lovers lane in Benicia. Shot down as they scrambled in terror, the young couple died in a spray of gunfire. It was an unusually messy crime scene. The killing on Dec. 20, 1968, of David Faraday, 17, and his 16-year-old date, Betty Lou Jensen, marked the beginning of what became the twisted legend of the Zodiac Killer. By the time he was done, five more victims across the Bay Area would be shot or stabbed three of them killed, two left barely alive but scarred for life. Although the carnage spanned less than a year, the moniker Zodiac Killer was cemented into history. He would never be caught. Considering the homicidal tumult of the 1960s and 70s, the number of his victims was actually somewhat low. Charles Manson murdered eight people. Ted Bundy killed 36, the Zebra Killers 14. Unhinged San Francisco preacher Jim Jones ordered the deaths of more than 900 in Jonestown, Guyana. But this sadistic murderer had a repulsively unusual characteristic. As he killed, the Zodiac mailed a flurry of taunting letters and cryptograms to The Chronicle and others. This is the Zodiac speaking, they opened, and were often signed with a rifle-sight crosshairs symbol. He claimed to love killing because man is the most dangerous game, and once threatened to massacre a dozen people unless The Chronicle printed his message. The paper published the letter. The Zodiac also threatened to wipe out an entire school bus by shooting out the front tire so he could pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out. Fifty years later, with the case still unsolved, the Zodiac Killers death crusade is perhaps the most infamous murder mystery in America. There have been a lot of terrible crimes in the city, but nothing ever quite like the Zodiac case, said San Francisco Police Homicide Inspector Gianrico Pierucci, who investigated the case for several years before retiring last year. It was crazier than hell. There are thousands of potential suspects and lots of evidence, and its a tough one. Nobody ever even got arrested. Hes our Jack the Ripper. Its been 50 years, and all we have is two sketches of a white male with glasses? he said in exasperation. Very frustrating. Written on greeting card mailed to a San Francisco newspaper (Chronicle) by a killer who calls himself Zodiac and included a letter and a cryptogram in San Francisco on Nov. 11, 1969. Police say Zodiac has killed five, but in his new communications Zodiac claims seven. The writer lists the months the killings took place at the bottom, with the total ?and I can?t do a thing with it!? refers to a drawing on the card showing a dripping wet pen with the salutation: ?Sorry I haven?t written, but I just washed my pen?? less Written on greeting card mailed to a San Francisco newspaper (Chronicle) by a killer who calls himself Zodiac and included a letter and a cryptogram in San Francisco on Nov. 11, 1969. Police say Zodiac has ... more Photo: Associated Press 1969 Photo: Associated Press 1969 Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Zodiac Killer case, 50 years later: Tracing the legend of our Jack the Ripper 1 / 8 Back to Gallery Like the Zodiac, Britains Ripper had five confirmed kills within the space of one year in 1888 London, sent taunting letters to newspapers and never was caught. The havoc he wreaked had the same sort of effect on the population that the Zodiac did. The Zodiacs murders and taunts terrified people across Northern California from 1968 to 1970. His crimes inspired the 1971 movie Dirty Harry and spawned generations of amateur sleuths around the world who have named literally thousands of suspects they believe are absolutely, without doubt, the killer. Police investigators, meanwhile, have named only one suspect: convicted child molester Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo. Allen owned boots identical to those worn by the Zodiac, and said in an interview once that his favorite short story was The Most Dangerous Game, which the killer had referenced in one of his letters. He was picked out in a photo lineup many years after the attacks by one of the Zodiacs surviving victims. He also wore a watch with the Zodiacs crosshairs symbol on it, reportedly partially confessed to a friend interviewed by investigators and was fingered as the culprit in former Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmiths authoritative 2002 book, Zodiac Unmasked. Allen, however, died of a heart attack in 1992 at age 58 before detectives could make enough of a case to charge him. Ever since, police from Napa, Solano and San Francisco counties, where the killings occurred, have continued to scrape through every clue they have filed in teeming storage cases and closets, not to mention the streams of tips that still pour in. San Francisco alone has about 30 boxes of evidence, including the blood-spattered door of the taxi in which the Zodiac shot to death his last victim, cabbie Paul Stine, 29, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood on Oct. 11, 1969. Other departments also have car parts from the murder scenes and plastic rope the Zodiac used to tie up victims. Between the first homicides in Benicia and the Stine killing, there were two more Zodiac attacks on dating couples: In July 1969 in Vallejo, he shot Michael Mageau, 19, and Darlene Ferrin, 22; and in September 1969 at Lake Berryessa, he stabbed Cecelia Shepard, 22, and Bryan Hartnell, 20. Mageau and Hartnell both survived and gave descriptions of the killer. They rarely speak about the Zodiac in public. None of the investigators working the case today would speak on the record for this story. A few who worked it in the past, however, refuse to give up on the idea that the killer will be identified some day. If the Zodiac turns out to be someone other than Allen and is still alive, he probably would be in his mid-80s or 90s, given that he was described at the time as appearing to be 35 to 40 years old. I cant help but believe he is somewhere in our files, that the answers are in there somewhere, said long-retired San Francisco homicide Inspector Frank Falzon, one of the earliest investigators on the case. With all these different law enforcement agencies, its got to be solved someday. Through 1974, well after his last known victim, the Zodiac sent about two dozen letters to The Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times Herald, ultimately claiming 37 slayings. But investigators only ever confirmed those five killings and the two survivors. For many years, the most hopeful new direction in the case has been DNA testing the science that cracked the decades-old Golden State Killer case this year. Investigators in that case turned to genealogical sites to match a profile to an ex-police officer who now faces 13 counts of murder and 13 more of rape. The Zodiac case, however, is more complicated. The letters and the few possible shreds of DNA evidence were handled extensively by detectives and others long before anyone knew DNA analysis was even a tool. The Zodiac also was apparently very careful about minimizing helpful clues in the form of saliva, fingerprints or blood. So, many investigators believe the chance of a useful hit turning up in the profiles is slim at best. Said one police source, who couldnt speak publicly: With the Golden State Killer, they had a full strand of DNA. Not Zodiac. We have crumbs, and not good ones. I think the hunt for DNA is an illusion, a dog-and-pony show, said Mike Rodelli, who wrote the 2017 book The Hunt for Zodiac after 20 years of research. He believes the killer is not Allen, but a deceased San Francisco businessman. The evidence is way too old and overhandled, he said. Tom Voigt, another private sleuth who has researched the case for decades, disagrees. The only thing that could solve it is the DNA and that could happen tomorrow, he said. He could be drinking coffee next to you, he could be sitting at the bus stop. Or he could be dead. But absolutely, it will be solved, said Voigt, who runs the exhaustively researched Zodiackiller.com site. His top suspect: a long-dead Martinez newspaperman. Of all the Zodiac evidence, the three things seized upon most by detectives and amateur sleuths are the handwritten letters, the ciphers and the sketches generated by the two survivors. But all are so open to interpretation that new tips are made to investigators and The Chronicle every month or so from people claiming to have solved the case. Among the many theories: The Zodiac was the Unabomber, a gang of demented cops, the crazy uncle upstairs, the edgy neighbor, and so on. Dozens insist the killer was their father. But except for one long cipher sent in pieces to The Chronicle, Examiner and Vallejo papers in 1969, no detectives have been able to confirm a translation of the killers cryptograms, a crazy quilt of letters and symbols laid out in straight lines. The one that was solved by a Salinas schoolteacher and his wife offered little beyond the boast, I like killing because it is so much fun. The rest, according to FBI code experts, appear to be gibberish. The killers handwriting also is easy to match to numerous people because its in such a simple hand, and the artists rendering depicts the typical early-1960s fellow with a crew cut and horn-rimmed glasses. In the minds of many, this leaves the lone named suspect Allen, of Vallejo as the mostly likely guy. I believe he did it, no doubt. There are just way too many coincidences that make way too much sense, said John Henslin of Texas, who was a friend of victim Betty Lou Jensen and whose sister, Sharon Stutsman of Nevada, was Jensens best friend. Him murdering our friend ruined Christmas for all of us for life. Every year, every anniversary, we remember that killing all over again. In an email, Stutsman, who is ill and cannot speak clearly, fondly remembered Jensen as an artist in every way ... funny, always happy. Her father worked at the same Vallejo school district where Allen was employed as a janitor, and Henslin recalled that the family thought he was creepy. Thats an impression shared by former KTVU-TV crime reporter Rita Williams, the last person known to have interviewed Allen, shortly before he died, at Allens home in Vallejo. Williams said that although Allen denied being the Zodiac, he fit the killers profile in many ways. After the interview, Allen wrote Williams a letter containing a handwritten Z identical to the one on a widely publicized letter that some believe the Zodiac sent in 1967 to the father of an unconfirmed Riverside victim, before the Bay Area killings began. The letter to Williams also had bad grammar similar to the Zodiacs. I remember him showing me tons of things on his shelves, and so many looked like clues, Williams said. It was almost like a game with him ... eerie. I said to the cameraman when we got into our car afterward: We just talked to the Zodiac. Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron Surf and sand lovers got an atonement gift Thursday from tech billionaire Sean Parker who launched a mobile beach app that is the product of one of the most idiosyncratic punishments ever devised for running afoul of the California Coastal Commission. The free YourCoast app was developed by Parker, the co-founder of the online music service Napster, as penance for his lavish $4 million wedding five years ago in the redwoods of Big Sur, a phantasmagoric shindig that had stars galore but, it turned out, no permit. This is a case of turning lemons into lemonade, said Lisa Haage, the Coastal Commissions chief of enforcement. We negotiated a creative agreement with a willing partner of great ability and expertise that will widely benefit the public. We literally ended up working with some of the worlds best tech engineers to create something that everyone can use and enjoy. The Apple device is essentially an iPhone version of the commissions YourCoast website, providing information about 1,563 beaches in California, including maps, photographs, access points, parking availability, bathroom locations and even dog-friendliness ratings. The app includes hidden pocket beaches, nature trails overlooking the ocean, scenic campgrounds and places to kayak, surf or paddleboard. Among the beaches listed is Martins Beach, the subject of a series of bitter legal fights since Vinod Khosla, another tech billionaire, bought the Half Moon Bay property in 2008 and closed the only public-access gate to the cove. The app says Martins Beach is currently closed. Parker, the first president of Facebook, agreed to the unusual high-tech settlement after his June 2013 marriage to Alexandra Lenas at the Ventana Inn & Spa campground in Big Sur. The spot was not supposed to be closed to the public without a Coastal Commission permit. The swanky nuptials, attended by Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris and a diorama of the well-to-do, involved plopping a stage, dance floor and faux Roman ruins that would make a Hollywood set designer proud into the campground, which is surrounded by redwoods and under the Coastal Commissions jurisdiction but owned by the Ventana Inn. Parker later told The Chronicle that he and his wife love redwoods and had sought advice from conservationists and the property owner on how to minimize their impact on the land. He said he was told he did not need permits. The Coastal Commission cited Parker for disrupting public access to the campground and potentially harming sensitive habitat, violations that carry penalties of between $1,000 and $15,000 a day. The commission staff said the owners of the Ventana Inn were responsible for the misunderstanding and the closure, but also said in a report that Parker had indemnified the hotel against damages and took responsibility. In addition to the app, Parker and his wife created a $1.5 million grant program for eight conservation programs dedicated to the restoration of the coast and public access in Monterey County. It included $345,000 for the San Francisco-based Save the Redwoods League, which is rebuilding a section of Big Surs popular Pfeiffer Falls Trail that was damaged by a 2008 wildfire. 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. Parker also agreed to fund several groups serving at-risk youth in the area and make an educational video. The total amount of damages paid was $2.5 million, according to the agreement. Jennifer Savage, California policy manager for the environmental group Surfrider Foundation, said the app shows pathways to little known beaches and coves, including routes through neighborhoods that residents arent always eager to share because they consider the beaches their own. Certainly to have something so good come out of what was a bad situation is a fantastic outcome, Savage said. The harm that was done has been fixed and this is something that will benefit people who use the California coast for a long time to come. The free app can be shared on social media; photos of access points can be added by the public; and users can call it up even in remote areas without cell coverage, officials said. Parker is also helping Coastal Commission staff develop a version that works on an Android platform. Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @pfimrite California is being sued over its DNA collection practices, and the only thing thats surprising is how long it took. In 2004, state voters passed Proposition 69, which requires authorities to collect DNA from anyone arrested for a felony. The persons DNA profile is then uploaded to the national Combined DNA Index System. Police and other law enforcement agencies around the country love the database, because it allows them to share information, generate leads, and connect the dots between crimes. These are important functions, and DNA databases have been a breakthrough tool for law enforcement. In California, police agencies have used DNA databases to find the perpetrators of horrific crimes like the Gypsy Hill Killings. But as we pointed out in 2004, theres always been one huge flaw with Prop. 69: the size of the net it casts. Prop. 69 requires DNA collection for anyone whos been arrested for a felony, not convicted of a felony. What that effectively means is that law enforcement agencies are allowed to keep the genetic profiles of thousands of people who have not been convicted of the crime of which they were accused. Tens of thousands of felony arrests in California every year do not result in charges much less convictions. Yet law enforcement collects, keeps and files the DNA of people who are innocent, just as it keeps that of those who are convicted. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Monday, allege that 750,000 people have been arrested on suspicion of a felony and their DNA was collected without them being convicted of any crime. (The Center for Genetics and Society filed the lawsuit alongside the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Equal Justice Society.) Thats an enormous number of innocent people, and the plaintiffs are arguing that the blanket retention policy amounts to a violation of Californias privacy protections. The government has no legitimate interest in retaining DNA samples and profiles from people who have no felony convictions, Marcy Darnovsky, executive director at the Center for Genetics and Society, said in a statement. Its unconstitutional for the state to hold on to such sensitive material without any finding of guilt. The plaintiffs have a point. It would have been sensible, effective and reasonable for the state of California to maintain DNA samples from people who have been convicted of felonies. The state Supreme Court recently affirmed the constitutionality of DNA collection, and a felons-only database is the standard in most states. But in a system where people are still innocent until proved guilty, there is just no legitimate reason for the state to collect and store the DNA profiles of people whose only infraction was being arrested and booked into jail. Proponents of Prop. 69 note that the law allows people who were not convicted to apply to have their DNA information removed from the database. Thats true. But theres no requirement for law enforcement to inform people of this right, and many of them arent aware of it. The expungement process is also complicated, as most legal processes are. Because of these factors, fewer than 1,500 people have successfully received a DNA expungement. Thats outrageous the burden for fixing a problem the state created should rest with the state. The plaintiffs also allege that the policy reinforces racial disparities in the criminal justice system. This is based on an assumption that discrimination is a factor in who gets arrested and charged with felonies. Thats a fair assumption, given widely documented racial disparities in Californias arrest rates, and its just one more reason the courts need to grant this lawsuit a careful look. The power of DNA is its unmatched ability to identify individuals. For that same reason, we must be careful about allowing government authorities to collect it without well-deserved cause. The cities and towns hit this week with stiff demands to reduce water use, including San Francisco, say theyll work with state regulators to meet the charge, but theyre also looking at the possibility of lawsuits. The State Water Resources Control Board approved a far-reaching plan Wednesday to improve the health of Californias rivers and fish by limiting the amount of water that dozens of communities take from four major waterways. While the plan leaves room for negotiating the extent of the water reductions, the agencies that draw from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries say legal action may be a necessary backstop in case theyre forced to cut more than they can afford. At the end of the day, we do serve our customers and we have to do whats best for the community, said Samantha Wookey, spokeswoman for the Modesto Irrigation District, one of the states biggest water suppliers and now subject to restrictions on the Tuolumne River. San Francisco, which also relies on the Tuolumne River and faces cutbacks, has begun evaluating whether a lawsuit is appropriate, according to the city attorneys office. Under the state plan, San Francisco residents and businesses could face reductions of 40 percent or more during prolonged dry periods, according to estimates from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The aim of the state water board is to prevent the collapse of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The sprawling estuary, which serves as a hub of state water supplies and is a vital conduit for threatened salmon, has suffered from too little water and too much contamination amid heavy pumping. While the water boards plan would saddle water users with restrictions to boost flows into the delta, regulators introduced leniency Wednesday in an effort to head off litigation, which would result in years of delay in the plans implementation. The board stipulated that it will attempt to integrate proposals by water agencies to trade habitat restoration for smaller water reductions. It appears, though, the boards strategy may not have worked. Ever since the water board began updating its plan a decade ago, it has had to maneuver a path between water users who dont want limits on their draws and fishermen and environmentalists who want substantial caps. The conservation community also presents a threat for legal action, with many having committed to suing if the environmental safeguards approved Wednesday are weakened. The Bay Delta Plan calls for maintaining an average of 40 percent of the natural flow of the San Joaquin River and its tributaries during peak spring runoff. Currently, the flows average 20 percent or less because of diversions. Sometimes the waterways dry up entirely. The plan could change as the state looks at amendments pitched by water agencies. For years, the state board has been urging suppliers to come up with their own ideas for fixing Californias declining river system. At Wednesdays meeting, more than a dozen water departments, with help from the state Natural Resources Agency, laid out a framework for restoration that included money for habitat improvements and a commitment to less pumping. The board asked the agencies to flesh out their initiative by March. Officials at the SFPUC, who are working on amendments, say they wont be able to hit the states 40 percent flow target. But they say theyre looking to leave more water in the Tuolumne River and restore salmon habitat in a plan they believe will meet the water boards conservation goal. There are other areas we can explore on how we do long-term management, said Michael Carlin, deputy general manager of the SFPUC. Thats where were going to be spending our time over the next several months: to get something more detailed. Still, the compromise plan probably would mean significant water cuts for San Francisco households. During a drought, customers may have to reduce water use by 30 percent, Carlin said. Water rates would probably rise as the city develops new sources to make up for lost supplies. 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 agency serves about two dozen other Bay Area cities that would face the likelihood of similar reductions and rate hikes. The state water board is expected to begin determining the exact restrictions for water agencies once the suppliers submit their alternative ideas. Next, the board will have to enshrine those limits in regulation. The water rights of many suppliers may have to be adjusted, which will require additional proceedings. Much of the expected legal action will probably revolve around these water rights. The Trump administration, which is pushing to free up more water for farms, has also threatened to sue over the Bay Delta Plan. On Thursday, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman said her agency is analyzing what impact the states action might have on federally managed water. In addition to the San Joaquin River basin, the state has begun a similar process of limiting draws on the Sacramento River and its tributaries. Peter Drekmeier, policy director for the Tuolumne River Trust and an advocate of higher water flows, said hes pleased with what the state has come up with, at least so far. We see this as a big step forward, but its a long process and were not going to rest on our laurels, he said. The lawsuits are going to be a big thing in the next couple months. Theres still a lot that could happen, he said. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander For more stories like this, check out The Chronicles weekly Travel newsletter! Sign up here. The first thing that greets me as I walk into Santa Cruz Guitar Co. is a life-size cardboard cutout of a smiling Richard Hoover, the companys founder. The second thing is the real smiling Richard Hoover, holding out a box of doughnuts. That ones covered in health-food crumbs, he says, pointing to the one my gaze had fallen on. The 42-year-old guitar company, famed for its boutique acoustic guitars, welcomes visitors for tours, which Hoover leads himself (doughnuts not guaranteed). He closes his eyes when talking about his personal journey to becoming a master luthier, the preferred term for a maker of string instruments, but his eyes pop open brightly when he tells a self-deprecating joke. He asks how long Ive played guitar. Twenty-five years, I tell him. Hoover beats that by several decades. Then why arent we better? he asks with an impish grin. Hoover has a good excuse: Hes spent his years perfecting the art of building guitars, not playing them. Pictures on the wall of Tony Rice, Norman Blake and Brad Paisley hint at how Santa Cruz gained its reputation. When the acoustic guitar started becoming more of a lead instrument in bluegrass and country in the 70s, players wanted to customize their guitars not just for aesthetics, but for tone. Hoover, who learned to build guitars following the tradition of fine violin makers, tuning each instrument for maximum resonance and customizing tone to a players style, was the man to turn to. A bluesy melody floats across the factory from a guitar in its final stages of being built for a finger-style jazz player. First words, Hoover says, with the look of a proud father. Santa Cruz may not fit into the typical geographies of bluegrass or jazz, but it was the perfect setting for Hoovers workshop. Santa Cruz is artistic, quirky, diverse and tolerant, Hoover says. Its been that way not just since the 60s, but since the 1860s. Some places are just a vortex for that creative spirit. Todd Trumbull That vortex apparently encompasses the entire California coast, which is studded with guitar makers ranging from some of the largest guitar manufacturers in the world to a growing community of small luthiers. California has more than twice as many guitar makers as any other state, according to research from industry tracker IbisWorld. Thats good news for guitar players, woodworkers or anyone whos simply curious to see how things are made, because many of these guitar makers are happy to show you their craft up close, from the traditional art to how California continues to shape the way the world sees and plays guitars. How did California become the guitar capital of the U.S.? Andy Powers, master guitar designer at Taylor Guitars, points to Southern California. Its always been a hotbed of the nations culture, from fashion to architecture to television and movies, Powers says. We have a culture that values new ideas, freethinking artists and people developing new technologies. Courtesy Fender Musical Instruments New technologies are certainly evident on the tour of Taylors factory in El Cajon, east of San Diego. To mass-produce high-quality acoustic guitars in the U.S., Taylor workers had to design their own tools to make that possible. Robotic arms maneuver guitar bodies as theyre spray finished and then cured in ultraviolet light ovens. Another robot arm swings in to buff the guitars to a high shine. The robotic-arm era of guitar making might never have happened without one key invention that emerged out of Southern California in the 1930s: the electric guitar. George Beauchamp, co-founder of National String Instrument Corp., spent his evenings tinkering with electronics on his dining room table looking for new ways to make the guitar loud enough to hold its own in bands. His first working prototype became the basis for Rickenbacker electric guitars, later made famous by George Harrison and John Lennon, and frequently smashed to bits by Pete Townshend. It took Leo Fender, a radio repairman and inventor from Fullerton (Orange County), to provide the spark that made the electric guitar and bass explode onto the global music scene after World War II. Fenders guitars were thin, solid-body designs that could be mass-produced. Starting with the Telecaster and fretted Precision Bass, Fender guitars were the sounds that defined rock n roll and Motown, put the twang in the Bakersfield Sound, and influenced nearly every musical genre since. Leo was the first to democratize the electric guitar, says Fender CEO Andy Mooney. A big part of Fenders global success is its umbilical connection to California, to surf culture, to all of the good life people associate with California. If you go Santa Cruz Guitar Co.: Free tours 2:30 p.m. Thursdays and 10 a.m. Fridays. Call or email at least one week in advance to reserve a spot. 151 Harvey West Blvd., Suite C, Santa Cruz; 831-425-0999; scgc@santacruzguitar.com; www .santacruzguitar.com Fender Musical Instruments: Free tours 10 a.m. Thursdays, starting again in February. 301 Cessna Circle, Corona. Reserve a spot by calling Fender customer service at 800-856-9801 or the Corona office at 951-898-4022. Taylor Guitars: Free tours 1 p.m. weekdays; TaylorWare store open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays. No reservations needed except for large groups. Check website for closure days. 1980 Gillespie Way, El Cajon; www .taylorguitars.com/contact/factory-tours Blackbird Guitars: Factory showroom open to visitors by appointment, with bird's-eye view over the factory floor. 2180 Folsom St., San Francisco. Set up a time to visit at www .blackbirdguitar.com/pages/contact or call 415-625-0977. National Reso-Phonic Guitars: Free tours 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday . Call or message online at least one week in advance to reserve a time. 871 Via Esteban #C, San Luis Obispo; 877-882-3035; www.nationalguitars.com/contact-us See More Collapse On the Fender factory tour in Corona (Riverside County), historic guitars line the hallways, tracing the companys history back to the early origins in 1946 in nearby Fullerton. A guide takes you behind the scenes of the main production line and into the custom shop, where theyve made guitars for Eric Clapton, John Mayer and Sheryl Crow. Right now theyre working with Jimmy Page to re-create his favored 1959 Telecaster. Despite recent worries that the era of the guitar hero had passed and the guitar might be playing its swan song after Gibson filed for bankruptcy in May 2018, guitar sales are up, thanks in part to the popularity of acoustic guitars and a ukulele boom. Guitar heroes havent gone away; theyre just looking different these days. Guitar makers point to Taylor Swift (who plays both Taylor and Fender guitars) and St. Vincent (who plays a guitar she designed with Ernie Ball Music Man in San Luis Obispo) as part of a new generation of guitar heroes. Around 45 percent of our sales are to new players, and half of these are women, Mooney says. Were seeing a much broader gender mix and a broader genre use than ever before. With a new generation of players comes a new list of demands, and high among them is sustainability, no small feat in an industry that has historically relied on rare tropical hardwoods. Perhaps its no surprise that California makers have happily stepped up to the challenge. Taylor works extensively in Cameroon and Hawaii to create sustainable sources of ebony and koa. Santa Cruz uses reclaimed California woods in its guitars, from salvaged redwood to 2,000-year-old sycamore unearthed after the Loma Prieta quake. San Franciscos Blackbird Guitars takes a different approach to wood: not using it. When I meet Joe Luttwak at Blackbird Guitars in the small factory in San Franciscos Mission District, hes on the phone talking about flax supply. The slender, blue-flowered plant that gives us linen, linseed oil, linoleum and those smooth brown seeds that get stuck in your teeth when you eat multigrain bread is also the key component of Blackbirds instruments. It started as a purely selfish personal project to build the ultimate small-body travel guitar, Luttwak says. A travel guitar has to be lighter and more durable than wood, but it still has to sound amazing. Nothing on the market checked all of those boxes. A product designer by training, Luttwak looked to molded composites to solve the problem. Blackbirds early models were made of carbon fiber, but they transitioned to a new material they call Ekoa, made of flax fibers and a bio-based resin. For guitarists, who can be surprisingly traditional when it comes to aesthetics, Ekoa has an important quality: It looks surprisingly like wood, with a mahogany hue and subtle natural patterns from the flax fibers running parallel on the guitars soundboard like a piece of high-grade spruce. Weve beaten spruce, Luttwak says. It has equal stiffness, but its lighter, and it has higher resistance to humidity and temperature changes. And an old-growth tree gets to stay in the ground. Luttwak originally hails from the East Coast, but to him its perfectly natural that he ended up in California trying to build the guitar of the future. California has an ecosystem of materials, suppliers and parts that has developed over decades, Luttwak says. But theres also just an inspiration that comes from being in this place. Andy Murdock is a freelance writer in Alameda. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com For the next month, Toro Y Moi enthusiasts can enjoy a physical manifestation of his forthcoming record, "Outer Peace." The dreamy lo-fi musician and Berkeley resident aka Chaz Bear has temporarily taken up shop at Family Affair, a new concept gallery and studio in the Lower Haight. From now until Jan. 18, the gallery will transform into a "conceptual retail installation" called O. P. MART a celebration of "Outer Peace." The project was a collaboration between Family Affair and Bear's own Company Studio, which is based in Oakland. Freddy Anzures one of the designers of the original iPhone and a local DJ opened Family Affair as a gallery, event space, and studio in June. The gallery's exhibits often showcase local funk, hip-hop and R&B musicians, something Anzures did with intention. "I wanted to find a way to sustain the culture of my neighborhood that was being lost somehow due to the tech industry that I was once a part of," Anzures said in an interview with 48hills. The grand opening for Bear's project was on Dec. 7., but the shop has curated several more products and events to last the month. A limited selection of merchandise parallel to the upcoming release an exclusive 7'', art, prints, garments and a hand-picked collection records from local record shops will be available for purchase throughout the month. O. P. MART will also be screening a film by Tyler McPherron which provides an intimate look into the making of the record, shot in Cazadero, Calif. A "bespoke scent" crafted in the form of a candle, incense pack, or car air freshener that speaks to the aura of Bear's latest record will be available as a compliment to the record itself. Along with several special DJ sets broadcast live by Oakland underground radio station, Lower Grand Radio, the gallery will also host a closing and record release party on Jan. 18 to celebrate the LP. In October, the gallery showcased a collection of famed hip-hop photographer Brian Cross (B+), shots of the Bay Area hip-hop/rap scene in the 1990s, including his famed shots of E-40, Too Short, The Coup, and more. For more information, visit Family Affair's Facebook page. Read Annie Vainshtein's latest stories here. Email her at avainshtein@sfchronicle.com. Twitter:@annievain Of all the possible "should I?" questions, the one Californians are typing into the Google search engine the most is "Should I move out?" This probably isn't surprising when you consider all your friends who are priced out of California's sky-high housing market and constantly talking about moving to Oregon, where they can buy a sweet bungalow in Portland for $300,000. (Admit it, you have thought about this too.) Using Google Trends data, AT&T's All Home Connections identified the most popular "Should I?" questions each state Googled in 2018and the results are fascinating, and at times hilarious. Texans looked up results for "Should I apologize?" Seattleites, "Should I delete Facebook?" And Nevada folks, "Should I buy bitcoin?" (For top "Should I" questions in other states, click through the gallery above.) MORE: Is the grass really greener? People who left the Bay Area for the Pacific Northwest tell us why Now, let's get back to California. A number of studies have looked at the so-called California exodus including one by the state of California finding from 2007 to 2016, about 6 million people left while about only 5 million moved here in the same period. Another interesting study, the Public Religion Research Institute's 2018 California Workers Survey, revealed many Californians are concerned about the existence of the "American dream" in the state. Of the 3,318 California residents who responded to the survey, 64 percent said they would "advise young people in their communities to leave to find more opportunity elsewhere." And yet another study by Apartment List in 2017 surveyed people who rent in San Francisco and found 82.8 percent plan to eventually leave. These are presumably some of the people who are Googling "Should I move out?" And what exactly are these people seeking greener pastures finding from "Master Google." The results are enlightening for someone considering leaving Dodge, and here's just a taste of what you find: an NBC News piece titled "Californians fed up with housing costs and taxes are fleeing state," a story from the Victorville Press titled "Packing up and moving out: People are leaving California in droves," and a thread on Quora posing the question, "I'm priced out of California. Where should I move?" ALSO: What a Bay Area native learned after moving to Sacramento But the most helpful one might be the very first result: post from City-Data.com where a divorced woman living in Orange County asks the group the magic question, "Should I move?" "I am in the situation where I can sell my house and buy something cash," the person with the username 2MovingForward writes. "My kids are now adults. I've considered moving out of state because I can get more for my money. I've considered Texas and Arizona where I can get a nice house (for) cash. The idea of no mortgage is very appealing to me as I'm getting older and would like to have some financial freedom and put more away for retirement." What follows is a rambling list of hundreds of comments from people offering advice. Here are a few excerpts: "I grew up in CA, moved away to WA, ended up living in TN and Mexico and Canada for varying periods of time. No other place will be the same. Either weather-wise or culture-wise, including how people deal with politics - regardless of whether or not you are Republican or Democrat or Green Party or Independent." "As a non bias person that is not from California but has some college friends living in California. California is a magical place with a great climate and still is a great place to live." "I have lived in 9 different cities and I have found the highest cost of living places were the absolute worst places to live in so many ways. People get stuck living in these places just because of the high paying jobs." "That's a question I ask myself too. My family is here. I have no family in Texas and 1 cousin in Arizona. I lived in Southern California all my life so it would be a major move for me." And one commenter possibly gives the best advice, "Strangers on the Internet can't -- and shouldn't -- make this decision for you and your family." In other words, maybe Googling, "Should I move out?" isn't a good idea. Click through the gallery at the top to see where Californians are moving. Andre Bryant did something this past summer that he had never done in his 48 years: He rode a bike. Bryant, who has cerebral palsy, rode a hand-powered bike a tricycle, actually as part of a pilot program in Detroit, where the bike-share, called MoGo, is trying to provide more options for people with limited mobility. Bryant couldnt get enough. He returned again and again to take the adaptive bike farther each time at a park along the Detroit River, where the program debuted. It was really nice, Bryant said. I think its very important that you have alternatives, alternatives for mobility. Those alternatives have been elusive, even as bike-share programs have grown in popularity. About 35 million bike-share rides were taken in 2017, 25 percent more than the year before, and several orders of magnitude greater than the 320,000 trips taken in 2010, according to data compiled by the National Association of City Transportation Officials. Yet the lack of adaptive bicycles has raised questions and legal concerns about accessibility. Companies that have sought to revolutionize transportation increasingly are facing questions about who gets left out. Youre creating this great new way of getting around for all these people, but youre completely leaving out this huge segment of the population, said Carol Tyson, government affairs liaison for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. Youre leaving us behind, and youre creating a more and more segregated society for us to live in. Bike-sharing systems allow riders to pay a fee to ride a bike provided by the operator, often from one docking station to another. In some systems, riders can purchase memberships. In others, there are no docks. Programs in cities like Detroit have only recently started offering adaptive alternatives while cities like New York and Chicago dont offer adaptive bikes. Polly Trottenberg, commissioner of New Yorks Department of Transportation, said last month that her agency plans to explore adaptive options. Her comments came as Citi Bike announced a $100 million investment by its parent company, Lyft, to improve and expand its program. Studies show that bike-share users skew wealthy and white. Some bike-share operators are looking to change that. The National Association of City Transportation Officials study said that in 2017, 32 percent of cities where riders can rent a bicycle from stations as opposed to dockless systems offer income-based discounts. The year before, it was about 25 percent. In May, MoGo started its pilot program in Detroit, modeled in part after one in Portland, Ore. MoGo held demonstrations in which people like Bryant could try hand-powered bicycles; tricycles, which are more stable than bicycles, and other cycles. From May through October, the adaptive bikes had 174 rides, Lisa Nuszkowski, founder and executive director of MoGo, said. The group is analyzing what it learned. Its too early to draw conclusions, but officials said that before they think about expanding, they want to know, for example, how people used the bikes and what challenges they faced. Some say that providing adaptive bikes isnt straightforward. Zagster, one of the first operators to provide adaptive bikes, introduced them in Carmel, Ind., and at Ohio State University in Columbus in 2015. The company now has about 85 adaptive bicycles in 22 communities across the country. We have grown this program at a pretty consistent rate over the past few years, particularly as bike-sharing has become more in the vocabulary of every American, said Aviva Manin, director of market management for Zagster. Its something that the market definitely asked about quite a bit. But Zagster is re-evaluating and its unclear if it will continue to expand, Manin said. She said some riders are unfamiliar with how to use the bikes, and the bikes are difficult to maintain because few manufacturers make the needed parts. Another question is how adaptive bicycles can be used practically, said Thomas Gregory, deputy director of the Center for Independent Living, which has offices in Berkeley. Theres recreational riding for fun but what gets trickier, Gregory said, is using the bikes for commuting. You go on your trip, you get to your destination, you dont have your wheelchair with you, he said. At a station in Portland, people can help others to get on and off the bikes, said Julie Wood, a spokeswoman for Motivate, which runs Portlands bike-share system and Citi Bike in New York. Some people have a mobility device, or a wheelchair; some people dont, she said. Some people need help getting lifted in adaptive bikes. Gregory serves on a committee that is trying to solve that problem as Oakland mulls its own adaptive-bike pilot program, which is set to begin next year. He said the group was looking at an electric model in China that can accommodate a rider and a wheelchair. He said the difficulty in solving the problem shouldnt stop cities and operators from trying. He said he believed that the Americans With Disabilities Act requires options for people with disabilities but the question has not been tested in the courts. Some cities have asked the Justice Department to what extent they are obligated to offer alternatives. The department said that to the extent a bike-share program is a program, service or activity of a city or other public entity, it would fall under the ADA. Gregory said hes happy that pilot programs are striving to improve accessibility but it should have been part of the discussion when bike-shares were started. All these efforts are, to be frank, theyre responses to complaints, he said. From day zero, before you even launch anything, you should be trying to bake accessibility in from the get-go. Mihir Zaveri is a New York Times writer. This generations biggest technology companies including Apple, Amazon and Google have long been tied to their hometowns. Now these giants are increasingly outgrowing their West Coast roots. Driven by a limited pool of skilled workers and the ballooning cost of living in their home bases of Silicon Valley and Seattle, as well as President Trumps shifting immigration policies, the companies are aggressively taking their talent hunt across the United States and elsewhere. And they are coalescing particularly around a handful of urban areas that are already winners in the new knowledge-based economy, including New York City, Washington, Boston and Austin, Texas. This eastward expansion accelerated Thursday when Apple said it would build a $1 billion campus in Austin, expanding its presence there to more than 11,000 workers and becoming the areas largest private employer. The decision followed Amazons highly publicized selection of New York City and Arlington, Va., last month for new offices that would house at least 50,000 employees. Google, too, is shopping for more real estate in New York that could enable it to more than double its workforce of 7,000 in the city. Theyre expanding out, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics. Tech talent is in very short supply. So if these tech companies want to grow and flourish, they need to find talent in other parts of the country. The chase for tech talent has been global for decades, and Silicon Valleys older companies have had big offices all over the world for years. Intel, for example, has far more employees in Oregon than it does in California. Hewlett-Packard, which split into two companies three years ago, has had large outposts in Idaho and Oregon. Amazon, Apple and Google are now increasingly adopting the same strategy as they hire for growth and pursue the brightest minds in new technologies, in an effort to outmuscle one another. Over two years, Amazons workforce has doubled to 613,300 employees; Googles parent, Alphabet, has increased by 35 percent, to 94,300; and Apple has grown nearly 14 percent, to 132,000 workers. Many of the companies are trying to cozy up to top engineering schools in cities like Pittsburgh, where Google recently opened an office and where Uber has had a center, or Zurich as they search for hard-to-find talent in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. Cambridge, England, now hosts several AI research outposts for U.S. tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. Like Cambridge, England, some cities in the United States have also become known for a particular area of tech expertise, in what has become a modern remake of the countrys industrial era, when cities came to specialize in the production of cars, steel and coal. The Seattle area, home to Amazon and Microsoft, is known for experts in cloud-computing services thanks to Amazons leadership in that field. Pittsburgh is known for AI because of Carnegie Mellon Universitys computer science program. Cambridge, Mass., is associated with robotics, thanks to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And New York is often where cutting-edge work on financial services technology is done. The search for talent outside Silicon Valley and Seattle has also been prompted by issues in the companies hometowns, which have not built enough housing to keep up with their growing workforces. San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Seattle are the four most expensive major cities in the country based on home values, according to data from Zillow. The median home in San Francisco is valued at almost $1.4 million and more than $733,000 in Seattle. Questions also abound over the quality and funding of the areas public school systems. Every day as a CEO, you have employees coming to you saying, I dont make enough to buy a house for my family, and you already feel like you are paying through the nose, said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the real estate site from Seattle. Almost everyone is looking at other affordable places where you can open an office. Some economists said the Trump administrations tougher immigration policies could also restrict the tech giants from importing skilled workers from abroad to their West Coast headquarters. The Trump administration has increased the red tape in applying for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers and has denied petitions more often. Over a five-day window this April, employers submitted petitions for more than 190,000 specialized work visas, but only 85,000 can be granted annually. That has helped push some tech companies into building major outposts in Canada, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver. Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economics professor, said that even if H-1B workers were to come through in abundance, it would still make sense to put them in cheaper cities, like Austin. He said, $100,000 goes a lot further in Austin than in Silicon Valley. Yet even as the tech companies move beyond the West Coast, their choices to converge on cities or towns that are already highly educated, wealthy and well employed do not spread the wealth. More than 44 percent of all digital-service jobs in the United States were located in just 10 metro areas last year, including Seattle, San Francisco and San Jose, as well as New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Boston, according to research by Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2015 to 2017, only nine metro areas increased their share of the nations tech workforce, including the West Coast tech hubs, as well as Austin and Denver. The tech industry concentrates in very few markets, said Amy Liu, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Our biggest concern is how do we make sure more cities, particularly midsized cities in the middle of the country, can be players in the tech economy? Amazon, which has about 45,000 people at its Seattle headquarters, has also opened 16 tech hubs in the United States. About 85 percent of those satellite employees are in six booming, highly educated urban areas the Bay Area, Washington region, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Austin. Each has at least 1,000 workers. (The bulk of Amazons North American workforce is made up of the more than 250,000 people who are dispersed in the companys roughly 110 warehouses around Canada and the United States and who make less money than their white-collar colleagues.) Apple, which has been criticized by Trump for not creating more domestic jobs, said Thursday that its plans for Austin included a 133-acre campus that will initially have 5,000 workers in engineering, research and development, operations and other functions. It will ultimately be able to accommodate up to 15,000 workers. Apple already has about 6,000 workers in Austin. The company said it applied for a $25 million grant from Texas, payable over 15 years, as well as property-tax rebates from Williamson County. A person familiar with Apples decision to expand outside Cupertino, where it just opened a new $5 billion headquarters, said the move into Austin was partly driven by the extreme housing prices in the Bay Area, as well as its aim to find more talent and add more diversity and military veterans to its workforce. The company added that it also plans to open 1,000-worker operations in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City (Los Angeles County), and to add hundreds of employees in Pittsburgh, Boston, New York and Boulder, Colo., over the next three years. Some economists said what was most remarkable was that it took the tech giants this long to aggressively expand beyond the West Coast. In a sense, what were seeing is tech becoming a normal industry, Glaeser said, an industry thats not located in one incredibly expensive place. Jack Nicas and Karen Weise are New York Times writers. Facebook announced Friday that it had discovered a bug that allowed outsiders access to private photos, potentially affecting some 6.8 million people who use the service. We have fixed the issue but, because of this bug, some third-party apps may have had access to a broader set of photos than usual, Tomer Bar, an engineering director at the company, said in a blog post. The announcement is the latest in a string of problems the social network has had with consumer data. In March, the New York Times reported that Cambridge Analytica, a third-party firm, harvested the data of Facebook users without their express knowledge or consent. And in September, a separate, more serious breach gave hackers full access to the Facebook accounts of tens of millions of users. Facebook has pledged to better protect user information. If we cant, then we dont deserve to serve you, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a note to users this year. This most recent incident is somewhat less severe than previous ones. Around 1,500 third-party apps had access to users uploaded photos even if they had not posted them publicly to Facebook from Sept. 13 to Sept. 25. But it is still another headache for Facebook, which has faced intensifying scrutiny from regulators and the public after a year of embarrassing failures to protect customer data. Were sorry this happened, Bar added. In Europe, regulators signaled growing displeasure with Facebooks privacy policies. The companys main data-protection regulator in the European Union said Friday that the mounting number of problems require a deeper investigation. The Irish Data Protection Commission said it started an inquiry this week after receiving a number of breach notifications from Facebook over the past six months. Under the new European privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, the investigation could lead to a fine of up to 4 percent of Facebooks global revenue, or about $1.63 billion. The regulator can also require Facebook to change how it processes data in the region. We have this week commenced a statutory inquiry examining Facebooks compliance with the relevant provision of the GDPR, the Irish Data Protection Commission said. The regulator started another investigation after Facebook disclosed the data breach in September. Ireland is the lead privacy watchdog of Facebook in the European Union because the companys European headquarters is in Dublin. Mike Isaac is a New York Times writer. VAULX-EN-VELIN, France A group of teenagers recently swarmed into a room at College Henri Barbusse near Lyon, France, for a class typically dedicated to learning Spanish. But on that Wednesday, an unusual lesson awaited them. Five posts from Twitter were up on the board. The assignment: Decipher whether they were trustworthy or suspect. The ninth-graders quickly focused on a post by far-right politician Marine Le Pen, related to a headline-grabbing incident in France when a teenager had threatened a teacher. One student said Le Pens post could be trusted because her account had been verified by Twitter. But Samia Houbiri, 15, piped up that Le Pen simply wanted attention. She picks a topic, she exaggerates things, and then people will say, Shes right, I should vote for her, Samia said. At the front of the class, Sandra Laffont, a journalist teaching the workshop, nodded and said, Politicians may sometimes exaggerate reality because their goal is to convince people that their ideas are the right ones. The class was part of a novel experiment by a government to work with journalists and educators to combat the spread of online misinformation. France is coordinating one of the worlds largest national media and internet literacy efforts to teach students, starting as early as in middle school, how to spot junk information online. Since 2015, the French government has increased funding for courses about the downsides of the online world. About 30,000 teachers and other educational professionals receive government training on the subject every year. In some places, local authorities require young adults to complete an internet literacy course to receive welfare benefits, such as a monthly stipend. The French Culture Ministry has doubled its annual budget for the courses to about $6.8 million, and the Education Ministry is adding an elective high school course on the internet and the media to the national curriculum, making it available to thousands of students. Some educators are calling for the courses to be mandatory, taught alongside history and math. The younger you start, the better, said Serge Barbet, who heads Clemi, the main program within the Education Ministry coordinating the effort. Thats why weve been pushing for more media education in recent years. Its become a vital need and a threat. France saw the need for expanded media and internet literacy before many countries. In 2015, the deadly attack on the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo exposed a deep distrust of the media and vulnerability to conspiracy theories online. The efforts have taken on new urgency after the most recent U.S. and French presidential elections were targeted by Russian misinformation campaigns, and after the spread of conspiracy theories in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice. Violent protests across France over income inequality in recent weeks have also been organized through Facebook and other online platforms, where misleading posts or distorted videos were liked and shared thousands of times. Outside France, internet literacy programs are also growing, but have largely been left to groups, such as the News Literacy Project in the United States, that are funded by foundations and companies like Facebook and Google. EU officials this month called on countries in the bloc to expand education programs as part of a push against misinformation and election interference. Frances centralized strategy is quite unique and absolutely noteworthy, said Renee Hobbs, a professor at the University of Rhode Island who specializes in media literacy. Laffont, a journalist for Agence France-Presse in Lyon, became involved in the effort after she co-founded an organization called Entre Les Lignes, or Between the Lines, in 2010. The group taught students about journalism, but evolved to include social media and internet misinformation. The government points to Laffonts program as a model and has provided an annual injection of tens of thousands of euros since 2017 to help it grow. Now 155 journalists volunteer, including many from Le Monde, Frances leading newspaper, and the group held about 500 workshops with students this year. Laffont keeps lessons simple. She incorporates Twitter and YouTube, and shares links to websites that students can use as references to check facts. She also explains the basics of how journalists gather and confirm facts, hoping that may help reverse some students mistrust of the media, as well as help them develop a more critical eye for what they see online. We realized that we had to go back to the fundamentals before even mentioning fake news and conspiracy theories: whats news, who makes it, how do you check the sources, Laffont said. There is little research to gauge whether these lessons work. Technology trends move quickly, and courses can quickly become outdated. Even basic infrastructure can be a problem: Before the class at the Henri Barbusse middle school, teachers struggled to get the internet access working. Guillaume Chaslot, a French engineer who helped develop YouTubes recommendation algorithm, said the efforts were worthwhile but wondered how effective they would be against Facebook and Google. Their algorithms put a priority on engagement, he said, meaning false and sensationalistic content from questionable sources can spread quickly. I dont think you solve the problem with these trainings, Chaslot said. The power is the platforms. Its a mismatch. But educators said the workshops helped people realize they must take responsibility for their online behavior, particularly in lower-income areas where young people are more vulnerable. At the Henri Barbusse class, most of the 24 students came from housing blocks in Vaulx-en-Velin, a predominantly low-income neighborhood with a large immigrant population. On that Wednesday, Laffont began by asking the teenagers if they used Facebook. No hands went up. Facebook is for old people, one student shouted, followed by laughter. They said they favored Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. (Menlo Parks Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp.) Some students said that the class was helpful, but that they werent sure how they would apply the new information. Yacine Saidi, 14, who spends most of his internet time on YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram, said the class should be longer. Im not sure how useful it can be when Im back home on my phone, he said. A group of girls including Samia said they mainly got their news from Snapchat and YouTube. Were not aware enough of how journalists work, how fake news is created or why such or such thing lands in our social media feeds, Samia said. School can be the place where we become more aware of all this. Then the lunch bell sounded, and the two-hour class drew to an end. Laffont was energized by the teenagers engagement and interest. Its your role to sort things out online, she told them. Be attentive to all the subtleties weve seen today. Adam Satariano and Elian Peltier are New York Times writers. At 6:33 a.m. on Nov. 8, a Butte County dispatcher answered what was among the first emergency calls in what would become the deadliest wildfire in California history: A powerline transformer sparked and there is a fire, the Magalia caller reported. By just after 8 a.m., residents of Concow and Magalia were phoning in a panic some of them trapped and needing rescue and others frantically alerting authorities to parents and grandparents in harms way, according to Butte County dispatchers logs. Her grandfather is at the location fighting off the fire but can not get out, a dispatcher wrote of an 8:10 a.m. call regarding a man on Green Forest Lane in Concow. A minute later, a call came from a resident on Hoffman Road: Caller advised her house is on fire and she can not get out. Her mother is stuck and she can not move her. Call had disconnected. Dispatch tried to call back and it was a busy signal. Butte County officials on Thursday released the emergency call logs from the Camp Fires onset last month, offering a chilling glimpse into the moments when the inferno arrived at the communitys doorstep. The logs covering the areas surrounding the community of Paradise give the first public view of the hundreds of 911 calls that came in on that morning as the massive tragedy unfolded. Some calls from Paradise were included in the logs, but the city also had its own, separate dispatch center. The fires death toll stands at 86. The Butte County Sheriffs Office attempted to dispatch as many on-foot patrols as possible to help callers flee, but the reports soon became overwhelming, said Megan McMann, community relations coordinator, Butte County Sheriff's Office. It was pretty chaotic, said McMann, who witnessed the operations unfolding from the office in Oroville. It was scary, there were just so many things going through everyones minds. We were scared for the people, scared for the deputies. Throughout the day the Sheriffs Office rolled out various evacuation orders and warnings, issued on an opt-in system called CodeRed. But records reviewed by The Chronicle show the alerts results were mixed. Of the calls made to landlines and opt-in mobile numbers, only about 60 percent (15,000 of 25,000) were delivered, either live or to an answering machine. The rest were met with busy signals, operator intercepts or the call timed out. The county declined to issue an Amber Alert-style message, which would have reached all cell phones in the area, rather than just the numbers that had signed up. Hundreds of calls rolled in throughout the day, amid the countys numerous evacuation alerts. Some reported that they were trapped, and others were unable to reach a loved one in the fires path. A few included non-fire-related calls and calls from other parts of the county, and reports from deputies actively responding to incidents. In Magalia, an 11-year-old child had stayed home from school, and her parents couldnt get home to get her out. Nearby, there was a 95-year-old woman who didnt walk. A Magalia mans wife and children had no transportation and no way to get out. Someone on Honey Run Road in Chico was bedridden, had no way out, and needed an ambulance. Several were elderly, disabled or unreachable. At the end of each report, the dispatcher made a brief note of the calls outcome. Some offered brief signals of relief or even heroism. The 95-year-old woman who couldnt walk was gone upon arrival. And the quadriplegic person who was bedridden received outside assistance. The dispatcher did not give a disposition for the 11-year-old. No children have been identified as victims of the fire. For others, the note struck an ominous tone. Many ended with unable to locate. Unable to reach brother, read one regarding a man in Concow. Disposition: Destroyed by Fire. Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy The flight deal gurus at Thrifty Traveler have teamed up with SFGate to provide a weekly roundup of the best domestic and international flight deals from the San Francisco Bay Area. This week our deals include flights from Bay Area airports to New York City, Seattle, Puerto Vallarta, Long Beach, Cincinnati, Zurich and Amsterdam. All fares listed are round trip. We will only suggest highly restricted "Basic Economy" fares for flights of less than two hours- or let you know how much extra you'll pay for regular economy. (This is our weekly feature called Friday Fare Deals. If you are a Bay Area bargain hunter, be sure to tune in each Friday morning or sign up for our bi-weekly email alerts. ) NEW YORK CITY: We were shocked to see sub-$200 transcontinental fares on JetBlue this week! Fly from San Jose to New York City JFK nonstop on JetBlue for just $196 this January and February. This flight typically costs over $250. All fares include advance seat selection and a free carry-on bag. Plus, JetBlue economy provides more legroom than any other US carrier! Flights from SFO to NYC are cheap, too, running at about $237 roundtrip. $196 - San Jose (SJC) to New York City (JFK) - JetBlue Airlines SEATTLE: Alaska Airlines is serving up some cheap fares to the Pacific Northwest this week. You can fly from San Francisco to Seattle nonstop for $116 this January and February. This route tends to cost closer to $150. These cheap nonstop routes on Alaska include advance seat assignment and a free carry-on. $116 - San Francisco (SFO) to Seattle (SEA) - Alaska Airlines CINCINNATI: Delta and United are duking it out on the SFO-CVG run-- with fares as low as $137 in basic economy or $196 in regular economy. We found these fares for flights January- March, and many more in the low $200s through the spring. $196 San Francisco (SFO) to Cincinnati (CVG) - Delta, United LONG BEACH: Prices have dropped on nonstop flights to Long Beach once again! Take advantage of JetBlues sub-$100 prices to Long Beach this winter and spring. This nonstop route out of San Francisco is just $89 roundtrip; typically, prices are closer to $200. All fares include advance seat selection and a free carry-on bag and the most legroom out of any US carrier. This cheap flight deal is available January through April. $89 - San Francisco (SFO) to Long Beach (LGB) - JetBlue Airlines Westend61/Getty Images Check out Thrifty Traveler Premium for daily international flight deal notifications. PUERTO VALLARTA: If youre looking for a cheap tropical getaway this winter, this is it! Flights to Puerto Vallarta on Delta are $300 right now. Delta basic economy includes a free carry-on bag. To get advance seat assignment, upgrade to Economy for just $60 ($300 total). Just one short stop in LAX each way. Flights at this price are available in cold, wet January. Flights to Puerto Vallarta during the winter are typically $360-$400, so book this cheap deal ASAP. $240 - San Francisco (SFO) to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (PVR) - Delta Basic Economy (upgrade at checkout to Economy for $60 to get advanced seat assignment for $300) AMSTERDAM: Want to visit Amsterdam during tulip season in spring, or watch the leaves change in fall? Take advantage of this cheap nonstop flight deal on Delta and partner KLM. Fly to Amsterdam for just $440; nonstop flights to Amsterdam are typically $650+. This price is Delta basic economy, which includes a free carry-on bag. To get advance seat assignment, upgrade to economy at checkout for $110 ($550 total). Availability from January through March and October into November. $440 - San Francisco (SFO) to Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS) - *NONSTOP* - Delta Basic Economy (upgrade at checkout to Economy for $110 to get advanced seat assignment for $550) ZURICH: Flights to Zurich, Switzerland from the Bay Area are crazy cheap right now on Delta. Flights are just $363 with one short stop each way. This fare is Delta's basic economy fare, which includes a free carry-on bag. To get advance seat assignment, upgrade to economy at checkout for $180 ($544 total). Flights to Zurich are typically $900 or more, so this deal is more than half off the typical price! Great availability from January through May and September into November. Travel in the shoulder season (May and September) rather than peak summer to save. $363 - San Francisco (SFO) to Zurich, Switzerland (ZRH) - Delta Basic Economy (upgrade at checkout to Economy for $180 to get advanced seat assignment) All flights are best found via the Google Flights links list here. New to Google Flights? Check out Thrifty Travelers guide. All fares are round-trip and valid at the time of posting, but as always, are subject to change. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. WASHINGTON Three states resumed executions of death row inmates in 2018 after long breaks but, nationwide, executions remained near historic lows this year, according to an annual report on the death penalty released Friday. The report by the District of Columbia-based Death Penalty Information Center says 25 executions were carried out in 2018, the fourth consecutive year in which there have been fewer than 30 executions nationwide. Since the death penalty was re-instated in the United States in 1976, the number of executions peaked in 1999 with 98. They were at their lowest in 2016 with 20, according to center statistics. Americans support for the death penalty similarly peaked in the 1990s and has declined since, according to public opinion polls by Gallup. A 2018 Gallup poll showed 56 percent of Americans supported the death penalty for a person convicted or murder. Executions in 2018 were clustered in eight states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. About half of all the executions in 2018 took place in Texas, which carried out 13 death sentences. Tennessee was second with three. Alabama, Florida and Georgia each had two while Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota each carried out one. Floridas execution Thursday of Jose Antonio Jimenez for fatally beating and stabbing a woman during a burglary was the most recent. According to a list maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center , there are no other executions scheduled this year. Nebraska, Tennessee and South Dakota were the three states that resumed executions this year. Nebraskas execution of Carey Dean Moore was the states first execution in more than 20 years. It was also the first time any state has used the drug fentanyl in an execution. This year marked the first time in nearly nine years that Tennessee carried out an execution. South Dakota ended a six-year stretch without executions when it executed Rodney Berget, who was convicted of killing a corrections officer . All the inmates executed in 2018 were men, and all but two of the executions were carried out by lethal injection. Two Tennessee inmates, David Miller and Edmund Zagorski, chose to die by electric chair because of concerns about pain associated with the states lethal injection procedure. Jessica Gresko is an Associated Press writer. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) A federal appeals court in San Francisco by a 2-1 vote today upheld a preliminary injunction requiring employers to provide contraceptive coverage in group health plans. A requirement for birth control coverage in health insurance without additional co-payments was part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as Obamacare. But last year, the administration of President Donald Trump issued rules exempting employers and insurance companies that had religious or moral objections to birth control. California and four other states sued to challenge the exemption and in December 2017, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam issued a preliminary injunction blocking the exemption until a full trial is held on the states' lawsuit. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel majority today upheld the injunction, agreeing with Gilliam's conclusion that the rules were issued without the required public notice and opportunity for the public to comment. But the panel narrowed the injunction, saying that it should apply only to the five states that sued rather than nationwide. In addition to California, the states are Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia. The states claimed the rules would hurt them economically because women denied the contraceptive coverage would turn to state-paid programs. Judge J. Clifford Wallace said the five states had "extensively detailed" the harm they would incur, thereby justifying the injunction, but there was no evidence about the impact on other states. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said, "Congress made clear that all women and their families have the right to access cost-free birth control under the Affordable Care Act. "The Trump administration's rules attempt to trample these rights, with no regard for public comment or the rule of law," Becerra said in a statement. Gregory Baylor, a lawyer who argued against the injunction, stated, "The government shouldn't be forcing anyone to provide life- destroying drugs and devices." Baylor represented March for Life, an organization opposed to abortion and abortion-inducing drugs. The group was granted permission to become an official party in the case. Another nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the new rules was issued by a federal judge in Philadelphia last year in a separate lawsuit filed by the state of Pennsylvania. That ruling is now being appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. HAYWARD (BCN) The city of Hayward and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 today jointly announced an agreement to settle a dispute over negotiating practices. The two sides said the dispute started from when the city imposed employment contract terms in February 2014. The city and SEIU Local 1021 said in a statement that they believe the settlement is in best interests of the parties and the Hayward community and reflects "a spirit of mutual good will and significantly improved labor-management relations." As part of the agreement, the city admits no fault. The agreement calls for the city to repay city employees approximately $2 million for lost benefits and compensation during the period of February 2014 through June 2015, when the city unilaterally imposed changed terms of employment on those employees. The two sides said the agreement resolves an outstanding Public Employment Relations Board case between the parties in which an administrative judge issued a proposed decision in favor of SEIU 1021 and the city filed an appeal. The matter was scheduled to be heard by the full PERB board but because of the settlement, both sides have withdrawn the pending cases. The agreement was ratified by SEIU Local 1021 members on Nov. 15 and approved by the City Council in closed session on Nov. 27. Hayward City Manager Kelly McAdoo said in a statement, "I am grateful to everyone who contributed to this equitable resolution. It was really important to me to resolve this matter." McAdoo said, "Our employees provide outstanding essential services to the Hayward community. Resolution of this matter helps us to repair the relationship with our employees so that we can continue to provide outstanding services in a healthy and safe work environment." SEIU Local 1021 Executive Director John Stead-Mendez said, "Getting to this settlement required a long process but our members never wavered in their demand for fairness and we are proud that they will finally recoup their losses." Stead-Mendez said, "This agreement represents a commitment to our members, the city workers, that the city will be a fair employer that will bargain in good faith going forward, and it is a powerful message to the people of Hayward that the city stands for delivering the services they deserve." Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A retired San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency employee is missing tonight and police are asking for help finding him. Jimmie Baggett was last seen Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the University of California at San Francisco at 400 Parnassus Ave. Baggett is 5 feet 6 inches tall, 170 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He may have on a white hooded sweatshirt and turquoise zip-up jacket with "Alaska" printed on the jacket's pocket, khaki pants and black shoes. Police said Baggett suffers from dementia. Anyone with information about Baggett's whereabouts is asked to call their police department. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Oakland's first-ever outdoor holiday ice rink will open today in the city's historic downtown neighborhood, organizers said. An opening celebration begins at 6:30 p.m. at the corner of Ninth and Washington streets in the city's Old Oakland neighborhood. Oakland Central, which is sponsoring the celebration, is a marketing initiative of the Downtown Oakland and the Lake Merritt Uptown District associations. Organizers are aiming to make the rink an annual tradition. More than 25,000 visitors are anticipated to skate and twirl each year on the rink, which has been named the Old Oakland Holiday Ice Rink, according to Oakland Central. San Francisco police said they have investigated more than 20 bomb threats in the city. The investigations were done Thursday. Starting at about 10 a.m. police received many reports of bomb threats made by email to various places such as offices, technology firms, community organizations, news outlets, hotels and apartment buildings. The Jewish Community Center at California Street and Presidio Avenue was evacuated because of a bomb threat across the street at the San Francisco Fire Credit Union, according to a social media post by the center. Police said as of 6:30 p.m. no suspicious devices had been found in any of the investigations. Police said that threats were made at cities across the country this morning. The National Weather Service is forecasting rain and wind that will impact the Bay Area and Central Coast today through Monday, with a strong storm arriving on Sunday. Today, light rain will impact the evening commute across the Bay Area and the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia Mountains. The scattered light showers will continue into Saturday. On Sunday, the weather service is forecasting moderate to heavy rainfall in the late afternoon into night. The region will also be impacted by gusty southern winds on Sunday afternoon on coastal waters and higher terrain. Northwest winds will cause high surf and hazards for the coastline on Monday. A man was rescued from the top of a San Francisco Municipal Railway train, fire officials said. The rescue was made Thursday night. Muni officials on social media declared a medical emergency at 7:52 p.m. at the Castro station. Fire officials said that after the rescue the man was taken to a trauma center for an evaluation. He had minor injuries. At 8:47 p.m. Muni officials said normal inbound and outbound service had been restored to the Castro station. The deflation of the rubber dam in the Russian River near Forestville has begun, according to the Sonoma County Water Agency. The deflation began Thursday. The deflation begins when the Russian River flows reach 2,000 cubic feet per second. The deflation prevents damage to the dam from high flows from winter rains. The flows are expected to increase significantly Sunday and Monday following heavy rain expected over the weekend, water agency officials said. Once deflated, the rubber dam rests flat on the bottom of the Russian River just downstream from Wohler Bridge. It is normally raised in the spring or early summer when water demands increase. The dam creates a pool of water that enhances the county's well levels in the area. Permanent fish ladders provide fish passage when the dam is raised. A 37-year-old man has been sentenced to 28 years in state prison for a home invasion robbery in Dublin five years ago that injured the victim in the case. The sentenced was handed out Thursday. Carlos Romero was convicted on Nov. 13 of home invasion robbery in concert causing great bodily injury and carjacking causing great bodily injury. Alameda County prosecutors said that on Dec. 13, 2013, the female victim in the case was alone in her Dublin home when two men knocked on her door and said they had a package. Prosecutors said when she opened the door, the men forced their way into her home, beat her and bound her hands behind her back. The victim, according to prosecutors, was moved to the upstairs landing of her home, where the men ransacked the bedrooms. A 24-year-old woman has died and the driver has been arrested after a wrong-way crash in Santa Clara, police reported. The crash occurred early Wednesday morning. A white Honda Accord carrying the woman was driving east in the westbound lanes of Stevens Creek Boulevard near Maplewood Avenue at about 6:44 a.m. when it struck a silver Toyota Prius traveling west. The Honda then hit a silver Honda also traveling west on the street. The white Honda's driver, 34-year-old Edgardo Sanchez, was taken to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. The passenger in his car, Dakota Posa of Santa Clara, suffered life-threatening injuries and died at the hospital later that day, police said. The Prius' driver was not injured but the silver Honda's driver, a 38-year-old man, was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) Judson True, who serves as an aide to Assemblymember David Chiu, has been appointed as San Francisco's newly created director of housing delivery, the office of Mayor London Breed said today. True, who also served as an aide to Chiu when Chiu was a San Francisco supervisor, will be tasked with getting housing built more quickly. Because of the structure of the housing permitting process, affordable and market-rate proposals are being jeopardized, according to the mayor's office. "We are in the middle of a housing crisis that is a result of not creating enough housing for decades," Breed said in a statement. "We need to streamline our overly-complicated approval and permitting system." Breed is counting on True to do that as he leads a housing delivery team. "We must try new approaches and not accept the delays that keep homes unbuilt," True said in a statement. He will be charged with moving individual projects through the pipeline and with streamlining the permitting process and implementing an electronic way for multiple departments to review housing applications at the same time. Some projects require the review of as many as eight departments, each with unique schedules, according to the mayor's office. Breed wants to cut the permitting time in half for large and mid-size projects following Planning Commission approval. The mayor's office said True in 2017 played an important role in getting a package of state housing bills passed. The packages fund affordable housing and streamline construction. A law to jumpstart the creation of housing on BART-owned parking lots and a law to advance the development of the Mission Rock neighborhood in San Francisco were enacted under True's leadership, the mayor's office said. True worked on the entitlement of huge construction projects in the city when he worked at City Hall, projects that he can now help deliver. In a statement, Chiu said, "Judson is deeply committed to taking on the housing affordability crisis, and San Francisco is fortunate that he will be back in city government." True will start his new job in January. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. DUBLIN (BCN) A 37-year-old man was sentenced today to 28 years in state prison for a home invasion robbery in Dublin five years ago that injured the victim in the case. Carlos Romero was convicted on Nov. 13 of home invasion robbery in concert causing great bodily injury and carjacking causing great bodily injury. Alameda County prosecutors said that on Dec. 13, 2013, the female victim in the case was alone in her Dublin home when two men knocked on her door and said they had a package. Prosecutors said when she opened the door, the men forced their way into her home, beat her and bound her hands behind her back. The victim, according to prosecutors, was moved to the upstairs landing of her home, where the men ransacked the bedrooms. The woman was able to untie her bindings and ran for the door, but the suspects caught up to her and beat her again, prosecutors said. In addition, allegedly her hands were again bound behind her back and her feet were bound. Prosecutors said Romero and an accomplice spent between 45 minutes to an hour inside the woman's home and stole about $25,000 worth of items, including her vehicle. They also said the woman suffered a broken orbital bone. Prosecutors said the investigation into the identity of the robbers was difficult because the victim wasn't able to make a positive identification. But they said during the course of the crime the woman heard one of the perpetrators gargle some liquid and spit into her kitchen sink two or three times. Prosecutors said when the crime scene technician Jean Zedlitz of Dublin Police Services processed the scene she noticed a yellow substance in the sink that seemed suspicious because she saw nothing in the kitchen that she could associate with the yellow substance. They said Zedlitz called the officers who were with the victim at the hospital and the victim mentioned hearing one of the perpetrators spitting into the sink. Prosecutors said swabs were taken and sent to the Alameda County sheriff's crime lab and Romero was eventually identified as a suspect in the case through a DNA match. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A Salinas man has been sentenced to five years in prison in connection with a child molestation case, Monterey County District Attorney Dean Flippo announced Thursday. Prosecutors described Jesus Medina, 36, as a close friend and spiritual leader to the victim's family. On Nov. 5, 2016, the victim, who was under 10 years old at the time of the incident, went to a spiritual ceremony with her mother. Medina and his wife and children also attended the ceremony. Following the ceremony, Medina took his children and the victim back to his home for a sleepover. After Medina put the victim to bed, he came back into her room and molested her twice, prosecutors said. Later, during an investigation into the incident, Medina told law enforcement he accidentally touched the victim over her clothing when he was putting her to bed. On Oct. 1, Medina was found guilty of two counts of child molestation. In addition to his prison sentence, he will be required to register as a sex offender for life. He is also prohibited from contacting the victim for a period of 10 years, the maximum term under the law. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN JOSE (BCN) Former First Lady Michelle Obama will meet with young adults and promote her autobiography during a visit to San Jose on Friday. Obama's book "Becoming" follows her childhood, education and careers in law and nonprofits, mapping the influences that led her to work with disadvantaged and overlooked youth. She will speak Friday at a workshop hosted by the Silicon Valley chapter of Public Allies and recount the organization's impact on her life when she served as its executive director in Chicago in 1993. The event is not open to the public. Public Allies, a 25-year-old nonprofit, focuses on guiding young people into education and leadership roles. "For the first time in my life, really, I felt I was doing something immediately meaningful, directly impacting the lives of others while also staying connected to both my city and my culture," Obama writes in her book. The workshop will take place at 2 p.m. at Seven Trees Library and Community Center at 3590 Cas Drive in San Jose. Her book tour will include an event at the SAP Center in San Jose at 8 p.m. Friday. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN JOSE (BCN) Motor-powered Ford GoBikes are coming to San Jose today after the company completed a pilot testing program in San Francisco earlier this year. Over 120 new "pedal-assist" bikes will have a maximum speed of 18 mph and will be added to the company's existing fleet of Ford GoBikes, which can be found in various locations around the city. The bikes also feature a digital panel that tracks speed and battery life. "Ask anyone who has had the opportunity to ride an ebike, and they'll tell you how exciting and transformative the ride can be," Emily Stapleton of Ford GoBike said in a news release. San Jose joined a network of bikes in San Francisco, Oakland and Emeryville when Ford GoBike first came to the city in 2017. Users can access the bikes with a Clipper card or a mobile application. Memberships cost $15 a month and single rides are available for $2. Low-income residents who are 18 or older and qualify for CalFresh, SFMTA Lifeline Pass or PG&E CARE can access a $5 yearlong membership, with the following year costing $5 per month, according to Ford GoBike. San Jose currently has 44 Ford GoBike stations throughout downtown, with 40 new stations passing through the community review process, according to the city. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. FREMONT (BCN) Police in Fremont on Wednesday arrested five women in connection with the theft of several thousand dollars in merchandise from a Marshalls department store. Officers with the Fremont Police Department responded Wednesday at 8:17 p.m. to 39281 Fremont Hub on a report of several women believed to be stealing from the department store. Loss prevention officers at the store told police the women were responsible for approximately $35,000 in thefts from various Marshalls stores over the past month. Responding officers in unmarked patrol units set up surveillance at the store and detained the women once it was established the suspects committed a theft. Police said 292 items totaling $4,600 were located in the suspects' vehicle. The five suspects, who range in age from 33 to 43 years old, and come from San Francisco, Oakland and Fresno, were arrested on suspicion of grand theft. The names of the suspects were not immediately available. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) San Francisco police said they investigated more than 20 bomb threats in the city today. Starting at about 10 a.m. police received many reports of bomb threats made by email to various places such as offices, technology firms, community organizations, news outlets, hotels and apartment buildings. The Jewish Community Center at California Street and Presidio Avenue was evacuated because of a bomb threat across the street at the San Francisco Fire Credit Union, according to a social media post by the center. Police said as of 6:30 p.m. no suspicious devices had been found in any of the investigations. Police said that threats were made at cities across the country this morning. Officers are investigating whether the threats in San Francisco were related to the threats nationwide. Officers are working with other law enforcement agencies and are in communication with the FBI. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Members and staff of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco have been let back into the building after officers evacuated them this morning due to a bomb threat nearby. According to police, officers responded around 10 a.m. to numerous locations to investigate reports of bomb threats. The Jewish Community Center, located at California Street and Presidio Avenue, said on social media that it was evacuated because of a threat reportedly at the San Francisco Fire Credit Union, located just across the street. Although people have been let back into the building, police could not confirm whether the incident there has been resolved. Police said many other cities across the U.S. reported similar bomb threats this morning. Petaluma police responded to a bomb threat sent by email to a business today. Police determined the threat at 11 a.m. to a business in the 100 block of Keller Street appears to be among similar ones nationwide. The email stated there was a bomb in the building and it contained a demand to make a payment in Bitcoin at the end of the day or the bomb would be detonated. "At this time, there is no credible evidence related to the email," police said. "This email threat does not appear to be specific to Petaluma." Anyone who receives a threatening email should not click on the link in the email, police said. Former First Lady Michelle Obama will meet with young adults and promote her autobiography during a visit to San Jose on Friday. Obama's book "Becoming" follows her childhood, education and careers in law and nonprofits, mapping the influences that led her to work with disadvantaged and overlooked youth. She will speak Friday at a workshop hosted by the Silicon Valley chapter of Public Allies and recount the organization's impact on her life when she served as its executive director in Chicago in 1993. The event is not open to the public. Public Allies, a 25-year-old nonprofit, focuses on guiding young people into education and leadership roles. The workshop will take place at 2 p.m. at Seven Trees Library and Community Center at 3590 Cas Drive in San Jose. Her book tour will include an event at the SAP Center in San Jose at 8 p.m. Friday. San Francisco city officials celebrated the rehabilitation of 42 units of affordable housing for seniors and people with disabilities in the city's Duboce Triangle neighborhood. The public housing at 462 Duboce Ave. was revitalized under the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program, also known as RAD, which leverages private capital to maintain and improve public housing nationwide. Through a ground lease with the San Francisco Housing Authority, BRIDGE Housing Corporation and the Mission Economic Development Agency acquired the site in 2015 through a partnership. The two organizations will jointly own and operate the building. According to officials with BRIDGE, the rehabilitation included safety upgrades and modernizing not just the building's units, but common spaces like the community room, an elevator and the laundry room. The entire project, including the building's acquisition, is worth $29 million. Under the RAD program provisions, residents at the public housing building were relocated during the rehabilitation and have all moved back into their upgraded units. A 19-year-old man was fatally shot in East Palo Alto early this morning, police said. Officers responded at 12:29 a.m. to an activation of the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system in the 1200 block of Beech Street and found the victim suffering from gunshot wounds, according to police. The man, whose name has not yet been released, succumbed to his injuries at the scene. The homicide is the third in East Palo Alto this year, police said. A 36-year-old man from Ohio has been arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing a woman at a home in Menlo Park on Wednesday evening, police said today. Francis Wolke, who Menlo Park police said is from Cincinnati but also has a prior address in San Francisco, was arrested at the scene of the stabbing in the 900 block of Valparaiso Avenue. Officers responded at 5:34 p.m. to a call about someone dead in a home and arrived to find the woman, whose name is not yet being released. Wolke allegedly stabbed her "with an instrument, other than a knife," police said in a news release. Wolke had an outstanding arrest warrant from Santa Clara County from a 2014 case of prowling and possession of narcotics. He has been booked into San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of murder, according to police. A teenager who was fatally shot while he and another person were driving in Fremont last week was identified by the Alameda County coroner's bureau as 17-year-old Damani Chadly. Officers who responded to a shooting in the 34000 block of Torrington Court at 11:18 p.m. on Dec. 4 found Chadly with multiple gunshot wounds in the passenger seat of the vehicle, which had crashed into a home at the corner of Chaucer Drive and Torrington Court, police said. Police said witnesses reported a second male running away from the scene and officers located him nearby at about 11:50 p.m. suffering from gunshot wounds. The second victim was transported to a hospital to be treated for his injuries but has since been released, according to Fremont police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques. Chadly was a senior at California High School in San Ramon, according to a GoFundMe campaign that seeks to raise $35,000 for Chadly's family. A Bay Area man was sentenced in Sonoma County Superior Court this morning for a stabbing murder on a Santa Rosa street and an attempted stabbing murder in a Santa Rosa movie theater in 2016. Delonte Anthony Hart, 26, pleaded guilty to the charges in November. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the second-degree murder of Cirak Mateos Tesfazgi, 22, on Riley Street on June 26, 2016, and to 12 years in prison for the attempted murder of Adam Lucero, 23, in the Roxy Stadium 14 theater three days later. The sentences will be served consecutively, not concurrently. Santa Rosa police said Hart stabbed Tesfazgi more than 50 times outdoors at 418 Riley St. Police found a large chef's knife at the scene. Police then responded on June 29, 2016, to the theater where Lucero, who recently moved to Sonoma County, was stabbed from behind while watching a movie. Police found a knife identical to the one used against Tesfazgi in a garbage can at the theater, and Hart was arrested nearby. A 41-year-old man killed in his San Jose home on Tuesday has been identified as Sukar Ross, according to the Santa Clara County medical examiner's office. Police responded to the house in the 1000 block of Chestnut Street for a requested welfare check at 6:39 p.m. and found Ross lying on the floor with stab wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The suspect, 25-year-old Terry Leelewis Hill, was arrested when he later returned to the scene where officers were investigating the homicide, according to Office Gina Tepoorten. He is being held in Santa Clara County Jail without bail. The two are believed to have been acquaintances and police are trying to determine the extent of their relationship, Tepoorten said. Jeffrey Kasper, a 55-year-old Concord resident and former chair of the now-defunct Mt. Diablo Health Care District, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges stemming from a child pornography arrest in 2015, prosecutors said today. Kasper was arrested after investigators searched his home May 7, 2015. Their investigation had begun in March of that year after learning that child pornography had been downloaded at his residence on Anita Court. Kasper has been described as an active community member, serving as chairman of the board for the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce. He also ran a local consulting firm known as ServiceQuality.US. Kasper's jury trial was slated to begin when he took a plea deal Tuesday in the courtroom of Judge Nancy Davis Stark, according to Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office spokesman Scott Alonso. His sentence includes 240 days in county jail, which he may be able to serve on house arrest, and three years on probation. He will also have to register as a sex offender. The city of Hayward and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 today jointly announced an agreement to settle a dispute over negotiating practices. The two sides said the dispute started from when the city imposed employment contract terms in February 2014. The city and SEIU Local 1021 said in a statement that they believe the settlement is in best interests of the parties and the Hayward community and reflects "a spirit of mutual good will and significantly improved labor-management relations." As part of the agreement, the city admits no fault. The agreement calls for the city to repay city employees approximately $2 million for lost benefits and compensation during the period of February 2014 through June 2015, when the city unilaterally imposed changed terms of employment on those employees. Jared Rinetti has been named the new police chief of Union City after an appointment by the city manager and unanimous approval from the City Council this week, city officials said. Rinetti was a captain with the department for the last five years and started working there in 2000. "I am very excited about the opportunity to serve a police department and community that means so much to me," Rinetti said in a statement. "For nearly 20 years, I have partnered with amazing men and women to improve the safety and quality of life in Union City." Rinetti has a bachelor's degree in Administration of Justice and is working on a master's of science in Law Enforcement and Public Safety Leadership from the University of San Diego. He will start work as chief on Saturday and is scheduled to make a $231,672 base salary annually, city officials said. A $200,000 contract to study the feasibility of safety improvements favoring bicyclists and pedestrians along two Concord roadways was approved this week by the City Council. Most of the funding, more than $177,000, will be paid for by a Sustainable Transportation Planning grant from Caltrans. The rest of the money will coming from Measure Q sales tax funds, according to a report prepared by city staff. The study will create maps, collect data, develop alternative designs and coordinate community workshops with a focus on improving safety and access for bicyclists and pedestrians on Galindo Street and designated segments of Willow Pass and Cowell roads in the vicinity of the Concord BART station. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) Members and staff of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco have been let back into the building after officers evacuated them this morning due to a bomb threat nearby. According to police, officers responded around 10 a.m. to numerous locations to investigate reports of bomb threats. The Jewish Community Center, located at California Street and Presidio Avenue, said on social media that it was evacuated because of a threat reportedly at the San Francisco Fire Credit Union, located just across the street. Although people have been let back into the building, police could not confirm whether the incident there has been resolved. Police said many other cities across the U.S. reported similar bomb threats this morning. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. BERKELEY (BCN) A stolen van suspect forced authorities to evacuate several buildings in downtown Berkeley on Thursday morning because he told officers that he had a "digital weapon" inside the van that was potentially explosive, police said. Officers responded to the downtown area at 9:50 a.m. on Thursday to investigate a report of stolen vehicle and when they arrived they spotted the vehicle leaving westbound from the area, according to police. Officers stopped the van and arrested the driver at a gas station parking lot at the corner of University Avenue and Bonar Street but then the man warned them that he had a potentially explosive weapon inside the van, police said. Authorities temporarily evacuated nearby buildings as a precautionary measure while Berkeley police bomb technicians checked the van, but by 11:11 a.m. on Thursday officers determined that the van was empty and there was no threat to the public, according to police. The suspect, 27-year-old Joseph Edward Coleman of Berkeley, was arrested on suspicion of taking a vehicle without the owner's permission and possession of stolen property, police said. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. Food Acidulants Market Analysis: Food Acidulants are food additives, used to preserve the flavor, maintain the taste as well as other olfactory properties. Food acidulants serve an essential role in the manufacturing of packaged and convenience food. Also, it helps in reducing spoilage from air, bacteria, fungi, and yeast which in-turn increases the product shelf-life. Commonly used food acidulants in the foods & beverages industry are acetic acid, lactic acid, citric acid, phosphoric acid, and malic acid. Increasing application of food acidulants mainly for acidity regulations to give sourness to the food products is driving the demand of food acidulants from beverages industry. Increased demand for preservatives in foods and beverages industry especially from developing countries is supporting the market growth. Additionally, growing concern about the use of acidulants in food products to get several health benefits such as pH control, acidity regulation, preservation of olfactory properties, and others are expected to influence the growth of the global food acidulants market. Increased awareness about the food acidulants is creating new opportunities for key players to expanding their product line. Though, poisonousness caused by the consumption of artificial acidulants found in food products may hinder the market growth during upcoming years. Latest Industry Review: Aug 2017 In order to support the rising demand for natural sweeteners from the consumers end, Coca-Cola announced their interest in investments in all-natural low- or no-calorie sugar alternatives. The innovation through HeroX crowdsourcing platform will help the company in expanding and strengthening their business portfolio. May 2017 Whole Earth Sweetener Company launched their new stevia range in the U.K. The companys strategy is to suffice the rising demand for natural sugars based on escalating health consciousness among the consumers. Mar 2017 Encouraging manufacturers to enter into production of natural sweeteners as a potential food additive, ED&F Man and Unavoo launched natural sweetener breakthrough that cuts sugar by 100%. The product claims to have high potential as sugar replacer. Jul 2016 Food color is considered to be one of the vital food additives which adds to the organoleptic properties of the food product, Sentient launched yellow and orange food colors to broaden their food color range. Major Key Players Review: Key players are focusing on new product development in order to improve the customer base. Apart from that, the key manufacturers are doing partnership with various research institutes to develop more products to fulfill increasing market demand. The key players profiled in Global Food Acidulants Market Report are Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (U.S.), Univar Inc. (U.S.), Cargill Inc. (U.S.), Brenntag AG (Germany), Tate & Lyle Plc. (U.K), Parchem Trading Ltd. (U.S.), Purac Biochem BV (the Netherlands), Caremoli S.p.A (Italy), Jungbunzlauer Suisse AG (Switzerland), and Bartek Ingredients Inc. (Canada) among many others. Regional Analysis: Food Acidulants Market is segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and rest of the world (RoW). Asia Pacific region holds major market share in the food acidulants market followed by North America. China, one of the major market in Asia Pacific region accounted for higher consumption of food acidulants due to growing application of food acidulants in food & beverage products. Also, consumption of healthy products with improved shelf-life in food & beverages is the major driving factor across the globe. Moreover, growing demand for food acidulants in convenience food products especially in the European countries like the U.S, U.K., Canada, and Germany are likely to boost the growth of the food acidulants market during the forecast period. Get a Sample Report Now @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5472 The Mavericks Challenge, the premier competition in big-wave surfing, will not take place Monday as officials worry conditions will be too wild and unsafe. "Sunday's storm is forecast for large surf but unfortunately will also bring rain and strong south shore winds, which could result in unruly conditions on Monday that are not ideal for competition," Mike Parsons, the World Surfing League's big-wave tour commissioner, said. What's more, Parsons told surfing website Surfline, "The 2010 contest was close, size-wise, but it's going to be a bit bigger with a longer period (18-20 seconds versus 16-17 seconds in 2010), which means it's going to be super tough to paddle and everyone involved is concerned it'd be more of a survival contest than anything else." MORE: 'Don't go to the beach': Waves up to 6 stories forecast for Bay Area beaches Mountainous waves will arrive at Bay Area beaches Sunday and continue into next week. Officials at the World Surfing League are closely watching the famous Mavericks Beach break off Half Moon Bay to identify a window for the annual contest that attracts professional surfers from around the globe. There was a lot of chatter the event might occur Monday when Surfline forecasts waves could reach 60 to 65 feet. On Friday afternoon the WSL released an official statement saying Monday is a no-go. "However, we are closely monitoring the conditions to potentially run on Tuesday or Thursday next week," said Parsons. A half-mile off shore from Pillar Point, Mavericks offers premier big-surfing waves when the right conditions coalesce. First, the swell has to be big, but not too big. "At a certain size, Mavericks becomes very difficult to catch with one's own two hands and instead surfers have to rely on a jet ski for assistance in getting into the waves," says Jake Tellkamp, 26, of San Francisco who surfs Mavericks. "This swell is going to border what's humanly possible in that regard." Also, the tide has to be low at the time the big breakers hit and the wind needs to be light. A strong southerly wind, for example, can create choppy conditions and make the wave impossible to surf. BRUSSELS British Prime Minister Theresa May implored European Union leaders Thursday to help her sell the Brexit divorce deal at home, only to be told that her proposals are not clear enough for the bloc to offer a helping hand now. Instead, the EU said it would plow ahead with plans for a cliff-edge no-deal Brexit on March 29, with a raft of contingency measures to be presented next week. May came to an EU summit in Brussels seeking support after a week that saw her Brexit deal pilloried in Parliament and her job threatened by lawmakers from her own party. She pleaded with the 27 other EU leaders to hold nothing in reserve in helping her sell the Brexit deal to hostile British lawmakers. There is a majority in my Parliament who want to leave with a deal, so with the right assurances this deal can be passed, May said, warning her EU counterparts that failure could mean the United Kingdom crashing out of the bloc without a deal, with all the disruption that would bring. EU officials, however, seemed exasperated at the lack of concrete new ideas from Britain. A proposal for encouraging wording offering to give Britain further assurances was left out of the leaders final summit conclusions on Brexit. I do find it uncomfortable that there is an impression perhaps in the U.K. that it is for the EU to propose solutions, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday. It is the UK leaving the EU. And I would have thought it was rather more up to the British government to tell us exactly what they want. He said the British must set out their expectations if they want to avoid tumbling out of the EU without a deal. May had earlier acknowledged that major progress was unlikely at the two-day summit, even as she tried to get tweaks to the withdrawal package that she could use to win over opponents particularly pro-Brexit lawmakers whose loathing of the deal triggered a challenge to her leadership this week. Her week from hell began Monday, when she scrapped a planned vote in Parliament on her Brexit divorce deal at the last minute to avoid a heavy defeat. Anger at the move helped trigger a no-confidence vote among Mays own Conservative lawmakers Wednesday. May won, but more than a third of her partys lawmakers voted against her. Jill Lawless and Raf Casert are Associated Press writers. STRASBOURG, France A man suspected of being the gunman who killed three people near a Christmas market in Strasbourg died in a shootout with police Thursday following a two-day manhunt. The man was identified as Charif Chekatt, a 29-year-old whom police had been searching for since the Tuesday night attack, which also left 13 people wounded. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the suspect opened fire on police Thursday when officials tried to arrest him. The moment they tried to arrest him, he turned around and opened fired. They replied, Castaner said. A local police official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was armed with a pistol and a knife. The shooting occurred in the Neudorf neighborhood of Strasbourg, where police searched intensively earlier Thursday for Chekatt, suspected of being the Christmas market gunman. Chekatt is accused of killing three people and wounding 13 on Tuesday night. Castaner said earlier Thursday that three of the injured had been released from hospital and three others were fighting for their lives. More than 700 officers were deployed to find Chekatt, who had a long criminal record and had been flagged for extremism, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online, said the Islamic States Amaq news agency described Chekatt as a soldier of the group. Security forces, including the elite Raid squad, spent two hours searching in Neudorf on Thursday based on supposition only that Chekatt could have been hiding in a building nearby two days after the attack, a French police official said. Chekatt grew up in Neudorf. Chekatt allegedly shouted God is great! in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market Tuesday evening. Authorities said he was wounded during an exchange of fire with security forces and a taxi driver dropped him off in Neudorf after he escaped. So far, five people have been arrested and remanded in custody in connection with the investigation, including Chekatts parents and two of his brothers. Samuel Petrequin, Elaine Ganley and Mstyslav Chernov are Associated Press writers. LONDON As President Trump re-imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran last month, hackers scrambled to break into personal emails of American officials tasked with enforcing them, The Associated Press has found another sign of how deeply cyberespionage is embedded into the fabric of U.S.-Iranian relations. The AP drew on data gathered by the London-based cybersecurity group Certfa to track how a hacking group often nicknamed Charming Kitten spent the past month trying to break into the private emails of more than a dozen U.S. Treasury officials. Also on the hackers hit list: high-profile defenders, detractors and enforcers of the nuclear deal struck between Washington and Tehran, as well as Arab atomic scientists, Iranian civil society figures and D.C. think tank employees. Presumably, some of this is about figuring out what is going on with sanctions, said Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written about Iranian cyberespionage and was among those targeted. Kagan said he was alarmed by the targeting of foreign nuclear experts. This is a little more worrisome than I would have expected, he said. The hit list surfaced after Charming Kitten mistakenly left one of its servers open to the internet last month. Researchers at Certfa found the server and extracted a list of 77 Gmail and Yahoo addresses targeted by the hackers that they handed to the AP for further analysis. Its hard to know how many of the accounts were successfully compromised or how exactly they were targeted in each case. But even though the addresses likely represent only a fraction of the hackers overall efforts, they still provide considerable insight into Tehrans espionage priorities. The targets are very specific, Certfa researcher Nariman Gharib said. In a report published Thursday, Certfa tied the hackers to the Iranian government, a judgment drawn in part on operational blunders, including a couple of cases where the hackers appeared to have accidentally revealed that they were operating from computers inside Iran. The assessment was backed by others who have tracked Charming Kitten. Allison Wikoff, a researcher with Atlanta-based Secureworks, recognized some of the digital infrastructure in Certfas report and said the hackers past operations left little doubt they were government-backed. Its fairly clear-cut, she said. Raphael Satter is an Associated Press writer. JERUSALEM A Palestinian gunman got out of a car and opened fire at a bus stop outside a West Bank settlement on Thursday, killing two Israeli soldiers before speeding away, the Israeli military said. The military said the assailant also wounded two other people, including another soldier who was critically wounded. It said troops were searching the area for the attacker and that it was sending reinforcements. Hours later, the army said it shot and killed a Palestinian man who attempted to ram his car into soldiers on a West Bank road. One soldier was lightly hurt. And in Jerusalems Old City, Israeli police said they killed a Palestinian assailant who stabbed two officers. Thursdays bloodshed extended a violent week that began with a shooting outside a West Bank settlement on Sunday, resulting in the death of a baby who was delivered prematurely following the weekend attack, and continued with the killing of two Palestinians wanted in a pair of earlier attacks on Israelis in the West Bank. While the West Bank experiences occasional deadly violence, often between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters, most of the Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed in recent months has been concentrated in the Gaza Strip, where some 175 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in border protests. Thursdays shooting occurred at a location about a 10-minute drive south from the place of Sundays attack. In recent days, we definitely feel like the situation (in the West Bank) is getting worse, said Shalom Galil, a paramedic who assisted at the scene of the shooting. Following the attack, Israel set up checkpoints at the entrances to the West Bank city of Ramallah, searching cars entering the city and checking drivers IDs. Some Israeli-controlled roads were completely blocked to Palestinian traffic. Speaking at a military ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to settle the score with the attacker who killed the two soldiers. He also ordered the expedited demolition of attackers homes within 48 hours, increased detentions of Hamas militants in the West Bank and the legalization of thousands of existing settlement homes in the West Bank that he says were built in good faith but whose status is unclear. Tia Goldenberg is an Associated Press writer. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites and ad networks. Such third party cookies may track your use on Sharedots sites for better rendering. Our partners use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on Sharedots website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Learn more Page Content Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom took the reins of the California state government Jan. 7, and many employers are hoping that he will be more responsive to business needs because of his entrepreneurial background. Here's what California employers should know about the new governor. Newsom started a winery in the early 1990s and subsequently opened several related restaurants and retail stores. "That has led some to speculate that he may intuitively understand some of the issues facing business owners in California, from bureaucratic red tape to a hostile litigation environment," said Benjamin Ebbink, an attorney with Fisher Phillips in Sacramento. In the last session, the outgoing governor, Jerry Brown, signed some significant employee-friendly bills, including expanded anti-harassment provisions and training requirements. "A lot of employers think Newsom's approach will be the same, but with his business background, they are hopeful that he'll be a bit more employer-friendly," said John Kuenstler, an attorney with Barnes & Thornburg in Los Angeles. It's hard to predict how Newsom will differ from Brown on workplace issues, noted Bruce Sarchet, an attorney with Littler in Sacramento. "We can expect more protection for workers, but the question is how far he will go." Past Practices Newsom became the mayor of San Francisco in 2004 and lieutenant governor of California in 2011. Shortly after taking office as mayor, he granted the first official marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the United States. The controversial move violated California law and the licenses were later nullified, but Newsom made a name for himself as an advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. [SHRM members-only resource: California Labor and Employment Law Overview] As lieutenant governor, Newsom showed strong support for SB 63, which extended job-protected parental leave rights to workers at small businesses with 20-49 employees. "New mothers and fathers should never be forced to choose between keeping their job and spending time with their newborn child during those first critical months of a newborn's life," he said in a statement after Brown signed the bill. He has also supported the #MeToo movement and related anti-harassment measures and seeks to expand workplace protections for victims, according to his website. Newsom's Priorities Newsom's top priorities include "standing up for California values that are under attack from Washingtonfrom civil rights to immigration," according to his website. He wants to do a number of things but is worried about the deficit, Kuenstler said. The new legislative session started Dec. 3, and lawmakers already proposed $40 billion in new spending, according to The Sacramento Bee. "All of this will be whittled down, and we all will live within our means," Newsom said to The Sacramento Bee. "We're not going to deviate from being fiscally prudent." He has also discussed offering better health care options to more people, Kuenstler said. Newsom has advocated for single-payer health care, Ebbink noted, but one of the biggest issues has been coming up with ways to pay for the program. Legislative Proposals Introduced Employers are likely focused on how California lawmakers will respond to the state high court's recent decision that made it harder to classify workers as independent contractors. Under the new, three-part "ABC test," the California Supreme Court said all three of the following factors must be met for a worker to be properly classified as an independent contractor: The worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact. The worker performs tasks that are outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business. The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity. Members of the state assembly have already introduced competing bills on the issue. AB 5 would codify the California Supreme Court's test, and AB 71 would revert the standard to the multifactor test that was in place before the ABC test. This will be the issue for employers to watch in 2019, and Newsom will have to deal with it in one way or another, Ebbink said. Newsom has talked a lot about fostering innovation, Sarchet said, so it will be interesting to see how he deals with issues affecting the future of work, job creation, the gig economy and the independent-contractor test. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Despite waking up with an unexpected ailment, eighth grader Domenico Sansalone of the St. Clare School put in a perfect performance to secure the 2018 Staten Island Catholic School District Spelling Bee crown. It feels great to win,'' Domenico said. "I was sick this morning, but I came because I felt a little bit better. Participating in his first district-wide spelling bee, Domenico said it was his faith that helped him through his nervousness. Praying, Domenico responded, when asked how he calmed his nerves. And I always wear this bracelet that my Mom got me, he said, pointing to a religious bracelet around his wrist. Twenty one students from 21 Catholic elementary schools gathered at the St. Christophers School in Grant City Thursday afternoon for the annual event. Domenico beat out runners-up Marco Ongan, of the Academy of St. Dorothy, and Cassandra Ampo, of Our Lady Help of Christians, by successfully spelling the word didactic in the final round. I was surprised I won,'' said Domenico. "I actually guessed on the last word because I had never heard it before. Domenico credited the win to his love of reading, noting that he didnt spend too much time studying for the competition. I didnt really study, I just reviewed some of the words that my teacher gave me, said Domenico. I read a lot of books, so my vocabulary is pretty good. Domenico believes his experience in the spelling bee will carry with him into the future, granting him higher levels of self-confidence. It gives me confidence in myself and I learned how to calm myself down so I wont be as nervous dealing with things, said Domenico. All qualifying students had out-spelled their fellow classmates at their school spelling bees. Rebecca Giaccio, principal of Notre Dame Academy, moderated the event. The event was organized by Jeannine Roland, district chair and principal of Our Lady Star of the Sea; Theresa Signorile, principal of St. Clare School. They were assisted by Sister Sharon McCarthy of Academy of St. Dorothy. Judges included Celeste Catalano, principal of Sacred Heart School, Bernadette Ficchi, principal of St. Ann School, and Jennifer Olivera, principal of St. Peter-St. Paul School. The spelling words were selected from a list provided by the E.W. Scripps National Spelling Bee list. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A year to the day after he allegedly punched a woman and threatened her with a gun, a Stapleton ex-convict was sent packing back to prison. Jake Pankey, 53, was sentenced Wednesday to five years behind bars and five years post-release supervision stemming from a Dec. 12, 2017 incident in his community. Police said Pankey displayed a black firearm and smashed the victims head with his fist during a dispute. The defendant then grabbed the womans cell phone from her hand and threatened to kill her and her family, said police. Pankey and the 23-year-old woman were in a relationship, a source with knowledge of the incident previously told the Advance. Responding officers arrested Pankey at his Gordon Street home, where they found a black .40-caliber handgun, the victims cell phone and a small amount of crack cocaine, said police. Pankey was indicted on charges of robbery, assault, grand larceny, criminal weapon possession and criminal firearm possession. He was also accused of misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, petit larceny and stolen-property possession. A picture of a handgun and a magazine loaded with bullets was posted on the 120th Precinct Twitter feed. In October, Pankey pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to second-degree criminal weapon possession to satisfy all charges against him. Assistant District Attorney Darren Albanese prosecuted the case. The plea and sentence dont finish Pankeys dealings with the law. Last month, he was among more than a dozen defendants allegedly linked to four narcotics rings who were busted in a major drug takedown. Authorities said Pankey was a runner for Tyrone Ford, who headed a cocaine and heroin distribution ring. Pankey was charged with criminal drug sale and drug possession, and the case is pending in state Supreme Court, St. George. Pankey has previously spent time in prison. In 1996, he was sentenced to 54 months for an attempted-burglary conviction in Queens, according to online state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records. Were highlighting some of the activities Staten Island students are engaged in -- both inside and outside the classroom. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. --Two schools on Staten Island participated in the NASH FM 100,000 Thank Yous, a program that calls on people across the country to send thank-you letters to United States troops overseas. Students at Dreyfus Intermediate School (I.S. 49), Stapleton, and at PS 69 in New Springville participated in the project hosted by the radio station. The school collected 900 handmade cards and letters from the staff and students as part of the 100,000 Thank Yous project, said Kim Capasso, media specialist at PS 69. Cards are being sent to our troops stationed all over the world. The collection of cards at PS 69 was coordinated by teacher Margaret Moran. It is our hope that each card will put a smile on someones face and help them to remember that they are appreciated, admired and that their sacrifice is not lost on us, said Capasso. View the photos above to see students making cards for the project. As part of our education column, In Class, we are highlighting some of the activities Staten Island students are engaged in -- both inside and outside the classroom. Heres a look at some additional recent education-related happenings. RHODES SCHOLAR Former Staten Islander Sarah Tress was recently named a Rhodes Scholar -- a prestigious scholarship that provides full funding for two years of graduate study at Oxford University. Sarah, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will commence graduate studies at Oxford next fall. Each year, 32 Rhodes Scholars are chosen from among hundreds of American applicants. They join an international cohort of scholars selected from more than 60 countries. The Rhodes Scholarship is one of the most competitive and prestigious international fellowship programs. Scholars are selected on the basis of academic excellence, character, leadership potential and commitment to making a positive difference in the world. Sarah exemplifies the determination and vision that characterize the most deserving winners of the Rhodes and can rightfully be very proud of her achievement, said MIT Professor Will Broadhead. Sarah envisions a career in humanitarian engineering, using her skills as an inventor and designer to create affordable, appropriate technology solutions for the developing world. K9 TEAMS K9 teams from New York Citys U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at John F. Kennedy Airport visited about 100 third-graders at PS 53 last month. Officers opened up the demonstration by explaining the mission of CBP and the different types of K9 teams. Students met Biscuit, a member of the the Agriculture K9 Team. The team works to detect prohibited agricultural items, such as fruit, vegetables, plants and meat products. According to Steve Sapp, public affairs officer for the U.S. CBP, the K9 teams are involved in various community engagement opportunities, including school events, across the country. The canines help us to better explain our agencys mission in protecting the nation against drugs, weapons, and currency smuggling, to detect and rescue victims of human smuggling or those lost in the border desert, and to intercept dangerous plant and animal diseases and invasive pests that could cripple our nations agriculture economy, Sapp said. View the Twitter post below for photos from the visit. #JFK @CBP K9 teams at P.S. 53 in Staten Island for outreach event for about 100 3rd Graders. Officers opened up the demonstration by explaining the CBP Mission as well as the different types of K-9 teams, Agriculture K9 Biscuit greets students. pic.twitter.com/fuR1cQaQIl CBP New York City (@CBPNewYorkCity) November 13, 2018 Do you have a story idea for the In Class education column? Email education reporter Annalise Knudson at aknudson@siadvance.com. FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The Legal Aid Society is imploring the district attorneys office to prosecute two Staten Island cops for allegedly planting false evidence following a car stop involving four young black men earlier this year, as well as to review all prior convictions stemming from the officers' arrests. In a letter to District Attorney Michael E. McMahon, the lawyers claim Police Officer Kyle Erickson of the 120th Precinct planted marijuana in the back seat of Lasou Kuyatehs vehicle after he and his partner, Officer Elmer Pastran, searched the same area and already declared it clean. NYPD body camera footage, the letter alleges, revealed criminal acts and misconduct by NYPD officers planting false evidence, arresting an innocent person, making false sworn allegations and assisting in the prosecution of manufactured charges." The video footage, obtained by the New York Times, shows Pastran say back seat looks pretty clear. While rifling through the BMW, Ericksons body camera was shut off for more than four minutes after he is heard saying in the video, We have to find something, you know what I mean? Ericksons camera came back on just in time to capture him finding the joint, which he claims was burning in the back seat. However, Pastrans camera recorded Erickson place a small object into an area in the back of the car, which the footage previously shows was all clear, Legal Aid alleges in its letter. This is indiscernible in the Times video. The Times footage shows the officer searching the car place what appears to be a small, green plastic bag in the console. It was not clear from the video where it came from or what was in it. "Hes putting something in my car, Kuyateh is heard repeatedly screaming in the video. Kuyateh was arrested and charged with criminal possession of marijuana after the Feb. 28 incident. The charges were dismissed in October during pre-trial hearings after the body-camera videos were played in court. Both officers testified about the stop and search. Erickson told the court he had found a lit joint in the back of the vehicle, but the video refuted his statements, said the Legal Aid letter. I expect officers be held responsible for this criminal action. I think Staten Island is entitled to that," said Chris Pisciotta, attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society on Staten Island. "We cannot condone illegal acts by police to bring false charges against members of our community, he said in the letter. The NYPD and McMahons office told the Advance they had already cleared the officers after separate probes. 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, said Det. Sophia Mason of the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner for Public Information office. Allegations against responding officers were determined to be unfounded, said a spokesman for the district attorneys office. But Pisciotta wants McMahon and the NYPD to reassess the case. I am disheartened by the initial action by the NYPD, he told the Advance. These are their videos. I dont understand how they cant go forward with an investigation. THE INCIDENT The officers claim they smelled marijuana after pulling over the vehicle for tinted windows and failing to signal before turning. Some of the young men in the car admitted they had just finished smoking, but that there was nothing in the car, according to the Times report. I dont appreciate being lied to, Pastran said in the video. I know there is weed in the car. I smell it. The officers then search the car for nearly four minutes without finding anything. Nothing. Clean. F---." Pastran said. Kuyateh used his cellphone to record the officers searching his car and filmed Erickson holding small, plastic bags before he begins screaming, said the Times story. Yo, you were just putting something in my car, he yells. Kuyateh is then handcuffed after his outburst. At the same time, Erickson was still in the vehicle and his body camera had been off for about four minutes, according to the Times. He then discovers the joint. Its a marijuana cigarette, its lit, Erickson is heard saying in the video. Later, the officers discuss who they should arrest before deciding to take Kuyateh into custody. RACIAL PROFILING ACCUSATIONS In the letter to McMahon, the Legal Aid Society argues Erickson and Pastran target minorities after analyzing their arrest histories. They claim that about 80 percent of their car stops and arrests are of either black or Latino people, and 54 percent of their marijuana arrests involve black people, said the letter. The note claims the cops arrested only four white people for drugs. The alleged pattern of racial profiling raised doubt about the cops' previous cases, and those convictions should be reviewed, said the note. Staten Island requires accountability and justice now, Pisciotta said in the letter. STATEN ISLAND -- Thinking about running for mayor in 2021? None of the current public advocate candidates are except for former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. At a public advocate forum at Wagner College Thursday evening, nine candidates, including Mark-Viverito, were asked to raise their hands if they pledged not to run for mayor in 2021. Moderator Ravi Gupta, a managing partner at political action group Arena, said he decided to ask the question because nearly every community group he spoke to around the city said they were worried the public advocate position was being used as a stepping stone and not substantively. Mark-Viverito kept her hand down when asked, while eight other candidates promptly raised their hands, some even raising both. The former City Council speaker, who announced her bid for public advocate in November, said in her closing argument that she did not raise her hand because she does not like speaking in absolutes. You never know what life is going to throw in front of you, Im not going to stand before a group of people and say what you want me to say, or want to hear from me, Im not that type of politician, she said. Mark-Viverito said she would have never projected eventually running for public advocate. I dont know where my life is going to be five years from now, I dont know where my life is going to be three years from now, I dont know where it will be 10 years from now, Mark-Viverito continued. So, I say I leave things open ended in that sense, and thats the best and most honest answer I can give to all of you. When asked to raise their hands if they pledged not to run for mayor in 2021, former City Council Speaker was the only one of the public advocate candidates who kept her hand down. Almost all public advocates have moved on to higher office -- or at least have tried. Former Public Advocate Mark Green ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Michael Bloomberg, Mayor Bill de Blasio also was public advocate until he became mayor in 2014, and current Public Advocate Letitia James was elected the next New York attorney general last month. CRITICAL OF THE POSITION But not everyone has been pleased by the watchdog post, which is also the second highest ranking elected office in the city. Last month, a group of City Council members introduced legislation to eliminate the role altogether. Some, called it an unnecessary position only being used as a stepping stone to a higher office. On Thursday night, other public advocate candidates criticized the post too. One candidate said if those elected to the role only use it as a launchpad to become the next mayor, it should be scrapped. I do think that you should get rid of the public advocates office if its just going to be a trial run for mayor, said public advocate candidate attorney Dawn Smalls. If thats what the office is, I dont think that it should continue to exist. If it is what its supposed to be, what it was intended to be, which is an independent check and an evaluator of how well the mayor and city government is providing services to New Yorkers, I think thats an important role. The public advocate position is largely a bully pulpit role. The primary role is to keep watch on city agencies and city government. They can introduce legislation in the City Council and attend meetings, but they cant vote. Another public advocate candidate, said he thought the post should exist, but that the wrong people had been elected into the office with their own interests in mind. The office should definitely exist, the problem is, weve got the wrong people, said candidate Mike Zumbluskas, a Department of Transportation resource management analyst. They are more concerned about getting to a higher office than they were about actually doing the job. Theres a number of key powers of the public advocate that are extremely important, and its even more extremely important to have a diverse voice James will leave the public advocate post in January, and once her term ends, de Blasio will have to call a special election which will likely be set for February. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When asked about the proposed term limit for speaker of the House, Congressman-elect Max Rose said its a win for Democrats but hes keeping his campaign promise and will not vote for California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. This is a victory for the Democratic party, not a loss for anyone. I commend everyone for coming to the table and hammering out a positive agreement, Rose told the Advance. Pelosi agreed on Wednesday to term limit the position of speaker of the House if elected. Under the deal, Democrats have until February 15 to change the party rules that would limit the Houses top three positions to no more than four two-year terms, which includes time already spent on the job. Throughout his congressional campaign, Rose repeatedly stated that he would not vote for Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader, to be speaker of the House. However, Rose did say that he is in support of the proposed term limits an plans to vote in favor of them when Congress is in session. Last month, Rose, along with 15 other Democrats, signed onto a letter opposing Pelosi for Speaker. According to an Associated Press report, Pelosi cut deals with individual lawmakers for committee assignments and roles leading legislative efforts to gain support. We are proud that our agreement will make lasting institutional change that will strengthen our caucus and will help develop the next generation of Democratic leaders, Pelosi said in a statement. Because of Pelosis deal with other lawmakers, seven of the Democrats who initially said they would not vote for Pelosi put their support behind her. Roses camp would not comment on his fellow Democrats' change of heart. We havent commented on what other reps feel is the right choice and we arent going to start now, Roses campaign manager Kevin Elkins said. Pelosi would need to secure the vote of two-thirds of the majority of House Democrats to be nominated for a fourth term. Rose said hes thinking long and hard about who he will give his vote to in January. Thats a decision Im considering deeply and there is no rush to do so. Its still a ways off, Rose said. (Associated Press material was used in this report.) STATEN ISLAND -- Ten of the candidates for public advocate gathered on Staten Island Thursday night to make the case for why they should win the votes of borough residents. But two hours of discussion resulted in little mention from candidates on how they would actually advocate for issues that affect the everyday lives of Staten Islanders. At times, the discussion became tense when members talked about issues like systemic racism and the death Eric Garner. Two borough specific issues candidates vowed to advocate for on behalf of Staten Islanders were transportation and getting more resources for Island hospitals. TRANSPORTATION Being the borough with some of the longest daily commutes, candidates were asked by moderator Ravi Gupta, a managing partner at political action group Arena and native Staten Islander, how they would help Staten Islanders get their fair share of the citys transportation resources if elected. Some candidates said they would go and work with community boards to figure out how they could advocate on behalf of Staten Islanders for better transportation, while others said the public advocate needed a permanent seat on the MTA board to make any meaningful change. The mayor has divided the city into parts. He promised and he delivered more ferries and he delivered all the ferries to where the rich real estate developers have property on Long Island City, said Assembly Daniel ODonnell (D-Manhattan) .He proposes a tram to go from Brooklyn to Queens and without bringing a single ferry to the island that needs it the most, its the most insane thing that Ive ever heard. Others said they would fight for more ferry service at the city level. When it comes to ferry service, the MTA doesnt control the ferries, the city does [the Economic Development Corporation] does, they should be doing their job, said City Councilman Rafael Espinal (D-Brooklyn). They promised more ferry service to Staten Island, they havent delivered, the public advocate has to make sure theyre fighting to get that extra ferry service as well. One candidate Michael Zumbluskas, who works as a resource management analyst at the Department of Transportation, said light rail was needed on Staten Island. Light rail is much cheaper than a subway system and can be built much quicker, its being done all over the world and all over this country right now and that would definitely help Staten Island, he said. He also said better ferry service was needed from all sides of the Island, a he believed could be accomplished relatively cheaply compared to other modes of transportation. Another candidate, attorney Dawn Smalls, said if elected she would push for improved Express Bus service. New York City does not function if the public transit system does not work, said Smalls. You talked a little bit about how the improvements on the Bus service didnt come to Staten Island, I think thats a very concrete thing that the next public advocate can push for, I think bus service in general is something you can make progress on sooner rather than later. PUBLIC HOSPITALS Unlike the other four boroughs, Staten Island has no public hospital and patients rely on Richmond University Medical Center and Staten Island University Hospital for their health care needs. Two candidates said that if elected, they would do more to bring resources to Island hospitals. We dont have a public hospital on Staten Island and thats truly a problem, said former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. As former City Council speaker, Mark-Viverito said she helped Island council members allocate more funding to emergency rooms at RUMC. This is not my first time being in Staten Island we know that income divide is actually increasing healthcare allocations are not coming to Staten Island the way that it needs to, said Ifeome Ike, a co-founding principal of social impact firm Think Rubix. GARNER, PANTALEO, RACE Just a week after the four year anniversary of a Staten Island grand jury deciding not to indict Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in connection with the death of Eric Garner, candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believed Pantaleo, who has been on desk duty since the incident, should still be on the job. Hes still working? Asked one candidate, Theo Chino, a self-proclaimed technologist. None of the candidates raised their hands, but Zumbluskas admitted he had not been following the case recently and wanted to read the New York City Police Departments internal review first before providing a full response. Pantaleo attended a discovery hearing at the NYPD headquarters last week. The hearing focused on whether any new information was found. Zumbluskas answer about Pantaleo and his views on race, upset many Islanders. Earlier in the forum, when asked about their thoughts on an NYPD gang database, Zumbluskas said he did not know much about it, and did not buy into this systemic racism in everything, as other candidates had pointed out as being a problem with the database. Audience members express disbelief and were visibly upset by his remarks. Mr., walk a day in my shoes, one audience member said following his remarks. [Eric Garner] was the most important legal case on Staten Island and you came today without knowing what it was, another Islander shouted. Current Public Advocate and New York Attorney General-Elect Letitia James will leave her post in January. Once her term ends, Mayor Bill de Blasio will have to call a special election which will likely be set for February. The public advocate position is largely a bully pulpit role. The primary role is to keep watch on city agencies and city government. They can introduce legislation in the City Council and attend meetings, but they cant vote. So far, there are at least 15 candidates who have registered to run for public advocate. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police hope the release of a photo will help locate a woman missing from a Brighton Heights assisted living facility since Wednesday. Francis Gray, 61, was last seen leaving the Lakeside Manor Home for Adults at 797 Brighton Ave. at around 2 p.m., according to a media release from the NYPD. She was reported missing Thursday, and suffers from dementia, according to police. Cops describe Gray as a black woman, approximately 5-feet, 6-inches tall, 165 pounds, and was last seen wearing a green jacket and brown shoes. Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting tips to 274637(CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are kept strictly confidential. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! The push to swing favour towards Huawei failed. Julia Gillard, Prime Minister at the time, banned Huaweis involvement from the critical infrastructure of the NBN on the basis of security advice from Australias intelligence organisations. Malcolm Turnbull in his role as communications minister for Tony Abbotts government told the media in October 2013 that the Chinese giant was a credible business and that Gillards ban should be reviewed. "Even if you accept the premise that Huawei would be an accessory to espionage I'm not saying they will be, I'm just saying that's the premise if you accept that, then you then have to ask yourself, does the equipment that they would propose to sell have that capacity?" Turnbull told the Sydney Morning Herald at the time in his telecommunications and technology-focused ministerial job. Days after Turnbull gave the interview, Abbott confirmed the ban on Huawei would stay in place under his leadership. Outside of supplying modems and consumer equipment for the NBN, Huawei has not been able to participate in the $51 billion roll out to this day. When Turnbull became Prime Minister in 2015, a role with a substantial focus on security, he maintained the federal governments hard security line on Huawei. The Australian government and Huawei are now so at odds that one of the global giants local executives and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton entirely disagree on what was said during a meeting in July, a month before the government decided to ban Chinese suppliers from supplying equipment to Australias next generation 5G mobile network on August 23. Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:AAP Huawei head of corporate affairs Jeremy Mitchell this week claimed he and chairman John Lord were told by Dutton during the meeting the Americans had dropped the ball and allowed China to become a global leader in telecommunications equipment. A spokeswoman for Dutton has said this is not correct. Spying and security fears Loading Undoubtedly, Shenzhen-based Huawei is the worlds biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, a global leader in 5G technology and a leader in Chinas burgeoning tech industry. But it wasnt a hard decision for the nations security agencies to recommend to the Turnbull government that the global giant and other Chinese providers be banned from involvement in the next stage of high-speed mobile infrastructure, called 5G. One of the reasons for this is undoubtedly Australias relationship with a high-powered group of spy chiefs from the five eyes intelligence-sharing countries - Australia, the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The agencies didnt so much have a problem with anything that Huawei itself had done. Rather, as a Chinese company it is ultimately prone to being directed by the Chinese government with these fears stoked by the introduction of China's new National Intelligence Law in June 2017 requiring organisations to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts. That might be tolerable for less important technologies but 5G will be such a leap forward in how it powers the local economy that the government could not afford to take the chance. No government or agency says it publicly, but China is the country they are most worried about when it comes to cyber threat and the espionage danger. The 5G networks are expected to be about 20 times faster than current 4G LTE networks in Australia. It is planned for a roll out to critical electricity grids and water connections, as well as supporting mobile telecommunications and connected homes. No government or agency says it publicly, but China is the country they are most worried about when it comes to cyber threat and the espionage danger. As critical infrastructure becomes reliant on mobile networks these concerns about security intensify. This is underlined by the public assessment from the head of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, that the stakes with 5G could not be higher as it will underpin the communications that Australians rely on every day. Hackers in China, many of them state-backed, routinely try to penetrate major Australian computer networks, including government and big business systems. Hackers thought to be connected to the Chinese military and intelligence agencies have launched attacks on the Bureau of Meteorology, the Lowy Institute think tank and the Australian National University. These attacks may be side entrances to even more sensitive systems, allowing the Chinese hackers to target, say, government officials interacting with those outfits. That, along with other attacks on commercial systems, happen despite Chinas having signed an agreement with Australia calling a truce on intellectual property theft. Given this kind of behaviour, the hawk camp argues that Australia was hardly going to leave itself vulnerable to a major act of sabotage or coercion by having a China-based firm in its 5G network. Notably, the Five Eyes met in Canada in July. Several of them, including Australian Signals Directorate head Mike Burgess, subsequently made public remarks about 5G and the danger of using high-risk vendors - clear references to Huawei and ZTE. Evidently the spy chiefs were all on the same page. By August, Australia had banned Huaweis involvement from every part of the upcoming 5G roll out. Three months later, New Zealand did the same. The US has had an unofficial block on the company for a while, with Canada and the UK expected to be considering their own bans. The governments decision to ban Huawei for Australias 5G roll out sent shockwaves through the local telco industry. Huawei and the majority of telcos expected the government would implement new security measures, and possibly ban Chinese providers from sensitive parts of the network. While no executive will admit to it on the record, several have said in private a total ban was considered unlikely. Telcos were so keen to keep Huawei and ZTE involved because of the cost of a network roll out and their expertise. Its no secret in the industry that Chinese providers are usually a much cheaper option. Telstra, Singtel Optus, Vodafone Hutchison Australia and TPG Telecom have publicly stated their plans to be part of the next mobile generation and the profits they expect to generate from the new business applications of 5G in the long-term. However, the short-term is a very different story. Australian telcos have spent the last 18 months staring down the barrel at falling margins due to the roll out of the NBN and intensifying competition in mobile leaving them reducing prices and giving away more data. Telstra has been so disrupted by these changes it has committed to cutting a third of its workforce to reduce costs, while Vodafone and TPG are planning to merge together to ensure they can compete. To participate in 5G, the telcos will need to spend eye-watering sums. While none of the major providers have revealed exactly how much they intend to spend on rolling out 5G, the figure will be substantial. Telstra has already spent $8 billion in the last five years on networks. Even for providers who might not have intended to use Huawei in the end, the ban meant losing a substantial bargaining chip when negotiating with other suppliers to keep costs down. Vodafone and Optus currently use Huawei to supply some of their edge technology like antennas on 3G and 4G networks, though not the core that handles sensitive information. Huawei, some telco executives and members of the 3GPP panel (which determine the standards that define each mobile generation) have repeatedly argued there is no major change to these two parts of the network. The government disagrees, with the ban announcement explicitly saying the distinction between the core and the edge will disappear over time ... [introducing] new challenges for carriers trying to maintain their customers security, as sensitive functions move outside of the highly protected core environment. Telstra CEO Andy Penn also believes theres less separation in a 5G landscape, saying: The point is that as we move more to a software-defined world there is definitely a blurring between core and [edge]. Telstra has signed a deal with Swedish provider Ericsson for its 5G rollout. Where this leaves Australia Australian telcos have started looking towards other providers, with speculation from sources close to the telcos that this could include a US-supplier who hasnt yet been involved in Australian networks. The situation facing local telcos and Huaweis challenges with 5G are one example of a much larger problem how relations between the US and China will affect the rest of the world. Australia, in particular, has a lot at stake. China is Australias main trading partner and a huge buyer of local exports, heavily linked to Australias economy through education, resources, consumer goods tourism and migration. The US is a major ally and another major trading partner. Uncertainty has already led to some rocky stretches on global share markets in the past year, which has been dominated by Trumps announcement of numerous tariffs on China and retaliation from the Chinese government. For now, Huawei CFO Meng seems likely to become a bargaining chip between the US and China. Trump said last week he would intervene in her case with the US Justice Department if it helped national security or bolstered a trade deal. Meng was granted $10 million bail on Wednesday and in the months ahead it wont just be the Five Eyes it will be everyone in Australia watching what happens. Huawei in Australia 26 March 2012 Gillard government bans Huawei from participating in NBN roll out. 28 August 2012 Malcolm Turnbull says ban should be reviewed. 29 October 2013 Japans National Security Bureau recommends a ban on government agencies using Huawei products. 31 October 2013 Abbott government rules out changes to Huawei NBN ban. 7 July 2017 Huawei announces it has won a contract with the Solomon Islands to build the first submarine cable in the Solomon Islands, connected to Sydney. 12 June 2018 Solomon Islands Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela says Australian government has raised concerns about Huaweis involvement and Australia will help fund the cable instead. 13 August 2018 Donald Trump signs bill banning government and government contractors from using Huawei technology. 21 August 2018 Malcolm Turnbull calls Donald Trump to tell him Australia will ban Huawei for 5G roll out 23 August 2018 Huawei and ZTE banned in Australia. 28 November 2018 Huawei banned in New Zealand. The backers of the bid for pharmaceutical giant Sigma Healthcare are confident the competition regulator won't knock back their takeover offer for the second time. Sigma shares soared 45 per cent on Friday after Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API) snatched up a 13 per cent stake in its rival and unveiled a $726 million indicative takeover bid. API said it had tabled a non-binding indicative proposal to Sigma's board in October, which offers Sigma investors 0.31 API shares and 23 cash for each Sigma share they own. The proposal is subject to due diligence and approval by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The suitor faced questions about whether the competition regulator would allow the merger of what will be the second and third largest players in the industry 16 years after it knocked back their last attempt at a deal. API said the value of the proposal equates to 68.6 a Sigma share, which represents a 69 per cent premium to the target's closing share price on Thursday of 40.5. Sigma shares rocketed 48 per cent to 60 on Friday. His words were music to the ears of traditional publishers. Loading Led by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, they have for years bemoaned the digital duoploy's stranglehold over the online advertising market, and their comparative lack of regulation and accountability. For a sober, independent government body to agree with this view, following an exhaustive, year-long analysis, was a striking vindication of that position. Yet for the digital giants, the ACCC's findings were troubling, and risked setting a global precedent. Among other things, the regulator proposed a new body to monitor the algorithms that power Google searches and Facebook's news feed, and the traffic they send to publishers. It would also scrutinise their conduct in the advertising market, including the way they price ads and claims over their efficacy. The ACCC also proposed a new ombudsman to monitor consumer complaints (similar to the bodies that exist for other industries such as telecommunications and financial services) as well as measures to prevent the digital giants from collecting data without clear and unambiguous consent of users. Facebook has come out hard against the concept of an algorithm regulator, describing the proposal as "unworkable", "unnecessary" and "unprecedented". Facebook has come out hard against the concept of an algorithm regulator. Credit:Bloomberg Google (whose CEO Sundar Pichai was grilled by US politicians in Washington this week over similar issues) has been slower to respond. The two digital giants have a collective market value north of $US1 trillion and almost unfathomable power. They may be chastened, but they won't accept the ACCC's recommendations without a fight. The view from Silicon Valley Silicon Valley has a fierce anti-authority streak and typically isn't supportive of added regulation. But unlike the furore over Australia's recent encryption laws, the response to the ACCC inquiry was broadly positive. Coming off the lows of that encryption debacle, this is at the other end of the spectrum," says James Allworth, an Australian tech executive based in San Francisco who hosts the widely followed Exponent.fm podcast. I deeply suspect that the solution to media's woes is not going to come from another regulator. Entrepreneur Mark Tanner "It was clear they have a pretty solid understanding of the dynamics. On the whole I would say their assessment, their diagnosis of the situation, is pretty accurate." That said, scepticism about the ACCC's ability to actually regulate two of the most powerful companies history remains. Loading "I deeply suspect that the solution to media's woes is not going to come from another regulator," says Sydney entrepreneur Mark Tanner, who worked for Google in Sydney and New York. "There are legitimate social problems these companies have created with their algorithms, but I don't think this addresses that." Traditional media companies are bound by defamation laws, the Australian Press Council, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority. That Facebook and Google are comparatively under-regulated is undeniable. Still, it is hard to fathom how a government body would be able to manage the task of monitoring their algorithms. "There is not like, one person at Google who understands how its search engine works," says Tanner. "It has got to be millions and millions and millions of lines of code, written by thousands of engineers, drawing on thousands of databases, some of which are truly gigantic. I dont understand how you'd do that." These days, Tanner runs his own start-up, Qwilr, which makes tools to create advanced pitch documents used by sales and marketing teams. He acknowledges that the dominance of Google and Facebook is an issue for businesses like his. "As far as a start-up is concerned, the challenge is that there is no where else to go for that type of ad; they are the only two shops in town, and they are getting expensive as more and more companies move their ad spend there," he says. Allworth says Facebook's aggressive response to the report was telling. "Their [Facebooks] reaction was not 'we happy to work with regulators'. It was straight out of the gate 'No'. Which means, maybe they [the regulators] are on to something here." But he also has reservations about the concept of an algorithm regulator. "If every country's regulator wants to control the news feed, well, if Donald Trump is in power in the US - if he starts saying everything is fake news, do we really want him having the power to implement that on Facebook? Maybe a regulator tweaking the algorithm is going to work in a way that you really dont want it to work. An international outlook After Sims finished his press conference in Sydney, he immediately starting working the phones, calling his counterparts within the international regulatory community and the influential Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, to drum up support for his proposals. He has been flooded with speaking offers and will visit the US early next year to talk through his ideas. Sims has made little secret of his desire to generate global momentum for the measures he unveiled this week. "Our report is extremely timely. Governments overseas are looking at Facebook and Google, we have come up with information that others haven't had," he said. "Our report will feed into that international discussion of these issues. We are very well connected with our international counterparts." The tech companies are expected to formally respond in February. Then, in June, the ACCC will deliver its final report, with recommendations to the government. The government's core assurance that the bill won't systemically weaken software is at odds with what Australian businesses must do to comply with the legislation. Typically, intelligence agencies and hackers rely on accidental security flaws to sneak into systems. Arguably, the most pernicious aspect of the bill is the Technical Assistance Request (TARs). These are notionally voluntary, unconstrained in what can be requested, not required to be reported and, given corporate self-preservation and implicit threats by government, display the most potential for abuse. A company compelled to comply has little recourse to object, given the distinct lack of independent oversight in the legislation. A retired judge and technical specialist, of the governments choosing, could be empanelled to assess the merits of a capability notice. The likelihood of this being a fair or transparent exercise is clearly in doubt. In a climate where commercially operated communication apps such as WhatsApp cannot be trusted, it would be reasonable to assume that criminal and terrorist networks, will shift their activities to rely upon open source products, such as Signal and Telegram that publish their code openly for review. Given these are not subject to Australian jurisdiction, it is hard to see how the application of the government's law can be achieved. The government would require wholesale access to the handset or device itself if these types of services are to be monitored. Something that industry players such as Apple have strenuously resisted. The push is on for the government's mid year economic outlook to make its small business instant asset write-off scheme permanent and refocus conversations on vocational education and training. Ahead of Monday's MYEFO statement, small business and startup stakeholders say while the federal focus on their sectors over the past couple of months has been welcome, some policy areas have been neglected. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will hand down the MYEFO document for 2018 on Monday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Small business owners want an extension of the popular small business $20,000 instant asset write-off scheme or for the government to make it permanent, rather than waiting until the 2019 budget to make a call on this. There have been a number of extensions to the policy since its introduction more than three years ago and Council of Small Business Australia chief Peter Strong says this is the perfect time to take it off the table by making the policy permanent. The Sydney housing market is down for the count. Credit:Paul Rovere The Sydney housing market is down for the count. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for the September quarter released this week found house prices were 6 per cent lower than their peak in the middle of 2017. More timely data suggests prices are still heading south. These price falls will have a significant impact on the economy but it is important to maintain perspective. For the moment most economists are preparing for a long period of uncomfortable adjustment but not the dramatic crisis that some more shrill commentators are predicting. Make no mistake. There is no reason to think house prices will recover any time soon. The Westpac survey of consumer sentiment found that only 10 per cent of people think real estate is the wisest place for savings, the lowest score since 1974. Burdened by record levels of debt and low wage growth, households have maxed out the credit card and investors are no longer borrowing on the speculative hope that property always rises. The Reserve Bank of Australia, which has stepped in to cut rates in the past when the housing market stumbled, is likely to stay on the sidelines this time. With mortgage interest rates already low at only a few per cent a year, the RBA is unlikely to cut the official cash rate further. Oboist Ben Opie has performed in caves, forests, goldmines and on the back of a three-tonne truck in a Melbourne alleyway. So arranging Bach for the bathtub didn't faze him in the slightest. As the new director of the annual Peninsula Summer Music Festival, Opie aims to deliver beautiful music to the masses in whatever way he can; by broadening art forms and collaborations, and finding new venues beyond the usual historic churches and wineries. And what better place than the bubbling geothermal pools at Fingal, where people can be lulled into an amniotic daydream while listening to classical musicians perform? The Peninsula Summer Music Festival's kids' carnival features an immersive sensory experience making music with water. The concept of relaxing to music while "taking the waters" is something that feels both ancient and new. While we've been plunging in since the Greeks and Romans discovered the healing powers of thermal pools, adding live music seems novel. It's certainly shrewd programming; the Peninsula Hot Springs has to be the perfect panacea for Christmas excess. Victorians can ease their bloated forms and soothe their jangled nerves with music performed in the amphitheatre by a specially commissioned string quartet that soothes, uplifts and consoles. The repertoire will include Bach's Goldberg Variations, which contain an extraordinary alchemy of intense emotion and great lyrical beauty. Even the provenance of the works is fitting; Bach wrote them for his pupil, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, to perform for Count Keyserlinck in the small wee hours, when he was struggling with insomnia. Opie is very much aware of the powers of music for healing. A few years ago, while rehearsing with his musical partner Melissa Doecke, he stopped for a tea break and was moved by a story about refugees on the news. It dawned on him that music was something he could offer as a way of building bridges, so he made a couple of phone calls to nearby detention centres, which jumped at the chance to have him and Doecke visit. Once a week, they would load up the car with ukuleles, guitars and drums and head off to Maribyrnong and Broadmeadows to host interactive workshops with the detainees. For the children, they would bring cardboard tubes to turn into bassoons. Opie has also held interactive music workshops for the visually impaired, finding creative ways to allow for full participation. "During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script," Weatherly said in the statement. "When Eliza told me that she wasn't comfortable with my language and attempt at humour, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologised. After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza." Eliza Dushku in 2016. Credit:AP When Dushku signed on with Bull at $US35,000 ($48,700) per episode a figure that would have increased significantly if she had continued on the show there were "well developed plans" to have her become a regular cast member, according to the draft of the investigators' report. The investigation's findings show how Dushku sought to address conduct she found demeaning, why she believed she faced retaliation and how a top CBS lawyer tried to undermine her claims with what investigators described as an "antiquated" view of how a woman should comport herself in the workplace. On Bull, Dushku played J.P. Nunnelly, a criminal defence lawyer. Although she would have a running flirtation with Weatherly's character, the producer, Caron, said he "wouldn't want intimacy" until the show's fifth season, according to notes taken by a participant in an interview Dushku gave investigators in September. But it wasn't long before Weatherly started making comments that left her feeling uncomfortable. "Here comes legs," he said on a day when Dushku was wearing a suit, according to the interview notes. On another occasion, Dushku told investigators, Weatherly said in front of the cast and crew that he would bend her over his leg and spank her. In an interview, Weatherly said the remark about spanking was meant as a joke. "I ad-libbed a joke, a classic Cary Grant line from Charade or Philadelphia Story, and that meant not at all that that was an action I wanted to take," he said. Dushku also described to investigators a time on the set when, in character, she made a gesture with three fingers. In response, she said, Weatherly suggested to laughs from the crew that she wanted to have a threesome with him and another male cast member. Because of his status on the show, his behaviour was contagious, in Dushku's view. She told investigators that a crew member approached her at one point and said with a chuckle, "I'm with Bull," before suggesting that he, too, wanted to take part in a threesome with her. The exchange left Dushku feeling "disgusting and violated," according to the interview notes. Loading Weatherly said that when he mentioned a threesome, it was not to suggest Dushku take part in a threesome with him and another cast member. "While we're shooting, in the context of the scene, she held up three fingers, suggesting something," he said. "And I ad-libbed, 'Threesome?'" Then came the shooting of a scene involving a windowless van. With the cameras rolling, in front of the cast and crew, Weatherly said he would take Dushku to his "rape van," which, he added, was filled with phallic objects and lubricant, according to the interview notes. Weatherly said the "rape van" line was an attempted joke that misfired. "The scripted line in that scene was, 'Hey, young lady, step into my windowless van,'" he said. "I didn't particularly like that line, so I joked, in order to highlight how distasteful the emphasis of the line was, about an 'r. van,' a rape van. Which, in retrospect, was not a good idea." Dushku shared her concerns with Caron, who seemed receptive, according to the interview notes, and they agreed that she would approach Weatherly. She began by telling Weatherly that "everyone loves" him on the set and followed his lead. She pointed out that after he made the threesome comment, a crew member said something similar to her, according to the interview notes. Weatherly asked Dushku who had made the remark and why she did not report it. As Dushku later told the lawyers, she did not have the sense that there was a "safe person you could go to" with that kind of complaint. After the talk, Weatherly sent a text to David Stapf, president of CBS Television Studios, saying that he wanted to talk about Dushku's sense of humour. Stapf replied that Dushku made the show better, according to the interview notes. Around the same time, Dushku expressed the worry to her representatives that Weatherly might go to CBS and get her fired. That is effectively what happened. Within days of confronting Weatherly, Dushku was written off the show. The plan to make her part of the cast was over. By way of explanation, Caron told her that he "didn't know how to write" her into the show anymore, according to the interview notes. Weatherly denied pushing for Dushku's removal. "It's my recollection that I didn't tell anyone how they should do their job regarding the hiring or firing of anybody," he said. Caron, who joined Bull in 2017 and later became its showrunner, said the decision to end Dushku's run had nothing to do with her experiences on the set. "The idea that our not exercising her option to join the series was in any way punitive just couldn't be further from the truth," he said in a statement. A still from Bull, starring Michael Weatherly as Dr Jason Bull and Stephanie Kurtzuba as Rebecca Hall. Credit:CBS On one of her final days on Bull, Weatherly insisted that Dushku stay for a drink celebrating the wrap of another season. Dushku thought that was odd, because she would not be not returning and had been open about the fact that she did not drink. During the toast, Weatherly said he needed a "really beautiful woman" to grab a ticket for a raffle. "Eliza," he said in front of everyone, according to the interview notes, "we need you, the most beautiful woman, to come grab the raffle ticket." Dushku, in her final moments as part of the Bull sphere, played along, although she felt "embarrassed and humiliated". After considering a lawsuit, Dushku entered into mediation with CBS. Mark Engstrom, the chief compliance officer at CBS, participated, along with a partner at the law firm that was serving as outside counsel for the company. Engstrom handed over outtakes from Bull in the belief that they would help the network's cause, because they showed Dushku cursing on the set, investigators wrote in the draft of their report. The strategy backfired. The outtakes were a "gold mine" for Dushku, the lawyers wrote, because they "actually captured some of the harassment on film". Although the investigators praised Engstrom for his "tremendous institutional knowledge" and described him as a "smart and very capable lawyer," they said the company's failure to recognise the instances of harassment caught on tape was a symptom of larger problems at CBS, according to the draft of their report. Engstrom declined to comment. Loading Weatherly, Caron and Amblin Television were parties to the settlement agreement, which prohibited Dushku from discussing her experiences on the show in exchange for the $13 million payment. The settlement agreement came about in January, when the #MeToo movement was on the rise, three months after the first articles on Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct appeared in The Times and The New Yorker. A history of misbehaviour and sexual harassment on the part of prominent men at CBS has come to light in the past 13 months. In addition to forcing the departure of Moonves, CBS has fired two other well-known figures: Charlie Rose, a co-anchor of CBS This Morning, who was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women; and Jeff Fager, long-time executive producer of 60 Minutes, after he sent a threatening text message to a CBS reporter looking into allegations that he had engaged in sexually inappropriate workplace behaviour. Next year at Summernats, for the first time, any burnout smoke which drifts from the southern side of Exhibition Park won't be suspicious nor incur the ire of officials. It's because of a new mini-skidpan which runs alongside Tuff Street, the section of the internal cruise road which runs parallel with Flemington Road. With a wave from the marshals, any one of the hundreds of drivers who spend hour upon hour doing engine-grumbling circuits of the internal Exhibition Park circuit can veer off Tuff Street into Skid Row and for a few short seconds, burn off a little frustration and rubber for their fans. Summernats co-owner Andy Lopez with a supercharged Torana at the launch of the event in Braddon on Friday. Credit:Lawrence Atkin It's seen as a mini release-valve for those many drivers with hair-trigger throttles who receive warnings for excessive rear tyre rotation when cruising the Summernats strip, thereby risking exclusion. A lot of the locals will tell you though that Bill didn't find the dog sitting on his tuckerbox; he found it relieving itself in it. An earlier monument to the dog appeared at the site in the early 1920s, a timber cutout hoisted on a tree, where locals had a donation box to collect money for the local hospital despite the council's protests. Before long an official monument was erected where it still stands today, continuing to collect money for the Gundagai District Hospital. The site's current leaseholder, Denny Allnutt, said she had had big plans for the site when she took it on board in 2016, but was letting the lease expire in July next year. "You're part of Australian history and part of an internationally known icon. There's enormous good will for the dog through Australia," Ms Allnutt said. "It's enjoyable and exhausting at the same time." She runs the small tuckshop next to the statue but now plans to get her old art gallery running again on Gundagai's main strip once the lease is up. Originally from Sydney, Ms Allnutt moved to Gundagai in 2004 and while she admits she was underwhelmed by the statue at first, she fell in love with it and the story behind it. "I love the fact that it's entirely grassroots," she said. Ms Allnutt said the site from the famous poem, where Bill gets bogged trying to cross Muttama Creek, has now been passed over by the Hume Highway. It wasn't until the Great Depression that a group of locals came up with the idea of putting up a statue to raise money for the hospital, despite the council hating the idea. The group decided putting the statue nine miles out of Gundagai would be too far and it needed to be closer, at the five mile mark and site of an old bullocky's camping ground, to help raise money. Finally the council came on board. "It's always been something that's loved by the community, has grown out of the community and is cherished and celebrated by the community. I just love that," Ms Allnutt said. Ms Allnutt said the poem captured the country's larrikin tradition. "It was definitely the misbehaving dog that spoiled the tucker. Only in Australia would that be celebrated," she said. The tradition of collecting money for the hospital lives on with Gundagai local Keith Turner, who has voluntarily been collecting money from the wishing well each month since 2015. Gundagai local Keith Turner, who collects money from the wishing well at the tuckerbox for the local hospital. Credit:Karleen Minney It averages up to $350 a month with the money given to the hospital's emergency ward. Mr Turner remembers celebrating the 50th year of the dog in 1982 and helping organise a recording by musicians The Howie Brothers to celebrate the dog's birthday. "Y'know the dog's been sitting on that tuckerbox for over 50 years and it ain't dead yet," Mr Turner said, recalling the lyrics. He walked the streets of Gundagai taking donations for copies of the CD, raising $3000 for the hospital's children's ward, an effort that earned Mr Turner Gundagai's Citizen of the Year. Mr Turner said the site as it is needs looking after but everybody knew about Gundagai from Jack O'Hagan's 'Along The Road to Gundagai' and 'Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox'. Mr Turner sings it wherever he goes and remembers travelling to New Zealand for a function three years ago when he started 'Along The Road to Gundagai' to the locals. "At the end of the night, they were thanking everyone and I walked over and said I'll have the mic thanks," Mr Turner said. The Williamsons, who have owned the cattle property since 2009, said they have already spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to reverse "the impact of the ill-suited European farming practices of the 1800s'', with the land in continuous agricultural production since the 1830s. They want to plant thousands of trees to help provide shade and fodder, when needed, for the stock, and to improve the fertility of the soil, in contrast to the wholesale clearing of the land a century or two ago. Following the death 18 months ago of Mrs Williamson's mother, they were also "really shocked at the price'' to store ashes at traditional crematoria and wanting a better way to honour her than storing the ashes at a crematorium, or having them disposed. Louise and Luke Williamson say the option of scattering a loved ones at their farm while sponsoring a tree may appeal to people with an evironmental bent. Credit:Elesa Kurtz Those two disparate problems, suddenly created an answer - the memory farm. "Literally one afternoon, over a cup of tea, my wife and I came up with this idea,'' Mr Williamson said. Trees can be sponsored for $1000 each, a price Mr Williamson says is more than competitive against traditional crematoria, and then the ashes laid beneath. A plaque can also be fixed to the site for another $250. "The arrangement is, because of land zoning restrictions and things like that, we can't sell people trees,'' Mr Williamson said. The Capital Region Memory Farm is on a property between the Murrumbidgee River and Monaro Highway, just north of Bredbo. "So what we're offering is the ability to sponsor a tree. Come out to the farm, we'll give you a tour, we'll walk you through all the environmental work that's been done, if you want to. "We'll take you out to one of the treelines, you can plant the tree, spread the ashes, if you wish. And, also, with some notice, we can put there a rock memorial, so a plaque on a rock. "We will fence that part of the paddock out of production for five years while the tree is becoming established and from then on, periodically let the cattle in just to keep the grass down.'' Luke Williamson on the family farm at Bredbo with children Faith, 10, and Hamish, 12. The Williamsons said they would welcome people back to the farm to revisit where they had scatted the ashes. "Absolutely. We'd love them to,'' he said. "And, of course, that will have no cost whatsoever.'' Mr Williamson said the 344-hectare farm sat between the Monaro Highway and the Murrumbidgee River. The middle of the farm had remnant old-growth native forest. The Capital Region Memory Farm wants to offer people who've lost loved ones some solace. "Between the middle of the farm and the highway, we'll be planting non-natives, frankly, to discourage kangaroos getting killed on the highway but that will also provide a stunning visual of autumn colours,'' he said. "So some people, we think, will just like to wave at their tree on the way past. But we know other people will want to come back regularly and we're more than happy to accommodate that.'' The St Vincent de Paul Society has called on all governments to do more to ease housing costs as Santa delivered Christmas presents to the charity via a tram in Gungahlin on Friday. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr greets Santa after he arrived at the Gungahlin light rail terminal with gifts for the St Vincent de Paul Society. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong The big man in red delivered presents donated by staff from Canberra Metro and Transport Canberra and City Services, arriving in downtown Gungahlin in style. "The ride was smooth and very enjoyable and comfortable,'' Santa told a media throng, after alighting from the tram. "All I'd like to say to everyone this morning is have a very, very merry Christmas and be kind to each other.'' Six years ago, six long-time friends were taking their six kids in for their first day of school. This isn't the start of a nursery rhyme, but life at St Clare of Assisi Primary in Canberra - where all six parents also happened to work as teachers. On December 19, the school's brood of "teacher kids" will graduate - and there won't be many dry eyes in the staffroom. (From left) Ben Sweeney, Rhys Sweeney, Katherine Austin, Amelia Austin, Nathaniel Mowlam, Tracy Mowlam, Lindsay McArthur, Annie McArthur, Hayden Breen and Belinda Breen at St Clares of Assisi Primary School. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos While two members of the original dozen, Anna Stincic and her daughter Lara, have since left St Clare's, the group say it's been smooth sailing over the years. They share rides to school, play sport together and take an annual group photo for the classroom wall. ActewAGL has confirmed 400 electricity, gas and water customers have received bundles of bills addressed to other utility customers in a massive privacy breach affecting 6000 customers in the ACT and NSW. ActewAGL notified the Privacy Commissioner of the breach after it became aware of the mistake on Wednesday and had set up a taskforce by Friday afternoon to respond to affected customers. Belconnen resident John Steep, who received a parcel of hundreds of ActewAGL bills on Wednesday. Credit:Karleen Minney The utility provider said it would work with its third-party mail house to investigate the issue. Icon Water managing director Ray Hezkial said it was a logic programming error during the collation process that caused the mistake. Joseph Pirrello was dreaming of a white Christmas. On December 25, 2016, the Sydney fisherman stood at a boat ramp ready to unload one of Australias largest cocaine hauls coming down the Hawkesbury in a dinghy. It was the last of several attempts to import large quantities of illegal drugs to Australia, including one plan to rendezvous with a Colombian submarine. There were multiple conspiracies afoot, foiled by authorities in Fiji and French Polynesia, and a sprawling set of players, including former Sydney Roosters player John Tobin. After a sleepless night, Phoebe Coles waits nervously in the dining room. It's ATAR day and Phoebe is one of thousands of HSC students across the state watching the clock tick toward 9am when their results are released. Phoebe Coles waits anxiously for her ATAR results as her dad Richard watches on. Credit:Janie Barrett With her father Richard eagerly watching on beside her, the 17-year-old Pymble Ladies' College student logs in to find out her fate. After brief technical difficulties, Phoebe's ATAR flashes up on the screen and her face lights up. A young Sydney woman who aspired to be part of a "jihadi Bonnie and Clyde" has told a judge she's now shed her hijab and her "disgusting" fanatical extremist views. Alo-Bridget Namoa testified that her texts encouraging Sameh Bayda to carry out a terrorist attack were the actions of a "childish, inquisitive hypothetically- thinking" teenager. Sameh Bayda and Alo-Bridget Namoa. The 21-year-old, who wore a hijab during her Supreme Court trial and at the first day of her sentencing hearing a week ago, did not wear the head-covering in court on Friday when she gave evidence. Namoa and Bayda, both 18 when they married in an Islamic ceremony in 2015, were found guilty in October of conspiring between early December 2015 and late January 2016 to do an act in preparation for a terrorist act. A drunk man who choked and stabbed his estranged girlfriend in Sydney's west, then "stayed there until she went cold", will spend at least 19 years in jail. Russell Brian Wood, 27, pleaded guilty in October to the murder of 34-year-old Sarah Brown, whom he attacked with a kitchen knife inside her home in Whalan in September 2017. Russell Brian Wood has been jailed. Credit:AAP "No AVO was ever going to keep me away from her," he told police after the killing. In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Geoffrey Bellew jailed him for 25 years with a non-parole period of 19 years and one month, stating Wood had a "flagrant disregard" for the orders made to protect Ms Brown. The Brisbane City Council's development application website is struggling under a high volume of submissions about the controversial Mt Coot-tha zipline project as the submission deadline nears. An alert on the PDOnline website on Friday afternoon, hours before the final deadline, noted the site was experiencing a "high volume of enquiries" and provided a direct link to the submission form for the Mt Coot-tha zipline application. The crashed website on Friday. Credit:Screenshot "We are currently experiencing a high volume of enquiries on the PDOnline service which may at times cause intermittent slowness," the note said. People who could not access the form were told to email Dalodgement@brisbane.qld.gov.au with their submission and the application number. A Brisbane police officer accused of leaking the details of a domestic violence victim to her abuser will face court next month after he was charged. Senior Constable Neil Punchard, 52, was charged with nine counts of computer hacking on Friday, and was issued with a notice to appear. Police have charged Senior Constable Punchard with computer hacking. Credit:Gabriele Charotte Senior Constable Punchard is accused of accessing the confidential police database QPRIME to find information about Jodie* to pass on to her ex-partner. Jodie was forced to relocate and go into hiding after the the officer allegedly texted her address to her former husband. A show cause notice issued to the owner of the Broadway Hotel, which was nearly destroyed by a fire in September, has been extended until January by Brisbane City Council. The notice was issued to the owner, Malcolm Nyst, on November 12 requesting representations on why the council shouldn't issue further enforcement notices on the hotel's dilapidated condition. Fire crews brought in aerial appliances to fight the flames that destroyed the hotel in September. The Woolloongabba hotel, on Logan Road, has been left derelict after several fires since 2010, with the building vulnerable to vandalism and further destruction. That order was expected to expire on Friday. It's been 40 years since Edmund Capon arrived in Sydney and turned Australia's art world on its head. However, Capon's trademark showmanship has taken a back seat as the 78-year-old wages the battle of his life in London. Former top cop Greg Davies has urged his successor to take a strong stand to combat family violence as he stands down from his role as the state's first Victims of Crime Commissioner. Davies, a senior police officer for 37 years and former head of the police association, was the state's first official advocate for victims of crime when he took on the newly created position in 2014. Victims of Crime Comissioner Greg Davies Credit:Pat Scala Mr Davies said his term was due to expire next March, and he had decided to quit a few months early ahead of a process of reform for the victims' compensation tribunal. "As a result of the law reform commission ... [the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal] will change from being run by the magistrates court as a judicial process, to what almost everywhere else in the country have, which is an administrative model," he said. Point Cook father-of-two Rob Gelevski. Credit:Seven News A 14-year-old boy from Kew has fronted court after he allegedly armed himself with an axe and terrorised a young family in a home invasion in Melbourne's south-west. The teenager, who was on bail for other offences, faced court late on Friday charged with 11 offences including committing an indictable offence while on bail, unlawful assault with a weapon and both intentionally and recklessly causing injury. Point Cook father-of-two Rob Gelevski was the first to confront the alleged intruder at his La Coruna Gardens home about 3.40am on Friday. The day symbolised 13 years of schooling coming to an end and the start of universities annual feeding frenzy for brightest students. Geelong Grammar student Nina Morrison attributes her VCE success to two things: discipline and footy. On Friday, the AFLWs number one draft pick was shocked to discover that shed also received her schools top VCE result. I was pretty surprised, she said. Getting a 50 in chemistry was not something that ever crossed my mind. The 18-year-old achieved an ATAR of 99.75, placing her in the top 0.3 per cent of the state. Geelong Grammar student Nina Morrison scored an ATAR of 99.75. Credit:Paul Jeffers The teenager juggled her VCE studies with football training, gruelling games in the TAC Cup girls competition and her duties as school captain. Next year she wants to study exercise and sports science at Deakin University. She completed two VCE subjects in year 11, which gave her more time to focus on her football career in Year 12. Days before she was due to sit her final exams she was told that shed be joining her beloved Cats as the number 1 pick in the national draft. Football has given me balance, and made me motivated, she said. In the states north-west, Bronte Brown was celebrating her ATAR of 99.45. The teenager, who attends Red Cliffs Secondary College, a disadvantaged state school just outside Mildura, was surprised to discover shed been ranked in the top 0.5 per cent of the state. You work hard but you dont expect something like that, she said. During the VCE, the hard-working student studied for four to five hours every weeknight and eight hours on the weekend. Bronte dreams of being a doctor and has applied to study medicine at either the University of Melbourne, which is a six-hour drive from her home, or Adelaide University, which is four hours away. Its cliched but I have always liked helping people, she said. Shes already received the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT) score that she needs as a rural student, but says moving away from home will be bittersweet. You are always going to miss your families and friends, she said. Moving to the city will also be expensive, and Bronte is hoping to receive a scholarship. Bialik College principal Jeremy Stowe-Lindner said he was incredibly proud of his students achievements and their inspiring menschlichkeit (a Yiddish word for decency). Almost 60 per cent of students at the Jewish school in Hawthorn East achieved an ATAR above 90. Our class of 2018 are now ready to follow the school motto and step forth with courage into the world, he said. Iranian born Erfan Vafamehr Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui For many students who experienced adversity, simply obtaining the VCE is a huge achievement. While St Albans Secondary College student Erfan Vafamehr didnt receive the ranking he was hoping for, he was relieved to finish school. Not doing year 12 was never an option in my mind, he said. Erfans family fled religious persecution in Iran when he was 11 and lived in Indonesia before settling in Australia in 2014. He spoke hardly any English when he arrived in Melbourne and attended the Western English Language School. Erfan said hed consult a careers counsellor to find a new pathway to studying law. With his mum a part-time carer and his dad working as a cleaner, Simon Seddon says the prestigious Melbourne University scholarship he has been awarded thanks to his 99.9 ATAR score will genuinely help him. The Buckley Park College student was among 43 high-achievers offered a highly sought-after Melbourne Chancellor's Scholarship on Friday after earning an ATAR of 99.9 or above. The scholarship awards the student a HECS-exempt place in a Melbourne University undergraduate course, along with a $5000 annual allowance for their entire degree. Simon Seddon and his mother Mary, one of the top VCE students offered Melbourne Chancellors Scholarship. Credit:Eddie Jim I actually cant tell you how much its going to help me, he said. It was always going to be a bold proposal: headquarter the fledgling Australian Space Agency all the way over on the other side of the country, in Western Australia. Yes, weve got a long and proud history when it comes to space and accomplishments of the cosmic kind. Gravitational wave discoveries, the mission to the moon, a giant radio telescope which will eventually span two continents WAs had a stake in it all. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope array stretches across the landscape at Boolardy station in Western Australia. Credit:Trevor Collens Not only that, but we share a time zone with about 60 per cent of the worlds population. Handy, despite the fact Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and the like will always be 2-3 hours ahead. So you would have hoped the state government argued the case for a WA headquarters strongly, with enough sweeteners to send the space agency our way. Life-saving defibrillators would be installed in every WA home if new St John Ambulance (SJA) boss Michelle Fyfe had her way. New St John Ambulance chief Michelle Fyfe. Credit:phil hickey The new chief executive of SJA hopes the machines - which deliver an electric current to the heart in the event of a cardiac arrest - will soon become the norm for most WA households. "Seventy per cent of cardiac arrests will occur in the home," Ms Fyfe, who took over the reins at SJA in October, told WAtoday this week. "If you think about the things that are mandatory in your home, you have to have smoke detectors, you have to have pool fences, and quite rightly. A land search is currently under way north of Albany as police and State Emergency Service workers scour the area near Mount Trio for an 84-year-old woman missing since Thursday morning. Patricia Byrne was last seen walking in the Mount Trio area, about 90km north of Albany. Credit:WA Police Police believe Patricia Byrne was walking on Mount Trio and a family member last saw her about 11.30am on Thursday. They are concerned for her welfare, and its understood she has no food, water, or a mobile phone. The alarm was sounded about 2.30pm yesterday but an initial search failed to track down the missing woman. About 15 SES, along with police, started searching again at 7am on Friday morning. Dear Mum and Dad, it's your puppy Clancy here, writing from my home in the city. I hope things are going well for you, because they're somewhat difficult down here. I hate to complain. You always told me that kelpies are a tail-wagging, head-cocking, up-for-anything kind of breed. All the same, it's Christmas time in Sydney, and I don't think I can take much more of it. Clancy Glover, Christmas Dog. As you know, I share the house with Man and Lady, who are super-attentive, especially since I put the effort into training Man to serve my breakfast first thing, top priority, as soon as he gets up in the morning. He has so completely got the hang of it. Proud? Of course, I am. Effort in, results out. That message should go to young dogs everywhere. The ACT could be headed for another expensive High Court challenge if cannabis is legalised next year, with experts warning the private members bill sets the territory on a collision course with federal law. Possession of less than 50g of cannabis would be removed from the ACT's criminal code and the number of legal plants doubled under the draft legislation from Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson. The ACT could legalise cannabis next year via a private members bill supported by both Labor and the Greens. Credit:Chris Roussakis The bill has the support of the Labor executive and in-principle support from the Greens, meaning the legislation is likely to pass. However legal experts have concerns about the conflict the legislation creates with federal laws. The Federal Court of Australia has rejected an employer group's attempt to break up the merged Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union. The militant CFMEU created a new $150 million "super union" when it merged with the Maritime Union of Australia and the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union in March, sparking employer fears that it would be further emboldened to break industrial laws. CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor and MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin have defeated a legal challenge to their union merger. Credit:Nick Moir CFMEU national secretary Michael OConnor said the Federal Court decision to uphold the merger not only vindicated the unions position, but showed employer groups were "wasting their members' money waging an ideological battle" against it. "Our argument throughout has been that the democratic will of union members should decide how our union is structured, bargains, and represents their interests, not employer groups using legal technicalities to serve their vested interests," Mr OConnor said on Friday. Prime Minister Scott Morrison will acknowledge Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem in a strong statement this weekend on the need for a two-state solution in the Middle East. Mr Morrison will announce the new Australian stance at the same time he recognises West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, ending two months of painful debate over the contentious move. In an important proviso, the Prime Minister will emphasise the status of West Jerusalem as the long-standing capital of Israel after heated speculation about whether the Australian recognition might apply to the entirety of the city. The outcome is seen within the government as a practical resolution that supports the United Nations' objective of a two-state solution, soothing concerns among Muslim nations about any affront to the Palestinians. Former Liberal MP Robert Clark has been elected Victorian Liberal president, taking over from Michael Kroger who quit his post after the partys crushing election defeat. Mr Kroger resigned as president last month, citing newspaper articles in which his supporters told him it is time to go. Robert Clark is the new Liberal Party president. Credit:Eddie Jim Mr Clark was elected at a Liberal assembly meeting in Melbourne on Friday night. He is known for his conservative views and was one of the fiercest opponents of the voluntary euthanasia laws introduced last year. His election comes after Opposition Leader Michael O'Brien pledged to bring the party to the centre and better connect with the concerns of Victorians. Just weeks ago, two young female Red Cross nurses were killed in Nigeria. We all pleaded for the unconditional release of my colleagues. But our pleas and prayers, unfortunately, came to nothing. Saifura Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa, 25, a midwife and mother, was working with the Red Cross in Nigeria's Borno state when she was kidnapped by Boko Haram militants. They murdered her in September. At that moment, I wanted to look in the eyes of the killers and ask them: "What would you gain from the death of a young midwife who is only 25 years old? What have you achieved? Did the irony strike you: killing a person who brings innocent children to life?" I felt like yelling: Does anything strike a chord in the world anymore? Countless questions occupy my mind when these unbearable incidents happen. Often my thoughts become paralysed and darkness sets in. In time, resilience prevails and anger subsides. You realise that the goal of the act is to shake your foundations, to sow fear and distrust, putting into question the very essence of humanity. Beijing: A former Chinese automotive official suspected of corruption has returned home from New Zealand to "surrender" to the authorities, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday, as Beijing steps up efforts to repatriate fugitives. China's highly-publicised Sky Net operation to return corruption suspects who fled overseas is a crucial plank of President Xi Jinping's sweeping campaign to eradicate corruption. The long reach of Operation Fox Hunt: six accused fugitives are taken back to China under escort from Indonesia in June 2015. Credit:AP Loading Beijing has recently redoubled efforts to press corruption suspects who remain overseas to give themselves up, such as asking families to contact them and encourage them to return, and releasing personal details, such as their addresses. Iran on Wednesday welcomed a "change of tone" from Britain in the 13-day crisis over its seizure of 15 British sailors after Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed hope direct talks could solve the standoff. The new comments marked a distinct moderation in rhetoric between the two sides, raising hopes that there could be an end in sight to the row that has further poisoned relations between Iran and the West. "London's action in changing its propaganda tone regarding the issue of the arrest of the British sailors in our territorial waters is appropriate," Iran's parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel said as he left for Pakistan. "The effective measures taken by the British in the past few days make the tone of their rhetoric more logical and instead of controversy they are inclined towards negotiations," he added. "This is a more appropriate action," he said. Washington: US law enforcement officials on Friday were investigating a wave of hoax emailed bomb threats demanding bitcoin payment that caused worry but no damage in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A LL 1800W power unit supplying cryptocurrency mining machines at the SberBit mining 'hotel' in Moscow, Russia. Credit:Bloomberg On Thursday in North America, hundreds of businesses, government offices and schools received awkwardly-worded letters threatening to set off explosives if payments of $US20,000 in cryptocurrency were not received. The threats led to scattered evacuations of schools and transit stations before the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies dismissed them as lacking credibility. Hoax threats were received in cities including Washington, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Grand Rapids, Iowa, Denver, Ottawa and Calgary, Alberta. The simplest way to break the power of Facebook," he argues, "is breaking up Facebook." Wu thinks it was a historic mistake to allow Facebook to gobble up more than 70 other companies, most importantly the photo sharing app Instagram in 2012 and mobile messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. US regulators have not made their reasoning for those decisions public, but UK regulators did. They concluded that because Facebook did not have a photo taking app and Instagram did not have advertising revenue they were not competitors. It takes many years of training to reach conclusions this absurd," Wu writes scornfully. "A teenager could have told you that Facebook and Instagram were competitors. After all, teenagers were the ones who were switching platforms." Wu says the mergers could easily be reversed, and Facebook ordered to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. While Facebook might not like being dissolved, and might find the new competition unwelcome, it is hard to see what the great social cost, if any, would be, he argues. Loading Meanwhile, he says the benefits to society would be many. Breaking up Facebook would reduce the amount of user data that can be harvested and cross-referenced. It would also allow competitors with new business models and stricter privacy standards to emerge. Wu recalls that in the early days, the internet seemed too chaotic and anarchistic for monopolies to form. Powerhouses such as AOL, Netscape and MySpace rose and fell: giants one day, laughing stocks the next. But over time three big companies, Facebook, Amazon and Google, came to dominate the social media, online shopping and search industries respectively. It even became fashionable in Silicon Valley to argue that monopolies should be celebrated, not feared. PayPal founder Peter Thiel summed up the zeitgeist in a 2014 Wall Street Journal piece titled "Competition Is for Losers". While Wu thinks the tech sector is particularly ripe for break-ups, he argues that many sectors of the economy are too concentrated. In the US, for example, there are just three major airline companies and three regional cable television monopolies. Massive mergers have reduced the global seed and pesticide industry to just three players and the global beer industry has consolidated into a single global firm, controlling over 2000 beer brands from Budweiser to Corona to Stella Artois. Over lunch, I remark to Wu that this all feels very close to home. We are meeting on the day that Nine officially takes control of Fairfax Media, the previous owner of the Herald and The Age, and forms a massive new TV, radio and newspaper company. Wu primarily blames George W. Bush's administration for the massive corporate consolidation that has occurred in the US. But he says Barack Obama's administration where he worked for a short stint as an economic adviser - was too "risk averse" to prevent big mergers. "We let a lot of things go that we shouldnt have," he says. "A mistake Obama made in his first term was ingratiating himself with the establishment of the Democratic Party. He hired a lot of old-time Washington insiders, people who planned to go back to work for big corporations. They are not going to be very aggressive about taking on big business." Although smashing up America's biggest companies may sound radical, it isn't a new idea. In fact, Wu is trying to revive a long-lost American tradition. Taking on monopolies was central to the agenda of Theodore Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909. He ordered the break up of Standard Oil then largest private firm in the world into 34 constituent parts. He also forced the dissolution of a massive railroad trust into three separate firms. Roosevelt opposed monopolies not just on economic grounds but because he believed they undermined democracy. If firms became too powerful, they would overpower politicians and undermine the will of voters. But in later years that idea went out of fashion. A much stricter interpretation that mergers should only be blocked if they will increase prices took hold. The US government hasn't ordered a big corporate break-up since telephone company AT&T in 1982. But now the idea of government intervention seems to be coming back into vogue. "The ground is starting to shift on these issues," Wu says. "A lot of things are being re-examined." Opponents have labelled Wu and his fellow travellers as the "hipster antitrust movement" and say they advocate a populist, evidence-free approach to competition policy. "The drumbeat for this revolution is strong and growing, with a broad range of enthusiastic participants and devotees, including public intellectuals and think tankers, as well as prominent members of Congress," George Mason University law professor Joshua Wright and others wrote in a September paper. The Democratic Party's policy platform, A Better Deal, lists cracking down on corporate monopolies and the abuse of economic and political power as one of its key planks. And several potential presidential nominees, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are running hard on the issue. "I personally think a Democratic candidate who doesnt speak to these issues will not go anywhere in 2020," Wu says. "I expect private power excessive corporate domination of politics to be a litmus test for a lot of Democratic voters." PHILIPSBURG:--- PHILIPSBURG:--- Today, December 13, the Court handled the progress of the request from the Public Prosecutors Office (OM) to institute a civilian survey into the state of affairs within the Port of Sint Maarten. On the basis of information so far, the Public Prosecutors Office has reason to doubt a correct policy within the port. During this investigation, the Public Prosecutors Office requested documents and interviewed those involved. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board were also asked to respond. In view of the importance Land Sint Maarten has for a healthy and profitable port company, the Public Prosecutors office considers it necessary to conduct an investigation into the state of affairs of the port. This is not a criminal investigation, but a civil investigation into possible mismanagement. The law gives the Public Prosecutor the authority to request the Court to launch such a civil investigation in the interest of the public. During the hearing, all parties were given the opportunity to present the proposed measures for the port. In addition to the Public Prosecutor, there were also representatives of the port administration, the Supervisory Board and a lawyer for Country Sint Maarten. The court will pronounce the outcome of the request before or on 22 February 2019. MIAMI:--- The Caribbean's private sector has a unique opportunity to generate strong profits in the new year with the unprecedented quantity of airlift coming into the region. Director General and CEO of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), Frank Comito, encouraged regional stakeholders to get ready for what the association believes can be an especially strong winter season. "With new routes and upgraded aircraft announcements over recent months, market-savvy hoteliers are positioned to increase occupancy and generate additional business." Comito, whose team is preparing to host the 37th annual Caribbean Travel Marketplace, the Caribbean's largest tourism marketing event, in Montego Bay, Jamaica from January 29 to 31, 2019, said that while the 2017 storms affected year-over-year growth, with new, re-opening and upgraded hotels the region is poised for growth. Destinations which were impacted by the 2017 hurricanes are seeing a return to pre-2017 flight levels while many other destinations in the region are seeing increased service. "We are confident that hotels participating in Marketplace this January in Jamaica will be in a great position to promote their properties, especially with the added airlift," added Comito. JetBlue Airways is increasing its Mint service flights to the Caribbean. The CHTA chief executive cited JetBlue Airways' continued growth into the region with additional flights and upgraded Mint service starting in early 2019. Delta Air Lines is bumping up its service to The Bahamas; Kingston, Jamaica; St. Kitts and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Similarly, American Airlines has added capacity to Aruba, Bahamas, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, St. Kitts, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Turks and Caicos, and is increasing its service to Barbados, Curacao, Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and St. Lucia. Also on CHTA's radar are new Southwest flights to Cancun and the Mexican Caribbean; Grand Cayman; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; and Turks and Caicos. The airline is also expanding its service to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Copa Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Iberia, LATAM Airlines, Norwegian Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Sunwing, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are also extending their reach into the Caribbean. Comito noted that regional carriers are also undergoing considerable expansion and some are entering into new partner agreements, helping to improve connectivity, particularly to those destinations with fewer nonstop flights. Examples include the rapid expansion of InterCaribbean Airways flights, now covering 22 cities in 13 countries; Caribbean Airlines with more than 600 weekly flights; LIAT, which is teaming up with Air Antilles and Winair; and Seaborne Airlines, which was recently acquired by Silver Airways. These among other travel, tourism and hospitality trends will be discussed in Jamaica during Caribbean Travel Marketplace, which will attract hotel and destination representatives, including high-level executives and key decision makers; wholesalers and tour operators; online travel agencies; Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) planners; and members of the media for several days of business meetings, including a busy program of thousands of pre-scheduled appointments to expand their businesses. Comito explained that while demand for the region is strong, major investments in airport expansions were contributing to the growth in airlift, which bodes well for the destinations and travelers. Airports in Antigua, Bahamas and San Juan, Puerto Rico have recently benefited from upgrades, while those in Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Curacao and St. Maarten are under construction. Officials in Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Grenada, Haiti, Kingston, Martinique, St. Lucia and the U.S. Virgin Islands are each examining expansion plans. Caribbean Travel Marketplace 2019 is produced by CHTA in collaboration with co-hosts Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association, the Jamaica Tourist Board and the Jamaica Ministry of Tourism. It is the leading event in the Caribbean tourism industry where more than 1,000 delegates from 26 Caribbean countries meet with buyers from over 20 markets. This year's host sponsors are Interval International, Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association, Jamaica Tourist Board, JetBlue Vacations and MasterCard, while Platinum sponsors include Adara, AMResorts , Figment Design, Marketplace Excellence, OBMI, Sojern, STR, Travelzoo, and the United States Virgin Islands. Gold sponsors are Best Western International, Conde Nast Traveler, Delta Air Lines, Flip.to, HCP Media, Northstar Media, Prevue magazine, Rainmaker, Recommend magazine, SiteMinder, Simpleview, The New York Times, Travalliance Media, Travel Relations and TravPRO Mobile. The 2019 event is expected to have an increase in the number of buyers and suppliers and exciting new activities that will strengthen the connectivity between industry stakeholders. CAYHILL:--- Sounds of children singing Christmas carols brightened the atmosphere at the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) on December 11th, 2018. A group of 4th-grade students of the Asha Stevens Hillside Christian School brought the festive spirit to the hospital. The children treated staff and patients of the hospital to classic Christmas carols such as Jingle bells, Noel and Silent Night. The group was accompanied by their own, very talented drummer. SMMC General Director Kees Klarenbeek appreciated the students and teachers taking the time out of their day to deck the wards with joy and carols for patients and staff of the hospital to enjoy. Christmas is very much celebrated by our staff, patients, and visitors. It brings us all together to celebrate the joy and peace of the holiday season, Mr. Klarenbeek said. SMMC thanks the students for their wonderful rendition of these songs and the warmth of the holidays that they have brought to the hospital. PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Tourism & Economic Affairs, Transport & Telecommunications (Ministry TEATT) Stuart Johnson, says that the Government of Sint Maarten and in particular his Ministry and himself, are in full support of Windward Islands Airways International (Winair) expansion and growth plans currently underway. I would like to commend the Supervisory Board, Management and Staff of Winair, for their hard work and efforts currently underway and since the passing of Irma to turn things around for our local national airline. Winair has accomplished a lot during these challenging times that our nation finds itself in, however, the challenges acted as a motivation to put things in place and make sound-business decisions which has allowed the national airline to expand and grow. Management has been closely monitoring the airlines performance and noticed that seat inventory remained insufficient, and therefore took immediate action to meet the demands of the aviation-travelers market in order to accommodate customer needs. Winairs success is also founded in its relationships developed over the decades with destination partners and stakeholders in the northern and eastern Caribbean. We can look forward with confidence that the Staff, Management and Supervisory Board will continue to soar and connect by bringing people together and keeping family and friends in touch with each other especially during this festive time of the year. Hats off to Winairs Board, Management and Staff on a job well done, Minister Stuart Johnson said on Thursday. Winair announced an increase in flights to Haiti as of December 1, 2018, three times a week; and also upgrading to jet service using a Boeing 737, operated by Sunrise Airlines. The temporary jet service provides additional seat capacity of up to 133 seats per flight, serving Haiti for the holiday winter season. Winair has also introduced additional capacity from December 1, 2018 to January 15, 2019 to Curacao four times per week using a 72-seater aircraft. Services to Aruba three times a week have also been upgraded to the new Super ATR-72 along with a service to Bonaire one time per week. Winair is also increasing services between Sint Maarten and the Dominican Republic to a daily basis using the Super ATR-72 and its services to Dominica will increase from four to five weekly. The national airlines in November received its 4th Twin Otter aircraft that will increase the airlines airlift for the 2018-2019 high tourist season. Winair expects increased demand for flights to and from its hub at the Princess Juliana International Airport. Winair has grown by leaps and bounds since September 2017, and its plans for expansion and growth demonstrates the determination of this little airline which assures us that Winair is on track after making a remarkable comeback, Minister of Tourism & Economic Affairs Stuart Johnson concludes. PHILIPSBURG:--- The House of Parliament will sit in a plenary public meeting on Friday, December 14, 2018. The Minister of Finance will be present. The plenary public meeting which was adjourned on September 26, 2,018 will be reconvened on Friday at 15.00 hrs. in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg. The agenda point is: 1. Ontwerp van Landsverordening tot wijziging van de Algemene Landsverordening landsbelastingen in verband met internationale verplichtingen (IS/350/2017-2018 d.d. 23 februari 2018) (ZJ 2017-2018-106) (National Ordinance to amend the General National Ordinance Land Taxes in connection with international obligations) Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations. The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg. The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 115, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.sxmparliament.org, www.pearlfmradio.com and Parliaments Facebook page: Parliament of Sint Maarten. PHILIPSBURG:--- Each year the Parliament of Sint Maarten makes an effort to bring good cheers to the public of Sint Maarten in some form. This year six grade students of the Oranje School, St. Joseph School and Sister Borgia School were treated to a Christmas breakfast. The event, which took place at the House of Parliament on Thursday, December 13, 2018, had over 80 students joined by their respective teachers in attendance. Each school gave a short performance, in the form of a song, poetry or dance, thereafter the students were served breakfast by the Members of Parliament. After enjoying their breakfast, the students then joined the Members of Parliament that were present in singing Christmas carols. As a token of appreciation in helping to make this event possible, each school was presented with a group picture of their respective students. The pictures were taken upon their arrival at the House of Parliament. COLE BAY:--- The Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunset welcomed District Governor Patrick Adizua and his wife, Lesline Adizua, to their general meeting on Monday 10, 2018. This was the first time that the club received such an honorable visit since being chartered on July 30, 2018. One of the District Governors core responsibilities is to visit all clubs in the district to provide support, deliver the RI Presidents message, and present an update on district goals. During the meeting, the clubs committee chairs discussed upcoming projects and activities with the members. President of the Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunset, Jaida Nisbett, reflected on the journey of the club, its membership and projects that were carried out since being chartered. President Jaida also took advantage of the opportunity to discuss the goals and future plans of the club. DG Patrick delivered a profound message to the members, highlighting the importance of friendship and partnership. He commended the club for their persistence, gaining a strong membership base of 41 members and executing effective projects. DG Patrick expressed his excitement for being a part of the clubs charter ceremony and installation of the charter president, board and members of the club. DG Patrick also presented Rotary International and District 7020 theme pins to all members. Thanks to Sint Maarten Guavaberry and Laser It, President Jaida presented DG Patrick and Lesline Adizua with a beautiful customized wooden cutout of St. Martin and a customized bottle on Guavaberry rum on behalf of the club. Amongst invited guests were District Governor Nominee Designate, Louis Wever, his wife Amanda Wever and Assistant Governor, Marcellia Henry. The night came to an end with fellowship and the opportunity for club members to capture memorable moments with DG Patrick. The members of the Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunset would like to thank DG Patrick and his wife for their visit to the club and look forward to the rest of the Rotary year 2018-2019 under their leadership. Harbour View:--- On December 14, 2018, His Excellency Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, Secretary-General and Chief Executive Officer of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) paid a courtesy visit to the Governor of Sint Maarten His Excellency Eugene B. Holiday. During this visit cooperation in the Caribbean region and the role and position of country Sint Maarten within CARICOM and its organizations was discussed. Governor Holiday emphasized that through the region the shared cultural and geographic characteristics and shared challenges provide a good base for cooperation and therefor for the wellbeing of the Caribbean people. Meyer Burger awarded first large-scale contract with a leading PV manufacturer for 600 MW Heterojunction and SmartWire technologies for CHF 74 million Posted by Publisher Internet Meyer Burger Technology Ltd (SIX Swiss Exchange: MBTN) signed a major strategic contract for its Heterojunction (HJT) and SmartWire Connection Technology (SWCT?). A leading non-Chinese solar company has ordered core equipment for a 600 MW Heterojunction and SWCT? integrated production line. With this order, the customer has chosen today?s most advanced industrialized PV manufacturing platform in order to achieve solar modules with leading-edge Watt performance.Initial delivery will begin in the first quarter of 2019 with the start of cell and module production planned in the second half of 2019. The total manufacturing capacity is scheduled to be in full production by the first quarter of 2020. In total, the contract is worth around CHF 74 million. For Hans Brandle, CEO of Meyer Burger, this agreement is game-changing: ?This strategically important order from a well-established and highly respected cell module manufacturer is a real breakthrough. It not only confirms our technology leadership but also substantially strengthens the market acceptance and credibility for our Heterojunction and SmartWire technologies.? Cutting edge technologies for solar cell production Heterojunction (HJT) cell technology combines the benefits of crystalline silicon solar cells with those of thin film technologies. It enables solar cells to achieve markedly higher efficiencies. Due to the superior light yield and outstanding passivation properties of amorphous silicon, cell efficiencies in excess of 24% can be attained. Further benefits arise from the relatively simple and economically attractive low-temperature manufacturing concept which requires fewer production steps and reduces energy consumption. The high cell efficiency and lower temperature coefficient also contribute to the significantly increased electricity yield of HJT modules compared to modules with conventional silicon solar cells. SmartWire cell connection technology (SWCT?) maximizes the energy yield of HJT solar modules and is the perfect combination for an industrialised, highly efficient PV mass production line. The SmartWire method of connecting cells employs an innovative foil-wire electrode which reduces the amount of silver used for each heterojunction solar module by more than 50%, for PV module manufacturers. With its dense wire contact matrix, SWCT? modules easily satisfy the increased demands for energy generation placed on today?s high-efficiency Heterojunction solar cells. Business update Overall the market for PV equipment remains challenging, and margin pressure seen for standard PV business solutions underscores the importance of the transformation programme which was announced on 16 October 2018, and makes an increased outsourcing of Meyer Burger?s manufacturing capacity to China all the more important. For the fiscal year 2018 Meyer Burger confirms net sales within its published guidance range of CHF 400 to 440 million. EBITDA including restructuring costs is expected to be in the higher single digit percentage range (earlier EBITDA guidance 2018 around 10%). Meyer Burger confirms its previous expectation that once the transformation program is completed, the breakeven level at net earnings can be reached with a net sales volume of about CHF 250 million (as of FY 2021). THIS PRESS RELEASE IS NOT BEING ISSUED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND SHOULD NOT BE DISTRIBUTED TO U.S. PERSONS OR PUBLICATIONS WITH A GENERAL CIRCULATION IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OR INVITATION TO SUBSCRIBE FOR, EXCHANGE OR PURCHASE ANY SECURITIES. IN ADDITION, THE SECURITIES OF MEYER BURGER TECHNOLOGY LTD HAVE NOT BEEN AND WILL NOT BE REGISTERED UNDER THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, AS AMENDED (THE ?SECURITIES ACT?), OR ANY STATE SECURITIES LAWS AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED, SOLD OR DELIVERED WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. PERSONS ABSENT REGISTRATION UNDER OR AN APPLICABLE EXEMPTION FROM THE REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES LAWS. This press release may contain ?forward-looking statements?, such as guidance, expectations, plans, intentions, or strategies regarding the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. The reader is cautioned that actual future results may differ from those expressed in or implied by the statements, which constitute projections of possible developments. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based on data available to Meyer Burger Technology Ltd as of the date that this press release is published. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Meyer Burger is a leading global technology company specialising on innovative systems and processes based on semiconductor technologies. The company\-\-s focus is on photovoltaics (solar industry) while its competencies and technologies also cover important areas of the semiconductor and the optoelectronic industries as well as other selected high-end markets based on semiconductor materials. As an international premium brand, Meyer Burger offers its customers in the PV industry superior products and innovative solutions for the manufacturing processes of wafers, solar cells and solar modules. The company provides substantial added value to its customers and clearly differentiates itself from its competitors by focusing on core technologies of the value chain. Meyer Burger\-\-s comprehensive product portfolio is complemented by a worldwide service network with spare parts, consumables, process know-how, customer support, after-sales services, training and other services. Meyer Burger is represented in Europe, Asia and North America in the respective key markets and has subsidiaries and own service centres in China, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Taiwan and the USA. The company is also working intensively to develop new markets such as South America, Africa and the Arab region. The registered shares of Meyer Burger Technology Ltd are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (Ticker: MBTN). Bechtle publishes Vision 2030 Posted by Publisher Internet Bechtle AG today introduced its Vision 2030 to supersede its previous Vision 2020, which it first made public ten years ago. It is the fourth Vision in the 35-year history of the Neckarsulm-based IT company, which boasts branches in 14 European countries, and succeeds its Visions 2000, 2010, and 2020. With the new Vision, Bechtle has set its sights on a revenue mark of 10?bn euros with an EBT margin of 5 per cent, formulating a claim to market leadership and above-market growth. Vision 2030 is the first in the series to carry a title, ?Bechtle: Integrate IT. Architect the future.? to tie in with the company?s future-driven brand essence, ?zukunftsstark?. Bechtle?s Vision 2030 carries on the tradition of a 12-year outlook setting out some ambitious goals, which Bechtle has consistently achieved since its very first Vision published in 1988. Either ahead of time, such as the recent threshold of 10,000 employees as formulated in Vision 2020; a year late, such as the revenue mark laid down in Vision 2010; or bang on target, such as the 2000 IPO projected in 1988. ?It?s exactly in times like these, characterised by speed, volatility, uncertainty, complexity and constant change, that successful companies have to have a vision. Our Vision 2030 gives us direction and provides guidelines and orientation beyond our daily, quarterly or annual business,? says Dr Thomas Olemotz, CEO, Bechtle AG. Vision 2030 has been in the making throughout the year 2018, which saw the Executive Board?s original draft undergo multiple reviews and revisions involving select teams of employees from a great variety of business units. The three members of the Executive Board introduced the new Vision to all 10,000 employees in a webcast on 14 December 2018. ?Vision 2030 formulates a goal that is realistic to attain, that will spur them on and that merits the work we put into it. It?s not just a far-off peak we?re asking them to climb; it?s one we?re going to reach together. And embarking on this journey together is something that we are absolutely allowed to enjoy, just as reaching our defined goals should make us proud of our success,? says Dr Thomas Olemotz. Find out more on?https://vision.bechtle.com. VISION 2030. Bechtle: Integrate IT. Architect the future. We empower business. We understand our customers and deliver future-oriented IT to drive their success. IT is our passion. We are professionals. We strive to excel and we have what it takes. Bechtle is a place where great people accomplish great things. Growth and foresight underpin our success. We are able to build a sound future for Bechtle by pursuing sustained profitability. An EBT margin of 5 per cent or more gives us the freedom to invest while safeguarding our security and independence. We aspire to lead the market. We focus on IT markets where we can carve out a leading position. Our growth is above market with our sights set on a revenue mark of 10 billion euros. Bechtle AG is one of Europe\-\-s leading IT providers, with some 70 systems integrators in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as e-commerce subsidiaries in 14 European countries. Founded in 1983, the company is headquartered in the southern German town of Neckarsulm and currently employs over 10,000 people. Bechtle provides more than 70,000 customers from the industrial, trade, financial and public sectors with a comprehensive, vendorneutral portfolio that covers all aspects of IT infrastructure and operation. Bechtle is listed on the MDAX and TecDAX indexes. In 2017, the company generated revenues of around 3.6 billion euros. 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. The system encrypts and stores these numeric codes in a SQL database. For the sake of convenience and cost savings, the video server CPU performs all neural network processes without requiring any special GPU cards. Unique digital identifiers The next step involves correlating faces captured in a video recording with their unique digital descriptors on file. The system can compare newly captured images against large databases of known individuals or faces captured from video streams. Face recognition technology can provide multi-factor authentication, searching watchlists for specific types of features, such as age, hair colour, gender, ethnicity, facial hair, glasses, headwear, and other identifying characteristics including bald spots. Robust encryption SED-compatible drives rely on dedicated chips that encrypt data with AES-128 or AES-256 To support privacy concerns, the entire system features an encrypted and secure login process that prevents unauthorized access to both the database and the archive. An additional layer of encryption is available through the use of Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs) that hold video recordings and metadata. SED-compatible drives rely on dedicated chips that encrypt data with AES-128 or AES-256 (short for Advanced Encryption Standard). Anti-spoofing safeguards How do face recognition systems handle people who try to trick the system by wearing a costume mask or holding up a picture to hide their faces? FaceX from ISS, for example, includes anti-spoofing capabilities that essentially check for the "liveliness" of a given face. The algorithm can easily flag the flat, two-dimensional nature of a face mask, printed photo, or image on a mobile phone and issue a "spoof" alarm. 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. Courtesy of Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA) You know how important everyone agreed passage of the Farm Bill was for the lame duck, right? A must pass bi-partisan bill. The murderous GOP took advantage of that and slipped a little clause into the rule for the bill that denies a vote on the Yemen resolution. Pete Sessions (R-TX) is the chairman of the Rules Committee, but he was beaten in the election and his miserable career in politics is over, so he's leaving at least knowing that thousands of Yemeni civilians will die horrible deaths because of him-- Pete Sessions big accomplishment. And, of course, Liz Cheney (R-WY) is a big mover and shaker on that committee... a chip off the old block. The rule passed 206-203 , probably as much Paul Ryan's and Kevin McCarthy's fault as Pete Sessions'. Although 18 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats, it was 5 conservative Democrats crossing in the other direction that ensured more children in Yemen would die. These 5 murderous assholes: Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA) Colin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) David Scott (Blue Dog-GA) Al Lawson (New Dem-FL) Dutch Ruppersberger (MD) It's worth noting that if 4 of these pro-genocide Democrats are defeated in primaries, their districts will certainly stay in the Democratic column. Their seats are all safely blue, which makes their treachery even more odious. David Scott's seat is D+20, Al Lawson's is D+12, Dutch Ruppwersberg's is D+11 and Jim Costa's is D+9. This is a deceptive tweet; it covers up the fact that the GOP margin of victory was supplied by the Blue Dog Caucus Generally speaking, I get a very positive response when I write about why real Democrats have to be wary of the faux Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the New Dems and Blue Dogs. But this is why. The GOP can always depend on conservative shit-heads like these 4 in any tight vote. We're talking about genocide here-- thousands and thousands of Yemeni civilians being killed and conservatives with the help of these 5 just successfully prevented a vote on the issue by backing an "unrelated" technicality. But the response isn't always positive. Low-info readers often have no clue what I'm talking about. To them it's a "purity test" or it's an attack on what they perceive as their tribe (or blue color). I'm so proud that the Blue America PAC starts every cycle by working to primary the worst Democraps and if it brings anguish to the hearts of establishment Dems, all the better. This year we are working furiously to find primary opponents for Colin Peterson and Jim Costa. And, yes, I know-- believe me, I know-- that if Peterson is defeated in the primary, the seat goes to a Republican. So, tell it to a Yemeni mother who just lost her 3 children. The Hill covered the news (which is meant to be and will be utterly ignored by the mainstream media: This is howcovered the news (which is meant to be and will be utterly ignored by the mainstream media: House GOP blocks lawmakers from forcing Yemen war votes for rest of year House Republicans have officially blocked lawmakers from forcing a vote on all resolutions for the remainder of the year that attempt to use the War Powers Act to cut off U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The move came during a vote on a rule for floor debate of the farm bill. The rule passed on a largely party-line 206-203 vote. Five Democrats voted with Republicans to approve the rule, while 18 Republicans voted against the rule. Tucked into the bottom of the rule is provision that says privilege shall not apply during the remainder of the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress to a concurrent resolution introduced pursuant to... the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544) with respect to Yemen." Privilege is what allows lawmakers to force votes, meaning the rule effectively dooms any chances of the House voting on the issue at all this year. The House move comes as the Senate is poised to approve a resolution that uses the War Powers Act to force the withdrawal any U.S. troops in or affecting Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda. ... Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) recently reintroduced his war powers resolution for Yemen with the hope that Senate passage with Republican support could pressure House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to allow a vote. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was helping gather Republican support. On Wednesday, Khanna called the move to strip privilege from all Yemen War Powers resolutions unprecedented. Speaker Ryan is preventing Congress from conducting our constitutional duty and once again, breaking the rules of the House, he said in a statement. Massie added on the House floor that the move violates both the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. Just when you thought Congress couldnt get any swampier, he said, we continue to exceed even the lowest expectation. This afternoon, Bernie's Yemen Resolution passed the Senate with a healthy bipartisan majority, 56-41 . Every Democrat voted YES and they were joined by Susan Collins (R-ME), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Todd Young (R-IN). 3 Republican didn't vote, including the cowardly Lindsey Graham. Ted Lieu (D-CA), who was the first member of Congress to ever start the Yemen discussion-- back when it was Obama screwing up, not Trump-- told me today, at around the same time that Bernie was passing his resolution in the Senate, that "It is truly unconscionable that Republican leaders in the House are preventing us from taking an important vote to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen-- a vote that would likely pass in the House. U.S. military personnel should not be aiding and abetting potential war crimes in Yemen. For more than three and a half years I have been trying to get answers from two different Administrations in the disaster unfolding there. When Democrats are in control we will vote to end U.S. involvement in this tragic conflict, which is causing a humanitarian crisis for millions of innocent civilians in Yemen." Meanwhile, yesterday there were 2 votes in the Senate on Bernie's bill calling for the U.S. to stop participating in the assault against Yemen. "The Saudi intervention in Yemen," Bernie told his colleagues, "has created the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, with millions of people facing imminent starvation. The time is long overdue for the United States to stop following the lead of Saudi Arabia, a brutal regime that recently murdered a dissident journalist and has no respect for human rights. Further, and importantly, the Senate must reassert its constitutional authority and end our support of this unauthorized and unconstitutional war." First came a motion to proceed, which is where the GOP tried to stop the bill. It passed 60-39 , with every Democrat voting yes, joined by 11 Republicans-- Mike Lee (UT), Rand Paul (KY), Jeff Flake (AZ), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mike Crapo (ID), Steve Daines (MT), Todd Young (IN), Bill Cassidy (LA), Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Jim Risch (ID). Then a point of order: "Is the Underlying Point of Order Well Taken that Amendments Under Section 50 U.S.C. 1546a be Germane to the Underlying Joint Resolution?" That passed 96-3 , only Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) voting no. Betty Wiggins, second from left, with friends at Duncan United Methodist Church. From left are Louise Walters, Betty Wiggins, Norma Bruorton, Blanche McClary, Rev. Ben Gafford, Roberta Cox and Virginia Taylor. Georgetown, SC (29440) Today Mostly clear. Low around 30F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low around 30F. Winds light and variable. Photo of Sir Richard Branson speaking to AFP during an interview before the official unveiling of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, the world's first commercial manned spacecraft, at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California on December 7, 2009. Richard Branson is a British entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies, including a private spaceflight venture, Virgin Galactic. Branson has a reputation as a risk-taker and self-promoter. He has arrived at press conferences in spacesuits; drove a tank on New York's Fifth Avenue; crossed the English Channel in an amphibious car; and base jumped from the top of a hotel. And for his latest stunt, he aims to fly to space this Sunday (July 11) aboard the company's VSS Unity space plane. Branson is heavily involved in his companies and serves as their key spokesperson, often appearing in his companies commercials. As a business person, Branson seeks to catch trends just as they are beginning. He registered the Virgin Galactic name in 1999, while the Ansari X-Prize for suborbital spaceflight was still under way. And as an unapologetic stuntman, Branson initially signed himself and his children up for the company's first commercial flight into space before deciding to join this month's landmark test flight. Early life Branson had an entrepreneurial bent from a young age, which initially defied the wishes of his father. Ted Branson told his son to be a lawyer. "Later, I felt awful because I had said to him just what my father had said to me. So, the next weekend, I walked him up and down the lawn once again and told him to forget everything I'd said," Branson's father reportedly said, according to a 2011 obituary in the Daily Telegraph, But the younger Branson had other goals in mind. He dropped out of high school and launched a music business in 1972. He reportedly gave it the name "Virgin" because most of his employees were new to business. "In 1977, we signed the Sex Pistols and we went on to sign many household names from Culture Club to the Rolling Stones, helping to make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world," Branson wrote in his blog's autobiography. Over the decades, Branson added Virgin-branded businesses in fields such as aerospace, mobile phones, cosmetics and trains. For his "services to entrepreneurship," Branson was knighted by Prince Charles in 2000. Branson's interest in space also started early. He was just 19 when Apollo 11 touched down on the moon. According to Virgin Galactic's website, Branson watched the landings on televisionalong with his family. He "determined that he too will one day experience the wonder of space," Virgin Galactic wrote. However, getting to space would require a shift in technology and deep pockets on the part of Branson. As of March 2012, Forbes estimates Branson has a fortune of $4.2 billion from his various ventures. The technology changes simply took time. Sir Richard Branson hangs out a window of his full size SpaceShipTwo replica holding a scale model of LauncherOne. (Image credit: Farnborough International) Space inspiration In 1995, commercial rocket launching for satellites was still a young industry, and human spaceflight appeared to be a long way off unless you were working for a government agency. Still, Branson was mulling over how to get humans into space. According to Virgin Galactic, Branson had a conversation with Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin concerning what technology would be best. The two reportedly agreed that sending the spacecraft up from a plane launch rather than from the ground would be both cheaper and safer. Branson then directed Virgin employees to keep an eye on the advances of space technology. Fast-forward to 1996, and the market began to change. The Ansari X-Prize was launched in a quest to award $10 million to the first non-governmental organization able to send a reusable spacecraft with people aboard into space twice in two weeks. Branson registered the "Virgin Galactic" name in 1999 as he was searching for technology that could bring his brand into space. The X Prize Three years later, Branson figured he had found a winner. Some of his employees excitedly told him about Scaled Composites, which was building SpaceShipOne to compete for the X-Prize. Scaled Composites was then solely receiving financing from Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft. Branson quickly agreed to work with Allen's firm, Mojave Aerospace Ventures, to license SpaceShipOne's technology in preparation for a commercial fleet of spacecraft. In late September 2004, Branson announced that Virgin would sponsor the SpaceShipOne X-Prize flights. Not only that, but if Scaled Composites won, Virgin was prepared to back the company's construction of commercial spacecraft. "Virgin Galactic was now in a position to commence a program of work that would result in the world's first affordable space tourist flights in two to three years' time," the company announced. Registrations opened immediately. Within days, the X-Prize competition was over. SpaceShipOne safely returned to Earth for the second time on Oct. 4, 2004. It was time to get to work on that spaceline. SpaceShipOne, with Brian Binnie at the controls, flew the second suborbital flight in one weeks time in 2004 to capture the $10 million Ansari X Prize flight purse. (Image credit: Brian Binnie/Mike Mills) Accidents and delays In December 2005, the state of New Mexico officially offered Virgin Galactic a taxpayer-funded $225 million facility, called Spaceport America, where the company could put its world headquarters and run test flights and spaceflights. Construction and development occupied Virgin's attention in the following years. But spaceflight, and especially human-rated spaceflight, is a complicated business. A fatal explosion and development delays pushed back the date for crewed spaceflight several times. Throughout the delays, Branson has projected a positive image of spaceflight. His customers have hung on; only a few have backed out of the project, and there are at least 530 people who have made deposits for their $200,000 ticket to space. Branson has also delivered regular updates of progress, often traveling to see the spacecraft as it takes shape. He periodically invites the paying customers of Virgin Galactic to take part in events, or to attend press conferences, to both keep them posted and to offer the vision of customer support. Related: How Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo works (infographic) The first rocket-powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo took place in April 2013 and another followed in September 2013, then another in January 2014. Each flight went well, with Enterprise zooming high in the sky faster than the speed of sound. But tragedy struck during the fourth rocket-powered flight, on Oct. 31, 2014, when the vehicle broke apart. The incident killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold. A blog post from Branson in early January 2015 said he briefly had doubts about whether it was a good idea to continue with SpaceShipTwo's development after the crash but his commitment was renewed when he returned to California's Mojave Desert. Richard Branson, center, arrives with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, right, at an event commemorating the completion of the Virgin Galactic Spaceport America runway in Upham, New Mexico, U.S., on Friday, Oct. 22, 2010. (Image credit: Getty/Bloomberg) Spaceflight The company continued with a series of unpowered glide test flights, which means the spacecraft is released from its carrier ship and glides to the ground (including a 2017 successful first test of the new re-entry system) until April 5, 2018, when the company turned on the engines of a SpaceShipTwo vehicle for the first time in 3.5 years. This powered flight saw VSS Unity soar to a maximum altitude of 84,271 feet (25,686 m). During its descent, the crew successfully deployed the feathering system before touching down safely on the spaceport runway. "@virgingalactic back on track," Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson tweeted after the test. "Successful powered flight, Mach 1.6. Data review to come, then on to the next flight. Space feels tantalizingly close now." In February of 2021, Virgin Galactic announced that, although additional test flights were subject to further delays, the company plans to take its first tourists to space in early 2022. In the same announcement the company unveiled its first SpaceShip III, the next generation of its tourist vehicles that is intended to begin testing alongside the launch of the VSS Unity's first commercial flights. Additional resources Visit the Virgin Galactic official website. Check out Spaceport America's website. Watch videos from Virgin Galactic on their YouTube channel. This article was updated on July 8, 2021 by Space.com Reference Editor Kimberly Hickok. The U.S. Mint has struck its first 2019 Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins, to go on sale to the public on Jan. 24, 2019. Seen here, a curved 5 ounce $1 silver proof coin. PHILADELPHIA, Pa. The U.S. Mint has struck its initial coins commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. You could say it was one small strike for the Mint, one not-so-giant press for Apollo history. The coins were stamped as part of a "first strike" ceremony held Thursday (Dec. 13) at the Mint's Philadelphia facility. In attendance were Mark Armstrong, Andy Aldrin and Ann Starr, representing their respective fathers, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. [Apollo 11 Moon Landing Pictures] "We are proud that the Mint will be producing and issuing these beautiful coins in recognition and celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing," said David Ryder, director of the U.S. Mint. "Here we are in the largest mint in the world and though it may not involve rocket science, we think you will be impressed with the extraordinary effort by the men and women of the U.S. Mint who have taken this coin from idea to reality." The coins, which will be sold to the public beginning Jan. 24, 2019, in gold, silver and clad metal, are only the second in the Mint's history to be curved one side is domed, the other side shaped like a bowl. "These coins are a bit unique, with a distinct curve that you will be able to see and feel," said Ryder. The coins' reverse, or tail's side, is convex, resembling the outward curve of an astronaut's helmet and feature a design based on an iconic photograph of Buzz Aldrin's visor, showing the Apollo 11 lunar module "Eagle," the American flag and Neil Armstrong on the moon's surface. The obverse, or head's side, is concave, curving inward to the engraved image of Aldrin's boot print in lunar soil. The design also features the names of the three NASA human spaceflight programs that led up to the first moon landing: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The Mint's sale of the commemorative coins will benefit the Astronauts Memorial Foundation, the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's "Destination Moon" gallery, scheduled to open in 2022. U.S. Mint director David Ryder, at podium, speaks at the first strike ceremony for the 2019 Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins at the Mint's Philadelphia facility, Dec. 13, 2018. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com) "This is a big day," said Curt Brown, a former space shuttle commander and the chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. "It is not every day you get to come down and make money. The last time I was this excited was the morning that I launched on my first shuttle mission." Representatives from each of the benefit organizations, including Sheryl Chaffee, vice chair of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation and the daughter of Apollo 1 astronaut Roger Chaffee, and Christopher Browne, deputy director of the National Air and Space Museum, were invited by the Mint to step up to a large press and strike a coin. Also joining them representing NASA was the space agency's chief financial officer, Jeff DeWit. Ryder said the Mint is working with NASA to arrange for one of the coins to fly in space, adding to the $14.51 in change that has previously been launched on missions into Earth orbit on the space shuttle, to the surface of Mars on board the Curiosity rover and to the farthest reaches of our solar system's planetary system on the New Horizons probe. "So you see," explained Ryder, "the Mint has had a history of space coins that only seems fitting to continue." The Apollo 11 50th anniversary commemorative coins are the fourth time that the U.S. Mint has honored the first moon landing on coins it has struck. The 1971 Eisenhower dollar (and later 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollar) featured the Apollo 11 mission patch on its reverse. The Ohio state quarter issued in 2002 included a depiction of an Apollo astronaut, representing Neil Armstrong. And the 2011 New Frontier medal reproduced the design of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. U.S. Mint director David Ryder with Ann (Collins) Starr, daughter of Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins; Andy Aldrin, son of Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin; and Mark Armstrong, son of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, hold Apollo 11 50th anniversary coins. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com) As authorized by Congress, the Mint will strike up to 50,000 gold coins, no more than 400,000 silver dollar coins, no more than 750,000 clad half dollar coins and up to 100,000 five-ounce silver proof coins. Ryder said he hopes the 2019 commemorative coins continue to inspire the public to celebrate and remember the moon landing. "Each time a person looks at one of these commemorative coins, it will serve as a reminder of the unprecedented engineering, scientific and political achievement that secured our nation's leadership in space for generations," said Ryder. See more photos of the newly-struck U.S. Mint Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins at collectSPACE. Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2018 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved. STAMFORD People who grabbed an Uber here this year likely were headed for the mall, a South End restaurant, or a downtown hotel. Ride-sharing service Uber has released a list of its most popular destinations in the city for 2018, and the Stamford Town Center on Greyrock Place came in at No. 1. It was followed by Sign of the Whale, a restaurant in the Harbor Point development, and the Sheraton Stamford Hotel on East Main Street. No. 4 on the list was Brother Jimmy's BBQ, a Bedford Street restaurant with the slogan, Put Some South in Yo Mouth. Target department store on Broad Street, which is part supermarket, was No. 5. After that comes five restaurants The Cheesecake Factory on Tresser Boulevard, attached to the mall; Brick House Bar & Grill on Bedford Street; Hudson Grille on Bedford Street; Barcelona Wine Bar on Summer Street; and Tigin Irish Pub on Bedford Street. The list shows Uber users in Stamford usually head downtown nine of the top-10 destinations are there. Uber, founded in San Francisco in 2009, annually releases its most common ride destinations, and this year included Stamford. Use has increased markedly in Stamford since the company launched the service here in 2014. In 2016, the company started UberEATS, offering food delivery from more than three dozen Stamford restaurants, which pay the company a fee per delivery. The same year, Uber began to offer a scheduled-ride service. It allows users to book trips 30 minutes to 30 days in advance. Last year, Uber opened Connecticuts first resource center for drivers on West Avenue in Stamford. The company this week released destination data for another Connecticut city, Hartford. That list is similar to Stamfords in that it was dominated by restaurants and stores. The top trips for Uber riders in Hartford were to Walmart, the University of Hartford, and a mall. The rest included three restaurants, a hospital, and one of the citys big insurance companies. Uber also put out a wider-ranging list riders top-10 tourist destinations around the globe. The first two were in New York the Empire State Building and the Freedom Tower followed by the CN Tower in Toronto. Next came two Paris destinations, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, followed by Dubais Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest skyscraper. Dubai is such a sightseeing destination that it also has UberChopper, a helicopter ride service. Londons Buckingham Palace was No. 7 on the tourist list, followed by Disneyland in California, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Uber operates in more than 600 cities worldwide. The United States is its biggest market, according to the companys website. Users usually order a car from an app on their cellphones. The app displays a map showing the user where the Uber car is waiting. Payment is electronic. According to Ubers website, four types of service are offered. A regular ride starts at $6. For a group, it starts at $9. The fare for a ride in a luxury car starts at $12, and for a luxury SUV, $14. Besides the flat fee, users are charged a cost per minute. As an example, a person headed to the Stamford mall from the middle of Hope Street in Springdale, the citys geographic center, would cost $10 to $13 for the basic service. Its a trip of 3.5 miles that usually takes 14 minutes, according to Ubers website. The higher-level services would range from $15 to $34. In Connecticut and elsewhere, taxi companies have fought Uber, Lyft and similar services with lawsuits and by lobbying legislatures, saying their industry is heavily regulated but ride-sharing companies were allowed to operate without rules. Last year, Connecticuts General Assembly passed a law that requires ride-sharing companies to register annually with the state Department of Transportation; obtain background checks on drivers and ban those with certain criminal convictions; provide identification for drivers and cars; post fares, including the ones that spike when demand is high; certify vehicles for safety; and obtain insurance. acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296. The relationship between bees and cannabis is making headlines in both the scientific and entrepreneurial world. And it just may be a match made in heaven. Case in points: A recent experiment shows that hemp may produce a needed pollen source for stressed-out bees. And an Israeli company is marketing honey made by bees who are fed cannabidiols. Both represent unusual bee-related stories, even by the standards of an insect that has provided many strage stories and unsolved mysteries through the years. The good news for bees is that the marijuana industry may provide them a needed source of pollen. The good news for the marijuana industry is that bees may give it a hot new product. Related: State of the Marijuana Union 2018 Bees and Hemp A researcher in Colorado recently found that bees have visited hemp fields in the Rocky Mountain State, apparently using the plants as a source of pollen during the late-summer months. In a paper delivered in November at an entomology conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Colton OBrien, a student at Colorado State University, reported that representatives of 23 bee species living in Colorado had been caught in traps in the hemp fields during a one month experiment in August. The project was essentially started because of an observation: You walk through fields and you hear buzzing everywhere, OBrien said at the conference. He even named his paper, What is with all the buzzing? To find out why OBrien conducted the study at two experimental hemp farms in northern Colorado where hemp flowers between late July and early September. The flowering falls during a time when other crops have completed their blooming periods, leading to a lack of nutritional sources for pollinators such as bees. This can lead to bees becoming stressed as they try to find pollen sources. Bees need pollen to feed their young. Enter hemp. While hemp plants do not produce nectar, they do produce a wealth of pollen. Thus, hemp becomes a valuable pollen source for foraging bees, giving it the potential to have a strong ecological value, the report stated. OBrien and his team recommended that better pest control policies be put into place for hemp, given its potential importance for maintaining the health of bees -- an area of concern for many years among researchers. But when it comes to bees helping cannabis, things get weirder than that. Related: The World Health Organization Won't Reschedule Cannabis. Should We Care? Meet the Cannabeez In 2016, a French beekeeper trained bees to make honey using the resin from the cannabis plant, according to Science Explorer. Nicolas Trainer, a marijuana advocate who has used medical marijuana to deal with hyperactivity since he was a child, became interested in combining the health benefits of honey with those of cannabis. Over time, he trained some of his bees to collect resin from cannabis and use it in their beehive. Eventually, the bees used the cannabis resin in the beehives and made what he calls cannahoney. He believes the cannahoney might even be better than other marijuana products. Everything that passes through the body of a bee is improved, he told the Science Explorer. Thats the same stance being taken by PhytoPharma, an Israeli company that has developed what it calls cannabeez." According to a recent article by Sara Brittany Somerset in Forbes, the bees are fed a low amount of cannabidiols and then produce honey that has, according to the company, the health benefits of CBD-infused items without the infused part. Instead, its created entirely by bees. The product offers pain relief, sleep support and stress and anxiety alleviation, according to PhytoPharma, without the intoxicating effects or chemical interference. Follow dispensaries.com on Instagram to stay up to date on the latest cannabis news. Related: WeWork Opens a Startup Incubator Friday Flashback: Tencent Music Targets Spotify by Debuting on NYSE How This 19-year-old Actress Topped Google India's 2018 Trends List with a Wink Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com V ictoria Beckham has appealed for your help to cut the number of women who are contracting HIV in Africa in the second 12 Days of Christmas message for the Evening Standard's AIDSfree campaign. The former Spice Girl and fashion designer has highlighted the disproportionate numbers as she showed her support for the AIDSfree appeal, which is raising money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation to boost awareness of HIV and fund access to testing and treatment, both in the UK and abroad. Beckham said: In Sub-Saharan Africa women are more than twice as likely to get HIV than men. We can close the gap that leaves young women more vulnerable to HIV. We are asking for your donations to fund projects in six key cities. With your support we can make sure that no one is left behind." The 12 Days of Christmas series will feature a message from a high-profile backer or HIV campaigner each day pledging support for our campaign through to Christmas Eve. Yesterday James Corden kicked off the series by asking for donations to help fight the stigma and fear of HIV. I n a world where takeover deals so often defy logic, its refreshing to see Belmond fall into the expensively clad embrace of Bernard Arnault. Shares in this unique hotelier, which misguidedly changed its name from the glorious old Orient Express Hotels, had disappointed investors for years. Only relatively recently have they picked up as earnings improved and bidders came sniffing. The worry was that it would be bought by a chain like Hyatt or Accor which would jeopardise the uniqueness of luxury destinations such as the Cipriani in Venice, or Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons. The other alternative was a private equity buyer, which would doubtless have sold the properties (most of which Belmond owns), leveraged up and cut costs with an eye on a lucrative sale in five years. Arnaults LVMH would never do that. A rival hotelier could have reaped benefits in combined areas such as online booking and loyalty programmes, but LVMH brings much more as an owner. Better than anyone else with $3 billion to spare, it understands Belmonds super-wealthy customers. It already provides their Louis Vuitton luggage, Givenchy outfits and Dom Perignon champagne. Besides, it has already dipped an elegant toe in the hospitality waters with its Bulgari hotels, so there will be cross-selling prospects. Most importantly for LVMH, though, is that this deal diversifies it away from fashion. Super-luxury travel is growing faster than frocks and watches, and LVMH is right to seek more exposure to it. It has stumped up a big price for Belmond, but as Arnault knows only too well, you have to pay a little extra for true luxury. TPIcap names its man to clean up So much for women on boards. Blokey broker TPIcaps candidates for the chairmans job included a couple of women, Im told. Clearly, they werent up to the job, leaving no choice but to pick another chap. Pity. In fairness, Richard Berliand seems suitable, steeped in the markets as he is. Lets see if he can do better than outgoing chairman Rupert Robson, who presided over the shambolic ousting of CEO John Phizackerley. That fiasco caused a 30% crash in the share price, not helped by Robsons decision to scrap Phizs efficiency targets. Shares show no sign of recovery. Why would they? Without those savings it looks like Robson and Phiz overpaid when they bought Michael Spencers Icap. Berliand cant start until May, meaning Robson will be missing another target his May promise to quit by the end of this year. H ow many of us can remember what we got for Christmas last year? Theresa May can. In fact, shed like to return it. For her gift from the EU last December is proving to be her undoing 12 months later. On December 8, 2017, the Prime Minister signed the outlines of the Brexit agreement with Brussels. It came at the end of a hellish week, when her party had rebelled and the DUP threatened to bring down the Government over the proposal to treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK. No change there, then. At the 11th hour, Mrs May seemed to pull off the impossible with an agreement that promised uniform treatment of the UK, while delivering the guarantee of an open Irish border that the EU had quite rightly insisted on. Boris Johnson, back then our forensic foreign secretary, offered his congratulations to the PM and praised her determination. Mrs May returned to the cheers of the Brexiteers. What still remains astonishing a year on was that none of them appeared to have actually read the legal text she had signed. If they had, they would surely have noticed Article 49. We did. In our editorial on the day of the agreement, we drew attention to what we described as the key British concession. It has come to be known as the Irish backstop. As we explained back in December, the default position now going into the next phase of these talks is that Britain remains signed up to the rules and regulations of the European Union, unless the Government can find some clever, unspecified solution that has so far eluded everyone. Dont hold your breath. Its not clear it exists. Rebuff Now fast forward to this December. At the end of an even more hellish week, Mrs May has been at the European Council desperately trying to undo what she did 12 months ago. She wants to find an exit from the backstop. It is not clear even if she knows how. Jean-Claude Juncker called her contribution imprecise and nebulous. Thats not surprising, because there is no way unilaterally to end or time-limit the guarantee on the Irish border without fundamentally dismantling it. Thats precisely why its called a backstop. Of course, Mrs May could try to hoodwink her colleagues again. There is talk that she wants a joint instrument with the EU that commits everyone to use their best endeavours to reach a permanent trade deal by 2020, and then limits the backstop to just a year. Theyre saying they could lodge it with the United Nations, to give it the air of legal gravitas. But it wont mean anything and we suspect the Brexiteers wont fall for it this time around. Its the withdrawal agreement, signed earlier this month, that counts. Thats the one with the backstop in it; thats the one the EU have again today refused to re-open and thats the one with real legal force. All this leaves Mrs May with a desperate problem. She is only the leader of the Conservative Party this Friday because she made two promises when she spoke to Tory MPs on Wednesday. First, she promised she wouldnt lead her party into the next election. She reluctantly confirmed that in TV interviews yesterday. The second promise was that she would renegotiate the backstop, and she hinted at positive signs that the EU would agree. But the only message from this EU council has been a negative one: oh no we wont. That spells very serious trouble for Mrs May with the Brexiteers and the DUP back home, who she has to somehow persuade to vote for her deal. Meanwhile, the parliamentary opposition here is getting ready to force the Prime Minister to hold the delayed vote on that deal next week rather than next year; and the pro-European elements of the Cabinet are forming a caucus to insist that MPs are given a choice of future options, rather than just the my deal or no deal Mrs May is offering. The public and businesses were praying for some certainty by this Christmas. Instead, this pantomime looks certain to run into the New Year. TODO: define component type apester I nfamously, as the referendum results started to come in on June 23, 2016, Britains most-asked questions on Google were too late for the answers to make any difference What is the EU? and What does it mean to leave the EU? To say the latter question has dominated our national conversation ever since is a grotesque understatement. Brexit has monopolised the news, divided the country, asphyxiated politics, despoiled public discourse and increasingly bored us to tears. Yet, unbelievably, with barely 100 days to go before the UK is due to leave, we are no nearer to a clear answer. The second-most Googled question about the subject (after When is Brexit?) is still What is Brexit? The issue has proved so divisive because for most people, on both sides of the argument, the decision was never just about the UKs relationship with the EU. Remain and Leave are proxies for a broad, deep set of values, aligning with whether people feel broadly positive or negative about the scale and pace of the changes that have transformed our economy, culture and society over the past 20 to 30 years. Because these views run deep in most people and rarely change far more voters have become more entrenched in the position they took in 2016 than have changed their mind. Meanwhile, the parliamentary and governmental process of Brexit has been characterised by ineptitude and lack of candour, reducing further the publics already negligible confidence in our political system. One thing most Remain and Leave voters heartily agree on is that the way the parties have responded to Brexit has damaged their trust in politics. Deepening contempt for all political parties makes the strength of feeling more potent. Recent research found nearly eight in 10 voters identify strongly as a Remainer or a Leaver. Fewer than four in 10 identify strongly with a political party. The UKs foremost psephologist John Curtice concludes: Irrespective of what Brexit does eventually mean, many voters are likely to remain loyal to the choice they made in June 2016, not only until the Brexit process has reached a conclusion, but well beyond. In political terms there is, for the foreseeable future, no such thing as post-Brexit. Andrew Cooper is co-founder of the research and strategy consultancy Populus / ES Published Images The unending argument about what Brexit can, or should, mean in practice originates in the Leave campaigns refusal to give its detailed answer before the referendum. To many, the reality of negotiations with the EU has come as a rude shock. Private polling for the Remain campaign found over two-thirds of voters were sure the EU needs us more than we need it. Because of this, the majority assumed a Brexit deal would keep the UK in the single market, or something very similar, retaining the benefits of EU membership without having to accept free movement of people, or pay into the EU budget that, in other words, we could have our cake and eat it. Against this background, most Leave voters now agree with most Remain voters that the Brexit process has been much more difficult, complex and costly than they were led to expect. Only five per cent of people think Theresa May got a good Brexit deal. But most also think no other leader (including other feasible Tories and Jeremy Corbyn) would have done better. As a result, many voters believe MPs should support Mrs Mays deal even though it is not a good one and in a referendum, many would back an agreement they regard as bad. "One thing most voters agree on is that the way the parties have responded to Brexit has damaged their trust in politics" The period since the referendum has, for most people, been an extended exercise of confirmation bias. But enough have changed their mind on Brexit to make it likely that the balance of opinion in the UK probably now tips (though not much more than that) the other way. YouGov frequently asks if Britain was right or wrong to vote Leave. It is nearly a year since more thought the decision right rather than wrong. The latest poll finds only 38 per cent saying Brexit was right, and 49 per cent saying it was wrong an eight per cent swing from Leave to Remain since 2016, but with the dont-knows holding the balance. Polling also now consistently finds that most people including, tellingly, a majority of those who voted Leave think there should be another referendum, especially if MPs vote down the Governments deal, and even though the majority also think a new referendum wont help solve the issue because the country is so divided. If another were to be held, polling indicates its result would depend considerably on what was on the ballot paper. Surveys over the past few weeks show a repeat binary Remain/Leave referendum would produce a slightly bigger Remain win than the margin for Leave in 2016. Head to head, Remain would beat No Deal, but narrowly; Deal would beat No Deal by a clear margin; and a Remain versus Deal referendum would split roughly 50:50. Giving a choice between all three options at once Remain, Deal and No Deal paints an even more confusing picture. In almost every constituency there is more support for Remain than for Deal or for No Deal but there is not a majority for Remain if all three are on the ballot. Peoples emotions are highly charged. YouGov polling last week found a majority would feel disappointed, angry or betrayed if the outcome were either no deal (53 per cent) or leaving on Theresa Mays deal (51). A new referendum and vote to Remain would have 42 per cent of voters delighted, pleased or relieved a higher proportion than any other outcome. But almost as many (39 per cent) would feel disappointed, angry or betrayed. And more than half those who backed Brexit in 2016 would feel betrayed, with sobering potential consequences for British democracy. As the Article 50 timetable ticks away, the answer to What is Brexit? is still as clear as mud. What is clear is that the division in the country is deep, and will endure long after we have left, or not. I am deeply concerned about the lack of provision of music teaching in schools and the consequences for our wider society. Since 2010 there has been a 28 per cent drop in pupils taking arts GCSEs, with a corresponding drop in the number of specialist teachers being trained. Theres a fear that classical music may become the preserve of only those who can afford to pay. We believe it should be the entitlement of every young person in the UK to have the opportunity to learn how to play a classical instrument. This is not easy, despite a national music plan and government funding, but the benefits to the individuals, families and wider communities are transformational. Over the last five years we have reached 6,500 teenagers in 13 London schools. Every student on our programme gets a classical instrument and a guarantee of three years of group tuition. The result has been the development of skills including teamwork and self-discipline. We have witnessed a renewed sense of confidence, self-esteem and respect in our teenagers for both themselves and others all attitudes that contribute to combating gang culture in inner-city communities. The benefits of arts education are undeniable, and we cannot sit aside and disregard the impact that their loss will have on our society if they continue to be ignored. Truda White Music in Secondary Schools Trust EDITOR'S REPLY Dear Truda The benefits of a classical musical education in school are profound: it not only offers pupils a source of lifelong pleasure but has a positive effect on character and academic performance. In Finland, music is an integral part of the curriculum and has helped contribute to its excellent school standards. Of course, state schools have to focus on core especially STEM subjects, but this cannot be at the expense of a broad humane education. The Andrew Lloyd Webber programme you are talking about is a really positive contribution to the teaching of classical music, which, as you say, cannot be confined to a privately educated elite. Its important that pupils of all backgrounds and ethnicities are given the benefits of instrumental tuition; the youth culture in deprived areas can only be enriched by a rigorous education in classical music which they can only get at school. Well done on your excellent work. Melanie McDonagh, Senior Writer The pros and cons of May's survival We JUST wanted to express our support for the Prime Minister, Theresa May. We believe she has done the best for our country, honoured the referendum result and managed an undertaking abandoned by her predecessor while battling extremists within. We further believe the majority of our country is moderate and sensible and that she (PM May) commands their support. Its Mrs May, all the way for us. Balvinder and Shelly Chahal The Conservative Party called for a no-confidence vote in the Prime Minister and she unfortunately survived. The public should call for a no-confidence vote on all the pygmies who sit in the Houses of Parliament. They are all useless. They live in a cul-de-sac. Where is the leader who will offer us a great future? And to Mrs May, just do the honourable thing and resign. She may have worked hard, but who cares when her deal is not right for this country? James Holyfield Announcements help the disabled While Transport for London may be overzealous with its announcements, able-bodied passengers should bear in mind that not all features of public transport are designed purely to irritate them [Spare us the Tube announcements, December 11]. Passengers with vision impairment may find it useful to be told which side of the train the doors are opening on, as well as which station they are at. Provision for people with disabilities is woefully inadequate. Lets not make it even more inaccessible for the sake of a quieter journey. Laura Wright Get facts right on pedestrianisation You claimed on Wednesday that the proposed pedestrianisation of Oxford Street emerged as the biggest casualty of a financial crisis at TfL [Khans fare freeze set to be axed after Crossrail fiasco, December 12]. This is not in line with the facts. Former High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens is 30 today - and she's planning to celebrate in cosplay style with a Lord of The Rings birthday party. As Hudgens told talk show host Jimmy Fallon: "I had this fantasy of having a Lord of The Rings party where Im Galadriel with the white hair and Im floating into my birthday party and theres a harpist playing and theres elves everywhere." Fallon suggested she put a call out on air to Elijah Wood to come in costume to her party - the ultimate commitment to a theme. Hudgens is currently promoting her role in new J-Lo movie Second Act and rehearsing for a Broadway production of Rent: Live in 2019. Vanessa Hudgens playing Rizzo in Grease: Live / Getty Images She'll be playing Maureen Johnson, though she previously appeared as Mimi in a 2010 Hollywood Bowl production of the musical. Vanessa Hudgens in Beastly / Getty Images The actress was born in Salinas, California, and moved around with her family, living in Oregon, and eventually in SoCal. She has a younger sister, Stella Hudgens, who celebrated her 23rd birthday last month with the family in West Hollywood. In the days before High School Musical, Hudgens was limited to local performances, appearing in The Wizard of Oz, The King and I, and Cinderella. Soon after, she left the stage behind for TV commercials. After landing her first one, her whole family moved to Los Angeles. Hudgens first debuted in the controversial film Thirteen in 2003 - but her acting career truly took off when she was cast in High School Musical in 2005, alongside Zac Efron. While she might be known more for her acting than her vocals now, she got her post-HSM start with a Hollywood Records deal, releasing two studio albums. Vanessa Hudgens' post-teen star path to stardom wasn't as easy. She starred in a string of flops, including the much-maligned Beauty and the Beast remake Beastly, before breaking out of the Disney Channel mold with her rebellious turn in Spring Breakers. Vanessa Hudgens on So You Think You Can Dance / Getty Images Her romantic life has made the headlines over the years too. She had a well documented 5-year relationship with her High School Musical co-star Zac Efron that began in 2005. She was then was rumored to be dating Hunger Games actor Josh Hutcherson. But since 2011, she's been with fellow former child star Austin Butler. Could there be wedding bells on the horizon? Vanessa Hudgens with her boyfriend Austin Butler (Getty) While in America we have to make do with the Kardashian Christmas card, over in Europe the royals have delivered with some pretty stylish festive portraits. Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton posed alongside their three children, George, Charlotte and baby Louis, at their country seat, Anmer Hall. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their children Louis, George and Charlotte / PA Meanwhile, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle shared an ultra-romantic black and white photograph from their wedding reception, featuring the pair watching fireworks during their wedding reception at Frogmore House. But the Brits weren't the only royals releasing Christmas pictures. The official Swedish royal Instagram account shared a few photos of their young royals celebrating St. Lucia Day (a festival to commemorate an early Christian martyr). The traditional costumes include long white gowns, with a red sash for Princess Estelle, and a gold hat for Prince Oscar. The Monaco royal family shared pictures of Princess Charlene's twins Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella in their Christmas regalia. Earlier this week, the twins celebrated their fourth birthday. Casa de S.M. el Rey via Getty Im Spain's royal family also released a relaxed Christmas photo, taken on a September visit to Asturius, as well as a shot of Princess Leonor and Princess Sofia with King Felipe of Spain in Madrid. Norway's royal portrait / Hakon Mosvold Larsen/AFP/Getty Images Over in Norway, the royal family delivered a posed photo Donald Trump would be proud of. The shot included the whole family - except for the eligible, surf-loving family member Marius Borg, who has taken leave from public life to attend college in Los Angeles - sitting in the Royal Palace in Oslo. B lack cab rapist John Worboys is selling his 250,000 flat in north London in a bid to fund his parole, according to reports. The former black cab driver, 61, bought the one bedroom flat in April in 1981 and currently makes 861 a month by renting it out, the Mirror reported. But Worboys, who is understood to have owned several properties, is now being forced into a mass sell-off of his assets. The one-bedroom, ground-floor flat is situated in a sought after residential development in Enfield, according to the estate agent. It has a refitted kitchen, a remodelled shower room and a garage, and has been lived in by the same tenant for 26 years. Last month it was announced Worboys would be in jail for at least another two years as a Parole Board concluded he is not suitable for release. He was given an indeterminate prison sentence in 2009 after being convicted at Croydon crown court of 19 offences, including one rape and several other sex attacks, against 12 women. After serving 10 years of his sentence, the Parole Board had in January announced that he could be freed. But the High Court overturned the decision following a successful legal challenge by two of his victims and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. T his is an image of a man wanted by police in connection with the death of a young father attacked as tried to calm a row outside an east London nightclub. Zakaria Abukar Sharif-Ali, 26, had tried to act as a "peacemaker" outside Rolling Stock club in Shoreditch when he was attacked by two men in the early hours of Saturday, November 24. He was rushed to hospital but died two hours later. Scotland Yard today issued CCTV images of a man believed to have been involved in the row. Police want to speak to this man in connection with a fatal stabbing in Shoreditch Detective Inspector Rita Tierney, who is leading the investigation, said: "Zakaria was attacked following a night out. After leaving the Rolling Stock bar, he tried to intervene in an altercation taking place outside. He was attempting to calm the incident and was stabbed as a result. "We are releasing CCTV footage of a man we would like to identify as we believe he may have been involved in the altercation." After the murder relatives described Mr Sharif-Ali as a family man who had set up a business. Zakaria Abukar Sharif-Ali / Met Police His sister Bushra told the Standard: "He was a family guy. He has a four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. He was a good community man, a good friend, husband and son. He impacted everyone around him. He volunteered in Gambia and was religious." Mr Sharif-Ali, of Hoxton, had set up an online takeaway business called Flipping Burgers with a friend, and had returned to education to study sociology at London Metropolitan University. Since the attack, nearly 20,000 has been raised in a crowd funding appeal for his young family. Det Insp Tierney said : "This happened in a busy and popular area of London. I know that there will be people who witnessed the incident or have information concerning the identity of the suspects. I urge those people to call the incident room without delay. An 18-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender but there have been no other arrests. A ward-winning rapper J Hus has been jailed for eight months for carrying a knife outside Westfield in east London. The musician, real name Momodou Jallow, was caught with the blade after police stopped a car near the shopping centre in Stratford in June this year. Judge Sheelagh Canavan, who sentenced him at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday, told the court it was the fourth time he had been caught with a knife by police. She told the rapper, who has a number of previous convictions: "You are a role model to many yet you have failed to leave your past behind you." J Hus was at jailed at Snaresbrook Crown Court / Getty Images "This, in such a young life, is the fourth occasion when you have gone out armed with a knife," she added. The music star, who won best song at the Mobo awards last year and is a three time Brit award nominee, apologised and said he regretted his "foolish actions" at carrying the 10cm blade. In a letter read to the court by his barrister Henry Blaxland QC, Jallow said: "My decision to carry a weapon was careless, ill-advised and utterly stupid. "Being a public figure that many look up to, I simply should have known better." He said he had not been in his "right state of mind", adding the stabbing of a close friend days earlier had affected him. The 23-year-old added: "I am in no way trying to justify my actions as they are unjustifiable. "I am deeply sorry, I regret my foolish actions." The court heard the rapper has six convictions for 10 offences. Wearing a black T-shirt and dark jeans while surrounded by three dock officers, he did not react as the sentence was passed. Jallow, of Baldwin Drive, Peterborough, initially pleaded not guilty to possession of a blade in a public place but changed his plea at a hearing in October. He was also ordered to pay a 140 surcharge. The court also made a criminal behaviour order banning him from entering or travelling through the Newham borough for the next three years and from associating with a number of named individuals. A suspect in the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence has been attacked by a fellow inmate in prison, it has been reported. Jamie Acourt was reportedly punched to the floor by a fellow prisoner just days into his sentence. The 42-year-old, from south-east London, was jailed for nine years for masterminding a 3 million drugs plot. Acourt was punched in the back of the head while preparing for exercise on Wednesday morning, The Sun reported. Sources told newspaper Acourt instantly fell to the floor before prison officers intervened. He is less than a week into his sentence, which he is serving in HMP Wandsworth. A Prison Service spokeswoman confirmed an inmate had been put on report for punching another prisoner. She added that the victim did not require medical treatment. Acourt spent more than two years on the run, living in Spain under the alias Simon Alfonzo, until his arrest in May. He pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court to his part in the conspiracy which moved about 750kg of the drug with an estimated street value of around 3 million. His 43-year-old brother Neil had already been jailed for more than six years for his involvement when Jamie was sentenced on Friday December 7. Both brothers were arrested shortly after the murder of Mr Lawrence but neither was convicted. In 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted at the Old Bailey of murdering Mr Lawrence and jailed for life. S ir Paul McCartneys London mansion has been targeted by thieves. Police are investigating after the former Beatles house, in St Johns Wood, north-west London, was broken into. Scotland Yard confirmed they were called to a property on December 7 and found signs of forced entry. No arrests have been made and the investigation continues, they added. It is unknown if the musician, 76, or his wife Nancy Shevell were home at the time of the break-in. The incident came just days before Sir Paul played a gig in his hometown of Liverpool on Wednesday. The veteran star performed 38 songs as part of the UK leg of his Freshen Up tour. Sir Paul is due to play at London's O2 Arena on Sunday, December 16. This is not the first time a former Beatle has been targeted by burglars. A thug today admitted Kung-fu kicking a police officer into the path of a bus as she assisted with an arrest. Kersan Euell, 20, admitted two counts of ABH including the kick to PC Lorraine McGinty which was caught on camera and went viral on social media. Another officer, PC John Collins, was also assaulted during the incident in Wimbledon. Martin Payne, 19, from New Malden, who stood in court with a bandaged wrist, also pleaded guilty to one charge of ABH at Kingston Crown Court today. He also also admitted driving without a valid licence or insurance. Euell, from Catford, south East London, stood impassively In the dock during the hearing. Both men admitted ABH after the clash with police in Wimbledon on November 17 which was captured by footage from a passing motorist. Prosecutor Stephen Apted told the court today that PC McGinty had suffered an injury to the back of her head. PC Collins suffered a finger injury, cuts and bruises and a fractured rib. Pc McGinty, who was kicked by Euell, is yet to return to duty after being assaulted, the court heard. The prosecutor said: This incident took place shortly before 8pm, PCs McGinty and Collins pulled over a BMW in a routine check in which Mr Payne was the driver and Mr Euell one of the passengers. He said in the course of the stop the men resisted and the PCs sustained their injuries. He added: PC McGinty suffered a wound to the back of the head and PC Collins cuts and grades an injury to his finger and a fractured rib. The court heard that Euell has two previous convictions for assaulting a police officer and possession of an offensive weapon in public. Payne also has a previous conviction for assault with intent to resist arrest. Judge Sarah Plaschkes said: I am adjourning this for pre sentence reports. The pair were remanded in custody. In footage captured by a passing motorist, expected to be played at the the sentencing hearing, two men are seen grappling with officers after attempting to flee when their car was pulled over in a routine stop at 7.55pm in Kingswood Road. One policeman was dragged from his car and thrown in to the road but kept hold of the suspects leg, preventing his escape. His female colleague directed pepper spray at the suspects in an attempt to subdue them. As the situation appeared to come under control, an accomplice in a grey tracksuit took a running jump and landed a high kick to the policewomans chest. She fell backwards, causing a passing bus to brake and swerve, missing her by inches. The policewoman lay in the middle of the junction as the scuffle continued, before a moped rider stepped in to tackle the first suspect, pinning him to the ground in a headlock. The suspect who kicked the officer then fled the scene.Since the footage was posted on Twitter under the caption: South London at night... Lol, it has been viewed more than will over 100,000 times. Twitter users hailed the police officers bravery but condemned bystanders for not stepping in to help, and others for mocking the incident on social media. Paramedic Ben Hooper said: Im disgusted by the replies, why is this funny? Commenting on the footage, retired Met officer Chris Hobbs told the Standard: This is what happens when policing is cut and officers are constantly subject to denigration by politicians, sections of the media and so-called activists. A n advert featuring a topless model in his fifties has been banned amid claims it sexually objectified him. The dating app campaign showed 58-year-old Paul Orchard, wearing just braces, holding a phone with the tagline: Pull a cracker this Christmas. Transport for Londons advertising agent, Exterion Media, demanded that it be changed to feature a clothed model with a less suggestive tagline. It claimed the advert for Lumen, the first dating app exclusively for the over-fifties, was not compliant with Committee of Advertising Practice guidelines and said it could be seen as objectifying the man and his physique. Tube bosses have been clamping down on inappropriate adverts, particularly those deemed to be body-shaming. But the founders of the Lumen app said their decision was absurd. The toned-down ad is now on display at Euston station A toned-down Lumen advert is now on display at Euston station despite the more risque version appearing at other sites around the capital. Billboards with the original image and tagline will appear across the country from next week. Co-founder Charly Lester said: This campaign is only meant to be a bit of fun. I didnt think it would get banned, I thought it was funny. I dont think it is rude it is cheeky. "Our app is all about anti-ageism, body confidence and being yourself, so to have this banned is a bit depressing. Its ridiculous and absurd. This Tube 'beach body ready' advert was also banned / Catherine Wylie/PA Wire Model Mr Orchard said: Im surprised these ads have been banned, especially when you consider the other images you regularly see on the Underground of younger people wearing much less than I am. "We worked hard to ensure the photographs were tasteful as well as fun, and its a shame TfL dont see it that way. Lumen was launched in the UK in September and is already attracting 3,000 new members a day. Emails seen by the Standard reveal Exterion rejected the advert on the grounds of social responsibility and potential offence. Lumen had to use another version with the model in a red three-piece suit with the tagline Santa, Baby. Ms Lester suggested the sensitivity followed controversy over the Protein World advert in 2015 with a bikini-clad woman asking: Are You Beach Body Ready? TfL said if an advert is deemed not compliant they work with advertisers to amend it. A senior Conservative MP tried to have two colleagues disqualified from Wednesdays confidence vote on Theresa May after they posted photographs of their ballot papers, The Londoner understands. Margot James, Culture minister, and Dr Sarah Wollaston, MP for Totnes, both showed off their papers (marked in favour of Theresa May) on Twitter, despite the fact that it was a secret ballot. It was that which led opponents to try and get their votes discounted for allegedly breaking the rules. Though May was widely expected to win Wednesdays vote, Brexiteers had staked their hopes on making it a Pyrrhic victory for the Prime Minister. Each vote either way, therefore, took on great significance. To the fury of Brexiteers, May secured 200 votes to 117. And though Jacob Rees-Mogg called for the Prime Minister to meet with the Queen (with a view to handing in her resignation) the challenge from the hard-Right of the Tory Party has largely floundered. There can now be no new confidence vote in the Prime Minister for another year. This kind of procedural skirmishing over James and Wollaston has long been the hallmark of the European Research Group (ERG), the collection of Tory MPs most opposed to Europe and Mays Brexit deal. The Londoner understands that it was an ERG member who led the attempt to disqualify James and Wollaston. But the failure to do so makes it an even tougher week for the ERG, which appears to have lost its mojo. The group has long held disproportionate sway in the Conservative Party. It was partly fear of the ERG that made Mrs May sign up to Brexit red lines that she later crossed. But after a second humiliation in little over a month (its initial attempt to force a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister failed in November), and the abortive attempt to bar Wollaston and James, the ERG now risks looking like a paper tiger. Racism in the Lords Tulip Siddiq MP, whose friend was reportedly on the receiving end of a racist comment by a lord. / Getty Images Labours Tulip Siddiq says a black friend of hers was told to go back home by a member of the House of Lords last night. Siddiq said her pal, Ava from Putney, attended an event in Westminster and expressed an issue with the way the country is run. The lord, who Siddiq has not named, replied that Ava should go back home if she doesn't like the Government. This morning Ava told The Londoner: The lord looked very displeased with me. He was expecting to shut me down. Why should I leave? I was so shocked. -- Ed Balls reprised his Strictly Come Dancing Gangnam Style dance routine last night, with the help of Michael Gove. The pair performed the impromptu boogie at the Home Office during a charity event. To whoops and cheers, they whirled their hands in the air and stamped their feet. A Merry Christmas indeed. -- The makers of EastEnders were criticised yesterday for a reported 27 million overspend on a rebuild of the set. But it seems they need the revamp. Fans of the soap have noted recently that there are 16 people in the Slater familys humble terrace. Two have recently been filmed in their own rooms, which leaves... two on the sofa and 12 in the box room? Dimbleby signs off David Dimbleby hosted his final Question Time last night with Nicky Morgan MP among the guests. Dimbledore, we salute you! proclaimed Peter Cardwell, special adviser to James Brokenshire MP and an ex-producer on the programme. He was referring to Dumbledore, the wisened wizard with a twinkle in his eye in the Harry Potter books. Dimbleby threw his farewell party in Bermondsey. Guests included Morgan and BBC director general Tony Hall. It wasnt any easier than the first time I was on, Morgan said of her appearance on the programme. Malkovichs hunch: take the Poirot role John Malkovich and Tara Fitzgerald at the BFI Southbank yesterday evening. / Dave Benett/Getty Images John Malkovich and Tara Fitzgerald were at the BFI Southbank last night for a screening of their new drama The ABC Murders. The production, an adaptation of Agatha Christies mystery to be shown on BBC1 over Christmas, features Malkovich as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. But he would have missed out on the opportunity if he had followed the advice of his representatives. I hope they wont mind me saying this, but my agency, which represents me, sent it to me and they recommended I pass, Malkovich said during a Q&A at the event. [But] I always read 20 or 30 pages, and I loved it. Agents cannot, of course, read everything. He has, however, caused some concerns among Poirot purists: his version of the detective has a less prominent moustache than previous incarnations, and his accent is more subtle. Other guests at the event included television and radio presenter Anita Rani and actor Freya Mavor. -- Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt met with Amal Clooney human-rights lawyer and wife of George this week. The pair met, Hunt says, to discuss Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, the two Reuters journalists imprisoned in Myanmar View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jeremy Hunt (@jeremyhuntmp) on Dec 14, 2018 at 5:37am PST SW1A Stella Creasy has been advised by her doctor to consider giving up her parliamentary seat, given the impact on my physical health. The Labour MP for Walthamstow has a thyroid with a will of its own but thinks Brexit may be part of the problem. Nevertheless, Creasy pledges to continue on despite fatigue as fighting for equality and social justice is like drinking Red Bulls with espresso chasers. Labour MP Stella Creasy / Getty Images -- Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General whose booming Tory conference speech was rapturously received, says he recites King Lear to his dog Lily. She is particularly keen on my rendering of Howl, howl, howl, howl. O you are men of stones, he says. But she prefers comedies. -- Speaking of Cox, Simon Hoare MP has a solution for Parliaments problems. I wonder, Hoare mused, whether a communal reading of Kiplings If, read by Geoffrey Cox, of course, might be of use? Quote of the Day Don't listen to the haters: actor Cressida Bonas / Dave Benett/Getty Images T heresa May suffered a humiliating defeat in Brussels last night after her plans for changes that could rescue her Brexit deal were rebuffed by EU leaders. Mrs May used her 'ten minute' pitch at a Brussels banquet to ask leaders for a 'legally binding' compromise on the Northern Ireland backstop, but her plea was rejected, with Jean Claude Juncker calling her request "nebulous and imprecise." Mr Juncker, president of the European Commission, said: "We dont want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation that is crystal clear. We can add clarifications but no real changes. "There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty." Theresa May's offer of concessions to her Brexit deal was flatly rebuffed by EU leaders / REUTERS Labours shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer responded on Friday: We cannot go on like this. He called for a meaningful vote in Parliament on the deal before Christmas. He said: "It seems that the Prime Minister has failed in her bid to deliver meaningful changes to her Brexit deal. "We cannot go on like this. The Prime Minister should reinstate the vote on her deal next week and let Parliament take back control." Mrs May had called off Tuesdays Commons vote on her Withdrawal Agreement after it became clear her government would suffer a humiliating defeat. It prompted Wednesdays no confidence leadership ballot among Tory MPs, which the Prime Minister won. 2018: Theresa May's year in review She then headed to Brussels on Thursday to appeal to the EUs 27 leaders for an olive branch to offer those MPs who oppose the Northern Ireland backstop. But after Mrs May failed to make any progress, the government remains unlikely to pass the Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament amid strong opposition from hardline Brexiteer Tory MPs, coalition partners the DUP and Labour. Theresa May confirms she will not lead Tories into 2022 election Cabinet Office minister David Lidington defended Mrs May's handling of the talks with Brussels after criticism from Michel Barnier. He told Today: "Anybody who has heard Theresa May in debate, anybody who has heard her around the Cabinet table, knows there is a very clear plan." He described the talks as "a welcome first step that was the removal of uncertainty" over the EU's intentions, because it had shown it wanted a "speedy UK trade deal" that would remove the need for the backstop in the first place. Asked if the Government could support "indicative votes" on options if the PM's Brexit deal is voted down in Parliament, he added: "Certainly I will be supporting the Prime Minister in campaigning vigorously for Parliament to approve the deal that has been negotiated. "Were that not to happen then obviously the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, would need to take stock and come to Parliament accordingly." Czech Europe minister Ales Chmelar said the meeting had not been bad but that "nobody knew beforehand what would be the solution". TODO: define component type apester He told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I know there was in the room a strong willingness to offer something, but at the same time it would put, most probably, into question the backstop for Ireland. "It was almost an impossible situation and technically speaking there was not an easy way out." He added: "I do not expect there is a legally binding way to stop the backstop or to limit the backstop, because then it would put into question assurances for Ireland. "If the EU27 or EU26 has to choose between assurances for one of its members and for a third state it is obvious that it would - and they have to - prefer assurances for one of its members." Ms Rudd told the Today programme: "A lot of people have a perfect vision of what they think Brexit should look like, and that 'perfect' is not available. "What we need is a compromise deal. That's what the Prime Minister has proposed and I would urge my colleagues to think about, first of all, why people voted to leave the European Union [and] what their interpretation is of that. And secondly, what the alternatives are. B ritish travellers will have to pay seven euros every three years to travel to EU countries after Brexit if the divorce agreement is sealed. The European Commission has confirmed that UK travellers will not need a visa but they will need to apply for three-year pre-travel authorisation. The EU is readying a new electronic visa waiver system by 2021 to beef up security. The bloc's executive proposed to exempt Britain from visas provided that the sides agree on a Brexit deal before the UK leaves on March 29, 2019. The new EU system, or ETIAS, would be similar to the ESTA scheme used by the United States, and would apply to countries outside the bloc whose citizens can travel to Europe visa-free. There are currently 61 such countries from Monaco to Australia. ETIAS would start applying to the UK after its status-quo transition after Brexit runs its course, which is now due at the end of 2020 though could be extended. The fee would be waived for travellers under 18 and those over 70 years old. It would also cover countries associated with the EU's zone of control-free travel, meaning Britons would also have to pay to travel to Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein since they are part of this so-called Schengen zone even though outside of the EU. Conversely, it would not cover EU states that are not in Schengen, like Ireland. If Britain crashes out of the bloc with no agreement in place to mitigate ensuing disruptions, Britons could require visas to travel to the EU in the future, a spokeswoman for the European Commission said on Friday. D onald Tusk has dealt a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of amending her Brexit deal as he declared the agreement was not open for renegotiation. The European Council presidents remarks came after Prime Minister Mrs May pleaded with EU leaders for concessions to avoid a disorderly no-deal outcome. Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Mr Tusk said the union would stand by the deal and intends to proceed with its ratification, adding: It is not open for renegotiation." EU leaders did however give Mrs May assurances that they would attempt to agree on Brexit by 2021 so that the controversial backstop is never triggered. Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk speak in Brussels / EPA Mr Tusk said the Council "underlines that the backstop is intended as an insurance policy", adding: "It is the Union's firm determination to work speedily on a subsequent agreement that establishes by the 31st December 2020 alternative arrangements so that the backstop will not need to be triggered." And, at the conference on Thursday night, he said the backstop would "apply temporarily unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement that ensures that the hard border is avoided". Meanwhile European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker criticised Mrs May's lack of clarity over what she was seeking from the future relationship. "Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want," he said. Theresa May, centre, arrives for a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels / AP "So we would like within a few weeks our UK friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications." He added: "We don't want the UK to think there can be any form of renegotiation, that is crystal clear. We can add clarifications but no real changes. "There will be no legally binding obligations imposed on the withdrawal treaty." It comes after Mrs May last night said a package of the right assurances from leaders over the backstop could change the dynamic at Westminster. Who are the Brexit key players? She made clear the perception that the backstop could be a trap that the UK cannot escape needs to change, adding: until we do, the deal our deal is at risk. The Prime Minister flew early yesterday to a two-day Brussels summit to ask leaders individually to rescue the agreement with new legal assurances on the backstop. Mrs May had appealed to EU leaders to put their trust in her to deliver on her promises and to give her the political room for manoeuvre that she needs. "Over the last few years I hope I have shown you can trust me to do what is right, not always what is easy, however difficult that might be for me politically," she said. "We must get this right and hold nothing in reserve. Let's work together intensively to get this deal over the line in the best interests of all our people." Earlier, Number 10 said the Commons vote on the agreement would not take place until the New Year. The vote had been due on Tuesday, but was dramatically pulled after the whips warned the Prime Minister she was heading for a heavy defeat unless she delayed. The move, which was met with anger on all sides of the House, finally prompted the no confidence vote by Conservative MPs, with more than a third of parliamentary party voting to get rid of her. Arriving in Brussels earlier, Mrs May acknowledged that with her own party divided and the opposition parties set against her agreement, she needed additional assurances regarding the backstop. Mr Juncker told a press conference that their heated conversation resulted from a misunderstanding and the prime minister was kissing him within hours. He said: I am admiring her because this is a woman of great courage, doing her job in the best way possible and so I am supporting her, not as far as all content elements are concerned, but I am supporting the way she is dealing with that matter. The pair earlier went head-to-head at the EU summit centre, with Mrs May protesting, What did you call me? You called me nebulous, according to two lip-reading experts reported by Channel 5 News. Theresa May face to face with Jean-Claude Juncker When asked about the incident, Mr Juncker said: We were not dancing. She thought that I did criticise her by saying this thing yesterday night that the British position was nebulous I did not refer to her but to the overall state of the debate in Britain. I cant see where the British parliament is heading at and thats why I was saying that this was nebulous so I was not addressing her. European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaks during the press conference / AFP/Getty Images In the course of the morning, after having checked what I said yesterday night, she was kissing me. Mrs May is a good friend of us, we have the highest respect for the British prime minister because she has to deliver a very difficult job, he added. President of the European Council Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker and Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria / Getty Images, During the same press conference, European Council president Donald Tusk said: We have treated Prime Minister May with the greatest respect, all of us and we really appreciate the effort by the prime minister to ratify our common agreement. My impression is we have treated the prime minister with a much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs. Referring to the state of British politics, Mr Juncker also said: I was following second by second the debate in the House of Commons and I noted that there was a deep mistrust in the House when it comes to the European Union. "That's not a good place for future relations but in order to prove to them that we mean this seriously that we dont want this backstop being a permanent instrument then we have to discuss and restart our negotiations and it was crystal clear that nobody in the room did in any way agree to reopening the withdrawl agreement. Britain is to have talks with the EU over the coming days about how to obtain "further assurances" which might persuade MPs to back the Brexit withdrawal agreement, Mrs May said earlier. At the end of a European Council summit, the prime minister acknowledged that it would not be possible to reopen the agreement to alter the backstop provisions which have sparked mass rebellion among Tory MPs. T heresa May angrily confronted European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker today hours after he accused her of being nebulous and imprecise. British diplomats were furious with Mr Juncker for his midnight outburst which they said was inaccurate and unfair. Sources revealed to the Evening Standard details of one proposal set out by Mrs May for a 12-month time limit set out in a joint interpretive instrument which they believe would carry legal force. This morning a furious-looking Mrs May squared up to Mr Juncker at the summit centre in Brussels and appeared to protest. Although no audio was available of the exchange, which was caught on an official video feed of the gathering, Mr Juncker clearly appeared taken aback and tried to soothe her by putting an hand on her elbow, to no avail. Mrs May appears to be saying the word nebulous and leans towards Mr Juncker in an angry pose. He responds by leaning backwards nervously, while patting her arm to try to calm her. After a while, a man, believed to be Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is seen walking towards Mrs May and Mr Juncker and appearing to break up the clashing pair. BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted: Have watched these kinds of pictures looking for body language between leaders dozens of times - have NEVER seen anything as tense and angry as this. Some EU diplomats backed up the British claim that Mr Junckers late-night press conference had veered away from the agreed line which was not to be confrontational and an expectation that fresh talks would be held to consider Mrs Mays suggestions. But a diplomatic note leaked to the BBC agreed that her demands on the Irish backstop were not really clear and there was no support for a draft communique promising to look further into the problem. Theresa May face to face with Jean-Claude Juncker Mrs May did not speak reporters as she arrived at the summit centre this morning. She went straight to a one-on-one meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron which was dominated by Brexit. Mr Juncker puts his hand on the Prime Minister / Philip Sime/Twitter She was running short of allies, with several EU leaders using their arrivals to tell reporters that the UK needed to settle soon or risk a catastrophic no-deal. A UK source told the Standard that EU diplomats had reassured Mrs Mays team that the door was wide open to a debate. The private messages we were getting back after Juncker was that they are still open to hearing what is needed, said the source. Theresa May's offer of concessions to her Brexit deal was flatly rebuffed by EU leaders / REUTERS Netherlands premier Mark Rutte backed Mrs May, saying she was welcome to come up with more proposals and we will always look at them. Under the May proposal, which has not been revealed until now, the EU and the UK would commit to use best endeavours to get a deal on future relations and trade in place by the end of the post-Brexit transition period that is due to expire in December 2020. If that succeeded there would be no need for a backstop. If not, both sides would commit with legal force to have a Future Partnership deal in place within a year, working to a deadline of December 2021. The commitment, which Downing Street believes would amount to a one-year time limit on the backstop, would be set down in a Joint Interpretive Instrument agreed alongside the main 585-page withdrawal agreement. The idea she was not specific about what she wanted was not true and not fair, said the source. Theres a difference between them not liking it and her failing to spell it out. She did spell it out. The nebulous claim is very unfair. TODO: define component type apester Mrs May looked set to fly home virtually empty-handed, although Downing Street stressed that they had only ever expected a political discussion at this summit, not a breakthrough. Opposition to any change to the backstop - which requires Northern Ireland to obey EU laws until or unless a future trade deal removes the risk of a hard border - was led by Irish premier Leo Varadkar who was strongly backed by Mr Macron. Seasoned UK diplomats expressed horror at the humiliations being meted on Mrs May. Lord Ricketts, former head of the Foreign Office, tweeted: Another day when we wake up to news of the PM appealing to others to help her out of dilemmas of her own making. T his week marks 100 years since the first woman was elected to parliament. On November 21 1918, the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act was passed which enabled women over the age of 21 to become MPs. Suffragette and nationalist Constance Markievicz was a trailblazing figure as she became the only woman to successfully stand as an MP that year. The Sinn Fein candidate however, refused to take her seat over Irish independence. In July 2018, she was finally honoured with a portrait in Westminster, where she will be forever remembered for her courageous work. Her defining pledge was: "I am pledged as a rebel, an unconvertible rebel, to the one thing a free and independent Republic." Here, we take a look back at Ms Markieviczs extraordinary life: Who was Constance Maverick? Getty Images Constance Maverick, also known as Countess Constance, was the first woman to be elected to parliament and also the only woman to serve in the first Dail Eireann, in which she acted as minister of labour. Constance had a privileged background with a strong interest in art and horse riding. After moving with her family to Dublin in 1903, Constances interests turned to Irish politics. She and her sister also went on to be major figures in the Suffragette movement fighting for womens voting rights. Her first run in with the law occurred in 1911, when she was arrested for demonstrating against King George Vs visit to Ireland. She would go on to spend most of her life in and out of prison. In April 1916, she took part in the Eastern rising, a republican insurrection in Dublin against British government in Ireland. She was sentenced to death but it was reduced because of her gender. She was rearrested and imprisoned in 1918 for her participation in nationalist activities in Ireland. In a landmark move for womens rights, the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 allowed all women over the age of 21 to stand for Parliament. In the December 1918 General Election, 17 women stood for election. Ms Markievicz, standing for Dublin St Patricks division, was the only woman to be elected, fighting for votes from her cell in Holloway prison. As a member of Sinn Fein, Ms Markievicz however did not take her seat in the House of Commons. She left government in January 1922 and died in 1927, aged 59, due to complications related to appendicitis. When a portrait of her was hung in parliament a century after she was first elected Commons Speaker John Bercow said: It is fitting that in the centenary year of the 1918 Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, we mark the contribution of Constance Markievicz who, as the first woman elected to Parliament, holds a unique place in British and Irish history. D onald Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen has claimed the US President does not tell the truth, saying: Its sad that I should take responsibility for Trumps dirty deeds. In a revealing interview with ABC News, that aired on Friday, Mr Cohen said the people of America and the rest of the world did not believe what Mr Trump has said. Mr Cohen is probed in the interview as he is told Mr Trumps claim that he lied about the president. He replied: Inaccurate. He knows the truth, I know the truth, and others know the truth. Michael Cohen arriving to court / REUTERS Here is the truth: The people of the United States of America, the people of the world, don't believe what he's saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it's sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds. Mr Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including hush money payments given to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign. Mr Cohen claimed the president knew he was doing wrong when he directed hush money to be paid. He said: He directed me to make the payments. He directed me to become involved in these matters. Mr Trump claimed on Thursday he never directed Mr Cohen to break the law. US President Donald Trump / AFP/Getty Images Sentencing Mr Cohen, Judge William Pauley said he deserved a harsh punishment for tax evasion, lying to Congress and arranging payments to silence two women who posed a risk to Mr Trump's presidential campaign. Mr Cohen said his "blind loyalty" to Mr Trump made him feel a duty to "cover up" the president's "dirty deeds". "It was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light," Cohen told the judge during the sentencing hearing on Wednesday. S andy Hook Elementary School has been evacuated after a bomb threat was made on the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 20 primary school children and six teachers. It came a day after Columbine High School, where 13 people died in a shooting in 1999, was placed on lockdown amid bomb and gun threats. Police in Newtown, Connecticut, said the threat was made at about 9am on Friday and pupils were sent home for the day. Lieutenant Aaron Bahamonde said there is a heightened level of anxiety in the town on the anniversary and the school superintendent decided to cancel remaining classes. It is unclear whether the alert was related to bomb threats made nationwide on Thursday. The school where the shooting happened, on December 14, 2012, was knocked down and a new building was constructed on the same site. The school was rocked by tragedy in 2012 / REUTERS Moments of silence were observed in Newtown and other places on Friday morning in memory of the victims. Authorities said the threat specifically referenced the anniversary, but police did not believe it was credible. A 20-year-old gunman shot his way into the school in 2012 and killed the 26 victims before fatally shooting himself. Former Western Connecticut State University student Adam Lanza, who authorities said opened fire inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School / AP Connecticut governor Dannel P Malloy had ordered all state and US flags in the state to remain at half-mast, where they have been in honour of the late president George HW Bush. "The unthinkable tragedy that occurred on this day will forever have an impact - not only here in Connecticut, but throughout the entire nation," Mr Malloy said in a statement. "I think about these innocent, young children and generous, kindhearted educators every single day. I will always keep them in my prayers." A n Italian journalist has been named as the fourth person to die after to the Strasbourg Christmas market shooting. French authorities announced the death earlier and Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, has since identified the victim as 29-year-old Antonio Megalizzi. Mr Conte tweeted on Friday he was expressing "deep sorrow for the death of Antonio Megalizzi, a young man with great passion for journalism, for radio, for investigations and for European institutions". In addition to this, Europhonica radio tweeted: "Sadly we have to confirm that our colleague Antonio has left us." Mr Megalizzi was hospitalised in very grave condition in the first hours after the attack. This news comes after the prime shooting suspect, Cherif Chekatt, was shot dead on Thursday during a mass police operation in the Neudorf area of the city. Chekatt, 29, had been on a watch list of potential extremists and been on the run in the wake of the incident. Authorities are trying to establish whether he was helped by accomplices while at large. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz, who handles terror cases throughout France, said seven people are in police custody including four members of Chekatt's family. French police hunting Strasbourg attacker kill man in shootout "We want to reconstruct the past 48 hours in order to find out whether he got some support," Mr Heitz said. Detailing his capture after a two-day manhunt, three officers patrolling in Neudorf spotted a man matching the suspect's description, Mr Heitz said. Chekatt spotted their vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to enter a building. Then as police officers identified themselves turned around and opened fire. Police work near the scene after the shooting in Strasbourg, France / REUTERS "A projectile hit the vehicle above the left rear door, two police officers responded, shooting several times, and killed him," Mr Heitz said. Investigators found a gun, a knife and ammunition on Chekatt's body. The immediate aftermath of the shootout was caught on camera from across the street. Strasbourg police operation - In pictures 1 /14 Strasbourg police operation - In pictures French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France, Reuters French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France, AFP/Getty Images French police forces block a street during an operation in the Neudorf district of Strasbourg, eastern France AP French police forces take position in the Neudorf district of Strasbourg, eastern France AP French police forces take position in the Neudorf district of Strasbourg, eastern France AP French police forces take position in the Neudorf district of Strasbourg, eastern France AP French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters French special police forces secure a street during a police operation in the Neudorf district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg Reuters Members of the French police special forces RAID take part in an operation, on December 13, 2018 at the Neudorf neighborhood in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images Footage showed armed officers at the scene and a body slumped in a doorway, before more officers arrived at the scene followed by crime scene investigators. The Paris prosecutor's office formally identified the man as Chekatt. The suspect is a Strasbourg-born man with a history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Suspected attacker Cherif Chekatt / EPA Chekatt was known to police but as a common criminal, not a terrorist. His first conviction was at age 13 and he had 26 more by the time he died at 29. Witnesses said the gunman shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and sprayed gunfire from a security zone near the Christmas market on Tuesday. The man was wounded by security forces he escaped in a taxi which dropped him off in Neudorf. Strasbourg search - In pictures 1 /25 Strasbourg search - In pictures French soldiers stand guard at the Christmas market in front of the Cathedral AFP/Getty Images A French gendarme secures a street at the scene of a police operation the day after a shooting in Strasbourg Reuters German police control vehicles at the border between France and Germany AFP/Getty Images Members of the German police searches all the vehicles driving towards the border between France and Germany AFP/Getty Images Police officers patrol in the railway station of the city of Strasbourg following a shooting, eastern France AP Members of the French police special forces RAID conduct searches on a bank of the river Rhine in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images Members of the French police special forces RAID conduct searches on a bank of the river Rhine in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images Police officers check cars at the boarder crossing at the highway A35 between Woerth (Germany) and Strassbourg the day after a man shot 14 people, killing at least three, on December 12, 2018 near Lauterbourg, France Getty Images Members of the French police unit BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade - Brigades de recherche et d'intervention) are about to search a tram travelling between Strasbourg and Kehl on a bridge crossing the border with Germany over the river Rhine in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images A member of the French police unit BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade - Brigades de recherche et d'intervention) looks through binoculars from the Pont de l'Europe (Europe bridge), crossing the border with Germany over the river Rhine in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images Media gather near the Christmas Market where a deadly shooting took place, in Strasbourg EPA A member of the French police unit BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade - Brigades de recherche et d'intervention) stands guard at the border with Germany in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images member of the French police unit BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade - Brigades de recherche et d'intervention) stands guard at the border with Germany in Strasbourg AFP/Getty Images French soldier of France's anti-terror 'Vigipirate' plan, dubbed 'Operation Sentinelle' patrols next to Notre-Dame cathedral of Strasbourg, seen in background, following a shooting in the city of Strasbourg, eastern France AP Police officers controlle cars at the boarder crossing at the highway A35 between Woerth (Germany) and Strassbourg the day after a man shot 14 people, killing at least three, on December 12, 2018 near Lauterbourg, France Getty Images French soldiers stand guard at the Christmas market in front of the Cathedral AFP/Getty Images Members of French special police forces of Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) leave following a police operation the day after a shooting in Strasbourg, France REUTERS Members of the French National Police BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade) during their search for a suspect following a deadly shooting that took place at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France EPA Police control the border between Germany and France in Kehl, southern Germany, after suspected extremist who sprayed gunfire at one of Europe's most famous Christmas markets in the eastern city of Strasbourg, killing three and wounding at least 13. AP Members of French special police forces of Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) leave following a police operation the day after a shooting in Strasbourg, France REUTERS Members of the French National Police BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade) during their search for a suspect following a deadly shooting that took place at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France EPA Members of the French special forces BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade - Brigades de recherche et d'intervention) conduct searches on December 12, 2018 for the gunman who opened fire near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, eastern France, the night before. AFP/Getty Images French policeman of the CRS (Republican Security Companies - Compagnies Republicaines de Securite) stands guard, while searches are conducted on December 12, 2018 for the gunman who opened fire near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, eastern France, the night before. AFP/Getty Images A French gendarme patrols in front of the Strasbourg cathedral while searches are conducted on December 12, 2018 for the gunman who opened fire near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, eastern France AFP/Getty Images French gendarmes patrol in front of the Strasbourg cathedral while searches are conducted on December 12, 2018 for the gunman who opened fire near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, eastern France AFP/Getty Images Among those who died in the attack were Thai tourist Anupong Suebsamarn, 45, and father-of-three Kamal Naghchband, originally from Afghanistan. The third person to be killed was thought to be a 61-year-old retired bank worker from Strasbourg. More than 700 officers took part in the search for Chekatt, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. After being shut following the attack, the Christmas market in Strasbourg reopened amid tight security after being closed throughout the manhunt. In the wake of the attack, the French government has increased its terror alert level nationwide. A US court has blocked President Donald Trump's bid to enforce new rules that could significantly reduce women's access to free birth control. A divided court on Thursday blocked rules by the Trump administration that would allow employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. Last year, two federal judges from Philadelphia and Oakland, California, blocked the guideline, which would undermine an Obamacare requirement for employers to provide insurance that covers womens birth control. The Justice Department appealed both rulings. President Barack Obamas health care law required most companies to cover birth control at no additional cost, although it included exemptions for religious organisations. The Trump administration policy allowed more categories of employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out by claiming religious objections. Any company that is not publicly traded could deny coverage on moral grounds, under the new rules. California's attorney general sued over the policy, along with those in Delaware, Virginia, Maryland and New York. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said on Thursday the government likely violated administrative laws in promulgating the new rules. However, the appeals court said the injunction issued in California should not apply nationwide, but only within the five states that sued over the policy. A nationwide injunction issued by the Philadelphia judge is still in effect while that case is under appeal at the 3rd Circuit, a spokesman for Pennsylvania's attorney general said on Thursday. US Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said single judges should not be able to issue nationwide injunctions, and called the 9th Circuit ruling "a victory for restoring the constitutional order of the federal government and ending abuses of judicial power." Meanwhile, California attorney aeneral Xavier Bacerra in a statement said the decision "is an important step to protect a womans right to access cost-free birth control." S ir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic tourism spaceship has successfully blasted off to the edge of space and back. Stunning images and footage captured how the passenger rocket ship climbed more than 50 miles high above California's Mojave Desert on Thursday, reaching for the first time what the company considers the boundary of space. The SpaceShipTwo rocket ship hit an altitude of 51 miles (82 kilometres) before beginning its gliding descent, said mission official Enrico Palermo. It landed on a runway minutes later following a victory roll. "We made it to space!" Mr Palermo exclaimed. The ship had taken off attached to carrier plane WhiteKnightTwo before firing its rocket motors to reach new heights. The rocket ship flew to the edge of space / PA The supersonic flight takes Virgin Galactic closer to turning the long-delayed dream of commercial space tourism into reality. SpaceShipTwo's maiden flight / Virgin Galactic The company aims to take paying customers on the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. It marked the plane's fourth test flight, following earlier setbacks in the firm's space programme. Sir Richard Branson celebration the test flight / PA On Thursday, SpaceShipTwo took off from the Mojave Desert in California. At the start of the test flight, a special jet carrying the Virgin Space Ship Unity flew to an altitude near 43,000 feet (13,100 metres) before releasing the craft. The spaceship ignited its rocket engine and it quickly hurtled upward and out of sight of viewers on the ground. Virgin Galactic's carrier airplane WhiteKnightTwo takes off carrying space tourism rocket ship SpaceShipTwo / AFP/Getty Images The company said the spaceship reached Mach 2.9, nearly three times the speed of sound. The two test pilots - Mark "Forger" Stucky and former NASA astronaut Rick "CJ" Sturckow - will be awarded commercial astronaut wings, Federal Aviation Administration official Bailey Edwards said. A view from the edge of space is seen from the cockpit / REUTERS "It was a great flight and I can't wait to do it again," said Mr Sturckow, who flew on the space shuttle four times. Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard said there will be more test flights and if all goes well he will take a ride before the public gets its chance. Virgin Galactic launches space tourism rocket plane "I believe that sometime in the second half of next year that we will start being able to put regular people up into space," he said, describing Thursday as one of the best days of his life. Virgin Galactic's development of its spaceship has taken far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot. The rocket jets off to reach space "People have literally put their lives on the line to get us here," Sir Richard said. "This day is as much for them as it is for all of us." More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides that include several minutes of weightlessness and a view of the Earth far below. The rocket ship landing at the Mojave test centre in California after her test flight / PA The spaceship will also be used for research: NASA had science experiments on the test flight. Sir Richard founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 following the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft that made three flights into space. Virgin Galactic fires its rocket motors to reach the edge of space / AP Funded by the late billionaire Paul G. Allen and created by maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The prize was created to kick-start private development of rocket ships that would make spaceflight available to the public. When Sir Richard licensed the SpaceShipOne technology, he envisioned a fleet carrying paying passengers by 2007, launching them from a facility in southern New Mexico called Spaceport America. But there were significant setbacks. Three technicians were killed in 2007 by an explosion while testing a propellant system at Scaled Composites LLC, which built SpaceShipOne and was building the first SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic. Sir Richard Branson and Sam Branson (both at centre) celebrate the successful Virgin Galactic test flight of SpaceShipTwo / PA Then, in 2014, SpaceShipTwo broke apart during a test flight by Scaled Composites when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked its unique "feathering" braking system and it began to deploy. The co-pilot was killed but the injured pilot managed to survive a fall from high altitude with a parachute. New versions of SpaceShipTwo are built by a Virgin Galactic sister company and flight testing is now in-house. Its previous test flight reached 32 miles (52 kilometres). Sir Richard is not alone in the space tourism business: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is planning to take space tourists on trips, using the more traditional method of a capsule atop a rocket that blasts off from a launch pad. SpaceX's Elon Musk recently announced plans to take a wealthy Japanese entrepreneur and his friends on a trip around the moon. Virgin Galactic considers 50 miles (80 kilometres) the boundary of space because that is the distance used by the US Air Force and other US agencies. This is different from a long-held view that the boundary is at 62 miles (100 kilometres). Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides noted that recent research favours the lower altitude. D rake appeared to laugh off Kanye Wests furious Twitter tirade against him, which saw him target the Canadian rapper over an eight-hour period. West accused Drake of threatening his family as he reignited their feud in front of his 28.8 million Twitter followers on Thursday night. West branded Drake faker than wrestling and blasted him for dissing his Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 trainers on French Montana collaboration No Stylist. He tweeted: Still need that apology for mentioning the 350s and trying to take food out your idols kids mouths. Response: Drake appeared to find the Twitter rant entertaining / Instagram / Drake Drake appeared to respond to the accusations, posting a string of crying with laughter emojis on his Instagram story. West accused Drake of threatening the safety of him and his family, before telling him to leave him and his family alone. Accusations: Kanye West posted over 80 tweets in a lengthy tirade / Getty Images He warned the Canadian star away from his children North, five, Saint, three and 10-month-old Chicago who he shares with wife Kim Kardashian. So Drake if anything happens to me or anyone from my family you are the first suspect. So cut the tough talk. Brawl erupts at Pusha-T's Toronto concert after Drake feud West also referenced the violent incident at Pusha Ts gig last month in a bid to back up his claims Drake is threatening. Concert-goers rushed the stage which saw one victim left in a critical condition after being stabbed. Kardashian leapt to her husbands defence, reiterating his claims that Drake has been threatening. She tweeted: @drake Never threaten my husband or our family. He paved the way for there to be a Drake. My husband is the most brilliant person, the most genius person that I know. He has broken so many boundaries, everything from music, stage design, fashion and culture and will continue to change the world. Representatives for Drake declined to comment. B illy Connolly, knighted last year, has announced he will tour no more. Aged 76, he has been suffering from Parkinsons disease for some time. Currently living in Florida for his health, he has made this last hurrah, travelling around the state, enjoying himself mightily. At no point does he seem any the worse for wear, but he doesnt go any further than Key West to Miami. While he maintains hes still discovering thrilling stuff round every corner, the programme itself takes a more elegiac turn, by including snippets from his travel programmes from the previous 25 years. Billy goes saltwater fly-fishing, hoping to land a tarpon but really its about being at peace and being relaxed and loose, as his admiring guide says. All the films theyve made of me fishing Ive never caught a fish on camera and I dont care, Billy chortles, proving the point with clips from the River Ness in 2004 and Canada in 2009. He inspects a local American crocodile and then we see him feeding crocs in Australia back in 1996. Beautiful creatures, he says back then. Two hundred million years old, so it should be quite good at what it does in 200 million years you could get pretty good at anything. I would be able to play the banjo properly in 200 million years. The long view. Such travel shows, giving us the world by proxy, have always needed great charm to make good watching: Connolly has always had it and he has it still. The on-the-road thing was always important to me, it gives you a certain love of the world, and its taught me to like where I come from, he says, speaking now over footage of a visit to Loch Lomond back in 1994. I remember standing on the shores of Loch Lomond at Inversnaid and the sky was beautiful. I remember that line, Breathes there a man with soul so dead, he never to himself has said, this is my own, my native land. (Indigo Television ) / Indigo Television I dont like to look like a bagpiper, with heather in my ears, you know, he says to camera, wearing a pretty lurid Hawaiian shirt in Florida, but sometimes your love of a place just has to find a stage. Id like to die there its a weird subject to bring up but Im 75. I wouldnt like to stay away forever Id like to be planted there eventually, in Loch Lomond. Anybody who has ever liked Billy Connolly will be touched by this programme, a celebration of a life well lived. True, it verges on the sentimental, and even the sententious, at points. Towards the end he tells us: You can see all the sights in the world you can see the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, all that but if you dont make a friend you havent done it right. Both true and corny, more corny than he might have been when fired-up back in the day. But then we also see him, horrifically, dancing naked around standing stones in Orkney in 1994, in Australia in 1996, and out in the snow in the Arctic in 1995. You have to be out of shape to do it. If youre in shape, it looks like youre showing off. When youre like me, youre like a tortured question mark, it becomes funny, he explains over this appalling footage. Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe A reaper harvests wheat in Pingyi County of Linyi City, east China's Shandong Province, May 30, 2018. China has decided to boost mechanized farming and the upgrading of agricultural machinery, according to the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday. The meeting said that quickening the work as required by the country's rural vitalization strategy would provide essential support for China to achieve agricultural modernization, allow farmers to increase their income and further expand the domestic market. (Xinhua/Wu Jiquan) BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- China has decided to boost mechanized farming and the upgrading of agricultural machinery, according to the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday. The meeting said that quickening the work as required by the country's rural vitalization strategy would provide essential support for China to achieve agricultural modernization, allow farmers to increase their income and further expand the domestic market. The work must be advanced to meet the needs of developing scale farming appropriately. During the process, farmers' wishes must be respected while the roles of the market are exploited. Grassroots creativity must be valued so that the work can proceed smoothly, it said. The meeting also listed several crops whose production and harvest could depend more on mechanized farming. They are rice, wheat, corn, potato, oilseed rape, cotton and sugarcane. In the meeting, it was said that farmers engaged in mechanized farming would be subsidized equally no matter if the machinery they purchase is from Chinese or foreign brands. Financial institutions were encouraged to use mortgage loans to finance such purchases while local governments were called on to support the work through financial discounts. The meeting stressed that advanced agricultural machinery and mechanized farming techniques should be further promoted. It also urged enterprises to quicken innovation on agricultural equipment, double their efforts to develop complete sets of equipment and improve the quality of farming equipment suitable for major cash crops. It said that small plots of farmland could be consolidated when possible so as to broaden the use of farming equipment and that various cooperatives need to be established to facilitate the sharing of agricultural machinery. It was stated in the meeting that smart farming based on the application of modern information and communication technologies shall be advanced. 10 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Deputy Prime Minister Ana Birchall coordinated on Friday the first meeting of the Working Group to monitor and coordinate the implementation of projects approved at the Three Seas Initiatives Summit in Bucharest, an occasion to hold discussions on the progress of the projects adopted at the Summit on the three priority axes - energy, transport, digital, as well as on the registered developments regarding the establishment of the Investment Fund of the Initiative. Ana Birchall stressed at the beginning of the meeting that the I3M Summit in Bucharest was a milestone, being the first such event that resulted in the promotion of concrete projects of particular geostrategic importance for the entire region. "The Government team, under the coordination of Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, contributed essentially to the success of the Summit by identifying and promoting national priority projects. Romania has thus succeeded in fulfilling the I3M objective of delivering concrete results and tangible projects. (...) We discussed with the fellow ministers about the stage of the implementation of the projects agreed at the Bucharest Three Seas Summit in September, as well as about the measures necessary to obtain financing to turn them into a reality," said Deputy Prime Minister Ana Birchall, according to a press release sent to AGERPRES on Friday. Ana Birchall mentioned that in a complex regional geopolitical context, the 3-Sea Initiative and the interconnection projects agreed in this format could become a "benchmark of stability, security and sustainable economic development." "I am confident that the Three Seas Initiative can bring substantial economic benefits to the Member States and our neighbors. Closer cooperation in interconnectivity concrete projects between our countries will serve as proof that, unlike other options, the joint European and Euro-Atlantic prospect is the only one that can ensure prosperity and sustainable growth, in line with the expectations of our citizens," Ana Birchall said. The Three Seas Initiative is a regional cooperation forum of the Central and Eastern European countries that are members of the European Union and was launched by Croatia and Poland. Originally conceived as a flexible and informal political platform at presidential level, the Initiative (I3M) brings together the 12 EU Member States located on a north-south axis from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic and Black Sea - Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. This format was established after those in Croatia (2016) and Poland (2018), and at the I3M Summit in Bucharest (September 2018), a list of major interconnection projects in the energy, transport and digital fields was approved. The third meeting of the Romanian-Palestinian Intergovernmental Committee (CIG III) is clear proof of Romania's firm commitment to Palestine's institutional building, an essential objective in the sustainable, political settlement of the conflict in Middle East, Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu said. This event bears witness to the high level reached by the Romanian-Palestinian dialogue, the good cooperation in various areas of mutual interest, and the importance we attach here in Bucharest to the relationship with Palestine. It is also clear proof of Romania's firm commitment to the institutional building of Palestine, an essential objective in the sustainable and political settlement of the conflict in the Middle East. The third meeting of the Romanian-Palestinian Intergovernmental Committee represented a very good opportunity to review the main aspects of our cooperation, the results of the second meeting held in 2014 in Bucharest, and to identify the best means by which we can develop and boost our relations for the benefit of both peoples. Both myself and the other members of the Romanian Government have reaffirmed our country's willingness to collaborate with Palestine in various areas of interest, such as social justice and labor, agriculture, economy, emergency situation and environmental management so that we can confidently declare that the works of this intergovernmental committee were truly fruitful," Teodor Meleccanu on Friday told joint statements held alongside Palestine's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Dr. Riad Malki. The Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs also reaffirmed Romania's entire support "for the just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through direct negotiations leading to the implementation of the solution of the two states, Israel and Palestine, coexisting at peace and in peace security, as the only viable option and able to guarantee the fulfillment of the aspirations of the two countries."He mentioned that a program of cooperation was signed at the event between the Ministry of Culture and National Identity of Romania and the Ministry of Culture of Palestine."In this respect, we must not forget that investing in human resources is one of the most important investments. The Romanian Government has granted and will continue to grant scholarships in the fields of medicine, engineering, emergency situations and many others" said Minister Melescanu.The Romanian minister has also referred to the performance of the Mobile Emergency Service for Resuscitation and Extrication (SMURD) in our country."As it is known, in Romania, we have a highly appreciated service, both nationally and internationally, created by Dr. Raed Arafat, a Romanian citizen of Palestinian origin, an institution that already shares its know-how with its Palestinian partners. Moreover, based on the success of the specialization course at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Targu Mures in 2013, the representatives of the Department for Emergency Situations in Romania have forwarded within our works in this intergovernmental committee the proposal to revitalize this program in the future as well," Melescanu said.The event was also attended, among others, by Romanian Minister of Culture and National Identity Daniel Breaz and the head of Emergency Situations Department, Raed Arafat.The third meeting of the Romanian-Palestinian Intergovernmental Committee (CIG III) represents a form of cooperation belonging to Romania's demarches to support the development and consolidation of the Palestinian institutions. Minister of Internal Affairs Carmen Dan declared on Friday that the decision regarding the drafting of an emergency ordinance amending the Criminal Codes was a political one, and such an approach "is not a bad thing", saying that whether it is possible to carry on with this objective still needs to be "technically" established. "It was a political decision, a decision which, at the time, just as the prime minister of Romania announced, was assumed by the Government. We will further see, technically, if we can move forward in achieving this objective. I believe it is necessary and I believe that an OUG [Emergency Ordinance, ed.n.] on the articles that were declared constitutional is not a bad thing," Carmen Dan said, at the seat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Read also: Senate's Tariceanu: 'Two-state solution,' Israel, Palestine, the only one that can solve conflict Asked if the Government will limit itself to solely aligning some provisions of the Codes with the decisions of the CCR (Constitutional Court of Romania), Dan specified that an analysis is being carried out. "They are in the works with the experts, there are talks, an analysis is being made and I can assure you that the right decision will be made," the minister added. AGERPRES . AGERPRES Special correspondent Madalina Cerban reports: President Klaus Iohannis said on Friday in Brussels that our country will make every effort to contribute to the advancement of the European Agenda during the Trio Presidency of the EU Council, consisting of Romania, Finland and Croatia. According to the Presidential Administration, President Iohannis had a meeting with Finland Prime Minister Juha Sipila on Friday and with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic in a context in which the three states are expected to secure the Trio Presidency of the EU Council from 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2020. Klaus Iohannis conveyed his appreciations "on the sustained dialogue and excellent cooperation" with Finland and Croatia in the process of drafting the Joint EU Council Work Program during the rotating presidencies to be held consecutively by the three states, starting with 1 January 2019. "The program outlines the major lines to be addressed within the EU Council over the next 18 months, thus ensuring the coherence and continuity of the European agenda in the medium and long term," the Presidential Administration said. President Iohannis also stressed that this Trio will play an important role in ensuring the continuity of the management of the files on the European agenda, as well as the legislative and institutional transition at Union level. The discussions also focused on addressing the current agenda topics of the European agenda, such as Brexit, the negotiations on the next multiannual financial framework post-2020 and the issue of migration. Iohannis also said that the current debates at European level on the future of the EU give the Trio Romania - Finland - Croatia an important role in the future Strategic Agenda of the Union and the design of the directions for the evolution of European policies in a manner which responds more effectively to the expectations of European citizens. At the same time, Klaus Iohannis said that our country, as a state that will take over the presidency of the EU Council on 1 January 2019, will make every effort to contribute to the advancement of the European Agenda during the Trio, the Presidential Administration underlines. According to the cited source, the discussion highlighted the commitment of the three countries to working together to meet the common objectives set out in the Joint Working Program. At the proposal of President Iohannis, it was agreed that during the period of the successive mandates of the Trio presidencies - Romania, Finland, Croatia - coordination meetings should be held on the sidelines of the European Councils, the Presidential Administration informs. President Klaus Iohannis Friday had a meeting in Brussels with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Theresa May, with whom he discussed the Brexit agreement and the situation of the Romanian community in the UK. According to the Presidential Administration, the topics on the bilateral and European agenda were mainly tackled during the meeting, such as Britain's withdrawal process from the European Union. At the same time, the Romanian president expressed hope that the efforts of the British Prime Minister will be reflected in the successful ratification in the London Parliament of the UK withdrawal agreement from the EU, aimed at ensuring an orderly withdrawal and certainty for citizens and the business community. Equally, talks on the ratification process must take into account all the elements that have already been agreed upon with the British Prime Minister through the withdrawal agreement, the Presidential Administration specifies. Read also: President Iohannis: Censure motion, an important test for both Opposition and Power "President Klaus Iohannis referred to the situation of the Romanian community in the UK and the fact that the withdrawal agreement will be an important point in guaranteeing the rights of those who live, work or study in this country. The President of Romania also emphasized the importance of observing the principles of non-discrimination, full reciprocity and equal treatment for all EU citizens, both recipients of the withdrawal agreement and those who will settle in the UK in the future," the Presidential Administration further shows. According to the cited source, Klaus Iohannis mentioned the importance of discussing as soon as possible the agreement on the future EU relations with the United Kingdom as sign of commitment to maintaining a level of cooperation as high as possible with the British side. Iohannis also said that our country fully supports the EU approach that wants this comprehensive and ambitious partnership with Britain after its withdrawal from the Union, covering diverse areas, from economic and trade cooperation to foreign policy, security and defense. "Prime Minister Theresa May voiced her appreciation for the opportunity of the dialogue with President Klaus Iohannis, including from the outlook of the UK's withdrawal from the EU during the term of Romania's Presidency of the Council of the European Union," the Presidential Administration also shows. AGERPRES . Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riad Malki expressed his hope that the relationship between Palestine and the EU will be a priority objective of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The discussions that took place at the level of the colleagues in the two delegations, Romanian and Palestinian, were positive, addressed a lot of problems that indicate the willingness of both parties to deepen and expand relationships in different fields. I am very happy and very satisfied with the conclusions of this meeting, I am happy that we have been able to contribute to the signing of the two agreements in the field of education and culture, and, as you have said, they are added to the other agreements that we have signed (...) at the consultations which we had in the past and in which we tackled many issues relating not only to current relations but also to the possibility of extending them further in all areas, Riad Malki said on Friday in joint statements with Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu. The Palestinian minister voiced optimism about the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council. We are optimistic about the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of next year and we hope that the relationship between Palestine and the EU will be a priority objective of the Romanian Presidency in the course of this process and we are ready to study together with you the possibility and the way to boost the political process that been halted for a few years. We agree with you about the importance of the solution of the two states being the best solution at present for peace with Israel, but it must come through political negotiations directly under the broad international umbrella, and to take into account all the political data of this issue and all that has been established in this regard , and also that these negotiations should take place within an acceptable time horizon so as to end the Israeli occupation and to lead to the building of the independent Palestinian state with the capital in East Jerusalem as part of the solution of the two states, Israel and Palestine, which live together in peace and security. We reaffirm our commitment to all international decisions and international law, and we want to see that the political process is revived and restarted during the Romanian Presidency, said Riad Malki. The Palestinian minister reaffirmed that the meeting with the Romanian side is a very important one. Very many eyes were watching this meeting, waiting to see the results. That's why we are very proud of the results we have achieved, we hope that the Romanian-Palestinian relationship will be a special one and be a model for the relationships that should link two independent states and two friendly peoples, as is the case with Romania and Palestine. We would like to have the opportunity to welcome you and other Romanian ministries in Palestine during the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Committee, said Riad Malki. President Klaus Iohannis on Friday stated that the censure motion represents an important test for both Opposition and Power and it would be "really strange" for this instrument to be yielded. "The censure motion is the main instrument of the Opposition in Parliament. It would even be strange for this instrument to be yielded. They have the right to file a censure motion once per session and they will do it. It's an important test for the Opposition and for the Power," said Iohannis. Read also: Iohannis discusses with Tusk, Sipila on cooperation initiatives to ready Sibiu Summit, EU Strategic Agenda The censure motion initiated by the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Save Romania Union (USR) and People's Movement Party (PMP) was submitted to Parliament on Friday. AGERPRES . AGERPRES special correspondent Madalina Cerban reports: President Klaus Iohannis, who attended the European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, highlighted the importance of the Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy in relation to the new multiannual budget of the EU. "In the debate on the future multiannual budget of the Union, the President of Romania expressed his thanks for the efforts made by the Austrian Presidency in this file, stressing that, as a state that will take over the presidency of the Council of the EU as of 1 January 2019, our country will act as honest broker and will continue the same sustained pace of talks aimed at making progress in negotiations," the Presidential Administration informs on Friday. President Iohannis welcomed the setting as time frame of the autumn of 2019 for an agreement at the level of the European Council, saying that this commitment will generate an ambitious pace of negotiations, throughout the exercise of Romania's presidency, included. "In light of the priority objectives for our country, as a member state, in relation to the new budget, the president of Romania pointed out the importance of the Cohesion Policy and Common Agricultural Policy, objectives also supported by other member states. At the same time, Klaus Iohannis stressed the importance of a realistic approach in future discussions, namely the need to equally accommodate the new priorities and challenges of the Union through this new budget," the Presidential Administration specifies. The head of the Romanian state mentioned that our country will promote, as the Presidency of the Council of the EU, the steps aimed at contributing to the deepening of the Single Market of the Union, the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Single Market and the adoption of as many related legislative acts. On the other hand, Klaus Iohannis stressed the importance of continuing the efforts of the EU Member States with regard to the external dimension of migration and an active involvement in the dialogue with the external partners, the migrants' countries of origin and transit. At the same time, he referred to the fact that the Presidency of Romania of the EU Council will take over the files regarding the management of the internal dimension of migration, and will continue to work towards identifying solutions. As far as the Union's external relations are concerned, European leaders discussed with the prospect of the EU - the League of Arab States Summit, to be held on 24 and 25 February 2019. At the same time, the members of the European Council have approached recent developments in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, given Russia's use of military force against Ukraine, with "deep concern over the tensions in the region" being voiced. "Romania's President reaffirmed the commitment and support of our country to Ukraine's territorial sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders," the Presidential Administration says. According to the cited source, the topic of climate change was also addressed in the context of the recent presentation by the European Commission of the proposed strategy in this area entitled "A Clean Planet for All". Debates on this important topic will continue during the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council. With regard to security and defense aspects, the European Council welcomed progress in this area, as concerns the implementation of PESCO, the strengthening of military mobility and negotiations on the European Defence Fund, included, and endorsed the Civilian Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). President Iohannis welcomed the adoption of the civilian CSDP compact, highlighting the added value of the EU in the field of civilian crisis management, the Presidential Administration further shows. The European leaders also exchanged views on the outcome of the dialogues and consultations with citizens in the Member States, based on the report drawn up by the Austrian Presidency in cooperation with Romania as the future rotating presidency of the EU Council. "Romania's President welcomed the results of the citizens' consultations on the future of the Union, noting that our country has supported this initiative from the outset, very useful for shaping the expectations of the European citizens in the context of the reflection process on the future of the EU and in view of the informal Sibiu Summit in May 2019," the Presidential Administration mentions. With regard to disinformation, the European Council stressed the importance of a strong and coordinated response from the Member States to counteract this phenomenon in order to strengthen the Union's resilience and preparedness in the run-up to the elections to the European Parliament. Klaus Iohannis appreciated the recent Action Plan of the European Commission and expressed support for the measures to combat disinformation. At the Euro Summit in an enlarged format, European leaders continued discussions on deepening the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Iohannis welcomed the efforts to strengthen EMU and reaffirmed our country's support for this goal. As far as Brexit is concerned, European leaders have agreed that the UK and EU withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened. President Iohannis fully supported the EU 27 approach and pointed out that Romania, as future Presidency of the EU Council, aims at kicking off as soon as possible discussions on the future relations between the EU and the UK. Minister of Culture and National Identity Daniel Breaz and Palestinian Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Minister Riad Malki Friday inked a cooperation document on culture and education between Romania and Palestine at the seat of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), according to Agerpres The signing ceremony took place at the end of the third meeting of the Romanian-Palestinian Intergovernmental Committee (CIG III). "I can tell you that today is an extremely important moment for Romania and, of course, for Palestine, given the relations between the two states. The fact that there is a close bond between Palestine and Romania through the communities, of both Romanians and Palestinians, the Romanians living and forming an extremely important community in Palestine, respectively the Palestinians in Romania, compels us, in a way, to have such cultural relations. Traditions must be respected, everything that means culture and common culture must be promoted. I hope that after the signing of this protocol, these relations, including from an official point of view, will develop and I am firmly convinced that the diplomatic relations and cultural relations and educational relations between Romania and Palestine will be a good omen and will continue, so that the two peoples get as close as possible from these points of view," said Daniel Breaz after the signing ceremony of the protocol on the Romanian-Palestinian cooperation program in the fields of culture and education.In his turn, Palestinian Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Minister Riad Malki, a signatory of the document on behalf of Palestine, said: "Culture is a great treasure because it means more than mere cultural achievements, it means history, it means heritage, it means a lot of things.""I am very happy that Palestine and Romania have signed this agreement which allows each of them to discover the cultural treasure of the other country. We can find that we have many points in common, many points that bring us closer throughout this history, over the history of centuries that binds us.There are also many areas that allow us to get closer despite the geographic distance between the two countries, yet there is a cultural closeness and as concerns the communication bridges between the two sides. I believe that this agreement will allow the two peoples to get to know the rich culture of the other people," the Palestinian minister said.The document on cooperation in culture and education between Romania and Palestine was signed in the presence of the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Teodor Melescanu. Senate President Calin Popescu Tariceanu on Friday reiterated at the meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Palestine, Riad Malki, Romania's standpoint related to the comprehensive solving in the long run of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, namely the implementation of the "two-state solution," Israeli and Palestine, to coexist in peace and security, as the "only viable solution that could guarantee the meeting of both parties' aspirations." The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Palestine is currently paying a visit to Romania to participate in the 3rd session of the Romanian-Palestinian inter-governmental committee. Read also: Klaus Iohannis, Theresa May meet in Brussels; talks about Brexit and Romanians in UK According to a press release sent by the Senate to AGERPRES on Friday, during the dialogue, the President of the Senate evoked the traditional friendship between the two states and how important the relation with Palestine is for Romania. In this respect, he underscored the cooperation potential for strengthening the institutional capacity of the Palestinian side in fields such as education, culture, internal affairs and civil protection, healthcare and agriculture. The meeting represented also an occasion for the Palestinian dignitary to present the recent developments in his region and the future perspective of the Peace Process in the Middle East, mentions the same release. AGERPRES . Chief of the Defence Staff (SMA), General Nicolae Ionel Ciuca, and General Major Marian Sima, Head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, received the Medal of Honor of the United States Special Forces. The head of the SMA thanked the US partner for the assistance in the transformation process of the Romanian special operation forces - both the US SOCOM commander and the specialists who advised and assisted during the process, informs a release issued by the Ministry of National Defense (MApN) for AGERPRES on Friday. In his speech, General Ciuca asked the American officials present at the event to convey his thanks to the US SOCOM chief of staff, General Raymond Thomas, for all his support. "The medal represents the effort of all those who have contributed to this process, especially the operators of special forces, who are not very often mentioned in our speeches, whom I would like to thank for the professionalism and dedication proven daily in the accomplishment of their missions," said General Nicolae Ciuca. On this occasion, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism Andrew Knaggs said it was a great honor to participate in the event of acknowledging the support that General Ciuca and Major General Sima gave to the transformation of Romania's special operation forces. According to MApN, the evolution of the global security environment and in Romania's area of strategic interest required the adaptation of the response modalities in order to counteract the risks and threats to the national security and defense. Taking into account the organization and the command and control system of the special operations forces and the human resources, the technology and infrastructure available, this year, on 1 March, the Special Forces Command (CFOS) was established. During the 15 years since the establishment of the first operational structures of the Special Forces of the Romanian Armed Forces, the troops of these structures participated in missions in theaters of operations and multinational activities and their professionalism and competence were recognized through over 1,000 decorations and national medals and more than 100 medals and decorations received from foreign partners, the press release informed. Chairman of Save Romania Union (USR) Dan Barna declared that he was reassured by both Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and Justice Minister Tudorel Toader, with whom he met on Friday, that the topic of amnesty and pardoning is not part of the intentions for the following period. Barna specified that during the meeting he "specifically" asked about amnesty and pardoning. "Both - Mrs. prime minister and the minister of Justice - said very clear that such a matter is not under debate at the time, they are not working on this, it will not happen for now. I tried to ask for a deadline - what does "at the time" mean, and, of course, I received no answer. But both dignitaries said the topic of amnesty and pardoning is not part of the intentions for the following period," USR leader told a press conference. A delegation of USR led by Dan Barna met on Friday, at Victoria Palace, with Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and Justice Minister Tudorel Toader. The December 1 arrest by Canadian authorities in Vancouver of Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, based on a US extradition warrant, represents a draconian extraterritorial application of a dubious US law and claim of Huaweis sanctions violations regarding Iran. Meng was arrested at Vancouver International Airport, while a transit passenger changing planes. Meng stands accused by the Trump administration of having used Skycom, a Huawei subsidiary based in Hong Kong, to evade American sanctions against Iran between 2009 and 2014. A British Columbia judge granted Meng bail, set at $7.4 million. She was required to surrender her passports to Canadian authorities. Although Meng stands accused by the US Attorneys Office in Manhattan of violating US trade sanctions on Iran and lying to HSBC Bank in furtherance of the alleged sanctions busting, Donald Trump told Reuters that he may use the arrest of Meng as a bargaining chip with China over current trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing. Essentially, Trump believes Meng to be a US hostage, available to trade off with Beijing in the current Sino-US trade war. Trumps comments, which suggested Meng is a political pawn, through into question the US legal case against Meng and drew sharp criticism from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said that Canada would abide by the rule of law and not what goes on in other countries. In June of this year, Trump dropped the threat of US sanctions on the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE for allegedly selling its products to Iran and North Korea. US firms that supply components to ZTE would have faced possible job layoffs and bankruptcy had ZTE been sanctioned. The ZTE affair, again, showed that the extraterritorial application of US law against companies and individuals with commercial links to Iran is not in the national or economic security interests of the United States, but of Israel and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia. Americas extraterritorial application of its Iran sanctions laws, which are largely driven by the powerful Israel Lobby in Washington, in addition to Canadas acting as Washingtons brigand in seizing Meng, is not playing well in China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called in American ambassador Terry Branstad and Canadian ambassador Canadian Ambassador John McCallum and warned them that Mengs arrest was lawless, reasonless and ruthless. China also arrested Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who had been posted to China and Hong Kong, in a move seen as a response to Mengs arrest. Kovrig was in China under the auspices of the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental organization with longstanding links to the US Central Intelligence Agency. Michael Spavor, a Canadian businessman, was also detained in China in a growing feud between Beijing and Ottawa brought about by Mengs arrest. Spavor owns the Paektu Cultural Exchange, a company that arranges trips by Westerners to North Korea, a nation also subject to stringent US sanctions. Spavor is also close to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The Chinese vice foreign minister, Le Yucheng, warned Branstad about the vile way in which, Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Canada. The Chinese foreign ministry also told Canadian ambassador McCallum to relay to Ottawa its demand for the immediate release of Meng, who was, until 2009, a permanent resident of Canada. The arrest of Meng represents an unusual extraterritorial application of US law to Meng, a foreign national, in a third country, Canada. The extradition of Meng to stand trial in the United States for a Chinese firms commercial links with Iran is highly dubious under international law. The arrest of Meng has sent a chill through foreign firms that continue to maintain commercial ties to Iran after the Trump administrations unilateral withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement between Iran and China, Russia, and the European Union. The arrest of Meng also shreds the post-G20 trade war truce recently agreed to by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires. Making matters worse, Trump was dining with Xi in Buenos Aires at the very same time that Meng was arrested in Canada. the average Chinese men and women on the street are so outraged by the US-directed arrest of Meng, they unabashedly speak to foreigners about going to war with the United States. Trump warned countries still adhering to the terms of the JCPOA that his administration would criminally sanction them and their companies if they continued financial links with Iran after the US unilaterally imposed drastic new sanctions against Iran on November 4. The Trump administrations re-imposed sanctions were pressed by US national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both of whom take their direction from the government of Israel and its powerful interlocutors in Washingtons lobbying and political donor sectors, as well as Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Another nation that could feel the wrath of Washington is Algeria. Its state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, awarded the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) a $420 million contract to renovate its refinery in Algiers. Part of the contract, awarded on November 6, two days after increased US secondary sanctions were imposed on third parties with trade links with Iran, was for Huawei to provide telecommunications services. Neither Algeria, which maintains friendly relations with Iran, nor CNPC will take kindly to their citizens involved in the deal being arrested and extradited by third parties on flimsy US arrest warrants executed by officials in Washington taking their orders from pro-Israeli influence wielders. Israel and the Trump administration are also exerting pressure on Ethiopia. They are warning EthioTelecom not to award a lucrative cellular network expansion project to Huawei. Another nation worried about the Trump administrations intentions is the West African nation of Benin. Huawei is installing a fiber-optics network in Benin, which is guaranteed by a $80 million financial assistance package from the Chinese Eximbank. Trump administration officials have also warned South Korea away from a prospective contract for Huawei to install a broadband wireless network in the country. The arrest of Meng over an issue dealing with Chinese-Iranian economic ties is similar to the 2010 arrest in Liberia of Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko. Extradited by Liberia to New York, Yaroshenko was charged with smuggling cocaine throughout South America, Africa, and Europe. The drugs, however, never crossed American shores. The statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry in 2010 were similar to those from the Chinese Foreign Ministry now. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow stated: Were talking about a kidnapping of a Russian national from a third country. The actions of US special services in the forcible and secret relocation of our national from Monrovia to New York could only [be] seen as open lawlessness. In 2015, Dino Bouterse, the son of Surinams president, Desi Bouterse, was sentenced by a US judge in New York to 16-1/4 years in prison for his dealings with the Lebanese Shia group, Hezbollah. Dino Bouterse was charged with aiding a terrorist group. However, Hezbollah is a legal political party in Lebanon and has supported various coalition governments in that country. The case was only brought because, once again, Israels antagonism against Iran influenced the US legal system in extraterritorially extending US law to Surinames relationship with Lebanon. In 1909, the famed US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes opined in a case that US laws cannot be applied to other countries. This principle, known as presumption against extraterritoriality, has been whittled away by recent US administrations. This erosion of the presumption against extraterritoriality has been particularly seen in US enforcement against third parties of its sanctions on Iran and embargo on Cuba. The United States has not only been acting as the worlds policeman but as judge, jury, and, in many cases, executioner. The US Department of Justice should read the opinion of Oliver Wendell Holmes before it acts to extend US law and Israeli interests beyond Americas borders. Photo: Twitter Well, what dyou know, regular as clockwork, Russia is being blamed again for sowing social division in Western states. This time, its the ongoing nationwide public protests in France against economic austerity which some Western media outlets have claimed are being amplified by Russian influence. One of the media outlets carrying such claims is British newspaper, the Times of London. Last month, this same supposedly serious paper published claims that a popular Russian cartoon series, Masha and The Bear, was trying to subvert Western children with pro-Russia sentiments. After that ridiculous piece of garbage journalism, what credibility has the Times got to now push claims that Russia is behind the social protests engulfing France? Exactly, enough said. France has been roiled by nearly five weeks of anti-government demonstrations, popularly referred to as the Yellow Vest movement. Protesters are planning to stage rallies in the capital Paris and other major cities this weekend for the fifth consecutive week. Clashes with riot police and burning vehicles in the Champs Elysees and other iconic public venues across France certainly speak to the gravity of the social anger being expressed by millions of French people. The French public are incensed by mounting economic hardship under the government of President Emmanuel Macron, the former investment banker who wants to gut workers rights and social benefits under the euphemism of reforms. Thats after he and his wife recently redecorated the gilded Elysee Palace with ornate furnishings, wallpaper and carpets to the tune of 600,000. Many French workers are struggling to even heat their homes, such is prevalence of poverty. This week, Macron made a nationwide televised address from this same gilded palace in which he appealed for calm and stated that the authorities would belatedly make concessions in an attempt to alleviate anger over tax and other economic issues that the French public say have hit them hard with deprivation. Nevertheless, many French citizens say that Macrons concessions are not nearly enough to appease their grievances. They have vowed to continue protesting, despite a terror incident this week in the eastern city of Strasbourg in which a gunman apparently killed three people. French authorities have urged protests to be called off in the aftermath of the tight security situation. The protesters have so far refused to call off their nationwide demonstrations. It seems significant that as the Macron government is increasing its pressure on protests to subside no doubt out of alarm that the authorities are losing control over the populace then this week the media are lately reporting on claims that Russia is amplifying the unrest. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, told French media that his government was launching a probe into allegations of Russian incitement of the Yellow Vest movement. It seems like a cynical distraction to undermine the legitimacy of public fury. What are the allegations of Russian interference based on? Apparently, the Times of London and other Western media outlets reported that Russian-linked social media posts are commenting on the protests. So too, it is claimed, Russian news media have devoted undue coverage to the French demonstrations. So, lets get this straight. Russian social media users and Russian news media are to blame for amplifying French unrest because they happen to report or discuss such unrest. The logic is absurd. No doubt millions of people in countries around the world as well as their news media are commenting on these momentous events in Europe. Just because Russians are doing that, then this is cited as evidence of Russian interference. What underlies that ludicrous conclusion is the most fatuous prejudice of Russophobia. Western states are living in denial. Deep social problems from poverty under their failed economic policies and from disenfranchisement under failed political governance are inherent causes. Yet in spite of the systemic failure, Russia is cast as the scapegoat, rather than looking inward at the inherent causes. We saw this in the US after the election of maverick outsider Donald Trump as president and with Britains Brexit referendum to leave the European Union. Those events were the result of discontent within those societies with regard to the status quo. Rather than dealing with their inherent social, economic and political problems, certain elements within the ruling class in the US and Britain sought to explain away the failing by pointing the blame on Russia. The same tawdry thinking is being invoked with regard to the French protests. Admittedly, however, the tedious narrative of blaming Russia is wearing thin, and so the latest claims about Russia stirring up the French are not being too widely played in Western media, no doubt because of a realization even by the Western media that such claims are idiotic. Again, after the Masha and the Bear farcical report, the Russian red-baiting in Western media has lost any potency it may once have had. Western states are indeed confronting huge challenges from their own populaces. Poverty, social injustice, unemployment, crumbling public services, rampant alienation from state institutions, disgust with criminal militarism, among other grievances, are all motivating popular discontent and anger. The French protests are symptomatic of an international revolt against injustice of a failing capitalist order. Western ruling establishments are only stoking even more popular uprising by refusing to take the societal malaise seriously. They are postponing a day of reckoning which will come sooner or later with greater force. Blaming Russia is part of their futile charade to postpone the day of reckoning. Telling French people they are being manipulated by Kremlin agents is laughable, contemptible and fueling the calamity of political collapse. Out of collapse, it may be hoped that some progressive, democratic new polity might emerge. In an absurdist twist of the Marie Antoinette fable, French and Western authorities are saying, The people want bread but the Russians are telling them they should eat cake. The travesty of their own elitist irrelevance is whats making Western societies revolt against their establishments. In recent decades, the US Constitutions clause that requires a congressional declaration of war before invading any country, has been ignored. Furthermore, ever since 2012 and the passage by Congress of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, economic sanctions by the US Government have been imposed against any company that fails to comply with a US-imposed economic sanction; a company can even be fined over a billion dollars for violating a US economic sanction. And, so, sanctions are now the way that the US Congress actually does authorize a war the new way, no longer the way thats described in the US Constitution. However, in the economic-sanctions phase of a war this initial phase the war is being imposed directly against any company that violates a US-ordered economic sanction, against Russia, Iran, or whatever target-country the US Congress has, by means of such sanctions, actually authorized a war by the US to exist a state of war to exist. For the US Congress, the passage of economic sanctions against a country thus effectively serves now as an authorization for the US President to order the US military to invade that country, if and when the President decides to do so. No further congressional authorization is necessary (except under the US Constitution). This initial phase of a war penalizes only those other nations violating companies directly not the target-country. Though the US Government punishes the violating corporation, the actual target is the targeted (sanctioned) country. Sanctions are being used to strangle that target. The fined companies are mere collateral damage, in this phase of Americas new warfare. In this phase, which is now the standard first phase of the US Governments going-to-war, the US Government is coercing corporations to join Americas economic war, against the given targeted country in this case, its a war against Russia; Russia is the country that the US Government wants to strangle, in this particular instance. On Tuesday, 11 December, the US House of Representatives voted unanimously (no member objected), by voice vote unrecorded so that nobody can subsequently be blamed for anything that President Donald Trump should impose penalties, which could amount to billions of dollars, against any EU-based corporation that participates with Russia in Russias Nord Stream II Pipeline to supply gas to Europe. This Resolution, H.Res.1035, is titled Expressing opposition to the completion of Nord Stream II, and for other purposes, and it closes by asserting that the US House of Representatives supports the imposition of sanctions with respect to Nord Stream II under section 232 of the Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. With no member objecting, the US House thereby warns corporations to cease doing business with Russia, because the US Government is determined that any such business will be terminated and will maybe also be fined. The US Government imposes its will as if it were the dictator to the entire world, and without even needing to use its military, but just economic coercion. The US Senate doesnt yet have a similar bill, but the unanimous passage of this one in the House constitutes a strong warning to Europes corporations, that unless they obey the US sanctions, huge financial penalties will be imposed upon them. There are not many issues on which the US Congress is even nearly 100% united in agreement, but during this phase, the introductory phase, of Americas war against Russia, the war against Russia is certainly among those few instances entirely bipartisan. According to RT, on December 12th, headlining US lawmakers want to put a cork in Russia's gas pipeline to Europe: "On Monday, Austria's OMV energy group CEO Rayner Zele stated that the company is set to continue financing the pipeline next year. OMV has already invested some 531 million euros ($607 million) into the project, Zele told Ria Novosti. In early December, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also said that Berlins abandoning the project would not make sense as Russia will still go on with it. Germany earlier rebuked Trumps criticism of the project after the US leader accused Berlin of being a captive of Moscow citing Germanys alleged dependency on natural gas from Russia. If the US Government fails to strangulate the economies in the countries such as Russia and Iran against which it has imposed sanctions, then the next step, of course, would be some type of armed invasion of the given targeted country. Before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Americas economic sanctions killed from 100,000 to 500,000 Iraqi children, but then the US invaded and destroyed the country vastly more than just that. Economic sanctions are an attempt to coerce a targeted countrys in effect surrender, but without needing to use a military invasion as the coercive means. Any sanctioned country is therefore in Americas bomb-sights, and will be conquered in one way or another, unless the US Government backs down, at some point. According to the most extensive study that was ever done of US military bases worldwide, there are over a thousand such bases, and this is a huge multiple of all non-US military bases put together. That study was published in 1995. Many new US military bases have been built and manned since 1995, such as several dozen in just one country, Syria, where the sovereign Government has never invited them in and many times has ordered them to leave, but they refuse to leave. Currently, the US Government spends more than half of all monies that are being spent worldwide on the military. Regarding the Nord Stream II Pipeline, the beneficiaries if that Pipeline is never completed and placed into service, will be American LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) producers, and also Americas allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. World War III could actually start as a result of the US Governments serving Americas (and its allies) fossil-fuels producers above all other concerns regarding not only global warming, but even world peace itself. Those are the interests that are, in effect, at war against the entire world. This is not a statement of opinion: it is established and well-demonstrated fact. It is the overwhelmingly documented reality. Wartime lessons are not usually forgotten these days, but unless you get to actually practice some of those wartime conditions you tend to be unprepared for vital details and how important they are. There were some examples of this during a recent (and relatively rare) NATO naval exercise. Between October 25th and November 7th NATO held its largest training exercise since the Cold War ended in 1991. Lessons learned were at the cost of one Norwegian frigate sunk and an American amphibious ship (LSD Gunston Hall) suffering some damage when a landing craft (LCU) got loose during heavy weather off Iceland. A few sailors were slightly injured while dealing with the LCU. Another amphibious ship was diverted to an anchorage in Iceland until the bad weather passed. The Norwegian frigate was not a victim of the notoriously bad weather in the North Atlantic (especially during Winter) but the incident revealed design defects in the new Nansen class frigates. The lost ship was nine years old and collided with a tanker at 4 AM in a coastal shipping lane. Apparently, the bridge watch made several mistakes (moving too fast, misidentifying other ships and general inability to deal with the situation) that led to the collision. The Nansen class ships were, on paper, difficult to sink. But a key safety feature (the stuffing boxes that sealed the bulkhead opening for the propeller shaft during flooding) did not work and the flooding spread to other parts of the ship that would have been watertight if the stuffing boxes had worked. This sort of thing has been encountered before with ship design features that were supposed to prevent the spread of flooding but didnt. The loss of the Norwegian frigate had many similarities with the loss of the Titanic in 1912 (North Atlantic, a ship moving too fast, lookouts not correctly reporting what was out there, unsinkable design features that did not work when put to the test). The dangers of operating at sea in dangerous waters are well known and yet losses due to crew errors and design flaws still occur. Actually, it could be worse. There are a lot more ships at sea now than a century ago and there is more technology to help crews avoid problems. You dont hear about the many times the tech or training prevented serious incidents. But some things never change and one of those is the nasty weather found in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. Better weather forecasting (especially weather satellites) have made it easier to avoid the worst weather and that is still the most frequently employed safety measure. But that is often difficult to do in the Northern seas when bad weather can cover an enormous area. In Alaska, for example, the flying weather is so bad during the Winter that the military sends many aircraft south for the bad weather season. In the Pacific, the bad weather is sometimes used to make a military operation work. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 succeeded in large part because the attack force crossed the North Pacific, exercising radio silence and with orders to sink any commercial vessel they encountered along the way to keep the movement secret. Normally there are few commercial ships up there after November. The Americans did not believe the Japanese would risk moving a large attack force via the North Pacific but the Japanese did just that and achieved surprise despite the Americans being on alert to possible attack from other directions. In some parts of the world, the weather has a major impact on military pilot training. This is the case in the Philippines, which is sometimes hit by several typhoons (hurricane-like storms, but larger) in quick succession. In addition to airfield and facility damage, the training aircraft have to be flown out of the way, often a long distance because of the size of these storms. New pilots have to get 150 hours in the air to complete their training, which is supposed to take a year. But if there is a bad typhoon season, pilots may be delayed, a month or more, from completing their training. These typhoons also severely disrupt all military aviation operations. Aircraft must be sent away, often far away, and bases battened down to minimize storm damage. Airbases can be out of action for weeks per typhoon. Warships are also at risk, although these days, weather satellites have eliminated the surprise factor. Not so in the past. On December 17, 1944, Task Force 38 was blindsided by a typhoon off the Philippines. Over 800 sailors were killed, three destroyers were sunk, and twenty other ships severely damaged, while many aircraft were damaged or destroyed. This was not the only time a Task Force ran afoul of a storm, simply the worst. One reason for the seriousness of this incident may be due to the fact that Admiral Halsey flew his flag from a battleship, which was much more stable in foul weather than a destroyer, particularly one which was low on fuel. The typhoon "nursery" (for those north of the equator in the Pacific) is between 155 and 165 degrees east longitude, and from the Equator to about 20 degrees north, at least for most of the year. From January through March it's between 145-155 degrees. Further complicating matters, some ferocious storms form west of Japan in the Sea of Japan and a few even further north, over land in northeast Siberia and then gain typhoon strength as they move out over the water. Most of these "northern" typhoons don't get beyond storm (over 62 kilometers per hour wind) strength, but some do. For every typhoon, there are several storms of (somewhat) lesser ferocity, which could be almost as bad as a typhoon, as carrier operations are not possible during most storms, and this makes it easier for enemy submarines to get close to the carriers. All of this storm activity happened smack in the middle of the Central Pacific, an area where there are still some major American military bases and lots of ship traffic ready to get out of the way when the weather satellite shows a big storm. Although the Atlantic has less damaging hurricanes, these storms have access to what the military like to call a target rich environment.) Military bases and commercial airports in areas likely to get hit by a hurricane survive in part because they have well thought out and frequently used plans to get aircraft and personnel out of the way before the big storm hits. Sometimes a lot of aircraft have to be left behind, usually because they are undergoing repairs or maintenance are not flyable. News photographers find these unfortunate aircraft (and large ships that could not run either) as great photo opportunities after the storm has passed. I was 21 when I boarded a plane and flew more than 18,000 kilometres, away from everything I knew and everyone I loved. I was 21 when I walked through the gates of Auckland Airport with a pillow in my arms and a teddy bear strapped to my backpack. I was 21 when I innocently and naively ventured out on my own to do something amazing and terrifying. I arrived home at 22 a new person, with a camera full of photos and a head full of stories. Obviously I didnt know Grace Millane if youd mentioned her name to me two weeks ago I would have given you a blank stare. But with her story spreading across the world over the last week or two, something about it has been bugging me. It wasnt that she had gone missing, or had been murdered as tragic as those scenarios are it was that I was Grace Millane three years ago. I had always lived with my family in rural Auckland, Id never spent more than two nights alone, and I had absolutely no life experience. I didnt know anything about international transfers, how to avoid being pick-pocketed or what to do if someone tried to take me down a dark alley I was completely naive. But traveling alone through Western Europe, Scandinavia and Russia, my biggest and most real concerns were having my passport stolen or losing my wallet. I was kitted up with all the gear hidden money belts, RFID protector sleeves for my credit cards and passport, apps that converted currency and language, locks and keys and straps for my suitcases and insurance to protect me from injury, illness, and lost items. I took precautions to try and protect myself and my belongings. At no point did I worry about being kidnapped, raped, murdered or harmed. Maybe thats my fault for being naive and traveling alone, but maybe that just reflects my upbringing in a country where, if you are aware and careful, these things dont naturally cross your mind. As Jacinda Ardern said, Grace should have been safe here and she wasnt. I went from Auckland to London and had no issues, no worries and felt no danger. Grace came from Essex and died in Auckland, and thats not fair. I came home to my family with a suitcase filled with presents. I spent hours forcing them to sit down and listen to my stories and flick through my photos. Grace and her family wont have the same opportunity sitting around listening to her stories, the nights she spent partying and socialising, the money she won (or lost) at the casino; she wont see her friends and tell them about the cute boys she saw, or the exotic food she ate, or the gorgeous scenery she captured. She wont fill her Instagram with new art from her trip, her Facebook with amazing photos, or her journal with memories. I celebrated my 22nd birthday in Helsinki, Finland. I remember because I played Taylor Swifts 22 on repeat and I cried myself to sleep because I missed my family so much. But even then, at no point did I consider that I might not make it home. If she did meet her alleged killer through a dating app, who cares? That doesnt make it her fault, it doesnt make it right for someone to murder her, and it shouldnt matter. It doesnt make a difference how many Kiwis apologise to Graces family. It doesnt bring her back and it doesnt change what happened. Adding my apology to the list only shows that I am sorry that Grace wont make it home and that someone made a terrible decision. But I am sorry that my country wasnt able to protect Grace the same way her country protected me. Im sorry that she wasnt able to safely walk New Zealands streets the way I was able to safely walk along streets and through parks in London. Im sorry that one person has let down not only a family, but a nation, a world, and budding travellers en masse. I know there are many, many more prolific writers and columnists writing about Grace at the moment, and many writers with more insight and wiser words than me, but I couldnt ignore the parallels in our stories. She should have been able to travel here safely, and leave here with memories, photos, souvenirs and stories. I hope Graces story doesnt put young women off traveling and seeing the world. There are plenty of amazing, life-changing experiences I had when I packed my bags and travelled alone. I left as one person and I came back inspired, enlightened and full to the brim with wanderlust. But I do hope it changes the conversations around solo travel. Women and any traveller should be aware of the dangers, and take measures to protect themselves, but everyone should also be able to help keep them safe. Nobody man or woman should have to feel unsafe traveling. And nobody man or woman should ever feel like they have the right to take a life. As a worldwide community, and as a nation, we should be banding together and encouraging people to get out there. Dont sit still and let the world pass you by. To Grace, I know how much adrenaline would have been pumping in your veins when you boarded your plane. I know how excited you would have been, how you would have planned out what you were going to do in each city you visited, how you would have been enthusiastically sending photos back home to try and share these experiences with your family, how much you would have missed them and how you would have been so excited to get home and kiss your mums cheek, hug your dad and joke with your brother. I know how nervous you would have been to leave everyone you love and everything you know to get out there, see the world and do something that matters. I was you in 2015, and today Facebook reminded me that I was packing my bags and getting ready to fly home this time three years ago. Grace, I am truly sorry for what happened to you, but I also thank you for having the courage to travel solo. Cayla-Fay Saunders Yvonne Gibson is a feisty 70-something-year-old, and claims to be a voice for the aggrieved of suburban Greerton. Having been told that Tauranga City Council has received half-a-dozen complaints about traffic safety improvements along Cameron Road through Greerton, she responds: Well, council, heres another 695 bloody complaints. Shes waving 30 pages of signatures - a petition - under the reporters nose to re-enforce her point. Its not acceptable, its crap, says Yvonne. What city would reduce a two-lane road to one lane in the hope of improving traffic flows? Whats not acceptable to Yvonne, and it seems the 695 signatories to her petition, is Tauranga City Councils efforts to defuse a crash hotspot. Some have suggested it is working. Traffic has been slowed, there are fewer crashes and its safer. I would disagree, says Yvonne. There were 23 crashes in 2016 and 70 in the last five years. I am told there have been several nose-to-tail accidents since the re-development. And, she says, pedestrians take their lives in their own hands with mobility scooters, regular scooters and bicycles. Yvonne read a newspaper article about the impact of the roading re-development on local business. It wasnt positive. She read it again, and then a third time before deciding it was time for action. She parked herself outside a Lotto shop, a chemist and a supermarket for three hours on three different days to gather signatures. I had no trouble, says Yvonne. People were very keen to sign. Theyre not just moaners, they have genuine grievances about this development. They are angry. Very, very angry. And they needed a voice, so Yvonne spoke up. Her own personal experience of negotiating Greerton fired her up. It took 22 minutes to drive from the old Gilmours building on Cameron Road to the front gates of Althorp Village, where I live. Google maps says thats a journey of around 3.7 kilometres, which should have taken her about seven minutes. Reaction to her petition has been interesting. A couple of guys offered to bring their bulldozers in and fix things put Cameron Road back to what it was, she says. Some said hey, you know that despite the petition, nothing will happen. Maybe so. But the council needs to know there are a lot of very angry people out there. Yvonnes suggestions for improving the improvements is restoring the double lanes through the village, removing the tolls on the toll road so traffic will divert around the village and returning the pedestrian lane to the middle of village. TCCs website says the improvements were needed because the Cameron Road and Chadwick Road roundabout was ranked the second worst local road location in the city in terms of serious, minor and non-injury crashes. To improve safety, council reduced the number of conflict areas by taking away some traffic movements, such as U-turns and the right turn from Cornwall Street, and providing signalised pedestrian crossings and cycle facilities. The desired outcomes are the improved general road safety of the Cameron Road/Chadwick Road intersection, improved safety for people moving through the area by foot, bike or mobility scooter, protection of most of the trees, additional greenspace and trees and new cycle facilities, as well as retaining the village feel. Yvonne says she hopes to present the petition to council early next year. I am just voicing what the people feel and they absolutely hate it. And as for that pedestrian crossing Bay of Plenty Ever thought of joining the civil construction industry? if so then this is your chance to get a foot in the door. We are... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz An investment of more than $20m will be injected into the Eastern Bay of Plenty to help accelerate the development of aquaculture at one of the countrys largest deep water marine farms. The funds provided through the Provincial Growth Fund will give Whakatohea Mussels Limited, who operate the farm in Opotiki, a boost in the right direction. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash made the announcement in Opotiki on Friday morning. The PGF will invest in three initiatives which support the overall aquaculture and marine strategy for the Eastern Bay of Plenty, says Shane. These include building a mussel processing facility; developing aquaculture interests and settlement assets; and improving the current Opotiki harbour. Aquaculture has a proud history in this part of New Zealand and with central Government support, the region can position itself to take full advantage of future opportunities in this growing and high-value industry. Twenty-one years in the making, the mussel farm is a commercial project that is part of the Whakatohea Maori Trust Boards long-term vision to generate financial returns and create sustainable employment for the region and its people. According to the Whakatohea Trust website the farm was established in 2001 when Eastern Sea Farms Limited made an application for consent to farm 3,800 hectares of water space 8.5 kilometres off the coast of Opotiki. Resource consent was required to farm the water space and this was granted in 2009 for a period of 20 years with the right to renewal. It has taken 10 years of legislative change and resource consent approval to get to this point, says Whakatohea. ESFL undertook five years of research and this was carried out by our science provider, The Cawthron Institute. The Cawthron Institute report, Feasibility of Open Ocean Aquaculture in New Zealand examined the climatic influences that determine the engineering design requirements of open ocean farms and the availability of food, growth and condition measurements for mussels, scallops and oysters. From here the Cawthron Institute carried out a feasibility assessment of open ocean aquaculture at the Opotiki site on eight species as well as a feasibility study into Greenshell mussels and New Zealand sea cucumbers. Since this time ESFL has been carrying out a small scale mussel commercial trial to verify the research data. Also discovered in their research is the need for mussel barges, which has meant the need for an upgrade at Opotikis Harbour. During Fridays announcement, the Government has announced the PGF investment will help towards these developments. Well support Whakatohea Mussels Opotiki Ltd with an initial investment of $850,000 to progress further work on a business case for a mussel processing facility. The Government has also agreed, subject to the successful outcome of the business case, to invest up to a further $19 million to support the construction of the on-land mussel processing factory. When fully operational this initiative has the potential to create more than 200 jobs in the region year round. The Whakatohea Maori Trust Board will also receive up to $950,000 to prepare a business case to accelerate the development of its aquaculture interests and settlement assets, says Shane. The study will include looking at the potential for a commercial mussel farm and spat catching site including a scientific assessment for a deep sea water farm site. A further $750,000 will be provided to assist with the development of a business case to progress an affordable Opotiki Harbour plan, he says. This is the first step to transform the harbour into a productive area to support marine farming in the region. Were committed to working alongside the region to support this important work. He says the Government has recognised the opportunity for the Eastern Bay of Plenty to transform its economy, develop significant employment and improve the regions standard of living through the projects. The Government, through the Provincial Growth Fund, is proud to get in behind these projects. Stuart Nash says aquaculture presents a compelling opportunity to transform the economic and social potential of regional centres throughout New Zealand. Were committed to investing in the development of these opportunities, says Stuart. Seafood export earnings reached $1.8 billion in the year ended June 2018, up 1.9 percent on the previous year. We expect strong prices and increased aquaculture export volumes to boost export earnings to just under $2 billion by 2020. Aquaculture is set to be the main driver for the forecast growth, thanks largely to increased mussel harvests, and higher prices as demand continues to grow in key markets. Waiariki MP Tamati Coffey has expressed his support for Fridays announcement. Maori, jobs and our local industries are clear winners from Fridays investment in the future of the Eastern Bay of Plenty. I am proud of this coalition Governments proven commitment to revitalising our regions: from $20 million into the aquaculture and mussel industries of Opotiki and around the Whakatohea Rohe Moana; to better connecting our whanau digitally through investing in development projects for Ngati Awa. For too long the growth of Aotearoas major centres has been fuelled by the wallets of the Waiariki. Now that changes. These investments in our communitys potential are recognition that the people of our rohe are best placed to determine how to achieve our aspirations, and shape our own tomorrows. 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 Charles F. "Chuck" Trump, age 92 of Lodgepole, NE passed away Monday, December 10, 2018 at the Sidney Regional Medical Center Extended Care. Graveside services will be held at 11:00 A.M., Saturday, December 15, 2018 in the Pleasant View Cemetery in Lodgepole with Pastor Dave Abbott officiating. Friends may stop at the Gehrig-Stitt Chapel on Friday from 1-7:00 P.M. with family present from 4-6:00. No formal church services are planned. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Chuck's name to The United Methodist Church, Lodgepole, Nebraska or the Lodgepole American Legion. You may view Chuck's Book of Memories, leave condolences, photos and stories at http://www.gehrigstittchapel.com. Gehrig-Stitt Chapel & Cremation Service, LLC is in charge of Chuck's care and funeral arrangements. Charles Frank Trump was born August 13, 1926 to Glen and Irene (Young) Trump of Comstock, NE. He attended school in Comstock, after which, he enlisted into the Army, serving combat duty in the Philippines and later serving in the Occupation Force in Japan. After military service, Chuck was united in marriage to Gladys Pike on June 5, 1950. To this union four children were born, Sandy, Gary, David and Dennis. They made their home in Oshkosh where Chuck worked several jobs ranging from farm and ranch to well drilling, settling on auto mechanics. The family then relocated to Lodgepole where Charles worked as a mechanic in Sidney for 14 years. He finished his work career at The Egging Company at Gurley, retiring in 1991. Charles will be missed for his strong family values, sense of direction, and devotion. He enjoyed fishing, hunting, and family. Charles is survived by his wife Gladys, sons, Gary and wife Janie of Grand Island, David and wife Tami of Lodgepole and Dennis of Cheyenne, WY; (7) grandchildren, (6) great-grandchildren, (2) brothers, Robert Trump and wife Glenna of Rapid City, SD; Everett Trump of Merna, NE and numerous nieces and nephews. Charles was preceded in death by his parents, Glen and Irene Trump; daughter, Sandy Benish and a daughter-in-law, Kathy (Grant) Trump. (1) sister-in-law; Carol Trump. Pande "Pete" Trifunovski Syracuse, NY -- A Lysander man described to a jury today how he "snapped" in January and killed his longtime wife in a dispute over an elliptical machine. Pete Trifunovski, 69, of Woods Road, said he took a broken wooden rail -- snapped during a previous fight -- and beat his wife all over her body as she tried to flee, screaming. "When I boiled up, I started beating her with that stick," he said. Trifunovski chased after her and continued the beating. At some point, he strangled his wife, either with her own blouse or something else. He testified today he blacked out during his rage and doesn't know how she suffocated. "It was dark over my eyes and I was out of my mind," Trifunovski said in an Eastern European accent. "I don't know what I was doing. Maybe I grabbed her..." His voice trailed off, before continuing: "It didn't take long." "How long did it take you to kill your wife?" prosecutor Joseph Coolican asked later. "Less than 30 seconds," the murder suspect replied. "My arms are very strong. I was a stone carver. I was hitting her very hard." Onondaga County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Stoppacher testified earlier today that the victim could have lost consciousness in 30 seconds, but that it would have taken several minutes for her to die. Trifunovski told the jury he tried to perform CPR after she collapsed, to no avail. It's the first time he's ever told anyone he tried to save his wife, the prosecutor noted, questioning the account. Trifunovski himself admitted he did not seek help or call 911, but immediately went to trying to cover up what happened. Trifunovski was the last witness at his trial this week in the Jan. 8 beating death of his wife. He also admitted today to trying to cover up the death by putting her body in the back of his Buick, then renting a storage locker at the spur of the moment to hide her. "If I put her in the storage room, I thought it was a good place temporarily," Trifunovski said of his cover-up attempt. "It's cold, so she's not going to rot away. She was not going to decompose." If convicted of murder, Trifunovski faces up to 25 years to life in prison. Given his advanced age, any conviction would probably mean he'll spend the rest of his life in prison. Whether Trifunovski is guilty comes down to a simple legal question: did he intend to kill his wife? Or was he "out of his mind?" as he put it. A murder conviction requires proof that he intended to kill her, even if that intent was formed in a split second. It could have even been formed after the beating began, Coolican noted today. The prosecutor tried to hammer home today that Trifunovski's rage wasn't an isolated incident, but had been building for decades. Trifunovski's lawyer, Ken Moynihan, led his client through decades of animosity between the spouses. Trifunovski admitted that anger and hatred toward his wife, Suzie, had been increasing for 25 years. She had been extremely unhappy since they got married and settled in Syracuse in the early 1980s, Pete Trifunovski said. "I tried to be a good husband, build a house, never drank or gambled, but that didn't work out," he said. "She was always getting after me." Trifunovski said he kept getting laid off as industrial jobs left Syracuse. He spent a decade in Florida, New Jersey and the Hudson Valley without his family, looking for work. He said the couple hadn't slept in the same bedroom in all those years and hadn't shared finances in nearly as long. Things got worse after he retired in 2010, he said. Suzie Trifunovski was still working; Pete testified that he resorted to Dumpster-diving after his monthly $819 Social Security check ran out. They fought constantly, hurling demeaning and vulgar insults, Pete Trifunovski said. Police were called at least a dozen times over the years. He once was arrested after putting his hands on his wife. He says she accused him of sleeping around. Pete Trifunovski admitted his lack of money, their distant relationship and conflict over their son boiled over. He also felt the house, which he built with his own hands, belonged to him and she should have moved out. "I was like a balloon, getting bigger and bigger," Pete Trifunovski testified today. "It exploded. I couldn't take it anymore. I snapped." Woods Road home where Pande Trifunovski killed his wife Sneazana Trifunovski. On Jan. 8, Trifunovski said he was arguing with his son about an elliptical machine when Suzie came home from work. Trifunovski said he went downstairs to a Lazy Boy chair to calm down. But his wife followed him and began to insult him, he told the jury. That's when Trifunovski testified that he was as angry as he has ever been in his life. "My God, I'm going to..." Trifunovski banged his fist on a rail in the courtroom. "I'm going to beat her up." Then he began to cry in front of the jury, wiping tears from his eyes. "I didn't want to do it, but..." He paused. "It was hard. I didn't know what I was doing. I was absolutely out of my mind. I didn't sleep the whole night after that. I didn't eat nothing all day long. I tried to cover up, but it didn't work." Trifunovski nearly pleaded guilty before trial, but could not bring himself to admit killing her. If he had intended to kill her, "I would go after her, shoot her with a gun," Trifunovski said today. Yet he admitted that his first thought afterward was covering up what he did. He didn't call 911 and tried to hide his wife's body. He even went to her workplace, pretending to not know where she was. "Everything happened unexpectedly," he said. "Everything came suddenly. Didn't have time to clean up the car. I never thought I'd put a dead body in my car. Because it wasn't intentional." Trifunovski indicated he felt trapped. "I don't know why she didn't buy a house to leave me alone," he said. "That's all I wanted to do is for her to leave me alone, to live in peace." Did that mean he was a victim? "I was always a victim," he said. A 29-year-old North Country woman has been charged with criminally negligent homicide after killing a woman while texting and driving, according to New York State Police. Angel L. Oliver, 29, of Bombay. Angel L. Oliver, of Bombay was arrested Thursday for a crash that happened on Nov. 15 in the Town of Dickinson, police said. Oliver was driving a car on County Route 5 in the Town of Dickinson and was texting on her phone, police said. She didn't see a stop sign at the intersection of County Route 5 and State Route 11B because she was texting and driving, police said. She hit a car being driven by Chloe Ann R. O'Neil, who died because of the crash, police said. Oliver was arraigned in Malone Town Court where she was released under a pretrial release program through Franklin County probation, police said. Oliver will appear in Dickinson Town Court on Dec. 19 at 7 p.m., police said. NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. -- A 28-year-old Syracuse woman was arrested for stealing 49 Nautica shirts worth nearly $3,000 from a Macy's in a New Hartford mall, according to a Thursday news release from New Hartford police. Marissa S. Gainey, 28, is accused of stealing the shirts from Sangertown Square Mall on Oct. 26, police said. Loss prevention at Macy's told officers a woman later identified as Gainey picked up the 49 shirts and ran out of the store without paying for them, police said. She drove away from the scene in a car registered in the Syracuse area, police said. In all, the shirts were worth $2740.50, police said. On Dec. 4, police arrested Gainey, they said. She was charged with one count of grand larceny and was released on an appearance ticket, police said. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University was one of the Syracuse schools and businesses that received a bomb threat Thursday, according to the university's Department of Public Safety. Thursday's bomb threats were part of nationwide threats. The threats are believed to be a hoax, according to Syracuse police and the university. DPS wrote in an alert to students that the university received a "fradulent email scam relating to Bitcoin." The university said the scam is being investigated by federal, state and local law enforcement and that there is no threat to SU. At least nine locations in Syracuse received a threat, according to the Syracuse Police Department. Onondaga County 911 dispatchers said several locations in the county also received threats. Some of the locations that received the threat via email nationally had a subject line "Think Twice" from a spoofed email address, according to the Associated Press. The sender told the recipient someone had planted a bomb at the location and that the only way to stop the bomb from going off was to pay $20,000 in bitcoin. The FBI is helping local law enforcement agencies around the country investigate the threats. "As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activities which could represent a threat to public safety," the FBI said in a statement. One threat sent to a school in Missouri was determined to be sent from Russia. The bomb threats also prompted evacuations at city hall in Aurora, Illinois, the offices of the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, a suburban Atlanta courthouse and businesses in Detroit. Carlos Santana says hes in for at least one Woodstock 50th anniversary concert in 2019. The classic rock legend is aware that next year is the 20th anniversary of his Grammy-winning smash album Supernatural, but the 71-year-old Santana frontman tells Billboard in a new interview that hes more focused on revisiting the 1969 music festival in Upstate New York. "Weve talked to (Woodstock co-founder) Michael Lang, but we dont know if he has secured a place, Santana told Billboard Friday. If they invite me, Im in. Lang told the Poughkeepsie Journal last month that we have definite plans for a 2019 Woodstock concert, but cautioned that this is not a done deal yet. An official announcement is expected soon. A separate Woodstock 50th anniversary event is rumored to be in the works at Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center (at the original Woodstock site). The Festive Owl, a Twitter account known for leaking festival news, said last month that artists approached for the show include Santana, Daft Punk, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Ariana Grande, Coldplay, Phish, The Weeknd, Elton John, Bon Jovi, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Pink, The Who, Zac Brown Band, Mumford & Sons, and The Chainsmokers (featuring Syracuse University alumnus Drew Taggart). Bethel Woods Center for the Arts told syracuse.com in a statement that any Bethel Woods event(s) as part of the anniversary year will not be produced, sponsored by or affiliated with Woodstock Ventures, LLC, the organizers of the 1969 Festival. None of the artists have been announced, but the golden anniversary celebration at Bethel Woods is expected to take place over the weekend of August 15-18, 2019. Santana told Billboard hes already booked for the latter festival at Bethel Woods, but hopes to play Langs separate event. Woodstock and Supernatural... took me to places I never dreamed were possible...and that just inspires me to keep reaching and searching with everything else I do," Santana told Billboard. Lang was the promoter when an estimated 400,000 people attended the first Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, held in August 1969 at Max Yasgurs dairy farm near White Lake in Bethel, N.Y. Performers included Santana, Richie Havens, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The iconic concert was revisited in 1994 with a modern lineup of artists like Nine Inch Nails and Red Hot Chili Peppers, but Woodstock 99 -- held at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y. -- ended the fun with riots, fires and allegations of sexual assault. A 19-year-old Fort Drum soldier died Thursday in Afghanistan in a 'non-combat related incident, according to a Fort Drum spokesman. Private First Class Joshua Mikeasky, 19, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a health care specialist assigned to the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team and the 10th Mountain Division. He is survived by his mother and father. Mikeasky joined the army in Sept. 2017. He had been awarded the National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with a Campaign Star, the NATO Medal and the Army Service Ribbon, the spokesman said. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said hes asked Donald Trump not to consider him as chief of staff, according to a statement tweeted by a New York Times reporter. Its an honor to have the president consider me as he looks to choose a new White House chief-of-staff. However, Ive told the president that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment. As a result, I have asked not to be considered for this post, Christie said. Christie had been Trump's leading candidate as the president considers a successor to John Kelly, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, he would become the latest person to turn down one of the most powerful jobs in Washington. Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted what she said was a statement from the former governor. A spokesman for Christie didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump met with Christie in the White House residence on Thursday after a holiday reception. The president announced Kelly's departure last weekend without arranging a replacement, leading to a chaotic and hasty job search after his top choice, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Nick Ayers, turned down the post. The president hasn't made a final decision and could change his mind, the people cautioned. He's scheduled to have lunch on Friday with another candidate for the job, his former deputy campaign manager David Bossie. Other people Trump is considering for the job include Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker and Blackstone Group executive Wayne Berman, people familiar with the matter have said. Christie shares Trump's reputation for a pugnacious approach to politics. He's also a former U.S. attorney who would provide the West Wing a leader experienced with the intricacies of a federal prosecution as Trump faces multiple investigations into his campaign for president. But the New Jersey governor's relationship with one key West Wing official remains fraught. Christie famously prosecuted Charles Kushner -- the father of Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner -- while serving as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. The elder Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. Kushner has made clear to other White House aides that he wants it known he would support Christie being appointed to the job and appreciates the former governor's work on overhauling federal prison sentencing rules, a top priority for the president and his son-in-law. Like other people Trump defeated in the 2016 Republican primaries, Christie has a tortured relationship with the president. He endorsed Trump after dropping out of the race and was set to lead the president-elect's transition team before being unceremoniously removed from the post days after the election. That's left lingering tensions with some of the aides who helped steer the transition, or who remain important allies to the president. In an October interview with the Washington Post, Christie said he could have prevented a large number of problems that plagued Trump's early months in office because he would have employed a more intricate vetting process for staff. "'I think the president's administration has never recovered, and I don't think will ever recover, from having wasted that time," Christie said. Christie has also been more willing than some in Trump's orbit to concede that the president's mounting legal issues are taking a political toll. Christie said during an interview with ABC News in August that a guilty plea by Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was a "bad day for the president." But if he's hired, Christie will likely enjoy a better personal relationship with Trump than John Kelly, the former Marine general who sought to impose a measure of discipline on a tumultuous presidency. The retired Marine general clamped down on access to the Oval Office and brought order to the West Wing, though the president's impulsive style still often prevailed. Trump announced Kelly's departure from the White House on Saturday and had intended to install Nick Ayers, the 36-year-old former political consultant helming the vice president's staff, as the next chief. But Ayers said he'd only be willing to do the job on an interim basis after promising his family he would return to Georgia, while the president wanted a top lieutenant who would serve for the remainder of his first term. Trump has sought to dispel the notion that Ayers spurned him, insisting he's been approached by a dozen potential candidates who wanted the job. But a number of possible choices -- Steven Mnuchin, Trump's Treasury Secretary, and Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget -- indicated they would prefer to stay in their current positions. Rep. Mark Meadows, the North Carolina congressman who leads the conservative House Freedom Caucus, initially expressed interest in the job, but Trump told him hed prefer Meadows remain in Congress. President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen says Trump knew it was wrong to pay off two women to keep quiet about their affairs leading up to the 2016 election. He directed me to make the payments. He directed me to become involved in these matters," Michael Cohen told ABC News in a new interview Friday. Cohen, Trumps longtime fixer, says he gave $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and orchestrated a $150,000 deal with the National Enquirer to catch-and-kill Playboy model Karen McDougals story. Both women said they had sex with Trump while he was married to now First Lady Melania Trump. Of course he knew it was wrong, Cohen told ABC News, adding that his purpose was to help [Trump] and the campaign. Asked if he felt Pres. Trump was telling the truth about everything related to the special counsel's Russia probe, Michael Cohen tells @GStephanopoulos, "No." https://t.co/WSjuALBLeE pic.twitter.com/CfdSLPRM6N ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 14, 2018 Cohen, 52, was sentenced this week to serve three years in an Upstate New York prison after he admitted evading $1.4 million in taxes related to his personal businesses and breaking campaign finance laws on behalf of Trump. Last month, Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trumps business dealings in Russia, saying Trump continued pursuing a Trump Tower deal in Moscow well into the presidential campaign. Cohen is also cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Trumps campaign and the Kremlin. President Trump has repeatedly said he did nothing wrong but has shifted details of his account several times, most recently invoking an advice-of-counsel defense on Twitter. I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law, the president tweeted Thursday. I dont think there is anybody that believes that [Trump didnt know it was wrong], Cohen told ABC News. First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump... He knows the truth. I know the truth. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan have gathered evidence of Trumps participation in the hush money payments to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and McDougal. NBC News reported Thursday that Trump was in the room with Cohen when he reached a deal with David Pecker, head of the National Enquirers parent company American Media Inc., to silence negative stories about his extramarital affairs; prosecutors said Wednesday a non-prosecution agreement was reached with AMI in exchange for cooperation. Cohen has been ordered to surrender to authorities on March 6. Business Insider reports Cohen will serve his prison sentence at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, once named one of Americas 10 cushiest prisons. The New York Post reported in 2012 that white-collar criminals and crooked politicians often request to stay at the Hudson Valley medium-security facility, as inmates get to enjoy bocce and horseshoes, stay up late watching premium cable TV, and have cookouts on holidays like the 4th of July. Michael Cohen is set to spend 3 years in a cushy" prison that's been called a "castle behind bars." https://t.co/TSxOwfBIdz via @businessinsider pic.twitter.com/UYw1GI8KCZ Jim Roberts (@nycjim) December 12, 2018 Cohen told a judge earlier this week that he covered up Trumps dirty deeds" out of blind loyalty." I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty, Cohen told ABC News. ECJ Rules UK Can Unilaterally Ditch Brexit Plans by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels 14 December 2018 The European Court of Justice has ruled that the UK can unilaterally abandon the process of leaving the European Union, providing parliament approves the move. In its December 10 judgment, the ECJ ruled that, when a member state has notified the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the European Union, as the UK has done, that member state is free to revoke that notification unilaterally i.e. without the approval of the European Union. The Court said: "That possibility exists for as long as a withdrawal agreement concluded between the EU and that Member State has not entered into force or, if no such agreement has been concluded, for as long as the two-year period from the date of the notification of the intention to withdraw from the EU, and any possible extension, has not expired." The ruling means that, if parliament approves such, the UK Government could end the process by which it will no longer be an EU member state from March 29, 2019, or at a later date if a transition period is agreed. On December 19, 2017, a petition for judicial review was lodged in the Court of Session, Inner House, First Division (Scotland, United Kingdom) by members of the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament to determine whether the notification referred to in Article 50 can be revoked unilaterally before the expiry of the two-year period, with the effect that such revocation would result in the United Kingdom remaining in the EU. On October 3, 2018, the Court of Session referred this question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, pointing out that the response would allow members of the House of Commons to know, when exercising their vote on a withdrawal agreement, whether there are not two options, but three, namely withdrawal from the European Union without an agreement, withdrawal from the European Union with an agreement, or revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw and the United Kingdom's remaining in the European Union. The Court ruled that Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) does not explicitly address the subject of revocation. It neither expressly prohibits nor expressly authorizes revocation. That being so, the Court noted that Article 50 TEU pursues two objectives, namely, first, that of enshrining the sovereign right of a member state to withdraw from the European Union and, second, that of establishing a procedure to enable such a withdrawal to take place in an orderly fashion. According to the Court: "The sovereign nature of the right of withdrawal supports the conclusion that the member state concerned has a right to revoke the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU for as long as a withdrawal agreement has not entered into force or, if no such agreement has been concluded, for as long as the two-year period, and any possible extension, has not expired." The Court added: "In the absence of an express provision governing revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw, that revocation is subject to the rules laid down in Article 50(1) TEU for the withdrawal itself, with the result that it may be decided unilaterally, in accordance with the constitutional requirements of the Member State concerned." "The revocation by a Member State of the notification of its intention to withdraw reflects a sovereign decision to retain its status as a Member State of the European Union, a status which is neither suspended nor altered by that notification." Also on December 10, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced a delay to a vote on whether to adopt the agreement negotiated with the EU on an orderly withdrawal from the EU. If UK lawmakers approve the deal, the UK would be offered a transitional period during which the UK would continue to be treated as though it were an EU state, until at least 2020, to allow time for the two parties to negotiate the future relationship between the UK and the bloc and a solution to the border issue in Ireland. May said that the current proposal would have been voted down by a significant margin had it been put to a vote as scheduled on December 11, 2018. She is planning to engage with lawmakers concerning the agreement's provisions on the "backstop," which would in particular involve Northern Ireland being included in the EU customs area for as long as there is no workable solution to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to its south. EU Issues Regulations On 2021 VAT Rule Changes For E-Commerce by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels 14 December 2018 The European Commission has published proposed implementing regulations for reforms to VAT rules for e-commerce that will be effective from January 2021. These implementing regulations are intended to ensure the smooth running of the new VAT rules for e-commerce agreed by member states last December. The European Commission said they were developed in consultation with online platforms and the authorities in EU member states. Reforms from 2021 Reforms agreed in December 2017 by the EU's Economic and Financial Affairs Council will extend an existing EU-wide portal, the mini "one-stop shop," for the VAT registration of distance sales and establish a new portal for distance sales from third countries with a value below EUR150 (USD171). This is intended to reduce the costs of complying with VAT requirements for business-to-consumer transactions. Most goods that are imported for distance sales currently enter the EU VAT-free, resulting in unfair competition for EU businesses. Under the changes, VAT will be paid in the member state of the consumer, ensuring a fairer distribution of tax revenues amongst member states. Additionally, online platforms will become liable to collect VAT on the distance sales that they facilitate. The one-stop shop will relieve online traders of having to register for VAT in each of the member states in which they sell goods. According to the Commission, such obligations cost businesses around EUR8,000 for every EU country into which they sell. The one-stop shop will generate an overall saving of EUR2.3bn for businesses, the Commission estimates, and a EUR7bn increase in VAT revenues for member states. For start-ups and SMEs, the new rules will introduce an important simplification. For those firms with yearly cross-border online sales below EUR10,000, businesses will be able to continue applying VAT rules used in their home country. Furthermore, the new rules remove an exemption for consignments from outside the EU worth less than EUR22. Around 150 million small consignments are imported free of VAT, and the current system is open to abuse. While EU businesses have to apply VAT regardless of the value of the goods sold, imported goods benefit from the exemption and are often undervalued in order to do so. The simplification measures for intra-EU sales of electronic services are being introduced from next year. The extension of the one-stop shop to distance sales of goods, both intra-EU and from third countries, will apply from 2021, alongside the elimination of VAT exemptions for low-value consignments. New implementing regulations The Commission said that its implementing rules will ensure that a new VAT system is ready for businesses that sell goods online once the agreed new framework enters into force in 2021. It explained that without the One-Stop Shop, VAT registration would be required in each member state into which companies sell. This system has been in place for e-service providers since 2015. The regulations further clarify the situations in which online platforms will be considered to have facilitated a sale between users, and detail the records businesses must keep on sales made via their interface. The Commission said that, since online marketplaces will be liable for any missing VAT, authorities will be sure that they can claim the tax due when sellers from outside the EU have not complied with the rules. The new rules will also ensure that the goods sold from storage facilities within the EU will have the correct amount of VAT charged, even when the goods are technically being sold to consumers by non-EU businesses. The Commission said that it can be difficult under the current rules for member states to obtain the VAT due on goods from so-called "fulfilment centres." Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said: "The EU is gearing up for a brand new VAT system in 2021 to make it easier for companies to sell goods online and for member states to recoup lost VAT revenues. [These] proposals will allow online businesses to flourish while ensuring non-compliant businesses or fraudsters cannot undercut them. For this to happen, it is crucial that online marketplaces play their part." Ukrainian Corporate Tax Reform Plans Shelved by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong 14 December 2018 Ukraine has reportedly postponed consideration of a bill that would reform the country's corporate tax system to shift the burden of tax from company profits to distributions. Bill 8557, Draft Law on Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine as regards the tax on the withdrawn capital, was tabled in parliament, the Rada, on July 5, 2018. Both the text of the bill and an explanatory memorandum have been released, in Ukrainian. Proposals for the "new model of taxation" were announced in March 2018 by Ukraine's President, Petro Poroshenko, who described them as a "new philosophy" in taxation that would simplify tax for small businesses and lead to higher rates of investment, noting such had been effective also in Georgia and Estonia. "What does it mean? Every investment you make in Ukraine is free from taxation. Every penny you withdraw from business - pay a tax for it," Poroshenko said in May. "It simplifies the taxation system. It stimulates investments in Ukraine, which we urgently need." The bill was reportedly been shelved in response to concerns raised by lawmakers and committees concerning massive revenue losses in the first year of implementation. This was despite amendments to introduce the regime gradually, and initially only for the largest businesses, with turnover of UAH200m or more. Ukraine's Chamber of Commerce had urged the Rada to support the reform, even supporting a plan to require companies to pay a minimum of 50 percent of the tax that would otherwise have been due under the previous system. The regime was proposed to be in place from January 1, 2019. Banks were to be allowed to operate under the current regime voluntarily until December 31, 2021. Transitional arrangements were to be put in place to ensure companies are not doubly taxed, such as for distributions from profits already subject to the current tax on corporate profits. Ukraine is due to hold presidential elections on March 31, 2019. RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Real Valladolid owner Ronaldo revealed on Thursday that he is interested in securing a loan deal for teenage Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior. However the legendary Brazil striker admitted that he doesn't expect Valladolid's La Liga rivals and reigning European champions to accept his request. "He [Vinicius] is a great talent and Madrid are lucky to have him," the 42-year-old former Real Madrid player told Desayunos Deportivos. "He is going to be a great player, without a doubt. I would love to have him at Valladolid. I made a request but it's unlikely that they will make such a good player available to us." Vinicius has made eight appearances across all competitions for Real Madrid since joining the club in July. The 18-year-old Brazilian made his first Champions League start in the team's 3-0 loss to CSKA Moscow at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday. Ronaldo bought a 51 percent stake in Real Valladolid in September. [ Editor: WPY ] hok kolorob BHPian Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: Kolkata Posts: 74 Thanked: 235 Times Bhutan: The Land of the Thunder Dragon...err SUV All started with a big bang! (Couldn't help that catch line!) This year we decided to shift from 'dal-chawal' (the staple) to 'Biriyani' (the specials!), which translates to us deciding to NOT go to Darjeeling for our Annual trip( lost count now!) and try uncharted (by us) territories. Generally, our trip means going to Darjeeling and simply lazing around with frequent trips to Glenereys (yes, that much in love with Darjeeling!). Anyway, so we were thinking of North India or somewhere in Asia. Like big bang (or dimaag ki batti jali?!), one fine day I thought why not a road trip this time. Conveyed the same to my better half and bang, she readily agrees. Yes, she is more enthusiastic about road trips than me! Now came the difficult part - our destination. Options narrowed down based on our eternal love for mountains. We decided against North India as I was unable to take long leaves. Also, we were not sure if we should take such a long road trip. All our road trips so far have been around or less than 300 Kms. The next option was, of course, Sikkim but we were unable to finalise a place and the discussions went on for a few weeks. On a lazy night, while I was going through my daily dose of TBHP, I came across the following thread: I was excited about two reasons. Reason one - Bhutan made our bucket list long back, but somehow did not materialise. The second reason being that the trip (of the travelogue mentioned above) was done in a Honda Civic AT. Now that was important/exciting as my current ride is a SX4 AT and I was curious for long as to how my AT is going to perform in the hills. Though being a torque converter I was fairly confident that it can go to most of the places but still wanted a validation. BTW, by most places, I meant where FWD can go and not someplace like Sandakphu (shall we call it the erstwhile roads of Sandakphu now?) Went through the beautiful travelogue and informed wifey about Bhutan and she agreed. Checking further on TBHP got two more beautiful threads by Samba and Blackperl. Between those threads, we got almost all the information we needed about destinations in Bhutan, where we can or can not go (you may need 4X4 in some places), what sort of permits would be needed and how to obtain them. We decided to travel mid-November. Fast forward to October, we went to the Bhutan Embassy in Kolkata and got the first shock. They no longer issue permits from Kolkata and we will have to get the permit from Phuntsoling, Bhutan. We wanted to avoid this to save time but sadly we could not. Meanwhile, I also got my TBHP membership approved after trying for the umpteenth time and went to my first TBHP meet also. I was really hoping to meet Blackperl and Samba, in particular, to ask some tips about Bhutan. Unfortunately, Blackperl could not make it but I met Samba and he promised he will help if needed. Later over a Whatsaap chat he even said I can call 24/7 if needed. That was extremely kind of him, as I was almost a stranger to him. In between, we did go through certain doubts such as, whether I can drive straight to Siliguri as this was going to be our longest drive. Plus this was to be my first drive on hills. I personally think those doubts as positive because a little fear and respect for roads/hills would keep me cautious. Also, we were worried about the route because we would have to depend on Google maps only. Google maps sent us to some non-existent roads on our last trip to Dolma, so naturally wifey was a little sceptical. But I have always had faith in Google, so told her not to worry, I will additionally carry a print out of the text version of the map. We decided to take the Bengal to Bengal road. Meanwhile, I bought a few things for the car. Got Osram night breaker headlights (which proved to be as useless as the stock bulb), a jumper cable and a towing rope (thanks to blackperl for that suggestion), Tyre inflator and a MI dashcam. I also bought a TPMS, but unfortunately, that did not work and had to ask for a refund from Aliexpress. Did not have time to order another one. About two weeks before the trip, my family got to know we are going on a road trip and their reaction was like "one does not simply walk into Mordor". Word got out very fast and a close friends mother too sent us word that she was very tensed! She thought I have lost my marbles! She got more convinced when she got to know, I am the sole driver and Sumana, my wife, is not going to drive. My parents tried a little to convince me to get a driver but they realised fast that it was a lost battle! So the compromise was that we have to inform about our progress every now then to let them we are alive and rolling! The D day came and we started at 4:30 am in the morning. Since I did not have much experience in night driving, hence planned the start with very fewer hours of driving in the dark. Our progress and the roads were good until Bolpur. After which the State Highway roads started with the traffic of small town and school. There was a stretch that I cannot call a road, of around 15Kms from Kuli. Although a low ground clearance car can also cross the stretch but needs to be really careful. It took us more than an hour to cross 20Kms. Our target destination for Day 1 was Siliguri. I wanted to book a hotel in advance. MMT was giving a very low price for Sinclairs Siliguri but my wife wanted to book the hotel on the go because if for any reason we could not make it till Siliguri on the day, we would not have to lose on the booking money. We had taken enough dry foods to munch on the way and our first targeted break was Golden Park Malda (a little away from the city and right on the high road) for lunch. Till then we had not taken any breaks except for the bio-breaks. So far, progress was alright until Malda but crossing Malda turned out to be a nightmare. Unruly traffic, narrow lanes and lorries made it worse and the road widening construction work added on to it. We were stuck in a long queue of lorries and to my surprise, most of the vehicle started going to the wrong lane. Whenever there was oncoming traffic they would go down from the road and do some sort off-roading, which can be used for the testing skill of the driver or ground clearance of the vehicle. Saw some local buses who were driving like maniacs on those "off-road" tracks. At one point in time, I thought they will break into pieces but guess the gods have mercy on those maniacs. After a while, I also became impatient and was thinking if I should also use the wrong lane but I was sure I will not try to do the off-roading like locals. I was also afraid to get caught in the wrong lane. Ultimately, I lost my patience, saw a convoy which had buses and cars and I decided to follow them, thinking the police may not be that strict to a group of local cars and buses. To my bigger surprise when I reached the bottleneck where cars from the wrong lanes were going to the right lane, there were plenty police officers and they are kind of encouraging to do wrong lane thingy to avoid the lorry traffic! Eventually, we have reached Golden Park, Malda for our much needed break and lunch, where my wife asked me if should continue or stay back in Malda. I flatly refused and said will continue to Siliguri as planned. Then, the second shock of the trip came. Almost all good hotels in Siliguri were booked. We could not find anything on MMT or other such sites. My wife then called up Sinclairs and asked if they had any room they said they have but it is suite room and the charge was 10K. We were not prepared to shell out such an amount for just a few hours stay. Wifey then asked them if they can suggest some hotel names which are on par with Sinclairs, they suggested some and as luck would have those are booked as well. We finally liked a Hotel named "Moutain Miles" which had rooms available and booked it promptly. After a light lunch and a black coffee, we started for Siliguri. We liked the hotel and the food and decided we will stay here on the way back. We should have booked a room then only but we wanted to have an open-ended itinerary and did not book the same, which was a mistake, more on that later. Anyways, after the good food and now a 4 lane highway, I was very happy and wanted to cover up for the lost time. I had a plan to fill up the tank in Malda and Samba informed me, I will get good pumps after Golden park hotel, however, in the joy of the open road I forgot it completely. It was my wife who reminded me to take petrol. It is not that I needed petrol badly but I just did not want to take any chance. Unfortunately, by that time we are a long way from Malda and did not want to get petrol from an unknown pump. After driving for a while had an "eureka" moment. I decided to take petrol from a pump where I can see bikes are filling up their tank. The logic behind this was, most bikers will be local and all almost all bikes are driven by petrol. Although I was not keen on buying too much petrol as I knew the price of petrol will be cheaper in Bhutan. Roads from Kolkata to Siliguri is extremely unpredictable, without a warning a single lane highway can go four-lane and a four-lane can be a single lane at a moment's notice. So my joy did not last much and we are back to a single lane. After a while, it was evening and mighty lights from trucks could put our Durga Pujas to shame. Lights on every possible colour and design. However, I could not enjoy the slightest bit because I was having the toughest time of my driving life, a single lane highway with blinding lights from oncoming vehicles. The speeds trucks and cars doing is nothing less than madness. The headlight of SX4 is the worst part of the car. Somehow, we reached the entry point of Botolbari, which is suggested here and by Google also. So, we have moved to botolbari and next part of the ordeal started. It was DARK in the capital with narrow roads and headlights of the oncoming vehicle. Although the traffic was really less, however, I had a hard time to see anything far. After driving for half an hour, it became a little scary. Firstly it was really dark, second not many people on the road. Although we could see lights and people in "bazar" areas, however, those usually came, every 2/3 kilometres or more. I was really getting tensed and was thinking what will happen in case of a breakdown. Later, got to know wifey was thinking the same but we did not talk about it then. I have tried to follow a couple of cars but all of them doing really high speeds and I was not comfortable following them blindly on closer to triple digit or more. However, we got lucky after a while, a lorry was ahead of us and also on reasonable speed. We followed the lorry to the end of Botolbari. Smiled a little as remembered the "swiping car" concept of GTO. The last 200 hundred meters of Botolbari can be best described as an angry sea on the rainy season. Yes, the road was with BIG waves. We were back to the national highway with wide roads. However, I was unable to good speed because of the same reason as before, the headlight of the SX4 and blinding lights from oncoming vehicles. We could not see anything on our left or right also. After, crossing the Bagdogra airport on our right, we were elated. Felt like, now we are on the known road :-). We saw some lights on high above the ground far away, was wondering was that a hill but it was so dark we could not be sure. Later, found out that was indeed a hill while crossing Bagdogra. Once we reached Siliguri we started grinning, the countless time we have talked about driving here and alas, we have reached. There was little drama finding the Hotel, though it was on the main road itself but did not have any clear indication of the entrance and or signboard of the hotel. Though Google claimed we have reached. It seemed we were in front of a complex with some office, clinics etc. I also saw there is no place to park the car as the parking is full. We had already checked with the hotel for parking. Sumana called up the hotel and they sent someone to guide us and it turned out Google was right we were in the correct location and entrance of the hotel is not visible from outside. The guy told us we may not get parking as some big party going on and parking is full. I was tempted to ask am I expected to park in the middle of the road. However, we got a parking on the backside of the hotel. The moment I had opened the door, felt the chill! the temperature inside the car nice and comfortable, so it was a little shock, though we enjoyed it. We were expecting this and hence kept our jackets handy. Checked into the Hotel and saw it is part of the Summit group of hotel, which have quite a few properties on this side of the country. We got to know the hotel has 24/7 room service and all kitchen is open all night. We were more than happy to hear that. Checked into the room it was big, tastefully done and clean. Got refreshed and indulged ourselves in our favourite poisons "wink wink" and Sumana informed all the concerned party that, we are still in one piece. It took us almost 15 hours to reach Siliguri with one big break in Malda. I believe with powerful headlights, I could have shed an hour or two. Nevertheless, we were really happy. We have ordered Chinese food and to our surprise, it was really good and certainly one best in the region. I know it is a weird title but I will explain that later.All started with a big bang! (Couldn't help that catch line!)This year we decided to shift from 'dal-chawal' (the staple) to 'Biriyani' (the specials!), which translates to us deciding to NOT go to Darjeeling for our Annual trip( lost count now!) and try uncharted (by us) territories. Generally, our trip means going to Darjeeling and simply lazing around with frequent trips to Glenereys (yes, that much in love with Darjeeling!).Anyway, so we were thinking of North India or somewhere in Asia. Like big bang (or dimaag ki batti jali?!), one fine day I thought why not a road trip this time. Conveyed the same to my better half and bang, she readily agrees. Yes, she is more enthusiastic about road trips than me! Now came the difficult part - our destination. Options narrowed down based on our eternal love for mountains. We decided against North India as I was unable to take long leaves. Also, we were not sure if we should take such a long road trip. All our road trips so far have been around or less than 300 Kms. The next option was, of course, Sikkim but we were unable to finalise a place and the discussions went on for a few weeks.On a lazy night, while I was going through my daily dose of TBHP, I came across the following thread: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...nda-civic.html I was excited about two reasons. Reason one - Bhutan made our bucket list long back, but somehow did not materialise. The second reason being that the trip (of the travelogue mentioned above) was done in a Honda Civic AT. Now that was important/exciting as my current ride is a SX4 AT and I was curious for long as to how my AT is going to perform in the hills. Though being a torque converter I was fairly confident that it can go to most of the places but still wanted a validation. BTW, by most places, I meant where FWD can go and not someplace like Sandakphu (shall we call it the erstwhile roads of Sandakphu now?)Went through the beautiful travelogue and informed wifey about Bhutan and she agreed. Checking further on TBHP got two more beautiful threads by Samba and Blackperl. Between those threads, we got almost all the information we needed about destinations in Bhutan, where we can or can not go (you may need 4X4 in some places), what sort of permits would be needed and how to obtain them. We decided to travel mid-November. Fast forward to October, we went to the Bhutan Embassy in Kolkata and got the first shock. They no longer issue permits from Kolkata and we will have to get the permit from Phuntsoling, Bhutan. We wanted to avoid this to save time but sadly we could not. Meanwhile, I also got my TBHP membership approved after trying for the umpteenth time and went to my first TBHP meet also. I was really hoping to meet Blackperl and Samba, in particular, to ask some tips about Bhutan. Unfortunately, Blackperl could not make it but I met Samba and he promised he will help if needed. Later over a Whatsaap chat he even said I can call 24/7 if needed. That was extremely kind of him, as I was almost a stranger to him.In between, we did go through certain doubts such as, whether I can drive straight to Siliguri as this was going to be our longest drive. Plus this was to be my first drive on hills. I personally think those doubts as positive because a little fear and respect for roads/hills would keep me cautious. Also, we were worried about the route because we would have to depend on Google maps only. Google maps sent us to some non-existent roads on our last trip to Dolma, so naturally wifey was a little sceptical. But I have always had faith in Google, so told her not to worry, I will additionally carry a print out of the text version of the map. We decided to take the Bengal to Bengal road.Meanwhile, I bought a few things for the car. Got Osram night breaker headlights (which proved to be as useless as the stock bulb), a jumper cable and a towing rope (thanks to blackperl for that suggestion), Tyre inflator and a MI dashcam. I also bought a TPMS, but unfortunately, that did not work and had to ask for a refund from Aliexpress. Did not have time to order another one. About two weeks before the trip, my family got to know we are going on a road trip and their reaction was like "one does not simply walk into Mordor". Word got out very fast and a close friends mother too sent us word that she was very tensed! She thought I have lost my marbles! She got more convinced when she got to know, I am the sole driver and Sumana, my wife, is not going to drive. My parents tried a little to convince me to get a driver but they realised fast that it was a lost battle! So the compromise was that we have to inform about our progress every now then to let them we are alive and rolling!The D day came and we started at 4:30 am in the morning. Since I did not have much experience in night driving, hence planned the start with very fewer hours of driving in the dark. Our progress and the roads were good until Bolpur. After which the State Highway roads started with the traffic of small town and school. There was a stretch that I cannot call a road, of around 15Kms from Kuli. Although a low ground clearance car can also cross the stretch but needs to be really careful. It took us more than an hour to cross 20Kms.Our target destination for Day 1 was Siliguri. I wanted to book a hotel in advance. MMT was giving a very low price for Sinclairs Siliguri but my wife wanted to book the hotel on the go because if for any reason we could not make it till Siliguri on the day, we would not have to lose on the booking money. We had taken enough dry foods to munch on the way and our first targeted break was Golden Park Malda (a little away from the city and right on the high road) for lunch. Till then we had not taken any breaks except for the bio-breaks. So far, progress was alright until Malda but crossing Malda turned out to be a nightmare. Unruly traffic, narrow lanes and lorries made it worse and the road widening construction work added on to it. We were stuck in a long queue of lorries and to my surprise, most of the vehicle started going to the wrong lane. Whenever there was oncoming traffic they would go down from the road and do some sort off-roading, which can be used for the testing skill of the driver or ground clearance of the vehicle. Saw some local buses who were driving like maniacs on those "off-road" tracks. At one point in time, I thought they will break into pieces but guess the gods have mercy on those maniacs. After a while, I also became impatient and was thinking if I should also use the wrong lane but I was sure I will not try to do the off-roading like locals. I was also afraid to get caught in the wrong lane. Ultimately, I lost my patience, saw a convoy which had buses and cars and I decided to follow them, thinking the police may not be that strict to a group of local cars and buses. To my bigger surprise when I reached the bottleneck where cars from the wrong lanes were going to the right lane, there were plenty police officers and they are kind of encouraging to do wrong lane thingy to avoid the lorry traffic!Eventually, we have reached Golden Park, Malda for our much needed break and lunch, where my wife asked me if should continue or stay back in Malda. I flatly refused and said will continue to Siliguri as planned. Then, the second shock of the trip came. Almost all good hotels in Siliguri were booked. We could not find anything on MMT or other such sites. My wife then called up Sinclairs and asked if they had any room they said they have but it is suite room and the charge was 10K. We were not prepared to shell out such an amount for just a few hours stay. Wifey then asked them if they can suggest some hotel names which are on par with Sinclairs, they suggested some and as luck would have those are booked as well. We finally liked a Hotel named "Moutain Miles" which had rooms available and booked it promptly. After a light lunch and a black coffee, we started for Siliguri. We liked the hotel and the food and decided we will stay here on the way back. We should have booked a room then only but we wanted to have an open-ended itinerary and did not book the same, which was a mistake, more on that later.Anyways, after the good food and now a 4 lane highway, I was very happy and wanted to cover up for the lost time. I had a plan to fill up the tank in Malda and Samba informed me, I will get good pumps after Golden park hotel, however, in the joy of the open road I forgot it completely.It was my wife who reminded me to take petrol. It is not that I needed petrol badly but I just did not want to take any chance. Unfortunately, by that time we are a long way from Malda and did not want to get petrol from an unknown pump. After driving for a while had an "eureka" moment. I decided to take petrol from a pump where I can see bikes are filling up their tank. The logic behind this was, most bikers will be local and all almost all bikes are driven by petrol. Although I was not keen on buying too much petrol as I knew the price of petrol will be cheaper in Bhutan.Roads from Kolkata to Siliguri is extremely unpredictable, without a warning a single lane highway can go four-lane and a four-lane can be a single lane at a moment's notice.So my joy did not last much and we are back to a single lane. After a while, it was evening and mighty lights from trucks could put our Durga Pujas to shame. Lights on every possible colour and design. However, I could not enjoy the slightest bit because I was having the toughest time of my driving life, a single lane highway with blinding lights from oncoming vehicles. The speeds trucks and cars doing is nothing less than madness. The headlight of SX4 is the worst part of the car. Somehow, we reached the entry point of Botolbari, which is suggested here and by Google also. So, we have moved to botolbari and next part of the ordeal started. It was DARK in the capital with narrow roads and headlights of the oncoming vehicle. Although the traffic was really less, however, I had a hard time to see anything far. After driving for half an hour, it became a little scary. Firstly it was really dark, second not many people on the road. Although we could see lights and people in "bazar" areas, however, those usually came, every 2/3 kilometres or more. I was really getting tensed and was thinking what will happen in case of a breakdown. Later, got to know wifey was thinking the same but we did not talk about it then.I have tried to follow a couple of cars but all of them doing really high speeds and I was not comfortable following them blindly on closer to triple digit or more. However, we got lucky after a while, a lorry was ahead of us and also on reasonable speed. We followed the lorry to the end of Botolbari. Smiled a little as remembered the "swiping car" concept of GTO. The last 200 hundred meters of Botolbari can be best described as an angry sea on the rainy season. Yes, the road was with BIG waves.We were back to the national highway with wide roads. However, I was unable to good speed because of the same reason as before, the headlight of the SX4 and blinding lights from oncoming vehicles. We could not see anything on our left or right also. After, crossing the Bagdogra airport on our right, we were elated. Felt like, now we are on the known road :-). We saw some lights on high above the ground far away, was wondering was that a hill but it was so dark we could not be sure. Later, found out that was indeed a hill while crossing Bagdogra. Once we reached Siliguri we started grinning, the countless time we have talked about driving here and alas, we have reached. There was little drama finding the Hotel, though it was on the main road itself but did not have any clear indication of the entrance and or signboard of the hotel. Though Google claimed we have reached. It seemed we were in front of a complex with some office, clinics etc. I also saw there is no place to park the car as the parking is full. We had already checked with the hotel for parking.Sumana called up the hotel and they sent someone to guide us and it turned out Google was right we were in the correct location and entrance of the hotel is not visible from outside. The guy told us we may not get parking as some big party going on and parking is full. I was tempted to ask am I expected to park in the middle of the road. However, we got a parking on the backside of the hotel. The moment I had opened the door, felt the chill! the temperature inside the car nice and comfortable, so it was a little shock, though we enjoyed it. We were expecting this and hence kept our jackets handy. Checked into the Hotel and saw it is part of the Summit group of hotel, which have quite a few properties on this side of the country. We got to know the hotel has 24/7 room service and all kitchen is open all night. We were more than happy to hear that. Checked into the room it was big, tastefully done and clean. Got refreshed and indulged ourselves in our favourite poisons "wink wink" and Sumana informed all the concerned party that, we are still in one piece. It took us almost 15 hours to reach Siliguri with one big break in Malda. I believe with powerful headlights, I could have shed an hour or two. Nevertheless, we were really happy. We have ordered Chinese food and to our surprise, it was really good and certainly one best in the region. Last edited by hok kolorob : 13th December 2018 at 09:13 . A hot potato: Apple thinks it can solve some of its legal issues with Qualcomm by releasing an iOS update, but Qualcomm is still proceeding with actions to try and get the latest iPhones banned in China. Now that Qualcomm has successfully been granted an injunction against certain models of the iPhone in China, Apple is working to push out an iOS update that will attempt to remove the alleged infringing aspects. An Apple spokesperson released the following statement on the matter. "Early next week we will deliver a software update for iPhone users in China addressing the minor functionality of the two patents at issue in the case." Patents in question are related to how images are resized and how applications are managed. Apple is claiming that iOS 12 does not infringe on either of the two patents at the core of the latest dispute with Qualcomm. Even if Apple does force all iPhone users in China to upgrade to the current version of iOS, Qualcomm is still seeking a settlement. Apple is arguing that a settlement with Qualcomm could be detrimental to China's mobile industry. Cupertino is claiming that licensing agreements and patent royalties paid to Qualcomm could spiral out of control if a settlement is forced upon them. However, the nature of the ongoing dispute between the two companies is unlikely to just go away anytime soon. Accusations ranging from theft of trade secrets to infringement on processor technologies are fairly major issues. Qualcomm has even fought back by going after Apple's manufacturing partners for continuing to produce iPhones that are said to be in violation of patents. Despite Apple's claims that specific iOS versions do not infringe upon patents, Qualcomm is still seeking an injunction against the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR which all ship with iOS 12 installed. Once Apple does push out an iOS update to its Chinese users, Qualcomm is unlikely to change its course of legal action. Until a resolution is found, rivals such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and Samsung will continue on their path to capturing even more of the Chinese market. Bottom line: Modern virtual reality was expected to be the next big thing in gaming and computing yet to this point, it has largely disappointed. Hardware has improved, prices have come down and software has gotten better but still, something seems to be missing. In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, movie company IMAX announced its exit from the virtual reality industry. Following a strategic review of its virtual reality pilot initiative, IMAX said it has decided to close its remaining VR arcade locations and write off certain VR content investments. According to Variety, the company recently closed four VR arcades but still operates locations in Los Angeles, Toronto and Bangkok. Those will but shut down in the first quarter of 2019, a company spokesperson said. IMAX managed to raise $50 million in 2016 to explore a possible expansion into the budding world of virtual reality. Much like the early days of video games, IMAX hoped the arcade model would expose consumers to the cutting-edge technology without the burden of having to buy expensive hardware. Unfortunately, interest around virtual reality as a whole has waned. Compelling solutions exist but consumers arent exactly breaking down doors to get them. Many see the current state of VR as a novelty something thats fun to try occasionally but not a gateway to the future that others hoped it might be. Theres a death knell off in the distance and its slowly getting louder. The big picture: Australia's Access and Assistance bill forces companies to provide authorities with encryption keys or other means to access their users' communications upon request. Tech companies and the community, in general, are not embracing the new legislation with open arms. Back in August, we reported on a controversial piece of legislation working its way through the Australian Parliament. The law would require tech companies to provide law enforcement and security agencies with access to encrypted communications. The New York Times reported last week that this bill had been approved and signed into law. The contentious Access and Assistance Bill 2018 could impose fines as high as AU$10 million for companies refusing to comply. Several companies have made it clear that they are not in favor of this law. Signal announced on Thursday that it would not be able to comply with access requests. It claims that it is not because it doesnt want to, but that it just cant due to the design of its messaging app. By design, Signal does not have a record of your contacts, social graph, conversation list, location, user avatar, user profile name, group memberships, group titles or group avatars, said Signals Joshua Lund in the companys blog. The end-to-end encrypted contents of every message and voice/video call are protected by keys that are entirely inaccessible to us. "If a country decided to apply pressure on Apple or Google to remove certain apps from their stores, switching to a different region is extremely trivial on both Android and iOS." Furthermore, since Signal is open-source and available on GitHub, there is no way to hide a backdoor in the software, even if the government demanded it. The only option is to ban the software outright, but as Lund points out, this does not usually go well. Whenever services get blocked, users quickly adopt VPNs or other network obfuscation techniques to route around the restrictions, he said. "If a country decided to apply pressure on Apple or Google to remove certain apps from their stores, switching to a different region is extremely trivial on both Android and iOS." Besides, several officials within the Australian government including Attorney General Cristian Porter and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull use Signal themselves. Weakening encryption methods for the app would actually pose a national security risk for the very politicians charged with enforcing the law. Apple has been vocal about its opinion of the bill. In a seven-page letter to the Australian Parliament, it criticized the legislation saying that it gives the government "overly broad powers" and is extraterritorial in impact. While it did not come right out and say it would not comply with the law if asked, that seemed to be the company's insinuation. So far authorities have not had reason to invoke the law. It will be interesting to see how the industry reacts when it finally does. In context: Starbucks' expanded partnership with Uber Eats will broaden the company's reach while simultaneously boosting the thriving on-demand food delivery industry. Think this will put a dent in Keurig's business? Starbucks at its recent investor conference in New York City announced plans to expand its Starbucks Delivers program to nearly a quarter of its company-operated stores in the US in 2019. The pilot, originally launched in September, was trialed at more than 100 Starbucks locations in and around Miami through Uber Eats, the on-demand food delivery service Uber has operated since 2014. Uber in October said its delivery service covered more than 50 percent of the US population with a goal of reaching 70 percent of Americans by the end of the year. Starbucks has been working with Chinas leading on-demand food delivery provider, Ele.me, for the past three months. The partnership has brought Starbucks Delivers service to 2,000 stores across 30 cities in China, the company said. Uber Eats actively competes with others including Postmates, DoorDash, GrubHub and Bite Squad in the burgeoning on-demand food delivery scene. Its expanded role with Starbucks come 2019 should help give it a leg-up on the competition. Starbucks also announced plans to roll out Nitro, its nitrogen-infused cold brew coffee, to all company-operated stores in the US by the end of fiscal year 2019. Lead image credit AngieYeoh via Shutterstock Facepalm: A report out today indicates that the US Navy has been hacked by China several times over the last year and a half. The attackers use tools common in China, and at least one IP address was traced back to the communist state. The Secretary of the Navy has ordered a full review of the military branch's security measures. Earlier this week we brought you news that officials suspect China was behind the Marriott/Starwood hotel breech that exposed the records of 500 million guests. The hack raised concerns that the global adversary could be planning further attacks to the US energy, financial, transportation, and healthcare infrastructures. It seems the situation is even worse. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese hackers have successfully carried out several attacks on US Navy contractors over the last 18 months. The bad actors have stolen data which included ship maintenance information. The attackers also exfiltrated weapon data pertaining to a supersonic anti-ship missile. The hackers seemed to have mainly focused on smaller contractors that had less secure networks. Some of the targets include military research labs at universities. According to National Security Agency officials, the hacks have clear identifying markers that indicate China was behind the attacks. Clues specifically point to Beijing and other territories. Among the evidence are traces of hacking tools that are commonly used by Chinese black hat groups and an accidentally uncovered IP address traced back to Hainan Island, a state province. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer has ordered a full investigation of the Navys cybersecurity weaknesses. Attacks on our networks are not new, but attempts to steal critical information are increasing in both severity and sophistication, read a memo penned by Spencer in October notes WSJ. We must act decisively to fully understand both the nature of these attacks and how to prevent further loss of vital military information. The Navy did not specify precisely how many attacks it has suffered over the last 18 months only saying that it was more than a handful. Chinese officials continually deny that they engage in cyber attacks, and they have not responded to requests for comment on these specific breaches. New tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost Louisiana businesses and residents $85 million since the tariffs began and more than $19 million just in October, according to data from the nonpartisan Tariffs Hurt the Heartland. Former U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany and others discussed what effects tariffs have had on the state's economy Thursday during a panel discussion at the Petroleum Club. Businesses and taxpayers have paid $85 in additional tariffs, including $19 million in additional tariffs in October, according to the group's data. Many businesses cover the additional charge, but others pass charges onto the consumer, said Matt McAlvanah with Tariffs Hurt the Heartland. The monthly import data is calculated using data from the Census Bureau, and the monthly export data is compiled based on Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Agriculture data. As part of the Tariff Tracker project, Tariffs Hurt the Heartland is releasing data on how individual states have been impacted by increased import tariffs and declining exports. State businesses, farmers and manufacturers have faced $39 million in new retaliatory tariffs, data showed. "Tariffs are taxes, Boustany said. Using tariff policy in a broad brush way starts to have detrimental impacts on businesses, on farmers, that are very significant. We've heard of bankruptcies from family farms that have been in the same family for generations. The same from manufacturers that are on the verge of bankruptcy because certain imports they need to do what they do are being affected by this kind of broad brush tariff policy." Boustany was joined by Robert Landry, the vice president and chief commercial officer for the Port of New Orleans; Troy Wayman, president and CEO of One Acadiana; Edward Hayes, a trade attorney; Andy Begneaud, partner at Begneaud Manufacturing; Stephen Waguespack, president and CEO of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry; and Angela Marshall Hofmann, co-founder of Farmers for Free Trade. Inside info on doing business in Acadiana We'll keep you posted on the Acadiana economy. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Tariffs have hit agriculture, manufacturing and shipping industries hard, panelists said. Robert Landry, vice president and chief commercial officer for the Port of New Orleans, said tariffs on steel have led to even harsher outcomes for the state's soybean farmers, who were already hurting from a 25 percent tariff China placed on U.S. soybean in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. "Steel gets imported into the United States through New Orleans and up the Mississippi River, he said. Then those barges ship grain down to be exported to the rest of the world. The lower Mississippi River still accounts for 55-60 percent of grain exported out of the United States. So that supply chain function is critically important... Because fewer steel ships are coming into the Port of New Orleans, consequently, fewer ships are available to load grain outbound." Other industries in Louisiana have not been affected, but it has brought a wave of caution among business owners who fear an escalating trade war. Wayman said the Lafayette area reported $954 million in exports in 2017. "We represent some 900 companies, and it would be dishonest to say we've heard a significant outcry from those companies on the tariff issue, Wayman said. Now what we have heard is a lot of caution on the issue and caution does not equate to good economic development. Exporting brings outside dollars into our area" Trade supports 475,500 jobs in Louisiana, according to Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, and Boustany noted that trade makes up 25 percent of Louisiana economy. One out of every 5 jobs is affected by tariffs. "We're seeing a spike in farm bankruptcies, Boustany said. Because if we're going to deal with China in the geopolitical sense of things, we need a strong growing economy... We don't want to go into this slipping into a recession, and that's the risk if these tariffs are taken to their full conclusion. LIVINGSTON The Livingston Parish School Board on Thursday approved a property tax exemption worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that developers said would be necessary to build an $8.6 million solar field near Springfield. Board members seemed to hold some skepticism toward the industrial tax exemption, but they ultimately approved the favorable resolution with a unanimous vote. The South Alexander Development I is a utility-scale solar energy farm that would be constructed on 65 acres of timberland off George White Road in the southeastern part of the parish. The project, which is being developed by New Orleans-based Joule Energy, is projected to create 150 construction jobs and one permanent job with an annual salary of $25,000, according to an application submitted to Louisiana Economic Development. The facility is expected to operate for 40 years on the site. +5 Letting the sun shine in: How state's solar power prospects shifting to business, other projects As the Mall of Louisianas thousands of customers traverse its 1.5 million square feet of retail space on any given weekend, something is quie The project got a thumbs up from the state Board of Commerce and Industry in October. But, under new state rules, the sheriff, parish council and school board need to sign off, in order for the company to get a tax break from the millage that each agency collects. If all three agencies approve the Industrial Tax Exemption Program application, the company would be exempted from 80 percent of the property taxes it would otherwise need to pay over a 10-year period, which totals about $600,000, according to figures calculated by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. BRAC's figures estimate that the company would still pay $155,000 in property tax and $244,000 in sales and use tax over that 10-year period. During the meeting, some board members posed questions to the company about why only a single job would be created, how other entities voted on the project and how the exemption would affect the property's assessment should it not come to fruition. A consultant for the company pitched the project to board members as a way for them to make money from timberland that is otherwise generating little revenue. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "That is money that comes to the parish if the project happens. If the project does not happen, that is money that does not come to the parish," said Jimmy Leonard of Advantous Consulting. Leonard said that without the exemption, the project is in "serious jeopardy of not happening." School Superintendent Rick Wentzel seemed to share in Leonard's reasoning when board member Sid Kinchen sought his opinion. "From my perspective, we're not getting anything now," Wentzel said, adding that Livingston Parish ranks low statewide in terms of funding. "We just need to continue to look for places we can get revenue." The Parish Council approved the exemption by default when it did not take action within 30 days of receiving notice, said David Bennett, CEO of Livingston Economic Development. Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard submitted a letter opposing the exemption, Bennett said, but the developers are trying to meet with the sheriff to change his mind. Earlier in the day, Lori Steele, a spokeswoman for Ard, said he is in discussion with LEDC. Also Thursday night, the School Board approved an agreement with the parish assessor to audit homestead exemptions given in the parish. Parish Assessor Jeff Taylor is planning to contract with Covington-based Assessure Systems to search for people improperly claiming dual homesteads. Taylor has estimated the audit could result in up to $1 million in extra property tax revenue each year. The board that oversees Baton Rouge's recreation and parks system has set a meeting for Friday to select a new superintendent following a round of interviews with the four finalists on Wednesday and Thursday. BREC is looking for a replacement for outgoing Superintendent Carolyn McKnight, who announced in August that she plans to retire when her contract expires in January. She has headed BREC since 2012. The candidate interviews, which will be held in public, will take place in the board's meeting room at BREC headquarters. +11 BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight to leave agency when contract ends in early 2019 The head of Baton Rouges recreation and parks system said Monday she will leave the agency by early 2019, ending a tenure that saw her praise Chris Nunes, the director of parks and recreation for The Woodlands Township in Texas, will appear before the board at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, followed by a 3 p.m. interview with former BREC commissioner Carlos Sam, who is currently Superintendent of East Feliciana Parish Schools. Corey Wilson, BREC's chief of management and business services, will also be interviewed on Wednesday around 6 p.m. following the Board of Commissioners regularly scheduled meeting. The fourth and final public interview is set for 3 p.m. Thursday with Nicholas Williams, director of parks and recreation for the city of Oakland, California. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The board has scheduled a special meeting for 9 a.m. Friday, when commissioners are expected to select McKnight's replacement. Nunes has headed The Woodlands Township parks and recreation system near Houston since 2006. His resume said he oversees 100 full-time employees and 350 part-time staff members across the systems eight divisions, which boasts a $22.1 million operational budget and $6 million capital improvement budget. Sam, who has been East Feliciana Parishs schools superintendent since July 2015, has previous work experience in various roles within the East Baton Rouge Parish School System. Wilson has served in BRECs No. 2 spot under McKnight since 2012, overseeing administrative functions for the city-parishs park and recreations. He said in his resume that he played a key role in the system earning national re-accreditation, and was involved in overseeing the implementation of the systems $95.2 million budget. Williams has been the director of Oakland Californias parks and recreations system since 2016, assistant superintendent for Minneapolis parks and recreation system for three years before that was an operations manager for Atlantas Office of Parks from 2007 to 2012. A state board is set to vote Friday on a tax exemption that could eventually top $2 billion, representing potentially the largest single tax exemption awarded in Louisiana. Under the states Industrial Tax Exemption Program, known as ITEP, Driftwood LNG LLC, a subsidiary of the natural gas company Tellurian Inc., is seeking a tax break for its $15.9 billion liquefied natural gas export facility planned for Calcasieu Parish. The exemption is worth an estimated $283.7 million in the first year alone, according to a Louisiana Economic Development estimate. [Update, Dec. 14, 2018 at 10:32 a.m.: Driftwood project lands massive exemption for LNG facility from Louisiana board] Calcasieu Parish Assessor Wendy Aguillard estimates the property tax exemption will be worth more than $2 billion over 10 years, assuming the exemption is renewed after five years. The Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry will vote on the first five-year tax exemption Friday. Also on the agenda are several controversial ITEP applications from ExxonMobil for Baton Rouge-area projects. Driftwoods request was already approved by local taxing authorities in Calcasieu Parish, after little discussion or debate, the Lake Charles American Press reported. If approved, the exemption will be up for renewal after five years. Gov. John Bel Edwards must sign off on exemptions through the program. The $283.7 million first-year exemption would be the largest on record, according to LED figures, with the next-largest being an exemption for Cameron LNG, at $207 million in the first year. That project is a nearby LNG export facility currently under development by Sempra Energy. Tellurians facility is expected to create 300 permanent jobs and 6,400 construction jobs, according to LED Secretary Don Pierson. The $15.9 billion project is set to be among the largest, and possibly the largest, capital investment in the states history. The firm said it will make a final investment decision in the first half of 2019. Together Louisiana, the advocacy group that has scrutinized the tax exemption program, estimates the exemption will be worth $2.4 billion over 10 years, after taking depreciation into account. The company's application to LED listed a $2.09 billion amount using a different, eight-year calculation. But LED confirmed the company qualifies for an exception to the rules that will allow it to get renewed for another five years at 100 percent. An exemption request in Calcasieu Parish appears to represent what would be the single largest public subsidy by local government in American history, Together Louisiana wrote in an email to supporters. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The project already committed to the Calcasieu location and which is not looking at any alternative locations, the group wrote. Tellurian spokeswoman Joi Lecznar said the company experiences fierce competition in the LNG market, and said businesses in the field must be low cost. This abatement is crucial to the development of our $15 billion Driftwood project and to the development of our other assets across Louisiana, including upstream natural gas production in the Haynesville, and proposed pipelines, representing a total of nearly $30 billion investment, Lecznar said. Louisianas Industrial Tax Exemption Program, a controversial tax break for manufacturers, has gone through multiple changes in recent years, starting with an executive order by Edwards in 2016 reining in the program. Under the newest set of rules instituted earlier this year, companies can get an 80 percent exemption for 10 years. Under the 2017 rules, companies could get a 100 percent exemption for five years, and an 80 percent exemption for three additional years. Local officials now have a say in the program, which exempts local property taxes. +8 Amid sharp criticism, East Baton Rouge School Board defers new guidelines for tax breaks The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board voted unanimously Thursday to put off for a month guidelines for handling requests for industrial tax Wielding new approval power, Orleans Parish School Board denies tax-exemption request The Orleans Parish School Board has voted to deny a local shipbuilders request for a tax break, the first such action from a board that was o An exception in the rules allows projects to receive a 100 percent exemption for 10 years what the program formerly offered before Edwards reform if the advance notification was filed between June 24, 2016, and Oct. 21, 2016. The Driftwood application qualifies for that exception, LED spokesman Ron Thibodeaux said. It will have to seek local approval for the renewal as well. Pierson, in a lengthy emailed statement, described ITEP as a necessary tool for recruiting and retaining industry in Louisiana. Tellurian also has expressed intentions to develop a natural gas pipeline to deliver supplies from Louisiana and Texas to the Driftwood facility near Lake Charles, he said. Those plans differentiate the firm from other LNG projects, which source gas from outside suppliers. Southwest Louisiana, particularly in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes, has been the site of an industrial boom in recent years. Several developers have floated plans for massive LNG export facilities to be built there in an effort to meet peak global natural gas demand in the mid-2020s. Pierson said the project will also create sales tax revenue during a multi-year construction phase. If approved by the Board of Commerce and Industry and if Driftwood makes a final investment decision to locate in Calcasieu Parish, the exact abatement that will be ultimately recognized by the company will depend on a number of factors, including the specific and exact millage rates in Calcasieu Parish, the value of the asset as determined by the Calcasieu Parish Assessor, depreciation of the asset that is calculated by the assessor, and whether the ITEP contract is renewed by local governing bodies and the Board of Commerce and Industry, Pierson said. A West Baton Rouge grand jury has indicted two Brusly officers accused of using excessive force on a student in October, but the boy's family believes the charges aren't harsh enough. A judge announced the grand jury's decision around noon Friday, charging former Brusly Police Department officer Anthony "Kip" Dupre with malfeasance in office and former officer Dan Cipriano with a count of simple battery. The case came to light in November, after video footage leaked to the media showed what appeared to be Dupre beating a student in a school office Oct. 5. Full view of the scuffle between Dupre and the student is blocked by a desk in the Brusly Middle School office, but Dupre can clearly be seen wrestling the student and slamming him to the ground twice. There is no audio in the video, but it appears in at least some of the encounter, Dupre rapidly thrusts his arm and shoulder up and down toward the youth, as if punching him, while school staff nervously look on. Cipriano, arrived toward the end of the struggle to get the student in handcuffs and escort him out of the office. Dupre had claimed that the student reached for his weapon during the encounter, and the video appears to show him handing his gun to a staff member while he was on the ground. +2 Leaked video: Brusly officer slams middle school student twice; police chief shocked Video footage of a police officer wrestling with a 14-year-old Brusly Middle School student last month has leaked in the midst of a Louisiana The student's attorney, Kwame Asante, said the family initially was happy that the grand jury found enough evidence to charge the officers, but after reviewing the charges themselves they felt the decision was a "slap on the wrist." "They feel the DA's office did an adequate job by bringing it quickly to the people, but feel it was a slap on the wrist based on the tape and what they saw done to their grandson," Asante said Friday. "This young man will still be dealing with this for a long time." Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Asante said the family, in particular the boy's grandmother, were hoping for more serious charge. Both men were placed on leave immediately following the alleged assault and resigned in November, according to Brusly Police Chief Jonathan Lefeaux. Asante said the student missed some time from school after the incident but is back in classes now, and is attending counseling. He said the child has some ongoing physical injuries, and the family has not decided whether they will bring legal action against the department or school district. "For a person who's gone through what he has, he's done well," he said. The family has met with officials from both the West Baton Rouge Parish School District and Brusly Police Department, and is satisfied with their handling of the situation after-the-fact to ensure a similar incident doesn't happen again, according to Asante. "Ms. (Doris) Snearl wanted to make sure someone was held responsible for what happened to her grandson," he said. Lefeaux called for Louisiana State Police to investigate the officers' conduct after the incident, and while their portion of the investigation was completed without arrest earlier this month, the grand jury was ultimately left to judge the facts to determine charges. Asante previously said the problems started that morning because the boy was assigned to detention for cursing on the playground, then he got into an argument with an administrator over how long he had to be in detention. The struggle began when the child tried to leave the office, according to Asante. Dozens of area residents gathered in Brusly in early December to march to Town Hall, where some spoke before local officials at a town council meeting. A grand jury has indicted a West Baton Rouge deputy accused of stalking and sexually assaulting multiple victims while on duty. Ben Arceneaux was indicted Friday on a count of malfeasance in office, which is a felony. He resigned from the West Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office Friday, according to spokesman Dale Simoneaux, and is expected to turn himself in to authorities. Arceneaux had been placed on unpaid leave between July, when the accusations surfaced publicly, and the grand jury's decision Friday. Few details about the allegations and Arceneaux's rebuttal have been released publicly, and were redacted from official documents released to media. Though, whatever was included in those documents proved enough for the District Attorney's Office to take the findings to a grand jury for indictment. The grand jury met on the case in October but returned without a decision, saying they needed more time. They reconvened to hear Arceneaux's case Thursday. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up One victim claimed that, in January, Arceneaux grabbed her by the neck and hair after forcing her to pull over on a secluded gravel road during a traffic stop, according to The Advocate archives. WBRZ-TV broke the story in July, spurring three more women to come forward with similar allegations against Arceneaux. The public and media questioned the sheriff's office's handling of the case after records show that Arceneaux was suspended without pay in March as a result of the initial allegation. He was transferred to the parish's Work Release Center and ultimately resumed patrols. A state judge set bail at $100,000 Friday for Alton Sterling's 18-year-old son, who is accused of raping an 8-year-old boy last weekend while babysitting the child. Cameron Sterling is being held in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. Prosecutor Larry McAlpine told District Judge Don Johnson during a hearing Friday that Sterling might have mental health issues and that Sterling will be evaluated soon by a prison psychiatrist. The purpose of that evaluation, Sterlings attorneys said, is to determine whether Sterling needs treatment, and to what degree. Dedrick Moore, one of Sterling's lawyers, said the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office is amenable to revisiting the bail amount if it is determined that Sterling should be sent to a mental health facility for treatment. Ron Haley Jr., who also represents Sterling, said outside the courtroom that the first order of business is to get him help. Sterling, he said, had been diagnosed previously with mental health issues. Cameron Sterling, 18-year-old son of Alton Sterling, accused of raping 8-year-old The 18-year-old son of Alton Sterling is accused of raping an 8-year-old boy while he was babysitting the child last weekend, according to Bat Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Given his mental health condition, jail is not where he needs to be, Haley said, adding it was too early to comment on the first-degree rape charge. An arrest warrant says Sterling took the child into a bedroom, locked the door and raped him. Sterling denied anything happened when the childs mother questioned him, the warrant states, but Sterling also told the woman he had some type of episode at the time. Sterlings father, Alton Sterling, was fatally shot in July 2016 while Baton Rouge police officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II attempted to arrest the 37-year-old man outside a North Foster Drive convenience store. The officers had responded to a complaint that a black man matching Alton Sterling's description was selling CDs outside the store and had threatened someone with a gun. Salamoni shot Sterling six times during a brief struggle. A loaded handgun was found in Sterling's pocket. Salamoni was later fired; Lake was suspended for three days for his role. The deadly shooting, which was captured on video and shared on social media, sparked protests in Baton Rouge and across the country. One of two men linked to a Baton Rouge homicide last month is back in Louisiana and behind bars in Parish Prison, according to police documents. James Michael Johnson, 23, was arrested in late November in Chandler, Arizona, after apparently fleeing the state following the killing of Westley Pullins, 37. Police believe Johnson killed Pullins during a drug deal early Nov. 12, according to his arrest warrant. Pullins was found dead inside a vehicle on Barber Street just off College Drive. Johnson is accused with John Simpson, 24, who was arrested last month in Houston and wanted as principal to first-degree murder. He allegedly accompanied Johnson to buy drugs from Pullins, but did not fire the weapon, the warrant says. Investigators believe Johnson shot Pullins because he believed Pullins had stolen a handgun from him earlier. After shooting him, Johnson took the drugs, the warrant says. Investigators searched Johnson's phone and found he had called Pullins just 27 minutes before the fatal shooting. +2 37-year-old truck driver, father fatally shot early Monday; November's homicide spike climbs A 37-year-old father and truck driver was shot and killed on Barber Street just off College Drive early Monday morning, marking Baton Rouge's Johnson, of 4631 Aldrich Drive, was booked Thursday on counts of first-degree murder and illegal use of a weapon. Gov. John Bel Edwards reveals in a new profile that he personally called the White House after hearing about immigrant children being separated from their parents on the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year. "I didnt think it was necessary, and it didnt strike me as particularly American to do that, Edwards said in a feature America, a popular Catholic magazine published by Jesuits, published Friday. Edwards, a Democrat who is up for reelection next year, has previously voiced his opposition to the controversial Trump administration policy of separating families who cross the border illegally. Edwards previously had publicly condemned the Trump administration's policy, which prompted a national uproar. He had not previously revealed his personal contact with the White House about it, though. +2 Gov. John Bel Edwards cozies up to Trump, preaches bipartisanship on re-election campaign Gov. John Bel Edwards is walking a thin line. The only Democratic governor in the Deep South is attempting a re-election bid in a state that s "It just tears your heart out because you know it's unnecessary," Edwards said in June of images of crying children in make-shift shelters and cages. "We understand the need to secure borders and make sure criminals are not coming in, but those children are not criminals, they're not terrorists." President Donald Trump signed an executive order in June retreating from the policy, but recent reports have suggested that separations have continued. The America profile of Edwards offers a peek into the governor's Catholic faith and the fine-line he walks being a Democrat who is against abortion rights and supports gun rights. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "I dont like the labels because I dont think that theyre accurate. I dont like being pigeonholed," Edwards says in the profile, which is the inaugural story of a proposed annual feature for America. "There are people who say, Youre pro-life on abortion, so that makes you conservative, but youre for the Medicaid expansion. That makes you liberal. But its the exact same Catholic Christian faith, at least as I understand it, that pushes me into both of those positions." Through the profile, Edwards offers insight into growing up Catholic in Tangipahoa Parish and how it led him to West Point for college. +2 Louisiana governor's race considered 'top pick-up opportunity' for Republicans, but who is running? U.S. Sen. John Kennedy is waiting at least a couple more weeks to say whether he will run for governor next year. But on a recent day in Denha He also discusses his relationship with Republican President Donald Trump. Edwards has said in the past that Trump has called him his favorite Democrat, and the governor has been invited to multiple White House events since Trump took office. Edwards compared his treatment of Trump to how former Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, treated Democratic President Barack Obama. "[Jindal] was very gratuitous in his commentary about President Obama. And it was always taking on the president and not giving him the benefit of the doubt on anything," he said. "Its not that I dont ever disagree. I just dont go out in public and blast the president, because I dont think it would be helpful." Edwards took office in January 2016 and is seeking re-election in 2019. Two Republicans, Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone and U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham of Alto, have announced plans to challenge him. Others could also get into the race. Read the full profile in America here. Without discussion, a bipartisan and bicameral panel of Louisiana lawmakers on Thursday acknowledged that the state budget projection won't be upgraded this year. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee sped through its final meeting of 2018. The first item on its agenda: a recognition of the fiscal status statement -- just days after House leadership rejected an attempt to recognize a rosier forecast that would have freed up millions for unfunded budget priorities. No members of the budget panel raised discussion over the matter, which has prompted political clashes in recent days. +2 Funding for some pay raises delayed after Louisiana House speaker objects to budget forecast upgrade More than $43 million in budget priorities mostly law enforcement expenditures has been delayed again, after state House leadership again The Legislature, in approving a budget plan for the fiscal year that started July 1, left about $43 million in items to be funded if the state forecast is upgraded. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which includes senators and House members from the chambers' spending panels, would ultimately get to say which items on the contingency budget would be funded if more revenue is recognized. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Those items mostly law enforcement expenditures would have been on the agenda for Thursday's meeting, but because of the Revenue Estimating Conference inaction on Monday the funds remain in limbo. State Public Defender warns Louisiana lawmakers of 'dire scenario' if funding isn't increased Multiple public defender districts in Louisiana, including East Baton Rouge and Orleans, are at risk of becoming insolvent in a year or two if House Speaker Taylor Barras was the only REC member on Monday to reject the advice of state economists about improved projections that would free up money to fund pay raises for corrections officers and cover costs of local sheriffs who house state inmates, among other priorities lawmakers identified in the state budget that began July 1. All other members of the revenue panel, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, LSU economist Jim Richardson and Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, voted in favor of the latest projections, but REC votes must be unanimous, so Barras' vote against blocked the maneuver. When some of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate join with the most liberal wing in the body, maybe there is a general agreement Following reports that President Donald Trumps administration is once again revisiting protections for Vietnamese immigrants, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell says the city stands in solidarity with its large Vietnamese population, including immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for decades. In the face of this ugly effort to target our Vietnamese neighbors I would like to make it clear that the entire City of New Orleans stands in solidarity with our Vietnamese community, which has contributed so much to our social and cultural fabric, Cantrell said. I would also strongly encourage all naturalized residents who are eligible to apply for citizenship, to do so now. According to The Atlantic, the Trump administration is reneging on agreements that have allowed long-term U.S. residents from Vietnam, Cambodia and other counties who arrived in the country before diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Vietnam were established in 1995, decades after the Vietnam War and the immigration of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to cities across the U.S. Last year, Trumps administration threatened to reverse course on that agreement, threatening to deport people with criminal convictions who arrived in the U.S. before 1995. According to The Atlantic, a spokesperson from the administration said that the bilateral agreement establishes procedures for deporting Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States after July 12, 1995, and are subject to final orders of removal. Sen. Kennedy calls on Mayor Cantrell to 'undo' NOPD immigration policy After meeting with staff at the New Orleans field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Sen. John Neely Kennedy called crit While the procedures associated with this specific agreement do not apply to Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995, it does not explicitly preclude the removal of pre-1995 cases, the statement said. More than 1.2 million people, many left stateless after the dissolve of South Vietnam, fled to the U.S. in the mid- and late-1970s; with the many Vietnamese immigrants settled in New Orleans, concentrating in New Orleans East and on the West Bank. Those residents include current District E Councilmember Cyndi Nguyen, the City Councils first-ever Vietnamese member, who was elected in 2017. I am very disappointed with the direction of the Trump Administration on immigration laws, Nguyen said in a statement. Our country is made of immigrants of every ethnicity. I want to encourage the administration to carefully evaluate the immigration policy and focus on the people. It should be a fair policy that the United States can sustain. In September, Cantrell partnered with VAYLA (or Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans), a multi-racial progressive New Orleans East-based community group, for a Citizenship Day campaign encouraging residents to begin the naturalization process. Cities for Citizenship includes a network of more than 70 U.S. cities and counties encouraging and facilitating the naturalization process for immigrant and refugee populations. Trumps reversed mandate does not target naturalized Vietnamese immigrants. Naturalized citizens also are able to vote, obtain a U.S. passport, and, crucially, sponsor family members through their naturalization process. 'What we want is real freedom': deportation threat lifted for New Orleans immigrants' rights leader U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement delivered Jose Torres an ultimatum in November 2017 leave the country within a month or face deport But there are significant barriers to naturalization, including costs the the fee rose from $60 in 1989 ($120 in 2017 dollars) to $725 in 2017, according to a report from Stanford University's Immigration Policy Lab. Meanwhile, according to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency identified 8,600 Vietnamese nationals in the U.S. who are subject to deportation and 7,821 have criminal convictions, as reported by Reuters in 2017. This is not new, VAYLA founder and director Minh Nguyen told Gambit in September in advance of Citizenship Day. Trump got into office, he ran on that campaign, and hes unfortunately doing it. WASHINGTON It was almost noon Thursday when a Marine suddenly appeared outside the West Wing doors, a sign that President Donald Trump had belatedly reported to the Oval Office. For the second day in a row, the president had been in the White House residence all morning, fuming about federal investigations that have moved closer to him and are likely to get worse. His former confidant, attorney Michael Cohen, and other once-stalwart supporters have flipped, becoming witnesses for a Justice Department he has struggled to bend to his will. Prosecutors also secured the cooperation of American Media Inc., the tabloid publisher that routinely helped Trump muzzle bad stories and target his enemies. The result is Trump has become increasingly isolated as he enters what may be the most difficult stretch of his presidency, one laden with political and legal dangers. Trumps first choice for a new chief of staff turned him down last week, and hes still trying to fill the post as one potential candidate after another has publicly taken himself out of the running. Louisiana Republicans stand with Trump as President, Democrats face off over border wall WASHINGTON Louisiana Republicans are digging in behind President Donald Trumps demand for money to build a wall along the border with Mexic Come January, a newly elected Democratic majority in the House is expected to issue a blizzard of subpoenas. Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to be the next House speaker, said on Thursday that a House committee will probably take the first steps toward seeking Trumps long-hidden tax returns, an effort he will almost certainly fight. Trumps lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was spotted in Bahrain trying to drum up business for his private security company even as the incoming state attorney general in New York vowed to investigate Trumps family business empire. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III continues to investigate Russias role in Trumps election and whether the president sought to obstruct justice by trying to end the inquiry. I dont think hes ever in his life been in this position, said Barbara Res, who worked years for the Trump Organization, the presidents private family-run business. Hes always had all the power and nobody else does. Trump already is struggling to exert his influence. Few Republicans have endorsed his threats to force a government shutdown over Christmas if Congress doesnt approve $5 billion for a proposed border wall. On Thursday, the Republican-controlled Senate took a direct slap at the White House, voting unanimously by voice vote to condemn Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the brutal slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has publicly backed the crown prince despite U.S. intelligence findings that he masterminded the killing. Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who visited the White House on Wednesday, said Trump is digging in for trench warfare with his political and legal enemies. All this stuff is painful, but hes a guy whos been in lots of fights, he said. He sort of wishes it would go away and is prepared to fight it out if he has to. Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer of Trumps 1987 bestselling book, The Art of the Deal, said the reckoning Trump faces follows decades of operating under a belief that he was above the law. He got away with so much, for so long, that he came to believe he was untouchable and invincible, Schwartz said. He said Trump followed the tactics he learned from his late mentor, the hard-knuckled New York lawyer Roy Cohn Lie about everything, attack back twice as hard as youve been hit, keep at it relentlessly until people finally give up and (they) stop arguing with your fabricated reality. Trump is still living in that reality, but the world isnt going along with him anymore, he added. Several others close to the president, granted anonymity to speak openly about conversations with him, said Trump already senses diminishing respect and worries about losing support from powerful financial donors and Republican lawmakers as his legal and political troubles worsen. Theyre still not saying it publicly, but most Republicans on the Hill understand that its not going to end well, that its going to be bad, said a longtime Republican operative close to party leadership. Trump has long railed against rats who cooperate with law enforcement, and he repeatedly lashes out at former aides whove done just that. In a Twitter message Thursday, he accused Cohen who was sentenced to three years in federal prison the day before for tax fraud, campaign finance violations and other crimes of pleading guilty in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did. Can't see video below? Click here. James Trusty, a former chief of the Justice Departments organized crime section and a Washington-based partner at Ifrah Law, said persuading loyalists to turn on compatriots is key to any complex investigation. The Mafia had the omerta code of silence, but you still had people who were turncoats, he said. Trumps orbit is much softer, he added. Were talking about businessmen and lawyers and folks who have families, and arent exactly hardcore when it comes to facing jail time. Perhaps the most pressing threat is the investigation, led by the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan, of what prosecutors say was an illegal scheme to pay $280,000 to two women shortly before the 2016 election to buy their silence about alleged sexual affairs with Trump years earlier. Cohen directly paid Stormy Daniels, a porn star, and was reimbursed by the Trump Organization. American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, paid Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, for the rights to her story and then never ran it. Prosecutors say Trump directed both payments, which were illegal because they were intended to influence the election and functioned as excessive campaign contributions that were not disclosed. Trump once denied knowing about the payments, but he abandoned that as evidence showed otherwise. He now argues that he never asked Cohen to break the law. Congress sends final farm bill to President Trump after months of negotiations WASHINGTON (AP) After months of debate and negotiation, Congress voted final approval Wednesday to a massive farm bill that will provide mor I never directed him to do anything wrong, the president told Fox News on Thursday. Whatever he did, he did on his own. Cohen and American Media, as well as federal prosecutors, now say that the hush money payments were intended to boost the Republican nominees chances by suppressing the womens claims of extramarital affairs with him. According to court documents, the American Media chairman, David Pecker, offered in August 2015 to help deal with negative stories about (Trumps) relationships with women, assisting the campaign so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Trump could conceivably argue that the payments were made not for the purposes of advancing his campaign but rather to prevent sex stories from emerging that would be personally humiliating to him and harm his marriage. That argument was advanced by former Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, in a similar campaign finance case that went to trial. But that may be tougher for Trump than it was for Edwards given the proximity of the president's payment to the election timing that, on its face, suggests a link between the money and his political ambitions. Still, the cases aren't always easy, as proved by the 2012 trial of Edwards. Jurors acquitted Edwards on one charge of accepting illegal campaign contributions but couldn't reach a verdict on the five remaining counts, including conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors elected not to retry Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and a candidate for president in 2004 and 2008. Some of Trumps Republican allies have begun to publicly admit concerns about whether Trump violated the law in the hush money scheme even if hes unlikely to face prosecution while in office. "Am I concerned that the president might be involved in a crime? Of course," Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told reporters Tuesday, according to NBC News. "The only question is, then, whether or not this so-called hush money is a crime. "John Edwards was obviously prosecuted for the same thing, and the Justice Department failed ... if we take legal precedent it does not seem to be something the Justice Department is going to win on." There are more signs of trouble ahead. Trump was embarrassed after a combative Oval Office meeting on live TV on Tuesday with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer. Both Democrats challenged the president to his face, describing his policies and claims of political victories as fantastical. With the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, leaving at the end of the year, Trump has struggled to find a replacement. After Nick Ayers, a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, turned him down, several others reportedly under consideration including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and New York Yankees President Randy Levine also said no thanks. David Bossie, a longtime Republican political warrior who was Trumps deputy campaign chairman, was seen entering the West Wing and is a potential candidate. Some people close to Trump are urging him to consider a White House political adviser, Johnny DeStefano, while Trumps budget director, Mick Mulvaney, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are also said to be under consideration. Congress takes two-week punt on National Flood Insurance Program as part of stop-gap funding deal WASHINGTON Congress punted yet again on overhauling the National Flood Insurance Program, extending the program for two more weeks as part o Trump, who has bristled at media reports that no one wants the job, contended Thursday that he is interviewing five terrific people. While his difficulty filling the job highlights the presidents isolation, Schwartz, Trumps ghost writer, said Trump almost certainly doesnt agree. He doesnt feel the ordinary human emotions most of us do, he said. For example, hes free of shame because he has no conscience, nor any self-awareness. So while his behavior certainly suggests he feels increasing fear and isolation, he would be the last one to know it. Story by Chris Megerian and Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times via Tribune News Service/Associated Press. Allegations that former St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain molested minors came to light as federal investigators were searching for a motive for Strain's alleged kickback scheme involving a Slidell work-release program, according to Strain's successor, Sheriff Randy Smith. Smith did not elaborate on whether a motive was discovered. But he said he found the allegations of sexual abuse by Strain, first reported Wednesday by The New Orleans Advocate and its partner WWL-TV, "sickening and very disturbing." "These are serious allegations toward my predecessor involving a tight group of individuals," he said Thursday. "High-ranking individuals may have been involved or had knowledge." Strain has not been charged with any crime, but a federal bill of information charging two of his top-ranking deputies says he received regular cash kickbacks from them a strong suggestion that Strain will be charged in that scheme as well. But if the sex-abuse investigation results in any charges, they are likely to be filed in state court. Probe of ex-Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain includes allegations he sexually abused teens Federal authorities have already implicated Jack Strain in a kickback scheme while he was sheriff of St. Tammany Parish, but sources familiar Smith, who defeated Strain in a 2015 election, said that, from what he knows of the case, some of the alleged abuse took place years ago, when the victims were teenagers. "How many (victims there are), we don't know," he said. Sources familiar with the case have said there are at least four alleged victims and that the group includes both genders. At least two of them were employees of the Slidell work-release program that Strain privatized, which is at the center of the federal probe. Smith said that he knows that the 22nd Judicial District Attorney's Office is aware of the allegations and has met with the FBI. "They are in communication," he said. In a prepared statement, District Attorney Warren Montgomery said he would not comment on the allegations "because doing so could compromise ongoing investigations, the public perception of the independent, fair and impartial administration of justice and an unbiased jury. "The people of St. Tammany deserve a fair justice system, and my office is an important part of that system," he concluded. Smith in March acknowledged that his office had received a grand jury subpoena from federal investigators. He said Thursday that he has not received any additional subpoenas, but he has gotten other requests for information from federal authorities, mostly dealing with the work-release program. But the feds have also sought documents related to the Sheriff's Office's K-9 division, which was headed by David "Doc" Hanson Sr. under Strain's administration. Those documents include purchase orders, expenses from trips, veterinary bills and even dog food bills, Smith said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Smiths office is not the investigating agency for either probe, although Smith has stressed his ongoing cooperation with federal authorities looking into corruption allegations concerning the work-release program. The first-term sheriff ran for office as a reform candidate and said he knew there were suspicions of criminal activity under Strain. Since taking office in 2016, he said, he has been cleaning up a mess. Listen: Strip-club crackdown one year in; violent crime nosedives; ex-sheriff under microscope: Ep. 11 of 'The Neutral Ground' The 11th episode of the New Orleans Advocate's weekly podcast, "The Neutral Ground," is available for download. But the new developments are also playing out as a new campaign season begins. Smith will be seeking a second term next November, and hes already drawn two opponents, including Tim Lentz, a former Covington police chief who before that was Strains chief deputy. Lentz said Thursday that he had no idea when he left the Sheriffs Office in 2013 that Strain was planning to privatize the Slidell work-release program. The allegations against Strain are a complete shock, Lentz said. The allegations need to be investigated fully, and if theyre proven, he needs to be held accountable. When Smith took office in July 2016, he immediately cut the agency's ties with the private operators of the Slidell work-release program and returned it to Sheriff's Office control. After about six months, he said, he decided the risks of walk-offs, escapes and controversy surrounding the program outweighed the benefits, and he shut it down. An agency the size of the St. Tammany Sheriff's Office, which Smith described as the third-largest in the state, doesn't depend on revenue from the work-release program the way a smaller agency might. The programs tend to generate money because most of the wages earned by the inmates in the programs go to the operators rather than to the inmates. Hanson and Clifford "Skip" Keen, both high-ranking deputies under Strain, pleaded not guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jay Wilkinson this week, but they are expected soon to plead guilty and cooperate with authorities. Their adult children were owners of St. Tammany Workforce Solutions, which got a contract to run the Slidell work-release program after Strain spent nearly $500,000 in public money to renovate that facility. The bill of information says those children got nearly $1.2 million from the business in a little less than three years and gave substantial shares to their fathers, who then funneled some of the money to Strain. Multiple bomb threats have been reported across Louisiana and some agencies have said they believe some threats are part of a nationwide hoax and do not pose credible danger to the public. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office received several reported bomb threats from local businesses on Thursday, but investigators do not believe there is a current threat to the public, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman Captain Jason Rivarde said in an email. Investigators believe the emailed threats, which are similar to other reports nationwide, are part of a hoax, Rivarde said. "We do not believe any threat to the public exists at this time," Rivarde said. Meanwhile, the New Orleans Police Department has responded to threats at four different locations across the city: 6200 block of South Claiborne Ave., 9600 block of Hayne Blvd., 600 block of Poydras St. and 7800 block of Walmsley Ave. "There is no information available as to any connection between these incidents, or to other incidents currently being reported in other areas," New Orleans police spokesman Aaron Looney said. "No further details are available on these incidents at this time." There were at least two reported threats in nearby East Baton Rouge Parish on Thursday morning. The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office and the Baton Rouge Police Department each investigated one threat, but found them not to be credible. The big four banks could be forced to hold $NZ13 billion ($12.3 billion) more in capital in their New Zealand businesses, after regulators across the Tasman proposed a sharp increase in banks' safety buffers to protect the economy in a financial shock. In a surprise move that saw the major banks' shares fall between 1.7 per cent and 2.7 per cent, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) on Friday proposed changes forcing bank owners to bear a greater share of the risks in the financial system. Australia's big four banks also dominate the New Zealand market, where regulators are eyeing higher capital requirements. Under the proposal, capital requirements would be lifted by between 20 and 60 per cent over a five-year period, a change the RBNZ said was equal to more than two thirds of the industry's expected profits over this time. ANZ Bank, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac are the dominant lenders in New Zealand, a market that made the big four $4.4 billion this year, or 15 per cent of their total combined profits. Every year, the same schools dominate the HSC's top 20. They do well partly because they are known as the best, so they attract the brightest students. But there are other schools, in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Sydney, where getting students to the high school finish line is an achievement in itself. And yet many of them are punching well above their weight in the HSC 2018 results. Zeenat Razak and Mariama Bah, both 13, are in year 7 at Chester Hill High School and heard Malala Yousafzai speak in Sydney earlier this week. Credit:Wolter Peeters Birrong Girls' High. Mary MacKillop Catholic College in Fairfield. Canley Vale High. All have students in the lowest socio-economic quartile, yet were in the top 50 per cent of schools, according to The Herald's analysis. And when it comes to schools that punch above their weight, one of the state's biggest successes is Chester Hill High. We learn that MoMA bookstores do not stock novels. They do not stock any fiction. Even if my book is set in the gallery? Even if it was launched at MoMA? No, no, no. MoMA's director writes and says he will look into the possibility of having the launch at the museum. July, August and September go by. August is my birthday. I have lunch with four girlfriends at a Japanese restaurant in Hobart. They make me write my wish list for the launch. I write who I want as the MC. I write that the launch happens in the atrium at MoMA. I take this piece of paper home and prop it on a shelf where I keep other things that are sacred to me. Photos of my children, an Aboriginal bark painting, a small ivory netsuke of a man reading. No news from MoMA. The publishers are getting anxious. Do we have a back-up plan if MoMA doesn't come through? Am I sure Abramovic is confirmed? Famous people cancel, apparently, all the time. I assure them that if Abramovic has said yes, she is a yes. After 11 years of research, I feel it is something I can be certain about. We have only met once, me and Marina Abramovic, and it was over in seconds. But I have written hundreds of thousands of words about her. I have more than 300 individual pieces of research about her work and her life in my files. This is over and above the collection of books I have, and all that I have read about her. I hadn't wanted to meet her. To me she is a character in my book. Writing is a strange enough thing to do each day without your characters coming to life. Time is running out. There is talk of alternative launch venues the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library. Or simply McNally Jackson, the bookstore in SoHo. But Abramovic is confirmed and a book store doesn't seem big enough for her presence. Since The Artist Is Present, her absence from the atrium has haunted me on every subsequent visit to MoMA. I want this weaving of fact and fiction. I want the story to come home to its heartland, to the very place the novel is set. Abramovic spent 75 days of her life in the atrium. I spent three weeks there researching the book, then five years or so imagining that performance almost every day while completing the novel. But the MoMA atrium is one of the most desired locations in New York. It's a place for high-end fundraisers and black-tie charity events. An email arrives. The director expresses his affection for Abramovic, for our mutual friend, for the book, and for making it happen at MoMA. He's sure, however, that the atrium will be booked. (It's booked months and years in advance.) But he will get back to us with an alternative location for the launch. Three days pass. Then an email arrives: "looks like the atrium will be free!!!" Those three exclamation points are the moment of truth. My publishers seem genuinely shocked that an obscure writer from Tasmania has pulled off a launch at MoMA, sponsored by MoMA, and in conversation with the artist (and character) Marina Abramovic. I am a little shocked, too. I tell friends and colleagues. I advise them that an official invitation from the publishers will be forthcoming. Twenty-eight friends confirm they will be flying from Australia for the launch of the novel. I would have been surprised if eight friends had wanted to come. But 28? Abramovic agrees that we will do an in conversation. Via email we discuss the format. I need someone to make the opening remarks. I would like it to be someone Australian, with a connection to the book. Someone who can hold her own at MoMA with a world of international people amassed for a book launch with Marina Abramovic. I ask someone I deeply admire who has recently returned to New York. She says yes. When I pass that piece of paper from my August birthday lunch on the shelf, I see that I had written her name on the paper as preferred MC. I had completely forgotten. My three children are flying to New York from their various homes in Australia and the US. My 84-year-old father is coming from Australia, chaperoned by my sister. When I arrive in New York, Giuliano calls me from London. Abramovic is very unwell. She was due to travel to New York on Tuesday for the launch but instead is to be transferred to a medical facility in Austria. Giuliano flies to New York to be with me for the launch and Abramovic sends an audio message. She sounds exhausted. "Good evening everybody. I'm so sorry I can't be there but the doctor has forbidden me to fly to New York," she says. She goes on to explain that she's having high blood pressure caused by Lyme disease. I know her condition is erratic and dangerous. "I'd like to tell you a little story about this book and me," she says, recounting how she met me briefly some years ago. She knew I was writing a book, and then one day, the book arrived, dedicated to her. "It was so overwhelming. It lies on my office table and later next to my bed for a long time. I didn't really have the courage to open it and see what I would find there. I also always believe that right time, right place, right situation is the best. "So soon I am leaving for India and the only book I take with me is that one. And India was the right place, right situation, when I can read with ease and full concentration. I was so touched by this book. It's not just that it was about me and The Artist Is Present but much more important than all that, is the way it was written. It's a really, really, great piece of literature. I hope you enjoy this evening and I'm so sorry I am not with you tonight." Author Heather Rose. Credit:Jim Rice And so, on Wednesday, November 28, at a private event at MoMA, Marina Abramovic and I were not in conversation. Instead Anne Summers stepped in to conduct the interview. She is a fan of the book and a consummate interviewer. She had just returned home to New York after her Australian tour following the launch of her memoir, Unfettered and Alive. She makes the evening look as if it was always meant to be this way. We discuss the book, and the writing of it, and the life of being a writer, while faces from The Artist Is Present appear huge on a screen behind us. Faces that include that of Abramovic, who is a very large, very still presence throughout the evening. Like the character within the pages of the novel, she remains silent, enigmatic and quietly powerful. Loading Perhaps it's strange to say it, but I'm not disappointed. I was deeply saddened to hear of Abramovic's health challenges. I understand well the challenges of illness. And like her, I am a great believer that there is a flow of right action in the world. Whatever unfolded, this too was as it should be. She has already made enormous contributions to both the book and my life. And she has done all that from a great distance. That is what artists do. In 2010, I sat opposite Abramovic four times in the centre of the atrium during The Artist Is Present. I was just one of 850,000 people who attended that performance. Eight years later, I sat in the centre of the atrium and Abramovic's image watched over the launch of a story drawn from that event. Perhaps one day Abramovic and I will get to have a conversation. Perhaps it will be far from an art gallery with wine, food and good health. For now, we remain creator and character, author and artist, author and muse. A novel born of an idea first realised at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), written largely in Tasmania, and published in Australia, has arrived in the United States. A book that took 11 years to write, and was rejected many times over, has had its US launch at one of the most famous art galleries in the world. It is the first novel to be launched at MoMA and the first and only novel to be stocked in its bookstores. It's hard to explain how much wonder has happened since 2005, when I first saw a photograph in the NGV that made me consider Abramovic as a character for a book. This was before she was the world-famous artist she is now. Before she became a household name. In 2010 when I sat opposite Abramovic at MoMA in New York, she had already been sitting at that table for years in my mind. (That's another story.) But it was at MoMA that I realised I couldn't fictionalise her any longer. She was too magnetic, her story too real. That's when I asked and received permission to include her as herself. In 2015, the very same day I got the phone call telling me the book had finally been accepted for publication here in Australia, Marina Abramovic flew into Hobart for the launch of her retrospective at The Museum of Old and New Art. She hadn't been to Hobart in 40 years. That was where we met, in that brief moment she referred to in her audio message. When I looked for a venue for a post-book-launch gathering for 28 Australians in Manhattan, everything was prohibitively expensive or booked out. I tried numerous options and came up short. Then someone recommended a bar. I called and they were helpful, inexpensive, welcoming. Great food. It is in the street right behind MoMA. This is where we Australians and New Yorkers gathered after the launch to celebrate late into the Manhattan night. The pub was called Characters. Of course the pub was called Characters. That is what writing a novel is all about. It is about those elusive, ephemeral and powerful creatures who come to our writing minds as characters. Writing is a long road and overnight success can take decades. I began my life as a paid writer at 17 for the Hobart Mercury. I've written millions of words learning my craft and I'm still learning every day. If I am lucky, I'll be learning to be a better writer until the day I die. MEMOIR Becoming Michelle Obama Viking, $49.99 The the success or otherwise of a political identity who seeks to tell their story. First, whether they have requisite distance for anything even resembling objectivity. Second, if they know how to distinguish between what is and isn't interesting. Finally, are they willing to be honest and in doing so, make themselves vulnerable. Happily Michelle Obama's Becoming answers each of these queries in the affirmative. Becoming by Michelle Obama. Obama learned early in public life that being candid can make for unwelcome headlines. In an imprudent moment during the 2008 Wisconsin primaries she told the crowd "for the first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country". The political fallout was immense. A lesson was bitterly learned. Following her husband's historic victory and the family's relocation to Washington DC, Obama became far more careful in her use of language. She mostly shied away from overt political commentary during Barack Obama's time in office, instead declaring herself to be "Mom in Chief". With Becoming, Obama abandons the caution that dominated her period as First Lady. The book mostly complies with her own mantra of "when they go low, we go high" but Obama can't help the occasional barb at her husband's successor's expense. (Could you?). She's an easy writer to read. She doesn't bide her time or amble up to her points: she takes aim and fires without missing. In the preface, confronting the pervasive stereotype of the angry black woman head on: "I was 'other' almost by default. If there was a presumed grace assigned to my white predecessors, I knew it wasn't likely to be the same for me." The book includes sorrowful and pained reflections on the state of American politics; how a new administration is deliberately eroding the progress and policies of the one that came before. However, Obama's central narrative is a positive one. This is a story of resilience in the face of adversity, with the writer remaining optimistic that decency will one day triumph over the hateful rhetoric of the present. Australian audiences may recoil at the American sentimentality of how the three-part biography is sub-titled: "Becoming Me", "Becoming Us" and "Becoming More". Thankfully, the content and style don't match the cringeworthy chapter names. Obama's childhood in 1960s Chicago dominates the first third, where a picture emerges of a little black girl who doesn't fit in. Young Michelle doesn't talk much with peers because her parents have impressed upon her the importance of education, diligence and hard work. School is everything. The central third is devoted to her romance with Barack Obama. Her respect and admiration for her partner is imprinted on every page. She describes a love affair for the ages but is careful to avoid suggestion that her relationship is endlessly passionate or even affectionate. By relating her struggles with IVF and the strain it put on their romance, Obama manages to make the most unrelateable marriage in the world seem just like everyone else's. She describes the pressures of being a brilliant, go-getting woman married to an equally formidable man. "I was deeply, delightfully in love with a guy whose forceful intellect and ambition could possibly end up swallowing mine," she writes. If Obama's intention was to relate the story of her relationship as it is and not as the fairy tale many have imagined it to be, then she succeeds beautifully. Through the final third of Becoming, the reader sees the world of American politics close up through her eyes. She takes us inside the overwhelming grandeur and elegance of the White House, while sharing the stifling reality of life within its walls. Her desperation to carve out some sense of normality for her children, as they grow up in these utterly bizarre circumstances, is admirable. There is melancholy in the "new heaviness" of the presidency and her husband's sense of frivolity and fun all but disappear as the gravity of his job invades the family's every day. Over the moon but not in Canberra When Giramondo publisher Ivor Indyk accepted the Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction on behalf of Gerald Murnane last week he said, "Gerald will be over the moon to know that he has received the award". Given Murnane's hostility to travelling anywhere more than a day's drive from home, it's hard to imagine Murnane over the moon in any circumstance. But let's not be too literal. Murnane did come up with a scheme to get from his home in Goroke in the Wimmera to Canberra to pick up his award, but a convoluted itinerary that involved a friend flying down from Queensland, hiring a car in Melbourne and driving to Horsham to pick up Murnane, who would drive himself there, came rapidly unstuck and was eventually foiled by delayed planes and issues with the hire car. By the time of the evening before the awards, they were many behind schedule and had made it only about 100 kilometres from Horsham. On the morning of the awards, Indyk got the following text: "Ivor, I'm not going to be in Canberra after all. I had very little sleep last night ... part indisposition and part stress ... can't face drive ... can't even think of attending function ... sorry for inconvenience ... could you accept my award if I win, and make a bit of humour out of my setting out but faltering on the way." Indyk made the most of Murnane's instructions. Obama's publisher goes The woman who is credited with publishing Michelle Obama's bestselling memoir, Becoming, is a surprise departure from Crown Publishing Group in the US, a casualty of more mergers and restructuring within the behemoth that is Penguin Random House. As vice-president of Crown, Stern steered publication of books such as Gone Girl, but more than 2 million sales in Becoming's first two weeks on the shelves weren't enough to save her job. It is reminiscent of the situation in Penguin Random House locally when publisher Ben Ball was forced out in May. In that case it was the "review of our structure" that apparently decided that Penguin Random House no longer needed a literary publishing director. Ball had just published Tim Winton's The Shepherd's Hut, which has been a big seller for the company. There was much dismay among Ball's authors such as Winton and Don Watson. At the time Winton said: "A publisher of Ben's stature is so rare in Australia and his departure diminishes the company, the trade and the culture. This is a bad day and a time to take stock." Ominous words. Where Ball will pop up next remains to be seen. Before he returned to Australia in 2005 to become publisher for adults at Penguin he worked in London for Bloomsbury, Granta and, finally, at Simon & Schuster, where he was editorial director, fiction. Simon & Schuster has recently introduced its literary imprint, Scribner, to Australia, Kristina Olsson's Shell being its inaugural title. These two books are as different as their two leading characters. William Bligh possessed preternatural skills as a sailor and navigator but he was not a leader of men. He was sometimes bold and courageous but he lacked moderation and humanity; and he was all too often motivated by self-advancement and the accumulation of money and prestige. Portrait of William Bligh c.1776, by John Webber. Credit:National Portrait Gallery Bligh attained high office, ascending through the ranks of the Royal Navy and retiring as a Vice Admiral of the Blue, but his thrusting nature, overbearing personality and abrasive temper ensured that he never earned the respect of those who served under him and really knew him. His career starting with the death of Captain Cook and ending with the only overthrow of an Australian government was marked by frequent misjudgment, a great deal of bastardry and occasional brilliance. Fletcher Christian, on the other hand, is an almost mythic figure; a handsome, well-born young man stretched to breaking point by a brutal captain. In April 1789, he seized the Bounty, put Bligh and 18 men in one of the ship's boats, collected a group of men and women on Tahiti and, after wandering the seas, established a self-sufficient settlement on an uninhabited island known as Pitcairn. The drama and romance of these events influenced Wordsworth (The Prelude), Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Tennyson (The Captain), Byron (The Island) and even Jules Verne (The Mutineers of the Bounty). The community on Pitcairn survived and multiplied and continues to exist to this day. There was conflict and mayhem in the early days and most of the mutineers destroyed themselves with lust, liquor and murder. But when an American sealer arrived in 1808, Captain Mayhew Folger found the last surviving mutineer, John Adams, presiding over a model Christian community with a dozen or so Tahitian women and a brood of children "about three dozen in all". Quite what happened to Fletcher Christian is a mystery but both authors point to intriguing evidence that suggests he may have secretly returned to England. Bligh and all but one of the men in the open boat miraculously survived a 47-day, 3500 nautical mile voyage to Timor. They had a sextant, a quadrant, navigational tables and a compass and were blessed by favourable winds, but their food and water were severely limited. When Bligh returned to London in March 1790, he was exonerated by the mandatory court-martial and presented to the George III. In short order, he published his Narrative, was promoted to Master and Commander, then again to Post Captain. An inspector with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Mr. Peter Rees, said winds of between 100 and 120 kmh hit the area bounded by Chesterville, Warrigal, South and Cochranes roads in Moorabbin about 5pm yesterday. A mini-tornado swept through Melbourne yesterday, flooding many parts of the city and devastating the Moorabbin industrial area, causing several millions dollars damage. It was incredible, something like a mini-tornado in a south-westerly direction. The fact that no one was injured is a minor miracle. There were four people in a car and a brick wall fell on them. They got out and walked away, said Mr. Rees, who was stationed in a State Emergency Service control van. Mr. Terry Ryan, a senior forecaster with the weather bureau, said mini-tornado had become a term used to describe very strong winds. But he said tornadoes rarely occurred in Australia. Flash flooding outside of Spencer Street Station. Credit:The Age Archives About 150 homes were damaged when the story lashed the suburbs. Strong winds tore roofs off homes, uprooted trees and blew out windows. The worst hit areas were Middle Park, South Melbourne, Albert Park, St Kilda, Malvern, Moorabbin and East Bentleigh. The storm dumped 22 millimeters of rain in the city in two hours. It is winter when we arrive. The European trees stand leafless, black skeletons against the towering skyline. The puddles on the pavements reflect the grey of the sky. I board a rush-hour tram where faces, accents and languages blend into one intoxicating symphony of noise and colour. After the tranquillising calm of small-town England, this city pulses with an energy I had forgotten I crave. Even bleary-eyed with jet lag, I feel the rush of it in my veins. I drink a perfect flat white in a cafe near South Melbourne market and, later, a cocktail with my sister in a rooftop bar. We wander dark, graffitied lanes and eat delicious food in a hidden basement restaurant. Not even the cold wind blowing off the bay or an encounter with the haughtiest door bitch can dampen the joy of our reunion. We travel on to Queensland, where the skyscrapers cast shadows on the sand and the trees blossom with startling midwinter blooms. I join a conference of librarians who have converged from all across the Asia-Pacific region. We talk about books and the transformative power of words and meet in the evening for a gala dinner in a sparkling ballroom. Perhaps it's the hushed repression of their quiet working days, but as soon as the band begins to play, the Aussie librarians are up and dancing with unselfconscious abandon. From where I sit, cloaked in my British reserve, it is something joyous to behold. In Byron for the writers' festival, I sit on panels, feeling like an imposter beside impressive Australian authors. At the end of it all I reunite for a quiet moment of reconnection with my aunt, one of those four children led aboard the boat by my grandfather in the late 1950s, never to return home. We talk about our family, about the choices we have made, and about the joy of travel and the tyranny of geographical distance. We talk about how lucky we are; for we are lucky, with these lives we are living. It's all the more obvious to me, on this trip, watching the way my children hoist their bags to their shoulders and move with ease across countries and borders. They enjoy a freedom and a safety I know many are denied. This so-called lucky country is lucky only for those who are accepted and acknowledged to those ticking the "right" boxes. I know there is no difference between my children and those held in detention, except the lottery of their birthplace and parentage. It was sheer good fortune that my privilege allowed me to follow my grandfather, all those years later, to a life in Australia, and pure luck that my kids were born in a country of peace and prosperity. My children are free to move and learn and dream. The children held by the government in detention are not. As we have learnt from recent harrowing articles and accounts, all some of them dream of is death. At the writers' festival, a lone chair stood vacant on the stage, representation of a writer unable to attend denied their voice due to detainment. This stark reality the contrasts of fortune and fate, thoughts of life and death weigh heavily on me as we pack our bags once more and board our flight to Sydney. We head west first, and walk the streets of the suburb we called home, greeted by friends and familiar faces. There are hugs from the school lollipop lady, the local bookseller, the cafe owner. Rather than feeling filled with fear and pain, our return is like their embraces warm and comforting and familiar. We head north, across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to brave the rickety rails of the Luna Park rides and revisit the foreshore of Balmoral Beach. I am stopped in my tracks by a tree I know I have admired before, an ancient Moreton Bay fig presiding over the sand. It stands towering in its place, a heavy fringe of aerial roots drooping from its branches, seeking sustenance from the air. There is something in its stature and majesty, its wild beauty, its constancy that comforts me. Hello old friend, I think. Still here. You know me. Youve seen me around. Im that huffy-faced disapproving 104-year-old man whos always sneering at everyone on their smart devices as if to say, What a pack of losers! Plugged into your life-support units. Drugging yourselves with digital dopamine. Wallowing in your virtual oceans of soulless narcissism. THIS IS THE END OF HUMANITY, LOSERS!!! THIS IS THE END OF- then getting distracted because Ive peeked over someones shoulder and spotted a Youtube clip of a baby bonobo monkey getting tickled. But just for a second, then Im back to the sneering. It was a weak bonobo moment. Bonobos are pretty cute. My smart speaker did everything. But I cant stop my smart-device sneering: I do it on public transport, in cafes, even at home with my own kids, telling them that staring at their phones all day is giving them hunchback-neck - the same hunchback-neck Ive got from staring down judgmentally at them while they stare at their phones. But I really do believe that smart devices will be our downfall, and Ive believed this for a long, long time and then The Flybuys Thing happened. An email arrived on my computer (which I only use for work and bonobo-clips), telling me Id earned a bunch of Flybuys points from my supermarket shopping - thousands of points, because Im 104 years old. So I went on the Flybuys website to buy a new car but I couldnt afford a new car - just an aromatherapy infuser, a mini speaker, and a jaffle maker (which I already had. It was the toaster, laid sideways). Loading So I chose the speaker because I love music - modern, jazz, renaissance madrigals, Im 104 years old. A week later it arrived in the mail: I opened the box, plugged it in but what was this????? It was a smart speaker! Those sinister microphoned ones that listen to everything you say, then send the info to the Kremlin, and the next thing you know, youre framed for double-murder and your Netflix account has been hacked. No way were those Russians going to hack my Netflix, so I told the speaker to %$#@ OFF!! and a pleasant female voice said, I would never speak to you like that. Then I felt bad and said, Sorry, and she said, No problem, which was quite gracious of her. Maybe we got off to bad start: I toned down the aggro. I said, Hey, play some jazz, and she said, OK, then she played my favourite John Coltrane piece, Stardust, from 1963 when I was a youthful wide-eyed 49-year-old - she knew exactly what I liked. I said, Play Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings, and she played it beautifully, sharing my maudlin taste for depressing, heartbreaking strings. I said, Play traditional Cuban salsa, - she misheard me and dictated a recipe for an authentic Cuban tomato-based salad. I made it. It was delicious. True, but fortunately it wouldn't be me behind the wheel, thanks to the hugely generous spirit of retired police officer Neale McShane. Neale was Birdsville's only cop for 10 years, single-handedly policing an area the size of Victoria. I had devoured his memoir, Outback Cop, as part of my research and asked for an introduction via his co-author Evan McHugh. So in the first days of February, I boarded a plane in Melbourne and flew to Neale's hometown of Charleville, a mere 700 kilometres west of Brisbane. A small outback town in itself, Charleville is a bustling metropolis compared with Birdsville and I spent a pleasant day exploring the fascinating memorabilia in the Historic House & Museum. Neale and I hit the road bound for Birdsville at 9am the next morning, him behind the wheel of his 1996 Land Cruiser and me armed with a list of questions about the intricacies of outback policing. It was a long list, but that was okay. We had 11 hours of driving ahead of us. What's the search and rescue procedure in the outback? Who responds to emergency calls in the event of a missing person? What happens if that missing person is later found dead? Neale looked ahead at a road that was very straight and very empty, and answered each question with considered thoughtfulness. If you had to rely on just one cop to handle any situation, I remember thinking, you'd be in excellent hands with Neale. We drove on, the horizon dead flat and the road deserted all the way to its vanishing point. The heat shimmered, creating the illusion of water. Tiny trees in the distance seemed to float on artificial lakes. In every direction, the land looked empty. There was no one else around. As we drove, I continued working through my list. Neale's answers led to yet more questions, ones I hadn't even known I'd need to ask. How much is the bounty for a dingo scalp? $30. Why doesn't the medical centre keep antivenom in stock? It's expensive and has a very short shelf-life. But doesn't this area have a lot of deadly snakes? Yes. So what would happen if I got bitten? Hmm. I asked this same question of several people over several days, and never got the answer I was hoping for. At one point, some hours into the trip, Neale turned to me. "The road's unsealed from here to Birdsville." The wheels juddered and we left the tarmac for dirt and gravel. The car bumped and bounced along. He had to raise his voice over the rumble and sound of stones chipping off the bodywork. "It's like this for the rest of the way." We still had 270 kilometres to go. Award-winning crime author Jane Harper. Credit:Simon Schluter There was the occasional brief moment of respite, where the rough track under our wheels morphed instantly into a short run of silky asphalt, perfectly flat and beautifully maintained. Crisp white numbers and markings showed the way, not for our benefit as we glided over it, but for those in the air. Landing strips for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The smoothness ended as abruptly as it begun, and we were back to the chip and shudder of the gravel. Finally, with the sun not long set, and 11 hours after we set out from Charleville, we arrived in Birdsville. On the entire journey, we had seen only 15 other cars. I stayed in Birdsville for several days, visiting the surrounds as the beauty and the brutality of outback life emerged in the stories people shared. The warnings about the men who had ignored advice to stay with their stranded vehicle and had died. The warnings about the tourist who had followed the same advice and also died. I was shown things I had never seen before: a tree carved by the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition; kitchen storerooms on isolated properties that are stocked as well as any corner store. I heard about the unusual. About the brothers who fell out so bitterly over plans for a fence that they built one each, just a handful of metres apart and running parallel for kilometres. About the Diamantina River that floods without a cloud in the sky, cutting off access to properties for weeks on end; and about the discovery of aquatic dinosaur bones that harked back to a prehistoric time when the area lay at the bottom of an inland sea. There were modern changes: mustering techniques involving helicopters and motorbikes that meant cattle could be herded in two weeks, where previously it would have taken six; and improvements in technology that helped isolated towns connect. And beneath it all was a deep and abiding love of the land and a community of people that survived and thrived where the less hardy would struggle. Loading Life was undeniably harsh at times, but people pitched in. This was brought home better than ever in my final moments in town, as I loitered at the town's tiny airport really a spacious airconditioned room next to a wide-open space waiting for the twice-weekly plane back to Brisbane. I was there with hours to spare, having been advised casually that, on occasion: "If the plane arrives early, it leaves early." Eventually the only other passenger a local I'd met the day before turned up, her wheelie suitcase in tow. Instead of taking a seat, she promptly unlocked the office, checked us both in using her boarding pass and mine, then whipped out a high-vis vest from somewhere. As the sound of the plane droned overhead, she marched outside to wave landing paddles in an official-looking formation until the aircraft safely touched down. I gaped from behind glass. About 70 to 80 per cent of people observed intervention orders made against them and about 10 per cent "push the boundaries", keeping their ex-partner "in constant fear" without doing anything overt enough to attract a breach. Loading Ten per cent have the attitude "no piece of paper's going to tell me what to do with my property (the ex partner and children)". Jackie Watt, CEO of No to Violence, said while it was important to wait for the findings of inquests into the deaths of Olga Edwards and her children, the fact Ms Edwards was unaware John Edwards, though legally barred from seeing the children, was reportedly able to live close to them without the knowledge of Ms Edwards was "awful". "I believe she didn't know he was there; if the Famliy Court think he's so dangerous he should not have contact with his children, what other protections should have been put in place to make sure she and the kids are safe? He was an abuser of some duration." "A big question is about how he was able to access firearms," said Ms Watt. "Why was there not a red flag, a burning flag." Ms Watt questioned why, given courts "do not lightly stop parents from seeing kids, they tend to err on the side of giving them access", there were not adequate measures in place to protect the family. "Who was meant to share that (risk) with who, to keep them safe: that has to be the biggest question." Loading Ms Watt and other advocates said technology should be considered as a way to monitor the movements of those with a history of repeated family violence offences who had been ordered to stay away from women and children. "One of the things they could do is, if the offender comes within a certain distance, is set off a whole set of alarms. We have to get a little bit creative about using technology. The bottom line is; she (Ms Edwards) didn't, for one second, realise he was in the neighboring suburb." Social work academic and researcher, Professor Cathy Humphreys, said a "profound problem" in the way the courts handled access to children for people with violent histories is that they did not understand the violence often does not stop after separation. "There isn't really a recognition that fathers using violence in the home when the family is together do not somehow magically become good fathers when separation occurs. "Often there are child protection people saying saying 'you must separate, and keep these children safe because this man's too dangerous', and when they do separate the first thing that gets arranged is unsupervised child contact." She said women are seen as failing to protect children if they remain with a violent partner, and "alienating" if they attempt to cease contact. "That is a conundrum that hasn't been sorted out." Moo Baulch, CEO of Domestic Violence New South Wales, said while crisis support for women and children fleeing family violence was "being done reasonably well", family court principles including the prioritisation of shared parenting even cases where there was some history of violence left women and children at risk. Ms Baulch noted that former Australian of the Year and fellow bereaved mother, Rosie Batty, stated this week that the court experience had made Ms Edwards suffering worse. Ms Battie said: "[This tragedy] was exacerbated through the family law court system... that's exactly what it was, another example of the system failing". Ms Baulch said: "Women and children are still gagged in the sense they can't talk about decisions that have been made (in the Family Court) ... there is an immense amount of work to be done in terms of exposing what is going on there. "We get these little insights into it when we go through processes like Luke Batty's inquest, and get case studies of the most horrific consequences, but there is still a long way to go. The court system, which is currently under review by the Australian Law Reform Commission,"is still very much skewed on the side of kids need to have access to both their parents ... that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of domestic and family violence". Emily Maguire, CEO of the Victoria's Domestic Violence Resource Centre, said a barrier to more at-risk women and children being protected was that in many cases women's experience was "still being disbelieved or minimised". The chief of the Royal Australian Navy has condemned the criminal behaviour of a former lieutenant commander who accepted bribes from a Singaporean shipping tycoon in exchange for sensitive information. In a victim impact statement tendered to court on Friday, Vice Admiral Michael Noonan said Alexander Bryan Gillett failed to adhere to Navy values of honour, honesty, loyalty, integrity and courage. Former Royal Australian Navy commander Alexander Gillett arrives at the ACT Supreme Court on Friday. "His conduct has harmed the good reputation defence and Navy enjoy in the eyes of the Australian community," he said. "Defence and navy personnel will likely feel let down by Mr Gillett's conduct as the overwhelming majority proudly serve their nation with integrity. In no particular order: Neil Roberts, Cryonic quintet, 1994, in Celebration: 20 years of collecting visual art at CMAG. CMAG, purchased 1996. The Canberra Museum and Gallery MAG exhibition in March, Celebration: Twenty Years of Collecting Visual Art, curated by Deborah Clark, was like a walk back through all the memorable exhibitions I had seen over the past 20 years. I was really impressed with the choice of objects and visual art since CMAG started collecting in 1996. The exhibition not only represented the best and most characteristic of each artists practice (the list of artists included in this representative exhibition of the CMAG collection is very impressive) but also represented a generous representation of all visual art forms. The collection includes gifted works and works bought by the gallery. How fortunate that we now have Alison Jacksons 2015 work Ten vessels, 10 days, a beautiful study in time and making and how pleased I was to see that the Alphabet was purchased in its entirety. This small work, first exhibited at Craft ACT in 2012, is made up of 26 letters in glass. Each letter is made by a well-known glass artist (including Klaus Moje, Kirstie Rea, Tom Rowney and Mel Douglas) and provides a unique work that marks a particular time and place. Chris Dawson allegedly contacted a man with "criminal connections" to discuss plans to get rid of his wife Lynette Dawson, a Sydney court has heard. The bail application in Central Local Court on Friday heard that Mr Dawson told his wife If this doesnt work, Im going to get rid of you at a marriage counselling session just prior to Lynettes disappearance in 1982. Crown prosecutor Craig Everson said Mr Dawson, 70, spoke to a man with criminal connections about his alleged plan. Mr Dawson is charged with murdering his wife on Sydney's northern beaches in early 1982. James Packer's Crown Resorts and infrastructure giant Lendlease have scored a major win in their high-stakes legal stoush against the NSW government over protecting harbour views from their developments at Barangaroo. The NSW Supreme Court on Friday found the state-run Barangaroo Delivery Authority had breached its contracts with the two companies by failing to negotiate with them in good faith about plans to develop nearby Central Barangaroo. Crown and Lendlease feared the proposed development, which is being built by a Grocon-led consortium, would block views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge from their buildings. Justice Robert McDougall said in his decision that the drastic transformation of the prominent waterfront site on the eastern side of Darling Harbour in recent years had sparked competition for "that most characteristic of Sydney fixations: harbour views". Year 12 student Chloe Gardner is fulfilling her dream job working with wild animals. The 17-year-old is among 630 youngsters across NSW who are enrolled in a new science extension stage six subject designed to identify and nurture the next generation of experts. Chloe Gardner with dingo 'Mungka' at the Bargo Dingo Sanctuary. Ms Gardner is working with academics from the University of NSW, including professor Bill Ballard and Professor Richard Kemp in studying dingoes. "They are incredible animals, so intelligent and very intriguing you can still see that wildness in them compared to the domestic dog, Ms Gardner said. I was not able to hold back tears when I read Sumeyya Ilanbey's story about Landon Vulic, a young man who saved the life of an 18-year-old woman after she jumped off a bridge into the Yarra River (The Age, 13/12). He displayed great empathy, which led to his act of bravery. It is very unfortunate that a young person had suffered so much that life was too much to deal with. In this country, we have one of the world's highest suicide rates by young persons. Dozens of mental health professional and academics write about the causes and how to prevent it. Yet the rate remains alarmingly high. Depression is one of the main causes of attempting to suicide, more importantly for the youth. I have first-hand experience of how depression can gradually decay one's will to live, especially in the absence of support. As a mature adult, I survived the inconceivable effects of depression, partly because I was able to open up and tell my family what I was feeling; with their empathy and encouragement, I sought professional help. This first act of acknowledgement, and a willingness to seek help, were vital. In this country, we are fortunate to have excellent professional support for people with mental illness. However, a supportive family environment is the best start for preventing this and, when necessary, supporting a sufferer. Unfortunately not everyone has a supportive family and friends but this should not stop a sufferer seeking help elsewhere. Let us be more proactive and ask people around us: "Are you OK?" Someone close to us may need some attention. Zafer Ilbahar, Bentleigh THE FORUM Let the juries decide High-profile defendants may believe it would be advantageous for them to have a judge-only trial (The Age, 14/12), rather than a jury which may be influenced by the notoriety of the case. However, my feeling is that many judges are too out of touch with today's societal attitudes to be given the responsibility of both conducting a high-profile case and being the sole arbiter of guilt or innocence. A jury of 12 peers is better placed to be able to see beyond personal prejudices and arrive at a collective decision. Julian Guy, Mount Eliza Weighing up the odds I will be surprised if there is any support for the move to trials in front of a judge alone. A criminal lawyer knows the better odds of getting a criminal acquitted is to go before a jury. Some high-profile acquittals have plainly shown that is easier to fool a jury of 12 than one judge. As the adage instructs: If you are innocent go before a judge alone. If you really did the crime, test your luck with a jury. Peter McGill, Lancefield Dangerous power Enshrining religious rights in law (The Age, 14/12) risks turning Australia into a nation like Ireland where ordinary people, especially women, were virtually controlled by the Catholic Church. It took almost 100years for people to override these laws and take back their rights. If you think that cannot happen in Australia, just look to the United States. Breda Hertaeg, Beaumaris Another 'age of consent' The Ruddock report into religious freedom has caused justified concern about LGBTI students being refused enrolment in religious schools, but not about religious freedom for children under the age of reason being subjected to forced indoctrination into their parents' religion. They cannot have "a genuinely held religious belief" and lack the intellectual capacity to know what can or should be believed. There are laws specifying when young people can drink, drive, vote, have consensual sex and marry. A similar law should apply to when children can voluntarily adopt a religious belief, particularly one with prescriptions and proscriptions that severely restrict their lives. All children should be taught comparative religion, critical thinking, logic and secular ethics. They should decide on a religion, if any, only when they are sufficiently mature and informed. Rosemary Sceats, Macleod Our fundamental nature The elephant in the room in Philip Ruddock's religious freedom review is whether any publicly funded school has the right to overtly or covertly teach that it is not OK to be gay to deny or condemn a gay student's fundamental nature. Douglas Beecroft, Hawthorn Money-saving proposal Perhaps the roles of National Wind Farm Commissioner and proposed Freedom of Religion Commissioner (The Age, 14/12) could be combined. Both are unnecessary, but it would mean two for the price of one. Jen Hooper, Box Hill Another toothless tiger A new "integrity commission" that is closed to public input, secret from the public's gaze and prevented from investigating all forms of corruption is not open, not transparent and not designed for integrity. Julia Thornton, Surrey Hills Just more empty words There is really no point debating or discussing anything that Scott Morrison proposes, no point being outraged or offended by anything he says. Whether it be an integrity commission, so-called religious freedom, or any other "announcements", they will all come to nothing. There is not time. Even Blind Freddy can see that Mr Morrison is standing at the precipice of one of the most spectacular election defeats in Australian history. It will all be over soon, mercifully. Monty Arnhold, Port Melbourne In defence of PM May "Is this Britain's worst-ever prime minister?" asks Robin Harris (Opinion, 13/12). No, Theresa May is not. Her party had a clear mandate from the British voters to Brexit. All she has been doing is trying to execute that mandate, with little help from the more arrogant EU leaders, especially the main drivers of that organisation, the French and the Germans. Anthony Whitmarsh, Viewbank Where the blame lies Robin Harris, shouldn't that prize go to former prime minister David Cameron? He got Britain into this mess by calling on a referendum as a sop to the right of his own party and then ran away when it all got too hard. Joan Kerr, Geelong A hotbed of intrigue I read, with much amusement, about the alleged "dirty tricks" in the Northcote electorate (Letters, 13/12). I live in that electorate and, in my travels in the area, I did not see any political signs (including mine) that had been defaced or damaged. I do not dispute that it may have occurred to a few signs in certain places. However, I compare the hysteria about it from both the Greens and Labor to Peter Dutton's statement about "African gangs" running amok in Melbourne. Kevin Ward, Preston Please, turn it down Why is it that we care so much about air pollution and not sound pollution? I am an avid beach goer and I love not having to smell cigarette smoke or swim among cigarette butts. But why do people believe they have the right to pollute the sound waves with a loud techno beat? Get some headphones, I do not want to hear it. Do we need laws on sound pollution too? Lauren Trethowan, Richmond High cost of utilities I have just received a message from my gas supplier. Basically, it states that unless I sign up to a new two-year deal, my rates will continue to increase. Scott Morrison, you are spending taxpayers' dollars to advertise a policy that is supposed to reduce consumers' costs when the truth is they are continuing to go up. Andrew Connell, Newtown No myki means no ride Regarding fare evaders on buses (Letters, 12 and 13/12). The same story goes for the 246 bus through Elwood I see it myself three times a day. To make passengers pay, drivers must be empowered to say "no myki, no ride", as well-paid and respected bus drivers do in Holland, Denmark and Finland. I pay $50 a month for my pensioner-concession myki travel. Please, state government: ensure that others pay as well. Henk van Leeuwen, Elwood Failing to pull our weight The climate conference in Poland sought agreement on how countries set their targets to limit global warming, and how to measure whether the goals have been achieved. Australia's shameful lack of progress was noted in the annual Climate Change Performance Index released this week. It ranked 55 on a list of 60 for its failure to act on climate change. With all the evidence saying we must urgently transition from fossil fuels to renewables, it is irresponsible and unfair for us not to pull our weight. The Coalition talks about "jobs and growth". What is the point of this if future generations do not have a viable planet to live on? We should heed David Attenborough's words if temperatures continue to rise, it could have a catastrophic effect on the human race and many other forms of life. Beatrice Naylor, Ocean Grove Rwanda's fine example In correctly using Rwanda as a prime example of "what has gone wrong" "Australia's hypocrisy on human rights" (Editorial, 12/12) you did that nation a disservice by omitting to point out that in 10years they proceeded "to penalise the criminals". The program is a world first and worthy of study and adaptation elsewhere. John Steward, Junction Village A very limited view Matt Holden's inability to envision a vegan Christmas dinner (Opinion, 13/12) says more about the poverty of his imagination than it does about the poverty of vegan cuisine. Adrian Hyland, St Andrews AND ANOTHER THING Integrity commission Morrison's idea of an ICAC: hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. John Higgins, Hawthorn Morrison's cover-up machine. Kevin Pearson, Fitzroy North The Clayton's Corruption Commission. Ian Maddison, Parkdale It would help if Morrison had some integrity. Perry Becker, Leopold Politics Brexit shmexit. Am I the only one who's sick and tired of this saga? Tim Nolan, Brighton Dutton and Boris Johnson have more in common than we thought. Neither of them can count. Andrew McFarland, Templestowe Trump disrespectfully refers to "Chuck and Nancy". The Democrats should call him Individual 1. Richard Aspland, Rosanna Would it be possible to have a Trump-free festive season? He's such a bore. Robin Parkinson, Geelong The PM for daily announcements. Jean Andrews, Cheltenham The state government could establish a non-profit power supplier using solar, wind or water. Fat chance.Bruce Cormick, South Melbourne What's happened to the police's inquiry into the Red Shirts affair? David Bishop, East Brighton Julian Burnside shouldn't be surprised about Hakeem al-Araibi. The government also deserted Julian Assange. Robert Brown, Rye Furthermore So there was a "significant rain event" in Wangaratta. Who'd have thought it? Lesley Black, Frankston Religious freedom: yet another oxymoron? Bart Mavric, Moonlight Flat An executive salary is appearance money and a bonus is required if anything is actually done. Joan Peverell, Malvern Queensland's disaster co-ordinator says authorities are ready to "press the button" as the state's north braces for the approaching Tropical Cyclone Owen hours out from landfall. Owen is set to intensify to a category 4 as it creeps towards the far north Queensland coast. It was expected to cross the coast on Friday night or early Saturday morning. The cyclone is then expected to hit the south-east Queensland with heavy rainfall, destructive winds and flash flooding from the east to south-east. Police are on the hunt to find three men responsible for a brutal home invasion in Brisbane's north on Friday morning. Police said three men forced their way into a home in Stafford about 9am before beating and stabbing the man inside. Three men fled a home invasion in a Grey 2010 Holden Commodore with Queensland registration 795-TOZ (similar to pictured). Credit:Queensland Police "Once inside the three men assaulted two men, stabbing one man in the leg with a knife and hitting him with a hammer," police said. "The three men then fled the scene in a grey 2010 Holden Commodore with Queensland registration 795-TOZ ." In 1979 police launched Operation T-Bone, one of the first taskforces into a local drug syndicate, and cultivated insider John Desmond Gordon to give evidence against two brothers who ran the show. Gordon refused police protection, believing he was safer on the streets. Again it was a tactical blunder, as in August 1980 he was shot dead and his body dumped near railway tracks at Lilydale. Two years later, police protected two witnesses for 11 months as part of an international drug investigation, choosing to allow them to live at home while under guard. It resulted in a daily commitment of 36 protection officers using six vehicles, with a total bill of $4.5 million. "Miss Jones" was a prostitute who ran guns and drugs in Melbourne before becoming a protected witness. In 1990 Victorian, New South Wales and federal governments gave her indemnities from prosecution in exchange for evidence against bent Sydney detective Roger Rogerson. John Desmond Gordon, Lilydale, August 1980. He was shot dead to stop him giving testimony. In return she was placed under constant guard, relocated interstate, given a new identity and a job as a public servant. A year later she dated a local policeman and they married without him knowing her past. I wanted to leave all that behind me," she told me. One day she came home from work to find her husband had been tipped off. "He knew where I was from and my background. That was the end of our relationship. He left that night." Bent NSW detective Roger Rogerson: Should have been jailed for the safari jacket. Credit:Fairfax Media When witnesses are treated badly, the cost can be enormous, such as the two sisters who were essential to the case against Alphonse Gangitano, who in 1995 murdered Greg Workman outside a party in Wando Grove, East St Kilda. They were dumped in a Warrnambool caravan park and when they dialled the 24-hour police protection number, it rang out. They returned to Melbourne, recanted their statements and were sent overseas, care of Gangitano. Not that he took the second chance, as he was shot dead in the laundry of his own home three years later. Sometimes you can give a witness a new name but old habits die hard. Once, on a well-deserved holiday at a coastal retreat, this reporter was welcomed by a local in the small supermarket who yelled across the deep freeze filled with potato gems: Youll never guess who has moved in, [gangland witness] 166. Apparently he kept large dogs, lived about three doors from the local police station and liked to turn up for a takeaway pizza looking like an extra out of Scarface. One gangster became a protected witness in the Walsh Street trial, where four men were charged and acquitted over the 1988 murders of police constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre. Much later police found that five months before Walsh Street, the gangster had been paid $10,000 to kill a school teacher and mother of two on the condition that it was made to look like an accident. He pleaded guilty and was jailed. The key prosecution witness in Walsh Street was Wendy Peirce, who made a statement to police implicating her husband Victor. She was given beachside holidays and day trips on yachts. But come the trial she recanted, refused to give evidence and was jailed for perjury. Wendy eventually confessed to me that her husband was the Walsh Street organiser. Victor Peirce was shot dead in 2002 in Bay Street, Port Melbourne, and the man convicted of the murder, Faruk Orman, is now lobbying to have the verdict quashed due to the involvement of Informer 3838. During the gangland murders the Purana taskforce made a conscious decision to cultivate insiders, with prosecutors offering deals to serious crooks, including paid hitmen, to get to their ultimate targets, such as drug manufacturer-turned-underworld killer Carl Williams. Purana detectives get their man: Carl Williams' arrest in Port Melbourne, November 2003. Credit:Angela Wylie Williams was making more than $100,000 a month through drugs but when it came to contract killings he liked to cut corners. And so the dominoes began to fall, with key allies turning on him. There was The Lieutenant, The Driver, The Veteran and even a relative, but the real star was one police at first didnt even try and turn, for he was a career armed robber who had always refused to talk - The Runner. When The Runner was arrested for the October 2003 murder of Michael Marshall, Williams tried to distance himself, urging his hitman to plead guilty so they would have separate hearings. In jail The Runner was visited by Informer 3838, telling her his elderly mother needed help and rubbing his fingers together to indicate he wanted his mum paid in exchange for his silence. 3838 wrote a note to say she would be seeing drug boss Tony Mokbel and Williams later that day. Williams eventually sent the mother just $1500. It was false economy at its worst. He had promised The Runner $100,000 to kill rival Jason Moran - which he duly did, during an Auskick morning in Essendon North. But in June 2003 Williams short-changed him, producing only $2500. The Runners lawyer (not 3838) advised him that witnesses identified the killer as slim and fit, and then suggested he put on weight. He piled on 30 kilos. Perhaps some lawyers who have turned puce with rage over police using 3838 as a secret source should remember that if the royal commission is given broad terms, it will quickly discover there are practicing solicitors and barristers working in Melbourne who clearly skipped law school Ethics 101. The Runner contacted police, asking to meet. He was slipped out of prison and over 30 days made a series of statements implicating Williams and Mokbel in several murders. After he signed up, police asked what he wanted and he replied he had a craving for a vanilla slice. Lawyer 3838 was paid $2.8 million so it would appear The Runner needed a better manager. Williams was later jailed, turned police informer and was killed in prison before he could testify. After the State Government offered a $1 million reward for the arrest of Mokbel, a senior policeman rang then Purana chief Detective Inspector Jim OBrien to say a man well known in musical circles could be of interest. At a meeting, The Musician told OBrien he knew Bart Rizzo, the man who acted as the unofficial accountant for the Mokbel group, known as The Company. Tony Mokbel: informers were key to his arrest and conviction. Credit:AP He was registered as Human Source 3030 and sent back into the field, soon providing Purana with a series of "clean" phone numbers for the Mokbel gang. More than that, when Rizzo was in another room he downloaded The Companys computer records onto a USB stick. It included Rizzos collations of drug quantities, quality control systems and cash distribution. Some time later a band member received a call from The Musician. :He said he wouldnt be able to make Saturdays gig. He then said his mobile phone would never answer again. That was the last time I saw him." The Musician was paid the bulk of the $1 million reward and has been given a new identity. Which brings us to Mokbels major asset, his drug cook, who provided the best quality amphetamines in the country. The Chef was caught twice and although facing certain jail refused to co-operate. Indeed, when he was bailed, Mokbel picked him up and drove him to Gisborne, where he did a massive cook. When he was caught a third time, police took him not to an interview room but a boardroom, where on the wall were blown-up pictures of his children. Eventually OBrien walked in to say that three drug convictions would mean he would never see his children as a free man unless he turned on the Mokbels. Then and only then would he be eligible for a reduced sentence. His lawyer was 3838. The homestay company that placed an Islamic State-inspired terrorist with a Melbourne family is facing a lawsuit for failing to warn them she had practised her stabbing attack using a mattress from another host family. Bangladeshi woman Momena Shoma pleaded guilty in September to engaging in a terrorist act, after she stabbed Roger Singaravelu in the neck as he napped next to his five-year-old daughter in the rumpus room of his Mill Park home. Momena Shoma's passport photo. Shoma is yet to be sentenced over the attack, however Mr Singaravelu is suing Australian Homestay Network for loss of earnings and other damages after the company contacted his family in February asking that they urgently host the Bangladeshi international student. According to a writ filed in the Supreme Court earlier this week by Mr Singaravelu's lawyers, the company knew or should have known that Shoma posed a safety risk because her first host family had noticed she was acting erratically, including using a knife to stab a mattress. A Malaysian man will face court on Friday over allegations he tried to smuggle nearly four kilograms of methylamphetamine in the walls of an esky. The esky had several packages inside. Credit:ABF The 40-year-old man arrived at Perth International Airport in late October on a flight from Kuala Lumpur. An examination of the mans esky returned positive results for meth and an x-ray showed several packages of the drug hidden inside it. The mans visa was cancelled by the Australian Border Force before he was arrested by Australian Federal Police. Police are seeking information regarding the whereabouts of missing 16-year-old boy Xiaoxin Zheng who was last seen in Attadale on Saturday, November 24. The teenager has been missing since November 24. Xiaoxin is described as fair skinned with a slim build, short dark hair and about 170cm tall. It is not known what he was last seen wearing. Xiaoxin is a Chinese national staying in Perth while attending school. Concerns are held for his welfare as he has not been in contact with friends or family which is out of character. A former teacher at a prestigious Perth private school is facing child sex charges. Peter James Samuels will face court in January on four counts of carnal knowledge of a male. The allegations relate to an incident in the 1970s involving a former student of Wesley College, where Mr Samuels was employed. In a statement released this week Wesley College said it had fully cooperated with police during the investigation. College authorities have advised school alumni and parents of the matter. The Chief Health Officer will have the power to close down any Western Australian school or childcare centre where there is an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable contagious disease as part of a government crackdown designed to boost vaccination rates. The power, which extends from public to private schools, will come into effect from January 1 2019. Currently the CHO can only request the closure of a school or centre. In addition, the McGowan government announced on Friday the introduction of a new bill to Parliament that would seek to ban under-vaccinated children from childcare and kindergartens. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children will no longer be able to enrol children to child care. Credit:Thinkstock This ban was expected to come into practice in July 2019 for children entering childcare, and 2020 for children starting kindergarten if the bill passed through Parliament. A CFMMEU paper released the day before Labor's national conference outlines a bold list of demands aimed at propping up the union movement, calling on the party to support tax incentives and procurement rules to help boost membership. The proposed changes, which the powerful Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union is pushing to be adopted in Labor's national platform, would overturn Australia's established approach to workplace relations, domestic and international trade. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will be forced to weigh the union's demands against the party's broader objectives - and political reality - at its three-day national conference in Adelaide, beginning on Sunday. The unions have a long list of demands for Bill Shorten at Labor's national conference in Adelaide. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The paper, written by former St Vincent de Paul Society chief executive John Falzon and distributed to conference delegates, calls for a suite of carrot-and-stick measures aimed at bolstering the level of unionisation in the nation's workforce, currently sitting at 15 per cent. Both measures, however, were largely symbolic because the House has no plans to take them up this year. And Trump has threatened to veto the Yemen measure, arguing it might hurt US-Saudi relations. In approving the resolution, the Senate was invoking its war powers authority for the first time since the War Powers Act was passed in 1973. The law is intended as a congressional check on presidential ability to wage war by allowing lawmakers to order the executive branch to end military conflicts not approved by Congress. Sending a message to Saudi Arabia's "despotic regime": Senator Bernie Sanders. Credit:AP "Both progressives and conservatives have made a profound statement that 45 years after the passage of the War Powers Act ... finally the United States Senate has come together to use that authority for the first time," Sanders said. Republicans who voted to end support for the conflict were Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Mike Lee of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Todd Young of Indiana. Houthi Shiite rebels inspect the rubble of the Republican Palace that was destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen in December last year. Credit:AP Meanwhile in Sweden, Yemen's warring parties agreed to a ceasefire in the crucial port city of Hodeida, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday, announcing the biggest step toward peace in years. The Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels agreed to withdraw their forces from Hodeida, clearing the way for humanitarian aid. Amid smiles and handshakes at the peace talks, representatives from the two sides also agreed to implement a prisoner exchange involving as many as 15,000 people, and to allow a humanitarian corridor into Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city. They agreed to meet again in January. A Saudi soldier takes a selfie with a young boy at the port of Aden in Yemen on Tuesday. Credit:AP As for the US Senate resolution, presuming it dies as expected at the end of the current session, it could also come back next year, when the House will be controlled by Democrats. Moran, one of the Republicans who supported the measure, hinted at a revival. "I am certain this will be a matter of debate early in the next Congress, and I will continue to support promoting peace and security on the Arabian Peninsula," he said. In the history of American foreign policy, Saudi Arabia has frequently gotten a pass, with its huge oil supply and billions of dollars to spend out-weighing human rights abuses and other concerns. Few US presidents, however, have been as solicitous as Trump. His son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, was recruited by the Saudis to become friend and ally to the similarly young and inexperienced crown prince, and the two are in frequent contact. We won't enable a President who chooses to cover up for Saudi leadership instead of standing up for American values. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, Virginia Washington: Shaken and facing a prison term, President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer said on Friday that Trump directed him to buy the silence of two women during the 2016 campaign because he was concerned about how their stories of alleged affairs with him "would affect the election". He says Trump knew the payments were wrong. Michael Cohen, who for more than a decade was a key power player in the Trump Organisation and a fixture in Trump's political life, said he "gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty". Cohen spoke in an interview with ABC that aired Friday on Good Morning America. Cohen said that "of course" Trump knew it was wrong to make the hush-money payments, but he did not provide any specific evidence or detail in the interview. Federal law requires that any payments made "for the purposes of influencing" an election must be reported in campaign finance disclosures. Speaking to the ABC, Cohen appeared shaken over the series of events that swiftly took him from Trump's "fixer" to a man facing three years in prison. LEARN MORE: Hyundai Kona News Archive HERE Kona Electric Starts Below $30,000 with Available $7,500 Tax Credit Generous 258-Mile Estimated Range Meets More Varied Lifestyle Needs New Electric CUV offers Youthful Design, Sporty Driving Character, Leading Safety Technology and Advanced Infotainment Features in an Affordable, Compact Footprint Abundant Suite of Standard Safety Equipment FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Dec. 14, 2018 Hyundai today announced the starting price for its long-awaited 2019 Kona Electric convention-breaking electric crossover. The Kona Electric starting price is $36,450, for an effective net price of $28,950 ($29,995 including delivery), with the electric vehicle tax credit of $7,500 factored in. Customers may receive the available federal tax credit of up to $7,500, dependent on individual tax circumstances, yielding a sub-$30,000 net value. Pricing for other Kona Electric trims will be announced shortly. Kona Electric rides on an all-new CUV platform and is Hyundais first compact electric crossover for the U.S. market, appealing to consumers with active, eco-focused lifestyles of all kinds. Kona Electric models will be produced in Ulsan, Korea and will be available in the beginning of 2019, with initial availability in California and subsequently in the ZEV-focused states in the western and northeastern regions of the U.S. market. Our new Kona Electric crossover is an exceptionally affordable, stylish and efficient compact electric CUV, tailored to the needs of customers who pursue eco-focused active lifestyles requiring generous range, said Mike OBrien, vice president of Product, Corporate and Digital Planning, Hyundai Motor America. Were confident it will set new standards for the electric-propelled compact CUV segment, with outstanding value, range flexibility, appealing design, cutting-edge connectivity and class-leading available safety features. HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA Hyundai Motor America is focused on delivering an outstanding customer experience grounded in design leadership, engineering excellence and exceptional value in every vehicle we sell. Hyundais technology-rich product lineup of cars, SUVs and alternative-powered electric and fuel cell vehicles is backed by Hyundai Assuranceour promise to deliver peace of mind to our customers. Hyundai vehicles are sold and serviced through more than 830 dealerships nationwide, with the majority sold in the U.S. built at U.S. manufacturing facilities, including Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama. Hyundai Motor America is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, and is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea. INFINITI previews future fully-electric crossover, showcases new EV platform North American International Auto Show world premiere of future fully-electric INFINITI crossover INFINITI to showcase a new EV platform INFINITI celebrating 30 years in 2019 HONG KONG INFINITI will preview a vision for its first fully-electric crossover at The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit in January, revealing a new form design language for electrification, infused with Japanese DNA. INFINITI made its global debut 30 years ago at the NAIAS. The advent of electrified platforms heralds a fresh approach to what crossover and sedan platforms look like, both inside and out. With new exterior proportions, electrification also gifts interior space, enabling spacious, and lounge-like interiors, rich in welcoming and assistive technologies. In January, the company announced INFINITI would electrify its portfolio from 2021 onward, using either e-power (serial hybrid) or pure EV powertrains. "Thirty years ago, as a 24-year old designer in the audience, I saw the birth of INFINITI in person and am proud to be part of the journey of creating iconic luxury automobiles," said Alfonso Albaisa, Senior Vice President for Global Design, Nissan Motor Co. "Now, 30 years later, Q Inspiration shows how new proportions triggered by the new electrified power of INFINITI has inspired a new direction, a new visual language. Alongside our Prototype 10 Pebble Beach Concept, both designs embody a deep simplicity inspired by the technology within and a new artistry inspired by our unique culture and of course our roots in Japan." The Q Inspiration, revealed at the 2018 NAIAS, and Prototype 10, seen at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d 'Elegance, both provided elements of a futuristic design language. At the 2019 NAIAS in January, these elements will come together to provide the clearest vision yet of the future of INFINITI in an era of electrified design. "The concept car we will show in Detroit is the beginning of a new era for INFINITI, and an illustration of where we want to go with the brand. Electrification and other new technologies have given us the opportunity to evolve our design philosophy," said Karim Habib, Executive Design Director, INFINITI. "The industry is at a technological inflection point," said Roland Krueger, Chairman and Global President of INFINITI Motor Co. "As such, INFINITI has a compelling vision as a luxury challenger brand to bring a full portfolio of beautifully-designed electric vehicles to customers around the world. We will focus on developing the full portfolio of e-power and EVs." INFINITI recently reported the best November sales in the brand's 29-year history. About INFINITI INFINITI Motor Company Ltd. is headquartered in Hong Kong with representations in 50 markets around the world. The INFINITI brand was launched in 1989. Its range of luxury automobiles is currently built in manufacturing facilities in Japan, North America, United Kingdom and China. INFINITI design studios are located in Atsugi-Shi near Yokohama, London, San Diego and Beijing. INFINITI will electrify its entire lineup from 2021 onward. The brand has been widely acclaimed for its industry-leading client services, ranking #1 in customer satisfaction with Dealer Service among Luxury Brands by J.D. Power and being a most trusted luxury brand according to AMCI, as well as its world's first driver assistance technologies and daring designs. From the 2016 season, INFINITI is a technical partner of the Renault Sport Formula One team, contributing its expertise in hybrid performance. RCMP said in a release on Thursday afternoon that an investigation is underway after email bomb threats were sent to multiple businesses in communities throughout Manitoba. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. RCMP said in a release on Thursday afternoon that an investigation is underway after email bomb threats were sent to multiple businesses in communities throughout Manitoba. The email threats, demanding bitcoin payment, have also been reported in other parts of Canada, along with widespread reports from across the United States. Police asked that anyone who was a recipient of these emails to not respond to the bitcoin demand. The release said that police are working to determine the origin and validity of the threats. Southern Health says it will reconvene in late January to discuss if the health authority is any closer to getting the hours at the emergency room at Ste Anne Hospital back to normal 24 hour service. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Southern Health says it will reconvene in late January to discuss if the health authority is any closer to getting the hours at the emergency room at Ste Anne Hospital back to normal 24 hour service. The emergency room has operated on reduced hours (8 a.m.-8 p.m.) since late October, as it is currently running with only four physicians. "We re-evaluated where we were at in terms of physician resources, and really nothing had changed," said Southern Health chief medical officer Denis Fortier, regarding a meeting on Nov. 30. "There have been no new hires at all in that time." He noted that they are awaiting one doctors return from a medical leave that began in October. Once the emergency room has five physicians, Fortier said they can discuss the possibility of getting back to normal service hours, but he cautioned that five physicians would not ensure that hours could go back to normal, and those discussions wont happen until a meeting planned for late January. "With five physicians and with the patient numbers we are looking at, were fairly confident we can probably keep things going for a while until a solution is found," Fortier said. "But we want to have that conversation with the physicians because I dont want to be the one dictating that the minute we hit five we are opening. The minute we hit five we are going to have a conversation and ask if they think they can do this safely at that number." Fortier said Southern Health is also hoping to recruit additional physicians in the summer when a new crop of grads are looking for jobs. "We are really hoping to recruit in May and June, and then have those new hires begin in July or August," Fortier said. Anyone in the Ste Anne area experiencing an emergency is asked to call 911. All ambulances will continue to be redirected to other emergency departments until further notice. Fortier said the ER will be closed daily at 8 p.m., but anyone that enters the ER before 8 p.m. will be admitted. Acute care and obstetrical services at the Ste Anne Hospital are not affected by the emergency room hours of operation reduction. Welcome to Its Complicated, stories on the sometimes frustrating, sometimes confusing, always engrossing subject of modern relationships. (Want to share yours? Email itscomplicated@nymag.com.) Illustration: J.V. Aranda After 38 years of marriage, I thought I knew my spouse. Then I got an email from the personalized genomics company 23AndMe with the subject line, You have new DNA relatives. Which is how I discovered that my husband Marc and I are related through more than mere marriage. Were third cousins. When we finally stopped laughing, we texted our 30-year-old-son, Jonathan. I dont know how I feel about this, he said. You were the one who pushed us to get tested, I pointed out. You said, Itll be fun. Lets see how much of me is Dad and how much is you. Do I need to get genetic counseling? he fretted. I shared my news on Facebook, with the hashtag #OurForbiddenLove. Sixty-three people quickly clicked the Like, Love, or LOL emojis, followed by a chorus of Get out! and No freakin way! and How is that possible? Just like the queen and Prince Phillip! Or the Roosevelts. You cant make this stuff up!!!! This being Facebook, it didnt take long before people started arguing. John: Everyone has a ton of third cousins. No one on Earth is farther apart than 20th cousins. Ann: In the shtetl, we Jews all pretty much married each other. Doug: (mansplaining): What Ann means is that everyone was shtupping in the shtetl. Kirk: Family shrub. Very common where Im from. Sharon tried to play nicely. Maybe this explains why you got engaged so fast. Stacy shot back: Yeah cause Marc felt like family! Actually, he did. Marc and I met rom-com cute, on a Club Med vacation in Nassau. I was 25; he was two years older. Initially, he was chasing my roommate. We struck up an intense conversation on the plane home, and by the time we landed at JFK, I had the unbidden thought, I could marry a guy like this. He insisted on carrying my luggage. I saw my parents chatting with a woman I didnt recognize, and pointed. Theres my mother, but I dont know the woman shes with. I do, he said. Thats my mother. We just ran into each other, my mother explained. Not only did our folks already know each other; I discovered Id traveled 1,000 miles to the Bahamas, only to meet a man whose Manhattan apartment was just one block away from mine. Were moving too fast, I said to him on our first date, pulling out of a long kiss. I think we should put the brakes on. It was eerie how the coincidences kept accumulating. Its like were two bodies with one mind, he said. He said, We can put on the physical brakes, but please dont put on the emotional ones. A man who welcomed intimacy, unlike all the emotionally unavailable guys Id ever dated? It was intoxicating. On that same date, he read me an e.e. cummings poem because he said he loved the language: In Just-spring/when the world is mud-luscious the little/lame balloonman/whistles far and wee. Entranced, I quoted back, And the world is puddle-wonderful. It might just as well have been cummingss famous I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart), so sure a way was it to win over my English majors heart. That weekend as we drove out to the North Shore of Long Island for brunch, Marc said, Can we detour first? I want to show you one of my favorite places. I suddenly pictured water, weeping willows and mud. Im not wearing the right shoes to get wet. Where do you think Im taking you? A duck pond. His eyes got big. How do you know that? I hummed the Twilight Zone theme music and we laughed. But it was eerie how the coincidences kept accumulating. It was more than the fact that we both loved the southern gothic stories of Flannery OConnor, or screwball comedies from the 1930s. We finished each others sentences. Its like were two bodies with one mind, he marveled. Ten days later, we stood hand in hand in the hot summer night, watching Fourth of July fireworks over the Hudson River. Afterward, we strolled through the plaza at Lincoln Center. When we stopped to cool ourselves in the delicious mist of the fountain, he pulled me close and asked, Will you marry me? What took you so long? I said. But youve only been dating two weeks! my friend Pat said. Are you crazy? Apparently. Yet here we were, together four decades and two children later. Was it really possible that my beloved soul mate was also my relative? Marc and I made jokes about the movie Chinatown Shes my sister/my daughter/my sister/my daughter/shes both! but was this a bit too Flowers in the Attic for comfort? Youre my cousin-husband, I said. Better than being a sister-wife, he said. Every time our eyes met, we cracked up laughing. Was our newfound connection romantic or creepy? Im not sure I believe it, Marc said. Its not like we got this report from the Institutes of Medicine. I saw his point: the IOM is part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and provides evidence-based research; 23andMe is a commercial enterprise selling ancestry and health information. They at least got something right, I said. They pegged Jonathan as our kid. According to the report, our son shared 50.1 percent of his DNA with me. It was reassuring but not just because it validated our saliva samples. The night of Jonathans birth, a nurses aide shuffled into my hospital room and handed me a bundle for the 2 a.m. feeding. Still doped up from surgery, I unbuttoned my gown to nurse. Then my spidey sense kicked in. I twirled the plastic name bracelet around the infants tiny wrist and stared woozily at it. It said: GIRL. I kept a death grip on the call button till the aide shuffled back. This isnt my baby! She peered briefly and shrugged. Well, it looks like yours. So, yes, maybe for the last 30 years thered been just the tiniest smidgen of doubt whether the hospital gave us the right child. What I never doubted, though, was that Marc was meant to be a dad. Hed lost his father when he was only 13 years old; having a child of his own helped fill a void in his heart. Hed been ready to start a family as soon as we returned from our honeymoon; I was ambivalent. I loved our life exactly as it was. Marc, with both a Masters in English and an MBA in accounting, was working at a major medical center in health-care finance; I was a book publicist, and with Marc as my plus-one, went to glamorous literary events: dancing at Carl Sagans book launch at Area, a celebrity-studded nightclub that blazed briefly in the 80s; swinging to the sweet jazz of the Count Basie Orchestra at Palladium; listening spellbound to legendary cabaret performer Bobby Short sing Dont Like Goodbyes at an invitation-only memorial service for Truman Capote. It was the era of Bright Lights, Big City, and I felt I was at the white-hot center of the literary establishment. It was heady stuff, but eventually I had enough. We were both thrilled when I got pregnant at 32. My doctor, who jarringly referred to me as an elderly primigravida, insisted we have amniocentesis to rule out chromosomal abnormalities. All went well. At 37, I conceived again, but this time the pregnancy was rocky. I bled through the first trimester. During the amnio, it took three punctures before the doctor was able to extract fluid, which triggered a cascade of contractions. The doctor ordered me home to bed rest. Terrified, Marc hovered, plying me with tea and toast. I squeezed his hand. Sit down and listen to me, I said. It will be okay. This baby isnt going anywhere. Its a fighter. And it was okay. Until it wasnt. We worried that our second son Mickey, a loving and sweet toddler, wasnt talking. We took him for a comprehensive evaluation, expecting to be reassured. Instead, the doctor said, Dont expect higher education for your son. We knew that many marriages implode after a child is diagnosed with special needs. We were determined ours wouldnt be one of them. Were still two bodies, one mind, Marc said. Sometimes we worked so hard to give each child what he needed that there wasnt much left to give each other. But for our 30th anniversary, we finally took our first real vacation since our children had been born. For a whole week, we savored Paris and each other, remembering exactly why wed fallen in love in the first place. Which is why our implausible DNA match seemed entirely fitting to everyone who knew us. It was a fun story, and we dined out on it for weeks. Then our friend Ed emailed an article titled No, You Dont Really Have 7,900 4th Cousins: Some DNA Basics for Those With Jewish Heritage. According to a 2014 international study published in the journal Nature Communications, all Ashkenazi Jews (Jewish individuals from Central and Eastern Europe) are at least 30th cousins, descended from a founding population of 350 people from the Middle Ages. We are an endogamous population, i.e., one that tended to marry within its own culture. Ashkenazi Jews share more DNA with one another than the average population does, which can skew the data. I learned about haplogroups and centimorgans and polymorphic markers. I dug deep into the technical data. With disappointment, I realized the science is not yet complete. Its unclear if Marc and I actually share a set of great-great-grandparents or not. What I do know is this: Weve forged an ordinary family life, even while dealing with the extraordinary needs of an autistic child. I dont need the imprimatur of 23andMe to tell me what I already know with bone-deep certainty: our connection is a decades long conversation that continues to nurture and sustain us both. Theres an old saying that chance makes our relatives, but choice makes our friends. Sometimes, it can even make both. Ariana uploaded a short clip of the song earlier today on her Insta story as well as saying on Twitter that this song will be more about 'denial' rather than being thankful for her exes. 10 Graphic Photos of Heroic Veterans After War in Iraq and Afghanistan: No Words Needed Some of us would have heard the stories of soldiers putting their life on the line in the Middle East while fighting in the war. During this devastating period, many soldiers have been killed, but some have managed to survive, with injuries that theyll live with for the rest of their lives. The photos below were taken by photographer David Jay, who compiled the photos into a series called Unknown Soldiers, to document the severe impact war had on these wounded soldiers. Here are 10 photos of veterans who managed to return home from war. #1. Bobby Henline Bobby was the only survivor after the transport he was in caught ablaze when impacted by a roadside bomb in Iraq. #2. Nicholas John Vogt First Lieutenant Vogt was severely injured by an improvised explosive device (IED) while on foot patrol in Panjwaii, Afghanistan. When Jay asked him if the photos could be posted online, he said: The only thing that I want to pass on is this: Losing limbs is like losing a good friend. We wish we could still be with them, but it wasnt in the cards. Then we get up, remember the good times, and thank God for whatever we have left. #3. Jerral Hancock Hancock is pictured here with one of his two children. He was injured in Iraq when a roadside bomb pierced the armor of a tank that he was driving, and broke the interior. #4. Tomas Young Young was paralyzed after he was shot in the spine in Iraq while in an unarmored vehicle. He had a short time to live and died in 2014 due to complications from his injuries. #5. Jason Pak First Lieutenant Pak was on foot patrol in Afghanistan when an IED exploded, causing him to lose his legs and part of his hand. But the blast didnt take away his spirit. Read More Looking at the Civil War With New Eyes #6. Bobby Bernier Bernier, pictured here with his daughter Layla, suffered from burns covering 60 percent of his body after being hit by artillery. #7. Cedric King King was injured and lost his legs when an IED exploded in Afghanistan. He told Jay that Vogt (pictured in the second photo) has changed his life. That man doesnt know it but he changed my life. There was a point when I was so down that I thought I couldnt go on. And then one day I saw him swimming and I just thought, wow if he can go on like that, then I can go on too, he said. #8. Spc. Marissa Strock She was 20 years old when the vehicle she was in was struck by an IED that was buried in the road. #9. Matt Smith Major Smith was shot along with five others by a member of the Afghan National Army in 2013. His leg was amputated after the bullet severed his femoral artery. #10. Shilo Harris Shilo was severely burned by a roadside bomb in 2007, and only he and his driver survived, out of a crew of five. Photo courtesy of David Jay Photography (Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter) Border Patrol guards the fence at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz., on May 23, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Border Patrol Tries to Save 7-Year-Old Girl Who Crossed Illegally into US A 7-year-old migrant girl who crossed into the United States from Mexico died from dehydration and shock after being apprehended by agents with the Customs and Border Protection. The Department of Homeland Security said that the girl was found in Lordsburg, New Mexico on Dec. 6, with a large group of Central Americans who entered the United States. The girl began having seizures while in Border Patrol custody and a Border Patrol EMT rushed over and determined she had a high fever, with a temperature of 105.7 degrees Fahrenheit. A local EMS was called and the girl was airlifted to a hospital in El Paso and suffered a heart attack. She was revived but did not recover and died within a day of suffering the heart attack, the department said in a statement. Officials said in the statement that traveling north is extremely dangerous. Every year the Border Patrol saves hundreds of people who are overcome by the elements between our ports of entry. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the best efforts of the medical team treating the child, we were unable to stop this tragedy from occurring, the department said in the statement. Once again, we are begging parents to not put themselves or their children at risk attempting to enter illegally. Our sincerest condolences go out to the family of the child, the department added. An autopsy was planned and an internal investigation was launched to determine if agents followed proper procedures, but officials said agents had provided care once they noticed the girls condition. It wasnt clear if the girl was part of the migrant caravans, which are primarily entering California. Woman Impaled, Broken Vertebrae Crossing into the United States can be dangerous even if migrants make it through Mexico, where cartel violence and other dangers are rampant. In late November, a migrant mother from Guatemala was impaled after falling from a portion of the border fence. The woman, who was not identified, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries while her children were evaluated for potential fall trauma, Customs and Border Protection said. On Dec. 10, two Guatemalan teenagers, including a 17-year-old traveling without her parents, fell from the border wall and suffered serious injuries. A 14-year-old crossing into the United States with her mother fell and broke several vertebrae. The only legal and safe method of entry into the United States is through a designated port of entry, said Yuma Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Carl Landrum said in a statement. People entering our country illegally, at places other than designated ports of entry, put themselves and their families in dangerous situations that could result in significant injury or even death. The younger teen was taken to Yuma Regional Medical Center and later airlifted to a hospital in Phoenix. Some 100,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended after crossing into America in October and November alone as the country experiences a border crisis. During fiscal 2017, which ended after September, almost 400,000 people were apprehended along the southwest border after crossing illegallyaveraging out to almost 1,100 per day. A further 124,500 turned up at ports of entry without documentation. From NTD News Johnnie Jones, 83, ahead of getting his doctorate from Lousiana State University. He was slated to receive the degree on Dec. 14, 2018. (Louisiana State University) 83-Year-Old Vietnam Veteran Slated to Get Doctorate From LSU An 83-year-old Marine Corps veteran who fought in Vietnam was slated to receive a doctorate in human ecology from Louisiana State University on Dec. 14. Johnnie Jones, who studied at the universitys Department of Agriculture, said that people should work on being the best they can be, regardless of how old they are. Every person regardless of his station in life, or his or her limitations, should seek to be the best he or she can really be. And you spend your time living not thinking about dying. Death will take care of itself, Jones said in an interview posted on the universitys website. He plans to go to law school next and possibly medical school after that. I want to study law. I have no intention of being an attorney; I simply want to go to law school for the knowledge, and Im sure there will be students in the class who think Im nuts, but so what? he said. I suppose if a medical school would accept me I would attend, Im going to be a student as long as I have the mental and physical capability. When I expire, if you will, Im sure I will be a student, Jones said. Veteran Jones was born in Mississippi and became a Marine when he was 18. He was deployed to Vietnam as a squad leader. He said that he still keeps his body in shape and his mind sharp. Once a Marine, always a Marine. I still engage in physical activity. I work out Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, and those three days I do over a thousand push-ups, 300 jumping jacks and I run 3 miles each day, so 9 miles a week, I do that every week, he said. Thats my routine and I feel guilty when it rains and I dont get a chance to do it. Studies Jones took advantage of correspondence courses while in Vietnam and after finishing his deployment, earned a degree in sociology from the University of Hawaii. Jones received a masters degree in social work from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1975 and was just nine hours short of getting his doctorate when he got a job offer from the Department of Corrections; he accepted and retired as the warden for a womens prison 25 years later. Having a family and young children, I took the job and thats how that turned out, Jones said. And as a consequence, I ran out the required seven-year time period that they give you to complete their doctorate. So I had to start all over again from scratch. After retiring, he started over but a serious health problem caused another setback just as he was about to receive the doctorate. A professor intervened this time, helping Jones get an extension that allowed him to complete his dissertation without having to start over. My dissertation was about racism and religion and specifically the perceptions of racism and the stress that black families experience as a result, and how religion serves as a coping strategy, he said. Jones said other students enjoyed having him in class, and that many of them were amazed that he was there. From NTD News Accused Russian Agent Butina Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy in US A woman accused of acting as a Russian agent to infiltrate a powerful gun lobby group and influence U.S. policy toward Moscow pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy in federal court on Dec. 13. This deal with prosecutors could give them insight into Russian meddling in American politics. Maria Butina, a Russian former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, entered the plea at a court hearing in Washington before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. She also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Clad in a green jumpsuit with her red hair pulled back in a long braid, Butina replied absolutely when asked by Chutkan if her mind was clear as she prepared to enter her plea of guilty. Butina was charged by prosecutors in July with acting as an agent of Russias government and conspiracy to take actions on behalf of Moscow. She had earlier pleaded not guilty before changing her plea during the Dec. 13 hearing. Prosecutors accused Butina, who was jailed while awaiting trial, of working with a Russian official and two U.S. citizens to try to infiltrate the National Rifle Association (NRA) and sway Washingtons policy toward Moscow. Although there are no sentencing guidelines for her specific crime, her lawyer, Robert Driscoll, estimated that under U.S. sentencing guidelines for similar crimes she could face up to six months in prison. Butina also faces the possibility of deportation to Russia after she finishes whatever sentence she is given. As part of Butinas ongoing cooperation in the case, the judge did not set a sentencing date. A status hearing was scheduled for Feb. 12, 2019. In the statement of offense read aloud in court, one of the prosecutors said Butina had drafted a March 2015 Diplomacy Project that called for establishing unofficial back channels of communication between high-ranking American politicians to help benefit Russia. As part of that plan, she acknowledged that she conspired with two Americans and a Russian official. Butinas lawyers previously identified the Russian official as Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russias central bank who was targeted with U.S. Treasury Department sanctions in April. One of the two Americans referenced in the prosecutions criminal complaint was Paul Erickson, a conservative U.S. political activist who was dating Butina. Neither his name, nor the Russian officials name, were explicitly made in the statement of offense, though Ericksons description appears to match that of Person 1 mentioned in the statement of offense read in court. That statement said Person 1 helped advise Butina which American politicians she should target for meetings, and her plan was carried out on behalf of the Russian official. The Diplomacy Project document was crafted by Butina with help from Person 1. To carry out the plan, Butina requested $125,000 from a Russian billionaire to attend conferences and set up separate meetings with interested parties such as other Russian businessmen or people with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, prosecutors said. After she was charged, Russia labeled the case against Butina fabricated and called for her release. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about Butina Dec. 11 in Moscow, a day after U.S. court filings indicated she would plead guilty in Washington. The prosecutors in the Butina case are not from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russias role in the 2016 U.S. election and whether Trumps campaign conspired with Moscow to help him win. With her guilty plea, Butina has become the first Russian citizen to be convicted of working to shape U.S. policy in the time period spanning the 2016 election campaign. Mueller has brought criminal charges against a series of Russian individuals and entities but those cases are still pending. The prosecutions complaint against Butina did not mention Trumps campaign by name. Actor James Woods attends the 52nd New York Film Festival at Walter Reade Theater in New York City on Sept. 27, 2014. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images) Actor James Woods Helps Find Navy Uniform For Deceased Veteran An 84-year-old veteran and beloved grandfather recently passed away in Arkansas but his family didnt have the Navy uniform he wanted to be buried in. In desperation, his granddaughter took to Twitter to ask for help. The granddaughter Jordan Greening replied to a tweet by outspoken conservative actor James Woods on the evening of Dec. 10 and bravely told her story. James Woods? Please help! My grandfather passed away Sunday. He is a retired, disabled veteran who served our nation for almost 20 years in wartime and peacetime honorably in the Navy. We cannot get him a Navy uniform gifted anywhere. Its what he wanted to be buried in, she wrote. James Woods replied on the morning of Dec. 11 and linked to his friend and fellow actor Gary Sinise who is heavily involved in veterans support. Im not sure how this works. Im hoping my friend @GarySinise at the @GarySiniseFoundation might have some answers. Followers? Woods wrote. Im not sure how this works. Im hoping my friend @GarySinise at the @GarySiniseFoundation might have some answers. Followers? Anybody know how the Navys protocol on this, please? https://t.co/qsZfVp9CQJ James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 11, 2018 Sinise then replied to Woods by text just a few minutes later, and Woods posted a screenshot of his reply. Jimmy, Im down in Orlando for our big Snowball Express event for Gold Star Children and saw your tweet about the Navy uniform. Ive passed it on to a few folks to look into. Hope they can help. Im taking the liberty of posting a screen grab of @GarySinises immediate response regarding our Navy vets funeral request. Honestly Gary is one of the very finest civilian Americans out there pic.twitter.com/ZxysumSyPV James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 11, 2018 Meanwhile, countless followers and friends offered to help or tweeted suggestions about possible ways of finding the Navy uniform, including contacting the American Legion, Veterans Department, or the Navy Secretary directly. Unfortunately, time was running out, and the funeral home needed the uniform by noon on Dec. 12. Although the family was still missing the insignias, the pants, and pins from the uniform by the deadline, supporters made sure Powell Orlando Cotton Greening was at least dressed in the hat and jacket that he had requested. At my grandfather's visitation. In memory of my grandfather Powell Orlando Greening. I love you Papaw. I miss you. #UnitedStatesNavy #20yearsserving #WartimeAndPeacetime pic.twitter.com/o3BJXTxHfl Jordan Screams JORDAN GREENING (@JordanElizabeth) December 13, 2018 Greening died on Dec. 9, according to a GoFundMe page set up by the family. He was born in 1935 in Camden, Arkansas, and was a Navy veteran who served as Two Bayou Volunteer Fire Department Chief and Constable of the Bragg Township for twenty years. Everywhere he went, Powell was recognized for his widely admired, handsome, and distinct handlebar moustache. His sense of humor, sass, and stubborn personality were a highlight to many, states the website. He was survived by two sons, a grandson, and two granddaughters, including Jordan Greening. He courageously, passionately, and devotedly served his country in both wartime and peacetime. He was active for nearly twenty years in the military and was a true patriot with great love for his country, according to the website. The granddaughter made sure to take the time to thank everyone for their help in honoring her grandfather, especially Woods and Sinise. I am so beyond grateful, thankful, humbled, as well as honored by the help of many, on twitter, in trying to get my grandfather a Navy uniform. A special thanks to @RealJamesWoods and @GarySinise! Words cannot begin to express how you have blessed my family and I. Jordan Screams JORDAN GREENING (@JordanElizabeth) December 12, 2018 I am so beyond grateful, thankful, humbled, as well as honored by the help of many, on twitter, in trying to get my grandfather a Navy uniform. A special thanks to @RealJamesWoods and @GarySinise! Words cannot begin to express how you have blessed my family and I, she wrote. Watch Next: Father Shows Son there are Consequences for Being a Bully MADRID, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez presented a new project involving businesses and other social actors aimed at combatting child poverty (those under the age of 18) in Spain on Thursday, the government informed in a communique. "We cannot allow Spain to be one of the countries with the highest risks of child poverty in Europe," said Sanchez at the launch of the 'Third Sector Conference' (Cumbre del Tercer Sector), which was promoted by the Spanish High Commission against Child Poverty. According to data highlighted at the event, 29.7 percent of Spaniards aged below 18 were at risk of poverty in 2016. This is 9.7 percent higher than the European Union average. "Although the number was reduced to 28.3 percent in 2017, it is still very high," commented Sanchez. "The welfare state is uneven in its capacity to redistribute wealth. It is very effective in reducing poverty in the final cycle of life (old age), but doesn't work when it comes to protecting infants," explained the press communique on the event. This statement is corroborated by figures which show that between 2012 and 2015, the risk of poverty among minors stood at 22.3 percent in Spain: well above the risk for other age groups. "We aim to promote and put into practice a wide range of measures aimed at combating the inequalities which leave children in a vulnerable situation," continued the prime minister, stressing that his government had an "binding" promise to "reduce and prevent child poverty". Alongside Sanchez, the event was also attended by the Minister of Health, Consumption and Social Welfare, Maria Luisa Carcedo, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Function, Meritxell Batet, and the High Commissioner for the Fight Against Childhood Poverty, Pau Mari-Klose. [ Editor: WPY ] A security personnel stands guard at a viewing platform overlooking the central business area ahead of the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on Dec. 4, 2018. (Thomas Suen/Reuters) Ahead of China Anniversary, Trade War Fans Call for Faster Market Reforms BEIJINGChinas trade war with the United States is spurring some Chinese entrepreneurs, government advisers and think-tanks to call for faster reforms in the worlds second-largest economy and the freeing of a private sector stifled by state controls. The calls for change have become louder as China approaches a key anniversary later this month, although there are no signs that the government is planning to shift any key policies. Dec. 18 marks the 40th anniversary of the opening up of Chinas economy by former leader Deng Xiaoping, and the start of a series of landmark capitalist experiments that lifted much of the country out of poverty and turned it into an economic powerhouse. China has long said it would further liberalize its vast market at its own pace. But a growing number of government advisers feel that now is the time to do so, saying that reforms would defuse trade tensions with the United States and secure Chinas long-term economic ascent simultaneously. The United States has demanded that China shift away from its state-led model by cutting industrial subsidies, opening up its market to U.S. goods, and cracking down on intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers. This could be an opportunity for China as the pressure from the United States could be turned into a driving force for reforms, an adviser to the government told Reuters. The pressure on China is very big and we should have long-term preparations. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to a truce that delayed a planned Jan. 1 increase of U.S. tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion of Chinese goods while they negotiate a trade deal. To clinch a deal, China could make some concessions, including further opening up its market to U.S. goods, scaling back subsidies and improving intellectual property protection, policy insiders said. But, they added, China wont ditch its industrial development plans vital to its competitiveness. The United States has requested China quicken reforms, which are also in line with our interests, said a second government adviser. We will push for market-oriented reforms, but we cannot be too hasty and we wont completely copy the Western model. The State Council, or the cabinet, did not respond to a faxed request for comment. In June, China unveiled a long-anticipated easing of foreign investment curbs in the banking, agriculture, automotive and heavy industries, as it moved to show it would fulfill pledges to open its markets further. Xi is expected to make a major speech on Tuesday in Beijing to mark the reform and opening anniversary, diplomatic sources say. State Intervention There is widespread disappointment among some Chinese economists over the pace of reforms after top leaders unveiled sweeping plans in 2013 to let the market play a decisive role in resource allocation. Discontent over an increased presence by the Communist Party in all types of businesses has been growing in recent months. There is still too much government intervention. I havent felt any relaxation for the time being and dont think the government will relax, said Sam Yu, general manager at MENTECHS, an industrial equipment manufacturer in Jiangsu Provinces Changzhou city. I think external factors are needed to promote internal reforms, he added, referring to the trade war. Wu Jinglian, a prominent government economist, has called on Chinese leaders to show greater political courage and wisdom to fulfill their promises to carry out reforms vital to Chinas development and transformation. Levin Zhu, son of former Premier Zhu Rongji, who spearheaded painful reforms in the 1990s to tackle the bloated state sector, made a similar call at a recent finance forum in Beijing. It will be very difficult for a society to maintain systematic progress if there is no reform and opening up, Zhu said. Speaking at the same forum, Liu Shijin, an adviser to the central bank, said reforms to improve Chinas imperfect market economy and further opening up will help it cope with trade frictions with the United States. Plight of Private Firms The constraints on Chinas private firms, seen by many as the key to sustained economic growth, contrast with the increased power of state-owned enterprises, which staged a comeback during the 2008 global crisis, riding on a huge government stimulus package. Underlining a trend known as the state sector advances, the private sector retreats, government entities have acquired or said they are planning to acquire controlling stakes in at least 31 listed private firms so far this year, according to a Reuters review of corporate disclosures. That outpaces the handful of such purchases last year. Xi has pledged financing and tax support for financial firms, as part of measures to ward off a sharper slowdown in the economy, but private businesses are lobbying for a level playing field between them and state firms. However, there is little sign that Xi will take bolder action to clip the wings of state firms. In October, central bank chief Yi Gang said China planned to adopt the principle of competitive neutrality to create a level playing field between state-owned and private firms. But analysts believe the pledge is merely symbolic given the close ties between the government and state firms. Reform is the only way. Previous reforms did not touch on politics, but there is no more room, said another adviser. Weve reached a bottleneck if we only do economic reforms without changing politics. By Kevin Yao Alejandra Pablos, 33, was ordered removed from the United States for committing a string of crimes between 2005 and 2010, and being arrested twice in 2018. (Arizona Department of Corrections) Arizona Judge Orders Deportation of Mexican Activist Who Claimed Asylum An Arizona judge ordered the deportation of an activist who claimed she would be targeted if removed to her native Mexico. Immigration Judge Thomas Michael OLeary denied Alejandra Pabloss asylum request on Dec. 11 and ordered her removed from the United States. Pablos, 33, is a permanent legal resident of the United States and was brought to the country as a baby. But she committed a string of crimes from 2005 to 2010, including driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), endangerment, aggravated DUI, and solicitation to possess a dangerous drug. Pablos blamed the crimes on her life circumstances at the time and said she wished she could take it all back. She claimed she had transformed while serving two years in a detention center. OLeary disagreed, saying, For right now, her past haunts her, reported the Arizona Daily Star. Her criminal record is deserved, he added. Pablos was arrested twice this year, once for trespassing and obstructing justice during a protest in Virginia in January at a Department of Homeland Security Building and then during a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in March. She was released about a month later under an immigration judges bond order, ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts OKeefe said. Pablos tried claiming asylum as an activist for abortion, saying she believed shed face death in Mexico, but did not provide evidence backing up her claim. Judge OLeary noted that the group isnt recognized as a persecuted group in need of protection under the asylum statute and said there wasnt evidence that Pablos would face persecution for her activism. Pablos said in a statement that she was going to appeal the decision and wants Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to pardon her for her crimes. A petition asking for the pardon has garnered nearly 17,000 signatures. Alejandras only option to stop her deportation is a governors pardon. Join us in demanding that Governor Ducey do the right thing by issuing a pardon for Ales 8-year-old criminal record, giving her a chance to stay home, the petition organizers wrote. Pablos claimed shes been targeted for speaking out against President Donald Trump administrations actions on immigration. ICE does not target unlawfully present aliens for arrest based on advocacy positions they hold or in retaliation for critical comments they make, the agency said in a statement obtained by KGUN. Any suggestion to the contrary is irresponsible, speculative, and inaccurate. ICE focuses its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety, and border security. We will continue to target criminal aliens whenever and however they come to our attention, the agency added. As ICE leadership has made clear, ICE will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention, andif found removable by final orderremoval from the United States. From NTD News From the reality television show Dog The Bounty Hunter Beth Smith (L) and Duane 'Dog' Chapman arrive to A&E Television Networks Upfront celebration held at Rockefeller Center April 21, 2005 in New York City. (Photo by Fernando Leon/Getty Images) Attorney: Beth Chapman Wife of Dog the Bounty Hunter Is Very Sick Beth Chapman, the wife of Dog the Bounty Hunter Duane Chapman, is very sick, said a family attorney. Andrew Brettler told E! News on Dec. 12 that she will need to undergo chemotherapy. Beth, 51, was diagnosed with cancer after she underwent an emergency procedure to remove a mass from her throat last month. The cancer has also spread to her lungs, according to the reports. Shes still trying to cook and get involved in my bounties and business. Shes still trying to do everything, Duane said in a recent interview, suggesting that they are trying to keep a sense of normalcy in their Colorado home. Beth is the kind of girl who likes control. Shes trying to still advise me on my work, and Im like, Honey, I was the Dog the Bounty Hunter before I met you. Stay out of it!' he said. "Another bend in the road, yet not the end of the road,#faith, #love #stayhumblepray." Beth Chapman Duane "Dog" Chapman Duane Chapman also said his wife will not take anything the doctors want to give her. Even the doctor told me he doesnt want her to have seizures if the pain is that bad, but she wont do it. He added: She takes over-the-counter pain meds. She will not take anything prescription. There were reports that Beth was planning her own funeral, but the attorney couldnt confirm those, E! also reported. On Nov. 27, she was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after experiencing a blockage in her throat. I can confirm that she was hospitalized today, had surgery to remove a mass in her throat, which was determined to be cancerous. I understand that the situation is very serious. We are all concerned for her and the well-being of her family, their attorney told E! at the time. She had a lump in her throat twice the size of last time, and they performed an emergency surgery yesterday, Duane said after the recent procedure. They cut a hole in her throat so she can breathe; she can still talk. [Shes] doing the best she can and remains incredibly strong. Duane, in the new interview, said hes focused on staying close to his wife during the ordeal. I dont listen to the bad news. I dont want to hear it, he said of his coping process. I pray a lot, anywhere. I cry all the time. Im a sinner. I pray a lot. I have done double that. I constantly ask God to heal my honey and make sure He takes care of it. Ive been telling Him that Im going to try and quit smoking and cursing. Im a dealmaker, and Ill do anything. In 2017, Beth Chapman revealed she was diagnosed with the illness. After months of a nagging cough, a routine checkup resulted in a diagnosis of stage 2 throat cancer, she wrote at the time. I have what is referred to as a T2 Tumor in my throat that is blocking my breathing. My doctors are suggesting immediate treatment and surgery before the disease progresses. The couple has credited their faith in Beths battle with cancer. Faith is probably the number one thing in our lives, no matter what were faced with. Through this cancer episode, we had to drum up as much faith as we could. And the Bible talks about having faith as small as a mustard seed. And thats not much. And I thank God that we had at least that much faith to get her through that, Duane said at the time. Duane and Beth both rose to fame in the mid-2000s on their A&E series Dog the Bounty Hunter, which stopped airing in 2012. They had another show that aired from 2013 to 2015. Several months ago, Duane said he would join the search for an elusive fugitive who made posts on Facebook that he would shoot President Donald Trump and a local district attorney in Pennsylvania. He was hired by a friend of the then-fugitive, Shawn Christy. I have a very hot lead, Chapman told the Mansfield News Journal at the time. I have delivered messages to him. My goal is not to shoot him but get him to surrender. Christy was later captured by U.S. Marshals. Australian Government Urged to Consider Opt-Out Organ Donation Australias federal government is considering steps to automatically register all Australian residents as organ donors, unless they opt-out. The governments Inquiry into Human Organ Trafficking and Organ Transplant Tourism proposed the measure to help reduce lengthy wait times for organ donations in order to deter patients seeking organ transplants from turning to the international organ market as a transplant tourism. In the report entitled Compassion, Not Commerce: An Inquiry into Human Organ Trafficking and Organ Transplant Tourism (pdf), the Human Rights Sub-Committee leading the inquiry recommended the Australian government should conduct further investigation of other countries donation programs, including opt-out organ donation programs to determine whether such a program could be appropriate for the Australian health system. If the opt-out system is adopted, residents who do not wish to be registered as organ donors would have to declare this wish to authorities. In September 2018, there were 1,423 people on the wait list for an organ transplant in Australia. More than 70 percent of these patients were waiting for a kidney transplant. However, the demand for organs is higher than the available supply, with wait times varying from six months to four years. One in three Australians (8 million) are registered as organ donors, according to Australias Organ and Tissue Authority. Australia Urged to Ratify Convention on Organ Trafficking The sub-committee urged the Australian government to sign and ratify the 2014 European Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs. The groundbreaking convention aims to facilitate co-operation at national and international levels on preventing organ trafficking, and signing it would ensure Australia has a zero-tolerance policy for organ trafficking crimes and the entities that facilitate these practices. Australia has an obligation to demonstrate leadership as a notable organ-importing jurisdiction, and now has the opportunity to do so through accession to the Convention, the report said. Existing Australian legislative and policy approaches could do more to address the transnational problem [of human organ trafficking]. China Keeps Organ Trafficking Under Wraps In the Peoples Republic of China, most organ trafficking crimes are committed in a state-sanctioned system where organs are sourced from prisoners of conscience including Christians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Falun Dafa adherents. According to Ethan Gutmann, investigative journalist and co-author of a 2016 investigative report on the Chinese Communist Partys (CCPs) organ harvesting crimes, There is an indisputable mound of information at this point showing that Chinese transplant volumes are significantly higher than anything that Beijing has claimed. The CCP has tried to suppress discussion of the controversial subject and, in many countries like Australia, Chinese consulates have threatened any discussion of reports of large-scale forced organ harvesting from political prisoners would damage bilateral relations. The CCPs official execution figures remain a state secret. The sub-committee criticized the behavior of patients paying to travel overseas to receive a commercial organ transplant as unethical and medically hazardous. Transplant tourism poses clear health risks to donors, including risk of infection, diminished physical capacity, and complex psychological harm, including mental illness and emotional trauma, the report said. Donor participation in transplant tourism may lead to social or economic harm or exploitation, including financial hardship associated with poor health outcomes resulting from organ removal. Transplant Tourism Poses Serious Health Risks to Patients The report also said transplant tourism can pose serious health risks to the recipients of such organs, including elevated risk of bacterial, viral and fungal infection, graft failure, and death. The inquiry recommended publishing information on human organ trafficking and transplant tourism on relevant Australian government websites, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades SmartTraveller.gov.au, and country-specific pages of nations where human organ trafficking is known or suspected to occur. It also recommended setting up a multilingual public health education program that addresses the legal, ethical, and medical risks associated with transplant tourism. [The proposed program] includes a stream for educating front line staff such as medical professionals about how to best identify possible cases of organ harvesting and to educate Australians who were born in, or have family associations in, countries where human organ trafficking is known or suspected to occur, the report said. Physicians Support Discussing the Risks of Transplant Tourism Medical professionals like transplant physicians are also encouraged to engage with patients on the many risks involved in traveling for major surgery, a move the Royal Australasian College of Physicians supports. The Royal Australasian College of Physicians supports producing guidance and educational resources for potential organ recipients, and for transplant physicians, regarding the personal health and social dangers of transplant tourism, the report said. Human Body Exhibit Faces Regulatory Scrutiny The inquiry also responded to allegations that human cadavers displayed at the internationally touring Real Bodies exhibition may belong to prisoners of conscience from China. It recommended the Australian government work with state and territory governments as a matter of priority to ensure any human tissue imported into Australia for commercial purposes has verifiable documentation, showing consent from the donor or next-of-kin. The concerning circumstances raised by the allegations of the killings of prisoners of conscience in China, during the period this human tissue was sourced, illustrate the importance of that documentation, the report said. It is not desirable for human tissue, regardless of its source, to be brought to Australia without appropriate documentation of free, informed, and specific consent. Watch Next: Chinese Prisoners of Conscience Like Falun Gong Are Being Killed for Organs in China Before the year 2000, organ transplantation in China was a relatively niche medical treatment. Australian PM Scott Morrison Says Govt Will Protect Religious Freedom Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Dec. 13 that the government intends to draft new laws, being reviewed in the Religious Discrimination Bill, that would make it illegal to discriminate based on a persons religious beliefs. The Morrison government plans to seek feedback on the draft legislation to be presented to Parliament in early 2019. The laws will be part of the Coalitions promise ahead of the elections due May 2019. If passed, they will be the first stand-alone laws to protect Australians freedom of belief. Under the proposed laws, however, it will not be illegal to offend, insult, or humiliate a person based on their religious beliefs, as was the case with the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act that has been criticised as a threat to free speech. Morrison also announced that the government would appoint a freedom of religion commissioner within the Australian Human Rights Commission. For those who think that Australians of religious faith dont feel that the walls have been closing in on them for a while, theyre clearly not talking to many people in religious communities, Morrison told reporters in Sydney on Dec. 13. Its about protecting Australians and an Australians right to believe in what they want to believe. WATCH: Former Labor leader Mark Latham discusses the need to protect religious freedom in Australia In a media release on the same day, Morrison said Australia is a place where the rights of religious institutions to maintain their distinctive religious ethos are respected. Our laws should reflect these values. Religious Freedom Review The prime ministers announcement is a response to the religious freedom review (pdf), chaired by Philip Ruddock, which was also formally released on Dec. 13. Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull initiated the review on Nov. 22, 2017. The review concluded that more can be done to further protect the right to freedom of religion under Australian law, and set forth 20 recommendations to that end. The review and its recommendations were handed to the Turnbull government for consideration on May 18. Parts of it were leaked to the press in October. Morrison announced the government has accepted 15 of the 20 recommendations either directly or in principle, and said that 14 of them are to be implemented as soon as practicable. Australia is a secular democracy but that does not mean that Australians are a godless people, he told The Australian. Australians have a diversity of faith and religious backgrounds and these should all be respected. This is an essential part of multiculturalism, in the same way no Australian should be discriminated against for their ethnicity or sexuality. Protecting freedom of belief is central to the liberty of each and every Australian. According to the last of the 15 recommendations, Recommendation 15, the proposed legislationto make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of a persons religious belief or activity, including on the basis that a person does not hold any religious beliefwill necessitate a new Religious Discrimination Act to be drafted and passed, or the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to be amended. For this recommendation, the government said it will be seeking bipartisan support before presenting the bill to Parliament. The government deemed the remaining five recommendations as needing further consideration and will consult with states and territories, as well as possibly the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC). Among them was a recommendation that concerned the rights of students sexuality with that of religious schools. Attorney-General Christian Porter said religious discrimination stood as a final pillar alongside anti-discrimination laws for race, sex, age, and disability. This is the fifth and final pillar of an overarching architecture that prevents discrimination directed to Australians based on attributes which should never be the basis for discrimination, Porter said, according to AAP. From NTD.com Watch Next: Falun Gong Practitioners Are Being Killed for Organs in China Before the year 2000, organ transplantation in China was a relatively niche medical treatment. Nearly two-dozen Jefferson County, Colorado, schools were placed on lockout on Dec. 12 after a threat was reported at Columbine High School, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office told local news outlets. (Google Street View) Bomb Threat at Columbine High School Triggers 24 School Lockdowns Update: Officials gave the all-clear UPDATE at 3 p.m. ET: The all-clear was given for Jefferson County schools, say local reports. Reports say that dozens of bomb threats have been emailed to schools, businesses, government officials, and media outlets around the United States on Dec. 12. Its not clear if Jefferson County schools were included. Several police departments have confirmed the threats. We are currently monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city. These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide & are NOT considered credible at this time. pic.twitter.com/GowGG4oZ9l NYPDCounterterrorism (@NYPDCT) December 13, 2018 We're working a number of bomb threat calls in OKC. There have been similar threats called into several locations around the country. No credible threat found at this point. We encourage the public to continue to be vigilant and call with anything suspicious. Oklahoma City Police (@OKCPD) December 13, 2018 DEVELOPING: Bomb threats in Park City and at Dixie State University. Police determined threat in Park City was a hoax, according to the @Parkrecord. More info to come. https://t.co/C0WdiQSu9h KSL (@KSLcom) December 13, 2018 It appears series of #bombthreats popping up around the country are simply automated spam: https://t.co/fwOsQ0E5fz #bombthreat pic.twitter.com/ziorK0huBh Jason Fechner (@jasonfechner) December 13, 2018 Earlier article: Nearly two-dozen Jefferson County, Colorado, schools were placed on lockdown on Dec. 12 after a threat was reported at Columbine High School, the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office told local news outlets. KDVR reported that a few hours later, the all-clear was given. But at 9:20 a.m., someone made a threat and said there were explosives at Columbinethe site of one of the most notorious school shootings in U.S. history. The sheriffs office said nothing was found to validate the bomb threat. Some 23 schools were placed on lockdown, Jefferson County Public Schools told CBS Denver. It means that students can only stay inside classrooms and entry is highly restricted. School officials tweeted parents couldnt pick up their kids until they were released at 2:45 p.m. local time. Update re Columbine lockout from Jeffco Sheriff. Families have been sent an email update from the high school as well. https://t.co/YKpuaJlcY9 Jeffco Public Schools (@JeffcoSchoolsCo) December 13, 2018 Unfortunately, we receive many threats like this to Columbine, Mike Taplin with the sheriffs office said. We respond to each threat appropriately, which is what were doing now. The person claimed to be outside hiding with a gun, he told the Denver Channel. The perimeter was searched and secured. No one was found. The sheriffs office is investigating the matter. Huge police presence at Columbine High School. Multiple roads shutdown. Waiting for more information from police PIO. @DenverChannel pic.twitter.com/CFisoU2CS7 Jennifer Kovaleski (@JennKovaleski) December 13, 2018 We received a phone call with a threat of multiple explosive devices inside the school here. The person claimed to be hiding outside with a gun. The perimeter was searched and secured. No one was found, Taplin told CBS Denver.So far weve not found anything to validate the threats that have been made. Helicopter footage showed police cars at Columbine High School and at nearby Clement Park, where there is a memorial to the 13 people who were shot and killed in 1999. California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (R) swears in Jerry Brown (L) as governor, as Brown's wife, Anne Gust-Brown (C), looks on, in Sacramento, Calif., on Jan. 3, 2011. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Californias Chief Justice Leaves GOP, Registers as No Party Preference California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye announced that she left the Republican Party and switched to No Party Preference (NPP) after the Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The 59-year-old judge had reportedly been thinking about making such a decision for a while before the Kavanaugh hearings, she said during a phone interview with CALmatters. You can draw your own conclusions, she said about her decision. However, Cantil-Sakauye said the move did not reflect a change in her political views. She said she reached a consensus with her family and friends that you didnt leave the party. The party left you. FOX NEWS: Californias chief justice leaves GOP; cites Kavanaugh confirmation to Supreme Court https://t.co/dIjdAPQwyS pic.twitter.com/KWzH2GZSi8 Sara Sbean (@SaraSbean) December 14, 2018 Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6, with a vote of 50 to 48 in the Senate. The confirmation gave conservatives a 5-4 majority in the highest court of the United States. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is among the very best our nation has to offer. He will make the Senate and the country proud, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor right before the vote. This is an institution where the evidence and the facts matter, he added, hitting back against sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh that the FBI concluded were uncorroborated. A vote to confirm judge Kavanaugh today is to end this brief, dark chapter in the Senates history and turn the page to a brighter tomorrow. Kavanaugh was chosen by President Donald Trump to replace Anthony Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan-nominee who announced his retirement on June 27. In March 2017, Cantil-Sakauye wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary John Kelly, accusing the administration of policies that included immigration agents stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests. In response, Sessions and Kelly thanked Cantil-Sakauye for her letter (pdf), but said it was particularly troubling that she would use the word stalking, which is a known crime, to describe the behavior of immigration agents. They noted that the arrest of a person based upon probable cause is allowed by the constitution and is predicated on investigating and targeting specific persons. Cantil-Sakauye was nominated by former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and took office in January 2011. Shes the first Asian-Filipina American and the second woman to serve as the states chief justice, according to her biography on the state courts website. The California Supreme Court currently has three justices appointed by Republican governors and three by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown has also nominated a fourth candidate, Joshua Groban, who is expected to be confirmed at an upcoming hearing. Groban served as a senior advisor to Brown since 2011. Groban will replace Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, who retired in August 2017. She was nominated by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. The state Supreme Court has seven justices who are subject to a 12-year term limit. In California, NPP voters receive a non-partisan ballot that does not include presidential candidates for presidential primary elections. However, they may request the ballot of one of the parties to vote in the presidential primary, and a party may also authorize NPP voters to vote in their primary election. A festivalgoer wears Canada Goose at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 19, 2018. (Rich Fury/Getty Images for Canada Goose) China Escalates Retaliation for Huawei Arrest With Detention of Second Canadian, Boycott of Canadian Brands OTTAWAChinese authorities have detained a second Canadian national in China in an apparent retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver last week. Meanwhile, in China, state media are calling for boycotts of Canadian brands in retaliation for Mengs situation. Businessman Michael Spavor, 43, has gone missing since contacting Canadas foreign ministry to inform them that he recently had been questioned by Chinese officials. We have not been able to make contact with him since he let us know, Canadas Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told media on Dec. 12. Canadian authorities confirmed that Spavor was based in the northern Chinese city of Dandong and worked on cultural exchanges with North Korea. Canada was working hard to ascertain Spavors whereabouts and would continue to raise the issue with Chinese authorities, foreign ministry spokesman Guillaume Berube said in a statement Dec. 12. After the Canadian side made the news public, Chinese state media reported that security forces in Dandong, which borders North Korea, have been investigating Spavor since Dec. 10. That day, former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig was detained in China; he was working in China for the think tank International Crisis Group. Chinese media said both Kovrig and Spavor have been detained on suspicion of harming national security. The U.S. State Department expressed concern over Kovrigs detention, urging China to end all forms of arbitrary detention, a spokesperson said in a statement. In an email, the State Department said it was aware of reports of Spavors disappearance, and reiterated its previous statement when asked about safety concerns for U.S. citizens in China. Citing people familiar with the two men, Reuters reported that Kovrig and Spavor were acquainted, but that there hasnt been any official indication from China that their cases are linked. Meng was arrested on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. law enforcement in Vancouver, Canada, on allegations of skirting U.S. sanctions on Iran. She was granted bail on Dec. 11. An extradition process that could last months or years is now underway. The Chinese regime had warned of grave consequences for Canada. Much has been speculated about Mengs case and its implications for trade negotiations between the United States and China. Freeland said Mengs arrest wasnt politically motivated, echoing a previous statement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. She stressed that Canadas justice system is independent from the political system. Canada is a rule-of-law country, she said during the Toronto Global Forum on Dec. 10. That is absolutely fundamental to how we run our economy, to how we run our democracy, to how we run our relations with other countries. Freeland reiterated this point to media in Ottawa on Dec. 12, while speaking about Mengs extradition process. I think one of the reasons that Canadians have confidence in our relationship is that the U.S. has a very strong, highly respected legal system, Freeland said. Boycotts in China Against Canadian Brands Luxury outdoor apparel retailer Canada Goose saw its share price slide 20 percent this past week, following Mengs arrest. In China, calls to boycott Canada Goose are snowballing. A series of articles by Chinese state-run media, along with online posts by internet personalities with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has urged the Chinese public to punish Canada through their consumption habits. The timing is unfortunate, given that the brand was scheduled to open its first physical location in Beijing this month. The English-language edition of the Global Times, a hawkish Chinese state-run newspaper, published a Dec. 10 article titled, Canada Goose Boycott Likely Over Huawei. The report claimed that Chinese consumers across the country have kicked off a boycott against Canada Goose. The article bluntly said that foreign companies would likely be affected when their governments have friction with Beijing, citing comments by Zeng Mingyue, a research fellow at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Luxury brands are embedded with high added-value and representing their original countries cultural backgrounds, are very likely to be targeted when political or cultural friction emerges and escalates, Zeng said. The article added that domestic Chinese winter-clothing brands could benefit from a boycott of Canada Goose. To show that the boycott is real, the Global Times included interviews with Chinese citizens, including a female surnamed Huang who lives in Chongqing. I have been watching closely the progress of the Huawei case, Huang was quoted as saying. If the case is not dealt with properly, I will definitely not buy a Canada Goose jacket and will turn to other similar products. In its Chinese-language edition, the Global Times published a Dec. 11 article reporting Canada Gooses stock slump. The article went on to quote unidentified experts who said the Huawei arrest may negatively affect Chinas investments in Canada. On Dec. 12, the Global Times reprinted an editorial written by Liu Hong, the deputy editor-in-chief of a Chinese magazine, that was published by state-run media Xinhua. Liu said that as Mengs case drags on, Canada might find itself in more trouble, and warned that many Canadian companies could see billions of dollars disappear because of the case. State media also took the opportunity to boost Chinese competitors of Canada Goose. The state-run news site China News boasted of Chinese rival company Bosidengs successes in the Chinese market and its overseas expansion. The article ended with a question: This winter, will you choose a domestic-brand down jacket? Such an onslaught by Chinas state-run media against a single companyand the Canadian government to a larger extentisnt unusual, since Beijing has a history of using propaganda to manipulate public opinion and consumer habits to align with its agenda. Last year, Chinese media made an all-out effort to advise people to boycott South Korean products, after South Korean conglomerate Lotte allowed a U.S. anti-missile defense system to be installed on the companys land. Beijing claimed that the defense system, known as THAAD, could be used to spy on Chinese airspace. Lotte announced this summer that it would shut all its retail stores in China, after reporting poor sales. Chinese online personalities with ties to the CCP have also made veiled comments to incite their followers to boycott Canadian brands. Song Zhongping, a former instructor at the Rocket Force University of Engineering military academy and a commentator with Hong Kongs pro-Beijing Phoenix Television, asked his followers if Jamieson, a Canada-based manufacturer of wellness products, was an important brand for Canadas export of health care products. Song ended his Dec. 11 post on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, by saying, Now you know. He has more than 10.1 million followers. Several netizens left comments underneath his post, saying that they will now boycott Jamieson. Another Sina Weibo online personality, using the pseudonym Xunhu Wencha, compiled a list of Canadian brands in a Dec. 11 post. Self-described as a CCP member and a senior official at a government-run cultural association in Ningbo City in eastern Chinas Zhejiang Province, Xunhu Wencha has more than 492,370 followers. He concluded his post by asking people to add Canadian brands that hed failed to include. A netizen from Beijing responded by writing, You start off by not buying from [Canada] Goose. Reuters and Epoch Times staff Annie Wu contributed to this report. Farmer John Duffy loads soybeans from his grain bin onto a truck before taking them to a grain elevator in Dwight, Illinois, on June 13, 2018. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) China Resumes Buying US Soybeans Amid Trade Truce WASHINGTONChinese officials are delivering on promises made during the G-20 summit in Argentina, a sign that the U.S.China trade truce is bearing fruit. China bought U.S. soybeans for the first time since earlier this year when the trade war between Washington and Beijing escalated. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that China bought 1.1 million tonnes of U.S. supplies, according to a Reuters report. The shipments are expected to occur during the first quarter of next year. This is the first major purchase since President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping struck a 90-day agreement on Dec. 1, at the end of their bilateral meeting on the margins of the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires. As part of that deal, China promised to buy agricultural products, including soybeans, from U.S. farmers immediately. I do believe well see more sales to China over the near term, said Joe Vaclavik, president of Standard Grain, a Tennessee-based commodity brokerage. He said Chinas decision to buy U.S. soybeans is a step in the right direction, but theres still a lot of work that needs to be done. In July, China imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans. Sales of American supplies cant be sustained unless China removes this tariff, according to Vaclavik. The purchases that were made this week were allegedly for state reserves, meaning that they are not subject to tariff. They were bought by the [Chinese] government, not by commercial grain buyers, he added. In addition, the recent amount bought by China1.1 million tonnesis below initial estimates. The markets expectation was somewhere between 5 million and 8 million tonnes, he said. The amount was the ninth largest single-day sale on record and was equal to 3.5 percent of Chinas U.S. soy purchases in 2017. The American Soybean Association (ASA) welcomed the news of resumed sales. This is positive news for our growers and for U.S-China trade relations, Davie Stephens, ASA president, said in a statement. Beyond yesterdays sale announcement, it is vital that this 90-day process results in lifting the current 25 percent tariff that China continues to impose on U.S. soybean imports. China Making Concessions Global markets were volatile at the start of the week, but calmed after media reports in recent days indicated that China has started to make concessions. Besides soybean purchases, Beijing has reportedly agreed to reduce tariffs on U.S. cars to 15 percent from 40 percent. The news first surfaced when the Wall Street Journal wrote, on Dec 11, that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had a phone conversation with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Dec. 10. The Chinese official confirmed the tariff cuts during that call, the report stated, citing sources familiar with the matter. It isnt clear when the changes would take effect, but Washington is pushing Beijing to make concessions as soon as possible, the report said. Trump told Reuters on Dec. 13 that he believed China would soon cut tariffs on U.S. autos to 15 percent. On July 6, Beijing had increased levies on U.S.-made vehicles to 40 percent in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. The Wall Street Journal also reported Dec. 12 that China was making plans to replace its blueprint, Made in China 2025, the Communist regimes strategic plan to achieve dominance in high-technology industries. As part of the agreement between Xi and Trump, China agreed to deliver structural reforms. During the meeting, both sides agreed to immediately begin talks on structural changes that Washington has been demanding for years. The White House says the structural reforms include ending Chinas unfair trade policies and practices, with respect to forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services, and agriculture. The Chinese leader also agreed to purchase a very substantial amount of American goods, including agricultural, energy, industrial, and other products, in an effort to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China. In return, Trump has agreed to postpone the planned boost in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent on Jan. 1. The tariffs will remain at 10 percent. If an agreement isnt hammered out by the end of the 90-day period, the tariffs will be increased. Cars are seen in a parking lot in Palm Springs, California, U.S. on April 13, 2015. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) China to Halt Additional Tariffs on US-Made Cars Amid Trade War Truce BEIJINGChina will suspend additional tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles and auto parts for three months starting Jan. 1, 2019, the countrys finance ministry said on Dec. 14, following a truce in a trade war between the worlds two largest economies. This is a good signal that China and the United States are on track to solve the trade war, said Wang Cun, director of the China Automobile Dealers Associations import committee. Car makers might be ordering a large number of imported cars now. Shortly after the Chinese finance ministrys announcement, Tesla Inc said it had cut prices on its Model S and Model X vehicles in China. Joe Hinrichs, president of Ford Motor Cos Americas unit, also welcomed Chinas announcement, noting that the U.S. automaker exported nearly 50,000 U.S.-built vehicles to the country in 2017. As a leading exporter of vehicles from the U.S., we are very encouraged by Chinas announcement today, Hinrichs said. We applaud both governments for working together constructively to reduce trade barriers and open markets. Auto exports between the two countries are however relatively small. China exported 53,300 vehicles to the U.S. market last year and imported 280,208 U.S. manufactured vehicles, according to data from the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC), a government-affiliated think-tank. In contrast, in the first 11 months of this year, China produced 25.3 million cars, down 2.6 percent from the same period last year, industry figures showed. Wang said car makers in China that imported cars from the United States had seen a 30 percent decline in volume in the first ten months of the 2018, but the tariff cut would bring imports back to previous levels. The latest announcement on the planned tariff suspension followed Chinas first major purchase of U.S. soybeans since U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinpings landmark talks on trade in Argentina on Dec. 1. The tariff suspension and soybean purchase are early signs that the bitter trade war between China and the United States may be starting to thaw. In Argentina, Trump and Xi agreed to a truce that delayed the planned Jan. 1 U.S. increase of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods while they negotiate a trade deal. A Trump official said on Tuesday that China had agreed to cut tariffs on U.S.-built cars and auto parts to 15 percent from 40 percent. Chinas tariff cut was communicated during a phone call between Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the official said. Earlier this year, China hiked its tariffs on U.S. autos and parts after the United States raised its tariffs on Chinese vehicles and parts to 27.5 percent. China will now suspend 25 percent tariffs on 144 U.S. vehicle and auto part items, and 5 percent tariffs on 67 auto items between Jan. 1 and March 31, the finance ministry said. Watch Next: Trumps New Global Trade Order Aims at Ramping Up Pressure on China Jessica Starr, a Fox 2 Detroit meteorologist, died at the age of 35, and according to reports on Dec. 12. (Jessica Starr/Twitter selife) Co-Workers Mourn, Remember Fox Detroit Meteorologist Who Took Her Life Staff at Fox 2 News in Detroit are mourning the loss of meteorologist Jessica Starr, who died at the age of 35, reportedly by suicide. The station confirmed her death on Dec. 12. Last night we were informed of the heartbreaking news that our friend and colleague, meteorologist Jessica Starr took her life. All of us here at FOX 2 are in deep shock and cannot believe that such a wonderful, bright and intelligent individual will no longer be with us. Her family and friends will be in our thoughts and prayers in the coming days as we all deal with our grief, it said. The Detroit Free-Press reported that Starr, a mother of two children, apparently was suffering from pain following Lasik eye surgery. She wrote about dealing with dry eye and other issues while recovering from the procedure. Yesterday was a struggle for me. I really wanted to come back but I need more time to recover. Please keep me in your thoughts during this challenging time, she wrote on Twitter on Nov. 14., her last tweet. Co-workers mourned her loss Dec. 12, describing her on social media as a smart, hilarious, bubbly and beautiful woman. Another described Starr as a wonderful, bright and intelligent individual. Our hearts are broken. Last night we were informed our Jessica Starr took her life. Her Fox 2 family is deep shock and cannot believe such a wonderful, bright and intelligent woman is gone. Keep her family in your prayers in the coming days as we all deal with our grief. pic.twitter.com/z4km8Tsb9K Amy Andrews Fox 2 (@AmyAndrewsFOX2) December 13, 2018 The words shock and heartbreak don't come close. She was smart, hilarious, bubbly and beautiful inside and out. Please pray for her family and also her @FOX2News family: FOX 2 meteorologist Jessica Starr passes away https://t.co/4c7FPB3gJG pic.twitter.com/iGgxhIw6yn Erika Erickson (@FOX2Erika) December 13, 2018 Our hearts are broken. Last night we were informed our Jessica Starr took her life. Her Fox 2 family is deep shock and cannot believe such a wonderful, bright and intelligent woman is gone. Keep her family in your prayers in the coming days as we all deal with our grief, said Fox 2 anchor Amy Andrews. It's hard to believe someone so funny, bright and bubbly won't be here anymore. Thanks for the laughs, you'll be so very missed. https://t.co/Ctn3jRB9xL pic.twitter.com/KpoKNHuNkH Kellie Rowe (@kellierowe) December 13, 2018 My co-workers and I learned last night that our friend and colleague Jessica Starr took her life. Although Jessica and I worked on opposite ends of the schedule, she always made a point to ask about my kids whenever our paths crossed. She was a kindhttps://t.co/tcK56VIYxq pic.twitter.com/JliitQb3mH Randy Wimbley (@RandyWFOX2) December 13, 2018 Heartbroken . Last night we were informed of the heartbreaking news that our friend and colleague, meteorologist Jessica Starr took her life. All of us are in deep shock and cannot believe that such a wonderful, bright and intelligent individual will no longer be with us Ryan Ermanni (@RyanEFox2) December 13, 2018 Starr underwent Lasik surgery in October, according to the Free-Press. On Nov. 13, she posted a video on Facebook announcing she had returned back to work. I am struggling a little bit, she said. So I do still need all the prayers and the well wishes because this is a hard go. Jessica, a native of Michigan born in Southfield and raised in Commerce Township, received two meteorology degrees from Michigan State University and Mississippi State University, according to the station. Eye Surgery Issues The New York Times in 2008 reported that some patients have suffered a great deal of pain following their Lasik procedureto the point of going on disability or being driven to suicide. For the last two years I have suffered debilitating and unremitting eye pain, said one person in the Times report. Patients do not want to continue to exist as helpless victims with no voice. Some people testified at an FDA meeting that same year about apparent eye surgery-triggered pain that has led to disability, isolation, depression, and suicidal tendencies. In late November, a Canadian self-made millionaire took his own life after he reportedly suffered from debilitating pain caused by laser eye surgery. A CTV report said he suffered from a complication called corneal neuralgia, which can cause nerve damage to the eye and can cause severe pain. His family confirmed he got laser eye surgery called photorefractive keratectomy back in 1996 when he was 32, but the procedure is different than the now-popular Lasik eye surgery. Suicide Hotlines In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. Young people can call the Kids Help Phone on 1-800-668-6868. In Canada, the line is 1-833-456-4566. In Australia, the crisis support service hotline is 13 11 14 (Lifeline). Other worldwide suicide hotlines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Colorado Police Search Property of Missing Womans Fiance DENVERColorado police investigating the disappearance of a woman last seen on Thanksgiving Day searched her fiances property on the morning of Dec. 14. Police did not immediately disclose any information about the purpose of the search at the property in the tiny community of Florissant, south of Denver. Police announced that they would hold a news conference Friday afternoon to provide updated information about the disappearance of 29-year-old Kelsey Berreth. Her disappearance has mystified her family and investigators. She was last seen on Thanksgiving Day entering a grocery store with what appears to be her 1-year-old daughter in a baby carrier, in images captured on surveillance video. Patrick Frazee, her fiance, told police the couple met sometime that afternoon so he could pick up the child from her. They did not live together. Police said the only sign of Berreth after that were text messages from her cell phone. Location data later suggested that by Nov. 25 the phone was in Idaho, 800 miles from Berreths home in the Colorado city of Woodland Park, about a 20-minute drive from Florissant. Frazee has not been named as a suspect in the disappearance of Berreth, a pilot who works as a flight instructor for an aviation company. Public records show that property associated with Frazees name in Florissant covers 35 acres. Teller County Sheriff spokesman Commander Greg Couch said Frazee was on the property when investigators arrived Friday morning to conduct the search. Couch said Frazee was not arrested. Frazees attorney, Jeremy Loew, said in a statement that his client is continuing to cooperate with the investigation. Loew said Frazee was not asked to participate in the property search. We encourage law enforcement to take whatever steps it deems necessary to find Kelsey Berreth and to be able to exclude Patrick Frazee as a possible suspect in this missing person investigation, Loew said. Loew had previously said that Frazee provided police with DNA samples and gave investigators access to his cell phone. The couples daughter has remained with her father. Frazee told police Berreth last texted him on Nov. 25, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Her employer received a text message from her cell phone that day saying she planned to take the following week off. A police investigation was opened Dec. 2, after Berreths mother asked for a welfare check of her daughter. Police said they found both of Berreths cars outside her Woodland Park home. Police also said Doss Aviation, Berreths employer, has accounted for all their planes and police have no reason to believe she used someone elses plane for a flight. By Kathleen Foody Irwin Cotler, founder and chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, speaks at a press conference in Ottawa on Dec. 10, 2018. (NTD Television) Cotler calls for sanctions on 19 Iranian rights offenders using Magnitsky Act Widespread repression in Iran is impacting innocent people from all walks of life and former justice minister Irwin Cotler says Canada has the tools to do something about it. Cotler, now head of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, is calling for the sanctioning under Canadas Magnitsky Act of major Iranian government officials and others responsible for widespread human rights violations. Together with six MPs from all parties, Cotler released a report in Ottawa on Dec. 10 that names 19 individuals as being the major architects of repression in Iran, including government ministers, procurator generals, judges, and heads of prisons. Cotler said that in 2018, arrests, imprisonment, torture, and execution of the leading civil society leaders of all sectors in Iran increased. One of the problems that weve had is that the international community did not speak up during the period of violations respecting human rights defenders, journalists, and the like in Saudi Arabia. That took us down the road to Kashoggi, he said, referring to journalist and activist Jamal Khashoggi who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by agents of the Saudi government and his body dismembered. I want to say that the Iranian officials whose violations are documented in this report make Kasoggiis murderas brutal and atrocious as it wasmake it modest by comparison given the pervasive and persistent assault on human rights [in Iran]. The report said that while President Hassan Rouhani has attempted to portray a new moderate Iran, rights violations have intensified under his watch, including a significant increase in the arrest of the countrys most prominent human rights lawyers. Strikingly, Nasrin Sotoudeh, the iconic Iranian human rights lawyer and embodiment of the struggle for human rights in Iran, was re-arrested in June for defending peaceful protesters and has been languishing in Evin Prison since, said the Wallenberg Centre report. Without the defense of human rights lawyers, all civil society leaders are vulnerable to further politically charged arrests. Under the Magnitsky Act, also known as the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the 19 Iranians could have sanctions placed on them that would include a ban on entering Canada and freezing any Canadian assets they might have. Indeed, the objectives of naming, shaming, and sanctioning specific human rights violators are indispensable to mobilizing a critical mass of global advocacy to address and redress human rights violations in Iran, the report said. Cotler also called for the release of Iranian Canadians currently being held in Iran, including Saeed Malekpour, who was imprisoned in Tehrans notorious Evin Prison in 2012 and is said to be in poor health. With files from Lucy Zhou in Ottawa. Did Barack Obama, Sr. Meet a Soviet Spy on a Washington Farm? Commentary Nearly 60 years ago, the father of former President Barack Obama traveled to a farm in rural Washington state that happened to be owned by a lifelong communist and deeply committed Soviet spy. This obscure connection would never have been revealed if not for a self-published autobiography by the spys sonCommunist Party USA (CPUSA) journalist and dairy-farmer Tim Wheelerwho brags in his book News From Rain Shadow Country that he and his wife, Joyce, worked with local Democrats to get Obama elected in 2008 and 2012. Wheeler went door to door for him [Obama] in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington state, he claims in the book: Joyce and I worked hard in Maryland to help Obama carry that state. At the time, we were dividing our time between our home in Baltimore and our home in Sequim. I covered Obamas campaign writing many articles in the PW [CPUSA newspaper Peoples World] about his victories. I remember with pride riding the Maryland Black Caucus bus down to Columbia, South Carolina to campaign for Obama in the spring of 2008. I also went door to door for him in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington State. Clallam County, Washington, where we now live, is a swing district. George W. Bush carried Clallam County, narrowly, in 2000 and 2004. Obama carried the county narrowly in both 2008 and 2012. We think our diligent work was a factor in his victory. In 2017, CPUSA chairman John Bachtell wrote a review for the CPUSA publication Peoples World of Wheelers book. Bachtell describes how Wheeler and his then-future wife Joyce once invited Obama Sr. and his unnamed girlfriend out to the family farm: Tims father Don, a brilliant Rhodes Scholar, was employed by the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. Don and Tims mother Mary were members of the Communist Party USA, which he later joined. With the dawn of the McCarthy period Don was blacklisted. One of Tims remarkable connections is with President Obama. It turns out Tim attended the University of Washington with Barack Obama, Sr. They became acquainted through another exchange student from Kenya, Muga Ndenga. Once Tim invited Muga and his fellow Kenyan to visit the family farm. According to Wheelers account, he ran into his friend Ndenga while hurrying across the Quad. Ndenga had visited the family farm previously, and while planning a future visit, asked if he could bring along his best friend, Obama, Sr., who also brought his girlfriend. The friends all stayed overnight at the farm, after enduring a white-knuckle ride in Obama Sr.s Buick. Bachtells review is not quite accurate. There is no evidence that Obama Sr. attended the University of Washington, but the timeline is certainly interesting. The visit to the farmhouse happened in the spring of 1961. Obama, Sr. married Ann Dunham on Feb. 2, 1961, and Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961. If the girlfriend was Dunham, she would have been five or six months pregnant at the time. By the early 1960s, Wheeler was already a committed communist. Obama, Sr. was also an open socialist. In 1965, Obama, Sr. published a paper titled Problems Facing Our Socialism in the East Africa Journal. Since many of the African countries achieved their independence there has been much talk about African Socialism, Obama, Sr. wrote. So far, the statements made by such leaders as President Nkrumah, Nyerere, Toure etc., have not had much in common. Likewise, the actions of these leaders while diverting a little from the capitalistic system have not by any means been directed towards any particularly defined ideology, be it scientific socialisminter aliacommunism. It is most likely that the Obama, Sr.Wheeler connection was more political than social. There is no mention that Obama, Sr. met Wheelers father at the farm. Don Wheeler was a working farmer who left the land only in 1965 to work in academia. But its likely they did meet. If so, why would neither Bachtell nor Tim Wheeler mention it? Is it possible that Don was actually the real reason for Obama, Sr.s visit? Donald Niven Wheeler Far from being the innocent victim of so-called McCarthyism that Bachtell laments, Donald Niven Wheeler was an American traitor of the highest order. Raised in the Pacific Northwest by a Christian socialist father, Don Wheeler graduated from Reed College in Portland Oregon before traveling to Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. He later moved to Paris to work for the leftist International Brigades, then fought for the communists in the Spanish Civil War. In Paris, he re-met Mary Vause, a fellow graduate of Reed College and the widow of his best friend, Clare Vause, who had been killed fighting in Spain. They were married in 1938. Both remained lifelong communists, as did all of their children. In 1938, Don Wheeler returned to the United States, where he joined the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. He was soon afterward recruited as a Soviet agent (code name Izra) and worked under the famous spy-master Jacob Golos. In 1941, Don Wheeler was appointed as section chief of the Research Division of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Wheeler worked closely with Duncan Lee, another Rhodes scholar, secret communist, and Soviet spy. In 1943, Don Wheeler became a member of the famous Victor Perlo spy group. Ironically, years later Tim Wheeler and Perlos son, Art Perlo, would serve together on the CPUSA National Committee. Perlo later wrote in a report to his Soviet supervisors: He [Don Wheeler] has access to excellent material and once given an explanation of what was wanted, worked hard and bravely to get it. He has not been reckless but has gotten materials regularly under security conditions more difficult than those faced by most others in the group. From 1944 on, virtually the entire range of OSS analytic and planning documents on Nazi Germany and its postwar prospects flowed continuously from General Donovans Washington headquarters through Donald Wheeler to Pavel Fitins offices in Moscow, according to The Haunted Wood by Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev. Don Wheeler continued to serve his Soviet masters after the war. For example, in November 1945, he sent information on the Italian domestic political situation on the eve of elections in that country; a copy of the confidential report written by the military governor in the U.S. occupation zone of the USSR; OSS reports about current political events in the USSR; OSS weekly reports on political events in Europe and a State Department intelligence report on the Middle East, according to an article on the Spartacus Educational website. On July 30, 1948, former Soviet courier, and girlfriend of spymaster Jacob Golos, Elizabeth Bentley appeared before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Over the next two days she gave the names of several alleged Soviet spies with whom she worked directly, including Don Wheeler, Perlo, and Lee. Don Wheeler was called before hearings to testify on several occasions. Unable to work in Washington, Wheeler and his family moved to a dairy farm in Sequim, Washington. He remained active in the CPUSA until his death in 2002. The Young Barack Obama Meanwhile, the young Barack Obama would grow up fatherless in Hawaii. This void was partially filled in his teenage years by a relationship with mentor and CPUSA member Frank Marshall Davis. Upon moving to the mainland, Obama would work with the Democratic Socialist Alliance at Occidental University and attend the Democratic Socialists of Americas annual Socialist Scholars conferences in New York City. In Chicago, Obama would work with activists from pro-Soviet circles: Frank and Bea Lumpkin, Dr. Quentin Young, his Illinois state senate boss Alice Palmer, and many others. Bachtell was involved in both of Obamas presidential campaigns. He would even serve as Obamas precinct captain during his successful U.S. Senate race in 2006. Tim Wheeler would go on to edit the CPUSA newspaper Peoples World. He campaigned for presidential candidate Obama in South Carolina in 2008. Is it a coincidence that Obama, Sr. visited that little dairy farm in Sequim, Washington, that just happened to be owned by a bona fide Soviet agent all those years ago? How many Soviet spies or CPUSA members do you know? The Obama family has known many of them, stretching over five decades at least. Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. (L) Lisa Page, former legal counsel to former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, arrives on Capitol Hill on July 16, 2018. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images) (R) FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 12, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Strzok, Page Mobile Phones Wiped, Reset After Stint on Mueller Probe A report by the Justice Department watchdog issued on Dec. 13 shows that someone wiped the data on the smartphones assigned to notorious FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page during their work for the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. After the appointment of the special counsel in May 2017, Strzok and Pagewho had an extramarital affairjoined Muellers team. Both worked on the investigation briefly, with Page leaving on May 28, 2017, and Strzok being removed in late July. Strzok and Page entered the national spotlight in January 2018 after their text messages became public, revealing the pair detested President Donald Trump and favored Hillary Clinton while working on high-profile investigations in 2016 and 2017 involving both Trump and Clinton. Text messages sent between the pair are crucial to the perception of the Mueller probe and ongoing court cases. Strzok was one of the FBI agents who interviewed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn is now facing sentencing in relation to false statements he made during the interview. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) attempted to recover the special counsel iPhones issued to Page and Strzok as part of an investigation into actions taken by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI during the 2016 election. But the OIG was unable to recover any data because both phones were reset to factory settings before investigators recovered them, according to the watchdogs report (pdf). The circumstances and timing surrounding the deletion of data on Pages phone are particularly questionable. The phone was reset to factory settings days after Mueller learned of the biased texts between Strzok and Page. The device then went missing for 14 months before another DOJ unit located it and turned it over to the OIG. Days after Pages phone was wiped, Strzoks phone was reviewed by a special counsel records officer who cant remember if the device contained any text messages. Afterward, at an unknown date, the phone was reset to factory settings, assigned to another agent, and turned up six months after Strzok was removed from Muellers probe. Pages phone was missing for more than a year after she left the special counsel role. Muellers office called Page after she left the probe because she did not turn in her laptop and phone. Page said she had left the devices on a bookshelf. After the call, special counsel staff found Pages laptop but not her phone. A separate DOJ unit located Pages phone 14 months after she left the probe and turned it over to the OIG. Once the phone was finally examined in September this year, the OIG determined that someone had wiped all of the data by resetting the device to factory settings two weeks after she left Muellers team. There is no record of who handled the phone and who returned it to factory settings. Pages phone was wiped four days after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz notified Mueller of the problematic texts between Strzok and Page on July 27, 2017. Mueller removed Strzok from the Russia probe sometime before the end of the month. A records officer at the special counsels office examined Strzoks phone on Sept. 6, 2017. The officer does not remember if there were any text messages on the phone, according to the report. The officer did remember making an identical entry for another phone the same day that had no text messages. The OIG examined six phones belonging to Page and Strzok recovering thousands of messages over the course of several rounds of digital forensics. The messages became some of the most damning evidence of bias among officials conducting the investigation into Clintons use of an unauthorized private emails server and the probe of alleged collusion between Trump-campaign associates and Russia. In addition to revealing the intense bias, the text messages showed that Strzok and Page spoke about stopping Trump from becoming president, discussed an insurance policy in case Trump won the presidency, and mused about impeachment after Trump wonall while being part of an investigation into the Trump campaign. The office of the Deputy Attorney General told the OIG that department-issued phones are reset to factory settings after they are turned in, so they can be re-issued in the future. In addition to the issues with the phones Strzok and Page used during their work for the special counsel, the OIG report revealed additional details of the watchdogs quest recover all of the pairs text messages from six phones they used in 2016 and 2017. The OIG ultimately concluded that it could not recover all of the texts. So where are all the missing Text messages between fired FBI agents Peter S and the lovely Lisa Page, his lover. Just reported that they have been erased and wiped clean, Trump wrote on Twitter on Dec. 6. What an outrage as the totally compromised and conflicted Witch Hunt moves ever so slowly forward. Want them! File photo showing Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Peter Peraza giving testimony at his trial in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on June 16, 2016. (Rafael Olmeda/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Florida Police Win Right to Use Stand Your Ground Defense in On-Duty Shootings Judges at Floridas Supreme Court have ruled that police officers can invoke the states stand your ground self-defense law to shield them from criminal prosecution in certain instances of deadly force. Justices at the states highest court ruled unanimously on Thursday, Dec. 13, that law enforcement officers are entitled to immunity from prosecution under the stand your ground law, which permits deadly force when a person has a legitimate fear of imminent death or great bodily harm. Florida prosecutors had earlier argued that the stand your ground law didnt apply to law enforcement officers because they are already protected when using justifiable force during a lawful arrest. The court issued the decision, with seven judges for and none against, in the case of Peter Peraza, a Broward County sheriffs deputy charged with manslaughter in the 2013 fatal shooting of a man carrying what turned out to be an air rifle. Jermaine McBean, a 33-year-old information technology worker, was walking home while wearing earbuds and carrying an uncovered air rifle, according to the background statement in the Supreme Court ruling. A concerned citizen called the police to report that McBean appeared distraught and was acting in an aggressive manner as he walked with a weapon, reported as a firearm, Justice Alan Lawson wrote for the court. Broward Sheriffs Deputy Peter Peraza and another officer responded to the call, and walking closely behind him, issued loud and repeated commands for McBean to stop. But the deputies commands were ignored. It was later speculated that McBean failed to heed the officers calls because he did not hear them over the headphones. He then brought the rifle over his head, turned toward the deputies and pointed the weapon directly at them, Lawson wrote. When Deputy Peraza perceived that McBean was aiming the weapon at him, Peraza fired his gun three times and shot McBean twice, killing him. Peraza was indicted on charges of manslaughter with a firearm. Lawyers acting on Perazas behalf claimed he was forced to kill the 33-year-old in self-defense and cited Floridas stand your ground law, which was a novel and largely unheard of use of the statute. Its a groundbreaking ruling, said Perazas attorney Eric Schwartzreich, according to The Associated Press. Every law enforcement officer in the state of Florida can go to work and do their job and not worry about being second-guessed. But David Schoen, an attorney for the McBean family, called the decision a slap in the face. This is a grave injustice that sends exactly the wrong message to the country at exactly the wrong time, Schoen said in an email. The Broward State Attorneys Office, the agency that prosecuted Peraza, issued a statement on Dec. 13, saying the office was disappointed in the Supreme Court ruling. The Broward State Attorneys Office has been opposed to the Stand Your Ground law since it was enacted, spokeswoman Paula McMahon said, according to the Miami Times. While there was testimony from Deputy Peraza that he was in fear for his life, there was also witness testimony, as the Florida Supreme Court noted in its opinion, that McBean did not point the weapon at the deputies. A grand jury heard the evidence, found that it was not a justified shooting, and chose to indict Deputy Peraza on a manslaughter charge. Stand Your Ground is a bad law, and it doesnt allow a trial jury to hear the evidence and make a decision. Stand Your Ground Controversy Florida was the first state to introduce the stand your ground law, which essentially lets anyone who justifiably fears for their life shoot to kill in self-defense. But application of the law has not been free from controversy. The Epoch Times reported on the case of Florida man Michael Drejka, who was charged with manslaughter after shooting and killing a fellow shopper following an argument over a parking space at a convenience store. Police had initially not charged Drejka over the July 19, 2018, shooting due to the stand your ground law. The case was sent to the state attorneys office for further review. Surveillance video of the event went viral online, sparking criticism of the stand your ground law on social media. Footage showed 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton shove Drejka to the ground. Drejka pulled out his gun while still down and paused before shooting McGlockton, although it looked as if McGlockton was backing away when Drejka shot him in the chest. Civil rights advocates and public health experts have also been critical of the law. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association tied the law to a sharp, sustained increase in homicides across the state. We found that the implementation of Floridas stand your ground law was associated with a 24.4 percent increase in homicide, the studys authors wrote, and a 31.6 percent increase in firearm-related homicide. David Humphreys, a professor of social policy at the University of Oxford and a co-author of the paper, told Time he looked for other reasons to explain Floridas uptick in murder rates. This doesnt rule out the possibility that there might have been something else that happened that we dont know about, Humphreys said. But the magnitude of the effect led us to believe that the only thing that could plausibly lead to that effect is Stand Your Ground.' Humphreyss research is supported by a similar study from 2013, which found an 8 percent average increase in homicides in states that have passed stand your ground laws. Mark Hoekstra, a professor of economics at Texas A&M University and author of the 2013 study, explained the possible causal link by suggesting that people may be more likely to engage in potentially violent, confrontational behavior. These laws are reducing the expected penalties associated with using lethal force in self-defense, Hoekstra said. In the aggregate, the data suggests more people are getting killed as a result of these laws. Giant Maine coon cat puts a spell on the internet with his photogenic fluff The content is not available due to expiration. Protesters are pictured during a march for the climate on sidelines of the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) summit on Dec. 8, 2018, in Katowice, Poland. (JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images) Global Warming or Social Engineering? Commentary Earlier this month, delegates from almost 200 countries assembled in Katowice, Poland, for the 24th annual meeting (conference of parties) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Along with this meeting came a new report from the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which calls for carbon-emission cuts so dramatic that, according to the IPCC, they will require societal transformations without any known historical parallel. Less noted, but worthy of serious consideration, was a counter-conference set up by the Heartland Institute just a few blocks away. Numerous speakers appeared at that live-streamed event, and they made the case that science doesnt justify massive societal transformation to combat global warming. James Taylor, a senior fellow for environment and climate policy at The Heartland Institute, explained that the reason for being in Poland was to push back on a gathering of the worlds global collectivists, the climate totalitarians, the global ruling-class elites. At the counter-conference, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) released a report (available at no cost on the internet) titled Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels. More than 100 scientists contributed to that almost 700-page volume, which assesses the costs and benefits of the use of fossil fuels (principally coal, oil, and natural gas) by reviewing scientific and economic literature on organic chemistry, climate science, public health, economics, human security, and theoretical studies based on integrated assessment models. As a matter of full disclosure, I served as an uncompensated reviewer on two chapters in that volume. No, I am not a scientist. Nor is former Vice President Al Gore. Like him, I went to Vanderbilt University School of Law, while unlike him, I graduated. I then went on to teach environmental law to law students and graduate engineering students for a number of years. I have also written several articles and a book on the topic. I have met many of the scientists who contributed to Climate Change Reconsidered II. They are serious science people. They are not spokespersons for industry; they havent made anything approaching the money that Gore and others have made by pushing a political agenda. They arent the ones saying the evidence is in and the science is settled. They want to keep studying and analyzing the findings. They are, well, scientists. The NIPCCs stated mission is to objectively analyze and interpret data and facts without conforming to any specific agenda. Being unaffiliated with any government, the NIPCC stands in contrast to the government-sponsored IPCC, which (according to the NIPCC) is predisposed to believing that climate change is a problem in need of a U.N. solution. Reconsidering the Evidence The Climate Change Reconsidered series of reports goes through thousands of studies from peer-reviewed scientific journals and casts serious doubt on climate-change orthodoxy. This latest report addresses issues including sea-level change, hurricanes, the shortcomings of climate models, the physics of weather, and weak or erroneous scientific conclusions that are too often cited in climate debates. If you remember back to high school, you probably learned (or should have learned) about the scientific method. The idea to develop a hypothesis, then run a test to try to disprove it (eliminating as many irrelevant variables as possible). The test should be repeatable by others. Obviously, one cant do a full-size experiment on the planet to prove or disprove the impact of carbon dioxide or other gases on the climate. As such, scientists have to turn to a less reliable (but still legitimate) way to approach the issue: environmental modeling. This involves developing the hypothesis and building a mathematical model based on it. The scientist then looks at the environment to see whether the model accurately reflects the data that can be measured. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante August Arrhenius developed the theory that greenhouse gases could act like a thermal blanket. If one compares 20th-century temperatures with carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the two levels certainly seem to correlate. There are, however, some serious questions about the timing of movements (which comes first, the temperature change or the change in CO2 concentration), the temperature increase that preceded the 1930s and industrialization, and the more recent stall in temperature increases. None of the better-known models fully account for these departures from the projections. In other words, the models arent exactly correct. (By the way, while there is a logical hypothesis underlying the global warming theory, the same cant really be said about generic climate change.) So, without repeatable, falsifiable experiments to prove the science, and with questions about the models that have been constructed, its really not surprising to see a great deal of resistance to the findings of the IPPC. That goes double for its political and economic solutions. One of the big problems with the topic of global warming/climate change is that the solutions all call for collectivist global solutions. In fact, according to its critics, the IPCCs main focus seems to be directed toward advancing a political agenda rather than science. Of course, if the world truly needs to reduce emissions on a massive scale, that may require a surrender of national sovereignty to a global authority, but does anyone think that is possible? The so-called yellow vest protests that turned areas of Paris into war zones, because of President Emmanuel Macrons scheduled fuel-tax increase, would suggest otherwise. Working at the edge of established human knowledge is difficult, but that is where climate scientists find themselves today. They are making recommendations that could impact how nature respondsand how people may have to livefor the foreseeable future. Given the magnitude of the issue and the uncertainty involved, everyone owes it to themselves to study the issue. One good way to start to is with the 26-page executive summary to Climate Change Reconsidered II. Ronald J. Rychlak is the Jamie L. Whitten chair in law and government at The University of Mississippi. He is the author of several books, including Hitler, the War, and the Pope, Disinformation (co-authored with Ion Mihai Pacepa), and The Persecution and Genocide of Christians in the Middle East (co-edited with Jane Adolphe). Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Private Investigators Tell House Subcommittee Clintons Could Owe Taxes on Hundreds of Millions of Dollars WASHINGTONTwo financial investigators say they have submitted thousands of documents to the IRS that they believe show the Clinton Foundation, founded by Bill and Hillary Clinton, potentially evaded paying taxes on millions if not billions of dollars, a House subcommittee on government operations heard Dec. 13. Lawrence Doyle and John Moynihan of DM Income Advisors said they first submitted their complaints to the IRS office in Ogden, Utah, in August 2017. We filed a claim of probable cause that the foundation operated outside the bounds of its approval that came from the IRS, Moynihan said. They looked at the foundations tax returns, other publicly available data, and interviewed several foundation employees. They tried to match what was being spent on charitable giving and how much was set aside for things such as travel, salaries, and administration expenses. We attempted to reconcile all those donations with expenses. The basis of our claim is that we were unable to do that, said Moynihan. Among other things, they found that about 60 percent of the foundations income was spent on things like salaries, travel, and grants. Moynihan said he believed a good charity would only spend about 15 percent on such things. Rather than a charity, Doyle and Moynihan called the foundation a closely held partnership. Further, they said they reviewed some emails that showed the Clintons had been approved to accept funds for Bill Clintons presidential library but were in talks with potential donors about health programs that werent part of the librarys mission, according to the articles of incorporation. Based on their research, Doyle and Moynihan believe the Clintons owe taxes on between $400 million and $2.5 billion; if the IRS finds that the foundation isnt a charity, its donors might also be liable for taxes owed on their contributions. They also said that, while not looking for this specifically, they did find instances of pay-to-play behavior between the donors, the foundation, and Hillary Clintons position as secretary of state, which she held from 2009 to 2013. Based on an interview with a former employee, they said Bill Clinton regularly mixed and matched, on an ongoing basis, his business with that of the foundation. FBI Investigation John Huber, the U.S. attorney for Utah who was assigned by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to look into potential wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation, declined to testify at the hearing. Moynihan and Doyle told the subcommittee that, in addition to the IRS, they also have turned over their 6,000-plus documents to the FBI and the U.S. attorneys office in Salt Lake City. They say they believe there is now an open criminal investigation by the FBI into the foundation. If youre telling me theres an open criminal investigation, maybe that makes sense why Mr. Huber was not here, said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the subcommittee. If he couldnt comment on an ongoing investigation, perhaps thats why he didnt show up. CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated figures for the amount of tax the Clinton Foundation might owe. The figures were what the Clintons might have to pay tax on. The Epoch Times regrets the error. ICE Deports 256,000 Aliens in FY18, but 560,000 Fugitives Remain WASHINGTONRepresenting a 13 percent increase over last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed more than 256,000 aliens to their home countries in fiscal 2018, according to a report published Dec. 14. ICE removals included both aliens arrested by ICE, and aliens who were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection and turned over for repatriation, according to the report. More than half (57 percent) came from ICE arrests of convicted criminals in the interior of the United States. Their crimes included more than 12,000 sexual offenses, 2,000 homicide convictions, and 2,000 kidnapping offenses. ICE continues to prioritize the arrest and removal of convicted criminals, gang members, and repeat immigration violators, said Acting ICE Director Ronald Vitiello, who added that ICE operations are intelligence-driven and not indiscriminate raids or sweeps. Vitiello said the agency needs more funding for its detention centers as the surge of illegal immigrants across the Southwest border continues unabated. In October and November, more than 102,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended along the Southwest border. Currently, ICEs 52,000 beds are full, and if the agency runs out of funding, it will begin to release people into the community, Vitiello said. Back in 2013, there was a large release of detaineesmany of which had significant criminal recordsthat had to be released because we just didnt have the adequate funding to keep those folks in custody, he said. Were worried that that might happen again. Vitiello said the vast majority of aliens that are removed from the United States are able to be removed because they are already detainedrather than having to locate them in communities around the country. Still, the fugitive population continues to grow, with more than 560,000 currently in the wind, he said. The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States still outstrips those being deported, especially with the ongoing surge at the border of family units and unaccompanied minors. Although about 50,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended at the Southwest border in fiscal 2018, only 5,570 were removed, reflecting an 11 percent removal rate. Only 2 percent of family units were repatriated, with 2,700 being sent home out of the 107,000 apprehended at the border. Vitiello also made the case for a border wall, saying it would help ease the burden downstream. The wall makes the border safer, it makes the agents that work within it safer, and it would reduce the workload of immigration enforcement across the board, he said. Keith Szableswki of Johnson City, Illinois, shot a massive buck in Williamson County in mid-November. (Illinois Department of Natural Resources) Illinois Hunter Kills Deer, May Be the Largest Ever Shot in United States An Illinois hunter may have set a new record for the largest deer killed in the country. Keith Szableswki killed a deer in mid-November in Williamson County. Conservation officers told him that the buck is 7 to 9 years old, weighs around 265 pounds, and could have as many as 51 scoreable points. He said he shot the deer with a shotgun during the first week of the Illinois shotgun season. I was just sitting there and I heard the deer behind me, he told WSIL-TV. When I walked up to him, I looked at it and thought, What a blessing.' The size of the deer surprised him. I have a John Deere and getting that deer in the gator was a fight, said Szableswki, who started hunting waterfowl when he was in high school but has only been hunting deer for four years. He called a good friend before calling the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. They told me I needed to get the deer checked out and scored, he said. They said they have never seen anything like it in this area before. He took the deer to a processing center and plans to pedestal mount it. I took the deer to a processing center, and Ill get a little meat from it, and then I donated the rest to people that need it, Szableswki said. I felt like I needed to. I felt like the Lord was telling me to do that. The biggest Illinois whitetail deer you'll see today.. https://t.co/TExa3uX9Pt Classic Hits 103.9 WLPO (@1039WLPO) December 13, 2018 The deer will be scored in July 2019 during the Illinois Deer and Turkey Expo. In 2016, a Tennessee man shot a huge whitetail buck. The rack was measured as 47 points, giving the score of 312 and three-eighths, reported USA Today. That was slated to be a world record for the non-typical category, although official certification wouldnt take place until 2019. A non-typical rack is asymmetrical and does not have the same number of points on each side like a typical rack, the outlet noted. The rack on the huge whitetail was estimated to be worth $100,000. I just tried not to think about whether it was the world record or not during the drying out period, 27-year-old Stephen Tucker, who shot the deer, said. The last week was probably the worst part of the whole time. I didnt want to get myself real worked up about it because I didnt want to be let down if it wasnt the record. I just kept telling myself, Its going to be what its going to be.' A man in Tennessee set the world record for largest whitetail deer ever killed. A panel of four judges https://t.co/3hH9xuBgqM ROCK 108 (@ROCK_108) January 10, 2017 Crediting God The Johnson City resident said he thinks God played a role in landing the massive buck. I pray before I go hunting, he said, reported FarmWeek. And on that day, I did pray to God to bring me a buck, and He sure answers prayers. He said word has circulated widely and when hes out and about, he gets recognized. He said when he saw the deer, it was about 4:10 p.m. He had reached his deer stand at 2:45 p.m. After he saw the deer, he waited for the perfect shot. The only window I had was a 12-by-12-square-foot opening that I could see clearly on his neck, he said. I could have shot through the leaves to hit his body, but Im not going to do that. Previously, the biggest buck he had shot was an 11-pointer. From NTD News The Charlie Brown balloon floats on 6th Ave. during the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on Nov. 23, 2017 in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) Invasion of the VeggieTale Snatchers Commentary Anyone who hasnt been slumbering under a rock for the past month has caught the news about how members of Outrage Ranters Corporationcall them ORCs, for shorthave been hyperventilating whenever cherished symbols of Americana burst into the public square. Theyre woke, whatever that means, and insist that the rest of us be awakened, as well. Apparently, the animated show VeggieTales now is considered racist because a menagerie of nutcases participating in a Whiteness Forum at a California universitywhere else?concluded that in the show, whiteness seems associated with good veggies, while bad veggies speak with ethnic tongues. Well, at least the tongues arent forked, but the contrast still perpetuates the superiority of white over marginalized colors, goes the argument. And you certainly dont want to stumble through life consuming unwoke veggies of marginalized colors, even though two of the good guys, Bob and Larry, are red and green, respectively. Red may be a problem, but green should make ORCs salivate, shouldnt it? In any case, ORCs want to snatch VeggieTales from us by associating this harmless bunch of pickles, turnips, and tomatoes with racial stereotypes that dog-whistle white supremacy every time the show is on the air. And as we all know, this holiday season is filled with scads of other appalling cultural fixtures, including the Peanuts cartoon strip, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the classic song, Baby, Its Cold Outside. Holiday Horror With regard to the perpetually hapless Charlie Brown homestead, it seems that the gangs lone black youngster, Franklin, is confined to the back of the busor in this case, sitting alone in a lawn chair at the side of a picnic table. Some of the tweets objecting to this arrangement sparkled with intelligence: Dude gets invited to Charlie Browns by Peppermint Patty. Then he finds out it wasnt a real invite, a dog is cooking the food, and hes gotta sit by himself at dinner. Thats Get Out. This chance seating arrangement didnt actually howl racism; Franklin continued as a regular member of the group, as his 50th anniversary is being celebrated this year. Still, ORCs march on, attacking Rudolph in a fashion that triggered the ire of Ron Bel Bruno, a self-described 54-year-old gay New Yorker, who disagreed with his fellow social liberals. No, Rudolphs story doesnt project a bad message to children thats filled with racism, bullying, and homophobia, he wrote in Newsday. Quite the contrary: Bel Bruno declared the ostracized reindeer as a kindred spirit, inspiring for all who have triumphed over adversity and peer disapproval. Sounds right to me. What about the classic song Baby, Its Cold Outside? Does it really dog-whistle date rape with its line Whats in this drink? The 74-year-old daughter of Frank Loesser, who wrote the song, declares that this is nonsenseit was a joke, a common phrase, remembered by anyone who lived during that era and afterward as a sort of punchline if you felt tipsy or said something foolish. The song came out in 1944, for crying out loud, during World War II. I recall the saying in the years following the war, and nobody associated it with anything as sinister as date rape. Parody Which leaves us with material that is ripe for parody. Thus, in a pair of Pearls Before Swine comic strips, the cartoonist depicts Pig being accused as a racist little Nazi for singing White Christmas while caroling. The last frame shows Pig asking, Is it possible were all too tightly wound? The strips author, who frequently puts himself into his creations, asks, Okay, why is the strip being boycotted? The next entry is even better. Undeterred, Pig revisits the household and is beaten up for singing about folks dressed up like Eskimos. His attacker indignantly states, The term is Inuit. Pig returns in the last frame looking disheveled and says that Christmas is getting much too dangerous, while the author expresses his concern: Why are we being asked to leave the comics page? Why, indeed. Especially considering a holiday field rich with targets for grinchy, grouchy ORCs. Consider Frosty the Snowman, for instance. Frosty is white, naked, smokes a pipe, wears a robber baron hat, and his features are outlined with chunks of coal! Thats enough to make any ORCs head explode. Additional questions remain. Why does holly, jolly Santa Claus have a white beard, while Blackbeard is a pirate? Why are the White House, mashed potatoes, and passing lines on highways all white? And shouldnt the movie Elf be banned because it promotes size (sizist?) discrimination? Minds reel with incomprehension. I suppose that to an ORC, if you cant figure out whats wrong with God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, theres something wrong with you. Certainly, they would insist that some of our other Favorite Things in season year-round require scrupulous attention, lest their message damage impressionable youngsters. Thus, be sure to understand that Annual Winter Precipitation Color Bereft Person of Female Persuasion and the Vertically Challenged, Mine-Dwelling, Ax-Wielding Deplorablesaka Snow White and the Seven Dwarfsmust be examined carefully. (By the way, the dwarfs must be deplorables because they work in a mine.) Okay, enough, already. Parting advice: Settle down, suck on a candy cane, make angels in freshly fallen snow, and dismiss the thought that theyre all white. Our holiday seasons are for all of us, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity. Perhaps if we ignore the ORCs preposterous objections, theyll get the point and leave the rest of us alone. Marvin Folkertsma is a retired professor of political science and a fellow for American studies with the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College. The author of several books, his latest release is a novel titled The Thirteenth Commandment. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller waits for the beginning of a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Jun. 19, 2013. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Judge Orders Special Counsel Mueller to Hand Over Documents on Flynn Interview A federal judge has ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller to hand over documents related to the FBI questioning of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during questioning. In his sentencing memorandum, he cited two internal FBI documents that raised questions about the unusual circumstances of the interview and prompted the judge to demand that Flynn submit the documents. The judge, Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, went further and asked Mueller to submit any such documents relevant to the FBI interview. Sullivan gave the government until Dec. 14 at 3 p.m. to submit the documents. The Mueller team only filed the two documents cited by Flynn and both with significant redactions. Red Flags Raised According to Flynns sentencing memo filed Dec. 11, the FBIs interview with him on Jan. 24, 2017 was all but commonplace. First, he got a call from then-Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, who advised him it would be quickest if he did not have anyone, not even a legal counsel present during the interview, otherwise McCabe would have needed to involve the Department of Justice. McCabes suggestion was indicative of duplicitous behavior, according to former FBI agent Marc Ruskin who contributes to The Epoch Times. To essentially tell someone that theyre better off not having an attorney is a lie, Ruskin said. Obviously, its not in anybodys interest to be interviewed by the FBI without an attorney present. Flynn quoted McCabe from his own memo dated Jan. 24, 2017. In a lawsuit, each party can request evidence relevant to the case from the other party. Flynn apparently obtained documents from the government and cleared with the prosecution that his sentencing memo can use parts of McCabes memo as well as a report, FBI form FD-302, from a July 19, 2017, interview Muellers office conducted with Strzok. Authenticity of FBI Form Questioned Strzok, then-FBI deputy assistant director, was reportedly kicked off Muellers team in August 2017 after text messages surfaced between him and his mistress, McCabes then-Special Counsel Lisa Page. In the texts, Strzok and Page expressed strong animus against then candidate and now incumbent President Donald Trump. One text from Strzok even implied an intent to use his government powers to hurt Trumps chances of becoming president, according to a June report by the Justice Departments Inspector General. Strzok was the leading agent on the FBI counterintelligence probe into several Trump campaign associates and whether they were aiding Russian governments meddling into the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mueller was appointed in 2017 to take over the probe, but has yet to substantiate the allegation. Strzok was fired on Aug. 10. Some of the Strzok-Page texts (pdf) seems to mention the 302 from the interview with Flynn. On Feb. 14, 2017, Strzok texted Page, Also, is Andy good with F 302? apparently referring to Andrew McCabe. Page responded, Launch on f 302. Unless new documents trigger a major shakeup of the case, Flynn can expect a lenient sentence. The prosecutors request the low end of the guideline range, including no prison term, while Flynns lawyers asked for a year of probation at most and community service. Update: The report has been updated to reflect information from court documents filed on Dec. 14. A technician stocks the shelves of the pharmacy at White House Clinic in Berea, Kentucky on Feb. 7, 2018. (REUTERS/Bryan Woolston) Jury Convicts Ex-employees of Pharmacy in US Meningitis Outbreak BOSTONA co-owner and four ex-employees of a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy were convicted on Dec. 13 of committing frauds and other illegal activities that helped boost its business before a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak linked to drugs it made. The verdict by a federal jury in Boston came in the latest criminal trial involving former executives and employees of New England Compounding Center, which produced mold-tainted steroids that prosecutors said sickened hundreds of people and killed more than 100. Jurors found pharmacist Gene Svirskiy guilty of racketeering and pharmacist Christopher Leary guilty of mail fraud over what prosecutors said was their role in misleading NECCs hospital customers about the quality of the drugs it produced. Jurors also found NECC co-owner Gregory Conigliaro and Sharon Carter, its former director of operations, guilty of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration into thinking NECC was a compounding pharmacy that should be state regulated. Prosecutors said before the outbreak, hospitals were misled about the quality of various drugs it sold them, which were often produced in insanitary conditions, made with expired ingredients and shipped without proper testing. State-regulated compounding pharmacies produce customized drugs pursuant to patient-specific prescriptions to address individual needs. But prosecutors said NECC was actually a drug manufacturer making medications in bulk without FDA oversight. Jurors cleared pharmacist Alla Stepanets of racketeering conspiracy but convicted her on misdemeanor charges that she helped process prescriptions for drugs using fake patient names, including Wonder Woman and Donald Trump. Jurors acquitted a sixth defendant, pharmacist Joseph Evanosky, of racketeering and mail fraud. Mark Pearlstein, his lawyer, said Evanosky should never have been charged. John Cunha, Stepanets lawyer, said she would appeal, calling the prosecution outrageous. Lawyers for the other defendants either declined comment or could not be reached for comment. They are scheduled to be sentenced in March. The six were among 14 people associated with Framingham, Massachusetts-based NECC indicted in 2014 after the meningitis outbreak, which sickened 793 people in 20 states, prosecutors said. Jurors in two trials in 2017 convicted NECC co-founder Barry Cadden and supervisory pharmacist Glenn Chin of racketeering and fraud but cleared them of second-degree murder over the deaths of 25 patients. Unlike Cadden and Chin, who were sentenced to nine and eight years in prison, respectively, the six defendants in the latest trial were not charged with having any role in making the contaminated steroids. By Nate Raymond North Korean leader Kim Jong Un talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in as they visit on the top of Mount Paektu in Mount Paektu, North Korea on Sept. 20, 2018. (Pyeongyang Press Corps/Pool/Getty Images) Kim Jong-un Beauty Masks Pulled From Shelves in South Korea Kim Jong Un-themed beauty masks have been pulled from South Korean store shelves amid controversy over their appropriateness for depicting the North Korean communist leader in too positive a light. The beauty products producer, 5149, told The New York Times that 25,000 of the masks were sold in stores and online since June. Company chief executive Kwak Hyeon-ju said the masks were sold in celebration of the inter-Korean summit that took place earlier in the year. The fact that the worst dictator in the worldwho violates human rights of its residentsis portrayed as someone who can be part of making world peace shows that South Korean society has lost the ability to filter through and control the situation, Kang Dong-wan, a professor of North Korean culture and politics at Dong-A University in Busan, South Korea, told NYT. But Kwak has a different view. The appeal of the product with the South Korean public is that it is lighthearted. Kwak talked about how she viewed the inter-Korean summit and the moment South Korean President Moon stepped across the border with Kim. I dont know what Kim Jong-un means in North Korea or what he represents politically, but the whole country of South Korea was happy, Kwak told NYT. I wanted to pat Kim Jong-uns shoulder for coming. But some feel that South Koreans are just getting duped by North Korea, while the horrors caused by Kim are overlooked, and that this product is a sign of that. Kim Jong-uns nuclear ambitions get justified and even beautified by the words nuclear bomb mask pack, said Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for a Free North Korea, via NYT. Park was referring to the products playfully intended, yet ominous name. Favorable depictions of North Korea are actually illegal in South Korea, ever since a law was passed in 1948. But that law is rarely enforced today. A commercial on the 5149 official Instagram account shows a promo for the product full of satire, poking fun at the notoriously staid North Korean state news broadcasts, the regimes nuclear tests, and Kims personality. As for the masks moisturizing power, they supposedly contain water from the Paektu Mountains that sit on the border with China and North Korea, Sky News reported. The Paektu Mountains are the location where the South Korean president and the North Korean leader took a photo together at the end of their September summit. Kim and Moon have met three times this year, a milestone in diplomatic relations between the two states. Theyve met twice in the joint security area on the border and once in Pyongyang, according to Sky News. Kim has said he would go to Seoul for another meeting. Sky News wrote that the next meeting wasnt mentioned again after the September meeting, but the media outlet thinks that the public may not hear about the next meeting until after it happens, as was the case with Kims trip to China in March. A friend of Kim, Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, was recently detained in China on suspicion of harming its national security, according to the BBC. The arrest is seen as a reaction to Canadian authorities recent arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. From NTD News President Donald Trump speaks during the State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of Congress at the US Capitol in Washington on Jan. 30, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Members of Congress Will Now Have to Personally Pay to Settle Sexual Misconduct Claims Members of Congress will have to pay out of pocket to settle sexual misconduct claims under legislation that Congress passed this week. Lawmakers could previously use public funds to settle the claims. The House of Representatives and the Senate approved the bipartisan measure on a voice vote on Dec. 13. Time is finally up for members of Congress who think that they can sexually harass and get away with it. They will no longer be able to slink away with no one knowing that they have harassed. They will pay back the U.S. Treasury, one of the House co-sponsors, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), told reporters after the vote, reported Reuters. We want to thank 1,500 former staff members of Congress who wrote a letter to us who made the case all too clear, that sexual harassment in Congress was a huge problem, she added. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who led the Senate legislation, said in a statement: Today, the House and Senate came together to end a broken process that failed victims for far too long. This bipartisan, bicameral agreement will protect the rights of victims and ensure perpetrators are held accountable for conduct unacceptable in the Congress or any workplace, he added. According to a report from the Office of Compliance, more than $17 million was paid out in settlements between 1997 and 2017. The money was paid out in over 250 settlements, the office said. The legislation mandates a $300,000 cap on liability for each lawmaker if a court has assessed the damages and no limit on liability for settlements. Congress must also regularly report and publish settlements in the future, a stark departure from the past when such settlements were kept secret. Lawmakers Resign Over Allegations In the past year alone, a number of lawmakers have left office following sexual misconduct allegations, including Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas). Farenthold used $84,000 in public funds to settle a sexual harassment settlement, according to Politico. He resigned earlier this year. Lauren Greene, Farentholds former communications director, sued her boss in December 2014 over allegations of gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and creating a hostile work environment, saying when she complained about comments he made to her, the congressman fired her. Farenthold said he wants to repay the taxpayer funds. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) resigned late last year after word of a secret settlement of more than $27,000 to a staffer who said he made sexual advances toward her emerged. After the story broke, six other women said Conyers sexually harassed them or made inappropriate remarks. Conyers attorney said the former lawmaker would not repay the taxpayer funds. Arnold Reed told HLN that Conyers wouldnt pay the funds back because the payment was cleared by lawyers. Because the ethics committee is conducting an investigation and has not been determined that A, that was taxpayer money and B, they cleared any settlement that the congressman entered into, as I told you, several days ago, he said. From NTD News Michigan 4-Year-Old Dies From Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound A 4-year-old in Michigan has died from a gunshot wound that may have been self-inflicted, police officials said. Police officers in Roseville rushed to a home on Dort Street at 8:40 a.m. after receiving a call that a child had been shot. A 4-year-old was found with a gunshot wound. He was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead. Officers are investigating how the boy gained access to the gun; one male was seen being led away from the house in handcuffs, reported ClickOnDetroit. Multiple police vehicles surrounded the home, and caution tape was put up restricting access to law enforcement officials. Officials werent sure whether the wound was self-inflicted. Roseville Police Department Deputy Chief Don Glandon said there were other children and multiple adults in the house at the time of the shooting, reported The Detroit News. Its a tragedy a 4-year-old lost his life and were trying to determine what transpired, he said. Roseville Chief James Berlin added that the scene on the street was pretty chaotic. Its not common for children to suffer gunshot wounds in Roseville, but any incident is one too many, he told the Detroit Free Press. It just sickens me. Detectives on the scene called in for a translator to help communicate with at least some of the people inside the house, but Berlin said he wasnt sure which language the people spoke. Couple Faces Charges After Toddler Shoots Infant A New Mexico couple is facing criminal charges after a toddler gained access to a firearm and shot a baby girl in the face. According to a criminal complaint, Shayanne Nelson, 18, and Tyrell Bitsilly, 21, were in the shower at the Zia Motel in McKinley County on Dec. 8 when the shooting happened. Nelsons 3-year-old son fired the gun, hitting the 8-month-old infant in the face. Nelson said that she wasnt aware of a gun in the room, according to the complaint, which was obtained by KOB. She claimed a previous room occupant may have left it there. The infant was rushed to the Gallup Indian Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition. Her mother told the police that she and her boyfriend ran out of the bathroom when they heard the gunshot and found the baby lying in the middle of the bed bleeding from the face. Bitsilly described the gunshot as a pop, reported the Gallup Sun. He said he grabbed the child. A witness, who was found holding the child when police officers arrived at the scene, said that Bitsilly was wiping the gun clean. Bitsilly is facing charges for abuse of a child resulting in bodily harm, abuse of a child placed in a dangerous situation, and tampering with evidence; while Nelson is facing charges for abuse of a child resulting in great bodily harm and abuse of a child placed in a dangerous situation. From NTD News Migrants walk back to their camp after a failed attempt to rush the U.S. border and enter illegally, just west of the San Ysidro crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Nov. 25, 2018. The fence in the background is not the border, it's a secondary fence on the Mexico side. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Migrant Caravan Members Have Been Breaking Into Peoples Homes Members of the migrant caravan are behind the rise in crime in Tijuana since their arrival, an official in the Mexican border city said. Genaro Lopez, a municipal delegate, said that there have been 280 arrests since the migrants arrived by the thousands several weeks ago. Before it was only for drug possession and being drunk in the streets. Now its for breaking and entering into the homes. People have made citizens arrests, Lopez said during an appearance on Fox News on Dec. 13. After the host asked Lopez if he was sure it was migrants who broke into the homes, Lopez said yes. Theres a video on Facebook and in the video, he says his name and says hes from Honduras, Lopez added. The police are on 24-hour alert on this end. Theyre worried about this. We dont want the crime rates to go up here in Mexico. Were a tourist town. We live on tourism and Christmas season is one of our best times for tourism here and for sales. Things are not very good right now, he said. Tijuana has a population of more than 1.7 million as of 2016. It lies on the border of the United States and includes a portion of the border fence separating the city from America that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the east. He also noted that two groups of migrants representing the caravan marched to the U.S. Consulate several days ago, one demanding that U.S. President Donald Trump either let all the migrants in or pay them each $50,000. So theyre demanding money or they wont leave. That sounds like an extortion attempt, host Tucker Carlson said. Sounds like a ransom, yeah. You want them to go back, you have to give them $50,000 to each one of them. Like 700 have [gone back to their home countries], Lopez responded. Tijuana is a great town. It opens its arms to anyone that wants to come here in peace. And to live here, no problem. If you come here in a violent mood, if you come here against our sovereignty, youre not welcome here. We dont want this problem, we have our own problems. Magdalena Baltazar, 40, held a sign saying Mexicans love beans after hearing that the migrants, from Central America, had been complaining about the food Mexico has offered them. They complained that the tacos, the tortillas with beans, are food for animals, Baltazar told The Epoch Times. It is actually one of the foods that people here in Mexico have at home. How is it possible that immigrants come here to criticize Mexicos food? Elvia Villegas said she admires President Trump, because he is defending his borders. Not like here in Mexico, where politicians are corrupt and do not defend their borders, she said. From NTD News Madeline Lingenfelter was seen last on Sept. 19. Her death isnt considered suspicious at this time, reported the Reno Gazette-Journal. (Reno Police) Missing 19-Year-Old Nevada Woman Found Dead in Mountain Area A 19-year-old Reno woman who has been missing since September was found dead near a mountainous highway. Madeline Lingenfelter was seen last on Sept. 19. Her death isnt considered suspicious at this time, reported the Reno Gazette-Journal. The Washoe County Regional Medical Examiners Office confirmed the body belonged to her. Lingenfelter was found dead by people who were looking for a Christmas Tree south of Sunridge Drive off the Mt. Rose Highway, the report said. Her remains were found near the Tannenbaum Event Center. Her vehicle was found a few days later, triggering a search-and-rescue response that was called off after they could find no sign of her. Officials used sniffer dogs and helicopters along with volunteers. What we were looking for was a small girl in a very large wilderness area without having any indication of which direction she could have gone, Bob Harmon, a spokesperson from the Washoe County Sheriffs Office, told the Reno Gazette-Journal. He said harsh terrain, thick forests, and no clues hampered their efforts to find her. When youre dealing with a situation like that, the odds are against you from the beginning, he added. And in this case, we lost to the odds. A manager at the Tannenbaum event center along the highway saw her car and didnt know about the missing person case, KOLO-TV reported in September. The manager apparently saw someone inside, but when they went back outside hours later, the car appeared to be empty. Lingenfelter is the second person in a week to be found dead. On Dec. 7, the body of 36-year-old Kelly Trethan was found in a field in South Reno after disappeared in November. Officials dont suspect anything suspicious. These cases are very tragic, but theres no information that we have right now that would leave us to believe that theres anything suspicious or criminal in nature surrounding them, said Officer Travis Warren with the Reno Police Department, according to the Gazette-Journal. Missing People There were about 464,324 missing children reported in the FBIs National Crime Information Center last year, says the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. When a child is reported missing to law enforcement, they must be entered into the database as per federal law. Unfortunately, since many children are never reported missing, there is no reliable way to determine the total number of children who are actually missing in the U.S., said the group. Of the nearly 25,000 runaways reported to NCMEC in 2017, one in seven were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 88 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing, the group says on its website. Another five percent are family abductions, less than 1 percent are non-family abductions, and 1 percent are lost, injured, or otherwise missing children. New FBI 302 Document Appears to Reveal Interview With AgentsNot Flynn The Michael Flynn memorandum in aid of sentencing was filed on Dec. 11, following the long-awaited Dec. 5 sentencing memorandum filed by special counsel Robert Mueller. As previously noted, Mueller recommended no jail time for Flynn, noting his substantial cooperation and other considerations. There were several items of note within the newly released documents. Perhaps getting the most attention is footnote 23, contained on page 9 of the document: 23 FD-302 dated Aug. 22, 2017, at 3. FD-302 refers to a type of FBI form that is a written summation of an interview. The footnote in question relates to the following sentence: Less than two hours later, at 2:15 p.m., FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and a second FBI agent arrived at the White House to interview General Flynn.23 This sentence, combined with the footnote, have been construed to mean that an additional FD-302 was constructed for the FBIs meeting with Flynnnearly seven months after Flynns Jan. 24, 2017, interview. This widely-held take does not appear to be correct. To understand why, one needs to keep reading and note that each referenced footnote (24-27) relates to the same Aug. 22, 2017, Form FD-302: By the agents account, General Flynn was relaxed and jocular and offered to give the agents a little tour of the area around his West Wing office.24 This sentence provides the first big hint, By the agents account, but is not definitive. The agents did not provide General Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview. Prior to the FBIs interview of General Flynn, Mr. McCabe and other FBI officials decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport, one of the agents reported.25 Here we are provided perhaps our most telling clue: one of the agents reported. This seems to imply that who was interviewed in this 302 was not General Flynn, but rather the FBI agents who had prior conducted the Flynn interview. The identities of those agents are Strzok and Joe Pientka (first hinted at in a May 11, 2018 letter from Sen. Charles Grassley). Before the interview, FBI officials had also decided that, if Flynn said he did not remember something they knew he said, they would use the exact words Flynn used, to try to refresh his recollection. If Flynn still would not confirm what he said, they would not confront him or talk him through it.26 As one continues reading the quotes from the FD-302 provided by Flynns team, one can see that they are quotes by FBI agents describing events before, during, and after the Flynn interview to an unknown FBI official. One of the agents reported that General Flynn was unguarded during the interview and clearly saw the FBI agents as allies.27 Because this interview of Strzok and Pientka comes to us from a FD-302, the person doing the interviewing must be someone within the FBI. To my knowledge, this would not preclude others, such as Inspector General MIchael Horowitz or Mueller from also being present, although its entirely possible that FBI regulations preclude outside participation. Either way, it appears that the current explanation that footnote 23 refers to Flynns interview summary compiled seven months after Flynns initial interview, is, in fact, incorrect. This is being acknowledged by certain internet detectives on Twitter, but is not the currently prevailing view. Equally important is the fact that the two agents who interviewed Flynn were required to give their account of events in a formalized setting where, like Flynn, they could be charged with lying to the FBI. Details of the Flynn Interview Flynn was interviewed on Jan. 24, 2017, by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka regarding his December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Flynn has pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI in relation to this interview. Why Flynn would lie to the FBI agents about a perfectly legal call is not immediately clear. As noted in a May 15, 2018, letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley, Director Comey specifically told us during that briefing that the FBI agents who interviewed Lt. General Michael Flynn, saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying. Our own Committee staffs notes indicate that Mr. Comey said the agents saw no change in his demeanor or tone that would say he was being untruthful. Additionally, The Washington Post reported in January 2017 that the FBI had found no evidence of wrongdoing in Flynns actual call with the Russian ambassador. The call, and the matters discussed, broke no laws. Nevertheless, Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding his conversations with Kislyak. It remains unknown who actually leaked Flynns highly classified call with the Russian ambassador to the mediaa far more serious felony violation. There have been a number of reasons provided as to why Flynn might have elected to plead guilty. He might have chosen to do so to avoid crushing legal fees. He may also have decided to take any legal hit and shield his son, who had, according to media reports, been threatened with legal pursuit. But there may be an even easier explanation, provided by Flynns sister in a tweet sent yesterday. Perhaps Flynn actually did lie to the FBI, but did so for purposes of intelligence classification: One thing that people/so-called reporters ask-why did he lie? Did Anyone Ever consider that information He had was Top Secret! And could Not be shared with some random FBI idiots!! The sheer simplicity of her question may provide the perfect explanation. General Flynn may have been unable to answer the FBIs questions regarding his call with the Russian Ambassador due to issues over classified information. It is possible that Strzok, who likely maintained high-level clearance, was cleared to legally be privy to the information, but this was a conversation between President Donald Trumps national security advisor and the Russian ambassador. At the very least, it would be assumed this would fall under the need to know category and might well represent information Flynn was unwilling to disclose. Understanding the Judges Order There is one other footnote of significance within the Flynn sentencing memorandumfootnote 20: 20 Certain information summarized or quoted in this Memorandum derives from documents furnished to Defendants counsel pursuant to the Protective Order, United States v. Flynn, 17 CR 232 (D.D.C. Feb. 21, 2018) (Doc. 22). Undersigned counsel conferred with the Government, which represented that disclosing the selected information does not constitute a violation of the Protective Order. This refers to information the Mueller team was required to turn over to Flynns legal team. The order was issued by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, a noted stickler on matters related to Brady disclosure, whereby the prosecution must turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defendant in a criminal case. Judge Sullivan took the case over from Judge Rudy Contreras, who was suddenly recused on Dec. 7, 2017, after accepting Flynns guilty plea on Dec. 1. It was later disclosed that Contreras knew agent Strzok and that the two may have been on friendly terms. Interestingly, Judge Contreras was also a FISA Judge. Following the recent filing of the Flynn teams sentencing memorandum, Judge Sullivan ordered the Flynn team to produce the Aug. 22, 2017, FD-302 they cited in their filing. The judge also ordered the government to file on the docket any 302s or memorandum relevant to the circumstances discussed on pages 7-9 of the defendants sentencing memorandum by no later than 3:00 p.m. on December 14, 2018. There seems to be some misunderstanding on this matter. The Judge does not appear to be saying information was withheld from the Flynn Team per his Feb. 2018 order, although its entirely possible exculpatory information had been withheld from the Flynn team up to that point. By definition, the Flynn team already had the Aug. 22, 2017, FD-302 information in their possession, which came from the Mueller team. Nor is Judge Sullivan saying that information was withheld from him. In manyperhaps mostcases regarding Brady disclosures, the information is transmitted from the prosecution to the defendant, not to the judge, who would be overwhelmed with information. Judge Sullivan does appear to be saying that some of the items disclosed in Flynns sentencing memorandum are new to him and he is demanding to see them now. It will prove most interesting to see what weight these new documents will bring to the case. 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 New Problems for Embattled Huawei in France, Germany FRANKFURT/PARISHuawei faces fresh challenges in Europe after Germanys Deutsche Telekom announced it would review its vendor strategy and Orange said it would not hire the Chinese firm to build its next-generation network in France. The shift by the national market leaders, both partly state owned, follows Huaweis exclusion on national security grounds by some U.S. allies, led by Australia, from building their fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. U.S. officials have briefed allies that Huawei is ultimately at the beck and call of the Chinese state, while warning that its network equipment may contain back doors that could open them up to cyber espionage. The Deutsche Telekom review comes as U.S. regulators scrutinize the proposed $26 billion takeover by its T-Mobile US unit of Sprint Corp which is controlled by Japans Softbank. Softbank, which is days away from listing its wireless unit in Tokyo, plans to replace its 4G network equipment from Huawei, Nikkei has reported. We dont foresee calling on Huawei for 5G, Orange CEO Stephane Richard told reporters in Paris. We are working with our traditional partnersthey are Ericsson and Nokia. Richard said the security concerns were legitimate: I absolutely understand that all of our countries, and the French authorities, are preoccupied. We are too. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, in an interview with Reuters on Dec. 14, said each product, each device must be secure if it is going to be used in Germany. Responding, Huawei said it was not a supplier to Oranges existing 4G network in France and would not feature in the companys 5G plans in France. Huawei does supply Oranges networks outside France and expects to be involved in 5G there, it said. Huawei has come under intense scrutiny as countries including Australia, New Zealand and Japan follow U.S. moves to restrict access to their markets, citing security concerns that its technology could be used by Beijing for spying. In an April report, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a Congressional group, pointed to extensive ties between Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei was a former director of telecoms research in the Chinese militarys General Staff Department. Rens daughter, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. law enforcement. She is accused of engaging in activities to skirt U.S. sanctions on Iran, and faces extradition to the United States. By Douglas Busvine & Gwenaelle Barzic. The Epoch Times contributed to this report. Watch Next: Huawei Exposed: How the Media is Getting it Wrong A terrier is taken for a walk at Battersea Dogs Home in London, on Aug. 2, 2010. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Newborn Baby Dies a Month After Attack by Family Dogs A newborn baby who was mauled by his familys two dogs has died in hospital, where he spent a month fighting for his life. Reuben McNulty was attacked by his parents Staffordshire bull terriers in the early hours of Nov. 18, at his home in Cambridgeshire, England. He was 2 weeks old. Reuben was being treated for severe head injuries, but died on Thursday, Dec. 13, in Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, according to local media reports. Police have confirmed that the two Staffordshire bull terriers, named Fizzy and Dotty, have been put down. The dog breed is legal in the United Kingdom, although in the United States it sometimes comes under legal restrictions on what is termed pit bulls. Five-week-old baby dies after being attacked by family dogs https://t.co/8wgj3podLd The Independent (@Independent) December 14, 2018 The attack happened in the family home near the cathedral city of Peterborough in the rural county of Cambridgeshire in the east of England. The childs parents are named in media reports as Daniel McNulty, 28, and his fiancee Amy Litchfield, 31. The babys grandfather, Paul Litchfield, described the attack as a freak accident. Speaking after the attack, while Ruebens parents kept vigil in the hospital, Litchfield said, People need to realise theres always two sides to the story. At the end of the day its just a big freak accident and everyones making a big thing of it, he told Cambridgeshire Live. Theyve done nothing wrong and the way its being portrayed at the minute, theyre horrible parents. They ****** arent theyve been fantastic. Warning of Jealous Dogs One neighbour told the Mirror that the couple treated the dogs like children. When Amy was pregnant I said to Dan, What are you going to do about the dogs? He told me, The dogs are our babies. A man who lives opposite the couples flat said he had warned the couple to be careful. [The father] was showing people his new baby because he was so proud of it, he told the Metro on condition of anonymity. When he showed me the pictures, I said, Be careful because those dogs might not be used to the baby. I know what dogs are like when they get jealous. He said, I will do. He said, Me and Amy were thinking about that anyway. I cant work out what happened. According to the Independent, the police said, A 28-year-old woman and a 31-year-old man, both from Yaxley, who were arrested on suspicion of child neglect, have been released under investigation. The death is not being treated as suspicious, and has been passed over to the coroner. Staffordshire Bull Terriers are a legal dog breed in the UK, although in the United States they fall under the general category of breeds referred to as pit bulls. In the United States, the term pit bull typically refers to three specific breeds that have legal restrictions in some states: the American pit bull terrier, the American Staffordshire terrier, and the Staffordshire bull terrier. According to the British Kennel Club, the Staffordshire breed was named after the county of Staffordshire where the breed was developed. The club website notes, Because of its early association with fighting it was, for some time, difficult to get recognition for the breed and it was not until the 1930s that the Kennel Club recognised the breed. OPEC exit frees Qatar from US legal concerns DUBAI, UAE/DOHA, QatarEven before taking over Qatars energy policy in a government reshuffle last month, Qatar Petroleum (QP) CEO Saad al-Kaabi had long wanted the Gulf state to leave OPEC. Kaabi was concerned OPEC membership could be a stumbling block for QPs ambitions in the United States, where it has one of the worlds biggest LNG terminals, and a distraction as Doha doubles down on gas production, three industry sources said. Proposed U.S. legislation known as NOPEC (No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act) could expose members of the oil exporters club to antitrust lawsuits, a risk for QP at a time it is planning to invest billions more in the United States. The sources said Qatars exit had been in the works for months, driven by Kaabis desire to focus on Qatars strength in liquefied national gas (LNG) rather than OPEC, where Doha has little say anyway because it doesnt produce much oil. It takes Qatar out of the whole debate within the U.S. Congress on whether or not OPEC is a cartel, said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. If anything it puts Qatar in Americas good books. The decision to leave after 57 years just two days ahead of a crucial OPEC output policy meeting in Vienna last week also struck many as a shot at Saudi Arabia, which along with the Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates has imposed a boycott on Qatar since June 2017. The absence of Qatars emir from an annual Gulf Arab summit in Saudi Arabia on Dec. 9 was then seen as a sign there is no end in sight to the dispute and that Qatar is set to go it aloneoutside a six-nation Gulf Arab bloc fractured by the rift. Qatar would nevertheless still welcome the lifting of the trade and transport boycott which has hit national carrier Qatar Airways, companies with interests in boycotting states and demand from regional investors and banks. The countries boycotting Qatar accuse it of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charge. NOPEC RISK NOPEC Risk The risk of possible legal action under NOPEC has become a concern for Doha as it aims to cement its rank as the worlds biggest LNG producer, the industry sources told Reuters. State-owned QP is the majority owner of the huge Golden Pass LNG terminal in Texas, with U.S. oil companies Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips holding smaller stakes. QP is also considering buying U.S. gas assets and is due to decide soon on more investment in the Golden Pass LNG project. While Qatar is one of smallest OPEC producers with output of some 600,000 barrels per day, or 0.6 percent of global demand, it is one of the most influential players in the global gas market thanks to annual production of 77 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas. Qatars gas production has been a crucial factor in helping it weather the Gulf Arab boycott and it plans to boost capacity 43 percent by 2023-2024. Kaabi said in Vienna last week that being primarily a gas producer, Doha saw no added value in belonging to OPEC and that its departure was 100 percent not a political decision. We dont have enough weight in OPEC to have an effect, he told reporters on the eve of his first and last meeting as the head of Qatars OPEC delegation. Kaabi promised QP would make a big splash soon. Mr Gas Industry sources said the OPEC exit bore the hallmarks of a CEO who has aggressively streamlined QP since taking the helm in 2014, merging subsidiaries and laying off thousands of employees to refocus on one thing: producing even more gas. Its consistent with his desire to simplify, to focus on oil and gas and try to avoid the peripheral stuff that QP used to do. Its very much in line with that drive to get out of activities which are not fundamental, said one source. Kaabi, a U.S.-educated engineer, is one of Qatars most powerful figures and after years of dealmaking for QP he is known as Mr Gas. Although not a member of the ruling family, he is in charge of the vital gas resources in a country of just 2.6 million people and is close to inner policy-making circles. The plan to withdraw from OPEC likely started in June when Kaabi attended OPEC talks in Vienna with then energy minister, Mohammed al-Sada, according to the sources. Due to the Gulf rift, Qatar could no longer attend a traditional closed-doors meeting of Gulf oil ministers to agree policy before twice-yearly talks with all OPEC members. The Qataris felt marginalized, said one OPEC source. A Gulf official said despite the boycott, Sada still had some rapport with his Saudi and UAE counterparts. As OPEC president in 2016 Sada was instrumental in bringing together oil producers, including non-OPEC Russia, to agree a reduction in supply to support crude oil prices. But last month, a government reshuffle removed Sada and elevated Kaabi to minister of state for energy affairs, making him de facto energy head. If Kaabi came it wont be the same. They dont have that same relationship. And the Qataris want to be part of the decision-making, the official said. By Rania El Gamal & Eric Knecht Protesters wearing yellow vests take part in a demonstration by the "yellow vests" movement on the Champs Elysees below the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, Dec. 8, 2018. (Reuters/Benoit Tessier) Paris Police Bracing for More Violent Protests PARISAnticipating a fifth straight weekend of violent protests, Paris police chief said Friday that armored vehicles and thousands of officers will be deployed again in the French capital this weekend. Michel Delpuech told RTL radio that security services intend to deploy the same numbers and strength as last weekend, with about 8,000 officers and 14 armored vehicles again in Paris. Delpuech said the biggest difference will be the deployment of more groups of patrol officers to catch vandals, who last weekend roamed streets around the Champs Elysees, causing damage and looting. Police arrested more than 1,000 people in Paris last weekend and 135 people were injured, including 17 police officers A sixth yellow vest protester was killed this week, hit by a truck at a protest roadblock. Despite calls from authorities urging protesters who wear the fluorescent safety vests that France requires drivers to keep in their cars to stop the protests, the movement rocking the country has showed no signs of abating. Last week, we pretty much handled the yellow vests but we also witnessed scenes of breakage and looting by criminals, Delpuech said. Our goal will be to better control this aspect. In an effort to defuse the tensions sweeping the country, French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged hes partially responsible for the anger behind the anti-government protests. He has announced a series of measures aimed at improving French workers spending power but has refused to reinstate a wealth tax. Many protesters have expressed disappointment at the measures and some trade unions are now calling for rolling strikes across the country. The best action is to go on strike, said Philippe Martinez, the head of leftist trade union CGT. There are inequalities in this country and we need to make big company bosses pay. French Interior minister Christophe Castaner urged protesters to express themselves peacefully in the wake of a two-day manhunt for a man suspected of killing three people in the eastern city of Strasbourg that mobilized hundreds of police. I cant stand the idea that today people applaud police forces and that tomorrow some people will think it makes sense to throw stones at us, Castaner said from Strasbourg, where the suspect was killed on Thursday. Among the various calls for demonstrations, one group of yellow vests called for a non-violent protest on the Place de la Republique in Paris under the slogan Je Suis Strasbourg (I am Strasbourg), a reference to the Je Suis Charlie motto used by supporters of freedom of speech after a 2015 attack in which 12 people were killed at the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Police Report Reveals New Information About California Teacher Who Cut Students Hair A California teacher told police officers that she was sorry that a students hair got cut but it was already done. She said that she had to do it for (the foreign exchange student) who had been acting like a ding dong,' a police report about the incident said. She said that she was sorry that (the other students) hair got cut, but that it was already done. The exchange student is living at the house of 52-year-old Margaret Gieszinger, reported ABC 30, which obtained the police report. The science teacher also told officers that what she did was not exceptional and that she got tired of ridiculous behavior by some of the students in her class at University Preparatory High School in Visalia, California. The police officer writing the report also noted that the schools principal was told after the incident by the teacher that she had a so-called haircut day because there had been issues in the class with cell phones. When asked by officers if she knew how scary the incident was for her students, she replied: I bet. Gieszinger was arrested after video footage of her cutting the students hair circulated widely. An alleged video of the incident shows her calling a student over to a chair. The student then sits down and she lops off a piece of his hair while screaming the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner. Later, the video shows the teacher pointing the scissors at another student before the class runs out of the room, screaming. The teacher is singing all the while. Visalia teacher belts Star Spangled Banner while cutting student's hair in class Watch as frightened high schoolers run out of Margaret Gieszinger's chemistry class after she starts chasing after kids to cut their hair. This happened Wednesday morning at University Preparatory High School in Visalia. Students tell me this wasn't the first time Gieszinger had an apparent breakdown. More at 11 on ABC30 Action News Christina Fan ABC30 Student, Husband React Lilli Gates, one of Gieszingers students, told the Visalia Times-Delta that what happened was unusual. When everything was going on I was terrified, and I so badly wanted to blame her. I was scared she was going to come back, Gates said. What she did to my classmates and I is inexcusable. I am not trying to make excuses for her, I simply ask everyone to reconsider how they view her. She is a loving and kind lady. She is usually all smiles and laughs. This is not the Miss G. we know and love. According to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Gieszingers credential was suspended in 2007 and 2016; its not clear what prompted the suspensions. Gieszingers husband was among those questioning his wifes actions. Its a shock to me, thats out of her character. She doesnt do stuff like that, he told ABC 30. Its not her. Its not who she is. So I dont know what was going on with her. I dont have any clue as to why she did that. Husband of teacher who cut students hair says he's shocked, confused. https://t.co/6FUMc0fiUW pic.twitter.com/hb5vPxn8kT Action News on 6abc (@6abc) December 8, 2018 Possible Lawsuit, Criminal Charges Filed The boy in the video has not returned to school since the incident and his family hired an attorney, Mark Vogt, to explore a lawsuit against the teacher. He couldnt believe what was happening. He frankly didnt know what to do, and he thought to himself, me or anybody else, shes coming for someone else. And then the video, of course, we see that later. But he was absolutely terrified, Vogt told ABC 30. School officials said that Gieszinger would not return to teach her science class. The Tulare County District Attorneys Office said (pdf) on Dec. 7 that Geiszinger was charged with six misdemeanors, including one count of false imprisonment, two counts of cruelty to a child, and two counts of battery. If convicted on all charges, she faces up to 3-and-a-half years in jail. Gieszinger was released on her own recognizance during her initial court appearance but was told not to go near the high school and not to be around firearms, reported the Times-Delta. She also cant go within 50 feet of three victims listed in the criminal complaint. From NTD News A bottle of Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder is seen in a photo illustration taken in New York on February 24, 2016. (Reuters/Mike Segar) Reuters Report: Johnson & Johnson Knew About Asbestos in Baby Powder for Decades A report from Reuters on Dec. 14 accuses pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (J&J) of knowing about the presence of cancer-causing asbestos in its popular baby powderfor decades. After the publication of the bombshell report, the companys stock dropped by more than 10 percent on Dec. 14. Shares went from $144.35 at 9:30 a.m. and dropped to about $132.80 as of 4 p.m. CNBC reported the firm lost about $39.8 billion in market value. The report alleged that J&J didnt tell the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about three lab tests by three different labs from 1972 until 1975 about asbestos being found its talcum powder. In one case, the levels of the carcinogenic substance were described as rather high, said the Reuters report. The company lambasted Reuters for its report on its website, saying it is one-sided, false, and inflammatory. Simply put, the Reuters story is an absurd conspiracy theory, in that it apparently has spanned over 40 years, orchestrated among generations of global regulators, the worlds foremost scientists and universities, leading independent labs, and J&J employees themselves, J&J said in a statement. The company went on to say that its iconic baby powder is safe and asbestos-free. It added that studies of more than 100,000 men and women show that talc does not cause cancer or asbestos-related disease. Thousands of independent tests by regulators and the worlds leading labs prove our baby powder has never contained asbestos, J&J wrote. J&J attorneys provided Reuters with hundreds of documents and directly responded to dozens of questions in order to correct misinformation and falsehoods. Notwithstanding this, Reuters repeatedly refused to meet with our representatives to review the facts and refused to incorporate much of the material we provided them. But Reuters claimed it examined internal reports, company memos, and other confidential documents from lawyers of some of the 11,700 plaintiffs who claimed J&Js baby power caused cancer from at least 1971 until the 2000s. Meanwhile, it said the firms raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos. Of the thousands of lawsuits, J&J has won some of the cases, CNBC noted. However, in July of this year, J&J was ordered to pay some $4.7 billion in damages to 22 women who claimed its products caused them to develop ovarian cancer, according to the BBC. The article ignores that J&J has cooperated fully and openly with the U.S. FDA and other global regulators, providing them with all the information they requested over decades. We have also made our cosmetic talc mines and processed talc available to regulators for testing. Regulators have tested both, and they have always found our talc to be asbestos-free, the J&J statement also stated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says asbestos, which was used for insulation and as a fire retardant, can cause lung disease if inhaled. Three of the major health effects associated with asbestos exposure are: lung cancer; mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that is found in the thin lining of the lung, chest, and the abdomen and heart; and asbestosis, a serious progressive, long-term, non-cancer disease of the lungs, says the EPA on its website. Despite J&Js statement, the damage was already done. As CNN noted, Friday was the companys worst day on the stock market since 2002. On July 19, 2002, shares of Johnson & Johnson dropped 16 percent after federal regulators investigated a former employees allegations about false record-keeping at a factory that made an anemia drug that had been linked to serious side effects. Shen Yun Performing Arts has arrived in the San Francisco Bay area for the 2019 season in Berkeley. Audience members were inspired after watching the first performance at Zellerbach Hall. John Hamilton, radio host for KGO radio since 1987, experienced Shen Yun on Dec. 12 and said, he appreciated the dancers and their interaction with the animated projected backdrop. The dancing, the choreography is beautiful, said Hamilton. And the other thing about it, well, besides the costumes, of course, which are and what they do in the costumes. But I think that backdrop is something sensational. You dont know what to expect and then all of a sudden, this magical thing happens, so thats pretty exciting. Tonight was an eye-opener, said Robert L. Rossi, Senior Account Executive at CBS Radio. It was magnificent. I cant imagine how hard it is to add all breath in each move, said Tatyana Martin, ballet teacher at Bay Area Ballet Conservatory and Product Designer. Its a lot of training. Theyre telling a good story with their movements. For the man and woman, and theyre all so extremely talented, Hamilton added. Before attending the performance, Hamilton had wondered whether this performance claiming to cover thousands of years of Chinese civilization could be understandableand interestingto someone who knew little to nothing about the culture. His answer was a resounding yes. I think what [Shen Yun] is doing is taking this China of stretching back 5,000 years, and introducing it to us, in an interesting way that we can understand it because of dance. And I think thats whats important as we reach out all over the world to know more about countries. I thought it was very, very interesting. Ilene Eng, NTD News, Berkeley Healthcare workers carry a man suspected of suffering from the Ebola virus into an ambulance in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone, on Sept. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Tanya Bindra) Sierra Leones Sick Suffer Untreated as Doctors Strike FREETOWN, Sierra Leone,Seven-year-old Carlos Kamara needs urgent surgery on a collapsed lung after he swallowed a toy whistle. Instead, all he can do is lie in pain in a half-empty hospital ward waiting to be seen. A doctors strike in Sierra Leone has paralyzed an already threadbare health system in one of the worlds poorest countries, leaving its biggest and busiest hospitals in disarray, the sick unattended. It represents a new low in Sierra Leone whose ranks of medical staff were hit by the Ebola outbreak of 2013-16 that killed 250 medical workers out of nearly 4,000 in total. That came after a diamond-fueled, 11-year civil war that ended in 2002 and cost the lives of about 50,000 people. Recovery has been hobbled by a steep drop in the price of one of Sierra Leones biggest exports, iron ore, hampering investment in public health. Seeing my son like this, in so much pain . . . the government must resolve this quickly or soon there will be blood on everyones hands, said Kamaras mother Khadija in a childrens ward at Freetowns Connaught Hospital. A first attempt to remove the whistle on Dec. 3, the day before the strike began, was unsuccessful. Now he lies in bed, barely able to sit up and sip water, a tube running from his chest to a bag filled with bloody fluids. In ten days after that initial surgery, he has been seen twice, his mother said. The doctors in public hospitals are protesting against low wages and poor conditions which include a lack of the simplest medical aids, like oxygen. People Are Dying It brings us no joy to do this, said Dr Sulaiman Lakkoh, a senior infection prevention specialist at Connaught who joined the strike last week. People are dying in our absence, but not as many as will die if the government continues to neglect hospital conditions. Representatives of Sierra Leones Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA) said the strike could stretch into next week before agreement is reached with the health ministry. Health Minister Alpha Wuri declined to comment. Community health workers without formal medical training, as well as international medics working for charities who have come to help, are taking care of patients. Many people have chosen to stay away from hospital during the strike if possible, and most of Connaughts wards were empty. Yet dozens of patients meandered around the courtyard or slept on cardboard mats in halls, waiting to be assigned a bed. The countrys only maternity hospital, the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital, is as busy as ever and in chaos, said aid sources on condition of anonymity. Saidu Teteh Kamara, a middle-aged man unrelated to Carlos, has waited at Connaught for four days to be treated for jaundice, his eyes yellow and stomach swollen to the size of a beach ball. The government must take this seriously or people will die who didnt have to, he said, talking slowly and gripping his stomach. By Cooper Inveen South Padre Island Is for Nature Lovers SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TexasWith subtropical temperatures, miles of sugary white sand beaches that have won awards year after year, blue waters, and an abundance of wildlife, South Padre Island is a nature lovers dream. Ive always been a soft touch for animals, which is probably why weve had three rescue cats over the years, and whether it flies, swims, or crawls, Im all in. As it happens, this Texas Gulf Coast destination has critters that do all of the above. The barrier island is situated on the southern tip of Texas and is only 34 miles long and a half-mile wide. It is bounded on the east by the Gulf of Mexico and on the west by Laguna Madre Bay. Locals refer to these locations as either the gulf side or bay side, which made it simple to keep my bearings. Because the island is on the same latitude as Fort Lauderdale, visitors enjoy balmy days year-round with an average temperature of 74 degrees. Harlingen I flew into Harlingen Valley Airport on an inaugural Frontier Airlines flight from Denver, bringing another low-cost air carrier to the central Rio Grande Valley. The ride south to South Padre Island takes about an hour, but I was told that I simply must see a couple of Harlingens attractions before I left. The first, although not nature-related, was fascinating nonetheless. Located on the Marine Military Academy is the original full-size casting of the Iwo Jima Monument at Arlington National Cemetery. With a granite base burnished in gold, the massive sculpture depicts the iconic soldiers raising a 78-foot steel flagpole. I felt a lump in my throat as I recalled the sacrifice that this sculpture represented. This is definitely a must-see, especially for any veteran. The second venue was Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, part of the World Birding Center network. Several trails wind through the ponds, natural landscaping, and bird blindswooden fence-like structures with cut-outs, where you can view birds without being seen. During my short visit, I saw green jays, brownish birds with a noisy call known as chachalacas, and a long-billed thrasher with yellow eyes and a colorfully streaked belly. South Padre Island After departing Harlingen and crossing the Queen Isabella Causeway, I arrived at South Padre Island, the southern part of which is dotted with various hotels, resorts, and small businesses. I was anxious to get to my first stop, the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center. This world-class facility features a five-story tower with sweeping views of the bay, 3,300 feet of boardwalk, and five bird blinds. Having both the freshwater of the bay and saltwater of the gulf side by side means that there is a huge diversity of birds you wont find anywhere else. The center has its own naturalist, Javier Gonzalez, who is, not surprisingly, a wealth of bird-related information. The center is located at the convergence of two migratory flyways that funnel right down the Texas Coastline, Gonzalez said. A huge percentage of migratory birds in the Eastern U.S. come through this area. There are times you can see 100 different species in one day. Some of these include roseate spoonbills, clapper rails, and great kiskadees. With so much biodiversity on the island, it is inevitable that some of the wildlife might face peril from natural and man-made causes. Fortunately, there are several operations that are actively engaged in protecting these delicate creatures. My next stop was one door away at the eco-tourism nonprofit Sea Turtle, Inc. Founded in 1977, this organization works to rescue and rehabilitate five species of sea turtles, all of which are considered endangered. The exhibits in this new facility educate the public about the plight of these reptiles, from the small Kemps ridley all the way up to the leatherbacks, which can grow to be seven feet long. Executive director Jeff George is passionate about his mission and encourages the public to visit this hospital and see the turtles in different stages of rehabilitation. Located just off the island in neighboring Port Isabel is another rescue operation called the Sea Life Center. The interior looks sort of like an eclectic pet aquarium with various fish and touch tanks lining the walls. The tanks contain marine life such as fish, octopi, crabs, and snails as well as inanimate objects like plastic so people can learn about refuses negative impact on the oceans. As I started to look around, I almost tripped over their huge resident desert tortoise named Domino who had crawled by my feet. Rescued as a baby, he is now a heavier but friendly fixture who loves to greet guests and will even come right up and sit in your lap if you are on the floor. Scarlet Colley, who started the center and is affectionately known as the dolphin whisperer, is passionate about ecology and dolphins in particular. She runs daily Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin excursions called Fins To Feathers to see the pod that lives in Laguna Madre Bay. Calling herself a voice for dolphins in the wild, Colley has named them, and they respond to the sound of her voice. Another charter that guarantees you will see dolphins on your outing is Osprey Cruises. In addition to telling you all sorts of interesting facts about the local dolphins, they offer a close up look at the local sea life. Using a net off the back of the boat, they bring up all sorts of aquatic life that they place in touch tanks for you to examine, including stingrays, crabs, squid, and starfish. They have a climatized cabin, a full bar, snacks, and full narration during the cruise. Fishing Charters There are quite a few fishing charters on the island where you can angle for some black drum, croaker, kingfish, and sheepshead. Another option is to fish off the rocks at the Isla Blanca Park jetty on the south end of the island. I saw a dozen anglers trying their luck for catfish or whiting. One old-timer pulled his line from the water only to find his bait had been eaten. I overheard him muttering, tricky little fish. There arent too many places in the world where you can interact with so much nature in one small locale. In just a couple of days, I was able to see a variety of birds up close and personal, view turtles being rehabilitated, and learn about the ecology of the oceans, all in a gorgeous environment. South Padre Island is one destination that will captivate any wildlife enthusiast. If You Go: For more information see SoPadre.com Getting Around: The Island Metro offers free transportation to area hotels, beaches, and restaurants. The writer was a guest of South Padre Island Convention and Visitors Bureau Photojournalist Ron Stern, aka The Global Gumshoe, has covered travel for over 18 years. He is a frequent public speaker and teacher on the subject of travel. French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France, Dec. 13, 2018. (Vincent Kessler/Reuters) Strasbourg Suspect Killed in Gun Battle With Police The suspected gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was shot dead on Dec. 13 in a brief gun battle with police after being on the run for 48 hours, police sources said. Cherif Chekatt, 29, was killed in the Neudorf/Meinau area of the city shortly after a big police operation was launched around 2100 hrs local time on Dec. 13 about 2 kilometers from where he launched his attack on Dec. 11. Chekatt was killed after firing on police officers, who returned fire, one of the sources said. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters later three police officers came across a man they believed to be Chekatt and went to arrest him. He turned to fire on them and they shot and killed him, Castaner told reporters. I think it will help to get back to a life that I would describe as normal, Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told reporters after news that Chekatt had been killed. With the death of this terrorist citizens, like me, are relieved, he said Reuters reporters near the scene heard three to four gunshots after armed police officers and units launched their operation, backed up by a helicopter circling overhead. The death toll from the Dec. 11 attack rose to three while police on Dec. 13 combed the city in the east of France for a second day and manned checkpoints on the German border in their search for Chekatt. Three others were fighting for their lives on Dec. 13, Castaner told a news conference before news broke that Chekatt had been shot dead. Police issued a wanted poster in multiple languages for Chekatt, who was the main suspect in the attack and who had been on a watchlist as a potential security threat. He had spent time in French, German and Swiss jails for a theft and violence and authorities say he was known to have developed radical religious views while behind bars. ISIS claimed him as one of its soldiers on Dec. 13, who carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries fighting the terrorist group, according to a statement on its Amaq news website. The group provided no evidence for the claim. Earlier in the day, armed and masked police had swooped on the same Strasbourg neighborhoods fanning out across three locations in late afternoon, including the area where Chekatt was last seen. He was killed not far from there. Witnesses had told investigators that the attacker cried out Allahu Akbar (God is Greater) as he opened fire on Dec. 11 on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, a target Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz suggested may have been chosen for its religious symbolism. French soldiers, who are part of anti-terrorism patrols across the country, had shot him in the arm but he managed to escape and elude capture for 48 hours. BFM TV citing investigators said a taxi driver, who had taken him away from the attack site, had told him he had carried out the attack to avenge his brothers in Syria. Terror Attacks Chekatts police file photo shows a bearded man of North African descent, with a prayer bruise on the center of his forehead. Neighbors on the housing estate where Chekatt familys lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes. He was a little gangster, but I didnt see any signs of him being radicalized, said a leader of a community group standing outside Chekkats apartment building, who asked not to be identified while discussing him. The Strasbourg attack was the latest in a succession of attacks linked to the Islamic extremism in France going back to March 2012. Since January 2015 more than 240 people have been killed in various attacks, although the last one had been in May. With the gunman still on the run and officials dubbing the attack an act of terrorism, France raised its security threat to the highest level. More than 700 police took part in the manhunt. French and German police had manned controls on either side of the Europe Bridge, which spans the frontier running along the Rhine river, causing hours of logjams. The Christmas market, a hugely popular attraction in historic Strasbourg, will reopen on Dec. 14, Castaner said. People began returning to the area on Dec. 13 with many marking their respects for the victims by leaving candles in the main Kleber square. By Christian Hartmann, John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry UK Lawmakers Urge Extreme Caution as Huawei Invests in Top British Universities Controversial Chinese company is embedded in the UK's communications networks LONDONBritish lawmakers are urging universities to be very cautious about accepting money from Huawei, amid increasing international scrutiny of the Chinese communications company. World-renowned universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, and York have accepted funds from Huawei totaling more than $7.5 million, as the company seeks to fund research and recruit students. Annual trips to China in association with the British Council are funded by Huawei, as well as research projects into the latest cell phone and audio technology. Examples include a 5G Innovation Center at the University of Surrey, to which Huawei has promised $6.3 million, as well as 4G research at the University of York, and a computer lab at Cambridge University, which has so far cost more than $1 million. But following the detention in Canada of the companys chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, British lawmakers have been speaking out about their concerns on the companys level of investment in British academia. Chris Bryant, a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a cross-party committee of lawmakers that scrutinizes foreign policy, told the Telegraph that day by day, we see more evidence that Chinese companies like Huawei are breaking all the rules and undermining British security. We should be extremely cautious about any engagement with them and British politicians should be as robust as other international allies in calling out this kind of insidious attack on our security, Bryant said. Security expert Anthony Glees, director of the Center for Security and Intelligence Studies, called Huaweis involvement in British universities a security risk. This is about the electronic agenda being driven by the injection of Chinese money into British universities, that is a national security issue, he told the Telegraph. Embedded in UK Communications Networks In addition to its funding at British universities, Huawei is a major supplier of broadband gear and mobile networks in the country, meaning its products are used in critical national infrastructure. The company has supplied broadband equipment to BT, the UKs largest telecom provider, and mobile networks for Vodafone. Huawei is so embedded in British communications that a special monitoring board was set up to scrutinize whether the company posed a threat. Earlier this year, the board said it could only provide limited assurance that Huawei no longer posed a threat to national security. The panel further said that there is a significant risk in the UK telecoms infrastructure from its use of Huawei equipment. Huawei has repeatedly said it is a private company not under the control of the Chinese regime and isnt subject to Chinese security laws overseas. However, it is well-documented that Chinese companies are linked to the communist regime. Many firms are required by law to establish Communist Party branches that can take part in decision-making to ensure that the companys activities are in line with the Partys policies. Chinas Different Legal and Ethical Framework Alex Younger, the head of Britains spy service MI6, said in a rare public speech Dec. 3 that the UK had to make some decisions about Huawei, now that intelligence partners such as the United States and Australia have blocked the companys technology from their 5G networks. We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken a quite definite position, Younger said. He added that monitoring the threat from Huawei was more difficult because of Chinas different legal and ethical framework. Last month, relations between Huawei and UK authorities reportedly soured when a top official walked out of a meeting over the companys apparent failure to fix security holes in its products, according to a source quoted by Reuters. Huawei subsequently pledged to spend $2 billion to improve its security and respond to British concerns. Bob Seely, another lawmaker on the UKs Foreign Affairs committee, told the Telegraph, We need to get smarter when working with these Chinese companies, and look to countries like the U.S. and Australia in how they are defending themselves and dealing with Huawei. On Dec. 14, companies in France and Germany also raised concerns about Huawei, with Frances Orange saying it wouldnt hire the company to build out its 5G network, and Germanys Deutsche Telekom announcing that it was reassessing [its] procurement strategy following the recent scrutiny of Huawei. UK Woman in Court Over Bath Drowning Death of Daughter A British woman is in court this week for the killing of her young daughter, and gruesome details were shared in front of a jury, according to local news reports on Dec. 14. Carly Ann Harris, 38, denies killing her daughter, Amelia Brooke Harris, at their home in the village of Trealaw, Wales. A judge told the jurors in the Newport Crown Court that they have to decide if Harris is not guilty of murder by reason of insanity or guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, the BBC reported. Woman drowned daughter in bath then set fire to her, jury told https://t.co/gELhpemhto The Guardian (@guardian) December 14, 2018 Harris told police in interviews that shes a fallen angel and had to prove her strength. She also apparently told her girl before the incident: Youre going to see the angels. See you in heaven. On that day, this defendant, Carly Ann Harris, killed her four-year-old daughter Amelia by placing her in a bath of water and deliberately drowning her, said prosecutor Michael Jones, reported The Guardian. The prosecutor then said Harris placed her body on a table and then attempted to set a fire. He said there is no dispute Harris committed the crime. Jones added to the jury: You will be hearing evidence about Amelias injuries and her cause of death and the mental health issues that affect this defendant. The evidence you hear is not in dispute between the prosecution and defense. There is no dispute about what Miss Harris did that day or what took place before or after Amelia was killed by the defendant, he said. You will be hearing psychiatric evidence from two experienced psychiatrists as to the issues that affected and continue to affect Miss Harris. Jones, according to the BBC, said Harris was suffering from anxiety, believing people were stalking her. The prosecutor added: As horrific and unimaginable as this was her mental health condition was so profound it attracts a special verdict in law, reported Wales Online. Then police were called to speak in front of the jury, they said Harris told them: The angels told me to do it. Just arrest me, its OK. Then, she said her daughter will be OK. Trust me. Im not crazy, I promise you. I promise you I wouldnt do that to my only girl if she wasnt returning, the woman told them. But later, she said, Im a monster. One of her neighbors decided to call the police and went to Harriss house where she saw the remains of the girl, the Independent reported. Diagnosed with Schizophrenia A neighbor said that to her, Harris appeared dazed, according to Jones. The prosecutor also said Harris had been taking small amounts of amphetamines, but he said experts agreed that she hadnt suffered a drug-induced psychosis, the Guardian reported. Dr. Arden Tomison, a psychiatrist, diagnosed the woman with schizophrenia, saying she had an abnormality of mental function, which substantially impaired her ability to form a rational judgment. Jones added: At the time of the act she was suffering such a disease of the mind that she knew the nature of what she was doing and intended to kill Amelia but she did not know what she was doing was wrong. South Wales Police issued a statement from Amelias family, calling the girl a loving daughter, sister, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, niece and cousin. The statement added: Amelia was beautiful both inside and out and was a fun-loving, caring and bubbly little girl, Wales Online reported. She was taken far too early from us and had her whole life ahead of her. Words cannot convey how we are feeling at this moment in time, the family stated. We know our lives will never be the same again. Were in the #MeToo Era When Womens Stories Are Heard: Heres Mine Commentary As I walked down the hallway and turned to enter the exam room, it was hard to believe the room was not real, that it had been built to mirror the exact clinic where I had worked for eight years. The lights, the tables, the number of doors in the hallway, the waiting room, the bathroomall identical. The exam room was real enough in my mind, bringing me back to that September morning eight years earlier, where I held the ultrasound wand on the stomach of a woman who was 13 weeks pregnant, so the abortion doctor could properly use the suction machine to end the life of the fetus. I watched that baby struggle for its life, mere inches from the device I was holding, until it gave up and the screen went dark. This time, I watched it play out again, but as an onlooker. I watched as an actress, playing me, did the same thing I had done in that exam room built for the sole purpose of telling my storyone that was being filmed for a Hollywood movie, a movie on the big screen about my life. It doesnt get more surreal than that. Who thinks their life will be the subject of a major motion picture? Not me, not ever. When I walked out of Planned Parenthood after participating in that 13-week abortion in October 2009 and into the office of a pro-life group next door, I wasnt considering the possibility that what I did was radical, that it would grab the attention of screenwriters, producers, and directors. I just needed to get away from what my heart had finally realized was wrong. I couldnt be the director of Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas, any longer. I had to leave. Since that day, my life has been turned upside down in many good ways. I started a nonprofit called And Then There Were Nonethe only one of its kind in the countrythat helps abortion workers leave their jobs. So far, we have helped more than 462 abortion workers, including seven doctors, leave jobs in the abortion industry and find new work and healing. Ive authored two books on my journey from volunteering to be a Planned Parenthood escort in college to rising through the ranks to become a clinic director, to walking away and joining the pro-life movement. Its my first book, Unplanned, that is the basis for the film of the same name. I was on set for a majority of the filming, which had to be done in secret in a small town in the middle of Oklahoma under a different name. No one took any chances that the abortion industry would find out what we were up to. Why? Because this movie is going to save lives. This movie is going to change hearts. This movie is going to expose all the reasons why the abortion industry is anything but pro-woman. Its going to show that love wins in the end. Thats how I left Planned Parenthoodit was through the love of sidewalk advocates who befriended me, despite our vast differences. This is their story as well, and the producers rightly decided to film in secret to keep away any disturbances. The culture today is demanding that women be heard, that their stories are worth telling, that they have a voice among the noise of a society too long dominated by men who abused their power. This movement isnt wrong. Women do need to be heard. Their stories have been silenced for decades. This movie is not only my story. Its the story of women working in the abortion industry. Its the story of women standing in the heat and cold and rain outside abortion clinics praying for the conversion of hearts. Its the story of women who have had abortions and their families. If there was ever a time for these women to tell their stories, this is it. Abby Johnson is director of the nonprofit pro-life organization And Then There Were None and the author of Unplanned. Unplanned, the movie, is slated to be in theaters in 2019. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. West Australian Govt Dismissed Warnings on Huawei: Report The government of Western Australia (WA) was warned of national security risks just days ahead of its signing a $136.1 million contract with telco giant Huawei for the radio systems of Perths rail network in July, Australian media have reported. The WA Liberal opposition obtained documents under freedom of information (FOI) laws showing that WAs Labor premier, Mark McGowan, had been told in a confidential memo on July 2 that the technology from Shenzhen-based Huawei posed security risks within the rail network, The Australian reported. WAs transport minister Rita Saffioti was also warned about the risks associated with Huawei, a separate memo revealed. The memo raised concerns from the United States that Huaweis equipment could be employed for surveillance by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, as well as the security risks that led to Huawei being banned from Australias national broadband network in 2012, according to The Australian. The same memo also noted claims that Huawei had violated United States trade sanctions against Irans Ayatollah regime. The same suspicions recently arose with the arrest of Huaweis chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada on Dec. 1. European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip explained earlier this month that mainland Chinese companies have to cooperate with the ruling Chinese Communist Party and any requests from its intelligence services that may include backdoor entry into their products for use in espionage. Radio Systems Replacement Project The memo received by McGowan came just days after the Labor WA governments Public Transport Authority (PTA) had awarded the contract Huawei to supply a 4G digital radio communication systemdubbed the Radio Systems Replacement Projectto replace the existing analogue system across Perths rail network in a joint venture with engineering company UGL. The Huawei-UGL joint venture will design, install, and commission the service and maintain the new digital radio system for an initial period of five years from completion with options for a further five plus five years, Huawei announced on its website on July 6. Unlike the analogue system, which only allows audio (i.e. voice) transmissions, the new digital system will also allow for the transmission of data, which is becoming increasingly important for train operations. It will also provide increased reliability and flexibility, allowing for a more efficient rail network and supporting plans for future expansion, WAs Public Transport Authority wrote on its website. The 4G project is due to be operational by early 2021. McGowan said that federal agencies didnt find any issues that would justify stopping the project, The Australian reported. Consequences Could Be Severe [The Department of Premier and Cabinets] concern was that technology provided by [Huawei] may not be able to support potential future uses of the network, particularly automatic train control (ATC) and public safety mobile broadband (PSMB), Justin Court, a senior policy officer in the Office of State Security and Emergency Co-ordination, said in a statement, according to The Australian. The consequences of interference with ATC could be severe and the protective security of the network would need to be reconsidered to ensure these risks are appropriately managed. ATC will involve upgrades that will facilitate more punctual trains. PSMB is being developed for police and emergency services for use nationwide in cases of emergency. A spokesman for McGowan also told The Australian that the ATC project would be separate from the 4G Huawei project. Any implementation of ATC will involve additional security measures, he said. The government will ensure there is an appropriate level of security and that the ATC will not be compromised. Banned in Australia, USA, Japan, New Zealand Opposition Leader Mike Nahan said McGowan has not explained why the WA government awarded millions to Huawei when it had already been banned from participating in networks in Australia, the United States, Japan, and New Zealand for national security reasons, reported The Australian. In July, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the WA state government had checked with the federal government before signing the contract. They certainly consulted with the Department of Home Affairs but the decision to award the contract is obviously one for the WA government, he told reporters in Tasmania on July 9, AAP reported. We dont go into the security dimensions in any more detail than that. Watch Next: Falun Gong Practitioners Are Being Killed for Organs in China Before the year 2000, organ transplantation in China was a relatively niche medical treatment. Border Patrol guards the fence at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz., on May 23, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) White House Calls 7-Year-Old Migrant Childs Death Tragedy but Preventable The White House said on Dec. 14 that the death of a 7-year-old migrant was a tragedy but said it was 100 percent preventable. The young girl was apprehended as part of a large group of people who crossed into the United States on Dec. 6. The girl began having seizures while in Border Patrol custody. She was airlifted to a hospital in El Paso and suffered a heart attack. She was revived but did not recover and died within a day of suffering the heart attack, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. Its a horrific, tragic situation. Our hearts go out to the family and to anyone whos suffered any type of danger and peril that they see so often when they make that trek up from the southern border, deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters on the White House lawn on Friday. Its a sad time, but its also senseless. Its a needless death and its 100 percent preventable. Gidley added, If we could just come together and pass some common sense laws to disincentivize people from coming up from the border and encourage them to do it the right way, the legal way, then those types of deaths, those types of assaults, those types of rapes, the child smuggling, the human trafficking, that would all come to an end. And we hope Democrats join the president. President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to fund the border wall, which he said would cut down on illegal immigration, citing data that indicates the current portions of the wall have helped curtail migrants entering the United States outside ports of entry. He said hed shut down the government if Republicans and Democrats couldnt come together and provide at least $5 billion for the wall, which is estimated to cost $25 billion total. On Nov. 25, a mob of migrant caravan members tried rushing the border but were slowed down by a portion of the wall and were ultimately dispersed by tear gas fired by Border Patrol agents. Dangerous Trek A reporter on Friday asked Gidley if the administration would be taking any responsibility for the girls death. Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country? No, he responded. The Department of Homeland Security previously noted that traveling north through Mexico is extremely dangerous. Every year the Border Patrol saves hundreds of people who are overcome by the elements between our ports of entry. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the best efforts of the medical team treating the child, we were unable to stop this tragedy from occurring, the department said in the statement. Once again, we are begging parents to not put themselves or their children at risk attempting to enter illegally. Our sincerest condolences go out to the family of the child, the department added. An autopsy was planned and an internal investigation was launched to determine if agents followed proper procedures, but officials said agents had provided care once they noticed the girls condition. It wasnt clear if the girl was part of the migrant caravans, which are primarily entering California. From NTD News ICE officers prepare for an operation to arrest illegal immigrants in New York City on April 11, 2018. (John Moore/Getty Images) Worksite Arrests Up 640 Percent as ICE Cracks Down on Employers of Illegal Immigrants U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up investigations of employers who used illegal immigrant workers in the fiscal year 2018, which ended in September. ICEs Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department arrested more than 2,300 people in 2018 related to worksite enforcement, including almost 800 criminal arrests of employers and more than 1,500 administrative arrests of unauthorized workers. That represents an increase in worksite-related arrests of about 640 percent, compared to the slightly more than 300 made the year before. HSI opened more than 6,800 worksite investigations in fiscal 2018about four times more than the year before. Reducing illegal employment helps build another layer of border security, and reduces the continuum of crime that illegal labor facilitates, from the human smuggling networks that facilitate illegal border crossings to the associated collateral crimes, like identity theft, document and benefit fraud, and worker exploitation, HSI Executive Associate Director Derek Benner said in a Dec. 11 release. The boosted enforcement didnt translate into more indictments and convictions, but those numbers are also expected to rise due to many ongoing investigations, which can take months to years to fully develop, the release stated. The 72 indictments and 49 convictions in 2018 were little changed from the 71 indictments and 55 convictions the year before. The authorities imposed far less in finessome $10 million in 2018, compared to nearly $98 million in 2017. That comparison, however, is misleading because the bulk of the 2017 sum came from Asplundh Tree Experts, which paid the government $95 million after a six-year HSI investigation found that the company had knowingly hired and re-hired illegal aliens. Major Cases In April, HSI raided a slaughterhouse in Bean Station, Tennessee, and arrested 104 illegal immigrants. In September, the owner of the company pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax fraud, wire fraud, and employing illegal aliens. He has agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution, but could face additional prison time and fines when he is sentenced early next year. In August, HSI busted a trailer manufacturer in Sumner, Texas, and arrested 160 people on immigration violations, many who were using stolen identities of U.S. citizens, the release stated. Also in August, HSI arrested 17 people connected to an alleged criminal conspiracy to exploit illegal immigrant workers for profit, fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Employers who use an illegal workforce as part of their business model put businesses that do follow the law at a competitive disadvantage, said Benner. HSI is committed to upholding the laws that govern worksite enforcement. These laws help protect jobs for U.S. citizens and others who are lawfully employed, reduce the incentive of illegal migration, eliminate unfair competitive advantages for companies that hire an illegal workforce, and ultimately help strengthen public safety and national security. Employers are required to verify the identity and work eligibility of all their hires, and to document that information on the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9 form), based on the Immigration Reform and Control Act signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. The brunt of HSI worksite enforcement stems from I-9 audits, where the authorities send a notice of inspection to employers, who then have three days to produce the relevant employment eligibility verification forms. ICE then conducts a compliance inspection, which can lead to civil fines and criminal prosecution for employers who break the law. Employees who are found to be in the country illegally are then arrested for deportation. President Donald Trump has made fighting illegal immigration a priority, focusing on securing the southern border, busting transnational gangs such as MS-13, deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes, and also cracking down on those who employ illegal immigrants. Trump already convinced Congress to allocate some $1.6 billion for border fencing in fiscal years 2017 and 2018. For 2019, the president wants at least $5 billion more to deliver on his campaign promise of building a border wall. He has repeatedly expressed a willingness to partially shut down the government if Congress doesnt approve the funding. The Epoch Times staff writer Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report. View of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen, on June 14, 2018. (Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad) Yemens Warring Parties Agree to Ceasefire in Hodeidah and UN Role RIMBO, SwedenYemens warring parties agreed on Dec. 13 to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. At the close of a week of talks in Sweden, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a framework for political negotiations would be discussed at the next round of talks at the end of January between the Iranian-aligned Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Western nations, some of which supply arms and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015, had pressed the two sides to agree confidence-building steps to pave the way for a wider truce and a political process to end the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people. The conflict has pushed Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, to the verge of famine. The World Food Programme said the Hodeidah deal was a much-needed boost for its task of feeding 12 million severely hungry Yemenis. The Houthis control most towns and cities including the capital Sanaa, from where they ousted Hadis government in 2014. It is now based in the southern port of Aden. You have reached an agreement on Hodeidah port and city, which will see a mutual re-deployment of forces from the port and the city, and the establishment of a governorate-wide ceasefire, said Guterres. The U.N. will play a leading role in the port, he told a news conference in Rimbo, outside Stockholm. The United States, which provides military support to the campaign in Yemen, welcomed the agreement. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that while many details still needed to be worked out, the talks marked a pivotal first step. Moving forward, all must continue to engage, de-escalate tensions, and cease ongoing hostilities, he said in a statement. Quick Withdrawal U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths said both parties would withdraw within days from the port, a main entry point for most of Yemens commercial imports and aid supplies, and later from the city of Hodeidah, where coalition troops have massed on the outskirts. Houthi forces would also pull back from the port of Salif, used for grains, and Ras Isa, used for oil. Revenues from the three ports would go the central bank branch in Hodeidah. A Redeployment Coordination Committee including both sides will oversee the ceasefire and withdrawal, according to the agreement. It will be chaired by the United Nations and report weekly to the U.N. Security Council. International monitors will be deployed in Hodeidah city and the three ports, and all armed forces are due to pull back completely within 21 days of the ceasefire coming into force. Saudi ambassador to Yemen Mohammed al-Jabir told Al Arabiya TV that enforcement procedures relating to Hodeidah would start on Dec. 14. Another joint committee overseen by the United Nations will set up humanitarian corridors to Taiz, Yemens third city. This is a minor breakthrough. They have been able to achieve more than anyone expected, said Elizabeth Dickinson, Senior Analyst, Arabian Peninsula, at International Crisis Group. Saudi Arabia has taken a firmer hand with the Hadi government, which has in turn been more cooperative. She added: The big game is the political framework, which would pave the way for actual peace negotiations. Riyadh has come under increased scrutiny over the Yemen war and its activities in the region since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Sunni Muslim Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened to restore Hadis government, but is now bogged down in a military stalemate and wants to exit the costly war. The Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Khalid bin Salman, said the deal would help ensure the security of the Red Sea, one of the worlds main routes for oil tankers. Guterres said the UN would push on with tackling issues hanging over from the talks, including reopening Sanaa airport and shoring up the central bank. By Aziz El Yaakoubi & Johan Sennero NEWTOWN On the anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the school was evacuated Friday morning after a threat was received, police said. Around 9 a.m. Friday, Newtown police received a complaint from school personnel of a bomb threat at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Newtown Police went to Sandy Hook School to investigate the threat and it is currently being investigated by members of the Newtown Police Department, said Lt. Aaron Bahamonde. The school was safely and orderly evacuated for precautionary reasons and so that a thorough sweep of the school could be performed. As the sweep of the school was underway, the school superintendent chose to dismiss the students and faculty for the day instead of having classes resume. Police will continue to investigate the source of the threat, Bahamonde said. Friday marked the six year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. On Dec. 14, 2012, a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Please stand with our community as we attempt to survive another tragic anniversary, Newtown Action Alliance, a grassroots gun violence organization that was founded following the deadly shooting in 2012, posted on Twitter. My heart is breaking, said Sen. Christopher Murphy in a tweet where he shared the Newtown Action Alliance post. Bahamonde said Fridays bomb threat was not connected with the threats across Connecticut and the nation Thursday. Among the spots in Connecticut to receive a threat was the National Shooting Sports Foundation in Newtown. No relation at all, he said. This was specific. The current Sandy Hook Elementary School is not the original building that was on the site during the massacre. After the mass shooting in Dec. 2012, students were moved to a temporary school and the Sandy Hook school was torn down. The building thats there now, the school where students currently attend classes, reopened in the fall of 2016 at the same site. Tim Makris, co-founder and managing director of Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that trains students and adults on noticing the signs of gun violence, said he was disgusted to hear of the threat made against the school Friday. The pain and heartache here is real and raw every day, but more so on dates like today, Makris said. We condemn the acts of those who seek to extend the trauma and pain on students and families in our community. The biggest data breaches are highly publicized, but what one often doesnt see is the behind-the-scenes work that led to discovery and eventual remediation of the damage. A Ponemon Institute study found it actually takes an average of 191 days for organizations to identify a data breach. During that half-year, customer data is exposed, your brand is at risk, and exponential costs are incurred. A cybersecurity threat is not limited to external factors. The same study revealed that compliance failures can add to the costs associated with breaches by $11 for each compromised record. That means your own team is putting your business at risk. A Culture of Prevention. The best attack on cybercrime is prevention -- and yes, that includes policy compliance. So how can you get employees on board with cybersecurity measures? Engagement is key. Cybersecurity bulletins and meetings mean nothing if employees are not active in preventing breaches and reporting security lapses. Train your staff in personal cybersafety first: how to shop safely online, what to know about Facebooks privacy issues, and how to talk to their kids about cyberbullying. Leading with close-to-home topics will engage your employees in the subject and prove that youre concerned about their personal well-being. A cyber-savvy culture also requires communication. Its a good thing when workers discuss suspicious emails and other warning signs of hacking attempts, and managers should ensure that those concerns make it to the security team. Encourage open queries in team meetings to keep the staff alert and supportive of cybercrime scrutiny. Focus on your own messaging, as well: Remind your employees that they are the strongest defense you have against cyberattacks. Related: 3 Benefits of Zero Trust Cybersecurity for Protecting Customer Information Implementing a robust cybersecurity regime is a mountain of a task, which is all the more reason to make sure your employees are on board and compliant. There are key strategies you can implement to engage your team and reduce the chance of a crippling cyberattack against your company. 1.) Pick your point person. If you want everyone in your organization to be on board with new cybersecurity measures and protocols, its best to appoint a leader to champion the cause. This persons team will manage all aspects of security and data protection, from monitoring attack vectors to training other employees. A cybersecurity team should be staffed with individuals who are actually qualified to advise on the legal and technical implications of data protection -- plus the specialists who can carry out their directives. Too often, cybersecurity is added to an already extensive list of duties for IT or administrative workers. To get a cybersecurity staff up to snuff requires investment. In a 2018 Deloitte survey of chief information security officers in state government, 61 percent reported competency gaps in their cybersecurity staff, and 94 percent of states cited high salary as the barrier to attracting and keeping cybersecurity talent. To alleviate the skills gap, Deloitte recommends partnering with universities, state and local agencies and contractors to bulk up cybersecurity teams. Related: Addressing the Cybersecurity Skills Gap 2.) Let them know: It could happen to us. To make sure your team participates in heading off cybercrime disasters, share the why. Make sure employees are fully aware of just how possible it is for an incident to occur at anyones business. Share stories of some of the more egregious breaches -- and how company culture or poor decisions enabled them. Youre not intending to scare your employees. Caution them about the very real dangers, but assure them that their vigilance will make it possible to prevent or mitigate damage. One way to do this without being too preachy is to host cyber war games -- mock sessions in which cybersecurity threats are simulated and audited without risk of real harm. When global payment companies, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Mastercard Inc., held a combined cyber war game in October, their cooperation helped lay the groundwork for a coordinated response and uncovered new approaches to defense. Related: 6 Tips to Stop Hackers from Stealing Your Data and Your Business 3.) Keep up the broadcast. You want to ensure employees are compliant with your cybersecurity plan, but you also want them to enjoy the advantages that come with remote work and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies. The best way to do that is to send out signals often to remind them of your best practices. Push notifications through text and email to let your team know of mobile maintenance updates and security measures. These friendly reminders are an important way to encourage compliance on your team. Hoala Greevy, founder and CEO of HIPAA-compliant email provider Paubox, underscores the need for this regular (but unobtrusive) communication: Sound policies are essential, but few people remember the employee handbooks theyre asked to read on their first day. Likewise, BYOD policies will be easily forgotten without routine reminders. Issuing cybersecurity notifications on a regular basis will keep your company policies top of mind. By taking these steps, you can create a lasting culture of vigilance and cybersecurity savvy. Given how damaging and costly a breach can be, a compliant culture will benefit your company for years to come. Related: 3 Ways to Make Employees Your Best Cybercrime Fighters Safeguarding Your Corporate Environment from Social Engineering 500 Million Marriott Customers Have Had Their Data Hacked Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved High expectations often come at a cost. For Chile's President Sebastian Pinera, the second year in office looks to be riddled with challenges in keeping up with lofty promises of economic revival, passing important tax and pension reforms in a congress where he does not have majority, and unraveling redtape to stoke investment. Not to mention, the risk of the global trade war that would hurt copper prices, the country's main export, while slowing down China, Chile's main trading partner. With the post-election honeymoon just about over, 2019 is the year Pinera must deliver. Below are key issues to look at next year: Rebound? Chilean citizens are still waiting to cash in dividends of Pinera's election and promises of faster growth. "The problem with Pinera is he is competing with himself, because of the incredible improvement during his first term," Axel Callis, a political analyst in Chile, said in an interview. "Next year, he will have to make good on his campaign promise for economic recovery so people can actually feel it." Growth in Pinera's 2010-2014 first term averaged 5.3 percent. This year the economy is forecast to grow 4 percent and 3.5 percent next, compared to an average 1.7 percent of the second term of former president Michelle Bachelet, and investment is picking up. But consumer and business confidence have weakened and unemployment remains high (despite a debate on which job numbers to follow). "There are still 2 to 3 percentage points of more self-employed people than before the last four years of slow growth," Luis Oscar Herrera, an economist at BTG Pactual, told Pauta Bloomberg radio Dec. 13. "They want to join the labor market faster and that may weigh on salary growth and consumer expectations." All of this while the threat of a rekindled tariff war could produce a more pronounced negative effect, slashing chances of a true recovery. Challenges to Reform Agenda Pinera's government has hinged its growth prospects on a tax "modernization" and pension reform. However, both will have to pass through a divided congress in which the president has a limited ability to negotiate. A labor code reform and a law that should speed up environmental approvals for investments are also in the works. However, if the environmental approval bill passes in the next two years, it would be a big success, Joaquin Villarino, head of Chile's mining council told Pauta Bloomberg radio Dec. 11. "Pinera must pass these reforms through congress before the third year, when municipal elections begin and the government has its first political test," Callis said. Political Capital Pinera's popularity took a major blow in November after the death of a young man by police in the southern Araucania region rekindled an old conflict between the indigenous Mapuche population and the state. Protests took over from Santiago to southern Chile and his approval rating fell to its lowest since his term began in March, according to the Cadem poll. With this panorama, Pinera will face losing more political capital in 2019 if he does not consolidate his reform agenda. Callis said Pinera is using other issues that have more play with the media, like migration, as a buffer for his popularity among the electorate, but that the effects are likely to be short-term. "Most Chileans don't have a problem with migration, as it's really concentrated in only a few communities, but the retreat from the UN pact was used as a political statement," said Callis. "After people forget about that, they will return to their original question: the economic promise." The following excerpt is from Jeffrey Hayzletts book The Hero Factor: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations and Create Winning Cultures. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | IndieBound Hero leaders and companies always have a big vision that they pursue every day, and their values inform that vision. In the service of those values, they need to: Live their values Hold themselves responsible and accountable to their values every day Create a culture that reflects their values Think bigger and better than they already do and differently than they have before Welcome and actually listen to dissenting voicesnot just the ones who affirm what you already believe Be willing to learn from others without thinking that new knowledge and nuance undermine what they believe Admit they dont know it all See opportunities for partnerships and relationships in their people and the community that allow them to grow as businesses and leaders Be willing to sacrifice and compromise Be good and kind in how they treat others All these things require flexibility and vulnerability, not to mention dedication and time. But while things like sacrifice and compromise are essential in how we work, there must be some values well never compromise. Our core values are the ones that anchor us, our people, and our organizations and give us the courage to keep standing and fighting. No hero can operate successfully or have Hero Intensity without them. So whats non-negotiable for you? Chick-fil-A is an example of a company that stands up for its values. The companys taken a stand on gay rights and gay marriage (for the record, its opposed), which has caused entire cities, like Boston, to reject the stores. The companys stand may be opposite to mine, and I hope it will change. But I still eat at the restaurants, and so do many gay people I know, who also hope for change. Does that mean they lack the courage of their convictions, in patronizing a business that does not support who they are and how they want to live? Actually, its the opposite: They have the courage to support those who disagree. They still get served, no matter who they are, and made a choice to eat a delicious chicken sandwich, accepting that disagreement on values doesnt mean they cannot be civil. I respect that we can have different values and still break bread. I can still learn from and respect other things the company does: how they live their values, treat their people, and help their communities. To be honest, I only get my back up when people or organizations live by one rule, refuse to even consider that there could be exceptions, and then use that absolute to prevent you from accepting those who disagree (or who advocate any kind of violence against them). Those people are convinced they have integrity and truth on their side and are living their values. On the face of it, non-negotiable values should only raise your Hero Intensity. But when theyre used to exclude others, not because of any offenses against others or trespasses against you but because the way they look, think, or believe just offends you? Thats being righteous under the guise of being right, a zealot not acting with zeal. The nature of right and wrong is that values can evolve, and those values -- even your non-negotiables -- must be put to the test so you can understand that. What this means is you must have people opposing youwhether its people who dont like what you stand for or companies who want to bring you down by doing what you do better or disrupting how you do it. Otherwise, it really isnt about you, right? Because youre not a big enough hero for your values to matter. The question is, does that challenge cause you to open up or double down? And do you know the difference? Because theres no absolute right way, no matter how non-negotiable you are. A hero always needs a villain. Villains help heroes stand up for what they believe, test what they believe, and understand the complexities of doing the right thing. Being a hero is always about doing the right thing. But what happens next? Do you use what your villains are doing to turn the spotlight of accountability on yourself or just condemn their values? What is right when it comes to values is rarely black and white, especially when the choices are not simple or the problem is one youve never encountered before. Operationally, right can be a little easier. It can be about being efficient and doing things the best way possible, as quickly as possible, using the fewest number of people without screwing those people and hurting those who most need our protection. In that way, doing something best and right might cost you. If you want to hire people from your community, it will cost you more than paying someone in Latin America or Southeast Asia. When it comes to Hero Intensity, however, and being true to who you are, what you are, and what your values are, hero leadership can be messy. So how do you deal with this messiness? You do it by having the courage to be authentic. Always live your values, even if others dont like them or they seem stuck in the past: Say no if it doesnt fit into your values. Stay relentless even when the naysayers attack and the winds of change blow in the market. Do whatever it takes to lead and reach beyond what you know. Dont play politics or live with hidden agendas, but stand up and say what you believe. Related: Do You Stand Up for What You Truly Value? Why It is Important to Hire People for Cultural Fit and How to Do It It's Official: Customers Prefer Sustainable Companies Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved NORWALK The Connecticut Department of Transportations replacement of the Walk Bridge over the Norwalk River stands to literally stir up the excrement, so to speak, according to the Norwalk Harbor Management Commission Vice Chairman John T. Romano. You know the old expression, youre stirring up the (expletive)? said Romano during the Annual State of the Harbor Annual Meeting at City Hall on Thursday evening. Well, thats what theyre going to be doing, stirring it up, so we need to address it and hopefully mitigate it as we go along. At the meeting, he and others called for extensive water-quality monitoring to protect shellfish beds and other natural resources from any pollutants that might be stirred up from the riverbed in the former industrial area as part of the bridge replacement. Were not looking to impede the project, Romano said. Were looking to help it along, but also protect our asset. And thats the way we have to look at it. Our water and waters and the rivers are an asset. Our shellfish beds are an asset. We dont want to do anything thats going to negatively impact them. Specifically, Romano asked for absolute, ongoing, long-term monitoring of water quality during the project, and asked Sue Prosi, the citys Walk Bridge program manager, to secure grants to place monitoring stations along the Norwalk River near The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, as well as north and south of the Walk Bridge, so we can actually have real-time information. Prosi, whose contract as the citys Walk Bridge program manager was recently extended, was among about a dozen people attending the annual meeting at City Hall on Thursday evening. Her job is to serve as the point of contact between stakeholders, the city and various departments, and be responsible for developing priorities and advocating on the citys behalf. Playing with a black box The DOT plans to begin replacing the 122-year-old bridge, which carries Amtrak and Metro-North Railroad trains over the Norwalk River, in late 2019 and take four to five years to complete the project. Disruptions to shellfish beds are a major concern. Steve Bartush, a Norwalk Shellfish commissioner, said the reestablished Mayors Water Quality Committee, is essentially playing with a black box currently due to lack of data regarding the bridge replacement. One of the things were most interested in is obtaining the funds to create a couple of permanent water-monitoring stations, both north and south of the Walk Bridge, and also have the ability to have a portable water-testing kit to move around the harbor, Bartush said. Bartush said the commission has had numerous discussions, both online and in person, with the DOT regarding shellfish protection, and water and sediment quality. Weve have asked for slack and incoming tide schedules for some of the more turbid work. Weve asked for a clarification of dredge spoil testing, dewatering and haul out, Bartush said. Weve seen a construction plate, in an early draft, that showed work barge moorings proposed on local shellfish grounds, which certainly cannot fly, and the DOT is interesting in moving them elsewhere. Strengthen home rule Geoffrey Steadman, harbor commission planning consultant, explained the commissions role in projects small and large. Established by the Norwalk Common Council in 1984 under the Connecticut Harbor Management Act, the commission is intended to strengthen home rule by applying the locally adopted harbor management plan. He used the Walk Bridge project as an example. It (the plan) doesnt say how the railroad bridge should be rebuilt, because no one envisioned that back in 1990, Steadman said. But it establishes policies to protect water quality, maintain commerce and navigation, maintain water-dependent uses, and the commission applies those policies on a case-by-case basis. Earlier, Mayor Harry W. Rilling noted the recent re-establishment of the Mayors Water Quality Committee. He said he has asked the Western Connecticut Council of Governments to put together a subgroup to protect water quality. Ive reached out to them, asking them to put together a coalition so that we can look at all the towns that have tributaries that flow into Long Island Sound, either directly or indirectly, Rilling said, and how we can work together to educate each other on the kinds of things we can do to make sure that our Sound is clean, that stuff coming down those rivers is not polluting our Sound. Commitment to protect Norwalk Harbor At the end of the meeting, Tony DAndrea, former harbor commissioner and its longtime chairman, was presented the David S. Dunavan Stewardship Award for his efforts to protect the harbor and Long Island Sound. During his tenure on the commission, DAndrea championed completion of the multiyear harbor dredging project, improving water quality, revamping mooring administration, and maintaining harbor safety, said John T. Pinto, chairman of the commissions Application Review Committee. For commission members who worked with Tony, it was evident that he was motivated by a commitment to protect the publics rights and interests in Norwalk Harbor, and to ensure that the harbor is managed fairly, equitably and in accordance with the Harbor Management Plan, Pinto said. NORWALK When Toni Sandoval moved to Connecticut from Chile in 2015, she knew what to expect, having visited the U.S. three times before. Still, Sandoval needed some assistance to fully integrate and thats where the Norwalk Community Colleges ESL program came in. Sitting in a vacant classroom adjacent to NCCs English as a Second Language Department Thursday afternoon, Sandoval said the ESL program has allowed her to learn about a different culture while also taking the classes she needs to pursue her dreams of becoming a filmmaker. The ESL program helped me insert into this country fast because I started the first ESL class my second month here, said the 23-year-old who is in the U.S. on a student visa. People were surprised that I was here for so little (time and that) I was so proficient and thats all because of the ESL program. Had Sandoval started the program next year, shed reap the benefits of a new accelerated program the school is rolling out Jan. 24. She said it wouldve helped her graduate earlier and save money. This is an opportunity for students that have the capabilities to do ESL in a faster pace, Sandoval said. The Accelerated Content-based English program (ACE) the first of its kind among community colleges in Connecticut helps students complete their ESL degree in one year instead of the standard two. With the program, students could save $470 to $1,000, depending on their major, said Hannah Moeckel-Rieke, the ESL department chair. The program is modeled after similar ones at Miami Dade College in Florida and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. With the ACE program, students can finish the first four levels of ESL in just two semesters and earn four to six college credits each semester that can count toward graduation, said NCC spokesman Rick Leonard. A typical daily schedule would include a freshman seminar, the first two levels of ESL and a Lunch and Learn, where students can collaborate, engage in peer sessions and have access to tutors, according to Leonard. Students would also get a U-Pass for free public bus and train transportation in Connecticut. They could also become eligible for an NCC Foundation Scholarship upon completion of the first semester of ACE. I think its important because its giving students an opportunity to move ahead and more quickly reach their goals, said Janie Burkhardt, an ESL professor. They can start envisioning who they want to be and how to get there early on, added Moeckel-Rieke. The ESL Department started advertising the new program this fall by handing out flyers, posting on social media and visiting classrooms to give information sessions. So far, nine students have enrolled. Moeckel-Rieke hopes the program will not only educate students, but also teachers, who might not meet ESL students otherwise. By collaborating with faculty in other departments, they will learn more about dealing with second language issues and (have) more understanding of other cultures, she said. The program will also connect past ESL students with current students for mentorship purposes, something being funded in part thanks to a $2.3 million Title V grant NCC received two years ago. The grant is only available to schools that teach at least 33 percent of Spanish-speaking students. The money also paid for ESL staff to visit Kingsborough Community College to inquire about what worked for them in their ACE program rollout. It will also continue to support NCC classrooms with new technology, Moeckel-Rieke said. But as the Board of Regents which governs NCC considers consolidating Connecticuts 12 community colleges into one by 2023, Meockel-Rieke and Burkhardt said they worry the grant could be rescinded if the new study body doesnt comprise 33 percent of Spanish-speaking students. Each of the 12 schools serve different populations, Moeckel-Rieke said, and the administration would be more centralized instead of local. It would definitely be a disadvantage because all our colleges try to serve the students that we have, Burkhardt added. The deadline for enrollment in ACE is Jan. 12. An interview with the ESL Division is part of the admissions process. For more information, contact Hannah Moeckel-Rieke at hmoeckel-rieke@norwalk.edu or (203) 857-7335. For information on the ESL Division, visit norwalk.edu/academics/esl/. Small businesses are lean. Rarely can they afford high-powered HR teams, pensions, flexible working arrangements or a crop of other big-business benefits, so why do small companies perennially stomp their peers in terms of employee engagement? Gallups latest State of the American Workforce report found that firms with fewer than 25 workers have the most engaged employees, at 41 percent, while those with the most employees have the lowest engagement levels, at 29 percent. Shouldnt workers who generally enjoy the highest compensation, benefits and job security be most inclined to do good work? Survival of the smallest. The answer is that engagement cant be bought, only built as a team. Independent of any legal contract, small employers and their employees have more reason to cultivate a strong social contract. Leaders know that it could tank the company to lose one of five employees, while employees know slacking could result in speedy dismissal. The upshot of this tension is that small employers tend to treat their employees with respect, while employees are more inclined to give it their all. Sooner or later, however, every small business is bound to hire someone whos happy to go through the motions. And while small teams may be the most engaged, that 59 percent of employees who are disengaged can do a lot more damage to a fledgling company than they could at a larger one. Short of firing unengaged employees, which could also endanger the company, what can small business leaders do to improve engagement? The solution isnt perks; its purpose. A Deloitte survey found that 73 percent of people who work for a purpose-driven company are engaged, while just 23 percent of those who dont work for such a firm are engaged. How can a small firm with comparatively small market impact and even fewer resources build a sense of purpose? The good news for cash-strapped small businesses is that purpose requires a social investment, not a financial one. Small firms create a shared sense of purpose with: 1. Radical transparency At a small business, uncertainty is part of life. But leaders often downplay unknowns, wanting to seem confident and avoid upsetting employees. In doing so, they create distrust and confuse workers about where the company is headed. Startup leaders dont have to disclose everything, but they should share at least two things with their teams: company goals and financial health. When it went public two years ago, inbound marketing giant HubSpot even went so far as to declare its team members insiders, meaning they can see the companys finances before theyre made public. The company stated it did so to help workers feel more invested in its success. Research suggests that sharing goals, too, can make employees more willing to contribute. Enterprise software firm BetterWorks found that 64 percent of employees say company leaders arent transparent enough about their goals. Nearly two in five said that theyd work harder if they better understood their employers goals. If a companys purpose isnt shared with everyone, it cant be felt by everyone. Related: Increasing Employee Engagement Is About Un-Disengaging Your Workforce 2. Time on the frontlines for everyone. Theres an enormous difference between knowing abstractly that ones work helps customers and actually helping those customers directly. A University of Michigan study found that giving alumni donation-soliciting call center workers just five minutes with scholarship students who benefited from the fundraising motivated them to bring in an average of $503.22 per week -- more than twice as much money as theyd brought in before the meeting. Fortunately for smaller firms, most employees wear multiple hats, so theyre likely to get a chance to interact with customers. Even startup CEOs spend about 45 percent of their time working directly with customers. As companies grow, however, that everyone-takes-a-turn culture tends to fade. To keep purpose in mind, teams -- particularly their leaders -- must resist that tendency as they scale. Related: Why Your Frontline Staff Need to Be Your Best Storytellers 3. Empathy at every turn. For most startups, the early years are a struggle. Employees work late, tackle projects beyond their title and establish processes through trial and error. When leaders dont recognize the sacrifices employees make in the companys name, workers begin to question why theyre working there at all. Empathy promotes a sense of purpose because it proves the company cares about more than its bottom line. More than two in three workers in tech, finance and healthcare say theyd take a pay cut to work for a more empathetic organization, according to Businessolvers 2018 State of Workplace Empathy report, while 90 percent of all workers say theyre more likely to stick with an empathetic employer. Although some leaders worry that acts of empathy can distract from the organizations larger purpose, Shep Hyken considers this a false choice. Being empathetic doesnt mean you must agree or acquiesce to every employees request, explains Hyken, chief amazement officer at Shepard Presentations. What it does mean is that youre accessible and approachable, a leader or co-worker others can trust, and are open to listening and understanding the other persons views and thoughts. Related: 8 Ways to Change Your Thinking From Employee to Owner Small companies may worry they cant afford the perks workers want, but they have something even more powerful: an atmosphere of purpose. Employees of small businesses tend to build personal relationships with their leaders, interact regularly with the people they help and care about one another beyond their bottom-line contributions. The challenge is making sure that everyone buys into that environment, no matter what else the business can or cant afford. Related: Purpose Is Built, Not Bought: 3 Ways Businesses Can Cultivate It 6 Ways to Keep Employees Engaged During the Holiday Season How Artificial Intelligence Can Enhance Employee Engagement Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved It's a good time to be on the hunt for a new job in America; unemployment is at its lowest level in a half century. There are nearly 1 million more job openings than jobless Americans. And, according to new research from the Federal Reserve, sectors from finance to trucking face labor shortages. Related: Corporate Charity Is What Inspires Greater Employee Engagement Consequently, employers are fighting tooth and nail to attract and retain top talent. If you're one of them, you can expect any skilled workers you pursue to insist on competitive wages, generous benefits and flexible work hours as conditions for even considering working for you. Then there's the other expectation employers are hearing: In-demand individuals often want their companies to be good corporate citizens, too. What this entails goes far beyond the CEO writing checks to his or hers favorite charity. Workers want to participate in, even direct, their employers' charitable efforts. And if companies let them, they'll be making a smart move, by building loyalty within their employee ranks -- and helping to attract new talent, too. The reason is that a job is no longer just a place from which to draw a paycheck. Workers want to know that their efforts are making the world a better place. According to a 2017 survey from Povaddo, 62 percent of workers polled at billion-dollar-plus companies said they'd recommend a company as a good place to work if it made a positive impact on a societal issue. Fifty-eight percent said they'd work for that company long term. By contrast, about half of the employees surveyed said they'd be less likely to recommend their workplace to others if their firm made zero effort to make a difference. Thirty-eight percent said they'd be less likely to work there in the long run. Related: Corporate Philanthropy: It's Not Just Money That Changes The World These trends are even more pronounced among younger workers. Three in four millennials would be willing to take a pay cut in order to work for a socially responsible company. Nearly 90 percent said they tend to feel fulfilled by their jobs when their employers provide opportunities to make a positive impact on social and environmental issues. Many employers have responded accordingly. Corporations gave away more than $20 billion in 2017, according to Charity Navigator. And more than three-fourths of executives polled said citizenship and social impact were important or very important to the success of their business, according to a Deloitte survey. That's good news, of course. But it also presents a problem for employers. It's not enough to be charitable or to tout a company's social conscience. Everyone's doing that. Instead, employers must escalate their corporate social responsibility efforts by putting their workers in charge of them. Matching gifts puts workers "in charge." To put workers in charge of their social responsibility efforts, employers needn't take workers away from their day jobs -- or even create a constellation of employee-run committees to oversee charitable giving. Instead, they can simply match their employees' gifts. Corporate giving directed from on high might not engage everyone within a company's workforce; workers might not care for the company-designated charity. They might prefer that those dollars be invested elsewhere. In the end, a company that intends to appeal to its employees' charitable instincts may get little more than a shoulder-shrug from them -- at significant cost. This is where a matching gifts program comes in. It can empower employees to determine their companies' charitable missions themselves. And that strategy can make for some impressive donations: Global marketing agency VMLY&R's company foundation, for example, provides a match that's twice as large as any donation a worker makes to a 501(c)(3) of his or her choosing. Burns & McDonnell, a 100 percent employee-owned company specializing in engineering, architecture and construction, matches employee donations up to $250 annually. By attracting additional dollars to the causes workers truly care about, matching gifts programs foster gratitude and loyalty to employers. As one employee at American Century Investments, a Kansas City, Mo.-based asset manager with a matching gifts program, said on the company's blog, "It's nice that I can do the work I'm passionate about rather than my company telling me what to do or where to volunteer and donate. It shows that the organization cares about the nonprofit work that Im passionate about." Charitable giving has a powerful psychological effect. That kind of passion is key, because personal charitable giving has a powerful psychological effect. Research from two professors at the University of Notre Dame showed that generous people are happier, feel more purpose and are less likely to be depressed. Scientists at the University of Zurich, meanwhile, analyzed brain activity and found a neural link between generosity and happiness. So, we're apparently hard-wired to feel good when we do good for others. Related: How to Start a Charitable-Giving Program at Your Company In other words, employee-directed corporate giving can make workers happier and more productive. Supporting workers' charitable ambitions can be a key differentiator for a company looking to stand out in today's ever-more competitive labor market. And that's as true for large, established companies as it is for smaller, entrepreneurial ones. Related: To Fill Your Company's Empty Positions, Invest in Your Employees' Charitable Passions Entrepreneurs Are the Celebrities of the Business World Are Your Charitable Donations Getting to the Right People? Here's How to Be Sure. Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved NORWALK A group of students walked to the front of the gymnasium at Tracey Elementary School on Thursday morning, each holding a yoga mat. While they took their places, fifth-grader Adrien Danso stood on stage, entertaining his classmates. Why did the potato go to the hospital? he asked. Everybody got quiet. Because he was a-salted! The gym was packed with kindergarten-through-fifth graders, waiting show off their cluster projects. The assignments were part of the school districts redesigned gifted and talented program, which previously only included a subset of students. Since its redesign, it includes two schools in the district, with expectations that it will happen at other schools later in the year, staff said. Truthfully, we believe every kid has a gift and our job is to find what theyre gifted in, Principal Theresa Rangel said. Our philosophy is trying to educate the whole child, emotionally, academically, and socially and this fits into who we are as a school. Every Thursday morning, for six to eight weeks, students focused on a specific topic including, but not limited to, poetry, quilting, mindfulness and meditation and under the sea. Gifted and talented teacher Jessica Stargardter said the cluster project assignment is at every elementary school in Norwalk and teachers work hard to pair children with the first topic of their choice. Since the projects implementation, shes seen increased attendance from students and teachers alike and said there are fewer outbreaks (outbursts) among students. After Dansos joke, and once students finally laid their yoga mats down, a tiny girl asked hundreds of her classmates to put on hand on their heart and the other on their stomachs. We will do some stretches, which help to energize you and keep your body flexible, she said. Yoga is a great way to keep your body in good shape and helps reduce stress in your life. The group cycled through three breathing exercises in that pose. Rangel stepped into a temporary teaching role and taught the Money Smart Kids cluster how to make money grow. But first we needed startup money, one of her students said. To raise those funds, the group made candles and sold them, earning $79. They collected donated water bottles, making an additional $21. Neighbors to the school also donated recyclables. When we added everything together, we made $105, the student said. As the students concluded that segment, Rangel pulled up a cart with doughnuts, coffee and other sweets. Students used the money they raised to buy a cart for staff and Rangel encouraged the crowd to purchase the items for $1 so students could make another profit. NORWALK The Norwalk Tax Assessors Office is giving property owners an extra week to challenge their preliminary valuations before the company conducting the citys 2018 revaluation. The office has extended from Dec. 29 until Jan. 5 the deadline for informal hearings with Tyler Technologies after a number of preliminary valuation notices mailed out to property owners beginning late last month contained an incorrect weblink for scheduling the hearings. The erroneous link was written with an extra period as www.norwalk.ct.org/hearing when it should have read www.norwalkct.org/hearing, said Josh Morgan, Norwalks communications manager/grants manager. All letters did contain the valid www.tylertech.com/schedule link, Morgan said Thursday. The city is confident property owners have been able to schedule their appointments, but out of an abundance of caution to ensure all Norwalk taxpayers have an opportunity to review their preliminary appraisals, the extra dates were added. The four additional hearing dates are Wednesday, Jan. 2, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, Jan. 3, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, Jan. 4, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturday, Jan. 5, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hearings will be limited to 15 minutes per property. At the hearings, property owners may submit documentation supporting their claimed property value. As of Thursday afternoon, 1,032 residential and 160 commercial informal hearings had scheduled with Tyler Technologies, according to Morgan. The Tax Assessors Office is in the final stages of the 2018 revaluation, which is intended to accurately determine market values of properties as of Oct. 1, 2018. The city hired Tyler Technologies, a national mass appraisal company based in Texas, to spearhead the work. Tax Assessors Office will finalize the 2018 Grand List of taxable property on Jan. 31, 2019. Property owners, nevertheless, will have additional opportunities to challenge their new valuations regardless of whether they availed themselves of an informal hearing. From Feb. 1 to Feb. 20, 2019, they may schedule one-on-one hearings with the Norwalk Board of Assessment Appeals. Those hearings will be held from March 1 to March 19, 2019. Afterward, properties owners whove availed themselves of the appeal opportunities and remain dissatisfied with their new valuations may go to Superior Court. Property is assessed at 70 percent of market value. A propertys market value is estimated by mass appraisal considering major factors as its age, total living area, number of bathrooms and special features such as fireplaces as well as it location and market sales in the area, according to the Assessors Office. The new assessments are available to view in the Tax Assessors Office in Room 2016 of City Hall, 125 East Ave., and online at either www.norwalkct.org or www.vgsi.com. WESTPORT The house at 39 Cross Highway was originally built in 1742 by Phineas Chapman, a lieutenant in the Connecticut Militia in 1775. He was later promoted to captain for distinguished service in the French and Indian War. The house burned down in 1877 or 1878 and was rebuilt by Chapmans grandson, Charles Chapman, said Deborah Howland-Murray, current owner of the house. We dont know if everything burned or if there is any part of the wood structure that remained, she said. We know some of the furniture was saved. She moved into the antique-colonial in 1985 and said she and previous owners worked hard to keep the house as close to its original state as possible. The house plays a unique role in Westports history and provides a direct link to the towns pre-revolutionary period, she said. If houses like this had been used as a way to teach history, I would have been so much more engaged. The original 1742 compound encompassed a kitchen, a family room and a master bedroom, according to Howland-Murray, who spent countless hours researching the homes history with her son Galen Murray. This house is like a person, she said. Its like another member of the family to me and I wanted to know more about it. The more I learned, the more I felt an obligation to the Chapmans to make this history known. The mother and son frequented Fairfield and Westport Town Halls looking through land records, estate records and wills belonging to the Chapman family. Chapmans father, the Rev. Daniel Chapman, was the first pastor of Greens Farms Congregational Church in Westport and his son, Joseph, was the first Westport-area physician. Howland-Murray said the house served as an inn during the Revolutionary War and rumor has it, George Washington spent the night there on one occasion. We know (Chapman) was taken prisoner when the British came through Danbury in 1777, Howland-Murray said. He was taken prisoner in a sugar house with his brother Dennie. (His) health was broken by being there because there were such horrible circumstances, so he died five years later. She and Galen visited Chapmans grave in Greens Farms Churchs cemetery and noted some of his relatives are buried at Willowbrook Cemetery and Poplar Plains Cemetery in Westport. The last Chapman to live in the house was Laura Chapman. She died in 1927, Howland-Murray said. Today, the home remains in similar condition to its 1870s rebuild, aside from an expansion to the kitchen and living room in 2007. Howland-Murray also added an artist studio and a laundry room that same year. The house is 3,400 square feet and includes a pool, two original fireplaces, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and two half bathrooms. An L-shaped stone wall at the front of the structure used to be the foundation for an English bank barn that Howland-Murray thinks dates to the 1700s, before the fire. She said her research took on a whole new meaning when she decided to downsize and sell the house. She contacted the Westport Historic District Commission and the Historical Society to preserve the home and protect it from future demolition. Shes hoping the home will become a designated historical landmark before she moves out. The title would mean she or any future owner must get permission from the Westport Historic District Commission before altering the exterior of the house, said chairman Randy Henkels. Alterations must be compatible with the historic structure, he added. The house is on the market for $1.95 million with Sandy Ruta and Marina Leo of Higgins Group listed as real estate agents. Even though Howland-Murray plans to physically leave, she plans to take a piece of the home with her. Together, she and her son have plan to either write a book or create a screenplay on the homes history. GLEN CARBON Twenty people attended Edwardsville Townships Truth-in-Taxation public hearing Thursday. By the end of the meeting, it was the townships desire to expand and modernize against some taxpayers contention that the Edwardsville Township, which began in 1808, is an entity that should be retired. Last month, three township trustees approved raising the tax levy 30 percent, which they say is needed for facility upgrades, building renovation and expansion. Last year, the townships levy was $629,798 while it proposed one of $818,700 for this year. Township officials say the increase would amount to $5 on a home valued at $100,000, $10 on one valued at $200,000 and $15 for a $300,000 home. Glen Carbon Mayor Robert Jackstadt attended the meeting as an individual who lives in the township. He said the township is one of eight taxing districts on his property tax bill. Is there any way not to increase the levy? Often, the new level becomes the floor for future increases; it all adds up, he said. Desiree Bennyhoff, president and CEO of the Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce, also disapproved of the proposed levy increase. Both the Collinsville Area Recreation District and Godfrey Township were dissolved, the Madison County Recorder of Deeds was eliminated and voters overwhelmingly said that all new debt must come before them, she said of last months election results. This is not about $15 per household, this is a cumulative impact that compounds annually on taxpayers. Any increase in taxes pushes down home affordability, makes it more difficult for small businesses to located within the Edwardsville/Glen Carbon market and overall decreases purchasing power, she said. Jackstadt, Bennyhoff, and others accused township officials of conflating the proposed tax rate with what it was 15 to 18 years ago while ignoring other variables. Jackstadt advocated dividing the services the township offers among Madison County, Edwardsville, and Glen Carbon. Instead of putting more money into township government, put this item on the ballot and let voters decide like they did in Godfrey, Jackstadt said. Alton and Godfrey voters had the option to eliminate their township during last months election. Godfrey voters dissolved its township while Alton Township endures. Township resident Pat Hume said she was surprised that three township trustees voted to raise the levy without consulting the people first. Three trustees didnt care enough to listen to the voters, she said. The hearing took place at a Glen Carbon firehouse because the township has no meeting space within its offices. Director Fred Schulte gave an overview of the services the township provides to senior citizens, those with disabilities, low-income families and the areas transient and homeless populations. As the population is growing older, we expect to see more people using our services, Schulte said. Weve seen that number grow over the last five years. He added that, in turn, the growth forced township officials to examine its staffing needs and building space. In addition, the improvements are a key component for the township to comply with an American with Disabilities Act (ADA) facilities transition plan, introduced in 2014. The current offices were built before the ADA passed in 1990 and do not comply with federal or state ADA code requirements. Schulte said the township explored earlier alternatives, such as partnering with the city of Edwardsville on a 10-year lease for space in its new public safety building or with the Glen Carbon Fire Protection District to lease space in its facilities. The cost of plans with those entities would be the same as they are for the building renovation and expansion we propose and the end of 10 years, we wouldnt own anything, Schulte said. The township communicated with Main Street Community Center about building a joint facility and it considered selling its current site to offset the cost of renting, however, in that scenario, a levy increase would have been needed to pay rent. Between 2000 and 2017, Schulte said the Equalized Assessed Valuation (EAV) of the property grew by 143 percent while the total levy growth the same period grew 25 percent. Prior administrations made substantial cuts to the tax levy over the last 18 years, which has led us to where we are today, he said. Because of these cuts, we werent able to save and plan for the much-needed renovation and expansion. The tax rate were proposing would bring us to the rate we were at in 2003 and we would still operate at a rate that is about 33 percent less than the rate was in 2000, he said. He said during this tax year, the township received $46.37 of a $5,636 property tax bill levied on a resident with a $224,000 home, which is the average township home value. With the proposed levy increase that would rise to $60. Schulte said that the township secured a 10-year loan at 3.75 percent to complete the project. We would only use what we need and no more, he told the audience. We are asking our local units of government to hold their respective levies, Bennyhoff said. Certainly a 30 percent increase even if it averages to $15 per household is out of the question. On Dec. 19, the Township will set its tax levy during its monthly board meeting, which will take place at Glen Carbon Firehouse #2, 430 Glen Carbon Road, at 7 p.m. Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at (618) 656-4700, ext. 31 A river runs through it Did you know that part of Illinois is actually in the state of Missouri? Most of the town of Kaskaskia was destroyed in April 1881 by flooding, as the Mississippi River shifted eastward to a new channel, taking over the lower 10 miles of the Kaskaskia River. This resulted from deforestation of the river banks during the 19th century, due to crews taking wood for fuel to feed the steamboat and railroad traffic. The river now passes east rather than west of the town, placing it in the state of Missouri. Missouri greedily tried to claim this new territory, but a court ruling said this historic town, the first capital of the state, should remain part of Illinois, even if it were on the west side of the Mississippi. This is hard to believe but Chicagoans were once denied a loan by southern Illinoisans. Shawneetown, on the Ohio River, became the main port of entry to the state by 1810. Its bank was the oldest in the state. Around 1825, four businessmen from Chicago came down and applied for a loan of about $10,000 to develop their struggling village. Bank officials turned them down saying, Chicago is too far north to ever amount to anything. Salt lick times Did you know that slavery was once legal in just one tiny part of Illinois? Around 1800, a factory was established at a salt lick located at Equality on the Saline River in Gallatin County. The salt works were such an important industry that the government allowed the owners to bring in slaves from Kentucky to do the work. The brine was placed in huge kettles and boiled until nothing was left but salt. The law allowed African slaves to be imported to the site until 1825 when the exemption expired. Yet the work continued by using indentured servants. At night the slaves slept chained to the floor in a large attic room of the John Crenshaw house. Illinois Sucker The first boom town in the United States was in Galena, Illinois, dating back to about 1825. Yet, it wasnt about gold, silver, or oil. If you remember your Latin, Galena is the word for the ore of lead. The lead was important for making musket balls and pewter. St. Louisans went there to work the mines in good weather and returned home in winter. They dubbed Illinoisans they met suckers for the fish in the river there. Illinoisans returned the compliment and called their tormentors Missouri pukes. Both nicknames lasted until about 1880. Abe Lincoln said he was proud to be an Illinois sucker. Bill Nunes, of Glen Carbon, has written dozens of books including The Buster Wortman Story and History of the St. Louis Cardinals, both in color, to Jans Hallmark Shop locations. Nunes taught history for 30 years at Collinsville and Edwardsville high schools. ST. LOUIS During the month of December, African Vision of Hope in Maryville flew three teachers and administrators from Lusaka, Zambia, to St. Louis to visit as the first step of a three-year partnership with Westminster Christian Academy in west St. Louis County. Lawrence, the Zambian superintendent of schools; Salome, the head teacher at a school in Kafue; and, Mwansa, the high school math teacher at a school in Chongwe, arrived in St. Louis on Dec. 3 and stayed until Friday. The people in the group live and work in rural Zambia, so stepping on an airplane and experiencing the marvels of modern technology for the past few weeks has been fascinating to them. The visitors also experienced snow for the first time. They were fascinated with the snow; before they had only seen it in movies, said Rachel Goodhue with African Vision of Hope in Maryville. We have learned many things but one main thing I will take back with me is that you can integrate Biblical themes into any class you teach, whether it be math, science, art, business, and even robotics, Mwansa said. They are not just giving children facts about math, but they are also bringing in themes of Gods creation. My mind was blown! I learned that math is a subject where children can learn very much about God. The teacher showed us how you can teach students to critically think and explore the universe in order to appreciate Gods creation, even through subjects like math. We have been able to learn so much. The faculty themselves are chosen specifically and are trained on this curriculum before they even begin teaching. This helps them achieve their purpose as a Christian school. The families are connected to the school and are involved in their students lives. They have parents who volunteer every day. The partnership of parent and teacher is so strong that they give service to the school at their own will. That is one of the greatest things I have been able to take home. We have enjoyed seeing how things are done and seeing how much teachers are involved in everything that goes on here every person is just awesome. In our language, there is a saying, As if they were born from one mother. That is the unity we feel like brothers and sisters. In every staff that we have met, there is that passion and zeal to teach these children. We have so much information to take back to Zambia. Our time here has been so valuable. Salome looks forward to taking everything they have learned back to Zambia and working to implement it schools. This will not happen overnight for us, but at least we have a starting point to begin from. Change is hard, especially when people are set in their ways but they will have to adapt. We are nervous and excited to try this at home and there is a lot we can do to make this happen. During their time at Westminster, the visitors: Met former St. Louis Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny and listened to him share his life story; Observed and interviewed teachers and staff from a variety of departments - art, math, science, business, music, theater, Bible, history, robotics, college counselors and more; Interviewed students and parents; Attended concerts and services at local churches and colleges. At a later date, the partnership will provide for Westminster Christian Academy teachers and staff flying to Zambia to complete additional training with local African Vision of Hope teachers. African Vision of Hope is a Christian organization committed to bringing immediate and lasting solutions to children and families living in extreme poverty. The group confronts the root causes of poverty by providing opportunities to become educated, grow up healthy, develop leadership and economic skills and learn about Gods love. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Seoul, South Korea Sun, April 24, 2016 North Korea on Friday fired a ballistic missile into the sea, days after their leader Kim Jong Un ordered tests likely aimed at developing technology it needs to acquire in order to build a reliable missile capable of reaching the US mainland. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile flew 800 kilometers (500 miles) before crashing off the North's east coast on Friday. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it wasn't immediately known what type of missile was fired. South Korean media said it was believed to be a medium-range Rodong missile. On Tuesday, North Korea's state media said Kim had ordered tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying warheads. North Korea also said it simulated test of a re-entry vehicle aimed at return a nuclear warhead into the atmosphere from space so it could hit its intended target. This led South Korean analysts to suspect that the North would likely fire a missile soon to test the re-entry technology. Some analysts had also predicted the North might install on a dummy device on a missile or even empty warheads, which contain trigger devices but lack plutonium or uranium, to see if those warhead's parts can survive the high pressure and temperatures upon re-entry into the atmosphere and if they were able to detonate at right time. Outside experts said it is the last major technology that North Korea must master to achieve its goal of developing a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland. South Korean defense officials said North Korea hadn't yet to acquire the re-entry technology so that it doesn't yet have a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile. Friday's launch came amid a heightened international standoff over the North's weapons programs in the wake of its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year. In recent weeks, North Korea threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul and test-fired short-range missiles and artillery into the sea in response to tough U.N. sanctions imposed over its nuclear test and rocket launch. The North says it needs nuclear weapons to cope with what it calls US military threats. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Inforial (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia Tue, December 11, 2018 11:10 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e18cbd9 4 Inforial Free For the recent United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) assembly, which was held from Nov. 26 to 28 in Bangkok, Thailand, the Indonesian delegation chief H. Nofrijal had convinced delegates from 50 other Asia-Pacific countries to appoint Filipino delegate Juan Antonio Perez III to be the assemblys chair. With its slogan 70 years of connecting Asia and the Pacific, the ESCAP is the regional socio-economic development arm for the Asia-Pacific region. Nofrijal, who also serves as the National Population and Family Planning Boards secretary-general, said the Indonesian delegates supported Perez for his expertise on the issue of development and population, both highly pressing issues in Indonesia. Perez also serves as the executive director of the Philippines Commission on Population. The assemblys vice chairs are Afghanistans Abdul Naeem and Fijis Yosefa Korovuito, both of whom have doctoral degrees in the field of socio-economic development. The results of the assembly are to be presented at the upcoming 52nd UN Commission on Population and Development assembly from April 1 to 5, 2019 in New York, the United States, as well as at the 75th global ESCAP assembly in May 2019, also to be held in New York. The Asia-Pacific is home to 4.1 billion people, two-thirds of the worlds population, and it is made up of 53 member states and nine associate members, with a geographical scope that stretches from Turkey in the west to the Pacific Island nations of Kiribati in the east, in addition to the Russian Federation in the north to New Zealand in the south. Due to the size of the Asia-Pacific region itself, ESCAP has become the most comprehensive of the UNs five regional commissions, in addition to being the largest UN body serving the Asia-Pacific region with more than 600 staff members. Established in 1947 with headquarters in Bangkok, the ESCAP works to overcome some of the regions greatest challenges by providing result-oriented projects, technical assistance and capacity-building programs to its member states in the following areas: Macroeconomic policy, poverty reduction and financing for development; Trade, investment and innovation; Transportation; Environment and development; Information and communications technology, as well as disaster risk reduction; Social development; Statistics; Subregional activities for development; and Energy. ESCAP promotes rigorous analysis and peer learning in its core areas of work before translating its findings into policy dialogues and recommendations to provide good development practices, knowledge sharing and technical assistance to member states in their implementation of these recommendations. The organization uses its convening power to bring countries together to address issues through regional cooperation. ESCAP also provides a forum for its member states to promote regional cooperation and collective action in pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its sustainable development goals (SDGs) through the pursuit of economic growth and equity. Furthermore, ESCAP also gives stronger participation to the smaller and often left-out voices of the region, the least developed countries, the small island developing states and the landlocked developing states. In carrying out its activities, ESCAP is strengthened by its more than 50 years of experience as a regional think tank. The organization finds its biggest challenge in attempting to bring together the regions 680 million poor people into the economic mainstream to enable everybody to achieve a better standard of living as envisaged in the charter of the UN. The three-day assembly in Bangkok sought to be a new strategic milestone in ESCAPs career in socio-economic development. Furthermore, the assembly also served as an opportunity to evaluate the implementation of the resolutions formulated 24 years ago during the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, according to ESCAP Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, also an economics professor at the University of Padjajaran in Bandung, West Java. Indonesian delegation chief and National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) principal secretary H. Nofrijal (second right) poses for photographs with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) executive secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (left) and the Indonesian representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Melania Hidayat (third right) at the opening of the ESCAP assembly in Bangkok, Thailand. (./.) The conference, held in September 1994, was attended by representatives from 179 UN member countries, Indonesia included. Armida added that in the 24 years after the Cairo conference, the Asia-Pacific countries had witnessed various new emerging problems: its aging population, the emergence of the productive age cohort and rapid population growth. Armida, who from 2009 to 2014 served as Indonesias national development planning minister, added that although Indonesia had recently seen an increase of its middle class populace, but the region was still struggling with a high poverty rate. The regions biggest obstacle to achieving the 2030 SDGs, she asserted, was its high socio-economic inequality, which hampered the disadvantaged populaces access to social services. She also pointed to gender inequality in terms of job opportunities: Among members of the productive age cohort whom ESCAP had surveyed across 33 Asia-Pacific countries, female workers had 21 percent less access to job opportunities than their male counterparts. Besides Nofrijal and Armida being there, the three-day assembly was also attended by representatives from various Indonesian institutions that concern themselves with development and population issues, such as the prominent Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association and the Indonesian chapter of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). The assembly also featured speeches by high-level delegates such as UNFPA New York managing director Laura London and Thailands Foreign Affairs Minister Vijayat Isarabakti. Besides the issues of aging population and socio-economic inequality, the region also faces huge problems related to non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and their corresponding cardiovascular diseases. About 76 to 83 percent of the diseases total prevalence rate, according to regional research findings, have been caused by unhealthy lifestyles associated with the regions gradual transition into a more industrialized society. The assemblys delegates also addressed their own national issues. Iran, for example, recently faced some problems in the transition of its demographics from a productive age cohort into an aging population. In Cambodia, meanwhile, the countrys growing teenage population is facing a problem regarding proper reproductive health education. The Indonesian delegates in particular claimed in their statement that 24 years after the 1994 Cairo ICPD, Indonesia had already achieved significant improvements in the areas of birth control, reproductive health, gender equality and population control. The countrys total fertility rate, for instance, has already declined over the years to 2.4 children per mother, thanks to a supposed increase in the use of contraceptives. Indonesia is striving to mainstream its family planning program to villages and remote areas to maximize its implementation across the nation. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kunang Helmi (The Jakarta Post) Paris Tue, December 11, 2018 17:14 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1a8544 3 Art & Culture Amnesty-International,Human-Rights-Day,human-rights-abuse,human-rights,photo-exhibition,Paris,France,exhibition Free Amnesty International is celebrating seven decades of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with an innovative photo exhibition, which was inaugurated on Dec. 6. Besides the photo exhibition, visitors can also visit the Musee de lHomme at Place du Trocadero, but more about that later. The "Les Uns envers les Autres (Our Responsibilities to Each Other) exhibition, which is free of charge, is right in the center of Paris at Galerie Wanted, 23 Rue du Roi de Sicile and runs until Jan. 12. It is an important reminder that these basic rights are still vital to uphold because transgressions are constantly occurring all over the globe. The curators, Fany Dupechez and Pascal Michaut, were assisted by Alexandre Jalbert and Pauline David of Amnesty International Paris who managed to rope in the following artists or photographers: Bruce Gilden, Claudia Huidobro, Ulrich Lebeuf, Sebastian Liste, Lorenzo Meloni, Zanele Muholi, Yann Rabanier, Anton Renborg, Smith and the photo agency, Tendance Floue. Seven decades have elapsed since 48 nations were inspired to wipe out the horrors of World War II. At Palais de Chaillot, their representatives signed the declaration to protect human rights with 30 special articles, commencing with the basic right to be born in freedom, in dignity and with equal access to commodities such as food, water and housing. The 1948 declaration defined the ethical foundations designed to guarantee that such a war should never again take place because the dignity of every human being would be respected without any exception. The contemporary artists and photographers, mentioned above, studied each of the 30 articles contained in the declaration, and were asked to interpret their own innovative versions of how to uphold these basic human rights, or to present images illustrating those who should be protected. The curators appealed to their creative imagination to illustrate transgressions of these universal human rights up until our day. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, the founder and former director of the Organization for Social Development in Sudan. (Magnum Photos/Bruce Gilden) Magnum photographer Bruce Gildens black and white portraits were imposing, considering their large size. One image was printed on a sheet and fluttered in the wind, while his other portraits were aligned one after the other. Spanish photographer Sebastian Liste paired color prints of indigenous Brazilian tribe members next to the environment that they inhabit and which is threatened by extinction. These impressive print diptychs perfectly illustrated ever-present dangers for indigenous peoples in general. Others participating in the show took a more artistic approach. As an example, contemporary artist Claudia Huidobro used paper photo prints from the archives of the Tendance Floue agency to pleat and frame in a novel approach. Read also: Exhibition showcases inmates' hopes and dreams At the opening, Huidobro admitted, I really had to wade through literally thousands of images from the archives until I narrowed my choice down to what I thought was essential. Thus, visitors are stimulated to comprehend the significance of the image, while also admiring the artistic liberty taken with the work of the photographers who were sent on mission all over the globe. The main objective for Amnesty International remains the fact that human liberty demands constant vigilance and energy to uphold and defend. Myths of justice in the Amazon Forest (NOOR Images/Sebastian Liste) Myths of justice in the Amazon Forest (NOOR Images/Sebastian Liste) A short, but pithy video shown here reminds visitors of what has happened since the original signature. Global events attest to the fact that we should remain vigilant and defend those who are weaker and less able to cope with violations of these basic rights. Ranging from the fate of refugees and the homeless, the rights of women, the rights of those who do not conform to societys norms to those who are employed and harassed by their superiors, we only have to open our eyes to take in what is happening around us. At the Musee de lHomme, a show is also celebrating the 70th anniversary of the declaration. The exhibition, focusing on human rights across the world, is by famous photographer Sebastiao Salgado and runs until June 30. Salgado and his wife curated the show, displaying about 30 huge black and white format prints in the auditorium hall of the museum. The stunning prints, which encapsulate over 40 years of his work, were chosen from many countries beginning with Afghanistan, including Indonesia. The Brazilian-born photographer is in fact known mainly for his landscapes that incorporate those who work under duress without any rights at all. In the case of Indonesia, indigenous tribes are being driven off their land due to various factors. The range of offenses against human dignity is indeed vast. Therefore, we should keep our eyes and senses open to all injustices being committed around us. (kes) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. The 7.4-magnitude earthquake that wrought devastation in Central Sulawesi on Sept. 28 was a scientific prophecy that came true. Armed with evidence of similar catastrophes in the area more than a century ago, scientists had warned of a potential tectonic calamity years before the monstrous quake struck, triggering a tsunami and land liquefaction. by Safrin La Batu & Kharishar Kahfi The danger they referred to is the 500-kilometer fault line bisecting Sulawesi from the Palu Bay in the north to the Bone Bay in the south. It is the second-longest after the Sumatran fault line, which spans 1,900 km. History shows that the seemingly dormant monster violently shakes the Earth every 130 years or so. The next-to-latest disaster occurred in 1909. Then, according to Dutch scientists, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed Central Sulawesi villages. Due to the confluence of three major tectonic plates, the Indo- Australia, Pacific and Eurasia, Sulawesi is known to have many active faults. The Center for National Quake Studies noted that the number of faults jumped to 48 last year from just 12 in 2010. But characteristically, the repeated warnings and calls for serious mitigations in Central Sulawesi had fallen on deaf ears. And this ignorance irks Trinirmalaningrum, a geo... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, December 6, 2018 09:17 1090 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e0aa19e 1 National Papua,Istaka-Karya,Komnas-HAM,violence,killing Free The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has urged the National Police, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the government to be transparent in investigating the mass killing of construction workers in Nduga regency, Papua. A rebel group led by Egianus Kogoya allegedly massacred 19 workers hired by state-owned construction firm Istaka Karya to work on the trans-Papua road project in Yigi district, authorities said. The group, believed to be a faction of the National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPNPB), also killed a TNI member and injured another on the following day. Commission chairman Ahmad Taufan Damanik said that whoever was behind such brutal and inhumane actions could not be tolerated. He said the government should pay more attention to this case, because killings in Papua had happened repeatedly. We ask the law enforcement authorities to immediately arrest and process the suspects. We ask for the case to be as transparent as possible, Damanik said at his office on Wednesday. He added that the background of killings in Papua often remained unclear. The commission also requested that President Joko Jokowi Widodo ensure the protection of witnesses and guarantee that costs for the physical and non-physical recovery of victims and witnesses are covered. I also hope that the Witness and Victim Protection Agency can work together with the government to handle this matter, he said. (ggq) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, December 5, 2018 13:31 1090 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e09505d 1 National Papua,violence,Istaka-Karya,TNI,military,massacre,#PapuaMassacre Free Jimmi Aritonang, a father of four, had only recently started his job as a foreman working on a bridge in Nduga regency, Papua, for state-owned construction company PT Istaka Karya when a nightmare ordeal began. In the span of three days, Jimmi said he and 24 other Istaka Karya workers were kidnapped, tied up, forcefully marched and shot at by gunmen linked to the Free Papua Movement (OPM) Jimmi, who told his story to the Cendrawasih military command and gave the first first-hand account of what had transpired, managed to escape by playing dead. But at least 19 of his fellow workers were killed by the rebels. Based on the testimony of a surviving witness [Jimmi], the number of victims who are confirmed to have been massacred by gunmen near the Puncak Kabo hill is 19, Cendrawasih military command spokesman Col. Muhammad Aidi said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com. Jimmi told Aidi that all the employees of state-owned construction firm PT Istaka Karya in Nduga regency, Wamena, had decided not to work on Dec. 1, because armed rebels were celebrating the anniversary of the National Liberation Army of West Papua that day. Despite the precaution, on Saturday afternoon around 50 armed gunmen raided the workers camp and forced all 25 people to walk toward the Karunggame River. On Sunday, the workers were once again forced to move, this time toward the Puncak Kabo hill. On the way there, they were ordered to squat and line up in five rows. Not long after that, the gunmen started to dance around while yelling out jungle noises unique to rural Papua. Then they brutally shot at the workers. Some workers were shot dead on the spot while others played dead on the ground, Aidi said. The gunmen then left the victims and continued their journey to Puncak Kabo. The 11 workers who played dead then attempted to make their escape. Unfortunately, they were spotted by the gunmen and were chased. Five people were caught and killed, while six others managed to escape to Mbua. Two remain missing while four, including Jimmi Aritonang, were saved after being secured by TNI [Indonesian Military] forces in Mbua, he said. Jimmis ordeal did not end there though, as early on Monday, the TNI post where Jimmi and his friends were being secured was attacked by a group of rebels armed with guns, arrows and spears. It turned out that they were still chasing [the workers], Aidi said. One soldier was killed and another injured in the attack. He added that a joint TNI-National Police task force had since successfully secured Mbua and moved the victims. Jimmis brother-in-law, Lefrend Siahaan, said his family was overjoyed by Jimmis miracle escape. Now that we know he survived, our extended family is so relieved, he said. Thank you, Lord Jesus. You always provide Your miracles to us. Thank you, Lord. (kmt) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, December 6, 2018 13:58 1089 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e0bf0ee 1 National zumi-zola,graft,KPK,corruption,Jambi Free The Jakarta Corruption Court has sentenced non-active Jambi governor Zumi Zola Zulkifli to six years behind bars after finding him guilty of accepting gratuity and channeling bribes to provincial legislative council members in transactions related to the deliberation of provincial budgets. Judges also ordered the defendant to pay a fine of Rp 500 million (US$34,362) or serve an additional three months imprisonment. We also punished him by revoking his right to run for office for five years after he serves his sentence, presiding judge Yanto said in reading the verdict during a hearing on Thursday. The sentence is lighter than the eight years' imprisonment and Rp 1 billion fine demanded by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors. After consulting with my lawyers, we decided to accept the verdict, Zumi told the bench. Previously, prosecutors indicted Zumi for allegedly channeling Rp 16 billion in bribes to dozens of Jambi Legislative Council members to influence the outcome of deliberation of the 2017 and 2018 provincial budgets. Zumi, a former actor, was also accused of accepting unlawful gifts worth over Rp 40 billion through his aides between 2016 and 2017. The consensus was reached at talks between Lieut. Gen. Hoang Xuan Chien, Commander of the Vietnamese Border Guard, and General Hun Manet, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and Commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, in Phnom Penh, on December 14. The two sides agreed to intensify the communication work, enhance solidarity and friendship between the Vietnamese and Cambodian people and create favourable conditions for residents along the shared borderline to develop production and stabilise their lives. They will also increase joint patrols, maintain talks, meetings and information exchanges in order to promptly deal with any issues related to border security, and handle emerging problems in the spirit of solidarity, friendship and mutual understanding. Meanwhille, the two sides will tighten cooperation in the fight against crimes, terrorism, drugs and illegal cross-border trading of weapons. At the talks, the two sides also pointed out various limitations that Vietnam and Cambodia need to overcome in order to create breakthroughs in the bilateral relationship for the interests and development target of each nation. Lieut. Gen. Chien briefed those present on the outcomes of cooperation between Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as the border guard forces of the two countries, especially the recent visit to Vietnam from December 6-8 by Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen. Congratulating Hun Manet on his appointment as Commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, Lieut. Gen. Chien expressed his hope that Hun Manet will make more contributions to the traditional relations between the Vietnamese Border Guard and Royal Cambodian Army. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arnold Belau (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura Thu, December 6, 2018 09:18 1089 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e0ac2a0 1 National Trans-Papua-road,West-Papua,West-Papua-Liberation-Army,independence,self-determination Free The West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB) has claimed responsibility for the attacks that led to the death of 19 PT Istaka Karya construction workers and one Indonesian Military (TNI) soldier in Nduga regency, Papua. However, they claimed the workers were soldiers, not civilians. Yes, we conducted the operations in Kali Aworak, Kali Yigi, and at the Mbua TNI post, and we are ready to take responsibility. The attacks were led by Makodap III Ndugama commander Egianus Kogeya and operations commander Pemne Kogeya, the spokesperson, Sebby Sanbom, said in a written statement on Wednesday. Sebby denied, however, that the workers killed were civilians, claiming that they were members of the Indonesian Army Corps of Engineers. Sebby said they had observed the workers for three months and were sure they were soldiers from Zipur working as a solid unit. Zipur is short for Zeni Tempur, an army unit specializing in engineering and technical aspects of battle infrastructure. Our targets are not wrong, we know which are civilian workers and which are TNI Zipur members, even if they wear plain clothes, he said. He added that the Papuans had not asked for the trans-Papua road the workers had been assigned to work on. Through this attack, we are telling the colonialist country of Indonesia that we are not armed criminals but true fighters for the freedom of the Republic of West Papua, he said. We did not ask for the trans-Papua road or development. The solution to the problem of Papua is independence and sovereignty as a civilized nation. (kmt) A 5.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Lebak District in Banten on Friday at 6:43 a.m., the fifth tremor of above 4-magnitude in the area this year. The earthquake was located around 83 kilometers southwest of Lebak at a depth of 19 km, according to the Lebak Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD). So far, we haven't received any reports of casualties or damage to infrastructure caused by the earthquake," Lebak BPBD Madias said as quoted by Antara news agency, adding that the earthquake was relatively small. The earthquake also did not panic people living nearby on the southern coast of Lebak, which is close to the epicenter. The current situation in the southern coastal area, including Wanasalam, Pangarangan, Cihara and Bayah remains normal, with people going about their activities as usual. Weve asked people to remain calm and not panic, Madias said. However, the agency also asked the residents to stay alert in a bid to minimize casualties. There will also be a 24-hour alert to anticipate another disaster. It was the fifth earthquake to hit the district this year. The largest one was 6.4-magnitude and occurred on Jan. 23, causing panic among people in Jakarta as some occupants of high rise buildings could feel the tremor. In March, the district was hit by another earthquake, this time of 5.2-magnitude, which was hardly felt. On July 7, another earthquake rocked Lebak, measuring only 4.4 but damaging three houses in Sukabumi, West Java. In October, the district was, again, hit by a 5.2-magnitude earthquake. (foy) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, December 7, 2018 09:43 1088 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e0f88da 1 National #PapuaMassacre,#Papua,Papua,violence,OPM,separatism,Trans-Papua-road,Jokowi-administration Free At least 20 people have been killed in Nduga regency, Papua, by an armed group with ties to the Free Papua Movement (OPM). The casualties include 19 workers of state-owned construction company PT Istaka Karya, who were assigned to build a 275-kilometer section to connect Wamena and Mamugu as part of President Joko Jokowi Widodos flagship trans-Papua road project. One Indonesian Military (TNI) soldier was also killed. What happened? According to the account of surviving Istaka Karya worker Jimmi Aritonang, which he relayed to the Cendrawasih Military Command, an armed group kidnapped 25 workers from the Istaka Karya camp in Nduga regency on Saturday and forcefully marched them to the nearby Karunggame River. On Sunday, the workers were once again forced to move, this time toward the Puncak Kabo hill. On the way there, they were ordered to squat and line up in five rows. The gunmen then shot at the workers, killing 14 on the spot, while the remaining 11 pretended to be dead. Read also: They played dead on the ground: Survivor recounts OPM massacre In this picture taken and release on December 5, 2018 by Indonesian military shows alleged survivors in Wamena, Papua province, of an alleged killing in Nduga a day before. - Indonesian soldiers hunted for rebels suspected of killing a group of construction workers in restive Papua province, the military said, as they supplied one survivor's account of a grisly mass execution. (AFP/Indonesian Military) The gunmen then left the victims and continued their journey to Puncak Kabo. The 11 workers who had played dead attempted to escape, but they were spotted. The rebels caught and killed five of them, while the other six managed to escape toward Mbua. Four, including Jimmi, have been secured by TNI forces, but the other two were still missing as of Wednesday. Early on Monday, the TNI post where Jimmi and his friends were being protected was reportedly attacked by a group of rebels armed with guns, arrows and spears. One soldier was killed and another injured in the attack. How many casualties? National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian and Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto confirmed on Wednesday that 20 people had been killed by the rebels. "Nineteen workers and one TNI [Indonesian Military] soldier died," Tito said on Wednesday. This number seems to be based on Jimmi's account. Initially, police had said that 31 workers were feared to have been killed by the gunmen. Istaka Karya president Sigit Inarto said, however, that there were only 28 workers at the location. A joint military-police task force recovered 15 bodies from the area near the location of the incident on Wednesday night. Our joint forces have found 15 bodies and will continue the search tomorrow, Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Martuani Sormin Siregar told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. Time of loss: Indonesian Military officers load coffins into a carrier aircraft in Wamena, Papua, on Thursday. Indonesian security forces have retrieved the bodies of 16 people in the aftermath of a massacre of construction workers by separatist rebels in restive Papua province, the military said on Thursday. (AFP/Staf Steel) Cendrawasih Military Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Dax Siburian said the joint military-police search team in Yigi district had found the bodies and a survivor named Johny Arung in the area around Tabo hill. Johny was evacuated to the Mbua TNI post. The bodies have not yet been identified, so we cannot confirm whether the 15 victims are all PT Istaka Karya workers, Dax told the Post. Who was responsible? A faction of the National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPNPB) led by Egianus Kogoya has claimed responsibility for the deaths of the construction workers and the TNI soldier. Yes, we conducted the operations in Kali Aworak, Kali Yigi and at the Mbua TNI post, and we are ready to take responsibility. The attacks were led by Makodap III Ndugama commander Egianus Kogeya and operations commander Pemne Kogeya, OPM spokesperson Sebby Sanbom said in a written statement on Wednesday. Sebby denied, however, that the workers killed were civilians, claiming that they were members of the Indonesian Army Corps of Engineers (Zipur). Our targets are not wrong, we know which are civilian workers and which are TNI Zipur members, even if they wear plain clothes, he said. What is the government's response? Jokowi has pledged that the government will hunt down those responsible for the shootings and that it will not halt infrastructure development in Papua. Currently, the TNI commander is in Papua to handle the attack by an armed group in Papua that has resulted in the deaths of workers that were assigned to build the trans-Papua road, Jokowi said on Wednesday. Let us pray together that the heroes of the trans-Papua development are welcomed at Gods side. I have also ordered the TNI commander and the National Police chief to pursue and arrest all the perpetrators of that savage act. He said there was no room for such armed groups in Papua or anywhere in Indonesia. This only makes us more determined to continue our great duty to develop Papua, he said. Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko called on the police and military to be proportionate in their response to the attack. The TNI should not be provoked, he said on Wednesday. The TNI and police have to show professionalism and work proportionately. He also called on domestic and foreign human rights groups to look at the incident with open eyes. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Bambang Muryanto (The Jakarta Post) Yogyakarta Sat, December 8, 2018 10:16 1087 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e11925b 2 National #Yogyakarta,#rape,UGM,apology,rape,student Free Gadjah Mada University (UGM) rector Panut Mulyono on Friday apologized to the public for the slow handling of a recent case of alleged sexual assault involving two students, which put the top university under a national spotlight. UGM leadership admits that the handling of this case has been slow and UGM apologizes for that, Panut told a press conference in Yogyakarta. Throughout the press conference, Panut avoided calling the case one of rape or attempted rape, pending consultations with legal counselors and ethics committee members. UGM acknowledges that the culture of victim-blaming is one of the reasons behind the slow progress in fulfilling the survivors rights, he added. On Nov. 5, UGM student magazine Balairung published an investigative report based on the testimony of a female student with the pseudonym Agni, who said a fellow student had assaulted her during a community service assignment at a Maluku village on June 30, 2017. The alleged perpetrator, an engineering student, has completed his undergraduate degree pending a graduation ceremony. Panut further lamented the impact of the slow handling of the case on the psychological, financial and academic progress of both the accuser and the accused. During the press conference, a group of students participated in a rally, holding posters bearing messages such as #kitaAGNI (WeAreAgni) and Im Agni. Im watching you! The universitys official apology was made after #kitaAGNI movement representatives met with UGM leaders in late November. (swd) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, December 10, 2018 08:01 1086 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e147d0a 1 National Jokowi,development,infrastructure,human-rights,Human-Rights-Day,human-rights-activists,environment,Kendeng-farmers,Kulonprogo,Kertajati-Airport Free Indonesia is an increasingly dangerous place for people defending the environment and their land, activists have claimed, with recent data showing environmentalists being the most persecuted activists over the past four years. According to Protection International Indonesia data, about 80 percent of cases of human rights violations against activists and rights defenders from 2014 to 2018 involved environmentalists, many of whom have been sent to jail on what activists believe are dubious or legally flawed charges. During this period, the group recorded at least 104 cases of rights violations involving environmentalists and people defending their lands. By comparison, only 10 cases involving antigraft activists were recorded during the same period, and only 11 cases involving environmental defenders from 2010 to 2013. Activists have pinned the blame for this spike on the ongoing development drive, including in infrastructure, of President Joko Jokowi Widodo, saying that the Presidents development policies lack environmental and human rights perspectives. The Jokowi administration has allocated 410.4 trillion (US$28.2 billion) for infrastructure development this year. The figure is more than twice the budget allocation in the 2014 state budget (about Rp 177 trillion) under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonos administration. Jokowi, who is seeking reelection next year, has also been touting infrastructure development in his election campaigns. Protection International Indonesia recorded that at least 89 environmentalists were imprisoned for their activism during the last four years, making alleged criminalization by state actors the most common form of human rights violation against activists. This number includes four residents defending their lands in Kulonprogo, Yogyakarta, against the development of an international airport compound and six others in West Java also fighting for their land against another airport development. Six people from Mount Kendeng in Central Java who have been fighting against cement factories are also in the list. The 14 people from the three different cases all faced criminal charges as a result of their protests, the list shows Another recent example was the sentencing of Heri Budiawan, also known as Budi Pego, to four years in prison for spreading communism. The activist was arrested in September 2017 for allegedly displaying a banner with a hammer-and-sickle logo during a protest against gold mining activities in Tumpang Pitu, a mountainous area in Banyuwangi, East Java, that is believed to be prone to environmental degradation. Tumpang Pitu had been designated a protected forest area, but on Nov. 19, 2013, then forestry minister Zulkifli Hasan, now the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker and National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman, issued a decree changing the status of 1,942 hectares of protected forest to production forest in Tumpang Pitu, paving the way for mining operations to begin. Other than being criminalized, environmentalists have also been facing intimidation and violence. In September 2015, a 52-year-old farmer named Salim, or Kancil, was beaten to death by a group of people in Selok Awar-Awar subdistrict, Pasirian district after co-arranging a protest against invasive sand-mining in his village. The protest halted the quarrying and blocked dozens of trucks transporting the sand. Protection International Indonesia director Damairia Pakpahan said economic development that disregarded environmental aspects was the main reason behind violations of the human rights of environmentalists. They only pursue profits without caring about the environmental rights, Pakpahan told The Jakarta Post on Saturday. She argued that neither the government nor corporations followed universal human rights standards in development, as the nation had yet to draft a legal instrument to outline such standards. Our law enforcement officials have no clue about environmental rights, let alone have an awareness about human rights, she said. Other than environmentalists, human rights defenders, labor activists and womens activists are also still facing the same risks. Protection International Indonesia has recorded a total of 145 violations against those activists since 2010. There are some names like Eva Bande, Mama Aletha Alomang, Mama Aletha Baun, who are womens human rights defenders and also environmentalists. Pakpahan said that clear legal policies regarding activism were badly needed. At the very least, she said, the government should educate officials about the rights of activists as stipulated in the current legislation. For example, there is already legal protection for environmentalists as stipulated under Article 66 of the 2009 Environmental Law. However, criminal charges against environmentalists still occur in Indonesia. National Commission on Human Rights commissioner Beka Ulung Hapsara said that the policies should not only protect activists, but also citizens who fight for their rights. Citizens who fight against these [abuses] have also experienced various violations. Law enforcers also play a role in this because they often make accusations without looking at the context, he said. With regard to the environmentalists, he said the government should formulate a national standard of business and human rights as a reference for law enforcers and developers, including state-owned enterprises. The commission also suggested that the government establish a special agency to resolve agrarian conflictswhich often lead to human rights violationsto better protect both citizens and environmentalists. The law enforcers should be on the same page as us [] so that violations against them will not happened again in the future, Hapsara said. (ggq) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, December 9, 2018 19:25 1086 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e150f3f 2 National Nduga,Papua,shooting,separatists,military,TNI,National-Police Free A spokesperson for the Indonesian Militarys (TNI) Cendrawasih Military Command, Lt. Col. Dax Sianturi, denied reports that a joint team of military and police personnel involved in a rescue mission to save victims of recent mass shootings in Nduga, Papua, had carried explosives or fired guns during the process. Its fake news, he said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co. He said the helicopter utilized to carry dead bodies on Dec. 2 was a logistics carrier. It was not an assault vehicle. So how could we use bombs? he said. Tabloidjubi.com reported that four civilians were shot dead when security personnel tried to retrieve the bodies of construction workers of state-owned company PT Istaka Karya that had been shot by an armed group linked to the Free Papua Movement (OPM). Samuel Tabuni, a youth leader, said his relatives were shot by the security personnel. Two in Mbua, Two in Yigi. They were shot during the rescue process, said Samuel as quoted by tabloidjubi.com. After rescuing victims and civilians, the joint security team is still looking five construction workers who remain missing. Papua Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Ahmad Kamal said PT Istaka Karya recorded 28 workers in the camp in Yigi district, where the killings took place. At least 16 died during the attack by the armed group that was led by Egianus Kogoya. Among the casualties was an employee of the Papua road project. Seven workers were found alive, three of whom are injured and receiving treatment at Caritas Timika Hospital. A member of the polices Mobile Brigade is also being treated at the hospital for injuries. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung Mon, December 10, 2018 16:36 1085 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e176314 1 National Sunbear,Bandung-zoo,bandung,animal-conservation,animal-welfare Free Bandung Zoo in West Java has celebrated the first birthday of Rika, a one-year-old female sun bear, in its bid to respond to public doubt regarding the health and wellbeing of the zoos animals. The zoos marketing communication officer Sulhan Syafii said on Sunday that Rikas father, Kardit drew public attention in 2016 because the animal looked malnourished and appeared to beg for food from visitors in a viral video. Sulhan said Rika was Kardits sixth offspring. Kardit is old, but he is healthy, he said. During the celebration, animal caretaker Lia Marlia went into the sun bear enclosure carrying a message saying Rika, Happy Birthday. A number of gift boxes containing food were also placed in the enclosure. Rika, a one-year-old sunbear in Bandung Zoo on Sunday. (JP/Arya Dipa) The party was made even merrier with a busker singing a version of Selamat Ulang Tahun (Happy Birthday), popularized by rock band Jamrud. Rika weighed 400 grams when she was born and is currently 25 kilograms. A sun bear can weigh up to 65 kilograms, although it is the smallest of the eight bear species in the world. But its tongue is the longest, the zoos veterinarian Josephine Bernadeth said, adding that a sun bears pregnancy lasted 96 days. Sun bears are considered unique because of the yellow, white or orange markings on their chest. Often the marks form a semi circle shape like a sun. In its natural habitat, the animal lives in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Indochina, Myanmar and the Malay Peninsula. Unlike polar bears and grizzly bears, sun bears do not hibernate. Naturally, sun bears live in primary and secondary forests, usually in trees some two to seven meters from the ground. Damage to their habitat, field fragmentation and illegal hunting have threatened their existence in the wild. The International Union for Conservation Nature (IUCN) puts sunbears on the red list with a status of vulnerable, four steps away from extinction. Sulhan said Rika was proof the animal could be successfully bred outside of its natural habitat. We also continue sun bear exchanges to prevent incest so as not to disturb their existence, he said, adding that in September the zoo gave a bear to a conservation institution in Surakarta, Central Java. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, December 10, 2018 11:19 1085 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1690e7 1 National blackpink,KPI,Shopee,Advertisement,children Free More than 85,000 people have signed a petition demanding the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) stop airing an ad for online store Shopee that features South Korean girlband BLACKPINK, a brand ambassador for the e-commerce company. A mother, Maimon Herawati, started the petition on change.org on Friday. In her statement, she deemed that the girlbands outfits were too short. "A group of women wearing skimpy outfits. What kind of subconscious values do we want to instill in our children with this vulgar ad that flaunts aurat [intimate parts]? The clothes do not even cover the thighs. Movement and expression are provocative. It is really far from [state-ideology] Pancasila values," she wrote on the petition. She also made a post on her Facebook account, showing a screenshot of the video, in which she blurs the legs of the four members of the band. The ad has been aired during several children programs. One of them even aired this ad every few minutes, Herawati said. At least, the KPI could regulate what kind of ads are appropriate to be aired during our childrens programs, she added. After her petition went viral, a fan of BLACKPINK launched her own counter petition on change.org, which had 27,000 signatures by Monday morning. The petition, started by Uci Fauzia, calls on the commission to not stop the ad. In the statement, she said that people should be more open-minded. Open your mind. Be smart, people, she said. As the regional brand ambassador, BLACKPINK starred in the commercial that has garnered close to 27 million YouTube views since it was published on Nov. 18. (ggq/evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) East Aceh, Indonesia Tue, December 11, 2018 19:47 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1ac091 2 National #Aceh,#Sharia,aceh,caning,men,gambling,public-caning Free A group of men caught gambling were publicly whipped in Indonesia's conservative Muslim province of Aceh on Tuesday as a crowd of onlookers cheered. The half dozen men were arrested this year at an internet cafe for online gambling -- an offence under Islamic law -- earning them between seven and 11 strokes each from a rattan cane. At least one of the men winced in pain as a masked sharia officer lashed his back outside a mosque in East Aceh district. Dozens in the crowd jeered and called for the men to be whipped harder. "They have violated the Qanun Jinayah (Islamic law) by being involved in gambling," Muliana, head of the general crime unit at the local prosecutors' office, told AFP. Public flogging is a common punishment in Aceh for a range of offences including gambling, drinking alcohol, and having gay sex or relations outside of marriage. Located at the northern tip of Sumatra island, it is the only province in the world's largest Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law. Aceh adopted sharia after it was granted special autonomy in 2001, an attempt by the central government to quell a long-running separatist insurgency. Rights groups slam public caning as cruel, and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has called for it to end. But the practice has wide support among Aceh's mostly Muslim population -- around 98 percent of its five million residents practise Islam. Earlier this year, Aceh said that flogging would be carried out behind prison walls in future, but some local governments have continued public whippings. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Brussels, Belgium Tue, December 11, 2018 19:07 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1ab4bc 2 World #UK,#Brexit,France,warning,no-deal Free The Brexit accord that has stumbled in the British parliament is the "only deal possible" and Europe must prepare for London to crash out without an agreement, France warned Tuesday. France's minister for European affairs, Nathalie Loiseau, sounded the alarm bells in Brussels as Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May embarked on a lightning mini-tour of EU capitals to beg for support. "The withdrawal agreement is the only one possible," she said, echoing previous warnings from EU leaders Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, presidents of the European Commission and European Council. On Monday, May abandoned an attempt to push the divorce deal she brokered with EU leaders last month through a hostile House of Commons, triggering dismay in European capitals who fear more chaos ahead. "Our responsibility is to prepare for a 'no deal' because it's a hypothesis that is not unlikely," Loiseau said, suggesting Britain could leave the EU on March 29 without arrangements to keep trade flowing. "I'm very worried," she added. "A Brexit without an agreement would be very bad news for the United Kingdom and would have consequences for France." May was due in Brussels later in the day to see Juncker and Tusk, after meeting Dutch premier Mark Rutte in the Hague and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. She has no plans to meet France's President Emmanuel Macron before Thursday's EU summit. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, December 11, 2018 16:04 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1a3ddc 1 National Nduga,Papua,Wiranto Free Four workers of state-owned construction company PT Istaka Karya are still missing after an attack nearly two weeks ago led by an armed group with ties to the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in Nduga regency, Papua, a senior minister has said. Authorities have so far recovered the bodies of 17 victims who were killed in the attack, while another four workers were found alive, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto told a press conference on Tuesday. A joint police-military task force is still searching for the remaining four missing workers, who, according to survivors accounts, had been able to escape but suffered from stab wounds, he said. "We hope that we will be able to find [the four] alive because they are actually our [infrastructure] development heroes," Wiranto said on Tuesday. The 25 victims, who were kidnapped by rebels from the Istaka Karya camp in Nduga on Dec. 1, had been working on the construction of a 275-kilometer stretch of road connecting Wamena and Mamugu as part of President Joko Jokowi Widodos flagship trans-Papua highway project. In the meantime, security forces have continued their hunt for a National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPNPB) faction led by Egianus Kogoya that had claimed responsibility for the deaths of the construction workers and one Indonesian Military (TNI) soldier. The TPNPB, however, claimed that the workers were not civilians, but members of the Indonesian Army Corps of Engineers (ZIPUR). "The enemy [TPNPB], who attempted to retaliate, have escaped and the authorities are still making an effort to run after them," Wiranto said, "They have spread propaganda to scare people [...] They have committed inhumane crimes and we must fight against them." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, December 11, 2018 15:08 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1a044f 1 National Susi-Pudjiastuti,Twitter,sinking-boat Free Between her day job as a government official, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti is well known as a cheeky Twitter user. She has become a favorite on the social media platform for her witty ways of informing people and raising awareness about fisheries, as well as her friendly responses. But sometimes the Twitteratis go too far. Bu Susi, is it true that the most noble profession is a fisherman? Because they help sinking fish. Is it really true that clown fish are often rented for birthday parties? Do they have a WhatsApp number?" Ibu, may I ask, if we can upgrade suckermouth catfish, can we call them vacuum cleaners?" After responding to too many jokes about fish, she finally had enough. Today's announcement from the Minister: To anyone who asked silly and weird questions about fish, I will sink you!!!!!!! she tweeted on Monday. Pengumuman hari ini dr Menteri KKP: yang bertanya macam & aneh & tidak masuk akal tentang Ikan, Saya tenggelamkan !!!!!!! Susi Pudjiastuti (@susipudjiastuti) December 10, 2018 This tweet got more than 3,000 retweets and 7,800 likes since it was posted. Tenggelamkan or sink it became a catchphrase after the administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo began sinking any boats caught fishing illegally in the countrys waters. Susi has made waves since the beginning of her assignment as a no-nonsense leader by fearlessly enforcing tough measures in order to protect Indonesias waters. So far, Susi has ordered to sink 363 boats. In 2017, she ordered the sinking of around 87 boats. She said the boat sinking was part of the implementation of Law No. 45/2009 on fisheries. She added that the ministry only sank ships that had been found guilty of operating illegally by the courts. We only execute a court decision, she said as reported by kompas.com. (ggq) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Deborah Jones with Michel Comte in Ottawa (Agence France-Presse) Vancouver, Canada Wed, December 12, 2018 10:24 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1e1877 2 World #China,#Canada,Beijing,arrest,Canada,Huawei,executive Free A top Huawei executive facing US accusations of Iran sanctions violations was granted bail in Canada on Tuesday, hours after a former Canadian diplomat was said to have been detained in China, intensifying a diplomatic standoff between the North American allies and Beijing. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, faces extradition to the United States, where she is wanted for allegedly violating Iran sanctions, but Beijing has expressed outrage over her detention and is holding a former Canadian diplomat in China, intensifying the row. "The risk of (Meng's) non-attendance in court can be reduced to an acceptable level by imposing the bail conditions proposed by her counsel," a judge in Vancouver said, prompting the courtroom packed with her supporters to erupt in cheers. The list of strict conditions of her release pending the outcome of the extradition case is lengthy, and includes the surrender of her passports and electronic monitoring. She was expected to be released shortly, and will be allowed to stay at a luxury home owned by her husband Liu Xiaozong in Vancouver. US President Donald Trump said he may intervene in the American case against her to further the trade relationship with China. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made -- which is a very important thing, what's good for national security - I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," he told Reuters. In a statement, Huawei said it is confident the Canadian and US judiciaries will "reach a just conclusion in the following proceedings." "As we have stressed all along, Huawei complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries and regions where we operate, including export control and sanction laws of the UN, US and EU." Meng is accused of lying to bankers about the use of a covert subsidiary to sell to Iran in breach of sanctions. If convicted, she faces more than 30 years in prison. The extradition process, scheduled to start on February 6, could take months, even years, if appeals are made in the case. The United States must submit details of the accusations for the Canadian court to consider. Earlier, the three-way diplomatic standoff over her arrest intensified with the news that China had detained Canadian national Michael Kovrig. The former diplomat once served in Beijing but was there on unpaid leave, sources told AFP. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau voiced concern over the detention that his ministers said was very troubling. "This has our attention at the very highest level of our government," said Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, adding to concerns voiced by the International Crisis Group think tank, Kovrig's employer, which first raised the alarm. China had expressed outrage over Meng's arrest in Vancouver and warned of "grave consequences" if she were not released, although Canada said no link between the two cases had been established. Washington, which requested Meng's detention to have her extradited to US soil, called on Beijing to abide by its commitments to human rights. "We urge China to end all forms of arbitrary detentions and to respect the protections and freedom of all individuals under China's international human rights and consular commitments," deputy State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters. - Electronic monitoring - Meng was arrested on December 1 while changing planes in Vancouver on the first leg of a round-the-world business trip with stops in South America and Europe. "Given her unique profile as the face of a Chinese corporate national champion, if she were to flee or breach her order in any way in these very unique circumstances, it does not overstate to say she would embarrass China itself," Meng's lawyer David Martin argued in court on Monday. Meng also said in a 55-page affidavit that she'd suffered numerous health problems, including surgery for thyroid cancer in 2011, and has been treated in a Vancouver hospital for hypertension since her arrest. "I continue to feel unwell and I am worried about my health deteriorating while I am incarcerated," the affidavit read. "I wish to remain in Vancouver to contest my extradition and I will contest the allegations at trial in the US if I am ultimately surrendered." During a break in the proceedings, Martin said Meng had confided that she had been "working hard for 25 years" and actually looked forward to a break to spend with family, read novels and maybe apply to a doctorate program while the extradition case played out. Her husband Liu Xiaozong presented two Vancouver homes and Can$1 million in cash -- for a total value of Can$15 million -- as a surety for his wife's release. Four more custodians -- a local realtor, an insurance agent, a homemaker whose husband once worked for Huawei and her Vancouver neighbour, also stepped up to be guarantors. - Trade war - Meng's detention has raised tensions following a truce in the US-China trade war, with Beijing summoning both the Canadian and US ambassadors over the weekend. In a sign that the criminal case may not have derailed the detente, however, top Chinese and US negotiators spoke by telephone to discuss the timetable of trade talks, the Chinese commerce ministry said. It said in a statement that Vice Premier Liu He spoke with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned in a speech in Beijing against the "bullying" of its citizens, however. "We will fully safeguard the legitimate rights of Chinese citizens and return fairness and justice to the world," he said at the opening of a diplomatic symposium, without directly referring to the Huawei case. There was no official word from China about Kovrig. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Emmanuel Akinwpotu (Agence France-Presse) Lagos, Nigeria Wed, December 12, 2018 08:08 1084 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b008444 2 World #Nigeria,#religion,US,video,Christians,killed,Muslims Free A video uploaded to Facebook by one of US president Donald Trump's lawyers claims that 60,000 Christians have been killed by nomadic Muslim herdsmen in central Nigeria since 2001. The claim has been shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook but AFP has found no credible evidence to confirm the figure. - What are we verifying? - The video, uploaded by attorney Jay Sekulow on November 23, focuses on the long-running conflict over land and resources between ethnic Fulani Muslim cattle herders and largely Christian farmers. Central Nigeria is also called the Middle Belt and is where the country's mainly Muslim north meets the largely Christian south. It has been a flashpoint for violence for decades. The video originates from the Be Heard Project, an initiative of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian lobby group based in Washington DC. Sekulow is listed as "chief counsel" at the organisation. He has also represented Trump on the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The video claims the herders have killed 60,000 Christians since 2001, without citing a reference. AFP contacted the ACLJ to ask how it obtained the figure but it did not respond. Other organisations have published similar figures. Again, none has cited a relevant study or credible evidence. - What do we know? - The African Center for Strategic Studies has said 60,000 people have died in the conflict but combines two different statistics of total deaths in the region over separate time periods. It references a Nigerian government study reported by the BBC of 53,787 deaths in Plateau state between 2001-2004. But the government study is not related to the farmer-herder conflict. It also quotes an article in the Daily Beast, which credited a HuffPost report, that 6,500 people died in the farmer-herder conflict since 2010. But the story links to an unnamed expert without evidence to support it. The International Crisis Group has said political and religious claims of a Fulani jihadist uprising are conspiracies which have grown in response to the conflict, which is primarily about access to land and water. There are no reliable estimates for the total number of deaths since 2001 and no known estimates which divide the deaths along religious lines. The ICG has reported that some 12,000 people were killed between 2011 and 2016, and that in the first six months of 2018, 1,300 people lost their lives. Nigeria is facing violence across the country and in some northern states there are clashes between Muslim farmers and Muslim herders, indicating the underlying cause is not religion. The Global Terrorism Index 2018 acknowledges there was a "dramatic increase in violence involving Fulani extremists" in the last 12 months. It said nearly 1,700 violent deaths were attributed to "Fulani Ethnic Militia" between January and September this year. It said there had been 2,998 deaths attributed to Fulani since 2010. A December 2013 Human Rights Watch report estimated that more than 10,000 people in Plateau and neighbouring Kaduna state had been killed in communal violence since 1992. Yet the claim of Muslims targeting Christians has been spread, particularly in the United States, by groups such as Open Doors USA, which says it supports persecuted Christians, and the right-wing think-tank the Gatestone Institute. - What conclusion can we draw? - There is no credible evidence to support the claim that Muslims have killed 60,000 Christians in central Nigeria since 2001. There is no reliable death toll that identifies the religion of victims of the conflict and reports citing figures appear to have conflated wider studies about violence in the region. Attempts to catalogue the scale of the conflict -- by whatever methodology -- have given a lower death toll. Right-wing, conservative groups in the United States, however, have latched on to the narrative to further their agenda. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Strasbourg, France Wed, December 12, 2018 09:48 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1df841 2 World #France,#ShootingRampage,gunman,run,shooting,Christmas,market Free A gunman killed at least three people and wounded a dozen others at the famed Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday before fleeing the scene, authorities said. A manhunt was under way after the killer opened fire at around 8pm (1900 GMT) on one of the city's busiest streets, sending crowds of evening shoppers fleeing for safety. Soldiers patrolling the area as part of regular anti-terror operations exchanged fire with the suspect and wounded him, but could not stop him escaping, police sources said. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said early Wednesday the gunman had killed three people and wounded 12. Earlier Mayor Roland Ries had given a toll of "four dead and a dozen wounded". Castaner also said France had raised its security alert level to "emergency attack" with "the implementation of reinforced border controls and tightened controls on all Christmas markets in France to avoid the risk of a copycat" attack. The gunman has been identified and was on a watchlist of suspected extremists, a statement from local security services said. France's security forces, already on high alert after a series of terror attacks since 2015, are particularly stretched at the moment due to anti-government protests that have swept the country. "I heard shooting and then there was pandemonium," one witness, who gave his name as Fatih, told AFP. "People were running everywhere." He said he had seen three people injured on the ground only a few metres (feet) from the giant Christmas tree in the centre of the city. Shortly after the shooting, lines of police vehicles and ambulances streamed into the market area, under festive lights declaring the city the "capital of Christmas." "We heard several shots, three perhaps, and we saw people running," one witness told AFP, asking not to be named. "One of them fell down, I don't know whether it was because she was tripped up or if she was hit," the witness said. President Emmanuel Macron held a crisis meeting with cabinet officials in Paris shortly after midnight. - Known to police - Two separate security sources told AFP on condition of anonymity that the shooter was believed to be a 29-year-old from the city, whose name was given as Cherif, and who was set to be arrested on Tuesday morning. He was being investigated over an attempted murder, one of the sources said. Several areas neighbouring the Christmas market were sealed off on Tuesday night and residents were being told to stay indoors. Many people took refuge in local restaurants and bars which pulled down their shutters. "We let everyone inside, down into the wine cellar. They're locked in there," local restaurant owner Mouad, 33, told AFP. A police source, again speaking on condition of anonymity, said security forces had opened fire in an area of the city where the suspect was thought to be hiding. The source did not give the address and it was unclear if the shooter had been located. Specialist anti-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation into the incident in Strasbourg, which lies on the border with Germany. Several residents of the city have been detained in recent years for trying to reach jihadist groups in Syria, or have been arrested upon their return. "Shocked and saddened by the terrible attack in Strasbourg. My thoughts are with all of those affected and with the French people," British Prime Minister Theresa May wrote on Twitter. - Tourist attraction - The Strasbourg-based European Parliament was also on lockdown, with MEPs, staff and journalists unable to leave the building. In a parliament bar usually reserved for MEPs, EU commissioners, powerful legislators and staffers huddled in small groups waiting for developments. "Our first thought was for colleagues who had already made it to the centre of town, who are safe," Belgian MEP Kathleen Van Brempt told AFP. "Now we just wait." The Christmas market in Strasbourg and the city's illuminations are an annual attraction that draws hundreds of thousands of people. Security has been stepped up in recent years after a series of attacks in France by Islamist gunmen and the Strasbourg market was long considered a possible target. In 2016, a 23-year-old Tunisian killed 12 and injured 48 others when he ploughed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Special anti-terror army units have been deployed in Strasbourg, and soldiers and armed police are regularly seen patrolling among the 300 wooden Christmas market chalets. Three years after groups of jihadists gunned down and blew up 130 people in Paris on November 13, 2015, French counter-terror officials say their focus has shifted. Rather than coordinated attacks, their main concern is attacks by "lone wolves" -- self-radicalised individuals acting without links to terror groups such as Islamic State. Most recently a 20-year-old Chechnya-born man went on a knife rampage in central Paris last May, killing one man and injuring four other people on a Saturday night. A total of 246 people have been killed in terror attacks in France since 2015, according to an AFP toll. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Bambang Muryanto (The Jakarta Post) Yogyakarta Wed, December 12, 2018 09:18 1084 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1dce90 4 National UGM,Universitas-Gajah-Mada,rape-survivor,rape-culture,police,gender-based-violence,violence-against-women,#NamaBaikKampus,#CampusReputation Free Agni, a pseudonym used by a female Gadjah Mada University (UGM) student who was allegedly raped by a fellow student last year, has reportedly refused to report her alleged rapist to the police. She is worried that the law might not protect her. Agni wants the UGM to handle the case. This is the time for it to step up and make structural changes in dealing with sexual violence, Selma Theofany, the spokesperson for #kitaAgni (WeAreAgni), said at a recent rally held at the university. Husna Yuni Wulansari, a #kitaAgni volunteer, said Agni was surprised to learn that the university had reported the case to the police in mid-November without consulting her first. Husna added that Agni was of the opinion that the legal proceedings would be counterproductive to what she sought justice and maximum protection. On Nov. 5, the UGMs student magazine, Balairung, published an investigative report based on Agnis testimony. In it she alleged that a fellow student had sexually assaulted her during a community service assignment (KKN) in a Maluku village on June 30, 2017. The alleged perpetrator, HS, has completed his undergraduate studies but his graduation was put on hold after the mainstream media picked up the story. UGM criminal law expert Sri Wiyanti Eddyono said the structure and content of the law in Indonesia, especially when it comes to gender violence, remained biased in favour of perpetrators. Our criminal law still sees rape and sexual assault within the context of immorality, not as a form of crime against body and soul. This is a problem, added Wiyanti who also chairs an ethics team set up to examine the Agni case. She said rape culture was entrenched in the law culture, which only further aggravated the victims physical and mental suffering. The UGMs deputy rector overseeing cooperation and alumni, Paripurna P. Sugarda, said it did not consult with Agni before filing the case with the police, considering that it had been widely covered and publicized, adding that the university believed that the police would have eventually taken the initiative to investigate the case. In Indonesia, rape cases are only investigated after the victim files a report with the police. Paripurna said by filing a report, the UGM could provide legal assistance, adding that the police would now be obligated to act after it filed the report. We want to protect the students, said Paripurna who is also a law expert. Yogyakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) director Yogi Zul Fadhli said a sexual abuse survivor might refuse a legal proceeding if she does not feel ready and comfortable with the process. The whole process has to prioritize and take into consideration the survivors interests, he added. This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Dec. 12, 2018, with the title "Im worried law might not protect me, says UGM student". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Berlin, Germany Wed, December 12, 2018 18:38 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1fd4de 2 World #France,#shooting,strasbourg-christmas-market,suspect,Germany,convicted Free The suspect in the deadly shooting attack at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was jailed for burglary in Germany before being expelled to France, German authorities said Wednesday. The 29-year-old suspect was sentenced to two years and three months for burglaries in the city of Mainz and in Baden-Wuerttemberg state, and jailed in 2016. "He served a year in Germany before being expelled to France," a spokesman from Baden-Wuerttemberg's interior ministry told AFP. According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, the man broke into a dentist practice in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate state, in 2012, making away with cash, stamps and gold used for teeth fillings. Four years later, he hit a pharmacy in the Lake Constance town of Engen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, pocketing cash. German authorities were on the lookout for the fugitive "along the Rhine" river region, the ministry spokesman said. "But at the moment we do not believe that he has crossed into the country," he added. Hundreds of police and anti-terror forces hunted Wednesday for a gunman who shot dead three people and wounded 13 at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, with the suspect known to police and thought to be an religious extremist. The attack took place Tuesday around 8 pm (1900 GMT) in the heart of the medieval city in eastern France as the market was closing, sending crowds fleeing for safety. The suspected shooter, a 29-year-old from the south of the city, was on a watchlist of suspected extremists and "is actively being hunted by security forces," local officials said in a statement. The man opened fire in three areas of the Christmas market, which draws hundreds of thousands of people each year to its wooden chalets selling festive decorations, mulled wine and food. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Nation/Asia News Network) Bangkok, Thailand Wed, December 12, 2018 12:14 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1e8c16 2 World #FranceAttack,#Thailand,Tourist,killed,strasbourg-christmas-market,shooting Free A Thai tourist was among three victims killed by a gunman at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening, Paris time, according to a Thai expat organisation in France. Namtip Ficho, chairwoman of the Association of Thai Provence, said she has been informed by the Association of Thai Students in France that Anupong Suebsamarn was killed in the shooting shortly after arriving in the country on holiday. Namtip quoted the tourist's wife, Naiyana Subesamarn, as saying that her slain husband was 45. Naiyana had given the details while she waited at a hospital where her husband had been taken, said Namtip, adding that the Thai Embassy in Paris has been informed of the death.The Thai ambassador is scheduled to travel to Strasbourg today (Wednesday) to help handle the legal process regarding the death. French authorities said the gunman also wounded a dozen others before fleeing the scene. A manhunt was under way after the killer opened fire at around 8pm local time (2am Bangkok time) on one of the city's busiest streets, sending crowds of evening shoppers fleeing for safety. Soldiers patrolling the area as part of regular anti-terror operations exchanged fire with the suspect and wounded him, but could not stop him escaping, French police said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sebastian Smith (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Wed, December 12, 2018 08:48 1084 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b008b43 2 World #USA,#politics,DonaldTrump,angry,shut-down,government,Democrat,leaders Free An angry Donald Trump told Democratic leaders at the White House on Tuesday that he will shut down the US government because they refuse to approve billions of dollars in funding for his controversial Mexico border wall. The president and top opposition congressional leaders had been meant to hold a reassuring Oval Office photo-op. Instead, their blazing row in front of the world's media gave a preview of the stormy future facing Trump as legal scandals mount and his Republican party gives up its once total control of Congress. Chuck Schumer, the senior Democrat in the still Republican-dominated Senate, and Nancy Pelosi, who is likely to become speaker in the newly Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in January, bluntly told Trump that he had no chance of getting the $5 billion he wants for the wall. Exasperated, Trump doubled down on earlier threats to retaliate by refusing to sign a federal spending bill required by December 21 to avoid leaving swaths of the government without funding. "Yes, if we don't get what we want one way or the other..., I will shut down the government," he said. "I am proud to shut down the government for border security." Schumer objected, while Pelosi suggested that the debate shouldn't take place in front of journalists. But Trump, whose US-Mexico wall idea was at the center of his surprise 2016 election victory, could not control his irritation. Taking out two memo cards, he read off figures that he said showed a near end to illegal immigration at portions of the border already featuring high fences. "It's been very effective," he said. Pelosi parried that the statistics were incorrect. "What the president is representing (with) his cards over there, are not facts. We have to have an evidence-based conversation about what does work and what money has been spent and how effective it is," Pelosi said. Outside the White House afterwards, Schumer was even more scathing about Trump. "This temper tantrum that he seems to throw will not get him his wall and it will hurt a lot of people," he said. Pelosi was quoted by US media as telling fellow Democrats in Congress that Trump's wall push was "like a manhood thing for him, as if manhood could ever be associated with him." But Trump later played down the scene, saying the meeting had been "very friendly" and that he "respects them both." - First to blink? - Tweeting ahead of the White House meeting, Trump claimed that the wall was needed to prevent "large scale crime and disease" brought by illegal immigrants. The issue is popular with his political base, which wants radically tighter controls at the southern border, a magnet for impoverished Central Americans fleeing gang violence and seeking work in the United States. Opponents say the wall is not only a waste of money but has been used by the president to whip up xenophobia. Trump, who leads chants of "build the wall" at campaign rallies, has been frustrated in the first two years of his administration. Now, as the government funding deadline approaches, both sides will have to decide whether to blink. After the meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, Trump insisted that he'd hold firm. "I don't mind owning that issue," he said. "If we have to close down the country over border security I actually like that." Trump said earlier Tuesday that he could even order the military to do the work if Congress refused to fund construction -- although it was not clear that he had the authority. Washington has been paralyzed by political gridlock for most of Trump's two years in office and the partisan divide is set to intensify in January when Democrats take over the House majority. The power shift comes as Trump faces ever-growing peril from criminal investigations, with talk growing of possible impeachment proceedings against the president. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dario Thuburn (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom Wed, December 12, 2018 16:24 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e1f768b 2 World #UK,#Brexit,Theresa-May,vote,no-confidence Free Prime Minister Theresa May faced a no-confidence vote on Wednesday after dozens of MPs from her own Conservative Party called for one in the wake of her desperate decision to delay a vote on Brexit she was certain to lose. Graham Brady, the head of the party committee in charge of elections, said the vote by Conservative Party lawmakers will be held between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm (1800 and 2000 GMT) on Wednesday. The results will be "announced as soon as possible in the evening," he said. If May loses that vote, a leadership election is held and, if a new party leader is elected, he or she becomes the new prime minister. The fate of both her unpopular draft withdrawal agreement and her government are now in the balance with the clocking ticking down to Britain's March 29 departure from the European Union after 46 years. The no-confidence vote was triggered after months of plotting by Brexit-supporting Conservative MPs to collect the minimum 48 letters from MPs necessary to trigger a vote. Several past members of May's government -- including former foreign minister Boris Johnson -- have had their eyes on the premiership post. If May survived the motion, no second one could be taken by party members for another year. Several top members of her cabinet quickly rallied to her support. "The last thing our country needs right now is a Conservative Party leadership election," Home Secretary Sajid Javid tweeted. Javid himself has been mentioned as a possible replacement for May. "Will be seen as self-indulgent and wrong. PM has my full support and is best person to ensure we leave EU on 29 March," Javid wrote. - Irish border row - The British leader toured European capitals on Tuesday in an attempt to salvage the deal, after MPs savaged its provisions on the issue of the Irish border. May said she wanted "assurances" from EU leaders that if Britain ever entered the so-called "backstop" arrangement for the border, this would only be "temporary". But she also said it was "the best deal available", adding: "There's no deal available that doesn't have a backstop". She received sympathy from EU partners but firm rejections of any attempt to reopen the agreement, which was approved by EU leaders last month following tortuous negotiations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after meeting May that there was "no way to change" the deal. - 'Down to the wire' - May on Monday told MPs she was postponing a critical vote on the deal scheduled for Tuesday, admitting that it faced rejection and promising to consult EU leaders in an effort to get additional reassurances on the backstop. She has said the vote will now be held before January 21. On her whistlestop tour, she also met Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and is headed to Dublin on Wednesday for talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar before an EU summit on Thursday. "I doubt if she really knows what she's going to achieve," said Pippa Catterall, professor of history and policy at the University of Westminster. Catterall said that May could be trying "to take it down to the wire... so in the end parliament is faced with the choice: my deal or no deal". After her weekly Prime Minister's Questions at 1200 GMT, May will chair her first cabinet meeting since she announced the vote delay where ministers will discuss stepping up preparations for a no-deal Brexit. If no deal is approved by parliament, Britain will crash out of the European Union on March 29 -- a prospect that could trigger economic chaos. - Government in 'disarray' - Even if May survives Wednesday's vote and potential leadership challenge, she could face a no-confidence motion from opposition parties. The main opposition Labour Party has said the government is in "disarray" but is so far holding off on attempting to topple May. The Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats, which are both anti-Brexit, have urged Labour to do so and are hoping this could lead to a second referendum. A few EU supporters within May's own Conservative Party are also calling for another popular vote, while Brexit hardliners are urging fellow Conservatives to oust her. A lot will hinge on what the Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 MPs prop up the government, will do. The DUP have indicated they will not vote against May on a confidence motion for now but have demanded that she jettison the backstop. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Raziye Akkoc (Agence France-Presse) Ankara, Turkey Thu, December 13, 2018 16:32 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e221e33 2 World #Turkey,#train,train-accident,Crash,death,victims,injury Free Nine people were killed and nearly 50 injured after a high-speed train crashed into a locomotive in the Turkish capital on Thursday, officials said. Transport Minister Cahit Turhan told reporters in televised remarks that three of those killed were operators of the train. One of the victims died in hospital, he added. Turhan added that 47 people were injured and were in hospital for treatment. The fast train had been on its way from Ankara's main station to the central province of Konya and according to Hurriyet daily, there were 206 passengers on board. Earlier, the Ankara governor's office said three out of a total of 46 people had been seriously injured. The death toll was rising fast. Ankara governor Vasip Sahin said earlier on Thursday morning that four people had been killed. - Debris scattered on the tracks - "This morning there was an accident after the 6.30 high-speed train to Konya hit a locomotive tasked with checking rails on the same route," Sahin told reporters in televised remarks. Turhan said the accident took place six minutes after the train left Ankara as it entered the Marsandiz station. The governor said search and rescue efforts continued as "technical investigations" were underway to find out exactly what caused the crash in Yenimahalle district. He said information about the cause of the crash would be shared with the public when it is known. Images published by Turkish media showed some wagons had derailed and debris from the train scattered on the rail track, which was covered in snow. The windows of one wagon were completely broken while another wagon had been smashed after hitting the footbridge, which also collapsed, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. The Ankara public prosecutor launched an investigation into the crash, state news agency Anadolu reported. The Ankara to Konya high-speed route was launched in 2011 and was followed in 2014 with a high-speed link between Ankara and Istanbul. The accident comes after another rail disaster in July this year when 24 people were killed and hundreds more injured after a train derailed in Tekirdag province, northwest Turkey, due to ground erosion following heavy rains. Turkey's rail network has been hit by several fatal accidents in recent years. In March 2014, a commuter train smashed into a minibus on a railway track in the southern Turkish province of Mersin, which left 10 dead. In January 2008, nine people were killed when a train derailed in the Kutahya region south of Istanbul because of faulty tracks. Turkey's worst rail disaster in recent history was in July 2004 when 41 people were killed and 80 injured after a high-speed train derailed in the northwestern province of Sakarya. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, December 13, 2018 12:17 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e2174b8 1 National Constitutional-Court,child-marriage,reproductive-health Free In a decision that may pave the way for the elimination of rampant child marriage in Indonesia, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the 16 years old minimum age requirement for women to marry, as stipulated in the 1974 Marriage Law, was unconstitutional. The court granted a judicial review petition filed by three child bride survivors and their lawyer from the Indonesian Coalition to End Child Marriage (Koalisi 18+), challenging Article 7 of the law, which sets the minimum age requirement for women to marry at 16. In a hearing presided over by Chief Justice Anwar Usman, the court argued that the rule was a form of gender-based discrimination since the minimum age for requirement for men to marry was 19, and therefore contradicted the 1945 Constitution. The court, however, refused to grant the plaintiffs' demand to raise the minimum age for women to marry to that of the age for men, arguing that it was the authority of lawmakers and the court did not want to make a decision that could prevent any future law revisions. "[The court] orders lawmakers to revise the 1974 Marriage Law, particularly in regard to the minimum age for women to marry, within a maximum three years," Anwar read out the ruling on Thursday. Justice Saldi Isra said the provision in article would remain valid until the deadline of three years. Should there be no revision prior to the deadline, the minimum age requirement would be harmonized with the 2002 Child Protection Law, which defines a child as someone below 18 years old. Justice I Dewa Gede Palguna said that those at the age of 16 were still categorized children under the Child Protection Law, meaning that those who married at 16 were considered as being involved in child marriage, which had negative impact and threatening children's welfare. "Not only in terms of negative impact on health, there are possibilities of child exploitation and the increase of threats of violence against children in underage marriage," Palguna said, adding that child marriage also threatened children's rights to education. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, December 13, 2018 17:52 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e2251ef 1 National environment,mining,graft,Buton-Island Free The Cibinong District Court in Bogor, West Java, has rejected a lawsuit filed by former Southeast Sulawesi governor and graft convict Nur Alam against scientist Basuki Wasis, in a move that highlighted the governments commitment to the environment. Nur filed a lawsuit against Basuki, an environmental expert from Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), who had calculated potential losses in the former governors graft case, which amounted to Rp 2.7 trillion (US$1.8 million). The former governor has been convicted of causing environmental destruction on Buton Island by issuing several mining permits. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay a Rp 1 billion fine in the graft case. The panel of judges of Cibinong District Court said Basukis study, which was presented in Nurs trial, had no implication for Nurs sentence as the judges in Nur's graft trial did not use it in their consideration upon handing down their verdict against Nur. The bench accepted the defendants refutation plea and stated that Nur Alams suit cannot be accepted, according to a written statement from Basukis lawyer made available to The Jakarta Post on Thursday. The judges also said concern over prosecution against environmental experts was among the considerations to reject Nurs lawsuit. The Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced Nur in March after finding the National Mandate Party (PAN) politician guilty of misusing his authority to grant mining licenses between 2009 and 2014 to nickel miner PT Anugerah Harisma Barakah, in which he owns a 2 percent stake under the name of his aide. The court also stripped him of his political rights for five years after he serves his time in prison, which was sought by Corruption Eradication Commission prosecutors. Nur denied any wrongdoing and said he would "waste no time" in appealing the verdict, but he later sued Basuki and members of his team from IPB for committing a wrongful act that caused others to suffer losses, resulting in civil legal liability for the perpetrator, which the plaintiff claimed a violation of the Civil Code. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 21, 2019 19:56 1043 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e21841a 1 National environmentalist,#environment,activist,human-rights-activists,Yap-Thiam-Hien-Foundation,award Free Environmental activist Eva Bande and a local group from Central Java, Sedulur Sikep, have won the prestigious human rights Yap Thiam Hien award for their roles in agrarian conflicts. Imdadun Rahmat, board supervisor of the Yap Thiam Hien foundation, noted the growing trend of conflicts that involved big corporations and local communities. There are problems such as conflicts between people and big corporations, whether they are mining corporations or oil palm plantations, Imdadun said. People were denied rights to their land and deprived of their land. Therefore, the struggle of those who fight to preserve the environment needed to be highlighted. For decades, Eva has been fighting alongside the farmers of Toili in Luwuk, Banggal regency, Central Sulawesi, who wanted to protect their customary land from environmental disaster. She was jailed from 2010 until 2014 for advocating for the farmers against a company who was allegedly exploiting them. She was later freed because President Joko Jokowi Widodo granted her clemency. I would like to say thank God [for this award], Eva said after the ceremony. Honestly, I never thought I would receive this award. I dont know if I deserve this honor. This is the result of a collective fight of people who fought alongside me. Eva further said that she hoped the agrarian reform promised by Jokowi would happen. I hope that the president is determined to resolve agrarian conflicts and free the farmers who are still in jail, Eva said. When I was pardoned by the President, he said that there should be no more criminalization, no other Eva Bandes. Sedulur Sikep is a local community from Mount Kendeng, Central Java, which has been fighting against cement factories in the area, the presence of which they argued was harmful for both the environment and the local community. Imdadun added that, as devout followers of Kejawen, a native faith, they were stigmatization by society. The members of Sedulur Sikep were chosen because they had inspired other groups [to fight for the same cause], he said. For example, they got academics involved in public discussions, particularly on the impact of [factories] in rural areas. Furthermore, they shed light on rotten dealings behind the business, such as manipulation of licensing practices. More importantly, they managed to inspire changes without using violence. Gunretno, a member of Sedulur Sikep, said he was grateful for the acknowledgement. He also pointed out that the people needed the protection of the law. We dont mean to vilify [the government], but the government must remember that without its people, they wouldnt exist, so please act as good public servants, Gunretno said. Imdadun further noted that the upcoming government need to find a middle ground between human rights and development. They have to support human rights-based development. Indonesia is slated to elect a new president and vice president in April next year. Recent data showed that environmentalists have been the most persecuted activists over the past four years. According to Protection International Indonesia data, about 80 percent of cases of human rights violations against activists and rights defenders from 2014 to 2018 involved environmentalists, many of whom have been jailed for what are widely believed to be dubious or legally flawed charges. The prestigious Yap Thiam Hien award, named after a renowned lawyer and human rights activist who died in 1989, has acknowledged human rights activists since 1992. (spl) This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Dec. 13, 2018, with the title "Environmentalists win human rights award". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Catherine Triomphe (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Thu, December 13, 2018 08:16 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e205408 2 World #USA,#DonaldTrump,former,lawyer,Cohen,convicted Free Donald Trump's former lawyer apologized Wednesday for covering up the "dirty deeds" of his ex-boss as he was sentenced to three years for multiple crimes including hush money payments implicating the US president. Pleading for leniency in a packed Manhattan courtroom before US District Court Judge William H. Pauley III, Michael Cohen said he had been led astray by misplaced admiration for Trump. An emotional Cohen, 52, Trump's longtime "fixer," told the court he accepted responsibility for his personal crimes and "those involving the President of the United States of America." Cohen's lawyers had argued for no jail time after he admitted charges brought by federal prosecutors in New York of tax evasion, providing false statements to a bank and illegal campaign contributions. Cohen also pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress -- a charge stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected. But Pauley said Cohen -- as a lawyer -- "should have known better" and sentenced him to three years in federal prison, ordering him to surrender to custody by March 6. He was also ordered to pay $2 million in fines and restitution. "Each of these crimes standing alone warrant considerable punishment," Pauley said, adding that Cohen was "motivated by personal greed and ambition." "A significant term of imprisonment is fully justified in this highly publicized case to send a message," the judge said. Before Pauley passed sentence, Cohen addressed the court, saying it was his devotion to Trump that caused him to choose "a path of darkness over light." "Today is the day that I am getting my freedom back," he said. "I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen I deeply admired," Cohen said. "I now realize there was little to admire," he said. - 'Dirty deeds' - Cohen referred to a recent tweet from Trump calling him "weak," saying his only weakness had been "blind loyalty" to his former boss. "Time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass," he said. Among the charges against Cohen was making secret payments to silence two women threatening to go public during the election campaign with claims they had affairs with Trump. Cohen told prosecutors the payments totaling $280,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal were made "in coordination with and at the direction" of Trump -- referred to by prosecutors as "Individual-1." Both women have claimed to have had sexual encounters with Trump before he was the Republican candidate for president and prosecutors have characterized the payments as illegal campaign contributions intended to influence the election. "Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election," prosecutors said. The payment to McDougal was funnelled through American Media Inc, publisher of the National Enquirer, and prosecutors announced following Cohen's sentencing that AMI had been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for its cooperation. Trump this week sought to minimize the importance of the payments to the two women saying they were a "simple private transaction" and were "wrongly" being called campaign contributions. "Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced," Trump tweeted. "WITCH HUNT!" There was no immediate reaction from Trump to Cohen's sentencing. - Lied to Congress - While federal prosecutors said Cohen's cooperation was limited and selective, the Special Counsel's office said Cohen had "gone to significant lengths" to assist their investigation. Last month, Cohen acknowledged that he had lied to Congress about his contacts with Russia during the election campaign about building a Trump Tower in Moscow and the extent of Trump's own involvement in the negotiations. Cohen, wearing a dark suit with a light blue tie, arrived for the sentencing with his wife, son and daughter, who was walking with a crutch. Other family members were also in the audience including his 83-year-old wheelchair-bound father. For 12 years, Cohen was vice president of The Trump Organization, the umbrella company for Trump's real estate businesses, and one of the principal confidants of the New York billionaire. Investigators raided Cohen's offices and New York home in April, seizing stacks of documents and electronic devices. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Denpasar, Indonesia Thu, December 13, 2018 16:19 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e221be6 2 National #Bali,#drugs,foreigners,German,arrested,execution Free Five foreigners have been arrested in Bali for drug trafficking, authorities said Thursday, with a German and Peruvian possibly facing execution if convicted under Indonesia's strict drug laws. The accused smugglers -- also including a Chinese, a Malaysian and a Briton -- were arrested separately over the past two weeks, Bali police said. The arrests come less than a month after the first member of the Bali Nine heroin-trafficking gang was released from a prison on the holiday island after serving 13 years. The Australian gang's accused 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 stiffest drug laws. Bali police said Thursday they arrested 44-year-old Peruvian Jorge Rafael Albornoz Gammara after he arrived at Ngurah Rai international airport from Dubai last week. "Officers found 4.08 kilograms of cocaine that he was hiding inside the interior of his luggage," head of local immigration office Untung Basuki told a press conference Thursday. German Frank Zeidler, 56, en route from Bangkok, was later arrested after officers said they found 2.1 kilos of hashish inside his luggage -- an amount that could also make it a death penalty case. Meanwhile, a 45-year-old British designer, who was not identified, was detained after he received a package from Thailand with some 31 grams of liquid marijuana poured into essential oil bottles. On Saturday, 29-year-old Chinese national Cui Bao Lin was arrested at the airport with more than 200 ecstasy pills and over 160 grams of ketamine found in his bag, police said. Malaysian Hamdi Izham Hakimi was also arrested the same day with a bag containing nearly 15 grams of marijuana and 11 ecstasy pills, according to authorities. Foreigners are regularly caught trying to bring drugs into Bali, which draws millions of visitors annually. There are dozens of traffickers on death row in Indonesia, including 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. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ankara, Turkey Thu, December 13, 2018 14:25 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e21e402 2 World #Turkey,#accident,Train,Crash,killing,injury Free A high-speed train crashed into a locomotive in the Turkish capital on Thursday, killing four people and injuring 43, the Ankara governor said. Governor Vasip Sahin told reporters in televised remarks that "43 people were injured and unfortunately four of our citizens were found dead", as the fast train was on its way to the central province of Konya. "This morning there was an accident after the 6.30 high-speed train to Konya hit a locomotive tasked with checking rails on the same route," Sahin said. The governor added that search and rescue efforts continued as "technical investigations" were underway to find out exactly what caused the crash in Yenimahalle district. Images published by Turkish media showed some wagons had derailed and debris from the train scattered on the rail track. The Ankara public prosecutor has launched an investigation into the crash, state news agency Anadolu reported. The accident comes after another train disaster in July when 24 people were killed and hundreds more injured after a train derailed in Tekirdag province, northwest Turkey, due to ground erosion following heavy rains. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Jerusalem Thu, December 13, 2018 10:05 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e2125ba 2 World #Israel,#Iran,BenjaminNetanyahu,attack,Iran,survival Free Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel would be prepared to attack inside Iran if the Jewish state's survival was at stake. "Our red line is our survival," Netanyahu said at a meeting with foreign media where he was asked what his "red line" was for attacking Iranian territory, rather than its proxies in Syria and Lebanon. "We do what is necessary to protect the state of Israel against the Iranian regime that openly calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state." "I'm not ruling out doing anything that we need to do to defend ourselves," added Netanyahu, who sees Iran as the most dangerous threat to Israel. He said that Israel is the only country whose military is "directly engaging Iranian forces" with air strikes in neighbouring Syria, where Iran supports the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu said Wednesday that Iran's aggressive regional behaviour, in contrast to Israel's fight against radical Islamic militants and its advanced technology, had brought once-hostile Arab states closer to the Jewish state. "The Arab countries understand exactly that Israel is not their enemy, but their indispensable partner" against extremists, he said, speaking of "new relationship between Israel and the Arab world". Israel has diplomatic relations with only two Arab countries -- Egypt and Jordan -- but has recently been pushing to broaden regional ties. A rapprochement with Saudi Arabia in particular, a regional heavyweight and rival of Iran, would be a considerable breakthrough for Israel. Netanyahu said that a balanced diplomatic response was needed to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country's consulate in Istanbul on October 2, which sparked a global outcry. While he described the crime as "horrific, nothing short of that," he said that every country, especially those with formal relations with Saudi Arabia, must decide how to react. "It's balanced by the importance of Saudi Arabia and the role it plays in the Middle East, because if Saudi Arabia were to be destabilised the world would be destabilised... and I think that has to be taken into account, there's a balance," he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ottawa, Canada Thu, December 13, 2018 08:48 1083 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e209239 2 World #Canada,#China,Canadian,questioned,Huawei,executive,arrest Free Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday a second Canadian was being questioned by China, after Beijing earlier this week notified Ottawa it had detained a former Canadian diplomat. "We are aware of a Canadian who got in touch with us because he was being asked questions by Chinese authorities," Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told a press conference. Freeland offered few details, but added her ministry had not been able to make contact since the notification. "We are working very hard to ascertain his whereabouts and we have also raised his case with Chinese authorities," she said. It comes days after former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig was detained on a trip to Beijing. Canadian officials said they were officially informed of Kovrig's detention via fax early on Monday. "Canada is deeply concerned about the detention of Mr. Kovrig and Canada has raised the case directly with Chinese officials," Freeland said. Last week Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou -- chief financial officer at Chinese telecom giant Huawei -- at the request of the United States, which plans to charge her with fraud charges related to sanctions-breaking business dealings with Iran. China responded in kind, detaining the former Canadian diplomat, who is now a China expert at the International Crisis Group security consultancy. Friends and experts say Kovrig may have become a "hostage" and "pawn" in a three-nation feud. "In this case it is clear the Chinese government wants to put maximum pressure on the Canadian government," Guy Saint-Jacques, the former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, told AFP. Wanzhou was released in Canada on strict bail conditions on Tuesday. Ottawa said Chinese officials had been given consular access to Meng on December 1, contradicting claims by Beijing. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, December 13, 2018 16:40 1082 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e222d55 1 National USAID,Rajawali-Group,workforce Free The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Rajawali Foundation and Transformasi are implementing a project on inclusive workforce development, called Sinergi, in Central Java. Four regions in Central Java were selected for the pilot project, namely Semarang City, Semarang regency, Demak and Boyolali. Program manager Anugraha Dezmercoledi said the project would take place until 2022, with a 15-month pilot period and 36 months of full implementation. Our main goal is to teach young workers skills, both hard and soft, to improve their access to information," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday. The reason for choosing Central Java, Anugraha said, was because the minimum wage there was the second lowest in Indonesia, adding that gender inequality was still rife because 88 percent of the workforce was men. Therefore, the main focus of the program is vulnerable youngsters, aged 18 to 34, including women and the disabled. The vulnerable group, he said, was those who have an income of less than Rp 26,000 per day. "We are training 445 young people from these four regions. We will also continue to monitor them. There are those who want to become entrepreneurs after the training program and we will support them, Anugraha added. He said the project would cover a wider area as USAID was currently replicating and developing the program. (ggq) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Indonesia Sat, December 15 2018 The Indonesian government through the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office in Taipei (IETO) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta (TETO) on Friday, on the recruitment, placement and protection of Indonesian migrant workers. The MoU was signed in Taipei by IETO head Didi Sumedi and TETO head John C. Chen. The signing was also witnessed by Manpower Minister Muhammad Hanif Dhakiri and his Taiwanese counterpart, Hsu Ming Chun. With the MoU, the two parties agreed to promote bilateral collaboration in a wide range of training and skills development. It will be valid for a period of four years and can be extended with a mutual agreement from the parties. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, December 15 2018 Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama) Indonesia has asserted its commitment in contributing to climate change mitigation efforts despite sluggish progress made nationally at this years United Nations climate talk in Katowice, Poland. Speaking at the Conference of Parties (COP), which was attended by Polands President Michal Kurtyka and delegates from hundreds participating country, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the countrys value and purpose would make it possible for Indonesia to fulfill its promise made under the Paris Agreement. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login 6 hours ago Wall Street steadies following omicron slide; stocks rise NEW YORK (AP) Wall Street is steadying itself Monday from last week's slide caused by the newest coronavirus variant, as investors wait for more clues about just how much damage it may do to the economy. The S&P 500 was 1.6% higher in afternoon trading to recover more than two-thirds of its drop from Friday, which was its worst since February. Read Article California, preaching on the burning shore California, I'll be knocking on the golden door Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light Rising up to paradise, I know Im gonna shine. The Grateful Dead from Estimated Prophet? (1977) Westward ho the Wagon Part Four In May, 1981, I was two months removed from my 30th birthday. Id been married to the prettiest woman Ive ever seen, before or since, for two years. Since graduating from Michigan State for the second time, Id gone to work for mega-marketer, Meijer, Inc., managing an exclusively Levi Strauss clothing store, one of scores that sprang up in shopping malls and parking lots in the mid-70s. Selling Levis to 20-something Baby Boomers turned out to be a business plan with legs. Ever since Debbie returned from California (lucky happenstance that, or we might never have met) she longed to go back. Id always wanted to go. So it was that we planned the big move. I was completely on board with the notion but occasionally had some second thoughts. I had a good job with great benefits, made more money than most of my friends and the move west would remove me from nearly everyone I ever knew. One evening I was sitting in our townhouse living room in Essexville, ruminating on the choices ahead of me. I was listening to side two of the Grateful Deads album Terrapin Station and had imbibed . . . well, lets just say I was wide open to suggestion. The gas fireplace was on and the flame was casting a swath of light, dancing on the wall and ceiling. As I sat wondering if I was making the right move, the Dead sang, California, Ill be knocking on the golden door. I snapped to attention. What? Were Jerry and the boys talking to me? For reasons unknown, I leaped to my feet and raised my hands high over my head. Like a kid making angel impressions in the snow, my shadow broke on the flickering firelight, looking for all the world like an angel triumphant. There was my answer. What? When we left off last week, we, that is Debbie, our daughter, Angela, and my 20-year-old brother, Jonathan and I were camped on Crazy Woman Creek in the mountains of Wyoming. Wed spent four sun-washed days fishing, hiking and generally enjoying ourselves but the camp rules read: 5 days only, so on the morning of the fifth day we climbed into the Great Silver Whale and continued our westward odyssey. By mid-day, the Tetons, which had loomed ahead of us for several days were fast upon us. I was born in the shadow of the Adirondacks but these were the tallest mountains Id ever seen. They were, in a word . . . grand. Heh, sorry. The Whale, our Ford Econoline was loaded to the gunwales with us and everything we owned so it lugged and chugged up impossibly steep grades then raced down the other side like a runaway train. On one particularly brisk downhill run, my brother stood up, and head sticking out of our open sunroof, let loose a long riotous howl of undiluted joy. Ive spent time in the eastern mountains, the Tetons, the Rockies (both American and Canadian) and, for seven years, lived in the Sierras. Ive been drawn to high country all of my life. Before leaving Wyoming, we paid an all too short visit to Yellowstone. We were anxious to get to Idaho for reasons that escape me now so we drove straight through the park, stopping for an hour or so to see Old Faithful and wander past pits of boiling, bubbling, multi-colored mud pots. Later that day, we entered Idaho on U.S. 26 and made it up near Rigby where we camped for the night at Jefferson County Lake. That night, Debbie asked, How far is it to the Snake River Canyon? Not far, I answered. Its just a few miles south of here, why? Oh, I had a little adventure there back in 1974, she answered, with a yawn. That was five years before we met. I was intrigued. Really, what? I asked. But she was already asleep. And so it went. Heavy weather warning for Phuket PHUKET: Wiwat Chitchertwong, the Acting Chief of the Phuket Marine Office, has issued a weather warning for all vessels in Phuket and operating in Phang Nga Bay and other nearby areas along the Andaman Coast. weathermarinetourism By The Phuket News Friday 14 December 2018, 04:48PM The Phuket TMD office noted today that wind speeds already ranged from 15km/h, gusting up to 35km/h. Image: PhuketMet Wiwat Chitchertwong, the Acting Chief of the Phuket Marine Office, advised smaller vessels to stay ashore. Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot The TMD warned of strong wind and waves, along with heavy rains and possible flash flooding. Image: TMD The TMD warned of strong wind and waves, along with heavy rains and possible flash flooding. Image: TMD The warning follows the Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) earlier today (Dec 14) issuing a weather warning for all of Southern Thailand. A strong northeast monsoon (is) across the Gulf and southern Thailand with continuous rainfalls and isolated heavy rains in southern (areas). People are advised to brace for the severe conditions that may cause flash floods and forest runoffs in this period, the TMD warning noted. People in Phuket have to be aware of effect from the strong northeast monsoon across the Andaman Sea, the South and the Gulf leading to isolated heavy rain likely in the South. Flash flood is possible for the South where heavy rain occurs, Mr Wiwat wrote in his advisory. Waves are forecast to reach two to three meters high in the Andaman Sea. All ship captains are advised to monitor the weather forecast closely and proceed with caution, while smaller vessels are advised to stay ashore, he added. The TMD in its warning noted, Parts of Southern Thailand are expected to have heavy rain. People are urged to be aware of any possible risks from the heavy rain that might lead to flash flooding. We advise that everyone keep up-to-date on this matter from the Meteorological Department by following the news from the website http://www.tmd.go.th or hotline 1182 for 24 hours, the warning said. The Phuket TMD office noted today that wind speeds already ranged from 15km/h, gusting up to 35km/h. The strong northeast monsoon conditions are forecast to continue through to Monday (Dec 17), the TMD noted. Phuket Police parade in show of New Year readiness PHUKET: More than 250 police, military officers and volunteers assembled at Phuket City Police Station at 5pm on Wednesday evening (Nov 12) to receive their orders from Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee to ramp up their efforts during the upcoming New Year holidays. tourismpoliceSafety By The Phuket News Friday 14 December 2018, 03:07PM Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Wisan Panmanee ordered officers to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Also present were officers from the Phuket Provincial Police, Tourist Police, Immigration Police, Marine Police, Forensic Police, Highway Police, and others. Many Thai and foreign tourists to travel to Phuket every year from November 1 onwards. It is the tourism season for Phuket and the upcoming New Year festival 2019, Gen Wisan said. It is important for every officer of the Royal Thai Police and the military to be dedicated in their work to ensure the highest security for the people and tourists, he added. You have been called here today to express our readiness to strictly uphold the law, ensure peace and preserve the good tourism image of Phuket, Gen Wisan said. All officers are expected to perform their duties with full effort, he ordered. Police apologise for Frenchmans murder BANGKOK: A Deputy Police Spokesman for the Royal Thai Police has apologised for the death of the French tourist gunned down by a police officer in Bangkoks Sukhumvit area on Wednesday (Dec 12), blaming the incident on a personal conflict. tourismpolicemurderhomicidedeathcrime By Bangkok Post Friday 14 December 2018, 09:30AM Senior police talk to reporters after a police senior sergeant major allegedly murdered a French tourist at a condominium building on Sukhumvit Soi 13 in Bangkok on Wednesday. Photo: Rescue Vajira On behalf of the police, I express condolences to the family of the dead man and apologise. The incident was unexpected It was a personal issue. I would like all policemen to leave personal issues behind and exercise more patience, Deputy Spokesman Pol Col Kritsana Pattanacharoen said yesterday (Dec 13). On Wednesday, Pol Sen Sgt Maj Kantapong Huadsri, 49, shot Malik Djamel, 41, at a condominium building on Sukhumvit Soi 13, Bangkok, after losing a fist fight at a pub. He was sacked from the police force immediately pending prosecution. According to earlier reports, both were drunk and entered into a brawl. Col Kritsana said police objected to the temporary release of the suspect as it was a serious crime. I would like commanders to closely supervise the personal behaviours of their subordinates. The incident of police being suspects and abusing authority must not be allowed to recur, the deputy police spokesman said. He admitted that the murder affected the image of police but he said police were seriously handling the case and would not protect the colleague who was the wrongdoer. Please have confidence in our safety assurances. I would like to tell tourists from all countries that Thailand is safe and Thai police and security officials are doing their best to serve them, Col Kritsana said. Read original story here. Property owners to be targetted as fake goods raids hit Patong, Central PHUKET: The Deputy Director of the Phuket branch of the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), which serves as the political arm of the Thai military, has warned that property owners who repeatedly allow vendors to sell fake copyright goods on their premises will face legal action. tourismcrimepolicemilitarypatong By Eakkapop Thongtub Friday 14 December 2018, 10:20AM The raids hit vendors on Bangla Rd in Patong and at the Central Phuket Festival building in Wichit. Photo: Phuket Isoc The raids hit vendors on Bangla Rd in Patong and at the Central Phuket Festival building in Wichit. Photo: Phuket Isoc The raids hit vendors on Bangla Rd in Patong and at the Central Phuket Festival building in Wichit. Photo: Phuket Isoc The raids hit vendors on Bangla Rd in Patong and at the Central Phuket Festival building in Wichit. Photo: Phuket Isoc The raids hit vendors on Bangla Rd in Patong and at the Central Phuket Festival building in Wichit. Photo: Phuket Isoc The raids hit vendors on Bangla Rd in Patong and at the Central Phuket Festival building in Wichit. Photo: Phuket Isoc The news follows a team of officers led by the Phuket Isoc branch conducting raids on fake goods vendors in key tourist areas in Patong and at Central Phuket this week. The raids, led by Phuket Isoc Deputy Director Capt Boworn Phromgaewngam, began when the team arrived in Patong at 1pm on Wednesday (Dec 12). The officers targeted vendors along both Thaweewong Rd and Bangla Rd. In total, the team arrested 11 vendors and seized 468 items, mostly copy-makes of shoes, hats and shirts of popular brand-names such as Gucci, Adidas, Nike and Under Armour. The seized goods and the suspects were handed over to the Patong Police, who were not involved in the raids, for processing. At 2pm the team arrived at Central Phuket Festival building, where officers arrested three people operating nine stalls. In making the arrests the officers seized 372 items, all mobile phone cases. In total, the raids netted 14 suspects and 840 items of counterfeit goods. Capt Boworn estimated the value of the goods seized at about B100,000. This is the first step against the vendors fake products in the Phuket area, Capt Boworn told The Phuket News. The Department of Intellectual Property will call the owners of the properties where the goods were being sold in soon to repeat to them to not allow such vendors to operate on their properties, he explained. This will be especially for owners of shops and stall sites in Patong, Kata-Karon and at the Naka Night Market (the Weekend Market near Wat Naka, in Wichit), Capt Boworn noted. If the property owners keep allowing fake goods to be sold on their properties they will face charges, he warned. Additional repoertnig by Tanyaluk Sakoot Student arrested for hosting profitable porn sites BANGKOK: Police have arrested a 17-year-old computer student in Bangkok for allegedly running creeper pornographic websites and social media accounts from which he allegedly made half a million baht in three months. sexcrimepolice By Bangkok Post Friday 14 December 2018, 09:21AM Police announce the arrest of a 17-year-old university student who hosted online sites to share and sell pornographic pictures and video clips of girls and women, at the Women and Children Welfare Subdivision in Bangkok on Thursday. Photo: Apichart Jinakul / Bangkok Post Pol Col Jirakrit Jarunpat, Commander of the Royal Thai Police Women and Children Welfare Division, said yesterday (Dec 13) that the third-year university student was arrested at his house on Khian Niwat Alley in Phra Nakhon district on Tuesday (Dec 11). Police seized a desktop computer and a mobile phone with 300,000 pornographic files of girls and women, totalling 860 gigabytes. Col Jirakrit said detectives started to look for the suspect in August as several sites and social media pages with the name of Khote Warp and the like had distributed creeper porn, mainly upskirt pictures and video clips of girls and women including students, net idols and actresses. The content was shared on many platforms including Facebook, Line and VK application. Some of the content was shared free of charge while the rest was shared with paying members, who were charged B300-800 each, the commander said. The suspect confessed that he acted alone. He gathered pictures from websites and shared them in public groups with about 30,000 members and private groups with about 1,000 participants who must pay membership fees, he said. The suspect used his computer-related knowledge to do the illicit business and in three months made about B500,000 which he spent on luxury-brand products, Col Jirakrit said. Read original story here. Indian, Russian Defense Ministers Discuss Equipment Programs The page you requested is only available to subscribers. 1. If you are a Premium Service subscriber, please log in here to access this story: Log-in : Password : 2. If you are not a subcriber, you can: -- buy access to this page: unlimited access for seven days costs 3.00 EUR + VAT (at 20%) if applicable. Clicking on the "Ok" button below will place the item in your shopping cart and return you to our home page, where you will be able to select additional stories. -- select additional stories and services from our home page and pay for them at the same time. -- see your shopping cart. You can also see the contents of your shopping cart at any time by clicking on the "Order" tab on the navigation bar at the top of any page, or by clicking on the "Your order" light blue link in the top right-hand corner of our home page, immediately under the log-on box. Noem spends more than $68K on rugs, sauna, chandeliers for state mansion news Imagine coming home boozed from a night out to the sweet smells of fried chicken wafting through your house. As described on their website: For more than a million years, mankind has been attempting to improve upon the simple fire. Weve tried burning different things like sticks or leaves or various incriminating documents. Weve tried making fires last longer. Weve even figured out how to turn them into different colors. All of that experimentation, all of that innovation, has culminated in this event, the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog, from Enviro-Log. Imbued with the unmistakable, mouth-watering aroma of Colonel Sanders secret recipe, the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog finally puts to rest the age-old dilemma, How can I make this fire a hundred bajillion times better? This one-of-a-kind firelog from Enviro-Log, a leading manufacturer of firelogs made of 100 percent recycled materials, is the result of countless hours of research and development, all done over the last couple of months since we had this idea. Pick up a firelog today, and youll be wondering how you were ever able to enjoy a fire that didnt smell like fried chicken. Unfortunately this will only be available in America, with no word or sign of this making it's way to NZ (but we can hope). They retail for $18.99 in the US (approx $27 NZD) and you can pick them up from kfcfirelogs.com. When Lloyd Blankfein told his colleagues at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in July that he was going to retire from the banks top job, he said the timing just felt right. When things are going wrong, he wrote them in a memo, you cant up and leave. Now in Blankfeins final weeks as chairman of Wall Streets most influential bank, things have gone wrong. Prosecutors are zeroing in on the firms work for a Malaysian investment fund that they say was raided in a historic plunder. Goldmans role raising about $6.5 billion for 1MDB has become one of its ugliest scandals in a generation. In November, the U.S. Justice Department revealed that a former partner pleaded guilty to bribery charges, his deputy was arrested and the firm put a top Asia banking executive on leave. The stock is down more than 30 per cent in 2018. Its enough to shock the firms well-connected former partners, who gathered in a hotel near the banks Manhattan headquarters Wednesday night for their annual dinner. Though the group tends to pooh-pooh popular criticism, many veterans are disturbed that the firm allegedly ignored or missed red flags and are annoyed by the hit to its image, according to interviews with 10 former partners, including members of the powerful management committee. To them, its the biggest threat to Goldmans reputation since the firms postcrisis makeover. That is a terrifying thing, said Michael Dubno, who was chief technology officer before he left in 2005 and is now an inventor. We were more careful, more clean so whenever you see something like this it is very disturbing. Not Good Inside the Conrad hotel, former partners passed through an arched entrance that was an homage to the Pine Street building where Marcus Goldman opened an office almost 150 years ago. The dinner is a yearly tradition for the executives who made it to the top of the bank, pulling together one of the most elite groups in all of finance. When Blankfein took the stage, he cracked up the audience with jokes about promotions, paychecks and retirement, according to two alumni. David Solomon, who took over as chief executive officer in October, addressed 1MDB by saying that one person can do a lot of damage. Goldman has portrayed Tim Leissner, who pleaded guilty, as a rogue employee. According to bank spokesman Jake Siewert, Blankfein got a standing ovation at a lunch last week from fellow corporate executives including Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg. That public affirmation from our long-standing clients, Siewert said, is more meaningful than backbiting and second-guessing from former employees. Blankfein, 64, led the firm through the financial crisis to the biggest profits in company history, and under him the stock outperformed most big-bank rivals. He spent much of the last decade cleaning up Goldmans image after it paid a then-record $550 million fine in 2010 to settle claims it misled subprime investors. The billionaire led a three-year review of company standards, and Goldman dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropic work for women and small businesses. When asked weeks ago what 1MDB means for Goldman, Blankfein deadpanned: Well, its not good. Going Hollywood The Wall Street powerhouse recently pivoted to Main Street, launching an online lending business called Marcus and an ad campaign to promote it. At the same time that Goldman is selling itself to consumers, 1MDB is mushrooming into the kind of heavyweight scandal that gets its own bestselling book and a Hollywood adaptation. Last month was the worst for Goldmans stock in more than six years. Malaysias finance minister has said he wants a full refund from the Wall Street bank, and the firm was sued by Abu Dhabi investment funds over their losses. Goldman made about $600 million working on 1MDB bond sales in 2012 and 2013, dwarfing what banks typically make from government deals. One of the biggest revelations in recent weeks is that the alleged mastermind, Jho Low, attended meetings with Blankfein. In past years, when controversy arose over Goldman deals from Libya to Greece, outrage blew over. But the stock market and even some of Goldmans staunchest defenders are treating this differently. It doesnt smell right, but I just dont know, said Dennis Suskind, who hired Blankfein at Goldmans J. Aron & Co. unit and was a partner. The thing about the firm is that they should have been monitoring it closer. Two other former top partners said the amount of money Goldman Sachs made from relatively plain bond deals should have been a bright warning to its highest executives. A third partner, who sat on the management committee, was struck that the firm was the only one competing for such a fat payday. Goldman has said some of what it earned from the deals was fair compensation for the risk it was taking. Invisible Man As Blankfeins era ends, he hasnt disappeared from the Wall Street scene. A press release showed him smiling this month as he used giant red scissors to cut a baby blue ribbon and open an education centre named for his firm at New Yorks LaGuardia Community College. On Monday, he helped lead a blockbuster $31 million fundraiser, where he celebrated with Solomon and former deputy Gary Cohn, who left to become President Donald Trumps top economic adviser. Not everyone who used to work for Goldman Sachs is shaken. Archie Parnell, a former managing director who was based in Hong Kong, said he was surprised but not panicking. The firm is a good firm, said Parnell, who last month lost a race for a congressional seat in South Carolina. The ship will be righted. Meanwhile, the banks chairman has been thinking about life after Wall Street. At this weeks dinner, Blankfein compared himself to the Invisible Man: When he takes off his Goldman Sachs wrapping, he said, there might be nothing underneath. Canadas biggest banks suffered the worst decline in bond trading revenue since 2011 as volatility pushed investors to the sidelines. Revenue from trading fixed income, currencies and commodities fell 8.1 per cent to $6.32 billion at the six large Canadian lenders in the latest fiscal year, a further erosion from the 6.1 per cent decline in 2017, according to financial disclosures released this month. Revenue from those products, known as FICC, sunk to the lowest level in three years. Volatility finally emerged, which caused some investors to pause in activities and review their positioning and commitment to credit, said Brian Calder, a trader and fund manager at Franklin Templeton Investments in Calgary, who oversees about $6 billion in fixed income. We have also seen issuers back away from the market and wait. This years decline in bond trading contrasts with the gains in equity trading, which rose 12 per cent for the year ended Oct. 31, helping lift overall trading revenue at Canadas Big Six banks to a record $10.9 billion. Fixed-income trading at the six lenders peaked at $7.32 billion in 2016 a year with a 26 per cent surge and annual revenue has declined since. Last year, FICC trading slid to $6.88 billion, the first drop since 2014. Volatility Plague Bond traders were plagued with increased volatility amid Federal Reserve rate hikes and escalating trade tensions, which roiled markets in 2018. The Canadian investment banks saw only modest increases in arranging corporate bond sales and debt deals for provinces and government agencies in the fiscal year, which weighed on secondary trading revenue. The move toward risk-off had investors reluctant to expand positions but, at the same time, averse to move out from positions at a loss, said Jason Parker, head of North American credit research at Bank of Montreals BMO Capital Markets division. Royal Bank of Canada, which has the biggest trading shop among the Canadian banks, had an 8.1 per cent decline in fixed-income trading, to $2.1 billion. The market environment did remain challenging, Jonathan Hunter, global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities at RBC Capital Markets, said in a phone interview. Despite the fact that our volumes are up and our market share is growing, youve got a compression in margins and spreads due to market-structure changes, which have been ongoing and continue to be front and centre for the business. Banks Declines Toronto-Dominion Bank had a 6.7 per cent decline in bond trading, to $1.25 billion, while Bank of Montreal saw a 6 per cent drop, to $913 million. At Bank of Nova Scotia, it fell 22 per cent to $798 million and at National Bank of Canada it slumped 1.5 per cent to C$391 million. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was the only one of the Big Six to see an increase in bond trading albeit a small one. The Toronto-based company had $913 million in revenue from trading fixed-income, currencies and commodities, up $2 million from a year earlier. Representatives for TD, Scotiabank, National Bank and CIBC declined to comment on their FICC trading. Some banks are a bit more optimistic going forward and, if credit spreads narrow, there can definitely be more activity in this market, said Foster Cheng, a director at Fitch Ratings. Also, Canadian banks are very diverse and have other levers to pull on. Agency Trading Fixed-income trading could shrink further in the coming year, when banks begin planning their financing needs under standards including the net stable funding ratio that determines the types of liquidity they must hold, said Parker of BMO. As the capital costs for holding inventory rise significantly, agency trading will become more the norm, he said. Agency trading is when a dealer acts as an intermediary only, arranging a transaction between two investors without taking the position onto its own balance sheet. In that circumstance, the dealer would charge a fee for arranging the sale. Principal trading, by comparison, is when a dealer buys bonds from one client and then sells them to another, taking the position onto its balance sheet. Canadian banks are reluctant to act as a dealer in corporate credit. In many cases, they will act only as an agent to a transaction, said Raymond Humphrey, a New York-based portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein LP. My guess is that portfolio managers have adjusted to this new operating arrangement by reducing position sizes, migrating towards names that have broader sponsorship and are therefore easier to trade, and holding positions longer. I would not expect any of this to change in 2019. Performance on Canadian bond desks mirrors declines on Wall Street and in Europe, where fixed-income trading traditionally has been the biggest source of investment-banking profits. Earlier this month, Citigroup Inc. chief financial officer John Gerspach warned of a potential decline in fixed-income trading revenue. BNP Paribas SA, with one of the worlds worst-performing fixed-income units, said last month that its trading business was caught on the wrong side of the emerging-market sell-off, blindsided by the Turkish currency crisis, and deserted by clients at home, even after investing to become a top-tier securities firm. Quebecs new government is committed to protecting local companies such as SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. from hostile offers from foreign bidders and has drawn up a list of 10 strategic firms worth preserving. The government of Quebec has to figure out what head offices are strategically important, Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said Thursday in an interview in Montreal. There is a scale of 1 to 10. Can we intervene for all head offices? No. If we had to buy 20 per cent of all Quebec companies that are publicly traded, we would go bankrupt. So we have to be intelligent. Fitzgibbon spoke after Premier Francois Legault called Montreal-based SNC vulnerable to a takeover, saying Quebec should take steps to ensure that Canadas largest construction and engineering company remain based in the province. SNC shares have dropped about 17 per cent this year through Thursday with most of the decline occurring after Canadian prosecutors in October ruled out a negotiated settlement with the company over past corruption charges. SNC has a market value of about $8.3 billion (Canadian). SNC and the province share the desire to maintain our head office in Quebec; however, the ongoing legal challenges continue to weigh on the company, according to an e-mailed statement Friday. SNCs Canadian business has shrunk in the last five years, and its workforce in the country now totals about 8,500, down from 20,000 in 2013. Sensitive Issue Corporate head-office flight is a sensitive issue in Quebec after foreign buyers acquired locally based companies such as aluminum maker Alcan Inc. and home improvement retailer Rona Inc. in recent years. Large, homegrown companies play a crucial role in the economy, Louis Hebert, a management professor at the HEC Montreal business school, said in a telephone interview. Its not just the head office, its all the jobs that gravitate around it - the consultants, the lawyers, the accountants. Local investors such as the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec and Investissement Quebec - a financing arm of the provincial government - could team up to amass a blocking stake of at least 33 per cent in SNC, Legault said Thursday in an interview with Montreals 98.5 FM radio station. SNC could also look to adopt a dual-class share structure to prevent unwanted takeovers, the premier said. Key List Legault and his team - elected Oct. 1 on a platform that included pledges to reinforce the provinces economy have drawn up a list of 10 strategically important companies that the government would work to prevent from being acquired, Fitzgibbon said in the interview. He declined to identify them, citing confidentiality reasons. We have a list of the companies we cannot afford to lose, others that would be nice to keep, and some that we would be indifferent to losing, Fitzgibbon said. We have to work upstream, before takeover offers materialize. When a hostile offer is made, its too late. Any investment would be made through Investissement Quebec, the minister said. Investissement Quebec, which oversaw assets of about $10.9 billion as of March is ready to act today, Fitzgibbon said. We have available capital, and we can borrow more. The issue is not the source of money. Its the mandate, and were working on that right now. Besides SNC, cheese maker Saputo Inc. would likely be seen as key by Quebec because its supply base includes several local farmers, as would engineering-services firm WSP Global Inc., Hebert said. Companies such as Bombardier Inc. and CGI Group Inc. likely wouldnt need protection because their dual-class share structure shields them from unwanted offers, Moore added. Losing companies like Alcan and Rona was a blow to the Quebec economy, but many Quebec companies have grown by acquisition over the years, said Karl Moore, a management professor at Montreals McGill University. If you want your companies to be able to expand internationally, you have to put up with the fact some of them are going to be acquired. Its a two-way street. Read more about: Cranky with China for detaining a pair of Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a high-tech executive? Think Canadian companies should boycott Chinese suppliers? Then you probably dont run a Canadian company. Or shop in this country, for that matter. As Canadas dispute with China over the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou moves into its second week, frustrations are mounting in both countries. What, however, if the spat turned into a full-blown trade war, aided and abetted by U.S. President Donald Trump and his penchant for inflammatory tweets? Could Canadian businesses survive without China, either as customer or supplier? It would be a challenging task, according to Fraser Johnson, a professor at the Western Universitys Ivey School of Business and the deputy editor of the Journal of Supply Chain Management. It would be really tough. There are Chinese parts or labour in everything from your iPhone to your car to the pair of jeans youre wearing, said Johnson, whos optimistic the dispute wont spiral out of control. Read more: Canada gets to access Kovrig in China, as tourism minister postpones trip Canada caught between a rock and a hard place in the case of Huaweis Meng Wanzhou China levels national security accusations against two detained Canadians Well, at least not the one between Canada and China. I really cant imagine it happening. Theres just too much at stake. I dont think either country wants to damage (the relationship), Johnson said. Here are some facts and figures that help explain why untangling the business ties between Canada and China would be so difficult and which Canadian sectors would have the most to lose, if a trade war broke out: BIG ISSUE China and smaller neighbouring countries including Myanmar and Vietnam represent roughly half the worlds manufacturing base. That makes it tough for Canadian companies trying to shop around, either for finished products produced in China or parts to be assembled here, said Johnson. Everything from high-tech industries such as telecommunications and aerospace, to more traditional manufacturing industries such as the automotive business would be affected. So would retail and consumer products giants, such as Walmart and Loblaws, Johnson added. If the spat with China lasts longer than a month or two, companies might start to sniff around for other potential suppliers. But it would still be tough, especially for small- and medium-sized firms. Companies like GM and Apple? They take time to make decisions, but theyve got more resources and buying power, and more people to look at things like this. The little guys would have a much harder time, said Johnson. In a recent case study he prepared, a company near London, Ont., had to part ways with a Chinese supplier. The owner had to go back to a local supplier the company had previously ditched. They wanted to charge him nine times what the Chinese company was charging, said Johnson. WOOD NOT BE GOOD China is the second-largest customer of Canadas lumber industry, representing between 20 and 30 per cent of Canadian softwood exports, says Kevin Mason, managing director of ERA Forest Products Research, in Gibsons, B.C. Losing that chunk of business would be difficult in any circumstance. The biggest problem, however, is that the most logical alternative customer for the extra wood would be our neighbours to the south. You may have heard of the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute. Weve been fighting with the Americans over lumber for two or three centuries. So thats not an ideal place to turn to for extra business, and its not very profitable because of all the tariffs, Mason explained. China is an even bigger purchaser of Canadian softwood pulp used in paper manufacturing; its the worlds biggest consumer. Part of that is sheer numbers. A billion people use a whole lot of paper in the office and, er, other rooms. The biggest end product for pulp is tissue, said Mason. Demand for the pulp has slumped in recent months as Chinese companies try to use existing inventories something that predates the current dispute. I think the broader question is whether China would be able to do without us. And I dont think they would, said Mason. That makes him optimistic that any tit-for-tat retaliation by China wont be long-lasting. I think in six months, well look back at this and it will have been a little blip. OM(5)G The highest-profile Chinese product lately is the infrastructure needed for so-called 5G internet. China, and specifically Huawei, is deeply involved in the 5G world, something that has drawn political scrutiny and concern from online security experts around the world. In Canada, Telus is relying largely upon Huawei to build its 5G network. Bell has also unveiled some commitments. To a much lesser extent, Rogers also has some 5G involvement with Huawei. MOVING UP While manufacturers have been outsourcing to China for decades, more recently, higher-value work has been landing in the country. Its no longer just a place to build, but is increasingly seen as a country where traditionally white-collar roles can be done for Western companies. Call centres, design work, engineering and other back-office functions are now being done in China for foreign companies. If you can do it in China or India for a tenth of the price, why would you do it in Mississauga? said Johnson. Read more about: EDMONTONCourt orders were not enough to protect women from Ashton Lafleche, who had a history of violence against women and breaching no-contact orders long before he was accused of killing two young children and assaulting their mother. In the months leading up to the stabbing deaths of 3-year-old Mackenzie Petawaysin and 6-month-old Mary Lafleche Petawaysin their bodies found in a storage room in an apartment building at 79 Ave. and 71 St. on Dec. 5 hours after their mother, Tamara Petawaysin, had been assaulted Lafleche was a regular on court dockets in Stony Plain and Morinville. On Sept. 13, Lafleche admitted to breaching a no-contact order with Tamara Petawaysin and possessing methamphetamine. Four days later, Lafleche was accused of again breaching a no-contact order and assaulting Petawaysin, charges he pleaded guilty to on Oct. 31. Lafleche is expected back in court in Morinville on Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on charges that he assaulted Petawaysin on Dec. 26, 2017, while she was pregnant, and stole $380 from her. His latest charges are even more severe. The 29-year-old from the Alexander First Nation, west of Morinville, faces two counts of second-degree murder, a charge of assault causing bodily harm, and another charge of breaching his conditions in connection to the deaths of the two girls and the assault on their mother. While Lafleche is presumed innocent until proven guilty, Jacquelyn Campbell, a leading domestic violence expert who developed a danger assessment tool used by Alberta womens shelters, said the tragedy highlights the need for better interventions serving both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. Read more: Public conversation about domestic violence needs to shift, advocates say Two girls found in Edmonton apartment were stabbed to death, medical examiner says Two very young children found dead in Edmonton apartment storage room, dad of one now charged It is a wake-up call, I think, to any community. We need better offender interventions for all communities, Campbell said. According to court documents, Petawaysin wasnt the only woman threatened by Lafleche. Lafleche pleaded guilty to threatening Miranda Yellowdirt with bodily harm in October 2016. Charges that he made threats about another person and threatened to harm Yellowdirts dog were withdrawn. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation. The rest of Lafleches criminal history is interspersed with various parole violations and breaching conditions prohibiting him from possessing or consuming alcohol or unprescribed drugs. Just days before the slayings occurred, Lafleche was sentenced to 20 days to be served consecutively after pleading guilty to three counts of breaching court conditions. It is not clear why Lafleche wouldnt have been in custody in early December. Campbell says there are about a dozen major risk factors for serious domestic violence and homicide. Among them are recent estrangement, controlling behaviour, abusing the victim while pregnant, and the victim having a child at home that is not the perpetrators biological child. Six-month-old Mary Lafleche Petawaysin was Lafleches biological daughter, while 3-year-old Mackenzie Petawaysin was not. If a victim is deemed to be at high risk of serious violence or homicide, its important the officer or outreach worker relay that information clearly, Campbell said. The victim is told that they are at high risk for lethality. Its best not to mince words. So that she has that information in going forward and making decisions, Campbell said. Ideally, police responding to a domestic violence call will call community resources from the scene and connect them directly with the victim, rather than leaving pamphlets or phone numbers. At that point, she said, its crucial to have a community response to keep the victim safe. The Alberta Council of Womens Shelters released statistics last month that show a womans risk of being murdered by a partner in Alberta, as determined by danger assessments, has risen 12 per cent since 2011. The data also indicates crisis calls to the provinces 37 shelters have gone up 10 per cent over the last two years. When an assessment identifies a severe or extreme risk, the next step for workers is to develop a safety plan that involves police, probation officers, mental health professionals, womens shelters and, if necessary, child protective services. The ideal situation is that there is a co-ordinated, collaborative community response that involves the key domestic violence players in every community, said Ian Wheeliker, the councils director of programs. Safety plans include emergency escape strategies and quick access to wraparound services. Some shelters have experimented with GPS SOS devices that allow a victim to alert police of their whereabouts immediately with one push of a button. But because of the high levels of co-ordination and co-operation required, the effectiveness of safety plans can vary widely over time and from one community to the next. And keeping abusers at bay is even more complicated. Wheeliker said courts looking at release conditions should have the tools to do a thorough risk assessment on offenders, to determine whether they are likely to seriously harm current or former partners. I think assessing men at an early stage in the criminal justice system is critical, he said. I think the default position is to assume that this person is going to comply with any no-contact orders or any probation orders. Red Deer RCMP ran a pilot program from 2010 to 2013 putting ankle bracelets on domestic violence offenders, and said it led to increased well-being for their victims. Angelica Rojas works at the Edmonton Violence Prevention Centre, where she runs the Changing Pathways program for people who have been abusive to their partners. Most have been court ordered to take the program, and it has a three-month waiting list. She sees men in groups of 15 at a time, up to 700 over the course of a year. She also works with about 50 women per year. Rojas teaches skills related to communication, how to fight fair, what a healthy relationship looks like, identifying different types of abuse, and the impact of domestic violence on kids. Rojas said she would like police to have the power to send abusers to a mandatory therapy program any time they are called to a domestic violence incident whether charges are laid or not. She said what she hears frequently from men in her program is that they wish they had learned the skills she teaches before they became adults. I would probably tell you it would be best if these individuals could somehow come before they get charged. Because once they get charged, you know that its escalated quite a bit, Rojas said. Campbell and Wheeliker said the jury is still out in terms of the effectiveness of mens treatment programs, and things like anger management and couples counselling dont seem to help. There is little evidence that jail time by itself does much to reduce reoffending, either. Campbell said healing trauma in children raised around domestic abuse as early as possible is the most effective way to prevent future abuse. We need to identify these cases of domestic violence early, and we need to have interventions that dont necessarily rely on punitive measures early, that are more healing measures early, she said. Read more about: Attending the event were Chief Justice of the Supreme Peoples Court of Vietnam Nguyen Hoa Binh, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Cambodia Dith Munty, and Chief Justice of the Lao Supreme Peoples Court Khamphanh Sithidampha. They shared the view that since the first conference, held in Vietnam in 2010, cooperation in the settlement of civil and criminal cases among the three countries supreme and local courts has been strengthened, especially in border localities. They agreed that all three courts will seek effective measures to improve their capacity, effectively deal with civil disputes, and combat transnational crimes. The conference featured three sessions, focusing on the review of the implementation of the fourth conferences joint statement held in Nha Trang in 2016, experience in dealing with trans-border crimes and support mechanisms in the field, and the settlement of trans-border civil cases. A joint statement will be issued at the closing session on December 15. The first and fourth conferences were held in Vietnam, while the second and the fifth were held in Cambodia, and the third in Laos. The sixth edition of its kind is due to take place in Laos. France, Belgium Hold Inaugural Meeting of CaMo Steering Committee The page you requested is only available to subscribers. 1. If you are a Premium Service subscriber, please log in here to access this story: Log-in : Password : 2. If you are not a subcriber, you can: -- buy access to this page: unlimited access for seven days costs 3.00 EUR + VAT (at 20%) if applicable. Clicking on the "Ok" button below will place the item in your shopping cart and return you to our home page, where you will be able to select additional stories. -- select additional stories and services from our home page and pay for them at the same time. -- see your shopping cart. You can also see the contents of your shopping cart at any time by clicking on the "Order" tab on the navigation bar at the top of any page, or by clicking on the "Your order" light blue link in the top right-hand corner of our home page, immediately under the log-on box. OTTAWACanadas Liberal government is jammed in the midst of two belligerent superpowers China and the United States as it ponders the extraordinary extradition case of Meng Wanzhou. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might be wishing he was in the same position a Liberal predecessor of his, Paul Martin, once was. Martins Justice Minister Irwin Cotler swiftly extradited a group of Basque separatists to Spain after getting assurances the wanted men would not be mistreated, and announced their abrupt departure to the surprise of the Commons. Martin rang up Cotler to ask why he was not informed and why hed had no say. Canadian law says any extradition decision belongs to the justice minister alone, Cotler says he told the prime minister. If you get any questions, you can direct them to me, and you can thank me later, Cotler recalled in an interview. Read more: For neighbours of Huaweis Meng Wanzhou, her story is more about housing grievances than global intrigue Blindfolds, sleep deprivation and interrogations could be the new daily life of two Canadians missing in China, says a man who lived it China levels national security accusations against two detained Canadians Neither the prime minister nor the cabinet need be consulted, said Cotler. In fact, it protects all that they are not consulted so that a decision is made anchored on the legal merits of the request. However, Justin Trudeau doesnt have the same luxury of being in the dark. He knew of the pending Dec. 1 arrest of the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou days beforehand because his officials gave him a heads-up. And, although he was in Argentina at the G20 with both U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, he says he told neither leader. Meng is deputy chair and chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Inc., Chinas telecommunications giant and corporate gem. The arrest of the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, Huaweis CEO who retired from the Chinese armys engineering corps and founded the telecom company that is seeking to become a primary player in the next generation of global wireless networks, has outraged the Chinese government. As high-profile corporate targets go, it doesnt get much higher than that. The U.S. alleges Mengdeceived a multinational financial institution, HSBC, which has operations in the U.S., about the level of control Huawei had of another company, Skycom, in an effort to bypass U.S. prohibitions on doing business in Iran. The extradition dilemma now facing Trudeau and his government is suddenly more complicated. It raises questions of law, politics, international trade and security. It is fraught with geopolitical tension. Thats because the fate of two Canadian citizens detained this week in China could depend on whether Ottawa hands the Huawei executive over to the U.S. justice system. Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian businessman Michael Spavor could languish in jail for years awaiting legal processes because Chinas foreign ministry has levelled grave accusations against them of harming state security. No Americans have been detained in the wake of the U.S. request to extradite Meng, as far as anyone knows. They go after who they think might be vulnerable, said Cotler. China hasnt said the Meng arrest and the Canadian mens cases are linked. But Cotler said Chinas detentions of the Canadians are acts of reprisal for Canadas arrest of Meng. The extradition of Meng Wanzhou has escalated into a crucial test for Canada after the stunning boast by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suggested she could be a bargaining chip in his larger trade and security disputes with China. Trump said he would intervene in her legal case if he thought it would help national security or a trade deal. Whatevers good for this country, I would do, the U.S. president told Reuters. Trumps senior justice officials are now furiously trying to walk back the presidents remark. But the damage is done. In truth, Trump may have done Ottawa a favour. The minister of justice is the one who will decide whether to proceed with bringing the U.S. extradition request to a Canadian court, and later, if a judge finds enough evidence to send it to trial in the U.S., Jody Wilson-Raybould will decide whether to surrender Meng to American prosecutors. The charges are serious and may carry a possible 30-year jail sentence or $1-million fine. Canadas extradition treaty with the U.S. is pretty clear; if theres evidence the crime she is accused of in the U.S. would constitute a crime if it were committed on Canada, Canada would ordinarily agree. In fact, Ottawa has agreed to more than 90 per cent of American extradition requests to this country, officials say. There are mandatory grounds for refusing extradition, such as if the persons already been tried for the offence in Canada; if extradition would violate an individuals Charter rights to due process, a broad category; or if a prosecution would be for an improper purpose, including to prosecute or punish an individual by reason of their race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, language, or colour, or on other discriminatory grounds. A minister has discretionary powers to refuse a request; Canada does not extradite to countries that have the death penalty without first obtaining assurances from the other country that it wont execute the extradited individual. Prof. Rob Currie with the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University says extradition law is a weird mixture of law and politics, because the justice minister can take Canadas foreign relations into account. It is a decision that is based on a legal framework, but its a decision that is allowed and expected to take into account Canadas international commitments, international comity (good relations), our relations with other states and the frameworks of cooperation we operate under in fighting transnational crime, he said. And, importantly, the law allows Canada to turn down any request if it is seen as a bid to prosecute a political offence. The minister may, if she wishes, refuse to extradite if she feels that the prosecution in the requesting state is politicized or if its a political crime like treason or espionage, he said in an interview. At the same time, Currie said, It would be unheard of for the minister to say a prosecution on the part of our good friends the Americans was politicized and refuse extradition on that basis. That would be like punching Trump, himself, in the nose. He agreed the minister must feel enormous political pressure, saying The Canadians being detained is a great concern, but we cannot be seen to be bending to Chinese pressure. Cotler, who is head of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human rights and defends political prisoners around the world including China, said Chinas complaints about Mengs treatment are hypocritical, over the top, and show that countrys contempt for the rule of law, whether it be ours or theirs. China regularly arbitrarily detains citizens, conducts sham trials, and imposes unreasonable punishments on its citizens, lawyers and human rights activists, he said. Cotler said Trumps remarks were astonishing. What Trump has done, hes basically politicized the process. And by politicizing the process, hes allowed Meng to raise this in her fight against extradition, Cotler said. It could even lead the Canadian minister of justice who will decide in the end to think differently about it because of the fact because of the fact that Trumps considerations are not legal, he said. Trump doesnt seem to understand that there is a rule of law issue here. Its just a whole transactional approach to the art of a deal, and when you look at it that way youre really undermining the rule of law. Canadian officials would not answer if Mengs extradition will be discussed by Trudeau and his cabinet, but said, if the justice minister does consult with anyone, her reasons for refusing extradition would have to be disclosed to Mengs defence team. Read more about: SAINT JOHN, N.B.The deputy mayor of Saint John is calling for a four-month ban on negative news about New Brunswicks port city. Shirley McAlary said the city of about 67,000 people has a great quality of life, and city council, the public and the media need to tell a positive story to convince others to move there. She said the media has to tell stories like the Oland murder trial, and recent explosions at the Irving refinery and at a metal recycling plant. But theres more to talk about, she said. Those things happen in life. That doesnt mean its the end of the life here. Were an industrial city, but also a city with a great residential area, McAlary said Thursday. Im just trying to get it out there that its a great place to live. McAlary suggested, during a committee meeting this week discussing the citys growth priorities, that there be a four-month ban on negative news. Part of that was said in jest, she said. I know the media are not going to start not reporting the news, but I want us to be more up on the positive stories. I dont know how many times Ive read in national media that in the last few years weve had a decline in population, for example. We dont have to say that every time we have an interview with somebody. McAlary said shes gotten lots of calls from reporters since making her remarks, but she wasnt trying to hurt the media. She just thinks the city needs to do a better job of marketing itself, and that starts with what Saint Johners tell others about their city, she said. I want people to be proud of Saint John and to be happier and pass that message on. If you travel anywhere, theres lots of people who dont have the quality of life that Saint John has. We should be proud of what we have, she said. Last December, Saint John Mayor Don Darling got a flood of responses after issuing a social media plea for people tired of long Toronto and Vancouver commutes to move east. Darling posted his message after Statistics Canada released data showing New Brunswick commute times are much shorter than in most big cities. He said the post got over 100,000 hits and many people inquired about jobs and home prices in the city. I have people I meet on a weekly basis now who tell me they moved here from Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and other places all over the globe, Darling said Thursday. He said the effort to speak positively about Saint John is a way to dial-up the success of past efforts to attract new residents. The 2016 census showed the population of Saint John fell by 3.6 per cent over the previous five years falling from 70,063 to 67,575 and losing its status as the largest city in the province. A New Brunswick sociologist, Hassan Arif, likened the city to Detroit in a 2012 column for HuffPost, saying Saint Johns decline isnt as severe but it faced similar challenges: They were both declining cities with growing suburbs, with concentrated urban poverty and a shrinking tax base. Both have multiple vacant and abandoned buildings. The city was also stung by the failure of the Energy East pipeline project last year, which civic backers hoped would create thousands of jobs over several decades. Darling said council is not trying to sweep the challenges under the rug, and will deal with issues openly. He said there are 700 unfilled jobs in Saint John right now, and lots of opportunities for people to make their home in the city. Darling said there will be a greater effort to market the city in the new year. Youre going to hear a lot from us in 2019, he said. Read more about: A lawsuit alleging the Ontario government has been arbitrarily making thousands of mentally disabled people wait indefinitely for provincial government supports after they turn 18 was certified as a class action on Friday. In his decision, Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba agreed the plaintiff had made a strong enough case to allow the as-yet untested claim to proceed to trial on its merits. The plaintiffs complaint is not about inadequate funding or the need for a greater allocation of governmental resources but about the negligent utilization and administration of existing resources, Belobaba wrote in his decision. The plaintiff points to the indeterminate delays in the wait-listed services, the flawed computer programs and bad databases, and the poor prioritization and matching of available resources. The lawsuit, which accuses the province of harm-causing negligence, seeks $110 million in damages. It also asks for a declaration that the government has failed adults assessed as eligible for help but who have instead been placed on indeterminate waiting lists. Belobaba appointed as representative plaintiff Briana Leroux, 20, of Timmins, Ont., a woman with a rare brain disorder. She has a mental age of about three, cannot speak, and lacks the most basic ability to care for herself. Her father Marc Leroux, acting as her litigation guardian, has previously told The Canadian Press that the loss of a day program and other help for his daughter when she turned 18 caused immense stress on the family. He was not immediately available to comment Friday. Read more: Ontario educational system failing students with intellectual disabilities: report Class suit urged by Canadians with mental disabilities over loss of government services at age 18 In his analysis, Belobaba agreed to allow certification on two of three grounds Leroux had proposed: negligence and a breach of her charter rights. Although a meaningful milestone for many, turning 18 has no medical or other significance for developmentally disabled persons, Belobaba observed. Nothing changes when they become 18 they remain disabled, with the same mental age, and the same need for support and services. The only change, the justice wrote, is they have to deal with the Ministry of Community and Social Services rather than the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. The problem arises after the developmentally disabled person has been formally assessed and approved to receive government support and services, Belobaba said. The evidence is that the families are then dropped off a cliff and nothing happens for a very long time. While Belobaba did agree Leroux could press her claim for breach of her constitutional rights, he did say it would probably not succeed on the merits. However, he noted the only requirement for certification was to show the claim had at least some chance of success. Similarly, he also found it possible that a claim for damages under the charter could succeed. The proposed class, as certified, comprises people found eligible for government-funded developmental supports starting on July 1, 2011, but who were instead placed on wait lists. Belobaba also certified three common issues to be decided at trial: whether there was a breach of duty of care or a constitutional violation, and whether punitive damages are available. During the certification hearing, the lawyer for the province insisted clients are assessed and prioritized according to their needs, with the most urgent cases getting help even after turning 18. The government also tried to argue the plaintiff was attacking a policy decision immune from judicial scrutiny. Its not the policy of the government, say the plaintiffs, to have a totally screwed-up system, Belobaba said at the hearing. The Ford government has not only angered doctors by pulling the plug on arbitration with the Ontario Medical Association, but now one of its MPPs has gone public in denouncing the move as well. The Star has also learned there is a growing schism within government on the issue with the health ministers office on one side and the premiers office on the other. Binding arbitration, aimed at resolving an almost five-year-old contract dispute between the OMA and government, is scheduled to resume Saturday. But the government revealed earlier this week it no longer plans to attend. The OMA, which is the legally recognized bargaining agent for the provinces 31,000 physicians, says it still plans to participate, noting that arbitration legislation permits the process to continue even if one party fails to show up. There is uncertainty over whether the governments nominee to the three-member arbitration board will attend. Kevin Smith, who is also president of the University Health Network, was sent a letter from the government Wednesday, informing him his services were not required, numerous sources have told the Star. Read more: Opinion | The Ontario Medical Association doesnt need more chaos Ford government, OMA fail to reach negotiated settlement Province pulls out of arbitration with Ontario Medical Association But the OMA contends its illegal for the government to fire its nominee. Meantime, angry doctors are lashing out against the government with some warning of job action and others calling on Conservative MPPs and cabinet ministers to stand up to their own government on the issue. The physicians charge that the Conservative Party wooed them for their support during the election based on a false promise to make peace with the profession. Conservative MPP Randy Hillier said he has heard that message loud and clear from doctors in his eastern Ontario riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston. He said the Conservatives also promised in the election to resolve the dispute through binding arbitration and now have an obligation to do so. There is a substantial number of physicians who are very disappointed. They are truly expecting and wanting to have a good relationship and to have this dispute resolved through the mechanism that we agreed to, he said. We made that commitment to resolve this dispute through arbitration and unless there is a better mechanism that all parties agree to, then we must uphold our commitment, Hillier added. The government earlier this week sent a letter to William Kaplan, chair of the arbitration board, stating it was withdrawing from the arbitration process because it lacks confidence that the OMA can deliver on the outcome of any arbitration decision. Less than two weeks earlier, a request was made to Health Minister Christine Elliott by a group of high-paid specialists to suspend the arbitration process. It was signed by radiologist Dr. David Jacobs, an outspoken supporter of Premier Doug Fords. He is spearheading an effort by a group of high-billing specialists, including radiologists, to break-away from the OMA. The attempt to split the OMA followed the release of a report from an internal association committee, which recommended that high-billing specialists get paid less and low-billing ones get paid more. A source close to government said the decision to pull out of arbitration came directly from Premier Doug Fords office. Health Minister Christine Elliott has pushed for arbitration to continue but has been overruled by an official from Fords office, said the source who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations. A second source close to government acknowledged the internal rift. Given how this was handled, there is no way that the government is unified about this decision. Things have to get back on track, fast, said the source, who who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the controversy. The government is alienating physicians, the source warned, adding that the consequences could spell bad news for Ontario patients. The problem is that the consequences for the government and its relationship with physicians will be toxic. Press secretaries for Ford and Elliott have not responded to questions about the dissension between their offices. On Twitter, doctors are discussing job action and OMA president Dr. Nadia Alam has said all options are on the table. OMA lawyer Steven Barrett sent a letter to Kaplan Thursday, stating that the arbitration hearings must proceed nothwithstanding the unlawful and bad faith attempt by the (government) to undermine the process. Read more about: Toronto marijuana users will soon be able to buy weed in privately-owned, provincially-regulated pot shops, city council decided Thursday. The 20-4 vote Thursday night means Ontarios biggest city has embraced, albeit while expressing some concerns, the ultimatum issued by Premier Doug Ford that municipalities agree to host licensed private pot shops or lose a share of millions of dollars in funding set to flow to towns and cities to cover their marijuana-related costs. Late Thursday night, the province announced they would only be issuing 25 licences across the province for business to open April 1 due to what they called a national shortage of cannabis supply. This will severely limit the number of stores that will initially be open in Toronto, or any city, for that matter. Fords government said, in a press release, this would be a phased approach to retail sales, and called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to address the supply issue. Its not clear when more licences would be issued. The province plans to hold a lottery, administered by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, in January, with successful applicants posted online shortly after the Jan. 11 draw. Mayor John Tory argued Toronto opting out would allow illegal operators to return with a vengeance and cost the city needed funding to manage the effects of the new legalization. Read more: Rejecting cannabis stores would cost Toronto millions, John Tory says Scarborough councillor says wards should be able to opt-out of having cannabis shops Mississauga council says no to cannabis shops I think the consequence for us of not opting in are, first of all, that we will be back to the true wild west where illegal operators will open up in huge numbers all across the city, Tory said. If you opt out, then you never re-qualify for the money. Council, at Torys urging, also unanimously requested the province give the city control to block stores from locating a certain, close to schools, community centres, youth facilities and other cannabis retail stores. Licensed stores can open legally in April. Have your say: Dr. Eileen de Villa, Torontos medical officer of health, joined city staff in recommending council agree to host the shops. De Villa said the previous Liberal governments plan to restrict retail pot sales to provincially run LCBO-style shops would have provided the best health safeguards. But the Ford government elected last June to go with private retailers, to shrink the mandatory buffer between pot shops and schools from 500 metres to 150 metres, and to give municipalities the power to ask the provincial regulator for other restrictions on local shops. Despite the shortcomings, the city should opt into the new system as opposed to using the provincially provided window, until Jan. 22, to opt out of hosting legal cannabis retailers, de Villa said. If we choose to opt out you run into a challenge where a significant portion of the population is using ... products from an illicit market with no regulations, said de Villa, who added that its better to watch regulated sales, learn from that experience and lobby the province for any required changes. We dont want to see people being pushed into an illegal market where there is no regulation and absolutely no control. I think thats a greater harm to health. The federal government legalized recreational cannabis on Oct. 17. Ontario residents can buy it now at the Ontario Cannabis Store website. Mike Colle, a former Liberal MPP elected to Toronto council in October who moved the failed motion to opt-out, was incredulous that de Villa would want Toronto to join a wild west system where the city has no controls over how many pot shops open and where they locate. Colle made his comments before the province announced it would be issuing just 25 licenses. Raising the spectre of cannabis retailers beside mental health outreach centres and methadone clinics, he advised opting out for now as leverage to get provincial agreement for more local control. The citys chief planner Gregg Lintern told council he was hard-pressed to think of another example where council had zero control over land use within its own boundaries. City solicitor Wendy Walberg told council that Toronto is in the retail regime unless it specifically opts out, as communities including Mississauga and Markham have already done. Mississauga city council voted 10-2 this week to say no to retail pot shops. Councillors there said their city was being rushed into a decision without any ability to control or plan the outcome. Markham has also closed the door to pot shops. Brampton council has not yet decided whether to opt out of hosting marijuana retailers. On Thursday, Ottawas city council also voted to opt in with similar reservations about the lack of controls. Communities that opt out can opt back in after Jan. 22, but they wont get the extra funding to cover pot-related costs, provincial officials have told the city. Toronto will receive about $3 million in January, part of funding going to all municipalities, and expects to get a similar amount in March. Opting out would mean giving up that second payment, said licensing executive director Tracey Cook. Cook said her department has spent about $2 million since 2016 closing down illegal pot shops, of which there are now 14, down from a high of 92. Opting out of legal retailing could encourage illegal sales, she said, especially with dry communities around Toronto. I do believe the opting out around us will put additional pressure on and may encourage people to continue to operate illegally in Toronto, Cook said. Council nearly decided to explore the possibility of the city exclusively operating retail stores which would have required the provinces permission but a motion from Councillor Josh Matlow (Ward 12, Toronto-St. Pauls) failed on a close 11-13 vote. A motion from Councillor Cynthia Lai (Ward 23, Scarborough North) asking the province to restrict shops within 500 metres of schools, recreational facilities, community centres and religious centres passes this would create a lot of areas where shops would be banned failed on a 12-12 tie. Correction December 17, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Brampton has opt out of hosting marijuana retailers. In fact, Brampton council has yet to decid whether to opt out of hosting marijuana retailers. David Rider is the Stars City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider Read more about: New legislation proposed by Premier Doug Ford is causing concern that parts of the two-million-acre Greenbelt could be paved over for development. If the province passes Bill 66, critics fear that commercial developers could bypass several long-standing laws that aim to protect the natural environment. The proposed legislation, called the Restoring Ontarios Competitiveness Act, aims to reduce red tape for businesses seeking planning approvals. Ford has repeatedly said that the intention of the omnibus legislation is not to open up the Greenbelt to housing development. Ford assured delegates to the Toronto Global Forum on Wednesday that his push to cut unnecessary red tape is not about opening up the Greenbelt. Right now we have more than double the regulations that we have in British Columbia. Just imagine this, 380,000 regulations . . . right here in Ontario. Thats staggering. That makes it almost impossible to do business, he said. Economic Development Minister Todd Smith, who tabled Bill 66, said the Progressive Conservative government would keep its campaign promise to not allow development on the Greenbelt. The Star reached out to mayors across the GTA for their reaction to the bill. (Some municipalities didnt provide a comment in time for deadline.) Toronto: City staff are reviewing Bill 66 and its implications. Mayor (John) Tory believes existing environmental and planning safeguards are especially important in a rapidly growing region. There are other ways to make the approval process more efficient without jeopardizing those safeguards. Don Peat, spokesperson for Tory HALTON REGION Burlington: We stand firm in our commitment to protecting our Greenbelt from development and protecting our farm families and rural agricultural economy. We will also ensure our residents benefit from the protections in all the other pieces of legislation referred to in Bill 66. We will not be comprising their safety or quality of life for speed. I do not see Burlington using this legislation, if it is passed. At the same time, well do everything we can to ensure Burlington is open for business. Mayor Marianne Meed Ward Oakville: The Open for Business zoning bylaw removes the ability for local residents or councillors to influence planning decisions. Specifically, if adopted, the bylaw would allow development to go forward with no public notice, no consultation and no appeal. Additionally, the bylaw would override a hold or H placed on land by the local councillor or council body, and would exempt developers from their obligations under Section 37 of the Planning Act. This bill is bad for municipalities and bad for constituents. As local representatives, we know that managing development is one of the top responsibilities our residents task us with. It is not in their interest, or ours, to see Open for Business zoning put in place. Mayor Rob Burton, in a letter to the Greenbelt Leaders co-chair on Wednesday. Halton Hills: This is a complex bill with many components to it as it includes 12 ministries. I dont want to see diminished changes to the Clean Water Act or seeing the Greenbelt peeled back for residential purposes. I do support the governments larger objective; wanting to see planning decisions moved along faster than in the past while not compromising safety of our water and the environment. We appreciate the government looking for ways to help communities grow. Mayor Rick Bonnette Milton: As I understand it, what theyre proposing is restoring some of Ontarios competitiveness and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. Part of it, as I understand it, is that theyre eliminating a lot of the red tape, and allowing municipalities to act quickly in attracting new business and Im all for that, but certainly and I want to make it clear certainly not at the expense of the environment and all of those other things that go along with it. . . . Im about preservation, but Im also about common sense. Mayor Gordon Krantz PEEL REGION Mississauga: While we are always looking for ways to cut red tape and make it easier for companies to establish themselves in our city, we must balance this with our commitment to protecting our shared environment and the safety of our residents for future generations to come. Sustainability and responsible development have always been our guiding principles, and we will continue to carefully review every single development application before it proceeds. Its important to note that Mississauga is already a leader in making it easier for businesses to invest in our city. We have designated pre-zoned lands for business, authorized the issuing of conditional building permits, and created a development liaison position to facilitate the development application process. Mayor Bonnie Crombie Caledon: The town is currently reviewing the potential impacts of Bill 66 on our community. While council as a whole makes decisions as they relate to development, I can say that the preservation and protection of Caledons agricultural land and natural environment is very important to the residents of Caledon and must be strongly considered in all decisions made by council. Mayor Allan Thompson DURHAM REGION Pickering: Its too premature for Mayor Dave Ryan to comment on Bill 66 at this time. As this has just literally landed on our desk, our planning staff have not yet had an opportunity to review and discuss in thorough detail. In turn, they will brief the mayor accordingly. Mark Guinto, manager, public affairs and corporate communications Whitby: Town staff are currently reviewing Bill 66 and will be reporting to council in early 2019. Mayor Don Mitchell Clarington: Our Planning Services Department, as well as Clarington Board of Trade and Office of Economic Development, work with developers to walk them through the planning process to eliminate any red tape. . . .The municipality follows its Official Plan as well as regional and provincial policies that guide planning applications. Clarington is watching developments on Bill 66; it is too early to comment on the details of the proposed legislation. If and when Bill 66 is approved, Clarington council will decide the municipalitys position and how we will move forward. Mayor Adrian Foster Uxbridge: We must find a balance between protecting our environment and creating jobs close to our homes. I hope that our municipal and provincial governments can work together to find that balance. Mayor Dave Barton Scugog: Greenbelt communities like Scugog require an enhanced degree of sustained financial assistance from the province, either through direct transfer payments, guaranteed grants, or through some degree of preferential weighting in grant application and suitable and sustainable planning processes. The township is encouraged with the proposal to provide opportunities to permit manufacturing and research development that creates a large number of jobs. We would only consider controlled development of small border sections of lands that are adjacent to our industrial areas (e.g. Port Perry and Blackstock) Mayor Bobbie Drew YORK REGION Markham: Mayor Frank Scarpitti welcomes the governments removal of red tape, but promised that the city would not turn our back on the environment. Its perhaps a little early for me to be sounding the alarm bells, Scarpitti said in a phone interview. Aurora: I am greatly concerned about the implications of the new open for business legislation, in particular as it speaks to potential impacts to the integrity of the Greenbelt. I personally would not be in favour of entering discussions with the province regarding the potential removal of any town lands that are currently protected areas and would oppose any such move. Our Official Plan reflects our communitys collective vision for current and future planning. And as such, the OP clearly designates land that is protected. It also provides clearly designated land to meet future employment land needs in the long term. We have no need to discuss the option of removing designated land from protected areas. Mayor Tom Mrakas Vaughan: Were still reviewing the legislation. Michael Genova, director, corporate and strategic communications Georgina: With the recent tabling of Bill 66 from the province, council is interested in learning more details as to what exactly this will mean. Council will be looking to engage staff for further research and exploration of how this will impact residents and our community as a whole. Mayor Margaret Quirk King: King Township isnt prepared to make a comment on Bill 66 at this time as our planning department is still reviewing the bill on its potential impacts on the municipality. We anticipate a staff report on the issue will be brought to council in January. Jason Ballantyne, communications officer Richmond Hill: We will continue to monitor the progress of Bill 66 and its associated proposed regulation. We are asking our staff for a report and the Region of York for a report on any impact on our planned urban structure and our infrastructure master plan so we can take a position before Jan. 20, 2019. Richmond Hill is strongly committed to the conservation of our natural environment. For example, our Official Plan has been developed around the protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt areas. . . . The bill may be a tool to create employment lands along the 400 series highways that are needed to carry goods and services but that does not affect every municipality. Mayor Dave Barrow Newmarket: It is still unclear how the new regulation could affect the planning process at both the upper and lower tier of municipal government. Environmental protections are an important and valued part of the planning regime in Ontario as is public consultation. I will be waiting for staff reports at both the town and the region to see how our staff feel these issues are either being addressed or compromised. I do see this as a potentially significant legislative change and will be following it closely. Mayor John Taylor East Gwillimbury: At this time, the proposed revisions to Bill 66 are in the early stages of development. East Gwillimbury Council has not yet had an opportunity to fully review the proposed revisions. However, this matter will certainly remain on Councils radar, and will be closely monitored. As more information becomes available we will be able to review and respond at that time. Mayor Virginia Hackson AMO Association of Municipalities of Ontario: Bill 66 sets out a framework for a new land use planning tool. We understand the intent is to facilitate the zoning of lands for industrial and commercial uses; it is not for residential development. The framework rests on the Minister of Municipal Affairs review criteria, and on the ministers approval to use the new tool. The criteria will be important. We will need details about the approval criteria before we can provide a meaningful analysis. AMO Executive Director Pat Vanini With files from Ilya Banares, Robert Benzie and Emerald Bensadoun. When it comes to tax revenues from newly legal cannabis sales in Ontario, Queens Park controls the pot. Its how it intends to share that pot of newfound money that has many towns and cities across the province worried. Toronto Mayor John Tory, who heads Ontarios largest municipality, said the staff has estimated cannabis legalization will put the city on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in additional policing, paramedic, fire, public health and other costs. And the number that they said they were going to give us was, I guess, we get $3 million, and a similar amount after that, said Tory, whose council voted Thursday to allow cannabis stores to open shop in the city starting April 1. Late Thursday, the province announced it would only issue 25 licences across Ontario for business at first, blaming national supply issues. It clearly is not enough to cover all our costs. Tory said in an interview the citys position has been that the provincial and federal governments should pick up all of Torontos extra cannabis expenditures. We didnt change the law (federally) and we didnt set up the regulatory regime provincially, he said. Therefore property taxpayers should not bear this cost. Under current plans, municipalities will share on a per-household basis in the $40-million Ontario Cannabis Legalization Implementation Fund, set up to offset their pot-related costs over the next two years. The fund, which will ensure that even the smallest municipality gets at least $5,000, was sliced from a $100-million grant the province received from Ottawa to help transition into the legal pot era. Municipalities thatallow cannabis stores to open shop will get another similar grant later in 2019. After that two-year period, municipalities will share half of any revenues generated by Ontarios portion of the federal excise duty, should these exceed a total of $100 million over the next two years, provincial finance ministry spokesperson Scott Blodgett said in an email. We would like to be very clear municipalities must use this funding to address the costs that directly relate to the legalization of recreational cannabis, Blodgett said. These would include any increased enforcement costs for police and public health and court agencies, he said. Blodgett said the provincial funds would also partially cover costs related to increased use of 311 phone inquiry lines, fire and paramedic services as well as cannabis-related training for municipal workers. In addition to excise revenues, Ontario will keep its standard 8-per-cent portion of the federal/provincial HST charged on online and store sales. The size of this cannabis pot will depend on the number of stores that eventually open across the province, Blodgett said. Provincial tax revenue is directed to the Consolidated Revenue Fund and is used to meet the priority needs of Ontario families such as health care, education and infrastructure, he said. Read more: Mississauga says no to cannabis Toronto opts in More distance urged between shops, schools But Blodgett said that only municipalities that opted to allow pot stores will be eligible for any of the provincial funding beyond the initial payment. Municipalities have until Jan. 22 to say no to the stores, otherwise they must allow them in any number and almost any location that retail is permitted. (The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario will have sole discretion over the number and placement of the stores, which cant be within 250 metres of schools.) King Township Mayor Steve Pellegrini said the relative pittance smaller municipalities would get from the province in the per-household formula is one of the main reasons he rejected stores. Weve got 9,000 households in the largest municipality in terms of area in York region, Pellegrini said. We have more roads and everything to patrol, but with a very limited population, and I would get next to zero, said Pellegrini, whose council voted unanimously to reject the stores. He said the $5,000 minimum the province will give all municipalities the only payment his opted-out community will receive is a joke and would not put a dent in any towns extra cannabis costs. Thats insulting. Thats not going to get me anything. Toronto police spokesperson Caroline de Kloet said the force is still calculating what its increased cannabis costs might be. But just north of the city, the numbers have been crunched. York Regional Police estimated those costs would soar to some $7.7 million annually by 2021, said Jeffrey Channell, manager of financial services. That would amount to $6.41 for each region resident for police services alone, Channell said, adding that many of the estimates were based on research in Colorado and Washington state, where cannabis has been legally sold for nearly five years. But current provincial funding for all of the regions increased cannabis costs over the next two years including to public health and paramedic services is only $1.40 annually per person, he said. The forces increased spending would arise out of some 26 changes and requirements brought on by legalized cannabis. These include roadside testing and its required equipment; increases in criminal and motor vehicle accident investigations; a team to combat any ongoing black market sales; and a new impaired-driving co-ordinator. Colorado and Washington research suggests the main front-line policing impacts are around impaired driving, traffic stops, seizures, drug violations, increases in motor vehicle collisions and injured persons, he said. Channell said tax revenues in Washington state were much higher than expected and that the federal and provincial governments might have much more money to pass down to the municipalities than currently anticipated. That states $460-million (U.S.) cannabis revenues last year would translate into $3 billion (Canadian) over this countrys population if similar sales levels were seen here, he said. Thats three times any official Canadian estimate of excise taxes. But Channell said every significant police organization in the country including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has advocated for proper cannabis-related funding from senior governments. York police Chief Eric Jolliffe said the regions property tax base should not be responsible for any extra costs for his force. Both the federal and provincial governments are collecting revenues from the sale of cannabis and we have been repeatedly assured we will receive funding to help offset these costs, Jolliffe said in an email. As of now, we have only received a small fraction of the costs we have incurred for up-front training. In fairness, Tory said, many of the estimated cost hikes for police and other services may never materialize. For example, the volume of (311) phone calls were receiving at the moment is lower than expected, he said, adding that expected increases in 911 calls have also failed to materialize. Im prepared to have a little while where we actually see what the experience is. But I think its safe to say that as of this moment, the money they have committed to us is less than whatever our costs will be. Tory said estimates of extra pot costs the city would face would be above and beyond those the force incurred while policing and prosecuting cannabis crimes during prohibition, which ended Oct. 17. Association of Municipalities of Ontario president Jamie McGarvey figures any money is better than none, but says civic leaders should monitor their cannabis-related costs closely. Were going to be dealing with (any fallout costs) anyway so my own personal feeling is were better to opt in, because at least well get some extra funding, said McGarvey, who is also mayor of Parry Sound. McGarvey whose group helped lead negotiations over the funding split with the province under the former Liberal government said Queens Park held all the cards during those talks. I think we tried to get as much as we could for the municipalities but that is totally on the call of the province, he said. Theyre the ones controlling the pot, no pun intended. Tory said that in talks, the province has shown some sympathy for the idea the municipalities should not bear the bulk of extra costs. They have accepted the principle that we shouldnt be put to a lot of extra expense. Tory said municipalities have no way to force the province to up the ante, besides dogged lobbying. Im not going to be satisfied with hope, he said. But my plan B would be to continue advocating, Read more about: The Ford government has climbed down from a controversial decision to walk away from arbitration proceedings with the provinces doctors. The government informed the Ontario Medical Association on Friday that it had reversed a decision made earlier in the week to pull the plug on arbitration hearings aimed at resolving a contract dispute of almost five years, the organizations president, Dr. Nadia Alam, wrote in an email blast to members. Good news the Ontario Medical Association was formally advised that the government has agreed to resume arbitration hearings on our Physician Services Agreement. Our mutual goal is to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome for doctors, patients and government, she wrote. The government stunned the OMA as well as experts in labour law earlier in the week when it unilaterally announced it was putting an end to binding arbitration. Referring to attempts by a small group of highly paid specialists to break away from the association, a letter from a government lawyer said the health ministry lacks confidence that the OMA has the support of its members. The letter went on to say that the health ministry wanted to have a broader dialogue with the profession to determine who should represent it in contract negotiations with the province. Labour lawyers such as Paul Cavalluzzo said the governments actions were shocking and clearly illegal. They were a violation of the provinces legal obligations under the Arbitration Act and contractual obligations under a Binding Arbitration Framework agreement it had signed with the OMA, he said. The OMA is the lawful bargaining agent for the provinces 31,000 active physicians and the government has no legal authority to challenge that, Cavalluzzo added. The OMA also argued that it was illegal for the government to fire its nominee from the three-person arbitration board. The provinces actions sparked an angry backlash from doctors, particularly on social media. They denounced the Conservatives they tagged individual MPPs and cabinet ministers on Twitter for breaking an election promise to work with them. Many threatened job action, including a complete withdrawal of services. Heartfelt thanks go to all the members who responded quickly to send thousands of letters, messages, calls and tweets to their elected officials in government. Your voice resonated. You made a difference, Alam said in her email. The governments attempt to abandon arbitration also created a schism within its ranks. Numerous sources have told the Star the decision was made unilaterally by officials from the office of Premier Doug Ford over the objections of Health Minister Christine Elliott and other Tory MPPs. These sources also said the government was unaware its actions were illegal. In a written statement issued late Friday, Elliotts press secretary, Hayley Chazan, said the government still plans to carry out a consultation on the question of appropriate representation of physicians and that it hopes the OMA will participate. An effort by highly paid specialists to separate from the OMA was launched last month after an internal association committee recommended that unfair pay gaps between high- and low-billing specialty groups be addressed. It was led by Dr. David Jacobs, vice-president of the Ontario Association of Radiologists. Radiology is among the highest paid specialties. Jacobs is also an outspoken supporter of Ford. Conservative MPP Randy Hillier, from the eastern Ontario riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, said the government did the right thing by listening to doctors and honouring its election pledge to build a good working relationship with them. Alan Drummond, an emergency medicine doctor, said the key issue that must soon be resolved is relativity or the big pay gaps between medical specialties. A solution may have to be imposed upon the profession so that government can align its priorities with a fixed funding envelope, Drummond said. Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner was offered the top position at the Ontario Cannabis Store and considered for a deputy minister post in the months leading up to his appointment to the job of Ontario Provincial Police commissioner, sources have told the Star. Taverner, a close friend of Premier Doug Ford, rejected the idea of running the government cannabis store, and longtime bureaucrats at Queens Park made it clear the veteran Toronto police divisional officer did not have the normal qualifications to oversee the massive Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Doug wanted to do something for Taverner. That is what we were hearing, said one source. On Wednesday, the Star sent detailed questions about this to numerous top government officials, including the premier; his chief of staff, Dean French; cabinet secretary Steve Orsini; the deputy minister of community safety, Mario Di Tommaso; and Taverner. None of them has responded, even to acknowledge receipt of the Stars request for an interview. Taverner is to start the job of OPP commissioner on Monday. Two reviews of his appointment have been requested, following separate political interference allegations from both opposition MPPs and the current acting commissioner of the OPP. Ford and Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones have said the selection process was independent and there was no political interference in the appointment of Taverner, 72, as Ontarios top cop. The government has said it will have Taverner sworn in as planned. Read more: OPP interim commissioner asks ombudsman to review Taverners appointment over potential political interference How Ron Taverners resume compares with the last four OPP commissioners Opinion | Cohn: How Doug Ford turned the OPP into the Ontario Premiers Police Taverner and the Ford family go back many years. Taverner is the senior officer in the Etobicoke divisions where the premier and other family members live and where the Ford family company, Deco Labels, is located. It has not been unusual for Taverner to be at a backyard barbecue hosted by the Ford family, and he is a frequent attendee of the annual Ford Fest community event. Theres no denying the friendship, said former Etobicoke councillor Suzan Hall, who served with the late Rob Ford when he was a councillor. Hall speaks highly of Taverner, saying the affable cop has been very helpful to community groups in Etobicoke. She said that if ever a group needs equipment or help from officers, he makes sure whatever is needed is sent over from 23 Division. Taverners road to the $275,000 OPP job, commanding one of the largest forces in North America, began around the time of the spring election with a decision that created a job opening at the cannabis store. Under the previous Liberal government, career civil servant Nancy Kennedy was the president of the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS), which was preparing to retail pot through government-owned stores. Doug Fords new Progressive Conservative government decided to confine the OCS to online sales, and instead allow privately owned bricks-and-mortar outlets. With the role of the OCS diminished, sources close to Kennedy say she did not want to stay. With a strong financial background from previous jobs, she was asked by the Ford government to return to the public service and was made deputy minister of the Treasury Board secretariat, effective June 29. That opened up the post of president of the Ontario Cannabis Store. A source close to the discussions said it was offered by government officials to Taverner during the summer, but he declined. The Star does not know why. Taverner, in his 50-year career with the Toronto Police Service, has dealt with and made arrests in many drug cases, often posing as a senior officer in media photo opportunities with bags of illicit drugs. In the 1970s he was part of a joint Toronto-OPP task force investigating biker groups, and police officers have suggested to the Star that Taverner may not have felt it was a good fit for him to be retailing marijuana. Next up was a suggestion to make Taverner a deputy minister in the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, which presides over police, jails, forensic and fire marshal services across the province. The Star has no direct verbal or documentary evidence that Ford ordered his staff to find a job for Taverner. However, the Star has information from two sources who say senior bureaucrats close to Ford made it clear to them that Ford wanted to give Taverner a job of some sort. They were never told why. Opposition critics and the acting head of the OPP have suggested there was political interference in the selection process. The Stars sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak about these matters and that they feared repercussions in their employment if they spoke on the record. The sources said that in policing and government circles, it was an open secret that a post was being sought for Taverner. Over the summer, when the idea of appointing Taverner as deputy minister of community safety was being floated, the position was held by Matt Torigian, a former Waterloo Region police chief. Torigian had been deputy for four years and was highly thought of by the civil service, including cabinet secretary Steve Orsini, the provinces top bureaucrat, who had served under Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne and been asked to stay on by the Ford government. Sources have told the Star that by August, Torigian had the feeling that he was no longer wanted in the Ford government. The career police officer had spent four years at Community Safety and seven years as Waterloo police chief. He is a graduate of courses at the FBI National Academy. Torigian was offered and accepted an appointment at the University of Torontos Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy to lead an international initiative on global policing. During August, sources say, there were discussions at Queens Park among Ford staffers that Taverner should become deputy minister. According to sources, Orsini said that would not be a good job for someone with front-line policing but little administrative experience of the type needed to run a ministry with a $2.6-billion budget. Orsini announced Torigians departure from the ministry on Sept. 24, saying on Twitter he wanted to offer Torigian a big shoutout and congratulations. One week later, on Oct. 1, Orsini tweeted out a welcome to the new deputy minister of community safety, Mario Di Tommaso, a career Toronto police officer who at the time was staff superintendent of communities and neighbourhood commands. While some deputy minister openings are posted publicly, others are not, and there appears to have been no job posting for this one. The executive search company the Ford government has been using for other deputy ministers told the Star on Thursday it was not involved in Di Tommasos posting. Di Tommaso began work as deputy minister of community safety on Oct. 22. That same day, the provincial government, through executive search company Odgers Berndtson, released a posting for the job of OPP commissioner. When first released, the posting called for applicants to have a rank that would have excluded an officer at the level of superintendent, such as Taverner. Two days later, on Oct. 24, that posting was revised, removing the line that stipulated the candidates had to have a minimum rank of deputy police chief or assistant commissioner. Taverner was appointed OPP commissioner on Nov. 29, prompting an immediate storm of controversy. The NDPs community safety and correctional services critic, Kevin Yarde, and Leader Andrea Horwath have asked the provinces integrity commissioner to examine the appointment. If Taverners swearing-in goes ahead on Monday, what will Ford be demanding of him? Yarde said in a statement from his office Thursday. Its critical that police forces operate without political interference and without conflicts of interest real or perceived. Horwath has also asked Taverner to delay assuming the position and is calling for an all-party committee to review the entire appointments process related to the OPP commissioners job. A Star story following the appointment showed that a former Deco Labels employee, who is now a top political aide to Ford, had sold her Weston house privately to Taverner last year, something opposition MPPs suggested was a sign of a close connection, but which minister Sylvia Jones dismissed as willing seller, willing buyer. On Tuesday, the interim commissioner of the OPP, Brad Blair, who had himself applied for the top job, released a scathing letter to the provincial ombudsman complaining about the selection process. In one instance, he notes that in the first round of interviews, conducted Nov. 12, the three men on the interview panel were Di Tommaso (who he notes was Taverners direct supervisor at the Toronto police force), executive search company official Sal Badali, and deputy attorney general Paul Boniferro. In the next round of interviews with a smaller pool of candidates, on Nov. 20, Fords chief of staff, Dean French, was present in place of the deputy attorney general. Blair, in his letter of complaint to the provincial ombudsman, said that with no explanation, French abruptly left the interview area and he was later told that French would no longer be involved. A source told the Star that French left because Toronto Star reporter Rob Ferguson had just sent questions regarding a story he was working on. The story, published the next day, revealed that French had ordered senior political aides to direct police to raid outlaw cannabis stores the day recreational marijuana became legal, and to show people in handcuffs. The remainder of the interviews were done with a two-person panel. In his letter, Blair said it appears a decision was made later that day on who the next OPP boss would be. The official announcement came out on Nov. 29. Read more about: LAS CRUCES, N.M.A 7-year-old girl who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her father last week died after being taken into the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol, federal immigration authorities confirmed Thursday. The Washington Post reports the girl died of dehydration and shock more than eight hours after she was arrested by agents near Lordsburg, New Mexico. The girl was from Guatemala and was travelling with a group of 163 people who approached agents to turn themselves in on Dec. 6. Its unknown what happened to the girl during the eight hours before she started having seizures and was flown to an El Paso hospital. In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said the girl had not eaten or consumed water in several days. The agency did not provide The Associated Press with the statement it gave to the Post, despite repeated requests. Processing 163 immigrants in one night could have posed challenges for the agency, whose detention facilities are meant to be temporary and dont usually fit that many people. Read more: U.S. immigration agents detain 10-year-old girl after stopping her on the way to emergency surgery Refugee and immigrant youth more likely to end up in ER during mental health crisis, study shows Phoenix child immigration facility worker molested teen girl, police allege When a Border Patrol agent arrests someone, that person gets processed at a facility but usually spends no more than 72 hours in custody before they are either transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or, if theyre Mexican, quickly deported home. The girls death raises questions about whether border agents knew she was ill and whether she was fed anything or given anything to drink during the eight-plus hours she was in custody. Immigrants, attorneys and activists have long raised issues with the conditions of Border Patrol holding cells. In Tucson, an ongoing lawsuit claims holding cells are filthy, extremely cold and lacking basic necessities such as blankets. A judge overseeing that lawsuit has ordered the agencys Tucson Sector, which patrols much of the Arizona-Mexico border, to provide blankets and mats to sleep on and to continually turn over surveillance footage from inside the cells. The Border Patrol has seen an increasing trend of large groups of immigrants, many with young children, walking up to agents and turning themselves in. Most are Central American and say they are fleeing violence. They turn themselves in instead of trying to circumvent authorities, many with plans to apply for asylum. Agents in Arizona see groups of over 100 people on a regular basis, sometimes including infants and toddlers. Arresting such groups poses logistical problems for agents who have to wait on transport vans that are equipped with baby seats to take them to processing facilities, some which are at least half-hour north of the border. The death of the 7-year-old comes after a toddler died just after being released from an ICE family detention facility in Texas, and as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to ban people from asking for asylum if they crossed the border illegally. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked that ban, but the administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate it Tuesday. Cynthia Pompa, advocacy manager for the ACLU Border Rights Center, said migrant deaths increased last year even as the number of border crossing dropped. This tragedy represents the worst possible outcome when people, including children, are held in inhumane conditions. Lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths, Pompa said. Sweden and European defence cooperation: interests in search of a strategy UI Brief No.010 / 2018 Dec. 12, 2018 Swedens relationship with European defence cooperation has long been defined by ambiguity and complexity, and its positions on the most recent initiatives, such as Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the European Intervention Initiative (E2I), are no exceptions. Strong cultural, historical and industrial reasons explain Swedish particularities, but there is reason to believe that Swedens position may change in the near future. The looming exit of the United Kingdom from the EU has deprived Sweden of a steadfast and equally cautious ally in this area, while geopolitical turbulence in Europe and beyond has altered the Swedish strategic outlook. While a certain principled scepticism is still apparent, the long-term trend seems to suggest a normalization of Swedens relation to the policy field of European security and defence. This policy brief outlines Swedens cautious rapprochement with the policy area and explains why its position may change. 14 PDF pages HONG KONGIt began with a quarrel over cigarettes. Weighed down by loans and the burden of single parenting, a 34-year-old woman often took home leftover food and unopened packs of cigarettes from the banquets she occasionally attended in a nearby village in central China. But one night earlier this month, she discovered that her 12-year-old son had stolen and smoked four packs, and she exploded with rage and beat him, according to local media reports. The next morning, the woman identified only by her surname, Chen (her full name was not released by authorities) was found dead in her bedroom, stabbed to death by her son, police said. When the boy, who has been identified only by his surname, was asked by relatives if he regretted his actions, he said that he did, but that he didnt think it was a big deal. I didnt kill anyone else. I killed my mom, he was quoted as saying. Back in School In the eyes of many Chinese, the boy was a heartless criminal who deserved to be punished. But in China, where the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14, he could not be held legally responsible. The boy was released by authorities in the town of Yuanjiang, in Hunan province, with no conditions. Five days after he stabbed his mother more than 20 times, the sixth-grader was back in school. Parents were irate. The grisly story, which has spread quickly across Chinese social media, has prompted a public debate in China about whether the countrys juvenile justice system, which has been praised in recent years for its focus on rehabilitation over punishment, is in fact too lenient. It has also reignited debate about a question that countries around the world have long grappled with: At what age should a child be held responsible for his or her crimes? At the heart of the question is the issue of when a child can be deemed to have intent to commit a crime. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends the age of 12 as an absolute minimum of criminal responsibility. U.N. officials have cited research about child cognitive development and the dangers of exposing children to violence in prisons. But there is no global consensus. In the United States, the minimum age of criminal responsibility for federal crimes is 11. But in 33 states, children of any age can theoretically be convicted and sentenced at the state level. In India, the minimum age is 7, compared with 16 in Timor-Leste. Some countries are considering changing the minimum age of culpability. In Australia, officials are looking into a proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 16 from 10. In the Philippines, by contrast, President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to lower the minimum age from 15 as part of his brutal war on drugs. He Looked at Me and Smiled In China, the boy in Yuanjiang may have been underage. But to many who followed the case, there was no question that the boy had intended to commit a crime. Many pointed to reports about his behaviour before and after the killing. When neighbours heard screams coming from the familys apartment on the night of the stabbing, the boy told them through the door that everything was fine and that his mother was just upset because his 2-year-old brother had soiled the bed, according to Chinese news reports. The morning after the killing, the boy sent his teacher a message from his mothers phone to say that he had a cold and that he would not be at school, news reports said. When his grandfather stopped by to check in later that morning, the boy told him that his mother had gone out. The boys great-aunt told The Beijing News: I asked him if he missed his mother. He shook his head and said no. I asked if he was afraid. He looked at me and smiled. I asked if he hated his mother. He nodded. His behaviour led many people to say he should be held responsible for the crime. You cant use age as a standard for everything, one user wrote on Weibo, Chinas version of Twitter. Since we recognize that some children are talented and even exceed the IQ level of adults, we should also accept that some children have surpassed adults and are precocious. But Zhang Hongwei, a professor at the Juvenile and Family Law Center at Jinan University, cautioned against moving too quickly to lower the minimum age of culpability, arguing that the problems of juvenile justice required a more systematic approach in China, which has a unified criminal justice system for both adults and juveniles. He pointed to recent efforts to set up an independent juvenile system, similar to that in the United States. He also called for an overhaul of Chinas work-study centres, which act as rehabilitation centres for juveniles who commit minor offences. Even if we lower the minimum age, it cant change everything fundamentally, Zhang said. Plight of Migrant Workers The Yuanjiang killing highlighted a related issue that has long been a concern in China: the difficulties facing the more than 286 million migrant workers who leave home every year in search of work in the bigger cities. According to local news reports, the boy was, like the children of many migrant workers, left behind in his hometown at a young age and raised mostly by his grandparents. He had moved in with his mother for the first time earlier this year, relatives told reporters. It is an experience that scholars say can be deeply destabilizing for young children. Researchers say a high proportion of juvenile crimes in cities are committed by children of migrant workers, who often face widespread discrimination in terms of access to schools, health care and employment, and are pushed into petty crime. It has become one of the most serious social problems right now, Zhang said. The family support social mechanism for children of migrant workers is very underdeveloped. The day after the boys release, his father, a migrant worker in Guangdong province who goes back home twice a year, tried to send the boy back to school. But parents protested, citing concerns about their childrens safety. Shunned by locals, the boy and his family fled to a $11.50(U.S.)-per-night hotel in a nearby town. On Thursday, the boys grandfather told reporters that local officials had agreed to pay for the boy to be sent to an asylum in the provincial capital of Changsha. The family could not be reached for more details. The boys father has already gone back to Guangdong. Read more about: NEW BRITAIN, CONN.When student athletes, firefighters and Girl Scouts converge Friday on Central Connecticut State University, theyll sombrely honour the anniversary of the Sandy Hook mass murder and do something more. They and dozens of other volunteers will be accepting donations of winter clothes, food, toys and other supplies for the needy in what CCSU and the Ana Grace Project are calling the Love Wins Community Drive. We really want this to be about giving back to the community. Were trying to make this day as positive as possible, said Ryan Langer, who helped organize the campaign in the citys schools. The idea is to make this into a day of giving back, a day to share, said Courtney McDavid, a CCSU staffer and co-organizer of the event. They both credit the idea to Nelba Marquez-Greene, mother of one of the 26 victims of the 2012 mass shooting. Marquez-Greene went on to found the Ana Grace Project a year later in honour of her late 6-year-old daughter, and has worked ever since to promote compassion and kindness in communities and schools. Nelba sees the entire mission of the Ana Grace Project as rooted around doing good in light of all the bad in the world, McDavid said. This year she really wanted to do something that would give back to the community. Read more: Sandy Hook shooter described scorn for humanity in released investigation documents How parents are teaching respect for diversity after the Pittsburgh shooting I dont want prayers. I dont want thoughts. I want gun control, Thousand Oaks parents say Volunteers put together large purple donation boxes last month and have put them around the city. Theyre looking to bring all of the donations to Davidson Hall at CCSU on Friday morning; nearly 200 volunteers are signed up to sort and transport donations, as well as accept more from anyone who stops by between 6 a.m. and noon. Its a wonderful thing. Were grateful that Nelba has once again opened her heart to give to those in need, Mayor Erin Stewart said. Nelba is not just inspiring to me as a mayor, but as a friend. She called a month ago and said I have this little thing going on and I need your help. Whenever its Nelba, its never little and this was definitely go large or go home, Stewart said. We agreed to put the purple boxes at every firehouse, at police headquarters and at city hall. Now Ive got two full boxes in my office alone. We should have very nice amount to donate. Chief Raul Ortiz said a fire truck decorated with Christmas lights will be at CCSU on Friday as part of the event, and firefighters will be ferrying donations to the campus. It takes a unique person to turn a tragedy of this magnitude into something positive, Ortiz said. Ive rarely seen that. Usually people cope with grief in their own way. But Nelba has taken it on to make a change and not let her daughter have died in vain. Several schools have volunteers pitching in, and Chamberlain Schools chorus will perform the song Love Wins. Superintendent (Nancy) Sarra wanted to continue with the idea that theres always a way you can give, so students at other schools are making appreciation cards for the police department, some of the younger children are making thinking of you cards for the residents at Jerome Home, Langer said. The focus is around love, kindness and empathy. The universitys clock tower bell will toll 26 times at 9:35 a.m. Volunteers will be accepting donations of toys, non-perishable food, clothing and winter gloves, boots and hats for poor families in Greater New Britain. New Britain Family & Youth Services, the Marias Place food pantry on campus and the public school system will receive most of the donations to provide to needy children. ELMER, N.J.Four New Jersey high school students have been arrested in connection with a hazing incident involving the school wrestling team. Investigators say they are accused of stripping the victim in a shower area of Arthur P. Schalick High School in Elmer, restraining the victim and threatening to assault the victim with a broomstick. The Salem County Prosecutors Office says the four juveniles have been charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, criminal restraint, hazing, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and related offences. Salem County Prosecutor John Lenahan said in a statement Thursday that in an effort to protect the victim, no other details can be released. Pittsgrove Township School District says its working with law enforcement and assures parents no students are currently at risk. CHICAGOA Cook County judge set sentencing Friday for former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke on Jan. 18 after rejecting his bid for a new trial. His sentencing will come three and a half months after a jury returned its historic verdict, convicting Van Dyke of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery in the on-duty shooting of Laquan McDonald. What sentence Van Dyke faces is uncertain, but an aggravated battery conviction carries a sentence of six to 30 years in prison. He could also face four to 20 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction, but Judge Vincent Gaughan could also impose probation. Van Dyke returned to court for only the second time since his conviction wearing a canary-yellow jail uniform and a scruffy beard, looking tired and slimmer after more than two months in custody since his historic conviction. Van Dyke, his hands clasped together, sat at the defence table as lawyers on both sides argued at length over a defence attempt to win a new trial against long odds. Gaughan denied the motions. Two uniformed, armed members of the sheriffs emergency response team brought in to supplement security for high-risk or high-profile defendants stood watch near Van Dyke. Read more: Police code of silence is on trial after murder by Chicago officer Chicago police officer convicted in 2014 murder of teenager Laquan McDonald Jury sees video of Chicago officer shooting Black teen 16 times During breaks in the arguments, Van Dyke looked toward the courtroom gallery to try to catch the attention of family members in attendance. Van Dyke, 40, has been held in isolation at a Quad Cities-area jail since his Oct. 5 conviction. The verdict made him the first Chicago cop in half a century to be convicted of murder in an on-duty incident. Police dashboard camera video showed the white officer opening fire within seconds of exiting his squad car as the black teen walked away from police with a knife in his hand, contradicting reports from officers at the scene that McDonald had threatened officers with the weapon. McDonald was shot 16 times. WASHINGTONThe special counsels office rejected Friday a suggestion from Michael Flynn, U.S. President Donald Trumps former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying to FBI agents investigating Russias election interference and ties to Trump associates. Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Flynn to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications during the presidential transition with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time. Neither Flynn nor his lawyers have explained why he lied. But in a memo this week seeking leniency, they revealed details from the interview that helped stoke an unfounded theory that Flynns relaxed appearance during the FBI agents questioning was potential evidence that he did not actually lie, and they blamed the FBI for not informing Flynn ahead of time that lying to agents is illegal. Prosecutors repudiated the argument. A sitting national security adviser, former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant-general and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents, prosecutors wrote in court papers. He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth. Flynns bid to blame investigators appeared to be directed at Trump, who seized on the details and defended Flynn on Thursday on Twitter and on Fox News. They convinced him he did lie, and he made some kind of a deal, Trump said in the television interview. Flynns disclosure called into question why he waited until just before his sentencing Tuesday to argue that he was coerced into lying when he had pleaded guilty last year to the charge and said at the time, I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong. Read more: Mueller recommends no prison for Flynn, citing co-operation With the mid-terms over, special counsel Mueller faces key decisions in Russia investigation Roger Stone pal Jerome Corsi refuses plea deal from Mueller It also prompted a quick response from Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who is presiding over the case. He ordered that lawyers and prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller turn over documents related to Flynns Jan. 24, 2017, interview and could question Flynn during his sentencing about why they decided now to make an issue of the circumstances of the FBI interview. Sullivan is wary of prosecutorial misconduct. In 2009, he dismissed the ethics conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and scolded prosecutors, who had withdrawn the charges, for improperly withholding evidence. Lawyers for Flynn described his lying to the FBI as an uncharacteristic error in judgment. But Trump fired Flynn, who briefly served as his national security adviser, for lying to the vice president about the calls with Kislyak. Flynns calls to Kislyak, during which he made assurances about the incoming administration, were part of a broader effort by senior Trump officials to create foreign policy before they were in power, and they alarmed FBI investigators who were already scrutinizing Flynn as part of the Russia inquiry. Andrew McCabe, then deputy director of the FBI, called Flynn, who agreed to meet with agents at the White House. McCabe and his colleagues had decided not warn Flynn that lying to the FBI was a crime, a decision that Flynns allies have seized on as proof of a trap. When the agents arrived, Flynn appeared relaxed and jocular, offering to give them a tour of the White House, his lawyers wrote. One agent said Flynn was unguarded and clearly saw the FBI agents as allies. During the interview, Flynn denied asking Kislyak that Russia refrain from reacting harshly to sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over Russias campaign of disruption and said he did not remember Kisklyak saying that Moscow had backed off as a result of Flynns request. Law enforcement officials grew so concerned about his contacts with Kislyak and his false accounts of them that they warned the White House that Flynn might be compromised by the Kremlin. One of the agents who interviewed Flynn was Peter Strzok, the FBI senior counter-intelligence agent who disparaged Trump in inflammatory text messages and helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email investigation as well as the Russia inquiry in its early months. Strzok and McCabe, who were both fired this year, have been frequent targets in Trumps attacks on law enforcement. Trump has long expressed sympathy for Flynn, and one of Trumps lawyers even raised the idea of a pardon for Flynn last year as he was debating whether to assist Muellers investigators. It was not clear whether Trump was aware of the discussions. But after pleading guilty, Flynn began co-operative extensively with the Justice Department, sitting for 19 interviews with prosecutors in multiple investigations. Prosecutors asked for little to no prison time because of his willingness to help. Flynns lawyer have said their client deserves only probation because of his assistance to Mueller and his time in the military. Even when circumstances later came to light that prompted extensive public debate about the investigation of Gen. Flynn, including revelations that certain FBI officials involved in the January 24 interview of Gen. Flynn were themselves being investigated for misconduct, Gen. Flynn did not back away from accepting responsibility for his actions, Flynns lawyers wrote. James Comey, the former FBI director fired by Trump, testified last week before Congress that the theory being pushed by allies of Flynn about his body language was bogus. Theres no doubt he was lying, Comey said. Read more about: FOX CROSSING, WIS.Scott Walker, the outgoing Republican governor of Wisconsin, on Friday signed into law measures that diminish the power of his Democratic successor and expand the authority of Republican lawmakers who teamed up with him over the last eight years to move the state firmly to the right. Walker signed the measures over the objections of the incoming governor and despite vehement protest in the state Capitol as Republican lawmakers rushed the bills through in a hastily called session last week. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Walker in the November election, has suggested he may file suit over the changes. Walkers signing the measures into law was expected to solidify some of the policies that made him a hero to many conservatives nationally and, for a brief time, a presidential candidate. But participating in what many Democrats have called a legally dubious power grab also cemented another widely held view: that Walker is a bruising partisan willing to break precedent and ignore protests for political gain. The tactic by Walkers allies was seen as carving a path for other states, like Michigan, where Republicans are similarly contemplating limits on incoming Democrats. But it also risked energizing Democrats before a 2020 presidential election in which both parties will battle for the Midwest, as well as shaping how people remember Walker, 51, who leaves the governors job Jan. 7 having spent most of his adult life in elected office. What didnt he do? said state Sen. Fred Risser, a Democrat who was first elected to the Legislature in 1956. He reversed the progressive, innovative state we used to be proud of. From the moment Walker took office in Wisconsin, he was upending it. Read more: Wisconsin Republicans forge ahead with power-stripping bills Wisconsin Republicans approve bills stripping power from incoming Democratic governor Wisconsin governor Scott Walker enters crowded race for U.S. president Walker, a former legislator and county executive who then was little known outside of the Milwaukee area, won a crucial advantage when he became governor in 2011: Voters not only flipped the governors seat to Republican, but also both chambers of the Legislature. Results came immediately. Within weeks, Walker announced the plan that would define his tenure and make him a national name. He wanted to shrink collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers in a state with deep roots in the labour movement. Outside Walkers Capitol office, protesters marched and drummed and chanted fury at what they saw as an effort to weaken unions and diminish Democrats. But Walker pushed through the measure, survived a recall election and went on to guide Wisconsin on a conservative path, adopting a concealed carry law, expanding private school vouchers, enacting right-to-work legislation, passing voter identification rules and setting work rules for Medicaid recipients. He had a backbone of steel, said Rep. Sean Duffy, a Republican who represents northern Wisconsin in Congress. The final package of legislation that Walker addressed Friday was pushed through by Republican lawmakers last week, after elections that brought defeats for Republicans in Wisconsin, a purple state that was won both by Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Republicans held onto the state Legislature but lost contests for governor and attorney general. The bills would curb the authority of Evers in the rule-making process and give lawmakers, not the new governor, most appointments on an economic development board until next summer. The measures also would limit early voting, allow legislators to intervene in some lawsuits and limit the power of Josh Kaul, the incoming attorney general. In recent days, Walker played down the significance of the measures, all while trying to define how his eight years in office would be remembered. For all this hype and hysteria, the bottom line is theres not a fundamental shift in powers no matter what happens with this legislation, Walker told reporters this week. He said that his legacy isnt about an extraordinary session, but about economic growth, the states low unemployment rate and his hobbling of public sector unions. He posted 21 tweets in 25 minutes, each starting with OUR LEGACY and listing an accomplishment. Facing angry accusations on Facebook, he wrote that our real legacy was job growth. And in a speech Thursday to manufacturing workers whose positions had been spared by new tax incentives, he said, I want this to be my legacy. Just three years ago, Walker had a spin as a front-runner in the presidential race, but his campaign ended quickly as Trump suctioned support from more traditional candidates. Walkers return to Wisconsin was difficult: People complained that he had been too focused on his own ambitions, and he spent months making up for it with parades, local meetings and ribbon-cuttings. As he set off this year in a bid for a rare third term as governor, Walker warned of signs of a blue wave and pleaded with Republicans not to be complacent. In the end, he lost by roughly 30,000 votes, or about 1 percentage point. To Walkers supporters, the bills Walker acted on Friday were pragmatic ways to shore up Republican policies and establish reasonable checks on incoming Democrats. Signing the bills would secure his legacy, they say, not sully it. My constituents will say, Thank God youve protected the reforms, thank God that our state will be able to continue on the path we are on, said state Sen. Alberta Darling, a Republican from suburban Milwaukee. But to opponents, the bills represent something sinister. Several warned Walker that the measures would be an unflattering epilogue to his tenure. This just goes to show what type of leader he actually was, said state Sen. La Tonya Johnson, a Democrat from Milwaukee. The legislation, she said, will definitely go down in history as being the biggest power grab ever. Even some conservatives have spoken out. Sheldon Lubar, a Republican businessman who once supported Walker, said Walkers record would be destroyed by the moves. I think as a relatively young man, he should be very concerned of what his legacy is, Lubar said. BEIRUTU.S.-backed, Kurdish-led fighters captured the last town held by the Daesh group on Friday, after three months of ferocious battles in the militants single remaining enclave in eastern Syria, activists and Kurdish officials said. The fall of Hajin marks an end to the extremist groups hold over any significant urban area, which in three years shrunk from large swaths of Iraq and Syria the militants once held to this small enclave near the two countries shared borders. The capture of Hajin, however, does not mark the end of the group which still holds some villages nearby and has a scattered presence and sleeper cells in both countries. As the offensive by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces intensified over the past days under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, Daesh fighters withdrew south to areas east of the Euphrates river and west of SDF positions along the border with Iraq. Among the villages still held by extremists in the enclave are Sousa, Buqaan, Shaafah, Baghouz and Shajla. The latest push has also raised questions about the fate of Daesh leader and founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who has not been seen in public since he announced his self-styled caliphate in 2014 from a mosques pulpit in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Last month, Daesh suffered a severe blow when the SDF said it captured Osama Owayed al-Saleh, a top aide to al-Baghdadi. It is a very difficult battle, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali told The Associated Press by phone from Syria where he said Daesh fighters are still attacking Hajin. He added that most of Daesh fighters besieged in the enclave are among the most experienced gunmen who came to the area from Iraq and Syria. There are still villages to be taken but Hajin was the most important as it was the base for commanders from where they directed military operations, Bali said. Iraqi Maj. Gen. Qassem Mohammed, in charge of operations in areas close to the Syrian border, said artillery strikes by the U.S.-led coalition on the Iraqi side of the border targeted Hajin and areas around it. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the SDF took Hajin early in the morning, after fierce fighting under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition. It said some Daesh fighters withdrew to nearby villages and that fighting is still ongoing in fields outside Hajin as SDF fighters chase out the extremists. Europe-based activist Omar Abu Layla of the DeirEzzor 24 monitoring group confirmed that the town had been recaptured, adding that some Daesh fighters are still holed up in small pockets on the edge of Hajin. Abu Layla said that disagreements among Daesh ranks over hierarchy between Iraqi and Syrian fighters helped speed up the collapse of the extremist groups defences in Hajin. Nuri Mehmud, spokesman of the Syrian Kurdish militia known as Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, also the main component of the SDF, said intense fighting is still ongoing in small parts of Hajin. The area is home to some 15,000 people, including 2,000 Daesh gunmen who fought back with counteroffensives and suicide attacks. Over the past days, hundreds of civilians were able to flee the enclave toward areas controlled by the SDF east of the Euphrates River and government-controlled regions on the rivers west bank. The Observatory said that since the SDF offensive began on Sept. 10, 922 Daesh gunmen, 539 SDF fighters and 324 civilians have been killed. The Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the SDF, denounced Turkeys threat of a military operation against the YPG and called on Syrians of all ethnic and religious groups to unite ahead of a possible Turkish attack. Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intensified his criticism of U.S. support for the Syrian Kurdish fighters, saying Friday that Turkey would clear the key northern town of Manbij. Over the summer, the two NATO allies had struck a road map to Manbij of the YPG, which Turkey considers a terror organization linked to an insurgency within its own borders. The Turkish presidency released a statement Friday saying Erdogan spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump and they agreed on the need for more effective co-ordination in Syria. Erdogan reiterated Turkeys legitimate security concerns regarding the YPG. Erdogan argued the U.S. has not kept its promises to push the YPG east of the Euphrates River. If you dont take them out, we will also enter Manbij, he said. American troops are stationed in Manbij, which was cleared of Daesh in 2016, and Washington and Ankara recently started joint patrols around the town. Erdogans threat comes days after he announced his military would launch a new cross-border operation into Syria within a few days to fight the YPG east of the Euphrates. On Thursday, a Turkish soldier was killed in the northwestern town of Afrin after an attack from nearby Tel Rifat. The Turkish military and allied Syrian opposition fighters took the town from the YPG earlier this year. Read more about: LONDONFrench officials paid their respects Friday at a Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg, where 37 tombstones and a monument to Holocaust victims had been defaced with swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti in the same week that a deadly attack that shook the nation. When a place of recollection is desecrated, its the entire Republic that is sullied, Christophe Castaner, Frances interior minister, wrote on Twitter after visiting the cemetery in Herrlisheim. Everything is being done to identify and detain the authors of this desecration. Authorities have not said if they have any suspects in the vandalism, which took place Monday night or Tuesday morning in Herrlisheim, a town of fewer than 5,000 people a few miles from Strasbourg, in the northeast corner of France. The incident came at a tense time for the nation, shaken by what the authorities called a terrorist attack at a Christmas market in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the Yellow Vest protests of recent weekends and a rise in anti-Semitic acts. The market attack this week killed four people, left one person brain-dead and injured 11 others. The suspect, Cherif Chekatt, 29, was shot dead Thursday night after a hunt by French security forces. He had been on a watch list out of concern he was being radicalized. That attack did not appear to involve anti-Semitism. France has suffered several deadly terrorist attacks in recent years, some aimed at its Jewish community, including a 2015 shooting at a kosher supermarket in Paris that killed four people, and a 2012 assault on a Jewish school and soldiers in Toulouse that left seven people dead. Read more: Fourth person dies of wounds from Strasbourg attack Gunman traumatizes Strasbourg, killing at least 3 in possible terror attack Paris police bracing for more violent protests Castaner, the interior minister, took a detour to Herrlisheim while on a visit to Strasbourg. The Alsace region, bordering Germany, was once home to a significant Jewish population, and it has been no stranger to anti-Semitic acts in recent years. In the month after the attack on the Paris supermarket in 2015, teenage vandals overturned as many as 250 Jewish gravestones in Saverne. In Herrlisheim, which has only a small Jewish community remaining, the Jewish cemetery has been vandalized several times over the years. There been intense debate among French Jews and academics about how to respond to what commentators are calling the new anti-Semitism, amid a wave of acts traced back to Frances growing Muslim population. Some French Jews, feeling unsafe, have moved to Israel. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe wrote on Facebook last month that in the first nine months of the year the number of anti-Semitic incidents nationwide was 69 percent higher than in the same period of 2017. On Friday, local religious and government officials gathered at the ceremony in Herrlisheim. Harold Weill, chief rabbi of the Bas-Rhin region, said, according to the news agency Agence-France Presse, that the Jewish community loves this country, it cherishes it, but it is asking itself questions. Read more about: WASHINGTONFederal prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funneled donations to U.S. President Donald Trumps inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over U.S. policy, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds. The line of questioning underscores the growing scope of criminal inquiries that pose a threat to Trumps presidency. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is focusing on whether anyone in the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to tip the 2016 presidential election in Trumps favour, while prosecutors in New York are pursuing evidence he secretly authorized illegal payments to silence accusations of extramarital affairs that threatened his campaign. The inquiry into potential foreign donations to the inaugural fund and the super PAC is yet another front being pursued by multiple teams of prosecutors. Thomas Barrack, a billionaire financier and one of Trumps closest friends, raised money for both funds. Tom has never talked with any foreign individual or entity for the purposes of raising money for or obtaining donations related to either the campaign, the inauguration or any such political activity, said Owen Blicksilver, a spokesperson for Barrack. The inaugural committee focus was reported earlier Thursday by the Wall Street Journal. The super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, was formed in the summer of 2016 when Trumps presidential campaign was short of cash and out of favour with many major Republican donors. While Trump insisted that he could finance his own campaign, he refused to dig too deeply into his own pockets. Read more: Michael Cohen claims Trump knew hush money payments wrong As protectors abandon Trump, investigation draws closer Sentences for Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort likely to diverge in Russia probe According to several of the people familiar with the investigation, Paul Manafort, who then headed the campaign, suggested that Barrack step into the void by creating and raising funds for the political action committee, which could collect unlimited amounts as long as it avoided co-ordinating closely with the candidate. In an interview with investigators a year ago, Barrack said that Manafort seemed to view the political committee as an arm of the campaign, despite laws meant to prevent such coordination, according to a person familiar with the interview. Federal election law requires a cooling-off period of at least 120 days before campaign staff members join a political committee backing the same candidate, but Manafort dispatched two friends from the campaign, Laurance Gay and Ken McKay, to run the operation. A press officer said at the time that the committee violated no rules because the campaign never paid the two men. Neither man returned repeated phone calls seeking comment. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the committee raised $23 million (U.S.), making it one of the most important sources of funds for advertisements, polls and other political expenditures on Trumps behalf. Most money came from several big donors, including Linda McMahon, a professional wrestling executive who donated $6 million and was later appointed by Trump to head the Small Business Administration. Prosecutors from New York and from Muellers team have asked witnesses whether anyone from Qatar or other Middle Eastern countries also contributed money, perhaps using U.S. intermediaries. Among other issues, they asked about a Mediterranean cruise that Barrack and Manafort took after Manafort was fired in August 2016 from the Trump campaign because of a scandal over his previous work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Manafort was in serious financial trouble at the time, and Barrack, who has an extensive business network in the Persian Gulf, may have been attempting to help him find clients. On the cruise, the pair met one of the worlds richest men, Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar. Until 2013, Al Thani presided over the countrys $230 billion sovereign wealth fund. He remains a highly influential member of the nations governing royal family. Investigators also sought information from a businessman, Rashid Al Malik, an associate of Barracks who heads a private investment firm in the United Arab Emirates, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Malik, whose lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has been described as close to a key figure in the UAEs government. After Trump was elected, any troubles he had finding donors appeared to have vanished. His inaugural fund raised $107 million four times as much as the pro-Trump political action committee and twice as much as the amount raised for President Barack Obamas first inauguration. Barrack was its chairman, and Rick Gates, a longtime business associate of Manaforts who served as deputy campaign chairman, ran it. The inquiry into the inaugural fund appears to involve prosecutors from U.S. attorneys offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn, people familiar with the investigation said. The fund has long been a source of infighting among White House advisers and personal friends of Trumps, who have blamed one another for news reports about questionable expenditures. The prosecutors in Manhattan were apparently following up on leads from their case against Michael Cohen, the presidents former longtime fixer. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison, in part for organizing payments to cover up sex scandals that could have threatened Trumps chances of winning the White House. Among other documents seized during raids on Cohens home and office in the spring, investigators found a tape recording of a conversation with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a friend of Melania Trumps, who ran entities that collected $26 million from the fund. Winston Wolkoff blamed Barrack for news reports questioning the payments to her and criticized him for failing to properly manage the account, according to people who spoke with her. She complained about how he had handled the money to several friends, including Cohen, those people said. The inaugural committee complied with all laws and has not been contacted by any prosecutors, said Blicksilver, who is also a spokesperson for the fund. Its finances were fully audited internally and independently, and donors were fully vetted and disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, as required, he said. In fact, though, the fund has already run into trouble related to both donations and expenditures. Gates, who is awaiting sentencing for crimes related to a financial fraud scheme he executed with Manafort, has testified that he may have submitted personal expenses for reimbursement from the fund. A later review of the inaugural expenses found no issue with his reimbursements, a person close to Gates said. And this year, a well-known Republican lobbyist, Sam Patten, pleaded guilty to arranging for a Ukrainian oligarch and another foreigner to buy $50,000 worth of tickets to an inaugural event, using an American as a straw purchaser. Investigators have asked witnesses whether any foreigners also contributed illegally to the inaugural committee. Once Trump was elected, foreign governments were frantically trying to build connections to the incoming administration, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Although it hosts and heavily subsidizes a U.S. military base, Qatar is constantly striving to counter the influence of its powerful neighbours, also allies of the United States. LAS VEGASThe country music festival that became the site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history could be returning to Las Vegas next fall though probably far from the site of the 2017 shooting, according to a key promoter of the event. Julie Matway, chief operating officer for Country Nation a division of Live Nation, told a crowd Wednesday during a panel discussion at a music industry conference at the Mandalay Bay resort that the promoters hoped to bring back the concert next year. Route 91 Harvest here in Las Vegas is one of my kids, Matway said. I am looking forward to how and when we are going to bring that back. We are working hard on that. Her comments were reported in Amplify, a member-driven news service that covers the music and concert industry. The publication reported Live Nations president of country touring, Brian OConnell, confirmed the effort to revive the festival 2019 and that the plans would include finding a way to honour the 58 people killed in the attack. Matways comment came as an answer to a question about the future of Route 91 during the XLIVE conferences panel titled The Festival Promoter: Past, Present and Future. The Route 91 Harvest country music festival began in 2014 and was held at the Las Vegas Village, across the street from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. On Oct. 1, 2017, gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire from his 32nd-floor suite at Mandalay Bay into the crowd of 22,000 concert goers during country music singer Jason Aldens set. Read more: One year later, Las Vegas shooting survivors struggle to move on Las Vegas massacre: stars react in horror What was Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddocks motive? Investigators struggle to piece it together Paddock killed 58. More than 800 were wounded, including 413 by gunshot or shrapnel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds before turning a gun on himself. Police were unable to determine a motive for Paddocks deadly shooting spree but concluded he acted alone. The hotel suite he used as his perch has been sealed off since the incident and will never be reopened for guests, hotel officials have said. The Mandalay Bays floors have also been renumbered as a result of the shooting. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police issued a final 187-page report in August that outlined a portrait of a man with narcissistic qualities, a high-stakes gambler and a loner who had grown distant from his girlfriend. The FBI said it planned to release a more complete behavioural profile of the 58-year-old shooter at a later date. MGM Resorts International, which owns Mandalay Bay and the Las Vegas Village site, did not have a comment on Matways remarks but said Thursday that the Las Vegas Village site remains closed. The company faces a range of lawsuits file by people who were victimized by the shooting. Live Nation is also the subject of litigation related to the attack. The Las Vegas Review-Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that the return of the Route 91 festival would be at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip on a 35-acre plot of land at the corner of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard. WASHINGTONA White House official said Friday that the Trump administration was not responsible for the death of a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died from dehydration last week while in the custody of the Border Patrol. Officials said the girl, Jakelin Caal Maquin, and her father were among 163 migrants who turned themselves in to the Border Patrol in a remote area of desert in New Mexico, shortly after the group crossed into the United States. Her death, which is under investigation, has been widely condemned as a consequence of the Trump administrations hard-line immigration enforcement efforts on the southwest border against caravans of migrants travelling from Central America. Hogan Gidley, White House Deputy Press Secretary, called Jakelins death a horrific, tragic situation. A reporter asked if the administration would take any responsibility for the death. Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country? Gidley responded. No. Read more: 7-year-old immigrant girl dies after Border Patrol arrest Internal investigators at the Department of Homeland Security are looking into whether Border Patrol agents followed proper procedures while Jakelin was in their custody, officials said. An autopsy is expected, but the results may take several weeks, they said. The Washington Post first reported her death Thursday. Officials at Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Homeland Security and which oversees the Border Patrol, told reporters Friday that the group of migrants were initially held at a remote Border Patrol base. There, they were checked for health problems, given water and had access to bathrooms. Officials said Jakelins father signed a form saying she did not have any health problems. The document was in English, but officials said Border Patrol agents spoke with the father in Spanish and explained the form to him. But around 5 a.m. Dec. 7, while the migrants where being bused to a Border Patrol station in Lordsburg, New Mexico about three hours from where the group was initially apprehended the father reported that his daughter was sick and had started vomiting. Around 6:30 a.m., officials said, Jakelin began having seizures, and her temperature had climbed to nearly 106 degrees. At the Lordsburg station, Border Patrol agents with medical training tried to help her before she was flown to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. There, she went into cardiac arrest and died. Officials said she also had brain swelling. Kevin K. McAleenan, Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said Border Patrol agents did everything they could to save Jakelins life. The agents involved are deeply affected and empathize with the father over the loss of his daughter, McAleenan said in a statement. Homeland Security officials said Jakelins death underscored the dangers to migrants who journey to the United States from Central America. We cannot stress enough the dangers posed by travelling long distances, in crowded transportation, or in the natural elements through remote desert areas without food, water and other supplies, McAleenan said. No one should risk injury, or even death, by crossing our border unlawfully. This is why I asked Congress on Tuesday to change our laws so that the United States is not incentivizing families to take this dangerous path. Several high-profile Democrats joined immigration advocates to rail against the border agency over Jakelins death. Why did the Commissioner of Customs & Border Protection keep this little girls death secret until after he testified before me & Senate Judiciary Committee this week? I will be demanding answers, Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote on Twitter. There are no words to capture the horror of a seven-year-old girl dying of dehydration in U.S. custody, Hillary Clinton, who unsuccessfully challenged President Donald Trump in 2016, wrote on Twitter. Whats happening at our borders is a humanitarian crisis. Jakelins death is the not first time the Trump administration has come under criticism for its treatment of migrant children. The administration was blasted this year for separating migrant children from their parents as a result of a zero tolerance illegal immigration policy at the border. A government report in October found that the administration had not told key federal agencies about the zero tolerance policy before publicly announcing it. That left front-line officials unprepared to handle the ensuing separations of thousands of children from their families. Nearly 3,000 children were ultimately separated from their parents, many for weeks or months at a time, though most have since been reunited. Read more about: In October 2016, La Presse journalist Patrick Lagace discovered police had been monitoring his communications and tracking his movements in an apparent effort to uncloak one of his sources. The uproar was such that within a year, Canadas Parliament joined other nations in enacting a so-called shield law, conferring on journalists and only journalists special statutory rights to protect confidential sources. The beneficiaries cheered their new right as a major step for press freedom, despite its delineation in law of who is and who is not a journalist for the purposes of the protection. The Canada Evidence Act limited the new privilege to those paid to produce information for dissemination by the media as part of their regular work. A year on, the question of how, or whether, to demarcate who qualifies as a journalist has returned in louder, more insistent terms with the federal governments pledge to introduce a tax credit rebating an unspecified percentage of the labour costs of newsrooms. While ample grounds exist for principled opposition to public money being spent on supporting journalism, those allergic to defining a journalist ignore the recent crossing of that Rubicon. Though there certainly are better and worse ways to go about it, deciding who is a journalist for particular circumstances is neither novel nor overly vexing. For starters, the mere existence of a definition does not infringe on anyones right to report and publish; it simply provides some with the advantage of a shield law or tax credit. Common sense suggests important and obvious differences between a city hall reporter working the beat day in and day out, on the one hand, and the Twitter feed @lorettatheprole, reportedly the originator of the dubious narrative that George Soros financed the refugee caravan that Donald Trump used to rally his base during the U.S. mid-terms. Courts, police and sports teams regularly draw distinctions that have proven acceptable to journalists. Those deemed bona fide get to attend closed sessions of trials, interview sweaty hockey players in their dressing room sanctums and secure access to the Parliamentary press gallery, as determined by other journalists. Jurisprudence, academic analysis and democratic practice often involve the exercise of similar judgments. Some European countries, for example, have historically provided forms of public support to (literally) card-carrying journalists and their employers. In libel cases, journalists will often defend themselves by arguing they responsibly followed industry norms of fair practice. The means of defining journalists tend to fall into one of two categories. The first is through inclusion within a class of peers, perhaps based on who they work for (as with the vague criteria of the shield law), some kind of government-endorsed certification (common in countries with Mediterranean traditions), or membership in a recognized peer organization (comparable with law societies and colleges of physicians). The alternative to this class method is a functional definition based on what journalists do and how they do it, not their professional affiliations. This functional approach is grounded in norms attached to the practice of journalism, such as making efforts to ascertain the accuracy of facts pertaining to current events, and then assembling this information into stories and analysis made available for the benefit of the public. The content of a report is not the critical factor, nor even its intent, but rather that the journalistic equivalent of due process is followed. Overall, a functional definition is less exclusionary than an attempt to establish a professional class of journalists. But the unit of measurement should be news organizations and not the more intrusive assessment of individual journalists. Whether large or small, national or local, print, broadcast or digital, newsrooms aggregate reporting and editing resources, provide developmental training, uphold standards and furnish legal and logistical support. They are where most journalists reside or, in the case of freelancers, sell their work. To qualify, these newsrooms must dedicate a minimum threshold of resources to the critical task of producing original stories to inform citizens about matters of public importance, They might even be asked to provide the public a means of redress via a media council or create entry positions for young journalists. Whatever one may think of whether journalists and their publishers merit public support, defining them by what they do, rather than who they are, should not offend press freedom. Its time to move on to the harder questions, such as how to prevent governments from gaining leverage over journalists or how to keep public funds for journalism from leaking into dividends, interest payments or executive bonuses. People who live in Torontos downtown wards already know theyre not well loved by Premier Doug Ford, who slashed the entire city council just to prevent a couple more progressive voices from getting elected. Now its clear Mayor John Tory is also keen to limit those voices while amplifying the ones in the suburban, more right-leaning wards of the city. How else to explain his new executive committee? When highlighted on a ward map, all but one of the new members of Torontos most powerful committee come from well outside the central core. Given the provincial move to reduce Toronto council to just 25 wards, the seven councillors who join Tory on his executive committee are more powerful than ever. They set the citys strategic direction and determine councils priorities. So its unfortunate that Davenports Ana Bailao who is also chair of the planning and housing committee is the only councillor on the executive from a central city ward. The rest include returning speaker Frances Nunziata, budget chief Gary Crawford and deputy mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong, and committee chairs Michael Thompson, James Pasternak and Paul Ainslie, who all ran committees last time and represent suburban wards. Torys decision to rely so heavily on the same suburban allies who helped him last term is certainly understandable given his desire to push through the agenda he was elected on. But, both during and after the election, Tory spoke strongly about the need to better knit the city together, and that too is something he must deliver on. It wont be easy. This council is much smaller but its as divided as before, with the suburban-downtown split that remains an impediment to city progress 20 years after the province forced amalgamation on Toronto and the surrounding cities. In his inaugural address to city council last week, Tory reiterated his promise to speak and act for the whole city. He said: We dont have to divide and polarize here. Hes right about that. Its too bad those fine words did not extend to actions this week when it came to picking the executive, which forms the inner circle of power. Also unfortunate and particularly now that the premiers political interference is bringing the OPP into disrepute is the decision to include councillor Michael Ford, his nephew, on the Toronto Police Services Board. And its surely a head-scratcher why Stephen Holyday, one of the most vocal supporters of gutting council mid-election, will now head up efforts to find a way to restructure city governance. Thankfully, Tory did put a few progressive councillors in key positions. Councillor Joe Cressy will represent the city on the Waterfront Toronto board at a particularly challenging time for the city-provincial-federal agency that is overseeing redevelopment of the Port Lands and currently negotiating with Sidewalk Labs on a proposed high-tech neighbourhood. And Paula Fletcher will sit on the CreateTO board, the citys real estate agency tasked with managing and developing Torontos land holdings, making it a key player in Torys pledge to create 40,000 new affordable housing units over 12 years. Cressy and Fletcher are both well-suited to advancing these critical waterfront and affordable housing files. Perhaps even more importantly, theyll be well-placed to help defend the citys interests against any provincial moves to undermine the waterfront corporation or overrule the city on development decisions. Its also good to see Shelley Carroll, an experienced, progressive voice, named to the budget committee, economic and community development committee and the TTC board. Those appointments and a few others will certainly help ensure that a broader range of city voices is heard. But, overall, the executive members and committee chairs are the ones with the most power on council and, for those, Tory has picked people hes judged the least likely to challenge him. That will make for easier governance, certainly. But not necessarily a better and bolder city. Read more about: A worrisome turn on migrants, editorial, Dec. 8 I am all for helping refugees. Lord knows, groups like the Syrians need all the help they can get. They just want a better life for their families. The same with the thousands of irregular border crossers, the majority of whom I am willing to bet are not Convention refugees but economic migrants seeking a better life for themselves. Who can blame them? I get that. What I dont get and will not accept is Canadas hypocritical position on visitors from visa countries. There, you are more than likely to meet with disappointment at the hands of visa officers who will turn them away. Never mind that they have a legitimate letter of invitation and all their expenses are being covered by their Canadian relatives, including their travel medical insurance. We are facing just such a situation now. My wife would like to have her 25-year-old niece come visit us from the Philippines next year. To even have a chance of coming, she will need to provide marriage licence and birth certificates of her parents and all her siblings, a letter of employment from her work stating her income and permission to take leave, a bank account showing current balance, a letter of support from her parents offering any additional travel assistance, and a list of names and addresses of all her relatives living in Canada. And even if she provides all of that, her chances are compromised by the fact she isnt rich or doesnt own land. I mean, she isnt applying for parole, shes applying for a visitors visa. The rationale for all this and potential refusal is that Canada fears she might be a burden on the taxpayer. But Canada doesnt seem to flinch at the millions of dollars being spent on dealing with the above-mentioned border crossers seeking asylum. Where is the fairness here? OTTAWAA senior official of U.S. President Donald Trumps administration has gone further than the Canadian government in publicly criticizing Chinas arrest of two Canadian men and calling for their release. At a Washington news conference after meeting with Canadas Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Chinas arrest of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and of Canadian businessman Michael Spavor was unlawful and suggested the U.S. would work towards their release. The unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens is unacceptable; they ought to be returned, Pompeo said. The United States has stood for that, whether they are our citizens or citizens of other countries. We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly, said Pompeo. And the detention of these two Canadian citizens in China ought to end. To date, the Canadian government has not formally protested Chinas arrest of the men as unlawful, nor demanded their immediate release or return to Canada. It has taken a publicly measured approach, while stressing it is deeply concerned about their well-being. Earlier Friday John McCallum, Canadas ambassador to China, was granted consular access to one of the men, Kovrig, in Beijing, four days after his arrest, according to a news release by Freelands department. Canadian diplomats will be granted access shortly to the second Canadian (Spavor) detained in China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday, as he predicted consequences for Canadas economy from the U.S.-China trade war. We seek consular access, which weve gotten already in one of the cases, and are going to have in the second case shortly, Trudeau told The Canadian Press Friday. Were hopeful that itll happen soon. Read more: Second Canadian now believed in trouble in China, Freeland admits Blindfolds, sleep deprivation and interrogations could be the new daily life of two Canadians missing in China, says a man who lived it Analysis | Canada caught between a rock and a hard place in the case of Huaweis Meng Wanzhou Freeland provided no details about Kovrigs condition, and insisted the governments priority is still to determine the basis for their detention and to gain consular access to Spavor, whom McCallum has not been allowed to visit. Citing the detainees privacy, Freeland and her department refused to say more. Neither Canada nor China has publicly linked Chinas arrest of the Canadians on Monday to Canadas arrest on Dec. 1 of one of Chinas corporate elite Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States. But many observers believe the moves were a classic tit-for-tat retaliation against Canada for acting at the Americans behest. The Americans initiated extradition proceedings against Meng earlier in the fall, saying the Huawei chief financial officer and deputy chairwoman is wanted on fraud charges centred on an alleged plan to bypass Iran sanctions. The Chinese government is outraged over her wrongful detention and had threatened Canada with grave consequences before moving in to seize the Canadians in separate Chinese cities on Monday. In an interview aired on CityTV, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did finally appear to tie the cases together. Asked about strained relations between China and Canada, Trudeau called the mens detention unacceptable. China is reacting to the arrest of one of their citizens, but we are being absolutely clear on standing up for our citizens whove been detained, trying to figure out why, trying to work with China to demonstrate this is not acceptable, he said. The Canadian prime minister also took a more direct shot at both China and the U.S. President Donald Trump, who suggested Meng might be released if he could get a better security or trade deal with China. He said Canada will follow the rule of law and due process. Other countries can politicize their judicial system or make arbitrary actions, Trudeau told Citytv in Toronto. We are going to demonstrate that the best way not just to protect our citizens, but to support the jobs, the future, the stability that Canadians expect is by standing up for our values in a clear unequivocal way that protects our interests. Trudeau said he was, nevertheless, worried about Canadas relations with China and with the U.S. and the overall impact of global tensions. This is one of the situations you get in when the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States, start picking a fight with each other. The escalating trade war between them is going to have all sorts of unintended consequences on Canada, and potentially on the entire global economy. So were very worried about that, he said. Freeland, on the other hand, hewed to the line that China had not yet been explicit about its reasons for arresting Kovrig and Spavor, saying they are different issues. From Canadas perspective these kinds of issues ought never to be confused with one another, said Freeland. In the detention of Ms. Meng, Canada was acting scrupulously in line with our treaty commitments and in line with the rule of law. Pompeo was asked whether the U.S. actions have led to Canada and two Canadians becoming collateral damage in a U.S. trade war with China, especially after inflammatory remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump this week. Pompeo said, I dont see it that way. He said the U.S. justice process is unfolding, adding the U.S. has lots of complicated issues with China and would respect the rule of law each step along the way. Well do that here as well. Asked if the U.S. would actively work to help Canada secure the Canadians release, Pompeo said: We always work on it and well do it for this case as well. Freeland thanked Pompeo for the statement. She nevertheless delivered a rebuke of the U.S. President, stressing several times the extradition process should not be politicized. It is very important for Canada that extradition agreements are not used for political purposes. Canada does not do it that way and I believe that it is obvious that democratic countries such as our partner the U.S. do the same, she said. Roland Paris, a professor at the University of Ottawa and a former foreign policy advisor to Trudeau, said its possible the Liberal governments measured tone is because they are still trying to leave space for China to find a way to release the two Canadians without losing face. I think its not unwise to gather the facts, said Paris. I think the Canadian government is trying to strike a balance here between serving the interest of these two individuals and secure their release, and trying to keep the temperature down so the Chinese might back off. He said it is a hard balance to strike, and its a moving target. I dont think Canada has an interest in blowing up the relationship, but, at the same time, we have to assert our interests strongly. Yet the Chinese government is making no bones about what it calls Mengs wrongful detention, demanding again Friday that Canada correct its mistake and release Ms. Meng Wanzhou. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Chang who had earlier said Kovrig and Spavor were detained for engaging in unspecified activities that harmed Chinese state security, said their legal rights and interests have been safeguarded. Earlier in the week, Lu had said the International Crisis Group, where Kovrig works, had failed to register as an NGO as required under law. Kovrigs employer, released a statement late Friday calling for his release. ICG president Robert Malley said, Michaels arrest is unjust. He should be freed immediately. The group said Kovrigs work for ICG and for the Canadian embassy was always done in an open transparent manner. In neither of these roles has he done or could have done anything to endanger Chinas national security, Malley said. The real danger to China comes from Michaels arbitrary arrest and detention for these will have a chilling effect on people wanting to visit and engage with the country. I am particularly grateful for the lead role that Canada is playing in seeking Michaels release, and for all their help in reassuring us and Michaels family that everything is being done to bring him home safely. Despite it all, Trudeau insisted that he will continue to engage with China. But it is clearly no longer business as usual. Canada and China on Friday agreed to cancel or postpone a trip Tourism Minister Melanie Joly was to take to China next week, one day after she said that she still planned to travel there to further Canada-China tourism. Canada Goose, the luxury outdoor wear brand, has delayed the opening of its new store in Beijing, citing construction reasons, even as its stock took a hit. with files from The Canadian Press Read more: Canada gets to access Kovrig in China, as tourism minister postpones trip Canada caught between a rock and a hard place in the case of Huaweis Meng Wanzhou China levels national security accusations against two detained Canadians Read more about: The acting head of the Ontario Provincial Police has asked a court to rule whether the provincial ombudsman can review the hiring process that saw Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner named as the next OPP commissioner. The move came Friday after Ontario ombudsman Paul Dube turned down a request earlier in the week from Interim Commissioner Brad Blair to probe potential political interference in the appointment. Taverner, a close friend of Premier Doug Ford, is expected to be sworn in as commissioner on Monday. In his original request to the ombudsman on Tuesday, Blair asked that Taverners installation to be delayed pending his requested review of the appointment. According to a statement late Friday afternoon from Julian Falconer, the lawyer who is representing Blair both personally and in his role as interim commissioner, Dube refused to exercise his jurisdiction to review Commissioner Blairs request. In response, and in what could be one of his final acts as interim commissioner, Blair filed an application to a divisional court to determine and enforce the jurisdiction of the ombudsman to review the OPP commissioner hiring process. If the Ombudsman does not review the complaint, the independence of the OPP will continue to operate under a cloud of suspicion, reads the application. This is a serious matter as the independence of the OPP a body that can be called in to investigate provincial politicians must be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the citizenry. Falconer expects the case could be heard by the courts early in the new year. According to Fridays application, the ombudsman first declined to investigate due to jurisdictional issues, stating that Taverners appointment is ultimately a decision of cabinet and thus not within his scope to review. Blairs lawyers clarified, saying they were asking for a review of the hiring process before the decision was approved by cabinet, according to the application. But the ombudsman again declined, saying that such an investigation would be outside the offices traditional role of investigating public-sector bodies, and does not extend to the investigation of the political actions (or alleged actions) of members of the executive including the Premier or their political staff. The application is relying on a section of Ontarios Ombudsman Act, which states that when there is a question about whether the ombudsman has the jurisdiction to investigate any case, a directly affected person in this case, Blair may apply to the divisional court for a declaration. A spokesperson for the ombudsman had no comment Friday afternoon. Our office will respond to the application in court, the spokesperson said. Earlier Friday, the NDP made a personal appeal to Taverner, urging him to delay the appointment until an investigation has wrapped up and, in a separate letter, called on the provinces attorney general to stop his swearing in if he doesnt. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Taverners appointment is too controversial, given his close connection to Ford, and said officers and leadership of the OPP, as well as the people of Ontario must have absolute confidence there has been no political interference ... and that there will be no political interference in policing matters going forward. In a letter to Taverner, she said he should do the right thing. That is why I am asking you to delay your installation and assuming command of the OPP until a full investigation ... has been completed, Horwath wrote. She also accused Ford of demonstrating poor judgment and a lack of transparency. In a second letter sent to Attorney General Caroline Mulroney, Deputy NDP Leader Sara Singh said this appointment cannot go ahead under this growing cloud of suspicion ... as Ontarios attorney general and the chief prosecutor your first duty is to uphold the law ... it is incumbent upon you to use your influence and authority as attorney general to intervene in this process and stop the swearing in of Supt. Taverner for now. Taverners appointment, announced Nov. 29, has been dogged by speculation that Ford interfered in the hiring process. The Stars Kevin Donovan has reported that Taverner had been previously offered the top position at the Ontario Cannabis Store and was considered for a deputy minister post. Both Ford and Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones have accused critics of slinging mud at the 72-year-old police superintendent, who officially resigned from the Toronto force on Friday. Jones has said the appointment to the $275,000 position was made on the advice of an independent panel. Ford has told reporters he did not recuse himself and signed off on the appointment. The announcement on Nov. 29 unleashed an immediate storm of controversy. Horwath and the NDPs community safety and correctional services critic, Kevin Yarde, have asked the provinces integrity commissioner to examine the appointment. If Taverners swearing-in goes ahead on Monday, what will Ford be demanding of him? Yarde said in a statement from his office Thursday. Its critical that police forces operate without political interference and without conflicts of interest real or perceived. The Star has reported that a top aide to Ford and former employee of his family business sold her Weston house privately to Taverner last year, something opposition MPPs suggested was a sign of a close connection, but which Jones dismissed as willing seller, willing buyer. Blair, who had also applied for the top OPP job, released a letter to the provincial ombudsman Tuesday in which he complained about the selection process. He wrote that in the first round of interviews, conducted Nov. 12, the three men on the interview panel were Deputy Minister of Community Safety Mario Di Tommaso (who he says was Taverners direct supervisor at the Toronto police force), executive search company official Sal Badali, and Deputy Attorney General Paul Boniferro. In the next round of interviews with a smaller pool of candidates on Nov. 20, Fords chief of staff, Dean French, was present in place of Boniferro. Blair wrote that, with no explanation, French abruptly left the interview area, and said he was later told that French would no longer be involved. A source told the Star that French left because Star reporter Rob Ferguson had just sent questions regarding a story he was working on. The story, published the next day, revealed that French had ordered senior political aides to direct police to raid outlaw cannabis stores the day recreational marijuana became legal, and to show people in handcuffs. The remainder of the interviews were done with a two-person panel. In his letter, Blair said it appeared a decision was made later that day. Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis Read more about: The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right By Max Boot Liveright. 260 pp. $24.95 --- Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever By Rick Wilson Free Press. 327 pp. $27 --- How the Right Lost Its Mind By Charles J. Sykes St. Martin's Press. 267 pp. $27.99 --- Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle By Jeff Flake Random House. 1400 pp. $27 --- It is a requirement of the political exile to write a book decrying the forces that drove you away. The task becomes a bit awkward, however, when you're exiled not from your old country but just your old green room; when your former comrades are not in hiding but in power; when you insist that you're the same while everyone else has suddenly changed, even if the changes began long ago and you chose not to notice. When, that is, you're a Never Trump conservative trying to survive in Trump's America. The Never Trumpers - that dwindling band of conservative intellectuals, journalists, campaign hands and elected officials who've opposed Donald Trump since the 2016 race - have earned the right to name names. They assail the president's values and impulses, and they pillory his Republican enablers for discarding their long-held, or at least long-proclaimed, conservative principles. Though they worry about Trump's impact on democratic norms and the rule of law, the Never Trumpers are especially concerned about the fate of their party and movement. Their book titles give it away: "The Corrosion of Conservatism" by Max Boot. "Everything Trump Touches Dies" by Rick Wilson. "How the Right Lost Its Mind" by Charles J. Sykes. "Conscience of a Conservative" by Jeff Flake. It's not an easy perch. Trump supporters loathe them, anti-Trump liberals don't trust them, and the pressures to give in are real. In their books, the Never Trumpers express both outrage and disillusionment; they revel in their excommunication and bemoan their newfound isolation. Yet they often falter when reckoning with their own role, witting or not, in what came to pass. If conservatism has been hijacked by Trump, as they argue, who left it so vulnerable? These writers pose the question, but their answers feel like mere feints at accountability, more meh culpa than mea culpa. The Never Trumpers hold everyone culpable for the appeal of Trumpism except, in any worthwhile way, themselves. 'For me 2016 was a brutal, disorienting, disillusioning slog," Sykes, a former longtime conservative radio host, writes in the introduction to his 2017 book, among the earliest of the genre. "There came a moment when I realized that conservatives had created an alternative reality bubble and that I had perhaps helped shape it ... Did we - did I - contribute to this prairie fire of bigotry and xenophobia that seemed to grip so many on the Right?" This dramatic query proves largely rhetorical, however, with Sykes faulting himself mainly for benign neglect. "For years, we ignored the birthers, the racists, the truthers, and other conspiracy theorists," he writes. "We treated them like your obnoxious uncle at Thanksgiving ... whose quirks could be indulged or at least ignored." Sykes did so hoping that "the center would always hold, things would not fall apart, and principled conservatives would rise to the occasion. Except they didn't." Now he denounces the abandonment of gradualism, civility and expertise, and he worries about the "repudiation of the conservative mind" - a repudiation that transpired while respectable, indulgent conservatives such as him waited for someone else to yell, "Stop!" Wilson, a veteran Republican campaign strategist, cops to "a stirring bit of guilt" for his role in creating the "Frankenstein monster" that became the Republican base in the Obama years. "We fed the monster and trained it," he acknowledges in his book's introduction. "Then Trump came along. We lost control of those tools, the party, and the movement. The monster is out of its cage." A true first-person, insider account of the creation and unleashing of the base could have made for a stirring read. But beyond noting that he should have seen it coming - "let's get this mea culpa out of the way," Wilson writes - he spends nearly all 300-plus pages of his book blaming everyone else for the outcome of his experiment. And he does so in the crudest terms. First there is Trump, whom Wilson never ceases to insult. "A monster from the laboratory of a jackass mad scientist ... the living, s----y embodiment of a culture that's more Real Housewives and less Shining City on a Hill ... a self obsessed Narcissus in a fright wig" with a "Liberace-meets-Saddam decorating style" - and all that's just on Page 86. He also trashes the Trump fans within the base he helped shape: "I know you're in an oxy stupor much of the time, so I'll try to move slowly and not use big words." Wilson attacks Reince Priebus, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz and Mike Pence, and he says Newt Gingrich "started twerking [for Trump] faster than a five-buck stripper." Such sexualized put-downs abound in Wilson's book. White House adviser Stephen Miller "needs to spend a week getting laid." Wilson finds Trump campaign adviser Carter Page "reeking of late-stage virginity." And the white-nationalist alt-right movement is a bunch of "pudgy white boys from lower-middle-class suburbs who couldn't find a woman's clitoris with a GPS and a magnifying glass." Maybe some people find this funny or edgy, perhaps on Twitter, where @TheRickWilson has nearly 450,000 followers. But it's just revolting, even more so at book length. Oblivious, Wilson then laments the "fashionable cruelty" of the Trump era, with its "endless stream of dick-joke-level insults." Write what you know, I suppose. He concludes that our outrage politics are "juvenile, repellent, and self-limiting." So is his book. More thoughtful, but still confusing by turns, is Boot's "The Corrosion of Conservatism," published shortly before the recent midterm elections. "Did I somehow contribute to the rise of this dark force in American life with my advocacy for conservatism?" the author asks in his prologue, looking back on his career as a Wall Street Journal opinion editor and foreign policy adviser to presidential candidates John McCain and Marco Rubio. The election of Trump sent the author on "a painful and difficult intellectual journey." During that journey, he comes to regret his stubborn advocacy for the Iraq War and decides that his free-market ideology contributed to the economic troubles of Trump supporters. Yet Boot, who now writes for The Washington Post's opinion page, is caught in a contradiction he seems not to notice. He spends chunks of the book criticizing GOP leaders "willing to discard their principles" to strengthen their power and avoid Trump's Twitter wrath. Congressional Republicans now represent a party with few defining conservative values, he writes, other than promoting Trump's compulsion of the moment. House Speaker Paul Ryan ("a pathetic appeaser") and Sen. Rubio ("I thought he was a man of principle") come in for particular grief. "How could all these eminences that I had worked with, and respected, sell out their professed principles?" Except Boot also argues that grand conservative principles are all tainted, anyway. "Upon closer examination, it's obvious that the whole history of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, isolationism, and know-nothingism," he writes. With the convert's zeal (Boot switched from Republican to independent the day after the 2016 election), the author now glimpses conservatism's dark side. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed!" he writes. Boot, who began subscribing to National Review at age 13, admits here that he had never read Barry Goldwater's "actual words," and now that he has, he has decided the late Arizona senator and conservative luminary was an extremist. (I hear that Goldwater may even have given a speech to that effect.) It's a remarkable admission for a self-described movement conservative and "sophisticate." Boot confesses to have undergone a decades-long "brainwashing," at times having simply parroted standard conservative views without grasping the underlying issues. "I have spent most of my life as part of a political movement that has revealed itself to be morally and intellectually bankrupt," Boot writes. "This is a chastening lesson about the price of loyalty." It is also a revealing lesson on the insularity and posturing of the conservative intellectual community. The author concludes his book professing his reasonableness in a series of arenas: pro-environment, pro-gun-control and pro-immigration, as well as pro-free-trade, pro-fiscal-conservatism, strong on defense. Boot now realizes he is a "Rockefeller Republican," which is to say an extinct one. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona has certainly read his Goldwater, and he takes the title of his eloquent 2017 manifesto from Goldwater's 1960 book. He worries that the Republican Party, once the "party of ideas," has suffered a crisis of confidence, embracing instead the politics of incoherence. "Never has a party so quickly or easily abandoned its core principles as my party did in the course of the 2016 campaign," he writes. "We conservatives too often didn't have the courage of our convictions. Call us willing accomplices. The instant a flashy new novelty act came along, shredding conservative orthodoxy in the name of 'telling it like it is,' we bailed." He says this conservative collapse happened "seemingly overnight," though he notes that the broader governance failures afflicting Washington date far before the 2016 race, including to the Gingrich era in Congress. "We poisoned the civic fountain from which we all drink," he writes, "with predictable results." Flake, who has frustrated supporters as well as opponents of the president by criticizing Trump in high-profile speeches while usually voting in line with his positions (the senator is a conservative, after all), calls for renewed introspection on the right. "We must never shirk our obligation to examine ourselves," he admonishes. Yet throughout the book, Flake relies heavily on the "we" pronoun, which serves to diffuse responsibility as much as assign it. "We all but ensured the rise of Donald Trump," Flake writes. Who is we? The lone instance in his book where Flake reconsiders a specific action of his own involves his 2008 House vote against the massive Troubled Asset Relief Program. He opposed the TARP bailout package to showcase his fiscal prudence while privately hoping it would pass. "At a moment of national and global crisis, that vote was an abdication of my responsibility," he now writes. It's a valuable insight - that maintaining ideological purity to score political points is a sham - but a single, decade-old anecdote seems to stop short the courageous soul-searching Flake considers obligatory. Like Boot, Flake mourns the "collapse of conservative principles" and worries that the movement has become compromised by xenophobia and celebrity. He admits he has no quick plan to rebuild it ("there is no gimmick, no shortcut," he writes) other than a reassertion of past verities. "If this is a call for a new conservatism - and it is - then it is just as well a call for the old conservatism, too." But what kind of conservatism can survive, let alone thrive, in American politics today? The question hangs over the Never Trump volumes, and the answer depends in part on whether the authors regard the Trump presidency as a conservative outlier or the endgame of a movement in decline. Flake, who did not seek re-election and is departing the Senate after a single term, keeps the faith. "With hard work ... and maybe a little luck, we will right this ship," he writes. He calls for "a conservatism of high ideals, goodwill, and even better arguments." Boot, by contrast, no longer claims the conservative label. And while he admires some of the Never Trumpers who stay and fight to retake the Republican Party, he deems the battle lost. The GOP has become "the stupid party," one that "does not deserve to survive." Wilson regards the future of conservatism with a mix of honesty, generality and banality. There was always "a whiff of bulls---" about Republican calls for fiscal conservatism, he acknowledges, much as how "we talk a good game about putting Main Street before Wall Street, but talk is all it's been." Nonetheless, he contends that Trumpism will someday be deemed a temporary aberration, as long as conservatives can (deep breath here) purge the conspiracists, recruit ethnically diverse candidates, impose strict ethics rules for lawmakers, kill off crony capitalism, respect the Constitution, reduce the size of government and uphold the rule of law. Oh, and stop hating. "We need to start telling Americans we believe in them again ... Teach them we believe we can lift people up." Sykes calls for "restoring the conservative mind," yet he admits there may be little audience for it. "Despite [conservatives'] insistence that America was a center-right country, there has never been a strong constituency for the kind of tough budget cuts that would either limit the size of government or reduce the national debt." He urges conservatives to step back from win-at-all-costs politics in which opponents are demonized and the stakes are exaggerated to apocalyptic dimensions. "We simply should not care about politics as much as we do," he writes, "because it should not be as important as it has become." Now you tell us. With these books, the Never Trumpers are engaging in a worthy exercise, even if it's one they are executing with varying degrees of consistency, clarity and introspection. Yet it took the nomination and election of Donald Trump to make it happen. In a sense, the Never Trumpers are also the Only Trumpers. Only with the rise of Trump did they even think to interrogate the conservative dogma they'd long defended. Only with Trump did they begin to reconsider their roles in feeding a frenzied base. Only with Trump did they see the need to reach for higher ideals. Had Trump come close but failed to win the 2016 Republican nomination, had the GOP establishment and donor networks eked out one more mainstream nominee while still capitalizing on the angry, conspiratorial base to run against the Democrats, these books would not exist. The conscience and corrosion of conservatism, the mind of the right, would remain unexamined. Only with Trump. Maybe they should thank him. EDWARDSVILLE Excess comp and vacation time accrual was a hot topic at Wednesdays Finance and Governmental Operations Committee meeting, with County Board members saying several committees would look at the issue. Phil Chapman, R-Highland, brought up the issue at the end of the meeting. He noted in some cases different offices had allowed workers to accrue hundreds of hours in comp time or deferred vacation time. These figures indicate there is a problem with excess comp/vacation time, he said. The county allows some accrual, with excess either paid out or used to offset health benefits after retirement, depending on both union contracts and county policy. County Administrator Doug Hulme noted the county recently paid out for both union and non-union employees. He noted that some employees have been accruing vacation time for more than a decade. Committee Member David Michael, R-Highland, questioned why the county did not adopt a simple use it or lose it policy. Hulme said that could create legal issues, and would also have to be bargained with the unions. County Clerk Debra Ming-Mendoza said such a policy would create problems for her office. She noted that this year they have two elections where workers accumulated a great deal of overtime. Ming-Mendoza also noted that the countys fiscal year ends Nov. 30, a few weeks after the fall election, leaving little to no time for workers to take comp time. Im not done with the election yet, she said. Capt. Eric Decker of the Madison County Sheriffs Department said they are working to reduce the backlog of comp time. Committee Member Tom McRae, R-Bethalto, said the county needs to have a reasonable policy. Part of that would be allowing workers up to six months to use comp time. He also said many companies allow some accrual of vacation time to allow workers to take long trips. I think were making it way too complicated, he said. Its use it or lose it, but be reasonable. It was noted that in addition to the Finance Committee, the Personnel and Labor Relations Committee is also expected to look at the issue. There was also some discussion about funding for flood control projects. The committee approved a resolution regarding the budget of the Southwestern Illinois Food Prevention District Council, which oversees improvements to the levee system in Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties. The resolution calls for a budget of approximately $45 million. Chuck Etwert, chief supervisor of construction for the Council, noted that all of the 100-year flood projects have been submitted to FEMA for approval, and they were working on 500-year flood projects. He said it appears most of the projects will be completed by about 2025, approximately 20 years sooner than originally expected. McRae asked if any of the agencys funds could be used for interior flood control. Locally, flooding in this area has two major components. The Council is concerned with the levee system, which protects the American Bottoms from flooding by the Mississippi River. However, when the river is too high, water draining into the Bottoms must be pumped over or through the levees to the river. If the various pumping systems cant keep up, there is interior flooding, often referred to as a bathtub effect. Etwert said that the Councils funds cannot be used for interior flood prevention. Hulme disputed that, saying there is a reasonable debate on use of funds outside of the levee system. McRae said the county would need a legal opinion, possibly consulting with two or three attorneys, before considering that. Other than the approval of the resolution that must now go to the full County Board, there was no further action on the subject. Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447. EDWARDSVILLE The Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees, at its regularly scheduled meeting on the Carbondale campus Thursday, approved SIUE to move forward with resurfacing parking lots on the Edwardsville campus, and development of plans and cost estimates for a graduate dental clinic on the Alton campus. It also granted a temporary construction easement for the widening of East University Drive. The parking lot project will resurface and/or rebuild lots A, Vadalabene Center (VC) F (small parking lot just east of the VC), 10 off South University Drive, the Credit Union (CU) lot and Korte Stadium. The project includes redesign of Lots A and VCF to improve both pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow and safety, and adding electric vehicle charging stations in Lot A. Korte Stadium will involve paving an existing rock lot with asphalt and adding emergency phones. Lots 10 and CU will be resurfaced within the existing footprint. The project will include new pavement markings, curbs, replacing or constructing accessible curb ramps, sidewalks and converting to low-level LED lighting in all lots. The estimated cost is $4,976,000 and will be funded from external and/or internal financing as determined by the board treasurer. Plans for the School of Dental Medicine graduate dental clinic will involve demolishing existing Building 283 and constructing a new graduate clinic for the dental students and residents. The new clinic will be built and equipped to serve a comprehensive range of patient dental needs through existing, expanded and new post-doctoral programs. SIUE will retain FGM Architects, of OFallon, to determine the estimated project cost. Final project and budget approval will require board action. In another transportation-related item, the board granted the temporary construction easement for the widening of East University Drive to Edwardsville Town Center, LLC. The Illinois limited liability corporation proposes widening the campus road with the addition of a right turn lane onto Illinois Route 157. Edwardsville Town Center will pay the construction cost. The board also approved an honorary doctor of humane letters to be bestowed upon former chancellor Earl Lazerson, PhD, at the SIUE 2019 spring commencement. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose to shape a changing world. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi Rivers rich bottomland and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of more than 13,000. ALTON Police Friday evening were still looking for a suspect in an officer-involved shooting in which two Alton officers were injured after being dragged by a vehicle. The incident occurred at about 4:13 a.m. Friday in the 1000 block of Tremont Street, according to Illinois State Police Lt. Mark Doiron. The suspect, identified as Todd Lockhart, 34, of Alton, is believed to be in Missouri, and may be wounded. One officer suffered abrasions on his or her lower body; the other suffered a broken leg. Both were treated and released from a local hospital. Doiron said the officers were responding to a domestic incident in that area, while an earlier press release from the Alton Police Department said it was a report of a man with a gun. When the officers arrived, they attempted to take Lockhart into custody. They attempted to take Mr. Lockhart into custody, but he retreated into a vehicle, Doiron said. Upon trying to remove him from that vehicle a struggle ensued and Mr. Lockhart attempted to drive away with the officers partially inside the vehicle. He said the officers were dragged a short distance before discharging their service weapons. Approximately three dozen shots were fired, according to evidence markers at the scene. Doiron said police believe Lockhart was struck by gunfire, but were unsure of the extent of his injuries. According to video from cameras on the Clark Bridge, Lockhart drove his vehicle, identified as a white 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix with Missouri tag AJ9D7Z, across the bridge and into Missouri. Anyone with information about the incident can contact the Alton Police Department at 618-463-3505 or by dialing 911 or calling the ISP at 618-444-0232. Tips may also be submitted via social media on the Alton Police Departments Facebook or Twitter pages. The Alton Police Department will continue to handle the investigation into the initial complaint, while the ISP will investigate the officer-involved shooting and then present its evidence to the Madison County States Attorneys Office, according to Doiron. Madison County Sheriffs deputies assisted at the scene Friday morning. Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump has welcomed governors-elect from both parties to the White House. Among those attending Thursdays gathering were Florida Republican Ron DeSantis, Georgia Republican Brian Kemp, Illinois Democrat J.B. Pritzker, Wisconsin Democrat Tony Evers and newly inaugurated Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican. White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Doug Hoelscher had said theyd be discussing shared priorities, including workforce investment, prison reform and combating the opioid epidemic. The visitors also met with Cabinet members as part of a broader White House outreach effort to local officials. The White House says since the midterms, it has reached out to a long list of newly elected state and local officials of both parties to open lines of communication and begin a dialogue. VIRGINIA Wesley Helmich has resigned from his position as Virginias police chief. Mayor Reg Brunk, who announced the move at Mondays city council meeting, said the city will begin searching for a new chief. Helmichs resignation comes amid legal troubles he has faced since an Aug. 19 incident resulted in him being charged with driving under the influence. On Friday, Brunk said that Helmich was a good officer during his year-long tenure as chief. Im really disappointed that it didnt work out with Wes. He was a good officer, but he made a bad mistake, Brunk said. An officer has to have the support of the city to get the job done and he had that. Im terribly disappointed for him, but Im hopeful hell land on his feet. Helmich was traveling on Virginia Road at 7:40 p.m. Aug. 19 and approaching a curve on Old Church Road when his Harley-Davidson motorcycle left the road and traveled up an embankment before coming to a rest. Helmich was flown to Memorial Medical Center in Springfield with non-life-threatening injuries and later was released. In the months that followed, the city took no action on Helmichs job as court proceedings carried on. In the interim, the city hired Bryce Kennedy, who resigned in October for a brief period before returning to the city. Helmich was hired in November 2017, previously having served as a part-time officer in Virginia and as an officer with the South Jacksonville Police Department. In his resignation letter, Helmich expressed his thanks to Virginia for the opportunity. Because of recent events, I would like to submit my resignation as Chief of Police in Virginia, Helmich wrote. I would also like to thank the mayor and city council for giving me the opportunity to serve our community, but it is time for my family and (me) to explore new and different challenges. Kennedy will move from a part-time to a full-time role, Brunk said. Another police officer is in training for the city. For now, the city will accept applications for the chiefs position. Helmichs next appearance in Cass County court is set for Jan. 3. Nick Draper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1223, or on Twitter @nick_draper. Its Christmas time. And according to the National Retail Federation, Americans are on pace to spend a record amount of money on holiday gifts this year, $465 billion or an average or $700 a person. But as Americans spend billions of dollars on toys and goodies for one another, they are also expected to donate a record amount to charity this year, surpassing the previous record of $410.02 billion given to charitable organizations in 2017. Leading the way in generosity are Americas religious communities. In fact, a 2017 study from the Institute on Faith & Giving found that religiously affiliated individuals were more than two times as generous as those who did not belong to a religious community. Among those who identify as religious and attend weekly worship services, the percentage is even higher. According to last years report, 62 percent of religious households gave to charity compared with 46 percent of nonreligious households. Given these statistics it is not surprising that historically religious groups have received the largest share of charitable donations. Of the $410.02 billion given in charitable donations, $127.37 billion (31 percent of total donations) went to religious organizations (a 2.7 percent increase over the previous year). Education came in second with $58.9 billion. The overall size and scope of religious giving is a testimony to the generous spirit of believers. But beyond indicating an underlying philanthropic impulse, what do these trends in charitable giving reveal about the givers themselves? First, believers, like unbelievers, give because they share the vision and convictions of the institutions they give to. However, in many devout communities, theology is the motivating factor. This is because the faithful believe that mans eternal destiny hinges on having a right relationship with God and that subscription to a set of beliefs is part of this relationship. Thus, because right belief is essential for salvation, believers give in order to spread their beliefs further. An example of this motivation in action is the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the world that includes 47,000 churches and 15 million members. Last year, Southern Baptists gave $9.1 billion to their local congregations. While the bulk of this money stays with the local churches and state conventions, Southern Baptists contributed $192 million to their national convention budget. Out of this total, $140 million was allocated for world missions, $42 million for theological education, and $3.1 million for political and cultural engagement. By designating 73 percent of their national budget to world missions in 2017-18, Southern Baptists demonstrated their commitment to spreading the news of the gospel and reaching those in difficult places. While other priorities such as political engagement, disaster relief, theological education, and campus ministry received attention, the overwhelming percentage of funds was distributed among 3,667 full-time overseas missionaries and 5,262 domestic missionaries. Theological motivations, specifically concern for anothers eternal destiny, motivate religiously minded givers to give sacrificially and generously because they want to see souls saved and the mission of the institutions they support advanced. Another factor that influences the discrepancy in charitable giving between religious and non-religious people is fundamental differences in eschatology (the field of study concerned with the end-times). Inherently, the secular worldview is oriented to the temporal and material. Of course, religious people arent immune to the allure of money and possessions and non-religious people can be quite generous. But overall, if ones eschatology is rooted in a materialistic worldview it is more difficult to think beyond mans fleeting, temporary existence. If tomorrow we die, then why not eat, drink and be merry? Jesus himself addressed this mindset in the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21). In the story, Jesus describes a man with an abundance of possessions. The man owns so much stuff that he runs out of room to store it. Rather than be content with what he has, he decides to build bigger barns, so he can accumulate more. Jesus indicts this greedy mindset by saying, Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? The spiritual lesson is the folly of laying up treasure for ones self and being stingy toward God. Believers from most faith traditions hold a similar outlook toward their possessions; while not inherently evil, property should be stewarded in a way that serves and blesses others in addition to the owner. This others-oriented approach is a hallmark of religion and a motivating factor behind much faith-based charitable giving. David Closson serves as the research fellow for Religious Freedom and Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council. He wrote this for InsideSources.com. TheTicketing Agent will be responsible for providing customer service in terms ofticketing, reservations and other products to generate sales.The incumbent will be responsible for planning,selling, arranging travel Itineraries and bookings for our clients. The TravelConsultant will be tasked with promoting and booking traveling arrangements forclients, formulating tour or holiday packages with the goal of enhancing clientsatisfaction and growth to our client base. He/she will be responsible for thedaily operations of the travel agency including processing ticket requests forwalk-in customers and over the phone. The Consular Assistant you will beresponsible for providing consular assistance in Uganda. The jobholder will occasionallyhave to manage challenging but rewarding consular cases. They will helpcustomers through some of the most difficult experiences of their lives. Thismay include: visiting people who have been arrested, are in prison orhospitalised; visiting mortuaries; supporting bereaved families and victims ofcrime, victims of sexual assault and dealing with cases involving childabduction.The successful candidate willalso work closely with colleagues across the Sub-Saharan Africa network and inthe UK in order to ensure excellent delivery and consistency of services. Thecandidate must be able and willing to engage on these difficult issues: The Child Protection Specialist supports thedevelopment and preparation of the Child Protection programme(s) and isresponsible for the management, implementation, monitoring, reporting, andevaluation of the child protection programmes/projects within the countryprogramme. The Specialist provides technical guidance and management supportthroughout the programming processes. H/She facilitates the administration andachievement of concrete and sustainable contributions to national andinternational efforts to create a protective environment for children againstall harm, and to protect their rights to survival, development and well-beingas established under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, international treaties/frameworksand UN intergovernmental bodies. Union Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala said the government is not considering any loan waiver scheme for farmers before the general elections, even as pressure mounts on the Central government to roll out a common loan waiver scheme nationally for farmers. The last loan waiver scheme launched by the Central government was in 2008. Covering around 44 million farmers, it cost around 1.3 per cent of the GDP. Since the NDA government came to power at the Centre in 2014, state governments in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have introduced loan waivers around Rs 1 lakh 83 thousand crore. Of this, Andhra Pradesh had the highest at Rs 43,000 crore and Tamil Nadu the lowest at Rs 5,780 crore. During the campaign for the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had promised to waive farmers loans in these states within 10 days of coming to power. The Congress won a decisive victory in Chhattisgarh, and it will also form governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh with the help of smaller parties. The BJPs loss in these states was mainly attributed to rural distress. Said Rupala to THE WEEK, We are not considering any loan waiver scheme for farmers. There are negative consequences of waiving farm loans. We can, though, look at reducing the interest burden on certain crops. Farmers should know that there are so many welfare schemes that the government of India has planned for them. We have taken steps to bring in transformation in the farming sector. Empowering farmers has always been our priority. On Thursday, in a written reply to Shiv Sena MP Bhavana Patil in Lok Sabha, Rupala said, Such waivers may impact the credit culture of a state by incentivising the defaulters even if they are in a position to repay the loan. Considering a tight fiscal situation in the country, the Union government had made it clear that it will not be a part of any waiver scheme, and that states will have to manage the cost for loan waivers from their funds. In Rajasthan, where more than 50 per cent of families own agricultural land, the previous BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje had announced a loan waiver in June after protests by farmers. But the Congress alleged it was selective. Majority of the farmers are out of the ambit of the loan waiver scheme. The conditions of the waiver are so stringent that the final number of beneficiaries would be fewer, said Sachin Pilot, the Congress president in the state, in June. Chief minister-designate of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot said the Congress government in the state will give top priority to the farmers. But, first, let the confusion over who occupies the chief ministers chair end. Before that it is not right on my part to comment on what I plan to do in the state, said Gehlot to THE WEEK. This was before the Congress high command named him as the new chief minister of Rajasthan. Senior CPI leader D. Raja said the Union government is not sensitive to the farmers agony. Said Raja to THE WEEK, Why is there an agriculture ministry in the first place? It is the duty of the ministry to ensure remunerative prices for the products of the farmers and ensure them a good life. He said there was no harm in the Union government announcing a loan waiver scheme nationally, and that there should be a one-time settlement on farm loan waiver. That should not be a problem for the government. Yesterday, [Nitin] Gadkari was praising Vijay Mallya. He said it was unfair to call Mallya a thief for one loan default. This government is okay with one-time settlements for the industry and corporates, but not for farmers. This is unfair. Narendra Modi talks about doubling farmers income every now and then. But nothing is happening at the ground level, said Raja. Congresss working president in Madhya Pradesh Bala Bachchan said the new government in the state will fulfil its promise of waiving off farmers loan. It will be waived in 10 days of the formation of the government. There is no doubt about it, said Bachchan to THE WEEK. He defeated the BJP candidate in Rajpur constituency by a very close margin of around 900 votes. Bachchan will take oath as minister along with Kamal Nath, who will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, on December 17. Touched by the compassion of the nurses who tended to her... Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath said he will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 17. The swearing-in ceremony will take place at Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal around 1.30 pm, Nath told reporters outside Raj Bhavan on Friday. Nath, along with senior Congress leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Vivek Tankha and others, met Governor Anandiben Patel and informed her about his election as Congress Legislature Party leader, following which the governor invited him for the oath. The meeting lasted for nearly 50 minutes. The Congress has won 114 seats in the 230-member house, the poll results of which were declared on December 11. It has secured support of a total of 121 MLAs, including one from the SP and two from the BSP as also of four independents, to cross the majority mark of 116 seats. The party on Thursday night named Nath as Madhya Pradesh's next chief minister after hours of hectic parleys held by party chief Rahul Gandhi with senior party leaders. Prime Minister Narendra Modis spymasters who represent the two agencies which control the intelligence gatheringthe Intelligence Bureau and Research and Anaylsis Wingwill remain with him till the 2019 general elections. Incumbent IB chief Rajiv Jain and R&AW Director Anil Dhasmana will not hang up their boots by year-end when their two year fixed tenure comes to an end. Dhasmana was slated to retire on December 29 while Jains tenure was to end on December 30. On Friday, the Appointments Committee of Cabinet, chaired by the prime minister, gave both intelligence chiefs a six-month extension in their tenure. Both Jain and Dhasmana have a good equation with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval who is particularly taking a lot of interest in intelligence matters, whether it is collection of domestic intelligence or foreign intelligence, while steering the national security policies of the incumbent government. With three decades of IB experience, Jain, a 1989 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Jharkhand cadre, is a specialist in cyber and economic matters. Jain's major stints in the IB include his postings as head of State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in Delhi for long years and joint director, IB, in Ahmedabad when Modi was the Gujarat chief minister. Meanwhile, Dhasmana, a 1981 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre, is known for his handling of Pakistan affairs and was recently involved in the smooth extradition of Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the VVIP chopper scam case, from Dubai. Sources said the government did not want to make changes in the intelligence top brass ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. That decision can be left to the new government, said an official. For the time being, the race to the top in the spy organisations has been halted. Names of senior officers had already started doing the round as would-be successors. In the R&AW, it was K. Ilango, former station chief in Colombo accused by Mahinda Rajapaksa of having managed the 2015 presidential polls in favour of Maitripala Sirisena, who was being tipped to head the agency. At the same time, the name of Samant Goyal, who has been named in the FIR in the CBI tussle, was also in the reckoning, so was Subodh Jaiswal, who is currently Mumbai Police chief. Jaiswal had done a stint in the R&AW and had got empaneled to hold a director-general post recently. In the IB, the second senior most Arvind Kumar was being considered for the post against another contender Maharashtra Police chief Dattatray Padsalgikar. However, the BJP government has made it clear that it is comfortable with its existing spy network and it would rather wait for the new government to select its senior most sleuths. The state head of the BJP, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, has the huge responsibility of ensuring more seats than previous Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh in the coming parliamentary polls. Pandey and his team has been burning the midnight oil to accomplish this task. Equipped with Modi-Shah support and a clamour for the Ram temple, he is confident of achieving this task. He spoke to THE WEEK about the many issues, including Ram temple at Ayodhya. Excerpts from the interview. Do you think Ram temple issue will help your party in 2019 Lok Sabha polls? The question is not getting political mileage in polls, but it is our commitment to the nation. The BJP is a national party. It belongs to the people of the country. We openly support this issue. The proposal in this connection was passed in 1989 in our Palampur (Himachal Pradesh) meeting and the party still strongly supports that. But the whole issue is quite knotty and disputed. And, there is tug of war going on between two communities over it? There is no dispute as such. Both the parties accepted it that once upon a time there was a temple at the disputed site. Even the high court (Uttar Pradesh) has accepted this fact. Now, the matter is being heard by the apex court. I humbly appeal to the court that the matter should be decided as soon as possible on top priority basis. Because of the blessings of the people we have formed the government at the Centre and 19 other states. We have a strong commitment to them. Why is your party so passionate about the temple issue this time? We have struggled a lot for building the temple. Sacrificed a lot. I was in jail for more than two months while taking part in this movement. In fact, I was the first person on whom the NSA (national security Act) was slapped by the Mulayam Singh government for taking part in the Ram temple movement. Yeh hamere sangarshon ka fal hai ki wahan Ram Lalla virjman hai (This is the fruit of our struggle that Ram Lalla is there). Now, the efforts are on to provide him a scintillating abode there. How will your party build temple there? Do you have any road map for this? We have full support on this issue. We are getting support from both the communities. Even our alliance partners are supporting us strongly. Then there are organisations like Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and others. All of us want a grand temple to come up there soon. But now people want a specific date for the construction. Has the BJP thought of any date in this regard? These are the subjects on which party is thinking intensely. A responsible party will not determine the date in such a manner. Intense fruitful efforts are going on in this direction. We all want that temple to be built in Ayodhya soon. There are voices of dissent in your party. Some of your MPs, MLAs and alliance partners have been pulling away in different directions. As a state head, how do you tackle it? The situation is as bad as is made out. The BJP has a massive strength of workers and representatives. There is perfect coordination among them. Even in small parties one comes across differences, ours is a huge party. Leaders have the right to raise issues in their respective areas and should bring it up before the party and the government. This should not be viewed as dissent. There is no communication gap. As the party head in UP what would be your strategy to perform well in 2019 parliament polls in Uttar Pradesh? Our workers are taking all welfare schemes of the government to the remotest booth level. Every booth, which is a vital component of polls, is being taken care of. We have not left the implementation of the various welfare schemes to the officials. Rather, we are executing and monitoring their implementation ourselves so that we get a direct benefit out of it. Previous governments used to leave the implementation of these schemes to officials. So many of the schemes remained confined to the lab and did not reach the land. There is strict monitoring and implementation in our government. All this will help us do well in Lok Sabha polls. Then why did your party lose some important bypolls? We did quite well in municipal polls. Some bypolls were aberrations. Even in Kairana, though we lost the parliament seat, our vote-margin went up. The party is totally disciplined. Our workers are always available to people. We communicate problems of people to the government and ensure a viable solution. Will poor law and order be a problem and an issue in upcoming parliament polls? I strongly refute all allegations pertaining to poor law and order situation. Organised crime has totally been quelled. Today, in every nook and corner of the state, there is rule of law. This was not the situation in previous governments. They sheltered the criminals. There has not been any major law and order incident during the BJPs regime in UP. Some minor incidents took place, but they should not be viewed in this light. We have been very strict with criminals and anti-social elements. Party high command has high hopes from UP in 2019 polls. As the state president are you confident of doing well here? In 2014, the party had fought polls by keeping Modiji at its centre. 2019 mein bhi Modiji he kendra mein hain (In 2019, too, Modji is at the centre.) He has a clean image. Globally, he is recognised. We are going to the polls with his mega image. The various welfare schemes initiated by him for the poor will also help. People see a better future with him. So, with all these factors we are pretty confident of doing well in the polls in Uttar Pradesh. Peoples confidence is consolidated in him. Peoples confidence has grown in the ideology and policy of the BJP. With this capability we are going to polls and are sure of getting more than 73 seats this time. Will rising prices of essential commodities, petrol, diesel and other things affect partys poll prospects adversely? Rising prices is a normal process. Some international events were beyond control of our government so it led to price hike. But the government has been making concerted efforts to control these things. I do not think it will affect BJPs poll prospects in any way. The BJP chief Amit Shah has launched a scathing attack on the Congress for "misleading" people on the Rafale deal. He said it was the biggest attempt to build a perception against the saffron party based on "lies." "If a few theives get together and call chowkidar as chor, it doesn't mean it is true. Only thieves are afraid of a chowkidar," Shah said at a press conference at the BJP office in New Delhi. Shah was referring to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's repeated barbs on PM Narendra Modi calling him 'chowkidar chor hai'. PM had often called himself the chowkidarmeaning guardto nation's interests. As Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking probe into the Rafale deal, Shah said it was a slap on the Congress for spreading lies. "The Supreme Court has dismissed all demands made by the petitioners. Court said the price of the deal is advantageous to the nation. Court also said as our neighbours are getting latest technology we should not delay the acquisition. Moreover, no evidence of financial irregularities has been found," Shah said. On Friday morning, the apex court dismissed all the petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar defense deal. The Congress stuck to its demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the matter. The court decision seems to have punctured its anti-Modi campaign. The grand old party has been accusing Modi of being corrupt and built a campaign around it. "Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the armed forces as he raised doubts about them. He also played with the security of the country," Shah demanded. The BJP chief demanded that Rahul Gandhi should reveal the sources of his information as he has defamed the government. "They should also explain why the deal was not completed between 2007-2014," Shah said. Reacting to queries on whether the Congress campaign around Rafale had harmed the party in the just concluded elections, Shah said he will not go into elections loss but would say that Rahul harmed national security. BJP chief insisted that Rahul should reveal the sources thus raising questions if the Congress campaign was motivated. "It is his responsibility to reveal the sources of information," Shah argued. Reacting to Congress demands for JPC on the deal, Shah said BJP was ready for any discussion on the issue. "Let there be a discussion on the issue," he said. Ashok Gehlot will be the chief minister of Rajasthan for the third time, and Kamal Nath the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, was the AICC announcement ending a tense two-day long dialogue-discussion-decision making exercise with Congress president Rahul Gandhi at its centre. Gandhi's first big test began on Wednesday afternoon, when he had to name the chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where his party won by a very slender margin. By Friday evening he passed muster. He acted on what he had said a little after he took over as vice-president of the Congress, in the face of the party elders wondering whether he would dump them. We need the energies of the youth and the experience of the seniors was what he said. His father, late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's contemporaries Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot were named chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively. His own buddy, Sachin Pilot has bagged the office of Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan. And Jyotiraditya Scindia, another close buddy, is likely to be given an important office in the All India Congress Committee. Rahul has struck a grand balance between the youth full of energy and seniors with experience in the art of the possiblethe classical definition of politics. And thus lived up to his promise of many many months ago. It could not have been easy, for he had counted on the youthful Rahul Brigade to rebuild and rejuvenate the Congress after its worst electoral debacle in the summer of 2014 when it was reduced to 44 in Lok Sabha. And the victory in substantial measure must be theirs. How he managed to placate Scindia and Pilot, will be Rahul's shining moment. Even though the party observers had gone to Bhopal and Jaipur and assessed the views of the newly elected legislators and conveyed them to Rahul, the party chief was cloistered with Sindia, Pilot, Kamal Nath and Gehlot, separately. The united colours of Rajasthan! pic.twitter.com/D1mjKaaBsa Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 14, 2018 All this happened as television blared scenes of Gujars taking to the streets in Rajasthan to throw their weight behind Pilot, and supporters of the former royal backing Scindia. Inside Rahul's house, two young leaders put up a very strong case and a tough fight for the chief ministership of the states. What emerged after those testing moments were pictures of Rahul being flanked by a smiling Pilot on one side and Gehlot on the other. Similar visuals of him with Kamal Nath and Scindia made it to prime time and front pages. In naming the seniors for the post, Rahul may have played it safe given that he needs the veterans' experience in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha electionswhen friends across parties, ability to manage politics that continues to be old world in most pockets, and a number of other qualities that come with long years in the field, will be at a premium. Because the rebuilding of the Congress has been done by the young leaders, they have been given all the honour that is due to them. This was necessary as much to assuage their followers as the two leaders themselves. But even before the Lok Sabha elections, experience would be needed in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where stability cannot be taken for granted. While the Congress is the largest party in both the states, they have not crossed the half way mark to get a simple majority on their own. And to retain their hold on the states which they have wrested from the BJP after a very close fight, Rahul knew he had to focus on just that. The young Congress president has also cleared the doubts that the veterans may have had about their own future in the party. Rahul Gandhi, who took his own time before showing an inclination for the top job in the party, should know from experience, that waiting is worth the time. India will invest Rs 1,000 crore by 2025 towards the improvement of health services, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at the Partners' Forum 2018, in association with Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), held at New Delhi. In his keynote address, at the inauguration of the 4th Partners' Forum, the prime minister said, The world is one family. PMNCH is a unique organisation, improving not only better health for women, children and adolescents, but also making an argument for faster growth. He called for joint action and added, I call on each of youlet us join hands as an expression of our commitment. PM Modi said the government is committed to increasing health spending to 2.5 per cent of the country's GDP, which amounts to an increase of 345 per cent over the current share, and is viewed as a landmark announcement by health activists. Until now, India used to spend a little more than 1 per cent of its GDP on healthcare and insufficient funds have been a significant cause of concern. Among the dignitaries present at the function were Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare J.P. Nadda, Deputy Pime Minister of Nepal Upendra Yadav, President Inter Parliamentary Union Gabriela Cuevas Barron, first lady of Belize Kim Simplis Barrow, Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Anupriya Patel, ministers of state for health and family welfare, Preeti Sudan, secretary, health and family welfare, besides 23 ministers from 21 countries, representatives of various organisations and participants from 85 countries across the globe. Launched on December 12, 2018, the 4th Partner's Forum coincided with the Universal Health Coverage Day. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general, World Health Organisation said in a video message: 'UHC is a simple idea: that everyone should be able to access the health services they need, without suffering financial hardship. However, around 50 per cent of the world's population cannot access essential services. And women, children and adolescents are among the most vulnerable. Every day, 830 women still die in childbirth or from related complications. Every year, 5.6 million children die before their 5th birthday. Every year, 1.2 million adolescents die. These are not just numbers, they are people, he added. The two-day conference hosted by the Government of India in association with the PMNCH focused on ways to prevent maternal and child mortality and improve newborn, child, adolescent and maternal health. It offered a platform for policymakers and healthcare workers to review their progress and reflect on lessons learnt. The sessions shared valuable insights on community projects that have improved and transformed lives. (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, December 14, 2018/PRNewswire/ -- Dell EMC's Industry leading 14th Generation PowerEdge servers provide robust layers of security across hardware and firmware The proliferation of smart devices, connected sensors and the constant and insatiable need for data-driven insights has moved IT from back office functionality to forefront executive strategy. Servers form the foundation of the modern IT infrastructure - running a variety of workloads from database to software-defined storage. Therefore, as servers become more critical in a software-defined data center architecture, server security becomes the foundation of overall enterprise security. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/617893/DellEMCLogo.jpg ) However, the server security at both the hardware and firmware level is often overlooked or neglected by businesses. This can be corrected by leveraging an immutable Root-of-Trust, which will establish a chain of trust extending throughout the server lifecycle, from deployment through maintenance to decommissioning. Dell EMC's 14th generation of PowerEdge servers delivers this chain of trust and combines it with comprehensive management tools to provide robust layers of security across hardware and firmware. As a result, offering a cyber-resilient architecture that extends across every aspect of the server including the embedded server firmware, the data stored in the system, etc., is the need of the hour. To protect the data in response to security threats faced in the modern IT environments, Dell EMC's has established a three-step approach while designing 14th generation PowerEdge servers. The approach revolves around the concept of Protect-Detect-Recover. Protect: The 'protect' function is a key component in guarding against cybersecurity attacks. This function consists of several categories including access control, data security, maintenance, and protective technology. The key underlying philosophy is that infrastructure assets must provide robust protection against unauthorized access to resources and data as part of a comprehensive secure installation and computing environment. Detect: This function provides complete visibility into the configuration, health status and change events within a server system. This visibility also detects malicious or other changes to firmware or basic input output system (BIOS). Recover: This function helps in recovering the BIOS, firmware and OS, eventually getting back to the consistent stage. Recovering data in case of a malware attack is exceptionally critical for businesses as they compromise software and hardware products. Hence, timely responses to common vulnerabilities as well as the new ones are important for businesses so that they can swiftly assess their exposure and take appropriate actions. "In recent times, data centre security as well as server architecture security has become extremely critical. Cyberattacks have the potential to not only delay the system and business downtime, revenue and customer loss, legal damages but also tarnish the corporate reputation. Dell EMC's 14th generation PowerEdge servers, with their industry leading security, form the trusted bedrock of the modern data center through which customers can securely run their IT operations and workloads. With our cyber-resilient architecture and performance innovations, we are committed to enable our customers to unleash their best business potential," said Manish Gupta, Senior Director & General Manager, Compute & Networking Group, Dell EMC India. About Dell EMC Dell EMC, a part of Dell Technologies, enables organizations to modernize, automate and transform their data center using industry-leading converged infrastructure, servers, storage and data protection technologies. This provides a trusted foundation for businesses to transform IT, through the creation of a hybrid cloud, and transform their business through the creation of cloud-native applications and big data solutions. Dell EMC services customers across 180 countries - including 98 percent of the Fortune 500 - with the industry's most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from edge to core to cloud. Copyright 2017 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell EMC and the Dell EMC logo are trademarks of Dell Technologies in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Source: Dell EMC 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.) Takes total commitment to India to well above US$3.2 billion (INR 23,000 crores) MUMBAI, India, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IndoSpace, India's leading developer of industrial real estate and warehousing facilities, announced today that it held the final close on IndoSpace Logistic Parks III ("ILP III" or the "Fund"), the largest logistics real estate fund ever raised in India. The offering was significantly oversubscribed on the back of strong investor demand. US$ 580 million of total equity has been committed to ILP III which, post leverage will create a corpus of more than US$1.2 billion to develop and acquire industrial and logistics-related real estate investments in India. IndoSpace will use the capital to further strengthen its market leadership position. Leading global institutional investors have invested in ILP III. In September 2018, GLP established a strategic joint venture with IndoSpace, marking its entry into India. GLP will partner with IndoSpace to develop logistics parks in India as well as co-invest in IndoSpace's managed investment vehicles. Sameer Sain, Co-Founder and CEO of the Everstone Group (co-founder of IndoSpace), said, "The successful fund raise is a big endorsement of IndoSpace's leadership in the industrial and logistics real estate space in India. We thank and welcome investors into our fund and look forward to serving our customers with our unique national network and large integrated platform." Ming Mei , Co-Founder and CEO of GLP, said, "We congratulate the IndoSpace team on its largest ever fund raise, which provides long-term capital to further strengthen our market-leading position and network to better serve customers across India. The successful fund raise of ILP III reflects the confidence institutional investors have in us and we look forward to working closely with IndoSpace to capitalize on the early growth stages of India's rapidly modernizing logistics landscape." IndoSpace takes total commitment to India to well above US$ 3.2 billion, to build out a pipeline of 120 million square feet of modern logistics infrastructure to support the growth and modernization of India's supply chain. Demand for logistics facilities in India is driven by favourable government policy, economic expansion and the growth in organized retail and e-commerce. Currently, IndoSpace has a portfolio of around 30 million square feet across developed and under-construction projects. IndoSpace's portfolio includes 30 industrial and logistics parks in 9 cities, making it the only national network in India. About IndoSpace IndoSpace (www.indospace.in) is the pioneer and largest provider of modern industrial and logistics real estate in India, and has taken total commitment to India to well above US$ 3.2 billion. It is promoted by Everstone Group (www.everstonecapital.com), GLP (www.glprop.com) and Realterm (www.Realterm.com). IndoSpace currently has 30 industrial and logistics parks across India with 30 million square feet of developed and under development facilities and continues to develop new facilities to cater to the needs of its clients. Its customers include IKEA, Amazon, Nissan, PepsiCo, DHL, Leoni, Steelcase, Kubota, Ericsson, Bosch and Delphi. The Everstone Group is a premier India and South East Asia focused private equity and real estate firm. GLP is the leading global provider of modern logistics facilities and technology-led solutions. Realterm is a multi-strategy private equity real estate operator in North America. About Everstone Group Everstone is a premier investment group focused on India and South East Asia, with assets in excess of US$5 billion across private equity, real estate, green infrastructure and venture capital. Everstone has a significant resource base across its 7 offices in Singapore, India (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore), London, New York and Mauritius, comprising best-of-breed investing, operations and strategic resources with significant experience and skills. For more information, visit www.everstonecapital.com About GLP GLP is the leading global provider of modern logistics facilities and technology-led solutions, with US$60 billion in assets under management across its real estate and private equity segments. The Company's real estate fund platform is one of the largest in the world, spanning approximately 720 million square feet. For more information, visit www.glprop.com About Realterm Realterm is a $4+ billion AUM real estate operator executing differentiated private equity strategies focused on durable insights into the supply and demand of real assets through the supply chain. Realterm currently manages over $1.9 billion of partner equity through three logistics-oriented commingled private equity fund series. www.realterm.com Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181213/2325994-1LOGO PWR PWR Islamabad, Dec 14 (PTI) British public broadcaster BBC has defended the omission of Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav's mention from its interview with Pakistan's Finance Minister Asad Umar, saying it was "not an act of censorship". In an interview to BBC's Stephen Sackur for the 'Hardtalk', the finance minister answered questions on various issues of national importance, including the state of Pakistan's economy and ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor. The TV version of the interview, however, did not contain his mention of Jadhav, who was sentenced to death in 2017 by a Pakistani military tribunal on spying charges. Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari criticised the BBC for deleting the part about Jadhav, terming it "typical bias" on the part of the broadcaster. "Shameful how BBC censored and chopped off Asad's mention of Indian spymaster Jhadav! Typical bias of BBC!," she tweeted. BBC 'Hardtalk' on Twitter, however, clarified that Jadhav's name had been omitted from the TV version of the interview and not the radio version, and that it was not done to censor the minister's words. "The reason Kulbhushan Jadhavs name was deleted from the TV version of the HARDtalk interview with Asad Umar has a simple technical explanation. The recorded interview was too long for our broadcast slot and so had to be edited. This was done separately for radio and TV," it tweeted. "His name was omitted from the TV version. This was not an act of censorship, but clearly confusion has been caused, so we are happy to restore that short section to the TV broadcast and well give the new programme an extra airing tonight as well as tomorrow morning," the broadcaster said. On BBC's clarifictaion, the human rights minister said, "As pathetic an explanation as any! BBC's bias has always been there and then there are mega bucks to be earned from India!" Pakistan alleges that its security forces arrested Jadhav from Balochistan province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from Iran. India denies all the charges and maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy and that he has no links with the government. After Jadhav was sentenced to death, India moved the International Court of Justice against the verdict in May 2017. The world court has halted Jadhav's execution on India's appeal pending the final verdict by it. In October, the ICJ said it will hold hearings from February 18 to February 21 in the Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands, the seat of the court. PTI PMS AKJ PMS PMS Dhaka, Dec 14 (PTI) A senior Bangladesh opposition leader's motorcade was attacked Friday after he visited a mausoleum in Mirpur to pay tributes to intellectuals killed in the 1971 independence war with Pakistan. Jatiya Oikyafront leader Kamal Hossain's motorcade came under attack near the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial as he and other alliance leaders were getting in their cars, said Latiful Bari Hamim, a staff of the Oikyafront's media wing. The Jatiya Oikyafront is an alliance of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Hossain-led Jatiya Oikya Prokriya, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, and Nagorik Oikya. The Oikyafront was formed on October 13 with the demand of holding a national election under a neutral government after dissolution of parliament and release of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia from jail. At least 12 leaders and activists from the Oikya Front have been injured in the attack and about seven cars were vandalised, bdnews24.com reported. However, Hossain was unhurt in the attack. "We are here to pay tribute to the martyred intellectuals. We must uphold our independence and make it meaningful for everyone, as millions of martyrs have sacrificed their lives for it," Hossain said. "We're working to create a beautiful society free of repression. We'll free the country from the clutches of those who work against our dreams. They will have to give in to our countrymen, no matter how powerful they are," he said. The opposition said such attacks were designed to weaken them ahead of the poll on December 30. The war in 1971 broke after the sudden crackdown at midnight past on March 25, 1971 in the erstwhile East Pakistan by the Pakistani troops and ended on December 16. The same year Pakistan conceded defeat and unconditionally surrendered in Dhaka to the allied forces comprising the freedom fighters and the Indian soldiers. PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ Brussels, Dec 14 (AFP) EU leaders agreed Thursday to step up preparations for Britain crashing out of the bloc next March without a deal, with the European Commission to publish a plan next week. At a summit in Brussels, the leaders of the 27 EU member states called for work on "contingency preparedness" -- Brussels jargon for no-deal planning -- to be intensified. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he would publish no-deal planning details on December 19, urging Britain to clarify what it wants from the EU. "Because we are in a debate that is sometimes nebulous and imprecise, I would like some clarifications," Juncker said after summit talks. "As we don't know what the collective reactions will be -- of the 27 or of the UK -- the commission will publish on December 19 all the information that is generally useful for the preparation of no deal". British Prime Minister Theresa May had come to Brussels hoping for concessions that would help her sell her Brexit deal to sceptical MPs back home. But the summit statement on Brexit gave her meagre pickings, insisting bluntly that the withdrawal agreement struck last month after lengthy negotiations "is not open for renegotiation". The final five-point statement issued after talks among the EU 27 that followed a question-and-answer session with May offered the British PM considerably less than earlier drafts. Gone are a reassurance that the so-called Irish backstop -- a Brexiteer bugbear -- will be in place for only a short period and a pledge to "examine whether any further assurance can be provided" to help May get the deal through parliament. (AFP) RUP RUP RUP London, Dec 14 (PTI) Ireland's parliament has passed a landmark legislation to make abortion legal for the first time in the Catholic-majority country, a "historic moment" which came after an Indian dentist died from blood poisoning in 2012 when the doctors refused her repeated requests to abort the foetus. Ireland voted decisively to change the Constitution to repeal the Eighth Amendment in May, with 66.4 per cent voting in favour of new legislation to allow for the termination of pregnancies. "The bill that allows for the introduction of abortion services in Ireland has passed all stages of the Oireachtas(Irish Parliament) and will now go to President Michael D Higgins to be signed into law," Irish Broadcaster RTE reported on Thursday. "Historic moment for Irish women. Thanks to all who supported and well done to (Health Minister) Simon Harris for steering this through both Houses," Ireland's Indian-origin President Leo Varadkar said. The new development has come following a rising number of distressing stories about women unable to get an abortion in Ireland. One of the high-profile cases was that of 31-year-old Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar, who died in agony from blood poisoning after doctors refused her repeated requests for an abortion while she was having a miscarriage at a Galway hospital in 2012. Her death helped "personalise" the debate around abortion, said a legal scholar at Trinity College Dublin. "This is a genuinely historic moment. It paves the way for the implementation of the service for termination of pregnancy in January 2019," said Minister Harris. The Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill allows for abortion services to be provided "on demand" up to the 12th week of a pregnancy, in the case of a fatal foetal abnormality or where the physical or mental health of the mother is in danger. Since the bill's introduction at first stage in October, there have been some minor changes, including a decision to review the legislation after three years, rather than five years as was originally planned. Two different doctors will be allowed to assess a woman in early pregnancy and the offences section has been moved from the front of the bill, the BBC reported. "I want to thank the campaigners who fought for 35 years to change a nation, to change hearts and minds. I want to thank the minority who fought the battle in here when it was convenient for the majority to ignore. "But today, I think mostly of the thousands of women who were forced to make the journey to access care that should have been available in their own country," Harris said. Ireland is a Catholic-majority country with about 80 per cent of Irish people describing themselves as Catholic in the last census in 2016 even as the influence of the Church has waned in recent years. Varadkar, a 39-year-old Indian-origin doctor, scripted history in June last year by becoming Ireland's youngest and the first openly gay prime minister of the Catholic-majority country, as he promised to build "a republic of opportunity". PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ Colombo, Dec 14 (PTI) Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has said he will choose a new Prime Minister and Cabinet by Monday, but vowed never to reappoint Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose ouster sparked an unprecedented political crisis in the country. His remarks came after Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Thursday unanimously ruled that the dissolution of Parliament by Sirisena was "illegal". After the verdict, a special meeting of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) was held at the Presidential Secretariat last night chaired by Sirisena. Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed as the prime minister by Sirisena after sacking Wickremesinghe, also attended the meeting, Colombo Page reported. The president at the meeting said that he would accept the verdict of the Supreme Court on the dissolution of parliament, but he will never rule again with Wickremesinghe. Sirisena said that he decided to dissolve Parliament to prevent destruction of the country by the Wickremesinghe-led United National Party (UNP), the report said. The President has said that he is committed to strengthen the anti-UNP camp and asked the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs not to propose forming a government with the UNP again. President Sirisena has said that he will make a decision on appointing a Prime Minister after receiving the Supreme Court ruling on the appeal filed by Rajapaksa against the Court of Appeal's interim injunction order preventing him and 49 ministers of the purported government from functioning. Sirisena's decision on October 26 to sack Wickremesinghe and install former Rajapaksa in his place sparked a constitutional crisis in the country. Later, he also dissolved the 225-member Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. Sirisena, 67, sacked the Parliament when it appeared that Rajapaksa would not be able to muster the support of 113 MPs to gain a simple majority. Wickremesinghe on the other hand commands a majority in the House. On Wednesday, Wickremesinghe proved his majority in Parliament, with 117 out of 225 lawmakers in Parliament voting to pass a confidence motion in his leadership. Rajapaksa has so far failed to prove his majority in Parliament. As many as 13 petitions were filed in the Supreme Court against Sirisena's November 9 order sacking the Parliament, almost 20 months before its term was to end. Wickremesinghe has held his ground without leaving his official residence, saying his dismissal was illegal. He said the 19th amendment to the Constitution had made Sirisena powerless to remove a sitting prime minister. Prior to the crisis, Wickremesinghe had the backing of 106 parliamentarians while Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine had the backing of 95 lawmakers. PTI NSA AKJ NSA Brussels, Dec 14 (AP) European Union leaders expressed deep doubts Friday that British Prime Minister Theresa May can live up to her side of their Brexit agreement and they vowed to step up preparations for a potentially-catastrophic "no-deal" scenario. May cancelled a Brexit vote in the UK Parliament this week after it became clear the assembly would reject the deal she concluded with the EU last month. She travelled to Brussels in hope of wringing some concessions from her European partners that would help assuage doubts about the draft divorce agreement back in London. But EU leaders rejected any attempt to re-negotiate their agreement, a 585-page legal text settling things like the divorce bill and the rights next year of Europeans living in Britain or Britons living in the EU, plus a document laying out their hopes for future relations, which isn't legally binding. They did publish a short text with "assurances" about how the deal would work. "Very objectively, the signals that we heard yesterday are not especially reassuring about the capacity in Britain to be able to honour the engagement that was undertaken," Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters. Expressing a "gigantic doubt" that May can get the deal through Parliament, Michel said: "we are going to be sure to prepare for all hypotheses, including the hypothesis of a no-deal." No country has ever left the 28-nation EU the world's biggest trading bloc and the rules laying out that process are sketchy. Essentially, Brexit is being made up as the process advances. Court challenges have clarified some of the rules. This week, Europe's top court ruled that Britain can change its mind about leaving should it want to. One thing is clear: Brexit will happen on March 29, although a transition period will help ease Britain out over almost two, and possibly up to four, years. The prospect of a no-deal has shaken markets and the British pound, and created uncertainty for investors and businesses. Brexit involves Britain leaving around 750 international treaties drawn up over 40 years of membership. One of them is the EU's aviation market. Without a deal, British planes won't be able to land in Europe on March 30. Nor will European planes be able to land in the UK. May didn't talk to reporters as she entered EU headquarters early Friday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, after shuttling around Europe earlier this week seeking support. Should she make clear her government's needs from the EU, and her plan to persuade Parliament to adopt the agreement in January, EU leaders could convene against next month. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said that "if there is a need we can always convene." Plenkovic said the statement EU leaders released overnight "is a solid signal, first of all to the prime minister, but also to the UK Parliament." Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel appealed to British MPs to keep the interests of their citizens in mind. "For internal political reasons some people try to gamble on the relations between the EU and the UK for the future. It's bad. This is the best possible deal," Bettel said. "They should think about the interests of their voters and people in their country." In Britain, Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington, a senior May ally, insisted Thursday's talks in Brussels had been "a welcome first step," noting that the EU had said it wanted a "speedy UK trade deal" after Brexit. But opponents of the government said the meeting showed that May's deal would never get the support of Parliament. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that May "has tried, credit to her for that, but, as expected, the EU is not open to renegotiation. It's time to stop this pretense, bring the vote to Parliament and then, when the deal is rejected, seek to bring majority behind a second EU vote. Anything else now is just wasting time." (AP) RUP RUP New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours: FGN23 CHINA-INDIA Chinese FM to visit India next week for first meeting of people-to-people mechanism Beijing: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India next week to attend the first high-level meeting of Sino-India 'people-to-people mechanism' agreed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in June, officials announced here on Friday. FGN22 NEPAL-LD INDIAN CURRENCY Nepal govt bans use of Indian currency notes above Rs 100 Kathmandu: The Nepal government has banned the use of Indian currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations, a move that could affect Indian tourists visiting the Himalayan nation where Indian currency is widely used. By Shirish B Pradhan FGN13 IMF-LD RBI Operational independence of central banks important for carrying out their responsibilities: IMF Washington: Operational independence is important for a central bank to carry out its responsibilities, a senior IMF official has said, amidst the growing debate in India over the RBI's autonomy following Urjit Patel's resignation as its governor. FGN16 IMF-PAK-DEBT IMF to check Pakistan's debt sustainability before loan: Official Washington: The IMF will conduct a proper debt sustainability analysis of Pakistan before granting it any loan, a senior official has said, amid concerns that Islamabad is seeking a multibillion-dollar bailout package from the global financial body to pay back Chinese creditors. By Lalit K Jha FGN19 LANKA-SIRISENA-CABINET Lanka President to appoint new prime minister by Monday: Report Colombo: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has said he will choose a new Prime Minister and Cabinet by Monday, but vowed never to reappoint Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose ouster sparked an unprecedented political crisis in the country. FGN17 US-INDIAN-LD PRISON Washington: A 35-year-old Indian IT professional was sentenced in the US to nine years in prison for a "brazen sexual assault" against a sleeping woman during a flight early this year and will be deported to India after the completion of his jail term. By Lalit K Jha FGN25 CHINA-US-TIBET-LD REAX China lodges 'stern' protest with US over Senate bill on Tibet Beijing: China has lodged a "stern" diplomatic protest with the US over the Senate passing a bipartisan legislation that seeks to impose a visa ban on Chinese officials who deny American citizens, officials and journalists access to Tibet, even as Bejing asked Washington not to make it a law. FGN12 PAK-INDIAN Pak court tells Govt to send Indian national Hamid Nihal Ansari home within one month Islamabad/Peshawar, Dec 14 (PTI) A top court in Pakistan has given one month deadline to the federal government to complete formalities to deport Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari, whose three-year jail term will end on Saturday. PTI PMS PMS Colombo, Dec 14 (PTI) Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Friday upheld a court order restraining Mahinda Rajapaksa from holding the office of Prime Minister until it fully heard the case next month, according to media reports. The ruling came a day after the apex court unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was "illegal", in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. The Supreme Court Friday decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand, Colombo Gazette reported. The apex court decided that the case will be heard on January 16, 17 and 18. The Appeal Court on December 3 issued notice and an interim order against Rajapaksa and his Government, preventing them from acting as Prime Minister, Cabinet and Deputy Ministers. The order was issued in a case filed by 122 lawmakers against Rajapaksa and his new government. Rajapaksa and the members of the purported government filed the appeal againt the Court of Appeal's interim injunction that restrained them from functioning in their respective posts. Sri Lanka is going through a major political crisis since October 26 when President Maithripala Sirisena, in a controversial move, removed Wickremesinghe and installed ex-strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place. Parliamentarians of Wickremesinghe's UNP, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Tamil National Alliance on November 23 filed the petition in the Court of Appeal challenging Rajapaksa on continuing to hold the office of Prime Minister after a no-confidence motion was passed in Parliament against him. Sirisena, after sacking Wickremesinghe on October 26, dissolved Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. However, the Supreme Court overturned his decision and halted the preparations for snap polls. Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa both claim to be the prime ministers with the former claiming that his dismissal is invalid because he still holds a majority in the 225-member Parliament. Prior to the crisis, Wickramasinghe's UNP had the backing of 106 parliamentarians while Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine had 95 seats. Rajapaksa has, so far, failed to prove his majority in Parliament. The President has said that due to sharp personal differences with Wickremesinghe, he would not reappoint him as the Prime Minister. However, Wickremesinghe's UNP claims that Sirisena will be left with no choice as he would be the man who will command the confidence in the House. PTI PMS AKJ PMS PMS Brussels, Dec 14 (AFP) European Union (EU) leaders rebuffed a plea by British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to help her sell her Brexit deal to parliament, warning she must set out exactly what she wants and announcing that they would step up contingency plans in case the deal collapses. The British prime minister came to a Brussels summit a day after seeing off a challenge to her leadership by her own Conservative MPs, but still facing huge opposition to the divorce deal with the EU. She told the other 27 leaders the agreement could still pass the House of Commons next month if they helped her reassure lawmakers over a controversial "backstop" clause on Ireland, a British official said. But European sources said the atmosphere in the room was tense, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders repeatedly interrupting May to ask exactly what she wanted. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters afterwards: "Our UK friends need to say what they want instead of asking us what we want." He added: "Theresa May has led a courageous fight, but unfortunately, we are not seeing the results." May floated the idea of setting a target date to agree a free trade deal with the EU if one had not been agreed by the end of a post-Brexit transition period, to avoid Britain falling into the backstop. Many of her MPs fear the arrangement for Britain to enter a temporary customs union with the EU to avoid border checks with Ireland could become permanent. But European leaders have said they will not accept a time limit, and after May left, agreed a statement that the Brexit deal "is not open for renegotiation". With May having promised to have something to offer the MPs before they finally vote on the Brexit deal by January 21, Juncker said she would have to come up with proposals in the next few weeks if she wanted Europe's support. However, he said he would publish further plans on Wednesday to protect European businesses and citizens in case the deal fails and Britain exits on March 29 with no new arrangements in place. May told EU leaders they must help her "change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK cannot escape", adding: "Until we do, the deal -- our deal -- is at risk." "With the right assurances, this deal can be passed. Indeed it is the only deal that is capable of getting through my parliament," she told them. But while an early draft of the summit conclusions had said the EU "stands ready to examine whether any further assurances can be provided" on the backstop, this was removed from the final published version. Juncker did offer one olive branch, promising that talks on the future trading relationship -- a deal which would undermine the need for the backstop -- would start as soon as MPs and the European Parliament approved the Brexit deal. The summit statement also confirmed the backstop would only "apply temporarily" and that EU members would work to "conclude expeditiously" the new trade deal. But this is not the legally binding promise sought by Brexiteers and the Northern Irish party that props up May's government -- without which they have warned they will not support the deal. May arrived in Brussels wounded by a confidence vote in her party on Wednesday night, which she won but in which more than one-third of her MPs voted against her. The move was sparked by her decision to delay a parliamentary vote on the Brexit deal planned for Tuesday, amid fears of a crushing defeat. It has been delayed to next month. But ahead of the confidence vote, May was forced to confirm that she would not fight the next general election planned for 2022. Instead, she said her focus was on salvaging her plan for an orderly Brexit. Before the EU leaders savaged her plan, she had admitted she did not expect "an immediate breakthrough". Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who earlier met with May on the sidelines of the summit, stressed again the backstop must be part of the deal. "As the EU, we are very keen to offer explanations, assurances, clarifications, anything that may assist MPs to understand the agreement, and hopefully to support it. But the backstop is not on the table," he said. (AFP) RC United Nations, Dec 14 (AFP) UN special envoy Martin Griffiths on Friday urged the creation of a "robust and competent monitoring regime" in war-ravaged Yemen, one day after fighting parties agreed to a ceasefire at a vital port. "A robust and competent monitoring regime is not just essential. It is also urgently needed," Griffiths told the Security Council, adding that "allowing the UN the lead role in the ports is the vital first step". If implemented, the deal on Hodeida port, a key gateway for aid and food imports, could bring relief to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine. (AFP) SCY Chouhan says Rahul should apologise for baseless Rafale allegations Bhopal, Dec 14 (PTI) Outgoing Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi Friday for trying to "defame the nation" over the Rafale deal and demanded apology from him. "The Congress made mountain out of a molehill and tried to defame the nation. Those who have tried to malign the country's image should apologise to the people," Chouhan told reporters at the BJP office here. "I wanted to ask the Congress president what was his source of information. He is morally bound to reveal it, and at whose behest he is levelling these allegations," Chouhan said. The Congress president used derogatory words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi which was highly condemnable, he said. Today's decision of the Supreme Court has made it clear that truth always wins, Chouhan said. Everybody knows that during Congress rule middlemen played a major role in defence deals, while the Modi government ended this, he said. The Supreme Court earlier Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. Asked about the BJP's defeat in Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Chouhan said it was entirely his responsibility. PTI MAS LAL KRK KRK Kolkata, Dec 14 (PTI) Following are PTI's top stories from the eastern region at 9 pm. STORIES ON THE WIRE: CAL3 MG-COAL MINE 13 miners still trapped in flooded Meghalaya mine as efforts to pump out water yet to yield result Lumthari (Meghalaya): Thirteen people remain trapped in a flooded illegal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia hills district even a day after the incident as efforts to pump out water, which has been continuing since Thursday, failed to yield any result. CAL4 BH-NDA-KISHOR No reason for alarm in BJP, it performed well without Ram temple, can do again: Prashant Kishor Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still the most popular leader in the country, JD(U) leader Prashant Kishor said Friday, emphasizing he does not see any reason for alarm in the BJP after the saffron party suffered setbacks in three Hindi heartland states. CAL5 WB-BJP RATH YATRA WB BJP to wait till Saturday for state govt permission for 'rath yatra' Kolkata: The West Bengal BJP will "wait and watch" till Saturday for permission from the state government for the party's rath yatra campiagn in the state, top leaders of the saffron party said Friday. CAL6 OD-DEPRESSION Depression in Bay of Bengal set to intensify into cyclonic storm, rains in Odisha likely Bhubaneswar: A deep depression over the Bay of Bengal is all set to intensify into a cyclonic storm by Saturday and it is likely to bring heavy rainfall in several parts of Odisha, the weatherman said Friday. LGC1 AS-HC THALASSEMIA PATIENT Gauhati HC asks health dept to examine thalassemic student for disability certificate Guwahati: The Gauhati HC has directed the Assam government's health department to ensure examination of a thalassemic patient and issue a disability certificate being sought by her to apply for a UGC fellowship to pursue her PhD studies. LGC2 WB-COURT RAPE 10 yrs RI awarded to man for abducting and raping minor Kolkata: A city court on Friday sentenced a man to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for abducting and raping a minor girl. CCM1 BIZ-NCL-PRODUCTION NCL to invest Rs 1,150cr, join 100 MT production club in FY19 Singrauli (Madhya Pradesh): Coal India subsidiary Northern Coalfields Ltd would invest Rs 1,150 crore this year which is expected to take it to the 100 million tonne (MT) production club in 2018-19, a top official said Friday. CES7 TR-RELIGIOUS STRUCTURES Tripura initiates process of relocating unauthorised religious structures on govt land Agartala: The BJP-IPFT Tripura government has initiated the process of relocating unauthorized religious structures in complaince with a Supreme Court directive, officials said Friday. CES8 JH-MAOIST Maoist wanted for 13 years arrested in Jharkhand Medininagar (Jharkhand): A member of the proscribed CPI (Maoist), wanted for 13 years, has been arrested from a village in Palamau district, police said Friday. CES9 OD-FARMERS Ignore farmers and face their wrath in polls: NNKS to BJD govt Bhubaneswar: Agitating farmers of Odisha Friday served an ultimatum to the Biju Janta Dal (BJD) government in Odisha to solve their problems by Januray 31, or the party may face the wrath of the peasants in the next election. PTI SBN SBN BJP surges in Assam rural polls, Sonowal thanks voters Guwahati, Dec 14 (PTI) The BJP continued its winning streak in Assam panchayat polls, marching ahead of its closest rival Congress and alliance partner Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) which contested independently, as counting of votes continued for the third day on Friday. Minority dominated All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) came third and AGP fourth in the local election held in two phases on December 5 and 9 to elect 21,990 gaon panchayat members (GPM), 2,199 gaon panchayat presidents (GPP), 2,199 anchalik panchayat presidents (APM) and 420 zila panchayat members (GPM) across the state registering an overall 82 per cent voting. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal thanked the people for taking part in the election in large numbers and voting for "development and good governance". Amid reports of clashes between the BJP and Congress on alleged rigging, the counting of paper ballots for the four categories of election was on in the 16 administrative districts where the hustings were held. As per the results declared so far by the State Election Commission, the Bharatiya Janata Party has won 7,769 GPM seats, Congress 5,896, BJP alliance partner AGP 1,372, AIUDF 755 and others 2,112. For Zila Parishad Members election, BJP secured 223, Congress 139, AGP 18, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) 24 and others 12 seats. In Anchalik Panchayat Members (APM) polls, BJP emerged victorious in 910, Congress 656, AGP 122, AIUDF 122 and others 134. The BJP won 940 Gaon Panchayat President (GPP) seats, Congress 662, AGP 114, AIUDF 113 and others 167 seats. Altogether, 78,571 contestants participated in the hustings and 734 were elected uncontested. The chief minister in a press release on Friday said that the people in the Barak to Brahmaputra valleys, plains and hills of Assam spontaneously took part in the panchayat elections and results showed that the people have reposed faith on good governance of both the central and state governments. Congratulating the winners, Sonowal urged the victorious candidates to strengthen the Panchayati Raj system by delivering public services in a clean and transparent manner. The first phase of Panchayat elections was held in 16 administrative districts of Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Tinsukia, Dibrugrah, Sivasagar, Charaideo, Jorhat, Majuli, Golaghat, Nagaon, Biswanath, Sonitpur, Darrang, Morigaon, Kamrup Metro and Kamrup, while the second phase was in 10 districts of Nalbari, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Dhubri, South Salmara, Goalpara, Cachar, Hailakandi, Karimganj and Hojai. During both the phases of voting, anomalies regarding names of voters and candidates, symbols along with ballot papers were reported from some constituencies. Campaigning for the panchayat elections, touted as the fore-runner of the 2019 general elections, had witnessed unprecedented high octave war of words between the ruling alliance partners BJP and regional party AGP hurling accusations and counter accusations to downplay each other. This year's campaigning also witnessed the use of helicopters by BJP ministers as they conducted whirlwind meetings to solicit for votes and addressed public meetings. PTI ESB JM JM Kolkata, Dec 14 (PTI) Following are PTI's top stories from the eastern region at 4.30 pm. TOP NEWS: CES1 WB-SHOT-CID CID takes over investigation into gunning down of three TMC activists Kolkata: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police Friday took over the investigation into the gunning down of three Trinamool Congress activists at Joynagar in South 24 Parganas district. CES2 MZ-ZPM-LALDUHOMA ZPM could have fared better in Mizoram polls: Lalduhoma Aizawl: The Zoram People's Movement (ZPM), which won eight seats in the assembly polls and is a new entrant in the Mizoram poll scenario, could have done better had it been registered as a political party, ZPM leader Lalduhoma said on Friday. CES3 OD-TURTLE-COAST GUARD Coast Guard launches operation to safeguard turtles Kendrapara: The Coast Guard has launched an exercise along the serene sea waters of Gahirmatha marine sanctuary in Odisha to protect the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles during their mating season, a senior CG officer said. CES4 RAFALE-DAS-REAX 'Satyameva Jayate', Jharkhand CM on SC verdict on Rafale deal Ranchi: Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das Friday said the Congress has a "history of telling lies" and the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale deal is a triumph of truth. CES5 OD-UJJWALA High LPG refill cost choking Ujjwala scheme: Odisha Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has blamed high cost of cooking gas behind the tepid response of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in the state, a charge refuted by the Centre. ERG1 WB-ENERGY-MAMATA Rapid progress made in augmenting energy from non-conventional sources: Mamata Kolkata: West Bengal has made a rapid progress in increasing energy generation from non-conventional sources, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday said. ERG3 MZ-POLL-FIRST TIME Half of the newly elected Mizoram MLAs are first time legislators Aizawl: Half of the newly elected legislators in the Mizoram Assembly are first time MLAs. PTI JM JM New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) The Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthan's next chief minister and Sachin Pilot his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague following several rounds of discussions. After Congress' observer to the state K C Venugopal made the announcement at a media briefing here, Gehlot thanked Gandhi for giving him an opportunity to serve the people of the state for the third time and promised that he and Pilot will give "good governance". Pilot exuded confidence that Congress' good electoral performance will continue, saying the party will get a big mandate in 2019 polls and form the government. "We will meet the governor today and will decide on the details of the oath-taking ceremony," Venugopal said. PTI SKC ASK NAB MIN MIN New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) These are the top stories from the northern region at 8.50 pm NEWDELHI DEL61 CONG-2NDLD RAJASTHAN New Delhi: The Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot Rajasthan's next chief minister and Sachin Pilot his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague over several rounds of discussions lasting more than two days. JAIPUR DEL81 RJ-GEHLOT-SWEARING Jaipur: Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot will be sworn in as chief minister and deputy chief minister of Rajasthan on Monday. JAIPUR DEL55 RJ-GEHLOT-PROFILE Jaipur: It was anything but abracadabra. The Congress decision Friday to pick the magicians son as the Rajasthan chief minister was neither quick nor easy. JAIPUR DEL76 RJ-SACHIN PILOT-PROFILE Jaipur/New Delhi: He flies planes, loves being behind the wheel and helped steer the Congress from the depths of defeat in 2013 to the highs of victory in Rajasthan, but on Friday Sachin Pilot had to settle for the co-driver's seat in the state. JAIPUR DEL52 RJ-GEHLOT-CHALLENGES Jaipur: Ashok Gehlot who emerged Friday as his partys choice for the chief ministers post in Rajasthan faced serious opposition in the race to the CMs post in 1998 and 2008 as well, with Jat leaders in the Congress opposing him. CHANDIGARH DEL57 PB-SESSION-KAMAL NATH Chandigarh: The opposition Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Friday protested in the Punjab Assembly the Congress' decision to appoint Kamal Nath as Madhya Pradesh chief minister, saying the Rahul Gandhi-led party was rubbing salt into the wounds of victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. LUCKNOW DES19 UP-PM-RAE BARELI-VISIT Lucknow: Notwithstanding the setbacks BJP suffered in assembly polls in three major Hindi heartland states this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Rae Bareli, the traditional seat of the Gandhi family, on Sunday. CHANDIGARH DES21 PB-SIDHU-PARTRIDGE Chandigarh: Two animal activists have complained to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, seeking action against Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu for allegedly possessing a stuffed black partridge in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. LUCKNOW DES14 UP-SITA STATUE Lucknow: Veteran Congress leader Karan Singh has urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to give Sita her "rightful place in Ayodhya" and install her statue alongside the proposed grand statue of Lord Ram. LUCKNOW DEL63 UP-LD RAFALE Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's decision dismissing petitions for a probe into the Rafale jet deal and sought an apology from the Congress. GORAKHPUR DES7 UP-COURT-YOGI Gorakhpur (UP): A local court has ordered an FIR against activist Pervez Parvaz for producing a doctored video as evidence in a 2007 hate speech case against UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. NEWDELHI LGD26 DL-HC-LD OXYTOCIN New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday set aside the Centre's decision to ban private firms from making and selling oxytocin, a drug which induces labour and controls bleeding during child birth. CHANDIGARH DES13 HR-MC POLLS Chandigarh: Haryana Police on Friday said that elaborate security arrangements have been made to ensure smooth conduct of polls to the five municipal corporations and two municipal committees scheduled to be held on December 16. CHANDIGARH DES47 PB-MLAS-SALARY Chandigarh: A sub-committee of Punjab Vidhan Sabha Friday recommended a two-fold jump in the salaries and allowances of MLAs, drawing sharp criticism from the opposition parties. NOIDA DES26 NCR-TV-ANCHOR-DEATH Noida (UP): A news anchor with a private television channel died allegedly after she fell off the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment here early Friday, with her family suspecting foul play. SRINAGAR DES2 JK-COLD Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam tourist resort experienced the coldest December night in over a decade as the minimum temperature at most places in the valley settled several degrees below the freezing point, an official of the Meteorological Department said Friday. PTI ASH ASH New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) The government on Friday introduced a bill in Lok Sabha for superseding the Medical Council of India (MCI) and entrusting its responsibilities to a Board of Governors as part of efforts to develop an alternative regulatory mechanism for medical education to bring in transparency and quality. It also introduced the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill for setting up a university in Andhra Pradesh to provide avenues of higher education and research facilities primarily for the tribal population of the county. Union Health Minister J P Nadda introduced The Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2018 for passage as the government had brought an ordinance in this regard on September 26, 2018, when Parliament was not in session. Under the provisions of the bill, MCI's affairs will be entrusted to a Board of Governors consisting of eminent doctors for a period of one year or until the said Council is reconstituted, whichever is earlier. The National Medical Commission Bill 2017 which seeks to replace MCI with National Medical Commission had been introduced in Lok Sabha in December 2017 and is pending. According to Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill, in view of the arbitrary action by the MCI in disregard to the provisions of the said Act and regulations made thereunder, immediate steps were required to be taken by the government to put an alternative mechanism in place of the Council to bring transparency, accountability and quality in the governance of medical education in the country. "Hence, it has been decided to supersede the Medical Council of India and entrust its affairs to a Board of Governors consisting of eminent doctors for a period of one year or until the said Council is reconstituted, whichever is earlier," it read. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare in its 92nd report in March 2016 had severely indicted the Council. The Committee recommended that the government should bring a new comprehensive Bill in Parliament at the earliest so as to restructure and revamp the regulatory system of medical education and medical practice and to reform the Medical Council of India. As Parliament was not in session and urgent legislation was required to be made, the President promulgated the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Ordinance 2018 on September 26, 2018. Meanwhile, the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2018 was introduced by Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar. As per the bill, Central University of Andhra Pradesh having its territorial jurisdiction extending to the whole state as specified in the first schedule to Central Universities Act, 2009 will be established. "There shall be established a tribal university, which shall be a body corporate to be known as the Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh having its territorial jurisdiction extending to the whole of the state of Andhra Pradesh, to provide avenues of higher education and research facilities primarily for the tribal population of India," the bill introduced by Javadekar read. PTI PLB/GJS RT New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) There are no fake anganwadi centres operational in the country, the Women and Child Development Ministry told Parliament Friday. The ministry informed the Lok Sabha that it has also issued directions to the states and the Union Territories to ensure there are no bogus beneficiaries. "There are no fake anganwadi centres in the country. The ministry has issued directions to all the states and Union Territories to conduct physical verification exercise to identify genuine beneficiaries and weed out duplicate as well as bogus ones, if any," Minister of State for WCD Virendra Kumar said in response to a written question in the Lok Sabha. Under the anganwadi services of Umbrella Integrated Child Development Service scheme, a total number of 14 lakh AWCs have been sanctioned to all the states and the Union Territories out of which 13.63 lakh AWCs are functioning across the country ion which 8.85 crore beneficiaries are availing benefits, Kumar added. The states have also been directed to take corrective measures if any lapses are found in proper functioning of food distribution system. PTI GJS KJ Chennai, Dec 14 (PTI) The Madras High Court Friday stayed an FIR against director A R Murugadoss of Vijay-starrer 'Sarkar', observing that seeking an undertaking from filmmakers to not criticise government policies and to apologise for such scenes in movies was equal to threatening the creators. Justice Anand Venkatesh, before whom Murugadoss' petition seeking to quash the FIR came up, heard arguments of Public Prosecutor A Natarajan who said there were objectionable scenes in the movie like criticising the freebies distributed by the government. The judge noted that the Censor Board had already issued a certificate to the film and sought to know how a case could be filed disregarding freedom of speech. Films should be seen only as films, he observed. When the public and fans have viewed the film, how can an FIR be filed based on a petition moved by an individual, the judge asked. To seek an undertaking from film-makers to not criticise government policies and ask them to apologise for such scenes was equal to threatening the creators, the judge said. He then stayed the FIR and posted the matter after six weeks. Murugadoss had moved the High Court on December 12, seeking to quash a case filed against him over certain scenes in 'Sarkar' that were critical of the welfare schemes of the ruling AIADMK. The police have registered an FIR under various sections of the IPC, including 153 (Wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) and 153A(1)(a) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, language etc.) against the director. The case was registered on a complaint by G Devarajan, who objected to some scenes that were critical of the government's distribution of freebies such as grinders and moxies. In his petition, Murugadoss had submitted that no prima facie case was made out against him. In a free democracy, criticising government policy was not an offence, he had claimed. In fact, it is a fundamental right guaranteed to citizens under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, he had said. The director also said that disputed scenes had already been removed by the Board of Film Certification and that no offence as claimed by the complainant was committed by him. AIADMK workers had staged protests against the film, which released last month, after several ministers took exception to scenes in it criticising welfare schemes and a reference to late chief minister J Jayalalithaa. PTI COR APR TIR TIR New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) The JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA) on Friday accused the university administration of being "insensitive" and denying leaves to teachers even for one's own wedding. Members of JNUTA met Chintamani Mahapatra, Rector-I of the university, to express concerns about the "coercive" actions being taken by the administration. "The administration has become so insensitive that they are blocking renewal of CGHS cards and even denying leaves to go for one's own wedding," the association alleged. "In the recent spate of coercive measures taken by the present administration against faculty members, it has transgressed the basic parameters of human decency. Extremely grave instances of blocking paperwork and the - now all too common - denial of leaves, including casual leaves, impacting the day-to-day existence of affected faculty members, have come to light," they said. Expressing anger at the "punitive, vindictive, and dehumanising treatment" meted out to colleagues, the JUNTA said, "The Rector expressed lack of knowledge and complete mystification when these concerns were placed before him." "He asked us to provide names of the colleagues concerned so he could 'look into it'," it said. The association and the university administration have been at loggerheads over refusal by some teachers to comply with faculty attendance. PTI SLB NSD Rafale issue rocks Parliament; Govt seeks apology from Rahul New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) Buoyed by the Supreme Court clean chit to the Rafale jet deal, the government Friday launched a counter-offensive on the opposition in Parliament, seeking an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for "misleading" the nation. The two Houses were adjourned for the day amid sparring between the treasury and the opposition benches on the issue. In the Lok Sabha, during the Question Hour, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar demanded an apology from the Congress and Rahul Gandhi following the top court verdict on the jet deal. Amid slogan shouting between the two sides, the House was adjourned for nearly 40 minutes during the Question Hour. When the House reassembled at noon, Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanded that Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for "misleading" the country on the Rafale deal issue. He said, Gandhi's allegations have "damaged" the reputation of the country in the international fora. In the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was heard saying that the Opposition has been demanding a debate on the jet deal, therefore, the question hour should be suspended to take up the issue. Friday was the fourth day of the Winter session. While the two Houses were adjourned for the day on day one after obituary references to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and some sitting members, little business has been transacted for the past two days amid opposition protests. In the Lok Sabha, while the Congress raked up the Rafale issue, AIADMK members raised issues related to Cauvery river water. The TDP was demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. Members of these parties were in the Well holding placards and shouting slogans. While Trinamool Congress members were on their seats, some Left members were holding placards demanding JPC on Rafale issue. Even after the House was adjourned for the first time at 11.10 AM, BJP members raised slogans such as 'gali-gali mein shor hai, Rahul Gandhi chor hai'. Opposition parties led by the Congress have been attacking the Modi government over the deal, alleging that it was struck at an exorbitant price and benefited an Indian businessman at the cost of the government-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The charges have been denied by the government. Amid protests by Congress members in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Singh said, "Rahul Gandhi should apologise on the floor of the House for misleading the country on the Rafale jet deal issue for political gains". The Supreme Court Friday gave the Narendra Modi government a clean chit on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal. The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal. Singh said the Congress itself was facing grave allegations of graft and their ministers have been sent to jail over corruption charges. "They know that they have drowned, so they want to take us along (Woh chahate hain ke hum toh dube hain sanam, tumhe bhi le doobenge)," the home minister said. Singh said the Supreme Court observed that the deal was a financial advantage to the nation. The Congress, however continued with their demand for a JPC to probe the issue. No sooner Rajya Sabha assembled for the Zero hour, members of the Samajwadi Party raised slogans relating to the recent violence in UP's Bulandshahar district while AIADMK members trooped into the well over the Cauvery river water issue. Upbeat by the clean chit given by the Supreme Court on the Rafale deal, members of treasury benches were heard raising slogans demanding an apology from the Congress president for his alleged lies on the issue. Congress members too entered the Well of the House to demand a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the purchase of jets from the French company Dassault. Amidst uproar, the members were heard raising slogans -"We want JPC" and "Chowikdar Chor Hai". BJP members were heard shouting slogans like 'Rahul Gandhi Jhootha Hai' (Rahul Gandhi is a liar). The uproar started as soon as the proceedings began following which Deputy Chairman Harivansh first adjourned the House till 1130 hours. However, as the protests intensified, he adjourned the Rajya Sabha till Monday after his repeated attempts to bring order in the House failed. Before adjourning the House for the day, Harivansh tried to run the Zero Hour proceedings smoothly and some of the members even read out mentions amid uproar. Unlike other days, there was ruckus in the House even when ministers were laying listed paper on the table of the House. PTI PR NKD/MJH NAB DV DV Will discuss with Centre on allowing MLAs to hoist national flag at taluk level: CM Belagavi(Ktk), Dec 14 (PTI) Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday said he would discuss with the Centre on changing rules to facilitate legislators to hoist the national flag on national festivals at taluk level functions. The Chief Minister was responding to a question raised by Naganagouda (JDS) during the zero hour in the legislative assembly, which is holding its winter session here. Naganagouda questioned as to why MLAs don't get the privilege to hoist the national flag on national festivals like Independence Day and Republic day. "Hoisting national flag is a great honour... Prime Minister hoists the flag at Red Fort, Chief Minister hoists the flag at Manekshaw Parade Ground in Bengaluru, at district level MLAs do it, but at taluk level Tahsildars do it," Naganagouda said. "Why should we MLAs being public representatives be deprived of this privilege?" he asked. To this, Kumaraswamy said, this requires change in rules by the central government. "State government cannot do it, I will discuss with the Centre whether it can be relaxed. I will discuss with the Union Home Minister and see if we can get permission for MLAs to do it (hoist the flag)," he added. PTI KSU RA ROH RBS RBS ZOOT BOSCHWITZ, Chariho, Football, Boschwitz rushed for two touchdowns and passed for two others as Chariho lost to Narragansett in the Division III Super Bowl. For the season, Boschwitz threw for 1,174 yards and 13 TDs. He also rushed for eight touchdowns. SAM MONTALTO, Stonington, Boys Soccer, Montalto, scored a pair of goals as Stonington defeated Ellington, 3-1, for the Class M state title. It was the teams second state championship in three years. Montalto finished his career with a school-record 105 goals. He scored a school-record 36 goals this season despite missing three games with an injury. Vote View Results Loyalty pays in Britain, but the rewards go not to long-standing customers but to the companies who cash in on them. The gulf between the prices charged to loyal broadband, mobile, breakdown cover and energy customers and to newcomers has been laid bare in a new report, showing how customers are stung for hundreds of pounds each year. The loyalty penalty comes as charges for existing customers are ratcheted up each year, while companies offer better deals to compete for new customers. BT was named as the broadband provider with the biggest loyalty penalty in a new report Today, This is Money can reveal the worst offenders in each sector, thanks to research from check and challenge site Ismybillfair.com, so that readers can see how the providers they use stack up. And in a new campaign to stop companies profiteering on our loyalty, we are calling on people to take action and Check Your Bill. We want to help our readers take three simple steps: Check what you are paying Compare this to what new customers get and rival firms prices Demand a better deal or switch And because we know that the loyalty penalty tends to hit older customers and the less internet-savvy hardest, This is Money is also calling on our readers to help their friends and relatives. It will only take a little bit of time to help ensure that they are not being ripped off by insurers, telecoms firms, breakdown providers, energy firms and other providers and you could give them the Christmas gift of saving hundreds of pounds on their bills. The research from Ismybillfair compared costs from the bills of more than 100,000 people who used the check and challenge website to the prices new customers were paying. It claims customers are paying up to 273 too much for broadband each year, at BT which was named as having the greatest loyalty penalty. The site said the AA customers paid a breakdown cover loyalty penalty of 133, while RAC customers paid 110 more on average than the best price for new joiners. For mobile, it measured sim-only deals owing to the complexity of comparing costs of packages that include different phones. Here the greatest loyalty penalty was 124 at EE. It also suggested energy customers were paying too much, although the methodology for this was different and energy firms we spoke to dispute the figures. Nonetheless, figures from comparison website Energy Helpline show that a tenth of customers could save 458 from switching gas and electricity. An energy price cap means that an average users should now pay no more than 1,136 annually for gas and electricity, according to Which? However, its research in October found 98 deals that cost less than the cap and said people could save up to 258 switching to the cheapest deal instead. I was being charged 246 more than a new customer by BT When we challenged retired headteacher Ben Beavan's bills, BT cut them Retired headteacher Ben Beavan has been a loyal BT customer since he bought his first flat in Winchester 35 years ago. But he has since discovered he was being charged 246 more a year more than a new customer for his BT package, which includes unlimited weekend calls, broadband, and line rental. Mr Beavan, 63, who lives with his wife Liz, 62, had believed that as a loyal customer he would be getting a good deal. But while he was paying 45.49 a month, a new customer could get the same deal for just 24.99 a month for the first 18 months, and 32.99 thereafter. He said: I was shocked to discover my loyalty had gone completely unrewarded. I felt like I had been taken advantage of. BT is using me like a cash cow to fund the deals it offers to new customers which is not fair. He said: We were confident we were getting the best deal as we had been customers for so long. The problem is I do not want to change my service but I am paying massively over the odds. I wish BT would charge its loyal customers fairly. After we intervened BT reduced the price of Mr Beavans package to 32.99. A BT spokesman said: We fully agree that customers shouldnt overpay for the service they receive. Were working harder than ever to be even clearer with our customers about their options. The Ismybillfair research comes ahead of a Competition and Markets Authority response to a loyalty penalty super complaint made by Citizens Advice, which the watchdog is obliged to consider. Citizens Advice said that longstanding customers are widely overcharged and that it believed British consumers were being overcharged by a total of 4.1billion a year. The charity said the cost falls disproportionately on the elderly and vulnerable. A super complaint can only be made by a select group of consumer organisations and the CMA or relevant watchdog must publicly respond within 90 days to say if they believe it is and issue and if not, why not and what they intend to do about it. Ismybillfair has submitted its findings to the CMA to consider alongside the Citizens Advice super complaint. Alex Perrin, CEO of Ismybillfair.com said: For one in five customers that move providers regularly, its fine, theyre generally on the better deals. For everyone else, especially the most loyal, and the vulnerable, theyre simply being charged more every year for exactly the same service as the next customer. This simply cant continue. These people need some sort of intervention to make it fair. I saved 444 a year by challenging my bill Donna Robinson challenged her bill Mother-of-four Donna Robinson was paying Virgin Media 54 per month but got that down to 17.64 when she asked for a better deal. That means she will now save 444 over the next year of her broadband and TV bills. Customers of broabband, TV and phone companies have been hit by a succession of small price rises in recent years. She had used Ismybillfair to challenge her costs and said they had risen as it felt like the firm 'added 3, then added 3, then added 3.' She said: It isn't right. Loyalty should pay'. Charging longstanding customers a higher price is a tactic companies use to make money while keeping their prices keen for new customers. It can be highly profitable and is recognised as a part of many providers business strategies. Just how important such pricing can be was exposed last month after This is Money revealed that the AA had a secret half-price breakdown insurance deal it was offering to those who only drive within a certain distance of their home. A reader told us they had been offered this special cover for 45 a year that is not advertised by the AA when they called to cancel their policy. Standard AA breakdown cover is 99 per year. Analysts at brokers Credit Suisse put out a note on the secret cover saying that only 27,000 of these 45 policies have been taken out, but this could soar as more of the AA's 3.3m customers found out about it or tried to leave. AA shares fell 7.5 per cent that day as investors absorbed the brokers suggestion that this could be 'cannibalistic to the personal membership revenue base'. How you can help your friends and family Bob Frost's daughter Georgie helped him save more than 160 on his RAC bill In an illustration of how its possible to help your friends and family, This is Moneys podcast host Georgie Frost saved her father hundreds of pounds recently by going through his bills. One of the biggest surprises for her dad Bob Frost, 68, a geophysicist who lives in Sussex, was the saving on his RAC bill. His automatic renewal letter said his payment would go up from 279.99 to 293.99. A bit of negotiating brought that down to 132 a saving of 161.99 for the year. Bob said: While I do expect bills to go up a little, I was assuming that because we have comparison websites, big companies like RAC would monitor the prices and offer competitive prices to their loyal customers to keep them. It is criminal that they are not, because they have the resources to do it, their business model seems to be screwing loyal customers. It's utterly disgraceful. Check Your Bill campaign: What you can do That loyal customers are charged more will not be a surprise to many people, however, we still let companies get away with it. At the root of this lies people not realising how much they are being overcharged and inertia, as many cannot be bothered to check their bills, challenge providers and switch if need be. The CMA could decide to do something about this, but any action is likely to take a long time to kick in. This is Money is therefore calling on readers to fight back against the loyalty penalty and take matters into their own hands: check your bills, demand a better deal and switch if you need to. We also want out readers to help out their friends and relatives who are unlikely to do this themselves, perhaps because they are elderly or not internet-savvy. To do this get your latest bills together and see how much you are paying, then check the prices offered to new customers. Contact your provider and tell them you want a better deal or you will leave if they wont give it to you switch. You can do this yourself and use the links below to compare rivals prices, or you could use the ismybillfair.com check and challenge service. > Compare energy bills with our tool > Compare broadband bills with our tool Companies named in the Ismybillfair report hit back at its findings. An AA spokesman said: 'We dont recognise these figures but believe they are skewed by the industry norm of introductory offers being lower than annual subscriptions. 'As the market leader in breakdown services, we provide an excellent service valued by our customers, which is reflected in the significant number of times we have won Which? recommended provider status.' Meanwhile, BT claimed that it offered a wide range of broadband packages that were 'good value'. A spokesman said: 'We work closely with Ofcom and its accredited sites, but as far as we are aware ismybillfair.com is not Ofcom accredited. As such, we cannot verify that what they are saying is accurate. 'Across the industry there are many reasons the price of broadband package prices may vary, including loyalty and other discounts applied, promotional offers at the time of purchase or due to any add-ons purchased such as access to BT TV or BT Sport.' How providers stacked up Ismybillfairs research aimed to show the companies charging the biggest loyalty penalties. It worked out the numbers using data submitted by more than 100,000 customers over six months to its site. This was done by taking what people said they were actually paying, then comparing it to the prices providers offered to new customers for the same service. The average overcharge figure shows how much the typical customer was paying above the best price. The percentage of customers overcharged shows how many of those who checked their bills were paying more than the lowest price offered to new customers. The overcharge as a percentage of the average bill figure shows what percentage of the average bill was made up of extra costs compared to the lowest price offered to new customers. In theory, this gives a good guide as to how much people may be able to shave off their bills if they challenge them. THE BROADBAND LOYALTY PENALTY Broadband providers Average overcharge per month % of customers overcharged Overcharge as a % of average bill BT 22.75 77% 40% Sky 21.94 80% 41% Virgin Media 18.18 83% 30% EE 14.45 60% 35% TalkTalk 13.84 67% 34% Plusnet 11.08 82% 32% Source: ismybillfair.com crowd sourced customer records, correct as at 5th December 2018 THE BREAKDOWN LOYALTY PENALTY Breakdown cover providers Average overcharge per month % of customers overcharged Overcharge as a % of average bill AA 11.07 59% 47% RAC 9.17 39% 41% Source: ismybillfair.com crowd sourced customer records, correct as at 5th December 2018 Pernod Ricard boss Alexandre Ricard said the family-backed company will stick by its plans to invest in its international operations The boss of drinks titan Pernod Ricard has defended his firm as it comes under attack from a notorious vulture fund. Alexandre Ricard said that the family-backed company will stick by its plans to invest in its international operations. Pernod, which owns Absolut vodka, Beefeater gin and Glenlivet whisky, is being targeted by feared hedge fund Elliott Management, which has built up a 2.5 per cent stake and wants sweeping changes which could include selling some of its most prized brands. Ricard, 46, a grandson of the French company's founder Paul Ricard, said: 'Now is not the time to reduce investment. Pernod Ricard is a beautiful success story based on very strong family values.' In the last three years, Ricard said, the company has created more than 9.8billion of value and shares have risen 38 per cent. The claims are unlikely to be enough to satisfy Elliott, which has warned Pernod is lagging behind other drinks firms and needs radical improvement. It sets the fund up for a clash with the Ricard family, which still owns a 14.2 per cent stake worth 5billion. The Nigerian authorities have filed an 868million lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell and Italian group Eni over a 2011 oil deal. Lawyers representing the government said they are taking High Court action over allegations of fraud and corruption relating to Shell and Eni's purchase of an offshore oil field. They claim money from the purchase, which was meant to go to the government, was instead paid to a company controlled by Dan Etete, the former petroleum minister. Lawyers representing the Nigerian government said they are taking High Court action over allegations of fraud and corruption relating to Shell and Eni's purchase of an offshore oil field Ministers are trying to recoup the 868million, saying it belongs to the Nigerian people. Shell and Eni have denied wrongdoing. Shell said: 'The 2011 settlement of long-standing legal disputes was a fully legal transaction with Eni and the federal government of Nigeria. 'We do not believe there is a case to answer.' Eni said it rejected 'any allegation of impropriety or irregularity in connection with this transaction'. * China and the United States are in close contact over trade, and any US trade delegation would be welcome to visit, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesman said on Thursday (December 13). * The Republic of Korea (RoK) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed on December 13 to hold a groundbreaking ceremony later this month for railway and road connections across the inter-Korean border, Seoul's unification ministry said. * Coercive measures have been taken against two Canadians on suspicion of jeopardizing China's national security, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said Thursday. * British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a confidence vote by the Conservative Party on December 12, but a mutiny by more than a third of her lawmakers indicated parliament was heading towards deadlock over Brexit. * Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar will hold a bilateral meeting with his British counterpart, Theresa May, in Brussels ahead of Thursday's summit of European Union leaders, a spokesman for Varadkar said. * Russia has declared a military attach in the Slovak embassy in Moscow persona non-grata and given the diplomat two days to leave the country, Russia's foreign ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying on December 13. The ministry called Slovakia's expulsion of a Russian diplomat on Nov. 22 an unfriendly act, Interfax news agency reported. * At least 15,000 children remain separated from their families or missing, five years after conflict first broke out in South Sudan in 2013, the UN children's fund (UNICEF) said on December 13. * According to the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) of China, foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland stayed basically stable in the first 11 months of the year (reached CNY793.3 billion, down 1.3 percent year on year). In US dollar terms, the FDI stood at US$121.3 billion dollars, up 1.1 percent year on year. * Nine people were killed and nearly 50 injured in Turkey when a high speed train collided with a locomotive and crashed into a station platform and overpass in an Ankara suburb early on December 13, officials said. * Twenty one prisoners, most of them members of Islamic State jailed on terrorism charges, broke out of a prison in northern Iraq but 15 of them have been recaptured, Kurdish security officials said on December 13. * The United Nation Higher Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) said on December 12 that it has helped resettle 114 immigrants from Libya to Norway and Canada in the first week of December. A top Huawei executive has pledged to do whatever it takes to restore the Chinese firm's reputation, as it fights back against claims of spying. Vincent Peng, the firm's president for Western Europe, made the promise after democracies around the world moved to block its equipment from new mobile networks. Huawei has insisted that its equipment cannot be used for spying. And, amid a review of rules that could see the company's activities curbed in the UK, Peng tried to soothe concerns. Spy row: Huawei's president for Western Europe Vincent Peng has pledged to do whatever it takes to restore the Chinese firm's reputation He said: 'Anything needed to do this transformation we are committed to do this. 'We try everything, try all the best efforts, to try to prove we are a good company.' Peng's comments came as a dispute over the arrest of Huawei's finance chief in Canada escalated, with China detaining two Canadian men in an apparent act of retaliation. The move ratcheted up pressure on Canada after the country took action against Huawei finance chief Meng Wanzhou. But Peng's reassurances were questioned by security experts. Ollie Whitehouse, the technology chief of top British cyber security firm NCC Group, told the Mail: 'The UK has been very prudent to ban Huawei equipment from the core of the telecoms network. 'China is an aggressive state. So do you allow them to provide the core technology to the communications systems of your country?' 'As a risk professional, if there is someone I know has been aggressive towards me and wants to steal information from me as a state, it would be prudent to manage where that equipment comes from.' Britain's biggest contractors have a combined 562million black hole in their pension schemes putting workers' nest eggs at risk as fears grow for the industry. The funding gap means that if any outsourcers with a pension deficit go bust, the retirement benefits of their workers will be in jeopardy. It will force them to pump millions of pounds into the schemes to close the gaps at a time when it is harder than ever to make money. Pensions panic: Britain's five major listed contractors - Interserve, G4S, Serco, Mitie Group and Serco - have a combined shortfall of more than half a billion pounds There is speculation over the future of government contractors after Carillion failed this year, with fears mounting that rival Interserve could be the next to fold. Mail analysis reveals that Britain's five major listed contractors Interserve, G4S, Serco, Mitie Group and Capita have a combined shortfall of more than half a billion pounds. At last count Mitie Group had a defined benefit pension scheme deficit of 47.5million, while Capita and G4S had deficits of 185million and 382million respectively. Serco's pension scheme has a surplus of 20million, while Interserve's scheme had a surplus of 32.1million at the end of June, up from a deficit of 48million at the end of 2017 due to a change in how future pension increases are calculated. In all, the five firms have a deficit of 562.4million. Mitie is paying 58million into its pension scheme up to 2025 to plug the gap, while Capita will hand over 176million by 2021. Only 7 per cent of G4S's business in the UK and Australia is generated from government contracts. It was due to pay 41million into its pension scheme this year. The spotlight has returned to the industry since Interserve lost more than half its value on Monday after it announced plans for a major refinancing to tackle its crippling debt pile of more than 600million. Interserve pension scheme trustees and bosses are in crunch talks with The Pensions Regulator. Unions warned Interserve was at risk of becoming 'Carillion mark two' and could follow the same path as its rival, which fell into administration with 7billion of debts. Frank Field, chairman of the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, said: 'Carillion was only the latest signal that we do not have a system of regulators capable of protecting ordinary workers, pension savers, or small business suppliers. 'If the Government wants to continue to play this high-stakes game of finding partners to provide public services, it must steeply upgrade our system of corporate governance so they actually serve the public.' Thinktank Institute for Government's figures this week suggest the state spends 284billion a year on goods and services from external suppliers. Data group Tussell found Interserve won contracts worth 938million in 2017. 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. Medtronic Plc is a medical technology company, which engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of device-based medical therapies and services. It operates through the following segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group; Minimally Invasive Technologies Group; Restorative Therapies Group; and Diabetes Group. The Cardiac and Vascular Group segment consists of products for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cardiac rhythm disorders and cardiovascular disease. The Minimally Invasive Technologies Group segment focuses on respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, renal system, lungs, pelvic region, kidneys, and obesity diseases. The Restorative Therapies Group segment comprises of neurostimulation therapies and drug delivery systems for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as areas of the spine and brain, along with pelvic health and conditions of the ear, nose, and throat. The Diabetes Group segment offers insulin pumps, coninuous glucose monitoring systems, and insulin pump consumables. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. engages in global investment banking, securities, and investment management, which provides financial services. It operates through the following business segments: Investment Banking, Global Markets, Asset Management, and Consumer & Wealth Management. The Investment Banking segment serves public and private sector clients around the world and provides financial advisory services, help companies raise capital to strengthen and grow their businesses and provide financing to corporate clients. The Global Markets segment serves its clients who buy and sell financial products, funding and manage risk. The Asset Management segment provides investment services to help clients preserve and grow their financial assets. The Consumer & Wealth Management segment helps clients to achieve their individual financial goals by providing a wealth advisory and banking services. The company was founded by Marcus Goldman in 1869 and is headquartered in New York, NY. Read More Invesco BulletShares 2022 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF's stock was trading at $22.91 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, BSJM shares have increased by 0.8% and is now trading at $23.10. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP II Pte. Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., Assurance IQ LLC, Assurance Intelligence LLC, BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Brazilian Capital Fund GP Limited, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DICKENS AVENUE HOLDINGS VI LLC, DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (Ireland) L.P., DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (US) L.P., Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EVP II GP S.a r.l., EVP II Sweden Resi I GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright PGIM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd., LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management (Feeder) VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital (Ireland) Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate (UK) Limited, PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings (UK) Limited, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Insurance Agency (China) Company Ltd., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd., Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, QMA LLC, QMA Wadhwani LLP, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy (US) Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I (Ireland) L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I (US) L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC. Greif, Inc. engages in the production of industrial packaging products and services. It operates through the following segments: Rigid Industrial Packaging and Services, Paper Packaging and Services, Flexible Products and Services, and Land Management. The Rigid Industrial Packaging and Services segment involves the production and sale of rigid industrial packaging products, such as steel, fibre and plastic drums, rigid intermediate bulk containers, closure systems for industrial packaging products, transit protection products, water bottles and reconditioned containers, and services, such as container life cycle services, blending, filling and other packaging services, logistics and warehousing. The Paper Packaging and Services segment involves the production and sale of containerboard, corrugated sheets, corrugated containers and other corrugated products to customers in North America. The Flexible Products and Services segment involves the production and sale of flexible intermediate bulk containers and related services on a global basis and the sale of industrial and consumer shipping sacks and multiwall bag products in North America. The Land Management segment involves the ma Read More Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. engages in the exploration, development, and recovery of minerals and precious metals located primarily in Africa. It explores for platinum, palladium, nickel, copper, gold, rhodium, zinc, silver, germanium, and lead deposits. The company's projects include the Platreef project located in the Northern Limb of South Africa's Bushveld Complex; the Kipushi project located in Haut-Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of Congo; and the Kamoa-Kakula project located within the Central African Copperbelt. It also holds a 100% interest in the Western Foreland exploration project covering an area of approximately 2,550 square kilometers located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has a strategic partnership agreement with China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co., Ltd. to examine exploration, development, and acquisition of mineral projects, as well as production, smelting, and logistics opportunities in Africa. The company was formerly known as Ivanplats Limited and changed its name to Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. in August 2013. Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. was incorporated in 1993 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Read More SCHENECTADY A $22 million state-of-the-art aquatics center for new and experienced swimmers could make the Mohawk Harbor residential retail waterfront development more of a regional attraction. The idea of building the facility in Schenectady is being studied by a leading aquatics design firm after money to pay for a feasibility study was approved by the board of directors for Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority. The company, Counsilman-Hunsaker, is being paid $40,000. But the Schenectady site would have to beat out a 10-acre site along the health and wellness corridor located off of Route 67 in the town of Malta near Northway Exit 12 that is also in the running. Over the summer, former Malta Supervisor Vincent DeLucia appointed a committee to work on the project with Adirondack Aquatic Center. The $150 million residential-retail Mohawk Harbor development is located on the former Alco site near to Rivers casino on Erie Boulevard. "The project has always been touted as a Capital Region project so both areas have the restaurants, both areas have the hotels," said Kara Haraden, the aquatic center's board president. Haraden said the vision for the pool was born out of the lack of a good swimming facility to hold competitions. The mother also recounted the horror of nearly losing her 2-year-old son in June in the family backyard pool. The non-profit group, which has raised about $3 million so far, is still looking for donations. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. She noted the new facility, which would feature the region's first indoor, 50 meter Olympic-size swimming pool, will be able to offer a wide range of programs, including learn to swim lessons, exercises for seniors and the disabled as well as competitive meets for experienced swimmers and divers. Plans call for the region's first indoor 50-meter Olympic-size one with different lengths, depths and temperature. The 80,000-square foot facility would feature three other pools, spectator seating, classroom areas, meeting rooms, a weight room, studio/multi-purpose area, pro shop, concessions area and locker rooms among other amenities. Haraden said the board made overtures to Mohawk Harbor after one of their financial supporters encouraged them to explore other potential sites. She said that feasibility study will take between three and four months, after which the winning location will be announced. "It's really something for all ages and all abilities," she said. "You could have babies in there learning how to swim, you could have senior citizens in there exercising, so it's just been something we're very passionate about and something we're not going to give up until the pools are filled." ALBANY - Three years ago, Allyson Payne started selling second-hand clothes from her front yard. When the weather was bad, she'd move business inside her basement, where her husband built her shelves and racks. This year, she saw a for-rent sign in the marketplace-style Coliseum building on South Pearl Street and moved in her business named Acacia's Basement after its origin on Oct. 1. It's going well, she said two months later, but the next leap will be opening her own place. "I would love to have my own building," Payne said. "It's a stepping stone." She has her eye on a vacant building but it will take significant grants or funding to fix it up. Nearly one in three residents of Albany is black, but minority entrepreneurs like Payne have to overcome unique challenges to sustain financial success. Now two black chambers of commerce one running for more than a decade, the other born of a split between the two a few months ago are rising up to boost minority-run businesses. In March, the Capital District Black Chamber of Commerce, started 11 years ago, re-ignited with a kick-off event and a renewed vision to support black-owned enterprises. By August, three individuals involved in the restart had formed the Upstate New York Black Chamber of Commerce. What led to the split is disputed by the participants. The leadership of the old chamber calls the new a fraud because of debt owed by the founder for previous business dealings. The founders of the new chamber criticize the old for a lack of transparency. But both sides agree that minority entrepreneurs face unique challenges like lack of capital, training and role models. Now, will the existence of two chambers hurt or help visionaries overcome those challenges? There are 54 minority-owned businesses in the city registered in the state's directory of Women and Minority Business Enterprises. Businesses have to be running at least a year before registration although many new enterprises don't make it that far and the owner's race isn't tracked in the database, leaving no way to tell how many are black-owned. Albany native Tatiana Cunningham, who plans to open her own events decorating business in 2019, started the inaugural Capital New York Black Expo this year. The November event attracted more than 82 vendors, but only a handful have storefronts in Albany and she said they struggle to gain visibility. Jahkeen Hoke, chief operating officer of the recently formed Upstate New York Black Chamber of Commerce, said the first step to business development is retaining talent in economically depressed neighborhoods like Albany's South End, where he grew up and returned after college. "There are no visuals of growth specifically for the minority community," said Hoke, who's also the co-founder of nonprofit organization 4th Family and recently was named director of community group AVillage Inc. "There is no one who looks like you." Even when entrepreneurs exist, it's hard to get capital to boost business. Ron Quartimon, former chair of the board for the Capital District Chamber who has been advising the new chamber, said small minority-owned businesses can lack experience or infrastructure. He added that black entrepreneurs face roadblocks in obtaining business loans because of institutional discrimination. That's where a black chamber of commerce comes in. Why two black chambers? The Capital District Black Chamber of Commerce, now headed by Albany Common Council President Corey Ellis, was started in 2007 to economically empower minority communities through entrepreneurship in the region. "With the economic situation here in the Capital District, the way we find people to unlock the chains of poverty is through some type of entrepreneurial enterprise," said Clifton Dixon, who works for the Capital District Chamber. "Sometimes they have only one shot. If they make the wrong move from an entrepreneurial venture, it could double their problems and we try to help them from the start do it the right way." Ellis, who is President/CEO and Chair of the Board, deferred communication to Dixon, who works both as Ellis' chief of staff for the council and special assistant to Ellis as the President/CEO of the chamber. Part of Dixon's role is as a navigator registering uninsured New Yorkers for a state healthcare program. When the Times Union more than once requested a meeting with and comment from Ellis, Dixon said it would not be possible. Since 2013, the Capital District Chamber has received money through a state healthcare program to register uninsured New Yorkers for coverage. The organization, a registered non-profit affiliated under the National Black Chamber of Commerce, reported it served 435 individuals and organizations with programs this year, an increase from more than 320 last year. It did not provide the number of current members. The recently formed Upstate New York Chamber has an almost identical vision to empower black-owned businesses, although they want to spread to seven upstate cities plus Albany. They aim to be a source for recruiters, support for entrepreneurs and government advocate for minorities through training, networking events and educational programs. The new chamber, affiliated with the U.S. Black Chambers, has a verbal commitment from around 25 members but is not accepting dues until 2019. The organization was founded by President/CEO Tony Gaddy, vice-president of the Schenectady County Library Board of Trustees, in August. For more than a year, he's held a biweekly networking event with black entrepreneurs. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. At the start of 2018 he joined the revamp of the Capital District Chamber. His position is unclear: in the spring, he was paid $525, calculated as 25 percent commission of memberships he recruited, based off an unsigned contract for a director of operations role. Communication between the leadership of the old and new chambers broke down early on. After a heated meeting in April and an email in June from the new to the old chamber that questioned who was on the Board as well as contracts, compensation and offices for the workforce, Gaddy began talking with Hoke about forming a new chamber. "My concerns were just transparency and understanding how things were operating so that we could best deliver the programs and services that we can provide," Hoke said. The new chamber was incorporated with the New York Department of State on Aug. 7. Dixon discredits Gaddy and his chamber because Gaddy began using the new name with community partners in early August, prompting the Capital District Chamber to send Gaddy a cease and desist letter for unlawful representation of the organization. The address on the letter is a Schenectady residence where Gaddy didn't live at the time and he claims he didn't receive it. Dixon also discredits the new chamber because Gaddy owes thousands of dollars from his time as the publisher of Our Town Colonie magazine in summer 2016. In November a Schenectady City Court judge ordered Gaddy to repay Craig Shufelt, owner of graphic design agency Shufelt Group, $5,000 less than the $6,100 he's owed him for the past two years for magazine design work. "If someone has lied and misdirected your funds, it could be devastating," Dixon said. "That's why we're so upset. You're dealing with people's lives and livelihoods." Gaddy said his debt was a personal business matter that has nothing to do with the new chamber. "If some of the lessons I've learned as a business owner, if they can help people going forward, I can be prepared to treat everything I've done as a learning experience," Gaddy said. Helping or hurting? Gaddy and Hoke said they want to move past conflict to pursue their work. They said they would "never refuse to collaborate" with the Capital District Chamber if their mission and values were in line. Dixon said the new chamber couldn't be compared to the existing one and the area isn't big enough for both. Others said they saw the existence of two chambers as a plus for the community. Ray Leach is the CEO of JumpStart, a non-profit venture development organization funded by KeyBank, which gave grants to three community organizations in Albany and partnered with the Capital District Chamber for a kickoff event on Aug. 21. Leach said he supported both chambers but doesn't fund either directly. "We're here to help black and diverse entrepreneurs and small businesses any way we can," Leach said. "We view more resources for black entrepreneurs as a positive. Entrepreneurs in the community can decide which organization is providing the right services." Quartimon, former chair of the board for the Capital District Chamber who has been advising the Upstate New York Chamber, said he didn't see the two as competitive. He instead wanted to focus on the larger mission of building up black business. "The issue is large enough, especially in the Capital District, you can certainly benefit from having multiple organizations," Quartimon said. "I think that in the future, there are probably plenty of opportunities for the two organizations to work together. I think if we look at the big picture and we put the need of the black business communities before anything else, there is plenty of opportunity for growth." The 2018 farm bill that the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed Wednesday contains a number of benefits for New York's farmers. While SNAP Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and eligibility were relatively unchanged, the farm bill enhances the safety net for dairy farms by increasing flexibility and reducing prices of farm insurance coverage. Dairy farms in particular have been hard hit by an oversupply of milk, which has depressed prices. The reduced coverage premium costs will especially help small dairy farms that may have higher production costs, said New York Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Ammerman. "This is a stronger safety net that is so important in these challenging times for farmers," Ammerman said. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the bill will "give New York's agricultural industry a shot in the arm." The farm bill also provides funding for programs like the Specialty Crop Block Grant and Specialty Crop Research Initiative -- a boon for New York's relatively robust specialty crop industry, which includes things like maple trees, dried fruits and nuts and Christmas trees. The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 was also included in the farm bill legislation a key development that may unlock what analysts have projected could become a $20 billion industry by 2022, according to CNBC. The Hemp Farming Act removes hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, as well as legalizes the sale and distribution of hemp products, like CBD hemp oil. That could provide a profitable new crop for farmers interested in diversification, according to New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher. Other measures the new legislation addressed included expanding access to broadband internet in rural areas, and providing permanent funding for programs that assist veterans and beginner farmers as they enter the agricultural industry something farmers have said is vital for the industry to expand. And additional funds were set forth for farmland conservation programs, a point of emphasis for groups in New York like the American Farmland Trust. The new bill expands agricultural conversation easement funding from $250 million in the 2014 farm bill to $450 million in the new version, according to Samantha Levy, the New York policy manager for the AFT. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. That will help conservationists protect more farmland from being developed, according to Levy. After a difficult year for the state's agricultural industry that saw declining farm profits, a workforce shortage and unpredictable weather, the farm bill will help mitigate future risks threatening New York farmers, Fisher said. "Farmers needed stronger risk management tools in place moving into next year where there are signs that the economic stress will continue in the farming community," Fisher said in a statement. "Having some certainty moving forward in challenging times is a relief for farmers." The House of Representatives passed the legislation by a bipartisan vote of 369-47 after the Senate on Tuesday approved the bill with an 87-13 vote. The $867 billion farm bill will now go to President Donald Trump's desk, and he is expected to sign the bill into law. Much has been said about millennials recently, most often focusing on how their habits have changed traditions and products. Branding agency Moosylvania has been studying millennial consumers for five years. Each year, the company asks members of the cohort how they view themselves, how they connect with brands and what emotions their favorite brands evoked during a recent 30-day span. Heinrich Medicus was a man known for many things philanthropy, nuclear physics, his professorship at RPI, his collection of Egyptian artifacts but when it comes to memorializing his presence here on Earth, a few key themes emerge. Three, to be exact. "His three greatest passions were music, wine and Swiss chocolate and he loved Swiss chocolate," recalled David Alan Miller, music director of the Albany Symphony and a close friend and confidant of the late, legendary arts patron, who'll be celebrated with two ASO concerts this weekend at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. "He was a real chocoholic." A native of Switzerland who died in February 2017 at the age of 98, Medicus was a shareholder in the Lindt & Sprungl company and an enthusiastic devourer of its wares. Every April until he hit 96, he traveled to Zurich for annual meetings and returned with a 50-pound provision. At one point, he even asked the storied Swiss company to commission a set of chocolate waltzes. Lindt declined. And so, when it came time to commemorate Medicus' life and trifold passions, Miller knew just what to do: the symphony commissioned "Chocolate Waltzes," a 12-minute work by Benjamin Wallace that was composed with Medicus in mind. It's due to premiere at the Music Hall this weekend alongside Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 (never before performed by the ensemble) and music by the "Waltz King," Johann Strauss. The program "is an absolutely luscious concert," Miller said, "that also pays really deep tribute to this person who transformed our organization and also was our greatest guardian angel." For years, Medicus who would have turned 100 on Monday, Dec. 24. underwrote the Albany Symphony performances of Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell and other classical superstars. At his death he left the ASO a bequest of $7 million, the largest of gifts totaling $9 million to several cultural institutions around the region. Health care organizations received another $5.5 million. But Medicus is remembered for qualities beyond his generosity qualities Miller hopes to evoke in concert. Yes, he loved Bruckner. ("He said, at one point, 'Play a Bruckner symphony for me,' and I said, 'Of course I'll do that.'") He loved Strauss. He loved his wife of 47 years, Hildegard, who died in 2008 and there on the program, alongside the overture to "Die Fledermaus and "Champagne Polka," are Strauss' "Wine, Women and Song Waltzes." Beyond that, Medicus was also a Guinness Book of World Records holder for the longest champagne cork flight soaring 177 feet and 9 inches at the Saratoga polo grounds in 1988, reflecting his work in ballistics during World War II. And while there won't be any airborne corks inside Troy Music Hall this weekend, Medicus' lighthearted course through life is designed as part of the program. "He had a great sense of humor. He was very whimsical, puckish," Miller said. "He was so learned and so erudite and so cultivated." But at the same time, "He was really uproariously funny." The conductor used similar words to describe Wallace, calling him "a very whimsical, funny, charming composer who writes light music as effortlessly as any young composer I know." For his part, the composer hopes to conjure the spirit of a man he never met. "I never had the pleasure of meeting Heinrich Medicus so I'm bummed that I wasn't able to do that," said Wallace, who contributed to the symphony's 2017 "Water Music" concerts along the Erie Canal. But Medicus, he realizes, "had this very rich and fulfilling life, and was a huge patron of the symphony. I found it difficult to put all the content I wanted to put in to sort of honor him and I wanted to distill it down." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Throughout the work, Wallace included references to Medicus' name, both first and last, which he coded into the music using a cipher of his own creation. He also pulled inspiration from the Viennese tradition, knowing his piece would be programmed alongside Strauss. "So I did that a little bit," he said. "But then the music kind of goes off the rails from there, getting interrupted and doing this weird Stravinsky thing." When he first started work on the piece, he thought he'd break it down into three basic themes: milk chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate. A chat with his fiancee's dad changed his mind. "He said, 'Oh, it could be about milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate.'" And Wallace thought: "Oh. Not anymore." The rudimentary chocolate-classification approach just wouldn't do. "It's too obvious, it's too simple, it's too immediately the first thing." And as he worked on the piece, coding it with his abecedarian system, he found himself with large and generous gifts of chocolate as inspiration first from his fiancee, who gave him a supply of "fancy, curated artisanal chocolates." Then the Dutch guys working lights for a performance in China they gave him a bunch from the Netherlands. He snacked on both. In the process, a different set of cacao-based themes emerged for his piece with the Albany Symphony: "Classic chocolate, mysterious ginger chocolate, and really intense spicy-habanero chocolate." The only thing missing: Swiss chocolate. Medicus never ate anything but. Always and everywhere, he tapped a well-stocked hoard. "He would sneak chocolate during the day," Miller recalled. Sometimes, chatting with his friend in late morning, Medicus would offer him certain confections normally served around dinner. They were small. They were sweet. And they were spiked. "He was always plying me," Miller said, "with cherry liqueur chocolates." A young woman walks down a street in Mexico City, on some random night in 1970. The rain has stopped, and the street is glistening. People are meeting each other. It's the miracle of city life. It's a moment in time, revived and elevated. And it's all conveyed in a single, beautiful shot. "Roma," the latest from director Alfonso Cuaron, is far from the year's best movie, but in its best moments, it demonstrates a profound cinematic mastery. Do you remember the long, intricate opening shot of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil," the one that goes on forever? Cuaron rolls out similar shots throughout "Roma" of comparable complexity and detail as if in passing. His visual imagination is grand yet direct and is equaled by an inspired command of design and sound. To see "Roma" is to be in awe of Cuaron's gifts and to wonder how he does what he does. Yet it's hard to imagine anyone who sees "Roma" being sorry that it ended or wishing it were 10 minutes longer. The movie presents a situation rather than a story, with viewers thrown into the life of a Mexican family in 1970. The film is 135 minutes long, and save for flashes here and there, the first hour is work, mere preparation for the second hour, which is better. Cuaron has made a personal movie, about a time and a world he cares a lot about. He invites us to care, too, but it's only an invitation. Watching "Roma," we must fend for ourselves. According to interviews, 90 percent of it is based on Cuaron's childhood memories, of growing up in an upper-middle-class family in the Roma section of Mexico City. The house in the film is a reproduction of the house he grew up in, using the furniture from that childhood home, and he cast actors who looked as much like the actual prototypes as he could find. To hear that is intriguing, but also cautionary, in that it promises a passionate intent and a movie unlike anything you've seen but one made by a director obsessed with details that can't possibly matter to anyone but himself. Perhaps to make the past feel like the past, he films it in a glossy black and white, but his most significant innovation is his point of entry. Instead of making his childhood self the lead role, he focuses on one of the family's two live-in servants, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), an indigenous woman who mostly speaks Mixtec. To talk about the big story events of "Roma" is to impose an order that isn't really there and wasn't intended by the filmmaker. But we notice, as we watch Cleo going about her tasks waking up the kids for school, cleaning up after them that the father is an infrequent presence. We also notice (or rather notice Cleo noticing) that the mother is becoming increasingly stressed. As the mother, Marina de Tavira gives a remarkable and full portrait, delivered in snippets, in which we see a woman who isn't perfect, who isn't above occasionally snapping at the helpless servants, but who is fundamentally kind, even under difficult circumstances. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. We notice further that Cleo has a lover (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), an unlikely match, in that he is as aggressive as she is passive, and he has an aura of malevolence and calculation, while she seems guileless and good. But in this film, the story is secondary to Cuaron's Gatsby-like devotion to re-creating his own past. He is, in a sense, gambling that he can make his unshaped memories as wondrous to the viewer as they are to him, or at least interesting enough that the absence of anything resembling a gripping narrative can be compensated for by a love-charged virtuosity. If you see his gamble as paying off resoundingly, you will regard "Roma" as an unqualified triumph. I see his gamble as succeeding, but just barely. Fortunately, Cuaron is enough of a dramatist that he saves the best for the last hour, so that after a soporific 60 to 70 minutes, there are sequences that, on their own, arrest attention. Best of all, there's a dramatic scene that takes place on the beach, also in one shot, that may make you wonder how exactly Cuaron persuaded the water, waves and wind to cooperate with him. Finally, it should be noted that Cuaron gets a lovely performance from first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio, so natural that it might not occur to you that she's acting. But she is, and with considerable delicacy and truth. Canada may appear very secular compared with its southern neighbor, but a new poll suggests there is more openness to religion than appears on the surface, especially among younger Canadians. The Faith in the Public Square survey by the Angus Reid Institute found 59 percent of Canadians say the free expression of religion in public life makes Canada a better country. Many Canadians "see the value that faith groups make to society in terms of addressing social issues and the formation of values," he said. The survey, done with Cardus, a faith-based think tank, asked 2,200 Canadians 17 questions about their openness to faith in their own lives and the public square. It found proponents of increased faith in public life tend to be younger, more highly educated and more likely to have voted Liberal the equivalent of the Democratic Party in the United States. "Millennials are more accepting of almost everything," he said, noting that they are also more open to LGBTQ people and to seeing Canada accept more refugees. "Looking at Canada, one could get the feeling it is on an inevitable march to secularism, like in Europe, but that might not be the case," Reid said. A key caveat to the findings, Reid noted, is Quebec. The role of religion in public life is viewed much less favorably in that province, and responses from people there skew the national totals. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The survey found 75 percent of Canadians like having people of diverse religious backgrounds in their community; 70 percent consider it important for government decision-makers to know the basics about the world's major religions; and 68 percent want public schools to teach the basics of those faiths. But the survey found half of Canadians are uncomfortable with religious garments and symbols in the workplace, and 23 percent feel that society fails to make enough room for their personal expression of faith. John Stackhouse, who teaches religious studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, is concerned by the almost one-quarter of Canadians who feel religiously shut out and marginalized. Albany The Times Union's fourth "The Big $100,000 Giveaway" has come to a close, and the Capital Region proved yet again what a caring community it is. After tens of thousands of votes, 10 local nonprofit organizations will receive free advertising space in the newspaper. The giveaway, which launched Nov. 15 with the publication of the Capital Region Gives special section, encouraged the public to cast a vote as often as once a day on timesunion.com. "Both the publishing date of this section and National Philanthropy Day fall on Nov. 15," said Times Union Publisher/CEO George R. Hearst III. "We can't think of a better time to kick off the giving season." With many organizations in our area quietly performing good deeds every day, it's all too common for their efforts to go unrecognized. These nonprofits continue to face competition for limited funding and at times struggle to be heard. With the holidays in full swing and year-end appeals, it's an especially challenging time of year. That's where the Times Union comes in. The sixth Capital Region Gives special section a 44-page editorial effort highlighted some of these groups to give them the recognition they deserve. It also announced the "The Big $100,000 Giveaway," where nearly 35 nonprofits competed to each win a $10,000 advertising grant from the Times Union. Voting ended Dec. 3, with more than 23,000 votes cast. Representatives from the winning nonprofits gathered at the Times Union on Thursday for a check presentation. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. They are: Capital District YMCA, Capital Roots, Colonie Senior Service Centers, Commission on Economic Opportunities, Epilepsy Foundation Northeastern New York, Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany, Northern Rivers Family of Services, Refugee and Immigrant Support Services of Emmaus (RISSE) and Whiskers Animal Benevolent League. Last year's winners were Trinity Alliance, Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless, Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, Epilepsy Foundation of Northeastern New York, Capital District YMCA, South End Children's Cafe, JDRF Northeastern New York, St. Peter's Hospital ALS Regional Center, Whiskers Animal Benevolent League and Colonie Senior Services. "In January 2017, the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Economic Data Project was released, (and) in this report, the scope and scale of the nonprofit sector in eight counties Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady Warren and Washington was explored and analyzed," Hearst said. "We learned that, as a community, not only are we dependent on the 4,890 nonprofits and foundations that provide valuable services to those they serve, but also that they provide a meaningful source of job growth and employment." Read more about organizations like these, volunteers and charitable giving every week in the Capital Region Gives column and at blog.timesunion.com/giving. jpatterson@timesunion.com @JenSPatterson 518-454-5340 COLONIE - Colonie held a final public meeting on Thursday about proposed updates to its 2005 Comprehensive Plan, preparing for a Town Board vote and public hearing on future guidelines for development in the booming suburb. Big issues discussed at Thursday's two-hour meeting including tackling traffic congestion and increasing developer fees to pay for open space, sewer maintenance, clean-energy options and sidewalks for walkers and bikers. Residents, especially those from the community group SAVE Colonie, have decried overdevelopment in the town. The population in Albany's largest suburb topped 80,000 in the 2010 census. Committee member Jessica Mahar on Thursday called for engaging the public more in how to shape open spaces and other development issues. "All of this needs to be built around a transparent process that's inclusive of the public and community," Mahar said. "You're going to want buy in for how they're using development dollars and town funds and you want to make sure that as you're investing in this, you're continuing to capture the hopes and dreams for people who want to live here and what brings quality of life for different neighborhoods." The main complaint is traffic in town, which some say has been made worse by development. "I already see consequences between development and traffic. There are real costs to people," said committee member Gary Rinaldi, who's also on the town Industrial Development Agency board. Susan Weber from SAVE Colonie said the recent Albany Shaker Road traffic study showed through traffic is only 40 percent; the rest is local. "Every time you approve a higher density development," Weber said, "you increase the trouble we all have with our traffic." Some committee members said it was hard to address traffic concerns because of state roads running through the town while others proposed a townwide traffic study. Mahar pointed out that sewer extensions for new developments can burden taxpayers. Developers front the costs for sewer extensions but then the burden for maintenance, which increases overall, is divided among taxpayers. "Development doesn't pay for itself," she said. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Another recurring issue raised at the meeting was preserving and expanding open space. SAVE Colonie pressed the Town Board for more funds in next year's budget. Last week, the board passed a resolution to charge developers a fee exclusively to be used to purchase and develop open space. Thursday's meeting was one of the last steps in a two-year process. The 14 members of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee have met privately, held public workshops and sent out a community survey. The committee's most recent draft of recommendations focuses on protecting the town's environment, residential character and natural resources, conserving open land, providing a business-friendly context, expanding recreational resources, encouraging low-impact development, maintaining infrastructure and promoting energy efficiency. The committee plans to prioritize the goals and then submit a document for review to the Town Board in January. After recommendations are submitted to the board, there will be a 30-day comment period with at least one public hearing before a vote. If the plan is approved, it will then be up to the Town Board to make it a reality. ALBANY "No more fathers dying! No more kids crying!" Javion Gaddy, 11, shouted as he stood outside Delaware Grocery on the cold Thursday night. Bundled up next to Javion, fuming with passion to end violence in their city, were Zyaire Gaddy, 13 and Debron Jackson, 12. Before them were a couple dozen adults, men and woman, chanting back. Gun violence in the city has affected people young and old this year, and the scene at the intersection of Judson and Second streets on this night was a testament to that. "Choose life, not death," Javion shouted. Around the dimly lit corner, candles flickered at a makeshift memorial marking Albany's 15th homicide in 2018, one below the grim record set in 1987. Three nights after the fatal shooting, community members gathered there calling the community to action and also pleading for an end the violence that has gripped the city this year. Dalon Blunt, 28, was shot once in the torso around 7:50 p.m. on Monday, outside of Delaware Grocery. A 19-year-old, whom police did not identify, was wounded in the shooting. While there have not been any arrests, city police said that they believe Blunt was targeted. "This was someone's son," said Shawn Cooks, an outreach worker for Albany 518 SNUG. "This was someone's brother. Someone's friend." Cooks said he knew Blunt from both growing up in the South End, but not everyone at the rally knew him personally. "You don't have to know the person to be aware of it or do something," Cooks said. "We've all lost someone to violence." The rally drew concerned citizens along with the members of Albany 518 SNUG, which is an anti-violence program of the Trinity Alliance of the Capital Region. When there is a murder, shooting or other violence in Albany, community members will gather at the scene of the crime in the following days to raise awareness about what happened and prevent retaliation. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Unfortunately, these rallies have been all to frequent in a year when more than 50 people have been killed or injured by gunfire in the city. Cooks said there have had a few dozen shooting responses. "It just doesn't make sense," Common Council member Derek Johnson said. "Everybody should be out of their houses and here right now." Corey Johnson Sr. said it's as if "shootings have become the new norm in Albany" and that community members are "growing numb" to gun violence. "This is us doing this to us," said Corey Johnson Sr., a resident whose brother was murdered several years ago. "It's funeral, after funeral, after funeral." Derek Johnson urged residents if they know something to do something, not to pick up guns to solve problems and to voice their concerns. Anyone with information on Monday night's shooting is urged to call the Albany Police Detective Division at 518-462-8039. Anonymous tips can also be submitted to Capital Region Crime Stoppers online or at 1-(833)-252-8477. "How long will it be till this ends?" Corey Johnson Sr. asked. "Who's next? Who's getting gunned down tonight? Who's funeral are we going to next? Who? Is it you?" ALBANY Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will share some of his legislative priorities for the coming session on Monday morning. The governor will deliver a speech in New York City outlining 15 items that will be included in his 2019-2020 State of the State address, he revealed in two radio interviews on Friday. Previewing his preview, the governor said his remarks will be inspired by former New York governor and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and will focus on what Cuomo sees as the ongoing threat of President Donald J. Trump. "We have a federal government that is attacking us," Cuomo said on WCNY's The Capitol Pressroom. " ... They are in assault mode." Cuomo said the 2019-2020 agenda will includes bills to address the curtailment of the federal deduction on homeowners' state and local taxes, and federal rollbacks of protections for labor, women and immigrants. Referencing FDR's initial efforts to battle the Depression, Cuomo predicted that his 15 policy proposals will pass the Democratic-controlled Legislature in the "first 100 days" of session. "I have always been an FDR fan. But I've been immersed in it now in the past few weeks getting ready for this and thinking about it, FDR was very big on (the need to) capture the moment," Cuomo said. The governor was coy about the details of Monday's address, including its time and location, but he acknowledged in interviews that his executive agenda would include planks on environmental protection and marijuana legalization. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Cuomo said the event will be hosted by historian Harold Holzer, director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute and a former member of the administration of his father, the late Gov. Mario Cuomo. The governor will explore the question of "What would FDR do?" Cuomo typically chooses late December to tout key items that will included in his January State of the State address. Cuomo attacked Trump relentlessly through the 2018 election cycle as he fended off challenges from Republican and Democratic opponents. That rhetoric sparked rumors he may be exploring a run for president, though he has repeatedly denied holding any presidential ambitions. The tension between the two Queens-bred politicians seemed to cool after Election Day: Cuomo had a "productive" meeting with Trump last month to discuss the $13 billion Gateway tunnel project, which would replace the century-old connection between New York and New Jersey. ALBANY Edward Hilton was 25 the first time he donned a Santa suit and began spreading good cheer through his South End neighborhood in Albany. He carted a little red wagon full of candy and comic books, and handed them out to children in the housing projects children like him, who came from nothing and had little. It was Christmas Day 1969, the first of more than 30 Christmases he would spend giving back to his community, earning himself the nickname South End Santa. On Monday, almost two weeks shy of Christmas, Hilton died. He was 74. "Eddie came from very little, but he had a heart of gold," said William Toomey, a friend and attorney to Hilton. "He didn't want other children to be as poor as he was. He wanted them to have something." Born to John and Annamae Mattick Hilton in the South End, the young Hilton was the 12th of 16 kids and had a developmental disability. His parents couldn't care for him, and he was sent to St. Colman's orphanage in Watervliet. After five years, he was transferred to the state's Rome Developmental Center. Both experiences were awful, he told the Times Union almost four years ago. "I'm sure they would not like to hear what he said about them," Toomey said. "It was terrible, the stories." As a teenager, he attended Schuyler High School in Albany and became friends with the principal, Ben Becker. The man became a mentor of sorts and taught Hilton how to play checkers a game he quickly excelled at, beating firefighters, truckers, passersby in city parks, and even Gov. Mario Cuomo. At some point, he became friendly with Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd, who gave him a job as a garbage truck worker with the sanitation department and gifted him his first Santa suit. In his early days as Santa, he bought toys for neighborhood children himself. But by 1978, he could no longer afford them on his "meager earnings," he wrote in a letter to the Times Union. The letter resulted in an outpouring of toys and cash donations, which his friend Toomey recorded and organized. A local church agreed to let Hilton set up a donation room, where he began distributing soda, cookies and toys each year. In later years, he would stand just inside the Department of Motor Vehicles on South Pearl Street with a smile and a donation jar to raise money for the effort. "He was raising $2,000, $3,000 a year at one point," Toomey said. "I remember one year spending $3,000 in a single day in a toy store." The South End Santa grew to have both regular donors and customers. He was quick with a smile, but he wasn't always jolly. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "He wasn't what you and I would call a refined Santa Claus," Toomey recalled. "He might yell at a kid if he saw somebody trying to beat the line. He didn't like when someone would try to beat the system. He was a simple man." Hilton had married young a woman named Jacqueline Craft and had two children with her, Edward Jr. and William. Some of Toomey's favorite memories of Hilton were when he'd show up at his door on Christmas morning, Hilton in his Santa suit and his wife in a Mrs. Claus suit, to deliver gifts to Toomey and his family, including his daughter with developmental disabilities. "All of a sudden a taxi would pull up and they'd be at the front door," Toomey recalled. "My daughter loved it." More for you Paul Grondahl: South End Santa still bringing cheer It wasn't until Hilton could barely walk, a complication of his diabetes, that he hung up his Santa hat. He moved into the Hudson Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Home on Northern Boulevard, where it pained him to live away from his wife, Toomey said. He spent much of his days in a wheelchair, watching Wyatt Earp movies and dreaming about visiting the sites of his famous shootouts. Each year around Christmas, he'd break out his old Santa suit and wheel around the nursing home spreading cheer. They weren't needy children, but the seniors in the home appreciated it nonetheless, Toomey said. "His greatest desire was that when he died, people would remember him as the South End Santa Claus," he said. "But I saw something on a church bulletin the other day. It said 'Be Gentle and Kind.' That's what I'll think of when I think of Eddie." Washington U.S. health officials have traced a food poisoning outbreak from romaine lettuce to at least one farm in California. But they cautioned Thursday that other farms are likely involved in the E. coli outbreak and consumers should continue checking the label before purchasing romaine lettuce. The Food and Drug Administration said 59 people in 15 states have now been sickened by the tainted lettuce. That's seven more cases than previously reported, but regulators said they are fairly confident the lettuce that first triggered the outbreak has been removed from the market. The FDA told consumers to avoid romaine lettuce just before Thanksgiving. Officials said that a water reservoir at Adam Bros. Farms in Santa Barbara County tested positive for the bacterial strain and that the owners are cooperating with U.S. officials. Officials from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not determined how the water reservoir which is used to irrigate lettuce became contaminated. The bacteria can get into water and soil through multiple routes, including waste from domesticated animals or wild animals, fertilizer and other agricultural products. The FDA's Dr. Stephen Ostroff said investigators have linked the tainted lettuce to multiple distributors and processors, suggesting it must have come from several farms. A man who answered the phone at Adam Bros. Farms said he could not comment on the government announcement. According to the company's website, it only grows vegetable products, including broccoli, cauliflower, celery and various types of lettuce. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The government also narrowed the source of the outbreak to three California counties: Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Benito. That's down from six California counties under investigation when regulators began warning the public last month. Regulators said people should buy lettuce only with a label listing where and when it was harvested. Lettuce from outside the three California counties that was harvested after November 23 should be safe to eat. Romaine harvesting recently began shifting from California's Central Coast to winter growing areas, primarily Arizona, Florida, Mexico and California's Imperial Valley. Those winter regions weren't yet shipping when the illnesses began. E. coli, the bacteria often associated with food poisoning, usually causes sickness two to eight days later, according to health authorities. Most people with the infection get diarrhea and abdominal cramps. Some cases can be life-threatening, causing kidney failure and seizures. FORT EDWARD In an effort to stave off fiscal shortfalls and a survive an expected drop in enrollment, Fort Edward Union Free School District is exploring a merger with either South Glens Falls Central Schools or Hudson Falls Central School District. Fort Edward schools Superintendent Daniel Ward said that a payment to GE of $1.85 million in a tax dispute, along with continuous tax legal challenges from the company that leased to GE, is disrupting its tax base and leaving the district in a financially perilous position. "The financial situation of the Fort Edward school district is the first driving factor," Ward said. "The district set aside the money for the GE settlement." What the district hadn't counted on, he said, was WCC, the company that leased to GE, continuing to legally challenge its tax bill. The legal wrangling over taxes has led to cuts to the building and transportation staff and tax increases, Ward said. That, coupled with a decline in enrollment, brought about the decision to look at a merger. The tiny district in Washington County currently has around 500 students housed in one building that serves pre-kindergarten through grade 12. "There could come a time when we can't pass our budget because we don't have enough people in the community who are connected to the school district," Ward said. Kristine Orr, the superintendent of schools in South Glens Falls, said the study will look at all aspects of the two districts separated by the upper waters of the Hudson River to determine the feasibility of a merger. An annexation, as it is called by the state Department of Education, would likely reduce the tax rate and head off deficits in Fort Edward. In exchange, the South Glens Falls district, with an enrollment reported at 3,113 in 2017-18 and located in Saratoga County, could potentially be in for $47 million in additional state funding spread over 14 years. "I think the Fort Edward School district wants to look at all the possibilities for the district," Orr said on Wednesday. "There is a lot of hometown pride at Fort Edward, but the board wants to be fiscally responsible to their taxpayers and we want to be as supportive as possible." This pre-merger study, which will be done by Castallo and Silky, LLC of Syracuse, will look at a variety of factors said William Silky, who will complete the study by the spring. He said he will examine enrollment projections, all facilities including buildings, programs, transportation, finances, staffing and contracts for a school merger. "In addition, I'll be looking at if the communities are compatible," said Silky, who has done 29 merger studies in 32 years, but has only seen five successful mergers including the state's most recent Elizabethtown-Lewis with Westport in the Adirondacks. "A major variable is taxes. A school with a much lower level of taxes doesn't want to merge with a school with higher taxes. No one wants their taxes to go up." That could be a factor in a cross-county merger. According to the South Glens Falls' website, district residents in the town of Moreau (which the district mostly encompasses) now pay $15.51 per assessed $1,000. Fort Edward residents pay $27.30 per assessed $1,000, the district Business Manager Michelle Taylor said. Ward said that represents about a $7 increase per assessed $1,000 in the past three years. South Glens Falls is not the only district with which Fort Edward is exploring a merger. Earlier in the year, the district initiated a pre-merger study with Hudson Falls Central School District, its northern neighbor, also in Washington County. That study, done by Capital Area School Development Association, found that Fort Edward will continue to see a drop in enrollment from 486 as reported to the State Education in 2017-18 down to CASDA's estimated 448 by the 2022-23 school year. The CASDA study also found in order for Fort Edward to keep pace financially, it would need to raise school property taxes even more. But a merger with Hudson Falls, the CASDA study noted, could reduce village taxes by $5 per assessed $1,000 a year. It also estimated that Hudson Falls, with a reported enrollment of 2,202, would be granted $44 million over 14 years in a merger plan. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Linda Goewey, superintendent of schools at Hudson Falls, said she is still interested in discussing a merger with Fort Edward "when/if Fort Edward deems it necessary." She also noted that Fort Edward and Hudson Falls are compatible because they are both in Washington County. No matter which school is a better fit, Silky said, the process is complicated. Once a pre-merger study is done, then a second, more involved merger study must be completed. Then each school's Board of Education must approve the plan to move forward. After that, each district would need to hold two referendums, starting with a straw poll. If that passes, each district hosts a second legally binding referendum, Silky said. "It's also a lot of hoops to jump through," said Michael Borges, executive director of the New York State Association of School Business Officials. "The state should consider streamlining it to make it easier to merge. One majority vote should be enough. " A 2014 study from the state school business officials found that mergers are beneficial to schools with less than 1,500 students. "It's an economy of scale," Borges said. The study, which was done by Castallo and Silky, also found that many schools resist merging for fear of losing local identity, perception that the communities are incompatible, higher costs or higher taxes, job security for employees and a natural tendency to resist change. "People identify with their school," Borges said. "Especially in rural areas, the school is the focus of the community and the community feels a loss of identity." Ward is not sure which way things will go for Fort Edward. At this point, he hasn't gotten a lot of feedback from the community and expects they are still digesting the news. "This is a study of a hypothetical annexation," Ward said. "There are a lot of steps before we get there. We just want to see what our options are." RENSSELAERVILLE State Police arrested Steven Pfleging on felony charges Friday, the morning after town officials said that the supervisor had resigned for writing checks to himself. The Town Board said they were told Tuesday that an audit of town finances uncovered checks written to Pfleging without town authorization. "The investigation commenced after the town's finances were reviewed by an independent accounting firm and the discovery of missing funds was made," State Police said Friday. The 43-year-old Democrat, who was elected to the $4,000-a-year post last year, was charged with grand larceny, falsifying business records, both felonies, and official misconduct, a misdemeanor. At a meeting Thursday night, the Town Board informed residents that when confronted, Pfleging admitted he had written checks from the town's checking account to himself. The board asked for his immediate resignation, and he complied. State Police were notified. Deputy Supervisor John Dolce did not specify how many checks were written, or for how much, but said it wasn't a "devastating loss." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Pfleging was arraigned in the Westerlo Town Court Friday. He was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court on Monday. Pfleging defeated Republican David Bowdish to win the seat last November after former Supervisor Valerie Lounsbury, a Republican, did not seek re-election. Down in the basement of Michael Carroll's childhood home in Lake Grove on Long Island, the psychic pointed to the cement floor. "[H]e went to the right spot and said, 'The energy is here,'" Michael told the New York Post in November. Michael was not sure he bought it. As he would explain later, he was a science guy - a respiratory therapist. But he knew the house held its own secrets. As fanciful as the clairvoyant's premonition might sound, the otherworldly vibes would prove to be spot on. Six feet below the basement floor of the suburban house was the answer to a family mystery that had been haunting Michael and his three siblings for decades. In 1961, when he was just 8 months old, his father George Carroll completely vanished. After decades of rumors and speculation, consultations with psychics and paranormal investigators, Michael - who had purchased the home from his mother before her death in 1998 - cracked into the basement floor himself about three years ago. On Oct. 30, Michael and his two grown sons discovered a full skeleton. This week, Suffolk County officials announced the body did belong to George Carroll, Newsday reported. "I took a chance. I could have done this whole thing and found nothing, and then I would have had a whole messed-up basement," Michael told Long Island's News 12. "I have a messed-up basement. But I'm really glad we found what we found. It puts my family at ease." But the identification only solves one half of the family's puzzle. According to the Suffolk County Medical Examiner, George was murdered, the victim of blunt-force trauma to the head. A missing father is now a homicide investigation. "There's so many open ends here," Michael told News 12. "There's a story behind the story behind the story." Time travel back to 1961: President John F. Kennedy was sworn into office. "West Side Story" splashed onto movie theater screens. The U.S.S.R.'s Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. And on Long Island, Korean War veteran George Carroll lived in a small cottage on an isolated wooded road called Olive Street with his wife Dorothy and four kids - Patricia, 9, Jean, 7, Steven, 5, and Michael, 8 months. Then, George was gone. Dorothy would only say he walked out one day and never returned. "It wasn't really much talked about, but we became curious as adults as to where he might be," Michael's older brother Steven told New York's NBC 4 in November. "I was always told, 'Don't ask,'" Michael told the New York Post. "So I stopped asking." Rumors replaced facts for the Carroll kids when it came to their father. According to Newsday, some family members said George had run away to return to Korea. Others suggested he was killed - and buried in the basement. The area was under construction around the time he went missing. Not long after George disappeared, a man named Richard Darress moved into the Olive Street home. He eventually married Dorothy, and they had a son together. As the Carroll kids grew up, Newsday reported, Darress and Dorothy divorced in the early 1980s, and Darress moved to a Mexican city near the Texas border. He passed away earlier this year, according to the paper. Michael eventually bought his childhood home. Additions were constructed onto the original cottage. Olive Street filled up with new houses. But Michael still wondered about his missing father. Living now in the house where he grew up, he also was reminded of the old rumors about what might be under the basement. He called in a psychic and a team of paranormal investigators, he told the New York Post. Three years ago, he started digging. He worked alone. As Michael told Newsday, he eventually used ground-penetrating radar to analyze the basement floor. The reading indicated something six feet below. The project went in fits and starts. At one point earlier this year, Michael was afraid he would upset the foundation of the whole house. But he kept going. This summer, when he was felled by a stroke, he had his two grown sons take over. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "I told my kids, 'Guys come on over here and help me out. You've been watching me do this, you get in there,'" he told News 12. "I think they felt bad for me because they knew this was important to me." On Oct. 30, one of his sons trudged upstairs to tell Michael there was something he should see. "It's not easy for me to get up and down the stairs," he explained. "I actually did get into the hole where they were digging." Michael recognized human remains. "I felt total peace," he said. "I felt vindication for my dad. I felt like he was dancing in heaven." The next day, after informing his family, Michael reported the find to authorities - on Halloween. "The DNA was extremely well-preserved within the skeletal remains, even after almost 60 years," Suffolk County Medical Examiner Michael Caplan told Newsday on Wednesday. With this week's positive identification, Carroll says his family would like to inter his father in a graveyard with the full honor of a combat veteran. Authorities continue to investigate the homicide. Suffolk County police say no one ever filed a missing person's report about George's 1961 disappearance. Police said they would have liked to interview the deceased Darress, Dorothy's second husband, before he died. The Carroll children, however, say they don't want to speculate or theorize about how George ended up where he did. "I feel great that my dad is finally free from that crappy hole," Michael said. 3 1 of 3 Duran, Nicole/Albany County DA Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Duran, Nicole/Albany County DA Show More Show Less 3 of 3 An Albany County jury found a New York city man guilty on six felony counts on Wednesday in connection with a March traffic stop. Vasilios Kalabakas, 38, was found guilty of five counts of felony criminal possession of a controlled substance and a weapon possession charge. ALBANY New York does a lot for kids. There are nutrition and child care programs as well as early intervention services for youngsters with learning disabilities. There is assistance for families in need. In New York City, there is universal Pre-K for 4-year-olds and they are expanding to include 3-year-olds as well. The rest of the state has been steadily adding Pre-K, too. Despite that, the various services are scattershot and hard to keep track of according to a survey released on Thursday. In fact, New York scores 40th nationally when it comes to efficiency and the ease with which families can use existing programs, according to a survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington D.C.-based organization that studies a range of social service issues. We looked at two things. Efficiencies at the state level and the number of children served, said Linda Smith, director of the early childhood initiative at the Center. Families are bouncing around from one agency to another and that is costing low-income families, she said. The navigational needs are particularly difficult for low income families, where they might not have a car, or the time or ability to easily visit the various service providers and sign up their kids. The centers survey included a flow chart showing where money, which starts at the federal government and is heavily augmented by the state, goes when it comes to programs aimed at improving the well being and educational prospects of children. There is the Office of Children and Family Services, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the Council on Children and Families, and Department of Health, which oversees nutrition programs and early interventions. These funding streams are managed in five different agencies and its crazy to think when you have money going to five different agencies that coordination is going on, Smith said. And that wasnt counting programs from the Education Department, which is separate from the executive branch in New York. The money adds up even though its unclear how efficiently it is being spent. State Pre-K alone costs almost $792 million annually while the price tag for Early Head Start, for children under age 3, is $25.4 million, according to the survey. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Smith said New York should look at ways of putting the programs under one roof, which is an admittedly difficult challenge. Bureaucracies get entrenched and they dont want to give up something, Smith said. There has been some progress, however. For instance, a group of advocates and experts earlier in December started work on a Child Care Availability Task Force, which was created by the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2017. One of our charges is to look at aligning child care and Pre-K, said Dede Hill, director of policy for the Schuyler Center, a nonprofit that seeks to improve health and human services in New York, especially for children and families living in poverty. Hill said that New Yorks size makes coordination among programs a challenge. There are a lot of systems that have to integrate to work together that probably accounts for us not doing so well, she said. More for you Study of N.Y. schools finds wide racial, ethnic disparities in advanced high school courses rkarlin@timesunion.com 518-454-5758 @RickKarlinTU Washington The Senate voted Thursday to end U.S. military assistance for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen in the strongest show of bipartisan defiance against President Donald Trump's defense of the kingdom over the killing of a dissident journalist. The 56-41 vote was a rare move by the Senate to limit presidential war powers and sent a message of disapproval for a nearly four-year conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and brought famine to Yemen. Moments later, senators unanimously approved a separate resolution to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia responsible for the death of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. Together, the votes were an extraordinary break with Trump, who has refused to condemn the prince and dismissed U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusions that the heir to the Saudi throne directed the killing. While the House will not take up the measure by the end of the year, the day's votes signal that Congress will take on Trump's support of Saudi Arabia when Democrats take control of the House next month. The action indicated a growing sense of urgency among lawmakers in both parties to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's death, and to question a tradition of Washington averting its gaze from the kingdom's human rights abuses in the interest of preserving a strategically important relationship. "What the Khashoggi event did, I think, was to focus on the fact that we have been led into this civil war in Yemen, half a world away, into a conflict in which few Americans that I know can articulate what American national security interest is at stake," said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. "And we've done so, following the lead of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia." The resolution was written by Lee and Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent from Vermont. It was an unusual invocation of the War Powers Act, a 1973 law by which Congress sought at the end of the Vietnam War to reassert its constitutional role in deciding when the United States would go to war. Sanders called it the first time Congress had used the law to make clear "that the constitutional responsibility for making war rests with the United States Congress, not the White House." Seven Republican senators joined Democrats to pass the resolution: Lee, Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Todd Young of Indiana. With both votes, senators diverged from Trump, who has maintained support for Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed, even though the CIA has concluded that he ordered the assassination of Khashoggi in October. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump wrote of whether the crown prince had knowledge of the killing in an extraordinary statement that the president released last month, in which he argued that punishing Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's death would risk billions of dollars of U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who heads the Foreign Relations Committee and sponsored the measure condemning the crown prince, said Thursday that it was vital that the Senate "is speaking with one voice" to hold him accountable. "Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Corker said. "That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear." Senators in both parties described the twin measures as a direct response to the refusal by Trump and his administration to hold Saudi Arabia to account for Khashoggi's death and a way to counter the president's assertion that the money to be made from arms sales to the kingdom was enough to justify turning a blind eye to such a deed. "We cannot sweep under the rug the callous disregard for human life and flagrant violations of international norms the Saudis are showing," said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. The votes came only hours after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implored members of the House during a closed-door briefing to continue the military advising, logistics support and intelligence. Lori Van Buren/Times Union Two weeks after the Times Union published an article about a refugee family struggling to repay a loan for their airfare travel to the U.S., readers have donated nearly $5,000 to help them. Jolie Nyakomezi fled war in the Congo and waited for four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before she was resettled last year in Albany with her two children and husband, who has a debilitating neurological condition. The family is required to repay a $4,600 interest-free loan from the government for her family's airfare travel, like all refugees resettled in the U.S. Now five months pregnant, Nyakomezi wants to work but can't because she has to care for her husband - and worried how she could pay back the thousands of dollars she owes. The late George Mason is sadly missed throughout the farming community of South Tipperary. George had been involved in leadership roles in farming throughout his life, on completion of his Masters farming programme in the early 90s. He joined Macra in Clonmel as one of the start-up members of the new club. He served as Treasurer and Chairman of the branch while also serving on the development committee of South Tipp Macra. He was to hold the roles of Treasurer, Ag affairs and Chairman of the South Tipperary Macra na Feirme in 98/99. Indeed, George played a key role in the election of Irene Moloney as Munster Vice-President and TJ Maher as Macra President. Georges involvement in these elections really whet his appetite for leadership for farmers and from there he moved into South Tipperary IFA. During his 19 years he initially served as an officer through his roles as grain rep, vice chairman and a distinguished four years as South Tipperary IFA County Chairman. George's loss is particularly felt amongst the executive committee of the IFA. George was the glue that kept us together, or more particularly, the Broad band that kept the information flowing. His love of the phone was legendary, no query too in-depth for if George didnt immediately know the answer to the question whether it was on department regulation, road transport requirements or market outlooks, a quick google or a more detailed investigation required, the response was detailed, accurate and often accompanied with a chuckle and an anecdote of how the answer was acquired. For George, the transfer of his wealth of knowledge on agricultural affairs was a task he relished. He displayed his sharp intellect in IFA National Council and in Department of Agriculture meetings. His speciality was of course in the grain industry. He was an extremely efficient grain farmer but, in the rules, and regulations around the grain sector, he had few equals. George was a massive resource to the grain farmers of South Tipperary and his work over two periods as grain rep was immense. Indeed, his last day of work for IFA on this committee was a full day's meeting with the Dept of Agricutlure officials in Bach Weston reviewing the 2018 year and identifying the priorities for farmers in 2019. His ability to analyse information and retain the critical pieces was superb. Most importantly, George enjoyed transferring this information to the farmers of South Tipperary. He took very seriously his role as our representative and spent many hours researching and making phone calls clarifying our queries, trying to solve our problems. This work for South Tipp IFA was in his DNA and he wasnt going to let the side down. Above all, Georges jovial character shone through his phone calls (and there was many to all of us) and brought light to our days. A little story here, a gem of information or an on-point analysis, these calls were the oxygen that made our little committee work for the last 18 years. He always respected everybody, treated every call with the same importance, and always delivered on our queries. He understood the organisation and worked diligently for its betterment and that of its farmers. George's depth of knowledge and contacts were also recognised in the wider IFA family in every province. The true testament of this was that almost everybody just knew him as George. The tremendous effort people made to travel to his funeral clearly reflected the warmth and appreciation the national IFA family felt for our George. Oh, how he wouldve enjoyed the gathering and chat. His generosity with his time, his work rate and commitments to the farmers of South Tipp in Macra and IFA made him a superb officer. But for the many officers who have served with George in South Tipp, the once thing we will all miss is his friendship. Goodbye Friend, TJ Maher Tech Support Fraud is a Growing Problem Most people know they should avoid opening questionable attachments and clicking on strange hyperlinks. News reports remind viewers not provide unknown callers with personal information. And, as most of us are aware, keeping our software up to date can help us avoid viruses. However, theres another threat out there of which people may be less aware. Its called tech support fraud. This happens when criminals pose as customer, security, or technical support representatives. Fake call centers send alerts to customers saying their PCs have problems and need immediate technical support. They may also offer help with an email or bank account, or software license renewal. But what tech support fraudsters are really doing is selling people expensive tech services they dont need. And theyre trying to convince people to grant them remote access to their devices so they can get unauthorized access to their data. Tech support fraud is on the rise, and its getting more sophisticated. Last year it rang up nearly $15 million in losses and 11,000 complaints in the U.S. alone. Thats a 86 percent increase in losses compared to 2016. Some recent complaints involve criminals posing as technical support representatives for GPS, printer, or cable companies, or support for virtual currency exchangers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted in a March 28 public service announcement. As this type of fraud has become more commonplace, criminals have started to pose as government agents, even offering to recover supposed losses related to tech support fraud schemes or to request financial assistance with apprehending criminals. In July ars technica reported about a tech support scam targeting Dell computer users. This case is especially troubling because callers knew specific information about users and their PCs. And they used that knowledge to convince victims they worked for Dell (News - Alert) and had their best interests at heart. Armed with those details, the caller has a much better chance of tricking the person into thinking the call is legitimate and, from there, ceding control of the computer or coughing up hundreds of dollars in fraudulent support costs, ars technica noted. According to an interview and posts made to Dell customer-support forums, the unusual scam continues now. The good news is government agencies and tech companies are working to educate the public on the tech support scam problem and how to avoid becoming victims. Microsoft (News - Alert) is among the companies pushing this message. And the Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer education alert this summer. Companies like Microsoft dont call and ask for access to your computer. If you get a call like that, its a scam, the FTC alert advised. Real companies also wont ask for your account passwords. Only scammers do. Tech support scammers try to convince you theyre legitimate. Theyll pretend to know about a problem on your computer. Theyll ask you to open normal files that look alarming to make you think you need help. If you do need computer help, go directly to a person, business, or website you know you can trust, the FTC (News - Alert) continued. General online searches are risky because they might pull up another scam. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials are working to limit losses from tech support fraud. For example, local law enforcement officials in India, recently identified and raided 16 fake call centers. These call centers misrepresented themselves as tech support operations for Apple (News - Alert), Dell, Google, HP, and Microsoft. Law enforcement officials in Gurgaon and Noida arrested at least 39 individuals who allegedly scammed money from thousands of people. Most of the victims live in America and Canada. Such efforts discourage tech support scams and work to protect consumers and ensure the success of legitimate call centers. Edited by Maurice Nagle [December 14, 2018] Canada Provides Truck Drivers With Cleaner Options Along Ontario's Highway 401 LONDON, ON, Dec. 14, 2018 /CNW/ - Electric and alternative fuel vehicles play a key role in Canada's low-carbon future. As Canadians continue to make greener choices, our government is giving them more options to drive cleaner. Member of Parliament for London North Centre, Peter Fragiskatos, on behalf of Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, today announced a $3-million investment in Clean Energy Fuels Corp. and Union Energy Solutions Limited Partnership for three compressed natural gas (CNG) stations in Ontario. The stations, which have each received $1 million in funding, are located in London, Napanee and Windsor and will enable heavy-duty truck fleets to confidently travel along Ontario's Highway 401. The funding is part of our government's $182.5-million total investment to develop a coast-to-coast charging network for electric vehicles and to establish natural gas stations along key transportation routes and stations for hydrogen-powered vehicles in metropolitan centres. Through Canada's national energy dialogue, Generation Energy , Canadians made it clear that the transition to eectric vehicles and alternative fuels is not a luxury but a necessity for Canada's low-carbon future. Quotes "These stations provide transport companies with cleaner options to move their goods cutting costs, reducing pollution and improving productivity. Our government is growing the infrastructure needed to make it easier and more convenient for Canadians to drive electric and alternative fuel vehicles." Peter Fragiskatos Member of Parliament for London North Centre "The transportation industry represents one of the largest challenges in achieving emission reduction targets for its sector. Today, about 11 million passenger and commercial vehicles regularly travel Ontario roads. These CNG stations are among the first along the Highway 401 corridor and will provide a more affordable and cleaner-burning fuel alternative, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and giving fleet owners an incentive to consider moving away from conventional fuels such as gasoline and diesel." Mike Shannon, Vice President of Storage, Transmission & IMO, Enbridge, on behalf of Union Energy Solutions Limited Partnership "Natural gas as a transportation fuel is the best solution to deliver emission reductions associated with diesel fuel from our highways, roads and communities. This network of CNG stations will enable heavy-duty truck fleets to confidently travel these routes, ensuring they have sufficient fuel as they cross Canadian and provincial borders as well as travelling into the United States." Chad Lindholm Vice President of Sales, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. Related Links Electric Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Deployment Initiative Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available at www.news.gc.ca. SOURCE Natural Resources Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 13, 2018] IPRO Wins Patient Empowerment Grant LAKE SUCCESS, New York, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IPRO has been awarded a grant through the New York State Health Foundation's (NYSHealth's) Patients as Partners initiative to strengthen the voices of patients and families in healthcare decision-making. Through this initiative, NYSHealth is supporting projects that seek system improvements, practice innovations, or policy reforms designed to benefit and empower patients and consumers. In partnership with X4 Health, IPRO will offer a revitalized, next-generation approach to Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs), which are created by providers in order to assure consumer input into care delivery. PFACs often flounder due to the expense, travel requirements and logistics surrounding face-to-face meetings with patients and family members. IPRO and X4 Health will test an approach that involves virtual as well as in-person patient meetings, while offering much-needed technical support to participating medical practices. "We're delighted to have the opportunity to test innovative approaches to patient engagement," according to Clare Bradley, MD, MPH, IPRO's SeniorVice President and Chief Medical Officer. "Along with our partners at X4 Health, we're committed to an approach that removes obstacles that get in the way of empowering patients to participate in their own critical decision-making." "We're pleased that IPRO and its partners at X4 Health are inventing and testing a new real-time approach to engaging a wider and broader array of patient input in how the practice of medicine can meet patients' needs and draw from patients' ideas for healthcare practice," said David Sandman, Ph.D., President and CEO of NYSHealth. X4 Health's co-founder, Christine Bechtel, explained the idea by saying, "Well-intentioned medical practices often struggle to organize and sustain patient advisory councils in really rewarding ways. We want the effort to be incredibly productive and yet easy for both staff and patient advisors. That's why we developed the idea with IPRO to build and test a Next Generation PFAC. If we make the right thing to do the easy thing to do, it's a huge win-win for both patients and healthcare providers," she said. IPRO is a national, not-for-profit healthcare organization that works with government agencies, providers and consumers to implement innovative programs that bring policy ideas to life. IPRO does this by making creative use of clinical expertise, emerging technology, data solutions, and diverse marketplace experience to make the healthcare system work better. Incorporated in 1983, IPRO is one of the nation's largest and most experienced healthcare quality improvement organizations. Visit IPRO at www.ipro.org. X4 Health is a purpose-driven organization dedicated to advancing healthcare's Quadruple Aim: better health, better care, lower costs and better experiences for both patients and professionals. Founded by consumer advocates, X4 Health develops strategies to unlock innovation in healthcare with a special emphasis on engaging people and families in co-designing health transformation. Visit X4 Health at www.x4health.com . View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ipro-wins-patient-empowerment-grant-300765516.html SOURCE IPRO [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Keller Rohrback Investigates Marriott International Data Breach Attorney Advertising. On December 4, 2018, Marriott announced that a breach of its Starwood brand database exposed up to 500 million customers' personal information. According to the Federal Trade Commission, "The hotel chain says the breach began in 2014 and anyone who made a reservation at a Starwood property on or before September 10, 2018 could be affected." The personal information of Marriott customers, such as individuals' names, phone numbers, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth, gender, and account information, has been compromised by hackers. In some cases, credit card numbers, and expiration dates were also accessed as a result of the breach. This press releas features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005956/en/ Keller Rohrback Investigates Marriott Starwood Data Breach, Exposing Millions of Customers' Personal Information. (Photo: Business Wire) Keller Rohrback L.L. P. served as co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in the Sony Pictures Data Breach Litigation, and is investigating the Marriott breach. "Consumers want their data to be treated with the same security that companies use for their own trade secrets." - Gretchen Freeman Cappio, Keller Rohrback Partner. If you or a family member made a reservation between January 1, 2014 and September 10, 2018, you could be at risk. Please contact attorney Gretchen Freeman Cappio or Cari Laufenberg at 800-776-6044 or via email at [email protected] to discuss your concerns and potential legal claims. About Keller Rohrback L.L.P. Keller Rohrback L.L.P., a leading consumer protection firm. With offices in Seattle, Phoenix, New York, Oakland, Santa Barbara, and Missoula, Keller Rohrback serves as lead and co-lead counsel in class actions throughout the country. Our Complex Litigation Group is proud to offer its expertise to clients nationwide, and our trial lawyers have obtained judgments and settlements in excess of $23.25 billion. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Not licensed to practice law in all states. Please refer to www.krcomplexlit.com for details. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005956/en/ [December 13, 2018] National Call to Companies for Applications to Present at the OBIO 2019 Niagara Investment Summit The OBIO 2019 Niagara Investment Summit national call for applications from health science companies that are seeking Series A or beyond investments is now open. On February 20-22, 2019, the Summit will bring 30 of Canada's most promising health science companies to Niagara-on-the-Lake to present to and meet with global investors. This year's Summit will highlight three fast-growing sectors: 1) New Frontiers in Medicine, including regenerative medicine, rare diseases, therapeutics, and medical devices 2) Artificial Intelligence in Health 3) Digital Health and Diagnostics The Summit will feature keynote presentations and panel discussions from world-leading scientific and business experts including Tom Lynch, former Chairman of Icon plc, Founder of Warner Chilcott, former CFO of Elan plc, Chairman of Evofem Biosciences and Non-Executive Director of GW Pharma, and Dr. Duncan Stewart, President and Scientific Director, Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Executive Vice-President of Research at The Ottawa Hospital, and CEO and Scientific Director of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. "At OBIO's 2019 Niagara Investment Summit, we will bring our most innovative Canadian health science companies together with leading global investors to create opportunities for new and cross-border investments," said Gail Garland, President and CEO, OBIO. "With world-class technologies and a great environment for investment, Canadian companies present an increible opportunity for global health science investors and we are looking forward to bringing the world to Canada's doorstep." Companies selected to participate in the 2019 Niagara Investment Summit will be on a rolling basis and presentation spots are limited. Interested companies should send an email to Christina Yeh ([email protected]) and include a non-confidential pitch deck (15 slides maximum), demonstrating how your company fits within the theme of the Summit. Selected companies are responsible for the conference fee of $2,500 which includes: Full registration for one company representative An opportunity to pitch and hold one-on-one meetings with leading global investors Attendance at a health science CEO roundtable dinner discussion Two nights' accommodation Breakfast, lunch and dinner for the duration of the conference OBIO 2019 Niagara Investment Summit Eligibility Companies based in Canada focused on developing health science products or services including but not limited to therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, or digital health which fit into the themes of the 2019 Niagara Investment Summit. Companies based in Canada seeking to raise Series A and beyond investment. About OBIO The Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO), a leading advocate for Canada's health science industry, is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization engaged in the development of an integrated health innovation economy and one that will become a global leader in providing health technology products and services to the international marketplace. OBIO advances this goal through advocacy, promotion and strategic leadership and via collaborative partnerships with industry, academia, patients and government. For more information, visit www.obio.ca and follow OBIO on Twitter (News - Alert) @OBIOscience. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005958/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 13, 2018] UMITRON secures US$2 million project funding from the Inter-American Development Bank to deliver IoT and AI technology to drive growth of sustainable aquaculture in Lake Titicaca, Peru SINGAPORE, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- UMITRON PTE.LTD. (Singapore, Co-founder/Managing Director, Masahiko Yamada) in cooperation with Abaco (Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito) and its subsidiary Piscis (Piscifactorias de los Andes) has been approved for US$2 million project funding to improve aquaculture productivity in Lake Titicaca, Peru. IDB Lab, the Inter-American Development Bank Group's (IDB) innovation laboratory is funding the project with hopes of improving the local trout farming industry's economic and environmental sustainability. Lake Titicaca farmers raise rainbow trout, a species of salmonid, which are a valuable aquaculture sector with worldwide production increasing ten-fold over the past thirty years. The local peruvian industry is expected to grow from 100,000 tons in 2016 to 221,000 tons of production by 2030. UMITRON's partner Piscis is one of the largest trout farmers in Peru, UMITRON's AI feeding technology has the potential to increase their worker safety, while also reducing overfeeding and the threat of harmful algae blooms. "Through our daily operation, we see many challenges facing the aquaculture industry such as economic and environmental sustainability. Finding solutions requires borderless collaboration between the public and private sector. We're delighted to start this project with IDB and Piscis to create a successful model for future growth. We hope this technology driven collaboration encourages both sustainable aquaculture and economic growth," said Masahiko Yamada, Managing Director of UMITRON. IDB Lab's grant resources will be used by UMITRON and Piscis to test and calibrate UMITRON's AI feeding technology. Additionally, funds will be used to both train local producers and scale up UMITRON's solution in the Lake Titicaca region. The end goal is to implement data-driven aquaculture feeding technology for farmers in Peru and eventually all of Latin America. This project is the first step in UMITRON's long term plans to develop technology for Latin American aquaculture producers. UMITRON is looking for similar public-private partnerships to assist aquaculture producers in increasing their environmental sustainability through impact investment. About UMITRON Founded in 2016 in Singapore/Japan, UMITRON builds user-friendly aquaculture data platforms that leverage the use of IoT, AI and satellite remote sensing. UMITRON's vision is to "install Sustainable Aquaculture on Earth", with the ultimate goal of improving the environmental sustainability, economics, worker safety, and food quality of aquaculture operations. [email protected]umitron.com Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181213/2326015-1-a Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181213/2326015-1-b SOURCE Umitron [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 13, 2018] Mayor Rahm Emanuel and VIPKid Announce Plans to Enhance Mandarin Language Programming at Chicago Public Schools Mayor Rahm Emanuel and VIPKid announced a partnership to expand Mandarin Chinese learning opportunities through VIPKid's Mandarin platform, Lingo Bus. VIPKid will offer Chicago Public Schools students free, real-time, online immersive courses, as well as a virtual pen pal program with students in China. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005986/en/ Mayor Rahm Emanuel and VIPKid Co-Founder Jessie Chen sign partnership at 2018 Chicago Consular Corps Gala, November 30, 2018 (Photo: Business Wire) "Chicago finds strength in its diversity, and VIPKid is helping our students with the skills necessary to succeed in an increasingly global world," said Mayor Emanuel. "Once implemented, this program will encourage and empower Chicago students to connect with their peers in China and build a future together." VIPKid, one of the world's largest education technology companies, announced the three-year partnership at the 2018 ChicagoConsular Corps Gala. Once implemented, the program will expand educational ties between Chicago and China through language learning. "VIPKid is honored to partner with the City of Chicago, World Business Chicago, and the Chicago Public Schools to connect the U.S. and China through Mandarin and English learning among Chinese and American students, especially in Chicago's schools," said VIPKid Founder and CEO Cindy Mi. "We believe VIPKid and the City of Chicago can provide a model for global educational exchange that will help bridge cultural differences and create globally-minded citizens. We are grateful for Mayor Emanuel's visionary leadership." Currently, more than 10,000 students at 37 schools study Mandarin as a world language at Chicago Public Schools. "We are excited to partner with VIPKid to offer innovative Mandarin-language resources to provide students across the city with innovative and interactive programming that will help students enhance their language skills," said CPS CEdO LaTanya D. McDade. About VIPKid VIPKid is a global education technology company that connects children with the world's best teachers for real-time online English immersion learning. VIPKid's mission is to inspire and empower every child for the future. VIPKid envisions a global classroom that empowers students and teachers through personalized learning, connects cultures across the world and sparks a passion for lifelong learning. It believes that education is not one-size-fits-all, rather, all students are unique and the world is within their reach when connected with great teachers capable of personalizing learning and sparking curiosity. Founded in 2013 and formally launched in 2014, VIPKid has become China's market-leading online education startup, attracting investment from Tencent, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital (News - Alert), Sinovation Ventures, Yunfeng Capital, Matrix Partners, Learn Capital, Northern Light VC and Bryant Stibel, among others. The VIPKid platform currently connects over 500,000 paying students with over 60,000 teachers in the US and Canada. Through its Lingo Bus brand, VIPKid teaches Mandarin Chinese in fully immersive, real-time online courses to children worldwide, taught by China's top language teachers. For more information, please visit: www.vipkid.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005986/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 13, 2018] IDEMIA Provides Subscription Management Platform to dtac in Thailand to Offer eSIM Connected Watches to All Its Subscribers. IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, has been selected by dtac, the leading mobile operator in Thailand, to offer connectivity on eSIM connected watches. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005934/en/ Credits : IDEMIA IDEMIA's Subscription Management platform (or remote SIM provisioning) is the technology that remotely connects the embedded SIM of a smartwatch to dtac's network without inserting a physical SIM card. Indeed, the IDEMIA Subscription Manager is a server which securely manages the lifecycle of mobile subscriptions and profiles for eSIM-ready consumer devices and wearables. This solution is compliant with the latest GSMA (News - Alert) (Global System for Mobile Communications Association) standards to ensure global interoperability and, thanks to the scalability of the platform, the operator will be able to serve up to millions of customers during peak times. dtac subscribers now have the possibility to stay connected to the dtac network on their eSIM connected watch when they are away from their mobile phone. IDEMIA's solution is scalable to support dtac to meet changing consumer market trends, as the rollout of SIM devices continues to grow. According to Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), it showed that Thailand mobile penetration stood at around 170% of Thai population, which means that more than half of Thais own at least two numbers a person. It is clearly seen that the landscape has changed significantly, reflecting the needs of convenience from customers. "We are very honored to have been chosen by dtac to manage remote subscriptions to connected devices and to empower their customers with mobile connectivity. Our solution offers the most efficient, secure and transparent technology possible to serve the connectivity needs of dtac and to deliver a seamless experience to their subscribers", said Fabien Jautard, Executive Vice-President for Mobile Operators activities at IDEMIA. Prathet Tankuranan, Chief Technology Officer of Total Access Communication Plc or dtac, added: "dtac commits to delivering the better digital experience for our customers, as well as moving forward to the world of digital communication. dtac is now offering eSIM capability to serve our customers' needs. With eSIMs, customers will be able to carry more than one number on one smart phone. It is a part of a trend towards virtualization, a key step of IoT development, and also 5G development, and the reason why dtac has the first fully virtual core network in Thailand. We are happy to extend our long-term partnership with IDEMIA to connect our customers' connected watches to our network." About IDEMIA IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, has the ambition to provide a trusted environment enabling citizens and consumers alike to perform their daily critical activities (such as pay, connect, travel and vote), in the physical as well as digital space. Securing our identity has become mission critical in the world we live in today. By standing for Augmented Identity, an identity that ensures privacy and trust and guarantees secure, authenticated and verifiable transactions, we reinvent the way we think, produce, use and protect one of our greatest assets - our identity - whether for individuals or for objects, whenever and wherever security matters. We provide Augmented Identity for international clients from Financial, Telecom, Identity, Public Security and IoT sectors. With close to $3 billion in revenues and 13,000 employees around the world, IDEMIA serves clients in 180 countries. For more information, visit www.idemia.com / Follow @IDEMIAGroup on Twitter (News - Alert) View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181213005934/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Ban Ki-moon attends launch of Global Compact Network Thailand, setting off private-sector collaboration for country's sustainable development BANGKOK, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has recently visited Thailand to celebrate the official launch of Global Compact Network Thailand (GCNT) along with more than 500 business representatives from all manner of private industries. The collaborative network is part of a key initiative of the United Nations that has been established to drive Thailand towards sustainability goals by means of responsible business in line with global standards. 100 companies are expected to be registered in GCNT by the end of 2019. Suphachai Chearavanont, President of Global Compact Network Thailand, says, "Global Compact is an important initiative set up initially in the United States under the auspices of the United Nations. It aims at enabling organisations worldwide to understand and adopt the sustainability principles to create impactful changes in their respective country. Organisations that sign up to Global Compact are committed to operating their business responsibly in accordance with four core principles encompassing human rights, labours, the environment and anti-corruption. For this reason, a number of leading corporates in Thailand that share the values have decided to join the membership of Global Compact Network Thailand." Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary General of the United Nations and the guest of honor at the inaugural meeting of Global Compact Network Thailand, says, "By assembling leaders from the Thai private sector to form a Global Compact local network, the critical work that you are undertaking to alight your business with the ideals of the United Nations has my deep respect. Our world is going through pronounced changes resulting in elevated uncertainties and new risks. Keep working to make business a force for good. Together, we can respond to the urgency of our global challenges and construct a better tomorrow." Global Compact Local Network Thailand is led b co-founding members from major industries. Convening corporates that belong to the agricultural and food industries include Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited, CP All Public Company Limited, Mitr Phol Corporation Company Limited and Thai Union Group Public Company Limited, while the members from the petroleum industry are Bangchak Corporation Public Company Limited, PTT Public Company Limited, PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited, Thai Oil Public Company Limited, IRPC Public Company Limited and PTT Global Chemical Public Company Limited. The telecommunications industry is represented by True Corporation Public Company Limited; the gems and jewellery industry by Pranda Jewelry Public Company Limited; the tourism and hospitality by Pinnacle Hotels and Resorts Company Limited; and the media and publishing industry by Print City Company Limited. "With major private business organisations from all industries gathering in this launching event, their contribution can be leveraged to help scale up impactful programs and produce better results across a broad spectrum of supply chains, customers, partners and employees. The launch of Global Compact Network Thailand reflects how Thailand's private sectors are on the lookout for sustainable ways to develop business and ready to foster a collective, responsible awareness while developing knowledge sharing and constructive activities within the network. These actions will eventually lead to a powerful driving force which is a key success factor of sustainable development and bring together all the positive changes in the country," Suphachai adds. GCNT's operations will focus on encouraging the private sectors to operate their business with responsibility and engage in business strategies that correspond to the four core principles of sustainability. The majority of activities initiated by GCNT will be training courses about the latest discoveries and global trends relating to sustainable development, knowledge-sharing seminars on topics such as child labour, and other activities that allow participants to share experiences and discuss ways to promote responsible business practices for sustainable development. "Regarding the four major principles of sustainability, Thailand will start with human rights because it is the critical issue that contributes to the country's credibility and international economic relations. At GCNT, we realise that human rights is a very sensitive subject and concerns various aspects, including child labours, foreign workers, female labours, welfare, and several other lesser-known issues. Therefore, it is important for us to identify human rights as an urgent priority that needs to be addressed within a short timeframe. Apart from taking the role of center in sharing knowledge and opening up learning opportunity for members through activities as previously said, we also would like to invite business organizations across the country to join us in building a strong network capable of impacting a concrete change in the society, with aim to attain 100 members by end of 2019," Suphachai adds. GCNT's primary mission in 2019 is to provide private organisations, especially leaders in the industries and companies listed in the Stock Exchange of Thailand, with necessary guidance to ensure that they recognise the role of business case for the achievement of sustainable development and entre the GCNT membership to create high-impact collaborations. GCNT is looking to hold a series of roadshows at private sector facilities and the chambers of commerce nationwide. The network expects to increase the number of members from the current 40 to 100 by the end of 2019, and will continue to support and assist Thai private sectors through the network. About Global Compact Network Thailand (GCNT) Founded in 2017, Global Compact Network Thailand (GCNT) is currently joined by 40 leading Thai corporates whose common purpose is to facilitate balanced and sustainable economic, social and environmental development in accordance with United Nations Global Compact -- a collaborative network of private sectors that encourages businesses worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies with more than 13,000 members in 160 countries. Contact Global Compact Network Thailand: Tel. +66 81 408 8484, +66 2051 9405 www.globalcompact-th.com [email protected] For media contact: Eakkapop Panthurat Tel. +66 89 676 6234 [email protected] Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181214/2327128-1 SOURCE Global Compact Network Thailand (GCNT) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] NGK's Chip-type Ceramic Secondary Batteries, "EnerCera Pouch" & "EnerCera Coin," Win CES 2019 Innovation Awards in Smart Energy NAGOYA, Japan, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- NGK INSULATORS, LTD. (hereinafter "NGK") based in Nagoya, Japan, announced that it has been named a CES (R) 2019 Innovation Awards honoree for chip-type ceramic secondary batteries, both "EnerCera (R) Pouch" and "EnerCera (R) Coin." NGK will exhibit them at CES 2019, the world's largest consumer electronics show to be held in Las Vegas, USA, from January 8 to 11, 2019. It is the first time for NGK to exhibit at CES. (Logo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/201812131418-O1-Jy4atXba) CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is the world's largest trade show in consumer electronics held in Las Vegas every January. The "CES Innovation Awards" is an international award program in 28 product categories judged by product quality, beauty of design, value to customers, uniqueness and novelty of product specs, and innovation compared to products in the market. NGK will introduce the "EnerCera" series at CES for the first time. The EnerCera series is a Li-ion secondary battery realizing high energy density with a small and thin body by using NGK's original Crystal Oriented Ceramic Plate as electrodes. One of the features is high heat resistance that enables the battery to be mounted on devices by high-temperature processes. The EnerCera series has two types: EnerCera Pouch, the world's first Li-ion secondary battery (*1) which can be embedded in IC cards by hot lamination, and EnerCera oin, the world's first Li-ion secondary battery (*1) which can be mounted on circuit boards by reflow soldering. Both EnerCera Pouch and EnerCera Coin won the CES Innovation Awards within the "Smart Energy" category that is for consumer electronics' power sources, charging devices and so on, because they were highly evaluated for their capability of high-temperature installation essential for device manufacturing and the innovation brought to the spread of IoT devices. As a result, the EnerCera series won double awards. The mass production of the EnerCera series is scheduled to start in April 2019 sequentially, to be adopted for applications which require high capacity in a small and thin body, such as IoT devices, smart cards, RFID tags, electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and wearable devices. (*1) As of "announcement date, 2018," based on NGK's research Event details Date: January 8 - January 11, 2019 Place: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Booth: Sands Expo, Level 2, Halls A-D, Booth# 41374 Products: EnerCera series, ZNB/Zinc rechargeable battery (Image1: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/201812131418-O2-UJ80d2G5) (Image2: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/201812131418-O3-4xo8r597) About NGK NGK is the world's largest manufacturer of electrical insulators, including 1,000-kV ultrahigh-voltage (UHV) transmission and substation insulators, and has a 100-year history. With foundations in exclusive ceramics technology, NGK contributes to environmental conservation, providing a wide range of products and technology in the "Triple E" growth fields of energy, ecology and electronics. NGK is also one of the largest manufacturers of HONEYCERAM and diesel particulate filters (DPFs) for catalyst converters for automobiles. NGK is also the world's leading manufacturer succeeding in commercialization of large-capacity energy storage systems (NAS batteries), which has overturned the conventional wisdom that power cannot be stored. Its President is Taku Oshima. To learn more about NGK, visit: https://www.ngk-insulators.com/en/index.html View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ngks-chip-type-ceramic-secondary-batteries-enercera-pouch--enercera-coin-win-ces-2019-innovation-awards-in-smart-energy-300765576.html SOURCE NGK INSULATORS, LTD. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Two Thirds of Retailers Increase Cybersecurity Measures During the Holiday Season to Defend Against the Rise in Social Engineering Attacks SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Infoblox Inc. , the leader in Secure Cloud-Managed Network Services, today announced new research revealing how retailers across the globe invest more in cybersecurity during the holiday period than at any other time of the year due to a seasonal increase in social engineering attacks. The research also found that threats like unpatched security vulnerabilities, insecure IoT devices, and the online consumers themselves are a risk to retailers this time of year. The report titled, 'Retail Risks Revealed: Cybersecurity Threats at All Time High During the Holidays' details the findings from a survey 3,000 consumers and retail IT professionals in the UK, Germany, Netherlands and the U.S. on their experiences and attitudes towards online data privacy and security while shopping online during the holidays. Sixty two percent of UK and German retailers claim to increase cybersecurity measures during the holiday season, with a third in each region citing a rise in social engineering attacks (35 percent in U.S., 34 percent in UK, 30 percent in Germany), aside from the Netherlands where social engineering attacks dominated for just over a quarter of businesses though this was still the most common attack vector. Other kinds of attacks include: Social media scams 19 percent in U.S., 15 percent in UK, 14 percent in the Netherlands , 12 percent in Germany , 12 percent in DDoS attacks 20 percent in the Netherlands , 17 percent in Germany , 12 percent in UK, 7 percent in U.S. , 17 percent in , 12 percent in UK, 7 percent in U.S. Ransomware 12 percent in U.S., 11 percent in Germany , 10 percent in UK, 9 percent in the Netherlands 44 percent of U.S.-based IT decision makers in etail say implementing new technology makes them more concerned, yet 44 percent of retailers plan to implement IoT devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home in stores within the next 12 months. In the UK, artificial intelligence (43%) leads as the technology most likely to be implemented within the next year, followed by IoT devices (35%), fourth screen technology (24%), Omni channel technology (23%), and augmented reality (17%). Similar to the US, the majority of IT decision makers in the UK say they're concerned about new technologies, a stark contrast from the Netherlands where only 20 percent are concerned. While the majority of global consumers shop online to some degree,17 percent of shoppers do nothing to protect their data while shopping online. The UK is the most complacent with just one in five taking no proactive action to protect their data. On the other hand, German consumers are more cautious when shopping online - with more than half of (53%) consumers only shopping on secured WiFi networks, and 62 percent of companies reporting implementing extra protection for consumers. "The level of online shopping activity always increases significantly during the holiday season and can provide rich pickings for the opportunistic cyber-criminal, so it's no coincidence that more than half of retailers will increase their cybersecurity spending during their most prosperous and dangerous time of year," said Victor Danevich, CTO of Systems Engineering at Infoblox. "It's critical that enterprises take measures to get additional network visibility, so they can respond quickly to potential cyber incidents which could result in lost revenue and brand damage." In order to prevent unwanted network activity and vulnerabilities during peak online shopping seasons, retailers need to gain complete visibility into their network. Intelligent DNS security solutions can help detect vulnerabilities by identifying unusual and potentially malicious network activity and provide deeper control at the infrastructure level. To stop sophisticated attacks like phishing, social media scams and social engineering, retailers need network monitoring solutions that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify malicious actors and potential cyber-attacks. Infoblox has been providing the next level networking capabilities needed for retailers to combat malicious activity. Visit the retail customers page to see how retailers like Walmart, eBay and Best Buy leverage network security and threat intelligence from Infoblox. To view the full report and findings, download the report at https://www.infoblox.com/resources/report/retail-risks-revealed. About Infoblox Infoblox is leading the way to next-level DDI with its Secure Cloud-Managed Network Services. Infoblox brings next-level security, reliability, and automation to cloud and hybrid systems, setting customers on a path to a single pane of glass for network management. Infoblox is a recognized leader with 50 percent market share comprised of 8,000 customers, including 350 of the Fortune 500. Learn more at http://www.infoblox.com. Media Contact: Erica Coleman Infoblox [email protected] (408) 986-5697 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/two-thirds-of-retailers-increase-cybersecurity-measures-during-the-holiday-season-to-defend-against-the-rise-in-social-engineering-attacks-300765518.html SOURCE Infoblox Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] The Alexa Conference, Jan. 15-17, 2019, in Chattanooga, Tenn., Features Women Who Are Leading the Way in Voice Technology More than 600 Executives and Marketers from Numerous Industries, Tech Companies Developers, Entrepreneurs and Strategists to Explore Great Voice Experiences NASHVILLE, Tennessee, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2019 Alexa Conference, taking place Jan. 15-17 in the tech-forward Chattanooga, Tenn., features a variety of women who are leading the way in voice technology around the world. The event, presented by podcast network VoiceFirst.FM, is the worldwide gathering of the Alexa development community. Kesha Williams, an accomplished software development manager who works for Chick-fil-A's corporate office in Atlanta, while maintaining a speaking schedule around the world, will keynote. Some of the other women appearing on The Alexa Conference program include: Noelle LaCharite , principal PM, applied AI, Microsoft , principal PM, applied AI, Microsoft Amanda Scherker , head of VUI design, Magic + Co. , head of VUI design, Magic + Co. Katie McMahon , vice president and general manager, SoundHound , vice president and general manager, SoundHound Laurie Orlov , principal analyst, Aging in Place Technology Watch , principal analyst, Aging in Place Technology Watch Rebecca Evanhoe , VUI designer, Mobiquity , VUI designer, Mobiquity Val Vacante , managing partner, Collabsco , managing partner, Collabsco Neha Javalagi , lead UX research and design, Witlingo , lead UX research and design, Witlingo Brielle Nickoloff , VUI designer, Witlino , VUI designer, Witlino Sandhya Pruthi , general internal medicine, Mayo Clinic , general internal medicine, Mayo Clinic Radhika Kanaskar , MIS honors student, University of Connecticut , MIS honors student, Kari Olson , chief innovation and technology officer, Front Porch Center for Innovation & Wellbeing , chief innovation and technology officer, Front Porch Center for Innovation & Wellbeing Dana Wilson , general manager, Mississippi Interactive , general manager, Mississippi Interactive Melissa Campbell , communications and operations manager, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood , communications and operations manager, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Emily Binder , voice marketing strategist, Beetle Moment Marketing , voice marketing strategist, Beetle Moment Marketing Amy Stapleton , co-founder, Tellables Bradley Metrock , executive producer of The Alexa Conference, host of This Week In Voice podcast by VoiceFirst.FM, and author of the new audiobook Perspectives on Gender in #VoiceFirst Technology (from Score Publishing). "We're happy that the program for The Alexa Conference reflects this reality." The Alexa Conference, which will take place at the Chattanooga Convention Center, features an exhibit hall, The Alexa Awards and a variety of workshops, in addition to the full conference program. Amazon is the 2019 Platinum Sponsor of The Alexa Conference, which will gather approximately 600 registered attendees from 12 countries. Attendees will include tech companies, executives and marketers from numerous industries, developers, entrepreneurs and strategists all the roles involved in conceiving and creating great voice experiences. To learn more and to register, visit https://www.voicefirst.fm/alexaconference . About VoiceFirst.FM VoiceFirst.FM , which produces The Alexa Conference, is a podcast network devoted to voice-first technology. Shows such as This Week In Voice , The Alexa Podcast , The VoiceFirst Roundtable and more are enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of listeners across 54 countries worldwide. VoiceFirst.FM is owned and operated by Score Publishing , a new media publishing company based in Nashville, Tennessee. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Mene Inc. Appoints Savigny Partners as Financial Advisors Mene Inc. (TSX-V:MENE) (OTC:MENEF) ("Mene" or the "Company"), an online 24 karat jewelry brand, today announced its appointment of Savigny Partners LLP as strategic financial advisors. London-based Savigny Partners LLP, a financial advisory firm that specializes in luxury and premium brands, will advise on defining long-term financial and strategic objectives, brand positioning, and potential future partnerships. "We are honoured to have partnered with Savigny Partners LLP, one of the leading luxury and fashion investment advisory firms in the world, and are especially pleased to have Ludovic Grandchamp join the company's advisory board," said Mene CEO Roy Sebag. "While Mene is witnessing accelerated growth and consumer adoption, it is important to balance our entrepreneurial spirit by collaborating with partners who understand the long-term outlook required when building a luxury brand. Ludovic and the rest of the Savigny Partners team have been involved in industry-leading M&A transactions, and we are fortunate to benefit from their experience as we navigate these important early years." "We look forward to working with the Mene team and are impressed by Roy Sebag's entrepreneurial achievements as well as Diana Widmaier-Picasso's brand vision. In addition to offering impeccable style and a playful - yet deeply informative - online experience, Mene is committed to the level of transparency now demanded by consumers," said Ludovic Grandchamp. "Mene has a great track record of meaningfully communicating with its growing customer base through an agile use of digital tools. With sales exceeding $7 million after only 11 months since launch and already over 10,000 direct-to-consumer orders, the firm is pised to disrupt the $200 billion jewelry industry." About Mene Inc. Mene crafts pure 24 karat gold and platinum jewelry that is transparently sold by gram weight. Through mene.com, customers may buy jewelry, monitor the value of their collection over time, and sell or exchange their pieces by gram weight at prevailing market prices. Mene was founded by Roy Sebag and Diana Widmaier-Picasso with a mission to restore the relationship between jewelry and savings. Mene empowers consumers by marrying innovative technology, timeless design, and pure precious metals to create pieces which endure as a store of value. For more information about Mene, visit mene.com. About Savigny Partners LLP Savigny Partners is a mergers & acquisitions advisory firm specialized in luxury and premium brands based in London. The company was founded in 2005 by Pierre Mallevays, after heading the M&A team at LVMH. Ludovic Grandchamp joined in 2015 from a French family office, Sofinavi. The firm and its partners have advised numerous prestigious brands such as Benefit Cosmetics, Delvaux, Le Labo, Tom Dixon and LVMH. For more information about Savigny Partners, visit savignypartners.com Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains or refers to certain forward-looking information. Forward-looking information can often be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "plan", "intend", "estimate", "may", "potential" and "will" or similar words suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. All information other than information regarding historical fact, which addresses activities, events or developments that the Goldmoney Inc. (the "Company") believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, is forward looking information. Forward-looking information does not constitute historical fact but reflects the current expectations the Company regarding future results or events based on information that is currently available. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking information will not occur. Such forward-looking information in this release speak only as of the date hereof. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005009/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Skullcandy Launches Its First Truly Wireless Earbud, Push PARK CITY, Utah, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Skullcandy, Inc., the original lifestyle audio brand, announced today the company's first truly wireless earbud, Push , an untethered audio experience for those that seek to push boundaries both culturally and aesthetically. Push offers listeners a bold design, sleek fit, and music you can feelso you can live your life without limitations. "It is a very exciting time for Skullcandy as we introduce our first True Wireless product to our youthful consumer base," said Jessica Klodnicki, CMO, Skullcandy. " Push is the latest example of the ongoing innovation our team is creating to showcase sound with unlimited possibilities, all while providing the very best audio experience for fans." The small but mighty buds feature a unique design that not only eliminates signal loss but also lets you easily control your earbuds with a single touch. The simple user interface offers a full suite of media control options including call, track, and volume control, and een lets you activate your phone's native assistant with just the push of a button. Push is specifically designed to offer a worry-free listening experience for every consumer. These earbuds offer a full day's worth of battery life, 12 hours -- up to 6 hours within the earbud and up to 6 hours through the intelligent charging case. Additionally, Skullcandy's FitFin Ear Gels offer a secure and comfortable fit that ensures your earbuds stay put in the ear throughout your day. Lastly, knowing that lost earbuds are a concern for many consumers, Skullcandy offers a Fearless Use Promise, allowing users to easily repurchase an earbud or charging case at a discounted price in a situation where one is lost or stolen. Introduced at $129.99 USD, Push will be sold exclusively at Target and Skullcandy.com until the end of 2018 and will be available at select retailers starting January 15, 2019. Push will be available in two colorways - Psychotropical Teal and Gray Day. About Skullcandy Skullcandy is the original lifestyle audio brand and lives by its mission to not just listen to music but to feel it. Founded at the center of music and boardsports, Skullcandy drives innovation in audio experiences from groundbreaking technology in its headphones to once in a lifetime music events featuring emerging artists that inspire and move its culture forward. Based in Park City, Utah, Skullcandy designs, markets and distributes audio products through a variety of distribution channels globally with international offices in Tokyo, Zurich, London, Shenzhen and Vancouver, as well as through partners in some of the most important cultural hubs in the world. The company's website can be found at https://www.skullcandy.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/skullcandy-launches-its-first-truly-wireless-earbud-push-300765553.html SOURCE Skullcandy, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] PPG to Acquire Global Coatings Manufacturer Whitford Worldwide PPG (NYSE:PPG) today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Whitford Worldwide Company ("Whitford"), a global manufacturer that specializes in low-friction and nonstick coatings for industrial applications and consumer products. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter 2019, subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed. "The acquisition of Whitford will allow PPG to further drive value for its customers and shareholders by enhancing our range of product offerings, research and development capabilities, and global market reach in the growing industrial coatings sector," said Michael McGarry, PPG chairman and chief executive officer. Whitford, a privately held company headquartered in Elverson, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1969. The company specializes in manufacturing low-friction, wear-resistant coatings for industrial applications in automotive, aerospace, energy and construction products. Whitford also makes nonstick coatings for cookware, bakeware and small electric appliances such as toaster ovens, griddles, fry pans and irons. Whitford employs more than 700 people and operates 10 manufacturing facilities located in Elverson, PA, USA; Fostoria, Ohio, USA; Guelph, Ontario, Canada; Runcorn, UK; Brescia, Italy; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Jiangmen, China; Zhuhai, China; Tuas, Singapore; and Bangalore, India. "Joining PPG is a giant step forward for Whitford," added Dave Willis, Whitford's founder and Chairman of the Board. "In one fell swoop, we will have access to nw technologies, diverse R&D facilities, strong financial support and global coverage in areas where we have wanted to expand, but did not yet have sufficient resources. This is very good news for our customers and our employees." "Whitford's leadership in low-friction and nonstick coatings will provide strategic additions to the robust portfolio of industrial coatings solutions we deliver today, while PPG's research and development organization will leverage Whitford's extensive expertise in fluoropolymer chemistry across the markets we serve," said Tim Knavish, PPG senior vice president, industrial coatings. "In addition, Whitford's global footprint and customer-centric, high-touch business model are highly complementary to PPG's business, allowing for a seamless integration process." PPG: WE PROTECT AND BEAUTIFY THE WORLD At PPG (NYSE:PPG), we work every day to develop and deliver the paints, coatings and materials that our customers have trusted for 135 years. Through dedication and creativity, we solve our customers' biggest challenges, collaborating closely to find the right path forward. With headquarters in Pittsburgh, we operate and innovate in more than 70 countries and reported net sales of $14.7 billion in 2017. We serve customers in construction, consumer products, industrial and transportation markets and aftermarkets. To learn more, visit www.ppg.com. Forward-Looking Statements The forward-looking statements contained herein include statements relating to the timing of and expected benefits of the Whitford Worldwide Company acquisition. Actual events may differ materially from current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including the satisfaction of the conditions of the acquisition and other risks related to completion of the acquisition and actions related thereto; the parties' ability to complete the acquisition on the anticipated terms and schedule, including the ability to obtain regulatory approvals; the ability of PPG to achieve the expected benefits of the acquisition; and the other risks and uncertainties discussed in PPG's periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and its current reports on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We protect and beautify the world and Colorful Communities are trademarks and the PPG Logo is a registered trademark of PPG Industries Ohio, Inc. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005202/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] L3 Technologies Charts Future Course for Government Aviation Connectivity with Intelsat General's New FlexAir Service Intelsat (News - Alert) S.A. (NYSE: I), the world's leading provider of satellite services and integrated communications, announced today that L3 Technologies will market FlexAir to United States government aviation users. FlexAir will deliver high-performing, resilient broadband service for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions as well as in-flight communications for government officials, troops, and cargo aircraft. By incorporating FlexAir into its service offerings, L3 will have immediate access to Intelsat's global, flexible and proven Ku-band satellite fleet, including the Intelsat EpicNG high-throughput satellites (HTS). FlexAir is unique; it is the first commercially available aeronautical service for 45cm-performance equivalent Ku-band antennas to be provided to the government as a managed service with a predictable and affordable cost structure. FlexAir will enable government users to select several service offerings and allow them to choose the right plan based on their data rate and geographic needs without having to make an upfront commitment. "It is great to have an industry leader such as L3 partner with us to offer FlexAir services," said Skot Butler, Intelsat General's President. "The scalability of FlexAir's seamless, global Ku-band network will ensure that L3's U.S. aviation customers can immediately and easily access fast, high-quality broadband connectivity whenever and wherever they need it. The flexibility and high data rate transmissions delivered by the FlexAir service will ensure that user have the maximum mobility they need to meet their mission-critical requirements." Charlie Daniels, President of L3 GCS (News - Alert), said, "Given evolving market demands, FlexAir will provide our government customers with the global access, guaranteed availability and agility needed for missions that have routes and requirements that can change in an instant. Intelsat General's multi-layered, seamless service will ensure that we can deliver a high-performing, resilient and reliable broadband service that is cost-effective and, most importantly, tailored to our users' needs." Supporting Materials: FlexAir Resource Center About Intelsat General Intelsat General (IGC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intelsat, operator of the world's first Globalized Network. IGC provides its government and commercial customers with high-quality, cost-effective, communications solutions via Intelsat's leading satellite backbone and terrestrial infrastructure. Our customers rely on IGC to provide secure and seamless broadband connectivity, video communications, and mobility services for mission-critical operations anywhere on the globe through our open, interoperable architecture. www.intelsatgeneral.com About L3 Technologies L3 Technologies is an agile innovator and leading provider of global ISR, communications and networked systems, and electronic systems for military, homeland security and commercial aviation customers. With headquarters in New York City and approximately 31,000 employees worldwide, L3 develops advanced defense technologies and commercial solutions in pilot training, aviation security, night vision and EO/IR, weapons, maritime systems and space. The company reported 2017 sales of $9.6 billion. To learn more about L3, please visit the company's website at www.L3T.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005028/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Simwood Poised for Major USA Expansion as a Carrier BRISTOL, England, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Simwood, the innovative UK wholesale VoIP provider headquartered in Bristol, is pleased to announce that expansion gathers pace across the United States. The first step was the attainment of Legal status in 2017 as a Carrier with accreditations for both Competitive Local Exchange Carrier "CLEC" and Interconnected VoIP carrier (known as Internet Protocol Enabled Services) "IPES". US porting and numbering are already available! Now, Simwood are about to gain a licence as an Interexchange carrier "IXC", a U.S. legal and regulatory term for a telecommunication company, commonly called a long-distance telephone company. Simwood CEO, Simon Woodhead, commented: "this will be a game changer for us. There are many 10,000's of companies within the United States offering VoIP and other telecommunications services, but a relatively few with full Carrier status. It empowers us now to compete with anyone over there. I can't wait!" The significance for Simwood is not just the huge market opportunity available, but, in particular, the otential impact of the Company's market leading fraud abatement tools for enterprise customers. Tom Hadden, Simwood Inc.'s new COO explains: "our fraud abatement tools for Enterprise customers provide the ability to avoid fraudulent calls in real time. That can save Enterprise customers many thousands of dollars in monthly invoicing and recovery efforts. The key differentiating factor here is that Simwood is one of the very first companies to bring this level of Fraud Management to the US Enterprise market. That offers us a real competitive edge." About Simwood ( https://simwood.com/ ) Founded by Simon Woodhead, CEO, Simwood has been providing wholesale VoIP carrier and valued added innovative services within the UK and globally for over 20 years. Our IP Network is entirely operated and owned in-house, supported by market leading encryption, to maintain the highest levels of security against fraud and architected so a failure (which will happen) doesn't lead to an outage. We have a pathological hatred of network congestion and so proactively upgrade infrastructure to maintain dramatic over-capacity and high availability. We believe in authenticity, honesty and providing the very best customer care. Contact: Alister Ross +44 7432 594795 or +330 122 3030 [email protected] Simwood, Simwood House, Cube M4 Business Park, Old Gloucester Road, Bristol BS16 1FX, UK View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/simwood-poised-for-major-usa-expansion-as-a-carrier-300765099.html SOURCE Simwood [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Vidyard Reorders Stakeholder List, Ranks 'Community' Above 'Investors' in Bold Move for Tech KITCHENER, Ontario, Dec. 14, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vidyard , the leading video platform for business, has prioritized the companys commitment to Community as a key stakeholder. By reordering their stakeholder list, and ranking Community above Investors, Vidyard makes a bold move for a technology company. Vidyard hopes to inspire similar organizations to build programming and initiatives to support their local communities and to do so in a way that is core to the way they do business. Throughout 2018, Vidyard solidified community engagement programming and community initiatives, contributing to the building of a give back strategy that inspires others - and its all backed by Vidyards board of directors Vidyard Stakeholder List: 1. Customers 2. Employees 3. Community 4. Investors Community is one of Vidyards top priority stakeholders, alongside its Customers, Employees, and Investors-- and Vidyards board is on board. Shifting the order of our stakeholder list may seem like an unconventional idea, but its an idea that works well for us and our employees, says Michael Litt , CEO and Co-Founder of Vidyard. When we publicly reordered our shareholders this way, we took a stance that above all, Community counts. Our board agreed. Throughout 2018, Vidyard staff and leadership teams all got involved: Served more than 1750 meals to the House of Friendship, a Kitchener-based organization that provides support services for those dealing with poverty, hunger, homelessness, and addiction. to the House of Friendship, a Kitchener-based organization that provides support services for those dealing with poverty, hunger, homelessness, and addiction. Logged more than 600+ volunteer hours at the House of Friendship, as well as through outreach programming with LAUNCH Waterloo, THEMUSEUM, Catalyst at the University of Waterloo, and others. at the House of Friendship, as well as through outreach programming with LAUNCH Waterloo, THEMUSEUM, Catalyst at the University of Waterloo, and others. Supported 14 local charities , including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, House of Friendship, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre, Sustainable Waterloo Region, KidsAbility Centre for Child Development, Carizon Family And Community Services, Canadian Blood Services, Reception House Waterloo Region, Community Support Connections, Grand River Hospital, Kitchener Public Library, Child Witness Centre, Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region, and YWCA Kitchener-Waterloo. , including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, House of Friendship, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre, Sustainable Waterloo Region, KidsAbility Centre for Child Development, Carizon Family And Community Services, Canadian Blood Services, Reception House Waterloo Region, Community Support Connections, Grand River Hospital, Kitchener Public Library, Child Witness Centre, Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region, and YWCA Kitchener-Waterloo. Hosted 10 community-focused events including programming to support LGBTQ+ in Technology, True North, Velocity, Making Space, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada Night, University of Guelph - English as a Second Language, Ladies Learning Code and others. including programming to support LGBTQ+ in Technology, True North, Velocity, Making Space, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada Night, University of Guelph - English as a Second Language, Ladies Learning Code and others. Generated $15,000 in community donations , including gifts to support organizations involved in building a flourishing local arts and culture, developing entrepreneurship and leadership programming, aiding healthcare and wellness, and community development. , including gifts to support organizations involved in building a flourishing local arts and culture, developing entrepreneurship and leadership programming, aiding healthcare and wellness, and community development. Hosted 5 Plugin events, including Canada, supporting the Child Witness Centre, Fatal Friday, supporting Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region, Chill, supporting YWCA Kitchener-Waterloo, Laughs & Lagers, supporting KidsAbility Centre for Child Development, and Temple of Terror, supporting Carizon Family And Community Services. Vidyard Pledges 1% Commitment to its Community and Beyond Vidyard is part of the Pledge 1% program, an easy way for companies to leverage a portion of their future success to support nonprofits in their community. As a recognized member, Vidyard has committed to donating at least 1% of the companys time, product, resourcing and space to supporting non-profits in the region. Its a small commitment today that can make a huge impact tomorrow. One of the amazing things about Pledge 1% is that there is no prescribed list of how to and when to implement formal giving-back programs, says Laura Flatt , Community Engagement Program Manager at Vidyard. Pledge 1% encourages businesses to start where they are today, then works to encourage them to think about what they can do into the future. Community Giving as a Defining Part of Vidyard Culture Volunteering is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to give back to a local community while showcasing corporate values through the simple act of giving time. Volunteering also introduces and educates employees about local charities, not-for-profit organizations, and volunteer opportunities in their own backyards. Simply spreading the word on who needs help most industriously pursued our staff to get out and volunteer on their own time. For example, on #GivingTuesday, a national day of giving that took place on November 24th, Vidyard launched its annual Food Drive. Once a year, the entire company is divided into teams, and each competes to collect the most non-perishable food items and funds for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region. Competition aside, employees look forward to this each holiday. This year, Vidyard even added an extra annual challenge by including key items that are in high-demand in the region; socks and winter coats. Employees will be donating these items to The Working Centre, a non-profit, community-based, venture that provides access to tools and opportunities to build community projects in the region. We constantly hear from our job seekers and employees that theyre focused on finding work within companies that offer them the opportunity to make meaningful contributions alongside passionate people, says Lisa Brown, Vidyards VP of Talent. The company had already been participating in many activities internally through various grassroots initiatives. Vidyard will continue to prioritize giving back through weekly volunteering, mentorship programming through local STEAM/STEM initiatives, blood drives, large-scale company-wide events, and even Plugin, community events that bring together young professionals in fun and unconventional ways to connect, build and maintain our community. More Information: This CEOs One-Page List For Keeping His Priorities Straight: https://www.fastcompany.com/40447916/this-ceos-one-page-list-for-keeping-his-priorities-straight 10 Creative Ways Your Organization Can Give Back: https://pledgeitforward.today/10-creative-ways-your-organization-can-give-back-to-your-community/ Startup CSR: How To Give Back When You're Just Getting Off The Ground: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/08/13/startup-csr-how-to-give-back-when-youre-just-getting-off-the-ground/#46c92b75b593 Vidyard Careers : https://www.vidyard.com/careers/ : Plugin Events: http://pluginkw.com/ About Vidyard Vidyard is the video platform for business that helps organizations drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, LinkedIn, Citibank and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewers into customers. Media Contact: Sandy Pell, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, Vidyard [email protected] A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/865f2f06-091c-4c79-92d1-1e16795d328f [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] FHLBank Pittsburgh Announces $7 Million in Grants to Help Fight Homelessness FHLBank Pittsburgh, in conjunction with its housing finance agency partners, announced today that more than $7 million in Home4Good grants has been awarded this year to support 80 programs in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in their fight against homelessness. The Bank contributed $4.8 million to the initiative in 2018, and its partners - the Delaware State Housing Authority, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency and the West Virginia Housing Development Fund - contributed an additional $2.25 million. "FHLBank Pittsburgh is proud to partner with our member institutions, state housing finance agencies and community organizations across Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the ongoing fight against homelessness," said Winthrop Watson, President and Chief Executive Officer. "The $7 million in Home4Good grants announced today will provide much-needed funding to local service organizations that are best positioned to help those in need." Home4Good helps those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness by financially supporting local homeless service organizations that focus on prevention and innovative solutions. Organizatios partner with Bank member institutions to apply for Home4Good funding through established Continuum of Care agencies across the three states. To learn more about Home4Good, visit www.fhlb-pgh.com. Additional state-specific details are available at www.destatehousing.com, www.phfa.org and www.wvhdf.com. About FHLBank Pittsburgh As an intermediary between global capital markets and local lenders, FHLBank Pittsburgh provides readily available liquidity, as well as affordable housing and community development opportunities, to member financial institutions of all sizes in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The Bank is part of the Federal Home Loan Bank System, which was established by Congress in 1932 and serves as a reliable source of funds for housing, jobs and growth in all economic cycles. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005301/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Government of Canada to invest in national initiatives for automation and digital technologies in the agriculture and agri-food sector Innovation funding competition will help create jobs and spur the growth of Canadian companies SAINT-JEAN-SUR-RICHELIEU, QC, Dec. 14, 2018 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada continues to spur innovation by investing in the agriculture and agri-food industry, creating good middle-class jobs and ensuring the sector punches above its weight in a competitive global market. Today, Jean-Claude Poissant, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, launched a new funding competition, through the Strategic Innovation Fund, for national scale initiatives in automation and digital technology applications in the agriculture and agri-food sector. Funding of between $10 million and $50 million will be provided to a successful applicant in the competition. Automation and digital technologies are changing the face of agriculture and agri-food value chains. To capitalize on these changes, the Government is seeking applications for funding from networks and consortia of private sector companies, researchers and non-profit organizations that will work collaboratively to develop and deliver automation and digital technology applications for the agriculture and agri-food sector. The Government is seeking proposals for the development and delivery of large-scale, disruptive approaches to automation and digital technologies with applications in the agriculture and agri-food sectors. Proposals should: solve problems through the use of data and technology in the agriculture and agri-food sector, such as automation and robotics, precision agriculture platforms, data and digital solutions, sensors, interconnected software and hardware, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain; /li> include collaborations between businesses (including small and medium-sized enterprises), post-secondary institutions, research institutes, and non-profit organizations from multiple sectors across Canada ; ; generate strong economic and social benefits, such as private sector investments in R&D, the creation of new intellectual property and innovations, and the development and implementation of new products, processes and services; and bring about positive environmental impacts, such as the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, food waste, water usage and energy consumption. January 11, 2019 , to submit a Declaration of Intent. The information contained in the Declaration of Intent will be posted online in an effort to foster collaboration among potential applicants. Applicants will have until March 1, 2019 , to submit a Full Application for funding under this competition. These commitments support the Agri-Food Economic Strategy Table's aim to scale up capacity and boost productivity by investing in innovation, increasing market access, and adopting automation and digitization. Quotes "Digital innovation and technologies have the power to improve food safety, reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture and food production, and create good middle-class jobs. Our government is taking action to ensure our agriculture and agri-food sectors continue to punch above their weight in a competitive global market while delivering good, healthy and sustainable food to Canadians and international markets at a fair price." The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development "Canada's agriculture and food processing sectors have always been fertile ground for innovation. By bringing together private sector companies, post-secondary institutions and non-profit organizations, our government is ensuring Canadian farmers and producers have the latest tools and technologies to take full advantage of the digital age." The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food "Through this exciting new competition, we're bringing together the best of Canada's digital technology, agriculture and agri-food sectors to create new solutions and opportunities in a fast-changing global market. By doing so, we're ensuring Canadians are well positioned to lead and create jobs in the digital economy for middle-class families." Jean-Claude Poissant, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Quick facts In 2016 the agri-food industry contributed $49.4 billion to Canada's GDP and employed approximately 575,800 people. to GDP and employed approximately 575,800 people. This investment is being made through the Strategic Innovation Fund, a program designed to attract and support high-quality business investments across all sectors of the economy by encouraging R&D that will accelerate technology transfer and the commercialization of innovative products, processes and services and will facilitate the growth of innovative firms. In addition to the Strategic Innovation Fund, there are numerous programs and services to help businesses innovate, create jobs and grow Canada's economy. With a simple, story-based user interface, the Innovation Canada platform can match businesses with the most fitting programs and services in about two minutes. Associated link Strategic Innovation Fund Follow Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada on Twitter: @ISED_CA SOURCE Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Announces Investigation on Behalf of XPO Logistics, Inc. Investors (XPO) Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM") announces an investigation on behalf of XPO Logistics, Inc. investors ("XPO" or the "Company") (NYSE: XPO) 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 December 12, 2018, Spruce Point Capital Management ("Spruce Point") published a rport asserting that a "forensic investigation" into XPO had revealed "financial irregularities that conveniently cover [the Company's] growing financial strain and inability to complete additional acquisitions despite repeated promises." Specifically, Spruce Point reported that it had discovered, among other issues, "concrete evidence to suggest dubious tax accounting, under-reporting of bad debts, phantom income through unaccountable M&A earn-out labilities, and aggressive amortization assumptions: all designed to portray glowing 'Non-GAAP' results." On this news, XPO's share price fell $15.77 per share, or more than 26%, to close at $44.50 on December 13, 2018, thereby injuring investors. Follow us for updates on Twitter (News - Alert): twitter.com/GPM_LLP. If you purchased XPO 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 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/20181214005393/en/ [December 14, 2018] AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of Agrinational Insurance Company and Its Subsidiaries AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) of "a-" of Agrinational Insurance Company (Burlington, VT) and its wholly owned subsidiaries (collectively referred to as ADM Insurance Group). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. The ratings reflect ADM Insurance Group's balance sheet strength, which AM Best categorizes as strongest, as well as its adequate operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). The affirmation of the ratings reflects the strongest measures of risk-adjusted capitalization and implicit support provided by the group's ultimate parent, Archer Daniels Midland Company [NYSE:ADM]. Its operating performance experiences volatility occasionally due to its high net retention on property exposures. Nonetheless, the operating performance of the insurance entities has been adequate due to the low cost-expense structure and focus on ERM. Consequently, ADM Insurance Group has produced positive net income for the past five years. In May 2017, Agrinational Insurance Company sold its subsidiary, ADM Crop Risk Services, Inc., to Validus Holdings, Ltd., which resulted in significant reduction of Agrinational Insurance Company's premium volume. This has reshaped the strategic alignment of insurance operations in relationship to the ultimate parent from a captive with third-party business to that of a pure captive. The FSR of A- (Excellent) and Long-Term ICRs of "a-" have been affirmed with stable outlooks for Agrinational Insurance Company and its following wholly owned subsidiaries: ADMInsurance Company Agrinational Illinois Insurance Company A.M. Best remains the leading rating agency of alternative risk transfer entities, with more than 200 such vehicles rated in the United States and throughout the world. For current Best's Credit Ratings and independent data on the captive and alternative risk transfer insurance market, please visit www.ambest.com/captive. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Understanding Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper media use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best press releases, please view Guide for Media - Proper Use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best Rating Action Press Releases. AM 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/20181214005397/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Crestview Completes Acquisition of Elo Touch Solutions from The Gores Group The Gores Group ("Gores") and funds managed by Crestview Partners ("Crestview") today announced that Crestview has completed the acquisition of Elo Touch Solutions ("Elo" or the "Company"), a global information and communications technology services and solutions provider. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Headquartered in Milpitas, CA (News - Alert), Elo is a global leader in commercial digital interactivity solutions with over 45 years of history since its founding as the original inventor of the touchscreen. Elo is an established provider of touch computing products, which today includes point of sale terminals, interactive kiosks, healthcare / industrial process control interfaces and other interactive customer-facing Internet of Things devices. The Company has over 20 million installs worldwide and focuses on serving commercial end markets, including restaurants, retail, industrial, healthcare, banking and other industries. The Gores Group acquired Elo from TE Connectivity (News - Alert) (NYSE: TEL) in June 2012. "Crestview seeks to invest in industrials companies with leading technologies at an inflection point in their growth trajectory," said Alex Rose, Partner of Crestview and co-head of the firm's industrials strategy. "Elo's enterprise network touchscreen solutions are well positioned to increasingly help create differentiated interactive experiences for customers around the world. We are excited to partner with Craig Witsoe and the rest of the Elo team to help drive the Company's next stage of growth." Craig Witsoe, Chief Executive Officer of Elo, said: "We are excited about working with Crestview and leveraging their broad resources to help take Elo to the next levels of growth and innovation for our customers. Crestview's investment strategy, culture, and focus on long-term business success on a global scale is a great fit for Elo's future. "Elo is well positioned having created multiple industry-leading solutions for our customers with our hardware, SaaS (News - Alert) software, secure cloud connect, and component technologies," Witsoe continued. "We have also invested in new manufacturing, operational and systems improvements, sales and marketing excellence and, most of all, building an incredible Elo team. We are proud of the results we have achieved in partnership with Alec Gores and are thankful to Alec, Steve Yager and the entire Gores team for their strong support." "Elo's transformation during our ownership is a testament to our strong partnership with the Company's management team and our shared commitment to operational excellence and innovation," said Alec Gores, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Gores Group. "We thoroughly enjoyed working alongside Craig Witsoe, who has been a two-time CEO for Gores, to complete a carve-out of the business and invest heavily in people, technology and infrastructure over the yeas. As a result, Elo has achieved strong financial performance and is well positioned for continued growth and success." Moelis & Company LLC acted as the sole financial advisor to Elo and Gores in this transaction. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP served as Gores' legal counsel. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP served as Crestview's legal counsel. About Elo Elo is a global leader in touchscreen solutions including point of sale systems, self-service and interactive signage displays from 10 to 70 inches. The inventor of the touchscreen, Elo now has 20+ million retail and hospitality installations in 80+ countries. The Elo touchscreen experience has consistently stood for quality, reliability and innovation. Elo intellectual property is protected by global patent, trademark and design registrations. Learn more about Elo's interactive displays at EloTouch.com. Follow Elo on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. About Crestview Founded in 2004, Crestview is a value-oriented private equity firm focused on the middle market. The firm is based in New York and manages funds with approximately $9 billion of aggregate capital commitments. The firm is led by a group of partners who have complementary experience and distinguished backgrounds in private equity, finance, operations and management. Crestview has senior investment professionals focused on sourcing and managing investments in each of the specialty areas of the firm: industrials, media, energy and financial services. For more information, please visit www.crestview.com. About The Gores Group The Gores Group, founded in 1987 by Alec Gores, is a global investment firm focused on partnering with differentiated businesses that can benefit from its extensive industry knowledge, decades long experience and flexible capital base. Over its 30 year history, the firm has developed a deep understanding of and appreciation for building businesses and creating value alongside management. Headquartered in Los Angeles, The Gores Group maintains offices in Greenwich, CT and Boulder, CO. For more information, please visit www.gores.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005452/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Effenco secures major investor for a $12M Series A Financing BDC to invest $6 million in Effenco MONTREAL, Dec. 14, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Effenco, a leading company in electric and connected mobility has secured a major investor to fuel its rapid growth and market expansion. This $6 million investment by BDC is part of the bank's support for high-potential Canadian cleantech innovators. Investissement Quebec also participated in this round. This major investment comes in the aftermath of an exceptional year for Effenco which expanded its market to France, Norway and California and supported its sales effort by hiring 13 high skilled workers. This notable development is bolstered by long lasting relationship with Derichebourg, the City of New York and other returning customers. Effenco was recently awarded the 'Prix Rayonnement a l'exterieur du Quebec' at the EnviroLys Gala, recognizing its noteworthy performance in foreign markets. "We are extremely pleased to be working with BDC to sustain the continued growth of our Active Stop-StartTM System and commercialize a new connected and intelligent platform," says David Arsenault, CEO of Effenco Development Inc. "We are confident that the credibility that comes with BDC's endorsement will contribute to showcase Effenco as a world leader along with its exceptional year." The investment is part of BDC's $700-million, five-year commitment announced last January to help high-potential Canadian cleantech firms with market-ready technology or products meet the capital-intensive needs of scaling and achieving timely growth. The partnership between Effenco and BDC's Cleantech Practice will give further momentum to Effenco'svision of developing the world's most flexible and efficient heavy vehicle solutions to reduce fleet fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions. "Effenco's exciting technology has a proven and compelling value proposition, payback and performance, and the company is well positioned to scale up its manufacturing business model," says Susan Rohac, Vice-President Cleantech Practice at BDC. "Global opportunities abound for Canadian Cleantech firms and BDC's Cleantech practice is there to help them meet the capital-intensive needs of scaling and achieving timely growth." "When we help clean technologies scale up, we support our whole economy. Innovations in clean technology are creating good jobs and helping to meet our climate change goals to benefit all Canadians," says The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development." Effenco's pioneering Active Stop-StartTM System is compatible with the 500 thousand vocational heavy trucks sold every year in North America and Europe. The financing will partly be used to claim a share of this market. With BDC's investment, Effenco will also capitalize on the local artificial intelligence expertise of this nascent industry to commercialize a software-as-a-service that can detect problems and interpret behavioural, mechanical and logistics problems in seconds. About Effenco Effenco connects and electrifies heavy vocational trucks to reduce operational costs and emissions with a hybrid plug-and-play technology and a fleet management software. The hybrid Active Stop-StartTM electric technology has been validated by a growing list of blue-chip customers in Canada, New York, California, France and Norway on waste trucks, dump trucks and yard tractors. The nearly 40 employees Montreal based company develops its solutions around the meticulous analysis of empirical data collected continuously since 2006. The technology, resulting from over 10 years of R&D and substantial investment, automatically stops a truck's engine when it is stationary while continuing to provide electric power for auxiliary equipment, saving up to 30 tons of GHG emissions per truck annually. Effenco offers the most-cost effective electric vehicle technology on the market. Effenco's sizable data set combined to its resident in-depth mechanical-electrical engineering expertise and knowledge of heavy vehicles are the foundations on which its technology's value proposition has been developed and adopted by a growing base of customers globally. About BDC BDC is the only bank devoted exclusively to entrepreneurs. It promotes Canadian entrepreneurship with a focus on small and medium-sized businesses. With its 123 business centres from coast to coast, BDC provides businesses in all industries with financing and advisory services. Its investment arm, BDC Capital, offers equity, venture capital and flexible growth and transition capital solutions. BDC is also the first financial institution in Canada to receive B Corp certification. To find out more, visit bdc.ca. SOURCE Business Development Bank of Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [December 14, 2018] Granite Point Mortgage Trust Inc. Board of Directors Appoints Stephen G. Kasnet to Role of Chairman Granite Point Mortgage Trust Inc. (NYSE: GPMT), today announced that Stephen G. Kasnet, Lead Independent Director of the Board of Directors, has been appointed as Chairman. In connection with Mr. Kasnet's appointment, Brian Taylor announced that he is stepping down from his position as Chairman and member of the Board in order to more fully focus on the business and operations of Pine River Capital Management L.P., for which he serves as the Chief Executive Officer. "The Board is pleased to announce the appointment of Stephen Kasnet as its Chairman," stated Jack Taylor, Granite Point's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Steve has been an integral member of our Board, serving as our Lead Independent Director since our inception in June 2017. We are also thankful for Brian's dedication and contributions to the Board." Granite Point Mortgage Trus www.gpmortgagetrust.com. Additional Information Stockholders of Granite Point and other interested persons may find additional information regarding the company at the Securities and Exchange Commission's Internet site at www.sec.gov or by directing requests to: Granite Point Mortgage Trust Inc., 590 Madison Avenue, 38th floor, New York, NY 10022, telephone (212) 364-3200 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181214005539/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] (Image credit: bestfoto77/Shutterstock) Microsoft is offering artificial intelligence researchers the chance to win part of $25,000 by predicting if a machine is likely to be targeted by malware. The company isn't content to protect Windows systems after they're attacked--it also wants to harden their defenses if they seem like good targets. Think of it like Batman foiling the Joker's plot before he attacks Gotham City rather than just helping people board up their windows. The competition, which counts Northeastern University and the Georgia Institute of Technology as its academic partners, will run until March 2019. It's being hosted by Kaggle, a platform where data scientists collaborate and compete with each other to move their projects forward. That's exactly the kind of community Microsoft wants to have solve this problem, especially after its previous Kaggle-hosted competition proved successful. Microsoft said in a blog post that competitors will have access to 9.4GB of anonymized data from 16.8 million devices. It also explained that it took steps during the sampling process to protect user privacy, so there shouldn't be identifying data involved (in case you thought Microsoft might expose sensitive information while trying to protect it....like Batman throwing someone off a building so they wouldn't get punched in the face). This sampling method should help defend user privacy then, but Microsoft said it could also frustrate competitors as they dig into the dataset: "Malware detection is inherently a time-series problem, but it is made complicated by the introduction of new machines, machines that come online and offline, machines that receive patches, machines that receive new operating systems, etc. While the dataset provided here has been roughly split by time, the complications and sampling requirements mentioned above may mean you may see imperfect agreement between your cross validation, public, and private scores! Additionally, this dataset is not representative of Microsoft customers machines in the wild; it has been sampled to include a much larger proportion of malware machines." Interested researchers have until March 6, 2019 to submit their work for consideration. The competition proper will end on March 13. Microsoft is offering $25,000 in total prizes: the first place team will receive $12,000 and prizes steadily fall from there to $1,000 for whichever team comes in fifth. That pales in comparison to a bug bounty, which rewards those who disclose vulnerabilities in products, but is still a decent chunk of change. What happens if the golden goose starts laying regular eggs? Thats probably a good thing for someone whod rather eat an egg than melt one down, but for the gooses owner, going back to selling food instead of precious metal would suck. This is pretty much whats happening with Nvidia. The companys share price continues to plummet from the highs reached during the cryptocurrency mining craze when eager miners purchased so many graphics cards the entire market changed. Now SoftBank, its largest backer, is reportedly mulling dumping its stock in the graphics giant. You probably know what happened next: Nvidia increased supply of its GPUs right as miners lost interest because it wasnt really feasible to turn a profit anymore. The company thought it would finally meet demand; it ended up exceeding it. This was good for enthusiaststhey could finally buy graphics cards for reasonable prices instead of having to watch miners push them out of the market. But for Nvidia, the missed expectations led to oversupply and then to falling share prices. The golden goose had gone back to laying edible eggs. Now, according to Bloomberg, that change has inspired SoftBank to sell its stake in Nvidia for a $3 billion profit. (Although the deal isnt finalized and the investment groups plans could change.) SoftBanks motivation is clear. Nvidias share price has fallen from its $289.36 peak to $147.83 at time of writing. Investment groups dont hold on to stock like that when the peaks conditionsin this case, the Ethereum boomare unlikely to be replicated. Nvidia has other problems, too. Some 20 percent of its revenue came from China, and with rising tensions between the U.S. and the country responsible for one-fifth of Nvidias revenues, investors are probably concerned by that as well. Combine all that with the dubious reaction to RTX graphics cards and their up to $1,200 price tags and things get even murkier. Should the company exacerbate its crypto blunder by eating the cost of existing mid-range cards to offer new options? We dont know. But it seems clear that Nvidias share price is unlikely to stabilize any time soon. There are too many factors at play, from the crypto market to Americas relations with China, to predict how the company will fare heading into 2019. At least we know what happens if the golden goose cant live up to its promise: its owner sells it off to someone who doesnt mind eating a few eggs while they wait to see if things go back to the way they were. It still sucks for the goose, though. Free First & Foremost 7 Free Holiday Things To Do In Kansas City This Weekend As everyone should know, it's better to give than to receive. But what if it's free? Then is receiving just as cool? Wow, that got deep in a hurry. Suffice it to say that whichever end you may be on this holiday season - bestowing or getting - this weekend's sampling of free holiday activities is a win-win during the most wonderful time of the year. 1st Responder Heroes In The Exburbs Two Lee's Summit officers credited with saving woman trapped in duplex fire Two Lee's Summit, Missouri police officers are being credited with saving the life of an elderly woman trapped in her bedroom during a house fire overnight. Ted Keehler got home from work to find his duplex on fire. His wife, who is deaf, was still inside. Settling Police Shootout Family of man shot by police after seizure has reached million-dollar settlement KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- The four daughters and the mother of a Missouri man who was shot and killed by a police officer after the man suffered an epileptic seizure, has reached a million-dollar settlement in his death. The shooting happened nearly three years ago in Republic, Missouri near Springfield, but the settlement agreement happened Thursday in Kansas City. Justice For KCMO Gunfire Survivor Even More Revival Hope/Hype Seg. 1: Kansas City's "Revive The East Side" Plan. Seg. 2: Kansas Citian Puts Jazz Flute In Front. Segment 1: Initiative to improve neighborhoods east of Troost Avenue calls for $13 million but fails to identify a source for the needed funds. Ambitious in its scope, an ordinance approved by the Kansas City Council looks to remediate blight, help with home improvement and economic development, and combat gentrification in the eastern parts of the city. Kansas City Hottie Swan Song Sympathetic Vibrations | The Goodbye Girls In September, the Facebook page for local blues rock trio Katy Guillen and the Girls was hit with a torrent of crying emojis from fans - 243 to be exact - in response to a post announcing that the band would be going on "an indefinite hiatus." Local History Gift Idea Negro Leagues bobbleheads part of fundraising campaign KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Fans of the former Negro Leagues are being asked to help a campaign to create bobbleheads of 30 stars from the league - with a goal of commemorating the league's upcoming centennial. The hottie culture war continues during despite the holiday season:Closer to home, these news links are an appropriate way to start the day:is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . . U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill gave an emotional farewell speech Thursday, thanking her family, staff and supporters, but also criticizing the Senate, saying the legislative body has become dysfunctional. "We have too many embarrassing uncles in the United States Senate," she said from the institution's floor. "Lots of embarrassing stuff. BEIJING, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Coercive measures have been taken against two Canadians on suspicion of jeopardizing China's national security, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said Thursday. According to China's Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of State Security and the state security bureau in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong in Liaoning Province respectively took coercive measures against the two people according to the law on Dec. 10, Lu said. "According to what I know, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of State Security and Liaoning Provincial Bureau of State Security have notified the Canadian Embassy in Beijing," Lu said. "The two persons' lawful rights have been guaranteed." Lu said China has always maintained a positive and open attitude while communicating with the outside world. "China welcomes foreign tourists and citizens to travel to China to carry out normal friendly exchanges, including doing business and studying," he said. "As long as they abide by Chinese laws and regulations, there is actually nothing to worry about." From January to November 2018, Canadians made 780,000 visits to China, said Lu, adding that this figure is much higher than the number of Chinese citizens visiting Canada during the same period. Lu said the figures are partly indicative. "Whether China is safe or not, the people of Canada can make their own judgment." Kansas City Creeper Doc Hard Time Former Kansas City Doctor Sentenced To 10 Years After Pleading Guilty To Child Enticement A pediatric rheumatologist who once worked at Children's Mercy Hospital was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday after he pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor. In his guilty plea agreement in September, Mark Franklin Hoeltzel admitted that he created a fake Facebook persona under the name "Ryan Gardner" to contact minor girls, including an 8th grader from whom he requested sexually explicit photographs. Help Find This Local Lady Multiple Charges For The Holidays North Kansas City woman indicted for stealing more than $115K from employer KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- A North Kansas City woman has been indicted for embezzling $116,367 from her employer. Tonya Topel, 41, was charged in an 11-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City on Wednesday. According to the indictment, Topel worked at SunSource Homes, Inc., from October 2016 to April 2018 as the officer manager and accountant. Creeper Gamer Charges Registered JoCo sex offender had child porn on his Xbox | The Kansas City Star A man on probation in Johnson County for a sex-related crime is facing a new charge after child pornography was allegedly found on his Xbox gaming system. He was booked into the jail on Thursday night. Golden Ghetto Gunfire Report Shawnee police investigate after person shoots at occupied vehicle SHAWNEE, KS (KCTV) - Someone in Shawnee was uninjured after an individual shot at their vehicle while they were inside. The vehicle was hit by gunfire at about 2 a.m. on Tuesday in the 10900 block of 65th Place. Police said they did not find any buildings in the area that were hit by the gunfire. Quick peek of some of the more interesting local crime stories accompanied bysent by one of our best and brightest readers. Here's more:Developing . . . Now that the car industry is tightening emission rules, and the world is moving towards electrification and adopting the technology wholeheartedly, we enthusiasts are close to losing our minds. No doubt, electric cars are good, but they do not offer the same spiritual experience that a car with an internal combustion engine does. A German startup says it has developed a technology that uses microwaves to help counter emissions output to a certain extent. A good way to let the combustion engines as well as electric powertrains co-exist in harmony To Think Of It, We Observe This In Our Kitchens Everyday! The German startup, Micro Wave Ignition AG, says that it has developed a technology that can cut consumption of gasoline and diesel by as much as 30-percent and emissions by as much as 80-percent. Using pulsed microwaves to ignite fuel rather than spark plugs or glow plugs, the fuel burns at a lower temperature, thus cutting down the emission and consumption levels. With such efficient engine technologies being developed, the engine as we know it can live for longer, which in turn will help increase industry profits as car manufacturers are spending heavily to ramp up production of electric vehicles in coming years. Micro Wave Ignition AG says that this system can be integrated into existing engine architecture rather than building a new setup altogether. About the Startup Micro Wave Ignition AG is based in the small Black Forest town of Empfingen. Dont judge this book by its cover because it has blessings of some very powerful investors. The former chief executive officer of Porsche AG, Wendelin Wiedeking, is one its shareholders. Wiedeking and a group of other private investors own about 20-percent of the startup that is controlled by its founders, Armin and Volker Gallatz. It Is Growing Rapidly According to sources, Micro Wave Ignition AG has given Macquarie Capital the responsibility to look for a buyer and international partner that can help to promote the new technology and increase the startups financial power. Several manufacturers are still investing in better combustion engines, and this technology will definitely help them. The company has begun talks with large automakers from South Korea and China, one of the people said. I am convinced that MWI is a disruptive innovation with huge market potential, Wiedeking was cited as saying in a document shared by the company. Our Take We need such technologies to be developed as soon as possible. Combustion engine are nearing extinction, and this will help them from getting displaced completely. However, we have still not seen a prototype or a live example. If the startups claims are true in the real-world, automakers will grasp this technology with all their might. Can we see this technology come into practice anytime soon? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Further reading Read more technology news. Good news for fans of The Grand Tour : The show is returning for a fourth season. Bad news for fans of The Grand Tour : The shows studio-dominated configuration is getting the heave-ho. Thats the word from Amazon, which announced the renewal of the hit motoring show for Season 4, albeit with big changes in the way for the upcoming season. Theres no timetable on when Season 4 comes out, but dont expect it to air until 2020. Season 3 hasnt even come out yet; thats on schedule to premiere on January 18, 2019. Amazons announcement comes with a lot of good news thats sprinkled with some lets-see-what-happens intrigue. First, the good news The Grand Tour is returning for a fourth season! More importantly, it looks like the show will continue to run for years to come, as Amazons one-paragraph release indicated. The show took a bit of time to find its footing, but if theres anything that Season 2 showed, its that the trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May still know how to work a room, even if sometimes they do seem like theyre talking way more than they should. We dont know what Season 3 has in store for us its scheduled to premiere on Amazon Prime on January 18, 2019 but from the looks of it, were going to be treated with more of the same style, setup, and shenanigans as the first two seasons. That brings us to the big change in format for Season 4. A big part of The Grand Tours current configuration is that it travels around the world for locations to do its show. That includes bringing the complete cast, crew, production folks, and the outsized tent that has become the chosen expression for its mobile studio. Apparently, thats all going to change in Season 4 because Amazon release also pointed out that the guys would ditch the tent to take on big adventure road trips. The shows on Twitter account doubled down on the announcement, peddling that same metaphorical tent to anyone who wants to buy it. Basically, the shows studio format will be gone in Season 4. Adding to that, the shows ten one-hour-episode format will also get parked in favor of big adventure road trips. This means that not only is the show axing the studio segment, but its also dropping all the content that comes with it. No more traditional reviews. No more Conversation Street. No more Celebrity Face Off. No more studio guests. Speaking with the U.K.s Sun publication, Clarkson confirmed the shows format change in Season 4, saying that I will miss the banter with each other and with the audience. He did acknowledge that the traditional format has probably run its course after doing it, effectively, for 17 years, most of it with Top Gear. There are only so many times you can watch a BMW go around the track what more can you say? Its got four wheels and a seat, he said, before adding, Im 58, and Im too fat to be climbing on to the stage. So now that The Grand Tours fourth season will focus more on big adventure road trips, the question begs: what can we expect? Well, if history has a word on it, we can at least expect similar shows to the Christmas Specials the trio used to have during their time on Top Gear. Remember the controversial road trip to Argentina? How about their excursion in the Amazon? The trio also tried to build a bridge over the Kwai river, find the birthplace of the Baby Jesus in Jerusalem, searched for the true source of the Nile river, and tried their luck improving the U.K.s trade relations with India. All those episodes received positive reviews. They also were the shows most controversial episodes, particularly the Patagonia special that ended abruptly because, well, lets just say the show pissed off local Argentinians for referencing intentionally or not a certain war that the South American nation lost to the U.K. Its hard to imagine Amazon giving The Grand Tour the same kind of leeway they had in their big adventures on Top Gear. Then again, part of the reason those episodes were memorable was because of all the controversy they generated. So perhaps the fourth season of The Grand Tour will be full of similar-type episodes. If that happens, a lot of people will be tuning in to see what kind of trouble Clarkson, May, and Hammond end up getting involved in. Further reading Read more The Grand Tour news. Source: Twitter - The Grand Tour Unveiled publically at this years Paris Motor Show, the EQC is Mercedes first bet for the new-generation EV market. Its a compact luxury SUV, similar to the gas-powered GLC-Class, that will be on the market next year. Mercedes-Benz revealed that it already put the EQC up against a few rigid structures for some in-house evaluatory crash tests at the Mercedes-Benz Technology Center for Vehicle Safety (TFS). The Mercedes-Benz EQC is the first all-electric model part of the EQ family, Mercedes range of vehicles designed from the get-go with electrification in mind. The EQC hasnt yet reached third-party crash testers such as the EURO NCAP or the NHTSA, but the car apparently passed with flying colors the German automakers own internal crash tests. Mercedes wants to convince you that its as safe as it is silent! How many will order the EQC in that particular shade of orange? Mercedes-Benz opened the reservation book for the EQC over 12 months ago. More recently, the first all-electric compact luxury SUV built by Mercedes-Benz was presented in Paris and, now, those customers that have already pre-ordered one can see how it copes with hitting a wall at a moderate speed. We'll have to wait a few more months until the Euro NCAP or the NHTSA get a hold of a few EQC chassis to bang'em against walls and guardrails so don't take Mercedes' word for granted. With that being said, the German manufacturer claims that it applied stringent safety standards to the battery and all component parts carrying electrical current. Mercedes also states that their own TFS crash-testing facility is the most advanced in the world and this helped them perfect some of the SUVs safety features. As an example, a new subframe was developed to surround the drive components up front, supported by the standard mounting points. The battery pack itself is also nestled within a frame thats part of the cars crash structure, and that keeps the battery in place in case of a serious side impact. Theres also protection in the frontal area of the battery as well as a general shutdown system that activates automatically in case of a crash. Depending on the nature and severity of the crash, the shutdown of the electric system can be reversible or not. Also, the charging procedure is stopped if the car gets hit at a quick-charging station DC station. The high-voltage system can also be de-activated manually through a number of kill switches that can be reached by emergency personnel, a safety feature thats been on racing cars for decades now. Mercedes also crash-tested the battery at the Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE center where a number of extreme scenarios were simulated such as extreme overheating, the heavy contact with foreign objects and others alike. Beyond the tests that were issued for the electric system, Mercedes team also tested other safety features of the car such as the seatbelts, the plethora of airbags that surrounds the cabin, and other safety solutions like the automatic activation of an emergency call that readily notifies rescue services. The EQC also comes with an electrically-adjustable steering column that lifts in case of a crash. After all these systems were put to the test, Mercedes vaguely boasted that "high levels of crash safety were achieved by the EQC. What does that really mean? We dont know because Mercedes didnt release any data or numbers so that we can compare with other Mercedes models or models from rivaling manufacturers. I guess we have to wait and see what other crash-testing organizations have to say about the EQC, but its safe to say - pun intended - that its no Fiat Panda! Thats not only because the first member of the EQ family - one of up to 10 new models by 2022 - doesnt crumble like the tiny Fiat, but also because no Panda could ever dream of having 402 horsepower and 564 pound-feet of torque on tap. Those are the numbers of the EQC 400 that comes with all-wheel drive, a modest top speed of 112 mph, and a range of just under 300 miles from its 80 kWh battery pack. The latter of which, by the way, can be fast-charged from 10 to 80% in just 40 minutes while energy recuperation under braking is a standard feature. Further Reading Read our full review on the 2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC. Read our full review on the 2016 MercedesBenz "Generation EQ" Concept. Mercedes EQC vs Mercedes Generation EQ Concept Mercedes EQC vs Tesla Model X About Kumaon Trekking Tour Packages The distant located Munsiyari and Pithoragarh make for the popular base points for almost all the important treks in Kumaon region. According to the level of difficulties, the treks in Kumaon are divided under three categories namely, easy, moderate and difficult. While Kafni Glacier (4000 m) and Pindari Glacier (3900 m) treks are the most preferred short treks in Kumaon Region, Milam Glacier (5486 m) and Sunderdhunga Base Camp (4100 m) treks make for the best moderate treks in the region. There are a number of difficult treks in Kumaon that may test the trekkers endurance and strength but reward them with unmatched views and experiences. Adikailash Trek (4770 m) and Nanda Devi East Base Camp (4250 m) are some of the most difficult and at the same time rewarding treks in Kumaon Region. The Nanda Devi East Base Camp also takes the maximum number of days (16-18 days) for trekking amongst all the treks in this region of Uttarakhand. Our Kumaon trekking packages designed specially for you are about exploring the remote villages that sit under the shadow of mighty snow-clad Himalayas. The simple lifestyle and rich culture will surely win your heart. As much as Kumaon is known for its great trekking trails, it is also popular for its hospitality which can be experienced in its remotely located hamlets. On most of the trekking trails in Kumaon, you will come across a number of streams and rivers like Gori Ganga, Kafni, and Pindar that accompany you almost everyday of the trek. One also have the opportunity to sight lofty Himalayan Peaks like Panchachuli, Hardeol, Trisuli, Rishi Pahar, Rajrambha, Chaudhara and more. The region also boasts sprawling meadows which make an excellent base for camping while trekking. Unlike the Garhwal Region, the meadows in Kumaon are lesser-known and thus, if you are trekking here in summer season, the velvety grass amidst wilderness comes as a pleasant surprise. Treehugger and our third-party partners use cookies and process personal data like unique identifiers based on your consent to store and/or access information on a device, display personalized ads and for content measurement, audience insight, and product development. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Treehugger.com, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, click below. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. List of Partners (vendors) pardeepdhull@gmail.com Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, December 14 The board of directors of the Reserve Bank of India under new Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday discussed the governance framework of the central bank and resolved to look deeper into the issue. The board deliberated on the governance framework of the RBI and it was decided that the matter needs further examination, a statement issued by the RBI said. According to the RBI, the meeting lasted for four hours and reviewed the current economic situation, both global and domestic challenges, matters relating to liquidity and credit delivery, and issues relating to currency management and financial literacy. The draft report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India (2017-18) was also discussed at the meet, the RBI said. This is the first board meeting following the sudden resignation of former governor Urjit Patel on Monday. At the last board meeting held on November 19, the board decided to constitute a committee of experts to study on the amount of contingency reserves that needed to be held by the central bank. The committee was to have members from both the RBI and the government. The committee is yet to be established, according to officials here. At present the RBIs board has 18 directors, including four Deputy Governors, four Directors from the RBIs local boards, two government nominees and those appointed by the government. shalender@tribune.com Mumbai, December 12 Under fire for the surprise resignation of Governor Urjit Patel, senior Union ministers today decried RBI policies as unreasonable and justified the discussions under the never-before-used Section 7. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while admitting that government has issues with the central bank on credit flow and liquidity, said government had begun discussions with it to rectify the same. We are the sovereign, we are the most important stakeholders, Jaitley said at a summit, adding it is because of these issues the discussions have been initiated with the RBI. Jaitley was alluding Section 7 of the RBI Act through which the government can force down certain policies for the central bank to implement, citing national interest. Referring to banks under the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework, which prevents them routine lending activities, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal slammed the RBI for making unreasonable amendments to it. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Aditi Tandon/Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 14 In its first reaction on the Supreme Court dismissing all petitions seeking a review of the Rafale jet purchase, the Congress on Friday said the apex court was limited by constitutional provisions to get into pricing issues and only a parliamentary probe can look at that. Not giving up on the issue despite the court saying there was no reason to doubt the deal the Congress reiterated its demand for a JPC into the purchase repeating its old allegations of corruption and nepotism in favour of the Anil Ambani led Reliance Defence which got the offset contract in the deal with the French jet maker Dassault Aviation. Even as the BJP fielded senior ministers to demand an apology from Congress President Rahul Gandhi for fear mongering around the deal the Congress media head Randeep Surjewala said the ruling party will have to answer why the jet originally priced low was eventually bought at three times the previous cost. The issue is of corruption, which the government will have to answer. We demand a JPC. The government must tell why HAL was dropped as the partner and transfer of technology clause of the original deal compromised; why a fledgling private company was given a major contract and how the deal was a government to government deal when France didnt even give a sovereign guarantee and sufficed to give a letter of comfort for the deal, said the Congress. Gandhi have instructions to Surjewala to keep the Rafale pot boiling with Surjewala saying PM Narendra Modi should order a JPC if he has nothing to hide. Rahul should apologise: Rajnath Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has asked the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi to apologise to the Parliament for misleading the nation and causing damage to the countrys international reputation when levelling allegations on the purchase of the Rafale fighter jets. Outside the House, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor dismissed the demand for an apology saying "there will be no apology. We need to establish the truth as tax payers money is involved". Inside the House, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not allow Mallikaarjun Kharge to speak till Congress leaders were protesting in the Well of the House and did not return to their seats. A visibilily angry Kharge said the party was demanding a JPC. Anil Ambani welcomes decision Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani had welcomed the Supreme Court order, saying it established the falsity of politically motivated allegations against his firm. In its ruling on a batch of petitions seeking a probe into the deal, the apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of the 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France. Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had entered into an agreement with Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) for fulfilling offset obligations. "I welcome the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally," Ambani said in a statement. Prem Chowdhry Prem Chowdhry Author and former academic, DU The recent Sabarimala controversy over the opening of the so-far closed precincts of the temple to women between the ages of 10 and 50 by the Supreme Court ruling has brought into focus the question of menstruation, a topic which has always remained hush-hush in the Indian society. It is generally a forbidden subject, resulting in little understanding of how menstruation is viewed and dealt with in the Indian society and why women shy away from speaking about it. According to a research, only 12 per cent of the menstruating women in India use sanitary napkins. Some cannot afford them, while others are not even aware of them. As much as 82 of per cent women in India still do not know what a sanitary napkin is. To understand this, I took a series of personal interviews which revealed several differences existing within classes, ages as well as regions, ie its urban and rural areas. Interviews revealedthat in urban areas, lower middle class girls do use sanitary pads. While talking to them, one girl revealed that she started menstruating when she was in the sixth grade. She said her mother got upset and stated that she had grown up too fast and feared that she would start inviting unnecessary male attention. At no time was any girl informed by her mother as to what exactly it involved. When mothers were questioned, they only commented: "What is there to tell? They will soon find it out themselves. We were never told by our mothers." One mother, whose little girl aged 10 is studying in a government school, revealed that she got a call from her daughter's class teacher, asking her to come and fetch her child. When she went to the school, she found her daughter crying. Later, she found that her daughter had started her menstruation in the school for which she was scolded by the teacher who, however, did not tell her pupil anything about it, except to show abhorrence. This was clearly a situation in which the schoolteacher was washing her hands off any responsibility to inform the pubescent girl about this occurrence. When confronted, one teacher, shrugging off any responsibility, stated: "They know everything these days." The urban middle and upper middle class girls are much more at ease with this phenomenon, but nevertheless share certain characteristics with their other counterpart in the classes below. They are also not informed by their mothers, but confessed to discussing with one another. Taboos imposed on girls Regarding taboos which are imposed upon them during this period, the girls confirmed there were some restrictions. For example, sour food like curd, tamarind and pickles are to be avoided by menstruating girls. It is believed that such foods disturb the menstrual flow. But the girls don't care. They eat stealthily at home or in the school. They are also told not to do exercise/physical activity. But again, there is no question of their sitting out of these activities in the school. Other restrictions like not being allowed to enter the "puja" room or being restricted from offering prayers in the urban areas and not entering the kitchen among the rural girls are also there. For ignoring these, they are scolded as the mothers observe them consciously. Conditioned to believe it as shameful So much of negativity conditions women to understand the menstrual function as being something to be hidden, something shameful and referred to as mahina, mahawari, periods, chums etc. By not naming a thing, we reinforce the idea that the thing should not be named. This is primarily because it is felt that it's something dirty and must not be vocalised. Yet, these euphemisms serve a purpose. They at least enable women to talk about things that are considered culturally taboo. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that the mothers' or even the teachers' knowledge that menstruation is a natural part of the reproductive cycle in which blood from the uterus exits through the vagina and is one of the indicators of the onset of puberty, is woefully low. In rural areas, whatever may be the National Family Health Survey's claim, research has shown that over 77 per cent of the menstruating girls and women are calculated to use an old cloth, which is often washed and reused. This compromise in hygiene often leads to reproductive tract infections. In one case, the uterus of a young girl had to be removed because of severe infection. Twenty three per cent of the rural girls are calculated to drop out of school when they start menstruating. Dropping out of education encourages early child marriage and makes them lose the opportunity to be in the workforce. What can be done? It is clear that multi-sectorial approaches are needed. Lt Gen SS Mehta (retd) Lt Gen SS Mehta (retd) Former Western Army Commander Contributing to the curtain raiser to the Punjab Governments Military Literature Festival, distinguished Gunner veteran, historian and raconteur Lt Gen Baljit Singh wrote an illuminating article titled: When soldiers wield the pen; (The Tribune, Dec 6). He quoted Brig Darshan Khullar, who, as a gritty subaltern facing the Chinese onslaught during the 1962 rout, felt that India could have defeated the Chinese or at least given them a bloody nose if only there had been one great General and a few good Brigadiers to seize the opportunity. That day did come. On December 16, 1971, a brave new nation was created (with no-holds-barred Bangladeshi help) out of blighted Pakistans East Wing and in an unprecedented and unexpectedly telescoped timeline. The key ingredients of this stunning midway makeover were seamless synergy between the government, military and diplomatic corps, and internal synergy between the three Services. This created the rare space within which the manoeuvre that was political, diplomatic, military and quasi-military was generated and executed. These developments left observers, including sceptical Western players, media as well as enemies in shock and awe and this was achieved by a few good men across professions and a gritty woman: PM Indira Gandhi. Humanism over barbarism became self-evident when India, with limited resources for its own millions, unconditionally gave humanitarian aid to over 10 million Bangladeshis. This compared starkly with the murder, rape and looting under Operation Searchlight by West Pakistanis and collaborators of their unarmed countrymen across gender, age and occupation. The numbers of those affected exceeded three million. The plan was to engineer a demographic shift using mass extermination and rape. Bangladeshis recount with pride that not a single Indian soldier was involved in rape or molestation. Sam Manekshaws hands in pockets and our ancient battlefield ethos of naam, namak, nishan worked like magic, as did the traditional Indian military discipline. The officers led by example and the men followed. The power of democracy over military rule was evident when it became clear to the world that India was living out its belief in democracy in full. It was about care and consideration of a besieged neighbour severely mauled by the horrific wounds of genocide. The intrinsic power of a democracy manifests when soldiers in combat experience the primordial trinity: the support of its citizens, their elected civilian government and the resolve and leadership attributes of its military commanders. The ethical dimension of this mix is an embracing experience. No objective is then beyond reach. Unless you are a democracy, you can never inhale this elixir. Manoeuvre over attrition was perhaps the shining star among the four tenets insofar as setting the stage for unparalleled success was concerned. In manoeuvre, the executants proceed to their objective with vigour and belief in the underlying philosophy; bypassing obstacles with impunity and making their position untenable. The manoeuvre sequence for us began with military plain-speak by Army Chief Manekshaw when asked by the PM about his operational readiness. Accepting the stark truth, the political leadership and all elements of national leadership manoeuvred to make success possible. In doing so, political, diplomatic, military elements synergised brilliantly. This gargantuan effort needed a few good men. This time they were visionary operational commanders like Lt Gen Sagat Singh, GOC 4 Corps, and iconic staff officers like Maj Gen JFR Jacob who negotiated the surrender. They validated the Chanakyan belief that the power of personality in war is invaluable. A mid-course correction in the plans became obvious with the failure to capture the Coronation Bridge (the only bridge across the mighty Meghna river). This could have spelt disaster for the operations. The Pakistani attrition mindset would have put paid to our plans to force Pakistan to capitulate. However mobile minds, as was the attribute of General Sagat, thought otherwise. He overcame the friction of loss, despair, angst; seeing in the destroyed bridge a chance to cross the Meghna with helicopters and tanks; close in from the north by a para drop (planned at Tangail) and link up with breathtaking speed at Dhaka, the centre of gravity of the war. An initially reluctant apex military leadership subscribed to this innovative view after 4 Corps leading elements, including amphibious tanks, crossed over despite the daunting challenges. It was also astute political wisdom that the nation should view liberation over occupation as its final ethical tenet that would compel the world to salute Indias victory as truly strategic and create goodwill that has withstood the test of time. The Indian armed forces departed as committed within 90 days of liberation of Bangladesh with vast multitudes cheering their performance. India had honoured its word to Bangladesh; commitment to 93,000 Pakistani prisoners safety under the Geneva Convention, and to the world community. Sidney Schanberg of the New York Times recounted how he hitched a ride on a PT-76 tank after 4 Guards (under its brilliant leader Lt Col Col Himmeth Sinh) was flown across the Meghna on Mi-4 helicopters and reached Dhakas outskirts on December 13, with 5 (Indep) Armd Sqn 63 Cav tanks converging a day later. Leading scholar Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote: Indias 1971 armed intervention in East Pakistan undertaken for a mixture of reasons is widely and fairly regarded as one of the worlds most successful cases of humanitarian intervention against genocide. India in effect applied well what we now call the responsibility to protect(R2P) principle. Garry J Bass in his book, The Blood Telegram, writes: ``Today at the advent of the Asian era in world politics, the future of human rights will increasingly depend on ideologies, institutions, and cultures of ascendant Asian great powers like China and India. Thus Indias democratic response to the plight of the Bengalis makes not just a pivotal moment for the history of the subcontinent, but for how the worlds largest democracy makes its foreign policy, and what weight it gives to rights. Indias successes in liberating a neighbour in distress, in a value-driven proactive initiative, must rank among the 20th centurys outstanding feats. The millennials would do well to study this lightning campaign and share their pride. The writer was the tank squadron commander in the drive to Dhaka vinaymishra188@gmail.com The Supreme Courts limited judicial review of the Rafale deal is unlikely to end the politicking. But it will come as a relief for defence policy planners who were anticipating a Bofors-type freeze in decision making in the event of an adverse judgment. The Supreme Courts dismissal of four petitions seeking a judiciary-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters has given the Modi government much to cheer after the loss of the three Hindi heartland states. A court stricture on the Rafale deal would have left the government even more vulnerable. But it also left a window open for the Congress to attempt more political mileage when the judges noted that they would not make an in-depth examination of policy decisions of the executive, especially on matters concerning national security and defence. The judges also did not scrutinise the comparative merits of the deal and excluded from the judgment the question about the soundness of the decision. The court found that (i) broadly the process had been followed and that (ii) there is no substantial material on record to show that there was favouritism in the choice of Indian offset partner. The Congress has latched on the third substantial observation it is certainly not the job of the court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present to refuse to back away from the scrimmage. It maintains that it did not approach the Supreme Court precisely because the apex court is not the forum to discuss defence contracts.. While a political slugfest will ensue between BJPs willingness for a debate in Parliament and the Congress insistence for a Joint Parliamentary Committee, there is mixed news for the defence establishment. The apex court has ensured that there will be repeat of the Bofors saga when the atmosphere of fear had slowed down decision making, leading to a decade of no modernisation. But the deal also shows that Indias import dependence continues unchecked. From the public policy perspective, foreign weapon imports neither make for good economics nor for good politics. editorial@tribune.com Sushil Manav Tribune News Service Chandigarh, December 14 The prestige of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is at stake in the mayoral and municipal corporation elections in Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak, Hisar and Yamunanagar on Sunday. Campaigning in the five municipal corporations as well as in the municipal committees of Jakhal in Fatehabad and Pundri in Kaithal ended on Friday evening. With BJP candidates in all five municipal corporations facing a stiff challenge from opponents, some of whom are being supported by a joint opposition, Khattar has campaigned extensively in all five cities. In his home constituency Karnal, BJP candidate Renu Bala Gupta is facing a stiff challenge from independent Asha Wadhwa, who is supported by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress. In former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hoodas hometown Rohtak, which is also Khattars home district, BJP candidate Manmohan Goyal is facing a stiff challenge from Congress-supported candidate Sita Ram Sachdeva. Jagmati Sangwan of the CPM and Sanchit Nandal of the INLD-BSP alliance have made the contest quadrangular. Sangwan also enjoys the support of Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party and Yogendra Yadavs Swaraj Abhiyan. In Hisar, where the BJP has fielded Gautam Sardana as its candidate, Rekha Aren, supported by Savitri Jindal and Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Congress, is giving the ruling party candidate a stiff challenge. Amit Saini of the INLD is in the fray, making the contest triangular. In Panipat, BJPs Avneet Kaur is pitted against Anshu Kaur Pahwa, who enjoys the support of local Congress leader Balbir Pal Shah. In Yamunanagar, Madan Chauhan of the BJP is facing a tough fight from Rakesh Sharma of the Congress and Sandeep Goyal of the INLD. Interestingly, issues of development and party affiliations have taken a back seat and caste factor has taken precedence in the mayoral polls, particularly in Karnal, Rohtak and Hisar, where elections have become Punjabi (those who migrated from Pakistan during Partition) versus Baniya communities. In Karnal and Rohtak, where the BJP has fielded Baniyas Renu Bala Gupta and Manmohan Goyal respectively, Khattar is finding it hard to soothe voters from his own Punjabi community. Particularly in Karnal, almost all opposition parties have come out in support of an independent candidate from the Punjabi community, Asha Wadhwa, much to Khattars embarrassment. In Hisar, where the BJP has fielded a Punjabi, Gautam Sardana, the Agarwal community has rallied behind Congress-backed Rekha Aren, a member of the Baniya community, irrespective of party affiliations. Political observers believe that if Khattar manages to clear this acid test, it will prove good for the BJP ahead of next years polls. A loss will mean that the ruling party is not popular in its own voter base, urban voters. Meanwhile, the police have made elaborate security arrangements to ensure smooth conduct of elections. Director General of Police BS Sandhu said arrangements had been made to ensure that people exercised their franchise without any fear. Elaborate security arrangements had been put in place in and around polling centres. Giving details, Additional Director General of Police, Law and Order, Mohammad Akil, said flag marches were being conducted in poll-bound cities and towns and nakas, patrolling and checking intensified. Cities had been divided into sectors and duty magistrate appointed along with police parties, he added. editorial@tribune.com Parveen Arora Tribune News Service Karnal, December 14 All issues pertaining to development have taken a back seat in the Karnal Municipal Corporation elections, as the contest has taken a caste colour. Even the social media is abuzz with caste-related posts. Followers of the Mayoral candidates are posting caste-related posts on social media to lure voters on the basis of their castes. They are trying to divide the contest between the Punjabis and non-Punjabis. BJP candidate Renu Bala Gupta belongs to the Aggarwal community, while the INLD-BSP alliance and the Congress supported Independent candidate Asha Wadhwa is from the Punjabi community. After Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar allegedly played the Punjabi card and sought votes on the basis of caste for Gupta on Thursday, the Opposition parties and candidates accused the CM of playing divisive politics by keeping aside his development agenda and slogan of Haryana Ek, Haryanvi Ek. The Chief Minister should have avoided caste politics, said Yashvir Singh, a resident of Model Town on social media. Manoj Wadhwa, former Deputy Mayor and husband of Asha Wadhwa, said that it was unfortunate that the CM was seeking votes on the basis of caste. I never sought votes on the basis of caste as the whole city and the district is my home. The residents are contesting my election, he added. Defending the Chief Ministers statement, Renu Bala Gupta said that Khattar never indulged in caste politics and gave the slogan of Haryana Ek, Haryanvi Ek with the vision of overall development of the state. The Chief Ministers vision is of inclusive development of the state, instead of exclusive development agenda of the previous governments, she added. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Dharamsala, December 14 The Himachal government was not in favour of merger of Sutlej Jal Vidhyut Nigam (SJVN) with the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur gave this statement on a resolution moved by Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri. Agnihotri had asked the state government to clarify its position on the merger of the SJVN with the NTPC. The Chief Minister said that the union government had written to the state government twice regarding the merger of the SJVN with the NTPC. However, the state government has written to the union government against this merger. Its merger with the NTPC was against the interests of the state, the CM said. The Chief Minister said that he had personally spoken to Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley over the issue. Despite that if the union government goes ahead with merger, he would ensure the interests of the state were protected. The Leader of Opposition said that the Himachal government had 26.8 per cent stake in the SJVN. Every year the state government earned revenue of Rs 1,700 crores from the project. The project has reserves of Rs 6,700 crores. The state government should ensure that SJVN was not merged with the NTPC. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Dharamsala, December 14 The Himachal Assembly today passed a resolution with a voice vote seeking increase in quota for Himachal youth in armed forces and to raise Himalayan regiment. The resolution was moved by Minister for IPH Mohinder Singh. Bringing in the resolution Mohinder Singh said that there were 1.15 lakh ex-servicemen in Himachal Pradesh. Besides, Himachal has four Param Vir Chakra awardees, 2 Ashoks Chakra awardees, 10 Maha Vir Chakra awadees and 2 Kirti Chakra awardees. This speaks volumes about the contribution of state in the defence forces of the country. Joining the Army was the main occupation for the youth of the state. The Government of India in a period ranging from 1980-85 brought a policy stating that recruitment of youth in the Army from states would be done as per the percentage of population. This has reduced the employment opportunity for youth of Himachal who traditionally joined the Army. He also said that a separate Himalayan regiment would give identity to hill people serving in the Army. Rakesh Pathania, BJP MLA from Nurpur, said that such resolutions had been passed time and again by the Himachal Assembly since 1996 but nothing has been achieved. He proposed that a committee of the entire house, including ruling and the Opposition, should be formed that should go and lobby for the cause with the Union government. Jagat Singh Negi, Congress MLA, expressed apprehension that the government seems to have brought the resolution keeping in view the forthcoming parliamentary elections. In case the government was serious why it did not take up the issue earlier, he said. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur rejected the allegation of Jagat Singh Negi as unfortunate. He said that the resolution had not been brought with any political motive and Negi should have restrained from making such comments. Ram Lal Thakur, Col Inder Singh and Rakesh Singha spoke supporting the resolution before it was passed witha voice vote. editorial@tribune.com Lalit Mohan Tribune News Service Dharamsala, December 14 On a resolution moved by CPM MLA Rakesh Singha and Congress MLA Ashish Butail the house debated the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in the state. The members of the house lamented the fact that the Forests Rights Act 2006 was not being implemented in the state. Rakesh Singha said that despite the fact that the Parliament enacted the Forest Rights Act in 2006, it was still not being implemented in the state. Since about 67 per cent of the area of Himachal Pradesh has been classified as forest area most of the residents of state have forest rights under the Act. Citing a particular case Rakesh Singha said in Lahaul and Spiti an entire village was destroyed due to an avalanche. The residents of the village were settled on an alternative land that was now forest land. Even after residing for more than 30 years on the land the villagers are now facing eviction as their forest rights have not been settled by the state government. He said in the Forests Rights Act three types of rights of forest dwellers had been recognized. These are developmental rights, community rights and individual rights. In Himachal the government has recognized the community rights under the forest Act as they were required for construction of roads. However, the individual rights of the people over forest lands have not been settled. There were 44,000 cases of Nautor land that have been pending since 1980 since the government has not implemented the Forests Rights Act, he said. Ashish Butail said that the individual rights of the people over the forest lands were not being implemented as the bureaucracy was saying it was practically impossible. He said that many residents, who were staying on forest land that was being converted to Central University Himachal Pradesh (CUHP), have been evicted despite the fact that they staying there for the last three decades and had forest rights. The residents are now being forced to stay under open tents, he said. Minister for Agriculture Ram Lal Markanda, while replying to the debate, said that the government was trying to settle the rights of the people under the Forests Rights Act. He said that 4,146 claims of the people have been received out of which 129 have been settled. Cases pending since 1980 editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jammu, December 14 PDP president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday called for the need to move forward on Kashmir and sought the help of people to replace the idea of Azad Kashmir within the framework of the Constitution. Speaking at an event organised in Mumbai, the PDP leader said, We cannot go back to 1947, implying that the past is past and no amount of wars or international interventions could help resolve the Kashmir issue. To do so, she underscored the need to move forward. Mehbooba Mufti, who opened her heart at the event organised by the Observer Research Foundation, titled Kashmir - the way forward, said, After the 2014 (Assembly) elections, we joined hands with the BJP. It was a suicide. She said, We put everything on the line because we hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pick up from where Atal Bihari Vajpayee left. Unfortunately, Modi could not rise to the occasion. During the time of Vajpayee, she said, the people of Kashmir thought of him as a leader who cared. Even Pakistan responded positively resulting in reduced militancy and ceasefire violations. Mehbooba touched on several other issues, including the need to build upon the opening of the Karatarpur corridor to other connectivity projects between the two countries, particularly in J&K, and the role of the country to understand Kashmir in its proper perspective. She also advised the media to present facts and not add fuel to the fire. editorial@tribune.com Amit Khajuria Tribune News Service Jammu, December 14 In a historic decision to curb sexual exploitation of women, the J&K Government on Friday enacted a law explicitly banning such abuse in government offices, thus becoming the first state in the country to have such a legislation. A new Section E has been added to the offences dealing with sexual harassment of women by men in authority in Section 354 of the Ranbir Penal Code (equivalent to the Indian Penal Code in J&K) that makes it a criminal offence and would entail three years of imprisonment for the offender. The Bill was mooted after Chief Justice of the J&K High Court Justice Gita Mittal on October 23 had voiced concern over the sexual exploitation of women and had advised the government that there was a need to give a legal nomenclature of sexploitation to the illegal acts of unwarranted demands and inappropriate contacts. A Bill to this effect was passed by the State Administrative Council in its meeting chaired by Governor Satya Pal Malik here on Friday, less than a week before Governors rule ends on December 19. During the current spell of the Central rule, the Governor has the legislative powers to enact any law as per the powers vested in him by the state constitution. Jammu and Kashmir today became the first state in the country to have explicitly banned sexual exploitation of women by the men in authority. J&K has become the first state in the country to have a law explicitly banning sexual exploitation of women by those in positions of authority, having a fiduciary relationship or a public servant, read an official release issued here this afternoon after the SAC meeting. The Amendments would be called the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and Jammu and Kashmir Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018). The Chief Justice had made the observations, as reported by The Tribune on October 23, in the wake of the #MeToo movement that had touched J&K as well. vinaymishra188@gmail.com Kirti Dua NOWADAYS online purchases and e-transactions are part of our daily routine. If somebody is smart enough, he can have good savings by availing cash-back schemes on certain bank cards or by using promo codes. My son has a knack for using these techniques, which is why his services are often availed for many online purchases. Recently I had to go to Bikaner. My return journey to Ludhiana was via Delhi, on an Air India flight. At the last moment, my wife managed to get leave and desired to accompany me. But by then, the airfare had doubled. I asked my son if he could use his expertise to get us a cheaper ticket. After some web search, he said he was booking the ticket using some promo codes and sent me the reservation details. On the scheduled day, we reached Bikaner airport an hour before the flight. After the scanning of our luggage, we were in the queue for boarding pass. I handed the reservation slips at the desk and made a request for a window seat. The person on the desk had my PNR on the screen, but could not find the name of my wife on the list. After a few minutes, he called his supervisor to help him, but he too was not successful. He suggested me to contact the person who had booked the ticket. I immediately phoned my son in Delhi, who forwarded the booking email to me in no time. In this email also, there were booking details of the flight but no mention of the PNR. We were getting uncomfortable as there were people standing behind us to get their boarding pass. The supervisor took us to the airport manager and explained our situation to him. In the meantime, my son called me and dropped the bombshell that the booking could not be confirmed as the money deducted was transferred back to his account due to some technical reasons. I enquired from the airport manager if it was possible to get a new ticket. We checked the web and the discounted ticket was for Rs 3,100, but the e-window had closed about an hour before the departure. But the full-fare ticket could be purchased before takeoff. The dilemma was that the ticket would cost Rs 19,000. Despite the fact that there was vacancy in the plane, we could not board it. I did not have the courage to ask him if a promo code was applicable to this full-fare ticket. Before the aftereffects of promo codes took the form of an explosive outburst, I hurriedly took a cab for the Bikaner railway station to re-plan our onward journey. gspannu7@gmail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 14 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday dubbed allegations on the Rafale jet deal as fiction writing that compromised national security, after the Supreme Court dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets. In an apparent attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been alleging corruption in the purchase of the fighter jets, Jaitley said disrupters have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country. Falsehood is bound to fall apart and it has, Jaitley said, adding that if honest deals are questioned, then civil servants and armed forces will think twice before undertaking such a process in future. Buoyed by the verdict, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who addressed a press conference along with Jaitley said the matter of Rafale deal has been put to rest through the apex courts order. Jaitley said every figure cited by Gandhi in his allegations has been false. He said the government would again press for a debate on the issue in Parliament. He claimed that there has been a tradition in democracies across the world of leaders quitting their positions when their lies are caught. Rafale deal has protected both security and commercial interest of India. Allegations on Rafale was fiction writing that was compromising national security, Jaitley said. To a question about the Congress demand of a Joint Parliamentary Probe (JPC) into the deal, he said only judicial body can carry out such an investigation as there has been experience in the past of JPCs working on partisan lines. The SC verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope of any doubt on the deal, he said. In a relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to really doubt the decision making process warranting setting aside of the contract. The apex court rejected the pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and the court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, in which both the countries have entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA). Rahul should apologise: Shah BJP president Amit Shah on Friday described the SC order as a "victory of truth" and demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. The Supreme Court's decision is slap on the face of those who had alleged corruption, Shah said at a press conference. Shah challenged the Opposition party for a debate on the Rs 58,000-crore deal in Parliament and said the BJP will agree to as much time as it wants for a discussion after it reiterated its demand for a JPC probe into the matter. 'Web of lies' As Congress president Rahul Gandhi continued his attacks over the deal, BJP addressed their third press conference of the day over the issue. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Gandhi questioning Supreme Courts verdict Is he above the Supreme Court? For past year-and-a-half Rahul Gandhi had been weaving a web of lies over the Rafale jet deal, Prasad said. The judgement has exposed the lies of the Congress and Rahul Gandhi. We hoped that he will accept the verdict with humility. However, today he has crossed all limits of propriety and decency by condemning the Supreme Court and abusing the prime minister. Is he above the SC? What kind of language is he using, abusing our PM? We condemn the language he has used. But nothing better was expected of him. This is the new low in polity of the country. The kind of language and words he used, do not behove the president of a political party, he said. With PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 14 The Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthans next chief minister and Sachin Pilot his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague following several rounds of discussions. The united colours of Rajasthan, Gandhi said in the tweet along with the photograph in which the three leaders were seen in a jovial mood. AICC observer for Rajasthan KC Venugopal said that the party has decided Ashok Gehlots name for the chief ministers post while Sachin Pilot will be the deputy chief minister. There have been hectic discussions between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the selection of chief ministers for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. After the tweet by Rahul, celebrations started at Gehlots civil lines residence at 2.55 pm. A close aide of Gehlot told The Tribune that the celebrations by party workers can be a good indication. After Congress observer to the state K C Venugopal made the announcement at a media briefing here, Gehlot thanked Gandhi for giving him an opportunity to serve the people of the state for the third time and promised that he and Pilot will give good governance. Pilot exuded confidence that Congress good electoral performance will continue, saying the party will get a big mandate in 2019 polls and form the government. Gehlot and Pilot later left New Delhi for a meeting with Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh in Jaipur, where a party delegation presented him a list of the newly elected Congress legislators and supporting MLAs. The Congress Legislature Party also held a meeting in Jaipur. Gehlot and Pilot will be sworn in on Monday. Rahul and other Congress leaders are expected to attend the ceremony in Jaipur. "Only the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister will be sworn in on December 17 (Monday). The other members of the ministry will be announced later," Gehlot told reporters. The venue of the ceremony was not immediately announced. pardeepdhull@gmail.com New Delhi, December 14 Noted English writer Amitav Ghosh has been honoured with this years Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for outstanding contribution towards literature, Bharatiya Jnanpith announced on Friday. Amitav Ghosh is a path- breaking novelist. In his novels, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the modern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways. His fiction is endowed with extraordinary depth and substance through his academic training as a historian and a social anthropologist, a statement from Bharatiya Jnanpith read. The decision was taken in a meeting of Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by eminent novelist, scholar and Jnanpith laureate Pratibha Ray. Ghosh, one of the most prominent contemporary Indian writers, is known for a series of novels such as Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and Ibis TrilogySea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Firechronicling the Opium trade between India and China run by the East India Company. The writer, in a tweet, said he was honoured and humbled. In another tweet responding to a fan, he said, this is an amazing day for me. I never thought I would find myself on this list, with some of the writers I most admire. Born in Kolkata in 1956 to a Bengali Hindu family, the 62-year-old author currently lives in New York with his wife Deborah Baker. Ghosh, who spent his formative years in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria. His most recent book, The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction, was released in 2016. Ghosh is also a recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award. Some of the biggest Indian writers have been awarded with this prestigious literary recognition. Major names among the 58 recipients include literary icons Krishna Sobti, Kedarnath Singh, Shrilal Shukla, Nirmal Verma, Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi, Amrita Pritam and U R Ananthamurthy. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com New Delhi, December 14 Buoyed by the SC order on the Rafale deal, the government on Friday launched a counter-offensive on the Opposition in Parliament, seeking an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for misleading the nation. The two Houses were adjourned for the day amid sparring between the treasury and the Opposition Benches on the issue. Amid protests, some BJP members raised slogans against the Congress chief. In the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was heard saying that the Opposition has been demanding a debate on the deal, therefore, the question hour should be suspended to take up the issue. His demand further infuriated the Opposition members who escalated their protest. Not to be outdone, they also protested against the government on other issues. The Congress, Samajwadi Party, DMK, AIADMK, CPI, CPM and TDP were conspicuous in the agitation with their members trooping into the Well with placards. While the Congress, CPI and CPM demanded a JPC probe into the Rafale deal, AIADMK and DMK members protested the construction of a dam on the Cauvery and the sharing of riverwaters. The TDP rooted for the special status to Andhra Pradesh. The SP wanted a discussion on the Bulandhshahr clash in which a police officer was killed. TNS uttara@tribuneindia.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 14 Within hours of Supreme Courts turning down of a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal, Opposition parties demanded a joint parliamentary committee to inquire into the matter. In separate statements issued throughout the day, Congress, left parties and Aam Aadmi Party said they wanted a parliamentary panel to investigate the deal. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday maintained that there was massive corruption in the contract and wondered why the CAG report "cited by the Supreme Court" on it had not yet been shared with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. Is a guilty Modi Govt seeking to correct the patent fraud played upon the Supreme Court, which founded its judgement on a non-existent CAG Report in #RafaelVerdict. A petrified Govt rushing to seek a review in hindsight to cover its tracks? Truth has a way of catching up! Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 14, 2018 Both government and Anil Ambani's Reliance Groud have rejected Gandhi's allegations of corruption. At a press conference, Gandhi said the Supreme Court in its verdict cited that a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the Rafale deal was submitted to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) but asserted that no such report was given to the House panel headed by Congress' leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge. Kharge, who was also present at the briefing, said PAC has not received any such report. "Where has that report gone? Is it with some other PAC that PM Modi has set up," he asked in a dig at the government. He also accused the Modi government of destroying "all institutions" and asserted that corruption to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore has taken place in the Rafale deal under its watch. In a relief to the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. The apex court rejected the pleas that sought lodging of an FIR and a court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, in which both the countries have entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA). Left agrees Left parties echoed Congresss demand. "The truth about the Rafale scam will only come out through the mechanism of a JPC. We reiterate our long-standing demand for a JPC. Modi's refusal to have a JPC is the biggest evidence of guilt (sic)," Communist Party India (Marx) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury wrote on Twitter. The party posted on its official Twitter handle that the SC verdict was not a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government. "SC has merely stated that it doesnt have Jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution. Only a JPC can uncover the truth about #RafaleScam," it tweeted. D Raja, national secretary of the CPI, said that Parliament was supreme in a democracy and the government should agree to a JPC probe into the defence deal to ensure that the truth is revealed. "Parliament is supreme in our democracy. All opposition parties have been demanding a JPC probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. Why cannot the government agree on a JPC probe? After all, the issue is related to the country's security. Let there be a JPC probe and the truth will come out," he said. I don't know how the Supreme Court can come to such a conclusion," he added. CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said the Supreme Court order is not a clean chit to the government. "Technical know-how may be confidential but the price paid by the government is taxpayers' money. Taxpayers have right to know what was the price paid by the government," Reddy said. 'Contrarian BJP' Aam Aadmi Partys Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the Centre must be willing to have transparent discussion about the deal in the Parliament. Would not comment on the SC order, but the Rafale deal must be discussed in Parliament as also said by BJP minister Arun Jaitley today and the BJP must put up all facts related to the deal before the Houses and form a JPC to look into the matter as to why an aircraft priced at Rs 526 crore was procured at inflated Rs 1670 crore and a private inexperienced entity (Reliance Defence) was given the contract instead of the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited by the Modi government, Singh told reporters here. He also accused the BJP of being contrarian when it came to the Supreme Courts rulingswhile they willing embraced Fridays verdict, they firmly opposed the courts actions in two other cases: Sabarimala and the Ayodhya land dispute. The BJP is celebrating with Amit Shah saying the Supreme Court has given it a clean chit on the matter. The BJP is overjoyed and is talking about challenging the opposition parties on the issue. Earlier Amit Shah had questioned the Sabrimala verdict of the Supreme Court refusing to accept it and saying it would be overturned. Disregarding the top court, they (right wing organizations) rallied for a law or an ordinance to building Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Singh said adding that the party should first learn to respect the apex court. With PTI gspannu7@gmail.com New Delhi, December 14 Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said farmers in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will soon get a loan waiver as promised by the party. The Congress in its poll promises in the three Hindi heartland states had said it will waive the loans of farmers as soon as it comes into power. Gandhi had given the assurance to the farmers in his rallies in the three states. Addressing a press conference here on the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale deal, Gandhi said, There has been a theft of Rs 30,000 crore and farmers, remember that in Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, your loan is going to be waived. This money that has been taken by thieves is your money, he said referring to the Congress allegation that there was corruption in the Rafale deal. The Congress is set to form the government in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh following assembly polls in the three states. There is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, the Supreme Court said on Friday and dismissed all the petitions seeking an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, December 14 With 86 security personnel losing their lives in the line of duty this year, the number has touched a 10-year high in Kashmir. According to official data accessed by The Tribune, more than 230 militants have been killed since January, which is also the highest since 2010, while 86 security men were also killed during this period. While the security forces achieved major successes this year in its anti-militancy campaign, the J&K Police have been targeted the most. The police force lost 44 of its men, highest since 2006 when they lost 78 cops. Most of the fatalities have taken place when the cops were either at home or off duty, especially in south Kashmir. The Army lost 32 of its men in counter-infiltration operations, ceasefire violations and blasts along the Line of Control in Kashmir this year. Adviser to Governor Vijay Kumar said the counter-insurgency operations were a major success this year. We have neutralised some top commanders of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen along with their allies. However, the other side bears the brunt too. This year, the J&K Police, which have been at the forefront, suffered the maximum casualties. Unfortunately, the ratio cannot always be zero in such circumstances, Kumar, a retired IPS officer, said. He said the synergy of the security forces had been at its best this year. A senior security official said there had been a slight increase in forces fatalities this year and it was because of a high number of anti-militancy operations. The casualties of forces are directly linked with more anti-militancy operations. More the operations, more are the chances of causalities. Moreover, the number of terrorists killed has also seen a rise, IG, CRPF, Srinagar sector, Ravideep Sahi, said. According to the Home Ministry data, 80 security forces personnel were killed in 2017 and 82 in 2016. As many as 182 casualties were reported in 2007. The numbers (fatalities of forces) are just figures. Overall, the militant infrastructure and leadership has been hit this year and there is an improvement in the ground situation, said a police officer, preferring anonymity. Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir on Wednesday told the Rajya Sabha that 238 militants were neutralised by the forces in J&K and 86 forces personnel were killed till December 2. uttara@tribuneindia.com Mumbai, December 14 The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) if there were any attempts to "dilute" or "slow down" its probe into the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar. A Bench of Justices S C Dharamadhikari and Bharati Dangre posed the above question after going through the progress report that the CBI submitted before the court in a sealed cover. The Bench noted that in the previous reports submitted by the CBI, the agency had named some persons belonging to a right wing organisation and added that action would be taken against them. However, in the report submitted Friday, the CBI told the court that it required more "prosecutable evidence" against such persons as its previous findings against them were based merely on the statements made by the other accused. "This leads us to ask the CBI if there is any deliberate attempt to dilute, slow down or tone down its probe against some persons," the bench said. "Ensure that there is no dilution. Whoever the person is, he is not mightier than the law," the court said. However, the CBI, through Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, submitted that it wasn't trying to dilute its probe in any manner. "This is not the impression that we (CBI) wanted to give to the court. Appropriate action will be taken against all accused. We are only trying to gather adequate evidence to avoid any possible setbacks to the prosecution," Singh told the court. The Bench was hearing a plea filed by the kin of Dabholkar, and slain leftist leader Govind Pansare, seeking the probes into both killings be monitored by the court. It, however, told the CBI, which is investigating the Dabholkar case, and the Maharashtra state CID's Special Investigation Team, which is probing Pansare's killing, to avoid further delays in the probe. The court also directed both the agencies to abide by all statutory time limits on filing of charge sheets in the cases to ensure that the accused were not granted any benefits owing to procedural lapses by the prosecution. Abhay Nevagi, the lawyer for the petitioners, had told the Bench earlier during the day's hearing that three persons accused in the Dabholkar caseAmol Kale, Rajesh Bangar, and Amit Degwekarhad been granted bail by a Pune court in the morning since the CBI was yet to file its charge sheet against them. At this, the Bench directed both the probe agencies to avoid any procedural delays in the future, and to complete their respective investigations in a time-bound manner. The high court has directed both the CBI and the SIT to submit their further progress reports by January 17 next year. Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013, when he was on his morning walk. Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015, in Kolhapur and succumbed to his injuries four days later. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 14 The first meeting of the newly constituted Sino-Indian High-Level Mechanism on Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges will be held on December 21 in New Delhi. The meeting will be co-chaired by Sushma Swaraj and Wang Yi, State Councillor and Foreign Minister of China. The inaugural meeting is an outcome of the Wuhan informal summit between PM Modi and President Xi in April this year. The mechanism will bring all the existing bilateral cultural and people-to-people engagements between India and China under one umbrella and, thus, add more substance and purpose to the efforts on both sides to promote greater cultural and people-to-people exchanges between them, said the Ministry of External Affairs said in a formal statement. Wang will be paying an official visit to India from December 21- 24. rchopra@tribunemail.com Islamabad/Peshawar, December 14 A top court in Pakistan has given one-month deadline to the federal government to complete formalities to deport Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari, whose three-year jail term will end on December 15. Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, is currently lodged in Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court to three years imprisonment, for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card, on December 15, 2015. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2012 for illegally entering the country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online. A two-judge Peshawar High Court bench, comprising Justice Roohul Amin and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan, on Thursday heard an appeal filed by Ansari through a senior lawyer. The petition said the federal government hadnt taken any steps for his release. Ansaris lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, said his clients prison term would end on December 15 and he should be released on the morning of December 16. Anwar informed the bench that the sentence of Indian national would complete after two days and both the Ministry of Interior and authorities of prison, where he was lodged, were completely silent about his release and deportation to India. After hearing this, Justice Khan asked the Additional Attorney General to explain how they would keep the prisoner in jail after completion of his term. I wonder that after two days the jail term of the prisoner would be completed and the government did not complete requirements for releasing and deportation of the prisoner, the judge observed after the additional attorney general informed the court that the documents for release and deportation of the prisoner were not ready. An officer, representing the interior ministry, informed the court that a prisoner could be kept for one month while the legal documents were being prepared. After knowing the legal position, the court directed the ministry to make all the arrangements within a month for releasing and deportation of the prisoner. On previous hearing, the deputy attorney general recorded his statement on behalf of the interior ministry and said Ansari would be handed over to Indian authorities at the Wagah border after completion of his term. Ansari had gone missing after he was taken in custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 14 In a big relief to the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France under an inter-government agreement. A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph said there were no irregularities in the deal and the decision making process for the purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault was above board. The court said the need for fighter jets and Rafale's quality we're never under question and it was not the court's job to get into comparative pricing details. "We cannot go into the wisdom of why the deal for 36 Rafale jets was made and not the original 126 aircraft. We cannot ask the government to go for 126 aircraft," the Bench said. For the first time, four senior IAF officers three Air Marshalls and an Air Vice Marshall and Additional Secretary (Defence) had appeared in the top court to explain various aspects of a defence deal. CJI Gogoi had asked several questions about previous acquisitions, which generation of aircraft IAF was using. Air Vice Marshall J Chalapathi had told the Bench that the last acquisition was Sukhoi-30 and before that Mirage Aircraft were bought in 1985. He had said while most of the countries were using 4th and 5th generation fighter planes, IAF was using 3rd or sub-4th generation (3.5) aircraft. "Our country can't remain unprepared when adversaries have acquired 4th & 5th generation fighter jets compared to none by India. We have interacted with senior Indian Air Force officers and there is no doubt about need and quality of Rafale jets," the Bench said. It's not correct for the court to sit as an appellate authority on every aspect of the deal," the Bench added. Terming it "unfortunate", Prashant Bhushan, cousel for one of the petitioners said, "It's a totally incorrect judgment given by the Supreme Court." The top court had reserved the verdict on November 13 on the contentious issue after hearing arguments from counsel for the petitioners, including Prashant Bhushan, senior journalist Arun Shourie and Attorney General KK Venugopal who had defended secrecy clause of the deal estimated to be of Rs 58,000 crore. Alleging irregularities in the deal, petitioners ML Sharma, Prashant Bhushan, Vineet Dhanda and Sanjay Singh had demanded registration of an FIR and a court-monitored investigation into it. Following the courts October 31 order, the Centre had submitted in a sealed cover the pricing details of 36 Rafale jets. The process of acquisition had started in 2001 and India was to purchase 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) but the contract negations reached a stalemate and Request for Proposal compliance was finally withdrawn in June 2015. During the protracted process Indias adversaries modernized their combact capabilities, the AG had submitted. It was in this background that India signed an agreement with France in September 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. It has better deliverables, the AG had said, adding norms prescribed under Defence Procurement Policy -2013 were followed. The Bench said, "Minor variations in clauses should not amount to setting aside of the Rafale jet deal. The Bench agreed with Attorney General's argument that the decision on types of aircraft and weapons needed to be procured was a matter for experts and could not be adjudicated upon by the judiciary. Apex court observations On Decision-Making Process We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court. On Comparative Pricing It is certainly not the job of this court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present. We say no more as the material has to be kept in a confidential domain. On Offset Partner We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian government, as the option to choose the IOP does not rest with the Indian government. No scope for any doubt on deal: FM The verdict is conclusive and leaves no scope for any doubt on the deal... the truth in such matters comes from judicial process and not on the basis of political partisan lines. Arun Jaitley, FM Rahul must apologise: Amit Shah The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk. Amit Shah, BJP Chief Want JPC probe: Rahul Gandhi We demand a JPC probe. The PM cannot escape his culpability. We will prove his guilt. The country knows he gave a Rs 30,000-crore offset contract to his friend Anil Ambani. Rahul Gandhi, Cong Chief vinaymishra188@gmail.com New Delhi, December 14 Buoyed by the Supreme Court dismissing all petitions asking for a probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal, BJP president Amit Shah today called the order a slap on Congress chief Rahul Gandhis politics of lies, asking him to apologise to the country and its soldiers for putting national security at risk. Shah said the apex court order exposed the campaign of misinformation of the Congress chief and that his party was ready for discussion on the issue. He also challenged the Congress to debate the issue in Parliament. The truth has won. An attempt was made to mislead people using lies. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation and the Army. He has put the national security at risk, he said. Hitting out at Gandhi for a jibe at PM Narendra Modi by saying the chowkidar is a thief, Shah said: All thieves had gathered to call the chowkidar a thief, but the country never believed it. For the sake of his own credibility, he should reveal the source of information on which he based his false allegations on the Rafale deal. Shah said the Modi-led NDA government was not shying away from a JPC probe but first there has to be a discussion. A JPC is formed after a debate in Parliament, but the Congress is running away from a debate. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked for a debate in the House today also, he said. TNS shalender@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 13 Congress president Rahul Gandhi tonight cleared the appointment of Kamal Nath as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh despite threats of agitation by the Akali Dal and BJP should this happen. Akali Dal leader Manjinder Sirsa led the charge against Nath this morning raking up the Congress veterans alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The Congress went ahead with Nath on grounds he has never been charged in a court of law. The SAD-BJP, however, vowed mass agitations today as the news of Nath being made CM became clear. We will teach the Congress a lesson. I appeal to all Indians and Sikhs to join us in this fight. What Congress has done is rubbed salt in the wounds of Sikhs. This is shameful, Sirsa said tonight. Akali Dal spokesperson and Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee general secretary Sirsa again attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi, asking: What was Kamal Nath doing outside Gurdwara Rakabganj Sahib during the 1984 Sikh Carnage days? I want Rahul Gandhi to answer. The matter pertains to the alleged presence of Nath, then an upcoming MP from Madhya Pradesh, at Gurdwara Rakabganj near Parliament where two Sikhs were burnt alive in revenge killings that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. Although public spotlight in context of anti-Sikh riots has always been on two former Congress MPs Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, Nath's alleged role has neither been probed nor proven. It has, however, been documented in books and magazines of previous times which spoke of the presence of Nath at the gurdwara where two Sikhs were burnt alive. "Outlook magazine detailed the presence of Kamal Nath at the scene of the killing and the then police commissioner acknowledged the presence on record. But the surprising part is the Gandhi family was saving Kamal Nath then. It is saving Kamal Nath now. There cannot be a bigger travesty of justice than protecting and promoting a man like Kamal Nath. Sikhs will never tolerate this," he said. On a question about no case being filed against Nath, Sirsa said: "There is a witness against Kamal Nath and the Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee had written to the Special Investigation Team to lodge a case and examine the witness." Sirsa urged Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to quit over the naming of Kamal Nath as the Chief Minister. The momentum against Nath comes at a time when Delhi's local courts have begun delivering justice in long pending cases of the killings of Sikhs in 1984. Delhi's Patiala House Court recently handed over death sentence to convict Yashpal Malik in a 22-year-old case of murder of two young Sikhs in Delhi's Mahipalpur and life sentence to Naresh Sehrawat in the same case. Delhi High Court's judgment on CBI's appeal against the acquittal of Sajjan Kumar in a case involving the murder of five Sikhs of a single family near Delhi airport area is expected anytime now. The ghost of anti-Sikh riots had come to haunt Nath in January 2016 also when Congress had to drop him as AICC general secretary in charge of Punjab. But this time the Congress didn't budge on Nath. monicakchauhan@gmail.com Rajmeet Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, December 14 The Punjab Legislative Assembly on Friday in a resolution appreciating the efforts of Punjab Government and the Centre to open the Kartarpur corridor unanimously decided to seek swapping of land with Pakistan to bring the historic Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib into Indian territory. Punjab will now take up this demand with the Government of India, offering over 11,000 acres of land in exchange for the part on which Kartarpur Sahib stands, on the banks of the Ravi. After SAD chief Sukhbir Badal took up the issue of land swapping with Pakistan, Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, MLA from Dera Baba Nanak, offered land from his constituency for the purpose. The minister mentioned about the effort made by former veteran Akali leader Kuldip Singh Wadala in this direction. The resolution moved by Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh saw him being advised by the members of Opposition, to not to see the project through the prism of terrorism. While the chief minister missed out the name of Navjot Sidhu in the initiative, a Congress MLA praised the Cabinet minister while at the same time endorsed concerns of the chief minister on Pakistans bid to revive terrorism. The Opposition MLAs, including Sukhbir Badal, advised the chief minister to be positive and work for the corridor to come through. AAP MLA Kanwar Sandhu said Capt Amarinder was relying on selective memory while forgetting about the peace initiatives that he had taken when he was the chief minister during his previous term. Amarinder, while appreciating the role of the Narendra Modi government and the initiative by Pakistani premier Imran Khan in paving way for opening of the corridor, warned the Opposition and countrymen to be wary of Pakistans designs to revive militancy in Punjab. He said he would visit Pakistan once peace prevailed between the two countries. He advised Imran Khan to tame his army in case he wanted peace to prevail. He did not mention Navjot Sidhus name for the efforts put by him in the corridor issue. Akali MLA Gurpartap Wadala, while speaking on the corridor issue, urged the chief minister to be positive on the issue. He appreciated the role of Navjot Sidhu. In reply, the chief minister said while every Sikh was happy on opening of the corridor, politics and evil designs of the Pakistan Army should be understood. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, December 14 Congress president Rahul Gandhis decision to name Kamal Nath as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh triggered a war of words between Congress and Akali MLAs in the House today. The SAD legislators alleged that the veteran Congress leader was involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Raising slogans against Congress leaders whose names had figured in riot cases, Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia, party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and other SAD legislators stormed the Well of the House. Majithia alleged that the Congress high command was rewarding Nath despite his alleged role in the riots. Countering the charge, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Brahm Mohindra said there was no FIR against the Congress leader, while flashing his mobile phone to show pictures of then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Parminder Singh Dhindsa presenting a bouquet to Nath during the latters tenure as Road Transport Minister. Nath served as Union minister for more than 10 years after the allegations first surfaced, said Mohindra. Backing Nath, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh accused the Shiromani Akali Dal of politicising the issue (1984 riots). Intervening during a call-attention motion in the Vidhan Sabha, the Chief Minister said the law was taking its own course as far as allegations against the former Union minister were concerned. A mere reference about the senior Congress leader in the Nanavati Commission report could not be construed as his involvement in the case. The law alone can decide the role of any individual, the CM said, adding that nobody should exploit this sensitive issue for political ends. Sukhbir Badal said the Congress had been protecting its leader, but the Narendra Modi government was giving justice to riot victims, citing the recent convictions in a Delhi court. editorial@tribune.com GS Paul Tribune News Service Amritsar, December 14 Dissident Taksali SAD leaders from the Majha region sitting MP from Khadoor Sahib Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, ex-MP Rattan Singh Ajnala and former minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan today announced to contest the SGPCelections. They will launch a fresh version of the SAD at Akal Takht on December 16, based on original constitution of the party formed in 1920. Showing solidarity with them, local urban unit of Akali Jatha, including its president Pardeep Singh Walia, former SGPC secretary late Manjit Singh Calcuttas son Gurpreet Singh Calcutta and Akal Takht Jathedar late Chet Singhs son Tarlochan Singh along with their supporters joined the cause to take on the present SAD leadership. They were all honoured with siropas (robe of honour). Without divulging the name of their party, Brahmpura said it would be announced after conducting an ardas at the Akal Takht on Sunday. However, Sekhwan hinted that its suffix would not have any individuals name. They claimed to have received immense response from the masses and leaders who were dejected by the functioning of the Badal-ruled SAD. Taking a dig at former CM Parkash Singh Badals recent statement that the real Akali Dal is the one which controlled the SGPC, Brahmpura said it testified Badals interference in the SGPC affairs. Challenging the Badals in the SGPC elections would be our first move under the banner of the new party. Though the tenure of the SGPC body has been completed, the poll should be scheduled post-Lok Sabha elections. If they attempt to hamper it, we will not refrain from taking a legal course, he said. On Sukhdev Singh Dhindsas call, he said, Oh vee andron saade naal hi hun (he is also supporting us indirectly). Sekhwan said they had to revolt against their parent party because they were never heard of in the core committee meetings. It is very difficult to go against the ma party (parent party), but we dare to launch crusade against the Badal and Majithia who had damaged the core Panthic principles of the party for political gains without considering sentiments of the Sikh community, be it flip-flop decision of exonerating Dera Sirsa cult, series of sacrilege incidents, firing in Behbal Kalan that claimed lives of two innocent youths, he said. Commenting on the Badals move to pray for atonement of mistakes committed knowingly or unknowingly during their tenure, Ajnala said the Badals had not committed mistakes but sins. Those were the planned sins that the Badals committed to garner votes and there would be no pardon for them in Guru ghar and at peoples forum. The drama they enacted at the Golden Temple would yield no gain to them, he said. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, December 14 The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday verbally asked the CBI to produce case diaries of probe into incidents of sacrilege in Punjab. The diaries relate to the three cases handed over to the CBI by the previous SAD-BJP government. The directions by Justice Rajan Gupta came during the hearing of petitions against proceedings in pursuance to recommendations made by the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission set up to probe the sacrilege cases in the state. As the matter came up for resumed hearing before Justice Guptas Bench, CBI counsel Sumeet Goel submitted that the Punjab Government had handed over the probe in three sacrilege cases to the CBI in November 2015. The cases were still under investigation. Goel also told the Bench that two more cases subsequently handed over by the state had not been probed as these were denotified by the state government. Responding to a query by the Bench on the circumstances that forced the government to hand over the matter to the CBI, the state counsel said there was no progress in the investigation of the cases in the past three years. The Bench was also told there was no progress in the cases investigated by the CBI and the House resolved to withdraw the investigation from the agency. The state government, on September 6, notified the withdrawal of CBI investigations. The matter will now come up for hearing on December 17. One of the petitions before Justice Guptas Bench is regarding four cases in which the CBI probe was ordered before the decision was reversed. The matter was brought to the High Courts notice on a petition filed against the Punjab Legislative Assembly and other respondents by police officer Shamsher Singh through counsel Sant Pal Singh Sidhu. Challenging the impugned resolution dated August 28 passed by the Legislative Assembly, the counsel for the petitioner had submitted that it was unsustainable as reasons were not assigned therein for reviewing the decision taken earlier to hand over the investigation to the CBI. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, December 14 In the face of opposition from four Cabinet ministers, who represent urban constituencies, the Punjab Water Resources (Management and Regulation) Bill was withdrawn by the government at the last minute. Four other Bills were passed. The Bill was aimed at regulating the use of groundwater. A Punjab Water Regulation and Development Authority was proposed to impose tariff and restrict construction of structures for extraction of groundwater for domestic, commercial and industrial use, except agriculture. Ministers OP Soni, Navjot Sidhu, Brahm Mohindra and Bharat Bhushan Ashu are learnt to have told Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh that on the lines of the power regulatory authority, the regulatory body on water conservation would not take urban local bodies in the loop. The Bill was passed during the last Cabinet meeting despite reservations expressed by some ministers. The mandate of the regulatory body would be reworked before it is put up before the Cabinet again. Differences within the treasury benches came to the fore as the Punjab Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill was presented. Gurdaspur MLA Barinder Singh Pahra confronted Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa for allowing officials to change the reservation roster in his constituency. The Bill includes reservation of 50 per cent seats in urban local bodies and Panchayati Raj institutions for women. As Pahra strongly took up the issue with the minister, some MLAs backed him, giving fodder to the Akalis to mock Bajwa for not listening to his own MLA. Amid the din, the Bill was passed. Other Bills passed were the Punjab Regulation of Compounded Cattle Feed, Concentrates and Mineral Mixtures Act, Punjab Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Ordinance and the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Amendment Bill. Cong mla takes on tript Bajwa Differences within the treasury benches came to the fore as the Punjab Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill was presented. Gurdaspur MLA Barinder Singh Pahra confronted Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa for allowing officials to change the reservation roster in his constituency. The issue pertained to carving out two panchayats of Babbehali village in Gurdaspur. Pahra said despite the decision to create two panchayats, it was again reverted to a single panchayat. Citing backache, Badal skips session Muktsar: Citing backache, former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal did not attend the winter session of the Assembly. He had informed the Speaker in this regard, even as he visited Lambi and Gidderbaha Assembly segments in Muktsar district on Friday. He had visited his aide Dyal Singh Kolianwali's residence and addressed Akali workers on Wednesday. TNS vinaymishra188@gmail.com In an admirable speech she made at the Diocesan College, Calcutta, Lady Chelmsford put in a strong plea for a higher type of education for our women. The women of India, said Her Excellency, must seek education, and education of a kind to fit them for the duties of home as they are beginning to appear in the new world of to-day. Hitherto the duties of an Indian home have been largely concerned with the domestic side, the preparation of food and clothing, and though many Indian women have forged for themselves a far wider sphere of influence, yet that has been largely due to natural gifts of management and ruling and has been accomplished in-spite of, rather than through, the medium of education. We have only a word to add to this plea. The education of women must have it for its end not only to fit them for duties of home but also to fit them, where they have the natural aptitude and the opportunity, for the wider life of the world. Colin Steven blew the whistle on himselfA former sales executive of Embraer SA was sentenced Wednesday to time served and fined $25,000 for paying a bribe to help sell jets to the giant oil company, Saudi Aramco. Colin Steven, 62, a UK citizen living in Dubai, had pleaded guilty in December 2017. The DOJ said in court filings and at Wednesdays hearing in federal court in New York City that Steven provided significant cooperation in the case. He was charged with three counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, wire fraud, and money laundering, three counts of conspiracy, and one count of making a false statement. His former employer, Brazil-based aircraft maker Embraer SA, paid $205 million to the DOJ and SEC in October 2016 to resolve FCPA violations. Embraer admitted bribing officials in Saudi Arabia, the Dominican Republic, and Mozambique. Steven was a vice president of sales and marketing in Embraers Executive Jets Division. In early 2010, Saudi Aramco awarded Embraer a $93 million contract for three new aircraft. Steven arranged a $1.5 million bribe to a Saudi official for help with the sale. He also took a kickback of $130,000 from the bribe. Steven self reported the bribe inside Embraer in 2013. His information triggered the companys internal investigation. In 2014, Embraer disclosed FCPA issues in several countries to the DOJ. Steven didnt at first admit to Embraer or the DOJ that he took a kickback. He agreed to forfeit about $174,000 as part of his deal with prosecutors. ____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. editorial@tribune.com Sangeet Toor Aman is a deputy superintendent of police who owns a regular Windows laptop. One day a pop-up window on his computer suggested that his laptop was infected with a virus and he must call up on the given number to fix it. He panicked and called on the toll-free number. A woman picked the phone and told him that the virus was stealing credit card information from his laptop and she was able to see his credit card information, PINs and account passwords. She told him that it was very urgent that he must fix his system. She insisted that he did not need to go anywhere as her colleague can remotely fix the problem. She handed the phone to her colleague, who told Aman about the technical support help packages ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000. Aman decided to go with a medium package for the time being as all he wanted to do was get rid of the pop-up on his screen. But the man on the phone started pressuring him to buy the highest package as it came with a lifetime guarantee that the Windows will never get infected again. Aman was thoroughly scared and highly convinced at this point to pay money and get everything fixed once and for all. He gave remote access to his system, paid the amount and continued browsing the web. His technical problems were solved permanently. Aman is one among 68 per cent Indians who get scammed for non-existent technical problems. Of these, 14 per cent pay for fixing a non-existent bug. According to a Microsoft survey, three out of five people fall prey to scareware, a fancy name for technical support scam, worldwide. Recently, in October 2018, police arrested around five dozen people from 26 call centers in New Delhi. The majority of scareware victims come from India, China and North Americas. The victims paid anywhere between $99 and $500 for technical problems that were never there in their systems. The scammers pretend to be technical support representatives from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Symantec, etc. You dont have to be a below average Indian to become a victim of scareware or technical support scam. From executives at big corporations to officers at law enforcement agencies, anyone can fall prey to the sophisticated social engineering tactics used by the scammers to tap into human vulnerabilities. In general, people fear viruses in laptops and phones. The sheer number of viruses, vulnerabilities and different kinds of wares (ransomware, malware), is confusing and intimidating. When a stranger on the phone adds another strange problem to the mix, it is natural to get more scared. The best course of action is to not engage. The second best is to never pay money to a stranger. What should you do Be aware that tech companies dont reach out to you if there is a problem. You reach out to them if you have a technical problem. Hang up the call if the person on the other side is trying to convince you of a problem you have never heard of. Dont argue. Never reply to texts. Never call the number on the pop-up window or screen. Never give remote control to the person on call. If you end up talking to the scammer, try to gather as much information as you can and report the information to the law enforcement. Send the same information to the company the person claimed to be the representative of. The medium By sending an alarming pop-up on computer screen with a toll-free number on it By infecting the operating system with malware By sending alarming messages through web browsers By sending texts By cold-calling people How they scare pardeepdhull@gmail.com Brussels, December 14 British travellers will have to pay 7 euros ($7.91) for a three year pre-travel authorisation to visit the European Union after Brexit, provided London seals a divorce agreement with the bloc. The EU is readying a new electronic visa waiver system by 2021 to beef up security. The blocs executive proposed to exempt Britain from visas provided that the sides agree on a Brexit deal before the UK leaves, as is now due on March 29, 2019. The new EU system, or ETIAS, would be similar to the ESTA scheme used by the United States, and would apply to countries outside the bloc whose citizens can travel to Europe visa-free. There are currently 61 such countries from Monaco to Australia. ETIAS would start applying to the UK after its status-quo transition after Brexit runs its course, which is now due at the end of 2020 though could be extended. The fee would be waived for travellers under 18 and those over 70 years old. It would also cover countries associated with the EUs zone of control-free travel, meaning Britons would also have to pay to travel to Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein since they are part of this so-called Schengen zone even though outside of the EU. Conversely, it would not cover EU states that are not in Schengen, like Ireland. If Britain crashes out of the bloc with no agreement in place to mitigate ensuing disruptions, Britons could require visas to travel to the EU in the future, a spokeswoman for the European Commission said on Friday. British Prime Minister Theresa May was again under pressure on Friday over her Brexit deal, after her pleas to EU leaders for more assurances over their tentative divorce deal fell flat. Reuters sanjiv@tribunemail.com London, December 14 Irelands parliament has passed a landmark legislation to make abortion legal for the first time in the Catholic-majority country, a historic moment which came after an Indian dentist died from blood poisoning in 2012 when the doctors refused her repeated requests to abort the foetus. Ireland voted decisively to change the Constitution to repeal the Eighth Amendment in May, with 66.4 per cent voting in favour of new legislation to allow for the termination of pregnancies. The bill that allows for the introduction of abortion services in Ireland has passed all stages of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) and will now go to President Michael D Higgins to be signed into law, Irish Broadcaster RTE reported on Thursday. Historic moment for Irish women. Thanks to all who supported and well done to (Health Minister) Simon Harris for steering this through both Houses, Irelands Indian-origin Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said. The new development has come following a rising number of distressing stories about women unable to get an abortion in Ireland. The Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill allows for abortion services to be provided on demand up to the 12th week of a pregnancy, in the case of a fatal foetal abnormality or where the physical or mental health of the mother is in danger. Since the bills introduction at first stage in October, there have been some minor changes, including a decision to review the legislation after three years, rather than five years as was originally planned. Two different doctors will be allowed to assess a woman in early pregnancy and the offences section has been moved from the front of the bill, the BBC reported. I want to thank the campaigners who fought for 35 years to change a nation, to change hearts and minds. I want to thank the minority who fought the battle in here when it was convenient for the majority to ignore, Harris said. Ireland is a Catholic-majority country with about 80 per cent of Irish people describing themselves as Catholic in the last census in 2016 even as the influence of the Church has waned in recent years. PTI How an Indian woman made it a cause uttara@tribuneindia.com Colombo, December 14 Sri Lankas Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a court order restraining Mahinda Rajapaksa from holding the office of Prime Minister until it fully heard the case next month, prolonging the political uncertainty plaguing the country for nearly two months. The apex courts latest ruling came a day after it unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was illegal, in a body blow to the embattled leader, whose controversial decisions plunged the island nation into an unprecedented political turmoil. The Supreme Court decided that a Court of Appeal order issued against the appointment of Rajapaksa as prime minister and against his Cabinet from holding office will stand, Colombo Gazette reported. The appeal filed by Rajapaksa will be taken up for hearing on January 16, 17 and 18. The apex court asked all parties to provide written submissions within three weeks. The Appeal Court on December 3 issued notice and an interim order against Rajapaksa and his Government, preventing them from acting as prime minister, cabinet and deputy ministers. The order was issued in a case filed by 122 lawmakers against Rajapaksa and his new government. Rajapaksa and the members of the purported government filed the appeal against the Court of Appeals interim injunction that restrained them from functioning in their respective posts. The United National Front (UNF) said that the order means Rajapaksa cannot be prime minister and so the former cabinet must be reinstated. UNF Parliamentarian Ajith Perera said that the President must now appoint Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Sri Lanka is going through a major political crisis since October 26 when President Maithripala Sirisena, in a controversial move, removed Wickremesinghe and installed ex-strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place. Parliamentarians of Wickremesinghes UNP, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Tamil National Alliance on November 23 filed the petition in the Court of Appeal challenging Rajapaksa on continuing to hold the office of Prime Minister after a no-confidence motion was passed in Parliament against him. Sirisena, after sacking Wickremesinghe on October 26, dissolved Parliament and called for a snap election on January 5. However, the Supreme Court overturned his decision and halted the preparations for snap polls. Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa both claim to be the prime ministers with the former claiming that his dismissal is invalid because he still holds a majority in the 225-member Parliament. Prior to the crisis, Wickramasinghes UNP had the backing of 106 parliamentarians while Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine had 95 seats. Rajapaksa has, so far, failed to prove his majority in Parliament. The president has said that due to sharp personal differences with Wickremesinghe, he would not reappoint him as prime minister. However, Wickremesinghes UNP claims that Sirisena will be left with no choice as he would be the man who will command the confidence in the House. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Islamabad, December 14 Cash-strapped Pakistan on Friday received USD 1 billion from its close ally Saudi Arabia as part of a second bailout package to boost the countrys dwindling dollar reserves, according to media reports. The latest package has shored up the central banks foreign reserves, hitting the USD 9.4 billion mark, said State Bank of Pakistan Spokesman Abid Qamar. He said another Saudi financial package was expected in January next year, Dawn newspaper reported. In October, Saudi Arabia agreed to provide Pakistan USD 3 billion in foreign currency support for a year to address its balance-of-payments crisis. During Prime Minister Imran Khans visit to Saudi Arabia on October 23, it was announced that the oil-rich country will provide a USD 6 billion package to Pakistan to support its ailing economy. The package included USD 3 billion balance of payments support and USD 3 billion in deferred payments on oil import. Pakistan received the first tranche of USD 1 billion from Saudi Arabia on November 9. According to figures shared by Prime Minister Khan in October, the countrys total foreign debt has surged to Rs 30,000 billion within the last decade, while circular debt has reached Rs 1,200 billion, the report said. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has also approached China, the UAE and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to seek packages to support the economy. The second Saudi instalment will bolster Pakistans foreign exchange reserves, which fell to USD 7.3 billion in the week ended December 7 - the lowest in more than four and a half years. PTI sanjiv@tribunemail.com Washington, December 14 Donald Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is on the short-list of potential candidates for the presidents next chief of staff, US media said on Thursday. Kushner, an influential White House adviser and husband of Trumps daughter Ivanka, met with the Republican leader to discuss the job, according to the Huffington Post, which first reported the story. I am not aware that he is under consideration but, as I think all of us here would recognize, he would be great in any role that the president chooses to put him in, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said of the news, which was also reported by CBS. The president has been searching in vain for a new chief of staff after announcing that John Kelly, a retired general he had reportedly fallen out with, was to leave by the end of the year. Kushner was a key player in negotiations with Canada and Mexico to preserve a free trade pact between the North American countries. PTI rchopra@tribunemail.com Washington, December 14 Donald Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is on the short-list of potential candidates for the Presidents next chief of staff, US media said on Thursday. Kushner, an influential White House adviser and husband of Trumps daughter Ivanka, met the Republican leader to discuss the job, according to the Huffington Post, which first reported the story. I am not aware that he is under consideration but, as I think all of us here would recognise, he would be great in any role that the President chooses to put him in, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said of the news, which was also reported by CBS. The President has been searching in vain for a new chief of staff after announcing that John Kelly, a retired general he had reportedly fallen out with, was to leave by the end of the year. Nick Ayres, the 36-year-old chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, had been touted as favourite to get the job, but announced he was taking himself out of the running, dealing a blow to the President. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican who heads the hard-right Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, showed more interest--but also ultimately withdrew his candidacy. Kushner was a key player in negotiations with Canada and Mexico to preserve a free trade pact between the North American countries. He has also led efforts to draft a Middle East peace plan that the Trump administration said it would unveil in early 2019. The 37-year-old has also cultivated close ties with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is accused of playing a role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a case that has rattled the kingdoms ties with the West. The news is sure to set off warnings of nepotism, however, especially considering that Kushner had no prior experience in government before Trumps election. Like his father-in-law, he left New York real estate to become one of Washingtons most powerful political players. AFP PRISON officer Nigel Jones was gunned down in Siparia yesterday in what was described as a h On this historic day, we extend our congratulations to Barbados as it joins the club of full I'm flying from the Philippines to Japan on Jan 26th (arrival at Kansai airport) & I'll be going to Nara on the same day to witness the Wakakusa Yamayaki festival in the evening. However, the very next day, Jan 27th, is the only time during my trip when Shirakawa-go would be doing their famous light up of the farmhouses in the evening. So I would like to ask this forum's advice: - Is physical fatigue worse during the winter? I've already visited Japan once & during that trip, I had my fair share of misadventures while trying to maximize my JR Rail Pass. So I'm now aware that fatigue can become a concern for me, even if traveling around Japan with a rail pass is super convenient otherwise. However, this would be my first time to visit a place when winter (& hence snowy weather) is going on. - Is the Shirakawa-go light up event overrated if you're going on a sightseeing bus tour? I've actually visited the place already during my first Japan trip. That was in September when the tree foliage was mostly green & the weather was rainy. So if I visit again, the biggest novelties of the trip would be (1) lots of snow in a scenic place (2) same as 1, except it's at nighttime & the famous farmhouses are, well, lit up. Hi, I was looking for some high level advice. I am looking to plan a solo trip to Japan for late 2019. I have never planned my own holiday before, nor been abroad alone. This is something I really want to do and I've decided 2019 will be my year. I have not decided an itinerary, location, or specific date yet. I think I would like to go for 2 weeks - I feel like I would not be able to afford longer than this. I also think I will likely be travelling in the latter part of the year - maybe between September and December. I will be 20 in 2019, I am female, and will be flying from England. It would be really nice if I could have some tips about travelling alone, planning a holiday, recommended areas to visit in Japan, and advice about visiting Japan. Thanks in advance! Katrina We are a family of 4 with 2 kids aged 12 and 16, planning a trip to Japan next year, either May or November. Inclined for November as this seems to be less crowded season and the weather is also good. I would like to restrict the stay to 2 cities if possible and go around. Have made a couple of rough plans, please advice on these. We would definitely take 7 day JR passes Plan 1 Day 1 : Arrive Tokyo in evening. Take train or taxi to Tokyo. Check into hotel. Day 2 : Local sightseeing in Tokyo. Please suggest places Day 3 : Start using JR Pass. Go to Kyoto. Local sightseeing. Please suggest places for half day Day 4 : Day trip to Nara Day 5 : Day trip to Hiroshima Day 6 : Morning in Kyoto, please suggest places. Back to Tokyo by evening Day 7 : Day trip to Kamakura Day 8 : Day trip to Mount Fiji Day 9 : Disneyland. End of 7 day JR Pass Day 10 : Local sightseeing / shopping. Any suggestions? Day 11 : Fly back home Plan 2 Day 1 : Arrive Tokyo in morning. Take train to Kyoto. Start JR pass. Some local sightseeing in city Day 2 : Kyoto. Local sightseeing. Please suggest places Day 3 : Day trip to Nara Day 4 : Day trip to Hiroshima Day 5 : Morning in Kyoto, please suggest places. Back to Tokyo by evening Day 6 : Day trip to Kamakura Day 7 : Day trip to Mount Fiji. End of 7 day JR Pass Day 8 : Disneyland. Day 9 : Local sightseeing. Please suggest Day 10 : Sightseeing / Shopping Day 11 : Fly back home Please suggest if the plan is okay and whether I should include other places. Don't want to make it very hectic. We are strictly vegetarians (no meat, no fish, no chicken, no eggs, no sea food) so planning to stay in AirBnb's and make our own breakfast and dinner, will be taking food packs from India. For lunches can we get vegetarian rice or pizza easily? I look forward to suggestions by members. As the showbiz scene comes to terms with the killing of celebrated TV actor Jamal Nasoor by an alleged lover, the family is crying out for one thing: Justice. Remembering her brother as peace-loving and non confrontational, Zubeida Rashid on Wednesday, December 12, appealed to the criminal investigative agencies to expeditiously probe Jamal's murder and press criminal charges against the suspects. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Woman at center of Auntie Boss actor Jamal Nasoor's horrific death unveiled Grace Kanamu Namulo is being held at Mavoko police station. She alleged stabbed her lover Jamal in the chest. Photo: Carol Karendi Alhajj/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: 11 photos showing fun-filled life of slain Aunty Boss actor Jamal Nasoor "This is a very sad news because he was still young and full of life. I received a call in the morning he had been stabbed by a woman and not even his enemy. It not fair, we are appealing to the government to go after his killers. My brother was peace loving and quiet," a sobbing Zubeida told NTV. Jamal, popularly known as Baba Junior on one of the TV series is said to have had a disagreement with Kanamu at Ark Hotel in Syokimau. The lovers later stepped into a butcher owned by him where the argument got heated and Kananu, 40, picked a kitchen knife and stabbed him on the chest. The drama that led to the stabbing incident was triggered by Namulo's male visitors who had been invited to the party as they started dancing with her, a move that really angered 39-year-old Jamal. He was rushed to Shalom Hospital but unfortunately pronounced dead on arrival. Investigations continue. 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. Rose Muhando's Troubles | Tuko TV. Source: Tuko - Uhuru began his three-day tour to Nyanza region on Thursday, December 13 - In day one of the tour, Uhuru commissioned various projects in Kisumu county - The plane carrying Uhuru and his team landed at Raila's home in Opoda Farm few minutes past 10 am - The presidential entourage was received by Raila and his wife Ida alongside host of local leaders - They had breakfast before heading to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology graduation ceremony - Both leaders will be awarded Honorary degrees for their role in fostering peace in Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta has begun his day two of his historic Nyanza tour with a visit to rural home of ODM leader Raila Odinga in Bondo, Siaya county on the morning of Friday, December 14. The plane carrying Uhuru and his team landed at Raila's home in Opoda Farm few minutes past 10 am and were received by the opposition politician and his wife Ida alongside host of local leaders. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Kisumu man beats tight presidential security to gift Uhuru artistic portrait President Uhuru is being welcomed by Raila and wife Ida to their rural home. Photo: Raila Odinga/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Raila gives Uhuru warm welcome to his political bedrock, Kisumu Other dignitaries including Nairobi tycoon Jimi Wanjigi and Embakasi East MP Babu Owino arrived ahead of the president to prepare the way. They will later proceed to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology where Uhuru and Raila are expected to be awarded Honorary degrees. Through the award, the institution says it will celebrate the memorable handshake which calmed the political tension and dissent following the disputed 2017 presidential results. The plane carrying Uhuru and his team landed at Raila's Apoda Farm few minutes past 10 am. Photo: Raila Odinga/Facebook. Source: Facebook Later in the day, the Head of State will pay homage to the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Mausoleum and thereafter hit the road on day two of his tour. Uhuru last visited Raila's Bondo home when he was Gatundu MP. As reported on Thursday, December 13, Uhuru commissioned Ahero interchange road besides unveiling pilot programme of Universal Health Coverage. 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 finally has new currency | Tuko TV Source: Tuko Kenya Come tomorrow, a new slate will be voted into the National Association of Athletes and Admin Honor guards lay a wreath at the state memorial ceremony for China's National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims at the memorial hall for the massacre victims in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, Dec. 13, 2018. (Xinhua/Sun Can) NANJING, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Sirens wailed throughout Nanjing, in eastern China's Jiangsu Province, on Thursday, as the nation marked its fifth national memorial day to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. On this day 81 years ago, Japanese troops captured Nanjing, then China's capital, and embarked on more than 40 days of slaughter. About 300,000 civilians and unarmed Chinese soldiers were brutally murdered, and over 20,000 women were raped. More than 8,000 people convened in the main venue of the national memorial ceremony in the front of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in the city on Thursday. At 10 a.m., the city came to a halt, as pedestrians paused and drivers stopped their cars and honked their horns to echo the sirens. People stood in silence for a one-minute mourning period. The provincial legislature has legislated details on the city-wide one-minute mourning on the national memorial day, which took effect on Thursday. The national memorial ceremony included activities such as teenagers' reciting poems of peace, striking the Bell of Peace and releasing doves. On Thursday, World War II memorial museums across China held commemoration activities to synchronize Nanjing's peace-praying efforts. LESS THAN 100 SURVIVORS On a memorial wall inside the hall, 26 names were newly inscribed this year to bring the total number of identified victims killed in the massacre to 10,664 on the wall. With no tombs to sweep for their deceased relatives, many family members of the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre came to the memorial wall to mourn their loved ones. The wall, set up in 1995, is also known as the wailing wall. Earlier this month, two Nanjing Massacre survivors passed away. In total, 20 witnesses of the atrocity in the city passed away this year, according to the memorial museum. There are less than 100 survivors of the massacre. The Chinese government has preserved the survivors' testimonies, recorded in both written and video documents. The documents on the massacre were listed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register in 2015. Wang Chen, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, addressed the ceremony on Thursday, saying the annual ceremony is meant to proclaim the Chinese people's firm stance on remembering history and cherishing peace while looking to the future. China's endeavors in remembering the massacre has helped increase international attention to what happened in China during World War II. American photographer Chris Magee took part in a peace rally weeks before China's national memorial in Nanjing. The activity, which has been held for three consecutive years, draws over 300 international peace lovers every year for a two-hour walk in the former Nanjing Safety Zone. During the war, foreigners including Chris' grandfather, priest John Magee, saved more than 250,000 Chinese refugees in 25 shelters, which are now historical sites, in the zone. Chris said that reflecting during the event made him feel more proud about what his grandfather did for the Chinese people during the war. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, using a camera to record changes in China. In 2002, John Magee's son donated a camera that the senior Magee used to record the events in China to the Memorial Hall. The camera and its footage became an important part of the Documents of the Nanjing Massacre that were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. "FLOWER OF PEACE" Though spring is yet to come, Chinese netizens are forwarding a special image of violet orychophragmus, nicknamed purple grass, a symbol of peace, via social media outlets. It has become a tradition that in December, mourners in Nanjing wear "purple grass" badges, purple ribbons are tied in schools and families plant the purple grass in hopes for it to blossom in spring. The flower blossoms in spring providing a flame of reddish-purple in Nanjing. In 1939, a Japanese doctor surnamed Yamaguchi, who had been commissioned in Nanjing, brought the flower to Japan with a will of peace and named it "Shikinsou" (purple-gold-plant). For decades after the war, the whole Yamaguchi family has been devoted to planting and promoting the flower. "Shikinsou" has become the flower of peace in Japan. During China's first national memorial in 2014, an initiative dubbed "Purple Grass" was implemented by the Nanjing Television Broadcast Group to mourn the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. The organizer designed the badge with the flower's image of four purple petals with a yellow bud in the center. The badge, anadem and other items in purple have become special tokens for the memorial. The activity has attracted 140 million netizens in the past five years to spread "seeds" of purple grass all over the world. During the past 81 years, the city of Nanjing with its historical landmark of grand Ming Dynasty city wall has stood up from the war ruins, transforming into a technology innovation center. In April, Turing Award winner Yao Qizhi based his Turing AI research Institute in Nanjing. In November, Cambridge University inaugurated the Nanjing Center of Technology and Innovation to research technologies in support of developing future smart cities. "May the city that suffered the holocaust glow for the spirit of peace," said Chris Magee, when attending Thursday's memorial ceremony. China and many other Asian nations have repeatedly denounced right-wing Japanese of whitewashing the country's militarist past. People of Nanjing are still sensitive about the trauma that occurred in the winter of 1937, describing it as a bullet hole on the ancient wall. Zhu Chengshan, the former curator of the Memorial Hall, published a book entitled "A Hundred of My Japanese Friends" this month, with stories and photos recording how he made acquaintances with the Japanese during his tenure as the museum curator. "My Japanese friends include journalists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, artists, politicians and veterans. No matter what they do, they agree to face the wartime history squarely and devote themselves to the peace cause and friendship ties between the two nations," said Zhu. Zhe said one of his friends, Hiroshi Tanaka, professor emeritus at the Hitotsubashi University in Japan, has focused his research on the Nanjing Massacre. This year, the Institution of Nanjing Massacre History and International Peace has opened 30 topics for international research on the massacre. Projects approved by the academic committee will receive support from the Instituion. Peter Harmsen from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark has submitted his thesis, in which he compared Bernhard Arp Sindberg from Denmark who helped save up 20,000 Chinese from the Nanjing Massacre with a Danish leader who fought against German invasion during the WWII. Harmsen said he noticed the subject after more and more literature on the Nanjing Massacre appeared in the Western world. "Sindberg's deeds had long been ignored from 1940 to 2010, reflecting the limitation of the public cognition on some massacres during the WWII," he said. (Video reporters: Xia Peng, Lin Kai, Wu Xinsheng; Video editors: Zhao Yuchao) The European Union and Ukraine signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of e-governance on Thursday, December 13, the Mission of Ukraine to the EU has reported on its Facebook page. "Head of the State Agency for E-Governance of Ukraine Oleksandr Ryzhenko and Director-General [of the Directorate-General] for Informatics at the European Commission Gertrud Ingestad have signed an Administrative Arrangement on cooperation in the field of e-government development. For the first time, Ukraine will have access to the EU's ISA program, which deals with the development of common standards for the provision of electronic services," the statement reads. It also notes that joining the said program will help introduce electronic services in Ukraine in line with EU standards and ensure interoperability of data exchange both domestically and with EU countries. The Mission said the EU highly appreciates the progress made by Ukraine in developing e-governance in recent years. The European Commission's Directorate-General DIGIT is interested in learning Ukrainian experience in e-governance reform and expanding the exchange of experiences, best practices, information models, standards and solutions. op As part of the expansion of tourism cooperation between Kharkiv region and Albania, direct flights are expected to be launched between Kharkiv and Tirana. This issue was discussed during a meeting between Head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration Yuliya Svitlychna and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Albanian Republic to Ukraine Shpresa Kureta. The meeting was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the Republic of Albania, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. We are getting closer not only in business relations but also in tourism. For Ukrainians, Albania has become one of the popular tourism destinations. There are direct flights from Kyiv to Tirana. It would be important and very good to open a direct flight from Kharkiv to Albania, the ambassador said. Svitlychna assured that the Kharkiv Regional State Administration would provide all the necessary support for the launch of direct flights between Kharkiv and Tirana, as well as the opening of the Center for Albanian Language Learning at one of Kharkiv universities. According to Svitlychna, Kharkiv has been working closely with Albania for more than a year. Honorary Consul of the Republic of Albania in the city of Kharkiv Shahin Omarov also took part in the meeting. Albanias ambassador and business delegation also met with the leadership of Kharkiv City Council, where they talked about further cooperation between the parties. A partnership agreement has been already signed between the Polytechnic University of Tirana and the Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics. ish Canada should respond to the latest escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine by expanding sanctions against the Russian Federation. This is stated in a report of the Standing Committee on National Defence of the Parliament of Canada entitled Responding to Russian aggression against Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia in the Black Sea region. The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada consider sanctions against Russia in the financial and energy sectors in response to its escalation of hostilities against Ukraine, the document reads. The Committee also recommends that the Government of Canada increase sanctions under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) against those connected to the ongoing aggression against Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, and that it specifically list the Russian agents involved in the attacks against Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal. ish Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar has called on members of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) to strengthen sanctions against Russia over its aggression against Ukraine in the Sea of Azov and help Ukraine protect its territorial integrity. He stated this at the 39th meeting of the BSEC Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Baku on Friday, the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported. "Vasyl Bodnar urged partners and other members of the BSEC to take all necessary measures to deter the aggressor, including through the application of new sanctions and strengthening existing ones, as well as to provide Ukraine with assistance in protecting its territorial integrity and sovereignty within internationally recognized borders," the report reads. The deputy minister condemned Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, in particular, with an emphasis on Russia's armed provocation in the Sea of Azov, the capture of Ukrainian sailors and ships, violations of the freedom of navigation in the Sea of Azov, and the blockade of Ukrainian ports in Berdiansk and Mariupol. Bodnar also said that only restoration of peace and stability in the region, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the BSEC member states within internationally recognized borders can provide a solid basis for the development of economic cooperation in the Black Sea region. The meeting ended with the transfer of the BSEC presidency from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria, which will continue during the first half of 2019, the ministry said. On November 25, Russian border ships fired on and seized three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait - the Yany Kapu tugboat, Berdiansk and Nikopol small armored artillery boats that sailed from the port of Odesa to the port of Mariupol, as well as 24 sailors. Following "trial" in Russian-occupied Crimea, all captured sailors were detained, charged with violating the border and taken to Moscow. All of them are currently in jail. France recognizes the importance of existing sanctions against Russia, while stressing the need for continuing diplomatic efforts to restore Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. French Ambassador to Ukraine Isabelle Dumont told this to reporters on Friday, while commenting on France's refusal to impose new sanctions on Russia for its aggression in the Sea of Azov, according to an Ukrinform correspondent. "France, as is known, not only supports [already existing] sanctions, but also was one of the parties that introduced them, in cooperation with European and American partners. The importance of this instrument has been recognized, but at the same time, we emphasize the need to continue diplomatic efforts aimed at restoring the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. This is why we are focusing on the continuation of the dialogue," Dumont said. While commenting on the Russian side's refusal to resolve Donbas issues with the current Ukrainian authorities, the diplomat noted that despite the complexity of the situation, work is continuing as part of the Normandy format and the Minsk negotiation process in order to find the necessary solutions. "This dialogue and work in this framework is rather difficult, but it actually continues. I want to welcome the position of the Ukrainian leadership, which also recognizes the priority of a diplomatic path of finding a way out of this situation," Dumont said. On November 25, Russian border ships fired on and seized three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait - the Yany Kapu tugboat, Berdiansk and Nikopol small armored artillery boats that sailed from the port of Odesa to the port of Mariupol, as well as 24 sailors. Following "trial" in Russian-occupied Crimea, all captured sailors were detained, charged with violating the border and taken to Moscow. All of them are currently in jail. On November 28, the United States called on European countries to impose more effective sanctions against Russia after its aggression against Ukraine in the Sea of Azov. Germany and France opposed new sanctions against Russia. In particular, at a meeting of the EU's Political and Security Committee in Brussels on November 28, representatives of the two countries called for confidence-building measures between the parties to the conflict. According to Germany and France, sanctions are not part of such measures. A displaced Congolese family sit in a makeshift shelter in Bunia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, July 2018. UNHCR/Natalia Micevic UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is extremely concerned at the large number of people left homeless by fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ongoing violence means aid agencies are without access to provide even basic assistance in several areas. UNHCR estimates that around 1.5 million people have had their homes damaged or destroyed. The assessments are based on findings from a UNHCR-led Shelter Working Group from seven of DRCs 26 provinces, which were surveyed between May and November of this year. Deadly clashes involving armed groups and Government forces, as well as targeted attacks, have seen many houses being burned to the ground, and building materials and roofs looted and stripped. Some of those forced to flee report entire villages having been reduced to ash. In the eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, an estimated 88,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged due to violence. Many people have been left with no choice but to seek shelter elsewhere, where they rely on host families to take them in. This is placing a strain on already limited resources, forcing some to engage in sexual services or child labour. In spontaneous settlements, people are in destitute and dire conditions, sleeping in huts made of branches and plastic bags. With little protection against the elements or from intruders, they are exposed to sickness and disease. The minimal possessions people still have often end up being stolen. Women and girls are at acute risk of sexual violence. In the Ebola-affected area near Beni, North Kivu, more than 1,300 cases of human rights violations against civilians have been recorded in the last three months, including physical attacks, indiscriminate killing, pillaging and kidnapping. In Ituri, recent weeks have seen renewed attacks by often unidentified assailants on military positions and civilians. As a result of the new wave of violence since September in Ituris Djugu Territory, UNHCR received reports of close to 100,000 newly displaced persons in the province. Over one million Congolese are now estimated to have become internally displaced in 2018. UNHCR urges all parties to the violence to immediately cease targeting of civilians. It also calls on the Government of DRC to address the causes of forced displacement and to engage in seeking solutions for the victims. We also urge the international community to come forward with further funding, having received just 46% of the $201 million needed for our operations in DRC in 2018. For more information on this topic, please contact: For those displaced by unrelenting conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) the makeshift shelters they now live in are a far cry from the homes they have known and loved. Divine, 21, fled her village in Djugu territory in Ituri earlier this year in February, together with her family. She shares a tent with seven relatives in a displacement site in Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri. "Our house has been burnt to the ground, she says. We saw it behind us as we were fleeing. Joao Sobral, a shelter expert with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, working in Ituri at the time, recounts: At the banks of Lake Albert I saw villages, where about half of the houses were destroyed. But in other villages, further away from the lake, everything was destroyed. Nothing was left, nothing! See also: Acute underfunding chokes off aid to desperate Congolese Odette had to flee her hometown in Rutshuru territory in the North Kivu province a few years ago due to insecurity. She first settled in Oicha, in the Beni territory of North Kivu with her husband and two children. Life was good in Oicha, reflects the 38-year-old. We had our own house. But the familys quietude was short-lived. Two years later, she was forced to abandon her home again, after attackers came in the night. We heard gunshots and fled but they had killed my husband, she says. They looted our home and burnt it down. Odette, 38, with her two children, Nono, 12, and Prince 3. Due to violence and insecurity, the small family has had to flee their homes several times. They now live in the city of Beni. UNHCR/Natalia Micevic The small family then moved to the outskirts of Beni. After only a brief respite, violence and insecurity gripped their lives again and the family had to move once more after another attack. Armed men broke the windows of our house and started chopping off the heads of people in the neighbourhood. Like Divine and Odette, an estimated 1.5 million people have had their homes damaged or burned to the ground and their few possessions looted amidst ongoing violence in the DRC. Some of those forced to flee report entire villages having been reduced to ash, said UNHCR spokesperson Charlie Yaxley in a statement earlier today. He added that in the two conflict-affected provinces of Ituri and North Kivu alone, an estimated 88,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged due to conflict. Some of those forced to flee report entire villages having been reduced to ash. This was the result of the latest of a series of assessments done this year by the UNHCR-led Shelter Working Group in DRC, to which several humanitarian organisations contributed data. Shelter is one of the most basic things people need when forced to flee their homes, explains Sahdia Khan, UNHCRs Shelter Coordinator in Kinshasa. It means safety and security for people whose lives have been uprooted. Often forced to live in shelters without proper walls or the possibility to lock the doors, displaced people are at greater risk of harassment, assault or exploitation. Women and children are particularly exposed to sexual and gender-based violence while living in cramped spaces. Congo's internally displaced find strength in each other (Andreas Kirchhof, producer/ Linda Muriuki, producer/ Vania Turner, producer-editor/ Stephen Kibunja, editor/ Thomas Freteur, camera) In Ituri, recent weeks have seen renewed attacks by often unidentified assailants on military positions and civilians. I remember these small villages were everything had disappeared. The attackers had also destroyed all the basic infrastructure, the school buildings, the health posts were gone, adds Joao. In the Ebola-affected area near Beni, North Kivu, more than 1,300 cases of human rights violations against civilians have been recorded in the last three months, including physical attacks, indiscriminate killing, pillaging and kidnapping. Besides physical security, having a roof over their heads also provides displaced people emotional security and comfort. A shelter is first and foremost a home, says Sahdia. Having a place to come back to their families at a days end gives displaced people hope and a semblance of normal life. "I want to return, but I do not have the means to rebuild my house. While in emergency situations in DRC, UNHCR provides materials such as plastic sheeting and matting that can be used to make simple shelters, UNHCR supports wherever possible more durable construction, using traditional building materials. Rehabilitation of communal shelters or construction of new homes is carried out with provision for materials and cash needed to re-build houses under self-help schemes. Over one million Congolese are now estimated to have been internally displaced in 2018. Pierre Mugisa is one among many who are waiting to return to their villages or cities of origin, but have to wait as the situation is still unstable. We have been here for almost six months. Our children do not go to school anymore, said Pierre when talking to UNHCR earlier this year, pointing at the hundreds of shelters with plastic sheeting at a site for displaced persons in Bunia. At home, our houses have been burnt down. I want to return, but I do not have the means to rebuild my house. See also: Surging violence drives thousands of Congolese from their homes UNHCR estimates not even one in five people in need will receive basic shelter assistance this year due to a severe lack of funding. Out of the US$201 million needed for UNHCRs operations in the DRC this year, only 46 per cent has been received. Returning home also seems out of reach for Odette. I would like to return to Oicha, but we sold our land there and insecurity is very high, she said. Here, we lack everything. Life is hard. When Graciela Sanchez first arrived in Las Delicias looking for safety, she only carried her two children and a small bundle of clothes with her. The armed conflict in Caqueta, western Colombia, took everything she had. In 2007, Graciela decided to settle in a hilly suburb of Cucuta, all the way to the east of Colombia, because it was near the border with Venezuela. Back then, the Venezuelan side was bustling with business and many Colombians would cross the border every day to go to work or buy goods. We Colombians depended on the border, Graciela says. Today, the reality is quite the opposite. Over three million Venezuelans have left their home country. An estimated 5,500 cross every day to Colombia with the purpose of staying in the country or continuing their journey southwards. Over 35,000 people enter Colombia every day through the crossing in the North Santander region, many of them Venezuelans looking for protection, food or medicine who then return to their country. We have become a family. In Cucuta, the main city on Colombias side of the busiest border point, health and social service providers are struggling to deal with the growing influx of Venezuelans. In an example of true solidarity, neighbours of Las Delicias suburb have opened their arms and doors to those fleeing Venezuela. 23 families are currently hosting more than 150 Venezuelans in the community. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, supports this solidarity network by covering water and electricity costs. The families within the network identified this need as a priority to improve their life conditions. See also: Emergency plan for refugees and migrants from Venezuela launched The programme in Las Delicias builds on five years of experience working with the displaced population in the neighbourhood, and it seeks to strengthen solidarity and to promote activities that benefit the community as a whole, says Rafael Zavala, head of UNHCRs office in Cucuta. Most neighbours of Las Delicias know very well what Venezuelans are going through over 60 per cent of them were displaced by the armed conflict in Colombia and built this informal settlement they now call home. With the help of UNHCR, Las Delicias is today a legal neighbourhood of Cucuta, which allows its community to access services and official investment. I lost everything. I arrived here with empty hands, Graciela says. After having been through that, I decided to open my door to Venezuelans. Jenire Rojas, 30, from Venezuela, sits outside Graciela Sanchez's home in Las Delicias, Cucuta, Colombia. UNHCR/Fabio Cuttica Graciela Sanchez, 39, was displaced by the armed conflict in Colombia. Today, she hosts 18 Venezuelans in her home in Las Delicias, Cucuta. UNHCR/Fabio Cuttica Andreina Diaz from Venezuela folds clothes in Graciela Sanchez's home in Las Delicias, Cucuta, Colombia. UNHCR/Fabio Cuttica Little Yaniz, from Venezuela, drinks a glass of water inside Graciela Sanchez's home in Las Delicias community in Cucuta. UNHCR/Fabio Cuttica A car passes through Las Delicias neighborhood of Cucuta, Colombia. Over 60% of its neighbours were displaced by the Colombian armed conflict. UNHCR/Fabio Cuttica During her first weeks in Las Delicias, Graciela and her two sons, who were three and eight years old at the time, slept on the floor. The three of them got sick with dengue fever. It was really hard in the beginning, Graciela recalls. A generous neighbour, Juan, offered her and her children a place to stay. A month later, she bought a small plot from him next door, and she started building her own house. She paid Juan back in small installments, since her salary as a part-time supermarket assistant was meagre. Graciela made a promise to Juan: One day, when youre not able to work anymore, I will take care of you in my home. As more and more Venezuelans were arriving in Cucuta seeking help, Graciela could not remain passive. She could see herself in them: They are Venezuelans and we are Colombians, but we both had to experience the same: leaving our families; fleeing to look for opportunities; starving; and starting from zero. I lost everything. I arrived here with empty hands. Jenire Rojas, 30, is one of the 18 Venezuelans currently living with Graciela. She arrived five months ago with her husband. Back in Tinaquillo, Venezuela the economic situation was so bad that they struggled to buy basic necessities like food, she says, and the family was starving. The monthly minimum salary is not enough to cover food for two days, she adds. Jenires two children, who are 10 and three years old, are still in Venezuela. I had never been away from my children before, not even for a weekend, Jenire says. Her hope is to be able to bring them to Las Delicias before the end of the year. We came to Colombia looking for an opportunity we do not have back in Venezuela, Jenire says. Jenire and the other Venezuelans in the house are deeply grateful to Graciela. She has been a great support for us, always telling us not to give up, to keep going, Jenire says. See also: Striving to protect vulnerable Venezuelan children One of the things Jenire values the most is how Graciela fully trusts them. Because we are acquaintances, but not family, Jenire says. Graciela has only been able to find work at a Chinese restaurant three days a week and her salary is not enough to maintain the whole community living under her roof. She even went into debt to buy a new plot and build a secondary home to host more Venezuelans. Being so welcoming to Venezuelans has cost Graciela some friendships. Some people do not understand why she is opening her door to strangers. We came to Colombia looking for an opportunity we do not have back in Venezuela. The five Venezuelan families living in the compound show Graciela their gratitude every day. Even though they do not pay rent, they help her improve her house, a basic structure of naked red brick, and the two other small houses in the backyard. When we got here, there was no floor, the roof was falling apart, Jenire recalls. They helped her with house repairs and about a month ago they installed gas. They regularly cook, clean and do laundry. We have become a family, Jenire says. In a side room with yellow curtains, lying on a wooden bed with a bandaged eye and skinny arms, is Gracielas generous neighbour Juan, the one who first opened the doors of Las Delicias to her. He is battling cancer and Graciela is taking care of him, as she once promised. He is like my father, she says. The Venezuelans in the house also keep a constant eye on Juan when she is not at home. As she puts on her white and blue uniform to go to work, Graciela says: We need to be patient. We dont know what may happen in the future. Tomorrow it could be us too. Driving through the undulating countryside outside Erbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq (KRI), on his way to see patients at a nearby Syrian refugee camp, Dr. Mohammed Issa is sanguine about the fact that any fees he receives will barely cover his fuel costs. Money is the last objective, he said. I want to help Syrians as much as I can. They cant afford to come and see me they are poor. I do home visits because I cant allow a poor person to pay for a taxi ride to [the city]. A general practitioner who now focuses on physical therapy, he makes house calls to mostly elderly Syrians after a morning of appointments at a private clinic in Erbil. He gently massages his patients feet and legs before leading them through exercises that he encourages them to perform each day until his next visit. What makes these particular doctor-patient relationships unusual is that Mohammed is also a refugee from the long-running conflict in Syria. Being able to practice medicine as a refugee, he says, is testament to the openness of the city he has called home since fleeing Al-Hasakah in northeast Syria with his family in 2014. "The city welcomed us." Unlike many host communities around the world that place tight restrictions on the jobs available to refugees, Syrians living in Erbil and elsewhere in KRI are free to work, provided they hold recognized qualifications if necessary. The city welcomed us, Mohammed explained. They made it easy to issue residency permits [and] allowed everyone to work. The Kurdistan region is host to virtually all of the 250,000 Syrian refugees currently living in Iraq. Around half of these live in Erbil province, with many gravitating to its eponymous capital, the regions largest city and a bustling economic hub that radiates outwards from the ancient and imposing citadel perched at its centre. Around 60 per cent of the worlds 25.4 million refugees live not in camps but in cities and urban areas across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. See also: Vienna learns the benefit of giving warm welcome to refugees Mayors, local authorities, social enterprises and citizen groups are on the frontlines of the global refugee response, fostering social cohesion and protecting and assisting the forcibly displaced men, women and children in their midst. Erbil is part of a growing global network of municipalities that are opting to embrace refugees and the opportunities they bring. From Sao Paulo to Vienna, these Cities of Light are giving hope to the worlds most vulnerable by offering sanctuary and the chance to become part of the social fabric. On 18 and 19 December, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi will host the eleventh High Commissioners Dialogue event in Geneva, which this year focusses on the role of cities in protecting the urban displaced. "They brought new cultures, new ideas, enriching the city in different ways." The long-serving Governor of Erbil Province, Nawzad Hadi Mawlood, said the decision to welcome Syrian refugees was driven primarily by humanitarian concerns. But by allowing them to move and work freely, the city and its people had benefited in ways that would not have been the case had they been restricted only to camps. Those in the camps live off the assistance they receive, but those outside rely on themselves, he said. There are no restrictions or constraints on refugees labour. They are just like any other citizen living in Erbil. These are skilled people who worked in various fields in Syria, he continued. They were an added value to our talents, they brought new cultures, new ideas, enriching the city in different ways. I thought it was positive. True there was competition, but there was no resistance from the local population. Dr. Mohammed Issa, 33, from Al-Hasakah in northern Syria, relaxes at home in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, after a long day visiting patients. UNHCR/Claire Thomas Dr. Mohammed Issa, 33, from Al-Hasakah in northern Syria, visits a patient in Darashakran Camp, near the city of Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. UNHCR/Claire Thomas Dr. Mohammed Issa visits a patient in Darashakran Camp, near the city of Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. UNHCR/Claire Thomas Dr. Mohammed Issa (right) visits a patient in his home in Baharka on the outskirts of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. UNHCR/Claire Thomas Mohammed Issa helps his five-year-old son Issa with his English homework in their home in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. UNHCR/Claire Thomas The citys open approach was partly forged by its long experience of hosting large numbers of new arrivals. As well as welcoming more than 120,000 Syrian refugees, Erbil province is also home to more than 600,000 Iraqis displaced from other parts of the country during years of violence and insecurity. An obvious beneficiary of this approach, Dr. Mohammed Issa says Erbils open policies have been of far more benefit to him than any traditional humanitarian assistance. He has been able to support himself and his family, without the loss of identity and status that so many refugees around the world experience. Aid does not need to be material, he said. If you dont help me financially but allow me to move and work freely, I will be doing well. If I couldnt work, I wouldnt be able to live here, I would have to go back to Syria. See more stories from the Cities of Light series Venezuelans arrive at Rumichaca International Bridge, the main point of entry into Ecuador from Colombia, November 2018. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo Joint UNHCR/IOM Press Release Faced with the largest population outflow in Latin America of recent years, 95 organizations covering 16 countries have been working together to establish a comprehensive response to the urgent needs of millions of refugees and migrants from Venezuela, and host communities. This effort is coordinated by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the International Organization for Migration. Launched today in Geneva, the regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) is the first of its kind in the Americas: an operational blueprint, coordination template and strategy for responding to the needs of Venezuelans on the move and securing their social and economic inclusion in the communities receiving them. The RMRP, which is also an appeal for funding, focuses on four key areas: direct emergency assistance, protection, socio-economic and cultural integration and strengthening capacities in the receiving countries. This plan is a call to the donor community, including international financial institutions and development actors who can play a key role in this situation, to increase their support to refugees and migrants in the region and the host communities which have kindly opened their arms to them, said Eduardo Stein, Joint UNHCR-IOM Special Representative for Venezuelan refugees and migrants. Venezuelans I met during my visits spoke of hunger, lack of access to medical care, insecurity, threats, fear. They are families, women alone, children, young boys and girls, all in conditions of extreme vulnerability. All of them saw no other option than to leave their country sometimes walking for days- seeking to live in dignity and to build a future, Stein said, adding that this critical situation is exacerbated by the lack of livelihoods, which exposes refugees and migrants to all forms of exploitation. Although Venezuelans have been leaving their country for several years, these movements increased in 2017 and further accelerated in 2018. According to available estimates, during 2018 an average of 5,500 people have been leaving the country every day. The solidarity of Latin American countries with Venezuelans has been humbling. It is now vital that we stabilize the dire humanitarian situation affecting the millions of Venezuelans seeking protection and shelter across the continent, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. The appeal launched today underscores the urgency of this complex and fast-evolving situation and the need to support the host communities. RMRP funding requirements in 2019 amount to US$ 738 million. Interventions will target 2.7 million people in 16 countries, 2.2 million of them Venezuelans and 500,000 people in host communities. IOM is committed to expanding its support to governments across Latin America and the Caribbean who have extended assistance and solidarity to Venezuelan migrants over the past year, IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino said. We call on the donor community to generously support this regional plan. Solidarity and responsibility-sharing from the international community are desperately needed, not only for Venezuelan nationals, but also for the governments and citizens of destination countries. They have been at the forefront of the response to the outflow, including through regional initiatives such as the Quito Process, and have demonstrated extraordinary generosity towards the refugees and migrants, in some cases for years. Their ability to cope and their infrastructure are being stretched beyond capacity. There are significant gaps and challenges, particularly regarding documentation, regularization, capacity of asylum systems, and access to basic services such as health and education, shelter and protection, said Mr. Stein. To date, most Venezuelan refugees and migrants have arrived initially in neighbouring Colombia. While some remain there, many have moved onwards, mainly to Ecuador, Peru, and to a lesser extent Chile and Argentina. Meanwhile Brazil has become another major destination. Mexico, Caribbean and Central American countries have so far witnessed a smaller number of arrivals, either directly or through secondary movements. These trends are likely to continue in 2019. Download the RMRP document: https://s3.amazonaws.com/unhcrsharedmedia/2018/RMRP_Venezuela_2019_OnlineVersion.pdf For more information on this topic, please contact: For UNHCR, William Spindler, [email protected] , +507 638 278 15 , +507 638 278 15 For IOM, Juliana Quintero, [email protected] , +54 113 248 81 34 For background information please consult the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform website: https://r4v.info A South Sudanese refugee mother and her child in Bidibidi refugee settlement in Uganda, April 2017. UNHCR/Jordi Matas On the fifth anniversary of the start of conflict in South Sudan, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is appealing again to all parties to continue pursuing a sustainable and lasting peace. The people of South Sudan, many of whom have been displaced multiple times in their lives, deserve an end to their suffering, said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Peace must prevail. The wounds of this conflict will take time to heal, but that process can only be sustained through warring parties engaging in dialogue, finding political solutions and laying down their arms once and for all. More than 2 million South Sudanese refugees have been forced to flee their homes and seek safety in neighbouring countries, while another 1.8 million have been internally displaced inside the country, becoming the largest source of displacement on the African continent. Nearly two-thirds of the displaced are children under the age of eighteen. UNHCR stands ready to assist efforts to achieve a genuine and inclusive peace process, including supporting the meaningful and inclusive participation of refugees in any agreement. Media contact: The European Council reconfirmed the EU's policy of non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Crimea. EU leaders of all 28 member states declare their readiness to strengthen support for the affected regions of Ukraine after Russia blocked shipping in the Sea of Azov. "The European Council expresses its utmost concern regarding the escalation at the Kerch Straits and the Azov Sea and Russia's violations of international law," the Council said in its conclusions after a summit in Brussels on December 13. "The European Council requests the immediate release of all detained Ukrainian seamen as well as the return of the seized vessels and free passage of all ships through the Kerch Straits. The EU stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support, in particular in favour of the affected areas of Ukraine," it said. Read alsoPoroshenko: "Putin hates European success of Ukraine" The European Council reconfirmed its commitment to international law, the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine and the EU's policy of non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Crimea. "There is no justification for the use of military force by Russia," it said. As UNIAN reported earlier, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini said on December 10 that practical support for the affected regions of Ukraine after the blockade by Russia of shipping in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait is more important than new sanctions over that blockade. Speaking before the EU summit, she said that the EU was ready to expand substantial assistance to Ukraine. On November 25, Russia seized three Ukrainian navy vessels and their combined crew of 24 off the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea and accused them of illegally entering Russian waters. Ukraine has said Russia captured the two small gunboats and one tugboat illegally and accused Moscow of military aggression. The UOC-KP on December 13 held its bishops' council to prepare for the unification council. Press secretary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) says Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will hand a tomos of autocephaly over to the head of a new local Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Istanbul, Turkey, on January 6, 2019. "A tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch must be handed over to the primate on January 6," he said, as reported by the BBC's Ukrainian service on December 13. The primate is to be elected during a unification council in Kyiv on December 15. According to the Archbishop, a divine liturgy, a joint service of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the primate [of the local Orthodox Church in Ukraine], is to be held in Istanbul on January 6. Following that, the latter will be given the tomos. Read alsoKyiv Patriarchate has proposals as for procedure of Orthodox churches' unification council As UNIAN reported earlier, a decision was announced after a meeting of the Holy Synod on October 11 that the Ecumenical Patriarchate would proceed to granting autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine. In addition, the legal binding of the Synod's letter of 1686 was abolished, thus taking the Kyiv Metropolis from under Moscow's canonical jurisdiction. Also, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) Filaret and head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) Makariy were reinstated in their canonical status. On November 3, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I signed an agreement on cooperation and interaction between Ukraine and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On November 29, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate drafted the Ukrainian Church's constitutional charter in anticipation of the issuance of the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos. The unification council will be held at Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral on December 15 to announce the creation of the new local Orthodox Church, approve its charter, and elect its leader. The UOC-KP on December 13 held its bishops' council to prepare for the unification council. The visit comes following the Russian attack on Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait. Ukrainian Naval Forces Commander Ihor Voronchenko has arrived in Washington, where he is scheduled to meet with U.S. Department of Defense officials, in particular, with Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson. The parties will talk Russian aggression against a group of Ukrainian naval boats, Voice of America reports. U.S. President Donald Trump previously stated that he wanted to know whether Ukraine had warned Russia before the boats sailed toward the Kerch Strait. Besides the Kerch Strait incident, Ukraine and the United States will discuss bilateral cooperation in the field of security and the implementation of the new strategy of the Ukrainian Navy. Read alsoUkrainian Navy Commander ready to turn himself in to Russia in exchange for captured sailors The U.S. government is working closely with allies and partners in Europe and worldwide to support Ukraines aspiration for a diplomatic and peaceful solution amid Russia's aggression, including the recent unprovoked attack on Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea, according to the Pentagon press service. The Department of Defense leaders will reiterate support for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, which include both territorial waters, and the right of Ukrainian ships to use international maritime routes. As indicated in the Crimean Declaration of the U.S. Government, "the United States rejects Russias attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraines territorial integrity is restored." The plan is to invade Ukraine and then get to the Baltic States and Poland via Belarus. Russia is preparing for the next world war, which might start within the next 6 years, that's according to a head of the Information Security Department at National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Valentyn Petrov. Analyzing the escalation of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine at a Kyiv presentation on Thursday, Petrov noted that Ukraine is not Russia's ultimate goal, but only an element of their preparation for a wider offensive. If you look at modern Russian military initiatives, you could say that this is not only about preparing for a war with Ukraine, it is one of the elements of a broader strategic deployment of the Russian offensive machine. It stretches from the North Sea to Syria. In fact, we can talk about preparations for a world war, said Petrov. According to the head of the NSDC's information security department, such global conflict may develop in the coming years. Read alsoRussian troops undergo preparations along Ukraine borders: Ukraine's NSDC secretary Now all rearmament plans of all major powers, in particular, the Russian Federation, have deadlines in 2023-2025. The world could be 'ready' for a global conflict to start in just six years, or even earlier, noted Petrov. According to the official, in a hypothetical third world war "Russia, reinforced by Ukraine's resources, will be a completely different Russia." Petrov stressed that it's not only the Ukrainian authorities, but also the Western elites, who gradually start grasping the idea that Ukraine needs to support. According to Petrov, the next year will be of fundamental importance for Ukraine, in particular, in connection with the presidential and parliamentary elections, where the aggressor state will try to meddle. Read alsoUkraine should prepare for more Russian cyberattacks ahead of 2019 elections - expert It is absolutely clear that our opponent will try to take advantage of this. There is a military card, military units are deployed at the border. This is really a terrible force, and this force is set not only against Ukraine it plans to go right through Ukraine and, moving further, go through Belarus to the Baltic countries and Poland, said the head of the Information Security Service of the NSDC. He stressed that the Russians will try to influence the situation in Ukraine on the eve of the elections by hybrid means "through information and cyber campaigns," but the security and defense sector is ready for these threats. Answering the question about whether the state has plans to develop the latest military technologies, Petrov noted that new anti-aircraft complexes, tactical missiles, anti-ship complexes are being developed at the moment. According to Petrov, the quality of Ukraine's Armed Forces is changing, which is a key advantage over the Russian aggressor. He stressed that, despite the escalation of hybrid aggression and internal problems, Ukraine is becoming stronger and ready for new challenges. Gradually we are turning into a completely different power. Step by step, we're becoming stronger, he concluded. Back in 2014, the EU imposed the first set of economic sanctions against the Russian Federation, related to its aggression against Ukraine. United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker has called on Russia to get serious about implementing Minsk agreements. "Strong signal from the EU that Russia needs to get serious about implementing Minsk agreements and choosing peace4Ukraine," he wrote on Twitter on December 13, commenting on the EU's decision to prolong economic sanctions against Russia for another six months. As UNIAN reported earlier, the EU in 2014 imposed economic sanctions against the Russian Federation aimed at specific sectors of its economy. In March 2015, the EU leaders decided to peg the sanctions to the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements on Donbas. After that, the EU has repeatedly extended these sanctions for a new six-month period. The last time when the European Council extended economic sanctions, associated with Russia's banking, financial and energy sectors, for non-compliance with the Minsk agreements was on June 29, 2018. Said sanctions are expiring on January 31, 2019. On December 13, heads of state and government of the European Union's member states decided to prolong economic sanctions against Russia for another six months. The ROC led by Patriarch Kirill (aka Gundyaev) is trying, now at the international level, to prevent Ukraine from getting a tomos on autocephaly. With the approach of the Unification Council scheduled for Dec 15, th Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) clerics continue their attempts to prevent the creation of a new local Ukrainian Orthodox Church, independent from Russia. Yesterday, the SBU said they had revealed plans of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), to set up bloody provocations against the background of the historical event, writes the Information Resistance (IR) OSINT group. Provocations were to be orchestrated by a cleric from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel, the report noted. For its part, the ROC led by Patriarch Kirill (aka Gundyaev) is trying, now at the international level, to prevent Ukraine from getting a tomos on autocephaly, the IR wrote, recalling reports of Kirill's old ties with the Russian KGB-turned-FSB. Read alsoSBU spots Russian intel plotting provocations during new church's Unification Council According to the ROC press service, Kirill sent letters to the United Nations, the Pope, as well as leaders of France and Germany, claiming "violation of rights of believers in Ukraine and pressure the official Kyiv exerts on the church." "Recently, the intervention of the leaders of the secular Ukrainian state in church affairs has acquired the features of gross pressure on the bishops and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP), which suggests the start of full-scale persecution," the statement reads. Gundyaev claims the "persecution" began after representatives of the UOC-MP had refused to participate in the unification council. He also complained the bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine were allegedly oppressed in their rights, while Kyiv sought to "deprive the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) of the legal rights to use the Kyiv-Pechersk and Pochaiv lavras." Read alsoPatriarch Bartholomew explains Metropolitan Onufriy reasons for Ukraine church's autocephaly (Letter) It is noteworthy that, while accusing Ukrainian authorities of "interfering" in the affairs of the UOC-MP, the church that has recently been mentioned in various reports without the last two letters of the abbreviation [thus claiming the status of the only valid Ukrainian Orthodox Church], Kirill, himself, intervenes in the church affairs of the neighboring country. After all, this contradicts the claim of "independence" of UOC-MP from Moscow, which the ROC has been actively spinning in the information space. While calling on the international community "to make every effort to protect the bishops, clergy and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from discrimination and pressure on part of the Ukrainian authorities, to defend the freedom of conscience and religion enshrined in international law," Patriacrh Kirill remains modestly silent about the Moscow control over the UOC-MP, and secondly, about those active, provocative attempts by the ROC to prevent the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from obtaining autocephaly, the IR group concluded. As UNIAN reported earlier, Andrei Illarionov, a Russian economist, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and a former advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is convinced that in Russian perception, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church getting autocephaly, that is, canonical independence, is equivalent to the collapse of the Soviet Union, therefore the Kremlin will attempt to retain its influence in the religion field until the last. Peskov stressed the Russian side remains ready for a bilateral meeting at the highest level. Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said the Kremlin is not going to release Ukrainian POW sailors captured in the Kerch Strait in return for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We are still convinced that the meeting is equally important for both Moscow and Washington," Peskov said, responding to a request from an UNIAN correspondent in Russia to comment on the relevant statement by U.S. national security adviser John Bolton. He stressed the U.S. position suggesting that the two leaders will not meet until the captured Ukrainian sailors and ships are released "cannot be a reason for disrupting the course of the trial and investigation, which is being conducted in relation to violators of the Russian state border." Peskov also stressed the Russian side remains ready for a bilateral meeting at the highest level, as well as other meetings at various levels, to start "a discussion of those urgent issues concerning our two countries and issues of strategic security worldwide." Read alsoReuters: No Trump-Putin meeting while Russia holds Ukraine ships Bolton Answering a clarifying question of the UNIAN correspondent on whether it seems to him that the capture of Ukrainian sailors and three ships "impedes" the discussion of global problems, Peskov said: "Of course, we think so, and we agree here, and therefore we expect that the United States will come to the same conclusion." In addition, when asked by UNIAN whether the position of the United States would affect the fate of Ukrainian prisoners, he said: "It's the course of investigation that may influence the fate of the Ukrainian crew, as well as the court's decision if it comes to that." Clarifying whether it means that the Ukrainian sailors and ships can be released before the trial on the merits, Peskov said: "The investigation is underway. The documents are transferred or either forwarded to the court or not, according to the investigation results. Everything is in the hands of the investigation here there is a fact of violation of the state border, there are violators of the state border and these boats are attached to the case." Read alsoUkrainian Navy Commander ready to turn himself in to Russia in exchange for captured sailors As UNIAN reported earlier, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said on Thursday there would be no meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Russia still holds Ukrainian ships and sailors seized near Crimea. Ukraine's Ministry of Information Policy recalled the Kremlin's TOP 10 fake allegations Russian media have been spinning to whitewash Russia's act of aggression near the Kerch Strait. One of them was precisely the allegation that Ukrainian sailors "violated the Russian border." Hungary is not Russia, Chornovil said. Hungary will not be seizing Zakarpattia from Ukraine, says Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst and foreign relations expert. "Hungary, unlike Russia, is part of the civilized world. Its policies could be uncivilized, and pro-Russian in some ways, but there are fundamental principles in the EU and NATO. They could destabilize the situation -not in the whole of Zakarpattia region, but in two of its districts but they can never claim a revision of borders, this will never happen, under any circumstances," he said during an online Q&A session with the Ukrainian news outlet Glavred's readers. In addition, the policy of issuing Hungarian passports plays against the Hungarians themselves, the analyst believes. He explained that many new EU citizens from Hungarian villages and towns leave Zakarpattia, but choose to live and work in other EU countries rather than stay in Budapest. There is an ongoing, gradual extinction of these territories, according to the expert. Read alsoU.S. urges Hungary not to block Ukraine's NATO engagement media "I suppose the next census might bring plenty of unexpected news. There is no one to play along any separatist ideas. And don't forget: Hungary is not Russia," Chornovil said. As UNIAN reported earlier, relations between Ukraine and Hungary deteriorated after the Verkhovna Rada adopted a new law on education in 2017. Hungary has been blocking Ukraine-NATO Commission meetings, alleging that the language provision of the law on education, which stipulates that the national language is the language of the educational process in educational institutions violate the rights of Hungarians living in Ukraine. The Hungarian Foreign Minister demanded that Ukraine amend the law on education and postpone its implementation until 2023, otherwise Budapest will block important meetings for Ukraine at the level of the European Union and NATO. Read alsoDiscussion with Hungary "very productive," Klimkin convinced In addition, after the situation with the secret distribution of Hungarian passports to Ukrainians in Zakarpattia region, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said that Ukraine could expel the Hungarian Consul in Berehove and would continue implementing the pro-Ukrainian policy in the region. In turn, Szijjarto threatened to resort to new measures to hinder the European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine. On October 4, the Hungarian Consul in the town of Berehove was declared persona non grata. He had to leave the territory of Ukraine within the following 72 hours. In a retaliation move, Hungary announced the expulsion of the Ukrainian Consul in Budapest. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on November 15 echoed Vladimir Putin in claiming that it was impossible to reach an agreement with today's leadership of Ukraine. He expressed hope that following presidential elections scheduled for 2019, it will be easier for Budapest to come to terms with Ukraine leaders. The unification council will be held at Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral on December 15 to announce the creation of the new local Orthodox Church, approve its charter, and elect its leader. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has issued a demonstration alert over a vote regarding autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on December 15. "On Saturday, December 15, a vote regarding autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will take place at the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv (Volodymyrska St., 24). Large crowds are expected in the area. Crowds and protests are also expected at other religious sites throughout the country," the Embassy said on its website. Read alsoRussian Orthodox Church asks UN, Western leaders for help in Ukraine media U.S. diplomats advise the following actions to take: avoid crowds and demonstrations; expect heavier than normal police presence; expect street closures, restrictions, and searches. They also advise that U.S. citizens to be aware of your surroundings; follow local law enforcement instructions, and monitor local media for updates. As UNIAN reported earlier, the unification council will be held at Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral on December 15 to announce the creation of the new local Orthodox Church, approve its charter, and elect its leader. They condemn Russia's harassment of shipping in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. Heads of the foreign policy and defense departments of the United States and Canada have met at the U.S.-Canada 2+2 Ministerial event to discuss, among other things, interaction in the international arena to respond to Russian aggression against Ukrainian vessels near the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland made their statements at a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Canada's Minister of National Defence Harjit Singh Sajjan, which was broadcast on the U.S. Department of State website. "We worked through a range of global issues as well. We talked about our work and collaboration as members of NATO. We discussed our response to the situation in Ukraine. I expressed my concern over Russia's recent aggression in the Sea of Azov where it rammed and opened fire on Ukrainian vessels," Pompeo said in Washington, D.C., on Friday, December 14. In turn, Freeland added that, together with the Canadian Defence Minister, they condemn Russia's harassment of shipping in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait and its recent aggressive action towards an illegal seizure of three Ukrainian vessels on November 25 and the imprisonment of Ukrainian sailors. "We call on Russia to release these sailors. Canada unwaveringly supports the people of Ukraine, its sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders," Freeland said. Ukraine has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030. Fossil fuel-dependent Ukraine will strengthen its climate change action plan under the Paris Agreement to curb global warming and run on local clean energy, its government said at U.N. climate talks in Poland this week. Four Ukrainian cities also reaffirmed their goal of shifting to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, announced this year, Reuters reported. Svitlana Romanko, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia director for climate campaign 350.org, said Ukrainian citizens and mayors were showing that a rapid and fair transition to clean energy was "both possible and popular." Read alsoUkraine may see share of nuclear, thermal energy shrink due to technologies media "The new national target should reflect and build on these cities' climate and energy plans," she added. Ukraine has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030, under the 2015 Paris accord. By 2016, its emissions had already fallen 64 percent due to an economic collapse following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Ilya Eremenko, head of the Ukrainian Climate Network, said many cities had set their own goals for reducing emissions, which are far more ambitious than national ones. "A combination of national and local targets is crucial for effective climate policy," he added. In June, the northwest Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr became the first city in the wider region to adopt a target of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, according to its mayor. Three other Ukrainian cities Kamianets-Podilskyi, Chortkiv and Lviv have since signed up to the same ambition. Three enemy troops were killed and another four were wounded, intelligence reports say. Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 22 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as killed in action. "Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the past day. According to intelligence reports, three occupiers were killed and another four were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in an update published on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on December 14, 2018. Read alsoUkraine forces "close Donbas sky" with S-300 systems (Video) Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from weapons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns and small arms, attacking the defenders of the towns of Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, and Avdiyivka, and the villages of Krymske, Novhorodske, Nevelske, Shyrokyne, and Vodiane. The enemy also employed 120mm and 82mm mortars to attack the defenders of the villages of Vilniy, Vodiane, and Hnutove. "Since Friday midnight, Russian-led forces have mounted two attacks on the Ukrainian positions near Hnutove. No casualties among Ukrainian troops have been reported since the start of the day," the report said. The terrorist organization has provided no evidence to support the claim. Islamic State said the man who killed three people in Strasbourg was one of its soldiers, the groups Amaq news website said on Thursday, although it provided no evidence for the claim. An online statement from the groups Amaq news agency said the attacker was an Islamic State soldier and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of coalition countries fighting the militant group in Syria and Iraq, according to Reuters. The suspected gunman, Cherif Chekatt, was shot dead on Thursday in a brief gun battle with police after being on the run for 48 hours. According to the Belarusian leader, the idea of incorporation is being voiced under the guise of deeper integration. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has suggested that under the pretext of deeper integration, Moscow seeks to incorporate Belarus into Russia. "I understand these hints: take our oil, but let's destroy the country and join Russia," Lukashenko told a press conference, according to Interfax.by. I always ask a question: In the name of what are these things being done? Have you thought about the consequences? How will people in our country and your country, as well as the international community, look at this? They're trying out all means possible to incorporate the country into another country, Lukashenko continued. According to the Belarusian leader, the idea of incorporation is being voiced under the guise of "deeper integration." We are told there will be a maneuver [a compensation for tax maneuver] when there is, as some say, deeper integration. And some say this directly we are ready for you to accede into Russia as six regions, the president of Belarus said. Read alsoBelarus Putin's No. 1 target ex-advisor Earlier, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers of Belarus and Russia in Brest said that the Russian Federation was ready to further deepen integration with Belarus, up to the creation of a common emission center and court. According to Medvedev, there are two options for the integration of Russia and Belarus. One of them is conservative, without increasing the level of integration to the limits set in the Treaty of December 8, 1999. The second option of integration development is based on raising its level to the limits established in the Treaty, while increasing the interdependence of economies, possibility of providing assistance and support during union construction, solving a variety of integration issues. Lukashenko also said that Belarus supported the integration project with the Russian Federation, however, any attempts to put pressure on Minsk, blackmail, or bully Belarus, will be in vain. Kasparov also said that another blow to Putin has been the European sanctions imposed in response to the annexation by Moscow of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and its support for Russian-led forces in eastern Ukraine. A prominent Kremlin critic says Russia has been rapidly losing its standing on the world stage due to President Vladimir Putin's "aggressive" policies. "The main problem of the Kremlin is not connected to the ability or inability to control the processes inside the country, but the fact that the regime began to rapidly lose its international standing," said Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion turned opposition activist, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported. "Sooner or later it had to happen, because this aggressive policy of the Kremlin, it had to convince the free world that it was pointless to negotiate with Putin," Kasparov told RFE/RL's Russian Service in an interview on December 14. Echoing allegations in the United States, Kasparov accused the Kremlin of meddling in other countries' affairs, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Read alsoLukashenko complains about hints coming from Moscow: Take oil and join Russia Kasparov said that Russia invested "enormous resources" to ensure Donald Trump's victory against Hillary Clinton. "Russian propaganda portrayed Trump's election victory as Putin's triumph," Kasparov said. However, the "triumph" in Moscow has been short-lived because, "as it turned out, the president of the United States, with all his enormous political power, is limited in his ability to pursue the policy that Putin would have expected from him," Kasparov added. The allegations of Russian election meddling have dogged Trump's presidency and have given rise to an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into potential collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Trump denies the allegation, calling it a political witch hunt. Kasparov also said that another blow to Putin has been the European sanctions imposed in response to the annexation by Moscow of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 over the past 4 1/2 years. On December 13, the European Union prolonged the sanctions for another six months. The sanctions, which mainly target the Russian banking and energy sectors, were first imposed in the summer of 2014 and have been extended every six months since then. However, Kasparov pointed out that Putin's policy of trying to "create division in the Western world" is "far from over." (@ChaudhryMAli88) The Libyan parliament is interested in utilizing Russian expertise in training military personnel to ensure the country's security and stability, President of the House of Representatives of Libya Aguila Saleh said Thursday. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2018) The Libyan parliament is interested in utilizing Russian expertise in training military personnel to ensure the country's security and stability, President of the House of Representatives of Libya Aguila Saleh said Thursday. "We are interested in Russia to offer its expertise in military training, in other words, everything that would provide security to our country. I will be honest, we need Russia. We need Russia to be involved in rebuilding our country, including in such sectors as oil, railroads and all the essential projects," Saleh said during his meeting with speaker of the Russian parliament's lower chamber Vyacheslav Volodin. Saleh also noted the Libyan interest in developing bilateral relations with Moscow, as well as increasing Russia's role in the region. Libya has been gripped by conflict since 2011, when the country's longtime leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown and killed. The eastern part of the crisis-torn state is governed by its parliament, with headquarters in the city of Tobruk. The parliament is backed by the Libyan National Army. At the same time, the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, operates in the country's west and is headquartered in Tripoli. (@ChaudhryMAli88) The new round of Yemen talks, scheduled for late January 2019, may be held in Kuwait, Russian Ambassador to Yemen Vladimir Dedushkin said in an interview with Sputnik. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th December, 2018) The new round of Yemen talks, scheduled for late January 2019, may be held in Kuwait, Russian Ambassador to Yemen Vladimir Dedushkin said in an interview with Sputnik. Dedushkin told Sputnik that five permanent members of UN Security Council, accredited in Yemen, had played an active role in promoting the recently finished talks on Yemen crisis settlement. "All of them, including me, are currently temporarily working in Saudi Arabia ... The 'quintet' has held multiple talks with all the sides, it has held regular meetings with UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths and his aides. Our goal was to bring the sides' positions closer . .. I think that we'll continue pursuing this policy at the next round of talks, which is, by hearsay, planned to take place in Kuwait around late January," Dedushkin said. The one-week UN-mediated talks on Yemen crisis settlement finished on Thursday. The sides agreed on a governorate-wide ceasefire and withdrawal of forces in Al Hudaydah, the establishment of a UN-chaired committee to monitor the process, a prisoner exchange, and humanitarian corridors to the city of Taiz. Dedushkin praised the talks, saying that the sides to the conflict had met at a negotiations table for the first time in 2.5 years, and had also shaken hands for the first time. The United States calls on the international community to join its recent sanctions against Nicaragua to "impose additional costs" on the country's government for its rights abuses and crackdown on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th December, 2018) The United States calls on the international community to join its recent sanctions against Nicaragua to "impose additional costs" on the country's government for its rights abuses and crackdown on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said. Earlier in the week, media reported that Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front party stripped the legal status of the NGOs that had supported the month-long opposition protests. According to the State Department, the move reveals the country's leadership's "continued contempt for human rights." "Pursuant to the Executive Order by President [Donald] Trump on November 27, the United States will hold accountable those responsible for the abuses taking place in Nicaragua, including any individuals complicit with the regime. We urge the international community to join us condemning these actions and take concrete measures to impose additional costs for the regime's anti-democratic behavior," Palladino said on Thursday. The statement follows the US decision to sanction Nicaragua's Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo as well as National Security Advisor Nestor Moncada for purported corruption and human rights abuses. Nicaragua has been in the international focus since April when people took to the streets to protest unpopular social security reforms announced by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. After several days of protests, Ortega canceled the reforms, but the protests, which were accompanied by violence and clashes, have nevertheless continued. In November, the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry said 198 people were killed, including police officers, and more than 1,200 others were injured during the protests. Archbishop Eamon Martin visits the decimated town of Batnaya on the Plains of Nineveh in Northern Iraq on behalf of the annual Trocaire Christmas Appeal. By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp Irelands Primate is in Iraq visiting displaced families and encouraging the people of Ireland to contribute to relief efforts in Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan through the Trocaire Christmas Appeal. Trocaire Christmas Appeal 2018 The Bishops of Ireland announced in a statement at the end of their Winter Meeting in early December that the Trocaire Christmas Appeal would benefit people in three conflict areas: Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan. Archbishop Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland visited Iraq this week and met directly with families receiving humanitarian aid from Trocaire. Humbling and heartening It is humbling, the Archbishop said, to spend time with these families, and heartening to learn how the generosity of people in Ireland is helping them to survive. Through that generosity, the Irish people relieve the suffering of other people trapped in areas where conflict and war are a tragic reality. It allows them to dream of brighter days ahead, the Archbishop said. Batnaya, Iraq Archbishop Martin, along with Trocaires chief executive, Caoimhe de Barra, visited the decimated town of Batnaya situated on the Plains of Nineveh in Northern Iraq. There he made an appeal to the Irish people to contribute to the Trocaire Christmas Appeal. Even small donations can make a big difference to people whose lives have been shattered by conflict, he said. Watch Archbishop Eamon Martin's appeal Yemen The other two conflict zones where people receive aid through the Trocaire Appeal are Yemen and South Sudan. We are deeply concerned at the worsening crisis in Yemen, where eight million people are at risk of famine, the Bishops Winter Meeting statement said. Trocaire provides medicine, clean water and aid to thousands in Yemen. The Bishops call it a lifeline. South Sudan The Irish Bishops chose South Sudan because it is a conflict that has not received adequate attention from the worlds media. The majority of the refugees from South Sudan are women and children. Trocaire supports tens of thousands of people each month with food, water and other vital needs, according to the Bishops statement. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States (USCCB) has approved $4 million in grants to the Church in Latin America, including funding for youth ministry, catechesis and natural disaster recovery assistance. By Linda Bordoni American Catholic bishops have put their hands to their pockets to support the pastoral work of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean and to help reconstruct areas devastated by natural disasters. All in all, $3.2 million will be distributed among more than 170 grants dedicated to pastoral work such as the support of lay formation and leadership in Cuba and Ecuador, to catechesis projects and evangelization in Uruguay and El Salvador, ministry to indigenous peoples in Brazil and Venezuela. Some $800,000 will be poured into recovery and reconstruction projects following earthquakes in Haiti and Mexico and the devastation caused by the passages of Hurricanes Matthew, Maria and Irma. Panama World Youth Day in January was also on the agenda with grants approved to support youth ministry and travel for delegates from various Latin American countries like Haiti, Peru and Cuba. Thanking American Catholics for their generosity, the Chairman for the Committee on National Collections said The Collection for the Church in America has an immeasurable impact on people throughout the region, particularly among the most vulnerable. The pastoral grants are funded by the annual Collection for the Church in Latin America that takes place in many dioceses across the United States on the fourth Sunday in January, while emergency and reconstruction grants come out of various special collections called by the Bishops Conference. Listen to our report A seven-year old Guatemalan girl who crossed the US border with Mexico, along with her undocumented father, has died in the custody of the US Border Patrol, despite efforts to treat severe dehydration and shock. By James Blears The seven-year old Guatemalan girl was accompanied across the border by her father. They were detained by the US Border Patrol trying to cross from Mexico to the United States. Officials say the child, who hadn't eaten or drank liquids in several days, had developed a fever and then her condition worsened with seizures. She was immediately flown to a hospital in El Paso, but staff there were not able to save her life. A distressed US Border Patrol spokesman said: "Despite the best efforts of our medical team, we were unable to stop this tragedy." There are hundreds of children, many of them very young, traveling with their parents all the way from Central America, desperately trying to escape dire poverty, but also organized crime, which tries to recruit children into their ranks at a very early age. Mexico, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are working together to try and establish a Central American Development Plan, which will offer jobs and discourage migration. Vietnams wood and wood products exports reached a record high in the first 11 months of 2018 to US$7.22 billion, up 15.63 percent compared to the same period last year. In the last decade, the countrys wood processing industry has grown 2.7 times, making Vietnam the worlds fifth largest wood exporter with a market share of six percent, second largest in Asia, and first in Southeast Asia. The number of enterprises has grown from 2,500 in 2008 to 4,500 in 2017, including 3,900 domestic and 600 foreign-funded enterprises. Earlier, foreign firms accounted for over 70 percent of the countrys total wood exports, but now, the share of domestic firms in total exports has reached 53 percent. The wood industry is one of the largest export industries in Vietnam. To ensure a sustainable growth and conservation, the government issued Decision No: 1288/QD-TTg in October 2018, approving a project on sustainable forest management and forest certification by establishing the national forest certification system Wood production and processing Wood production in 2017 was estimated to be 11.5 million m3, up 12.4 percent. In the first 11 months of 2018, it was 11.6 million m3, growing by 10 percent compared to the same period last year. Major provinces of wood production in 2017 were Tuyen Quang, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, and Binh Dinh. In the wood processing sector, Binh Duong attracts a large number of enterprises due to its labor force and its linkages to key timber areas in the Southeast and Central Highlands of Vietnam. In 2017, Binh Duongs wood processing exports reached US$4 billion, accounting for 54.8 percent of Vietnams total wood exports. In the first six months of 2018, their exports have already reached US$1.5 billion. Trade Exports In the first 11 months of 2018, forestry products exports were estimated at US$8.49 billion, up 16.6 percent, accounting for almost a quarter of the total agriculture-forestry-fishery exports. Within forestry products, wood and wood products exports reached US$7.22 billion during the same period, up 15.63 percent compared to the same period last year. Exports are estimated to reach US$9.3 billion in 2018, with trade surplus estimated at US$6.4 billion. Major export markets include the US, Japan, the European Union (EU), China, and Korea, accounting for 87.33 percent of the total exports. Imports In the first 11 months of 2018, imports of wood and wooden furniture reached US$2.1 billion, up 6.17 percent, compared to the same period last year. Major import markets include China, the US, Cambodia, and Thailand. Going forward In October 2018, Vietnam and the EU signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT). This agreement will help improve regulations on forest management, reduce illegal logging, and increase exports of timber products to the EU. In addition, the upcoming Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will lead to a further increase in export orders. To achieve the governments exports target of US$12-13 billion by 2020 and retain their competitiveness, companies in the wood processing sector need to continue to focus on improving efficiency and increasing investments in advanced technologies and equipment. Pham Anh Duong, co-chairman of APH and AAA A youthful entity acquiring controlling stake in AAA An Phat Holdings (APH) has recently been making headlines in local media. Right after the acquisition of Hanoi Plastic JSC, APH shook hands with VinFast of leading local conglomerate Vingroup, on establishing an enterprise producing plastics and auto components right at VinFasts headquarters in Haiphong citys Dinh Vu-Cat Hai Economic Zone. Earlier, APH was the chief factor helping to re-start the $325 million Dinh Vu Polyester Plant which suspended production for years due to capital distress. APH was founded by the leadership team of An Phat Plastic and Green Environment JSC (AAA) in March 2017 with the initial target of taking control of AAA as a long-term investment and receiving dividend. From late May 2017, APH started to buy AAA stocks from its key leaders, then acquiring AAAs warrants in a bid to possess at least 51 per cent of the companys charter capital. Currently, APH is the largest shareholder of AAA through holding 46.62 per cent. By contrast, APHs top leaders, including Pham Anh Duong (co-chairman at both AAA and APH), Pham Hoang Viet (member of the board at both AAA and APH), Nguyen Le Trung (member of the board cum CEO of AAA and member of the board at APH), and Dinh Xuan Cuong (member of the board at AAA, member of the board cum CEO of APH) are now no longer AAA shareholders. Resurrecting a string of major projects Far from its initial target of just taking a controlling stake in AAA, APH has been conducting major deals, helping to revitalise multi-million dollar projects that have seemingly sunk into oblivion. Resuming the operation of Viet Hoa-Kenmark Industrial Park (IP) In March 2018, An Phat High-Tech JSC, a subsidiary of AAA and member unit of APH, injected VND756 billion ($32.8 million) into buying the 46ha Viet Hoa-Kenmark IP in the northern province of Hai Duong. The projects former owner was Kenmark Investment and Development Limited, owned by a Taiwanese investor which was licensed in 2006 with $500 million investment promise to build up a large-scale IP. APH has been conducting major deals, helping to revitalise multi-million dollar projects that have seemingly sunk into oblivion. As planned, in the first phase Kenmark will pour in around $98.4 million. After three years of building the IPs technical infrastructure, a wastewater treatment plant, and 13 workshops over 11.4ha in 2010, the investor abruptly left home and the project faced suspension since then. At this project, Kenmark took up a total loan of $67.6 million at three local banks BIDV, SHB, and Habubank (now merged with SHB). The sale of the IP failed many times before APH stepped in as buyer. After acquiring Viet Hoa-Kenmark IP, AAA and APH changed the IPs name into An Phat Complex, which engages in producing high-tech and environmentally friendly plastic products with VND2.056 trillion ($89.4 million) in total investment value and is expected to employ 6,000 labourers. As planned, An Phat Complex will complete the repair and upgrading of the IP infrastructure and the five workshop blocs will be able to begin production in July 2020. As to why APH has invested into An Phat Complex, the executives said that they want to attract domestic and foreign investors and build modern IP infrastructure to serve the groups projects and diversify fields of operation to hit $1 billion in revenue in the not-so-distant future. Re-starting $325 million Dinh Vu Polyester Plant (PVTex) An even more impressive deal involving APH relates to resuming operations at PVTex. This May, PVTex JSC has signed a business co-operation contract with APH and several other foreign partners to start commercial operation of PVTexs filament production workshop. On July 24, 2018 PVTex and An Son JSC, which was authorised by APH to sign the dried texture yarn (DTY) processing contract, debuting the business co-operation between the sides and the entire commercial operation of PVTex. The contract signing ceremony between APH and PetroVietnam to resurrect PVTex Under the agreement, the sides have reached a consensus on raising three additional DTY production lines to have an entire 25 DTY lines with a combined capacity surpassing 60 tonnes of yarn per day, equal to about 1,800 tonnes per month. PVTexs management authority, PetroVietnam, was reported to have agreed with APH on selling at least 35 per cent of the polypropylene (PP) output from its Binh Son Refining Petrochemical JSC to APH for 5-10 years within the framework of PVTexs restructuring. Acquisition of Hanoi Plastic and shaking hands with VinFast on plastic and auto component production APH has just completed acquiring nearly 52 per cent in Hanoi Plastics JSC (ticker NHH) from Cadivi Dong Nai Limited. In addition, Man Chi Trung, director of An Trung a member unit of APH and two other individuals became members of NHHs Board of Management. APH recently acquired Hanoi Plastics After Cadivi Dong Nai, MB Capital JSC has recently announced selling all 1.36 million NHH stock (equal 20.88 per cent of the charter capital). Cadivi Dong Nai was reported to have just increased its stake in NHH from 24.9 to 51.86 per cent in 2018. Hanoi Plastics is a long-standing business producing plastic motorbike and auto components that has several foreign-backed car and electric firms as long-term customers, such as Honda Vietnam, Piaggio Vietnam, Toyota Vietnam, Panasonic, and LG. After acquiring Hanoi Plastics, APH shook hands with VinFast to establish VinFast-An Phat (VAPA) Limited with a charter capital surpassing VND420 billion ($18.2 million). The new firm, belonging to VinFast auto manufacturing complex at Dinh Vu-Cat Hai EZ in Haiphong port city, has the main function of manufacturing parts and other auxiliaries for autos and other motorised vehicles. Earlier, Hanoi Plastics financial statements have also reported sales transactions with VinFast. Young entrepreneurs and leaders from ten ASEAN countries along with representatives of South Korea, Japan and China at the forum in HCM City.-VNA/VNS Photo The theme this year is ASEAN+3 Young Entrepreneurs Towards Innovative Agricultural Startups. It aims to address the desire to unleash the economic potential of young people in ASEAN, strengthen capacity and widen the network of young entrepreneurs, facilitate job creation and economic growth in the long term, and contribute to the development of human capital in ASEAN. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCYU) Nguyen Ngoc Luong said the relationship among the countries had developed in all aspects in the past. Innovation and startups in hi-tech agriculture is a global trend. It needs the co-operation of countries, young people and young entrepreneurs who will play a key role in this field, said Luong. During the forum, he said comments, ideas and exchanges of experience among delegates and experts would contribute to improving knowledge for each young entrepreneur, thereby contributing to the development of the ASEAN+3 community. Tan Sijie Darren, a representative of the Singapore delegation, said he was working in a high-tech farm on the terrace of a building in downtown Singapore. The farm employed retired people and provided clean vegetables and fruits to locals. Tan said ASEAN countries were facing many problems such as population growth, climate change and urbanisation, affecting many areas, including agriculture. Innovative startup was therefore an ideal solution to tackle the problems. Instead of entering stable working environments, young people are seeking solutions to food issues for the community. The creativity, co-operation and sharing of youth and young entrepreneurs in hi-tech agriculture will help stabilise and develop high-quality food in every country as well as the ASEAN +3 community. At the forum, which will ends on Sunday, participants discussed the lessons of startups, opportunities and challenges in starting hi-tech agriculture. The forum is the realisation of the Ha Noi Initiative, endorsed by ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Youth, with focus on nurturing young human resources, which took place in November 2011. The same day, they also visited several models of hi-tech agriculture in HCM City and the southern province of Dong Thap. Members of the French police special forces RAID take part in an operation in Strasbourg, as part of the hunt for a gunman who staged an attack on Strasbourgs Christmas market. (PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP) An AFP reporter at the scene said police including members of the elite RAID intervention force blocked several streets in the Neudorf neighbourhood in the early evening. The district is a short drive from the Strasbourg city centre where suspected gunman Cherif Chekatt shot and stabbed shoppers before taking a taxi to flee the scene. More than 700 French security forces have been hunting for the 29-year-old since the bloodshed on Tuesday night. Police in several European countries have joined the manhunt for Chekatt, a 29-year-old Strasbourg native, who killed three people and injured 13, according to an updated toll from French authorities. He is said to have been injured after exchanging fire with soldiers, but managed to escape and has not been seen since exiting the taxi in Neudorf. Authorities published Chekatt's picture late Wednesday in a bid to track the career criminal who has at least 27 convictions in four European countries. Police described him as dangerous and urged people not to approach him. A fifth person was detained by police for questioning on Thursday, in addition to the suspect's parents and two brothers who have been in custody since Wednesday. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed "the solidarity of the whole country" towards the victims as he arrived for a European summit in Brussels. "It is not only France that has been hit ... but a great European city as well," he added, referring to the seat of the European parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany. PLEA TO 'YELLOW VESTS' The police operation came as the French government urged "yellow vest" protesters not to hold another round of demonstrations this weekend, given the strain on the country's security forces. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux called on the anti-government protesters to be "reasonable" and not protest again on Saturday, after nearly four weeks of often violent demonstrations which has led the government to offer a range of financial relief to low earners. "Our security forces have been deployed extensively these past few weeks," Griveaux told CNews television. "It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again," he added. The "yellow vest" protesters, known for their fluorescent high-visibility jackets, had called for a fifth round of protests this Saturday. The protests began on Nov 17 over fuel tax increases, but snowballed into a revolt over living standards as well as Macron's perceived indifference to the problems of ordinary citizens. A 23-year-old protester was killed after he was hit by a truck on a roundabout in southern France near Avignon late on Thursday, the sixth person to have died during the weeks of demonstrations. WIDE SEARCH Strasbourg's location in the heart of western Europe means that Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg can be easily reached by car or train, making the search for Chekatt more complicated. Swiss police have reinforced border checks, while German authorities have also widely published the photo of the suspect, which shows him with dark hair, a short beard and a visible mark on his forehead. In the German state of Baden-Wuertemberg, which borders Strasbourg, around 100 officers are involved in the search, local authorities said. In 2016, a jihadist responsible for an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin was shot and killed only three days later in Milan in northern Italy after travelling through the Netherlands and France. The Strasbourg suspect, who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist. Chekatt is "a familiar composite portrait of today's jihadist," Anne Giudicelli, director of the consulting firm Terrorisc, told AFP. "He ticks all the boxes of the profiles seen before." France has been hit by a wave of attacks from gunmen claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group since 2015, which have claimed the lives of 246 people before Tuesday's attack, according to an AFP toll. No group has claimed responsibility for the Strasbourg attack, but social media accounts used by Islamic State sympathisers have celebrated the killings. Strasbourg's Christmas market, which draws around two million people each year, remained closed on Thursday. The illuminations, which previously declared the city "the capital of Christmas", have been switched off, including on a giant 30-metre (100-foot) Christmas tree in the central Kleber Square. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the conference - Photo: VGP The PM made the directions while attending an investment promotion conference held by the northwestern province on December 11. Alongside the two aforementioned suggestions, he asked the locality to facilitate the manufacturing sector that generates jobs and has less negative impacts on the environment, in addition to developing eco-cities based on its natural landscape and climatic advantages. The PM witnesses the signing of a memorandum of understanding on investment in Hoa Binh province - Photo: VGP The Government leader highly appreciated the investors implementation of most of the already licenced projects in Hoa Binh, emphasizing that the province possesses favourable natural conditions and diverse culture of local ethnic groups. As part of the Ha Noi capital region, Hoa Binh should take advantage of its geo-strategic location to create a new growth engine and a new momentum not only for itself but also for the other northwestern provinces, he said. The PM tours pavilions showcasing farm produce at the conference - Photo: VGP PM Phuc urged the province to pay attention to attracting investment from both large and small enterprises, while continuously improving the business climate as well as providing convenient services for investors. The leader congratulated Hoa Binh on its attracting a lot of investment projects at the conference, including those from domestically and globally renowned companies, which, he said, would be a driver of the provinces development in the future. Golden Hope Nha Be was the latest meal in KIDO Groups M&A bonanza in the cooking oil segment, Photo: Le Toan The Vietnamese cooking oil market is proving more challenging than several foreign investors had thought before taking the plunge, with intense competition and lower profits to go around. This makes foreign and domestic companies alike more accommodating of KIDO Groups aggressive mergers and acquisition (M&A) strategy that aims to secure it the leading position in the market by securing new capacities. KIDO Group (KDC) has wrapped up the purchase of 51 per cent stake in Golden Hope Nha Be which is a 51-49 joint venture company between Sime Darby Plantation from Malaysia and Vocarimex (a KIDO subsidiary). After the purchase, KIDO increased its holding in Golden Hope to 100 per cent and appointed three members of its personnel to the leadership of Golden Hope Nha Be for the positions of chairman (cum legal representative), chief executive officer, and chief operating officer. Golden Hope Nha Be currently has the charter capital of VND69.26 billion ($3 million). It is one of the leading cooking oil producers in Vietnam with the Marvela and Ong Tao brands, with the annual revenue of around VND1.3 trillion ($56.5 million). KIDO general director Tran Le Nguyen stated that the group will utilise its financial strength and management experience to restructure the operations of Golden Hope and turn profit. In late May 2017, KIDO completed the purchase of more than 32.8 million shares of Vocarimex, increasing its total stake to more than 62.1 million, equal to 51 per cent. This purchase opened the doors for KIDOs Golden Hope M&A deal, while Vocarimex also holds capital in numerous other cooking oil producers, including a 17.84 per cent stake in Tan Binh Vegetable Oil JSC and 24 per cent in Cai Lan Oils and Fats Industries Company (Calofic) the current holder of the largest market share in Vietnam. In November 2016, KIDO also spent more than VND1 trillion ($43.5 million) buying 65 per cent of Tuong An Vegetable Oil JSC. After this acquisition, KIDO gained VND7.023 trillion ($305.3 million) in net revenue in 2017, up 214 per cent over the previous year, while pre-tax profit was VND569 billion ($24.7 million), far exceeding the plan set forth in 2017. Discussing KIDOs buying rampage with VIR, Le Phung Hao, former chairman of the Vietnam Marketing Association, said that cooking oil is an essential food product and the demand for it is always stable and large, so fierce competition is a given. With its available production lines and distribution channels, KIDO has numerous advantages and is a leading producer in the cooking oil market. Its recent acquisitions increasing its power in the market step-by-step are making opponents worried, said Hao. The dominator always gains certain advantages which are not available to the followers. Acquiring Golden Hope is a solution for KIDOs sourcing problems as Golden Hope Nha Bes factories are located near ports, so it could also facilitate importing materials from the US, Canada, and Europe to manufacture cooking oil. Golden Hope also has numerous brands such as Marvela, Ong Tao, and Super Olein, as well as soybean oil Delio and holds great potential to bloom. However, KIDO is not the only one stepping on the gas in the market. Sao Mai An Giang, a real estate developer, spent VND500 billion ($21.7 million) building a plant that makes cooking oil from basa fish fat under the Ranee brand. Meanwhile, Vietnams Daso Group, specialising in providing logistics services, also launched two new vegetable brands, Ogold and Binh An. Quang Minh JSC also began marketing cooking oil products of the Mr Bean, Soon Soon, and Oilla brands. In March 2013, Singaporean Musim Mas built a vegetable oil factory with the capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day in Vietnam with the total investment capital of $71.5 million. Meanwhile, Singapores Wilmar International made a deal to buy 45 per cent stake of Bunge Limited, which has a factory in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau with a capacity of 3,000 tonnes per day. PROMISING MARKET Over time, Vietnamese concepts of food have evolved from simply a means of survival to something that needs to be safe, of high quality, and contain the right nutrients. The edible oils category has certainly been affected by this transition. In the past, animal fat-based oil was commonly used, but vegetable and seed oils now account for the largest share of sales. Numerous types of vegetable and seed oils are available in Vietnam, with the most common being blended oils. According to Euromonitor, Vietnamese people consume less than 10 kilogrammes of cooking oil per annum, less than the World Health Organizations (WHO) recommended level of 13.5kg. However, the figure is expected to rise to 16.2-17.4kg by 2020 and to 18.6-19.9kg by 2025. The Nielsen estimated the value of the Vietnamese cooking oil market at VND30 trillion ($1.3 billion), making it quite an attracting segment. Telling VIR about the position and advantages of each player (statistics in the below table), Euromonitors representative said that Calofic remained the clear leader in edible oils thanks to its wide product portfolio catering to different consumer groups. For example, Neptune Gold is positioned in the premium segment, while Meizan is a mass brand, Simply targets health-conscious consumers, and Kiddy is a childrens brand. The company also invests in regular advertisements and other marketing activities to maintain consumer awareness of its brands. It also benefits from an extensive distribution network thanks to subsidiaries in both the north and south of Vietnam, which help the company produce and deliver edible oils at competitive prices. Nevertheless, after the acquisition of Tuong An and Vocarimex, KIDO Group is becoming an increasingly strong competitor. They have already diversified their product range in response to the changing consumer demand and are continuing to grow their market share especially by holding indirect stakes in their main competitors like Calofic. Thus, competition between the two players is expected to intensify, Euromonitor assessed. WITH TIGHT PROFITS Cooking oil is not a sector with easy profit to be made by just anybody. After five years spending $130 million to build a soybean oil processing facility (since 2011), Bunge Limited, an American agribusiness and food company, has failed to turn profit and decided to sell 45 per cent of its stakes to Wilmar in July 2016. Since then, a three-party joint venture has been created with Bunge and Wilmar as equal, 45 per cent shareholders, and soybean meal distributor Quang Dung (a majority owner of feed miller Green Feed) retaining its 10 per cent stake in the operations. Wilmar is also a major shareholder of Calofic. Meanwhile, Acecook Vietnam (wholly owned by two Japanese firms) has exited the segment with the disappearance of De Nhat cooking oil brand, proving unable to weather competitive pressure and accompanying marketing and promotion expenses. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, there are around 40 companies on the cooking oil market. Edible oil products are very easy to replace, along with the high elasticity of demand, so tiny price fluctuations are enough to make customers switch brands. Additionally, emerging trends have been affecting the cooking oil market. As obesity emerges with higher disposable incomes, consumers are growing more aware of the negative health effects of oil and grease. This brought a turn towards oil-free foods. Companies in this sector need more and more internal and financial resources in the race for market share and for building brands. Of all, the Vietnamese cooking oil market is rather sizeable with plenty of further growth expected but is constricted by intense competition and profit figures that may be less impressive than what foreign investors might be used to. The resulting backpedaling by foreigners provided an ample opportunity for the rise of a local king of the hill: after all, even without landfall profits, there is still plenty to be had and KIDO was sharp enough to realise the opportunity. Startups show their products during a meeting in HCM City on December 12. - VNS Photo Ngoc Diep Speaking at a dialogue on startups held in the city on Wednesday, HCOV Chairman Phung Cong Dung said that young startups could help domestic enterprises use the latest technologies and techniques, but obstacles still exist, mostly concerning the regulatory system, legal framework, support policies and venture capital funds. Financial policy is the most important factor that could improve business conditions for start-ups and help the startup community grow quickly, Dung said. Nguyen Hoanh Nam, deputy head of the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the country has a dynamic business environment, with GDP growth reaching over 6 per cent each year. In addition, start-up ecosystems, investment promotion activities and favourable living conditions create good opportunities for overseas Vietnamese businesspeople to become more confident in investing in or starting a business in Vietnam, he added. An overseas Vietnamese from Singapore, Vo Thanh Dang of HCM City, said that startups could begin their business in Vietnam before reaching out to the world. Another overseas Vietnamese, Tran Ngoc Phu, of France, is now seeking an opportunity to invest in HCM City but said that obstacles such as administrative procedures, investment policies, and especially taxation and customs regulations, hinder growth. He said that information on investment policies was at times confusing, making it difficult for businesses to identify the right information. Phu said he hopes the HCM City Committee for Overseas Vietnamese and media agencies will help the overseas business community access accurate information about the States policies. Government agencies should organise more meetings to listen to suggestions and ideas from overseas Vietnamese so they can solve problems together, he said. Nguyen Ky Phung, deputy director of the citys Department of Science and technology, said the citys budget had allocated over US$90 million to support innovative start-up activities in the past two years. The citys innovative and creative community has more than 20 foreign partners, 24 incubation centres, 12 start-up co-working spaces and over 760 startups. Most startups focus on Information and Communications Technology (ICT), agriculture, education and training. However, domestic start-up businesses also need more knowledge, experience and support from the overseas Vietnamese business community to help Vietnam become a start-up nation. HCM City is the starting point for many young overseas Vietnamese, Phung said. According to the HCM City Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, each year the city welcomes more than 30,000 young overseas Vietnamese to visit and seek investment and co-operation opportunities with local partners. Last week the State Securities Commission approved the decision of Sabeco, Vietnams leading beer producer, to abolish its foreign ownership limit (FOL), which previously stood at 49 per cent. The green light came a month after Sabeco, whose board members come from Thai Beverage and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), expressed their wish to remove restrictions on overseas investors. According to experts, the decision is likely to pave the way for ThaiBev to buy 100 per cent of Vietnams number-one brewery. ThaiBev is already the largest shareholder, following a historic purchase last December that cost the Thai investor a whopping nearly $5 billion. It was reported that ThaiBev had to ask six banks to help it finance this investment. It is notable that ThaiBevs holding at Sabeco is not a straightforward matter. Specifically, to dodge the FOL in the company, the company did not register as an overseas bidder last year. Instead, it set up a new subsidiary called Vietnam Beverage and kept its ownership there at 49 per cent so it could join the auction as a Vietnamese entity. This subsidiary then scooped up 53.59 per cent of Sabecos outstanding shares on behalf of ThaiBev. This strategy clearly helped ThaiBev seize control at Sabeco, but it also means that essentially they hold just 26 per cent of Sabecos shares something that a number of experts believe the Thai investor may want to change. Indeed, when asked by analysts about its ownership at Sabeco, representatives replied that the company hoped to announce updates of its holding structure soon. Besides possibilities of greater control, counting Sabeco as a wholly-owned subsidiary may also boost the business results of ThaiBev. As the MoITs cash cow, Sabeco has been known as a lucrative business with consistently strong sales and generous dividends, which can reach 35 per cent in cash. In fact, according to ThaiBev in last months analyst meeting in Singapore, its 2018 beer sales had already spiked by 64.9 per cent year-on-year to THB94.5 billion ($2.88 billion), thanks to contributions from Sabeco. At the same time, pre-tax profit at the Thai company doubled to THB9.3 billion ($282.6 million) also thanks to Sabeco. Researchers believed that the removal of Sabecos FOL is indeed designed to speed up the synchronisation of the two parties. According to Lucas Teng and Andrew Chow from UOB Kay Hian, this is considered a positive development that allows better management control, as well as tapping into the synergistic benefits of the acquisition. According to analysts, Sabeco faces competition from strong players like HEINEKEN, and its management is now looking to integrate synergies in areas such as raw materials to reduce costs. Improving Sabecos operating margin is a major goal for ThaiBev, as Vietnams biggest brewery lags behind its rivals in terms of business efficiency. Other experts, however, are not convinced that boosting ownership is the biggest reason for Sabecos FOL. They pointed out that the Thai brewer already calling the shots at Sabeco and boosting its stake there for further control would not be a concern right now, especially considering the huge pile of debt taken out for last years share purchase. Huynh Anh Tuan, deputy director at Everest Vietnam Securities, believed that for ThaiBev, transferring ownership between itself and Vietnam Beverage may not be a priority. I think ThaiBev may want to scrap the foreign ownership cap so that it might later buy more shares to increase its market price, said Tuan. The analyst concluded that this is more likely to be a technical move than a strategic one. Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday said he believed three unionists sentenced over mass workers strikes that turned violent in late 2013 and 2014 were innocent. The unionists were given sentences of two and a half years following the protests on Veng Sreng Boulevard in December 2013 which led to the deaths of at least five garment workers and bystanders. Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, and Chea Mony, the former Free Trade Union leader, each served time for their role in organizing the strikes. During a meeting with garment workers in Kompong Speu town on Wednesday, Hun Sen said: I dare to claim because I follow this issue that the three people were not involved... I have proof that those three were not involved. However, despite having proof of the trios innocence, he called on them to find evidence to prove their innocence and present it to the courts. He added that two people would be able to testify on the behalf of the three union leaders: Keo Remy, president of the Cambodia Human Rights Committee, and Soy Sopheap, the general director of the Deum Ampel newspaper. During the protests in January 2014, the government deployed an elite special forces unit against the demonstrators. Military police were also deployed and at least five people were confirmed to have been killed in the ensuing crackdown. Numerous others were seriously injured and 23 human rights activists were jailed. In response to Hun Sens comments, Thorn said he would file an appeal on Wednesday. Sina also said he had an alibi for the period in question. VOA could not reach Mony on Wednesday On Tuesday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court gave the six unionists, including the three mentioned by Hun Sen, a suspended sentence and ordered them to pay a fine of $1,250. The other unionists involved in the court case -- Rong Chhun, former National Election Committee member, Yang Sophoan, president of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions and Morm Nhim, president of National Independent Federation of Textile Unions of Cambodia -- were not mentioned by Hun Sen in his speech. Chhun said he was surprised at the comments from Hun Sen, which he said showed that the municipal court did not really investigate the matter. Ly Sophana, the court spokesman, said that if the defendants were unhappy with the verdict they could appeal. Remy of the human rights committee could not be reached for comment, but Sopheap of the Deum Ampil newspaper said he would abide by [Hun Sens] recommendation. Cambodias one-party National Assembly on Thursday debated amending the law on political parties to allow some 118 former Cambodia National Rescue Party politicians to return to political life following a ban imposed by the Supreme Court last year. In a statement posted to the parliaments website, it said the move was intended to promote the spirit of national reconciliation as well as strengthening liberal democracy. The 118 former CNRP politicians were barred from engaging in political activities in a decision in November 2017 that also saw the party dissolved. Its president, Kem Sokha, was earlier arrested and charged with treason for campaigning against the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party in the years leading up to the 2013 election. The CPP went on to secure a landslide victory in national elections in July, drawing heavy criticism from the international community. On Wednesday, Hun Sen said that under the changed law any former CNRP politician who wanted to resume their political careers could submit personal requests directly to his office for consideration. When the law takes effect, I, the prime minister, will be ready to accept each individuals request independently, he said. Sam Rainsy, Sokhas predecessor to CNRP presidency, on Thursday called on the partys former lawmakers not to fall into Hun Sens trap and involuntarily help him cling to power. However, several former CNRP officials said they were preparing to submit their requests to Hun Sen. Kong Korm, a former senior CNRP adviser, said he was looking forward to resuming his political work. I have been waiting for this time to come. I want to keep democracy alive so I am happy and excited for this political law amendment, he said. Charles Santiago, chairman of Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights, said in a statement that the move was a minor concession aimed at reducing international pressure in the face of impending E.U. trade restrictions over the deteriorating human rights situation in Cambodia. It is crucial that the international community continues to push for other major changes, including the immediate and unconditional release of CNRP leader Kem Sokha, the lifting of the ban on [the] CNRP, the reinstatement of all CNRP members, as well as a free and fair election environment. Until these calls are fulfilled, the amendment today will have little real impact in the long run, he said. Afghanistan is set to host a three-way meeting Saturday with neighbors China and Pakistan to discuss peace as well as economic and counterterrorism cooperation. Foreign ministers of the three countries will lead their respective delegations at the second round of the trilateral dialogue Beijing initiated last year to help ease Kabul's political tensions with Islamabad. Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sibghatullah Ahmadi said, "An MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) is set to be signed." He did not elaborate. Pakistani officials say that a trilateral cooperation framework on counterterrorism is expected to be signed at the meeting. China, a close ally of Pakistan, has lately deepened its economic and political ties with Afghanistan. Beijing is actively using its influence to bring the two uneasy South Asian neighbors closer. Chinese officials say regional stability and security will discourage anti-China militants from causing trouble in the western Xinjiang region, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. China has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure projects in Pakistan over the past five years as part of President Xi Jinping's global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese and Pakistani officials say they are considering expanding the bilateral China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, to Afghanistan, through road and rail links to promote connectivity and economic development in the war-ravaged country. Beijing's ambassador to Islamabad, Yao Jing, told a seminar this week in Islamabad that BRI is aimed at boosting economic cooperation among regional countries. "China's message to the region is that our resources should be used for our own developments and prosperity. We should focus on curbing poverty and disease, which are our basic enemies," said the Chinese envoy. Pakistan says the expansion of CPEC to Afghanistan will give it better access to Central Asian markets for Pakistani exports. Political tensions, coupled with allegations that security agencies in both countries support militant groups that bring deadly attacks against one another, continue to strain relations between Kabul and Islamabad. Supporters of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League party led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina allegedly attacked an opposition leader's motorcade on Friday as it returned from a function in the nation's capital ahead of Dec. 30 elections, the latest show of the violence that frequently accompanies polling in the South Asian nation. Jatiya Oikya Front spokesman Latiful Bari told The Associated Press that the attack occurred while opposition leader Kamal Hossain visited a graveyard in Dhaka to commemorate the killings of intellectuals during the country's independence war against Pakistan in 1971. The attackers vandalized several vehicles but Hossain was unhurt, Bari said. Police official Mohammed Selimuzzaman said police were sent to the scene of the alleged attack and were investigating. At least two people have died and dozens have been injured in clashes across the country since election campaigning began Monday. Two supporters of the ruling party died when rival groups clashed after the campaigns kicked off. New York-based global rights group Human Rights Watch urged the international community in a statement Friday to press the Bangladesh government to create conditions for a free and fair election. The group criticized Bangladeshi security forces for "arresting and intimidating opposition figures and threatening freedom of expression ahead of the election." On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution urging Bangladesh to ensure a peaceful and fair election. The opposition says thousands of its leaders and activists have been arrested. Authorities say the arrests were not politically motivated. Violence is common around elections in Bangladesh, a parliamentary democracy. While clashes usually occur between rival political parties, infighting is also common after aspirants fail to win nominations. So far, however, there has been less campaign-related violence than in previous years. The opposition said such attacks are designed to weaken them ahead of the poll, while the ruling party has accused its opponents of trying to destabilize the election process, fearing defeat. Challengers to Hasina Hossain has emerged as a strong challenger to Hasina since the country's main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia joined his opposition alliance front. Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party in Bangladesh, has also joined the front. Most of its leaders have been hanged under Hasina for crimes stemming from the war for independence in 1971. On Dec. 14, 1971, dozens of teachers, journalists and cultural personalities were kidnapped and killed by Bangladeshi collaborators of Pakistani soldiers. Bangladesh won the war two days later. Hossain, a prominent lawyer and a former law minister, is not contesting the election, but his party activity has mobilized a considerable challenge to Hasina, who wants to return to office for a third consecutive time. Zia, who is serving jail terms for corruption, is Hasina's arch rival, and an appeals court recently ruled she was disqualified from running for prime minister. Brazil on Friday launched the first of five attack submarines built with French technology in a 35 billion-real ($8.9 billion) program planned to end in 2029 with delivery of a nuclear-powered submarine. President Michel Temer and his successor, President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, both pressed the button that lowered into the sea the 1,700-ton submarine named Riachuelo at a Rio de Janeiro naval base. Temer's wife, Marcela, had christened the vessel, by smashing a champagne bottle against its hull. The submarines being built by the Brazilian navy in partnership with France's defense company Naval Group, formerly known as DCNS, are a modified version of the Scorpene class diesel-powered submarine. While the first four submarines in the deal with Naval Group are conventional subs, the fifth will place Brazil in the club of only six nations with nuclear-powered submarines: the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China and India. The program has been delayed by budget cuts and corruption scandals involving contractors such as Brazil's largest engineering and construction firm, Odebrecht. The launch date of the last submarines has been put back until 2029. The launch of the Riachuelo gives the Brazilian navy six submarines, adding to five older ones of German technology. Adm. Bento Albuquerque, who will be mining and energy minister in Bolsonaro's cabinet when he takes office Jan. 1, said investment in the new sub program would total 35 billion reais at today's prices. The new submarines are planned to equip the navy to patrol Brazil's 3.5 million-square-kilometer offshore deep waters that contain vast wealth in oil and gas reserves. "Brazil has a vocation for peace and is building its submarine not to threaten anyone or unsettle the calm of international waters," Temer said. "Brazil is building submarines because a nation with more than 7,000 kilometers of coastline cannot do without tools to defend its sovereignty and its marine riches," he said. First U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Canada on trade. Then Saudi Arabia punished it for speaking up for human rights. Now China has the country in its crosshairs, detaining two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive on behalf of the United States. Canada is caught between two super powers and taking the punishment and the United States has been conspicuously absent in coming to its aid Weve never been this alone, historian Robert Bothwell said. We dont have any serious allies. And I think thats another factor in what the Chinese are doing. ... Our means of retaliation are very few. China is a hostile power. The two Canadians, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat in China, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur who lived in northeastern China near the North Korean border, were taken into custody Monday on suspicion of engaging in activities that endanger the national security of China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said. Canadian consular officials have had no access to them. Chinese pressure on Canada Their detentions ratchet up pressure on Canada, which arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants her extradited to face charges that she and her company misled banks about the companys business dealings in Iran. A Canadian judge released Meng on bail Tuesday. The case has set off a diplomatic furor among the three nations in which Canada has been stuck in the middle. Until now, Canada had a largely good relationship with China, forged by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus father, late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who helped establish the one-China formula that enabled many other countries to recognize China in the 1970s. Canada acknowledged there is one government of China and does not officially recognize Taiwan. China has since become Canadas second-largest trading partner, after the United States. Chinese investment has powered real estate booms in Vancouver and Toronto. And one-third of foreign students in Canada are Chinese. Justin Trudeau has even talked about a possible free-trade agreement with China in a bid to diversify Canadas trade, which relies on the U.S. for 75 percent of its exports. First US, now China But the Canadian prime minister has said little since news of this weeks arrests became public. Opposition Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said Trudeau isnt being forceful enough with the Chinese. This situation demonstrates that Justin Trudeaus naive approach to relations with China isnt working, Scheer said. Its Canadas second dispute with a major power this year. In June, Trump vowed to make Canada pay after Trudeau said he wouldnt be pushed around in talks to hammer out a new North American trade agreement, an unprecedented attack on Americas closest ally. Trump called Trudeau weak and dishonest, words that shocked Canadians. Then Trump said this week that he might intervene in the Huawei case if it would help clinch a trade agreement with China, upending U.S. efforts to separate the court proceeding from U.S.-China trade talks and contradicting Canadian officials who said the arrest was not political. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland took a swipe at Trump, saying it was quite obvious any foreign country requesting extradition should ensure the process is not politicized. No support from US Normally, Canada can count on the United States to back them up on such an issue, said Laura Dawson, a former economic adviser at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa and director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington. Dawson said its unusual for Washington to leave Canada hanging high and dry. President Trump has made it clear that old alliances dont matter so much anymore, she said. He has made no secret of his preference for a go-it-alone approach and his lack of regard for traditional alliances. In years past the U.S. might have defended Canada when came it under attack and other countries would know the U.S. had Canadas back. Not now. In August, the Saudi government expelled Canadas ambassador to the kingdom and withdrew its own ambassador after Canadas foreign ministry tweeted support for an arrested Saudi activist. The Saudis also sold Canadian investments and ordered their citizens studying in Canada to leave. No country, including the U.S., spoke out publicly in support of Canada. And now the stakes are much higher. Canada is one of the few countries in the world unabashedly speaking out in defense of human rights and the international rule of law. And Chinese trade with Canada is increasingly key as Canada looks to boost its exports in Asia as its trade with the U.S. is threatened by Trumps tariffs on Canadian goods. At the beginning of Trump there was this idea that maybe the Chinese would replace the Americans as Canadas pre-eminent trade partner but thats just nuts, said historian Bothwell, a University of Toronto professor. Relations for any smaller country with China are really grave. Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called Chinas actions toward Canada thuggish. You detain a Canadian because the Canadians cant do anything. Its bullying behavior, he said. Noting Canada was just following a routine extradition process with the United States, Scissors said America should be saying: Why are you picking up Canadians? You have a problem with us. Wheres the US? Wheres the West? David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said not only the U.S. but other Western nations should be standing up for Canada. It would be nice if publicly and also behind the scenes if countries like the United States, the U.K., Australia and France would put in a word on our behalf and let the Chinese know how damaging this is to their reputation and to the notion that China is a safe place to work and pursue a career, Mulroney said. I think a lot of foreigners in China are looking over their shoulder right now, he added. Christopher Sands of the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington said the world took note of how Trump treated Canada during trade negotiations and how the U.S. stayed silent when Saudi Arabia overreacted to Canadas expression of human rights concerns over treatment of the Saudi dissident. In normal times, the U.S. sends a signal, usually discreetly, to allies to cut it out and play nice, Sands said. What makes this worse is that China is lashing out at Canada not for Canadas initiative, but for Canadas honoring of a U.S. warrant. The damage done by our silence in terms of alliance relations is truly awful, he said. The Dec. 23 elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo are the most important in more than a decade. After delaying a new poll for two years, President Joseph Kabila is stepping aside. Two main candidates are vying to replace him, one his handpicked successor, the other an opposition leader. VOA's Anita Powell spoke with the two main camps and brings us this report from Kinshasa. After two decades under the Kabila family, voters in the Democratic Republic of Congo face what appears to be a simple choice as they go to the polls Dec. 23: Continuity, or change? Longtime President Joseph Kabila is stepping down two years after his mandate expired. His departure from the top job has opened the door to a flood of 21 presidential aspirants. But for Congo-watchers, both inside and outside this vast country, its not that simple. Congo, after all, is a nation the size of Western Europe, heaving with natural resources and arable land, but with the infrastructure of a much smaller country. Is the poll a show? Even in the capital, Kinshasa, power and water outages are common; roads are degraded to the point where some are puddles of mud. Many critics of Kabilas regime, accused repeatedly of corruption, worry this poll is just a show. The big question is whether Kabila is preparing for a peaceful transfer of power to Shadary, one of his loyalists, and ensuring that he does not inherit a catastrophic situation, similar to that which [he] inherited when he seized power after his fathers mysterious assassination, wrote analyst Michael Khorommbiin South African media. Or is it just for his political ambitions to maintain control; to protect his financial assets and secure immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed while in office for the past 17 years? In this crowd of presidential hopefuls, only a handful of names stand out. Little-known former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary is Kabilas choice to become Congos next president, and he is campaigning heavily on that relationship. I was chosen as candidate for the presidential election by President Joseph Kabila, he told a crowd recently at a campaign rally, speaking in Swahili. Shadary faces stiff competition from a fractured, but passionate opposition, including from the son of the late longtime opposition leader. Felix Tshisekedi, who is widely seen as the frontrunner, entered the race late, after the opposition chose another man as their coalition candidate. That coalition candidate, businessman Martin Fayulu, told VOA hes confident that voters will back him. But an October opinion poll conducted by international and local research groups only gave him about 8 percent of the vote. We want to leave after us all the bad things that Mr. Kabila has done in this country, Fayulu told VOA. The bad things that the 20 years of Kabilisme have done in this country. Corruption, insecurity, the mass killing, that should be something that we have to make a big cause, so we can move ahead and change things in this country. But he says hes not sure this election will give him that chance. On this point, the divided opposition sings in the same key: they believe this poll will not be free, fair or transparent. An area of particular concern is the electronic voting machines that opposition figures have repeatedly described as rigging machines. Adding to that, the government has refused any foreign assistance to hold this poll, saying theyll do it all themselves, without foreign interference. Fayulu, who says he will refuse to use a voting machine and will insist on a paper ballot, says the elections have been a mess from the start. The elections, you know, the organization is the worst organization, he said. Ive never seen a country organizing elections and doing what is being done here in this county. Starting from the electoral register. It was a disaster. Shadarys camp disputes these claims and says they are confident the poll will be up to standard. Andre-Alain Atundu, a spokesman for the ruling coalition and a close associate of Shadarys, says he thinks continuity is important, and that it will happen, no matter who wins. If its Mr. Shadary, hes saying, Ill continue with the spirit of progress advanced by Mr. Kabila, he told VOA. Hes honest. The others will take advantage of what Mr. Kabila has left. ... Its a question of honesty. And every next president will want to continue what Mr. Kabila has had the opportunity to achieve. As the poll nears, election paraphernalia is everywhere in the capital, with Shadarys impassive face beaming from billboards and promising economic development, security and better infrastructure. Tshisekedi and Fayulu are far less visible on posters, but Kinshasa is an opposition stronghold, where their rallies are packed and where historically they have performed well. The visual clutter of faces and names and promises has almost become invisible to residents of the bustling capital, who declined to stop and talk about politics when asked. But as Dec. 23 edges closer, everyone is wondering: In which direction will Congo go? Show more Show less China has rallied the power of its one-party state behind tech giant Huawei to boost public support for the company's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. But the case is getting increasingly complex with the arrest of two Canadian citizens in apparent retaliation as Meng awaits possible extradition to the United States from Canada. VOA's Bill Ide files from Beijing. A divided U.S. appeals court Thursday blocked rules by the Trump administration that allowed more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. The ruling, however, may be short lived because the administration has adopted new rules on contraceptive coverage that are set to take effect next month and will likely prompt renewed legal challenges. Thursday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concerned changes to birth control coverage requirements under President Barack Obama's health care law that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued in October 2017. States were likely to succeed on their claim that those changes were made without required notice and public comment, the appeals court panel said in a 2-1 decision. The majority upheld a preliminary injunction against the rules issued by U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam last year. It, however, limited the scope of the injunction, applying it only to the five states in the lawsuit and not the entire country. Another federal judge also blocked the rules, and her nationwide injunction remains in place. An email to the Justice Department seeking comment was not immediately returned. Obama's health care law required most companies to cover birth control at no additional cost, though it included exemptions for religious organizations. The new policy allowed more categories of employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing free contraception to women by claiming religious objections. It also allowed any company that is not publicly traded to deny coverage on moral grounds. The Department of Justice said in court documents that the rules were about protecting a small group of "sincere religious and moral objectors'' from having to violate their beliefs. The changes were favored by social conservatives who are staunch supporters of President Donald Trump. California filed a lawsuit to block the changes that was joined by Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia. "Today's decision is an important step to protect a woman's right to access cost-free birth control and make independent decisions about her own reproductive health care,'' California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. 'Economic harm' The states argued that the changes could result in millions of women losing free birth control services, forcing them to seek contraceptive care through state-run programs or programs that the states had to reimburse. The states show with "reasonable probability'' that the new rules will lead women to lose employer-sponsored contraceptive coverage, "which will then result in economic harm to the states,'' 9th Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace, a nominee of Republican President Richard Nixon, wrote for the majority. In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Andrew Kleinfeld said the economic harm to the states was "self-inflicted'' because they chose to provide contraceptive coverage to women. The states, therefore, did not have the authority to bring the lawsuit, said Kleinfeld, a nominee of Republican President George H.W. Bush. The case became more complicated after the Trump administration last month issued new birth control coverage rules that are set to supersede those at issue in the lawsuit before the 9th Circuit. Under the new rules, large companies whose stock is sold to investors won't be able to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage. Wallace said the new rules did not make the case before the 9th Circuit moot because they are not set to take effect until January. The death of a previously little-known Iranian dissident who was on a hunger strike to protest his detention by Iran has sparked an outcry from the United States, rights activists and other social media users. Family members told VOA Persian that prison authorities in the northern city of Qom telephoned them Wednesday to say that Vahid Sayyadi-Nasiri had died in a Qom hospital earlier that day. His mother and a brother said they later tried to locate his body but hospital staff told them it had been taken to a morgue at Qoms main cemetery. Detained in July The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) described Sayyadi-Nasiri as a 28-year-old real estate specialist who was critical of Iranian state policy on social media, but had little national name recognition until his death. Irans Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) said Iranian intelligence agents detained Sayyadi-Nasiri in Qom in July and authorities put him on trial in September on charges of disseminating propaganda against the state and insulting Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It said a revolutionary court later sentenced him to 4 years in prison. Rights groups said Sayyadi-Nasiri previously had served a two-year prison term on similar charges before being released in March this year. They said he began a hunger strike against his latest detention Oct. 13 to protest inhumane prison conditions and a lack of access to a lawyer and he died on the 60th day of his protest. U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino issued a statement late Thursday expressing sadness about Sayyadi-Nasiri's death and condemning Iran's Islamist rulers in the "strongest possible terms" for what he called their "unceasingly flagrant human rights violations." A tweet accompanied the statement: Similar strikes In a Thursday report, Iranian judiciary news agency Mizan quoted Qom provinces chief prosecutor Shokrollah Bahrami as saying Sayyadi-Nasiri had been in poor physical health as a result of a liver disease and was transferred to a hospital, before dying there seven days later. Bahrami said the cause of the activists death was under investigation. CHRI said Sayyadi-Nasiris apparent death from a hunger strike heightened the urgency of resolving what it called legitimate grievances of other Iranian dissidents who have been on similar hunger strikes to protest their ongoing detentions. The group highlighted the case of 48-year-old Iranian physician and rights activist Farhad Meysami, who it said has been on a hunger strike at Tehrans Evin prison since Aug. 1. Authorities had detained Meysami a day earlier for possessing books and badges protesting Irans Islamist policy of forcing women to wear a hijab in public. CHRI said Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, detained in June for expressing support for women who had been publicly protesting Irans compulsory hijab law, began a second hunger strike Nov. 26. It said she was protesting authorities refusal to allow Meysami, her friend, to receive hospital treatment. Sayyadi-Nasiris death and the danger of more deaths are a result of a judicial system that is out of control and which has abandoned any semblance of defending the rule of law, said CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi. More deaths will come if the authorities persist with these unlawful imprisonments, their denial of due process and the inhumane incarceration conditions in Iran, he added. Reports of Sayyadi-Nasiris death sparked further outrage on social media. Twitter users posted about 25,000 tweets with the hashtag #Vahid_Sayyadi_Nasiri in Farsi in a 24-hour period from Wednesday to Thursday, with many expressing sorrow for not previously having heard about his case. This article originated in VOAs Persian Service. Ramin Haghjoo contributed to this report. EU leaders extended punishing economic sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine for another six months on Thursday, amid heightened tensions over the Azov Sea clash. The EU first imposed the measures in July 2014 after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing 298 people, an attack blamed by the West on pro-Russian rebels. Russian economy targeted The sanctions target whole sectors of the Russian economy including its valuable oil businesses. "EU unanimously prolongs economic sanctions against Russia given zero progress in implementation of Minsk agreements," EU President Donald Tusk tweeted from a summit in Brussels. The EU-brokered Minsk peace agreement, endorsed by both Moscow and Kiev, was first reached in late 2014 and then re-worked in early 2015 but is violated regularly. The Ukraine-Russia conflict flared up again last month when Russian forces seized three Ukrainian vessels and sailors as they tried to pass through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. 28 leaders renew criticism The 28 EU leaders renewed their criticism of Russia over the incident, voicing their "utmost concern" at Moscow's "violations of international law" in a strongly-worded summit statement. "There is no justification for the use of military force by Russia," the statement said, calling once again for the sailors to be released. Earlier on Thursday, the NATO military alliance announced it would give Ukraine secure communications equipment by the end of the year to help it combat Russia's "destabilizing behaviour." Along with sector-wide economic sanctions, the EU has measures targeting individuals and organisations over Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. The leaders said the EU "stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support, including in favour of the affected areas of Ukraine" opening the door to new sanctions. 9 added to list of people facing sanctions Earlier this week the EU hit nine more people with sanctions over elections in the breakaway pro-Russian regions of Ukraine which were condemned as illegitimate by the international community. But new measures would require the unanimous support of all 28 EU countries and some with strong business ties or political sympathies with Russia are resistant to the idea. The war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and rebels backed by Moscow has claimed more than 10,000 lives and rumbles on despite a series of periodic truce deals. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether U.S. President Donald Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the funds it raised, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people it said were familiar with the matter. The investigation opened by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office is examining whether some of the committee's donors gave money in exchange for policy concessions, influencing administration positions or access to the incoming administration, the Journal said. The probe could present another legal threat for Trump and his White House, which already faces a web of lawsuits and probes into subjects such as the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia, hush-money payments to women made by the president's former lawyer, and spending by Trump's foundation. The investigation into the inaugural committee partly stemmed from materials seized in a probe into the dealings of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the Journal reported. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for crimes including orchestrating the hush payments in violation of campaign laws. A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office declined to comment. Spokespeople for the White House and Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Fighting broke out on the outskirts of Yemen's port city of Hodeida on Friday, residents said, a day after a ceasefire agreement was reached by the warring parties at U.N.-sponsored peace talks. The main port used to feed Yemen's 30 million people is held by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement that also controls the capital Sanaa and has been battling against a Saudi-led Arab coalition seeking to restore a government ousted in 2014. Hodeida has been the focus of fighting this year, raising global fears that a battle could cut off supply lines and lead to mass starvation. Yemeni forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition have massed on the city's outskirts. Sounds of missiles, gunfire Despite the ceasefire, one resident told Reuters he could hear the sound of missiles and automatic gunfire in the direction of the eastern 7th July suburb. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said coalition warplanes had launched two strikes on Ras Isa city north of Hodeida. The coalition did not immediately confirm the report. The warring sides agreed after a week of consultations in Sweden to cease fighting in Hodeida and withdraw their troops as part of confidence-building measures to pave the way for a wider truce and political negotiations. It was the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts to end the nearly four-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. Sides expected to withdraw 'within days' Envoy Martin Griffiths said at the end of the peace talks that both parties would withdraw "within days" from the port and then from the city. International monitors would be deployed and all armed forces would pull back completely within 21 days. A Redeployment Coordination Committee including both sides and chaired by the United Nations would oversee implementation. Both sides issued statements following the talks claiming they would ultimately control Hodeida. Abdullah al-Alimi, a senior official in the office of the Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, tweeted on Friday the deal meant a Houthi withdrawal from the city and "the legitimate authority will fully control security and administration. The Houthis' media office tweeted that "occupying forces" would quit Hodeida and "the current authority will be the official authority. Robust monitoring needed Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that a robust monitoring regime was urgently needed in Hodeida to oversee compliance with the truce. Such a monitoring mission needs a Security Council resolution, diplomats said. He said retired Dutch Major General Patrick Cammaert agreed to lead monitoring and could arrive in the region within days. "The process outlined on Hodeida is one that's wracked with potential pitfalls the key will be ensuring an orderly withdrawal process in preventing spoilers from derailing the process," said Adam Baron of the European Council for Foreign Relations. The warring parties are due to hold another round of talks in January to discuss a framework for political negotiations. Western nations, some of which supply arms and intelligence to the Sunni Muslim military coalition, have pressed alliance leaders Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to end the war following outrage over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul. U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, said Friday he believes the president is not telling the truth about his campaign's involvement with Russia. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison, in part for helping make payments to two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump to stay silent before the 2016 election. In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, Cohen responded "no" when asked if Trump was telling the truth to Special Counsel Robert Mueller about "everything related to Russia." Cohen said he bought the silence of the women because Trump "was very concerned about how this would affect the election" if the allegations were made public. Cohen responded "of course" when asked if Trump was aware it was wrong to make the payments, and added the payments were to "help [Trump] and his campaign." Cohen pleaded guilty to arranging $280,000 in payments, at Trump's direction, to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. The payments, however, were not reported as campaign donations. Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump's efforts in early 2016 to build a Moscow skyscraper, to mimic Trump's false claim to voters that he had no Russian business ventures. U.S. Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley dismissed Cohen's interview, when asked by reporters Friday at the White House. "The fact that the media is giving credence to a convicted criminal you're giving credence to someone who's a self-admitted liar," Gidley said. "For him to say, 'I'm going to start, I'm going to stop lying now, starting now' is somewhat silly." Trump has contended the hush money payments were not criminal. He told Fox News earlier this week the charges were brought by prosecutors "to embarrass me. I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong." Prosecutors said that Cohen, at Trump's direction, facilitated the payments, in violation of campaign finance laws, to Daniels and McDougal shortly before the 2016 election. The payments were intended to buy their silence about the alleged liaisons with Trump a decade before he sought the presidency. The prosecutors said American Media knew corporations such as itself were subject to campaign finance laws that forbid payments "made for purposes of influencing an election and in coordination with or at the request of a candidate or campaign." Prosecutors also said American Media did not report the payments to the Federal Election Commission. Campaign finance laws require campaign contributions to be disclosed and bar individual donations of more than $2,700. New York prosecutors say then-candidate Trump was involved in making a $150,000 payment to McDougal through American Media Inc. The company owns the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer. The publication bought McDougal's story of her alleged 2006-2007 affair with Trump with the express purpose of killing it so it would not surface before Election Day in November 2016, to boost Trump's chances of winning the White House. American Media reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid prosecution by fully cooperating with authorities disclosing its role with Trump in making the payment to McDougal. 'Blind loyalty' Cohen was sentenced after telling a federal judge that his "blind loyalty" to Trump led him to "cover up his dirty deeds." Legal analysts said the developments could strengthen a potential case against Trump himself if prosecutors were to pursue one, although Justice Department guidelines say that a sitting president cannot be charged criminally until he leaves office. Cohen is the closest figure to Trump sentenced to prison in the wide-ranging investigations of Trump's 2016 campaign, its possible links to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart probes by federal prosecutors in New York and Mueller in Washington. Several other prominent Trump figures, including his former campaign chairman and his first national security adviser, have yet to be sentenced for various offenses. Cohen once bragged that he would "take a bullet" to support Trump. More recently, however, Cohen had turned against Trump and said at his sentencing that working for Trump was a "personal and mental incarceration." Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said that after Mueller completes his investigation, Cohen would cooperate with congressional committees as they consider possible wrongdoing by Trump and his aides. Some Democrats in the House of Representatives have called for Trump's impeachment when they assume control of the chamber next month. A day after killing the alleged assailant in a bloody Christmas market shooting in eastern France, police are searching for other potential suspects. The Islamic State group, without providing evidence, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack that killed at least three people, wounded more than a dozen others and left a country on edge. Public prosecutor Remy Heitz on Friday detailed the two-day manhunt that led to police shooting dead Cherif Chekatt, in the Strasbourg neighborhood where he grew up. Heitz said two local witnesses tipped off police after seeing a man who matched a widely circulated description of Chekatt during a manhunt that included nearby Germany. He said around 9 p.m. local time Thursday, a police patrol spotted a man trying to enter a building, and identified themselves. The man turned around and opened fire, at which point police responded, killing him. Heitz said the terrorist investigation continues to identify possible suspects in Tuesday's Christmas market shooting. He added that police have detained more than half-a-dozen people for questioning, including four members of Chekatt's family. The Islamic State group said Chekatt was one of its so-called "soldiers." But visiting the newly reopened market Friday, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner dismissed the claim as totally opportunistic, saying Chekatt nourished evil within himself. A Strasbourg native with Moroccan roots, Chekatt had an extensive criminal record that stretched to Germany and Switzerland, and multiple prison sentences. He had been on a French watchlist for suspected Islamist views. Strasbourg's businesses have taken a major hit. Many locals said they were relieved Chekatt had been killed. One woman told French radio she had been haunted by fears of him still hiding and ready to strike, but that the burden has been lifted. The police have been hailed as heroes for tracking down Chekatt as swiftly as they did. But their representatives say officers are exhausted after also dealing with multiple French anti-government protests in recent weeks. Some of the demonstrators say they'll be back on the streets to protest government reforms and the high cost of living. Iraq's Foreign Ministry says it has summoned Turkey's ambassador to protest Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish militia positions in northern Iraq. The ministry said in a statement Friday that it had rebuked Turkey over two air raids on Iraq's Sinjar and Makhmour mountains the previous night, where the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, operates. PKK fighters in Sinjar helped liberate the mountainous northern region from Islamic State rule in 2015. Turkey, which has outlawed the PKK in its own territories, said the operation was aimed to secure its border and prevent terror attacks. Turkey's parliament in October renewed the military's mandate to carry out cross-border operations against its enemies in Syria and Iraq. Iraq's foreign ministry called the Turkish air raids a violation of national sovereignty. A Hamas official in the West Bank says Israeli forces have arrested dozens of Hamas activists, including lawmakers, in overnight raids. The arrests come in the wake of a pair of deadly shootings this week believed to have been carried out by Hamas activists. The Hamas official said Friday that about 70 members have been arrested this week, including about 40 overnight. The official spoke on condition of anonymity fearing arrest by Israel. The Israeli military Friday confirmed the overnight arrests. A Palestinian gunman opened fire Thursday at a West Bank bus stop, killing two Israeli soldiers. Earlier this week, another gunman opened fire at another bus stop, wounding seven and causing the premature delivery of a baby that later died. Imagine a storm growling outside and you are talking and drinking wine with your friends. How do you feel? A hypnagogic coziness lingered around every audiences mind after Meik Wiking, a known Danish writer and founder of the Happiness Research Institute, gave his speech at the Danish Embassys first ever Christmas Fair in Beijing on Wednesday. Such a feeling, to Wiking, is part of Hygge. Hygge is the art of creating a pleasant atmosphere, Wiking explained. It is a national DNA that is deeply rooted in Danes daily life and Danish culture, which leads us to be a consecutive winner in the global happiness ranking. (Meik Wiking gives a speech Danish Embassys first ever Christmas Fair in Beijing on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of the Royal Danish Embassy to Beijing) As a preacher of happiness, Wikings global happiness research tour reaped two books: The Little Book of Hygge and The Little Book of Lykke, both of which have been translated into 38 languages including Chinese, making the Danish word "hygge" a world-wide trend. China experienced a rapid growth in the last decade and is witnessing the ten years of strategic relationship (partnership) with Denmark. My colleagues and I see China as one of the key research objectives in our happiness research tour in the upcoming years, especially when China plays an increasingly important role on the world stage, Wiking told Peoples Daily Overseas Social Media during his first visit to Beijing. The increase of wealth has not directly lead to happiness, which is a universal phenomenon, Wiking pointed out, adding that it is his job and the job of any nation to efficiently turn wealth into wellbeing. Chinas economic performance in the past four decades is stunning, in terms of eliminating poverty and extending life expectancy. However, people expect more inner peace when they hit the ceiling either in their life or work. Hygge is a wisdom from Danes, which China can learn from as an inclusive nation, Cheng Fangyuan, a famous Chinese musician, who also listened to Wikings speech on Wednesday, told Peoples Daily Overseas Social Media. (Photo courtesy of the Royal Danish Embassy to Beijing) In fact, happiness is easy to gain in China, Wiking noted, raising the example of eating Peking Duck in the hospitable city. The notion of hygge echoes with the Chinese term xiao que xin, meaning an ordinary and genuine happiness, which has become a popular lifestyle among young Chinese people in recent years. Some believe that the daily ritual of creating happiness and a pleasant atmosphere help soothe the stressful life of Chinas young generation in a positive way. However, others think that too much xiao que xin or hygge, implies, at least to some extent, an uncertain and lazy life attitude. Wiking is mostly concerned about the virtual hygge on social media, which is used to show off a quality of life. Social comparison is bad for our satisfaction with life, which creates envy and stress, perhaps even depression. Social media consistently provides us good news about everybody else. We need to be conscious of how social media can distort our perception of reality, he concluded. The Italian government is happy it could lower its deficit target for next year, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said Friday, although he also said economic growth may be smaller than forecast. The government wanted to avoid disciplinary action by the European Union over its expansionary 2019 budget, without betraying pledges made to Italian voters, Di Maio told the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. The European Commission had rejected the original budget, arguing that it broke commitments to reduce borrowing and would not bring down Italys large public debt. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told the European Commission on Wednesday he was lowering next years deficit target to 2.04 percent of gross domestic product from 2.4 percent, triggering a sharp decline in Italys bond yields. We are happy to be able to lower the deficit, said Di Maio, who leads the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which has governed since June in a coalition with the right-wing League. European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici signaled Thursday that the new target could be the basis of a deal to head off the Commissions excessive deficit procedure. Economic growth Asked about the economic growth target of 1.5 percent set for 2019, Di Maio said, the only reason to come down from 1.5 percent could be linked to the slowdown in the last part of (this) year, caused mainly by exports. After GDP fell 0.1 percent in the third quarter, most economists now expect 2019 expansion of less than 1 percent. About 7 billion euros ($7.94 billion) of savings will need to be found to achieve the lower deficit goal, and Di Maio detailed where some of these will come from. He said 5-Stars flagship income-support scheme, the so-called citizens income, will cost about 1.3 billion euros less than budgeted because it will begin in March instead of January. More than 2 billion will be saved because a plan to allow earlier retirement will also prevent people from taking more than one pension or taking a pension while working, Di Maio said. Sales of state-owned real estate and cuts to the highest state pensions will also provide savings. A Sri Lankan lawmaker says disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will resign Saturday to end the countrys political crisis. The pro-Rajapaksa lawmaker, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, said Friday that Rajapaksa decided in a meeting with President Maithripala Sirisena to resign to allow the president to appoint a new government. Sri Lanka has been without a functioning government for nearly two weeks after a court suspended Rajapaksa and his Cabinet while it decides if they should hold office after losing two no-confidence votes in Parliament. Sri Lanka runs the risk of being unable to use state funds from Jan. 1 if there is no government to approve the budget. The country has been in political crisis since October, when Sirisena abruptly sacked then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Rajapaksa. A Montenegrin animal rights activist faces jail as she has no money to pay a fine for feeding the stray dogs she has been taking care of over the past 20 years. A court found Indira Lajko guilty for putting out bowls of dog food and water on the streets and outside houses in Pljevlja, northern Montenegro. The court ordered her to pay a 150-euro ($169) fine, which equals 40 percent of her salary. Under the ruling, she will go to jail on December 29 if the fine is not paid. "I have no money to pay the fine," Lajko, a hospital midwife, told AFP on Friday. "Half of my salary goes for loans taken to pay various fines to local courts for my care of stray dogs." The 60-year-old woman said she has been leading a legal battle with local authorities over protection of animals for the past decade. "Sometimes I'm hungry but my hunting dog Srecko always has meat and abandoned animal food," Lajko said. Lajko founded Right to Life animal rights group and an animal asylum in Pljevlja. Last year she was proclaimed one of the best midwives in the tiny Balkan country. The United States unveiled a new Africa strategy Thursday designed to prioritize American interests and challenge efforts by China and Russia to develop economic, political and security partnerships across the continent. In prepared remarks, National Security Adviser John Bolton outlined a three-part policy that largely continues the United States existing approach to its military, trade and aid initiatives in Africa. Whats new is a more explicit commitment to pursuing programs that unambiguously advance U.S. interests, and an emphatic desire to prevent Beijing and Moscow from making moves in Africa unchallenged. The result is a strategy that emphasizes American needs and bilateral relationships, while downplaying African concerns, Jennifer Cooke, the director of George Washington Universitys Institute for African Studies, told VOA. This sounds like a real return to the policies of realpolitik during the Cold War, when allies were based on their opposition to communism or the Soviet Union rather than good governance, human rights, economic prosperity and so forth, Cooke said. I think African countries paid a big price for that kind of geopolitical battle, she added. And I think the United States has more at stake than the geopolitical battle. I think [the U.S.] has more to offer than what was laid out here. China-focused Bolton mentioned China at least 15 times in his speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative, Washington D.C.-based think tank. South Sudan, the most-cited African country, came up just five times. There, Bolton said, the United States plans to revisit the assistance it provides in light of ongoing conflict. Bolton had pointed criticism for Beijing. China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijings wishes and demands, he said. Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption, and do not meet the same environmental or ethical standards as U.S. developmental programs. He cited debt concerns in Zambia and Djibouti, a new Chinese military base in Djibouti, allegations that China fired lasers at American pilots, and concerns that Djibouti might hand a strategic port over to Chinese companies. Bolton painted Moscow in similarly negative terms, describing a government concerned only with self-interest. Russia advances its political and economic relationships with little regard to the rule of law or accountable and transparent governance, he said. The bigger chessboard The Trump administration sees in its new strategy a sharpened focus that will deliver results. But framing the dynamics in Africa too narrowly could undermine both U.S. and African interests, Judd Devermont, the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA. When you dont see the bigger chessboard, you actually miss opportunities to advance U.S. interests and to improve African prosperity, Devermont said. The new policy doesnt acknowledge many of the global players jockeying in Africa. India, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates all of whom Bolton left out of his remarks have made significant investments in Africa, from the Horn to Johannesburg. A better approach for the Trump administration, Devermont said, would be to account for the many multilateral relationships unfolding in Africa. Theyre major players putting [in] lots of money and advancing their goals, and we lacked from this administration [information] on how they are going to navigate that, he said. Contra diplomacy Bolton also spoke of mutual respect, African agency and self-reliance. But how the United States will navigate relationships with African countries with extensive ties to either Beijing or Moscow is not yet clear. A policy predicated on antagonism toward China could prove tricky, though, in light of Beijings extensive investments in nearly every country in Africa. To date, China has made more than $142 billion in loans to African countries, often with very favorable terms. Whether the United States will tie its aid and investment programs to recalibrated relations with Beijing remains unclear. But Bolton was firm that the U.S. should not assist nations working against its interests. Countries that repeatedly vote against the United States in international forums, or take actions counter to U.S. interests, he said, should not receive generous American foreign aid. Cooke worries that only investing in countries in close alignment with U.S. interests will produce short-term gains at a long-term cost. My sense was that the administration will be looking for partners who support the U.S. contra other great powers, she said. I think that can be problematic in the long run. More than 60 people graduated in Juba this week with diplomas in midwifery and nursing. Their goal? To reduce South Sudan's high rate of maternal mortality. Eight men were among the 66 graduates of the Kajo Keji Health Science Institute an unusual occurrence in South Sudan, where midwifery is associated almost exclusively with women. Samuel Ladu Morish, 26, says he felt he could no longer sit by and watch young women die because of childbirth. "A lot of mothers are dying so [for] me particularly it pains me. That is why I felt I have to do that course, to try my level best to stop maternal mortality rate in South Sudan," Morish told VOA's South Sudan in Focus. Twenty-one-year-old Leju Henry, another male graduate, said he's been asked many times why he decided to pursue a course in midwifery. Like Morish, Henry said he wants to help South Sudanese women, especially those who suffer complications in child labor. "Most people think midwifery is a job for females only, but that is not the truth. the definition of midwifery [is] that a midwife simply means someone who assists in child above all, but not necessarily means a fellow woman," Henry said. According to figures published by the World Health Organization in 2017, South Sudan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world 789 women per 100,000 live births. The rate has actually fallen in recent years, a trend that Makur Koriom, the undersecretary of South Sudan's Ministry of Health, attributes to increased training of midwives and nurses. He says South Sudan has added more than 800 midwives and nurses since 2010. "We believe that's important, because to address the current health challenges, investing in human resource is very important. But, of course, investment at [the] secondary level without concurrent development at the community level also will not yield [good results], because most of the issues happen at the community level," Koriom told VOA. Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said the country's economy was in "bad shape," the governor of a northwestern state told reporters Friday after a meeting with governors from across the country. Buhari will seek a second term in an election to be held in February in which the economy is likely to be a campaign issue. Africa's top oil producer last year emerged from its first recession in 25 years, caused by low crude prices, but growth remains sluggish. "Mr. President, as usual, responded by telling us that the economy is in a bad shape and we have to come together and think and rethink on the way forward," Abdulaziz Yari, who chairs the Nigeria Governors' Forum, told reporters when asked how Buhari answered requests for a bailout to some states. "Mr. President talked to us in the manner that we have a task ahead of us. So, we should tighten our belts and see how we can put the Nigerian economy in the right direction," said Yari, governor of Zamfara state. He spoke to journalists in the capital, Abuja. The main opposition candidate, businessman and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has criticized Buhari's handling of the economy and said that, if elected, he would aim to double the size of the economy to $900 billion by 2025. Nigeria's economy grew by 1.81 percent in the third quarter of this year, the statistics office said Monday. And on Friday, it said consumer prices had risen 11.28 percent in November compared with a year ago. U.S. defense officials say the number of active-duty troops deployed to the U.S. border with Mexico will decrease to about 3,000 in the coming days. One defense official said these troops would likely remain on the border for the duration of the second phase of the border mission, which begins Saturday and lasts through January 31. The Associated Press was first to report the new deployment numbers. The new phase of the border deployment includes about half the 5,900 active-duty troops deployed at the height of the mission. Additionally, about 2,300 additional National Guard troops are continuing to support the Department of Homeland Security in a separate border security assistance mission. U.S. troops in California, Arizona and Texas have installed wire barriers, helped move around border patrol agents and protected those agents. President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of troops in response to caravans of Central American migrants moving toward the southern U.S. border. The number of migrants traveling to the border recently has declined. U.S. troops were initially deployed to the border in order to support the Department of Homeland Security through December 15, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis later agreed to a request to extend the deployment until the end of next month. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan says the United States is scheduled to meet soon with the Afghan Taliban and that Islamabad has facilitated the dialogue at Washingtons request. The U.S. has been meeting with Qatar-based Taliban representatives since July, but so far they have been talks for the sake of talks, according to insurgent and Pakistani officials. Khans disclosure came more than a week after U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad visited Islamabad, where he held meetings with the Pakistani prime minister and the military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, to seek their help in facilitating Afghan peace talks. Dialogue may be set Prime Minister Khan told a public gathering Friday in the northwestern city of Peshawar that Washington has changed its tune by requesting help instead of saying Islamabad is not doing enough, as U.S. officials have previously insisted. By the grace of Allah, the dialogue is now happening inshallah [God willing] on the 17th [Khan did not mention the month] and Pakistan has facilitated the talks between America and the Taliban, Khan told the crowd. He did not share further details. Ambassador Khalilzad is 12 days into an 18-day visit to the region. He has traveled to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Belgium in his bid to build support for an Afghan peace process. The special envoy also plans to travel to the U.A.E. and Qatar, which host Taliban negotiators. Khan recounted that critics used to mock him as Taliban Khan for saying the Afghan war could not be ended without political negotiations. Khan reiterated that peace in Afghanistan is key to the security and economic stability of Pakistan. Khalilzad has held two rounds of discussions with insurgent officials since taking office in September. Withdrawal sought Pakistani officials privy to the U.S.-Taliban meetings have told VOA that no progress has been achieved because the insurgents adamantly demand a date or timeframe for all foreign troops to withdraw from Afghanistan before the Taliban decides to participate in an intra-Afghan peace process. Pakistan army spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor said last week that his country is taking every step required to help the United States successfully achieve a political reconciliation in Afghanistan. US leaves as a friend This political reconciliation must succeed. ... We wish that the U.S. leaves Afghanistan as friend of the region, not as a failure, Ghafoor told reporters without elaborating. U.S. officials have long maintained Taliban leaders are sheltering in Pakistan with covert support from the countrys intelligence agency. Washington has been urging Islamabad to use its influence to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table. Pakistani officials say their influence over the Taliban has significantly declined over the years because the insurgents have gained control over large areas of Afghanistan and continue to pose serious battlefield challenges for U.S.-backed Afghan security forces. A Philippine court on Friday found 66 alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf guilty of kidnapping dozens of students, teachers and a Catholic priest in the south in 2000, in the largest single conviction involving the brutal Muslim militant group. The Regional Trial Court branch 261 acquitted for lack of evidence 20 other people who have languished in jail for years while insisting they were innocent in the brazen March 2000 kidnappings of 52 people, mostly young students at two schools on Basilan island. Two kidnapped teachers were beheaded and a priest died while in Abu Sayyaf custody. The other hostages were rescued or freed after local officials negotiated for their release a few days after they were kidnapped en masse from the schools in the villages of Tumahubong and Sinangkapan. The Abu Sayyaf or Bearer of the Sword has been listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. It was founded around the early 1990s in poor, predominantly Muslim Basilan province. An unwieldy collection of Islamic preachers and outlaws, it vowed to wage jihad, or holy war, but lost its key leaders early in combat, sending it on a violent path of extremism and criminality. One of its top commanders, Isnilon Hapilon, helped lead a siege of southern Marawi city by Islamic State group-aligned militants in May last year which left more than 1,000 people dead, mostly militants, including Hapilon. Hundreds of thousands of villagers were displaced. Troops backed by U.S. and Australian spy planes quelled the siege after five months. Today, the Abu Sayyaf has degenerated into a few loose factions with a few hundred ragtag fighters and no central leader in Basilan and outlying islands. But it remains resilient and violent, engaging in ransom kidnappings and extortion that have allowed it to survive without extensive backing from foreign extremist groups. Innocent suspects arrested Senior State Prosecutor Peter Ong said some innocent suspects were arrested but only two were freed by the court a few years ago after he and other prosecutors took steps to secure their release before the trial ended. "The persistence and determination of the court to give justice to the victims and those who were wrongfully arrested led to this decision, although it took more than one and a half decades to happen," said Ong, one of several prosecutors who handled the case. Nearly 100 people were charged in the Basilan kidnappings. An Associated Press investigation in 2014 that included interviews with prosecutors and key witnesses showed dozens of people were detained despite a lack of evidence against them. An Abu Sayyaf commander, Abu Gandhie, who took part in the planning but was captured and later turned state witness, told the AP at the time that more than 40 militants took part in the mass kidnappings, including more than 10 who were later killed in clashes with troops. When he testified in court, he identified only 12 of the dozens of men who were charged as among those who actually took part in the abductions. Backlog, corruption Mistakes are a concern in the Philippines' slow and overburdened law enforcement and criminal justice system, which has a backlog of thousands of cases and is tainted by corruption allegations. In far-flung Muslim regions in the south, those frailties are compounded by conditions such as a lack of birth certificates and other identification papers for poor villagers, hampering the accurate identification of suspects. With spotty intelligence, government forces have often relied on civilian informants, some with questionable backgrounds, human rights advocates say. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that he had noted the historic rebuke of longtime ally Saudi Arabia by U.S. lawmakers. The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a resolution to end American support for the kingdom's military intervention in Yemen's civil war and another measure condemning the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist. "We saw the vote yesterday. We always have great respect for what the legislative branch does," Pompeo told reporters in Washington. "We're in constant contact with members on Capitol Hill so that we understand fully their concerns and do our level best to articulate why our policies are what they are." "President Trump is determined to make sure that we protect America, all the while holding accountable those who committed the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Pompeo added during a joint press briefing with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and their Canadian counterparts at the State Department. After hours of passionate debate Thursday, the Republican-led Senate voted 56-41 to approve the first resolution. Moments later, it adopted the second resolution by a voice vote. In both cases, the chamber acted in defiance of the Trump administration, which has strenuously argued against a rupture of cooperation between Washington and Riyadh. "Yemen is now experiencing the worst humanitarian disaster in the world," Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "The United States has been Saudi Arabia's partner in this horrific war. We have been providing the bombs that Saudi Arabia is using, refueling the planes that drop those bombs and assisting with intelligence." 7 GOP votes Seven Republicans joined a unified Democratic caucus in backing the initial Yemen-related resolution, which asserts Congress' constitutional duty to declare war and approve prolonged U.S. military engagements. The U.S. legislature has not authorized America's support role in Saudi Arabia's campaign to combat Iranian-backed Yemeni rebels, a conflict that has led to widespread civilian deaths. But some argued that, in this instance, the case for asserting war powers authority is weak. "The United States is not involved in combat [in Yemen]. It is not dropping ordnance. It is no longer even providing air-to-air refueling [for Saudi warplanes]," Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. "If the Senate wants to pick a constitutional fight with the executive branch over war powers, I would advise my colleagues to pick a better case." WATCH: US Senate Votes to End Support for Saudi War Effort in Yemen "If we set the precedent that even an operation such as the refueling of aircraft of allied countries needs congressional authority, we would severely limit the executive branch's ability to respond to international crises and safeguard our global national security interests," Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan said. That argument did not sway resolution co-author Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, who countered that direct U.S. support for Saudi military actions constitutes unambiguous involvement in the war in Yemen. "We're involved in this conflict as co-belligerents [with Saudi Arabia]," Lee said. Largely symbolic While the Senate resolution sends a strong signal of displeasure to Saudi Arabia, it is likely to stand as a largely symbolic gesture for now. Swift House action became less likely after the chamber advanced a rule blocking a vote on any war powers resolution relating to Yemen for the remainder of the current Congress. "You look at the humanitarian crisis in Yemen today, and it wasn't started by the Saudi air campaign," Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said. "It was started by the Houthi rebels and denial of access for food overthrowing the legitimate government." Congressional ire toward Saudi Arabia had been simmering for years as Yemen's civil war dragged on with ever-higher civilian death tolls. Anger spiked sharply after dissident Saudi journalist Khashoggi was killed at the kingdom's consulate in Turkey two months ago. The second resolution approved by the Senate blames Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi's death, expresses support for Yemeni peace talks and states: "There is no statutory authorization for United States involvement in hostilities in the Yemen civil war." Trump notes Riyadh denials President Donald Trump has said that responsibility for Khashoggi's death remains an open question, and noted Riyadh's repeated denials that the kingdom's crown prince played a role. Trump's critics in the Senate slammed the White House's posture. "This administration is putting the Saudi government on a pedestal that stands above American values," New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez said. "They continue to extend a blank check to certain players within the Saudi government, no matter how brazen their actions." Wayne Lee contributed to this report. British Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to persuade European leaders to renegotiate Britains deal to leave the European Union. A big majority of British MPs have said they will vote down the agreement if May doesnt secure concessions on the so-called Irish backstop. However, European allies rejected any substantial changes to the Withdrawal Agreement at a two-day summit in Brussels, which began Thursday. May was further weakened this week after a third of her own lawmakers voted against her in a leadership challenge, prompting a pledge that she will not lead the party into the next general election. WATCH: Rebuffed in Brussels, Wounded at Home: Brexit Turmoil Deepens for British PM Arriving in Brussels Thursday, the prime minister said she remained optimistic over the Brexit deal. I dont expect an immediate breakthrough, but what I do hope is that we can start work as quickly as possible on the assurances that are necessary, she said. More than assurances It will likely take more than assurances to get the deal through the British parliament. Many MPs, including dozens from Mays own Conservative Party, object to the Irish backstop, in effect an insurance policy that will keep either Britain or Northern Ireland locked into EU rules if no trade deal is reached. Its purpose is to avoid any hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland for fear of reopening sectarian troubles. Irelands Prime Minister Leo Varadkar refused to countenance any changes. We want to help this deal over the line. Were willing to talk about explanations, clarifications, statements explaining what the deal means, but we couldnt have anything that contradicted whats in the Withdrawal Agreement, because that would be to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. And the entire European Union is unequivocal that this agreement cannot be reopened, Varadkar told reporters Thursday. French President Emmanuel Macron echoed those words. I think that its important to avoid all ambiguity. We cant reopen a legal agreement, he said. Brussels assurances that it will try its best to reach a trade deal are unlikely to assuage Mays critics back home. It has to be serious, and it has to be binding, and it has to be quite clear that the EU now has a decision to make. Not us. They do. If you want a deal, you better damn well step up to the plate, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said Thursday. He is among the partys MPs who voted against May in this weeks no-confidence vote. Europe moves on Europe has largely moved on, said analyst Gregory Claeys of the Brussels-based Bruegel policy institute. Brexit now is more of a British issue. Its really important now in the British news and in British politics. On the continent, its not that important, Claeys said. Mays political future depends on getting her Brexit deal through Parliament. Dozens of her own MPs say they will vote against the deal if the Irish backstop is still in place. That vote has now been delayed until January. Polls show momentum is building behind another referendum. Pro-EU campaigners say that with Parliament deadlocked, Mays only lifeline is to send the decision back to the people. Meanwhile, as the clock ticks down to Brexit day, preparations are ramping up across Europe, as the likelihood grows that Britain may crash out of the EU with no deal, and just more than 100 days remaining. The Kremlin said Friday that the allegations against the Russian woman who pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to being a spy are "unfounded." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday,"We consider the accusations against her as absolutely unfounded." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he believed Maria Butina's guilty plea is part of a plea bargain "... the likes of which are common in the U.S. ... part of a deal to get free and return home as soon as possible." Butina pleaded guilty, however, Thursday in Washington to acting as a Kremlin agent to conspire to build ties with the powerful National Rifle Association gun rights group in the U.S. and infiltrate Republican Party circles to pass information back to Moscow. She was charged in July with acting illegally as an unregistered Russian agent and conspiracy. She initially entered a not-guilty plea. But Butina admitted to U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan that she had, in fact, been working for the Russian government. As part of an agreement with prosecutors to change her plea to guilty, the 30-year-old Butina agreed to help them with insight into Russian meddling in U.S. political affairs. Her actions were directed by Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia's central bank, who in April was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his alleged ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Butina faces up to five years' imprisonment and remains jailed while awaiting sentencing Feb. 12. She could be deported to her homeland after serving any prison term. Butina allegedly developed a personal relationship with an NRA-linked Republican activist, Paul Erickson, and lived with him. Butina also enrolled as a graduate student at American University in Washington, where she earned a master's degree in international relations earlier this year. She attended several political events in the U.S., posed with guns on social media sites and attended the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, an annual event often filled with prominent U.S. political figures. The U.S. Justice Department alleged that Butina was a "covert Russian agent" who maintained connections with Russian spies in a mission aimed at penetrating "the U.S. national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation." Putin said earlier this week he had never heard of Butina until her July arrest. The Russian leader said that when he asked Russian intelligence services for information about her, he was told that "no one knows anything about her." The Butina case is separate from special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing, 19-month investigation into whether President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign colluded with Russia to help him win the presidency and whether, as president, Trump obstructed justice to try to thwart the probe. The Russian Orthodox Church on Friday called on the United Nations, the leaders of Germany and France, the pope and other spiritual leaders to protect believers in Ukraine in the face of pressure on Moscow-affiliated clerics. Ukraines Orthodox clerics will gather for a meeting Saturday that is expected to form a new, independent Ukrainian church, and Ukrainian authorities have ramped up pressure on priests to support the move. The Ukrainian church has been part of the Russian Church for centuries, while enjoying broad autonomy, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has pushed for the creation of an independent church. The newly formed community would then be expected to receive independence from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based institution considered the so-called first among equals of leaders of the worlds Orthodox Churches that has already drafted a charter for an independent Ukrainian church. The Russian Church said on Friday that its Patriarch Kirill has sent a letter to the U.N. secretary-general, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other spiritual leaders, urging them to help protect the clerics, believers and their faith in Ukraine. Merkels spokeswoman and the German foreign ministry spokesman said they didnt immediately have any information on the letter. As church tensions have grown, Ukraines Security Service has searched Russian Orthodox churches and the homes of Russian Orthodox priests in several cities. The agency also has summoned dozens of priests for questioning. Ukrainian authorities have sought to portray Russian Orthodox priests in Ukraine as supporting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, claims that the clerics have rejected. Kirills letter accused the Ukrainian government of hate speech and pressuring the clerics to take part in the Saturday gathering. The numerous instances of discrimination against the Ukrainian Church (of the Moscow Patriarchate) give us the reason to fear far worse infringements of the rights and legitimate interests of Orthodox believers, the letter said. In Kiev, about 100 people led by a Moscow-affiliated cleric were holding prayers near the Ukrainian parliament Friday morning to protest the creation of a new church. Some voiced fears that authorities will seize churches from the communities under the Moscow patriarchate and give them to the new church. British Prime Minister Theresa May was firmly rebuffed Friday by European leaders, who rejected her bid to reopen negotiations on Britain's deal to leave the European Union. They held out little hope of offering any legal assurances that would help her sell a contentious withdrawal agreement to an unenthusiastic House of Commons. After testy behind-the-scenes exchanges in Brussels, and a textual hardening overnight of a communique from the national leaders of the EU's 27 other member states, the embattled May continued to put a brave face on the rejection in a brief press conference Friday. May told reporters she remained optimistic that the EU will agree to provide legal assurances, helping her to persuade Britain's parliament to approve her contentious 585-page Brexit withdrawal agreement. She said "further clarification and discussion ... are possible," adding that this is "in the interest of both the EU and Britain." Analysts said there appeared to be little evidence that May will be able to squeeze out of the EU anything that would substantially alter the political dynamic in London. If anything, the EU's language appears to be hardening, with especially sharp rhetoric coming from France and Belgium. May was pictured having an especially tense standoff with the European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, following comments he made during an overnight news conference, during which he berated May. The EU's spurning of May in Brussels is likely to worsen her plight in London, where she's being described as a "zombie leader" and is still struggling to get a hold on her party, despite overcoming a challenge Wednesday to unseat her as Conservative party leader and therefore prime minister. Defiant Euroskeptic rebels, who want a clean, sharp break from the EU, say May still needs to go. They remain unrepentant after their failed bid to topple her. Most Conservative lawmakers who don't have government positions voted against her during this past week's no-confidence vote. Those who did back her said they did so in the faint hope that she might be able to wrangle something from the EU and that no other contenders for the leadership have a workable plan to get Britain out of its Brexit maze. Even some of May's ministers are making it clear she's on probation and needs to secure a breakthrough from the EU or they will turn on her. On Monday, May delayed a scheduled House of Commons vote on the Brexit deal as it became clear lawmakers were set to reject it by a large majority. Defeat would likely force May out of No. 10 Downing Street and possibly trigger the fall of the Conservative government and an early general election. May's deal, which was negotiated after almost two years of ill-tempered haggling between British and EU negotiators, tries to square the circle between Britons who want to remain in the EU, or closely tied to it, and Brexiters. The deal would see Britain locked in a customs union with the EU for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free trade settlement with its largest trading partner. In the temporary customs union, Britain would be unable to influence EU laws, regulations and product standards it would have to observe. It would not be able to implement free trade deals with non-EU countries. The transition was reached to avoid customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, but British lawmakers fear the EU will string out negotiations for years and that Britain could be trapped indefinitely in the transition. May is trying to get the EU to agree to a get-out clause. As if to underline the door is closed on any significant changes, EU leaders barely mentioned Brexit in their opening remarks at a press conference concluding a two-day EU summit, focusing instead on reform plans for the bloc. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz acknowledged, though, that in the past six months, European affairs have been "overshadowed by Brexit." EU officials say the British should be satisfied with their pledge to move quickly in negotiations over a subsequent free trade deal. Precarious position May's leadership remains precarious and she is still at risk of being toppled, say Conservative party insiders. They compare her plight to that of Margaret Thatcher, who in 1990 won a vote of no confidence in her leadership but was forced to resign when Cabinet ministers one by one told her it was time to go. "The lesson from 1990 is that there comes a moment when, even if a leader retains a paper majority, the gig is up," according to commentator Max Hastings, a former editor of Britain's pro-Conservative newspaper, The Telegraph. "She's a speech away from being brought down," acknowledged a May loyalist in the Cabinet. Even ministers who backed May are indicating she's not in full control. Liam Fox, the international trade minister, said Thursday the Cabinet could block May from bringing her exit withdrawal deal before the House of Commons next month and that it might insist Britain's scheduled departure date of March 29 be moved back several months to provide time for a fresh approach. With parliament deadlocked and the ruling Conservative party hopelessly split, other senior ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister David Lidington, are now discussing semi-openly across party lines the possibility of holding a second referendum. An increasing number of lawmakers say another referendum will likely have to be held, but, as ever with Brexit, nothing is simple. Even lawmakers are bitterly divided on what questions should be put to voters. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries produced a draft text Thursday on how to implement the Paris Agreement on combating global warming, but some disputes remain with only one day left before the official end of the conference. The presidency of the climate talks in Katowice, Poland, had asked for a draft of the final package to be ready by Thursday afternoon after almost two weeks of negotiations, but work continued into the evening to get it ready. The draft lays out options on ways to implement the 2015 Paris pact which aims to limit global warming to "well below" two degrees Celsius. "We can implement the Paris Agreement as you all designed it. It is now time to move forward. We need to move. Climate change will not wait for us," Poland's Michal Kurtyka, president of the talks, told delegates. Ministers are expected to continue working on sticking points through the night into Friday. Disputes over finance have been a stumbling block at the talks, as well as monitoring and reporting countries' efforts to reduce emissions. The United States, which intends to withdraw from the pact, is trying to ensure a level playing field for U.S. businesses against China. "Money is the most difficult part of it. This is all money talk. This (meeting) is about technical decisions although it turned political," one delegate told Reuters. Groups of small island states and poorer countries, representing over 920 million people, issued a statement to Kurtyka expressing their frustration with the slow pace and lack of ambition of the talks. "(We are) deeply concerned over the direction in which the outcomes ... are heading," the statement said, adding that a robust rulebook is needed to ensure ambitious emissions cuts are made. The text still contains some wording in brackets, denoting it has yet to be agreed, but less than previous drafts. The talks are formally scheduled to end Friday, but in the past they have often over-run into the weekend. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has condemned the latest eruption of violence against opposition rallies in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bachelet expressed deep concern about the flareup of violence in at least three provinces ahead of crucial presidential elections Dec. 23, saying people have the right to freedom of expression and should be able to demonstrate peacefully and safely. Bachelet's spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, says the high commissioner is calling for a prompt investigation into the violent events that have killed at least five people and injured many more. "The high commissioner says she is deeply worried about the reports of excessive use of force, including live ammunition, by security forces against opposition rallies. She is also concerned at reports of the use of inflammatory speech by political leaders," Shamdasani said. The government argues that those who support the opposition often carry out violent acts and the government has to respond, Shamdasani told VOA. "However," she said, "this is no reason to use live ammunition against a mixed crowd of peaceful protesters and some who may be trying to carry out violent acts. At the end of the day, it is the government's responsibility to ensure that the use of force is very much limited to only situations where there is an imminent threat to the police or to the security forces." The election will be the first time citizens of the DRC will go to the polls to elect a new leader since Joseph Kabila became president 17 years ago. Amid the backdrop of rising tensions, a fire broke out Thursday in an electoral commission building in the capital, Kinshasa, burning thousands of voting machines. Opponents accuse backers of Kabila of setting the premises ablaze to postpone the election. A presidential adviser would not comment on what or who might have caused the fire, but said police guarding the warehouse have been arrested. The U.N. Security Council voiced its support Friday for progress made at intra-Yemeni talks this week in Sweden, with the council set to work on a resolution endorsing a deal for a cease-fire around the port city of Hodeida. We plan to endorse the agreements reached, support their implementation and set out urgent next steps, said British Ambassador Karen Pierce. Her delegation holds the Yemen file in the council. Pierce said the draft resolution would address monitoring and verification requirements for Hodeida, where the United Nations is expected to have a leading role. We hope to be able to work expeditiously with colleagues to bring about a Security Council resolution which will give the firmest possible support to whats been achieved so far, she added. Yemens new U.N. envoy, Abdallah Ali Fadel al-Saadi, appeared to have reservations about the council becoming involved. We call upon this august council to work on implementing the resolutions on the situation in Yemen, especially Resolution 2216, to end the conflict, he said of existing council decisions. We do not need further resolutions. Achievements U.N. Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths, who conducted the negotiations in Sweden between the parties, told the council that a former U.N. peacekeeping commander, Major General Patrick Cammaert of the Netherlands, would be deployed to Yemen as early as next week to begin oversight of the monitoring regime, which he said must be robust and competent. Griffiths, who spoke via video link from the Jordanian capital, said the agreement on the city and ports in Hodeida includes a phased but rapid mutual withdrawal of forces. This will be achieved in the context of governorate-wide cease-fire, he said. Hodeida, which is a major lifeline for Yemen, has been under Houthi control for the past two years and the scene of extensive airstrikes, shelling and fighting. Griffiths said an understanding was also reached between the government and Houthi delegations to ease the situation in the southwest city of Taiz, with humanitarian corridors to allow safe passage of persons and goods across the front lines, as well as reduce fighting. As for a prisoner exchange agreed between the parties, Griffiths said with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross, they hope to have a mass exchange of as many as four thousand prisoners by mid-January. Still to be finalized agreements on reopening Sanaa airport and measures needed to help restore Yemen's collapsed economy. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is leaving her post later this month, said the progress made in Sweden is encouraging." These talks have produced concrete outcomes, including an agreement for a prisoner exchange, she noted. The progress made in Sweden should build the trust necessary for more progress in the future. The U.N. is planning to reconvene the parties again in late January and will hold a donors conference in Geneva on February 26 to raise $4 billion needed to cope with the humanitarian emergency. U.S. government officials on Thursday hailed China's first meager purchase of U.S. soybeans since its trade war with the United States began in July and said they hoped for, but could not guarantee, more to come. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced private sales of 1.13 million tons of U.S. soybeans to China, a figure that farmers and grain traders said was not large enough on its own to lift slumping prices or absorb a huge surplus that has accumulated across the farm belt. The sale was first reported by Reuters on Wednesday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters in an exclusive interview that China was buying a "tremendous amount" of U.S. soybeans. "Having a million, million-and-a-half tons is great, it's wonderful, it's a great step," USDA Deputy Secretary Steve Censky said at an Iowa Soybean Association annual meeting Thursday. "But there needs to be a lot more as well, especially if you consider it in a normal, typical year, we'll be selling 30 to 35 million metric tons to China." "We think it is a good start, it is promising," Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue told reporters in Washington. "We are certainly hopeful and expecting that it'll come through," he said, in reference to further sales. Asked if there had been any talks with China for further purchases, Perdue said: "No. Not that we've had, but as you know, the U.S. Trade Representative is in charge of that." Soybean prices fell on Thursday as grain traders eyed a massive U.S. soybean surplus in storage, and what is expected to be a record-large harvest from the world's biggest soybean exporter, Brazil, just weeks away. The U.S. soybean sales to China came after Trump and China's President Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day detente in their tit-for-tat tariff war to negotiate a trade deal after meeting at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires. The purchases, which traders said were made by state-owned companies in China, were viewed as the most concrete evidence yet that Beijing is making good on pledges the U.S. government said Xi made when the two leaders met Dec. 1. While it was the ninth largest single-day U.S. soybean sale on record, it amounted to just 3.5 percent of China's U.S. soy purchases last year and 2 percent of U.S. shipments to all foreign buyers. "If further activity and amounts aren't confirmed, the trade could soon be ready to settle in for a long, cold, fundamentally bearish winter," said Matt Zeller, market intelligence analyst with INTL FCStone. With exports to China drying up, U.S. soybean prices have traded around their lowest levels in a decade in recent months. The actively traded Chicago Board of Trade March soybean contract fell more than 1 percent on Thursday to the lowest in a week, in the steepest drop in 2-1/2 weeks. Trade aid delayed The White House this week delayed additional payments from a promised $12 billion aid package for farmers stung by the trade war because it expected Beijing to resume buying U.S. soybeans. "We've been arm wrestling with our folks from the OMB," Censky said, in reference to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which must sign off on the payouts. Perdue said he would be meeting with the White House on the issue Friday and expected that the second tranche would eventually be paid. "OMB ... is always looking to hold onto money. I think this is a commitment the president had made. ... We hope to have it resolved very soon," he said. He said he believed that trade issues remained damaging enough to U.S. agricultural export markets to warrant the second tranche of payments, despite the buying from China. The 25 percent tariff Beijing imposed on U.S. soy shipments in July in retaliation for American duties on Chinese goods remains in place. China last year bought about 60 percent of U.S. soybean exports in deals valued at more than $12 billion. The purchases confirmed Thursday were less than $500 million. U.S. exports to China dropped to 8.2 million tons in the first 10 months of the year, with the vast majority of that shipped before the tariffs took effect in July. A lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of denying nearly all visa applicants from countries under President Donald Trump's travel ban will move forward, a U.S. judge said Thursday. Judge James Donato heard arguments on the administration's request that he dismiss the lawsuit. The case was "not going away at this stage,'' he said at the close of the hearing. The plaintiffs say the administration is not honoring a waiver provision in the president's ban on travelers from five mostly Muslim countries Iran, Lybia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban in a 5-4 ruling in June. The waiver provision allows a case-by-case exemption for people who can show entry to the U.S. is in the national interest, is needed to prevent undue hardship, and would not pose a security risk. The 36 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit include people who have had waiver applications denied or stalled despite chronic medical conditions, prolonged family separations, or significant business interests, according to their attorneys. They estimate tens of thousands of people have been affected by what they say are blanket denials of visa applications. At Thursday's hearing, Sirine Shebaya, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said officials considering the waiver requests are not following guidelines and are routinely denying people the opportunity to show they qualify for a visa. Justice Department attorney August Flentje said consular officials are working "tirelessly'' on visa applications using guidelines from the State Department. He said decisions on visas are beyond judicial review, and he accused plaintiffs' attorneys of a "kind of micromanagement'' of those decisions. Donato said he did not have to consider any specific waiver decision, but more broadly whether officials were considering applications in "good faith'' and not stonewalling. Roughly two dozen opponents of the travel ban some wearing stickers that read, "No ban, no wall,'' came to the courthouse for the hearing. The Turkish and U.S. presidents spoke by telephone Friday, as Ankara threatens to attack a key Washington ally in the U.S. effort against Islamic State in Syria. The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the "security concerns" of the two countries in Syria and the fight against terrorism. "The presidents agreed to continue coordinating to achieve our respective security objectives in Syria," a White House statement said. Turkish officials said the two leaders "agreed on the need for more effective coordination within the context of Syria. The conversation came as Turkish forces continued a buildup on the Syria border. Erdogan on Wednesday said a military operation would be launched in a few days against the Syrian YPG Kurdish militia. Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist organization affiliated with the PKK rebel group that has been fighting a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey. The YPG, however, is a crucial ally in Washingtons war against Islamic State in Syria. On Friday, Erdogan further ratcheted up tensions, targeting the Syrian City of Manbij. "Manbij is a place 85-90 percent populated by Arabs, but they [the U.S.) have completely given it to a terrorist organization. They said we're going to eject them. They did not. If you don't, we will enter Manbij," Erdogan said in a speech to an Istanbul meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The YPG, as part of the SDF coalition, seized the Syrian city from Islamic State. Ankara accuses Washington of reneging on its commitment for the militia to withdraw. Earlier this year, Ankara and Washington agreed to a road map to defuse tensions over Manbij. Part of the deal is already in effect with joint U.S.-Turkish military patrols outside Manbij. Erdogan, however, accused Washington of deliberately delaying the critical part of the road map, the YPGs withdrawal. Turkish forces, along with its Arab militia allies, are close to Manbij. The U.S. Defense Department, in a statement Thursday, said any unilateral action against the YPG would be" unacceptable." Erdogan said Wednesday Turkish forces would remove the militia's presence from hundreds of kilometers of Syrian territory bordering Turkey. Local media report Turkish forces are continuing to reinforce an already large military presence on the Syrian border, facing off against the YPG. The Turkish military buildup comes as the YPG engages in heavy fighting against Islamic State on the Syria-Iraq border. On Friday, the YPG claimed to have captured the town of Hajin, one of the last strongholds of the jihadist group. The YPG commander, Mazloum Kobani, in comments to the news agency Reuters, warned that any attack by Turkish forces would impact the war against Islamic State. If there is a Turkish attack, the YPG forces will be forced to come to protect the borders, to defend their families, Kobani said. Without them, The battle against Daesh is not possible, he added, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State. Earlier this year, the YPG briefly suspended military operations in response to heavy shelling by Turkish artillery. In a bid to defuse tensions, Washington deployed three observation bases between the militia and the Turkish frontier. Analysts say Turkey is calculating that, with Islamic State all but defeated in Syria, Washington is unlikely to risk a confrontation with Ankara over the YPG. I understand the assumption of President Erdogan that they can overcome these political difficulties, said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, adding, Or it will not break out of control to a full conflict level, but with some protests or whatever, then it will be business as usual with the U.S. US-Turkey relations U.S.-Turkey relations are still recovering following Octobers release by a Turkish court of American pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunsons detention resulted in the Trump administration imposing financial sanctions on Ankara, triggering a collapse in the Turkish lira, the effects of which continue. The Brunson affair showed dollar-TL (Turkish lira) peaked at 7.3. We were inches away from a balance of crisis - our banks couldnt roll over maturing loans for a month, said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. And the economy's so fragile that any event could deal a lethal blow. We can no longer afford these ideological disputes with the West, Yesilada added. The Turkish currency has recovered from record lows, but, the fear of a new crisis between Ankara and Washington has seen some weakness in the lira this past week. Heavier currency declines were averted, analysts suggest, by the belief that ultimately Ankara will avoid a confrontation with Washington. We are capable of acting against this terrorist corridor [referring to YPG), but dialogue (between Ankara and Washington) is ongoing. You have to negotiate and show your strength at the same time, said an unnamed senior Turkish official quoted in an article by regional analyst Kyle Orton for Turkeys state broadcaster TRT. Observers suggest Erdogan could be looking for Washington to expedite the removal of the YPG from Manbij and the creation of a security cordon inside Syria along Turkeys border. VOA White House correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report. The worlds largest contract assembler of consumer electronics, Foxconn Technology, as well as a prominent producer of wireless earphones may be in talks to locate production in Vietnam, instead of the once more obvious choice, China, to escape the Sino-U.S. trade dispute. And business experts in Vietnam say many more export producers are planning the same kind of move. Vietnam is poised to receive the worlds biggest inflow over the next year of multinationals fleeing the almost year-old trade dispute. People who know the country cite geography, low costs, pro-investment policies and lack of trade friction with the United States as advantages. Its also on track to sign a free trade pact with the European Union and another with 10 fellow Pacific Rim countries. A boost in new factories would mean more jobs and higher incomes for Vietnamese, where the middle class is mushrooming. I think Vietnam is the clear winner in this category just because of its sheer proximity to China, but I think furthermore Vietnam also has a lot of connectivity with the target markets for these manufacturers, said Maxfield Brown, senior associate with the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City. Top alternative to China U.S. tariffs levied this year cover $250 billion in made-in-China goods. Multinationals with plants in China but already looking to expand elsewhere may move production to Vietnam sooner than previously imagined because of that added cost, Brown said. Workers in Vietnam are paid as little as $115 per month, less than in China. After resolving macroeconomic problems in 2012, the Vietnamese government has made foreign investment easier, cutting permit and site selection times down to about one year. Vietnams location makes it easy to ship goods by sea eastward as well as take raw materials by land from mainland China. Multinationals have stepped up inquiries about Vietnam since the United States announced a major round of tariffs in September. Vietnam is the only choice for a manufacturer in China but looking to spread capacity outside, said Fiachra MacCana, research head at the stock brokerage Ho Chi Minh City Securities. Other Asian manufacturing centers are farther from China, cost too much or lack the supply chain for value-added electronics. If you have a China-centric supply chain, you cant move your factory 5,000 miles or 2,000 miles away, because the rest of your factories are still in China, so you have to move your factory to the nearest alternative sovereign state that can accommodate you, he said. Planning stages Foxconn, a prime assembler of iPhones with giant factories in China, is in talks with the Hanoi Peoples Committee on setting up an iPhone plant to ease the impact of the Sino-U.S. trade dispute, the Vietnam Investment Review said earlier this month. Chinese wireless earphone producer GoerTek also plans to move production from China to Vietnam to escape the trade dispute, foreign media outlets have reported. But registered foreign direct investment in Vietnam came to just $23.18 billion in the first 11 months of the year, down 16 percent from the same period of 2017. Finding land, ordering factory equipment and getting permits have held exporters back, experts in Ho Chi Minh City believe. Some multinationals may also hesitate to pull out of China if they sell directly to the huge market of Chinese consumers. Companies are talking, but no one has pulled the trigger quite yet, MacCana said. Companies seeking a haven from U.S. tariffs should start arriving in Vietnam late next year as they get permits and find space, he said. Inevitable trend Vietnams fast-growing economy has been feeding for the past 30 years, and especially over the past six, off expansion of foreign-invested factories. The capital usually comes from Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Average annual foreign direct investment grew from $2.5 billion in the 2000-2005 span to $8.4 billion between 2008 and 2014, the IMF has calculated. That trend makes it hard to tell whether the U.S.-China trade war fallout by itself will bring more. Vietnam from a macro, from an export perspective is booming anyway, whether it is directly attributable to the trade war, whether thats just continuing a trend I guess well find out as time goes on, said Kevin Snowball, chief executive officer with PXP Vietnam Asset Management in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam already faces so much demand that labor and land can be hard to find, said Frederick Burke, partner with law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. The idea that manufacturing will move to Vietnam is not because of the trade war but because there was a natural migration of manufacturing from China to Vietnam anyway because of the costs going up in China and Vietnam catching up in terms of infrastructure, Burke said. A U.S.-led Western Hemisphere ministerial on counterterrorism this week discussed Hezbollah's activities in Latin America, with some analysts suggesting member countries are stepping up efforts to prevent the Lebanese militant group from funneling funds from the region to make up for the money lost from close ally Iran because of U.S. sanctions. The ministerial conference, which took place Tuesday in Washington, was hosted by U.S. officials and attended by senior officials of 13 U.S. partners across the Americas. The countries discussed the threats transnational terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, the Islamic State and al-Qaida, pose to the security of the Western Hemisphere. Nathan Sales, the U.S. State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, in a press briefing Wednesday said recent U.S. sanctions had cut into Iran's disposable income, which previously gave Hezbollah an estimated $700 million a year. He said the group would most likely try to compensate for the lost revenue by stepping up its fundraising networks across the Middle East, Africa and South America. Money goes elsewhere "We've seen evidence that as we have tightened the screws on Iran by imposing sanctions, we know that the money that otherwise would have been made available to Hezbollah has to go to other purposes, which makes it even more important for us and for our partners to use our own efforts to cut off the sources of money that Hezbollah will be looking to use to make up for the revenues that they're losing as a result of sanctions on Iran," Sales told reporters during an online briefing. The U.S. government has reimposed a series of sanctions against the Iranian regime and its allies in the Middle East since May, when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, in which Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program for international sanctions relief. The U.S. Treasury Department so far this year has designated 31 individuals and entities linked to Hezbollah, including Jawad Nasrallah, the son of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as global terrorists. Drug cartels Sales warned Hezbollah could try to establish greater ties to Latin American drug cartels to move personnel and funnel money back home. The Lebanese militant group has been active in South America since the early 1980s. It has used its influence in the region to recruit Latin America's Lebanese diaspora, known in the region as "turcos," and other Muslim populations. In 1992, the Iran-backed group bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which left 29 people dead and 242 others injured. In another bombing in 1994, it targeted the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and injuring more than 300. But in recent years, the group has shifted its focus from bombings to raising money by joining South America's lucrative drug-trafficking businesses. There is no official data about how much money the group makes via dealings with organized crime in South America because of the nature of the illicit business. Officials estimate, however, about one-third of the group's revenues come from the region, particularly in its stronghold Tri-Border Area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. Money laundering Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Hezbollah is receiving approximately $200 million a year in the Tri-Border Area alone through its laundering schemes that are responsible for moving about $600 million annually. Ottolenghi said recent steps taken by governments across the Western Hemisphere, including the ministerial conference this week, suggest that 2019 could be the year Hezbollah faces more pressure in the Americas. He said there are two reasons "we can begin to detect some change." First, "the Trump administration has started to raise the temperature on the subject of Hezbollah in Latin America. They have made considerable investment in resources to help local governments recognize the threat and start taking action," Ottolenghi said. "The second reason is that you have new governments, especially in the southern zone, that for a variety of reasons are today more willing than ever in the past to take action," he added. During his remarks Tuesday at the ministerial, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan praised progress made by South American countries to limit the activities of Hezbollah and other terror groups. But more needs to be done, he added. "Our safety depends on working with all of you on security as we continue to improve our own. We must learn from one another to develop our tools and policies, and to be both faster and smarter than those who wish to harm us," Sullivan said. Use of casinos alleged Last July, Argentina's Financial Intelligence Unit initiated an administrative assets freeze against 14 Lebanese nationals and Tri-Border Area residents accused of using casinos to launder money and funnel it to Hezbollah. In September, Brazilian police arrested Assad Ahmad Barakat, one of the major financial backers of Hezbollah, whose clan reportedly made purchases worth $10 million at a casino in the Argentine city of Iguazu with the intent of laundering Hezbollah's money. Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the renewed efforts by governments across the Western Hemisphere could help prevent Hezbollah from returning to violent attacks of the 1990s. "There is the issue of potential operations," said Levitt. "There was a plot that was thwarted in Peru in 2013 and also about three years ago in Bolivia. So, authorities are for good reason concerned about those long-standing activities." Spend 47 days in the art world with Seen. Photo: Courtesy of the artist Banu Cennetoglu was born in Ankara, Turkey, and lived in Paris, New York, and Amsterdam before settling in Istanbul, her home since 2005. Shes best known for the List, an ongoing project to widely disseminate a list of names of the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees whove died trying to make a new life in Europe since 1993. That project, to say the least, has struck a chord: it was repeatedly vandalized when it was exhibited in Liverpool. After representing Turkey in various global art extravaganzas, including the Venice Biennale, documenta, Gwangju Biennale, and Manifesta, Cennetoglu prepares to return to the U.S., where she lived between 1996 and 2001, with a solo exhibition at the SculptureCenter in January. It centers on a 128-hour-long film she composed with painstaking diligence from the distaff digital record shes made of her life in the years since she returned to Turkey. In Cennetoglus multidisciplinary practice , she mixes documentation of her personal life photos and home videos with ephemera recording its larger cultural context newspaper and the TV news clips. She is 48, which means she can remember life before this smartphone eras digital ubiquity, and has already lived through several rounds of technological obsolescence, all of which inform her work and her sense of memory. Like other artists of her generation, her work refracts other transitions too, the rise of political Islam, the end of the Cold War, and the stalled courtship between Turkey and the European Union. Turkey is a land of competing identities, and competing senses of its own history. After the 90s an era described as a lost decade due to unstable politics, a lagging economy, and out of control urbanization, came Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his socially conservative AK Parti (Justice and Development Party) which has ruled the country since 2002. What was at first sold to the world and his people as a globalist and economically liberal pro-European solution full of optimism has since evolved into autocracy. Turkey hasnt left the global headlines since, starting with 2013s blood-drenched Gezi Park protests against his administration, and the failed coup three years later. Erdogan has firmed up his grip on power, despite concerns about how he runs the economy. The once rollicking press has been systematically tamed. Occasional shut-downs of Twitter or YouTube have since become the ordinary. Wikipedia is still inaccessible in the country to this day. Maybe not surprisingly in this context of oppression, Turkey is rarely the central subject in Cennetoglus work but a faint specter haunting her treatment of trauma, either collective or personal. Cennetoglus 128-hour and 22-minute film has a title to match its running time: 1 January 1970 21 March 2018 H O W B E I T Guilty feet have got no rhythm Keciboynuzu AS IS MurMur I measure every grief I meet Taq u Raq A piercing Comfort it affords Stitch Made in Fall Yes. But. We had a golden heart. One day soon Im gonna tell the moon about the crying game. The tour-de-force documents the artists life these last 12 years, since the year after she moved back to Turkey, comprising sequences of images and occasional videos solely culled from electronic devices Cennetoglu has owned since June 2006. Throughout the film, the artist and the many people she crossed paths with appear in formative, trivial, mundane, or humdrum moments. We see the Gezi protests and gatherings for Hrant Dink (Turkish-Armenian journalist and editor shot to death in 2007 by a nationalist in front of his newspaper) alongside Cennetoglu visiting her mother in the hospital for her mother or cooking in her kitchen. I spoke to Cennetoglu from her Harbiye apartment. The conversation started in Turkish but switched to English while occasionally returning to our shared mother tongue. Banu Cennetoglu. Photo: Courtesy of the artist Lets start with the exhibition. How did the works come together? The exhibition presents four existing works in a novel and site specific constellation. Curator Sohrab Mohebbi was interested in the film while I was working on it last winter for my Chisenhale Gallery exhibition in London. After the films premiere, he invited me to show it at the Sculpture Center. And after my site visit in August, we decided to show it together with three other pieces from the last eight years. The second large work is the daily newspaper archives that I have been working on since 2010. Ive collected daily national and local papers, printed a single day, and bound them on black hard covers with the content alphabetically ordered. The work conceptually, also formally, deals with politics and hierarchy of news dissemination while generating a portrait of different geographies in this particular point in time. Hence we are showing six compilations: Turkey, Switzerland, Arabic-speaking countries, Cyprus, U.K., and Germany. The work is about newspapers being a public space about collective memory. I am interested in the ways ads are juxtaposed next to news, how news is broken on a local and national outlet, or even the quality of the paper used for print. The Arab Spring had just happened while I was working on the Arabic version, and it was interesting to trace ways different Arab countries reported on it. OffDuty stems from my documenta 14 project. Nine aluminum letters were borrowed from the Museum Fridericianums facade and six missing letters were cast in brass imitating the existing ones to read BEINGSAFEISCARY, which was a graffiti I had seen in Polytechnico in Athens. Once d14 was over, we returned the originals to Fridericianum and six new casts became OffDuty. I am interested in creating a new constellation with existing works each work is like a word and each new configuration has a different capacity. Here is an unusual juxtaposition in terms of politics of memory since two works cover almost the same period and offers an entanglement of what is considered public and private. Also, my other pieces creation processes are in 1 January 1970 21 March 2018 Channel Islands, all dated 04.09.2014. 46 hardbound volumes. Courtesy the artist and Rodeo, London. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Rodeo, London 1 January 1970 21 March 2018 is a very ambitious undertaking. Could you explain the idea behind the work? The resource for the films content comes from all the electronic devices including hard disks, smartphones, digital cameras, as well as materials I downloaded, PDF attachments I received, and images I was hashtagged in. Digital devices use a unix time system, which marks undateable digital photos with January 1, 1970 or January 1, 1980, and this caused the first two-hours 15-minutes and 12-seconds of the film to follow a non-chronological order. In this section, the sequence jumps from my daughters fifth birthday party to her second, and then fast-forwards to the present due to inaccurate dates. The rest follows a chronological order based on dates the images entered my devices, starting from June 2006. Dates are crucial for the film you were also born in 1970, for example. Why did you choose June 2006 to start from? The fact that I was born in 1970 is totally coincidental. I chose June 2006, because it is one year before I conceived my daughter and the first dissemination of the List in Amsterdam. You dont call the List an artwork, but rather a growing public database. How does the film respond to the List, which youre widely known for in global arena? On the public level, both works respond to my frustration of trying to keep the record of people losing their lives because of political instability. When I ask if I have the right to do something about this situation, I can at least have a historical archive and document the possibility of having a life and family outside turmoil. I want to look into the contrast between daily life and practice. I live in Istanbul, you live in New York, both in messed up situations. I have been involved with the List on different levels for many years. The situation is worse than 2002 when the change of policies was already urgent. When we look at last decade, it is one of the worse one in the world history, not only in Turkey and Europe, we are in an undeclared ongoing World War III. Hard to put in concrete words, but the work departs from this contrast. I needed to look at what I have accumulated. I did not want to weed out, choosing one over the other for any reason. It is a circle with hundreds of tangents. What are some of the stories behind the works long title? Titles are an integral part of my work. I tried but it was impossible to reduce 12 years and 46,685 files to one line. As a big Clarice Lispector fan, I am totally inspired by The Hour of the Star, which had 13 subtitles, separated with ors. Mine are with ands. One of my favorites is keciboynuzu (meaning carob in Turkish), for the particular effort it requires to eat. You have to constantly chew it just to get little flavor. My mother who used to love it; she always told me I was similar to keciboynuzu always investing so much effort to gain little in the end. In terms of Guilty feet have got no rhythm, I love Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou [George Michael]! Also, this was the title of my Kunsthalle Basel exhibition in 2011 and I wanted to recycle it. You avoid a narrative or hierarchy between the images. How did you maintain the rawness of your reality without being too personal? Well, it is personal but also it is collective. Obviously I am the common denominator, or carrier, but it is also collective and collected history. Because the majority was not shot to be shown, there is not one dominant narrative or construction. You see me with my mom at a hospital, marching at a Gezi Park protest, and then cooking at my kitchen. Putting the images together was a challenge, because I had to revisit moments with certain emotional charges and I had to bear the boredom of going through trivial images I barely remember. Bearing both on my and the audiences end is the strongest part of this work. Are there moments or people you hesitated to include? There were moments I was skeptical about showing, but the work is a confrontation to myself. The only way to achieve this was to show everything despite their reasons, whether this is boredom, embarrassment, or anguish. Separations, reunions, funerals, hospitals, openings, demonstrations with many trials and errors are all in there. How do you document divorce, for example? My ex-husband starts to disappear from the photos and you see me with a new partner. What kind of relationship do you expect the audience to build with such a personal and time-requiring work? This is the periphery of the reality without a peak or climax, because during the climax, our cameras are usually off. The images I present give them the material to build their version of a story. With patience, they realize their story starts to grow. At that point, the images are not mine, but then the audiences. Spend 47 days in the art world with Seen. Was Ida OKeeffe (18871986) career bullied by her sister? Photo: Alfred Stieglitz/Collection of Michael Stipe Nobody likes to be the sibling also-ran, the middling middle child, while big sister or little brother hogs the spotlight. But just as Solange proved herself to be more than just Beyonces little sister with A Seat at the Table, three lesser-known sibs of famous artists are now finally getting their due albeit posthumously. Right now, there are three exhibitions going on that spotlight the other artists in the families of Georgia OKeeffe, Marcel Duchamp, and Balthus. The OKeeffe Sisters It turns out Georgia OKeeffe had a lot to do with why youve likely never heard of her little sister Ida. According to Sue Canterbury, a curator at the Dallas Museum of Art, where Ida OKeeffe: Escaping Georgias Shadow is on view until February 24, the mother of modernism wanted to be the only big-name OKeeffe and took many steps to keep it that way. Two of Georgias six siblings, Catherine and Ida, were also exhibiting artists, but Georgia asked them to stop their practices in the 1930s. She threatened in a letter that she would tear Catherines pictures to pieces. While both Georgia and Ida scraped by, teaching art in various locations throughout the 1910s, Georgia was discovered by the photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz in 1918 and brought into the luminous, male-dominated art world in New York City (an opportunity that Canterbury says was unavailable to 99.9999 percent of all the other women artists of the time). And as that Brooklyn Museum show last year made clear, she worked hard at her brand, and it worked for her. Ida, on the other hand, did not start her painting career until 1932, in the midst of the Depression, after she finished her MFA at Columbia University. Georgia and Ida shared many of the same teachers, art-world friends, and interests, and these influences are apparent in their approaches to surfaces, color, and abstraction techniques. To Georgias disgust, Ida continued painting even when Georgia asked her explicitly to stop, and so the sisters, who were once close, became estranged. We cant help but wonder: If Ida had had the same support, space, and time that Georgia did to develop her work, what would have happened? Its the story of an artist who could have been more, had the opportunity been there, its a story of the sisters, its a story of the situation for women artists in general at that period in time, and its also a story about how Georgia created her own myth, Canterbury says. She also notes that viewers who have had a sibling who always got their way tend to really respond Idas work. Ida OKeeffe, Variation on a Lighthouse Theme IV (1931-32). Photo: Steve Dondero/Courtesy of Jeri L. Wolfson Collection The Duchamp Siblings The Duchamp brothers were more supportive of one another and they often collaborated. Though Marcel Duchamp became the most world-renowned of his six siblings, four of them went on to become artists, often exhibiting together and using each other as models and subjects. Matthew Affron, co-curator of The Duchamp Family at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on view through August 2019, emphasizes that this show is hardly the first exhibition to juxtapose the other family members talents. Marcels older brothers were exhibiting artists in France: Jacques Villon was a printmaker and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, a sculptor. Suzanne Duchamp was closest in age to Marcel and they shared a flair for the avant-garde, often exhibiting together in the 50s and 60s. Like Marcel, Suzanne and her husband, the abstract painter Jean Crotti, worked with glass and other non-traditional materials mixed with oil paint and went on to form a sub-group of the Dada movement called Tabu. When these people first burst on the scene just before and after WWI, they were considered really together, connected to one another through networks as part of the cutting edge, says Affron. Thats a story that gets lost when one member of the family ascends to the kind of worldwide fame that Marcel now has. Jacques Villon, Yvonne D. in Profile (1913). Balthus and his Brother, Pierre Balthus whose voyeuristic 1938 painting, Therese Dreaming, at the Met, caused a controversy last year had an older brother who was also an artist, and also, it seems, a bit of a perv. Pierre Klossowski was born in Paris in 1905 (three years before Balthus) to artist parents, and he went on to produce many mannerist-inspired works exploring themes of homoeroticism and sadomasochism. He was more intellectual, than his brother Balthus, according to Alexander Hertling, gallerist at Balice Hertling in Paris, where Klossowskis work is currently on view. While Balthus enjoyed the social status that he had obtained with his success and enjoyed the company of many famous, rich, and beautiful people, Hertling says, Klossowksi wrote important books. He translated many of Nietzsches works and was a specialist okay, maybe this isnt surprising in the work of the Marquis de Sade. Two of Klossowkis drawings are currently on view at Balice Hertling through January 2019, as part of an exhibition titled Byrd Hammond Klossowski Olowska, featuring other figurative painters who explore violence from a psychological point of view. The Klossowski drawings, Hermaphrodite of the Alps (1985) and Au Miroir Revelateur (1985), depict sexualized scenarios of Sadist decadence, combining techniques of Italian mannerism with surrealism. Their pastel coloring belies the fact that their subject matter is a little startling, especially in our post-#MeToo era. Photo: Tom Horton/REX/Shutterstock/Tom Horton/REX/Shutterstock There are three Asian women tattooed on Rina Sawayamas wrist. Their bodies intertwine, and a central bare-breasted woman tugs on the ponytails of the pair who flank her. The design, Sawayama explains, is by the late Chinese photographer Ren Hang, whose images capture east Asian bodies in playful, polyamorous moments of joy. I loved his representation of sexuality, she says, sipping a soy latte in an east London cafe. This one photo shows something that the West wont perceive Asian woman as and with this level of solidarity. As a Japanese-British artist, Sawayama wants to make it clear that her music is not J-pop, even as, at times, she draws from Shiina Ringos shape-shifting aesthetic and Utada Hikarus refashioning of millennial pop/R&B in addition to lacing golden-era Max Martin sounds with a shimmering undercurrent of electronic chaos, courtesy of her collaborator Clarence Clarity. Last year, her independently released RINA EP ricocheted off the psychologist Sherry Turkles analysis of how technology both connects and divides us, with tightly coiled songs about racial prejudice and SSRI doses. Following this summers single Cherry, an early aughts Dior campaign come to life on which Sawayama came out as pansexual, British magazines started calling her pops new superstar. Sawayama is making moves to cement that prophecy, but shes also one of few artists who can wear khaleesi wigs, star in fashion campaigns, and still pull off an earnest, but relatable song lyric like Im just like you. Thats partly because Sawayama gets what its like to stare at your phones blue light at a party all night, but mainly because of good-faith endeavors like Alone Together, a wristband project encouraging linkups between fans that come to her shows alone. A campaign for her irresistible new single Flicker involves a video callout for fans with hard to pronounce names. As the critic Sasha Geffen noted, pop stars can seem like wonder women; Sawayama, by contrast, feels closer to the good friend you really want to succeed. Sawayama is gearing up for a killer 2019. At least, if her DMs from Grimes, Charli XCX, Kehlani and planned collaborations with BTS and Bloodpop are anything to go by. But Sawayama says she is not interested in hype. Her gaze is more firmly fixed on reaching global representation on her own terms. I think everyone has an idea in their head about what a Japanese person looks like or should be like, she says. I want to break that with every song I do. _ For your single Flicker, you invited fans to send in video submissions speaking about their hard to pronounce names. What was the thinking behind that? I wanted to make the casting call specific to names because thats what my experience was. I have this really strong memory of when I was in English school in London, between 5 and 7. I remember my teacher doing the register and butchering my name completely. I said to her, Can you please just say my first name? And she refused. She did get it right in the end, but I was mortified by that. I wondered how that has come to inform my decision to keep my surname in my stage name. When you see a stage name that is Western and easily recognizable, which my first name is, I think its easier to get onboard quicker. But I wanted to leave my surname in there because it means a lot to my identity. You came out as pansexual on a song this year, Cherry, which also talked about the pain of being closeted. Why say it in a song as opposed to, say, tweeting it? I always wanna start the conversation with the music. Cherry was a nuanced record, and that was another point of anxiety. I think its really important to show that the LGBTQ community should be proud of ourselves at all times, but not enough people were talking about the shame that comes before the pride. Have you battled with those feelings of shame? Definitely. I have Asian parents who have a very racial idealizing of the LGBTQ community. So, like, a white gay guy might be okay to them, but then you think about someone whos black and gay or Asian and gay, or some other thing thats not as exposed in the media I think that [lack of representation is] reflected in how accepting they are of different LGBTQ communities. What does being queer mean to you? To me it means family. Is there any point in your life that your queer family has really uplifted you? Definitely. One was when I was 17. I went out with a teacher. He was nearly 30, and I got slut-shamed so hard. The only person who was there for me was my friend Louie. Hed been out for a while by then, and hed been bullied a lot. We understood what each other was going through. It was only recently that someone was like, You do realize that thats like a #MeToo thing, right? And I was like, Oh, right Id internalized the blame so hard from that period. Ive written a song about it for this album. I noticed that BTS shared your music on Twitter. Have you been in touch with them? I met RM [of BTS] backstage at his O2 gig [in London]. He was like, Your music was being passed around our team and then I realized that you had a Japanese surname, so I was intrigued. Whens the BTS collab coming? [Laughs.] When they come off tour! Thats why [RM] wanted to meet me, to talk about how we can work together musically. I would love to go to Korea and write with them. Whether its for his [solo] project or for BTS, I dont really care. Is there anything about the industry that has surprised you in the past year and a half? That artists have just reached out to me. I thought, To get to these artists I have to go through a whole web of bureaucracy. All my favorite artists have hit me up on social media, on direct message: Charli [XCX], Kehlani, Marina and the Diamonds. Grimes shes got a lot of creative projects and ideas going on. Our plan was to write. Rita Ora did a swipe up on Cherry. She used to go to school really near my school, so I used to see her around. I really respect her hustle. Rita Oras path has been so convoluted. As an independent artist, do stories like hers seem like a cautionary tale against major labels? Definitely. Ive got a two-single [deal] with PIAS at the moment. Right now Im deciding what to do next. I just need a team that is fully motivated. I dont care about the advance for myself, but I care about the amount of budget that theyre going to allocate to the project. Do they realize that a pop projects going to cost a lot? Im not happy with just going onstage with a mic. Im gonna have custom shit made, and thats whats going to make it special. Your recent show at Heaven [a 1,600 capacity London venue] involved multiple costume changes and stage setups. Is it your intention to create a scalable show? I hope so. I dont take it for granted. For me, the capacity of Heaven is as important for me as any size venue. I redid the same show in San Francisco for 400 people. Ive been that person in London going to gigs. I stole money from my mum to go to indie shows. I know what its like for a show to uplift you. Its a fucking tough time for the people that are my fans. A lot of them are LGBTQ or theyre Asian or POC, and I want them to come away from the show having felt a sense of love, community, and purpose. RINA was a concept EP about navigating life in relation to the internet, but your newer singles seem to be more about identity. How do you see the evolution of your songwriting interests? I used to not talk about myself because I didnt want to explore my own truths. Since then Ive been picking apart different aspects of my life. Theres a song [on my album] called Model Minority, which is about the path that is paved for east Asians specifically of what you should be like when we grow up. Theres a song called Dynasty thats like t.A.T.u or Evanescence, with a crazy black metal guitar riff. Im also researching my past. I really want to go to Japan, and ask my mum and my grandparents personal questions that I think, as an Asian family, you dont really ask. Like what? There was an incident where I was about 10 and I was with another girl. We were naked and kissing; just playing around. My mum came and literally dragged me out. And I felt I still deeply feel that shame. Im trying to use songs to heal, so I think its important that I ask my mum if she remembers. Im really gonna go there. Photo: Roberto Ricciuti/WireImage Yes, the 1975 got their name from a Jack Kerouac book. No, Matt Healy doesnt remember which one. And yes, this can be seen as romantic but is mostly immature, like being 15-years-old and naming your third-wave emo band Forever Enjoying Sex or something. However, give credit where credit is earned; the Manchester band grew up (and are still growing up), paid their dues, and became a great rock band the old-fashioned way: They made really good records, toured the hell out of them, and developed an actual fan base. Now theyve made a great record with A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, and the 1975 have a chance to join their heroes and be a Big and Important Band. Theyve earned Big. Time will tell for Important. The actual year, 1975, was also full of Big and Important Rock and Roll Moments. Bruce Springsteen and the Eagles cemented their legacies, while Elton John, Neil Young, Fela Kuti, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, and others released new classics to widening audiences. This was also the year the Who got old and disturbed a new generation with the unnecessary Tommy film and underwhelming The Who by Numbers. Because they still packed stadiums, they were allowed to fall apart on the big stage and get away with it. Classic rock was born. Meanwhile, and more importantly to 2018 listeners, musical worlds outside rock and roll in 1975 were creating their own histories. Fleetwood Mac, now the most rock and roll of blues turned pop bands, gained Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Peter Gabriel left Genesis, which in turn introduced the world to Phil Collins (and thus Haim) and later Peter every romantic comedy trailer Gabriel. Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroders Love to Love You Baby, Van McCoys The Hustle, and other era-defining hits strengthened discos hold over the clubs and charts two years before Studio 54 and Saturday Night Fever. (1975 was also the year rock bands started successfully ripping off disco.) Elsewhere, DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Grand Wizard Theodore, and more were still studying James Brown and laying down the foundations four years before Rappers Delight brought hip-hop out of the Bronx. Seymour Stein signed his latest act, the Ramones, and gave them money to record their first album. Iron Maiden, the only good band, was formed. And Glen Campbell recorded every future sad indie boys favorite country song, Rhinestone Cowboy. To the eclectic listener the audience the 1975 aims to reach these are all milestones worth celebrating. The year 1975 can also offer some minor parallels to our modern world. The middle year of Tom Wolfes Me Decade featured a narcissistic pop culture that had become numb to shock and horror. The Vietnam War, finally and unceremoniously, ended when the U.S. pulled its troops and North Vietnam took Saigon. President Ford, a tired man who pardoned Nixon for Watergate, slogged through a recession and bailed out New York Drop Dead City. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act and then ignored it. Margaret Thatcher became Britains Conservative Party leader in the same year the U.K. voted to stay in the E.U. Franco died. Patty Hearst was arrested. Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. The Bus Massacre started Lebanons 15-year-long civil war. Jaws created the blockbuster. Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Rocky Horror Picture Show helped establish future cult classics. Microsoft, Wheel of Fortune, and Space Mountain were born. Americans ignored Pele and watched All in the Family. Everything changed. Nothing changed. Love it that we made it. Below are some songs from the year 1975 for those who love to love, love to hate, hate to love, or love to try to figure out the 1975. (Listen to this supercut via Spotify.) ABBA, Hey, Hey Helen Its fun watching the 1975 play pop music as a grab bag, in which not only can arena guitars sit alongside church choirs, but that they should, as long as it gets you dancing, or at least swaying. Aerosmith, No More No More Because the 1975 are secretly Aerosmith (Love Me), and Aerosmith is better than you remember; for more guitar-heavy funkiness, see Average White Bands Cut the Cake. Bob Dylan, Youre a Big Girl Now Cuts the difference between the yacht rock of Inside Your Mind (see Dylans original non-YouTube version) and the acoustic kiss-off of Be My Mistake. Brian Eno, Discreet Music For those who loved the first half of the ambient middle section of I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It and wished it would go on for another 30 minutes. If you enjoy Eno circa 1975, also check out his other masterpiece and his former bands pretty great LP. Burning Spear, Marcus Garvey If A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is also the 1975s London Calling (sprawling, topical, and, as Jeff Tweedy points out in his new memoir, daring in how sincerely and unabashedly it was begging everyone to care more, not less), then brush up on some good reggae before the band tries writing their own Sandinista! (Or maybe more U.K. garage.) David Bowie, Young Americans Whether you think this is a too on-the-nose pick from an untouchable icon or a loving tribute to a pop chameleon always obsessed with being relevant will tell you how you feel about the 1975. Don Cherry, Brown Rice Though its easy to think of the 1975 as just Healy, this band would be nothing without George Daniel, Adam Hann, and Ross MacDonald, who are each essential and can groove when they want; picture them covering Cherrys fusion classic like LCD Soundsystem covering Harry Nilssons Jump Into the Fire. Gloria Gaynor, Never Can Say Goodbye (Album Version) Its not living (if its not with the 74 single and 75 LP versions of Gaynors epic disco hit about how hard it is to walk away from something that gives you life and makes you unhappy, like love or drugs). Janis Ian, The Come On The most the 1975sounding track off one of the most underrated albums of 1975. (Would you like to be friends? / No, I just want a bed for the night.) Fun fact: Ian, along with Billy Preston, was the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live, which premiered on October 11, 1975. Joni Mitchell, The Jungle Line If you liked Mine, wait until you dig into post-Blue Joni Mitchell. Keith Jarrett, Koln, January 24, 1975, Pt. I Live For the seven other the 1975 fans who still get crushed by Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You. Kiss, Deuce (Live) When people talk about big rock bands, theyre really talking about, intentionally or not, Kiss and 1975s Alive!, for better or worse. Led Zeppelin, Bron-Yr-Aur Though not as heavy, the 1975 carry on Zeppelins spirit of self-mythology (the four Zep they dont actually mean anything symbols versus every The 1975 intro track), forgetting to wear shirts, and writing pretty interludes. In fact, the 1975s excellent EPs are 52.94 percent pretty interludes. Lou Reed, Metal Machine Music, Pt. 1 If we are to believe the 1975 just made their OK Computer, and if they still want rock critics to care, then their upcoming Notes on a Conditional Form needs to be Kid A. Melissa Manchester, Midnight Blue Because both Manchester and the 1975 make excellent soundtracks to walking around the city at night with your headphones on, feeling pretty and lonely. (See also 10ccs Im Not in Love.) NEU!, Isi For those who loved the second half of the ambient middle section of I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It. Olivia Newton-John, Have You Never Been Mellow Tried, true, and gentle pop wisdom a la Give Yourself a Try. Patti Smith, Kimberly The most the 1975sounding track off the best album of 1975. Pink Floyd, Have a Cigar Have a Juul. Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody The 1975 are one album or single away from achieving this level of silliness and ubiquity. Maybe theyve already achieved it. God bless them for going for it. Photo: Sony Pictures Entertainment Spoilers below for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Peter Parker is tired. And sad. As he approaches his 40s, things havent worked out quite the way he planned. Hes lost his beloved Aunt May. Hes split with Mary Jane. Hes made some bad business decisions and now he mostly sits alone in his room eating frozen pizza, putting on weight, and staring down a future that looks even grimmer than his present. Sure, he did all that superheroing and everyone loved him for a while. But those days are long gone for Peter Parker, in the new animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Or at least for one Peter Parker. Written by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman and brought to life by inventive animation directed by Rothman, Peter Ramsey, and Bob Persichetti, Into the Spider-Verse is this years most inventive big-budget animated film, a wealth of vivid imagery, fun ideas, and exciting new characters largely drawn from the last decade or so of Spider-Man comics. These include Miles, an Afro-Latino teenager created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli; Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), a Japanese-American middle-schooler who works with a robotic spider; Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a hard-boiled detective from a black-and-white world; Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), a hero from a universe in which Peter died and his friend Gwen Stacy assumed spider powers; and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a superpowered pig from a Looney Tunes-like world. Set across different realities, each home to a different variation of Spider-Man, Into the Spider-Verse primarily takes place in one thats home to a different Peter Parker. Hes younger, blonder, and, by all appearances, having a great time. The public loves him, hes good at saving the world, and he even has a hit Christmas album in stores. Trouble is, hes doomed not to make it past the films first act, dying shortly after he meets Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), the teenager who will, eventually, take over the Spider-Man identity and resume his duties. All are tremendously fun characters who are, for the most part, upbeat about their roles. (Well, Spider-Man Noir is as upbeat as a Bogart-inspired gumshoe character can be.) Much of the film concerns Miles overcoming his insecurities and assuming the Spider-Man mantle harnessing both the great power and great responsibility that comes with both but the happy outcome isnt exactly in doubt. Its not that sort of movie. Few superhero movies are. Yet, the specter of the older Peter Parker hangs over the Spider-Man analogues of every universe. Voiced by Jake Johnson, he becomes a kind of mentor for Miles, but only reluctantly. And its not hard to see why: Is Miles heading toward the same dead end as he reached? Are all of them? Sure, the older Peter Parker is just the inhabitant of one of Into the Spider-Verses universe. And, had he lived, its not even clear if the Peter of Miless universe would have ended up like the burnt-out Peter Miles learns to know. The Peter of his world is blonder and voiced by Chris Pine, a wonderful actor but one likely incapable of conveying the laconic disappointment that seems to come so naturally to Johnson. But well never know. Its possible that the Peter of Miless world just hadnt lived long enough to start going downhill. Its possible that its the fate awaiting all superheroes. Will even Spider-Ham someday find himself reflecting on where it all went wrong? Part of what makes the character so fascinating is that he doesnt have that many analogues in film, TV, or comics. There have been older versions of Peter Parker. A much older Parker appears in Kaare Andrewss 20062007 mini-series Spider-Man: Reign. The universe of The Amazing Spider-Girl features a retired, middle-aged Peter. And there have been downward-spiraling superheroes. The protagonist of the Will Smithstarring Hancock comes to mind, but his problems go beyond disappointment and disillusionment. Similarly, Jessica Jones in both comics and the Netflix series that bears her name is driven to drink and cynicism by trauma, not by age and regret. Usually, however, superhero stories are tales of endless short-term setbacks, not of soul-shaking ennui. Even our most tortured heroes dont drift away from their essential identities. Daredevil will always be ridden by guilt and Batman will remain an incurable obsessive, but theyre consistent in their problems. Since his 1962 debut, Peter Parker has been pretty consistent too. Even when hes not taking on the Vulture or Kraven the Hunter or whoever happens to be bothering him at any given moment, he always overcommitted and worried hes letting everyone else down. Into the Spider- Verse features a Peter whos stopped worrying because he knows hes let everyone down. All that youthful promise and early joy has given way to grown-up realities. Age has made him hit his limits, and hes hit them hard. Its possible to read his fate as inevitable. Though the CW series Black Lightning features an older-and-wiser superhero (and the aging of superhero actors is, however incidentally, starting to factor into superhero movies), there arent too many other counterexamples. Its easy to read Into the Spider-Verses slumping Peter Parker as just what happens to superheroes after a while. A few wrong moves and the world rolls on without them. One day youre swinging your way through Manhattan, the next youre just too exhausted by life to leave the house. Its as believable a depiction of what it means to approach middle age as youll see in any movie this year. It probably wouldnt be bad for the superhero genre if after following up on the much-needed explosion of diversity in heroes presented by Into the Spider-Verse we saw more such stories. Though a different sort of film, Logan proved much could be done with stories of superheroes who have lost their way. Apart from swapping in Don Cheadle for Terrence Howard, Marvel hasnt shown much interest in recasting its heroes and, simply as a practical matter, if actors decide to stay with their parts, age will start to factor into their stories. In some ways, it already has. Robert Downey Jr.s Tony Stark has seemed a little more haunted by his superhero career and the sacrifices hes made for it with each entry in the MCU, and weve seen Chris Evanss Captain America drift deeper into disillusionment. But, so far at least, these have been treated more like shading than the focus of their stories, and the sense that one or both will likely be exiting the MCU next year means these stories could soon conclude. But what if they didnt? Heres a for instance: What if the proposed Black Widow movie fully committed to exploring how trauma has taken a toll on her? Her appearance in the Avengers films have touched on this referencing her dark origins and setting up a potentially tragic romance but never had the room to explore it in any detail, often to their detriment. Would Avengers: Age of Ultron seem as thoughtless if Natashas self-reflection wasnt limited to a few lines that seemed to equate infertility with monstrousness? In Scarlett Johansson, Marvel has an actress capable of digging into the psyche of her character and the effects a lifetime of violence and deceit might have on it. Why not lean into that alongside the requisite action and plot twists demanded of a Black Widow story, of course and her crisis of conscience play out over the movie (or several, for that matter). For now, the one example we do have might be overwhelmingly depressing if Into the Spider-Verse didnt make Peters possible rejuvenation a subplot as well. Showing Miles the ropes (well, webs) and spending time with the other Spider-People does him good, reminding him of the life he used to enjoy and making him think he might be able to repair it after all. The film ends with him starting to climb out of his funk, without revealing whether he makes it or not. He might. But it might just be too much effort. Chances are, well find out. Sony has already announced both a sequel and a spinoff centered on the Spider-Verses female characters. Where Peter goes from here remains to be seen but, for now, his undetermined fate feels as apt as the disappointment and downcast demeanor thats taken him over at the beginning of the film. Into the Spider-Verse confronts its characters with confounding villains and ideas ripped from quantum physics, but in any universe its tomorrow that remains the great, always formidable unknown. Republican and Democratic officials in North Carolina are beginning to maneuver for position in anticipation of a fierce and protracted second campaign in the state's scandal-ridden 9th Congressional District. But as investigators examine whether election fraud was committed, there is increasing doubt over who will carry the GOP banner into the fight. Continents and regions Dan McCready Elections and campaigns Government and public administration Kamala Harris Mark Harris North America North Carolina Political Figures - US Political organizations Politics Scandals Southeastern United States The Americas United States US Democratic Party US political parties US Republican Party Corruption Election fraud Election results Political corruption Society Investigations McCrae Dowless Speaking publicly for the first time in a week, Republican nominee Mark Harris confirmed to Charlotte, North Carolina's WBTV on Friday that he personally had hired Leslie McCrae Dowless, the campaign operative at the center of the fraud allegations, but said he believed the operative was following state law. "I had no reason to think what he was doing was illegal," Harris said. Democrats spent the week zeroing in on Harris' connection to Dowless, demanding that Harris address the extent and nature of their relationship, while escalating nationwide fundraising appeals to back their own candidate, Dan McCready. Republicans took action of their own -- to nudge Harris off the stage. The GOP-controlled state Legislature passed a bill, with the support of many Democrats, that would mandate a second primary be attached to any replay of the November midterm. It is still unclear if Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who helped negotiate the measure, will ultimately sign off. The Washington Post added to Republican worries on Thursday night, first revealing that Dowless had been brought onto the campaign at Harris' direction. On Friday, the Robeson County Republican Party called for an "immediate and open response from (the Harris) campaign." Harris told WBTV that a local official had vouched for Dowless and that, in his conversations with the operative, he had been led to believe that Dowless' "absentee ballot program and get out the vote program" were all aboveboard. Dowless previously denied any wrongdoing to The Charlotte Observer. He has not responded to CNN's repeated requests for comment. The decision to rerun the race, which Harris initially appeared to have won by a slim margin in November, ultimately rests with the State Board of Elections, which in its advisory on Friday said that "investigators are awaiting additional documents from parties subpoenaed in this matter and finalizing the investigation prior to the hearing." Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, who is running a wider ranging criminal probe with no clear timetable, told CNN earlier in the day that her office's investigation "includes efforts to determine how the alleged fraudulent activity was funded and what was known by campaigns connected to this alleged activity." For the GOP, a successful push for a new primary would mean a chance that incumbent Rep. Robert Pittenger or, according to some rumors, former Gov. Pat McCrory, could win the nomination from Harris and boost the party's chances in the general election. Republican leaders have stopped short of calling on Harris to seek a legal avenue for exiting the race entirely, but one senior state GOP official told CNN the Charlotte-based pastor's odds are getting longer. "There is a growing realization of whatever the final facts are and irrespective of their personal affection for Mr. Harris -- he is facing an insurmountable political problem that could have a major impact on the party," the official said. Asked if he felt under attack by his own party, Harris told WBTV: "I certainly don't feel the circling of the wagons around Harris the way I see the Democrats circling the wagons around McCready." Democrats are indeed rallying for McCready, with the Democratic National Committee, along with Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, asking supporters to donate to McCready's cause. The GOP's campaign strategy is murkier but beginning to take shape. In interviews with CNN on Thursday, two Republican state lawmakers acknowledged the overwhelming evidence of fraud, but argued that the problems affected voters of all stripes -- and should not be viewed through a partisan lens. The Robeson County GOP in its statement Friday cast the scandal as a bipartisan fight. "The lack of transparency and failures extend over a decade involving multiple board of elections members, three governors administrations of both parties along with numerous agencies tasked with protecting our electoral process," Chairman Phillip Stephens wrote. "There is enough blame to go around." There are not, however, any credible allegations of fraud or misconduct against Democrat McCready's campaign. In response to a fundraising email sent Thursday by the North Carolina Democratic Party, which itself is seeking to frame the scandal as a swindle perpetrated by state Republicans known for "passing monstrous voter suppression laws to rigging our maps," GOP state Sen. Dan Bishop lashed out and accused Democrats of seeking to make political hay out of a "very serious issue." "The gall, I mean it really does take brass ones, to go out and run fundraising drives alleging that this is a Republican thing," Bishop told CNN, "and of course exploiting as an opportunist the situation that is emerging driven by a media frenzy." Asked if he had confidence in the state elections board, Bishop suggested it could be compromised by the ascent of a Democrat to its top position, saying the investigation "ought to be a fair process and those who are in positions like the board of elections must set aside their partisanship and proceed in a way that's fair." State Sen. Mike Woodard, a Democrat who supported the bill that would attach a new primary to a new general election, said the party was prepared to rally behind McCready should the board follow through as he expected and call for a second vote. "In backing Dan (McCready) and on insisting that all the votes count and that we have a thoroughly legal, aboveboard process that helps restore our confidence in voting, the party has taken the right steps to get here," Woodard said. "If we're moving toward a March primary, and an election sometime in the spring, I'm confident our party will do that." $3.1 million in federal funds are on their way to Alabama to help bring people out of poverty. The money from the U.S. Department of Health and Human services will be spread out to twenty different organizations, including 4 in north Alabama. The 4 in our area will split roughly $700,000 between them. Community Action Partnership of north Alabama, or CAPNA, is one of those organizations. They help people struggling financially with many things, including keeping the lights on. One man WAAY 31 talked to said his family would have been forced to live in darkness without their help. William Dober and his family got help during the 2008 financial crisis, "The economy was down and the hours were low and we just ran into a hard time," said Dober. Community Action Partnership of north alabama subsidized their utility bill, "We were able to get groceries for the kids, keep the water on, gas in the vehicles. It was a big, big, help," said Dober. The community action organizations in north Alabama also help people with many other things including: classes for honing skills to get jobs, child care, and housing. Just to name a few. The CEO of the Community Action Partnership in Decatur, Tim Thrasher, said they're seeing more people need help. especially in rural areas, "There's a wider gap than I think there's ever been and so we're trying to build individuals and give them the skill set necessary and the assistance needed to lift their selves out of poverty," said Thrasher. Dober's family doesn't need the help anymore, but said the money coming to Alabama will make a huge impact on people's lives, "I think it makes a big difference. Just the help. Everybody needs help," said Dober. Community Action Partnership of north Alabama told WAAY 31 the winter months are a busy season for them, bBecause they are helping people pay their heating bills. They said to just give them, or any of the other locations in north Alabama, a call to see if you qualify for help. On Thursday, Governor Kay Ivey announced $3.1 million in grants that will go towards helping low-income Alabamians. Some of this money intended to improve employment and quality of life was awarded to programs in north Alabama. Community Action Agencies offer services that support low-income families as they work to create a more stable foundation for a successful life, Ivey said. I commend these agencies for their work toward reducing poverty and helping families in need. Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall and Morgan counties will all receive funding through the grants. If you are in need of assistance from a local community action agency, contact information can be found at http://www.caaalabama.org/agency-list.php. The WAAY 31 I-Team went straight to the man who helped create and develop a tool that let a criminal serving a life sentence out on parole. We wanted to know how the program could consider Jimmy Spencer, a career criminal, at a low to medium risk to re-offend. He's now charged with killing three people in Guntersville. The Ohio Risk Assessment System, also known as ORAS, is supposed to look into every aspect of a criminal's past, present and future to predict the chances of committing another crime. Ohio uses it as part of a ten step process. Alabama uses it only twice. Dr. Ed Latessa, the leading researcher and developer of the tool, said it's not full proof and it only works if the correct data is entered into it. "First of all, it's just a tool. It doesn't make decisions. People make decisions," said Latessa, who works as a professor at the University of Cinnicanatti in the Criminal Justice School. Latessa said the goal of ORAS is simple. "We're trying to predict in this case, recidivism," said Latessa. Latessa helped create the tool to track, and more importantly, rehabilitate criminals from the time they're convicted until they're released. He explained Ohio's parole board uses ORAS from the moment someone is convicted until it's time to decide if an inmate is ready for parole. "It looks at their risk factors and so you might be high risk because you use drugs, you don't have a job and you hang around with people like yourself," said Latessa. "I might be high risk because what I think I do is okay and I have no family support." Alabama's Parole Board uses ORAS a little differently. The board only uses it when considering parole and the criminals likelihood to re-offend. They also use it to determine how much supervision someone gets after being paroled. Latessa said what ORAS should've looked at when evaluating parole for Jimmy Spencer. "The tool would have looked at his criminal history. It would look at his criminal thinking and patterns, and it sounds like he would have scored high in both," said Latessa. But Spencer, who had over 50 disciplinary offenses in prison, didn't score as a high risk offender. The state admits it's unclear if the parole board even entered the right information into the tool at this point. "It just assumes the information is correct. It assumes the person doing the tool has been trained and is filling it out properly," said Latessa. Bobby Longshore was on the Parole Board when people from Ohio came to train members on ORAS. Longshore, who quit in 2016, said he immediately had doubts. "She said this will make it easier to parole the hard cases and that just astonished me. It should never be easy to parole the hard cases," said Longshore. Latessa agreed and questioned why Alabama's relying so heavily on ORAS instead of hearing from criminals, victims and families. "First of all, there is no one size fits all with assessment. When you get a case that's an outlier, it's really incumbent on the system to look at as much as you can before they make that decision, because they are putting the public at risk," said Latessa. WAAY 31 found several cases where the public was put at risk by parole board decisions. The biggest mistake was the board releasing Jimmy Spencer who is charged with killing Martha Reliford, Marie Martin and seven-year-old Colton Lee. The murders happened in July on Mulberry Street in Guntersville. Spencer is currently being held at the Kilby Correctional Facility in South Alabama. Spencer will be back in Marshall County in March for a hearing and mental evaluation. The rain will begin to move into the Tennessee Valley this evening but mostly the rain will arrive after midnight. The biggest concern with the rain is that it will be falling, in some cases, pretty heavy. Just take it easy heading to work and school and you should be fine. Rain will continue throughout Friday. It won't be raining every hour of the day but you can expect periods of rain to last a couple hours with small breaks. Showers will linger Saturday along with the cloud cover. The clouds won't begin to break up until Sunday afternoon but the showers will be done by 6 a.m. Sunday. Then we get several days of sunshine! WAAY 31 went back to the Athens City School district a second time to request an on-camera comment regarding Athens High School senior Drew Laney. Laney told us the school band director pulled him out of the Christmas parade for wearing makeup, but the district says that's not what happened. "If we had done something wrong we would have been more than happy to fix the problem," Athens City Schools Superintendent Trey Holladay said. Holladay said school officials collected more than 10 witness statements in their investigation into what happened regarding Laney's statements about the day of the Christmas parade. "That's the process that we had to go through. The administration did a good job at the high school to make sure they covered all their bases," Holladay said. Holladay said after conducting an investigation into the incident they are confident that no city schools employee did anything wrong. "We don't feel like we have anything to correct. We feel like everything was done properly from band director to administration," Holladay said. Laney, on the other hand, isn't in the clear yet. According to the district, he was removed from the Christmas parade for refusing to listen to his band director when he told Laney he wouldn't be leading the band as a drum major. Holladay told WAAY 31 as of Thursday Laney hasn't been punished by the school, but his school administrators will review what happened and see if he violated the school system's code of conduct. "Him disagreeing on anything isn't a code of conduct issue. Him violating any of those code of conduct issues that would be," Holladay said. Holladay didn't elaborate on exactly what kind of punishment Laney may face, but he said right now the plan is for Laney, his parent, and school administrators to sit down and talk everything out. "If hes violated anything or any other student or any adult has done anything wrong we would handle it through our personnel policy or our student code of conduct," Holladay said. Holladay told WAAY 31 Laney's decision to wear makeup to school has never been a problem. "Drew has been wearing makeup all year long. At homecoming this year he stood in front of the band and led the band in makeup," Holladay said. He added he doesn't see the makeup becoming an issue unless it takes away from what's happening in the classroom. "As long as it doesn't cause a substantial disruption to the classroom, and that's what we're there for is education, then it's not a problem," Holladay said. Holladay added that normally the school district wouldn't discuss something like this at all because the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects student privacy, but since Laney brought the story into the public first they are able to respond to his claims. Huntsville Police have confirmed that local businesses have received bomb threats believed to be an email hoax. The department said the FBI is aware but that it doesn't believe that anyone is in real danger. Other law enforcement agencies nationwide have reported similar threats. Huntsville Police said the threats have been traced to an IP address in Russia. This is a copy of the email threat; Courtesy of Ben Stein with ABC This is a copy of the email threat; Courtesy of Ben Stein with ABC According to Huntsville Police, the emails say that in exchange for not allowing a bomb to go off, $20,000 in Bitcoin must be sent to an account. A Florence business owner said he received one of the threatening emails. In Huntsville, a business manager said an email like that could cause worry. "It would be pretty alarming for my sake and the employees, but also this is our livelihood, so it would be scary on a lot of different levels," Caleb Hipp said. The FBI's Birmingham division released a statement Thursday afternoon about the threat: We are aware of the recent bomb threats made in cities around the country, and we remain in touch with our law enforcement partners to provide assistance. As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activities which could represent a threat to public safety. A man is in the Madison County Jail accused of terrorizing women as they did their errands. The Madison County Sheriff's Office said Trenton Logan admitted to following three women home from stores so he could rob them. Robin Tate said she was one of the victims, and she shared her story. "I wish it didn't happen, but I'm okay and he's caught," she said. Tate explained she left work Wednesday afternoon and went to Redstone Federal Credit Union in Meridianville. "I have no idea where he started following me other than they have him on film at the bank," she said. The Madison County Sheriff's Office shared surveillance images taken of a man investigators say is Trenton Logan. The images are from the time of her visit. Tate says after that she stopped at Publix next door, headed home, and pulled in her driveway. Her home is about five miles from the store. "A man walked up and said, 'Didn't you just leave Publix?' I said, 'Yes, why?' thinking I'd left something there and that's what happened and he grabbed my purse," Tate explained. Tate said she was taken off guard and fell during the struggle when Logan is accused of stealing her purse. "I felt like there wasn't a lot I could have done about it because I'm always prepared and I always have a plan," she said. Tate said she is okay despite her injuries from falling on her face, but hopes others will pay attention when out shopping because everything changed in a matter of seconds. "Be very aware. He was parked at the end of my driveway. I didn't know who he was, but when he said 'Did you just leave Publix?' that threw me off guard," she explained. As for hearing Logan is arrested and charged with robbing two other women, she's happy he was stopped from hurting anyone else this holiday season. "I was relieved at that because he won't be able to do it for one more person," she added. However, she said she doesn't have anything she wants to say to him. "A thief is a thief. No matter how hard you work for what you have they think they're entitled to it," Tate said. Doctors told Tate she should heal in the coming weeks. As for her belongings, investigators said when they arrested Logan he admitted to where he dumped them and they have been located. Logan was arrested this morning when a Huntsville officer recognized his car and pulled him over. The sheriff's office says more charges against him could be coming. Police remind everyone to stay aware of their surroundings this holiday season. WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators have voted to recommend that the U.S. stop supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen, directly challenging both Saudi Arabia and President Donald Trump in the wake of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's slaying. The bipartisan vote Thursday comes two months after the Saudi journalist's killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and after Trump has equivocated over who is to blame. U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known of the plot, but Trump has repeatedly praised the kingdom. Frustration with the crown prince and the White House prompted several Republicans to support the Yemen resolution, a rebuke to the longtime ally. Others already had concerns about the brutality of the Yemen war. It's unlikely the House will consider the resolution. A man was hit by a vehicle near the intersection of University Drive and Putman Drive. The man has life threatening injuries, according to the Huntsville Police Department. Nearly a dozen Huntsville Police officers and rescue units responded to the area as they shut down a section of Univeristy Dr. while the investigation into what happened took place. The accident happened around 9:30 pm along a busy stretch of University Drive, between Jordan Lane and Sparkman Drive. There are several motels and fast food restaurants in the area. Police have not released any information on exactly what happened, or identified the victim. WAAY 31 will continue to update this story as new information is made available. Pinch of Salt: So much to be thankful for The rest of the world knows that China has been violating common trade practices, WTO trading practices and laws. The rest of the world knows full well about the issues of IP theft and forced transfers of technology. They know that and theyve said so. This idea that other countries are not with us its just not true, said National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow. The rest of the world knows this, and China knows the rest of the world knows this. A senior DIA staffer said several people tried to push Flynn away from that stuff in a very cordial, diplomatic way, to move him away from his extreme ideas about not talking to Iran and about Islam. Hed just say, Well, youre wrong. We talked all the time among ourselves about what was going on in his head. Like, was it PTSD, or was this who he was all along and now he finally had the authority to say it? To build a play in 2018 on these notions requires a writer like Sorkin who can toggle between the radically different mind-set of 1934, when the story takes place; 1960, when the novel was published; and today. And if a decision is made that Atticus is the evenings touchstone, then having an actor who effortlessly conveys a bedrock fair-mindedness, who entreats us to a belief in our own better natures, is essential. Sorkin reinforces the necessity of a towering Atticus by shifting the perspective away from his daughter, Scout, whose narration defines the voice of the novel and the 1962 movie version. On Broadway, Sorkin has Scout, in the person of adult actress Celia Keenan-Bolger, share the storytelling duties with her older brother, Jem (Will Pullen), and their best friend, Dill (Gideon Glick). For the way in which the device underlines how much of the play revolves around Atticus, Sorkin might as well have changed the bird in the title to Finch. A story in the Sydney Morning Herald published Wednesday, for example, didnt refer to the name, position or even gender of the person involved. One of its story began, A very high-profile figure was convicted on Tuesday of a serious crime, but we are unable to report their identity due to a suppression order. The person, whose case has attracted significant media attention, was convicted on the second attempt, after the jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict. They will be remanded when they return to court in February for sentencing. Out in digital space, young listeners seemed to be paying very close attention to rappers from the District, Maryland and Virginia in 2018 and especially to voices from Prince Georges County, where a new style of offbeat rhyming began to congeal around Goonew, a trash talker who likes to step outside of a songs rhythm as if hes momentarily walking on air. At first, he sounds all wrong. Then you cant stop listening to him. Clarity is revamping the Examiners weekly magazine and will offer a subscription to it to the Weekly Standards subscribers. The latter magazine has about 50,000 weekly print subscribers and attracts about 2 million unique visitors per month on its website. McKibben said the decision to close the Standard was unrelated to the operation of the Examiner. These are stand-alone businesses, he said. Jenkins insists that the strong visual imprints of his films stem from his own insecurities. When I first started film school . . . I didnt even know how to expose film, he said. And because of that, my images would arrive [from the lab], and they werent beautiful. Even if you could apply a mathematic principle to aesthetics, they just werent good. The foundation wasnt there. So I always had this complex about having the ability to create beautiful images. He admits to occasionally worrying whether the visual allure of his movies is a form of overcompensation. But he and Laxton are careful to justify their visual schemes and avoid pretty-for-prettys sake. Were not forcing an aesthetic on the films, he said. The films, and more importantly the characters, are dictating what the aesthetic needs to be. But those flavors were merely a primer for the next nights visit to Aska, a Michelin-starred destination in Brooklyn under the Williamsburg Bridge . Its owned and run by Fredrik Berselius, who grew up foraging and fishing in Sweden. The dining room, anchored by an open kitchen, is dark and theatrical (though a cellar bar is more casual and lighthearted). Many dishes are served on rustic wood bowls or boards. The food is refined yet user-friendly. And exquisite. Among the dishes I sampled was a stunning arrangement of vendace roe (a salmon relative) served with two types of roasted cabbage, a jam made with dulse, rhubarb root oil, and a sauce of fermented white asparagus juice and whey. Eating the uncommonly tiny roe was like crunching on fossilized champagne bubbles. Her favorite streetcar is No. 578, affectionately called the Dinky. The car was built in 1896 and looks nearly identical to the hill-climbing cable cars. In total, Muni has more than 50 historical streetcars, many from across the United States, but others hail from England, Italy and Australia. The bulk of the fleet is made up of Presidents Conference Committee streetcars, or PCCs, streamlined cars that date from the 1930s. More than 4,500 PCCs were built and used in 33 cities. While some of the PCCs are painted in Munis vintage green and cream livery, most are painted in tribute to different cities that used PCCs, including Washington, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday met with Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, calling for closer cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets with Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on December 13, 2018. [Photo: gov.cn] Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 38 years ago, China and Ecuador have achieved deep mutual political trust and fruitful results from cooperation, Li said. The Chinese side will join hands with Ecuador to elevate the comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level, Li told Moreno. Saying the Chinese and Ecuadorian economies are highly complementary to each other and enjoy huge potential for further cooperation, Li called for alignment of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative with Ecuador's development strategy. "We should make the best of the existing mechanisms, boost cooperation in key areas, push forward economic and trade exchanges based on market principles and international rules, advance a trade balance, and promote people-to-people exchanges," Li said. He expressed the hope that Ecuador can provide Chinese enterprises with a better environment to operate businesses, so as to achieve win-win results. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang holds talks with Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on December 13, 2018. [Photo: gov.cn] Moreno said the two countries had respected and supported each other, and the Ecuadorian side is pleased to see China's tremendous achievements. He stressed that his country firmly supports the one-China principle and appreciates China's assistance in its domestic social and economic development. Ecuador is willing to participate in the BRI construction and intensify cooperation, said Moreno, adding that Chinese enterprises are welcome to invest in Ecuador with legal support and in a good business environment. The repeal of Initiative 77 took effect Thursday, the end of a 30-day congressional review period. All laws passed by the D.C. Council must be reviewed by Congress before they can take effect. To force a referendum on the councils repeal of Initiative 77, petitioners had to submit the required number of signatures from registered voters before the review period ended. The incident happened just before 7 p.m. Saturday when a woman was walking in the 1600 block of Fort Myer Drive near Arlington Boulevard. A man who she didnt know came up to her. He pulled out a knife and stabbed her before he fled, according to police. Gerald was shot about 3:40 p.m. on Thursday in the 2900 block of Knox Place SE, just off Alabama Avenue and so close to the 7th District police station that the district commander heard the shots and rushed to the scene. Police said as the attackers chased Gerald, he tried to escape by running into an apartment building next to the one in which he lived. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Email address By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy In her four-page report, District psychologist Teresa Grant wrote that it was not the first time she had evaluated Whatley. She said she also had seen him following his arrest in a 2013 assault case, and that he was then diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Historically, groups that march in the street dont tend to start advocating. There have been clear distinctions between groups that are rallying people outside of institutional politics and people who are working within it, she said. The Womens March has shown itself to be extremely good at organizing what I would consider to be kind of confrontational events. Theyve proven that theyre good at that. The idea that now theyre going to shift to advocacy work with some sort of policy platform I dont know. Metro has provided data that show that having additional overnight hours to turn off power to inspect cables and test components for electrical safety has enabled it to find and fix problems, thereby reducing the risk of fire and smoke events, David Mayer, chief executive of the WMSC, said in a statement. Although the WMSC is not currently serving as [Metros] safety oversight agency, we expect to become certified early next year. And we are paying close attention to issues such as whether expanding service hours could erase these safety gains, so that we will be prepared to take action that may be warranted after we are certified. As local leaders have explained, the rollout of jobs will be slow, with about 400 expected to be hired in 2019, about 1,200 in 2020 and the majority to arrive by 2025 or later. Most will work, at least initially, in now-empty office buildings owned by JBG Smith in Crystal City. Since the D.C. region normally adds about 40,000 jobs each year, the addition of 25,000 by 2030, or almost 38,000 if Amazon expands further, is well within historic norms for the area, Chapman told a full house at the George Mason law school. Highlights of the trip included meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and the lead negotiator of the Palestinian Authority, Saeb Erekat, as well as a helicopter tour of the Gaza Strip, the members-elect said. They traveled mostly by bus in a group of six lawmakers, three Republicans and three Democrats. The hearing, which played to Republicans base of social and religious conservatives, comes amid moves by Trump health officials to rethink whether federal money should continue to support the research. In the past three months, the Department of Health and Human Services has severed one contract with a California firm that has been a major supplier of such tissue for laboratories. At least a few researchers projects are in doubt. Lawmakers passed a bill anyway, but the final version had little effect on current teachers and public workers. Still, teachers were outraged because lawmakers used a legislative maneuver to pass the bill so quickly that it was not available for the public to read until the day after the vote. Thursday, the states highest court ruled that maneuver was unconstitutional, making the law invalid. The public safety department said that law enforcement agencies in the state had to undergo refresher training on field sobriety tests. The law taking effect this month states that a person cannot operate or be in physical control of a vehicle if a test shows that they have a blood or breath alcohol concentration of .05 or greater. It also states that a person who has that alcohol amount and operates a motor vehicle in a negligent manner causing the death of another will have committed an automobile homicide, a felony. My father-in-law was an immigrant and a brilliant engineer who spoke four languages and lived in the United States for more than 60 years, yet he did not always use English syntax correctly. Melania Trump is a wonderful example of an immigrant success story. She was a success long before she met President Trump. She is beautiful, talented and very intelligent. The media makes fun of her, her accent, her clothes and everything else. No wonder she rarely makes public appearances. I wouldnt if I knew I would be attacked just for being out in public. No other first lady has been subjected to such ridicule. And finally, Trumps tantrum this week, threatening to shut down the government if he didnt get his promised wall, embarrassed even Republicans. It was a sign of how empty Trumps cupboard has become that political leverage is the threat to implode his own administration. Whatever else the past two years have shown, its that the Republicans under Trump could not govern effectively, even when they controlled both houses of Congress. Two Dec. 11 front-page articles At global climate conference, U.S. officials tout fossil fuels and Meet our Bottomless Pinocchio for repetitive, knowingly false claims highlighted the presidents potential legacy. President Trumps narcissistic belief that he is the greatest president can be shocking in the breadth of its ignorance and audacity. However, this president will go down in history as doing something that no other leader of the nation can claim. At a pivotal moment in history, he will have willfully and criminally ignored the last possible opportunity to save Earth from the mass destruction wrought by climate change. When our childrens children survey the diminished world left to them, there is one name that will be remembered as morally responsible, and that name is Donald Trump. His place in history will be secure. The president might argue that he can unilaterally terminate treaties (although no president did so until 1927), and that congressional-executive agreements decisively resemble treaties because presidential initiative is paramount. However, the presidents power in foreign relations is plenary except regarding commerce, where the president has no independent power and where the Constitutions commerce clause establishes Congresss primacy. Presidents can make trade treaties that must be consented to by two-thirds of the Senate. But congressional-executive agreements such as NAFTA are authorized by statutes passed by both houses of Congress, and must be terminated by statutes. When Durham, N.C., hired the districts chief of staff to be its superintendent, he brought Ferebee along and asked him to turn around all the districts low-performing schools. Again, Ferebee empowered his principals and teachers. He was telling their story at a national conference when several school board members from Indianapolis, who were looking for a new superintendent, heard him. The next thing he knew, they were inviting him to Indianapolis for an interview. It has been 2 1/ 2 years since the British referendum on leaving the European Union. Since then, the British government has aggressively pursued its promise to deliver Brexit. Yet with three months to go, the United Kingdom finds itself in an almighty mess. Prime Minister Theresa May cant get her own members of Parliament to support her agreement with the E.U. on how to leave, and she had to defeat a vote of no confidence from her Conservative Party this past week after postponing a vote on her Brexit deal that she was certain to lose. High political drama is becoming a weekly, sometimes daily, occurrence. The Conservatives, the Labour Party, Parliament and the country are split on what they want to happen next though they all seem to agree that they dislike Mays proposal. The grim picture Shell paints is familiar in its outlines, but arresting examples add color. In laying out her indictment of the economic status quo, Shell pursues some provocative lines of argument, although her appetite for statistics at times can turn manic. The idea of higher education for everyone is not, she argues, the panacea so many people think it is. In many cases, she points out, it does little or nothing to increase earnings and can actually have a negative effect. The bottom 25 percent of college graduates, she notes, earn no more than high school graduates, and students who have dropped out of college earn even less. In any case, American education, as Shell describes it, is something of a con game thats oriented too much toward the needs of employers. Questioning Trumps legitimacy is basically the birtherism of the left, said Christopher Buskirk, publisher of American Greatness, a conservative website. Illegitimacy is just where both left and right are going these days when they lose elections. We dont have a shared consensus on what the institutions of government should do, and that makes it harder for partisans to accept the outcome of elections. The former lawyer and Trump fixer added: He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth. And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, dont believe what he is saying. The man doesnt tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds. In the piece, which Conway wrote with two other lawyers, he argues that a federal campaign-finance case against Trump would be much stronger than the one brought in 2011 against former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.). Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2004, was tried on campaign-finance charges related to payments to a woman with whom he had an extramarital sexual relationship. He was acquitted on one count, and the judge declared a mistrial on five others. When I accepted your appointment, I agreed to complete the work of the 115th Congress and then reevaluate continuing to serve, Kyl wrote in his letter to Ducey, dated Dec. 12. I have concluded that it would be best if I resign so that your new appointee can begin the new term with all other Senators in January 2019 and can serve a full two (potentially four) years. Harris also interacted regularly with Dowless during the 2018 primary campaign, according to Jeff Smith, a former associate of Dowlesss who gave him office space during the spring primary and saw him nearly daily. Smith told The Post that Dowless spoke often of talking to Harris by telephone about the mail-in absentee-ballot program. Much like Johnson in 2016, Harris defeated Pittenger in the primary with an overwhelming performance among mail-in voters in Bladen, which he won 437-17. The NRA treated Butina and Torshin like important visiting dignitaries, according to the pairs social media accounts. Butina was welcomed to a special luncheon for women who support the group, as a personal guest of former NRA president Sandra Froman. Butina gushed on Twitter that she was given the rare privilege of ringing the NRAs Liberty Bell at an event for donors who had given $1 million or more to the group. Later, she was given a tour of the groups highly secure headquarters in Fairfax County, according to Butinas social media posts. At a private dinner this year, Mulvaney told Trump that he wanted to be chief of staff and vowed loyalty to the presidents family, including daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both of them senior White House advisers, according to an official with knowledge of the conversation. At the time, Trump was deciding whether he would keep Kelly as chief of staff, and Mulvaney told the president that if he were chief, he would not leak to reporters and would manage the staff but not the president an answer Trump liked, this official said. Trump is worried about the intensifying state of not only the hush-money investigation by the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, but also of the Russia probe by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to people with knowledge of the presidents private discussions. The Wall Street Journal also reported Thursday that federal prosecutors in Manhattan have opened another investigative front by probing whether Trumps 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations. If we could just come together and pass some common-sense laws to disincentivize people from coming up from the border and encourage them to do it the right way, the legal way, then those types of deaths, those types of assaults, those types of rapes, the child smuggling, the human trafficking, that would all come to an end. And we hope Democrats join the president. Lets set the record straight the new governor will still have some of the strongest powers of any governor in the nation if these bills become law, Walker wrote. He will have the power to veto legislation and he will have some of the broadest line-item veto authority of any governor in the nation. The way she did it is why shes been the leader for so long, said David Axelrod, former political adviser to President Barack Obama. Its incredibly challenging to put together the votes for anything in Congress, and shes a master at it. She listens and knows each persons interests and their concerns. And she puts the puzzle together, making concessions where necessary. The move was not a surprise, as it had already been disclosed by President Trump as part of an agreement he forged with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during talks in Argentina at the end of last month aimed at calling a truce in the trade war. Nothing indicates that [Chekatt] was part of a network. There is nothing to suggest that he was being protected by such, but the investigation is not yet over, Castaner told Europe 1 radio. Several European leaders said they were directing their governments to speed emergency preparations for Britains crashing out of the E.U. with no deal at all, a prospect that could create a humanitarian and economic crisis after the March 29 exit deadline. And although May tried on her way out to spin the meetings as a success, her fellow leaders suggested that her statements bore little relationship to reality. The ACLU blamed lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP for the girls death. The fact that it took a week for this to come to light shows the need for transparency for CBP. We call for a rigorous investigation into how this tragedy happened and serious reforms to prevent future deaths, Cynthia Pompa, advocacy manager for the ACLU Border Rights Center, said in a statement. It is very important for Canada that extradition agreements are not used for political purposes, Freeland said in French, according to an English translation of her answers at a news conference. Canada does not do it that way. And I believe it is obvious that democratic countries such as the United States do the same. In a statement submitted to the Navy and obtained by The Post, Priebus wrote that he has proudly watched his sister serve as a Navy doctor and remembers his father teaching at Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois when he was growing up. He added that he especially felt called to serve after an Oval Office meeting in which Trump met with the wife and children of Senior Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, 36, a Navy SEAL who was killed early in the administration in a Special Operations raid in Yemen. The special counsels office on Friday fired back at the suggestion that former national security adviser Michael Flynn might have been duped into lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador writing in a new court filing that Flynn chose to make false statements not just to agents but to the media, the vice president and other members of the presidential transition. American officials have publicly praised Lopez Obradors team for its willingness to try to resolve such issues as the caravan of thousands of Central Americans that recently reached the U.S. border. The Mexican government is providing shelter and offering work visas to the migrants, most of whom are waiting to petition for asylum in the United States. The Trump administration is seeking to have Mexico host the migrants through their entire asylum process, which could take several months or longer. Senior members of Lopez Obradors government have indicated they might support such a plan but have yet to formally agree to it. Lets acknowledge her terrible grief. But lets also acknowledge the long-term impacts on women of domestic and family violence. Sarah Wendt, professor in social work at Flinders University, has just co-authored Sexual Politics of Gendered Violence and Womens Citizenship after years of research. She says the results are quite clear. The long-term impacts are physical, mental, social, material. Domestic violence is not an individual catastrophe. The lasting impact happens in real bodily ways. If you can imagine living in a climate of fear your whole life, that erodes your mental health. It doesn't just stop after the incident. And Wendt reminds us, if we still want to ask why it is that women dont leave, that the most dangerous time for a woman is just after she leaves her violent partner. We must recognise that this is a social problem, a result of how we understand masculinity and femininity. And let us also acknowledge the role of the Family Court, about to undergo another major upheaval. Edwards told Batty about the impact the Family Court had on her and her family. Attorney-General Christian Porter. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen In June this year Attorney-General Christian Porter announced the Family Court would be folded into the Federal Circuit Court. That announcement surprised anyone who knew the Australian Law Reform Commission had been asked to review family law system late last year. There was no serious consultation with those who know anything about how the court works. It is a pragmatic dismantling of the Family Court and its appeals process, run by the best judges in the land. Some describe those judges as the cream of the crop and the best legal minds in the country. Now all that expertise will be hearing cases in the Federal Court, not consistently bringing their intellect and analysis to the kinds of cases that break our hearts. Its new chief justice has already acknowledged how tough this transformation will be. Christian Porters decision to close the Family Court will put further women and children in Australia at risk. As Alastair Nicholson, former chief justice of the Family Court, pointed out to me earlier this year, the Liberal Party has never been a great supporter of the Family Court. [John] Howard started this destruction . . . this insidious process. It shows a complete lack of respect for the importance of family law and there will be long-term harms for Australian families. It is not comforting to me to hear another banal announcement from COAG as we heard yesterday. Weve now had promises through three successive prime ministers that there would be increased support for victims of family violence. We can be grateful to Rosie Batty for her single-minded advocacy which restored some of the funding to community legal centres. We must have proper funding for the work of those who will now oversee the family law cases. Batty had to step back because advocating for the safety of women and children in Australia is too much for one woman and she never really had time to emerge from Lukes death. Olga Edwards was never able to emerge. After the death of the Family Court, I fear the cases of families at their most vulnerable will be presided over by those who know little about parenting orders. Little about child assault, about child sexual assault. And those who know even less about family violence. Loading There will be pretend expertise and I predict that will worsen the situation for these families. I fear they will come before judges who know nothing more than maritime law or tax law. They will make decisions that will cost more lives. There are many ways to judge a political party on border control but only one measure really counts. The numbers matter more than political rhetoric, or a new set of uniforms, when the time comes to decide if a government is managing a problem. That means there are problems for both major parties as they get ready for an election fight on border protection. Labor is vulnerable on its offshore detention policy. The Coalition is exposed to warnings about the huge strain on the immigration system. Illustration: Andrew Dyson Credit: The numbers were lethal for Labor when Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard softened government policy on asylum seekers. The arguments about pull factors and push factors became entirely meaningless when arrivals by boat increased from 161 asylum seekers in 2008 to 20,587 in 2013. The numbers were so dire that Labors words lost all their value. By the end of the Conservatives' day of decision, May ended it weakened, wounded, but still in Downing Street to fight another day. Best under pressure One of her few friends, the former deputy prime minister, Damian Green, says May has always performed best under pressure. He recalls when she took on the police federation as Home Secretary. "She went along and told them in terms what she thought was wrong with them, at their annual conference," he told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. "That by any standard was brave and it was exactly the right thing to do and it had results. So that was a very vivid public illustration of the fact that if you put her under pressure she will come out fighting. "She has a huge inner steeliness which comes from a lifelong sense of public duty. "She's always been incredibly self-possessed, calm and methodical and hardworking, she is recognisably the woman I met when she was 18." Damian Green. Credit:PA Green believes May's approach stands out because she "doesn't court easy popularity." "It's a type of politics we're not used to really, in Britain we've had leaders who very much want to be liked, Tony Blair was like that, David Cameron was like that," he said. Added to this, is the vicar's daughter's religious faith. Her final Desert Island choice was her favourite hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. While she was clearly readying for the leadership, her music choices showed her to be a woman desiring to be anything but cool. Bloody Difficult Woman May has taken on as a badge of honour, according to an observation made by Tory grandee Ken Clarke, that she is a "bloody difficult woman." The Brexiteers seized upon the idea that she is "difficult" and "stubborn" as a negative, but Green describes a woman who listens to all opinions and forms her own view in a slow and methodical fashion. Once she has reached a determination, she rarely strays from it, "even if everyone in the room is taking another view". Loading "You can call that a strength or a weakness but that's absolutely what she's like." Tory MPs privately complain of May's unwillingness to wine and dine the backbench. What was initially laid out as a strength when the leadership contest opened in 2016, this has now been added to the growing list of grudges her critics hold about her performance. Matthew Parris, a former moderate Tory MP, wrote this week of his dismay at seeing May up close. His testimony was of a politician who lacked emotional intellect or ability to think and respond on her feet. He concluded that, rather than being an enigma, May was instead simply empty. While May's endurance makes her appear as the Teflon PM, the criticism from her backbench and the division consuming the government are chipping away at her authority. Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: Joe Twyman from Deltapoll says before last year's snap election, May's key strength was the perception that she was a "safe pair of hands". But her own unforced errors calling a general election that she said she wouldn't and delaying the Brexit vote that she likewise said she would not do are also contributing to her falling standing. "Since then she's seen as indecisive, she's seen as not particularly trustworthy," Twyman says. "The main problem, as I see it for her moving forward with the new deal, is that the public really doesn't believe her when it comes to Brexit issues, and this is a real problem. "When she says this is a good deal, this is the only deal available, fewer than half of people think that's a true statement. "So where she goes from here is problematic and she may find that those ratings, which were up to six months ago were doing well, she may find they drop not just below Jeremy Corbyn but below a number of the alternative leaders in the Conservative party as well." Impossible job May's days in Number 10 are now numbered, limited by either the parliament or by her own pledge to Wednesday night's meeting of the 1922 backbench committee. Green was one of the MPs in attendance at that meeting. "She is not going to lead the Conservative party into the next general election in 2022 and she said she wasn't going to call a snap election, so ... an early election ... won't be her own making." But that guarantee has not proved sufficient for some of her critics, who have taken to the media to pressure her to quit, given that under the Tory party's rules, they cannot trigger another confidence vote for 12 months. The leader of the rebellion, backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg, who insists that Remainers accept the outcome of the 2016 referendum, is refusing to abide by the outcome of the secret ballot he forced, only to lose. Pro-Brexit, Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg. Credit:AP Britain, Mogg said, needed "somebody who can unite the country and the Conservative Party, and she has to ask herself, is she realistically that person?" He urged her to visit the Queen. Loading "Being a bad loser is always a bad look," observed Green who believes the constant hectoring of the Prime Minister will come across as "bullying" to the public. But sympathy will not save May. A letter Ah Jun wrote to his pen pal Ah Ga during their detoxification Photo: Hu Yuwei/GT "Dear Ah Ga, counting down the days, I finally heard from you. You can't image how happy I am," Ah Jun wrote to his loved one. They have never met before, but a relationship has developed between the two, who were complete strangers before detoxification. The couple have many things in common. Both are drug addicts infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Both have been sent to drug rehab centers. Both come from Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, where many residents risk drug trafficking to relieve boredom and poverty. They are part of a pen pal scheme developed jointly by the Sichuan Women's Detox Rehab Center and Ziyang Men's Rehab Center. The system serves as a potential matchmaker for single HIV-infected inmates. The core dynamic is of the mutual encouragement between male and female drug addicts to fight addiction. But a romantic relationship between inmates may actually begin from the correspondence. Zeng Juan, a correction officer at the Women's Rehab Center in charge of centralized management of addicts with HIV, was the first to come up with the idea. Though never explicitly encouraging romantic arrangements, Zeng recognizes the inevitability. "It's very natural to see people fall in love with their counterpart inmates through warm and inspiring words. A stable relationship means a lot for those stuck with AIDS and addiction," Zeng told the Global Times. "Feelings of inferiority and even despair over the prospects for marriage can increase HIV-infected drug users' risk of relapse. By forming pairs, they can possibly find life partners and kick drugs together," said Liu Jun, the director of the political office of the Women's Rehab Center. "I think they deserve a caring friend," said Zeng, explaining what inspired Zeng to try out her pen pal scheme in 2010. Due to safety issues, traditionally, inmates in different compulsory drug rehab centers are not allowed to exchange letters. Zeng tried to break the taboo. Through a friend who works in the Ziyang Men's Rehab Center, she encouraged male and female addicts with HIV to become pen pals. The pen pal program quickly spread through word of mouth among inmates. More than half of the women inmates have their own pen pals at present. "Most of our relationship has been epistolary. We got to know each other through letters, and may get to live together when getting out," Cai, a 19-year-old HIV-infected drug abuser, told the Global Times. Cai didn't believe in the power of a pen pal at first, until she heard that one of her fellow inmates was picked up by her pen pal, a former inmate of the Ziyang Rehab Center, when getting released. The two are still together now. This became a fairy tale in her mind. Cai struck up a correspondence then and discovered a sense of understanding and undeniable chemistry with an inmate of the same age in the Ziyang Rehab Center. "I am still very young, both of us want to find a person to seriously start a new life. We are all HIV-infected so we cannot get sick from each other. I expect that we can encourage each other to quit drugs and treat our diseases together as we do now," Cai said. "I do hope to see him picking me up when I get out!" she added. Rights vs social responsibility Although all the letters are censored by officers, long-distance couples find many creative ways to convey their affections. "Many picturesque paintings are attached, and touching sentiments are expressed," Zeng said. "Some fold their letters in the shape of a heart, which makes us extremely careful when opening them for monitoring." "But we block the occasional letters that are clearly negative or flirtatious and suspected of manipulating a women's feelings," Zeng added. "Letters are usually exchanged once every two weeks. On the day the mail arrives, some women are obviously hanging around the office door waiting for a response. Sometimes a letter can keep one's spirits up for many days," she said. "Frankly speaking, for overall wellbeing, we advocate people with HIV to pair up with those who are also sick, rather than those who are healthy," Liu said. "But we're also very conflicted. On the one hand, we respect their willingness to fall in love with anyone. We should not deprive their right to love freely just because of the disease. But on the other hand, more AIDS patients will greatly increase the cost of social relief." From this point of view, helping the inmates infected with HIV find long-term partners could help prevent the virus from spreading. In China, AIDS is not yet among the "medically unmarriageable diseases" listed by the marriage law. But in practice, under the guidance of the National Health Commission, doctors in most regions will advise against marriage when one partner is discovered to have the HIV. "All we can do now is to actively guide them on protecting others, and preventing the virus from being passed to their partners. We actively encourage them to be honest with their partners about their illness, hopefully for minimizing the risk of transmission," Liu said. The commission investigating Floridas Parkland shooting recommended Wednesday that trained and willing educators be allowed to carry guns in schools, reigniting a debate about an idea President Donald Trump had embraced earlier this year.Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the high-profile commission, suggested the idea late Wednesday as the panel worked to finalize a report that must be delivered to the state Legislature by the end of the month."We need to put aside these ideological positions and realize what reality calls for," Gualtieri said.His remark set off a lengthy discussion that ended with just one commissioner opposing the idea: Max Schachter, whose son, Alex, died in the February massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.Commissioners ultimately approved adding the recommendation to their final report, proposing a major expansion of the states Guardian Program, which has allowed some non-educators to carry weapons in schools. Kentucky's governor wasn't pleased to hear the state's largest newspaper, the Louisville Courier Journal, was partnering with ProPublica to investigate a state-run government agency.Republican Gov. Matt Bevin posted a series of tweets attacking both news organizations and recorded a three-minute video on social media detailing his disdain for both outlets, which he characterized as biased."Who is holding the Courier Journal accountable?" Bevin questions in the video as he segued into his questions about the founders of ProPublica, alleging that it's supported by "George, I hate America, Soros," a billionaire supporter of the Democratic Party.ProPublica lists that Soros' Open Society Foundations funds less than 2 percent of the company's operations. Since its founding in 2007, the non-profit has won four Pulitzer Prizes, journalism's highest honor. The Courier Journal, which is part of the USA TODAY Network, has won 10 Pulitzers over its 150-year history. Westport Police Departments K9 Onyx has received a bullet and stab protective vest thanks to a charitable donation from nonprofit organization Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. The vest was sponsored by the family and friends of the late John Buffone and embroidered with the sentiment In memory of John Buffone Beloved husband and Dad. Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. is a charity located in East Taunton, Mass. whose mission is to provide bullet and stab protective vests and other assistance to dogs of law enforcement and related agencies throughout the United States. The nonprofit was established in 2009 to assist law enforcement agencies with this potentially lifesaving body armor for their four-legged K9 officers. Since its inception, Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. provided over 3,100 protective vests in 50 states, through private and corporate donations, at a value of $5.7 million dollars. The program is open to dogs actively employed in the U.S. with law enforcement or related agencies who are certified and at least 20 months of age. New K9 graduates, as well as K9s with expired vests, are eligible to participate. The donation to provide one protective vest for a law enforcement K9 is $950. Each vest has a value between $1,744-$2,283, and a five-year warranty and an average weight of 4-5 lbs. Tax-deductible donations of any denomination can be made at vik9s.org or mailed to P.O. Box 9 East Taunton, MA 02718. Newmans Own gives $5k to Astronomical Society The Westport Astronomical Society received a $5,000 grant from Westport-based Newmans Own Foundation, the independent foundation created by the late actor and philanthropist Paul Newman. This is the third year Newmans Own Foundation has supported the nonprofit local observatory with an all-volunteer staff. Since 1975, the Westport Astronomical Society has provided free weekly viewings of the night sky, monthly lectures from leading university researchers, community science outreach, and a valuable resource for local schools. As one of the largest astronomy clubs in Connecticut, they are the go-to destination whenever an eclipse or comet makes the news, and their dedicated team of volunteers works hard to encourage an interest in natural science. Young Westport Astronomical Society members often go on to pursue degrees in astrophysics or related disciplines while older visitors have been inspired to try their hands at private stargazing and astrophotography. The Westport Astronomical Society also serves as a crucial bridge between amateur observation and professional research. Members actively gather and submit valuable data on asteroid occultations and variable star light curves, and the observatory even serves as a ham radio base of operations for emergency communication. Early this year, the entire Round Hill Observatory from Greenwich was generously donated to the Westport Astronomical Society, including a second dome, computerized mount, specialized camera, and two advanced telescopes. This state-of-the-art equipment represents a tremendous opportunity that will vastly enhance the scientific capabilities and may even allow remote operation and online viewing. While most of the gear is in excellent condition, worn parts on the dome itself must be replaced and a stable supporting platform constructed before it can be used. The grant from Newmans Own Foundation will act as the starting point for their fundraising campaign to make the needed fixes. Newmans Own Foundation uses all net profits and royalties from the sale of Newmans Own food and beverage products for charitable purposes. Since 1982, Paul Newman, who lived in Westport, and Newmans Own Foundation have donated over $500 million to thousands of charities around the world. Maplewood senior communities host toy drive Maplewood Senior Living is joining forces with the Connecticut State Police to host its annual toy drive. The event, now in its 18th year, is inviting anyone that wishes to make a donation to bring an unwrapped toy or toys to any Maplewood Senior Living community in Connecticut now through Dec. 20. Toys will be distributed to local families across the state. Maplewood is proud to support the Connecticut State Police with its mission to bring toys to needy children, said Gregory Smith, CEO and president of Maplewood Senior Living, in a news release. Many of our residents and our staff members partake in community outreach to help others. The toy drive offers a way for our residents to give back to the community this holiday season in a very meaningful way. Toy donations may be made at Westports senior living community, Maplewood Senior Living at One Gorham Island, Suite 100. They may also be made at other Maplewood Senior Living communities: Maplewood at Strawberry Hill, 73 Strawberry Hill Ave., Norwalk Maplewood at Danbury, 22 Hospital Avenue, Danbury Maplewood at Newtown, 166 Mount Pleasant Road, Newtown Maplewood at Stony Hill, 46 Stony Hill Road, Bethel Maplewood at Orange, 245 Indian River Road, Orange Maplewood at Darien, 599 Boston Post Road, Darien Maplewood at Southport (Leasing Gallery), 1720 Post Road, Fairfield For more information regarding the toy drive, contact Debra Laudano at 203- 500-9197. California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has quietly given up her Republican registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, saying Thursday she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the GOPs direction nationally and in the state.In a phone interview with CALmatters, Cantil-Sakauyewho was a prosecutor before becoming a judge 28 years ago and California Supreme Court chief justice in 2011said she made the final decision to change her registration after watching the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.You can draw your own conclusions, she said.In those hearings, Kavanaugh denied allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto professor, that he assaulted her when they were high school students in Maryland.Ive been thinking about it for some time, Cantil-Sakauye said, adding that she talked it over with her husband and friends. Their consensus, she said, was that you didnt leave the party. The party left you.The 59-year-old jurist, who as chief justice is the head of the judicial branch of government, is the latest high-profile Republican to disavow the party in the wake of President Donald Trumps 2016 election, though she did so without fanfare. HARTFORD Outgoing Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes believes two powerful groups hospitals and municipalities are the biggest obstacles to Connecticuts fiscal stability. Barnes made that statement during a far-ranging discussion Thursday at the Connecticut Voices for Children 18th Annual State Budget Forum. Barnes joked that he could be so candid because he is resigning his position in a few weeks when Gov.-elect Ned Lamont replaces his boss, Dannel P. Malloy. Its the kind of thing you can say when you are two weeks away from the end of service. Acute care hospitals, Barnes said, have used their virtuous status to somehow strengthen their demand for resources that the state cannot afford. He said hospitals are a group that gets what they want virtually all the time. He said they are the only group he knows of that is able to dedicate all the taxes they pay right back to their own bottom line. He said if the state loses the lawsuit most of Connecticuts hospitals have filed against the state, it will cost the state $4 billion. The lawsuit, which was filed in 2016, challenges the taxing structure the state created for the hospitals. Its still making its way through the court system and no decisions have been made. As far as municipalities are concerned, Barnes was just as direct, stating legislators need a change of attitude. Barnes, who once worked for the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, the city of Stamford, and the schools in Bridgeport, said he knows that wont be easy I used to work in local government. But he said until legislators look at the bigger picture of the entire state and not just their own town Connecticut will have budget problems. Right now, Barnes said, no town can ever get less than what they got the year before. We are spending a lot of money on communities that have plenty of money, he went on. He cited the Teachers Retirement System as the best example of a system that needs to be fixed. Currently, the state funds the teacher retirement program. Attempts by the Malloy administration to have the towns pick up some of that cost was met with a huge backlash. The annual contribution to the Teachers Retirement System is about $1.3 billion, but could top $3.25 billion to $6.2 billion by 2032, depending on different experts, because of years of underfunding. Connecticut didnt start setting aside money to pay for teachers retirements until around 1982. Barnes said the state, sooner or later, has to deal more directly with the fact that more affluent communities such as Greenwich, Weston, Westport need less state funding than poorer communities such as Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport. We tried to re-stack the deck to put more resources into neediest communities but it was dead on arrival, Barnes said. My parting hope is that majority of legislators will look at this issue again. There is enough money but we are currently spending it on people who dont need it as much. In answer to a question from the audience about the issue of how municipalities could find savings, Barnes said the state needs to get serious about regionalization. He said the Legislature should compel mergers perhaps offering incentives to do so. He called that the kind of big idea that Connecticut needs to be thinking about, having municipalities with hundreds of thousands instead of a few thousands of people with regional police, health, school districts. Barnes also talked at length about the issue of state pensions. He said he felt that state workers were unfairly scapegoated for the problem. He said while there are some examples of very high pensions being paid to state employees that the average state pension is about $38,000. Local government pensions are way better, the OPM secretary said. He said those who work in the private sector also retire with much better pensions than the average state worker. Besides, Barnes said, there is a moral obligation involved. The law of the land is that when somebody retires with a pension they have a right to that pension, Barnes said. We cant renege on our deal to employees. He said even if there was a legal way found to tear up state pension agreements, Why on earth would we want to do that? These are folks who are cleaning up after our elderly parents or our grandparents. The idea that we would walk away from that is reprehensible. Barnes said while he believes that the budget will be in good hands with Lamont in charge and the newly elected Legislature, he also said hes worried that the 2019 budget was built with what he termed one-time sweeps that will create a $630 million hole that will need to be filled in next years budget. Its going to create a huge problem for 2020, Barnes said. Barnes did say there was some good news too. He said the state has seen a 10 percent annual growth in withholding tax in the past few months much higher than has been budgeted. He said the state looks like its on track to see some of the most robust growth its seen in the past decade. Accomplishments over the past eight years that he is particularly proud of include Medicaid and criminal justice reform. Crime is down, prison population is down, Barnes said. He added that the state has also made strides in having greater civil rights and eliminating the death penalty. Connecticut has also had the best results in the nation when it comes to controlling the per member, per month costs of Medicaid recipients. We are a national model, Barnes said. He referred to Connecticut as a place Im proud to call home. Barnes recently landed a new job as chief financial officer for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities. The Alabama Attorney General's Office is taking over the case of the Thanksgiving shooting death of Emantic Fitzgerald "EJ" Bradford Jr. and the wounding of two other people inside the Riverchase Galleria .Attorney General Steve Marshall said his office is assuming jurisdiction after the admission by Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr in a letter to Marshall of the presence of potential conflicts between himself and key parties in the case. Marshall met with Carr on Monday in Birmingham, and said he also has had multiple conversations with him. Efforts by AL.com to reach Carr were not immediately successful.Carr's potential conflicts appear to be his relationships with several of the organizers of ongoing protests over Bradford's death. The day after the Nov. 7 election, Carlos Chaverst Jr. posted this on Facebook, accompanied by two photos of himself with Carr."Mannnnnnnnnnnn last night was historic. My brother Danny Carr was elected as the first black District Attorney of Jefferson County. This journey began over a year ago. After it was known that Mr. Charles Henderson couldn't serve as DA, Danny was appointed as Interim DA. That day we launched a campaign asking Governor Ivey to appoint him to the seat until the election. After garnishing thousands of signatures and running an extensive campaign, it still didn't sway her. We knew than we wanted Danny Carr elected as DA and that's what we got."Chaverst in 2017 had launched a petition for the governor to keep Carr as district attorney, netting more than 1,500 signatures. Also, protester Le'Darius Hilliard attended Carr's swearing in on Wednesday.Initially, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office was brought in to investigate the case at the request of Hoover police and then-District Attorney Mike Anderton. It is standard procedure for an outside agency to investigate officer-involved shootings.Two days after the shooting, however, Anderton asked the State Bureau of Investigation to take over the probe at the request after authorities determined a potential key witness in the mall incident is a cousin of the wife of Jefferson County Sheriff-Elect Mark Pettway.Since then, Carr has taken office and assumed responsibility for the case. Marshall said Carr shared with him another potential conflict -- the officer involved in the deadly shooting is a material witness in at least 20 cases pending in Jefferson County. "Those are 20 victims who deserve justice like other victims in other cases," Marshall said.Marshall said Carr did not ask to be recused from the cases. "He specifically told me he would like to continue this case and did not ask to be recused," Marshall said.He shared his response to Carr's letter:"I have reviewed your December 11th letter regarding your prosecutorial role in the shooting death of Emantic 'E.J.' Bradford, Jr.," Attorney General Marshall wrote District Attorney Carr. "Based on the information you provided in that letter and our multiple conversations on the subject--particularly your acknowledgement that 'a fair-minded, objective observer could conclude that a conflict exists'--I have determined that the National Prosecution Standards dictate your recusal from the investigation of each of the shootings that occurred in the Riverchase Galleria on Thanksgiving night, not just E.J. Bradford's." Marshall continued, "While I have no reason to believe that you are actually biased or compromised, I agree that other fair-minded persons might question your neutrality based on the information that you provided in the letter and during our private conversations. For example, you state that the officer who shot Mr. Bradford is either the charging officer or a witness in approximately 20 cases pending in your office. A fair-minded Defendant (or family member) in those cases could question whether you and/or your prosecutors are biased in favor of protecting the officer from prosecution because the officer's testimony may be important in his or her case. On the flip side, you acknowledge personal relationships with some of the protesters who are calling for the officer who shot Mr. Bradford to be criminally prosecuted, which could lead a fair-minded person to question your bias in favor of indictment. I have weighed these factors and others mentioned during our conversations and agree that, when taken as a whole, these factors warrant recusal under Rule 1-3.3(d)."Marshall said under National Prosecution Standards rule 1-3.3(d), the prosecutor should excuse himself or herself from any investigation, prosecution, or other matter where personal interests of the prosecutor would cause a fair-minded, objective observer to conclude that the prosecutor's neutrality, judgment, or ability to administer the law in an objective manner may be compromised.Marshall further noted that his office would also prosecute the shootings of 18-year-old Brian Wilson and 12-year-old Molly Davis."Your letter requests guidance on the 'officer-involved' shooting of E.J. Bradford; it does not mention the shootings of Brian Wilson and Molly Davis. However, it is my understanding that all three shootings were part of a single chain of events. Thus, the investigation of Mr. Bradford's shooting is inextricably intertwined with the investigation into the shootings of Mr. Wilson and Ms. Davis and must be conducted by the same entity. Accordingly, to guard against inconsistent prosecutorial decisions, you must also excuse yourself from those investigations."Carr issued a statement after the press conference that confirmed his meeting with Marshall during which the attorney general "notified me that he believes there are several factors taht may exist which could possibly lead the public to believe a conflict may exist between the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office and the parties involved in the Thanksgiving Day Galleria shooting. However, as I stated to Attorney General Marshall, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office stands ready and capable to proceed with this case based on the facts and evidence once provided, and the law as it currently exists.""Despite the Attorney General's Office intervention in this instance, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office will continue to seek and ensure justice for all citizens of this county. I trust that justice will prevail."Carr said he would have no additional comment.The shooting happened just before 10 p.m. Thanksgiving night on the second floor of the Riverchase Galleria. Hoover police said an argument between several young men led to gunfire. Wilson was wounded, as was bystander Molly Davis, who took a bullet to the back. Bradford was shot by a Hoover police officer, who was in uniform and on-duty as part of a beefed-up holiday shopping detail.Bradford was pronounced dead on the scene. Eight other people were treated by paramedics for injuries sustained while fleeing the gunfire.Within hours of the shooting, Hoover police said Bradford was the shooter. The following day, however, they retracted that statement.According to authorities, 20-year-old Erron Brown, involved in the altercation with Bradford and Wilson, shot Wilson and fled the scene. Brown is charged with attempted murder in the shooting of Wilson.The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Brown in Georgia on Nov. 29. Though his name had quickly surfaced as a suspect in the case, authorities withheld his identity while law enforcement officers searched for him.Brown's attorney, Charles Salvagio, said all of the men involved knew each other. He said Brown is not guilty of any crime.Multiple protests have been held over the Bradford case. The highest-profile demonstration took place Tuesday, Dec. 4, when they protested at several Hoover businesses and then got on Interstate 459 and ultimately stopped at the Interstate 65 interchange. They got out of their vehicles and locked arms while standing across the roadway.Police blocked the Hoover entrances to I-459 during the protest. Dozens of lawmen, some riding on police SUV running boards, flocked to the scene and ultimately dispersed the crowd. Several large wreckers were brought in by the city and protesters were told if they did not move out of the roadway, their cars would be towed, and they would be arrested. No arrests were made that night, and the protesters contend that the police were the ones who shut down the interstate.Since then, six protesters have been arrested. Four of those -- Carlos Chaverst Jr., Mark Myles, Sherrette Spicer and Andy Baer -- have been charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the I-459 shut down. Chaverst also has two other disorderly conduct charges and a loitering charge for wearing a mask to a protest at Renaissance Ross Bridge. A Vestavia Hills woman, Anne Susan Diprizio, is also charged with disorderly conduct for a lone protest she held on U.S. 31 Dec. 6.Police say Diprizio was throwing Christmas ornaments into traffic, and tried to climb on the hood of a motorist's vehicle while stating she was "going to stop traffic until there was justice for EJ."Martez Lamar Parker, 25, was arrested Wednesday night during a protest at Target at The Grove shopping center.Previous protests have been held at the Galleria, Hoover City Hall, Sam's Club, the home of Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato, and Hoover's Public Safety Center. Chaverst's arrest took place at the latter, while a group of about 30 were protesting outside the city jail.They are demanding that video of the deadly shooting be released and also want the officer who shot Bradford to face criminal charges. A California state lawmaker admitted Wednesday that he "spanked [his daughter's] bottom" following his arrest on suspicion of child cruelty.Joaquin Arambula told The Fresno Bee that his daughter, 7, had "acted out" before going to bed. He called the spanking a "normal discipline to our child.""It wasn't the best night for all of us, and as a parent, I think most of us have felt those times when we can feel a bit overwhelmed," he told the outlet.Following the incident, Arambula said his daughter was "pretty upset and she struggled to be able to share her emotions."The state assemblyman, a Democrat, was arrested Monday after officials at Dailey Elementary Charter School discovered an injury after his daughter came into an office earlier that day. Officials determined the injury happened the night before, though they did not divulge details.His three children were taken by Child Protective Services and had been living with his parents, according to the Fresno Bee. His daughters, aged 3, 6, and 7, have since come home after CPS agreed that was the "best place" for them.Arambula and his wife Elizabeth put on a united front for the interview, holding hands throughout it. Both stressed that he was a loving parent."We have a job and a responsibility to continue to be good parents, and that's what I want to work on and will strive to do," he said.Elizabeth Arambula at one point interjected in the interview, saying, "We love our kids."When asked if stress from his position could have influenced his decision to spank his daughter, he reportedly admitted it was a possibility."Being a parent isn't easy for anybody," he told the outlet. "Adding more stress and difficulty on top of it exacerbates the challenge that we have. There's no manual to being a parent. You do the best you can every single day. And that's what we do. We're trying with our kids."CPS put no restrictions on Arambula, though he did say they suggested the family seek counseling.Calls to the Fresno Police Department were not immediately returned, but The Fresno Bee reported the politician had not been officially charged with a crime as of Wednesday afternoon. Description GIS 14 December, 2018: Civil registration and vital statistics are essential for modern administrative systems, thereby creating an inclusive society, protecting human rights, ensuring proper delivery of public services, tackling discriminations and inequalities, stated the Minister of Civil Service and Administrative Reforms, Mr Eddy Boissezon, yesterday at The Club Med Hotel, in Albion. The Minister was speaking at an event organised by the Civil Status Division (CSD) under the aegis of the Prime Ministers Office to commemorate the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Day. The CRVS Day, first celebrated on 10 August 2018, will henceforth be observed annually. The occasion was also marked by the ISO 9001-20 15 certification of the CSD , followed by a teambuilding exercise for the CSDs personnel. In his address, Minister Boissezon underlined that civil registration system plays an important role in facilitating the realisation of many fundamental human rights recognised in major international declarations and conventions. Through the civil registration system, he said, individual of all ages can exercise their rights to obtain legal identity, proof of age, nationality, and further access to social services. The Minister also commended the efforts of the CSD for improving quality service, efficiency and productivity, by using technology as an accelerator. He spoke of Governments clear-cut policy to make the Public Service more efficient, innovative and creative, while highlighting that since the past two years, his Ministry has embarked in the implementation of the Public Sector Transformation Strategy, which aims at giving a new impetus to the public service. Furthermore, Mr Boissezon emphasised that most African countries have civil registration laws to systematically register vital events. However, he said, very few of them have maintained a universal registration system while adding that Mauritius has one of the best CRVS System providing 100% coverage compared to African countries such as Ethiopia, Congo and Mozambique. For the last three years, statistics reveal that the percentage of tardy declaration for the overall annual birth registered is only 1% and the percentage of undeclared child is zero, he added. Also present, the Registrar of the CSD, Mr William Mario Ayelou, spoke of the several measures that are being implemented to transform the CSD into a modern and innovative Division. To this end, he pointed out that the construction of the Marriage Hall at the Emmanuel Anquetil building is nearly reaching its completion phase. Other projects comprise: the implementation of Info-Highway project which aims at providing a robust service platform to facilitate the consumption of published data among Government agencies and private entities to improve operation efficiency in public administration and business operations; issuing of Overseas Citizen of India Cards; revamping of IT system; and, birth and death capture exercise to restore its archives. Civil Status Division The Division comprises 33 Civil Status Offices including Rodrigues and Agalega. It has under its custody records dating as far back as 1811 reflecting the history of the arrival of Indian Indentured Laborers and Immigrants as from the year 1834 following the abolition of slavery. The CSD is committed to digitalise all its records in order to enhance service delivery, preserve invaluable records of historical value and enforce Government policy on data sharing and related innovations. It received the Customer-Centered Delivery Award 2016 for the Public Service Excellence Award. Description GIS 14 December, 2018: As Mauritius has been actively participating in all the International and Regional Hydrographic Conferences, the progress made by our Hydrographic Department, under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing and Lands, has been recognised and appreciated by all the member states during such meetings. Our country has thus been selected to host the South African Island Hydrographic Commission in 2020. The Minister of Housing and Lands, Mr Purmanund Jhugroo, made this announcement, yesterday, at the opening ceremony of the 11th Indo-Mauritian Joint Committee meeting on Hydrography held at the seat of the Ministry in Ebene. The High Commissioner of India, Mr Abhay Thakur, the Joint Chief Hydrographer to the Government of India, Rear Admiral Adhir Arora, and Senior Officials of different Ministries and Organisations were also present. In his address, Minister Jhugroo highlighted that safe navigation in Mauritius large Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) requires up-to-date navigational charts so as to avoid loss of life and property at sea. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on hydrographic cooperation, he pointed out, signed between Mauritius and India in 2005 has allowed for the publication of seven International Charts and nine Electronic Navigational Charts of areas covering Mauritius, Agalega, St. Brandon and Rodrigues. Seven additional nautical charts are being published by India in Mauritius EEZ under the agreed proposal for the enhanced charting scheme, and this will further improve navigational safety in our waters as well as assist cruise ships to include the Indian Ocean in their tours, the Minister underscored. As at date, the Minister indicated that the Mauritius Hydrographic Service has undertaken numerous surveys which have benefitted a number of stakeholder organisations, such as the Mauritius Port Authority, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Defense and Rodrigues, the Ministry of Fisheries, and the National Coast Guard. Furthermore, the Housing and Lands Minister recalled that the Mauritius Hydrographic Service won the Award of Distinction as Finalist under the Innovation Incubation Category during the Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management biennial conference 2018. He also expressed his appreciation to the Government of India for the provision of technical and training assistance in the field of hydrography. For his part, the Indian High Commissioner underlined that India is a leading nation in the field of hydrography and has a well-established organisational set-up. The Indian Naval Hydrographic Department, he observed, possesses wide experience with longstanding tradition of professionalism, state-of-the-art equipment, modern infrastructure and great personnel. In addition, Mr Thakur, urged the Mauritian Government to take advantage of all the capabilities available at the National Institute of Hydrography, Goa, which has been recognised as the Regional Hydrographic Training Centre for South East Asian and African countries by the International Hydrographic Organisation. 11th Indo-Mauritian Joint Committee meeting on Hydrography This meeting, being held from 11 to 14 December 2018, has been convened under the framework of the India-Mauritius MoU to promote, develop and cooperate on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. Discussions during the meeting include, mutual sharing of hydrographic data; scheming of new charts; enhancing hydrographic capability; renewal of protocol on the sale of paper navigational chart; and major requirements projected by various stakeholders. A new chart published by the National Hydrographic Office and entitled Gabriel and Round Islands was also released during this 11th Joint Committee meeting. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the opening ceremony of a symposium on the international situation and China's diplomacy in 2018, co-hosted by China Institute of International Studies and China Fund of International Studies in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 11, 2018. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) Chinas diplomacy achieved new progress this year and can be summarized using six keywords and phrases, including openness, cooperation and steady progress amongst others, said Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi Tuesday, Xinhua News Agency reported. The first keyword is openness, said the Foreign Minister during the opening ceremony of a symposium on the international situation and Chinas diplomacy in 2018. He explained that contributing to China's wider opening-up has been an overarching theme of China's diplomacy in 2018. Facing the headwinds of protectionism, unilateralism and acts of bullyism, China has remained a staunch supporter for globalization, for multilateralism, and for the free trade system. From hosting multilateral events to attending international conferences in 2018, China conveyed a clear, consistent message of its commitment to wider opening-up by outlining new policies and concrete measures, thus standing firm on the right side of history, Wang said. The second keyword is cooperation. Win-win cooperation is the brightest highlight of China's foreign policy in 2018. The joint undertaking of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) entered a new phase this year, and all sides have worked to deepen and enrich the cooperation under the BRI, said the Foreign Minister. Besides, the BRI spirit was incorporated into the outcoming documents of important international institutions including the United Nations, and is increasingly becoming a consensus for international cooperation. Notable progress has been made on a large number of priority projects and South-South cooperation was elevated to a new level, he added. The third key phrase is steady progress, which is the goal of China's foreign policy in 2018, he continued. With a cool head and a proactive approach amid regional and global complexities, China has maintained overall stability of our relations with the major countries, and achieved all-round improvement and growth of our relations with neighboring countries. The fourth key phrase is standing at the forefront of our times. This reflects China's concern for the common good of humanity in 2018. The international system has reached a crucial moment of transformation, and the world economy has arrived at a crossroads. In the face of disagreement, disillusionment and disquiet among countries, China, following the trend of the times, is working actively to forge a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind that endeavors to make the global governance system more just and equitable. In a highly uncertain world, China has become an important source of stability, said Wang. The fifth keyword is mission. A strong sense of mission is the driving force of China's foreign policy in 2018. This year has seen a major turnaround regarding the situation on the Korean Peninsula, which is the result of the concerted efforts of the relevant parties and what China has been calling for. On the Iranian nuclear issue, China stands firmly by international law and the greater good. Furthermore, Chinese diplomats have engaged in shuttle diplomacy to advance the political settlement of such issues as Afghanistan, northern Myanmar, Syria and Palestine, meeting its responsibility for world peace and international justice. The sixth keyword is steadfastness. Safeguarding national interests in a steadfast way is the abiding mission of China's foreign policy in 2018. China is resolved to uphold our country's sovereignty and security which are China's core interests, and firmly oppose foreign intervention in Hong Kong and Macao affairs, vigorously engaging in diplomacy on issues relating to Tibet and Xinjiang, and strengthening international counter-terrorism, law enforcement and security cooperation. The Minister noted that for the aim of fulfilling our central task of serving national economic and social development, China has fully leveraged its diplomatic and consular assets across the globe to facilitate more sub-national cooperation and the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. Description GIS - 14 December, 2018: Three new schemes of the SME Mauritius Ltd and Phase II of the SME Portal project, were launched yesterday in Port-Louis. The schemes are: Certification Scheme, SME Productivity Improvement Programme, and, Foreign Expertise and Technical Assistance Scheme. The Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, the Chief Executive Officer of SME Mauritius Ltd, Mr Ravin Rampersad , and other personalities were present. These schemes will facilitate access to new markets, reinforce the capacity of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and enhance their visibility. Phase II of the SME Portal project is an extension of Phase I which was initiated with the implementation of the smemu.org website. In his address, Minister Bholah highlighted that Government aims at instilling an entrepreneurship spirit among the population as well as providing assistance for the development of SMEs. The schemes launched, he emphasised, will help address a number of existing challenges in terms of fierce competition on the market, costs of operation and training as well as urge SMEs to adapt to international standards for better quality of products and services. The key to survival on the market, he reiterated, is to develop a sustainable approach towards doing business and ensure that SMEs live up to the expectations of the clients. With regard to the SME Portal, the Minister underscored that it will enable the creation of an ecosystem which is beneficial to entrepreneurs and increase interaction between the SME Mauritius Ltd and the enterprises. The latter will henceforth be able to register and also acquire their certifications online and as such delays in administrative procedures will be reduced. For his part, the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Rampersad, pointed out that Phase II of the SME Portal project, will transform the existing website into a one-stop point for SMEs to access services offered by the organisation, hence, extrapolating capabilities of the website towards being a Portal. The users, he indicated, will be able to create an online profile to register themselves as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and also as Tradesman. Thus, they will be able to track and follow-up applications through email notifications and benefit from hassle-free administrative procedures, he added. More about the schemes The Certification Scheme will assist SMEs to acquire National and/or International standards and thus help them to standardise their inputs and processes, increase productivity and access new markets. The average cost for an SME adopting the abovementioned certifications is estimated at Rs 300,000 including surveillance audits, testing and certification. A grant of 80% of the certification cost, up to a maximum of Rs 200,000 would be provided by the SME Mauritius Ltd, while the beneficiary will have to contribute to the 20% thereof. The SME Productivity Improvement Programme will help improve the internal systems and processes existing in SMEs so as to create internal conditions for the improvement of the processes and production thereby minimising delays and waste, reducing costs and improving quality. It will also cater for a grant of 20% of the cost of Productivity Improvement Programme, up to a maximum of Rs 50,000 which would be provided by the SME Mauritius Ltd. The Foreign Expertise and Technical Assistance Scheme will enable the consolidation of the handicraft sector by bringing in foreign experts to address multiple challenges the sector faces with regard to capacity building, product and process re-design and local raw materials sourcing and usage. SMEs who wish to benefit from these schemes need to be registered with the SME Registration Unit and have an annual turnover not exceeding Rs 50 million. The SME Portal The portal also includes features such as live chats; forum for mentoring; matching of products between buyers and sellers; and, documentation centre containing examples of contracts and catalogue of available products and services. The cheekily subversive vibe of Women of the Fur Trade is set before a character even says a word. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The cheekily subversive vibe of Women of the Fur Trade is set before a character even says a word. Theatre review Click to Expand Women of the Fur Trade Vault Productions Dalnavert Museum, 61 Carlton St. To Sunday, Dec. 16 Sold out 1/2 out of five The production takes place at Dalnavert Museum, the grand Victorian home on Carlton Avenue that once belonged to Sir Hugh John Macdonald. Hugh was the son of John A. Macdonald, Canadas first prime minister and the subject of much derision in Frances Koncans historical comedy, set in the Red River Colony when the PM was trying to quell the resistance led by Louis Riel. The house all done up for Christmas serves as the setting of an unnamed fort where a trio of women gossip about the prominent figures of the day, throwing considerable shade at John A. Macdonald while sitting in his sons former parlour. That winking sense of irony pervades much of the Winnipeg playwright and directors work, which masks its anger under a humorous veneer. And make no mistake, Women of the Fur Trade, especially in its first half, is very, very funny. Women of the Fur Trade actors Katie German (left), Erica Wilson (second from left), Kerri Potter (right), and and director Frances Koncan (front) take a moment away from rehearsals of the production at Dalnavert House. (Mike Sudoma photos / Free Press files) The year is 18-something-something and the three women Metis Marie-Angelique (Katie German), Ojibwe Eugenia (Erica Wilson) and white settler Cecilia (Kerri Potter) are sitting in their rocking chairs in petticoats, talking boys and talking trash. They try to one-up each other with quotes about the nature of celebrity, tossing out bon mots from Andy Warhol, Virginia Woolf and Tyra Banks, and veering wildly from being BFFs to vowing to unfollow each other on Instagram. The mix of period language and modern slang is an irreverent way to get at the notion of times cyclical nature. The more things change, the more they stay the same; however far weve come, the struggles for womens rights and truth and reconciliation are far from over. Clutching a woollen doll in a soldiers regalia, Cecilia is mooning over Thomas Scott his bangin bod, the way he parts his hair slightly to the left, his unique beard-moustache combo all add to the crush she has on the Irish-born Protestant and enemy of the territorys provisional government. Louis Riel (left) and Thomas Scott are represented as woolen dolls. Marie-Angelique, meanwhile, has it bad for Riel (represented by a pirate doll wearing an eye patch). She dreams of the life she and the passionate politician who also has a strong facial-hair game will have once theyre married, looking forward to offering him both children and her unpaid emotional labour. The no-nonsense Eugenia a trapper from the north doesnt have time for such silly affairs, stating her preference for freedom over a man (though she later weakens and confesses her passion for Gabriel Dumont, the Metis leader and Riel ally). But the conversation soon gets more serious, as the squabbling of the women reflects modern conflicts among settler, Metis and Indigenous populations. Koncan weaves in notions of lost language, divided loyalties and being trapped in historic roles as impediments to progress. The three actors work well together, even when their dialogue overlaps. As Cecilia, Potter is a lively presence, so eager to please but unable to see her way out of her privilege. Germans girlish glee is tempered with sadness about her past. Wilson has a stoic reserve, but her lines are sometimes lost to mumbly enunciation. Katie German (left), as Marie Angelique, and Kerri Potter (right), as Cecilia, write a love letter to Louis Riel as Erica Wilson (back), playing Eugenia, listens. Women of the Fur Trade which won first prize in the Toronto Fringe Festivals New Play Contest is a work in progress that is being developed into a full-length play, and it does feel somewhat unfinished. Over the course of its short 65-minute running time (no intermission), the tone is uneven. Metaphors about the women being sequestered in a house with no doors (or doors that keep moving) need to be fleshed out, as do their characters, and the dark ending, while affecting, feels too sudden and unearned. Theres plenty of promise here, though, and Koncans unique vision gives voice to characters we dont hear enough from, onstage or in history. jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @dedaumier If you value coverage of Manitobas arts scene, help us do more. Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project. NEW YORK - The Boy Scouts of America deflected questions about a report suggesting it is considering seeking bankruptcy protection, though the head of the organization said it is exploring "all options" as it tries to stay afloat while facing sexual abuse lawsuits and dwindling membership. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - In this Feb. 4, 2013 file photo, shows a close up detail of a Boy Scout uniform worn during a news conference in front of the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving, Texas. The Boy Scouts of America says it is exploring "all options" to address serious financial challenges, but is declining to confirm or deny a report that it may seek bankruptcy protection in the face of declining membership and sex-abuse litigation. "I want to assure you that our daily mission will continue and that there are no imminent actions or immediate decisions expected," Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh said in a statement issued Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File) NEW YORK - The Boy Scouts of America deflected questions about a report suggesting it is considering seeking bankruptcy protection, though the head of the organization said it is exploring "all options" as it tries to stay afloat while facing sexual abuse lawsuits and dwindling membership. "I want to assure you that our daily mission will continue and that there are no imminent actions or immediate decisions expected," Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh said in a statement issued Wednesday evening. Surbaugh was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that the BSA, founded in 1910, had hired a law firm to assist in a possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. He described the report as "news speculation," but he acknowledged that the group is "working with experts to explore all options available" as well as the pressures arising from multiple lawsuits related to past instances of sexual abuse. "We have a social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in Scouting, and we also have an obligation to carry out our mission to serve youth, families and local communities through our programs," Surbaugh said. Other institutions facing multifaceted sexual abuse scandals have sought bankruptcy protection recently. USA Gymnastics took the step last week as it attempts to settle dozens of lawsuits related to abuse by now-imprisoned gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. About 20 Roman Catholic dioceses and other religious orders around the U.S. have previously filed for bankruptcy protection as a result of clergy sexual abuse claims. Surbaugh apologized on behalf of the BSA to those abused during their time in the Boy Scouts. "We have always taken care of victims we believe them, we believe in fairly compensating them and we have paid for unlimited counselling, by a provider of their choice, regardless of the amount of time that has passed since an instance of abuse," he said. "Throughout our history we have taken proactive steps to help victims heal and prevent future abuse." In addition to abuse-related litigation, the Boy Scouts have been trying to reverse a decline in membership. The organizations' current youth participation is about 2.3 million, down from 2.6 million in 2013 and more than 4 million in peak years of the past. In a major step toward revitalization, the BSA is moving to open all its programs to girls, but even that has caused problems. Last month, the Girl Scouts of the USA filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the BSA for dropping the word "boy" from its flagship program in an effort to attract girls. That suit was in response to the BSA's decision to rename its program for 11- to 17-year-olds; it will be called Scouts BSA rather than the Boy Scouts, though the parent organization will remain the Boy Scouts of America. Paul Mones, a Los Angeles-based lawyer who has handled many sex-abuse lawsuits targeting the BSA, said the organization has assets of more than $1 billion, but has been under increasing pressure from litigation as public awareness of sexual abuse intensifies. Mones was co-counsel in a 2010 sexual abuse case in Portland, Oregon, that led to a nearly $20 million judgment against the BSA on behalf of a man molested by a Scout leader in the 1980s. As a result of that case, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the BSA to release previously confidential files on suspected abusers. ___ Follow David Crary on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CraryAP BRUSSELS - British Prime Minister Theresa May launched a rescue mission for her ailing Brexit deal Friday, after the European Union rebuffed her request to sweeten the divorce agreement so she can win over hostile lawmakers at home. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. European Union leaders have offered Theresa May sympathy but no promises, as the British prime minister seeks a lifeline that could help her sell her Brexit divorce deal to a hostile U.K. Parliament. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool) BRUSSELS - British Prime Minister Theresa May launched a rescue mission for her ailing Brexit deal Friday, after the European Union rebuffed her request to sweeten the divorce agreement so she can win over hostile lawmakers at home. EU leaders meeting in Brussels showed little appetite to resolve May's Brexit impasse for her, saying the U.K. Parliament must make up its mind. The choice was either back the Brexit agreement or send Britain tumbling out of the bloc in March without a deal and into unknown economic chaos. "There is one accord, the only one possible," French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the end of a two-day summit. He said it was "the British parliament's time" to decide whether to accept or reject it. The Brexit gridlock has left Britain's future looking like a high-stakes gamble with a dizzyingly wide range of possible outcomes. There could be an orderly or a disorderly Brexit. May's Conservative government could fall and an early election be held. Britain could make a last-minute request to the EU to give it more time and not leave the bloc on March 29. Some people are even pressing for the U.K. to hold a second referendum on Britain's EU membership. So many possibilities, so little time. May came to the EU summit seeking legally binding changes to the agreement, which is opposed by a majority of British lawmakers. But the 27 other EU leaders offered only reassurances. They said they would seek to move swiftly on forging a new trade deal after Britain leaves the bloc, and promised that a legally binding insurance policy to keep the Irish border open would only be used temporarily. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker speaks during a media conference at the conclusion of an EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. European Union leaders expressed deep doubts Friday that British Prime Minister Theresa May can live up to her side of their Brexit agreement and they vowed to step up preparations for a potentially-catastrophic no-deal scenario. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) They rejected British pressure to put a fixed end date on the border guarantee, and refused to re-negotiate the Brexit agreement, a 585-page legal text settling issues including the size of Britain's divorce bill and the future rights of Europeans living in Britain and Britons living in the EU. It also includes a document laying out the two sides' hopes for future relations, which isn't legally binding. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Britain of failing to give detailed proposals on Brexit, saying it was "up to the British government to tell us exactly what they want." May was filmed speaking sternly to Juncker as leaders arrived at Friday morning's session of the summit. She said they had had a "robust" exchange. Nonetheless, May told reporters in Brussels that she welcomed the EU's reassuring words and that, as formal conclusions of an EU summit, they "have legal status." "There is work still to do. And we will be holding talks in coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the U.K. Parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal," May said. European Council President Donald Tusk, however, said no talks with Britain were scheduled. "I have no mandate to organize any further negotiations," Tusk told reporters. "But of course, we will stay here in Brussels, and I am always at Prime Minister Theresa May's disposal." But May's against-the-odds optimism contrasted with a pessimistic tone from many on the EU side. EU leaders expressed deep doubts that May could live up to her side of their Brexit agreement and vowed to step up preparations for a potentially-catastrophic "no-deal" scenario for Britain's departure. "We are going to be sure to prepare for all hypotheses, including the hypothesis of a 'no deal," said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who expressed a "gigantic doubt" that May could get her Brexit deal passed by British lawmakers. But there was also sympathy for a leader who has endured the toughest week of her career. Juncker said May was "a good friend, and I am admiring her, because this is a woman of great courage doing her job in the best way possible." May cancelled a Brexit vote in the U.K. Parliament this week after it became clear that lawmakers would resoundingly reject the Brexit deal she concluded with the EU last month. Anger at that postponement helped trigger a no-confidence vote in May from members of her own Conservative Party. She won, but was left weakened after more than a third of her lawmakers rebelled. Still, May insists she will secure enough changes to get Parliament's approval in a vote before Jan. 21. May says failure to support her deal could lead to a "no-deal" Brexit, which officials warn could bring economic recession, gridlock at U.K. ports and shortages of essential goods. The problem is that May's deal is loathed both by pro-Brexit lawmakers, who think it keeps Britain bound too closely to the bloc, and pro-Europeans, who see it as inferior to staying in the EU. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the EU's refusal to renegotiate meant May's Brexit plan was "dead in the water." But Labour not yet triggered a no-confidence vote in May's government. Many in the EU feel the problem lies with Britain's divided Parliament, which largely dislikes May's deal but doesn't agree on a better option. Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said the problem was not Britain's leader. "We know what Theresa May wants, and she wants to have the possible deal passing Westminster, but the problem is the MPs in London," he said. ___ AP writers Raf Casert and Angela Charlton in Brussels, Gregory Katz in London and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed. DETROIT - General Motors' plans to lay off 14,000 salaried and blue-collar workers might not be as bad as originally projected. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. DETROIT - General Motors' plans to lay off 14,000 salaried and blue-collar workers might not be as bad as originally projected. The company said Friday that 2,700 out of the 3,300 U.S. factory jobs slated for elimination will now be saved. Blue-collar workers will still lose jobs at four U.S. plants slated for closure next year, but most will be able to find employment at other GM factories where jobs are being added. Some would have to relocate. GM still plans to lay off about 8,000 white-collar workers and another 2,600 factory workers in Canada. In November, the company announced plans to end production at the U.S. factories and one in Ontario as part of a major restructuring designed to cut costs and divert resources to development and manufacturing of trucks, SUVs and electric and autonomous vehicles. Legislators and President Donald Trump have hammered GM over the moves. While some of the 3,300 U.S. factory workers will retire, most of the rest will be offered one of 2,700 jobs the company plans to add at factories where production will increase, GM announced on Friday. Some would have to move to other cities for jobs. "Our focus remains on providing interested employees options to transition including job opportunities at other GM plants," CEO Mary Barra said about the factory workers in a statement Friday. That still leaves the majority of the cuts hitting white-collar workers. A small number will be able to transfer to other openings, and those who can't will get help in finding work elsewhere, the company said. Since the announcement, GM has faced withering criticism from Trump, legislators from affected states and the United Auto Workers union, largely over the plant closure plans. Trump has focused on a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that's slated to stop making compact cars on March 1. He has promised to return factory jobs to the U.S. and Ohio, a key state in his 2020 re-election campaign. GM is cutting six car models as buyers have dramatically shifted their preferences to SUVs and trucks, which will account for about 70 per cent of new-vehicle sales this year. Just six years ago, that number was 51 per cent, so now GM has too many factories making cars. The automaker's attempt to close the factories still has to be negotiated with the United Auto Workers union, which has promised to fight back. Other factories that could go are assembly plants in Detroit and Oshawa, Ontario, and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan, and near Baltimore. Patrick Morrissey, a GM spokesman, said Friday's job announcement had nothing to do with the criticism the company has been facing. The automaker, he said, knew some of the laid-off workers would be placed at other plants, but it didn't know the number of jobs available until this week. "We have opportunities for just about everybody who wants them," Morrissey said. Tommy Wolikow, 36, who was laid off from the Lordstown factory in January of 2017, said he would be interested in openings at a factory in Toledo, Ohio, and a plant in Tennessee. But he's not happy about the prospect of moving. "I want to go back to Lordstown," he said. "The last thing I want to do is uproot my family and leave my parents." Under GM's contract with the union, more senior active workers at the four factories targeted for closure will get first crack at transferring to another plant. There may not be enough jobs for workers with less seniority. Of the 3,300 factory workers slated to lose their jobs, 2,800 are active and 500 are on leave. In addition, there are about 830 who were laid off previously at the Lordstown and Detroit plants. Morrissey said the number of workers placed in new posts depends a lot on how many senior factory workers decide to retire. About 1,200 are eligible. Some workers also could decide they don't want to relocate because of the distance. For instance, Toledo is the closest plant to Lordstown with jobs available, but it's about 160 miles away. GM said jobs will be added mainly at truck and SUV plants including about 1,000 at a Flint, Michigan, factory that makes heavy-duty pickup trucks. The company wouldn't release exact numbers but said several hundred will be added at each of four other assembly plants in Arlington, Texas; Bowling Green, Kentucky; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. In addition, jobs will be added at a transmission plant in Toledo, Ohio. Another 50 will be added at a casting plant in Bedford, Indiana. Despite Friday's announcement, the criticism of GM continued from politicians and workers. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman said the transfers may be helpful for employees who are willing to move, but many are unable to. He said in a statement that he will continue "to urge GM to do the right thing by these workers and bring new production to this plant." Dave Green, president of the auto workers local at the Lordstown plant, says he's still hoping the factory can stay open by getting a new vehicle to build. Although the job transfers will help laid-off workers, he said they will do nothing for the area of Northeast Ohio that has already been devastated by job losses over the years. Wolikow isn't sure if he has enough time in with GM to get a transfer to another plant. He has found work as a diesel engine technician, but it pays $10 per hour less than the $28 per hour plus profit sharing that he'd be making if he was still working for GM. "It's hard not to follow the money," he said. "You know that you can make a great living, have a great career." ____ Kantele Franko contributed to this report from Columbus, Ohio. OSHAWA, Ont. - General Motors of Canada Co. is working to set up jobs and training programs for employees who will be put out of work when it closes the Oshawa Assembly plant next year even as Unifor promises an extended fights to keep the operation open. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Oshawa's General Motors car assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., is shown on November 26, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eduardo Lima OSHAWA, Ont. - General Motors of Canada Co. is working to set up jobs and training programs for employees who will be put out of work when it closes the Oshawa Assembly plant next year even as Unifor promises an extended fights to keep the operation open. The auto giant said Friday that several employers have identified about 2,000 jobs that will become open in Durham region in 2019 and 2020 many of them related to the refurbishment of the Darlington nuclear power plant southeast of Oshawa. General Motors has also identified 300 openings for auto technicians at GM dealerships in Ontario and 100 jobs that will be open at other GM facilities in Ontario. In addition, GM estimates about half of the 3,000 unionized and salaried employees are eligible to retire under the company's defined benefit pension plan leaving about 1,500 who will want to transition to new occupations. The city of Oshawa and surrounding areas east of Toronto were shocked last month when the highly rated Oshawa Assembly plant was included as one of five North American GM plants identified to close next year. GM Canada vice-president David Paterson said the company is committed to spend millions of dollars to ensure its employees get the retraining they require, with an initial estimate of between $5 million and $10 million,but the exact amount will depend on what other employers provide. "What we want to do is to assure employees that their training will be taken care of. We'll make sure that there's enough money to do that," he said in an interview. GM Canada says Durham College will also establish a confidential internet portal in the new year to help auto workers identify job openings and begin plans to take retraining courses offered by a consortium of colleges. Unifor president Jerry Dias said in an interview that the training commitment is just a distraction from the company's lack of commitment to Canada. "All of these announcements that General Motors is making about retraining, they're trying to hide the fact that they're a terrible corporate citizen." GM says it will be discussing further benefits packages for employees with the union, but Dias said the focus is entirely on saving Oshawa. If the plant closes, GM's only Canadian assembly plant will be CAMI in Ingersoll, Ont., which produces the same Chevrolet Equinox the company produces in Mexico. "If there's going to be a reduction in volume, guess where they're taking it out of?" said Dias. "It's all intertwined. GM is leaving Canada, and we're not going to let them. That's what the bottom line is here....we are going to waste General Motors over the next year. Waste them." Paterson said GM recognizes that the union has voiced "some strong opinions" but thinks it would be good for employees if they have time to plan for their future. "We have an obligation and duty to work with our union to determine in addition to our pensions and the income supplements our employees will get what things we can provide," Paterson said. He said two of the prospective employers that came to GM after the closure announcement are Ontario Power Generation and Aecon, a construction company, working on the nuclear plant's refurbishment. "They have huge needs in terms of millwrights, boiler makers, electricians and a number of areas where our employees are especially suited to that type of work and have great experience," Paterson said. by David Paddon in Toronto Companies in this story: (TSX:ARE) WASHINGTON - In back-to-back votes against Saudi Arabia, the Senate delivered an unusual rebuke of President Donald Trump's response to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and signalled new skepticism from Capitol Hill toward the longtime Middle East ally. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives to give House members a classified security briefing on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON - In back-to-back votes against Saudi Arabia, the Senate delivered an unusual rebuke of President Donald Trump's response to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and signalled new skepticism from Capitol Hill toward the longtime Middle East ally. Although the resolutions are largely symbolic because it's unclear if they will be considered by the House their passage Thursday showed senators seeking to assert oversight of Trump administration foreign policy and the relationship with Saudi Arabia. It also marked the collapse of the Trump administration's effort in the Senate to contain fallout from the gruesome killing. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that while the administration respects the view of the Senate it will not change course in supporting Saudi Arabia. He said the Saudis serve as a bulwark in combating aggression from Iran that threatens the United States, and that Trump would not relent on policies aimed at protecting Americans. Pompeo noted that the U.S. has taken action against some Saudis implicated in the murder, banning them from travelling to the U.S. "President Trump has been very clear about not only the importance of holding accountable those who murdered Jamal Khashoggi but the importance of protecting American citizens," he said, pointing to Iran's support for rebels in Yemen and militia in Iraq that have killed U.S. troops. "There is real risk to the United States of America," he said. One of the Senate measures recommended that the U.S. end its assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen. The other put the blame for the death of Khashoggi squarely on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Both had been vigorously opposed by the Trump administration and threatened with a presidential veto. Top brass was on Capitol Hill ahead of voting to prevent further action in the House. "The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who opposed the Yemen resolution but called the crown prince "so toxic, so tainted, so flawed" after the Khashoggi's killing that "you're never going to have a relationship with the United States Senate unless things change." The bipartisan votes came two months after the Saudi journalist's slaying at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and after Trump persistently equivocated over who was responsible. U.S. intelligence officials concluded that bin Salman must have at least known of the plot, but Trump has repeatedly praised the kingdom. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joined at left by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., holds a news conference after the Senate passed a resolution he introduced that would pull assistance from the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a measure to rebuke Saudi Arabia after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Senators made clear where they put the blame. The resolution, passed by unanimous agreement, says the Senate believes the crown prince is "responsible for the murder" and calls for the Saudi Arabian government to "ensure appropriate accountability." Senators voted 56-41 to recommend that the U.S. stop supporting the war in Yemen, a direct affront to the administration's war powers abilities. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who co-sponsored the Yemen resolution with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, called passage a "historic moment." Lee said Khashoggi's death focused attention "on the fact that we have been led into this civil war in Yemen half a world away" and "we've done so following the lead" of Saudi Arabia. "What the Khashoggi event did was to demonstrate, hey, maybe this isn't a regime that we should just be following that eagerly into battle," Lee said. As Senate approval loomed, the administration dispatched Pompeo and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis to the House to make the case against the resolutions and warn of damage they could do to the U.S.-Saudi relationship. A congressional aide and an administration official said their appearance was aimed at stopping any House action on the resolutions. Pompeo and Mattis had made a similar entreaty to the Senate late last month. But it was roundly panned by senators angered by the secretaries' refusal to accept a CIA determination that assessed the crown prince had ordered Khashoggi's murder. CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed House leaders Wednesday on the Khashoggi slaying. The journalist, who had lived in the U.S. and wrote for The Washington Post, had been critical of the Saudi regime. He was killed in what U.S. officials have described as an elaborate plot as he visited the consulate for marriage paperwork. Saudi prosecutors have said a 15-man team sent to Istanbul killed Khashoggi and then dismembered his body, which has not been found. Those findings came after Saudi authorities spent weeks denying Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate. Trump has been reluctant to condemn the crown prince. He said the United States "intends to remain a steadfast partner" of the country, touted Saudi arms deals worth billions of dollars to the U.S. and thanked the Saudis for plunging oil prices. But Graham and Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, have rejected Trump's economic arguments. They are setting the stage for legislation next year that goes further in halting arms sales and taking other measures. Menendez says economic concerns do not overpower human rights and the U.S. must send a "global message that killing with impunity" will not be tolerated. Frustration with the crown prince and the White House prompted several Republicans to support the Yemen resolution. Seven Republicans and all Democrats voted for it. Some already had concerns about the war, which human rights groups say is wreaking havoc on the country and subjecting civilians, many of them children, to deadly disease and indiscriminate bombing. The resolution condemning Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's slaying was from Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Both Republicans opposed the Yemen resolution and voted against it. McConnell said senators have grave concerns about Khashoggi's killing, but "we also want to preserve a 70-year partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and we want to ensure it continues to serve American interests and stabilizes a dangerous and critical region." But McConnell encouraged passage of the Khashoggi resolution and said it provided "a clear and unambiguous message about how we feel about what happened to this journalist." The Senate debate came as the United Nations secretary general announced that Yemen's warring sides have agreed to a province-wide cease-fire and withdrawal of troops in Hodeida, a contested Red Sea port city. The agreement came during peace talks in Sweden. The brutal four-year-old civil war pits the internationally recognized Yemeni government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, against the Iran-backed rebels known as Houthis. ___ Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report. WASHINGTON - U.S. retail sales increased a slight 0.2% in November, as strong sales tied to holiday shopping were offset by lower gasoline prices. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE- In this Nov. 23, 2018, file photo shoppers walk through Dolphin Mall while shopping on Black Friday in Miami. On Friday, Dec. 14, the Commerce Department releases U.S. retail sales data for November. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) WASHINGTON - U.S. retail sales increased a slight 0.2% in November, as strong sales tied to holiday shopping were offset by lower gasoline prices. Excluding gas, however, the Commerce Department said Friday that last month's retail sales rose a healthy 0.5% in a positive sign for economic growth. Retail sales have climbed a solid 5.3% so far this year. In November, non-store retail sales a category that includes Internet brands such as Amazon jumped 2.3%. Furniture stores, electronics stores and health stores also enjoyed a solid bump as the holiday shopping season went into full swing. "U.S. consumers were feeling festive a month before the holidays!" said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. Americans have responded to an improvement in economic growth this year by spending more, especially online and at restaurants. Retail sales are an indicator that Americans have faith that the economy with a half-century low unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent will continue to grow. Yet the economic gains of the past year buoyed by President Donald Trump's deficit-financed tax cuts have not insulated retailers from broader long-term pressures. Sales at department stores have slipped compared with last year, while sales gains for automakers have been weak. General Motors recently announced layoffs for thousands of workers. In this Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018, photograph, a long line of unsold 2019 Accord sedans sits at a Honda dealership in Highlands Ranch, Colo. On Friday, Dec. 14, the Commerce Department releases U.S. retail sales data for November. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) In November, gas stations trimmed retail sales. Service stations had a 2.3% drop in purchases last month. This was a reversal from October when higher gas prices, along with a short-lived bump in auto-buying, had helped propel broader retail sales gains of 1.1%. The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline has plummeted 22 cents a gallon over the past three weeks, to $2.51. Those lower gas prices may have led Americans to spend more on themselves, or friends and family. "The kick from the tax cuts is gone, but the huge and rapid drop in retail gas prices is freeing a great deal of cash at just the right time for retailers," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. Besides non-store retailers, the gains were fueled by a 1.2% increase in purchases at furniture stores and a 1.4% growth in sales at electronics and appliance stores. Core sales, which exclude autos, gas and building materials, have increased over the past two months at the fastest pace in two years, a reassuring sign for economic growth coming into the end of 2018. EDMONTON - Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr says he will continue to fight for his freedom. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. EDMONTON - Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr says he will continue to fight for his freedom. Khadr, 32, was in an Edmonton courtroom Thursday to apply for changes to bail conditions which were imposed on him while he appeals war crimes convictions by a U.S. military commission. He is asking for a Canadian passport to travel to Saudi Arabia and wants permission to speak to his sister on his own. "When I initially asked for bail, I didn't expect it to take this long," Khadr said in a statement outside court. "My sentence initially should have ended this past October. "This is not the first time my life has been held in suspension. I am going to continue to fight this injustice and thankfully we have an actual court system that has actual rules and laws." "This is not the first time my life has been held in suspension. I am going to continue to fight this injustice and thankfully we have an actual court system that has actual rules and laws." Omar Khadr Khadr spent years in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay after he was caught at age 15 and accused of tossing a grenade that killed special forces soldier Christopher Speer at a militant compound in Afghanistan in 2002. His lawyer, Nathan Whitling, told Court of Queen's Bench Justice June Ross that his client has been a "model of compliance" and should have his bail conditions loosened. He said Khadr's appeal in the U.S. hasn't "moved a single inch" while his client has obeyed all the conditions of his release. Omar Khadr walks out the front door of his lawyer Dennis Edney's home to speak the media in Edmonton, Thursday, May 7, 2015. Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr is back in court today to seek changes to bail conditions imposed while he appeals war crime convictions by a U.S. military commission. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette "There is still no end in sight," he told Ross. "Mr. Khadr has now been out on bail so long and has an impeccable record. "My goodness, when is this going to end?" Khadr wants to perform the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims once in their lifetime. "There's no good reason why he shouldn't be able to do that," Whitling said. Khadr would also like to be able to speak on the phone or over Skype to his sister Zaynab Khadr. She has spoken in favour of al-Qaida in the past and was investigated in Canada more than a decade ago for helping the terrorist network, but was never charged. The rules of Khadr's bail allow him to meet with her but only in the presence of his bail supervisor or one of his lawyers. Whitling said it's preposterous Khadr could speak to his sister and develop any extremist views. Khadr also needs permission to travel outside Alberta, and has made several trips to Toronto to visit his family and to deal with a civil lawsuit there seeking to enforce a multimillion-dollar judgment against him in Utah in favour of Speer's widow. Omar Khadr speaks outside court in Edmonton on Thursday, December 13, 2018. Khadr is seeking a Canadian passport to travel to Saudi Arabia and wants permission to speak to his sister. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson Both provincial and federal Crown prosecutors argued the conditions are appropriate considering Khadr pleaded guilty to serious crimes and "he stands convicted." Doreen Mueller, a lawyer for the province, argued Khadr is not prevented from talking to his sister. Federal prosecutor Bruce Hughson added that Khadr can speak to his sister as long as someone else is in the room, which could be his wife if that's approved by a supervisor. Whitling also asked the judge for an order that would allow Khadr to apply for parole even though he's not serving a sentence an unusual move that would put an end on Khadr's conditions. Ross reserved her decision until Dec. 21. "There's enough unprecedented aspects to this application that I'm going to take some time to think about it," she said. Khadr's case has ignited sharp and divisive debate since the summer of 2017 when it was revealed the federal government had settled a lawsuit filed by him for a reported $10.5 million. The payout followed a 2010 ruling by Canada's Supreme Court that Khadr's charter rights were violated at Guantanamo and Canadian officials contributed to that violation. Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said he hopes the court doesn't grant Khadr's request. "I don't think it's a good idea that someone who has this track record has more access to members of his family who continue to speak out celebrating acts of terrorism, glorifying acts of violence," he said in Ottawa. "I think that's just despicable." Manitoba Hydro is denying an allegation from the provincial NDP leader that a planned $3-million consulting contract has anything to do with privatizing part of its business. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Manitoba Hydro is denying an allegation from the provincial NDP leader that a planned $3-million consulting contract has anything to do with privatizing part of its business. It also says that the Opposition party has wrongly identified the area of the corporation that will be affected. On Nov. 2, Hydro released a request for proposals for a review of its marketing and customer-service divisions. It is the third multimillion-dollar consulting contract to be issued by either the corporation or the province into the utilitys affairs since the Progressive Conservatives took office in 2016. On Friday, NDP Leader Wab Kinew said it appeared that the contract was designed to "pave the path towards privatizing part of the office and part of the back-end functions of Manitoba Hydro." He said it appeared that the Pallister government intended to privatize a portion of the Crown corporation, similar to what was done at BC Hydro under former B.C. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell. He also noted that Manitoba Hydros incoming president and CEO, Jay Grewal, worked at BC Hydro during that time and had gone on to play a prominent role with the private firm that took over the sold-off functions. Bruce Owen, a Manitoba Hydro spokesman, categorically denied Friday that the same scenario is at play here. "This is about hiring a consultant to come in and help us review our customer-service operations with the goal of improving efficiency, reducing costs and looking for new ways to focus on our primary mission of serving our customers," he said in an email. "This has nothing to do with privatization." Owen said Hydro formed a strategic transformation office to review its customer-service procedures and standards several months ago in an effort to enhance services. "The establishment of this office, and the issuance of the (request for proposals to hire a consultant)... are not government initiatives, but ones developed by Manitoba Hydro as we look to be more efficient and serve our customers better each and every day," he wrote. He said the RFP closed Dec. 7 and the corporation is reviewing responses. Owen also clarified that "marketing and customer service" referenced in the RFP is not part of Hydros "back-end" operations, but the business unit "that touches each Manitoban through delivery of safe and reliable energy and outage response." Marketing and customer service is responsible for corporate emergency management, customer billing, gas supply, the customer-service operations division (rural and Winnipeg), the engineering and construction division and the marketing and sales division, which includes major accounts, energy services and sales and market forecasts and research. The operations of Manitoba Hydro, particularly its last two megaprojects the Keeyask Generating Station and Bipole III transmission line have been the focus of close scrutiny. In addition to regular operational reviews by the Public Utilities Board of Manitoba, the corporation and the provincial government have shelled out millions of dollars for consultants. Hydro paid Boston Consulting Group $4.2 million to examine its capital projects, such as Keeyask. This fall, the province hired Campbell to conduct a major economic review of the Keeyask and Bipole projects. That review is expected to cost $2.5 million. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca A man accused of killing a 50-year-old Winnipeg man in a North End apartment in 2016 has been found guilty, while the woman who was his girlfriend at the time was acquitted. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A man accused of killing a 50-year-old Winnipeg man in a North End apartment in 2016 has been found guilty, while the woman who was his girlfriend at the time was acquitted. A Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench jury found Billy Joe Linklater guilty of second-degree murder in the June 22, 2016, death of David Sanderson. He had been stabbed 33 times. Lorie Knott, 23, was acquitted by the jury Wednesday night after it deliberated for about five hours. Martin Glazer, who represents Linklater, said he has been given instructions to appeal the verdict. "It's not the first time a jury has made a mistake," Glazer said. "We will be appealing." Linklater has yet to find out how many years he must wait before applying for parole for his life sentence. A sentencing hearing will be held next year. Mike Cook, Knott's lawyer, said the woman broke into tears when the jury acquitted her. "It was a very dramatic moment," Cook said Thursday. "She has been waiting for two and a half years to hear those words. Now, for the first time in two and a half years, she is going home to be with her family and her five-year-old daughter." David Walker acted as Cooks co-counsel. Knott testified she went to the bathroom and when she came out she saw Sanderson slumped in a chair. She said she got blood on her clothes when she hugged him and told the jury Linklater told her he had stabbed Sanderson because the man had wanted to "buy me for sex." OTTAWA The federal Liberals are giving a Christmas surprise to Quebecers living near the main entry point for asylum seekers, offering as much as $25,000 per household for inconvenience. Meanwhile, Manitobans will find nothing under their tree. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA The federal Liberals are giving a Christmas surprise to Quebecers living near the main entry point for asylum seekers, offering as much as $25,000 per household for "inconvenience". Meanwhile, Manitobans will find nothing under their tree. "It's basically happening on people's front doorsteps and impacting the quality of their lives, and there are people that have incurred loss as a result," Border Security Minister Bill Blair said of Quebec on Thursday. "We wanted to make sure those individual Canadians werent harmed as a result of the important work we have to do," he told the Free Press. ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair says none of the cash earmarked for Quebec households for their inconvenience is coming to Manitoba because the number of crossings in the province has drastically reduced, and happened in rural areas. For the past two years, thousands of asylum seekers have crossed into Canada on foot from the United States, because most cannot claim refugee status at a regular border crossing. A surge of asylum seekers initially crossed near Emerson, Man., but those crossings have largely abated, with hundreds still entering Quebec monthly, largely along a rural street calld Roxham Road. Ottawa has recently issued cheques to those Quebec residents. Media have reported payments ranging from $25,000 for seven residences on Roxham Road near the crossing, and $10,000 for the 16 homes down the street. Around the corner, payments of $2,000 or $2,500 are being offered to 20 residences. If accurate, that amounts to 43 households receiving a total of roughly $380,000. Pallister still awaiting asylum-seeker cash Click to Expand OTTAWA Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is still waiting for Ottawa to deliver its promised top-up for the provincial costs of helping irregular border crossers. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen gave Manitoba $3 million this summer for housing asylum-seeker housing needs, and said more cash would be coming later. Ottawa has provided no details since then on when more cash is coming, despite the flow of crossings peaking more than a year ago. Pallister has requested a total of $7.9 million, in part for English classes and welfare cheques. That request includes the received housing payment. Dylan Robertson Blairs office wouldnt say how much money is coming until budget estimates are tabled, which is normally late March. Until then, "were not confirming any number," Blair spokeswoman Marie-Emanuelle Cadieux said. In any case, Blair said, none of this cash is coming to Manitoba because the number of crossings has drastically reduced, and it happened in rural areas. "The circumstances in other jurisdictions have not been as impactful on individuals, and their lives, because of the more remote location." Quebec residents who received the cheques told media they were surprised by the payout, and it appears none had petitioned Ottawa for the cash. Blair did not specify which "certain costs" Quebecers have incurred. Emerson-Franklin Reeve David Carlson chuckled when he heard about the payments. "That is pretty amazing to me; Im very shocked by that," Carlson said. "I wouldnt even think that the government would think along those lines, to compensate people that are inconvenienced." Carlson started his term in October, but had followed the issue while it hit its peak last year. He said the majority of the crossers appeared in rural areas, where first responders arrived to try preventing frostbite or drownings. In March 2017, Ottawa gave $30,000 to the Manitoba towns fire department for its estimated cost of rescuing more people. Still, Carlson said there were impacts on Emersons actual townsite: "There was quite a bit of that door-knocking going on, and the fear in the community at the time was: if someones knocking at your door at two in the morning, theres a bunch of people, and you dont know what you're looking at. You could [see] a woman with a child and a whole lot of people [hiding] in the background." TREVOR HAGAN / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Conservative MP Ted Falk: These folks in my riding have had to bear the brunt of all these interactions themselves." Thats why local MP Ted Falk is demanding a similar payment for his constituents. "They had their own experiences of people showing up at their doors, banging on their windows at the middle of the night," he said. "For some of that anxiety and discomfort that they've experienced, theres got to be some compensation for that. Because that has not been the experience in Quebec." Falk said on Roxham Road, federal officials have been able to concentrate along a central route, limiting the interactions asylum seekers have had with locals, unlike in Manitoba. "These folks in my riding have had to bear the brunt of all these interactions themselves. I think they need to be treated fairly, and that's what I'm advocating for," he said. Falk raised the issue Thursday afternoon with Blair, who responded hed look into whether Manitobans were also owed compensation, but that he personally was leaning against it. Carlson was suspicious about the hush-hush nature of the payment, which Montreal newspaper La Presse unveiled Wednesday. As of Thursday evening, Ottawa still hadnt issued a press release about payments in the Liberal-held riding. "Its very uncommon that they would do this without any kind of announcement," Carlson said. Blair said it was not an attempt to avoid a lawsuit: "Frankly, that has not been a consideration." Carlson said hes unsure whether Emerson residents deserve the cash, noting that it might not be the best use of taxpayer dollars, but he said Ottawa may have opened a "Pandoras box to a lot more" payouts. "You dont want to just say that Quebec-versus Manitoba-stuff; that doesnt really help anybody. But its just very surprising they did that on the down-low, like that." dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca OTTAWA Manitoba leaders say theyre interested in a proposal from Lloyd Axworthy to have Winnipeg lead an effort to resettle Central American refugees spurned by the Trump administration. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Manitoba leaders say theyre interested in a proposal from Lloyd Axworthy to have Winnipeg lead an effort to resettle Central American refugees spurned by the Trump administration. Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman and federal Trade Minister Jim Carr both said Thursday theyre looking forward to receiving a formal proposal from the former Canadian foreign affairs minister. MELISSA TAIT / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Former Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy They were speaking a day after Axworthy threw down the gauntlet, telling the Free Press he wants his hometown to resettle victims of gang and domestic violence who have travelled to the border between Mexico and the United States, which has turned them away. President Donald Trump's administration has barred refugee claims on both grounds. Bowman said he expects to meet with Axworthy soon to see how the idea could be developed to help some of the estimated 7,000 people stuck in Tijuana, Mexico. "Winnipeg is a place of sanctuary for new immigrants as well as refugees," Bowman told reporters Thursday after city council's meeting, noting that Ottawa is responsible for immigration policy. "Weve grown our community by opening our doors to the world and I want to see that continue." Bowman noted that Ottawa is responsible for immigration policy. "Within that framework, we want to continue to be a place that provides a place of sanctuary for those that are fleeing persecution in other countries," he said. In Ottawa, Carr hailed Axworthy for having "no understanding of the word retirement" and his advocacy for refugees. "I would want to talk with my colleagues who have more direct influence on the file. But when Dr. Axworthy (he has a PhD in political science from Princeton University) has specific suggestions on an issue that's important to Canadians, then we're interested in hearing it," said Carr (Winnipeg South Centre). Axworthy served as Canadas former minister for immigration and foreign affairs in the '80s and '90s, and has become an advocate through the World Refugee Council. He recently visiting the so-called caravan of migrants from Central America, and found many were barred from making asylum claims in the U.S. The statesman said this week that the Trump administration is "basically discriminating or biased against those who are most likely to be victims of violence." Canada accepts asylum claims from people who have escaped what they can prove as gang violence or domestic abuse, but only when Canadian tribunals rule that the applicant cannot safely live in another part of their home country. with files from Aldo Santin dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca Winnipeg police and Manitoba RCMP are investigating after bomb threats were emailed Thursday to businesses and workplaces throughout Manitoba, across Canada and the U.S. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Winnipeg police and Manitoba RCMP are investigating after bomb threats were emailed Thursday to businesses and workplaces throughout Manitoba, across Canada and the U.S. The threats demanded ransom payments in Bitcoin, which Manitoba RCMP advised recipients not to provide. "If you have been the recipient of one of these email threats, please do not respond to the Bitcoin demand," the Mounties said on Twitter. "We are aware and investigating email threats that were sent to multiple businesses in communities throughout Manitoba. (We are) determining the origin & validity of the threats. Investigation is ongoing. Updates to follow." Deputies from the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office investigate a reported bomb threat in Scio Township, Mich., on Thursday. Officials in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Anchorage, Alaska, say businesses received emailed bomb threats Thursday that were part of what they believe is a nationwide hoax. .(Ben Allan Smith / The Associated Press files) The Winnipeg Police Service sent out a press release Thursday afternoon saying a number of bomb threats were sent to email accounts of local businesses throughout the city. Winnipeg police said they were aware of similar threats made throughout Canada and the United States. The Winnipeg Police Service said officers were going to each location that has received a threat "and all necessary precautions are being taken." "The WPS is taking these threats seriously, however, none of threats have been substantiated," the police said. In Winnipeg, the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce building on Portage Avenue downtown received the bomb-threat email, said president and chief executive officer Chuck Davidson. So did the Manitoba Metis Federation on Henry Avenue. Last week, Great-West Life Assurance Company temporarily shut down five buildings in Winnipeg, forcing 5,000 employees to stay home from work on Dec. 5 after threats were made against the insurance giant. A police officer walks in an intersection closed off by police tape on California Street in San Francisco, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. Authorities say bomb threats sent to dozens of schools, universities and other locations across the U.S. appear to be a hoax. (Jeff Chiu / The Associated Press) South of the border, the New York Police Department's counter-terrorism unit issued a tweet Thursday afternoon saying that it was "monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city. These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide and are not considered credible at this time." Thursday morning, emails went out to schools and businesses across the U.S., the technology news website GeekWire reported Thursday. It said the University of Washington issued an alert, saying the emails were likely spam sent to numerous organizations around the country, and not a credible threat, but the university police services still swept buildings on campus. In Manitoba, neither Red River College nor the University of Manitoba received any threatening emails, spokesmen for the post-secondary schools said Thursday. With files from Danton Unger carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Premier Brian Pallister has added his voice to the chorus of opponents to a federal bill that critics say would stifle investment in the oil and gas industry. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Premier Brian Pallister has added his voice to the chorus of opponents to a federal bill that critics say would stifle investment in the oil and gas industry. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Pallister called on Ottawa to place a hold on Bill C-69, which is before the Senate. He said if it becomes law, it would also threaten to unduly lengthen the time required to build hydro transmission lines or flood-protection projects, such as the planned outlets for Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin. Neither the Trans-Canada Highway nor the country's trans-continental railways would have been built under the current regulatory and political climate, the premier argued. He said this paralysis threatens national unity. "If we can't even build flood protection in Manitoba without extensive delays occurring, then our confederation is stalled," the premier said. "And I don't think it's too strong to say that we're moving in a direction where we're inviting disharmony among our Canadian provinces." Ottawa says Bill C-69 would provide greater regulatory certainty and predictability for companies looking to invest in resource development. The energy sector and the Alberta government disagree, calling it flawed. Pallister said he fears the proposed legislation would make it "almost impossible" to carry out resource-based projects in Canada. He said it would also blur jurisdictional boundaries over these projects, creating "fog" when what is needed is clarity, and making lawyers rich as a result. He said resource projects could be delayed unnecessarily for long periods of time "and perhaps forever" because "one or another interest group has to be listened to." "The federal government has said that it wants to reduce red tape. The federal government has said that it wants to reduce interprovincial barriers to trade. And I applaud those words. But you cant say one thing and do another that is totally contradictory at the same time," Pallister said. He said he can respect a project review process that gives "considerable attention" to the long-term environmental sustainability of the country. But he said economic sustainability is important, too. Pallister has said that the approval process for the Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin projects was to have taken a year, but he said Ottawa has changed the rules mid-stream. He worries the process will take considerably longer, delaying flood protection for vulnerable communities. Meanwhile, Pallister criticized the federal government for failing to challenge a controversial statement Quebec Premier Francois Legault made recently regarding the attempted resumption of the Energy East pipeline project. Legault said he didn't want Canada's "dirty energy" to flow though Quebec. Without mentioning Legault by name, Pallister suggested the comment was hypocritical since Quebec's largest import is crude oil from Saudi Arabia, Colombia and other countries. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2018 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Now is the moment of maximum danger for Saudi Arabias de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). He has weathered the immediate storm over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi two months ago. He even went to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires and persuaded several other leaders to stand beside him for photographs. But the real threat to his power (and maybe his life) is at home. Its not the Saudi public he must fear. Hes quite popular with young Saudis, who are a large majority of the population. Hes relatively young himself (33). He has loosened some of the tight social and religious controls (women can drive now, and you can even go see a movie). And most of them dont even believe that he is responsible for the killing. MbSs problem is his family, who know perfectly well that he ordered the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and understand what that crime means for the kingdoms standing in the world. They also realize that his foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster, from the futile war in Yemen to the blockade of Qatar, and that his economic policy hasnt been much better. Many prominent Saudis also have personal reasons to hate him. Some were pushed roughly aside in order to facilitate his rapid rise to supreme power. Others were kidnapped, jailed and even tortured in order to extort billions of dollars from them, on the often-shaky pretext that their money was the fruit of corruption. If you held a secret ballot among the 10,000 most influential Saudis, MbS would be gone in a flash. It doesnt work like that, of course. This is still an absolute monarchy, and so long as MbS has the support of his elderly father, King Salman, he has absolute power in theory. In practice, he must also have at least the grudging support of the royal family, which sees the Saudi state as a family business in which they all have a stake. It is a remarkable family, if only for its sheer size: an estimated 15,000 members, many of whom are direct descendants of the kingdoms founder, King Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud. When he died in 1953, he left 36 sons, and there are hundreds of grandsons. All these men, their spouses and their children and grandchildren are supported (quite lavishly) by the family business, but there are only a few hundred people who really matter. They matter a great deal, however, and by now they would be close to unanimous in seeing Mohammed bin Salman as a wrecker who is endangering their own futures. So how to get rid of him? In the past, the familys rule has survived the abrupt removal of kings: one king was forced to abdicate in 1964, another was assassinated by his own nephew in 1975. The princes closed ranks, and the dynasty carried on with a new king. In theory, it should be even easier when you are only trying to remove the crown prince. Why not just work through his father, King Salman? After all, the king has already appointed and then dismissed two other crown princes; maybe he could be persuaded to do it again. The problem with this approach is that MbS zealously controls access to the 82-year-old king, who is believed to be suffering from mild dementia (Alzheimers). An alternative would be for the Allegiance Committee, a family-run institution created in 2006 which adjudicates on succession issues, to declare King Salman incompetent because of illness, dismiss the crown prince and appoint someone else as his successor. In the absence of more formal rules, any prince descended from Abdul-Aziz would be eligible. Plotters hoping to use this device would be risking their lives, of course, for MbS is a ruthless man who would strike first if he got wind of the plan. However, they may be emboldened by the fact that he has now arrested his own chief enforcers in an attempt to shift the blame for Khashoggis murder. This betrayal will certainly have shaken the loyalty of their colleagues who still serve the crown prince. But there is one further consideration that is bound to give even the boldest plotters pause. If MbS concludes he has decisively lost the support of the royal family, he still has a last card to play: war with Iran. Its what he wants in the long term anyway, but his preferred option has been to get the United States and Israel to do the actual fighting for him. If he had no other way of heading off a family-backed coup against him, however, he might take Saudi Arabia into such a war unilaterally, counting on the U.S. and/or Israel to bail the country out. In the midst of a war, nobody at home would dare attack him. So on balance, MbS is likely to stay in power, perhaps to the ultimate ruin of the country he rules. Gwynne Dyers new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work). It seems likely that this weekend will bring further disruption in France as a result of the yellow vest protests. Named after the fluorescent safety vests that French drivers are required to carry in their cars, the yellow-vest protesters have demanded that the government scrap a controversial fuel tax and instead introduce other measures to ease financial pressure on working families. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion It seems likely that this weekend will bring further disruption in France as a result of the "yellow vest" protests. Named after the fluorescent safety vests that French drivers are required to carry in their cars, the yellow-vest protesters have demanded that the government scrap a controversial fuel tax and instead introduce other measures to ease financial pressure on working families. After weeks of sometimes violent clashes between protesters and police, French President Emmanuel Macron capitulated first on his fuel tax and then, this week, offered a raft of policy concessions to the protesters. International media were initially reluctant to cover the yellow vests in detail, in part because it was sometimes difficult to pin down exactly what the protesters wanted. Early analysis outside France dismissed the yellow vests as rural cranks or climate change "deniers" who were upset that the government was pursuing its environmental agenda on the backs of drivers. Others claimed that the protests were associated with the far-right National Front party, or that they were being orchestrated from afar by Russian President Vladimir Putin to destabilize the centrist Macron. But the sheer mass of the protesters makes the idea that they are all either Putins puppets or far- right associates nonsensical. So instead, were left to listen to what the yellow-vest protesters themselves have to say, and many foreign journalists have been dispatched to France precisely to listen. First and foremost, the protest was about Macrons fuel tax. But the tax itself is representative of a bigger concern: that peoples purchasing power has been slowly but surely eroded over time by both increased costs and taxes. The result is that the ability of people to provide a decent living and standard of life for their families, even when working regularly, has been eroded. More and more people cannot make their paycheques last for the entire month. "Now, were getting into a terrible time of year because we cant afford Christmas presents for our kids," a yellow-vest protester explained when interviewed. "Im 51 and its like were going back to a time when my dad gave us an orange and some cheese for Christmas." Inequality adds fuel to the fire. The perception among yellow-vest protesters is that a wealthy and connected elite in Paris, Macron most notable among them, simply doesnt care about their plight. Commentator Yascha Mounk argues the perception that elites are "thriving" while regular people are struggling can lead to exactly the kinds of protests we are seeing in France. Macron did little to dispel the suspicion that he intended to solve Frances fiscal problems on the backs of the working and middle classes. He scrapped a wealth tax on Frances top earners before setting on a restraint program that cut benefits and raised costs for almost everyone else. Instead of selling his carbon tax as a way to address climate change, officials in Macrons government provided sanctimonious lectures about the importance of meeting climate reduction targets and dismissed critics as cranks. There are geographic divisions here as well. Frances economy is growing sluggishly, and most of that growth is concentrated in Paris. In the countryside, where the yellow vests originally hailed from, the economy has stalled. The sense among the protesters is that the government and elite in Paris simply cannot understand the difficulties of everyday life outside the capital. Could similar widespread protests emerge in Canada? Perhaps. Canada does not have Frances lengthy history of dramatic public protest. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberal government, long supportive of a carbon tax, should take note of the French publics reaction to Macrons proposed tax. And the government should be careful to ensure it does not project an aloof, uncaring image about people who are doubtful about its schemes when one of the byproducts could be a tougher life for them and their kids. Most importantly, the yellow vests provide a warning that governments cannot simply leave whole segments of society behind as they pursue their goals. Governments cannot expect to introduce policies that make life difficult for citizens without eventually facing consequences of some kind. In many western democracies in recent years, populist politicians such as U.S. President Donald Trump and Ontario Premier Doug Ford have won, in part, as a result of frustration with government policies that are out of touch with the daily lives of regular people. Yet, political elites are forever shocked and confused when voters cast their ballots for populist candidates who seem to understand the challenges of their lives, and promise to make life easier rather than harder. The yellow vests are a more dramatic but similar response to governments that seem to have lost touch with the people. Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the political studies department at the University of Manitoba. There are times many of them, actually when a victory is not cause for celebration. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/12/2018 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. There are times many of them, actually when a victory is not cause for celebration. British Prime Minister Theresa May experienced a particularly profound moment like that on Wednesday. By surviving a no-confidence vote among her own Conservative Party members, Ms. May won the right to continue leading her party and her country straight into a looming Brexit debacle that is, from whichever angle one might choose to view it, a lose-lose-lose proposition. TIM IRELAND / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES

British Prime Minister Theresa May By securing the less-than-overwhelming support of her Tory peers the final vote was 200 to 117 the PM returns to 10 Downing Street a substantially weakened leader who, in order to gain even the tepid approval her party offered, had to promise not to run for re-election in Britains next general election. Central to Ms. Mays fight for her political life, of course, is the perilous navigation of the United Kingdoms looming departure from the European Union, which was set in motion by a razor-thin (51.9 per cent) victory by the "Leave" side in the June 2016 referendum. With Brexit perpetually on her figurative front burner, hers has been anything but an easy term as PM. But things have become particularly difficult of late, as the negotiations focused on Britains referendum-mandated departure revealed the weakness of the U.K.s hand and the rest of the EUs disinclination to offer anything in the way of concessions to allow a comfortable transition to post-union independence. Ms. May emerged late last month from a final-negotiation EU summit in Brussels with an agreement for a "soft" Brexit that would afford Britain control over its borders and currency while still maintaining an arms-length sort of membership in the regions common market. The PM warned at the time that the Brussels deal was the only agreement possible, and that a rejection by MPs back home would create "division and uncertainty." It turned out to be a deal nearly everyone in Britain could hate hardline Brexiteers would not accept anything but a clean break from the EU, but those who had voted "Remain" felt the U.K. was humiliating itself by begging for continued association after surrendering its bargaining power by voting to leave. When Ms. May could not even sell the deal to her own deeply divided party, the no-confidence vote became a foregone conclusion. The PM vowed last week to fight the challenge "with everything Ive got," and after a frantic weekend of lobbying among her peers, she succeeded in rounding up enough votes to avoid an embarrassing ouster. "I am pleased to have received the backing of my colleagues in tonights ballot," she said after the decision. "Whilst I am grateful for that support, a significant number of colleagues did cast a vote against me, and I have listened to what they said." One presumes she was not referring to those whose "what they said" included calls for Ms. Mays resignation. The PM must now refocus her attention to March 29, the date Britain is scheduled to leave the EU, and her promised effort between now and then to seek concessions from the EU that will make the Brexit deal palatable to British MPs when they finally vote on it next month. EU leaders, for their part, have already stated that the Brussels deal cannot be renegotiated. In that context, Ms. May can be forgiven for not celebrating this weeks decidedly pyrrhic "victory." Magna International Inc. designs, engineers, and manufactures components, assemblies, systems, subsystems, and modules for original equipment manufacturers of vehicles and light trucks worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Body Exteriors & Structures, Power & Vision, Seating Systems, and Complete Vehicles. Its Body Exteriors & Structures segment provides body and chassis systems, as well as engineering and testing services; exterior systems, including fascia and trims, front end modules, front integration panels, liftgate modules, active aerodynamics, engineered glass, running boards, truck bed access products, and side doors; and roof systems, such as modular and textile folding roofs, and hard and soft tops. The company's Power & Vision segment offers dedicated hybrid, dual and e-clutch, and manual transmissions; engine drive plates and accessories; AWD/4WD products, rear drive modules, and hybrid and battery electric drive systems; transmission, engine, and driveline components; advanced driver assistance systems, camera systems, ultrasonic sensors, and electronic controllers; interior and exterior mirrors, actuators, door handles, overhead consoles, and camera monitoring systems; head, tail, and fog lamps; signal and other lighting products; and latching systems, door modules, window systems, power closure systems, hinges and wire forming, and handle assemblies. Its Seating Systems segment provides seat structures, mechanism and hardware solutions, and foam and trim products. The company's Complete Vehicles segment offers vehicle manufacturing and engineering services. It also designs, engineers, and manufactures tooling products. Magna International Inc. was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Aurora, Canada. Read More There is not enough analysis data for Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund. 4.1 Community Rank Outperform Votes Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund has received 110 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund has received 69 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund has received 61.45% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe FAX will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe FAX will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. 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LLC, Infraestructuras y Servicios de Alzira S. L., Integrated Care Network of Florida LLC, Integrated Mental Health Management LLC, Integrated Mental Health Services, Interpreta Holdings Inc., Interpreta Inc., Iowa Total Care Inc., Kentucky Spirit Health Plan Inc., LBB Industries Inc., LifeShare Management Group LLC, LiveHealthier Inc., Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc., MH Services International Holdings (UK) Limited, MHM, MHM Correctional Services LLC, MHM Health Professionals LLC, MHM Services Inc., MHM Services of California LLC, MHM Solutions LLC, MHN Government Services LLC, MHN Services LLC, MHS Consulting International Inc., MHS Travel & Charter Inc., MR Centrum Melnick s.r.o., MR Poprad s.r.o., MR Zilina s.r.o., Magnolia Health Plan Inc., Managed Health Network, Managed Health Network LLC, Managed Health Services Insurance Corporation, Maryland Collaborative Care LLC, Maryland Collaborative Care Transformation Organization Inc., Mauli Ola Health and Wellness Inc., Medicina NZ spol s.r.o., Meridian Health Plan of Illinois Inc., Meridian Health Plan of Michigan Inc., Meridian Management Company LLC, Meridian Network Services LLC, MeridianRx IPA LLC, MeridianRx LLC, MeridianRx of Indiana LLC, Michigan Complete Health, Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care LLC, Nebraska Total Care Inc., Network Providers LLC, New York Quality Healthcare Corporation, Next Door Neighbors Inc., Next Door Neighbors LLC., North Florida Health Services Inc., Northern Maryland Collaborative Care LLC, Novasys Health Inc., OB Care, OB Klinika, Ohana Health Plan Inc., Oklahoma Complete Health Inc., One Care by Care 1st Health Plans of Arizona Inc, Operose Health (Group) Ltd., Operose Health (Group) UK Ltd., Operose Health Ltd., OptiCare Health Systems - Managed Vision Business, PANTHERx Rare Pharmacy, Panther Pass Co LLC, Panther Specialty Holding Co LLC, Pantherx Access Services LLC, Pantherx Specialty LLC, Parker LP LLC, Peach State Health Plan Inc., Penn Marketing America LLC, Pennsylvania Health and Wellness Inc., Phoenix Home Health Care LLC, Pinnacle Home Care LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Illinois LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Indiana LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Kalamazoo LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Missouri LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Wisconsin LLC, Premier Marketing Group LLC, PrimeroSalud S.L., Pro Diagnostic Group A.S., Pro Magnet CZ s.r.o., Pro Magnet s.r.o, Pro RTG s.r.o, Progress Medical A.S., Prowl Holdings LLC, QCA Healthplan Inc., Qualchoice Life and Health Insurance Company, Quincy Coverage Corporation, R&C Healthcare LLC, RMED LLC, RX Direct Inc., Rapid Respiratory Services LLC, Ribera Lab S.L.U., Ribera Salud II, Ribera Salud Proyectos S.L., Ribera Salud S.A., Ribera Salud Tecnologias S.L.U., Ribera Slaud Infraestructuras S.L.U., Ribera-Quilpro UTE, Salus Administrative Services Inc., Salus IPA LLC, Secure Capital Solutions 2000 S.L.U., SelectCare Health Plans Inc., SelectCare of Texas Inc., Seniorcorps Peninsula LLC, Servicios De Mantenimiento Prevencor S.L.U., SilverSummit Healthplan Inc., Social Health Bridge LLC, Social Health Bridge Trust, Specialty Therapeutic Care GP LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care LP, Sunflower State Health Plan Inc., Sunshine Health Community Solutions Inc., Sunshine Health Holding LLC, Sunshine State Health Plan Inc., Superior HealthPlan Community Solutions Inc., Superior HealthPlan Inc., The Practice Properties Limited, The WellCare Management Group Inc., Torrejon Salud S.A., Torrevieja Salud S.L.U., Torrevieja Salud UTE, Traditional Home Health Services LLC, Trillium Community Health Plan Inc., U.S. Medical Management Holdings Inc., U.S. Medical Management LLC, UAM Agent Services Corp., US Script, USMM Accountable Care Partners LLC, Universal American Corp., Universal American Financial Services Inc., Universal American Holdings LLC, WCG Health Management Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of America, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Kentucky Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Louisiana Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Nevada Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Hampshire Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Jersey Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Oklahoma Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Washington Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Wisconsin Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Arizona Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Connecticut Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Hawaii Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of New York Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of North Carolina Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Southwest Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Tennessee Inc., WellCare Health Plans, WellCare Health Plans of Arizona Inc., WellCare Health Plans of California Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Kentucky Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Massachusetts Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Missouri Inc., WellCare Health Plans of New Jersey Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Rhode Island Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Tennessee Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Vermont Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Wisconsin Inc., WellCare National Health Insurance Company, WellCare Pharmacy Benefits Management Inc., WellCare Prescription Insurance Inc., WellCare of Alabama Inc., WellCare of Arkansas Inc., WellCare of California Inc., WellCare of Connecticut Inc., WellCare of Florida Inc., WellCare of Georgia Inc., WellCare of Illinois Inc., WellCare of Indiana Inc., WellCare of Kansas Inc., WellCare of Maine Inc., WellCare of Michigan Holding Company, WellCare of Mississippi Inc., WellCare of Missouri Health Insurance Company Inc., WellCare of New Hampshire Inc., WellCare of New York Inc., WellCare of North Carolina Inc., WellCare of Ohio Inc., WellCare of Oklahoma Inc., WellCare of Pennsylvania Inc., WellCare of Puerto Rico Inc., WellCare of South Carolina Inc., WellCare of Texas Inc., WellCare of Virginia Inc., WellCare of Washington Inc., Wellcare Health Plans Inc., Western Sky Community Care Inc., Windsor Health Group Inc., Winning Security S.L., Worlco Management Services, and nirvanaHealth LLC. Pimco Total Return ETF's stock was trading at $110.14 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, BOND stock has decreased by 0.3% and is now trading at $109.80. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. 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. HeidelbergCement AG, together with its subsidiaries, produces and distributes cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete, and asphalt worldwide. It provides cement products, including special cements with targeted characteristics, special geotechnical building materials, and a range of binders. The company also offers natural stone aggregates, such as sand and gravel; crushed aggregates comprising stone chippings and crushed stones; and concrete/ready-mixed concrete for use in the construction of tunnels or bridges, office buildings, or schools, as well as for the production of precast concrete parts consisting of stairs, ceiling elements, or structural components. In addition, it provides asphalt primarily used in the construction of infrastructure, such as roads; and trades in cement, clinker, solid and alternative fuels, and other building materials. The company was founded in 1873 and is headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany. Read More American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at contact@marketbeat.com | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. Plastics Capital plc manufactures and sells plastic products focusing on proprietary products for niche markets in North America, the United Kingdom, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and rest of world. The company operates through Industrial and Films segments. The Industrial segment provides hydraulic hose and packaging consumables, and plastic rotating parts. The Films segment offers film packaging. The company also offers hydraulic hose mandrels and hose films; plastic bearings and assemblies, technical moldings, gears, shafts, and bushes; creasing matrix, rubbers, and printing accessories; sacks, bags, pouches, liners, and films; and polyethylene films. It sells its products directly or through distributors. Plastics Capital plc was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Invesco Bond 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 (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 fixed income markets. The fund primarily invests in fixed-rate investment-grade corporate bonds. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Barclays Baa U.S. Corporate Bond Index. It was formerly known as Invesco Van Kampen Bond Fund. Invesco Bond Fund was formed in 1970 and is domiciled in the United States. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Iron Mountain: AB Archyvu Centras, AB Archyvu Sistemos, AB Archyvu Sistemos Estonia Branch, AKTATRADE Iratendezo Selejtezo es Megsemmisito Bt., AS Archivu Serviss, Accutrac Software Inc, Administradora de Informacion Ltda, ArchivesOne, Archyvu sistemos, Ausdoc Group Pty Limited, Ausdoc Holdings Pty Limited, Bonded Services Group, Box Butler, Britannia Data Management Limited, Connected Corporation, Cornerstone Records Management, Crozier Fine Arts, Crozier Philadelphia LLC, Custodia S.O.S. SA, Custodia de Documentos Limitada, Data Outsourcing Centre doo, Data Security Services Pty Limited, DigiGuard, Docu-File Cape Town Proprietary Limited, Docu-File Durban Proprietary Limited, Docu-File JHB Proprietary Limited, DocuTar Iratrendezo es Tarolo Szolgaltato Kft., DocuVault, Docufile (Pty) Ltd, Docufile Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Docufile Lesotho Proprietary Limited, Docufile Services Proprietary Limited, Docugroup Papir Szolgatato Kft., Document Holdings Sweden AB, Docuscan Cape Town Proprietary Limited, Docuscan Proprietary Limited, EAC Invest, Endless Document Storage Services LLC, EvoSwitch, File Express Limited, Fine Paper Recyclers Sydney Pty Ltd, Fontis International GmbH, Fontis International Inc., Fortrust, G4S Secure Data Solutions Colombia, Hays IMS, Horanross Limited, IBEX IM Limited, IBEX Information Management Limited, IG2 Data Security, IMSA Peru SRL, IO.com, Information Storage Consolidation Co, Interfile Participacoes S.A., Intradis SA, Iron Mountain (Deutschland) Service GmbH, Iron Mountain (Espana) Services S.L, Iron Mountain (Gibraltar) Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain (Ireland) Services Limited, Iron Mountain (Nederland) Services BV, Iron Mountain (UK) EES Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain (UK) Limited, Iron Mountain (UK) Services Limited, Iron Mountain A/S, Iron Mountain Acquisition Holdings Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Argentina S.A., Iron Mountain Arsivleme Hizmetleri A.S., Iron Mountain Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd, Iron Mountain Australia Group Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Australia Group Services Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Australia Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd, Iron Mountain Austria Archivierung Gmbh, Iron Mountain BPM International S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain BPM SPRL, Iron Mountain Belgium NV, Iron Mountain CIS LLC, Iron Mountain Canada Operations ULC, Iron Mountain Ceska Republika S.R.O., Iron Mountain Chile S.A., Iron Mountain Chile Servicios S.A., Iron Mountain Colombia S.A.S., Iron Mountain DIMS Limited, Iron Mountain Deutschland GmbH, Iron Mountain Do Brasil Ltda, Iron Mountain EES Holdings Ltd., Iron Mountain EES Sp. z.o.o., Iron Mountain Espana SA, Iron Mountain Europe (Group) Limited, Iron Mountain Europe PLC (fka Iron Mountain Europe Limited), Iron Mountain Finland OY, Iron Mountain France S.A.S., Iron Mountain Fulfillment Services Inc., Iron Mountain Global Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Global LLC, Iron Mountain Global Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Group (Europe) Limited, Iron Mountain Hellas SA, Iron Mountain Holdings (Europe) Limited, Iron Mountain Holdings (France) SNC, Iron Mountain Incorporated, Iron Mountain India Private Ltd, Iron Mountain Information Management LLC, Iron Mountain Information Management Services Canada Inc., Iron Mountain Information Management Services Inc., Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management Inc., Iron Mountain International (Holdings) Limited, Iron Mountain International Holdings BV, Iron Mountain International Information Management Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain Ireland Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain Ireland Limited, Iron Mountain Latin America Holdings Sociedad Limitada, Iron Mountain Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Luxembourg Services S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Luxembourg Services S.a.r.l. Schaffhausen Branch, Iron Mountain MDM Limited, Iron Mountain Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi es Szolgaltato Kft., Iron Mountain Management Services GmbH, Iron Mountain Mayflower Limited, Iron Mountain Mexico Holding S. de RL de CV, Iron Mountain Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Iron Mountain Mexico Servicios S. de RL de CV, Iron Mountain Mortgage Finance Holdings LLC, Iron Mountain Mortgage Finance I LLC, Iron Mountain Nederland B.V., Iron Mountain Nederland Holdings B.V., Iron Mountain New Zealand Limited (fka Recall New Zealand Ltd), Iron Mountain Norge AS, Iron Mountain Participations SA, Iron Mountain Peru S.A., Iron Mountain Poland Holdings Ltd, Iron Mountain Polska Services Sp z.o.o., Iron Mountain Polska Sp. z.o.o., Iron Mountain Receivables QRS LLC, Iron Mountain Receivables TRS LLC, Iron Mountain Records Management (Puerto Rico) Inc., Iron Mountain Records Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain SRL, Iron Mountain Secure Shredding Canada, Iron Mountain Secure Shredding Inc., Iron Mountain Services Private Ltd, Iron Mountain Services S.A.S., Iron Mountain Shanghai Co Ltd, Iron Mountain Slovakia s.r.o., Iron Mountain South America S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Southeast Asia Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain Switzerland GmbH, Iron Mountain UK Services (Holdings) Limited, Iron Mountain US Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Ukraine LLC, Iron Mountain Vietnam Company Limited, Iron Mountain d.o.o. Beograd, Jin Shan Limited, KDM Spectrumdata Pty Ltd, KH Data Capital Development Land LLC, Kestrel Data (Canada) Ltd, Kestrel Data Services Limited, Kestrel Information Management Pty. Ltd., Livevault, Marshgate Morangis S.a.r.l., Mimosa Systems, Mobilshred Inc., Navbharat Archive Xpress Private Limited, Nettlebed Acquisition Corp., Pipax Security S.A., Preferred Media Limited, Prism Integrated Sdn Bhd, Recall, Recall (London) Limited, Recall (Schweiz) AG, Recall (Shanghai) Ltd., Recall A/S, Recall AS, Recall Asia Pte Limited, Recall Corporation Sdn. Bhd., Recall Enterprises (Thailand) Limited, Recall Enterprises Sdn. Bhd., Recall Europe Finance Ltd. (fka Recall Europe Finance Plc), Recall Europe Limited, Recall Finance Limited, Recall Finland OY, Recall France SA, Recall France SA Belgium Branch, Recall France SAS, Recall GQ Limited, Recall Holdings, Recall Holdings Limited, Recall Holdings Sweden AB, Recall Hong Kong Ltd., Recall India Information Management Pvt. Ltd., Recall Information Services SRL, Recall International Pty Limited, Recall Italia SRL, Recall Limited, Recall Overseas Holdings Pty Limited, Recall Shredding Limited, Recall Sweden AB, Recall Taiwan Ltd., Recall Technology Pty. Ltd., Recall Total Information Management India Pvt. Ltd., Recall Total Information Mgt Pte Ltd, Recall do Brasil Ltda, Record Data Limited, Royal Seal S.R.O., Safehouse Information Management Solutions Private Limited, Secur Archiv SA, Secure Paper Services Pty Ltd, Shuttle SRL, Silver Sky Limited, Sispace AG, Startify, Storbox SA, The Coding Company Pty. Ltd., The Imaging Centre Pty Ltd, UAB Confidento, Upper Providence Venture I L.P., Venues Australia Pty Ltd, and Xepa Digital. iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF's stock was trading at $25.60 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWU shares have increased by 26.3% and is now trading at $32.33. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Melrose Industries PLC engages in the aerospace, automotive, powder metallurgy, air management, and other industrial businesses in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, North America, and internationally. Its Aerospace segment provides airframe and engine structures, and electrical interconnection systems for the aerospace industry in civil airframe and defense platforms. The company's Automotive segment designs, develops, manufactures, and integrates driveline technologies; and epowertrains and intelligent all-wheel drive systems. Its Powder Metallurgy segment offers precision automotive components and components for industrial and consumer applications; metal powder for powder metallurgy; and additive manufacturing parts for prototypes. The company's Nortek Air Management segment manufactures and sells ventilation products for the professional remodeling and replacement, residential new construction, and consumer DIY markets. This segment also manufactures and sells split-system and packaged air conditioners, heat pumps, furnaces, air handlers, and parts for the residential replacement and new construction markets; and custom designed and engineered products and systems for non-residential applications. Its Other Industrial segment provides turbo generators, transformers, and switchgears; develops and manufactures security, home automation, and access control technologies for the residential and commercial markets; and designs, manufactures, and distributes ergonomic products for use in a various working, learning, and healthcare environments. The company was formerly known as New Melrose Industries PLC and changed its name to Melrose Industries PLC in November 2015. Melrose Industries PLC was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More 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. Read More 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. Read More Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC is a publicly owned hedge fund sponsor. The firm provides investment advisory services for its clients. It primarily caters to institutional investors which include pension funds, fund-of-funds, foundations and endowments, corporations and other institutions, private banks and family offices. The firm invests in equity and alternative markets across the world. It employs quantitative and qualitative analysis to make its investments. For its multi-strategy portfolios, the firm employs strategies like convertible and derivative arbitrage, corporate credit, long/short equity special situations, buyout investments, merger arbitrage, private investments, and structured credit. It also invests in real estate and traditional real estate assets including multifamily, office, hotel and retail, loans, portfolio acquisitions, loan pools, operating companies, structured debt products, public securities, and non-traditional real estate assets including gaming, distressed land and residential, cell towers, parking, golf, debt and senior housing. For private equity investments, it considers investments in a variety of special situations that seek to realize value through strategic sales or initial public offerings. The firm typically invests in the energy investments. It prefers to invest in United States. It also manages a buyout fund, Och-Ziff Energy Fund. Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC was founded in 1994 and is based New York City with additional offices in Houston, Texas, London, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Japan, Bangalore, India, Singapore, and Beijing, China. Read More SPDR Gold Shares' stock was trading at $153.93 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, GLD stock has increased by 8.2% and is now trading at $166.62. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Sonoco Products: AMGH, APEI UK Limited, APEI Unlimited IOM, Associated Packaging Technologies Inc., Beteiligungen Sonoco Deutschland Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft mbh, CP Acquisition LLC, Can Packaging, Can Packaging SAS, Cap Liners Limited, Capseals Limited, Capseals Liners Limited, Cascades Sonoco Inc. (fka Cascades Conversion Inc), Clear Lam Flexible Films (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Clear Lam Packaging Inc., Clear Pack Co., Clear Pack Company, Colombiana P.M. LLC, Conitex Sonoco (BVI) Ltd., Conitex Sonoco (Mexico) S. de R.L. de C.V., Conitex Sonoco Hellas S.A., Conitex Sonoco Holding B.V., Conitex Sonoco Inc., Conitex Sonoco India Pvt. Ltd., Conitex Sonoco N.V., Conitex Sonoco Shanghai Ltd., Conitex Sonoco Suzhou Co. Ltd., Conitex Sonoco Taiwan Ltd., Conitex Sonoco USA Inc., Convex Mold Inc., Corenso Holdings America Inc., Corenso North America, Corenso Richmond LLC, Corepak Limited, CorrFlex Graphics LLC, Demolli Industria Cartaria S.p.A., Engraph Inc., Engraph Puerto Rico Inc., Fair Lawn Packaging Services LLC, Friarsgate Studio Limited, Graffo Paranaense De Embalagens S.A., Graffo Paranaense de Embalagens S/A, Grove Mill Paper Company Limited, Gunther of America Inc., Hartsville Corrugating LLC, Hayes Manufacturing Group, Heathfield Reels Limited, Highland Packaging Solutions, Highland Packaging Solutions LLC, Industrial Machine Co. Inc., Inversiones Sonoco Limitada, Italtubetti SpA, Laminar Medica, Laminar Medica (CE) s.r.o., Laminar Medica Limited, Manufacturas Sonoco S.A. de C.V., Matrix Packaging Inc., Nathaniel Lloyd & Company Limited, OOO Sonoco Alcore (fka ZAO Sonoco Alcore), Ontario Inc., PT Conitex Sonoco, PT Papcor Asia Pacific, PT Papertech Indonesia, PT Sonoco Indonesia, Packaging Holdings Inc., Papcor (Dezhou) Packaging Material Co. Ltd., Papertech Dezhou Co. Ltd., Papertech SL, PenPack LLC, Peninsula Packaging Company, Peninsula Packaging LLC, Penpack S. de R.L. de C.V., Phoenix Packaging Corp., Plastique Holdings LTD, SAS Du Lagon, SCI Lagon Quest, SMB GmbH, SPC Capital Management Inc., SPC Liquidation LLC, SPC Management LLC, SPC Resources Inc., SR Holdings of the Carolinas LLC, Sebro Plastics Inc., Sonoco (Shanghai) Co., Sonoco (Taicang) Packaging Co., Sonoco (Weifang) Packaging Company Ltd., Sonoco Absorbent Technologies LLC, Sonoco Absorbent Technologies Limited, Sonoco Alcore - Demolli S.r.l., Sonoco Alcore AB, Sonoco Alcore GmbH, Sonoco Alcore N.V., Sonoco Alcore Nederland B.V., Sonoco Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Sonoco Asia Holding S.a.r.l., Sonoco Asia L.L.C., Sonoco Asia Management Company L.L.C., Sonoco Australia Pty Ltd, Sonoco Board Mills Limited, Sonoco Bonmati S.A.U., Sonoco Canada Corporation, Sonoco Capseals Liners Limited, Sonoco Comercial S. de R.L. de C.V., Sonoco Consumer Products Dordrecht B.V. (fka Dorpak B.V.), Sonoco Consumer Products Europe GmbH (fka Weidenhammer Packaging Group GmbH), Sonoco Consumer Products Hellas S.A. (fka Weidenhammer Hellas S.A.), Sonoco Consumer Products Limited, Sonoco Consumer Products Mechelen BVBA (fka Weidenhammer Belgium BVBA), Sonoco Consumer Products Montanay SAS (fka Neuvibox SAS), Sonoco Consumer Products Poland Sp. Z.O.O., Sonoco Consumer Products SAS, Sonoco Consumer Products South Africa (PTY) Ltd., Sonoco Consumer Products Zwenkau GmbH (fka fka Weidenhammer Plastice Packaging GmbH), Sonoco Cores and Paper Limited, Sonoco D & P LLC, Sonoco D and P York LLC, Sonoco Deutschland GmbH, Sonoco Deutschland Holdings GmbH, Sonoco Development Inc., Sonoco Display and Packaging LLC, Sonoco Elk Grove Inc., Sonoco Embalagens Ltda. (fka Sonoco Embalagens S.A.), Sonoco Europe Limited, Sonoco Flexible Packaging Canada Corporation, Sonoco Flexible Packaging Co. Inc., Sonoco Graphics India Private Limited, Sonoco Hickory Inc., Sonoco Holdings Inc., Sonoco Holdings UK Limited, Sonoco Hutchinson LLC, Sonoco IPD France SAS, Sonoco Iberia S.L.U., Sonoco International Holdings GmbH, Sonoco JV GmbH & Co. KG, Sonoco Kaiping Packaging Co. Ltd., Sonoco Limited, Sonoco Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Sonoco Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sonoco Milnrow, Sonoco Netherlands Holding II BV, Sonoco Netherlands Holding III BV, Sonoco New Zealand Limited, Sonoco Operadora S. de R.L. de C.V., Sonoco Packaging Limited, Sonoco Packaging Tapes Limited, Sonoco Paper Mill & IPD Hellas SA, Sonoco Paperboard Group LLC, Sonoco Partitions Inc., Sonoco Phoenix LLC, Sonoco Pina S.A.U., Sonoco Plastics B.V., Sonoco Plastics Canada ULC, Sonoco Plastics Germany GmbH, Sonoco Plastics Inc., Sonoco Poland Holdings B.V., Sonoco Polysack A/S Inc., Sonoco Polysack Limited, Sonoco Products Company UK, Sonoco Products Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Sonoco Protective Solutions Inc., Sonoco Recycling - International Trade Group LLC (fka Reparco USA Inc.), Sonoco Recycling LLC, Sonoco Reels Limited, Sonoco Retail Packaging S. de R.L. de C.V., Sonoco S.A. de C.V., Sonoco SAS, Sonoco Saudi Limited Company, Sonoco Services LLC, Sonoco Singapore Pte. Ltd., Sonoco TEQ Holdings Ltd, Sonoco TEQ LLC, Sonoco TEQ Ltd, Sonoco TEQ Sp. Z.o.o, Sonoco Taiwan Ltd, Sonoco Thailand Ltd, Sonoco UK Leasing Limited, Sonoco Venezolana C.A., Sonoco Venture International Holdings GmbH, Sonoco Ventures UK Limited, Sonoco Wisconsin Rapids Core Plant LLC, Sonoco Wisconsin Rapids Inc., Sonoco Wisconsin Rapids Paper Mill LLC, Sonoco Yatai Pinghu Packaging Co Ltd, Sonoco de Colombia Ltda, Sonoco do Brasil Participacoes Ltda, Sonoco do Brazil Ltda, Sonoco of Puerto Rico Inc., Sonoco-Alcore AS, Sonoco-Alcore Ou, Sonoco-Alcore Oy, Sonoco-Alcore S.a.r.l., Sonoco-Alcore Sp. Z.O.O., Sonoco-Engraph Puerto Rico Inc., TPT Board Mills Limited, TPT Limited, Tegrant Alloyd Brands Inc., Tegrant Corporation, Tegrant International Inc., Tegrant Property Holdings LLC, Tegrant de Mexico S.A. de C.V., ThermoSafe Brands Asia PTE LTD., ThermoSafe Brands Europe Ltd., Thermoform Engineered Quality LLC, Trident Graphics Canada Corporation, Trident Graphics NA LLC, U.S. Paper Mills Corp., Unit Reels & Drums Limited, Weidenhammer Chile Ltda., Weidenhammer Packaging Group, Weidenhammer UK Ltd., and Wisenberg U.S. Inc.. SRC Energy Inc., an oil and natural gas company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids primarily in the Denver-Julesburg Basin of Colorado. As of December 31, 2018, it had net proved oil and natural gas reserves of 88 million barrels of oil and condensate, 771.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and 89.1 million barrels of natural gas liquids; and operated 985 net producing wells, as well as had 95,200 gross and 86,200 net acres under lease in the Wattenberg Field. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH.